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The Ten Commandments (1956 film)

The Ten Commandments is a 1956 American film about the Egyptian Prince, Moses, who learns of his true heritage as a Hebrew and his divine mission as the deliverer of his people.
 * Directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Written by Aeneas MacKenzie, Jesse Lasky Jr., Jack Gariss and Fredric M. Frank from the J.H. Ingraham novel Pillar of Fire, the A.E. Southon novel On Eagle's Wings and the Dorothy Clarke Wilson novel Prince of Egypt.

It would take more than a man to lead the slaves from bondage. It would take a God. (taglines)

Moses

 * It is not treason to want freedom.
 * I do not know what power shapes my way, but my feet are set upon a road that I must follow.
 * A city is made of brick, Pharaoh. The strong make many. The starving make few. The dead make none. So much for accusations.
 * It would take more than a man to lead the slaves from bondage. It would take a god. And I am no god, I am but a man. A man who asks by what right any man may enslave another of a different race or creed. But if I could free these people, I would.
 * There is a beauty beyond the senses, Nefretiri. Beauty like the quiet of green valleys and still waters. Beauty of the spirit that you cannot understand.
 * Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel: "Let my people go!"
 * You gave me this staff to rule over scorpions and serpents, but God made it a rod to rule over kings. Hear His word, Rameses, and obey.
 * Hear, O Israel! Remember this day, when the strong hand of the Lord leads you out of bondage!
 * The Lord of Hosts will do battle for us! BEHOLD HIS MIGHTY HAND!!!

Seti I

 * The man best able to rule Egypt will follow me. I owe that to my fathers, not to my sons.

Ramses II

 * [To Nefretiri] You will be mine, like my dog, or my horse, or my falcon, except that I shall love you more - and trust you less.
 * [banishing Moses to the desert] I commend you to your Hebrew god who has no name. If you die, it will be by His hand, not by mine.
 * Farewell, my one-time brother.
 * This is work for a butcher, not a Pharaoh. Destroy them all. But bring Moses to me alive.

Nefretiri

 * First friend of the Pharaoh, Keeper of the Royal Seal, Prince of On, Prince of Memphis, Prince of Thebes, Beloved of the Nile god, Conqueror of Ethiopia, General of Generals, Commander of the Egyptian host...a man of mud!
 * I cursed you. Each time Rameses took me in his arms, I cursed you, not him, because I loved you.
 * Does a Pharaoh harden his heart against his son? If you let the Hebrews go, who will build his cities? You told Moses to make bricks without straw. Now he tells you to make cities without bricks. Who is the slave, and who is the Pharaoh? Do you hear laughter, Rameses? Yes. The laughter of kings in Babylon, in Cannan, in Troy, as Egypt surrenders to the god of slaves.

Narrator (Cecil B. DeMille)

 * [Introductory speech before the film]
 * Ladies and gentlemen, young and old, this may seem an unusual procedure, speaking to you before the picture begins, but we have an unusual subject - the story of the birth of freedom - the story of Moses. As many of you know, the Holy Bible omits some 30 years of Moses' life... From the time, when he was a three-month old baby, and was found in the bulrushes, by Bithiah, the daughter of Pharaoh and adopted into the court of Egypt, until he learned that he was Hebrew and killed the Egyptian. To fill in those missing years, we turn to ancient historians, such as Philo and Josephus. Philo wrote at the time when Jesus of Nazareth walked the Earth and Josephus wrote some 50 years later, and watched the destruction of Jerusalem, by the Romans. These historians had access to documents long since destroyed - or perhaps lost, like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The theme of this picture is whether man ought to be ruled by God's law, or whether they are to be ruled by the whims of a dictator, like Rameses. Are man the property of the state or are they free souls under God? This same battle continues throughout the world today. Our intention was not to create a story, but to be worthy divinely inspired story, created 3,000 years ago, the five books of Moses. The story takes three hours and 39 minutes to unfold. There will be an intermission. Thank you for your attention.

 * [Introduction]
 * And God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. And from this light, God created life upon Earth And man was given dominion over all things upon this Earth, and the power to choose between good and evil, but each sought to do his own will because he knew not the light of God’s law. Man took dominion over man. The conquered were made to serve the conqueror. The weak were made to serve the strong. And freedom was gone from the world. So did the Egyptians cause the children of Israel to serve with rigor, and their lives were made bitter with hard bondage, and their cry came up unto God and God heard them. And cast into Egypt, into the lowly hut of Amram and Yochabel, the seed of a man upon whose mind and heart would be written God’s law and God’s commandments. One man to stand alone against an empire.

 * [After Moses is exiled from Egypt]
 * Into the blistering wilderness of Shur, the man who walked with kings...now walks alone.
 * Torn from the pinnacle of royal power; stripped of all rank and earthly wealth; a forsaken man without a country, without a hope; his soul in turmoil like the hot winds and raging sands that lash him with the fury of a taskmaster's whip. He is driven forward, always forward, by a god unknown, toward a land unseen…
 * Into the molten wilderness of sin, where granite sentinels stand as towers of living death to bar his way.
 * Each night brings the black embrace of loneliness. In the mocking whisper of the wind, he hears the echoing voices of the dark. His tortured mind wondering if they call the memory of past triumphs, or wail foreboding of disasters yet to come, or whether the desert's hot breath has melted his reason into madness.
 * He cannot cool the burning kiss of thirst upon his lips, nor shade the scorching fury of the sun. All about is desolation. He can neither bless not curse the power that moves him, for he does not know from where it comes.
 * Learning that it can be more terrible to live than to die, he is driven onward through the burning crucible of desert, where holy men and prophets are cleansed and purged for God's great purpose, until at last, at the end of human strength, beaten into the dust from which he came, the metal is ready for the Maker's hand.
 * And he found strength from a fruit-laden palm tree, and life-giving water flowing from the well of Midian.

 * [After Intermission]
 * And the Lord said unto Moses, "Go. Return into Egypt". And Moses took his wife and his son, and he returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the rod of God in his hand.

 * [On the day of the Hebrews’ freedom]
 * And it came to pass, after the stifling night of terror, came a day such as the world had never seen. From east and west, from north and south, they came with all they had, driving their flocks and their herds and their camels before them. By tens, by hundreds, by thousands, unending streams of man and beast and burden, and even very much cattle, poured into the Avenue of Sphinxes. Beneath the stone feet of the four colossal images of Rameses, which their own sweat and blood and sinew had hewn from solid rock, a nation arose and freedom was born into the world.
 * Like Dathan, they did not know where they were going, and they cared no more than the flocks and herds they drove. Now they used the brick yokes to carry a very different burden. And there went forth among them planters of vineyards and sowers of seeds, each hoping to sit under his own vine and fig tree. Out off this glorious chaos, it is Joshua who brings order and purpose.
 * And he brought forth the people with joy and gladness. He bore them out of Egypt as an eagle bears its young upon its wings.
 * But again, Pharaoh’s heart was hardened…

 * [After Dathan finished the Golden calf]
 * And the people sinned a great sin. For they have made a God of Gold. They bore them upon their shoulders and rejoice, saying "This be our God, O Israel"
 * They were as children who had lost their faith. They were perverse and crooked and rebellious against God. They did eat the break of wickedness, and drank the wine of violence, and they did evil in the eyes of the Lord. And the people cried "The graven image hath brought us joy!" And they worshipped the Golden calf and sacrificed unto it.

 * [After Moses recieves The Ten Commandments]
 * And the people rose up to play, and did eat and drink. They were as the children of fools and cast off their clothes. The wicked were like a troubled sea, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. They sank from evil to evil, and were viler than the Earth. And there was rioting and drunkenness for they had become servants of sin. And there was manifest all manner of ungodliness and works of the flesh. Even adultery and lasciviousness, uncleanness, idolatry and rioting, vanity and wrath, and they were filled with iniquity and vile affections. And Aaron knew that he had brought them to shame.

Others

 * Bithiah: You will be the glory of Egypt, my son. Mighty in words and deeds. Kings shall bow before you. Your name will live on when the pyramids are dust. And…because I drew you from the water, you shall be called Moses. Moses! Moses!

Dialogue

 * [As they are setting a baby Moses away]
 * Miriam: But Mother, we have not even given him a name.
 * Yochabel: God will give him a name.

 * Memnet: What have you found?
 * Bithiah: The answer to my prayers!
 * Memnet: You prayed for a basket?
 * Bithiah: No, I prayed for a son.
 * Memnet: Your husband is in the house of the dead.
 * Bithiah: And he has asked the Nile God to bring me this beautiful boy.

 * Memnet: [about the Hebrew cloth Moses lies in] Do you know the pattern of this cloth?
 * Bithiah: If my son is wrapped in it, it is a royal robe!

 * Moses: Great one, I bring you Ethiopia.
 * [Trumpets play, Ethiopians step forward]
 * Rameses: Command them to kneel before Pharaoh.
 * Moses: Command what you have conquered my brother.

 * Announcer: The Lord Moses, Prince of Egypt, son of the Pharaoh’s sister, beloved of the Nile god, commander of the Southern Host!
 * Egyptian 1: Welcome home!
 * Egyptian 2: Prince Moses!
 * Jannes: The blessing of the god Amun-Ra be upon you, Great Prince! He has brought down the pride of Ethiopia. Yes, that is…
 * Seti: [As Jannes continues on] The old windbag.
 * Nefretiri: I agree with him.

 * Seti: Would you please your Pharaoh, Moses?
 * Moses: Your wish is my will.
 * Seti: Then you build the city
 * Rameses: A wise decision. [To Moses] Noble task.
 * Seti: Rameses, do you believe this slave deliverer is a myth?
 * Rameses: What I believe is of no account. What matters is the slaves believe in him.
 * Seti: Of course, of course. Then you, too, shall go to Goshen. Learn if this deliverer be a myth or a man. If a myth, bring him to me in a bottle. If a man, bring him to me in chains.
 * Rameses: So let it be written, so let it be done.

 * Nefretiri: You will be king of Egypt and I will be your footstool!
 * Moses: The man stupid enough to use you as a footstool isn't wise enough to rule Egypt.

 * Yochabel: My noble one, it caught. I had not the strength to free myself.
 * Moses: Your shoulder should not bear a burden, old woman. [Begins cutting her loose]
 * Yochabel: The Lord has renewed my strength and lightened my burdens.
 * Moses: He would have done better to remove them.

 * Baka: We use the old ones for greasing the stones. If they are killed it is no loss.
 * Moses: Are you a master builder or a master butcher?
 * Baka: If we stop moving stones for every grease woman who falls, the city will not rise.
 * Overseer: If the slaves are not driven they will not work.
 * Joshua: If their work lags it is because they are not fed.
 * Moses: You look strong enough.
 * Joshua: I am a stone cutter. The pharaoh likes his images cut deep.

 * Moses: You know it is death to strike an Egyptian.
 * Joshua: I know it.
 * Moses: Yet you struck him. Why?
 * Joshua: To free the old woman.
 * Moses: What is she to you?
 * Joshua: An old woman.
 * Egyptian Guard: Lord Moses, send him to his death!
 * Moses: The man has courage. You do not speak like a slave.
 * Joshua: God made man. Man made slaves.
 * Moses: Which god?
 * Joshua: The God of Abraham, the Almighty God!
 * Moses: If your God is Almighty, why does He leave you in bondage?
 * Joshua: He will choose the hour of our freedom and the man who will deliver us!

 * Rameses: Difficulty with the slaves, my brother?
 * Moses: None that could not be cures by a ration of grain and a day of rest.
 * Rameses: A day of rest?
 * Moses: When your horses tire, they’re rested. When they hunger, they’re fed.
 * Rameses: Slaves draw brick and stone. My horses draw the next Pharaoh.
 * Moses: Is there any grain stored here in Goshen?
 * Rameses: None that you would dare take, my brother.
 * Joshua: The temple granaries are full.
 * Moses: [To Joshua] Bring the push-pole men and some women with baskets.
 * Joshua: I will…great prince.
 * Rameses: I warn you, Moses, the temple grain belongs to the gods.
 * Moses: What the gods can digest will not sour in the belly of a slave.

 * Seti: Do you mean to tell me he would turn the slaves against me? I've been his father!
 * Jannes: Ambition knows no father.

 * [After Nefretiri kisses Rameses and he shoves her away]
 * Rameses: I know you, my sweet. You’re a sharp-clawed, treacherous little peacock. But you’re food for the gods, and I’m going to have all of you.
 * Nefretiri: None of me. Did you think my kiss was a promise of what you’ll have? No, my pompous one, it was to let you know what you will not have. I could never love you.
 * Rameses: Does that matter? You will be my wife. You will come to me whenever I call you. And I will enjoy that very much. Whether you enjoy it or not is your own affair. But I think you will.
 * [Rameses leaves and Nefretiri wipes her lips in disgust]

 * Seti: With so many slaves, you could build…an army.
 * Moses: But I have built a city. Sixteen of these lions of Pharaoh will guard its gates. And it shall be the city of Seti’s glory.
 * Seti: Mm. Are these slaves loyal to Seti’s glory, or to you, Moses?
 * Moses: The slaves worship their God, and I serve only you.

 * Baka: Will you lose a throne because Moses builds a city?
 * Rameses: The city that he builds shall bear my name. The woman that he loves shall bear my child. So it shall be written, so it shall be done.

 * Bithiah: You know who I am?
 * Yochabel: It has been many years, Great One.
 * Bithiah: Who are they?
 * Yochabel: All that remain of my children.
 * Bithiah: I will speak to you alone.
 * Yochabel: [Aaron and Miriam walk to the room] Why have you... [Bithiah waves her hand meaning "stop" and closes the door] Why have you come here?
 * Bithiah: Because Moses will come here.
 * Yochabel: My son?
 * Bithiah: No, my son. And that's all that he must know.
 * Yochabel: My lips might deny him, Great One, but my eye never could.
 * Bithiah: You shall leave Goshen, you and your family, tonight.
 * Yochabel: We are Levites, appointed shepherds of Israel. We cannot leave our people.
 * Bithiah: Would you take from Moses all that I have given him? Would you undo all that I have done for him? I have put the throne of Egypt within his reach. What can you give him in its place?
 * Yochabel: I gave him life.
 * Bithiah: I gave him love! Was it your hand that dried his tears? And when he was troubled, was it your heart that ached for him?
 * Yochabel: Yes. My heart ached for him, and my arms ached to hold him... but I dared not even touch the hem of his garment. His heritage from me could only have been misery, poverty, and the lash. No. I will not take from him the glory and riches you have given him.
 * Bithiah: For this, you shall be well cared for. You and your family shall be taken from Goshen tonight.
 * Yochabel: No matter where you send me... if the God of Abraham has a purpose for my son, he will come to know it and fulfill it.
 * Bithiah: [Opens the room's door] [To Aaron and Miriam] Come! Gather your things! Quickly! Quickly! I shall see you want for nothing. [To Yochabel] You and your children shall be given freedom.
 * Moses: [Arrives] Has my mother forgotten? Only the Pharaoh can free a slave.
 * Bithiah: Moses, do not enter! There is only sorrow here.
 * Moses: Are you comforting it, my mother? I followed you here to find this woman Yochabe-- [Sees Yochabel, talks to her] You were the woman who was caught between the stones.
 * Yochabel: Until you came.
 * Bithiah: My son, if you love me, you will...
 * Moses: I love you, my mother, but am I your son... [To Yochabel] or yours?
 * Yochabel: No, you are not my son. If you believe that men and women are cattle to be driven under the lash, if you can bow before idols of stone and golden images of beasts, you are not my son. My son would be a slave. His hands would be gnarled and broken from the brick pits, his back scarred from the taskmaster's whip, but in his heart would burn the spirit of the Living God.
 * Moses: Does this God demand a scarred back and broken hands as the price of His favor?
 * Bithiah: This desert God is the hope of the hopeless. Your place is in the palace halls. You have mounted to the sun on golden wings. You belong to me, to Nefretiri, to Seti, to all those who love you.
 * Moses: Do they love less who have no hope? [To Yochabel] Will you swear in the Name of this God that you are not my mother?
 * Yochabel: We do not even know His name.
 * Moses: Then look into my eyes and tell me you are not my mother.
 * Yochabel: [Starts crying] Oh, Moses, Moses, I cannot. I cannot.
 * Aaron: I am your brother Aaron.
 * Miriam: I am Miriam, your sister.
 * Moses: I am your brother Moses.
 * Bithiah: [To Yochabel, Aaron and Miriam] No! No, get ready to leave! Hurry! [To Moses] They're going away, Moses. The secret's going with them. No one need ever know the shame I've brought upon you.
 * Moses: Shame? What change is there in me? Egyptian or Hebrew, I am still Moses. These are the same hands, the same arms, the same face that were mine a moment ago.
 * Yochabel: A moment ago, you were her son, the strength of Egypt. Now you are mine, a slave in Egypt. You find no shame in this?
 * Moses: There is no shame in me. How can I feel shame for the woman who bore me? Or the race that bred me?
 * Yochabel: Oh, God of my fathers!
 * Bithiah: Moses, what will you do?
 * Moses: [Moses puts the piece of Levite cloth he was wrapped in as a baby, next to the other to know who was his real mother] This is the binding tie... and here I will stay.
 * Bithiah: Moses...
 * Moses: To find the meaning of what I am... why a Hebrew... or any man must be a slave. [To Aaron and Miriam] Put back your things. You are not leaving.
 * Bithiah: Moses... has she done more for you than I? Will the life she gave you be more useful in the black pits of slavery? Cannot justice and truth be served better upon a throne, where all men may benefit from your goodness... and strength?
 * Moses: I do not know what power shapes my way, but my feet are set upon a road that I must follow. Forgive me, Bithiah. [He and Bithiah leave Yochabel's house]
 * Yochabel: God of our fathers, Who has appointed an end to the bondage of Israel, blessed am I among all mothers in the land, for my eyes have beheld Thy Deliverer.

 * Moses: That’s a hard dance you do, old man.
 * Old Man: We’ve been dancing it for 400 years…[A whips cracks in the background followed by a low moan] …to grim music.

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 * Baka: You make no outcry, Joshua, but you will; you will cry for the mercy of death.
 * Joshua: One day you will listen to the cry of slaves.
 * Baka: This is not that day, Joshua.

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 * Nefretiri: If you want to help your people, come back to the palace.
 * Moses: And hide the truth from Seti, that I am Hebrew and a slave?
 * Nefretiri: The truth would break his dear old heart, and send Bithiah into exile and death. Think of us and stop hearing the cries of your people.
 * Moses: Their god does not hear their cry.
 * Nefretiri: Will Rameses hear it, if he is made Pharaoh? No, he would grind them into the clay they mold and double their labors. And what about me? Think of me as his wife. Do you want to see me in Rameses' arms?
 * Moses: No!
 * Nefretiri: Then come back with me.

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 * Rameses: Where was his body found?
 * Pentaur: Buried in the sand, Royal One.
 * Egyptian Guard: This is Baka's knife.
 * Rameses: But there was no wound on the body. Baka was a powerful man. It would take strong hands to break him.
 * Egyptian Guard: The slave Joshua is a stonecutter.
 * Rameses: Go find me this Joshua.
 * Dathan: Joshua's strength didn't kill the master builder.
 * Rameses: Now speaks the rat that would be my ears.
 * Dathan: Too many ears tie a rat's tongue.
 * Pentaur: [To guards] Go, all of you.
 * Rameses: Well... who killed him?
 * Dathan: I am a poor man, Generous One. What I bring is worth much.
 * Rameses: I have paid you much, and you have brought me nothing.
 * Dathan: Now I bring you the world... true son of Pharaoh.
 * Rameses: You offer me the world when you cannot even bring me the deliverer. Who killed Baka?
 * Dathan: The deliverer.
 * Rameses: Would you play at words with me?
 * Dathan: No, Lord Prince.
 * Rameses: And this murderer has now fled to some distant land?
 * Dathan: No, Lord Prince.
 * Rameses: Name him.
 * Dathan: One who made himself a prince and judge over us. And if he knew I were here, he would kill me as he killed the Egyptian.
 * Rameses: I will hang you myself if you tire me further.
 * Dathan: There are those who would pay much for what my eyes have seen.
 * Rameses: Do you haggle with me like a seller of melons in the marketplace?
 * Dathan: No, I will not haggle, Great Prince. Here's your money. [Rameses hits his hand throwing coins] But for ten talons of fine gold, I'll give you the wealth of Egypt. Give me my freedom, and I'll give you the scepter. Give me the water girl Lilia, and I'll give you the princess of your heart's desire. Give me this house of Baka, and I'll give you the throne. Give me all that I ask... or give me leave to go.
 * Rameses: [Pulls out his blade] I will give you more than leave to go. I will send you where you belong.
 * Dathan: I belong in your service, Glorious One.
 * Rameses: Very well. I will bargain with you. If what you say pleases me, I will give you your price, all of it. If not, I will give you the point of this blade through your lying throat. Agreed?
 * Dathan: Agreed. The deliverer... is Moses.
 * Rameses: [Puts his blade on Dathan's neck] Draw one more breath to tell me why Moses or any other Egyptian would deliver the Hebrews.
 * Dathan: Moses is not Egyptian. He's Hebrew, the son of slaves.
 * Rameses: [Gets quietly surprised] I will pay your price.

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 * Moses: Great Pharaoh... I stand in the shadow of your justice.
 * Seti: Whose work is this?
 * Rameses: I warned you of his treason, my father. Judge now if I spoke truly. The evil star foretold him as the destroyer of Egypt and deliverer of slaves.
 * Seti: It is not possible. A prince of Egypt?
 * Rameses: He is not a prince of Egypt. He is not the son of your sister. He is the son of Hebrew slaves.
 * [The crowd is surprised]
 * Seti: Speak... my son.
 * Moses: I am the son of Amram and Yochabel, Hebrew slaves.
 * [The crowd is surprised again]
 * Bithiah: My brother, it was I who deceived you, not Moses. He was only a child.
 * Seti: Leave me. I shall not see your face again. [Rameses orders Pentaur to take Bithiah away from Seti] [To Moses] Moses... come to me. [Moses approaches him] I do not care who you are or what you are or what they may say about you, but I want to hear from your own lips that you are not a traitor, that you would not lead these people in revolt against me. Tell me, Moses. I will believe you.
 * Moses: I am not this deliverer you fear. It would take more than a man to lead the slaves from bondage. It would take a god. But if I could free them, I would.
 * Seti: What has turned you against me? From the time my sister brought you to the court, I loved you, reared you, set you before my own son, because I saw in you a worth and a greatness above other men.
 * Moses: No son could have more love for you than I.
 * Seti: Then why are you forcing me to destroy you? What evil has done this to you?
 * Moses: The evil that men should turn their brothers into beasts of burden, to slave and suffer in dumb anguish, to be stripped of spirit and hope and faith - only because they are of another race, another creed. If there is a God, He did not mean this to be so. What I have done... I was compelled to do.
 * Seti: So be it. What I do now, I am compelled to do.
 * Nefretiri: No. No.
 * Seti: [Grabs Nefretiri] Rameses... Egypt shall be yours. Hear what I say, Rameses. When I cross the River of Death, you will be... Pharaoh in Egypt. Harden yourself against subordinates. Put no faith in a brother. Have no friend. Trust no woman. I protected the helpless. I nourished the orphan.
 * Nefretiri: Great One! [Hugs Seti]
 * Seti: But he who ate my bread and called me father would make rebellion against me.
 * Rameses: What manner of death do you decree for him? [Some people in the crowd say "death" as a possible answer]
 * Seti: I cannot speak it. Let it be as you will.
 * Nefretiri: I will not live if you must die! [Hugs Moses's leg and cries]
 * Rameses: [Takes Nefretiri away from Moses] The feet of a Hebrew slave is not the right place for the next queen of Egypt. [To guards] Take him away.
 * [The guards lead the arrested Moses away towards the exit]
 * Seti: Let the name of Moses be stricken from every book and tablet. Stricken from all pylons and obelisks, stricken from every monument of Egypt. Let the name of... Moses be unheard and unspoken, erased from the memory of men... for all time.

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 * Moses: At such a time, has any man ever gone to see Him [God] face to face?
 * Sephora: No man has ever set foot on the forbidden slopes of Sinai. Why do you want to see Him, Moses?
 * Moses: To know that He is. And if He is, to know why He has not heard the cries of slaves in bondage.
 * Sephora: Moses, it would be death to look upon His face.
 * Moses: How many of my people have died because He has turned away His face?
 * Sephora: Can a man judge God? No, Moses. We cannot see His whole purpose. Even Ishmael did not know that God drove him into the desert to be the father of a nation. Is it not enough to know that He had saved you from the Pharaoh’s anger?
 * Moses: How do you know that?
 * Sephora: You walk like a prince. And you fight like a warrior. And there is word in the caravans of a great one who was driven out of Egypt.
 * Moses: This is not the scepter of a prince, but the staff of a wanderer.
 * Sephora: Then rest from wandering. My father has many flocks and no son to tend them. There would be peace of spirit for you, Moses, in our tents beneath the Holy Mountain.
 * Moses: You have strong faith in this God, Sephora. But for me, there is no peace of spirit until I hear the Word of God, from God Himself.

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 * Egyptian Guard: May the gods bless you, as you go to join them in the land of the dead.
 * Seti: The old windbag. What an infernal fuss. After all, dying is only a part of living.
 * Nefretiri: You won't die, old crocodile. You'll cheat death the way you cheat me at hounds and jackals.
 * Seti: I'm afraid he won't let me cheat the way you do. [Gives the staff to Rameses] You'll be Pharaoh by sunset, Rameses. I hope you're content... at last.
 * Rameses: I am content to be your son. You have restored Egypt to her greatness. I shall make her greatness feared among nations.
 * Seti: No doubt, no doubt. You can overcome anything... but your own arrogance.
 * Nefretiri: Don't exhaust yourself, Great One. Dear Great One.
 * Seti: Why not, kitten? You are the only thing I regret leaving. You have been my joy.
 * Nefretiri: And you my only love.
 * Seti: Aha. Now you're cheating. There was another.
 * Nefretiri: Yes.
 * Seti: [Last words] I know. I loved him, too. With my last breath, I'll break my own law and speak the name of... Moses. Moses. [Dies]
 * [Nefretiri cries]
 * Rameses: The royal falcon... has flown into the sun.

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 * Moses: I stood upon holy ground.
 * Joshua: Can you tell us, Moses?
 * Moses: My eyes could not look upon Him.
 * Joshua: Did He speak?
 * Moses: He revealed His word to my mind, and the word was God.
 * Joshua: Did He speak as a man?
 * Moses: He is not flesh, but spirit. The light of eternal mind, and I know that His light is in every man.
 * Joshua: Did He ask something of you?
 * Moses: That I go to Egypt.
 * Joshua: You are God’s messenger! He has set the day of deliverance. I will get water and bread that we may leave at once.
 * Sephora: But Egypt holds death for you.
 * Moses: If it be His will.
 * Sephora: Where He sends you, I shall go. Your God is my God.
 * Joshua: I will lead men against the armory at Migdol and get swords for the people!
 * Moses: It is not by the sword that He will deliver His people, but by the staff of a shepherd.

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 * Nefretiri: But beauty of the spirit will not free your people, Moses. You will come to me or they will never leave Egypt.
 * Moses: The fate of Israel is not in your hands, Nefretiri.
 * [Moses turns and walks away, but Nefretiri blocks his exit]
 * Nefretiri: Oh, isn’t it? Who else can soften Pharaoh’s heart? Or harden it?
 * Moses:: [Takes hold of her jaw] Yes. You may be the lovely dust through which God will work His purpose.

<hr width=50%>
 * Moses: How long will you refuse to humble yourself before God?
 * Rameses: If you bring another plague upon us, it is not your God but I, who will turn the Nile red with blood.
 * Moses: As your father's father turned the streets of Goshen red with the blood of our male children! IF there IS one more plague on Egypt, it is by your word that God will bring it. And there shall be so great a cry throughout the land…that you will surely let the people go. [Walks away]
 * Rameses: Come to me no more Moses! For on the day you see my face again, you will surely die!
 * Moses: So let it be written. [leaves]
 * Rameses: [enraged] I will give this spawn of slaves and his god an answer the world will not forget! Commander of the Host, call in the chariots from Tanis! There shall be one more plague,  only it will come upon the slaves of Goshen. The firstborn of each house shall die, beginning with the son of Moses!

<hr width=50%>
 * Miriam: Death is all around us!
 * Joshua: But it passes those who have believed the Lord.
 * Moses: Always remember, Eleazar, He passed over your house.

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 * Rameses: You have conquered, Moses. The foot of a slave is on the neck of Egypt. You were saved from the Nile to be a curse upon me. Your shadow fell between me and my father, between me and my fame, between me and my queen. Your shadow now fills all things with death. Go out from among us, you and your people. I set you free.
 * Moses: It is not by your word, nor by my hand that we are free, Pharaoh. The power of God has freed us.
 * Rameses: Enough of your words! Take your people, your cattle, your God and your pestilence. [Throws his collar to the ground] Take what spoils from Egypt you will, but go!

<hr width=50%>
 * Nefretiri: You need have no fear of me.
 * Sephora: I feared only his memory of you.
 * Nefretiri: You have been able to erase it?
 * Sephora: He has forgotten both of us. You lost him when he went to seek his God. I lost him when he found his God.

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 * Moses: It is not my son who will die, it is...it is the firstborn of Egypt. It is your son, Nefretiri!
 * Nefretiri: You...You would not dare strike Pharaoh's son!
 * Moses: In the hardness of his heart, Pharaoh has mocked God and brings death to his own son!
 * Nefretiri: But he is my son, Moses. You would not harm my son.
 * Moses: By myself, I am nothing. It is the power of God which uses me to work His will.
 * Nefretiri: But I saved your son!
 * Moses: I cannot save yours.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Nefretiri: How many more days and nights will you pray? Does he hear you?
 * Rameses: Dread Lord of Darkness, I have raised my voice to you, yet life has not come to the body of my son. Hear me!
 * Nefretiri: He cannot hear you. He's nothing but a piece of stone with the head of a bird.
 * Rameses: He will hear me. I am Egypt.
 * Nefretiri: Egypt? You are nothing. You let Moses kill my son. No god can bring him back. What have you done to Moses? How did he die? Did he cry for mercy when you tortured him? Bring me to his body! I want to see it, Rameses! I want to see it!
 * Rameses: This is my son. He would have been Pharaoh. He would have ruled the world. Who mourns him now? Not even you. All you can think of is Moses. You will not see his body. I drove him out of Egypt. I cannot fight the power of his God.
 * Nefretiri: His God? The priests say that Pharaoh is a god. But you are not a god. You are even less than a man! Listen to me, Rameses. You thought I was evil when I went to Moses. And you were right. Shall I tell you what happened, Rameses? He spurned me like a strumpet in the street. I, Nefretiri, Queen of Egypt! All that you wanted from me he would not even take! Do you hear laughter, Pharaoh? Not the laughter of kings, but the laughter of slaves on the desert!
 * Rameses: Laughter? Laughter?! [Shoves her aside and rings the gong] My son, I shall build your tomb upon their crushed bodies. If any escape me, their seed shall be spattered and accursed forever. [To the arriving servant] My armor! War crown![To Nefretiri] Laughter... I will turn the laughter of these slaves into wails of torment! They shall remember the name of Moses! Only that he died under my chariot wheels!
 * Nefretiri: Kill him with your own hands.

<hr width="50%"/>
 * Nefretiri: [Bringing Rameses his sword] Bring it back to me, stained with his blood.
 * Rameses: I will. [Takes the sword and sheathes it] To mingle with your own!

<hr width="50%"/>
 * [as the waters of the Red Sea surging on their feet, Moses looks up to the heavens and the clearing skies, crying in a loud voice in half exultation and half anguish]
 * Moses: Thou didst blow with Thy wind, [kneels to the ground and Miriam kisses the hem of his robe] and the sea covered them. Who is like unto Thee, O Lord. From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God!
 * [The Hebrews, with their arms on the air, others falling on their knees in prayer, shouts the prayer of thanksgiving and deliverance]
 * Crowds: THOU ART GOD!

<hr width=50%>
 * [Walking into the throne room, Rameses lifts his sword to kill Nefretiri]
 * Nefretiri: Before you strike, show me his blood on your sword.
 * [Lowering his arm, Rameses tosses the sword down and sits]
 * Nefretiri: You couldn’t even kill him.
 * Rameses: His god…is God!

<hr width=50%>
 * [As Moses decends from the Cloud-capped summit with the Tablets, Joshua greets him]
 * Joshua: The light of God shines you, Moses. [kneels]
 * Moses: Do not kneel to me, Joshua.
 * Joshua: These tablets of living stone?
 * Moses: The writing of God... His Ten Commandments.
 * [Suddenly, faint sounds of debauchery are heard]
 * Joshua: There is a noise of war in the camp!
 * Moses: It is not the noise of war. It is the noise of song and revelry. [He leads downhill]
 * [At the camp, the Hebrews continually indulging the excess of drunken pleasure and debauchery as Moses arrives above them. Then Joshua blows a shattering blast of his shofar, the dancing, the music, and the sounds of the timbrel stopped. The Hebrews look up to see Moses and Joshua on the mount]
 * Crowds: It's Moses! Moses! Moses!
 * [On Aaron's tent hope is renewed to the Women who stood firm and Sephora looks at Moses offscreen]
 * Sephora: Moses! Moses!
 * Lilia: [on the calf, her lips breaks to a cry] Joshua!
 * Moses: Woe unto thee, O Israel! You have sinned a great sin in the sight of God. You are not worthy to receive these Ten Commandments!
 * [The people, upon seeing Moses and Joshua descending from the mountain, they withdrew from the calf, some kept closer to the idol, others covered their heads on shame]
 * Dathan: We're gathered against you, Moses. You take too much upon yourself. We will not live by your commandments. We're free!
 * Crowds: Free! Free!
 * Moses: There is no freedom without the law. [shows the two tablets]
 * Dathan: Whose law, Moses? Yours? Did you carve those tablets to become a prince over us?
 * Moses: Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come to me.
 * [In the response of Moses' call, shouts of "I am", "Moses lead us", "we are lost" erupted. Aaron then took a knife from Abiram to cut the cords that bind Lilia on the calf]
 * Crowds: Moses! Moses!
 * [As if Moses was parting the Red Sea again, the repentant and loyal to him ascend the mountain while Dathan and the rest cling to the calf]
 * Man: Aaron, you have cursed us!
 * Aaron: Dathan and the people made me do it.
 * Lilia: [reaching on Joshua's arms] Joshua! Joshua!
 * [As the crowds surging up to Moses on the mount, Dathan tried to dissuade them for the last time]
 * Dathan: He showed you no land flowing with milk and honey. I show you a god of gold! Come with me! Follow me!
 * Moses: [looking over the crowds, his hand pointing to Dathan] Blasphemers! Idolaters! For this you shall drink bitter waters. God has set before you this day His Laws of Life and Good, and Death and Evil. Those who will not live by the Law... [Raises the Tablets above, which the crowd joining Dathan panicked and started to flee] SHALL DIE BY THE LAW!
 * [Then Moses smashes the Tablets to the calf, which it explodes. Dathan cringes in terror, then the earth beneath the altar quake, split open, Dathan, Abiram, and Korah are sucked into it]

<hr width=50%>
 * [Last lines]
 * Moses: The Lord was angry with me because I disobeyed Him by the waters of strife. And He said unto me, "Behold the new land with thine eyes, for thou shalt not cross over this River Jordan".
 * Sephora: Then I shall stay.
 * Moses: I am called by the Lord, Sephora. I go alone.
 * Sephora: Look, Moses. The people have come to the River Jordan. In the ark, they carry the law you brought them. You taught them not to live by bread alone. You are God's torch that lights the way to freedom. I love you.
 * Moses: Joshua. [Gives the staff and the Levite cloth to Joshua] Joshua, I charge you and strengthen you, for you shall go over Jordan to lead the people.
 * Joshua: As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.
 * Moses: Mered, give me the books. Eleazar, set these five books in the Ark of the Covenant by the tablets of the Ten Commandments, which the Lord restored unto us. [Bids farewell] Go, proclaim liberty throughout all the lands, unto all the inhabitants thereof! [Walks away]

Taglines

 * It would take more than a man to lead the slaves from bondage. It would take a God.
 * The Greatest Event in Motion Picture History

Cast

 * Charlton Heston - Moses
 * Yul Brynner - Rameses II
 * Anne Baxter - Nefretiri
 * Edward G. Robinson - Dathan
 * Yvonne De Carlo - Sephora
 * Debra Paget - Lilia
 * John Derek - Joshua
 * Cedric Hardwicke - Seti I
 * Nina Foch - Bithiah
 * Martha Scott - Yochabel

 * Judith Anderson - Memnet
 * Vincent Price - Baka
 * John Carradine - Aaron
 * Olive Deering - Miriam
 * Eduard Franz - Jethro
 * Ian Keith as Rameses I (final film role)
 * Lawrence Dobkin - Caleb
 * H. B. Warner - Amminadab
 * Julia Faye - Elisheba

title: The Ten Commandments (1956 film)


text:
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KGF0
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American imperialism

American imperialism is the economic, military, and cultural influence of the United States on other countries. Such influence often goes hand in hand with expansion into foreign territories.

A

 * America ... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benign sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.
 * John Quincy Adams, US House of Representatives, July 4, 1821

 * If you want to talk of core of the war attacking Syria, they [United States] have been attacking Syria through proxies, they didn't fight ISIS, they didn't take any pressure on Turkey and Saudi Arabia in order to tell them stop sending money and personnel and every logistics support to that terrorist they could have been done so, but they didn't. So, actually they are waging war but in different way...
 * Bashar al-Assad, Interview with Bill Neely (July 2016) on "NBC: Exclusive Interview with Bashar al-Assad"

 * Throughout the world, on any given day, a man, woman or child is likely to be displaced, tortured, killed or "disappeared", at the hands of governments or armed political groups. More often than not, the United States shares the blame.
 * Amnesty International, 1996 Report on U. S. Military Aid and Human Rights

B

 * Between 1945 and 2005 the United States has attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the U.S. caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.
 * William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, third edition (2006), p. 1-2

 * There have also been cases where the United States, while (perhaps) not interfering in the election process, was, however, involved in overthrowing a democratically-elected government, such as in Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, the Congo 1960, Ecuador 1961, Bolivia 1964, Greece 1967, and Fiji 1987.
 * William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, third edition (2006), p. 286

 * U.S. imperialism has been the greatest force for good in the world during the past century. It has defeated communism and Nazism and has intervened against the Taliban and Serbian ethnic cleansing.
 * Max Boot. "American Imperialism? No Need to Run Away from Label". Op-Ed. USA Today. (May 6, 2003).

 * America has never been an empire. We may be the only great power in history that had the chance, and refused; preferring greatness to power and justice to glory.
 * George W. Bush, speech at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California (19 November 1999)

 * I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it...I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street ... Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
 * Smedley Butler, "Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC". Federation of American Scientists. Archived from the original on 1998-05-24.

C

 * Our inhabitants are especially free to promote their own welfare. They are unburdened by militarism. They are not called upon to support any imperialistic designs. Every mother can rest in the assurance that her children will find here a land of devotion, prosperity and peace. The tall shaft near which we are gathered and yonder stately memorial remind us that our standards of manhood are revealed in the adoration which we pay to Washington and Lincoln. They are unrivaled and unsurpassed. Above all else, they are Americans.
 * Calvin Coolidge, Authority and Religious Liberty, Address before the Holy Name Society, Washington, D.C., (21 September 1924).

 * The American forces are distinctly the forces of peace. They are the guaranties of that order and tranquility in this part of the world, which is alike beneficial to us and all the other nations. Everyone knows that we covet no territory, we entertain no imperialistic designs, we harbor no enmity toward any other people. We seek no revenge, we nurse no grievances, we have inflicted no injuries, and we fear no enemies. Our ways are the ways of peace.
 * Calvin Coolidge, Ways to Peace, "Ways to Peace" speech at Arlington (31 May 1926).

F

 * It used to be that only the critics of American foreign policy referred to the American empire ... In the past three or four years [2001–2004], however, a growing number of commentators have begun to use the term American empire less pejoratively, if still ambivalently, and in some cases with genuine enthusiasm.
 * Niall Ferguson, “Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire”, (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), pp. 3–4.

 * What is not allowed is to say that the United States is an empire and that this might not be wholly bad.
 * Niall Ferguson, (2005). "The unconscious colossus: Limits of (& alternatives to) American empire". Daedalus. 134 (2): 18–33

 * The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilise savage and senile and paranoid peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells.
 * John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching (1944) p. 240

 * The lack of objectivity, as far as foreign nations are concerned, is notorious. From one day to another, another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one's own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard - every action of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals which they serve.
 * Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving (1956), p. 100–101

 * It is not our affluence, or our plumbing, or our clogged freeways that grip the imagination of others. Rather, it is the values upon which our system is built. These values imply our adherence not only to liberty and individual freedom, but also to international peace, law and order, and constructive social purpose. When we depart from these values, we do so at our peril.
 * J. William Fulbright, Remarks in the Senate, June 29, 1961, Congressional Record, vol. 107, p. 11703.

G

 * U.S. historians have generally considered the late 19th century imperialist urge as an aberration in an otherwise smooth democratic trajectory ... Yet a century later, as the U.S. empire engages in a new period of global expansion, Rome is once more a distant but essential mirror for American elites ... Now, with military mobilisation on an exceptional scale after September 2001, the United States is openly affirming and parading its imperial power. For the first time since the 1890s, the naked display of force is backed by explicitly imperialist discourse.
 * Philip S. Golub, "Westward the Course of Empire", Le Monde Diplomatique, (September 2002)

 * Riley Freeman: “No stealing”? Don’t you always say theft in America is justified because the whole country is stolen land?
 * Aaron McGruder, The Boondocks, (5/16/1999)

H

 * The United States does not, and indeed no nation-state can today, form the center of an imperialist project. Imperialism is over. No nation will be world leader in the way modern European nations were.
 * Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire, p. 136

 * Terror, intimidation and violence are the glue that holds empire together. Aerial bombardment, drone and missile attacks, artillery and mortar strikes, targeted assassinations, massacres, the detention of tens of thousands, death squad killings, torture, wholesale surveillance, extraordinary renditions, curfews, propaganda, a loss of civil liberties and pliant political puppets are the grist of our wars and proxy wars.
 * Chris Hedges, The American Empire: Murder Inc., (January 4, 2016)

 * These anxieties prepared the way for a conservative revival based on family, faith and flag that enabled the neo-conservatives to transform conservative patriotism into assertive nationalism after 9/11. In the short term, the invasion of Iraq was a manifestation of national unity. Placed in a longer perspective, it reveals a growing divergence between new globalised interests, which rely on cross-border negotiation, and insular nationalist interests, which seek to rebuild fortress America.
 * A. G. Hopkins (2007). "Capitalism, Nationalism and the New American Empire". The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 35 (1): 95–117. doi:10.1080/03086530601143412. S2CID 143521756. Quoting page 95.

 * Let us look facts straight in the eye. World imperialism headed by its aggressive detachment, U.S. imperialism, is directing the course of its economy towards preparations for war. It is arming itself to the teeth. U.S. imperialism is rearming Bonn's Germany, Japan, and all its allies and satellites with all kinds of weapons. It has set up and perfected aggressive military organizations, it has established and continues to establish military bases all around the socialist camp. It is accumulating stocks of nuclear weapons and refuses to disarm, to stop testing nuclear weapons, and is feverishly engaged in inventing new means of mass extermination. Why is it doing all this? To go to a wedding party? No, to go to war against us, to do away with socialism and communism, to put the peoples under bondage.
 * Enver Hoxha, Reject the Revisionist Theses of the XX Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Anti-Marxist Stand of Krushchev's Group! Uphold Marxism-Leninism!, Speech Delivered by Enver Hoxha as Head of the Delegation of the Party of Labor of Albania Before the Meeting of 81 Communist and Workers Parties, Moscow, 16 November, 1960

 * It’s a tectonic shift [the decline of an empire and the rise of another one].   Let’s look at this from Russia’s point of view. This is everything that Russia has been aiming at and insisting upon for the last five years. President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavrov have been leading the understanding that the world needs to be de-dollarized, that the United States has declared an economic war against Russia, China and their allies, really against Eurasia.   So, in effect, by drawing the sanctions — not only the sanctions — but the most important thing is by seizing Russia’s foreign holdings in the United States, its treasury bond holdings and the bank deposits. What the United States has done itself is exactly what both Lavrov and President Xi of China have been saying the world must move towards.  They’ve been saying we must have a multinational world, multipolar world. We must be de-dollarized. We must cut free of the dollar and isolate, protect ourselves from the United States’ ability to use sanctions, to interrupt our economic activity, to use oil to threaten any country that doesn’t follow U.S. policy from having their energy reserves cut off, to protect countries that don’t produce their own food from being able to buy food and feed themselves... So everybody thought for the last five years: How will Russia and China and their allies, India, Iran, create this new world order? Well, the United States... has destroyed itself.
 * Michael Hudson, Grab Bag Imperialism, (31 March 2022)

 * So they get it, the game is over. And it’s not over because Russia and China and India and Iran defeated America. It was the self-defeating policies of this blindly arrogant, greedy, Republican, Democratic, deep state philosophy.
 * Michael Hudson, Grab Bag Imperialism, (31 March 2022)

J

 * This is a huge nation dominated by the most reactionary and violent ruling class in the history of the world, where the majority of the people just simply cannot understand that they are existing on the misery and discomfort of the world.
 * George Jackson, Blood in My Eye (1971), p. 72

K

 * At an alliance-level analysis, case studies of South Korea and Japan show that the necessity of the alliance relationship with the U.S. and their relative capabilities to achieve security purposes lead them to increase the size of direct economic investment to support the U.S. forces stationed in their territories, as well as to facilitate the US global defense posture. In addition, these two countries have increased their political and economic contribution to the U.S.-led military operations beyond the geographic scope of the alliance in the post-Cold War period ... Behavioral changes among the U.S. allies in response to demands for sharing alliance burdens directly indicate the changed nature of unipolar alliances. In order to maintain its power preponderance and primacy, the unipole has imposed greater pressure on its allies to devote much of their resources and energy to contributing to its global defense posture ... [It] is expected that the systemic properties of unipolarity–non-structural threat and a power preponderance of the unipole–gradually increase the political and economic burdens of the allies in need of maintaining alliance relationships with the unipole.
 * Sung Woo Kim, "System Polarities and Alliance Politics", (PhD thesis, University of Iowa, 2012), pp. 149–151

 * Some of the wars America fought were "simply for profit" and the sanctions it has imposed on certain countries have been as destructive as wars... The American people have virtually no say over when we go to war. These decisions are made in back rooms somewhere...The American people continue to be lied to about why we go to war, because again, one of the big reasons is simply for profit, and that's always been true to some extent, but now it is in a very naked way.
 * Daniel Kovalik quoted in Interview: Some American wars fought "simply for profit," sanctions also destructive, human rights lawyer says, Xinhua,  December 8, 2021

 * [On the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan] From a strategic point of view, it has to be seen as a complete failure, and yet it went on for 20 years, why did it go on for 20 years? Because the defense industry companies that make the bombs, that make the planes, that make the vehicles, and also the private military contractors that now are fighting the wars in lieu of public military personnel, they made trillions of dollars as long as the war continued. So they didn't care if the war was ever won, the goal was for the war to simply continue forever... the point is not to win the war, but to make sure it never ends because you're going to keep making profits.The U.S. is not advancing human rights through its military interventions. It's not advancing humanitarianism. In fact, it's undermining it in a huge way.
 * Daniel Kovalik quoted in Interview: Some American wars fought "simply for profit," sanctions also destructive, human rights lawyer says, Xinhua,  December 8, 2021

M

 * Since September 11, 2001 ... if not earlier, the idea of American empire is back ... Now ... for the first time since the early Twentieth century, it has become acceptable to ask whether the United States has become or is becoming an empire in some classic sense."
 * Charles S. Maier, Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors, (Massachusetts & London: Harvard University Press, 2006), pp.2-24.

O

 * Now we are doing imperialism with a black face.
 * Chioma Oruh, interview (12 December 2009), as quoted in The Partisan Dynamics of Contention: Demobilization of the Anti-War Movement in the United States: 2007-2009" (2011), by Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas, pp. 59–60.

P

 * As it happened in the 20th century, the American boys went to fight in two world wars, many of them lost their lives. The United States won the wars, won the land, but you gave back every piece of it. America didn't keep anything out of her victories for herself. You gave back Japan, an improved Japan, you gave Germany, an improved Germany, you've heard the Marshall Plan.
 * Shimon Peres, 20 October 2004 speech

 * I think if we look at the history of the European empires, the answer must be no. It is often assumed that because America possesses the military capability to become an empire, any overseas interest it does have must necessarily be imperial. ...In a number of crucial respects, the United States is, indeed, very un-imperial.... America bears not the slightest resemblance to ancient Rome. Unlike all previous European empires, it has no significant overseas settler populations in any of its formal dependencies and no obvious desire to acquire any. ...It exercises no direct rule anywhere outside these areas, and it has always attempted to extricate itself as swiftly as possible from anything that looks as if it were about to develop into even indirect rule.
 * Anthony Pagden "Imperialism, liberalism & the quest for perpetual peace". (2005). Daedalus. 134 (2): 46–57.

 * Far from being the Great Satan, I would say that we are the Great Protector. We have sent men and women from the armed forces of the United States to other parts of the world throughout the past century to put down oppression. We defeated Fascism. We defeated Communism. We saved Europe in World War I and World War II. We were willing to do it, glad to do it. We went to Korea. We went to Vietnam. All in the interest of preserving the rights of people. And when all those conflicts were over, what did we do? Did we stay and conquer? Did we say, 'Okay, we defeated Germany. Now Germany belongs to us? We defeated Japan, so Japan belongs to us'? No. What did we do? We built them up. We gave them democratic systems which they have embraced totally to their soul. And did we ask for any land? No. The only land we ever asked for was enough land to bury our dead, and that is the kind of nation we are.
 * Colin Powell, as quoted in MTV Global Discussion (14 February 2002).

R

 * It must be recalled that North America was that part of the European capitalist system which had been the most direct beneficiary of the massacre of the American Indians and the enslavement of Africans. The continued exploitation of African peoples within its own boundaries and in the Caribbean and Latin America must also be cited as evidence against American monster imperialism. The U.S.A. was a worthy successor to Britain as the leading force and policeman of the imperialist/colonialist world from 1945 onwards.
 * Walter Rodney,

 * No people in the history of the world have sacrificed as much for liberty. The lives of hundreds of thousands of America's sons and daughters were laid down during the last century to preserve freedom, for us and for freedom loving people throughout the world. America took nothing from that Century's terrible wars - no land from Germany or Japan or Korea; no treasure; no oath of fealty. America's resolve in the defense of liberty has been tested time and again. It has not been found wanting, nor must it ever be. America must never falter in holding high the banner of freedom.
 * Mitt Romney, 6 December 2007 speech

 * A political unit that has overwhelming superiority in military power, and uses that power to influence the internal behavior of other states, is called an empire. Because the United States does not seek to control territory or govern the overseas citizens of the empire, we are an indirect empire, to be sure, but an empire nonetheless. If this is correct, our goal is not combating a rival, but maintaining our imperial position and maintaining imperial order.
 * Stephen Peter Rosen, "The Future of War and the American Military: Demography, technology, and the politics of modern empire". Harvard Magazine. (May–June 2002).

S

 * According to Pompeo [U.S. Secretary of State], Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) harbor a “decades-long desire for global hegemony.” This is ironic. Only one country – the US – has a defense strategy calling for it to be the “preeminent military power in the world,” with “favorable regional balances of power in the Indo-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, and the Western Hemisphere.” China’s defense white paper, by contrast, states that “China will never follow the beaten track of big powers in seeking hegemony,” and that, “As economic globalization, the information society, and cultural diversification develop in an increasingly multi-polar world, peace, development, and win-win cooperation remain the irreversible trends of the times.”US military spending totaled $732 billion in 2019, nearly three times the $261 billion China spent. The US.. has around 800 overseas military bases, while China has just one (a small naval base in Djibouti). The US has many military bases close to China, which has none anywhere near the US. The US has 5,800 nuclear warheads; China has roughly 320. The US has 11 aircraft carriers; China has one. The US has launched many overseas wars in the past 40 years; China has launched none (though it has been criticized for border skirmishes, most recently with India, that stop short of war).
 * Jeffrey Sachs, America’s Unholy Crusade Against China, Project Syndicate, (5 August 2020)

 * ... so influential has been the discourse insisting on American specialness, altruism and opportunity, that imperialism in the United States as a word or ideology has turned up only rarely and recently in accounts of the United States culture, politics and history. But the connection between imperial politics and culture in North America, and in particular in the United States, is astonishingly direct.
 * Edward Said. "Culture and Imperialism, speech at York University, Toronto, February 10, 1993".

 * Many democrats, liberals, traditional conservatives, and even some leftists continue to tell themselves that the election of Joe Biden was the first step toward restoring U.S. standing in the world after the damage caused by Donald Trump. And in a variety of ways — many stylistic and some substantive — that perspective has merit. But when it comes to national security policy, the U.S. has been on a steady, hypermilitarized arc for decades. Taken broadly, U.S. policy has been largely consistent on “national security” and “counterterrorism” matters from 9/11 to the present....Biden’s election slogan was “America is back.” The truth is that “America” never left. There will be no major departures from the imperial course under Biden. While the drone wars continue, and the shift back to Cold War posturing in Europe and Asia accelerates, Biden will maintain the hostile stance toward left movements and governments throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. On climate change, Biden will reverse some of Trump’s most extreme stances, while still placing the profits of major corporations and the military industry over the health of the planet. The militarization of the borders and the maltreatment of refugees will remain, and the vast domestic surveillance apparatus will endure. The stark truth is this: The interests of the War Party trump any political disputes between the Democrats and the Republicans.
 * Jeremy Scahill, The War Party, From Bush to Obama, and Trump to Biden, U.S. Militarism Is the Great Unifier, The Intercept (November 21 2021)

 * Better than the American Century or the Pax Americana, the notion of an American Lebensraum captures the specific and global historical geography of U.S. ascension to power. After World War II, global power would no longer be measured in terms of colonized land or power over territory. Rather, global power was measured in directly economic terms. Trade and markets now figured as the economic nexuses of global power, a shift confirmed in the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, which not only inaugurated an international currency system but also established two central banking institutions—the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank—to oversee the global economy. These represented the first planks of the economic infrastructure of the postwar American Lebensraum.
 * Neil SMith "American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization". University of California Press. (October 29, 2004).

T

 * The term "imperialism" is no more precise, and its overuse and recent abuse is making it nearly meaningless as an analytical concept...."imperialism" is "more often the name of the emotion that reacts to a series of events than a definition of the events themselves. Where Colonization finds analysts and analogies, imperialism must contend with crusaders for and against.
 * Professor Archibald Paton Thorton author of the book Doctrines of Imperialism as quoted in Benevolent Assimilation The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903, by Stuart Creighton Miller, (Yale University Press, 1982): page 3

 * I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.
 * Mark Twain, New York Herald, Oct. 15, 1900

U

 * Sanctions which can lead to starvation and medical shortages are not the answer to the crisis in Venezuela, says UN human rights expert Idriss Jazairy. His comments follow the imposition of sanctions on Venezuela’s national oil company by the United States. “I am especially concerned to hear reports that these sanctions are aimed at changing the government of Venezuela... Coercion, whether military or economic, must never be used to seek a change in government in a sovereign state. The use of sanctions by outside powers to overthrow an elected government is in violation of all norms of international law ... His call echoed comments by the Spokesman for the UN Secretary General, underscoring “the urgent need for all relevant actors to engage in an inclusive and credible political dialogue to address the long crisis facing the country, with full respect for the rule of law and human rights".
 * United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: Venezuela sanctions harm human rights of innocent people, UN expert warns, United Nations News (31 January 2019)

V

 * To the extent that Americans think about these bases at all, we generally assume they’re essential to national security and global peace. Our leaders have claimed as much since most of them were established during World War II and the early days of the Cold War. As a result, we consider the situation normal and accept that US military installations exist in staggering numbers in other countries, on other peoples’ land. On the other hand, the idea that there would be foreign bases on US soil is unthinkable. While there are no freestanding foreign bases permanently located in the United States, there are now around 800 US bases in foreign countries. Seventy years after World War II and 62 years after the Korean War, there are still 174 US “base sites” in Germany, 113 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea, according to the Pentagon. Hundreds more dot the planet in around 80 countries, including Aruba and Australia, Bahrain and Bulgaria, Colombia, Kenya, and Qatar, among many other places. Although few Americans realize it, the United States likely has more bases in foreign lands than any other people, nation, or empire in history.
 * David Vine, [“https://www.thenation.com/article/the-united-states-probably-has-more-foreign-military-bases-than-any-other-people-nation-or-empire-in-history/ “The United States Probably Has More Foreign Military Bases Than Any Other People, Nation, or Empire in History”], The Nation, (September 14, 2015).

W

 * It would still be wrong to see the American occupation of Hawaii (1897) and the occupation of the Philippines and Cuba in the wake of the Spanish–American War (1898) as too radical a departure in US foreign relations. The American involvement with East Asia, both in commercial and political terms, goes back to the 1840s – it was US naval vessels, after all, that forced Western trade on Japan in 1854. The Mexican War of 1846–48 – in which Matthew Perry of later Japanese fame had served with distinction – also brought the United States into closer contact with the Caribbean and Central America. In 1855 the American William Walker set himself up as the ruler of Nicaragua, and numerous other adventurers in the late nineteenth century attempted to follow his example. And, as we know, American interventionism in the Caribbean did not end with Cuba: between 1898 and 1920 US Marines were used on at least twenty separate occasions in the region. What does set the late 1890s apart, though, was the willingness of the American federal state under McKinley and Roosevelt to take political responsibility for the overseas peoples under its control. In a way historians have been right in seeing the establishment of an American transoceanic empire as an aberration – a short-term reaction to the culmination of European imperialism and an attempt at conforming to the global system it created. By taking up the white man’s burden – as Kipling had implored it to do in his poem – the United States found a place as one among the Western great powers. The problem for the American imperialists was, however, that America was already fast becoming something more than one among many: in terms of its economic and military power, it did not need to conform or to take on a role that, in ideological terms, was foreign to it. Rather than being one imperial power, the United States was fast becoming the protector and balancer of a capitalist world system. It was that role that America formally assumed – even with regard to Europe itself – during World War I.
 * Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War: Third World Intervention and the Making of Our Times (2012), p. 15

 * The routine lust for land, markets or security became justifications for noble rhetoric about prosperity, liberty and security.
 * William Appleman Williams, "Empire as a Way of Life: An Essay on the Causes and Character of America's Present Predicament Along with a Few Thoughts About an Alternative" (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), S1.

Z

 * The Constitution says that anyone "born or naturalized in the United States" is a citizen of the country. But for U.S. territories, eligibility for birthright citizenship in the territories is controlled only by Congress – it is not constitutionally guaranteed.
 * Jess Zalph, Nina Totenberg, “Supreme Court declines to consider challenge to racist citizenship laws”, NPR, (October 17, 2022)

 * Residents of Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Marianas Islands are deemed U.S. citizens under the Immigration and Nationality Act. But American Samoans are not. Congress has not granted birthright citizenship to residents of American Samoa or Swains Island, both of which are classified only as "outlying possessions." It is this disparate treatment that was before the court, after three American Samoans living in Utah brought a challenge to the Immigration and Nationality Act, contending that the statutory denial of citizenship is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause. The Citizenship Clause was adopted after the Civil War primarily to protect the birthright citizenship of Black Americans, which was rejected by the Supreme Court prior to the Civil War. However, the meaning of the clause for residents of the territories has historically been contested — as has the force of constitutional protections in the territories altogether. In this case, Fitisemanu v. U.S., the American Samoans contend that the residents of all the territories should be considered "in the United States" for the purpose of citizenship. While American Samoans who live in the States may apply for citizenship, before they successfully do so they are denied many of the rights attached to citizenship, such as the right to vote, run for office, or serve on juries. The plaintiffs in this case say their career opportunities have been curtailed and that, as non-citizens, they are unable to sponsor immigration visas for their families. Applying for citizenship itself is onerous, can take several years, and is not guaranteed.
 * Jess Zalph, Nina Totenberg, “Supreme Court declines to consider challenge to racist citizenship laws”, NPR, (October 17, 2022)

 * The Constitution's underlying disparity in treatment between the 50 states and the U.S. territories was enshrined in the Insular Cases, a series of cases decided in the early 1900s after the Spanish-American War. These cases — so called because of their "insular" (island-related) focus — held that full constitutional rights apply only to "incorporated" territories destined for statehood, such as Hawaii, but not to "unincorporated" territories, which then included Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Infamously, the distinction between incorporated and unincorporated territories rested on explicitly racist stereotypes about individuals from those territories. Opposing Filipino statehood, for example, one senator called Filipinos "unruly and disobedient." Another called them "mongrels." Under the Insular Cases, which were primarily about tariffs and jury trials in the territories, the Supreme Court upheld this suspect "incorporated vs. unincorporated" framework of rights. The Court's language and reasoning was hardly any better than that of Congress. One case emphasized that "differences of race, habits, laws and customs" in the territories might require action on the part of Congress that wouldn't be required if the territory were "inhabited only by people of the same race." Another referred to "savage tribes" which may be "[in]capable of self-government." It is this insidious foundation of the Insular Cases that has drawn the condemnation of both liberal and conservative justices. In Vaello-Madero, a case from last term about Puerto Ricans' eligibility for disability benefits, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a 10-page concurrence calling for the Insular Cases to be overruled — something that is now unlikely to happen any time soon.
 * Jess Zalph, Nina Totenberg, “Supreme Court declines to consider challenge to racist citizenship laws”, NPR, (October 17, 2022)
 * Realization of the strategic plans for future aggression is connected with the desire to utilize to the utmost the war production facilities of the United States, which had grown to enormous proportions by the end of World War II. American imperialism is persistently pursuing a policy of militarizing the country. Expenditure on the US army and navy exceeds 11,000 million dollars per annum. In 1947-48, 35 per cent of America’s budget was appropriated for the armed forces, or eleven times more than in 1937-1938. On the outbreak of World War II the American army was the seventeenth largest in the capitalist world; today it is the largest one. The United States is not only accumulating stocks of atomic bombs; American strategists say quite openly that it is preparing bacteriological weapons. The strategic plans of the United States envisage the creation in peacetime of numerous bases and vantage grounds situated at great distances from the American continent and designed to be used for aggressive purposes against the USSR and the countries of the new democracy. America has built, or is building, air and naval bases in Alaska, Japan, Italy, South Korea, China, Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Greece, Austria, and Western Germany. There are American military missions in Afghanistan and even in Nepal. Feverish preparations are being made to use the Arctic for purposes of military aggression.
 * Andrei Zhdanov, "New Aspects of World Conflict: The International Situation," September 22, 1947

title: American imperialism


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