Political Quotes

[Pathless]

"It is a man's way of leaving a trace, of telling people how he lived and died.... If nothing else, one must scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity."

--Nadyezhda Mandelshtam

[Pathless]

[Pathless]

"Never counted in the 'costs' of war are the dead birds, the charred animals, the murdered fish, incinerated insects, poisoned water sources, destroyed vegetation. Rarely mentioned is the arrogance of the human race toward other living things with which it shares this planet. All these are forgotten in the fight for markets and ideologies. This arrogance will probably be the ultimate undoing of the human species."

--Arundhati Roy, in "The Loneliness of Noam Chomsky," found in War Talk

[Pathless]

"Those of us who have learned to survive by dominating others, as well as those of us who have learned to survive by accepting domination, need to resocialize ourselves into being strong without playing dominance-submission games, into controlling what happens to us without controlling others. This can't be done by electing the right people to office or by following the correct party line; nor can it be done by sitting and reflecting on our sins. We rebuild ourselves and our world through activity, through partial successes, and failure, and more partial successes. And all the while we grow stronger and more self-reliant."

--Carol Ehrlich: Socialism, Anarchism And Feminism

[Pathless]

"As to the essence of Commerce and Manufacture, it is this: to establish bonds between every corner of the earth’s surface and every other corner, to multiply the needs of mankind, and the desire for material possession and enjoyment."

"...[T]he really desirable thing is that all men – not Americans only – should be at peace; and that to reach this, all peaceful persons should withdraw their support from the army, and require that all who make war shall do so at their own cost and risk; that neither pay nor pensions are to be provided for those who choose to make man-killing a trade."

--Voltairine de Cleyre, Anarchism and American Traditions

[Pathless]

Timothy Leary: The Declaration of Evolution

When in the course of organic evolution it becomes obvious that a mutational process is inevitably dissolving the physical and neurological bonds which connect the members of one generation to the past and inevitably directing them to assume among the species of Earth the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent concern for the harmony of species requires that the causes of the mutation should be declared.

We hold these truths to be self evident:

• That all species are created different but equal;
• That they are endowed, each one, with certain inalienable rights;
• That among them are Freedom to Live, Freedom to Grow, and Freedom to pursue Happiness in their own style;
• That to protect these God-given rights, social structures naturally emerge, basing their authority on the principles of love of God and respect for all forms of life;
• That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of life, liberty, and harmony, it is the organic duty of the young members of that species to mutate, to drop out, to initiate a new social structure, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its power in such form as seems likely to produce the safety, happiness, and harmony of all sentient beings.

Genetic wisdom, indeed, suggests that social structures long established should not be discarded for frivolous reasons and transient causes. The ecstasy of mutation is equally balanced by the pain. Accordingly all experience shows that members of a species are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, rather than to discard the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, all pursuing invariably the same destructive goals, threaten the very fabric of organic life and the serene harmony of the planet, it is the right, it is the organic duty to drop out of such morbid covenants and to evolve new loving social structures.

Such has been the patient sufferance of the freedom-loving peoples of this earth, and such is now the necessity which constrains us to form new systems of government.

...Modern History Sourcebook: Timothy Leary: The Declaration of Evolution

[Pathless]

"The final conflict will be between outlaws and criminals: on one side, millions of Americans turned outlaw by force of circumstance; on the other side, the forces of respectable society at last revealed as Organized Crime."

--Marvin Garson, "The System Does Not Work," San Fransisco Times, January 1969

[Pathless]

"Government promotes the idea that freedom is a gift of the Nation-State. My point of view is that you are free if you choose to be. If I get used to you deciding what I ought to do, I'll get less and less inclined to think for myself what I ought to do."

--Chuck Matthei, Vietnam draft resister

[Pathless]

"The truly bad ideas of humankind--war, religious intolerance, colonialism, racism, the repression of women, communism, fascism, and savage capitalism--have spread because of limited empathy.... Hatred and dogma arise from a certain kind of ignorance about how other people experience their lives....

Empathy shatters ideologies and destroys stereotypes.... And teaching point of view is empathy training....

When writers offer readers multiple points of view on the universe, we help them expand their frames of reference."

--Mary Pipher, Writing to Change the World, pages 137-138

[Pathless]

"It is hope, not despair, which makes successful revoltions."

--Peter Kropotkin

[Pathless]

'What I am after is an alternative to separation and rage, some kind of connection to things to replace the system of dependence and submission- the loss of the self-that now holds sway, slanted toward violence. I am trying to articulate a way of seeing, of feeling, that will restore to the young a sense of manhood and potency without at the same time destroying the past. That same theme runs through whatever I write: the necessity for each man to experience himself as an extension and maker of culture, and to feel the whole force of the world within himself, not as an enemy-but as himself:

... An act of learning is a meeting, and every meeting is simply the discovery in the world of a part of oneself that had previously, been unacknowledged by the self. It is the recovery of the extent of one's being. It is the embrace of an eternal but elusive companion, the shadowy "other" in which one truly resides and which blazes, when embraced, like the sun.'

--Peter Marin, "The Open Truth and Fiery Vehemence of Youth: a Sort of Soliloquy"

[Pathless]

"Unquestioned beliefs are the real authorities of a culture. Therefore, if an individual can express what is undeniably real to him without invoking any authority beyond his own experience, he is transcending the belief systems of his culture."

--Robert Combs, The Vision of the Voyage

[Pathless]

"Because every city-state (and now the entire globally interconnected industrial economy) relies on imported resources, our entire culture's basis in exploitation must remain in place no matter how spiritual, enlightened, or peaceful we may seem to ourselves, may claim to be, or may in fact personally become. This basis in violence is in place whether or not we choose to acknowledge it. It is in place whether or not we call ourselves peaceloving, and whether or not we tell ourselves (each time) that we are fighting to bring freedom, democracy, and prosperity to people who, unaccountably, often do not seem to want what we have to offer."

--Derrick Jensen, Endgame Volume I: The Problem of Civilization

[Pathless]

"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

--Hermann Goring

[Pathless]

"President Dew has shown that the institution of Slavery is a principal cause of civilization. Perhaps nothing can be more evident than that it is the sole cause. If anything can be predicated so universally true of uncultivated man, it is that he will not labour beyond what is absolutely necessary to maintain his existence. Labour is pain to those who are unaccustomed to it, and the nature of man is averse to pain. ... The coercion of Slavery alone is adequate to form man to habits of labour. Without it, there can be no accumulation of property, no providence for the future, no taste for comforts or elegances, which are the characteristics and essentials of civilization. He who has obtained the command of another's labour, first begins to accumulate and provide for the future, and the foundations of civilization are laid. ... Since the existence of man upon the earth, with no exception whatever, either of ancient or modern times, every society which has attained civilization has advanced to it through this process."

--William Harper, 1837, quoted in Jensen's Endgame Vol. I