Quotes

“The ultimate test of a society’s freedom is not how it treats its good, obedient, compliant citizens; it’s how it treats its dissidents.” - Glenn Greenwald

This quote popped up the other day, and I just wanted to share it. With everything going on in the world right now, and especially in my country personally, I can't help but wonder why I have always strove to be good and to do my best for not only myself, but everyone I have ever met. Maybe when I'm lying there dying from whatever is to come, I will fully regret being a "good" person.

“I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no “two evils” exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say.” – W.E.B. DuBois (1956)

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” ― Frederick Douglass

“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ― George Orwell

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." --Harry S. Truman

United States. President (1945-1953 : Truman), Harry S. Truman (1961). “Harry S. Truman: Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, 1945-53”^[[1] https://www.azquotes.com/quote/602829]

"When two neighboring countries fight each other, just know the USA visited one."

"Imperialism and fascism are two sides of the same coin; one is the side that faces outward, and the other is the side that faces inward." -- Butch Ware

"Right and wrong is a very different standard than legal and illegal. The law is no substitute for morality." -- Edward Snowden

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. -- John F. Kennedy

“If you walk through life and don't help anybody, you haven't had much of a life” ― Fred Hampton

Links:

1. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fred-Hampton
2. https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/2/9/22267037/fred-hampton-black-panther-chicago-life-death-legacy
3. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2019/12/03/in-1969-charismatic-black-panthers-leader-fred-hampton-was-killed-in-a-hail-of-gunfire-50-years-later-the-fight-against-police-brutality-continues/
4. https://digitalchicagohistory.org/exhibits/show/fred-hampton-50th/who-was-fred-hampton-
5. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/hampton-fred-1948-1969/
6. https://www.biography.com/activists/a45988576/fred-hampton
7. https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/individuals/fred-hampton

"The oppressor would not be so strong if he did not have accomplices among the oppressed." -- Simone de Beauvoir

Links:

1. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Simone-de-Beauvoir
2. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/beauvoir/
3. https://www.biography.com/scholars-educators/simone-de-beauvoir

"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." - JFK

“We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.” - Louis Brandeis

“When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals.” — Edward Snowden

“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” — President John F. Kennedy

Longer version of the quote

Humans — who enslave, castrate, experiment on, and fillet other animals — have had an understandable penchant for pretending animals do not feel pain. A sharp distinction between humans and 'animals' is essential if we are to bend them to our will, make them work for us, wear them, eat them — without any disquieting tinges of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer.

What a cool lady.

Hawkeye: War isn’t Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse.

Father Mulcahy: How do you figure, Hawkeye?

Hawkeye: Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?

Father Mulcahy: Sinners, I believe.

Hawkeye: Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14996161

[Quote] First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Edit:

• added [Quote] to title

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller