In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
-George Orwell
Israel has no right to stop us under international law UNLESS it wants to admit that it occupies Gaza. Since Israel says it no longer occupies Gaza and Gaza is free, they have no right to stop us. In addition, the blockade is collective punishment against a civilian population that is WAY out of line. International law, Amnesty International and the International Red Cross have all said the same thing. Israel’s blockade is illegal. The illegal entity in the neighborhood is Israel, not us.
-Greta Berlin Co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement
This experience has taught me this: Our wills are stronger than their guns, their bars, or their handcuffs. The inhumane jailing of 900 persons only helps build the movement that will overtake them and dismantle their systems of oppression, so that the people can build a better world.
From:The Story of My Arrest & Detainment (Toronto G- 20)
By Lacy MacAuley
Foreign occupiers tend to fight popular resistance through several means. One includes a varied amount of violence aiming to disorient, destroy and rebuild a nation to any desired image (read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine). Another strategy is to weaken the very components that give a culture its unique identity and inner strengths -- and thus defuse the culture’s ability to resist. The former requires firepower, while the latter can be achieved through soft means of control. Many ‘third world’ nations that boast of their sovereignty and independence might in fact be very much occupied, but due to their fragmented and overpowered cultures -- through globalization, for example -- they are unable to comprehend the extent of their tragedy and dependency. Others, who might effectively be occupied, often possess a culture of resistance that makes it impossible for their occupiers to achieve any of their desired objectives.
From:Beyond violence and nonviolence: Resistance as a culture
By Ramzy Baroud
Do you see law and order? There is nothing but disorder, and instead of law there is the illusion of security. It is an illusion because it is built on a long history of injustices: racism, criminality, and the genocide of millions. Many people say it is insane to resist the system, but actually, it is insane not to.
-Mumia Abu Jamal
No one becomes popular by telling people the truth. History records what happened to the true prophets of the past. However, some have listened to their warnings and were not caught off-guard. Others have put their heads in the sand and refused to listen.
-William "Bill" Cooper
You can't believe the government - on anything. And you especially can't believe them when they're talking about important stuff.
-Gary Webb
To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.
—Arundhati Roy
Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.
We are a part of the earth and it is part of us.
-Chief Seattle
Time is an enormous, long river, and I’m standing in it, just as you’re standing in it. My elders are the tributaries, and everything they thought and every struggle they went through and everything they gave their lives to, and every song they created, and every poem that they laid down flows down to me – and if I take the time to ask, and if I take the time to see, and if I take the time to reach out, I can build that bridge between my world and theirs. I can reach down into that river and take out what I need to get through this world.
— Utah Phillips
The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears.
Native American Proverb
The ancient ancestors call out from our bloodlines to remember.
- Midnite
Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.
-Starhawk
"Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian."
- Robert Orben
We must not become confused and deceived by their illusions. There is no such thing as military power; there is only military terrorism. There is no such thing as economic power; there is only economic exploitation. That is all that it is. They try to program our minds and fool us with these illusions so that we will believe that they hold the power in their hands but they do not.
All they know is how to act in a repressive, brutal way...Power...we are a natural part of the earth. We are an extension of the earth, we are not separate from it. We are a part of it. The earth is our mother. The earth is a spirit and we are an extension of that spirit. We are spirit. We are power. They want us to believe that we have to believe in them and depend upon them and we have to consume these consumer identities and these religious identities and these political identities and these racial identities. They want to separate us from our power. They want to separate us from who we are.
-John Trudell
And then many things became very clear... we learned perfectly that the life of a single human being is worth millions of times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.
— Che Guevara
Peace is Letting Go-Returning to the Silence that cannot enter the realm of words because it is too pure to be contained in words. This is why the tree, the stone, the river, and the mountain are quiet.
-Malidoma Patrice Some
