Activists From The United States

"It is fascinating to notice that in the Montgomery boycott the various strands and origins of the idea of nonviolent resistance fused into a newly invigorated practice and theory of immense power. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., although he credited his formulation of "massive non-cooperation" to Thoreau, had been exposed to pacifist thought during his studies under the pacifist Allen Knight Chalmers, who was a Gandhian. Another long-time pacifist, Bayard Rustin, secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation since 1935, and later secretary of the War Resisters League, was one of the chief tacticians and organizers of the Montgomery boycott. It was he who counseled the use of nonviolent means at the outset of the boycott. Finally, probably unknown to most of the actors in the drama, there was a precedent for a bus boycott by a black community in the example of the 1892 Memphis, Tennessee, boycott of streetcars by the black community to protest a lynching. This boycott was actively supported by Ida B. Wells-Barnett and was, according to her account, highly effective."

"Every worker today stands on the shoulders of giants, people you will meet here like Lucy Parsons, Cesar Chavez, Bayard Rustin, Eugene V. Debs, and Walter Reuther."

"as John Lewis later recalled, "This was going to be a massively complex undertaking, and there was no one more able to pull it together than Bayard Rustin.""

"the contributions of people whom we may now identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender are integral and central to how we conceptualize our national history. Without the work of social activists, thinkers, writers, and artists such as We'Wha, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Martha "Calamity" Jane Cannary Burke, Edith Guerrier, Countee Cullen, Ethel Waters, Bayard Rustin, Roy Cohn, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cherrie Moraga, and Lily Tomlin, we would not have the country that we have today."

"It is always timely and virtuous to change-to take in all humility a new path."

"That which separates man from his brother is evil and must be resisted."

"Segregation, separation, according to Jesus, is the basis of continuous violence."

"I must protest racial discrimination in the armed forces, which is not only morally indefensible but also in clear violation of the Act. This does not, however, imply that I could have a part in conforming to the Act if discrimination were eliminated."

"In practice further, it (the Conscription Act) separates black from white-those supposedly struggling for a common freedom. Such a separation also is based on the moral error that racism can overcome racism, that evil can produce good, that men virtually in slavery can struggle for a freedom they are denied."

"The Conscription Act denies brotherhood-the most basic New Testament teaching. Its design and purpose is to set men apart-German against American, American against Japanese. Its aim springs from a moral impossibility-that ends justify means, that from unfriendly acts a new and friendly world can emerge."

"Today I feel that God motivates me to use my whole being to combat by nonviolent means the ever-growing racial tension in the United States; at the same time the state directs that I shall do its will; which of these dictates can I follow-that of God or that of the state? Surely, I must at all times attempt to obey the law of the state. But when the will of God and the will of the state conflict, I am compelled to follow the will of God. If I cannot continue in my present vocation, I must resist."

"Conscription for war is inconsistent with freedom of conscience, which is not merely the right to believe, but to act on the degree of truth that one receives, to follow a vocation which is God-inspired and God-directed."

"War is wrong. Conscription is a concomitant of modern war. Thus conscription for so vast an evil as war is wrong."

"the basic spiritual truth that men are brothers in the sight of God"

"For eight years I have believed war to be impractical and a denial of our Hebrew-Christian tradition. The social teachings of Jesus are: (1) respect for personality; (2) service the "sumumbonum"; (3) overcoming evil with good; and (4) the brotherhood of man. Those principles as I see it are violated by participation in war."

"We are all one, and if we don’t know it we will learn it the hard way."

"Thus social democracy is neither pro-capitalist nor, for the present, rigidly anti-capitalist. Indeed, social democracy (and in the United States, a roughly analogous coalition of labor, liberals, and minorities) has already greatly transformed capitalism. Social democracy adopts a flexible approach to institutional arrangements and social reforms; it has no unalterable blueprint to impose on society. Every social-democratic proposal is motivated and tested by its probable consequences for the democratic life of the community. Social democracy is more a method of social change than a definition of what society should look like."

"We in America reject planning except for the private sector of the economy, so what we have is democratic socialization for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor."

"I think the movement contributed to this nation a sense of universal freedom. Precisely because women saw our movement in the sixties, stimulated them to want their rights. The fact that students saw the movement of the sixties created a student movement in this country. The fact that the people were against the war in Vietnam, saw us go into the street and win, made it possible for them to have the courage to go into the street and win, and the lesson that I would like to see from this is, that we must now find a way to deal with the problem of full employment, and as surely as we were able to bring about the Civil Rights Act, the voter rights act--the Voting Rights Act, I mean the education act, and the housing act, so is it possible for all of us now to combine our forces in a coalition, including Catholic, Protestant, Jew and labor and blacks and Puerto Ricans and Mexican-Americans and all other minorities, to bring about the one thing that will bring peace internally to the United States. And that is that any man who wants a job, or any woman who wants a job, shall not be left unemployed."

"If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell."

"No substance in nature, as far as yet known, has, when it reaches the brain, such power to induce mental and moral changes of a disastrous character as alcohol. Its transforming power is marvelous, and often appalling. It seems to open a way of entrance into the soul for all classes of foolish, insane or malignant spirits, who, so long as it remains in contact with the brain, are able to hold possession."

"Now, boys, lie low, you know, and let 'em come up close, you know, and then rise up and give 'em ———, you know."

"How vastly important is it, then, for mothers to have a higher regard for their duties—to feel deeply the immense responsibilities that rest upon them! It is through their ministrations that the world grows worse or better."

"The gratification of one desire only makes way for another still more exacting."

"During the century and a half since the Civil War, however, many historians have offered more measured opinions about General Sheridan, both as a human being and as a military leader. A far more critical appraisal of him as emerged in recent literature. Be that as it may, there can be little doubt that at the end of the American Civil War, three men- Sheridan and Sherman and Grant- stood together in the universal praise of the Northern press, the army veterans, and a grateful civilian population."

"Certainly the most (inf)famous person who came along this way was Major General Philip Henry Sheridan, a squat-little thirty-four-year old, foul-mouthed Ohioan. He was supposed to have graduated from West Point in 1852, but he had been suspended for gross misconduct during his senior year and therefore did not graduate until 1853, when he ranked in the bottom third of his class, Sheridan began his Civil War service in the western army, where his rise had been meteoric. It has been suggested that war seemed to have been a tonic for Philip Sheridan. Simply put, with regards to military results Sheridan just got better and better the longer the war continued. His earliest achievement of note had occurred as a dramatic divisional leader of infantry at Chattanooga in November of 1863."

"In fact during this retreat week- and unbeknownst to the gullible inhabitants of Southside Virginia- some of these advance "Confederate-appearing" cavalrymen were definitely not who they seemed to be. Acting on his own without official authorization from his superiors, Major General Phil Sheridan had recruited several specialized groups of spying cavalrymen (whom he designated as "Jesse scouts") who were the proverbial "wolves in sheep's clothing," clad as Confederate horsemen who would question gullible Southern soldiers and civilians concerning "the best routes to take" and exactly where some food supplies might be available for the army. This was a dangerous scheme that Sheridan was employing because under the so-called "rules of war" which both sides had endorsed, presenting oneself in the uniform of the enemy and posing as a member of "the other side" was punishable by an immediate execution, without the slightest pretending of a military court martial or public hearing."

"One other exciting- and totally unpredictable- face and force had been added to Grant's arsenal on March 25 when General Philip Sheridan arrived on the Petersburg front with his Army of the Shenandoah, which was primarily a cavalry command. Sheridan was definitely a mercurial personality and often an insubordinate officer, yet it is no accident that Lee's surrender occurred just fourteen days after Sheridan joined Grant at Clay Point, Virginia, absolutely determined to be "in on the kill.""

"General Grant tended to pick men in his own mold to lead his armies in the field. Phil Sheridan fit his style, as did William Tecumseh Sherman, whose Army of the Cumberland cut a swath into Georgia that resulted in the capture of Atlanta on September 2. This news hit Washington just three weeks after Admiral Farragut had captured Mobile Bay in Alabama and, coupled with Sheridan's victory in Virginia, virtually assured Lincoln's reelection. The next six months would see an endless string of Union victories that all but destroyed the Confederacy. The fall of such Southern strongholds as Nashville, Savannah, Wilmington, Columbia, Petersburg, and Richmond insured a final Union victory that was to come at Appomattox Courthouse in Virginia on April 9, 1865."

"General Phil Sheridan... had urged the destruction of the bison herds, correctly predicting that when they disappeared the Indians would disappear along with them; by 1885 the bison were virtually extinct, and the Indians were starving to death on the plains."

"Probably no living soldier was ever more terrible in battle than Sheridan. With the first smell of gunpowder he became a blazing meteor, a pillar of fire to guide his own hosts. The rather small short, heavily built man rose to surpassing stature in his stirrups, to the sublimity of heroism in action; and infused a like spirit in his troops. I think it no exaggeration to say that America never produced his equal, for inspiring an army with courage and leading them into battle. Absolutely fearless imself, with unwavering faith in his cause and his plans, he always raised the courage and faith of others, to the level of his own; passed from rank to rank in action, flaming, fiery, omnipresent, and well-nigh omnipotent."

"The only good Indians I ever saw were dead."

"The proper strategy consists in the first place in inflicting as telling blows as possible upon the enemy's army, and then causing the inhabitants so much suffering that they must long for peace, and force their government to demand it. The people must be left nothing but their eyes to weep with over the war."

"There’s no such thing as a DDoS [distributed denial of service] ‘attack’ ... A DDoS is a protest, it’s a digital sit it. It is no different than physically occupying a space. It’s not a crime, it’s speech."

"He's a tough guy. He stood there and took the verdicts. But it's obviously the worst day of his life."

"The days of ‘Let’s haul this kid in front of the judge, scare him and send him home with a warning’ are long since gone,” says attorney Jay Leiderman. “ Prosecutorial discretion is a great thing if it’s exercised, but it doesn’t happen in any meaningful way these days, because prosecutions are so politicized."

"I’m usually an Armani guy if I can be, but I went from jeans into one of the nicest $99 suits I had seen, plus a tie, pocket square, and socks,” says Leiderman. “I got the shoes and belt at a Ross [Dress for Less store] in between the tailor and the courthouse. The guys that worked security were impressed."

"There’s no such thing as a DDoS [distributed denial of service] ‘attack’,” Leiderman said. “A DDoS is a protest, it’s a digital sit it. It is no different than physically occupying a space. It’s not a crime, it’s speech."

"“He is a good person. He did a bad thing,” Leiderman told the judge."

"Leiderman thought it was not enough that the government dropped charges. He wanted the criminal justice system to recognize Gonzalez’s innocence affirmatively. There is such a thing as a declaration of factual innocence, he explained to Gonzalez. A judge can grant it. It is exceedingly rare – so rare that many cops and lawyers go a career without seeing one. It means not just that prosecutors couldn’t make a case against you, but that you didn’t do the crime. The case remained on the docket of Ventura County Superior Court Judge Patricia Murphy, who had earlier ordered Gonzalez held without bail. Leiderman petitioned the judge, trying not to get his client’s hopes up. He laid out the case, pointing out the holes in West’s story and the numerous alibi witnesses. Prosecutors did not want Gonzalez declared innocent. They knew a jury wouldn’t convict him but said they couldn’t be positive of his innocence. [ ] Ventura County’s chief assistant district attorney, later explained their reasoning: The attack West described was “improbable, but it wasn’t physically impossible.” In January 2009, nearly a year after Gonzalez’s arrest, Leiderman called him excitedly: The judge had sided with them. Gonzalez was soon holding a certified copy of the judge’s order declaring him factually innocent."

"The warrant did not give the power to rummage through the journalist’s files,” Leiderman said, adding “there is no indication of why all this information needed to be seized."

"Maybe you don’t have that proof,” criminal defense attorney Jay Leiderman told the Daily Dot. Maybe the proof isn’t as good as you thought it was."

"Isn’t this illegal? In the case of the cameras accessed using default passwords, of course. Attorney Jay Leiderman told Motherboard that Insecam “is a stunningly clear violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) [I made it clear that the CFAA was an American law, and that this may or may not be illegal in other countries],” even if it is intended as a PSA. “You put a password on a computer to keep it private, even if that password is just ‘1.’ It’s entry into a protected computer."

"Being quiet should be the default [when being questioned by the police]."

"Prisoners do get shafted at every opportunity by BOP. Well, not every defendant; there are a few exceptions. But for the most part, BOP isn’t there to be nice to prisoners. They’re there to imprison them."

"I get that I’m a little bit of an anomaly in terms of a lawyer in that a lot of lawyers don’t do the things I do, aren’t interested in the things I’m interested in. What drew me to it initially was this idea of dissent online and moving protests forward to a new generation, a new way of thinking, a new philosophy, a way to redress our grievances to the government that was unique and novel, and to have them actually listen to us about the things that are important to us. Chief among them of course was the preservation of our privacies as we move forward into the digital age, into the complete ubiquity of digital technology pervading our lives."

"So I changed from this idealistic “I can help shape the future” to all of a sudden I’m in the middle of this frame where we’re literally fighting for our freedoms, for our information, for our privacy. It may be taken from us in a manner that we’re just never gonna get it back. That’s what’s really changed between the last few times I’ve been interviewed and now: This is a matter of immediacy, this is a matter of danger, this is a matter of peril to our liberty."

"DoJ [Department of Justice] is not supposed to be used to send messages. It’s supposed to be used to specifically target actual criminality, not to be this theoretical law creation machine where they want to push and twist the law so far to the point where it’s unrecognizable and use that to chill dissent. That’s when our country looks its most evil, and it really does. It’s an ugly picture of the US government"

"It is fashionable always to cast aspersion upon those that defend persons accused of committing crimes. The viler the accused crime, the more vigorous defense the accused needs, yet, at the same time, the more vitriol the defense attorney will face. I cannot speak for my brethren in the legal community, I can only state that what follows is my own brand of patriotism; I defend those charged with crimes because it is both my duty as a lawyer and as an American. Each piece of resistance to the encroachment of overreaching governmental power is, in and of itself, a victory for freedom."

"Investigators like to wave around the word ‘gang.’ They use it to strike fear in the heart of the community. It tends to also involve a lot of puffery and allegations that maybe perhaps aren’t 100 percent solid."