Activists From The United States

"And so my belief and my view of these protests is that they are different because they are marked by a period that has been deeply personal to millions of Americans and residents of the United States, and that has them more tender or sensitive to what is going on."

"What I have come to find to be the greatest and most effective and successful weapon that we can use, known to man, to combat such adversaries as ignorance, racism, hatred, violence, is also the least expensive weapon, and the one that is the least used by Americans. That weapon is called communication."

"I am a musician, not a psychologist or sociologist. If I can do that, anybody in here can do that. Take the time to sit down and talk with your adversaries. You will learn something and they will learn something from you. When two enemies are talking, they are not fighting. They are talking. It's when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence. So keep the conversation going."

"I would hope that by the time I'm gone, things like this will not be as prevalent. But if they are, perhaps this film will encourage others to do the same and do a better job that I've been able to do."

"The lesson learned is: ignorance breeds fear. If you don't keep that fear in check, that fear will breed hatred. If you don't keep hatred in check, it will breed destruction."

"I never sat out to convert anybody. I just set out to get that answer to my question: 'How can you hate me if you don't even know me?' And in my quest to have that answered, they couldn't answer it. And some of them ended up converting themselves."

"Davis: Because they are our fellow Americans. We all have to live in this country together. We do. Otherwise we're going to end up self-destructing."

"[If he feels disconnected from black millennials]: I've met people like him before and have had confrontations with people like him before, not many. A Klansman hates a white person who 'sells out', so to speak, more so than they hate a black person. Just like the young boy hated me more than he hated some white guy, because he felt that I've sold out my own race. He was very definite that white people could not change. How is he going to advance any agenda in this country, as diverse as it is?"

"Kwame Rose: Why do I have to get along with them?"

"When I first began interviewing Klan members, oftentimes they would answer the question but they wouldn't turn around and say 'What do you think?' They felt i was inferior. I had nothing to offer in terms of my opinion. But then over time, as the relationship develops, slowly but surely they began asking me questions. That was the first clue that the tide was turning. 'Oh, all of a sudden my opinion matters? Let's see where this is going.'"

"If you have an adversary, someone with an opposing point of view, regardless of how extreme it may be, and believe me I've heard things that cut me to the bone, but give that person a platform. Allow them to air their views. And when you do things like that there is an excellent chance that people will reciprocate."

"Davis: My end goal is to bring people together. Bring white supremacists together with their nemesis. Unless we learn how to get along with one another, this country is about to..."

"Always keep the lines of communication open with your adversaries regardless of what the topic is. When two enemies are talking they are not fighting. They might be yelling and screaming and shouting an beating their fists on the table, but at least they're talking. They're not fighting."

"How can you hate me when you don't even know me? Throughout my life, I've been looking for an answer to that. Well, who better to ask than someone who would join an organization whose whole premise is hating people who do not look like them? So I began seeking out members of the Ku Klux Klan."

"Let's say you and 20 other people have this group that is anti-racist and all you do is talk about how bad racism is. What good is that group doing? All you do is preaching to the choir. If you and I agree, I'm not accomplishing anything by trying to convince you of what you already know. The way you resolve that is you invite somebody to the table who disagrees with you so you understand why they have that point of view. Then, perhaps, you will figure out a solution to disuade their fears."

"[On his collection of Ku Klux Klan robes and memorabilia]: People always say to me 'Daryl, how can you have this stuff? Why don't you burn it?' Well, no. As shameful as it is, this is a part of American history. You don't burn our history regardless. The good, the bad, the ugly. And the Ku Klux Klan is as American as baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet."

"[On why he prefers to meet Ku Klux Klan members face to face]: They can't know the real me through e-mail or through Facebook. Just sitting across from somebody, meeting somebody, getting that sense of them, that's the key right there."

"When socialist Cuba houses the homeless, feeds the hungry, cures cancer, and educates the entire population, that's "authoritarian", but when the capitalist US allows millions to suffer or die simply because they're poor, that's "freedom"? Freedom for who?"

"The G-string, which was often sequined and rhinestoned, was a cultural marker of glamorous erotic entertainment. Non-professionals wore them for costumes or naughty private play, but generally not as underwear until Frederick's of Hollywood began to make a more wearable version of them available as underwear through their catalogs and stores."

"For several years the scathing articles by Lincoln Steffens under the general title of "The Shame of our Cities" had been appearing in McClure's Magazine, and they exposed the bribed and the bribing of municipal government. Seemingly one city was as rotten as another."

"Lincoln Steffens, his papers seized by Wilson, secretly came to tell the people of what had happened in Russia."

"Soviet Russia was a revolutionary government with an evolutionary plan. Their plan was, not by direct action to resist such evils as poverty and riches, graft, privilege, tyranny, and war, but to seek out and remove the causes of them. They were not practicing what we and they preached. They were not trying to establish political democracy, legal liberty and negotiated peace — not now. They were at present only laying a basis for these good things. They had set up a dictatorship, supported by a small, trained minority, to make and maintain for a few generations a scientific rearrangement of economic forces which would result in economic democracy first and political democracy last."

"It is our knowledge — the things we are sure of — that makes the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning."

"The most brilliant addition to the McClure's staff in my time was Lincoln Steffens. He had made himself felt in the journalistic and political life of New York City by a fresh form of reportorial attack. Young, handsome, self-confident, with a good academic background and two years of foreign life and observation, Steffens began his professional career unencumbered by journalistic shibboleths and with an immense curiosity as to what was going on about him. He was soon puzzled and fascinated by the relations of police and politicians, politicians and the law, law and city officials, city officials and business, business and church, education, society, the press. Apparently groups from each of these categories worked together, supporting one another, an organization close, compact, loyal from fear or self-interest or both. It was because of this organization, Steffens concluded, that graft and vice and crime were established industries of the city. Attacks from outraged virtue had slowed up the system at intervals ever since the Civil War, but never permanently deranged it. A few rascals might be exterminated, but they were soon replaced. The system had bred new rascals, grown stronger and more cunning with time. He set out to trace its pattern. Incredibly outspoken, taking rascality for granted, apparently never shocked or angry or violent, never doubtful of himself, only coolly determined to demonstrate to men and women of good will and honest purpose what they were up against and warn them that the only way they could hope to grapple with a close corporation devoted to what there was in it was by an equally solid corporation devoted to decent and honest government, business, law, education, religion. First as a reporter and later as the city editor of the Globe, Steffens stirred the town."

"In the years that were to come, wars and revolutions largely occupied Steffens. Wherever there was a revolution you found him. He wrote many brilliant comments on what was going on in the world. When he came back from Russia after the Kerensky revolution he was like a man who had seen a long hoped-for vision. "I have looked at the millennium and it works," he told me."

"The misgovernment of the American people is misgovernment by the American people."

"I have seen the Future, and it works."

"Food justice is incredibly important, because food touches all of our lives daily. We have to look at how [food] impacts everyone, from the waiters and waitresses and cooks at restaurants, to the produce workers who pick our food, to the animals who are suffering and dying so we can eat them. We have the responsibility to speak out against these injustices and make sure we hold those who are doing the exploiting accountable."

"The word vegan should not just be used when referring to people who choose not to eat animal products because being vegan includes doing our best to abstain from participating in the other ways animals are exploited, including animal testing, wearing them, etc. Clearly there is a lot of buzz about the word vegan these days, which is great, but I think it is imperative that we keep the dialogue about this word focused on what it truly means. Veganism is simply about one's ethics and not contributing to the suffering of others."

"When people look at fishing, sometimes they’re only looking at the fact of the animals who are actually consumed by humans, so we’re not necessarily looking at all the animals who are caught in the drift nets, all the other animals who are killed in the industry."

"All farm workers, including migrants, are some of the most exploited people in the U.S. They work from dawn to dusk, often with no breaks in the heat of the day. Workers go out into fields that are often still wet with pesticides. Unable to wash, they are forced to eat with the pesticides on their hands. Many employers fail to provide them with enough water—or any at all."

"The first time I ever saw footage of a mother pig, in a more natural environment, making a nest for her babies, it brought me to tears realizing the frustration they must feel in farrowing crates."

"Of course, working people ultimately cannot rely upon the federal government or the state governments (whose purpose is to maintain the hegemony of the markets and the rule of capital) to fix this crisis in any equitable way. Only the working class has the power to make this happen through and . In order to act swiftly in the case of any layoffs, lockouts, or shutdowns, working people ultimately must organize themselves at their and in the streets, whether they are in a union or not, and be prepared to use their collective power to demand that all necessary resources be employed for the well being of the whole class with full compensation and benefits, that full back pay be provided to all workers upon returning to work, and that everyone has access to well compensated employment."

"Whether we’re talking about human or nonhuman animals, the abuses in our food system are similar—living beings are treated as commodities for profit."

"While this will certainly mean short term losses for wealthy s, these crashes — signs of a coming — are nonetheless part of the bigger process of what Leon Trotsky called “capitalist equilibrium,” and are one of the main mechanisms by which capitalism manages to maintain its power and reproduce itself anew. As Trotsky explained: capitalism “possesses a dynamic equilibrium, one which is always in the process of either disruption or restoration,” and it is this dynamic equilibrium — not any greater capacity for the production or distribution of necessary commodities — that has allowed capitalism to maintain itself for so long."

"While capitalists and their paid politicians will scoff at these demands, claiming they are economically infeasible or impossible, this is because they only understand the language of profit and cannot imagine a world run for the benefit of all. Nonetheless, the fact remains that capital has significant resources that could and must be made available to all working people. Most major corporations such as Amazon, , Disney, Delta, GM, etc., have enough reserves and more than enough credit to continue to pay their employees the full amount of their wages for the length of the health crisis. Therefore, in the case of private corporations, working people must demand that the federal government make any future market aid contingent upon a wholesale indefinite ban on all layoffs, with full wages and continued benefits for all employees, whether they are working or not. States must likewise make all operating licenses for private companies and corporations contingent upon the same demand. Industries that refuse, particularly health, transportation, and manufacturing industries should immediately be subject to nationalization under workers’ control."

"Any company that cannot or will not comply with these demands should be nationalized under workers’ control or expropriated directly by the workers themselves. Wherever possible the capital of these companies should also be immediately put to the service of solving the current economic and and providing for the full needs of the working class. Sitting by and allowing companies to layoff workers, on the other hand, expecting that the crisis can be solved with an expansion of the existing safety net, or direct cash payments, would be a huge mistake and would only weaken the power of the working class and ultimately strengthen the power of capital."

"While major corporations and industries already have the necessary resources to protect their employees, it is true that many don’t. Therefore, calls to end layoffs must also include demands for a moratorium on all residential and commercial rents, bankruptcies, utility bills, and debt payments. These actions would allow even small businesses to pay their employees their full compensation for the length of the health crisis."

"Unfortunately, despite calls from progressives like Sanders and AOC, the U.S. government has so far done little to address the problem of layoffs and unemployment; and even limited proposals, such as universal paid and emergency cash payments, have been met with obstruction by Republicans and Democrats. While such government measures are important and necessary, they are clearly not enough. Confronting this crisis ultimately means confronting capitalism, and that means directly resisting these layoffs, since layoffs are always the first weapon used against working people in moments of . es and corporations that have benefited from years of economic growth (not to mention the massive of workers’ labor) owe employees and their families a huge debt and it’s time to pay up. In order to make this happen, working people must organize for and demand: 1. An immediate ban on all layoffs. 2. Full wages for all employees, whether they are working during the crisis or not. And 3. A redistribution of working hours among currently unemployed workers (including undocumented and s) so that no one is denied the essential right to employment."

"As the coronavirus epidemic stretches on, working people are facing an economic collapse, the likes of which have not been seen since the Great Depression. Organizing to fight for an immediate ban on all layoffs has to be an essential part of any program to protect the working class and to make the capitalist’s pay for their crisis."

"Working people are facing what could be the biggest unemployment crisis since the Great Depression. As states and cities across the country continue to shut down schools, libraries, restaurants, bars, and other non-essential services in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus, hundreds of thousands of workers have already lost their jobs, and millions more will soon follow. While restaurant, theatre, hotel and hospitality workers have been some of the first to see massive layoffs, huge losses in travel, retail, and oil drilling and extraction industries are also expected, as more and more people are quarantined. [...] Such job losses would mean dire poverty for huge sections of the working class."

"In the NFL, the injury rate is a 100 percent. It's a violent game. And so, how you respond to injury and how quickly you heal from injury is important because if you're not on the field, you're not helping the team. I was reading the research and seeing that a plant-based diet could be beneficial, specifically for recovery. And so I started incorporating it and I started seeing really good results with it. I was recovering better. I wasn't getting as sore. I was a lot less swollen. Basically, to confirm what I was feeling, I got my blood tested. Six months after being on the diet, all of my markers were down, my blood pressure, my cholesterol. But the main thing I was looking at was the inflammation marker in your blood and mine was... almost obsolete. It wasn't there anymore."

"Most guys my age can't keep up with their grandchildren. My grandchildren can't keep up with me. When I went from an animal-based diet to a plant-based diet, my blood pressure went down to, like, 110 over 70. My heart rate sometimes has been under 50, like, 48, 47. I'm more focused, I'm more relaxed and I notice that I have a lot more energy because of the plant-based diet. … People in their 20s, they come in here, we do a workout, I sustain the workout a lot easier than they do."

"The recognition of an original affinity between man and beast, however remote the kinship may be, or whether it be based upon the ancient dogma of metempsychosis or the modern doctrine of evolution, necessarily creates a current of sympathy extending even to the most insignificant members of the great and widely diversified family of sentient beings, and rendering it impossible willfully to neglect or maltreat the "poor relations," to whom we are united by the warm and living ties of blood."

"Perhaps, with the introduction of more rational views of cosmogony and anthropology, and broader and more generous principles of psychology into our elementary text-books, through the union of a sounder physics with a larger metaphysics, our children's children may finally learn that there are inalienable animal as well as human rights, and that, in respect to the ties of moral obligation and the claims to kind and just treatment which they imply, not only "all nations of men," as Paul affirmed on Mar's Hill, but, as the Indian sage declared, "all living creatures are of one blood.""

"No one will seriously assert that the drosera, Dioncea muscipula, and other insectivorous and carnivorous plants are organisms superior in sensitiveness to those which they devour, or that this transformation of animal into vegetable structure increases the sum of pleasurable sensation m the world. The doctrine of evolution, which regards these antagonisms as mere episodes in the universal struggle for existence, has forever set aside this sort of theodicy and put an end to all teleological attempts to infer from the nature and operations of creation the moral character of the Creator."

"To the Hebrew decalogue and the Christian beatitudes must be added the first of Buddha's ten commandments: Kill not for Pity's sake, nor dare to slay The meanest creature on its upward way."

""Do unto others as ye would that others should do unto you" is the golden rule; but far purer and more precious than gold is the injunction to do good without any reference to self, and to cultivate a morality that does not reflect the faintest tint, nor involve the slightest implication of self-love."

"The ethical corollaries to Darwin's doctrine of the origin of species and to his theory of development through descent under the modifying influences of environment and natural selection have already passed these bounds of beneficence not only by demanding the mitigation of cruelty to slaves, but also by the abolition of slavery, and not only by inculcating the kind treatment of animals by individuals, but also by asserting the principle of animals' rights and the necessity of vindicating them by imposing judicial punishments for their violation."

"It is through the portal of spiritual kinship, erected by modern evolutional science, that beasts and birds [...] enter into the temple of justice and enjoy the privilege of sanctuary against the wanton or unwitting cruelty hitherto authorized by the assumptions and usurpations of man."