Prisoners

"I was Donald’s closest friend for 10 years."

"Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever.. [O]f course he knew about the girls as he asked [G]hislaine to stop."

"I started at Bear Stearns in 1976. Bear Stearns never had any training program. There was no course to begin. Alan Greenberg said he wanted me to learn each area of the business. So he thought the best place for me to start would be on the floor of the American Stock Exchange and then later move up to the trading desk and learn all the different areas of the firm including the margin department. He was amazing."

"It attracted me because I thought it would be a different class of students I hadn't come across before, this was going to be the flip-side"

"I realize what I am. I’m very comfortable in my own skin. I’m not a helicopter pilot. What I’m really free to do is I feel free to follow my own personality. As we discussed yesterday, I can’t be totally wacko in what I do. It affects lots of other people who will get angry with what I do because then it affects me again. But on my own island or on my own ranch, I can think the thoughts I want to think. I can do the work I want to do and I’m free to explore as I see fit."

"A not untypical case was Courtney Wild, a straight-A student with a troubled family history, who says she was sexually abused countless times by Epstein and others in his entourage beginning at the age of 14. ... As she tells Brown: “Jeffrey Epstein preyed on girls who were homeless and were addicted to drugs. He didn’t victimise girls who were Olympic stars and Hollywood actresses. He victimised people he thought nobody would ever listen to, and he was right."

"Under the old North Amerikan slave system it was openly admitted that people simply will not willingly submit to bondage and unremunerated forced labor. The human spirit naturally rebels against such a condition. Therefore the wealthy interests whose economic domination, power, prestige and wealth itself relied on slave labor, had to devise a system which would compel the submission of those to be kept in bondage."

"Every prisoner confined in Texas is forced to work without pay. ... Only those very few with documented serious medical or mental health conditions which impair work performance, and those held in the TDCJ’s torturous segregation units, are not made to work. Often those with documented medical and mental health exemptions are still forced to work – their exemptions being simply ignored. Those who refuse to work are punished, thrown in segregated confinement, and their imprisonment is typically extended."

"Once U.S. prisons are recognized to be a system of enslavement, and the lie is exposed that slavery in Amerika was ever abolished, the abusive conditions that pervades them makes perfect sense."

"TDCJ prisoners still do everything from growing all the food we eat (and which the TDCJ also sells commercially for profit), raising livestock and crops on hundreds of thousands of acres of TDCJ-owned farmland (which are aptly called “colonies”), to building and maintaining the prisons that hold us. The prisoners plant, tend and harvest everything from cotton, beans, carrots and potatoes, to peanuts and more. This work is performed by “hoe squads” of prisoners using primitive manual labor methods like those of the field slaves of yesterday or Third World peasants, while armed guards on horseback “oversee” them. The prisoners, like the old slaves, refer to these overseers as “bossman”. To see one of these teams at work is to witness a scene like something ripped from an old slave movie."

"The ruling powers tell us poor lower-class folks that we have an obligation, a social responsibility to society, to abide by the law, but they don’t have any social responsibility to us to help us meet our needs. It’s pure bourgeoisie class-based morality, a morality that serves the ruling class, not the masses of the oppressed."

"With the added psychological deterrent of litigation, my clashes with the pigs declined somewhat in frequency. They focused primarily on isolating me from others. Their efforts to perpetuate a discontinuity in our unity has been the pigs’ only effective weapon against me. And they’ve admitted in a thousand ways that their greatest fear is ending up with many other prisoners on their hands who think and act as I do. Their isolating me was long a tactic that I could not devise an effective countermeasure against, that is, until after 2001, when I was first exposed to revolutionary theory and have since come to understand the role of ideology. Without a unifying ideology, there can be no unity of struggle. Ideology was something I’d never had, and thus something I could not share. The prisoners who’d united in struggle with me had done so because of me. Not because of a shared principle. Therefore, when I was no longer around, they lost the initiative to struggle on."

"I still endure repression at the hands of the pigs, as do my peers. I still take a principled stand against this repression. But above all else, I am working on bringing my peers into a principled ideological and political consciousness that will give them discipline and a cause to struggle for, while simultaneously imparting to them the correct methods of mass based struggle. The pigs’ response continues to be to isolate me. Their violence has proven futile. Even in this most totalitarian of environments, innovation and relentless commitment to an ideal has proven, to my satisfaction, that the oppressive institutions are not invulnerable. Fear is our greatest hindrance. Fear and half measures. They can isolate me, but they cannot isolate an ideal."

"When you are poor you don’t have any social respect or social worth because everything is defined in terms of money and how much of it you have. This is what capitalism does. It turns all values into commercial values, even the value of life itself."

"What I was to encounter at Greensville defied anything that I’d expected. The pigs had a refined system and license for brutalizing prisoners. I was not to understand the magnitude of the situation until a few days after being there. The pigs had a tier of handpicked proxy prisoners, whom they used to violently suppress those who got out of line. The ringleader – I’ll call him Pumpkin – was a career con with a reputation for butchering other prisoners. He had a trustee job (all trustees were similarly selected). Pumpkin was allowed by the pigs to keep weapons on his person. Part of the mental terror game was that while he was out cleaning (everyone knew he was a pig hit man and stayed armed), the pigs would bring others out around him in handcuffs. ... The next day or so the pigs would put them on the exercise yard together, remove everyone’s handcuffs except the target’s (they’d put five to seven prisoners in each pen), and allow them to mob attack the still handcuffed target. Or if they wanted him butchered, he’d be unhandcuffed and left to contend unarmed against a knife-wielding Pumpkin."

"I had no car, no money, and it was tough seeing others have what I didn't have even though I was working. I mean the social pressures to have the flyest ride, clothes, and financial mobility started to bear down on me. It’s hard for a person to be without these socially valued possessions and feel like a whole complete human being. [...] Reading Blood In My Eye I discovered that capitalist-private property relations are the source of class inequalities, which is the primary factor in my being a member of a class that bears all the burdens of society without enjoying its advantages. Under the influence of illegitimate-capitalist values, I was pursuing the alleviation of social-economic hardship through individual advancement. This is a wholly inadequate remedy to social problems because it doesn’t challenge the fundamental injustice of class-exploitation and class-oppression, which are responsible for creating the socio-economic ills in the first place. Unaware of my class interest, I was perpetuating my own oppression by engaging in competitive capitalist practices that ensure the smooth functioning of the system as the exploiting minority profits in more ways than one off the division and disunity engendered by competition, so prevalent amongst the exploited. Look around: competition, euphemistically called “individuality,” permeates and is systematically promoted to the masses of people while the corporate conglomerations and Fortune 500 are busy “merging and monopolizing.”"

"I appeared frequently in the courts – state and federal – for hearings and trials. Initially, I received routine compliments from judges – and grudgingly from defense attorneys – on my legal comprehension and ability. This all changed when I persisted in efforts to have the courts comply with the laws. I refused to accept the unwritten rule that certain issues are not to be challenged or exposed. My efforts were calculated to bring the courts to bear on DOC officials at the highest levels, to force them to change the conditions under which we lived, and conform them to basic requirements of the written laws. The courts had other plans. The state courts were not willing to grant these sorts of relief, although the letter of the law required it. They attempted instead, numerous times, to grant my release from prison."

"Most people don’t quite relate US prisons to government sponsored torture. We can thank the mainstream corporate media and politicians for this. Since the 1960s and 1970s they’ve persistently projected the false image of US prisons as resorts where criminal predators eat chips, lift weights, and watch videos all day, much like the images given of slavery as an experience that Black folks actually enjoyed. These false images are sustainable because the real world of prisons is a hidden one, concealed behind walls and razor wire, inaccessible to the public."

"Amerika faces no meaningful threat to its security except from those who live within its own territorial borders. The domestic upheavals of the 1960’s and 70’s taught empire some valuable lessons on just how dangerous an informed and discontent population can be. As a result, and through a steady application of misinformation, carrots, and sticks, empire has worked steadily to drain the focus, resolve, and militancy of the informed and discontented. From that point to this, empire has manufactured a discontinuity in popular struggle, while maintaining continuity in its own growth and consolidation. One of the empire’s principal tools and weapons has been its prisons."

"I have nothing and therefore nothing to lose. I have conditioned myself for every conceivable shock and strain – physically, mentally, and emotionally. I fear nothing. No threat or prospect of danger deters me; I’ve faced them all, continuously and by choice. I am willing to suffer with those who suffer, to die with those who die, and to struggle in the most extreme manner for their liberation. I’ve lived the past decade with no pleasures, no amenities, and no entertainment. I’ve conditioned myself for every extreme. This is the level of commitment that our struggle demands, and the level of commitment that I have, and those who share this commitment have my complete loyalty."

"Hindu [educational] institutions have no fundamental right to compensation in case of compulsory acquisition of their property by the state... a lasting solution to this problem lies only in amending Article 30 of the Constitution..."

"I was reviewing H.V. Seshadri's book, The Tragic Story of India's Partition, in a series.... As the proofs came one day, I found that some of the significant passages regarding Sufis were missing from the composition by the printing press. I picked up the typed copy, and saw that those passages had been crossed out with red pencil. I turned to Shri Malkani, and asked him if he had done it. He would not look me in the eyes, but muttered, "We have to live with them." I observed, "I was also trying to see that they learn to live with us." He did not reply. Shri Malkani was sacked soon after. I do not know the whole story. All I came to know much later was that his failure to stop me from writing regularly in the Organiser was one of the reasons for the sorry outcome. But at that time I did not suspect it that I had something to do with his departure from a weekly which he had served for three score years, so much so that the Organiser had come to mean Malkani and Malkani the Organiser. Ale ways of party bosses are always inscrutable."

"When in the 1980s the historian Sita Ram Goel filled a weekly column in Organiser with mustering evidence for his position that fundamen­talist intolerance is the essence of Islam itself rather than a deviation, RSS General Secretary H.V. Seshadri intervened to have the column discon­tinued and the editor, the arch-moderate K.R. Malkani, sacked. The reason given for the discontinuation was that "othe­rwise, with such attacks on Islam, the Muslims will not join us"."

"For human rights issues, I think the intervention or support from the outside world is important. But also the effort and sacrifice, or willingness to make sacrifices within, among the people of a nation is important. The Korean democracy -- we had a few decades of sacrifices and tens of people lost their lives because of this concept and hundreds of people were imprisoned because of this concept and we finally gained it. And also the support from the democratic-minded peoples and democratic countries was very important. Of course the prime example of that nation is the United States."

"So when the U.N. made a resolution and asked us to send troops to East Timor, we took this as a responsibility that we must take, and also this was to repay them for their favors. As for the secretary-general's statement that when there is a conflict between human rights and the sovereign right, that sometimes the human rights can override the sovereign right, I think in principle that is right, because before we had nations, we had God-given human rights."

"Eventually, North Korea will come out for dialogue. Even though we may hold dialogue at the end, if the provocations are prolonged, then the compensation that we have to give North Korea will become bigger."

"In an era of a global economy, we can't survive without foreign investment. We must change our attitude toward foreign investment. We should welcome it."

"If we had true democracy in Korea, then the collusive intimacy between business and government and corruption would not have been as great here. And the wealth would not have been allocated to only a few people. Usually the dictatorship or authoritarian style of government lies to people."

"Dr Kim Dae-Jung, the one unmistakably great political leader with whom I have had the privilege to talk at length, to whom his country owes far more than it has yet begun to realize, by his singular courage."

"In China and Korea, feudalism was brought down and replaced with counties and prefectures before the birth of Christ, and civil service exams to recruit government officials are a thousand years-old. The exercise of power by the king and high officials were monitored by robust systems of auditing. In sum, Asia was rich in the intellectual and institutional traditions that would provide fertile grounds for democracy. What Asia did not have was the organizations of representative democracy. The genius of the west was to create the organizations, a remarkable accomplishment that has greatly advanced the history of humankind."

"If parents can tell their kids, `Look at Kim Dae Jung: Live upright, put your effort into a good cause and you will be successful,' then I think my life would be very meaningful"

"Once elected president in 1998, Kim chose reconciliation over revenge — even inviting his persecutors from the previous military governments to the Blue House, where he sought and welcomed their counsel during his presidency. Kim Dae Jung showed[,] that true leadership lies in compassion, not [in] coercion."

"I agonize over the suffering that the North Korean people must be experiencing. Every time I'm having a meal and I leave some food, I think about how much this food could do for suffering North Korean children. I really do want to do more to help them, but again, with such negative public opinion in this country, it is very difficult to go ahead with assistance."

"I am confident in my dealings with the heads. I believe that I have won their trust because, I have asked them for nothing. Unlike past presidents, I did not force them to give me money or political funds. Not a single cent. And, I have not shown favoritism to any particular chaebol. They know that I am fair."

"I believe democracy is the foundation of a healthy economy. Without genuine democracy you cannot have a genuine market economy. And, under the market economy, one must fully open doors to allow free trade and investment."

"Many of the leaders of Asian society have been saying that military dictatorship was the way and democracy was not good for their nation. They concentrated only on economic development. I believe that the fundamental cause of the financial crisis, including here in Korea, is because of placing economic development ahead of democracy."

"You have made me so rich, oh God, please let me share Your beauty with open hands. My life has become an uninterrupted dialogue with You, oh God, one great dialogue. At night, when I lie in my bed and rest in You, oh God, tears of gratitude run down my face, and that is my prayer."

"There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too. But more often stones and grit block the well, and God is buried beneath. Then He must be dug out again."

"And if God does not help me to go on, then I shall have to help God. — The surface of the earth is gradually turning into one great prison camp, and soon there will be nobody left outside. … I don't fool myself about the real state of affairs, and I've even dropped the pretense that I'm out to help others. I shall merely try to help God as best I can, and if I succeed in doing that, then I shall be of use to others as well. But I mustn't have heroic illusions about that either."

"Dear God, these are anxious times. Tonight for the first time I lay in the dark with burning eyes as scene after scene of human suffering passed before me. I shall promise You one thing, God, just one very small thing: I shall never burden my today with cares about my tomorrow, although that takes some practice. Each day is sufficient unto itself. I shall try to help You, God, to stop my strength ebbing away, though I cannot vouch for it in advance. But one thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves. And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn't seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last."

"The absence of hatred in no way implies the absence of moral indig­nation."

"The sky is full of birds, the purple lupins stand up so regally and peacefully, two little old women have sat down on the box for a chat, the sun is shining on my face — and right before our eyes, mass murder. The whole thing is simply beyond comprehension."

"The following pages were written in the Concentration Camp in Dachau, in the midst of all kinds of cruelties. They were furtively scrawled in a hospital barrack where I stayed during my illness, in a time when Death grasped day by day after us, when we lost twelve thousand within four and a half months … “You asked me why I do not eat meat and you are wondering at the reasons of my behavior … I refuse to eat animals because I cannot nourish myself by the sufferings and by the death of other creatures. I refuse to do so, because I suffered so painfully myself that I can feel the pains of others by recalling my own sufferings … I am not preaching … I am writing this letter to you, to an already awakened individual who rationally controls his impulses, who feels responsible, internally and externally, for his acts, who knows that our supreme court is sitting in our conscience … I have not the intention to point out with my finger … I think it is much more my duty to stir up my own conscience … That is the point: I want to grow up into a better world where a higher law grants more happiness, in a new world where God's commandment reigns: You shall love each other.”"

"For in the end what is at issue in this idea of the cooperative is as clear as day. It is a means of preparing the daily bourgeois stew [pot-au-feu bourgeois] at all costs, divorced from any political thought, from any revolutionary struggle. It is the political and social abdication of the proletariat under the pretext of socialism; indeed it is not even that! Everyone is careful to insist and to prove that socialism has nothing to do with it, which is the truth."

"A revolution determines, within the social body, an instantaneous process of reorganisation akin to the tumultuous combinations of the elements of a dissolved body that then tend to recompose themselves in a new form. This process cannot begin as long as a breath of life animates the old aggregation. As a result, the ideas that would reconstitute society will never take shape so long as a cataclysm, by dealing the old, decrepit society a mortal blow, has not freed the captive elements whose spontaneous and rapid fermentation will organise the new world. All the powers of thought, all the greatest efforts of intelligence are unable to anticipate this creative phenomenon that can break out at any given moment. One can prepare the cradle, but not bring to life the long-awaited being. Right up until the moment of death and rebirth, the doctrines [that will serve as the] bases of the future society remain vague aspirations, distant and hazy glimpses. They are like a blurred and floating silhouette on the horizon, the contours of which cannot be determined or grasped by human efforts."

"I am accused of having told thirty million French people, proletarians like me, that they had the right to live."

"We are no longer in ’93! We are in 1848! The tricolor flag is no longer the flag of the Republic. It’s that of Louis-Philippe and of the monarchy. It’s the tricolor flag that presided over the massacres of the rue Transnonain, of Faubourg de Vaise, of Saint-Etienne. It has been twenty times bathed in the blood of the workers. The people raised the red colors on the barricades of ’48, just as they raised them on those of June 1832, April 1834[1], and May 1839. They have received the double consecration of defeat and victory. From this day on, these colors are theirs. Just yesterday they gloriously floated from the fronts of our buildings. Today reaction ignominiously casts them in the mud and dares stain them with its calumnies. It is said it is a flag of blood. It is only red with the blood of the martyrs who made it the standard of the republic. Its fall is an insult to the people, a profanation of the dead. The flag of the National Guard will shade their graves. Reaction has already been unleashed. It can be recognized by its violence. The men of the royalist faction roam the streets, insults and threats in their mouths, tearing the red colors from the boutonnieres of citizens. Workers! It’s your flag that is falling. Heed well! The Republic will not delay in following it."

"Humanity ... is never stationary. Its progressive march leads it to equality. Its regressive march goes back through every stage of privilege to human slavery, the final word of the right to property."

"He who has iron, has bread. People bow down before bayonets; a disarmed crowd is swept aside. But a France bristling with workers in arms means the advent of socialism. In the presence of armed proletarians, all obstacles, resistances and impossibilities will disappear."

"Students, young people, have the right to join together in order to guide their efforts towards a common goal, and they will use this right. As for their goal, it is simple: for them it is a matter of ensuring that the July revolution is not a lie; every edifice built by the Empire and the Restoration must be overthrown, and since not one single stone of this edifice is yet to fall, they will work indefatigably to demolish and destroy it. We call for the destruction of the university. We call for the destruction of the country’s most odious and harmful monopoly, of that which stifles civilization at its source and which is the cruelest insult inflicted on human intelligence."