It was a process
What do people think the 30s in Germany were like? The Nazis didn’t take power overnight. It was a process. When you give a platform to racists, you are aiding the creep of fascism. Read a book, for fuck’s sake.
— Wendy Molyneux (@WendyMolyneux) May 29, 2018
The Immigration Officers, Their Batons Already Out
Bent to the Earth
They had hit Ruben
with the high beams, had blinded
him so that the van
he was driving, full of Mexicans
going to pick tomatoes,
would have to stop. Ruben spun
the van into an irrigation ditch,
spun the five-year-old me awake
to immigration officers,
their batons already out,
already looking for the soft spots on the body,
to my mother being handcuffed
and dragged to a van, to my father
trying to show them our green cards.
They let us go. But Alvaro
was going back.
So was his brother Fernando.
So was their sister Sonia. Their mother
did not escape,
and so was going back. Their father
was somewhere in the field,
and was free. There were no great truths
revealed to me then. No wisdom
given to me by anyone. I was a child
who had seen what a piece of polished wood
could do to a face, who had seen his father
about to lose the one he loved, who had lost
some friends who would never return,
who, later that morning, bent
to the earth and went to work.
Jim Crow Is Alive
Jim Crow is alive, and it's dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, my friend, instead of a white robe.
-Myrlie Evers-Williams
-Myrlie Evers-Williams
The Masses Will Regard It As Truth
Houses of Congress have been controlled by the Republican Party which can lead any person to believe that those promises will be fulfilled in the future. They follow the Hitler line - no matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth.
-John F. Kennedy
-John F. Kennedy
A Strong State
Russia needs a strong state power and must have it.
But I am not calling for totalitarianism.
-Vladimir Putin
The Mob and the Elite
Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself.
The masses have to be won by propaganda.
-Hannah Arendt
-Hannah Arendt
You can judge a country by how they treat the most vulnerable.
Migrant children under the care of United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were allegedly beaten, threatened with sexual violence and repeatedly assaulted while in custody between 2009 and 2014, according to a report released Wednesday from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School.
(STORY)
The Bludgeon
Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.
- Noam Chomsky
You have to be acutely aware of being a slave...
People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.
- Assata Shakur
- Assata Shakur
Don't Accept Injustice
We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
We Are Not Responsible
We are not responsible for your lost or stolen relatives.
We cannot guarantee your safety if you disobey our instructions.
We do not endorse the causes or claims of people begging for handouts.
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.
Your ticket does not guarantee that we will honor your reservations.
In order to facilitate our procedures, please limit your carrying on.
Before taking off, please extinguish all smoldering resentments.
If you cannot understand English, you will be moved out of the way.
In the event of a loss, you’d better look out for yourself.
Your insurance was cancelled because we can no longer handle
your frightful claims. Our handlers lost your luggage and we
are unable to find the key to your legal case.
You were detained for interrogation because you fit the profile.
You are not presumed to be innocent if the police
have reason to suspect you are carrying a concealed wallet.
It’s not our fault you were born wearing a gang color.
It is not our obligation to inform you of your rights.
Step aside, please, while our officer inspects your bad attitude.
You have no rights we are bound to respect.
Please remain calm, or we can’t be held responsible
for what happens to you.