“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
― Martin Luther King Jr.
“Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”
― Howard Zinn
― Howard Zinn
“It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.”
― Aristotle, Selected Writings From The Nicomachean Ethics And Politics
― Aristotle, Selected Writings From The Nicomachean Ethics And Politics
“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
― Martin Luther King Jr.
“Colorful demonstrations and weekend marches are vital but alone are not powerful enough to stop wars. Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight, when workers refuse to load weapons onto ships and aircraft, when people boycott the economic outposts of Empire that are strung across the globe. ”
― Arundhati Roy, Public Power in the Age of Empire
― Arundhati Roy, Public Power in the Age of Empire
“I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.”
― Henry David Thoreau
― Henry David Thoreau
“If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law”
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Now the law of nonviolence says that violence should be resisted not by counter-violence but by nonviolence. This I do by breaking the law and by peacefully submitting to arrest and imprisonment.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace and War 1942-49
― Mahatma Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace and War 1942-49
“I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
― Martin Luther King Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights.”
― Tariq Ali, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad
― Tariq Ali, The Obama Syndrome: Surrender at Home, War Abroad
“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
― Mahatma Gandhi
“Civil disobedience, as I put it to the audience, was not the problem, despite the warnings of some that it threatened social stability, that it led to anarchy. The greatest danger, I argued, was civil obedience, the submission of individual conscience to governmental authority. Such obedience led to the horrors we saw in totalitarian states, and in liberal states it led to the public's acceptance of war whenever the so-called democratic government decided on it...
In such a world, the rule of law maintains things as they are. Therefore, to begin the process of change, to stop a war, to establish justice, it may be necessary to break the law, to commit acts of civil disobedience, as Southern black did, as antiwar protesters did.”
― Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
In such a world, the rule of law maintains things as they are. Therefore, to begin the process of change, to stop a war, to establish justice, it may be necessary to break the law, to commit acts of civil disobedience, as Southern black did, as antiwar protesters did.”
― Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
“If you're not going to use your free speech to criticize your own government, then what the hell is the point of having it?”
― Michel Templet
― Michel Templet
“If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
― Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
“But now what? Why, now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into the very dirt! And why? Because, he says, I forgot who I was; he says, to teach me that I am only a nigger! After all, and last of all, he comes between me and my wife, and says I shall give her up, and live with another woman. And all this your laws give him power to do, in spite of God or man. Mr. Wilson, look at it! There isn't one of all these things, that have broken the hearts of my mother and my sister, and my wife and myself, but your laws allow, and give every man power to do, in Kentucky, and none can say to him nay! Do you call these the laws of my country? Sir, I haven't any country, anymore than I have any father. But I'm going to have one. I don't want anything of your country, except to be let alone,--to go peaceably out of it; and when I get to Canada, where the laws will own me and protect me, that shall be my country, and its laws I will obey. But if any man tries to stop me, let him take care, for I am desperate. I'll fight for my liberty to the last breath I breathe. You say your fathers did it; if it was right for them, it is right for me!”
― Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
― Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin
“if we don’t rebel, if we’re not physically in an active rebellion, then it’s spiritual death.”
― Chris Hedges
― Chris Hedges
“New concepts should be introduced by the power of imagery.”
― Douglas Coop
― Douglas Coop
“There is a heady sense of manhood that comes from advancing from apathy to commitment, from timidity to courage, from passivity to aggressiveness. There is an intoxication that comes from standing up to the police at last.”
― David T. Dellinger, From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter
― David T. Dellinger, From Yale to Jail: The Life Story of a Moral Dissenter
“The question deserves to be asked: Is hating one's nation really such a bad thing? Or perhaps more importantly, after the crimes our government has committed, what moral self-respecting person can truly love this nation?”
― Michel Templet
― Michel Templet
“A dog can bite you but you must not bite the dog! Your every movement in life must be peaceful; otherwise you lose your ethical superiority! Nonviolent civil disobedience is a genius; no power can beat it; use it when necessary!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan
― Mehmet Murat ildan
“I HEARTILY ACCEPT THE motto, --"That government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to”
― Henry David Thoreau
― Henry David Thoreau
“If patriotism were defined, not as blind obedience to government, not as submissive worship to flags and anthems, but rather as love of one's country, one's fellow citizens (all over the world), as loyalty to the principles of justice and democracy, then patriotism would require us to disobey our government, when it violated those principles.”
― Howard Zinn, The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy
― Howard Zinn, The Zinn Reader: Writings on Disobedience and Democracy
“We need in every bay and community a group of angelic troublemakers.”
― Bayard Rustin
― Bayard Rustin
“If you accept a democratic system, this means that you are prepared to put up with those of its workings, legislative or administrative, with which you do not agree as well as with those that meet with your concurrence. This willingness to accept, in principle, the workings of a system based on the will of the majority, even when you yourself are in the minority, is simply the essence of democracy. Without it there could be no system of representative self-government at all. When you attempt to alter the workings of the system by means of violence or civil disobedience, this, it seems to me, can have only one of two implications; either you do not believe in democracy at all and consider that society ought to be governed by enlightened minorities such as the one to which you, of course, belong; or you consider that the present system is so imperfect that it is not truly representative, that it no longer serves adequately as a vehicle for the will of the majority, and that this leaves to the unsatisfied no adequate means of self-expression other than the primitive one of calling attention to themselves and their emotions by mass demonstrations and mass defiance of established authority.”
― George F. Kennan
― George F. Kennan
“We live in a nation where education and free thought are tantamount to treason, and I have to ask, under these circumstances, is treason such a bad thing?”
― Michel Templet
― Michel Templet
“Another site of Leftist struggle [other than Detroit] that has parallels to New Orleans: Palestine. From the central role of displacement to the ways in which culture and community serve as tools of resistance, there are illuminating comparisons to be made between these two otherwise very different places.
In the New Orleans Black community, death is commemorated as a public ritual (it's often an occasion for a street party), and the deceased are often also memorialized on t-shirts featuring their photos embellished with designs that celebrate their lives. Worn by most of the deceased's friends and family, these t-shirts remind me of the martyr posters in Palestine, which also feature a photo and design to memorialize the person who has passed on. In Palestine, the poster's subjects are anyone who has been killed by the occupation, whether a sick child who died at a checkpoint or an armed fighter killed in combat. In New Orleans, anyone with family and friends can be memorialized on a t-shift. But a sad truth of life in poor communities is that too many of those celebrate on t-shirts lost their lives to violence. For both New Orleans and Palestine, outsiders often think that people have become so accustomed to death by violence that it has become trivialized by t-shirts and posters.
While it's true that these traditions wouldn't manifest in these particular ways if either population had more opportunities for long lives and death from natural causes, it's also far from trivial to find ways to celebrate a life. Outsiders tend to demonize those killed--especially the young men--in both cultures as thugs, killers, or terrorists whose lives shouldn't be memorialized in this way, or at all. But the people carrying on these traditions emphasize that every person is a son or daughter of someone, and every death should be mourned, every life celebrated.”
― Jordan Flaherty, Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six
In the New Orleans Black community, death is commemorated as a public ritual (it's often an occasion for a street party), and the deceased are often also memorialized on t-shirts featuring their photos embellished with designs that celebrate their lives. Worn by most of the deceased's friends and family, these t-shirts remind me of the martyr posters in Palestine, which also feature a photo and design to memorialize the person who has passed on. In Palestine, the poster's subjects are anyone who has been killed by the occupation, whether a sick child who died at a checkpoint or an armed fighter killed in combat. In New Orleans, anyone with family and friends can be memorialized on a t-shift. But a sad truth of life in poor communities is that too many of those celebrate on t-shirts lost their lives to violence. For both New Orleans and Palestine, outsiders often think that people have become so accustomed to death by violence that it has become trivialized by t-shirts and posters.
While it's true that these traditions wouldn't manifest in these particular ways if either population had more opportunities for long lives and death from natural causes, it's also far from trivial to find ways to celebrate a life. Outsiders tend to demonize those killed--especially the young men--in both cultures as thugs, killers, or terrorists whose lives shouldn't be memorialized in this way, or at all. But the people carrying on these traditions emphasize that every person is a son or daughter of someone, and every death should be mourned, every life celebrated.”
― Jordan Flaherty, Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six
“That we should obey laws whether good or bad is a new-fangled notion. There was no such thing in former days. The people disregarded those laws they did not like and suffered the penalties for their breach.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi
― Mahatma Gandhi, The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi
“One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail
― Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail
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