#oppress

It is impossible to enslave, mentally or socially, a bible-reading people. The principles of the bible are the groundwork of human freedom. ↗

— Horace Greeley

#freedom #god #law #liberty #oppression

The Government of the absolute majority instead of the Government of the people is but the Government of the strongest interests; and when not efficiently checked, it is the most tyrannical and oppressive that can be devised. ↗

— John C. Calhoun

#checked #devised #efficiently #government #instead

The ability of Americans to toss off oppressive characters is the most rewarding aspect, to me, of U.S. history. ↗

— Norman Corwin

#aspect #characters #history #me #most

BLOODY LIPS The bloody wound Of the gladiator Gurgles out life's end. The cries of acclimations from the stands Fill the sky with raging tigers. Waving their arms about to incite the masses The aging notables add an air of dignity to the arena. Making their separate entries they K N E E L over the still-warm corpses Of the young. Their withered lips they pose Upon the fresh flowing wounds And, to prolong their lives – so they believe, Suck, ravenously suck out the blood, blood, blood. Fresh blood from the sun Flowing into filthy veins As into sewage pipes, And thus the Heart of the Nation is abandoned. ↗

— Visar Zhiti

#bloodsport #gladiators #oppression #tyranny #vampire

As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people's struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism. ↗

— Angela Davis

#against #american #black #bound #fight

I think the only choice that will enable us to hold to our vision... is one that abandons the concept of naming enemies and adopts a concept familiar to the nonviolent tradition: naming behavior that is oppressive. ↗

— Barbara Deming

#choice #concept #enable #familiar #hold

The severest trial of oppression is the constant outrage which one suffers at the thought of the oppressor. What Jesus discovered was how to avoid the inner devastations. His technique was to practice the opposite emotion... [a man] may not get his freedom or possessions back, but he's less miserable. It's a difficult lesson. ↗

— B.F. Skinner

#oppression #freedom

In every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the People." (Canton, OH, Anti-War Speech, June 16, 1918) ↗

— Eugene Victor Debs

#exploitation #fundamentalism #oppression #patriotism #religion

By dismantling the narrow politics of racial identity and selective self-interest, by going beyond 'black' and 'white,' we may construct new values, new institutions and new visions of an America beyond traditional racial categories and racial oppression. ↗

— Manning Marable

#beyond #black #categories #construct #dismantling

A stab had clearly once been made at de-uglifying these public spaces by painting a corridor a jaunty yellow. This was because, it turned out, babies come here to have their brains tested and someone thought the yellow might calm them. But I couldn’t see how. Such was the oppressive ugliness of this building it would have been like sticking a red nose on a cadaver and calling it Ronald McDonald. ↗

— Jon Ronson

#buildings #cadaver #humor #oppression #oppressive