Cannery Row
Press
Where Words Defy the World
Rebels With a Clause...
Whenever they's a fight so hungry people
can eat, I'll be there. Whenever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there . . . .
I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an' I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready.
An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise
an' live in the houses they build-why,
I'll be there. "Tom Joad”
-John Steinbeck
Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive
it is to be poor. -James Baldwin
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids
rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges,
to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread. -Anatole France
We did not hesitate to call our movement an army. But it was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, no currency but its conscience.
-Martin Luther King Jr.
A balance between sustainable ecology and sustainable human life, on the one hand, and the unfettered drive for profit, on the other,
is just an oxymoron. - David Suzuki
We live in a culture where people are more offended by ‘swear’ words and middle fingers than they are by famine, warfare and the destruction of our environment.
- Unknown
A good head and a good heart are always
a formidable combination.
- Nelson Mandela
If you are neutral in situations of injustice,
you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral,
the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
-Desmond Tutu
Poverty is the worst form of violence. -Mahatma Gandhi
No matter that patriotism is
too often the refuge of scoundrels.
Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
-Barbara Ehrenreich
Human salvation lies in the hands
of the creatively maladjusted.
-Martin Luther King Jr.
I see a peaceful world in which we have
finally come to terms with the reality that
our survival depends on abandoning conflict, working for peace, sharing what we have
and living within our ecological means.
- Elizabeth May
In a room where people unanimously
maintain a conspiracy of silence,
one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
- Czesław Miłosz
Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice
and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.
- William Faulkner
Contrary to today's stereotypes,
racists do not always chew tobacco and
drive pickup trucks with gun racks. They wear silk shirts, treat women as possessions, and talk about human rights at cocktail parties far from communities of people of color. The men in pickup trucks are just as likely to be warm and caring as the high-minded liberals are
to be racists.
-Wilma Mankiller
Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.
The question is not if we will be extremists,
but what kind of extremists we will be.
The nation and the world
are in dire need of creative extremists.
-Martin Luther King Jr
It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. - Ansel Adams
The woman is the foundation on which nations are built. She is the heart of her nation. If that heart is weak, the people are weak. If her heart is strong and her mind is clear, then the nation is strong and knows its purpose. The woman is the center of everything.
Nothing strengthens authority so much
as silence.
- Leonardo da Vinci
You do not win by struggling to the top
of a caste system, you win by refusing
to be trapped within one at all.
- Naomi Wolf
People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true.
No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.
-Rosa Parks
When the last tree is cut, the last fish killed and
the last river poisoned, then you will see
that you can't eat money.
- John May
If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come
because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us walk together... - Lilla Watson
The most dangerous creation of any society
is the man who has nothing to lose.
-James Baldwin
It was a grand opportunity for the low whites, who had no negroes of their own to scourge. They exulted in such a chance to exercise
a little brief authority, and show
their subserviency to the slaveholders;
not reflecting that the power
which trampled on the colored people
also kept themselves in poverty,
ignorance and moral degradation.
-Harriet Ann Jacobs
Earth provides enough to satisfy
every man's needs, but not every man's greed.
-Mahatma Gandhi
For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.
The sea rises, the light fails, lovers
cling to each other, and children cling to us.
The moment we cease to hold each other,
the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.
- James Baldwin
There are always risks in challenging
excessive police power,
but the risks of not challenging it
are more dangerous, even fatal. -Hunter S. Thompson
At the street corner, a one-storey house built of freestone, but repulsively decrepit and filthy seemed to command the entrance, like a gaol. And here, indeed, lived La Méchain, like a vigilant proprietess, ever on the watch, exploiting in person her little population of starving tenants. - Émile Zola
Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. - Aristotle
It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it,
and it's usually crucifixion. -John Steinbeck
Diversity is not about how we differ.
Diversity is about embracing
one another’s uniqueness.
- Ola Joseph
Do I really want to be integrated
into a burning house? - James Baldwin
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.
- Alice Walker
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food,
they call me a communist. - Dom Helder Camara
And the little screaming fact that sounds
through all history: repression works only to
strengthen and knit the repressed.
The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased
and every effort of the great owners
was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt so that it might be stamped out.
The changing economy was ignored,
plans for the change ignored; and
only means to destroy revolt were considered,
while the causes of revolt went on.
- John Steinbeck