Judith Durham Quotes

The common people have no history: persecuted by the present, they cannot think of preserving the memory of the past.

The state is nothing but an instrument of opression of one class by another - no less so in a democratic republic than in a monarchy.

The individual mirrors in his individuation the preordained social laws of exploitation, however mediated.

In a change of masters the poor change nothing except their master's name.

The oppressed never free themselves - they do not have the necessary strengths.

People are only mean when they're threatened, and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does.

Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside.

Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't, why should we? They talk about people and the proletariat; I talk about the suckers and the mugs. It's the same thing.

As a Londoner I was able to see how the world of power and money cast its shadow on those who failed.

Why do you all push us around?

Many citizens see all the leadership of these large institutions together in a conspiracy against them rather than in any adversary relationship with each other.

To hold a people in oppression you have to convince them first that they are supposed to be oppressed.

When you come from desperate poverty, and that's exactly what I come from, you know that nonsenses are not to be tolerated. I'm not sure who gains from chaos, but I know it's not the poor folks in the council flats. The politics of vindictiveness is never, ever anything like a solution.

Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

I've always stood on one fact - that all over the world, there are only two things, the Establishment and the poor people. The poor people are a massive majority and across the world they are exploited in different kinds of ways. The Establishment depends on exploiting raw materials and the poor.

Revolution applies a local anaesthetic to one class of society and operates on the other.

The real problem is that the way that power is given out in our society pits us against each other.

If you've ever felt oppressed on any level, there's something from 'The Wire' that you can take and identify with.

You've got a beautiful country with so many beautiful people and so many beautiful things happening and stuff like that lets it down. I feel sad for them.

The politics of exclusion is the politics of defeat.

... this is a grievance society and that if you want to get into its leading edge you pretty well have to be a victim.

How a minority, reaching majority, seizing authority, hates a minority.

Through the history of the world there have always been exploiters and exploited. There always will be ... because the great mass of men are made by nature to be slaves, they are unfit to control themselves, and for their own good need masters.

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.