Trevor Paglen Quotes

Rebellions broke out, from the full-scale political revolution of Dorr’s rebellion in Rhode Island to urban violence and protest, often by out of work whites taking out their anger on African Americans or Irish Americans. In response, leaders had to come to terms with the role of force in a democracy.

Stark inequality, poverty, and unemployment are driving increased social unrest and, consequently, social and economic risk. Environmental deterioration may well intensify social inequality.

As inequality grows, the basic bonds of social fraternity are fraying - as we discussed in regard to Occupy Wall Street. As tensions increase, people will become more willing to engage in protest. But that moment is not now.

Without an advocate for the poor, without a new state of mind in America, the country lies on the brink of anarchy.

The surface of American life looks smooth, prosperous, peaceful. But underneath, fault-line shifts in family and work life have led us into what some have called 'advanced insecurity.'

The middle class, that prisoner of the barbarian 20th century.

Capitalism is so successful economically that it creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest.

Human agitation, with all the vulgarity of needs small and great, with its flagrant disgust for the police who repress it … that alone determines revolutionary mental forms

‘Money can't buy happiness.’ That's just a lie we tell poor people to keep them from rioting in the streets

It is a great law of social development that the movement from slavery to freedom is also a movement from security to insecurity of maintenance.

…of all the causes of seditions and changes in the Republic, there is none greater than the excessive wealth of a few subjects, and the extreme poverty of the majority.

Contemporary capitalist polities need to accept that inequality and insecurity will continue to be the inevitable results of market operations and find ways to shield citizens from their consequences—while somehow still preserving the dynamism that produces capitalism’s vast economic and cultural benefits in the first place.

For me, the watershed was Hurricane Katrina. If that didn't get people out on the streets, then what will?

The fact is that the rich are getting richer while the poor are being left behind. Women remain under-represented in boardrooms and under-engaged in the global workforce. Environmental change is leaving the poorest countries vulnerable. Voters are becoming more and more politically polarised and partisan.

The world is rapidly changing - and with it, we face new global challenges.

As a kid growing up in public housing, I didn't always get show up at the first day of school with a new backpack full of supplies. Having the school supplies I needed would have made me feel more prepared and ready to learn.

You have this response of angry young people, with a war going on in Vietnam, a poverty program that was insufficient, and police brutality.

L.A. burns, and so many other cities smolder, waiting for the hose that will flood gasoline over the coals, and we listen to politicians who fuel our hate and our narrow views and tell us it's simply a matter of getting back to basics while they sit in their beachfront properties and listen to the surf so they won't have to hear the screams of the drowning.

We are sitting on many powder kegs. Whether it's Ferguson, or St Louis, or like the other night, or Baltimore. Or different parts of Chicago.

When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty & shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up & express their anger & frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard.

Many who have nothing opposed to the few who have everything, and as long as these disparities remain, as long as these distances remain between people and forces, I think we'll be in a perpetual state of upheaval.

This country's going to have a revolution if something doesn't happen the haves and have - nots.

It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard.

Poverty is one of them kind of misfortunes that we all of us dread but none of us pity.

To trust people is a luxury in which only the wealthy can indulge; the poor cannot afford it.