Chelsea Manning

“Our nation has had similar dark moments for the virtues of democracy -- the Trail of Tears, the Dred Scott decision, McCarthyism, and the Japanese-American internment camps -- to mention a few. I am confident that many of the actions since 9/11 will one day be viewed in a similar light.”

“Patriotism is often the cry extolled when morally questionable acts are advocated by those in power. When these cries of patriotism drown out any logically based dissension, it is usually the American soldier that is given the order to carry out some ill-conceived mission.”

“In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture. We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by the Iraqi government. And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on terror.”

“The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of a concern for my country and the world that we live in. Since the tragic events of 9/11, our country has been at war. We've been at war with an enemy that chooses not to meet us on any traditional battlefield, and due to this fact we've had to alter our methods of combating the risks posed to us and our way of life.”

“This is the thing about the right, is that they just wanna win. If there's anything I've learned from being around people on the far-right my entire life, it is that they just wanna own libs. They just want their enemies to lose. And if that means killing themselves in the process, then yeah, let's go!”

“It turns out that being on the left and having actual principles isn't very profitable.”

“It's not like there's anything wrong with the lockdowns, right, and I wanna be clear about that. That's come up before, it's like, no, the lockdowns were necessary for public health reasons, 'cause we had a mass casualty event hit the United States and we needed to try to keep people safe. But the impact of being locked down for a significant chunk of time is going to produce an added layer of that trauma. And we just kind of have to take care of ourselves and be gentle with ourselves.”

“The most violent people in prison, time and time again, were the prison staff. Always. There was never an exception, right? [...] When you have the state, you know, to back you up, and you have state immunity, and you have authority over another person, like, almost absolute authority over another person, and you've stripped the other person's credibility away, then you can just do whatever you want. And the things that they do are just cruel. You know, sure, not every prison guard is cruel, but every single one of them looks the other way at the ones who are and backs up the ones who are.”

“I don't cooperate with grand juries or the police ever. That's just my standard policy.”