Susan Rosenberg

“We are not terrorists. We're not criminals, we're not motivated by money, we're not motivated by greed. Nor are we simply nice kids gone wrong. We're deeply committed to a different kind of society and a different world. I think that is something very hard to understand for a lot of people.”

“At the time it seemed like there was a loosening of culture, there was a counterculture, there was a radicalization. I think we totally misread what was really going on in the world, that somehow a small group of people could mobilize a larger group of people.”

“First as a peace activist in the late '60s, then as a political activist in the '70s, and then in joining the armed clandestine resistance movement that was developing in the '80s, I am guilty of revolutionary and anti-imperialist resistance.”

“The war against the Black Liberation movement by the FBI/U.S. government was most influential for me in seeing the necessity for armed self-defense.”

“The U.S. government does not recognize the existence of political prisoners in our country. The identity of political prisoners is concealed and, consequently, their right to justice is denied.”

“Seeing the B-52s dropped from planes, watching the burning of civilians with Agent Orange, reading about the incarceration of Vietnamese militants in cages only big enough for tigers made me furious.”

“I believed that one had to stop the machinery of war.”

“The use of violence by individuals... is not a position that I support or would ever want to be in again.”

“I took responsibility for the illegal actions, the potential for violence in my past actions, which I regret.”

“I've done everything I know in my heart on every level to take responsibility for what I think I have to. I'm not going to take responsibility for something the government thinks that I should because they think I should.”

“I supported the right of oppressed people to armed struggle. That didn't mean I did it.”

“We are revolutionary anti-imperialist resistance fighters.”

“These chains are not going to stop me.”

“It was an extreme time, in a certain sense... I was totally and profoundly influenced by the revolutionary movements of the '60s and '70s.”

“I have been a revolutionary for much of my life.”

“I spent 11 years in isolation units, solitary confinement... in the hardest places for women.”

“It is not a crime to build revolutionary resistance against the single greatest enemy of the people of the world: U.S. imperialism.”

“The criminal activities I was involved in, I think that they were wrong and that they were dangerous.”

“Political prisoners are important to support because we are in prison for explicitly social/political/progressive goals. Our lack of freedom does affect how free you are; If we can be violated, so can you.”

“I continue to feel it was solidarity in the prison that made living in prison a different kind of community, and I began a life of service.”