72 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
72 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
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Emma Goldman (1869-1940)
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Woman can give suffrage or the ballot no new quality, nor can she
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receive anything from it that will enhance her own quality. Her
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development, her freedom, her independence, must come from and
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through herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality and
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not as a sex commodity. Second, by refusing the right of anyone
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over her body; by refusing to bear children, unless she wants them;
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by refusing to be a servant to God, the State, society, the
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husband, the family, etc., by making her life simpler but deeper
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and richer. That is, by trying to learn the meaning and substance
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of life in all its complexities, by freeing herself from the fear
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of public opinion and public condemnation. Only that, and not the
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ballot, will set woman free, will make her a force hitherto unknown
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in the world, a force for real love, for peace, for harmony; a
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force of divine fire, of life giving; a creator of free men and women.
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- * -
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The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted by
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man-made (sic) law; the theory that all forms of government rest on
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violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as unnecessary.
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- * -
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Poor Human Nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy
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name! Every fool, from King to policeman, from the flathead parson
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to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively
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of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan the more definite
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his insistence on the wickedness and the weaknesses of human nature.
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Yet how can anyone speak of it today, with every soul in a prison,
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with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?
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- * -
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If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution.
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- * -
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The most violent element in society is ignorance.
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- * -
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[Anarchism's] ...economic arrangements must consist of
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voluntary productive and distributive associations,
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gradually developing into free communism, as the best
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means of producing with the least waste of human energy.
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_Anarchism: What it Really Stands For_
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Anarchism, at least as I understand it, leaves
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posterity free to develop its own particular
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systems, in harmony with its needs. Our most
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vivid imagination cannot forsee the potentialities
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of a race set free from external restraints. How,
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then can anyone assume to map out a line of conduct
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for those to come? We, who pay dearly for every
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breath of fresh air, must guard against the tendency
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to fetter the future. If we succeed in clearing the
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soil from the rubbish of the past and the present,
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we will leave to posterity the greatest and safest
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heritage of all ages.
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EMMA GOLDMAN, _Anarchism_, 1910
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