I'm more worried about the professional criminals in our banks, our courtrooms, our corporate HQs, our prisons our schools and our Congress. I'm not so worried about the working-class crooks on my street.
My view is:
"Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and
while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
-Eugene V. Debs
http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/works/1918/court.htm"Your Honor, I have stated in this court that I am opposed to the social system in which we live; that I believe in a fundamental change—but if possible by peaceable and orderly means…"
"Your Honor, I ask no mercy and I plead for no immunity. I realize that finally the right must prevail. I never so clearly comprehended as now the great struggle between the powers of greed and exploitation on the one hand and upon the other the rising hosts of industrial freedom and social justice."
-also Mr. Debs.
"Something was in Debs, seemingly, that did not come out unless you saw him. I'm told that even those speeches of his which seem to any reader indifferent stuff, took on vitality from his presence. A hard-bitten socialist told me once, "Gene Debs is the only one who can get away with the sentimental flummery that's been tied onto Socialism in this country. Pretty nearly always it gives me a swift pain to go around to meetings and have people call me 'comrade.' That's a lot of bunk. But the funny part of it is that when Debs says 'comrade' it is all right. He means it. That old man with the burning eyes actually believes that there can be such a thing as the brotherhood of man. And that's not the funniest part of it.
As long as he's around I believe it myself."
-Heywood Broun, quoting an unnamed socialist in It Seems To Me
Newsnight: Paxman vs Brand Full Interview
