Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by William Powers

Quote by William Powers

Work

Whispering in the Giant's Ear: A Frontline Chronicle from Bolivia's War on Globalization

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

William Powers

Browse famous quotes and profile details for William Powers. more

You May Also Like

“What's the story here, Karl?' Kevin asked. 'Hard as it is to believe, these people are slaves,' Karl explained. 'Slaves?' I asked skeptically. 'Well, you might not call them that but they are virtual slaves. They don't receive any pay. They are dealt with harshly. They don't have anywhere else to go' 'What about the government? Don't they help?' Marcus asked. 'The government?' Karl laughed. 'The government my eye! Those generals stay in power several years, make a bundle smuggling drugs, and once they're millionaires, they retire. Some other lousy generals take over from them, and history repeats itself. You think they give a shit what happens to a few lousy Indians?”

Social JusticeSlaveryCorruptionNative AmericansBoliviaAmazonia
Book:Jungle: A Harrowing True Story of Survival
Create image

“The attitude toward the forest people forms an important caveat to Ashoka's espousal of the principle of nonviolence. The fact that the warning to the forest people appears in an inscription that deals with the evils of warfare and the replacement of the goal of military victory by that of dhammic victory suggests that the armed insur- gency of the forest people posed a major political challenge to the Maurya state, one that could not be ignored even by an otherwise pacifist emperor. The king who repents on the devastation of war, declares that he has abjured it, and urges his successors to do like- wise, brandishes his power in front of the forest people and warns them to fall in line if they want to avoid his wrath.”

AshokaForest People
Book:Political Violence in Ancient India
Create image

“The few survivors were hounded into an evangelical concentration camp, where well-meaning but not particularly open-minded missionaries tried to indoctrinate them in the ways of the modern world. The Tasmanians were instructed in reading and writing, Christianity and various ‘productive skills’ such as sewing clothes and farming. But they refused to learn. They became ever more melancholic, stopped having children, lost all interest in life, and finally chose the only escape route from the modern world of science and progress – death.”

Tasmania
Book:Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Create image