The widespread abuse of prisoners is a virtually foolproof indication that politicians are trying to impose a… — Naomi Klein
The widespread abuse of prisoners is a virtually foolproof indication that politicians are trying to impose a system--whether political, religious or economic--that is rejected by large numbers of the people they are ruling. Just as ecologists define ecosystems by the presence of certain "indicator species" of plants and birds, torture is an indicator species of a regime that is engaged in a deeply anti-democratic project, even if that regime happens to have come to power through elections. (p125)
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It was this wave of reforms that turned China into the sweatshop of the world, the preferred location for contract factories for virtually every multinational on the planet. No country offered more lucrative conditions than China: low taxes and tariffs, corruptible officials and, most of all, a plentiful low-wage workforce that, for many years, would be unwilling to risk demanding decent salaries or the most basic workplace protections for fear of the most violent reprisals. (p190)
When it comes to paying contractors, the sky is the limit; when it comes to financing the basic functions of the state, the coffers are empty. (p409)
...extreme violence has a way of preventing us from seeing the interests it serves. In a way, it had happened already to the antiwar movement.
p. 327
