Individuals bearing witness do not change history; only movements that understand their social world can do that. Movements encourage solidarity; the moral individual is likely, all unwittingly, to do the opposite, for bearing witness is lonely: it breeds feelings of superiority and moralistic anger against those who are not doing the same.

This is an atrocity that happens and my hope is the piece pulls people in to be witnesses of what they are denying.

The attack on truth and language makes the atrocities possible. If you can erase what has happened, silence the witnesses, convince people of the merit of supporting a lie, if you can terrorize people into silence, obedience, lies, if you can make the task of determining what is true so impossible or dangerous they stop trying, you can perpetuate your crimes.

The motivation that drives the commission of the worst human atrocities is an inevitable social consequence of the refusal of the self-conscious individual to make the sacrifices appropriate to establishing a harmonious life, and their consequent degeneration into a kind of murderous and resentment-filled rage propagating endlessly through its variations in society until everything comes to an end.

We live in a very interconnected workld and only spreading freedom can make our world safer. And if political leaders will not take this historical responsibility, people can take this historical responsibility. All of my experience as a human rights defender has showed me that ordinary people have much greater impact than they can even imagine. And massive mobilization of ordinary people around the world can change the world’s history much more quickly than any UN intervention.

Those who can make people believe absurdities, can make people commit atrocities.

"Finally, our studies of the preparatory stages of all revolutions bring us to the conclusion that not a single revolution has originated in parliaments or in any other representative assembly. All began with the people. And no revolution has appeared in full armor — born, like Minerva out of the head of Jupiter, in a day. They all had their periods of incubation, during which the masses were very slowly becoming imbued with the revolutionary spirit, grew bolder, commenced to hope, and step by step emerged from their former indifference and resignation. And the awakening of the revolutionary spirit always took place in such a manner that, at first, single individuals, deeply moved by the existing state of things, protested against it, one by one. Many perished — "uselessly," the arm-chair critic would say; but the indifference of society was shaken by these progenitors. The dullest and most narrow-minded people were compelled to reflect, — Why should men, young, sincere, and full of strength, sacrifice their lives in this way? It was impossible to remain indifferent — it was necessary to take a stand, for or against: thought was awakening. Then, little by little, small groups came to be imbued with the same spirit of revolt; they also rebelled — sometimes in the hope of local success — in strikes or in small revolts against some official whom they disliked, or in order to get food for their hungry children, but frequently also without any hope of success: simply because the conditions grew unbearable. Not one, or two, or tens, but hundreds of similar revolts have preceded and must precede every revolution."

It is a known fact that almost all revolutions have been the work, not of the common people, but of the aristocracy, and especially of the decayed part of the aristocracy.

Crimes of passion are easily detected and have minimal effect on the public consciousness. Scientifically calculated acts of revolution are not so easily traced and have immense effect on the public mind. Compare: a string of unnamed "racially mixed couples" or Michael Jackson and Brooke Shields. Who could fail to get that message? How could they black it out or twist its meaning? What a tremendous polarizing effect it would have over the entire country - either loathing or adulation. The stuff that full-blown civil wars are made of.
Symbolism, the more basic the better, is the only thing that can penetrate the mass mind in this mass-opinion society. And, in this celebrity-minded society also, the higher the target, the better. This is only elemental cause-and-effect. I simply say that if these comrades are going to sacrifice their liberty and lives, DO IT IN THE MOST EFFECTIVE MANNER POSSIBLE!
Whether to bother? Naturally, if you're going to do it, do it right. I firmly believe that enough of it, aimed correctly and within a short enough time-frame, would force the situation out of the doldrums and into a state of revolution. There are those who'd disagree and the author of the magnificent Turner Diaries is one. Earl Turner and his "Organization" found, much to their dismay, after super-human (by present standards) sacrifices by their fanatical members, that the killing of System functionaries, of sleaze-ball System "super heroes" and the tactics of general terrorism designed to show the populace their "gods" were not invulnerable and that the Pig System was not all-powerful, were not producing the results desired. The System was finding ample replacement parts and not nearly enough of the population was getting the idea and joining in. Instead, the "Organization" had to shift its strategy from one of killing System leaders and celebrities, to one of crippling the System itself, of causing it to shut down and thereby forcing the population to cease their support of it.
A third option, of course, is to withdraw totally from it all and dig in as deeply as possible with the expectation of surviving once all the rest has been blown away and has blown over. Certainly however, nothing is going to stop those who reach a point in time when they've had too much and just start shooting. What we have to strive for is to increase the instances of those who bide their time and sell their lives dearly, at great cost to the Enemy and at great service to their Race. We have to train ourselves to be able to knock out the functions of the System itself for we are at WAR against a most foul occupier of our land. And, certainly, some of us will have to disappear, dig deep and prepare to HANG ON when absolute hell does finally break loose. A combination of all these levels will be required before the revolution can begin in full.
Decide your proper course now. Prepare for it so you'll be able to do maximum justice to yourself and your Cause. Train for it so you'll maximize your chances of success and survival. We may well think silently to ourselves when confronted by examples of national disgrace and decay as Michael Jackson and Brooke Shields, "She can take that nigger to hell with her!", but we do not let it go at that. If you're not going to be the one to do something about that, then you'd better have plans underway to fulfill one of the other callings the revolution demands.

I would encourage people to look around them in their community and find an organization that is doing something that they believe in, even if that organization has only five people, or ten people, or twenty people, or a hundred people. And to look at history and understand that when change takes place it takes place as a result of large, large numbers of people doing little things unbeknownst to one another. And that history is very important for people to not get discouraged. Because if you look at history you see the way the labor movement was able to achieve things when it stuck to its guns, when it organized, when it resisted. Black people were able to change their condition when they fought back and when they organized. Same thing with the movement against the war in Vietnam, and the women's movement. History is instructive. And what it suggests to people is that even if they do little things, if they walk on the picket line, if they join a vigil, if they write a letter to their local newspaper. Anything they do, however small, becomes part of a much, much larger sort of flow of energy. And when enough people do enough things, however small they are, then change takes place.

History has shown us, that you can't allow the mass extermination of people, and just sit by and watch it happen.

Never before in the history of man has a race of people switched rapidly from being much pitied victims to barbarous murderers. Never before has a race of people generated so much sympathy around the world and then, in the space of a lifetime, succeeded in turning that sympathy into hatred and revulsion.

The most indubitable feature of a revolution is the direct interference of the masses in historical events. In ordinary times the state, be it monarchical or democratic, elevates itself above the nation, and history is made by specialists in that line of business - kings, ministers, bureaucrats, parliamentarians, journalists. But at those crucial moments when the old order becomes no longer endurable to the masses, they break over the barriers excluding them from the political arena, sweep aside their traditional representatives, and create by their own interference the initial groundwork for a new régime. Whether this is good or bad we leave to the judgement of moralists. We ourselves will take the facts as they are given by the objective course of development. The history of a revolution is for us first of all a history of the forcible entrance of the masses into the realm of rulership over their own destiny.

I think that too many people are thrown into history, but remain accomplices, which means [they] are silent. I think what I like to say, and this is something I am the most proud of, that I made the choice to become a witness of those times. I made an absolutely conscious choice that I was going to be that, and I continue to look at the world with the same passion and commitment for social justice as when I was 17 years old, and sometimes people cannot believe it. They think I am this crazy idealist, but I am the same, even more now.