Remember when your High School History teacher said "The course of human events changes because of the deeds of great men"?. Well the bitch was lying. Fuck Caesar, fuck Lincoln, fuck Mahatma Gandhi. The world keeps turning because of me and you: the anonymous. Revolutions start because people don't have enough bread. Wars start over a game of Checkers.
“A Game of Checkers” · Season 1, Episode 8
In this episode: Augustus Hill (2), Vernon Schillinger (2), Tobias Beecher (1), Tim McManus (1), Kareem Said (1)
I had a visit from my sons. They're almost out of their teens now, almost men. Yesterday my boys sat there across from me ranting and raging. They were both fucked up on drugs. They know I hate drugs, that I'm in here because I hate drugs and because I love them. I got about three months until I'm up for parole. All I want to do is get out of here, be there for them. Try to help my kids. That's all.
If I put you back into Em City, you'll kill Beecher.
If I wanted him dead, he'd already be dead.
You say you've changed. Why should I believe you?
(smiles) Trust me, McManus. You lose an eye, you get kicked in the balls, you get a face full of shit, you become a different man.
I don't want any trouble.
No, of course not! You get into a fight, you fuck up your parole! And I hear that for the next few months, you're gonna be a good little boy so you can get out of Oz and save your two sons. You know, I think that's great. But what I'm wondering is: what if Vern never gets out? What if, as he comes up for parole, he gets into a brawl? A knock-down drag-out with his old roomie! What if, every time he comes up for parole, Vern gets into some ugly incident and has to serve his entire sentence? And his two sons, they become monsters. (laughs) That's just what I'm wondering about.
Now, I am not saying that the men in Oz are innocent. I am saying they are not here because of the crimes that they committed, but because of the color of their skin, the lack of education, the fact that they are poor. You see, this riot is not about getting smoking back, conjugal rights, it's not even about life in prison. It's about society taking responsibility. It's about the whole horrid judicial system. And we don't need more prisons, bigger prisons, better prisons. We need better justice. Now what can you do about that?
Yeah, who cares who lives or dies in prison? We read their names in the morning paper and they mean nothing to us! They're faceless! Truth is we don't want to put a face on them! We don't want to know who they really are because then it might hit too close to home. And home is what it's all about, right? Making a home no matter where you are, no matter who you are. At the end of the day, all of us need somewhere to rest. Somewhere to lay our bones. Even if it's in a land called Oz. Yeah, like Dorothy says when she wakes up in her own bed back at Aunt Em's: "There's no place like home. There's no fucking place like home!"
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Oz pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.