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41 " Medicine becomes pragmatic solidarity when it is delivered with dignity to the destitute sick... By including social and economic rights in the struggle for human rights, we help to protect those most likely to suffer the insults of structural violence. "
― Paul Farmer , Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor
42 " Some of the problems born of structural violence are so large that they have paralyzed many who want to do the right thing. But we can find more resources, and we can find them without sacrificing our independence and discernment. "
43 " There is a widespread belief that Ebola and other viral hemorrhagic fevers cause profuse and irreversible bleeding in the humans they afflict. This is only rarely the case. So why has this belief taken hold? "
― Paul Farmer , Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History
44 " Should the frenzied quest for access to power and wealth be regarded as serving a social good simply because those who were historically underrepresented in the past are now filling roles that involve replicating inequality? "
45 " Increasingly, what people with AIDS share are not personal or psychological attributes. They do not share culture or language or a certain racial identity. They do not share sexual preference or an absolute income bracket. What they share, rather, is a social position—the bottom rung of the ladder in inegalitarian societies. "
― Paul Farmer , Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues
46 " Endeavors focused on AIDS, though crucial, must be linked to efforts to empower poor women. The much-abused term “empower” is not meant vaguely here; empowerment is not a matter of self-esteem or even of parliamentary representation. Those choosing to make common cause with poor women must help them gain control over their own lives. Control of lives is related to control of land, systems of production, and the formal political and legal structures in which lives are enmeshed. In each of these arenas, poor people overall are already laboring at a vast disadvantage; the voices of poor women in particular are almost unheard. "