Unexchangeable Quotes

“Every extension of hegemony is also an extension of terror. Let's be clear:
Beyond spectacular terrorism, terror should be seen as an infiltration, an internal convulsion, a form of power fighting itself. Power itself, from the inside, secretes an antagonistic power that materializes in one way or another-it could be Islam or it could be something else altogether. Every form is possible, but, for the most part, terror is a form of reversion - it is not necessarily violent, although in its most extreme form it necessarily implies death. The death of its victims, but first and foremost the death of the terrorists. September 11 put the spotlight on the symbolic use of death as an absolute weapon. The death of a terrorist is not a suicide: it is an effigy of the virtual death that the system inflicts on itself. From revolt to revolt, it take multiple forms throughout history. From the sabotage and destruction of machines by Luddites in 1820 to Blacks burning their own neighborhoods in America in the 1960s, from general strikes to hostage taking and suicide attacks, we have gone increasingly farther into unilateral sacrifice, in suicidal violence without mercy or possible response - into the unexchangeable.”
― Jean Baudrillard, The Agony of Power