Politics & Power Quote by Leonard Peltier

Peltier’s line is built like a trap for euphemism. It strips the term “political prisoner” down to a single, damning condition: imprisonment “for that alone.” The phrase refuses the state’s favorite escape hatch - the suggestion that activists aren’t really jailed for politics, but for “crimes,” “disorder,” or “public safety.” By insisting on motive rather than paperwork, Peltier reframes incarceration as a political instrument, not a neutral outcome of law.

The intent is defensive and accusatory at once. Defensive, because it asserts a clean moral category for people routinely smeared as militants, extremists, or troublemakers. Accusatory, because it implies the government knows exactly what it’s doing: using prisons to mute demands for Indigenous sovereignty and civil rights, then laundering that repression through legal language. The understated “alone” does the heavy lifting; it suggests everything else attached to such cases is noise meant to make the punishment palatable.

Context matters because Peltier is not theorizing from a distance. His own imprisonment has long been framed by supporters as emblematic of how Indigenous activists in the AIM era were targeted, investigated, and prosecuted in a climate where “order” often meant suppressing Native political power. That biography turns the sentence into more than a definition. It’s a counter-charge: if you accept his premise, you have to re-read certain convictions not as justice served, but as dissent contained.