Violence, in short, is the norm of our economic life and our national security. The line that connects the bombing of a civilian population to the mountain “removed” by strip mining to the gullied and poisoned field to the clear-cut watershed to the tortured prisoner seems to run pretty straight.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist

Speech (2005-05-14), Commencement, Lindsey Wilson College, Columbia, Kentucky
    (Source)

This was either excerpted from, or included in, his undated essay "Letter to Daniel Kemmis," collected in The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays, Part 2 (2005).