Quotes About Activism

Links zu sein, sagt Gilles Deleuze in seinem Abécédaire, das heiße, 'eine Horizontwahrnehmung' zu haben (die Welt als ganze zu sehen, die Probleme der Dritten Welt wichtiger zu finden als die des eigenen Viertels). Nicht links zu sein hingegen bedeute, die Wahrnehmung auf das eigene Land, auf die eigene Straße zu verengen.

Publicly inconsolable about the fact that racism continues, these activists seem privately terrified that it has abated.

For Alinsky, morality is a scam. Morality is the cloak of power. Activists appeal to the language of morality but recognize that it is a mere disguise. As Alinsky puts it, "Ethical standards must be elastic to stretch with the times. . . . In action, one does not always enjoy the luxury of a decision that is consistent with one's individual conscience. . . . You do what you can with what you have, and then clothe it with moral garments."13 In

In order to pressure the government to change its approach, however, Alinsky urged black activists to dress in African tribal costumes and greet government officials flying into Chicago from Washington, D.C. This action, he said, would dramatize the "colonial mentality" of the antipoverty establishment. I learned about this particular Alinsky caper from Hillary Clinton's Wellesley College thesis.18 Alinsky

Alinsky remained, as he put it, an "outside agitator." He firmly believed that activists should not become part of the government. Yet ironically, Alinsky became the mentor to two figures, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who would learn from his techniques and then take them into the innermost corridors of power. Their

Quien defiende un derecho defiende su libertad. (La gran marcha)

Young people longed to change the world, regardless of the cost to themselves or others.

Yeah, says the Newsday reporter, he's a real pacifist. He's the Gandhi of Gangsters.

My art and poetry is very political now. Because you've got to find that truth within you and express yourself. Somewhere out there, I know, there will be people who will listen.

And when Mother Teresa was asked why she didn't participate in anti-war demonstrations, she said, "I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there." These great leaders knew that to be against something—to focus on your opposition to it—just creates more of it.

All at once, I went from successful social justice activist, to unemployed racist.

The goal of radicalism is to improve the human condition, not to prove one's own moral superiority.

XIX The Influence of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Movements originate when the truth is revealed.

As far as those kinds of things, I also played at the concert to call for the release of Nelson Mandela when he was a political prisoner in South Africa. We were celebrating his 70th birthday and calling for his release.

I've also gotten to play in front of a million people in Central Park when there was a grass roots movement calling for nuclear disarmament - it was about 1982 - they called it Peace Sunday.

He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights... it had to be some silly little Communist.

This is the way brown people have to fight, my grandfather says. You can't just put your fist up. You have to insist on something gently. Walk toward a thing slowly. But be ready to die, my grandfather says, for what is right. Be ready to die, my grandfather says, for everything you believe in.

The FBI says Angela Davis is one of America's Most Wanted.

Even when my girls were little, we'd go down there, my grandmother tells us. And people'd be marching. The marching didn't just start yesterday. Police with those dogs, scared everybody near to death. Just once I let my girls march.

In spite of the string of magazine covers announcing the contrary, we all know that ten simple things will not save the earth. There are, rather, three thousand impossible things that all of us must do, and changing our light bulbs, while necessary, is the barest beginning. We are being called upon to act against a prevailing culture, to undermine our own entrenched tendency to accumulate and to consume, and to refuse to define our individuality by our presumed ability to do whatever we want.

She eats her potatoes as though she would make a revolution among them, as though they were the People.

Woman stock is rising in the market. I shall not live to see women vote, but I'll come and rap at the ballot box.

It has become a cliché to say that one person can make a difference, but the life of Mahatma Gandhi confronts us with the enduring truth of that statement.