Quotes About Participation

I figured if you live in a country long enough, you want to be a part of the political process, and you sort of owe it to your hosts. They've accepted you. Why wouldn't you accept them?

We have to become involved in the political process - if we don't like it, we can change it.

You can have great ideas, and you can have all the right policy goals. But unless you're expanding who is included in the political process, you won't connect the two.

Political speech is indispensable to decision-making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation rather than an individual.

I really got to a point where I thought maybe I would want to be involved politically.

The only way back toward a democracy and economy that work for the majority is for most of us to get politically active once again, becoming organized and mobilized.

Politically active people felt more and more disenfranchised, particularly during the ultra-New Labour years.

My European constituents are among the most politically engaged people I represent.

Well, I couldn't do the day-to-day stuff of being a politician or anything, but I just think everybody should have an opinion and everybody should vote, and that's what we're built on.

Democracy is too important to be left to politicians.

A lot of politicians say they want to get people out to vote; sometimes you can't totally believe they really want that.

Politicians are trying to attract people to issues.

I do think the public want to see politicians acting in a different way. What's brought young people into our campaign is that they were written off by political parties but they had never written off politics, and what we have is a huge number of young people, very enthusiastic and brimming with ideas. Those ideas have got to be heard.

Politics organizes our lives. We can't disregard it. Politics has lot of muck, lot of dirt. But that doesn't mean you have to be away from it. It's ubiquitous.

I am not a politician. I am not in politics. I'm just a citizen.

Participatory complexity may well be the key descriptor of the 21st century - in our economies, in our politics, and in our everyday lives.

You should absolutely get involved, especially those local politics like school board seats. That's really where America happens.

Right to Information is a small concrete step in making our polity more democratic.

If we ever get to the polls once, you will never get us home.

The polls tell us something, but they don't tell us everything. They don't tell us how people are going to show up on Election Day.

People should show up and vote at the polls, unless there's an extraordinary reason not to do so.

The best way to build a house is not from the top, but from the bottom. When you go to the polls, vote from the bottom up.

Elections are held to delude the populace into believing that they are participating in government.

Well, it's very clear that the Arab population is rising because they'd like to have a say in the running of their affairs, running of their government, and this is very legitimate.