Janine di Giovanni Quotes

People don't stay mobilized.

You know, I was a community activist, so I'm used to standing out in front of an elected official's office and protesting.

In 2012, I see the potential for people to come together, huge moments of political and social engagement where elections are part of the strategy for change, but not the end goal and not the only thing that matters.

Social change comes through people.

You cannot do anything without rousing the masses to action.

Let the grassroots turn on the hate because that's the only thing that will make them do their duty.

I think there's a weapon of cynicism to say, 'Protest doesn't work. Organizing doesn't work. Y'all are a bunch of hippies. You know, it doesn't do anything,' because, frankly, it's said out of fear, because it is a potent force for political change.

Any collective action is made up of individuals who one day decided not to sit and watch anymore.

Every great movement in the world starts with a tiny group of people who simply refuse to accept a situation.

I'm an activist; I have to be angry all the time. That's what we do!

The only way change will ever happen is if we speak up, and we have to know that it actually has an impact. Because we have a lot more power than we think we do, I think.

58% of the American public are with us. We're preaching to the choir, but the choir's not singing, if all of the 58% started singing, this war would end.

A movement is only composed of people moving. To feel its warmth and motion around us is the end as well as the means.

There never was a social change in America without angry people at the heart.

There's nothing automatic about political change, about liberation.

Here is what is needed for Occupy Wall Street to become a force for change: a clear, and clearly expressed, objective. Or two.

Occupy is anything but a protest movement. That's why it has been so hard for news agencies to express or even discern the 'demands' of the growing legions of Occupy participants around the nation, and even the world.

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.

Activists are generally doers - rather than watching television and thinking about the world they will put there energies into doing something 'active' to change the (political) situation.

I think this Occupy Wall Street thing is great. I think that is a good thing and that people need to stand up, voice their opinions, and be heard.

Nothing counts but pressure, pressure, more pressure, and still more pressure through broad organized aggressive mass action.

It is not leaders who make movements; it is movements that make leaders.

We are at the point where we can mobilize all of this righteous indignation into a powerful mass movement.

No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.

We will continue to organize. You have seen consistent organizing since the Women's March on Washington in every corner of this country.