Jeremy Heimans Quotes

Historically, mass demonstrations have worked best at shifting public opinion and pressuring the powers-that-be when organizers highlighted one concrete demand: 'Bring Our Boys Home from Vietnam'; 'End Segregation Now'; 'Support Women's Right to Choose.'

If democracy were to be given any meaning, if it were to go beyond the limits of capitalism and nationalism, this would not come, if history were any guide, from the top. It would come through citizen's movements, educating, organizing, agitating, striking, boycotting, demonstrating, threatening those in power with disruption of the stability they needed.

I grew up with protests, marches, demonstrations, struggle. But I come from a clan of community workers.

Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of progress. Ignore them and statesmanship is irrelevant; fail to use them and it is weak.

The absolute key issue is: how do you create enough political pressure? It's up to us to create that political will and there are tried and tested techniques for doing that. So we're talking about the need for civil disobedience that escalates into a rebellion and uprising.

Whatever will happen has to be based on long-term policies and strategies of resistance. We had the Occupy Wall Street movement, but when they had to step up and organize in a more institutional way, the whole movement dissolved.

I believe activism is the true source of change in the world. Pushing to change social structures in communities that you are a part of is critical for making real lasting change.

If the government or the parties won't address our needs, we will. It's about direct action, even civil disobedience.

I became active in politics because I saw the possibility, if we all sat back and did nothing, of a world in which there would no longer be any stages for actors to act on.

My explanation remains the same: It was an attempt to make the point that anyone who opposed the war can achieve their objective by working within their sphere of influence, whether their political party or community of faith.

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.

My early years as a political activist were dominated by the poll tax.

It's funny how social activists usually protest against the only things that have a credible chance of achieving the activists' goals.

The great thing about social movements is everybody gets to be a part of them.

I've been saying the Occupy Movement has got the ball rolling, and now we need to take the fight to the great indoors!

I'm a lad of the '60s. I started a magazine to try and end the Vietnam war, but it was a number of years before I had the profile, the financial resources and the time to do more.

I've been proud to be the chair of the Stop the War coalition, proud to be associated with the Stop the War coalition.

The world you live in is not a given; much of what is best in it has been built through the struggles of passionate activists over the last centuries. They won us many freedoms and protected many beauties. Count those gifts among your growing heap.

Traditionalists will have to master techniques of sustained activism formerly monopolized by the left.

All the big revolutions, whether it's the Industrial Revolution, the Arab Spring, those changes happened by economic and social shifts brought about by the people's voices, and those things weren't voted for. Most of our changes today are brought about through technology, not by voting.

We're trained to see the world in terms of charismatic organizations and charismatic people. That's who we look to for leadership and change, for transformation. We're awaiting the next J.F.K., the next Martin Luther King, the next Gandhi, the next Nelson Mandela.

History shows that all protest movements rely on symbols - boycotts, strikes, sit-ins, flags, songs. Symbolic action on whatever scale - from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to wearing a simple wristband - is designed to disrupt our everyday complacency and force people to think.

I got interested in politics during the civil rights movement and then Vietnam.

I love TV, I love writing, but I love movements more.

My political career goes back to the '60s and those were times of vigorous debates.