Les Baxter Quotes

I'm in no way suggesting that my opinion matters more than anyone else's, of course, but the only thing that bothers me is apathy. People that sit out of the process and complain about it, or pretend that politics isn't a part of their everyday lives.

Anybody intelligent enough to realize what America is, is not going to sit around and do nothing about it. They're going to be the same way that I am. They're going to be the same way our fans are. They're going to be pissed.

My parents always went to rallies and demonstrated against certain things; my generation, we often have a political conscience, but we're not that involved.

Just by making a decision to stay out of politics, you are making the decision to allow others to shape politics and exert power over you. And if you are alienated from the current political system, then just by staying out of it, if you do nothing to change it, you simply entrench it.

I long for the day when there are things I feel strongly about politically.

I feel very happy to be living in Berkeley because there are a lot of people who are politically active here.

You can't do anything that's not political in this time and age.

Wake up America.

We didn’t sell out our last concert. We’ve got to get the John Birch Society to attack us before the next concert.

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

We keep waiting for the American people to wake up, and they keep hitting the snooze bar. But something, folks, someday, will wake them up. Of that I'm confident.

I have a certain sympathy with politicians having lived with one. I've seen how no matter how earnest or driven or energetic they are, it's still difficult to change things. I have been encouraged to go into politics, but I don't think I could make a contribution, it suits me better to be sniping from the sidelines.

Any time you do something - a protest - you know there's going to be backlash.

I've always been on the outside of all that political stuff so I just sort of watch it and I'm appalled and I think people should be screaming about a lot of things right now and they're not. They're just letting everything happen. I don't know. At some point the wheels are going to come off and we're going to have a real problem. The people are going to get angry and it's going to be too late.

It's useful for activists just to be out there to keep you mindful and not get complacent, even if ultimately you think some of their criticism is misguided.

I've always been politically minded, you know, and against the status quo.

We were marching since we were babies and all we did was make Jane Fonda famous.

You know, Jesse Jackson is just trying to stir up a hornet's nest.

I am such a political person.

If Occupy Wall Street can see their way to more collaboration with the union movement, then there will be a great deal of political action possible.

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

Living in America, I became aware of many issues and went through a period of politicization.

I believe boycotts are wrong.

If we give up on politics, we're done for. Powerlessness is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

My father, Melvin van Peebles, and my mother were both very active politically when I was a kid. The first time I was allowed to stay up late was to attend a demonstration.