John Prendergast Quotes
If you repress rather than unlock the potential of large groups of Americans, what's that going to do to our economy? It's going to contract, not expand.
Prendergast, John. Interview by NPR Staff. "A White Activist, A Black Drug Dealer: 'Unlikely Brothers'." NPR, 17 May 2011.
Johnson rejected the advice. Busby was not only correct about the Community Action Program which was the major political failure of the Poverty Program, but his analysis was prescient regarding the next decades of American politics.
This was one of his great fundamental questions of mankind which his research began to answer.
The rising tide metaphor refers to the famous quote of John F. Kennedy: {32376}. Generally speaking a growing economy benefits all. However, after the general growth and prosperity of the Clinton administration, the George W, Bush administration produced an economy where the wealthy benefitted greatly, but middle class very little and many of the poor, not at all.
One important observation of this quotation is the pejorative language Mises used to describe “Union Bosses” as opposed to “Union Leaders.” There were indeed a few Union “Bosses” but most unions had popularly elected leaders. It is similar to the left wing critic who refers to Corporate Executives as “Greedy Monopolists.” A few are but most are not. Historically, in the last half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, the conservatives tended to be much better at pejorative language and used it more frequently and uniformly than the liberals who tended to be better in the last part of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
John Prendergast is an American human rights and anti-corruption activist, author, and former Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council. He is the Founding Director of the Enough Project, a nonprofit human rights organization, and co-founder with George Clooney of The Sentry.
