Murray Bookchin Quotes

I think we really need a movement to drive how popular culture understands the issues that feminists care about. When I think about the LGBT movement for example, they have had a really intentional strategy to try to change images and representation of LGBT people in the media and the culture. It really moved the dial politically. That's what is needed in the women's movement - a strategy that can drive awareness and culture change.

I think that if the political and social movement groups and organizations that operate in this country today had the same kind of energetic commitment that the medical marijuana people have, many things could change in this country.

A lot of people want to change the world, but only a few people want to change themselves. When it comes to the issue of race in America, we have to do both.

I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing, and activities on the ground, that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power throughout which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways, we still suffer from that.

I think direct political action, civil disobedience, in particular, is something to be taken very seriously.

Like most people, I have no wish to live in a community organized by community organizers.

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.

You really hope that people who want to be politically active aren't so disillusioned at this point. I do feel positive about what's happening. I think that with all of these movements, and this growing collective voice that's emerging, people are starting to come out of the kind of dazed state that they were in for so many years. But it's tough to know the best way to effect change now. Campaigning alone no longer seems to be the answer.

Action comes from keeping the heat on. No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.

What is also true is that partly because my docket was really full here, so I couldn't be both chief organizer of the Democratic Party and function as Commander-in-Chief and President of the United States. We did not begin what I think needs to happen over the long haul, and that is rebuild the Democratic Party at the ground level.

There are so many things that we could do to change the world in so many aspects. There are people working in nonprofit organizations, tackling the issues that we so desperately need to face, while governments fail so appallingly.

Folks can look at this issue and read it and it can feel like medicine, it can feel epidemic. We wanted this to hit people in their gut, and the hope is that by doing that, we can get more people to think more deeply about these issues.

I used to dream militant dreams of taking over america to show these whitefolks how it should be done i used to dream radical dreams of blowing everyone away with my perceptive powers of correct analysis i even used to think that i'd be the one to stop the riot and negotiate the peace then i awoke & dug that if i dreamed natural dreams of being a natural woman doing what a woman does when she's natural i would have a revolution.

I came in contact with every known Indian anarchist in London. Their bravery impressed me, but I felt that their zeal was misguided. I felt that violence was no remedy for India's ills, and that her civilisation required the use of a different and higher weapon for self-protection. - Hind Swaraj

I'm not American, but I do have an opinion, and I think that right now, it is what it is, and I think the country needs to come together to say: What is the America we want to create right now? The same thing will happen on television now going forward if we do have a female president. It will be something that will be discussed.

One should be cautious about "general conceptions." I think a strong case can be made that activism today is as high as ever, perhaps more so, and is also taking new and significant forms. There has never been anything like the international solidarity movements that began to take shape in the 1980s, right in the mainstream, or the global justice movements that have become a very powerful force in later years. It's true that the society is highly atomized, which does induce a sense of hopelessness often - quite mistakenly I think.

Not to say that you should be constantly trying to change the world, but I think it's important to know that whatever we do has an implication and has an effect, and because of that it is political.

I think, especially among the New York intelligentsia at that time, that there was a reason Bob Dylan went to New York to happen, because there was a culture developed there around the ideas of civil rights, around the idea of democracy growing out of Emerson and Thoreau, these ideas of the fanfare for the common man.

What we're seeing in so many of the counterprotests. We're seeing America rise in a way that it did not in the '60s, which I think is powerful and symbolic to the rest of the world, that we reject the darkness and we embrace the light.

We need to keep ringing the bell, wake people up to get our democracy together. Farm workers are like a symbol, and it is good that people are paying attention.

I want to make activism a bigger part of my life, while hopefully maintaining the opportunity to help out causes that I really care about. And being an actor allows me to do that. Shooting a Cisco commercial allows me to do that. I mean, doing all these things allows me to talk about these issues. But don't think there aren't those moments where I'm like, "What am I doing? I have to quit my job and chain myself to a tree." Believe me, I have those moments.

I still have a suspicion of charity and think the state has a role to play in many areas. And although for most of the years since I have been a rather privileged writer, I identify more closely than perhaps I should with those social workers. Had I not become a writer that would have been me. Lots of our friends are still in that world and I do feel part of that generation of people who were rather idealistic in the 70s and became disillusioned in the 80s. Not just about social services issues, but the world.

Even in a largely depoliticized society such as the United States, with no political parties or opposition press beyond the narrow spectrum of the business-dominated consensus, it is possible for populate action to have a significant impact on policy, though indirectly. That was an important lesson for the Indochina Wars.

I find myself moved by social justice issues. I'm not sure where that will lead me. I'm willing to nurture it.

I can think of few important movements for reform in which success was won by any method other than that of an energetic minority presenting the indifferent majority with a fait accompli, which was then accepted.