Ed Kowalczyk Quotes

Today Americans are overcome not by the sense of endless possibility but by the banality of the social order they have erected against it.

We have been deformed by educational and religious institutions that treat us as members of an audience instead of actors in a drama, so we become adults who treat democracy as a spectator sport.

That a majority of women do not wish for any important change in their social and civil condition, merely proves that they are the unreflecting slaves of custom.

I think society is both something that's very real and very powerful, but on the whole quite problematic.

When something really bad is going on in a culture, the average guy doesn't see it. He can't. He's average and is surrounded by and immersed in the cant and discourse of the status quo.

There's a great feeling of powerlessness in America. When I express ideas to people, they say, 'That's terrific, but do you think it really counts?'

Too many people, because they were white and poor, black and rich, or just plain busy with something other than politics, have felt they had no voice in our government.

People don't want to have to justify their privileges; they don't want to have to justify having access to the power and resource that wealth brings. And by not talking about it, they are able to hold onto their power without being questioned, and I think that makes them feel more secure.

Women in most countries have not achieved much, because they can't be liberated under the patriarchal, capitalist, imperialist and military system that determines the way we live now, and which is governed by power, not justice, by false democracy, not real freedom.

Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

You stuff somebody into the American dream, and it becomes a prison.

I've completely lost faith in the Democratic Party to truly serve the disadvantaged.

The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom.

People are trying to live freely outside of, or within a system that maybe for them on a day-to-day level isn't as free... I definitely think we're positively orientated.

Remember, social progress only happens when those in society's privileged classes choose to give up their status.

Behind the masks of total choice, different forms of the same alienation confront each other.

I do think there is this danger that our society has made its peace with decline. I'd like to jolt them out of their complacency a little bit.

We all live under some repression; we have to, it's part of the deal.

Progress is always relative: to the oppressed, it can only be viewed as an all or nothing deal - if oppression continues, even in a modified form, then the system must still be attacked until that injustice is eradicated.

Philosophers are men hired by the well-to-do to prove that everything is all right.

For Haitians to vote means more than in Western countries. It is the way for the millions, who live in dirt and poverty, to prove to themselves that they are human. It is the difference between eternal darkness and light.

Men will sooner surrender their rights than their customs.

The state inherited a tradition of alienation from government combined with an equally ingrained tradition of passive dependence on government aid.

Such is the boasted chivalry of the Land of Freedom, which has left its women to strive against tradition, prejudice, conservatism, self-interest, political power and in addition all the forces of corruption combined, to secure the privilege which was conferred upon vast numbers of men who never even demanded it and many of whom knew nothing of its significance after it was granted.