Jim Hightower Quotes

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

Dealing with politicians, that's a little different. But government doesn't change until people demand it.

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

Don't count on Congress. Laws come into being because people on the ground demand it.

At the end of the day, the government, local government all bow to public pressure.

I want people to be mad as hell. Be mad as hell and work toward something. Find an issue and find a candidate that you believe in.

The more I hear about Eddie Izzard's political agenda, the more sympathetic I feel. I cheer him on in his cause, but I fear he faces an uphill battle.

If you want to come fight the good fight to make a difference for people and to try to get the government back on track, where we govern from the middle and not from the extremes, then understand that it's a lonely road, and you're going to have a hard time.

We think there's nothing like sunlight to mobilize and energize citizens to demand change of their elected officials.

Being politically active is "more about doing things, not just standing for some platform or being involved in some political party."

The really critical thing isn't who's sitting in he White House, but who is sitting in the streets, in the cafeterias, in the halls of government, in the factories. Who is protesting, who is occupying offices and demonstrating ? - those are the things that determine what happens.

By themselves, they are not enough; we also need to engage in political action.

The only way change will ever happen is if we speak up, and we have to know that it actually has an impact. Because we have a lot more power than we think we do, I think.

I honestly do not know if civil disobedience has any effect on the government. I can promise you it has a great effect on the person who chooses to do it.

Any protester knows that the only way activism works is to get the people on your side.

I really feel that political will is born out of popular will.

While the revolution will be certainly televised, it strikes me that there is a strong possibility that the revolution will also be crowd-funded.

Occupy Wall Street is meant more as a way of life that spreads through contagion, creates as many questions as it answers, aims to force a reconsideration of the way the nation does business and offers hope to those of us who previously felt alone in our belief that the current economic system is broken.

Rebellion is obsolete - change things from the inside working out.

I would say that Barack Obama has always been a real optimist about what can be accomplished. He believes that government can be used to create systemic, long-term, real change. And the first lady is more of a skeptic.

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 think you have to ask yourself does voting work on the level that you are trying to effectuate change; that is the conversation you must have.

I ran for president in order to be able to try to change Washington D.C. from the inside. Our federal government is broken.

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

Now, a lot of people have given up on government. And if you're one of those people, I would ask that you reconsider, because things are changing. Politics is not changing; government is changing.