QUOTES
But
once you become active in something, something happens to you. You get excited
and suddenly you realize you count.
We
are the most powerful nation in the world, but we're not the only nation in the
world. We are not the only people in the world. We are an important people, the
wealthiest, the most powerful and, to a great extent, generous. But we are part
of the world.
When
you become part of something, in some way you count. It could be a march; it could
be a rally, even a brief one. You're part of something, and you suddenly realize
you count. To count is very important.
Perhaps
it is this specter that most haunts working men and women: the planned obsolescence
of people that is of a piece with the planned obsolescence of the things they
make. Or sell. It is perhaps this fear of no longer being needed in a world of
needless things that most clearly spells out the unnaturalness, the surreality
of much that is called work today.
Dorothy
Day said - and I'm sure that Kathy Kelly would say the same thing - 'I'm working
toward a world in which it will be easier for people to behave decently.' Now,
think about that: a world in which it will be easier for people to behave decently.
I
hope for peace and sanity
- it's the same thing.
I
think it's realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the
easiest thing: 'I despair. The world's no good.' That's a perverse idealist. It's
practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That's
very realistic.
I
want to praise activists through the years. I praise those of the past as well,
to have them honored.
People
are ready to say, 'Yes, we are ready for single-payer health insurance.' We are
the only industrialized country in the world that does not have national health
insurance. We are the richest in wealth and the poorest in health of all the industrial
nations.
I read somewhere that when a person takes part in community action, his health
improves. Something happens to him or to her biologically. It's like a tonic.
"Heroes are not giant
statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community,
and it is my responsibility to make it better. Interweave all these communities
and you really have an America that is back on its feet again. I really think
we are gonna have to reassess what constitutes a 'hero'."
