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Can we imagine a different world? I can. That’s a world where work is rational, it’s in the common good, and we’re actually producing real things rather than spinning our wheels in dreams of consumer heaven.

Bill Ayers

The day before every revolution that’s ever happened, that revolution was impossible. The day before Rosa Parks, that was impossible. The day after, it was inevitable.
BILL AYERS

Before Day Knows Nobody Revolution
I don’t regret setting bombs.
BILL AYERS

Bombs Regret Settings
I wish I knew as much about anything today as I knew about everything when I was twenty.
BILL AYERS

Intellectual Intelligence Learning
[Barack Obama] was running for Senate and he’s saying, I’m not for gay marriage because I’m a Christian. Jump off a bridge! I mean what the hell are you talking about? You know,
BILL AYERS

Christian Mean Running
I haven’t been silent. I teach, I lecture at universities, I write, I’m not silent.
BILL AYERS

Lectures Silent Writing
The rhythm of being an activist today involves a pretty simple rhythm. You have to open your eyes to the reality before you. You have to look and see.
BILL AYERS

Eye Reality Rhythm Simple
When you go into a college of education you’ve got aspirations of making a difference in people’s lives, of loving children, of working with kids, but none of that is affirmed in your college of education.
BILL AYERS

Children Country School
Even there, [Barack] Obama’s generals, his Pentagon, they’re telling him what to do. And the force for gay rights is inevitable. And you can say Obama will help us, and maybe he will, but only if we have something on the ground that will make him help us.
BILL AYERS

Country Gay Movement President Rights
That’s in the nature of social change. So you can analyze what didn’t work, but it’s very hard to predict what will work.
BILL AYERS

Change Hard Social Work
All of us pursued our own passions and our own interests. One of my brothers was filmmaker. One of my brothers was a teacher. My sister was a librarian.
BILL AYERS

All Filmmakers Librarian One Teachers
I taught. I lectured at universities. I spoke to my students. I spoke in certain public forums. But what I didn’t do was respond to microphones being thrust in my face and saying, what is your relationship with Obama and are you an unrepentant terrorist?
BILL AYERS

Faces Students Taught
Being an activist and an artist – those two things should go together. You should allow the artistic sensibility to control some of your activism, but never should it be allowed to paralyze you.
BILL AYERS

Artist Together Two
If you pull in Europeans, Canadians, people from around the Third World, the war was vastly unpopular. But even half of Americans by 1968 opposed the war.
BILL AYERS

Country Opposed Third War World
I think I am a radical. I have never deviated from that. By radical, I mean someone trying to go to the root of things.
BILL AYERS

Mean Roots Thinking
I do think [Barack Obama’s] strategy for re-election is so misguided. He’s counting on the Republicans to self-destruct, and they might, you know, but they might not. So he might be a one-term president.
BILL AYERS

President Self Thinking
I don’t think saying “I was wrong here, I was wrong there” absolves you of anything particularly, nor does it get you into heaven.
BILL AYERS

Absolves Heaven Thinking

Can we imagine a different world? I can. That’s a world where work is rational, it’s in the common good, and we’re actually producing real things rather than spinning our wheels in dreams of consumer heaven.

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Can we imagine a different world? I can. That’s a world where work is rational, it’s in the common good, and we’re actually producing real things rather than spinning our wheels in dreams of consumer heaven.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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