I’m different in the sense that every minute of every day, I change. I’m thinking. But the basic principles that have powered me forward are still there. They’re not different.
BILL AYERS[John] McCain seemed to be winking to the Right, and [Barack] Obama seemed to be winking to the Left. Neither one of them – if McCain had been elected we’d still be where we are on gay rights.
More Bill Ayers Quotes
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It’s the height of the Cold War, but I grew up in apolitical family and politics wasn’t on the agenda.
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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 -
I don’t know that I ever bought into the “American dream.” I was a child of privilege. I grew up in the ’50s and it was a quiet time in America, at least on the surface and I grew up in a kind of feathery bed of privilege.
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But the frat boys were all frivolous and idiotic in our minds now, a bunch of conformist fools going through the motions of hip.
BILL AYERS -
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 -
They were pretty interesting about being interesting able to look at their children and think oh my children know things and they gave us a lot of sense of our own agency, and that may be a kind of a ruling class trait.
BILL AYERS -
You will be raising these kids in your mind your whole life. And they will change you. Your little contribution to it – twenty years from now, they’ll be marching off into other things and that’s still the legacy you leave.
BILL AYERS -
[Martin Luther King] King was a socialist and King was an activist who was really a radical by the end.
BILL AYERS -
There were no political ideas. It was an apolitical time. It was the ’50s and in the privilege of the suburbs.
BILL AYERS -
Where’s the activism? Nobody knows. And anyone who thinks they know, like Todd Gitlin, has their head up their ass. Nobody knows.
BILL AYERS -
It’s worth remembering that in 1965, something like 20% of Americans were against the war. Something like 70% were for the war. So, it wasn’t a popular or an easy thing to do.
BILL AYERS -
I mean, what’s he doing now? He’s evolving. Evolving? Well, evolve for Christ’s sake! And this is a guy – the whole gay community, and the whole environmental community and all these other people said, he’s our guy.
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I said something idiotic like, as [William] Shakespeare says, “Action is eloquence,” and the judge just frowned at me and gave me a couple weeks in jail.
BILL AYERS -
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 -
I voted for Obama and I was delighted that he’s been elected.
BILL AYERS