If you were against slavery in 1840 and a white person, you would have been against the law, the Bible, your church, your pastor, your parents, common sense, tradition, everything. You would have been against everything.
BILL AYERSLarge numbers of people are broken from the notion that the system is working for people, that the system is just or humane or peaceful.
More Bill Ayers Quotes
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I breathed the air of deliverance through books, and through books I leapt over the walls of confinement.
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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.
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Large numbers of people are broken from the notion that the system is working for people, that the system is just or humane or peaceful.
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Nixon probably was a nice guy.
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So that’s kind of amazing. But he was offered a cabinet post by Eisenhower in his second term. So he was moderate Republican. But if you asked him, he would’ve said, “I don’t have any politics. I’m a business person.” Mainstream, the American view, as he understood it.
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We should open our eyes, see what’s in front of us, and act.
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I’m not disappointed in [Barack] Obama. He said who he is; he’s doing what he said he would do.
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The truth is that the antiwar movement was powered by the working class. The students were the ones that got the media and so forth, but it was the soldiers on the ground who really energized the antiwar movement in the late Sixties.
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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’m writing this book right now called Pallin’ Around, and the subtitle is: “Talking to the Tea Party.” And frankly I find talking to the Tea Party exhilarating, I love it.
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It’s the connection between schools and communities that creates greatness in schools.
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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.
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[The whole first year at university] was a great time for me and great time of awakening.
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It was one of the founders of SDS and that chief writer of the Port Huron Statement, which is still worth reading. It’s kind of the Bernie Sanders campaign document in a funny way.
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I more or less shared the view that life should be lived.
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The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret.
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[Students for a Democratic Society] was on many campuses and it was a powerful organization. It was founded by Tom Hayden, who passed away very recently.
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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.
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[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,
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I voted for Obama and I was delighted that he’s been elected.
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Injustice anywhere is an assault on all of us. That means that we all can get busy.
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People camped out at his house, and wondering who’s coming to visit, who’s going to be the Secretary of State – that all struck me as inane and stupid.
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Something about the fact that an African American had, given the long sad history of our country, now become President – that was exhilarating.
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When someone who’s always been in your life is gone, it’s a stunning adjustment of your own identity.
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One hundred years from now, we’ll all be dead. It’s hard to believe. One hundred years from now, everyone we see every day will be gone.
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I was indicted on two federal conspiracies. My wife was on the Ten Most Wanted list. That’s what fascism was going to look like. That’s what it did look like.
BILL AYERS