Radical Quotes - Page 14

• Not since the Black Panthers sailed into their Upper East Side tea party has there been so daffy an exercise in radical chic.

  Camille Paglia

  Party, Exercise, Black

  Camille Paglia (2011). “Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays”, p.181, Vintage

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• The 1973 Labour Conference will have before it the most radical programme the Party has prepared since 1945.

  Tony Benn

  Party, Conferences, Prepared

  "More equality and more democracy". The Times (p. 16), October 1, 1973.

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• Permanent mass unemployment destroys the moral foundations of the social order. The young people, who, having finished their training for work, are forced to remain idle, are the ferment out of which the most radical political movements are formed. In their ranks the soldiers of the coming revolutions are recruited.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Order, People, Political

  Ludwig von Mises (2016). “Socialism - An Economic and Sociological Analysis: The Economist”, p.444, VM eBooks

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• The very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer.

  Saul Alinsky

  Men, Devil, Kingdoms

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.9, Vintage

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• The American people were, in the beginning, Revolutionaries and Tories. The American people ever since have been Revolutionaries and Tories. They have been Revolutionaries and Tories regardless of the labels of the past and present. Regardless of whether they were Federalists, Democrat-Republicans, Whigs, Know-Nothings, Free Soilers, Unionists or Confederates, Populists, Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Communists, or Progressives. They have been and are profiteers and patriots. They have been and are conservatives, liberals, and radicals.

  Saul Alinsky

  Past, People, Labels

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• The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away. In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace, cooperation, equal and full opportunities for education, full and useful employment, health, and the creation of those circumstances in which man can have the chance to live by values that give meaning to life.

  Saul Alinsky

  Dream, Book, Opportunity

  Saul Alinsky (2010). “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”, p.3, Vintage

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• There's a place in the world for the angry young man
  With his working class ties and his radical plans
  He refuses to bend, he refuses to crawl
  He's always at home with his back to the wall
  And he's proud of his scars and the battles he's lost
  And he struggles and bleeds as he hangs on the cross
  And he likes to be known as the angry young man.

  Billy Joel

  Wall, Struggle, Home

  "Prelude". Song by Billy Joel, 1976.

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• The reason conservatives cohere and radicals fight: everyone agrees about fears, no one about visions.

  Brian Eno

  Fighting, Vision, Reason

  "A Year with Swollen Appendices". Book by Brian Eno, 1996.

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• What a country, and what a culture, when the liberals cry before they are hurt, and the reactionaries pose as brave nonconformists, while the radicals make a fetish of their own jokey irrelevance.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Country, Hurt, Irrelevance

  Christopher Hitchens (2014). “For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports”, p.253, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• No more painters, no more scribblers, no more musicians, no more sculptors, no more religions, no more royalists, no more radicals, no more imperialists, no more anarchists, no more socialists, no more communists, no more proletariat, no more democrats, no more republicans, no more bourgeois, no more aristocrats, no more arms, no more police, no more nations, an end at last to all this stupidity, nothing left, nothing at all, nothing, nothing.

  Louis Aragon

  Stupidity, Police, Musician

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• On the left is the realist tradition of the 19th century, with its impulse to social description, radical criticism and meditation on things as they are... culminating in Courbet at his mightiest (The Studio, The Funeral at Ornans and a portrait of a trout that has more death in it than Rubens could get in a whole Crucifixion).

  Gustave Courbet

  Funeral, Meditation, Criticism

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• If we have learned anything in the past ten years, it is that these lovely things about America were never lovely. We have been expansionist and aggressive and mean to other people from the beginning. And we've been aggressive and mean to people in this country, and we've allocated the wealth of this country in a very unjust way. We've never had justice in our courts for the poor people, for black people, for radicals. Now how can we boast that America is a very special place? It's not that special. It really isn't.

  Howard Zinn

  Country, Mean, Past

  "The Problem is Civil Obedience". www.thirdworldtraveler.com. 1970.

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• I believe there are huge numbers of people in this country who would be willing to have radical changes in our economic and social system in order to make it a more egalitarian society and do away with homelessness and hunger and clean up the environment. But these people have no voice. They have no way of expressing themselves. Elections give them no way of expressing themselves.

  Howard Zinn

  Country, Believe, Order

  Interview with Robert Birnbaum, www.identitytheory.com. January 10, 2001.

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• In our imaginations the adults of our childhood remain extreme, essential - we might say radical since they are the roots that fed luxuriant later systems. Those first bohemians, for instance, stay operatic in memory even though were we to meet them today - well, what would we think, we who've elaborated our eccentricities with a patience, a professionalism they never knew?

  Edmund White

  Memories, Thinking, Roots

  "A Boy's Own Story". Book by Edmund White, E.P. Dutton, Chapter Four, p. 92, 1982.

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• If being an anti-art artist is difficult, being an anti-art art historian is a hard position indeed. His doctrinal revolutionism brings forth nothing new in art but reenacts upheavals on the symbolic plane of language. It provides the consoling belief that overthrows are occurring as in the past, that barriers to creation are being surmounted, and that art is pursuing a radical purpose, even if it is only the purpose of doing away with itself.

  Harold Rosenberg

  Art, Past, Purpose

  "Art on the Edge". Book by Harold Rosenberg. Chapter: "What's New: Ritual Revolution", p. 260, 1975.

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• Joining a radical movement when one is young is very much like falling in love when one is young. The girl may turn out to be rotten, but the the experience of love is so valuable it can never be entirely undone by the ultimate disenchantment.

  Irving Kristol

  Girl, Falling In Love, Love Is

  Irving Kristol (1995). “Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea”, p.470, Simon and Schuster

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• It has been said, "History is written by the victors." I take this to mean we can make ourselves victorious by writing, and then rewriting our own stories. In a country and culture so dominated by media, by the manipulation of words and stories, telling the tales of people whose stories historically have not been told is a radical act and I believe an act that can change the world and help rewrite history.

  Jennifer Beals

  Country, Believe, Mean

  Speech at 4th Annual Power Up Premiere Gala, Los Angeles, California, November 07, 2004.

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• I do have things I would like to see adopted on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people: they include the right to marry the individual of our choice; the right to serve in the military to defend our country; and the right to a job based solely on our own qualifications. I acknowledge that this is an agenda, but I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people's rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.

  Barney Frank

  Country, Jobs, Military

  Barney Frank's Statement on the Inclusion of people who are Transgender in Antidiscrimination Protection Legislation, March 2008.

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• Life actually is this mystery and gift. And every moment of it can be full of real radical joy and wakefulness. And for some reason in our most difficult times, we have the best chance to wake up. Many people will tell you that their divorce or illness or loss of job was the wake up call.

  Elizabeth Lesser

  Jobs, Real, Divorce

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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• Society never progresses because the majority one day wakes up and says, “Let’s do things differently.” The majority didn’t wake up and say, “Oh, let’s just free the slaves.” ... Society always progressed because a relatively small group of people — usually considered outrageous radicals by the status quo of their time — had a better idea and articulated another way. That’s simply how evolution works; it’s the mutation — the member of the species who does things differently - that points the way to the future because they’re better adapted for survival.

  Marianne Williamson

  Ideas, People, Survival

  "Marianne Williamson on Consciousness, Women and Politics". Interview with Marianne Schnall, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 9, 2012.

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• Many people think of me as a modernist, as a radical in music, you know, someone who's always sort of at the avant-garde of musics, but I'm also quite a traditionalist.

  Gunther Schuller

  Thinking, People, Avant Garde

  "Listen Back To A 1988 Conversation With Composer Gunther Schuller". "Fresh Air", www.npr.org. June 22, 2015.

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• A typical vice of American politics the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues, and the announcement of radical policies with much sound and fury, and at the same time with a cautious accompaniment of weasel phrases each of which sucks the meat out of the preceding statement.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Real, Issues, Vices

  Theodore Roosevelt (1941). “Theodore Roosevelt Cyclopedia”

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• The only ‘realistic’ prospect is to ground a new
  political universality by opting for the impossible,
  fully assuming the place of the exception, with no
  taboos, no a priori norms (‘human rights,’ ‘democracy’),
  respect for which would prevent us from ‘resignifying’
  terror, the ruthless exercise of power, the spirit of
  sacrifice … if this radical choice is decried by some
  bleeding-heart liberals as Linksfaschismus, so be it!

  Slavoj Žižek

  Heart, Exercise, Sacrifice

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• If you could extend the elective franchise to all persons of color who can read the Constitution of the United States in English and write their names and to all persons of color who own real estate valued at not less than two hundred and fifty dollars and pay taxes thereon, and would completely disarm the adversary. This you can do with perfect safety. And as a consequence, the radicals, who are wild upon negro franchise, will be completely foiled in their attempts to keep the Southern States from renewing their relations to the Union.

  Andrew Johnson

  Real, Writing, Color

  Andrew Johnson (1967). “The Papers of Andrew Johnson: May-August 1865”, p.599, Univ. of Tennessee Press

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• Obama is a radical communist and I think it is becoming clear. That is what I told people in Illinois and now everybody realizes it is coming true. He is going to destroy this country and we are either going to stop him or the United States of America is going to cease to exist.

  Alan Keyes

  Country, Thinking, America

  "Alan Keyes: Doing What He Does Best" by Kyle Mantyla, www.rightwingwatch.org. February 20, 2009.

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