Home / Quotes / Quote by Avi Lewis

Quote by Avi Lewis

“I think Canada deserves a forthrightly left electoral alternative. I don't see the advantage for our democracy in having a number of parties crowded in the centre. The Liberals are experts at co-opting left language and framings during campaigns, and historically, we know they don't govern like that.”

Quote by Avi Lewis

Author

Avi Lewis is a Canadian documentary filmmaker and producer, known for his profound insights into political and social issues. Born in 1968, he has produced a series of highly acclaimed documentaries since the 1990s, exploring themes such as globalization and political change. more

You May Also Like

“One of the things that could be exciting about this next phase of Canadian politics is if we could maybe have co-leaders.”

Author:Avi Lewis

“If we could get proportional representation and open up roles for smaller parties in coalition governments, we could start intentionally breaking down the cult of personality that is one of the most distorting things about our electoral system in Canada. We had a constellation of social actors behind the Leap Manifesto. And we created something bigger than ourselves.”

Party Personality Leap Representation Cult Breaking Down

Author:Avi Lewis

“Poverty became something one could see and experience firsthand, no matter where one was on the economic ladder; it became something you could viscerally experience through the lives of friends, family, neighbors, colleagues. I'd venture to say it's a rare person in 2013 America who knows nobody who lost a job in the recession, or knows nobody whose home went underwater or who went into foreclosure.”

Home Poverty Economic Neighbor Family Friends

Author:Sasha Abramsky

“When I talk about an "empathy bank," I don't mean literally opening up a bank and putting in deposits. What I mean is that the more we can, as individuals and as members of a community, empathize with, understand the pain and uncertainty economic crisis causes other people, the more we lay the groundwork for political change.”

People Mean Pain Political Individual Community Economic Empathy Crisis Uncertainty

Author:Sasha Abramsky

“Ronald Reagan, and before him, Richard Nixon, and before Nixon, a slew of conservative politicians going back through American history, have played to the idea that the great majority of poor people are somehow "undeserving," and being undeserving, merit at best very limited, oftentimes deeply coercive and humiliating, government interventions to better their finances. That narrative isn't about to disappear overnight; but it strikes me as being like a weak gruel - there's no sustenance in it, no heft behind the argument.”

People Poor Politician Argument Weak Conservative Disappear Finance American History Poor People Humiliating

Author:Sasha Abramsky

“The failure of the first Barack Obama administration to really deliver on a new War on Poverty and a new language to explain these societal challenges in some ways provided the fuel that led to the Occupy Movement a few years later. And, while Occupy was a somewhat transitory phenomenon, many of the activist groups that emerged during this period are still out there, and still working on reshaping the political debate around taxes, around welfare, around government assistance to the poor, around debt relief for students, and so on.”

War Political Language Challenges Poor Poverty Students Taxes Debate Barack Welfare Phenomenon Activist War On Poverty

Author:Sasha Abramsky

“It seems to me that large numbers of people are now paying attention to poverty and that large numbers now understand that blaming the poor and the insecure for being poor and insecure is as unseemly as is schoolyard bullying. In that realization lies hope for a reinvigorated discourse around poverty and inequity in modern-day America.”

People Lying Poor Attention Poverty Blame Realization Pay Attention Bullying Insecure

Author:Sasha Abramsky

“Today there are a huge number of think tanks working on poverty-related issues; there are books written on the topic; and university centers being created to study poverty. But, at the same time, the media has a terribly hard time with this issue; it's very hard to convince editors and publishers to devote resources to complex investigations of the lives of America's poor. And, as a result, too often poverty is portrayed in stereotypes, in sound bites, in a few pat images rather than in its full Technicolor complexity and diversity.”

Thinking Book Today Poor Poverty Study Diversity Complexity Hard Times Convince Stereotype

Author:Sasha Abramsky

“Too often the media assumes that "poverty" is an African American or a Latino issue. Of course, that's nonsense. While a higher percentage of the African American and Latino population does live in poverty as compared to the white population, when overall numbers are looked at, it is clear that people of all races, ethnicities, and colors, are represented amongst America's poor.”

People Poor Poverty Assuming African American Nonsense Latino

Author:Sasha Abramsky

“The reliance on stereotypes is in part the result of a structural problem within the media. Most newspapers have a business beat, with a number of highly trained journalists who know how to cover companies, trading, the markets and so on. But almost none have labor reporters anymore, and to my knowledge, none have full-time poverty-beat correspondents. And all of this helps to render invisible the lives and the life stories of tens of millions of Americans.”

Helping Problem Labor Invisible Journalist Stereotype Trading Reliance Life Story

Author:Sasha Abramsky