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Quote by Lawrence Nault

“There’s no neutrality in a burning house. Silence may feel safe, but it still smells of smoke.”

Quote by Lawrence Nault

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Lawrence Nault

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“The road to fascism and dictatorship is paved with apathy, hopelessness, frustration, futility, and despair in the masses of people. It is this fear and complete hopelessness on the part of the masses which ultimately makes them relinquish all control over their lives and turn the power over to a dictator. Fascism does not have a chance of establishing itself over a people who are active, interested, participating, co-operating, informed, democratically minded, and who above all have learned through their experiences to have confidence in themselves and their fellow men. They have learned to become self-reliant, and this feeling of self-respect, respect for their fellow men, and confidence in the power of the people which comes out of a People’s Organization is actually the strongest barrier and safeguard against fascism which a democracy can possess.”

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Book:Reveille for Radicals
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“To face the days ahead we must ask two questions: first, "Where are we?" and second, "Where do we go from here?" We Americans seem to have forgotten where we came from, we don't know where we are, and we fear where we may be going. We are a scene of frenetic fears, confusion, and madness. Scared New World. Life has become a catalogue of crises: the Urban Crisis, the Race Crisis, the Campus Crisis, the Poverty Crisis, the World Crisis, the Crisis of a Free and Open Society, and underneath it all our personal crises of whether to live or drop out. We are bombarded with so-called studies and reports on the consequences of urbanization, the population explosion, the changing character of our educational system, our values, our family life, our relationships with one another, or rather our lack of relationships, the ever increasing alienation of the individual from his society, his inability to act on those issues that are vital to him, his family, and his community.”

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Book:Reveille for Radicals
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“The tragedy of the young generation's "radicals" is that they dogmatically refuse to begin with the world as it is. But the only world we have is the world as it is, and we have to begin with that. Any social changer, throughout history, has always known that you begin from where you are. Change can only be effected through power, and power means organization. Organization can be built only around issues which are specific, immediate, and realizable.”

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Book:Reveille for Radicals
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“This mutual aid work we're doing here--that's the mycelium, the roots of the fungus that spread underground, forming a network through the forest that can spread for miles, unseen, strengthening and feeding the whole organism. Then when conditions are right--the right amount of rain, sun, press exposure, public outrage, whatever--" Shayna made an exploding gesture with her hand. "All of a sudden, little mushrooms pop up all over the forest. All of a sudden, you've got mass protests springing up across the country. And... the thing about mushrooms is, they shoot out spores. Millions of 'em, spreading their fungal secrets everywhere the wind blows. And just like that, each time we have a protest, we're sending out millions of spores that take root in people's minds." "Now, once a spore lands in fertile soil, it takes a while to start growing. It's got to build up its own network of mycelium." "So protest movements always spread the spores for the next protest movement. Like mushrooms, they're only meant to last a short while. Hell, the Free People's Village was a sturdy little mushroom--we were out there for months! And since then, all the zillions of spores we sent into the world? They've been growing. Trust. Now we just got to wait for the next time the conditions are right--and be ready. In the meantime, we grow our network--we spread our mycelium, we strengthen our community.”

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Book:The Free People's Village
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“They march in the streets and the classrooms and the courtrooms and the parliaments and the boardrooms, and we thought they would stop, but they didn’t. We thought they would grow tired, but still they didn’t. They grew louder and louder until every corner of the world heard their demand: a planet they can live on. That’s what they want, and they keep saying it, and they won’t stop saying it.”

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Book:Nature's Last Dance: Tales of Wonder in an Age of Extinction
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