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Quote by Lawrence Nault

“The forest doesn’t argue with the axe. The ocean doesn’t plead with the net. They remain silent, wanting only to live—and they die anyway. Those who say silence protects you should ask the land how that worked out.”

Quote by Lawrence Nault

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Lawrence Nault

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“Overall, if you find yourself feeling crappy, tired, unmotivated, overwhelmed, unproductive, with a face that could scare small children, and wishing you were in a different timeline, you’re not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re in excellent company. These days, most of us are just trying to get through the day. But maybe that’s enough for now. Take care of yourself, lower your standards, take a nap, and then join the fight whenever you’re ready.”

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“What is the American radical? The radical is that unique person who actually believes what he says. He is that person to whom the common good is the greatest personal value. He is that person who genuinely and completely believes in mankind. The radical is so completely identified with mankind that he personally shares the pain, the injustices, and the sufferings of all his fellow men. For the radical the bell tolls unceasingly and every man’s struggle is his fight.”

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“The radical is not fooled by shibboleths and facades. He faces issues squarely and does not hide his cowardice behind the convenient cloak of rationalization. The radical refuses to be diverted by superficial problems. He is completely concerned with fundamental causes rather than current manifestations. He concentrates his attack on the heart of the issue.”

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“The American radical will fight privilege and power, whether it be inherited or acquired by any small group, whether it be political or financial or organized creed. He curses a caste system, aware that it exists despite all patriotic denials. He will fight conservatives, whether they are business or labor leaders. He will fight any concentration of power hostile to a broad, popular democracy, whether he finds it in financial circles or in politics. The radical recognizes that constant dissension and conflict is and has been the fire under the boiler of democracy.”

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“First, what do radicals want of the future? From a general point of view, liberals and radicals desire progress. In this they differ from conservatives, for while a conservative wishes to conserve the status quo, liberals ask for change and radicals fight for change. They desire a world rid of those destructive forces from which issue wars. They want to do away with economic injustice, insecurity, unequal opportunities, prejudice, bigotry, imperialism, all chauvinistic barriers of isolationism and other nationalistic neuroses. They want a world where life for man will be guided by a morality which is meaningful — and where the values of good and evil will be measured not in terms of money morals but social morals. For these and many other reasons they face the challenge of the future with anticipation and hope.”

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“Radicals want to advance from the jungle of laissez-faire capitalism to a world worthy of the name of human civilization. They hope for a future where the means of economic production will be owned by all of the people instead of just a comparative handful. They feel that this minority control of production facilities is injurious to the large masses of people not only because of economic monopolies but because the political power inherent in this form of centralized economy does not augur well for an ever expanding democratic way of life. Radicals want to see the established political rights or political freedom of the common man augmented by economic freedom. They believe that Lincoln’s statement that a nation cannot exist half-free and half-slave is applicable to the entire world and includes economic as well as political freedom. In short, radicals are convinced that the marriage of political rights to economic rights will produce a social morality in which the Golden Rule will replace the gold standard. Possessed of this sketch of a world to be, radicals find themselves adrift in the stormy sea of capitalism.”

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“What has been completely forgotten and cannot be overemphasized is that a People’s Organization carries within it two major functions. Both are equally important. One is the accepted understanding that organization will generate power that will be controlled and applied for the attainment of a program. The second is the realization that only through organization can a people’s program be developed. When people are brought together, or organized, they get to know each other’s point of view; they reach compromises on many of their differences, they learn that many opinions which they entertained solely as their own are shared by others, and they discover that many problems which they had thought of only as “their” problems are common to all. Out of all this social interplay emerges a common agreement, and that is the people’s program. Then the other function of organization becomes important: the use of power in order to fulfill the program.”

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“There should not be too much concern with specifics or details of a people’s program. The program items are not too significant when one considers the enormous importance of getting people interested and participating in a democratic way. After all, the real democratic program is a democratically minded people--a healthy, active, participating, interested, self-confident people who, through their participation and interest, become informed, educated, and above all develop faith in themselves, their fellow men, and the future. The people themselves are the future. The people themselves will solve each problem that will arise out of a changing world. They will if they, the people, have the opportunity and power to make and enforce the decision instead of seeing that power vested in just a few. No clique, or caste, power group or benevolent administration can have the people’s interest at heart as much as the people themselves.”

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“The radical fights not for himself but for ideas, and ideas have a way of living on — they don’t kill as easily as man, and he knows that in the end the best ideas or wav of life will prevail. The radical’s affection for people is not lessened, nor is he hardened against them even when masses of them demonstrate a capacity for brutality, selfishness, hate, greed, avarice, and disloyalty. He is convinced that these attitudes and actions are the result of evil conditions. It is not the people who must be judged but the circumstances that made them that way. The radical’s desire to change society then becomes that much firmer. Each blow makes him a stronger radical.”

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“Those who have devoted themselves to the building of People’s Organization have become more and more convinced that one of the most significant educational approaches is not through argument, through lectures, through logic, or any other conventional common practices but through rationalization. These organizers feel, on the basis of their experiences not only in People’s Organizations but in their own general life, that most people in a great many instances act first and think afterward of the reasons why they acted. It seems as though a good part of our knowledge and what we may refer to as our own philosophy and attitudes are not things that we carefully and laboriously think through but are the rationalizations or self-justifications of acts we have already committed.”

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