You should not allow yourself the luxuries of discouragement of despair. Bounce back immediately, and welcome the adversity because it produces harder thinking and harder drive to get to the objective.
Ralph NaderRead
Whatever your issue is, whether it's racism or homophobia or policy issues or taxes or urban decay or health care, you're not going to go anywhere with it if we don't focus on the concentration of power.
Interpretation
Solutions to societal issues require addressing the concentration of power.
Ralph Nader emphasizes that various societal issues like racism, homophobia, and healthcare reform cannot be effectively tackled without first understanding and confronting the concentration of power in society. By focusing on how power is held and wielded, we can create pathways for real change and address the root causes of these pressing issues.
In practice
In a discussion on social reform, this quote can underscore the importance of power dynamics.
You should not allow yourself the luxuries of discouragement of despair. Bounce back immediately, and welcome the adversity because it produces harder thinking and harder drive to get to the objective.
I once said to my father, when I was a boy, 'Dad we need a third political party.' He said to me, 'I'll settle for a second.'
Power concedes nothing without a demand. The struggle for justice must never be adjourned. The forces of injustice do not take vacations.
The corporate lobby in Washington is basically designed to stifle all legislative activity on behalf of consumers.
We have the most prolonged adolescence in the history of mankind. There is no other society that requires so many years to pass before people are grown up ... Adolescence is nurtured and prolonged by educational processes and by industry that has found a bonanza in embracing the adolescent population and fortifying 'adolescent values.' This prolongation of adolescence robs the country of the population group having the most risk takers, and the highest ideals.
Moral courage is the highest expression of humanity.
NGOs have a complicated space in neoliberal politics. They are supposed to mop up the anger. Even when they are doing good work, they are supposed to maintain the status quo. They are the missionaries of the corporate world.
Want to depose the government of a poor country with resources? Want to bash Muslims? Want to build support for American military interventions around the world? Want to undermine governments that are raising their people up from poverty because they don't conform to the tastes of Upper West Side intellectuals? Use human rights as your excuse!
Power is gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.
This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.
There are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism.
Populism has had as many incarnations as it has had provocations, but its constant ingredient has been resentment, and hence whininess. Populism does not wax in tranquil times; it is a cathartic response to serious problems. But it always wanes because it never seems serious as a solution.
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