Activist Quote by Michael Yates

“Many activists don't want to hear about some grand narrative, one that could unify all of our struggles. So the major issue that needs to be addressed is how to get people to see that there is indeed a grand narrative which just happens to be true.” quote by Michael Yates — Download Open image

“Many activists don't want to hear about some grand narrative, one that could unify all of our struggles. So the major issue that needs to be addressed is how to get people to see that there is indeed a grand narrative which just happens to be true.”

Michael Yates

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More by Michael Yates

Life as we know it is fundamentally unsatisfying. I think most folks feel this to be true. They know that a life of aimless consumption isn't much of a life. And work offers us very little satisfaction. Plus our work and consumption is destroying the environment. And this is in the rich countries. Add starvation, etc. to the mix, and…

Michael Yates

If you do keep the faith and continue to be radical, very bad things can and do happen to you. At the very least…

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What needs to be grasped is that the system itself is the cause of all of the misery in the world. This is a…

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I still believe that workers must be the basic force which must organize and eventually transform society (along with peasants in poor countries). This…

Michael Yates

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We must not forget either that some of the system's resilience is due to its ability to coopt people with money and prestige. It is easy to get sucked right in. Those who grasp the system are also likely to be talented and capable of doing well within the system. Who will turn down a lot of money? Who doesn't…

Michael Yates

Capitalism is, in Mao's language, the main contradiction in the world today and so our efforts have to be focused on ending this system…

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I am sure that the experience of growing up in the heart of the working class and learning from my parents, and especially from my grandmother (who also worked on a barge boat as a cook and a servant for rich folks in Manhattan, Newport, Grosse Point, and Sewickley, all havens of the very rich), that life was not especially…

Michael Yates

We are all, after all, just human beings, and most of us have a lot in common.

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Young people are more likely to be idealistic and think that radical change is both necessary and possible. They may not yet be stuck…

Michael Yates

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National chauvinism is a very tough nut to crack, since a vast propaganda network is in place to keep the workers whipped up into…

Michael Yates

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The Vietnam War was so obviously evil and bore down most heavily upon working class youth that it made me think about things more deeply than I had before. It disillusioned me completely and forever about the government. And it made me aware that the media and the government lied almost as a matter of course. But it also opened…

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You can't take the view of some of the sectarian parties that hard issues can't be confronted when dealing with workers. If you don't…

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The image of blacks usually is one of people who are suffering from hunger, unemployment, and poverty. The idea of them as agents and activists - as starting revolutions - does not exist in most people's minds. And I think it's very, very important that folks understand how much this country was founded on the enslavement of blacks, and how…

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I have never been an activist for anything.

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When we criticize in Iran the actions of the government, the fundamentalists say that we and the Bush Administration are in the same camp.…

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Because my graduate academic training at law school was not one that included most of the intellectual traditions I find useful for understanding the conditions and problems that most concern me - anti-colonial theories, Foucault, critical disability studies, prison studies and the like are rarely seen in standard US Law School curricula, where students are still fighting on many campuses…

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