WEEKEND QUOTABLES

James Baldwin

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; freedom is something people take and people are as free as they want to be. One hasn’t got to have an enormous military machine in order to be un-free when it’s simpler to be asleep, when it’s simpler to be apathetic, when it’s simpler, in fact, not to want to be free, to think that something else is more important. -- Nobody Knows My Name

Rev. William Barber & Rev. Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign

While our nation once fought a war against poverty, now we wage a war on the poor...People are poor not because they are lazy, not because they are unwilling to work hard, but because politicians have blocked living wages and healthcare and undermined union rights and wage increases.-- Guardian Op-ed

Les Wexner, Ohio billionaire and longtime Republican donor 

“If you don’t think things are right, open your mouth...I just decided I’m no longer a Republican." -- HuffPost

James Bloodworth, worked undercover in Amazon warehouse

 In Amazon’s case, convenience evidently has a cost, and this cost is born by those toiling away in Amazon’s warehouses, rarely heard from in the media and invisible to the millions of people who every day submit orders through Amazon’s website. -- Guardian

Paul Vallas, on why he didn't act on CPS sexual assaults

His campaign released a statement that said the Lovett case was “not one that Mr. Vallas or any one of a number of other former school officials to whom we reached out, recalls other than vaguely as something that was fleetingly reported on the news.” Vallas’ campaign defended the lack of an investigation by saying it was a matter for police and child welfare authorities. -- Chicago Tribune

I hope they cast a black Superman. It would nice for a brotha to finally be faster than a speeding bullet.

— Travon Free (@Travon) September 13, 2018

Struck up a conversation w/Glorimarie Peña in Old San Juan. Regarding Hurricane María response, she told me, “It’s not that we weren’t treated like US citizens, it’s that we weren’t even treated like humans.” pic.twitter.com/B8NebKyqSA

— Leyla Santiago (@leylasantiago) September 15, 2018

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

"And all the boys there, at the bar, began to sing along..." -- Dixie Chicken (Little Feat)

Donald Trump

“Mission Accomplished!” Trump tweeted a day after the allied assault on Syrian facilities that the United States, Britain and France say are part of a large chemical weapons program. The phrase was the same one the last Republican president, George W. Bush, employed to his regret in 2003, when the Iraq War was far from over. -- Washington Post

Owen Jones

It was those who opposed war who were placed in the dock, our contemptuous prosecutors demanding: “What is your alternative, then?” We were deemed heartless in the face of despicable atrocities, and the useful idiots and dupes of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi who – unlike many of the warmongers themselves – we had always opposed. -- The Guardian

Laura Washington

We have forgotten how to add. In this multi-racial city, we have forgotten that disciplined, multi-racial coalitions can prevail. Harold Washington’s “new Democratic coalition” was a combine of African-Americans, Latinos and “progressive whites” who found a common cause to beat the Democratic Party machine. Washington’s coalition disintegrated after his death and was never revived. -- Sun-Times

Wade Lead in the water

“Chicago’s water consistently meets and exceeds the U.S. EPA’s standards for clean, high-quality drinking water,” says Megan Vidis, a spokesperson for the city’s water department. -- Chicago’s drinking water is full of lead, report says

Working Families Party state director Bill Lipton 

“For eight years we tried to work with Andrew Cuomo to transform New York into a truly progressive state. For eight years he broke his promises and kept the Republicans in the State Senate, blocking critical legislation for affordable housing, women’s equality and criminal justice reform.” -- Politico

Joe Scarborough

 Despite playing tennis, golf and football during his college days, Trump took five deferments, four for college and one for bone spurs in his feet. On the day Trump graduated from college, 40 Americans were killed in Vietnam. -- Washington Post

Avery R. Young's "Lead in da Watah" (re-visited negro spiritual) from Elyse Blennerhassett on Vimeo.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Verizon workers prepare for strike while talks continue.

Carol Marin

As the City Council Finance committee meets on Monday to denounce Spike Lee’s movie, “Chirac,” for making Chicago look bad, it might be useful to consider why, like Iraq, some of our neighborhoods resemble failed states. No matter what name we call them.  -- Willie Lloyd, King of Kings Has Died

Verizon spokesman Richard Young on prepping scabs

“We have done extensive training to prepare for this day, including the training of thousands of nonunion employees,” he said, adding that the company can also reroute calls to call centers not affected by the strike, and resolve some problems remotely. -- Guardian

Rebecca Klein

“In the next three years I think [Kansas] we'll have maybe the worst teacher shortage in the country -- I think most of that is self-inflicted.” -- Huffington Post

James Baldwin (We celebrated his 91st birthday Sunday)

Now the crucial paradox which confronts us here is that the whole process of education occurs within a social framework and is designed to perpetuate the aims of society.  Thus, for example, the boys and girls who were born during the era of the Third Reich, when educated to the purposes of the Third Reich, became barbarians.  The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. -- A Talk to Teachers (1963)

Breaking News! Chris Cristie announces he is done with punching teachers! He will announce that he will kick nurses in the shins today.

— Carol Burris (@carolburris) August 3, 2015