‘WE COLLECTIVELY CAN DECIDE ON OUR FATE’
“Technological change is gonna happen, scientific discoveries are gonna happen; I think with the collapse of communism I think we recognize that markets are gonna happen.”
“But having said all that, I insist — and in this I think I am inheriting what was probably the best part of the dream from both my father, my African father, my white American mother. I think the best legacy of theirs, my inheritance, is the notion that we collectively can decide on our fate…things like technological change, things like mass media, things like the market, are all subject to our control, that we can make decisions for better or worse and continue to move forward and progress.”
“I would challenge a reading of American history that would say the entire history of America is towards concentration of power and oppression. I think that American history moves in waves and cycles. I think that recapturing the spirit that existed not just in the civil rights movement but in the union organizing movement, in the populist movement, I think there is a running thread, one of the better angels of our nature in this country which has been the notion that you know we can sit around the table and find common ground and make democracy work in the way that it should be worked.”
“Its not popular right now to say that and to believe in a kind of a common good but I think that notions of common good are the glue that hold our society together.”
Blog Smith is inspired by the myth of Hephaestus in the creation of blacksmith-like, forged materials: ideas. This blog analyzes topics that interest me: IT, politics, technology, history, education, music, and the history of religions.