"W.H. Auden wrote that you can't tell people what to do; you can only tell them stories. This doesn't stop people from trying, nor does it stop people from asking—particularly in ethics classes, particularly in times of crisis...."
"Where pacifism is a minority position suspected of aiding and abetting the 'enemy,' 'pacifism' is often read as 'passivism.' But pacifism is not passive. Pacifists are often cantankerous, sometimes confrontational, and frequently argumentative—particularly in times of war. Pacifists may be off radar in times of relative peace, but war fever makes us visible. This is a reminder (conveyed most powerfully in life stories of people like Dorothy Day or Mahatma Gandhi) that not all struggle is violent. Violence is never the right choice, but struggle often is."
"America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.
"Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight."
--James Ellroy, American Tabloid
Ensure a Free and Fair Election (Ban Paperless Voting Machines
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."