QUOTES
Folk
music deals with every aspect of human existence, political, religious, moral
That
is one of the missions of my life: to make sure kids know these things, and respect
the dignity of other people's labor.
I'm
a pacifist, but the most American thing you can do is to dissent, and the most
un-American thing you can do is to stifle dissent. When you feel threatened by
the suppression of your liberties, you exercise them to the nth degree, you scream
your head off every chance you get. You talk to people you don't agree with. Really
good advice: Every day, talk to at least two people who don't agree with you.
It's the only way it is going to get done.
You
know, every city, every town I go to, for the past forty years, big or little,
I have found cooperative child day care, an organic food store, alternative medicine
services, all of the interventions, none of which existed when I was in high school.
Anywhere. Now they are everywhere I go. Taken together, that is a massive amount
of energy. A tremendous amount of energy! That is why I am so optimistic. There
are too many people doing too many good things for me to afford the luxury of
being pessimistic. I'm like Desmond Tutu says, I am a prisoner of optimism. I
cannot betray that kind of optimism.
I
feel a profound sense of mission. It’s a good time to be out there, doing what
I do. It’s always a good time, but this is a particularly good time, because the
ship of state is in dire straits. And we’re on it.
“Kids
don’t have a little brother working in the coal mine, they don’t have a little
sister coughing her lungs out in the looms of the big mill towns of the Northeast.
Why? Because we organized; we broke the back of the sweatshops in this country;
we have child labor laws. Those were not benevolent gifts from enlightened management.
They were fought for, they were bled for, they were died for by working people,
by people like us. Kids ought to know that. That’s why I sing these songs. That’s
why I tell these stories, dammit. No root, no fruit!”
