I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and, as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another.
It will be up to each of you to make sure that young people, African Americans, Latinos and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again.
There's also consumer debt, the credit card debt that burdens many of the working families in America. Yes, we talk about national debt, and we're paying a lot down. But you're fixing to hear me tell you part of the remedy for people who have got a lot of credit card debt is to make sure people get some of their own money back.
Unless you have a sense of values that's shared by people and turns them loose to do certain things on their own within those sets of values, the organization, whether a nation or corporation or citizen group, just doesn't work very well.
All tours are filled with humiliation. My publisher once hired a private jet to fly me to a venue where 1,000 people were waiting. It almost bankrupted him.
Whereas, if you just say all right, let's try to bring in some recurring people, maybe that will alleviate some of the burdens on the budget moving forward.
Bad people...are in conflict with themselves; they desire one thing and will another, like the incontinent who choose harmful pleasures instead of what they themselves believe to be good.
We've learned a lot from the great psychologists. Wilhelm Reich wrote about the relationship between fascism and sexual repression. Freud rediscovered the underworld of consciousness that European rationalism had denied. But when you have a nation of people in therapy and counselling, "support" groups for every kind of human condition, where, in the clichés of that milieu, people "share" and "heal," the question, "What for?", "What now?" is no longer asked.
I understand why people are discouraged about Iraq. I can understand that. We live in a, you know, world in which people hope things happen quickly. And this is a situation where things don't happen quickly because there's, you know, a very tough group of people using tactics - mainly the killing of innocent people - to achieve their objective, and they're skillful about how they do this. And they also know the impact of what it means on the consciousness of those of us who live in the free world. They know that.
Sometimes we read or hear too much news that makes us fearful or suspicious of others. We can forget that most of the people that we know, or at least encounter regularly, are decent and friendly.
But it will depend on young people like you being open to new ideas and new possibilities. And it will require young people like you never to stereotype or assume the worst about other people.