Al Owski > Recent Status Updates

“We need Americans to understand that the real issue isn't the size of government, it's the use of government. As Democrats... we believe in government that gets done what's needed, when it's needed. Nothing more and nothing less. That's what we've got to make clear to people (and to ourselves): we stand for an effective government based on values that help people.”

“The point of all this is that we're not socialist and we're not capitalist... we're Americans who are trying to make this a better country to live in. The point is, capitalism is a foundation of our economy, something that is necessary but most definitely in need of regulation.”

“Large corporations aren't immoral, they're amoral. If doing good turns a bigger profit, they do good. If doing bad creates a bigger profit... they do bad. And we've already seen what happens when corporate greed meets no rules and no referees: inhumane work conditions, starvation wages, and child labor, culminating in the Great Depression.”

"I have now understood that though it seems to people that they live by care for themselves, in truth it is love alone by which they live. He who has love is in God, and God is in him, for God is love.”

“socialism has lost any practical meaning. Does it mean communism? Or does it mean Social Security and Medicare? How about the right to clean air and clean water? Is that "socialist"? Or national standards to ensure fair voting in elections? The truth is, the Republicans have turned the word "socialist" into a bogeyman,' a label they can stick on anything they don't like to make it seem evil.”

“Protecting the rich is why they oppose Social Security and Medicare, and expanding Medicaid. It's why they oppose all social programs, the very ones that would benefit a lot of their base: Social programs cost money. And money means taxes...”

“Remember then: there is only one time that is important — now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with anyone else: and the most important affair is to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life.”

“Protecting the rich is why Republicans oppose things like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Protection Agency, why they oppose any kind of regulation of clean air or water, why they want to open our natural resources to unlimited exploitation and why they oppose any sort of research into the consequences of it. Rich people own the coal mines.”

“Protecting the rich is why the GOP keeps pushing huge tax cuts for the wealthy. It's the origin of Reagan's "supply-side economics" (also called "voodoo economics"), the idea that if you pour lots of money into the hands of the rich, some of it will slip through their fingers and "trickle down" to you and me.”

“The truth is, the modern Republican concept of conservative values didn't begin with the Founding Fathers, it began in 1933, and it was a knee-jerk reaction to FDR. The wealthy industrialists of those days... . were appalled at the reforms Roosevelt was undertaking. The ultrarich saw the New Deal as a direct threat to their power, to their enormous profits and political influence.”

“let's be clear: for us, winning 51 percent of the vote is losing. We may take the presidency, we may control the House and the Senate, but we will never gain our real goals... universal health care... campaign finance reform ... until we have... majorities in both chambers that make that kind of real reform possible, and that won't happen until we reach out and embrace that significant part of the Republican vote”

“Rural areas... and smaller cities... may be where the Republican base is located, but it's also where the people who we want to bring over to our side live... people who embrace the basic values we're talking about in this book but who live in a world with a different style, language, and day-to-day priorities... the elite who guide our language and messaging keep missing... confusing lifestyle with substance.”

“The Republican Party has an objective here: to turn the entire country into Whole Foods versus Cracker Barrel on a deeply emotional level, because then they can smoothly lump together a whole lot of independent voters with the haters. Then they can make them all feel like a tribe, emotionally connected... and threatened... in a very primal way when they shouldn't be at all.”

“The Republican strategy isn't about politics at all, it's about culture. The Republican goal is to keep us separated into two warring tribes based almost entirely on cultural differences.”

“It captured them because that's what so many of them wanted to believe. Of course it drew in racists. It drew in all the racists, but it drew in a heck of a lot of others as well. It drew in Hispanics and more than a few Black voters. In short, it worked.”

“Playing on this cultural anxiety is the essence of Republican strategy... MAGA was a subconscious message that the stability and security of the lives they used to know could somehow be recaptured.”

“The impulse to hold on to what you have, to protect it, is a very human feeling. It's no different in emotion from wanting to protect your home and family. In fact, that is exactly how a lot of conservative voters see it.”

“There really is a "culturally anxious America" out there. They may be mostly White and mostly older, but not all of them are. And there are a lot of these people (more than we realize and in places we don't recognize), and our arrogance in dismissing their anxiousness as simple racism has cost us dearly. Racism is obviously deeply involved for many people, but it's foolish to think of that as the only thing.”

“Our declaration of values has to be devoid of politics, especially our own. Our core values and beliefs need to rise above all that. People... all people, even those who oppose us... need to know in their heart that the values we set out are true. They need to sense these are American values. Above all, they need to see them as basic goals, things we intend to accomplish-not the way we plan to do it”

“Putting education first... and education for the underprivileged first of the first... is something we've never done since the colonial days in New England. We talk forever about our respect for education, but in a country where everything is measured in dollars, it's easy to see what the real priorities are. Equal opportunity also means universal access to acceptable medical care.”

“If we want to make sure we never ever have to fight over the concept of basic human rights again, then we have to make sure people understand just what those rights are. They need to understand, and they need to believe. We don't accomplish that by toppling our opponents. We accomplish that by including our opponents.”

“ "The core of organizing is we want to create change in the world and change in structures and policies and rules," he said. "But it is a craft that first and foremost is designed to help change people, and help people shake off any limiting beliefs, whether those are about ourselves or about society, and replace them with something else." ”

“"It is amazing what opens up when you recognize the person across from you, wherever they are at, that there's a reason they're there, and that there's probably some unmet human needs on the other end of that," Goehl told me. ”

“Goehl believed it was vital to be just as present in the off-season.”

“Goehl harbored an abiding faith in this meaning-making project, and it grew out of his experience knocking on doors. "Over and over, you would see somebody have something wash across their face. They'd be like, 'I never thought about that.' Or, 'I've never connected my struggles to this other person's struggles.' Or, 'I've never thought about the fact that I am focused on the wrong culprit in this story.' ”

“ "Absent positive, generative meaning makers in people's lives, the only thing that's left is the far-right preacher and Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, and, increasingly, proud white nationalists," Goehl said. "So every day we forfeit being involved in helping people make meaning of what's happening, we forfeit a chance to help move some people toward us, and that's a lot of people." ”

“What they were seeking wasn't to be found in thirty-second campaign ads or proposals for better health care, Goehl believed, as important as those things were. What they were hungry for was a way of making sense of it all. They were in the market for... "home." Goehl's fear was that the cruel and hateful and greedy in public life were more ready to give them that than his own allies were.”

“The term Goehl used for this process was "meaning making." The way he saw things, the country was in the grips of great forces of change—demographic, economic, political, climatic. Even before voters were angry, and so many of them were, they were lost, discombobulated, unsure of how to see themselves and the world- voters of all backgrounds, all persuasions. ”

“Was there a time you needed support? Was there a time you needed health care but struggled to access it? Was there a time you were counted out because of factors beyond your control? The goal of this stage, according to the report, was "to end with individuals self-generating and explicitly stating aloud implications of the narratives that ran contrary to their previously stated exclusionary attitudes." ”

“In this early phase of listening to subjects on the door justify their opinions, grace was essential. As a report on deep canvassing on the news site Vox put it, "The new research shows that if you want to change someone's mind, you need to have patience with them, ask them to reflect on their life, and listen. It's not about calling people out or labeling them fill-in-the-blank-phobic..." ”