The "S" Word Quotes

“If universal building codes and protections for children with pre-existing conditions can be presented as assaults on American values and the rule of law - and reported upon as such in major media that turn a promise of balance into an excuse for airing nonsense - then the debate has been dumbed down to such an extent that the right has already won, no matter what the result on election day.”
― John Nichols, The "S" Word: A Short History of an American Tradition...Socialism

“We are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream … There is never a time in our American democracy that we must ever think we are wrong when we protest. We reserve that right. When labor all over this nation came to see that it would be trampled over by capitalistic power, [there] was nothing wrong with labor getting together and organizing and protesting for its rights. We, the disinherited of this land, we who have been oppressed so long, are tired of going through the long night of captivity. And now we are reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality.”
― John Nichols, The "S" Word: A Short History of an American Tradition...Socialism

“You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums. You’re really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry … Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong … with capitalism … There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism. —Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., 1966”
― John Nichols, The "S" Word: A Short History of an American Tradition...Socialism