columnists-from-the-united-states

"The Arkansawyers are of the type of the old Hoosiers, Crackers, Pikers, and the Big Smoky mountaineers. The Hoosiers themselves were descendants of the bond-servants of Colonial days and being of low degree sought their own kind while the great migration going "out West" moved along the Ohio. They settled in the malaria swamps of Indiana and Illinois, but that was on the highway to empire and civilization drove them out. They colonized again in Pike County, Missouri, and made the name "Piker" notorious throughout the West as denoting a fellow of feeble wit and feebler initiative. Other migrations of the bondservant stock found their way into Arkansas, and as no strong tribe followed them into this retreat they were never driven out again. "Crackers," descendants of the Georgia convict colony, also found refuge in Arkansas. The mountain people, too, came gradually onward, proliferating in their beloved highlands till they crossed the Mississippi and peopled the Ozarks. But these people are not mentally dull nor physically inefficient. They are simply a highland race that loves solitude and scorns comfort, literature, and luxury.These three strains, the mountain people, the Crackers, and the Piker numskulls, have united to make the Arkansas nation; for they are a nation, as distinct from the other peoples in America as is a Swede from a Dane. Whenever Arkansawyers appear in Kansas, California, South Carolina, or Texas the natives hold up their hands in horror, fearing that their Spartan State will be erased by the obliterating helot swarm. The high wages in the agricultural Northwest during the World War drew a few Arkansawyers to Nebraska, whither they took their dogs and women, their customs and ideals—and labored for the Swedish and Teutonic farmers. The sturdy Nebraskans (from North Europe) were shocked by the general worthlessness of the Arkansawyers and were heard to declare: "If they keep on letting that kind of people into this country, America has gone to hell.""

"For all practical purposes, wheat is civilization. It produces what we euphemistically call the staff of life, a staff which has recently been behaving like a boomerang...By the same token, wheat makes politics and has always made them. Whether you turn to ancient Rome, Egypt or Mesopotamia, or advert to modern times, you will find wheat working political earthquakes. Wheat, needed by England, won the Civil War for the North; then the American transcontinental lines opened the wheat empire of North America, and our wheat wrecked agriculture in Central Europe. Austria-Hungary took to growing hogs, instead, and agricultural experts swiftly decided that Serbian swine were unsanitary, laid down an embargo and started a political avalanche that led straight to Serajevo."

"What is a bore? Maxwell definition: a vacuum cleaner of society, sucking up everything and giving nothing. How do you spot one? Bores are always eager to be seen talking to you."

"Bores put you in a mental cemetery while you are still walking."

"Under pressure, people admit to murder, setting fire to the village church, or robbing a bank, but never to being bores."

"Why tussle with a when you can walk outside, spend time in fresh air and come in with an armful of fresh food?"

"When we think of eating homegrown food during the cold season, we often think of staples such as potatoes squirreled away in the , or of vegetables like stashed in a cool, dry place. But many s are discovering the joys of harvesting fresh produce all winter long, which allows for feasts of cold-hardy crops that are just-picked and just right for the time of year. ... Winter fare is about leaves, stems, and roots, which mature more and more slowly as the weather cools and the days shorten. Better still, winter vegetables sweeten with the cold. If you’ve ever tasted a winter-pulled carrot or winter-cut , you’re familiar with the treasures winter gardening can bring. ... ... Winter has always been a good season for a wide array of crops in the southern states, and in the northern tier of the United States, you can grow the same crops if you use a winter-protection device to broaden your garden’s productive season. This might be a , a simple , the quick-hoop system, or just a layer or two of floating row cover, often called Reemay. All of these season-extension devices capture some of the earth’s natural warmth, especially at night, and block the chilling, drying effect of wind."

"You just can't put roses in the ground and hope they'll thrive ... If you want a lot of show and color but no work, then plant easy things like that don't take much work."

"Lamb's quarters. '. How this weed got to be associated with so many animals I'll never know, but it also goes by the names pigweed, fat hen, and white goosefoot. An annual that likes any garden soil, it has ragged-edged leaves and grows as tall as 6 feet. On the plus side, it's easy to pull out and is delicious cooked like . But it grows very fast, and unless you consume an awful lot of creamed greens there is always too much of it."

"Oddly enough, modern gardens have become more and more scentless. Bigger, hardier, more beed flowers are the goal of the hybridizers, and while the new plants are often superior in many ways to old favorites, they are rarely more fragrant. Scent is a ghost you find in old gardens, or in plantings of old-fashioned varieties. It is also found aplenty in gardens for the blind, who are particularly attuned to scent, and in herb beds where the subtle scents of foliage are treasured."

"One thing we can control, if we want to embark on it, is getting our own food supply. I think that, for a lot of people, it could be an economic necessity or improvement. In my case, it's much more the satisfaction of knowing how fresh it is, what's gone into growing it, how it tastes, the fact that it's right out there — I can go grab it — you know, that kind of thing."

"We in the media could help [the insurance situation] if we put in proper perspective long range hurricane forecasts that often are exaggerated and play into insurers’ hands."

"Be as nice as possible and as nasty as necessary."

"Life is a game and a gamble."

"Ideas are harder to promote than products or personalities."

"Tony Davis, an environmental writer for nearly thirty years, first broke the story that put an end to the myth of 's inexhaustible aquifer. data showed that it was not the size of Lake Superior, but far smaller and more complex than suspected. His handling of the USGS report in the ' gave credibility to the need to create a water conservation program in the city. Davis now writes for the ' in Tucson."

"You have to ask yourself, What do I really want to do or be? Then make yourself this promise: I will not look over my shoulder; I will use whatever I have learned, but I will not dwell on the mistakes I have made. Whether you're seventeen, twenty-seven or sixty-seven, you bring experience to your new venture or adventure. If you draw from your own experience and use it as a guide, focus on today and not yesterday, your chances of success are greatly improved."

"The saddest people I know are those who have spent thirty or forty years working for the same employer doing something they almost like."

"The difference between a mountain and a molehill is your perspective."

"Eat only when you are hungry. Drink only when you’re thirsty. Sleep only when you’re tired. Screw only when you’re horny."

"In my book, an S.O.B. is someone who uses whatever tactics it takes to get the job done—to rise to the top."

"Everyone should fail in a big way at least once before they’re forty. I don’t mean little disappointments, like screwing up an important assignment or quitting a good job or even getting fired from a normal job. It needs to be a big failure. You can only fail big if you take a big risk. The bigger you fail, the bigger you’re likely to succeed later."

"Only cream and S.O.B.s rise to the top."

"There's little question, in my mind, that development in the West is digging its own grave. Societies, even technologically sophisticated ones, cannot grow and build against basic conditions of and forever. Sooner or later the character of the land will catch up with them. , forced usually by climate change as well as factional disputes and design miscalculations, make that clear."

"Like other emerging towns and cities in the and in the developing world, 's vulnerability to mainstream cultural backwash and population flooding puts it on the list of endangered places. And because it is geographically set in the middle of a true natural wilderness—riverine, high desert plateau of central New Mexico—Albuquerque is particularly defenseless against the fast-paced flow of the mainstream world. The attraction of its emptiness seems as irresistible as gravity. Its image is not only that of an impoverished, charm-ridden hick town eager for tourist jobs and glitz, but its "wilderness" status makes it seem ripe for the picking, like certain portions of the or what used to be the deserted beaches of the ."

"I saw every day how many things can go wrong, but I also saw that somehow my mother prevailed. And she had her two sons to help her do that. When my brother was in eighth grade, he worked in a grocery store making a dollar or a dollar and a half a week. My first real job was a dollar a week in a butcher shop. Every dime or every dollar that the three of us brought in helped my mother hold this group of three people together, because her income was absolutely unpredictable. All she had when my father died was a small house that was paid for. I got to the point in grade school where I felt that I had to try anything—or everything—to succeed, and I learned to expect a lot of knocks, because I had seen my mother take them. I really think... that was my real education, what I learned at home in my early years."

"Where were you, last night?" "I was in bed... sleeping Beside you... Of course!" "And I was leaping Broomsticks, and burying Jesus, And patting Godiva's horse!"

"It is only the women whose eyes have been washed clear with tears who get the broad vision that makes them little sisters to all the world."

"She's up there—Old Glory—where lightnings are sped; She dazzles the nations with ripples of red; And she'll wave for us living, or droop o'er us dead— The flag of our country forever!"

"Sweetest li'l' feller, Ev'ry-body knows; Dun-no what to call 'im, But he mighty lak' a rose!"

"The scientific method consists of the use of procedures designed to show not that our predictions and hypotheses are right, but that they might be wrong. Scientific reasoning is useful to anyone in any job because it makes us face the possibility, even the dire reality, that we were mistaken. It forces us to confront our self-justifications and put them on public display for others to puncture. At its core, therefore, science is a form of arrogance control."

"there was a distinction, a crucial distinction that kids have to make – kids, but teachers should help them – between rising out of poverty and destroying poverty. Do you use education to get out of it, or do you use education for all of us to get out of it?"

"women’s struggles are labor politics, but they’re unwaged labor politics. And they’re not less important or more important but integral to the entire picture. There is waged work in the society, and there is unwaged work in the society, and they’re both absolutely crucial to the accumulation of capital and to its destruction."

"The relationships on which the whole society rests are in wreck condition, are in disastrous condition because women are going out to work. It’s not just a few minutes a day. It’s taking care of the relationships that are the foundation of our lives. That’s what women do. And when we can’t do that, when most of us can’t do that, we are either furious, resentful, or we begin to be uncaring ourselves. And that has happened to some women. It’s happened to all of us to some degree. That we don’t want to know about how the people that we would ordinarily have been taking care of, how they’re suffering. We don’t want to know. We can’t cope with the knowledge of the mess that people we love are in, as a result of the fact that we have no time to take care of them. I think there are really a lot of women in that situation. They call it the Sandwich Generation. They call it whatever they like. Any nice little name they give it, it’s definitely the suffering of the carer as well as those that they care for, obviously, which is why the carer is suffering."

"(AG: ...you said, “I think we have to know that prison is part of society”) SJ: …in order for so many people to be incarcerated, they have to convince the population that this is no part of their life, that prison is outside of their society, that it’s not something they should be concerned about and fighting about and supporting, that it is other than the life we are living. But in fact, in my view, the fact that so many people are in prison in the United States not only shapes the lives of millions—the families, etc.—but it means that the whole society is much more repressive, because the standards of prison are constantly imprisoning the rest of us in crucial respects. But the number, the millions of people, of children who are growing up with a parent inside and who will themselves be part—you know, Mumia’s son is in prison. You know, I mean, the thing is absolutely mind-blowing, the kind of brutality that the prison system has launched in the society, generally. It’s not the only force of repression, but it is one serious source of repression."

"(AG: you have said you can’t confront the American state spontaneously.) SJ: You always spontaneously react against the American state. You know, it is one of the most brutal ever in history. But on the other hand, you must organize against it. Spontaneity is not enough. Spontaneity is the basis on which you organize. And the question that C. L. R. James posed all those years ago is still our question: how do you organize in a way that does not prevent the spontaneity and the experience and the outpouring of all that you feel and think? You know, organization has tended to be a kind of repression, in spite of the fact that you’re going for liberation. And how do you form an organization that is not a repression, that is a discipline that demands accountability, but does not repress either your experience or your ideas or your spontaneous responses? That’s what we’ve been addressing for 40 years. This month is the 40th anniversary of the Wages for Housework Campaign, so I’ve spent 40 years of my life doing this. I’ve learned an enormous amount from others and with others."

"What keeps me motivated is that I want to enjoy my life, and the closest I can get to full enjoyment is to attack my enemies. And I find that, if I do it honestly and with others in a collective way, I have a good chance to know what’s happening in my own life. So my own life is not mystified, so I don’t believe the lies they tell me about what I think and what I feel or should feel and should think. That I really begin to see other members of the human race in the round rather than with the nonsense that all of us spew out from time to time when we don’t know what better to say. And that’s what really keeps me motivated. I have a very high opinion of my own life, and therefore, I want to use it in a way that is elevating to me but also to all those who are down here with us. I don’t know if I’ve said that very clearly, but you know, it’s something that I want for myself. To be part of this struggle is to be learning, all the time. And that’s more fun than anything I know, I mean, like anything. To learn what’s really going on is such a major thrill that it’s what really keeps me motivated."

"she is—quite simply—not only one of the most outstanding feminist thinkers of her generation but, as well, an insightful and exceedingly intelligent political analyst."

"...if any sector of women begins to spell out their own situation and how life is for them, others can identify, say, “Yes, that is an element of my life, as well.” That’s been true with lesbian women. It’s been true with single mothers. It’s been true with prostitutes. It’s been true with women with disabilities also. You know, you know the ways in which you are constrained better by hearing the experience of others who are even more constrained than you are. And it’s certainly true with women in prison, as well."

"(asked about the main thesis of the 1952 book A Woman’s Place) …It was that women are engaged in the work of making society, of making children - that is an enormous job - and that the separation between women and men is harmful to all of us."

"(asked about the pamphlet she published in 1974 Sex, Race and Class) SJ: The point was that by that time, there were - there was a real problem with how do you balance the movement of black people, the movement of immigrants, the movement of women, the movement of lesbian and gay people. How do they relate to each other? And there was a kind of competition for priorities. And I wrote the pamphlet to say, “Look, we are all in the same struggle, and there is a connection between all of us that we must draw out. But in order for that connection to be made, each sector will make its own autonomous case, and on that basis we can unite.” How exactly? I don’t know, because I wasn’t the left in that way. I didn’t feel I had to have the answers, only the questions. And that’s what “Sex, Race and Class” is about, really."

"...my intention when I write is to provide organizing tools. Most come directly from lessons we learnt in the course of organizing. I hope they will help others. Also, people are misled by structures and strictures that come from academia or the “vanguard” left—or both. Endless hours are spent discussing “theory” when, ultimately, the real theory is in what you do and how you do it and with whom and against whom."

"...we have a slogan in London: “Mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, fighting for our loved ones’ lives.” And that’s not a Romantic view of women’s work that — women’s justice work. That is the reality. That’s who does it. That’s who’s on the line in front of the prison where men and women are held unjustly. It’s women who are doing this work. And it’s an extension of the caring work that we have always done."

"… a lot of feminism has gone into individual careers and into ambition, and there’s some evidence that the class line between women is much greater now with feminism, because a whole set of women have gone into the part of the elite. They get pay equity. They get a lot of kudos, a lot of—they are very accepted in the society. And the rest of us are getting screwed. I mean, our pay is not going up. The child care doesn’t exist or is very bad. Welfare has been abolished. And we really need to have another reason to be together, which is the real conditions of our lives, rather than an individual ambition. And I felt that the SlutWalk was part of that new movement, which says it’s not ambition we want. We want to have the freedom to live the lives as we like them, and we are together for that. It was very exciting."

"I think that that is what the teachers should be saying and doing. They should be spelling it out. They should be telling the parents, “If you want me to teach, fight for my wages, and fight for my time. Fight for the facilities, and fight for the children to have instruments to play in band and things like that, on school time, with school money.” You know, we want to give these children an education that really fits them to have a happy life, not fits them to be a repressed individual at the service of the state…I think that something similar has happened with nurses – and nurses are fighting to take care of patients…They’re not only fighting that they’re overworked and underpaid. They’re fighting so that they can take the proper care of the patients. You know, one of the nurses was complaining to me that his boss on the ward says that, “You spend too much time with the patients. If you have to go bandage a leg, just bandage a leg, but then you sit and talk with them, and that’s no good!” So, I think there’s a real crisis – this is in general – between us carers and those who exploit us. On the one hand, we want to care. But on the other hand, we don’t want that wish to care to be used against us as workers. And we have always to decide, as carers, as teachers, as nurses, as mothers, as neighbors, we have to decide how to defend our caring but not allow ourselves to be exploited because we have this “weakness,” and in fact, this vulnerability is the right word. We have to say, “You have to pay us to do the right thing.” And we don’t take the little bit that [either] we want to do the right thing, or we want to take the money. We want both. That’s really crucial, and it took a lot of years, I think, to be absolutely clear, to be able to say that in that succinct way because it’s very hard to figure out, if you are a carer, if your work is the health and well-being of other people, how to be dedicated to it but not exploited, not allow yourself to be exploited by it."

"One of the key political thinkers and activists of our times."

"You have to fight for every right and every access and every penny that is yours by right or that you want to make yours by right. That is true for every sector...Organizing for change in particular sectors on the one hand, and the sectors coming together internationally to change everything on the other, is I think the political question of our time."

"(about her work with Mariarosa Dalla Costa in 1972) …we were developing a new perspective that was international and far more comprehensive. Up to then, the working class was defined as waged workers at the “point of production”—the only ones who could make fundamental change. We were redefining the working class to include housewives and all the unwaged. It was not only antisexist, it was antiracist and saw the reproduction of labor power, in fact of the whole human race everywhere, as work at the service of capitalist accumulation. We said if you work for capital, waged or unwaged, you are part of the working class, the subversive class."

"A Care Income would increase the status and the power of carers for people and planet, and for this reason we face opposition from those who want to keep the power in their own hands or in the hands of their masters. With the pandemic and the climate emergency, everybody knows that caring matters. But it’s one thing to win the argument, it’s another to win the struggle. It’s between us and the billionaires."

"With rare exceptions, we in the movement have to be understood by anybody who wants to hear. We have to be available, accessible, with words of one syllable that relate to people's real experiences of life and struggle."