"It's a difficult moment, given the economic crises all over the world, but at the same time there have been sparks of hope. The revolutions in the Middle East gave some hope to people around the world; so did the Occupy movement. We need some staying power. We need to feel that it is possible to pursue things in the US such as free health care, which we still don't have... even though Barack Obama is quite right when he boasts that he was responsible for the first major legislation on health care in the history of the country since the New Deal. We still have a long way to go. We may be powerless as individuals-and even someone like Obama may be relatively powerless as an individual-to do things that will be bring us a better world. But if we come together, we can build movements and put pressure on the major political figures. This is what we need to be doing in the coming months before the election. The first time around, we elected Obama for what this election meant: the historical election of an African American to the presidency. We were doing it for him. This time, we need to think about ourselves. We need to do it for us. Then we need to continue that movement after the election."