It could fairly be said that America, during the Bush years, has entered an Age of Denial - arguably the first stage of a nation's decline.
I think being Canadian helps you as a journalist in America, because you're sort of on the outside watching this big party going on, and you're sort of taking mental notes as it goes on. I think if you're in the party the whole time, you don't notice it as much. And I think Canadians are very good observers of American culture.
When you have a peace movement that has an actual war, it's different from one that has wars that our country is not totally involved in. During the war in Vietnam, and to a lesser degree the wars in Central America where our country was directly involved, it was easier to organize.
I want to see America thrive. I want to see all different families here succeed.
The image of blacks usually is one of people who are suffering from hunger, unemployment, and poverty. The idea of them as agents and activists - as starting revolutions - does not exist in most people's minds. And I think it's very, very important that folks understand how much America was founded on the enslavement of blacks, and how the resistance of blacks to that enslavement has been the spark plug for so many important developments.
I don't believe in America, but I believe in people.
I'm at a place of deep cynicism about American politics.
I went to Europe to live in 1961. I'd never have written Julian if it hadn't been for the sequestered life that I led in Rome and the classical library at the America Academy.
Come to me and show me a small cancer and I'll tell you you've got a small cancer that should be cut out. That's realism but in America it's called cynicism.
Deeply versed in history, [John Adams] said over and over that America had no special providence, no special role in history, that Americans were no different from other peoples, that the United States was just as susceptible to viciousness and corruption as any other nation. In this regard, at least, Jefferson's vision has clearly won the day.
As early as 1776, [John Adams] expressed his doubts about America's capacity for virtue. "I have seen all along my Life, Such Selfishness, and Littleness even in New England, that I sometimes tremble to think that, altho We are engaged in the best Cause that ever employed the Human Heart, yet the Prospect of success is doubtfull not for Want of Power or of Wisdom, but of Virtue."
Television is perhaps the greatest medium ever discovered to teach and educate and even to entertain. But the filth, the rot, the violence, and the profanity that spew from television screens into our homes is deplorable. It is a sad commentary on our society. The fact that a television set is on six or seven hours every day in most of the homes of America says something of tremendous importance.
My black friends in America don't believe me. I said, 'Dude, I'm Nigerian American.' 'Word? We thought you were, like, regular black.' What the hell is 'regular black'? Crayola coming out with colors I don't know about?
I think laughter is crucial. Some of the original cultures, like the Dalit and the Native American, don't separate laughter and seriousness.
The reason I’m not more political is because I have music. And from a young age, I needed it. After prison, my father came to America, joined the Army, fought in Vietnam - and was exposed to Agent Orange. He died a slow, horrible death. Music was my escape.
In America, sometimes people think all Latinos can be deported, and we can't. You know, I can't be deported.
There's a lot of talk about division right now in America, and I really want to unite people and go like: 'Those are my problems, too, I feel that, too."
I obviously disagree with the individuals who do not support rural America and do not support rural airports. Under their philosophy, maybe we shouldnt even be paving roads in rural America, because there are fewer people that drive on them.
Diplomacy has more to do with (credible) threats than with sweet reason. And threats from America are a lot more credible, nowadays.
The same president who has insisted that core moralism drives him has brought America to its lowest moral standing in history.
The genius of America's endless war machine is that, learning from the unpleasantness of the Vietnam war protests, it has rendered the costs of war largely invisible.
This European and really pro-Russian nationalism is seeping into America. It's very disturbing.
America's religion, this is it, gang. This is all you need to know: There is a God. He is going to judge us. We should be good to each other, because daddy is going to be pissed in the end if we're not. That's it. That's called a big principle.
Not a single time have we gotten our rights from Congress or the President, we get them from God. And when He gives us those rights, He puts a warning bell inside of us. When somebody tries to take them, a warning bell goes off. And that's what America is feeling right now.
America, I'm gonna shoot straight with you, I think I've wasted your time. I think this is the first time I have wasted an hour of your time. I apologize for that.
