The first task in teaching is to bring to consciousness what the students already believe by virtue of their personal experiences about themselves and society.
Paul WellstoneRead
The problem with party politics is that people get involved every two or four years and that is it. In the meantime, the legislature and Minnesota politics are on a separate track.
Interpretation
Political engagement should happen continuously, not just during election cycles.
This quote by Paul Wellstone highlights the issue of limited political engagement among the populace, emphasizing that citizens should be active participants in politics beyond just the moments leading up to elections. He suggests that true democracy requires constant involvement in governance to ensure that legislators remain connected to the needs and concerns of their constituents.
In practice
In a speech about civic responsibility, emphasizing the need for year-round political involvement.
The first task in teaching is to bring to consciousness what the students already believe by virtue of their personal experiences about themselves and society.
A politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstances of people's lives, a politics that does not speak to and include people, is an intellectually arrogant politics that deserves to fail.
The future will not belong to those who sit on the sidelines. The future will not belong to the cynics. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
I think the future also will not belong to those who are cynical or those who stand on the sidelines
Politics is not about power. Politics is not about money. Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people's lives.
What the poor, the weak, and the inarticulate desperately require is power, organization, and a sense of identity and purpose, not rarefied advice of political scientists.
I think the political class in Berlin doesn't need to be supervised and monitored by intelligence services in order to find out what they're thinking. Just go to lunch with them, go to dinner with them, or read the papers.
The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.
Democracies are slow to anger and hesitant to go to war: Voters don't want to sacrifice their children for the glory of a selfish king.
Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
We, the people, are not free. Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means we choose between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. We elect expensive masters to do our work for us, and then blame them because they work for themselves and for their class.
The crisis of black politics can only be resolved through the development of multiclass, multiracial, progressive political structures.
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