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We may repeat the awful revolutionary history of the 20th century because of the vulnerability of social movements to demagoguery.

Todd Gitlin

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Todd Gitlin
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: January 6
Politician
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
May
Repeat
Repeats
Revolutionary
Awful
Movement
Century
Demagoguery
History
Movements
Social
Vulnerability

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I am a realist as well as an idealist, and I think that it is incumbent upon those of us in opposition to try to work within what are always arduous circumstances to stretch the limits of the possible.
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A century of convulsive change leaves huge demographic gouge marks.
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Some fine day, Democrats may figure out how to get on the right side of the value divide - how to define America as a place of the common good and not a playground of the strong.
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Today's global justice movement may be the biggest, most diverse and energetic in history.
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Like Americans, people outside America want fun, want an emotional compensation for the utilitarianism and calculation that mark the rest of their lives.
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Sure, I've often been misrepresented - anyone frequently quoted has this experience.
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The mobilisation which Bush has been able to perform since 11 September 2001 has to be fought - at least by Americans - in the name of a wise, honourable and democratic patriotism.
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To win power anywhere you have to convince people that you can do something for them.
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All I will say is that there are particular features of the American constitutional system that renders a third party futile - at best.
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My position is not that John Kerry is either Jesus Christ or the prophet Mohammad. My position is that John Kerry is the possibility of restarting politics.
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The genius of the economic machine is in its ability to convert these indulgences into profitability. It converts desire into attention, a grip on our eyeballs and eardrums, which in turn can be marketed to advertisers.
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There is a fuzzy but real distinction that can and I believe should be made, between patriotism, which is attachment to a way of life, and nationalism, which is the insistence that your way of life deserves to rule over other ways of life.
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I don't think anyone in the media thinks strategically about society.
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I don't for the life of me understand how anybody could contemplate the results of the 2000 election in the US and say that electoral politics doesn't matter any more, and that Ralph Nader was right when he said there is no difference between the two parties.
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Americas are, for a variety of reasons, the most adept at producing the kind of entertainment that delivers easy satisfactions.
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Collectively, we are in thrall to media - because they deliver to us many of the psychic goods we crave, and we know no other way to live.
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