8 quotes
I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare.
A People's History of the United States (1980)
The Horatio Alger stories of "rags to riches" were true for a few men, but mostly a myth, and a useful myth for control.
A People's History of the United States (1980)
While some multimillionaires started in poverty, most did not.
A People's History of the United States (1980)
To white Americans of the thirties, however, blacks North and South were invisible. Only the radicals made an attempt to break the racial barriers: Socialists, Trotskyists, Communists most of all.
A People's History of the United States (1980)
Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes.
A People's History of the United States (1980)
It is a race in which we can all choose to participate, or just to watch. But we should know that our choice will help determine the outcome.
A People's History of the United States (1980)
It is possible, reading standard histories, to forget half the population of the country. The explorers were men, the landholders and merchants men, the political leaders men, the military figures men. The very invisibility of women, the overlooking of women, is a sign of their submerged status.
A People's History of the United States (1980)
One percent of the nation owns a third of the wealth. The rest of the wealth is distributed in such a way as to turn those in the 99 percent against one another: small property owners against the propertyless, black against white, native-born against foreign-born, intellectuals and professionals against the uneducated and the unskilled. These groups have resented one another and warred against one another with such vehemence and violence as to obscure their common position as sharers of leftovers in a very wealthy country (w:Divide & rule).
A People's History of the United States (1980)