#erica

Something must be radically wrong with a culture and a civilisation when its youth begins to desert it. Youth is the natural time for revolt, for experiment, for a generous idealism that is eager for action. Any civilisation which has the wisdom of self-preservation will allow a certain margin of freedom for the expression of this youthful mood. But the plain, unpalatable fact is that in America today that margin of freedom has been reduced to the vanishing point. Rebellious youth is not wanted here. In our environment there is nothing to challenge our young men; there is no flexibility, no colour, no possibility for adventure, no chance to shape events more generously than is permitted under the rules of highly organised looting. All our institutional life combines for the common purpose of blackjacking our youth into the acceptance of the status quo; and not acceptance of it merely, but rather its glorification. ↗

— Harold Edmund Stearns

#adventure #america #civilization #desertion #emigration

All I want to be is human and American and have all the same rights and I will shut up. ↗

— Martha Griffiths

#human #i #rights #same #shut

America is a mistake, a giant mistake. ↗

— Sigmund Freud

#giant #mistake

What would be the nicest thing I could say about Newt Gingrich? He may be one of the great supporters of the humanities, because you have people who don't want to study the social sciences, because it's not profitable, and now Newt, as the highest-paid historian in American history, may be an encouragement to people to study history. ↗

— Barney Frank

#american #american history #because #could #encouragement

I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together. ↗

— Marcus Garvey

#anglo-saxon #as far as #better #clubs #concerned

Fortunately, in President Obama, the child of an African and an American, we finally have a leader who is uniquely positioned to bridge the great reparations divide. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#american #bridge #child #divide #finally

The great thing about American women is their energy and the way they love to dress. French women don't really dress; they are too conservative, as it's always a question of money. In America, women are powerful and strong, determined. If they want to be an object, they choose to be in control. ↗

— Jean Paul Gaultier

#always #america #american #american women #choose

America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel. ↗

— Allen Ginsberg

#i #putting #queer #shoulder #wheel

American movies and music deliver themes of freedom, innocence, and power that appeal to others - partly because America itself was put together out of a multiplicity of national traditions. ↗

— Todd Gitlin

#american #american movies #appeal #because #deliver

Americas are, for a variety of reasons, the most adept at producing the kind of entertainment that delivers easy satisfactions. ↗

— Todd Gitlin

#americas #delivers #easy #entertainment #kind