Susan Faludi, 6/25

"We need to change.

"..So far, the way that the media has framed the modern male problem is not exactly encouraging fresh-air thinking. ... (T)he perceived masculinity crises ... reduce to two completely contradictory messages... (that) men are emasculated victims of the women's movement ...sissified, unfairly blamed and ... actually more discriminated against than women....

"The second media message says men are behaving more badly then ever, but that's just the way men are engineered and there's really nothing we can do about it ... the message is: blame testosterone.

"Both of these messages, you will note, reduce men to boys...

"These cultural guardians in the media and elsewhere don't really care about men or men's rights; they only care about the preservation of the status quo. Men's feelings of crisis and confusion could inspire men to overturn the status quo, just as the feminine collapse a generation earlier was not just a crisis but a historic opportunity for women.

"Not until they act will men be free to roam and think and see far enough to discover a new realm of identity and possibility. This will allow (a door to open) that may lead to a world far more just and humane than the one we live in today."

Harry Wu, 6/23

"I am here for those people who are nameless, who are faceless, who have been and are still in the laogai (Chinese labor camps).

"All my (documentaries) have been related to the prison camps... (The Chinese government) claims the laogai are merely vocational training centers, where the people are paid, receive health insurance, can even earn college degrees...

"Many people ask, 'why are you fighting for the loagai?' Because I want to see the word in every dictionary in every country.

"The (Chinese) people are going in a different direction than the government; the people want democracy. Communism was popular in the summer of the 20th century. But it has failed ... because it cannot offer a better life for the people."

Howard Zinn, 6/26

"The history of labor struggle in this country is unknown in our educational system. I realized this when I was going to college.

"I had some interest in the labor movement. At the age of 18, I went to work in a shipyard for three years. I didn't go to college until I was 27 years old.

"I worked in a warehouse loading trucks. I was in the Air Force. I was in unions. I was interested in the labor movement.

"Then I went to college at the age of 27 under the GI Bill of Rights, and the history of courses I was looking for - what I by now know was a very rich, complex, dramatic history of labor struggles in the United States - it wasn't there.

"There was nothing in the history books about the Colorado Coal Strike of 1913-1914 - the Ludlow massacre, one of the really most vivid dramatic events in American history. There was nothing in my college books about Big Bill Haywood, the IWW*, nothing about the Pullman strike.

"So I was aware of this gap. So that's how economic justice was achieved, although it's still not that great. We should be working five hours a day, four days a week. We have the technology to do it."

* Industrial Workers of the World

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