Grassroots organizing

I14

I don't think you can be a socialist on your own. You can hold all the theories, you can believe everything that I agree with, but you're not going to be a socialist until you're actually working and also meeting folks in the labour movement, or childcare workers who make $10 an hour, or the crosswalk guards who just got organized, it really just changes your perspective about what the left needs to do to reach the mass of people because way too often I feel we're stuck in universities and academic settings.

Building a new world

I30

All the things that are happening, the crisis in the earth, the political crisis, the monetary crisis, all those things can make people retrench. So the foundation that needs to be laid, we have to do it right now in the struggle to say ‘no!’ and send a clear message about where we should go. So where we should go [is to build] the Pachamama Alliance, which is the Indigenous People and non-indigenous of north and south com[ing] together...to build a world that is socially just, spiritually fulfilling, and environmentally sustainable.

State violence and movement strategy

I30

I think if you've got enough people you can take a stand in any way to prevent stuff. But let's face it, the state has all the firepower, all the guns, and all it takes is an excuse and they'll use it….So when [the state] move[s] in they have every right in their mind to come in and surround and corner people...but if you defend yourself, if you resist that then you're the aggressor.

Building commonality

I1

I [found] myself spending more and more of my time on issues I was seeing [around me]....I saw tenant organizing in a similar way that I see union organizing: it's a way to actually build commonality.

The state and class rule

I22

The Canadian state itself is an instrument of class rule, and the Canadian state itself...has been deployed...against workers, against progressive peopl[e], against the First Nations, against minorities….The Canadian state[‘s]...foundations are colonial, we only have to talk about what happened to the First Nations, we only have to talk about what happened to Louis Riel.

Women, power, and winning

I26

It would be about women recognizing power, women understanding that they hold that power, and that they can exercise that power, and that exercising that power can change society, can change the individual, can change the family, can change the community, can change the society. And that would look not only like women recognizing and exercising that power but the society...recognizing that that power is valid.

Post-activism

I2

Recently, as a result of being in a family, [I’ve] really change[d] the way...I'm socially engaging with…[the] activist community….I feel like there was a certain point at which I started to admire people that I considered post-activist. What I [mean] by that is that being an activist or revolutionary or whatever as your main title, that is abstract and has nothing to communicate other than that you feel righteously busy. [It’s] not something that...I want to identify [as] and I feel like there are some other really important things, really important roles....I want to be a good son to my parents, I want to be a good brother to my brother, I want to be a good parent, I want to be a good partner.

Leadership and revolution

I23

...a belief in intrinsic spontaneity of the masses to be revolutionary without hard, slogging leadership….[is a] disease...

Means and ends

I8

You have to decide before your action, what is my end result? What do I want to achieve? Do I want to engage the masses and try and change them or not? Because if it's not, then hell yeah, do whatever you gotta do. But if you want to play it this way then violence won't play.

Fight to survive

I9

People talk a lot in certain activist circles of non-violence, civil disobedience, which is a disruption but what's to happen if and when the police and military are actually pushing people down, even killing people? At what point are people going to fight? If you just say, ‘well, never,’ then that doesn't look very good and I don't think it's even possible for people to just resign themselves to that, people won't. People will fight to survive.