bill mandel

I learned this evening that my friend Bill Mandel was hit by a car last night. He's in hospital, in fairly serious condition.

I opened his autobiography, Saying No To Power, a little while ago, after I heard the news. It's a book that's taught me more about the real history of America in the 20th century, than almost any other. It strengthens my will to act in moments of apathy.

Here's Bill:

The most important human right is the right to live. It is also the most important civil liberty.

So glaringly obvious. So easily forgotten in the rhetoric that justifies war in the name of "human rights" and "democracy."

Fascism is not openly terrorist to the mass of the people, but makes unprecedented use of social demagogy. [It] requires that a politically decisive mass of citizens is willing to use force to deny democratic expression to fellow-citizens...

Don't oversimplify. Life and politics and human beings are extremely complicated and internally contradictory.

And one of my favorite definitions of courage:

...the sense of moral indignation that overwhelms my fears.