Americans have been taught that their nation is civilized and humane. But, too often, U.S. actions have been uncivilized and inhumane.

That whole idea of threats to national security is a very interesting one. The phrase is very useful for the government to try to encompass the citizenry in the same box as the government is in. To say, "We're all in this together. It threatens all of us."

And in such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, as Albert Camus suggested, not to be on the side of the executioners.

The only way things will happen is if people get over the notion that they must see immediate success. If they get over that notion and persist, then they will see things happen before they even realize it.

If we trace origins of anarchism in the United States, then probably Henry David Thoreau is the closest you can come to an early American anarchist. You do not really encounter anarchism until after the Civil War, when you have European anarchists, especially German anarchists, coming to the United States. They actually begin to organize. The first time that anarchism has an organized force and becomes publicly known in the United States is in Chicago at the time of Haymarket Affair.

The resources of a university, of a college, should not be wasted in merely academic pursuits.

The film's title You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train. comes from something I used to say in teaching my students "This is not going to be a neutral class." The world is already moving in certain directions and wars are going on and children are going hungry. Terrible things are happening. And so to be neutral in a situation like this is to collaborate with whatever is going on. And I don't want to collaborate with the world as it is. I want to intrude myself. I want to participate in changing the direction of things. So that's the origin of the title.