...Surely, we must renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.

We must transfer our anger to the brutalities of our time.

In the long run, the oppressor is also a victim. In the short run (and so far, human history has consisted only of short runs), the victims, themselves desperate and tainted with the culture that oppresses them, turn on other victims.

War in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.

Music can be a distraction and an escape. Sometimes a welcome escape. You need it. But music can also serve a very important social function because music can do things that mere prose, mere ordinary political agitation can't do.

When you fight a war against a tyrant, who do you kill? You kill the victims of the tyrant.

Tyranny is Tyranny, let it come from whom it may.