In the words of Louis Brandeis, the Supreme Court justice, we have a choice between a democracy or vast concentrations of wealth. We have vast concentrations of wealth which has bought its way into our democracy with its political leaders who exemplify the merger of that economic and political elite.

The economic insecurity of the past ten to 15 years, the 2008 Wall Street crash, NAFTA, and the loss of millions of good jobs - these directly grow out of Democratic Party neo-liberal policies.

African Americans, in particular, saw their cumulative wealth crash. They used to have 10 cents on the dollar of the average white family. That 10 cents on the dollar that the African American family used to have crashed down to 5 cents on the dollar, given the focus of predatory lending on the African American community and the degree to which they were really devastated by the foreclosure crisis. So yeah, I think there is a lot of disappointment out there.

I was recruited to sort of be the doc to advocate for communities that were struggling with polluting incinerators, polluting coal plants, toxic waste sites, etc.

I was very engaged by the folk music movement.Bob Dylan; Joan Baez; Peter, Paul and Mary. And then I sort of discovered world music, and fell in love with ethnic music of all sorts.

I have always been involved in issue-based politics, not party politics - I was never really originally drawn to party politics.

We have all the numbers we need to turn this system on its head.