Most people in this country, while they might not be happy about things, also are woefully ignorant about many things. Sometimes people can learn, but other times they have to be confronted.

What needs to be grasped is that the system itself is the cause of all of the misery in the world. This is a simple but powerful idea.

The Vietnam War was so obviously evil and bore down most heavily upon working class youth that it made me think about things more deeply than I had before. It disillusioned me completely and forever about the government. And it made me aware that the media and the government lied almost as a matter of course. But it also opened my eyes to what was really going on in America.

We are all, after all, just human beings, and most of us have a lot in common.

Capitalism is, in Mao's language, the main contradiction in the world today and so our efforts have to be focused on ending this system and making a new one.

I am sure that the experience of growing up in the heart of the working class and learning from my parents, and especially from my grandmother (who also worked on a barge boat as a cook and a servant for rich folks in Manhattan, Newport, Grosse Point, and Sewickley, all havens of the very rich), that life was not especially fair and always full of bad possibilities, helped shape my future take on life. Then what really transformed my thinking was the war in Vietnam and trying to be a good teacher.

You have to consider all workers as your equals and speak matter of factly about things. People do want to understand things and respect you if you know what they do not know. And you have to respect what they know that you do not.