Pastoral Resources

Following the rise of the Labour Party it seemed reasonable, in 1927, to expect, or at least hope, that co-operation for the common good might gradually replace the competitiveness of capitalism.

Look, of course people are scared of entitlement reform because every time you put entitlement reform out there, the other party uses it as a political weapon against you.

Because of the structure of the contemporary American party system, every president is polarizing.

The most important political task facing the out-of-power party - the Democrats for now - is creating a villain to run against. It's certainly easier than developing some grand new ideas or policies on which to campaign.

I doubt if you can have a truly wild party without liquor.

I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.

I am very proud of the fact that many workers in my Gau, numerous former Communists and Social Democrats were won over by us and became local group leaders and Party functionaries.

I joined the Party definitely in 1923 after having already been in sympathy with it before.

At that time we were very definitely told that under no circumstances should there be any secret chapters or any other secrecy in the life of the Party, but that everything should be done publicly.

We had this party in New York, and there were a lot of gay men there dressed up as the characters. I showed up just looking like myself, but it was a real case of shame. They looked so fantastic. We could never quite live up to it.

Tony Rezko and Bill Ayers should lead the Democratic Party. They are the only Democrats with any convictions.

The trouble with the Labour Party leadership and the trade union leadership, they're quite willing to applaud millions on the streets of the Philippines or in Eastern Europe, without understanding the need to also produce millions of people on the streets of Britain.

The trade unions and the Labour Party... failed miserably. Instead of giving concrete support, and calling upon workers to take industrial action, they did nothing.

Contrast that with the call of the Liberal Democrats in April, when they were prepared to call upon the British people to participate in a 24-hour strike. It shows how far to the right the Labour Party's gone.

You may see the emergence of a new political party from the body of the trade union movement which represents a very clear-cut socialist alternative policy and which gives expression to the views of the trade union movement in parliament.

The current Republican Party is not really the Republican Party. It's been hijacked by this group that is not just Islamophobic but, really, xenophobic. They believe in sort of white, middle America, gun-toting - it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people.

I met a hustler at a dinner party. He had been invited because I was looking for an adviser to help me with the street scenes. So we put him on the film.

Unfortunately, the Republican leadership in the House right now seems to have been strangled by the tea party.

Really it's hard to know where the Republican Party ends and the Tea Party begins.

But I don't think the Democratic Party is at eye level with the middle class.