Utah Phillips
Utah Phillips
Bruce Duncan "Utah" Phillips was an American labor organizer, folk singer, storyteller, poet and the "Golden Voice of the Great Southwest". He described the struggles of labor unions and the power of direct action, self-identifying as an anarchist. He often promoted the Industrial Workers of the World in his music, actions, and words...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth15 May 1935
CityCleveland, OH
CountryUnited States of America
Chris Chandler is the best performance poet I have ever seen.
Folk music isn't owned by anybody. It is owned by everybody, like the national parks, the postal system, and the school system. It's our common property. There is nobody's name on it. Nobody can make money on it. It's not copywritten.
I guarantee, that if I am elected, I will take over the White House, hang out, shoot pool, scratch my ass, and not do a damn thing . . . Which is to say, if you want something done, don't come to me to do it for you; you got to get together and figure out how to do it yourselves. Is that a deal?
When I went to high school - that's about as far as I got - reading my U.S. history textbook, well, I got the history of the ruling class. I got the history of the generals and the industrialists and the presidents that didn't get caught. How 'bout you? I got all of the history of the people who owned the wealth of the country, but none of the history of the people that created it.
Cause the profit system follows the path of least resistance and following the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked. Hmmmm.
As I have said so often before, the long memory is the most radical idea in America….
Every good educator knows that true teaching is to teach kids how to ask the right questions.
But if it’s true that the only true life I had was the life of my brain, what sense does it make to hand that brain to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use on the presumption that, at the end of the day, they will give it back in an unmutilated condition? Fat chance!
The most un-American thing you can do is to stifle dissent
I'm here to change the world, and if I am not, I am probably wasting my time.
The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.
The state can't give you freedom, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free...
Children, be worried when they call you America's most valuable natural resource. Have you seen what they've done to the other natural resources?
Sing your song Dance your dance Tell your story I will Listen and remember