I think voting is the lowest form of political action that you can do. A lot of times, it keeps people from doing stronger things.

The United States is going to keep on with its imperialist ways.

People want something that's relevant to their lives. They want something that means something to them, and they want something where it seems like people have thought about what they're saying.

Many people feel that unions aren't militant enough for them and don't do anything.

The point is, is that when you elect a politician, it has nothing to do with their personality. Politicians perform a function, a role in government. And the role of city government is not one that serves the people, unless the people make them do what the people want.

The Occupy Wall Street movement, in general, by putting this idea out there that the one percent is leeching off the 99 percent, is making a new discussion, making people figure out how to withhold their labor and come and put their issues on the table with the ruling class all over the country and all over the world.

I don't need to be validated by academia, because that presupposes that academia is a pure endeavor and not guided by market forces, which is not the case.

One time, someone came up to me and said, 'I know so-and-so. They're a professor at Harvard. They're a big fan of your work.' But that doesn't impress me more than any other people feeling that way.

I've gotten stopped for reckless eyeballing, for staring too hard. These officers think they're Tarzan and this is a jungle, that all the animals need to be tamed.

I want to fight the McCarthyist state that's developing in this country so my kids won't live in a world where people are afraid to speak out.

A record is a commodity, but so is a hamburger. Just because I work at McDonald's doesn't mean I reap the benefits of that commodity. That's the reality with most artists in the record industry: They're getting paid a subsistence wage so they can keep producing a commodity for the record label.

In Chile, they had penas, where the community would come together to sing and plan how they were going to overthrow the government. There's a real hopefulness in that community style of organizing.

There's a very thin line between rock and funk. Funk is like a dirtier blues, and so is rock. They're close cousins.

Poverty breeds despair. We know this. Despair breeds violence. We know this. In turbulent times, isn't it cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?

What really turns me on about technology is not just the ability to get more songs on MP3 players. The revolution - this revolution - is much bigger than that. I hope, I believe. What turns me on about the digital age, what excites me personally, is that you have closed the gap between dreaming and doing.

Facts, like people, want to be free - and when they're free, liberty is usually around the corner.

Where you live in the world should not determine whether you live in the world.

The idea that there is one kind of African is, of course, ridiculous. Sometimes African entrepreneurs want to kill you because you are saying public health is the priority, not roads. Of course they are right to press for that issue, but so are we right, I believe, to argue, for example, that millions of children could and should be vaccinated.

I have been working for Africans since I was 18, when I got involved with the Nelson Mandela concerts. I got involved with debt cancellation because Desmond Tutu demanded that the world respond to that situation.

At the heart of the Irish economy has always been the philosophy of tax competitiveness. On the cranky left, that is very annoying; I can see that.

If September 11th has taught us anything, it's certainly that the world has never been so interdependent. It is impossible now to be an island of prosperity in a sea of despair.

Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don't know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.

Rock stars are good at making noise.

In my view, the only thing worse than a rock star is a rock star with a conscience.