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He [William Wilberforce] became the conscience of the nation and inspired a generation of eccentric, obsessive yet remarkable individuals. Ian Hislop’s Age of the Do-Gooders I, BBC 2010
Wilberforce could be seen as the godfather of the do-gooders. ibid.
In 1862 [Charles] Kingsley wrote the book he’s most famous for – The Water Babies ... He campaigned for improved sanitation and against the pollution of rivers. Ian Hislop’s Age of the Do-Gooders II: Suffer the Little Children, BBC 2010
My next fight would not be measured in rounds, but throughout a lifetime. It would sustain and fulfil me longer than anything in the cage could. My opponent, my fight, would be against the slipping aspects of American society. Cameron Conaway, Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead
There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything else is number two. Bertolt Brecht
Even in the 1950s, President Eisenhower was concerned about what he called a campaign of hatred of the US in the Arab world, because of the perception on the Arab street that it supported harsh and oppressive regimes to take their oil. Noam Chomsky
Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony. Noam Chomsky
The Occupy movement did create spontaneously communities that taught people something: you can be in a supportive community of mutual aid and cooperation and develop your own health system and library and have open space for democratic discussion and participation. Communities like that are really important. Noam Chomsky
During the campaign waged by the national political police against the Black Panthers – including assassination, instigation of ghetto riots, and a variety of other means – the FBI estimated the ‘hard core members’ of the targeted organization at only eight hundred ... The repressive agencies of the state proceeded with a campaign of violence and disruption to ensure that the Panthers did not succeed in organizing as a substantial social or political force. Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy
You have to try to build support around causes. It is uniting to campaign on a single issue, and it is never just a single issue; it's always more than that. Tony Benn
If the miners are picked off one by one, everbody else will go down the chute. Solidarity is essential. Tony Benn
The hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning. Adlai E Stevenson
If you’re sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign. George W Bush
I don’t make any apologies for what I do on the campaign trail. George W Bush
Do not run a campaign that would embarrass your mother. Robert C Byrd
Blair and New Labour thrive on pessimism … The antidote to pessimism is the understanding that we do make a difference. Blair didn’t scrap the Poll Tax – we did. New Labour didn’t end apartheid – we did. What keeps campaigners going is not a naive faith that one sugary day we can make the world a better place, but the knowledge that defying authority already makes the world a better place. Mark Steel, Reasons to be Cheerful
When our campaign begins, the country will be divided into distinct areas … Please understand what I’m offering you as we go forward, Mr Shelby … Power. Like plugging into the mains. A lighthouse beam. Peaky Blinders s5e5: The Shock, Mosley, BBC 2019
When the Covid vaccine was announced, it promised freedom from lockdowns, economic catastrophe and relatives dying. Who wouldn’t jump at that? Many, it turns out. A powerful movement is exploiting our fears, persuading some to believe the vaccine is designed to control or even kill us. The Anti-Vax Conspiracy, Channel 4 2021
The antivaxxers: one of the UK movement’s chief crusaders is Jeremy Corbin’s elder brother Piers. At the movement’s heart is the core belief that politicians and profit-hungry drug companies exaggerate the dangers of Coronavirus. Even that the pandemic is a lie. It can be a seductive message. In the height of the third lockdown, thousands of people gather closely to denounce the vaccine and rage against the rules. The Global antivax movement is bigger, more organised and better funded than ever before. ibid.
In the UK 90% of people are for vaccinations, far more than other countries. ibid.
In America one in three people say they don’t want to be vaccinated. ibid.
In 1963 one woman went to war with the sexual revolution. Armed with just a typewriter, she launched her crusade. She amassed hundreds of thousands of followers. And fought a thirty year battle against the permissive society. The original culture warrior. But was her uprising in vain? Banned! The Mary Whitehouse Story, captions, BBC 2022
In 1960 Mary Whitehouse was a teacher at Madeley Secondary Modern in Telford. By the 1960s Mary’s Britain was under threat. In 1964 the campaign to ‘Clean Up TV’ was born. ibid.
She genuinely thought that left-wing subversives were trying to destroy the family and our faith in Jesus in order to usher in communist rule in England. ibid. historian
I was left with the dubious honour of being the only author to have a book publicly burnt on television. ibid. Whitehouse
By 1970 the permissive society was in fully swing and Mary’s battleground moved beyond the BBC. ibid. caption
What she embraces is a political agenda that protects women from that danger, the danger of desire, but lashes them to a kind of patriarchal dead-zone, as if the dead zone is safe. Banned! The Mary Whitehouse Story II, woman
The first real bit of legislation she helped with was the Protection of Children Act in 1978. There were things in that Act that the fact they were not covered by law is absolutely stunning now. ibid. biographer
We are now facing electronic corruption on a gigantic scale. It’s like a plague. ibid. Whitehouse
Men’s entitlement to women’s bodies: what she doesn’t do with that is to challenge the patriarchal culture that produces pornography. ibid.
We want to see what lies just out of sight over the horizon. This is South Africa, but almost no white South Africans have ever been here. This is a Bantu reserve. By government decree more than 100,000 black South Africans are penned in here on the edge of the Kalahari desert. Many lack even the raw materials for survival. World in Action: The Dumping Grounds, ITV 1970
Sunday September 25th: 20,000 South Africans came to mourn Steve Biko, the non-violent but militant black radical leader who died mysteriously in police custody. World in Action: The Life and Death of Steve Biko, ITV 1977
The 20th man to die in police custody since the June riots last year. ibid.
As a medical student he formed the first black South African students’ union … He started a trust fund for the families of political prisoners. ibid.
This woman [Anwar Ditta] is fighting a desperate campaign. Four or five times a week she tells her life story to total strangers. She’s spoken like this at almost 400 public meetings. It’s part of a battle to convince the Home Office that she is the mother of three children on the other side of the world so they can join her here. The Home Office doesn’t believe her. World in Action: These Children are Mine, ITV 1981