If it's good for China, opening up and encouraging democracy and so on, why isn't it good for Cuba?

It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

I suppose that's democracy really. But everybody with a laptop thinks they're a journalist these days. That's a problem.

Thus our democracy was from an early period the most aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic.

Clearly, this undertaking is the place to dig deeply into the important issues facing our communities today, in education, democracy and social justice. The summit is rich in programming that highlights not only the challenges we face, but also the community-based solutions to those challenges. We offer workshops in which people can hone their skills as organizers and activists. And we have topic-focused sessions, ranging from analysis of Katrina's aftermath as it relates to rural life in California, to exploration of the current wave of militarism engulfing our schools.