Inspiration from the 1960s
Trump is attempting to suppress and punish free speech. Robert Reich provides some inspiration from history.
Robert Reich is an essential voice for our times. He is a professor and author and former Labor Secretary under President Bill Clinton. And if you haven’t seen his 2013 film Inequality for All, stop everything and watch it right now! Or at least ASAP. : )
On March 13, 2025, Reich wrote on his Substack that “We need a new free speech movement,” and offered a moment to emulate from the 1960s, shared below.
In a 1964 free speech protest at University of California, Berkeley, a graduate student named Mario Savio addressed the crowd, saying:
“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part, you can’t even tacitly take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
We are already fast approaching a time when we will all need to throw ourselves upon the machine and compel it to a halt. I will continue to look to the 1960s, and especially to the brave Civil Rights activists for inspiration.