Ayers - Demand the impossible!: a radical manifesto

***

Praise for Demand the Impossible!

For Bill Ayers, it is the freedom of our collective imagination that links the contemporary worldensconced as it is in pervasive militarism, racist violence, and environmental devastationto the flourishing of our planet. This is a manifesto that should be read by everyone who wants to believe that another world is possible.

Angela Y. Davis, author of Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture and Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement

With huge numbers of us recognizing the need for transformative change, this ambitious and exuberant book perfectly matches its historical moment. Ayers fearlessly confronts the intersecting crises of our ageendless war, surging inequality, unchecked white supremacy and perilous planetary warmingwhile mapping emancipatory new possibilities. From the first page, his courage is contagious.

Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Demand the Impossible! is more than a book, more than a manifesto. It is a torch. Bill Ayerss vision for a humane future is incendiaryfire that incinerates old logics and illuminates new paths. If we do not end the violence of militarism, materialism, caging, dispossession, debt, want, ignorance, and global warming, our very survival is impossible. Read aloud.

Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

With the beautiful idealism of a young radical and the sage wisdom of an elder, Bill Ayers is making trouble again, and we should all be grateful. In Demand the Impossible! Ayers troubles the waters of staid political practices, insisting that we close our eyes for a moment and think creatively about what a better world might look like, and then open our eyes wide and organize boldly to make that world a reality. This is an elegant and provocative manifesto for our time, one that honors the social justice organizing currently in motion.

Barbara Ransby, author of Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement

Bill Ayers has produced a portrait of two worlds. One is a dystopia, recognizable as the world in which we live, the other a world that capitalism describes as a fantasya world reconstructed around values that place the advancement of humanity and the sanctity of the planet above the accumulation of wealth and power. The two portraits stand in dramatic contrast and make Demand the Impossible! both illuminating and compelling. This manifesto is radical less in its rhetoric than in its daring to actually go to the roots of the barbarism of the capitalist system. Demand the Impossible! is to be read and then shared widely. It can serve as a motivator for those of us engaged in the long battle for justice and social transformation.

Bill Fletcher, Jr., coauthor of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice

In his many years of practicing and theorizing pedagogy, Bill Ayers has proven himself a master teacher. Now, Demand the Impossible! is a brilliant and accessible distillation of techniques and knowledge crafted into a powerful manifesto for our times, expanding the horizon of our expectations.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples History of the United States

Bill Ayers is the philosopher of the revolutionary spirit. These are despondent times, and yet, as Bill museshistory can surprise us. In preparation for that surprise, Bill has written a smart and inspirational manifesto.

Vijay Prashad, author of The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South

Bill Ayerss Demand the Impossible! is a strong shot of inspiration for anyone searching for deep social transformation. It is a heartfelt, upbeat manifesto in favor of activism as an antidote to despair. Chock-full of personal stories, real facts, and concrete examples packaged in exquisite writing, Demand the Impossible! will open your mind to possibilities you never thought existed. Ayers will get you off your seat and into the street, fist raised, heart full, reaching for the spectacular.

Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink and author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control

Demand the Impossible! is a timely call to action, a manifesto that lays out the challenges we currently face and pushes us to imagine a more just and peaceful world. What if we resisted the logics of war? What if we embraced the idea of abolishing the prison industrial complex? What if we followed the lead of the courageous young people currently challenging police power? What if we took seriously that another world is possible? Bill Ayers writes clearly and passionately about these and other important issues like economic and environmental justice. Read Demand the Impossible! to unleash your radical imagination and to gain insight into how we can and must transform society.

Mariame Kaba, founder/director of Project NIA

Demand the Impossible! is just what the world needs right now, a manifesto that challenges us to imagine bigger, love harder, create more expansively, and struggle toward a liberatory future in spite of our deepest doubts. Bill Ayers wakes us up and shows us that even the most entrenched, most permanent-seeming institutionsthe military, the prison, the police, capitalism itselfare no match for the creativity and determination of the universal family and the better angels of ourselves. Demand the Impossible! is a call to abandon the illusory American Dream wholesale, and, in its place, to unleash our own collective, revolutionary dreams into the universe. I dare you to not be inspired by this book.

Maya Schenwar, editor of Truthout and author of Locked Down, Locked Out

Bill Ayers reminds us that radical social change, including revolution, is begun and sustained not by the practical, but by those possessed by a messianic vision, one that is worth fighting and even dying to achieve. Without this vision, and the steadfastness required to sustain it, nothing important is accomplished. We live in a moment in human history when only those who dare to defy all odds, only those who resist, not because they will win but because it is right, will make change possible.

Chris Hedges, author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and Wages of Rebellion

This is a deeply refreshing book, reminding us that the core principles of socialist and anarchist thoughtpeace, justice, freedom, equalityare grounded not in utopian fantasy but in the joyous work of the creative imagination in everyday life. In large ways (an end to the military-industrial complex and the US prison system) and small (the rebirth of community and public life in neighborhoods) Ayers offers a program that is long on ideals and even longer on actually existing programs, groups, movements, and individuals working toward a humane future. By turns alarming in its realistic assessment of the madness and stupidity of the present global system and inspiring in its down-to-earth proposals for alternative human futures, this is a must-read for discouraged progressives everywhere. It is a book that could be a clear and present danger to Western civilization as we know itand in the very best way.

W. J. T. Mitchell, editor of Critical Inquiry and author of S eeing through Race and Cloning Terror

Every once in a while a book comes along that not only changes the way one thinks, but opens a new space for imagining and then acting to create a better world with commitment, courage, and a heightened sense of ethical and social responsibility. Demand the Impossible! is one of those books, and it ranks right at the top of the list. Ayers has a gifthe not only writes like a poet but he never fails to deal with rigorous and important ideas in an accessible and moving style. Touching on a range of issues extending from police violence and racism to ecological destruction, Ayers raises all the right questions and connects the dots that provide a tapestry for energizing the radical imagination. This may be one of the best books written in that tradition. Powerful, insightful, prodding, challenging, and most of all hopefulif you want to understand the problems facing a society tipping into the abyss of authoritarianism, this book is a must-read, a kind of master text for those of us figuring out how to change a world that seems at times beyond our reach.