I'm not so optimistic as to think that you would ever be able to garner a majority of an American Congress that would make those kinds of investments above and beyond the kinds of investments that could be made in a progressive program for lifting up all people.
I think revolution is always a little bit possible. I think it won't look or sound anything like what we would expect. But I think revolution is very difficult, and I'm not optimistic for any kind of dramatic change.
And I am an optimistic person. I guess if you want to try to find something to be pessimistic about, you can find it, no matter how hard you look, you know?
I have a habit of comparing the phraseology of communiques . . . noting a certain similarity of words, a certain similarity of optimism . . . and a certain similarity in the lack of practical results during the ensuring years.
I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.
Cuba is actually one where I am more optimistic because of the unique nature of Cuba - 90 miles off our shore with a massive ex-patriot population, now Cuban-American population that still have deep links to the island. There I am more confident that over time that the winds of commerce and telecommunication and travel start shifting the nature of that regime. But that's a small country which has almost a unique relationship to us.
We should cultivate the optimistic temperament, and endeavour to see the good that dwells in everything. If we sit down and lament over the imperfection of our bodies and our minds, we profit nothing; it is the heroic endeavour to subdue adverse circumstances that carries our spirit upward.
Except when you're marching to war, it's not a very optimistic thought, is it? In other words, it's the opposite of optimistic when you're thinking you're going to war.