Politics & Power Quote by Harry Bridges

Bridges is doing something sly with that polite throat-clearing, "with all due respect": it’s a rhetorical crowbar. He names teachers and students - classic symbols of moral authority and future promise - only to demote them, not out of contempt, but to relocate the story of change where he thinks it actually happens. The line reads like an argument with liberal common sense: stop confusing influence with power. Inspiration can come from campuses; leverage comes from workplaces.

The repetition of "true and real power" is deliberate redundancy, a union organizer’s style choice that doubles as a warning. Bridges isn’t chasing elegance; he’s chasing clarity. He’s insisting that power isn’t a vibe or a virtue, it’s the capacity to stop production, jam the gears, and force negotiation. That’s the labor movement’s most durable insight, sharpened by Bridges’ own world of docks, strikes, and state repression. As a prominent West Coast labor leader repeatedly targeted as a radical and immigrant agitator, he understood that the people most celebrated in speeches are often the people least positioned to extract concessions.

Then there’s the coalition pitch: "all colors, all beliefs, all national origins". It’s not just inclusive; it’s strategic. Bridges is arguing against the oldest employer playbook - divide the workforce by race, religion, and nativity - and offering solidarity as a technology of power. The subtext is blunt: if working people can be made to see themselves as one class with shared stakes, every other institution that claims to speak for them becomes secondary.