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Anatomically Modern Humans Are Found Up To 200,000 Years Ago; Behaviourally Modern Humans Appear Very Recently In Evolutionary Time, As Far As Evidence Now Exists, Perhaps Within A Window Of 50-100,000 Years Ago, A Flick Of An Eye In Evolutionary Time.
-Noam Chomsky
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Anatomically Modern Humans Are

Noam Chomsky
Anatomically Modern Humans Are Found Up To 200,000 Years Ago; Behaviourally Modern Humans Appear Very Recently In Evolutionary Time, As Far As Evidence Now Exists, Perhaps Within A Window Of 50-100,000 Years Ago, A Flick Of An Eye In Evolutionary Time.
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Topic
Eye
Years
Window
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The Leading Student Of Business Propaganda, Australian Social Scientist Alex Carey, Argues Persuasively That “the 20th Century Has Been Characterized By Three Developments Of Great Political Importance: The Growth Of Democracy, The Growth Of Corporate Power, And The Growth Of Corporate Propaganda As A Means Of Protecting Corporate Power Against Democracy.
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The Freer The Society Gets, The More Dangerous The Great Beast Becomes And The More You Have To Be Careful To Cage It Somehow.
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I've Often Been Struck By The Extensive Knowledge That People Have Of Sports, And Particularly, Their Self-confidence In Discussing It With Experts. . . . In Contrast, When Discussing Matters Of Concern To Human Lives - Their Own And Others - People Tend To Defer To Experts.
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The Rise Of What's Called Islamic Fundamentalism Is To A Significant Extent A Result Of The Collapse Of Secular Nationalist Alternatives Which Were Either Discredited Internally Or Destroyed, Leaving Few Other Options. Something Like That May Be True Of American Society.
Islamic
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If You Want To Control A Population... Give Them A God To Worship.
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Around 2008 And Again In 2013 Nato Officially Offered The Ukraine The Opportunity To Join Nato. That's Something No Russian Government Is Ever Going To Accept. It's Right At The Geopolitical Heartland Of Russia.
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I Wouldn't Say That The Efforts Of Academics To Critique The Media's Messages Are "half-hearted." As Far As I Am Aware, The Efforts Scarcely Exist: Very Few Even Pay Attention To The Question.
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The Argument That Resistance To The War Should Remain Strictly Nonviolent Seems To Me Overwhelming.
War
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In General, The Attitude Towards Nazi Germany Was Not That Hostile, Especially If You Look At The U.s. State Department Reports. In 1937 The State Department Was Describing Adolf Hitler As A "moderate" Who Was Holding Off The Forces Of The Right And The Left.
Attitude
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Our Ignorance Can Be Divided Into Problems And Mysteries. When We Face A Problem, We May Not Know Its Solution, But We Have Insight, Increasing Knowledge, And An Inkling Of What We Are Looking For. When We Face A Mystery, However, We Can Only Stare In Wonder And Bewilderment, Not Knowing What An Explanation Would Even Look Like.
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You've Just Got To Get People Organized And Tell Them The Truth. There Aren't Any Magic Tricks To It. You Know, Sometimes It's Pretty Amazing. Actually, I Mentioned A Pretty Striking Case Of This In "crisis And Hope," Which Was The Caterpillar Case In The Early 1990s.
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Pakistan Just Cannot Survive If It Continues To Do So (continue This Confrontation With India).
India
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The More Privilege You Have, The More Opportunity You Have. The More Opportunity You Have, The More Responsibility You Have.
Responsibility
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Privilege
Prophet Just Means Intellectual. They Were People Giving Geopolitical Analysis, Moral Lessons, That Sort Of Thing. We Call Them Intellectuals Today. There Were The People We Honor As Prophets, There Were The People We Condemn As False Prophets. But If You Look At The Biblical Record, At The Time, It Was The Other Way Around. The Flatterers Of The Court Of King Ahab Were The Ones Who Were Honored. The Ones We Call Prophets Were Driven Into The Desert And Imprisoned.
Kings
Mean
Biblical
In Fact, It's Doing It All Over The World. Obama, First Of All, Is Running The Biggest Terrorist Operation That Exists, Maybe In History. The Drone Assassination Campaigns, Which Are Just Part Of It. All Of These Operations, They Are Terror Operations.
Running
Drones
Campaigns
Advertising Is Tax Deductible, So We All Pay For The Privilege Of Being Manipulated And Controlled.
Pay
Privilege
Advertising
The Printing Press Had A Very Liberatory Effect That Meant Individuals - Small Groups Could Produce Radical Pamphlets - Could Use It For Organizing.
Groups
Use
Individual
What Is Failure For Some Is Success For Others. It Depends On Where They Stand In The Struggles Over "democratic Governance" And Related Rights - Civil, Social And Economic, And Broadly Cultural, To Adopt The Framework Of The Universal Declaration That Is Formally Endorsed But Constantly Undermined.
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The United States Is Off The International Spectrum In Religious Extremism.
Religious
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Take A Look At Public Opinion. About 70 Percent Of The Population, In The Polls, Said The [vietnam ] War Was Fundamentally Wrong And Immoral, Not A Mistake. And That Attitude Lasted As Long As Polls Were Taken In The Early '80s.
Attitude
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Mistake
In Fact, Various Lawyers' Groups - To Some Extent In The U.s. But Mostly In England And Canada And Elsewhere - Are Bringing Demands For A War Crimes Trial For The Crime Of Aggression. However, Though The Invasion Of Iraq Was Plainly An Act Of Aggression, It Doesn't Break Any Records.
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Universities Are Less Constrained By Authority And Rigid Doctrine In The United States Than In Most Other Societies, To My Knowledge.
United States
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Authority
To Go Back To A Moment Of Western Civilization Remote Enough In Time So That We Should Be Able To Look At It Dispassionately, Ask What Happened During World War I. What Was The Typical Behavior Of Respected Intellectuals In Germany, England, The United States? What Happened To Those Who Publicly Questioned The Nobility Of The War Effort, On Both Sides? I Do Not Think The Answers Are Untypical.
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Thinking
Civilization
In The United States, The Political System Is A Very Marginal Affair. There Are Two Parties, So-called, But They're Really Factions Of The Same Party, The Business Party.
Party
Two
Political
Language Etches The Grooves Through Which Your Thoughts Must Flow.
Flow
Language
Groove
In The Mid To Late Nineteenth Century, The Gun Manufacturers Recognized That They Had A Limited Market. Remember That This Is A Capitalist Society, You've Got To Expand Your Market. They Were Selling Guns To The Military. That's A Pretty Limited Market. What About All The Rest Of The People? So What Started Was All Kinds Of Fantastic Stories About Wyatt Earp And The Gunmen And The Wild West, How Exciting It Was To Have These Guys With Guns Defending Themselves Against All Sorts Of Things.
Military
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If It's Wrong When They Do It, It's Wrong When We Do It.
International Relations
Ifs
When Geologists Announced The Beginning Of A New Geological Epoch, The Anthropocene, Humans Destroying The Environment, One Of The Main Things They Pointed To Is The Use Of Plastics In The Earth.
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The Uniformity And Obedience Of The Media, Which Any Dictator Would Admire...
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Politics
Anarchy
One Of The Real Problems Of Society Is That Its Far Too Atomized, What Sociologists Call Secondary Associations.
Real
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Problem
Suppose That The Us Really Is Trying To Get Rid Of Drugs In Colombia. Does Colombia Then Have The Right To Fumigate Tobacco Farms In Kentucky? They Are Producing A Lethal Substance Far More Dangerous Than Cocaine. More Colombians Die From Tobacco-related Illnesses Than Americans Die From Cocaine. Of Course, Colombia Has No Right To Do That.
Kentucky
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Britain Kept Its Position As The Dominant World Power Well Into The 20th Century Despite Steady Decline. By The End Of World War Ii, Dominance Had Shifted Decisively Into The Hands Of The Upstart Across The Sea, The United States, By Far The Most Powerful And Wealthy Society In World History.
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You Have To Rely On Yourself And Your Associates - Gifts Don't Come From Above; You're Going To Win Them, Or You Won't Have Them.
Winning
Rely On Yourself
Rely
The General Population Doesn't Know What's Happening, And It Doesn't Even Know That It Doesn't Know.
Population
Knows
Happenings
The First Modern Propaganda Agency Was The British Ministry Of Information A Century Ago, Which Secretly Defined Its Task As "to Direct The Thought Of Most Of The World" - Primarily Progressive American Intellectuals, Who Had To Be Mobilized To Come To The Aid Of Britain During World War I.
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That Intellectuals, Including Academics, Would Become A "new Class" Of Technocrats, Claiming The Name Of Science While Cooperating With The Powerful, Was Predicted By [mikhail] Bakunin In The Early Days Of The Formation Of The Modern Intelligentsia In The 19th Century.
Powerful
Class
Names
Those Who Had Demanded No More Than An End To The Bombing Of North Vietnam And A Commitment To Negotiations Saw Their Demands Being Realized, And Lapsed Into Silence.
Commitment
Silence
Being Real
Those Are Possibilities For Technology, Which Don't Tend To Be Used, Because Of The Way Power Is Concentrated. There Are All Kinds Of Possibilities, Including For Coercion. In China, Technology Is Used To Control And Coerce. Here Too, To An Extent, But Not To That Extent.
Technology
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Way
My Own Feeling Is That One Should Refuse To Participate In Any Activity That Implements American Aggression - Thus Tax Refusal, Draft Refusal, Avoidance Of Work That Can Be Used By The Agencies Of Militarism And Repression, All Seem To Me Essential.
Agency
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Essentials
There's A Split In The Us About How This [split] Will Be Resolved. The Main Point To Look At Is The Split Within The Republican Party. The Republican Establishment, And Wall Street, And The Bankers, And The Corporate Executives And So On, They Don't Want This. They Don't Want It At All. It's The Part Of The Base That Is Mobilized That Wants It.
Wall
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Bankers
What Is "credibility"? It's A Very Familiar Notion. It's Basically The Notion That Is Central To The Mafia. So Suppose Say The Godfather Produces Some Kind Of Edict And Says You're Going To Have To Pay Protection Money.
Mafia
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There Is A Kind Of Nonlinguistic Thought Going On Which We Are Trying To Represent In Language, And We Know That Sometimes We Fail.
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The Crimes Against Palestinians In The Occupied Territories And Elsewhere, Particularly Lebanon, Are So Shocking That The Only Emotionally Valid Reaction Is Rage And A Call For Extreme Actions. But That Does Not Help The Victims. And, In Fact, It's Likely To Harm Them.
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If You Want To End Terrorism Stop Participating In It.
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Optimism Is A Strategy For Making A Better Future. Because Unless You Believe That The Future Can Be Better, It’s Unlikely You Will Step Up And Take Responsibility For Making It So. If You Assume That There’s No Hope, You Guarantee That There Will Be No Hope. If You Assume That There Is An Instinct For Freedom, There Are Opportunities To Change Things, There’s A Chance You May Contribute To Making A Better World. The Choice Is Yours.
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On The Other Hand, A Lot Of The Internet - I Don't Know The Percentage, But I Am Sure A Great Mass Of Internet Use - Is Pretty Superficial Interaction Amongst People. Its Not Necessarily A Bad Thing. A Teenager Wants To Talk To Her Friend, That's Fine, But I Think It Probably Contributes To Atomization, Which Is A Threat To The Society.
Teenager
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As A Research Tool, The Internet Is Invaluable.
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Internet
Power Has To Be Protected From Scrutiny. That's The Principle Of Every Dictatorship, Of Every Autocracy. You Hear It From High Priests At Harvard And Every Government Department, That Power Has To Be Kept Secret Otherwise It Will Fade And It Won't Work. But Bradley Manning Is Violating That Principle.
Government
Secret
Principles
What Happened In The Following Years? Well, I Think That Among The Educated Classes It Stayed The Same. You Talk About Humanitarian Intervention, It's Like Vietnam Was A Humanitarian Intervention. Among The Public, It's Quite Different.
Thinking
Years
Class
The Principle That Human Nature, In Its Psychological Aspects, Is Nothing More Than A Product Of History And Given Social Relations Removes All Barriers To Coercion And Manipulation By The Powerful.
Nature
Powerful
Principles
The 1980's Was The First Time In The History Of Imperialism That People From The Imperial Society Went In Substantial Numbers To Stay With The Victims In The Hope That Their Presence Would Offer Some Protection And Some Help. These Were Not The Usual Students From Elite Universities. These Were People Straight Out Of Middle America.
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People
Latin America Is Now Exploring New And Often Promising Paths In Rejecting The Doctrinal Notions Of "globalization," And Also In The Remarkable Growth Of Popular Movements And Authentic Participation In The Political Systems. How Successful This Will Be Is More A Matter For Action Than For Speculation.
Latin
Successful
Political
Luckily For [barack] Obama, The Russians Came Along And Rescued Him With This Proposal [to Confiscate Assad's Chemical Weapons] Which He Quickly Accepted - It Was A Way Out Of The Embarrassment Of Facing Likely Defeat. They Still Have The Option Of Bombing If They Want To. And Incidentally, To Add One Comment About This, You'll Notice That This Would Be A Very Good Moment To Institute A Call For Imposing The Chemical Weapons Convention On The Middle East.
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The Kind Of Work That Should Be The Main Part Of Life Is The Kind Of Work You Would Want To Do If You Weren't Being Paid For It. It’s Work That Comes Out Of Your Own Internal Needs, Interests And Concerns.
Needs
Want
Kind
When People Know We Are Ready To Use Nuclear Weapons, They're Going To Back Off If We Do Something Aggressive. So Basically, Nuclear Weapons Are Always Being Used.
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Nuclear
Use
Capitalism Is Based On The Principle That Everything Has To Be Privately Owned; It Can't Be Held In Common. There Is Even A Dogma, Which Is Today Called, The "tragedy Of The Commons" Which Holds That If Things Are Held In Common They Are Going To Be Destroyed. If They're Privatized, Like You Give Them To Bechtel Or Monsanto Or Exxonmobil, Then They'll Be Preserved Because That's The Capitalist's Religion.
Giving
Tragedy
Principles
There Are Enormous Opportunities To Work For A World That Is More Free, Peaceful And Just.
Opportunity
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World
A Language Is Not Just Words. It's A Culture, A Tradition, A Unification Of A Community, A Whole History That Creates What A Community Is. It's All Embodied In A Language.
Communication
Community
Culture
Rush Limbaugh Has Answered - It's The Rich Liberals Who Own The Banks And Run The Government, And Of Course Run The Media, And They Don't Care About You - They Just Want To Give Everything Away To Illegal Immigrants And Gays And Communists And So On.
Running
Gay
Government
See, People With Power Understand Exactly One Thing: Violence.
People
Violence
One Thing
In The American Jewish Community, There Is Little Willingness To Face The Fact That The Palestinian Arabs Have Suffered A Monstrous Historical Injustice . . . Until This Is Recognized, Discussion Of The Middle East Crisis Cannot Even Begin.
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Middle East
...a Very Terrifying Aspect Of Our Society, And Other Societies, Is The Equanimity And The Detachment With Which Sane, Reasonable, Sensible People Can Observe [war And Human Suffering]. I Think That's More Terrifying Than The Occasional Hitler ...or Other That Crop Up - These People Would Not Able To Operate Were It Not For This Apathy And Equanimity - And Therefore I Think That It Is In Some Sense The Sane And Reasonable And Tolerant People Who Should Share A Very Serious Burden Of Guilt, That They Very Easily Throw On The Shoulders Of Others Who Seem More Extreme And More Violent.
War
Thinking
People
Silicon Valley, After All, Feeds Off The Existence Of Computers, The Internet, The It Systems, Satellites, The Whole Of Micro Electronics And So On, But A Lot Of That Comes Straight Out Of The State Sector Of The Economy. Silicon Valley Developed, But They Expanded And Turned It Into Commercial Products And So On, But The Innovation Is On The Basis Of Fundamental Technological Development That Took Places In Places Like This [mit] On Government Funding, And That Continues.
Government
Technological Development
Innovation
In 1961, The United States Began Chemical Warfare In Vietnam, South Vietnam, Chemical Warfare To Destroy Crops And Livestock. That Went On For Seven Years. The Level Of Poison - They Used The Most Extreme Carcinogen Known: Dioxin. And This Went On For Years.
Years
United States
Warfare
There Is A Narrow Class Of Uses Of Language Where You Intend To Communicate. Communication Refers To An Effort To Get People To Understand What One Means. And That, Certainly, Is One Use Of Language And A Social Use Of It. But I Don't Think It Is The Only Social Use Of Language. Nor Are Social Uses The Only Uses Of Language.
Communication
Mean
Thinking
There Are Women (some Men, Too, But Mostly Women) Who Are Going To The Occupied Palestinian Territories To Stand With The Victims Of Israeli Occupation. These Are Very Courageous Israeli Women And Some British And American Women. That's Something Quite New.
Men
Israeli Occupation
Territory
I Grew Up In That, When I Was A Kid. My Friends And I Used To Play Cowboys And Indians. We Were Cowboys Killing The Indians, Following The Wild West Stories. All Of This Combined Into A Very Strange Culture, Which Is Frightened.
Kids
Cowboy
Play
Just As I'm Opposed To Political Fascism, I'm Opposed To Economic Fascism. I Think That Until Major Institutions Of Society Are Under The Popular Control Of Participants And Communities, It's Pointless To Talk About Democracy.
Thinking
Community
Political
United States Has Comparative Advantage In Military Force. It Tends To React To Anything At First With Military Force, That's What It's Good At. And I Think They Overdid It. There Was More Military Force Than Was Necessary.
Military
Thinking
United States
If You're In A System Where You Must Make Profit In Order To Survive. You Are Compelled To Ignore Negative Externalities, Effects On Others.
Order
Negative
Profit
Most Of Intellectuals Are False Prophets, Flatterers Of The Court. The Real Prophets Are The Exception And Treated Badly. How Badly They're Treated Depends On The Society. Like In Eastern Europe, They Were Treated Very Badly. In Latin America, They Were Slaughtered.
Real
Latin
Europe
[barack] Obama Was Reaching A Point [with Syria Bombing] Where He Might Not Have Been Able To Carry It Off.he Was Losing Support Internally, And Was Compelled To Send The Vote To Congress, And It Looked As If He Was Going To Be Defeated, Which Would Have Been A Very Serious Blow To His Presidency, To His Authority.
Blow
Support
Might
Whatever The Reasons May Be, I Was Very Much Affected By Events Of The 1930s - The Spanish Civil War, For Example, Though I Was Barely Literate.
War
Events
Example
Control Is The Source Of Strategic Power.
Source
Strategic
Silicon Valley Wouldn't Exist Without Massive Government Spending And In Fact Initiative.
Government
Facts
Valleys
Looking At Polls Of Arab Public Opinion, You Look At Popular Figures, The Most Popular Figure Is The Prime Minister Of Turkey, Erdogan, And Then It Goes Down The List. You Get Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, You Don't Get Obama, Or In Fact Any Western Leader. The Public Doesn't Want The Whole Imperial Project. So If You Had Democracy, It Would Be All Over.
Turkeys
Leader
Democracy
That's Our Nuclear Weapons Strategy [going To Frighten People], As Of The Early Post-cold War Years. And I Think This Is A Real Failure Of The Intellectual Community, Including Scholarship And The Media. It's Not Like You Had Headlines All Over The Place. And It's Not Secret, The Documents Are There. And I Think That's Probably The Right Picture.
Real
War
Thinking
Presented With The Claims Of Nineteenth-century Racist Anthropology, A Rational Person Will Ask Two Sorts Of Questions: 'what Is The Scientific Status Of The Claims?' 'what Social Or Ideological Needs Do They Serve?'
Two
Needs
Racist
If You Take A Look At Places Like Harvard, It's Striking. In The Early ,50s, I Think There Were A Handful Of Jewish Professors, Three Or Four. But By The 1960s, There Were Jewish Deans And Administrators. In Fact, One Of The Reasons Why Mit Became A Great University Was Because They Admitted Jews Whereas Harvard Did Not.
Thinking
Three
Looks
In The Case Of [antonio] Gramsci, The Fascist Government Agreed That He Was A "model Intellectual" In [edward] Said's Sense, And For That Reason Determined, In Their Words, That "we Must Stop This Brain From Functioning For Twenty Years."
Government
Years
Intellectual
It Is ... Necessary To Whip Up The Population In Support Of Foreign Adventures. Usually The Population Is Pacifist, Just Like They Were During The First World War. The Public Sees No Reason To Get Involved In Foreign Adventures, Killing, And Torture. So You Have To Whip Them Up. And To Whip Them Up You Have To Frighten Them.
War
Adventure
Media
When Nazi Emissaries Came To The United States, They Were Welcomed At Harvard.
United States
Nazi
Harvard
Balochistan, And To Some Extent Sindh Too, Has A General Feeling That They Are Not Part Of The Decision-making Process In Pakistan And Are Ruled By A Punjabi Dictatorship. There Is A Lot Of Exploitation Of The Rich Resources [in Balochistan] Which The Locals Are Not Gaining From. As Long As This Goes On, It Is Going To Keep Providing Grounds For Serious Uprisings And Insurgencies.
Uprising
Long
Decision
So, At One Extreme You Have Indigenous, Tribal Societies Trying To Stem The Race To Disaster. At The Other Extreme, The Richest, Most Powerful Societies In World History, Like The United States And Canada, Are Racing Full-speed Ahead To Destroy The Environment As Quickly As Possible.
Powerful
Race
Racing
The Republicans Have Picked That As The One Thing That They Want To Hang On To To Try To Gain Some Political Stand, So They Have To Destroy What They Call Obamacare. This Is Now Not All The Republicans, It's A Wing Of The Republican Party, Which Is Called Conservative But In Fact Is Just Deeply Reactionary.
Party
Wings
Obamacare
I'll Have 15 Letters Today From Mostly Young Kids Who Don't Like What's Going On And Want To Do Something About It, And [they Ask Me] If I Can Give Them Some Advice As To What They Should Do, Or Can I Tell Them What To Read Or Something.
Kids
Giving
Advice
The Process Of Shaping Opinion, Attitudes, And Perceptions Was Termed The 'engineering Of Consent' By One Of The Founders Of The Modern Public Relations Industry, Edward Bernays.
Attitude
Engineering
Perception
Anything Feasible And Potentially Effective Should Be Explored.
Should
The Racism Is So Profound And The Recognition - The Kind Of Deep Recognition That You Have To Humiliate. It's Not About To Killing Or Torture. It's To Humiliate. So The Oppressed Feel Degraded. And Both The Oppressed Understand And The Oppressors Understand. It's Constant.
Racism
Profound
Recognition
Technology Is Usually Fairly Neutral. It’s Like A Hammer, Which Can Be Used To Build A House Or To Destroy Someone’s Home. The Hammer Doesn’t Care. It Is Almost Always Up To Us To Determine Whether The Technology Is Good Or Bad.
Home
Technology
House
In Fact If You Look At Reagan's Global War On Terrorism It Very Quickly Turned Into A Massive Terrorist War: [by Us] Central America, South Africa, The Middle East, All U.s.-backed Terrorism. That's One Of The Reasons Why It Disappeared From History And Why The Standard Line Is That Bush 43 Declared The War On Terror. Actually He Just Repeated What Reagan Had Said 20 Years Earlier.
War
America
Years
At The Peak Of The So-called Great Success Of Neoliberal Economics, In 2007, Right Before The Crash, Non-supervisory Workers Were At Wages Considerably Lower Than In 1979, When The Neoliberal Assault Was Taking Off. That Perfectly Naturally Causes Resentment And Fear, And Combines With A Tendency To Blame The Most Vulnerable.
Wages
Causes
Resentment
As In The Past, The Costs And Risks Of The Coming Phases Of The Industrial Economy Were To Be Socialized, With Eventual Profits Privatized.
Past
Risk
Cost
There Are Real Possibilities Of Reaching Many Of The Trump Voters: Many Of Them In Fact Voted For Obama, Believing His Rhetoric About "change," And Upon Realizing That They Were Deluded, Have Turned To Trump. And Will Find That They Are Again Deluded. That's An Opportunity That Can Be Grasped, By Organizing, Education, Activism Right Now.
Real
Believe
Opportunity
It Doesn't Matter What We Cover, It Matters What You Discover.
Matter
... An Essential Feature Of A Decent Society, And An Almost Defining Feature Of A Democratic Society, Is Relative Equality Of Outcome - Not Opportunity, But Outcome. Without That You Can't Seriously Talk About A Democratic State... These Concepts Of The Common Good Have A Long Life. They Lie Right At The Core Of Classical Liberalism, Of Enlightenment Thinking... Like Aristotle, [adam] Smith Understood That The Common Good Will Require Substantial Intervention To Assure Lasting Prosperity Of The Poor By Distribution Of Public Revenues.
Lying
Opportunity
Thinking
Academics Are Not Necessarily Nice People.
Nice
People
Nice People
Let's Take Adam Smith, The Patron-saint Of Capitalism, What Did He Think? He Thought The Main Human Instinct Was Sympathy. In Fact, Take A Look At The Word "invisible Hand." Which, Of Course, You Learned About, Or You Think You've Learned About. Take A Look At The Actual Way In Which He Used The Phrase. There Is Almost No Relation To What Is Claimed.
Thinking
Invisible Hand
Hands
You Have 30% Of The World Unemployed, A Huge Amount Of Work, That Needs To Be Done Just Rebuilding The Society Alone.
Needs
Done
World
The Tendencies Are Considerably Weaker In The Natural Sciences, Which, For The Past Several Centuries, Have Survived And Flourished Through Such Constant Challenge, And Therefore, At Best, Seek To Encourage It. Serving The Status Quo In Political And Socioeconomic Realms Is A Different Matter.
Past
Political
Challenges
I Don't Have Any Oratory Skills. But I Would Not Use Them If I Had.
Skills
Use
Oratory
In Our Case [the United States] It Happens To Be Basically Corporate Structure. Much Of The Population Is Going To Be Harmed By That. Those Policies Are Designed To Turn State Power Into An Instrument That Works For The Wealthy. Maybe There Are Some Crumbs For The Rest Of The Population, Maybe Not. But That's Given.
United States
Population
Structure
The Intellectual Tradition Is One Of Servility To Power, And If I Didn't Betray It I'd Be Ashamed Of Myself.
Responsibility
Intelligent
Power
Moral Cowardice And Intellectual Corruption Are The Natural Concomitants Of Unchallenged Privilege.
Intellectual
Privilege
Moral
The Structure Of Language Determines Not Only Thought, But Reality Itself.
Reality
Language
Structure
There's Actually An Article In The Washington Post, I Don't Know Whether It's Tongue In Cheek Or Not, Which Said The Criterion For Being On The List Of Banned States Is That [donald] Trump Doesn't Have Business Interests There.
Tongue
Lists
Criteria
The Whole Educational And Professional Training System Is A Very Elaborate Filter, Which Just Weeds Out People Who Are Too Independent, And Who Think For Themselves, And Who Don't Know How To Be Submissive, And So On -- Because They're Dysfunctional To The Institutions.
Weed
Educational
Learning
These Are Questions For Action, Not Speculation, Which Is Idle.
Action
Speculation
Idle
The Capacity To Transfer Production Elsewhere Is A Weapon Against The Western Workers.
Weapons
Capacity
Workers
The Prescription For Endless War Poses A Far Greater Danger To Americans Than Perceived Enemies Do, For Reasons The Terrorist Organisations Understand Very Well.
War
Enemy
Reason
There Is No Evolutionary Pressure To Create Minds Capable Of Forming Sciences; It Just Happened. Evolutionary Pressure Has Not Led To Higher Rates Of Reproduction For People Capable Of Solving Scientific Problems Or Creating New Scientific Ideas. So If, In Fact, The Science-forming Capacities Evolved For Other Reasons, It Would Not Be Too Surprising If Those Particular Structures That Have Developed Proved To Be Rather Special In Their Nature, Reflecting The Contingencies Of Their Evolution Or The Working Of Physical Law.
Law
Ideas
Creating
Going Back To Why People Don't Vote, I Presume The Main Reason Is Because They Understand Without Reading Political Science Texts That It Doesn't Make Any Difference How They Vote. It's Not Going To Affect Policy, So Why Bother?
Reading
People
Political
Well, In Fact If You Look At The Trump Voters, You Take A Look At Their Attitudes It's Not All That Different. In Some Respects They're Similar. They're An Older Version Of The Sanders People. So A Lot Of It Is Racist And You Have That Sort Of Thing, But If You Look At Their Views On Say Health, Education, And So On, It's Kind Of The Same As Sanders.
Attitude
Views
Health Education
In General I Don't Think The Image Of The State As A Divinity Is Very Helpful.
Thinking
Divinity
Helpful
One Of The Benefits Of A Properly Functioning Democracy Is Minority Rights And Majority Rule.
Rights
Majority Rule
Democracy
There's An Interesting Book By The Former Brazilian Ambassador Celso Amorim. In 2010, He Initiated An Effort Along With Turkey To Settle The Whole Iran Issue. Nobody Outside Of The United States Takes It To Be Much Of An Issue. They Made A Deal With Iran For Iran To Essentially Give Away Its Low Enriched Uranium To Turkey For Storage, And In Return, The Western Powers. It Was Immediately Scratched By Barack Obama And Hillary Clinton. And The Main Reason Was They Didn't Want Anybody Else To Be Involved In It. We Were Supposed To Run Things, But We Didn't Say That.
Running
Book
Giving
Borders Are Semiporous. Capital Flows More Freely Than People Across Them. On C Span.
People
Borders
Flow
The Syntactic Component Of A Grammar Must Specify, For Each Sentence, A Deep Structure That Determines Its Semantic Interpretationand A Surface Structure That Determines Its Phonetic Interpretation.
Language
Interpretation
Grammar
The Republican Party Has Pretty Much Abandoned Any Pretense Of Being A Traditional Political Party. It's In Lockstep Obedience To The Very Rich, The Super Rich And The Corporate Sector. They Can't Get Votes That Way So They Have To Mobilize A Different Constituency. It's Always Been There, But It's Rarely Been Mobilized Politically. They Call It The Religious Right, But Basically It's The Extreme Religious Population.
Religious
Party
Political
It's Hard To Achieve That, Especially In A Free Society, But It's Been Done, And That's The Kind Of Thing That Activists In The Iww Have To Work Against, Right On The Shop Floor. It's Not So Simple, But It's Been Done Before.
Simple
Done
Kind
Language Would Have Evolved First As An Internal Object, A Kind Of "language Of Thought" (lot), With Externalisation (hence Communication) An Ancillary Process. I Can't Review Here The Strong And Growing Evidence To Support This Conclusion, But I Have Elsewhere. There Are Ample Reasons Why Having A Lot Would Confer Selectional Advantage: The Person So Endowed Could Plan, Interpret, Reflect, Etc., In Ways Denied To Others.
Strong
Communication
Support
There Could Be An Independent Labor-based Party, Which Might Over Time Become An Important Force The Way The Labor Party Did In England. To All Of These Things There Are Plenty Of Barriers, In The Culture And In The Social And Political Institutions, The Concentration Of Economic Power. But These Are Not Insuperable Barriers, I Think. They Can Be Overcome. And It Is Urgent That This Be Done, Because There Are Really Incredible Problems That Are Simply Not Being Addressed.
Party
Independent
Thinking
Part Of The Nafta Legislation Required Studies Of Labor Practices, And There Was Quite A Good Study That Came Out By A Labor Historian On The Use Of Nafta To Undermine And Destroy Unions.
Practice
Use
Unions
It [the Internet] Should Be Publicly Controlled But Washington Is Not A System Of Public Control, It's Mainly A System Of Corporate Control. We Ought To Have A Free Internet, But That Means Having A Free Society, And There Is Fundamental Questions There.
Mean
Fundamentals
Internet
It’s Ridiculous To Talk About Freedom In A Society Dominated By Huge Corporations. What Kind Of Freedom Is There Inside A Corporation? They’re Totalitarian Institutions - You Take Orders From Above And Maybe Give Them To People Below You. There’s About As Much Freedom As Under Stalinism.
Freedom
Power
Government
Workers And Their Families May Starve To Death In The New World Order Of Economic Rationality, But Diamond Necklaces Are Cheaper In Elegant New York Shops, Thanks To The Miracle Of The Market.
New York
Order
Miracle
The Task For A Modern Industrial Society Is To Achieve What Is Now Technically Realizable, Namely, A Society Which Is Really Based On Free Voluntary Participation Of People Who Produce And Create, Live Their Lives Freely Within Institutions They Control, And With Limited Hierarchical Structures, Possibly None At All
People
Tasks
Live Free
Sometimes The Former Forces Are In The Ascendance, And "democratic Governance" Is Eroded, Though Anyone Familiar With Intellectual History Would Expect That The Slogans Will Be Passionately Proclaimed As They Are Drained Of Substantive Content. We Happen To Be Living In Such An Era, But As Often Before, There Is No Reason To Suppose That The Process Is Irreversible.
Intellectual
Eras
Sometimes
A Consistent Anarchist Must Oppose Private Ownership Of The Means Of Production, And The Wage-slavery Which Is A Component Of This System, As Incompatible With The Principle That Labor Must Be Freely Undertaken And Under The Control Of The Producer.
Mean
Principles
Slavery
I Am Not Offering This Is A Critique Of The Internet, Its Just That There Are A Lot Of Factors Involved. It Does Offer Plenty Of Possibilities. It Also Has, It Can Have, A Cheapening Effect And I Think Both Exist And I Think Its True Of Everything. You Could Say That About The Printing Press.
Thinking
Offering
Doe
Surely No Rational Or Realistic Person Will Discount The Possibility That [during Wartime] The United States Might Suddenly Resort To Nuclear Weapons. Those Who Retain The Instinct For Survival, Not To Speak Of Minimal Concern For Their Fellow Man, Will Seek Ways To Act Before Rather Than After The Event.
Men
Survival
Church
The Very Properties Of The Human Mind That Provide An Enormous Scope For Human Genius In Some Domains Will Serve As Barriers To Progress In Other Domains, Just As The Properties That Enable Each Child To Acquire A Complex And Highly Articulated Human Language Block The Acquisition Of Other Imaginable Linguistic Systems.
Children
Block
Mind
About Specific Social Issues, There Is A Great Deal To Say That Departs Very Far From Truism And Is, Accordingly, Significant And Controversial.
Issues
Controversial
Significant
Expressing Criticism Of Society Is Not Being A Grouch.
Criticism
Grouches
Regulate The Banks, Get Money Out Of Elections; Raise The Minimum Wage, Environmental Issues. They're All Very Important And The Occupy Movement Made A Difference. It Shifted Not Only The Discourse But To Some Extent, Action On These Issues.
Differences
Issues
Environmental
Death And Genitals Are Things That Frighten People, And When People Are Frightened, They Develop Means Of Concealment And Aggression. It Is Common Sense.
Mean
People
Common Sense
As A Tactic, Violence Is Absurd. No One Can Compete With The Government In Violence, And The Resort To Violence, Which Will Surely Fail, Will Simply Frighten And Alienate Some Who Can Be Reached, And Will Further Encourage The Ideologists And Administrators Of Forceful Repression.
Government
Tactics
Violence
I Don't Say You're Self-censoring - I'm Sure You Believe Everything You're Saying; But What I'm Saying Is, If You Believed Something Different, You Wouldn't Be Sitting Where You're Sitting.
Believe
Self
Different
You Can Imagine A Different World In Which A Number Of Species Developed With Different Genetically Determined Linguistic Systems. It Hasn't Happened In Evolution. What Has Happened Is That One Species Has Developed, And The Genetic Structure Of This Species Happens To Involve A Variety Of Intricate Abstract Principles Of Linguistic Organization That, Therefore, Necessarily Constrain Every Language, And, In Fact, Create The Basis For Learning Language As A Way Of Organizing Experience Rather Than Constituting Something Learned From Experience.
Organization
Numbers
World
On The Other Hand, You Have To Balance That Against Expanding Our Nuclear Forces, Add To Our So-called Depleted Military, Which Is Already More Powerful Than The Rest Of The World Combined; Attack In Syria, Send Forces To Syria, Start Bombing. Who Knows What Could Be Next?
Powerful
Military
Hands
For Fifty Years, We Heard Nato Is Necessary To Save Western Europe From The Russian Hordes, You Know The Slave State, Stuff I Was Taking About. In 1990-91, No Russian Hordes. Okay, What Happens? Well There Are Actually Visions Of The Future System That Were Presented. One Was [mikhail] Gorbachev. He Called For A Eurasian Security System, With No Military Blocs. He Called It A Common European Home. No Military Blocs, No Warsaw Pact. Just An Integrated Security System With No Conflicts.now The Other Vision Was Presented By George Bush, This Is The "statesman".
Military
Home
Security Systems
Immediately After 11 September, The U.s. Closed Down The Somali Charitable Network Al-barakaat On Grounds That It Was Financing Terror. This Achievement Was Hailed One Of The Great Successes Of The 'war On Terror.' In Contrast, Washington's Withdrawal Of Its Charges As Without Merit A Year Later Aroused Little Notice.
War
Years
Achievement
Students Who Acquire Large Debts Putting Themselves Through School Are Unlikely To Think About Changing Society. When You Trap People In A System Of Debt, They Can't Afford The Time To Think. Tuition Fee Increases Are A Disciplinary Technique, And By The Time Students Graduate, They Are Not Only Loaded With Debt, But Have Also Internalized The Disciplinarian Culture. This Makes Them Efficient Components Of The Consumer Economy.
School
Thinking
People
The American Escalation Of The War In Laos Provoked A Response By The Communist Forces, Which Now Control More Of Laos Than Ever Before.
War
Laos
Communist
If You Read People Like Say Bruce Blair One Of The Leading, Most Sober, Knowledgeable Specialists, He Says, Look, [donald Trump] Statements Are All Over The Map, But His Personality Is Frightening, He's A Complete Megalomaniac.
People
Personality
Maps
Every Book That Comes Out, Every Article That Comes Out, Talks About How - While It May Have Been A "mistake" Or An "unwise Effort" - The United States Was Defending South Vietnam From North Vietnamese Aggression. And They Portray Those Who Opposed The War As Apologists For North Vietnam. That's Standard To Say. The Purpose Is Obvious: To Obscure The Fact That The United States Did Attack South Vietnam And The Major War Was Fought Against South Vietnam.
War
Mistake
Book
We Are Entering A Period Of Human History That May Provide An Answer To The Question Of Whether It Is Better To Be Smart Than Stupid.
Smart
Stupid
Entering
Human Physical Structures And Intellectual Structures Are Generally Studied In Different Ways. The Assumption Is That Physical Structures Are Genetically Inherited And Intellectual Structures Are Learned. I Think That This Assumption Is Wrong. None Of These Structures Is Learned. They All Grow; They Grow In Comparable Ways; Their Ultimate Forms Are Heavily Dependent On Genetic Predispositions.
Thinking
Intellectual
Way
If [climate Change ] Became A Serious Proposal In The United States, There Would Be A Huge Propaganda Onslaught By The Business Community, The Energy Corporations And Many Others, To Try To Frighten The Population Into Opposing It - Claiming That If They Have It, All Sorts Of Terrible Things Will Happen, Like You Won't Be Able To Heat Your Home, Or Whatever The Story Is.
Home
Community
Trying
The 'free-floating Intellectual' May Occupy Himself With Problems Because Of Their Inherent Interest And Importance, Perhaps To Little Effect.
Intellectual
Floating
May
If You Want To Make Changes In The World, You're Going To Have To Be There Day After Day Doing The Boring, Straightforward Work Of Getting A Couple Of People Interested And Building A Slightly Bigger Organization And Carrying Out The Next Move And Suffering Frustration And Finally Getting Somewhere. That's How The World Changes.
Couple
Moving
Frustration
But, That’s The Whole Point Of Corporatization - To Try To Remove The Public From Making Decisions Over Their Own Fate, To Limit The Public Arena, To Control Opinion, To Make Sure That The Fundamental Decisions That Determine How The World Is Going To Be Run - Which Includes Production, Commerce, Distribution, Thought, Social Policy, Foreign Policy, Everything - Are Not In The Hands Of The Public, But Rather In The Hands Of Highly Concentrated Private Power. In Effect, Tyranny Unaccountable To The Public.
Running
Fate
Hands
One Can Neither Agree Nor Disagree With A Terminological Proposal, As Long As It Is Clear That It Is Just That: Terminological.
Long
Proposal
Clear
The Possibility Of Interpersonal Communication Has Increased Substantially With Contemporary Technology. But As Compared With The Major Changes, Which Were Long Ago, These Are Not Huge.
Communication
Technology
Long Ago
People Are Capable Of Seeing The Deceit They're Ensnared In. They Just Have To Make The Effort.
People
Effort
Deceit
Everyone Engaged In Research Must Have Had The Experience Of Working With Feverish And Prolonged Intensity To Write A Paper Which No One Else Will Read Or To Solve A Problem Which No One Else Thinks Important And Which Will Bring No Conceivable Reward - Which May Only Confirm A General Opinion That The Researcher Is Wasting His Time On Irrelevancies.
Writing
Thinking
Important
People Will Find Some Ways Of Identifying Themselves, Becoming Associated With Others, Taking Part In Something. They're Going To Do It Some Way Or Other. If They Don't Have The Options Of Participation In Labor Unions, Political Organizations That Actually Function, They'll Find Other Ways. Religious Fundamentalism Is A Classic Example.
Religious
Organization
People
In The Moral Calculus Of Currently Prevailing State Capitalism, Profits And Bonuses In The Next Quarter Greatly Outweigh Concern For The Welfare Of One’s Grandchildren, And Since These Are Institutional Maladies, They Will Not Be Easy To Overcome. While Much Remains Uncertain, We Can Assure Ourselves, With Fair Confidence, That Future Generations Will Not Forgive Us Our Silence And Apathy.
Grandchildren
Silence
Forgiving
If You Assume There Is No Hope, You Guarantee There Will Be No Hope.
Hope
Guarantees
Assuming
Social And Political Issues In General Seem To Me Fairly Simple; The Effort To Obfuscate Them In Esoteric And Generally Vacuous Theory Is One Of The Contributions Of The Intelligentsia To Enhancing Their Own Power And The Power Of Those They Serve.
Simple
Issues
Effort
Maybe [the Republicans] 'll Find Ways Around It, But The Financial System Of The World Depends Very Heavily On The Credibility Of The Us Treasury Department. Us Treasury Securities Are What's Called "good As Gold"; They're The Basis Of International Finance, And If The Government Can't Uphold Them, If They Become Valueless, The Effect On The International Financial System Could Be Quite Severe. But In Order To Destroy A Limited Health-care Law, The Right-wing Republicans, The Reactionary Republicans, Are Willing To Do That.
Government
Order
Law
Take A Look At The Supreme Court Decision That Just Authorized An Effort By U.s. Claimants Against Iran For Terrorist Acts. What Are The Terrorist Acts? The Terrorist Acts Are Bombings Of U.s. Military Installations In Lebanon And Saudi Arabia, Which Iran Is Claimed To Have Something To Do With. Well Suppose They Did. That's Not Terrorism. I Mean If We Have A Military Base In Lebanon That While We're Shelling Lebanese Naval Ships, The Navy Is Shelling Lebanese Installations And Somebody Attacks [that's Not Terrorism].
Military
Mean
Iran
The More You Can Increase Fear Of Drugs And Crime, Welfare Mothers, Immigrants And Aliens, The More You Control All The People.
Mother
People
Drug
All Over The Place, From The Popular Culture To The Propaganda System, There Is Constant Pressure To Make People Feel That They Are Helpless, That The Only Role They Can Have Is To Ratify Decisions And To Consume.
Inspirational
Media
People
I Haven't Seen Any Claim That Piraha Lacks Recursion, That Is, That There Are A Finite Number Of Sentences Or Sentence Frames. If That's So, It Would Mean That The Speakers Of This Language Aren't Making Use Of A Capacity That They Surely Have, A Normal Situation; Plenty Of People Throughout History Would Drown If They Fall Into Water.
Fall
Mean
Finite Number
U.s. Analysts Estimate That Russian Military Expenditures Have Tripled During The Bush-putin Years, In Large Measure A Predicted Reaction To The Bush Administration's Militancy And Aggressiveness.
Military
Years
Administration
The Media Are A Corporate Monopoly. They Have The Same Point Of View. The Two Parties Are Two Factions Of The Business Party. Most Of The Population Doesn't Even Bother Voting Because It Looks Meaningless. They're Marginalized And Properly Distracted. At Least That's The Goal.
Party
Views
Media
That Was The Reason Why Very Few People Fleeing The Rise Of Fascism In Europe, Especially In Germany, Could Get To The United States. And There Were Famous Incidents Like With The Ms Saint Louis, Which Brought A Lot Of Immigrants, Mostly Jewish, From Europe. It Reached Cuba, With People Expecting To Be Admitted To The United States From There. But The Administration Of Franklin D. Roosevelt Wouldn't Allow Them In And They Had To Go Back To Europe Where Many Of Them Died In Concentration Camps.
Europe
People
Fleeing
The Media Want To Maintain Their Intimate Relation To State Power. They Want To Get Leaks, They Want To Get Invited To The Press Conferences. They Want To Rub Shoulders With The Secretary Of State, All That Kind Of Business. To Do That, You've Got To Play The Game, And Playing The Game Means Telling Their Lies, Serving As Their Disinformation Apparatus.
Lying
Mean
Media
Of Course Language Arose In A Darwinian Biological World, Because That's All There Is, But That World Relates Only Superficially To The Pop-biology That Circulates Informally.
World
Language
Biology
A Very Large Majority Of The U.s. Population Is In Favor Of Establishing Diplomatic Relations With Cuba And Has Been For A Long Time With Some Fluctuations. And Even Part Of The Business World Is In Favor Of It, Too. But The Government Won't Allow It.
Government
Long
World
The Crime Of Liberation Theology Was That It Takes The Gospels Seriously. That's Unacceptable. The Gospels Are Radical Pacifist Material, If You Take A Look At Them . . . Liberation Theology, In Brazil Particularly, Brought The Actual Gospel To Peasants. They Said, Let's Read What The Gospels Say, And Try To Act On The Principles They Describe. That Was The Major Crime That Set Off The Reagan Wars Of Terror.
War
Trying
Principles
My Feeling Is That A Human Being Or Any Complex Organism Has A System Of Cognitive Structures That Develop Much In The Way The Physical Organs Of The Body Develop. That Is, In Their Fundamental Character They Are Innate; Their Basic Form Is Determined By The Genetic Structure Of The Organism. Of Course, They Grow Under Particular Environmental Conditions, Assuming A Specific Form That Admits Of Some Variation. Much Of What Is Distinctive Among Human Beings Is A Specific Manner In Which A Variety Of Shared Cognitive Structures Develop.
Character
Feelings
Environmental
In Fact, Clinton-era Publications Of The Us Space Command Describe Control Over Space As A Parallel To Control Over The Oceans A Century Ago. Then, Countries Built Navies To Protect And Enhance Their Power In Commercial And Strategic Interests. Today, The Militarization Of Space Is Intended To Protect Us Investments And Commercial Interest And Us Hegemony Around The World.
Country
Ocean
Space
If Anybody Thinks They Should Listen To Me Because I'm A Professor At Mit, That's Nonsense. You Should Decide Whether Something Makes Sense By Its Content, Not By The Letters After The Name Of The Person Who Says It.
Thinking
Names
Mit
Donald Trump And Sean Spicer Do One Thing After Another To Keep The Media Attention Focused On Them. And It Works. These Legislative Achievements Are Being Made Which Are Chipping Away At Anything The Government Has That's Of Any Use To Anybody. Paul Ryan, I Think, Is The Most Dangerous Guy In The Government. He Knows What He's Doing. And It's Very Systematic. I Presume He's Behind The Cabinet Appointments, But It's Pretty Amazing That Every Single Cabinet Appointment Is Somebody Devoted To Destroying That Part Of Government.
Thinking
Achievement
Guy
California Is Maybe The Richest Place In The World. They're Destroying The Best Public Education System In The World.
California
World
Destroying
America Has Always Been The Richest And Most Secure, And Sometimes The Most Dangerous Country In The World. In The Early Years, The Danger Was To Everybody Near Us, Slaves, Native Americans, Mexicans. It Finally Expanded In 1898 To The Caribbean, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, And The Philippines.
Country
Native American
Years
Let's Take Southeast Asia. The Last 20, 30 Years Has Been What's Called The "asian Miracle" - Fast Economic Growth, Industrial Society. It's Happening All Over, With One Exception, Which One? The Philippines Is The One That Can't Grow, Which The Us Has Been Running For 100 Years. Is There A Correlation? Have You Read About It? It Comes To Mind, At Least.
Running
Years
Miracle
It Is Familiar To Mainstream Academic Scholarship. One Very Prominent Political Scientist, In His Standard Text American Politics 20 Years Ago, Observes That "the Architects Of Power In The United States Must Create A Force That Can Be Felt But Not Seen."
Years
Political
United States
All Public Resources Go To The Rich. The Poor, If They Can Survive In The Labor Market, Fine. Otherwise, They Die. That's Economics In A Nutshell.
Rich
Economics
Poor
Anarchism, In My View, Is An Expression Of The Idea That The Burden Of Proof Is Always On Those Who Argue That Authority And Domination Are Necessary. They Have To Demonstrate, With Powerful Argument, That That Conclusion Is Correct. If They Cannot, Then The Institutions They Defend Should Be Considered Illegitimate. How One Should React To Illegitimate Authority Depends On Circumstances And Conditions: There Are No Formulas.
Powerful
Views
Expression
Occupy Was Not A Movement, It Was A Tactic. You Can't Sit Forever In A Park Near Wall Street. You Can't Do It For More Than A Few Months. It Was A Tactic I Had Not Predicted. If People Asked Me, I Would Have Said "don't Do It." But It Was A Great Success, An Enormous Success, With A Big Impact On People's Thinking, On People's Actions.
Wall
Thinking
Impact
My Memory - Faded, As I Say - Is That Paul Johnson Was Trying To Vilify All Intellectuals Who Were At All Critical Of The States He Worships, And Of Power Generally (except, Of Course, The Power Of Enemies, Which We Must Denounce, Imitating The Commissars Who Are His Models, Though He Doesn't Understand It).
Memories
Enemy
Trying
Some Kind Of Settlement In Kashmir Is Crucial For Both Countries [pakistan And India]. It's Also Tearing India Apart With Horrible Atrocities In The Region Which Is Controlled By Indian Armed Forces.
Country
India
Atrocities
The Japanese Bombing Of Pearl Harbor Led To Many Very Good Things. If You Follow The Trail, It Led To Kicking Europeans Out Of Asia - That Saved Tens Of Millions Of Lives In India Alone.
India
Kicking
Pearls
There Was Very Little International Support, Even England Wouldn't Support [bombing Of Syria], Which Is Amazing.
Support
Littles
England
It's Designed To Carry Forward The Neoliberal Project To Maximize Profit And Domination, And To Set The Working People In The World In Competition With One Another So As To Lower Wages To Increase Insecurity
People
Insecurity
Competition
One Of The Truths About The World Is That There Are Two Superpowers, One A Huge Power Which Happens To Have Its Boot On Your Neck; Another, A Smaller Power Which Happens To Have Its Boot On Other People's Necks. I Think That Anyone In The Third World Would Be Making A Grave Error If They Succumbed To Illusions About These Matters
Thinking
Errors
Two
What Happened In The Missile Crisis In October 1962 Has Been Prettified To Make It Look As If Acts Of Courage And Thoughtfulness Abounded. The Truth Is That The Whole Episode Was Almost Insane.
Insane
Looks
October
The Main Mineral In Your Cellphone, Coltan [a Black Metallic Ore], Comes From The Eastern Congo. Multinational Corporations Are There Exploiting The Very Rich Mineral Resources Of The Region. A Lot Of Them Are Backing Militias Which Are Fighting One Other To Gain Control Of The Resources Or A Piece Of The Resources.
Fighting
Black
Pieces
During The 1990's, Colombia Was The Leading Recipient Of Us Military Aid And Training In The Hemisphere. Approximately Half Of All Us Aid In The Hemisphere Went To Colombia. Colombia Was Also Far And Away The Leading Human Rights Violator In The Hemisphere.
Military
Rights
Training
Putting It In Plain Terms, The General Public Must Be Reduced To Its Traditional Apathy And Obedience, And Driven From The Arena Of Political Debate And Action, If Democracy Is To Survive.
Political
Democracy
Apathy
You Can’t Have Meaningful Political Democracy Without Functioning Economic Democracy.
Meaningful
Political
Democracy
Take Google - I Can Use It, You Can Use It, Anyone Else Can Use It, But We All Know Its Designed So That Private Power Can Influence Significantly How You Access It.
Google
Use
Influence
I Listen To Talk Radio A Lot And It's Kind Of Interesting. If You Can Sort Of Suspend Your Knowledge Of The World And Just Enter Into The World Of The People Who Are Calling In, You Can Understand Them.
People
Interesting
Calling
To Cite The Facts Of History Is To Fall Prey To 'moral Equivalence,' Or 'political Correctness,' Or 'the Error Of Of Atheism,' Or One Of The Other Misdeeds Concocted To Guard Against The Sins Of Understanding And Insight Into The Real World.
Real
Fall
Errors
Language Is A Weapon Of Politicians, But Language Is A Weapon In Much Of Human Affairs.
Weapons
Language
Affair
If The Nuremberg Laws Were Applied, Then Every Post-war American President Would Have Been Hanged.
War
Law
President
The 'corporatization Of America' During The Past Century Has Been An Attack On Democracy.
Past
America
Democracy
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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