In Our Society, Real Power Does Not Happen To Lie In The Political System, It Lies In The Private Economy: That’s Where The Decisions Are Made About What’s Produced, How Much Is Produced, What’s Consumed, Where Investment Takes Place, Who Has Jobs, Who Controls The Resources, And So On And So Forth. And As Long As That Remains The Case, Changes Inside The Political System Can Make Some Difference-i Don’t Want To Say It’s Zero-but The Differences Are Going To Be Very Slight.

-Noam Chomsky

Please Wait....
Translating....

In Our Society, Real

Noam Chomsky

Topic

Zero

Jobs

Lying

More From Noam Chomsky

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

Dissidents Are Not Imprisoned As In The Domains Of The Kremlin, In The Old Days. They Do Not Have Their Brains Blown Out By Elite Forces Armed And Trained By The Reigning Superpower, As Happens In Washington's Domains - With No Particular Concern At Home - An Important Fact, One Of Many That Help Us Learn About Ourselves, If We Choose.

Home

Brain

Important

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

Language Is A Process Of Free Creation; Its Laws And Principles Are Fixed, But The Manner In Which The Principles Of Generation Are Used Is Free And Infinitely Varied. Even The Interpretation And Use Of Words Involves A Process Of Free Creation.

Language Words

Law

Generations

There Is Nothing More Mysterious About The Concept Human Nature Than About The Concept Bee Or Chicken Nature, At Least For Those Who Regard Humans As Creatures In The Biological World.

World

Bees

Mysterious

There Is No Reason To Accept The Doctrines Crafted To Sustain Power And Privilege, Or To Believe That We Are Constrained By Mysterious And Unknown Social Laws.

Believe

Law

Privilege

The Internet Could Be A Very Positive Step Towards Education, Organisation And Participation In A Meaningful Society.

Positive

Meaningful

Steps

There's Very Little Dislike Of Americans In The World, Shown By Repeated Polls, And The Dissatisfaction - That Is, The Hatred And The Anger - They Come From Acceptance Of American Values, Not A Rejection Of Them, And Recognition That They're Rejected By The U.s. Government And By U.s. Elites, Which Does Lead To Hatred And Anger.

Acceptance

Government

Rejection

Israel Has A Couple Of Hundred Nuclear Weapons And Also Chemical And Biological Weapons. This Stockpile Is Not Only A Threat In Itself But Encourages Others To Proliferate In Reaction And In Self-defense. Is Anybody Saying Anything About This?

Couple

Israel

Self

The United States Is Alone Among All The Countries In That It Does Not Permit Us Military Forces To Be Under Any Threat. Other Countries Are Willing To Have Forces In Peace-keeping Operations Where They Sometimes Are Under Threat, But The Us Is Not Willing To Do That.

Country

Military

United States

An Effective Regulatory System Today Would Be One Guided By A Few Basic Premises That Can Be Applied Flexibly But Also Universally.

Today

The Irish Were Treated Horribly, Even Here In Boston. For Example, In The Late Nineteenth Century They Were Treated Pretty Much Like African Americans. You Could Find Signs Here In Boston In The Restaurants Saying "no Dogs And Irish."

Dog

Boston

African American

There Was Also A National Policy, Which As A Child I Didn't Know Anything About. In 1924 The First Major Immigration Law Was Passed. Before That, There Was An Oriental Exclusion Act, But Other Than That, European Immigrants Like My Parents Were Generally Admitted In The Early Years Of The Twentieth Century. But That Ended In 1924 With An Immigration Law That Was Largely Directed Against Jews And Italians.

Children

Years

Law

There Is A Reason Why Nelson Mandela Went To Cuba To Praise Castro And Thank The Cuban People Almost As Soon As He Got Out Of Jail. That's A Third World Reaction And They Understand It. Cuba Played An Enormous Role In The Liberation Of Africa And The Overthrow Of Apartheid, Sending Doctors And Teachers To The Poorest Places In The World, To Haiti, To Pakistan After The Earthquake, Almost Everywhere. The Internationalism Is Just Astonishing. I Don't Think There Has Been Anything Like It In History.

Teacher

Thinking

Doctors

Surely Few If Any Readers Have Come Across The Sentence They Are Now Reading, And Someone Who Had By Chance Heard Or Seen It Could Not Possibly Remember Such A Fact.

Reading

Facts

Chance

The Very Design Of Neoliberal Principles Is A Direct Attack On Democracy.

Design

Democracy

Principles

The Beam In Our Own Eye Is Harder To Detect, Although - Or More Accurately Because - To Detect It, And Remove It, Is Vastly More Important On Elementary Moral Grounds, And Commonly More Important In Terms Of Direct Human Consequences As Well. Intellectuals Have Historically Played A Critical Function In Performing These Tasks, And [ivan] Illich Is Right To Observe That Claims To Scientific Expertise And Special Knowledge Are Often Used As A Device.

Eye

Important

Special

[for Business After Wwii ] Democracy Means Getting People To Regard Government As An Alien Force That's Robbing Them And Oppressing Them, Not As Their Government. In A Democracy It Would Be Your Government.

Mean

Government

People

As A Zionist Youth Leader In The 1940s, I Was Among Those Who Called For A Binational State In Mandatory Palestine. When A Jewish State Was Declared, I Felt That It Should Have The Rights Of Other States - No More, No Less.

Rights

Should Have

Leader

As Far As U.s. Intelligence Knows, Iran Is Developing Nuclear Capacities, But They Don't Know If They Are Trying To Develop Nuclear Weapons Or Not. Chances Are They're Developing What's Called 'nuclear Capability,' Which Many States Have. That Is The Ability To Have Nuclear Weapons If They Decide To Do It. That's Not A Crime.

Iran

Trying

Nuclear

Obama's Primary Constituency Was Financial Institutions. They Were The Core Of The Funding For His Campaign. They Expect To Be Paid Back. And They Were. They Were Paid Back By Coming Out Richer And More Powerful Than They Were Before The Crisis That They Created.

Powerful

Campaigns

Financial

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

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.

Numbers

America

People

It's A Lesser-known Story, But The Japanese Government (after The Russian-nazi Pact, Which Split Poland) Did Allow Polish Jews To Come To Japan, With The Expectation That They Would Then Be Sent To The United States. But They Weren't Accepted, So They Stayed In Japan.

Government

Japan

Expectations

Compare Mathematics And The Political Sciences - It's Quite Striking. In Mathematics, In Physics, People Are Concerned With What You Say, Not With Your Certification. But In Order To Speak About Social Reality, You Must Have The Proper Credentials, Particularly If You Depart From The Accepted Framework Of Thinking. Generally Speaking, It Seems Fair To Say That The Richer The Intellectual Substance Of A Field, The Less There Is A Concern For Credentials, And The Greater Is The Concern For Content.

Reality

Thinking

Order

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

Germany

Looks

There Is Still Much Debate About Whether Torture Has Been Effective In Eliciting Information - The Assumption Being, Apparently, That If It Is Effective, Then It May Be Justified.

Information

May

Assumption

How Many Educated Americans Can Even Remember The Names Of The Assassinated Jesuit Intellectuals Of El Salvador, Or Would Know Where To Find A Word They Wrote? The Answers Are Revealing, Particularly When We Draw The Striking - And Historically Typical - Contrast To The Attitudes Towards Their Counterparts In Enemy Domains.

Attitude

Names

Enemy

Nafta Was Much More Popular Among Us Corporations Than Gatt, Because Nafta Is Highly Protectionist In Ways That Gatt Is Not.

Corporations

Way

Nafta

No Honest Journalist Should Be Willing To Describe Himself Or Herseif As 'embedded.' To Say, 'i'm An Embedded Journalist' Is To Say, 'i'm A Government Propagandist.

Government

Honest

Embedded

It's A Principle That Anything Our Leaders Do Is For Noble Reasons. It May Be Mistaken, It May Be Ugly, But Basically Noble. And If You Bring In Normal Moderate, Conservative, Strategic, Economic Objectives You Threatening That Principle.

Leader

Principles

Noble

It's Roughly The Case That If Systems Become Too Complex To Study In Sufficient Depth, Physics Hands Them Over To Chemistry, Then To Biology, Then Experimental Psychology, And Finally On To History. Roughly. These Are Tendencies, And They Tend To Distinguish Roughly Between Hard And Soft Sciences.

Hands

Psychology

Depth

If You Look At Us Internal Documents, They Explain Very Clearly What The Threat Of Cuba Was. So, Back In The Early 1960s The State Department Described The Threat Of Cuba As Castro's Successful Defiance Of Us Policy, Going Back To The Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine Established The Us Claim To Dominate The Western Hemisphere And Castro Was Successfully Defying That. That's Not Tolerable. It Is Like Somebody Saying "let's Have Democracy In Greece," And We Just Can't Tolerate That So We Have To Destroy The Threat At Its Roots.

Successful

Roots

Democracy

Anton Pannekoek Didn't Encourage Radical Workers And Other Activists Of The Anti-bolshevik Left To See Revolutionary Potential In His Work In Astronomy, For The Simple Reason That He Was Honest, And Knew There Was None To Speak Of.

Simple

Honest

Speak

If The Us Were To Attack North Korea, They'd Certainly Destroy North Korea, But South Korea Would Be Pretty Well Wiped Out Too.

Korea

Would Be

Wells

Through Much Of Its History, The Us Did Not Have High Inequality As Compared With Europe. Less So, In Fact. That Began To Change In The Industrial Age, Reaching A Peak In 1928, After The Forceful Destruction Of The Labor Movement And Crushing Of Independent Thought. Largely As A Result Of Labor Mobilization, Inequality Declined During The Great Depression, A Tendency Continuing Through The Great Growth Period Of Regulated Capitalism In The Early Postwar Decades.

Crush

Independent

Growth

There Are Huge Areas Where The Human Mind Is Apparently Incapable Of Forming Sciences, Or At Least Has Not Done So. There Are Other Areas - So Far, In Fact, One Area Only [physics] - In Which We Have Demonstrated The Capacity For True Scientific Progress.

Mind

Progress

Done

The Idea That Hezbollah Is Acting As An Agent Of Iran Is Very Dubious. It's Not Accepted By Specialists On Iran Or Specialists On Hezbollah. But It's The Party Line. Or Sometimes You Can Put In Syria, I.e. "syrian-supported Hezbollah," But Since Syria Is Of Less Interest Now You Have To Emphasize Iranian Support.

Party

Iran

Ideas

My Proposal Happens To Be Very Mainstream.

Proposal

Mainstream

Happens

Hume's Paradox Does Hold: Power Is In The Hands Of The Governed. If They Refuse To Accept It, You're In Trouble, No Matter How Many Guns You Have.

Gun

Hands

Doe

... The Media Serve The Interests Of State And Corporate Power, Which Are Closely Interlinked, Framing Their Reporting And Analysis In A Manner Supportive Of Established Privilege And Limiting Debate And Discussion Accordingly.

Media

Supportive

Analysis

The Number Of People Killed By The Sanctions In Iraq Is Greater Than The Total Number Of People Killed By All Weapons Of Mass Destruction In All Of History.

Mass Destruction

Iraq

Numbers

What The Us Does Is The Kind Of Thing I Described In Italy In 1948. Case After Case Like That, Not Hacking Or Spreading Rumors In The Media; But Saying Look, We're Going To Starve You To Death Or Kill You Or Destroy You Unless You Vote The Way We Want. I Mean That's What We Do.

Mean

Media

Rumor

As To Whether Those Who Fit The Common Meaning Of The Term "intellectual" Should Act In The Manner That [ Edward] Said Prescribes, That's Another Question. Needless To Say, I Agree With Him That They Should, And That They Commonly Do Not.

Intellectual

Common

Fit

Right Now, Huge Numbers Of People Cannot Obtain Even Drinking Water, And The Situation Is Likely To Become Worse With Predicted Climate Change And Failure To Take The Actions That Are Necessary.

Drinking

People

Water

If You Listen To The Talk Shows, Which Are Rabid Right-wing, And Very Interesting, An Important Fact About The United States, They Reach A Huge Audience. And They're Very Uniform. So Right Wing, I Don't Think You Can Even Find An Analog In Your, But They Reach A Mass Audience, And Their View Is That The Corporations Are Liberal. Their Appeal To The Population Is, "the Country Is Run By Liberals, They Own The Corporations, They Run The Government, They Own The Media, And They Don't Care About Us Ordinary People."

Running

Country

Thinking

Take A Look At The Bombing Of Serbia In 1999. The Us Was Quite Open About The Reasons For The Bombing. A Main Reason Was To Preserve Stability And Credibility. Serbia Was Interfering With Stability, Meaning That It Was The One Part Of The Balkans That Was Not Integrated Into The Western-dominated (mostly Us-dominated) System.

Looks

Reason

Balkans

I Mean, What's The Elections? You Know, Two Guys, Same Background, Wealth, Political Influence, Went To The Same Elite University, Joined The Same Secret Society Where You're Trained To Be A Ruler - They Both Can Run Because They're Financed By The Same Corporate Institutions.

Running

Mean

Two

I Remember At The Age Of Five Travelling On A Trolley Car With My Mother Past A Group Of Women On A Picket Line At A Textile Plant, Seeing Them Being Viciously Beaten By Security People. So That Kind Of Thing Stayed With Me.

Birthday

Mother

Past

The Responsibility Of The Writer As A Moral Agent Is To Try To Bring The Truth About Matters Of Human Significance To An Audience That Can Do Something About Them.

Responsibility

Trying

Agents

It's Only Terrorism If They Do It To Us. When We Do Much Worse To Them, It's Not Terrorism.

Terrorism

Ifs

I Suppose Frogs Pay No Attention To Being Frogs. They Take It For Granted. What Interests A Frog Are Differences Among Frogs. From Our Point Of View They Are More Or Less The Same, From Their Point Of View They Are All Radically Different.

Views

Differences

Different

Modern China; One Also Finds Many Things That Are Really Quite Admirable.

Modern

China

Admirable

I Hope That A Move Toward Clemency With Judge Afiuni Would Be A Step Towards The Importance Of Maintaining A Properly Functioning Justice System.

Moving

Justice

Judging

If You Look Back To The Anti-intervention Movements, What Were They? Let's Take The Vietnam War - The Biggest Crime Since The Second World War. You Couldn't Be Opposed To The War For Years. The Mainstream Liberal Intellectuals Were Enthusiastically In Support Of The War. In Boston, A Liberal City Where I Was, We Literally Couldn't Have A Public Demonstration Without It Being Violently Broken Up, With The Liberal Press Applauding, Until Late 1966.

War

Boston

Years

Pick The Topic You Like: The Middle East, International Terrorism, Central America, Whatever It Is - The Picture Of The World That's Presented To The Public Has Only The Remotest Relation To Reality. The Truth Of The Matter Is Buried Under Edifice After Edifice Of Lies Upon Lies. It's All Been A Marvelous Success From The Point Of View In Deterring The Threat Of Democracy, Achieved Under Conditions Of Freedom, Which Is Extremely Interesting. It's Not Like A Totalitarian State, Where It's Done By Force. These Achievements Are Under Conditions Of Freedom.

Lying

Reality

America

The Entire Socioeconomic System Is Based On Production For Profit And A Growth Imperative That Cannot Be Sustained.

Growth

Profit

Imperatives

Anyone Who Studies Declassified Documents Soon Becomes Aware That Government Secrecy Is Largely An Effort To Protect Policy Makers From Scrutiny By Citizens, Not To Protect The Country From Enemies.

Country

Government

Effort

Wanton Killing Of Innocent Civilians Is Terrorism, Not A War Against Terrorism.

War

Terrorism

Killing

I Think The Use Of Language Is A Very Important Means By Which This Species, Because Of Its Biological Nature, Creates A Kind Of Social Space, To Place Itself In Interactions With Other People. It Doesn't Have Much To Do With Communication In A Narrow Sense; That Is, It Doesn't Involve Transmission Of Information. There Is Much Information Transmitted But It Is Not The Content Of What Is Said That Is Transmitted.

Communication

Mean

Thinking

Insofar As The Universities Are Free And Independent, They Will Also Be "subversive," In The Sense That Dominant Structures Of Power And Their Ideological Support Will Be Subjected To Challenge And Critique, A Counterpart To Attitudes That Are Fostered In The Hard Sciences Wherever They Are Taken Seriously.

Attitude

Taken

Independent

It Is True That Classical Libertarian Thought Is Opposed To State Intervention In Social Life, As A Consequence Of Deeper Assumptions About The Human Need For Liberty, Diversity, And Free Association.

Diversity

Liberty

Needs

Hamas Is Regularly Described As 'iranian-backed Hamas, Which Is Dedicated To The Destruction Of Israel.' One Will Be Hard Put To Find Something Like 'democratically Elected Hamas, Which Has Long Been Calling For A Two-state Settlement In Accord With The International Consensus'—blocked For Over 30 Years By The Us And Israel. All True, But Not A Useful Contribution To The Party Line, Hence Dispensable.

Party

Israel

Years

Clinton, Kennedy, They All Carried Out Mass Murder, But They Didn't Think That That Was What They Were Doing - Nor Does Bush. You Know, They Were Defending Justice And Democracy From Greater Evils.

Thinking

Evil

Justice

September 11 Shocked Many Americans Into An Awareness That They Had Better Pay Much Closer Attention To What The Us Government Does In The World And How It Is Perceived. Many Issues Have Been Opened For Discussion That Were Not On The Agenda Before. That's All To The Good.

Government

Issues

September 11

Today, Aid To Colombia Is Given Under The Pretext Of A Drug War. That's Pretty Hard To Take Seriously. Ten Years Ago, Amnesty International Flatly Called It A Myth.

War

Years

Drug

I Happen To Agree With The Anti-dictatorship Policies, But I Don't Think It's The Role Of General Electric To Support Them Or Oppose Them. They Do Of Course, But I Don't Agree With That.

Thinking

Support

Roles

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

With Government Deregulation And The Triumph Of Financial Liberalization, The Dangers Of Systemic Risks, The Possibility Of A Financial Tsunami, Sharply Increased.

Government

Risk

Triumph

A Basic Principle Of Modern State Capitalism Is That Costs And Risks Are Socialized To The Extent Possible, While Profit Is Privatized.

Risk

Principles

Cost

On Humanitarian Intervention In General, I Guess My View Is Not Unlike The View That Was Attributed To Gandhi, Accurately Or Not, When He Was Supposedly Asked What He Thought About Western Civilization. He Is Supposed To Have Said That He Thought It Would Be A Good Idea. Similarly, Humanitarian Intervention Would Be A Good Idea, In Principle.

Views

Civilization

Ideas

If You Want To End Terrorism Stop Participating In It.

Want

Terrorism

Ends

Unaccountable Private Power Concentrations That Dominate Economic And Social Life Have The Means To Seek To "regiment The Public Mind," And Become "tools And Tyrants" Of Government, In James Madison's Memorable Phrase, As He Warned Of The Threats He Discerned To The Democratic Experiment If Private Powers Were Granted Free Rein.

Memorable

Mean

Government

The U.s. - The Idea That The U.s. Has Introduced And Imposed Principles Of International Law, That's Hardly Even A Joke. The United States Has Even Gone So Far As To Veto Security Council Resolutions Calling On All States To Observe International Law. That Was In The 1980s Under Reagan.

Law

Ideas

Principles

Advertising Is Tax Deductible, So We All Pay For The Privilege Of Being Manipulated And Controlled.

Pay

Privilege

Advertising

There's A Strange Myth Of Anglo-saxonism. When The University Of Virginia Was Founded By Thomas Jefferson, For Example, Its Law School Offered The Study Of "anglo-saxon Law." And That Myth Of Anglo-saxonism Carries Right Over Into The Early Twentieth Century.

School

Virginia

Law

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

We Don't Live In Tyrannies, You Know, The King Doesn't Decide What's Legitimate, And There's Much More Freedom Than There Was In The Past.

Kings

Past

Tyranny

My Feeling Is That The Supreme Court Reached A Reasonable Standard Of Protection Of Speech In The 1960s, A Standard Higher Than Any Other Country In The World, To My Knowledge. In Brief, Speech Should Be Protected Up To Participation In Imminent Criminal Action.

Country

Feelings

World

I Was Told By Journalists Who Can't Publish It That There Are In Mexico, Close To The U.s. Border, Big Areas That Used To Be Devoted To Agriculture That Are Now Devoted To Poppies. They Say You Can't Get In There Because They're Guarded, First By The Cartels, But Also By The Army, Which Goes Hand In Hand With The Cartels.

Army

Hands

Agriculture

People Don't Have Knowledge And Understanding About The Outside World, Or About History [in The Usa].

Usa

People

Understanding

The Saudi, Arabian Ruling Class, For Example, Have Rights Because They Are Performing A Service For Western Power, Ensuring That Oil Profits Go To The West And Not To The Regional Population. The Local Gendarmes Like Israel, Turkey And So On Have Rights, At Least In Their Ruling Groups. Others Do Not.

Rights

Israel

Turkeys

I Mean The Reason The Sit-down Strikes Struck Such Fear In The Hearts Of Management Was That They Knew That A Sit-down Strike Was Just One Step Short Of Taking Over The Factory.

Heart

Mean

Steps

All You Have To Do Is Read The Business Literature. In The 1930s They Were Very Frightened And They Were Concerned About How The Rising Power Of The Masses Was Hazardous To Industrialists.

Rising

Literature

Frightened

Plainly, Such An Approach Does Not Exclude Other Ways Of Trying To Comprehend The World. Someone Committed To It (as I Am) Can Consistently Believe (as I Do) That We Learn Much More Of Human Interest About How People Think And Feel And Act By Reading Novels Or Studying History Than From All Of Naturalistic Psychology, And Perhaps Always Will; Similarly, The Arts May Offer Appreciation Of The Heavens To Which Astrophysics Cannot Aspire.

Appreciation

Art

Reading

You Keep Plugging Away--that's The Way Social Change Takes Place. That's The Way Every Social Change In History Has Taken Place: By A Lot Of People, Who Nobody Ever Heard Of, Doing Work.

Taken

People

Way

The Dangers Of Unexamined And Unregulated Monopoly Power, Particularly In The State Executive, Are Hardly News. The Right Reaction Is Not Passive Acquiescence.

Power

Acquiescence

News

In Kosovo, The U.s. Has Chosen A Course Of Action That Escalates Atrocities And Violence. It Is Also A Course Of Action That Strikes A Blow Against The Regime Of International Order, But Which Offers The Weak At Least Some Protection From Predatory States.

Blow

Order

Violence

The Social System Is Taking On A Form In Which Finding Out What You Want To Do Is Less And Less Of An Option Because Your Life Is Too Structured, Organised, Controlled And Disciplined.

Want

Life Is

Social

The Whole Intelectual Culture Has A Filtering System, Starts As A Child In School. You're Expected To Accept Certain Beliefs, Styles, Behavioral Patterns And So On. If You Don't Accept Them, You Are Called Maybe A Behavioral Problem, Or Something, And You're Weeded Out. Something Like That Goes On All The Way Through Universities And Graduate Schools. There Is An Implicit System Of Filtering, Which Has The, It Creates A Strong Tendency To Impose Conformism. Now, It's A Tendency, So You Do Have Exceptions, And Sometimes The Exceptions Are Quite Striking.

Strong

Children

School

It's A Class War, And A War On Young People Too... That's Why Tuition Is Rising So Rapidly. There's No Real Economic Reason For That. It's A Technique Of Control And Indoctrination. And This Is Really The First Organized, Significant Reaction To It, Which Is Important.

Real

War

Class

To Construct A Scientific Theory From The Data And To Be Able To Recognize That It Is A Reasonable Theory Is Possible Only If There Are Some Very Sharp Restrictive Principles That Lead You To Go In One Direction And Not In Another Direction. Otherwise, You Wouldn't Have Science At All, Merely Randomly Chosen Hypotheses.

One Direction

Data

Principles

Pascal In His Bitter Rendition Of The Practices Of The Jesuit Intellectuals He Despised, Including Their Demonstration Of "the Utility Of Interpretation," A Device Of Manufacturing Consent Based On Reinterpretation Of Sacred Texts To Serve Wealth, Power, And Privilege.

Practice

Sacred

Privilege

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 An Astonishing Fact About The Current Era That In The Most Powerful Country In World History, With A High Level Of Education And Privilege, One Of The Two Political Parties Virtually Denies The Well-established Facts About Anthropogenic Climate Change.

Country

Powerful

Party

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

The Bible Is One Of The Most Genocidal Books In History.

Bible

Atheist

Book

I Didn't Pay My Taxes For Years.

Years

Pay

Taxes

Our Health Care Is Rationed By Wealth.

Care

Wealth

Health Care

While The State Can Coerce, With Some Exceptions (like North Korea) It Seems To Me Misleading To Think Of It As Capable Of "enslavement."

Thinking

Korea

States

Suppose That I See A Hungry Child In The Street, And I Am Able To Offer The Child Some Food. Am I Morally Culpable If I Refuse To Do So? Am I Morally Culpable If I Choose Not To Do What I Easily Can About The Fact That 1000 Children Die Every Hour From Easily Preventable Disease, According To Unicef? Or The Fact That The Government Of My Own "free And Open Society" Is Engaged In Monstrous Crimes That Can Easily Be Mitigated Or Terminated? Is It Even Possible To Debate These Questions?

Education Must Provide The Opportunities For Self-fulfillment; It Can At Best Provide A Rich And Challenging Environment For The Individual To Explore, In His Own Way.

Teacher

School

Opportunity

I Did Not Say That Language As A Completed System Emerged In An Individual In An Instant. But I Cannot Think Of A Coherent Alternative To The Idea That Mutations Take Place In Individuals, Not Communities, So That Whatever Rewiring Of The Brain Yielded The Apparently Unique Properties Of Language, Specifically Recursive Generation Of Hierarchically Structured Expressions, Would Therefore Have Taken Place In An Individual, And Only Later Been Used Among Individuals Who Had Inherited This Capacity.

Taken

Unique

Thinking

Well, They Really Didn't Have To Worry, Because The Way Power Politics Works, The World Court Can't Do Anything. Look, There's One Country In The World At The Moment Which Has Refused To Accept World Court Decision-that's The United States. Is Anybody Going To Do Anything About It?

Country

Worry

Decision

Wikileaks Is Providing Information On What Ambassadors Are Sending To Washington And Things Like That. Maybe Some Of That Has A Right To Some Kind Of Secrecy, But There Is A Heavy Burden And I Think Its Pretty Hard To Meet. I Haven't Read Everything From Wikileaks By Any Means But The Parts That I Have Read And Seen I Think Are Things The Public Should Know.

Mean

Thinking

Ambassadors

The World Was Warned Of Extremely Severe Dangers Unless Urgent Steps Are Taken To Deal With Global Warming.

Taken

World

Steps

If Workers Are More Insecure, That's Very 'healthy' For The Society, Because If Workers Are Insecure, They Won't Ask For Wages, They Won't Go On Strike, They Won't Call For Benefits; They'll Serve The Masters Gladly And Passively. And That's Optimal For Corporations' Economic Health.

Insecure

Healthy

Wages

A Big Producer Can Survive Price Fluctuations On The World Market. A Small Farmer Can't.

World

Bigs

Fluctuation

Given Their Unusual Privilege, Western Intellectuals Can Realistically Accomplish A Great Deal. The Limits Are Imposed By Will More Than Objective Circumstances. And About Human Will Predictions Are Without Value.

Limits

Privilege

Unusual

There Was Very Little International Support, Even England Wouldn't Support [bombing Of Syria], Which Is Amazing.

Support

Littles

England

It Happened: The First 9/11, It Happened On September 11, 1973, In Chile. We Did It. Was That Interfering Or Hacking A Party? This Record Is All Over The World, Constantly Overthrowing Governments, Invading, Forcing People To Follow What We Call Democracy, As In The Cases I Mentioned. As I Say, If Every Charge Is Accurate, It's A Joke, And I'm Sure Half The World Is Collapsing In Laughter About This, Because People Outside The United States Know It. You Don't Have To Tell People In Chile About The First 9/11.

Laughter

Party

Government

Capitalism Denies The Right To Live. You Have Only The Right To Remain On The Labour Market.

Deny

Capitalism

Labour

The Us Intervened In The Philippines To Uplift And Christianize The Backward People, Killing A Couple Of Hundred Thousand Of Them And Destroying The Place. The Same Thing Happened In Haiti, The Same Thing Happened With Other Countries.

Uplifting

Country

Couple

You Ought To Teach Kids That Elections Take Place But That's Not Politics. If You Want To Know How Legislation Is Made It Doesn't Come From Elections.

Kids

Want

Election

People Are Capable Of Seeing The Deceit They're Ensnared In. They Just Have To Make The Effort.

People

Effort

Deceit

Our Only Real Hope For Democracy Is That We Get The Money Out Of Politics Entirely And Establish A System Of Publicly Funded Elections.

Real

Democracy

Election

Should We Even Have The Classification System? Why Shouldn't These Things Be Open? There Are Things You Want To Keep Secret, Like The Characteristics Of Your Latest Fighter Plane Or Something Like That.

Secret

Want

Fighter

You Know, You Can Go To The Fiftieth Thing On A Google List And That's The One You Want, But The Ones You Are Going To Be Directed To Are The Funders.

Google

Lists

Want

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.

War

Iraq

Invasion

There Isn't Much Point Arguing About The Word "libertarian." It Would Make About As Much Sense To Argue With An Unreconstructed Stalinist About The Word "democracy" - Recall That They Called What They'd Constructed "peoples' Democracies." The Weird Offshoot Of Ultra-right Individualist Anarchism That Is Called "libertarian" Here Happens To Amount To Advocacy Of Perhaps The Worst Kind Of Imaginable Tyranny, Namely Unaccountable Private Tyranny. If They Want To Call That "libertarian," Fine; After All, Stalin Called His System "democratic." But Why Bother Arguing About It?

Democracy

Want

Libertarian

The Basic Principle Is That The Losers Have To Confess, Not The Victors. When They Do It, It's A Crime. When We Do It, It's Not. And More Generally, It's The Defeated Who Are Tried, Not The Victors.

Principles

Loser

Defeated

Like Other Organisms, Humans Have A Certain Genetic Endowment (apparently Varying Little In The Species, Not A Surprise Considering Its Recent Separation From Other Hominids). That Determines What We Call Their Nature.

Littles

Separation

Surprise

Some Of The Most Moving Experiences I've Had Are Just In Black Churches In The South, During The Civil Rights Movement, Where People Were Getting Beaten, Killed, Really Struggling For The Most Elementary Rights.

Moving

Struggle

Rights

Today, The Danger Of Some Sort Of A Nuclear Catastrophe Is Greater Than It Was During The Cold War, And Most People Are Blissfully Unaware Of This Danger.

War

People

Today

Suppose That Insect Wings Developed Primarily As Thermoregulators And Then Were Used For Skimming And Finally Flying, Evolving Along The Way. What Would They Be "for"? Or What Is The Skeleton "for"? For Keeping One Upright, Protecting Organs, Storing Calcium, Making Blood Cells...?

Skeletons

Cells

Blood

The First Step Is To Penetrate The Clouds Of Deceit And Distortion And Learn The Truth About The World, Then To Organize And Act To Change It. That's Never Been Impossible And Never Been Easy.

Clouds

Political

Deceit

One Of The Christian Fundamentalists' Goals Seems To Be To Rebuild The Temple, Which Means Destroying The Al-aqsa Mosque, Which Presumably Means War With The Arab World - One Of The Goals, Perhaps, In Fulfilling The Prophecy Of Armageddon. So They Strongly Support Israeli Power And Expansionism, And Help Fund It And Lobby For It; But They Also Support Actions That Are Very Harmful And Objectionable To Most Of Its Population - As Do Jewish Fundamentalist Groups, Mostly Rooted In The Us, Which, After All, Is One Of The Most Extreme Religious Fundamentalist Societies In The World.

Christian

Religious

War

I Am Not Sure Just What Marx Had In Mind When He Wrote That "philosophers Have Hitherto Only Interpreted The World In Various Ways; The Point Is To Change It." Did He Mean That Philosophy Could Change The World, Or That Philosophers Should Turn To The Higher Priority Of Changing The World? If The Former, Then He Presumably Meant Philosophy In A Broad Sense Of The Term, Including Analysis Of The Social Order And Ideas About Why It Should Be Changed, And How. In That Broad Sense, Philosophy Can Play A Role, Indeed An Essential Role, In Changing The World.

Philosophy

Mean

Priorities

Finally Irish Were Accepted Into Society And Became Part Of The Political System, And There Were Kennedys, And So On. But The Same Is True About Other Waves Of Immigrants, Like The Jews In The 1950s.

Political

Wave

Accepted

A More Appropriate Expansion Is The Statement "it Is The Responsibility Of Intellectuals To Speak The Truth And Expose Lies" A Transcript Of A Talk To A Writers Conference In Australia In 1996, Where I Had Been Asked To Talk On "writers And Intellectual Responsibility" - A Question That I Said I Found "puzzling," Because I Knew Of Nothing To Say About It Beyond Truisms, Though These Were Perhaps Worth Affirming Because They Are "so Commonly Denied, If Not In Words, Then In Consistent Practice."

Lying

Responsibility

Practice

There Are Questions As To Whether It Should Even Exist. Who Should Corporations Be Responsive To, The Management Of A Corporation? Theoretically They Are Responsive To The Shareholders, But I Why Not To The So - Called Stakeholders, The Work Force And The Community? Nothing In Economic Theory Opposes That. Those Are Social And Political Decisions.

Community

Decision

Political

A Good American Friend Of Mine Who Has Lived In India For Many Years, Working As A Journalist, Was Recently Denied Entry To The Country Because He Wrote On Kashmir. This Is A Reflection Of Fractures Within Society. Pakistan, Too, Has To Focus On The Lashkar [lashkar-i-taiba] And Other Similar Groups And Work Towards Some Sort Of Sensible Compromise On Kashmir.

Country

Reflection

Years

If The Rewiring Of The Brain That Yielded Recursive Generation Of Hierarchically Structured Expressions Took Place In An Individual, Not A Group (and There Seems To Be No Coherent Alternative), Then Interaction Must Have Been A Later Phenomenon.

Expression

Brain

Groups

The Educational System In The Us Was A Highly Predictable Victim Of The Neoliberal Reaction, Guided By The Maxim Of "private Affluence And Public Squalor." Funding For Public Education Has Sharply Declined. As Higher Education Is Driven To A Business Model In Accord With Neoliberal Doctrine, Administrative Bureaucracy Has Sharply Increased At The Expense Of Faculty And Students. Cost-cutting Leads To Hyper-exploitation Of The More Vulnerable, Creating A New Precariat Of Graduate Students And Adjuncts Surviving On A Bare Pittance, Replacing Tenured Faculty.

Educational

Students

Graduates

Before The 1970s, Banks Were Banks. They Did What Banks Were Supposed To Do In A State Capitalist Economy: They Took Unused Funds From Your Bank Account, For Example, And Transferred Them To Some Potentially Useful Purpose Like Helping A Family Buy A Home Or Send A Kid To College.

Home

Kids

College

As Soon As One Identifies, Challenges And Overcomes Illegitimate Power, He Or She Is An Anarchist. Most People Are Anarchists. What They Call Themselves Doesn’t Matter To Me. The World Is Full Of Suffering, Distress, Violence And Catastrophes. Students Must Decide: Does Something Concern You Or Not? I Say: Look Around, Analyze The Problems, Ask Yourself What You Can Do And Set Out On The Work!

People

Challenges

Suffering

It Is Not That I Am Not A Fan Of American Exceptionalism. That Is Like Saying I Am Not A Fan Of The Moon Being Made Out Of Green Cheese - It Does Not Exist. Powerful States Have Quite Typically Considered Themselves To Be Exceptionally Magnificent, And The United States Is No Exception To That. The Basis For It Is Not Very Substantial To Put It Politely.

Powerful

Moon

Green

In My Own Professional Work I Have Touched On A Variety Of Different Fields. I've Done Work In Mathematical Linguistics, For Example, Without Any Professional Credentials In Mathematics; In This Subject I Am Completely Self-taught, And Not Very Well Taught.

Self

Done

Fields

As We [with Edward Herman] Discuss There [in Manufacturing Consent] And Elsewhere, Recognition Of The Importance Of "manufacturing Consent" Has Become An Ever More Central Theme In The More Free Societies.

Recognition

Theme

Importance

Sea Level Rise And Destruction Of Water Resources As Glaciers Melt Alone May Have Horrendous Human Consequences.

I've Been Interested In The Reports On Rojava. It Seems Clear That There Are Positive Developments.

Development

Clear

Seems

Trump Keeps The Spotlight On Himself With One Act After Another, Assuming Correctly That Yesterday's Antics Will Be Swept Aside By Today's.

Assuming

I Don't Buy Much. Almost Buy Nothing. I Buy What I Need, Do It The Easiest Way Possible.

Needs

Way

The "end Of History" Has Been Proclaimed Many Times, Always Falsely.

Ends

Has Beens

Debt Is A Trap, Especially Student Debt, Which Is Enormous, Far Larger Than Credit Card Debt. It’s A Trap For The Rest Of Your Life Because The Laws Are Designed So That You Can’t Get Out Of It. If A Business, Say, Gets In Too Much Debt It Can Declare Bankruptcy, But Individuals Can Almost Never Be Relieved Of Student Debt Through Bankruptcy.

Law

Cards

Credit

I Don't Think All Thinking Is A Kind Of Rational Structure. But I Don't Think It Is Correct To Identify The Rational-nonrational Dichotomy With The Linguistic-nonlinguistic Dichotomy.

Thinking

Kind

Structure

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

As The Capacity To Coerce Declines, It Is Natural To Turn To Control Of Opinion As The Basis For Authority And Domination - A Fundamental Principle Of Government Already Emphasized By David Hume.

Government

Principles

Fundamentals

From 1962 To 1965 The Us Was Dedicated To Try To Prevent The Independence Of South Vietnam, The Reason Was Of Course That Kennedy And Johnson Knew That If Any Political Solution Was Permitted In The South, The National Liberation Front Would Effectively Come To Power, So Strong Was Its Political Support In Comparison With The Political Support Of The So-called South Vietnamese Government.

Strong

Government

Support

When Leaders Carry Out Policies For Decades That Have No Consequences For The Stated Goal And Are Very Costly, You Have To Ask Whether They Are Telling You The Truth Or Whether The Policies Are For A Different Goal, Because They Are Not Reducing Drug Use.

Drug Use

Goal

Leader

I Think There Is A Good Reason Why The Propaganda System Works That Way. It Recognizes That The Public Will Not Support The Actual Policies. Therefore It Is Important To Prevent Any Knowledge Or Understanding Of Them.

Thinking

Support

Understanding

In A Democracy The Day When You Pay Your Taxes, April 15, Would Be A Day Of Celebration, Because You're Getting Together To Provide Resources For The Programs You Decided On.

Democracy

Together

Would Be

So If You Look At The Writings Of Intellectuals, There Are Two Kinds. One Said, L"look, If We Fought Harder We Could Have Won.but The Others, Who Were Way At The Left, People Like Anthony Lewis Of The New York Times, Way Out In Left Stream, His View In 1975 Was The Vietnam War Began With Blundering Efforts To Do Good. But By 1969, It Was Clear That It Was A Disaster, That Was Too Costly To Us.

New York

War

Writing

You Are Responsible For The Predictable Consequences Of Your Actions.

Action

Responsible

Predictable

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

There's An Interesting Book Called The Fugu Plan, Written By Marvin Tokayer And Mary Swartz, Which Describes The Circumstances When European Jews Came To Japan, A Semi-feudal Society.

Book

Japan

Interesting

There Is A Big Difference Between Tweeting To Your Friend About Something That Is Happening And Having A Real Personal Relationship With People.

Real

Differences

People

There Is A Phrase In Trade Theory; It's Called "kicking Away The Ladder." First You Violate The Rules - The Market Rules - And Then By The Time You Succeed In Developing, You Kick Away The Ladders So Others Can't Do It Too, And You Preach About "free Trade."

Kicking

Phrases

Ladders

I Think The Christian Coalition Could Be Extremely Dangerous. We Should Always Be Concerned When Any Group Wants To Impose Their Doctrinal Concerns On All. To An Extent That's What They Are Trying To Do.

Christian

Thinking

Trying

U.s. Domestic Drug Policy Does Not Carry Out Its Stated Goals, And Policymakers Are Well Aware Of That. If It Isn't About Reducing Substance Abuse, What Is It About? It Is Reasonably Clear, Both From Current Actions And The Historical Record, That Substances Tend To Be Criminalized When They Are Associated With The So-called Dangerous Classes, That The Criminalization Of Certain Substances Is A Technique Of Social Control.

Class

Goal

Historical

One Contribution Scientists Can And Should Make Is To Be Clear And Explicit About The Limits Of Scientific Understanding, A Matter That Is Particularly Important In Societies Where People Are Trained To Defer To Alleged Experts.

People

Understanding

Important

Yes, And Syrians. There Is A Horrible Crisis There And The United States Has Admitted Virtually None Of The Refugees.

United States

Crisis

Horrible

If Humans Are Organisms Like Every Other Organism - Which They Are - Then We Should Expect That If There Are Some Domains Where Real Scientific Progress Is Possible, Then There Are Others Where It Is Not.

Real

Progress

Should

Now Take A Look At The Way The Drug War Is Conducted Over The Past 40 Years. It Goes Back Farther, But Start From 40 Years Ago: There's Very Little Spent On Prevention And Treatment. There's A Lot On Policing, A Ton Of Stuff On Border Control And A Lot On Out-of-country Operations. And The Effect On The Availability Of Drugs Is Almost Undetectable; Drug Prices Don't Change On Measures Of Availability. So There Are Two Possibilities: Either Those Conducting The Drug War Are Lunatics, Or They Have Another Purpose.

Country

War

Past

In Studying Language We Can Discover Many Basic Properties Of This Cognitive Structure, Its Organization, And Also The Genetic Predispositions That Provide The Foundation For Its Development. So In This Respect, Linguistics, First Of All, Tries To Characterize A Major Feature Of Human Cognitive Organization. And Second, I Think It May Provide A Suggestive Model For The Study Of Other Cognitive Systems. And The Collection Of These Systems Is One Aspect Of Human Nature.

Thinking

Organization

Trying

The Republican Primaries Were Quite Interesting. The Establishment Had Its Candidate, [mitt] Romney, A Kind Of A Wall Street Lawyer And Investor, And They Wanted Him In. But The Base Didn't Want Him.

Wall

Interesting

Want

If Something Is Repeated Over And Over As Obvious, The Chances Are That It Is Obviously False.

Chance

Obvious

Chances Are

[james] Madison Pointed Out In The Discussion Of The Constitutional Debates - The Constitutional Convention - That Democracy Would Be A Danger. He Used England Of Course As The Model And Said Suppose That In England Everyone Had The Free Right To Vote; The Poor, The Propertyless - Who Are The Great Majority - Would Use Their Voting Power To Take Away The Rights Of Property Owners To Carry Out What We Would Call Land Reform.

Rights

Land

Voting

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 American Claim That The Bombing Of North Vietnam Was Directed Against Military Targets Does Not Withstand Direct Investigation.

Military

Doe

Target

The Us Is To An Unusual Extent A Business-run Society, Where Short-term Concerns Of Profit And Market Share Displace Rational Planning.

Running

Planning

Unusual

It Is One Thing For The Institution To Offer Space For Serious Engagement, In Thought And Action, And To Encourage Free And Independent Use Of Such Opportunities; It Is Something Else For The University To Become Engaged As An Institution, Beyond A Fairly Narrow Range Where True Consensus Exists, And Even That Raises Questions.

Independent

Opportunity

Raises Questions

From The U.s. Point Of View, Negotiations Are, In Effect, A Way For Israel To Continue Its Policies Of Systematically Taking Over Whatever It Wants In The West Bank, Maintaining The Brutal Siege On Gaza, Separating Gaza From The West Bank And, Of Course, Occupying The Syrian Golan Heights, All With Full U.s. Support.

Israel

Views

Support

Predatory Capitalism Created A Complex Industrial System And An Advanced Technology; It Permitted A Considerable Extension Of Democratic Practice And Fostered Certain Liberal Values, But Within Limits That Are Now Being Pressed And Must Be Overcome. It Is Not A Fit System For The Mid-twentieth Century.

Technology

Practice

Political

One Substitute For The Disappearing Evil Empire (the Soviet Union) Has Been The Threat Of Drug Traffickers From Latin America. In Early September 1989, A Major Government-media Blitz Was Launched By The President. That Month The Ap Wires Carried More Stories About Drugs Than About Latin America, Asia, The Middle East And Africa Combined. If You Looked At Television, Every News Program Had A Big Section On How Drugs Were Destroying Our Society, Becoming The Greatest Threat To Our Existence, Etc.

Latin

Media

Government

Parts Of The United States Are Taking On A Third World Look.

United States

Looks

World

I Don't Want Followers.

Followers

Want

Any Incident Could Instantly Blow Up. Both Sides [usa And Russia] Are Modernizing And Increasing Their Military Systems, Including Nuclear Systems.

Military

Blow

Russia

The Money In Politics Is A Cash Cow For The Media.

Media

Cash

Cows

Concision Is A Technique Of Propaganda. It Ensures You Cannot Do Anything Except Repeat Clichés, The Standard Doctrine, Or Sound Like A Lunatic.

Technique

Sound

Doctrine

The Washington Leadership Has Put Aside Non-proliferation Programmes And Devoted Its Energies And Resources To Driving The Country To War By Extraordinary Deceit, Then Trying To Manage The Catastrophe It Created In Iraq.

Country

War

Iraq

Governments Don't Control People Like They Used To.

Government

People

Used

U.s. International And Security Policy . . . Has As Its Primary Goal The Preservation Of What We Might Call "the Fifth Freedom," Understood Crudely But With A Fair Degree Of Accuracy As The Freedom To Rob, To Exploit And To Dominate, To Undertake Any Course Of Action To Ensure That Existing Privilege Is Protected And Advanced.

Goal

Degrees

Might

In The Late 1990s, Some Of The Worst Terrorist Atrocities In The World Were What The Turkish Government Itself Called State Terror, Namely Massive Atrocities, 80 Percent Of The Arms Coming From The United States, Millions Of Refugees, Tens Of Thousands Of People Killed, Hideous Repression, That's International Terror, And We Can Go On And On.

Government

People

Atrocities

China Has Been There For 3,000 Years, Has Contempt For The Barbarians, Is Overcoming A Century Of Domination, And Simply Moves On Its Own. It Does Not Get Intimidated When Uncle Sam Shakes His Fist. That's Scary.

Uncles

Moving

Years

Nobody Can Successfully Defy The Master Of The Hemisphere [america], In Fact Of The World, Hence The Savagery.

America

Hemisphere

World

It's Like These People Are Programmed By Karl Rove. What He Wants Is To Have Liberal Critics Ridicule Bush Because He Says 'nucular' And 'misunderestimate' And Talks With A Probably Fake Texas Accent And So On, Because Then Can Come Back With The Big Propaganda Apparatus Saying, 'see, Those Elite Liberals Who Run The World And Are Sitting Around Drinking French Wine And Eating Quiche Don't Understand Us Ordinary Guys'; Regular Guys Like The Guy Working On The Assembly Line And George Bush, Who Is Going Back To His Ranch To Cut Brush.

Running

Drinking

Wine

There Is Extensive Critical Scholarship That Provides Illustrations In Many Areas Of Scholarship. I've Discussed Many Cases Myself, While Also Citing And Often Relying On Academic Studies That Disentangle These Webs Of Mystification Woven For The General Public. It's Impossible To Provide Illustrations That Would Even Approach Accuracy, Let Alone Carry Any Conviction, Without Going Well Beyond The Bounds Of This Discussion.

Illustration

Woven

Citing

From The 1970s, There Has Been A Significant Change In The Us Economy, As Planners, Private And State, Shifted It Toward Financialization And The Offshoring Of Production, Driven In Part By The Declining Rate Of Profit In Domestic Manufacturing.

Significant Change

Economy

Driven

The Goal Is A Society In Which The Basic Social Unit Is You And Your Television Set. If The Kid Next Door Is Hungry, It’s Not Your Problem. If The Retired Couple Next Door Invested Their Assets Badly And Are Now Starving, That’s Not Your Problem Either.

Couple

Kids

Doors

The Target Of Preventive War Must Have Several Characteristics. It Must Be Virtually Defenceless; It Must Be Important Enough To Be Worth The Trouble; It Must Be Possible To Portray It As The Ultimate Evil And An Imminent Threat To Our Survival.

War

Evil

Survival

The War Against Working People Should Be Understood To Be A Real War…. Specifically In The U.s., Which Happens To Have A Highly Class-conscious Business Class…. And They Have Long Seen Themselves As Fighting A Bitter Class War, Except They Don’t Want Anybody Else To Know About It.

Real

War

Fighting

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

Resource Extraction Impacts A Global Environment That Is Increasingly At Severe Risk.

Impact

Risk

Environment

Take Like, Say, Obama, He's Called "liberal" And He's Praised For His "principled Objection To The Iraq War". What Was His "principled Objection"? He Says It Was A "strategic Blunder," Like Nazi Generals After Stalingrad.

War

Iraq

Nazi

I Choose To Live In What I Think Is The Greatest Country In The World, Which Is Committing Horrendous Terrorist Acts And Should Stop.

Country

Thinking

World

What's Called "liberal" In The Intelectual Culture Means Highly Conformist To Power, But Mildly Critical.

Mean

Culture

Critical

To Speak Truth To Power Is Not A Particularly Honorable Vocation. One Should Seek Out An Audience That Matters - And Furthermore (another Important Qualification), It Should Not Be Seen As An Audience, But As A Community Of Common Concern In Which One Hopes To Participate Constructively.

Community

Important

Matter

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.

Trending Author