No Liberal Newspaper Ever Talked About The Invasion Of Vietnam; They Talked About The Defense Of Vietnam. And Then They Were Saying, "well, It's Not Going Well." Ok, That Make Them Liberal. It's Like, It's If We Were To Say, That Going Back To, Say, Nazi Germany, That Hitler's General Staff Was Liberal After Stalingrad Because They Were Criticizing His Tactics: "it Was A Mistake To Fight A Two Front War, We Should've Knocked Off Englad First," Or Something.

-Noam Chomsky

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No Liberal Newspaper Ever

Noam Chomsky

Topic

When Israelis In The Occupied Territories Now Claim That They Have To Defend Themselves, They Are Defending Themselves In The Sense That Any Military Occupier Has To Defend Itself Against The Population They Are Crushing. You Can't Defend Yourself When You're Militarily Occupying Someone Else's Land. That's Not Defense. Call It What You Like, It's Not Defense.

Crush

Military

Land

Responsibility, I Believe, Accrues Through Privilege.

Believe

Responsibility

Privilege

The Actual Consequences Of Plan Colombia Are To Devastate Peasant Communities, Which Have Been Driven To Drug Production. These Peasants Have No Particular Desire To Grow Coca, But Their Other Means Of Livelihood Have Been Wiped Out.

Mean

Community

Drug

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

Chemistry, Until My Childhood, Not That Long Ago, Was Regarded As A Calculating Device. Because You Couldn't Reduce To Physics. So It's Just Some Way Of Calculating The Result Of Experiments. The Bohr Atom Was Treated That Way.

Long Ago

Childhood

Way

If You Assume There Is No Hope, You Guarantee There Will Be No Hope.

Hope

Guarantees

Assuming

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

It Also Seems Beyond Controversy That Moral Responsibilities Are Greater To The Extent That People "have The Resources, The Training, The Facilities And Opportunities To Speak And Act Effectively."

Responsibility

Opportunity

People

Just Recently, The Administration Of Barack Obama, Which Has Broken All Sorts Of Records In Regards To Deportation, Picked Up A Guatemalan Man Living Here [in U.s]. I Think He Had Been Living Here For Twenty-five Years, Had A Family, A Business, And So On. He Had Fled From The Mayan Region And They Picked Him Up And Deported Him. To Me, That's Really Sick.

Men

Thinking

Years

Worker Ownership Within A State Capitalist, Semi-market System Is Better Than Private Ownership But It Has Inherent Problems. Markets Have Well-known Inherent Inefficiencies. They're Very Destructive.

Problem

Well Known

Ownership

The 'corporatization Of America' During The Past Century Has Been An Attack On Democracy.

Past

America

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

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. We Don't Think About It, But It Has A Tremendous Effect. But These Are Things You Don't See Right In Front Of Your Eyes. You Need To Think About Them A Little, To See What The Consequences Are. It's Easy To Put Them Aside, And The Media Don't Talk About Them.

Eye

Thinking

Media

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

Personally, I Am Uneasy About The Notion Of "a Politically Engaged University," For Reasons I Wrote About Over 30 Years Ago, At The Height Of Protest And Resistance (reprinted In For Reasons Of State).

Years

Height

Resistance

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

You Might Recall, Perhaps, That We Were Probably The Only Commentators To Rely On The Most Knowledgeable Source, State Department Intelligence.

War

Might

States

Legalizing Marijuana Would Make A Lot Of Sense, I Don't Think There's A Single Case Of Marijuana Overdose On Record And Tens Of Millions Of Users. It's Much Less Dangerous Than Alcohol, For Example.

Marijuana

Thinking

Alcohol

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

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

Organization And Education, When They Interact With Each Other, They Strengthen Each Other, They Are Mutually Supportive.

Organization

Supportive

If You Accept The Institutional Lunacy, Then The Policies Are Rational.

Accepting

Rational

Policy

Groupings Of People That Get Together, Think Things Through, Come Out To Plan And So On, Like Unions Or True Political Organizations, They've Disintegrated. And People Tend To Be Atomized - You Get Down To A Society Based On Social Units Based On An Atom - An Atomic Element - Which Is A Person And Their Computer. Not A Society That Is Going To Be Able To Function Freely And Democratically. The Tendency Is There; It Doesn't Have To Be, But Its Something To Worry About.

Thinking

Organization

People

I'm Into Eating As Little As Possible, Paying As Little Attention As Possible. I Never Cook. Never Use The Stove Or Anything.

Attention

Use

Littles

Isn't It Interesting That Eating A Banana Is Somehow Comical.

Interesting

Bananas

Eating

It's Perfectly Obvious That There Is Some Genetic Factor That Distinguishes Humans From Other Animals And That It Is Language-specific. The Theory Of That Genetic Component, Whatever It Turns Out To Be, Is What Is Called Universal Grammar.

Animal

Language

Theory

What Is Important To Us Is To Reverse The Shameful Course Being Pursued By America. It Won't Be Easy, But It Must And Can Be Done.

America

Important

Done

[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

Throughout History, Even The Harshest And Most Shameful Measures Are Regularly Accompanied By Professions Of Noble Intent - And Rhetoric About Bestowing Freedom And Independence.

Independence

Noble

Rhetoric

If Current Tendencies Persist, The Outcome Will Be Disastrous Before Too Long. Large Parts Of The World Will Become Barely Habitable Affecting Hundreds Of Millions Of People, Along With Other Disasters That We Can Barely Contemplate.

Long

People

World

The Intellectual World Is Deeply Conformist... We Talk A Lot About The Crimes Of Others. When It Comes To Our Own Crimes, We Are Nationalists In The Orwellian Sense.

Intellectual

World

Crime

The 50,000 Korean Mercenaries We Had In Vietnam Were Professional Killers And Just Massacred People Outright. And The American Army Did Plenty Of That Too, But It Couldn't Take It After Awhile. It's Not The Kind Of Job You Can Give To Conscripts Who Are Not Trained To Be Murderers.

Jobs

Army

People

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

Modifying The Core Institutions Of The Society Is No Small Challenge.

Challenges

Institutions

Modifying

Thomas Jefferson, The Leading Enlightenment Figure In The United States, Along With Benjamin Franklin, Who Took Exactly The Same View, Argued That Dependence Will Lead To "subservience And Venality", And Will "suffocate The Germs Of Virtue". And Remember, By Dependence He Meant Wage Labor, Which Was Considered An Abomination Under Classical Liberal Principles.

Views

Enlightenment

Principles

Technology Can Be Used That Way And It Can Also Be Used In Other Ways.

Technology

Way

Used

People Who Spend Their Working Hours In A Lab Or Research Library Or A Classroom Might Be Intent Primarily On Keeping Or Advancing Their Elite Positions, Thereby Lending Tacit Support To Power Structures. Or They Might Not Be.

People

Support

Library

Every Single One Cabinet Appointment: Education, Environment, Labor - Every Single One Is Selected To Undermine Any Aspect Of Government That's Of Any Help To People, And That Doesn't Benefit The Super-rich. And It's Absolutely Systematic. The Interesting Question Will Be How Long Donald Trump's Constituency Can Fall For The Con Game.

Fall

Long

People

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

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

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

A Colonial War Is A Very Dirty Kind Of War. You're Not Fighting Armed Forces. You're Fighting Mostly Unarmed People. And To Fight That Kind Of War Requires Professional Killers, Which Means Mercenaries.

War

Dirty

Mean

While Trump Keeps The Spotlight On Himself, The "respectable" Republican Establishment Chips Away At Government Programs That Benefit The General Population.

Republican

Program

Respectable

There's Kind Of A Hidden Point Which Isn't Being Brought Out, And That Is That It Is Inconceivable That The U.s. Would Permit Democracy In The Middle East, And For A Very Simple Reason. Just Take A Look At Polls Of Arab Public Opinion. They Exist. You Can't Find Them In The Press, But They Exist From Prestigious Polling Agencies. Released By Major Institutions. And What They Show Is That If There Was Democracy In The Middle East, The Entire U.s. Program For Domination Of The Middle East Would Be Down The Tube.

Simple

Agency

Democracy

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

In Fact, A Rather Striking Aspect Of Business Propaganda In The United States Is The Demonization Of Government, Starting After The Second World War.

War

Government

United States

For 500 Years, Since European Explorers Came, Latin American Countries Had Been Separated From One Another. They Had Very Limited Relations. Integration Is A Prerequisite For Independence.

Country

Latin

Years

The European Reaction To Obama Is A European Delusion.

Reactions

Delusion

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

The Worst Terrorist Crimes Going On Right Now Are The Drone Campaigns.

Drones

Campaigns

Crime

I Don't Feel That There Is Anything Deep In The Political Culture That Prevents "educating The Masses." I'm Old Enough To Recall Vividly The High Level Of Culture, General And Political, Among First-generation Working People During The Great Depression. Workers' Education Was Lively And Effective, Union-based - Mostly The Vigorous Rising Labor Movement, Reviving From The Ashes Of The 1920s. I've Often Seen Independent And Impressive Initiatives In Working-class And Poor And Deprived Communities Today.

Independent

People

Community

If Palestinian Authority Refuse To Join The Us-run Negotiations, Their Basis For Support Would Collapse. They Survive On Donations Essentially. Israel Has Made Sure That It's Not A Productive Economy.

Support

Donation

Economy

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

I Organized Tax Resistance In 1965, With A Friend. I Kept At It For About Ten Years. I Don't See It As A Principle, It's A Tactic. And I Felt I Had Exhausted Its Potential As A Tactic Right About Then, So I Stopped.

Years

Principles

Tactics

Those Who Wish To Change The World Should Have The Best Possible Understanding Of The World, Including What Is Revealed By The Sciences, Some Of Which They Might Be Able To Use For Their Purposes. That's Why Workers Education, Including Science And Mathematics, Has Commonly Been A Concern Of Left Intellectuals.

Should Have

Understanding

Wish

In Fact, By Universal Grammar I Mean Just That System Of Principles And Structures That Are The Prerequisites For Acquisition Of Language, And To Which Every Language Necessarily Conforms.

Mean

Facts

Principles

[mikhail] Gorbachev Complained. He Was Told Look, There's Nothing On Paper. People Didn't Actually Say It But The Implication Was Look, If You Are Dumb Enough To Take Faith In A Gentleman's Agreement With Us, That's Your Problem. Nato Expanded To East Germany.

East Germany

Agreement

People

If You Go To One Demonstration And Then Go Home, That's Something, But The People In Power Can Live With That. What They Can't Live With Is Sustained Pressure That Keeps Building, Organisations That Keep Doing Things, People That Keep Learning Lessons From The Last Time And Doing It Better The Next Time.

Religious

Home

People

Suppose That Humans Happen To Be So Constructed That They Desire The Opportunity For Freely Undertaken Productive Work. Suppose That They Want To Be Free From The Meddling Of Technocrats And Commissars, Bankers And Tycoons, Mad Bombers Who Engage In Psychological Tests Of Will With Peasants Defending Their Homes, Behavioral Scientists Who Can't Tell A Pigeon From A Poet, Or Anyone Else Who Tries To Wish Freedom And Dignity Out Of Existence Or Beat Them Into Oblivion.

Home

Opportunity

Productive Work

Half Of The [usa] Population, Roughly, Thinks The World Was Created A Couple Thousand Years Ago. Two Thirds Of The Country Is Expecting The Second Coming Of Christ. They've Also Had To Turn To Nativists. The Gun Culture In The United States, Which Is Out Of Control, Is Party Fueled By People Who Think 'we've Got To Have Our Guns To Protect Ourselves.'

Country

Couple

Party

There Have, For Years, Been Comparative Studies Of Religious Fanaticism And Factors That Correlate With It. By And Large, It Tends To Decline With Increasing Industrialization And Education. The Us, However, Is Off The Chart, Ranking Near Devastated Peasant Societies. About 1/2 The Population Believe The World Was Created A Few Thousand Years Ago: The Justification For The Belief Is That That Is What They Were Ordered To Believe By Authority Figures To Whom They Were Taught One Must Subordinate Oneself. And On, And On.

Religious

Believe

Years

The Us And Israel Have Demanded Further That Palestinians Not Only Recognize Israel's Rights As A State In The International System, But That They Also Recognize Israel's Abstract Right To Exist, A Concept That Has No Place In International Law Or Diplomacy, And A Right Claimed By No One. In Effect, The Us And Israel Are Demanding That Palestinians . . . Formally Accept The Legitimacy Of Their Expulsion From Their Own Land. They Cannot Be Expected To Accept That, Just As Mexico Does Not Grant The Us The Right To Exist On Half Of Mexico's Territory, Gained By Conquest.

Law

Land

Rights

In The United States, And To A Certain Extent In Canada, There's Very Little Interest In What Happens Outside Their Borders.

United States

Borders

Littles

It's Very Hard To Look In The Mirror. We All Know This. It's Much Easier To Have Illusions About Yourself. And In Particular, When You Think, Well, I'm Going To Believe What I Like, But I'll Say What The Powerful Want, You Do That Over Time, And You Believe What You Say.

Powerful

Believe

Thinking

The Change Between Horse And Buggy To Automobile Is A Big Change And There Hasn't Been A Major Change Since.

Horse

Bigs

Automobile

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.

Ignorance

Knowing

Looks

Politicians Don't Want Democracy Here In America, Why Would They Want It In The Middle East?

America

Democracy

Middle East

The Bush Administration Do Have Moral Values. Their Moral Values Are Very Explicit: Shine The Boots Of The Rich And The Powerful, Kick Everybody Else In The Face, And Let Your Grandchildren Pay For It. That Simple Principle Predicts Almost Everything That's Happening.

Powerful

Simple

Grandchildren

[there Is] Is All Part Of The Whole Neoliberal Shift In The Economy. But The Parties Have Shifted To The Right.

Party

Economy

Whole

Cuba Has Become A Symbol Of Courageous Resistance To Attack. Since 1959, Cuba Has Been Under Attack From The Hemispheric Superpower.

Cuba

Resistance

Courageous

This Is A Large Part Of The Academic Profession: To Make Up Complex, Subtle Arguments That Are Childishly Ridiculous But Are Enveloped In Sufficient Profundity That They Take On A Kind Of Plausibility.

Ridiculous

Kind

Argument

Roughly Speaking, I Think It's Accurate To Say That A Corporate Elite Of Managers And Owners Governs The Economy And The Political System As Well, At Least In Very Large Measure.

Thinking

Political

Economics

Concentration Of Ownership In The Media Is High And Increasing. Furthermore, Those Who Occupy Managerial Positions In The Media, Or Gain Status Within Them As Commentators, Belong To The Same Privileged Elites, And Might Be Expected To Share The Perceptions, Aspirations And Attitudes Of Their Associates, Reflecting Their Own Class Interests As Well.

Attitude

Media

Class

If The Authors And Custodians Of History Turn Out To Have An Attractive Image, It Is Only Reasonable To Look Beyond And Ask Whether The Image They Construct Is Accurate.

Custodians

Looks

Attractive

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.

Change

Education

Time

The United States Is A Special Case, And For Me, Very Interesting. It's Studied Carefully And We Know A Lot About It. One Of The Most Striking Features Of The Elections Is The Class-based Character Of The Vote. Now, Class Is Not Discussed Or Even Measured In The United States. In Fact, The Word Is Almost Obscene, Except For The Term "middle Class." And You Can't Get Exact Class Data; The Census Doesn't Even Give Class Data. But You Can Sort Of See The Significance Of It Just From Income Figures.

Character

Giving

Interesting

The Person Who Wins The Nobel Prize Is Not The Person Who Read The Most Journal Articles And Took The Most Notes On Them. It's The Person Who Knew What To Look For. And Cultivating That Capacity To Seek What's Significant, Always Willing To Question Whether You're On The Right Track - That's What Education Is Going To Be About, Whether It's Using Computers And The Internet, Or Pencil And Paper, Or Books.

Book

Winning

Track

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

Somebody Puts Up Some Weird Thing And Somebody Else Thinks Yeah Maybe That's The Way Things Work And Pretty Soon You Have Some Cult Going. Its Not The Fault Of The Internet, It's The Fault Of A Social And Culture System That Doesn't Educate People Properly And In Fact On Purpose. They Don't Want To Educate People Properly.

Thinking

People

Culture

A Person Who Issues That Charge That Someone Adheres To The Principle "do As I Say, Not As I Do" Has Three Options: Produce An Example; Withdraw The Charge; Take The Coward's Way Out And Slink Away Silently.

I Do Think That Magna Carta And International Law Are Worth Paying Some Attention To.

Thinking

Law

Attention

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

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

The Republicans Went So Far To The Right That They Just Can't Get Votes. They've Become A Dedicated Party Of The Very Rich And The Corporate Sector.

Party

Vote

Republican

In Much Of The World The U.s. Is Regarded As A Leading Terrorist State.

World

States

Terrorist

The General Population Doesn't Know What's Happening, And It Doesn't Even Know That It Doesn't Know.

Population

Knows

Happenings

The Most Extreme Types, Like Murray Rothbard, Are At Least Honest. They'd Like To Eliminate Highway Taxes Because They Force You To Pay For A Road You May Never Drive On. As An Alternative, They Suggest That If You And I Want To Get Somewhere, We Should Build A Road There And Charge People Tolls On It. Just Try Generalizing That. Such A Society Couldn't Survive, And Even If It Could, It Would Be So Full Of Terror And Hate That Any Human Being Would Prefer To Live In Hell.

Hate

People

Trying

In Fact, There Is A Very Close Correlation Between Human Rights Violations And Us Aid, Particularly In Latin America.

Latin

Rights

America

If There Had Been A Charismatic Figure In The United States Who Could Mobilize Fears, Anger, Racism, A Sense Of Loss Of The Future That Belongs To Us, This Country Could Be In Real Danger. We're Lucky That There Never Has Been An Honest, Charismatic Figure. Mccarthy Was Too Much Of A Thug, You Know? Nixon Was Too Crooked. Trump, I Think, Is Too Much Of A Clown. So, We've Been Lucky.

Country

Real

Loss

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

Taken

World

Steps

The People We Call The Prophets I Think Are The Earliest Dissident Intellectuals, And They're Treated Like Most Dissident Intellectuals - Very Badly. They're Imprisoned, Driven Into The Desert. King Ahab, The Epitome Of Evil In The Bible, Condemned Elijah As A "hater Of Israel." This Is The First Self-hating Jew, The Origin Of The Term. It Goes Right Up To The Present. That's The History Of Intellectuals.

Kings

Hate

Thinking

I Like The Cold Weather. It Means You Get Work Done.

Mean

Weather

Snow

The Former Colonies, In Latin America In Particular, Have A Better Chance Than Ever Before To Overcome Centuries Of Subjugation, Violence And Foreign Intervention, Which They Have So Far Survived As Dependencies With Islands Of Luxury In A Sea Of Misery.

Latin

Sea

Luxury

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

One Of The Greatest Dangers Is Secular Religion - State Worship.

Worship

Danger

States

In General, I Think, U.s. Policies Remain Constant, Going Back To The Second World War. But The Capacity To Implement Them Is Declining.

War

Thinking

World

Take A Look At The Current Debates In Washington, And Of Course, Everything In The Media. Only One Issue Is Discussed: The Deficit - The Least Significant Issue, But The Most Significant Issue For The Banks. The Big Problem, Joblessness, Is Barely Discussed, Even Though That's What The Public Wants, As Polls Clearly Show. That's Even What The Business Press Supports, But The Financial Institutions Are So Powerful That The Only Issue Is The Deficit, And This Runs Right Through The Intellectual Culture.

Running

Powerful

Support

Workers In Different Countries Can Easily Be Played Off Against Each Other.

Country

Different

Workers

I Felt That We Could Hardly Improve On The Conception Of The University Expressed By One Of The Founders Of The Modern System, Wilhelm Von Humboldt, Also One Of The Founders Of Classical Liberalism. That Seems To Me True Today As Well, Though Ideals Of Course Have To Be Adapted To Changing Circumstances.

Today

Modern

Circumstances

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

Right Now, Where Do We Stand? Well Right At The Russian Border, Both Sides Have Been Taking Provocative Actions, Both Sides Are Building Up Military Forces. Nato Forces Are Carrying Out Maneuvers Hundreds Of Yards From The Russian Border, The Russian Jets Are Buzzing American Jets. Anything Could Blow Up In A Minute.

Military

Blow

Building Up

If A Person Chooses Not To Be A Writer, Or Speaker, Then (by Definition) The Person Is Choosing Not To Be Engaged In An Effort,"to Bring The Truth About Matters Of Human Significance To An Audience That Can Do Something About Them," Apart, Perhaps, From Some Circle Of Immediate Associates.

Circles

Effort

Definitions

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

Half The Population Hold That The Government Is Run By A Few Big Interests Looking Out For Themselves, As Polls Regularly Show.

Running

Government

Population

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

The Most Dramatic Case Is That Of The Central Americans. Why Are People Fleeing Central America? It's Because Of The Atrocities The U.s. Committed There. Take Boston, Where There's A Fairly Large Mayan Population. These People Are Fleeing From The Highlands Of Guatemala, Where There Was Virtual Genocide In The Early 1980s Backed By Ronald Reagan. The Region Was Devastated, And People Are Still Fleeing To This Day, Yet They're Sent Back.

Boston

America

People

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

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

The Leading, The Most Respected Vietnam Historian, Military Historian Bernard Fall -he Was A Hawk Incidentally, But He Cared For The Vietnamese - He Said It Wasn't Clear To Him Whether Vietnam Could Survive As A Historical And Cultural Entity Under The Most Massive Attack That Any Region That Size Had Ever Suffered. He Was Talking About South Vietnam, Incidentally.

Military

Fall

Talking

Some Of The Younger People Afford Hope For The Future. I Am Not Opposed To Reform Initiatives. For Example, If You Can Build Up Enough Popular Support In The United States To Put Through A Reasonable Health Care Program Or To Support The Rights Of The Working People Against The Version Of Nafta Which Was Rammed Through, These Can Be Good Things.

Rights

People

Support

There Are Some Very General Ideas That People Can Keep In Mind; They're Kind Of Truisms. It's Only Worth Mentioning Them Because They're Always Denied.

Ideas

People

Mind

Iran Is Independent And Independence Is Not Tolerated.

Independent

Iran

Independence

It Was Right After Woodrow Wilson's First Serious Post-world War I Repression, Which Deported Thousands Of People, Effectively Destroyed Unions And Independent Press, And So On. Right After That, The Anti-immigration Law Was Passed That Remained In Place Until The 1960s.

War

Independent

Law

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

Should People Be Mere "interested Spectators Of Action," Not "participants," Restricted To Lending Their Weight Periodically To One Or Another Sector Of The "responsible Men," As Advocates Of "manufacture Of Consent" Have Recommended? Or Should Their Rights Transcend These Highly Restricted Bounds?

Men

Rights

People

During The Terrorist Regime In Haiti In The 1990s, The Cia, Under The Administration Of Bill Clinton, Was Reporting To Congress That Oil Shipments Had Been Blocked From Entering Haiti. That Was Just A Lie. I Was There. You Could See The Oil Terminals Being Built And The Ships Coming In.

Lying

Oil

Entering

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

The Ottoman Empire . . . The Rulers In Turkey Were Fortunately So Corrupt That They Left People Alone Pretty Much - Were Mostly Interested In Robbing Them - And They Left Them Alone To Run Their Own Affairs . . . With A Lot Of Local Self Determination.

Running

Determination

Self

I Don't Think You Would Have Any Trouble At All In Deciding That You Are Thinking Of Some Event And Then Visualizing It Happening With Its Consequences, And Constructing A Rational Analysis Of It Without Being Able To Verbalize It Adequately In Anything Like Its Full Complexity.

Thinking

Events

Analysis

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

As Long As The General Population Is Passive, Apathetic, Diverted To Consumerism Or Hatred Of The Vulnerable, Then The Powerful Can Do As They Please, And Those Who Survive Will Be Left To Contemplate The Outcome.

Powerful

Long

Hatred

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

I Know Of People Whose Actions And Words I Admire And Respect. Some Are Called "intellectuals," Some Are Not.

People

Action

Admire

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

There’s No More Morality In World Affairs, Fundamentally, Than There Was At The Time Of Genghis Khan.

World

Morality

Affair

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

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

Haiti, Which Has Been The Main Target Of Us Intervention Throughout The 20th Century, Is The Poorest. And Guatemala, Which Is Maybe The Third Major Target Of Us Intervention, Probably Ranks Third Poorest.

Target

Haiti

Guatemala

The Un Can Go As Far As The U.s. Will Allow, And No Further. And It's Bound By Conditions That The Powerful States, Which Means Mostly The U.s., Impose.

Powerful

Mean

States

I Think Half The Population Supports This Ban On These Dangerous Immigrants Who Are Going To Come In And Do Something, Who Knows What. And Meanwhile The Countries That Really Have Been Involved In Terrorism, They're Out. It's Kind Of Like I Think It Was Oklahoma Banning Sharia Law.

Country

Thinking

Oklahoma

The Costs Of The Bush-obama Wars In Iraq And Afghanistan Are Now Estimated To Run As High As $4.4 Trillion - A Major Victory For Osama Bin Laden, Whose Announced Goal Was To Bankrupt America By Drawing It Into A Trap. The 2011 Military Budget - Almost Matching That Of The Rest Of The World Combined - Is Higher In Real Terms Than At Any Time Since World War Ii And Is Slated To Go Even Higher .

Running

Military

Real

I Think The Activism Of The 1960s Had A Very Definite Civilizing Effect On The Whole Society In All Kinds Of Ways. So Lots Of Things That By Now Are Almost Taken For Granted Were Heretical In The 1960s. We Had Anti-sodomy Laws Until Not Many Years Ago.

Taken

Thinking

Years

Labor #‎ Unions Are The Leading Force For #‎ Democratization And #‎ Progress .

Progress

Unions

Force

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

Israel Produces And Stores Chemical Weapons. So Therefore The Us Will Prevent The Chemical Weapons Convention From Being Imposed On The Middle East. But It's Necessary To Evade This By Misrepresenting The Convention, And I Think Maybe 100 Percent Of The Media, Or Close To It, Go Along. But That's A Critical Issue. Actually, Syria's Chemical Weapons Were Developed Largely As A Deterrent To Israeli Nuclear Weapons. Also, Not Mentioned.

Thinking

Media

Issues

Religion Is Based On The Idea That God Is An Imbecile.

Ideas

Imbeciles

Greece, Alone, Is In A Very Vulnerable Position. If The Greeks Had Had Support From Progressive Left And Popular Forces Elsewhere In Europe They Might Have Been Able To Resist The Demands Of The Troika, But They Had Almost No Support. Not Even From Portugal, Spain, Or Other Left Forces. They Were Left Alone.

Europe

Support

Greek

What Happened In Syria Was, President [barack] Obama Had Made A Statement Announcing What He Called His "red Line": You Can't Use Chemical Weapons, You Can Do Anything Else But [use] Chemical Weapons.

President

Lines

Weapons

In The West, You Don't Get In Any Trouble If You Tell The Truth, But You Still Can't Do It. Not Only Can't You Tell The Truth, You Can't Think The Truth. It's Just So Deeply Embedded, Deeply Instilled, That Without Any Meaningful Coercion It Comes Out The Same Way It Does In A Totalitarian State.

Meaningful

Thinking

Doe

There Are By Now Declassified Documents From The 1950s That Tells You A Lot About What's Going On In Egypt And We Should Have Known It Then. It's About Exactly What's Happening, How We Can Disregard Public Opinion As Long As The Dictators We Support Are Capable Of Suppressing Their Populations. So To Hell With Public Opinion. That's All Right There In The 1950's. That's Not Security. That's Not Security Of The Government. That's, If Anything, Security From Its Own Population. And There's A Lot Of That.

Egypt

Should Have

Government

The Us Is Off The Spectrum In Religious Commitment. It's Been Increasing Since 1980 But It's A Major Part Of The Voting Base Of The Republican Party So That Means Committing To Anti-abortion Positions, Opposing Women's Rights.

Religious

Party

Mean

There's Something Deeply Rooted In American Culture. You Can Pretty Much Identify What It Was. You Take A Look At The History. It Was Internal Conquest. You Had To Defend Yourself Against What The Declaration Of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, An Enlightened Figure, Called The Attacks Of The "merciless Indian Savages," Whose Known Way Of Warfare Was Torture And Destruction. Also You Had A Slave Population, You Had To Protect Yourself Against Them. You Needed Guns.

Gun

Independence

Population

It's True That Language Is In A Sense Linear But That Is As Obvious As Perceptual Space Is Three-dimensional.

Space

Three

Language

How Do I Define God? I Don't.... People Who Find Such Conceptions Important For Themselves Have Every Right To Frame Them As They Like. Personally, I Don't.

Spiritual

Atheist

Science

The Attack On Social Security Is Similarly Motivated. Social Security Is Based On The Conception Is That We Should Have Sympathy For Others, Not Function Merely As Isolated "rational Wealth Maximizers."

Should Have

Wealth

Motivated

The Basic Principle, Rarely Violated, Is That What Conflicts With The Requirements Of Power And Privilege Does Not Exist.

Principles

Doe

Requirements

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

Governments Are Not Representative.

Government

Representatives

Borders Are Semiporous. Capital Flows More Freely Than People Across Them. On C Span.

People

Borders

Flow

These Are Fashionable People Who Call Themselves Philosophers.

People

Philosopher

Fashionable

When I Was Growing Up In The 1930s And '40s Anti-semitism Was Rampant. It Wasn't Like Nazi Germany But It Was Pretty Serious - It Was Part Of Life.

Growing Up

Germany

Serious

Take, For Example, There Is A Right-wing Populist Uprising. It's Very Common, Even On The Left, To Just Ridicule Them, But That's Not The Right Reaction. If You Look At Those People And Listen To Them On Talk Radio, These Are People With Real Grievances.

Real

Uprising

Wings

The Community Itself Didn't Support The Union. Now That's Kind Of Interesting About [barack] Obama, Because Obama Was Supposedly A Community Organizer In Chicago At That Time. Now I'm Sure He Read The Chicago Tribune, So He Knew About It, But When He Went To Show His Solidarity With The Workforce, The First Place He Went Was Caterpillar. I Don't Think He's Forgotten, And The Labor Movement Didn't React. Even Radical Labor Historians Didn't Remember. It Was Only 15 Years Ago, After All, But That's A Real Triumph Of Propaganda In Many Ways.

Real

Thinking

Years

Unfortunately, You Can’t Vote The Rascals Out, Because You Never Voted Them In, In The First Place

Firsts

Vote

Rascals

To Live A Life Of Honesty And Integrity Is A Responsibility Of Every Decent Person.

Honesty

Integrity

Responsibility

Nicaragua Was Destabilizing Central America, Meaning Moving In A Direction The Us Didn't Like. So Nicaragua Was Crushed.

Moving

America

Nicaragua

I Suspect Most Likely That More Nazis Came To America. I Was A Student At Harvard During The Early 1950s. There Was Practically No Jewish Faculty There.

America

Students

Nazi

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

One Measure For Promoting Both Stability And Fairness Across Financial Market Segments Is A Small Sales Tax On All Financial Transactions.

Fairness

Financial

Stability

Discovery Is The Ability To Be Puzzled By Simple Things. Noam Chomsky

Inspirational

Simple

Discovery

[according To The Rigid Dogma] We Have To Believe The United States Would Have So-called Liberated Iraq Even If Its Main Products Were Lettuce And Pickles And The Main Energy Resource Of The World Were In Central Africa.

Believe

Iraq

Energy

The Most Striking Aspect Of Linguistic Competence Is What We May Call The 'creativity Of Language,' That Is, The Speaker's Ability To Produce New Sentences, Sentences That Are Immediately Understood By Other Speakers Although They Bear No Physical Resemblance To Sentences Which Are 'familiar.

Creativity

May

Bears

Arab Public Opinion Does Not Regard Iran As A Hostile Entity. In Fact It's So Supportive Of Iran That A Majority Would Think The Place Would Be Better Off If Iran Had Nuclear Weapons. The Main Enemies Are The United States And Isreal, In The 80, 90 Percent Range.

Thinking

Iran

Enemy

[after Vietnam] The Type Of Interventions That Are Carried Out Are Designed So As Not To Elicit Public Reactions.

Vietnam

Reactions

Type

Take The Iraq War,it's The Second Worst Crime After The Second World War. It's The First Time In History, In The History Of Imperialism, There Were Huge Demonstrations, Before The War Was Officially Launched.

War

Iraq

World

I Get Terrific Health Care.

Care

Health Care

Terrific

I Have No Facebook Page Or Twitter - I Don't Participate In It, And I Don't Like It Particularly. I Mean, It's A Form Of Interaction, Which Strikes Me As Extremely Superficial.

Mean

Pages

Superficial

[mikhail] Gorbachev Said That He Would Agree To The Unification Of Germany, And Even Adherence Of Germany To Nato, Which Was Quite A Concession, If Nato Didn't Move To East Germany. And [george] Bush And [james] Baker Promised Verbally, That's Critical, Verbally That Nato Would Not Expand "one Inch To The East," Which Meant East Germany. Nobody Was Talking About Anything Farther At The Time. They Would Not Expand One Inch To The East. Now That Was A Verbal Promise. It Was Never Written. Nato Immediately Expanded To East Germany.

Moving

East Germany

Talking

A Property Of An Organism Enters Into Its Life (and Survival) In Many Different Ways, Some More Salient Than Others. But There Is No Simple Notion Of Its Being "for" Some Function.

Simple

Survival

Different

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

Impact

Risk

Environment

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

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

Honduras Has Become A Murder Capital Of The World; There's Horrible Atrocities, Infanticide, Murder Of Women Is Way Up, And People Are Fleeing In Desperation. They Come To The Border, And We Put Them In Trucks And Send Them Back To Mexico To Die. And Here People Are Scared Of Illegal Immigrants - That's What We're Doing. It's Pretty Shocking.

People

Atrocities

Fleeing

There Are Leaks From The Embassy In Honduras. There Was A Coup In 2009. Obama Broke With Most Of Latin America And Even Europe And Supported The Military Coup, Still Does. The Ambassador In Honduras Sent Back A Detailed Analysis Saying The Coup Was Military, Illegal, Unconstitutional, And That The Legitimate President Was Thrown Out. Okay, We Now Know That Washington Was Perfectly Aware Of That And Decided To Support The Military Coup Anyway. We Should Have Known That At The Time. The Government Has No Right To Keep That Information Secret.

Latin

Military

Should Have

I've Spent A Lot Of Time Working On Declassified Documents - And They Do Get Declassified After Decades - You Look At The Record Of Declassified Documents, And They Are Mostly Concerned With Keeping What The Government Does Secret From Its Own Population. It's Mostly Defense Of The Power System From Its Own Population. Very Little Is Authentic Security.

Government

Secret

Records

I Have Never Heard Of Anyone Who Was A "model Person" In All Aspects Of His Or Her Life, Intellectual Life Or Other Aspects; Nor Do I See Why Anyone Should Care. We Are Not Engaged In Idol Worship, After All.

Idols

Intellectual

Care

The Us Reasserted Control Over Nicaragua In 1990. Since Then, The Country Has Experienced A Steep Decline. It's Now The Second Poorest Country In The Hemisphere.

Country

Nicaragua

Hemisphere

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

Every Night I Get Many Letters, And After Every Talk I Get Many Questions From People Who Say, "i Want To Change Things. What Can I Do?" I Never Hear These Questions From Peasants In Southern Colombia Or Kurds In Southeastern Turkey Under Miserable Repression Or Anybody Who Is Suffering. They Don't Ask What They Can Do; They Tell You What They're Doing.

Night

Turkeys

People

As Long As Nuclear Weapons Exist, The Chances Of Survival Of The Human Species Are Quite Slight.

Long

Survival

Nuclear

If You Want To End Terrorism Stop Participating In It.

Want

Terrorism

Ends

States Are Not Moral Agents.

Agents

Moral

States

There's A War Crimes Act In The United States Passed By A Republican Congress In 1996, Which Says That Grave Breaches Of The Geneva Convention Are Subject To The Death Penalty. And That Doesn't Mean The Soldier That Committed Them - That Means The Commanders.

War

Mean

Soldier

There Have Been Repeated Cases When Nuclear War Came Ominously Close, Often A Result Of Malfunctioning Of Early-warning Systems And Other Accidents, Sometimes [as A Result Of] Highly Adventurist Acts Of Political Leaders.

War

Leader

Political

In The Primary Debates For The 2016 Election, Every Single Republican Candidate Was A Climate Change Denier, With One Exception, John Kasich - The "rational Moderate" - Who Said It May Be Happening But We Shouldn't Do Anything About It. For A Long Time, The Media Have Downplayed The Issue.

Media

Issues

Long

Concentration Of Wealth Yields Concentration Of Political Power. And Concentration Of Political Power Gives Rise To Legislation That Increases And Accelerates The Cycle.

Yield

Concentration Of Wealth

Giving

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

For A While, After The Second World War, When There Was Strong Support For Labor, This Was Done Subtly.

Strong

War

Support

I've Occasionally Been Asked To Talk On Israel-palestine. Sometimes It Works, And Sometimes It Elicits Hysteria In The Community.

Israel

Hysteria

Community

A Lot Of The People Involved In The Media Are Very Serious, Honest People, And They Will Tell You, And I Think They Are Right, That They Are Not Being Forced To Write Anything... What They Don't Tell You, And Are Maybe Unaware Of, Is That They Are Allowed To Write Freely Because Their Beliefs Conform To The... Standard Doctrinal System, And Then, Yes, They Are Allowed To Write Freely And Are Not Coerced.

Writing

Thinking

Media

For Us, We Are All Very Different, Our Languages Are Very Different, And Our Societies Are Very Different. But If We Could Extract Ourselves From Our Point Of View And Sort Of Look Down At Human Life The Way A Biologist Looks At Other Organisms, I Think We Could See It A Different Way.

Thinking

Views

Different

Education Is A System Of Imposed Ignorance.

Education

Ignorance

Thrive

For Decades Israel Has Been Capturing, And Kidnapping Lebanese And Palestinian Refugees On The High Seas, From Cyprus To Lebanon, Killing Them In Lebanon, Bringing Them To Israel, Holding Them As Hostages. It's Been Going On For Decades, Has Anybody Called For An Invasion Of Israel?

Israel

Sea

Cyprus

[companies That Specialized In How To Destroy Unions] Don't Make It A Secret, And They Have All Sorts Of Techniques For Management To Destroy Unions.

Secret

Technique

Unions

The General Public Are Not Even Aware Of Major Decisions That Will Determine Their Fate, Hence Are In No Position To Influence Them

Fate

Decision

Influence

Its Minority Rule And Majority Limited Rights. In Fact It's Set Up That Way. If You Read The Framers Of The Constitution, Including James Madison, He Was Pretty Clear About It.

Rights

Majority

Minorities

The [barack] Obama Administration Has Pressured Mexico To Keep Them Away From The Mexican Border, So That They Don't Succeed In Reaching The United States. Pretty Much The Same Thing Europeans Have Done To Turks And Syrians.

Mexican Border

United States

Borders

Travel From What Is Called Pakistan To Afghanistan Has Been Made Increasingly Difficult And People Are Often Labelled Terrorists, Even Those Who Might Be Just Visiting Families.

People

Pakistan

Might

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

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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