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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.
-Noam Chomsky
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Somebody Puts Up Some

Noam Chomsky
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.
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Thinking
People
Culture
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What Has To Be Done Today Is (1) Large-scale Conversion (weatherizing , Etc.), (2) Sharp Change In Transportation To Greater Efficiency, Like High-speed Rail, (3) Serious Efforts To Move To Sustainable Energy, Probably Solar In The Somewhat Longer Term, (4) Other Adjustments That Are Feasible. If Done Effectively, That Might Be Enough To Stave Off Disaster. If Not, Then We Can Give Up The Ghost, Because There Are No Alternatives In This World, At Least None That I've Seen Suggested.
Giving Up
Moving
Effort
If You're Teaching Today What You Were Teaching Five Years Ago, Either The Field Is Dead Or You Are.
Teaching
Years
Today
If You're Working 50 Hours A Week To Try To Maintain Family Income, And Your Children Have The Kinds Of Aspirations That Come From Being Flooded With Television From Age One, And Associations Have Declined, People End Up Hopeless, Even Though They Have Every Option.
Children
People
Age
The Term "intellectual" Is Used Conventionally To Refer To People Who Happen To Have Unusual Opportunities In This Regard, And As Always, Opportunity Confers Moral Responsibility.
Responsibility
Opportunity
People
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.
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
When Britain And The U.s. Invaded Iraq, It Was With The Reasonable Expectation That It Was Going To Increase The Threat Of Terror, As It Has.
Iraq
Expectations
Increase
People Who Don't Accept That Doctrinal System, They May Try To Survive In The Media, But They Are Unlikely To.
Media
People
Trying
And If You Look At All This Academic Work In The Conferences And So On There's A Constant Theme That Terrorism Is Extremely Hard To Define And We Therefore Have To Have A Deep Thinking About It. And The Reason It's Hard To Define Is Quite Simple. It's Hard To Find A Definition That Includes What They Do To Us But Excludes What We Do To Them. That's Quite Difficult. So It Takes A Global War On Terrorism.
War
Simple
Thinking
Whenever There Is Injustice, Oppression, Aggression, Violence, It's Standard For It To Be Supported By Those We Now Call "intellectuals," But Typically Not By All; There Is Typically A Fringe Of Dissidents. With Very Rare Exceptions - In Fact, It's Hard To Think Of Any - They Suffer In One Or Another Way; How Depends On The Nature Of The Society.
Thinking
Suffering
Way
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
Humans May Be Destroying Their Chances For Decent Survival. It Won't Kill Everybody, But It Would Change The World Dramatically.
Survival
World
May
The Indoctrination Is So Deep That Educated People Think They’re Being Objective.
Thinking
People
Indoctrination
Maybe [the Republicans] 'll Find Ways Around It, But The Financial System Of The World Depends Very Heavily On The Credibility Of The Us Treasury Department. Us Treasury Securities Are What's Called "good As Gold"; They're The Basis Of International Finance, And If The Government Can't Uphold Them, If They Become Valueless, The Effect On The International Financial System Could Be Quite Severe. But In Order To Destroy A Limited Health-care Law, The Right-wing Republicans, The Reactionary Republicans, Are Willing To Do That.
Government
Order
Law
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
There's Actually An Article In The Washington Post, I Don't Know Whether It's Tongue In Cheek Or Not, Which Said The Criterion For Being On The List Of Banned States Is That [donald] Trump Doesn't Have Business Interests There.
Tongue
Lists
Criteria
When I Wrote About The Spanish Civil War Many Years Later, I Used Documents That I Picked Up When I Was A Child, As A Lot Hadn't Been Published (a Lot More Resources Are Available Now).
Children
War
Years
As For The Various Religions, There's No Doubt That They Are Very Meaningful To Adherents, And Allow Them To Delude Themselves Into Thinking There Is Some Meaning To Their Lives Beyond What We Agree Is The Case. I'd Never Try To Talk Them Out Of The Delusions, Which Are Necessary For Them To Live A Life That Makes Some Sense To Them. These Beliefs Can Provide A Framework For Deeds That Are Noble Or Savage, And Anywhere In Between, And There's Every Reason To Focus Attention On The Deeds And The Background For Them, To The Extent That We Can Grasp It.
Meaningful
Thinking
Focus
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
The Anniversary Of Hiroshima, Should Be A Day Of Somber Reflection, Not Only On The Terrible Events Of That Day In 1945, But Also On What They Revealed: That Humans, In Their Dedicated Quest To Extend Their Capacities For Destruction, Had Finally Found A Way To Approach The Ultimate Limit.
Reflection
Terrible Events
Quests
I Can Understand The Idea That There Is A Conspiracy. In Fact, In Much Of The World There Is A Sense Of An Ultra-powerful Cia Manipulating Everything That Happens, Such As Running The Arab Spring, Running The Pakistani Taliban, Etc. That Is Just Nonsense. They [cia] Created A Monster And Now They Are Appalled By It.
Running
Powerful
Spring
In Fact, The Capitalist Class In The '50s Was Sort Of Part Of A Social Contract. It Was Part Of The Tenor Of The Times.
Class
Facts
Social
Government May Not Redistribute Private Wealth Or Grant Special Privileges To Any Individual Or Group.
Government
Special
Groups
[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
The Corporations Plainly Want Academic Scholarship To Create A Web Of Mystification That Will Avoid Any Public Awareness Of The Way In Which Power Actually Functions In The Society, And The Faculty Has Caught The Message And They Do It Magnificently.
Power
Society
Want
Activism Spawned By Sanders Campaign Is Beginning To Make Inroads Into Electoral Politics. Under Barack Obama, The Democratic Party Pretty Much Collapsed At The Crucial Local And State Levels, But It Can Be Rebuilt And Turned Into A Progressive Force. That Would Mean Reviving The New Deal Legacy And Moving Well Beyond, Instead Of Abandoning, The Working Class And Turning Into Clintonite New Democrats, Which More Or Less Resemble What Used To Be Called Moderate Republicans, A Category That Has Largely Disappeared With The Shift Of Both Parties To The Right During The Neoliberal Period.
Party
Moving
Mean
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
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
The Left, In A General Sense, Is Very Much Atomized. We Live In Highly Atomized Societies. People Are Pretty Much Alone; It's You And Your Ipad.
Ipads
People
Left
In The Years Of The Reagan-bush Administration Alone, About 1.5 Million People Were Killed By South Africa Just In The Surrounding Countries. Forget What Was Happening In South Africa And Namibia.
Country
Media
Years
As For Climate Change, It's By Now Widely Accepted By The Scientific Community That We Have Entered A New Geological Era, The Anthropocene, In Which The Earth's Climate Is Being Radically Modified By Human Action, Creating A Very Different Planet, One That May Not Be Able To Sustain Organized Human Life In Anything Like A Form We Would Want To Tolerate.
Creating
Community
Climate
That Is What I Have Always Understood To Be The Essence Of Anarchism: The Conviction That The Burden Of Proof Has To Be Placed On Authority, And That It Should Be Dismantled If That Burden Cannot Be Met.
Burden Of Proof
Essence
Anarchy
There Are Very Interesting Books About These Events, For Instance One By A Very Well-known American Historian Named William R. Polk Called Violent Politics. It's A Record Of What Are Basically Guerrilla Wars From The American Revolution Right Up Through The Wars In Afghanistan And Iraq.
War
Book
Iraq
As Elite Attitudes Towards Public Education Over Time Illustrate, Simple Formulas Are Far From Adequate. There Are Conflicting Tendencies.
Attitude
Simple
Adequate
In The Sciences Particularly The Large Public Universities Must And Do Take An Active Role In Fostering Creativity And Independence; Otherwise The Fields Will Wither, And Along With Them Even The Aspirations Of Wealth And Power.
Creativity
Independence
Fields
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
Jamie Kilstein And Allison Kilkenny Have Created An Important Political Radio Show That Balances Humor And Unreported News. At A Time When Media Conglomerates Dominate The Airwaves, Independent Media Like Citizen Radio Is Vital To National Discourse.
Independent
Media
Political
The Rascal Multitude Are The Proper Targets Of The Mass Media And A Public Education System Geared To Obedience And Training In Needed Skills, Including The Skill Of Repeating Patriotic Slogans On Timely Occasions.
Patriotic
Media
Skills
It Is The Worst Atrocity Underway [in Rwanda]. But It's Barely In The Media, And People Just Don't Know About It. And That's Quite Generally True.
Media
People
Atrocities
If Kids Are Studying For A Test, They're Not Going To Learn Anything. We All Know That From Our Own Experience.
Kids
Tests
Study
There Are All The Activist Groups On Every Imaginable Topic - Solidarity Groups, Environmental And Feminist Groups - Sectors Of These Movements Do Very Valuable Work.
Feminist
Environmental
Groups
The Press Is Owned By Wealthy Men Who Only Want Certain Things To Reach The Public.
Men
Want
Certain
What Matters Is The Way We Americans Think About Ourselves. We Think About Ourselves As Incapable Of Committing Crimes. Everything We Do, We Make A Lot Of Errors, You Know, You Can't Help It. Mistakes All Over The Place, But Out Of Naïveté Or, You Know, Misplaced Kindness Or Something Like That.
Kindness
Mistake
Thinking
You Don't Get To Be A Respected Intellectual By Uttering Truisms In Monosyllables.
Intellectual
Truism
Balochistan, And To Some Extent Sindh Too, Has A General Feeling That They Are Not Part Of The Decision-making Process In Pakistan And Are Ruled By A Punjabi Dictatorship. There Is A Lot Of Exploitation Of The Rich Resources [in Balochistan] Which The Locals Are Not Gaining From. As Long As This Goes On, It Is Going To Keep Providing Grounds For Serious Uprisings And Insurgencies.
Uprising
Long
Decision
There Are A Lot Of Things That Can Be Done Within The Framework Of Existing Institutions Which Would Be Very Valuable For People.
People
Would Be
Done
Take Pandemics. There Could Easily Be A Severe Pandemic. A Lot Of That Comes From Something We Don't Pay Much Attention To: Eating Meat. The Meat Production Industry, The Industrial Production Of Meat, Uses An Immense Amount Of Antibiotics.we're Now Running Out Of Antibiotics That Deal With The Threat Of Rapidly Mutating Bacteria. A Lot Of That Just Comes From The Meat Production Industry. Well, Do We Worry About It? Well, We Ought To Be.
Running
Worry
Meat
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
I'll Have 15 Letters Today From Mostly Young Kids Who Don't Like What's Going On And Want To Do Something About It, And [they Ask Me] If I Can Give Them Some Advice As To What They Should Do, Or Can I Tell Them What To Read Or Something.
Kids
Giving
Advice
In The Us, First Of All, The Electoral System Has Been Almost Totally Shredded. For A Long Time It's Been Pretty Much Run By Private Concentrated Spending But Now It's Over The Top. Elections Increasingly Over The Years Have Been [public Relations] Extravaganzas.
Running
Years
Long
People Who Call Themselves Supporters Of Israel Are Actually Supporters Of Its Moral Degeneration And Ultimate Destruction.
Israel
People
Moral
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
I Really Suggest Listening To Talk Radio. I Mean, If You Just Listen To What The Talk Hosts Are Saying, They Sound Like They Are Lunatics.
Mean
Listening
Sound
The United States Is Going To Continue To Punish Iran Because Of Its Defiance.
Iran
United States
Defiance
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
Okay, Nato Expanded To East Berlin And East Germany. Under [bill] Clinton Nato Expanded Further, To The Former Russian Satellites. In 2008 Nato Formally Made An Offer To Ukraine To Join Nato. That's Unbelievable. I Mean, Ukraine Is The Geopolitical Heartland Of Russian Concern, Quite Aside From Historical Connections, Population And So On.
Mean
East Germany
East Berlin
The Un To Some Extent Diffuses U.s. Power. Therefore It's Less Direct An Agency Of The United States Than The U.s. Army Is. But Still, It Can't Escape The Distribution Of Power In The World.
Army
Distribution Of Power
Agency
As A Research Tool, The Internet Is Invaluable.
Tools
Research
Internet
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
We Have To Recognize That There Is A Range Of Interests, Like There Isn't A Single Corporate Interest And A Single State Interest, So There's A Range. In Addition To That, There Is The Fact Of Professional Integrity.
Integrity
Facts
States
... An Essential Feature Of A Decent Society, And An Almost Defining Feature Of A Democratic Society, Is Relative Equality Of Outcome - Not Opportunity, But Outcome. Without That You Can't Seriously Talk About A Democratic State... These Concepts Of The Common Good Have A Long Life. They Lie Right At The Core Of Classical Liberalism, Of Enlightenment Thinking... Like Aristotle, [adam] Smith Understood That The Common Good Will Require Substantial Intervention To Assure Lasting Prosperity Of The Poor By Distribution Of Public Revenues.
Lying
Opportunity
Thinking
We Are Hurtling Towards Self-destruction At An Alarming Rate Thanks Chiefly To An Advertising And Propaganda System That Goads People From Infancy Towards Apathy, Isolation, Passivity, Helplessness And Separation.
Self
People
Apathy
People Don't Talk To Each Other. You're Alone With Your Television Set Or Internet. But You Can't Have A Functioning Democracy Without What Sociologists Call "secondary Organizations," Places Where People Can Get Together, Plan, Talk And Develop Ideas. You Don't Do It Alone.
Organization
Ideas
People
Nixon At One Point Informs Kissinger . . . That He Wanted Bombing Of Cambodia. And Kissinger Loyally Transmits The Order To The Pentagon To Carry Out A Massive Bombing Campaign In Cambodia. Anything That Flies On Anything That Moves . . . Genocide.
Moving
Order
Campaigns
The Intellectual Is An Individual With A Specific Public Role In Society That Cannot Be Reduced Simply To . . A Faceless Professional.
Intellectual
Roles
Individual
Of Course Language Arose In A Darwinian Biological World, Because That's All There Is, But That World Relates Only Superficially To The Pop-biology That Circulates Informally.
World
Language
Biology
The Senate Was Wealthy People And It Wasn't Elected, It Was Chosen Through Legislatures, Which Themselves Were Under Private Influence, Powerful Influence. They Were Remote From The Population And That's Where Power Was Suppose To Reside.
Powerful
People
Population
If Something Comes Along That You Don't Like, There Are A Few Sort Of Four-letter Words That You Can Use To Push It Out Of The Sphere Of Discussion. If You Were In A Bar Downtown, They Might Have Different Words, But If You're An Educated Person What You Use Are Complicated Words Like "conspiracy Theory" Or "marxist." It's A Way Of Pushing Unpleasant Questions Off The Agenda So That We Can Continue In Our Own Happy Ideology.
Downtown
Agendas
Four
I Don't Really Think There Have Been Transitional Periods To Socialism. There Have Been Efforts, But They Have Usually Been Destroyed By A Combination Of External Force And Internal Corruption.
Thinking
Effort
Socialism
Technologies Can Be Liberating, But It Can Also Be A Tool Of Coercion And Control.
Technology
Tools
Coercion
In The Early 1940s, As A Young Teenager, I Was Utterly Appalled By The Racist And Jingoist Hysteria Of The Anti-japanese Propaganda. The Germans Were Evil, But Treated With Some Respect: They Were, After All, Blond Aryan Types, Just Like Our Imaginary Self-image. Japanese Were Mere Vermin, To Be Crushed Like Ants.
Teenager
Hysteria
Self
There Clearly Is A Serious Race Problem In The Country. Just Take A Look At What's Happening To African American Communities. For Example Wealth, Wealth In African American Communities Is Almost Zero. The History Is Striking.
Country
Zero
Race
Take, Say, The Solidarity Movement In Central America, Which I Think Is What You Probably Had In Mind. To A Large Extent, It Comes Out Of Mainstream Christianity, Based On Beliefs That Have Had Outrageous Human Consequences In The Past, And That I Think Are Totally Indefensible. In This Case, They Happen To Lead To Some Of The Most Courageous, Heroic, And Honourable Human Action That's Taking Place Anywhere In The World. Well, That's How Life Is, I Guess. It Doesn't Come In Neat Little Packages.
Past
Thinking
America
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
I Think Such An Inquiry Will Reveal A Rather Different Picture: Namely, It Will Reveal A Very Strong Tendency For The Intellectuals Who Are Respected And Privileged To Be Those Who Subordinate Themselves To Power.
Strong
Thinking
Different
You Win By Struggle, And That Requires Understanding And Serious Analysis Of The Options And The Circumstances, And Then You Can Do A Lot.
Struggle
Winning
Understanding
Free Markets Are Based On The Free Circulation Of Labor. If You Don't Have Free Circulation Of Labor, You Don't Have Free Markets.
Free Market
Circulation
Labor
Orwell Says Straight, Look, In England What Comes Out In A Free Country Is Not Very Different From This Totalitarian Monster That I'm Describing In The Book. It's More Or Less The Same. How Come In A Free Country? He Has Two Sentences, Which Are Pretty Accurate. One, He Says, The Press Is Owned By Wealthy Men Who Have Every Reason Not To Want Certain Ideas To Be Expressed. And Second - And I Think This Is Much More Important - A Good Education Instills In You The Intuitive Understanding That There Are Certain Things It Just Wouldn't Do To Say.
Country
Book
Men
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
The Soviet Union Was Pretty Much What Lenin And Trotsky Said It Was.
Unions
Said
Trotsky
As Long As Individuals Are Compelled To Rent Themselves On The Market To Those Who Are Willing To Hire Them, As Long As Their Role In Production Is Simply That Of Ancillary Tools, Then There Are Striking Elements Of Coercion And Oppression That Make Talk Of Democracy Very Limited, If Even Meaningful.
Meaningful
Long
Democracy
You Might Recall, Perhaps, That We Were Probably The Only Commentators To Rely On The Most Knowledgeable Source, State Department Intelligence.
War
Might
States
The 'anti-globalisation Movement' Is The Most Significant Proponent Of Globalisation - But In The Interests Of People, Not Concentrations Of State-private Power.
People
Movement
Significant
We Don't Have Polls From The Business World, But It's Pretty Clear That The Energy Corporations In America Would Be Quite Happy To Be Given Authorization To Go Back Into Iran Instead Of Leaving All That To Their Rivals. But The State Won't Allow It. And It Is Setting Up Confrontations Right Now, Very Explicitly. Part Of The Reason Is Strategic, Geo-political, Economic, But Part Of The Reason Is The Mafia Complex. They Have To Be Punished For Disobeying Us.
Iran
America
Political
I Remember Talking To, 40 Years Ago, One Of The Leading People In The Government Who Was Involved In Arms Control, Pressing For Arms Control Measures, Détente, And So On. He's Very High Up, And We Were Talking About Whether Arms Control Could Succeed. And Only Partially As A Joke He Said, "well It Might Succeed If The High Tech Industry Makes More Profit From Arms Control Than It Can Make From Weapons-related Research And Production. If We Get To That Tipping Point Maybe Arms Control Will Work." He Was Partially Joking But There's A Truth That Lies Behind It.
Lying
Government
Talking
In My Experience At Least, The Large Public Universities Do Not Fall Behind In Fostering Creativity And Independence; Often The Contrary.
Fall
Creativity
Independence
I Think That Sooner Or Later The White Working-class Constituency Will Recognize, And In Fact, Much Of The Rural Population Will Come To Recognize, That The Trump's Promises Are Built On Sand. There Is Nothing There.
Thinking
Promise
Sand
Of Course, Everybody Says They're For Peace. Hitler Was For Peace. Everybody Is For Peace. The Question Is: What Kind Of Peace?
Kind
Courses
In England, Enclosure Programs Kind Of Destroyed The Commons. In The United States, It Happened Later. But, Ah, Now It's Happening In The World. The Last Remnant Of The Commons Is The Environment, Which The Indigenous People Are Still Trying To Preserve And We Sophisticated Rich People Are Trying To Destroy.
People
Trying
World
There Are Massive Efforts On The Part Of The Internet's Corporate Owners To Try To Direct It To Become A Technique Of Marginalisation And Control.
Effort
Trying
Technique
Right To A Speedy Jury Trial And So On And So Forth. But What Do They Mean By 'person'? It Certainly Didn't Mean Individuals With Flesh And Blood Like Native Americans Who Weren't Persons, They Don't Have Any Rights.
Native American
Mean
Rights
[with] Military Threats, You Can See Them Actually, You Can Imagine It. People Don't Think About It Enough. But If You Think About It For A Minute, You Can See That A Nuclear Attack Could Be The End Of Everything.
Military
Thinking
People
I Don't Feel That I Have Anything To Say Beyond Moral Truisms.
Moral
Truism
Feels
The More There Is A Need To Talk About The Ideals Of Democracy, The Less Democratic The System Usually Is.
Democracy
Needs
Democratic
There Have Been Many Measures Taken To Try To Turn The Educational System Towards More Control, More Indoctrination, More Vocational Training, Imposing A Debt, Which Traps Students And Young People Into A Life Of Conformity... That's The Exact Opposite Of [what] Traditionally Comes Out Of The Enlightenment. And There's A Constant Struggle Between Those. In The Colleges, In The Schools, Do You Train For Passing Tests, Or Do You Train For Creative Inquiry?
Educational
Taken
Struggle
The World Is A Very Puzzling Place. If You're Not Willing To Be Puzzled, You Just Become A Replica Of Someone Else's Mind.
Mind
World
Willing
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 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
Julian Assange Shouldn't Be The Subject Of A Grand Jury Hearing, He Should Be Given A Medal. He's Contributing To Democracy.
Democracy
Hearing
Should
It's Fine To Criticize Somebody Else's Crimes And Misdeeds, But You Don't Talk About Your Own. The Only Exception Is A Country That Is Defeated. And Even That Is Rather Nuanced.
Country
Defeated
Crime
To Say That The United States Has Pursued Diplomacy With North Korea Is A Little Bit Misleading. It Did Under The Clinton Administration, Though Neither Side Completely Lived Up To Their Obligations. Clinton Didn't Do What Was Promised, Nor Did North Korea, But They Were Making Progress. So When Bush Came Into The Presidency, North Korea Had Enough Uranium Or Plutonium For Maybe One Or Two Bombs, But Then Very Limited Missile Capacity. During The Bush Years It's Exploded. The Reason Is, He Immediately Canceled The Diplomacy And He's Pretty Much Blocked It Ever Since.
Korea
Years
Two
A Corporation Is A State Created Institution, State Supported Institution, Its Concentration Of Private Power, There Is No Reason Why It Should Have The Rights Of Persons.
Rights
Should Have
Corporations
The Government Of Rwanda, Which Is A Us Client, Is Intervening Massively, And Uganda To An Extent. It's Almost An International War In Africa. Well, How Many People Know About This?
War
Uganda
Government
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
The Reason I Am A Political Radical Is That I Work On Syntax. If I Worked On Semantics (which In Fact I Do), I'd Be A Good Thatcherite.
Political
Syntax
Facts
If You Look At The Associated Press Wires, There's A Constant Flow Of Information Coming In. At That Time I Happened To Have Direct Access To Ap Wires. The Day The Marines Landed In Haiti And Restored [ Jan Bètran] Aristide There Was A Lot Of Excitement About The Dedication To Democracy And So On. But The Day Before The Marines Landed, When Every Journalist Was Looking At Haiti Because It Was Assumed That Something Big Was Happening, The Ap Wires Reported That Then [bill] Clinton Administration Had Authorized Texaco To Ship Oil Illegally To The Military Junta.
Military
Marine
Dedication
If We Choose, We Can Live In A World Of Comforting Illusion.
Hero
Comforting
Anarchy
The Key Element Of Social Control Is The Strategy Of Distraction That Is To Divert Public Attention From Important Issues And Changes Decided By Political And Economic Elites, Through The Technique Of Flood Or Flooding Continuous Distractions And Insignificant Information.
Keys
Issues
Political
Every Great Power, Every Aggressive Power Has Always Regarded Itself As Exceptional And As Doing Things Only For The Most Moral Ends.
Moral
Ends
Aggressive
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
The Whole Infrastructure Of Air Travel Was, And Is, Part Of Government Policy. It Is Not A Natural Development Of A Free Economic System - At Least Not In The Way That Is Claimed. The Same Is True Of The Roads, Of Course.
Government
Air
Development
We Can, For Example, Be Fairly Confident That Either There Will Be A World Without War Or There Won't Be A World - At Least, A World Inhabited By Creatures Other Than Bacteria And Beetles, With Some Scattering Of Others.
War
Example
World
Most Of Us Who Were Opposed To The War, Especially In The Early '60's - The War We Were Opposed To Was The War On South Vietnam Which Destroyed South Vietnam's Rural Society. The South Was Devastated. But Now Anyone Who Opposed This Atrocity Is Regarded As Having Defended North Vietnam. And That's Part Of The Effort To Present The War As If It Were A War Between South Vietnam And North Vietnam With The United States Helping The South. Of Course It's Fabrication. But It's "official Truth" Now.
War
Effort
Atrocities
The Russian Ambassador At The United Nations Did Make Some Proposals For A Political Settlement In Which Bashar Assad Would Be Slowly Eased Out. The West Dismissed It Immediately, And We Don't Know If It Was Real, Because It Didn't Come From The Kremlin, And It Was Informal. But The Point Is Every Such Proposal Is Immediately Scotched. And You Just Don't Know If They're Real.
Real
Political
Proposal
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
The Second World War Ended With A Radicalization Of The Population In The United States And Everywhere Else, And Called For All Kinds Of Things Like Popular Takeovers, Government Intervention, And Worker Takeovers Of Factories. Business Propagated A Tremendous Propaganda Offensive. The Scale Surprised Me When I Read The Scholarship - It's Enormous, And It's Been Very Effective. There Were Two Major Targets: One Is Unions, The Other Is Democracy.
War
Two
Government Intervention
I Wouldn't Say That The Efforts Of Academics To Critique The Media's Messages Are "half-hearted." As Far As I Am Aware, The Efforts Scarcely Exist: Very Few Even Pay Attention To The Question.
Media
Effort
Attention
We Should Not Be Speaking To, But With. That Is Second Nature To Any Good Teacher.
Teacher
Teaching
Good Teacher
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
My Position Is That We Should Not Succumb To Irrational Belief.
Belief
Should
Irrational
Hillary Clinton Was The One Pressing The Hardest For Bombing, And Look At What Happened. They Not Only Destroyed The Country, But Libya Has Become The Center For Jihad All Over Africa And The Middle East. It's A Total Disaster In Every Respect, But It Does Not Matter. Look At The So-called Global War On Terror.
Country
War
Looks
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
Politicians Don't Want Democracy Here In America, Why Would They Want It In The Middle East?
America
Democracy
Middle East
I Doubt That National Languages Will Disappear. In Fact, To Some Extent They're Becoming More Diverse, Like In Europe.
Europe
Doubt
Facts
If There Are Dollars To Be Made, You Destroy The Environment. The Reason Is Elementary. The People Who Are Going To Be Harmed By This Are Your Grandchildren And They Don't Have Any Votes In The Market. Their Interests Are Worth Zero. Anybody That Pays Attention To Their Grandchildren's Interests Is Being Irrational. Because What You're Supposed To Do Is Maximize Your Own Interests, Measured By Wealth, Right Now. Nothing Else Matters. So Destroying The Environment And Militarizing Outer Space Are Rational Policies, But Within A Framework Of Institutional Lunacy.
Zero
Grandchildren
Space
To Live A Life Of Honesty And Integrity Is A Responsibility Of Every Decent Person.
Honesty
Integrity
Responsibility
I Don't Entirely Agree With The Slogan "speaking Truth To Power."
Agree
Slogans
[health-care System] Is Largely Privatized And Unregulated. So Of Course It's Highly Inefficient And Costly.
Care
Health Care
Courses
All Media Depend On Advertisement To Survive.
Media
Advertisements
Depends
[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
What Can You Do To Mitigate The Likelihood That Iran Will Develop Nuclear Weapons? There's A Very Simple Method: Move Towards Establishing A Nuclear-weapons-free Zone, Which Everybody In The World Wants, But The Us Blocks.
Block
Moving
Simple
Many Of The People Who Voted For Trump Were People Who Voted For Obama Eight Years Ago. You Remember, Of Course, His Message Was "hope And Change." People Wanted Change, For Good Reasons, And They Wanted Hope. Disillusioned With What Took Place, They Turned To Someone Else Who Was Offering Hope And Change. When They're Disillusioned With That, It Depends On What Activists And Others Do.
Eight
Offering
Years
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
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
Growth Is A Funny Sort Of Concept. For Example, Our Gnp Increases Every Time We Build A Prison. Well, Okay, It's Growth In A Sense.
Growth
Example
Prison
The Desire For Hope And Change Is Easily Understandable. In Many Ways It's Even More Dramatic In Europe.
Europe
Desire
Way
Intellectuals (in The Standard Sense Of The Term, Not [ Edward] Said's Prescriptive Sense) Are The People Who Write History.
Writing
People
Said
Trump's Principal Policies Make Clear What's Going To Happen. This Gives An Opportunity. Right Now It's Going To Take Hard Work, But It's Possible That There Could Be A Real Revival Of The Labor Movement.
Real
Hard Work
Opportunity
I Am Not Offering This Is A Critique Of The Internet, Its Just That There Are A Lot Of Factors Involved. It Does Offer Plenty Of Possibilities. It Also Has, It Can Have, A Cheapening Effect And I Think Both Exist And I Think Its True Of Everything. You Could Say That About The Printing Press.
Thinking
Offering
Doe
In Fact, There Is A Very Close Correlation Between Human Rights Violations And Us Aid, Particularly In Latin America.
Latin
Rights
America
Violence Can Succeed, As Americans Know Well From The Conquest Of The National Territory. But At Terrible Cost. It Can Also Provoke Violence In Response, And Often Does.
Doe
Cost
Territory
To Achieve Respectability, To Be Admitted To The Debate, They Must Accept Without Question Or Inquiry The Fundamental Doctrine That The State Is Benevolent, Governed By The Loftiest Intentions, Adopting A Defensive Stance, Not An Actor In World Affairs But Only Reacting To The Crimes Of Others...if Even The Harshest Of Critics Tacitly Adopt These Premises, Then The Ordinary Person May Ask, Who Am I To Disagree?
Ordinary
Doctrine
Inquiry
One Of The Dangers [that Donald Trump Poses, Due To The Augmented Risk Of Nuclear War] Is Unquestionable. Of The Two Existential Threats - The Threats To The Termination Of The Species Basically And Most Other Species - One Of Them, Climate Change, On That I Think There's No Basis For Discussion.
War
Thinking
Two
The Very Idea That There Should Be A Certain Class Of People Who Give Orders By Virtue Of Their Ownership Of Wealth And Another Huge Class Who Take On Orders And Follow Them Because Of Their Lack Of Access To Wealth And Power, That's Unacceptable. So, Sure It Should Be Abolished.
Order
Class
Ideas
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
Ceos Pretty Much Pick The Boards That Give Them Salaries And Bonuses. That's One Of The Reasons Why The Ceo-to-payment [ratio] Has So Sharply Escalated In This Country In Contrast To Europe. (they're Similar Societies And It's Bad Enough There, But Here We're In The Stratosphere. ] There's No Particular Reason For It.
Country
Europe
Giving
There Is Pakistan's Relationship With Afghanistan Which Will Also Be A Very Tricky Issue In The Coming Years. Then There Is A Large Part Of Pakistan Which Is Being Torn Apart From American Drone Attacks. The Country Is Being Invaded Constantly By A Terrorist Superpower. Again, This Is Not A Small Problem.
Country
Small Problems
Years
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
You've Just Got To Get People Organized And Tell Them The Truth. There Aren't Any Magic Tricks To It. You Know, Sometimes It's Pretty Amazing. Actually, I Mentioned A Pretty Striking Case Of This In "crisis And Hope," Which Was The Caterpillar Case In The Early 1990s.
People
Magic
Sometimes
In The Humanities And Social Sciences, And In Fields Like Journalism And Economics And So On, People Have To Be Trained To Be Managers, And Controllers, And To Accept Things, And Not To Question Too Much.
People
Humanity
Too Much
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
From Now On I Will Consider A Language To Be A Set (finite Or Infinite) Of Sentences, Each Finite In Length And Constructed Out Ofa Finite Set Of Elements. All Natural Languages In Their Spoken Or Written Form Are Languages In This Sense.
Elements
Language
Infinite
The Very Design Of Neoliberal Principles Is A Direct Attack On Democracy.
Design
Democracy
Principles
I Think It Only Makes Sense To Seek Out And Identify Structures Of Authority, Hierarchy, And Domination In Every Aspect Of Life, And To Challenge Them; Unless A Justification For Them Can Be Given, They Are Illegitimate, And Should Be Dismantled, To Increase The Scope Of Human Freedom.
Thinking
Challenges
Hierarchy
You Can’t Have Meaningful Political Democracy Without Functioning Economic Democracy.
Meaningful
Political
Democracy
In The United States Everyone Is An Illegal Immigrant - Everyone Except The People In Indian Reservations. This Is An Immigrant Society.
People
United States
Illegal
This Sarah Palin Phenomenon Is Very Curious. I Think Somebody Watching Us From Mars — They Would Think The Country Has Gone Insane.
Country
Thinking
Political
If You Ask The Ceo Of Some Major Corporation What He Does, He Will Say, In All Honesty, That He Is Slaving 20 Hours A Day To Provide His Customers With The Best Goods Or Services He Can And Creating The Best Possible Working Conditions For His Employees.
Honesty
Creating
Corporations
The Term 'globalisation' Is Conventionally Used To Refer To The Specific Form Of Investor-rights Integration Designed By Wealth And Power, For Their Own Interests.
Rights
Wealth
Used
Take Any Country That Has Laws Against Hate Crimes, Inspiring Hatred And Genocide And So On. The First Thing They Would Do Is Ban The Old Testament. There's Nothing Like It In The Literary Canon That Exalts Genocide, To That Extent. And It's Not A Joke Either. Like Where I Live, New England, The People Who Liberated It From The Native Scourge Were Religious Fundamentalist Lunatics, Who Came Waving The Holy Book, Declaring Themselves To Be The Children Of Israel Who Are Killing The Amalekites, Like God Told Them.
Country
Religious
Children
The U.s. Is Different From Europe And Other Industrial Countries.
Country
Europe
Different
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
The "prophets" Were What We Would Call Dissident Intellectuals. They Provided Critical Geopolitical Analysis, Condemned The Crimes Of The Powerful, Called For Justice And Mercy For Those Who Needed Help, Etc. I Wouldn't Personally Endorse Everything They Said, Any More Than I Would For Critics Of Power And Its Crimes Today. But Rather Generally I Think They Played An Honorable Role - And Suffered Accordingly.
Powerful
Thinking
Justice
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
There Are Many Concepts Of Spirituality, Among Them, Various Notions Of Divinity Developed In The Judaeo-christian-islamic Religions. Within These The Concepts Vary Greatly.
Christian
Islamic
Divinity
The Labor Movement Can Be Rebuilt, As Has Happened Before After Sharp Declines.
Movement
Decline
Labor
Around 2008 And Again In 2013 Nato Officially Offered The Ukraine The Opportunity To Join Nato. That's Something No Russian Government Is Ever Going To Accept. It's Right At The Geopolitical Heartland Of Russia.
Opportunity
Russia
Government
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
The Us Is Also Unusual In The Enormous Scale Of Religious Fundamentalism. The Impact On Understanding Of The World Is Extraordinary. In National Polls Almost Half Of Those Surveyed Have Reported That They Believe That God Created Humans In Their Present Form 10,000 Years Ago (or Less) And That Man Shares No Common Ancestor With The Ape. There Are Similar Beliefs About The Second Coming.
Religious
Believe
Men
Welsh Is Now Almost A National Language In Wales. The Scottish Dialects Are Reviving To Some Extent. I Don't Think It's A Major Thing, But It's There, And It's Happening Elsewhere.
Thinking
Dialect
Language
For One Thing, Studying Language Is By Itself A Part Of A Study Of Human Intelligence That Is, Perhaps, The Central Aspect Of Human Nature. And Second, I Think, It Is A Good Model For Studying Other Human Properties, Which Ought To Be Studied By Psychologists In The Same Way.
Thinking
Way
Study
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
I Mean You Look Back At American History And American Culture, It's Pretty Striking. I Mean This Has Been The Safest Country In The World Forever, And The Most Frightened Country In The World.
Country
Mean
Forever
Discovery Is The Ability To Be Puzzled By Simple Things. Noam Chomsky
Inspirational
Simple
Discovery
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
Our Health Care Is Rationed By Wealth.
Care
Wealth
Health Care
Democracy Doesn't Mean Much If People Have To Confront Concentrated Systems Of Economic Power As Isolated Individuals. Democracy Means Something If People Can Organize To Gain Information, To Have Thoughts For That Matter, To Make Plans, To Enter Into The Political System In Some Active Way, To Put Forth Programs And So On. If Organizations Of That Kind Exist, Then Democracy Can Exist Too. Otherwise It's A Matter Of Pushing A Lever Every Couple Of Years; It's Like Having The Choice Between Coca-cola And Pepsi-cola.
Couple
Hero
Mean
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
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
Sectors Of Power Are Not Going To Favor The Flourishing Of Dissidence.
Favors
Flourishing
What Can One Say About A Country Where A Museum Of Science In A Great City Can Feature An Exhibit In Which People Fire Machine Guns From A Helicopter At Vietnamese Huts, With A Light Flashing When A Hit Is Scored? What Can One Say About A Country Where Such An Idea Can Even Be Considered? You Have To Weep For This Country.
Country
War
Gun
One Of The Questions Asked In That Study Was, How Many Vietnamese Casualties Would You Estimate That There Were During The Vietnam War? The Average Response On The Part Of Americans Today Is About 100,000. The Official Figure Is About Two Million. The Actual Figure Is Probably Three To Four Million. The People Who Conducted The Study Raised An Appropriate Question: What Would We Think About German Political Culture If, When You Asked People Today How Many Jews Died In The Holocaust, They Estimated About 300,000? What Would That Tell Us About German Political Culture?
War
Thinking
Average
The Racism In Europe Takes The Form Of Anti-immigrant Extremism - Which Is Bad Enough Here - I Think It's Hard To Measure, But My Guess Is That It's Probably Worse There.
Thinking
Europe
Racism
Democracy Is Always Harmful To Elite Interests. Almost By Definition.
Democracy
Definitions
Interest
Major Efforts Have To Be Undertaken To Bring The General Public To Understand The Real Reasons For Their Plight, And The Possibilities For Radical Social And Political Change To Construct Meaningful Popular Control Of All Institutions - In Communities, In The Workplace, In The Larger Society, And On To The International Order.
Meaningful
Real
Order
Efforts Can Succeed Over Time, And Not Trying Ensures That The Worst Will Happen.
Effort
Trying
Succeed
See, People With Power Understand Exactly One Thing: Violence.
People
Violence
One Thing
I Don't Claim To Know A Lot About Mexico, But I Did Talk To Quite A Number Of Left Mexican Intelectuals, And They All Said The Same Thing. That There's A Lot Of Popular, Kind Of, Concern And Activism, But It Is Very Fragmented. That The Groups Have Very Specific, Narrow Agendas And They Don't Interact And Cooperate With One Another. Ok, That's Something You Have To Overcome To Build A Mass Popular Movement. And That's, Media Can Help, But They Also Benefit From It.
Media
Numbers
Mexican
It's Necessary To Address The Concerns And Beliefs Of Those Who Are Taken In By The Fraud, Or Who Don't Recognize The Nature And Significance Of The Issues For Other Reasons. If By Philosophy We Mean Reasoned And Thoughtful Analysis, Then It Can Address The Moment, Though Not By Confronting The "alternative Facts" But By Analyzing And Clarifying What Is At Stake, Whatever The Issue Is. Beyond That, What Is Needed Is Action: Urgent And Dedicated, In The Many Ways That Are Open To Us.
Philosophy
Taken
Mean
U.s. Analysts Estimate That Russian Military Expenditures Have Tripled During The Bush-putin Years, In Large Measure A Predicted Reaction To The Bush Administration's Militancy And Aggressiveness.
Military
Years
Administration
Silicon Valley, After All, Feeds Off The Existence Of Computers, The Internet, The It Systems, Satellites, The Whole Of Micro Electronics And So On, But A Lot Of That Comes Straight Out Of The State Sector Of The Economy. Silicon Valley Developed, But They Expanded And Turned It Into Commercial Products And So On, But The Innovation Is On The Basis Of Fundamental Technological Development That Took Places In Places Like This [mit] On Government Funding, And That Continues.
Government
Technological Development
Innovation
In Societies That Profess Some Respect For Law, Suspects Are Apprehended And Brought To Fair Trial. I Stress 'suspects.'
Stress
Law
Trials
To Summarize, Draft Resistance Can Make Use Of The Inegalitarian Nature Of American Society As A Technique For Increasing The Cost Of American Aggression, And It Threatens Values That Are Important To Those In A Decision-making Position.
Decision
Important
Technique
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
Take Something You Really Don't Think About: Plastics In The Ocean. I Mean Plastics In The Ocean Have An Enormous Ecological Effect.
Ocean
Mean
Thinking
Human Language Appears To Be A Unique Phenomenon, Without Significant Analogue In The Animal World.
Animal
Unique
World
The West Bank Is Essentially Imprisoned.
West
What Was The Invasion Of South Vietnam, For Example, In 1962, When Kennedy Sent The Air Force To Bomb South Vietnam And Start Chemical Warfare? That's Aggression.
Air
Invasion
Example
Education Is Imposed Ignorance.
Ignorance
Technology Can Also Be Used So That Private Individuals Will Have Access To The Way Centralized Decisions Are Being Made.
Technology
Decision
Way
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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