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 .

-Noam Chomsky

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The Costs Of The

Noam Chomsky

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Running

Military

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More From Noam Chomsky

That's A Point That Dan Ellsberg Has Made For Years. He Said It's Kind Of Like If You And I Go Into A Grocery Store To Rob It, And I Have A Gun. The Guy May Give You The Money In The Cash Register. I'm Using The Gun Even If I Don't Shoot. Well That's Nuclear Weapons - Essential To Post-war Deterrence - They Cast A Shadow Over Everything.

War

Gun

Years

Actually, The Phrase "national Security" Is Barely Used Until The 1930s. And There's A Reason. By Then, The United States Was Beginning To Become Global. Before That The United States Had Been Mostly A Regional Power - Britain Was The Biggest Global Power. After The Second World War, National Security Is Everywhere, Because We Basically Owned The World, So Our Security Is Threatened Everywhere. Not Just On Our Borders, But Everywhere - So You Have To Have A Thousand Military Bases Around The World For "defense."

Military

War

Borders

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

Some International Law Specialists Compare The Invasion Of Iraq To The 'crimes Against The Peace' For Which Nazi Leaders Were Indicted At Nuremberg.

Law

Iraq

Leader

What Is Failure For Some Is Success For Others. It Depends On Where They Stand In The Struggles Over "democratic Governance" And Related Rights - Civil, Social And Economic, And Broadly Cultural, To Adopt The Framework Of The Universal Declaration That Is Formally Endorsed But Constantly Undermined.

Struggle

Rights

Economic

Like Most Terms Of Political Discourse, Socialism Has More Or Less, Lost Its Meaning. Socialism Used To Mean Something. If You Go Back Far Enough It Meant Basically Control Of Production By Producers, Elimination Of Wage Labor, Democratization Of All Spheres Of Life; Production, Commerce, Education, Media, Workers Control Of Factories, Community Control Of Communities, And So On. That Was Socialism Once. But It Hasn't Meant That For A Hundred Years. Socialism Meant Something Different.

Mean

Media

Years

Say The Pentagon Papers, - That Material Went Much Deeper. It Went Into Internal Government Planning Back For Twenty - Five Years. Those Are Things That The Public Should Have Known About. In A Democracy They Should Have Known What Leaders Thinking And Planning About Major Enterprises Like The Vietnam War. It Was Kept Secret From Them.

War

Thinking

Government

If We Choose, We Can Live In A World Of Comforting Illusion.

Hero

Comforting

Anarchy

If You Have To Control People, You Have To Have An Administrative Force That Does It. So In U.s. Industry, Even More Than Elsewhere, There's Layer After Layer Of Management - A Kind Of Economic Waste, But Useful For Control And Domination. And The Same Is True In Universities.

People

Doe

Layers

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

Significant Change

Economy

Driven

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

Accepting

Rational

Policy

Education Is Not Just You Learn How A Mosquito Flies In The Rain, But You Learn How To Be Creative And Why It's Exciting To Learn Things And Create Things And Make Up New Things.

Rain

Creative

Exciting

You Never Really Saw The Racism In Europe In The Past Because It Was So Homogeneous. When Everyone Is Blonde And Blue-eyed, You Don't See Racism. But As Soon As There Was The Beginnings Of Immigration, It Just Came Out Very Dramatically.

Past

Blue

Europe

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

War

Iraq

Nazi

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

Expression

Brain

Groups

South America Has Virtually Broken Away In The Last Decade. That's An Event Of Historic Significance. South America Just Doesn't Follow Us Orders. In Fact There Isn't A Single Us Military Base Left There.

Military

America

Order

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

Kings

Past

Tyranny

The Contradiction Is Somehow Unresolved. In The Case Of The Business Propaganda, It's Particularly Ironic Because While Business Wants The Population To Hate The Government, They Want The Population To Love The Government. Namely, They're In Favor Of A Very Powerful State Which Works In Their Interest.

Powerful

Hate

Government

I Do Not Feel That We Should Set Up People As "models"; Rather Actions, Thoughts, Principles.

People

Principles

Action

As Far As Bernie Sanders Is Concerned, He Is A Decent, Honest Person, And I Supported Him. What He Means By Socialism Is New Deal Liberalism. In Fact, His Actual Policies Would Not Have Been A Great Surprise To General Eisenhower. The Fact That This Is Called A "political Revolution" Is A Sign Of How Far To The Right The Political Spectrum Has Shifted, Mainly In The Last 30 Years Since The Neoliberal Programs Began To Be Instituted. What He Was Calling For Was A Restoration Of Something Like New Deal Liberalism, Which Is A Very Good Thing.

Mean

Political Revolution

Years

My Proposal Happens To Be Very Mainstream.

Proposal

Mainstream

Happens

I Think That As Human Beings, We Quite Naturally Take For Granted What Is Similar Among Human Beings And, Then, Pay Attention To What Differentiates Us. That Makes Perfect Sense For Us As Human Beings.

Thinking

Perfect

Attention

...a Very Terrifying Aspect Of Our Society, And Other Societies, Is The Equanimity And The Detachment With Which Sane, Reasonable, Sensible People Can Observe [war And Human Suffering]. I Think That's More Terrifying Than The Occasional Hitler ...or Other That Crop Up - These People Would Not Able To Operate Were It Not For This Apathy And Equanimity - And Therefore I Think That It Is In Some Sense The Sane And Reasonable And Tolerant People Who Should Share A Very Serious Burden Of Guilt, That They Very Easily Throw On The Shoulders Of Others Who Seem More Extreme And More Violent.

War

Thinking

People

When You Read About The End Of The Soviet Union, It's Always About The "death Of Socialism." They Never Say "the Death Of Democracy." But It Makes About The Same Sense.

Democracy

Unions

Socialism

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

Colombia Has Been The Leading Western Recipient Of U.s. Arms And Training As Violence Has Grown Through The '90s.

Training

Arms

Violence

The Second World War Had Really Devastating Effects For Much Of Europe. It Really Didn't Take Them Very Long To Reconstruct State Capitalist Democracies Because It Was In People's Heads. There Were Other Parts Of The World That Were Pretty Much Devastated And They Couldn't Do It; They Didn't Have The Conceptions In Their Mind. A Lot Of It Is Human Consciousness.

War

Europe

Long

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

If You Want To Talk About Distributing Substances That Are Lethal, . . . Let's Be Serious. Tobacco Is Far Ahead Of Anything Else. Alcohol Is Second.

Alcohol

Substance

Want

In Fact, Anyone Who Merits Attention And Who Promotes Any Cause At All Is Doing So On The Basis Of A Belief That It Is Somehow Good For Humans, Because Of Their Inherent Nature.

Attention

Causes

Facts

Hence, A Generative Grammar Must Be A System Of Rules That Can Iterate To Generate An Indefinitely Large Number Of Structures. This System Of Rules Can Be Analyzed Into The Three Major Components Of A Generative Grammar: The Syntactic, Phonological, And Semantic Components... The Syntactic Component Of A Grammar Must Specify, For Each Sentence, A Deep Structure That Determines Its Semantic Interpretation And A Surface Structure That Determines Its Phonetic Interpretation. The First Of These Is Interpreted By The Semantic Component; The Second, By The Phonological Component.

Numbers

Three

Firsts

The Fourteenth Amendment, After The Civil War, In Principle Brought Former Slaves Into The Category Of Persons, Theoretically. But If You Actually Look, Almost All The Cases Brought Up For Personal Rights Under The Fourteenth Amendment Were By Corporations. Freed Slaves Couldn't Do It. In Fact They Were Pretty Much Driven Back Into Something Like Slavery By A North - South Compact, That Allowed Former Slave States To Criminalize Black Life, Which Made A Criminal Force That Was Basically Used As A Forced Labor Force, Up Until The 1930s.

War

Labor Force

Rights

Prophet Just Means Intellectual. They Were People Giving Geopolitical Analysis, Moral Lessons, That Sort Of Thing. We Call Them Intellectuals Today. There Were The People We Honor As Prophets, There Were The People We Condemn As False Prophets. But If You Look At The Biblical Record, At The Time, It Was The Other Way Around. The Flatterers Of The Court Of King Ahab Were The Ones Who Were Honored. The Ones We Call Prophets Were Driven Into The Desert And Imprisoned.

Kings

Mean

Biblical

There Are Women (some Men, Too, But Mostly Women) Who Are Going To The Occupied Palestinian Territories To Stand With The Victims Of Israeli Occupation. These Are Very Courageous Israeli Women And Some British And American Women. That's Something Quite New.

Men

Israeli Occupation

Territory

I 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

Humans Have Certain Properties And Characteristics Which Are Intrinsic To Them, Just As Every Other Organism Does. That's Human Nature.

Doe

Human Nature

Characteristics

We're Supposed To Believe That Oil Had Nothing To Do With It, That If Iraq Were Exporting Pickles Or Jelly And The Center Of World Oil Production Were In The South Pacific That The United States Would've Liberated Them Anyway. It Has Nothing To Do With The Oil, What A Crass Idea. Anyone With Their Head Screwed On Knows That That Can't Be True.

Believe

Ideas

Oil

What I've Called "the Mafia Doctrine" In Many Publications: When The Godfather Issues An Edict, Others Must Obey, Or Else. It's Too Dangerous To Allow Disobedience. A Leading Principle Of World Affairs - Though, Of Course, Officials And Commentators Put It More Politely.

Issues

Mafia

Principles

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

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

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

Barack Obama Is An Opportunist, Mostly Supported By The Financial Institutions. He Had No Positions On Anything. He's Very Intelligent. If You Look At His Program, Almost No Substance. Change, Hope, What's That? I Mean, He Had Some Policies, But It Was Almost Certain That He Would Give Them Up Instantly, Which He Did.

Mean

Intelligent

Giving

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

There Was A Hemispheric Conference In Colombia. It Couldn't Reach A Consensus, So There Was No Declaration That Came Out, [but] On The Crucial Issues, Canada And The Us Were Totally Isolated. The Rest Of The Hemisphere Voted One Way, And The Us And Canada Rejected It. So There Couldn't Be A Consensus.

Issues

Hemisphere

Canada

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

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

Country

Reflection

Years

Some Of [donald Trump] Comments Can Be Interpreted As Potentially Reducing The Threat Of Nuclear War. The Major Threat Right Now Is Right On The Russian Border. Notice, Not The Mexican Border, The Russian Border. And It's Serious. He Has Made Various Statements Moving Towards Reducing The Tensions, Accommodating Russian Concerns And So On.

War

Moving

Mexican Border

A Tremendous Amount Of The Entrepreneurial Initiative, If You Want To Call It That, Comes From The Dynamic State Sector On Which Most Of The Economy Relies To Socialize Costs And Risks And Privatize Eventual Profit. And That's Achieved By, If You Like, Advertising.

Risk

Cost

Want

So The First Things That You See When You Look Up Something On Google Could Be Dependent On The Amount Of Advertising Or Something Else. Since It Is A Profit Making Institution, It Is Going To Reflect The Interests And Concerns Of Those Who Fund It, Which Is Advertisers.

Google

Looks

Firsts

Thanh Hoa Itself Is A Rich Agricultural Province. Rice Fields, A Pattern Of Many Shades Of Green, Stretch Far Into The Distance Along The Road, Which Also Winds Through Foothills And The Fringes Of Heavy Jungle Where Tigers Are Said To Roam. The Vegetation, Wild Or Cultivated, Is Lush.

Distance

Wind

Patterns

The Zionist Movement Based In Palestine Pretty Much Took Over The Camps And Instituted The Policy That Every Man And Woman Between The Ages Of Seventeen And Thirty-five Should Be Directed To Palestine - Not Allowed To Go To The West.

Men

Age

West

The Public Is Easily Amenable To Lies: The More Lies There Are, The Greater The Support For War. For Instance, When The Public Was Told That Saddam Hussein Would Attack The U.s., This Increased Support For The War.

War

Lying

Support

What Is The Nature Of The Genetic Endowment? How Does Acquisition Proceed? Etc. Scientists Do Routinely Ask Similar Questions About The Visual System, System Of Motor Organisation, And Others - Including, In Fact, The Digestive System.

Doe

Acquisition

Etc

There Are No Conservatives In The United States. The United States Does Not Have A Conservative Tradition. The People Who Call Themselves Conservatives, Like The Heritage Foundation Or Gingrich, Are Believers In -- Are Radical Statists. They Believe In A Powerful State, But A Welfare State For The Rich.

Powerful

Believe

People

During The 1990's, Colombia Was The Leading Recipient Of Us Military Aid And Training In The Hemisphere. Approximately Half Of All Us Aid In The Hemisphere Went To Colombia. Colombia Was Also Far And Away The Leading Human Rights Violator In The Hemisphere.

Military

Rights

Training

Put Yourself In The Position Of A Person, Sort Of An Ordinary American, "i'm A Hard-working, God-fearing Christian. I Take Care Of My Family, I Go To Church, I, You Know, Do Everything 'right'. And I'm Getting Shafted. For The Last Thirty Years, My Income Has Stagnated, My Working Hours Are Going Up, My Benefits Are Going Down. My Wife Has To Work Two [jobs] To, You Know, Put Food On The Table. The Children, God, There's No Care For The Children, The Schools Are Rotten, And So On. What Did I Do Wrong? I Did Everything You're Supposed To Do, But Something's Going Wrong To Me.

Christian

Jobs

Children

As For Geoengineering, There Have Been Serious General Critiques That I Think Cannot Be Ignored, Like Clive Hamilton's, Along With Many Positive Assessments. It Is Not A Matter For Subjective Judgment Based On Guesswork And Intuition. Rather, These Are Matters That Have To Be Considered Seriously, Relying On The Best Scientific Understanding Available, Without Abandoning Sensible Precautionary Principles.

Thinking

Assessment

Understanding

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 Local Grocery Store Was A Gathering, A Community Place. You Knew The Owner, If You Didn't Have Any Money They'd Let You Go For A Couple Days. You Talked. It Was A Friendly Place. Supermarkets Are Totally Impersonal. I Mean, You May Say Hello To The Checkout Girl Or Something, But The Personal Connections Are All Gone.

Girl

Couple

Mean

In Any Case, It Is Better To Have Some Deal Than No Deal, But It's Interesting That Obama Picked The Day Of Implementing Of Iran Deal To Impose New Sanctions On North Korea.

Iran

Korea

Interesting

We Have Never Had Class-based Parties. We've Had Parties Run By The Business Classes. There's Slight Variations. Like In The New Deal Period, There Was A Lot Of Popular Activism, So Things Shifted Slightly, But Not Much.

Running

Party

Activism

Those Who Had Demanded No More Than An End To The Bombing Of North Vietnam And A Commitment To Negotiations Saw Their Demands Being Realized, And Lapsed Into Silence.

Commitment

Silence

Being Real

The United States Is Unique Among The Rich Countries, Developed Countries, In Not Having Some Kind Of A National Health-care System.

Country

Unique

Rich Countries

The Freer The Society Gets, The More Dangerous The Great Beast Becomes And The More You Have To Be Careful To Cage It Somehow.

Cages

Beast

Dangerous

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

You Can Go Into The Library Of Congress And Find Information On Just About Anything, But That Doesn't Do You Much Good Unless You Know What You Are Looking For.

Library

Information

Congress

The Bush Administration Has Created An Unimaginable Catastrophe In Iraq. This Should've Been One Of The Easiest Military Occupations In History And They Succeeded In Turning It Into One Of The Worst Military Disasters In History. They Can't Control It And It's Almost Impossible For Them To Get Out For Reasons You Can't Discuss In The United States Because To Discuss The Reasons Why They Can't Get Out Would Be To Concede The Reasons Why They Invaded.

Military

Iraq

United States

I Have Often Thought That If A Rational Fascist Dictatorship Were To Exist, Then It Would Choose The American System.

Fascists

Fascism

Dictatorship

The Capacity To Transfer Production Elsewhere Is A Weapon Against The Western Workers.

Weapons

Capacity

Workers

Obama's Latest Line Is That He Didn't Establish A "red Line" But The World Did Through Its Conventions On Chemical Warfare.

World

One Of The Most Interesting Reactions To Come Out Of 1968 Was In The First Publication Of The Trilateral Commission, Which Believed There Was A 'crisis Of Democracy' From Too Much Participation Of The Masses.

Interesting

Democracy

Too Much

The Iraq War Is The First War In History, In Which There Were Huge Demonstrations Before The War Was Launched, Not Beginning Five Years Later And Then Being Broken Up. All Of These Are Changes, And The People Who Are Writing In Journals Today Lived Through These Changes.

War

Writing

Years

We Should Recall That During The Second World War And The Great Depression There Was An Upsurge In Popular, Radical Democracy. In All Over The World. It Took Different Forms, But It Was There, Everywhere. In Greece It Was In The Greek Revolution, And So On. And It Had To Be Crushed. In Countries Like Greece, It Was Crushed By Violence. In Countries Like Italy, Where The Us Forces Entered In 1943, It Was Crushed By Attacking And Destroying The Anti-german Partisans And Restoring The Traditional Order.

Country

War

Order

It's This Kind Of Wild Unpredictability, Megalomania, Thin-skinned Craziness That Really Has Me Worried, More Than [donald Trump] Statements. Now, On The Climate Change There's Just Nothing To Say, He's Perfectly Straightforward.

Climate

Kind

Worried

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.

. . . Among All Grammars Meeting This Condition (of Adequacy), We Select The Simplest.

Adequacy

Select

Grammar

Palestinians Have No Wealth Or Power.

Wealth

Palestinian

Industrial Production Of Meat Makes A Huge Contribution To Global Warming.

Meat

Global Warming

Contribution

Power Is Concentrated. The General Policy Is Exactly The Way That Adam Smith Described It: It's Designed For The Benefit Of Its Principal Architects, The Powerful. It Serves "the Vile Maxim Of The Masters: All For Ourselves And Nothing For Anyone Else". Those Are The Basic Rules Of The World.

Powerful

Benefits

World

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

If You Want To Find Weapons Of Destruction, You Can Find Them All Over The Place. Take, Say, Israel. There Is A Very Great Concern Right Now About Proliferation Of Nuclear Weapons, As There Should Be. Israel Has A Couple Of Hundred Nuclear Weapons And Also Chemical And Biological Weapons. This Stockpile Is Not Only A Threat In Itself But Encourages Others To Proliferate In Reaction And In Self-defense. Is Anybody Saying Anything About This?

Couple

Israel

Self

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

Markets Have Built In Inefficiencies, Serious Inefficiencies Which Are Well Known.

Serious

Well Known

Wells

It's Hard To Achieve That, Especially In A Free Society, But It's Been Done, And That's The Kind Of Thing That Activists In The Iww Have To Work Against, Right On The Shop Floor. It's Not So Simple, But It's Been Done Before.

Simple

Done

Kind

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

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

Limits

Privilege

Unusual

We Still Name Our Military Helicopter Gunships After Victims Of Genocide. Nobody Bats An Eyelash About That: Blackhawk. Apache. And Comanche. If The Luftwaffe Named Its Military Helicopters Jew And Gypsy, I Suppose People Would Notice.

Military

Eyelashes

Names

We Have To Be Irrational And Vindictive, Because That's Going To Frighten People. And We Have To Maintain This For Years. And Then We'll Be Able To Carry Out The Actions That We Want To Carry Out.

Years

People

Want

Today's Democrats Are Pretty Much What Used To Be Called Moderate Republicans A Generation Ago.

Generations

Today

Republican

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

It Is Only Natural To Expect That Guilds Will Tend To "protect Their Turf" And To Resist Challenge.

Challenges

Natural

Protect

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

Space

Three

Language

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

Corporations

Way

Nafta

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

States Are Violent To The Extent That They Have The Power To Act In The Interests Of Those With Domestic Power

Violent

States

Interest

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

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

I Think This Country And The World Would Be Far Better Off If The Us Is Not An Outlaw State.

Country

Thinking

World

You Can't Get Votes That Way. So [the Republicans] Have Been Compelled To Mobilize A Base Of Voters And Gone To Elements Of The Country That Have Always Been There But Were Kind Of Marginal To The Political System, For Example, Religious Extremists.

Country

Religious

Political

There Are Many Cases Around The World In Which The Presence Of Un Peace-keeping Forces Has Had A Somewhat Beneficial Effect.

World

Force

Cases

If You Believe In Democracy, Why Shouldn't You Know What The Government Is Doing?

Believe

Government

Democracy

French Intellectual Life Has, In My Opinion, Been Turned Into Something Cheap And Meretricious By The 'star' System. It Is Like Hollywood. Thus We Go From One Absurdity To Another - Stalinism, Existentialism. Lacan, Derrida - Some Of Them Obscene ( Stalinism), Some Simply Infantile And Ridiculous ( Lacan, Derrida). What Is Striking, However, Is The Pomposity And Self-importance, At Each Stage.

Stars

Self

Intellectual

Nobody Should Have Any Illusions. The United States Has Essentially A One-party System And The Ruling Party Is The Business Party.

Party

Should Have

United States

It Makes Sense To Work Towards A Better World, But It Doesn't Make Any Sense To Have Illusions About What The Real World Is.

Real

World

Illusion

The Worst Drug Of All By Far Is Tobacco; The Death Toll From Tobacco Is Just Overwhelming.

Drug

Tolls

Worst

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

Iran

Trying

Nuclear

Historically, Several Policy Domains, Including That Of Foreign Policy Towards The Us And India, Budget Allocations Etc, Have Been Controlled By The Pakistani Military, And The Civil-military Divide Can Be Said To Be The Most Fundamental Fracture In Pakistan's Body Politic.

Military

Pakistan

Fundamentals

There's A Tremendous Amount Of Language Loss. Most Of The Attention Is Given To Indigenous Languages, Which Makes Sense, But Some Of The Most Dramatic Language Loss Is In Europe.

Loss

Europe

Attention

In The Academic World, Most Of The Work That Is Done Is Clerical. A Lot Of The Work Done By Professors Is Routine.

Routine

Done

World

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

Those Of Us Lucky Enough To Have A Share Of Privilege In The More Free Societies Should Not Be Asking This Question, But Doing Something To Answer It.

Lucky

Asking

Answers

In Europe There's An Dangerous Growth Of Ultra Xenophobia Which Is Pretty Threatening To Any One Who Remembers The History Of Europe... And An Attack On The Remnants Of The Welfare State. It's Hard To Interpret The Austerity-in-the-midst-of-recession Policy As Anything Other Than Attack On The Social Contract.

Xenophobia

Europe

Growth

The One State/two State Debate Is Irrelevant As Israel And The Us Consolidate Greater Israel.

Israel

Two

Debate

Governments Are Not Representative. They Have Their Own Power, Serving Segments Of The Population That Are Dominant And Rich.

Government

Population

Rich

A Bombing Was Planned [in Syria], Which Would Probably Make The Situation Worse, But Would At Least Establish Us Credibility.

Credibility

Situation

Syria

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

Bible

Atheist

Book

Procurement Is A Major Technique Of State Subsidy.

Technique

Subsidies

States

Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously.

Sleep

Ideas

Psychology

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

There Is No Reason To Accept The Doctrines Crafted To Sustain Power And Privilege, Or To Believe That We Are Constrained By Mysterious And Unknown Social Laws. These Are Simply Decisions Made Within Institutions That Are Subject To Human Will And That Must Face The Test Of Legitimacy. And If They Do Not Meet The Test, They Can Be Replaced By Other Institutions That Are More Free And More Just, As Has Happened Often In The Past.

Believe

Acceptance

Past

Up Until The First World War, When People Turned Anti-german, Germany Had Been Described By American Political Scientists As The Model Of Democracy.

War

People

Political

On The Other Hand, A Lot Of The Internet - I Don't Know The Percentage, But I Am Sure A Great Mass Of Internet Use - Is Pretty Superficial Interaction Amongst People. Its Not Necessarily A Bad Thing. A Teenager Wants To Talk To Her Friend, That's Fine, But I Think It Probably Contributes To Atomization, Which Is A Threat To The Society.

Teenager

Thinking

Hands

What Wikileaks Exposed Is Kind Of Superficial In A Way.

Way

Wikileaks

Kind

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

War

Terrorism

Killing

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

You Have 30% Of The World Unemployed, A Huge Amount Of Work, That Needs To Be Done Just Rebuilding The Society Alone.

Needs

Done

World

The Educational System Is Pretty Much Geared To Passing The Next Exam. You're Educated To Pass Tests And Not To Understand.

Educational

Tests

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

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

Democracy

Together

Would Be

The First Thing You Ought To Do Is Verify What I Present. Just Because I Say It Doesn't Make It True. So Check It Out, See What Looks Correct, What Looks Wrong, Look At Other Material Which Wasn't Discussed, Figure Out What The Truth Really Is. That's What You've Got A Brain For.

Brain

Looks

Firsts

For The Last Couple Of Hundred Years, There Have Been Struggles About This. Even The Fifth And Sixth Amendments Of The Constitution Talk About Personal Rights.

Couple

Struggle

Rights

If A Child From An Amazonian Hunter-gatherer Tribe Comes To Boston, Is Raised In Boston, That Child Will Be Indistinguishable In Language Capacities From My Children Growing Up Here, And Vice Versa.

Children

Growing Up

Boston

The Two Countries [pakistan And India] Have Already Come Close To Nuclear Confrontation Twice And This Could Get Worse. So Dealing With The Relationship With India Is Extremely Important.

Country

Two

Important

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

Country

Government

Effort

The Desire For Hope And Change Is Easily Understandable. In Many Ways It's Even More Dramatic In Europe.

Europe

Desire

Way

It's A Near Miracle That Nuclear War Has So Far Been Avoided.

War

Miracle

Nuclear

The Sanders Campaign, However, Broke Dramatically With Over A Century Of U.s. Political History. Extensive Political Science Research, Notably The Work Of Thomas Ferguson, Has Shown Convincingly That Elections Are Pretty Much Bought. For Example, Campaign Spending Alone Is A Remarkably Good Predictor Of Electoral Success, And Support Of Corporate Power And Private Wealth Is A Virtual Prerequisite Even For Participation In The Political Arena.

Support

Political

Election

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

Intellectual

Common

Fit

When People Denounced [former Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad For Rejecting And Criminalizing Homosexuality, It Should Be Remembered That Was True Of The United States Until Very Recently. Women's Rights Were Unheard Of. Civil Rights Proponents Were Horribly Treated, Not Just In The South. It Was Awful There, But Pretty Bad Here. Environmental Issues Did Not Exist. Opposition To Aggression Was Virtually Zero. In Fact, So Little, That To This Day, Even Scholarship Mentions The Vietnam War As Beginning In 1965.

Zero

War

Rights

States Are Not Moral Agents.

Agents

Moral

States

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

My Memory - Faded, As I Say - Is That Paul Johnson Was Trying To Vilify All Intellectuals Who Were At All Critical Of The States He Worships, And Of Power Generally (except, Of Course, The Power Of Enemies, Which We Must Denounce, Imitating The Commissars Who Are His Models, Though He Doesn't Understand It).

Memories

Enemy

Trying

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

Every Time A Candidate Came Up From The Base, That Is With Popular Support, The Republican Establishment Went Into High Gear To Destroy Them With Massive Propaganda Attack Ads And So On. It Was One After Another, Each One Crazier Than The Last.

Support

Gears

Lasts

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

In The United States, The Political System Is A Very Marginal Affair. There Are Two Parties, So-called, But They're Really Factions Of The Same Party, The Business Party.

Party

Two

Political

Free Speech Has Been Used By The Supreme Court To Give Immense Power To The Wealthiest Members Of Our Society.

Giving

Speech

Our Society

I Think There Are Real Possibilities Of Reaching Out To Many Of The Trump Voters, Those Who Voted For Obama Believing His Rhetoric.

Real

Believe

Thinking

Latin America Is Now Exploring New And Often Promising Paths In Rejecting The Doctrinal Notions Of "globalization," And Also In The Remarkable Growth Of Popular Movements And Authentic Participation In The Political Systems. How Successful This Will Be Is More A Matter For Action Than For Speculation.

Latin

Successful

Political

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

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

Ends

Has Beens

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

Moving

America

Nicaragua

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

Syria Is Descending Into Suicide. It's A Horror Story And Getting Worse And Worse. There's No Bright Spot On The Horizon. What Will Probably Happen, If This Continues, Is That Syria Will Be Partitioned Into Probably Three Regions; A Kurdish Region - Which Is Already Forming - That Could Pull Out And Join In Some Fashion The Semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, Maybe With Some Kind Of Deal With Turkey.

Suicide

Fashion

Kind

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

Long

Survival

Nuclear

If The Nuremberg Laws Were Applied, Then Every Post-war American President Would Have Been Hanged.

War

Law

President

In Other Countries, Rich And Poor, Education Remains Substantially Free, With Educational Standards That Rank High In Global Comparisons. Even In The Us, Higher Education Was Almost Free During The Economically Successful Years Before The Neoliberal Reaction - And It Was A Much Poorer Country Then. The Gi Bill Provided Free Education To Huge Numbers Of People - White Men Overwhelmingly - Who Would Probably Never Have Gone To College, A Great Benefit To Them Personally And To The Whole Society. Tuition At Private Colleges Was Far Below Today's Exorbitant Costs.

Country

Educational

Successful

When Nazi Emissaries Came To The United States, They Were Welcomed At Harvard.

United States

Nazi

Harvard

It Is Reported That About 30% Of The World's Population Is Unemployed. That's Worse Than The Great Depression, But It's Now An International Phenomenon.

Population

World

Great Depression

Because The 1979 Strike Against U.s. Steel In Youngstown, Ohio Was An Occupation - And Actually, That's A Model That Really Should Be Pursued Now.they Went On From Striking To Trying To Have The Workforce And The Communities Take Over The Abandoned Factories That U.s. Steel Was Dismantling.

Ohio

Community

Trying

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

The United States Is The Godfather When It Establishes Edicts. Others Had Better Live Up To Them, Or Else. We Have To Demonstrate That. So That's What The Bombing Of Syria Was To Have Demonstrated.

United States

Syria

Bombing

The Republican And Democratic Parties Are Only Factions Of The Government Party.

Party

Government

Republican

You Go Into A Hospital Now, It's Dangerous. We Can Get Diseases That Can't Be Dealt With, That Are Moving Around The Hospital. A Lot Of That Traces Back To Industrial Meat Production. These Are Really Serious Threats, All Over The Place.

Moving

Meat

Disease

China Is The Center Of The Asian Energy Security Grid, Which Includes The Central Asian States And Russia. India Is Also Hovering Around The Edge, South Korea Is Involved, And Iran Is An Associate Member Of Some Kind. If The Middle East Oil Resources Around The Gulf, Which Are The Main Ones In The World, If They Link Up To The Asian Grid, The United States Is Really A Second-rate Power. A Lot Is At Stake In Not Withdrawing From Iraq.

Russia

Iran

Korea

There Is No Body Of Theory Or Significant Body Of Relevant Information, Beyond The Comprehension Of The Layman, Which Makes Policy Immune From Criticism.

Criticism

Body

Information

The Rich And Powerful Countries Are Trying To Wreck As Much As Possible. You Know, Go Off The Cliff As Soon As You Can. Extract Every Drop Of Hydrocarbons Off The Ground And Destroy The Environment. At The Opposite Extreme Are Countries Like Bolivia And Ecuador, Indigenous People Around The World, And First Nations In Canada And Tribal People In India, Campesinos In Colombia... They're Trying To Save The Commons.

Country

Powerful

Opposites

I Think There Are All Kinds Of Intrusions Into Private Rights That Make Use Of Contemporary Technology.

Technology

Thinking

Rights

One Should Be Cautious About "general Conceptions." I Think A Strong Case Can Be Made That Activism Today Is As High As Ever, Perhaps More So, And Is Also Taking New And Significant Forms. There Has Never Been Anything Like The International Solidarity Movements That Began To Take Shape In The 1980s, Right In The Mainstream, Or The Global Justice Movements That Have Become A Very Powerful Force In Later Years. It's True That The Society Is Highly Atomized, Which Does Induce A Sense Of Hopelessness Often - Quite Mistakenly I Think.

Strong

Powerful

Thinking

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

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

You Don't Get To Be A Respected Intellectual By Uttering Truisms In Monosyllables.

Intellectual

Truism

In Fact, The Outer Space Treaty Of 1967 Bans Militarization. Potential Adversaries Of The Us, And Even Its Allies, Are So Far Behind That These Countries Are Very Interested In Maintaining The Treaty. Europe And The Rest Of The World Want A Strong Reaffirmation Of The Treaty And The Us Is Unilaterally Trying To Derail It. Termination Of The Treaty Would Mean That The Us Could Develop Satellite Weapons, Put Offensive Weapons In Space. It Would Probably Mean Using Nuclear Power In Space. All Of This Leads To Some Very Dangerous Scenarios, Including Destruction Of The Species.

Country

Strong

Mean

A Lot Of The Letters That Are Coming In - A Lot Of Them Are Queries Or Comments - Are One Sentence Long... These Are From Twitter. And If You Look At The Nature Of Those One Sentence Letters, Most Of The Time It's Something That Came To Somebody's Mind - Somebody Walking Down The Street Had A Thought And Sent It Out. If They Thought About It For Two Minutes They Would Not Have Sent It.

Two

Long

Mind

So, At One Extreme You Have Indigenous, Tribal Societies Trying To Stem The Race To Disaster. At The Other Extreme, The Richest, Most Powerful Societies In World History, Like The United States And Canada, Are Racing Full-speed Ahead To Destroy The Environment As Quickly As Possible.

Powerful

Race

Racing

I Don't Think That Any Deal Was Needed: Iran Was Not A Threat. Even If Iran Were A Threat, There Was A Very Easy Way To Handle It - By Establishing A Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, Which Is Something That Nearly Everyone In The World Wants.

Thinking

Iran

World

It's True That Many Say That [they] Object To The Idea Of "human Nature," But It's Not Clear What That Is Supposed To Mean. Are We Different From Ants?

Mean

Ideas

Different

We're Human Beings; We're Not Robots. And Face-to-face Contact Is Something Totally Different Than Typing A Text Message And Then Forgetting About It.

Robots

Different

Faces

The Point Of Advertising Is To Destroy Markets.

Advertising

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

Washington Basically Works For The Corporate Sector And Silicon Valley, Technically At Least, Is Suppose To Sponsor Initiative In Creativity, Whether It Does Or Not Is Another Question.

Creativity

Valleys

Doe

If The Mutation Is Partially Transmitted To Offspring, They Too Would Have The Advantage. And Over Time It Might Have Come To Dominate A Small Breeding Group.

Groups

Mutation

Might

Do You Train For Passing Tests Or Do You Train For Creative Inquiry?

Creative

Inquiry

Tests

I Think We Can Be Reasonably Confident That If The American Population Had The Slightest Idea Of What Is Being Done In Their Name, They Would Be Utterly Appalled.

Thinking

Names

Ideas

The Main Selling Appeal Of Nafta To Us Corporations Is That It Gives Them An Advantage In The North American Market Over Their European And Japanese Competitors.

Giving

Corporations

Selling

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

The Main Purpose Of Advertising Is To Undermine Markets. If You Go To Graduate School And You Take A Course In Economics, You Learn That Markets Are Systems In Which Informed Consumers Make Rational Choices. That's What's So Wonderful About It. But That's The Last Thing That The State Corporate System Wants. It Is Spending Huge Sums To Prevent That.

School

Choices

Purpose

This Is Class War On An International Scale, And Power Is In The Hands Of Those Who Control The International Economic System.

War

Hands

Class

I Grew Up In That, When I Was A Kid. My Friends And I Used To Play Cowboys And Indians. We Were Cowboys Killing The Indians, Following The Wild West Stories. All Of This Combined Into A Very Strange Culture, Which Is Frightened.

Kids

Cowboy

Play

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 Evangelicals. . . . If All They Want Is Gold Cadillacs And Sex And So On, No Big Problem.

Sex

Gold

Cadillacs

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

Interesting

Bananas

Eating

California Is Maybe The Richest Place In The World. They're Destroying The Best Public Education System In The World.

California

World

Destroying

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

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

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

Real

Democracy

Election

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

I Think That We Have Basically Nothing In The Field Of Human Behavior. Maybe That Is Just A Condition Of Temporary Ignorance. But It May Be That We Are Simply Not Intellectually Equipped To Develop Such A Theory.

Ignorance

Thinking

May

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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