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There Are Plenty Of Things That Are Unknown, But Are Assumed Reasonably To Exist, Even In The Most Basic Sciences. Maybe 90 Percent Of The Mass-energy In The Universe Is Called "dark," Because Nobody Knows What It Is.
-Noam Chomsky
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There Are Plenty Of

Noam Chomsky
There Are Plenty Of Things That Are Unknown, But Are Assumed Reasonably To Exist, Even In The Most Basic Sciences. Maybe 90 Percent Of The Mass-energy In The Universe Is Called "dark," Because Nobody Knows What It Is.
Views: 5
Topic
Dark
Energy
Mass
More From Noam Chomsky
Thomas Jefferson, The Leading Enlightenment Figure In The United States, Along With Benjamin Franklin, Who Took Exactly The Same View, Argued That Dependence Will Lead To "subservience And Venality", And Will "suffocate The Germs Of Virtue". And Remember, By Dependence He Meant Wage Labor, Which Was Considered An Abomination Under Classical Liberal Principles.
Views
Enlightenment
Principles
Somebody Puts Up Some Weird Thing And Somebody Else Thinks Yeah Maybe That's The Way Things Work And Pretty Soon You Have Some Cult Going. Its Not The Fault Of The Internet, It's The Fault Of A Social And Culture System That Doesn't Educate People Properly And In Fact On Purpose. They Don't Want To Educate People Properly.
Thinking
People
Culture
There Isn't Much Doubt That Like Other Animal Societies, Those Of Homo Sapiens Involved Plenty Of Cooperation, Which Might Have Been Considerably Enhanced, One Would Suppose, By The Emergence Of The Remarkable Instrument Of Language.
Animal
Doubt
Might
Hume's Paradox Does Hold: Power Is In The Hands Of The Governed. If They Refuse To Accept It, You're In Trouble, No Matter How Many Guns You Have.
Gun
Hands
Doe
The 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
The Smart Way To Keep People Passive And Obedient Is To Strictly Limit The Spectrum Of Acceptable Opinion, But Allow Very Lively Debate Within That Spectrum - Even Encourage The More Critical And Dissident Views. That Gives People The Sense That There's Free Thinking Going On, While All The Time The Presuppositions Of The System Are Being Reinforced By The Limits Put On The Range Of The Debate.
Smart
Thinking
Views
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 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
A Colonial War Is A Very Dirty Kind Of War. You're Not Fighting Armed Forces. You're Fighting Mostly Unarmed People. And To Fight That Kind Of War Requires Professional Killers, Which Means Mercenaries.
War
Dirty
Mean
One Of The Best Predictors Of Policy Around Is Thomas Ferguson's Investment Theory Of Politics, As He Calls It - Very Outstanding Political Economist - Which Essentially - I Mean, To Say It In A Sentence, He Describes Elections As Occasions In Which Groups Of Investors Coalesce And Invest To Control The State.
Mean
Political
Groups
The Republicans Went So Far To The Right That They Just Can't Get Votes. They've Become A Dedicated Party Of The Very Rich And The Corporate Sector.
Party
Vote
Republican
If The Nuremberg Laws Were Applied, Then Every Post-war American President Would Have Been Hanged.
War
Law
President
Concision Is A Technique Of Propaganda. It Ensures You Cannot Do Anything Except Repeat Clichés, The Standard Doctrine, Or Sound Like A Lunatic.
Technique
Sound
Doctrine
Civil Disobedience's Main Goal Typically Is To Try To Arouse And Inspire Others To Join And Do Something. Well, Sometimes That Is A Good Tactic, Sometimes Not.
Goal
Inspire
Trying
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
Citizenship Means Every Four Years You Put A Mark Somewhere And You Go Home And Let Other Guys Run The World. It's A Very Destructive Ideology.
Running
Mean
Home
That's The Standard Technique Of Privatization: Defund, Make Sure Things Don't Work, People Get Angry, You Hand It Over To Private Capital.
Hands
People
Technique
In The Late 19th Century There Was A Major Union Organization, Knights Of Labor, And Also A Radical Populist Movement Based On Farmers. It's Hard To Believe, But It Was Based In Texas, And It Was Quite Radical. They Wanted Their Own Banks, Their Own Cooperatives, Their Own Control Over Sales And Commerce.
Believe
Knights
Texas
The Military Has A Huge Role In The Economy [of Pakistan] With Big Stakes And, As You Say, It Has Constantly Intervened To Make Sure That It Keeps Its Hold On Policy Making. Well, I Hope, And There Seem To Be Some Signs, That The Military Is Taking A Backseat, Not Really In The Economy, But In Some Of The Policy Issues. If That Can Continue, Which Perhaps It Will, This Will Be A Positive Development.
Military
Policy Making
Issues
The Us And Europe Are Committing Suicide In Different Ways. In Europe It's Austerity In The Midst Of Recession And That's Guaranteed To Be A Disaster. There's Some Resistance To That Now. In The Us, It's Essentially Off-shoring Production And Financialization And Getting Rid Of Superfluous Population Through Incarceration.
Suicide
Europe
Austerity
I Would Feel No Hesitation In Saying That It Is The Responsibility Of A Decent Human Being To Give Assistance To A Child Who Is Being Attacked By A Rabid Dog, But I Would Not Intend This To Imply That In All Imaginable Circumstances One Must, Necessarily, Act In Accordance With This General Responsibility.
Dog
Children
Responsibility
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
People Are Interested In Authentic Long-term, Socialist Goals, Which Is Not What Is Usually Called Socialism. They Should Be Thinking Through Carefully How The Projected Society Should Work, But Not In Extensive Detail Because A Lot Of Things Just Have To Be Learned By Experiment And We Don't Know Enough To Plan Societies In Detail By Any Means. But, General Guidelines Could Be Worked Out And Many Of The Specific Problems Can Be Discussed. That Should Just Be Part Of People's Popular Consciousness. That's How A Transition To Socialism Could Take Place.
Mean
Thinking
Long
Pakistan Just Cannot Survive If It Continues To Do So (continue This Confrontation With India).
India
Pakistan
Confrontation
States Are Not Moral Agents, People Are, And Can Impose Moral Standards On Powerful Institutions.
Powerful
Hero
People
Take A Look At The Bombing Of Serbia In 1999. The Us Was Quite Open About The Reasons For The Bombing. A Main Reason Was To Preserve Stability And Credibility. Serbia Was Interfering With Stability, Meaning That It Was The One Part Of The Balkans That Was Not Integrated Into The Western-dominated (mostly Us-dominated) System.
Looks
Reason
Balkans
With The Development Of Industrial Capitalism, A New And Unanticipated System Of Injustice, It Is Libertarian Socialism That Has Preserved And Extended The Radical Humanist Message Of The Enlightenment And The Classical Liberal Ideals That Were Perverted Into An Ideology To Sustain The Emerging Social Order.
Order
Enlightenment
Development
The Dominant Propaganda Systems Have Appropriated The Term "globalization" To Refer To The Specific Version Of International Economic Integration That They Favor, Which Privileges The Rights Of Investors And Lenders, Those Of People Being Incidental. In Accord With This Usage, Those Who Favor A Different Form Of International Integration, Which Privileges The Rights Of Human Beings, Become "anti-globalist."
Rights
People
Favors
Modern Science And Technology Can Relieve Men Of The Necessity For Specialized, Imbecile Labor. They May, In Principle, Provide The Basis For A Rational Social Order Based On Free Association And Democratic Control, If We Have The Will To Create It.
Technology
Men
Order
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
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
A Bombing Was Planned [in Syria], Which Would Probably Make The Situation Worse, But Would At Least Establish Us Credibility.
Credibility
Situation
Syria
The 'free-floating Intellectual' May Occupy Himself With Problems Because Of Their Inherent Interest And Importance, Perhaps To Little Effect.
Intellectual
Floating
May
The Process Of Shaping Opinion, Attitudes, And Perceptions Was Termed The 'engineering Of Consent' By One Of The Founders Of The Modern Public Relations Industry, Edward Bernays.
Attitude
Engineering
Perception
One Of The Greatest Dangers Is Secular Religion - State Worship.
Worship
Danger
States
Reparations - Not Just Aid - Should Be Provided By Those Responsible For Devastating Iraqi Civilian Society By Cruel Sanctions And Military Actions, And - Together With Other Criminal States - For Supporting Saddam Hussein Through His Worst Atrocities And Beyond. That Is The Minimum That Honesty Requires.
Honesty
Military
Together
The Us Has Been The Leading Terrorist State In The World For Many Years.
Years
World
States
Censorship Is Never Over For Those Who Have Experienced It. It Is A Brand On The Imagination That Affects The Individual Who Has Suffered It, Forever.
Hero
Imagination
Forever
[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
With Regard To Freedom Of Expression There Are Basically Two Positions: You Defend It Vigorously For Views You Hate, Or You Reject It In Favor Of Stalinist/fascist Standards.
Hate
Views
Expression
Democracy Is A Danger To Any Powerful Group.
Powerful
Democracy
Groups
Academics Are Mostly Professionals, Involved In Their Work And Other Concerns Of Their Own, With No Particular Interest In The Workings Of The Ideological System.
Interest
Concern
Particular
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
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
Now Financial Liberalization Is Just A Catastrophe Waiting To Happen, And There Are Very Well Understood Reasons For That.
Waiting
Financial
Reason
The British Had An Even Stronger [then America] Business Interest In Nazi Germany. And Benito Mussolini Was Greatly Admired.
America
Stronger
Germany
We Have This Huge, Massive Information, But What Is It That Matters? What Doesn't Matter? What Makes Sense, What Doesn't Make Sense? You Have To Have A Framework For Understanding And Of Interpretation In Order To Make Use Of The Information.
Order
Understanding
Use
... 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
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
The [ronald] Reagan Administration Picked Up The Rhetoric Of The Anti-nuclear Movement; They Said "yyeah, You're Right." We Have To Eliminate Nuclear Weapons.
Nuclear
Movement
Weapons
The Ideal Is To Create A Completely Fragmented Atomized Society Where Everybody Is Totally Alone, Doing Nothing But Trying To Pursue Created Wants, And The Wants Are Created.
Trying
Doing Nothing
Want
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
The Country That Consistently Ranks Among The Highest In Educational Achievement Is Finland. A Rich Country, But Education Is Free. Germany, Education Is Free. France, Education Is Free.
Country
Educational
Rich Countries
Death And Genitals Are Things That Frighten People, And When People Are Frightened, They Develop Means Of Concealment And Aggression. It Is Common Sense.
Mean
People
Common Sense
Language Etches The Grooves Through Which Your Thoughts Must Flow.
Flow
Language
Groove
There Is Still Much Debate About Whether Torture Has Been Effective In Eliciting Information - The Assumption Being, Apparently, That If It Is Effective, Then It May Be Justified.
Information
May
Assumption
I Just Don't Care About Popular Culture. It Looks To Me Pointless And Superficial. If I Had Free Time I'd Rather Read A 19th Century Novel.
Culture
Looks
Care
Science Is A Bit Like The Joke About The Drunk Who Is Looking Under A Lamppost For A Key That He Has Lost On The Other Side Of The Street, Because That's Where The Light Is. It Has No Other Choice.
Science
Keys
Light
Worker Ownership Within A State Capitalist, Semi-market System Is Better Than Private Ownership But It Has Inherent Problems. Markets Have Well-known Inherent Inefficiencies. They're Very Destructive.
Problem
Well Known
Ownership
Pakistan Will Never Be Able To Match The Indian Militarily And The Effort To Do So Is Taking An Immense Toll On The Society. It's Also Extremely Dangerous With All The Weapons Development. The Two Countries 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
Effort
In The Munich Agreement In Late 1938 [franklin] Roosevelt Sent His Chief Adviser Sumner Welles, Who Came Back With A Very Supportive Statement Saying That Hitler Was Someone We Could Really Do Business With And So On.
Agreement
Supportive
Munich
Discovery Is The Ability To Be Puzzled By Simple Things. Noam Chomsky
Inspirational
Simple
Discovery
I Don't Entirely Agree With The Slogan "speaking Truth To Power."
Agree
Slogans
In Fact, It's Pretty Dramatic When You Get To 1975, Very Revealing, The [vietnam] War Ends. Everybody Had To Write Something About The War, What It Meant. You Also Had Polls Of Public Opinion, And They're Dramatically Different.
War
Writing
Public Opinion
Colombia Is Potentially A Very Wealthy Country. It Has Tremendous Resources, But Its Wealth Is Highly Concentrated. Most Of The Population Lives In Misery, Which Has Led To Violent Confrontation Throughout The Century.
Country
Population
Misery
Science Talks About Very Simple Things, And Asks Hard Questions About Them. As Soon As Things Become Too Complex, Science Can't Deal With Them... But It's A Complicated Matter: Science Studies What's At The Edge Of Understanding, And What's At The Edge Of Understanding Is Usually Fairly Simple. And It Rarely Reaches Human Affairs. Human Affairs Are Way Too Complicated.
Simple
Understanding
Matter
There Are Very Deep And Restrictive Principles That Determine The Nature Of Human Language And Are Rooted In The Specific Character Of The Human Mind
Character
Mind
Principles
In The Moral Calculus Of Currently Prevailing State Capitalism, Profits And Bonuses In The Next Quarter Greatly Outweigh Concern For The Welfare Of One’s Grandchildren, And Since These Are Institutional Maladies, They Will Not Be Easy To Overcome. While Much Remains Uncertain, We Can Assure Ourselves, With Fair Confidence, That Future Generations Will Not Forgive Us Our Silence And Apathy.
Grandchildren
Silence
Forgiving
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
The General Principle Is That The Victors Don't Look At Themselves Or Concede Anything. The Defeated Typically Have To, Except When It's Beneficial To The Powerful For Them Not To.
Powerful
Principles
Looks
I Don't See How One Can "believe In Organized Religion." What Does It Mean To Believe In An Organization? One Can Join It, Support It, Oppose It, Accept Its Doctrines Or Reject Them. There Are Many Kinds Of Organized Religion. People Associate Themselves With Some Of Them, Or Not, For All Sorts Of Reasons, Maybe Belief In Some Of Their Doctrines.
Believe
Mean
Organization
The Market Is Regarded As Democratic Because Everybody Has A Vote. Of Course, Some Have More Votes Than Others Because Your Votes Depend On The Number Of Dollars You Have, But Everybody Participates And Therefore It's Called Democratic.
Numbers
Dollars
Vote
In Fact, What Were Called The Socialist Countries In Eastern Europe Were The Most Anti-socialist Systems In The World. Workers Had More Rights In The United States And England Than They Had In Russia, And It Was Somehow Still Called Socialism.
Country
Russia
Rights
To Go Back To A Moment Of Western Civilization Remote Enough In Time So That We Should Be Able To Look At It Dispassionately, Ask What Happened During World War I. What Was The Typical Behavior Of Respected Intellectuals In Germany, England, The United States? What Happened To Those Who Publicly Questioned The Nobility Of The War Effort, On Both Sides? I Do Not Think The Answers Are Untypical.
War
Thinking
Civilization
Colombia Has Been The Leading Western Recipient Of U.s. Arms And Training As Violence Has Grown Through The '90s.
Training
Arms
Violence
There Are Historical Analogs, Which Are Not Exact, Of Course, But Are Close Enough To Be Worrisome. This Is A Whiff Of Early Nazi Germany. [adolf] Hitler Was Appealing To Groups With Similar Grievances, And Giving Them Crazy Answers, But At Least They Were Answers; These Groups Weren't Getting Them Anywhere Else. It Was The Jews And The Bolsheviks [that Were The Problem].
Crazy
Giving
Historical
International Relations Bears More Than A Slight Resemblance To The Mafia.
Mafia
Bears
Relation
The Racism Is So Profound And The Recognition - The Kind Of Deep Recognition That You Have To Humiliate. It's Not About To Killing Or Torture. It's To Humiliate. So The Oppressed Feel Degraded. And Both The Oppressed Understand And The Oppressors Understand. It's Constant.
Racism
Profound
Recognition
If We Move Toward The Weaponisation Of Space, We Can Bid Farewell To The Planet. The Chances Of Survival Are Very Slight.
Moving
Farewell
Space
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
Whatever The Reasons May Be, I Was Very Much Affected By Events Of The 1930s - The Spanish Civil War, For Example, Though I Was Barely Literate.
War
Events
Example
By A Generative Grammar I Mean Simply A System Of Rules That In Some Explicit And Well-defined Way Assigns Structural Descriptions To Sentences. Obviously, Every Speaker Of A Language Has Mastered And Internalized A Generative Grammar That Expresses His Knowledge Of His Language. This Is Not To Say That He Is Aware Of The Rules Of The Grammar Or Even That He Can Become Aware Of Them, Or That His Statements About His Intuitive Knowledge Of The Language Are Necessarily Accurate.
Mean
Way
Language
It's Very Common For The Victims To Understand A System Better Than The People Who Are Holding The Stick.
War
People
Sticks
William R. Polk Discusses The Spanish Guerrilla War Against Napoleon [ Bonaparte] And Other Cases Where The Conflict Turns Into A Political War, And The Invader, Who Usually Has Overwhelming Power, Loses Because They Can't Fight The Political War.
War
Fighting
Political
If We Choose, We Can Live In A World Of Comforting Illusion.
Hero
Comforting
Anarchy
When I Was In High School I Asked Myself At One Point: "why Do I Care If My High School's Team Wins The Football Game? I Don't Know Anybody On The Team, They Have Nothing To Do With Me... Why Am I Here And Applaud? It Does Not Make Any Sense." But The Point Is, It Does Make Sense: It's A Way Of Building Up Irrational Attitudes Of Submission To Authority And Group Cohesion Behind Leadership Elements. In Fact It's Training In Irrational Jingoism. That's Also A Feature Of Competitive Sports.
Sports
Football
Attitude
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
The Most Powerful Country In World History, Which Is Sure To Set Its Stamp On What Follows, Placed The Entire Government (executive, Legislative, Judicial Branches) In The Hands Of An Organization - The Republican Party - Dedicated To Escalating The Race To Disaster.
Country
Powerful
Party
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
The Responsibilities Of Someone In A More Free And Open Society Are, Again Obviously, Greater Than Those Who May Pay Some Cost For Honesty And Integrity.
Honesty
Integrity
Responsibility
Europe Is Being Subjected To The Kinds Of Programs That Devastated Latin America For Many Years. Latin America Has Thrown Them Out And Is Pulling Out: It's Successful; It's Democratizing; It's Economically Developing; And It's Free From The Shrapnel Of Us Imperialism For 25 Years. Meanwhile, Western Europe Is Destroying Itself Systematically, Destroying Itself Going In The Opposite Direction.
Latin
Successful
America
I Think That The Real Tragedy Of Greece - Aside Of The Savagery Of European Bureaucracy, Brussels Bureaucracy And Northern Banks, Which Was Really Savage - Is That The Greek Crisis Didn't Have To Erupt. It Could Have Been Taken Care Of Pretty Easily At The Very Beginning. But It Happened And Syriza Came Into Office With A Declared Commitment To Combat It, And In Fact As I Recall They Actually Called A Referendum, Which Horrified Europe.
Real
Taken
Commitment
There's A Strange Myth Of Anglo-saxonism. When The University Of Virginia Was Founded By Thomas Jefferson, For Example, Its Law School Offered The Study Of "anglo-saxon Law." And That Myth Of Anglo-saxonism Carries Right Over Into The Early Twentieth Century.
School
Virginia
Law
America Has Always Been The Richest And Most Secure, And Sometimes The Most Dangerous Country In The World. In The Early Years, The Danger Was To Everybody Near Us, Slaves, Native Americans, Mexicans. It Finally Expanded In 1898 To The Caribbean, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, And The Philippines.
Country
Native American
Years
State Propaganda, When Supported By The Educated Classes And When No Deviation Is Permitted From It, Can Have A Big Effect. It Was A Lesson Learned By Hitler And Many Others, And It Has Been Pursued To This Day.
Class
Lesson Learned
Lessons
Public Opinion Can Be Influential, The Media Can Be Influential.
Media
Public Opinion
Opinion
That's Unfortunately Common - To Blame Immigrants, To Blame The African-americans Who Are Being Helped By Federal Programs, To Blame Anyone Available, To Direct Attention Away From The Roots Of The Distress Which You're Suffering. This Combines With Xenophobia, White Supremacy, Racism, Misogyny, And Other Quite Unpleasant Phenomena Which Are Far From Being Eradicated. All Of This Makes For A Pretty Dangerous Brew. But Economic Issues Are Right In The Center Of It. And You Can See This In The Fact That So Many Former Obama Voters Now Voted For Trump, Or Just Didn't Bother Voting.
Xenophobia
Roots
White
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
Let's Take Southeast Asia. The Last 20, 30 Years Has Been What's Called The "asian Miracle" - Fast Economic Growth, Industrial Society. It's Happening All Over, With One Exception, Which One? The Philippines Is The One That Can't Grow, Which The Us Has Been Running For 100 Years. Is There A Correlation? Have You Read About It? It Comes To Mind, At Least.
Running
Years
Miracle
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
Individuals In A University - Students, Faculty, Staff - Can Choose To Become Politically Engaged, And A Free University Should Foster A Climate In Which Those Are Natural Choices.
University Students
Choices
Climate
In Fact, It's Doing It All Over The World. Obama, First Of All, Is Running The Biggest Terrorist Operation That Exists, Maybe In History. The Drone Assassination Campaigns, Which Are Just Part Of It. All Of These Operations, They Are Terror Operations.
Running
Drones
Campaigns
American Imperialism Has Suffered A Stunning Defeat In Indochina. But The Same Forces Are Engaged In Another War Against A Much Less Resilient Enemy, The American People. Here, The Prospects For Success Are Much Greater. The Battleground Is Ideological, Not Military. At Stake Are The Lessons To Be Drawn From The American War In Indochina; The Outcome Will Determine The Course And Character Of New Imperial Ventures.
Military
War
Character
Somebodys Paying The Corporations That Destroyed Iraq And The Corporations That Are Rebuilding It. Theyre Getting Paid By The American Taxpayer In Both Cases. So We Pay Them To Destroy The Country, And Then We Pay Them To Rebuild It. Those Are Gifts From U.s. Taxpayer To U.s. Corporations.
Country
Iraq
Pay
There Was No Direct Way To Prevent The Boston Murders. There Are Some Easy Ways To Prevent Likely Future Ones: By Not Inciting Them. That's Also True Of Another Case Of A Suspect Murdered, His Body Disposed Of Without Autopsy, When He Could Easily Have Been Apprehended And Brought To Trial: Osama Bin Laden.
Boston
Trials
Body
It's Easy To Put [serious Threats] Aside, And The Media Don't Talk About Them. Other Things Are More Important. How Am I Going To Put Food On The Table Tomorrow? That's What I've Got To Worry About, And So On. It's Very Serious, But It's Hard To Bring Out The Enormity Of These Issues, When They Do Not Have The Dramatic Character Of Something You Can Show In The Movies, With A Nuclear Weapons Falling And Everything Disappears.
Fall
Character
Media
If You Assume That There Is No Hope, You Guarantee That There Will Be No Hope. If You Assume That There Is An Instinct For Freedom, That There Are Opportunities To Change Things, Then There Is A Possibility That You Can Contribute To Making A Better World.
Courage
Freedom
Opportunity
Wikileaks Is A Democratizing Force. Its Giving Individuals Access To Decisions And Thinking By Their Representatives And In A Democracy That Ought To Be Reflexive.
Thinking
Giving
Decision
I Know Of Only One Country, At Least To My Knowledge, Which Has A Dissident Culture Where Leading Figures, I Mean, The Most Famous Writers, Journalists, Academics And So On, Are Not Only Critical Of State Policy, But Are Constantly Carrying Out Civil Disobedience And Risking Imprisonment And Often Being Imprisoned, Standing Up For People's Rights. That's Turkey.
Country
Mean
Rights
We Can Try To Gain Some Of The Sensibility Of Some Of The Indigenous Populations Of The World Or Our Predecessors 800 Years Ago. We Can Laugh At Them As Being Naive And Unsophisticated, But Unless We Can Gain That Sensibility That There Has To Be Rights Of Nature As Bolivians And Others Put It, Then We're Going To Be Destroyed.
Rights
Years
Laughing
People Tend To Rally Around Power.
People
Labor Has Been Severely Undermined, But That's Happened Before. In The 1920s, The Labor Movement Was Virtually Crushed, In Large Part By Wilson's Red Scare, But It Dramatically Revived In The 1930s. It Spearheaded The Social-democratic New-deal Style Changes Which Were Beneficial To The Country - Not Sufficient, But Beneficial. That Could Happen Again.
Country
Style
Scare
This Crazy Ban On The Seven States, Where We Can't Accept Immigrants, Almost Every Analyst Points Out The Obvious: It Just Increases The Threat Of Terror. It Lays The Basis For Terror. It's Just Like The Atrocities In Abu Ghraib And Bagram And Guantanamo. They're The Most Fabulous Recruiting Techniques For Al Qaeda And Isis.
Crazy
Isis
Atrocities
If You Don't Like What Someone Has To Say, Argue With Them.
Arguing
Ifs
They Are Involve In Producing Products And There Are Different Kinds Of People Running Them, But The Principle Is The Same. A Corporation Shouldn't Have The Right. Under American Law As Its Developed Over The Past Century, Corporation Do Have Personal Rights, But I Think That's A Very Negative Development.
Running
Past
Thinking
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
I Don't Like Piracy But If Anybody's Concerned About Piracy, Why Don't They Pay Attention To Our Role In It?
Roles
Attention
Pay
They [the Union] Were Members Of The Communist Party - They Didn't Care One Way Or Another About Russia, They Just Cared About The United States.
Party
Russia
United States
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
Suppose That, Say, China Established Military Bases In Colombia To Carry Out Chemical Warfare In Kentucky And North Carolina To Destroy This Lethal Crop [tobacco] That Is Killing Huge Numbers Of Chinese.
Military
Kentucky
Numbers
As For Academics, I Do Not See Why Their Responsibilities As Moral Agents Should Differ In Principle From The Responsibilities Of Others; In Particular, Others Who Also Enjoy A Degree Of Privilege And Power, And Therefore Have The Responsibilities That Are Conferred By Those Advantages.
Responsibility
Privilege
Principles
Anatomically Modern Humans Are Found Up To 200,000 Years Ago; Behaviourally Modern Humans Appear Very Recently In Evolutionary Time, As Far As Evidence Now Exists, Perhaps Within A Window Of 50-100,000 Years Ago, A Flick Of An Eye In Evolutionary Time.
Eye
Years
Window
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
Haiti, Which Has Been The Main Target Of Us Intervention Throughout The 20th Century, Is The Poorest. And Guatemala, Which Is Maybe The Third Major Target Of Us Intervention, Probably Ranks Third Poorest.
Target
Haiti
Guatemala
Arab Public Opinion Does Not Regard Iran As A Hostile Entity. In Fact It's So Supportive Of Iran That A Majority Would Think The Place Would Be Better Off If Iran Had Nuclear Weapons. The Main Enemies Are The United States And Isreal, In The 80, 90 Percent Range.
Thinking
Iran
Enemy
Isn't It Interesting That Eating A Banana Is Somehow Comical.
Interesting
Bananas
Eating
Adam Smith Is An Egalitarian, He Believed In Equality Of Outcome, Not Opportunity. He Is An Enlightenment Figure, Pre-capitalist. He Says, Suppose In England, One Landowner Got Most Of The Land And Other People Would Have Nothing To Live On. He Says It Wouldn't Matter Much, Because The Rich Land Owner, By Virtue Of His Sympathy For Other People Would Distribute Resources Among Them, So That By An Invisible Hand, We Would End Up With A Pretty Egalitarian Society. That Is His Conception Of Human Nature.
Opportunity
Invisible Hand
Hands
To Construct A Scientific Theory From The Data And To Be Able To Recognize That It Is A Reasonable Theory Is Possible Only If There Are Some Very Sharp Restrictive Principles That Lead You To Go In One Direction And Not In Another Direction. Otherwise, You Wouldn't Have Science At All, Merely Randomly Chosen Hypotheses.
One Direction
Data
Principles
We Can Imagine A Society In Which No One Could Survive As A Social Being Because It Does Not Correspond To Biologically Determined Perceptions And Human Social Needs. For Historical Reasons, Existing Societies Might Have Such Properties, Leading To Various Forms Of Pathology.
Historical
Perception
Society
There's Never Been Anything Like The So-called Vietnam Syndrome: It's Mostly A Fabrication.
Vietnam
Syndromes
Fabrication
While Language Can Surely Be Used For Communication (as Can Much Else), Communication Probably Has No Special Role In Its Design Or Evolution.
Communication
Design
Special
Right Now, Huge Numbers Of People Cannot Obtain Even Drinking Water, And The Situation Is Likely To Become Worse With Predicted Climate Change And Failure To Take The Actions That Are Necessary.
Drinking
People
Water
Bolivia Is In The Lead Internationally In Talking About The Threat Of Environmental Catastrophe. It's Generally True Where There Are Indigenous Populations, There Are Important Things Happening; Where The Indigenous Populations Have Been Marginalized Or Exterminated, Things Go To A Disaster. This Is True Worldwide, And Bolivia Is Striking Because It's A Majority Population And In The Lead.
Talking
Environmental
Important
When Reagan Left Office, He Was The Most Unpopular Living President, Apart From Nixon, Even Below Carter. If You Look At His Years In Office, He Was Not Particularly Popular. He Was More Or Less Average. He Severely Harmed The American Economy.
Average
Years
Office
Globalization Is The Result Of Powerful Governments, Especially That Of The United States, Pushing Trade Deals And Other Accords Down The Throats Of The World’s People To Make It Easier For Corporations And The Wealthy To Dominate The Economies Of Nations Around The World Without Having Obligations To The Peoples Of Those Nations.
Powerful
Government
People
Radical Islamist Extremists Surely Hope That An Attack On Iraq Will Kill Many People And Destroy Much Of The Country, Providing Recruits For Terrorist Actions.
Country
Iraq
People
Our Yearning For Democracy Is Accompanied By A No Less Profound Yearning For Peace. And The Media Also Faced The Task Of Historical Engineering To Establish This Required Truth. We Therefore Have Phenomena Called 'peace Missions' And The 'peace Process'. These Are Terms That Apply To Whatever The United States Happens To Be Doing Or Advocating At Some Moment... In Short, 'war Is Peace'.
War
Engineering
Media
The Internet Is An élite Organization; Most Of The Population Of The World Has Never Even Made A Phone Call.
Phones
Organization
Population
'reform' Is A Word You Always Aughta' Watch Out For. 'reform' Is A Change That You're Supposed To Like. And Watch It - As Soon As You Hear The Word 'reform', You Should Reach For Your Wallet And See Who's Lifting It.
Reform
Watches
Politician
China Has Been There For 3,000 Years, Has Contempt For The Barbarians, Is Overcoming A Century Of Domination, And Simply Moves On Its Own. It Does Not Get Intimidated When Uncle Sam Shakes His Fist. That's Scary.
Uncles
Moving
Years
Nothing In These Abstract Economic Models Actually Works In The Real World. It Doesn't Matter How Many Footnotes They Put In, Or How Many Ways They Tinker Around The Edges. The Whole Enterprise Is Totally Rotten At The Core: It Has No Relation To Reality.
Real
Economic Models
Rotten
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
The Communists Basically Acted As The Police Force Of The Security System Of The [spain] Republic And Were Very Much Opposed To The Anarchists, Partially Because [joseph] Stalin Still Hoped At That Time To Have Some Kind Of Pact With Western Countries Against [adolf] Hitler. That, Of Course, Failed And Stalin Withdrew The Support To The Republic. They Even Withdrew The Spanish Gold Reserves.
Country
Security Systems
Support
I'm No Expert On Pornography. The Core Element Of It, I Think, Is Degradation Of Women, Whatever Else Goes On. I Don't Think It Should Be Outlawed, But I'm Not In Favor Of The Degradation Of Anybody.
Thinking
Experts
Degradation
In Southern Culture, Possession Of A Gun Became Kind Of A Sign Of Manhood, Not Just Because Of Slaves But Other White Men. If You Had A Gun, You're Not Going To Push Me Around. You Know, I'm Not One Of Those Guys You Can Kick In The Face.
Gun
Men
White Man
When I Was A College Student And I Got Interested In Linguistics The Concern Among Students Was, This Is A Lot Of Fun, But After We Have Done A Structural Analysis Of Every Language In The World What's Left? It Was Assumed There Were Basically No Puzzles.
Fun
College
Analysis
Modern China; One Also Finds Many Things That Are Really Quite Admirable.
Modern
China
Admirable
The Most Dramatic Case Is That Of The Central Americans. Why Are People Fleeing Central America? It's Because Of The Atrocities The U.s. Committed There. Take Boston, Where There's A Fairly Large Mayan Population. These People Are Fleeing From The Highlands Of Guatemala, Where There Was Virtual Genocide In The Early 1980s Backed By Ronald Reagan. The Region Was Devastated, And People Are Still Fleeing To This Day, Yet They're Sent Back.
Boston
America
People
For Those Of Us Who Got Into Good Colleges Or The Professions, Did We Stand Up To That High School History Teacher Who Told Us Some Ridiculous Lie About American History And Say, "that's A Ridiculous Lie. You're An Idiot"? No. We Said, "all Right, I'll Keep Quiet, And I'll Write It In The Exam And I'll Think, Yes, He's An Idiot." And It's Easy To Say And Believe Things That Improve Your Self-image And Your Career And That Are In Other Ways Beneficial To Yourselves.
Teacher
Lying
Believe
Just As I'm Opposed To Political Fascism, I'm Opposed To Economic Fascism. I Think That Until Major Institutions Of Society Are Under The Popular Control Of Participants And Communities, It's Pointless To Talk About Democracy.
Thinking
Community
Political
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
The Only Justification For Repressive Institutions Is Material And Cultural Deficit. But Such Institutions, At Certain Stages Of History, Perpetuate And Produce Such A Deficit, And Even Threaten Human Survival.
History
Survival
Institutions
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
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
[ Republican Party] Is Correctly Described As A "radical Insurgency" By One Of The Leading Conservative Commentators, Norman Ornstein.
Party
Conservative
Republican
Control Is The Source Of Strategic Power.
Source
Strategic
What's The Point Of Being Better Than Someone Else?
Independence Of Mind, Enthusiasm, Dedication To The Field, And Willingness To Challenge And Question And To Explore New Direction. There Are Plenty Of People Like That, But Schools Tend To Discourage Those Characteristics.
School
Dedication
People
If You Look At Us Internal Documents, They Explain Very Clearly What The Threat Of Cuba Was. So, Back In The Early 1960s The State Department Described The Threat Of Cuba As Castro's Successful Defiance Of Us Policy, Going Back To The Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine Established The Us Claim To Dominate The Western Hemisphere And Castro Was Successfully Defying That. That's Not Tolerable. It Is Like Somebody Saying "let's Have Democracy In Greece," And We Just Can't Tolerate That So We Have To Destroy The Threat At Its Roots.
Successful
Roots
Democracy
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
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
Sports Plays A Societal Role In Engendering Jingoist And Chauvinist Attitudes. They're Designed To Organize A Community To Be Committed To Their Gladiators.
Sports
Peace
Attitude
The United States Is Unusual Among The Industrial Democracies In The Rigidity Of The System Of Ideological Control - 'indoctrination,' We Might Say - Exercised Through The Mass Media.
Media
Democracy
United States
The People Who Are Unemployed Want To Do The Work, But The System Is Such A Catastrophic Failure That It Cannot Bring Together Idle Hands And Work. This Is All Hailed As A Great Success, And It Is A Great Success - For A Very Small Sector Of The Population.
Hands
People
Together
In The Us, There Is Basically One Party - The Business Party. It Has Two Factions, Called Democrats And Republicans, Which Are Somewhat Different But Carry Out Variations On The Same Policies. By And Large, I Am Opposed To Those Policies. As Is Most Of The Population.
Party
Two
Interesting
There Are Few Genuine Conservatives Within The U.s. Political System, And It Is A Sign Of The Intellectual Corruption Of The Age That The Honorable Term 'conservatism' Can Be Appropriated To Disguise The Advocacy Of A Powerful, Lawless, Aggressive And Violent State, A Welfare State For The Rich Dedicated To A Lunatic Form Of Keynesian Economic Intervention That Enhances State And Private Power While Mortgaging The Country's Future.
Country
Powerful
Political
Anarchism, In My View, Is An Expression Of The Idea That The Burden Of Proof Is Always On Those Who Argue That Authority And Domination Are Necessary. They Have To Demonstrate, With Powerful Argument, That That Conclusion Is Correct. If They Cannot, Then The Institutions They Defend Should Be Considered Illegitimate. How One Should React To Illegitimate Authority Depends On Circumstances And Conditions: There Are No Formulas.
Powerful
Views
Expression
Either You Repeat The Same Conventional Doctrines Everybody Is Saying, Or Else You Say Something True, And It Will Sound Like It's From Neptune.
Hero
Doctrine
Neptune
Our Current Prison State Has The Dual Effect Of Getting Rid Of A Superfluous Population Of Basically Unskilled Workers (with A Close Race-class Correlation), And Also Demonizing Them... The Drug War Is Basically For This - It Has Nothing To Do With Drugs, But It Has Plenty To Do With Criminalizing An Unwanted Population And Scaring Everybody Else.
War
Race
Class
The Question In Brief, Is Whether Democracy And Freedom Are Values To Be Preserved Or Threats To Be Avoided . . . Democracy And Freedom Are More Than Values To Be Treasured; They May Well Be Essential To Survival.
Survival
Democracy
Essentials
I Have Often Thought That If A Rational Fascist Dictatorship Were To Exist, Then It Would Choose The American System.
Fascists
Fascism
Dictatorship
The Main Mineral In Your Cellphone, Coltan [a Black Metallic Ore], Comes From The Eastern Congo. Multinational Corporations Are There Exploiting The Very Rich Mineral Resources Of The Region. A Lot Of Them Are Backing Militias Which Are Fighting One Other To Gain Control Of The Resources Or A Piece Of The Resources.
Fighting
Black
Pieces
Evaluating Countries Is Senseless And I Would Never Put Things In Those Terms, But That Some Of America's Advances, Particularly In The Area Of Free Speech, That Have Been Achieved By Centuries Of Popular Struggle, Are To Be Admired.
Country
Struggle
America
A Fundamental Element Of Human Nature Is The Need For Creative Work, For Creative Inquiry, For Free Creation Without The Arbitrary Limiting Effects Of Coercive Institutions. A Decent Society Should Maximize The Possibilities For This Fundamental Human Characteristic To Be Realized.
Creative
Needs
Arbitrary
The Reaction We Should Be Having To [rich Liberals] Is Not Ridicule, But Rather Self-criticism. Why Aren't We Organizing Them? I Mean, We Are The Ones That Ought To Be Organizing Them, Not Rush Limbaugh. There Are Historical Analogs, Which Are Not Exact, Of Course, But Are Close Enough To Be Worrisome. This Is A Whiff Of Early Nazi Germany.
Mean
Self
Historical
What The [james] Monroe Doctrine Stated, In Effect, Is That The Us Should Dominate The Hemisphere.
Doctrine
Hemisphere
Should
The Community Itself Didn't Support The Union. Now That's Kind Of Interesting About [barack] Obama, Because Obama Was Supposedly A Community Organizer In Chicago At That Time. Now I'm Sure He Read The Chicago Tribune, So He Knew About It, But When He Went To Show His Solidarity With The Workforce, The First Place He Went Was Caterpillar. I Don't Think He's Forgotten, And The Labor Movement Didn't React. Even Radical Labor Historians Didn't Remember. It Was Only 15 Years Ago, After All, But That's A Real Triumph Of Propaganda In Many Ways.
Real
Thinking
Years
If We Understood, As We Do Not, The Physical Bases For Intellectual Structures, I Have Little Doubt That We Would Find Structures In The Brain For Social Interactions, Or Language, Or Analysis Of Personality - A Whole Variety Of Systems Developed On The Basis Of A Specific Biological Endowment.
Personality
Doubt
Brain
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
When Leaders Carry Out Policies For Decades That Have No Consequences For The Stated Goal And Are Very Costly, You Have To Ask Whether They Are Telling You The Truth Or Whether The Policies Are For A Different Goal, Because They Are Not Reducing Drug Use.
Drug Use
Goal
Leader
These Are Questions For Action, Not Speculation, Which Is Idle.
Action
Speculation
Idle
President Barack Obama, To His Credit, Has Given - Issued Personal Pardons In Deserving Cases. But He Should Go Far Beyond. He Should Proceed To What Is In Fact An Urgent Necessity: To Grant A General Pardon To 11 Million People Who Are Living And Working Here, Productive Citizens In All But Name, Threatened With Deportation By The Incoming Donald Trump Administration. This Would Be A Horrible Humanitarian Tragedy, A Moral Outrage.
People
Tragedy
President
Human Physical Structures And Intellectual Structures Are Generally Studied In Different Ways. The Assumption Is That Physical Structures Are Genetically Inherited And Intellectual Structures Are Learned. I Think That This Assumption Is Wrong. None Of These Structures Is Learned. They All Grow; They Grow In Comparable Ways; Their Ultimate Forms Are Heavily Dependent On Genetic Predispositions.
Thinking
Intellectual
Way
Some May Remember, If You Have Good Memories, That There Used To Be A Concept In Anglo-american Law Called A Presumption Of Innocence, Innocent Until Proven Guilty In A Court Of Law. Now That's So Deep In History That There's No Point Even Bringing It Up, But It Did Once Exist.
Memories
Law
Presumption Of Innocence
Go Back To Classical Times, Say Classical Greece. Who Drank The Hemlock? Was It Someone Who Was Conforming, Obeying The Gods? Or Was It Someone Who Was Disrupting The Youth And Questioning The Faith And Belief? Socrates, In Other Words. It Was Socrates.
Hemlock
Belief
Youth
Jingoism, Racism, Fear, Religious Fundamentalism: These Are The Ways Of Appealing To People If You're Trying To Organize A Mass Base Of Support For Policies That Are Really Intended To Crush Them.
Crush
Religious
Racism
As We [with Edward Herman] Discuss There [in Manufacturing Consent] And Elsewhere, Recognition Of The Importance Of "manufacturing Consent" Has Become An Ever More Central Theme In The More Free Societies.
Recognition
Theme
Importance
The Escalation To Attack Undefended Civilian Targets Is Just A Classic Illustration Of Terrorism.
Illustration
Target
Classic
I've Often Been Struck By The Extensive Knowledge That People Have Of Sports, And Particularly, Their Self-confidence In Discussing It With Experts. . . . In Contrast, When Discussing Matters Of Concern To Human Lives - Their Own And Others - People Tend To Defer To Experts.
Sports
Self Confidence
People
The September 11 Attacks Were Major Atrocities. . . . This Was A Horrendous Crime . . . The Primary Victims . . . Were Working People: Janitors, Secretaries, Firemen, Etc. It Is Likely To Prove To Be A Crushing Blow To Palestinians . . . It Is Also Likely To Lead To Harsh Security Controls, With Many Possible Ramifications For Undermining Civil Liberties And Internal Freedom.
Crush
Blow
People
... The Media Serve The Interests Of State And Corporate Power, Which Are Closely Interlinked, Framing Their Reporting And Analysis In A Manner Supportive Of Established Privilege And Limiting Debate And Discussion Accordingly.
Media
Supportive
Analysis
What Is Important To Us Is To Reverse The Shameful Course Being Pursued By America. It Won't Be Easy, But It Must And Can Be Done.
America
Important
Done
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
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 Remember At The Age Of Five Travelling On A Trolley Car With My Mother Past A Group Of Women On A Picket Line At A Textile Plant, Seeing Them Being Viciously Beaten By Security People. So That Kind Of Thing Stayed With Me.
Birthday
Mother
Past
If You Look At Say, England And Germany A Century Ago, Which Had The Most Advanced Navies Then, They Were Dealing With Extremely Tricky Technological Problems. Putting A Huge Gun On A Moving Platform And Ensuring That It Could Hit Another Moving Target Was One Of The Hardest Technical Problems Of The Early Twentieth Century.
Moving
Gun
Navy
Every Book That Comes Out, Every Article That Comes Out, Talks About How - While It May Have Been A "mistake" Or An "unwise Effort" - The United States Was Defending South Vietnam From North Vietnamese Aggression. And They Portray Those Who Opposed The War As Apologists For North Vietnam. That's Standard To Say. The Purpose Is Obvious: To Obscure The Fact That The United States Did Attack South Vietnam And The Major War Was Fought Against South Vietnam.
War
Mistake
Book
It's Very Hard To Look In The Mirror. We All Know This. It's Much Easier To Have Illusions About Yourself. And In Particular, When You Think, Well, I'm Going To Believe What I Like, But I'll Say What The Powerful Want, You Do That Over Time, And You Believe What You Say.
Powerful
Believe
Thinking
In A Moment Of Crisis, Of Which There Are All Too Many, Russian Military Planners May Conclude That Lacking A Deterrent, The Only Hope Of Survival Is A First Strike - Which Means The End For All Of Us.
Military
Mean
Survival
No One Seriously Doubts That If Piraha Children Are Brought Up In Boston They'll Be Speaking Boston English, That Is, That The Capacities Are Present, Unlike Other Animals, As Far As Is Known. There's No Challenge To The Theory - Not Mine, But Everyone's - That The Human Language Faculty Provides The Means For Generation Of An Infinite Array Of Structured Expressions.
Children
Mean
Animal
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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