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Western Intellectuals, And Also Third World Intellectuals, Were Attracted To The Bolshevik Counter-revolution Because Leninism Is, After All, A Doctrine Which Says That The Radical Intelligentsia Have A Right To Take State Power And To Run Their Countries By Force, And That Is An Idea Which Is Rather Appealing To Intellectuals.
-Noam Chomsky
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Western Intellectuals, And Also

Noam Chomsky
Western Intellectuals, And Also Third World Intellectuals, Were Attracted To The Bolshevik Counter-revolution Because Leninism Is, After All, A Doctrine Which Says That The Radical Intelligentsia Have A Right To Take State Power And To Run Their Countries By Force, And That Is An Idea Which Is Rather Appealing To Intellectuals.
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Topic
Running
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Ideas
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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
No Use In Waiting, We Can All Work Hard To Bring About Changes.
Hard Work
Waiting
Use
There Certainly Are Those Who Worship The State Much As Divinities Are Worshipped. Not Just The State But Even Leaders.
Leader
Divinity
Worship
Why Not Stakeholder Action? There's No Economic Principal That Says That Management Should Be Responsive To Shareholders, In Fact You Can Read In Texts Of Business Economics That They Could Just As Well Have A System In Which The Management Is Responsible To Stakeholders.
Why Not
Facts
Action
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
Work Can Be Undertaken To Create An Authentic Independent Political Party, A Real Party, Based On Popular Participation From The Ground Up, Not A Top-down Candidate Producing Organization Like The Two Official Parties, Working From School Boards To State Legislatures And Beyond. Not Easy In The Regressive U.s. Political System, But Not Impossible.
Real
Party
School
A Lot Of The People Involved In The Media Are Very Serious, Honest People, And They Will Tell You, And I Think They Are Right, That They Are Not Being Forced To Write Anything... What They Don't Tell You, And Are Maybe Unaware Of, Is That They Are Allowed To Write Freely Because Their Beliefs Conform To The... Standard Doctrinal System, And Then, Yes, They Are Allowed To Write Freely And Are Not Coerced.
Writing
Thinking
Media
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
[mikhail] Gorbachev Complained. He Was Told Look, There's Nothing On Paper. People Didn't Actually Say It But The Implication Was Look, If You Are Dumb Enough To Take Faith In A Gentleman's Agreement With Us, That's Your Problem. Nato Expanded To East Germany.
East Germany
Agreement
People
As The Capacity To Coerce Declines, It Is Natural To Turn To Control Of Opinion As The Basis For Authority And Domination - A Fundamental Principle Of Government Already Emphasized By David Hume.
Government
Principles
Fundamentals
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
Language Would Have Evolved First As An Internal Object, A Kind Of "language Of Thought" (lot), With Externalisation (hence Communication) An Ancillary Process. I Can't Review Here The Strong And Growing Evidence To Support This Conclusion, But I Have Elsewhere. There Are Ample Reasons Why Having A Lot Would Confer Selectional Advantage: The Person So Endowed Could Plan, Interpret, Reflect, Etc., In Ways Denied To Others.
Strong
Communication
Support
Syntax Is The Study Of The Principles And Processes By Which Sentences Are Constructed In Particular Languages. Syntactic Investigation Of A Given Language Has As Its Goal The Construction Of A Grammar That Can Be Viewed As A Device Of Some Sort For Producing The Sentences Of The Language Under Analysis.
Goal
Principles
Analysis
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
Plainly, Children Learn Their Language. I Don't Speak Swahili. And It Cannot Be That My Language Is 'an Innate Property Of Our Brain.' Otherwise I Would Have Been Genetically Programmed To Speak (some Variety Of) English.
Children
Brain
Language
Any Incident Could Instantly Blow Up. Both Sides [usa And Russia] Are Modernizing And Increasing Their Military Systems, Including Nuclear Systems.
Military
Blow
Russia
Independent Development Can Be A Virus That Can Infect Others.
Independent
Viruses
Development
There Is Kind Of A Fundamental Conformity, Which Is A Virtual Requirement To Enter Into The Media.
Media
Fundamentals
Requirements
In The American Jewish Community, There Is Little Willingness To Face The Fact That The Palestinian Arabs Have Suffered A Monstrous Historical Injustice . . . Until This Is Recognized, Discussion Of The Middle East Crisis Cannot Even Begin.
Community
Historical
Middle East
[francisco] Franco's Army Was Mainly Moorish. They Were Recruiting People From Morocco To Come To Spain. There Was An Uprising In Morocco At The Time Led By Abd El-krim (whose Tactics Influenced Ho Chi Minh And Che Guevara) That Sought Independence For Morocco And Northern Africa.
Army
Uprising
People
In Western Europe, Turkey Is Regarded As Uncivilized, So They Can't Come In Into The European Union Until They're Civilized. I Think It's The Other Way Around. If You Could Achieve The Level Of Civilization Of, Say, Turkish Intelectuals, It Would Be Quite An Achievement.
Thinking
Europe
Turkeys
With Regard To Nuclear Weapons, It's Kind Of Hard To Say. [donald Trump] Is Said Lots Of Things. The National Security Experts Are Terrified. But They're More Terrified By His Personality Than By His Statements.
Personality
Experts
Nuclear
If You Believe In Democracy, Why Shouldn't You Know What The Government Is Doing?
Believe
Government
Democracy
The United States Is Off The International Spectrum In Religious Extremism.
Religious
United States
Spectrum
There's Never Been Anything Like The So-called Vietnam Syndrome: It's Mostly A Fabrication.
Vietnam
Syndromes
Fabrication
If You Take An Economics Or A Political Science Course, You're Taught That Humans Are Supposed To Be Rational Wealth Accumulators, Each Acting As An Individual To Maximize His Own Wealth In The Market.
Political
Acting
Taught
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
Government May Not Redistribute Private Wealth Or Grant Special Privileges To Any Individual Or Group.
Government
Special
Groups
Freedom Without Opportunity Is A Devil's Gift.
Opportunity
Liberty
Devil
It's As If We're Higher Apes Who Had A Language Faculty Inserted.
Apes
Language
Faculty
While I Think In Principle People Should Not Have Irrational Beliefs, I Should Say That As A Matter Of Fact, It Is People Who Hold What I Regard As Completely Irrational Beliefs Who Are Among The Most Effective Moral Actors In The World, In Many Respects. They're Among The Worst, But Also Among The Best, Even Though The Moral Beliefs Are Ostensibly The Same.
Thinking
People
Principles
Bradley Manning Should Be Regarded As A Hero. He Is Doing What An Honest, Decent Citizen Should Be Doing: Letting Your Population Know What The Government, The People Who Rule You Are Doing. They Want To Keep It Secret Of Course.
Hero
Government
People
As A Zionist Youth Leader In The 1940s, I Was Among Those Who Called For A Binational State In Mandatory Palestine. When A Jewish State Was Declared, I Felt That It Should Have The Rights Of Other States - No More, No Less.
Rights
Should Have
Leader
The Washington Leadership Has Put Aside Non-proliferation Programmes And Devoted Its Energies And Resources To Driving The Country To War By Extraordinary Deceit, Then Trying To Manage The Catastrophe It Created In Iraq.
Country
War
Iraq
Nobody Is Going To Pour Truth Into Your Brain. It's Something You Have To Find Out For Yourself.
Truth
Brain
It’s A Shameful Moment For U.s. Media When It Insists On Being Subservient To The Grotesque Propaganda Agencies Of A Violent, Aggressive State.
Agency
Media
Moments
A Corporation Is A State Created Institution, State Supported Institution, Its Concentration Of Private Power, There Is No Reason Why It Should Have The Rights Of Persons.
Rights
Should Have
Corporations
Washington Still Refuses To Provide Evidence To Support The Claims In 1990 That A Huge Iraqi Military Build-up On The Saudi Border Justified War.
Military
War
Support
Everybody's Worried About Stopping Terrorism. Well, There's A Really Easy Way: Stop Participating In It.
War
Stopping
Way
A Lot Of The People Involved In The Media Are Very Serious, Honest People, And They Will Tell You, And I Think They Are Right, That They Are Not Being Forced To Write Anything.
Writing
Thinking
Media
Britain Kept Its Position As The Dominant World Power Well Into The 20th Century Despite Steady Decline. By The End Of World War Ii, Dominance Had Shifted Decisively Into The Hands Of The Upstart Across The Sea, The United States, By Far The Most Powerful And Wealthy Society In World History.
Powerful
War
Hands
There Are Real Possibilities Of Reaching Many Of The Trump Voters: Many Of Them In Fact Voted For Obama, Believing His Rhetoric About "change," And Upon Realizing That They Were Deluded, Have Turned To Trump. And Will Find That They Are Again Deluded. That's An Opportunity That Can Be Grasped, By Organizing, Education, Activism Right Now.
Real
Believe
Opportunity
There Are A Lot Of Things That Can Be Done Within The Framework Of Existing Institutions Which Would Be Very Valuable For People.
People
Would Be
Done
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
The Us Is A Business-run Huckster Society, And Its Primary Value Is Deceit.
Running
Deceit
Primaries
If North Korea Doesn't Have A Deterrent, They Will Be Wiped Out.
Korea
North Korea
Deterrent
States Are Not Moral Agents, People Are, And Can Impose Moral Standards On Powerful Institutions.
Powerful
Hero
People
...dissent, Protest, Presures Of A Wide Variety That Escape Elite Control Can Modify The Calculus Of Costs Of Planners, And Offer A Slight Hope That Washington Can Be Compelled To Permit At Least Some Steps Towards "justice, Freedom And Democracy" Within Its Domains.
Justice
Democracy
Cost
If Some Small Storekeeper Somewhere Decides He's Not Going To Pay The Money, The Godfather Doesn't Let Him Get Away With It. The Money Doesn't Mean Anything To Him, But He Sends In His Goons To Beat Him To A Pulp. You Have To Establish Credibility, Otherwise Conformity To Your Orders Will Tend To Erode. International Affairs Runs In Much The Same Way.
Running
Mean
Order
There Was Great Anxiety About Russian Intervention In The Recent German Elections, Perhaps Contributing To The Frightening Surge Of Support For The Right-wing Nationalist, If Not Neo-fascist, "alternative For Germany".
Support
Anxiety
Election
Resource Extraction Impacts A Global Environment That Is Increasingly At Severe Risk.
Impact
Risk
Environment
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
The Good News From The U.s. Military Survey Of Focus Groups Is That Iraqis Do Accept The Nuremberg Principles. They Understand That Sectarian Violence And The Other Postwar Horrors Are Contained Within The Supreme International Crime Committed By The Invaders.
Military
Focus
News
My Position Is That We Should Not Succumb To Irrational Belief.
Belief
Should
Irrational
People Don't Talk To Each Other. You're Alone With Your Television Set Or Internet. But You Can't Have A Functioning Democracy Without What Sociologists Call "secondary Organizations," Places Where People Can Get Together, Plan, Talk And Develop Ideas. You Don't Do It Alone.
Organization
Ideas
People
Democracy Was Regarded As Entering Into A Crisis In The 1960s. The Crisis Was That Large Segments Of The Population Were Becoming Organized And Active And Trying To Participate In The Political Arena.
Media
Political
Democracy
Its Minority Rule And Majority Limited Rights. In Fact It's Set Up That Way. If You Read The Framers Of The Constitution, Including James Madison, He Was Pretty Clear About It.
Rights
Majority
Minorities
It's Quite Extraordinary To Hear A Supposedly Learned Person Call The United States A Leading Terrorist Nation, One Of The Leading Terrorist Nations In The World. It's False And Very Treacherous Teaching.
Teaching
Learned Person
United States
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
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
The Murder Of Lumumba, In Which The U.s. Was Involved, In The Congo Destroyed Africa's Major Hope For Development. Congo Is Now Total Horror Story, For Years.
Years
Horror Stories
Development
The Us And Canada Are Now Increasingly Isolated In The Hemisphere, And Sooner Or Later, I Think We're Going To Find That The Us And Canada Are Simply Excluded From Hemispheric Affairs. That's A Sharp Reversal Of What Was The Case Not Long Ago.
Thinking
Long Ago
Hemisphere
In The United States, The Day When You Pay Your Taxes Is A Day Of Mourning Because This Alien Force - The Government - Is Coming To Rob You Of Your Hard-earned Money. That's The General Attitude, And It's A Tremendous Victory For The Opponents Of Democracy, And, Of Course, Any Privileged Sector Is Going To Hate Democracy. You Can See It In The Healthcare Debate.
Attitude
Hate
Government
For A Privileged Minority, Western Democracy Provides The Leisure, The Facilities, And The Training To Seek The Truth Lying Hidden Behind The Veil Of Distortion And Misrepresentation, Ideology And Class Interest, Through Which The Events Of Current History Are Presented To Us.
Lying
Class
Training
My Suspicion Is That Those Who Seem Oblivious To Suffering, Whether It Is Nearby Or In Remote Corners, Are For The Most Part Unaware, Perhaps Blinded By Doctrine And Ideology. For Them, The Answer Is To Develop A Critical Attitude Toward Articles Of Faith, Secular Or Religious; To Encourage Their Capacity To Question, To Explore, To View The World From The Standpoint Of Others. And Direct Exposure Is Never Very Far Away, Wherever We Live - Perhaps The Homeless Person Huddling In The Cold Or Asking For A Few Pennies For Food, Or All Too Many More.
Religious
Attitude
Suffering
Balochistan, And To Some Extent Sindh Too, Has A General Feeling That They Are Not Part Of The Decision-making Process In Pakistan And Are Ruled By A Punjabi Dictatorship. There Is A Lot Of Exploitation Of The Rich Resources [in Balochistan] Which The Locals Are Not Gaining From. As Long As This Goes On, It Is Going To Keep Providing Grounds For Serious Uprisings And Insurgencies.
Uprising
Long
Decision
It Is Only Natural To Expect That Guilds Will Tend To "protect Their Turf" And To Resist Challenge.
Challenges
Natural
Protect
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
Karl Marx Was In Favor Of Socialist And Communist-socialist Revolutions, But He Had A Pretty Nuanced View About It.
Views
Favors
Revolution
Every Night I Get Many Letters, And After Every Talk I Get Many Questions From People Who Say, "i Want To Change Things. What Can I Do?" I Never Hear These Questions From Peasants In Southern Colombia Or Kurds In Southeastern Turkey Under Miserable Repression Or Anybody Who Is Suffering. They Don't Ask What They Can Do; They Tell You What They're Doing.
Night
Turkeys
People
The Republicans Have Picked That As The One Thing That They Want To Hang On To To Try To Gain Some Political Stand, So They Have To Destroy What They Call Obamacare. This Is Now Not All The Republicans, It's A Wing Of The Republican Party, Which Is Called Conservative But In Fact Is Just Deeply Reactionary.
Party
Wings
Obamacare
Plainly Elites In America Don't Want Democracy. And Why Should They? Democracy Is Always Harmful To Elite Interests. Almost By Definition.
America
Democracy
Definitions
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
Under Capitalism, We Can't Have Democracy By Definition. Capitalism Is A System In Which The Central Institutions Of Society Are In Principle Under Autocratic Control.
Democracy
Principles
Definitions
State Formation Has Been A Brutal Project, With Many Hideous Consequences. But The Results Exist, And Their Pernicious Aspects Should Be Overcome.
Overcoming
States
Projects
The Goal Is To Keep The Bewildered Herd Bewildered. It's Unnecessary For Them To Trouble Themselves With What's Happening In The World. In Fact, It's Undesirable - If They See Too Much Of Reality They May Set Themselves To Change It.
Reality
Goal
World
If You Want To Make Changes In The World, You're Going To Have To Be There Day After Day Doing The Boring, Straightforward Work Of Getting A Couple Of People Interested And Building A Slightly Bigger Organization And Carrying Out The Next Move And Suffering Frustration And Finally Getting Somewhere. That's How The World Changes.
Couple
Moving
Frustration
Three Quarters Of The American Population Literally Believe In Religious Miracles. The Numbers Who Believe In The Devil, In Resurrection, In God Doing This And That - It's Astonishing. These Numbers Aren't Duplicated Anywhere Else In The Industrial World. You'd Have To Maybe Go To Mosques In Iran Or Do A Poll Among Old Ladies In Sicily To Get Numbers Like This. Yet This Is The American Population.
Religious
Believe
Iran
The Indoctrination Is So Deep That Educated People Think They’re Being Objective.
Thinking
People
Indoctrination
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
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
I Think The Use Of Language Is A Very Important Means By Which This Species, Because Of Its Biological Nature, Creates A Kind Of Social Space, To Place Itself In Interactions With Other People. It Doesn't Have Much To Do With Communication In A Narrow Sense; That Is, It Doesn't Involve Transmission Of Information. There Is Much Information Transmitted But It Is Not The Content Of What Is Said That Is Transmitted.
Communication
Mean
Thinking
A Lot Of Countries Break (or Go Against) The International Law.
Country
Law
Break
The Left, In A General Sense, Is Very Much Atomized. We Live In Highly Atomized Societies. People Are Pretty Much Alone; It's You And Your Ipad.
Ipads
People
Left
Blacks Have No Rights - In Fact They Were Three - Fifths Human According To The Constitution To Give Slave Owners More Voting Rights. So That's African Americans.
Rights
Slave Owners
Giving
Why Should Workers Agree To Be Slaves In A Basically Authoritarian Structure? They Should Have Control Over It Themselves. Why Shouldn't Communities Have A Dominant Voice In Running The Institutions That Affect Their Lives?
Running
Voice
Should Have
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
We [ With Edward Herman] Believe That The Empirical Evidence We Review There - And Elsewhere, In A Great Deal Of Joint And Separate Work - Lends Substantial Support To The Conclusions; Whether That Is True Is For Others To Judge.
Believe
Judging
Support
After The First International Days Of Protest In October, 1965, Senator Mansfield Criticized The 'sense Of Utter Irresponsibility' Shown By The Demonstrators.
Firsts
October
Protest
The Bible Is One Of The Most Genocidal Books In History.
Bible
Atheist
Book
In The West, You Don't Get In Any Trouble If You Tell The Truth, But You Still Can't Do It. Not Only Can't You Tell The Truth, You Can't Think The Truth. It's Just So Deeply Embedded, Deeply Instilled, That Without Any Meaningful Coercion It Comes Out The Same Way It Does In A Totalitarian State.
Meaningful
Thinking
Doe
As Soon As Questions Of Will Or Decision Or Reason Or Choice Of Action Arise, Human Science Is At A Loss.
Loss
Choices
Decision
What Right Does The Us Have To Do Anything In Colombia? Does Colombia Have The Right To Bomb North Carolina? There Are More Colombians Dying From Tobacco Than Americans Dying From Heroin.
Dying
North Carolina
Doe
George Washington Hated The Guerrillas. He Wanted To Imitate The British Red Coat Armies, Fighting As Gentlemen Are Supposed To Fight.
Fighting
Army
Gentleman
States Are Not Moral Agents.
Agents
Moral
States
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
As A Research Tool, The Internet Is Invaluable.
Tools
Research
Internet
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
Why Did The People Think [vietnam War] Was Fundamentally Wrong And Immoral? The Guys Who Ran The Polls, John E. Rielly, A Professor At The University Of Chicago, A Liberal Professor, He Said What That Means Is That People Thought Too Many Americans Had Being Killed. Another Possibility Is They Didn't Like The Fact That We Were Carrying Out The Worst Crime Since The Second World War. But That's So Inconceivable That Wasn't Even Offered As A Possible Reason.
War
Mean
Thinking
There Clearly Is A Serious Race Problem In The Country. Just Take A Look At What's Happening To African American Communities. For Example Wealth, Wealth In African American Communities Is Almost Zero. The History Is Striking.
Country
Zero
Race
Of Course, We [ With Edward Herman] Have A Purpose: Namely, To Encourage Readers To Undertake What Might Be Called "a Course In Intellectual Self-defense," And To Suggest Ways To Proceed; In Other Words, To Help People Undermine The Dedicated Efforts To "manufacture Consent" And To Turn Them Into Passive Objects Rather Than Agents Who Control Their Own Fate.
Fate
Self
People
There Are Two Parties, So-called, But They're Really Factions Of The Same Party, The Business Party.
Party
Two
Degrees
Melting Of The Huge Antarctic Glaciers, Proceeding More Rapidly Than Anticipated, Threatens A Rise In Sea Level That Will Drive Tens Of Millions From The Low-lying Plains Of Bangladesh Alone, With Disastrous Consequences Elsewhere.
Lying
Sea
Melting
Descriptive Grammar Is An Attempt To Give An Account Of What The Current System Is For Either A Society Or An Individual, Whatever You Happen To Be Studying.
Giving
Study
Individual
A Very Large Majority Of The U.s. Population Is In Favor Of Establishing Diplomatic Relations With Cuba And Has Been For A Long Time With Some Fluctuations. And Even Part Of The Business World Is In Favor Of It, Too. But The Government Won't Allow It.
Government
Long
World
One Might Ask Why Tobacco Is Legal And Marijuana Not. A Possible Answer Is Suggested By The Nature Of The Crop.
Marijuana
Answers
Might
Governments Don't Control People Like They Used To.
Government
People
Used
The Fact That All Normal Children Acquire Essentially Comparable Grammars Of Great Complexity With Remarkable Rapidity Suggests That Human Beings Are Somehow Specially Designed To Do This, With Data-handling Or 'hypothesis-formulating' Ability Of Unknown Character And Complexity.
Children
Character
Data
Human Language Appears To Be A Unique Phenomenon, Without Significant Analogue In The Animal World.
Animal
Unique
World
All Media Depend On Advertisement To Survive.
Media
Advertisements
Depends
It Hardly Takes More Than A Day In Gaza To Begin To Appreciate What It Must Be Like To Try To Survive In The World’s Largest Open-air Prison.
Air
Appreciate
Trying
Groupings Of People That Get Together, Think Things Through, Come Out To Plan And So On, Like Unions Or True Political Organizations, They've Disintegrated. And People Tend To Be Atomized - You Get Down To A Society Based On Social Units Based On An Atom - An Atomic Element - Which Is A Person And Their Computer. Not A Society That Is Going To Be Able To Function Freely And Democratically. The Tendency Is There; It Doesn't Have To Be, But Its Something To Worry About.
Thinking
Organization
People
I Hope That A Move Toward Clemency With Judge Afiuni Would Be A Step Towards The Importance Of Maintaining A Properly Functioning Justice System.
Moving
Justice
Judging
Right At The Beginning Of All Of This [ukraine To Join Nato], Serious Senior Statesmen, People Like [george] Kennan For Example And Others Warned That The Expansion Of Nato To The East Is Going To Cause A Disaster. I Mean, It's Like Having The Warsaw Pact On The Mexican Border. It's Inconceivable. And Others, Senior People Warned About This, But Policymakers Didn't Care. Just Go Ahead.
Senior
Mean
Ukraine
For 500 Years, Since European Explorers Came, Latin American Countries Had Been Separated From One Another. They Had Very Limited Relations. Integration Is A Prerequisite For Independence.
Country
Latin
Years
The 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
In The Primary Debates For The 2016 Election, Every Single Republican Candidate Was A Climate Change Denier, With One Exception, John Kasich - The "rational Moderate" - Who Said It May Be Happening But We Shouldn't Do Anything About It. For A Long Time, The Media Have Downplayed The Issue.
Media
Issues
Long
It's Necessary To Address The Concerns And Beliefs Of Those Who Are Taken In By The Fraud, Or Who Don't Recognize The Nature And Significance Of The Issues For Other Reasons. If By Philosophy We Mean Reasoned And Thoughtful Analysis, Then It Can Address The Moment, Though Not By Confronting The "alternative Facts" But By Analyzing And Clarifying What Is At Stake, Whatever The Issue Is. Beyond That, What Is Needed Is Action: Urgent And Dedicated, In The Many Ways That Are Open To Us.
Philosophy
Taken
Mean
Capitalism Would Self-destruct In No Time. So The Business Classes Have Always Demanded Strong, Straight Intervention To Protect The Society From The Destructive Effects Of Market Forces Because They Don't Want Everything Destroyed.
Strong
Self
Class
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
There Could Be An Independent Labor-based Party, Which Might Over Time Become An Important Force The Way The Labor Party Did In England. To All Of These Things There Are Plenty Of Barriers, In The Culture And In The Social And Political Institutions, The Concentration Of Economic Power. But These Are Not Insuperable Barriers, I Think. They Can Be Overcome. And It Is Urgent That This Be Done, Because There Are Really Incredible Problems That Are Simply Not Being Addressed.
Party
Independent
Thinking
Workers And Their Families May Starve To Death In The New World Order Of Economic Rationality, But Diamond Necklaces Are Cheaper In Elegant New York Shops, Thanks To The Miracle Of The Market.
New York
Order
Miracle
The Truth Of The Matter Is That About 99 Percent Of Teaching Is Making The Students Feel Interestedin The Material. Then The Other 1 Percent Has To Do With Your Methods. And That's Not Just True Of Languages. It's True Of Every Subject.
Education
Teaching
Reading
That's A Large Part Of The Source Of The Gun Culture. You Have To Have A Gun When You Go Into Starbucks, Because Who Knows What's Going To Happen. It Just Doesn't Happen In Other Countries.
Country
Gun
Culture
Governments Will Use Whatever Technology Is Available To Combat Their Primary Enemy - Their Own Population.
Technology
Government
Enemy
Mexico Is A Pretty Poor Country, But They Are Maintaining A Free, High Quality Public Education System, Not For Everyone Of Course But Pretty Substantial.
Country
Quality
Mexico
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
If You Look At The Minutes Of The Constitutional Convention - Which We Have - Madison Who Was The Main Framer, Proceeded To Develop A System In Which - As He Put It - Power Would Be In The Hands Of The Wealth Of The Nation, The More Responsible Set Of Men And Who Recognize The Need To Protect The Rights Of Property Owners. That's Why In The Constitutional System, The Most Powerful Part Of The Whole System Is The Senate.
Powerful
Men
Rights
I Don't Think There Is Any Scientific Evidence About The Question Of Whether We Think Only In Language Or Not. But Introspection Indicates Pretty Clearly That We Don't Think In Language Necessarily. We Also Think In Visual Images, We Think In Terms Of Situations And Events, And So On, And Many Times We Can't Even Express In Words What The Content Of Our Thinking Is. And Even If We Are Able To Express It In Words, It Is A Common Experience To Say Something And Then To Recognize That It Is Not What We Meant, That It Is Something Else.
Thinking
Common Experience
Able
If The Nuremberg Laws Were Applied, Then Every Post-war American President Would Have Been Hanged.
War
Law
President
Obama's Latest Line Is That He Didn't Establish A "red Line" But The World Did Through Its Conventions On Chemical Warfare.
World
Sooner Or Later, Jihadist-style Terror And Wmd Are Going To Come Together And The Consequences Could Be Horrendous.
Wmd
Style
Together
In The Sciences Particularly The Large Public Universities Must And Do Take An Active Role In Fostering Creativity And Independence; Otherwise The Fields Will Wither, And Along With Them Even The Aspirations Of Wealth And Power.
Creativity
Independence
Fields
In General I Don't Think The Image Of The State As A Divinity Is Very Helpful.
Thinking
Divinity
Helpful
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
I'll Have 15 Letters Today From Mostly Young Kids Who Don't Like What's Going On And Want To Do Something About It, And [they Ask Me] If I Can Give Them Some Advice As To What They Should Do, Or Can I Tell Them What To Read Or Something.
Kids
Giving
Advice
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
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
Well, In Fact If You Look At The Trump Voters, You Take A Look At Their Attitudes It's Not All That Different. In Some Respects They're Similar. They're An Older Version Of The Sanders People. So A Lot Of It Is Racist And You Have That Sort Of Thing, But If You Look At Their Views On Say Health, Education, And So On, It's Kind Of The Same As Sanders.
Attitude
Views
Health Education
There Is A Principle Of Human Affairs That Goes Back Millennia, Which Is That You Don't Look In The Mirror. You Can Trace This Principle Back To The Bible. The Designated Intellectuals Of That Time Are Called Prophets, Which Is A Mistranslation Of A Hebrew Word, But They Were Basically Intellectuals, Giving Geopolitical Analysis, Criticizing The Moral Practice Of Leadership, Etc. Now, These People Were Not Treated Very Nicely. There Were Other Intellectuals Who Were Treated Nicely, Namely Those Who Centuries Later Came To Be Called False Prophets. These Were The Flatterers Of The Court.
Mirrors
Practice
People
Some Kind Of Settlement In Kashmir Is Crucial For Both Countries [pakistan And India]. It's Also Tearing India Apart With Horrible Atrocities In The Region Which Is Controlled By Indian Armed Forces.
Country
India
Atrocities
It's Only Terrorism If They Do It To Us. When We Do Much Worse To Them, It's Not Terrorism.
Terrorism
Ifs
George Kennan Is Another Extreme Case. He Was The American Consul In Berlin Until The War Between Germany And The United States Broke Out In December 1941. And Until Then He Was Writing Pretty Supportive Statements Back Stressing That We Shouldn't Be So Hard On The Nazis If They Were Doing Something We Didn't Agree With - Basically Repeating The Idea That They Were People We Could Do Business With.
War
Stress
Writing
If Commissars In Soviet Russia Agreed To Subordinate Themselves To State Power, They Could At Least Plead Fear In Extenuation. Their Counterparts In More Free And Open Societies Can Plead Only Cowardice.
Russia
Cowardice
States
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
How Many Educated Americans Can Even Remember The Names Of The Assassinated Jesuit Intellectuals Of El Salvador, Or Would Know Where To Find A Word They Wrote? The Answers Are Revealing, Particularly When We Draw The Striking - And Historically Typical - Contrast To The Attitudes Towards Their Counterparts In Enemy Domains.
Attitude
Names
Enemy
States Are Violent Institutions. The Government Of Any Country, Including Ours, Represents Some Sort Of Domestic Power Structure, And It's Usually Violent. States Are Violent To The Extent That They're Powerful, That's Roughly Accurate.
Country
Powerful
Government
Workers In Different Countries Can Easily Be Played Off Against Each Other.
Country
Different
Workers
Responsibility, I Believe, Accrues Through Privilege.
Believe
Responsibility
Privilege
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
If It's Wrong When They Do It, It's Wrong When We Do It.
International Relations
Ifs
As Long As Individuals Are Compelled To Rent Themselves On The Market To Those Who Are Willing To Hire Them, As Long As Their Role In Production Is Simply That Of Ancillary Tools, Then There Are Striking Elements Of Coercion And Oppression That Make Talk Of Democracy Very Limited, If Even Meaningful.
Meaningful
Long
Democracy
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
The Current Period Of Regression Is Registering Some Success In "producing People" Who Are Subordinated To External Power, Diverted To Such "superficial Things" As "fashionable Consumption" And Other Pursuits More Fitting For The "bewildered Herd" Than Participation In Determining The Course Of Individual And Social Life.
Superficial Things
People
Regression
If [climate Change ] Became A Serious Proposal In The United States, There Would Be A Huge Propaganda Onslaught By The Business Community, The Energy Corporations And Many Others, To Try To Frighten The Population Into Opposing It - Claiming That If They Have It, All Sorts Of Terrible Things Will Happen, Like You Won't Be Able To Heat Your Home, Or Whatever The Story Is.
Home
Community
Trying
Just Take Ease Of Interchange Between People. Your Email Is Of Course Faster Than Letter - On The Other Hand The Transition From Sailing Ship To Telegraphs Was Far Greater Than The Shift From The Postal Service To Email. That Was A Fabulous Change. If You Sent A Letter To England, Instead Of Waiting A Couple Of Months For A Response You Got It Instantly. That's A Huge Change. Every One Of These Changes Of Course Increases Opportunities And Also Increases Means Of Control And Domination.
Couple
Mean
Opportunity
So If You Look At The Writings Of Intellectuals, There Are Two Kinds. One Said, L"look, If We Fought Harder We Could Have Won.but The Others, Who Were Way At The Left, People Like Anthony Lewis Of The New York Times, Way Out In Left Stream, His View In 1975 Was The Vietnam War Began With Blundering Efforts To Do Good. But By 1969, It Was Clear That It Was A Disaster, That Was Too Costly To Us.
New York
War
Writing
One Measure For Promoting Both Stability And Fairness Across Financial Market Segments Is A Small Sales Tax On All Financial Transactions.
Fairness
Financial
Stability
The Threat And Use Of Violence Is Stimulating Nuclear Proliferation Along With Jihadi Terrorism.
Use
Nuclear Proliferation
Violence
[camillo] Berneri Proposed That The Anarchists Should Link Up With The Effort Of Northern Africa To Overthrow The Spanish Government, Carry Out Land Reform, Attract The Base Of The Moorish Army, And See If They Could Undermine [francisco] Franco's Army Through Political Warfare In Northern Africa Combined With Guerrilla Warfare In Spain. Historians Laughed At That, But I Don't Think They Should Have. This Was The Kind Of War That Might Have Succeeded In Stopping Spanish Fascism.
War
Army
Thinking
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
We Could Not Bring Democracy To South Vietnam At A Cost That We Were Willing To Accept. So It Was A Disaster. That' Is The Left Extreme.
Democracy
Cost
Vietnam
I Am Not Offering This Is A Critique Of The Internet, Its Just That There Are A Lot Of Factors Involved. It Does Offer Plenty Of Possibilities. It Also Has, It Can Have, A Cheapening Effect And I Think Both Exist And I Think Its True Of Everything. You Could Say That About The Printing Press.
Thinking
Offering
Doe
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
By Accident Of Geography, The World's Major Oil Resources Are In Shi'ite-dominated Areas. Iran's Oil Is Concentrated Right Near The Gulf, Which Happens To Be An Arab Area, Not Persian. Khuzestan Is Arab, Has Been Loyal To Iran, Fought With Iran Not Iraq During The Iran-iraq War. This Is A Potential Source Of Dissension. I Would Be Amazed If There Isn't An Attempt Going On To Stir Up Secessionist Elements In Khuzestan.
War
Iran
Oil
Extensive Violations Of Human Rights (torture, Forced Reduction Of Living Standards For Much Of The Population, Police-sponsored Death Squads, Destruction Of Representative Institutions Or Of Independent Unions, Etc.) Are Directly Correlated With Us Government Support. The Linkage Is Not Accidental; Rather It Is Systematic. The Reason Is Obvious Enough. Client Fascism Often Improves The Business Climate For American Corporations, Quite Generally The Guiding Factor In Foreign Policy.
Independent
Violation Of Human Rights
Government
For A While, After The Second World War, When There Was Strong Support For Labor, This Was Done Subtly.
Strong
War
Support
Some Innate Capacity - Some Part Of The Human Genetic Endowment - Enters Into Language Acquisition. That Much Is Uncontroversial Among Those Who Believe That Humans Are Part Of The Natural World. If It Were Not True, Would Be A Miracle That My Granddaughter Reflexively Identified Some Elements Of The Blooming Buzzing Confusion As Language-related And Went On To Acquire Capacities Of The Kind That You And I Are Now Exercising, While Her Pet Kitten (chimp, Songbird, Bee...), Presented With Exactly The Same Data, Could Not Take The First Step, Let Alone The Later Ones.
Believe
Exercise
Data
Immediately After 11 September, The U.s. Closed Down The Somali Charitable Network Al-barakaat On Grounds That It Was Financing Terror. This Achievement Was Hailed One Of The Great Successes Of The 'war On Terror.' In Contrast, Washington's Withdrawal Of Its Charges As Without Merit A Year Later Aroused Little Notice.
War
Years
Achievement
When I Arrived In Laos And Found Young Americans Living There, Out Of Free Choice, I Was Surprised. After Only A Week, I Began To Have A Sense Of The Appeal Of The Country And Its People - Along With Despair About Its Future.
Country
People
Choices
There Are In Fact Many Ways To Combat The Trump Project Of Creating A Tiny America, Isolated From The World, Cowering In Fear Behind Walls While Pursuing The Paul Ryan-style Domestic Policies That Represent The Most Savage Wing Of The Republican Establishment.
Wall
World
Republican
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
There's An Interesting Book Called The Fugu Plan, Written By Marvin Tokayer And Mary Swartz, Which Describes The Circumstances When European Jews Came To Japan, A Semi-feudal Society.
Book
Japan
Interesting
Africa's A Wreck And It's Not Because It Was Hit By An Asteroid. It's A Wreck Largely Because It Was Hit By Europe.
Europe
Wrecks
Asteroids
The Developing World Voice Can Be Amplified Enormously By Support From The Wealthy And The Privileged, Otherwise It's Very Likely To Be Marginalized.
Voice
Support
World
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
The U.s. Has The Most Dysfunctional Healthcare System In The Industrial World, Has About Twice The Per Capita Costs, And Some Of The Worst Outcomes. It's Also The Only Privatized System.
Cost
World
Outcomes
The Threat Is That The Public Will Know What The Government Is Up To. Any System Of Power Is Going To Want To Keep Free From Public Surveillance, That's Natural. Its Shouldn't Be But, Its Very Natural.
Government
Want
Surveillance
You Know, We Have Little Bits Of Understanding, Glimpses, A Little Bit Of Light Here And There, But There's A Tremendous Amount Of Darkness, Which Is A Challenge. I Think Life Would Be Pretty Boring If We Understood Everything. It's Better If We Don't Understand Anything And Know That We Don't, That's The Important Part.
Thinking
Light
Challenges
I Have Often Thought That If A Rational Fascist Dictatorship Were To Exist, Then It Would Choose The American System.
Fascists
Fascism
Dictatorship
The Anniversary Of Hiroshima, Should Be A Day Of Somber Reflection, Not Only On The Terrible Events Of That Day In 1945, But Also On What They Revealed: That Humans, In Their Dedicated Quest To Extend Their Capacities For Destruction, Had Finally Found A Way To Approach The Ultimate Limit.
Reflection
Terrible Events
Quests
France Has Not Been Able To Come To Terms With The Fact That It's Not A Major Power Anymore. I Mean Even Before The Second World War Paris Was One Of The Main Centers Of Intellectual And Cultural Life. But Now Paris Is A Kind Of Subsidiary Of Germany, Their Traditional Enemy And They Can't Come To Terms With It.
War
Mean
Paris
The Basic Principle, Rarely Violated, Is That What Conflicts With The Requirements Of Power And Privilege Does Not Exist.
Principles
Doe
Requirements
Peter Kropotkin Was Surely On The Left. He Was One Of The Founders Of What Is Now Called 'sociobiology' Or 'evolutionary Psychology' With His Book Mutual Aid, Arguing That Human Nature Had Evolved In Ways Conducive To The Communitarian Anarchism That He Espoused.
Book
Psychology
Way
I Think The Press, By And Large, Is What We Call "liberal". But Of Course What We Call "liberal" Means Well To The Right. "liberal" Means The "guardians Of The Gates". So The New York Times Is "liberal" By, What's Called, The Standards Of Political Discourse, New York Times Is Liberal, Cbs Is Liberal. I Don't Disagree. I Think They're Moderately Critical At The Fringes. They're Not Totally Subordinate To Power, But They Are Very Strict In How Far You Can Go. And In Fact, Their Liberalism Serves An Extremely Important Function In Supporting Power.
New York
Mean
Thinking
You Might Recall, Perhaps, That We Were Probably The Only Commentators To Rely On The Most Knowledgeable Source, State Department Intelligence.
War
Might
States
Before The 1970s, Banks Were Banks. They Did What Banks Were Supposed To Do In A State Capitalist Economy: They Took Unused Funds From Your Bank Account, For Example, And Transferred Them To Some Potentially Useful Purpose Like Helping A Family Buy A Home Or Send A Kid To College.
Home
Kids
College
The Desire For Hope And Change Is Easily Understandable. In Many Ways It's Even More Dramatic In Europe.
Europe
Desire
Way
A Language Is Not Just Words. It's A Culture, A Tradition, A Unification Of A Community, A Whole History That Creates What A Community Is. It's All Embodied In A Language.
Communication
Community
Culture
There Was A Striking Example Of This In Pakistan When The Us Sent In Special Forces, To Be Honest, To Kill Osama Bin Laden. He Could Easily Have Been Apprehended And Caught But Their Orders Were To Kill Him.
Order
Special
Example
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
The More There Is A Need To Talk About The Ideals Of Democracy, The Less Democratic The System Usually Is.
Democracy
Needs
Democratic
Nafta Was Much More Popular Among Us Corporations Than Gatt, Because Nafta Is Highly Protectionist In Ways That Gatt Is Not.
Corporations
Way
Nafta
It's Not A Free Trade Agreement. It Has Virtually Nothing To Do With Free Trade... It's A Protectionist Agreement; It's Anti Free-trade.
Agreement
Trade
Free Trade
South America Goes Its Own Way Dramatically In International Affairs.
America
Way
Affair
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
Maybe The Science Is Uncertain, Maybe We Don't Have To Worry About It. Climate Change Is The Worst, But There's Others.
Worry
Climate
Uncertain
There Is No Reason To Believe ... That The "essential Purpose" Of Language Is "communication". Language Can Be Used To Transmit Information, But It Also Serves Many Other Purposes: To Establish Relations Among People, To Express Or Clarify Thought, For Play, For Creative Mental Activity, To Gain Understanding, And So On. In My Opinion, There Is No Reason To Accord Privileged Status To One Or The Other Of These Modes.
Believe
Communication
Play
What Happened In The Missile Crisis In October 1962 Has Been Prettified To Make It Look As If Acts Of Courage And Thoughtfulness Abounded. The Truth Is That The Whole Episode Was Almost Insane.
Insane
Looks
October
For The Totalitarian Mind, Adherence To State Propaganda Does Not Suffice: One Must Display Proper Enthusiasm While Marching In The Parade.
Mind
Liberty
Libertarian
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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