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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.
-Noam Chomsky
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When Leaders Carry Out

Noam Chomsky
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.
Views: 11793
Topic
Drug Use
Goal
Leader
More From Noam Chomsky
I Think Such An Inquiry Will Reveal A Rather Different Picture: Namely, It Will Reveal A Very Strong Tendency For The Intellectuals Who Are Respected And Privileged To Be Those Who Subordinate Themselves To Power.
Strong
Thinking
Different
It Is Quite Possible--overwhelmingly Probable, One Might Guess--that We Will Always Learn More About Human Life And Personality From Novels Than From Scientific Psychology
Personality
Psychology
Might
People Who Spend Their Working Hours In A Lab Or Research Library Or A Classroom Might Be Intent Primarily On Keeping Or Advancing Their Elite Positions, Thereby Lending Tacit Support To Power Structures. Or They Might Not Be.
People
Support
Library
The Argument That Resistance To The War Should Remain Strictly Nonviolent Seems To Me Overwhelming.
War
Resistance
Argument
There Is A Phrase In Trade Theory; It's Called "kicking Away The Ladder." First You Violate The Rules - The Market Rules - And Then By The Time You Succeed In Developing, You Kick Away The Ladders So Others Can't Do It Too, And You Preach About "free Trade."
Kicking
Phrases
Ladders
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
Human Needs Are Served By A Sustainable Lifestyle, Almost By Definition, If Humans Include Coming Generations. And A Shift To Such Technologies As High-speed Rail Instead Of Maximizing Fossil Fuel Use, And Solar Energy, Is Not "relentless Resource Extraction."
Technology
Energy
Needs
Sometimes The Former Forces Are In The Ascendance, And "democratic Governance" Is Eroded, Though Anyone Familiar With Intellectual History Would Expect That The Slogans Will Be Passionately Proclaimed As They Are Drained Of Substantive Content. We Happen To Be Living In Such An Era, But As Often Before, There Is No Reason To Suppose That The Process Is Irreversible.
Intellectual
Eras
Sometimes
My Feeling Is That If Any Republican Was Elected It Would Be Almost A Death Knell For The Species Literally, Just Because Of Their Attitude On Climate Change.
Attitude
Feelings
Climate
The [barack] Obama Administration Has Pressured Mexico To Keep Them Away From The Mexican Border, So That They Don't Succeed In Reaching The United States. Pretty Much The Same Thing Europeans Have Done To Turks And Syrians.
Mexican Border
United States
Borders
In Egypt The Neoliberal Programs Have Meant Statistical Growth, Like Right Before The Arab Spring, Egypt Was A Kind Of Poster Child For The World Bank And The Imf [international Monetary Fund:] The Marvelous Economic Management And Great Reform. The Only Problem Was For Most Of The Population It Was A Kind Of Like A Blow In The Solar Plexus: Wages Going Down, Benefits Being Eliminated, Subsidized Food Gone And Meanwhile, High Concentration Of Wealth And A Huge Amount Of Corruption.
Children
Spring
Blow
Humans May Be Destroying Their Chances For Decent Survival. It Won't Kill Everybody, But It Would Change The World Dramatically.
Survival
World
May
Language Etches The Grooves Through Which Your Thoughts Must Flow.
Flow
Language
Groove
The United States Happens To Be The Only State In The World That Has Been Condemned By The World Court For International Terrorism.
United States
World
Terrorism
The United States Is Unique Among The Rich Countries, Developed Countries, In Not Having Some Kind Of A National Health-care System.
Country
Unique
Rich Countries
There Are A Lot Of People That Form Movements Around Particular Commitments, Like Gay Rights. It Is Important, But It Does Not Link Easily To, Say, Economic Rights, And It Often Looks Like It's Opposed To Them. The Attempt To Bring These Together Has Yet To Be Done In A Truly Effective Way, And I Think It Can Be.
Commitment
Gay
Thinking
While Trump Keeps The Spotlight On Himself, The "respectable" Republican Establishment Chips Away At Government Programs That Benefit The General Population.
Republican
Program
Respectable
Putting It In Plain Terms, The General Public Must Be Reduced To Its Traditional Apathy And Obedience, And Driven From The Arena Of Political Debate And Action, If Democracy Is To Survive.
Political
Democracy
Apathy
The Most Effective Way To Restrict Democracy Is To Transfer Decision-making From The Public Arena To Unaccountable Institutions: Kings And Princes, Priestly Castes, Military Juntas, Party Dictatorships, Or Modern Corporations.
Kings
Military
Party
Nothing Can Justify Crimes Such As Those Of September 11, But We Can Think Of The United States As An Innocent Victim Only If We Adopt The Convenient Path Of Ignoring The Record Of Its Actions And Those Of Its Allies, Which Are, After All, Hardly A Secret.
Thinking
September 11
Secret
The Bush Administration Do Have Moral Values. Their Moral Values Are Very Explicit: Shine The Boots Of The Rich And The Powerful, Kick Everybody Else In The Face, And Let Your Grandchildren Pay For It. That Simple Principle Predicts Almost Everything That's Happening.
Powerful
Simple
Grandchildren
The More There Is A Need To Talk About The Ideals Of Democracy, The Less Democratic The System Usually Is.
Democracy
Needs
Democratic
If You Are Giving A Graduate Course You Don't Try To Impress The Students With Oratory, You Try To Challenge Them, Get Them To Question You.
Giving
Challenges
Trying
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
It's A Near Miracle That Nuclear War Has So Far Been Avoided.
War
Miracle
Nuclear
This Is Real. This Is The Real Mad Man Theory. We Have To Be Irrational And Vindictive, So People Don't Know What We're Up To. This Is Not [donald] Trump And [steve] Bannon, It's From The [bill] Clinton Era.
Real
Men
People
It Makes Sense To Work Towards A Better World, But It Doesn't Make Any Sense To Have Illusions About What The Real World Is.
Real
World
Illusion
The Us Is The Wrecking Machine That Is Destroying Everything. The World Is Hoping That China Will Somehow Come To The Rescue.
Machines
World
Destroying
I Do Think That Magna Carta And International Law Are Worth Paying Some Attention To.
Thinking
Law
Attention
Look, The United States Doesn't Have Political Parties. In Other Countries, Take Say Europe, You Can Be An Active Member Of The Political Party. Here, The Only Thing In A Political Party Is Gearing To Elections, Not The Other Things You Do. So It's Basically, A Way Of Making People Passive, Submissive Objects.
Country
Party
Europe
Jamie Kilstein And Allison Kilkenny Have Created An Important Political Radio Show That Balances Humor And Unreported News. At A Time When Media Conglomerates Dominate The Airwaves, Independent Media Like Citizen Radio Is Vital To National Discourse.
Independent
Media
Political
The Main Purpose Of Advertising Is To Undermine Markets. If You Go To Graduate School And You Take A Course In Economics, You Learn That Markets Are Systems In Which Informed Consumers Make Rational Choices. That's What's So Wonderful About It. But That's The Last Thing That The State Corporate System Wants. It Is Spending Huge Sums To Prevent That.
School
Choices
Purpose
Control Is The Source Of Strategic Power.
Source
Strategic
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
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
I Know Some Really Outstanding Turkish Journalists, And Have Been Pleased And Honored To Be Able To Join With Them A Few Times In Their Courageous Protests Against State Terror And Repression.
Able
Courageous
States
Chemistry, Until My Childhood, Not That Long Ago, Was Regarded As A Calculating Device. Because You Couldn't Reduce To Physics. So It's Just Some Way Of Calculating The Result Of Experiments. The Bohr Atom Was Treated That Way.
Long Ago
Childhood
Way
It May Be Beyond The Limits Of Human Intelligence To Understand How Human Intelligence Works.
May
Limits
Humans
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
I've Never Seen A Study, But My Sense Is That These Are People Who Feel Really Aggrieved. These People Think, "i've Done Everything Right All My Life, I'm A God-fearing Christian, I'm White, I'm Male, I've Worked Hard, And I Carry A Gun. I Do Everything I'm Supposed To Do. And I'm Getting Shafted." And In Fact They Are Getting Shafted. For 30 Years Their Wages Have Stagnated Or Declined, The Social Conditions Have Worsened, The Children Are Going Crazy, There Are No Schools, There's Nothing, So Somebody Must Be Doing Something To Them, And They Want To Know Who It Is.
Christian
Children
Crazy
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
States Are Not Moral Agents.
Agents
Moral
States
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
One Of The Benefits Of A Properly Functioning Democracy Is Minority Rights And Majority Rule.
Rights
Majority Rule
Democracy
Should People Be Mere "interested Spectators Of Action," Not "participants," Restricted To Lending Their Weight Periodically To One Or Another Sector Of The "responsible Men," As Advocates Of "manufacture Of Consent" Have Recommended? Or Should Their Rights Transcend These Highly Restricted Bounds?
Men
Rights
People
The Social System Is Taking On A Form In Which Finding Out What You Want To Do Is Less And Less Of An Option Because Your Life Is Too Structured, Organised, Controlled And Disciplined.
Want
Life Is
Social
Nafta And Gatt Are Quite Similar. They Both Have Highly Protectionist Elements. They're Kind Of A Mixture Of Liberalization And Protection Designed To Expand The Power Of Transnational Corporations. They're Very Basically Investor's Rights Agreements. One Crucial Part In Both Is The "intellectual Property Right," Which Is A Funny Way Of Saying That Corporations, Like Pharmaceutical Companies, Will Have Near-monopolistic Rule Over Future Technology. This Now Includes Product As Well As Process Rights.
Technology
Rights
Agreement
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
When I Wrote About The Spanish Civil War Many Years Later, I Used Documents That I Picked Up When I Was A Child, As A Lot Hadn't Been Published (a Lot More Resources Are Available Now).
Children
War
Years
Right Now, We Happen To Be In A General Period Of Regression, Not Just In Education. A Lot Of What's Happening Is Sort Of Backlash To The 60s; The 60s Were A Democratizing Period.
One Of The Problems Of Organizing In The North, In The Rich Countries, Is That People Tend To Think - Even The Activists - That Instant Gratification Is Required. You Constantly Hear: 'look I Went To A Demonstration, And We Didn't Stop The War So What's The Use Of Doing It Again?'
Country
War
Thinking
In November 2004, U.s. Occupation Forces Launched Their Second Major Attack On The City Of Falluja. The Press Reported Major War Crimes Instantly, With Approval.
War
Cities
Occupation
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
Sooner Or Later, Jihadist-style Terror And Wmd Are Going To Come Together And The Consequences Could Be Horrendous.
Wmd
Style
Together
...the Mass Media. What Are They? They're Huge Corporations, Massive Corporations, Linked Up With Even Bigger Corporations. They Sell Audiences To Other Businesses, Namely Advertisers. So When You Turn On The Television Set, Cbs Doesn't Make Any Money. They Make Money From The Advertisers. You're The Product That They're Selling, And The Same Is True Of The Daily Newspaper. They're Huge Corporations, Selling Audiences, Potential Consumers, To Other Businesses, All Linked Up Closely To The Government, Especially The Big Media. What Picture Of The World Do You Expect Them To Present?
Government
Media
Political
Suppose That I See A Hungry Child In The Street, And I Am Able To Offer The Child Some Food. Am I Morally Culpable If I Refuse To Do So? Am I Morally Culpable If I Choose Not To Do What I Easily Can About The Fact That 1000 Children Die Every Hour From Easily Preventable Disease, According To Unicef? Or The Fact That The Government Of My Own "free And Open Society" Is Engaged In Monstrous Crimes That Can Easily Be Mitigated Or Terminated? Is It Even Possible To Debate These Questions?
Children
Government
Disease
It Was During The Reagan Years That Defiance Of International Law And The U.n. Charter Became Entirely Open.
Years
Law
Defiance
Responsibility, I Believe, Accrues Through Privilege.
Believe
Responsibility
Privilege
There Is Massive Propaganda For Everyone To Consume. Consumption Is Good For Profits And Consumption Is Good For The Political Establishment.
Political
Propaganda
Profit
My Grandchildren Are On Social Media All The Time, And They Think They Have Friends. But It's Not What I Would've Called A Friend, Ever.
Grandchildren
Thinking
Media
There Had Been A Free And Open Election In Haiti In The Early 1990s And President Jean-bertrand Aristide Won, A Populist Priest. A Few Months Later Came The Expected Military Coup - A Very Vicious Military Junta Took Over, Of Which The United States Was Passively Supportive. Not Openly, Of Course, But Haitians Started To Flee From The Terror And Were Sent Back And On Towards Guantanamo Bay. Of Course, That Is Against International Law. But The United States Pretended That They Were "economic Refugees."
Military
Law
President
The Idea That You Have To Drop Any Thing That You Might Be Interested In Doing Because You Have To Pass That Test Tomorrow And It's Something That You're Not Interested In, That's Just The Opposite Of Education. It's Also Harming Teaching, Because The Teachers Are Evaluated By The Results Of The Test.
Teacher
Teaching
Ideas
The "prophets" Were What We Would Call Dissident Intellectuals. They Provided Critical Geopolitical Analysis, Condemned The Crimes Of The Powerful, Called For Justice And Mercy For Those Who Needed Help, Etc. I Wouldn't Personally Endorse Everything They Said, Any More Than I Would For Critics Of Power And Its Crimes Today. But Rather Generally I Think They Played An Honorable Role - And Suffered Accordingly.
Powerful
Thinking
Justice
Nobody Should Have Any Illusions. The United States Has Essentially A One-party System And The Ruling Party Is The Business Party.
Party
Should Have
United States
Education Is Imposed Ignorance.
Ignorance
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
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
If You Are Not Offending People Who Ought To Be Offended, You're Doing Something Wrong.
Offended You
Offending
People
If There Was An Observer On Mars, They Would Probably Be Amazed That We Have Survived This Long.
Interesting
Long
Mars
We Recriminalized Black Life. Incarceration Rates Since The 1908s Have Gone Through The Roof, Overwhelmingly Black Males, Women And Hispanics To Some Extent. Essentially Re-doing What Happened Under Reconstruction. That's The History Of African Americans - So How Can Any One Say There's No Problem. Sure, Racism Is Serious, But It's Worse Than That.
Racism
African American
Black
In America, The Professor Talks To The Mechanic. They Are In The Same Category.
4th Of July
America
Mechanic
People Don't Have Knowledge And Understanding About The Outside World, Or About History [in The Usa].
Usa
People
Understanding
If The United States Loses The Economic Weapons Of Control, It Is Very Much Weakened.
United States
Weapons
Economic
When Geologists Announced The Beginning Of A New Geological Epoch, The Anthropocene, Humans Destroying The Environment, One Of The Main Things They Pointed To Is The Use Of Plastics In The Earth. We Don't Think About It, But It Has A Tremendous Effect. But These Are Things You Don't See Right In Front Of Your Eyes. You Need To Think About Them A Little, To See What The Consequences Are. It's Easy To Put Them Aside, And The Media Don't Talk About Them.
Eye
Thinking
Media
Just Recently, The Administration Of Barack Obama, Which Has Broken All Sorts Of Records In Regards To Deportation, Picked Up A Guatemalan Man Living Here [in U.s]. I Think He Had Been Living Here For Twenty-five Years, Had A Family, A Business, And So On. He Had Fled From The Mayan Region And They Picked Him Up And Deported Him. To Me, That's Really Sick.
Men
Thinking
Years
Half Of The [usa] Population, Roughly, Thinks The World Was Created A Couple Thousand Years Ago. Two Thirds Of The Country Is Expecting The Second Coming Of Christ. They've Also Had To Turn To Nativists. The Gun Culture In The United States, Which Is Out Of Control, Is Party Fueled By People Who Think 'we've Got To Have Our Guns To Protect Ourselves.'
Country
Couple
Party
If Something Comes Along That You Don't Like, There Are A Few Sort Of Four-letter Words That You Can Use To Push It Out Of The Sphere Of Discussion. If You Were In A Bar Downtown, They Might Have Different Words, But If You're An Educated Person What You Use Are Complicated Words Like "conspiracy Theory" Or "marxist." It's A Way Of Pushing Unpleasant Questions Off The Agenda So That We Can Continue In Our Own Happy Ideology.
Downtown
Agendas
Four
The Whole Basis For The Us Intervention In Colombia Is Outrageously Racist And Arrogant.
Racist
Arrogant
Colombia
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
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 Russian Ambassador At The United Nations Did Make Some Proposals For A Political Settlement In Which Bashar Assad Would Be Slowly Eased Out. The West Dismissed It Immediately, And We Don't Know If It Was Real, Because It Didn't Come From The Kremlin, And It Was Informal. But The Point Is Every Such Proposal Is Immediately Scotched. And You Just Don't Know If They're Real.
Real
Political
Proposal
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
Over The Years, There's Been Case After Case When There Were Very Narrow Decisions That Had To Be Made About Whether To Launch Nuclear Weapons In Serious Cases. What Is This Guy [donald Trump] Going To Do If His Vaunted Negotiating Skills Fail, If Somebody Doesn't Do What He Says? Is He Going To Say, "okay We'll Nuke Them? We're Done?"
Skills
Years
Guy
South Africa, With Us Support, After The Fall Of The Portuguese Empire, Invaded Angola And Mozambique To Establish Their Own Puppet Regime There. They Were Trying To Protect Namibia, To Protect Apartheid, And Nobody Did Much About It; But The Cubans Sent Forces, And Furthermore They Sent Black Soldiers And They Defeated A White Mercenary Army, Which Not Only Rescued Angola But It Sent A Shock Throughout The Continent-it Was A Psychic Shock-white Mercenaries Were Purported To Be Invincible, And A Black Army Defeated Them And Sent Them Back Fleeing Into South Africa.
Fall
Army
Psychics
When Something Like This [2003 Invasion Of Iraq] Takes Place, The International Law Professionals Have A Complicated Task. There Is A Fringe That Just Tells The Truth: Look, It's A Violation Of International Law. But Most Have To Construct Complex Arguments To Justify It As Defense Counsel. That's Basically Their Job, Defense Counsel For State Power.
Jobs
Law
Iraq
For Those Who Stubbornly Seek Freedom, There Can Be No More Urgent Task Than To Come To Understand The Mechanisms And Practices Of Indoctrination.
Practice
Tasks
Indoctrination
We Should Therefore Be Opposed To Institutional Barriers To That Freedom: Military Dictatorships, For Example. Or States Run By A Central Committee.
Running
Military
Example
One Should Be Cautious About "general Conceptions." I Think A Strong Case Can Be Made That Activism Today Is As High As Ever, Perhaps More So, And Is Also Taking New And Significant Forms. There Has Never Been Anything Like The International Solidarity Movements That Began To Take Shape In The 1980s, Right In The Mainstream, Or The Global Justice Movements That Have Become A Very Powerful Force In Later Years. It's True That The Society Is Highly Atomized, Which Does Induce A Sense Of Hopelessness Often - Quite Mistakenly I Think.
Strong
Powerful
Thinking
I Think A Decent Society Should Protect Rights To Private Property Within Limits, But Not Concentrations Of Private Power That Infringe On The Freedom And Rights Of Others, Including Exploitation Of Labor, And That Convert Any Democratic Forms Into What Have Been Called Sometimes "hierarchical Democracies," Like Ours, In Which Some Have Vastly Greater Influence Over Public Policy Than Others. Spelling All Of This Out Is A Complex Matter That Raises Many Issue And Problems That Are Impossible To Address Here.
Thinking
Democracy
Impossible
Legalizing Marijuana Would Make A Lot Of Sense, I Don't Think There's A Single Case Of Marijuana Overdose On Record And Tens Of Millions Of Users. It's Much Less Dangerous Than Alcohol, For Example.
Marijuana
Thinking
Alcohol
We Live In This World, Not Another One That We'd Prefer, And Sometimes It's Necessary To Follow Painful Paths If We Hope To Provide At Least A Little Help For Suffering People.
People
Suffering
World
Tough Love Is Just The Right Phrase: Love For The Rich And Privileged, Tough For Everyone Else.
Love Is
Tough Love
Phrases
I Like The Cold Weather. It Means You Get Work Done.
Mean
Weather
Snow
From A Comparative Perspective, The United States Is Unusual If Not Unique In The Lack Of Restraints On Freedom Of Expression. It Is Also Unusual In The Range And Effectiveness Of Methods Employed To Restrain Freedom Of Thought... Where The Voice Of The People Is Heard, Elite Groups Must Insure Their Voice Says The Right Things.
Unique
Expression
Voice
Social And Political Issues In General Seem To Me Fairly Simple; The Effort To Obfuscate Them In Esoteric And Generally Vacuous Theory Is One Of The Contributions Of The Intelligentsia To Enhancing Their Own Power And The Power Of Those They Serve.
Simple
Issues
Effort
Now, The Libertarian Party, Is A *capitalist* Party. It's In Favor Of What *i* Would Regard A *particular Form* Of Authoritarian Control. Namely, The Kind That Comes Through Private Ownership And Control, Which Is An *extremely* Rigid System Of Domination - People Have To... People Can Survive, By Renting Themselves To It, And Basically In No Other Way... I Do Disagree With Them *very* Sharply, And I Think That They Are Not..understanding The *fundamental* Doctrine, That You Should Be Free From Domination And Control, Including The Control Of The Manager And The Owner.
Party
Thinking
People
Part Of The Nafta Legislation Required Studies Of Labor Practices, And There Was Quite A Good Study That Came Out By A Labor Historian On The Use Of Nafta To Undermine And Destroy Unions.
Practice
Use
Unions
There Have, For Years, Been Comparative Studies Of Religious Fanaticism And Factors That Correlate With It. By And Large, It Tends To Decline With Increasing Industrialization And Education. The Us, However, Is Off The Chart, Ranking Near Devastated Peasant Societies. About 1/2 The Population Believe The World Was Created A Few Thousand Years Ago: The Justification For The Belief Is That That Is What They Were Ordered To Believe By Authority Figures To Whom They Were Taught One Must Subordinate Oneself. And On, And On.
Religious
Believe
Years
If You Want To Become A Biologist, It Doesn't Help To Go Into The Harvard Biology Library And All The Information Is There For You. You Have To Know What To Look For And The Internet Is The Same, Just Magnified.
Library
Looks
Want
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
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
Borders Are Semiporous. Capital Flows More Freely Than People Across Them. On C Span.
People
Borders
Flow
The Shutdown Itself Is Bad But Not Devastating. The Real Danger Will Come Up In A Couple Of Weeks. There's Legislation Which Is In Fact Routine - It's Passed Every Year - Which Allows The Government To Borrow Money, Otherwise It Can't Function. If Congress Does Not Approve This Budget Request, The Government May Have To Default.
Couple
Real
Government
There Was An International Conference Going On In Morocco That Was A Follow Up For The Paris Conference - To Put Some Teeth In The Paris Agreements. But On November 8, 2017 The Conferences Stopped. The Question Was, Will We Survive? Not A Word About It. Even More Amazing, The World Is Looking To China To Save Them. The Us Is The Wrecking Machine That Is Destroying Everything. The World Is Hoping That China Will Somehow Come To The Rescue.
World
November
That Is [edward Said] Proposal As To How The Term Should Be Used. It Surely Does Not Describe Those Who Are Called "intellectuals" In Standard Usage, As He Would Be The First To Agree.
Firsts
Doe
Would Be
What's Called Obamacare Is An Effort To Mildly Change This [health-care System], Not Change It As Far As It Should Go Or As Much As The Population Wants It To Go, But To Make It A Little Better And A Little More Affordable.
Obamacare
Effort
Population
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
There Is No Body Of Theory Or Significant Body Of Relevant Information, Beyond The Comprehension Of The Layman, Which Makes Policy Immune From Criticism.
Criticism
Body
Information
If You Go To One Demonstration And Then Go Home, That's Something, But The People In Power Can Live With That. What They Can't Live With Is Sustained Pressure That Keeps Building, Organisations That Keep Doing Things, People That Keep Learning Lessons From The Last Time And Doing It Better The Next Time.
Religious
Home
People
Technology Is Usually Fairly Neutral. It’s Like A Hammer, Which Can Be Used To Build A House Or To Destroy Someone’s Home. The Hammer Doesn’t Care. It Is Almost Always Up To Us To Determine Whether The Technology Is Good Or Bad.
Home
Technology
House
If A Child From An Amazonian Hunter-gatherer Tribe Comes To Boston, Is Raised In Boston, That Child Will Be Indistinguishable In Language Capacities From My Children Growing Up Here, And Vice Versa.
Children
Growing Up
Boston
You've Just Got To Get People Organized And Tell Them The Truth. There Aren't Any Magic Tricks To It. You Know, Sometimes It's Pretty Amazing. Actually, I Mentioned A Pretty Striking Case Of This In "crisis And Hope," Which Was The Caterpillar Case In The Early 1990s.
People
Magic
Sometimes
That Is What I Have Always Understood To Be The Essence Of Anarchism: The Conviction That The Burden Of Proof Has To Be Placed On Authority, And That It Should Be Dismantled If That Burden Cannot Be Met.
Burden Of Proof
Essence
Anarchy
If The Nuremberg Laws Were Applied, Then Every Post-war American President Would Have Been Hanged.
War
Law
President
Anti-union Propaganda Has Been Considerably More Successful Here [ In The U.s.] Than In Europe, Even Among Working People Who Would Benefit [from] Unions.
Successful
Europe
People
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
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
Right After 9-11, As Far As I Know, One Newspaper In The United States Had The Integrity To Investigate Opinion In The Muslim World: The 'wall Street Journal.'
Wall
Integrity
United States
Yes, And Syrians. There Is A Horrible Crisis There And The United States Has Admitted Virtually None Of The Refugees.
United States
Crisis
Horrible
The Contradiction Is Somehow Unresolved. In The Case Of The Business Propaganda, It's Particularly Ironic Because While Business Wants The Population To Hate The Government, They Want The Population To Love The Government. Namely, They're In Favor Of A Very Powerful State Which Works In Their Interest.
Powerful
Hate
Government
Looking At Polls Of Arab Public Opinion, You Look At Popular Figures, The Most Popular Figure Is The Prime Minister Of Turkey, Erdogan, And Then It Goes Down The List. You Get Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, You Don't Get Obama, Or In Fact Any Western Leader. The Public Doesn't Want The Whole Imperial Project. So If You Had Democracy, It Would Be All Over.
Turkeys
Leader
Democracy
The Basic Principle, Rarely Violated, Is That What Conflicts With The Requirements Of Power And Privilege Does Not Exist.
Principles
Doe
Requirements
The United States Is A Very Insular Society. Most People Know Very Little About The Outside World And Don't Care That Much. They're Concerned With Their Own Affairs.
People
Care
Littles
We Have To Recognize That There Is A Range Of Interests, Like There Isn't A Single Corporate Interest And A Single State Interest, So There's A Range. In Addition To That, There Is The Fact Of Professional Integrity.
Integrity
Facts
States
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
I'm Into Eating As Little As Possible, Paying As Little Attention As Possible. I Never Cook. Never Use The Stove Or Anything.
Attention
Use
Littles
Goebbels Was In Favor Of Free Speech For Views He Liked. So Was Stalin. If You’re Really In Favor Of Free Speech, Then You’re In Favor Of Freedom Of Speech For Precisely The Views You Despise. Otherwise, You’re Not In Favor Of Free Speech.
Views
Freedom Of Speech
Favors
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
Some [people] May Be "servants Of The Power Structure," But That Has To Be Shown. I Think It Often Can Be Shown, But The Burden Of Proof Is On The Critic Who Puts Forth That Thesis In Particular Cases.
Thinking
Burden Of Proof
Often Can
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
Just Media Alone Is Not Enough. You Have To Have Organization.
Media
Organization
Enough
You Never Really Saw The Racism In Europe In The Past Because It Was So Homogeneous. When Everyone Is Blonde And Blue-eyed, You Don't See Racism. But As Soon As There Was The Beginnings Of Immigration, It Just Came Out Very Dramatically.
Past
Blue
Europe
It Turned Out That [bill] Clinton Had Authorized Texaco To Illegally Ship Oil To The Military Junta [in Haiti] During A Time When We Were Supposedly Opposing The Military Junta And Supporting Democracy Instead.
Military
Oil
Democracy
Take The Us. Women Were Not Even Able To Vote Until 90 Ago, At About The Same Time They Gained The Right In Afghanistan. Rights Of Former Slaves Were Very Limited Until The 1960s, And In Some Ways Still Are. In These And Other Domains There Has Been Progress In Democracy, Though Still Seriously Flawed. In Other Dimensions - The Control Of Concentrated Wealth Over The Political Process, For Example, Things Have Gotten Much Worse In Recent Years. And There Is Much More, In Both Directions.
Rights
Years
Political
There Was A Free Election In Palestine, But It Came Out The Wrong Way. So Instantly, The United States And Israel With Europe Tagging Along, Moved To Punish The Palestinian People, And Punish Them Harshly, Because They Voted The Wrong Way In A Free Election. That's Accepted Here In The West As Perfectly Normal. That Illustrates The Deep Hatred And Contempt For Democracy Among Western Elites, So Deep-seated They Can't Even Perceive It When It's In Front Of Their Eyes. You Punish People Severely If They Vote The Wrong Way In A Free Election.
Eye
Israel
Europe
For Us, We Are All Very Different, Our Languages Are Very Different, And Our Societies Are Very Different. But If We Could Extract Ourselves From Our Point Of View And Sort Of Look Down At Human Life The Way A Biologist Looks At Other Organisms, I Think We Could See It A Different Way.
Thinking
Views
Different
The Us Is Off The Spectrum In Religious Commitment. It's Been Increasing Since 1980 But It's A Major Part Of The Voting Base Of The Republican Party So That Means Committing To Anti-abortion Positions, Opposing Women's Rights.
Religious
Party
Mean
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
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
[after Vietnam] The Type Of Interventions That Are Carried Out Are Designed So As Not To Elicit Public Reactions.
Vietnam
Reactions
Type
Fed And Electoral College Could Use Some Tinkering, But They Are Not The Source Of The Problems.
College
Tinkering
Use
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
Every Predecessor Has Used Mercenaries, Often Drawn From The Country That They're Attacking Like England Ran India With Indian Mercenaries. You Take Them From One Place And Send Them To Kill People In The Other Place. That's The Standard Way To Run Imperial Wars.
Running
Country
War
The Bible Is One Of The Most Genocidal Books In History.
Bible
Atheist
Book
Clinton, Kennedy, They All Carried Out Mass Murder, But They Didn't Think That That Was What They Were Doing - Nor Does Bush. You Know, They Were Defending Justice And Democracy From Greater Evils.
Thinking
Evil
Justice
Real Schools Ought To Provide People With Techniques Of Self-defense, But That Would Mean Teaching The Truth About The World And About The Society, And Schools Couldn't Survive Very Long If They Did That.
Real
Teaching
School
As Any Good Teacher Knows, The Methods Of Instruction And The Range Of Material Covered Are Matters Of Small Importance As Compared With The Success In Arousing The Natural Curiosity Of The Students And Stimulating Their Interest In Exploring On Their Own.
Teacher
Teaching
Curiosity
John Lewis Gaddis Is Not Only The Favorite Historian Of The Reagan Administration, But He's Regarded As The Dean Of Cold War Scholarship, The Leading Figure In The American Cold War Scholarship, A Professor At Yale.
War
Yale
Administration
Welsh Is Now Almost A National Language In Wales. The Scottish Dialects Are Reviving To Some Extent. I Don't Think It's A Major Thing, But It's There, And It's Happening Elsewhere.
Thinking
Dialect
Language
It Doesn't Matter How Much You Learn In School; It's Whether You Learn How To Go On And Do Things By Yourself. And That Can Be Done At Any Level.
School
Done
One Of The Christian Fundamentalists' Goals Seems To Be To Rebuild The Temple, Which Means Destroying The Al-aqsa Mosque, Which Presumably Means War With The Arab World - One Of The Goals, Perhaps, In Fulfilling The Prophecy Of Armageddon. So They Strongly Support Israeli Power And Expansionism, And Help Fund It And Lobby For It; But They Also Support Actions That Are Very Harmful And Objectionable To Most Of Its Population - As Do Jewish Fundamentalist Groups, Mostly Rooted In The Us, Which, After All, Is One Of The Most Extreme Religious Fundamentalist Societies In The World.
Christian
Religious
War
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
A Lot Of The Letters That Are Coming In - A Lot Of Them Are Queries Or Comments - Are One Sentence Long... These Are From Twitter. And If You Look At The Nature Of Those One Sentence Letters, Most Of The Time It's Something That Came To Somebody's Mind - Somebody Walking Down The Street Had A Thought And Sent It Out. If They Thought About It For Two Minutes They Would Not Have Sent It.
Two
Long
Mind
Dissidents Are Not Imprisoned As In The Domains Of The Kremlin, In The Old Days. They Do Not Have Their Brains Blown Out By Elite Forces Armed And Trained By The Reigning Superpower, As Happens In Washington's Domains - With No Particular Concern At Home - An Important Fact, One Of Many That Help Us Learn About Ourselves, If We Choose.
Home
Brain
Important
When I Was Growing Up In The 1930s And '40s Anti-semitism Was Rampant. It Wasn't Like Nazi Germany But It Was Pretty Serious - It Was Part Of Life.
Growing Up
Germany
Serious
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
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
Corporations Are Totalitarian Institutions. Board Of Directors At The Top Of Managers Give Orders, Everyone Follows Orders..... At The Very Bottom Of Command, If You Are Lucky You Can Rent Yourself To It And Get A Job , And If You Are Sufficiently Propagandized You May Even Buy Some Of The Junk They Produce And So On.
Jobs
Order
Giving
As Far As Dsa Is Concerned, I'm Perfectly Happy To Be Associated With It While Disagreeing With A Large Part Of The Leadership.
Concerned
The Great Soul Of Power Extends Far Beyond States, To Every Domain Of Life, From Families To International Affairs. And Throughout, Every Form Of Authority And Domination Bears A Severe Burden Of Proof. It Is Not Self-legitimizing. And When It Cannot Bear The Burden, As Is Commonly The Case, It Should Be Dismantled.
Self
Burden Of Proof
Soul
The Occupy Movement Did Create Spontaneously Communities That Taught People Something: You Can Be In A Supportive Community Of Mutual Aid And Cooperation And Develop Your Own Health System And Library And Have Open Space For Democratic Discussion And Participation. Communities Like That Are Really Important.
Space
People
Community
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
Governments Will Use Whatever Technology Is Available To Combat Their Primary Enemy - Their Own Population.
Technology
Government
Enemy
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
I Think There Is A Good Reason Why The Propaganda System Works That Way. It Recognizes That The Public Will Not Support The Actual Policies. Therefore It Is Important To Prevent Any Knowledge Or Understanding Of Them.
Thinking
Support
Understanding
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
Peace Is Preferable To War. But It’s Not An Absolute Value, And So We Always Ask, “what Kind Of Peace?
Peace
War
Kind
There's An Interesting Book About That Called The Third Reich And The Ivory Tower, Written By Stephen H. Norwood. It Has A Long Discussion About Harvard, And Indeed The School's President, James Conant, Did Block Jewish Faculty. He Was The One Who Prevented European Jews From Being Admitted To The Chemistry Department - His Field - And Also Had Pretty Good Relations With The Nazis.
Block
Book
School
Don't Be Obsessed With Tactics But With Purpose. Tactics Have A Half Life.
Purpose
Half
Tactics
What Is "credibility"? It's A Very Familiar Notion. It's Basically The Notion That Is Central To The Mafia. So Suppose Say The Godfather Produces Some Kind Of Edict And Says You're Going To Have To Pay Protection Money.
Mafia
Pay
Kind
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
Efforts Can Succeed Over Time, And Not Trying Ensures That The Worst Will Happen.
Effort
Trying
Succeed
I Think The Activism Of The 1960s Had A Very Definite Civilizing Effect On The Whole Society In All Kinds Of Ways. So Lots Of Things That By Now Are Almost Taken For Granted Were Heretical In The 1960s. We Had Anti-sodomy Laws Until Not Many Years Ago.
Taken
Thinking
Years
Some Kind Of Settlement In Kashmir Is Crucial For Both India And Pakistan. It's Also Tearing India Apart With Horrible Atrocities In The Region Which Is Controlled By Indian Armed Forces. This Is Feeding Right Back Into Society Even In The Domain Of Elementary Civil Rights.
Rights
India And Pakistan
Kashmir
The Printing Press Had A Very Liberatory Effect That Meant Individuals - Small Groups Could Produce Radical Pamphlets - Could Use It For Organizing.
Groups
Use
Individual
The Missile Defense Component Is A Minor Feature That Nobody Takes Very Seriously. Nobody Really Believes That The Us Is Trying To Protect Itself From North Korea. That's Not Serious. But The Militarization Of Space Is Quite Serious.
Believe
Space
Korea
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
American Decline Is Real, Though The Apocalyptic Vision Reflects The Familiar Ruling Class Perception That Anything Short Of Total Control Amounts To Total Disaster.
Real
Class
Perception
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
When [bill] Clinton Came Along, It Sort Of Moderated A Little Bit, But Clinton Had A Different Device For Breaking Unions Called Nafta [north America Free Trade Agreement]. Because The Government Was Entirely Lawless, Employers Could Exploit Nafta To Threaten Union Organizers With Transfer. It's Illegal, But When You've Got A Lawless Government, It Doesn't Matter If It's Illegal. I Think The Number Of Union Drives Blocked Increased By About 50 Percent.
Thinking
Government
Agreement
The Imf Economists Were Doubtless Shaken By The Extreme Failures Of Their Prescriptions Over Many Years, And By The Collapse Of The Intellectual Edifice Of Economic Theory On Which They Were Relying.
Years
Intellectual
Imf
The Us Is A Country [in Which] Eighty Percent Of The Population Thinks The Bible Was Written By God. About Half Think Every Word Is Literally True. So It's Had To Appeal To That - And To The Nativist Population, The People That Are Frightened, Have Always Been... It's A Very Frightened Country And That's Increasing Now With The Recognition That The White Population Is Going To Be A Minority Pretty Soon, "they've Taken Our Country From Us."
Country
Taken
Thinking
As To Whether Those Who Fit The Common Meaning Of The Term "intellectual" Should Act In The Manner That [ Edward] Said Prescribes, That's Another Question. Needless To Say, I Agree With Him That They Should, And That They Commonly Do Not.
Intellectual
Common
Fit
I Don't Feel That I Have Anything To Say Beyond Moral Truisms.
Moral
Truism
Feels
In The United States, And To A Certain Extent In Canada, There's Very Little Interest In What Happens Outside Their Borders.
United States
Borders
Littles
Roughly Speaking, I Think It's Accurate To Say That A Corporate Elite Of Managers And Owners Governs The Economy And The Political System As Well, At Least In Very Large Measure.
Thinking
Political
Economics
Rush Limbaugh Has Answered - It's The Rich Liberals Who Own The Banks And Run The Government, And Of Course Run The Media, And They Don't Care About You - They Just Want To Give Everything Away To Illegal Immigrants And Gays And Communists And So On.
Running
Gay
Government
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
Some Of [donald Trump] Comments Can Be Interpreted As Potentially Reducing The Threat Of Nuclear War. The Major Threat Right Now Is Right On The Russian Border. Notice, Not The Mexican Border, The Russian Border. And It's Serious. He Has Made Various Statements Moving Towards Reducing The Tensions, Accommodating Russian Concerns And So On.
War
Moving
Mexican Border
The Human Species Is Now At A Point Where It Has To Make Choices That Are Going To Determine Whether Decent Survival Is Even Possible. Environmental Catastrophe, Including War, Maybe Pandemics, These Are Very Serious Issues And They Can't Be Addressed Within The Current Structure Of Institutions. That's Almost Given. There Have To Be Real Significant Changes, And Only Really Effective Popular Mass-based Movements Can Introduce And Carry Forward Such Initiatives, As Indeed Did Happen During The 1930s.
Real
War
Choices
When I Look At Public Opinion, I'm Not Far Out Of The Mainstream. I'm In It, In Many Respects. In Some Respects, Public Opinion Goes Beyond Anything I've Ever Said.
Public Opinion
Looks
Mainstream
I Don't Bother Writing About Fox News. It Is Too Easy. What I Talk About Are The Liberal Intellectuals, The Ones Who Portray Themselves And Perceive Themselves As Challenging Power, As Courageous, As Standing Up For Truth And Justice. They Are Basically The Guardians Of The Faith. They Set The Limits. They Tell Us How Far We Can Go. They Say, 'look How Courageous I Am.' But Do Not Go One Millimeter Beyond That. At Least For The Educated Sectors, They Are The Most Dangerous In Supporting Power.
Writing
Justice
Challenges
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
Democracy Is A Danger To Any Powerful Group.
Powerful
Democracy
Groups
Anyone In A Position To Overcome Barriers To Free Thought And Communication Should Do So.
Communication
Overcoming
Free Thought
Where Are The Drug Cartels Getting Their Weapons? They Are Being Provided By The United States. Cut Off That Flow Of Arms.
Cutting
Drug Cartels
United States
The Rise Of What's Called Islamic Fundamentalism Is To A Significant Extent A Result Of The Collapse Of Secular Nationalist Alternatives Which Were Either Discredited Internally Or Destroyed, Leaving Few Other Options. Something Like That May Be True Of American Society.
Islamic
Leaving
Alternatives
These Are Fashionable People Who Call Themselves Philosophers.
People
Philosopher
Fashionable
[with] Military Threats, You Can See Them Actually, You Can Imagine It. People Don't Think About It Enough. But If You Think About It For A Minute, You Can See That A Nuclear Attack Could Be The End Of Everything.
Military
Thinking
People
What's The Point Of Being Better Than Someone Else?
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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