The actual consequences of Plan Colombia are to devastate peasant communities, which have been driven to drug production. These peasants have no particular desire to grow coca, but their other means of livelihood have been wiped out.

There is massive propaganda for everyone to consume. Consumption is good for profits and consumption is good for the political establishment.

I still think, despite everything, that the US is very unlikely to attack Iran. It could be a huge catastrophe; nobody knows what the consequences would be. I imagine that only an administration that's really desperate would resort to that.

In Europe there's kind of a reaction to the European Union, kind of a move towards some kind of regionalization. It's more advanced in some regions than others, like in Spain for example. Catelan was repressed under Franco. People spoke it, but not publicly. It's now the language of Catelonia. The Basque language is being revived, not just the language but the culture, the folk music and everything else. So you're getting more diverse societies, and it's happening in Britain as well.

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.

I have not suggested that the emergence of language is instantaneous. Rather, that the rewiring of the brain enabling an infinite array of structured expressions was in effect instantaneous. I have never heard of an alternative to this suggestion.

The internet is something created largely by public funding.