Governments are not representative.

Intellectuals are in a position to expose the lies of governments, to analyze actions according to their causes and motives and often hidden intentions.

Stability means you do what we say, and what we say is that Colombia and the resources of the Andean region shall be freely available to the rich and powerful of the world, particularly US-based multinational corporations.

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.

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.

I've been interested in the reports on Rojava. It seems clear that there are positive developments.

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.