In the United States, the political system is a very marginal affair. There are two parties, so-called, but they're really factions of the same party, the Business Party.

The majority of the population thinks that if the government runs healthcare, they're going to take away your freedom. At the same time, the public favors a national healthcare program.

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.

You take a look at the history of African Americans in the US. There's been about thirty years of relative freedom. There was a decade after the Civil War and before north/south compact essentially recriminalized black life. During the Second World War there was a need for free labor so there was a freeing up of the labor force. Blacks benefitted from it.

My own feeling is that a corporation has no right to have a political or social influence.

Not being optimistic falls a long way short of predicting that all is finished.

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.