Control of thought is more important for governments that are free and popular than for despotic and military states. The logic is straightforward: a despotic state can control its domestic enemies by force, but as the state loses this weapon, other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from interfering with public affairs, which are none of their business… the public are to be observers, not participants, consumers of ideology as well as products.

Millions of people are getting the vote, and we have to educate them to keep them from our throats. In other words, we have to train them in obedience and servility, so they're not going to think through the way the world works and come after our throats.

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.

To pay attention to the actual core of the movement - that would be pretty hard. Can you concentrate for example on either the policy issues or the creation of functioning democratic communities of mutual support and say, well, that's what's lacking in our country that's why we don't have a functioning democracy - a community of real participation. That's really important. And that always gets smashed.

Governments will use whatever technology is available to combat their primary enemy - their own population.

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.

The United States is absolutely the most dangerous country in the world.