The Sanders campaign showed that a candidate with mildly progressive programs could win the nomination, maybe the election, even without the backing of the major funders or any media support. There's good reason to suppose that Sanders would have won the nomination had it not been for shenanigans of the Obama-Clinton party managers. He is now the most popular political figure in the country by a large margin.

As long as each individual is facing the television tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege

Capitalism is based on the principle that everything has to be privately owned; it can't be held in common. There is even a dogma, which is today called, the "tragedy of the commons" which holds that if things are held in common they are going to be destroyed. If they're privatized, like you give them to Bechtel or Monsanto or ExxonMobil, then they'll be preserved because that's the capitalist's religion.

In Europe there's an dangerous growth of ultra xenophobia which is pretty threatening to any one who remembers the history of Europe... and an attack on the remnants of the welfare state. It's hard to interpret the austerity-in-the-midst-of-recession policy as anything other than attack on the social contract.

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.

Politicians don't want democracy here in America, why would they want it in the Middle East?

There's something deeply rooted in American culture. You can pretty much identify what it was. You take a look at the history. It was internal conquest. You had to defend yourself against what the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, an enlightened figure, called the attacks of the "merciless Indian savages," whose known way of warfare was torture and destruction. Also you had a slave population, you had to protect yourself against them. You needed guns.