State formation has been a brutal project, with many hideous consequences. But the results exist, and their pernicious aspects should be overcome.

Pascal in his bitter rendition of the practices of the Jesuit intellectuals he despised, including their demonstration of "the utility of interpretation," a device of manufacturing consent based on reinterpretation of sacred texts to serve wealth, power, and privilege.

The Fourteenth Amendment, after the civil war, in principle brought former slaves into the category of persons, theoretically. But if you actually look, almost all the cases brought up for personal rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were by corporations. Freed slaves couldn't do it. In fact they were pretty much driven back into something like slavery by a north - south compact, that allowed former slave states to criminalize black life, which made a criminal force that was basically used as a forced labor force, up until the 1930s.

After all, the internet originated around 1960 and wasn't privatized until 1995. That's thirty five years in the public domain during the hard, creative development period.

What right does the US have to do anything in Colombia? Does Colombia have the right to bomb North Carolina? There are more Colombians dying from tobacco than Americans dying from heroin.

The United States happens to be the only state in the world that has been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism.

A language is not just words. It's a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It's all embodied in a language.