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.

The United States is a violent military state. It's been involved in military action all over the place.

Trump's principal policies make clear what's going to happen. This gives an opportunity. Right now it's going to take hard work, but it's possible that there could be a real revival of the labor movement.

Democratic societies can't force people. Therefore they have to control what they think.

One substitute for the disappearing Evil Empire (The Soviet Union) has been the threat of drug traffickers from Latin America. In early September 1989, a major government-media blitz was launched by the President. That month the AP wires carried more stories about drugs than about Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa combined. If you looked at television, every news program had a big section on how drugs were destroying our society, becoming the greatest threat to our existence, etc.

The government of Israel doesn't like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world.

This is a large part of the academic profession: to make up complex, subtle arguments that are childishly ridiculous but are enveloped in sufficient profundity that they take on a kind of plausibility.