For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us.

President Barack Obama, to his credit, has given - issued personal pardons in deserving cases. But he should go far beyond. He should proceed to what is in fact an urgent necessity: to grant a general pardon to 11 million people who are living and working here, productive citizens in all but name, threatened with deportation by the incoming Donald Trump administration. This would be a horrible humanitarian tragedy, a moral outrage.

For those of us who got into good colleges or the professions, did we stand up to that high school history teacher who told us some ridiculous lie about American history and say, "That's a ridiculous lie. You're an idiot"? No. We said, "All right, I'll keep quiet, and I'll write it in the exam and I'll think, yes, he's an idiot." And it's easy to say and believe things that improve your self-image and your career and that are in other ways beneficial to yourselves.

The world is a very puzzling place. If you're not willing to be puzzled, you just become a replica of someone else's mind.

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.

Roughly speaking, I think it's accurate to say that a corporate elite of managers and owners governs the economy and the political system as well, at least in very large measure.

We should recall that during the Second World War and the Great Depression there was an upsurge in popular, radical democracy. In all over the world. It took different forms, but it was there, everywhere. In Greece it was in the Greek revolution, and so on. And it had to be crushed. In countries like Greece, it was crushed by violence. In countries like Italy, where the US forces entered in 1943, it was crushed by attacking and destroying the anti-German partisans and restoring the traditional order.