I just don't care about popular culture. It looks to me pointless and superficial. If I had free time I'd rather read a 19th century novel.

The only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. But such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival.

You've just got to get people organized and tell them the truth. There aren't any magic tricks to it. You know, sometimes it's pretty amazing. Actually, I mentioned a pretty striking case of this in "Crisis and Hope," which was the Caterpillar case in the early 1990s.

They [unions] used straight Marxist rhetoric [in 1930s] - just the values were changed.

It's not in doubt that tobacco is far more lethal than hard drugs.

There are people on the left who say, Look, we can't let these atrocities go on, so let's enter the war and get rid of Bashar Assad. The problem with that is you get into a nuclear war with Russia. And Syria gets wiped out along with everything else. So, it's fine to say, OK, let's stop the crimes, but how exactly?

It is ... necessary to whip up the population in support of foreign adventures. Usually the population is pacifist, just like they were during the First World War. The public sees no reason to get involved in foreign adventures, killing, and torture. So you have to whip them up. And to whip them up you have to frighten them.