It's designed to carry forward the neoliberal project to maximize profit and domination, and to set the working people in the world in competition with one another so as to lower wages to increase insecurity

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

The question in brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided . . . democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured; they may well be essential to survival.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.

There is a principle of human affairs that goes back millennia, which is that you don't look in the mirror. You can trace this principle back to the Bible. The designated intellectuals of that time are called prophets, which is a mistranslation of a Hebrew word, but they were basically intellectuals, giving geopolitical analysis, criticizing the moral practice of leadership, etc. Now, these people were not treated very nicely. There were other intellectuals who were treated nicely, namely those who centuries later came to be called false prophets. These were the flatterers of the court.

For 500 years, since European explorers came, Latin American countries had been separated from one another. They had very limited relations. Integration is a prerequisite for independence.

If there are lessons to be drawn from the sciences, then that should be the concern of everyone, including scientists to the extent that they can make a contribution.