Suppose that insect wings developed primarily as thermoregulators and then were used for skimming and finally flying, evolving along the way. What would they be "for"? Or what is the skeleton "for"? For keeping one upright, protecting organs, storing calcium, making blood cells...?

They [the union] were members of the Communist Party - they didn't care one way or another about Russia, they just cared about the United States.

We can try to gain some of the sensibility of some of the indigenous populations of the world or our predecessors 800 years ago. We can laugh at them as being naive and unsophisticated, but unless we can gain that sensibility that there has to be rights of nature as Bolivians and others put it, then we're going to be destroyed.

As long as each individual is facing the television tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege

What I've called "the Mafia doctrine" in many publications: when the Godfather issues an edict, others must obey, or else. It's too dangerous to allow disobedience. A leading principle of world affairs - though, of course, officials and commentators put it more politely.

In the United States everyone is an illegal immigrant - everyone except the people in Indian Reservations. This is an immigrant society.

I hope that a move toward clemency with Judge Afiuni would be a step towards the importance of maintaining a properly functioning justice system.