Real popular culture is folk art - coalminers' songs and so forth.

The neoliberal programs of the last generation have in fact been, and were intended to be, a pretty serious attack on democracy, but also they've led to stagnation or decline for large parts of the population - the working class, the lower middle class, these people have essentially been cast aside.

The intellectual is an individual with a specific public role in society that cannot be reduced simply to . . a faceless professional.

Reagan was extreme. Beginning of his administration, one of the first things was to call in scabs - hadn't been done for a long time, and it's illegal in most countries - in the air controller strike.

One should be cautious about "general conceptions." I think a strong case can be made that activism today is as high as ever, perhaps more so, and is also taking new and significant forms. There has never been anything like the international solidarity movements that began to take shape in the 1980s, right in the mainstream, or the global justice movements that have become a very powerful force in later years. It's true that the society is highly atomized, which does induce a sense of hopelessness often - quite mistakenly I think.

The neo-cons constitute a radical reactionary fringe of the planning spectrum, but the spectrum is narrow.

How it is we have so much information, but know so little?