A large part of the left is pro-Assad. In those circles, you can't criticize Assad, but you know he's a monstrous war criminal. And anyone who criticizes Assad is joining the US imperialists. That's just ludicrous.

The United States is a very insular society. Most people know very little about the outside world and don't care that much. They're concerned with their own affairs.

Stock ownership in the US is very highly concentrated. [Shareholder actions are] something, but it's like the old Communist Party in the USSR, it would be nice to see more protest inside the Communist Party but it's not democracy. It's not going to happen. [Shareholder actions] are a good step, but they're mostly symbolic.

For a while, after the Second World War, when there was strong support for labor, this was done subtly.

I happen to agree with the anti-dictatorship policies, but I don't think it's the role of General Electric to support them or oppose them. They do of course, but I don't agree with that.

In Egypt the neoliberal programs have meant statistical growth, like right before the Arab Spring, Egypt was a kind of poster child for the World Bank and the IMF [International Monetary Fund:] the marvelous economic management and great reform. The only problem was for most of the population it was a kind of like a blow in the solar plexus: wages going down, benefits being eliminated, subsidized food gone and meanwhile, high concentration of wealth and a huge amount of corruption.

Many of the people who voted for Trump were people who voted for Obama eight years ago. You remember, of course, his message was "hope and change." People wanted change, for good reasons, and they wanted hope. Disillusioned with what took place, they turned to someone else who was offering hope and change. When they're disillusioned with that, it depends on what activists and others do.