I also learned from reading the left-wing press about the [Franklin] Roosevelt administration's indirect support for Francisco Franco, which was not well known, and still isn't.

Because they don't teach the truth about the world, schools have to rely on beating students over the head with propaganda about democracy. If schools were, in reality, democratic, there would be no need to bombard students with platitudes about democracy. They would simply act and behave democratically, and we know this does not happen. The more there is a need to talk about the ideals of democracy, the less democratic the system usually is.

If the United States loses the economic weapons of control, it is very much weakened.

Growing up in the place I did I never was aware of any other option but to question everything.

Karl Marx was in favor of socialist and communist-socialist revolutions, but he had a pretty nuanced view about it.

In much of the world the U.S. is regarded as a leading terrorist state.

We do not for example say that the person has a perfect knowledge of some language L similar to English but still different from it. What we say is that the child or foreigner has a 'partial knowledge of English' or is 'on his or her way' towards acquiring knowledge of English, and if they reach this goal, they will then know English.