Palestinians have no wealth or power.

The 1980's was the first time in the history of imperialism that people from the imperial society went in substantial numbers to stay with the victims in the hope that their presence would offer some protection and some help. These were not the usual students from elite universities. These were people straight out of middle America.

During the terrorist regime in Haiti in the 1990s, the CIA, under the administration of Bill Clinton, was reporting to Congress that oil shipments had been blocked from entering Haiti. That was just a lie. I was there. You could see the oil terminals being built and the ships coming in.

Power is concentrated. The general policy is exactly the way that Adam Smith described it: it's designed for the benefit of its principal architects, the powerful. It serves "the vile maxim of the masters: all for ourselves and nothing for anyone else". Those are the basic rules of the world.

What the US does is the kind of thing I described in Italy in 1948. Case after case like that, not hacking or spreading rumors in the media; but saying look, we're going to starve you to death or kill you or destroy you unless you vote the way we want. I mean that's what we do.

What Wikileaks exposed is kind of superficial in a way.

Ontological questions are generally beside the point, hardly more than a form of harassment.