Immediately after 11 September, the U.S. closed down the Somali charitable network Al-Barakaat on grounds that it was financing terror. This achievement was hailed one of the great successes of the 'war on terror.' In contrast, Washington's withdrawal of its charges as without merit a year later aroused little notice.

Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, let's say fighting world war two, it's an assault on democracy.

In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

In Europe there's an dangerous growth of ultra xenophobia which is pretty threatening to any one who remembers the history of Europe... and an attack on the remnants of the welfare state. It's hard to interpret the austerity-in-the-midst-of-recession policy as anything other than attack on the social contract.

If you accept the institutional lunacy, then the policies are rational.

Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony.

In my own professional work I have touched on a variety of different fields. I've done work in mathematical linguistics, for example, without any professional credentials in mathematics; in this subject I am completely self-taught, and not very well taught.