Technology can also be used so that private individuals will have access to the way centralized decisions are being made.

The two tendencies are antithetical in significant respects. These are distinctions that should be kept in mind, however one feels that the problems and dilemmas that constantly arise should be resolved.

As we [with Edward Herman] discuss there [in Manufacturing Consent] and elsewhere, recognition of the importance of "manufacturing consent" has become an ever more central theme in the more free societies.

Take, for example, there is a right-wing populist uprising. It's very common, even on the left, to just ridicule them, but that's not the right reaction. If you look at those people and listen to them on talk radio, these are people with real grievances.

Its true that contemporary technology permits decentralization, it also permits centralization. It depends on how you use the technology.

Edward Said is a very honorable representative of the "intellectual" in the sense of the term that he defines.

For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit.