The 'free-floating intellectual' may occupy himself with problems because of their inherent interest and importance, perhaps to little effect.

After all, the internet originated around 1960 and wasn't privatized until 1995. That's thirty five years in the public domain during the hard, creative development period.

the Federal Reserve, has an official commitment to two different policies. One is to prevent inflation from getting too high. The second is to maintain high employment... The European central bank has only the first. It has no commitment to keep employment up.

It's hard to achieve that, especially in a free society, but it's been done, and that's the kind of thing that activists in the IWW have to work against, right on the shop floor. It's not so simple, but it's been done before.

The idea that you have to drop any thing that you might be interested in doing because you have to pass that test tomorrow and it's something that you're not interested in, that's just the opposite of education. It's also harming teaching, because the teachers are evaluated by the results of the test.

The question in brief, is whether democracy and freedom are values to be preserved or threats to be avoided . . . democracy and freedom are more than values to be treasured; they may well be essential to survival.

Haiti, which has been the main target of US intervention throughout the 20th century, is the poorest. And Guatemala, which is maybe the third major target of US intervention, probably ranks third poorest.