Independent development can be a virus that can infect others.

In fact if you look at Reagan's global war on terrorism it very quickly turned into a massive terrorist war: [by us] Central America, South Africa, the Middle East, all U.S.-backed terrorism. That's one of the reasons why it disappeared from history and why the standard line is that Bush 43 declared the war on terror. Actually he just repeated what Reagan had said 20 years earlier.

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.

On the other hand, a lot of the internet - I don't know the percentage, but I am sure a great mass of internet use - is pretty superficial interaction amongst people. Its not necessarily a bad thing. A teenager wants to talk to her friend, that's fine, but I think it probably contributes to atomization, which is a threat to the society.

The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control - 'indoctrination,' we might say - exercised through the mass media.

State formation has been a brutal project, with many hideous consequences. But the results exist, and their pernicious aspects should be overcome.

The UN to some extent diffuses U.S. power. Therefore it's less direct an agency of the United States than the U.S. Army is. But still, it can't escape the distribution of power in the world.