The media may feel obligated to carry extremely dubious stories and mute criticism in order not to offend their sources and disturb a close relationship. It is very difficult to call authorities on whom one depends for daily news liars, even if they tell whoppers.
Nothing is sincere….But…[liberals] should be praising [Trump] for [reducing tensions with Russia and sensible Korean denuclearization] and supporting it, but instead, the liberals are so insane that they’re attacking him for the few things he’s doing which makes sense.
When the Greek government suggested asking the people of Greece to express their opinions on their fate, the reaction of European elites was utter horror at the impudence. How can Greeks dare to regard democracy as a value to be respected in the country of its origin?
To cite the facts of history is to fall prey to ‘moral equivalence,’ or ‘political correctness,’ or ‘the error of of atheism,’ or one of the other misdeeds concocted to guard against the sins of understanding and insight into the real world.
In some intellectual circles, it is considered naive or foolish to be guided by moral principles. About this form of idiocy, I will have nothing to say.
The point is that since this is a business-run society, it’s also a propaganda-oriented society, because business is committed to marketing. The highest value in business is to deceive people into getting something, taking something that they don’t want.
Usually, by and large, the U.S. foreign policy, like other major states, is driven by the dominant domestic forces. That’s kind of natural. And the dominant domestic forces are, of course, the corporate sector. That’s not in question.
Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege. People like you and me have an unbelievable amount of privilege and therefore we have a huge amount of responsibility. We live in free societies where we are not afraid of the police; we have extraordinary wealth available to us by global standards. If you have those things, then you have the kind of responsibility that a person does not have if he or she is slaving seventy hours a week to put food on the table; a responsibility at the very least to inform yourself about power. Beyond that, it is a question of whether you believe in moral certainties or not.
Like all advanced societies, the U.S. has relied on state intervention in the economy from its origins, though for ideological reasons, the fact is commonly denied.
An educational system should cultivate from kindergarten to graduate school, and in the best cases sometimes does, and that leads to people who are, at least by my standards, well educated.?
[The general population – “the ignorant and meddlesome outsiders”] are allowed to vote every once in a while, pick out one of us smart guys. But then they are supposed to go home and do something else like watch football or whatever it may be.
In Nixon’s administration, you get the consumer safety legislation (CPSC), safety and health regulations in the workplace (OSHA) and the EPA – the Environmental Protection Agency. Business didn’t like it, of course – they didn’t like the higher taxes, didn’t like the regulation.
Some of the most moving experiences I’ve had are just in black churches in the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, where people were getting beaten, killed, really struggling for the most elementary rights.
The political and social history of Western democracies records all sorts of efforts to ensure that the formal mechanisms are little more than wheels spinning idly. The goal is to eliminate public meddling in policy formation.
The House Armed Services Committee a couple of years ago described the role of Congress as that of a sometimes querulous but essentially kindly uncle who complains while furiously puffing on his pipe but who finally, as everyone expects, gives in and hands over the allowance.
But that [‘friendly Fascism’] requires an honest ideologue, a Hitler type, not someone whose only detectable ideology is Me.
Plainly, such an approach does not exclude other ways of trying to comprehend the world. Someone committed to it (as I am) can consistently believe (as I do) that we learn much more of human interest about how people think and feel and act by reading novels or studying history than from all of naturalistic psychology, and perhaps always will; similarly, the arts may offer appreciation of the heavens to which astrophysics cannot aspire.
I do not feel that we should set up people as ‘models’; rather actions, thoughts, principles.
The kind of work that should be the main part of life is the kind of work you would want to do if you weren’t being paid for it. It’s work that comes out of your own internal needs, interests and concerns.
The financial industry, that means Goldman Sachs, if managed properly, will calculate the potential cost to itself if a loan goes bad, but not the impact on the financial system, which can be severe. This inherent deficiency of markets is well known.
Much of the world must be astonished-if they are not collapsing in laughter-while watching the performances in high places and in media concerning Russian efforts to influence an American election, a familiar US government specialty as far back as we choose to trace the practice.
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