American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism.
It was during the Reagan years that defiance of international law and the U.N. Charter became entirely open.
As you deal with more and more complex systems, it becomes harder and harder to find deep and interesting properties.
In 1961, the United States began chemical warfare in Vietnam, South Vietnam, chemical warfare to destroy crops and livestock. That went on for seven years. The level of poison - they used the most extreme carcinogen known: dioxin. And this went on for years.
For a privileged minority, Western democracy provides the leisure, the facilities, and the training to seek the truth lying hidden behind the veil of distortion and misrepresentation, ideology and class interest, through which the events of current history are presented to us.
As for my own views, they've of course evolved over the years. This conception of 'renouncing beliefs' is very odd, as if we're in some kind of religious cult. I 'renounce beliefs' practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.
One of the most interesting reactions to come out of 1968 was in the first publication of the Trilateral Commission, which believed there was a 'crisis of democracy' from too much participation of the masses.
If you get to a point where the existing institutions will not bend to the popular will, you have to eliminate the institutions.
There's a tremendous gap between public opinion and public policy.
When I look at public opinion, I'm not far out of the mainstream. I'm in it, in many respects. In some respects, public opinion goes beyond anything I've ever said.
The Iranian government is undoubtedly a severe danger to its own population, but not beyond that.