Because you cannot study the acquisition or use of language in an intelligent manner without having some idea about this language which is acquired or utilized.
A democracy is a system in which you are free to do whatever you like as long as you do what we tell you.
That’s essentially neoliberalism. It has this dual character, which goes right back in economic history. One set of rules for the rich. Opposite set of rules for the poor.
If you take the Fourteenth Amendment literally, then no undocumented alien can be deprived of rights if they’re a person. Well, the courts, in their wisdom over the years, have carved that away and said they’re not persons. Undocumented aliens who are living here and building your buildings, cleaning your lawns, and so on, they’re not persons, but General Electric is a person, an immortal, super powerful person.
An old man in Gaza held a placard that read: “You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all, but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.” The.
A major reason for the concentrated, almost fanatic attack on unions and organized labor is they are a democratizing force. They provide a barrier that defends workers’ rights, but also popular rights generally. That interferes with the prerogatives and power of those who own and manage the society.
Life among clones would not be worth living, and a sane person will only rejoice that others have abilities that they do not share. That should be elementary.
In fact, what are called international “free trade agreements” are not free trade at all. The trade system was reconstructed with a very explicit design of putting working people in competition with one another all over the world.
What we have to do is trap them into consumerism. Carry out enough propaganda and teasers and so on to make freed slaves feel they’ve got to have these commodities. They go to the company store and they get them, they’re in debt, and pretty soon they’re trapped – the slave economy’s back.
The tendency in K–12 is reducing education to mechanical skills, and undermining creativity and independence – both on the part of teachers and students. That’s what “teaching to the test” is, “No Child Left Behind,” “Race to the Top.” I think these should be regarded as methods of indoctrination and control. Of course, one of the other ways to do that has been to simply reduce or eliminate free education.
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
The civilization and justice of bourgeois order comes out in its lurid light whenever the slaves and drudges of that order rise against their masters.
Beware of the people of power, and avarice, and wealth. Because the more intelligent they are, the better they’ll be at distorting reality and convincing us that what’s good for them is good for the world when it’s just the opposite.
But the imperial mentality is so deeply embedded in Western culture that this travesty passes without criticism, even notice.
There are any number of questions that might lead one to undertake a study of language. Personally, I am primarily intrigued by the possibility of learning something, from the study of language, that will bring to light inherent properties of the human mind.
People want to explore, we want to press our capacities to their limits, we want to appreciate what we can. But the joy of creation is something very few people get the opportunity to have in our society: artists get to have it, craftspeople have it, scientists.
From Ferguson to Athens, via Mexico, it is clear that many governments are reproducing the tools that Israel uses to repress and oppress the Palestinians. The replication of those same tactics, methods, and often weapons serves as proof that the Palestinians are now used as guinea pigs for experimentation.
Neoliberalism works best when there is formal electoral democracy, but when the population is diverted from the information, access, and public forums necessary for meaningful participation in decision making.
The people who are known are riding the crest of some wave. Now, you can ride the crest of the wave and try to use it to get power, which is the standard thing, or you can ride the crest of the wave because you’re helping people that way, which is another thing. But the point is, it’s the wave that matters.
If American opinion has been uninformed, misinformed and prejudiced, the missionaries are largely to blame. Interpreting history in terms of the advance of Christianity, they have given an inadequate, distorted, and occasionally a grotesque picture of Moslems and Islam.