Michele Zephier

“It’s all quite predictable, as study after study shows. A brutal tyrant crosses the line from admirable friend to “villain” and “scum” when he commits the crime of independence. One common mistake is to go beyond robbing the poor—which is just fine—and to start interfering with the privileged, eliciting opposition from business leaders.”
― Noam Chomsky, How the World Works

“Fish,” he said softly, aloud, “I’ll stay with you until I am dead.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“A good bit has been learned about the wars in El Salvador and Guatemala since Deterring Democracy was published thirty years ago. As the wars wound down, Truth Commissions were established in both countries. Their research revealed that the overwhelming majority of the crimes were carried out by the security forces that were armed, trained, directed by the Reagan administration. I’ll come back to all of that and its backgrounds, particularly since the Kennedy years. This is bipartisan. It’s highly instructive. There has never been a Truth Commission here. That’s unthinkable, a violation of common sense. Truth Commissions often have a considerable impact, in Argentina, to take one case. So does their absence. The most important country in Latin America, Brazil, did not have one. They had a brutal military dictatorship, but there was no reckoning. Actually, the Catholic Church did publish an inquiry, but there was no real Truth Commission. The effects are in the headlines right now. In Brazil, something similar to military dictatorship is taking shape. It’s tolerated, even supported, in part because people don’t even remember the military dictatorship and its many crimes. Younger people may not even know about it.”
― Noam Chomsky, Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance

“I’m just going to say, there’s an obverse meaning to take away from the common sense understanding of how our society operates. That obverse meaning is this: In America, if you don’t succeed, you are either not working hard enough, or you are not playing by the rules, or both. So if you don’t succeed, and this is the obverse of thinking about the American dream as it’s laid out, essentially, your failure is your own fault. This is another corollary of the individualized notion of how society works. All the opportunities are there. If you fail, it is your fault. There is nothing structural or systemic or unfair getting in your way, either historically, contemporaneously, or into the future.”
― Noam Chomsky, Consequences of Capitalism: Manufacturing Discontent and Resistance