Nonfiction Books

"The Lobby also has significant leverage over the Executive branch. That power derives in part from the influence Jewish voters have on presidential elections."

"The bottom line is that AIPAC, which is a de facto agent for a foreign government, has a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress.""

"Were it not for the Lobby’s ability to manipulate the American political system, the relationship between Israel and the United States would be far less intimate than it is today."

"The Lobby also monitors what professors write and teach. (this is a reference to Campus Watch)"

"The Lobby doesn’t want an open debate, of course, because that might lead Americans to question the level of support they provide."

"The core of the Lobby is comprised of American Jews who make a significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel's interests."

"What is needed is a candid discussion of the Lobby's influence and a more open debate about US interests in this vital region. Israel's well-being is one of those interests, but its continued occupation of the West Bank and its broader regional agenda are not."

"Although neo-conservative and other Lobby leaders were eager to invade Iraq, the broader American Jewish Community was not.""

"There is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian allies attempting to sway US policy; the Lobby's activities are not a conspiracy... For the most part the individuals and groups in it are only doing what other special interest groups do, but doing it very much better."

""Many of the ovkey organizations in the Lobby, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organzations, are run by hardliners who generally support the Likud Party's expansionist policies, including its hostility to the Oslo Peace Process."

"Not all Jewish Americans are part of the Lobby, because Israel is not a salient issue for many of them."

"The Lobby also includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, as well as Dick Armey and Tom DeLay...all of whom believe Israel's rebirth is the fufillment of biblical prophecy and support its expansionist agenda; to do otherwise, they believe, would be contrary to God's will.""

"It is not meant to suggest that 'the lobby' is a unified movement with a central leadership, or that individuals within it do not disagree on certain issues."

"Concentration of ownership in the media is high and increasing. Furthermore, those who occupy managerial positions in the media, or gain status within them as commentators, belong to the same privileged elites, and might be expected to share the perceptions, aspirations and attitudes of their associates, reflecting their own class interests as well. Journalists entering the system are unlikely to make their way unless they conform to these ideological pressures, generally by internalizing these values; it is not easy to say one thing and believe another, and those who fail to conform will tend to be weeded out by familiar mechanisms."

"We attack Nicaragua precisely because it is committed to a model of development that we cannot tolerate. Of course, this is presented as defense against the Russians, and as proof that it's defense against the Russians we note that the Nicaraguans receive weapons with which they can defend themselves against our attack."

"Democracy doesn't mean much if people have to confront concentrated systems of economic power as isolated individuals. Democracy means something if people can organize to gain information, to have thoughts for that matter, to make plans, to enter into the political system in some active way, to put forth programs and so on. If organizations of that kind exist, then democracy can exist too. Otherwise it's a matter of pushing a lever every couple of years; it's like having the choice between Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola."

"Cuba has probably been the target of more international terrorism than any other country, and, therefore, in the American ideological system it is regarded as the source of international terrorism, exactly as Orwell would have predicted."

"It is important to understand that the massacre of the rural population of Vietnam and their forced evacuation is not an accidental by-product of the war. Rather it is of the very essence of American strategy. The theory behind it has been explained with great clarity and explicitness, for example by Professor Samuel Huntington, chairman of the Government Department at Harvard and at the time (1968) chairman of the Council of Vietnamese Studies of the Southeast Asia Development Advisory Group. Writing in Foreign Affairs, he explains that the Vietcong is "a powerful force which cannot be dislodged from its constituency so long as the constituency continues to exist." The conclusion is obvious, and he does not shrink from it."

"I am personally quite convinced that no matter what training or education I might have received, I could never have run a four-minute mile, discovered Gödel's theorems, composed a Beethoven quartet, or risen to any of other innumerable heights of human achievement. I feel in no way demeaned by these inadequacies. It is quite enough that I am capable, as I think any person of normal endowments probably is, of appreciating and in part understanding what others have accomplished, while making my own personal contributions in whatever measure and manner I am able to do so. Human talents vary considerably, within a fixed framework that is characteristic of the species and that permits ample scope for creative work, including the creative work of appreciating the achievements of others. This should be a matter for delight rather than a condition to be abhorred. Those who assume otherwise must be adopting the tacit premise that people's rights or social reward are somehow contingent on their abilities. As for human rights, there is an element of plausibility in this assumption in the single respect already noted: in a decent society, opportunities should conform as far as possible to personal needs, and such needs may be specialized and related to particular talents and capacities. My pleasure in life is enhanced by the fact that others can do many things that I cannot, and I see no reason to want to deny these people the opportunity to cultivate their talents, consistent with general social needs. Difficult questions of practice are sure to arise in any functioning social group, but I see no problem of principle."

"Discussion of egalitarian views is often misleading, in that the criticism of such views is commonly directed against a straw-man opponent, as egalitarians have been quick to point out. In fact, "equality of condition," much deplored by contemporary ideologists, has rarely been the express goal of reformers or revolutionaries, at least on the left. In Marx's utopia, "the development of human energy" is to be taken as "an end in itself" as humans escape the "realm of necessity" so that questions of freedom can be seriously raised. The guiding principle, reiterated to the point of cliché, is: "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." The principle of "equality of condition" is nowhere invoked. If one person needs medical treatment and another is more fortunate, they are not to be granted an equal amount of medical care, and the same is true of other human needs."

"In principle, we have a variety of important rights under the law. But we also know just how much these mean, in practice, to people who are unable to purchase them. We have the right of free expression, though some can shout louder than others, by reason of power, wealth, and privilege. We can defend our legal rights through the courts — insofar as we understand these rights and can afford the costs. All of this is obvious and hardly worth extended comment. In a perfectly functioning capitalist democracy, with no illegitimate abuse of power, freedom will be in effect a commodity; effectively, a person will have as much of it as he can buy."

"It would not be absurd, but grotesque, to argue that since circumstances can be arranged under which behavior is quite predictable — as in a prison, for example, or the concentration-camp society "designed" above — therefore there need be no concern for the freedom and dignity of "autonomous man." When such conclusions are taken to be the result of a "scientific analysis," one can only be amazed at human gullibility."

"Being able to do as one pleases is the natural goal of the libertarian, but having nothing to do is not. While it may be correct to say that the human species is badly prepared for having nothing to do, it is quite a different matter to say that it is badly prepared for the freedom to do as one pleases. People who are able to do as they please may work very hard, given the opportunity to do interesting work."

"It must, needless to say, be stressed that social action cannot await a firmly established theory of human nature and society, nor can the validity of the latter be determined by our hopes and moral judgments."

"The many modern critics who sense an inconsistency in the belief that free creation takes place within — presupposes, in fact — a system of constraints and governing principles are quite mistaken: unless, of course, they speak of "contradiction" in the loose and metaphoric sense of Schelling, when he writes that "without the contradiction of necessity and freedom not only philosophy but every nobler ambition of the spirit would sink to that death which is peculiar to those sciences in which that contradiction serves no function." Without this tension between necessity and freedom, rule and choice, there can be no creativity, no communication, no meaningful acts all all."

"The more intensely the debate rages between hawks and doves, the more firmly and effectively the doctrines of the state religion are established."

"The official historian of the Kennedy administration, Arthur Schlesinger, regarded as a leading dove, does indeed refer to aggression in 1962: "1962 had not been a bad year," he writes in his history, A Thousand Days ; "aggression [was] checked in Vietnam." That is, the year in which the United States undertook direct aggression against South Vietnam was the year in which aggression was checked in Vietnam. Another respected figure in the liberal pantheon, Adlai Stevenson, intoned at the United Nations that in Vietnam we were combating "internal aggression," another phrase that Orwell would have admired; that is, we were combating aggression by the Vietnamese against us in Vietnam, just as we had combated aggression by the Mexicans against us in Mexico a century earlier."

"After decades of anti-Communist indoctrination, it is difficult to achieve a perspective that makes possible a serious evaluation of the extent to which Bolshevism and Western liberalism have been united in their opposition to popular revolution."

"Most people are not liars. They can't tolerate too much cognitive dissonance. I don't want to deny that there are outright liars, just brazen propagandists. You can find them in journalism and in the academic professions as well. But I don't think that's the norm. The norm is obedience, adoption of uncritical attitudes, taking the easy path of self-deception."

"JP: Do you think people are inhibited by expertise? NC: There are also experts about football, but these people don't defer to them. The people who call in talk with complete confidence. They don't care if they disagree with the coach or whoever the local expert is. They have their own opinion and they conduct intelligent discussions."

"My guess is that you would find that the intellectual elite is the most heavily indoctrinated sector. It's their role as a secular priesthood to really believe the nonsense that they put forth. Other people can repeat it, but it's not that crucial that they really believe it. But for the intellectual elite themselves, it's crucial that they believe it because, after all, they are guardians of the faith. Except for a very rare person who's just an outright liar, it's hard to be a convincing exponent of the faith unless you've internalized it and come to believe it."

"When I'm driving, I sometimes turn on the radio and I find very often that what I'm listening to is a discussion of sports. These are telephone conversations. People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it's plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that. People know a tremendous amount. They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding. On the other hand, when I hear people talk about, say, international affairs or domestic problems, it's at a level of superficiality which is beyond belief.In part, this reaction may be due to my own areas of interest, but I think it's quite accurate, basically. And I think that this concentration on topics such as sports makes a certain degree of sense. The way the system is set up, there is virtually nothing people can do anyway, without a degree of organization that's far beyond anything that exists now, to influence the real world. They might as well live in a fantasy world, and that's in fact what they do."

"It is not impossible that U.S. and Israeli intelligence actually believe that the Intifada was initiated by the PLO and is directed by it. There is ample evidence of the incapacity of intelligence, the national political police, or the political leadership to comprehend the reality of popular movements and popular struggles. The idea is simply too threatening, and cannot be faced or comprehended. It is also necessary to bear in mind the ideological fanaticism that often colors intelligence reports and the higher-level interpretation of them, also amply documented."

"The Times and other media were being spoon-fed material by the public relations specialists of the United Fruit Company, though, as its PR director Thomas McCann later wrote: "It is difficult to make a convincing case for manipulation of the press when the victims proved so eager for the experience.""

"It is supposed, beyond question, that what the United States does and stands for is right and good; if others fail to recognize this moral rectitude, plainly they are at fault. The naivete is not without a certain childish appeal — which quickly fades, however, when we recognize how it is converted into an instrument for inflicting suffering and pain."

"Generally, the media tolerate or even welcome denunciation of their hostility to authority, for obvious self-serving reasons. But there are times when such attacks can become a real threat. To defend themselves, the media must turn — briefly — to critics of their conformity. If they are accused of being unpatriotic, or too harsh towards creations of the public relations industry of the Reagan variety, they may request — even feature — critiques of their subordination to the state and awe of powerful figures. Media spokespersons can then observe that they are being criticized from both sides, so it must be that they are right in the middle, doing their work properly. The argument might have some force if the "criticism from both sides" were actually evaluated. Such is not the case, however; to serve the purpose at hand, it is not enough that criticism of media subordination exists."

"Perhaps it is worth stressing a point that should be obvious. If the media function as predicted by the propaganda model, then they must present a picture of the world that is tolerably close to reality, even if only a selective version. Investors have to make judgments based on the facts of the real world, and the same is true of state managers. Privileged and politically active elites, who rely on the media, must have some awareness of basic realities if they are to serve their own interests effectively and play their social roles. Often, these realities demonstrate the ineptness, incompetence, corruption, and other failings of the state managers and their policies. These realities are detectable, even emphasized, in the media, and would be even if their sole function were to provide services to the powerful. To appeal to these facts to show that the media do not attempt to "mobilize bias" is to betray a serious misunderstanding of social realities."

"Debate cannot be stilled, and indeed, in a properly functioning system of propaganda, it should not be, because it has a system-reinforcing character if constrained within proper bounds. What is essential is to set the bounds firmly. Controversy may rage as long as it adheres to the presuppositions that define the consensus of elites, and it should furthermore be encouraged within these bounds, thus helping to establish these doctrines as the very condition of thinkable thought while reinforcing the belief that freedom reigns."

"In a three-minute stretch between commercials, or in seven hundred words, it is impossible to present unfamiliar thoughts or surprising conclusions with the argument and evidence required to afford them credibility. Regurgitation of welcome pieties faces no such problem."

"My personal feeling is that citizens of the democratic societies should undertake a course of intellectual self-defense to protect themselves from manipulation and control, and to lay the basis for more meaningful democracy."

"In March, 1972 Britain was shocked when a 14 year old English boy was sentenced to 6 years of prison in Turkey for having done business with large quantities of drugs […]. But where were the eyes and hearts of your left wing leaders and lawyers, when you read about Stalin's laws on juveniles?"

"Oh, Western freedom-loving left-wing thinkers! Oh, left-wing labourists! Oh, American, German and French progressive students! All of this is still not enough for you. The whole book has been useless for you. You will understand everything immediately, when you yourself — "hands behind the back" — toddle into our Archipelago."

"And all that was written about the foreign countries, — in 1930s about the inevitable collapse of the West, the treacherousness of the Socialists, the unanimousity of all Spain against Franco (in 1942 the treacherous freedom fight of Nehru — it weakened the British empire, Soviet wartime ally) — proved to be lies."

"Who remembers the great flight of people from Northern Caucasus in January 1943 — and who can show a counterpart from the world history? The population, especially rural, massively going with the defeated enemy, the foreigners — in order not to remain under the victorious own — carts, carts, carts in the severe windy January frost!"

"There in Rostov, Aleksandr Petrovich M.-V., an engineer was arrested in one the first days of war, he died in the preliminary inquiry chamber, his wife shuddered for months, waiting when she would be arrested, — and only after the German arrival could she go to sleep calmly: Now I can have a rest at last! Nay, she should have prayed for her butchers to return."

"In May 1943, during the German occupation, in a garden at Podlesnaya street in Vinnica, incidentally was started the excavation of graves already unnoticeable and overgrown with grass — and 39 mass graves were found […]. In June, excavation started near orthodox cemetery, and another 42 graves were found. […] Altogether, 95 graves with 9439 bodies. And that only in Vinnica, where these were incidentally discovered. But how many might have been hidden in other towns? And the population should have rushed to become Soviet partisans, having seen those graves?"

"The first fruits of the popular victory in Stalingrad were the decree on the militarisation of railroads (boys and women to tribunal) and one day later (April 17) the decree on introduction of hard labour and gallows."

"For twenty years, the religion was being persecuted and the churches closed. The Germans came and began re-opening churches […] In Rostov-on-Don the inauguration became a huge jubilation, that attracted lots of people. But of course they should have damned the Germans for that, eh?"

"The coming church trials were internal. They didn't interest progressive Europe. And they could be conducted without a code. We have already had an opportunity to observe that the separation of church and state was so construed by the state that the churches themselves and everything that hung in them, was installed in them and painted in them, belonged to the state, and the only church remaining was that church which, in accordance with the Scriptures, lay within the heart. And in 1918, when political victory seemed to have been attained faster and more easily than had been expected, they had pressed right on to confiscate church property. However, this leap had aroused too fierce a wave of popular indignation. In the heat of the Civil War, it was not very intelligent to create, in addition, an internal front against the believers. And it proved necessary to postpone for the time being the dialogue between the Communists and the Christians."

"Having justifiably learnt to distrust Soviet propaganda in everything, we naturally couldn't believe those fairy tales, as if the Nazis wanted to make Russia their colony and us the German slaves, it was impossible to presume such an idiocy in XXth century heads, one couldn't believe it, unless one had experienced it itself, with one's own flesh."