28sep07 CHOMSKY interview

A Revolution is Just Below the Surface

September 28th 2007, by Eva Golinger

On September 21, 2007, I had the extraordinary opportunity to interview
Noam Chomsky in his office at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. The interview will be aired on Venezuelan and
Latin American television as part of the promotion for the III
International Book Fair in Venezuela, which this year focuses on the
theme: "United States: Is Revolution Possible?" The transcription of the
interview follows.

EVA: I read a quote of yours which said power is always illegitimate
unless it proves itself to be legitimate. So in Venezuela right now we are
in the process of Constitutional reform. And within that reform the
People's Power is going to gain Constitutional rank, above in fact all the
other state powers, the executive, legislative and judicial powers, and in
Venezuela we also have the electoral and the citizen's power. Would this
be an example of power becoming legitimate? A people's power? And could
this change the way power is viewed? And change the face of Latin America
considering that the Bolivarian Revolution is having such an influence
over other countries in the region?

CHOMSKY: Your word, the word "could", is the right word. Yes it "could" ,
but it depends how it is implemented. In principle it seems to be a very
powerful and persuasive conception, but everything always depends on
implementation. If there is really authentic popular participation in the
decision-making and the free association of communities, yeah, that could
be tremendously important. In fact that's essentially the traditional
anarchist ideal. That's what was realized the only time for about a year
in Spain in 1936 before it was crushed by outside forces, in fact all
outside forces, Stalinst Russia, Hitler in Germany, Mussilini's fascism
and the Western democracies cooperated in crushing it. They were all
afraid of it. But that was something like what you are describing, and if
it can function and survive and really disperse power down to participants
and their communities, it could be extremely important.

EVA: Do you think it's just an idealist illusion or can it really be
manifested?

CHOMSKY: I think it can. It's usually crushed by outside force because
it's considered so dangerous...

EVA: But in this case when it's the government who's promoting it? The
state who's promoting it?

CHOMSKY: That's what going to be the crucial question. Is it coming from
the State or is it coming from the people? Now, maybe it can be initiated
from the State, but unless the energy is really coming from the population
itself, it's very likely to fall into some sort of top-down directed
pattern, and that's the real question. In Spain in 1936, the reason for
the very substantial success is because it was popular - it's a quite
different situation from Venezuela. In Spain, the anarchist tradition was
very deeply rooted. There had been 50 years of education, experiments,
efforts which were crushed, I mean it was in people's minds. So when the
opportunity came they were developing what was already in their minds,
what they had tried to do many times, it wasn't spontaneous, it was the
result of decades of education, organizing and activism on the ground. Now
Venezuela is a different situation, it's being initiated from above, and
the question is can that lead to direct popular participation and
innovative and energy and so on. That's a real historical experiment, I
don't know the answer.

EVA: I think it's a combination because the reason that the coup against
Chávez was overthrown was because of the people's power...

CHOMSKY: That's right

EVA: It's just been unstructured and very spontaneous, so the idea behind
this is to somehow structure that, and I question from that same anarchist
perspective, if you structure that power will it....

CHOMSKY: Take off...

EVA: or become corrupted or illegitimate? Or will it Take off?

CHOMSKY: Take off...That's why the comparison with Spain is so interesting
because there it was coming from below, nothing coming from above and it
was there because people had been committed to it for decades and had
tried it out, organized and so on. There was a live anarchist tradition,
actually there is a live anarchist tradition in Latin America but it's
been repeatedly crushed, in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, all over, actually I
have a book right over there on the desk on the history of Anarchism in
Chile which is not very well known, so it's been there, it's hidden, but I
don't think these ideas are very far below consciousness almost anywhere,
including the United States. If you talk to working class people they
understand the notions. If fact it's not too well known but in the United
States, there was never a powerful organized left, but in many ways it's
one of the most leftist societies in the world. In the mid-19th century
for example, right in the beginning of the industrialist revolution right
around here in Boston, there was a rich literature of working class
people, what were called factory girls, young women coming from the farms
to work in the mills, or Irish artesians, immigrants in Boston, very rich
literature, it was the period of the freest press ever in the country and
it was very radical. They had no connection with European radicalism, they
had never heard of Marx or anything else, and it was simply taken for
granted that wage labor is not much different from slavery, and if you
rent yourself to somebody that's not different from selling yourself.
Actually in the Civil War in the United States, a lot of the northern
workers actually fought under that banner, were against chattel slavery
and they were against wage slavery. And the standard slogan of the people
was "the people who work in the mills ought to own them and run them". It
took a long time to drive that out of people's heads. In the 1890s there
were cities, like Homestead, Pennsylvania, that were taken over by working
class people with these ideas, and they're still there. You know it's kind
of suppressed by lots of propaganda and repression and so on, but it's
just below the surface and I would imagine that may be the same in
Venezuela. These are natural beliefs and there's a possibility they might
spring into fruition given the right circumstances.

EVA: That's actually included in the constitutional reform as well, the
concept of creating communal cities, communes, that are worker-run, and
including the companies. It will be very interesting to see how it
develops.

CHOMSKY: It's very interesting

EVA: And how it then would change the force of power in the region

CHOMSKY: If it can carry out. In the past it has happened but it's been
crushed by force and even here in the United States it was crushed by
State violence.

EVA: On the notion of "crushed by force and state violence", thinking of
Latin America and the changes occurring, the influences of Venezuela,
right now President Chávez is mediating the peace process in Colombia.
One, how do you view his role as the mediator? And two, do you think that
the US is really going to allow for peace in Colombia when there has been
an expansion of Plan Colombia and Colombia remains the stronghold of the
United States and its military force in South America? Would they react in
a more sort of aggressive way?

CHOMSKY: I think the US will do what it can to make sure Colombia remains
more or less a client state. But I don't think the US has a commitment to
the internal war in Colombia. They do want to see FARC destroyed. The US
does not really want paramilitaries running the country and the drug
trade, I mean that's not optimal from the point of view of an imperial
power, you don't want to have para-powers carrying out State activities.
They were useful, and the US not only supported them but in fact, they
initiated them. If you go back to the early sixties in Venezuela, in fact
in 1962, President Kennedy sent a military mission to Colombia, headed by
a Special Forces General, General Yarborough, to advise Colombia on how to
deal with its internal problems and they recommended paramilitary terror.
That was their phrase: they recommend "paramilitary power against known
communist adherents." Well, in the Latin American context, "known
communist adherents" means human rights activists, labor organizers,
priests working with peasants, I don't have to explain to you, and yeah,
they recommended paramilitary terror. You can look back and say that
Colombia has a violent history, but that changed it, that's really the
initiation of the massive state and paramilitary terror that turned into a
total monstrosity in the last couple of decades. But although the United
States did implement it and support it right through Plan Colombia, it's
not really in US interests and the interests of US power systems for that
to continue. They'd rather have an orderly, obedient society, exporting
raw materials, a place where US manufacturers can have cheap labor and so
on and so forth, but without the internal violence. So I think there might
be toleration at least of mediation efforts that could curb the level of
internal violence and control the paramilitaries who will be and are in
fact being absorbed into the state.

EVA: But Chávez doing it?

CHOMSKY: Well, that's going to be interesting. In fact, it's rarely
discussed here. In fact right now there are also negotiations and
discussions going on between Brazil and Venezuela about joint projects,
the Orinoco River project, a gas pipeline, and so on. Try to find some
report about that here. People are afraid of it. The conception, or if you
like "party line" on Latin America, has had to shift. Latin America has
changed a lot, it's not what it was in the 1960s. For the first time since
the Spanish invasion the countries are beginning to face some of the
internal problems in Latin America. One of the problems is just
disintegration. The countries have very little relationship to one
another. They typically were related to the outside imperial power not to
each other. You can even see it in the transportation systems. But there
is also internal disintegration, tremendous inequality, the worst in the
world; small elites and huge massive impoverished people, and the elites
were Europe-oriented or US-oriented later - that's where their second
homes were, that's where their capital went to, that's where their
children went to school. They didn't have anything to do with the
population. The elites in Latin America had very little responsibility for
the countries. And these two forms of disintegration and slowly being
overcome. So there is more integration among the societies, and there are
several countries taking steps to deal with the horrible problem of elite
domination, which has a racial component to it also of course, there is a
pretty close correlation between wealth and whiteness all over the
continent. It's one of the reasons for the antagonism to Chávez, it's
because he doesn't look white. But steps are being taken towards that, and
that is significant. The US doctrinal system, and I don't mean the
government, I mean the press, the intellectuals and so on, have shifted
their description of Latin America. It's no longer the democrats versus
the communists - Pinochet the democrat versus.... It's shifted, now it's
conceded that there is a move to the left, but there are the good leftists
and the bad leftists. The bad leftists are Chávez and Morales, maybe
Kirchner, maybe Ecuador - they haven't decided yet, but those are the bad
leftists. The good ones are Brazil, maybe Chile and so on. In order to
maintain that picture it's been necessary to do some pretty careful
control of historical facts. For example, when Lula the good leftist was
reelected his first act was to go to Caracas where he and Chávez built a
joint bridge over the Orinoco...it wasn't even reported here, because you
can't report things like that, it contradicts the party line - the good
guys and the bad guys. And the same is true in this very moment with the
Brazil-Venezuela negotiations. I think they are very important. Colombia
is significant. If Chávez can carry it off that's great for Colombia, but
these other things are much broader in significance. If Brazil and
Venezuela can cooperate on major projects, joint projects, maybe
ultimately the gas pipeline through Latin America. That's a step towards
regional integration, which is a real prerequisite for defense against
outside intervention. You can't have defense against intervention if the
countries are separated from one another and if they are separated
internally from elites and general populations, so I think these are
extremely important developments. Colombia as well, if it can be done,
fine, reduce the level of violence, maybe take some steps forward for the
people of Colombia, but I think these other negotiations and discussions
proceeding at the same time have a deeper and longer term significance.

EVA: Right now Chávez is in Manaus, just yesterday and today...

CHOMSKY: Right

EVA: Well, one of the tactics of US aggression against Venezuela and
against the rise of a new leftism or socialism in Latin America is
precisely to divide and counteract what Venezuela under Chávez has been
leading throughout the region which is now resulting in sovereignty and
Latin American integration. I guess to focus that question on a media
angle, one of the other tactics of aggression against Venezuela and other
countries in the region is obviously psychological warfare, on an internal
level in Venezuela, but also internationally to prevent the people around
the world from knowing really what's happening. Within Venezuela under
Chávez hundreds of new community media outlets have been created. This has
helped us internally to combat media manipulation from corporate media in
Venezuela, but on an international level, we haven't had much advance
fighting the war against the media empire. How can we do that?

CHOMSKY: Well, the history of media in the west is interesting. I
mentioned that the period of the freest press in the US and England was
the mid-19th century, and it was rather like what you were describing.
There were hundreds of newspapers of all kinds, working class, ethnic,
communities of all kinds, with direct active participation, real
participation. People read in those days, working people. Like a
blacksmith in Boston would pay a 16 year old kid to read to him while he
was working. These factory girls coming from the farms had a high culture,
they were reading contemporary literature. And part of their bitter
condemnation of the industrial system was because it was taking their
culture away from them. They did run extremely interesting newspapers and
it was lively, exciting and a period of a really very free vibrant press,
and it was overcome slowly, most true in England and the United States,
which were then the freest countries in the world. In England they tried
censorship, it didn't work, there were too many ways around it. They tried
repressive taxation, again it didn't work very well, similarly in the US.
What did work finally was two things: concentration of capital and
advertiser reliance. First the concentration of capital is obvious then
you can do all kinds of things that smaller newspapers can't do. But
advertiser reliance means really the newspapers are being run by the
advertisers. If the source of income is advertising, the main source, well
that's of course going to have an inordenent influence. And by now it's
close to 100%. If you turn on television, CBS doesn't make any money from
the fact that you turned on the television set, they make money from the
advertisers. The advertisers are in effect, the corporation that owns it
is selling audiences to advertisers, so of course the news product
reflects overwhelming the interests of the corporation and the buyers and
the market, which is advertisers. So yeah, and that over time, along with
concentration of capital, has essentially eliminated or sharply reduced
the diverse, lively and independent locally based media. And that's pretty
serious. In the United States, which has had no really organized socialist
movement, nevertheless, as recently as the 1950s, there were about 800
labor newspapers which probably reached maybe 30 million people a week,
which by our standards were pretty radical, condemning corporate power,
condemning what they called the bought priesthood, mainly those who run
the media - the priesthood that was bought by the corporate system
offering a different picture to the world. In England, it lasted into the
1960s. In the 1960s the tabloids - which are now hideous if you look at
them - they were labor-based newspapers in the 1960s, pretty leftist in
their orientation. The major newspaper in England that had the largest
circulation, more than any other, was The Daily Herald, which was a kind
of social-democratic labor-based paper giving a very different picture of
the world. It collapsed, not because of lack of reader interest, in fact
it had probably the largest reader interest of any, but because it
couldn't get advertisers and couldn't bring in capital. So what you're
describing today is part of the history of the west, which has been
overcome slowly by the standard processes of concentration of capital and
of course advertiser reliance is another form of it. But it's beginning to
revive in the west as well through the Internet and through cheap
publishing techniques. Computers, desktop publishing is now much cheaper
than big publishing, and of course the internet. So the new technologies
are giving opportunities to overcome the effects of capital concentration,
which has a severe impact on the nature of media and the nature of schools
and everything else. So, there's revival, and actually the major battle
that's going on right now is crucial, as to who is going to control the
Internet. The Internet was developed in places like this, MIT, that's the
state sector of the economy, most of the new economy comes out of the
state sector, it's not a free market economy. The Internet is a case in
point; it was developed in the state sector like here, actually with
Pentagon funding, and it was in the state sector for about 30 years before
it was handed over to private corporations in 1995 under Clinton. And
right now there's a struggle going on as to whether it will be free or
not. So there's a major effort being made by the major corporate centers
to figure out some ways to control it, to prevent the wrong kinds of
things from their point of view from being accessible, and there are now
grassroots movements, significant ones struggling against it, so these are
ongoing live battles. There is nothing inherent in capitalist democracy to
the idea that the media have to be run by corporations. It would have
shocked the founding fathers of the United States. They believed that the
media had to be publicly run. If you go back to the...it's hard to believe
now…

EVA: Well, that's why the airwaves are public

CHOMSKY: That's right, that's why the airwaves are kept public and it's a
gift to the corporations to allow them to be used. But if you go back to
Jefferson, even Hamilton, Madison and the rest of them, they were in favor
of public subsidies to newspapers to enable them to survive as independent
sources of information. Postal rates were set by the government in such a
way as to give advantages to the newspapers so that the public would be
able to have access to the widest possible range of diverse information
and so on. The Bill of Rights, which technically established freedom of
press, we can talk about whether that works, but technically said nothing
about whether the government could intervene to support the media. In
fact, it's not only a possibility but it's what the framers of the
Constitution had in mind. Over the years, attitudes, the dominant culture,
the hegemonic culture as Gramsci would have called it, has changed so that
the idea of the corporatization of the media is sort of assumed kind of
like the air you breathe, but it's not, it's a creation of capitalist
concentration and the doctrinal system that goes with it...…It doesn't
have to exist

EVA: So, in that sense a couple of months ago the Venezuelan government
decided not to renew the concession of one of the corporate media outlets
for many reasons, tax violations, not paying social security for workers
as well as being involved in the coup. Do you think that is a
demonstration of the State assuring that those airwaves remain in the
public sphere? And that is something that could be replicated in other
countries or even in the United States, they didn't revoke the concession,
they just didn't renew it.

CHOMSKY: You're talking about the RCTV case. Well, my own view of that is
kind of mixed. Formally I think it was a tactical mistake, and for another
I think you need a heavy burden of proof to close down any form of media
so in that sense my attitude is critical...

EVA: But should corporations have a stronghold on the concessions?

CHOMSKY: Yeah, I know, that's the other side. The question is what
replaces it. However, let me say that I agree with the western criticism
in one crucial respect. When they say nothing like that could ever happen
here, that's correct. But the reason, which is not stated, is that if
there had been anything like RCTV in the United States or England or
Western Europe the owners and the managers would have been brought to
trial and executed – In the United States executed, in Europe sent to
prison permanently, right away, in 2002. You can't imagine the New York
Times or CBS News supporting a military coup that overthrew the government
even for a day. The reaction would be "send them to a firing squad" . So
yeah, it wouldn't have happened in the west because it would never have
gotten this far. It seems to me that there should be more focus on that.
But as to the removal of the license I think you just have to ask what's
replacing it. In Venezuela, you know better than I, my impression is that
it was not a popular move. And the population should have a voice in this,
big voice, major voice, so I think there are many sides to it. But it kind
of depends how it works itself out. Are you really going to get popular
media, for example?

EVA: Should the concessions be in the hands of the people to decide?

CHOMSKY: I think they should, yes, in fact in a technical sense they are,
even in the United States. Take the airwaves again, that's public
property. Corporations have no right to it, It's given to them as a gift
by the taxpayer and the taxpayer doesn't know it. The culture has reached
the point where the people assume that's the natural order of things. It's
not, it's a major gift from the public. In fact if you look at the history
of telecommunications, radio and television, it's quite interesting. Radio
came along in the 1920s and in most of the world, it just became public.
The United States is an interesting case, it's almost the only major case
in which radio was privatized. And there was a struggle about it. The
labor unions, the educational institutions, the churches, they wanted it
to be public, the corporations wanted it to be privatized. There was a big
battle, and the United States is very much a business-run society, and
uniquely, business won, and it was privatized. When television came along,
in most of the world it was public, without question. In the United states
it wasn't even an issue, it was just private because the
business-dominated culture by then had achieved a level of dominance so
that people didn't think of what was obvious, that this was public space
that we're giving away to them. Finally, public radio and public
television were permitted in the United States in a very small corner,
because there had been public pressure to compel the corporate media to
meet some level or public responsibility, like to run a few educational
programs for children and things like that. And the corporations didn't
like it, they didn't want to have any commitment to public responsibility,
so they were willing to allow a small public, side operation, so they
could then claim, well, we don't have to have any responsibility anymore
because they can do it, and they don't do much of, they are also
corporate-funded, but that's a striking difference between the United
States and even other similar societies. It's a very free country, the
United States, maybe the freest in the world, but it's also uniquely
business-run, and that has enormous effects on everything.

EVA: On that note, the theme of the Book Fair in Venezuela this year is
"United States: Is a Revolution Possible?" Is it?

CHOMSKY: I think it's just below the surface. I mean there is tremendous
discontent. A large majority of the population for years has felt that the
government doesn't represent them, that it represents special interests.
In the Reagan years this went up to about 80% of the population. If you
look at public attitudes and public policy, there is a huge gulf between
them. Both political parties are far to the right of the population on a
host of major issues. Just to take some examples; Read in this morning's
New York Times, September 21st, there's a column by Paul Krugmann, who's
sort of far left of the media, sort of a left, liberal commentator, a very
good economist, who's been talking for some time about the horrible health
system in the United States, it's a disaster, twice the per capita
expenses of any other country and some of the industrial companies and
some of the worst outcomes in the industrial world. And he has a column
this morning that starts out by saying, hopefully, well now it turns out
that maybe universal health care is becoming politically possible. Now
that's a very interesting comment, particularly when it's coming from the
left end of the media. What does it mean for it to become politically
possible? For decades it's been supported by an overwhelming majority of
the population but it was never politically possible. Now it's becoming
politically possible. Why? He doesn't say why, but the reason is that
manufacturing corporations are being severely harmed by the hopelessly
inefficient and costly healthcare system in the United States. It's like
how it costs a lot more to produce a car in Detroit than a couple of miles
north in Windsor Canada because they have an efficient, functioning
healthcare system. So by now there is corporate pressure from the
manufacturing sector to do something to fix up the outrageous healthcare
system. So it's becoming politically possible. When it's just the large
majority of the population, it's not politically possible. The assumptions
behind that should be obvious, but they're interesting. Politically
possible does not mean the population supports it. What politically
possible means is that some sectors of concentrated capital support it. So
if the pharmeceutical industries and the financial institutions are
against it, it's not politically possible. But if manufacturing industries
come out in favor of it, well then maybe it begins to become politically
possible. Those are the general assumptions, we're not talking about the
left liberal commentary. I'm not talking about the editorials in the Wall
Street Journal, that's the spectrum of opinion. Something is politically
possible if it's support by major concentrations of capital. It doesn't
matter what the public thinks, and you see this on international issues
too. Like take what may be the major international issue right now: Is the
United States going to invade Iran? That could be an utter monstrosity.
Every viable presidential candidate - not Dennis Kucinich, but the ones
that are really viable, has come out and said yeah, we have the right to
invade Iran. The way they say it is, "all options are on the table",
meaning, "we want to attack them, we can attack them." That's almost the
entire political spectrum, but what does the population think? Well, about
75% of the population is opposed to any threats against Iran and wants to
enter into diplomatic relations with them. But that's off the spectrum, in
fact, it isn't even reported. But it's not part of the discussion. It's
the same way with Cuba. Every since polls began in the 1970s, a
considerable amount of the population wants to enter into normal
diplomatic relations with Cuba and end the economic strangulation and the
terror, which they don't know about, but they would be against that too.
It's not an option, because state interests won't allow it. And that's
separate from the population, and it's not discussed. Do a search of media
and journals, including left journals and you just don't find it. Well,
it's a very free country but also very much business controlled.

EVA: But how could that change come about?

CHOMSKY: It can come about by the kind of organization that will take
public opinion - that will take the public and turn it into an organized
force. Which has happened...

EVA: So in the end you need media control?

CHOMSKY: Well, that's part of it, but media control is in part a
consequence of popular organization. So the media, take the Vietnam era,
the media did turn into moderate critics of the war, but that was the
result of popular mass movements. I could tell you explicit cases, one
case I know very well was one of the major newspapers in the country, the
editor happened to be a personal friend who was pretty conservative and
became the first newspaper in the United States to call for withdrawal. It
was largely under the influence of his son who was in the resistance, who
I knew through the resistance activities, and who influenced his father.
That's an individual case, but it was happening all over. The shift in the
popular movements and popular attitudes led to a shift in the media, not a
major shift, but a significant one. For one reason because the journalists
are human beings and they live in the culture, and if they're coming out
of a culture of criticism and questioning and challenging and so on, well,
that's going to affect them. So there has been a change in many respects.
Take say aggression. There is a lot of comparison now of the reaction to
the Iraq war with the reaction to the Vietnam war - it's almost all wrong,
there was almost no opposition to the Vietnam war. When the Vietnam war
was at the level of the Iraq war today there was almost no opposition.
Public protest of the Iraq war is far beyond that of the Vietnam war at
any comparable stage. People have just forgotten. There was protest
against the Vietnam war by 1968, lets say, but by that time there were
half a million troops in Vietnam. The US had invaded...and it was seven,
six or seven years after they had invaded South Vietnam and it had been
practically wiped out and the word spread to the rest of Indochina. It was
way beyond Iraq today - then there was protest. The first call for
withdrawal from Vietnam in the major media was fall of 1969. That's seven
years after the war began. Now you get it in the New York Times, they
don't mean it, but at least you get it. These are changes, and the same
changes have taken place in many other domains. Take say women's rights,
it's pretty important, it's half the population. Well, the circumstances
are very different now than the 1960s. You can see it right at this
institution. Take a walk down the halls and you'll see about half women,
about a third minorities, casual dress, easy interchanges among the people
and so on. When I got here 50 years ago it was totally different. White
males, well dressed, obedient - do your work and don't ask any questions.
And it's indicative of changes throughout the whole society. Well, those
are...the solidarity movements are the same. When you have popular
movements, they change the society. If they reach a sufficient scale I
think they can challenge fundamental matters of class domination and
economic control.

EVA: Do you think the revolution in Venezuela serves as an example for
people in the United States? That change is possible from the ground up?

CHOMSKY: It will if two things happen: One, if it's successful and two, if
you can break through the media distortion of what's happening. Two things
have to happen, ok? So, I mentioned that I was in Chile last October. The
picture of Venezuela that is presented by the media, say in El Mercurio is
about the same as it would have been in the old El Mercurio under
Pinochet. So as long as that's the picture, that's the prism through which
events are perceived, you can't have much of an effect. But if you can
change the prism so that things are reported more or less accurately, and
if what's happening in fact does constitute a possible model, if those two
achievements can be reached, then yes, it could be.

EVA: Would you give a message to the people of Venezuela? Anything?

CHOMSKY: Yeah, make it succeed. The task for the people of Venezuela or
for Latin America all together is to carry forth the programs of
integration, of overcoming repression, inequality, poverty. lack of
democracy, which is happening in various ways in different countries.
Carry it through to success, and in collaboration and solidarity with
people of the rich powers. Make it reach the point where it is understood
there as well, that requires both sides, and they interact. Take
liberation theology, it was mostly Latin America, and it had an influence
in the United States, a big influence in the church and in the society,
and the same can be true of other developments. There is a lot of
interaction possible. More so now than before because of the existence of
intercommunications and solidarity movements and so on.

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