We Don't Live In Tyrannies, You Know,

People Who Spend Their Working Hours In A Lab Or Research Library Or A Classroom Might Be Intent Primarily On Keeping Or Advancing Their Elite Positions, Thereby Lending Tacit Support To Power Structures. Or They Might Not Be.

If You Take An Economics Or A Political Science Course, You're Taught That Humans Are Supposed To Be Rational Wealth Accumulators, Each Acting As An Individual To Maximize His Own Wealth In The Market.

That's Unfortunately Common - To Blame Immigrants, To Blame The African-americans Who Are Being Helped By Federal Programs, To Blame Anyone Available, To Direct Attention Away From The Roots Of The Distress Which You're Suffering. This Combines With Xenophobia, White Supremacy, Racism, Misogyny, And Other Quite Unpleasant Phenomena Which Are Far From Being Eradicated. All Of This Makes For A Pretty Dangerous Brew. But Economic Issues Are Right In The Center Of It. And You Can See This In The Fact That So Many Former Obama Voters Now Voted For Trump, Or Just Didn't Bother Voting.

When Israelis In The Occupied Territories Now Claim That They Have To Defend Themselves, They Are Defending Themselves In The Sense That Any Military Occupier Has To Defend Itself Against The Population They Are Crushing. You Can't Defend Yourself When You're Militarily Occupying Someone Else's Land. That's Not Defense. Call It What You Like, It's Not Defense.

Suppose That We Believe What We Are Taught. . . . Destroying The Environment And Militarizing Outer Space Are Rational Policies . . . Of Institutional Lunacy.