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The systemic incompatibility between free-market capitalism and the quality of democratic life and respect for human rights has to be modified to take account of such contextual variables as wartime, security threats, and the societal balance between entrepreneurial and working classes.

Richard A. Falk

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Richard A. Falk
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: November 13
Human Rights Activist
Peace Activist
Professor
University Teacher
New York City
New York
Richard A. Falk
Rights
Threat
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Working
Market
Variables
Free
Democratic
Entrepreneurial
Balance
Threats
Contextual
Human
Respect
Classes
Incompatibility
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Systemic
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Societal
Life
Class
Capitalism
Wartime

More quotes by Richard A. Falk

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When Daniel Gorenstein was chair, he did mathematics from 5am to 12noon, spending the second half of his working day on administration. When I was chair, I also spent half of my time on research: every other minute.
Richard A. Falk
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The British leadership has acknowledged that it only became possible to end the violence in North Ireland when it stopped thinking of the [Irish Republican Army] as a terrorist organization and began treating it as a political actor with genuine grievances that deserved to be addressed.
Richard A. Falk
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Hamas retains the right to defend Gaza by the use of the weaponry at its disposal, and is thus not committed to nonviolence, but it does offer the possibility of greater peace and stability for both Israelis and Palestinians if the label of terrorism was abandoned and the search for accommodation was commenced in good faith.
Richard A. Falk
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It was a step forward to charge Pinochet with terrorism, and to acknowledge that the essence of the crime is the use of political violence to induce great fear in society and against those who are innocent, and not just such violence that is directed against the state by opposition groups.
Richard A. Falk
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Cumulatively, American society is sliding toward a new form of 'authoritarian democracy'. Elections continue, free speech is generally protected, institutions operate in accordance with the Constitution, but the reality of state - society relations is dramatically altered by the counter-terrorist claims of emergency rule and the right of exception.
Richard A. Falk
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It should be appreciated that this whole effort to hold leaders of states criminally responsible is a rather radical challenge to territorial sovereignty and a repudiation of the whole related ethos of 'sovereign immunity'.
Richard A. Falk
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Trump's election is generally bad news.... In international policy, one can imagine that if Trump were foolish enough to go ahead with his pledge to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it would be widely experienced throughout the Islamic world as a provocation.
Richard A. Falk
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I think the impacts of 9/11 on academic freedom vary greatly depending on locale and time (softening with the passage of time), and even within the same community, and likely within the same schools. This variability makes it difficult to offer generalized responses without accompanying caveats.
Richard A. Falk
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I once got a call from a bank, asking me to compute a mortgage, since their computers were down. This was a very depressing moment.
Richard A. Falk
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The Goldstone Report establishes the credibility of the accusations directed at Israel with respect to its tactics used during the 2008 - 09 attacks on Gaza, but was not able to facilitate the next step that would have involved activating accountability mechanisms either within Israel or at the level of international society.
Richard A. Falk
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To be a hegemon is inherently ambiguous, usually implying some mixture of dominance and legitimacy, that is, being seen as contributing global leadership in a generally benevolent manner.
Richard A. Falk
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The UDHR has become an iconic document over the course of more than six decades, the starting point for discussions of whether or not the rights as set forth are truly universal or slanted to reflect the hegemony of Western values, especially those associated with liberal individualism.
Richard A. Falk
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At present, the United States, with over 700 foreign military bases, navies in every ocean, a programme to militarise space, and drone bases planned for all regions of the world, is increasingly perceived in relation to its hard power diplomacy, a threat to political independence and stability for many countries.
Richard A. Falk
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Already there exists a growing international concern that Israel has become an apartheid state pursuing policies manifesting a settler colonial mentality. Such perceptions pose a challenge to postcolonial international society that will not be indefinitely ignored, especially if Palestinians achieve greater unity and tactical focus.
Richard A. Falk
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The capitalist priority is efficiency of capital and profitability, which is generally inconsistent with protecting the vulnerabilities of people and nature.
Richard A. Falk
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I can only hope that Trump comes to realize the grave dangers of adopting a policy of confrontation toward Iran. Among these dangers is the likelihood that hardliners would again gain the upper hand in the governing process in Tehran, and the moderates who have sought to end national and regional tensions would be marginalized, or worse.
Richard A. Falk
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Nothing is more important than restoring a high degree of autonomy to educational experiences so that those who grow up in this society and troubled world have the best available tools to grasp the challenges that imperil our national and human future.
Richard A. Falk
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On the cautionary side, Universal Jurisdiction could be used to achieve some kind of ideologically motivated criminalisation of 'the other' that would discredit and derail a constructive effort to develop a credible meta-law that governs the behaviour of leaders of sovereign states.
Richard A. Falk
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What both the state and the capitalist economy oppose is an understanding of what might be called the true nature of things (using the phrase without metaphysical pretensions), especially injustices and exploitative practices.
Richard A. Falk
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When I told my mother that I have to give a talk, and was debating what could I possibly say to non-mathematicians, she said: You got what to wear?.
Richard A. Falk