The Democratic power elite on some level feels delegitimized by its working-class, black and female constituencies. What it wants are the "legitimate… - Ellen Willis

As it is, the profusion of commodities is a genuine and powerful compensation for oppression.

as realities get grimmer, the possibilities tend to be forgotten.

The idea that lack of paternal guidance can explain today's masculinity crisis doesn't make sense. I suspect rather that underneath the sons' charge that their fathers did not teach them how to be men lies another, unadmitted complaint — that their fathers taught them only too well how to be men, and they are choking on the lesson. These men, as boys, faced the age-old tradeoff: If you undergo the painful process of renouncing the "feminine" aspects of your humanity and follow your father into manhood (and what choice do you have, really?) you will share in the spoils of the superior half of the race. Now, as men, they find that the spoils are far more meager than expected. No wonder they feel betrayed.