Patriotism, often a thinly veiled form of collective self-worship, celebrates our goodness, our ideals, our mercy and bemoans the perfidiousness of t… - Chris Hedges

The government officials, along with the courtiers and the press, ... insist that congressional and judicial oversight, the right to privacy, the rule of law, the freedom of the press, the right to express dissent remains inviolate. They use the old words and old phrases, old laws and old constitutional guarantees, to give our corporate totalitarianism a democratic veneer.

As Aristotle said, once you have oligarchic rule, there are only two choices. It is revolution or tyranny, and that's it. I'm not naive enough to tell you the revolution is going to win, but I'm going to tell you that if it doesn't win then there will be a very ugly corporate tyranny in the United States.

History has repeatedly illustrated the dire consequences of extreme social inequality. It foments revolutionary ferment, which can come from the left or the right. Either a leftwing populism that smashes oligarchic power takes control or its counterfeit, a rightwing populism, built on the poisoned solidarity of hate, racism, vengeance and violence — and bankrolled by the hated oligarchs that use it as a front to solidify tyranny. We are barreling towards the latter.