We are not fully human if we live alone. These small acts of compassion-for they can never be organized and institutionalized as can hate-have a powe… - Chris Hedges

Human kindness is deeply subversive to totalitarian creeds, which seek to thwart all compassion toward those deemed unworthy of moral consideration, those branded as internal or external enemies. (p8)

[pp 40-41] The opioid crisis, the mass shootings, the rising rates of suicide, especially among middle-age white males, the morbid obesity... magical thinking... the Christian Right....

Noam Chomsky suggests, "If you care about other people, you might try to organize or undermine power. That's not going to happen if you care only about yourself. Maybe you can become rich; you don't care whether other people's kids can go to school or afford food. In the USA that's called 'libertarian' for some wild reason. I mean it's actually highly authoritarian, but that doctrine is extremely important as a way of atomizing and undermining the public."

The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism. No . No . No viable Covid relief program. No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old. No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in . No addressing . No program to feed the . No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and . No help for the . No of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation. No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon.