The brutality of our corporate executioners grows by the day. They will stop at nothing, including wholesale murder, to consolidate power and amass g… - Chris Hedges

[pp 232-233] The message of the consumer society, pumped out over flat screens... is shrill and unrelenting: You are a failure. Pop culture celebrates those who wallow in power, wealth and self-obsession, and perpetuates the lie that if you work hard and are clever, you can become a "success."...

The disparity between the glittering world that people watch and the bleak world they inhabit creates a collective schizophrenia. It manifests in diseases of despair, suicides, addictions, mass shootings, hate crimes and depression. We are to blame for our own misfortune....

Those who are endowed with a moral conscience refuse to commit crimes, even those sanctioned by the corporate state, because they do not in the end want to live with criminals—themselves.