The unpleasant truth is that President Bush's utter incompetence has made the world a far more dangerous place and dramatically increased the threat … - Al Gore

the 1950s, John Kenneth Galbraith first described the way in which advertising altered the classical relationship by which supply and demand are balanced over time by the invisible hand of the marketplace. Modern advertising campaigns, he pointed out, were beginning to create high levels of demand for products that consumers never knew they wanted, much less needed. The same phenomenon Galbraith noticed in the commercial marketplace is now the dominant fact of life in what used to be America’s marketplace for ideas. The inherent value or validity of political propositions put forward by candidates for office is now largely irrelevant compared with the image-based advertising campaigns they use to shape the perceptions of voters. And the high cost of these commercials has radically increased the role of money in American politics — and the influence of those who contribute it.

بمجرد أن أمكن نقل الأفكار المعقدة بسهولة من فرد إلى جموع الآخرين - وما أن تمكّن الآخرون من تلقيها بسهولة، وأصبح بوسعهم الموافقة عليها - صار لكل فرد فجأة قوة السلطة السياسية الشاملة.
لذلك أعطى تدفق المعلومات الحر كل فرد منزلة أكبر في المجتمع - بغض النظر عن انتمائه الطبقي أو ثروته - ليطالب بقدر من الكرامة يتساوى مع الآخرين جميعا، وتمنح الأفراد القدرة على فحص استخدام السلطة من قبل من يعملون في الحكومة.

According to Princeton’s Andrew Dobson, “Climate change is disrupting natural ecosystems in a way that is making life better for infectious diseases.