Other consequences, all deleterious, flowed from the militarization of foreign policy. In Afghanistan and the United States, so intimately ensnarled over all these years, the income gap between the rich and everyone else has grown exponentially, in large part because in both countries the rich have made money off war-making, while ordinary citizens have slipped into poverty for lack of jobs and basic services.

-Ann Jones, writing from Afghanistan.

So who gets listened to in national debates, those who have been consistently right on all the key points, or those who have gotten things as wrong as you possibly can? Okay, we know the answer to that, but this knowledge is important. We are dealing with people who have no argument; they are relying on their control of public debate to get their way.

-Economist Dean Baker, on getting the truth out.

There’s no calls for some sort of post-industrial personal fulfillment in their labor – very few even invoke the idea that a job should “mean something.” It’s straight out of antiquity – free us from the bondage of our debts and give us a basic ability to survive.

Rortybomb, analyzing the pleas of the 99%