Social solidarities are torn apart, furthering the retreat into orbits of the private that undermine those spaces that nurture non-commodified knowledge, values, critical exchange and civic literacy.

The challenges that young people are mobilizing against oppressive societies all over the globe are being met with a state-sponsored violence that is about more than police brutality. This is especially clear in the United States, given its transformation from a social state to a warfare state, from a state that once embraced a semblance of the social contract to one that no longer has a language for justice, community and solidarity - a state in which the bonds of fear and commodification have replaced the bonds of civic responsibility and democratic vision.

The promises of higher education and previously enviable credentials have turned into the swindle of fulfillment.

They're rights that should be endemic to any democracy. The right to a free quality education, from elementary school right through higher education. The right to have a decent social wage. The right to a decent job. Political rights; the right to vote. These are all parts of the social contract, from the New Deal onwards, that never went far enough.

The media is almost entirely about defining the subject, defining the citizen, as one of three things: a consumer, a threat in this new age of surveillance, or as utterly disposable. Excess.

As modern society is formed against the backdrop of a permanent war zone, a carceral state and hyper-militarism, the social stature of the military and soldiers has risen.

As the welfare state is hollowed out, a culture of compassion is replaced by a culture of violence, cruelty and disposability.