There is the emergence of a militarized society that now organizes itself for the production of violence. A society in which the range of acceptable opinion inevitably shrinks.

The freedom and human capacities of individuals must be developed to their maximum but individual powers must be linked to democracy in the sense that social betterment must be the necessary consequence of individual flourishing.

War has become a mode of sovereignty and rule, eroding the distinction between war and peace.

There appears to be no space outside the panoptican of commercial barbarism and casino capitalism.

I think that contradictions, unless they're understood, unless they're analyzed, unless they're thoughtfully probed, unless people have a sense of what those contradictions mean - there's just as much of a chance that they'll move into embracing fascism as there is that they'll move into a more radical conception of democracy itself.

The Obama administration doesn't see schools as a public good. It doesn't see schools as places where basically we can educate students in a way to take democracy seriously and to be able to fight for it. It sees them as basically kids who should be part of the global workforce.

We need to figure how to defend higher education as a public good. If we can't do that, we're in trouble.