Social bonds have given way under the collapse of social protections and the attack on the welfare state. Moreover, all solutions to socially produced problems are now relegated to the mantra of individual solutions.

Today, there is a new focus on public values, the need for broad-based movements for solidarity, and alternative conceptions of politics, democracy and justice.

Young black men are considered dangerous, expendable, threatening and part of a culture of criminality.

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

The difference between neoliberalism and fascism or Nazism or other forms of totalitarianism is that it takes questions of ideology seriously. It takes the educational sphere seriously, and it tells people there's no alternative; that market freedom is really freedom in general; that a rabid kind of individualism is all that matters; that as Ayn Rand used to say, "self interest is the ultimate virtue" - and people believe this stuff. Because they have no other discourse.

With the corporatization and privatization of higher education, it is increasingly more difficult for colleges and universities to expand and deepen democratic public life, produce engaged critical citizens, and operate as democratic public spheres.

Cinema is consistently making a claim to particular memories, histories, ways of life, identities, and values that always presuppose some notion of difference, community, and the future. Given that films both reflect and shape public culture, they cannot be defined exclusively through a notion of artistic freedom and autonomy that removes them from any form of critical accountability.