I mean, the people who got us into these crises - whether we're talking about the bankers or the hedge fund managers, or we're talking about the IMF - it's become pretty clear that the price to be paid for their illegal financial shenanigans, the burden is being placed on working class people, on the poor, on the elderly, on young people. It's become clear that neoliberal policies aren't just interested in "solving" an economic crisis, these are policies designed to enrich corporations and bankers and the rich at the expense of everybody else.

Everyone is now considered a potential terrorist, providing a rational for both the government and private corporations to spy on anybody, regardless of whether they have committed a crime. Surveillance is supplemented by a growing domestic army of baton-wielding police forces who are now being supplied with the latest military equipment.

Schools resemble the culture of prisons.

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.

As the pleasure principle is unconstrained by a moral compass based on a respect for others, it is increasingly shaped by the need for intense excitement and a never-ending flood of heightened sensations.

Certainly I think the state is more than willing to not only attempt to change the consciousness of people, but to employ violence in ways that make people quite fearful.

Violence now becomes the only tool by which we can actually mediate social problems that should be dealt with in very different ways.