Of course, corporations and governments have a right to something for their money. They pay the wages. But they don't have the ethical right to literally purchase the copyright of a citizen's potential contribution to society. In a democracy they should not have the legal right to silence the quasi-totality of the functioning élite in order to satisfy a managerial taste for control and secrecy.

Bankers - pillars of society who are going to hell if there is a God and He has been accurately quoted.

Humanism: an exaltation of freedom, but one limited by our need to exercise it as an integral part of nature and society.

A Big Mac - the communion wafer of consumption.

Whenever governments adopt a moral tone - as opposed to an ethical one - you know something is wrong.

The undoubted sign of a society well under control or in decline is that language has ceased to be a means of communication and has become instead a shield for those who master it.

In general, democracy and individualism have advanced in spite of and often against specific economic interest. Both democracy and individualism have been based upon financial sacrifice, not gain. Even in Athens, a large part of the 7,000 citizens who participated regularly in assemblies were farmers who had to give up several days' work to go into town to talk and listen.