No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.

The de facto censorship which leaves so many Americans functionally illiterate about the history of US foreign affairs may be all the more effective because it is not official, heavy-handed or conspiratorial, but woven artlessly into the fabric of education and media. No conspiracy is needed.

Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.

Do you remember the classic example of chutzpah? It's the young man who kills his parents and then asks the judge for mercy on the grounds that he's an orphan. The Bush administration's updated version of that was starting a wholly illegal, immoral, and devastating war and then dismissing all kinds of criticism of its action on the grounds that 'we're at war.

A terrorist is someone who has a bomb, but doesn't have an air force.

The "trickle-down" theory: the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.

Change comes from a degree of discomfort that allows for and spurs thought and action.