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

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

Why don't church leaders forbid Catholics from joining the military with the same fervor they tell Catholics to stay away from abortion clinics?

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.

Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment. People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to.

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

Terror is the poor man's war, war is the rich man's terror. Ultimately, all wars will end either in annihilation or at the negotiating table. (#) A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but can't afford an air force.