“It is the ignorance of the past that invites the despairing of the present, which in turn leads to the marketing of dead-end politics with ad campaigns for a lost golden age. As often as not the nostalgic sales pitch (city upon a hill, amber waves of grain, majestic purple mountains) is the contrivance of a reactionary status quo floating the speculation on a redeeming tomorrow with subprime borrowings from an imaginary yesterday.”
Lewis H. Lapham
“The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself… Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable.”
H.L. Mencken