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When the Cold War was in full swing and the Soviet Union was intact, the people of the world could choose (at least theoretically) which ideology they wanted to consume... capitalism had to win customers... Keynesianism was always an expression of that need for capitalism to compete.

— The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein (Page 250 - 251)

In Gaza, some of us cannot completely die. Every time a bomb falls, every time shrapnel hits our graves, every time the rubble piles up on our heads, we are awakened from our temporary death.

— Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha (Page 39)

The mayor ordered the townspeople to return to business as usual: "Yes, an enormous monster may be just beyond the stones of that wall, and yes, it appears to be lusting for blood, and yes, we know nothing about it and are only barely being rational in believing that the wall can hold the thing indefinitely, and yes, it does dwarf the lives we lead with its omnipresent reminder of death, but please return to your daily routines as if nothing has changed because, if you think about it, besides all that, nothing has." And so, shops reopened, bakeries fired up ovens, people started making purchases.

— That's when the knives come down by Dolan Morgan (Page 104)

One thief in particular[...] responded: "Grandfather, I know, I understand, and you must forgive me. But I have been struck more times than I have cheeks left to turn. Must I count for you the days I entered these shops only to be greeted by a detective on my heels? What kind of a fool would I be to sit at home now and twiddle my thumbs? How is it my job not to hit back? You are like my father's father, but this Polis where we live—isn't it obvious? It is no sanctuary...," which to me by then sounded like the very best of arguments.

— Pay As You Go by Eskor David Johnson (Page 187 - 188)

In northern Mexico, I interviewed and spent a long afternoon with a man who, after living for almost four decades in Los Angeles, where his whole family still resided, tried crossing the desert to reunite with them after being caught up in an immigration raid. He was caught by the Border Patrol, pushed into the back of a truck ("dog-catchers," they sometimes call them), where, after the truck slipped off the road and flipped, the man broke his back—luckily avoiding serious spinal damage. Border Patrol agents gave him a back brace and a bottle of pain pills, and then swiftly deported him. I remember him shaking his pill bottle like a maraca, somehow finding the strength to joke about the pain waiting for him after he'd swallow the last of the pills. Less than a week later, still planning his next move, he died. The cause of death was deemed a heart attack, though it's hard to imagine the stress and the recent severe injury weren't a factor. I spoke with his daughter in LA a few days later: she wanted to hear about her father's last days. I didn't have much to report, but explained that despite his intense pain and confusion, he was exceedingly polite with me, and that he lamented the fact that he had no money treat me to a Coke.

— Case for Open Borders by John Washington (Page 199)

Believing in magic is the same as love: those convinced of its existence, and of falling in love, end up doing so sincerely, and those who doubt their feelings thwart the very possibility of having them, a paradox that leaves us forlorn, wondering what we might have become if only we'd allowed ourselves to believe.

— A Luminous Republic by Andrés Barba (Page 90)

A veritable master class in populist dialectics: call attention to an already out-of-control situation, offer an unattainable solution and accuse the political adversary of being responsible for it all.

— A Luminous Republic by Andrés Barba (Page 24)