I like reading Matt Taibbi. I actually signed up for a subscription to Rolling Stone based on his reporting. I haven’t read his new book but in reading a review (here) I came across the following excerpt:

Political power is simply taken from most of us by a grubby kind of fiat, in little fractions of a percent here and there each and every day, through a thousand separate transactions that take place in fine print and in the margins of a vast social mechanism that most of us are simply not conscious of.

I’d love to read this quote at the beginning of a class to see what students would make of it. I’d want students to argue whether it’s true or false, to gather what evidence they could on either side. I’d like to ask them how the meaning of this quote shifts if the author is an editor at a left-leaning popular magazine or a right-wing radio host: why could either persona have made this statement? I’d like the students to try and contextualize this quote — is it only true or relevant in today’s world or has it always been true?