“The U.S. military has won the ideological war. The nation sees human and social problems as military problems. To fight terrorists Americans have become terrorists. Peace is for the weak. War is for the strong. Hypermasculinity has triumphed over empathy. We Americans speak to the world exclusively in the language of force. And those who oversee our massive security and surveillance state seek to speak to us in the same demented language. All other viewpoints are to be shut out. ‘In the absence of contrasting views, the very highest form of propaganda warfare can be fought: the propaganda for a definition of reality within which only certain limited viewpoints are possible,’ C. Wright Mills wrote. ‘What is being promulgated and reinforced is the military metaphysics—the cast of mind that defines international reality as basically military.'” Chris Hedges, The Menace of the Military Mind, Feb. 3, 2014

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, center, and other officials testify on Capitol Hill last Wednesday at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on national security threats. From left: National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen, FBI Director James Comey, Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. (AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)