Noam Chomsky, "Remembering Fascism: Learning From the Past"

"For over 30 years, real incomes for the majority of the population have stagnated or declined, social indicators have steadily deteriorated since the mid-1970s after closely tracking growth in earlier years, work hours and insecurity have increased along with debt. Wealth has accumulated, but into very few pockets, leading to probably record inequality. These are, in large part, consequences of the financialization of the economy since the 1970s and the corresponding hollowing out of domestic production. What people see before their eyes is that the bankers who are primarily responsible for the current crisis and who were saved from bankruptcy by the public are now reveling in record profits and huge bonuses, while official unemployment stays at about 10 percent and in manufacturing is at depression levels, one in six, with good jobs unlikely to return. People rightly want answers and they are not getting them, except from voices that tell tales that have some internal coherence, but only if you suspend disbelief and enter into their world of irrationality and deceit. Ridiculing Tea Party shenanigans is a serious error, I think. It would be far more appropriate to understand what lies behind them and to ask ourselves why justly angry people are being mobilized by the extreme right and not by forces like those that did so in my childhood, in the days of formation of the CIO and other constructive activism."