[T]he American left has turned into a skittish, hysterical old lady, one who defiantly insists on living in the past, is easily mesmerized by half-baked pseudo-intellectual nonsense, and quick to run from anything like real conflict or responsibility.

Matt Taibi, in Adbusters column The American Left's Silly Victim Complex

More:

"It shies away from hardcore economic issues but howls endlessly about anything that sounds like a free-speech controversy, shrieking about the notorious bugbears of the post-9/11 “police state” (the Patriot Act, Total Information Awareness, CARNIVORE, etc.) in a way that reveals unmistakably, to those who are paying close attention, a not-so-secret desire to be relevant and threatening enough to warrant the extralegal attention of the FBI. It sells scads of Che t-shirts ($20 at the International ANSWER online store) and has a perfected a high-handed tone of moralistic finger-wagging, but its organizational capacity is almost nil. It says a lot, but does very little. "

Quoting David Sirota: "Perhaps what the real issue is that the left is not really a grassroots movement. . . . You have this donor/elite class, and then you have the public . . . You have these zillionaires who are supposedly funding the progressive movement. At some point that gets to be a problem."

"Citibank gives money to Tom Daschle, Tom Daschle crafts the hideous Bankruptcy Bill, and suddenly the Midwestern union member who was laid off in the wake of Democrat-passed NAFTA can’t even declare bankruptcy to get out from the credit card debt he incurred in his unemployment. He will now probably suck eggs for the rest of his life, paying off credit card debt year after year at a snail’s pace while working as a non-union butcher in a Wal-Mart in Butte. Royally screwed twice by the Democratic Party he voted for, he will almost certainly decide to vote Republican the first time he opens up the door to find four pimply college students wearing I READ BANNED BOOKS t-shirts taking up a collection to agitate for dolphin-safe tuna. "

Being an executive does not require very developed frontal lobes, but rather a combination of charisma, a capacity to sustain boredom, and the ability to shallowly perform on harrying schedules.

--- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan, 2007, p. 166

Quote in context:

"[A European-owned financial institution where he worked in the summer of 1998] wanted to distinguish itself by being rigorous and far-sighted. The unit involved in trading had five managers, all serious-looking (always in dark blue suits, even on dress-down Fridays), who had to meet throughout the summer in order “to formulate the five-year plan.” . . . The managers flew across the world in order to meet: Barcelona, Hong Kong, et cetera. A lot of miles for a lot of verbiage. Needless to say they were usually sleep-deprived. Being an executive does not require very developed frontal lobes, but rather a combination of charisma, a capacity to sustain boredom, and the ability to shallowly perform on harrying schedules."

Let's face it, we're not changing the world. We're building a product that helps people buy more crap - and watch porn."

--- Seagate Technology CEO Bill Watkins, at dinner in San Francisco 28 Nov 2006, reported by Jeffrey M. O'Brien, Fortune senior editor in Seagate CEO: I help people "watch porn", 30 Nov 2006