As Lewis Lapham says, the barbarism in Washington today doesn't
dress itself in the costumes of the Taliban, but wears instead the smooth - shaven smile of a Senate resolution sold to the highest bidder — for the drilling of the Arctic oil fields, for the lifting from the
rich the burden of the capital - gains tax, for bigger defense budgets, for reduced medical insurance, for enhanced surveilance, or for some new
form of economic monopoly.