“Don’t be deceived when they tell you things are better now. Even if there’s no poverty to be seen because the poverty’s been hidden. Even if you ever got more wages and could afford to buy more of these new and useless goods which industries foist on you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much, that is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you. Don’t be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder and say that there’s no inequality worth speaking of and no more reason to fight because if you believe them they will be completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases them they’ll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger tear a million of you to pieces.”—Jean-Paul Marat 1743-1793

“You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down: man’s old aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.”

-Ronald Reagan

“If we win, who would be in charge of the government?” Gale asks.

“Everyone,” Plutarch tells him. “We’re going to form a republic where the people of each district and the Capitol can elect their own representatives to be their voice in a centralized government. Don’t look so suspicious; it’s worked before.”

 ”In books,” Haymitch mutters.

“In history books,” says Plutarch. “and if our ancestors could do it, then we can, too.”

Frankly, our ancestors don’t seem much to brag about. I mean look at the state they left us in, with wars and the broken planet. Clearly, they didn’t care about what would happen to the people that came after them. But this republic idea sounds like an improvement over our current government.

“And if we lose?” I ask.

“If we lose?” Plutarch looks out at the clouds,….