Al Qaeda asks its recruits to establish their bona fides as a condition of membership, even requiring answers to a long questionnaire. But ISIS has democratized and globalized jihad by lowering the entry bar to an eve-of-destruction YouTube pledge of allegiance to the caliphate – and even that could probably be waived. George Packer Read Quote
Certain murderous ideas are in the air worldwide, and they are finding individuals in scattered places in different ways, and every attack spreads them further, plants an idea in a new head. George Packer Read Quote
Together, Apple and Walmart represent the intense separation of American life into blue and red, rich and poor, overpriced and undersold, hyperconnected and left behind. George Packer Read Quote
Part of the mystique of blogs is their protean quality: They work both sides of the divide between politics and media, further blurring the already fuzzy distinctions between reporter, pundit, political operative, activist, and citizen. George Packer Read Quote
The constellation of opinion called the blogosphere consists, like the stars themselves, partly of gases. This is what makes blogs addictive – that is, both pleasurable and destructive: They’re so easy to consume and so endlessly available. George Packer Read Quote
A curious thing about this rarefied world is that bloggers are almost unfailingly contemptuous toward everyone except one another. George Packer Read Quote
Pay attention to other people’s nightmares because they might be contagious. George Packer Read Quote
American wars in Muslim countries created some extremists and inflamed many more while producing a security vacuum that allowed them to wreak mayhem. George Packer Read Quote
Abstract sympathy with the working class as an economic entity is easy, but the feeling can vanish on contact with actual members of the group, who often arrive with disturbing beliefs and powerful resentments – who might not sound or look like people urban progressives want to know. George Packer Read Quote
