A bit of Marcuse for the 4th

From Counterrevolution and Revolt:

Capital now produces, for the majority of the population in the metropoles, not so much material privation as steered satisfaction of material needs, while making the entire human being—intelligence and senses—into an object of administration, geared to produce and reproduce not only the goals but also the values and promises of the system, its ideological heaven. Behind the technological veil, behing the political veil of democracy, appears the reality, the universal servitude, the loss of human dignity in a prefabricated freedom of choice. And the power structure is no longer “sublimated” in the style of a liberalistic culture, no longer even hypocritical (thus retaining at least the “formalities,” the shell of dignity), but brutal, throwing off all pretensions of truth and justice.

Word.