Along a stretch of sidewalk in front of Portland's City Hall, some 50 people stood braving the rain in the hours before the city's final public budget hearing last week, where heavy austerity cuts are expected to go through.
Right-wing billionaires, including media tycoon Rupert Murdoch and the climate-denying industrialists Charles and David Koch, are threatening to buy the Tribune Company, which publishes the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun.
Without a clear and effective upsurge of grassroots opposition, Americans can expect to remain citizens of a war-driven country for the rest of their lives.