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A year ago, psychologist Bruce Levine posed the question, “Are Americans a Broken People?” in an AlterNet article that went viral on the Internet, striking a chord and a nerve with people on the political left and right. Why, he asked, have Americans stopped fighting back against government-corporate policies that polls show they clearly oppose?

Do Americans not know that corporate profits are behind everything from the sorry state of our health care to unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Do we not care?

No, Levine concluded, Americans aren’t ignorant and aren’t uncaring. We’ve simply been so beaten down by decades of abuse at the hands of the corporatocracy that many of us no longer have the energy to fight back. We have lost confidence that genuine democracy is possible.

In this provocative new analysis and urgent call to action, Levine details a vitally important piece of the puzzle that is missing from oft-preached solutions-the problem of demoralization. When fatalism sets in, truths about economic injustices and lost liberties are no longer enough to set people free to take constructive actions. Levine describes those cultural and psychological forces that have created a passive and discouraged US population, and he explains how both right-wing and progressive institutions have contributed to breaking people’s resistance to domination.