[lvecsey]

That quote or statement just shows that an individual living a "thug life" or succumbing to the tremendous peer pressure of youth basically is completely out of touch with the larger mechanics at play, such as congressional decisions and corporatocracy.

"One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country."

That's a quote dug up from a (spam?) comment, article or forwarding at reddit.

I agree about the manipulation and control terminology, to a point. Perhaps some people consider that "smarts" but mostly I reserve "smarts" to be a term for people sort of half way in and half way out of the system. It's a compromise of sorts to be nimble and not get run over. The cumulative effect of that might still be bad, though.