The following chapter serves as an acknowledgement of the many prominent individuals who have pushed for liberal reforms despite abandonment by institutional liberal forces. Hedges alleges many in the liberal class have sacrificed their moral conscious in their pursuit of careerism through placating the economic elite. Hedges praises the reporter Sydney Schanberg, who was celebrated in his coverage of the Cambodian genocide. When Schanberg returned to the United States to report on New York City metropolitan issues for The New York Times, he was vehemently disparaged and eventually demoted by then executive editor A. M. Rosenthal for his reporting on corruption and abuses by prominent New York City real estate developers. Hedges additionally profiles the personal and career attacks made against Richard Goldstone and Norman Finkelstein for their public recognition of Israeli war crimes. Hedges contrasts the treatment of disparaged critics within the liberal class against the inaction and general acceptance of mediocrity in the face of a plethora of crises impacting the American working class. Hedges then praises many other voices of dissent within the liberal class such as Dorothy Day, I. F. Stone, Edward Herman, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and Ralph Nader. Hedges notes that Zinn was the target of surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and that Nader's activism was barred from being reported in the Times due to the actions of Rosenthal. There is an additional mention of the radical activism of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that was whitewashed in media in an effort to make King a revered figure of American liberalism. The chapter is concluded by covering the friendship and admiration held by former United States president Barack Obama towards the aggressively anti-union CEO of FedEx, Frederick Smith.
