Thanks so much for this interview. I read WINNER TAKE ALL a few years ago, and it really opened my eyes to the duplicity of many, and the complicity of many more.........in the upper echelons of global capitalism. The need to believe we are good people may be universal......but it certainly gets easier if the money flows in. Still, we'll never solve inequality, let alone poverty and human misery, by relying on the few who put their personal wealth and high status above everything else.
The ending of the interview is most powerful.........the repeated 'looking away'....not seeing, or pretending that what you see isn't important......has become more common place than many of us realize. Ordinary Canadians, those of us from the professional middle class, but without much actual power, do it too. We looked away from the consequences of global free trade. We looked away from American regime change operations that our corporations benefitted from.
Most of us are looking away from what Trump is doing in the Caribbean right now, pretending we don't know blowing up those boats are war crimes, pretending it isn't criminal when our country stays silent about the blockade game he's playing in Venezuela.
In Canada, we still have single payer health care. But for years, most of us have been looking away as one corporate captured government after another whittled away at its foundations. We mostly want our cake and eat it too...........behave as good capitalists while simultaneously defending our medical care system. But not in any way voting to reinvest in it, rather than in more military spending.
In short. We do what the philanthropic capitalists have trained us to do....we believe we're good people. While mostly, we worry about money.
I agree with much of what you’re saying, Ingamarie, especially the part about looking away. But the killings the U.S. has committed in the Caribbean are not war crimes — they’re murders, plain and simple. This distinction is not a mere nit, although it is one that is largely missed or intentionally ignored by most of the media. We are not at war, and framing the debate in this way ignores first and foremost that only Congress can declare war and presupposes that the executive branch has that power. (At this late date, with Congress’ willingness to surrender this and other powers, we’re not prepared to deal with it). Secondly, the people in the boats were not combatants, they were not armed, they did not threaten the security of the U.S.
Accepting the Trump Administration’s claim that we are at war reduces the discussion to whether or not the two survivors of a single first strike should have been rescued and ignores the more numerous killings of those killed in the first strikes. That’s where the discussion will remain stuck, because that’s where the powers that be want it to be stuck. It’s likely the discussion will never move past this and will not be resolved, and the country will move on to other things. Otherwise, we would have to hold Bradley, Hegseth and Trump accountable by way of court martial or impeachment. We would have to be a nation of laws, and we are past that.
"We are past that" infers adhering to a practice of which was once applicable. So, remind me, when was the U.S. a nation of laws?
Are you referring to the time we held LeMay, McNamara, and Lydon Johnson accountable by way of court martial or impeachment? Or maybe you are going all the way back to Sherman, Stanton, and Lincoln-- who weren't held accountable either. The only accountability we've seem to have witnessed has come in the form of an assassin's bullet or a self inflicted demise that had nothing to do with governmental checks and balances. The rest of the principle members of our power elite, as Giridharadas attested, were regularly rewarded in coin and prestige. Suffice it to say that I've never found the U.S. to be nation of laws that employs objective equity or justice. "Some" have always been "more equal than others". Always have been, always will be. I think the breadth of Epstein's influence, crimes, and lack of accountability proves that.
Perhaps it also shows more Americans the depth and degradation that has also accompanied these well heeled do gooders. The secret cabals aren't so secret any longer.......but as well.......we'll likely never know for certain how many are implicated, because many are implicated.
Doing nothing........looking away as this author calls it.......doesn't make one innocent. The idea that thousands of young women were trafficked, including from eastern Europe, then in the throes of the poverty America helped create when it made Russia a 'free market' gulag........but only one remarkably evil stud, was availing himself of their services, is a whopper too big to believe.
Though apparently, that is what Cash Patel and others in Trump's service want us to believe. When you're rich and well connected in America, you can have whatever you want.......but the catch is, you have to show a lot of tolerance for what other people in your philanthropic community wants as well.
Access to the innocent bodies of the working poor's children seems to be among the desires of the truly powerful. Oh well. We're only human n'est-ce pas???
I'm still a bit curious about what the serious 'access' was that so many were willing to look away from pedophilia to be part of....and was the Israeli Lobby any part of it???
Thanks for the clarification, and I think you are right from a legalist perspective. There has been no war declared. That's true. Trump by himself can't declare war, I think I understand that part of the American constitution as well.
But on the other hand.....the view from outside your nation, sees the making of war on unarmed little people, doing whatever they are doing.....as something America gives itself permission to do all the time.
My daughter married a Cuban boy. So I know the misery your empire has visited upon a little island who didn't want your oligarchs running their country any longer. I contrast that long held vengeance vendetta with the high talk about Russia not wanting NATO on her border with Ukraine....and from outside the empire, it looks like 'undeclared war'.........or as you put it.......'extrajudicial murder' is what American foreign policy has always reduced to.
I studied in Massachusetts as a young woman, knew many good and ethical Americans.....but I still remember being gobsmacked by my then boyfriend's assertion that 'there were two sides in the war crimes in Vietnam'.
I tried to imagine where he was coming from. American troops were in Vietnamese people's country......and there were two sides to the injustice???? It must take a lot of training to get American's believing that while interferring in another people's country.......they've also suffered injustices.
Compared to that entitlement, believing you're doing good by scooping up more than your share of the earth's wealth is likely a slam dunk.
You get no argument from me on these points. Mislabeling something as a war brings out all the justifications. Plain murder, not so much. Long before the Viet Nam War, the U.S. was running amok in Latin America — and Iran, of course. Trump is saying the quiet part out loud — the U.S. “owns” Venezuelan oil. On another of your points: Hedges is one of the few journalists I’ve read or listened to who has covered the story of the “Katie Johnson/Jane Doe” plaintiff who sued Trump for allegedly raping and otherwise abusing her while she was a teenager working at Epstein’s estate. While one of her two cases was dismissed by the court for failure to state a claim (there was no decision regarding the alleged facts) and the other was dismissed by Jane Doe herself after Trump was elected in 2016 (reportedly because she feared retribution), the MSM continues to proclaim loudly and often that there is no evidence of criminality or wrongdoing by Trump. (Why do they need to say anything about this at all )? That skirts the fact that Ms. Doe was never given a hearing on her claims. Allegations by a plaintiff are themselves considered “evidence” in a court of law. Whether or not it is credible evidence is of course another matter. But the MSM is not looking into it. Where is Jane Doe? Where are her lawyers? Who was the young female seated with Trump on the Epstein plane in the photo DOJ pulled after posting it? We don’t know that Jane Doe’s allegations are true but neither do we know that they’re not true. The MSM is framing the issue as whether Trump knew Epstein was sexually trafficking girls and young women — not whether he himself committed sex crimes against the victims. You know, like whether “war” crimes were committed. The framing says a lot.
Your example of the logical fallacy involved with thinking that their are two sides to the story of injustice(s) involved with war crime(s) is brilliant. Given the comparison you wish us to make, I like to know: How do you think we should define "more than your share" of the earth's wealth as an imagined limit to what appears to be your case for individual human entitlement?
Those are some pretty tough questions....but I have been thinking about them.
We absolutely do need to move away from unregulated capitalism for a start.
Free trade ideas have dominated for over 50 years, really getting up to speed with the signing of Nafta....and those years taught people a way of life that is both unsustainable, and hard to get out from under.
I've come to believe that what we lack is real people power.......and by that I mean a mass of people who have better values than this superficial love of freedom, personal autonomy and money. But many of our young people have never known community, never mind experiencing the kind of social solidarity that would lead more of them to pursue careers of service to anything but personal gain.
We need new theories and theorists....we need to think collectively about the limits of profit, and the benefits of social prosperity. I am as fully involved in the green technologies of the future, because I see there opportunities for individuals to move from the role of 'consumers' to that of 'producers'. If you have rooftop solar, you can sell into the grid. You can also go electric and minimize your use of Fossil gas.
But individually doing these things is not enough. So I'm also interested in 'virtual power plants' and other innovations that grow community through collective projects. Sustainable farming is another area...producing more of our own food locally creates community, food security and new kinds of resilience.
The trouble is of course......while small is beautiful, and if pursued in enough places with all the diversity that involves, will make a difference........we need more good governance to subsidize people producing instead of corporations extracting.
We need to move to a world of many sides, not just two, one of them wrong. Nature doesn't reduce anything to that simplicity......and nor should we. But it is hard to get started.......and in too many places, everything of value has already been sold or leased to the corporations.
We watched a program the other night about AI centres coming into rural people's sanctuaries and bulldozing everything to set up artificial stupidity centres that will drain the areas electricity and water.......our governments support that. Not real growth at all. Computer chips that burn out quickly computing algorithms that still often come up with the wrong answer aren't producing anything we really need.
More profits, money in off shore accounts won't feed or clothe anyone given what's coming if we stay the free market/enslaved people course....but I'm not sure any of this answers your question.....which is a good one.
No, IMO, you didn't answer my question at all. But I've always appreciated your insight, ingamarie, and respect you that much more for trying.
The concerns you do bring up are all legitimate, but with some of your answers seemingly bolstered by logical fallacies that I could proceed to punch large holes in...---not the intention of my original question. I choose, rather, to read your critic of modern society as a genesis for the necessary (and difficult) conversations everyone should have with each other--on a regular basis. In turn, that could be converted to positive public policy that challenges the prevailing narrative of the power elites. The early steps of that conversation must involve asking questions. It involves looking at the world through Socratic eyes---and asking questions which lead to the understanding that none of us know absolute truth; despite the power elite pretending they do.
Unfortunately, predictive programming instituted by the power elite makes that process of questioning authority unimaginable for many. It will take folks like you hammering away with your legitimate critiques (and perhaps refining it along the way) and demanding accountability in order to change the course of the status quo which we both can likely agree is currently on the short path toward catastrophic destruction and misery for most of the human race.
And likewise. I agree with the need for more thoughtful conversations......conversations that begin with the admission that none of us have an accurate map to the future. Trouble is, as you say, our elites have worked hard to convince us they have that map....but I listened to a talk by Yanis Varoufakis this morning....https://youtu.be/wYOO-KrTwFk?si=AAcJVtvn5QXA97Oa I think that's the right link.
And he made me realize how much more complex is the world's situation just now. America formented the war in Ukraine. By the time Russia invaded no one wanted to know about the years preceding the invasion....no one wanted the conversations you imagine. Recently, we've heard debates about confiscating Russian assets in Europe to rebuild Ukraine after the war........but all of this 'chatter' in the west has gone on without a hint of what Yanis is talking about.........
So how we have those conversations is the big question. Recently we find ourselves being shut out of our left wing organizations...because we're vocal about not supporting bitumen pipelines to our Pacific coast. Even the folks who think of themselves as political, know when to be quiet....currently, my partner and I are taking advantage of our beautifully cold Canadian winter and shutting ourselves up with books about bitcoin, AI and thinkers like Yanis or Slavoj Zizek......
There are too few pundits who go to the end of their thought.....researching all the way. Hedges is one of them........on his site, people like yourself still want to engage. Keep on doing it. There's zip Trump can do to turn the tide of what this War Games collective have set in motion.
Corporate elites believing that they are "transforming the world"???? What a bunch of bullshit. Corporations are not gravitating toward government in order to better the world.
Giridharades totally ignores one big fact: These corporate elites have all gravitated toward the government feeding trough for easier, steadier, (and less riskier, market driven) wealth accumulation. Why? Because government funding is largely based on coercive funding in the form of coerced working class payroll taxes. You don't have to earn that money--you simply take it; and you take it upfront. In this case, the government takes it... and corporate elites simply "earns" that same coerced funding in the form of lucrative (and obscene) government contracts from those they paid off (excuse me, I mean partnered with).
What Hedges and Giridharades should be asking is: What are all these elites going to do (and more importantly how are they planning to do it) when robots replace human wage workers (which they all are salivating for and racing to do)? While robots don't require health insurance, vacation, benefits, etc., they also don't cough up regular and very valuable payroll taxes for those same corporate elite. Seems to me the Golden Goose might be in the midst of being exchanged for a rotten A.I. generated egg.
A few years ago, I was walking down 4th Ave in downtown San Francisco. Behind me were three techies whose conversation I could hear. Coming toward us was an older Black man in a wheelchair because he was an amputee. Techie comment: "Gentrification isn't happening fast enough." Well, many are libertarians and/or (Ayn) Randroids under the illusion they're entirely self-made, never needing the help of others, certain of their own superiority. To them, the rest of humanity is irrelevant at best; most are parasitic on the productivity of the genius few.
Consider also how the assumptions of the dominant econ system in the U.S. and much of the world mean psychopathy has become normal behavior for extremely wealthy elites. The sole motivation in neolib(neoclassical) economics is, in their inhuman EconSpeak, "the utility function"--personal gain. This same theory proceeds as if econ acts are about a barter exchange between two individuals, each of whom has perfect information and equal access to the Market.
Which meshes with the libertarian belief there are no social structures, so obviously any claim of structural inequalities is nothing more than an attempt to excuse a lack of personal responsibility. Add to the grossly selfish basis of the econ system how devastation of human communities and destruction of ecosystems are defined away as 'externalities.' They don't count.
In contrast, my mentor Dr. Ed Wenk, founder of the Office of Science and Technology for the U.S. Congress and advisor to several presidents. In the '70s, he started a program at the U. of WA that was an amalgam of sociology, public policy, and engineering to consider important questions like: Who decides what kinds of technology? For what ends? Who controls it? But then as an old New Dealer, he thought in terms of the common good. His work and New Deal economics were both based on actual empirical evidence.
I watched a clip a few years ago in which Mr Giridharadas talked about attending an economics course at the University of Michigan and being schooled (indoctrinated?) in the power and promise of globalism. At the same time, globalism was decimating the auto industry and the economy in Michigan.
In his interview with Mr Hedges, Mr Giridharadas made a comment to the effect that he wished somebody would write about the pursuit of profit [at any cost] being disguised as something else. The clip where he talked about his econ course and globalism inspired me, in part, to write the following:
Every once in a while Jeb thought about his Army days and the group exercises he’d gone through during field training. The goal of the exercises was for every member of the group to get through an obstacle course from point A to point B. The obstacles were physical and mental. The point of the exercises was to drive the idea into everyone’s head that the only thing that mattered was that everyone in the group got from point A to point B. The exercises forced the smarter people to help those who weren’t as smart, and the stronger people to help those who weren’t as strong. If even only one member of the group didn’t make it from A to B, everybody failed.
Jeb carried the experiences of the field training exercises with him after he was discharged. When he went to work at Vortex he felt like everyone was on the same team. It was like everyone doing everything they could to get from point A to point B all over again. There was the union, the company, and the government. They all had their strengths, and they all worked together so everyone would succeed. But then Vortex cut deals with the government to throw out the union, shut down the factory, and move all the jobs overseas so they could make more money. He thought that what Vortex and the government did was unforgivable. They turned their backs on the workers, the men and women who devoted their lives to Vortex and built it up from nothing. They tossed them out on the street. Jeb thought if they’d done something like that in the military they would’ve been fragged, or court-martialed. Maybe both.
One might have been fragged in the military only because the military's mission (while having become synonymous with that of multinational corporations which is, of course, to secure and protect global assets for companies like Vortex), is simply to execute a scorched earth policy that they know will be disguised and excused as patriotism. Urah devil dogs--you deserve that holiday bonus more than anyone! The U.S. taxpayer, as a team player, be damned. Your mission is simply to pay the bill.
Couple this interview with the one linked below with Aaron Good on America’s criminal history of imperialism, and every American citizen would at least be fully aware of the task at hand. Unfortunately, the lure of the couch and latest digital gadget is an addiction that’s hard to break.
Greg Grandin wrote a greate piece in defence of Noam Chomsky. He argues very clearly than Noam does not belong to the Epstein Class. Here is the link if anybody is interested in reading it:
A similar view is expressed in an article by Tim Hjersted: he posits that Chomsky's relationship with Epstein was largely limited to financial advice (at the recommendation of others). His later stance (post-Epstein conviction and release) is consistent with his chosen standards of conduct in other instances. Behavior after general knowledge of the abuse was known is the key to assessing character issues in all of the Epstein figures, and in particular, later social relationships and trips. I think that this is rightly seen as a measure of ethical standards and morale character. Which in contrast to the apparent norm of the age, does matter.
I agree with much of what Anand reflects. However, there are some significant issues on which I diverge.
He uses the example of food safety. He attributes not having to worry about bad food & water to government inspectors missing a basic engineering advance that made a huge difference. Water treatment saved far more lives than government regulation of food. The other major advance in food safety was refrigeration. India has lagged behind the west in this respect with many villages being unable to afford water treatment, and many farmers not having access to refrigeration.
However, do I consider food safe in North America? No, but the issue is Big Food's regulatory capture resulting in our foods being full of chemicals that are harming us. Attributing to the wrong source problems does not help anyone. Truth is something that must be constantly sought after and simply accepting narratives (constructed by big business) as true does not help us.
Water safety in the U.S. provided by government? How did that work for folks like those in Flint, Mich.? How about all the wells gone toxic in places like PA due to unregulated fracking?
You're also forgetting that most water resource providers, just like trash pick up, incinerator services, highways, etc. (the list of former government services that were invested heavily with tax dollars--but are now moving toward being run profitably by the private sector with relatively little skin in the game...and grows by the decade) are simply regulated, not run, by state and local governments. We know how that ends up. Just look at Washington D.C. for that clue.
I do not live in the US, so while I have simpathy for Americans, your argument has nothing to do with what is required to create a well engineered drinking and waste water treatment system and there are many examples of places where these exist.
Uncontaminated water saves lives. Refrigerated food saves lives. These are both examples of how engineering has positively impacted human health. That some jurisdictions are poorly governed has nothing to do with good engineering.
Where I agree with Anand is that when a system is corrupted by Lobbiests who are focused on Financial Efficiency the result is Flint. That should not be a surprise as corrupt elites have been the downfall of every human civilization.
Sure it does. It takes human ingenuity to provide innovation--which has nothing to do with being the sole domain of government. It also takes a lot of tax dollars to establish these large systems. Private industry allows the tax payer to initially build it--then they slowly and methodically take it over without having to put much skin in the game. My point, if you will, is that government is no longer providing and maintaining well engineered drinking and waste water treatment system on tax receipts--private industry is. The taxpayer has been kept under the illusion government is taking care of them through their tax dollars when, in fact, they're not. In the case of Flint (and others--like Stockton, Cal.) they can't even regulate municipal assets responsibly. Municipalities are, by and large, addicted to ever increasing levels of bonding referendum (debt spending) in order to keep their "operations" afloat. Most of that funding eventually floats through to private industry and investors that take over these systems--usually ending up in the hands of a few power elites.
Fair enough. Our system needs to be completely reformed. Unfortunately, I do not see our elites reforming voluntarily which means things could get very ugly.
IMO it's already rather ugly. But I agree that the power elite are not interested in changing that status. In a functioning republic that needs to happen by the people in mass. Unfortunately they've been seduced by predictive programming to a point where ignorance and apathy is the rule rather than the exception. I still believe that can change with real education and individual will power.
Funny, but this takes me back quite a few years. John Kenneth Galbraith (himself a hardcore Kennedy loyalist and advisor and arguably very much a member of the elite class) was in my home town in the mid-1970s to give a talk and plug for his book THE AGE OF UNCERTAINTY. In one chapter he examined the morals and manners of what he called high capitalism, and what was interesting was the way elites don't only justify what they do to the general public, but seem to have a great need to justify it to themselves, too. A man of means could send his son to, say, Yale, and be taught that despite the obscene excesses of the gilded age robber barons, what they were doing was explained as being generally good for society as a whole. Of course the means to manage thought are much more sophisticated now, but they seem to address something that doesn't change.
The human mind is a powerful tool and knows no political or class boundary. Just like the adage that you can sue anyone for anything, IMO anyone is capable of justifying anyone's bad action as good. I believe this universal attribute of the human mind (not unique to power elite) allows for Ayn Rand's philosophy of moral objectivity to explain that the most seemingly altruistic act is, in reality, one of absolute selfishness.
My point is: I don't believe your example sheds any meaningful light on the actions of the power elite, but simply human nature in general. That's liklely why it doesn't seem to change. Further, there are no morals and manners unique to those engaging in "high capitalism" as Galbraith apparently imagines. Probably just sounded like a good idea to invent in order to sell his book. If you bought it (or, figuratively, the lecture) I think you wasted your money.
I disagree strongly with the idea that human manners and morals are the same across all levels of a society. Humans are human, of course, but if you looked at the world view of, say, individuals living in the U.S. who have only high-school educations and who struggle by on minimum wage, and compare their attitudes with those of tech billionaires in, say, Palo Alto, CA, I dare say they'd be different. (I'm not sure what the views of Ayn Rand have to do with anything here. She's not taken seriously as any kind of critic of public policy, and has always been dismissed as a crank by legitimate scholars.)
I'm not particularly young, and I began reading Galbraith in the late 1960s. Nowadays, he definitely reads like a product of an earlier age, when the idea that a government with a strong public commitment was a possibility, and that something approaching European social democracy could be implemented here. The scourge of neoliberalism hadn't yet hit the country, and the idea that a doofus like Ronald Reagan could ever become President seemed very distant.
You have every right to disagree with whatever I opine with your own opinion--and I would respect that. However, you don't have a right to put your own words into my mouth. I don't believe I ever inferred (and certainly never stated) that "human manners and morals are the same across all levels of a society". Like Galbraith's thinking, your interpretation is pure imagination. I suggest you reread my initial post in response to yours. Your interpretation is (essentially) the same as saying all people* have the same manners and morals--which is a patently absurd conclusion you make, not I.
I believe the reason why you cannot fathom the connection of Ayn Rand's writings to the topic at hand is because you fail to exercise any functioning level of critical thought. Yet you, apparently, fancy yourself as a self designated "legitimate scholar". All horse hockey, to put it politely. Further, what, exactly, determines or designates a "legitimate scholar" from that of a illegitimate (or "crank" as you say) scholar? For the record, Moral Objectivism is studied by a massive audience of philosophical and public policy scholars. Both her books, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead-- which are carriers of her philosophical arguments-- are best sellers with sales in the 10's of millions. What are the sales of your "legitimate" scholarly works? Im guessing that would be a big, fat zero.
* "all levels of a society" pretty much defines everybody. doesn't it?
Hey, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. You’re pulling us way off of Chris Hedges’ original topic as it is, and I’d like to return to it. But I will stress again that “Moral [sic] Objectivism” is most certainly not studied by serious scholars, and for that matter L. Ron Hubbard probably has a bigger audience. But far be it from me to denigrate those John-Stuart-Mill-level intellects who take Ayn Rand seriously.
I started out my working life at Sears Roebuck & Co when they were a huge diverse and exciting company that was proud of their successful profit sharing scheme and employed a very healthy middle class in small cities and towns across America. I left when all that changed , they were broken and the focus was on shareholder value. I’ve been employed in top US corporations since then, even one that was a client of McKinsey until it led to a culture that nearly ruined it. I saw American corporations go from hundreds of administrative assistants, accountants, marketing and sales associates to tens all due to the labor saving advent of computers. That savings never made it to the remaining workers. Year over year profits made that labor savings hard to top again and again, yet they continue to do it upon the backs of the employees and people using their products/services. Profits pay politicians and return two fold. I will purchase this book. I can get it from the library but think it’s important to support this work.
Mr. Giridharadas has a good take on most things, his interpretation of the implicit attitude Epstein class in NYT piece was particularly insightful and appreciated. Also appreciated is his ability to illustrate a point, to identify the mechanism of something felt, the character of the corporate society that we now live in.
Particularly appreciated in the discussion: the loss of everyday human interaction, over the course of decades with the ascendancy of neoliberalism, via the example of barber appointment out-sourcing.
This atomization of our society that has been noted by Chris Hedges, is such a big factor in the decline of American culture. The insinuation of corporate world into every possible interstice in social interaction. This process now nearly total with the mapping of most interactions onto the internet, making nearly all things subject to mediation by others. The online funhouse mirror that society uses for it's window onto the world, it's source of information. And we are all captives, we increasingly are given no choice (to apply for work, to access health care) it has become nearly functionally to impossible to live without accessing the internet, the cell phone, the ubiquitous apps. And all of these managed by those who own the systems, and who amass ever greater fortunes and power.
It poses a unique threat, the potential for totalitarian autocracy beyond any prior dystopian scenario.
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The venality, or even the inclusion on the part of some among the group has been surprising.
Not surprising in the case of Bill Gates.
If James Brown is the Godfather of Soul, whose musical example set a whole genre in motion, Bill Gates is the Godfather of the Tech Bros, hubris and greed, and a character absolutely without principle.
Thanks so much for this interview. I read WINNER TAKE ALL a few years ago, and it really opened my eyes to the duplicity of many, and the complicity of many more.........in the upper echelons of global capitalism. The need to believe we are good people may be universal......but it certainly gets easier if the money flows in. Still, we'll never solve inequality, let alone poverty and human misery, by relying on the few who put their personal wealth and high status above everything else.
The ending of the interview is most powerful.........the repeated 'looking away'....not seeing, or pretending that what you see isn't important......has become more common place than many of us realize. Ordinary Canadians, those of us from the professional middle class, but without much actual power, do it too. We looked away from the consequences of global free trade. We looked away from American regime change operations that our corporations benefitted from.
Most of us are looking away from what Trump is doing in the Caribbean right now, pretending we don't know blowing up those boats are war crimes, pretending it isn't criminal when our country stays silent about the blockade game he's playing in Venezuela.
In Canada, we still have single payer health care. But for years, most of us have been looking away as one corporate captured government after another whittled away at its foundations. We mostly want our cake and eat it too...........behave as good capitalists while simultaneously defending our medical care system. But not in any way voting to reinvest in it, rather than in more military spending.
In short. We do what the philanthropic capitalists have trained us to do....we believe we're good people. While mostly, we worry about money.
I agree with much of what you’re saying, Ingamarie, especially the part about looking away. But the killings the U.S. has committed in the Caribbean are not war crimes — they’re murders, plain and simple. This distinction is not a mere nit, although it is one that is largely missed or intentionally ignored by most of the media. We are not at war, and framing the debate in this way ignores first and foremost that only Congress can declare war and presupposes that the executive branch has that power. (At this late date, with Congress’ willingness to surrender this and other powers, we’re not prepared to deal with it). Secondly, the people in the boats were not combatants, they were not armed, they did not threaten the security of the U.S.
Accepting the Trump Administration’s claim that we are at war reduces the discussion to whether or not the two survivors of a single first strike should have been rescued and ignores the more numerous killings of those killed in the first strikes. That’s where the discussion will remain stuck, because that’s where the powers that be want it to be stuck. It’s likely the discussion will never move past this and will not be resolved, and the country will move on to other things. Otherwise, we would have to hold Bradley, Hegseth and Trump accountable by way of court martial or impeachment. We would have to be a nation of laws, and we are past that.
"We are past that" infers adhering to a practice of which was once applicable. So, remind me, when was the U.S. a nation of laws?
Are you referring to the time we held LeMay, McNamara, and Lydon Johnson accountable by way of court martial or impeachment? Or maybe you are going all the way back to Sherman, Stanton, and Lincoln-- who weren't held accountable either. The only accountability we've seem to have witnessed has come in the form of an assassin's bullet or a self inflicted demise that had nothing to do with governmental checks and balances. The rest of the principle members of our power elite, as Giridharadas attested, were regularly rewarded in coin and prestige. Suffice it to say that I've never found the U.S. to be nation of laws that employs objective equity or justice. "Some" have always been "more equal than others". Always have been, always will be. I think the breadth of Epstein's influence, crimes, and lack of accountability proves that.
Perhaps it also shows more Americans the depth and degradation that has also accompanied these well heeled do gooders. The secret cabals aren't so secret any longer.......but as well.......we'll likely never know for certain how many are implicated, because many are implicated.
Doing nothing........looking away as this author calls it.......doesn't make one innocent. The idea that thousands of young women were trafficked, including from eastern Europe, then in the throes of the poverty America helped create when it made Russia a 'free market' gulag........but only one remarkably evil stud, was availing himself of their services, is a whopper too big to believe.
Though apparently, that is what Cash Patel and others in Trump's service want us to believe. When you're rich and well connected in America, you can have whatever you want.......but the catch is, you have to show a lot of tolerance for what other people in your philanthropic community wants as well.
Access to the innocent bodies of the working poor's children seems to be among the desires of the truly powerful. Oh well. We're only human n'est-ce pas???
I'm still a bit curious about what the serious 'access' was that so many were willing to look away from pedophilia to be part of....and was the Israeli Lobby any part of it???
Thanks for the clarification, and I think you are right from a legalist perspective. There has been no war declared. That's true. Trump by himself can't declare war, I think I understand that part of the American constitution as well.
But on the other hand.....the view from outside your nation, sees the making of war on unarmed little people, doing whatever they are doing.....as something America gives itself permission to do all the time.
My daughter married a Cuban boy. So I know the misery your empire has visited upon a little island who didn't want your oligarchs running their country any longer. I contrast that long held vengeance vendetta with the high talk about Russia not wanting NATO on her border with Ukraine....and from outside the empire, it looks like 'undeclared war'.........or as you put it.......'extrajudicial murder' is what American foreign policy has always reduced to.
I studied in Massachusetts as a young woman, knew many good and ethical Americans.....but I still remember being gobsmacked by my then boyfriend's assertion that 'there were two sides in the war crimes in Vietnam'.
I tried to imagine where he was coming from. American troops were in Vietnamese people's country......and there were two sides to the injustice???? It must take a lot of training to get American's believing that while interferring in another people's country.......they've also suffered injustices.
Compared to that entitlement, believing you're doing good by scooping up more than your share of the earth's wealth is likely a slam dunk.
You get no argument from me on these points. Mislabeling something as a war brings out all the justifications. Plain murder, not so much. Long before the Viet Nam War, the U.S. was running amok in Latin America — and Iran, of course. Trump is saying the quiet part out loud — the U.S. “owns” Venezuelan oil. On another of your points: Hedges is one of the few journalists I’ve read or listened to who has covered the story of the “Katie Johnson/Jane Doe” plaintiff who sued Trump for allegedly raping and otherwise abusing her while she was a teenager working at Epstein’s estate. While one of her two cases was dismissed by the court for failure to state a claim (there was no decision regarding the alleged facts) and the other was dismissed by Jane Doe herself after Trump was elected in 2016 (reportedly because she feared retribution), the MSM continues to proclaim loudly and often that there is no evidence of criminality or wrongdoing by Trump. (Why do they need to say anything about this at all )? That skirts the fact that Ms. Doe was never given a hearing on her claims. Allegations by a plaintiff are themselves considered “evidence” in a court of law. Whether or not it is credible evidence is of course another matter. But the MSM is not looking into it. Where is Jane Doe? Where are her lawyers? Who was the young female seated with Trump on the Epstein plane in the photo DOJ pulled after posting it? We don’t know that Jane Doe’s allegations are true but neither do we know that they’re not true. The MSM is framing the issue as whether Trump knew Epstein was sexually trafficking girls and young women — not whether he himself committed sex crimes against the victims. You know, like whether “war” crimes were committed. The framing says a lot.
I'm pretty sure there's a lot of old white guys of privilege worried about what might come out.
Which may be why much of what actually happened in all those years, won't come out.
Your example of the logical fallacy involved with thinking that their are two sides to the story of injustice(s) involved with war crime(s) is brilliant. Given the comparison you wish us to make, I like to know: How do you think we should define "more than your share" of the earth's wealth as an imagined limit to what appears to be your case for individual human entitlement?
Those are some pretty tough questions....but I have been thinking about them.
We absolutely do need to move away from unregulated capitalism for a start.
Free trade ideas have dominated for over 50 years, really getting up to speed with the signing of Nafta....and those years taught people a way of life that is both unsustainable, and hard to get out from under.
I've come to believe that what we lack is real people power.......and by that I mean a mass of people who have better values than this superficial love of freedom, personal autonomy and money. But many of our young people have never known community, never mind experiencing the kind of social solidarity that would lead more of them to pursue careers of service to anything but personal gain.
We need new theories and theorists....we need to think collectively about the limits of profit, and the benefits of social prosperity. I am as fully involved in the green technologies of the future, because I see there opportunities for individuals to move from the role of 'consumers' to that of 'producers'. If you have rooftop solar, you can sell into the grid. You can also go electric and minimize your use of Fossil gas.
But individually doing these things is not enough. So I'm also interested in 'virtual power plants' and other innovations that grow community through collective projects. Sustainable farming is another area...producing more of our own food locally creates community, food security and new kinds of resilience.
The trouble is of course......while small is beautiful, and if pursued in enough places with all the diversity that involves, will make a difference........we need more good governance to subsidize people producing instead of corporations extracting.
We need to move to a world of many sides, not just two, one of them wrong. Nature doesn't reduce anything to that simplicity......and nor should we. But it is hard to get started.......and in too many places, everything of value has already been sold or leased to the corporations.
We watched a program the other night about AI centres coming into rural people's sanctuaries and bulldozing everything to set up artificial stupidity centres that will drain the areas electricity and water.......our governments support that. Not real growth at all. Computer chips that burn out quickly computing algorithms that still often come up with the wrong answer aren't producing anything we really need.
More profits, money in off shore accounts won't feed or clothe anyone given what's coming if we stay the free market/enslaved people course....but I'm not sure any of this answers your question.....which is a good one.
No, IMO, you didn't answer my question at all. But I've always appreciated your insight, ingamarie, and respect you that much more for trying.
The concerns you do bring up are all legitimate, but with some of your answers seemingly bolstered by logical fallacies that I could proceed to punch large holes in...---not the intention of my original question. I choose, rather, to read your critic of modern society as a genesis for the necessary (and difficult) conversations everyone should have with each other--on a regular basis. In turn, that could be converted to positive public policy that challenges the prevailing narrative of the power elites. The early steps of that conversation must involve asking questions. It involves looking at the world through Socratic eyes---and asking questions which lead to the understanding that none of us know absolute truth; despite the power elite pretending they do.
Unfortunately, predictive programming instituted by the power elite makes that process of questioning authority unimaginable for many. It will take folks like you hammering away with your legitimate critiques (and perhaps refining it along the way) and demanding accountability in order to change the course of the status quo which we both can likely agree is currently on the short path toward catastrophic destruction and misery for most of the human race.
Again, as always, I appreciate your insight.
And likewise. I agree with the need for more thoughtful conversations......conversations that begin with the admission that none of us have an accurate map to the future. Trouble is, as you say, our elites have worked hard to convince us they have that map....but I listened to a talk by Yanis Varoufakis this morning....https://youtu.be/wYOO-KrTwFk?si=AAcJVtvn5QXA97Oa I think that's the right link.
And he made me realize how much more complex is the world's situation just now. America formented the war in Ukraine. By the time Russia invaded no one wanted to know about the years preceding the invasion....no one wanted the conversations you imagine. Recently, we've heard debates about confiscating Russian assets in Europe to rebuild Ukraine after the war........but all of this 'chatter' in the west has gone on without a hint of what Yanis is talking about.........
So how we have those conversations is the big question. Recently we find ourselves being shut out of our left wing organizations...because we're vocal about not supporting bitumen pipelines to our Pacific coast. Even the folks who think of themselves as political, know when to be quiet....currently, my partner and I are taking advantage of our beautifully cold Canadian winter and shutting ourselves up with books about bitcoin, AI and thinkers like Yanis or Slavoj Zizek......
There are too few pundits who go to the end of their thought.....researching all the way. Hedges is one of them........on his site, people like yourself still want to engage. Keep on doing it. There's zip Trump can do to turn the tide of what this War Games collective have set in motion.
Corporate elites believing that they are "transforming the world"???? What a bunch of bullshit. Corporations are not gravitating toward government in order to better the world.
Giridharades totally ignores one big fact: These corporate elites have all gravitated toward the government feeding trough for easier, steadier, (and less riskier, market driven) wealth accumulation. Why? Because government funding is largely based on coercive funding in the form of coerced working class payroll taxes. You don't have to earn that money--you simply take it; and you take it upfront. In this case, the government takes it... and corporate elites simply "earns" that same coerced funding in the form of lucrative (and obscene) government contracts from those they paid off (excuse me, I mean partnered with).
What Hedges and Giridharades should be asking is: What are all these elites going to do (and more importantly how are they planning to do it) when robots replace human wage workers (which they all are salivating for and racing to do)? While robots don't require health insurance, vacation, benefits, etc., they also don't cough up regular and very valuable payroll taxes for those same corporate elite. Seems to me the Golden Goose might be in the midst of being exchanged for a rotten A.I. generated egg.
A few years ago, I was walking down 4th Ave in downtown San Francisco. Behind me were three techies whose conversation I could hear. Coming toward us was an older Black man in a wheelchair because he was an amputee. Techie comment: "Gentrification isn't happening fast enough." Well, many are libertarians and/or (Ayn) Randroids under the illusion they're entirely self-made, never needing the help of others, certain of their own superiority. To them, the rest of humanity is irrelevant at best; most are parasitic on the productivity of the genius few.
Consider also how the assumptions of the dominant econ system in the U.S. and much of the world mean psychopathy has become normal behavior for extremely wealthy elites. The sole motivation in neolib(neoclassical) economics is, in their inhuman EconSpeak, "the utility function"--personal gain. This same theory proceeds as if econ acts are about a barter exchange between two individuals, each of whom has perfect information and equal access to the Market.
Which meshes with the libertarian belief there are no social structures, so obviously any claim of structural inequalities is nothing more than an attempt to excuse a lack of personal responsibility. Add to the grossly selfish basis of the econ system how devastation of human communities and destruction of ecosystems are defined away as 'externalities.' They don't count.
In contrast, my mentor Dr. Ed Wenk, founder of the Office of Science and Technology for the U.S. Congress and advisor to several presidents. In the '70s, he started a program at the U. of WA that was an amalgam of sociology, public policy, and engineering to consider important questions like: Who decides what kinds of technology? For what ends? Who controls it? But then as an old New Dealer, he thought in terms of the common good. His work and New Deal economics were both based on actual empirical evidence.
1. Power is to sociopaths what catnip is to cats.
2. "This power elite is fundamentally global and fundamentally loyal to itself." This elite is loyal only to itself.
3. Epstein, it is worth noting, gave huge sums to charity and for private giving. Sociopaths that I have known have also been similarly generous.
I watched a clip a few years ago in which Mr Giridharadas talked about attending an economics course at the University of Michigan and being schooled (indoctrinated?) in the power and promise of globalism. At the same time, globalism was decimating the auto industry and the economy in Michigan.
In his interview with Mr Hedges, Mr Giridharadas made a comment to the effect that he wished somebody would write about the pursuit of profit [at any cost] being disguised as something else. The clip where he talked about his econ course and globalism inspired me, in part, to write the following:
Every once in a while Jeb thought about his Army days and the group exercises he’d gone through during field training. The goal of the exercises was for every member of the group to get through an obstacle course from point A to point B. The obstacles were physical and mental. The point of the exercises was to drive the idea into everyone’s head that the only thing that mattered was that everyone in the group got from point A to point B. The exercises forced the smarter people to help those who weren’t as smart, and the stronger people to help those who weren’t as strong. If even only one member of the group didn’t make it from A to B, everybody failed.
Jeb carried the experiences of the field training exercises with him after he was discharged. When he went to work at Vortex he felt like everyone was on the same team. It was like everyone doing everything they could to get from point A to point B all over again. There was the union, the company, and the government. They all had their strengths, and they all worked together so everyone would succeed. But then Vortex cut deals with the government to throw out the union, shut down the factory, and move all the jobs overseas so they could make more money. He thought that what Vortex and the government did was unforgivable. They turned their backs on the workers, the men and women who devoted their lives to Vortex and built it up from nothing. They tossed them out on the street. Jeb thought if they’d done something like that in the military they would’ve been fragged, or court-martialed. Maybe both.
In a lot of ways, Jeb was me.
One might have been fragged in the military only because the military's mission (while having become synonymous with that of multinational corporations which is, of course, to secure and protect global assets for companies like Vortex), is simply to execute a scorched earth policy that they know will be disguised and excused as patriotism. Urah devil dogs--you deserve that holiday bonus more than anyone! The U.S. taxpayer, as a team player, be damned. Your mission is simply to pay the bill.
Couple this interview with the one linked below with Aaron Good on America’s criminal history of imperialism, and every American citizen would at least be fully aware of the task at hand. Unfortunately, the lure of the couch and latest digital gadget is an addiction that’s hard to break.
https://resistanceisfertilepodcast.substack.com/p/the-deep-state-is-not-a-conspiracyits
Greg Grandin wrote a greate piece in defence of Noam Chomsky. He argues very clearly than Noam does not belong to the Epstein Class. Here is the link if anybody is interested in reading it:
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/noam-chomsky-jeffrey-epstein-emails/?fbclid=IwVERDUAO8MYxleHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR6hHBkq7de23IbVkvX0PPKLExBDKNuhijOTvZ_nQuWybE3CZrExj146-ZYQPA_aem_j_fgElShIssYHwcOmaun-A&utm_source=Display&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=2025-EOY&utm_content=phone-2
Thank you for that link, Mr. Castillo.
A similar view is expressed in an article by Tim Hjersted: he posits that Chomsky's relationship with Epstein was largely limited to financial advice (at the recommendation of others). His later stance (post-Epstein conviction and release) is consistent with his chosen standards of conduct in other instances. Behavior after general knowledge of the abuse was known is the key to assessing character issues in all of the Epstein figures, and in particular, later social relationships and trips. I think that this is rightly seen as a measure of ethical standards and morale character. Which in contrast to the apparent norm of the age, does matter.
https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/chomsky-and-epstein-what-the-evidence-actually-shows/
Hey, thanks for the article. It's well worth the time.
I agree with much of what Anand reflects. However, there are some significant issues on which I diverge.
He uses the example of food safety. He attributes not having to worry about bad food & water to government inspectors missing a basic engineering advance that made a huge difference. Water treatment saved far more lives than government regulation of food. The other major advance in food safety was refrigeration. India has lagged behind the west in this respect with many villages being unable to afford water treatment, and many farmers not having access to refrigeration.
However, do I consider food safe in North America? No, but the issue is Big Food's regulatory capture resulting in our foods being full of chemicals that are harming us. Attributing to the wrong source problems does not help anyone. Truth is something that must be constantly sought after and simply accepting narratives (constructed by big business) as true does not help us.
Water safety in the U.S. provided by government? How did that work for folks like those in Flint, Mich.? How about all the wells gone toxic in places like PA due to unregulated fracking?
You're also forgetting that most water resource providers, just like trash pick up, incinerator services, highways, etc. (the list of former government services that were invested heavily with tax dollars--but are now moving toward being run profitably by the private sector with relatively little skin in the game...and grows by the decade) are simply regulated, not run, by state and local governments. We know how that ends up. Just look at Washington D.C. for that clue.
What is your point?
I do not live in the US, so while I have simpathy for Americans, your argument has nothing to do with what is required to create a well engineered drinking and waste water treatment system and there are many examples of places where these exist.
Uncontaminated water saves lives. Refrigerated food saves lives. These are both examples of how engineering has positively impacted human health. That some jurisdictions are poorly governed has nothing to do with good engineering.
Where I agree with Anand is that when a system is corrupted by Lobbiests who are focused on Financial Efficiency the result is Flint. That should not be a surprise as corrupt elites have been the downfall of every human civilization.
Sure it does. It takes human ingenuity to provide innovation--which has nothing to do with being the sole domain of government. It also takes a lot of tax dollars to establish these large systems. Private industry allows the tax payer to initially build it--then they slowly and methodically take it over without having to put much skin in the game. My point, if you will, is that government is no longer providing and maintaining well engineered drinking and waste water treatment system on tax receipts--private industry is. The taxpayer has been kept under the illusion government is taking care of them through their tax dollars when, in fact, they're not. In the case of Flint (and others--like Stockton, Cal.) they can't even regulate municipal assets responsibly. Municipalities are, by and large, addicted to ever increasing levels of bonding referendum (debt spending) in order to keep their "operations" afloat. Most of that funding eventually floats through to private industry and investors that take over these systems--usually ending up in the hands of a few power elites.
Fair enough. Our system needs to be completely reformed. Unfortunately, I do not see our elites reforming voluntarily which means things could get very ugly.
IMO it's already rather ugly. But I agree that the power elite are not interested in changing that status. In a functioning republic that needs to happen by the people in mass. Unfortunately they've been seduced by predictive programming to a point where ignorance and apathy is the rule rather than the exception. I still believe that can change with real education and individual will power.
Funny, but this takes me back quite a few years. John Kenneth Galbraith (himself a hardcore Kennedy loyalist and advisor and arguably very much a member of the elite class) was in my home town in the mid-1970s to give a talk and plug for his book THE AGE OF UNCERTAINTY. In one chapter he examined the morals and manners of what he called high capitalism, and what was interesting was the way elites don't only justify what they do to the general public, but seem to have a great need to justify it to themselves, too. A man of means could send his son to, say, Yale, and be taught that despite the obscene excesses of the gilded age robber barons, what they were doing was explained as being generally good for society as a whole. Of course the means to manage thought are much more sophisticated now, but they seem to address something that doesn't change.
The human mind is a powerful tool and knows no political or class boundary. Just like the adage that you can sue anyone for anything, IMO anyone is capable of justifying anyone's bad action as good. I believe this universal attribute of the human mind (not unique to power elite) allows for Ayn Rand's philosophy of moral objectivity to explain that the most seemingly altruistic act is, in reality, one of absolute selfishness.
My point is: I don't believe your example sheds any meaningful light on the actions of the power elite, but simply human nature in general. That's liklely why it doesn't seem to change. Further, there are no morals and manners unique to those engaging in "high capitalism" as Galbraith apparently imagines. Probably just sounded like a good idea to invent in order to sell his book. If you bought it (or, figuratively, the lecture) I think you wasted your money.
I disagree strongly with the idea that human manners and morals are the same across all levels of a society. Humans are human, of course, but if you looked at the world view of, say, individuals living in the U.S. who have only high-school educations and who struggle by on minimum wage, and compare their attitudes with those of tech billionaires in, say, Palo Alto, CA, I dare say they'd be different. (I'm not sure what the views of Ayn Rand have to do with anything here. She's not taken seriously as any kind of critic of public policy, and has always been dismissed as a crank by legitimate scholars.)
I'm not particularly young, and I began reading Galbraith in the late 1960s. Nowadays, he definitely reads like a product of an earlier age, when the idea that a government with a strong public commitment was a possibility, and that something approaching European social democracy could be implemented here. The scourge of neoliberalism hadn't yet hit the country, and the idea that a doofus like Ronald Reagan could ever become President seemed very distant.
You have every right to disagree with whatever I opine with your own opinion--and I would respect that. However, you don't have a right to put your own words into my mouth. I don't believe I ever inferred (and certainly never stated) that "human manners and morals are the same across all levels of a society". Like Galbraith's thinking, your interpretation is pure imagination. I suggest you reread my initial post in response to yours. Your interpretation is (essentially) the same as saying all people* have the same manners and morals--which is a patently absurd conclusion you make, not I.
I believe the reason why you cannot fathom the connection of Ayn Rand's writings to the topic at hand is because you fail to exercise any functioning level of critical thought. Yet you, apparently, fancy yourself as a self designated "legitimate scholar". All horse hockey, to put it politely. Further, what, exactly, determines or designates a "legitimate scholar" from that of a illegitimate (or "crank" as you say) scholar? For the record, Moral Objectivism is studied by a massive audience of philosophical and public policy scholars. Both her books, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead-- which are carriers of her philosophical arguments-- are best sellers with sales in the 10's of millions. What are the sales of your "legitimate" scholarly works? Im guessing that would be a big, fat zero.
* "all levels of a society" pretty much defines everybody. doesn't it?
Hey, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. You’re pulling us way off of Chris Hedges’ original topic as it is, and I’d like to return to it. But I will stress again that “Moral [sic] Objectivism” is most certainly not studied by serious scholars, and for that matter L. Ron Hubbard probably has a bigger audience. But far be it from me to denigrate those John-Stuart-Mill-level intellects who take Ayn Rand seriously.
That doesn't, actually, appear far from you. So much for your attempt toward returning to topic--which was a pointless endeavor to begin with.
“That doesn’t, actually, appear far from you.” Has incoherence always been a problem for you? 😆
Chris, research Anand... look back over the years... more controlled oopposition
I started out my working life at Sears Roebuck & Co when they were a huge diverse and exciting company that was proud of their successful profit sharing scheme and employed a very healthy middle class in small cities and towns across America. I left when all that changed , they were broken and the focus was on shareholder value. I’ve been employed in top US corporations since then, even one that was a client of McKinsey until it led to a culture that nearly ruined it. I saw American corporations go from hundreds of administrative assistants, accountants, marketing and sales associates to tens all due to the labor saving advent of computers. That savings never made it to the remaining workers. Year over year profits made that labor savings hard to top again and again, yet they continue to do it upon the backs of the employees and people using their products/services. Profits pay politicians and return two fold. I will purchase this book. I can get it from the library but think it’s important to support this work.
Mr. Giridharadas has a good take on most things, his interpretation of the implicit attitude Epstein class in NYT piece was particularly insightful and appreciated. Also appreciated is his ability to illustrate a point, to identify the mechanism of something felt, the character of the corporate society that we now live in.
Particularly appreciated in the discussion: the loss of everyday human interaction, over the course of decades with the ascendancy of neoliberalism, via the example of barber appointment out-sourcing.
This atomization of our society that has been noted by Chris Hedges, is such a big factor in the decline of American culture. The insinuation of corporate world into every possible interstice in social interaction. This process now nearly total with the mapping of most interactions onto the internet, making nearly all things subject to mediation by others. The online funhouse mirror that society uses for it's window onto the world, it's source of information. And we are all captives, we increasingly are given no choice (to apply for work, to access health care) it has become nearly functionally to impossible to live without accessing the internet, the cell phone, the ubiquitous apps. And all of these managed by those who own the systems, and who amass ever greater fortunes and power.
It poses a unique threat, the potential for totalitarian autocracy beyond any prior dystopian scenario.
................
The venality, or even the inclusion on the part of some among the group has been surprising.
Not surprising in the case of Bill Gates.
If James Brown is the Godfather of Soul, whose musical example set a whole genre in motion, Bill Gates is the Godfather of the Tech Bros, hubris and greed, and a character absolutely without principle.
Thanks! How did the 'Epstein class' evade justice by keaving Jeffrey Epstein behind?
Mr. Hedges, it strikes me that you just threw Noam Chomsky under the bus for guilt by association.
Unless I’m missing something, this seems an unfortunate exception to your usually sound work / considered takes.
Greg Grandin’s short piece in The Nation is worth your time.
Hell hath no fury as that of a capitalist defending their myths
As for the Jeffrey Epstein-aligned elite - political elite ?