The expedited legislation passed by Congress to avert a strike by railroad unions dealt one more blow in the decades long war waged by the two ruling parties against the working class.
My reaction to the sellout of the railroad workers was similar to Mr Hedges, in which I advocated for the workers to strike.
But they can't. The reasons why are discussed quite cogently in the latest episode of "Useful Idiots", where a railroad organizer and a labor scholar spend the better part of an hour detailing just how fucked these workers are. Well worth watching. The episode is on YouTube, and titled, "'Union Joe' Biden sells out rail Workers".
I own a signed, framed print of Power Couple by Mr. Fish that hangs in my studio as a daily reminder of the truth of Mark Twain's famous quip during America's last guided age that "The congress of the United States is our only truly criminal class." Joe Biden is a product of that corrupt institution, so it's not surprising that the Democrats have reneged on almost all their campaign promises. I'm firmly convinced that a massive worker revolt is the only mechanism that will truly save what's left of American democracy, the sooner the better. Reading Chris Hedges as I do just about every day has convinced me that We, the People, rising up in solidarity for truth and justice is the only viable path forward. The 60s band Ten Years After got it right: "Tax the rich, feed the poor; until there are no rich no more." And team Hedges and Fish are right on the money with this great edition of The Chris Hedges Report.
"They promised to impose a federal tax rate on corporations ranging from 21 percent to 28 percent (7% increase), so that “wealthy Americans and big corporations pay their fair share.”
And that promise not only didn't happen, it was only to claw back HALF of the Trump corporate tax cuts, which reduced tax rates from 35 to 21 percent (14% reduction)
When I first heard about what the Joe Biden creep had done, I was gobsmacked the notion that any working person could be denied sick leave was positively medieval, much less in a nation where all forms of healthcare cost a fortune. In other words when a railroad worker falls ill he/she loses his pay right at the time when she/he most needs lots of cash to pay for treatment.
Here in Aotearoa where I was born & where I have returned to, even though I'm an old man now, I cannot think of a single job I have held where I wouldn't have gotten paid if I was sick. That ranges from casual day-labouring as a youth to career type jobs. Since the early 1930's when the welfare state was established here, paid sick leave has always been a right. Aotearoa fell victim to the pseudo left neoliberal politicians of the Labour Party in the 1980's and even though many of the rights workers once held got demolished no one ever even considered abolishing sick pay.
Since the changes here the 'gig economy' has become a popular way of trying to avoid all leave entitlements a worker normally accrues but courts tend to frown on the notion of someone who works under constant direction being deemed a 'sub-contractor'. The current government has passed laws to permit national enterprise-wide collective bargaining once again but the way it is shaping up, it won't really come into effect until after the next election (a tried & trusted trick of neo-lib pols across this old rock).
I'm sorry to bore y'all with stuff from outside amerika but one of the things which startles me when I visit that country is how little most citizens there know of what happens in the rest of the world. No sick leave! In an enterprise that is a long established endeavour staffed by workers who have been employed for decades - I cannot think of another country in the world, rich or poor, developed or undeveloped where that is the case.
I don't say that to sound superior or smarmy, I state it so citizens will begin to understand the depth of perfidy they have been subjected to by politicians who refuse to act on any concerns they claim to have.
Old Gene Debs, who rose to fame as an organiser for Railroad workers will be rolling in his grave.
At least the Robber Barons built things to endure & used their own names as a point of pride. Their progeny are war mongers & blood thirsty vultures who leave nothing but carnage.
now to be known as The Fraud Squad.....by now they know perfectly well that separating out a bill into 2 parts...the watered down core bill vs. the much needed progressive changes..... always results in the progressive changes failing to pass the senate.......
I was so hoping for the Strike (and still am, although I do not know if I personally would have the stomach to face national guard or jail or hospital). Every day I hope that our 'good' western politicians would grow a functioning brain and act for us 'the People' - I guess that will not happen either. My heart is with the situation in Europe, where they have the most stupid or better criminal governments for a loooong time and even before this sanctions war they were on the way to become a neoliberal society too (austerity, privatization, take away workers rights, ruin health care etc etc.). So my only hope now would be a real revolution that blows away all these greedy people that do so much harm!!! Thank you Mr. Hedges for this article!
The notion that there is no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties is a very tired and tiresome claim that comes from the luxury of those who don't have to deal with the reality of the current political landscape. The Democrats do not have the votes to do what is being suggested here. With a bare minimum of a majority, the Biden administration (and the Obama and Clinton administrations before him) have made significant progress to improve the lives of working families. They have not been able to reverse the neoliberal agenda that has been so well funded by right-wing billionaires, but they have made significant efforts to do what they can. Politics is the art of compromise, and when you don't have the votes, the compromises have to be less than perfect. There are only two parties and if you vote against one, the other one wins. Given the fascist and violent threat of the current Republican Party, trashing the Democratic Party is not at all in the interests of the working class. That is how Trump got elected to begin with because a significant part of the left would not vote for Hillary Clinton. In my view, turning such power over to Donald Trump and those on whose behalf he was willing to act has been a disaster for working families. Unless there is a way to stop the Republican Party, democracy will end. While public sentiment seems to support more progressive policies, that is not reflective of who votes (or is allowed to vote). If you really care about the working class, then you would help build broader coalitions (which means even more compromise) to make it possible to pass legislation that you prefer and that more closely matches your vision of what is good for all.
Ds: "An injury to our superior elite is an injury for all. Lessers don't matter."
Rs: "An injury is profitable."
Labor: " None of you oligarchs and plutocrats can operate or fix anything. So who exactly are the essential workers?"
This is no abstract issue for me. I've been on union boards, did lobbying, and was on elected negotiating committees. I was a political campaign mgr. when the Ds still had a rank and file party; I fought the neolib usurpation of what had been the party of the New Deal. Remember the Atari Dems who believed in the techno quick fix and thought unions passe?
I was also involved in the PATCO strike. Even on prog. D sites, I'm currently battling comments that warn against similar actions. They can't work or harm the economy or because Biden's working on helping the union workers. D apologist crap. Reagan, sure, blame there. But blinkered D fans don't want to see how pushing the party rightward enabled the Rs to do worse. Or that the Ds have been "working on it" for 4 decades while doing all they can to avoid offending their corporate sponsors. With the obvious result they've in effect abandoned the working class majority.
Call them what they are: Vichy Ds, collaborators with econopathy!
The main point of MAGA is to return back the principles of capitalism by dismantling the corporatist system that seeks to replace it. It also means returning back the rule of law. It has nothing to do with the woke media narrative adopted by the likes of Chris and others that have a driving need to keep their foot in the door of the Manhattan political media chattering class club. The left and media chattering class that has adopted this fake meme that Trump and his followers are just a bunch of racist white males with ARs and they play it on their giant DNC propaganda machine previously known as the mainstream media, and it is a bunch of Orwellian garbage.
Exactly. And I’m the pariah for getting into arguments at parties - because I take the view that Democrat=Republican. For those of you who want some hope: follow Cornel West, too. That, too, is a moral compass.
Thanks, Mr Hedges. If I had a billion dollar super PAC I would have you run for president.
I'm a gut feeling kinda person and I don't think I'm wrong in that because I see writer's like Hedges and others expressing what my gut and intuition never got the education to express what I SEE and FEEL. Everyone is so afraid of "feel" because it can be disastrous when one hasn't learned to express themselves in "fundamental" and "acceptable" ways. And SEE is way too controlled by people and media controlled by others who use what we see and feel to their own advantage and that advantage is not ours, it is not "for" us. They play us, they use our emotions and what we see and what we want and they make promises, all of them, both demshit and repugs to divide and continue their gaming of us. How much must it hurt, and will it be too late, when we decide to rise up as a nation, look our history in the eye, see how we continue it across the world with more than 800 military bases to keep taking from others, and say no more? When?
Absolutely terrible...and terrifying. Having grown up in a railway house, right on the tracks in a whistle stop..........I identify with the men and women who keep the trains running. And I'm appalled by the crassness with which the oligarchs are willing to work them to death. We are living in terrible times...and Amerika leads the rest of the world down the road from which there is no returning.
I too hope they strike. And I dream the American people will wake up and support their own workers against the greed of the oligarchs. There is a war going on inside your great country...don't be distracted by the propaganda from abroad.
Terrific analysis, Mr. Hedges. We have only two political choices: the pro-corporate Party and the more pro-corporate Party. And yet launching 3rd party candidates seems an impossible feat. Where do we go from here?
No war but the class war. Billionaires should not exist. (Great article Chris!)
Thank you, Mr. Hedges, for another great piece.
My reaction to the sellout of the railroad workers was similar to Mr Hedges, in which I advocated for the workers to strike.
But they can't. The reasons why are discussed quite cogently in the latest episode of "Useful Idiots", where a railroad organizer and a labor scholar spend the better part of an hour detailing just how fucked these workers are. Well worth watching. The episode is on YouTube, and titled, "'Union Joe' Biden sells out rail Workers".
I own a signed, framed print of Power Couple by Mr. Fish that hangs in my studio as a daily reminder of the truth of Mark Twain's famous quip during America's last guided age that "The congress of the United States is our only truly criminal class." Joe Biden is a product of that corrupt institution, so it's not surprising that the Democrats have reneged on almost all their campaign promises. I'm firmly convinced that a massive worker revolt is the only mechanism that will truly save what's left of American democracy, the sooner the better. Reading Chris Hedges as I do just about every day has convinced me that We, the People, rising up in solidarity for truth and justice is the only viable path forward. The 60s band Ten Years After got it right: "Tax the rich, feed the poor; until there are no rich no more." And team Hedges and Fish are right on the money with this great edition of The Chris Hedges Report.
Hedges wrote;
"They promised to impose a federal tax rate on corporations ranging from 21 percent to 28 percent (7% increase), so that “wealthy Americans and big corporations pay their fair share.”
And that promise not only didn't happen, it was only to claw back HALF of the Trump corporate tax cuts, which reduced tax rates from 35 to 21 percent (14% reduction)
I do hope they strike. The power elite will respect nothing less.
When I first heard about what the Joe Biden creep had done, I was gobsmacked the notion that any working person could be denied sick leave was positively medieval, much less in a nation where all forms of healthcare cost a fortune. In other words when a railroad worker falls ill he/she loses his pay right at the time when she/he most needs lots of cash to pay for treatment.
Here in Aotearoa where I was born & where I have returned to, even though I'm an old man now, I cannot think of a single job I have held where I wouldn't have gotten paid if I was sick. That ranges from casual day-labouring as a youth to career type jobs. Since the early 1930's when the welfare state was established here, paid sick leave has always been a right. Aotearoa fell victim to the pseudo left neoliberal politicians of the Labour Party in the 1980's and even though many of the rights workers once held got demolished no one ever even considered abolishing sick pay.
Since the changes here the 'gig economy' has become a popular way of trying to avoid all leave entitlements a worker normally accrues but courts tend to frown on the notion of someone who works under constant direction being deemed a 'sub-contractor'. The current government has passed laws to permit national enterprise-wide collective bargaining once again but the way it is shaping up, it won't really come into effect until after the next election (a tried & trusted trick of neo-lib pols across this old rock).
I'm sorry to bore y'all with stuff from outside amerika but one of the things which startles me when I visit that country is how little most citizens there know of what happens in the rest of the world. No sick leave! In an enterprise that is a long established endeavour staffed by workers who have been employed for decades - I cannot think of another country in the world, rich or poor, developed or undeveloped where that is the case.
I don't say that to sound superior or smarmy, I state it so citizens will begin to understand the depth of perfidy they have been subjected to by politicians who refuse to act on any concerns they claim to have.
Old Gene Debs, who rose to fame as an organiser for Railroad workers will be rolling in his grave.
At least the Robber Barons built things to endure & used their own names as a point of pride. Their progeny are war mongers & blood thirsty vultures who leave nothing but carnage.
now to be known as The Fraud Squad.....by now they know perfectly well that separating out a bill into 2 parts...the watered down core bill vs. the much needed progressive changes..... always results in the progressive changes failing to pass the senate.......
I was so hoping for the Strike (and still am, although I do not know if I personally would have the stomach to face national guard or jail or hospital). Every day I hope that our 'good' western politicians would grow a functioning brain and act for us 'the People' - I guess that will not happen either. My heart is with the situation in Europe, where they have the most stupid or better criminal governments for a loooong time and even before this sanctions war they were on the way to become a neoliberal society too (austerity, privatization, take away workers rights, ruin health care etc etc.). So my only hope now would be a real revolution that blows away all these greedy people that do so much harm!!! Thank you Mr. Hedges for this article!
The notion that there is no difference between the Democratic and Republican parties is a very tired and tiresome claim that comes from the luxury of those who don't have to deal with the reality of the current political landscape. The Democrats do not have the votes to do what is being suggested here. With a bare minimum of a majority, the Biden administration (and the Obama and Clinton administrations before him) have made significant progress to improve the lives of working families. They have not been able to reverse the neoliberal agenda that has been so well funded by right-wing billionaires, but they have made significant efforts to do what they can. Politics is the art of compromise, and when you don't have the votes, the compromises have to be less than perfect. There are only two parties and if you vote against one, the other one wins. Given the fascist and violent threat of the current Republican Party, trashing the Democratic Party is not at all in the interests of the working class. That is how Trump got elected to begin with because a significant part of the left would not vote for Hillary Clinton. In my view, turning such power over to Donald Trump and those on whose behalf he was willing to act has been a disaster for working families. Unless there is a way to stop the Republican Party, democracy will end. While public sentiment seems to support more progressive policies, that is not reflective of who votes (or is allowed to vote). If you really care about the working class, then you would help build broader coalitions (which means even more compromise) to make it possible to pass legislation that you prefer and that more closely matches your vision of what is good for all.
AN INJURY TO ONE IS AN INJURY TO ALL
That's the old IWW motto.
Labor: "An injury to one is an injury to all."
Ds: "An injury to our superior elite is an injury for all. Lessers don't matter."
Rs: "An injury is profitable."
Labor: " None of you oligarchs and plutocrats can operate or fix anything. So who exactly are the essential workers?"
This is no abstract issue for me. I've been on union boards, did lobbying, and was on elected negotiating committees. I was a political campaign mgr. when the Ds still had a rank and file party; I fought the neolib usurpation of what had been the party of the New Deal. Remember the Atari Dems who believed in the techno quick fix and thought unions passe?
I was also involved in the PATCO strike. Even on prog. D sites, I'm currently battling comments that warn against similar actions. They can't work or harm the economy or because Biden's working on helping the union workers. D apologist crap. Reagan, sure, blame there. But blinkered D fans don't want to see how pushing the party rightward enabled the Rs to do worse. Or that the Ds have been "working on it" for 4 decades while doing all they can to avoid offending their corporate sponsors. With the obvious result they've in effect abandoned the working class majority.
Call them what they are: Vichy Ds, collaborators with econopathy!
The main point of MAGA is to return back the principles of capitalism by dismantling the corporatist system that seeks to replace it. It also means returning back the rule of law. It has nothing to do with the woke media narrative adopted by the likes of Chris and others that have a driving need to keep their foot in the door of the Manhattan political media chattering class club. The left and media chattering class that has adopted this fake meme that Trump and his followers are just a bunch of racist white males with ARs and they play it on their giant DNC propaganda machine previously known as the mainstream media, and it is a bunch of Orwellian garbage.
Exactly. And I’m the pariah for getting into arguments at parties - because I take the view that Democrat=Republican. For those of you who want some hope: follow Cornel West, too. That, too, is a moral compass.
Thanks, Mr Hedges. If I had a billion dollar super PAC I would have you run for president.
I'm a gut feeling kinda person and I don't think I'm wrong in that because I see writer's like Hedges and others expressing what my gut and intuition never got the education to express what I SEE and FEEL. Everyone is so afraid of "feel" because it can be disastrous when one hasn't learned to express themselves in "fundamental" and "acceptable" ways. And SEE is way too controlled by people and media controlled by others who use what we see and feel to their own advantage and that advantage is not ours, it is not "for" us. They play us, they use our emotions and what we see and what we want and they make promises, all of them, both demshit and repugs to divide and continue their gaming of us. How much must it hurt, and will it be too late, when we decide to rise up as a nation, look our history in the eye, see how we continue it across the world with more than 800 military bases to keep taking from others, and say no more? When?
Absolutely terrible...and terrifying. Having grown up in a railway house, right on the tracks in a whistle stop..........I identify with the men and women who keep the trains running. And I'm appalled by the crassness with which the oligarchs are willing to work them to death. We are living in terrible times...and Amerika leads the rest of the world down the road from which there is no returning.
I too hope they strike. And I dream the American people will wake up and support their own workers against the greed of the oligarchs. There is a war going on inside your great country...don't be distracted by the propaganda from abroad.
Terrific analysis, Mr. Hedges. We have only two political choices: the pro-corporate Party and the more pro-corporate Party. And yet launching 3rd party candidates seems an impossible feat. Where do we go from here?