I finally woke up when Obama took office and it was obvious from the beginning that everything he had promised was a lie. As a lifelong Democrat, it was a hard realization. There was a glimmer of hope with Bernie Sanders but the powers that be would never let him be president. It saddens me that the American people aren't descending on Washington in the millions to demand change. Everything is broken.
Bernie Sanders is and was a charlatan. I feel sorry for the people who supported him and were betrayed--twice--and who continue to see him as some sort of savior. He is nothing of the kind. Neither was Obama. I watched the African-American population of Oakland, California surge with hope and then experience the dashing of all that hope. It was an immense betrayal. But I have not voted for a Democrat since 1992 and now only vote for the Socialist Equality Party.
I've voted Green and Socialist whenever they are on the ballot but I must say that I've come to the conclusion that voting doesn't change a thing. Most of the time I feel hopeless about our country and the world in general but then I see what the people in Chili have done. Time will tell although at 72 I doubt that I'm around to see it.
I agree that voting in the faux "democracy" has no fundamental effect.
Hedges says it perfectly: It is impossible to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs, the fossil fuel industry or Raytheon, no matter which party is in office.
In a time when we watch species go extinct every day and the world roll toward nuclear suicide, anger and pessimism are apt emotions but doing what we can do now is all we can do.
I wouldn't say that Sanders is a "charlatan." Instead, he lacks integrity and guts to do the things that he believes in. For example, when Clinton and the Democratic Party stole the 2016 nomination from him, he told Chris Hedges and others that he wouldn't run as a 3d party candidate because he didn't want to end up a pariah like Ralph Nader. By the 2020 campaign Sanders had become just like the Democrats, hiring corporate scum to run his presidential campaign.
He's not a socialist, he's a reformer, that's why I used that word -- he's being misleading. Your analysis captures his true identity quite adequately.
Sanders votes for the arms deliveries to Ukraine and bashes China, a genuine socialist country-- rather than blaming American capitalists for "offshoring" manufacturing jobs, with no strategy to re-train or otherwise assist the displaced.
Here's the epitome of "The Squad"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she's thinking of getting rid of her Tesla after her Twitter feud with Elon Musk
The genuine left -- effectively crushed by decades of Reed-baiting and suppression -- is in the process of resurrection, but is still very weak and vulnerable.
FBI stages COINTELPRO-like raid on Black socialist group, alleges Russian government connection
I was speaking about the past but I totally agree that Sanders and the rest are not the answer. I don't support any of them after they all voted for the war machine.
This is yet another frustrating piece that is breathtakingly void of critical thinking and self-awareness.
Trump was elected in 2016 and will likely be elected again because of this list of unsolved problems and yet he is listed as the main problem.
So, we are supposed to support the ongoing political establishment and reject outsiders like Trump and then this is going to miraculously fix all the problems that the political establishment caused?
This reminds me of the woman stuck in an abusive marriage with bruises on her face telling the social worker that her husband is better now and she needs to stay with him because otherwise her life would be hell.
fascism, international fascism, definitions of fascism, Hungry, Orben, assault on science, assault on education, election reforms, court packing, Eastern Europe, Biden administration, neo-cons and neoliberals converging, takeover of Democratic party by neo-cons, Brazil, Steven K. Bannon, Ukraine, Ukrainian War, Russia, Putin, Poland, Intermarian, Polish vs American vs Russian perception of Intermarian, Stratford, defense spending, defense contractors, clerical fascism, ethnonationalism vs technocratic fascism, WWIII
This Frank Lee guy is a right-wing troll who comes in here and trolls. Notice how he seems to have read an entirely different essay than the one everybody else has read?
The problem is not capitalism. It is corporatism and globalism. Nationalism is not fascism similar to how communitarianism is not fascism. The liberal college town I live in demands to be individually quirky… to maintain its own culture of community… to resist development that would allow in more people and potentially change its local character. Are these people fascists? Totalitarianism is the real threat. Global totalitarianism to be more concise.
The meme that Trump represents white supremacist fascism is an intellectually bankrupt propaganda spew perpetuated by the Great Reset globalist corporatist cabal to deflect from their hand in every problem we are dealing with today. Trump is against that cabal. Biden Democrats are part of the cabal. That is the disconnect.
Exactly. Pay him no mind--this is his stock in trade. He always comically mis-reads what is written by Hedges, and thinks everyone else is wrong. What an irony! This is exactly the type addressed by Hedges.
The problem is Empire, capitalism, and our military/intelligence/corporate leaders. If you are not capable of criticizing the most corrupt parts of our culture, then your conclusions will be stained with inaccuracy and fantasy.
You are coming from a black and white world that isn't what Chris Hedges is writing about. He doesn't propose solutions -- and you could critique him for that -- but I would say that he brilliantly gives us the lay of a corrupted land.
Exactly, that is what Journalists are supposed to do.
Frank Lee is an indignant, tiny, toddler without his blankie, after refusing to eat his vegetables that is being told it is bedtime. I feel sorry for the poor little guy.
You completely misread Hedges. He says Trump is the symptom not the disease. He says the political establish must respond and reform, and that people should organize and engage in non-violent civil disobedience to make that happen, not that we should vote for lesser evil democrats (who he correctly calls sometime worse evil).
No, I get all that. Again, dreaming of the same political establishment that caused the problems to now fix the problems is that clutching to an abusive relationship. We have to elect anti establishment politicians to fix what is broken. The Democrats are not lesser evil. They are the establishment.
How in the world do you or anyone else expect changes to take place from the actions, behavior and proposed policies of either side!? There is but one solution to this debacle, and that is to starve the overlords until everyone realizes that the government works for the people or it will not work at all... exit the existing financial and political system. Do not keep your money in USD. It is collapsing... learn to use the lightning network for payments and strip those who dominate the payments infrastructure like Visa who rape everyone for no less than 3%. It's going to be a brutal transition, stop arguing and pretending things will change with the next president.. every single one of them is a crook. Take your life into your own hands, nobody will save you. Democracy is smoke and mirrors.
Socialism. Right. That murderous ideology that never works. Name one country historically or today that exemplifies your model of a working socialist system. You cannot. So you are a hazardous fool with a vote.
OK, so now you are making claims. Socialism is a murderous ideology.
Then you reverse the question posed to you, in my last post, attempting to squirrel out of a burden to produce evidence for your claims by asking me a question.
No, no no. Basic argumentation. You make the claim, you give the evidence.
but deflection is what you have been taught in the defunded schools that line the blighted neighborhoods where little music or laughter can be heard and instead the typing of the imperfect human attempting to announce his or her existence without supporting their claims. That, my friend, is uncritical thinking.
You went full circle and with your own words and narrative have defined the ver uncritical thinking you accuse Hedges of.
I will not have the time to respond to future posts by you. So I will leave you the words and thoughts of Big Bill Haywood, a man you probably never heard of:
''The mine owners did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy - all the gold belonged to them! If the workers are organized, all they have to do is to put their hands in their pockets and they have got the capitalist class whipped.''
~ Big Bill Haywood, Miner, founding member & leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
It is hard to think critically. Birds brought up in cages think flying is insane.
Don't let me forget you and thanks for allowing others to see your thoughts and a critical analysis of its shortcomings.
FDR implemented socialist style policies and they were wildly popular. Hmmm. Maybe it is the balance between capital's needs and the social needs that were so successful for 40 years after the great depression?
This all or none style of thinking is so ignorant. This version of capitalism at present in the US is more corporate socialism or socialism for the rich. And it speaks to the nature of the question you ignore with your labels of "socialism", such that socialism will be a part of our overall system in some respect no matter what and the same with capitalistic undercurrents. The real question is qui bono, who benefits from these policies. And all the grown ups know the answer to this question.
Capitalism evolves into corporatism naturally without regulation and strong social state apparatus that does not bend to the will of finance, intelligence or the military.
And power seeks a vacuum and fills it. It is like you missed the entire neoliberal period from 1976 to present, and are talking about a fictional concept. Our tallest buildings in this country are corporate banks - our national debt is over 34 Trillion dollars, and covertly, we have been in secret wars in the last 15 years to overthrow anyone we did not like (PNAC 1998).
So, I am not here to answer your questions. I am here to say that the US does whatever the fuck it wants to, and then justifies it later. Tony Benn, someone I admire would say that if you can find money for war to kill people, then you can find it help people. FDR is not a bad model for balancing the social needs of a society while putting a check on finance and corporations.
But there was also the business coup with old Smedley Butler - group of businessmen who want to take Roosevelt out. There always is.
We can elect leaders that do the work to benefit the citizens if we stop being duped idiots voting for the same career politician plastic clones with their deep establishment connections to enrich themselves at the expense of the citizens.
You're not categorically wrong about needing a different sort of leadership, but of course the problem runs deeper where the system has virtually all politicians answering to funders over constituencies. That's a generic problem that we need outside the box thinking to deal with.
No one has ever seen that happen to date. Hold your breath long enough and you will die waiting. Not until the incentives structure is made permanently aligned with doing good will that even have a chance. The fiat currency system incentivizes theft via debasement cause through printing. This is not possible under a fixed supply money that is controlled by no one and everyone simultaneously. Bitcoin is the answer.
"but one solution" isn't felicitous. Slapping right and wrong back and forth isn't the way to progress. You can express that as an opinion -- and I'm all for expressing opinions that we should be doing more of -- but it doesn't work as a directive.
If the solution is the solution, will you ignore it because you didn't like the hair color of the person who brought it to your attention? It matters not to me if you utilize the exit valve... save yourself or not.. the fiat currency system is what enables all of this theft to take place.. even if I'm not smiling when I write
On the contrary, it is the idiots who keep voting for the Democrats in the belief that change will come through them who are holding the working class back. It is past time to abandon the two party/one party capitalist system for good and all. In fact, since you bring up the battered wife analogy, it is the supporters of the Democratic Party who behave like the wife and keep going back to the husband who already has his fists clenched ready to break her face again.
Nowhere in this essay does Chris Hedges advocate for supporting the establishment. In fact, it's just the opposite. Hedges says that we got Trump because of the establishment, which certainly doesn't mean that we should support the establishment.
Trump is only a fake anti-establishment candidate. There's no such thing as a billionaire who's anti-establishment. Trump says that he's opposed to some things like certain wars and unfettered international trade, but as soon as he got any resistance to his attempts to change those things he backed down. Trump only cares about his money and his ego, and his only real issue is whether you're for or against him. Trump is a vile racist, sexist, and misogynist, and he lies constantly, often outrageously. The only reason that the establishment doesn't like him is because he puts a bad face on them and all the evils they do, and sometimes says in public what they want kept private, such as the U.S. stealing Syria's oil.
Trump is not the answer to our problems. If you think there's an electoral answer -- and to be clear, i don't because the system is so corrupt and rigged for the establishment -- then support ACTUAL anti-establishment candidates, not phony ones like Trump.
Yet you read it. Why not pay attention to this,... "It is impossible to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs, the fossil fuel industry or Raytheon, no matter which party is in office."...
Frank, “void of critical thinking” seems to miss the point of the article. This is an incisive critique of our national delusion. Nowhere do I find any suggestion to “support the ongoing political establishment.” Try reading it again.
You seem to have missed the point of the essay--which criticizes the political establishment for serving the interests corporations/ billio aire class rather than those of the American people.
Thanks Pam. No, I did get that. But read the title of the article and the subheading. There are a few billionaires that oppose the corporatist globalist takeover that the establishment has been aligned with waging war against the American middle class. Trump is one of them. Elon Musk is another. The problem I see in what Chris as written here, and what other old right and left of center people opine about, is that Trump is the anti-establishment leader.
We are at war with a powerful enemy. We need SOBs that will fight on our behalf. We cannot both complain about the outcomes of the war while supporting the enemy by opposing those leaders that fight the enemy.
But while Trump may "talk the talk"--using a populist style that appeals to many people's baser instincts--he doesn't "walk the walk" in terms of policies that actually improve people's lives. Where was he on the minimum wage issue? On healthcare? Or, just on reigning in Big Pharma's monopoly power?
If he was really interested in fighting for a more democratic order, why didn't he embrace some of Sanders' genuinely popular ideas? He might have won a much bigger following including youth (most of whom saw a future in Sanders that they don't see in Biden).
You are advocating for more matriarchal socialist ideas which is what the globalist corporatists cabal wants. They want to get rid of the economically independent working class and replace it with a moochers class dependent on the establishment.
Fixing people’s lives does not happen with more handouts. It happens with more opportunity for them to make their own way in life. That is what Trump’s platform and policies were focused on.
And you are wrong that he was not fighting big pharma. Trump was working on regulatory reform that bettered the playing field for small business competition against the bigs. The bigs knew it and that is why they put their money into supporting the Democrats to defeat the man that threatened their march to consolidate and take over the markets.
The establishment hates small business and working-class citizens because they are cats they cannot control and herd. Better to have just a few mega corporations controlled by the Billionaire Boys Club that all rub shoulders with the political elite so they can do their high-dollar quid-pro-quo. Trump has been lamenting this direction for over 25 years. You can research interviews where he is totally against corporate consolidation, collusion with government, outsourcing and importing of cheap labor, and the resulting destruction of American economic opportunity.
If you oppose Trump, you support the establishment cabal by default.
Indeed. And the picture this morning of of thousands in the streets in Prague demanding the current government step down lent me hope to the dream of Americans in the streets insisting on the birth of a true democracy here.
i wouldn't count on it. Americans have been so brainwashed by massive U.S. propaganda that they've become Pavlovian dogs and sheep. Notice that there's no longer an anti-war movement in the U.S.?
We so lack for a vehicle that makes us more than gadflies. How to get a voice for the majority of us who don't have a brilliant leader who can call us to arms.? The best the streets had of late was Occupy but it didn't have a way to organize itself to continue. Can we deal with what would? We aren't even trying. How about an ad hoc Wisdom Council comprised of the most respected, smart people in the country, where if they deliberated on what they would do to run the country all good people would have something to get behind? To get something like that, we need to be looking for it, and my advocacy with all the inspirational pundits like Chris is to go beyond screaming about how bad it is but looking for ways to deal with making it better. Chris could start that Council. He picks one person, the two of them pick the third, the three pick the fourth, etc., and forget the cumbersomeness of the streets -- the internet would be our playing field!
yes so right ... hopefully protests are starting in the US (there were some in Germany against Rheinmetall and in France too, if these reports in social media are correct - there are definitely a lot of very unhappy people in Europe)!
I always seem to find myself agreeing with Hedges, and then, soon after reading his opinion pieces or hearing him, plunging into despair. How do we dig ourselves out of this, Chris? If there is no solution within the current system do we opt for the kind of revolution that will be quickly put down, with more repression to follow? Are there any small but persistent steps to be taken?
Chris already dealt with this. He said that you must peacefully protest, that it is worthwhile, even when you know the protest is probably going to fail.
I recently stumbled onto JC Cole and Rural Route Radio. One has to put aside political disagreements with the host, but JC says the same stuff Chris does in regard to how a society collapses and how to be ready. I've been working on it since I heard the answer to the question asked in the clip I linked in my other comment, at the original lecture. That was in 2020. I'm actually in a new wave of depression, but I'll go buy a water filter anyway and then again feel (a little) better.
I'm currently in California. We're burning up, figuratively and literally. I am surrounded by the smell of smoke, my car is packed in case I have to evacuate (again), and I'm still going to work to teach. Welcome to the Kali Yuga, eh?
Hope is in action. Futility? Depends on intent, whether one is serving their purpose, big or small.
And then there's the preparations. We're in environmental and social collapse, so what are you doing to prepare? Believe it or not there's hope in that. Sure it's also scary, disappointing, and terribly sad but it's reality so one can be a victim wallowing in self pity or feel better in having done what they could when they knew it should be done.
I understand the despair one feels reading Hedges, but I'm also really over hearing people despair over it. It's not like people didn't know any of this was coming or is here, it's just that he puts words to it. Stop weeping over the question of what can be done and just do something.
I'm not weeping. I don't pity myself or my situation. Nor do I appreciate this kind of response. Do "something" you say, vaguely-- or it's all about "intent?" Psychobabble.
It's not psychobabble. Did you watch the link to an excerpt from Chris' lecture? That would be doing something. I'm the one who asked the question he's answering. LOTS of somethings to do in his response.
When my question was read and answered I was elated. Then it hit me - wtf did I just ask? I burst into tears over and over for two days. But I also called people I'd been angry with and made peace, started taking steps to create a garden, and began going for walks in my neighborhood--smiling and wishing a good day to everyone regardless of the sign in their front yard. Over 150,000 people have listened to his response in this clip alone, which makes me feel like I did some good - maybe a lot really. I hope it was worth it. These actions lessen my despair.
As for intent, I'm a school teacher. I could easily despair over the big picture or I can focus on my purpose and teach children the things that led me to become a teacher. I'm still overwhelmed by all I see (I am literally on the front lines of social collapse and yes it is collapsing) but keeping my mind focused on doing what I can, as small as those acts might seem, keeps me sane and makes me feel better, including being on my union's board for the first time. These actions bring me peace.
Action is empowering.
Purpose is the driver.
Basically, at times like these, one is called to act in some way, for some higher good, and they can't not do that whatever the consequences, or they're not. People who say they read and listen to Hedges, but then ask what can be done??? Well... I question whether they're really looking for answers because in his works he gives them. Plenty.
Chris Hedges your eloquent blade is so sharp it plunges straight to my heart creating hope along with pain…….thank you always for what seems like the only honesty out there
There are other gadflies: Robert Reich, Thom Hartman, Noam Chomsky, John Perkins, Michael Moore, and more. If you want to drown in despair, read all of them. What they all lack for, Chris Hedges included, is consideration of what we can do. The best they suggest is elect Democrats which doesn't deal at all with the heart of the matter where the oligarchy runs the show whatever party is in power. We lack for a concerted voice, and something the gadflies could do is have a round table. How about that? Open up a whole new consideration of what these smart, caring people would do if they ran the country let alone the world. I bet the force of their alignment would make news that all of us could get behind -- perhaps with a vehicle we can be signatory to. I talk about the Human Survival Party. Something like that!
Perhaps Suzanne. I don’t read Chris Hedges for answers. I read him for just plain ol’ truth and consciousness. For a solution, I go within, as well as watch documentaries like “Thrive 2”. I highly recommend for those that require a feel good ending
Sorry to be contrary, but I think of Foster Gamble with his Thrive movement like the Tea Party is to Republicans. I was the whistleblower who got ten of the spiritual leaders, like Deepak Chopra and John Robbins, who were in "Thrive 1," who didn't know what movie they were going to be in when they were interviewed for it, to write a denouncement of it.
Wow. Almost agree 100%. But, and correct if I am wrong, you seem to put the oligarchy separate from the political establishment. That we can consider the first corrupt and in need of deconstruction, but the politicians and government are what they are and are not part of the problem. Is that correct?
Again, you are pretending or hoping that new rulers will be better. The only solution is rules WITHOUT rulers. The next person in office will do what everyone else does.. enrich himself (herself if we get a woman) and nothing will change until the same shenanigans are made impossible. Free money is and has always been the root of the evil. If humans can cheat, they will... no one ever overcomes that temptation.
Rules without rulers... thats only possible through technology. The solution was invented in 2008 on Oct 31st. It was released as code once and will never be discovered a 2nd time... its growing faster than the adoption of the internet itself. Join the revolution you speak off... its peaceful and effective, your ideas about finding a new ruler will never work and are no longer necessary.
Why is Bitcoin an answer to any political tragedy we are now witnessing? why would anyone think that libertarians and/or anarchists have any solutions other than those that benefit themselves?
Hmm. You of course must know that 3000 years of human history include copious attempts at models of governance. Despite what the elite ivory tower types think of themselves, historically leaders were much greater deep thinkers about this... because survival was more tenuous.
You seem to have some model in mind. Seems anarchist. Can you point to examples of your model working? Because if you cannot, it will not.
Are you commenting on what I wrote? Maybe read it again. And see the comment I made in response to Selina Sweet about an ad hoc Wisdom Council.
Are you talking about Bitcoin on 1/31/08? If there's a useful comment about that or whatever else that date signifies, why don't you be less enigmatic.
I have voted only once for an established political party candidate, Obama in 2008. It took less than a year to realise that hope is only a wishful thinking in America.😿
Tony Benn has five questions to suss out power in democracy:
1. What power have you got?
2. Where did you get it from?
3. In whose interests do your exercise it?
4. To whom are you accountable?
5. How do we get rid of you?
"Only democracy gives us that right. That is why no one with power likes democracy, and that is why every generations must struggle to win it and keep it." - 2005
Unfortunately, as Chris points out, our country has vomited up some of the worst leaders of democracy in the last 40 years. Instead they were leaders for empire, wealth accumulation, and the worst parts of the unipolar globalism. I support Chris Hedges' thesis, we lost our democracy a long time ago - and so many Americans have just accepted the move to a totalitarian state - because they are struggling with their own issues as if they are somehow disconnected to empire.
I'll leave this quote from Tony Benn because it is a reminder for the reader. Something we should not forget in our darkest moments, even though it is easy to displace blame in all directions.
"If we can find money to kill people, we can find money to help people" - Tony Benn (1925 - 2014)
Mr Hedges refers to Biden's speech and the sentiments Biden expressed as mere political theater. While I applauded some of the points Biden made about the fascists who've gained so much power here, Biden's claim that there is no place for "political violence" made me choke a bit. Political violence, from genocide and slavery right through Vietnam, Afghanistan, Selma and Ferguson... Isn't that pretty much who we are and what we do?
I find Biden's blindness to this as so American... Dan Ellsberg pointed out that we cannot be a democracy at home while being an empire abroad.
"hyperventilating press that thundered against the barbarians at the gate — Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, ISIS, Vladimir Putin — while ignoring the barbarians in our midst."
It's tragic that the truth Hedges conveys here is feeding the rising fascist tide. Hedges has long written in detailed about this, and, thankfully - and unlike many other left critics of Biden's speech - he weaves the underlying fascistic cultural and political dynamics into this critique.
Yes, Biden is demented and hypocritical and has a horrible pro-corporate pro-war Neoliberal record. Yes, his speech was cynical and timed almost exclusively for partisan electoral purposes.
But none of those truths diminish the fact that Biden is correct about the MAGA fascist threats to democracy. That truth is divisive and polarizing, but it must be spoken.
Totally disagree about Trump and MAGA being threats to anything except civility. Trump governed like an average Republican president, better on some issues and worse on others.
As to a threat of fascism, you're all way too late. The U.S. became fascist a long time ago. "Fascism" means corporations running the government, and that's been going on here for decades, maybe longer.
You are sucking on the corporatist propaganda nub. Nationalism isn't fasism and it is not a threat to democracy. It is the tonic for the threat of democracy that is globalism.
William Robinson’s fabulously insightful 2014 “Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity”, is IMHO, second only to his newest, “Can Global Capitalism Endure” [Released in Kindle form just now on, August 7th, 2022].
Expose and Expunge the cancer of this Global Capitalist “Quiet American” EMPIRE
The writings of Mr. Hedges are truthful, honest and extremely painful because he always puts a mirror in front of us and bad news is never well received. I believe that the only people that are pretending that we have a functional democracy are the politicians. But there is a big portion of Americans that do believe in our democracy. Some because they are "blind" and others because they are too young and their teachers forgot to tell them that our democracy is just an aspiration that even our founding fathers, despite all their cries of enlightenment and freedom, avoided it for fear or losing their right to steal the land of native Americans and enslave black people. Fortunately, by now, most well educated adults have realized that our democracy is just a delusion and so we have to act to make it reality. It is up to us.
I think the key to why Bernie gets away with his ongoing criticism of totalitarian corporatism is because he has been saying the same things for so many decades that people can't hear him any longer.
I finally woke up when Obama took office and it was obvious from the beginning that everything he had promised was a lie. As a lifelong Democrat, it was a hard realization. There was a glimmer of hope with Bernie Sanders but the powers that be would never let him be president. It saddens me that the American people aren't descending on Washington in the millions to demand change. Everything is broken.
Bernie Sanders is and was a charlatan. I feel sorry for the people who supported him and were betrayed--twice--and who continue to see him as some sort of savior. He is nothing of the kind. Neither was Obama. I watched the African-American population of Oakland, California surge with hope and then experience the dashing of all that hope. It was an immense betrayal. But I have not voted for a Democrat since 1992 and now only vote for the Socialist Equality Party.
I've voted Green and Socialist whenever they are on the ballot but I must say that I've come to the conclusion that voting doesn't change a thing. Most of the time I feel hopeless about our country and the world in general but then I see what the people in Chili have done. Time will tell although at 72 I doubt that I'm around to see it.
I agree that voting in the faux "democracy" has no fundamental effect.
Hedges says it perfectly: It is impossible to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs, the fossil fuel industry or Raytheon, no matter which party is in office.
In a time when we watch species go extinct every day and the world roll toward nuclear suicide, anger and pessimism are apt emotions but doing what we can do now is all we can do.
I wouldn't say that Sanders is a "charlatan." Instead, he lacks integrity and guts to do the things that he believes in. For example, when Clinton and the Democratic Party stole the 2016 nomination from him, he told Chris Hedges and others that he wouldn't run as a 3d party candidate because he didn't want to end up a pariah like Ralph Nader. By the 2020 campaign Sanders had become just like the Democrats, hiring corporate scum to run his presidential campaign.
He's not a socialist, he's a reformer, that's why I used that word -- he's being misleading. Your analysis captures his true identity quite adequately.
Spot ON.
Sanders votes for the arms deliveries to Ukraine and bashes China, a genuine socialist country-- rather than blaming American capitalists for "offshoring" manufacturing jobs, with no strategy to re-train or otherwise assist the displaced.
Here's the epitome of "The Squad"
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she's thinking of getting rid of her Tesla after her Twitter feud with Elon Musk
https://www.yahoo.com/news/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-says-shes-131945450.html
The genuine left -- effectively crushed by decades of Reed-baiting and suppression -- is in the process of resurrection, but is still very weak and vulnerable.
FBI stages COINTELPRO-like raid on Black socialist group, alleges Russian government connection
https://www.peoplesworld.org/article/fbi-stages-cointelpro-like-raid-on-black-socialist-group-alleges-russian-government-connection/
I was speaking about the past but I totally agree that Sanders and the rest are not the answer. I don't support any of them after they all voted for the war machine.
yeah, me, too. perfectly put. i grieve for all of us
This is yet another frustrating piece that is breathtakingly void of critical thinking and self-awareness.
Trump was elected in 2016 and will likely be elected again because of this list of unsolved problems and yet he is listed as the main problem.
So, we are supposed to support the ongoing political establishment and reject outsiders like Trump and then this is going to miraculously fix all the problems that the political establishment caused?
This reminds me of the woman stuck in an abusive marriage with bruises on her face telling the social worker that her husband is better now and she needs to stay with him because otherwise her life would be hell.
Why is it devoid of critical thinking? Why is it devoid of self-awareness?
You will have to be more concise.
the problem is capitalism and that is what Hedges is tying to tell his audience.
The Society of the Spectacle is what we witness on the political side.
There is an international organized fascist movement gaining ground all over the world.
From techno-fascism, like the corporate democratic party, or the more ethno-nationalist fascists like Trump.
Fascism is a managerial mechanism for capitalism in severe crisis.
For more on the growth of fascism worldwide with an emphasis on Hungary, one can listen at:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/international-fascism-vii-the-return-of-fascism/id1625511894?i=1000567125061
fascism, international fascism, definitions of fascism, Hungry, Orben, assault on science, assault on education, election reforms, court packing, Eastern Europe, Biden administration, neo-cons and neoliberals converging, takeover of Democratic party by neo-cons, Brazil, Steven K. Bannon, Ukraine, Ukrainian War, Russia, Putin, Poland, Intermarian, Polish vs American vs Russian perception of Intermarian, Stratford, defense spending, defense contractors, clerical fascism, ethnonationalism vs technocratic fascism, WWIII
This Frank Lee guy is a right-wing troll who comes in here and trolls. Notice how he seems to have read an entirely different essay than the one everybody else has read?
Indeed a troll...yuk.
The problem is not capitalism. It is corporatism and globalism. Nationalism is not fascism similar to how communitarianism is not fascism. The liberal college town I live in demands to be individually quirky… to maintain its own culture of community… to resist development that would allow in more people and potentially change its local character. Are these people fascists? Totalitarianism is the real threat. Global totalitarianism to be more concise.
The meme that Trump represents white supremacist fascism is an intellectually bankrupt propaganda spew perpetuated by the Great Reset globalist corporatist cabal to deflect from their hand in every problem we are dealing with today. Trump is against that cabal. Biden Democrats are part of the cabal. That is the disconnect.
Bandying about terms like "cabal" and "Great Reset" are quite revealing.
Especially after what could only be a bad faith comment based on a misreading of Hedges.
Exactly. Pay him no mind--this is his stock in trade. He always comically mis-reads what is written by Hedges, and thinks everyone else is wrong. What an irony! This is exactly the type addressed by Hedges.
The problem is Empire, capitalism, and our military/intelligence/corporate leaders. If you are not capable of criticizing the most corrupt parts of our culture, then your conclusions will be stained with inaccuracy and fantasy.
You are coming from a black and white world that isn't what Chris Hedges is writing about. He doesn't propose solutions -- and you could critique him for that -- but I would say that he brilliantly gives us the lay of a corrupted land.
Exactly, that is what Journalists are supposed to do.
Frank Lee is an indignant, tiny, toddler without his blankie, after refusing to eat his vegetables that is being told it is bedtime. I feel sorry for the poor little guy.
You completely misread Hedges. He says Trump is the symptom not the disease. He says the political establish must respond and reform, and that people should organize and engage in non-violent civil disobedience to make that happen, not that we should vote for lesser evil democrats (who he correctly calls sometime worse evil).
This joker ALWAYS spectacularly misreads Hedges.
I suspect that the poster wants Hedges to go Full On MAGA and is expressing his frustration that Hedges does not do so.
Isn't Chris advocating making America great again?
I don't think Chris is sloganeering.
No, I get all that. Again, dreaming of the same political establishment that caused the problems to now fix the problems is that clutching to an abusive relationship. We have to elect anti establishment politicians to fix what is broken. The Democrats are not lesser evil. They are the establishment.
Your logic appears to be that since the "establishment" is the problem, all we gotta do is elect anyone not part of the establishment.
By that logic, Idi Amin or some straitjacket mental patient ought to do just nicely.
"The Democrats are not lesser evil. They are the establishment." Nothing gets by you, dude.
How in the world do you or anyone else expect changes to take place from the actions, behavior and proposed policies of either side!? There is but one solution to this debacle, and that is to starve the overlords until everyone realizes that the government works for the people or it will not work at all... exit the existing financial and political system. Do not keep your money in USD. It is collapsing... learn to use the lightning network for payments and strip those who dominate the payments infrastructure like Visa who rape everyone for no less than 3%. It's going to be a brutal transition, stop arguing and pretending things will change with the next president.. every single one of them is a crook. Take your life into your own hands, nobody will save you. Democracy is smoke and mirrors.
As Bertolt Brecht asked in 1935:
“How can anyone tell the truth about Fascism, unless he is willing to speak out against capitalism, which brings it forth?
Bertolt Brecht, Galileo (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1966), 137–38.
All over the world capitalism is failing. I am afraid the answer is not as individualistic as you state.
One has to see the class struggle and organize with others to fight fascism and struggle for socialism.
Only socialism can beat fascism.
United we stand, divided we fell!
Socialism. Right. That murderous ideology that never works. Name one country historically or today that exemplifies your model of a working socialist system. You cannot. So you are a hazardous fool with a vote.
OK, so now you are making claims. Socialism is a murderous ideology.
Then you reverse the question posed to you, in my last post, attempting to squirrel out of a burden to produce evidence for your claims by asking me a question.
No, no no. Basic argumentation. You make the claim, you give the evidence.
but deflection is what you have been taught in the defunded schools that line the blighted neighborhoods where little music or laughter can be heard and instead the typing of the imperfect human attempting to announce his or her existence without supporting their claims. That, my friend, is uncritical thinking.
You went full circle and with your own words and narrative have defined the ver uncritical thinking you accuse Hedges of.
I will not have the time to respond to future posts by you. So I will leave you the words and thoughts of Big Bill Haywood, a man you probably never heard of:
''The mine owners did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy - all the gold belonged to them! If the workers are organized, all they have to do is to put their hands in their pockets and they have got the capitalist class whipped.''
~ Big Bill Haywood, Miner, founding member & leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).
It is hard to think critically. Birds brought up in cages think flying is insane.
Don't let me forget you and thanks for allowing others to see your thoughts and a critical analysis of its shortcomings.
FDR implemented socialist style policies and they were wildly popular. Hmmm. Maybe it is the balance between capital's needs and the social needs that were so successful for 40 years after the great depression?
This all or none style of thinking is so ignorant. This version of capitalism at present in the US is more corporate socialism or socialism for the rich. And it speaks to the nature of the question you ignore with your labels of "socialism", such that socialism will be a part of our overall system in some respect no matter what and the same with capitalistic undercurrents. The real question is qui bono, who benefits from these policies. And all the grown ups know the answer to this question.
You did not answer the question other than a case to revert back in time to Make America Great Again.
Capitalism is fine, but corporatism... what we have today.. is not.
Capitalism evolves into corporatism naturally without regulation and strong social state apparatus that does not bend to the will of finance, intelligence or the military.
And power seeks a vacuum and fills it. It is like you missed the entire neoliberal period from 1976 to present, and are talking about a fictional concept. Our tallest buildings in this country are corporate banks - our national debt is over 34 Trillion dollars, and covertly, we have been in secret wars in the last 15 years to overthrow anyone we did not like (PNAC 1998).
So, I am not here to answer your questions. I am here to say that the US does whatever the fuck it wants to, and then justifies it later. Tony Benn, someone I admire would say that if you can find money for war to kill people, then you can find it help people. FDR is not a bad model for balancing the social needs of a society while putting a check on finance and corporations.
But there was also the business coup with old Smedley Butler - group of businessmen who want to take Roosevelt out. There always is.
We can elect leaders that do the work to benefit the citizens if we stop being duped idiots voting for the same career politician plastic clones with their deep establishment connections to enrich themselves at the expense of the citizens.
You're not categorically wrong about needing a different sort of leadership, but of course the problem runs deeper where the system has virtually all politicians answering to funders over constituencies. That's a generic problem that we need outside the box thinking to deal with.
"Don't change life, change leaders."
Situationist International, Paris 1968
No one has ever seen that happen to date. Hold your breath long enough and you will die waiting. Not until the incentives structure is made permanently aligned with doing good will that even have a chance. The fiat currency system incentivizes theft via debasement cause through printing. This is not possible under a fixed supply money that is controlled by no one and everyone simultaneously. Bitcoin is the answer.
Bitcoin is the psyop.
"but one solution" isn't felicitous. Slapping right and wrong back and forth isn't the way to progress. You can express that as an opinion -- and I'm all for expressing opinions that we should be doing more of -- but it doesn't work as a directive.
If the solution is the solution, will you ignore it because you didn't like the hair color of the person who brought it to your attention? It matters not to me if you utilize the exit valve... save yourself or not.. the fiat currency system is what enables all of this theft to take place.. even if I'm not smiling when I write
Fiat currency is a product of the capitalist economy. You are dealing with the symptom not the problem.
On the contrary, it is the idiots who keep voting for the Democrats in the belief that change will come through them who are holding the working class back. It is past time to abandon the two party/one party capitalist system for good and all. In fact, since you bring up the battered wife analogy, it is the supporters of the Democratic Party who behave like the wife and keep going back to the husband who already has his fists clenched ready to break her face again.
Nowhere in this essay does Chris Hedges advocate for supporting the establishment. In fact, it's just the opposite. Hedges says that we got Trump because of the establishment, which certainly doesn't mean that we should support the establishment.
Trump is only a fake anti-establishment candidate. There's no such thing as a billionaire who's anti-establishment. Trump says that he's opposed to some things like certain wars and unfettered international trade, but as soon as he got any resistance to his attempts to change those things he backed down. Trump only cares about his money and his ego, and his only real issue is whether you're for or against him. Trump is a vile racist, sexist, and misogynist, and he lies constantly, often outrageously. The only reason that the establishment doesn't like him is because he puts a bad face on them and all the evils they do, and sometimes says in public what they want kept private, such as the U.S. stealing Syria's oil.
Trump is not the answer to our problems. If you think there's an electoral answer -- and to be clear, i don't because the system is so corrupt and rigged for the establishment -- then support ACTUAL anti-establishment candidates, not phony ones like Trump.
Yet you read it. Why not pay attention to this,... "It is impossible to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs, the fossil fuel industry or Raytheon, no matter which party is in office."...
Frank, “void of critical thinking” seems to miss the point of the article. This is an incisive critique of our national delusion. Nowhere do I find any suggestion to “support the ongoing political establishment.” Try reading it again.
Perhaps "Lee" can define for us what critical thinking is so we can then apply his or her definition.
Mr Lee,
You seem to have missed the point of the essay--which criticizes the political establishment for serving the interests corporations/ billio aire class rather than those of the American people.
Pam
Thanks Pam. No, I did get that. But read the title of the article and the subheading. There are a few billionaires that oppose the corporatist globalist takeover that the establishment has been aligned with waging war against the American middle class. Trump is one of them. Elon Musk is another. The problem I see in what Chris as written here, and what other old right and left of center people opine about, is that Trump is the anti-establishment leader.
We are at war with a powerful enemy. We need SOBs that will fight on our behalf. We cannot both complain about the outcomes of the war while supporting the enemy by opposing those leaders that fight the enemy.
I hear you, Frank.
But while Trump may "talk the talk"--using a populist style that appeals to many people's baser instincts--he doesn't "walk the walk" in terms of policies that actually improve people's lives. Where was he on the minimum wage issue? On healthcare? Or, just on reigning in Big Pharma's monopoly power?
If he was really interested in fighting for a more democratic order, why didn't he embrace some of Sanders' genuinely popular ideas? He might have won a much bigger following including youth (most of whom saw a future in Sanders that they don't see in Biden).
You are advocating for more matriarchal socialist ideas which is what the globalist corporatists cabal wants. They want to get rid of the economically independent working class and replace it with a moochers class dependent on the establishment.
Fixing people’s lives does not happen with more handouts. It happens with more opportunity for them to make their own way in life. That is what Trump’s platform and policies were focused on.
And you are wrong that he was not fighting big pharma. Trump was working on regulatory reform that bettered the playing field for small business competition against the bigs. The bigs knew it and that is why they put their money into supporting the Democrats to defeat the man that threatened their march to consolidate and take over the markets.
The establishment hates small business and working-class citizens because they are cats they cannot control and herd. Better to have just a few mega corporations controlled by the Billionaire Boys Club that all rub shoulders with the political elite so they can do their high-dollar quid-pro-quo. Trump has been lamenting this direction for over 25 years. You can research interviews where he is totally against corporate consolidation, collusion with government, outsourcing and importing of cheap labor, and the resulting destruction of American economic opportunity.
If you oppose Trump, you support the establishment cabal by default.
Indeed. And the picture this morning of of thousands in the streets in Prague demanding the current government step down lent me hope to the dream of Americans in the streets insisting on the birth of a true democracy here.
i wouldn't count on it. Americans have been so brainwashed by massive U.S. propaganda that they've become Pavlovian dogs and sheep. Notice that there's no longer an anti-war movement in the U.S.?
We so lack for a vehicle that makes us more than gadflies. How to get a voice for the majority of us who don't have a brilliant leader who can call us to arms.? The best the streets had of late was Occupy but it didn't have a way to organize itself to continue. Can we deal with what would? We aren't even trying. How about an ad hoc Wisdom Council comprised of the most respected, smart people in the country, where if they deliberated on what they would do to run the country all good people would have something to get behind? To get something like that, we need to be looking for it, and my advocacy with all the inspirational pundits like Chris is to go beyond screaming about how bad it is but looking for ways to deal with making it better. Chris could start that Council. He picks one person, the two of them pick the third, the three pick the fourth, etc., and forget the cumbersomeness of the streets -- the internet would be our playing field!
yes so right ... hopefully protests are starting in the US (there were some in Germany against Rheinmetall and in France too, if these reports in social media are correct - there are definitely a lot of very unhappy people in Europe)!
In Germany and elsewhere, as long as the security services remain on side, the regime can sleep soundly at night.
The protesters' slogans and the rhetoric of the Czech president are in each case most instructive.
I always seem to find myself agreeing with Hedges, and then, soon after reading his opinion pieces or hearing him, plunging into despair. How do we dig ourselves out of this, Chris? If there is no solution within the current system do we opt for the kind of revolution that will be quickly put down, with more repression to follow? Are there any small but persistent steps to be taken?
Chris already dealt with this. He said that you must peacefully protest, that it is worthwhile, even when you know the protest is probably going to fail.
So, more futility. More reason to despair.
I recently stumbled onto JC Cole and Rural Route Radio. One has to put aside political disagreements with the host, but JC says the same stuff Chris does in regard to how a society collapses and how to be ready. I've been working on it since I heard the answer to the question asked in the clip I linked in my other comment, at the original lecture. That was in 2020. I'm actually in a new wave of depression, but I'll go buy a water filter anyway and then again feel (a little) better.
I'm currently in California. We're burning up, figuratively and literally. I am surrounded by the smell of smoke, my car is packed in case I have to evacuate (again), and I'm still going to work to teach. Welcome to the Kali Yuga, eh?
Hope is in action. Futility? Depends on intent, whether one is serving their purpose, big or small.
And then there's the preparations. We're in environmental and social collapse, so what are you doing to prepare? Believe it or not there's hope in that. Sure it's also scary, disappointing, and terribly sad but it's reality so one can be a victim wallowing in self pity or feel better in having done what they could when they knew it should be done.
I understand the despair one feels reading Hedges, but I'm also really over hearing people despair over it. It's not like people didn't know any of this was coming or is here, it's just that he puts words to it. Stop weeping over the question of what can be done and just do something.
https://youtu.be/XfvKbOyxR-8
I'm not weeping. I don't pity myself or my situation. Nor do I appreciate this kind of response. Do "something" you say, vaguely-- or it's all about "intent?" Psychobabble.
It's not psychobabble. Did you watch the link to an excerpt from Chris' lecture? That would be doing something. I'm the one who asked the question he's answering. LOTS of somethings to do in his response.
When my question was read and answered I was elated. Then it hit me - wtf did I just ask? I burst into tears over and over for two days. But I also called people I'd been angry with and made peace, started taking steps to create a garden, and began going for walks in my neighborhood--smiling and wishing a good day to everyone regardless of the sign in their front yard. Over 150,000 people have listened to his response in this clip alone, which makes me feel like I did some good - maybe a lot really. I hope it was worth it. These actions lessen my despair.
As for intent, I'm a school teacher. I could easily despair over the big picture or I can focus on my purpose and teach children the things that led me to become a teacher. I'm still overwhelmed by all I see (I am literally on the front lines of social collapse and yes it is collapsing) but keeping my mind focused on doing what I can, as small as those acts might seem, keeps me sane and makes me feel better, including being on my union's board for the first time. These actions bring me peace.
Action is empowering.
Purpose is the driver.
Basically, at times like these, one is called to act in some way, for some higher good, and they can't not do that whatever the consequences, or they're not. People who say they read and listen to Hedges, but then ask what can be done??? Well... I question whether they're really looking for answers because in his works he gives them. Plenty.
Chris Hedges your eloquent blade is so sharp it plunges straight to my heart creating hope along with pain…….thank you always for what seems like the only honesty out there
There are other gadflies: Robert Reich, Thom Hartman, Noam Chomsky, John Perkins, Michael Moore, and more. If you want to drown in despair, read all of them. What they all lack for, Chris Hedges included, is consideration of what we can do. The best they suggest is elect Democrats which doesn't deal at all with the heart of the matter where the oligarchy runs the show whatever party is in power. We lack for a concerted voice, and something the gadflies could do is have a round table. How about that? Open up a whole new consideration of what these smart, caring people would do if they ran the country let alone the world. I bet the force of their alignment would make news that all of us could get behind -- perhaps with a vehicle we can be signatory to. I talk about the Human Survival Party. Something like that!
Perhaps Suzanne. I don’t read Chris Hedges for answers. I read him for just plain ol’ truth and consciousness. For a solution, I go within, as well as watch documentaries like “Thrive 2”. I highly recommend for those that require a feel good ending
Sorry to be contrary, but I think of Foster Gamble with his Thrive movement like the Tea Party is to Republicans. I was the whistleblower who got ten of the spiritual leaders, like Deepak Chopra and John Robbins, who were in "Thrive 1," who didn't know what movie they were going to be in when they were interviewed for it, to write a denouncement of it.
Wow. Almost agree 100%. But, and correct if I am wrong, you seem to put the oligarchy separate from the political establishment. That we can consider the first corrupt and in need of deconstruction, but the politicians and government are what they are and are not part of the problem. Is that correct?
Again, you are pretending or hoping that new rulers will be better. The only solution is rules WITHOUT rulers. The next person in office will do what everyone else does.. enrich himself (herself if we get a woman) and nothing will change until the same shenanigans are made impossible. Free money is and has always been the root of the evil. If humans can cheat, they will... no one ever overcomes that temptation.
Rules without rulers... thats only possible through technology. The solution was invented in 2008 on Oct 31st. It was released as code once and will never be discovered a 2nd time... its growing faster than the adoption of the internet itself. Join the revolution you speak off... its peaceful and effective, your ideas about finding a new ruler will never work and are no longer necessary.
Why is Bitcoin an answer to any political tragedy we are now witnessing? why would anyone think that libertarians and/or anarchists have any solutions other than those that benefit themselves?
Hmm. You of course must know that 3000 years of human history include copious attempts at models of governance. Despite what the elite ivory tower types think of themselves, historically leaders were much greater deep thinkers about this... because survival was more tenuous.
You seem to have some model in mind. Seems anarchist. Can you point to examples of your model working? Because if you cannot, it will not.
Are you commenting on what I wrote? Maybe read it again. And see the comment I made in response to Selina Sweet about an ad hoc Wisdom Council.
Are you talking about Bitcoin on 1/31/08? If there's a useful comment about that or whatever else that date signifies, why don't you be less enigmatic.
Please excuse me while I go commit suicide.
Please don’t. You might be following the game plan. Be well! Peace…
Take a fascist with you
I have voted only once for an established political party candidate, Obama in 2008. It took less than a year to realise that hope is only a wishful thinking in America.😿
I voted once with enthusiasm, it took only one year to realise that hope is wishful thinking.
Thanks Chris, at least we can get the truth from you and keep our sanity.👍
Tony Benn has five questions to suss out power in democracy:
1. What power have you got?
2. Where did you get it from?
3. In whose interests do your exercise it?
4. To whom are you accountable?
5. How do we get rid of you?
"Only democracy gives us that right. That is why no one with power likes democracy, and that is why every generations must struggle to win it and keep it." - 2005
Unfortunately, as Chris points out, our country has vomited up some of the worst leaders of democracy in the last 40 years. Instead they were leaders for empire, wealth accumulation, and the worst parts of the unipolar globalism. I support Chris Hedges' thesis, we lost our democracy a long time ago - and so many Americans have just accepted the move to a totalitarian state - because they are struggling with their own issues as if they are somehow disconnected to empire.
I'll leave this quote from Tony Benn because it is a reminder for the reader. Something we should not forget in our darkest moments, even though it is easy to displace blame in all directions.
"If we can find money to kill people, we can find money to help people" - Tony Benn (1925 - 2014)
Mr Hedges refers to Biden's speech and the sentiments Biden expressed as mere political theater. While I applauded some of the points Biden made about the fascists who've gained so much power here, Biden's claim that there is no place for "political violence" made me choke a bit. Political violence, from genocide and slavery right through Vietnam, Afghanistan, Selma and Ferguson... Isn't that pretty much who we are and what we do?
I find Biden's blindness to this as so American... Dan Ellsberg pointed out that we cannot be a democracy at home while being an empire abroad.
"hyperventilating press that thundered against the barbarians at the gate — Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, ISIS, Vladimir Putin — while ignoring the barbarians in our midst."
Chris Hedges
It's tragic that the truth Hedges conveys here is feeding the rising fascist tide. Hedges has long written in detailed about this, and, thankfully - and unlike many other left critics of Biden's speech - he weaves the underlying fascistic cultural and political dynamics into this critique.
Yes, Biden is demented and hypocritical and has a horrible pro-corporate pro-war Neoliberal record. Yes, his speech was cynical and timed almost exclusively for partisan electoral purposes.
But none of those truths diminish the fact that Biden is correct about the MAGA fascist threats to democracy. That truth is divisive and polarizing, but it must be spoken.
Biden hasn't spoken a word of truth in his life.. he's a politician.
Totally disagree about Trump and MAGA being threats to anything except civility. Trump governed like an average Republican president, better on some issues and worse on others.
As to a threat of fascism, you're all way too late. The U.S. became fascist a long time ago. "Fascism" means corporations running the government, and that's been going on here for decades, maybe longer.
Oh.. well. No. You missed the turn.
You are sucking on the corporatist propaganda nub. Nationalism isn't fasism and it is not a threat to democracy. It is the tonic for the threat of democracy that is globalism.
yes.............BUT !
I bet you dont know people who voted for trump.
You'd lose.
I bet your bank account, car, and house are bigger than mine.
Contemplate well The Iron Law Of Oligarchy and its corollary, The Iron Law Of Institutions.
America has been neither a democracy, nor a democratic republic, for a long time now. What we are seeing is but a reversion to the mean.
William Robinson’s fabulously insightful 2014 “Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity”, is IMHO, second only to his newest, “Can Global Capitalism Endure” [Released in Kindle form just now on, August 7th, 2022].
Expose and Expunge the cancer of this Global Capitalist “Quiet American” EMPIRE
The writings of Mr. Hedges are truthful, honest and extremely painful because he always puts a mirror in front of us and bad news is never well received. I believe that the only people that are pretending that we have a functional democracy are the politicians. But there is a big portion of Americans that do believe in our democracy. Some because they are "blind" and others because they are too young and their teachers forgot to tell them that our democracy is just an aspiration that even our founding fathers, despite all their cries of enlightenment and freedom, avoided it for fear or losing their right to steal the land of native Americans and enslave black people. Fortunately, by now, most well educated adults have realized that our democracy is just a delusion and so we have to act to make it reality. It is up to us.
I think the key to why Bernie gets away with his ongoing criticism of totalitarian corporatism is because he has been saying the same things for so many decades that people can't hear him any longer.