Well said, Chris, but I disagree with your underlying assumptions. I certainly agree that a hereditary ruling class is a one way trip to disaster. Sadly, democracy isn’t much better and our willful refusal to recognize that we are no longer a democracy but rather an oligarchy isn’t helping matters any. I have become convinced that voting. will. not. change. that. There are several things I think important:
1. Democracy is not, in and of itself, a panacea. The US only has the illusion of democracy. Look at the last couple of elections: 2020 Who in their right mind would vote for either of these bozos? On one side you have a doddering old fool who has been the tool of the corporate class his entire life. On the other side you have a megalomaniac with all the managerial skills of that idiot that almost sank H-P (only Trump sank it three times) and the attention span of a mayfly. The 2016 election wasn’t any better. Who would vote for either of these bozos? The megalomaniac made his first appearance. His opponent, Three Names, was well known. Not necessarily known for great successes or effective leadership. But well known, like Lizzy Borden. Really, all you need to know about her is that she’s three names. If I hear all my names – Jeffrey Peter Harrison – I duck and look behind me. My father is sure as hell pissed and looking for me. I may be 72 but that don’t make no difference. These are not choices. Vote third party. I may not vote for the winner but at least I vote for the one I want to be the winner.
We need a new philosopher. For political systems we have democracy, theocracy, dictatorship, monarchy, and anarchy. What a drag. Except for democracy, they all have an unaccountable jerkwad running the show (anarchy has chaos theory). I propose that we have the candidates vetted, not by some pol, but by some ordinary people who were trained to test for characteristics such as honesty, courage, faithfulness, and so on. and their judgement is final. After all, this is a job, not a beauty contest.
I dunno the answer but I damn sure know that the systems we’re using aren’t working.
Watched a bit of the pageantry accompanying taking the Queen's body to St. Giles. One of the commentators was Åndrew Lloyd Webber another purveyor of pageantry. I felt for the young lads carrying the coffin. God forbid they dropped it. I wondered how everyone really felt. I thought back to my English grandmother who lived in India from 1900 to 1907. Her husband was an engineer for a gold mine. He died of small pox. He was an anti-vaxxer but I don't think they had that term then. Her first child was born there. I remember her telling me how the Indian midwife saved his life. He was a blue baby and she alternated warm and cool baths. I was young when she died and regret not asking more questions. She did leave me a bound copy of The Illustrated London News from July -December 1857. I've been reading the dispatches from the Sepoy rebellion that summer. It was a turbulent time. There were uprising all over including China and Italy. We never change do we? Apologies for rambling but sometimes I do that. :-)
It is tempting to think of the royal monarchy as a sober, moderating force especially during these turbulent years. Like the conservative mechanisms of our Senate, or that of the Catholic Church, the deliberately slow pace of change has its merits.
.
Still, these buttresses against change are the foundations for continued oppression.
The monarchy has a symbiotic relationship with society’s psychological maladies like classism, sexism, racism, etc. Our collective selfishness, laziness and resignation to class structure especially is reinforced by our royal fawning.
My comment I left doesn't appear -- I think it was on your print version but I'm leaving it here cause it's less likely to get lost among so many comments there are on that. That is troublesome because I was critical of this.
Open your eyes. What kind of ugly Americans are we to slam all those millions of Brits who are in deep mourning for a symbol that holds them together? We can put our shady past next to theirs and damn us all but the thing right now to notice is how that symbolic situation is so meaningful to our British friends and be respectful of that.
See I've been having a few heated discussions about this. For example it is amazing how many Australians who're angry about the unconstitutional dismissal of Gough Whitlam's democratically elected government, angry at the CIA involvement in this, the secret which TRW employee Christopher Boyce uncovered when he worked for TRW as a sub-contractor to the CIA and was subsequently imprisoned for 25 years, 10 of those in solitary confinement. see https://www.wired.com/2013/09/boyce-qa/
Whitlam had decided Australia needed to "buy back the farm", that is force overseas investors in Australian mining, oil & agriculture to sell their holdings to Australians, then pass laws prohibiting further resource grabs. Many howls of outrage, long term he was proven correct, since that time the so called Australian resources boom has caused everything to be ripped outta the ground asap, with only a pittance getting 'trickled down' to the masses.
Anyway the Whitlam government was dismissed by the 'queens representative in Australia' Sir John Kerr. Some Australians express anger at the CIA and Kerr but claim the queen had nothing to do with it, which is untrue as recent document releases have shown that there was correspondence between the GG, the australian leader of the opposition and buckingham palace on that very issue.
The queen knew all about it, facilitated it and even kept her son posted on it.
Yet she got away with that nonsense by playing the smiling, always affable monarch; duty bound to do the right thing. Even a cursory examination of elizabeth's weekly meetings with the english prime minister when issues of policy and legislation tells us something important.
While it is true she didn't have a great education outside of constitutional law it is equally true that she wasn't an idiot, seventy years of political shenanigans would have informed her of the hideousness of the england government and the imperialist structure known as the commonwealth.
After the first couple of years when the so-called, cruelly-named 'Mau-Mau insurgency' occurred with english soldiers torturing raping killing would have told her enough.
Not to mention the Malayan 'emergency' when hundreds of thousands of ethnic chinese living in Malaysia were murdered and/or displaced in a bout of ethnic cleansing similar to the one that took place in neighbouring Indonesia would have been more fuel to the fire of her awakening, but the late 1960's brought about what I consider to be the worst post world war two excess of english imperialism, the Biafran civil war, when the Nigerian central government (who at that time (just after independence) were beholden to england) went to war against the Igbo people of Nigeria's south east.
It was no coincidence that Igbo land was then and still is now, the area containing all of Nigeria's oil. The locals had been gerry- mandered out of adequate representative government and consequently had received none of the returns on the oil.
That situation continues to this day. Shell & BP shareholders have made millions, as have Nigerian politicians but the Igbo haven't copped a brass razoo in 50 years of their lands being pillaged and polluted. The war which ran from 1968 to 1970 was one-sided as the successionists received little support whilst england kept the government troops well equipped and trained.
More than 1 million civilians mostly children died in that conflict because, as the english reckon, the Igbo were too stubborn. The state was laid siege to and food became unobtainable with both england and Nigeria refusing to budge an inch in negotiations so hundreds of thousands of African children died to ensure english imperialists maximised profits.
elizabeth who was consulted throughout, never made a word of criticism about Nigeria or england's conduct. In fact that is my point if she actually was this dedicated, caring xtian woman, why is it she never blew the whistle on torture, rape and murder. She knew it was happening yet never, ever attempted to assist any victims of english imperialism.
Well put, although the racial supremacy issue is multi-racial. The Japanese were imperial during the 1930s and 40s, and believed they were a superior ethnic group. There is massive amounts of ethnocentrism in the world. Caucasian supremecy, however, has been the most prominent and destructive form.
One must be self-loathing to look up to a 'queen' or 'king.' It reminds me of celebrity worship. The royal family are just a bunch of egomaniacal, sanctimonious, upright walking primates like everyone else. The fact anyone takes them seriously is embarrassing. I am happy Chris called out their racism. Maybe the mainstream media and its goons, instead of calling everyone racist all the time, can look in the mirror. Their worship of Ukraine and the 'royal' family underscore their own racism.
Trouble is, and speaking as a person born n bred in London/UK, we have millions of semi brain-dead people here who need a kind of ' deityfigure.' (We are seriously secular after all, as indicated by corporate glorification..Money is God now)
They don't care about the Politics and the fact that WE pay for all their luxury, privilege and abuse of many thousands around the world. They believe the mainstream media.. Daily mail, The Times and so on. It is literally sickening utterly tragic, but it is what's happening. If I were not a lone Mum, I would...
Thank you, I needed to hear that. Only hear the good things normally about the royalty.
Well said, Chris, but I disagree with your underlying assumptions. I certainly agree that a hereditary ruling class is a one way trip to disaster. Sadly, democracy isn’t much better and our willful refusal to recognize that we are no longer a democracy but rather an oligarchy isn’t helping matters any. I have become convinced that voting. will. not. change. that. There are several things I think important:
1. Democracy is not, in and of itself, a panacea. The US only has the illusion of democracy. Look at the last couple of elections: 2020 Who in their right mind would vote for either of these bozos? On one side you have a doddering old fool who has been the tool of the corporate class his entire life. On the other side you have a megalomaniac with all the managerial skills of that idiot that almost sank H-P (only Trump sank it three times) and the attention span of a mayfly. The 2016 election wasn’t any better. Who would vote for either of these bozos? The megalomaniac made his first appearance. His opponent, Three Names, was well known. Not necessarily known for great successes or effective leadership. But well known, like Lizzy Borden. Really, all you need to know about her is that she’s three names. If I hear all my names – Jeffrey Peter Harrison – I duck and look behind me. My father is sure as hell pissed and looking for me. I may be 72 but that don’t make no difference. These are not choices. Vote third party. I may not vote for the winner but at least I vote for the one I want to be the winner.
We need a new philosopher. For political systems we have democracy, theocracy, dictatorship, monarchy, and anarchy. What a drag. Except for democracy, they all have an unaccountable jerkwad running the show (anarchy has chaos theory). I propose that we have the candidates vetted, not by some pol, but by some ordinary people who were trained to test for characteristics such as honesty, courage, faithfulness, and so on. and their judgement is final. After all, this is a job, not a beauty contest.
I dunno the answer but I damn sure know that the systems we’re using aren’t working.
Watched a bit of the pageantry accompanying taking the Queen's body to St. Giles. One of the commentators was Åndrew Lloyd Webber another purveyor of pageantry. I felt for the young lads carrying the coffin. God forbid they dropped it. I wondered how everyone really felt. I thought back to my English grandmother who lived in India from 1900 to 1907. Her husband was an engineer for a gold mine. He died of small pox. He was an anti-vaxxer but I don't think they had that term then. Her first child was born there. I remember her telling me how the Indian midwife saved his life. He was a blue baby and she alternated warm and cool baths. I was young when she died and regret not asking more questions. She did leave me a bound copy of The Illustrated London News from July -December 1857. I've been reading the dispatches from the Sepoy rebellion that summer. It was a turbulent time. There were uprising all over including China and Italy. We never change do we? Apologies for rambling but sometimes I do that. :-)
It is tempting to think of the royal monarchy as a sober, moderating force especially during these turbulent years. Like the conservative mechanisms of our Senate, or that of the Catholic Church, the deliberately slow pace of change has its merits.
.
Still, these buttresses against change are the foundations for continued oppression.
The monarchy has a symbiotic relationship with society’s psychological maladies like classism, sexism, racism, etc. Our collective selfishness, laziness and resignation to class structure especially is reinforced by our royal fawning.
Always on point Chris Hedges.
Great article! Thank you.
My comment I left doesn't appear -- I think it was on your print version but I'm leaving it here cause it's less likely to get lost among so many comments there are on that. That is troublesome because I was critical of this.
Open your eyes. What kind of ugly Americans are we to slam all those millions of Brits who are in deep mourning for a symbol that holds them together? We can put our shady past next to theirs and damn us all but the thing right now to notice is how that symbolic situation is so meaningful to our British friends and be respectful of that.
See I've been having a few heated discussions about this. For example it is amazing how many Australians who're angry about the unconstitutional dismissal of Gough Whitlam's democratically elected government, angry at the CIA involvement in this, the secret which TRW employee Christopher Boyce uncovered when he worked for TRW as a sub-contractor to the CIA and was subsequently imprisoned for 25 years, 10 of those in solitary confinement. see https://www.wired.com/2013/09/boyce-qa/
Whitlam had decided Australia needed to "buy back the farm", that is force overseas investors in Australian mining, oil & agriculture to sell their holdings to Australians, then pass laws prohibiting further resource grabs. Many howls of outrage, long term he was proven correct, since that time the so called Australian resources boom has caused everything to be ripped outta the ground asap, with only a pittance getting 'trickled down' to the masses.
Anyway the Whitlam government was dismissed by the 'queens representative in Australia' Sir John Kerr. Some Australians express anger at the CIA and Kerr but claim the queen had nothing to do with it, which is untrue as recent document releases have shown that there was correspondence between the GG, the australian leader of the opposition and buckingham palace on that very issue.
The queen knew all about it, facilitated it and even kept her son posted on it.
Yet she got away with that nonsense by playing the smiling, always affable monarch; duty bound to do the right thing. Even a cursory examination of elizabeth's weekly meetings with the english prime minister when issues of policy and legislation tells us something important.
While it is true she didn't have a great education outside of constitutional law it is equally true that she wasn't an idiot, seventy years of political shenanigans would have informed her of the hideousness of the england government and the imperialist structure known as the commonwealth.
After the first couple of years when the so-called, cruelly-named 'Mau-Mau insurgency' occurred with english soldiers torturing raping killing would have told her enough.
Not to mention the Malayan 'emergency' when hundreds of thousands of ethnic chinese living in Malaysia were murdered and/or displaced in a bout of ethnic cleansing similar to the one that took place in neighbouring Indonesia would have been more fuel to the fire of her awakening, but the late 1960's brought about what I consider to be the worst post world war two excess of english imperialism, the Biafran civil war, when the Nigerian central government (who at that time (just after independence) were beholden to england) went to war against the Igbo people of Nigeria's south east.
It was no coincidence that Igbo land was then and still is now, the area containing all of Nigeria's oil. The locals had been gerry- mandered out of adequate representative government and consequently had received none of the returns on the oil.
That situation continues to this day. Shell & BP shareholders have made millions, as have Nigerian politicians but the Igbo haven't copped a brass razoo in 50 years of their lands being pillaged and polluted. The war which ran from 1968 to 1970 was one-sided as the successionists received little support whilst england kept the government troops well equipped and trained.
More than 1 million civilians mostly children died in that conflict because, as the english reckon, the Igbo were too stubborn. The state was laid siege to and food became unobtainable with both england and Nigeria refusing to budge an inch in negotiations so hundreds of thousands of African children died to ensure english imperialists maximised profits.
elizabeth who was consulted throughout, never made a word of criticism about Nigeria or england's conduct. In fact that is my point if she actually was this dedicated, caring xtian woman, why is it she never blew the whistle on torture, rape and murder. She knew it was happening yet never, ever attempted to assist any victims of english imperialism.
A sociopath in other words.
Well put, although the racial supremacy issue is multi-racial. The Japanese were imperial during the 1930s and 40s, and believed they were a superior ethnic group. There is massive amounts of ethnocentrism in the world. Caucasian supremecy, however, has been the most prominent and destructive form.
One must be self-loathing to look up to a 'queen' or 'king.' It reminds me of celebrity worship. The royal family are just a bunch of egomaniacal, sanctimonious, upright walking primates like everyone else. The fact anyone takes them seriously is embarrassing. I am happy Chris called out their racism. Maybe the mainstream media and its goons, instead of calling everyone racist all the time, can look in the mirror. Their worship of Ukraine and the 'royal' family underscore their own racism.
Trouble is, and speaking as a person born n bred in London/UK, we have millions of semi brain-dead people here who need a kind of ' deityfigure.' (We are seriously secular after all, as indicated by corporate glorification..Money is God now)
They don't care about the Politics and the fact that WE pay for all their luxury, privilege and abuse of many thousands around the world. They believe the mainstream media.. Daily mail, The Times and so on. It is literally sickening utterly tragic, but it is what's happening. If I were not a lone Mum, I would...