This is the Fourth of July sermon nobody wants because it does not come with sparklers. Fascism did not fall out of the sky wearing jackboots. It grew in the empty factory towns, the gutted unions, the bought courts, the opioid funerals, the billionaire tax cuts, and the polite liberal refusal to name class war while people drowned. Trump is not the disease by himself. He is the infection that took over after neoliberalism shredded the immune system and then acted shocked when the fever arrived.
Those "polite liberals" who comment on prog sites, (even this one) explaining away the last election as voters are "stupid." As if we, the majority working class, are to blame and not the political and economic failures of the neolib D party along with their PMC loyalists. As if that's a smart way to win back angry voters and alienated non-voters. As if doing nothing about 4 decades of suffering in the Rust Belt, Appalachia, and everywhere similar is the height of intelligent RealPolitik and not the smug, cruel elitism it actually is.
Happy The EU is outlawing Ivanka and Jared. Is Trump dismantling NAFTA?
I got scared today reading the comments on Democracy Docket Hillary episode. They attacked the Trump supporters again, celebrating "yes, they are deplorables". Cheerleading a Kissinger protege.
Neoliberalism is over a half century of bankrupt liberalism. I cant join an online love fest: things have to go disastrously wrong for the kind of mandate Roosevelt had to emerge, and it's people like him, or Bernie Sanders, who are rather conservative, only reluctantly swayed by the voices around them to create The New Deal or The Waterfront. We're supposed to be more ambitious by exposing the bs to The Judges of Normalcy who are Present Everywhere. But it's only when things are terrible that people see the bad. They are too ready to cheerlead for a Clinton Nightmare.
The time for a weaktea rule-following milquetoast suckup like Bernie Sanders is long past. Even if Sanders somehow became president today, he'd basically be Jimmy Carter 2.0, a byword for failure and a cautionary tale used to discipline anyone who thought about straying from oligarch policies.
Long story short, the popular narrative about Long was written by his enemies. Huey Long terrified the oligarchs so much that they murdered him.
Long faced an entrenched and established political opposition that was not shy about using blackmail, corruption, bribery, and when necessary, outright violence to get what it wanted. He didn't respond with excuses, the way so many Trump cultists and Obama groupies do. His methods and goals were often unsavory, but Huey P. Long, delivered results. Not hope and change, not triggering the libs, but results in the form of concrete material benefits (roads, bridges, schools, literacy classes, voting rights, bank regulation, etc.) for the average frustrated Louisianan.
Long not only got things done, he got so much done, he transformed Louisiana in only a few years. For generations after his death, people named their children after Huey Long, and the Long name was enough to get a politician elected in Louisiana.
Not to mention, Long was a pacifist, helped negotiate peace in Latin America, and was for a ban on arms sales abroad. He was proud that the KKK had always endorsed his opponent (and an election in Louisiana in 1928 against a KKK endorsed opponent was like winning election against an AIPAC endorsed opponent right now.)
"And if that impetial bastard tries to set foot in Louisiana, he will leave with his toes turned up!"
"When I refer to [KKK leader] as a son of a bitch, I am not using profanity but I am referring to the circumstances of his birth!"
I hear you Vin and have a suggestion, one that those around me practice and have perfected - Pretend everything is fine, when that doesn't work, simply pretend harder. Insanity indeed.
Pretend could be denial except it has a more conscious intent to it than the unconscious defense mechanism that is denial. Both are built out of fear. I've been struck by Jack Smith, Esq , Mamdani, Abdul El Sayed MD (Michigan), Massie (Kentucky) ,Kshama Sawant (Seattle), Rep Mark Kelly(AZ), Ro Khanna (CA) and Platner (Maine). All have faced intimidation. All have consciously publicly announced - "I am not intimidated." When I hear that, I hear" I choose not to be intimidated. " Please think psychologically. What conditions cultivate/nurture someone's capacity to declare - "I refuse to be intimidated!"? Can you be scared yet choose to refuse to be intimidated? What is needed to do that?
Perhaps because I understand its elegance at all levels from the molecular to the Complex Adaptive System of Systems, I love the Biosphere at the level and intensity you suggest. I pretend to be American, deny my humanity in that context if you like, but make no denial of my humanity as a member of that Biosphere.There is no way some grotesquely imperfect and inept political philosophy could possibly intimidate me by comparison.
SS, different individuals might feel the same level of fear, but where some succumb to paralysis, genuine leaders stand strong and face the challenge. I feel so grateful and humbled by their courage.
Thus 250th celebration is beyond absurd. Pretend your way thru the day by ignoring the growing fascist state while the planet burns. Happy El Nino! Stay cool and hydrated.
Unlike Hedges, I am not a student of neoliberalism, so I’m not sure I even know what it means. However, most definitions include advocacy of “free market competition” across borders and laissez faire capitalism, i.e., deregulation. But do we really have free markets when corporations, whether U.S. or multinational, are heavily subsidized by U.S. tax dollars? The U.S. has gone to war against and otherwise undermined foreign governments on more than one occasion on behalf of corporations. The Trump Administration’s attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of its president is but one example. When Trump talked about taking back “our oil,” he was referring to Chevron’s oil leases and operations, which Maduro had restricted. The U.S. overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemala in 1954 at least partly on behalf of United Fruit Company. And both Bush and Obama bailed out the banks at the expense of ordinary homeowners. This is hardly laissez faire capitalism, but corporate welfare on steroids. The merging of corporate and state interests has of course been called fascism, so it appears that the road towards fascism was paved decades if not centuries ago.
I am skeptical of labels because they mean different things to different people. For example, in a recent “news” article, the NYT referred to politicians and voters who oppose genocide as “far left,” “hard left,” and “extremists,” while calling those who had supported a genocide, “moderates.” (We never hear about right-wing Democrats — only moderates and “centrists”). Is there anything more extreme than a genocide? This is just one example of how our language has been corrupted.
It seems appropriate, though, to call what we have fascism. The Prairieland defendants, unpunished ICE murders and participation in a genocide are just a few of its manifestations. We’ve been trained for roles as consumers, not citizens. But giving up is not an option.
Capitalism's main concern is individual profit and the result is environmental degradation, accumulation of whealth, explotation and instability, thought its benefit is technological advancement. Our other choice is Socialism based on collective ownership of the means of production to meet collective human needs which aims to guaratee basics like housing, health care and education for everybody. But without the profit motive or market prices, state-directed economies sometimes suffer from shortages and lack of innovation. Thus, my choice would be a mixed system like in Scandinavia with a free-market capitalist economy, highly competitive and with a massive socialist-style welfare state. We desperatly need to change our predatory ugly capitalist system before it is too late. We need to vote out of office our bribed politicians by the billionaires and latter, perhaps, we would be able to expropriate the bigest corporations and change them into democratic cooperatives. Mi opinion
I agree about a mixed system. I was in Denmark and Sweden in 2022. A man dropped his lap top on my head during the flight to Copenhagen while getting it out of the overhead bin. (He dropped it from several feet up — I was in an aisle seat). I was advised by the clerk when we checked into our hotel in Copenhagen to go to a hospital to make sure I was okay. She called a hospital exchange number, explained in Danish what had happened and I was advised to go immediately to the hospital. Within five minutes of arrival I was seen by a doctor and shortly afterward was cleared for release. The whole thing, including transportation to and from the hospital, took no more than half an hour. Had I been a citizen of the EU, everything would have been covered. As it was, the hospital was helpful in getting me the documents I needed to submit to my insurer. I was impressed with the efficiency of the system, e.g., how the hospital was expecting me when I arrived and how quickly I was seen by a doctor. Nonetheless, Scandinavia is not without its problems, needless to say. Coincidentally, on our way back to the states I sat next to a neurologist who worked at the same hospital. She told me that the Danish healthcare system was not without its problems and that I had been lucky. In Stockholm we were told that there were very long waiting lines for subsidized housing and that without subsidies, housing in the city was unaffordable for many, perhaps the majority. (Hedges mentioned in a recent report that he had lost respect for Sweden, but he didn’t say why). I was surprised that the country did not seem to do much when Greta Thunberg was detained and mistreated by Israel. I did like those countries, though. The word that came to mind when I was there was “civilized.” Denmark provides education to its immigrants, including instruction in Danish (learning Danish is required) and helps them find jobs. The immigrants and students we met in Copenhagen told us they loved the country but complained about how expensive the city is. And the feelings toward immigrants was becoming significantly less welcoming in both countries— we were told that and also read about it in the media. Both countries have wealth gaps too. I probably shouldn’t even be weighing in, since I haven’t lived in either country. But I liked how calm the people seemed as compared to the U.S.
Since the start of this millenium things have gone down for the whole world because of our wars and massive displacement of people emigrating to other countries, climate change and the usual swings of the capitalist system But I believe that even today Scandinavia is in better condition than us. I just have this conversation with aunty AI:
- In terms of affordable housing, health care and education which countries have the majority of the population satisfaction?
- Nordic nations like Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia (along with Japan for housing) have the highest citizen satisfaction. These countries consistently score highest globally in universal healthcare quality, top-tier educational outcomes, and overall standard of living.Gallup and OECD data show varying degrees of majority satisfaction across these sectors:Affordable Housing: A global affordability crisis has reduced majority satisfaction in many wealthy nations. However, Japan is a major outlier, as it is the only surveyed OECD country where the majority (over 70%) of the population is satisfied with the availability of good, affordable housing.Health Care: Countries with universal, publicly-funded healthcare routinely report high satisfaction. Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia rank highest, with fewer than 15% of lower-income residents reporting financial barriers to care.Education: Finland and the Netherlands frequently top global educational satisfaction lists due to equitable, highly-subsidized schooling models that prioritize student well-being and teacher quality. When I asked her about the communist countries, which is another alternative to our system, she rendered the following summary:
Summary Comparison
Country Housing Healthcare Satisfaction Education System
China High ownership. 70%–78% satisfied. Top global test scores
Vietnam Highly rated. High satisfaction. High literacy
Cuba Guaranteed. Medical supply shortages. 99% literacy rate
Have you seen Michael Moore's movie "Where to invade next" where he explores
the countries which are doing things better than us? I founded it at the public library.
shortly after it was released. What I remember most about it was envying the work hours in the featured countries. For some reason, I remember the coverage of the Italian families best, but I also seem to recall that Germany’s treatment of incarcerated people was much more humane than ours.
I think Hedges and others are correct to call out the corrosive and anti-democratic impacts of neoliberalism. And most of us have not seen neoliberalism for what it is because it is literally the water we have been swimming in since the 1970's. It's the environment that we take for granted and yet it has warped everything. IF you are a reader of books I would recommend "The Quiet Coup: neoliberalism and the Looting of America" by Mehrsa Baradaran.
Thank you. I made a note of the title and will look for the book. I remember when then-president Clinton talked about the “inevitability” (his word) of “globalization.” Of course he didn’t mention the many ways he facilitated it, e.g., with “free” trade deals and deregulation of the financial sector.
Just wanted you to know that I looked at the link and am going to order the book, most likely from the one surviving local bookstore in my neighborhood. In the meantime, I bought George Monbiot’s book on neoliberalism, which was also well-reviewed and was already on the shelf. I’ll reach back to Hedges’ Substack platform at some point to provide some feedback on the Monbiot book. Thanks again.
1. "Liberal apologists for neoliberalism, no longer concerned with economic justice, retreat into boutique activism. They mouth empty slogans about diversity and political correctness while pretending the relentless class war, unleashed globally since the 1970s, does not exist. The victims of neoliberal deindustrialization, 30 million of whom lost their jobs in the U.S. in mass layoffs, understand that the precarity of their existence does not concern their neoliberal masters."
This is why "vote Blue no matter who!" is not only a waste of time, but is counterproductive.
2. The United States has not been a democracy or a democratic republic or whatever for a long time now, if ever it was. Rather, the United States is an oligarchy featuring unlimited political bribery for the connected, along with vestigial trappings of democracy to keep the rubes well distracted.
That sounds like the human arc, and is why humanity is currently facing potential extinction.
The universe itself continually changes and then restores balance. IOW, these fascists, including the billionaire class, are dooming their own children to the enormous horrors of climate catastrophe.
Human exceptionalism, the sustained myth that we are separate from the laws of nature. That we, through our technological abilities can solve any problem that confronts us. That we, are the masters and the universe is obligated to serve us, bend to our commands and kneel before us.
We are the global dominionists, carving up the planet to suit our petty desires.
The neoliberalists claim that there are no limits. Infinite abundance awaits us and technology will deliver the methods of discovery and extraction.
So, why is that we need warfare for the acquisition of natural resources when there are no limits? Seems as a reasonable enough question.
Because it's a lie. A bio-physical reality that has no solution under the neoliberal system. Sustained economic growth is a fallacy.
Nate Hagens on The Great Simplification describes it as the slurping sound as we draw down reserves. This little party of the Holocene is going to come to an end.
We've built a system that is destined for its own cannibalism. Willful ignorance is our guide.
Technology is only possible through the adherence and application of the scientific method.
However, when that identical system of understanding the natural world...the scientific method as in the earth sciences, lays bare the limits of this planet, those warnings are immediately disgarded by the neoliberal system.
Trump and his collection of like minded imbeciles have removed the monitoring systems of the atmosphere, the lithosphere, (land), hydrosphere and oceans in just over two years. It's full on neoliberal ideological pathology.
The liberal class clings to the falsehood of continued economic growth through the transition to renewable energy.
Unfortunately this is not possible.
The relative short lifetime of solar and wind components of ~ 20-30 years, the intensive mining required for their manufacture, the waste disposal of them as they expire, and the limits of elements, (those metals, metaloids and nonmetals found on the periodic table), on a finite planet, defines the expiration date of progress as we know it.
Fossil fuels and renewables are at the end of the day, more or less the equivalent of one another.
A material and energy dependant industrial global system is simply incompatible with the reality of natural laws. You can run with it for a while but like the neoliberal system, it's a short term love affair.
There are millions of humans in the world, Indigenous peoples, who haven't succumbed to "exceptionalism." Who are aware of and show gratitude for the complex webs of local interconnected life that go all the way to the stars.
"A material and energy dependant industrial global system is simply incompatible with the reality of natural laws. You can run with it for a while but like the neoliberal system, it's a short term love affair." I'm not sure what is your point. The natural Law is that everything decays, our planet, our solar system have only an alloted time, thus, in my opinion renewable energy although finite too is the best choice if we want to move. What is your solution then?
Thermodynamics is the end game, entropy has the final say. We have plenty of time until the sun goes full red giant.
My point is that this current system with the demand it imposes for materials and energy to run life as we know it, simply exceeds available resources on the planet and natural systems cannot assimilate the waste generated. Our civililizational metabolism exceeds the natural order.
Additionally renewables are episodic in their outputs. An electrical grid requires a base electrical power potential to meet the demand imposed on it. Voltage drops fry equipment.
Materials for battery backup are simply not available.
A problem is an undesirable condition that has a solution.
A predicament does not have a solution in the present paradigm.
I don't have a solution because there is none in this space of global capitalism.
We're in what is called "overshoot ".
It may be rational for us to identify the reality that we're in and begin operating out an acknowledged, reality based world.
I was so excited in 2012-2013 because as a small electrical contractor I had fallen into what appeared to be the opportunity of a lifetime in solar. It was with the Department of Defense and the Obama Administration's goal to get the military to generate 30% of its electrical load via solar and wind.
My first project was at Ft. Meade in Maryland. 2 large solar arrays on 2 steel canopies that gave shade to waste water treatment pools.
Suddenly I became ill and was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and then my connection, ( a steel erector), terminated their interest in working for the DOD. A separate issue altogether.
Another electrical contractor completed the Ft. Meade job.
But I was convinced that renewables were going to save the day. Eventually I came to understand the limits of renewables.
It was a bitter pill to accept what I came to discover. Reality is reality, whether I like it or not.
See Art Berman, Simon Michaux , Bill Rees and Nate Hagens for the limits of renewables.
Yes. Marlin. Entropy will cure all our problems eventually, but I continue to believe that renewal energy will save our day although not tomorrow. Since you like physics, following I'm quoting from the best book I have read on the subject : "Philosophy of Quantum Physics: Making Sense of What Doesn’t Make Sense (SCIENCE AND COSMOS)" by Boris Kriger where the author at the end of each chapter imagines a traveler of our time visiting the phylosophers of old.
"If Socrates Were Told About the Quantum Universe. When the traveler told Socrates that everything—matter, light, time, even causality—exists only as probability until observed, the old philosopher laughed his gentle, ironic laugh. “So,” he said, “you have proven what I always suspected: that certainty is the rarest illusion. You think you have uncovered the laws of the cosmos, but in truth, you have discovered the limits of your own knowing.” The traveler tried to explain wave functions, superpositions, entanglement, but Socrates raised his hand. “Enough. You speak of shadows that flicker before the light of being. Tell me rather, what good is this knowledge? Does it make men wiser, or only more astonished at their ignorance?” The traveler hesitated. “Perhaps both.” Socrates nodded approvingly. “Then it is worthy knowledge. For wisdom begins not in possession, but in wonder. You see, my friend, even your quantum gods obey the oldest law of all — that the more we learn, the more we know that we do not know.” He smiled. “So, nothing has changed. You have only made the mystery visible.”"
Hedges is too much of a truth-teller for most people. Too blunt, too clear, too unforgiving of the neoliberals and their enablers. I have lived my adult life under neoliberalism, and I have watched its spread, how its language and values pervaded every aspect of society, and how it was touted as the only way to organize society. All along I knew it was garbage, but until I began reading Hedges 20 years ago, I didn't have the language to articulate what I was living through. I, too, am in a mournful mood on this 4th of July.
The "truth" may be hard to swallow, so consequently we avoid that pain/discomfort and choose to be lied to; those who tell the truth are cancelled and marginalized for their efforts. Chalmers Johnson asked the audience, at a lecture I attended here in Blutopia, given not long before his passing "What do you do when you receive new information?" These days I ask - what do we do when we refuse to listen/consider new information?
Neoliberalism or absolute freedom for capitalists to own and control productive assets including the labor of workers became the dominant ideology to conquer the restive working class whose real economic gains had reduced profits and increased economic equality during the 70s. Hence globalization and destruction of the industrial sector. The assault on unions meant smooth sailing for the ruling class which let things go too far in 2008. Now about 60 percent are in precarious economic straits. Capitalism has completely captured government. Everyone realizes how unstable the system has become so the right wing blames the left, naturally, and ramps up the fascist playbook, war, racism, denial of civil liberties, religious and social oppression, etc. Millions are fighting back! Don’t back down!
It is extremely frightening how quick we are barreling towards this despotic system that will eat everything in its way. The liberal class ignores it thinking once Trump is gone things will go back to “normal”. The far right is heavily armed and organized. Watching it unfold in real time is not something I ever imagined. I’m afraid it is damn near impossible to slow down this unraveling of civil society. To get enough people onboard for a General Strike almost seems like a pipe dream. Tech is now the opium of the masses. Everyone is now to addicted to screens. It is the modern day pacifier for both children and adults. The clock is ticking…
i've been wishing for people to wake up and "general strike!" in my country for years now. in italy, a neighboring country, at least 2 million people did. but did it help? right wing PM georgia meloni is now being challenged by a guy far, far worse than her.
yes, so many 'opiums' today keep people sedated, sedentary, i.e. unwilling, unable to get their behinds up and take [to] the streets ... i dont forgive those high up, for they know only too well what they do. their settler colonial, white supremacist mindset never changed - and the bloodshed CON_tinues ...
Ok. I am not sure the trillionaires and super-billionaires are not fluffed up by printed money(I call it "play money") since there are now two opposing blocs in the world, depending upon which bloc that nation is in they can print money, or create credit such as cryptocurrency or whatever, and claim with big headllines that this trillionaire(Ok,Musk) or super-billionaire made this amount of money, or did this or is doing that.
What matters is that the average person has credit card debt, and that the system that they are in has a profit element, that is being paid for by that average person necessities.
Any "-ism" that goes too far, well goes too far. I think Ayn Rand preferred men compete in the marketplace instead of the battlefield. Unlike many super-rich religious pro-Rand Republicans she kept to her atheism. I am not advocating any particuler belief, and even athe"-ism" is an ideology - it's the human condition. As the Dirty Harry character says closing out the film Magnum Force(1973) "Man's got to know his limitations." The problem goes further than this, how can man/woman consistently be in harmony with nature like the rest of the animal kingdom over generations and eras? This is the essential question. The way man works, when one looks at the direction of say the music of Claude Debussy composing for nature instead of the universe, is that an improvement or detriment? Are we stuck with having to have -some sort of- irrational belief system(an "-ism")? Is the rest of the animal kingdom laughing at us?
Neoliberalism, as you say, was cunning. The two-party system that has been for over 200 years, much to the chagrin of the framers of the constitution, had always been a problem but since we ruled over the western hemisphere since the creation of the Monroe Doctrine nobody seemed to notice. As Jesse "the mind" Ventura said the reason early on for the two-party system was reasonable it was because people had to ride on horseback to deliver the message of what that jurisdiction or state had voted for to either that state's capital or the nation's capital. It was great when Jesse Ventura won the governor's race in MInnesota back in 1998 but I knew right then and there that the main reason he won is that he got lucky that the deep state didn't catch him in time(I mean who would ever have though that a WWF wrestler could outsmart a couple of other well-schooled politicians) and thus he wasn't going to last more than one term. When he won, I immediately went to his website, in which the internet was still in very early days, and it was extraordinarily well-organized.
Theodore Roosevelt, despite his political success, couldn't win on a third-party platform; Ross Perot got 19% of the vote in 1992 but zero electoral votes, Wallace(no matter what any may think of him) in 1968 did get 70 electoral votes.
But this may be changing, the recent NYC mayoral election was an excellent indication. The powers that be allowed for three candidates to run and whoever got the most votes would have been acceptable to the powers that be(or Chomsky's term"the masters of mankind) unlike, say, with the 2016 democratic primaries in which Bernie Sanders won over Hillary Clinton but it wasn't allowed by these same-ilked "masters of mankind." Now Tucker Carlson has left the Republican Party and wants to form a new third party. This is excellent. I think he could succeed here where Theodore Roosevelt could not. I am not an american firster. I was taught in grade school, that me first is frowned upon. Another analogy is the Seinfeld episode titled Fire in which George Costanza yells fire in front of a whole bunch of kindergardeners but he's the one who gets out of the building first. Maybe America First does not have this in their design, but the human condition will certainly - sooner or later - bring it there.
Read the MMT advocates on govt. fiat money like Stephanie Kelton and L. Randall Wray. Also highly recommend Steve Keen on alt. economics based on accting principles--govt spending, (debit) like say on a highway, is also income (credit) to a construction company and to workers, who spend locally. The view of Keynesians and New Dealers set aside by neolib Ds. Keen also points how banks create money out of nothing through loans. Thus consumer debt is the tell on econ system health. Yet that's ignored by the dominant neoclassical economists and their political neolib allies.
Not difficult to understand with a little work; this blue collar worker for 28 years learned. Okay, it took me 2 years, but worth it. Besides, the authors I cited are pretty much in actual English, not EconSpeak.
Years of Zionist controlled main-stream media brainwashing has created a numb passive society, opened the doors of the religious right-winged fascists, and perpetuated the American and Western European capitalist war economy. Chris Hedges is spot on when he says Americans have two choices: "tyranny or revolution". Meanwhile the Chinese are laughing at the West all the way to global economic domination. This is the cruel reality in one paragraph. Europeans understand this but are helpless because their governments bend their knees to USA. When will Americans (AND Canadians to a large degree) wake up and give up believing in their fairy-tail democracy?
Chris. Your truth IS true and it’s time for our leaders to be taken down! We “the people” must forget all the old BS and songs like “America the Beautiful” and face the fact that it is not! Our country is taken over by fascism and trumpers who want us gone.
This is the Fourth of July sermon nobody wants because it does not come with sparklers. Fascism did not fall out of the sky wearing jackboots. It grew in the empty factory towns, the gutted unions, the bought courts, the opioid funerals, the billionaire tax cuts, and the polite liberal refusal to name class war while people drowned. Trump is not the disease by himself. He is the infection that took over after neoliberalism shredded the immune system and then acted shocked when the fever arrived.
Those "polite liberals" who comment on prog sites, (even this one) explaining away the last election as voters are "stupid." As if we, the majority working class, are to blame and not the political and economic failures of the neolib D party along with their PMC loyalists. As if that's a smart way to win back angry voters and alienated non-voters. As if doing nothing about 4 decades of suffering in the Rust Belt, Appalachia, and everywhere similar is the height of intelligent RealPolitik and not the smug, cruel elitism it actually is.
Brilliant comment.
Well said.
Happy The EU is outlawing Ivanka and Jared. Is Trump dismantling NAFTA?
I got scared today reading the comments on Democracy Docket Hillary episode. They attacked the Trump supporters again, celebrating "yes, they are deplorables". Cheerleading a Kissinger protege.
Neoliberalism is over a half century of bankrupt liberalism. I cant join an online love fest: things have to go disastrously wrong for the kind of mandate Roosevelt had to emerge, and it's people like him, or Bernie Sanders, who are rather conservative, only reluctantly swayed by the voices around them to create The New Deal or The Waterfront. We're supposed to be more ambitious by exposing the bs to The Judges of Normalcy who are Present Everywhere. But it's only when things are terrible that people see the bad. They are too ready to cheerlead for a Clinton Nightmare.
I just bought Genocide Foretold. Thanks
The time for a weaktea rule-following milquetoast suckup like Bernie Sanders is long past. Even if Sanders somehow became president today, he'd basically be Jimmy Carter 2.0, a byword for failure and a cautionary tale used to discipline anyone who thought about straying from oligarch policies.
What is needed is a Huey P. Long.
Yes!!! Read a lot about him and his 'autobiography' lovely guy!
Long story short, the popular narrative about Long was written by his enemies. Huey Long terrified the oligarchs so much that they murdered him.
Long faced an entrenched and established political opposition that was not shy about using blackmail, corruption, bribery, and when necessary, outright violence to get what it wanted. He didn't respond with excuses, the way so many Trump cultists and Obama groupies do. His methods and goals were often unsavory, but Huey P. Long, delivered results. Not hope and change, not triggering the libs, but results in the form of concrete material benefits (roads, bridges, schools, literacy classes, voting rights, bank regulation, etc.) for the average frustrated Louisianan.
Long not only got things done, he got so much done, he transformed Louisiana in only a few years. For generations after his death, people named their children after Huey Long, and the Long name was enough to get a politician elected in Louisiana.
Not to mention, Long was a pacifist, helped negotiate peace in Latin America, and was for a ban on arms sales abroad. He was proud that the KKK had always endorsed his opponent (and an election in Louisiana in 1928 against a KKK endorsed opponent was like winning election against an AIPAC endorsed opponent right now.)
"And if that impetial bastard tries to set foot in Louisiana, he will leave with his toes turned up!"
"When I refer to [KKK leader] as a son of a bitch, I am not using profanity but I am referring to the circumstances of his birth!"
The EU is NOT outlawing Ivanka and Jared. This is Albania.
More to the point, Albanians are protesting a planned resort by the Dynamic Duo. The government, however, will obey orders.
burnie sanders????????really?????????? he is an important part of the con
Neoliberalism: "The freedom of the many is transformed into the freedom of the few."
Natural systems (the Biosphere):Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.
Living in complete disharmony with the success story before our eyes is a sure sign of insanity.
I hear you Vin and have a suggestion, one that those around me practice and have perfected - Pretend everything is fine, when that doesn't work, simply pretend harder. Insanity indeed.
Surrounded by this mentality as well. It ads to a deep loneliness I cannot sidestep
100% correct Kathy.
I used to be a good artist/now I can do NOTHING but read books. It is LONELY and nobody wants to talk about it.
The silence is deafening. Any criticism of the system is met with blank stares, rolling eyes and/ or vitriol barking.
Yes. The replies are always “focus on the positives and what we have”. Thats a sin to be lost in the luxury of indifference to the white majority
Pretend could be denial except it has a more conscious intent to it than the unconscious defense mechanism that is denial. Both are built out of fear. I've been struck by Jack Smith, Esq , Mamdani, Abdul El Sayed MD (Michigan), Massie (Kentucky) ,Kshama Sawant (Seattle), Rep Mark Kelly(AZ), Ro Khanna (CA) and Platner (Maine). All have faced intimidation. All have consciously publicly announced - "I am not intimidated." When I hear that, I hear" I choose not to be intimidated. " Please think psychologically. What conditions cultivate/nurture someone's capacity to declare - "I refuse to be intimidated!"? Can you be scared yet choose to refuse to be intimidated? What is needed to do that?
Love for something? With all your heart, soul, mind, body?
Perhaps because I understand its elegance at all levels from the molecular to the Complex Adaptive System of Systems, I love the Biosphere at the level and intensity you suggest. I pretend to be American, deny my humanity in that context if you like, but make no denial of my humanity as a member of that Biosphere.There is no way some grotesquely imperfect and inept political philosophy could possibly intimidate me by comparison.
SS, different individuals might feel the same level of fear, but where some succumb to paralysis, genuine leaders stand strong and face the challenge. I feel so grateful and humbled by their courage.
Sure thing. I suppose it's apopos of the 4th to engage in pretense in order to resonate with all the pretend hoopla we'll be experiencing.
Thus 250th celebration is beyond absurd. Pretend your way thru the day by ignoring the growing fascist state while the planet burns. Happy El Nino! Stay cool and hydrated.
100% agree dear Vinny.
After this extremely nasty heatwave the only things I watch is Nature.
Already the trees along the Rhone are losing their leaves...........there is NO new grass and the winds are ferocious.
My dog and cat KNOW this is not normal.
Nuclear Power stations being knocked out along the Rhone .......the water has gone and what there is left is too warm for cooling.
Unlike Hedges, I am not a student of neoliberalism, so I’m not sure I even know what it means. However, most definitions include advocacy of “free market competition” across borders and laissez faire capitalism, i.e., deregulation. But do we really have free markets when corporations, whether U.S. or multinational, are heavily subsidized by U.S. tax dollars? The U.S. has gone to war against and otherwise undermined foreign governments on more than one occasion on behalf of corporations. The Trump Administration’s attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of its president is but one example. When Trump talked about taking back “our oil,” he was referring to Chevron’s oil leases and operations, which Maduro had restricted. The U.S. overthrew the democratically-elected government of Guatemala in 1954 at least partly on behalf of United Fruit Company. And both Bush and Obama bailed out the banks at the expense of ordinary homeowners. This is hardly laissez faire capitalism, but corporate welfare on steroids. The merging of corporate and state interests has of course been called fascism, so it appears that the road towards fascism was paved decades if not centuries ago.
I am skeptical of labels because they mean different things to different people. For example, in a recent “news” article, the NYT referred to politicians and voters who oppose genocide as “far left,” “hard left,” and “extremists,” while calling those who had supported a genocide, “moderates.” (We never hear about right-wing Democrats — only moderates and “centrists”). Is there anything more extreme than a genocide? This is just one example of how our language has been corrupted.
It seems appropriate, though, to call what we have fascism. The Prairieland defendants, unpunished ICE murders and participation in a genocide are just a few of its manifestations. We’ve been trained for roles as consumers, not citizens. But giving up is not an option.
Well written, insightful, and yes, giving up is not an option.
Thanks, Michael.
Capitalism's main concern is individual profit and the result is environmental degradation, accumulation of whealth, explotation and instability, thought its benefit is technological advancement. Our other choice is Socialism based on collective ownership of the means of production to meet collective human needs which aims to guaratee basics like housing, health care and education for everybody. But without the profit motive or market prices, state-directed economies sometimes suffer from shortages and lack of innovation. Thus, my choice would be a mixed system like in Scandinavia with a free-market capitalist economy, highly competitive and with a massive socialist-style welfare state. We desperatly need to change our predatory ugly capitalist system before it is too late. We need to vote out of office our bribed politicians by the billionaires and latter, perhaps, we would be able to expropriate the bigest corporations and change them into democratic cooperatives. Mi opinion
I agree about a mixed system. I was in Denmark and Sweden in 2022. A man dropped his lap top on my head during the flight to Copenhagen while getting it out of the overhead bin. (He dropped it from several feet up — I was in an aisle seat). I was advised by the clerk when we checked into our hotel in Copenhagen to go to a hospital to make sure I was okay. She called a hospital exchange number, explained in Danish what had happened and I was advised to go immediately to the hospital. Within five minutes of arrival I was seen by a doctor and shortly afterward was cleared for release. The whole thing, including transportation to and from the hospital, took no more than half an hour. Had I been a citizen of the EU, everything would have been covered. As it was, the hospital was helpful in getting me the documents I needed to submit to my insurer. I was impressed with the efficiency of the system, e.g., how the hospital was expecting me when I arrived and how quickly I was seen by a doctor. Nonetheless, Scandinavia is not without its problems, needless to say. Coincidentally, on our way back to the states I sat next to a neurologist who worked at the same hospital. She told me that the Danish healthcare system was not without its problems and that I had been lucky. In Stockholm we were told that there were very long waiting lines for subsidized housing and that without subsidies, housing in the city was unaffordable for many, perhaps the majority. (Hedges mentioned in a recent report that he had lost respect for Sweden, but he didn’t say why). I was surprised that the country did not seem to do much when Greta Thunberg was detained and mistreated by Israel. I did like those countries, though. The word that came to mind when I was there was “civilized.” Denmark provides education to its immigrants, including instruction in Danish (learning Danish is required) and helps them find jobs. The immigrants and students we met in Copenhagen told us they loved the country but complained about how expensive the city is. And the feelings toward immigrants was becoming significantly less welcoming in both countries— we were told that and also read about it in the media. Both countries have wealth gaps too. I probably shouldn’t even be weighing in, since I haven’t lived in either country. But I liked how calm the people seemed as compared to the U.S.
Since the start of this millenium things have gone down for the whole world because of our wars and massive displacement of people emigrating to other countries, climate change and the usual swings of the capitalist system But I believe that even today Scandinavia is in better condition than us. I just have this conversation with aunty AI:
- In terms of affordable housing, health care and education which countries have the majority of the population satisfaction?
- Nordic nations like Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia (along with Japan for housing) have the highest citizen satisfaction. These countries consistently score highest globally in universal healthcare quality, top-tier educational outcomes, and overall standard of living.Gallup and OECD data show varying degrees of majority satisfaction across these sectors:Affordable Housing: A global affordability crisis has reduced majority satisfaction in many wealthy nations. However, Japan is a major outlier, as it is the only surveyed OECD country where the majority (over 70%) of the population is satisfied with the availability of good, affordable housing.Health Care: Countries with universal, publicly-funded healthcare routinely report high satisfaction. Norway, the Netherlands, and Australia rank highest, with fewer than 15% of lower-income residents reporting financial barriers to care.Education: Finland and the Netherlands frequently top global educational satisfaction lists due to equitable, highly-subsidized schooling models that prioritize student well-being and teacher quality. When I asked her about the communist countries, which is another alternative to our system, she rendered the following summary:
Summary Comparison
Country Housing Healthcare Satisfaction Education System
China High ownership. 70%–78% satisfied. Top global test scores
Vietnam Highly rated. High satisfaction. High literacy
Cuba Guaranteed. Medical supply shortages. 99% literacy rate
Have you seen Michael Moore's movie "Where to invade next" where he explores
the countries which are doing things better than us? I founded it at the public library.
Agree. And yes, I saw Moore’s film
shortly after it was released. What I remember most about it was envying the work hours in the featured countries. For some reason, I remember the coverage of the Italian families best, but I also seem to recall that Germany’s treatment of incarcerated people was much more humane than ours.
I think Hedges and others are correct to call out the corrosive and anti-democratic impacts of neoliberalism. And most of us have not seen neoliberalism for what it is because it is literally the water we have been swimming in since the 1970's. It's the environment that we take for granted and yet it has warped everything. IF you are a reader of books I would recommend "The Quiet Coup: neoliberalism and the Looting of America" by Mehrsa Baradaran.
Thank you. I made a note of the title and will look for the book. I remember when then-president Clinton talked about the “inevitability” (his word) of “globalization.” Of course he didn’t mention the many ways he facilitated it, e.g., with “free” trade deals and deregulation of the financial sector.
This is something that might tell you if you want to hear more from her. Here in this podcast is she in interviewed by Nick Hanauer and it's quite good. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pitchfork-economics-with-nick-hanauer/id1445901378?i=1000738228149
Just wanted you to know that I looked at the link and am going to order the book, most likely from the one surviving local bookstore in my neighborhood. In the meantime, I bought George Monbiot’s book on neoliberalism, which was also well-reviewed and was already on the shelf. I’ll reach back to Hedges’ Substack platform at some point to provide some feedback on the Monbiot book. Thanks again.
1. "Liberal apologists for neoliberalism, no longer concerned with economic justice, retreat into boutique activism. They mouth empty slogans about diversity and political correctness while pretending the relentless class war, unleashed globally since the 1970s, does not exist. The victims of neoliberal deindustrialization, 30 million of whom lost their jobs in the U.S. in mass layoffs, understand that the precarity of their existence does not concern their neoliberal masters."
This is why "vote Blue no matter who!" is not only a waste of time, but is counterproductive.
2. The United States has not been a democracy or a democratic republic or whatever for a long time now, if ever it was. Rather, the United States is an oligarchy featuring unlimited political bribery for the connected, along with vestigial trappings of democracy to keep the rubes well distracted.
The american oligarch is a sadistic psycho that will turn the state into a for-profit medium security prison and the americas into a gulag.
That is the arc I see, not the long arc of justice MLK talked about.
Yup. The arch of the universe does not bend towards justice, but towards power.
That sounds like the human arc, and is why humanity is currently facing potential extinction.
The universe itself continually changes and then restores balance. IOW, these fascists, including the billionaire class, are dooming their own children to the enormous horrors of climate catastrophe.
It breaks my heart but these are the facts. The scales have fallen from my eyes. 2016 was my awakening.
Human exceptionalism, the sustained myth that we are separate from the laws of nature. That we, through our technological abilities can solve any problem that confronts us. That we, are the masters and the universe is obligated to serve us, bend to our commands and kneel before us.
We are the global dominionists, carving up the planet to suit our petty desires.
The neoliberalists claim that there are no limits. Infinite abundance awaits us and technology will deliver the methods of discovery and extraction.
So, why is that we need warfare for the acquisition of natural resources when there are no limits? Seems as a reasonable enough question.
Because it's a lie. A bio-physical reality that has no solution under the neoliberal system. Sustained economic growth is a fallacy.
Nate Hagens on The Great Simplification describes it as the slurping sound as we draw down reserves. This little party of the Holocene is going to come to an end.
We've built a system that is destined for its own cannibalism. Willful ignorance is our guide.
Technology is only possible through the adherence and application of the scientific method.
However, when that identical system of understanding the natural world...the scientific method as in the earth sciences, lays bare the limits of this planet, those warnings are immediately disgarded by the neoliberal system.
Trump and his collection of like minded imbeciles have removed the monitoring systems of the atmosphere, the lithosphere, (land), hydrosphere and oceans in just over two years. It's full on neoliberal ideological pathology.
The liberal class clings to the falsehood of continued economic growth through the transition to renewable energy.
Unfortunately this is not possible.
The relative short lifetime of solar and wind components of ~ 20-30 years, the intensive mining required for their manufacture, the waste disposal of them as they expire, and the limits of elements, (those metals, metaloids and nonmetals found on the periodic table), on a finite planet, defines the expiration date of progress as we know it.
Fossil fuels and renewables are at the end of the day, more or less the equivalent of one another.
A material and energy dependant industrial global system is simply incompatible with the reality of natural laws. You can run with it for a while but like the neoliberal system, it's a short term love affair.
At 250 the blistering is all to evident.
Happy Birthday America 🇺🇸
There are millions of humans in the world, Indigenous peoples, who haven't succumbed to "exceptionalism." Who are aware of and show gratitude for the complex webs of local interconnected life that go all the way to the stars.
Human exceptionalism is nuts!
"A material and energy dependant industrial global system is simply incompatible with the reality of natural laws. You can run with it for a while but like the neoliberal system, it's a short term love affair." I'm not sure what is your point. The natural Law is that everything decays, our planet, our solar system have only an alloted time, thus, in my opinion renewable energy although finite too is the best choice if we want to move. What is your solution then?
Thermodynamics is the end game, entropy has the final say. We have plenty of time until the sun goes full red giant.
My point is that this current system with the demand it imposes for materials and energy to run life as we know it, simply exceeds available resources on the planet and natural systems cannot assimilate the waste generated. Our civililizational metabolism exceeds the natural order.
Additionally renewables are episodic in their outputs. An electrical grid requires a base electrical power potential to meet the demand imposed on it. Voltage drops fry equipment.
Materials for battery backup are simply not available.
A problem is an undesirable condition that has a solution.
A predicament does not have a solution in the present paradigm.
I don't have a solution because there is none in this space of global capitalism.
We're in what is called "overshoot ".
It may be rational for us to identify the reality that we're in and begin operating out an acknowledged, reality based world.
I was so excited in 2012-2013 because as a small electrical contractor I had fallen into what appeared to be the opportunity of a lifetime in solar. It was with the Department of Defense and the Obama Administration's goal to get the military to generate 30% of its electrical load via solar and wind.
My first project was at Ft. Meade in Maryland. 2 large solar arrays on 2 steel canopies that gave shade to waste water treatment pools.
Suddenly I became ill and was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer and then my connection, ( a steel erector), terminated their interest in working for the DOD. A separate issue altogether.
Another electrical contractor completed the Ft. Meade job.
But I was convinced that renewables were going to save the day. Eventually I came to understand the limits of renewables.
It was a bitter pill to accept what I came to discover. Reality is reality, whether I like it or not.
See Art Berman, Simon Michaux , Bill Rees and Nate Hagens for the limits of renewables.
Yes. Marlin. Entropy will cure all our problems eventually, but I continue to believe that renewal energy will save our day although not tomorrow. Since you like physics, following I'm quoting from the best book I have read on the subject : "Philosophy of Quantum Physics: Making Sense of What Doesn’t Make Sense (SCIENCE AND COSMOS)" by Boris Kriger where the author at the end of each chapter imagines a traveler of our time visiting the phylosophers of old.
"If Socrates Were Told About the Quantum Universe. When the traveler told Socrates that everything—matter, light, time, even causality—exists only as probability until observed, the old philosopher laughed his gentle, ironic laugh. “So,” he said, “you have proven what I always suspected: that certainty is the rarest illusion. You think you have uncovered the laws of the cosmos, but in truth, you have discovered the limits of your own knowing.” The traveler tried to explain wave functions, superpositions, entanglement, but Socrates raised his hand. “Enough. You speak of shadows that flicker before the light of being. Tell me rather, what good is this knowledge? Does it make men wiser, or only more astonished at their ignorance?” The traveler hesitated. “Perhaps both.” Socrates nodded approvingly. “Then it is worthy knowledge. For wisdom begins not in possession, but in wonder. You see, my friend, even your quantum gods obey the oldest law of all — that the more we learn, the more we know that we do not know.” He smiled. “So, nothing has changed. You have only made the mystery visible.”"
Well said!
Hedges is too much of a truth-teller for most people. Too blunt, too clear, too unforgiving of the neoliberals and their enablers. I have lived my adult life under neoliberalism, and I have watched its spread, how its language and values pervaded every aspect of society, and how it was touted as the only way to organize society. All along I knew it was garbage, but until I began reading Hedges 20 years ago, I didn't have the language to articulate what I was living through. I, too, am in a mournful mood on this 4th of July.
Your first sentence is spot on and mirrors my experiences over the past 20-plus years. Your last sentence - ditto. WTF?
Thanks, John Ressler. Indeed, WTF.
The "truth" may be hard to swallow, so consequently we avoid that pain/discomfort and choose to be lied to; those who tell the truth are cancelled and marginalized for their efforts. Chalmers Johnson asked the audience, at a lecture I attended here in Blutopia, given not long before his passing "What do you do when you receive new information?" These days I ask - what do we do when we refuse to listen/consider new information?
Neoliberalism or absolute freedom for capitalists to own and control productive assets including the labor of workers became the dominant ideology to conquer the restive working class whose real economic gains had reduced profits and increased economic equality during the 70s. Hence globalization and destruction of the industrial sector. The assault on unions meant smooth sailing for the ruling class which let things go too far in 2008. Now about 60 percent are in precarious economic straits. Capitalism has completely captured government. Everyone realizes how unstable the system has become so the right wing blames the left, naturally, and ramps up the fascist playbook, war, racism, denial of civil liberties, religious and social oppression, etc. Millions are fighting back! Don’t back down!
The slogan “Eat the rich” is taking on a lot more meaning these days!!! But I prefer the guillotine.
How about one econ and ecol correct? Recycle the rich: Soylent Green New Deal!
🎯🎯🎯
It is extremely frightening how quick we are barreling towards this despotic system that will eat everything in its way. The liberal class ignores it thinking once Trump is gone things will go back to “normal”. The far right is heavily armed and organized. Watching it unfold in real time is not something I ever imagined. I’m afraid it is damn near impossible to slow down this unraveling of civil society. To get enough people onboard for a General Strike almost seems like a pipe dream. Tech is now the opium of the masses. Everyone is now to addicted to screens. It is the modern day pacifier for both children and adults. The clock is ticking…
i've been wishing for people to wake up and "general strike!" in my country for years now. in italy, a neighboring country, at least 2 million people did. but did it help? right wing PM georgia meloni is now being challenged by a guy far, far worse than her.
yes, so many 'opiums' today keep people sedated, sedentary, i.e. unwilling, unable to get their behinds up and take [to] the streets ... i dont forgive those high up, for they know only too well what they do. their settler colonial, white supremacist mindset never changed - and the bloodshed CON_tinues ...
Excellent article. Thanks Chris Hedges!
Ok. I am not sure the trillionaires and super-billionaires are not fluffed up by printed money(I call it "play money") since there are now two opposing blocs in the world, depending upon which bloc that nation is in they can print money, or create credit such as cryptocurrency or whatever, and claim with big headllines that this trillionaire(Ok,Musk) or super-billionaire made this amount of money, or did this or is doing that.
What matters is that the average person has credit card debt, and that the system that they are in has a profit element, that is being paid for by that average person necessities.
Any "-ism" that goes too far, well goes too far. I think Ayn Rand preferred men compete in the marketplace instead of the battlefield. Unlike many super-rich religious pro-Rand Republicans she kept to her atheism. I am not advocating any particuler belief, and even athe"-ism" is an ideology - it's the human condition. As the Dirty Harry character says closing out the film Magnum Force(1973) "Man's got to know his limitations." The problem goes further than this, how can man/woman consistently be in harmony with nature like the rest of the animal kingdom over generations and eras? This is the essential question. The way man works, when one looks at the direction of say the music of Claude Debussy composing for nature instead of the universe, is that an improvement or detriment? Are we stuck with having to have -some sort of- irrational belief system(an "-ism")? Is the rest of the animal kingdom laughing at us?
Neoliberalism, as you say, was cunning. The two-party system that has been for over 200 years, much to the chagrin of the framers of the constitution, had always been a problem but since we ruled over the western hemisphere since the creation of the Monroe Doctrine nobody seemed to notice. As Jesse "the mind" Ventura said the reason early on for the two-party system was reasonable it was because people had to ride on horseback to deliver the message of what that jurisdiction or state had voted for to either that state's capital or the nation's capital. It was great when Jesse Ventura won the governor's race in MInnesota back in 1998 but I knew right then and there that the main reason he won is that he got lucky that the deep state didn't catch him in time(I mean who would ever have though that a WWF wrestler could outsmart a couple of other well-schooled politicians) and thus he wasn't going to last more than one term. When he won, I immediately went to his website, in which the internet was still in very early days, and it was extraordinarily well-organized.
Theodore Roosevelt, despite his political success, couldn't win on a third-party platform; Ross Perot got 19% of the vote in 1992 but zero electoral votes, Wallace(no matter what any may think of him) in 1968 did get 70 electoral votes.
But this may be changing, the recent NYC mayoral election was an excellent indication. The powers that be allowed for three candidates to run and whoever got the most votes would have been acceptable to the powers that be(or Chomsky's term"the masters of mankind) unlike, say, with the 2016 democratic primaries in which Bernie Sanders won over Hillary Clinton but it wasn't allowed by these same-ilked "masters of mankind." Now Tucker Carlson has left the Republican Party and wants to form a new third party. This is excellent. I think he could succeed here where Theodore Roosevelt could not. I am not an american firster. I was taught in grade school, that me first is frowned upon. Another analogy is the Seinfeld episode titled Fire in which George Costanza yells fire in front of a whole bunch of kindergardeners but he's the one who gets out of the building first. Maybe America First does not have this in their design, but the human condition will certainly - sooner or later - bring it there.
This is what the humans have to watch out for!
Read the MMT advocates on govt. fiat money like Stephanie Kelton and L. Randall Wray. Also highly recommend Steve Keen on alt. economics based on accting principles--govt spending, (debit) like say on a highway, is also income (credit) to a construction company and to workers, who spend locally. The view of Keynesians and New Dealers set aside by neolib Ds. Keen also points how banks create money out of nothing through loans. Thus consumer debt is the tell on econ system health. Yet that's ignored by the dominant neoclassical economists and their political neolib allies.
Not difficult to understand with a little work; this blue collar worker for 28 years learned. Okay, it took me 2 years, but worth it. Besides, the authors I cited are pretty much in actual English, not EconSpeak.
Years of Zionist controlled main-stream media brainwashing has created a numb passive society, opened the doors of the religious right-winged fascists, and perpetuated the American and Western European capitalist war economy. Chris Hedges is spot on when he says Americans have two choices: "tyranny or revolution". Meanwhile the Chinese are laughing at the West all the way to global economic domination. This is the cruel reality in one paragraph. Europeans understand this but are helpless because their governments bend their knees to USA. When will Americans (AND Canadians to a large degree) wake up and give up believing in their fairy-tail democracy?
Chris. Your truth IS true and it’s time for our leaders to be taken down! We “the people” must forget all the old BS and songs like “America the Beautiful” and face the fact that it is not! Our country is taken over by fascism and trumpers who want us gone.
Linda
Excellent article. Once again you nailed it!