The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with Mickey Huff & Nolan Higden about the dangerous bifurcation of the United States into antagonistic tribes that can no longer communicate
The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with Mickey Huff & Nolan Higden about the dangerous bifurcation of the United States into antagonistic tribes that can no longer communicate
The lack of job security most Americans experience has certainly contributed to the absence of political dialogue in daily life, I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned. When you spend the majority of your waking and productive hours with coworkers, work is a natural place to engage in political conversation. However, when the job is tenuous and you live a couple paychecks away from the street, how could you risk holding an unpopular opinion or showing open disagreement?
From my own workplace experiences there also frequently exists in management a sick obsession with obedience. I encountered it at the dead-end jobs I’ve worked and I’ve encountered it as a pilot – a discipline where blind obedience directly contradicts the principles of safety and ethics. When you choose integrity in these environments the consequence is siloing, harassment, and removal (if you don’t remove yourself first). When jobs are scarce and job security is nonexistent, those work environments turn the coworker who could otherwise be your ally into an informant and an enemy. The exchange of political ideas cannot take place where disagreement is actively punished, and if your choice is between disagreeing or keeping a roof over your head you don’t actually have a choice. It’s coercion.
To contrast this, the environment I now work in has a culture of open and active criticism. Everyone is always being criticized, all the time, tactfully or through a stream of obscenity. None of it is personal and most of it is entertaining. Ostensibly this activity is widely encouraged to increase safety, and certainly if you let people voice their opinions they will do so enthusiastically.
The side effect of this openness and willingness to piss each other off has been a vigorous and honest political exchange. One of the few places I’ve ever encountered it.
Most of us are not unionized, and we all lose our jobs anyway when the rains come in October, so job security isn’t really part of the calculation (union activity would benefit us in other ways). For other workplaces the security and solidarity afforded by a union could be the difference between a barren, oppressive and antisocial environment and one where a political dialogue can flourish. Seems like a strong remedy for polarization, actually. I wonder why unions are not more common...
Thank you Chris for this excellent interview. The news is so biased I have gone from skeptical to cynical ; but to hear such clear analysis and understanding about media history todays sad state gives one hope (at least a glimmer)
I live abroad, OJ. I live in S. America and have for ten years and in Central America and MX for another three, not to mention two years in Europe.
Fascism is cured by reading and racism is cured by traveling.
STEM education is what has turned Americans into illiterates, among other causes.
This is not reflection on you, but as a philosophy teacher, K-12 teacher for 25 years I see that most people go to school not to learn how to live, but to learn how to make a living.
And this is why humanities is under constant attack and defunding.
Critical thinking is not genetic, it is not something handed down in testaments or wills: it is learned.
America is an anti-intellectual culture and has been for multiple decades.
Thus, thinking is subversive and one is not rewarded for thinking critically unless it is to teach someone how to make a better widget.
This is why I left America ten years ago.
I am 70 years old so was able to get out.
At least get out of America.
Getting out of exploitation, sexism, classism and racism, to name a few, requires active collaboration and the development of a questioning mind. For it is the foundation for all progressive thinking.
If we do not, and I say we, for the problem exists everywhere, do not find a strategy for organizing and educating, then autocracy and fascism will rule the day.
The problem is that thinking is hard work which is why so many would rather contract it out to others than attempt to do it themselves.
Here, in South America, as bad as things are, there is more class consciousness than in America.
That is why my hope and work is here.
But yes, critical thinking is a field within philosophy and of course we are all critical and non-critical to some extent.
The issue is developing critical thinking in all endeavors, not just politics.
It is not the messengers who are important in this discussion for me. What is important is the descriptions of what is wrong as well as having an ideology and n a attempt at finding solutions to some of the most effective roadblocks to our ability to actually be able to think critically about where we are and the actual consequences of our continuing to be bamboozled by media. Nothing changes if nothing changes! Its a place in which to find hope and in our current situation there has been very little if any to drive the actions for that change.
At this point, we need to give up on democracy. It is a joke. The day and age of the nation-state is over....time to recognize that and move on. Do I have an alternative, no. Any "ism" out there has the problem with the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" such that the little man is always pissed on. Don't believe me? Look at Cuba...sure...great health care but the leaders in the government live A LOT better than the common folks. Human selfishness and greed is the same everywhere. At this point maybe anarchy is something worth checking out?
“We are staring down at the corpse of the American Dream, tied like a trophy hunter’s kill to the roof of our new electric vehicles (leased, never owned!), unaware that what we are looking at is our own future. Efforts to present this atrocity as either “new” or “normal” have been found wanting over the past year, and it seems all but impossible that that element of the New Normal will be achieved – but humans are adaptable creatures, and we can con ourselves into pretty much anything.”
As to Americans and class consciousness. The US ruling class understands well the class struggle and they surely do have the class consciousness for their class.
For the average American, if If I can be general, are like birds born in cages.
You have seen a lot. I hope your health is well and do wish you all the best.
We seem to be caught in that interregnum.
You will enjoy this very, very much.
I learned quite a bit from it.
Double podcast episode about Mildred Fish-Harnack, the US-born woman at the centre of the underground resistance to Nazism in Berlin during World War II. In conversation with Rebecca Donner, Mildred’s great-grandniece and author of All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days.
Maurice Frederick Strong, PC, CC, OM, FRSC, FRAIC (April 29, 1929 – November 27, 2015) was a Canadian oil and mineral businessman and a diplomat who served as Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Strong)
We are dealing with psychopaths on both sides of the crumbling aisle.
I'm sorry to have to say this, but I concluded the guests were so isolated in their ivory tower that I didn't hear anything from them that I could actually use in my life. I found the talk to be wall-to-wall concepts, without anything that touched the real world. Perhaps that's what academic life does to you..
The lack of job security most Americans experience has certainly contributed to the absence of political dialogue in daily life, I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned. When you spend the majority of your waking and productive hours with coworkers, work is a natural place to engage in political conversation. However, when the job is tenuous and you live a couple paychecks away from the street, how could you risk holding an unpopular opinion or showing open disagreement?
From my own workplace experiences there also frequently exists in management a sick obsession with obedience. I encountered it at the dead-end jobs I’ve worked and I’ve encountered it as a pilot – a discipline where blind obedience directly contradicts the principles of safety and ethics. When you choose integrity in these environments the consequence is siloing, harassment, and removal (if you don’t remove yourself first). When jobs are scarce and job security is nonexistent, those work environments turn the coworker who could otherwise be your ally into an informant and an enemy. The exchange of political ideas cannot take place where disagreement is actively punished, and if your choice is between disagreeing or keeping a roof over your head you don’t actually have a choice. It’s coercion.
To contrast this, the environment I now work in has a culture of open and active criticism. Everyone is always being criticized, all the time, tactfully or through a stream of obscenity. None of it is personal and most of it is entertaining. Ostensibly this activity is widely encouraged to increase safety, and certainly if you let people voice their opinions they will do so enthusiastically.
The side effect of this openness and willingness to piss each other off has been a vigorous and honest political exchange. One of the few places I’ve ever encountered it.
Most of us are not unionized, and we all lose our jobs anyway when the rains come in October, so job security isn’t really part of the calculation (union activity would benefit us in other ways). For other workplaces the security and solidarity afforded by a union could be the difference between a barren, oppressive and antisocial environment and one where a political dialogue can flourish. Seems like a strong remedy for polarization, actually. I wonder why unions are not more common...
As a former war correspondent , Chris why is there a virtual black out of coverage on the war in Yemen. Is it a Sunni Shite issue?
Thank you Chris for this excellent interview. The news is so biased I have gone from skeptical to cynical ; but to hear such clear analysis and understanding about media history todays sad state gives one hope (at least a glimmer)
Jimmy Dore must be exempt. It is surprising what speech he gets away with!
I live abroad, OJ. I live in S. America and have for ten years and in Central America and MX for another three, not to mention two years in Europe.
Fascism is cured by reading and racism is cured by traveling.
STEM education is what has turned Americans into illiterates, among other causes.
This is not reflection on you, but as a philosophy teacher, K-12 teacher for 25 years I see that most people go to school not to learn how to live, but to learn how to make a living.
And this is why humanities is under constant attack and defunding.
Critical thinking is not genetic, it is not something handed down in testaments or wills: it is learned.
America is an anti-intellectual culture and has been for multiple decades.
Thus, thinking is subversive and one is not rewarded for thinking critically unless it is to teach someone how to make a better widget.
This is why I left America ten years ago.
I am 70 years old so was able to get out.
At least get out of America.
Getting out of exploitation, sexism, classism and racism, to name a few, requires active collaboration and the development of a questioning mind. For it is the foundation for all progressive thinking.
If we do not, and I say we, for the problem exists everywhere, do not find a strategy for organizing and educating, then autocracy and fascism will rule the day.
The problem is that thinking is hard work which is why so many would rather contract it out to others than attempt to do it themselves.
Here, in South America, as bad as things are, there is more class consciousness than in America.
That is why my hope and work is here.
But yes, critical thinking is a field within philosophy and of course we are all critical and non-critical to some extent.
The issue is developing critical thinking in all endeavors, not just politics.
Thanks a lot !!!
FYI - a great interview with Rumble CEO on TC Today: "The Rise of Rumble"
It is not the messengers who are important in this discussion for me. What is important is the descriptions of what is wrong as well as having an ideology and n a attempt at finding solutions to some of the most effective roadblocks to our ability to actually be able to think critically about where we are and the actual consequences of our continuing to be bamboozled by media. Nothing changes if nothing changes! Its a place in which to find hope and in our current situation there has been very little if any to drive the actions for that change.
At this point, we need to give up on democracy. It is a joke. The day and age of the nation-state is over....time to recognize that and move on. Do I have an alternative, no. Any "ism" out there has the problem with the "Iron Law of Oligarchy" such that the little man is always pissed on. Don't believe me? Look at Cuba...sure...great health care but the leaders in the government live A LOT better than the common folks. Human selfishness and greed is the same everywhere. At this point maybe anarchy is something worth checking out?
We are seeing mass psychosis in the US. The system is driving people literally crazy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09maaUaRT4M
I think the following quote captures most of it:
“We are staring down at the corpse of the American Dream, tied like a trophy hunter’s kill to the roof of our new electric vehicles (leased, never owned!), unaware that what we are looking at is our own future. Efforts to present this atrocity as either “new” or “normal” have been found wanting over the past year, and it seems all but impossible that that element of the New Normal will be achieved – but humans are adaptable creatures, and we can con ourselves into pretty much anything.”
blob:https://www.facebook.com/98e8b464-6c34-43ef-a51b-3c847be281e0
As to Americans and class consciousness. The US ruling class understands well the class struggle and they surely do have the class consciousness for their class.
For the average American, if If I can be general, are like birds born in cages.
They think flying is an illness.
Thanks for your reply and sharing your life.
https://censorednews.substack.com/p/biden-admin-told-facebook-to-censor
BRAVO “Censored News” – for using correct term for a photo of Biden's Digital Director Rob Flaherty:
“ This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a modern fascist looks like: Rob Flaherty. “
You have seen a lot. I hope your health is well and do wish you all the best.
We seem to be caught in that interregnum.
You will enjoy this very, very much.
I learned quite a bit from it.
Double podcast episode about Mildred Fish-Harnack, the US-born woman at the centre of the underground resistance to Nazism in Berlin during World War II. In conversation with Rebecca Donner, Mildred’s great-grandniece and author of All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days.
https://workingclasshistory.com/podcast/e63-64-mildred-fish-harnack/
This is the most recent siting of this quote.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/288636-we-are-grateful-to-the-washington-post-the-new-york
Ron Paul in September of this year asked where the quote came from.
This is not the first time I have heard this quote and when laid side by side with Rockefeller and his families agenda, it appears to me to be valid.
This is another quote that expresses a similar idea.
“In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority.
National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.”
-----Strobe Talbott President Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State, as quoted in Time, July 20th, l992.
Talbott was CFR, Council on Foreign Relations and this of course was spawned by the Rockefeller family.
But it gets worse:
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
Maurice Strong, Opening Speech to UN Rio Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro, 1992, accessed in http://www.infowars.com/maurice-strong-in-1972-isnt-it-our-responsibility-to-collapse-industrial-societies/
Maurice Frederick Strong, PC, CC, OM, FRSC, FRAIC (April 29, 1929 – November 27, 2015) was a Canadian oil and mineral businessman and a diplomat who served as Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Strong)
We are dealing with psychopaths on both sides of the crumbling aisle.
I wish the guests had acknowledged that their analysis of cable news is precisely that of Matt Taibbi. They just parrot what he says in Hate Inc.
I'm sorry to have to say this, but I concluded the guests were so isolated in their ivory tower that I didn't hear anything from them that I could actually use in my life. I found the talk to be wall-to-wall concepts, without anything that touched the real world. Perhaps that's what academic life does to you..