The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with Professor Norman Finkelstein on how woke culture and identity politics are used to perpetuate the class warfare waged by corporations and ruling oligarchs.
The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with Professor Norman Finkelstein on how woke culture and identity politics are used to perpetuate the class warfare waged by corporations and ruling oligarchs.
Norman Finkelstein is one of my heroes. In 2018 Brattleboro Common Sense sponsored his talk with Lakota Elder Alex White Plume on genocide in Gaza and on the reservation. He is a true example of a righteous man.
It’s comedy that these trans activists and anarchy punks think they are ‘radical’ but actually are the ‘shock troops’ like the nazis. This is a class war. Trans activists and antifa are doing the bidding of the wealthy elites.
Now that the Soviet Union is gone, and People Of Influence And Authority no longer have to toss the masses a bone or two, they would much prefer that we dissipate our energy on dreary arguments about cultural appropriation and how many LGTBQXYZPDQ can dance on the head of a pin, endless and endlessly performative struggle sessions, rather than raise questions about how the economic pie is sliced.
Put another way - to paraphrase Chris Hedges - elites will gladly discuss race, they will decry gender inequality most piteously, they will demonstrate a touching sensitivity to the rights of sexual and gender minorities so oppressed that they have not been discovered yet. Those same elites will not readily discuss economic class.
Or, in the negative formulation - if businesses were to stop opposing unionization of their workers, the result would be a transfer of wealth, of concrete material benefits, to brown and black and yellow and tabby and white working class cats and people greater than all the allyship statements ever penned, all the diversity committees ever instituted, all the preferred pronoun tags ever attached to a corporate email. Which is precisely why they will not do this.
Antifa is typically a bunch of feds looking to lure disgruntled white upper middle class youth who watch porn hub into some kind of mishigos that they will regret for the rest of their lives. 'shock troops' are legions msdnc shit liberals who watch the view, adderall jacked trans activists who deluge some poor woman who runs a waxing shop who won't wax some guys, who 'identifies as a woman' genitials, or the people who campaign to shut down a battered womens shelter because they won't allow men who identifiy as women into a safe space for battered women and girls.....etc....
I was disappointed the interview didn't go longer. I don't often hear Professor Finkelstein and it was enlightening to listen to him. I hope he is featured again.
Well thought out perspective from Norman. I remember when Obama got elected with his "hope and change" talking point propaganda. His election speech gave me a tear in my eye. I thought it wasn't long ago that black men weren't even welcomed in the White house through the front door. He made a quick change and didn't even let the left whether black or white in the backdoor! Almost immediately his spokesman said something like "the professional left will never be satisfied". Meaning people like Jesse Jackson or others who fought for civil rights in the sixties. He surrounded himself with Wall Street cohorts and War pigs like Hillary a Goldwater Girl in her youth and Rahm Emanuel etc.. But I didn't know about Jeffery Goldberg or as Obama calls him "Jeff". I will get the book and learn more about this war criminal and Zionist apologist. Now we have old Joe the Dixie Crat surrounded by the same like minded Russophobe cohorts and unquestioning supporters of Israel like blinkety Blinken and Victoria Neuland. Bernie was thrown under the bus twice by the same Neo Liberal power elite liars with the help of another black politician from the south Jim Clyburn. What a joke!
P.S. Chris I just read Linda McQuaig's book The Sport and Prey of Capitalists. How the rich are stealing Canada's public wealth. It gives example after example in a historical roadmap of the Robber Baron greed and lies that attack socialism in both the USA and Canada. From low cost drugs the development of Insulin, serums that saved children and thousands of WW1 soldiers, along with publicly owned hydro generation and a national railway and how government subsidy is flushed down Orwell's memory hole by the rich!
The discovery of Insulin by Dr. Banting and Best was funded through the University of Toronto and Connaught labs. Which first came about by the genius of Dr. John Gerald Fitzpatrick in 1913 to produce a low cost serum in a barn and harvesting blood with immunity from a horse to treat diphtheria a child hood killer. A medication in the 1890's could treat it but was made in New York and no average family could afford the $80 for it. If a family was infected it would kill all of the children one by one. Some families could only afford the medicine for one and had to chose which one would live. In 1913-14 his plan was to develop it and give it free to any Canadian who needed it along with a public health system. The lab also developed a low cost serum to treat tetanus and lock jaw in WW1, producing 250,000 vials of tetanus antitoxin saving untold thousands of soldiers. Banting in 1920 had a simple idea based on developing ingredients that could be extracted from the pancreas of dogs. By 1921 they were successful but James Collip tried to take out his own patent which led Banting to punching him out. Calmer heads took over and it was agreed no patent would be taken out and Banting sold it to the world for $1. The world couldn't believe it as this disease had confounded doctors for thousands of years. Connaught worked closely with Eli Lily to ensure large scale insulin production. In 1924 the Rockefeller foundation gave $650,000 to pay for the construction of Connaught, they also did pioneering work on a synthetic polio vaccine and the "rockers" invented by Leon Farrell a female scientist, it was later called the "Toronto Method". Which led to a massive polio vaccine trial involving more than a million children. They also played a large role in eradicating smallpox around the world. Sadly Connaught was later privatized by Mulroney and sold off to Sanofi in 1985 by the Mulroney conservative government.
I could not agree more with Prof. Finkelstein. Like Chris, he is genuine hero with the moral courage to take on bloodthirsty monsters here and abroad.
The thing I try to remember about the far left and far right groups, like antifa and proud boys, etc, is that they are all well infiltrated and managed by federal law enforcement.
Norman Finkelstein is one of my heroes. In 2018 Brattleboro Common Sense sponsored his talk with Lakota Elder Alex White Plume on genocide in Gaza and on the reservation. He is a true example of a righteous man.
It’s comedy that these trans activists and anarchy punks think they are ‘radical’ but actually are the ‘shock troops’ like the nazis. This is a class war. Trans activists and antifa are doing the bidding of the wealthy elites.
Now that the Soviet Union is gone, and People Of Influence And Authority no longer have to toss the masses a bone or two, they would much prefer that we dissipate our energy on dreary arguments about cultural appropriation and how many LGTBQXYZPDQ can dance on the head of a pin, endless and endlessly performative struggle sessions, rather than raise questions about how the economic pie is sliced.
Put another way - to paraphrase Chris Hedges - elites will gladly discuss race, they will decry gender inequality most piteously, they will demonstrate a touching sensitivity to the rights of sexual and gender minorities so oppressed that they have not been discovered yet. Those same elites will not readily discuss economic class.
Or, in the negative formulation - if businesses were to stop opposing unionization of their workers, the result would be a transfer of wealth, of concrete material benefits, to brown and black and yellow and tabby and white working class cats and people greater than all the allyship statements ever penned, all the diversity committees ever instituted, all the preferred pronoun tags ever attached to a corporate email. Which is precisely why they will not do this.
The system is theirs not ours....how much longer is: up to us
what is the antifa? how do u define a shock troop?
Antifa is typically a bunch of feds looking to lure disgruntled white upper middle class youth who watch porn hub into some kind of mishigos that they will regret for the rest of their lives. 'shock troops' are legions msdnc shit liberals who watch the view, adderall jacked trans activists who deluge some poor woman who runs a waxing shop who won't wax some guys, who 'identifies as a woman' genitials, or the people who campaign to shut down a battered womens shelter because they won't allow men who identifiy as women into a safe space for battered women and girls.....etc....
Interesting. Yep, fake big issues to take the place of making plans for social uplift.
All trans activists?
I was disappointed the interview didn't go longer. I don't often hear Professor Finkelstein and it was enlightening to listen to him. I hope he is featured again.
Well thought out perspective from Norman. I remember when Obama got elected with his "hope and change" talking point propaganda. His election speech gave me a tear in my eye. I thought it wasn't long ago that black men weren't even welcomed in the White house through the front door. He made a quick change and didn't even let the left whether black or white in the backdoor! Almost immediately his spokesman said something like "the professional left will never be satisfied". Meaning people like Jesse Jackson or others who fought for civil rights in the sixties. He surrounded himself with Wall Street cohorts and War pigs like Hillary a Goldwater Girl in her youth and Rahm Emanuel etc.. But I didn't know about Jeffery Goldberg or as Obama calls him "Jeff". I will get the book and learn more about this war criminal and Zionist apologist. Now we have old Joe the Dixie Crat surrounded by the same like minded Russophobe cohorts and unquestioning supporters of Israel like blinkety Blinken and Victoria Neuland. Bernie was thrown under the bus twice by the same Neo Liberal power elite liars with the help of another black politician from the south Jim Clyburn. What a joke!
P.S. Chris I just read Linda McQuaig's book The Sport and Prey of Capitalists. How the rich are stealing Canada's public wealth. It gives example after example in a historical roadmap of the Robber Baron greed and lies that attack socialism in both the USA and Canada. From low cost drugs the development of Insulin, serums that saved children and thousands of WW1 soldiers, along with publicly owned hydro generation and a national railway and how government subsidy is flushed down Orwell's memory hole by the rich!
Wait, what does low price insulin have to do with it?
The discovery of Insulin by Dr. Banting and Best was funded through the University of Toronto and Connaught labs. Which first came about by the genius of Dr. John Gerald Fitzpatrick in 1913 to produce a low cost serum in a barn and harvesting blood with immunity from a horse to treat diphtheria a child hood killer. A medication in the 1890's could treat it but was made in New York and no average family could afford the $80 for it. If a family was infected it would kill all of the children one by one. Some families could only afford the medicine for one and had to chose which one would live. In 1913-14 his plan was to develop it and give it free to any Canadian who needed it along with a public health system. The lab also developed a low cost serum to treat tetanus and lock jaw in WW1, producing 250,000 vials of tetanus antitoxin saving untold thousands of soldiers. Banting in 1920 had a simple idea based on developing ingredients that could be extracted from the pancreas of dogs. By 1921 they were successful but James Collip tried to take out his own patent which led Banting to punching him out. Calmer heads took over and it was agreed no patent would be taken out and Banting sold it to the world for $1. The world couldn't believe it as this disease had confounded doctors for thousands of years. Connaught worked closely with Eli Lily to ensure large scale insulin production. In 1924 the Rockefeller foundation gave $650,000 to pay for the construction of Connaught, they also did pioneering work on a synthetic polio vaccine and the "rockers" invented by Leon Farrell a female scientist, it was later called the "Toronto Method". Which led to a massive polio vaccine trial involving more than a million children. They also played a large role in eradicating smallpox around the world. Sadly Connaught was later privatized by Mulroney and sold off to Sanofi in 1985 by the Mulroney conservative government.
P.S. the horses name was "Crestfallen" all this and more are in Linda McQuaig's book. She would be a great interview Chris!
Class struggle is important, incredibly so, and so is defending the rights of oppressed groups. It's not either or.
I could not agree more with Prof. Finkelstein. Like Chris, he is genuine hero with the moral courage to take on bloodthirsty monsters here and abroad.
The thing I try to remember about the far left and far right groups, like antifa and proud boys, etc, is that they are all well infiltrated and managed by federal law enforcement.
Why do the interviews so short? You barely scratch the surface of someone’s views in such a short time.