The Chris Hedges Report with Les Leopold on how corporations and the billionaire class have made war on workers, subverted our democracy and created the conditions for a Christian fascist state.
The Chris Hedges Report with Les Leopold on how corporations and the billionaire class have made war on workers, subverted our democracy and created the conditions for a Christian fascist state.
The country’s major corporations, seeking to crush union organization, have filed legal papers to shut down the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the federal agency that enforces labor rights and oversees unionization efforts. Elon Musk’s SpaceX as well as Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s have targeted the NLRB after it accused Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s of breaking the law in battling against unionization and accused SpaceX of illegally firing eight workers for criticizing Musk.
The good news is that when these sociopathic mammon chasing monsters are done with the rest of us, they will turn on each other until the proverbial one with the most “toys” wins. The only possibility to stop them is a massive nation wide general strike. But then since they own the government lock stock and barrel they will just bail themselves out with printing endless money which is another form of taxation on the rest of us, so refusing to pay taxes is likely a meaningless gesture. As George Carlin so eloquently put it (paraphrased): They’ve got you by the balls, and they want it all and they will get it in the end. Meanwhile we are all getting it in the end in a different fashion. Just another day in the USA.
I urge everyone to read Les Leopold's //Wall Street's War On Workers//!!!
I was a blue collar union member and labor activist for 25+ years. I also managed local D political campaigns when the party still relied on volunteers. I fought the usurpation of the party by neolibs who ditched the New Deal and abandoned the majority, the working class. Among the preface blurbs to the book is one by Robert Kuttner: "(Leopold) explains the dynamics of mass layoffs and the reality that the white working class did not desert the Democrats--the Democrats deserted them." Which I can attest to from bitter first hand experience. I've witnessed how job loss becomes those deaths of despair. Of course testimony by me and others like me are often dismissed as anecdotal. But Leopold presents the detailed stats that make our case.
Kuttner says "Leopold also offers ingenious and practical solutions to take back our politics from the plutocracy." Exactly. My Wobbly heart rages about the econopathy. I've researched the economic theories of the Austrian and Chicago schools now dominating the system and I know there is little real logic involved; it's a belief system, a cult really. But that won't help suffering people who need help to survive right now. A winning campaign must focus on a few clear objectives--and Leopold has them.
The weaponization of the federal judiciary as a lever to dismantle the administrative state is bad enough. It also coincides, however, with a right wing strategy to take over the courts and degrade fundamental rights from the right to bodily autonomy to even voting rights. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/judges-v-democracy
Thanks Chris and Les. The billionaire class must be dismantled, offshore tax haven bank accounts seized and Wall St Corporate Raiders Frog Marched to prison! Julian Benda's description "The Treason of the Intellectuals" describes both party leaders, MSM rhetoric machines and "experts" like Morning Joe and his guests. Reagan's and Thatcher's removing of the guard rails of Capitalism and Clinton, Tony Blair and Obama's doubling down and sellout of the working class are quite comfortable with a fascist Oligarchy. They forget FDR's warning when his New Deal legislation was introduced and rammed through, its this or the pitch forks for you Robber Barons. All the rules and regulations were brought in after decades of Violent Unionism, fighting Private Corporate armies directed and controlled by Megalomaniacs like Rockefeller, Morgan, Ford, Melon, Carnegie amongst others! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING was gained by respectful negotiations. For at taste read any Upton Sinclair book, Ida Tarbell two of an army of Muck Rakers like Chris and Les. His book "The Jungle" describes the Chicago Slaughter House Industry or "King Coal" describing the dystopian company towns. Tarbell exposed the Rockefeller Standard Oil Monopoly! Bloody Ludlow should be a well known example of brutal capitalism. Eastern Europeans lured to Minnesota, paid in company scrip, only good in company stores. Where they even had to buy there own helmets, wicks and oil. Who paid rent on a piece of land that they were told to build their own shack on. Their first brutally put down strike demand was an honest weigh scale for the coal they dug. They weren't paid anything for shoring up the mines, only for the tonnage they dug, one piece of stone cancelled payment for it all. Ayn Rand and her Atlas supermen are destroying the world!
Corporations are a sham for workers. The profit seeking motive makes them psychopathic. So to find more workers to exploit, they must adopt a human face (and possibly outpay some workers more than competitors to compensate).
Because of their true corporate values and necessary two facedness, the people you see in a corporation show increasing levels of this same pathology the higher you climb in the bureaucracy. And then Forbes or whatever mainstream rag acts surprised that people hate their jobs.
It's interesting to note some founding fathers wondered if corporations would impose a greater tyranny than the Bank of England or the British monarchy.
Yes indeed. And these same corporations embrace DEI and wokeness, because it doesn't actually cost them anything. The DEI/Woke virtue signaling is a mask to hide their rapacity. In a hunger games "meritocracy" (whatever that means) the people running the show don't really mind if there are different colors and sexual orientations etc. mixed in at the top. As long as the 90% at the bottom obey. Increasing surveillance is being put in place to make sure that the plebes really do behave and that dissent is not permitted.
LOL. It is fascinating how educated people on the left of everything attempt to swim in deep end of the facts and knowledge pool while still clutching their ideological comfort side of the shallow end.
To connect the Democrat Wall Street-powered globalist corporatocracy to the fake threat of Christian Nationalism... well it is the definition of ideological programmed cognitive dissonance.
There is no threat of Christian Nationalism. Or said another way, the thing that liberals today define as Christian Nationalism is just traditional Americanism... you know, all those baked in core Judea-Christian and strong family values that made America great to begin with.
However, you got the first part right. We are fighting WWIII with those that want to enslave the global population in a global collectivist nightmare. The billionaire boys club and their Wall Street money power and behind it... to generate greater returns for their bank accounts. And it requires that the American working class be made dependent on Universal Basic Income.
Unions are not the solution though. They are just part of the collectivist agenda to reduce economic opportunity for the masses to benefit a smaller cohort at the administrative top.
“Frank Lee” complains of cognitive dissonance while somehow connecting a “global collectivist nightmare” with the intentions of billionaires. What do the billionaires care what the population does so long as they are open to routine advertising persuasion? She says that”There is no threat of Christian Nationalism. Or said another way, the thing that liberals today define as Christian Nationalism is just traditional Americanism... you know, all those baked in core Judea-Christian and strong family values that made America great to begin with.” Jesus was not a nationalist. His “render unto Caesar” teaching clearly distinguishes between the needs of the state and the duty towards God, and may be an attack on the use of what was the equivalent of the dollar at that time. In America now, money has political status as free speech. And someone is offering America all the kingdoms of the world if they will just bow do and worship him.
Subtitle:"... how corporations and the billionaire class have made war on workers, subverted our democracy and created the conditions for a Christian fascist state"...
Hedges is being unnecessarily and deliberately divisive here! ... Hedges is - among other things, a professional story-teller ... he knows it is imperative to create an enemy and to "write against" that same enemy to keep us emotionally vested in his work ... Substack reports that his subscriber base here has grown from 60k to 88k since the OCT 7 attacks ... and my instincts are being proven right, nothing good can come from this type of disingenuous story-telling ... the premise of Hedges' primary line of argument is intellectual dishonest - and he knows it!
Ever notice? ... Hedges will always single-out the corporations and the billionaire class, but never even mention the "globalist" movement, let alone mention their leaders by name ... he is deliberately deflecting our attention away from those people behind UN Agenda 21 aka The Great Reset and placing the blame squarely on the Christian right, Trump and MAGA ...
The Christian right DID NOT orchestrate the COVID lock downs; the Christian right did not impose the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports; the Christian right did not exploit COVID tyranny as pretext for pushing big tech censorship ... the Christian right is not the driving force behind endless war ... and Hedges knows it!
I'm an independent progressive just as Hedges once was ... and in tough times like these, I could easily follow Kari Lake's principles before taking seriously anything Hedges says in the heat of battle.
-------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND
Chris Hedges has deserted the U.S. working class! ...
HEDGES: "Let us stand up and resist so future generations will at least say ‘they tried.’ We cannot do this alone ... together we have a chance" ...
But he has refused to comment on THE GREAT RESET, The World Economic Forum and the proposed tyrannical amendments to the WHO Pandemic Treaty ...
Hedges abandoned the U.S. working class and the U.S. Constitution in an AUG 27, 2021 interview with Jimmy Dore, and he has now brazenly hidden behind ASSANGE and Gaza for the past 6 months ... his predictable decision to once again leave us all hangin' here with no hope on GAZA has become his trademark ... Chris Hedges is deliberately misdirecting our attention here ...
His relentless recounting of the horrors of the Gaza genocide for the past 6 months has passed the point of diminishing marginal returns for the marginalized millions in HIS U.S. working class ...
I now count over 70 pieces he has posted here since OCT 7, with only 8 addressing issues OTHER THAN the Gaza genocide, none of which really strike at the heart of the problems now facing Americans ... we are the people who bought his books, attended the his public signings, smashed THUMBS UP and always commented accordingly ... and we deserve much, much more from this once good man ...
------------------
DIVISIVENESS
Hedges is deceptively divisive and he obviously has no problem with it ...
Rather than comment on the ominous threats posed to our freedoms by the WEF and the WHO, he would also have us believe the problem is TRUMP-MAGA ... just listen to the extremely divisive, out-of-context comment he makes here in his otherwise terrific AMERICAN SADISM speech ... listen as he blames the MSM for splitting us into "warring factions" and then demeans those of us who question the motives and tactics of our elected officials as "members of the lunatic fringe and conspiracy theorists" ...
Start at the 43:10 mark and then listen very closely to him at the 44:32 mark:
Many times, Hedges has been quick to point out the problems of our binary reaction to political reporting but once again, he chooses to deftly demonize and conflate law-abiding Christians with fringe MAGA types ...
I happen to believe that 9/11 was an inside job ... so does that make me a member of his lunatic fringe? ... well guess what, Hedges has actually admitted as much ... after a 2014 speech he was asked to comment on 9/11 and insulted our collective intelligence by saying "I don't want to get into conspiracy theories, Bush was probably just asleep at the wheel" ...
Hedges' words do not empower us, his pessimism demoralizes us ...
Here's a few more head-scratching comments that now have even more meaning since the March 2020 lock downs:
------------------
ON THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
He says all the right things here:
“We cannot be paralyzed by fear. We will be stripped, if we do not resist, of our few remaining rights. To resist, while there is still time, is not only the highest form of spirituality but the highest form of patriotism. It is, if you care about what is worth protecting in this country, a moral imperative."
And on another occasion: "The Constitution remains a sacred document."
------------------
ON THE MANDATES & PASSPORTS
But then, after the lock downs ...
He threw us AND the Constitution under the bus with COVID in an interview with Jimmy Dore ... just listen him equivocate and watch him dance to avoid a direct answer when asked about the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports before sheepishly blowing it off by saying: "that was a decision that I made."
Jimmy: “I’d like to get your thoughts on the vaccine mandates and passports”:
Hedges: “So I got the vaccine … the fact is these things were rolled out without proper vetting, that’s real … but I understand how people are weary about it, because they were turbo-charged … but that was a decision I made to get it … I am quite certain, in the history of pharmaceuticals that they work very hard to bury the negative consequences … that was a decision that I made”
TRANSLATION: He temporarily suspended his principles because things just got too hot in his kitchen.
And on USEFUL IDIOTS on SEP 21, 2021
Go to the 1:50 mark ...
Another less-than-passionate, half-hearted response ...
The FDA was compelled by a court ruling to release Phizer's vax trial data that revealed 1,223 post-jab deaths and 34,762 adverse events in the first 10 weeks of its trial ... The FDA attempted to delay the full release of this data for 75 years! ...
This proved that the COVID vax was not "safe & effective"!
"I don't think we're going to stop the pandemic and mutations until everybody gets vaccinated" ...
Chris Hedges DID NOT have to take sides on this issue ... He could have said it's a personal decision, but no ... most people would never tell another person to "walk the plank" if they knew better, but that's exactly what Hedges did here ... he knew the VAX was rushed to market after only one year (the average is 10 years), he knew about the explosive FDA FOIA release and he had to have seen the many videos of vax-injured people ... but he chose to push the "safe & effective" narrative on us anyway! ... and then about 2m after making that same comment during the interview above, Hedges rubbed our nose in it by openly admitting that he "does not trust Moderna or Phizer" ... livelihoods and lives can hang in the balance of reckless, irresponsible comments like this but clearly, this man did not give a hoot about the consequences.
Of course, Hedges is free to write about any topic he chooses ... but although the 2024 PRES election is 8 months away, we've only got 2 months to stop the WHO from implementing those scary amendments to the pandemic treaty ...
But Hedges won't go there ... ya see, it's just too risky, he's cutting too close to the bone ... this has become his post-pandemic trademark ...
Read about James Roguski and the Amendments to the W.H.O.'s International Pandemic Treaty here on Substack ... Hedges should be front and center on this ... in tough times like these, why won't he even mention this topic? ... WTF is his problem?
This is a very timely topic, Mr Hedges ... but you still have some explaining to do ...
This is THE first post you've made here since the OCT 7 attacks that really strikes at the heart of U.S. working class problems ... by my count, you have made only about 10 other posts here addressing issues other than the ISR-Palestinian conflict since OCT 7 ... that's 6 months and 181 days! ... those other 10 posts merely danced around the edges of our problems here in the U.S.
Why Mr Hedges? ... eagerly awaiting your reply ...
And what happens next week, Mr Hedges? ... it's back to Gaza, right?
What about us Americans? ... we don't matter so much anymore, do we Mr Hedges?
The fear of a Trump presidency with its belief of a rising authoritarianism, belies the fundamental dynamic of a fully oligarchical, captured, government, such as we currently are experiencing. It’s obvious that Biden is a sacrificial lamb, and was from the beginning. The party leaders could have run any number of candidates that could have definitely defeated Trump. But that would have forced the party to adopt progressive issues in order to contrast and defeat Trump. The oligarchs know the country, out of desperation, is becoming increasingly Progressive. So they opted for a weaker version of Trump, the non-threatening (to their interests) Mr Dementia. The oligarchs have chosen the easily manipulated and mentally unstable Trump as our next President. The agenda of the oligarchs, regardless of whose president, is pro-empire and anti-Labor, anti-environment, anti-regulation. Etc. This agenda is diametrically opposed to solving, or even coping, with the entire list of severe crisis that our country and the world with which we are all struggling. In my opinion, we, as a country, desperately, desperately, desperately, need is a truly functional democracy. I trust the People far more than a small group of psychopathic wealth-hoarders.
“Frank Lee” describes the democratic capitalist meritocracy as “the profoundly flawed system that is the best ever designed in terms of benefitting the overall human condition.” I bet the Chinese that are sewing notes asking to be rescued from their factories into the garments they produce would love that one. “Frank” should go for a walk on the former Ho Chi Minh trail and see if her argument gets support from all those with their legs blown off by previous exponents of her beliefs trying to prove her same point. And look at what all that scorned risk-avoidance in the labour market has still managed to do for for the climate, putting us all at the ultimate risk of extinction. Most telling is the critique of Rafi’s status as a commentator, as if that were a competition as well. It’s just a dog-fighting pit to Frank, her dog has to get in the most bites. Because to conservatives, reason is the slave of the passions and you’re going to do what you’re going to do anyway, but you see yourself as passionate, so you have to meet quota on biting the opposition with your reasons to believe.
‘Hope nobody’s businesses are being neglected meantime.
"Corporations and the billionaire class have made war on workers, subverted our democracy."
.
Is any creature on this, our mother earth, truly surprised?
The war on workers--the hireling and slave--by corporations and the 'moneyed' class being established by instituting a 'subservient' governing body and calling it a 'democracy'; while creating the conditions for a Christian fascist state is absolutely what the usa was founded on...Proudly ensconced in plain sight.
Where to start??
Start with the usa national anthem.
.
…No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave…
.
This, the usa, national anthem, We, the people–the hirelings–proudly proclaim with enthusiastic vigor in song and dance. And with war to the death we defend.
.
The star spangled banner:
…No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave…
.
Archaically (obsolete) brave as a noun stood for bully, assassin, a man daring ‘beyond discretion’
*…After all this poem was written in ‘old (obsolete) english style’ and with ‘sovereign’ logic.
Who at that time were regarded as free-men?
.
Knowing and understanding the above. The below, as above, connotes a different logic:
.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto—“In God is our Trust;”
And the star-spangled Banner in triumph shall wave,
O’er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
.
…In god ‘We The People’ trust as a medium of economic exchange!
.
This, usa. How proud are ‘We’ hireling and slave–United–to be an example to the world???
Is it not time ‘WE’–as a nation of hirelings–learn from, address and redress the entire united states 'governing’ anthem? And possibly decide and sing our own founding!??
...Roosevelt once wrote that killing the bison was something of a necessary evil because it was “the only way of solving the Indian question”: The buffalo’s disappearance, was the “only method” of forcing Native Americans “to at least partially abandon their savage mode of life.”
What Did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Malcolm X Say About The ‘Alyssa Milano’ Liberals? Written by Isheka N. Harrison
.
Suggestion: Read Federal Anti-Indian Law. The legal entrapment of Indigenous peoples By Peter P.d'Errico.
------
Today as it was yesterday; The us people today care more about the antics of other countries than they do their own leaders; their monied gods!
The list of examples of the true usa is endless.
Knowledge then Acknowledge
Again:
This, usa. How proud are ‘We’ hireling and slave–United–to be an example to the world???
Is it not time ‘WE’–as a nation of hirelings–learn from, address and redress the entire united states 'governing’ anthem? And possibly decide and sing our own founding!??
People used to go to jail in America for trying to buy votes. You say that money has power at every point in history in any system but in all systems it is recognised that money is or can be a corrupting element in the system, and that money represents inequitable political advantage. Take the selling of the Stormy Daniels story to a newspaper that kills it in the expectation of a greater
reward from the sleazy marital cheat who gets to become President while misrepresenting his finances. That’s where money in a party which takes full advantage of its advantageous inequitable position in society is directed.
You appear to rejoice in coming to this site to bait people who are looking for solutions, I think because you believe that inequity is the natural order of things and that you are perhaps a realist for understanding this and therefore in a good position to teach this truth to misguided libs who are presumptious enough to think they can vote your money, however hard or easily won in the stacked lottery of social spending power, towards causes such as feeding and housing the poor.
You are baiting Chris’s readership with terms like the “Democrat hive”. So democrats are insects that swarm out of a hive, are they? Unlike a Trump truck convoy that tries to push a bus full of Democrats off the road. They wouldn’t be insects, insects can be individually vulnerable, and you despise vulnerability, it’s a term you’ve derided in a reply to me before. Your language seeks to stir things, not to smooth them out, because you believe yourself to be on the winning side of history, and history itself is a game of winners and losers. This is where the American gambling culture, of which the Republican get-rich-quick, devil-take-the-hindmost persuasion is a subset, departs from Christianity, which I suppose I’ll be obliged to define as the teachings of Jesus. He taught that “the poor will always be with you”, but the right wing will be damned if they’re having that. On Kamala Harris’ front lawn maybe, but not in their back yard. Women are to be prevented from aborting children, but what is to be spent on their upkeep while their time is devoted to the child and they don’t have a husband who can earn enough from three jobs or a Republican Bank of Mum and Dad to see them through? Does anyone care, they should have thought of that before they presumed to get pregnant and expected you to pay for it, would be the Republican default position, am I right? Meanwhile the State is running all kinds of military exercises, more and more subtle surveillance, and is heavily invested in secrecy and in its own acts of exterminating people like Assange who merely found a route to truth which is not the government’s narrative. Why don’t you save money on those? In French there are two words for power; puissance, which equates to mightiness, and pouvoir, which equates to the ability and authority to act. We make no such distinction. Thus with 700+ overseas bases, the US has plenty of might but little ability to deploy it. Biden can’t even command a no-fly zone over Gaza, he’s so owned by the MIC corporations and the fear of the Jewish vote. What are you doing about that to save paying the coming bill for shiny weapons? Billions are spent on promoting a default value system displayed by every influencer in every advertisement for the benefit of the maintenance of the primacy of capital. How is that the proper direction for spending power? It directs spending artificially to the private sector instead of spending it on infrastructure and communities, and takes a chunk of your disposable income to persuade you that you need something you may not. Like protection from swarming liberals. J. K. Galbraith taught all this in his book “The Affluent Society” many decades ago, where he also teaches how to recognise sheep in Brookes Brothers clothing who intone the absolute demands of the corporate class as issues of personal righteousness for the poor.
Billionaires have the money other people should have.
The good news is that when these sociopathic mammon chasing monsters are done with the rest of us, they will turn on each other until the proverbial one with the most “toys” wins. The only possibility to stop them is a massive nation wide general strike. But then since they own the government lock stock and barrel they will just bail themselves out with printing endless money which is another form of taxation on the rest of us, so refusing to pay taxes is likely a meaningless gesture. As George Carlin so eloquently put it (paraphrased): They’ve got you by the balls, and they want it all and they will get it in the end. Meanwhile we are all getting it in the end in a different fashion. Just another day in the USA.
I urge everyone to read Les Leopold's //Wall Street's War On Workers//!!!
I was a blue collar union member and labor activist for 25+ years. I also managed local D political campaigns when the party still relied on volunteers. I fought the usurpation of the party by neolibs who ditched the New Deal and abandoned the majority, the working class. Among the preface blurbs to the book is one by Robert Kuttner: "(Leopold) explains the dynamics of mass layoffs and the reality that the white working class did not desert the Democrats--the Democrats deserted them." Which I can attest to from bitter first hand experience. I've witnessed how job loss becomes those deaths of despair. Of course testimony by me and others like me are often dismissed as anecdotal. But Leopold presents the detailed stats that make our case.
Kuttner says "Leopold also offers ingenious and practical solutions to take back our politics from the plutocracy." Exactly. My Wobbly heart rages about the econopathy. I've researched the economic theories of the Austrian and Chicago schools now dominating the system and I know there is little real logic involved; it's a belief system, a cult really. But that won't help suffering people who need help to survive right now. A winning campaign must focus on a few clear objectives--and Leopold has them.
The weaponization of the federal judiciary as a lever to dismantle the administrative state is bad enough. It also coincides, however, with a right wing strategy to take over the courts and degrade fundamental rights from the right to bodily autonomy to even voting rights. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/judges-v-democracy
People might also appreciate calls for Sotomayor to step down in order to avoid her seat being lost to a potential Trump nominee, as Ginsburg’s was lost to Amy Coney Barrett. https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/01/for-the-sake-of-all-of-us-sonia-sotomayor-needs-to-retire-from-the-us-supreme-court
Thanks Chris and Les. The billionaire class must be dismantled, offshore tax haven bank accounts seized and Wall St Corporate Raiders Frog Marched to prison! Julian Benda's description "The Treason of the Intellectuals" describes both party leaders, MSM rhetoric machines and "experts" like Morning Joe and his guests. Reagan's and Thatcher's removing of the guard rails of Capitalism and Clinton, Tony Blair and Obama's doubling down and sellout of the working class are quite comfortable with a fascist Oligarchy. They forget FDR's warning when his New Deal legislation was introduced and rammed through, its this or the pitch forks for you Robber Barons. All the rules and regulations were brought in after decades of Violent Unionism, fighting Private Corporate armies directed and controlled by Megalomaniacs like Rockefeller, Morgan, Ford, Melon, Carnegie amongst others! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING was gained by respectful negotiations. For at taste read any Upton Sinclair book, Ida Tarbell two of an army of Muck Rakers like Chris and Les. His book "The Jungle" describes the Chicago Slaughter House Industry or "King Coal" describing the dystopian company towns. Tarbell exposed the Rockefeller Standard Oil Monopoly! Bloody Ludlow should be a well known example of brutal capitalism. Eastern Europeans lured to Minnesota, paid in company scrip, only good in company stores. Where they even had to buy there own helmets, wicks and oil. Who paid rent on a piece of land that they were told to build their own shack on. Their first brutally put down strike demand was an honest weigh scale for the coal they dug. They weren't paid anything for shoring up the mines, only for the tonnage they dug, one piece of stone cancelled payment for it all. Ayn Rand and her Atlas supermen are destroying the world!
Corporations are a sham for workers. The profit seeking motive makes them psychopathic. So to find more workers to exploit, they must adopt a human face (and possibly outpay some workers more than competitors to compensate).
Because of their true corporate values and necessary two facedness, the people you see in a corporation show increasing levels of this same pathology the higher you climb in the bureaucracy. And then Forbes or whatever mainstream rag acts surprised that people hate their jobs.
It's interesting to note some founding fathers wondered if corporations would impose a greater tyranny than the Bank of England or the British monarchy.
Yes indeed. And these same corporations embrace DEI and wokeness, because it doesn't actually cost them anything. The DEI/Woke virtue signaling is a mask to hide their rapacity. In a hunger games "meritocracy" (whatever that means) the people running the show don't really mind if there are different colors and sexual orientations etc. mixed in at the top. As long as the 90% at the bottom obey. Increasing surveillance is being put in place to make sure that the plebes really do behave and that dissent is not permitted.
LOL. It is fascinating how educated people on the left of everything attempt to swim in deep end of the facts and knowledge pool while still clutching their ideological comfort side of the shallow end.
To connect the Democrat Wall Street-powered globalist corporatocracy to the fake threat of Christian Nationalism... well it is the definition of ideological programmed cognitive dissonance.
There is no threat of Christian Nationalism. Or said another way, the thing that liberals today define as Christian Nationalism is just traditional Americanism... you know, all those baked in core Judea-Christian and strong family values that made America great to begin with.
However, you got the first part right. We are fighting WWIII with those that want to enslave the global population in a global collectivist nightmare. The billionaire boys club and their Wall Street money power and behind it... to generate greater returns for their bank accounts. And it requires that the American working class be made dependent on Universal Basic Income.
Unions are not the solution though. They are just part of the collectivist agenda to reduce economic opportunity for the masses to benefit a smaller cohort at the administrative top.
“Frank Lee” complains of cognitive dissonance while somehow connecting a “global collectivist nightmare” with the intentions of billionaires. What do the billionaires care what the population does so long as they are open to routine advertising persuasion? She says that”There is no threat of Christian Nationalism. Or said another way, the thing that liberals today define as Christian Nationalism is just traditional Americanism... you know, all those baked in core Judea-Christian and strong family values that made America great to begin with.” Jesus was not a nationalist. His “render unto Caesar” teaching clearly distinguishes between the needs of the state and the duty towards God, and may be an attack on the use of what was the equivalent of the dollar at that time. In America now, money has political status as free speech. And someone is offering America all the kingdoms of the world if they will just bow do and worship him.
Subtitle:"... how corporations and the billionaire class have made war on workers, subverted our democracy and created the conditions for a Christian fascist state"...
Hedges is being unnecessarily and deliberately divisive here! ... Hedges is - among other things, a professional story-teller ... he knows it is imperative to create an enemy and to "write against" that same enemy to keep us emotionally vested in his work ... Substack reports that his subscriber base here has grown from 60k to 88k since the OCT 7 attacks ... and my instincts are being proven right, nothing good can come from this type of disingenuous story-telling ... the premise of Hedges' primary line of argument is intellectual dishonest - and he knows it!
Ever notice? ... Hedges will always single-out the corporations and the billionaire class, but never even mention the "globalist" movement, let alone mention their leaders by name ... he is deliberately deflecting our attention away from those people behind UN Agenda 21 aka The Great Reset and placing the blame squarely on the Christian right, Trump and MAGA ...
The Christian right DID NOT orchestrate the COVID lock downs; the Christian right did not impose the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports; the Christian right did not exploit COVID tyranny as pretext for pushing big tech censorship ... the Christian right is not the driving force behind endless war ... and Hedges knows it!
I'm an independent progressive just as Hedges once was ... and in tough times like these, I could easily follow Kari Lake's principles before taking seriously anything Hedges says in the heat of battle.
-------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND
Chris Hedges has deserted the U.S. working class! ...
HEDGES: "Let us stand up and resist so future generations will at least say ‘they tried.’ We cannot do this alone ... together we have a chance" ...
https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/11/hedges-the-pimps-of-war/
But he has refused to comment on THE GREAT RESET, The World Economic Forum and the proposed tyrannical amendments to the WHO Pandemic Treaty ...
Hedges abandoned the U.S. working class and the U.S. Constitution in an AUG 27, 2021 interview with Jimmy Dore, and he has now brazenly hidden behind ASSANGE and Gaza for the past 6 months ... his predictable decision to once again leave us all hangin' here with no hope on GAZA has become his trademark ... Chris Hedges is deliberately misdirecting our attention here ...
His relentless recounting of the horrors of the Gaza genocide for the past 6 months has passed the point of diminishing marginal returns for the marginalized millions in HIS U.S. working class ...
I now count over 70 pieces he has posted here since OCT 7, with only 8 addressing issues OTHER THAN the Gaza genocide, none of which really strike at the heart of the problems now facing Americans ... we are the people who bought his books, attended the his public signings, smashed THUMBS UP and always commented accordingly ... and we deserve much, much more from this once good man ...
------------------
DIVISIVENESS
Hedges is deceptively divisive and he obviously has no problem with it ...
Rather than comment on the ominous threats posed to our freedoms by the WEF and the WHO, he would also have us believe the problem is TRUMP-MAGA ... just listen to the extremely divisive, out-of-context comment he makes here in his otherwise terrific AMERICAN SADISM speech ... listen as he blames the MSM for splitting us into "warring factions" and then demeans those of us who question the motives and tactics of our elected officials as "members of the lunatic fringe and conspiracy theorists" ...
Start at the 43:10 mark and then listen very closely to him at the 44:32 mark:
https://scheerpost.com/2021/06/29/chris-hedges-speaks-on-american-sadism/
Many times, Hedges has been quick to point out the problems of our binary reaction to political reporting but once again, he chooses to deftly demonize and conflate law-abiding Christians with fringe MAGA types ...
I happen to believe that 9/11 was an inside job ... so does that make me a member of his lunatic fringe? ... well guess what, Hedges has actually admitted as much ... after a 2014 speech he was asked to comment on 9/11 and insulted our collective intelligence by saying "I don't want to get into conspiracy theories, Bush was probably just asleep at the wheel" ...
Hedges' words do not empower us, his pessimism demoralizes us ...
Here's a few more head-scratching comments that now have even more meaning since the March 2020 lock downs:
------------------
ON THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
He says all the right things here:
“We cannot be paralyzed by fear. We will be stripped, if we do not resist, of our few remaining rights. To resist, while there is still time, is not only the highest form of spirituality but the highest form of patriotism. It is, if you care about what is worth protecting in this country, a moral imperative."
And on another occasion: "The Constitution remains a sacred document."
------------------
ON THE MANDATES & PASSPORTS
But then, after the lock downs ...
He threw us AND the Constitution under the bus with COVID in an interview with Jimmy Dore ... just listen him equivocate and watch him dance to avoid a direct answer when asked about the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports before sheepishly blowing it off by saying: "that was a decision that I made."
AUG 27, 2021 ...
Go to the 8:12 mark ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NusQH0pnX7Y&t=509s
Jimmy: “I’d like to get your thoughts on the vaccine mandates and passports”:
Hedges: “So I got the vaccine … the fact is these things were rolled out without proper vetting, that’s real … but I understand how people are weary about it, because they were turbo-charged … but that was a decision I made to get it … I am quite certain, in the history of pharmaceuticals that they work very hard to bury the negative consequences … that was a decision that I made”
TRANSLATION: He temporarily suspended his principles because things just got too hot in his kitchen.
And on USEFUL IDIOTS on SEP 21, 2021
Go to the 1:50 mark ...
Another less-than-passionate, half-hearted response ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7ZGT8raQS8
“It’s a hard question, I guess”
------------------
ON THE COVID VAX
On DEC 2, 2021 ...
The FDA was compelled by a court ruling to release Phizer's vax trial data that revealed 1,223 post-jab deaths and 34,762 adverse events in the first 10 weeks of its trial ... The FDA attempted to delay the full release of this data for 75 years! ...
This proved that the COVID vax was not "safe & effective"!
https://yandex.com/search/?text=FDA+FOIA+release+1223+deaths+phizer+covid+vaccine+december+2%2C+2021&lr=21504&search_source=yacom_desktop_common
But then, just 30 days later ...
On JAN 1, 2022 ...
Chris Hedges made this comment on the Krystal Kyle & Friends Podcast (Episode #54):
Go to the 1:08:47 mark:
https://krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/p/episode-54-audio-chris-hedges#details
"I don't think we're going to stop the pandemic and mutations until everybody gets vaccinated" ...
Chris Hedges DID NOT have to take sides on this issue ... He could have said it's a personal decision, but no ... most people would never tell another person to "walk the plank" if they knew better, but that's exactly what Hedges did here ... he knew the VAX was rushed to market after only one year (the average is 10 years), he knew about the explosive FDA FOIA release and he had to have seen the many videos of vax-injured people ... but he chose to push the "safe & effective" narrative on us anyway! ... and then about 2m after making that same comment during the interview above, Hedges rubbed our nose in it by openly admitting that he "does not trust Moderna or Phizer" ... livelihoods and lives can hang in the balance of reckless, irresponsible comments like this but clearly, this man did not give a hoot about the consequences.
Of course, Hedges is free to write about any topic he chooses ... but although the 2024 PRES election is 8 months away, we've only got 2 months to stop the WHO from implementing those scary amendments to the pandemic treaty ...
But Hedges won't go there ... ya see, it's just too risky, he's cutting too close to the bone ... this has become his post-pandemic trademark ...
Read about James Roguski and the Amendments to the W.H.O.'s International Pandemic Treaty here on Substack ... Hedges should be front and center on this ... in tough times like these, why won't he even mention this topic? ... WTF is his problem?
This is a very timely topic, Mr Hedges ... but you still have some explaining to do ...
This is THE first post you've made here since the OCT 7 attacks that really strikes at the heart of U.S. working class problems ... by my count, you have made only about 10 other posts here addressing issues other than the ISR-Palestinian conflict since OCT 7 ... that's 6 months and 181 days! ... those other 10 posts merely danced around the edges of our problems here in the U.S.
Why Mr Hedges? ... eagerly awaiting your reply ...
And what happens next week, Mr Hedges? ... it's back to Gaza, right?
What about us Americans? ... we don't matter so much anymore, do we Mr Hedges?
The fear of a Trump presidency with its belief of a rising authoritarianism, belies the fundamental dynamic of a fully oligarchical, captured, government, such as we currently are experiencing. It’s obvious that Biden is a sacrificial lamb, and was from the beginning. The party leaders could have run any number of candidates that could have definitely defeated Trump. But that would have forced the party to adopt progressive issues in order to contrast and defeat Trump. The oligarchs know the country, out of desperation, is becoming increasingly Progressive. So they opted for a weaker version of Trump, the non-threatening (to their interests) Mr Dementia. The oligarchs have chosen the easily manipulated and mentally unstable Trump as our next President. The agenda of the oligarchs, regardless of whose president, is pro-empire and anti-Labor, anti-environment, anti-regulation. Etc. This agenda is diametrically opposed to solving, or even coping, with the entire list of severe crisis that our country and the world with which we are all struggling. In my opinion, we, as a country, desperately, desperately, desperately, need is a truly functional democracy. I trust the People far more than a small group of psychopathic wealth-hoarders.
“Frank Lee” describes the democratic capitalist meritocracy as “the profoundly flawed system that is the best ever designed in terms of benefitting the overall human condition.” I bet the Chinese that are sewing notes asking to be rescued from their factories into the garments they produce would love that one. “Frank” should go for a walk on the former Ho Chi Minh trail and see if her argument gets support from all those with their legs blown off by previous exponents of her beliefs trying to prove her same point. And look at what all that scorned risk-avoidance in the labour market has still managed to do for for the climate, putting us all at the ultimate risk of extinction. Most telling is the critique of Rafi’s status as a commentator, as if that were a competition as well. It’s just a dog-fighting pit to Frank, her dog has to get in the most bites. Because to conservatives, reason is the slave of the passions and you’re going to do what you’re going to do anyway, but you see yourself as passionate, so you have to meet quota on biting the opposition with your reasons to believe.
‘Hope nobody’s businesses are being neglected meantime.
See:
https://peterderrico.substack.com/p/extermination-of-the-buffalo-and
"Corporations and the billionaire class have made war on workers, subverted our democracy."
.
Is any creature on this, our mother earth, truly surprised?
The war on workers--the hireling and slave--by corporations and the 'moneyed' class being established by instituting a 'subservient' governing body and calling it a 'democracy'; while creating the conditions for a Christian fascist state is absolutely what the usa was founded on...Proudly ensconced in plain sight.
Where to start??
Start with the usa national anthem.
.
…No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave…
.
This, the usa, national anthem, We, the people–the hirelings–proudly proclaim with enthusiastic vigor in song and dance. And with war to the death we defend.
.
The star spangled banner:
…No refuge could save the hireling and slave,
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave…
.
Archaically (obsolete) brave as a noun stood for bully, assassin, a man daring ‘beyond discretion’
*…After all this poem was written in ‘old (obsolete) english style’ and with ‘sovereign’ logic.
Who at that time were regarded as free-men?
.
Knowing and understanding the above. The below, as above, connotes a different logic:
.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto—“In God is our Trust;”
And the star-spangled Banner in triumph shall wave,
O’er the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
.
…In god ‘We The People’ trust as a medium of economic exchange!
.
This, usa. How proud are ‘We’ hireling and slave–United–to be an example to the world???
Is it not time ‘WE’–as a nation of hirelings–learn from, address and redress the entire united states 'governing’ anthem? And possibly decide and sing our own founding!??
.
Contemplate:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/wheres-debate-francis-scott-keys-slave-holding-legacy-180959550/
And:
Native Bidaské with Mark Charles (Diné) on Abraham Lincoln and the Narrative of White Messiahship
https://youtu.be/GbmBP3OdiC0
...Roosevelt once wrote that killing the bison was something of a necessary evil because it was “the only way of solving the Indian question”: The buffalo’s disappearance, was the “only method” of forcing Native Americans “to at least partially abandon their savage mode of life.”
.
Along with: (x3)
1)
https://www.propublica.org/article/states-tribes-water-rights-history-repeating-itself
2)
https://project1492.org/navajo-livestock-relocation/
3)
What Did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Malcolm X Say About The ‘Alyssa Milano’ Liberals? Written by Isheka N. Harrison
.
Suggestion: Read Federal Anti-Indian Law. The legal entrapment of Indigenous peoples By Peter P.d'Errico.
------
Today as it was yesterday; The us people today care more about the antics of other countries than they do their own leaders; their monied gods!
The list of examples of the true usa is endless.
Knowledge then Acknowledge
Again:
This, usa. How proud are ‘We’ hireling and slave–United–to be an example to the world???
Is it not time ‘WE’–as a nation of hirelings–learn from, address and redress the entire united states 'governing’ anthem? And possibly decide and sing our own founding!??
People used to go to jail in America for trying to buy votes. You say that money has power at every point in history in any system but in all systems it is recognised that money is or can be a corrupting element in the system, and that money represents inequitable political advantage. Take the selling of the Stormy Daniels story to a newspaper that kills it in the expectation of a greater
reward from the sleazy marital cheat who gets to become President while misrepresenting his finances. That’s where money in a party which takes full advantage of its advantageous inequitable position in society is directed.
You appear to rejoice in coming to this site to bait people who are looking for solutions, I think because you believe that inequity is the natural order of things and that you are perhaps a realist for understanding this and therefore in a good position to teach this truth to misguided libs who are presumptious enough to think they can vote your money, however hard or easily won in the stacked lottery of social spending power, towards causes such as feeding and housing the poor.
You are baiting Chris’s readership with terms like the “Democrat hive”. So democrats are insects that swarm out of a hive, are they? Unlike a Trump truck convoy that tries to push a bus full of Democrats off the road. They wouldn’t be insects, insects can be individually vulnerable, and you despise vulnerability, it’s a term you’ve derided in a reply to me before. Your language seeks to stir things, not to smooth them out, because you believe yourself to be on the winning side of history, and history itself is a game of winners and losers. This is where the American gambling culture, of which the Republican get-rich-quick, devil-take-the-hindmost persuasion is a subset, departs from Christianity, which I suppose I’ll be obliged to define as the teachings of Jesus. He taught that “the poor will always be with you”, but the right wing will be damned if they’re having that. On Kamala Harris’ front lawn maybe, but not in their back yard. Women are to be prevented from aborting children, but what is to be spent on their upkeep while their time is devoted to the child and they don’t have a husband who can earn enough from three jobs or a Republican Bank of Mum and Dad to see them through? Does anyone care, they should have thought of that before they presumed to get pregnant and expected you to pay for it, would be the Republican default position, am I right? Meanwhile the State is running all kinds of military exercises, more and more subtle surveillance, and is heavily invested in secrecy and in its own acts of exterminating people like Assange who merely found a route to truth which is not the government’s narrative. Why don’t you save money on those? In French there are two words for power; puissance, which equates to mightiness, and pouvoir, which equates to the ability and authority to act. We make no such distinction. Thus with 700+ overseas bases, the US has plenty of might but little ability to deploy it. Biden can’t even command a no-fly zone over Gaza, he’s so owned by the MIC corporations and the fear of the Jewish vote. What are you doing about that to save paying the coming bill for shiny weapons? Billions are spent on promoting a default value system displayed by every influencer in every advertisement for the benefit of the maintenance of the primacy of capital. How is that the proper direction for spending power? It directs spending artificially to the private sector instead of spending it on infrastructure and communities, and takes a chunk of your disposable income to persuade you that you need something you may not. Like protection from swarming liberals. J. K. Galbraith taught all this in his book “The Affluent Society” many decades ago, where he also teaches how to recognise sheep in Brookes Brothers clothing who intone the absolute demands of the corporate class as issues of personal righteousness for the poor.