The Chris Hedges Report with Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Gretchen Morgenson on how Private Equity billionaires bought up America and turned workers into serfs.
The Chris Hedges Report with Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Gretchen Morgenson on how Private Equity billionaires bought up America and turned workers into serfs.
Serfs had holidays & feast days on which they were allowed free movement to parts of the township, village, etc., reserved for Nobility & Kings. They also had ample skills in valuable areas like Farming, Herding & Craftsmanship... The Modern American 'working poor' are in a far worse state today as tens of millions do not have such luxuries or skills available to them any longer.
Yep. The commons has been enclosed. We now have to sell ourselves into wage slavery rather than live in a self-supporting community. Enclosing the commons was a critical step in the development of Capitalism.
Exactly. The Commons were enclosed and the cultivated land held by peasant families for centuries and farmed according to rules they made communally was taken from them, assigned to Lords who had never farmed them who sold them or rented them out to capitalist tenants. The lucky ones, now landless, got jobs, at starvation wages, while the others went to sea or the city or to the colonies.
The History of England-the saddest story ever told.
They had no control over land. This is simply not true. Land Barons, feudal Kings and Lords owned the land. They worked the land as peasants everyday but one, that day was for themselves.
And as to village government, what village government?
Peasants and serfs had no decision making power.
This was a hierarchical feudal system with a King.
You are romancing the wrong stone.
Financial feudalism will be similar as we can see.
I haven't seen the deep flaws in capitalism, as practiced is today's USA, examined with more acuity since the days (not so long ago) of Bill Moyers. Great work, Mr. Hedges. Thank you.
What the author describes is exactly the model of extraction that the IMF and World Bank use on the global south.
They force the sale of public entities, loading them with debt and cutting services to make them more attractive for investors, they charge usurious fees on debt and the money generated, in the case of the Global South goes to pay the interest to the bond holders.
This is precisely what happened in Argentina.
Now, the US is feeling the pain of the extraction-rentier model.
But instead of the IMF, it is the new corporate feudal financial institutions we put in place for 75 years coming home to roost.
And workers suffer loss of jobs, no health care, no social safety net --- all due to the debt holders, the donors for the two party duopoly.
America is being 'Thirdworldized' and it takes no genius to see the austerity planned by the corporate plunders and their coin operated politicians is being firmly set in place.
This reminds me of Thom Hartmann's article "How the Richest Democracy in the World Abandons Americans". And we wonder why people follow our modern Pied Piper, The Donald.
And don't forget that Hedges actually pushed the "safe & effective" narrative on us when he had ample evidence that exactly the opposite was true ...
Did you know ...
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 development proved that the COVID vax WAS NOT "safe & effective" ...
And then, just 30 days later ...
On JAN 1, 2022 ...
Chris Hedges made this comment on the Krystal Kyle & Friends Podcast (Episode #54):
"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 anyway! ... and then about 2m after making that same comment during the interview above, Hedges openly admitted that he "does not trust Moderna or Phizer" ...
Lives and livelihoods can hang in the balance of reckless comments like this, but clearly this man did not give a hoot about the consequences ...
I also found it a bit strange but not surprising that Hedges did not mention BlackRock CEO Larry Fink in this article ... ya see, Fink is the guy we see sitting up there at those WEF conclaves in Davos ... but as a rule, Hedges will not even mention key Davos figures like Schwab, Harari and Fink ... and to my knowledge he has never mentioned THE GREAT RESET ... his critical style has really changed since the March 2020 lockdowns ... Hedges is indirect ... he'll rail on about the corporate elites and drop a few names as he did here, but he won't directly implicate the people at the top like Fink, who really run the show ... these people are completely off of his radar ... he would rather have us believe the problem is TRUMP-MAGA ...
It is intellectual pupa like you that make imbecilic remarks like that. Instead of engaging in evidence, you make an ad hominem remark that is supposed to mean what exactly?
This is simply an example of the type of dialogue and conversations had in America. Individualizing problems, engaging in fallacies, personalizing social issues all of this is divide and conquer. The rulers are laughing, this is game show quality
Yes, but just listen to the extremely divisive out-of-context comment Hedges makes here as he calls those of us who question the motives of our elected officials members of the "lunatic fringe" and "conspiracy theorists" ... Hedges is a straddler: he's got one foot is their world and only one foot in our world.
An excerpt from his otherwise terrific AMERICAN SADISM speech:
"We do not really care what you think of Hedges ..."
Oh really! ... so you speak for his flock, right?
And if you're here to learn, then you're an exception to the rule ...
Having followed Hedges very closely for the past decade, I know that his followers are generally not here to be empowered or enlightened, they're here to be entertained ...
All of my carefully researched criticisms of him are based on simply bench-marking his words against his actions ... so call me what you want ... a half-dozen other readers here already agree with my take on this once good man.
The american empire is rapidly disintergrating. It is EATINtG EATING MORE AND MORE OF ITSELF and not realizing that the outcome will be EXTINCTION. 'HAVE MORE IT'S DELICIOUS AND YOU CAN EAT AS MUCH AS YOU WANT' . Shades of Oscar Wilde and the Portrait of Dorian Gray. THE USA IS HIDEOUS AND deserves ITS TERMINAL CANCER.
And as you point out above, what Gretchen Morgensen is describing is the same as what Naomi Klein describes happening in the Shock Doctrine as Disaster Capitalism on a world scale, except at home with the appearance of less brutality and greater secrecy (so that whatever Democratic of Republican President in Power, but working for the same out of control capitalistic system, will get re-elected?), but same results of the suffering and impoverishment of millions. The interview helps me understand better the precise mechanisms, the formula, for taking over and destroying any and every kind of American institution that serves the greater population in exchange for the increasingly rapacious greed of the few.
There are also uncomfortable similarities with how Rome eventually fell under the sheer weight of its sprawling empire, relying increasingly on mercenaries with no loyalty except to money and power, while at home the neglect of infrastructure, the growing gap between the rich and the poor and increasing civil wars led finally to the invasion of the "barbarians" and the fall of the Roman Empire.
One purpose of these interviews and what is being said in a digital age where Chris Hedges and other commentators can reach millions of people is that there is an unprecedented opportunity for enough passionate and caring people of conscience and action to wake up, join together and transform in both little and big ways this totally self-destructive and other-destructive trajectory. There is still time.
And I must come back especially in the here and now to the people of Gaza - and that we hold them in our hearts day after night after day to combat the abandonment by the world they are experiencing in the terrible suffering being inflicted upon them. That on some deeper level the heart accesses, they are not alone.
Morgensen's book is probably well researched and the unethical business practices she writes about are no doubt well documented. However, her book will change nothing. Notice that I said unethical; not illegal. The system of corruption is so embedded throughout government at this point that we could never hope to stamp out what should be illegal business practices (like her example of Envision) with new laws against those practices. To engage in such nonsense is simply resigning ourselves to pointless legalese wack-a-mole.
Fortunately, there is one simple solution to nearly all this monkey business. It's called the passage of a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment.
It should immediately be demanded by the American people. The only reason these private equity firms engage in these practices is because they are largely focused on draining the American taxpayer whose government guarantees all the debt they pile up every year (over 10 trillion alone since Covid19 declared state of emergency) financing these types of deviant business practices. There are others, to be sure (i.e. 501 (c) (3)'s, etc). As I have said before on this forum, the U.S. government was not even 1 trillion in debt when Ronald Reagan took office. We now have, not even a half century later, eclipsed that amount by over 34 times! It currently costs the U.S. taxpayer $2B a day to service that debt. Although private equity pirates have helped put us there in a contributory manner, the financial damage of this collective debt is worse than all the private equity firms combined, in my opinion. Morgensen can talk about the billions reaped by the likes of Leon Black all she wants, but when you start talking 10's of trillions of dollars in debt, you are in a far different stratosphere. Debts at this level matter more significantly. Large amounts of acquired debt is what ultimately sinks these companies--and what is ultimately sinking the U.S. taxpayer. The principle is no different--only the scale. Yet we allow Congress and the White House to pass one "Continuing Resolution" after another (one just yesterday) without nary a peep. Again, the tax payer appears hoodwinked by the clever use of the word "Resolution" just as they are by the rebranding of financial pirating in private "Equity" referenced by Morgensen.
I believe the amendment I mentioned earlier is the only avenue of salvation left. If you laugh at this possibility, than you have your head in the sand and are part of the problem, not the solution.
WW2 you are looking through Capitalist Rose Tinted Glasses! Reagan ran the debt up, raised taxes and started the trickle down Voodoo Economics of privatization, with the Iron lady Thatcher! Bush senior argued against! Reagan would be considered a commie by the Neo Liberal and Neo Con Democrat/Republican Duopoly! Clinton handed Bush junior a debt free economy that he put the boots too, with tax cuts while increasing spending for never ending war! I will never understand the Neo cons hate for Clinton he did everything they wanted, with Genocide Joes help! Welfare Reform, Tax cuts for the Rich, Three Strike laws, Dismantling Glass Steagall Act. Re-Creating the boom bust economy and at least 2 major depressions! The "fix' must include the removal of Citizens United PAC Dark money. The same Billionaire Class of the John Birch fascist cohorts of the Koch family dynasty! The Koch brothers bloody hands are the major driver and founders of the TEA PARTY MAGA Republicans, who vomited up the Orange Jesus Frankenstein Trump! These Robber Barons have been lionized and respected for too long! They are no more than parasites! Corporations and non existent Corporate morality was built with Standard Oil's Rockefeller mentality and GREED! Until Corporate power is destroyed no one has a chance. They are Nuclear Armed with Private armies and an insatiable lust for power and war! I good read is the 1937 book "The Merchants of Death" about all the war profiteers in WW1, and leading up to it! Hundreds if not thousands of millionaires were produced in the USA, they knew a "good thing" when they saw it, and cemented their power and profits FOREVER during and after WW2! How about all the little guys paying taxes for the betterment of mankind and the Robber Barons paying for ALL WAR COSTS! Any families making more than a million dollars a year put into the draft and make their sons and daughters cannon fodder, not the proles of Orwellian dystopia!
Only revolution will change everything and we are in one: unfortunately it is a fascist revolution and thus prone to making what is revealed here ethical and part of capitalism.
No, her book will do nothing. But I understand her need to write it.
People hardly are literate anymore going back centuries to using their thumbs only.
I respectfully disagree. What is revealed here might be legal and part of capitalism (run amok), but it is hardly ethical. Further, demanding a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment doesn't require class consciousnesses (folks inherently know what class they are in); it takes a rejection of public apathy and a demand for government fiscal responsibility.
I agree with your commnets regarding Marx and Michael Hudson. Even listening to Richard Wolf lecture on the subject of Capitalism is relevant to ones economic education. However, the general public does not need to be scholars on the issue in order to act. I believe applying the socioeconomic term "class consciousness" obfuscates the issue and stupefies the public regarding their responsibility to demand a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment. The issue is as simple as requiring what the individual, the local government & the State government must already do; which is: LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS. Just because the Federal Government is the only sovereign entity allowed to print fiat currency does not necessary mean they should be allowed to print any amount they wish.
"I believe applying the socioeconomic term "class consciousness" obfuscates the issue and stupefies the public regarding their responsibility to demand a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment. The issue is as simple as requiring what the individual, the local government & the State government must already do; which is: "
You do not really think making demands on the coin operated stooges would have any affect, would you?
As CEO, the president does as he sees fit.
No populace can demand anything less than the overthrow of capitalism. Any responsibility to 'demand' a FBB would rely on class consciousness.
"Demanding change" is done through political organizing. Not writing letters to stooges.
Fortunately for the rulers, they have both sophistry, class consciousness of themselves as a class, and they own the means of production worldwide.
And they own contract licenses, a precious commodity in today's turbulent world.
Now is the time to begin to use words like class consciousness while actually doing struggle on the ground,.
Develop a new vocabulary to understand and dialogue about the problems.
If workers and the dispossessed do not see themselves as a ;class', thus class consciousness, they lose.
This is the threat threat feared by the ruling elite.
Understanding that 7you live in a senile financially controlled technocracy and ar being exploited daily, can the problem be solved.
"You do not really think making demands on the coin operated stooges would have any affect, would you?" You are right, class consciousness is the way to go. Thank you for your remarks.
The 18th and 21st amendments of the U.S. Constitution prove that anything can be politically demanded by the U.S. people . It doesn't make sense that if the 18th amendment involved "class consciousnesses", than the latter involved collective amnesia of that consciousness a mere 14 years later. Bottom line: relying on class consciousness has nothing to do with demanding a fiscal responsibility within our Constitution. Further, fiscal responsibility is not only an issue for "workers and the dispossessed"; debilitating national debt is a matter of national security for every single American. That is not just my opinion, but that of former Chairman Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen: https://www.romney.senate.gov/national-debt-is-the-greatest-threat-to-our-country-its-time-for-congress-to-act/.
We already have all the vocabulary we need to achieve a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment. Apathy, ignorance, and, perhaps, counterintelligence operations (in the form of domestic propaganda against it) are the only issues standing in the way.
"At the highest level of the capitalist ruling elite, there are those who understand full well that their system has entered into a crisis that can end in only two ways: either the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the expropriation of the tiny minority of billionaires and corporate bosses by the working class; or a counterrevolutionary bloodbath of such proportions that it would make the crimes of imperialism in the twentieth century pale by comparison ((http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/12/06/pers-d06.html).
The ruling classes of the world understand their precarious position of privilege and wealth and are now actively amassing weapons of mass destruction, assembling global armies of police and increasing their attacks on democratic rights in an effort to preserve their hierarchies, mammon and privileges.
While these uber-rich accumulate ever more powerful weapons of war, from Spain to South Africa and from Peru to Pakistan, people all over the globe are continuing to demand a world that is more reasonable, just, free of violence and ultimately fairer.
They understand that we cannot submit ourselves to the savage scrim of poverty and grayness, shutting away justice and the stars of equality and night."
Transnational, cartel fascism i what was described in this video. Companies agreeing how much to produce, not to compete and they say it is a free market.
It i a privatized planned economy that will vomit up despair and its own contradictions.
Please listen to Ralph Naders recent podcast. This movement if supported may take back our country and constitution.
Bishop William Barber is President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, which was established to train communities in moral movement building. He is Co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, and Founding Director and Professor at the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School.
We should stop thinking what can we do to what will we do.
Great interview as usual Chris! For a good chuckle about the seriousness of the Political duopoly that allowed the corporate takeover happen. Check out Tommy Dougal's video of "Mouse Land". From the 1950's or 60's. He was the father of Canadian health care, from Saskatchewan. Originally born in Scotland with a bad leg, a surgeon took pity on him and operated saving his leg for free. He NEVER forgot! The leader of the CCP then the NDP the Socialist party in Canada, he should have been Prime Minister. The RCMP like the FBI had reams of secret police reports of his speeches. Kiefer Sutherland is his grandson on his mothers side. The video is on you tube, is 7 minutes and 47 secs long! If you don't laugh and commiserate about the reality of the system we mice live in, you are part of the problem and probably a Corporate fascist Neo Con or Limousine Liberal ! The Ruling Cats !
Mike Benz -- I need 6 hours, but here I explained in 6 minutes the 2 main drivers, from the Blob's perspective, of the question that hangs over all of modern politics: "Why Ukraine?" – Feb 28
( Unfotunatelly, on BlazeTV of village idiot grifter, Glenn Beck )
Excellent interview of Gretchen Morgensen, Chris. I especially appreciated your persistently and apologetically injecting your can't-wait requests for clarification into her remarks and her graciously accepting and responding to them: very nice as well as vital interactions!
Please consider adding some salient links as endnotes to your substack podcast intros, especially any that would point to alternatives for action in response to the issues discussed, and thus convert your informative podcasts into action-oriented podcasts as well, to whatever extent you like.
Serfs had holidays & feast days on which they were allowed free movement to parts of the township, village, etc., reserved for Nobility & Kings. They also had ample skills in valuable areas like Farming, Herding & Craftsmanship... The Modern American 'working poor' are in a far worse state today as tens of millions do not have such luxuries or skills available to them any longer.
(For those interested)
If you wish to read (& listen!) to more of My commentary, here is my Main Stack:
https://thefallofthewest.substack.com
Thank You Kindly to everyone!
They also had control over the land which they cultivated and a voice in village government.
Yep. The commons has been enclosed. We now have to sell ourselves into wage slavery rather than live in a self-supporting community. Enclosing the commons was a critical step in the development of Capitalism.
Conquered by transnational corporations.
The enclosure movement is almost complete.
Little public land left other than a park here and there.
Self-supporting communities do not make money for capitalists.
But owning every inch of land gives them legal rights we do not have.
Exactly. The Commons were enclosed and the cultivated land held by peasant families for centuries and farmed according to rules they made communally was taken from them, assigned to Lords who had never farmed them who sold them or rented them out to capitalist tenants. The lucky ones, now landless, got jobs, at starvation wages, while the others went to sea or the city or to the colonies.
The History of England-the saddest story ever told.
Let us not romanticize feudalism in the face of senile capitalism.
Feudalism was a brutal system that superseded slavery.
Capitalism and capitalist economics in the 1800's was all about land and its usage, ownership, etc.
And let us not make The Lords, the good guys in all of this.
They were human exploiters of labor and as said, brutal and power hungry7
I find many people who are on the right side of the aisle now talking about the beauties of a mythical past of feudalism and land and animal etc.
t is trash.
Read history.
Better yet, read political economy and see how capitalism emerged from feudalism and how it is now making serfs of us all..
They had no control over land. This is simply not true. Land Barons, feudal Kings and Lords owned the land. They worked the land as peasants everyday but one, that day was for themselves.
And as to village government, what village government?
Peasants and serfs had no decision making power.
This was a hierarchical feudal system with a King.
You are romancing the wrong stone.
Financial feudalism will be similar as we can see.
Own nothing, be happy.
You will get a UBI. Same model, different time in history.
I haven't seen the deep flaws in capitalism, as practiced is today's USA, examined with more acuity since the days (not so long ago) of Bill Moyers. Great work, Mr. Hedges. Thank you.
This is "free market capitalism" , baby. Freedumbs and Liberties!!
What the author describes is exactly the model of extraction that the IMF and World Bank use on the global south.
They force the sale of public entities, loading them with debt and cutting services to make them more attractive for investors, they charge usurious fees on debt and the money generated, in the case of the Global South goes to pay the interest to the bond holders.
This is precisely what happened in Argentina.
Now, the US is feeling the pain of the extraction-rentier model.
But instead of the IMF, it is the new corporate feudal financial institutions we put in place for 75 years coming home to roost.
And workers suffer loss of jobs, no health care, no social safety net --- all due to the debt holders, the donors for the two party duopoly.
America is being 'Thirdworldized' and it takes no genius to see the austerity planned by the corporate plunders and their coin operated politicians is being firmly set in place.
This is what Latin America fights everyday.
Oligarchs and Plutocrats
Same in UK
This reminds me of Thom Hartmann's article "How the Richest Democracy in the World Abandons Americans". And we wonder why people follow our modern Pied Piper, The Donald.
More slight of hand commentary by the master of indirect criticism, Chris Hedges:
"... seeing 330,000 Americans die during the pandemic because they could not afford to go to a doctor on time."
Not exactly, not quite ...
He deftly ignores the larger problem: people are actually dying from the COVID vax itself:
1) VAERS data is clear: The COVID vax kills 1 person per 1,000 doses (676,000 dead Americans)
https://kirschsubstack.com/p/vaers-data-is-crystal-clear-the-covid
2) VAERS data: 72% of all reported VACCINE DEATHS are attributed to COVID-19 injections:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-08-11-vaers-72-percent-vaccine-deaths-covid-injections.html
And don't forget that Hedges actually pushed the "safe & effective" narrative on us when he had ample evidence that exactly the opposite was true ...
Did you know ...
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 development proved that the COVID vax WAS NOT "safe & effective" ...
And 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 anyway! ... and then about 2m after making that same comment during the interview above, Hedges openly admitted that he "does not trust Moderna or Phizer" ...
Lives and livelihoods can hang in the balance of reckless comments like this, but clearly this man did not give a hoot about the consequences ...
I also found it a bit strange but not surprising that Hedges did not mention BlackRock CEO Larry Fink in this article ... ya see, Fink is the guy we see sitting up there at those WEF conclaves in Davos ... but as a rule, Hedges will not even mention key Davos figures like Schwab, Harari and Fink ... and to my knowledge he has never mentioned THE GREAT RESET ... his critical style has really changed since the March 2020 lockdowns ... Hedges is indirect ... he'll rail on about the corporate elites and drop a few names as he did here, but he won't directly implicate the people at the top like Fink, who really run the show ... these people are completely off of his radar ... he would rather have us believe the problem is TRUMP-MAGA ...
Go hang out with the other Dore groupies
It is intellectual pupa like you that make imbecilic remarks like that. Instead of engaging in evidence, you make an ad hominem remark that is supposed to mean what exactly?
This is simply an example of the type of dialogue and conversations had in America. Individualizing problems, engaging in fallacies, personalizing social issues all of this is divide and conquer. The rulers are laughing, this is game show quality
Yes, but just listen to the extremely divisive out-of-context comment Hedges makes here as he calls those of us who question the motives of our elected officials members of the "lunatic fringe" and "conspiracy theorists" ... Hedges is a straddler: he's got one foot is their world and only one foot in our world.
An excerpt from his otherwise terrific AMERICAN SADISM speech:
Go to the 44:32 mark:
https://scheerpost.com/2021/06/29/chris-hedges-speaks-on-american-sadism/
The podcast was about asset stripping and the role of the new financial fiefdom.
Don't individualize it.
We do not really care what you think of Hedges we listen to learn about the subject matter.
In America, all roads lead to Rome.
You sound like a real free speech type ...
"We do not really care what you think of Hedges ..."
Oh really! ... so you speak for his flock, right?
And if you're here to learn, then you're an exception to the rule ...
Having followed Hedges very closely for the past decade, I know that his followers are generally not here to be empowered or enlightened, they're here to be entertained ...
All of my carefully researched criticisms of him are based on simply bench-marking his words against his actions ... so call me what you want ... a half-dozen other readers here already agree with my take on this once good man.
I didn't know the podcast was on the life and thoughts of Chris Hedges.
I thought it was about financialization and the destruction senile capitalism is doing to the world.
Do you have anything to say or comment on about the topic? If not, take the last word. Time is precious now.
these are tales of real people asswipe
OK, but only with your permission of course ...
The american empire is rapidly disintergrating. It is EATINtG EATING MORE AND MORE OF ITSELF and not realizing that the outcome will be EXTINCTION. 'HAVE MORE IT'S DELICIOUS AND YOU CAN EAT AS MUCH AS YOU WANT' . Shades of Oscar Wilde and the Portrait of Dorian Gray. THE USA IS HIDEOUS AND deserves ITS TERMINAL CANCER.
Hedges is a podcast commentator, like so many now.
America is a sadistic nation, of this their is no doubt.
Masochistic too.
One listens, reads and dialogues and then come to their own conclusions which are hopefully open to change.
The interview i the issue, not Hedges.
He is trying to use guests to let you know of the ruthless serfdom that has ignited across America, who controls it and its ramnifications.
It is also a good primer as to how asset stripping works.
Try to concentrate on what is being said, the purpose and by whom.
If you have a dispute with Hedges, stop listening.
For it is the content that should be of concern not what Hedges said in some prior speech.
Yes! Thank you for saying this.
And as you point out above, what Gretchen Morgensen is describing is the same as what Naomi Klein describes happening in the Shock Doctrine as Disaster Capitalism on a world scale, except at home with the appearance of less brutality and greater secrecy (so that whatever Democratic of Republican President in Power, but working for the same out of control capitalistic system, will get re-elected?), but same results of the suffering and impoverishment of millions. The interview helps me understand better the precise mechanisms, the formula, for taking over and destroying any and every kind of American institution that serves the greater population in exchange for the increasingly rapacious greed of the few.
There are also uncomfortable similarities with how Rome eventually fell under the sheer weight of its sprawling empire, relying increasingly on mercenaries with no loyalty except to money and power, while at home the neglect of infrastructure, the growing gap between the rich and the poor and increasing civil wars led finally to the invasion of the "barbarians" and the fall of the Roman Empire.
One purpose of these interviews and what is being said in a digital age where Chris Hedges and other commentators can reach millions of people is that there is an unprecedented opportunity for enough passionate and caring people of conscience and action to wake up, join together and transform in both little and big ways this totally self-destructive and other-destructive trajectory. There is still time.
And I must come back especially in the here and now to the people of Gaza - and that we hold them in our hearts day after night after day to combat the abandonment by the world they are experiencing in the terrible suffering being inflicted upon them. That on some deeper level the heart accesses, they are not alone.
Morgensen's book is probably well researched and the unethical business practices she writes about are no doubt well documented. However, her book will change nothing. Notice that I said unethical; not illegal. The system of corruption is so embedded throughout government at this point that we could never hope to stamp out what should be illegal business practices (like her example of Envision) with new laws against those practices. To engage in such nonsense is simply resigning ourselves to pointless legalese wack-a-mole.
Fortunately, there is one simple solution to nearly all this monkey business. It's called the passage of a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment.
It should immediately be demanded by the American people. The only reason these private equity firms engage in these practices is because they are largely focused on draining the American taxpayer whose government guarantees all the debt they pile up every year (over 10 trillion alone since Covid19 declared state of emergency) financing these types of deviant business practices. There are others, to be sure (i.e. 501 (c) (3)'s, etc). As I have said before on this forum, the U.S. government was not even 1 trillion in debt when Ronald Reagan took office. We now have, not even a half century later, eclipsed that amount by over 34 times! It currently costs the U.S. taxpayer $2B a day to service that debt. Although private equity pirates have helped put us there in a contributory manner, the financial damage of this collective debt is worse than all the private equity firms combined, in my opinion. Morgensen can talk about the billions reaped by the likes of Leon Black all she wants, but when you start talking 10's of trillions of dollars in debt, you are in a far different stratosphere. Debts at this level matter more significantly. Large amounts of acquired debt is what ultimately sinks these companies--and what is ultimately sinking the U.S. taxpayer. The principle is no different--only the scale. Yet we allow Congress and the White House to pass one "Continuing Resolution" after another (one just yesterday) without nary a peep. Again, the tax payer appears hoodwinked by the clever use of the word "Resolution" just as they are by the rebranding of financial pirating in private "Equity" referenced by Morgensen.
I believe the amendment I mentioned earlier is the only avenue of salvation left. If you laugh at this possibility, than you have your head in the sand and are part of the problem, not the solution.
WW2 you are looking through Capitalist Rose Tinted Glasses! Reagan ran the debt up, raised taxes and started the trickle down Voodoo Economics of privatization, with the Iron lady Thatcher! Bush senior argued against! Reagan would be considered a commie by the Neo Liberal and Neo Con Democrat/Republican Duopoly! Clinton handed Bush junior a debt free economy that he put the boots too, with tax cuts while increasing spending for never ending war! I will never understand the Neo cons hate for Clinton he did everything they wanted, with Genocide Joes help! Welfare Reform, Tax cuts for the Rich, Three Strike laws, Dismantling Glass Steagall Act. Re-Creating the boom bust economy and at least 2 major depressions! The "fix' must include the removal of Citizens United PAC Dark money. The same Billionaire Class of the John Birch fascist cohorts of the Koch family dynasty! The Koch brothers bloody hands are the major driver and founders of the TEA PARTY MAGA Republicans, who vomited up the Orange Jesus Frankenstein Trump! These Robber Barons have been lionized and respected for too long! They are no more than parasites! Corporations and non existent Corporate morality was built with Standard Oil's Rockefeller mentality and GREED! Until Corporate power is destroyed no one has a chance. They are Nuclear Armed with Private armies and an insatiable lust for power and war! I good read is the 1937 book "The Merchants of Death" about all the war profiteers in WW1, and leading up to it! Hundreds if not thousands of millionaires were produced in the USA, they knew a "good thing" when they saw it, and cemented their power and profits FOREVER during and after WW2! How about all the little guys paying taxes for the betterment of mankind and the Robber Barons paying for ALL WAR COSTS! Any families making more than a million dollars a year put into the draft and make their sons and daughters cannon fodder, not the proles of Orwellian dystopia!
Actually, I'm simply looking at the facts. To the contrary your assertion that Bill Clinton handed his successor a debt free economy is pure hallucination on your part. There have only been 3 U.S. Presidents in the 20 and 21st century that haven't added to the Federal Debt pile. Hint: Bill Clinton wasn't one of them. https://www.investopedia.com/us-debt-by-president-dollar-and-percentage-7371225#toc-national-debt-continues-to-rise-under-president-biden
Only revolution will change everything and we are in one: unfortunately it is a fascist revolution and thus prone to making what is revealed here ethical and part of capitalism.
No, her book will do nothing. But I understand her need to write it.
People hardly are literate anymore going back centuries to using their thumbs only.
Without class consciousness nothing will change.
I respectfully disagree. What is revealed here might be legal and part of capitalism (run amok), but it is hardly ethical. Further, demanding a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment doesn't require class consciousnesses (folks inherently know what class they are in); it takes a rejection of public apathy and a demand for government fiscal responsibility.
It takes what is called 'class consciousness.
Without an understanding of how capitalism works and why without i,, one can put very little footprints forward.
Marx is more relevant no than ever.
Michael Hudson does good work on all of this.
He too, is an outstanding economist, of which you no doubt have heard of.
I agree with your commnets regarding Marx and Michael Hudson. Even listening to Richard Wolf lecture on the subject of Capitalism is relevant to ones economic education. However, the general public does not need to be scholars on the issue in order to act. I believe applying the socioeconomic term "class consciousness" obfuscates the issue and stupefies the public regarding their responsibility to demand a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment. The issue is as simple as requiring what the individual, the local government & the State government must already do; which is: LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS. Just because the Federal Government is the only sovereign entity allowed to print fiat currency does not necessary mean they should be allowed to print any amount they wish.
You write:
"I believe applying the socioeconomic term "class consciousness" obfuscates the issue and stupefies the public regarding their responsibility to demand a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment. The issue is as simple as requiring what the individual, the local government & the State government must already do; which is: "
You do not really think making demands on the coin operated stooges would have any affect, would you?
As CEO, the president does as he sees fit.
No populace can demand anything less than the overthrow of capitalism. Any responsibility to 'demand' a FBB would rely on class consciousness.
"Demanding change" is done through political organizing. Not writing letters to stooges.
Fortunately for the rulers, they have both sophistry, class consciousness of themselves as a class, and they own the means of production worldwide.
And they own contract licenses, a precious commodity in today's turbulent world.
Now is the time to begin to use words like class consciousness while actually doing struggle on the ground,.
Develop a new vocabulary to understand and dialogue about the problems.
If workers and the dispossessed do not see themselves as a ;class', thus class consciousness, they lose.
This is the threat threat feared by the ruling elite.
Understanding that 7you live in a senile financially controlled technocracy and ar being exploited daily, can the problem be solved.
"You do not really think making demands on the coin operated stooges would have any affect, would you?" You are right, class consciousness is the way to go. Thank you for your remarks.
The 18th and 21st amendments of the U.S. Constitution prove that anything can be politically demanded by the U.S. people . It doesn't make sense that if the 18th amendment involved "class consciousnesses", than the latter involved collective amnesia of that consciousness a mere 14 years later. Bottom line: relying on class consciousness has nothing to do with demanding a fiscal responsibility within our Constitution. Further, fiscal responsibility is not only an issue for "workers and the dispossessed"; debilitating national debt is a matter of national security for every single American. That is not just my opinion, but that of former Chairman Chief of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen: https://www.romney.senate.gov/national-debt-is-the-greatest-threat-to-our-country-its-time-for-congress-to-act/.
We already have all the vocabulary we need to achieve a Federal Balanced Budget Amendment. Apathy, ignorance, and, perhaps, counterintelligence operations (in the form of domestic propaganda against it) are the only issues standing in the way.
These companies will never cease control. they are medieval financial fortresses and we are locked within the castle walls.
At least in the UK Britain lost its hegemony and went on to live with it, giving up colonies left and right.
The US hubris is much worse.
Emerging from WWII with 50% of the worldd's wealth America i at 25% now. and declining.
For the corporations farmed out their labor, imperialism, to other nations where labor is cheaper, namely China.
And that reminds me of the quote from Karl Marx: "The workers have no homeland."
This is more certain today.
The cyclone fence and barbed wire are to keep Americans in, as much as cheap labor out.
I think two things must occur and not in any order but dialectically:
1. The American people must understand they live in an Empire and the costs associated with maintaining it.
2. The American military survei8llance complex, or whatever one wants to refer to is in complete control.
We are living behind lines.
This crime syndicate explained in this video was the product of such men as Meyer Lansky, head of the National Crime Commission.
When Capone was convicted for tax evasion Lansky set up off shores to handle all transactions so there was never a trace him.
Wicked times.
This is a bit old, but makes the point.
General News 1/3/2015 at 1:06 PM EST H3'ed 1/3/15
The Blood on the Blade: Global Inequality and War
Yet economic inequality is not an inevitable feature of life; it is socially constructed and the result of deliberate public policy choices (http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/even-it-up-time-to-end-extreme-inequality-333012).
As the World Socialist Website so astutely noted:
"At the highest level of the capitalist ruling elite, there are those who understand full well that their system has entered into a crisis that can end in only two ways: either the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the expropriation of the tiny minority of billionaires and corporate bosses by the working class; or a counterrevolutionary bloodbath of such proportions that it would make the crimes of imperialism in the twentieth century pale by comparison ((http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/12/06/pers-d06.html).
The ruling classes of the world understand their precarious position of privilege and wealth and are now actively amassing weapons of mass destruction, assembling global armies of police and increasing their attacks on democratic rights in an effort to preserve their hierarchies, mammon and privileges.
While these uber-rich accumulate ever more powerful weapons of war, from Spain to South Africa and from Peru to Pakistan, people all over the globe are continuing to demand a world that is more reasonable, just, free of violence and ultimately fairer.
They understand that we cannot submit ourselves to the savage scrim of poverty and grayness, shutting away justice and the stars of equality and night."
https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?p=4&f=The-Blood-on-the-Blade-Gl-by-Danny-Weil-Billionaires_Blood-Money_Capitalism_Capitalism-150103-80.html
Transnational, cartel fascism i what was described in this video. Companies agreeing how much to produce, not to compete and they say it is a free market.
It i a privatized planned economy that will vomit up despair and its own contradictions.
Please listen to Ralph Naders recent podcast. This movement if supported may take back our country and constitution.
Bishop William Barber is President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, which was established to train communities in moral movement building. He is Co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, and Founding Director and Professor at the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School.
We should stop thinking what can we do to what will we do.
For some reason I think you already had her on but either way I think you should have her on again. Big fan of the financial interviewees.
Great interview as usual Chris! For a good chuckle about the seriousness of the Political duopoly that allowed the corporate takeover happen. Check out Tommy Dougal's video of "Mouse Land". From the 1950's or 60's. He was the father of Canadian health care, from Saskatchewan. Originally born in Scotland with a bad leg, a surgeon took pity on him and operated saving his leg for free. He NEVER forgot! The leader of the CCP then the NDP the Socialist party in Canada, he should have been Prime Minister. The RCMP like the FBI had reams of secret police reports of his speeches. Kiefer Sutherland is his grandson on his mothers side. The video is on you tube, is 7 minutes and 47 secs long! If you don't laugh and commiserate about the reality of the system we mice live in, you are part of the problem and probably a Corporate fascist Neo Con or Limousine Liberal ! The Ruling Cats !
Very enlightening! Thank you Chris!
THANK YOU !!
Mike Benz -- I need 6 hours, but here I explained in 6 minutes the 2 main drivers, from the Blob's perspective, of the question that hangs over all of modern politics: "Why Ukraine?" – Feb 28
( Unfotunatelly, on BlazeTV of village idiot grifter, Glenn Beck )
https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1762991582070874119?s=20
"Not About Nato" | "Never About NATO" | "Nothing to Do With NATO"
OUTSTANDING
Matt Orfalea. Oct 18, 2023 -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf5xEBwBhds&t=92s
NATO is simply a criminal organization, much like Meyer Lansky's National Crime Syndicate that is used to invade, murder and steal.
Always refer to NATO as a criminal syndicate for that is how people begin to think.
Excellent interview of Gretchen Morgensen, Chris. I especially appreciated your persistently and apologetically injecting your can't-wait requests for clarification into her remarks and her graciously accepting and responding to them: very nice as well as vital interactions!
Please consider adding some salient links as endnotes to your substack podcast intros, especially any that would point to alternatives for action in response to the issues discussed, and thus convert your informative podcasts into action-oriented podcasts as well, to whatever extent you like.