Chris Hedges, I spent a good two hours yesterday to wealthy Californians who donate freely to all the best causes and think Bill Gates wants to help feed Africa. I focused on the essential work that you do.
They’ve never heard of you, these brain dead liberals who yelled at me for suggesting that Obama, Biden, and of course Bush, did more damage than Trump. They cannot accept the idea that corporate domination is fascism, and no one is better at it than the Democrats. Just ask Snowdon, Donzinger, or Assange. Not one liberal I know gives a damn about Assange.
Now, as you so effectively point, out our country is facing a future of ashes. But I believe that a phoenix may rise from them, and so I see the coming flames as preamble, like preparing a canvas for paint. There’s no way around it, only through. And if the light at the end of the tunnel comes not from a nuclear explosion, we may be able to create a better world.
Continue to help us see that light Chris. Oh, and I followed my own advice and gave them a copy of your last book. I wonder what effect it will have.
Thank you for speaking the truth. I do not think we are a democracy today. Tuesday’s results will not change that fact. I would like to mention we were all bought off with the invention of 401Ks. Our savings provide Wall Street with enormous and I think unlimited liquidity--401Ks mean all of our security is exposed as churn. Wealth is sucked out on an industrial scale. In effect we all work for Wall Street. Exploitation has always been the foundation though hasn’t it? So maybe we have never been a democracy and now that we are all serfs for Wall Street there is no hope of ever getting to democracy.
This is great and will be saved in my archives for the inventory of social and economic wreckage we see today.
In “The United States of Amnesia,” to quote Gore Vidal, the corporate press and the ruling class create fictional feel-good personas for candidates, treat all political campaigns as if it is a day at the races and gloss over the fact that on every major issue, from trade deals to war, there is very little difference between Democrats and Republicans. The Democratic Party and Joe Biden are not the lesser evil, but rather, as Glen Ford pointed out, “the more effective evil.”
The rather obvious question here is, then why the Trump Derangement Syndrome and support for Joe Biden? Why then are the voices outside the current orthodoxy of old Democrat and Republican establishment criticized, denigrated, canceled and silenced by the very people that would agree with this inventory? I debate them every day. They claim that climate change is our most pressing existential threat, and that free speech is dangerous because it results in misinformation. They defend the Biden Democrat power base like their lives depend on it (their social status depends on it).
Where is the alternative leader and/or principled ideology that deals with this inventory... one that would combat the corporatist oligarchy to return social and economic health to the people?
Sorry but Bernie Sanders is just playing a part to hide his career connections with the establishment. He is about as inauthentic as they come. Where is the leader of the Democrat party that breaks with the establishment? The Republicans have Trump. Yes he lacks grace, academic rigor and gifts of linguistic nuance; but he has demonstrated anti-establishment views since Oprah interviewed him 25 years ago. His platform is anti-establishment and the Republican establishment hates him for it. The Democrat establishment hates him too.
My attraction to Trump has been that there is nothing else... nothing else that provides any hope of a wrecking ball to the power establishment that is the larger wrecking ball to everything else.
Fuck the hypersensitivity to mean Tweets. Really, everyone needs to grow some understanding and self-awareness for what is really at stake and how they can be emotionally manipulated to chew off their own arms and legs in irrational rage by the very people looting the country to an empty husk.
Chris, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for your sanity, clarity, compassion, and wisdom. You are a guiding star in these appalling times. You are a treasure.
I’m sure you’re more aware of these realities than many of us who’ve spent our lives in our privilege bubbles far from war and conflict. One of my liberal university educated sisters in her late 50’s believed that somehow Julian Assange may not deserve our attention because as late night hosts echoed “he didn’t empty his cat litter box.” My other university educated sister believed he was “a rapist” so she ignores the issue but refuses to go to a local gas station that has a Trump sign in the window. If I offer any outside information they’ll look at me like I’m a conspiracy theorist and they’d never read Nils Melzer’s book because that kind of stuff is depressing and “unpleasant.” Another older Democrat woman who I know said “I can’t support Assange because he colluded with Roger Stone” I won’t bother telling family at Thanksgiving that I drove to DC to a free Assange rally, because I’m the youngest in the pecking order, a high school drop out and they’ll not be sure what to think. I’d always asked their opinions before because they had master’s degrees. They want Democrats to save them from Trump and his rude mouth.
Thank you for this much-needed essay! You have the clear-headed analysis of our predicament that cuts through the fog of propaganda that has disabled most of us from seeing the problems and finding a path forward. Even those activist groups that do see it as you do, like Socialist Alternative, have mysteriously melted into the background. We are experiencing a seizure of our collective subconscious.
Today may live in infamy: the opening day of COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh. The leaders in favor of fixing the climate breakdown have changed their strategy. Instead of pressing that fight, they will ask for the Big Fossil Fuel countries / corporatocracies to pay for remediating the climate disasters, like the flooding in Pakistan. The oligarchs like Koch will happily coach their politicians into negotiations that drag on, finally culminating in press-worthy compromises, and then a continuation of the red tape and stalling tactics that have enabled them to avoid paying for hardly any climate mitigation up until now. Meanwhile, their greenhouse gases will continue to seal our fate.
November 6, 2022 should rank with the day that Neville Chamberlain accommodated Hitler in the Munich Agreement.... The Sharm El-Sheikh Capitulation.
Down here in Red-hot Alabama where ordinary folks, regardless of party, have no real voice, I'm voting for an Independent write-in candidate for governor
Yes, he's a long-shot, an underdog.
But given that the system is already rigged, why not support all serious alternatives to the corporatist duopoly?Some positive momentum may result if enough people reject the puppets usually given to us. It's better than giving up.
We certainly are seeing a decaying of all those institutions that once defined the USA. Chris once again reminds us of the hollowing out of all these institutions by the corporate oligarchs over the last several decades. There is no effective "law enforcement" in this country anymore (see George Floyd's murder for more on that. Our educational systems have been slowly subtly taken over by Christian heretics and the far-right White evangelicals. There is no more free press; a handful of conglomerates decides what we read and the same goes for television "news". Health care is run by wealthy for -profit conglomerates. Civil discourse had gone extinct' we live in a sound bite society where he who yells the loudest gets the best grade for being a patriot. Corporations decide what to do with our water and what constitutes clean water (see Flint, Michigan, et al, for more on that). I feel scared and sad for my son and my two beautiful granddaughters because of the inverted society they're inheriting. And I think of how angry I often feel at those demons in human form people like Samuel Huntington who spoke of "an excess of Democracy", and Ronald Reagan, who with his "revolution" began the most recent slide into this austerity laden society we now live in. Bush, Clinton, Cheney, Nixon, Obama....it's no matter who, they've all added to our demise
Bernie Sanders bent the knee to the Democratic Party and sacrificed his chance to mount a third party movement at the 2016 Democratic convention. He had the support of millions. What a terrible waste!
What wiill wake people up, finally? What will rouse their political instinct for survival? What will it take to kickstart a revolution? It seems that Americans have been propagandized by the media, dulled by distractions and superficial comforts, and beset by a culture of lies to such an extent that they are willing to be cast into poverty and denied their civil rights. How will it change?
As always Chris, thanks for your insights and the fine way you present them. I've never voted for a republican for president and only 2 dems., Mcgovern and Obama once, I have no regrets about voting for Mcgovern.
Chris Hedges, I spent a good two hours yesterday to wealthy Californians who donate freely to all the best causes and think Bill Gates wants to help feed Africa. I focused on the essential work that you do.
They’ve never heard of you, these brain dead liberals who yelled at me for suggesting that Obama, Biden, and of course Bush, did more damage than Trump. They cannot accept the idea that corporate domination is fascism, and no one is better at it than the Democrats. Just ask Snowdon, Donzinger, or Assange. Not one liberal I know gives a damn about Assange.
Now, as you so effectively point, out our country is facing a future of ashes. But I believe that a phoenix may rise from them, and so I see the coming flames as preamble, like preparing a canvas for paint. There’s no way around it, only through. And if the light at the end of the tunnel comes not from a nuclear explosion, we may be able to create a better world.
Continue to help us see that light Chris. Oh, and I followed my own advice and gave them a copy of your last book. I wonder what effect it will have.
As I often say, the 50+ year hallowing out of the United States has been brought to you by [checks notes] the Democrats and Republicans.
Thank you for speaking the truth. I do not think we are a democracy today. Tuesday’s results will not change that fact. I would like to mention we were all bought off with the invention of 401Ks. Our savings provide Wall Street with enormous and I think unlimited liquidity--401Ks mean all of our security is exposed as churn. Wealth is sucked out on an industrial scale. In effect we all work for Wall Street. Exploitation has always been the foundation though hasn’t it? So maybe we have never been a democracy and now that we are all serfs for Wall Street there is no hope of ever getting to democracy.
Dennis Kucinich NOW!
This is great and will be saved in my archives for the inventory of social and economic wreckage we see today.
In “The United States of Amnesia,” to quote Gore Vidal, the corporate press and the ruling class create fictional feel-good personas for candidates, treat all political campaigns as if it is a day at the races and gloss over the fact that on every major issue, from trade deals to war, there is very little difference between Democrats and Republicans. The Democratic Party and Joe Biden are not the lesser evil, but rather, as Glen Ford pointed out, “the more effective evil.”
The rather obvious question here is, then why the Trump Derangement Syndrome and support for Joe Biden? Why then are the voices outside the current orthodoxy of old Democrat and Republican establishment criticized, denigrated, canceled and silenced by the very people that would agree with this inventory? I debate them every day. They claim that climate change is our most pressing existential threat, and that free speech is dangerous because it results in misinformation. They defend the Biden Democrat power base like their lives depend on it (their social status depends on it).
Where is the alternative leader and/or principled ideology that deals with this inventory... one that would combat the corporatist oligarchy to return social and economic health to the people?
Sorry but Bernie Sanders is just playing a part to hide his career connections with the establishment. He is about as inauthentic as they come. Where is the leader of the Democrat party that breaks with the establishment? The Republicans have Trump. Yes he lacks grace, academic rigor and gifts of linguistic nuance; but he has demonstrated anti-establishment views since Oprah interviewed him 25 years ago. His platform is anti-establishment and the Republican establishment hates him for it. The Democrat establishment hates him too.
My attraction to Trump has been that there is nothing else... nothing else that provides any hope of a wrecking ball to the power establishment that is the larger wrecking ball to everything else.
Fuck the hypersensitivity to mean Tweets. Really, everyone needs to grow some understanding and self-awareness for what is really at stake and how they can be emotionally manipulated to chew off their own arms and legs in irrational rage by the very people looting the country to an empty husk.
Chris, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for your sanity, clarity, compassion, and wisdom. You are a guiding star in these appalling times. You are a treasure.
I’m sure you’re more aware of these realities than many of us who’ve spent our lives in our privilege bubbles far from war and conflict. One of my liberal university educated sisters in her late 50’s believed that somehow Julian Assange may not deserve our attention because as late night hosts echoed “he didn’t empty his cat litter box.” My other university educated sister believed he was “a rapist” so she ignores the issue but refuses to go to a local gas station that has a Trump sign in the window. If I offer any outside information they’ll look at me like I’m a conspiracy theorist and they’d never read Nils Melzer’s book because that kind of stuff is depressing and “unpleasant.” Another older Democrat woman who I know said “I can’t support Assange because he colluded with Roger Stone” I won’t bother telling family at Thanksgiving that I drove to DC to a free Assange rally, because I’m the youngest in the pecking order, a high school drop out and they’ll not be sure what to think. I’d always asked their opinions before because they had master’s degrees. They want Democrats to save them from Trump and his rude mouth.
Thank you for this much-needed essay! You have the clear-headed analysis of our predicament that cuts through the fog of propaganda that has disabled most of us from seeing the problems and finding a path forward. Even those activist groups that do see it as you do, like Socialist Alternative, have mysteriously melted into the background. We are experiencing a seizure of our collective subconscious.
Today may live in infamy: the opening day of COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh. The leaders in favor of fixing the climate breakdown have changed their strategy. Instead of pressing that fight, they will ask for the Big Fossil Fuel countries / corporatocracies to pay for remediating the climate disasters, like the flooding in Pakistan. The oligarchs like Koch will happily coach their politicians into negotiations that drag on, finally culminating in press-worthy compromises, and then a continuation of the red tape and stalling tactics that have enabled them to avoid paying for hardly any climate mitigation up until now. Meanwhile, their greenhouse gases will continue to seal our fate.
November 6, 2022 should rank with the day that Neville Chamberlain accommodated Hitler in the Munich Agreement.... The Sharm El-Sheikh Capitulation.
Outstanding article -- thank you !!
Down here in Red-hot Alabama where ordinary folks, regardless of party, have no real voice, I'm voting for an Independent write-in candidate for governor
Yes, he's a long-shot, an underdog.
But given that the system is already rigged, why not support all serious alternatives to the corporatist duopoly?Some positive momentum may result if enough people reject the puppets usually given to us. It's better than giving up.
This is where "vote blue no matter who!" and its slightly less overtly tribal cousin "vote blue because Supreme Court!" have led.
Thank you, perfect description near the eve of the final day to vote.
Since reading The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fate_of_the_Earth
in the early 80's it appears the denial has only grown.
We certainly are seeing a decaying of all those institutions that once defined the USA. Chris once again reminds us of the hollowing out of all these institutions by the corporate oligarchs over the last several decades. There is no effective "law enforcement" in this country anymore (see George Floyd's murder for more on that. Our educational systems have been slowly subtly taken over by Christian heretics and the far-right White evangelicals. There is no more free press; a handful of conglomerates decides what we read and the same goes for television "news". Health care is run by wealthy for -profit conglomerates. Civil discourse had gone extinct' we live in a sound bite society where he who yells the loudest gets the best grade for being a patriot. Corporations decide what to do with our water and what constitutes clean water (see Flint, Michigan, et al, for more on that). I feel scared and sad for my son and my two beautiful granddaughters because of the inverted society they're inheriting. And I think of how angry I often feel at those demons in human form people like Samuel Huntington who spoke of "an excess of Democracy", and Ronald Reagan, who with his "revolution" began the most recent slide into this austerity laden society we now live in. Bush, Clinton, Cheney, Nixon, Obama....it's no matter who, they've all added to our demise
Bernie Sanders bent the knee to the Democratic Party and sacrificed his chance to mount a third party movement at the 2016 Democratic convention. He had the support of millions. What a terrible waste!
What wiill wake people up, finally? What will rouse their political instinct for survival? What will it take to kickstart a revolution? It seems that Americans have been propagandized by the media, dulled by distractions and superficial comforts, and beset by a culture of lies to such an extent that they are willing to be cast into poverty and denied their civil rights. How will it change?
As always Chris, thanks for your insights and the fine way you present them. I've never voted for a republican for president and only 2 dems., Mcgovern and Obama once, I have no regrets about voting for Mcgovern.