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.
I had the same experience with another hypnotized liberal who believes that the Democrats stand for Democracy and the Republicans stand for the Hand Maiden's Tale. She sees anti abortionists as the only problem and war escalation as a solution, yet ran for a political campaign as an environmentalist.
A young blue collar union activist in the '60s, I was trained by people who'd been '30s left wing labor organizers. They told me "liberals are the ones who leave the room when the fight starts."
In the late '70s and early '80s, the elitist New Dems usurped the D party, dismantling the New Deal and abandoning labor. What my mentors had warned about happened. We're now seeing the full horror of what an econopathic system does to all life on Earth yet the Ds do nothing but act as enablers.
They may leave the room Rafi, but they’ll be the ones placing the biggest bets on the outcome. Why are we blessed few, (and I do feel blessed that my father played me Robeson’s ‘Joe Hill’ before when I could barely speak), becoming rare with time? How could our fellow marchers in ‘68 now be cheering on the murderous Pentagon? Is it really just for money, comfort? Well, as I try to shoehorn into every friendly conversation with Trumpies: “We have on thing in common anyway, we both despise Liberals”. It’s actually a hell of an icebreaker. Best to you, and let’s never give up.
Liberals are more repulsive than anyone. In high school around 1970, we were taught that liberals support the system, they just want some tweaks to it. The Democratic Party has become more repulsive than the Republican Party because the Democrats pretend to care about you, whereas the Republicans don't.
it would be impossible if even one were straight! Not to mention the Hollwyood news organizations (Universal Studios, Fox, Warner Bros, Disney, Paramount, et al).
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.
Yes, but that is not really a new party, it's just the old PAC system on steroids. I'm talking about a legitimate third party that would be big enough to break the legislative stalemate. There are some attempts going like the People's Party and the Green Party but the general public has to
see that we agree on a lot of issues and stop emphasizing red vs blue. Both parties are paid by the same people and have the same agenda. We need the people's agenda instead.
I'm talking about a legitimate third party that would be big enough to break the legislative stalemate. There are some attempts going like the People's Party and the Green Party but the general public has to see that we agree on a lot of issues and stop emphasizing red vs blue. Both parties are paid by the same people and have the same agenda. We need the people's agenda instead.
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.
Sanders was the real deal, and so was pushed out of the running when it was evident that he was going to beat Hilary. Why would you call him inauthentic and then turn around and claim that the flim-flam man is a real alternative? That is an argument rooted in manic-depression. Trump, the silver spoon baby whose hatred of the establishment is down to his personal inadequacy, represents everything a corporate ladder climber could want. He set the bar for lowering taxes and eliminating them, which, if you’re unaware,widens the income gap, creates more billionaires, and leaves no money for the people who earn it. Just because he feigns rebellious, venomous antipathy for the folks you hate, doesn’t make him credible.
I think Sanders sold out. He votes for the corporatist collective and chimes in on the woke narrative even as he claims to be a champion of the working class.
I judge people on their actions over their words. It appears that you do the opposite.
So what has Trump done that stirs your drink? I mean you’re quoting Vidal and calling Sanders a sellout ...and then paying homage to a proven fake. Sanders sought to make the DP see that it has a choice to be Republican-lite or a party that represents the core interests of corporate victims. I don’t think you can blame the obstinacy and greed of the DNC on Sanders. He has consistently stated his position, has a large following, and is marginalized by the corporate soldiers in his midst.
I get so tired calling up the list of real Trump actions while he had to fight the full establishment attempting to take him out by any means... and much of it illegal and criminal. But in his four years in office he accomplished or attempted to accomplish many things that were against the establishment. The renegotiated trade agreements, the support of the Israel embassy in Jerusalem; the wall and the stay in Mexico agreement; the end of ISIS and then the end of wars; regulatory reform to help invigorate the small business economy; economic certainty and supported growth. Since Biden it is more international war, more war on small business, and greater corporatist consolidation... all great establishment-pleasing moves. It is also a war on the working class. Trump came out doing what he said he would to support the working class. He was transparent... speaking what is on his mind and not what is written down for him by puppet masters. But he never wavered in his convictions. What might he had accomplished without a hostile and destructive establishment at his neck the entire time and the need to negotiate with raging Democrats who had only his removal and defeat as their primary agenda?
73 million voted for him in 2020. If not for the plandemic, he would still be President and the Senate in GOP hands. My how things would be different today had that happened.
All of these “accomplishments” you cite are about as revolutionary as vanilla ice cream. Are you a reactionary? WTF does the embassy move to Jerusalem have to do with support for anybody? He has kissed the asses of the evangelicals, which in political terms is pouring gasoline on a fire. He calls workers who organize for better wages “socialists.” And btw, there are no labor unions supporting your guy, so you are free to love him, but nobody’s buying what you are selling. Hope you can enjoy the status quo because that sounds like your ideal destiny.
I don't converse with irrational head cases with TDS. If you cannot simply acknowledge the accomplishments, you are not well enough to join the conversation.
Embassy move to Jerusalem - a thank you to one of his biggest donors, Sheldon Adelson who, with his Israeli wife, Miriam, could be seen grinning behind Trump at his inauguration and at the embassy opening.
Always interesting to hear from a Trump supporter who believes he’s the best option for wrecking everything. Republicans are following him, because they need his cult’s votes.
And those Tax Cuts helped Trump….and the “establishment”.
No cult here. I would vote for any politician that has a platform of idea to fix what is broken and whom I believe is convicted to those ideas and not just a plastic actor saying what he needs to get elected like Joe Biden is. I don't care what party. I don't care what gender, race, etc. I elect like I hire... to get the best candidate that is the best fit for the job. I give a flying fuck over mean Tweets and think those that do are hypersensitive weak-ass girly men that should go live with their mommy.
What is “Frank Lee” hoping to achieve on this site? Is he or she, since that’s likely a pseudonym, part of Trump’s rent-a crowd, paid to troll Chris Hedges and anything remotely likely to analyse the actions of Republicans? Is he someone like that radio host who attacked the Sandy Hook parents, who himself had mega millions of dollars to lose, when you’d expect he’d just have the clothes he sat down in for the radio broadcast- the rewards of being a propagandist for the gun lobby? To say that Trump is all America has to offer is the most defeatist and defeated and un-American thing I’ve heard.
America has Chris Hedges, but I think that if I were to search his name online there would be a site at the top of the list to tell me how much he makes, what his nett worth is. Because like Trump, many Americans seem to believe that money equals intelligence. This is why they worship the god that J K Galbraith warned you away from in The Affluent Society, the default value system conveniently displayed on all the billboards, and why you have an America where you are ideologically driven to spend money in the private sector, “Defence” excepted, to the exclusion and detriment of those things that are naturally public and therefore social and therefore socialist assets, like air and water. Trump cares about none of those things. He can’t even read. He can only see shiny stuff. You get a pass on contributing, Frank Lee, if Trump is all you’ve got to offer.
I have the feeling he’s being paid to sow chaos on what he thinks are Liberal sites. He seems to come around again in some sort of cycle to this site, he’s not reading it all the time, it’s as though at some point it’s our turn again. Can you be said to ‘censor’ advertising if you ask for the feed to stop? I got shouted at on Keelynet by someone who was using the place just to vent, when I asked him to stick to a discussion of John Ernst Worrell Keely, possibly now the only inventor whose work could still save the world if revisited. Thanks to Tim N for urging me to pay “Frank Lee” no mind, but it’s difficult to ignore, he’s like someone farting on your pillow in your dorm at boarding school. Please excuse the metaphor, but it’s actually worse, because this guy thinks he’s helping someone. Or Thing.
Regarding Trump, don't forget that Hitler was very attractive to the German people in offering them hope for a better future, Hitler far more intelligent than Trump and with a definite agenda as laid out in Mein Kampf. I see Trump as you described him - a wrecker - but with no idea of anything to build from the ruins other than a monument to himself.
After WW 2 many studies were done regarding authoritarianism and authoritarian personalities…..for good reason. Those with authoritarian personalities need and want a strong, charismatic leader. tfg filled/fills that need. He’s a traitor, liar, narcissist, lifetime con-man who knows he lost, but millions support and worship him. That won’t change.
Godwin's Law strikes again. The weakest of positions always degrade to a Hitler or Nazi reference. Do better.
Claiming that Trump does not know how to build things is quite a hoot. I don't think you possess the wisdom to truly understand human executive capability to solve complex problems and get things done. Maybe you are an academic type that thinks things happen when you read or write a paper?
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
Too many Republicans and Democrats seem inclined to spew what they’ve internalized through repetitious conditioning. They go to echo chambers for their worldview, and don’t appreciate that they are propaganda sponges.
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.
I had the same experience with another hypnotized liberal who believes that the Democrats stand for Democracy and the Republicans stand for the Hand Maiden's Tale. She sees anti abortionists as the only problem and war escalation as a solution, yet ran for a political campaign as an environmentalist.
A young blue collar union activist in the '60s, I was trained by people who'd been '30s left wing labor organizers. They told me "liberals are the ones who leave the room when the fight starts."
In the late '70s and early '80s, the elitist New Dems usurped the D party, dismantling the New Deal and abandoning labor. What my mentors had warned about happened. We're now seeing the full horror of what an econopathic system does to all life on Earth yet the Ds do nothing but act as enablers.
They may leave the room Rafi, but they’ll be the ones placing the biggest bets on the outcome. Why are we blessed few, (and I do feel blessed that my father played me Robeson’s ‘Joe Hill’ before when I could barely speak), becoming rare with time? How could our fellow marchers in ‘68 now be cheering on the murderous Pentagon? Is it really just for money, comfort? Well, as I try to shoehorn into every friendly conversation with Trumpies: “We have on thing in common anyway, we both despise Liberals”. It’s actually a hell of an icebreaker. Best to you, and let’s never give up.
A Vegan Phoenix on a wind of Rewilding.
Liberals are more repulsive than anyone. In high school around 1970, we were taught that liberals support the system, they just want some tweaks to it. The Democratic Party has become more repulsive than the Republican Party because the Democrats pretend to care about you, whereas the Republicans don't.
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.
it would be impossible if even one were straight! Not to mention the Hollwyood news organizations (Universal Studios, Fox, Warner Bros, Disney, Paramount, et al).
make that "news" organizations.
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.
The United States is not a democracy, nor is it a democratic republic.
The United States is a de facto oligarchy with unlimited political bribery for those who can afford expensive lawyers.
you ever note: "THE WAR" is not even in the top 10 of "voter issues". LOL. Murica!
Dennis Kucinich NOW!
We don't need just a good candidate, we need a good party. One person can never dismantle the machine.
look how easy it is for Pelosi personally to start a NEW PARTY!
https://readsludge.com/2022/10/13/pelosi-super-pac-funds-moderate-party-backing-rep-malinowski/
Yes, but that is not really a new party, it's just the old PAC system on steroids. I'm talking about a legitimate third party that would be big enough to break the legislative stalemate. There are some attempts going like the People's Party and the Green Party but the general public has to
see that we agree on a lot of issues and stop emphasizing red vs blue. Both parties are paid by the same people and have the same agenda. We need the people's agenda instead.
There's Yang and the Forward.
Andrew Yang? The Zionist?
yes; and I'm partial to
Al Franken as well.
a little Humor &
calling out Ab-
surdities goes
a long way in
my Book
He's just another guy. He can't do anything.
are you Kidding me?
word has it he was a
Giant of the Senate*
plus the comedy
and pointing out
blah blah blah
*his
nevertheless
he's Calling them Out
he's no Bomb Thrower but
what is it we're Looking for?
A party not a person.
so we're
looking for
.
a party?
.
consisting of
what or whom
to dismantle
the Dems?
.
help me
I seem
to be
Lost
I'm talking about a legitimate third party that would be big enough to break the legislative stalemate. There are some attempts going like the People's Party and the Green Party but the general public has to see that we agree on a lot of issues and stop emphasizing red vs blue. Both parties are paid by the same people and have the same agenda. We need the people's agenda instead.
If he doesn't join the Democrats, or haven't you read the article?
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.
Sanders was the real deal, and so was pushed out of the running when it was evident that he was going to beat Hilary. Why would you call him inauthentic and then turn around and claim that the flim-flam man is a real alternative? That is an argument rooted in manic-depression. Trump, the silver spoon baby whose hatred of the establishment is down to his personal inadequacy, represents everything a corporate ladder climber could want. He set the bar for lowering taxes and eliminating them, which, if you’re unaware,widens the income gap, creates more billionaires, and leaves no money for the people who earn it. Just because he feigns rebellious, venomous antipathy for the folks you hate, doesn’t make him credible.
I think Sanders sold out. He votes for the corporatist collective and chimes in on the woke narrative even as he claims to be a champion of the working class.
I judge people on their actions over their words. It appears that you do the opposite.
So what has Trump done that stirs your drink? I mean you’re quoting Vidal and calling Sanders a sellout ...and then paying homage to a proven fake. Sanders sought to make the DP see that it has a choice to be Republican-lite or a party that represents the core interests of corporate victims. I don’t think you can blame the obstinacy and greed of the DNC on Sanders. He has consistently stated his position, has a large following, and is marginalized by the corporate soldiers in his midst.
Excellent points. I see a lot of criticism of everyone and every policy.
Very easy to criticize…..or not vote.
I get so tired calling up the list of real Trump actions while he had to fight the full establishment attempting to take him out by any means... and much of it illegal and criminal. But in his four years in office he accomplished or attempted to accomplish many things that were against the establishment. The renegotiated trade agreements, the support of the Israel embassy in Jerusalem; the wall and the stay in Mexico agreement; the end of ISIS and then the end of wars; regulatory reform to help invigorate the small business economy; economic certainty and supported growth. Since Biden it is more international war, more war on small business, and greater corporatist consolidation... all great establishment-pleasing moves. It is also a war on the working class. Trump came out doing what he said he would to support the working class. He was transparent... speaking what is on his mind and not what is written down for him by puppet masters. But he never wavered in his convictions. What might he had accomplished without a hostile and destructive establishment at his neck the entire time and the need to negotiate with raging Democrats who had only his removal and defeat as their primary agenda?
73 million voted for him in 2020. If not for the plandemic, he would still be President and the Senate in GOP hands. My how things would be different today had that happened.
All of these “accomplishments” you cite are about as revolutionary as vanilla ice cream. Are you a reactionary? WTF does the embassy move to Jerusalem have to do with support for anybody? He has kissed the asses of the evangelicals, which in political terms is pouring gasoline on a fire. He calls workers who organize for better wages “socialists.” And btw, there are no labor unions supporting your guy, so you are free to love him, but nobody’s buying what you are selling. Hope you can enjoy the status quo because that sounds like your ideal destiny.
I don't converse with irrational head cases with TDS. If you cannot simply acknowledge the accomplishments, you are not well enough to join the conversation.
Embassy move to Jerusalem - a thank you to one of his biggest donors, Sheldon Adelson who, with his Israeli wife, Miriam, could be seen grinning behind Trump at his inauguration and at the embassy opening.
How about former Cleveland mayor, representative and peace activist Dennis Kucinich?
He was honest, if not charismatic.
Always interesting to hear from a Trump supporter who believes he’s the best option for wrecking everything. Republicans are following him, because they need his cult’s votes.
And those Tax Cuts helped Trump….and the “establishment”.
No cult here. I would vote for any politician that has a platform of idea to fix what is broken and whom I believe is convicted to those ideas and not just a plastic actor saying what he needs to get elected like Joe Biden is. I don't care what party. I don't care what gender, race, etc. I elect like I hire... to get the best candidate that is the best fit for the job. I give a flying fuck over mean Tweets and think those that do are hypersensitive weak-ass girly men that should go live with their mommy.
https://news.yahoo.com/irs-data-prove-trump-tax-130007569.html
What is “Frank Lee” hoping to achieve on this site? Is he or she, since that’s likely a pseudonym, part of Trump’s rent-a crowd, paid to troll Chris Hedges and anything remotely likely to analyse the actions of Republicans? Is he someone like that radio host who attacked the Sandy Hook parents, who himself had mega millions of dollars to lose, when you’d expect he’d just have the clothes he sat down in for the radio broadcast- the rewards of being a propagandist for the gun lobby? To say that Trump is all America has to offer is the most defeatist and defeated and un-American thing I’ve heard.
America has Chris Hedges, but I think that if I were to search his name online there would be a site at the top of the list to tell me how much he makes, what his nett worth is. Because like Trump, many Americans seem to believe that money equals intelligence. This is why they worship the god that J K Galbraith warned you away from in The Affluent Society, the default value system conveniently displayed on all the billboards, and why you have an America where you are ideologically driven to spend money in the private sector, “Defence” excepted, to the exclusion and detriment of those things that are naturally public and therefore social and therefore socialist assets, like air and water. Trump cares about none of those things. He can’t even read. He can only see shiny stuff. You get a pass on contributing, Frank Lee, if Trump is all you’ve got to offer.
"Frank Lee" is a right-wing troll who comes around here often. Pay him no mind.
Lets not censor anybody. It never hurts to listen to both sides arguments.
True. And sometimes is funny and entertaining to listen to absurdities.
I have the feeling he’s being paid to sow chaos on what he thinks are Liberal sites. He seems to come around again in some sort of cycle to this site, he’s not reading it all the time, it’s as though at some point it’s our turn again. Can you be said to ‘censor’ advertising if you ask for the feed to stop? I got shouted at on Keelynet by someone who was using the place just to vent, when I asked him to stick to a discussion of John Ernst Worrell Keely, possibly now the only inventor whose work could still save the world if revisited. Thanks to Tim N for urging me to pay “Frank Lee” no mind, but it’s difficult to ignore, he’s like someone farting on your pillow in your dorm at boarding school. Please excuse the metaphor, but it’s actually worse, because this guy thinks he’s helping someone. Or Thing.
Regarding Trump, don't forget that Hitler was very attractive to the German people in offering them hope for a better future, Hitler far more intelligent than Trump and with a definite agenda as laid out in Mein Kampf. I see Trump as you described him - a wrecker - but with no idea of anything to build from the ruins other than a monument to himself.
After WW 2 many studies were done regarding authoritarianism and authoritarian personalities…..for good reason. Those with authoritarian personalities need and want a strong, charismatic leader. tfg filled/fills that need. He’s a traitor, liar, narcissist, lifetime con-man who knows he lost, but millions support and worship him. That won’t change.
Biden is all of those things and more.
I'm not a Trump supporter but agree with this statement.
Godwin's Law strikes again. The weakest of positions always degrade to a Hitler or Nazi reference. Do better.
Claiming that Trump does not know how to build things is quite a hoot. I don't think you possess the wisdom to truly understand human executive capability to solve complex problems and get things done. Maybe you are an academic type that thinks things happen when you read or write a paper?
Personal insults. Not a substantive reply.
When you go Godwin, then you invite it.
nothing added to nothing.
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.
hear here.
absolutely!
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.
Summed up my family.
yes some unpleasantness
can be uncomfortable
for the Comfortable
.
but see if you can get them
to peruse Chris' and Joe Sacco's
brilliant 'Days of Destruction Days of Revolt'
a Graphic Novel giving them a look into our Sacrifice Zones
powerful stories of some of the Survivors of Capitalism Unfettered
.
how we got There
where we're Headed
.
they Haven't Given up on America yet have they?
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
Too many Republicans and Democrats seem inclined to spew what they’ve internalized through repetitious conditioning. They go to echo chambers for their worldview, and don’t appreciate that they are propaganda sponges.
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!
not only that but Senator Sanders
Campaigned Harder for Hillary
than She did . and Un-
deservedly earned
the Scorn of the
Electorate.
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?
The collapse of the USD as the world reserve currency will wake people up, and not in a good way.
I'm guessing
"Republican" Overreach as
they cannot Help themselves
.
and one day we're
all just gonna say
No Mas. Good
thing WE Out-
number them
by about
99-one.
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.