It is despair that is killing us. It fosters what Roger Lancaster calls “poisoned solidarity,” the intoxication forged from the negative energies of fear, envy, hatred and a lust for violence.
Beyond Democrats and the fealty to capital that unites them, the community of corporate journalists should also bear a great deal of the blame for Trump’s return to Washington. The rise of propaganda and the loss of trustworthy news media has been a crucial part of the recipe on which Republicans relied. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/journalism-has-fueled-the-rise-of
To the extent people here need a hopeful coda to process what might be a painful moment, I would just applaud everyone here for participating in and supporting the independent media ecosystem. Hedges’ voice is important, as are those of others who share his independence and insight.
I can't speak for Hedges, but the sad fact is that fascism has been well-entrenched in the U.S. for far longer than most Americans seem to think. That's one of the themes I explore in my writing, most recently at https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/worried-about-tuesday
The democrats have been running around calling Trump a fascist which is absurd. Kinzenger wrote an article about Trump's fascism in regard to his telling Tucker Carlson that if nine guns were pointed at Liz Cheney she might have a different view of supporting wars. His whole point was that they are quick to send other people's children to war but protect themselves and their own. To use this as an example of his fascism is to distort the whole meaning of the word and during his administration no doubt many, including the press, will call him a fascist, a Hitler using ridiculous examples to prove their point and rendering the term meaningless.
According to Noam Chomsky--I don't recall which speech it was, sorry--In Fascism the state tightly controls the financial and corporate sectors. In the US we have an oligarchy in which it is the government that is controlled by moneyed interests. Trump may become a dictator, but this is not technically fascism.
I just don't think it is productive or informative to attach labels. If you say he's a fascist, well Hitler was too, and I have already heard people on line, and in the political realm call him Hitler, and often the basis for doing so is absurd. Once you throw that kind of label about you can lose perspective and distort reality.
Trump has said this would be the last election needed because he was going to 'fix' everything as did the National Socialists. He scape-goated immigrants as did the National Socialists (NS). He scape-goats minorities as did the NZ. He mis-directs and uses the Big Lie (for example - saying rise in cost-of-living was due to public spending to address covid rather than unconscionably high profits made by corporations who raised their prices falsely blaming covid precautions for increase in costs - never mentioning huge jump in profits) as did the NS. And there is more - supporting the Jan 6th rioters who believed his Big Lie about a stolen election - without any proof - even 4 years later -persisting in the Big Lie.
Yvonne, no doubt Trump is given to exaggeration if he said he was going to fix everything, and if he did, I'm sure no one believed it. Scape-goated immigrants? How? Are you saying it's because he wanted to build a wall, and bring immigrants into the country legally? That is how my ancestors and no doubt yours came to this country, that is legally, and lets not forget many in those minority groups you say he scape-goated voted for him. I didn't experience a big rise in the cost of things during his administration, but after, during Biden's term in office. The issue of Covid is a complicated one, and many including Fauci are culpable in how the covid pandemic was handled. Your argument of whether they believed the election was stolen is irrelevant, since the issue is, the democrats called a riot an insurrection which was used to further delegitimize his presidency, which was also the purpose of the Russia-gate lie, and still no one held to account. He is not the one who called almost half of the American people deplorables, nor did he reference them as garbage. He unlike Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler, well, and Biden didn't start any wars.
But, I do have a lot of reservations since he may choose Cotton or Pompeo as his secretary of defense, and don't trust him at all when it comes to Gaza.
Yes - lets not forget McCarthy and Biden/Harris unconditional support for Netanyahu and Zionist Israel as well as for NATO provoked war in Ukraine. Putin only invaded after the USA led NATO started to put their missles into the Ukraine after putting them in the former 'unaligned' nation states of Latvia, Lirhuania, and Estonia. By putting them into Ukraine, USA led NATO was essentially cutting off Russia's access to its one all-season port in Crimea. Anyone remember USA response to the former USSR when they were going to put their missles into Cuba?
Your right since he made that claim when he was responding to questions. I really don't like Hedges calling Trump a fascist which feeds the democrats a charge they already have underway. During the Trump years I could barely reference any left wing sites since they jumped on board with the democrats and like them pushed many of their lies like Russia-gate, or calling a riot an insurrection. Kinzinger called Trump a fascist based on a distortion of what he said on the Tucker Carlson show. Trumps message was that politicians like Liz Cheney will support wars, send other people's children to fight them, but not their children, not themselves. Good point. When people think of fascists they think of Hitler or Mussolini and those two names are already in play. People seem to love to put labels on Trump.
Nooo! He’s basically said that the Democrat leaders and politicians are the ones who have caused the decay and “Trumps” are the symptoms of that disease “the vomit “ and not the cause. Amusing imagery if it wasn’t so sad and depressing.
During the Trump years many on the left were so condemning of Trump in so many ways. I really like Jeffery Sachs, and he's talking about the the neocons and their role in terms of what's going on in the Ukraine, which Trump had nothing to do with and yet he stops himself in mid sentence and says he could never get a good night sleep while Trump was president. What's that got to do with what he was talking about? I remember people on the left jumped on the hate Trump band wagon and showed little objectivity in regard to him, and that is not to say there were things he did one could be rightfully critical of. Enza, I think you are covering for him. It's okay. The liberal left didn't stay objective when it came to Trump, and it could become very vitriolic. Greenwald had to leave the Intercept because they allowed him no room to take a stance that was in anyway supportive of Trump and and not even allow him to publish anything negative about Biden.
I may be naive, but I doubt mass movements and strikes will matter. The two brands of the corporate UniParty corrupt government will simply bail out the corporate oligarchs directly, just like they did in 2008. The citizens are nothing more than items to be fleeced by them now and they will be treated like the Palestinians once they have nothing left to steal from. The USA is a criminal enterprise run by a handful of robber barons.
The criminal enterprise is collapsing along with the rest of enterprise, however, since the economy is in a state of stagflation that precedes hyperinflation, and once the US dollar is eliminated as the world reserve currency—as it is in the process of being so—it will be only downhill from there. Bailouts will become impossible as the dollar becomes worthless, or will only have the potential to hasten the collapse of the economy and power centres. This has been in the making for a long time.
They have adopted the Zimbabwe strategy of economics, of responding to inflation by printing ever more money; Zimbabwe being the country that became famous for 100 trillion dollar bills that sold more on ebay than they were worth in-country. You needed a suitcase full of money to go buy groceries, or a coffee, and a laminated chart to help figure out how many zeroes make a quintillion or sextillion dollars.
In the collapse, there will be an opportunity for mass movements and the public to seize power. It will become necessary to issue new currency, as the Trump administration apparently already plans to launder the US dollar through digital currencies in foreign countries to try to keep its value up. However, the elites will also form factions as they are already doing, and it is possible one of them could win if we are not organised.
This is also the situation in Europe. Former British diplomat and reporter Alastair Crooke laid out the situation in France quite well with insights from others, and it's comparable:
“What is in reality a budget and trade deficit is disguised as debt and would have been purged thirty years ago by national currency devaluation – but this debt artifice [increasingly benefits the rich]… whilst the general population never ceases to grumble, living its’ rose-tinted dream – and held in blind ignorance of the state of our finances … That said, the ruling class is well aware of the situation, but prefers not to talk about it, because no one knows what to do."
“There can be no doubt at the moment of truth, when states declare themselves bankrupt … the West will be shaken to the core – and some will pop like champagne corks. The economy will have to be reorganized. Perhaps also we will see cultural revolution. It was the failure of the French State – let us not forget – that provoked the French Revolution …"
"Today, even before the bankruptcy has been declared, the loss of confidence in the institutions: The powerlessness of the public authorities, deprived of prestige and authority, and the detestation of the President – make it possible to foresee the energy of the shockwave that would be unleashed by revelation of the fiasco."
Mass movements and strikes will matter. But they absolutely must be tied to a clear political party structure making specific material demands. Without that, it is just pussy hats that can be ignored, or workers making themselves a better paid worker in a class hierarchy of workers (affluent unionized workers versus precarious workers).
And obviously we are quite far from such a labor movement. But the future is unknowable. Such movements have existed and accomplished much, they can exist again.
What? Are the oligarchs chosen by God? Forever?!Pinochet? Just curious. Would you characterize your attitude as defeatist? Had the feminists, gay rights activists and the suffragettes held your attitude about the possible, would each of these populations have experienced any shift in their 2nd, 3rd ,4th class or non entity status that was assigned them in their time? Can you consider Nature’s wisdom in the cost of human birth demands a confrontation with and acceptance of screamingly intense pains called labor. Was your own birth accomplished without pain? Isn’t this a metaphor that can gird us to the seeming impossible?
My only answer to your response is that we are living in far different times than those you mentioned regarding feminists, gay right activists, and suffragettes, etc. We are actually going backwards from those gains you mentioned now. As one example, millions of people went out into the streets to protest and try to stop the illegal invasion of Iraq under GW Bush, before it happened. It made NO DIFFERENCE. The oligarchs simply no longer care what we want or think. The war happened just as they wanted it to and many many many more wars since then. Another recent example is all the student NON-VIOLENT protestors against the genocide of the Palestinians at college campuses who were met with violence from the government for simply caring about and wanting to stop that violence. The genocide is ongoing full tilt towards Israel’s final solution against the Palestinians with the endless support from the government and corporate monsters. To paraphrase the late great George Carlin: They don’t give a fuck about you or me. They want it all for themselves and they will get it. Are the oligarchs chosen by God? Forever? The reality is that they are in charge and they will not respond to what you or others care about or want. They no longer respond to protestors. They simply brush them off and ignore them. Short of throwing them in jail or worse, and I see no mechanism for doing that, they will continue to operate with impunity. Does that make me a defeatist? Perhaps in some eyes, but I consider myself more of a realist regarding our current situation. Trump being reelected after all he has said and done seems to back my perspective quite well.
I agree. We need to take a moment or two to cradle our hearts, internalize the beauty of stars in dark times and then get to work building numerous sustainable alternative development modes that actually deliver authentic life with dignity for all aspects of Creation. Perhaps a return to a 'sacred world' perspective.
The oligarchs only love money and themselves. What are they going to do when their source of income is not long because their industries are rendered useless due to masive strikes and boicots?
As I wrote in my original post, I believe they will simply be directly bailed out from the government they own. Just like the big banks were back in 2008. As long as the government is still going, it will simply print more money to give to them. They won’t even need consumers at some point the way things are heading. Eventually the whole system is going to collapse. As far as I am concerned the oligarchs are simply like a cancer which will eventually kill the host and itself. Until then I don’t see strikes having much effect, let alone getting the majority of folks getting behind them. The oligarchs have divided the citizens far too well and I don’t see the citizens overcoming their bigotry and hate that they have been taught to believe in. Not in the USA. We’ll see how it all plays out, but I for one am not optimistic one little bit about where this country is headed towards some unimaginable dystopian nightmare, all because as you pointed out about the oligarchs only loving money and themselves. And for that last point, I don’t even believe they love themselves. I believe they are truly self-loathing monsters who hide behind money to avoid looking at themselves.
When the oligarchs continue to oppress the people, take away their jobs, and destroy their hopes, what are the brainwashed supporters of the government going to do? I think they will resort to massive strikes and boycotts.
"millions of people went out into the streets to protest and try to stop the illegal invasion of Iraq under GW Bush, before it happened. It made NO DIFFERENCE. [etc. etc."
Exactly. We're still thinking that traditional methods of civic action (public education, public discourse, PACs, protests, voting) are all that are needed to implement and maintain a democracy, when clearly the whole system -- with all these methods in place -- is not functioning as intended .
I agree with half of your comment, but of course mass movements and strikes have changed the course of history. While some corporate/government strategists certainly view the citizenry as having value only as sheep to be fleeced, the oligarchs are not all powerful and the citizens are not actually sheep, nor are we powerless!
There seem to be two dimensions that really matter in politics and power, everywhere: The first is intelligent anti-social attitudes plus behaviors (via psychopathy, sociopathy, or as side effects of narcissism, etc.). Intelligence plus psychopathy appears to cause the iron law of oligarchy, which does not depend on ideology. We really have little idea in the West how to talk about psychopathy in power, much less deal with it.
The second is the irreversible accumulation of technological power. Have we reached a watershed where intelligent psychopaths can assemble enough unassailable power (weaponry, propaganda psychology, surveillance + censorship, AI, etc.) to control us all indefinitely?
Small-d democrats really need to up our game to deal with these -- and badly.
Team D ran a shit candidate that had never won a seriously contested election in her own name (VP hardly counts) and was chosen last minute by party insiders. Because Harris she had been VP under Biden for four years, she could not pretend that she had no inkling of his obvious senility and could not run on any policy other than the historically unpopular Biden Administration policies.
Had Team D allowed a normal primary process and been able to nominate a candidate not tied at the hip to Biden, they might have done better. If Team D were able to nominate a candidate whose basic qualification was "I was Willie Brown's mistress", they might have done better. And if the queen had balls, she'd be king.
Now, watch democrats and liberals blame everyone and everything, Russia, men, women, minorities, college students, "ungrateful negroes", Lina Khan, Elon Musk, Russia some more, feral tomcats, Peanut The Squirrel, Puertoricans, everyone and everything but themselves for losing to a loudmouth moron reality TV star.
Oh yeah, and Harris outspent Trump 2-1 and had the MSM to act as her unpaid propaganda arm, not to mention most of Big Tech on her side. And She Still Lost.
I think I'm one of the few who won with this election because I voted with my conscience and therefore I voted green and I will not have any regrets. Besides, I'm celebrating that this was the collapse of the democratic party and hope that those who voted for Harris have learned the lesson and will start forming a new party that truely represents the people.
True. But the only ones left in that party that will continue calling themselves democratic are its leadership but my hope is that the bulk of their members who have not yet left abandon it will run to create a new party that represent them.
Humans are social beings. As such we have tendencies that make us want to be liked, to be part of the group, to jump on the bandwagon. But seriously, we're not actually herd animals or wolves. I think therefore I am.
Yes I voted Green too. Turns out Trump didn't need my single vote that the arrogant duopolists said I cast. But Jill Stein might make use of it. So I feel I took the best path available to me. Talking endlessly about a third party accomplishes zilch. If everyone who voted for Harris had voted Green instead, we would have something to be proud of today.
I would prefer Trump won then Harris. We weren't in a proxy war with Russia with the possibility of nuclear war hanging over our heads during the Trump years, and he wasn't assisting a genocide, well, not at the time. I guess once again I will have to watch liberals join hands with the mainstream media in their hatred of Trump and foster lies, like Amy Goodman adopting the lie of Russia-gate. I didn't see the republicans try to remove Biden from office due to his senility, which was obvious from the beginning, which was not true of the democrats during Trump's whole term in office, and strongly supported by our so called liberals. I thought Greenwald was one of the sole liberals who held on to his integrity and didn't hitch his wagon to an anti-Trump hysteria. Also, no new wars under Trump. I wonder what those neocons will do now, since they are now aligned with the democrats and guided their agenda during Biden's presidency?
May be the more important question - than that about the neocons who will do what they always do because of being incapable of thinking outside their war and hegemony box - is what do you and others of like mind intend to do? In relation to Hedges last handful of paragraphs?
Amy Goodman did not adopt the lie of Russia-gate. If you have a prove of that please show it here. But you are right, Russia has been maligned in an effort to continue the cold war to benefit our hawks. Trump probably will stop that war but being a lunatic nobody can predict his future behaviour.
Yes she did. She's an anti-Trumper. I can well understand people don't like Trump, or any president for that matter, but certain presidents like Obama get a pass and although portrayed as some liberal, he was not, and his record shows he wasn't. Yesterday, the day after the election she has two women on there berating Trump but no one there to give any objective perspective which is the way it goes on these so called liberal sites especially in the Trump era, and it's not objective criticism, it's hate based. They complain about sites like FOX and MSNBC and the mainstream media who now simply take sides and make no effort to provide a more nuanced perspective. However liberal sites when it comes to Trump are often worse.
This is the commentary form one of two black women and no one there to provide any other perspective. .She said:
The confederacy has won,
He advocated racism
He's zenophobic
Hateful, all wrapped in a sense of honor and gallantry
and how that resonated with such a large swath of the American people
I use to listen to her all the time, but with her lack of objectivity during the Trump years including her propensity, strong propensity to adopt all things anti-Trump as many left wing sites did I never listened to her again, nor do I go to Common Dreams, the Alternet, well, none of them really. I'm grateful for sub-stack. She would have guests on pushing that lie and lend them credibility, to it, but I never believed that lie from the get go. After the Trump win, no one there to counter what those women said, anti-Trumpers, and that's her position, no objectivity.
Thank you for replying. I understand that you have no problem with my choice of news sources. I also remember that some time ago we agreed that your business is your business, and my business is mine. I think perhaps Fox News will fit your needs.
I believe we're on the precipice of rapid collapse but not there yet. I think the next economic collapse (only a matter of time) will be the "Okay, now this is collapse" moment.
What I fear most is what is going to happen in the Middle East, in Gaza and the West Bank, and should Trump support that, which is so barbaric, so loathsome, then I will feel we're heading toward the end times. That scenario could bring in Russia and then it will be over. We also need to empower our unions and as a former teacher i can attest to how powerful they can be, and without them how vulnerable you can be, since power in the hands of a few always leads to multiple abuses.
Funny, but I think anyone who reads it that way has misunderstood. Hedges' message is one of the continued spiritual struggle in the face of adversity; one of revolt. It is a positive message. You must know the lay of the land and have a realistic idea of the situation we are in to be able to resist it. I recommend reading "Death of the Liberal Class" by Chris Hedges.
"One of the only coherent philosophical positions is revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his obscurity. It is not aspiration, for it is devoid of hope. That revolt is the certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it," writes Albert Camus. "A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object. But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object."
In my opinion, anybody involved in the Democratic Party political machine who says something along the lines of "It was impossible to win" should retire immediately and let the people who have a positive vision for the future and the will to fight take the reins.
Emma do you think his response to a Harris win would have been different?. Also one might take away that due to a Trump win all is lost? Don't ask is spot on in how most people would react to this article. Funny too.
To the contrary for that would be complicit in the destructive forces he so ably describes. Better, a sign up sheet for determined activism of strategic relentless strikes til the corrupt mess is brought down and the life nurturing systems are conceived and brought into being.
Funny and so true!!!!!!!!!! I would have preferred a more down to earth response to Trump winning as opposed to a Harris win. I hope people like Hedges and the left take on a more objective perspective in regard to Trump's presidency, and I don't have to read about the end times like I did during his former presidency.
This has been the Hedges message for more than two decades. Americans, however, are simply too ignorant of politics, history, and civil life to understand who their real foe is; millions of our fellow citizens are woefully stupid and easily manipulated by demagogues like Trump. We will reap a terrible whirlwind now.
"[M]illions of our fellow citizens are woefully stupid and easily manipulated by demagogues like Trump. We will reap a terrible whirlwind now."
Yup. But that's exactly how it (nearly) always works. If we stick to the old formula, nothing changes until we all go through a fire. So, when does it not happen that way? When the capable in a society know, and desire, how to integrate nearly everyone into its system.
We can continue to blame the stupid and ignorant for their (apparent) inferiority, cursing them for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps in this ostensible democracy. Or, we, the (at least self-perceived) intelligent, knowledgeable, and conscious can truly engage them, raise them -- and ourselves -- as far we can go, willingly, and see where that actually gets us. A change in attitude toward them is necessary. Otherwise, why not (continue to) just have rule by the one, or ten percent? But you know where that really leads, not to mention what kind of hellfire persists at the cut-off, the capability boundary.
One thing I know is that stupid people do *not* rebel when they are treated right. In those cases, rare as they have been in recent years, they admire and follow their betters.
We must learn how to discriminate those worthy for high office from the plebeian. The difference between a Lincoln and a 4 cylinder good deal in the used car park.
Do you think, especially with the neocons, and Blinken is one of them, the genocide would stop? That Netanyahu would listen had she won? What has she ever done that lends credence to that belief? Not too long ago she was spewing that North Korea is our long time friend. Tell me what she has said or done in the past that gives you such confidence in her?
I appreciate Mr. Hedges's warnings about the dangers of the politicians he profiles. I'm not surprised that he would write about the dangers of these politicians, because he has always warned us about them.
Don't know. The difference is that Team D now will pretend to rediscover human rights, and the same smug liberals who ladled on the excuses for Biden/Harris will no longer do so for Trump.
Yes. And requires us to dig deeply to understand the conditions propelling their entry into the cult of Trump, the figurehead for the booming success of the “The Powell Memo (which)has been described (in 1971) as “a call to arms for corporations” and “a corporate blueprint to dominate democracy.” This has been and is a war where one side was spending a lot of attention and money in their corporate coup of our democracy. While the other side played stupefied and uncomprending before Gingrich’s snarling assault on civil relations and Democrats during Reagan’s slap down of workers and the air traffic controllers strike. The Dems rolled over in response until they continued to roll over and over enough to hire a Clinton to demonstrate how they can pretend serving us while slowly signing up for corporate donations to keep them in power. And like Biden serving two masters, one, the money one, not the workers one, won out. Then, they dished up after Biden, Ms Joyful Harris for us to rubber stamp. It is time for sprouting genuine teeth and a flexible yet fierce spine. And channel our fury and grief in the creation of what truly serves life, ours, our children’s, and Earth and her wondrous progeny of the slithering, 2 and 4 and multiple legged, the swimmers , the wingeds and the rooted world.
Gee, I thought it was the Biden administration and his Secretary of State, Blinken, a necon, who were assisting in the destruction of Palestine, in Gaza and the West Bank. Did you think it would stop under Harris, and if so what has she said or done to lead you to such a wish filled conclusion?
What do you think would happen during her presidency? Do you really believe there would not be a continuation of the genocidal assault on the Palestinians?
Thank you, Mr. Hedges, once again, for sharing the wisdom you've gained through your studies and your journalism. I am always, if not particularly comforted, at least enlightened by your work. Your ideas are complex, requiring deep listening and rumination. How to convey them to a mass of citizens who want everything described in easy-to-swallow soundbites seems a bit of a challenge, one which I hope some among us are up to. Thank you for your work.
"We must demand nothing less than full employment, guaranteed minimum incomes, universal health insurance, free education at all levels, robust protection of the natural world and an end to militarism and imperialism. We must create the possibility for a life of dignity, purpose and self-esteem." ... sounds reasonable to me ... I guess "we the people" will say that this is bad for the economy ...
Powerful argument well researched. Not sure though that the solution is viable. Like many Americans I have been voting for the “lesser of 2 evils” for most of my life because reason tells me “the greater of 2 evils” is worse, & 3rd parties have been rendered totally impotent & even detrimental in this country. The solution of mass civil disobedience & movements seems very unlikely to be successful in an oligarchic society in which the means of communication & dissemination of informaron are completely controlled by technocratic oligarchs the likes of Elon Musk & Peter Thiel.
"Ms. Harris, now you know what happens to politicians that support genocide, but still as VP you have some months left with your president to stop the bombing of Gaza. You are young and able to learn that people don't any more believe words which are not backed by actions. Just one honest call and warning to the leader of Israel will stop the war inmidiatelly. The rest is up to your conscience.
This administration doesn't learn and like in other ocaccions they have answered to my mesage with the following generic mesage but with not way to reply to it. they are certainly masters of deceipt:
"November 7, 2024
Thank you for contacting the Biden-Harris Administration.
President Biden and Vice President Harris value every opportunity to engage with the American people, and the Administration is grateful for your outreach. Our country faces many challenges, and messages like yours help us better understand how the Biden-Harris Administration can serve American families.
We take careful note of the suggestions, thoughts, questions, and stories we receive, and we’re working hard to ensure you receive an appropriate response.
Sincerely,
The Office of Vice Presidential Correspondence"
Ofcourse, this is a very well known trick but my hope is that if many people send mesages they will put some attention.
I know this is true by long, bitter experience. I was a blue collar worker for close to 30 years plus being a local D campaign mgr. I fought the neolib takeover of the party in the late '70s. Looking back, I see the likely connection to the Powell memo of 1971. The D shift to the right helped enable to Rs to go full on plutocratic and fascistic cult crazy.
We, the majority working class, were then invisible to the oligarchic D elite. Of course becoming angry, desperate for anything even remotely promising politically.
A few months ago, I read Les Leopold's 2024 book //Wall St.'s War on Workers (How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It.)// What would have been a winning issue for the Ds. He was a Cassandra; he was right, and no, the oligarchic D party elite didn't listen.
What has happened is a loss for the Ds, but a disaster for us workers that continues to deepen. Which will be made even worse by total R control. All made possible by the confidant arrogance of the Ds, who decided that taking corporate money was fine, while actively caring about the working class, as well as the increasing industrialization of people like college profs and MDs, was unimportant.
Today Bernie Sanders sent out a scolding for the establishment D's and suggested that he and other progressive caucus members might take stronger measures to differentiate the D's from the R's. I wish them well, but this election left me wondering if the D's are simply an opposing oligarchic faction from the R oligarchic faction. The US electorate spends their time consuming corporate entertainment and watching corporate news in a lulled suggestable state, and when the poor misguided wretches try to drill down to the truth they find themselves travelling through one rabbit hole after another like the seven realms of Hell in Dante's Inferno.
Stop wondering. Of course the Ds are Pepsi,the Rs are Coke, and cultural issues keep the population tearing each other to pieces rather that assembling the guillotines.
Read what I just posted to Tech-la about the, uh, differences. ;-P
As for "cultural issues," that sounds to me kind of like the doctrinaire leftist stridency I've been hit with on this site. How class is primary and all else only distractions. As if we workers need more elitism, which a self-appointed vanguard talking down to us certainly is. Plus implying we're too stupid to organize ourselves. Besides, we live in a PoMo quantum reality beyond the Aristotelian either/or. I'm also BIPOC and LGBTQ. Both/and. It's amusing (okay, actually offensive) that the perpetrators are mostly white male armchair theorists who've never had to struggle for recognition. Nor seldom, if ever, held a tool in their lives.
As I said to Tech-la about the Ds, if moral considerations aren't enough, then consider practicality. We of the letters aren't going to drop what we are still working so hard for. What would be effective is the way the CIO industrial unions and the old true Populists organized: both/and.
I think you aren’t actually understanding me. Or I am not understanding you. I do know that when you get people screaming about trans issues or adding an x to Latin or minding pronouns or immigration or all the other things oligarchs don’t give a fuck about, they win. And to be clear, I am a middle aged queer woman raised in shit-hole land by factory workers, so - yeah, not a white dude in an armchair. I watched how race was used to destroy unions by making people forget about both/and.
I'm trans, an FtM. I had to live for 54 years with all the indignities that come with being F until I transitioned 22 years ago. I identify as queer, non-binary, and as what Native people mean by two-spirit. We've become what my 96 year old mom calls "the enemy of the month." A target to keep the R's ultraconservative religious base loyal.
The Ds have no problem with race, gender, or sexual orientation. As long as you have the required credentials of Ivy League or the equivalent. Whatever qualifies you as elite, distinct from the unimportant masses.
In the U.S. the myth is that anyone can become successful if they really try. Who wants to believe they're a loser? So it must be that someone was given your job. R dog whistles encourage this...even through as corporate and 1%er shills they couldn't care less about the working class.
However, check out the book by Les Leopold I mentioned in my OP. Solid evidence how prejudice among the white working class, particularly men, has been dropping for the last few decades. That's not to deny it's there, as you know. But a lot of it's from media that caters to the professional classes loyal to the Ds. Serving to justify their neglect of the working class majority.
BTW, also look up the books by Joe Bageant, himself from old stock Appalachia, where his relatives still live, one brother a fundamentalist preacher. About greedy town merchants. And deprived working people who believe they're lucky to have a min. wage job at some Wal-Mart they commute to 2 hrs each way in a used van they bought together. In high school, the elite had a welcome separate from the hillbilly kids, who were told simply they could leave at 16. I used to correspond with him. He loved my anecdote about what people who'd been leftist labor organizers in the 1930's told me in the '60s: "liberals are the ones who leave the room when the fight starts."
What I mean by "armchair" is what I've been hit with directly over many decades, including on this site. Certain of their own superiority, they are sure they have the right to tell us lessers what to do. D liberal professionals as well as doctrinaire Marxists who denigrate identity and apparently think we're too stupid to run our own movements. Delores Huerta and Fannie Lou Hamer knew better. Like my grandfather, the logger, (and my mom,) I'm a Wobbly, I.W.W. Local ownership and management by workers of the means of production. Rather than top down style by either corporate capitalists or Marxist elite. Of course we appreciate actual expertise, but not remote rulers.
I totally get you, and yes - you are the enemy du jour. A tiny and pretty powerless fraction of the population is being used as red meat to get the dogs fighting each other. Elite dems use trans-inclusive language not because they care about trans issues, but because it’s a way of virtue signaling without actually doing anything about justice. The right wing loves trans as an issue because they aren’t really allowed to natter ‘God didn’t create Adam and Steve’ without looking like assholes.
As to Marxism, though - my friend, there aren’t any marxists in places of Western power. Not a single elite wants to turn the commons back over to the workers.
I am not denigrating identity, btw. Identity politics as played by the Dems, however, is utter bullshit. As you noted, it’s a way for elites to pretend to care while they only care about their own class cadre.
I did see that--Bernie's right. He was explicit about the need to pay attention to the working class, which amounts to nearly 80% of the population. For practical reasons like winning, if the idea it's the moral thing to do isn't enough.
As for Ds v. Rs...they're a dual aspect uniparty. The Ds located themselves in one of those circles of hell when they started arguing "lesser of two evils" a few decades ago. The Rs couldn't sink much lower; they've allied themselves with the worst forms of authoritarian religious and economic fundamentalism. You can still tell the difference, though. The Rs are plutocrats in religious drag, whereas the Ds are merely an elitist oligarchy with a liberal mask so to appeal to their 20%er professional and administrative class base.
"Lulled" isn't the right term; it's just a nicer version of ones the elitist MSM use to denigrate the majority working class, a form of blaming the victim. Also to remind NYT fans (the D base) they're soooo much better. We angry lessers know the Ds did FOR the suffering, unemployed Rust Belt workers what they did TO the rapacious Wall St. vultures who caused the '08 crash--NOTHING! And we realize that supercilious remark "a basket of deplorables" was aimed at all of us.
"Plutocrats in religious drag" - heh heh I'm going to remember this.
As for the "lulled" comment, I'm talking about my personal experience and struggle, and assuming that others have similar experiences. Perhaps this is not quite properly expressed but I'm at the end of my skill here.
Re "deplorables"...I laughed so hard when Hillary slipped up and told us what she really thinks.
We also need to stop talking the duopoly language. We need to criticize one party without comparing it to the other (R and D). When criticizing one, we need to just lump the other one together to subliminally send the message that they are both equally bad, both corporatist and corrupt. We need to pretend, for now, that there aer other viable parties to run the country, at the same time that we help other parties elect officials all over. Pretend they exist, while creating the possibility for them to win, using people to create such possibility.
The two parties are beyond recovery. Talk about them in the way that shows how they are. Not need to compare one against the other. Compare them against what could be with a different party
Democrats did this to themselves, and the rest of us. One might say they fucked around and found out, by:
—choosing both Biden and Harris through back room deals
— blocking contested primaries
— smearing leftists who have offered real alternatives
— aligning themselves with Wall Street instead of working class Americans, and
— allowing Netanyahu to disregard international human rights while waging an escalating and expanding genocide across the Middle East.
I posted an expanded version of this comment at https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/democrats-did-this-to-themselves.
Democrats essentially aligned themselves with the traditional Republican Party, particularly by treating Liz Cheney as a surrogate, while relying on various acts of theater to project what amounted to a cultural project with little policy substance. https://open.substack.com/pub/shahidbuttar/p/worried-about-tuesday?r=97w99&utm_medium=ios
Beyond Democrats and the fealty to capital that unites them, the community of corporate journalists should also bear a great deal of the blame for Trump’s return to Washington. The rise of propaganda and the loss of trustworthy news media has been a crucial part of the recipe on which Republicans relied. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/journalism-has-fueled-the-rise-of
To the extent people here need a hopeful coda to process what might be a painful moment, I would just applaud everyone here for participating in and supporting the independent media ecosystem. Hedges’ voice is important, as are those of others who share his independence and insight.
Excellent map Shahid of the corporatized arrogant Democractic Establishment’s evolving long term betrayal of us. Thank you.
So agree! And in Canada - CBC is missing the message big time!
What about someone like Blinken and Nuland, neocons, and they are now joined at the hip with the democrats.
So from reading his post, do you think he, Hedges, would have preferred a Harris win?
I can't speak for Hedges, but the sad fact is that fascism has been well-entrenched in the U.S. for far longer than most Americans seem to think. That's one of the themes I explore in my writing, most recently at https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/worried-about-tuesday
The democrats have been running around calling Trump a fascist which is absurd. Kinzenger wrote an article about Trump's fascism in regard to his telling Tucker Carlson that if nine guns were pointed at Liz Cheney she might have a different view of supporting wars. His whole point was that they are quick to send other people's children to war but protect themselves and their own. To use this as an example of his fascism is to distort the whole meaning of the word and during his administration no doubt many, including the press, will call him a fascist, a Hitler using ridiculous examples to prove their point and rendering the term meaningless.
According to Noam Chomsky--I don't recall which speech it was, sorry--In Fascism the state tightly controls the financial and corporate sectors. In the US we have an oligarchy in which it is the government that is controlled by moneyed interests. Trump may become a dictator, but this is not technically fascism.
I just don't think it is productive or informative to attach labels. If you say he's a fascist, well Hitler was too, and I have already heard people on line, and in the political realm call him Hitler, and often the basis for doing so is absurd. Once you throw that kind of label about you can lose perspective and distort reality.
Trump has said this would be the last election needed because he was going to 'fix' everything as did the National Socialists. He scape-goated immigrants as did the National Socialists (NS). He scape-goats minorities as did the NZ. He mis-directs and uses the Big Lie (for example - saying rise in cost-of-living was due to public spending to address covid rather than unconscionably high profits made by corporations who raised their prices falsely blaming covid precautions for increase in costs - never mentioning huge jump in profits) as did the NS. And there is more - supporting the Jan 6th rioters who believed his Big Lie about a stolen election - without any proof - even 4 years later -persisting in the Big Lie.
Yvonne, no doubt Trump is given to exaggeration if he said he was going to fix everything, and if he did, I'm sure no one believed it. Scape-goated immigrants? How? Are you saying it's because he wanted to build a wall, and bring immigrants into the country legally? That is how my ancestors and no doubt yours came to this country, that is legally, and lets not forget many in those minority groups you say he scape-goated voted for him. I didn't experience a big rise in the cost of things during his administration, but after, during Biden's term in office. The issue of Covid is a complicated one, and many including Fauci are culpable in how the covid pandemic was handled. Your argument of whether they believed the election was stolen is irrelevant, since the issue is, the democrats called a riot an insurrection which was used to further delegitimize his presidency, which was also the purpose of the Russia-gate lie, and still no one held to account. He is not the one who called almost half of the American people deplorables, nor did he reference them as garbage. He unlike Benito Mussolini, and Adolf Hitler, well, and Biden didn't start any wars.
But, I do have a lot of reservations since he may choose Cotton or Pompeo as his secretary of defense, and don't trust him at all when it comes to Gaza.
Yes - lets not forget McCarthy and Biden/Harris unconditional support for Netanyahu and Zionist Israel as well as for NATO provoked war in Ukraine. Putin only invaded after the USA led NATO started to put their missles into the Ukraine after putting them in the former 'unaligned' nation states of Latvia, Lirhuania, and Estonia. By putting them into Ukraine, USA led NATO was essentially cutting off Russia's access to its one all-season port in Crimea. Anyone remember USA response to the former USSR when they were going to put their missles into Cuba?
I think he saod the options wete both unsatisfactory.
Your right since he made that claim when he was responding to questions. I really don't like Hedges calling Trump a fascist which feeds the democrats a charge they already have underway. During the Trump years I could barely reference any left wing sites since they jumped on board with the democrats and like them pushed many of their lies like Russia-gate, or calling a riot an insurrection. Kinzinger called Trump a fascist based on a distortion of what he said on the Tucker Carlson show. Trumps message was that politicians like Liz Cheney will support wars, send other people's children to fight them, but not their children, not themselves. Good point. When people think of fascists they think of Hitler or Mussolini and those two names are already in play. People seem to love to put labels on Trump.
Absolutely not.
Nooo! He’s basically said that the Democrat leaders and politicians are the ones who have caused the decay and “Trumps” are the symptoms of that disease “the vomit “ and not the cause. Amusing imagery if it wasn’t so sad and depressing.
During the Trump years many on the left were so condemning of Trump in so many ways. I really like Jeffery Sachs, and he's talking about the the neocons and their role in terms of what's going on in the Ukraine, which Trump had nothing to do with and yet he stops himself in mid sentence and says he could never get a good night sleep while Trump was president. What's that got to do with what he was talking about? I remember people on the left jumped on the hate Trump band wagon and showed little objectivity in regard to him, and that is not to say there were things he did one could be rightfully critical of. Enza, I think you are covering for him. It's okay. The liberal left didn't stay objective when it came to Trump, and it could become very vitriolic. Greenwald had to leave the Intercept because they allowed him no room to take a stance that was in anyway supportive of Trump and and not even allow him to publish anything negative about Biden.
I may be naive, but I doubt mass movements and strikes will matter. The two brands of the corporate UniParty corrupt government will simply bail out the corporate oligarchs directly, just like they did in 2008. The citizens are nothing more than items to be fleeced by them now and they will be treated like the Palestinians once they have nothing left to steal from. The USA is a criminal enterprise run by a handful of robber barons.
Without strong unions as a base, there is no mass movement, none.
Having been a teacher I absolutely agree!
Unions and federations need to put much more effort into educating their membership and reaching out beyond their membetship forvthe good of all!
The criminal enterprise is collapsing along with the rest of enterprise, however, since the economy is in a state of stagflation that precedes hyperinflation, and once the US dollar is eliminated as the world reserve currency—as it is in the process of being so—it will be only downhill from there. Bailouts will become impossible as the dollar becomes worthless, or will only have the potential to hasten the collapse of the economy and power centres. This has been in the making for a long time.
They have adopted the Zimbabwe strategy of economics, of responding to inflation by printing ever more money; Zimbabwe being the country that became famous for 100 trillion dollar bills that sold more on ebay than they were worth in-country. You needed a suitcase full of money to go buy groceries, or a coffee, and a laminated chart to help figure out how many zeroes make a quintillion or sextillion dollars.
In the collapse, there will be an opportunity for mass movements and the public to seize power. It will become necessary to issue new currency, as the Trump administration apparently already plans to launder the US dollar through digital currencies in foreign countries to try to keep its value up. However, the elites will also form factions as they are already doing, and it is possible one of them could win if we are not organised.
This is also the situation in Europe. Former British diplomat and reporter Alastair Crooke laid out the situation in France quite well with insights from others, and it's comparable:
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/07/15/operation-jupiter-and-a-revolution-in-the-making/
“What is in reality a budget and trade deficit is disguised as debt and would have been purged thirty years ago by national currency devaluation – but this debt artifice [increasingly benefits the rich]… whilst the general population never ceases to grumble, living its’ rose-tinted dream – and held in blind ignorance of the state of our finances … That said, the ruling class is well aware of the situation, but prefers not to talk about it, because no one knows what to do."
“There can be no doubt at the moment of truth, when states declare themselves bankrupt … the West will be shaken to the core – and some will pop like champagne corks. The economy will have to be reorganized. Perhaps also we will see cultural revolution. It was the failure of the French State – let us not forget – that provoked the French Revolution …"
"Today, even before the bankruptcy has been declared, the loss of confidence in the institutions: The powerlessness of the public authorities, deprived of prestige and authority, and the detestation of the President – make it possible to foresee the energy of the shockwave that would be unleashed by revelation of the fiasco."
Mass movements and strikes will matter. But they absolutely must be tied to a clear political party structure making specific material demands. Without that, it is just pussy hats that can be ignored, or workers making themselves a better paid worker in a class hierarchy of workers (affluent unionized workers versus precarious workers).
And obviously we are quite far from such a labor movement. But the future is unknowable. Such movements have existed and accomplished much, they can exist again.
What? Are the oligarchs chosen by God? Forever?!Pinochet? Just curious. Would you characterize your attitude as defeatist? Had the feminists, gay rights activists and the suffragettes held your attitude about the possible, would each of these populations have experienced any shift in their 2nd, 3rd ,4th class or non entity status that was assigned them in their time? Can you consider Nature’s wisdom in the cost of human birth demands a confrontation with and acceptance of screamingly intense pains called labor. Was your own birth accomplished without pain? Isn’t this a metaphor that can gird us to the seeming impossible?
My only answer to your response is that we are living in far different times than those you mentioned regarding feminists, gay right activists, and suffragettes, etc. We are actually going backwards from those gains you mentioned now. As one example, millions of people went out into the streets to protest and try to stop the illegal invasion of Iraq under GW Bush, before it happened. It made NO DIFFERENCE. The oligarchs simply no longer care what we want or think. The war happened just as they wanted it to and many many many more wars since then. Another recent example is all the student NON-VIOLENT protestors against the genocide of the Palestinians at college campuses who were met with violence from the government for simply caring about and wanting to stop that violence. The genocide is ongoing full tilt towards Israel’s final solution against the Palestinians with the endless support from the government and corporate monsters. To paraphrase the late great George Carlin: They don’t give a fuck about you or me. They want it all for themselves and they will get it. Are the oligarchs chosen by God? Forever? The reality is that they are in charge and they will not respond to what you or others care about or want. They no longer respond to protestors. They simply brush them off and ignore them. Short of throwing them in jail or worse, and I see no mechanism for doing that, they will continue to operate with impunity. Does that make me a defeatist? Perhaps in some eyes, but I consider myself more of a realist regarding our current situation. Trump being reelected after all he has said and done seems to back my perspective quite well.
I agree. We need to take a moment or two to cradle our hearts, internalize the beauty of stars in dark times and then get to work building numerous sustainable alternative development modes that actually deliver authentic life with dignity for all aspects of Creation. Perhaps a return to a 'sacred world' perspective.
The oligarchs only love money and themselves. What are they going to do when their source of income is not long because their industries are rendered useless due to masive strikes and boicots?
As I wrote in my original post, I believe they will simply be directly bailed out from the government they own. Just like the big banks were back in 2008. As long as the government is still going, it will simply print more money to give to them. They won’t even need consumers at some point the way things are heading. Eventually the whole system is going to collapse. As far as I am concerned the oligarchs are simply like a cancer which will eventually kill the host and itself. Until then I don’t see strikes having much effect, let alone getting the majority of folks getting behind them. The oligarchs have divided the citizens far too well and I don’t see the citizens overcoming their bigotry and hate that they have been taught to believe in. Not in the USA. We’ll see how it all plays out, but I for one am not optimistic one little bit about where this country is headed towards some unimaginable dystopian nightmare, all because as you pointed out about the oligarchs only loving money and themselves. And for that last point, I don’t even believe they love themselves. I believe they are truly self-loathing monsters who hide behind money to avoid looking at themselves.
When the oligarchs continue to oppress the people, take away their jobs, and destroy their hopes, what are the brainwashed supporters of the government going to do? I think they will resort to massive strikes and boycotts.
"millions of people went out into the streets to protest and try to stop the illegal invasion of Iraq under GW Bush, before it happened. It made NO DIFFERENCE. [etc. etc."
Exactly. We're still thinking that traditional methods of civic action (public education, public discourse, PACs, protests, voting) are all that are needed to implement and maintain a democracy, when clearly the whole system -- with all these methods in place -- is not functioning as intended .
Love this. Thanks.
I agree with half of your comment, but of course mass movements and strikes have changed the course of history. While some corporate/government strategists certainly view the citizenry as having value only as sheep to be fleeced, the oligarchs are not all powerful and the citizens are not actually sheep, nor are we powerless!
"I doubt mass movements and strikes will matter"
There seem to be two dimensions that really matter in politics and power, everywhere: The first is intelligent anti-social attitudes plus behaviors (via psychopathy, sociopathy, or as side effects of narcissism, etc.). Intelligence plus psychopathy appears to cause the iron law of oligarchy, which does not depend on ideology. We really have little idea in the West how to talk about psychopathy in power, much less deal with it.
The second is the irreversible accumulation of technological power. Have we reached a watershed where intelligent psychopaths can assemble enough unassailable power (weaponry, propaganda psychology, surveillance + censorship, AI, etc.) to control us all indefinitely?
Small-d democrats really need to up our game to deal with these -- and badly.
yah
Team D ran a shit candidate that had never won a seriously contested election in her own name (VP hardly counts) and was chosen last minute by party insiders. Because Harris she had been VP under Biden for four years, she could not pretend that she had no inkling of his obvious senility and could not run on any policy other than the historically unpopular Biden Administration policies.
Had Team D allowed a normal primary process and been able to nominate a candidate not tied at the hip to Biden, they might have done better. If Team D were able to nominate a candidate whose basic qualification was "I was Willie Brown's mistress", they might have done better. And if the queen had balls, she'd be king.
Now, watch democrats and liberals blame everyone and everything, Russia, men, women, minorities, college students, "ungrateful negroes", Lina Khan, Elon Musk, Russia some more, feral tomcats, Peanut The Squirrel, Puertoricans, everyone and everything but themselves for losing to a loudmouth moron reality TV star.
Oh yeah, and Harris outspent Trump 2-1 and had the MSM to act as her unpaid propaganda arm, not to mention most of Big Tech on her side. And She Still Lost.
I think I'm one of the few who won with this election because I voted with my conscience and therefore I voted green and I will not have any regrets. Besides, I'm celebrating that this was the collapse of the democratic party and hope that those who voted for Harris have learned the lesson and will start forming a new party that truely represents the people.
Team D will not go anywhere, not until the donors get sick of it.
n.b. I also voted Green.
True. But the only ones left in that party that will continue calling themselves democratic are its leadership but my hope is that the bulk of their members who have not yet left abandon it will run to create a new party that represent them.
I hope you prove correct, but humans are herd animals.
Humans are social beings. As such we have tendencies that make us want to be liked, to be part of the group, to jump on the bandwagon. But seriously, we're not actually herd animals or wolves. I think therefore I am.
Very few humans really think. So unlike cats.
true again, but herd animals choose their best leaders
They do? Far as I can tell from watching dogs, it's that they choose the strognest and most tyrannical.
Yes I voted Green too. Turns out Trump didn't need my single vote that the arrogant duopolists said I cast. But Jill Stein might make use of it. So I feel I took the best path available to me. Talking endlessly about a third party accomplishes zilch. If everyone who voted for Harris had voted Green instead, we would have something to be proud of today.
I'm sorry I wasted my vote and didn't vote green. Next time I will (if we have the chance!).
Thst is my hope!
I would prefer Trump won then Harris. We weren't in a proxy war with Russia with the possibility of nuclear war hanging over our heads during the Trump years, and he wasn't assisting a genocide, well, not at the time. I guess once again I will have to watch liberals join hands with the mainstream media in their hatred of Trump and foster lies, like Amy Goodman adopting the lie of Russia-gate. I didn't see the republicans try to remove Biden from office due to his senility, which was obvious from the beginning, which was not true of the democrats during Trump's whole term in office, and strongly supported by our so called liberals. I thought Greenwald was one of the sole liberals who held on to his integrity and didn't hitch his wagon to an anti-Trump hysteria. Also, no new wars under Trump. I wonder what those neocons will do now, since they are now aligned with the democrats and guided their agenda during Biden's presidency?
May be the more important question - than that about the neocons who will do what they always do because of being incapable of thinking outside their war and hegemony box - is what do you and others of like mind intend to do? In relation to Hedges last handful of paragraphs?
Amy Goodman did not adopt the lie of Russia-gate. If you have a prove of that please show it here. But you are right, Russia has been maligned in an effort to continue the cold war to benefit our hawks. Trump probably will stop that war but being a lunatic nobody can predict his future behaviour.
Yes she did. She's an anti-Trumper. I can well understand people don't like Trump, or any president for that matter, but certain presidents like Obama get a pass and although portrayed as some liberal, he was not, and his record shows he wasn't. Yesterday, the day after the election she has two women on there berating Trump but no one there to give any objective perspective which is the way it goes on these so called liberal sites especially in the Trump era, and it's not objective criticism, it's hate based. They complain about sites like FOX and MSNBC and the mainstream media who now simply take sides and make no effort to provide a more nuanced perspective. However liberal sites when it comes to Trump are often worse.
This is the commentary form one of two black women and no one there to provide any other perspective. .She said:
The confederacy has won,
He advocated racism
He's zenophobic
Hateful, all wrapped in a sense of honor and gallantry
and how that resonated with such a large swath of the American people
last stance of white supremacy.
it's going to put so many of us in jeopardy
Drug of American exceptionalism
Yes, yes, yes, but you have not shown your prove that Amy adopted the lie of Russia-gate to make it believable.
I use to listen to her all the time, but with her lack of objectivity during the Trump years including her propensity, strong propensity to adopt all things anti-Trump as many left wing sites did I never listened to her again, nor do I go to Common Dreams, the Alternet, well, none of them really. I'm grateful for sub-stack. She would have guests on pushing that lie and lend them credibility, to it, but I never believed that lie from the get go. After the Trump win, no one there to counter what those women said, anti-Trumpers, and that's her position, no objectivity.
Thank you for replying. I understand that you have no problem with my choice of news sources. I also remember that some time ago we agreed that your business is your business, and my business is mine. I think perhaps Fox News will fit your needs.
"The question isn’t why Harris lost to Trump—why was she ever in a position to lose to him in the first place?" O, gangsta!
https://samkriss.substack.com/p/i-told-you-so?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1071360&post_id=151257302&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1cc3o&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
Spot on as usual. We bear witness to the slow collapse of Empire.
I would say it is more like a rapid collapse now.
I believe we're on the precipice of rapid collapse but not there yet. I think the next economic collapse (only a matter of time) will be the "Okay, now this is collapse" moment.
Would you be have said this if Harris won?
Avoid collapse by pushing for more war leading to the end of the human species--if Harris won.
What I fear most is what is going to happen in the Middle East, in Gaza and the West Bank, and should Trump support that, which is so barbaric, so loathsome, then I will feel we're heading toward the end times. That scenario could bring in Russia and then it will be over. We also need to empower our unions and as a former teacher i can attest to how powerful they can be, and without them how vulnerable you can be, since power in the hands of a few always leads to multiple abuses.
Yes - she would have just made it a bit slower. Both serve oligarchs - just different ones.
Chris might as well post the phone number for the National Suicide Hotline at the end of all of his articles.
Funny, but I think anyone who reads it that way has misunderstood. Hedges' message is one of the continued spiritual struggle in the face of adversity; one of revolt. It is a positive message. You must know the lay of the land and have a realistic idea of the situation we are in to be able to resist it. I recommend reading "Death of the Liberal Class" by Chris Hedges.
"One of the only coherent philosophical positions is revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his obscurity. It is not aspiration, for it is devoid of hope. That revolt is the certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it," writes Albert Camus. "A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object. But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object."
This.
In my opinion, anybody involved in the Democratic Party political machine who says something along the lines of "It was impossible to win" should retire immediately and let the people who have a positive vision for the future and the will to fight take the reins.
Emma do you think his response to a Harris win would have been different?. Also one might take away that due to a Trump win all is lost? Don't ask is spot on in how most people would react to this article. Funny too.
Thanks, Fran. you get it.
I prefer ugly truth to comofrting lies.
To the contrary for that would be complicit in the destructive forces he so ably describes. Better, a sign up sheet for determined activism of strategic relentless strikes til the corrupt mess is brought down and the life nurturing systems are conceived and brought into being.
Anyone who voted for either of the two major parties already committed suicide of their conscience. It's a sad state of affairs.
Funny and so true!!!!!!!!!! I would have preferred a more down to earth response to Trump winning as opposed to a Harris win. I hope people like Hedges and the left take on a more objective perspective in regard to Trump's presidency, and I don't have to read about the end times like I did during his former presidency.
This has been the Hedges message for more than two decades. Americans, however, are simply too ignorant of politics, history, and civil life to understand who their real foe is; millions of our fellow citizens are woefully stupid and easily manipulated by demagogues like Trump. We will reap a terrible whirlwind now.
"[M]illions of our fellow citizens are woefully stupid and easily manipulated by demagogues like Trump. We will reap a terrible whirlwind now."
Yup. But that's exactly how it (nearly) always works. If we stick to the old formula, nothing changes until we all go through a fire. So, when does it not happen that way? When the capable in a society know, and desire, how to integrate nearly everyone into its system.
We can continue to blame the stupid and ignorant for their (apparent) inferiority, cursing them for not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps in this ostensible democracy. Or, we, the (at least self-perceived) intelligent, knowledgeable, and conscious can truly engage them, raise them -- and ourselves -- as far we can go, willingly, and see where that actually gets us. A change in attitude toward them is necessary. Otherwise, why not (continue to) just have rule by the one, or ten percent? But you know where that really leads, not to mention what kind of hellfire persists at the cut-off, the capability boundary.
One thing I know is that stupid people do *not* rebel when they are treated right. In those cases, rare as they have been in recent years, they admire and follow their betters.
It is despairing that most the US voted to help Donald Trump to kill Palestinians, so it is very sad day.
Boy, if only Harris could have said anything or done anything....
We must learn how to discriminate those worthy for high office from the plebeian. The difference between a Lincoln and a 4 cylinder good deal in the used car park.
Do you think, especially with the neocons, and Blinken is one of them, the genocide would stop? That Netanyahu would listen had she won? What has she ever done that lends credence to that belief? Not too long ago she was spewing that North Korea is our long time friend. Tell me what she has said or done in the past that gives you such confidence in her?
You think I have any confidence in Harris?
I suppose sarcasm is sometimes hard to transmit over a acreen.
Glad to hear it, read it.
Do you think Hedges would have written this apocalyptic piece had Harris won?
I appreciate Mr. Hedges's warnings about the dangers of the politicians he profiles. I'm not surprised that he would write about the dangers of these politicians, because he has always warned us about them.
Don't know. The difference is that Team D now will pretend to rediscover human rights, and the same smug liberals who ladled on the excuses for Biden/Harris will no longer do so for Trump.
Yes. And requires us to dig deeply to understand the conditions propelling their entry into the cult of Trump, the figurehead for the booming success of the “The Powell Memo (which)has been described (in 1971) as “a call to arms for corporations” and “a corporate blueprint to dominate democracy.” This has been and is a war where one side was spending a lot of attention and money in their corporate coup of our democracy. While the other side played stupefied and uncomprending before Gingrich’s snarling assault on civil relations and Democrats during Reagan’s slap down of workers and the air traffic controllers strike. The Dems rolled over in response until they continued to roll over and over enough to hire a Clinton to demonstrate how they can pretend serving us while slowly signing up for corporate donations to keep them in power. And like Biden serving two masters, one, the money one, not the workers one, won out. Then, they dished up after Biden, Ms Joyful Harris for us to rubber stamp. It is time for sprouting genuine teeth and a flexible yet fierce spine. And channel our fury and grief in the creation of what truly serves life, ours, our children’s, and Earth and her wondrous progeny of the slithering, 2 and 4 and multiple legged, the swimmers , the wingeds and the rooted world.
Gee, I thought it was the Biden administration and his Secretary of State, Blinken, a necon, who were assisting in the destruction of Palestine, in Gaza and the West Bank. Did you think it would stop under Harris, and if so what has she said or done to lead you to such a wish filled conclusion?
What do you think would happen during her presidency? Do you really believe there would not be a continuation of the genocidal assault on the Palestinians?
Thank you, Mr. Hedges, once again, for sharing the wisdom you've gained through your studies and your journalism. I am always, if not particularly comforted, at least enlightened by your work. Your ideas are complex, requiring deep listening and rumination. How to convey them to a mass of citizens who want everything described in easy-to-swallow soundbites seems a bit of a challenge, one which I hope some among us are up to. Thank you for your work.
"We must demand nothing less than full employment, guaranteed minimum incomes, universal health insurance, free education at all levels, robust protection of the natural world and an end to militarism and imperialism. We must create the possibility for a life of dignity, purpose and self-esteem." ... sounds reasonable to me ... I guess "we the people" will say that this is bad for the economy ...
What's bad for the financialized economy, isn't necessarily bad for the people.
I agree.
Who cares what the parasitic oligarchic Fraternity thinks? Other than how we can use it to grow a more nurturant more just society?
with "they" I didnt mean the oligarchs but the American public ... I will correct that
Does anyone know if there are any passing comets I can hop on? Don’t really mind what part of deep space it’s heading.
If you find it, let me know. But in the meantime we should work to improve our planet.
Julio - it’s too late for that, I’ll save you a place on my space rock.
Powerful argument well researched. Not sure though that the solution is viable. Like many Americans I have been voting for the “lesser of 2 evils” for most of my life because reason tells me “the greater of 2 evils” is worse, & 3rd parties have been rendered totally impotent & even detrimental in this country. The solution of mass civil disobedience & movements seems very unlikely to be successful in an oligarchic society in which the means of communication & dissemination of informaron are completely controlled by technocratic oligarchs the likes of Elon Musk & Peter Thiel.
Voting for the lesser of two evils means we will continue to have nothing but weevils.
Mass social movements have always worked. Why do you think both parties send out troops to quash them?
Years ago, my reason told me that the lesser of two evils is an evil too. I quit those parties long ago.
I just sent this mesage to Harris:
"Ms. Harris, now you know what happens to politicians that support genocide, but still as VP you have some months left with your president to stop the bombing of Gaza. You are young and able to learn that people don't any more believe words which are not backed by actions. Just one honest call and warning to the leader of Israel will stop the war inmidiatelly. The rest is up to your conscience.
This administration doesn't learn and like in other ocaccions they have answered to my mesage with the following generic mesage but with not way to reply to it. they are certainly masters of deceipt:
"November 7, 2024
Thank you for contacting the Biden-Harris Administration.
President Biden and Vice President Harris value every opportunity to engage with the American people, and the Administration is grateful for your outreach. Our country faces many challenges, and messages like yours help us better understand how the Biden-Harris Administration can serve American families.
We take careful note of the suggestions, thoughts, questions, and stories we receive, and we’re working hard to ensure you receive an appropriate response.
Sincerely,
The Office of Vice Presidential Correspondence"
Ofcourse, this is a very well known trick but my hope is that if many people send mesages they will put some attention.
An eloquent and thoughtful perspective that deals honestly and accurately with the issues Thank you. 🙏
I know this is true by long, bitter experience. I was a blue collar worker for close to 30 years plus being a local D campaign mgr. I fought the neolib takeover of the party in the late '70s. Looking back, I see the likely connection to the Powell memo of 1971. The D shift to the right helped enable to Rs to go full on plutocratic and fascistic cult crazy.
We, the majority working class, were then invisible to the oligarchic D elite. Of course becoming angry, desperate for anything even remotely promising politically.
A few months ago, I read Les Leopold's 2024 book //Wall St.'s War on Workers (How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do about It.)// What would have been a winning issue for the Ds. He was a Cassandra; he was right, and no, the oligarchic D party elite didn't listen.
What has happened is a loss for the Ds, but a disaster for us workers that continues to deepen. Which will be made even worse by total R control. All made possible by the confidant arrogance of the Ds, who decided that taking corporate money was fine, while actively caring about the working class, as well as the increasing industrialization of people like college profs and MDs, was unimportant.
Today Bernie Sanders sent out a scolding for the establishment D's and suggested that he and other progressive caucus members might take stronger measures to differentiate the D's from the R's. I wish them well, but this election left me wondering if the D's are simply an opposing oligarchic faction from the R oligarchic faction. The US electorate spends their time consuming corporate entertainment and watching corporate news in a lulled suggestable state, and when the poor misguided wretches try to drill down to the truth they find themselves travelling through one rabbit hole after another like the seven realms of Hell in Dante's Inferno.
Stop wondering. Of course the Ds are Pepsi,the Rs are Coke, and cultural issues keep the population tearing each other to pieces rather that assembling the guillotines.
Read what I just posted to Tech-la about the, uh, differences. ;-P
As for "cultural issues," that sounds to me kind of like the doctrinaire leftist stridency I've been hit with on this site. How class is primary and all else only distractions. As if we workers need more elitism, which a self-appointed vanguard talking down to us certainly is. Plus implying we're too stupid to organize ourselves. Besides, we live in a PoMo quantum reality beyond the Aristotelian either/or. I'm also BIPOC and LGBTQ. Both/and. It's amusing (okay, actually offensive) that the perpetrators are mostly white male armchair theorists who've never had to struggle for recognition. Nor seldom, if ever, held a tool in their lives.
As I said to Tech-la about the Ds, if moral considerations aren't enough, then consider practicality. We of the letters aren't going to drop what we are still working so hard for. What would be effective is the way the CIO industrial unions and the old true Populists organized: both/and.
I think you aren’t actually understanding me. Or I am not understanding you. I do know that when you get people screaming about trans issues or adding an x to Latin or minding pronouns or immigration or all the other things oligarchs don’t give a fuck about, they win. And to be clear, I am a middle aged queer woman raised in shit-hole land by factory workers, so - yeah, not a white dude in an armchair. I watched how race was used to destroy unions by making people forget about both/and.
I'm trans, an FtM. I had to live for 54 years with all the indignities that come with being F until I transitioned 22 years ago. I identify as queer, non-binary, and as what Native people mean by two-spirit. We've become what my 96 year old mom calls "the enemy of the month." A target to keep the R's ultraconservative religious base loyal.
The Ds have no problem with race, gender, or sexual orientation. As long as you have the required credentials of Ivy League or the equivalent. Whatever qualifies you as elite, distinct from the unimportant masses.
In the U.S. the myth is that anyone can become successful if they really try. Who wants to believe they're a loser? So it must be that someone was given your job. R dog whistles encourage this...even through as corporate and 1%er shills they couldn't care less about the working class.
However, check out the book by Les Leopold I mentioned in my OP. Solid evidence how prejudice among the white working class, particularly men, has been dropping for the last few decades. That's not to deny it's there, as you know. But a lot of it's from media that caters to the professional classes loyal to the Ds. Serving to justify their neglect of the working class majority.
BTW, also look up the books by Joe Bageant, himself from old stock Appalachia, where his relatives still live, one brother a fundamentalist preacher. About greedy town merchants. And deprived working people who believe they're lucky to have a min. wage job at some Wal-Mart they commute to 2 hrs each way in a used van they bought together. In high school, the elite had a welcome separate from the hillbilly kids, who were told simply they could leave at 16. I used to correspond with him. He loved my anecdote about what people who'd been leftist labor organizers in the 1930's told me in the '60s: "liberals are the ones who leave the room when the fight starts."
What I mean by "armchair" is what I've been hit with directly over many decades, including on this site. Certain of their own superiority, they are sure they have the right to tell us lessers what to do. D liberal professionals as well as doctrinaire Marxists who denigrate identity and apparently think we're too stupid to run our own movements. Delores Huerta and Fannie Lou Hamer knew better. Like my grandfather, the logger, (and my mom,) I'm a Wobbly, I.W.W. Local ownership and management by workers of the means of production. Rather than top down style by either corporate capitalists or Marxist elite. Of course we appreciate actual expertise, but not remote rulers.
I totally get you, and yes - you are the enemy du jour. A tiny and pretty powerless fraction of the population is being used as red meat to get the dogs fighting each other. Elite dems use trans-inclusive language not because they care about trans issues, but because it’s a way of virtue signaling without actually doing anything about justice. The right wing loves trans as an issue because they aren’t really allowed to natter ‘God didn’t create Adam and Steve’ without looking like assholes.
As to Marxism, though - my friend, there aren’t any marxists in places of Western power. Not a single elite wants to turn the commons back over to the workers.
I am not denigrating identity, btw. Identity politics as played by the Dems, however, is utter bullshit. As you noted, it’s a way for elites to pretend to care while they only care about their own class cadre.
I did see that--Bernie's right. He was explicit about the need to pay attention to the working class, which amounts to nearly 80% of the population. For practical reasons like winning, if the idea it's the moral thing to do isn't enough.
As for Ds v. Rs...they're a dual aspect uniparty. The Ds located themselves in one of those circles of hell when they started arguing "lesser of two evils" a few decades ago. The Rs couldn't sink much lower; they've allied themselves with the worst forms of authoritarian religious and economic fundamentalism. You can still tell the difference, though. The Rs are plutocrats in religious drag, whereas the Ds are merely an elitist oligarchy with a liberal mask so to appeal to their 20%er professional and administrative class base.
"Lulled" isn't the right term; it's just a nicer version of ones the elitist MSM use to denigrate the majority working class, a form of blaming the victim. Also to remind NYT fans (the D base) they're soooo much better. We angry lessers know the Ds did FOR the suffering, unemployed Rust Belt workers what they did TO the rapacious Wall St. vultures who caused the '08 crash--NOTHING! And we realize that supercilious remark "a basket of deplorables" was aimed at all of us.
"Plutocrats in religious drag" - heh heh I'm going to remember this.
As for the "lulled" comment, I'm talking about my personal experience and struggle, and assuming that others have similar experiences. Perhaps this is not quite properly expressed but I'm at the end of my skill here.
Re "deplorables"...I laughed so hard when Hillary slipped up and told us what she really thinks.
We need the guillotine. Billionaire heads
We also need to stop talking the duopoly language. We need to criticize one party without comparing it to the other (R and D). When criticizing one, we need to just lump the other one together to subliminally send the message that they are both equally bad, both corporatist and corrupt. We need to pretend, for now, that there aer other viable parties to run the country, at the same time that we help other parties elect officials all over. Pretend they exist, while creating the possibility for them to win, using people to create such possibility.
The two parties are beyond recovery. Talk about them in the way that shows how they are. Not need to compare one against the other. Compare them against what could be with a different party
Very helpful context, thanks, as always, Chris.