The longer the corporate state erodes the social bonds that knit us to society and give us a sense of purpose and meaning the more inevitable an authoritarian state and a Christianized fascism becomes
I recommend everyone watching RFK Jr's campaign announcement speech in which he said:
"The merger of corporate power and state power is destroying our country. It's cushy socialism for the rich and for big business, and a merciless free market capitalism for everyone else." Kennedy talked about Ukraine and how the government is sending billions over there, while cutting food stamps and medicare at home. If I recall correctly, it was 112 billion to Ukraine thus far, while the entire yearly budget of the EPA is like 5 billion, CDC 6 billion.
The 3 minutes RFK spent on Tucker Carlson was absolutely brilliant. ( Sorry, MSNBC didn't invite Kennedy) He said the same things Chris is saying.
The MSM just calls Kennedy an "anti-vaxxer;" I am not an expert on vaccines but given what we have seen in terms of pharmaceutical company shenanigans, I can't say that I have 100% faith that every vaccine they pull out of the bag is safe and effective. Don't they have an incentive to continue to add vaccines to the recommended ( and often mandated) schedule?
I taught immunology for many years and my angle on vaccines was simple: a great strategy because one is evoking the anti-infectious disease potency of a highly integrated natural system with huge inherent flexibility and sophisticated internal feedback regulation. However, strategy does not equal tactical deployment. There are good vaccines and shite vaccines, like this mRNA pseudo-vaccine garbage that based on known immunology was a huge risk from the get-go (putting a foreign viral protein into potentially every body cell -- lunacy). RFK's opposition has been to the awful tactical decisions made by Pharma in their tactical vaccine design that have predisposed to some horrific side-effects, and he's correct. The attacks by the Times et al. illustrate exactly how crappy their science reporting really is. In Biology 744, they'd be at the D minus level. Put aside this shite as a negative in Kennedy's candidacy; it's especially irrelevant coming from the mediocrities and charlatans in the MSM.
Thank you for this comment. Yes my understanding is that vaccine science is complex. We are taught that its just about getting a teeny tiny dose of the pathogen to awaken your immune system but its more complex that. Also there is a big debate about live vaccines vs dead, see the work of Peter Aaby ( censored on YouTube now!).
And the mRNA thing kind of strains credibility. Supposedly the RNA is "wrapped" in liquid nano particles so that it "slips" into the nucleaii of your cells and "teaches" them to make spike protein or some such nonsense. I met a PhD and associate professor in bio engineering from Yale who had a patent on lipid nanoparticle technology and she said that in their work they never got more than 70% of RNA into the lipid particles. Btw, she wasn't taking the covid vaccine and had to leave Yale to go work at a biotech start up.
You're more than welcome. Thanks for your original comment. The mRNA pseudo-jabs (I refuse to call them "vaccines") seem to me to indicate two pieces of American (Western?) psychology (psychopathology to my mind): panic knee-jerks, and especially, more is better when panic strikes. The panic, of course, was manufactured -- unless you were over 65 or co-morbidity encumbered. But just as a panicked gun owner may empty a clip into a home intruder, this strategy of using the nanoparticles to essentially render all lipid-glycoprotein membrane barriers irrelevant to the entry of a foreign engineered nucleic acid is immense overkill; would've caused cell biologists and immunologists of the 1980s to shudder in anxiety. It's defeating an essential biological function -- the segregation of different-solute-composition aqueous compartments upon which every cell of the organism depends -- and throughout the organism. It's why I say "lunacy. You're canceling a key aspect of cellular biology for the purpose of a "more is more" philosophy -- by so overflooding the body with spike protein in a panic to send the strongest possible stimulus to the immune system, these fools forgot/ignored that the dynamical system is self-regulating, and in its integration with other body systems, especially neuro-endocrine, the immune system didn't see it that way --- hence, it turned out to be a miserable failure. Short-lasting antibody production, no mucosal antibody production of note, etc. In dynamical systems theory, "more is better" is pretty much a useless assumption.
Good points. I also heard a science writer ( Jessica Rose) talk about how the lipid nanoparticles are not tested for safety and in fact have ingredients that are known to be toxic and no one knows where they may accumulate in the body. There was no long term study of covid vaccinated ( and boosted) versus unvaccinated for overall health outcomes. No strong epidemiological study that looked to see if 2 or 3 or 5 shots of this stuff could possibly cause X, Y or Z diseases down the road.
And by the way, as RFK Jr has pointed out, that type of research is not done for ANY vaccine or combination of vaccines, because children get dozens. There are simply no good, large published studies on vaccinated vs unvaccinated children. But one recent paper did suggest that countries that give more vaccines have higher overall child mortality.
I'm sorry to be so blunt but this is crazy talk. The data is clear that the Covid vaccines have saved 10s of millions of lives, drastically rediuced serious disease and hospitalizations, and likely reduce the likelihood and severity of long covid. The data is so overwhelming that to argue otherwise is no different than arguing that the earth is flat.
I'm thrilled that my children are not going to experience the ravages of small pox (est to have killed 300 million people in the past 12000 years), polio, measles, pertussis, etc. I ran an ICU for years that treated adults with acute respiratory distress syndrome. When it came to influenza patients we treated 99% were not vaccinated. The data is overwheming, vaccines work.
There are enough real battles to fight out there without going down this rathole. It's a distraction from the real battle against entrenched corporate power thar Chris has written about.
Lets not argue vaccines, the question here is covid vaccine. Vaccines are not all the same, anymore than medications are. Some work well and have few side effects, others do not . (Sorry I am a nerd, and keep links on my drive about covid vaccine). Regarding the covid vaccine, there is a lot of debate which has been suppressed by the government and the mainstream media. . But I will link a few of the best articles I have seen that definitely do not agree with what you have stated. Questioning the covid mRNA vaccine shouldn't be called "crazy".
AUGUST 2022? JAMA ( top tier medical journal) research j ( it is research sponsored by the government of Iceland) people who get vaccinated are slightly MORE likely to get a second covid infection!
Excellent Dr. Marty Makary ( Johns Hopkins, senior researcher) article about covid vaccine for children
There were many historical studies on unvaccinated children. They survived because of iron lungs or died due to measles encephalitis. I've seen effects of the unvaccinated. Lovely toddlers dying due to H. flu meningitis.
It is very easy for RFK to speak on subjects for which he has no knowledge.
Can you please link to a study from the last 20 years that compares fully vaccinated children to unvaccinated children ?
In 1965 the recommended vaccine schedule was 5 total doses, polio, smallpox, DPT.
In 2019 it was 73 doses with 243 viral and bacterial strains. ( look it up on CDC website).
Since 1990's chronic diseases in children have skyrocketed, severe allergies, asthma, ADHD, autism, etc. Maybe there is a link. I would love to see a solid study on that.
Focused use - Great Barrington Declaration. For a respiratory virus, NO reason to use something so dangerous and poorly tested in anyone under 60 with a normal immune system. And for which mandated use with lockdowns across age ranges killed and immiserated many more folks than if had there been no vaccine [for some support for that view, I suggest "The COVID Consensus" by Toby Green & Thomas Fazi]. And let's get ecological here, systemic if you will: no vaccine = most of the dead would have been post-reproductive -- just as Nature would have it in an evolutionary sense; I could have been one of that number, so I'm not condemning others to death without the capacity to accept that I could have well been among that number. Stepping away from the human-Narcissist perception into that of Nature, the Biosphere as a whole, can often be sobering in these assessments.
Thank you for answering my question, professor LoPresti. Since I'm an ignoramus I have to rely on my common sense and, being well beyond the reproductive age, I'm happy that I decided to follow the CDC recommendations during the pandemic. But the majority of the world population is much younger than me and, therefore, I hope that most of the scientific community is correct and that the vaccine is safe across all ages provided that it is not applied to people with known adverse reactions to it. What I love about sciences is that there are no dogmas and everything is subject to analysis and improvement and the Great Barrington Declaration is also heavily contested. We depend on you, the scientists, to continue the debate and improve the mRNA type of vaccines if necessary because it seems that Nature is protecting itself from or taking revenge for the ecological damage we are inflicting in the world and more harmful bugs are appearing every day.
Kennedy alone can not make a difference he must bring with him a whole slate of like-minded reform candidates to dominate the Democratic party and push the present cesspool out of existence.
Anyone, Trump, Kennedy, insert any name here, if they somehow were to get elected, and if they did not follow orders, the CIA would simply roll out its next patsy to take care of the problem.
This is why I push so hard for a non-hierarchical society and #DirectDemocracy. Can't kill us all if we rule (well, they could I suppose, if they use nuclear, biological, chemical weapons on everyone). We also need to remove economic hierarchy to fully regain our power; gifting, sharing and limited barter does just that.
I too watched the RFK Jr. speech and agree that he is being marginalized and silenced and smeared as a "anti-vaxxer". The media and elites are doing this to prevent any distribution or awareness and discussion of the ideas and criticisms he made.
Anyone, Trump, Kennedy, insert any name here, if they somehow were to get elected, and if they did not follow orders, the CIA would simply roll out its next patsy to take care of the problem.
This is why I push so hard for a non-hierarchical society and #DirectDemocracy. Can't kill us all if we rule (well, they could I suppose, if they use nuclear, biological, chemical weapons on everyone). We also need to remove economic hierarchy to fully regain our power; gifting, sharing and limited barter does just that.
The friggin' hilarious thing here is that liberals are just playing catch-up on this after having destroyed Trump supporters for making the same points almost a decade ago.
I'm not sure paralysis is entirely correct, Chris. I think there's a mixture of paralysis, bribery, blackmail, corruption, greed, fear, and amoralism. Some individuals who are complicit with the corporate-globalist takeover will face loss of job, loss of reputation, and blacklisting for standing up to them. The globalists are like a monstrous Mafia, who have bent the world to their will using every trick in the book, including outright murder. People are justifiably afraid of them. However, there is also a lack of courage and moral fiber in standing up to them. As Kennedy said in his recent Boston speech, which I attended (to paraphrase), it is not circumstances that define us, but how we respond to those circumstances. Most of us have responded with fear, trembling and compromising our integrity. A small minority have courageously stood up, suffered the consequences, and continued to fight. Some of these soldiers, like Zelenko, may fall in battle, but others will pick up the banner and continue the fight.
The paralysis about which Chris Hedges writes was set in motion, I believe, by Ronald Reagan. I disliked Reagan even when I was a young lad listening to his voice over advertising 20 Mule Team Borax on "Death Valley Days". My young and youthful gut knew even then that Ronnie was a phony.
Politicians and community leaders continue to shake their fingers at problems without solutions. The gun ownership debate has been thriving endlessly since Columbine without serious solution or resolution. Recently I coined, "Fear paves the way to fascism. Republicans pave the way to fear." Yet, the Democrats have allowed this most unfortunate moment in our history. They pine and whine about all the dirty deeds committed by Republicans without any real pushback. Democrats appear to believe they can intellectualize everything, even bare-knuckle fights. Hell! Dems can't even fight a real fight.
Born exactly one week to the day after D-Day, I will turn 79 this coming June. I remember energized, exuberant high school discussions and debates about capitalism, democracy, communism and totalitarianism. As a young USAF Sergeant, I remember how "hallowed" we deemed our nation. How proud we were, indeed, to celebrate our beacon to the world. Then, with age, the myth became the lie. Truth became the lie. Fact became the fake. We have been seduced by the best among the seductresses. Fakery abounds. Faketriots (borrowed term that I truly like) are abundant in every quarter, seeking to impose their own form of tyranny and totalitarianism on the rest of us. "America" is burning. Who will extinguish the inferno before it is too late? Even then, will there be enough of our constitutional democracy to salvage? Quoting Pogo, "I have seen the enemy, and he is us." How prophetic that is!
Yes, it is hard not to be depressed these days and certainly Reagan and his combo had a lot to do with what we are experiencing today. "We have been seduced by the best among the seductresses." Who or what are those seductresses? capitalism? the Christian right?
Be depressed for 3 days max. Then organize your friends to organize with their other friends to meet at your apartment or the church basement to read out loud this piece by Hedges and how you feel about it. Simplistically - depression is anger turned at the self. Being mad at yourself instead of the deserving culprit in the external world serves the matrix of inverted totalitarianism whose intent is to sterilize your guts from raising caine over the crappy healthcare for your kids, of Amazonian robotization of your daily routine, of further wrecking the climate for your kids. Read Gillans & Page's research results. Read Sheldon Wolin on Inverted Totalitarianism. Get hip to the map - so you don't allow yourself to continue being screwed by that system.
Yours is such an excellent question! I had to give my answer considerable thought regarding the seductresses. We live in a multi-layered, multi-tiered retail market. We have the liberty to pick and choose. Choice most often is influence and effected by the way in which something makes us feel. (Seduction) Buy at will, or at risk. Consciously or subconsciously, we seek self-gratification. The abundance that comes with supply-side economics feeds into a “more is better” mentality.
Is capitalism a seductress? In many respects, yes. Why? Because we buy into the excesses that our form of capitalism provides. Is capitalism wasteful? Yes. How many bags of Doritos must Lays produce and throw away in order to sell one bag? “If we make it, they will buy it” is my simplified understanding of supply-side economics as compared to “Demand-side” economics, which trans-lates (for me) into: We will build it only when they want it. Now. I am NOT an economist. So. Where is the seduction? It is in the superficial “need” to have more when we already have more than enough.
Is it the Christian right? Or, is it religion at large? As an ordained graduate Seminarian, I wrestle frequently with the “God question”. In fact, I struggle with that question. Is religion seductive? It can be, but should not be. I will lean on two of the numerous synonyms for the word “seduce”: to entice or lure. There is a whole psychology underlying religion, requiring a LOT of psychoa-nalysis. Perhaps we are seduced into religion because of a need to rely on that which is invisible, inaudible and intangible. In that sense, we are in control. God is not. Is “God” the seductress? Or, is the clergy selling God? I believe it is the clergy as God’s salesmen. It matters not if the reli-gion/faith is Christian right, radical Islamism, ultraconservative Judaism or any variations thereof. When we are willing to be seduced, we are willing to be satisfied emotionally; gratified. Keep in mind: We are seduced by the seductress only when we are want and willing. The degree of se-ductive success relies heavily on the needs and whims of the seduced. I realize this is a VERY long answer, but your question demands it. Actually, your question demands even more than what I offer herein.
Thank you Keltic Warrior. It is a great answer as expected by a cultured individual like you. The part I most liked was "Perhaps we are seduced into religion because of a need to rely on that which is invisible, inaudible and intangible. In that sense, we are in control. God is not. Is “God” the seductress? Or, is the clergy selling God? I believe it is the clergy as God’s salesmen. It matters not if the reli-gion/faith is Christian right, radical Islamism, ultraconservative Judaism or any variations thereof. When we are willing to be seduced, we are willing to be satisfied emotionally; gratified" I fully agree, and I believe the way we found to control God was by creating one at our image and inventing scriptures that gives us peace of mind during our life and the after-life.
You also listed the temptations of capitalism who are great and I add the temptation of being admitted in the growing billionaire's club no matter what we have to do to our fellow men to achieve that distinction.
Hello, again. Thank you for your affirmation. 😊 Are we certain about that "afterlife"? Quoting my sister who no longer is with us, "IF God is so loving and we are His children, why then would "He" [God] commit His children to eternal hell?" I also fall back on debates from my Seminary days, If G/god created everything, then God also created evil.
Regarding capitalism, my area of focus during graduate study at Seminary was in ethics. I relied heavily on Lester Thurow's "Head to Head" to write one of my papers. Thurow offers a provocative comparison between U.S. capitalism and European capitalism. Capitalism in the U.S. began to run amok during the Ronald Reagan era when his administration lowered taxes substantially for corporations and the wealthy. Years later, "Citizens United" became the curtain behind which corporate political donations could be hidden. There is an ongoing corrosive effect on our constitutional democracy that I suspect will continue. I seriously doubt that corrosive trend can or will be reversed.
Agreed. I consider myself a very spiritual person but I'm also agnostic and believe we will never be able to know who or what is God and much less the existence of heaven or hell. The sad fact is the sellers of religion take advantage of the fragility and spirituality of their victims.
Here in America there is a substantial part of the population that are fanatic followers of those peddlers and have bought the belief in Noah's Arch, creationism etc. and worst of all, they vote for politicians who they consider will help to bring the Lord's kingdom to earth (theocracy). We also export that profitable business of religion. The following is a clip from democracynow.org news today:
"In Kenya, authorities have exhumed the bodies of 47 followers of a Christian cult who apparently starved themselves to death. Investigators say Pastor Paul Mackenzie Nthenge convinced members of the Good News International Church they would go to heaven if they stopped eating. Police say they’ve rescued over a dozen members of the cult from starvation, only to have them continue to refuse food. Most of the bodies exhumed so far were of women and children."
And yes, perhaps the real hell where we are falling deeper every day is the abysmal inequality in our society started in the 80's by a "good" Christian.
“The gathering darkness of the totalitarianism we face seems to be nothing less than a Faustian effort to deconstruct everything it means to be human.”
NS Lyons, The Upheaval substack, highly recommended.
Jesus, who woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?
Yes, we often suck at being perfect; but the biased focus on the glass half empty is not gonna’ help improve anything. And people owning this type of mindset that everything is a crisis of terrible are fucking terrible at real problem-solving and logical consequences. It is like their stock and trade is criticism and thus they will never admit to progress of anything. That is fucking messed up (excuse my French).
For example, the Biden policies on climate change and the war on fossil fuels is a luxury virtue signaling cult practice that is responsible for several of the social and economic problems listed in this lament.
The hilarious thing for me is to note how people like Chris to cling to Democrat party fealty while the Democrat party backs and supports the Wall Street controlled corporatist agenda responsible for the problems. I mean you effs backed the administrative state of COVID vaccines… basically joining in the war to force people to comply at the expense of their kid’s education, their economic and social health, and their quality of life… and the impetus for this was big pharma profit. It was those working class Trump supporters that objected and you killed them… are still killing them.
Here is a bit of a lesson on capitalism… the favored fake boogie man of left social and economic critical theory play script. Corporatism is not capitalism. The tenants of capitalism are one where domestic labor is suppose to share in the returns of domestic capital. Capitalism was never designed to enrich the three guys at the top having colluded with Joe Biden for the policies that exported the manufacturing jobs to China and Mexico and then shipping the products back to the US to be purchased.
But you people are so stuck on the climate change cult, that it probably does not matter. The WEF globalist Great Reset requires that American industrialism and the American working class be destroyed. The fake science of climate change is their jam. You buy into it like you bought into the COVID jab hysteria. These media manipulators know you… they know you lack life meaning and will jump at the next cause that makes you feel better in the morning.
Meanwhile, yes, none of our big problems get solved.
No one here talks about the personal courage required to use what they know not simply to get into street organizing on a national level but carrying actions through. Relentlessly without ceasing until demands are met. Most will likely say - their personality isn't built to do that. That their small acts of kindness and volunteerism are their domain. How are these not rationalizations that are symptoms of the paralysis? Can you think of any major mass movement that significantly moved the needle on social justice that was not peopled with those who said to themselves - striking for labor unions, protesting for the end of tyrannical rule, marching for women's right to vote among more - by putting my body publicly on the line is way outside my comfort zone, but if I don't do it I can't look myself in the mirror. Or answer my children when they ask what did you do? Keenly interesting is how come the psyche of the American citizen appears so different from that of the
French who poured into the streets in mass demonstrations against neoliberal Macron raising the retirement age? Also, given the citizenry's paralysis - common to all rape victims - what must happen for feeling to come back into the body? On a personal level and the body political? Hedges' listing of all of the degrees and varieties of the corporate minded assault to and on us would, one thinks, stir us below our collarbone into action. But - looking at the comments - everyone remains this side of the Rubicon. Up in the head. Another symptom of the split states of paralysis? What would get you into sustained street action and presence?
How about one issue and extensively reporting on it. The absence of a national health insurance in the US is a disgrace. The absence of even an option is immoral. 600,000 going bankrupt every year means that there are millions out there who have been sacrificed to Moloch. I know very little of their story, because no one has reported on it in depth. They are faceless and nameless.
One thing I will say for the 1619 project (televised on Hulu), is that it gave a face to people who had lost land and wealth due to very arbitrary government action. They deserve their land back. I'd be willing to contribute to their legal fees. I trust there are others who would as well. Where is the mechanism.
It is all well and good to march in the streets. That event is over and done with; soon to be forgotten.
Great point. For me - and I have been on the street in protest - there needs to be other people willing to join. Like you, can't say I see much of that happening. What happened to Occupy makes it clear the stakes are pretty high.
We can't do this individually.
What would get you into sustained street action and presence?
Well, Rick, some thoughts. 1st generating a group interested in exploring and reporting back about existing socio-political protest groups (extinction rebellion, Sunrise movement, Poor Peoples Movement, Greenpeace, ????). 2nd - Learn about forms of protest, how to develop enduring political action groups, how to organize and strategize . An wily, shrewd, experienced environmental activist named Jim Britell would be a good resource, Kshama Sawant of Seattle has led successful drives (pay, late rent fee caps)....collect human advisers/resource people 3rd - enlist artists across the spectrum of art to produce powerful imagery 4th engage singers and musicians to raise the energy in meetings by body based movement and sounds 5th involve progressives known for their charisma, authenticity, creativity, 6th involve professional, experienced group facilitators who can cultivate group generated rules for group to operate by and facilitate group staying on track. 7th - list of energetic philosophers, historians, economists, mythologists, psychologists interested in sharing their "take" on what makes strong, cohesive groups, elements conducive to inspiration, raising the "energy". This is a hodge podge answer. There are people highly experienced in helping make groups "work". Organization. Organization. Organization. Is key. Clarity of focus. Commitment.
Good points. It's also helpful to deliver concrete good things to people, e.g. healthcare for all.
One might think that having some nice things during the pandemic (continued Medicaid coverage, government supplied tests and vaccination with no charge to recipients, etc.) summarily taken away would motivate people, but can't say I've heard much in the way of protest.
We in the US seem to have become accustomed to the way things are.
The tragedy of America and the West it leads is that it has many of the world's greatest universities, the world's greatest thinkers and yet idiots and quislings are left to run the show. This is the great disconnect common to all former Western democracies and why we are failing. Ruinous ideologies and corruptions rule us.
Politics is no more than window dressing for Sheldon Wolin's "inverted totalitarianism".
The "dark forces" have taken over it is up to true patriots to fight back.
The true patriots are there , its just that they are marginalized. Jeffrey Sachs, Michael Hudson , Colonel, Douglas Macgregor, Scott Ritter and a whole host of historians , economists and journalists are the patriots America should be listening to and this shift needs to be fostered and gain momentum in spite of the agents of chaos.
As Reinhold Niebuhr pointed out good government requires good people.
The ironies are inescapable for the Christian fascist to escape from. Where there damnation of Islam and it's strict doctrine while hiding behind the patina of a more patient liberal doctrine is laughable now with all the cultural crack downs of expression. Being random while black and now just human gets you despised and shot by the more zealously convicted in our
I have nothing positive to add. But if I add something pessimistic for others to act against, that becomes a positive. This is my view: America was built by slaves. That produced a wondrous nation. Those slaves became (technically) free men and women and they contributed to building American culture. Blues, then Jazz Rock etc. and so much more. It was a miracle, though the profits mostly went to the ruling class. Still, at one time it made America great. But it wasn’t good enough. So Capitalism replaced plantation slavery with prison slavery, which is worse in every aspect, and it produces nothing except misery. Every opportunity to make America great has been co-opted by either Oil or arms makers. What is their future? There is none. Oil and arms are the endgame. Loud, careless, talk is going around about ‘survivable’ nuclear war. I believe this is the goal of the American ruling class. I believe that the BRICS nations think so too.
The negative that I’m afraid of is that these lunatics have only one way remaining to establish their domination and it’s a cloudy future indeed, cloudy with a chance of fungus. And lining up to buttress this insanity are the liberals. Sean Penn, are you listening?
The election that brought Fain to the head of the UAW was organized by the US Labor Department to provide a facelift to the union in the aftermath of a years-long corruption scandal, which has seen a dozen top officers, including two past presidents, convicted and sent to prison for embezzling union funds and taking payoffs from the corporations in return for imposing company-friendly contracts on the membership.
The election for president and other top officers—the first-ever direct election in the UAW’s history—was a complete fraud. The recorded percentage of eligible UAW voters who returned ballots was the lowest of any previous national union election in the history of the United States.
In the first round of the election, less than 10 percent of the 1.1 million eligible active and retired UAW members cast valid ballots. Among the 48,000 University of California strikers, only 1,200 ballots were cast, or just 2.5 percent.
This was not due to rank-and-file “apathy.” It was the result of the deliberate suppression of the vote by all factions of the UAW bureaucracy, which sought to confine the turnout to the thousands of UAW apparatchiks. The vast majority of UAW members, including on the campuses, were not even aware that an election was taking place, because the national and local union officials did next to nothing to inform them and the government-appointed election monitor refused to compel the union officials to ensure that all workers received ballots.
The second round runoff ballot between Curry and Fain, which the union publicized more extensively, aroused a vote of only 13 percent of eligible members, reflecting both a lack of knowledge of the election and hatred for both factions of the union apparatus.
The Will Lehman campaign
Will Lehman, a rank-and-file tier-two worker at the Mack Trucks plant in Pennsylvania, ran in the election as a socialist and principled opponent of the entire union bureaucracy. He advocated the abolition of the bureaucracy and return of power to the rank-and-file workers on the shop floor. He advanced the fight to build a network of rank-and-file committees nationally and internationally to coordinate and unite the struggles of workers globally against global capitalism.
Lehman fought for the democratic rights of the UAW membership, filing a court suit to extend the first round and ensure that all members were sent ballots and assisted in casting them. He then filed complaints with the election monitor and the Labor Department demanding that the entire election be rerun on a democratic basis and exposing the election monitor’s longstanding business connections to the Big Three auto companies.
Both Fain and Curry, as well as the monitor and the Biden Labor Department, opposed Lehman’s complaints, underscoring their common contempt for the rights of the rank-and-file.
Despite the mass suppression of the vote, Lehman won nearly 5 percent of the ballots cast and counted in the first round, demonstrating the broad support for a fight against the entire union apparatus and a growing interest in socialism. In the end, Fain was elected with the support of less than 3 percent of the rank-and-file members of the union.
Who is Shawn Fain?
Shawn Fain has spent the past 20 years working his way up the bureaucratic ladder, first as Local 1166 shop chairman at Stellantis’ Kokomo Casting Plant, and then, for the last 10 years, as an international rep at the union’s “Solidarity House” national headquarters in Detroit.
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Selected by Bob King in 2009 to serve on the UAW-Chrysler National Negotiating Committee, Fain endorsed the savage cuts imposed by Obama’s Auto Task Force. These included reducing the wages of all new-hires by 50 percent, eliminating COLA (the cost-of-living adjustment), expanding the use of temporary part-time employees and laying off thousands of workers.
By the time the 2015 negotiations rolled around, Fain had been promoted to assistant director of the UAW-Fiat Chrysler Department. His boss, Norwood Jewell, was convicted of taking millions in company bribes for signing and enforcing pro-company contracts. Fain claims he had no idea what was going on in the department he helped run.
In 2015, Chrysler workers shot down another concessions contract by a 2-to-1 margin, in the first rejection of a UAW-backed national contract since 1982. The UAW rolled out its full bureaucratic machine to force through a refurbished deal several weeks later.
There is no public record of any opposition from Fain to this criminal conspiracy. Instead, over the next few years he was rewarded with an “administrative assistant” position on the Solidarity House staff. In November 2017, he was appointed as co-director of the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center in Detroit, where union officials regularly used company-issued credit cards to pay for their luxurious lifestyles.
Who is Bob King?
Bob King, first as head of the UAW’s Ford department and then as UAW president, arguably played a greater personal role than any of his sellout predecessors or successors in the destruction of all remaining gains made by generations of autoworkers since the sit-down strikes of the 1930s.
King negotiated contracts that enabled Ford to cut 40 percent of its workforce between 2005 and 2007. In 2007, he led the team that renegotiated the UAW’s four-year contract with Ford, establishing the two-tier wage system, including a $14-an-hour wage for new-hires, and shifting $22 billion in retiree health care obligations from the company to a union-run voluntary employee beneficiary association (VEBA).
In 2009, King led the UAW team in negotiating a tentative agreement that included more onerous concessions and pay cuts. It also allowed Ford to make up to 50 percent of its payment into the VEBA with common stock in lieu of cash. This made the UAW bureaucracy a major shareholder in the company, with a direct financial stake in cutting wages and benefits, ending the eight-hour day and increasing exploitation in order to boost Ford’s profits and increase its stock price.
UAW members at Ford rejected the deal 70 percent to 30 percent, but then-President Ron Gettelfinger imposed the contract by invoking an arcane provision of the UAW constitution. King succeeded Gettelfinger as UAW president in 2010, and spent his four-year term imposing the brutal terms of Obama’s Auto Task Force. He was succeeded by Dennis Williams, who was later jailed as a result of the government’s corruption investigation.
King burnished his credentials as a pawn of the corporations at a 2010 Center for Automotive Research conference in Traverse City, Michigan. He all but boasted that under Obama “UAW members took wage cuts of $7,000 to $30,000 a year,” that “benefits were also reduced significantly,” and that “restructuring resulted in the loss of nearly 200,000 jobs.”
Laying out shamelessly the corporatist dogma that denies that workers have any interests distinct from those of the bosses, he declared: “The 21st century UAW no longer views these managements as our adversaries or enemies, but as partners in innovation and quality. Our new relationships with these employers are built upon a foundation of respect, shared goals, and a common mission.”
He stressed the utility of the UAW in policing the workers and imposing layoffs and wage cuts, noting that the union had taken “a strong proactive role in making sure that quality did not suffer from the workforce reductions and churning.”
These then are the figures and the union apparatus being presented by the DSA leadership of the GEO to the grad student instructors as genuine supporters of their struggle. This is no wonder, since the DSA and related groups such as Labor Notes in “Unite All Auto Workers for Democracy” (UAWD) largely ran Fain’s election campaign and are playing a leading role in his administration.
Beautifully written. A fantastic documentary "Chasing Ice" shows the spectacular beauty of collapse. Destroying is so easy while building takes steady effort.
People presence in the streets strategically impacting the capitalist business as usual disturbs the powers that be. And as Mr. Hedges has mentioned frequently from his experiences in countries where revolutions have occurred, it is the overwhelming presence of citizens massed that scares the powers that be. It is ongoing political activism between elections that matters; activism that educates the citizenry as well as moving it into actions that disrupt the normal course. Of course, the kind of information you want spread is important as well. Mr. Small's persistent efforts -organizing his Amazon warehouse that not only succeeded despite Amazon's attempts to block them but lit a smoldering fuse on college campuses and other labor intensive businesses all over the country with the possibility of unionizing successfully - demonstrate the power of "united we stand".
Watergate, by the standards of today, was a children's game. Today nobody cares about the politicians or their miracles, all what they care is about their issues no matter how they are achieved. We are in the old wild west.
I recommend everyone watching RFK Jr's campaign announcement speech in which he said:
"The merger of corporate power and state power is destroying our country. It's cushy socialism for the rich and for big business, and a merciless free market capitalism for everyone else." Kennedy talked about Ukraine and how the government is sending billions over there, while cutting food stamps and medicare at home. If I recall correctly, it was 112 billion to Ukraine thus far, while the entire yearly budget of the EPA is like 5 billion, CDC 6 billion.
The 3 minutes RFK spent on Tucker Carlson was absolutely brilliant. ( Sorry, MSNBC didn't invite Kennedy) He said the same things Chris is saying.
The MSM just calls Kennedy an "anti-vaxxer;" I am not an expert on vaccines but given what we have seen in terms of pharmaceutical company shenanigans, I can't say that I have 100% faith that every vaccine they pull out of the bag is safe and effective. Don't they have an incentive to continue to add vaccines to the recommended ( and often mandated) schedule?
I taught immunology for many years and my angle on vaccines was simple: a great strategy because one is evoking the anti-infectious disease potency of a highly integrated natural system with huge inherent flexibility and sophisticated internal feedback regulation. However, strategy does not equal tactical deployment. There are good vaccines and shite vaccines, like this mRNA pseudo-vaccine garbage that based on known immunology was a huge risk from the get-go (putting a foreign viral protein into potentially every body cell -- lunacy). RFK's opposition has been to the awful tactical decisions made by Pharma in their tactical vaccine design that have predisposed to some horrific side-effects, and he's correct. The attacks by the Times et al. illustrate exactly how crappy their science reporting really is. In Biology 744, they'd be at the D minus level. Put aside this shite as a negative in Kennedy's candidacy; it's especially irrelevant coming from the mediocrities and charlatans in the MSM.
Thank you for this comment. Yes my understanding is that vaccine science is complex. We are taught that its just about getting a teeny tiny dose of the pathogen to awaken your immune system but its more complex that. Also there is a big debate about live vaccines vs dead, see the work of Peter Aaby ( censored on YouTube now!).
And the mRNA thing kind of strains credibility. Supposedly the RNA is "wrapped" in liquid nano particles so that it "slips" into the nucleaii of your cells and "teaches" them to make spike protein or some such nonsense. I met a PhD and associate professor in bio engineering from Yale who had a patent on lipid nanoparticle technology and she said that in their work they never got more than 70% of RNA into the lipid particles. Btw, she wasn't taking the covid vaccine and had to leave Yale to go work at a biotech start up.
You're more than welcome. Thanks for your original comment. The mRNA pseudo-jabs (I refuse to call them "vaccines") seem to me to indicate two pieces of American (Western?) psychology (psychopathology to my mind): panic knee-jerks, and especially, more is better when panic strikes. The panic, of course, was manufactured -- unless you were over 65 or co-morbidity encumbered. But just as a panicked gun owner may empty a clip into a home intruder, this strategy of using the nanoparticles to essentially render all lipid-glycoprotein membrane barriers irrelevant to the entry of a foreign engineered nucleic acid is immense overkill; would've caused cell biologists and immunologists of the 1980s to shudder in anxiety. It's defeating an essential biological function -- the segregation of different-solute-composition aqueous compartments upon which every cell of the organism depends -- and throughout the organism. It's why I say "lunacy. You're canceling a key aspect of cellular biology for the purpose of a "more is more" philosophy -- by so overflooding the body with spike protein in a panic to send the strongest possible stimulus to the immune system, these fools forgot/ignored that the dynamical system is self-regulating, and in its integration with other body systems, especially neuro-endocrine, the immune system didn't see it that way --- hence, it turned out to be a miserable failure. Short-lasting antibody production, no mucosal antibody production of note, etc. In dynamical systems theory, "more is better" is pretty much a useless assumption.
Good points. I also heard a science writer ( Jessica Rose) talk about how the lipid nanoparticles are not tested for safety and in fact have ingredients that are known to be toxic and no one knows where they may accumulate in the body. There was no long term study of covid vaccinated ( and boosted) versus unvaccinated for overall health outcomes. No strong epidemiological study that looked to see if 2 or 3 or 5 shots of this stuff could possibly cause X, Y or Z diseases down the road.
And by the way, as RFK Jr has pointed out, that type of research is not done for ANY vaccine or combination of vaccines, because children get dozens. There are simply no good, large published studies on vaccinated vs unvaccinated children. But one recent paper did suggest that countries that give more vaccines have higher overall child mortality.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36751569/
It would be nice to see a little more humility and questioning by the mainstream experts.
I'm sorry to be so blunt but this is crazy talk. The data is clear that the Covid vaccines have saved 10s of millions of lives, drastically rediuced serious disease and hospitalizations, and likely reduce the likelihood and severity of long covid. The data is so overwhelming that to argue otherwise is no different than arguing that the earth is flat.
I'm thrilled that my children are not going to experience the ravages of small pox (est to have killed 300 million people in the past 12000 years), polio, measles, pertussis, etc. I ran an ICU for years that treated adults with acute respiratory distress syndrome. When it came to influenza patients we treated 99% were not vaccinated. The data is overwheming, vaccines work.
There are enough real battles to fight out there without going down this rathole. It's a distraction from the real battle against entrenched corporate power thar Chris has written about.
Lets not argue vaccines, the question here is covid vaccine. Vaccines are not all the same, anymore than medications are. Some work well and have few side effects, others do not . (Sorry I am a nerd, and keep links on my drive about covid vaccine). Regarding the covid vaccine, there is a lot of debate which has been suppressed by the government and the mainstream media. . But I will link a few of the best articles I have seen that definitely do not agree with what you have stated. Questioning the covid mRNA vaccine shouldn't be called "crazy".
Sept 2022 WSJ on the rushed, risky covid vaccine
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rushing-covid-vaccines-bivalent-pfizer-moderna-risk-harm-sickness-shots-pandemic-fda-skeptics-11662149144
Martin Kulldorf, Harvard biostatistician, formerly on the FDA VACCINE SAFETY Committee ! July 2022 article on risk benefit of covid vaccines.
https://brownstone.org/articles/are-the-covid-mrna-vaccines-safe/
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/article-abstract/2794886
AUGUST 2022? JAMA ( top tier medical journal) research j ( it is research sponsored by the government of Iceland) people who get vaccinated are slightly MORE likely to get a second covid infection!
Excellent Dr. Marty Makary ( Johns Hopkins, senior researcher) article about covid vaccine for children
https://www.newsweek.com/why-america-doesnt-trust-cdc-opinion-1713145
There were many historical studies on unvaccinated children. They survived because of iron lungs or died due to measles encephalitis. I've seen effects of the unvaccinated. Lovely toddlers dying due to H. flu meningitis.
It is very easy for RFK to speak on subjects for which he has no knowledge.
Can you please link to a study from the last 20 years that compares fully vaccinated children to unvaccinated children ?
In 1965 the recommended vaccine schedule was 5 total doses, polio, smallpox, DPT.
In 2019 it was 73 doses with 243 viral and bacterial strains. ( look it up on CDC website).
Since 1990's chronic diseases in children have skyrocketed, severe allergies, asthma, ADHD, autism, etc. Maybe there is a link. I would love to see a solid study on that.
So, professor LoPresti, in your estimation there should have been less casualties of the Covid pandemic if the vaccine has not been created?
Focused use - Great Barrington Declaration. For a respiratory virus, NO reason to use something so dangerous and poorly tested in anyone under 60 with a normal immune system. And for which mandated use with lockdowns across age ranges killed and immiserated many more folks than if had there been no vaccine [for some support for that view, I suggest "The COVID Consensus" by Toby Green & Thomas Fazi]. And let's get ecological here, systemic if you will: no vaccine = most of the dead would have been post-reproductive -- just as Nature would have it in an evolutionary sense; I could have been one of that number, so I'm not condemning others to death without the capacity to accept that I could have well been among that number. Stepping away from the human-Narcissist perception into that of Nature, the Biosphere as a whole, can often be sobering in these assessments.
Thank you for answering my question, professor LoPresti. Since I'm an ignoramus I have to rely on my common sense and, being well beyond the reproductive age, I'm happy that I decided to follow the CDC recommendations during the pandemic. But the majority of the world population is much younger than me and, therefore, I hope that most of the scientific community is correct and that the vaccine is safe across all ages provided that it is not applied to people with known adverse reactions to it. What I love about sciences is that there are no dogmas and everything is subject to analysis and improvement and the Great Barrington Declaration is also heavily contested. We depend on you, the scientists, to continue the debate and improve the mRNA type of vaccines if necessary because it seems that Nature is protecting itself from or taking revenge for the ecological damage we are inflicting in the world and more harmful bugs are appearing every day.
Kennedy alone can not make a difference he must bring with him a whole slate of like-minded reform candidates to dominate the Democratic party and push the present cesspool out of existence.
Anyone, Trump, Kennedy, insert any name here, if they somehow were to get elected, and if they did not follow orders, the CIA would simply roll out its next patsy to take care of the problem.
This is why I push so hard for a non-hierarchical society and #DirectDemocracy. Can't kill us all if we rule (well, they could I suppose, if they use nuclear, biological, chemical weapons on everyone). We also need to remove economic hierarchy to fully regain our power; gifting, sharing and limited barter does just that.
I too watched the RFK Jr. speech and agree that he is being marginalized and silenced and smeared as a "anti-vaxxer". The media and elites are doing this to prevent any distribution or awareness and discussion of the ideas and criticisms he made.
Anyone, Trump, Kennedy, insert any name here, if they somehow were to get elected, and if they did not follow orders, the CIA would simply roll out its next patsy to take care of the problem.
This is why I push so hard for a non-hierarchical society and #DirectDemocracy. Can't kill us all if we rule (well, they could I suppose, if they use nuclear, biological, chemical weapons on everyone). We also need to remove economic hierarchy to fully regain our power; gifting, sharing and limited barter does just that.
The friggin' hilarious thing here is that liberals are just playing catch-up on this after having destroyed Trump supporters for making the same points almost a decade ago.
It seems like a decade ago but it was actually only 3 years ago!
I'm not sure paralysis is entirely correct, Chris. I think there's a mixture of paralysis, bribery, blackmail, corruption, greed, fear, and amoralism. Some individuals who are complicit with the corporate-globalist takeover will face loss of job, loss of reputation, and blacklisting for standing up to them. The globalists are like a monstrous Mafia, who have bent the world to their will using every trick in the book, including outright murder. People are justifiably afraid of them. However, there is also a lack of courage and moral fiber in standing up to them. As Kennedy said in his recent Boston speech, which I attended (to paraphrase), it is not circumstances that define us, but how we respond to those circumstances. Most of us have responded with fear, trembling and compromising our integrity. A small minority have courageously stood up, suffered the consequences, and continued to fight. Some of these soldiers, like Zelenko, may fall in battle, but others will pick up the banner and continue the fight.
The paralysis about which Chris Hedges writes was set in motion, I believe, by Ronald Reagan. I disliked Reagan even when I was a young lad listening to his voice over advertising 20 Mule Team Borax on "Death Valley Days". My young and youthful gut knew even then that Ronnie was a phony.
Politicians and community leaders continue to shake their fingers at problems without solutions. The gun ownership debate has been thriving endlessly since Columbine without serious solution or resolution. Recently I coined, "Fear paves the way to fascism. Republicans pave the way to fear." Yet, the Democrats have allowed this most unfortunate moment in our history. They pine and whine about all the dirty deeds committed by Republicans without any real pushback. Democrats appear to believe they can intellectualize everything, even bare-knuckle fights. Hell! Dems can't even fight a real fight.
Born exactly one week to the day after D-Day, I will turn 79 this coming June. I remember energized, exuberant high school discussions and debates about capitalism, democracy, communism and totalitarianism. As a young USAF Sergeant, I remember how "hallowed" we deemed our nation. How proud we were, indeed, to celebrate our beacon to the world. Then, with age, the myth became the lie. Truth became the lie. Fact became the fake. We have been seduced by the best among the seductresses. Fakery abounds. Faketriots (borrowed term that I truly like) are abundant in every quarter, seeking to impose their own form of tyranny and totalitarianism on the rest of us. "America" is burning. Who will extinguish the inferno before it is too late? Even then, will there be enough of our constitutional democracy to salvage? Quoting Pogo, "I have seen the enemy, and he is us." How prophetic that is!
Sure, it was Reagan. Sure, it is Republicans. Classic shoot the messenger.
Yes, it is hard not to be depressed these days and certainly Reagan and his combo had a lot to do with what we are experiencing today. "We have been seduced by the best among the seductresses." Who or what are those seductresses? capitalism? the Christian right?
Be depressed for 3 days max. Then organize your friends to organize with their other friends to meet at your apartment or the church basement to read out loud this piece by Hedges and how you feel about it. Simplistically - depression is anger turned at the self. Being mad at yourself instead of the deserving culprit in the external world serves the matrix of inverted totalitarianism whose intent is to sterilize your guts from raising caine over the crappy healthcare for your kids, of Amazonian robotization of your daily routine, of further wrecking the climate for your kids. Read Gillans & Page's research results. Read Sheldon Wolin on Inverted Totalitarianism. Get hip to the map - so you don't allow yourself to continue being screwed by that system.
Good advice.
Yours is such an excellent question! I had to give my answer considerable thought regarding the seductresses. We live in a multi-layered, multi-tiered retail market. We have the liberty to pick and choose. Choice most often is influence and effected by the way in which something makes us feel. (Seduction) Buy at will, or at risk. Consciously or subconsciously, we seek self-gratification. The abundance that comes with supply-side economics feeds into a “more is better” mentality.
Is capitalism a seductress? In many respects, yes. Why? Because we buy into the excesses that our form of capitalism provides. Is capitalism wasteful? Yes. How many bags of Doritos must Lays produce and throw away in order to sell one bag? “If we make it, they will buy it” is my simplified understanding of supply-side economics as compared to “Demand-side” economics, which trans-lates (for me) into: We will build it only when they want it. Now. I am NOT an economist. So. Where is the seduction? It is in the superficial “need” to have more when we already have more than enough.
Is it the Christian right? Or, is it religion at large? As an ordained graduate Seminarian, I wrestle frequently with the “God question”. In fact, I struggle with that question. Is religion seductive? It can be, but should not be. I will lean on two of the numerous synonyms for the word “seduce”: to entice or lure. There is a whole psychology underlying religion, requiring a LOT of psychoa-nalysis. Perhaps we are seduced into religion because of a need to rely on that which is invisible, inaudible and intangible. In that sense, we are in control. God is not. Is “God” the seductress? Or, is the clergy selling God? I believe it is the clergy as God’s salesmen. It matters not if the reli-gion/faith is Christian right, radical Islamism, ultraconservative Judaism or any variations thereof. When we are willing to be seduced, we are willing to be satisfied emotionally; gratified. Keep in mind: We are seduced by the seductress only when we are want and willing. The degree of se-ductive success relies heavily on the needs and whims of the seduced. I realize this is a VERY long answer, but your question demands it. Actually, your question demands even more than what I offer herein.
Thank you Keltic Warrior. It is a great answer as expected by a cultured individual like you. The part I most liked was "Perhaps we are seduced into religion because of a need to rely on that which is invisible, inaudible and intangible. In that sense, we are in control. God is not. Is “God” the seductress? Or, is the clergy selling God? I believe it is the clergy as God’s salesmen. It matters not if the reli-gion/faith is Christian right, radical Islamism, ultraconservative Judaism or any variations thereof. When we are willing to be seduced, we are willing to be satisfied emotionally; gratified" I fully agree, and I believe the way we found to control God was by creating one at our image and inventing scriptures that gives us peace of mind during our life and the after-life.
You also listed the temptations of capitalism who are great and I add the temptation of being admitted in the growing billionaire's club no matter what we have to do to our fellow men to achieve that distinction.
Hello, again. Thank you for your affirmation. 😊 Are we certain about that "afterlife"? Quoting my sister who no longer is with us, "IF God is so loving and we are His children, why then would "He" [God] commit His children to eternal hell?" I also fall back on debates from my Seminary days, If G/god created everything, then God also created evil.
Regarding capitalism, my area of focus during graduate study at Seminary was in ethics. I relied heavily on Lester Thurow's "Head to Head" to write one of my papers. Thurow offers a provocative comparison between U.S. capitalism and European capitalism. Capitalism in the U.S. began to run amok during the Ronald Reagan era when his administration lowered taxes substantially for corporations and the wealthy. Years later, "Citizens United" became the curtain behind which corporate political donations could be hidden. There is an ongoing corrosive effect on our constitutional democracy that I suspect will continue. I seriously doubt that corrosive trend can or will be reversed.
Agreed. I consider myself a very spiritual person but I'm also agnostic and believe we will never be able to know who or what is God and much less the existence of heaven or hell. The sad fact is the sellers of religion take advantage of the fragility and spirituality of their victims.
Here in America there is a substantial part of the population that are fanatic followers of those peddlers and have bought the belief in Noah's Arch, creationism etc. and worst of all, they vote for politicians who they consider will help to bring the Lord's kingdom to earth (theocracy). We also export that profitable business of religion. The following is a clip from democracynow.org news today:
"In Kenya, authorities have exhumed the bodies of 47 followers of a Christian cult who apparently starved themselves to death. Investigators say Pastor Paul Mackenzie Nthenge convinced members of the Good News International Church they would go to heaven if they stopped eating. Police say they’ve rescued over a dozen members of the cult from starvation, only to have them continue to refuse food. Most of the bodies exhumed so far were of women and children."
And yes, perhaps the real hell where we are falling deeper every day is the abysmal inequality in our society started in the 80's by a "good" Christian.
“The gathering darkness of the totalitarianism we face seems to be nothing less than a Faustian effort to deconstruct everything it means to be human.”
NS Lyons, The Upheaval substack, highly recommended.
Your one sentence about the ruling party seems inadequate. Clinton, Obama, Biden get off pretty easy.
When did the Far Left or Far Right ever have enough votes to do anything? The centrist corrupt warmongering liars have had the power for decades.
Yes. but the left died decades ago and now the center is dying too. We are heading toward a totalitarian state and of the worst class, a theocracy.
Jesus, who woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?
Yes, we often suck at being perfect; but the biased focus on the glass half empty is not gonna’ help improve anything. And people owning this type of mindset that everything is a crisis of terrible are fucking terrible at real problem-solving and logical consequences. It is like their stock and trade is criticism and thus they will never admit to progress of anything. That is fucking messed up (excuse my French).
For example, the Biden policies on climate change and the war on fossil fuels is a luxury virtue signaling cult practice that is responsible for several of the social and economic problems listed in this lament.
The hilarious thing for me is to note how people like Chris to cling to Democrat party fealty while the Democrat party backs and supports the Wall Street controlled corporatist agenda responsible for the problems. I mean you effs backed the administrative state of COVID vaccines… basically joining in the war to force people to comply at the expense of their kid’s education, their economic and social health, and their quality of life… and the impetus for this was big pharma profit. It was those working class Trump supporters that objected and you killed them… are still killing them.
Here is a bit of a lesson on capitalism… the favored fake boogie man of left social and economic critical theory play script. Corporatism is not capitalism. The tenants of capitalism are one where domestic labor is suppose to share in the returns of domestic capital. Capitalism was never designed to enrich the three guys at the top having colluded with Joe Biden for the policies that exported the manufacturing jobs to China and Mexico and then shipping the products back to the US to be purchased.
But you people are so stuck on the climate change cult, that it probably does not matter. The WEF globalist Great Reset requires that American industrialism and the American working class be destroyed. The fake science of climate change is their jam. You buy into it like you bought into the COVID jab hysteria. These media manipulators know you… they know you lack life meaning and will jump at the next cause that makes you feel better in the morning.
Meanwhile, yes, none of our big problems get solved.
Another fantastic piece
No one here talks about the personal courage required to use what they know not simply to get into street organizing on a national level but carrying actions through. Relentlessly without ceasing until demands are met. Most will likely say - their personality isn't built to do that. That their small acts of kindness and volunteerism are their domain. How are these not rationalizations that are symptoms of the paralysis? Can you think of any major mass movement that significantly moved the needle on social justice that was not peopled with those who said to themselves - striking for labor unions, protesting for the end of tyrannical rule, marching for women's right to vote among more - by putting my body publicly on the line is way outside my comfort zone, but if I don't do it I can't look myself in the mirror. Or answer my children when they ask what did you do? Keenly interesting is how come the psyche of the American citizen appears so different from that of the
French who poured into the streets in mass demonstrations against neoliberal Macron raising the retirement age? Also, given the citizenry's paralysis - common to all rape victims - what must happen for feeling to come back into the body? On a personal level and the body political? Hedges' listing of all of the degrees and varieties of the corporate minded assault to and on us would, one thinks, stir us below our collarbone into action. But - looking at the comments - everyone remains this side of the Rubicon. Up in the head. Another symptom of the split states of paralysis? What would get you into sustained street action and presence?
How about one issue and extensively reporting on it. The absence of a national health insurance in the US is a disgrace. The absence of even an option is immoral. 600,000 going bankrupt every year means that there are millions out there who have been sacrificed to Moloch. I know very little of their story, because no one has reported on it in depth. They are faceless and nameless.
One thing I will say for the 1619 project (televised on Hulu), is that it gave a face to people who had lost land and wealth due to very arbitrary government action. They deserve their land back. I'd be willing to contribute to their legal fees. I trust there are others who would as well. Where is the mechanism.
It is all well and good to march in the streets. That event is over and done with; soon to be forgotten.
Great point. For me - and I have been on the street in protest - there needs to be other people willing to join. Like you, can't say I see much of that happening. What happened to Occupy makes it clear the stakes are pretty high.
We can't do this individually.
What would get you into sustained street action and presence?
Well, Rick, some thoughts. 1st generating a group interested in exploring and reporting back about existing socio-political protest groups (extinction rebellion, Sunrise movement, Poor Peoples Movement, Greenpeace, ????). 2nd - Learn about forms of protest, how to develop enduring political action groups, how to organize and strategize . An wily, shrewd, experienced environmental activist named Jim Britell would be a good resource, Kshama Sawant of Seattle has led successful drives (pay, late rent fee caps)....collect human advisers/resource people 3rd - enlist artists across the spectrum of art to produce powerful imagery 4th engage singers and musicians to raise the energy in meetings by body based movement and sounds 5th involve progressives known for their charisma, authenticity, creativity, 6th involve professional, experienced group facilitators who can cultivate group generated rules for group to operate by and facilitate group staying on track. 7th - list of energetic philosophers, historians, economists, mythologists, psychologists interested in sharing their "take" on what makes strong, cohesive groups, elements conducive to inspiration, raising the "energy". This is a hodge podge answer. There are people highly experienced in helping make groups "work". Organization. Organization. Organization. Is key. Clarity of focus. Commitment.
Good points. It's also helpful to deliver concrete good things to people, e.g. healthcare for all.
One might think that having some nice things during the pandemic (continued Medicaid coverage, government supplied tests and vaccination with no charge to recipients, etc.) summarily taken away would motivate people, but can't say I've heard much in the way of protest.
We in the US seem to have become accustomed to the way things are.
I don't believe that's accidental.
The tragedy of America and the West it leads is that it has many of the world's greatest universities, the world's greatest thinkers and yet idiots and quislings are left to run the show. This is the great disconnect common to all former Western democracies and why we are failing. Ruinous ideologies and corruptions rule us.
Politics is no more than window dressing for Sheldon Wolin's "inverted totalitarianism".
The "dark forces" have taken over it is up to true patriots to fight back.
The true patriots are there , its just that they are marginalized. Jeffrey Sachs, Michael Hudson , Colonel, Douglas Macgregor, Scott Ritter and a whole host of historians , economists and journalists are the patriots America should be listening to and this shift needs to be fostered and gain momentum in spite of the agents of chaos.
As Reinhold Niebuhr pointed out good government requires good people.
The ironies are inescapable for the Christian fascist to escape from. Where there damnation of Islam and it's strict doctrine while hiding behind the patina of a more patient liberal doctrine is laughable now with all the cultural crack downs of expression. Being random while black and now just human gets you despised and shot by the more zealously convicted in our
F ed up society. Welcome to the terror dome.
I am paralysed and your words speak to me as right on point...what does the average working-class American do?
I have nothing positive to add. But if I add something pessimistic for others to act against, that becomes a positive. This is my view: America was built by slaves. That produced a wondrous nation. Those slaves became (technically) free men and women and they contributed to building American culture. Blues, then Jazz Rock etc. and so much more. It was a miracle, though the profits mostly went to the ruling class. Still, at one time it made America great. But it wasn’t good enough. So Capitalism replaced plantation slavery with prison slavery, which is worse in every aspect, and it produces nothing except misery. Every opportunity to make America great has been co-opted by either Oil or arms makers. What is their future? There is none. Oil and arms are the endgame. Loud, careless, talk is going around about ‘survivable’ nuclear war. I believe this is the goal of the American ruling class. I believe that the BRICS nations think so too.
The negative that I’m afraid of is that these lunatics have only one way remaining to establish their domination and it’s a cloudy future indeed, cloudy with a chance of fungus. And lining up to buttress this insanity are the liberals. Sean Penn, are you listening?
The fraudulent UAW election
The election that brought Fain to the head of the UAW was organized by the US Labor Department to provide a facelift to the union in the aftermath of a years-long corruption scandal, which has seen a dozen top officers, including two past presidents, convicted and sent to prison for embezzling union funds and taking payoffs from the corporations in return for imposing company-friendly contracts on the membership.
The election for president and other top officers—the first-ever direct election in the UAW’s history—was a complete fraud. The recorded percentage of eligible UAW voters who returned ballots was the lowest of any previous national union election in the history of the United States.
In the first round of the election, less than 10 percent of the 1.1 million eligible active and retired UAW members cast valid ballots. Among the 48,000 University of California strikers, only 1,200 ballots were cast, or just 2.5 percent.
This was not due to rank-and-file “apathy.” It was the result of the deliberate suppression of the vote by all factions of the UAW bureaucracy, which sought to confine the turnout to the thousands of UAW apparatchiks. The vast majority of UAW members, including on the campuses, were not even aware that an election was taking place, because the national and local union officials did next to nothing to inform them and the government-appointed election monitor refused to compel the union officials to ensure that all workers received ballots.
The second round runoff ballot between Curry and Fain, which the union publicized more extensively, aroused a vote of only 13 percent of eligible members, reflecting both a lack of knowledge of the election and hatred for both factions of the union apparatus.
The Will Lehman campaign
Will Lehman, a rank-and-file tier-two worker at the Mack Trucks plant in Pennsylvania, ran in the election as a socialist and principled opponent of the entire union bureaucracy. He advocated the abolition of the bureaucracy and return of power to the rank-and-file workers on the shop floor. He advanced the fight to build a network of rank-and-file committees nationally and internationally to coordinate and unite the struggles of workers globally against global capitalism.
Lehman fought for the democratic rights of the UAW membership, filing a court suit to extend the first round and ensure that all members were sent ballots and assisted in casting them. He then filed complaints with the election monitor and the Labor Department demanding that the entire election be rerun on a democratic basis and exposing the election monitor’s longstanding business connections to the Big Three auto companies.
Both Fain and Curry, as well as the monitor and the Biden Labor Department, opposed Lehman’s complaints, underscoring their common contempt for the rights of the rank-and-file.
Despite the mass suppression of the vote, Lehman won nearly 5 percent of the ballots cast and counted in the first round, demonstrating the broad support for a fight against the entire union apparatus and a growing interest in socialism. In the end, Fain was elected with the support of less than 3 percent of the rank-and-file members of the union.
Who is Shawn Fain?
Shawn Fain has spent the past 20 years working his way up the bureaucratic ladder, first as Local 1166 shop chairman at Stellantis’ Kokomo Casting Plant, and then, for the last 10 years, as an international rep at the union’s “Solidarity House” national headquarters in Detroit.
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Selected by Bob King in 2009 to serve on the UAW-Chrysler National Negotiating Committee, Fain endorsed the savage cuts imposed by Obama’s Auto Task Force. These included reducing the wages of all new-hires by 50 percent, eliminating COLA (the cost-of-living adjustment), expanding the use of temporary part-time employees and laying off thousands of workers.
By the time the 2015 negotiations rolled around, Fain had been promoted to assistant director of the UAW-Fiat Chrysler Department. His boss, Norwood Jewell, was convicted of taking millions in company bribes for signing and enforcing pro-company contracts. Fain claims he had no idea what was going on in the department he helped run.
In 2015, Chrysler workers shot down another concessions contract by a 2-to-1 margin, in the first rejection of a UAW-backed national contract since 1982. The UAW rolled out its full bureaucratic machine to force through a refurbished deal several weeks later.
There is no public record of any opposition from Fain to this criminal conspiracy. Instead, over the next few years he was rewarded with an “administrative assistant” position on the Solidarity House staff. In November 2017, he was appointed as co-director of the UAW-Chrysler National Training Center in Detroit, where union officials regularly used company-issued credit cards to pay for their luxurious lifestyles.
Who is Bob King?
Bob King, first as head of the UAW’s Ford department and then as UAW president, arguably played a greater personal role than any of his sellout predecessors or successors in the destruction of all remaining gains made by generations of autoworkers since the sit-down strikes of the 1930s.
King negotiated contracts that enabled Ford to cut 40 percent of its workforce between 2005 and 2007. In 2007, he led the team that renegotiated the UAW’s four-year contract with Ford, establishing the two-tier wage system, including a $14-an-hour wage for new-hires, and shifting $22 billion in retiree health care obligations from the company to a union-run voluntary employee beneficiary association (VEBA).
In 2009, King led the UAW team in negotiating a tentative agreement that included more onerous concessions and pay cuts. It also allowed Ford to make up to 50 percent of its payment into the VEBA with common stock in lieu of cash. This made the UAW bureaucracy a major shareholder in the company, with a direct financial stake in cutting wages and benefits, ending the eight-hour day and increasing exploitation in order to boost Ford’s profits and increase its stock price.
UAW members at Ford rejected the deal 70 percent to 30 percent, but then-President Ron Gettelfinger imposed the contract by invoking an arcane provision of the UAW constitution. King succeeded Gettelfinger as UAW president in 2010, and spent his four-year term imposing the brutal terms of Obama’s Auto Task Force. He was succeeded by Dennis Williams, who was later jailed as a result of the government’s corruption investigation.
King burnished his credentials as a pawn of the corporations at a 2010 Center for Automotive Research conference in Traverse City, Michigan. He all but boasted that under Obama “UAW members took wage cuts of $7,000 to $30,000 a year,” that “benefits were also reduced significantly,” and that “restructuring resulted in the loss of nearly 200,000 jobs.”
Laying out shamelessly the corporatist dogma that denies that workers have any interests distinct from those of the bosses, he declared: “The 21st century UAW no longer views these managements as our adversaries or enemies, but as partners in innovation and quality. Our new relationships with these employers are built upon a foundation of respect, shared goals, and a common mission.”
He stressed the utility of the UAW in policing the workers and imposing layoffs and wage cuts, noting that the union had taken “a strong proactive role in making sure that quality did not suffer from the workforce reductions and churning.”
These then are the figures and the union apparatus being presented by the DSA leadership of the GEO to the grad student instructors as genuine supporters of their struggle. This is no wonder, since the DSA and related groups such as Labor Notes in “Unite All Auto Workers for Democracy” (UAWD) largely ran Fain’s election campaign and are playing a leading role in his administration.
Which is another reason for unions to go non-hierarchical, use #DirectDemocracy instead.
Beautifully written. A fantastic documentary "Chasing Ice" shows the spectacular beauty of collapse. Destroying is so easy while building takes steady effort.
People presence in the streets strategically impacting the capitalist business as usual disturbs the powers that be. And as Mr. Hedges has mentioned frequently from his experiences in countries where revolutions have occurred, it is the overwhelming presence of citizens massed that scares the powers that be. It is ongoing political activism between elections that matters; activism that educates the citizenry as well as moving it into actions that disrupt the normal course. Of course, the kind of information you want spread is important as well. Mr. Small's persistent efforts -organizing his Amazon warehouse that not only succeeded despite Amazon's attempts to block them but lit a smoldering fuse on college campuses and other labor intensive businesses all over the country with the possibility of unionizing successfully - demonstrate the power of "united we stand".
We have fascism with Obama and Biden -- don’t see where is that Christian fascism at all !!
Perhaps because I am just an atheist but I simply don’t see Hodges point right now.
I watch a lot of Youtube. Trump had ads there in which he was declared the candidate chosen by God.
And that is it?
You don’t see the absolute fascist horror as revealed by Twitter Files or FB silencing of “so called researcher” Seymour Hersch?
One can only feel sad for you...
"I feel your pain." -- Bill Clinton
I see Christian fascism in laws that imperil the life and health of our women suppressing their right to have proper gynecological care.
We fully agree on this single issue point.
You ignore the absolute horror exposed by Twitter Files which is infinitely bigger than Watergate.
Good. But I'm ignoring the "world" because I developed an early allergy to social media and I don't even know what are the Twitter files.
In short -- an infinitely bigger crime than Watergate but -- totally censored by State media.
You are State media primary customer ;-))
Watergate, by the standards of today, was a children's game. Today nobody cares about the politicians or their miracles, all what they care is about their issues no matter how they are achieved. We are in the old wild west.
You are blabbering a lot but -- you “don’t even know what are Twitter Files” as you stated.
You are embarrassment to your parents....