Succinct and trenchant as always and, I fear, way over the heads of the sleepy little munchkins who get their news from the usual MSM suspects.
It’s so disheartening to take your important ideas to those people, who simply won’t understand that identity politics is the worst kind of social engineering.
Christian Parenti was on Katie Halper’s show recently with his take on the subject. How can a movement that calls itself ‘woke’ be so irretrievably somnolent?
Well said. I go back and forth frequently with a professional class wokester with whom it is impossible to pry loose from his conviction that the only media worth attending to, the only media that is "reputable", in his view, is liberal corporate media, NYTimes, etc. He sees "racism" lurking around every corner of independent media (and this guy is pure white), once it ventures into class analysis territory. It's his go-to putdown for anything that might reveal what a capitalist-apologist closet snob he is.
I've worked to disabuse him of his wokeness for nearly 20 years, to absolutely zero avail. Until finally throwing in the towel. I may as well have been trying to talk sense to a committed follower of the capitalism-infatuated evangelical TV preacher Joel Osteen. (Ironically, he's also an atheist, except his religion is unflinching loyalty to Democrat party orthodoxy.) I'm furious with myself for having wasted all that time on the most futile effort conceivable.
It takes thousands of years for a river to wear down the rocks its waters smooth but in the end the water wins. You didn’t waste your time even though it feels like it.
The State Department, in a classified memo to Rex Tillerson (subsequently leaked) spelled it out in black and white.
The United States cares about human rights only to the extent that they provide a stick with which to beat countries the United States doesn't like, while ignoring far worse violations by countries that we do like.
After years of my urging, a liberal friend of mine recently started reading Chris Hedges. One of her first comments was to remark on how much he hates the Democrats. My reply, “Well, they are the problem. Open enemies, like the Republicans, don’t need to be pointed out as much, because we expect them to be terrible. Democrats, on the other hand, are, as Glenn Ford said, the more effective evil. Their window dressing is mere smoke and mirrors. They never fix anything because they are the problem.”
She’s in some Biden women’s support group on Facebook, which doesn’t help. I can’t get her to break away from MSM, either. Although she is starting to see some problems with NPR. She insists that Democracy Now is biased because they don’t present “the other side” (she’s never watched it). But at least she’s reading CH now, so that’s progress!
People who rely on mainstream media are being brainwashed 24/7. They have no idea that they are being brainwashed, because they've been brainwashed all their lives into believing that the mainstream media is actually reporting news. It's like heroin addiction. The mainstream media knocks out their rationality with comfortable lies about how the United States is the City on the Hill, believes in freedom and democracy, is the light of the world, and other sickening falsehoods. I try to educate people I know who support the Democrats to see reality, but I see that "woke" fear in their eyes.
I hear that. I experience the same thing all the time. It's depressing as hell how many Amurkins still rely on and trust ONLY corporate media. Most of them have never even heard of Hedges or any other independent left outlet or reporter. They'd think they're all "biased", as if NPR, MSNBC, CNN and the networks aren't. Delusions die hard in this most heavily propagandized country in human history.
It’s funny, so many times she’ll bring up something that she thinks is new news to me. But it’s usually something that’s been going on for years that DN has covered extensively already and she’s just hearing about it.
You need to take a look at the GrayZone, Aaron Mate, Michael Tracey, Max Blumenthal, Rania Khalek, Abby Martin, Anya Parampil, even Greenwald when he isn't panting after right-wingers and MAGA sorts just because they hate Dems as much as he does.
Known Amy for awhile and still support her work and listen occassionally....Max is one of my favorite people, I brought him to OKC to speak when big things were happening here 13 yrs ago, him and Prof Chomsky were pretty much the only ones I could get to pay attention to the happenings here. Very hard to get anyone on the coasts to give a damn about Oklahoma,
I met Amy a couple of times, and Chomsky once. I know she’s become somewhat controversial on the left over the past decade, but once I found DN 21 years ago, news was never the same. I always hated the way corporate newscasters talked and their fluff pieces, but after years of DN, I can’t take that stuff for 5 mins!
This piece started out encouraging, but then "We live under a species of corporate colonialism. The engines of white supremacy, which constructed the forms of institutional and economic racism that keep the poor poor."
Really? Do well identifying and criticizing the woke rot that works its way throughout our institutions and society, and then pull out one of the their foundational tropes. It is like a recovered addict having good things to say about meth... yet again.
Come on Chris. Pick a principled stand here. Either you buy into the fake scholarship critical theory colonialism and white supremacy hogwash that - in my clear view simply serves as a deflection from the accountability of the elite moneyed political chattering class for all the terrible crap they have done to the economy and society and continue doubling down on the same today - or you come back to owning a standard liberal view that nothing should matter except the demonstrated character and capability of each individual.
Unless I am really missing something here, you appear to be trying to swim in the deep end of the pool while still clutching the shallow end.
What frosts me to no end these days is that my center-left liberal friends have bought into this woke crap as part of their quiver of rhetorical weapons... only because they see it helping their Democrat party prevail. They use the weapons, and then shrink to claim they are for free speech and don't support cancel culture. Sorry, no getting it both ways there. And this is JUST way the corporatist Uniparty cabal wants... to have left and right at each other's throats so they, the cabal, can keep looting the country and world to an empty shell.
Jesus we have an easy to grasp shared interest in turning the economy around away from the Wall Street-powered big corporate master (and the big government master that backs it), and back to the independent producer, the small business the independent worker.
We have to re-industrialize. We have to decentralize. We have to de-consolidate.
But then they have Democrats invested in the cult of climate change. Again, another global project of the WEF and Great Reset to beat down the US and other Western industrial powerhouses so that the people can be dominated, controlled and mastered.
The problems in the black community are 100% caused by the crash in middle-class economic opportunity that followed the stupid policy allowing China into the WTO, NAFTA, CRA, etc... Right at the time we should have seen blacks ascent into the middle class, we cut out the economic paths. And immigration is a problem too... because we have flooded the nation with millions of low-skill, low education workers that have competed for the fewer remaining jobs.
If we want to fix the "problem with policing", we need to fix the black community. If we want to fix the black community, we need to implement policies that raise the earned standard of living (not the handout standard of living) for the people in those communities.
I am involved in that work... attempting to bring in more small business to these minority labor surplus areas. But there is little support for that work from my uppity liberal friends living in their gated communities blocking new housing development and luxury virtue signaling that they stand with BLM.
Nothing you wrote is indicative of anything missing. You apparently are incapable of making any useful point. Why even waste the time to post anything?
It appears that you're mistaking acquaintances for friends. Truth be told, friends can usually be counted on one hand...with not all fingers necessarily being needed. Facebook has worked, rather successfully, at creating the contradictory illusion you allude to.
Mr. Frank Lee: "Sorry, no getting it both ways there. And this is JUST way the corporatist Uniparty cabal wants... to have left and right at each other's throats so they, the cabal, can keep looting the country and world to an empty shell." I must have missed something because IMHO that is exactly the message in this report: identity politics is being used by the bosses to divide us and perpetrate the oppression.
Yes, but the shift to the claim of white colonialism and white supremacy is supporting the Uniparty strategy of division that exploits identity politics. Those are constructs of critical theory which is the basis of modern identity politics as practiced as woke ideology.... dividing people on the basis of race and other "victim" vs "oppressor" groups. My issue is that we cannot and should not go there. Leave out the word "white" or "black" or (insert your favorite victim of oppressor group name) and make the point. Otherwise you are undermining the very principles you claim to stand for.
Listen, I get and appreciate the perspectives of someone like Chris who consistently laments the failures of the country and the people ruling/controlling the country. Although I generally see it as too much of a "glass half empty" perspective, I think it is a relevant and useful perspective. However, we need to reject completely the ideology of woke identity politics... not accept parts of it while rejecting other parts of it. That will not work.
When asked by Don Lemon what he thought we could do to improve race relations in this country, his guest Morgan Freeman said "stop talking about it. stop calling you and me a black man... we are just a man."
I see no need to get overly focused and sensational while publicly embracing ones particular flavor of dogma. The big picture covers the principle sufficiently enough. For example, nasty chemicals kill kids and adults alike. Likewise, the military industrial complex is capable of offing everybody; not just children.
Silly ideology demonstrated with that comment. The US government just announced the largest trade deficit ever in 2022. The fact is that we are consuming the products of industrialism, so they are being manufactured. It is better to manufacture them in the US for a number of reasons. One - we do better regulating the chemicals. Two - it provides good jobs to Americans that need them… and THAT saves lives. The propensity toward war in our foreign policy and economy is a separate issue.
I agree, we now regulate chemical pollution (somewhat) better here than abroad. However, that is the result of largely farming out the industrial production of our GDP to poorer economies abroad. This has happened, increasingly, over the past 40 years. In other words, the net pollution of our industrialization hasn't really been avoided, it's just been displaced to foreign nations that tolerate it in return for financial gain. Its no different than the disappearing rabbit trick.
Not to get bogged down in an environmental debate, but the same "out of sight, out of mind" principle applies to us allowing the auto industry to foist electric vehicles upon our population in the name of going "green". All bullshit. In my opinion, electric vehicles are no "greener" than combustion engine vehicles. In fact, I would argue that the loss of energy alone (from where electricity is produced by fossil fuel burning power plants to being delivered to urban areas where it is ultimately used) makes electric vehicles more polluting than combustion engines. The charade is proven by the fact that we're building and using more remote coal and natural gas fueled power plants than ever before in the U.S. The electric car charade doesn't even account for the more toxic risks of introducing ever more toxic batteries into the enviornment; batteries that have yet to see a viable recycling solutiond (mainly due to lack of availability of old batteries) developed. Sure companies like Redwood are trying, but it's not there...and IMO never will be. In addition the raw material mining is incredibly pollutive with key mining areas located in limited locations (maily not the U.S.) around the world. The result is that the raw materials used in lithium ion batteries are subject to huge carbon footprints in terms of transportation costs and supply chain delays/interruptions. They are also subject to risky geopolitical instability. In short, the problems loop back to the same issue pointed out in paragraph one.
The best solution, IMO, is efficient mass transit in the form of high speed rail. That is something we could be working on right now; but that is never discussed as a solution. Why? No big profits in it for oligarchs...and it cuts into huge existing big 3 auto and airline profits. That high speed rail mass transit solution (the real green one) would only help, well, the "masses"; not the ultra-privileged few peddling the fake green solution. For them, it's a matter of "if it ain't broken, why fix it?"
I wish I could read anything useful in your comment, but it is just about of campus programing malcontent junk. You are just Nancy Negative supporting all the prohibition Karens. And you type that stuff on marvelous machines invented in and created in the economic arena you think should be eliminated. You seem to have the woke mind virus from the globalist corporatist overlords having convinced you that anthropogenic global warming is real and our extensional threat. Neither are.
Let's start here. What do you think needs to be done to halt and reverse the trend of wealth and income disparity in this country and other western industrialized countries? And by the way, those green and progressive Scandinavian countries are highly industrial and love capitalism.
Incredible! I hope your work gets traction, Superbowl Steve.
Caitlin Johnstone has pieces that would also lend well to your tic toc videos for the younger crowd. She’s on Substack, has connected podcast and YouTube. Lets anyone use her materiel.
Identity politics masks the operation of power. Dem's use it to provide cover for a pro-corporate economic agenda. Nancy Fraser coined the label: "Progressive Neoliberalism".
The concept of “identity” politics has been hijacked by liberal elites to capture its meaning and turn it against those who coined the phrase.
Black, socialist,queer women used the phrase in their Combahee River Declaration. They asked how to best begin organizing the masses? Their conclusion was that people were ripe for organizing at their greatest point of oppression.
For Blacks, this might be racism. For women it might be sexism. For queer black women it might be intersectional. But they never argued that this was anything more than an entry point for organizing. They argued against essentialism and for coalition politics. And while they supported socialism, they argued that the anti-imperialist left needed to do more work on issues of race, sex and gender.
But they never argued that these conditions replaced the centrality of class struggle.
We need to confront the liberal media on their intentional use of identity politics as a means to obscure its real meaning and instead place people into separate, silos of disconnected political experiences.
This is simply a sophisticated psyopps strategy of divide and conquer. Let’s start saying identity struggles rather than indenting politics.
Yes, "Identity Politics" is now a filthy expression, having nothing to do with class consciousness or anything progressive whatsoever. It has reduced everything to focus on the individual instead of society.
It does the opposite of focus on the individual. I focuses on the victim or oppressor tribe, and thus divides society into tribal conflict of victims and oppressors. Focusing on the individual is anti-woke. And the woke do not care about society. They are deconstructionists lusting for power and validation that they are virtuous and good... because, in general, they know that they are not.
"Tribal"?! I've seen this characterization several times recently. As if boundary obsessed primitives who love any excuse to eat each other. Who need the western white male superior mind to civilize them. Note "tribal" is sub-Saharan African, Native of the Americas, or Indigenous Australians whereas Europeans and central, south, or eastern Asians are "ethnicities."
Many of us actual tribal people don't think exclusively in the rationalist bifurcations either/or, true/false, with us/against us. For us, there are multiple viewpoints, including those of all living entities and even the land itself. A gestalt of the whole in addition to the specific and limited.
It's the western Euro and Euro-American rapacious econ system chewing up humans and ecosystems as mere resources that's the problem. Its horrific unity now gone global; economic colonialism. But, yeah, side-step that by saying "tribal."
I always without exception feel erupted in the most profound gut wrenching emotions when I read anything written by Chris Hedges. I struggle to keep hope alive as it is truly difficult with the stark and accurate description of the realities of our "democratic "world. When I think it can't get any worse, it does. Thank you for continuing to fight. I truly can't believe someone hasn't at the very least threatened your life. I am only one person and can't fix everything... but as one person, I can something.
Nancy, I completely relate to what you are saying about the gut punch I feel from his words. It's important to share Chris' work with those who still have a little bit of their minds open a crack. Spreading truth and knowledge is important.
Painfully realistic description of our current dilemma. It amazes me how few people wish to confront this reality and how easy it is to distract the masses from even the slightest effort to combat our impending demise. Sigh 😌.
The circus playing. In the movie Gladiator, republican senator Graccus who doesn't claim to be of the people but for the people criticizing the empire says "Rome is a mob. Conjure magic for them and they will be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's the sand of the colosseum."
Fantastic, yes woke ideology is being manipulated by the corporations to try to be "cool with the kids", but actually they're just covering up horrible crimes.
Of course. It's a form of cheap insurance. Toss a few crumbs, appoint a diversity committee or two, and buy protection against policies that might cost real money.
Note that elites will gladly discuss race, gender, and have wonderfully clarifying debates that are the modern day equivalent of asking how many LGTBQXYZPDQ+ can dance on the head of a pin. Those same elites are much less comfortable discussing class.
For that matter, note that none of the aforementioned struggle sessions, whether it is determined that Melvin is "literal Hitler" for saying that there are only 26 genders (plus genders not yet discovered) when everyone who is truly Woke! knows that there are at least 29 genders, none of the corporate diversity committees and pronoun preferences on corporate email signatures, none of this changes the way the economic pie is sliced.
To take the converse - if employers would stop hindering unionization, the result would be a transfer of concrete material benefits to black and brown and red and white and other working class people greater than all the wokest tweets ever featured on Twitter, greater than all the affirming messaging and virtue signaling and struggle sessions and statements about stolen land ever crafted and run by Legal.
Yes totally, thats a great point. The one thing they will NEVER mention is class. If you talk about the suffering of the working class, they'll say your a racist or something like that, if its white working class. We'd need a new left-wing party to actually reshape how that pie is shared out
Another way to put it - feel good shit doesn't cost anything.
Actually, why do we need another left wing party? Shouldn't we in the US (I see you're in Australia) start with one left wing party before thinking about a second one?
That's true America doesnt even have 1 legitimately left-wing party, yes its what America needs I think! I had hoped Chris and his community would start up something like that?
Can't say there's much I disagree with here. Re: the Glen Ford and Cornel West quotes. Much to our chagrin, we should remember that it was West's 1990 essay "The New Cultural Politics of Difference" that blew the doors open on diversity narratives. I'm sure the good doctor didn't intend for his insights to be grossly misconstrued like they are today, but that's how radical politics are neutralized in the corporate caliphate: they get co-opted and deployed to nefarious ends.
"Terrible predatory forces are eating away at the country." Amen. From the cost of heating fuel to Internet, cable, cell phone, food, education, and medical care the insatiable forces of financial capitalism are weakening this country, hollowing it out from the inside. Do not be fooled. Do not be misled. Do not be tricked. Name the beast: class warfare. We're losing. We don't even have the language to fight back, although Hedges has been giving it to us for nearly three decades.
Just to clarify: there were two other officers involved in the beating of Nichols for a total of seven (7) & at least one of them was white. As of yesterday, the known white cop was fired, but no charges have been filed against him. He's lawyered up & cooperating w/ the criminal investigation.
This horrendous murder gets weirder by the minute! It's sickening!
Succinct and trenchant as always and, I fear, way over the heads of the sleepy little munchkins who get their news from the usual MSM suspects.
It’s so disheartening to take your important ideas to those people, who simply won’t understand that identity politics is the worst kind of social engineering.
Christian Parenti was on Katie Halper’s show recently with his take on the subject. How can a movement that calls itself ‘woke’ be so irretrievably somnolent?
Well said. I go back and forth frequently with a professional class wokester with whom it is impossible to pry loose from his conviction that the only media worth attending to, the only media that is "reputable", in his view, is liberal corporate media, NYTimes, etc. He sees "racism" lurking around every corner of independent media (and this guy is pure white), once it ventures into class analysis territory. It's his go-to putdown for anything that might reveal what a capitalist-apologist closet snob he is.
I've worked to disabuse him of his wokeness for nearly 20 years, to absolutely zero avail. Until finally throwing in the towel. I may as well have been trying to talk sense to a committed follower of the capitalism-infatuated evangelical TV preacher Joel Osteen. (Ironically, he's also an atheist, except his religion is unflinching loyalty to Democrat party orthodoxy.) I'm furious with myself for having wasted all that time on the most futile effort conceivable.
It takes thousands of years for a river to wear down the rocks its waters smooth but in the end the water wins. You didn’t waste your time even though it feels like it.
The State Department, in a classified memo to Rex Tillerson (subsequently leaked) spelled it out in black and white.
The United States cares about human rights only to the extent that they provide a stick with which to beat countries the United States doesn't like, while ignoring far worse violations by countries that we do like.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.politico.com/amp/story/2017/12/19/tillerson-state-human-rights-304118
,including ourselves.
No argument from this cat.
After years of my urging, a liberal friend of mine recently started reading Chris Hedges. One of her first comments was to remark on how much he hates the Democrats. My reply, “Well, they are the problem. Open enemies, like the Republicans, don’t need to be pointed out as much, because we expect them to be terrible. Democrats, on the other hand, are, as Glenn Ford said, the more effective evil. Their window dressing is mere smoke and mirrors. They never fix anything because they are the problem.”
She’s in some Biden women’s support group on Facebook, which doesn’t help. I can’t get her to break away from MSM, either. Although she is starting to see some problems with NPR. She insists that Democracy Now is biased because they don’t present “the other side” (she’s never watched it). But at least she’s reading CH now, so that’s progress!
People who rely on mainstream media are being brainwashed 24/7. They have no idea that they are being brainwashed, because they've been brainwashed all their lives into believing that the mainstream media is actually reporting news. It's like heroin addiction. The mainstream media knocks out their rationality with comfortable lies about how the United States is the City on the Hill, believes in freedom and democracy, is the light of the world, and other sickening falsehoods. I try to educate people I know who support the Democrats to see reality, but I see that "woke" fear in their eyes.
I hear that. I experience the same thing all the time. It's depressing as hell how many Amurkins still rely on and trust ONLY corporate media. Most of them have never even heard of Hedges or any other independent left outlet or reporter. They'd think they're all "biased", as if NPR, MSNBC, CNN and the networks aren't. Delusions die hard in this most heavily propagandized country in human history.
"She insists that
Democracy Now is biased
because they don’t present 'the other side'... "
.
D. N. doesn't need to
wholly corporate-owned msm
doesn't present Democracy NOW!'s side either
.
but ONE wee non-Corporate News outfit
cannot compare to the Walls of Misinformation
that Americans are fed via the Feedlots of Capitalism
It’s funny, so many times she’ll bring up something that she thinks is new news to me. But it’s usually something that’s been going on for years that DN has covered extensively already and she’s just hearing about it.
gotta be sad
to be so far
Behind.
So you haven't given up on Democracy Now yet huh? I listen every now and then but it really has changed.
No, I love it. They’re coverage of Ukraine last year got a little close to propaganda, but otherwise they’re good.
You need to take a look at the GrayZone, Aaron Mate, Michael Tracey, Max Blumenthal, Rania Khalek, Abby Martin, Anya Parampil, even Greenwald when he isn't panting after right-wingers and MAGA sorts just because they hate Dems as much as he does.
Check out Caitlin Johnstone, too - excellent commentator on the US - Australian, btw.
Absolutely. I've been reading her stuff for about 6 years, almost every day. She's one of the best around. Thanks for rerminding.
I’m aware. I just don’t agree.
Known Amy for awhile and still support her work and listen occassionally....Max is one of my favorite people, I brought him to OKC to speak when big things were happening here 13 yrs ago, him and Prof Chomsky were pretty much the only ones I could get to pay attention to the happenings here. Very hard to get anyone on the coasts to give a damn about Oklahoma,
I met Amy a couple of times, and Chomsky once. I know she’s become somewhat controversial on the left over the past decade, but once I found DN 21 years ago, news was never the same. I always hated the way corporate newscasters talked and their fluff pieces, but after years of DN, I can’t take that stuff for 5 mins!
Excellent analysis
This piece started out encouraging, but then "We live under a species of corporate colonialism. The engines of white supremacy, which constructed the forms of institutional and economic racism that keep the poor poor."
Really? Do well identifying and criticizing the woke rot that works its way throughout our institutions and society, and then pull out one of the their foundational tropes. It is like a recovered addict having good things to say about meth... yet again.
Come on Chris. Pick a principled stand here. Either you buy into the fake scholarship critical theory colonialism and white supremacy hogwash that - in my clear view simply serves as a deflection from the accountability of the elite moneyed political chattering class for all the terrible crap they have done to the economy and society and continue doubling down on the same today - or you come back to owning a standard liberal view that nothing should matter except the demonstrated character and capability of each individual.
Unless I am really missing something here, you appear to be trying to swim in the deep end of the pool while still clutching the shallow end.
What frosts me to no end these days is that my center-left liberal friends have bought into this woke crap as part of their quiver of rhetorical weapons... only because they see it helping their Democrat party prevail. They use the weapons, and then shrink to claim they are for free speech and don't support cancel culture. Sorry, no getting it both ways there. And this is JUST way the corporatist Uniparty cabal wants... to have left and right at each other's throats so they, the cabal, can keep looting the country and world to an empty shell.
Jesus we have an easy to grasp shared interest in turning the economy around away from the Wall Street-powered big corporate master (and the big government master that backs it), and back to the independent producer, the small business the independent worker.
We have to re-industrialize. We have to decentralize. We have to de-consolidate.
But then they have Democrats invested in the cult of climate change. Again, another global project of the WEF and Great Reset to beat down the US and other Western industrial powerhouses so that the people can be dominated, controlled and mastered.
The problems in the black community are 100% caused by the crash in middle-class economic opportunity that followed the stupid policy allowing China into the WTO, NAFTA, CRA, etc... Right at the time we should have seen blacks ascent into the middle class, we cut out the economic paths. And immigration is a problem too... because we have flooded the nation with millions of low-skill, low education workers that have competed for the fewer remaining jobs.
If we want to fix the "problem with policing", we need to fix the black community. If we want to fix the black community, we need to implement policies that raise the earned standard of living (not the handout standard of living) for the people in those communities.
I am involved in that work... attempting to bring in more small business to these minority labor surplus areas. But there is little support for that work from my uppity liberal friends living in their gated communities blocking new housing development and luxury virtue signaling that they stand with BLM.
You really are missing something.
Nothing you wrote is indicative of anything missing. You apparently are incapable of making any useful point. Why even waste the time to post anything?
Your "center-left liberal friends"
Your "uppity liberal friends"
Right.
It appears that you're mistaking acquaintances for friends. Truth be told, friends can usually be counted on one hand...with not all fingers necessarily being needed. Facebook has worked, rather successfully, at creating the contradictory illusion you allude to.
Mr. Frank Lee: "Sorry, no getting it both ways there. And this is JUST way the corporatist Uniparty cabal wants... to have left and right at each other's throats so they, the cabal, can keep looting the country and world to an empty shell." I must have missed something because IMHO that is exactly the message in this report: identity politics is being used by the bosses to divide us and perpetrate the oppression.
Yes, but the shift to the claim of white colonialism and white supremacy is supporting the Uniparty strategy of division that exploits identity politics. Those are constructs of critical theory which is the basis of modern identity politics as practiced as woke ideology.... dividing people on the basis of race and other "victim" vs "oppressor" groups. My issue is that we cannot and should not go there. Leave out the word "white" or "black" or (insert your favorite victim of oppressor group name) and make the point. Otherwise you are undermining the very principles you claim to stand for.
Listen, I get and appreciate the perspectives of someone like Chris who consistently laments the failures of the country and the people ruling/controlling the country. Although I generally see it as too much of a "glass half empty" perspective, I think it is a relevant and useful perspective. However, we need to reject completely the ideology of woke identity politics... not accept parts of it while rejecting other parts of it. That will not work.
When asked by Don Lemon what he thought we could do to improve race relations in this country, his guest Morgan Freeman said "stop talking about it. stop calling you and me a black man... we are just a man."
I see no need to get overly focused and sensational while publicly embracing ones particular flavor of dogma. The big picture covers the principle sufficiently enough. For example, nasty chemicals kill kids and adults alike. Likewise, the military industrial complex is capable of offing everybody; not just children.
Silly ideology demonstrated with that comment. The US government just announced the largest trade deficit ever in 2022. The fact is that we are consuming the products of industrialism, so they are being manufactured. It is better to manufacture them in the US for a number of reasons. One - we do better regulating the chemicals. Two - it provides good jobs to Americans that need them… and THAT saves lives. The propensity toward war in our foreign policy and economy is a separate issue.
I agree, we now regulate chemical pollution (somewhat) better here than abroad. However, that is the result of largely farming out the industrial production of our GDP to poorer economies abroad. This has happened, increasingly, over the past 40 years. In other words, the net pollution of our industrialization hasn't really been avoided, it's just been displaced to foreign nations that tolerate it in return for financial gain. Its no different than the disappearing rabbit trick.
Not to get bogged down in an environmental debate, but the same "out of sight, out of mind" principle applies to us allowing the auto industry to foist electric vehicles upon our population in the name of going "green". All bullshit. In my opinion, electric vehicles are no "greener" than combustion engine vehicles. In fact, I would argue that the loss of energy alone (from where electricity is produced by fossil fuel burning power plants to being delivered to urban areas where it is ultimately used) makes electric vehicles more polluting than combustion engines. The charade is proven by the fact that we're building and using more remote coal and natural gas fueled power plants than ever before in the U.S. The electric car charade doesn't even account for the more toxic risks of introducing ever more toxic batteries into the enviornment; batteries that have yet to see a viable recycling solutiond (mainly due to lack of availability of old batteries) developed. Sure companies like Redwood are trying, but it's not there...and IMO never will be. In addition the raw material mining is incredibly pollutive with key mining areas located in limited locations (maily not the U.S.) around the world. The result is that the raw materials used in lithium ion batteries are subject to huge carbon footprints in terms of transportation costs and supply chain delays/interruptions. They are also subject to risky geopolitical instability. In short, the problems loop back to the same issue pointed out in paragraph one.
The best solution, IMO, is efficient mass transit in the form of high speed rail. That is something we could be working on right now; but that is never discussed as a solution. Why? No big profits in it for oligarchs...and it cuts into huge existing big 3 auto and airline profits. That high speed rail mass transit solution (the real green one) would only help, well, the "masses"; not the ultra-privileged few peddling the fake green solution. For them, it's a matter of "if it ain't broken, why fix it?"
Oh no. It exists and we probably share the same dislike for it. However, it is just a small subset of "industrialism".
I wish I could read anything useful in your comment, but it is just about of campus programing malcontent junk. You are just Nancy Negative supporting all the prohibition Karens. And you type that stuff on marvelous machines invented in and created in the economic arena you think should be eliminated. You seem to have the woke mind virus from the globalist corporatist overlords having convinced you that anthropogenic global warming is real and our extensional threat. Neither are.
Let's start here. What do you think needs to be done to halt and reverse the trend of wealth and income disparity in this country and other western industrialized countries? And by the way, those green and progressive Scandinavian countries are highly industrial and love capitalism.
One can only hope, that the 'Woke' will wake up upon reading this.
If they read it. And that's a big "if".
I usually put this stuff to a taco bell Xbox ad or something hip and cool on tik tok so they will listen to it
like this..we shall see https://www.tiktok.com/@superbowlsteve/video/7195079845909433643
Incredible! I hope your work gets traction, Superbowl Steve.
Caitlin Johnstone has pieces that would also lend well to your tic toc videos for the younger crowd. She’s on Substack, has connected podcast and YouTube. Lets anyone use her materiel.
thank you I will have a look.
Identity politics masks the operation of power. Dem's use it to provide cover for a pro-corporate economic agenda. Nancy Fraser coined the label: "Progressive Neoliberalism".
We demand more diverse oppressors!
The concept of “identity” politics has been hijacked by liberal elites to capture its meaning and turn it against those who coined the phrase.
Black, socialist,queer women used the phrase in their Combahee River Declaration. They asked how to best begin organizing the masses? Their conclusion was that people were ripe for organizing at their greatest point of oppression.
For Blacks, this might be racism. For women it might be sexism. For queer black women it might be intersectional. But they never argued that this was anything more than an entry point for organizing. They argued against essentialism and for coalition politics. And while they supported socialism, they argued that the anti-imperialist left needed to do more work on issues of race, sex and gender.
But they never argued that these conditions replaced the centrality of class struggle.
We need to confront the liberal media on their intentional use of identity politics as a means to obscure its real meaning and instead place people into separate, silos of disconnected political experiences.
This is simply a sophisticated psyopps strategy of divide and conquer. Let’s start saying identity struggles rather than indenting politics.
Yes, "Identity Politics" is now a filthy expression, having nothing to do with class consciousness or anything progressive whatsoever. It has reduced everything to focus on the individual instead of society.
It does the opposite of focus on the individual. I focuses on the victim or oppressor tribe, and thus divides society into tribal conflict of victims and oppressors. Focusing on the individual is anti-woke. And the woke do not care about society. They are deconstructionists lusting for power and validation that they are virtuous and good... because, in general, they know that they are not.
"Tribal"?! I've seen this characterization several times recently. As if boundary obsessed primitives who love any excuse to eat each other. Who need the western white male superior mind to civilize them. Note "tribal" is sub-Saharan African, Native of the Americas, or Indigenous Australians whereas Europeans and central, south, or eastern Asians are "ethnicities."
Many of us actual tribal people don't think exclusively in the rationalist bifurcations either/or, true/false, with us/against us. For us, there are multiple viewpoints, including those of all living entities and even the land itself. A gestalt of the whole in addition to the specific and limited.
It's the western Euro and Euro-American rapacious econ system chewing up humans and ecosystems as mere resources that's the problem. Its horrific unity now gone global; economic colonialism. But, yeah, side-step that by saying "tribal."
I always without exception feel erupted in the most profound gut wrenching emotions when I read anything written by Chris Hedges. I struggle to keep hope alive as it is truly difficult with the stark and accurate description of the realities of our "democratic "world. When I think it can't get any worse, it does. Thank you for continuing to fight. I truly can't believe someone hasn't at the very least threatened your life. I am only one person and can't fix everything... but as one person, I can something.
Hedges has gotten a hefty share of death threats
Nancy, I completely relate to what you are saying about the gut punch I feel from his words. It's important to share Chris' work with those who still have a little bit of their minds open a crack. Spreading truth and knowledge is important.
footprints in the sand feelings here
Painfully realistic description of our current dilemma. It amazes me how few people wish to confront this reality and how easy it is to distract the masses from even the slightest effort to combat our impending demise. Sigh 😌.
The circus playing. In the movie Gladiator, republican senator Graccus who doesn't claim to be of the people but for the people criticizing the empire says "Rome is a mob. Conjure magic for them and they will be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's the sand of the colosseum."
Fantastic, yes woke ideology is being manipulated by the corporations to try to be "cool with the kids", but actually they're just covering up horrible crimes.
Of course. It's a form of cheap insurance. Toss a few crumbs, appoint a diversity committee or two, and buy protection against policies that might cost real money.
wokewashing
hahaha that's a perfect way of putting it, they're wokewashing their corporate crimes, just like greenwashing
Thats a really good way of putting it, its insurance against an actual popular revolt/movement by appearing to care when they actually dont
Note that elites will gladly discuss race, gender, and have wonderfully clarifying debates that are the modern day equivalent of asking how many LGTBQXYZPDQ+ can dance on the head of a pin. Those same elites are much less comfortable discussing class.
For that matter, note that none of the aforementioned struggle sessions, whether it is determined that Melvin is "literal Hitler" for saying that there are only 26 genders (plus genders not yet discovered) when everyone who is truly Woke! knows that there are at least 29 genders, none of the corporate diversity committees and pronoun preferences on corporate email signatures, none of this changes the way the economic pie is sliced.
To take the converse - if employers would stop hindering unionization, the result would be a transfer of concrete material benefits to black and brown and red and white and other working class people greater than all the wokest tweets ever featured on Twitter, greater than all the affirming messaging and virtue signaling and struggle sessions and statements about stolen land ever crafted and run by Legal.
Which is precisely why they won't do it.
Yes totally, thats a great point. The one thing they will NEVER mention is class. If you talk about the suffering of the working class, they'll say your a racist or something like that, if its white working class. We'd need a new left-wing party to actually reshape how that pie is shared out
Another way to put it - feel good shit doesn't cost anything.
Actually, why do we need another left wing party? Shouldn't we in the US (I see you're in Australia) start with one left wing party before thinking about a second one?
That's true America doesnt even have 1 legitimately left-wing party, yes its what America needs I think! I had hoped Chris and his community would start up something like that?
Can't say there's much I disagree with here. Re: the Glen Ford and Cornel West quotes. Much to our chagrin, we should remember that it was West's 1990 essay "The New Cultural Politics of Difference" that blew the doors open on diversity narratives. I'm sure the good doctor didn't intend for his insights to be grossly misconstrued like they are today, but that's how radical politics are neutralized in the corporate caliphate: they get co-opted and deployed to nefarious ends.
"Terrible predatory forces are eating away at the country." Amen. From the cost of heating fuel to Internet, cable, cell phone, food, education, and medical care the insatiable forces of financial capitalism are weakening this country, hollowing it out from the inside. Do not be fooled. Do not be misled. Do not be tricked. Name the beast: class warfare. We're losing. We don't even have the language to fight back, although Hedges has been giving it to us for nearly three decades.
Brilliant!
Hedges crushing it as usual!
Just to clarify: there were two other officers involved in the beating of Nichols for a total of seven (7) & at least one of them was white. As of yesterday, the known white cop was fired, but no charges have been filed against him. He's lawyered up & cooperating w/ the criminal investigation.
This horrendous murder gets weirder by the minute! It's sickening!
You hit a home run Chris. This scathing and indicting polemic is absolutely required and to be on perpetual instant replay!