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A conversation about Chris's must read for progressives new book. Seriously. You need to read this. It will energize you, sharpen your teeth and embolden your heart.
There's a history to the death of the liberal class that involves the war against, attacks upon, the ignominy within and the coopting of liberal institutions and values. What institutions? The Arts, Education, particularly universities, the Relligious community, Unions, the Media... all have been weakened and/or taken over by corporatism and inverted totalitarianism.
Photo of Chris Hedges by Cheryl Biren
Notes in prep for and during the interview:
death of supporting "institutions"-- media, religion, arts, universities
mass culture focus of older book, Empire of Illusion.
We're a society utterly awash in lies and these images serve corporate for profit...
Reality is never an impediment to what we want-- is fed to us by Oprah, the Christian right, Hollywood- it's a way to sever reality from what is happening to us.
We blame our selves for our predicament. That has psychologically disarmed tremendous sections of the working class.
ONce the democratic party turned their back on the working class with NAFTA, we should have walked out on the democratic party.
Popper
Most people who are attracted to power are mediocre-- Obama, or Venal-- Bush.
Liberal values have lost credibility and those who espouse them have lost credibility.
The arts were tamed, became commercial enterprises that were meant to entertain and not transform.
Churches themselves refused to stand up and challenge this mass movement of the christian right... The church lost it's moral voice because it refused to take on that fight.
The press once gave the people a voice, but began serving the interests of the power elite.
Media have rendered entire sections of the united states invisible.
Camden-- food desserts. WHole swathes of the united states are looking like Camden.
STruggles and deprivations people are going through are no t a part of media coverage.
We have
Liberal class can critique power structure, but never questions the motives of the power structure.
Liberals hate Noam Chomsky the most because he exposes the power elite.
When you cross those parameters you are thrust into the wilderness
Chomsky is our country's greatest intellectual.
Art as a former as transformation rather than entertainment.
all of the institution that have the power to transform rather than entertain have been gutted, decimated... all of the arts have been decimated...
It's not that you can't do it... it's that no-one will pay your it.
They've sold their soul to corporate interests.
it's one long litany of the abuse of the American working class-- democrats have supported corporate i nterests since the clinton admin.
consolidation of the press.
Unless we build movements and take stances including small acts of rebellion
reconfiguring american society into a kind of neofeudalistic country.
inverted totaliitarianism- used by poliotical philosopher Sheldon Wolin, who taught at Berkeley.
finds its totalitarianism in the anonymity of the corporate state.
economics always trumps politics.
held in place by reducing wages of masses and by extending credit and flooding the marketplace with cheap mass produced goods.
Journalists like IF Stone shame the press into good journalism
FBI /govt harrassment, surveilance of underground press
What Nixon did different that led to his getting in trouble?
Obama, who utterly sold his soul to co rporations has now been discarded by them. The result is we are now empowering the lunatic fringe of our establishment.
IT is about a creating a feudalistic society where people are kept in their place. There are no regulations, no controls that prevent the oligarchs
Howard Zinn's 423 FBI file released July 2010. He was an example of how independent intellectual thought deeply disturs the myths perpetuated by the power elite
Lewis POwell-- Nader, supreme ct. 176
2000 election-- It was an incompetent, corporatized Democratic Party, along with the orchestrated fraud by the republican party, which threw the 2000 election to Bush-- It was not Nader's fault.
Few differences between Democrats and republicans
Nader: "If you organize one percent of the poeple in this country along progressive lines, you can turn the country around, as long as you give them infrastructure."
Hedges: Those who exploit human beings and nature are bound to an irrational lust for power and money that is leading to collective suicide.
Liberal class lacks the capacity or the imagination to respond to growing discontent,... Revolt, because ofthis, will come from the right.. as it did in other eras of bankrupt liberalis in Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and Tsarist Russia.
Failure to face extinction, to envision the death of their society
internet is accelerating this cultural decline
The difference between rebellion and revolution...
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