06.06.15
Chris Hedges on revolt
This is a long talk, in a church, given by Chris Hedges. Hedges is a Pulitzer winner with a long history in investigative and war coverage journalism, much of it done for the New York Times.
For the past few years he’s been a force unto himself, writing books on the most poverty stricken places in America, how the economy has made them so, and the utter moral failure of capitalism.
To say he’s a glum fellow in an understatement. Hedges finds the United States a bleak and unrelenting place. Like me, he considers it a corporate dictatorship, although he uses a more intricate term, inverted totalitarianism.
As mentioned, his talk is long. But the first five minutes frame our life in the corporate dictatorship of America. And skipping ahead to 55 minutes, right before the close, he runs through the well-known history of non-violent revolt in eastern Europe.
Hedges’ message is that it’s impossible to know when it will happen. But when it does, everything falls apart at once and non-violent change sets in.
Revolt was a moral imperative then, he says, as he says it is in America now.
If you don’t have time for the rest of the talk, which is very good, one he has repeated many times this year as he travels around, you’ll miss the line in the middle:
“We have Hillary Clinton, wandering around like Queen Elizabeth …”
Now, about once a week, there’s a story on Clinton stating some populist position at odds with her past. In all cases, so far, they’ve been easy hits, things she doesn’t have to back up with any substantive detail.
Yes, there are too many Americans in prison, particularly African Americans, then [blank]. (Her husband accelerated the building of Prison USA, Inc.)
Yes, I believe we must do something about the scourge of drugs in American communities, then [blank]. (When her husband was in charge, the result of doing something was horrendous, and still is.)
Yes, I think the GOP should stop trying to take away the vote from American citizens it doesn’t like, then ….
And until the time that you must vote for this noxious candidate (not precisely my words) over one of the immediately dangerous authoritarians, it’s still accurate to view her as an example of someone who believes she should be President because she is Hillary Clinton, of our royalty.
But Chris Hedges is right if you listen to the details. The Clinton administration turned the Democratic Party into centrist money-mad, war-loving Republicans. It had no use for populism.