The Internal Collapse of the United States? Interview with Chris Hedges
November 9, 2010
So, um, buy Canadian dollars?
Interview with Chris Hedges on CBC’s The Current
I thought this might interest our readership here at Vox Nova. I know I’m interested in your take.
Brett Salkeld is a doctoral student in theology at Regis College in Toronto. He is a father of two (so far) and husband of one.
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Good reading is also Jared Diamond’s (author of Guns, Germs, and Steel) Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed
I think he makes some very good points, but I’m not sure I agree with his conclusion about the collapse of traditional media. He’s ignoring the natural migration of media to more social mediums such as the internet, where grassroots liberal campaigns can rise out of the ashes.
To the surprise of no one who reads my posts, I agree with pretty much everything Hedges says there.
I see the Tea-Partiers not so much as a threat (although there are predictable but worrisome signs of racist and nativist character to their movement), but as a symptom of the failure of the “liberal establishment” (as defined by Hedges) to redress their grievances, or even acknowledge their pain.
…adding, I think Hedges’ speaking of the collapse of the United States is not hyperbole; it is a predictable, reasonably-to-be-expected result of the plutocracy rigging the whole game in their favor. Every time you concentrate wealth at the top, you get a society and economy that are unstable, and, if it gets bad enough, things like armed revolution and Reichstags burning.
When the liberal establishment does its job of restraining capital’s worst tendencies, you get social and economic stability. If that gets bad enough, you get boring consensus politics a la Eisenhower; and sometimes even ridiculous, badly-written polemical novels featuring wooden, stilted prose and cardboard characters named John Galt.
A Dostoevsky reference is there. I haven’t read “Notes from the Underground” though.
There is a lot there. I definitely agree with him that we don’t have a serious media. (See my stewardship piece 3 weeks ago or so.) I also agree that we are fundamentally unserious about addressing the poor and their problems and seem to want to demagogue them instead.
Thanks for posting that very sad but true interview. Both parties have betrayed America.
As someone wrote recently, “If you’re not an extremist, you’re not paying attention.” We have to realize that this is not a battle between left and right, but between those in power and the powerless.
We have to realize that this is not a battle between left and right, but between those in power and the powerless.
That’s exactly right.
Once upon a time in America, the ruling class (aka the “stewards”) produced leaders who loved their country sufficiently to get designated “traitors to their class.” The right-wing whiners who constantly post on here to the contrary notwithstanding, the “business class” of America are NOT anymore producing patriotic statesmen and women.
The problem is that a lot of the “tea party” is a merely re-branded part of the establishment.
The problem is that a lot of the “tea party” is a merely re-branded part of the establishment.
Some of the Tea Party movement is astroturf, and its agenda is extremely well-financed by Our Reptilian Corporate Masters, who hiss to the rank and file that “the problem is that your boss’s boss’s boss is taxed way too much!” Lots of it, however, is sincere, wounded people who have been getting shafted for decades, and have consequently been taken in by all the noise and fuss of those who pretend to speak for them.
The thing is, Our Reptilian Corporate Masters will eventually realize to their dismay that they were riding a dazed tiger; all it will take is someone speaking plain, undeniable truth to the rank-and-file of the movement about the real source of their pain; then the blinders will fall from the tiger’s eyes, and then he will Come For Them.
There is this hubris in America that we are immune to the forces of history and human nature. That typically makes the eventual reckoning that much more scorching.
Btw, the “sincere, wounded” people have been bought off by the establishment since the Jacksonian era by targeted assaults on The Other. There is nothing new in this, and I see no reason it won’t still be around 180 years from now.
May I add a few comments for whatever they are worth?
I work for a small niche company (40 people) in Boston which specializes in services to high net worth individuals: family office services, investment management, estate planning, etc.
Our clients range in net worth from $5,000,000 to $200,000,000.
And, to tell you the truth, our business is thriving!
Yes, even in this bad economy!
BAM – congratulations on being able to go into work every day. It must take real stamina.
No, don’t mock BAM: he’s telling us all something that we really need to know–that the corporate masters of America make HUGE profits, sometimes, off of the misery and suffering of others.
Isn’t Chris Hedges pretty much way out there on the left fringe? For example, he writes for Truthdig.com, which also publishes discredited folks like Robert Scheer, Gore Vidal, and Scott Ritter.
Thank you Nell, for that valuable information. Clearly, I am misled by Hedges who, though not yet “discredited” himself, obviously is discredited by association, digital association at least, with the likes of Robert Scheer.
I wish I could go back in time and somehow unlisten to the interview, which I mistakenly found to be cogent, stolid, and alarming. But, I’ll go back to highly credit-worthy news organizations like CNN, Fox News, and AM radio. That should help.