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The refusal by all of our liberal institutions, including the press, universities, labor and the Democratic Party, to challenge the utopian assumptions that the marketplace should determine human behavior permits corporations and investment firms to continue their assault, including speculating on commodities to drive up food prices. It permits coal, oil and natural gas corporations to stymie alternative energy and emit deadly levels of greenhouse gases. It permits agribusinesses to divert corn and soybeans to ethanol production and crush systems of local, sustainable agriculture. It permits the war industry to drain half of all state expenditures, generate trillions in deficits, and profit from conflicts in the Middle East we have no chance of winning. It permits corporations to evade the most basic controls and regulations to cement into place a global neo-feudalism. The last people who should be in charge of our food supply or our social and political life, not to mention the welfare of sick children, are corporate capitalists and Wall Street speculators. But none of this is going to change until we turn our backs on the Democratic Party, denounce the orthodoxies peddled in our universities and in the press by corporate apologists and construct our opposition to the corporate state from the ground up. It will not be easy. It will take time. And it will require us to accept the status of social and political pariahs, especially as the lunatic fringe of our political establishment steadily gains power. The corporate state has nothing to offer the left or the right but fear...

But this time around, because corporations control the organs of mass communication, and because thousands of economists, business school professors, financial analysts, journalists and corporate managers have staked their credibility on the utopianism of globalism, we speak to each other in gibberish. We continue to heed the advice of Alan Greenspan, who believed the third-rate novelist Ayn Rand was an economic prophet, or Larry Summers, whose deregulation of our banks as treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton helped snuff out some $17 trillion in wages, retirement benefits and personal savings. We are assured by presidential candidates like Mitt Romney that more tax breaks for corporations would entice them to move their overseas profits back to the United States to create new jobs. This idea comes from a former hedge fund manager whose personal fortune was amassed largely by firing workers, and only illustrates how rational political discourse has descended into mindless sound bites...

Dying civilizations often prefer hope, even absurd hope, to truth. It makes life easier to bear. It lets them turn away from the hard choices ahead to bask in a comforting certitude that God or science or the market will be their salvation...

The perversion of values has created a landscape where corporate management by sleazy figures like Donald Trump is confused with leadership and where the ability to accumulate vast sums of money is confused with intelligence.

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporality embarrassed millionaires."

kalm wrote:

Dying civilizations often prefer hope, even absurd hope, to truth. It makes life easier to bear.

89Hen wrote:

kalm wrote:

I guess we're fucked.

kalm wrote:Someone needs to talk Chris Hedges back from the edge. He's obviously brilliant and makes solid points, many of which are non-partisan and almost indisputable. Still, he's really depressing to read.

Come on conk's, cheer me up! Tear this article to shreads and tell me that Ayn Rand, Greenspan, Reagan, Clinton, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and the Friedmans were right and that globalism and monopolistic capitalism are really in all our best interests.

Baldy wrote:

kalm wrote:Someone needs to talk Chris Hedges back from the edge. He's obviously brilliant and makes solid points, many of which are non-partisan and almost indisputable. Still, he's really depressing to read.

Come on conk's, cheer me up! Tear this article to shreads and tell me that Ayn Rand, Greenspan, Reagan, Clinton, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and the Friedmans were right and that globalism and monopolistic capitalism are really in all our best interests.

I'm not going to waste my time by reading anything from Hedges, but since monopolies are almost exclusively created by government mandate, there is no question that Rand and Friedman were definitely anti-monopoly. Both were very pro free trade, but globalism is a far too general term. When the "globalism" term is thrown about, it usually entails some sort of geopolitical hegemony of one government over another.

kalm wrote:

Baldy wrote:
I'm not going to waste my time by reading anything from Hedges, but since monopolies are almost exclusively created by government mandate, there is no question that Rand and Friedman were definitely anti-monopoly. Both were very pro free trade, but globalism is a far too general term. When the "globalism" term is thrown about, it usually entails some sort of geopolitical hegemony of one government over another.

Very interesting. Does this mean you, Rand, and Friedman are anarchists?

In using Gannon's excellent point, is that a matter of government mandate or governmental capture?

Baldy wrote:

kalm wrote:
Very interesting. Does this mean you, Rand, and Friedman are anarchists?

In using Gannon's excellent point, is that a matter of government mandate or governmental capture?

I guess we're anarchist in the way the founding fathers were.

It's a little of both, but I would guess that Gannon's comment was more of a response to your statement.

kalm wrote:

Baldy wrote:
I guess we're anarchist in the way the founding fathers were.

It's a little of both, but I would guess that Gannon's comment was more of a response to your statement.

No, I get that. Believe me, I totally recognize the unintended consequences of government intervention. My point is that sometimes those consequences are fully intended. Perhaps the problem is bad government rather then just government. This type of cynicism makes me want to throw in the towel and re-read "Atlas Shrugged". Conks aren't cheering me up a bit. Any donks want to step in and support Hedges?

AZGrizFan wrote:

kalm wrote:
No, I get that. Believe me, I totally recognize the unintended consequences of government intervention. My point is that sometimes those consequences are fully intended. Perhaps the problem is bad government rather then just government. This type of cynicism makes me want to throw in the towel and re-read "Atlas Shrugged". Conks aren't cheering me up a bit. Any donks want to step in and support Hedges?

That's an oxymoron.

As my signature says: Atlas Shrugged was a warning, not an instruction manual.

Chizzang wrote:It's dying I assure you... because that is the way of empires

Like Suns they have all burned bright in the early stages
They cast light into dark shadows and open minds and expand consciousness - right up until they implode from the force of their own colossal and critical mass...

Like all empires - we believed our own bullsh!t for too long - in fact we still believe it
Right up to the edge of destruction, denial is the strongest force in our universe

89Hen wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:
That's an oxymoron.

As my signature says: Atlas Shrugged was a warning, not an instruction manual.

I think you meant redundant.

kalm wrote:

Baldy wrote:
I guess we're anarchist in the way the founding fathers were.

It's a little of both, but I would guess that Gannon's comment was more of a response to your statement.

No, I get that. Believe me, I totally recognize the unintended consequences of government intervention. My point is that sometimes those consequences are fully intended. Perhaps the problem is bad government rather then just government. This type of cynicism makes me want to throw in the towel and re-read "Atlas Shrugged". Conks aren't cheering me up a bit. Any donks want to step in and support Hedges?

Chizzang wrote:It's dying I assure you... because that is the way of empires

Like Suns they have all burned bright in the early stages
They cast light into dark shadows and open minds and expand consciousness - right up until they implode from the force of their own colossal and critical mass...

Like all empires - we believed our own bullsh!t for too long - in fact we still believe it
Right up to the edge of destruction, denial is the strongest force in our universe

travelinman67 wrote:

Chizzang wrote:It's dying I assure you... because that is the way of empires

Like Suns they have all burned bright in the early stages
They cast light into dark shadows and open minds and expand consciousness - right up until they implode from the force of their own colossal and critical mass...

Like all empires - we believed our own bullsh!t for too long - in fact we still believe it
Right up to the edge of destruction, denial is the strongest force in our universe

Funny...

...I've always said apathy is the most destructive force in our universe.