“-the characteristics of a liberal are useless…and Reinhold Niebuhr writes this saying that in moments of extremity liberals are too intellectual, too ineffectual, and too little emotional a force to deal with radical evil- that those who rise up and resist are possessed by what he calls “sublime madness.”
“We the people” have been stolen from for half a century.
Because of corporate money in the democratic party, it seems the republicans are just the party of the rich vs the party of the less rich. Things like this have historically ended badly for everyone. Guillotines being the most graphic example of that. We are now faced with a 3 part complex problem-
1. Vote out Trump.
2. Get the money out of politics (by exposing Neoliberalism).
3. Remake the New Deal by making it Green.
Chris Hedges: In the end I don’t fight fascists because I will win, I fight fascists because they are fascists.
9:28 “The true history of the breakdown of capitalism in the 1930’s is not that a beneficent oligarch by the name of Franklin Roosevelt decided to shower us with gifts. It is that there were powerful radical movements, the progressive party, the communist party, which was white-washed from our history, powerful unions, especially around the CIO- that went to Roosevelt and said, look, it’s not working, people are destitute, and either you respond or you get revolution. And Roosevelt went to his fellow oligarchs and said you better give up some of your money, or you are going to lose all of your money. And that’s how we got heavy government intervention, 15 million jobs, social security, public works- which created the parks, the libraries, the schools, the post offices- many of which we use today, which of course, we are now watching them being closed. Power concedes nothing without a demand…and they took away the mechanism by which we can make a demand.”
49:02 “This is what happens at the final stages of capitalism, they consume the very structures that make capitalism possible. Marx got that right. I am not a Marxist but his analysis of capital is dead on-“. Chris is talking about all the education being converted to generate profit as a private industry and train workers instead of citizens.
Austerity passed the cost of the 2008 financial crash on to the citizens who did not want the too-big-to-fail companies bailed out 100 to 1. This signaled the end of the citizenry having any power to counter corporate agendas.
Citizens United 2010 Court Case- from wiki: President Barack Obama stated that the decision “gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington”. The ruling had a major impact on campaign finance, allowing unlimited election spending by corporations and labor unions and fueling the rise of Super PACs. Later rulings by the Roberts Court, including McCutcheon v. FEC (2014), would strike down other campaign finance restrictions. Studies show that the Citizens United ruling boosted the electoral success of Republican candidates.[2][3]
While the case allowed labor unions to also contribute this was a farce as the money available to corporations compared to unions was orders of magnitude larger.
20:15 Sheldon Wolin, erased from history- “Democracy Incorporated.”
Ice on the Moon 