Chris Hedges: The Liberal Elite has Betrayed the People They Claim to Defend

Chris Hedges: The Liberal Elite has Betrayed the People They Claim to Defend

therealnews.com

On Reality Asserts Itself with Paul Jay, Chris Hedges says The Democratic Party used to watch out for the interests of labor and even for the poor. But that all changed under Bill Clinton. Although Clinton, like Obama, continues to speak in that feel-your- pain language of traditional liberalism, they've completely betrayed the very people that they purport to represent and defend. Pt. 5 of 7 - July 22, 13

"It's just a game, whether it's Bush or Obama Goldman Sacs wins."

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Most of us probably already have suspected or know this, I know I'm preaching to the choir in that aspect but there's still details to pay attention to. Both sides of the same coin are under corrupt control. What is expressed in the interview is important. I don't believe this has been shared yet-no result on search.

The video and transcript of the video is provided at the source.

therealnews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

The reinstatement of NDAA in Hedges' lawsuit and 4th circuit home of intelligence agencies ruling on NYT's Risen losing journalist source confidentiality is the downfall of press freedoms.

Obama has declared war on 2 NYT journalists, when will the press have the guts to turn on him?

When is the breaking point?

I will tell you what i know for sure, our government no longer has the ability
to be responsible, i am at the point where i refuse to acknowledge their
party because i feel it no longer means anything, neither side has been
able to turn this thing around and all we would need is a little realism and
responsibility to do that, a budget for one for goodness sake.......

These fools cannot come up with a budget, a BUDGET! think about that,
they are responsible for our tax dollars and cannot even accomplish
high school level economics..... And they want us to trust their judgment.....

I would trust my ex-wife with my money before these guys and trust me
when i say that is one heck of a statement.

Well Liberal politicians were never interested in the people they claimed to defend in the first place.

They have never been interested in public opinion unless it falls into their agenda. --Example: Obama/Holder sparking a race war with the zimmerman verdict claiming its for "civil rights"--

Remember Liberals react only to crisis' and have never been good for anything. Every time a liberal is elected into office the economy always turns to #. Just look at our debt now, another good example is Detroit.

Latest one is out today. Here's the link:

Actually ended up watching all of them. Can't really explain why but Hedges has never really fallen under my scope previously but I gave it a listen. Although I disagree on several points that he makes, there is much that he said that actually mirrors things that I have said and have even said on these forums. That's intensely uncomfortable because, to me, either it's an independent confirmation of all available information driving towards similar conclusions or he and I went to the same brainwashing academy. Betting the former but never know--could be the latter. Pretty depressing.

The point where I disagree with Hedges is on the mass protest in the streets. Occupy was absolutely crushed both in terms of PR and in terms of a physical jack boot. The surveillance of communications has been unveiled and many of those who were involved with Occupy became very poignantly aware that social media was being tracked for the movements' activities in their respective locales. Toss in the NDAA and the odds of actually getting a million people on the streets like in Brazill or even 500,000 like in Barcelona in 2011 is pretty damn slim. We aren't just facing an oligarchy but an techno-oligarchy who controls and manipulates that whole of mainstream media. You would literally need a million people in the streets to prevent another scenario occurring like Occupy and convincing a million people to take those risks is going to be a tough sell for Hedges. The deck is stacked for precisely that kind of thing.

reply to post by dreamingawake


Chris Hedges is fooling himself if he thinks the blatant spin on his statements and thoughts on this matter is not being noticed.

Lets be completely realistic here:

No political party, in any country, ever, has the interests of the citizen at the front of its concerns. Some of these parties do not concern themselves with the interests of citizens AT ALL. The "liberal elite" do not care, and nor do the vastly wealthy republicans like thier last candidate for the presidency. Romney, lets be frank, is a cancerous little wart if I ever saw one, who has boned over plenty of people for personal gain in business, and would have done the same to the people of the US at a moments notice, without hesitation or the slightest remorse.

You can argue that the same is happening now, but you cannot tell me with a straight face that ANY professional politician would behave differently, unless of course you have been fooled by one or another parties sales pitch. It is precisely the same here in Britain. We havent had a functional Labour party for over twenty years, because its been infected with privately educated toffs with all the empathy and compassion of a block of masonry, so now there really is no difference between Labour and Conservative.

The only difference between our nations politically at this point, is how long the USA's left and right, thier democrats and republicans, have been virtually identical in intent, if not methodology. There has basically been no difference what so ever between the US's leading political parties for as long as I have been watching news (two decades or more), and from what I have heard from unbaised sources, longer even than that, by decades again. At least right and left in the UK meant something, albeit a decade before I was born.

Originally posted by TrueBrit
reply to post by dreamingawake

 

Chris Hedges is fooling himself if he thinks the blatant spin on his statements and thoughts on this matter is not being noticed.

Considering he's suing the Obama Administration as the lead plaintiff in Hedges v. Obama in regards to the NDAA indefinite detention provisions, I'm pretty sure he's quite aware that he's been noted as he's basically jamming himself up their noses. en.wikipedia.org...

As to the rest of what you said, he actually states very similar things in the interview, including the shift in the last 20 years. However, he states that it's always been that way with some small concessions and attention paid when necessary. What has changed in the last 20 years is that they have stopped entirely. Your assessment of politics in the US would be pretty correct. Prima facia differences between the two parties are generally hot button topics that really have very little to do with politics and are more subjective in nature based on religious and political ideologies. I imagine that is most likely frequently done to keep things politically divided because, if it weren't for those differences, the two parties in action would be relatively indistinguishable at this point.

Interesting that the shift in the UK was in the same time period. Been noticing that there is a great deal of similarity between UK and US discourse and policy changes over the last few years. What happened in the 90's. Both Clinton and Blair introduced the idea of the "Third Way": en.wikipedia.org...

This description of the "Third Way" is actually pretty interesting as it's coming from a former bank regulator, William K. Black. He testified before the House Financial Services Committee against the Lehman Bros.

"Third Way is this group that pretends sometimes to be center-left but is actually completely a creation of Wall Street--it's run by Wall Street for Wall Street with this false flag operation as if it were a center-left group. It's nothing of the sort."

i had no idea what kind of site that was, nor what kind of talk it was going to be, other than it sounded like liberals might be having a conversation. instead, i was greeted by this video series about the communist party, which among other things, crashed my browser, forced me to have to reset all my passwords, including completely deleting my file where i kept my passwords for gaming. holy toledo what kind of mouse trap is that place?

Originally posted by undo
i had no idea what kind of site that was, nor what kind of talk it was going to be, other than it sounded like liberals might be having a conversation. instead, i was greeted by this video series about the communist party, which among other things, crashed my browser, forced me to have to reset all my passwords, including completely deleting my file where i kept my passwords for gaming. holy toledo what kind of mouse trap is that place?

I didn't have any of those problems in the slightest and yes, the video opens with a quote from Karl Marx but Marx actually authored Marxism. Communism was a bastardized mix between Marxism and Leninism. Marx, himself, was dead before Communism ever was formed. To put Marx into context, he was living during the Industrial Revolution when the development of the first factories was taking place. Those early factories were hell holes. In a way, Marx, as a philosopher, should hold about the same amount of blame at what eventually became the monster that Communism was in the USSR and elsewhere as Nietzsche should in his inspiring Hitler.

Youtube link of the OP vid:

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Indeed, I completely agree with your comments on this matter thus far, but what I was driving at in saying that Mr Hedges blatant spin has not gone unnoticed, is that he should not be aiming any particlar ire at Obamas administration, let alone civil action.

The fact is that the accusations he is making, apply to the ENTIRE system of governance in the US, and the responsible parties, who need to be neutered in order to render a significant change to the circumstances currently prevailing, are numerous, powerful, and very often virtually unheard of, save for in the circles they move in, or the circles we do (those of conspiracy chatter, rather than the caviar and Bently brigade). Aiming mud pie at Obama isnt going to change anything, and although it may get some publicity, lets face it, anyone capable of comprehending the truth about the state of democracy in the free world today, already does, and everyone else prefers hiding behind the skirts of the lie. Therefore all the publicity in the world isnt going to ammount to a God damn thing!

He would be much better off, using his understanding of matters not to attack any one president, or any one party (because this liberal elite accusation is horse balls anyway, since it applies to non-liberal elitists also) but to chew at the very structure around which these organisations have locked thier stranglehold.

When a creeper vine eats into a doorframe, you have to destroy the door frame, prop up the wall around it, and re-build the doorframe, once you have followed that vine to its root and killed it dead that is. In the same way, unless the entire structure of governance is dissassembled, examined for flaws, and put back together without the weaknesses and loopholes which currently assail it, there will be no sigificant change to the state of affairs in which the common man in the USA finds himself.

I think anyone capable of bringing action to bare against a president of the United States of America, probably knows that already, and that leads me to ask why Mr Hedges has specifically targeted Obama, when he must surely be aware that Obama is not the problem, any more than Romney would have really been the problem. The structure is where the weakness is, not those who stand atop it at any one moment.

reply to post by Redden


Congratulations. Way to try to turn a relevant discussion into a partisan hack fest.

But to the OP, you're correct. There are no good guys anymore. Not in this government. It's a government for, by, and of the bankers.

reply to post by dreamingawake


Obvious Chris Hedges reveals the obvious.

reply to post by TrueBrit


I think the reasons why he has targeted Obama is in part due to Obama's being the one who signed in the NDAA despite the outcry about the provisions, secondly, because it is Obama who is currently in the helm of president, and thirdly, his audience for his appeal was not Republicans but liberal democrats who supported Obama or continue to support him. Who one's audience is very key in how one gears a conversation. From my recollection, Hedges has very clearly stated that it's diffuse. In terms of targeting the Democratic party, it is because he is correct in his assessments. Traditionally, the role that the Democratic party played within US politics was a check against business to protect workers. The Democrats were the "squishy, feel-good, liberals" in the US political mash up. I remember even learning the differences between the political parties with the the "worker support" being associated with Democrats and businessmen support being associated with Republicans. Hedge's focus is on the worker and ergo, Democrats, because that is the party that has traditionally supported workers as that is where the public presumption once laid. He's basically trying to crack through the illusion that Democrats are still concerned with worker plight and that's why he hones his target straight onto that. The Republican party has long been associated with promoting business over workers so, technically, although the dialogue has changed, their association really hasn't altered Why would he fault them for doing as they have been for decades now? Really, the change within the Democratic party has been the truly most significant change in terms of the little guy.

I actually detected very little spin and a whole lot of pleading. Hedges, I think, is really trying to lay things completely on the table and emphasize the potential direness. The structure has always been faulty and he mentions that as well in his interview. If you read the Federalist papers, it's very, very clear that the opinions of the people were not very well respected by the Founders. Madison called that "faction" and stated that the greatest source of faction, historically, was income inequality. The way our government was set up was to try to find that which would work best for all but would also protect the landed property owner from faction. That's why the electoral college even exists.

Smells like controlled opposition to me.

Originally posted by wujotvowujotvowujotvo
The reinstatement of NDAA in Hedges' lawsuit and 4th circuit home of intelligence agencies ruling on NYT's Risen losing journalist source confidentiality is the downfall of press freedoms.

Obama has declared war on 2 NYT journalists, when will the press have the guts to turn on him?

When is the breaking point?

edit on 23-7-2013 by wujotvowujotvowujotvo because: (no reason given)

BUmped for the point...I lost any hope of the press actually growing adult
teeth with roots after he and Holder sicced te IRS on about the whole AP feed.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


I think I see what you are getting at.

Looking at it from that point of view I can understand why Hedges has aimed things the way he has. If someone was doing that for our Labour party here in Britain, I would be behind it I suppose. But I still think, that if Hedges is trying to cause a shift in government toward better representation for the individual, then frankly speaking, he should be attacking the system, not any of the players within it.

reply to post by TrueBrit


I agree because, at best, if what he proposes needs to be done occurs, then it would be essentially applying a band aid to a system that may not be viable. Basically a temporary correction to a systemic problem. The other issue is that what Hedges is trying to promote, in the form of the Occupy Movement, already failed. The MSM dealt with Occupy very adeptly through reporting smaller numbers (in my city, local press and PD reported 10k protesters while CNN reported "hundreds" on day one of Occupy here) and issue muddying. To suggest that it be attempted again after what happened last time and with all that "new" information coming to light, it kind of reminds me of that old definition of insanity--doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different results. Traditionally, protesting in the streets has been the way that change began throughout history and the government knows that. It's been gearing up to basically quell civil unrest for several years now and they have a whole lot of toys that they can use so they don't accidentally create a martyr. It's a big problem that we face.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Thats exactly what I mean.

You can use a puncture repair kit on a bicycle tyre if you get a puncture, but you are still going to need to change that tyre and inner tube at some point.

Originally posted by TrueBrit
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

Thats exactly what I mean.

You can use a puncture repair kit on a bicycle tyre if you get a puncture, but you are still going to need to change that tyre and inner tube at some point.

Yep. Problem is changing the tyre and inner tube, in this case, is a risky endeavor that people may not embrace simply because they don't perceive the problem as being bad enough. One of the tools that has long been used here in the US has been the "don't waste your vote" or the lesser of two weevils approach as I call it. The system can be changed through the destruction of the political power of both parties. If Congress is our legislative body then in order to change that tyre, Congress needs to be changed. Neither party should be trusted.