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Now Posted on Nov 15, 2010

To Deter Crime, Get


Tough on Wall Street By Chris Hedges

Most Comments The blacklisted mathematics instructor


Chandler Davis, after serving six months in
Most Emailed the Danbury federal penitentiary for
refusing to cooperate with the House
Reports Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC), warned the universities that
*Look Who’s the ousted him and thousands of other Change.org | Start a Petition »
Decider Now professors that the purges would decimate
By Eugene Robinson the country’s intellectual life.

“You must welcome dissent; you must


*To Deter Crime, welcome serious, systematic, proselytizing AP Join the Liberal
Get Tough on Wall dissent—not only the playful, the fitful, or Blog Advertising
Street the eclectic; you must value it enough, not Like Chandler Davis, screenwriters Dalton Network
By David Sirota merely to refrain from expelling it Trumbo, left, and John Howard Lawson were
yourselves, but to refuse to have it torn sent to prison for refusing to cooperate with
from you by outsiders,” he wrote in his the House Un-American Activities Committee.
*Britain’s Modern
Bride 1959 essay “...From an Exile.” “You must
By Ruth Marcus welcome dissent not in a whisper when
alone, but publicly so potential dissenters can hear you. What potential dissenters see now is
that you accept an academic world from which we are excluded for our thoughts. This is a
*Saying Goodbye to manifest signpost over all your arches, telling them: Think at your peril. You must not let it
Compassionate stand. You must (defying outside power; gritting your teeth as we grit ours) take us back.”
Conservatism
By E.J. Dionne, Jr. But they did not take Davis back. Davis, whom I met a few days ago in Toronto, could not
find a job after his prison sentence and left for Canada. He has spent his career teaching
mathematics at the University of Toronto. He was one of the lucky ones. Most of the
professors ousted from universities never taught again. Radical and left-wing ideas were
Ear to the
Ground effectively stamped out. The purges, most carried out internally and away from public view,
announced to everyone inside the universities that dissent was not protected. The
*GM’s Big Day confrontation of ideas was killed.

“Political discourse has been impoverished since then,” Davis said. “In the 1930s it was
*Recessions Are Not
Good for Your Mind understood by anyone who thought about it that sales taxes were regressive. They collected
more proportionately from the poor than from the rich. Regressive taxation was bad for the
economy. If only the rich had money, that decreased economic activity. The poor had to
*Rangel Defends
His Honor in House spend what they had and the rich could sit on it. Justice demands that we take more from the
Hearing (Video) rich so as to reduce inequality. This philosophy was not refuted in the 1950s and it was not
the target of the purge of the 1950s. But this idea, along with most ideas concerning
economic justice and people’s control over the economy, was cleansed from the debate.
*The Warning Cell
Phone Makers Keep Certain ideas have since become unthinkable, which is in the interest of corporations such as
Hidden Goldman Sachs. The power to exclude certain ideas serves the power of corporations. It is
unfortunate that there is no political party in the United States to run against Goldman Sachs.

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I am in favor of elections, but there is no way I can vote against Goldman Sachs.”
*The Day China
Diverted the Internet The silencing of radicals such as Davis, who had been a member of the Communist Party,
although he had left it by the time he was investigated by HUAC, has left academics and
*Senate May intellectuals without the language, vocabulary of class war and analysis to critique the
Consider Don’t Ask, ideology of globalism, the savagery of unfettered capitalism and the ascendancy of the
Don’t Tell Repeal corporate state. And while the turmoil of the 1960s saw discontent sweep through student
bodies with some occasional support from faculty, the focus was largely limited to issues of
identity politics—feminism, anti-racism—and the anti-war movements. The broader calls for
socialism, the detailed Marxist critique of capitalism, the open rejection of the sanctity of
A/V Booth markets, remained muted or unheard. Davis argues that not only did socialism and
communism become outlaw terms, but once these were tagged as heresies, the right wing
*‘It Gets Worse’ tried to make liberal, secular and pluralist outlaw terms as well. The result is an
With John and Cindy impoverishment of ideas and analysis at a moment when we desperately need radical voices
McCain to make sense of the corporate destruction of the global economy and the ecosystem. The
“centrist” liberals manage to retain a voice in mainstream society because they pay homage
to the marvels of corporate capitalism even as it disembowels the nation and the planet.
*GOP Fails to Kill
NPR’s Public Funding
Advertisement
*Airport Rage,
Animated
“Repression does not target original thought,” Davis noted. “It targets already established
heretical movements, which are not experimental but codified. If it succeeds very well in
These Body Scan punishing heresies, it may in the next stage punish originality. And in the population, fear of
Images Are the Opposite uttering such a taboo word as communism may in the next stage become general paralysis of
of Titillating social thought.”

It is this paralysis he watches from Toronto. It is a paralysis he predicted. Opinions and


Arts & questions regarded as possible in the 1930s are, he mourns, now forgotten and no longer part
Culture of intellectual and political debate. And perhaps even more egregiously the fight and struggle
of radical communists, socialists and anarchists in the 1930s against lynching, discrimination,
*Beyond ‘1984’: segregation and sexism were largely purged from the history books. It was as if the civil
New Frontiers of Mass rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had no antecedents in the battles of the
Surveillance Wobblies as well as the socialist and communist movements.
By Elliot D. Cohen
“Even the protests that were organized entirely by Trotskyists were written out of history,”
Davis noted acidly.
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Page 1 of 2 pages 1 2 >

By kws, November 19 at 1:07 am Link to this comment


Ash Grey T-Shirt (Unregistered commenter)
$18
Good riddance to bad rubbish! Theft != Justice
more items
Report this

By truedigger3, November 18 at 9:43 pm Link to this comment

Re: By Lafayette, November 16 at 1:16 pm

Lafayette wrote:
“Thinking outside the box is a challenge to Conventional Wisdom—which, when
done, invites opprobrium. That is the reaction of many who simply do not want
comfortably cherished beliefs to be questioned. It upsets the tidy lives that they
inhabit.

What’s a country to do? Enhance its Experiential Education, the kind that gets people
to look beyond the confines of the three-mile territorial limit of US borders. Moreover,
a lot of the informational input-overload is coming from trash sources. Those must be
combated with modern techniques for disseminating unbiased, verifiable, factual
information.

The process is long and slow. But, I submit, there is no other way in a Supposedly
Tolerant Democracy. “
—————————————————————————

Surprise! I agree with you 100%.


Unfortunately, there is a very clever, sophisticated and very well financed campaign
to dumb down the American people who get most of their information from the news
media and television.
Unfortunately, mustering the resources to combat this
dumbing down process is very difficult if not impossible.
Most of the big monies are for dumbing down the people and having schools and
universities to graduate technocrats or people with specialized knowledge who will
serve the monied elite.

Report this

By REDHORSE, November 18 at 8:01 pm Link to this comment

SHADRACH: Great discription of where American political dialogue/action


went. I’ve been saying “political correctness” is an airball for years.

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In defense of the 70’s, the brutal 60’s left such emotional/human carnage on the
American landscape and propagandist/law enforcement had so damaged and
infiltrated progressive thought we all needed some time to think and heal our wounds.
But, the so called “Fascist Right” never stopped its assault. People still can’t grasp the
connection between “marijuana laws”, the loss of civil rights, and the ascent of the
“prison industrial/M.I.C.” State. It was never about “weed”.

Your observations about the “class” war are spot on. It is hard to accept that
Americans with every advantage imaginal would seek the economic destruction of
their less fortunate compatriots. In all honesty, I believe it is a very “few” who
exploited the fractures in American unity for personal benefit but God, what damage
they’ve done.

I agree with LAFAYETTES observation that we “may be” powerless only because
we’ve been convinced we are. And, lets not forget that there are American fighters
and truthspeakers aplenty. It’s just that the “Fascist Right” bottlenecks the dialogue.

Thanks for the poat!!

Report this

By Lafayette, November 18 at 10:49 am Link to this comment Lafayette's


avatar
DB: There seems to be a tint of “HEY, some of those people
weren’t even GUILTY of being commies!” as if that makes it all the
worse.

Oh, but it does.

Living with the opprobrium within your community, with your fellow workers, for an
act that you did not commit, is far worse than skedaddling to Canada or Great Britain
or Australia—as quite a few did.

At least on foreign soil one can construct a new life, whilst back in America one must
wait a decade or more until it has “blown over”.

We may be a “democracy”, but there is nothing in the Constitution that prevents


dogma and ideology to foul up the works. Just as there is nothing there either to
prevent an Unjust Society.

One must fight with the tools one has. Most often, to take the offensive with the
media.

But it would help far far more if we incorporated in our Bill of Rights more of the
component of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On that comparison,
the US does not even come close.

And, since its inception in 1947, shrewd minds have always prevented its ratification
by the Senate. One has every right to ask why.

One might even ask why the UN Declaration is not even taught in schools. (Though I
have no way of verifying that, for America. I know it is the case in France.)

Report this

By ocjim, November 18 at 2:37 am Link to this comment

We don’t seem to learn from history, whatever the lesson it teaches us. Many
are guilty of a herd mentality, unwilling to think outside the box provided by vested
interests.

There was the Iraqi war which too many endorsed without much thought. There was
the fear mongering promoted by the Machiavellian Bush regime which even got the
miscreant elected after his appointment by the Supreme Court.

There was the incarceration of the Japanese during WWII. There is ridicule by the
right which tends to guide public opinion for too many non-thinkers.

Even early history saw a consensus on slavery or at least a long-festering racism.

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And way back in the John Adams Whitehouse the Alien and Sedition Act imprisoned
those without orthodox thinking.

Report this

By ardee, November 17 at 11:20 pm Link to this comment ardee's


avatar
“Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing mores is not to be
condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of
grave illness in our society.” Earl Warren

One of my earliest political memories is the televising of the Army McCarthy


hearings. Though I was rather young and did not understand the nuance I knew this
was something very important taking place…..

The witch hunts of McCarthy and HUAC unearthed those who were communists sans
real understanding of what that political system would become, idealists all. It made
prominent scum like Ronald Reagan who sold out his union and betrayed his fellow
union members.

Universities are made less utile by the sameness found within them. Only when the
mind is free to explore, instead of being narrowly channeled, can we become what we
should.

We live in interesting times…..

Report this

By Orbis Unum, November 17 at 7:18 pm Link to this comment Orbis


Unum's
Re: Lafayette, November 17 at 10:16 am. avatar

You state: OU: Ah the smell again, of the voluntary slavery of a


french-fry! No doubt enticing others into the putrefaction of being
smothered in greasy subjugation by sophistic simplicity and avoidance of any real
condiments of honor!

Goodness - what mindless, pedantic drivel for rebuttal.

I’ve put you on the SOB-list. (Scroll On By.)

It’s time to clear out the Augean Stables.

Response: For those not following slippery mollusks for rebuttals such as a little
french-fry crying over their own foreign trail of idiocracy, we humble would remind
others to review postings and/or referenced postings where such information is
provided by rebuttal or otherwise. Reason being, is that as most often prevalent among
the dishonorable, you may have difficulty locating what they reference, if one was
wanting to judge the matter for themselves.

This is due to the fact, that these pesky mollusks have an uncanny ability to leave out
posting date and times when presumably referencing comments or individuals. One
should always give dates, times, and names for others who are just skimming by until
something catches their eye so to speak, so as to help them know what the heck the
subject matter is or was related too!

And most generally, posters or otherwise, who act dishonorably as aforementioned,


have only their own gait to blame, when others pursuing, in the Science of Right
Reason, find them esculent sauteed.

Now to the matter at hand:

The extrapolated verbiage referenced by ‘Lafayette, November 17 at 10:16 am’ was


in response to Orbis Unum’s rebuttal of Lafayette’s response, November 16 at 5:25
pm. to JDmysticDJ’s response, November 16 at 4:11 pm. This informational linkage
allows others who desire further information, the necessary linkage to garner their
thoughts respective to any comments or rebuttals provided by others. The above
stated dates, times, and names, should give any reader, who wants to have any idea
what Lafayette is quoting.

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All this being said, if each poster herein, would only post the referenced informational
linkage as we do or similarly situated, so that others can more easily follow the train of
thoughts respect to comments, more easily. It would be very helpful for all
concerned.

To do otherwise, leads one to believe others are hiding something…because of the


absence of informational linkage to others. Or, others might believe the absence of
informational linkage in date, time, or name (not acronyms) has a tendency to foist
opinions on others as if their comments or opinions on the subject matter are of little
consequence!

In conclusion hereto, as far as any reference to the Augean Stables, we are more than
pleased to see one accepts humiliation of the deed claimed. Whether cognitive of
intelligent design, the morality of the act accomplished, serves are purpose. “Always
be ready to speak your mind and a base man will avoid you.” (William Blake, 1796)

My best to all who post herein, for the purpose of proposing hopeful enlightenment or
garnering enlightenment, while proffering Good Will in the interest of seeking
Universal Peace with All Walks of Life!!!

Report this

By shadrach, November 17 at 4:58 pm Link to this comment

I usually find Chris Hedges’ columns to be “on the mark”, but this one missed
by a mile.

Left-wing intellectuals weren’t “repressed” so much as they sold out.

The problem started in the ‘70s when former ‘60s college students started filling
academic positions at the universities they formerly trashed. By the 1980s, they were
comfortably ensconced as tenured, highly-compensated professors. It became
apparent to them that to truly challenge America’s ruling plutocracy would mean
taking on the very system which gave them such job security and high wages and
benefits. They (for the most part) punted.

In order to keep their leftist self-image intact, the politics of group grievance were
born. Better known as “political correctness,” it allowed the comfortable leftist
academics to SEEM TO push a leftist agenda without truly rocking the boat. By
playing the race and gender victim card, the academics could remain comfortable at
the institutions which tolerated, or even embraced such palaver (because it did not
challenge anything fundamental to the institution).

Meanwhile, the true basis of Marxism—class—was brushed under the rug. The
working class was abandoned, and in time the academics came to view the
(lower-paid, somewhat rough) lower classes with contempt and condescension.
Instead of aiding the lower classes, and enabling to fight the all-out assault on them by
the upper tier of neofeudalist plutocrats (who have waged all-out class war since the
1980s), the leftist academics tripped off into the politically-correct-race-and-gender-
victims brier-patch of irrelevance. This philosophy actually furthered the neofeudalist
aims: it separated the lower classes, keeping them divided, thus aiding the “class war
from above” even more.

The nice, comfy feminists, race-baiters, and other academic leftists will soon be
retiring in comfort, with guaranteed pensions and benefits until they depart this veil of
tears. The lower classes they abandoned will die miserably, reduced to neo-serfdom.
And the leftists won’t give a damn.

Report this

By Lafayette, November 17 at 11:03 am Link to this comment Lafayette's


avatar
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM

Fel: Marxism (unfortunately our only model is Stalinism) failed


and will fail because it does not take human behavior into
account.

Well put. It was doomed to failure.

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But, Marx was historically correct. He had seen that the autocracy of a central
government (in the form of an hereditary crown) was invested in the landed gentry by
means of an aristocracy (call it a Mafia, if you like). The landowners, in an
Agricultural Age, in turn controlled the Means of Production.

Fast-forward a hundred years skipping the 20th century. What have we in America? A
plutocracy that controls the Means of Finance (either directly with banks or indirectly
from the Boards of commercial and industrial companies).

It total, therefore, there are not more than about 2000, mostly men, who can
determine the economic destiny of this country—to the extent that they have both
houses of Congress in their back pocket. Therein lies the premise, however.

Is that really the case? Have they really corrupted Congress? Or, has a witless
population been manipulated to believe that:
* Unbridled Capitalism was the key factor that brought about the Good-Years of high
employment.
* That Free-Markets always “get it right”, meaning the right price (the least
expensive), complete market coverage (no cherry-picking of the most profitable
portions and to hell with the rest) and the benefits distributed amongst stakeholders
(primarily) and shareholders (secondarily).
* That Free-Markets and especially those of Finance are automatically
self-correcting—so nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong ...
* That Free-Enterprise with its megabuck Comp & Ben packages attracts only the
best and bravest, those with Excellence in Management as their Primary Guide for
ethical corporate behaviour.

The above is a litany of mind-numbing drivel in total disconnect with Factual


Economic Reality. It’s amazing how a people can believe so disingenuously the above
Conventional Wisdom.

POST SCRIPTUM: Conventional Wisdom is pap for the masses to assure that their
fleecing continues unabated.

Report this

By Lafayette, November 17 at 10:33 am Link to this comment Lafayette's


avatar
WITH AMAZING DOCILITY

RH: Isn’t the role played by McCarthy and HUAC the same as that
played by FOX, Beck and the like? It’s a self interested small
minded fear mongering shout down of human progess and aspiration.

Well put.

These activities are always the same reaction to a supposed defilement of the
Conventional Wisdom.

Of course, both McCarthy and HUAC we’re fallouts of the Second World
War—where many people thought that the Allies should (get the job done) and “take
Moscow”.

Fortunately, the Army Generals, with the exception of Patton, had read War History
and were familiar with the failure of Napoleon’s campaign in Russia. He did take
Moscow. (But to no avail. His Grand Army left Russia decimated ... mostly by a
Russian winter.)

Communism, as an economic philosophy, is gone and buried. But, neither have made
any attempt to correct its opposite reality—Unbridled Capitalism with its warped
Income Distribution channeling riches to the top of the societal pyramid.

With Communism, direct control was had by an autocracy and a rump legislature as
window-dressing. In Unbridled Capitalism indirect control is held by a plutocracy that
corrupts the legislature.

And the lambs are led to the shearing ... with amazing docility.

Report this

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By Lafayette, November 17 at 10:16 am Link to this comment Lafayette's


avatar
OU: Ah the smell again, of the voluntary slavery of a french-fry!
No doubt enticing others into the putrefaction of being smothered
in greasy subjugation by sophistic simplicity and avoidance of any
real condiments of honor!

Goodness - what mindless, pedantic drivel for rebuttal.

I’ve put you on the SOB-list. (Scroll On By.)

It’s time to clear out the Augean Stables.

Report this

By SteveL, November 17 at 6:32 am Link to this comment

Might as well start teaching kids creationism, how to find a good overpass to
sleep under, and the best dog or cat food to eat.

Report this

By Glen Wayne, November 17 at 3:13 am Link to this comment

Be A Pauper With a Pen empirePie

The corporate state will not abate


until we refuse to cooperate

Be a pauper with a pen


speak of now and speak of then

Abundance pleads for scarcity,


to bid up the sands of time;
the Malthus cherished myths of zero sum
the jungle rule of the non entity
the media “truth speak” for the masses
the driverless runaway truck
with think tank greased wheels is
Corporatocracy run amuck

You can’t buck the trend while sucking on the tit


so be a pauper with a pen

The corporate state will not abate


until we refuse to cooperate

Report this

By patriot10101, November 17 at 2:45 am Link to this comment

first of all:“democracy” as is in the USA; means fabricated ficton; and works


by “exploitation” which is a crime. Our forefathers plan was hijacked by jokers from
universities who set up “their plan” to rule the USA and then the world: judges were in
on it; and they made wanted men of those opposing it.
NOW: kleptocracy is the correct name for gov systems run for personal profit and
personal gain. So much clearer when the correct terms are used. Judges of course are
worthless piles of manure; the DAs in the “system” that as Dan Rather, talking to
college students recently admitted it is “not the will of the people” but a so much
“better way” to “run the world”.
Using the military might of a nations Gov for the interests of American businessmen
is fascism; seen in the overthrow first of Hawaii: and then in nation ad naseum; always
setting up abusive, oppressive dictators which they labeled themselves as such with
the establishment of Democratic dictatorship of China in 1949; which they annoucned
prior to the end of WW11, they were setting up THEIR PLAN for global dominon;
and would involve shifting of so called “power” to China; in reality, all nations are to

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be subservient to the USA: but since the media has manipulated the masses here since
1951, per Rockefeller, and the set up for a world ran by fascism and totaltarianism:
with “kleptocracy” and the “useless” judges who were in on it from the beginning.
Politics
media
top military
businesses
bankers
this is what every nation since early 1950’s by Rockefeller has been doing and
operating in; which is a system of manufacturing fiction and presenting it to us the
people as being true. Illegal, but what the heck: so is exploitation of us the people, for
“the greater good” always and ever of their own pocketbooks.
I do not believe the majority of Americans are lemmings, or like the followers of Jim
Jones, who hobnobbed with Pres and Congressmen (birds of a feather and all that).
All the AMA, landing on the moon, “cold war” all manufactured fiction; fed to us;
and we believed it knowing it was completely illegal for the media to mislead and
deceive us.
That stated: politicans need to be gone; we need to have men/women of wisdom: not
slick willies and tricky dickies; we need to get the food chain corrected; the bankers
and other corps who have intentionally harmed us; the overbilling corrected; pretty
simple; the American Indians have far greater insight and wisdom in the fact the
planet is spirit: in their little fingers than all the “phds” who try so hard to say “i’m
important” and feed us false information.
Because it runs: city, county, state and then Fed: in my area, new banks went in, new
businesses went in; new folks brought in from other states, giving new fancy cars to
“sell” alarm systems underbidding local companies that would go directly to the police
station; while other businesses went out; banks went unders; and banks would not give
$ to “certain” businesses; pretty clear cut: 2 lists; criminals and crooks: and the rest of
us who are theirs to overbill, harm, etc:
do not need to be a rocket scientist: need simply to engage one’s brain: which the
Good Lord gave us to use!
It is a criminally run system: like the USSR was; under the name “commumism”;
now: since the “judges” have declared that the “enhanced interrogation” which is
torture; was “ok”; and acceptable; one of them http://www.democracynow.org; british
detainee; 8/25 and English man was cut with a razor on his genitals.
Extremely pornographic for their viewing pleasure; which I would say: unacceptable
in all ways; however, it would certainly solve the problem of who is and who is not
involved in these matters in local areas.
Any time misinformation or fraud is used the contract is null and void. The gov is
criminal; everything they say is manufactured fiction.
Governing is basic: doing that which is most beneficial for the people.

Report this

By capt rick, November 16 at 11:30 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

i like the article and Chris until he starts typing his guests Resume.

Report this

By Tharms, November 16 at 11:21 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

And yet it is near impossible to find more than a handful of non-Leftwing


professors on the campuses of most major America universities today. Of course,
the problem is, they are not really liberals, they are unrepentant back-in-the-
closet Marxists and neocons, and consequently very friendly to the idea of control
dictated from Washington.

Report this

By REDHORSE, November 16 at 10:56 pm Link to this comment

Isn’t the role played by McCarthy and HUAC the same as that played by
FOX, Beck and the like? It’s a self interested small minded fear mongering shout
down of human progess and aspiration. They represent the Souldead. They murder

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“progress” in the name of “progress”. The current gunpoint lie is that “you have to
accept less freedom in order to be free”. Wasn’t that Stalin exactly? So called “free
market enterprise” is the last thing that will be allowed in America. That’s why the
“middle class” has to be destroyed. Jobs, community and small business are an open
threat to Corporate Fascism.

Not all, but many, knowingly violate the principals of human social morality.
That’s the definition of evil. None go untouched by the consequences. World
Consciousness has outstripped all the “isms”. Rote intellect isn’t Consciousness. There
is a difference between thought and language tied directly to human concern,
experience, need and emotion vs. opinion based vainglorious assumptive egomaniacal
megalomania. That’s the difference between T. Paine and Mr. G.Beck. We are hard
wired for human community, enterprise, family, love, touch and interaction. That’s the
life we’re losing. That’s the “voice” being lost when people must flee America to
remain free and our best minds are silenced.

Fear, terror alerts, staged news events, alienation, emotional/psychic damage,


police state checkpoints at every point of entry and departure. A Government stinking
of corruption. A “homeland” instead of a Country. A “patriot act” instead of a
Constitution.

You don’t have to lose anymore. But you’ll lose it all if you don’t stand, and they
intend to take it all.

Report this

By DavidByron, November 16 at 10:13 pm Link to this comment DavidByron's


avatar
ohmygodnotagain: “Stalin killed 30 million people, Mao an estimated 50
million, one third of the population of Cambodia”

The usual anti-communist dogma and historic revisionism. Not mentioned is that
although Hitler is on the History channel a lot he’s not ever on it as a capitalist who
specifically was an anti-communist, not is it often mentioned that the US backed Pol
Pot against communist Vietnam.

Report this

By DavidByron, November 16 at 9:57 pm Link to this comment DavidByron's


avatar
M L: “Dissent is the highest form of patriotisim”

It isn’t patriotism at all. Patriotism is collectivized prejudice against foreigners.

Report this

By DavidByron, November 16 at 9:56 pm Link to this comment DavidByron's


avatar
D M: “Dissent is the highest form of patriotisim”

It isn’t patriotism at all. Patriotism is collectivized prejudice against foreigners.

Report this

By Robert, November 16 at 9:56 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

At Spev Dvinko;
That was hilarious. I felt the need as you did but
didn’t have the time and don’t think i could’ve done
it better than your rant on orbis unum. I too went to
his website put together possibly using the 1st
version of PowerPoint and laughed but not as hard as
i did reading your post. Thanks.
And orbis; Your 2nd Freedom statement is a waste of
time. Just combine it with the 1st since religion is
nothing more than an expression of people’s beliefs.

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If there is absolute Freedom of expression then it


follows that religion will also be protected it being
an expression of what people believe is holy.
Your 3rd Freedom of Want is weak since having
“economic comprehensive standing” or money, to put it
in a non-douche way, doesn’t guarantee having a
“healthy peacetime life”. Your heart is in the right
place though and i applaud you for it-seriously.

Report this

By DavidByron, November 16 at 9:48 pm Link to this comment DavidByron's


avatar
Eurasia2012: “The implication here is that all “worthwhile” dissent comes
from the left”

That implication is correct.

Report this

By DavidByron, November 16 at 9:37 pm Link to this comment DavidByron's


avatar
This is an odd piece. Just the other day I was criticising Hedges for his
anti-communist pandering while he went on about why can’t liberals be
more like those “radicals” of the 1930s.

Hedges avoided the “C” word.

There are few signs of anti-communism in this piece. Perhaps here:

“And he believes that the loss of his voice and the voices of thousands like him, many
of whom were never members of the Communist Party…”

There seems to be a tint of “HEY, some of those people weren’t even GUILTY of
being commies!” as if that makes it all the worse.

I would like some clarity about this. Is Hedges saying communism is good here? He
never says it like that. Just points to the purge as the root of the current failures.

Report this

By gerard, November 16 at 9:36 pm Link to this comment

I hesitate to add one more word to this more or less aimless verbiage. But :
Listening to the interview on another TD site with Chris Hedges, I note that, again
without any suggestions or directions—only analysis and prognosis—Chris leaves us
with a faint avowal of “hope”. When asked, he avows that he “has hope.”
Hope of what? A man on a white horse? Or a spontaneous combustion of rage in the
streets, inviting the restless counter-resentment of “law and order”?
It’s as if there never have been any movements that changed policies. Never any
movements that succeeded, Never any movements that were sustained by practical
planning and accurate judgments.
We are not taught about these movements in school.
We don’t learn about them while we are busy “making a living.”
Truthdig, where are the articles about such movements and the people who organized
them—the problems they faced and dealt with, and how did they deal, what mistakes
did they make and learn from, where did they get the “hope” that sustained them?
We need to know this history and I don’t know anywhere else more appropriate,
since here on TD we see so much verbal evidence of frustration and rage, plus a viral
cynicism that militates against appropriate responses to the current situation..

Report this

By Orbis Unum, November 16 at 9:11 pm Link to this comment Orbis


Unum's
Re: thebeerdoctor, November 16 at 8:03 pm. avatar

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You state: “Lafayette’s posting on the dumbing down of America, Orbis


reminded me once again, how tragic it is to see people flummoxed by Unum's
the fact that we live in a very complicated world and long to return to
some romantic perception of the past that never actually existed.”

Response: Without a doubt, ‘thebeerdoctor’ states the premise we’ve stated


continuously.

In support of our continuing effort to determine those willing to test all things, and,
may choose to avail themselves of the facts we present, if they have any reasonable
and honorable desire to know the truth, to accept the challenge to prove our premises
wrong, by reading the “4” declarations posted by the SEA at the web link:
http://www.scribd.com/rahyah.

We honorably await any evidence to prove the premises presented in-particular to the
established facts raised within the Universal Declaration dealing with the Four
Freedoms on pages 13-15 to prove otherwise.

Having said all this, I will be constantly vigilant, awaiting evidenced, line for line,
contrary to the documentary evidence we have proffered!

My best to all who post herein, for the purpose of proposing hopeful enlightenment or
garnering enlightenment, while proffering Good Will in the interest of seeking
Universal Peace with All Walks of Life!!!

Report this

By felicity, November 16 at 8:31 pm Link to this comment

I think it was Soros who said that only imbeciles and


tenured professors of economics believe in the
conscience of markets. Probably going back to
Reagan, the people manipulating them (contrary to
popular belief they’re not perpetual motion machines)
have displayed a marked degree of cowardice, greed
and stupidity.

Marxism (unfortunately our only model is Stalinism)


failed and will fail because it does not take human
behavior into account. Capitalism (unfortunately
never practiced if practicing it means the Adam Smith
model) has failed and will fail for the same reason -
it does not take human behavior into account.

It’s really time to throw out both, what have become,


the mythologies and devise an economic system that
does take human behavior into account.

Report this

By GW=MCHammered, November 16 at 8:13 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

Ted Koppel: Olbermann, O’Reilly and the Death of Real News

“The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan
sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television
viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not
good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national
entitlement.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11
/12/AR2010111202857.html

Report this

By JDmysticDJ, November 16 at 8:12 pm Link to this comment JDmysticDJ's


avatar
By moonraven, November 15 at 10:52 pm Link to this comment

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“Mystic Pizza: You are missing the boat. JDmysticDJ's


avatar
The problem with you folks is not that someone or some system
suppresses thought—the problem is that self-censorship is the culprit.

99% of folks started out with that self-censorship wanting to conform to the grade
school/junior high norms and be “popular”.

Not thinking critically and expressing dissent—otherwise known as ORIGINAL


THOUGHTS—simply became a habit.

And you still are not “popular”.”

————————————————————————-

You presume too much without the analytical skills or knowledge necessary to make a
presumption.

I could embark on a self aggrandizing accounting of my many illustrious careers


including: My popularity as a “Rebel Without a Cause” (Tom Petty has nothing on
me,) my working class hero period, I was an inspiring anti-war protestor, I was a
somewhat popular as a singer guitarist, I was so popular in College that the Dean put
me on his list, my middle management martyrdom, back to being a working class hero.
I could go on, but modesty prevents me. I’m not that vain… well maybe…

Never mind, the point is I do not dispute, take exception to, or much care about
perceived popularity of “Us folks”. I’m happy here in my little cocoon, (But I do
enjoy congenial, lighthearted, personal interaction in my personal life.)

Sticks and stones may break my bones, and make me an unpopular old broken boned
guy, but names…? Your tongue is lethal; you have cut me to the quick.

Personally, I think you’re a dumb dumb, doo doo head, pizza face.

(Oh Yeah, I used to ride the ferry, and I never missed the boat, not one time.)

Report this

By thebeerdoctor, November 16 at 8:03 pm Link to this comment thebeerdoctor's


avatar
Lafayette’s posting on the dumbing down of America, reminded me
once again, how tragic it is to see people flummoxed by the fact that
we live in a very complicated world and long to return to some
romantic perception of the past that never actually existed.
What is even more strange is that many of these champions for the pro Big Business
climate seem blissfully unaware of how the rackets created by Wall Street and Big
Banking (with the duly noted assistance of a well-oiled Federal Government) actually
complicates matters worse. Would someone ask the Governor of Alaska who quit,
Sarah Palin, what exactly IS a credit default swap?
Educated intelligence is no longer required to seek public office, not even for
President of the United States.

Report this

By Anarcissie, November 16 at 7:41 pm Link to this comment Anarcissie's


avatar
Inherit The Wind, November 15 at 10:05 pm:

Nobody bothers to question Hedges’s basic assertion: That


American universities have been purged of Marxist thought.
...’

I think his general idea is that they were purged of radical thought. You can fit
latter-day Marxism into a contemporary academic syllabus as a form of literary
criticism were it is indulged as a sort of yap-dog. However, I do know of a few
radicals who have been kicked out of the groves of Academe simply for being radical
in some way—for example, David Graeber who was effectively fired by Yale for,
basically, being an anarchist, an activist anarchist. (He helped organize
demonstrations.)

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Hedges also has a basic assumption underlying the significance of the purging of
academia, and that is that the academic system controls our intellectual life. It may
have at one time, and it still does for those who permit it to. But its use as a thought
filter is in decline due to the many alternatives which now exist for the publication and
exchange of information. American anti-intellectualism is a tradition going back to
the class wars of the 18th and 19th centuries (see Hofstadter), but it’s a tradition
which is becoming increasingly less relevant, delicious as supposed persecution is to
the self-consciously intellectual.

Report this

By Orbis Unum, November 16 at 6:34 pm Link to this comment Orbis


Unum's
Re: REDHORSE, November 16 at 6:24 pm. avatar

You state: “Sleep now, and forever sleep.”

Response: REDHORSE’s commentary is stated well concerning the apathy of people


in the above referenced posting. I agree with every one of premises presented. But I
myself, will not go into that long, cold, and dark night of sleep as alleged, without
attempting to Stand with honor alongside our Ancestors of happy memory, who gave
us the steppingstones of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to preserver those
precious unalienable birthrights to which the Law’s of Nature and Nature’s Creator
have entitled us.

In support of our continuing effort to determine those willing to test all things, and,
may choose to avail themselves of the facts we present, if they have any reasonable
and honorable desire to know the truth, to accept the challenge to prove our premises
wrong, by reading the “4” declarations posted by the SEA at the web link:
http://www.scribd.com/rahyah.

We honorably await any evidence to prove the premises presented in-particular to the
established facts raised within the Universal Declaration dealing with the Four
Freedoms on pages 13-15 to prove otherwise.

Having said all this, I will be constantly vigilant, awaiting evidenced, line for line,
contrary to the documentary evidence we have proffered!

My best to all who post herein, for the purpose of proposing hopeful enlightenment or
garnering enlightenment, while proffering Good Will in the interest of seeking
Universal Peace with All Walks of Life!!!

Report this

By Arraya, November 16 at 6:30 pm Link to this comment Arraya's


avatar
Lafayette

you are conflating an incentive system with the science and


technology that
arouse around it and was, in part, pushed by it. The problem is this incentive
system has a tremendous amount negative by products as well as a bunch on
nonsensical cultural dogma that goes with it. As well as an unnecessary
exploitative and predatory component that leads things like war, perverse
social stratification and a disregard for the environment that are inherent in the
system. And lastly, and inherent disrespect and complete disconnect from our
natural world. The natural world coupled with scientific knowledge and
application of said knowledge give us out standard of living. NOT the incentive
system itself

Nature, scientific knowledge and the cultural application of that knowledge.

” Since also the energy-cost of maintaining a human being exceeds by a large


amount his ability to repay, we can abandon the fiction that what one is to
receive is in payment for what one has done, and recognize that what we are
really doing is utilizing the bounty that nature has provided us.”

M King Hubbert

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By REDHORSE, November 16 at 6:24 pm Link to this comment

In the same way that a computer isn’t a human brain and intellect isn’t
heart/soul, ideological Capitalism/Socialism/Communism isn’t actual living Human
Social Moral Values. Hedges article points to the consequence of Intellectual Political
Thought taking action on what Human Moral Values (Heart/Soul/Blood/Bone) tell it is
true. It isn’t “money” or “ideology” that forms the committee and pulls the trigger.
Insane individuals possessed by avaricious immoral greed seize and manipulate social
ideology for their own ends and call themselves “patriots” to maintain power and
justify the slaughter and oppression of the weak and voiceless, but human tyranny and
social ideology are two separate realities.

The endless discussion of the symptoms of Social Moral bankruptcy in Washington


and the resultant disintegration of the Nation without individual citizen action is
servile intellectual self-soothing. Social moral indifference and a delusional sense of
personal entitlement that tells one their “specialness” will save them from the abyss
swallowing fellow citizens is the anesthesia that allows tyrants to pull the Tigers teeth
one by one.

If those living principals of human rights, dignity, life, liberty, freedom and
happiness and the tools to preserve them created by our now much maligned and
revisioned founders and outrage at their violation can be so easily buried and put at
ease by intellectual rationalization “We the people—” deserve the coming barbarity. It
is a disease of the Soul itself and the next half Century will provide the cure.

Sleep now, and forever sleep.

Report this

By Orbis Unum, November 16 at 6:22 pm Link to this comment Orbis


Unum's
Re: Lafayette, November 16 at 5:25 pm. avatar

You state: “Does that make the effort to bring about more fairness in
Income Distribution? By artfully increasing, not decreasing, taxes and
spending the revenue on Public Services?

Methinks it does. “

Response: Ah the smell again, of the voluntary slavery of a french-fry! No doubt


enticing others into the putrefaction of being smothered in greasy subjugation by
sophistic simplicity and avoidance of any real condiments of honor!

But what the heck, this columnist’s article shows no difference in character either.
Unless he wishes to take up the mantle of honor by accepting to prove our premises
wrong. Unlike a little french-fry shivering from the cold, dank, and dark loneliness of
depravity and enslavement. Just waiting for the first fat oligarchic fingers to suck the
last remaining drops of fear, from whatever essence remains of the day to prove
otherwise, for those who freely choose to be without honor!

Let us make this perfectly clear, no one has the morale right to take (steal) one’s
livelihood garnered from labor in exchange thereof, via schemes of redistribution.
Especially, when such people are disenfranchised to direct the outcome of
expenditures (i.e., Public Debt). Whether for Public Services or otherwise.

Individuals, singularly or collectively, find it hard to face their duty upon the
Watchtower of self-determination in support of self-evident principles, ‘that all men
are by nature are equally free and independent, and have certain unalienable rights, of
which, when they enter into a State of Society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive
or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of
acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.’
But the responsibility of our present and future generations doesn’t change just
because the truth is hard to face, e,g., their out to steal your livelihood, whether life,
liberty or property, for redistribution simply because you allow the theft!

But there is a solution for those who wish to step aside so to speak, concerning the
ongoing debauchery evincing total subjugation of All Walks of Life via Creating
Standing within the geopolitical framework of International Conventions.

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This is the last bastion of the presumed Rule of Law left to reasonable people
exercising the Science of Right Reason.

In support of the aforementioned, one only has to avail themselves of these facts by
reading the “4” declarations posted by the SEA at the web link:
http://www.scribd.com/rahyah.

We honorably await any actual and provable evidence to prove the premises
presented in-particular to the established facts raised with the declaration dealing with
the Four Freedoms on pages 13-15 to prove otherwise. Not by generalities but Line
for Line.

And once again, as our humble attempt for those capable of presenting facts line for
line, in the light of reasonable propositions or otherwise, just as a reminder for all
those who honorably exchange ideas within the ‘Truthdig Forum’ while refraining
from hateful or insolent behavior…always remember, sometimes while exchanging
ideas, the time and respect we give, from a deep seated desire to foster harmonious
behavior to garner enlightenment, can be met on the road of hopeful enlightenment,
by those seeking to discourage, rather than exhorting to greater possibilities.

My best to all who post herein, for the purpose of proposing hopeful enlightenment or
garnering enlightenment, while proffering Good Will in the interest of seeking
Universal Peace with All Walks of Life!

Report this

By basho, November 16 at 6:19 pm Link to this comment basho's


avatar
orbis unum:

“Response: In respect to whether there exists any conflicts with the


S.E.A./ goals, I must emphatically state otherwise. And, absolutely NO!”

we seem to have different definitions of

“freedom of Speech and expression—universally.”

No Response Required.

Report this

By Mark A. Goldman, November 16 at 5:30 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

Hedges is always brilliant. So I find it a little humorous when he talks about “radical”
ideas and/or speech when, in fact, what the ideas he is calling radical are really
nothing more than common sense… or what common sense should be. It is now
radical for anyone to suggest that honesty really is the best policy, or that politicians,
government officials, and corporations really ought to tell the truth and be held to
account when they don’t. How can citizens make appropriate decisions when they
don’t have accurate information or don’t have the tools to think critically or if they
don’t have a certain reverence or respect for intellectual integrity. Now that it has
become radical to advocate for simple decency, intellectual integrity, and honorable
discourse…. well, yes, I agree with Hedges and others… we really should allow
radical thinking to enter the marketplace of ideas. It would help a lot.

Report this

By Lafayette, November 16 at 5:25 pm Link to this comment Lafayette's


avatar
ONE HELLUVA LOT OF GOODNESS

JDm: What has Capitalism wrought? Trace it back to the Middle


Ages.

Yes, precisely. Trace it back. But do understand what life was like then—when
average life-spans were 40/50 years. Where famine was common and the pest could
decimate whole towns and regions in a period of months.

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Life was indeed highly precarious and not the least bit comparable to that of today.

And what has capitalist affluence brought us? One whole helluva lot of goodness and
some badness—including in the latter unspeakable Income Unfairness.

So, will more affluence be better? Not for most earning above the average American
household income, which is today at about $67K. How many families would be below
that mean income?

Have a look at Household Income in increments of $10K. Simple addition of the


percentages show that around 60% of American families are earning below the
national average.

Does that make the effort to bring about more fairness in Income Distribution? By
artfully increasing, not decreasing, taxes and spending the revenue on Public Services?

Methinks it does.

Report this

By Orbis Unum, November 16 at 4:39 pm Link to this comment Orbis


Unum's
Re: basho, November 16 at 10:33 am. avatar

You state: ““He presumes, that in the U.S., social Role Models (i.e.,
educators) have no responsibility to the hand that feeds them. And so,
defends arbitrary behavior by those he or others term radicals, as permissible
behavior. Not so! “

S.E.A. The 4 freedoms

“The first is the freedom of Speech and expression—universally.”

seems to me that you are in conflict with S.E.A.‘s stated goals.

care to comment?”

Response: In respect to whether there exists any conflicts with the S.E.A./ goals, I
must emphatically state otherwise. And, absolutely NO!

The statements posted by myself (Orbis Unum, November 16 at 1:31 am) that have
been brought into question, where made to expose and show once again the true
nature of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in a system where individuals not
so unlike Chris Hedge’s and his claim that “The Origin of America’s Intellectual
Vacuum,” was due to reasons unrelated to Hedge’s claims and existed long before
such altercations as he sights. And for these reasons and those reasons alone, do we
expose academia’s role model in indoctrinating your children from womb to tomb.
Why should academia who is guilty of ongoing fraud against the innocent minds of
your children, claim any right to stand against a system designed to foster enslavement
for which they were given recompense to accomplish? What, do you mean to tell me
that any professor attaining his professorship, was unaware of such programming and
him/herself blinded. Or where they just going along to get along to their own demise as
well. Time tells all doesn’t it?

Furthermore, having said this, many liked-minded individuals have approached the
dilemma of present day political misdirection by restating the self-evident principles.
And, like history has proven over and over again, Men of Good Will must unite and
pledged themselves in support thereof, if to halt such misrepresentations foisted upon
the unsuspecting from womb to tomb; having been perpetrated against All Walks of
Life universally by every geopolitical framework of government, which has existed
historically and which remains firmly entrenched today by such programmable social
deceptions.

The ongoing evidence presently speaking, was documented very succinctly in a film
entitled, “Indoctrinate U, a 2007 American feature-length documentary film written
by, directed by and starring Evan Coyne Maloney, on ideological conformism and
political correctness in American higher education. Among other things, the film
examines the use of institutional mechanisms such as speech codes, which are used to
punish students who express political views that are unpopular within academia.”

“The documentary combines relatively shocking footage (one professor excitedly tells
the camera “whiteness is a form of racial oppression . . . treason to whiteness is

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loyalty to humanity”) with snappy editing to create a documentary that bounces


quickly from subject to subject.”

Examples of “intellectual thuggery” in the film are nothing more than “the tip of a
disgusting iceberg”, laments Walter E. Williams, noting that “Several university
officials refused to be interviewed for the documentary. They wanted to keep their
campus policies under wraps, not only from reporters but parents as well.”

In support of the aforementioned, one only has to avail themselves of these facts by
reading the “4” declarations posted by the SEA at the web link:
http://www.scribd.com/rahyah.

We honorably await any evidence to prove the premises presented in-particular to the
established facts raised within the Universal Declaration dealing with the Four
Freedoms on pages 13-15 to prove otherwise.

My best to all who post herein, for the purpose of proposing hopeful enlightenment or
garnering enlightenment, while proffering Good Will in the interest of seeking
Universal Peace with All Walks of Life!!!

Report this

By JDmysticDJ, November 16 at 4:11 pm Link to this comment JDmysticDJ's


avatar
Lafayette

What has Capitalism wrought? Trace it back to the Middle Ages.

You are a rational fetterer, so I personally agree with much of what you have been
saying; any disagreement would probably concern the amount of fettering necessary.

The argument is that mankind could not have progressed without Capitalism, but that
can only be conjecture.

We’re comparing rotten apples to rotten oranges.

Report this

By Lafayette, November 16 at 1:16 pm Link to this comment Lafayette's


avatar
THE DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA

What I refer to as “The Year Of The Dingbat” may soon become


the prevailing “wisdom” for decades.

Then you are unaware of the Know Nothing Party that erupted upon the political
scene between 1840 and 1850. What was its legacy?

Not much that survived the test of time ... from the linked WikiP article:

The nativist spirit of the Know Nothing movement was revived in later
political movements, such as the Ku Klux Klan and the American
Protective Association, according to William Safire. George Wallace’s
1968 presidential campaign was said by Time to be under the “neo-Know
Nothing banner”. Editor Fareed Zakaria has said that politicians who
“enouraged Americans to fear foreigners” were becoming “modern
incarnations of the Know-Nothings”.

It was the conflict amongst Americans over immigration that spawned the
Know-Nothing Party, which is only one element of the present alteration of mindset in
America.

Let us not forget that Lead-head was elected not once but twice. So, there is a strong-
willed element within the public at large that remains comfortable with its
conservative (read “boiler-plate”) beliefs.

Belief is an intrinsic right. Even when your belief contradicts either historic or
scientific (and often both) facts. Psychologically, it happens in not too well educated
people, or people with a highly focused education, and who were not sufficiently
challenged to think outside the box.

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Thinking outside the box is a challenge to Conventional Wisdom—which, when done,


invites opprobrium. That is the reaction of many who simply do not want comfortably
cherished beliefs to be questioned. It upsets the tidy lives that they inhabit.

What’s a country to do? Enhance its Experiential Education, the kind that gets people
to look beyond the confines of the three-mile territorial limit of US borders. Moreover,
a lot of the informational input-overload is coming from trash sources. Those must be
combated with modern techniques for disseminating unbiased, verifiable, factual
information.

The process is long and slow. But, I submit, there is no other way in a Supposedly
Tolerant Democracy.

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By thebeerdoctor, November 16 at 11:44 am Link to this comment thebeerdoctor's


avatar
Lamenting the marginalization of academics who dared to question
authority is an old and often retold story. Much more to the point is a
recent Matt Taibbi piece in Rolling Stone, in which he points out that
stuff like the tea party, represent a focal point for the rising
anti-intellectualism in the United States, in which even scientific facts are denied if
they do not conform to their chosen emotional boiler plate set of values. What I refer
to as “The Year Of The Dingbat” may soon become the prevailing “wisdom” for
decades.
True dingbats, such as Sarah Palin have become such a lucrative media package, that
the entire television industry goes along with the joke. The Governor of Alaska who
abandoned her job for the more patriotic duty of making much more money, was once
asked which magazines she reads. “Oh all of them,” was her chirpy reply.
The rapidity at which the dingbat way has been adopted by television as mainstream,
is a sight to behold. Classic dingbats such as the ever so Reverend Pat Robertson who
always warned against “godless secular humanism”, were once found at that
electronic dingbat ghetto known as The 700 Club. Now, that so-called vision of living,
has become just another viewpoint to be accepted or rejected, according to your own
emotional take on marketplace reality, no matter how fraudulent that opinion maybe.
In such a universe, a curious scientific mind like Charles Darwin, is seen as not only
wrong but evil.
The other thing about Chris Hedges radical liberalism is that he forgets to mention the
radical purge instituted by FDR and Hollywood when Upton Sinclair attempted to
become Governor of California. The liberal establishment joined forces with
conservatives to denounce Sinclair, an avowed socialist, as a crackpot red. And it
worked. The ever so holy Aimee Semple McPherson denounced Mr. Sinclair’s
“modernism”. A defender of William Jennings Bryant at the Scopes Monkey trial,
Sister Aimee considered the scientific theory of evolution as “the greatest triumph of
Satanic intelligence in 5,931 years of devilish warfare against the Hosts of Heaven.”
And Hay Sues said: You will always have the dingbat amongst you.
Amen to that.

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By C.Curtis.Dillon, November 16 at 11:09 am Link to this comment

Lafayette ... you’re wrong. Nowhere did I say socialism was the answer for
our problems. I just said that this contrived connection between Communism and
Socialism was false. I’m not sure what is the best form of government but can say
with conviction it isn’t capitalism as practiced in America. Anything beyond that is a
serious stretch on your part.

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By basho, November 16 at 10:33 am Link to this comment basho's


avatar
Orbis Unum:

“He presumes, that in the U.S., social Role Models (i.e., educators) have
no responsibility to the hand that feeds them. And so, defends arbitrary
behavior by those he or others term radicals, as permissible behavior. Not so! “

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S.E.A. The 4 freedoms

“The first is the freedom of Speech and expression—universally.”

seems to me that you are in conflict with S.E.A.‘s stated goals.

care to comment?

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By Lafayette, November 16 at 10:31 am Link to this comment Lafayette's


avatar
THE CAPITALIST CASH COW

CCD: Neither of these countries came close to the ideas laid out
by Marx or the ‘socialist’ model.

And from there, it is a just a hop, skip and a jump to “Socialism is what we need in
America!”?

Well, I beg to differ, having lived in a country (France) with a heavy Socialist
influence during its recent past three decades—and trying desperately to recover from
it.

Modern Social Democrat theory, IMHO, is much simpler than any kind that presumes
that the state can cure all ills. Because history indicates that state control of all
economic sectors creates more ills than it cures.

Or, more precisely, Exacting centralized macro- and micro-economic planning and
control is for supercilious fools with a ginormous computer. It won’t work ... humans
are not robots.

Quite simply, the Third Way (Centrism) states:

Leave the Capitalist Cash Cow alone, because it works. Learn, however,
to better distribute its produce to obtain better Income Fairness and thusly
a more Just Society.

Capitalism was not invented in the 19th century on Wall Street. Some trace it back at
least to the Middle Ages. Regardless, it is the economic system that best suits human
beings—if we learn how to tweak it and make the distribution of its fruits more
equitable.

And what does that mean?

It means higher taxation on upper incomes and spending upon Public Services of large
utility to the general public. And that means one helluva lot more than just Homeland
Security and DoD! Some examples:
* A National Health Care system that costs half as much as the present, but offers
state-of-the-art Preventive and Remedial care. Not possible? Come to France, I’ll
show you one.
* An Educational System that instills the discipline/functionality necessary to graduate
students from Secondary level into Tertiary Level, such that they come away with
skills that will allow them decent lives for themselves and their families. Moreover, it
does so with the fewest possible barriers to that progression, meaning cost.

Is the above asking too much of an economy or a government? Apparently, Yes! - in


today’s America.

POST SCRIPTUM

Marx once made the statement that Socialism will not have succeeded until it did so in
the US. He was wrong. The truth, I submit, is somewhere between the two extremes of
Unfettered Capitalism and Centralized Economic Planning/Control. Which is the basic
premise of Centrism .

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By Lafayette, November 16 at 9:54 am Link to this comment Lafayette's


avatar
THE AFFLUENT SOCIETY

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OU: The thing is new, so I must try to define it, since I cannot Lafayette's
name it accepting the face which it resembles…oblivion. avatar
Try using the word these three words:
* “hedonism” -> the pursuit of pleasure or sensual self-indulgence.
* “consumerism” -> the preoccupation of society with the acquisition of goods.
* “affluence” -> abundance of money, property, and other material goods.

Thorstein Veblen was an early American economist of the institutional economics


school (of thought), who wrote Theory of the Leisure Class in 1899. He first coined
the phrase Conspicuous Consumption, that is the objective of accumulating “things”
in order to achieve a certain social status.

It’s worth reading, unless one is a gadfly in the matter of economics. Institutional
economics focuses on understanding the role of the evolutionary process and that of
institutions in shaping economic behaviour. (Institutions means entities like
government, industrial or commercial enterprise, churches, social clubs, organizations,
etc.)

John Kenneth Galbraith, a renowned professor of economics at Harvard University


also wrote The Affluent Society (1958), which explains the influence upon our
“pursuit of happiness” at moments of too much prosperity. Which, I submit, can
change moral compass headings.

[Too much prosperity? Yes, it happens and is a destructive force. Just look at the
Roman Empire.]

“It’s a herd-instinct thing”, one hears/reads. If anyone thought we, as higher-level


mammals, distinguished ourselves by means of superior intellect; then they need their
intellectual horizon broadened. We share very similar behavioural traits with our
genetic forebears.

The great influence of these economists is that they were not bound hand and foot in
mathematical economic mechanisms. So, they could talk/write about the nature of
economics and mankind, without spouting continuously about GDP, M1, M2,
Quantitative Easing, etc., etc., etc. - which is of little interest to anyone but them.

NOTA BENE

JK’s son Jamie teaches economics at the University of Texas and is keeping with the
social democrat tradition (my interpretation, not his) of his father.

A FINAL WORD OF CAUTION

In its bent for mathematical modeling, modern economics has lost its focus on the
individual consumer and the psychological factors that induce us as economic agents
(aka consumers, income earners, heads of families, morally responsible individuals,
etc.)

They (Galbraith and Veblen) made economics more personal and therefore more
understandable. Economists should get back to that heading. They’ve been blown
off-track.

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By C.Curtis.Dillon, November 16 at 9:19 am Link to this comment

I’m sorry guys but I have to jump into this once again. I have a much closer
relationship with the ills of Communism than any of you, having lived in Ukraine for
the last 5 years. We often have discussions about the former Soviet state and what
was good and bad about it. I can tell you that the history of the Soviet Union, as told
to the typical American school child or adult, is blatantly false ... a lie. And,
unfortunately, the connection between Marxism and Communism is also false. In
1917, the Bolsheviks overthrew the then existing government that had deposed the
Tsar. Lenin and Trotsky had the idea of a people’s congress, populated by
representatives of various labor federations and the military. They actually set one up
in St. Petersburg after the revolution. The Politburo and General Party Secretary were
intended to carry out the dictates of the People’s Congress. However, in 1924, Lenin
died and Stalin took over. He reversed everything, taking all power to the General
Secretary and making the Politburo the organ for enforcing his dictates. The People’s
Congress became a rubber stamp for his orders. Any connection with a worker’s state

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and Marxism disintegrated when Stalin took control. He was a sociopath and feared
that his rivals would overthrow him so he set about killing anyone who might rise up in
opposition. His favorite henchman ... Khrushchev. I’ve been told that Stalin actually
asked Nikita to stop making enemy lists because all the government bureaucrats were
being killed and there was no one left to run the place!

The same thing happened with Mao. He was a revolutionary but got crazy over time
(I’m told he died of Syphilis which may have caused his insanity). Like Stalin he
began to purge his enemies and that was taken to an extreme by his wife and the gang
of 4. The Communist party of today is anything but representative of the people’s
will. It is a closed club protecting the most powerful and corrupt of the party from
outside threats.

Neither of these countries came close to the ideas laid out by Marx or the ‘socialist’
model. Anyone who equates socialism with Communism as practiced around the
world is demented.

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By Orbis Unum, November 16 at 8:46 am Link to this comment Orbis


Unum's
Re: Spev Dvinko, November 16 at 7:33 am. avatar

You state: “@pedanticmeatloaf, thank you. It was a fit of pique. I


feel better now.

Or should I say, We feel much dissipation of our indignatious conflammation.”

Response: When I think about the petty passions of the men of our times, about the
softness of their mores, about the extent of their enlightenment, about the mildness of
their morality, about their painstaking and steady habits, about the restraint they
nearly all maintain in vice as in virtue, I am not afraid they will find in their leaders
tyrants, but rather tutors.

So I think that the type of oppression which these democratic people’s are threatened
will resemble nothing of what preceded it in the world; our contemporaries cannot
find the image of it in their memories. I seek in vain myself for an expression that
exactly reproduces the idea that I am forming of it and includes it; the old words of
despotism and of tyranny do not work. The thing is new, so I must try to define it,
since I cannot name it accepting the face which it resembles…oblivion.

I want to imagine under what new features despotism could present itself to the world;
I see an innumerable crowd of similar and equal men who spin around restlessly, in
order to gain small and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. Each one of
them, withdrawn apart, is like a stranger to the destiny of all the others; his children
and his particular friends form for him the entire human species; as for the remainder
of his fellow citizens, he is next to them, but he does not see them; he touches them
without feeling them; he exists only in himself and for himself alone, and if he still has
a family, you can say that at least he no longer has a country.

Above those men arises an immense and tutelary power that alone takes charge of
assuring their enjoyment and of looking after their fate. It is absolute, detailed, regular,
far-sighted and mild. It would resemble paternal power if, like it, it had as a goal to
prepare men for manhood; but on the contrary it seeks only to fix them irrevocably in
childhood; it likes the citizens to enjoy themselves, provided that they think only
about enjoying themselves. It works willingly for their happiness; but it wants to be
the unique agent for it and the sole arbiter; it attends to their security, provides for
their needs, facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principal affairs, directs their
industry, settles their estates, divides their inheritances; how can it not remove entirely
from them the trouble to think and the difficulty of living?

This is how it makes the use of free will less useful and rarer every day; how it
encloses the action of the will within a smaller space and little by little steals from
each even the use of himself. Equality has prepared men for all these things; it has
disposed men to bear them often, even to regard them as benefits.

After thus taken each individual one by one into its powerful hands, and having
molded him as it pleases, the sovereign power extends its arms over the entire society;
it covers the surface of society in a network of small, complicated, minute, and
uniform rules, which the most original minds and most vigorous souls cannot break
through to go beyond the crowd; it does not break wills, but it softens them, bends

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them and directs them; it rarely forces action, but it constantly opposes your acting; it
does not destroy, it prevents birth; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, it represses, it
enervates, it extinguishes, it stupefies, and finally it reduces each to being nothing
more than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the
shepherd.

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By Spev Dvinko, November 16 at 7:33 am Link to this comment

@pedanticmeatloaf, thank you. It was a fit of pique. I feel better now.

Or should I say, We feel much dissipation of our indignatious conflammation.

Report this

By Orbis Unum, November 16 at 6:43 am Link to this comment Orbis


Unum's
Re: Spev Dvinko, November 16 at 5:22 am. avatar

You state: “What?”

Response Exactly!

That a people should be so valorous and courageous to win their liberty in the field,
and when they have won it, should be so heartless and unwise in their counsels, as not
to know how to use it, value it, what to do with it, or with themselves; but after so
many years’ prosperous war and contestation with tyranny, basely and besottedly to
run their necks again into the yoke which they have broken, and prostrate all the fruits
of their victory for nought at the feet of the vanquished…”

And furthermore, to pursue the pettifoggery by attorns, as to surrender that which is


most precious…their own children once more into the fire of despair, to give into
tyranny the issues of their loins to foster their own slavery!

In support of our continuing effort to determine those willing to test all things, and,
may choose to avail themselves of the facts we present, if they have any reasonable
and honorable desire to know the truth, to accept the challenge to prove our premises
wrong, by reading the “4” declarations posted by the SEA at the web link:
http://www.scribd.com/rahyah.

We honorably await any evidence to prove the premises presented in-particular to the
established facts raised within the Universal Declaration dealing with the Four
Freedoms on pages 13-15 to prove otherwise.

Having said all this, I will be constantly vigilant, awaiting evidenced, line for line,
contrary to the documentary evidence we have proffered!

My best to all who post herein, for the purpose of proposing hopeful enlightenment or
garnering enlightenment, while proffering Good Will in the interest of seeking
Universal Peace with All Walks of Life!!!

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By astrology, November 16 at 6:04 am Link to this comment astrology's


avatar
for those seeking an alternative to capitalism, look to
sparta where lead was the coin of the realm, or to
cambodia under pol pot where money did not exist. if
money, taxes, or the u.s. economy is the cause of
america’s problems, lets just do away with greenbacks
and food stamps. dictators could care less.

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By pedanticmeatloaf, November 16 at 5:24 am Link to this comment

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Re: By Spev Dvinko, November 16 at 4:22 am

(To:) Orbis Unum:

That was the funniest response to a serious discussion


I have read online, ever. I was laughing so hard that I
had to stop reading half-way through and take a walk
around so as to be able to breath properly. Brilliant!

Thank you for that

Report this

By Spev Dvinko, November 16 at 5:22 am Link to this comment

What?

Report this

By Orbis Unum, November 16 at 5:08 am Link to this comment Orbis


Unum's
Re: Spev Dvinko, November 16 at 4:22 am. avatar

You state: “And So we State to All Right-Minded and freedom loving


Persons, Ocelots, hams, and Scraps of newspaper stuffed within our
pocketses; thou get thee hence or Hence To the Following URL appended hereafter
and There descry four questions at the Convenience of your perusal, Which are to be
enanswerverated in Particular detail with Respect to the Questions hereunto Set Forth;
and: http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/schizophrenia.htm :: All Right-Thinking and
putative nardules of Concupiscient verboloquacity will thither commence themselves
Proclaimed This Day of Juneteenth the eleventy-Millionth, 1972.”

Response: An unsuited venture hast be foisted upon the dignity and honor of a knygt
erraunt. Having and owing to beckoning, we have proffered performance, performed
by pursuing said url, only to be presented an undignified errant behavior to ask of us,
to our dismay, what venture be there none to vanquish for the beckoning to a “free
screening test for anyone who wants to see if they may have the symptoms commonly
associated with a schizophrenia-specific disorder, such as Schizophrenia or
schizophreniform disorder. But then to be quizzed in such an unfashionable and
dishonorable means for considerable worthy effort, which entail not to tell, if you
have one of these disorders.”

Having subjected my right honorable life to no less than what I deem others should
rightly do, in respect to reading any posting directed forthwith, to any poster found
herein, me thinks…what could anyone expect from such a diminutive intelligentsia?

One might have thought, if one where actually a thinking sort, one might have
attempted to prove otherwise!

I won’t presume to entertain why individuals deem it necessary to communicate with


such flowering expose of their brilliance. But, not being one who accepts to condemn
another for their efforts, we rather exhort them in our patience, to consider seeking
further perfection for perfecting their condition.

Than to shine were a miner of wisdom would have difficulty seeing otherwise!

In support of my continuing challenge throughout voluminous postings herein, one


only has to avail themselves of facts we present, if they have any honorable bone in
them, to accept the challenge, by reading the “4” declarations posted by the SEA at
the web link: http://www.scribd.com/rahyah.

Having said all this, I will be constantly vigilant, awaiting evidenced, line for line,
contrary to the documentary evidence we have proffered!

We honorably await any evidence to prove the premises presented in-particular to the
established facts raised within the Universal Declaration dealing with the Four
Freedoms on pages 13-15 to prove otherwise.

And once again, as our humble attempt for those capable of presenting facts line for

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line, in the light of reasonable propositions or otherwise, just as a reminder for all
those who honorably exchange ideas within the ‘Truthdig Forum’ while refraining
from hateful or insolent behavior…always remember, sometimes while exchanging
ideas, the time and respect we give, from a deep seated desire to foster harmonious
behavior to garner enlightenment, can be met on the road of hopeful enlightenment,
by those seeking to discourage, rather than exhorting to greater possibilities.

My best to all who post herein, for the purpose of proposing hopeful enlightenment or
garnering enlightenment, while proffering Good Will in the interest of seeking
Universal Peace with All Walks of Life!!!

Report this

By patriot10101, November 16 at 4:58 am Link to this comment

Shatter every thought you ever had about what’s been told you via the media;
it is all fabricated fiction; this is what “democracy” is folks; it was “supposedly” of the
people, by the people, for the people; then it supposedly “worked” by exploitation of
the masses of the people; which is a crime.
so:shatter any thought that justice exists in the USA or globally: whereever
“democracy” has gone to.
Shatter any thoughts that any laws are being followed for the well being of the
people or the planet; they are not.
Shatter any thoughts that it is THIS or COMMUNISM; or “socialism” cuz it is NOT.
Shatter any thought that “capitalism” is anything other than criminal cuz it is NOT.
Shatter any thought you have that there is intelligent life form running the Gov of this
or any other nation since the “setting up” of the “running of the world” for fascism
and totaltarianism. For their is NOT.
They simply have a “larger base” from other nations: now to target and harm the
masses there: as well as in the USA: as they ruthlessly take over nation after nation
after nation without regard for human life or any conscienous; for they do not have it
folks.
What is gonig on in the USA was the premeditated malicious intent since the 1832’s
when (picture animal house) wasn’t that a “fraternity”?
And they have never ever changed their intent; judges were in on it from the get go:
couldn’t have done it with REAL judges passing out REAL judgements based on
REAL laws.
Better stock up on Coca Cola if you care for it or any of their products: cuz like
Monsanto; it is going down, along with Haliburton and many more!
Joy to the world
to all the boys and girls
joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
joy to you and me!

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By Psychobabbler, November 16 at 4:56 am Link to this comment Psychobabbler's


avatar
This was a complete and total disgrace to this country. These brilliant
men all deserve a public apology. Whether or not you agree with them is
irrelevant.

I understand the meaning of principle.

When you stand up to injustice and lose, your integrity remains intact regardless.

For what it is worth, I personally will never refuse them.

I love the statement “take us back”

I wish we would.

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By Spev Dvinko, November 16 at 4:22 am Link to this comment

Orbis Unum:

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Thou a Poltroon art, braying endlessly and Unceasingly and without remit Hereunto
and theretofore whatsoever in echolalian disdain For the right proper rules of
discourse and human interaction which requireth, certes, a certain amount of having a
position germane to the discussion. Insolent commoners that thou must intermingle
with, unlettered Brutes one and All, will not endure this endless garblemargle We
manufacture for their enlightenment! Cruel footpads stooping to abuse, verily and
yea! And yet mightest this be followed to the source of the root of the origins of the
cause of the Thing, and mightest this be or Be the result of One’s own failure to
observe even the most basic Rules of etiquette Online?

Hearthee, O villeins: hereunder I must, forsooth, make the following asservation and
avowal: your medication is not working. There is, in these times in which we live
(minus the deceased, Who cannot be descried as living, as they are not thus doing and
so, also) ample opportunity for cranks, zealots, freaks, monomaniacs, and persons
ill-equipped for social interaction with their fellow personages, viz Humans and other
upright anthropoids possessed of the capability of speech, however florid, Gravibund,
muteolistic, or intercessive, nonetheless to invistibulate themselves in amongst the
parties of the Third Party whom, according to the Rules or rules of the Florence
Conclave of the year Anno Domini one thousand, four hundred, and seventy-two, at
about three in the afternoon (daylight savings), should yield the floor to Persons,
personages, personalities, or other parties interested whatsoever as Might be whatnot
and so forth, and so on. To this end, therefore, we engrip the noble Posture suggested
by the Royal “we” and we hereunto declare and proclaim, according to the minutes of
our imaginary kingdom of many lots of things that are possessed of this and that as
appropriate sigil here endorsed and engrossed this eleventh day of the year seven
according to our Just and Right Calendar what We made up in our heads While
Waiting out a cloudburst at the Public Library before the Shelter was open for the
Day, and this Free Computer being available for use, Withall, Prithee!

And So we State to All Right-Minded and freedom loving Persons, Ocelots, hams, and
Scraps of newspaper stuffed within our pocketses; thou get thee hence or Hence To
the Following URL appended hereafter and There descry four questions at the
Convenience of your perusal, Which are to be enanswerverated in Particular detail
with Respect to the Questions hereunto Set Forth; and: http://psychcentral.com
/quizzes/schizophrenia.htm :: All Right-Thinking and putative nardules of
Concupiscient verboloquacity will thither commence themselves Proclaimed This Day
of Juneteenth the eleventy-Millionth, 1972. Whosoever pulleth this sword from this
stone shall garner a downloadable certificate of authenticity which can be Printed on
Parchment Paper and filled Out with one of those fancy Calligraphy Markers to make
what looks From a distance like a Diploma from a Vocational school in Scranton,
Penn’s Woods yclept also Pennsylvania. Line for Line!

Yours, the Right Honorable Panjandrum of Dinkydoo Manor, 113a Koala Street,
Perth, Australia (herewithin endorsed also by the Supreme Council of Made-Up
Utopian Secret Councils that Meet beneath the streets and fly through the Sewers on
hoverchairs of Our own devising)

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By John Steinsvold, November 16 at 3:32 am Link to this comment

An Alternative to Capitalism (Please!)

The following link takes you to an essay titled: “Home of the Brave?” which was
published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/steinsvold.htm

John Steinsvold

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By FiftyGigs, November 16 at 2:53 am Link to this comment

I so love Lafayette writings, and I hope to read more.

“The world of capitalism does not need remaking, just more prudent management.”

Which edges toward the core question: why doesn’t it have it?

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Why after hundreds of years of stable democracy, after establishing the most prolific
economy, the most liberal education system, the most solid defense, the most
advanced technology, the most “mosts”, why is the country so screwed up?

World War II, the epitome of “bad times”. If ever Armageddon was close, that was it.
America united, embraced conservatism, dedication to the status quo, service to the
institutions. Afterward, battered by global evil and a terrible economic depression, the
so-called Greatest Generation sought peace. Sought to raise their children in
prosperity, free from want, very well educated, with unlimited opportunity. The Baby
Boom would lead America to unimaginable greatness, guided by unsurpassed
ingenuity from blessed souls seeking the greater good that drove us to lead the world
against tyranny.

They produced us in liberal times.

Now we see that in the 60s, it was the youth who favored the Vietnam War. It was the
youth who rushed into stereotyping. Who begat the advanced market segmentation
models that rule today. The youth who migrated toward cultural superficiality, to
empty “spiritual” values. They knew Jesus lived, because they saw Him on their last
LSD trip.

Draw the line from there right to the Alaskan beauty who would be Queen, to the Z
Morning Zoo deejay toying with McCarthyism for ratings on a “news” network called
Fox, to the Tea Party which thinks it just staged a revolution.

The behavior we see today in this country isn’t an exhibit of repression.

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By Fat Freddy, November 16 at 2:10 am Link to this comment Fat


Freddy's
Lafayette avatar

One way or the the other, this party is going to end. Some think it is
part of the plan to crash the economy. The IMF is printing up SDRs as we speak. The
World will be totally controlled by a few central bankers. Democracy will be
unnecessary. We will all be taken care of, and we will all be forced to sacrifice for the
greater good. Poverty and excessive wealth will be eliminated. Everything will be
controlled, for our own good. All traces of individualism will be removed from society
as we know it. We will all function for the greater good, instead of our own selfish
desires.

I hope I’m dead when it happens.

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By Fat Freddy, November 16 at 1:57 am Link to this comment Fat


Freddy's
Lafayette avatar

You are probably right. The vast majority of Americans like the
present debt based system. A savings based system would put too many limitations on
what they can have. Middle Class America likes their single family, suburbia home,
with “two cats in the yard”. The shiny gadgets they don’t know how to use, and their
all-inclusive Dominican Republic vacations. The fact that they know they will have a
401(k) plus Social Security, allows them to spend and borrow as much as they want. If
that means a few people starve, and a few people get rich, that’s OK with them. They
vote Democrat to make up for it and wear T-Shirts with “Darfur” on them.

No, you are probably right. Average Americans would never accept a truly free
market system where they actually had to save money. Not only that, but America
must be #1, in the World. If America were not able to manipulate world-wide markets
and currency exchanges, we would be, just another country.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibV8WJtNYJY

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By igloo, November 16 at 1:36 am Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

Actually, the muzzling of free opinion goes much farther back than the 1940’s witch
hunts. Tocqueville observed in the 1830’s how sensitive Americans were to criticism,
and noted the omnipotent tyranny of the majority. He felt that oppressive power in the
nacent democracies much more stifling than that exercised by monarchies. He also
found freedom of expression and intellectual discourse lacking in American society. A
country that exalts anti-intellectualism will find that most of its intellectuals have gone
overseas. Ezra Pound, Hemingway, Vidal and others whose creative period was all
spent overseas did so because at home they would have been forced to toe the line.

Report this

By Orbis Unum, November 16 at 1:31 am Link to this comment Orbis


Unum's
Re: Chris Hedges’ Column “The Origin of America’s Intellectual avatar
Vacuum.”

Mr Hedge’s aforementioned column must be dealt with via the


Science of Right Reason.

So, from this point of reference we shall endeavor to refute his article’s premise “[t]he
silencing of radicals such as Davis, who had been a member of the Communist Party,
although he had left it by the time he was investigated by HUAC, has left academics
and intellectuals without the language, vocabulary of class war and analysis to critique
the ideology of globalism, the savagery of unfettered capitalism and the ascendancy of
the corporate state.”

Mr. Hedge’s position leaves much to be forsaken from an historical or social


standpoint. He presumes, that in the U.S., social Role Models (i.e., educators) have no
responsibility to the hand that feeds them. And so, defends arbitrary behavior by those
he or others term radicals, as permissible behavior. Not so!

Again, we remind individual columnists and posters herein, of the facts beyond a
reasonable doubt. And postulate solution oriented paradigms for those willing to
accept to come to the table and bargain for their rights to life, liberty and property.
Lest they be counted above those less fortunate, openly declared by the global
oligarchy via the Georgia Guidestones. Built by someone going by the name of Robert
C. Christian (presumably Ted Turner), who hired Elberton Granite Finishing Company
to build what sometimes referred to, as the American Stonehenge in Elbert County,
Georgia.

The choice of survival of the fittest has always rested upon whether people are willing
to consider testing all (even social programming) things, rather than to be culled out,
to be treated otherwise.
Their ability to exercise the Science of Right Reason when confronted with
undeniable facts concerning any presumed truth will determine the end results!

People need to comprehend the powers that be, have no affiliation to any religion,
nations, or political party, they are acting according to their own Rules. And, we are
acting according to the protocols established to proffer evidence of your social
conditioning. To determine, whether you are willing to be reasonable to negotiate your
own survival accordingly.

Failure to do otherwise, justifies their program of depopulation, for so-called better


ordering of both the population as well as planetary resources.

Whether you believe this fact or otherwise, makes little difference. Only your
willingness to be reasonable does. Not your willingness to go along to get along. This
behavior is the root of all chaos.

People willing to let dishonorable behavior parade as if honorable, only because of


self interest will be culled out. Their question is this? When did you or your family
become more important than anyone else? Never, if to do so required the sacrifice of
honor in the interest of Universal Peace.

As far as we are concerned, our duty to inform, is fulfilled. Your choice still remains!
Time is of the essence!

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In support of our continuing effort to determine those willing to test all things, may
choose to avail themselves of my continuing challenge throughout voluminous
postings herein, to avail themselves of the facts we present, if they have any
reasonable and honorable bone in them, to accept the challenge, by reading the “4”
declarations posted by the SEA at the web link: http://www.scribd.com/rahyah.

We honorably await any evidence to prove the premises presented in-particular to the
established facts raised within the Universal Declaration dealing with the Four
Freedoms on pages 13-15 to prove otherwise.

Having said all this, I will be constantly vigilant, awaiting evidenced, line for line,
contrary to the documentary evidence we have proffered!

My best to all who post herein, for the purpose of proposing hopeful enlightenment or
garnering enlightenment, while proffering Good Will in the interest of seeking
Universal Peace with All Walks of Life!!!

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By berniem, November 16 at 1:07 am Link to this comment

In this wonderful land of republicans, baggers, and conservatives past and


present the operative credo has always been “mindlessness is next to godliness!”

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By omygodnotagain, November 16 at 12:31 am Link to this comment

Flummox
Well Hitler wasn’t American, but the Third Reich has to be the most studied
movement in all of history, pity the same effort is not devoted to the the Soviet Union
and the Cultural Revolution. One can read Marx as a study economics, but to say as
Basoflakes says that there is no connection to Stalin and Mao is laughable. What
united the left and the rightis both believed in Centralizing power in the State to
control the politics and economics of society. Whether,it was the Soviets using Marx
to abolish private property or the right using State power to take over industry, media
and education, the end result was the same. Million being carted off to concentration
camps or gulags. For the left to ever be taken seriously again what happened in places
like the Soviet Union, China and Cambodia needs to be examined with the same
scrutiny Nazism.

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By sallysense, November 16 at 12:31 am Link to this comment sallysense's


avatar
thought-products get used far more than thinking-processes do these days!...
and it shows!...

mind-setting turf ride…

those widespread pockets of mental atmosphere…


illusion’s global manmade choke-holds here…
static interference and deadly pollution…
that groups inhale by its distribution…
via falsely fresher breaths to save…
adhering to certain brain waves…
like parasites riding the surfs…
of man’s mind-setting turf!...

(it’s sad what illusion has grown into (such full-blown degrees of distortion globally) in
our world today while so many know so little about it)...

(and those who don’t think people need to know about illusion… are already under its
influence more than they realize!)...

(gee)...

////

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00
o
O

“what can we do?!... big money’s think-tanks set things up to get people elected who
go to washington and later end up draining more of our common good!... making
things worse for us and better for them!”...

\\\
00
o
o

“as the rich make more money… the poor gain more votes!... realize how the truth of
accountability and the strength of votes can spread throughout a land to take power
away from illusion-dependent moneymen and give that power to the people… who
were originally conned out of it by moneymen way back when!... and this can be
done!”...

big money keeps scamming a country so badly…


capitol hill still can’t tell it’s been conned!...
folks duped by few choices to cast their votes madly…
elect a slim chance for fairness to stand on!...

(and also… schools need to teach students how everyone’s standard human
perception uses illusion which can distort something from being seen “as it actually
is”... into something else when thoughts (already in the mind) substitute their own
‘pictures’ (or connotations etc) instead…

then mental pictures that resurface as ignorant social or racial or extremist or


manipulative bias etc are less apt to make big impacts as they’ll have advantages of
being more prone to use added consideration as they live with themselves and others
in our world here!)...

(and gee… the commenter’s creed ?)...

i do my best to better things by sharing my opinions!...


so i’ll leave it up to others to give bad events good riddance!...
don’t look for me near worthy deeds in need of hands to help them!...
but follow these columns as things get worse and watch me comment again!...

(things need to change to get better!... lotsa stuff to do to put the people back in the
driver’s seat!... and it can be done!)...

(if one can comment here then one can do things elsewhere too!)...

the best of wishes’n'ways’n'todays to each’n'everyone!...

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By gerard, November 16 at 12:11 am Link to this comment

In my previous post I forgot to mention self-awareness—capitalism has lost


all semblance of self-awareness (if it ever had any). Idtis blind to the pain it causes,
blind to the blood it drinks, blind to the women and children it kills, blind to the crimes
it commits.

Fat FReddy asks what is “this unfettered capitalism” he keeps hearing about. That’s
pretty much it.

Some commenters suggest that it’s not the nature of capitalism to cheat and steal, but
a perversion due to this or that. As long as the only legal obligation of corporations is
to make profits for their stockholders, we are about a million light years away from
fairness. And when corporatioins can donate as much of those profits as they wish to
electing politicians and influencing policy, that’s
another million light years.

The problem, therefore, is not so much of an “intellectual vacuum” as of a moral


vacuum—a
cruel and deliberate desertion of responsibility for fellow human beings.

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By Peacedragon, November 16 at 12:08 am Link to this comment Peacedragon's


avatar
I am surprised by people who were members of the Communist Party,
which I
read was a very disciplined group, who went on to make their own
unique
contribution to our culture.

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By MollyFlannery, November 15 at 11:49 pm Link to this comment MollyFlannery's


avatar
Where are the Wobblies? I WILL WORK! IWW! Can you imagine
some of these limousine libs meeting a real Wobblie? They’d probably
have an app for what to say to a Wobblie.

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By perivale, November 15 at 11:28 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

When we say “capitalism” we call down a myth of intrepid Sam who owns and runs
Sam’s Tool and Die. Granted, Sam is a capitalist. However the transglobal
corporations are not capitalist at all - they’re dressed up that way, but in reality
they’re “tasty little operations” - to use Burroughs’ terminology. Some might say let’s
call ‘em what they are - criminal organizations.

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By John F. Butterfield, November 15 at 11:22 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

“Universities stand as cowardly, mute and silent accomplices of the corporate state,
taking corporate money and doing corporate bidding. And those with a conscience
inside the walls of the university understand that tenure and promotion require them to
remain silent.”

The same is true of the media. Reporters soon learn “how” an article must be written
to be published. Few want to starve to death to keep a good conscience.

Report this

By Lafayette, November 15 at 11:13 pm Link to this comment Lafayette's


avatar
UNFETTERED CAPITALISM

FF: If the government were somehow forced out of the picture,


and the FDIC and FRB were dissolved, banks would be forced to
operate honestly, or face the very real possibility of bankruptcy.

This proposition is naive to the extreme. It is the unfettered capitalism that you
condemn (albeit obliquely) and it will lead to chaos. Why?

Because, since there are no capital reserve requirements, banks will indulge in
speculative dealings from which they could possibly be made bankrupt (if the
underlying debt is bad). The ensuing failure of the credit mechanism would bring the
economy to a screeching halt.

Like it or not, Consumption is leveraged by Credit thus creating Employment, which


provides us Disposable Income, by which we pay of our Debt ... and continue to
Consume. The Virtuous Circle is complete.

Because we, however, as Consumers, binge on cheap money is insufficient reason to


change the capitalist system. The problem lies in ourselves and not capitalism.

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The problem with the present system we overlooked was twofold:


* A truly inane belief that markets were self-regulating and therefore no surveillance
was necessary (aka the Greenspan Hubris), and,
* Despite the Truth in Lending Act, its provisions were not aggressively applied in the
oversight of the mortgage business to substantiate mortgagor creditworthiness (thus
allowing the creation of Toxic Waste debt instruments).

The problem therefore is not in the intrinsic nature of the capitalist system, but in the
manner in which it is insufficiently regulated. Without regulation cupidity overcomes
prudence and what happens, happens.

If we are so concerned about the banksters (and others) that profited wildly from the
misery they brought upon their fellow countrymen, then only higher marginal taxation
of exaggerated income can curb the malevolent desire to make a Quick MegaBuck
and retire at 30.

Take the temptation away and cupidity is lessened. The system retains its integrity,
functions as it should, and we can all indulge modestly in our pursuit of happiness ...
instead of the frenzied desire for more and better Conspicuous Consumption (aka the
Shop Till You Drop Syndrome).

The world of capitalism does not need remaking, just more prudent management. (It
would also help if humans mitigated their hedonistic pursuits—but that is another
debate for another day.)

POST SCRIPTUM

The nation had a calamity but it missed a catastrophe. It could have been much worse
and if you must know how much worse read the history of America throughout the
1930s.

For instance, The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, who deserved the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1962. We seem to have forgot its lessons, if we ever learned them.

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By moonraven, November 15 at 10:52 pm Link to this comment

Mystic Pizza: You are missing the boat.

The problem with you folks is not that someone or some system suppresses
thought—the problem is that self-censorship is the culprit.

99% of folks started out with that self-censorship wanting to conform to the grade
school/junior high norms and be “popular”.

Not thinking critically and expressing dissent—otherwise known as ORIGINAL


THOUGHTS—simply became a habit.

And you still are not “popular”.

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By JDmysticDJ, November 15 at 10:28 pm Link to this comment JDmysticDJ's


avatar
There is much psychobabble here on this thread, so I’ll babble for a
while. Having had some experience in the matter, I believe that more
than likely the product of murderous drug cartels is at play here. That
being said, I believe that freedom of non intrusive behavior is equally as important as
freedom of thought, but I don’t believe all thoughts, or behaviors, lead to virtue, or
rationality.

Hedges eloquently points out that suppression of thought, by any means, is an evil, but
one should not confuse suppression with disagreement. In a society that believes in
democratic ideals, freedoms must be preserved, but one man’s freedom may be
perceived as an intrusive crime by another man. If this contention is true, then there is
clear dichotomy of thought[s]. These dichotomies come to the forefront of debate in
democracy, and opposing perspectives, dichotomies, become evident. Denying the
existence of these dichotomies can only be myopia. Granted, certain schools of
thought become prevalent in societies, which reduce, but does not eliminate

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dichotomy. Totalitarian societies have dichotomies of thought, as do societies in chaos.

Some blame the existence of state for society’s ills, but without laws and governance,
societies are reduced to living by the laws of the jungle, i.e. survival of the fittest, or
survival of the least fit, according to one’s philosophical perspective, and the
definition of what it means to be a “fit” human being. In a functioning democracy,
rather than blaming the state for a society’s ills, shouldn’t the society itself be blamed
for its ills? I’ll argue that this attribution of blame is true even of societies that are not
governed by democracy.

Societies of all types recognize certain taboos at any given point in time, but these
taboos are subject to being discarded or changed over time, and I’ll argue that taboos
define a society, even though there may be a dichotomy of views within a society
regarding those taboos, the existence of those taboos define that society, and will
continue to define that society until a taboo loses favor and becomes irrelevant to that
society.

If taboos do indeed define a society, that brings us into the realm of morality and the
perception of morality. I’ll argue that individuals within a society are perceived as
being moral or immoral, by other members of that society, according to how their
behavior is guided, or not guided, by those taboos, and that societies will determine
the morality of other societies according to how well those other societies abide by the
appraising society’s taboos.

I’ll argue that the conflict between individuals within a society and conflict between
societies is determined by these perceptions of what is moral and what is not, or at the
very least provides the rationale for conflict. The old axiom “Live and let live” seems
to be a necessity in order to avoid conflict. Unfortunately, there are those who
demand adherence, by all, to their taboos, and it is they who are the creators of
conflict, great and small. Like many axioms, the seemingly pristine axiom “Live and
let live” has been proven to be inadequate in respect to necessary order, and the
preservation of peace and tranquility. There are those who must be restrained in order
to preserve the greater peace and tranquility. Some will argue that that restraint should
be enforced on a case by case basis, and by individuals rather than by the rule of law.
Which brings us back to the law of the jungle, and survival of the fittest, or the least fit
but better equipped and who possess the most powerful allies.

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By JDmysticDJ, November 15 at 10:24 pm Link to this comment JDmysticDJ's


avatar
(Cont.)

In democracy, supposed constitutional protections are valuable, but


not infallible. In democracy those who find themselves in the minority, are limited to:
Building a majority consensus to achieve their objectives, to remain a minority and not
achieve their objectives, or to enforce their objectives using non democratic,
effectively despotic measures.

If corruption has become the norm, only building consensus against that corruption
can lead to elimination of that corruption, the alternative is more corruption. There is a
vociferous minority that denigrates those who don’t submit to their demands,
effectively eliminating the possibility of any consensus being achieved.

All this psychobabble in order to restate my opinion that many on the Left have
unrealistic expectations, are far too adamant in their demands, and are effectively
counter productive in respect to achieving their own avowed goals.

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By Inherit The Wind, November 15 at 10:05 pm Link to this comment

Nobody bothers to question Hedges’s basic assertion: That American


universities have been purged of Marxist thought. I find the whole idea laughable. I
went to a major state university in the mid-70’s and the History, Pol-Sci and English
departments contained many Marxist, Socialist and radical thinkers—1/4 to 1/3 of the
professors. In fact, the ONE professor who was the most outcast was the one who still
defended our involvement in Viet Nam.

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I was then at another major state University for grad school and one of the economics
profs walked around wearing a tee-shirt that read “Labor is the source of all wealth”
(a Marxist-based definition).

Now understand this: I’m not against these people being in the universities, teaching
and publishing. I only disliked it if they were crappy teachers or miserable human
beings—which you get all across the political spectrum.

So Hedges starts with what is, from my own observation, a false assertion and then
argues that dissent in universities has been cut off. His position may WELL be true,
but you can’t prove it with a false assertion.

But that’s typical of Hedges.

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By cynholt, November 15 at 10:03 pm Link to this comment

Chris Hedges writes,

“It was as if the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had no
antecedents in the battles of the Wobblies as well as the socialist and communist
movements.”

Living in the deep south most of my life, I can vouch for the fact that many southern
blacks view the passing the 1965 Civil Rights Act as providing civil rights to black
Americans at the exclusion of all other Americans. And because the Black Belt were I
live can easily double as a Bible Belt, many southern blacks are also big believers in
biblical capitalism, causing them to view socialists as working on behalf of the devil
against Christ. This is why many of them have come to view civil rights as a way for a
few select blacks to join the few select whites at the top of the economic pyramid and
also why they’d never, ever come to associate civil rights activists with socialists,
much less communists!

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By Fat Freddy, November 15 at 9:23 pm Link to this comment Fat


Freddy's
What is this unfettered capitalism I keep hearing about? I’d really avatar
like to know. Do you mean free market capitalism? Because we do
not have free market capitalism. Free market capitalism is based on
tangible currency. What we have is currency based on debt and credit. The dollar in
your pocket is nothing more than a claim on somebody’s debt. Without debt, in our
current system, there would be no money. Debt is a great motivator. We work to pay
debt, and build credit, while the issuers sit back and charge a fee for their service, also
known as Rent Seekers.

I suppose unfettered capitalism could mean that banks are not held to the same
standards as other businesses. When banks face liquidity problems, they can call the
FRB and ask for money, and usually get it. The only thing that really limits a bank’s
actions is its solvency. This is determined by the FDIC.

The FRB and the FDIC are institutions created by Progressives to control the
economy. These two institutions create a condition known as moral hazard. Banks
will not operate honestly if they know they are going to get “bailed out”.

All this really is, is legalized fraud. Banks operate on a fractional reserve system.
Fractional reserve lending is fraudulent, because banks are only required to keep 9 -
10% in reserves in an account at the FRB. No other type of business is allowed to
operate on a fractional reserve system. Not only has this fraud been legalized, it is
protected and encouraged by the government.

The problem is not with capitalism, the problem is socialistic economic and market
manipulations by the government. Hence, the government is the problem. If the
government were somehow forced out of the picture, and the FDIC and FRB were
dissolved, banks would be forced to operate honestly, or face the very real possibility
of bankruptcy. That means no fractional reserve lending (100% reserve requirements),
and tangible, commodity based currency with some sort of clearing mechanism.

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By gerard, November 15 at 8:54 pm Link to this comment

The mendacity of American capitalism is once again so clearly visible that


most adults, with or without a “higher” education, can see it. That the “lower classes”
blame the “higher classes” for it is not surprising, since they see that mendacity seems
to be one powerful ingredient of “higher” education.
It’s not a new condition but one that is historically habituated. Most of the people
who came here from Europe were pushed into it by destitution. They came
determined to “make a better living.” For them, capitalism was “freedom” and
“liberty”—the freedom to steal land from the “Indians”, the “liberty” to tolerate the
importation and slavery of Africans for decades, followed by more decades of racial
discrimination. They accepted unjust competition and the build-up of huge personal
fortunes as “inevitable”. With the exception of the Civil War and the labor rebellions
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they did not struggle to change things. They
just moved West—until the West ran out.
When they were told by their overlords that they must fight wars because
“communism” and “socialism” would “take over”, they did not have the mental tools
necessary to unmask the deceit and evaluate the overall situation more accurately.
Besides, they were afraid because they knew the “isms” were complicated, and they
were ignorant—and helpless.
Even today a large proportion of the population still believes in social and political
injustice. They still are mainly interested in their own well-being and are misled by
their unflagging hope that they can “improve” their condition, most often meaning
“make more money.”
The system of capitalism feeds on these attitudes and fights against anything that
refutes them. A measlure of how insecure capitalism is, how vulnerable and frightened
of falling on its face, is the degree to which media and surveillance must be used to
constantly brainwash and frighten “the public” and prop up this rickety structure.
It’s a top-heavy house of cards, and can’t help itself because it has separated itself
from balance, criticism, originality and change.

Report this

By moonraven, November 15 at 8:38 pm Link to this comment

Jeffrey Beaumont:

I see, all Indians are clowns, right? Ward Churchill is anything BUT a clown. You
don’t want to accept him as a human being because he confronts you about your
ongoing support of genocide against indigenous people.

YOU should stop clowning around and have the courage to admit your crimes.

The dominant knee-jerk behavior in the US is to force consensus.

Not foster or nourish dissent.

This behavior has been rampant right here on the truthdig site since the beginning of
the comments option.

Folks who have dared to post against the party line have been insulted and bullied.

No minority points of view have been tolerated—whether ethnic minorities or political


minority points of view.

Everyone has a lot to answer for.

Fear of plurality has turned the US into its worse case scenario—a totalitarian state
populated by cowards and bigots.

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By Karen Saum, November 15 at 8:27 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

55 years ago I had dinner with Chan and Natalie Davis, I a 21 year old just beginning

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grad school in history but already familiar with Christine de Pisa, the subject of
Natalie’s dissertation topic. My husband, Richard Reichard, had just applied to teach
history at George Washington Unversity and wanted the Davis’s advice on this as J.
Edgar Hoover was on the board there. Chan opined it was safe; Dick applied; was
hired and subsequently was visited by the FBI, and after an appearance before HUAC
was fired never having met a class.

One of the most exciting evenings of my life was that dinner with the Davises. Natalie
went on to become the president of the American Historical Society. Dick Reichard
was hired a year later at a wonderful school, Cornell College, in Mount Vernon, Iowa.
In 1973, I was fired from a teaching position at the University of Maine not for my
radical politics but after, of all things, being outed by the local Unitarian minister.

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By Bubba, November 15 at 8:19 pm Link to this comment

The greatest American socialist, Henry George, was “disappeared” from


American academia by American professors at the behest of their corporate bosses,
whose money funded their colleges.

These professors gave birth to neoclassical economics not because they had learned
anything significant or fundamentally new, but merely to refute George’s economics,
which was becoming increasingly popular among those of all social strata.

Neoclassical economics is a failed science. So is more modern economics, be it on the


left or right side of the political spectrum.

The world, let alone the left, needs an economics that makes sense to anyone and that
works. It must be an economics that does not need to redistribute wealth because it
ensures that wealth is distributed correctly, equably from the start.

George’s first book, Progress and Poverty, sold more copies in the 19th century than
any other book except the Bible. Today it is virtually unknown.

The current, near total death of ethical, intelligent, but also practical, economic dissent
in America did not have its origins, as many believe, in the first part of the 20th
century but in the latter part of the 19th.

And this kind of dissent will never amount to anything—anything really workable
—until George’s economics become popular once again.

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By RayLan, November 15 at 8:13 pm Link to this comment

Luckily some “Leftist” intellectuals remain by virtue of their international


visibility like Noam Chomsky, or Chris himself. Intellectuality itself is neither left nor
right, but it is open and independant. As soon as freedom of thought is crushed and
academia is retooled as a department of the corporatocracy, real education, real
inquiry is at an end. It isn’t surprising that the Right want to do away with the
Department of Education. I have experienced the deterioration of college standards
and genuine intellecutal discourse first hand, just taking courses in the humanities at
UCLA. The quality is shameful.

Report this

By pfft, November 15 at 8:07 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

The majority of posts here confirm the article’s premise and Hedges sharp
analysis.

For example, it’s pretty obvious that many of the posters haven’t read or
studied Marx’s Capital, or they would see its incredible relevance today. Not so
in Europe where a powerful left, led by factions purged in the US, is challenging
austerity measures with 70% public support in France and national strikes.
Savvy people might wonder why they still consider Marx relevant and have such

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a strong coalition.

For a Marxist analysis of the current financial crisis, look up Richard Wolff’s
presentation of Capitalism Hits The Fan (several versions are posted on
youtube, etc.). His analysis goes into much further depth than anything I’ve seen
from any other economist, using Marxist class analysis to explore the economic
as well as social causes and ramifications.

Saying Marx and the other great thinkers of history are passe because they lived
a long time ago is a statement of ignorance in itself. It’s like saying Darwin is
obsolete.

Report this

By basho, November 15 at 7:48 pm Link to this comment basho's


avatar
Lafayette:
“Had there been, we’d have never gone to the moon. Never have
devised the most stable democracy in the world (a piece of work still
going strong after more than two centuries). Never had a national wealth
that is still the envy of every country, including China which had a millennium of
autocratic but continuous government.”

“we’d have never gone to the moon.”


-Apples and Oranges. This is not the vacuum the article is addressing. And besides you
got to the moon under the guidance of a Nazi named Werner von Braun.

“Never have devised the most stable democracy in the world”. -don’t forget the Swiss.

“Never had a national wealth that is still the envy of every country,”

-as in the past tense of ‘have’?

“What we have had, lately, has been the worst dumbing-down of America in decades.

- ie intellectual vacuum

Report this

By TAO Walker, November 15 at 7:12 pm Link to this comment

Again Chris Hedges remarks the absence of a “language” sufficient unto the
needs of these latter days. He persists as well, however, in his belief that it is the argot
of “leftist radicalism,” could it somehow be revived, which would fill this
much-lamented vacuum.

This Old Indian offers again the Living language of Organic Functional Integrity as a
viable alternative.

HokaHey!

Report this

By bogi666, November 15 at 6:58 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

ObomberBush Cat Food Commission, is recommending cut in the Veterans


Administration by increasing fees to Veterans. The fact is if the USG stopped creating
wars their would be a decrease in funding for the VA, as well as a reduction in the
Pentagram budget. This is common sense which doesn’t enter into the USG because
the only sense the USG has is nonsense.

Report this

By Basoflakes, November 15 at 6:50 pm Link to this comment

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Excellant piece Chris Hedges.

To think, there are still people, even on this site, that equate Stalinism, and Maoism
with Marxism - man, talk about vacuum.

The basic tenets of Marxist Communism still point to the problems with unbridled
capitalism, the same thing that Adam Smith pointed to - once you put money and
greed for it above the working class, there is no good end, and that is proven today.
Marx was proven right as evidenced by the greed of Wall Street, the Big Banks and
our for profit Health care organizations.

Yeh, the HUAC meetings started the vacuum that exists today, but remember who was
McCarthy’s right hand man during those hearings - Bobby Kennedy. It wasn’t until
the mid sixties that he saw the light, before it was extinguished for him.

Report this

By Flummox, November 15 at 6:31 pm Link to this comment

omygodnotagain, The left never faced up to its dark past? Stalin? I never
knew him. Sartre? He’s long dead now. Certainly these two people aren’t American
and I don’t think any American has to answer for them.

And what’s all this about how much fascism has been examined? I hear about fascism
mostly from right wingers, and they claim it is a purely leftist movement. So no, I
don’t think the examination of fascism goes very deep, and certainly if today’s left has
to take responsibility for others considered to be on the left anywhere on the planet
from any age then the same rule must apply to right wingers too. And as I said I don’t
hear anything of the sort.

Report this

By Lafayette, November 15 at 6:26 pm Link to this comment Lafayette's


avatar
INTELLECTUAL PROBITY

The Origin of America’s Intellectual Vacuum

There is no intellectual vacuum. There never has been an intellectual vacuum.

Had there been, we’d have never gone to the moon. Never have devised the most
stable democracy in the world (a piece of work still going strong after more than two
centuries). Never had a national wealth that is still the envy of every country,
including China which had a millennium of autocratic but continuous government.

What we have had, lately, has been the worst dumbing-down of America in decades.
As someone else already posted on this forum, this quote by (HJ Mencken):

No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American


public.

What happened, after such a great effort to educate the nation, to produce more
university graduates as a percentage of the population than any other developed
country in the Western World?

Everybody has a theory and mine is the advent of Ronald Reagan to the White House,
whereupon, after telling Americans that government should “get off their backs”,
opened Pandora’s Box of Social Ills by drastically reducing both marginal income tax
(from 70% to 27%) and capital gains taxes (from 28 to 27%).

Coincident with two periods of hallucinatory growth, one based upon the fictive
dot.com boom (and bust), the second upon a real estate binge that allowed some
crafty people to profit hugely from debt instruments to make a colossal fortune;
Americans became fascinated by Easy Money.

People flipped a condo/house in three months and nobody said, “Uh, oh! There is
something very, very wrong with the housing market”. In fact, everybody thought it
was bloody marvelous and should continue ad nauseam – which it did, since we got
very sick economically as a result.

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Few people had the common sense to think “Maybe all this cheap credit is creating an
asset bubble … that will one day burst upon all of us?” It does not take intellectual
capacity to recognize a binge-bubble. Neither to have asked the question, “Well, if it
happened in 1929, and lasted a decade, why not once again?”

Even if there were suspicions of “what could happen, neither a political party nor one
national leader had the intellectual courage to yell it from the rooftops.

So, no, there is no Intellectual Vacuum. There is a vacuum, however, of Intellectual


Honesty and Deceny. We deserve a better political class than this bunch of ….

Report this

By Jeffrey Beaumont, November 15 at 6:03 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

Inside academia, I have met a number of pretty far left characters. Citing Ward
Churchill isn’t effective, he is a little bit of a clown. But what about guys like David
Harvey, who have very clearly and consistently articulated the problems of modern
capitalism for decades? There are plenty of leftists out there in academia, real
socialist leftists. The problem is that there ideas are difficult, while the right sells the
ideas of the culture war, which the appeal to the uneducated.

Report this

By omygodnotagain, November 15 at 5:41 pm Link to this comment

Chris the left was not crushed, it never faced up to its dark past and decided
to hide it. Turn on the History Channel and there is everyday some program on Nazis,
thousands of books, countless films. But how many can we count on the crimes of
Communism (The Black Book of Communism is worth referencing Harvard Press).
Stalin killed 30 million people, Mao an estimated 50 million, one third of the
population of Cambodia (at least the Killing Fields got made into a movie). Where are
the mea culpas. Many of today’s elites had family members in the past who sang the
praises of Stalin, and praised Mao. They want to forget. If the Socialist left wants to
become a force again it needs to be examined in as much detail as Fascism has been.
We can criticize philosopher Martin Heidegger for joining the Nazi party, but still get
the nostalgic wobblies about John Paul Satre, who later in life admited he knew what
Stalin was doing, in the Ukraine and other places, but in his own words the ends
justified the means. We need a Communist war crimes trial, if that were to happen I
feel there will be a lot of embarrassed progressives and literati at Upper West Side
soirees.

Report this

By hen0egg, November 15 at 5:37 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

Like some good ‘ol cross bearin, cross-dressers from

Colorado Springs to Congress, methinks we’re a crazy

cracy of closeted commies!

Thales: “Know thyself”

Polonius: “Above all else, to thine own self be true”

All this self knows is that: this message; every

stitch of clothing my employer offers; even some of

my flesh and blood co-workin comrades are made

possible by good ‘ol communist red China!

Xie xie y’all

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Report this

By G.Anderson, November 15 at 5:29 pm Link to this comment G.Anderson's


avatar
The problem is mistated by Mr. Hedges, its not one of anti illectualizm,
but rather fashionable intellectualism.

Those particular left leaning ideas were just simply not in fashion at the
time.

However, they were soon replaced, with other ideas, that were more fashionable.
Currently, feminism, seems to be the fashionable idea, that grips the intellectual life of
colleges. And like many fashionable ideas, this one seems to have peaked. It contains
the intellectual seeds of it’s own destruction, and one day a new fashionalbe idea will
replace it too.

The problem here is that people believe that their ideas, are reasonable, and logical
and because of that they should be accepted on face value. They will find justification
for their thoughts no matter how absurd they are.

For in point of fact, reason, most often is just a disguise, for the unconscious. A
desguise we use to make our baser instincts acceptable. Instead of acting them out,
while frothing at the mouth, we present them, well reasoned and justified, but the end
results are the same. Reason, for many, is just a disguise.

Just like a dream, in which the content is disguised by symbols, without values, and a
moral foundation, it can become a road to hell.

No the problem with this country, is not that we are anti intellectual, it’s that we have
replaced our values, with greed, and self indulgence.

Just don’t get caught, is the value we live by.

That people are persecuted, and damaged because they believe in an idea that is
unfashionable, is immoral.
Unreasonable ideas should not be suppresed only exposed for what they are,
unsupported by the facts.

Report this

By SusanSunflower, November 15 at 5:26 pm Link to this comment

In a nutshell, “careerism” won ... across the boards ... as people “decided”
they couldn’t afford to speak openly, self-censored, went-along-to-get-along until
many found they actually had “no convictions” which—coupled with our learned
belief in our own lack-of-competence (believe me or your lying eyes, anyone?)
—creates rock-or-hard-place inertia.

Highly recommend “Century of Self” documentary available online in various places


(including you-tube and google video)

Report this

By Bonk, November 15 at 5:24 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

To begin, most of the people reading and posting here would have a hard time
defining the terms, communist, Marxist and socialist. That is normal in America
today and tragic, but nothing to be.

The idea that Marxism isn’t necessary to the left is nonsense. No educated
person in Europe or the Netherlands would say such a thing. Unlike Adam
Smiths writings, which are NOT verboten, Marxism is a criticism of capitalism,
the economic system that is reducing wages and living standards worldwide
today. This kind of conversation is taking place in European societies today and
the people are in the streets, with 71% of the public supporting the protests in
France against austerity measures. If Americans held protests on the same
scale here, adjusted for our larger population, there would have been 12
million people in the streets. They have an un-purged left there.

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The tragedy Hedges is speaking of is the the lack, particularly in the US, of any
kind of foundation for thinking of and criticizing the current exploitive system
which, for the news of those posting that this is a new age, has been in place
for over 300 years.

The reason why people on the left have no common framework, no foundation
around which to form ideas is that the dissenting political and economic
intellectual thought from the last 150 years was purged and silenced.

Report this

By felicity, November 15 at 5:21 pm Link to this comment

History records that prosperous nations seem to


inevitably drift into materialism and anti-
intellectualism with almost predictable disastrous
results. (The ‘why’ unfortunately is still waiting an
answer.) At least we’re in line with the historical
record.

It’s always amused me, how about befuddled me, that


American liberals are called socialists/communists and
Lenin is on record for hating liberals, social
democrats and, of course, the bourgeoisie.

Report this

By kattenkart, November 15 at 5:15 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

This article does seem to have a double focus: the loss of wide-ranging intellectual
discourse at the universities and colleges and a brief biography of one of the 1950s
witch hunt victims (who refused to remain a victim). Re. the first: the persistent
muting and suppression of free thought is now guaranteed by younger professors who
were educated in a public school system that was designed by corporate leaders. They
have been trained in a factory-system that keeps children “in-line”, answering to “the
bell”, following the crowd and always under the thumb of authority. They are taught
to the test from the time they start school and have never known how to think for
themselves. Yes, there are exceptions but they are discouraged.

Report this

By tomcarberry, November 15 at 5:12 pm Link to this comment


(Unregistered commenter)

When the University of Colorado fired Ward Churchill, the lead prosecutor was Mimi
Wesson, a law professor and “champion” of women’s rights, who often appears on
NPR as a spokesperson for “liberal” causes. Almost the entire political establishment,
left and right, supported Churchill’s dismissal. “Democratic” senator Mark Udall
said”

Rep. Mark Udall supported the board’s decision to fire Churchill in a released
statement: “Academic freedom goes hand-in-hand with freedom of speech. Even the
most controversial and unpopular of views will inevitably find a safe haven in our
colleges and universities. That doesn’t mean that all ideas are equal in force or that
inflammatory ideas are beyond reproach. Nor does it excuse teachers or professors for
uttering nonsense and calling it instruction.”

Report this

By Fat Freddy, November 15 at 5:10 pm Link to this comment Fat


Freddy's
Free Speech avatar

Freedom of speech is a fundamental American freedom, and nowhere


should it be more valued and protected than at America’s colleges and universities.
The “marketplace of ideas” upon which a university depends for its intellectual

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vitality cannot flourish when students or faculty members must fear punishment for
expressing views that might be unpopular with the public at large or disfavored by
university administrators. Yet this freedom is under continuous assault at many of
America’s campuses. Speech codes dictating what may or may not be said, “free
speech zones” confining free speech to certain areas of campus, and administrative
attempts to punish or repress speech on a case-by-case basis are common today in
academia. FIRE’s public cases dealing with freedom of speech, listed below,
demonstrate our commitment to restoring and preserving this basic freedom on our
nation’s campuses. The future of a generation of students—and of liberal education
itself—depends on our success.

http://www.thefire.org/cases/freespeech/

”[Colleges and universities] have become the most intellectually constipated area
of American life.”

- Dave Barry (being serious)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE3REvTJjXU

It is Mr Hedges “Intellectual Class” that is guilty of suppressing speech. They have, in


effect, become “The Man”.

Report this

By Pavlov's Dog, November 15 at 4:54 pm Link to this comment Pavlov's


Dog's
Truly viable intellectualism cannot be stamped out or impoverished avatar
without the complicity of the intellectuals themselves. The most
grievous wounds are always self inflicted and in the case of American
left-intellectualism, the primary failure has been an inability to envision a future that is
radically different from the past. The U.S. left of the 1930s,40s and 50s became stuck
in a view of history continuously repeating itself as class warfare - a mistake that Chris
Hedges too often makes.

Hedges also makes the mistake of conflating the disappearance of left-wing


intellectualism in the educational system, media, politics and “mainstream” society
and culture with its alleged impoverishment in society and especially culture as a
whole - something that could not be farther from the truth. It is American democracy,
economic, society and culture that have become intellectually impoverished or worse.

Real left intellectualism has transformed itself into a new and radically different way
of thinking and has never been more viable than it is today. It began in the 1960s with
the counter culture and has matured in the rise of grassroots movements for social
change such as civil rights, animal rights, green politics, community resilience and
new, bold economic visions such as David Korten’s “Agenda for a New Economy.”

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