The Other Side

For the last 16 years, you've been hearing one side of the political spectrum. This is what the other side sounds like. I'll leave it up to you to decide which one sounds more like the truth -- and which side you should be on.

Drive For Profit Wreaks 'Days Of Destruction'

"Hedges describes places such as Pine Ridge, S.D.; Camden, N.J.; Welch, W.Va.; and Immokalee, Fla., as sacrifice zones, parts of the country where human beings and natural resources have been used and then abandoned, where wrenching change has spawned hopelessness, desperation and ravaged landscapes."

From the interview:

"HEDGES: Because I wanted to show what happens when human beings, communities, when the environment is all forced to prostrate itself before the marketplace. You know, this has become the ideology across the political spectrum, and the consequences - as you see, in all the places you just mentioned - in many other parts of the country are devastating. And essentially, we have undergone a kind of corporate coup d'etat in slow motion. There are very little impediments left against these corporate forces."

"HEDGES: You know, you mentioned, Neal, at the beginning, farms. I grew up in a farm community, and, you know, what happened to family farms, people who, generation after generation, had poured their sweat, their blood, their pride - everything into it and then were destroyed by agribusinesses with no protection. And, you know, and suicide was rife among farmers who finally went bankrupt.

You know, this is - this sort of untold story of unfettered corporate capitalism, which is super national, it owes no loyalty to the nation state. And, of course, as any small business owner will tell you, especially the ones who can no longer get credit from the banks, these people are no friends of the small entrepreneur."

Please, have a listen. Hear the passion. Check out the biography of Chris Hedges. If you like what you hear -- or just think it worth hearing -- share it with others.

Drive For Profit Wreaks 'Days Of Destruction'

One more quote. Just to get your attention.

"HEDGES: The American worker is told that he or she has to be competitive on the global marketplace, and that, in essence, means being competitive with prison labor in China or sweatshop workers in Bangladesh who make 22 cents an hour. The movements - especially the labor unions that once protected American workers - have been decimated and destroyed. And what's left of them within the public sector are being dismantled.

I live in New Jersey. Chris Christie is making war on not only the teachers union, but ultimately the police and fire unions, the Supreme Court decision, which severely weakened the public sector unions in California. These are the last sort of readouts of organized activity that once, you know, made the middle class possible, the eight-hour workday possible, you know, safety regulations. It's all vanished. And we are rapidly evolving into an oligarchic state."

Wow. Just wow.

Don Brown
August 10, 2012