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

reply to post by WhiteAlice


I think you are dead right there.

I think in a way the citizens of the USA are pretty lucky. Your nation has a two party system, which isnt great, but at least you only get lied to by two groups of people at a time. Here in the UK, everyone gets lied to by all the parties, and we cannot trust a single member of any of them. No one currently working in politics here is in the role they are in because they want to give the people thier voice. They are more interested on inflicting thier ideals on vast numbers of people who do not want to interact with them.

reply to post by TrueBrit


Actually we have more than two parties here in the States. It's just that our "techno oligarchy" focuses nearly solely on two parties--the Democrat and Republican. We also have the Libertarian, Green and Justice parties but candidates for these never really get face time on the mainstream media. Hedges mentioned Dr. Jill Stein (he mistakenly called her "Jean Stein", which was wrong. During the previous presidential campaign period, Dr. Stein and her running mate, Cheri Honkala (Green Party) was arrested after trying to gain entry to the presidential debates as a presidential candidate.

www.politico.com...

If I recall correctly, the reason why they were able to block Stein and Honkala from entry into the presidential debates was due to these debates being hosted by mainstream media and, ergo, "invitation only" but not 100%. It's just another facet of what I see as the political methods of control on US politics.

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

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

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

Strange, considering Norway, Sweden and Denmark, all hugely liberal and socialist, consistently top the rankings for prosperity, education, healthcare and eliminating poverty.

I think you're thinking of mainstream American Liberalism, which is actually just center-right capitalist conservatism with some messy attempts at social safety nets and healthcare to appear liberal. If we actually got strong liberal policies in place we might well be more like Sweden and less like a Banana Republic whose policies are entirely made for the benefit of the top 5% income earners.

neo liberals and neo conservatives are the same #. basically anything with *neo* in front ot it is globalist scum. traditional liberals and conservatives died a long time ago. basically ron paul is/was the closest thing to traditional.

time to get rid of the traitors and install some third party. its ok to be patient but stupid to be dense.

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

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

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

hate to break it to you but there are no liberal politicians in office right now and haven't been for a long time.
mostly they are moistly right of center, spewing slogans and pretending to be liberal.

obama is not a liberal, anyone who thinks so has a skewed view of what a liberal is. LOL oh yes that 2000-2008 period where the economy turned to crap sure was "liberal" wasn't it?
yep the non-reactionary patriot act really helped us so well! you know after that thing called 9/11? remember that?
it's funny bill clinton left us with a surplus of money, guess who ballooned our debt? yeah it wasn't a liberal. funny that up to clinton our debt ballooned as we went through 12 years of republican control...

you must be living in a different universe than the rest of us.

reply to post by dreamingawake


Just as a hypothetical scenario, what would happen if only say 5% of the population bothered to vote at the next election? Would that give the "winners" a legal mandate to rule the country? If not, then a way out would surely be a mass boycott at the next election.

I have to confess that i am not "au fait" with US election policy - certainly not as much as i should be. I just wondered in the Constitution makes any reference to this scenario?

We already know that these men only represent their crony interests but we still continually vote them into office each election! So my question is are we really so stupid to believe these men and their parties have anything but the minority of corporate banking interests at heart? If most of us do realize this truth then why do we continue to elect these parties? Is it that even the elections are rigged?

Is it not entirely our own faults for where we are now?
How do we find anyone who will actually represent the interests of those people they are voted in to represent?
Even if we do will this be enough to bring in change or is it already too late?

I suspect that we don't have the power to change this world because we are already enslaved by those that are willing to do anything to maintain their power over us!~
So I suspect the only way to change this, is we must also be willing to do anything to bring about that change which we want to see! The only problem is, I suspect most of us are not willing to sacrifice what is needed to bring about this change and until we are we will continually see more of the same actions which are destroying our jobs, freedoms and choices!~

Someday we may be ready to sacrifice for true freedom, democracy and happiness but I'm sorry to say "this day is not now"! May we someday soon find the integrity, willingness and fortitude to take this stand!

Originally posted by Flavian
reply to post by dreamingawake

 

Just as a hypothetical scenario, what would happen if only say 5% of the population bothered to vote at the next election? Would that give the "winners" a legal mandate to rule the country? If not, then a way out would surely be a mass boycott at the next election.

I have to confess that i am not "au fait" with US election policy - certainly not as much as i should be. I just wondered in the Constitution makes any reference to this scenario?

If only 5% of the population were to vote in the next election, than whichever candidate received the majority of those votes would be elected into office. Who is placed into office isn't based on total available voters but who actually takes the time to vote. Our voting system isn't compulsory and is wholly participant based. I calculated out just what percentage of voters voted in Obama in another thread so will repeat those figures for comprehension on how it works.

The voter turnout for the 2012 presidential election was 57.5% of all eligible voters.

President Obama received 50.4% of these votes.
That means 28.98% of the voting population elected our current president
Romney received 48.1% of the votes.
Only 27.66% of the voting population voted for Romney.

Using these same figures, if the voter turnout were only 5%, then the equivalent numbers would have been only 2.5% of the voting population voting in Obama as president. He'd still be the elected president, regardless of voter turnout. I do not think we have a "no confidence" rule in our governmental system and pretty sure about that. The equivalent "no confidence" options we have would be impeachment or recall.

So, in short, abstaining from voting would only make matters substantially worse. Actually voting is the answer.

reply to post by evictiongnostic

Strange, considering Norway, Sweden and Denmark, all hugely liberal and socialist, consistently top the rankings for prosperity, education, healthcare and eliminating poverty.

Yea, strange, now you have people have who are educated by the state, given free healthcare paid by other people, and people who did nothing to earn their way out of poverty except by asking the government.

And by who's standard of prosperity anyway? Bigger Socialist governments produce prosperity? More government constraints and taxes because it reduces poverty? (which doesn't even make sense)

I think you're thinking of mainstream American Liberalism, which is actually just center-right capitalist conservatism with some messy attempts at social safety nets and healthcare to appear liberal. If we actually got strong liberal policies in place we might well be more like Sweden and less like a Banana Republic whose policies are entirely made for the benefit of the top 5% income earners.

I get a sense of the typical anti-capitalist, OWS, 'guy who walks down the street wearing a Che t-shirt', bigot, who cant tell the difference between Capitalism and Crony Capitalism. American liberalism emulates nothing of "Center-right conservatism." It sounds like you are talking just to hear yourself talk. No Conservative/Libertarian that I know wants "social safety nets", that implies socialism, and the ones to implement those "safety nets" is the government.

All you do is hand more power to the goverment. We all know what happens when you let government expand. (look at Obama, Bush(we are getting there because of them), Stalin, Hitler, and Mao)

All of the injustices portrayed by these bigger goverments claimed to do it in the name of the "poor", to stop poverty."

reply to post by Redden


Actually, Eviction is correct in his/her statements in regards to Scandinavian countries.

Democracy: Norway, Sweden and Denmark all hold positions in the top 10 in the global democracy ranking that is done every year. Norway, a constitutional monarchy, ranks holds the number one position. The US ranked 19th in 2011. In 2013, the Scandinavian countries still hold the top spots and the US has slid to 21.

2011: edition.cnn.com...
2013: www.huffingtonpost.com...

Quality of Life: Norway is #1 in this one, again but the US is in the top 5.
news.discovery.com...

Poverty: Norway, Sweden and Denmark all have the lowest gap in income inequality and poverty levels. Denmark and Sweden have the lowest gap of all other industrialized countries. US is way on the other end www.globalissues.org...

Child poverty: www.washingtonpost.com...

Education: Sweden, Norway and Denmark all ranked in the top 8 in terms of early education while the US ranked 24th in the same ranking (tied with the United Arab Emirates).
www.tc.columbia.edu...

In terms of best college education, US still holds some of the best colleges (Harvard, Yale et al).

Finland should also be mentioned as it was definitely in the top all across the board.

www.forbes.com...

I traveled a good deal across Europe when I was younger as my grandfather believed that a 'grand tour" had a very important educational purpose in comprehending the differences between one's own country and others. First thing I quickly learned is that we're not particularly admired. If anything, we're considered arrogant because we think we're so great. The reality is that where the US tops all other countries is in the size of our military and nuclear arsenal. Those aren't so good in my book.

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

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

When is the breaking point?

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

The pressitute media has no guts. They have been 'embedded' so thoroughly that they are but lapdogs for the government.

Old news--all 3 branches of the federal government are utterly corrupted.

reply to post by Salander


What's corrupted the press is the same as what has corrupted government, corporate ownership.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Well good grief. Thats a bit of a technicallity! When was the last time anyone other than a Republican or a Democrat sat in the Oval office do you think? Was it someone from a time before those descriptions became truely relavent to US society?

got two minutes in, his claim that switzerland was in scandinavia made me cry laughing.

Originally posted by TrueBrit
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

Well good grief. Thats a bit of a technicallity! When was the last time anyone other than a Republican or a Democrat sat in the Oval office do you think? Was it someone from a time before those descriptions became truely relavent to US society?

Answering that question gets a little sketchy as sometimes history changes. Millard Fillmore, however, was a Whig/American Party (Know-nothing). Most of the Whigs joined the Republican party after Fillmore's presidency That was back in 1853. Been a while, eh? Only 160 years....

Recollected this documentary from 2002 today but must of dozed off before finishing (watched the series back to back a few years ago). Although there are some missing pegs within the entire series in regards to Esalen, EST and a few other factoids, this last segment talks about what changed in those particular parties. This last segment is actually very enlightening as it pertains to Blair/Labour and Clinton/Democrats. In a way, it almost makes sense that this is what has fundamentally changed within politics as the hinge positions that the parties on this side of the pond have entrenched themselves in have been on more personal and subjective issues.

Originally posted by NateHatred
got two minutes in, his claim that switzerland was in scandinavia made me cry laughing.

He also screwed up on Jill Stein's name. He called her Jean. Little mistakes like that can be costly.