One is Doomed if Nothing Happens in America

[georgephillip]

Tariq Ali has been an icon on the left since Mick Jagger became inspired to write "Street Fighting Man" after watching Ali and 8000 others protest the US invasion of South Vietnam in 1968.

Ali's latest book, The Extreme Center: A Warning posits a devolution of democracy through the infusion of corporate money into both major US political parties and the rise of a wholesale security and surveillance state designed to accelerate "the reconfiguration of the global economy into a merciless neofeudalism, a world of masters and serfs."

Ali believes the US must be ground zero in the struggle against "authoritarian capitalism"

"'If nothing happens in the United States, if nothing new is created to challenge systemic excesses and empire, it will be a bad situation for all of us,' he said. 'One is doomed if nothing happens in the U.S.'”

Chris Hedges Tariq Ali The Time Is Right for a Palace Revolution - Chris Hedges -Truthdig

 

[there4eyeM]

Just for the record, the US did not invade South Vietnam. I was opposed to that conflict, but words are important, or should be.

 

[georgephillip]

ust for the record, the US did not invade South Vietnam. I was opposed to that conflict, but words are important, or should be.

What other word besides "invade" would you suggest?
https://www.lib.washington.edu/SouthEastAsia/vsg/elist_2008/The Invasion of South Viet Nam.html

 

[gipper]

Great article with many accurate statements. The USA is in big trouble if we continue to allow the oligarchy to control everything.

I thought the following two paragraphs clearly reveal that the American people have become weak and feeble minded. We have allowed our government, which is controlled by a small powerful oligarchy, to impose a form of soft tyranny and it is soft now, but could get hard at any moment. The neo-liberalism he describes has effectively dumbed down millions of Americans into believing big unlimited government is good.

Ali said that the failure on the part of citizens to build mass movements to dismantle wholesale surveillance in the wake of the revelations by Edward Snowden was an example of our collective self-delusion and our complicity in our own oppression. The cult of the self, a product of neoliberal corporate propaganda, infects every aspect of society and culture and leads to paralysis.

“Hollywood gave an Oscar to“Citizenfour” and that is as far as it goes,” he said. “As if that matters. That is what is frightening. No civil rights movement has sprung up uniting the citizens against mass surveillance. Neoliberalism has effectively destroyed solidarity and empathy, helped by new technology. It is a culture of narcissism.”

Thank you for posting the article.

 

[Old Rocks]

Gipper, if the oligarchs here in this nation ever decide to take over hard, it will the the guns of the rightwingnuts that support them. It is they that have protested every regulation that would lesson the power of the oligarchs.

 

[gipper]

Gipper, if the oligarchs here in this nation ever decide to take over hard, it will the the guns of the rightwingnuts that support them. It is they that have protested every regulation that would lesson the power of the oligarchs.

It is amazing that you can see that many on the Right are owned by the oligarchs, but can't see that many on the Left are too.

Have you failed to recognize that BO and W are blood brothers?

 

[B. Kidd]

Not to rain on your thread GP, below is a good 'companion' article:

Why They Spy IT-Powered Feudalism Is Cheaper Than Playing Fair Zero Hedge

 

[gipper]

Gipper, if the oligarchs here in this nation ever decide to take over hard, it will the the guns of the rightwingnuts that support them. It is they that have protested every regulation that would lesson the power of the oligarchs.

In addition, you have failed to learn from history.

Nearly all tyrannical regimes of the past century, were leftist regimes who imposed terrible suffering and death on their people.

Your fear of the right may be justified, but history points to the left as the one to most fear.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

Gipper, if the oligarchs here in this nation ever decide to take over hard, it will the the guns of the rightwingnuts that support them. It is they that have protested every regulation that would lesson the power of the oligarchs.

It is amazing that you can see that many on the Right are owned by the oligarchs, but can't see that many on the Left are too.

Have you failed to recognize that BO and W are blood brothers?

You're wasting your time. He can't see that.

 

[georgephillip]

The neo-liberalism he describes has effectively dumbed down millions of Americans into believing big unlimited government is good.

Americans don't understand or even know of some of the most important facts concerning their own history:

"'Why didn’t the American working class produce a Labour Party or a proper Communist Party?” (Ali) asked.

"'Repression. If you look at ... what happened in America in the early decades of the 20th century and the last decade of the 19th century you see that private mercenaries were hired to stop it [political organizing].

"'This is a history that is not emphasized.

"'This wretched neoliberalism has downgraded the teaching of history. It is the one subject they really hate. Politics they can take up because they use anti-communism. But history is a huge problem.

"'You can’t understand the emergence of Syriza without understanding the Second World War, the role of the partisans, the role of the Communist Party that organized the partisans and how at one point 75 percent of the country was controlled by these partisans. Then the West came and fought a new war, Churchill did it with Truman’s backing, to defeat these people.'”

Chris Hedges Tariq Ali The Time Is Right for a Palace Revolution - Chris Hedges -Truthdig

 

[gipper]

Gipper, if the oligarchs here in this nation ever decide to take over hard, it will the the guns of the rightwingnuts that support them. It is they that have protested every regulation that would lesson the power of the oligarchs.

It is amazing that you can see that many on the Right are owned by the oligarchs, but can't see that many on the Left are too.

Have you failed to recognize that BO and W are blood brothers?

You're wasting your time. He can't see that.

Well that is a problem.

Partisan zealots on both sides can't or won't see the truth.

 

[georgephillip]

Not to rain on your thread GP, below is a good 'companion' article:

Why They Spy IT-Powered Feudalism Is Cheaper Than Playing Fair Zero Hedge

My threads need all the irrigation they can get. IMHO, your link reads like prophecy:
"The amount a state needs to expend on guard labour is a function of how much legitimacy the state holds in its population’s reckoning.

"A state whose population mainly views the system as fair needs to do less coercion to attain stability.

"People who believe that they are well-served by the status quo will not work to upset it.

"States whose populations view the system as illegitimate need to spend more on guard labour.

"Why spy?

"Because it’s cheaper than playing fair.

"Our networks have given the edge to the elites, and unless we seize the means of information, we are headed for a long age of IT-powered feudalism, where property is the exclusive domain of the super-rich, where your surveillance-supercharged Internet of Things treats you as a tenant-farmer of your life, subject to a licence agreement instead of a constitution."

Why They Spy IT-Powered Feudalism Is Cheaper Than Playing Fair Zero Hedge