Is Chris Hedges' Right? The Battle is Over and We lost

Author of "Empire of Illusion" and former Harvard Divinity Student, Chris Hedges just published a piece on truthout saying that the fatal shift in wealth in the United States is a fait accompli and that this was not some conspiracy but was done transparently as lobbyists since Jimmy Carter's time wrote our laws. He writes that the elites will not take care of Americans. We are doomed to become an immensely large underclass. He also says that the elites will not step in when it all unravels.

Pointedly, he concludes the elites don't have a vision. I agree. They just want more. Hedges urges us to create monastic-style communities where we can keep the vision of democracy and a just society alive. It would be nice to treat Hedges' essay as another Cassandra-like note in an age of high anxiety. But there is too much truth in what he says to dismiss him out of hand.

If Viktor Fankl is right that humans are compelled to create meaning, one can't help pondering what Hedges has to say. Hedges has been out front for years on the issue how our media simply creates spectacles and our "news" is driven simply by accenting personalities, while people pick our collective pockets. Since Hedges is my age, it may be the natural aging process and increased cynicism that comes with age. But I don't think so.


How does one explain the extolling of ignorance in our society? Take the right-wing's obsession of birtherism. This weekend I read an amazing piece by an AP reporter, who decided to go to the Hawaii Hall of Records and look up Barack Obama's birth certificate for himself. Right there in front of him was the yellowing record of President Obama's live birth. The amazing part of the article was that only one other person had ever examined it before the AP journalist. This is three years into the manufactured controversy. Yet birtherism is now a requirement for all Republican candidates for office. Apparently fact-based reality has no place in the marketplace of ideas.

How bad has it become? If you are a fiscal conservative, then you have to support the People's Budget of the Progressive Caucus. Unlike President Obama's budget and the Ryan plan , it actually eliminates the deficit and balances the budget and actually produces a surplus. Of course, it also raises taxes, cuts defense spending and gets us out of Afghanistan. But when was the last time,the only conservative option was the progressive one? To me that's scary.

This weekend I was in Barnes & Noble, seeing what the new releases are. One title caught my eye--Why CEOs need a philosophy? It was how the philosophy of Atlas Shrugged applies to business. Does anyone remember a short-time ago the brief spurt of interest in corporate resonsibility? Or that after the meltdown of 2008 Business Schools decided to introduce ethics into their curriculum? Now we get "Going Gault". Even Michael Gerson, the former speechwriter for George W. Bush,has written an op-ed in the Washington Post lambasting Ayan Rand's philosophy as adolescent and warning all who go there to watch out.

The target of Gerson's attack was the Republicans who have embraced the eradication of America's social welfare net. A curious thing has happened to the House Republicans who voted with minor exceptions to get rid of Medicare and Medicaid. They are being pummelled at their townhall meetings by constituents opposing these measures. One townhall meeting I watched a woman raised what is an on-going theme for elected Republicans--whether in Congress or in state houses--"You didn't campaign on this. You didn't say you were going to do this. That's not fair." In townhall meetings around the country, I was proud of my fellow baby-boomers who were "reassured" by the Republican congressperson their retirement was safe but constantly asked their representative about their children and grandchildren. In townhall meeting after townhall meeting, average people suggested that taxes should be raised on the wealthy and corporporations.

If you were born after 1957, you can forget about it. I find it ironic that the generational wars were ignited by a non-Baby Boomer to take all entitlements away from his own generation. Paul Ryan could never have gone to college unless he and his brothers and sisters hadn't received Social Security when his father dropped dead at the age of 55. Yet someone who concretely benefited from entitlements now that he doesn't need them anymore can take them away from everyone else.

Within a day after the House passed the Ryan budget, there were at least five articles commenting on the unlikelihood that the health insurance industry would insure seniors. They don't like Medicare Advantage. But so far, we have yet to hear a peep from the health insurance industry about whether they would indeed insure the elderly under the Ryan proposal. It's just crickets. You would think Ryan, who is funded by the industry to a large extent, would have persuaded one of his patrons to speak up and say it was a great idea. None have and no one in the MSM has asked industry spokespeople about the deal.

Jim Hightower also weighed in on current developments by writing about the plutocracy in the Midwest states. Populist Hightower points out that the Midwest governors are not conservatives they are just serving the plutocrats. You don't have to look anyway else but Michigan where the basic elements of democratic government are being stripped away under the Emergency Financial Laws. In Minnesota, a GOP state senator tried to push the idea that voting was a privilege, not a right. Soon we will have to produce evidence we own property.

Chris Hedges and Jim Hightower are right in claiming the financial elites want more and now they want what assets the pubic sector have. But the question I have is why after the economic situation of the last decade do we believe that the private sector has any special knowledge or talents applicable to the public sector? It was the public sector which had to bail their asses out of disaster. We now the private sector can make profits--but can they create jobs anymore or even a sustainable economy for the country?

I suppose I should take solace in Hedges' call for the creation of monastic communities to keep the democratic ideals alive. After all my namesake St. Columba from Iona,an isolated island off Scotland, kept civilization alive with his library of 13 books during the Middle Ages. With all the teachers being fired or being bullied by the billionaire's club, there will be alot of talent to forge the next civilization. But the unravelling will be ugly.