Chris Hedges - We've lost control: The real lessons of the Trump regime and the pandemic

By Dilip - Tuesday, December 22, 2020

NB: An excellent analysis by one of America's most forthright journalists. Hedges is also an upholder of human conscience: here's a review of one of his books on war; and here are titles of two other books (among others) written with courage and of relevance to our times: American Fascists - The Christian Right and the War on America; Free Press; 2008; and The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress; Nation Books; 2011

My caveat is this: Even as he exposes the corporate links of the Democratic establishment, why does he find it necessary to dismiss allegations of Trump's links to Russian political and financial interests? Thus, he writes: A new Cold War with Russia will be used by the corporate Democrats to discredit... critics and deflect attention from the political stagnation and the corporate pillaging of the country. It will allow MSNBC and The New York Times, which spent two years slogging empty Russiagate conspiracies, to disseminate a daily stream of... rumors and shady accusations about Russia.

Hedges is a seasoned journalist. Why can't he investigate the (apparently substantial) evidence of Trump's links to Russian interests and tell us why these allegations are false? Is he unaware of how Russia deals with criticism and protest and of how many human rights activists and journalists have been murdered in Russia? Does he think the recent attempted murder of Navalny is a piece of fake news? Does he recall the fate of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo? Chris is alive and able to speak and write about the crimes of American governments. Does he think he would be able to do the same if he were a citizen of Russia and the PRC?

Here are a few articles for readers to think about

List of Russian journalists killed since 1993

Al lies of slain Putin critic Nemtsov allege cover-up after guilty verdict

Russian Justice: Sergei Magnitsky’s Torture and Murder in Pre-Trial Detention

Solidarity with Memorial: Russia’s most prominent civil rights group in danger

Nick Hopkins and Luke Harding - Intelligence sources vouch for credibility of Russia dossier author / Mark Sumner - Trump Was Bailed Out of Bankruptcy by Russia Crime Bosses

The destruction of society EUROZINE REVIEW

British banks handled vast sums of laundered Russian money

Lawyer For Russian Whistleblower’s Family Falls From Building One Day Before Hearing

It is perfectly correct to draw attention to the massive presence of corporate interests in the Democratic establishment, and its efforts to sideline its left-populist wing. What I'd like to ask him is this: Why is it necessary to overlook one aspect of a dangerous reality while exposing another? Has the Democratic establishment made a systematic attempt to deprive Black Americans of their right to vote? Hedges' arguments sometimes remind me of Andrew Bacevich, whose critique of the war-mongering Democratic establishment overlooks war-mongering by the Republican Party: thus, Turkey and Saudi Arabia don't get a mention in this piece.

Corporate power in the USA is an autonomous force, not ideologically partisan, but with immediate access to all parties. I don't need to remind Chris Hedges of this, he's argued it brilliantly himself. And he's quite capable of examining Trump's love for authoritarian forces in countries like mine, whose Prime Minister made a thinly veiled electoral push for Trump on a visit to Houston in 2019; and who has now been awarded the Legion of Merit. Towards the end of his article Hedges uses the term 'deep state' without scare quotes, and without explanation - what does it mean? Is the 'deep state' identifiable? He could turn his gaze toward the ideological inclinations of the Indian establishment, and also to what Indian corporates are engaged in these days. Having said this, I still accept and support the brunt of Hedges argument below. But we're all in this mess together, Chris. It undermines your rhetoric when you make apparently one-sided observations. DS

We've lost control: The real lessons of the Trump regime and the pandemic

Joe Biden and the systems managers of the deep state and empire are returning to power. Donald Trump and his coterie of buffoons, racists, con artists and Christian fascists are sullenly preparing to leave office. U.S. pharmaceutical corporations are starting to disseminate vaccines to mitigate the globe's worst outbreak of COVID-19, which has resulted in more than 2,600 deaths per day. America, as Biden says, is back, ready to take its place at the head of the table. In the battle for the soul of America, he assures us, democracy has prevailed. Progress, prosperity, civility and a reassertion of American prestige and power are, we are promised, weeks away.

But the real lesson we should learn from the rise of a demagogue such as Trump, who received 74 million votes, and a pandemic that our for-profit health care industry proved unable to contain, is that we are losing control as a nation and as a species. Far more dangerous demagogues will arise from the imperial and neoliberal policies the Biden administration will embrace. Far worse pandemics will sweep the globe with higher rates of infections and mortality, an inevitable result of our continued consumption of animals and animal products, and the wanton destruction of the ecosystem on which we and other species depend for life….

https://www.salon.com/2020/12/22/weve-lost-control-the-real-lessons-of-the-trump-regime-and-the-pandemic/

Mohammed Hanif: The rest of the world has had it with US presidents, Trump or otherwise

You're fired ! Americans taunt Trump with his own catchphrase

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ends truce by waring ‘incompetent’ Democratic party

George Monbiot: Ayn Rand - A Manifesto for Psychopaths

Tom McTague: The Decline of the American World

Donald Trump: Democracy’s mirror image? By Philip Manow / David A. Bell - Fascism or Caesarism?

Jonathan Freedland - Donald Trump's plot against democracy could break America apart

Debt: The first five thousand years. By DAVID GRAEBER

HARRY BLAIN: America’s Wars always Come Home

Jill Lepore A History of America’s military spending
Jonathan Freedland: Trump is destroying democracy in broad daylight // Chauncey DeVega: Vigilantes are preparing ‘to launch a coup’

Chauncey DeVega: Trump is mentally ill but our real sickness runs much deeper