Chris Hedges sees dark days ahead. The reincarnated robber barons are now in charge. And capitalism is in deep trouble:
We are entering the twilight phase of capitalism. Wealth is no longer created by producing or manufacturing. It is created by manipulating the prices of stocks and commodities and imposing a crippling debt peonage on the public. Our casino capitalism has merged with the gambling industry. The entire system is parasitic. It is designed to prey on the desperate—young men and women burdened by student loans, underpaid workers burdened by credit card debt and mortgages, towns and cities forced to borrow to maintain municipal services.
Casino magnates such as Sheldon Adelson and hedge fund managers such as Robert Mercer add nothing of value to society. They do not generate money but instead redistribute it upwards to the 1 percent. They use lobbyists and campaign contributions to built monopolies—this is how the drug company Mylan raised the price of an “EpiPen,” used to treat allergy reactions, from $57 in 2007 to about $500—and to rewrite laws and regulations. They have given themselves the legal power to carry out a tax boycott, loot the U.S. Treasury, close factories and send the jobs overseas, gut social service programs and impose austerity. They have, at the same time, militarized our police, built the most sophisticated security and surveillance apparatus in human history and used judicial fiat to strip us of our civil liberties. They are ready should we rise up in defiance.
The new lords of the manner are just as repulsive as William Faulkner's people. Faulkner's novels are populated by low lifes like the Snopes family:
The Snopeses filled the power vacuum of the decayed South and ruthlessly seized control from the degenerated, former slave-holding aristocratic elites. Flem Snopes and his extended family—which includes a killer, a pedophile, a bigamist, an arsonist, a mentally disabled man who copulates with a cow, and a relative who sells tickets to witness the bestiality—are fictional representations of the scum now elevated to the highest level of the federal government. They embody the moral rot unleashed by unfettered capitalism.
It's hard to read a Faulkner novel -- because the characters are so repellent. Now they have come off the Nobel Prize winner's page and made their way to the top of American society. We are in for dark days indeed.
Image: AbeBooks
3 comments:
The link you provide is excellent, Anon. But I only publish Anonymous comments that are initialed.
The American government no longer functions as a government Owen. Whoever rules, democratic or republic, either party when in power act as body guards deciding who will and who will not be allowed to have political access to the government of the day. You can bet it won't be the American people given access.
The neoliberal imperial power elite have hijacked the US government and that government is there to politically accomodate their every need. Both entities are criminal cabals set up to fleece American citizens and the world of their wealth, their rights, their sovereignty, their privacy, even their dignity.
The present presidential thug and his gang now residing in the Whitehouse, remind me of the mafiosa that would meet in their own various clubs to discuss their next big money crime and who was to die.
With the globalization and the neoliberal con coming to its end the corporate/military elite are doubling down on holding their power. So to the American Empire.
If the American people finally figure out that they have been had it may be to late. The tools, the militarized police, backed by legislation and various intelligence agencies will quickly strike down public dissent,including peaceful protests.
The political control and theft of wealth that so many have experienced around the the world through the force of American imperial tyranny is now coming home to roost.
It may, indeed, be too late, Pam. But -- as Hedges writes -- there is no other option but to resist.
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