Chris Hedges: Resist or Become Serfs

[marmar]

from Truthdig:



Resist or Become Serfs
Posted on Apr 6, 2009

By Chris Hedges


America is devolving into a third-world nation. And if we do not immediately halt our elite’s rapacious looting of the public treasury we will be left with trillions in debts, which can never be repaid, and widespread human misery which we will be helpless to ameliorate. Our anemic democracy will be replaced with a robust national police state. The elite will withdraw into heavily guarded gated communities where they will have access to security, goods and services that cannot be afforded by the rest of us. Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism. The stimulus and bailout plans are not about saving us. They are about saving them. We can resist, which means street protests, disruptions of the system and demonstrations, or become serfs.

We have been in a steady economic decline for decades. The Canadian political philosopher John Ralston Saul detailed this decline in his 1992 book “Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West.” David Cay Johnston exposed the mirage and rot of American capitalism in “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill),” and David C. Korten, in “When Corporations Rule the World” and “Agenda for a New Economy,” laid out corporate malfeasance and abuse. But our universities and mass media, entranced by power and naively believing that global capitalism was an unstoppable force of nature, rarely asked the right questions or gave a prominent voice to those who did. Our elites hid their incompetence and loss of control behind an arrogant facade of specialized jargon and obscure economic theories.

The lies employed to camouflage the economic decline are legion. President Ronald Reagan included 1.5 million U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine service personnel with the civilian work force to magically reduce the nation’s unemployment rate by 2 percent. President Bill Clinton decided that those who had given up looking for work, or those who wanted full-time jobs but could only find part-time employment, were no longer to be counted as unemployed. This trick disappeared some 5 million unemployed from the official unemployment rolls. If you work more than 21 hours a week—most low-wage workers at places like Wal-Mart average 28 hours a week—you are counted as employed, although your real wages put you below the poverty line. Our actual unemployment rate, when you include those who have stopped looking for work and those who can only find part-time jobs, is not 8.5 percent but 15 percent. A sixth of the country is now effectively unemployed. And we are shedding jobs at a faster rate than in the months after the 1929 crash.

The consumer price index, used by the government to measure inflation, is meaningless. To keep the official inflation figures low the government has been substituting basic products it once measured to check for inflation with ones that do not rise very much in price. This sleight of hand has kept the cost-of-living increases tied to the CPI artificially low. The New York Times’ consumer reporter, W.P. Dunleavy, wrote that her groceries now cost $587 a month, up from $400 a year earlier. This is a 40 percent increase. California economist John Williams, who runs an organization called Shadow Statistics, contends that if Washington still used the CPI measurements applied back in the 1970s, inflation would be 10 percent. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090406_resist_or_become_serfs/

[lamp_shade]

1. Like I'm gonna read anything Hedges has to say.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Fumesucker]

3. Bzzzt... Chris, here's a clue.. It's too damn late already

Our fate is sealed, the thieves have already done the damage.

A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking real money.

[Mari333]

4. the bait and switch and lies have been going on for decades

and yes, good article. I have been watching serfdom occur all of my 60 yrs. the slow erosion of workers rights, unions, and decent wages. the outsourcing, the corporate takeovers. unless you lived at a time when people demanded a fair wage for a full days work, which I did, you just wont get it. I almost think people are USED to serfdom now.

[juno jones]

5. hey marmar!

kpete posted this too, not like I'm counting. :) But I found it odd that the thread quickly filled with people doing the equivalent of your first poster here, covering their ears, yelling lalalala and shooting the messenger. "I'm not reading it, it's an awful article and I'm NOT reading it no how no way. I haven't READ it but it sucks because it doesn't reflect MY worldview or maybe I'm confusing Hitchens with Hedges but I'll never learn the difference because lalalalala."

They seem to be unaware of the veracity of a pultizer-prize winning journalist and the standing that veteran Du'ers such as kpete and yourself have in this community.

Just a heads up.

Keep doing what you do marmar, I love your posts. :hi:

As for you who profess to not listen to people like Chris Hedges, and would attack the messengers here who call attention to his work, I would suggest you 'lurk moar'. You are acting in bad form. Hedges work has always been accepted here since the days I was a newbie lurker in the opening years of this century.

PS, As far as feudalism goes, it's elephants all the way down. And it's not eight years but thirty or more that have built these chains for some and gilded cages for others.

edit to add link to other thread: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/kpete/9345

[BeFree]

6. Some hard truths in that

Folks have a hard time with the hard truths... that's why the media gets away with their crap.... people want to be lulled into thinking everything is fine.
"It's all under control"

What Hedges said is that folks need to start complaining, y'know, standing up for their rights. But first one needs to comprehend the hard truths and those who hide their heads in the sand, unfortunately, become obstacles on the road to overcoming the elites who would make serfs of us all.

[pinqy]

7. I love how he lies in complaining about lies...

The lies employed to camouflage the economic decline are legion. President Ronald Reagan included 1.5 million U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine service personnel with the civilian work force to magically reduce the nation’s unemployment rate by 2 percent.

True, except the civilian labor force number was published right alongside as the U-5a and U-5b respectively. And the difference was more like 0.1%, not 2% (Source)

President Bill Clinton decided that those who had given up looking for work, or those who wanted full-time jobs but could only find part-time employment, were no longer to be counted as unemployed.

Part-time for economic reasons have NEVER been included in the Unemployment Rate. Those who had given up looking for work because they didn't think they could find work haven't been included since 1967, based on recommendations made in 1963.

The consumer price index, used by the government to measure inflation, is meaningless. To keep the official inflation figures low the government has been substituting basic products it once measured to check for inflation with ones that do not rise very much in price.

It did no such thing. The change he's thinking of was a change in calculation at the base level from a Lespeyres index, which assumes no substitution, to a geo-means index which assumes some substitution when relative prices change between different components of a category (frozen yogurt for premium ice cream or vice versa, for example. Or Rib Eye versus Sirloin, but NOT hamburger for steak).

This sleight of hand has kept the cost-of-living increases tied to the CPI artificially low.

The old method was artificaially high.

The New York Times’ consumer reporter, W.P. Dunleavy, wrote that her groceries now cost $587 a month, up from $400 a year earlier. This is a 40 percent increase.

The CPI measures price change for identical or near identical items and adjusts for quality change (such as change from a 12 oz package to a 10 oz package). I'd bet Duleavy's baskets weren't identical.