A paragraph from Chris Hedges' piece on Truthdig today that adroitly summarizes where we are.....

[marmar]

[font size="5"]Corporations have captured every major institution, including the judicial, legislative and executive branches of government, and deformed them to exclusively serve the demands of the market. They have, in the process, demolished civil society. Karl Polanyi in “The Great Transformation” warned that without heavy government regulation and oversight, unfettered and unregulated capitalism degenerates into a Mafia capitalism and a Mafia political system. A self-regulating market, Polanyi writes, turns human beings and the natural environment into commodities. This ensures the destruction of both society and the natural environment. The ecosystem and human beings become objects whose worth is determined solely by the market. They are exploited until exhaustion or collapse occurs. A society that no longer recognizes that the natural world and life have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic value beyond monetary value, commits collective suicide. Such societies cannibalize themselves. This is what we are undergoing. Literally.[/font]

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_society_of_captives_20141207

[hifiguy]

1. As brilliant and succinct a description as ever there could be.

We are doomed, no doubt about it. Humanity, culture, and the planet itself have been reduced to burnt offerings on the altar of Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand, and the other apostles of boundless greed.

Extinction is not likely, but the great die-off becomes more of a certainty every day.

[KingCharlemagne]

15. I don't know if 'we' are doomed, but the recurring crises given to us

by capitalism about once every other generation show little sign of abating.

Of course, Marx and Engels predicted much of what Hedges articulates about the relentless capitalist drive to commodify anything and everything, so as to extract profits from it, 150 years earlier. And democratic socialism remains an option that may still offer us a way out of the labyrinth.

[DemandsRedPill]

26. doomed?

If you feel we are doomed then I suppose the best way to boil his statements down to something without all the fat would be

"Man needs nature"
"Nature does not need man"

Of course if there is any optimism at all we could try plan B

We went from feudalism to capitalism (with the failed experiment in what was called communism) but capitalism has no unbreakable lock on future destiny.
It is not written as a law of nature so it can and will be challenged.

There is an alternative that works pretty well and is carried on across the globe,although at far too small a scale.

It's called worker CO-OPS

Check out Mondragon in Spain for one of the more successful

Another approach that can also save our environment and us as a species is to convert to a no growth economy or a steady state economy

Lots of information out there on this concept

You may be discouraged and see the glass as less than half empty
Others willing to suppress all logic may see it as half full

I prefer to look at it and then ask "why the hell was the glass made like that"?

[Enthusiast]

37. They® will welcome, even foster the great die-off. It will mean more for them.

They think so anyway.

[hifiguy]

44. The die-off part is actually easy to facilitate.

Make sure that the "undesirables" have no access to medical care and passively cull the herd.

As for the periodic die-offs that will also be necessary they can be disguised under the free-market rubric while Goldman and their ilk arrange for the commodity shortages required to starve and freeze the underclass. Hey, it's Glorious Capitalism at work! Can't expect the gubmint to interfere in the all-knowing free market! Suck it up or die, chumps. We'd prefer the latter, so get to it!

[billhicks76]

58. Inform Hillary Please

As she is a major part of the problem given that her sell-out type of actions are about to contribute to no change.

[staggerleem]

60. Better yet, inform Nicaraguan Presudent Daniel Ortega!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025210583

[daleanime]

2. Unfortunately true....

we are definitely eating ourselves.

[mother earth]

3. TY, marmar, K & R, kudos as always to Chris Hedges,

As in every totalitarian state, the first victims are the vulnerable

It's time to say no to this assault on all we hold dear.

[woo me with science]

4. Thank you,

marmar

And to every corporate shill earning a little paycheck for distributing the talking points:

Please check your soul. Check your conscience.

We need you, too.

[joeybee12]

5. Pretty phucking great...knr

[bvar22]

6. DURec.

One would have to be in their late 50s or 60s and remember the Democrats of The Great Society, New Deal, and Square Deal
to really appreciate what was said in the OP.

[KingCharlemagne]

14. By 'Square Deal' were you attempting to refer to Harry S. Truman's 'Fair Deal'? I've

never heard of a Square Deal from the 50s or 60s.

[Jackpine Radical]

18. The Square Deal dates from Roosevelt--

TEDDY Roosevelt, that is.

Wikipedia:

The Square Deal was President Theodore Roosevelt's domestic program formed upon three basic ideas: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection.[1] These three demands are often referred to as the "three C's" of Roosevelt's Square Deal. Thus, it aimed at helping middle class citizens and involved attacking plutocracy and bad trusts while at the same time protecting business from the most extreme demands of organized labor. A progressive Republican,[2] Roosevelt believed in government action to mitigate social evils, and as president denounced "the representatives of predatory wealth” as guilty of “all forms of iniquity from the oppression of wage workers to defrauding the public."[3]

[KingCharlemagne]

20. Thanks for that. As you probly guessed, I was too lazy to Google search the phrase, thinking

the writer had simply used a common-enough malapropism. Jesus, there actually was a time when Republicans stood for something besides unbridled greed and virulent racism and misogyny. Who'da thunk?

[Jackpine Radical]

34. The early Progressives WERE Republicans.

[KingCharlemagne]

38. Yeah, well aware. Hell, Abe Lincoln was probably the last U.S. president

to align fully the interests of the proletariat and bourgeoisie and he was a Republican too! (FDR earns an 'Honorable Mention' in this category, imho.

[bvar22]

54. Yes, I was referring to Truman's "Fair Deal".

Thanks.

[KingCharlemagne]

55. Please read Jackpine Radical's gloss on this point. Turns out there

was a 'Square Deal' promulgated by Teddy Roosevelt back in the day. I'm grudingly allowing TR to join Abe Lincoln as one of only two Republicans I can tolerate.

[2naSalit]

7. Ah yes

the consumption era taken to its' logical end.

[Faryn Balyncd]

8. powerful. thanks.

[WillyT]

9. K & R !!!

[calimary]

10. Heartbreaking. Because it's true.

[abelenkpe]

11. K&R

[truebluegreen]

12. Absolutely true. nt

[neverforget]

13. Yep!

K&R!

[adirondacker]

16. Chris always seems to speak eloquently what I've pondered throughout life. He Get's it and

isn't afraid of stating the truth.

[navarth]

17. alas, Hedges is right. nt

[AlbertCat]

19. sacred dimension

Do we have to bring the nonexistent supernatural into this???

[GliderGuider]

21. Yes, actually we do.

Because that's what it takes for some people to respect the natural world. They need to revere it. Not as a god, but as something apart from the mundane.

[AlbertCat]

24. something apart from the mundane.

That does not require the supernatural

[stone space]

27. sacred

sacred

sa·cred adjective \ˈsā-krəd\

: worthy of religious worship : very holy

: relating to religion

: highly valued and important : deserving great respect


Full Definition of SACRED


1

a : dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity <a tree sacred to the gods>

b : devoted exclusively to one service or use (as of a person or purpose) <a fund sacred to charity>

2

a : worthy of religious veneration : holy

b : entitled to reverence and respect

3

: of or relating to religion : not secular or profane <sacred music>


4

archaic : accursed


5

a : unassailable, inviolable

b : highly valued and important <a sacred responsibility>


— sa·cred·ly adverb

— sa·cred·ness noun


Examples of SACRED

The burial site is sacred ground.
the sacred image of the Virgin Mary
the sacred pursuit of liberty
We have a sacred duty to find out the truth.
Freedom is a sacred right.
They'll make jokes about anything. Nothing is sacred to those guys.
I can't believe they would do that. Is nothing sacred?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sacred

[AlbertCat]

28. I like the archaic definition best.

Excuuuuuuuse me for not jumping the the least used definition.

Another word might have made the meaning more clear.

[Pacifist Patriot]

33. To be fair to the author, he follows the word with an appositive...

"an intrinsic value beyond monetary value" that would seem to indicate he is using the latter definition.

[mother earth]

52. Well said. nt

[JEB]

22. K&R

Cannibalism. It's what's for dinner.

[Moostache]

23. The Corvair spacecraft thas been taken over --

"conquered", if you will -- by a master race of giant space ants.

It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive earth men or merely enslave them.
One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them; the ants will soon be here.

And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.
I'd like to remind them that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.

- Kent Brockman

[img][/img]

[Overseas]

25. K&R. Well said.

[marmar]

29. Good companion piece on YouTube:

[blackspade]

30. K&R

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

31. This is an awesome piece....

The paragraph you chose was the one that stood out to me also ...this needs to be repeated over and over till people understand.

[polichick]

48. Absolutely - this needs to reach every citizen. Pass it on, people!

[xchrom]

35. du rec.

[Enthusiast]

36. K&R! This post should have hundreds of recommendations!

How could anyone disagree with this?

[hedda_foil]

39. Sickening Our prisons have become slave labor colonies for the poor.

These two paragraphs stood out for me:

The militarization of the police, which includes outfitting departments with heavy machine guns, ammunition magazines, night vision equipment, aircraft and armored vehicles, has effectively turned urban police, and increasingly rural police as well, into quasi-military forces of occupation. “Police conduct up to 80,000 SWAT raids a year in the US up from 3,000 a year in the early ’80s,” reporter Hanqing Chen wrote in ProPublica. The American Civil Liberties Union, in Chen’s words, found that “almost 80 percent of SWAT team raids are linked to search warrants to investigate potential criminal suspects, not for high-stakes ‘hostage, barricade, or active shooter scenarios.’ He went on to say, “The ACLU also noted that SWAT tactics are used disproportionately against people of color.”

The bodies of the incarcerated poor fuel our system of neo-slavery. In prisons across the country, including the one in which I teach, private corporations profit from captive prison labor. The incarcerated work eight-hour days for as little as a dollar a day. Phone companies, food companies, private prisons and a host of other corporations feed like jackals off those we hold behind bars. And the lack of employment and the collapse of education and vocational training in communities across the United States are part of the design. This design—with its built-in allure from the illegal economy, the only way for many of the poor to make a living—ensures rates of recidivism of over 60 percent. There are millions of poor people for whom this country is little more than a vast penal colony.

[heaven05]

40. all these words concerning

Last edited Tue Dec 9, 2014, 02:16 PM - Edit history (1)

corporate greed will serve only to be a footnote of history showing not everyone agreed to the destruction of their world. All these words will never change a damn thing. Period. Vacant, hollow exercises in meaninglessness. We the people.........must demand change....and/or create change. Get out and vote first in numbers that cannot be ignored by the media....if that doesn't work, find a way to make the vote stick in their...... eye.

[marmar]

43. voting for one of two corporate candidates.....

..... has become a vacant, hollow exercise

[heaven05]

45. The money RUNNING

the political process of our 'democracy', small 'd' intended, and the people behind that money, IS the problem.

[niyad]

41. k and r

[SalviaBlue]

42. K&R

[raouldukelives]

46. So very true.

At some point all the little MBA Gordon Gecko wannabes figured out that innovating, building and creating was hard work. The real profits lied in dismantling all that those who came before them had built.

Small banks, small businesses, hospitals, schools, libraries, grants, scholarships, parks, factories and communities have been sucked dry and left as empty husks at our feet. The Romneys and Rumsfelds and Freidman acolytes of this world haven't been able to create, all they know is how to destroy. Like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly, they swooped in and vomited acids on the monuments left to us by our forefathers and have licked up the sticky ooze left behind. Sending it off to the Cayman Islands and sugar daddies in the Middle East.

It is being repeated on every corner of the globe and on every people. They will not rest until it is all gone. The only choice one has is to be a part of it or apart of it. On the plus side you can make good money. On the downside you are a mockery of everything being a good liberal, a good patriot or even a good Christian is all about. Turncoats of the grandest scale our world can imagine.

[nationalize the fed]

51. nailed

At some point all the little MBA Gordon Gecko wannabes figured out that innovating, building and creating was hard work. The real profits lied in dismantling all that those who came before them had built.

Small banks, small businesses, hospitals, schools, libraries, grants, scholarships, parks, factories and communities have been sucked dry and left as empty husks at our feet.

[hifiguy]

56. "They will not rest until it is all gone."

That is the problem. 100% of the problem.


Unfortunately the only to deal with greed as it has grown to consume the world is to publicly hang or guillotine the biggest greedheads, then sell their families to slavery in Dubai as a warning to the rest that it can also happen to them.

Until that comes to pass the looting will continue until there is nothing left but the ultra wealthy with their $30-some trillion of hidden assets holed up in their Galt Gulches around the world. Think Stephen King's "The Stand" with a smaller, but still terrifyingly high die-off and only evil holding any resources.

[polichick]

47. Dead on. k&r

[polichick]

49. "We are a society of captives." This is why the normal responses don't work.

[The2ndWheel]

50. Corporations aren't something else

They're made up of people. They're the current culmination of centuries of building.

Think of each species as a corporation(they all want to grow), and the planet is the government(it has rules and regulations). What do we as a species do? We try to get around every regulation. We try to write the legislation that governs us.

Through the resource concentration mechanism we call civilization, we try to privatize the profits of the planet for a single species, and socialize the costs to the rest of life. Our species is the Monsanto/Exxon/Wal-Mart/etc of the planet.

[Dont call me Shirley]

53. And the Corps flaunt their "superiority" in our faces...

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.ck-blog.com/cks_blog/2007/10/we-now-have-hum.html&h=72&w=200&tbnid=HKo8WmRWx_2CWM:&zoom=1&docid=QqnNG1fyTlqXGM&hl=en-US&ei=FFKHVISIJ4asyQT9ooHwBg&tbm=isch&ved=0CC8QMygRMBE

[truedelphi]

57. One further caveat - always remember, dear children, that when the Republicans do the

Above, it is very very bad, but when the inner circle of "Democrats" sign on to do the same,then it is merely the lesser of two evils, or some aspect of reality they don't yet "understand" or something that we mere citizens can overcome, since at least the activity is "a starting point."

[KansDem]

59. I sometimes wonder when corporations will begin fighting each other.

Inter-corporate war, so to speak.

After all, someone will eventually reign supreme...

[appalachiablue]

61. They'll have to fight reach other to buy up more and more, continued growth as it's called.

The larger the company, the larger the stock shares and the CEOs and execs. can demand more in salaries. Endless. Perhaps it will eventually be like 3-4 major empires fighting over land, the corps will fight over bigger pie and profits. Or like aristocratic families in the old days with kings, princes, uncles and advisors plotting and fighting each other for more power.

In my lifetime I already saw monopolistic growth once banned by TR (T. Roosevelt) return with Reagan who ended enforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, started M & A's, mergers and acquisitions.

Chains and big box stores eating up or consolidating independent local and regional stores, restaurants, pharmacies, hotels, banks, insurance cos., farms. Also theaters, bookstores, newspapers, TV/Radio stations.

Smaller businesses once allowed large nos. of middle class families to thrive. Long gone mostly. Look at any US town with the standard Panera, Holiday Inn, Starbucks, AMC Theater in NYC or Birmingham AL.

So many businesses are global- Yum Foods Inc.=Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC in China. Pepsi contract only, no Coke. All chain money goes to Wall Street or Asia maybe, not Main Street. Corporate World.

Years ago owners, employees and communities could prosper for generations from these businesses. I knew people with family owned shoe stores in Boston, furniture businesses in NC, newspapers in Michigan, insurance cos. in Ohio. Very little left now.