"Death of the Liberal Class" Chris Hedges ***WARNING - VERY LONG

[demwing]

Run time: 45:23 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYCvSntOI5s   Posted on YouTube: October 18, 2010 By YouTube Member: mediasanctuary Views on YouTube: 32356   Posted on DU: February 14, 2011 By DU Member: demwing Views on DU: 656

 
Listened to excerpts today on the local alt radio station. Long, but damn worth the listen if you have the time...

Excerpt:

In a traditional democracy, the liberal class functions as a safety valve. It makes piecemeal and incremental reform possible. It offers hope for change and proposes gradual steps toward greater equality. It endows the state and the mechanisms of power with virtue. It also serves as an attack dog that discredits radical social movements, making the liberal class a useful component within the power elite.

But the assault by the corporate state on the democratic state has claimed the liberal class as one of its victims. Corporate power forgot that the liberal class, when it functions, gives legitimacy to the power elite. And reducing the liberal class to courtiers or mandarins, who have nothing to offer but empty rhetoric, shuts off this safety valve and forces discontent to find other outlets that often end in violence. The inability of the liberal class to acknowledge that corporations have wrested power from the hands of citizens, that the Constitution and its guarantees of personal liberty have become irrelevant, and that the phrase consent of the governed is meaningless, has left it speaking and acting in ways that no longer correspond to reality. It has lent its voice to hollow acts of political theater, and the pretense that democratic debate and choice continue to exist.

The liberal class refuses to recognize the obvious because it does not want to lose its comfortable and often well-paid perch. Churches and universities—in elite schools such as Princeton, professors can earn $180,000 a year—enjoy tax-exempt status as long as they refrain from overt political critiques. Labor leaders make lavish salaries and are considered junior partners within corporate capitalism as long as they do not speak in the language of class struggle. Politicians, like generals, are loyal to the demands of the corporate state in power and retire to become millionaires as lobbyists or corporate managers. Artists who use their talents to foster the myths and illusions that bombard our society live comfortably in the Hollywood Hills.

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/the_death_of_the_liberal_class_20101029/


Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly

"In this tsunami of terrifying revelations, juxtaposed truths, and demonstrated facts, Hedges (War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning) argues that the traditional beacons of the liberal class—the universities, media, church, labor unions, and arts–have sacrificed themselves completely to the dominance of corporate greed and unbounded capitalism. We are all to blame and everything moral about our democracy stands to be lost—is indeed already vanishing, in Hedges's view—and those who draw attention to it are banished and booed. While every page erupts with calamities of the human spirit worthy of their own irate broadcasts and bull-horned fury, Hedges is at his best when he unpacks the density of his polemic and embraces the power of his narrative..."

[EFerrari]

1. Watching the BookTv segment for the book

it occurred to me that a while ago, Hedges sounded over the top to me. Then a little later, he sounded prophetic and scary. Now, he seems to be just describing. :(

[handmade34]

2. rec for later

[demwing]

3. This begs the question - What do we do now?

to whom do we turn?

I've read on DU that protests are a waste of time, a quainit remnant of the 60's that doesn't carry weight with anyone. I say "Tell it to Hosni Mubarak."

I think we have to be our own saviors. The party isn't going to help the people. We have to do this on our own, or submit to the new order.

To paraphrase Pogo - "We have met the allies, and they is us."