How Corporation Destroyed American democracy

esnl favorite Chris Hedges, who lost his job at the New York Times for denouncing the Iraq war, delivers a heartfelt address to the Socialism 2010 Conference held late last month in Chicago.

He begins and ends with a focus on Michael Jackson as an exemplar of the impacts of celebrity culture, both on the artist’s tragic life and on our own lives.

Some highlights:

• “Brand Obama is about being happy consumers.”
• “In a sound bite society, reality no longer matters.”
• Reagan magically cut unemployment figures by two percent by adding, for the first time, America’s military to the numbers counted as employed, while Clinton cut it again by eliminating the longer-term unemployed.
• We are living in a state which, by definition, is fascist — “run by and on behalf of corporations.”
• As unemployment reaches Great Depression levels, restraints on police powers are lifted to ensure control over a restive population, “to seize and maintain internal control. . .which is control of us.”
• He also cited the late Sen. Frank Church’s admonition that increased surveillance powers granted to police would eliminate any remaining vestiges of privacy.

Contending that America has already undergone a coup d’etat, Hedges said the goal is not to reform a dying system, but to devote our energies to rebuilding community on a local basis.

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