http://podcastdownload.npr.org/anon.npr-podcasts/podcast/440/510034/112397054/WILL_112397054.mp3

“enslaved by material and psychological class-race privilege, driven by the ideological engines of white supremacist racism and ‘consumerism’” refers to modern globalized capitalism, e.g. imperialism currently under u.s. domination. this doesn’t exclude or absolve the crimes of other imperialist
rulers and their classist and racist ideological drivers. nor the horrors of pre-capitalist systems.

my argument is that we must understand and deal with the material systemic basis underlying and serving our main common enemy: the ideological, psychological and emotional degeneration and oppression which is externalized and internalized by nations as well as individuals enslaving us in this monstrous system today.

Liz, I agree with you about the beginnings of “amerikan capitalism” in genocide, slavery, terror and war. I think “spectacle” has always played a part in it, too. The Revolution was a spectacle of tarring and feathering Torries, country-boy sharp-shooters vs Redcoats, and George Washington striding into the Continental Congress wearing his military uniform. We are spectacle-loving creatures, often spectators of our own lives. Aristotle wrote of it in “On Tragedy.” The extent to which we are controlled and conditioned by spectacle now is the new element. Consider, if you will, how many times we watched the collapsing towers on 9/11 and the days after–hundreds? It was hypnotic–and it was mind-rape. That was spectacle in place of analysis, in place of words, in place of the “literate” culture.

I don’t think it matters a whit whether we call the tyranny that circumscribes life on this planet by the name of “corporatism,” a “bipartisan dictatorship of finance capital,” or, for that matter, “Communism,” “Fascism,” “Totalitarianism,” or “Authoritarianism” (remember fatuous, pompous Jeanne Kirkpatrick making her half-assed distinction between the latter two?). That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and tyranny, by any name, is rotten and smells rotten.

Your phrase here gives me pause: “enslaved by material and psychological class-race privilege, driven by the ideological engines of white supremacist racism and ‘consumerism.’” How would “white supremacist racism” account for India’s untouchables, the Hutu genocide against Tutsis in 1994, Aztecs cutting living hearts out of captive neighboring tribes, or China’s 400-year long period of the Warring States? We need dig deeper into human psychology–as deep as Jung, perhaps–to see what archetypes of fear and blood-lust and sheer stupidity propel us.

I agree that we’d better examine this “total indoctrination system.” Can we start educating our children, even before kindergarten, how to resist the tumult of indoctrination that comes with peer pressure and the desire to please adults?

I agree that we’d better be “damn aware of ‘big bro’” and that Obama is that “charismatic leader” who beguiles and charms and back-steps even better than Ginger Rogers did it in heels. You’re taking up Orwell’s cudgel again, and seem to be biased for George over Aldous. I argue that both those writers had it right. Tyranny will use whatever guise it must, depending on the situation and the conditioning and pre-conditioning. “Situation ethics” rules and “situation ethics” has as much to do with ethics as amorality has to do with morality.

You’re right: we’ve been “warned” and the circle is closing. We’ve come to accept “tasering” as s.o.p. for police. We take “Homeland Security” and the “Patriot Act” for granted–part of the background musak of the times, white noise. It’s a coarse and absurd popular culture for a coarse and absurd empire in–we like to think–its dying days. Hedges is poking around in the shit and detritus of “civilization” to see how we have come to this passage, if there is a pearl of wisdom to be salvaged. There’s much to think about in his book, in our lives, and much more to do pronto.

amerikan capitalism began and spread its genocidal global empire by genocide & slavery, terror and war, not ‘spectacle’, though the spectacle of its white supremacist horror has helped rightfully make it world enemy #1….

starker by the day is the reality that we — and most of the world — are ruled, not by ‘corporatism’, but by a bipartisan dictatorship of finance capital with its ‘hard’ and ‘soft power’: military aggression and propaganda ‘news’ and entertainment’ ….

enslaved by material and psychological class-race privilege, driven by the ideological engines of white supremacist racism and ‘consumerism’…and BTW, hitler admiringly got eugenics from the usa — along with much under the table capitalist support because the u.s. intended WW2 as part of its ‘final solution’ to defeat soviet socialism and its spread.

trained to be unable think critically, to fear and despise those who dare think for themselves and rebel… ‘positive psych’ is just one little piece of the total indoctrination system
[see http://www.burbankdigest.com/node/226, ‘weaponizing psychology’ —- much more related material at http://www.burbankdigest.com/

we’d better be damn aware of ‘big bro’ and get active because amerika’s ‘charismatic leader’, a ‘friendly face of fascism’ is here, the ‘homeland’ militarized, tightening domestic as well as global police state screws — a form of not-introverted ‘totalitarianism’…

the ‘imperative of psychological re-structuring and transformation’ in every sphere is all ultimately political.from cradle to church, school, ‘nuclesr’ family to electoral BS politics, it’s systemically designed by academia, think-tanks, NGOs, foundations and apologist ‘experts’ to keep us ignorant, twitteres, narcissistic enthralled, engaged, entertained, ever deeper in the state’s matrix …and loyally supporting our enemy, not resisting capitalism as it wrecks everything it touches for power & profit. we’ve been warned: “if you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists”, and we’re reminded daily what amerika does to those who dare resist its domination.

liz

But what he describes isn’t new, it’s the culmination of hundreds of years of anti-development. Read Mark Perry’s “On Awakening & Remembering: To Know is To Be “. Read Huston Smith, read Seyyed Hossein Nasr, read thousands of years of traditional spiritual wisdom, the heart of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Plato, Socrates, the mystics, all of them. They’ve been warning us for so long and we haven’t just ignored the warnings, we’ve embraced the sickness.

Neo: I know you’re out there. I can feel you now. I know that you’re afraid… you’re afraid of us. You’re afraid of change. I don’t know the future. I didn’t come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin. I’m going to hang up this phone, and then I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. I’m going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

I came here to tell you how it’s going to begin. I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see. Just words from a movie well yes and what the hell do you think some of the best minds now and in the past have been trying to tell us.

The top 1% of Americans now control more wealth than the bottom 90% combined.
World-wide porn revenues, including in-room movies at hotels, sex clubs, and the Internet, topped $97 billion in 2006—more than that of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo!, Apple, Netflixs, and EarthLink combined.
The football coach is the University of California-Berkeley’s highest paid “employee”; he makes about $3 million a year. Nationwide, full-time faculty positions have been disappearing, replaced by adjunct positions, with itinerant instructors barely making living wages.

We have 2.3 million of our citizens behind bars. With less than 5% of the world’s popultion, we have 25% of the world’s prisoners (1/2 for non-violent drug crimes).

This mirroring of the “ emotional wreckage of the fans” is the “appeal of much of popular culture, from Jerry Springer to ‘reality television’ to Oprah Winfrey.” It succeeds “because we ask to be fooled.”

“The fantasy of celebrity culture is not designed simply to entertain. It is designed to keep us from fighting back.”

I’m going to show these people what you don’t want them to see and what might that be? That we have already destroyed a good part of the home planet/Earth and are now going about finishing off the job. “And you all just won a new car”, and remember super size those fries take your antidepressants call call now listen to your so called leaders and watch your parking meters we don’t need to change everything is just fine climate change is a hoax the ice caps melting is normal and those droughts put them out of your mind go shopping.

Morpheus: I imagine that right now, you’re feeling a bit like Alice. Hmm? Tumbling down the rabbit hole?
Neo: You could say that.
Morpheus: I see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that’s not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: Because I don’t like the idea that I’m not in control of my life.
Morpheus: I know *exactly* what you mean. Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Neo: The Matrix.
Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?
Neo: Yes.
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work… when you go to church… when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

A slave, a prison for your mind and the matrix the system for the last 10k years is doing this? Yep! And the system makes you feel like your having fun doing it. What about the 1% that control the system sort of are we there slaves? Yes kind of as the 1% are also slaves to the system the biggest slaves of all because without it the wall’s come tumbling down. Anyway we are all now in an out of control system very easy to see and also easy to see that for some reason we are trying our best to hold on to the system that will reduce the human race to just regular old survival strange isn’t it. It’s not true oh yes it is. Way to many people very smart people all saying the same thing. I still think as simple as possible but not simpler for say 100 years reason, knowledge, working together, imagination and kindness I know a tuff one. Remember only for knowledge and defense calm at peace.

Perhaps an interview with one of those heroes whose names pepper this important book would have sharpened the quill: people like Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Father Roy Bourgeois, Kathy Kelly, Amy Goodman, Bill Moyers, Jim Hensen—what sustains them, keeps them going?

Maybe the truth on a few levels and they took a sober look down our hall of distorting mirrors and the voice said I don’t think so. “And you picked curtain number three”. “A new Car”.

Think positively and positive things will happen stay diversified and I have one word no not plastics, oil. Sound familiar? Perhaps we should call such programs, “Becoming Oprah.” Now your in trouble Gary well come to think of it we are all in deep do do.

The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. –Stephen Hawking

I attribute this, at least in part, to the prevailing culture. Because it makes for good ratings and positive commercial returns, popular culture outlets–consumed in large doses by the nation’s students and sold to them as reality–only lionizes and seemingly rewards the slacker, the easily enraged, the generally dishonorable, the cause-less rebel. I would even go so far as to say that, through ceaseless background stories, the media offers too much publicity for those driven by wrath and those resorting to murder. And that leaves us with values and virtues often forgotten in all the flashy display, consumerism, and “spectacle” . So what about knowledge, integrity, hard work, critical thinking, self sufficiency, and careful consideration? Is the inertia too great to move towards these again? I often wonder.

Now that we’re aware of these mechanisms, how can we steer a course that returns to a basic work ethic, a sense of pride in accomplishments, and those traditional virtues I mentioned–that is, without taking away liberties (since I can see this is a slippery slope, this steering back to productive core values…we’ve been there before, since ‘Desire Culture’ was hotly discussed in 1920s Weimar, and look what happened there! Genuine horror.) So, what needs to occur to get us back to a more productive point? Hedges is right, our country is dying…and genuine positive change takes a long time, if it happens organically. Where does America go from here?

Reference the mention of Big Brother (not the literary one) Channel 4 announced today that they will not continue with this dross after the planned series ends next year. I actually wrote to Ch4 last year asking them to bin it. There have been some execrable and unwatchable celebrity versions. The channel’s remit is to be a public service broadcaster funded by advertising yet they have served this up for the last eleven years with decreasing audiences and now have a hole in their schedule of 200 hours of broadcasting time to fill. I don’t think the decline in the programme’s populatity has anything to do with a increase in audience’s discrimination. They are probably just bored with it and will turn to X Factor or the like.

Shine on Gary and Chris Hedges and thanks.