A few excerpts here from a beautifully written, deeply insightful, and ultimately inspiring essay by Chris Hedges…
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In the end, the election was about despair.
Despair over futures that evaporated with deindustrialization. Despair over the loss of 30 million jobs in mass layoffs. Despair over austerity programs and the funneling of wealth upwards into the hands of rapacious oligarchs. Despair over a liberal class that refuses to acknowledge the suffering it orchestrated under neoliberalism. Despair over the futile, endless wars, as well as the genocide in Gaza, where generals and politicians are never held accountable. Despair over a democratic system that has been seized by corporate and oligarchic power.
Donald Trump is a symptom of our diseased society. He is not its cause. He is what is vomited up out of decay.
Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party live in their own non-reality-based belief system. Harris, who was anointed by party elites and never received a single primary vote, proudly trumpeted her endorsement by Dick Cheney, a politician who left office with a 13% approval rating.
The smug, self-righteous “moral” crusade against Trump stokes the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. It reduces a social, economic, and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It refuses to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy.
The American dream has become an American nightmare.
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FULL ESSAY ➡️ chrishedges.substack.com/p/the…
#USA #Politics #History #Economics #Israel #Gaza
The Politics of Cultural Despair
It is despair that is killing us. It fosters what Roger Lancaster calls “poisoned solidarity,” the intoxication forged from the negative energies of fear, envy, hatred and a lust for violence.Chris Hedges (The Chris Hedges Report)