Chris Hedges: Stop Pretending US Is a Functioning Democracy

There is a fatal disconnect between a political system that promises democratic equality and freedom while carrying out socioeconomic injustices that result in grotesque income inequality and political stagnation.

Decades in the making, this disconnect has extinguished American democracy. The steady stripping away of economic and political power was ignored by a hyperventilating press that thundered against the barbarians at the gate — Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban, ISIS, Vladimir Putin — while ignoring the barbarians in our midst.

The slow-motion coup is over. Corporations and the billionaire class have won. There are no institutions, including the press, an electoral system that is little more than legalized bribery, the imperial presidency, the courts or the penal system, that can be defined as democratic. Only the fiction of democracy remains.

The political philosopher Sheldon Wolin in Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism calls the U.S. system “inverted totalitarianism.” The façade of democratic institutions and the rhetoric, symbols and iconography of state power have not changed. The Constitution remains a sacred document.

Collective Self-Delusion

July 4, 2019, Washington, D.C. (Joe Lauria)

The U.S. continues to posit itself as a champion of opportunity, freedom, human rights and civil liberties, even as half the country struggles at subsistence level, militarized police gun down and imprison the poor with impunity, and the primary business of the state is war.

This collective self-delusion masks what America has become — a nation where the citizenry has been stripped of economic and political power and where the brutal militarism practiced overseas is practiced at home.

About the Author: Patriotman

Patriotman currently ekes out a survivalist lifestyle in a suburban northeastern state as best as he can. He has varied experience in political science, public policy, biological sciences, and higher education. Proudly Catholic and an Eagle Scout, he has no military experience and thus offers a relatable perspective for the average suburban prepper who is preparing for troubled times on the horizon with less than ideal teams and in less than ideal locations. Brushbeater Store Page: http://bit.ly/BrushbeaterStore

4 Comments

no September 7, 2022 at 12:18

The core point is likely correct but beware of Chris Hedges. If it’s the Hedges I think — I cannot see the article because they block access via VPN — he is an open and unabashed Big C Communist.

Others have said — I don’t necessarily agree — that the the root motivation for having the Biden Regime in place is to discredit representative democracy and republican government to prime the public for replacing our current system with something centralized, authoritarian, and soft-tyrannical (How would that differ much?) and his messaging here is consistent with that strategy.
Chef September 7, 2022 at 15:13

Well, Hedges got some stuff right. He is one person on the left that because he had some semblance of journalistic ethics, he was canceled when his whole network was canceled for being Russian “propaganda.” In truth RT America had many actual journalists and a track record for truth and accuracy to a far greater degree than PBS or VOA, their Western counterparts.
He got wrong the whole idea of the US being a democracy. Very few people even have an idea of what true freedom is and what a functioning Constitutional Republic such as our founders envisioned would look like. Much of humanity’s hard won knowledge is lost to broad swaths of the population. The remedial lessons will be very painful indeed
Chef September 7, 2022 at 16:09

No,
Yes that’s the same Hedges. Commie? Maybe. I know him from Hedges v. Obama, where he was the plaintiff and at the time worked for the NY Slimes. He filed against the very illegal 2012 NDAA, specifically against the provisions regarding the arbitrary and indefinite detention of journalists. Once again, our founders abhorred democracy and never intended for our Republic to be a democracy. And you are right in that how would it differ that much? They have it made right now don’t they with an uneducated public that believes they live in a democracy. They have virtual absolute power and ability to steal and corrupt with abandon. So why rip the mask off? Makes you really wonder why they would give up the false left vs. right paradigm, doesn’t it? The degree to which they are allowing the facade to crumble and degrade the public’s trust in institutions and overtly breaking the social contract is stunning.
Paulo September 8, 2022 at 00:07

This well researched briefing article
puts many events into perspective:
‘The 10th Anniversary of the Benghazi Attack Arrives This Sunday,
The Events Look Different Against Latest Deep State Revelations’
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/09/07/the-10th-anniversary-of-the-benghazi-attack-arrives-this-sunday-the-events-look-different-against-latest-deep-state-revelations/

“Every man to his family and his possessions”