Capitalism's 'Sacrifice Zones'--Chris Hedges

[dohboi]

http://dickdestiny.com/blog1/2012/07/23/capitalism%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98sacrifice-zones%E2%80%99

Capitalism’s ‘Sacrifice Zones’

We are watching these corporate forces which are supra-national … reconfigure the global economy into a form of neo-feudalism. We are rapidly becoming an oligarchic state with an incredibly wealthy class of overlords … [it is called] inverted totalitarianism, it’s not classical totalitarianism, it doesn’t find its expression through a demagogue or a charismatic leader but though the anonymity of the corporate state that purports to pay fealty to electoral politics, the Constitution, to the iconography and language of American patriotism, but internally has seized all levers of American power … as to render the citizen impotent.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bill-moyers/44499/chris-hedges-on-capitalism-s-sacrifice-zones

Chris Hedges on Capitalism’s ‘Sacrifice Zones’

BILL MOYERS: This is a tough book. It's not dispatches from Disneyworld. It paints a very stark portrait of poverty, despair, destructive behavior. What makes you think people want to read that sort of thing these days?

CHRIS HEDGES: That wasn't a question that Joe Sacco and I ever asked. It's absolutely imperative that we begin to understand what unfettered, unregulated capitalism does, the violence of that system, which is portrayed in all of the places that we visited.

These are sacrifice zones, areas that have been destroyed for quarterly profit. And we're talking about environmentally destroyed, communities destroyed, human beings destroyed, families destroyed. And because there are no impediments left, these sacrifice zones are just going to spread outward.

BILL MOYERS: What do you mean, there are no impediments left?

CHRIS HEDGES: There's no way to control corporate power. The system has broken down, whether it's Democrat or Republican. And because of that, we've all become commodities. Just as the natural world has become a commodity that is being exploited until it is exhausted, or it collapses.

[Pops]

Really great interview. I agree with everything he says, including that we are killing the ecosystem with our consumption and enabling the Corporations' greed and we should stand up.

Then Moyers asks about his one year-old, the latest of his four children and I turned it off.

[SeaGypsy]

The city I have been living in the last 18 months is going through a jobs crisis. Very minor compared to the USA's, from 5.5% to 6.8% unemployment in the last year or so; but enough to start seeing the effects. Each day on the news, big hirers sacking another few hundred staff, dole lines growing etc.

What I am seeing is that some folks opportunities are shifting, morphing; as others are disappearing, evaporating. The flexible, computer savvy, multi skilled, intelligent and eloquent are still finding good work. Those with gaping holes in their education, such as lacking basic English and maths, computer skills; along with those fossils who have been with the same manufacturer for many years are becoming utterly redundant. Darwinian principles coming more into play.

[Serial_Worrier]

Typical Marxist drivel. No ideology has had bigger "sacrifice zones" then modern Communism. See Stalin, Mao, the Kim dictators and the mass famines they induced.

[Pops]

Strawman.
Bumpersticker False Dilemma as well.
Even a red herring.

Typical Limbaugh drivel.
You did listen to the piece? Or just really, really read the title purty good?

[davep]

Typical Marxist drivel. No ideology has had bigger "sacrifice zones" then modern Communism. See Stalin, Mao, the Kim dictators and the mass famines they induced.

Are you genuinely trying to deny the over-arching power of corporate interests in America?

You can add Europe to the list too, btw.

[Beery1]

Really great interview. I agree with everything he says, including that we are killing the ecosystem with our consumption and enabling the Corporations' greed and we should stand up.

Then Moyers asks about his one year-old, the latest of his four children and I turned it off.

Yeah, typical Moyers' sap. He would be a great journalist, if he could resist humanizing every story. He's like the Steven Spielberg of hard-hitting broadcast journalism. It's gotta have a cute kid or cute and wizened old folks, or as far as he's concerned, the story doesn't resonate.

This is what's wrong with modern media - they have to force/jam extra cuteness in there, whether it belongs there or not. Or they're like Aaron Sorkin, and they think that they can float by clinging desperately to the middle of the road while imperiously spouting supercilious barbs at everyone they drift past.

[Pops]

...they think that they can float by clinging desperately to the middle of the road while imperiously spouting supercilious barbs at everyone they drift past.

LOL, that's good!

[dohboi]

My read of Pop's turn off was--"What is this guy doing having that many kids if he things we're all going to hell in a hurry?" Which was pretty much Moyers' point in asking the question. (But I wouldn't want to presume to put words in Pop's mouth.

But it's always 'complicated.' I sure wouldn't want people shining bright lights into the contradictions, real and apparent, in my life. I'm sure we all have them (unless one has no positions one have ever taken a stand on to contradict--its easy not to contradict oneself if one doesn't believe in anything).

[pstarr]

Really great interview. I agree with everything he says, including that we are killing the ecosystem with our consumption and enabling the Corporations' greed and we should stand up.

Then Moyers asks about his one year-old, the latest of his four children and I turned it off.

Yeah, typical Moyers' sap. He would be a great journalist, if he could resist humanizing every story. He's like the Steven Spielberg of hard-hitting broadcast journalism. It's gotta have a cute kid or cute and wizened old folks, or as far as he's concerned, the story doesn't resonate.

This is what's wrong with modern media - they have to force/jam extra cuteness in there, whether it belongs there or not. Or they're like Aaron Sorkin, and they think that they can float by clinging desperately to the middle of the road while imperiously spouting supercilious barbs at everyone they drift past.

What complete nonsense. Moyers is a brave compassionate journalist who takes on hard issues, as is clear from this particular exchange. It would be easy to give Hedge's a pass on this important issue, but the question of Hedges' children is critical. Overpopulation causes war/suffering. All demographics (including 3rd-world poor, American educated liberal/green, marxist radical, right-wing anti-abortionist) are responsible for the 7+ billion. Moyers did his job. Hedges' hedged.

To your other point; the real problem of American Journalism it is not cuteness but corporate ownership and a false claim of "objectivity" (which some would argue can never exist in the public realm of politics and human events) as a coverup for real advertisement-advocacy journalism. This I believe is why peak oil, resource depletion, and population overshoot is not front page news. The advertisers wouldn't want their growth-based economics challenged.

[Pops]

That's right dohboi.

I agree P. When lots of the PR Fluff gets posted here the first thing I do is google the author, like Magueri it usually turns out they are selling the same stuff just under a different label.

One thing Hedges said which really rings true is that any and every "reporter" has an angle and can spin a single fact or whole story any way they please. If DP and OF can do it here daily for fun obviously lots of people do it for pay.

[beamofthewave]

Isnt it all just too obvious, why bother talking about corporate media and the take over of the corporate state when it is all just so obvious?