Actually, I suppose that "freedom of speech" is a relative term. We can say
anything that we want to say on the Blind Democracy list and Hedges can say
what he wishes to say on Truthdig. However, neither he nor I can say what we
wish to say on any corporate media source, a source where we might be heard by
millions of people. You can talk to your family about your latest birthday
party on Facebook, but the pages of voices known to have dissident views are
being closed down with the counsel of organizations like the Atlanta Council (a
voice for many interests including NATO), at the behest of Congress. Groups
can physucakky protest only in approved locations, usually far away from the
sites they wish to protest. And remember, Hedges was fired from the NY Times
for making a speech of which the Times disapproved. Michael Moore was speaking
at an Oscar ceremony and when, during the speech, he made a statement
opposing the Iraq War, the mike was turned off and he was ushered off the
stage. So yes, I have the freedom to write these words on an email list in
October 2018 which will reach, perhaps 20 or so people, if there are that many
on this list and you may choose to call that freedom of speech. But Alex Jones
was removed from Twitter because his speech is considered to be extreme and he
reaches a lot more people than 20 blind folks.
As for those technological inventions used for public benefit, well, yes we
benefit from them, but the greatest benefit is reaped by the very wealthy and
although we benefit, we are also greatly harmed. There's so much to this
subject that we, or I, just can't deal with it, certainly not in an email. But
what comes to mind is automobiles. Once upon a time, guys used to really love
repairing their cars. They liked doing it and doing it saved them money. Now
cars are manufactured with technology which is so complicated that no one can
repair their own car anymore. Actually, people often don't even own their cars
because in order to have a car in good condition, you need a new one every two
or three years. Financially, what is most feasible is to lease a car. That
means that you just keep making payments forever and ever. In that way, you can
afford to have a car that runs well which is a necessity in a country which has
made convenient public transportation unavailable. A long time ago, if you
were away from home and had an emergency or needed information from someone,
there was a pay phone nearby. It cost a dime, than a quarter. But now we are so
lucky because we have been conditioned to require a small computer wherever we
go in order to make contact with the rest of the world and it costs more than a
dime or a quarter. There's no exception if you're poor, if you earn $7.50 an
hour or are unemployed, no pay phones for you. You are still required to have a
mini computer, called a smart phone, costing hundreds of dollars with a
complicated pay plan. But yes, technology is wonderful.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Evan Reese
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2018 10:09 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: The Rule of the Uber-Rich Means Either Tyranny
or Revolution
First of all, let me say I generally agree with Hedges' description of the
character traits of the uber-rich. While I was reading it, I was thinking how
it reminded me of many monarchs, wealthy merchants, and inheritors of wealth
throughout history. But I do have a few issues with the piece.
Aristotle warned of the perils of rule by the uber-rich. So they've been around
for thousands of years, and somehow humanity has managed to survive.
Not only survive, but thrive. How is that possible?
Just a few quotes here:
"... the uber-rich make war on the “freedom of conscience, freedom of speech,
..."
Hmmm, war on freedom of speech? But here we are reading an article on how
pernicious they are. So they certainly haven't won, and after thousands of
years of effort! Imagine!
Another quote:
"The uber-rich, as Karl Polanyi wrote, celebrate the worst kind of freedom—the
freedom “to exploit one’s fellows, or the freedom to make inordinate gains
without commensurable service to the community, the freedom to keep
technological inventions from being used for public benefit, ..."
What technological inventions might those be? Are any specifics forthcoming?
Would it be too much work for Hedges to provide an example or two?
Apparently so.
Here we are, our residences full of technological marvels our ancestors more
than a couple of generations back wouldn't even understand, but somehow the
uber-rich are keeping unspecified technological inventions from us.
But here's the one that bugs me most:
"The dark pathologies of the uber-rich, lionized by mass culture and mass
media, have become our own. We have ingested their poison...."
Okay, so who is this "we" he refers to? Now, I've been a native speaker of
English for over 50 years, and "we" generally refers to the speaker, or the
author in this case, and one or more other people. So is he refering to himself
and an unspecified number of fellow ingesters of the poison of the pathologies
of the uber-rich? If not, then why is he using the word "we"? He certainly
doesn't speak for me, or most of the people I know. In fact, as I already said,
I generally agree with his characterization of the uber-rich Of course, once
again, we get a sweeping pronouncement, devoid of specifics, or any kind of
evidence.
Just Hedges letting his hyperbole carry him away again.
Evan
-----Original Message-----
From: Miriam Vieni
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2018 3:19 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] The Rule of the Uber-Rich Means Either Tyranny or
Revolution
The Rule of the Uber-Rich Means Either Tyranny or Revolution
Mr. Fish / Truthdig
At the age of 10 I was sent as a scholarship student to a boarding school for
the uber-rich in Massachusetts. I lived among the wealthiest Americans for the
next eight years. I listened to their prejudices and saw their cloying sense of
entitlement. They insisted they were privileged and wealthy because they were
smarter and more talented. They had a sneering disdain for those ranked below
them in material and social status, even the merely rich.
Most of the uber-rich lacked the capacity for empathy and compassion. They
formed elite cliques that hazed, bullied and taunted any nonconformist who
defied or did not fit into their self-adulatory universe.
It was impossible to build a friendship with most of the sons of the uber-rich.
Friendship for them was defined by “what’s in it for me?” They were surrounded
from the moment they came out of the womb by people catering to their desires
and needs. They were incapable of reaching out to others in distress—whatever
petty whim or problem they had at the moment dominated their universe and took
precedence over the suffering of others, even those within their own families.
They knew only how to take. They could not give.
They were deformed and deeply unhappy people in the grip of an unquenchable
narcissism.
It is essential to understand the pathologies of the uber-rich. They have
seized total political power. These pathologies inform Donald Trump, his
children, the Brett Kavanaughs, and the billionaires who run his
administration. The uber-rich cannot see the world from anyone’s perspective
but their own. People around them, including the women whom entitled men prey
upon, are objects designed to gratify momentary lusts or be manipulated. The
uber-rich are almost always amoral. Right. Wrong. Truth.
Lies. Justice. Injustice. These concepts are beyond them. Whatever benefits or
pleases them is good. What does not must be destroyed.
The pathology of the uber-rich is what permits Trump and his callow son-in-law,
Jared Kushner, to conspire with de facto Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman,
another product of unrestrained entitlement and nepotism, to cover up the
murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, whom I worked with in the Middle
East. The uber-rich spend their lives protected by their inherited wealth, the
power it wields and an army of enablers, including other members of the
fraternity of the uber-rich, along with their lawyers and publicists. There are
almost never any consequences for their failures, abuses, mistreatment of
others and crimes. This is why the Saudi crown prince and Kushner have bonded.
They are the homunculi the uber-rich routinely spawn.
The rule of the uber-rich, for this reason, is terrifying. They know no limits.
They have never abided by the norms of society and never will. We pay
taxes—they don’t. We work hard to get into an elite university or get a
job—they don’t. We have to pay for our failures—they don’t. We are prosecuted
for our crimes—they are not.
The uber-rich live in an artificial bubble, a land called Richistan, a place of
Frankenmansions and private jets, cut off from our reality. Wealth, I saw, not
only perpetuates itself but is used to monopolize the new opportunities for
wealth creation. Social mobility for the poor and the working class is largely
a myth. The uber-rich practice the ultimate form of affirmative action,
catapulting white, male mediocrities like Trump, Kushner and George W. Bush
into elite schools that groom the plutocracy for positions of power. The
uber-rich are never forced to grow up. They are often infantilized for life,
squalling for what they want and almost always getting it. And this makes them
very, very dangerous.
Political theorists, from Aristotle and Karl Marx to Sheldon Wolin, have warned
against the rule of the uber-rich. Once the uber-rich take over, Aristotle
writes, the only options are tyranny and revolution. They do not know how to
nurture or build. They know only how to feed their bottomless greed. It’s a
funny thing about the uber-rich: No matter how many billions they possess, they
never have enough. They are the Hungry Ghosts of Buddhism. They seek, through
the accumulation of power, money and objects, an unachievable happiness. This
life of endless desire often ends badly, with the uber-rich estranged from
their spouses and children, bereft of genuine friends. And when they are gone,
as Charles Dickens wrote in “A Christmas Carol,” most people are glad to be rid
of them.
C. Wright Mills in “The Power Elite,” one of the finest studies of the
pathologies of the uber-rich, wrote:
“
They exploited national resources, waged economic wars among themselves,
entered into combinations, made private capital out of the public domain, and
used any and every method to achieve their ends. They made agreements with
railroads for rebates; they purchased newspapers and bought editors; they
killed off competing and independent businesses and employed lawyers of skill
and statesmen of repute to sustain their rights and secure their privileges.
There is something demonic about these lords of creation; it is not merely
rhetoric to call them robber barons.
Corporate capitalism, which has destroyed our democracy, has given unchecked
power to the uber-rich. And once we understand the pathologies of these
oligarchic elites, it is easy to chart our future. The state apparatus the
uber-rich controls now exclusively serves their interests. They are deaf to the
cries of the dispossessed. They empower those institutions that keep us
oppressed—the security and surveillance systems of domestic control,
militarized police, Homeland Security and the military—and gut or degrade those
institutions or programs that blunt social, economic and political inequality,
among them public education, health care, welfare, Social Security, an
equitable tax system, food stamps, public transportation and infrastructure,
and the courts. The uber-rich extract greater and greater sums of money from
those they steadily impoverish. And when citizens object or resist, they crush
or kill them.
The uber-rich care inordinately about their image. They are obsessed with
looking at themselves. They are the center of their own universe. They go to
great lengths and expense to create fictional personas replete with nonexistent
virtues and attributes. This is why the uber-rich carry out acts of
well-publicized philanthropy. Philanthropy allows the uber-rich to engage in
moral fragmentation. They ignore the moral squalor of their lives, often
defined by the kind of degeneracy and debauchery the uber-rich insist is the
curse of the poor, to present themselves through small acts of charity as
caring and beneficent. Those who puncture this image, as Khashoggi did with
Salman, are especially despised. And this is why Trump, like all the uber-rich,
sees a critical press as the enemy. It is why Trump’s and Kushner’s eagerness
to conspire to help cover up Khashoggi’s murder is ominous. Trump’s incitements
to his supporters, who see in him the omnipotence they lack and yearn to
achieve, to carry out acts of violence against his critics are only a few steps
removed from the crown prince’s thugs dismembering Khashoggi with a bone saw.
And if you think Trump is joking when he suggests the press should be dealt
with violently you understand nothing about the uber-rich. He will do what he
can get away with, even murder. He, like most of the uber-rich, is devoid of a
conscience.
The more enlightened uber-rich, the East Hamptons and Upper East Side
uber-rich, a realm in which Ivanka and Jared once cavorted, look at the
president as gauche and vulgar. But this distinction is one of style, not
substance. Donald Trump may be an embarrassment to the well-heeled Harvard and
Princeton graduates at Goldman Sachs, but he serves the uber-rich as
assiduously as Barack Obama and the Democratic Party do. This is why the
Obamas, like the Clintons, have been inducted into the pantheon of the
uber-rich. It is why Chelsea Clinton and Ivanka Trump were close friends.
They come from the same caste.
There is no force within ruling institutions that will halt the pillage by the
uber-rich of the nation and the ecosystem. The uber-rich have nothing to fear
from the corporate-controlled media, the elected officials they bankroll or the
judicial system they have seized. The universities are pathetic corporation
appendages. They silence or banish intellectual critics who upset major donors
by challenging the reigning ideology of neoliberalism, which was formulated by
the uber-rich to restore class power.
The uber-rich have destroyed popular movements, including labor unions, along
with democratic mechanisms for reform that once allowed working people to pit
power against power. The world is now their playground.
In “The Postmodern Condition” the philosopher Jean-François Lyotard painted a
picture of the future neoliberal order as one in which “the temporary contract”
supplants “permanent institutions in the professional, emotional, sexual,
cultural, family and international domains, as well as in political affairs.”
This temporal relationship to people, things, institutions and the natural
world ensures collective self-annihilation. Nothing for the uber-rich has an
intrinsic value. Human beings, social institutions and the natural world are
commodities to exploit for personal gain until exhaustion or collapse. The
common good, like the consent of the governed, is a dead concept. This temporal
relationship embodies the fundamental pathology of the uber-rich.
The uber-rich, as Karl Polanyi wrote, celebrate the worst kind of freedom—the
freedom “to exploit one’s fellows, or the freedom to make inordinate gains
without commensurable service to the community, the freedom to keep
technological inventions from being used for public benefit, or the freedom to
profit from public calamities secretly engineered for private advantage.” At
the same time, as Polanyi noted, the uber-rich make war on the “freedom of
conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of meeting, freedom of association,
freedom to choose one’s own job.”
The dark pathologies of the uber-rich, lionized by mass culture and mass media,
have become our own. We have ingested their poison. We have been taught by the
uber-rich to celebrate the bad freedoms and denigrate the good ones. Look at
any Trump rally. Watch any reality television show. Examine the state of our
planet. We will repudiate these pathologies and organize to force the uber-rich
from power or they will transform us into what they already consider us to
be—the help.
Chris Hedges
