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Chris Hedges: The Collapse of Industrial Civilization & the Antidote to Defeatism | MEDIA ROOTS ? Reporting From Outside Party Lines
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6BOvprpI6c#t=13]Chris Hedges Part I: Crisis Cults and the Collapse of Industrial Civilization - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxNqDg1m46I]Chris Hedges Part II: The Military Mind & the Antidote to Defeatism - YouTube[/ame]
Chris Hedges: The Collapse of Industrial Civilization & the Antidote to Defeatism | MEDIA ROOTS ? Reporting From Outside Party Lines
AM: You discuss how the world is globally integrated under an unsustainable form of capitalism, but America positions itself atop the totem pole justified by the notion of American exceptionalism. How do you think that that notion plays into the global collapse?
CH: Well, corporations are preying on the United States in the way that they prey on all nations states. They are in this essence super-national. They owe no loyalty to any one nation. Thats how you have seen the decimation of the American manufacturing base; that is how youve seen the transference of capital overseas where it lies beyond the reach of taxation. You have seen the rise of the decimation of the working class, and the rise of tremendous numbers of poor, whether they are listed as in poverty or a category called near poverty. Were now talking about half the country. The myth of America is still there; the idea of if you work hard, you can make something of yourself; the idea that we have a right to travel the globe and impose our virtuessupposed virtueson other countries by force, which is what we are doing and attempting to do throughout the Middle Easy, although its not going very well for us.
Imperialism has always been a mask for trade, for business, for control of natural resources. That has been true since the United States began its imperialist expansion with the conquest of the Philippines, Cuba, the control of the Caribbean for sugar and bananas, into the Middle East for oil. So, what we are seeing is a clash between the myths that America once used to identify itself. Lets not forget that many of the most fervent supporters of imperialist expansion came from labor unions. I mean, GOMPers was at the Versaille Treaty. All segments of this society are complicit. But these forces, which in essence kind of cannibalize both the natural environment and exploit human labor and have been doing this on the outer reaches of empire for decades, are now being done internally just as it was done in the original conquest of the United States against Native Americans.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6BOvprpI6c#t=13]Chris Hedges Part I: Crisis Cults and the Collapse of Industrial Civilization - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxNqDg1m46I]Chris Hedges Part II: The Military Mind & the Antidote to Defeatism - YouTube[/ame]