[Tainari88]

Chris Hedges the investigative journalist discusses the pathology of the rich. Why are we in stagnation with this raiding by the corporate uber rich in the USA? if you say class warfare, it is about someone then reacts you are Anti-American. He says we have to puncture the mirages that Hedges talks about.

You got to deal with reality folks. No time for sugarcoating what these people are doing. They are born and raised to disdain poor and underclass people and are worshipping their own egos. They have no sense of limits. They do not care about anything but GREED. It has to be stopped. And they are well educated yet pathological group. The psychology of the capitalist is grab what you can and fuck the rest.

It is stupid to not check and neutralize these people. They need to be ousted in any real decision making ASAP.

After you watch this video why would anyone make excuses for these wealthy super rich pathological people in charge of making all of the decisions for others they do not give a shit about?!!

[Politics_Observer]

@Tainari88

You and I are politically much different. I do support unions for workers. However, I am not a socialist like yourself. As I have always said, I am a moderate centrist that believes in having a mixed economy. There is always going to be economic inequality on some level. It's about striking the right balance of not allowing inequality to become too extreme while, by the same token, keeping the economy efficient on a reasonable level that will benefit society, provide for the needs of people, enough opportunity, employment, and some positive incentive to work. Its a tough and tricky balance to meet.

[Rich]

Chris Hedges the investigative journalist discusses the pathology of the rich. Why are we in stagnation with this raiding by the corporate uber rich in the USA? if you say class warfare, it is about someone then reacts you are Anti-American.

So if an American went to say Mexico or Haiti or India or Saudi Arabia, are you saying that they would find it very different to the United States? Are you saying that the unlike in America the rich in these countries feel a deep responsibility to look after those less fortunate than themselves.?

[MistyTiger]

The economic inequality in the US is so blatantly unequal. For example, when people think of California, they only think of the Malibu mansions or the luxurious beach properties. No one thinks about the poor rundown neighborhoods or the poorer people around Chi-town. My father has a classmate leaving in cheap housing in California. He's a retired software engineer. He's living in a rough neighborhood and somehow has riled up the rowdy Mexican kids because they robbed his house. My point is, no tour guide will have a sentence about the rough areas of California. It is all about the great dining, the parks and beaches.

There's a scene from the movie Bride and Prejudice where Aishwarya Rai's character says to Darcy, "You want people to come to India without having to deal with Indians. Five star comfort with a bit of tourism thrown in. Turning India into a theme park." It starts at the 1:58 mark.

Tourism is all about luxury hotels and people spending money. The US government knows it needs more money from the rich and yet you have conservatives in government who do not want to raise taxes for higher tax brackets because many of these conservs are in those higher tax brackets. Maybe more government people should be less wealthy. Hmmm.

[Politics_Observer]

@MistyTiger

That's the problem when you have extreme capitalism without any sort of regulation or taxes on the top 1%. That's why you don't want extremes on either end of the political spectrum to become a reality in political life. Extremes in the political spectrum can cause great damage to the economy, the living standards, and quality of life of the overall populace. Plus, it damages national unity because of the wide economic inequality gaps.

In our case, the rich like to pay no taxes while raising taxes on those least able to pay, which is the poor. Whenever we have a tax increase, it seems to be raising taxes on your average working Joe or the poor while lowering taxes on the rich or making it to where the rich pay no taxes through various loopholes in the tax code.

[Tainari88]

@Tainari88

You and I are politically much different. I do support unions for workers. However, I am not a socialist like yourself. As I have always said, I am a moderate centrist that believes in having a mixed economy. There is always going to be economic inequality on some level. It's about striking the right balance of not allowing inequality to become too extreme while, by the same token, keeping the economy efficient on a reasonable level that will benefit society, provide for the needs of people, enough opportunity, employment, and some positive incentive to work. Its a tough and tricky balance to meet.

It is too late for many things now Politics. The climate crisis is here. If you heard the video of Hedges? He hits the problem straight away. They know it is collapsing and they do not care. They are hoping to retreat into some gated and secured area and let the rest of humanity burn and breathe bad air, not have clean water that is free and affordable, and exploit to death everything to the point of extinction of huge percentages of species.

You can't balance anything out with that kind of greed gone wild. There will be constant wars, and the only real investments will be for everything that destroys human life. Not for life. Because the profit motive in the hands of these people with the wrong-headed mentality are going to push that agenda until the end.

No one who is not incredibly wealthy enough to insulate themselves are going to be left hanging. You can't continue to believe in their lies if you want a future of any value for humanity. That is reality. It is not about socialism at all. It is about human survival. For all of us. And wars and profit only with a tiny minority hoarding all the wealth is not going to be working for anyone.

[Tainari88]

So if an American went to say Mexico or Haiti or India or Saudi Arabia, are you saying that they would find it very different to the United States? Are you saying that the unlike in America the rich in these countries feel a deep responsibility to look after those less fortunate than themselves.?

Are you for real with these statements Rich? Hedges is stating the opposite. The super rich are extremely well educated, and very conscious of what needs to happen to hold on to their socioeconomic positions at all costs. They do not give a shit about the lower peons and have no commitments to do a damn thing.

No, what I am saying is that the lower classes in Mexico and India and in Saudi Arabia are not thinking that the top elite care about them at all. They know they do not give a shit and as such they organize and do what needs to be done. Make some pressure happen. It happened in Mexico and is happening in many places. The USA is collectively losing its grip on reality in a way that many other nations are not.

People got to wake up to reality Rich. And it means that these greedy elites are not going to do what is necessary to move on climate change, on creating a society that can protect many people who are vulnerable. They can't change the consequences for the lower classes. And they think erroneously that by ignoring the needs of the many? The few like they are won't be paying the price of ignoring the vast crowds out there. It is a rude awakening.

But, if enough dirty air gets breathed in, enough water is contaminated, enough supply chain goes to shit and no wares or food in the stores and no one in the UK to pick the crops or grow anything locally and it all goes to complete shit? You will see consequences for the heads of state and their useless politicians with useless ideas that will force the heads to roll Rich. That is reality.

[Potemkin]

So if an American went to say Mexico or Haiti or India or Saudi Arabia, are you saying that they would find it very different to the United States? Are you saying that the unlike in America the rich in these countries feel a deep responsibility to look after those less fortunate than themselves.?

Her point is not that the elite exploit and oppress the majority in America - they do that in every society on Earth and during every period of history. Her point is that it is only in modern America - and to a much lesser extent, the UK and the EU countries - that a large part of the working class and the poor have been brainwashed into thinking that the elite don’t do this, and that in fact they have never done this and have only the best interests of the majority of the population at heart. This represents a radical disconnection from reality. It almost qualifies as a psychotic break. You don’t find this in Mexico, or in India, or in the Philippines, for example. The working classes in most of the world know perfectly well what the elites of their respective countries think of them, and what their intentions towards them are. They can therefore resist them. Almost all resistance against the elites has ended in the USA, in the UK and in the EU. This is why we’re getting shafted.

[Rich]

Her point is not that the elite exploit and oppress the majority in America - they do that in every society on Earth and during every period of history. Her point is that it is only in modern America ...

And my point is the BJP do not strike me as a Party that is particularly organised around socioeconomic class. The BJP don't appear to me to be particularly focused on the rich and the elite as the number enemy or antagonist. And when I look at Saudi Arabia, maybe I betray my ignorance, but I'm certainly not aware of a vibrant working class / lower socioeconomic class / labour movement politics in Saudi Arabia. And then even Mexico while I would accept there is higher level of low socioecomic class based identity than in the United States, it is still a matter of degree. So I would suggest that "only in America" is misleading even when expressed with caveats.

I would also suggest that it is helpful to examine the historical conditions that gave rise of the United States relative particularities.

1 The very low population density at its inception, and its current relatively low population density.

2 The abundance of other primary resources.

3 The peculiar geography of the United States so favorable to development in the eastern half of the country.

4 Its extreme multi-cultural divides that are inimical, for good or for bad, to socioeconomic class based solidarity. European and Amerindian, European and imported slave Black African. Later the divide between Protestant and Catholic, and the more recent immigration caused diversity.

[Tainari88]

And my point is the BJP do not strike me as a Party that is particularly organised around socioeconomic class. The BJP don't appear to me to be particularly focused on the rich and the elite as the number enemy or antagonist. And when I look at Saudi Arabia, maybe I betray my ignorance, but I'm certainly not aware of a vibrant working class / lower socioeconomic class / labour movement politics in Saudi Arabia. And then even Mexico while I would accept there is higher level of low socioecomic class based identity than in the United States, it is still a matter of degree. So I would suggest that "only in America" is misleading even when expressed with caveats.

I would also suggest that it is helpful to examine the historical conditions that gave rise of the United States relative particularities.

1 The very low population density at its inception, and its current relatively low population density.

2 The abundance of other primary resources.

3 The peculiar geography of the United States so favorable to development in the eastern half of the country.

4 Its extreme multi-cultural divides that are inimical, for good or for bad, to socioeconomic class based solidarity. European and Amerindian, European and imported slave Black African. Later the divide between Protestant and Catholic, and the more recent immigration caused diversity.

It is late here in Mexico Rich. I got tons of things to do on Monday. So forgive me if I cut to the chase here.

In the final analysis, all of the ecosystems on Earth are interdependent and need to be in relatively stable and good condition for there not to be serious challenges to a very interdependent global-based economy. Capitalism expanded like a Kraken with too many tentacles. Once you cut off many nations and try to localize when the entire system is built and predicated on exploitation there will be a very strong implosion. That is just science Rich.

The USA has all kinds of resources for many years that were pristine and virgin and the land was plentiful. But if you analyze what has been done to the food systems, the water ways, the air, and the resource management in favor of what Hedges calls collective insanity....it is not going to isolate the USA from any of the realities that are unleashed. Again, all of us are interconnected.

The good, the bad, the innocent, the guilty and the riff raff, the wealthy, the black and the white, the up and down are all going to have to realize that we are all connected. By the realities of dependency of our relationship to this planet.

Do you know Rich that astronauts noticed that their DNA started breaking down strangely while outside the gravitational pull of the planet we have evolved in? It means that what keeps our cells functional on every level depend on our ability to be present in our planet's magnetic and gravity based physical movements. We are literally connected to it. So, thinking that some tiny shit like color pigments like melanin content in human skin to protect you from solar rays depending on where your ancestors developed in the land base for thousands of years, and color of eyes adapted to night vision or not, and some cultural adaptation norms that are malleable and superficial are insurmountable barriers to being able to see humanity in some other culture that is not your native one? When men and women have been having sex and producing fertile offspring from different cultures from the beginning of human life is foolish to even suggest Rich.
It is really not valid an argument for thinking that the reason the US society might be in trouble is because there is too much diversity? Is not going to hold water Rich. It is really about bad values. Greed and exploitation. The USA was a nation of immigration from its inception. Exploitation is not a new thing but it is something people if given a choice choose to avoid. If someone is paying a few bucks more down the street they will choose to go there if their work is not respected and it is purely about making a better wage. No genius there it takes to know that. Something humans naturally avoid because exploitation is not really a value most humans think is a great thing to experience. During human history, humans are always finding ways of fleeing exploitation. Greed is looked down upon in general. In Christianity being a greedy person was not a virtue. It is not a virtue in general in any culture known in human history. But it is something peddled as inevitable and innate to being human in a capitalist system.
It used to be controlled well. Not really so in your face as with modern society in many nations. It is going to have to be examined for real longevity. Can naked greed by a tiny elite fool the vast millions and billions to believe that the only way to live is to accept unbridled greed to the point of mass destruction of human civilization. Do you accept it? If the answer is no we do not, then that system that has lasted a few hundred years is going to be changed. Its time of usefulness is past. That is science too.

Our essential essence as homo sapiens is our inclination to seek freedom of movement, freedom of being able to find sustenance and our need for moving freely to be able to get to survive and thrive. Being told to not seek life and not seek a way of living that is enough to bring some security to our families, is never a popular idea that lasts for all time. In other words, Rich my main man in England, human beings will always find a way of adapting in order to transcend some kind of negation of their own personal freedom and their own personal survival either as individuals or as groups. Go tell someone to follow a law that spells certain death and no progeny in the future, or break the law and survive and have a future. They will go for the latter always and not the former.

To think otherwise is to negate what humanity has accomplished for the last 100,000 years. Rules that do not deal with living life will never be obeyed Rich.

People are going to think to themselves? I will keep believing the lies I am told and that we are superior to these other humans who are poor, dark and inferior. Then they wind up dying from the same contaminated air and water as the rest of the dark inferior people. All of us connected. Facing the same problems and the only way out is to dump the idea of the kraken of capital.

It is either face that reality or go extinct. The racism and the uber nationalism and the exploitation that is non stop and the lack of logical self preservation for all is going to force the issue of how superificial values are not going to be useful in that world. Only, that if you want to survive into the future you need to realize that the jungles occupied by the Africans and the Latin Americans and the Asians and so on are necessary for the lands of Europe and etc to survive. Keep them healthy? We are healthy too.

If you can not take that? And the answer to that is nuking each other and sterilizing the earth for all time? We have no business on this planet. At all. A failed species indeed. Unworthy of any future. But I am confident we are going to get the message in time.

And all that fascistic drivel about being superior and better and the cultures you think are not human when they are? Is going to be flushed down the toilet Rich.