Hedges recorded that talk in March, 2021 -- just a few weeks after the Jan 6 debacle. Given the situation, I think that "critical and dour" were, and are, entirely appropriate. I also believe that Hedges has been proven more correct by the day since then.concordtom said:
I've watched Hedges before, and am listening again to this talk from two years ago
https://www.youtube.com/live/69pEzsfX8Aw
He's extremely critical and dour and revolutionary. Maybe it's because he covered so many revolutions as a journalist. I think he said it's the eventual way out of the failing system he sees in the US now.
Hedges cites Samuel P. Huntington when he talks about the "excess of democracy," but Huntington was far from alone. In the mid 1970s, conservatives were convinced that giving rights to minorities and women was a dangerous thing, and that allowing a bunch of college kids to end a futile (and stupid) war thousands of miles away was even more dangerous. So U.S. business elites went about the business of trimming back this "excess of democracy" by reducing the political power of U.S. Worker/Customers.
In 1975, the year that Huntington published "The Crisis of Democracy," the U.S. pulled its troops out of Vietnam, and the political and economic power of U.S. Worker/Customers reached its peak. Since the early/mid 1970s, the U.S. business elites set a course to wrest political power from U.S. Worker/Customers by taking a larger share of their economic output for themselves. This trend has continued, and increased, to today. This graph says it all:
But if you're truly interested in "how we got here," I think you'll find that Thom Hartmann is less dour, more analytical, and more extensively researched. Hartmann traces the "excess of democracy" concept back to the conservative Russell Kirk back in the early 1950s. Here's a brief article:
Why Oligarchs Don't Just Want to Be Rich, But Kill Democracy Too
Thom Hartmann has written many books; if you want to understand "how we got here," check out his Hidden History series, or go straight into his The Hidden History of NeoLiberalism.
Most of the damage is now done, though. 2/3 of Americans, and 80% of Democrats, support a cease-fire in Gaza; unfortunately, in the halls of Congress, full & unwavering support for genocide and ethnic cleansing is the norm, and calling for an end to genocide is cause for termination.
Small-d democracy in the U.S. is already gone. We're just in the process of choosing who's going to finish it off.
