VI The Illusion ofAmerica

we wauld mther be rui~ than cka W~WfJtlld rather die iltour dread

Ihattdimb tlie Cross (lfthe moment

Anil ~ aUT ill~itmSdie

-WH AUDBN TMAgel1fAfI~t

Where thereisltvvisionthepeQple peri$h

-PltOvJRn5 29

I USED T0 LIVE in aCOmItrY called AmefiEa 1 W$ not a perfect t country especially ifyou were Afrkan American or ~~Ushycan or of Japanese de~nt in the Second World War It

crnel and unjust ifyou WeJe poor gay awo~ (f an but tbere wa$ hopdtcould be better It was a country I loved and hOIlr()feQ

It paid its workers wages envied around the world It workers thanks to laOOf unions anddiampions the ~atic Party and the press ha4 bteattb I)enellts offered good pilblic education It hntlORd

held in regltlfdthe nde of law including in~rnal_lil fot human rights It bad social pmgramsfmm Social Secutity t(l take can (If the weakest among us the elderly and the destitute It had a goViemlmntthat ever flawed worked to protelt the interests of most of offered the possibility of democratic change It had a tltat was diverse and independent and gave a voke ta aU segments of~iety

I l41

includingmiddot(hose beyond our bomers to impartmiddotto Us unpleasant truths to thaIleOge the powerful to reveal ourselves to OIl1selves

Jamnotblind~o the imperfections ofthis old AmeOlta or the fat1shyutes to nie~these kkalsronsistentlyat oomeandabrooct l~pent more than two years livmg in itoxburythe inner dtyin Boston acrdSlj the Mreet fiom iii public housing project where I ran a smail church as a seminarian at Harvard Divinity School I saw institUtional racism at work I sawhow banks courts dysfuncticmal schools probation offishy

cers broken homes drug abuse crime and employers aU conspired to make sure the poor remained poor I sVent two decades as a foreign

correspondent in Latin America Aftica the Middle East and the Balkans I saw there the crimes and injustices oolnmittedin our name

and often with our support whether during the amtrli war in Nicaragua or the brutalization of the PalestinIans by Israeli octupatron furces We had much to atone for but Mill thert was also much that was good decent and hooorable in OtIT coorrtry

The country I live it today uses the $ecivjc patlioticand 11lsshytoricallanguage to descrIbe itself the same symbols and iconograpl)y the same national nryths but only the shell remains The America we celebrate is aniIlnsion Anlerica the country ofmy birth the cquniff

that formed and shaped me the country of my father my fathers father andhisththers father stretching baik to the generatkmsof my family that were here for the countrys founciitg is so diminished as to

be unrecognizable Ido not know if thL~ America will return even as I pray and work and strive for its return

The words cregsent of the governed ampave become an empty phfa$e

Our textbooks on political science and economics are obsolete Our nation has been hijaeked by oligarchs corporations and a narrowseffshy

ish political 3lld economic elite a small andpriviIeged group that

governs and offen steals on behlif of moneyed interests This elite in the name of patriotism and democracy in the name of all the values that were once part of the American system lnd defined the Protestant work ethic has systematically destroyed our manllfactudng sector looted the treasurycorrupted our democracy and trashed the financial system During this plundering we remained passiVe mesmerized by the enticing shadows on the wall assured our tickets to success PfOSshy

perity and happiness were waiting aronndthe corner

142 I EMPIRE OElLLUSION

Thego~rmnent stripped of aJIy feal sovereignty provides little more than technical expertiSe for e1ites and corporations that lack moral restraints and a concept of the common middot15ood Amerilta has bacomea facentde It has OecQlne the greatC$t ilImrlon in acu1ture of illllshysions It represents a pow-er and a democratic ethic it does not possess It seeks to perpetuate prosperity by borrowing trillions of dollars it can never repay The absurd folly of tryingto bonow our way out of the

worst economic collapse since the L930S is the etuelest of all the reqnt tricks played 011 American citizens We Continue to place our faith in a phantom economy one characterized by fralld and lies whiCh sustains the wealthiest 10 percent Wall Street and insolvent banks Debt levershyagmgis not wealth creation We are vainly trying to return to a bubble

ecooomy of the sort that once handed us the illusion of wealth rather

than confront the stark reality thlt lies ahead We m-e told massive bQrshyrowing wilI create jobs and te-inflate real estate vaJUe8 and the stock

market We remain tempted by mirages by the illusion that we can

Mill all beCOn1e riCh The corporate power that holds the government hostage has

appropriated fur itself the potent symholslanguage and patriotic trashyditions of the state It purports to defend freedo~gt Which it defines as the free market and liberty which it defintSas the liberty to exploit It sold us on the illusion that the free ttlarket W$ the natural outgrowth ofdemocracy and a force ofnature at l~llst until the bouse of cards colshylapsed and these corporations needed to fleece thetaxpayers to survive Making that process even inore insidious the rea sources of puwer

remain hidden Those who run our largest corporations are largely anonymous to the mass of the citizens The anonymity of corporate farces~an earthlybeus abscondjtus-itlakelt them unaccountable

They have the means to hide and to divert us from examining the decaying structures they have created As Kail Man understood capishy

talism when it is tmleaskedmiddot from cgovemment and regulatory control is

a revolutionary fom Cultures that cannot distinguish betweeniUusion and reality dIe

The dying gasps of all empires from tbe Aztecs to the ancient Romans to the French monarchy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire have heen characterized hy a disconnect between the elites and reality The elites were blinded by absurd fantasies of omnipotence and power fllat

CHltlS HEDGES 143

ltiPomed ~ivilizatiomttte have been s~dilyimp(lVelishedby OUl

own lOwer elites-leaally eoonomically spifitwally and politicroIy~ unless we radically reverse this tide unI~$S we wrest the state

aw~ ftolll cotpmatehanGs we wBI bedr~gged oownby tile darkeand turbulent undertow af gloaalixaHoD In this workitbereare ooly masshyters and serf~ We ate an era in wOrkers may becollle serfs no longer able to earn a living wage to sustain tbeimleurolvesor their families whether in sweatshops in China or the industrial waste-

of Ohio The countrys moral decay is manifested in its ph$kal decay It is

no coincidence that our infrastrncture~roads btidgel1 sewers airshypons trains mass overburdened outdated and dismal repair It is not so elsewhere China opens ~ new middotsubw~ system every year Europeuro~s travel from London to Paris 00 high~speed trains Meatrwhile AmeriCas antiquated and ineffidenl rail systemcaonot

maintain it~ lumberin8 ca~ and agiag tracks Cities are plagu~d by broken pipes and $irtkhol~s The Bnvltonm~ntaI ProteCtionAgency estimates that conapsing and ovenihelmed sewage release more than 40000 distharges of raw sewage into our drinki-ng ~tergt streams homeseaxh year The Education Department found that one-third of our schOols re in such a Severe ~te of disrepa~r that it mterferes with the dellvery of instruction A report in thlt journal HealthAffairs etimattstmt if the for-pront heaIth-care ~ js left Ullcbanged one of every five d01lars spaBt by Americans 102017 will go to health co~rage Half of all bankruptdl$ in Amerka oecur because families are unable to pay their medical bills staggering unemshy

ployment lntntcruptcies declining realestate and the ilnrttering

ofstores and factorlesate sweeping across the nation War and rampant militarism-we now have ]61 military bases we

maintain around the globe-drains the lifeblood out of the bQdy politic The US mititmyspends more than all other militaries an earth combined TheOffitial us defense budtJet fiscal 2008 is $623 billion and by 2010 the Pel1tagonis slated t0teceive more than

billion ltmlteuro funding for items such as weapons is included in the budget The neXt closest national military budget is Chinas at $65 billion acrording to the Central IntdligellceAgenqr We embrace the dangerous dewsion that wealeon a providential mission

144 I EMPImiddotREOF ILLVHQN

to save the testm the world poundtom ttsCfli to lntpose our virtues-which we see as superior to all other virtUe5--0110thatS and that we have a right to do thl$by Tllis belief has q)fuptedhothRepublicans and Democrats The warBefOccl1pati(ln in lraqltlnd ~stan are doomed tefutIDty We ~n()t affOld them Therasb of hMl~ fore closures the n1oUlltingjob 16$1I~ the ltoIfapse ofbanks and the finanshycid services indulltry the ripping apart the wodting classell QUI crumbling infrastrlicture and the killing ofAfghan a1ld Iraqi

civilians by Ollf iron fragmentation bombs converge costly forms death we dispense on Ol1e side df globe are hollowing us out

from the insideat home The lWedi~ of$ousaIids of jobs will SOQll turn our laquo0shy

nomic aisis inft) apolitical crisis Thestreet protests strikes riots that have rattl~ Fra~) furkey Greece Ukraine ]illssia ~ Lithllama Bulg~ria and Ireland will descend on us onty a tnatter

of ~rne And flOttllucb time When stat to go sour wben fhg

ObaD1aadministrati~ is aposed as a group of orortals waving a sword at a tidal wave tbe United States oouldpJJngeiuto a long period ofprecarious socialllrtd fJ4Htica1 instability

At no period in Ameriean bistory has oJr democracy b~n in sudi peril or the pQ86ibUity qf totalita+iani$Dl as teaL Om wayoflife is over OUf proftigat~ consumption is finished Our children will 1levat have the standard of living we had ThiSm thebleak future This is reaIity There is little President Obama can do tastop it It has been decades in the making It (lInnotbe undone with $1 trillion or trilshylion in bailout moarey Nor willit be solved bydingingto the illusions

of the past How will we C9pe with om daliacl Wtll wemiddot ding to the absurd

dreams of a S1lpcenttpowerand the fantasies a g1otiotls tomorrow Of will we responsibly mce out stark new funitations Will we heed tJiose who are sober andrationtlthose who speak of a new simplicity and humility we fdllowthe dmnagogues and charl~tans who rise up ill rnoments efvrisisandpanicto offer fantastic visions ofescape Will we tadicallytran$fottn ollI $jstem to one1hatprotelttstheordinamprycItshyzen and fosters the common 8000 that defies the corporate state or will we employ the brutality and temnology of our ipternltd security and sUtVeillanceapparatus tocrush aU disSent~

CHillS HEQGmiddotES t 145

There were som~ who gaw it euroOOiling nt PQIitical philo$Qphers Sheldan S WOlin Tabu Ralston Saul and Andrew Ba~vith wri~s such as NQam ChoJll$ky Chalmers IohnsonDavid torten ~Naotni JOein and suth as Hill Mclltibgen WendeD Berry and Ratpn Naderwarned usaboutour march offolly in the immediate years lifter the Second W()rld Wat a pteviollS generatian of social ctitics ~shynized the destructive potential ofthe rising rorpOlate state Books such as David Riestnans The Lanely Crowd C Wright MiUss The Power Elite William H Whites The Organization Man Seymour Mellmans The Permanent War ElXJnomy American Capitalism in Decline Dani~l Boorstins The Image A Guide to Pseudo-Evtmts in Atnericilt and Reinshyhold Niebuhrs The It(lrty of Ammcpn HistQf) have proved to be prophetic This generation ofwriters remembered what bad been lflst They saw the intrinsic that were being The adture

sought to lrugety been oblirerated During the desrent our media and uniVtfSities extensieJls of oorpoute ~nd mass otlture proved intellectually and morallyusdess Tbey did not thwart the decay We failed to heed the wisdom of these crltks embracing instead the idea that allchange was a fattn of prpgress

In his book Democracy Incorporated Wua who taught political philosophy at Berkeley and at PriniOetOn uses (be phrase ~nvetted totalmiddot itarianism to descrIbe our sjl3tem of power Inverted tmalitariallIsm unlike classical totalitananismdoesmiddotuQirewlve around ~ demagQgue at charismatk leader It finds expression in the anonymity of the corshyporate state It purportS to cherish democtaltq patriotism and the Constitution while manipalating internal levers to subvettand thwart democratic institutiofiS Political candidates are elected inmiddot popular votes by citizens but candidates must raise staggering amounts ofcorshyporate funds to compete Thq are beholden to armies of ImpOrate lobbyists in vVashingtan QT state capitals who author the legislatitm and get the legislators to pass it CoJpOlateuro mediaoontrol ueaflyellerything we read watch or hear It impo~ abland QlIjfotmity of opinio~ It diverts us with trivia and gossip In tQtantariau teJumles stKh as Nazi fassm or S~t communism ocanomicS was subordinate ro plttlitia Uhder inverted totalitarianism the reverse is true WOJin writes Jkonomics ~ollinates politics-and with that oomillationmmes different furms 0f ruthlessness

BMPIRE OF lLIUilON

In order to CtlPe with the impetialcontingencies of foreign war and ottupationaceoniing to Wolin

damoor~ willattet its charattet not ontyby a8swRing new hehavshy

Ilbroail (~g ruthlessness ~ suffering ~dQf local norms the inequalities in ulingasubject population) but also by llperating on revised powet~expansive assumptions at hQlle It will mDre often than not try to manipulate the public rather than

engage its members in deliberation It will demand lllearu powers and broader discretion in their use (state Selrefs) a tighter control over societys resources more sl1millary methods Qfjustice and less patiltilce fur oppositioo and clamor fot socioeronQlllit

refm-tm

lrIlpermlism and demmcraq are lncQntpatible The massive resQlloces and allocations devoted to impetialimuncentan that democtaq ineritablywlth~ and dies Democratic state-s and republics including ancient 1thetl$ and Ro~ that refuse to curb imperial expansionevis-shycerate their palitieal syStelinS Wolin writes

Impeurorial pOlitks cooquestpf cID~ti pqUtks and the

latters coo~n into a cmtwclenrent of i9lel1OO totititarianism It ~kes no 5en$e to askllow the dem(jcrafic could pIrticlshypate substaativelyln imperial politiG henteit is Hot SWprisittg that

the sUbject ofempire is ~Q in electoral debate$No major politishy

cian or party has so mucbas publidy temar~ 00 the ~tence of

an American empire

I reached Wolin by phpne at his home about twenty-five miles ftJllth of San Fmntisco He was a oombardier in the South Pacific during the Second W(rld War and went to Harvard his regCt)rate Wglin has written political science as Polic

imd Vision and TOlgtqUJWille ~wun Two He is the auth~n of a senes of essays on Augustine of Hippo Richard Hooket David Hume Martin Luther~ JOAn Calvin Max Weber Frkdrhsh Nietzsche K~d Marxand John Dewey His voice however haS faded from plibshylic awareness because as he told me it is barrlpoundr and harder for

CH~fS HEDGES I 147 I

people like me to get a pubJic heatingHesaid thatFubli~ationssue4 as the New~rkRe~ ofBOOksf whim often printid his ilSsaysa coushypie of decades ago shied away oomrus blistedng ~Fitiqu~ of roePshycan empire and capilalism~ hls warningsavout the subversion Jllde~g of democratic institutlGns and the emergenGe of a corshyporate state To qUilStiQIl the id~ol(gy of the free market became even among the liberal elite a form of her~sy

The bask systems are going to stay in p~e they are too powerful to be challenged Wolin told me when I asked him about the Oooma administration This is shown by the financjal bailout It does not

bother with the structure at alL I dont think Obama can take on the kind of military establishment we have developed This is not to say that 1 do not admire him He is probably the mostfutelligentpresident

~ have had in dtbildes I tihinkhe is wen-meaning bu~ inberits a syenstem ofconstraints that make it very iliffitultfi) take on these major power configurations I do not think he has the appetite fQpoundit many ldeo~sense Th~ colPQr~te stru(tllre is not going to be challenged There has not been a wordfram him that would S1l~estan tttelllpt to

rethink the American imperilun Wolin argues that ilfuilure 10 dismantIeeur overextended impeshy

rial projects coupled with the ecooQmic COJ]lPse is likely to rtsilltin a fun-blown inverted totalitarianism He said that vithout radical and drastic remediesn the response to mounting discontent ~nd social unrest Will probably l~d to greater state mntto and represshysion There will be) he warned a huge expansion of govetnment power

laquoOur politicalcuIture has remained unhelpful in fostering a democratic conscio~ he said The polItkal system mdits operashytives win not he constrained by popular discontent or nprisings

Wolin writilS th3t in inverted totalitarianism consumer goods and iii comfortable standard livrng along with a vast entertainment

industry that provides ~ectades and appealing diversion$ keep the dtizemypolitically passive I asked if the economic collaJise and the steady decline in QUf sfandard ofliving might ROt in fact trjgger cIa$Sishycal totalitarianism Could widespread frustration and poverty lead the working and middle classes to place their faith in demgues espeshyolllly those from the Christian Right

148 EMIHRE ()p fLLIJSION

think thats perfectiypossfblet heanswered~ That was the experience of thet93os There wa$nt just FDR There was Huey Long and Father Coughlin There mre even mOJ~~teme movew~nts indudihgthe KlanTbe extent to which these faroes can be fbi by the downturn and b~krtess is a very Teal dan~r ItCQuld become(~cal totalitarianismraquo

He sajd tfu political passivity bred by a cUlture of illusion is exploited by dem~gogues who present tltemselvedo a submissive popshy

ulation as saviors They offer dreams ofglory amp warned that apolitishycalness even anti-politicalness wilt be very powerful elements in taking us towards a ta4icrrllr dicr-atorial dkectioll It testifies to how thin the commitment to democracy 1s in the ptesent CirctmlSt-anM Democracy is Rotasc~dantlt is not do~_l It is beleagueredThe extent to which YOlilllg people have been dtawn~y from publiiconshycelfus middotmiddotanrl given tbis extraordinary range of diversions makes it very likely they could then rally to a demagogle

Wolin 1amentedthatthe corporate state Ms$locessfully bl~ public debate about alternativ~fonns of power Corporations detershymine who gets heard and Who does nQthe said And those StIth as Wolin who critique coiporate pOWeuro ate ~duded frOm the national dialogue Pundits on television news prbgrams disensspolitiOi as a horse race or Olmpare the effectiveness or pIle1JdtHvents staged by candidates They do notdlscll5sideas issues er meaningful reform

111 the 193G8 tIlqe were aU kinds of alternatiw understandings fromsocialiBm to moreextenslvc governmental involvement he said There was a range of diffi~rent approaches But what I am strutk by now is th~ narrow range within which palliatives ~rebeing modeled

We llIeuro supposed to work with tbe Iinandal ~m So the people who helped create this system~re putin chatge ofthe $Jutlon There has to be 8oalemajor effort to think outside the bax

The puzzle to me is the lack of social unr~raquo Wolin said when asked why we have not yet middotseen rioting or protests He said be wotried

that popular proteSts will be dismissed and i~oood by the corpotate media This he said) is what happened when tens of thousands prOtested the war in Iramp If protestors arech~tact(riZed a$ crank$ or fringe groups if their voices are never heardtbe state will have little trouble iluppreSsillglocal pro~W happlmeddUfing the Demo(mtic

ltKtilS HampDGES 149

and Rep14QIkan convetltioBS Anti-war protests in the 19()QS gai~

m~ntu~ be Saio from their ability to spfea4 their message actoss the O)Un~ This may not happen hOW laquoThe ways [co1pQlllteigovernshymental authQIities] can isolate protests anrl prevent it from rberomjn~J a contagion ate formidable he saM

My gOOltest fear is that the Q1Yama ad~nisttation willactueve relatively little in terms of structuralihange he added cCTheymay at best keep fheuro system going But there isa growing pessimism Everylttay we hear how UDeh longer the recession win continue They lIre already talking about beyond next year [intQ 2011J The economicdifficulties are more profound than we had gues~d ~d because of globalization moredifficuh to deal with I wish the political establishment the parshyties and leadershipgt would beCO8le lllore aware of the tkptBs of the problem They cant keep thlow~money Theyhave40 ~ sttwtural di~nges that involve avety diffeilnt 8pproacll from a lllarket ecQllOmr Idoot thinktrus will happen

1 keepwnyand how when this coUntty SO

conservative he went on ThiScotmbl ana prided itselfonits wtper~ imantation and flexibility It hasDeeQme rigid It is pmbahlythernost con~ative of all the advanced countrIesl

American left has crUlubled and ~kl out to3 llanicrupt Deritocratk Party It has abandoned the working class whiclI hasmiddot middotJtto

to organize andlittle political clout especially with unions aspent force The univetsitiesalcent ruiIls corporate ernploytes The media eurohum out inftHamment and pollum the airwaves with fatllolilS pun4its The Ipoundfi he said no lQngerhas the capatity to be a countdshyweight to the corporate~ate nan extreme rightreSilins mQmenshyturn there will probably ~ veery little organized icigti$bmte

is amorphous he said laquoI despair over theteft Left parshyties may be small nwnber in Europe bnt they IlJe acoh~centnt orgl1ni~

that keeps going Here eXltJept for Naders efforts we cfoftt hare that We have a few VOiices hert a magaIDL1e there and thats about it It goesnowheie

The decline Qf America1l ~e began long the eurolInent eooPQmic mpoundltdpwn or tbeWaT$ in Afghanistan and Iraq It began before the fiist Gulf War or Jonald It began when we shifted

words of the historian Chlt1~ Mailr from an Aempire of

1)9 I EMPIRE OF ILLU$tON

producenttion to an laquoempire of consumption Byth~end of the l]etnam War when the ~ts of the warmiddot ate away at Lyndon Johnsons Great Society and domestic oil b~an its s~dy ill~ot)ble decline we saw our euroOlll1uy transformedfmm cmethat pdmanly pro-

to one tbatprimari1yen wnst11J1eC We staftedbOrrowiog Ii lifestyle we rould no longer afibrd We began to U$ fQf(e

especiaUyin the Midttle feedour iIlsatiable thirst fur cheap qil The decline has been steadyamfuniBten11pted since the conclusion of the Sed)nd World War At the elld of the war we possessed nearly twoshythirds of the worfdsgEJId reserves and more than half of its entire manshyufactutillg capacity The Uruted States account~ for 0Ile-third of world tXports the foreign tfade balance was in the black and ~orts mote thaI) doubled imparts Three decades tbe nation had slipped mto a negative trade balance imports began (if exlteeo exports rfi~nufud(Jringjobs were on the arui we con~iycly tQ spend mQlie than we earned ihta1 pn1dieuro debt is troW )lore than trillionQt abollt $1lltj676 per ~itagt

billls now due Americas most elwmiesare not U1ainic radicalsbuttllose wbosold 11$ the ideology offree~ mattetcapitltl1smandgIObil(ization They have d)m~ited thefollUiiashytions QfolJf society

The ate notthe of tax CUt$ uniletSal health care family values Qr a world tendered peaceful through fQrGetuI delilOnStratioll5 ofAmetitan)eade~hip wrotein Tim Limits

aretbe tmthsthal remain ul1spolren that frelildom has afl that llllti()ns like hli)usehoJds lH~~t livl1 within their meanamp that hisrorys purpose the stibject of so malIy

agtJlooent pron~uncem~ remains inS(TutltIble Above all there is this Power is finite P6Iitkfans pass over mlllltrlt $td1 as these in silen~ As a mnseque~gt the abseuCl of 1clf~lwarmes$ that forms

sum an enduringlement iciftbe American charactirpersists1

The problems wefuceare sttucruraL The old America is not ~shying back Ollr finandal system was taken hostage and looted by b~etsgt brokers and ~tots who told llS that tbe old meaDS of

CHIllS REI)iGE$ I 151

making atpitai producing and manufacturing were outdated Tllt asSured us money could be made out of tntgttley They tasisted that finandalmarkets could be 8~lf1~guIating Like all financial markets throughout hilltory that have thrown off oversight and regulation oms has coUapsed Speculators in the seventeenth century were hangcentd Today they retcive billions in taxpayer dollars and huge bonuses

The corporate forces that control the st81 will never permit real reform It would mean their extinction These corporations espeshycially the oil and gas iadustry will never allow us to achieve energy independene That would devastate thcir profits it would wipe out tens of billions of dollars in weapons conttacts It wovld cripple the fmandal health of a host private G0ntrltctQrs from Halliburton to

BlackwattltXe and render obsolete die existence of us Central Comshymand This is the harsh unspll~reaIity euroIf corporate power The unseen hands of Lotkbeed Martill ROeing~ and Northrup Grumman the nations top-three defense contractopound$divided up $69 billion in Pentagon CODtracts inwo7 the la$tyear forwhkh oontracting data aremiddot available These industries which have judicio~y spread th~ir and supply husine~ throughout the amntry defend the production of weapons systems as vital for employment Hut their leaders ateuro clearly nervous The AetospaceIndustries AssPcianon (AlA) which represents more than one hundred defense and aerospace c~rporations has all ad campaign with the slQgan Aerospate and Defense The Strength to

America It claims its manufacturers Olotribute $97 billion in exports a yeu and employ 2 nillliOIl Plople ll figure disputed by the Us Bureau ofLabor Statistics whidl puts the number at 472000 wage and salary workers But this has nqt dam~oed the pronise tnadeby thtSe corporate executives to help lift the nation out of its economic morass Our industry is ready and i~lct to lead the way out of the ocoshynomic Fred Downey an associate vice plesident told the Associshyated Press Tbeadsmiddot are useful but SQ is the some $149 million a yeU the i~dustry lavishes on lobbying firl1llocoording to the Center for Represhysentatwe Polities

Seymour MeUman spent his aatdemic ltareer which spanned the Cold War at ColumbiaUniYmSity researdling writing and speaking ~bout the large military portion of the federal budget In Peil1iagtm

Capitalism he described the redundancy and costliness of modern

1i2 I IMPIRE OF ILLUSION

weapons sy$cent1TS-such as the Ilext wave of fighter pilileuroS misSt1es subma~ and aircraft carriers Besai9 tbathigh-te41 weap~yetw be ltksfgned always escalate spendmg as new costlier ampystetus ~place the oldwhicl1are oftenjunked

The Ullited States has become the largest siqgle seHer Ofaiin$ and munitions on the planet The defensebudg~ fOr fiscaI2008isthe largest sitHetheSocQnd World War More than half offederal discreshytionary spendil1g gpes to defense And so we build Cold War relics such as tbe $14 billion Virginm-dass suhluarines as well as the stcltllth fighters we engineered to evade radar systems the Soviets neyer built We spend $89 biIHon on ICBM Inissiledefeose s)$tems that would be useless in moppmg a shipp~ container concealing a dirty bomb The defense industry is able to monopolize the best~entifi~ and Ies~arch talent and sqllmdcentr the n~tions reS0tllEesand investment capitaL TbeRe defense industries pt0dute nothing that is usdll forso~ietyor

ilational tr~deaccount They oirer littlemiddot more thana psychologishycalsecurity hlanket featfulArneric~ who want to feel protected and safe

The defense industry is a virus It destroys be-allhy etJ)nomill$ we p~ sophisficated fighter jets whik Boeing ilt unable to ~b its newcommlicjaJ plaJe on scenth~dule and our automotIveindustry goes ~pt We sink money into research and developlilent of weap~)Us systems and starve renewable energy te~hnologtes to fight glcibal wamting Universities are flooded with defense-relsted cash apoundod gtants

sfUggle to find mltmey fur envinmmental studies The massive milshyitary spending aided by this $3 trillion war has a social cost Our bddgesand levees conapse ltlUt schools decay our real manufacturing ii done overseas by foreign worllaquorsand our social net is taken away And we are bombarded with the militar~d1anguage offgtoWet and strength that masks our brittle reality

~Jlman wined the term pemumertt war eeenamy to cleSribe American economy Since the end ofthe Si1cond World War the federal government has spent more thanmiddot half itS t~ dollars on past current and future military operatiJns It is the largest single susminingadivity of government The military-industrial eltablishmentis esp~ially luaative to corporations lecaqse it offer$ a lavish fOrm or copomre welfare Defense syamptensare usually sold before theyate produce4mtd

CHIHS RllDGBS I 153

making atpitai producing and manufacturing were outdated Tllt asSured us money could be made out of tntgttley They tasisted that finandalmarkets could be 8~lf1~guIating Like all financial markets throughout hilltory that have thrown off oversight and regulation oms has coUapsed Speculators in the seventeenth century were hangcentd Today they retcive billions in taxpayer dollars and huge bonuses

The corporate forces that control the st81 will never permit real reform It would mean their extinction These corporations espeshycially the oil and gas iadustry will never allow us to achieve energy independene That would devastate thcir profits it would wipe out tens of billions of dollars in weapons conttacts It wovld cripple the fmandal health of a host private G0ntrltctQrs from Halliburton to

BlackwattltXe and render obsolete die existence of us Central Comshymand This is the harsh unspll~reaIity euroIf corporate power The unseen hands of Lotkbeed Martill ROeing~ and Northrup Grumman the nations top-three defense contractopound$divided up $69 billion in Pentagon CODtracts inwo7 the la$tyear forwhkh oontracting data aremiddot available These industries which have judicio~y spread th~ir and supply husine~ throughout the amntry defend the production of weapons systems as vital for employment Hut their leaders ateuro clearly nervous The AetospaceIndustries AssPcianon (AlA) which represents more than one hundred defense and aerospace c~rporations has all ad campaign with the slQgan Aerospate and Defense The Strength to

America It claims its manufacturers Olotribute $97 billion in exports a yeu and employ 2 nillliOIl Plople ll figure disputed by the Us Bureau ofLabor Statistics whidl puts the number at 472000 wage and salary workers But this has nqt dam~oed the pronise tnadeby thtSe corporate executives to help lift the nation out of its economic morass Our industry is ready and i~lct to lead the way out of the ocoshynomic Fred Downey an associate vice plesident told the Associshyated Press Tbeadsmiddot are useful but SQ is the some $149 million a yeU the i~dustry lavishes on lobbying firl1llocoording to the Center for Represhysentatwe Polities

Seymour MeUman spent his aatdemic ltareer which spanned the Cold War at ColumbiaUniYmSity researdling writing and speaking ~bout the large military portion of the federal budget In Peil1iagtm

Capitalism he described the redundancy and costliness of modern

1i2 I IMPIRE OF ILLUSION

weapons sy$cent1TS-such as the Ilext wave of fighter pilileuroS misSt1es subma~ and aircraft carriers Besai9 tbathigh-te41 weap~yetw be ltksfgned always escalate spendmg as new costlier ampystetus ~place the oldwhicl1are oftenjunked

The Ullited States has become the largest siqgle seHer Ofaiin$ and munitions on the planet The defensebudg~ fOr fiscaI2008isthe largest sitHetheSocQnd World War More than half offederal discreshytionary spendil1g gpes to defense And so we build Cold War relics such as tbe $14 billion Virginm-dass suhluarines as well as the stcltllth fighters we engineered to evade radar systems the Soviets neyer built We spend $89 biIHon on ICBM Inissiledefeose s)$tems that would be useless in moppmg a shipp~ container concealing a dirty bomb The defense industry is able to monopolize the best~entifi~ and Ies~arch talent and sqllmdcentr the n~tions reS0tllEesand investment capitaL TbeRe defense industries pt0dute nothing that is usdll forso~ietyor

ilational tr~deaccount They oirer littlemiddot more thana psychologishycalsecurity hlanket featfulArneric~ who want to feel protected and safe

The defense industry is a virus It destroys be-allhy etJ)nomill$ we p~ sophisficated fighter jets whik Boeing ilt unable to ~b its newcommlicjaJ plaJe on scenth~dule and our automotIveindustry goes ~pt We sink money into research and developlilent of weap~)Us systems and starve renewable energy te~hnologtes to fight glcibal wamting Universities are flooded with defense-relsted cash apoundod gtants

sfUggle to find mltmey fur envinmmental studies The massive milshyitary spending aided by this $3 trillion war has a social cost Our bddgesand levees conapse ltlUt schools decay our real manufacturing ii done overseas by foreign worllaquorsand our social net is taken away And we are bombarded with the militar~d1anguage offgtoWet and strength that masks our brittle reality

~Jlman wined the term pemumertt war eeenamy to cleSribe American economy Since the end ofthe Si1cond World War the federal government has spent more thanmiddot half itS t~ dollars on past current and future military operatiJns It is the largest single susminingadivity of government The military-industrial eltablishmentis esp~ially luaative to corporations lecaqse it offer$ a lavish fOrm or copomre welfare Defense syamptensare usually sold before theyate produce4mtd

CHIHS RllDGBS I 153

milititt1 industries rue permitted to charge the federal govetllmentJoJ huge t o~rons Hugeprotits3f~ guarallt~d Eigtreigll aid isgjven to countries such as Emt whiteh receives some $3 billion in ~n~ but isrequittd to bur American~s with $13 billion ((If it The tlnpayets fund the ~earch ltevelopment an4bnilding of weapoUli systems and then buy them on beh~f of foreign governments It is a circular system that little resembles the paradigm of a ftee-mllrket economy

There is tarely any accounting to the client (ie the gpvernment and people of the Unjted States) if work is shoddy Of produces fiaweQ weapons systems The Us Coast Guard in one of many examples undertook alive-year $24 bilIiftn middotwodernization program called D~epwaterTheCoast Guard spent $toO million to lellgthen by thirshyteen feet the 110-fooUs~nd Oass patrol ~ts They shipped the boats to the Hontnger Shificyard ontside ofNew Orleans The eight boats when they returned had such severe structural problems that they lill badwbe rented fro1l1service

The Pentagon Mellman noted is not restdcted by dwmiddot eeonomk rules ofpfodJcing goQds selling thetn for a Frofit then using the profit for further investmentand production It operates rather outsideQf oompetitive madets It bas erased the line between the state and rUe euroorporation and it8ubverts theapoundtual economy It leeclIes away the ability of the nation to nlaDufacture useful pmducts and producesusshytainable jObK Mellman used the example of the NeW York City Transit Authority and its allQcation in 200J of $3 lillion to $4 billign fOr new SUhWCiY cafli~ New York City asked fltlr bids and no AmericancOllllashynies rlSponded Mellman argued that the industrial base in Aroetka was no longtr cetlte1ail on items that maintainbull improveorare tlSed to build the nationsinfrastmcture New York City eventually CQntraqed with com~ in Japan and Canada to build its subway cars Mellman estimated that such a contract could have generated directly and indishyrectiy about 3~QOO jobs in the United States In another inltana of 100 products offered in the zpo3LL Bean ltataIogue Me1Jman founti that niooy4wo were imported alldonly cigbtwere made in ~he United States

The defen~ industriesbull lin aU COfpQrations rely on decepthtead tampaigns imdlobbyists to perpetuab their loltk on taxpayer money

154 I RMIlRE Of lliUSION

Thelate Senator J William Fulbright delaquorihed the reach of the nrilishytary-industriu ~tibJfflhmerd itl Ids J97Q ol)(Yk The ~got1b(j~~shyga1fila Mlpoundhine Fulbrightexplained how the Jlentagpn in6utfnted JlJbUt opinion through direct contacts with the punLk Defense Deflartment films dsetieswith Hollywood produce~and ~ of the comm~rcialI1aedii1 to gaiQsq~rHof weapuus systems TbeBIBjmity of the military analysts 00 teleVision are [onner miJitaty offici~ many eurolJlployed ltIS q)uswtants to defense industriesa fact they rarely disclose to the public Barry R McCaffrey a retjted four-star army general and military analyst ft11 NBC News was The New lVrk Times

reported at the same time an emplolee of Defe~e Solutions Inc a consultius- linn Heprofited theartide noted frQID the sale of the

weapons SYStems aodlaquopansion of thewrrsin Imqand Afghanistan he championed overthe ainv11vesz

~

The grip of COrpoiiltiQl1s on gQVemment is n((lt Hmitedto the defense industry It has leeched inle neatly every aspectofffre eeQllOmy The attempt to ClO)te ah~th-4arlt plan that al~o iUmciiates the corporashytions that profit froin the mlsery and iUn~ of tens of milHons Qf Americans ~ narfe atmiddotbest and probablydisingeuuous This conillashynon inSists that we Gati coaXllrese cotpcraijonswhich are listed On the stock exchange and exist m maximize profit wtransfurm themselves into social-service agencies that will provide adequate health care fur all Americans

Ohama offirsa ~se hipe MYS OJ John ~an former chair of futnifymedidne at theUruveIsity of~gton and ltll1tilor of])o Nat R5uscitate Why tAe Heplth llimr(llfce Industry Is Dying and HQW we Must Repkice It Wecann(1)t build on ot tweak the present syste~ Pifferetlf states have tried this Th~ problem is the private insurance industryitseIf It is not aamp efficient as a pubJiltly fulanced SyStem It fragshyments rfsk pools skiJnming off the healthier part of the POFuilltion and leaving the rest uninsured or unaerinsuted Its administrative and overh~d costs are fhre to eight times higher tban puhlk financing thr0ugh Medicare It cares more about jts sharnbolders than its enrollees or patients A fanUly offour UfIW pays about $12000 a year just in premiums whiltb have gone up by amp7 percent from 2600 to 2006

emus HEDGltS 155

The in~urmce industry is pricjng itself out of the market for an evershylarger part of the population The industry resists regulation It is

unsuslainableby present trends Our health-care system is broken There are some 46 million

Ameri~swithout coverage and tens ofmillioijs with inadeqUate polishycies that severely limit mat kinds of procedures and treatments they can receive Eighteen thousand people die accordirtgto the Institute of

Medicine every year because they cant afford health care There are at least 2-5 million Americans Who are underinsured

German says Whatever coverage they have does not come dose to

covering the actual cost of a major illness or accident The corporations that run our for-profit health-care industry

would be shut down if single-payer not-for-prQfit health-care was proshy

vided for all Americans The for-profit health-care industry like the

defense industry has vigorously fought to protectjtself through camshy

paigij contributions and lobbying They have placed profit before the common good A study by Harvard Medical SchoQl found that

natiQnal health insuranee would save the country $350 billion a year But Mediltare does 110t make campaign contributions The private

bealth-care industries do The private bealth in$urance companies and the pharmaceutical

industry completely and totally oppose national hea4h insurance says Stephanie Woolhandler one of the founders of Physicians for a National Health Program The private health insurance companies would go out of business The pharmaceutical companies aremiddotafraid that a national health program will as in Canada be able to negotiate

lower drug prices Canadians pay 40 percent leS$ for their drugs We see this on a smaller scale in the United States where the Department of Defense is able to negotiate pharmaceutical prices that are 40 percent

IQWcr We cannot improve the system by expanding governmentovetsight

or improve for-profit health care by requiring doctors and hospitals to prove they provide quality medical services Proposals to require insurshyance companies to use more incorlle from premiums for patient care or link payment with reported quality are unworkable Nor will turning record-keepingfrom paper to electronic data bluntrising costs

15) J poundlv(PIRE OF ILLUSION

There isn~t an enforeement mechanism Geyman says blU1ttly Most states have been unable to control rates or set a cap on rates

The only way everyope will get insurance is with national health insurance says Woolhandler who is a professor at Harvard Medical School People with catastrophic iilhesses usually lqse their jobs aIla lose their insurance They often cannot afford the high premiums for the insurance they ~ get when they are unable to wt1rk Most fitmilies that Iile fQf bankruptcy because of medical costs had insuran(e before

they got sick They either lost the insurance because they lost their jobs or faced gaps in coverage thltlt meant they could not afford medical ca~

Our health system costs neatIy twice as much as national PfOshygrams in countries such as Switzerland The overhead ror traditional Medicare is 1 percent and the overhead for the investment-owned

companies is 265 percenLA staggering 31 percent of our health-care expenditures is lipent on administrative costs Look what we get in return And yet the reality of the health-care system isuever discussed beltause corporations which fqnd the main political parties qa not want it discussed

The Democratic Party has been as guilty as the Republiams in the abdication of real power to the corporate state It was Bill Clinton who led the Democratic Party to the corporate watering trough Clinton argued that the party had to ditch labor unions no longer a source of votes or power as a political aUy Workers he insisted would vote Democratic anyway They had no choke It was better he argued to take corporate money and do corporate biddingBy the 1990pound the

Democratic Party under Clintonsleadefship had virtual fulld-raising parity with the Republicans Today the Democrats raise more

The legislation demanded by corporations sold out the Ameri(aIl worker This betrayal was accompanied with a slick advertising camshypaign that promoted the laws used tu destroy the working class as the

salvati01 of the American worker TIle North American Free Ttade Agreement was peddledby the Clinton White House as an opportunity to raise the incomes and prosperity of the citizens of the United $tates Canadaanltl Mexico NAFrA would also we were told stanch Mexican immigration into the UniteaStates

CHRIS HEnGBS 157

-J

fhere will be leljlgt iIlesal immigration b~usemore Mexicaps will Qe able t() support their childreJ1 by staying home Pimident Clinton said inthe spring as he was klbby~ for the bill

But NAFTA wh4h took in 1994 had the effect of reversing every one rosy predictil1Ils Once the M~gov~nt lifted price supports on WIn and beanS grown by Mexican farmers those had to the huge agribusiuesses in the United States Many MexiGan were swiftly banktllpted At least 2 million Mexican farmers have belm driven off their land sinre 1994shyAnd guess where many them went This desperate flight of poor Mexicans into the United States is now being exacerbated by large-scale factory closures alltmg the borde a~ truWufactutets pack up and leave Mexico for the cut-rate of Chinas totalitarian mpitalism But we were assured that WfJuld be cheaper Workers would be wealthier Elveryone WQuld lam not sure how these contrashydictory thing~ were suppored to happcentfl but in a sound-bite society reality no longer matters NAFrA WIS greatif you were a corporation

It was a disaster ifyou were a worker Clintons welfare reform bjU signed on August 22 1996 obUtershy

ated the nations social safety net It threw 6miUion people many of

them single mothers off the wdfufe 1()1)$ within three years It dumped them onto the streets without child care rent subsidies or continued Medicaid coverage Families were plunged into crisis strugshygUng to survive on multiple jobs that paid 01 $7 an hour or less than $15000 a year And these were In some stQtes half of those dropped from the welfare rolls could not find work Clinton slashed Medicare by $115 billion Oyer period and cut $25

in Medicaid funding overcrowded prison system handled the influx of the poor as om abandQned men~

We have 23 million of our most of them for nonviolent dlug off~nses adul~ in the United States is incarcerated The percent of tbe global population has almost 25 prisoners One in nine black men between twenty and thirty~four is behind bars This has effectively decapitated the leadership in the inner cities -here African Amerilt~s have traditionally bad to react more quiCkly to confront socialinjustictlgt

15amp I EMPIRE OF ILLOSJON

(

The Clirttop administratIoll led by Lawreme Swnmers law the Financial Setvioos M~OOrnfzatiQ~ Act of 1999 which

tliefirewails that had been established by the 1933 ~aglllll Act Designed to ptevtmt tmkind of melIuQWI1 WI ae now et1lgterilenCing Gbss-~galIestablished the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation It set in plate banking remnns to stop speculators from n1)lClaIlg tlkellrumLciai system With Glass-Steagall demolished the

the Democrats led by Clinton tqmbled gleefully into bed with wrporations and Wall Street speculators They used

ampnnie Mae and Freddie Mac asa welf~ gravy train architects of this deregulation ecooomistssnth as

SUlnnler~irelllQlll in charge ofthenatiops economkpoliq Whell times are prosperous we do not mind a modest increase in

~wclfare wrote Robert N Bellah

When n()t so ptnsperous we think at leaSt our sucCessful

career will save US and our ilunilies frmn failllIe and desp~ir We middotue attlaeted against our skeptictsm to tbeidea that poverty will be alleshy

viated by the crumbs that fan frolll tlte dch mans table Some 9f

us often feel and mt1St of lUc sometimes feel that we ace milysomeshyOne if WI have milde it can lo()~ oown on thtlse who have not Tlu Amer~3n dream is II very private dream of being a star he

uniquely Sllccessful and 1)1le the IJIle who staudsout from the crowd oflt1ldinary fo1l4 who don~t know how And since we havt bdieved ill tbllt time and workcentd very hard to make

it oonttadicts anetlEr dreanI that would really be wortb

of iDll$ion is not being paid by the corppshyon the streets our inner dties in furmer

manufacturing tOwns and in rnrai encl~veS This cost trimshy

scends declining and statistics ana speaks the language ef human misery and Human beinj5S are Dot c()mmodities They ltUe not goods They grieve and suffer and despair They raise children and struggle to maintain oomnwnities The gtowing class divide is IIOt

understood despite the gUbness ofmany in the media by compliCated

CHRIS HBDGES i 159

sets of statistics lines on a graph that chart stocks or the absurd

utopian faith in unregulated globalization and complicated trade deals

It is understood in the eyes of a man or woman who is no longer makshying enough money to live with dignity and hope

Elba Figueroa forty-seven lives in Trenton New Jersey She

worked as a nurses aide until she got Parkinsons disease She lost

her job She lost her health care She receives $703 a month in govshy

ernment assistance Her rent alone runs $750 a month And so she

borrows money from friends and neighbors to stay in her apartshy

ment She laboriously negotiates her wheelchair up and down steps

and along the sidewalks of Trenton to get to soup kitchens and food

pantries to eat

Food prices have gone up Figueroa says waiting to get inside the

food pantry run by the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton I

dont have any money I run out of things to eat I worked until I physishy

caUy could not work anymore Now I live like this

The pantry occupies a dilapidated three-story art deco building in Old Trenton the poorest neighborhood in the city The pantry is one

of about two dozen charities in the city that provide shelter and food to the poor Those who qualify for assistance are permitted to pick up

food once a month Clutching pieces ofpaper that show the number of

points they have been aUotted they push shopping carts in aU-shaped course around the first floor Every food item is assigned a number of

points Points are allotted according to the number of people in a household The shelves of the pantry hold bags of rice jars of peanut

butter macaroni and cheese and cans of beets corn and peas Two

refrigerated cases have eggs chickens fresh carrots and beef hot dogs

All Fresh Produce 2 pounds 1 point a sign on the glass door of the

refrigerated unit reads Another reads I Dozen EGGS equal 3 protein

points Limit of1 dozen per household

The swelling numbers waiting outside homeless shelters and food

pantries around the country many of them elderly or single women

with children have grown by at least 30 percent over the last year Genshy

eral welfare recipients struggle to survive on $140 a month in cash and another $140 in food stamps This is all many in Trenton and other impoverished pockets now have to survive Trenton a former manushy

facturing center with a 20 percent unemployment rate and a median

160 I EMPIRE Of ILLUSION

income of$33000 is a window into our unraveling And as the governshyment squanders taxpayer money in fruitless schemes to prop up insolshyvent banks and investment houses citizens are thrown into the streets without work a place to live or enough food

There are now 362 million Americans who cope daily with hunger

up by more than 3 million since 2000 according to the Food Research and Action Center in Washington The number of people in the worstshy

off category-the hungriest-rose by 40 percent since 2000 to nearly 12 million people

We are seeing people we have not seen for a long time says the

Reverend Jarrett Kerbel director of the Crisis Ministrys food pantry

which supplies food to 1400 households in Trenton each month We

are seeing people who havent crossed that threshold for five six or

seven years coming back We are seeing people whose unemployment

has run out and they are struggling in that gap while they reapply and

of course we are seeing the usual unemployed This will be the first real test of [Bill] Clinto~s so-called welfare reform

The Crisis Ministry like many hard-pressed charities is over

budget and food stocks are precariously low Donations are on the

decline There are days when soup kitchens in Trenton are shut down because they have no food

We collected 170 bags of groceries from a church in Princeton and it was gone in two days Kerbel says We collected 288 bags from a

Jewish center 1n Princeton and it was gone in three days What you see

on the shelves is pretty much what we have

States facing dratnatic budget shortfalls are slashing social assisshy

tance programs including Medicaid social services and education

New Jerseys shortfall has tripled to $12 billion and could soar to $5 bilshy

lion Tax revenue has fallen to $211 million less than projected States

are imposing hiring freezes canceling raises and cutting back on sershyvices big and small from salting and plowing streets in winter to heatshy

ing assistance programs Unemployment insurance funds especially

with the proposed extension of benefits are running out ofmoney Dolores Williams fifty-seven sits in the cramped waiting room at

the Crisis Ministry clutching a numbered card waiting for her number to be called She has lived in a low-income apartment block known as

The Kingsbury for a year Two residents she says recently jumped to

CHRIS HEDGES I 161

their deaths from the nineteenth floor She had a job at Sams Club but

lost it No one she says is hiring She is desperate

She hands me a copy of the Trenronian a local paper The headline on the front page reads Gangster Slammed for Bicycle Drive-By It is the story of the conviction of a man for a fatal drive-by shooting from a

bicycle The paper is filled with stories like these the result of social ecoshynomic and moral collapse Poverty breeds more than hunger It destroys

communities In one Trentonian story a fifty-six-year-old woman is

robbed and pistol-whipped in the middle of the afternoon Another artishy

cle reports the plight of four children whose parents had been shot and

seriously wounded laquoLibraries OK Now but Future Is Murky a headline

reads Another reads Still No Arrests in Hooker Slayings

It is like this every dayWilliams says

~

Corporations are ubiquitous parts of our lives and those that own and run them want them to remain that way We eat corporate food We

buy corporate clothes We drive in corporate cars We buy our fuel

from corporations We borrow from invest our retirement savings with and take out college loans with corporations and corporate

banks We are entertained informed and bombarded with advertiseshy

ments by corporations Many of us work for corporations There are

few aspects of life left that have not been taken over by corporations

from mail delivery to public utilities to our for-profit health-care sysshytem These corporations have no loyalty to the country or workers Our

impoverishment feeds their profits And profits for corporations are

all that count

The corporation is designed to make money without regard to

human life the social good or the impact of the corporations activities

on the environment Corporation bylaws impose a legal duty on corshy

porate executives to make the largest profits possible for shareholders

In the 2003 documentary film The Corporation by Mark Achbar Jenshy

nifer Abbott and Joel Bakan management guru Peter Drucker tells Bakan If you find an executive who wants to take on social responsishy

bilities fire him Fast And William Niskanen chair of the libertarian Cato Institute says that he would not invest in a company that proshy

moted corporate responsibility

162 I EMPIRB OF ILLUSION

A corporation that attempts to engage in social responsibility that tries to pay workers a decent wage with benefit that protects workers

rights that invests its profits to limit pollution that gives consumers better deals can actually be sued by shareholders Robert Monks an investment manager says in the film The corporation is an externalizshy

ing machine in the same way that a shark is a killing machine There isnt any question of malevolence or of will The enterprise has within

it and the shark has within it those characteristics that enable it to do that for which it was designed

Ray Anderson the CEO of Interface Corporation the worlds

largest commercial carpet manufacturer calls the corporation a presshy

ent-day instrument of destruction because of its compulsion to extershy

nalize any cost that an unwary or uncaring public will allow it to externalize

The notion that we can take and take and take and take waste

and waste without consequences is driving the biosphere to destrucshytion Anderson says

The film based on Bakans book The Corporation The Pathological Pursuit ofProfit and Power asserts that the corporation exhibits many

of the traits found in people clinically defined as psychopaths Psycholshy

ogist Robert Hare recites in the film a checklist of psychopathic traits and ties them to the behavior of corporations

bull Callous unconcern for the feelings for others

bull Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships bull Reckless disregard for the safetyofothers

bull Deceitfulness repeated lying and conning of others for profit bull Incapacity to experience guilt bull Failure to conform to sodal norms with respect to lawfulmiddot

behavior

And yet under the American legal system corporations have the same legal rights as individuals They make contributions to candishydates They fund 35000 lobbyists in Washington and thousands more in state capitals to write corporate-friendly legislation and defang regushylatory agencies They saturate the airwaves the Internet newspapers

and magazines with advertisements promoting their brands as the

CHRlS HEDGES I 163

friendly face of the corporation They have huge legal teams tens of thousands of employees and scores of elected officials who ward off public intrusions into their affairs or lawsuits They hold a near monopoly on all electronic and printed sources of information A few media giants such as AOL Time Warner General Electric Viacom Disney and Rupert Murdochs NewsGroup control nearly everything

we read see and hear laquoPrivate capital tends to become concentrated in [a] few hands

partly because of competition among the capitalists and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones Albert Einstein wrote in 1949 in the

Monthly Review in explaining why he was a socialist

The result ofthese dewlopments is an oligarchy ofpINate capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who for all practical purposes separate the electorate from the legislature The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population Moreover under existing conditions private capitalshyists inevitably control directly or indirectly the main sources of information (press radio education) It is thus extremely diffuult and indeed in most cases quite impossible for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to Illlllre intelligent use of his

political rights4

The growing desperation across the United States is unleashing not simply a recession-we have been in a recession for some time nowshybut rather a depression unlike anything we have seen since the 1930S It has provided a pool of broken people willing to work for low wages without unions or benefits This is excellent news if you are a corporashytion It is very bad news ifyou are a worker For the bottom 90 percent

164 1 EMPlRE OF ILLUSION

of Americans annual income has been on a slow steady decline for three decades The majority of that sectors workers had an average annual income that peaked at $33000 in 1973 By 2005 according to David Cay Johnston in his book Free Lunch it had fullen to a bit more than $29000 in adjusted dollars despite three decades of economic expansion And where did that money go Ask Exxon Mobil the biggest US oil and gas company which made a $109 billion profit in the first quarter of 2007 Or better yet ask Exxon Mobil Corporation Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson whose compensashytion rose nearly 18 percent to $217 million in 2007 when the oil comshypany pulled in the largest profit ever for a US company His take-home

pay package included $175 million in salary a $336 million bonus and $161 million in stock and option awards according to a company filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission He also received nearly $430000 in other compensation including $229331 for personal security and $41122 for use of the company aircraft In addition to his pay package Tillerson received more than $76 million from exercising options and stock awards during the year Exxon Mobil earned $4061 billion in 2007 up 3 percent from the previous year But TiUersons 2007 pay was not even the highest mark for the us oil and gas indusshytry Occidental Petroleum Corporation Chairman and CEO Ray Irani made $336 million and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation chief James Hackett took in $267 million over the same period

For each dollar earned in 2005 the top 10 percent received 485 cents That was the top tenths greatest share of the income pie Johnshyston writes since 1929 just before the Roaring 20S collapsed in the Great Depression And within the top 10 percent those who made more than $100000 nearly all the gains went to the top tenth of1 pershycent people like TiUerson Irani or Hackett who made at least $17

million that year And until we have real election reform until we make it possible to run for national office without candidates kissing the rings ofTillersons Irarus and Hacketts til get hundreds of milli)ns of dollars this cannibalization ofAmerica will continue

Our elites manipulate statistics and data to foster illusions of growth and prosperity They refuse to admit they have lost control since to lose control is to concede failure They contribute instead to the colshylective denial of reality by insisting that another multibillion-dollar

CHRIS HEDGES 1 165

bailout or government loan will prop up the dying edifice The wellshypaid television pundits and news celebrities the economists and the banking and financial sector leaders see the world from inside the comshyfort of the corporate box They are loyal to the corporate state They cling to the corporation and the corporate structure It is known It is safe It is paternal It is the system

Our government is being wrecked by corporations which now get 40 percent of federal discretionary spending More than 800000 jobs once handled by government employees have been outsourced to corshyporations a move that has not only further empowered our shadow corporate government but also helped destroy federal workforce unions Management offederal prisons the management of regulatory and scientific reviews the processing or denial of Freedom of Informa- tion requests interrogating prisoners and running the worlds largest mercenary army in Iraq-all this has become corporate And these corshyporations in a perverse arrangement make their money directly off of the American citizen This devils deal is an expansion of the corporate welfare enjoyed by the defense industry

Halliburton in 2003 was given a no-bid and non-compete $7 bilshylion contract to repair Iraqs oil fields as well as the power to oversee and control Iraqs entire oil production This has now become $130 bilshylion in contract awards to Halliburton And flush with taxpayer dollars what has Halliburton done It has made sure only thirty-six of its 143 subsidiaries are incorporated in the United States and 107 subsidiaries (or 75 percent) are incorporated in thirty different countries This arrangement allows Halliburton to lower its tax liability on foreign income by establishing a controlled foreign corporation and subshysidiaries inside low-tax or no-tax countries used as tax havens Thus the corporations take our money They squander it They cleverly evade taxation And our corporate government not only funds them but protects them

The financial and political disparities between our oligarchy and the working class have created a new global serfdom Credit Suisse anashylysts estimate that the number of subprime foreclosures in the United States by the end of 2012 will total 1390000 If that estimate is correct 1Z7 percent of all residential borrowers in the United States will be forced out of their homes

166 I EMPIRE OF ILLUSION

The bailout for banks and financial firms who feel no compuncshytion to account for taxpayer funds pulled the plug on the New Deal The Great Society is now gasping for air mortaUy wounded coughing up blood Power no longer lies with the citizens of the United States who with ratios of100 to 1 pleaded with their representatives in Washshyington not to loot the national treasury to bail out Wall Street investshyment firms Power lies with the corporations These corporations not we pick who runs for president Congress judgeships and most state legislatures You cannot in most instances be a viable candidate withshyout their blessing and money These corporations including the Comshymission on Presidential Debates (a private organization) determine who gets to speak and what issues candidates can or cannot challenge from universal not-for-profit single-payer health care to Wall Street bailouts to NAFTA If you do not follow the corporate script you become as marginal and invisible as Dennis Kucinich Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney

This is why most Democrats opposed Pennsylvania Democratic House Representative Tohn Murthas call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq-something that would dry up profits for companies like Halliburton-and supported continued funding for the war It is why most voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act It is why the party opposed an amendment that was part of a bankruptcy bill that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent It is why corporatist politicians opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Minshying Law of 1872 which allows mineral companies to plunder federal land for profit It is why they did not back the single-payer health-care bill House Resolution 676 sponsored by Representatives Kucinich and fohn Conyers It is why so many politicians advocate nuclear power It is why many backed the class-action reform bill-the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA)-that was part of a large lobbying effort by finanshycial firms CAFA would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits Workers under CAFA would no longer have redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporations CAFA moves these cases into corporate-friendly federal courts dominated by Republican judges

The assault on the American working dass-an assault that has devastated members ofmy own family-is nearly complete In the past

CHRIS HBDGBS I 167

three years nearly one in five US workers was laid off Among workers system of spectacle and diversion in which we get to vote on Amerishylaid off from full-time work roughly one-fourth were earning less than can Idol or be elevated to celebrity status through reality television $40000 annually There are whole sections of the United States that programs participatory fascism now resemble the developing world There has been a Weimarization Washington has become our Versailles We are ruled entertained of the American working class And the assault on the middle class is and informed by courtiers-and the media has evolved into a class of now under way Anything that can be put on softWlrre-from finance courtiers The Democrats like the Republicans are mostly courtiers to architecture to engineering--can and is being outsourced to workers Our pundits and experts at least those with prominent public platshyin countries such as India or China who accept pay that is a fraction of forms are courtiers We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of their Western counterparts and without benefits And both the Repubshy political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power It is smoke lican and Democratic parties beholden to corporations for money and and mirrors tricks and con games and the purpose behind it is power have allowed this to happen deception

Over the past few decades we have watched the rise of a powerful Television journalism is largely a farce Celebrity reporters masshyweb of interlocking corporate entities a network of arrangements querading as journalists make millions a year and give a platform to the within subsectors industries or other partial jurisdictions to diminish powerful and the famous so they can spin equivocate and lie Sitting in and often abolish outside control and oversight These corporations a studio putting on makeup and chatting with Joe Biden Hillary Clinshyhave neutralized national state and judicial authority The corporate ton or Lawrence Summers has little to do with journalism Ifyou are a state begun under Ronald Reagan and pushed forwardby every presishy true journalist you should start to worry ifyou make $5 million a year dent since has destroyed the public and private institutions that proshy No journalist has a comfortable cozy relationship with the powerful tected workers and safeguarded citizens Only 78 percent of workers in No journalist believes that serving the powerful is a primary part of his the private sector are unionized This is about the same percentage as or her calling Those in power fear and dislike journalists-and they in the early 1900s There are 50 million Americans in real poverty and should Ask Amy Goodman Seymour Hersh Walter Pincus Robert tens of millions ofAmericans in a category called near poverty Scheer or David Cay Johnston

We hear little about these stories of pain and dislocation We are The comedian Jon Stewart who hosts the popular Daily Show with diverted by spectacle and pseudo-events We are fed illusions We Jon Stewart on Comedy Central has become one of the most visible are given comforting myths-the core of popular culture-that exalt and influential media figures in America In an interview with Jim our nation and ourselves even though ours is a time of collapse and Cramer who hosts a show called Mad Money on CNBC Stewart asked moral and political squalor We are bombarded with useless trivia his guest why during all the years he advised viewers about investshyand celebrity gossip despite the valiant efforts of a few remaining ments he never questioned the mendacious claims from CEOs and newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post banks that unleashed the financial meltdown~r warned viewers along with Democracy Now National Public Radio Pacifica and Jim about the shady tactics of short-term selling and massive debt leveragshyLehrer of the Public Broadcasting Service These organizations still ing used to make fortunes for CEOs out of the retirement and savings practice journalism as an ethical pursuit on behalf of the common accounts of ordinary Americanss good but they are a beleaguered minority The Federal Communicashytions Commission in an example of how far our standards have STEWART This thing was ten years in the making The idea fallen defines television shows such as Foxs celebrity gossip program that you could have on the guys from Bear Stearns and Merrill TMZ and the Christian Broadcast Networks 700 Club as bona fide Lynch and guys that had leveraged 35 to 1 and then blame newscasts The economist Charlotte Twight calls this vast corporate mortgage holders thats insane

168 I BMPIRB OF ILLUSION CHRIS HEDGES 169

CRAMBR I always wish that people would come in and swear themselves in before they come on the show I had a lot ofCEOs lie to me on the show Its very painful I dont have subpoena

power STEWART You knew what the banks were doing and were touting

it for months and months The entire network was CRAMER But Dick Fuld who ran Lehman Brothers called me

in-he called me in when the stock was at forty-because he was saying Look I thought the stock was wrong thought it was in the wrong place -he brings nte in and lies to me lies to me

lies to me STEWART [feigning shockl The CEO of a company lied to you

CRAMER Shocking STBWART But isnt that financial reporting What do you think is

the role of CNBC CRAMER I didnt think that Bear Stearns would evaporate

overnight I knew the people who ran it I thought they were honest That was my mistake I really did I thought they were honest Did I get taken in because I knew them before Maybe to some degree Its difficuh to have a reporter say I just came from an interview with Hank Paulson and he lied his darn-fool head of[ Its difficult I think it challenges the boundshy

aries STEWART But what is the responsibility ofthe people who cover

Wall Street Im under the assumption and maybe this is purely ridiculous but Im under the assumption that you dont just take their word at face value That you actually then go around and try to figure it out Applause

Cramer like most television and many print reporters gives an uncritshyical forum to the powerful At the same time they pretend they have vetted and investigated the claims made by those in power They play the role on television of journalists It is a dirty quid pro quo The media get access to the elite as long as the media faithfully report what the elite wants reported The moment that quid pro quo breaks down reporters--real reporters--are cast into the wilderness and denied

access

170 BMPIRE OP ILLUSION

The behavior of a Hm Cramer as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in an article on Saloncom mirrors that of the reporters who covered the lead-up to the war in Iraq Day after day news organizations as diverse as the New York Times CNN and the three major television networks amplified lies fed to them by the elite as if they were facts They served the power elite as Cramer and most of those on television do rather than the public

In Bill Moyers 2007 PBS documentary Buying the War Moyers asked Meet the Press host Tim Russert why he had passed on these lies without vetting them-and even more damaging he contrasted Russetts work with that of Bob Simon of CBS who had made a few phone calls and had quickly learned that the administrations pro-war leaks so crucial in fanning public and political support fur going to war were bogus Moyers focused on a story given to the New York Times by Vice President Dick Cheneys office that appeared on the front page ofthe paper the Sunday morning the vice president was also a guest on Meet the Press6 Moyers began by setting up a video clip of Cheneys performance

BILL MOYERS Quoting anonymous administration officials the Times reported that Saddam Hussein had launched a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb using specially designed aluminum tubes

Moyers then ran the clip of Cheney on Meet the Press the same morning the Times story appeared

CHENEY bull Tubes Theres a story in the New York Times this morning this is-and I want to attribute this to the Times I dont want to talk about obviously specific intelligence sources but-

Jonathan Landay a reporter who had written news stories at the time questioning Cheneys prior assertions that Saddam Hussein had been seeking to acquire nuclear weapons gave us the sneaky reason the White House bad leaked the information-specifically so Cheney could discuss previously top-secret information on national Tv Even though

CHRIS BBDGES 171

fhere will be leljlgt iIlesal immigration b~usemore Mexicaps will Qe able t() support their childreJ1 by staying home Pimident Clinton said inthe spring as he was klbby~ for the bill

But NAFTA wh4h took in 1994 had the effect of reversing every one rosy predictil1Ils Once the M~gov~nt lifted price supports on WIn and beanS grown by Mexican farmers those had to the huge agribusiuesses in the United States Many MexiGan were swiftly banktllpted At least 2 million Mexican farmers have belm driven off their land sinre 1994shyAnd guess where many them went This desperate flight of poor Mexicans into the United States is now being exacerbated by large-scale factory closures alltmg the borde a~ truWufactutets pack up and leave Mexico for the cut-rate of Chinas totalitarian mpitalism But we were assured that WfJuld be cheaper Workers would be wealthier Elveryone WQuld lam not sure how these contrashydictory thing~ were suppored to happcentfl but in a sound-bite society reality no longer matters NAFrA WIS greatif you were a corporation

It was a disaster ifyou were a worker Clintons welfare reform bjU signed on August 22 1996 obUtershy

ated the nations social safety net It threw 6miUion people many of

them single mothers off the wdfufe 1()1)$ within three years It dumped them onto the streets without child care rent subsidies or continued Medicaid coverage Families were plunged into crisis strugshygUng to survive on multiple jobs that paid 01 $7 an hour or less than $15000 a year And these were In some stQtes half of those dropped from the welfare rolls could not find work Clinton slashed Medicare by $115 billion Oyer period and cut $25

in Medicaid funding overcrowded prison system handled the influx of the poor as om abandQned men~

We have 23 million of our most of them for nonviolent dlug off~nses adul~ in the United States is incarcerated The percent of tbe global population has almost 25 prisoners One in nine black men between twenty and thirty~four is behind bars This has effectively decapitated the leadership in the inner cities -here African Amerilt~s have traditionally bad to react more quiCkly to confront socialinjustictlgt

15amp I EMPIRE OF ILLOSJON

(

The Clirttop administratIoll led by Lawreme Swnmers law the Financial Setvioos M~OOrnfzatiQ~ Act of 1999 which

tliefirewails that had been established by the 1933 ~aglllll Act Designed to ptevtmt tmkind of melIuQWI1 WI ae now et1lgterilenCing Gbss-~galIestablished the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation It set in plate banking remnns to stop speculators from n1)lClaIlg tlkellrumLciai system With Glass-Steagall demolished the

the Democrats led by Clinton tqmbled gleefully into bed with wrporations and Wall Street speculators They used

ampnnie Mae and Freddie Mac asa welf~ gravy train architects of this deregulation ecooomistssnth as

SUlnnler~irelllQlll in charge ofthenatiops economkpoliq Whell times are prosperous we do not mind a modest increase in

~wclfare wrote Robert N Bellah

When n()t so ptnsperous we think at leaSt our sucCessful

career will save US and our ilunilies frmn failllIe and desp~ir We middotue attlaeted against our skeptictsm to tbeidea that poverty will be alleshy

viated by the crumbs that fan frolll tlte dch mans table Some 9f

us often feel and mt1St of lUc sometimes feel that we ace milysomeshyOne if WI have milde it can lo()~ oown on thtlse who have not Tlu Amer~3n dream is II very private dream of being a star he

uniquely Sllccessful and 1)1le the IJIle who staudsout from the crowd oflt1ldinary fo1l4 who don~t know how And since we havt bdieved ill tbllt time and workcentd very hard to make

it oonttadicts anetlEr dreanI that would really be wortb

of iDll$ion is not being paid by the corppshyon the streets our inner dties in furmer

manufacturing tOwns and in rnrai encl~veS This cost trimshy

scends declining and statistics ana speaks the language ef human misery and Human beinj5S are Dot c()mmodities They ltUe not goods They grieve and suffer and despair They raise children and struggle to maintain oomnwnities The gtowing class divide is IIOt

understood despite the gUbness ofmany in the media by compliCated

CHRIS HBDGES i 159

sets of statistics lines on a graph that chart stocks or the absurd

utopian faith in unregulated globalization and complicated trade deals

It is understood in the eyes of a man or woman who is no longer makshying enough money to live with dignity and hope

Elba Figueroa forty-seven lives in Trenton New Jersey She

worked as a nurses aide until she got Parkinsons disease She lost

her job She lost her health care She receives $703 a month in govshy

ernment assistance Her rent alone runs $750 a month And so she

borrows money from friends and neighbors to stay in her apartshy

ment She laboriously negotiates her wheelchair up and down steps

and along the sidewalks of Trenton to get to soup kitchens and food

pantries to eat

Food prices have gone up Figueroa says waiting to get inside the

food pantry run by the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton I

dont have any money I run out of things to eat I worked until I physishy

caUy could not work anymore Now I live like this

The pantry occupies a dilapidated three-story art deco building in Old Trenton the poorest neighborhood in the city The pantry is one

of about two dozen charities in the city that provide shelter and food to the poor Those who qualify for assistance are permitted to pick up

food once a month Clutching pieces ofpaper that show the number of

points they have been aUotted they push shopping carts in aU-shaped course around the first floor Every food item is assigned a number of

points Points are allotted according to the number of people in a household The shelves of the pantry hold bags of rice jars of peanut

butter macaroni and cheese and cans of beets corn and peas Two

refrigerated cases have eggs chickens fresh carrots and beef hot dogs

All Fresh Produce 2 pounds 1 point a sign on the glass door of the

refrigerated unit reads Another reads I Dozen EGGS equal 3 protein

points Limit of1 dozen per household

The swelling numbers waiting outside homeless shelters and food

pantries around the country many of them elderly or single women

with children have grown by at least 30 percent over the last year Genshy

eral welfare recipients struggle to survive on $140 a month in cash and another $140 in food stamps This is all many in Trenton and other impoverished pockets now have to survive Trenton a former manushy

facturing center with a 20 percent unemployment rate and a median

160 I EMPIRE Of ILLUSION

income of$33000 is a window into our unraveling And as the governshyment squanders taxpayer money in fruitless schemes to prop up insolshyvent banks and investment houses citizens are thrown into the streets without work a place to live or enough food

There are now 362 million Americans who cope daily with hunger

up by more than 3 million since 2000 according to the Food Research and Action Center in Washington The number of people in the worstshy

off category-the hungriest-rose by 40 percent since 2000 to nearly 12 million people

We are seeing people we have not seen for a long time says the

Reverend Jarrett Kerbel director of the Crisis Ministrys food pantry

which supplies food to 1400 households in Trenton each month We

are seeing people who havent crossed that threshold for five six or

seven years coming back We are seeing people whose unemployment

has run out and they are struggling in that gap while they reapply and

of course we are seeing the usual unemployed This will be the first real test of [Bill] Clinto~s so-called welfare reform

The Crisis Ministry like many hard-pressed charities is over

budget and food stocks are precariously low Donations are on the

decline There are days when soup kitchens in Trenton are shut down because they have no food

We collected 170 bags of groceries from a church in Princeton and it was gone in two days Kerbel says We collected 288 bags from a

Jewish center 1n Princeton and it was gone in three days What you see

on the shelves is pretty much what we have

States facing dratnatic budget shortfalls are slashing social assisshy

tance programs including Medicaid social services and education

New Jerseys shortfall has tripled to $12 billion and could soar to $5 bilshy

lion Tax revenue has fallen to $211 million less than projected States

are imposing hiring freezes canceling raises and cutting back on sershyvices big and small from salting and plowing streets in winter to heatshy

ing assistance programs Unemployment insurance funds especially

with the proposed extension of benefits are running out ofmoney Dolores Williams fifty-seven sits in the cramped waiting room at

the Crisis Ministry clutching a numbered card waiting for her number to be called She has lived in a low-income apartment block known as

The Kingsbury for a year Two residents she says recently jumped to

CHRIS HEDGES I 161

their deaths from the nineteenth floor She had a job at Sams Club but

lost it No one she says is hiring She is desperate

She hands me a copy of the Trenronian a local paper The headline on the front page reads Gangster Slammed for Bicycle Drive-By It is the story of the conviction of a man for a fatal drive-by shooting from a

bicycle The paper is filled with stories like these the result of social ecoshynomic and moral collapse Poverty breeds more than hunger It destroys

communities In one Trentonian story a fifty-six-year-old woman is

robbed and pistol-whipped in the middle of the afternoon Another artishy

cle reports the plight of four children whose parents had been shot and

seriously wounded laquoLibraries OK Now but Future Is Murky a headline

reads Another reads Still No Arrests in Hooker Slayings

It is like this every dayWilliams says

~

Corporations are ubiquitous parts of our lives and those that own and run them want them to remain that way We eat corporate food We

buy corporate clothes We drive in corporate cars We buy our fuel

from corporations We borrow from invest our retirement savings with and take out college loans with corporations and corporate

banks We are entertained informed and bombarded with advertiseshy

ments by corporations Many of us work for corporations There are

few aspects of life left that have not been taken over by corporations

from mail delivery to public utilities to our for-profit health-care sysshytem These corporations have no loyalty to the country or workers Our

impoverishment feeds their profits And profits for corporations are

all that count

The corporation is designed to make money without regard to

human life the social good or the impact of the corporations activities

on the environment Corporation bylaws impose a legal duty on corshy

porate executives to make the largest profits possible for shareholders

In the 2003 documentary film The Corporation by Mark Achbar Jenshy

nifer Abbott and Joel Bakan management guru Peter Drucker tells Bakan If you find an executive who wants to take on social responsishy

bilities fire him Fast And William Niskanen chair of the libertarian Cato Institute says that he would not invest in a company that proshy

moted corporate responsibility

162 I EMPIRB OF ILLUSION

A corporation that attempts to engage in social responsibility that tries to pay workers a decent wage with benefit that protects workers

rights that invests its profits to limit pollution that gives consumers better deals can actually be sued by shareholders Robert Monks an investment manager says in the film The corporation is an externalizshy

ing machine in the same way that a shark is a killing machine There isnt any question of malevolence or of will The enterprise has within

it and the shark has within it those characteristics that enable it to do that for which it was designed

Ray Anderson the CEO of Interface Corporation the worlds

largest commercial carpet manufacturer calls the corporation a presshy

ent-day instrument of destruction because of its compulsion to extershy

nalize any cost that an unwary or uncaring public will allow it to externalize

The notion that we can take and take and take and take waste

and waste without consequences is driving the biosphere to destrucshytion Anderson says

The film based on Bakans book The Corporation The Pathological Pursuit ofProfit and Power asserts that the corporation exhibits many

of the traits found in people clinically defined as psychopaths Psycholshy

ogist Robert Hare recites in the film a checklist of psychopathic traits and ties them to the behavior of corporations

bull Callous unconcern for the feelings for others

bull Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships bull Reckless disregard for the safetyofothers

bull Deceitfulness repeated lying and conning of others for profit bull Incapacity to experience guilt bull Failure to conform to sodal norms with respect to lawfulmiddot

behavior

And yet under the American legal system corporations have the same legal rights as individuals They make contributions to candishydates They fund 35000 lobbyists in Washington and thousands more in state capitals to write corporate-friendly legislation and defang regushylatory agencies They saturate the airwaves the Internet newspapers

and magazines with advertisements promoting their brands as the

CHRlS HEDGES I 163

friendly face of the corporation They have huge legal teams tens of thousands of employees and scores of elected officials who ward off public intrusions into their affairs or lawsuits They hold a near monopoly on all electronic and printed sources of information A few media giants such as AOL Time Warner General Electric Viacom Disney and Rupert Murdochs NewsGroup control nearly everything

we read see and hear laquoPrivate capital tends to become concentrated in [a] few hands

partly because of competition among the capitalists and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones Albert Einstein wrote in 1949 in the

Monthly Review in explaining why he was a socialist

The result ofthese dewlopments is an oligarchy ofpINate capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who for all practical purposes separate the electorate from the legislature The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population Moreover under existing conditions private capitalshyists inevitably control directly or indirectly the main sources of information (press radio education) It is thus extremely diffuult and indeed in most cases quite impossible for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to Illlllre intelligent use of his

political rights4

The growing desperation across the United States is unleashing not simply a recession-we have been in a recession for some time nowshybut rather a depression unlike anything we have seen since the 1930S It has provided a pool of broken people willing to work for low wages without unions or benefits This is excellent news if you are a corporashytion It is very bad news ifyou are a worker For the bottom 90 percent

164 1 EMPlRE OF ILLUSION

of Americans annual income has been on a slow steady decline for three decades The majority of that sectors workers had an average annual income that peaked at $33000 in 1973 By 2005 according to David Cay Johnston in his book Free Lunch it had fullen to a bit more than $29000 in adjusted dollars despite three decades of economic expansion And where did that money go Ask Exxon Mobil the biggest US oil and gas company which made a $109 billion profit in the first quarter of 2007 Or better yet ask Exxon Mobil Corporation Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson whose compensashytion rose nearly 18 percent to $217 million in 2007 when the oil comshypany pulled in the largest profit ever for a US company His take-home

pay package included $175 million in salary a $336 million bonus and $161 million in stock and option awards according to a company filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission He also received nearly $430000 in other compensation including $229331 for personal security and $41122 for use of the company aircraft In addition to his pay package Tillerson received more than $76 million from exercising options and stock awards during the year Exxon Mobil earned $4061 billion in 2007 up 3 percent from the previous year But TiUersons 2007 pay was not even the highest mark for the us oil and gas indusshytry Occidental Petroleum Corporation Chairman and CEO Ray Irani made $336 million and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation chief James Hackett took in $267 million over the same period

For each dollar earned in 2005 the top 10 percent received 485 cents That was the top tenths greatest share of the income pie Johnshyston writes since 1929 just before the Roaring 20S collapsed in the Great Depression And within the top 10 percent those who made more than $100000 nearly all the gains went to the top tenth of1 pershycent people like TiUerson Irani or Hackett who made at least $17

million that year And until we have real election reform until we make it possible to run for national office without candidates kissing the rings ofTillersons Irarus and Hacketts til get hundreds of milli)ns of dollars this cannibalization ofAmerica will continue

Our elites manipulate statistics and data to foster illusions of growth and prosperity They refuse to admit they have lost control since to lose control is to concede failure They contribute instead to the colshylective denial of reality by insisting that another multibillion-dollar

CHRIS HEDGES 1 165

bailout or government loan will prop up the dying edifice The wellshypaid television pundits and news celebrities the economists and the banking and financial sector leaders see the world from inside the comshyfort of the corporate box They are loyal to the corporate state They cling to the corporation and the corporate structure It is known It is safe It is paternal It is the system

Our government is being wrecked by corporations which now get 40 percent of federal discretionary spending More than 800000 jobs once handled by government employees have been outsourced to corshyporations a move that has not only further empowered our shadow corporate government but also helped destroy federal workforce unions Management offederal prisons the management of regulatory and scientific reviews the processing or denial of Freedom of Informa- tion requests interrogating prisoners and running the worlds largest mercenary army in Iraq-all this has become corporate And these corshyporations in a perverse arrangement make their money directly off of the American citizen This devils deal is an expansion of the corporate welfare enjoyed by the defense industry

Halliburton in 2003 was given a no-bid and non-compete $7 bilshylion contract to repair Iraqs oil fields as well as the power to oversee and control Iraqs entire oil production This has now become $130 bilshylion in contract awards to Halliburton And flush with taxpayer dollars what has Halliburton done It has made sure only thirty-six of its 143 subsidiaries are incorporated in the United States and 107 subsidiaries (or 75 percent) are incorporated in thirty different countries This arrangement allows Halliburton to lower its tax liability on foreign income by establishing a controlled foreign corporation and subshysidiaries inside low-tax or no-tax countries used as tax havens Thus the corporations take our money They squander it They cleverly evade taxation And our corporate government not only funds them but protects them

The financial and political disparities between our oligarchy and the working class have created a new global serfdom Credit Suisse anashylysts estimate that the number of subprime foreclosures in the United States by the end of 2012 will total 1390000 If that estimate is correct 1Z7 percent of all residential borrowers in the United States will be forced out of their homes

166 I EMPIRE OF ILLUSION

The bailout for banks and financial firms who feel no compuncshytion to account for taxpayer funds pulled the plug on the New Deal The Great Society is now gasping for air mortaUy wounded coughing up blood Power no longer lies with the citizens of the United States who with ratios of100 to 1 pleaded with their representatives in Washshyington not to loot the national treasury to bail out Wall Street investshyment firms Power lies with the corporations These corporations not we pick who runs for president Congress judgeships and most state legislatures You cannot in most instances be a viable candidate withshyout their blessing and money These corporations including the Comshymission on Presidential Debates (a private organization) determine who gets to speak and what issues candidates can or cannot challenge from universal not-for-profit single-payer health care to Wall Street bailouts to NAFTA If you do not follow the corporate script you become as marginal and invisible as Dennis Kucinich Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney

This is why most Democrats opposed Pennsylvania Democratic House Representative Tohn Murthas call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq-something that would dry up profits for companies like Halliburton-and supported continued funding for the war It is why most voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act It is why the party opposed an amendment that was part of a bankruptcy bill that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent It is why corporatist politicians opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Minshying Law of 1872 which allows mineral companies to plunder federal land for profit It is why they did not back the single-payer health-care bill House Resolution 676 sponsored by Representatives Kucinich and fohn Conyers It is why so many politicians advocate nuclear power It is why many backed the class-action reform bill-the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA)-that was part of a large lobbying effort by finanshycial firms CAFA would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits Workers under CAFA would no longer have redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporations CAFA moves these cases into corporate-friendly federal courts dominated by Republican judges

The assault on the American working dass-an assault that has devastated members ofmy own family-is nearly complete In the past

CHRIS HBDGBS I 167

three years nearly one in five US workers was laid off Among workers system of spectacle and diversion in which we get to vote on Amerishylaid off from full-time work roughly one-fourth were earning less than can Idol or be elevated to celebrity status through reality television $40000 annually There are whole sections of the United States that programs participatory fascism now resemble the developing world There has been a Weimarization Washington has become our Versailles We are ruled entertained of the American working class And the assault on the middle class is and informed by courtiers-and the media has evolved into a class of now under way Anything that can be put on softWlrre-from finance courtiers The Democrats like the Republicans are mostly courtiers to architecture to engineering--can and is being outsourced to workers Our pundits and experts at least those with prominent public platshyin countries such as India or China who accept pay that is a fraction of forms are courtiers We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of their Western counterparts and without benefits And both the Repubshy political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power It is smoke lican and Democratic parties beholden to corporations for money and and mirrors tricks and con games and the purpose behind it is power have allowed this to happen deception

Over the past few decades we have watched the rise of a powerful Television journalism is largely a farce Celebrity reporters masshyweb of interlocking corporate entities a network of arrangements querading as journalists make millions a year and give a platform to the within subsectors industries or other partial jurisdictions to diminish powerful and the famous so they can spin equivocate and lie Sitting in and often abolish outside control and oversight These corporations a studio putting on makeup and chatting with Joe Biden Hillary Clinshyhave neutralized national state and judicial authority The corporate ton or Lawrence Summers has little to do with journalism Ifyou are a state begun under Ronald Reagan and pushed forwardby every presishy true journalist you should start to worry ifyou make $5 million a year dent since has destroyed the public and private institutions that proshy No journalist has a comfortable cozy relationship with the powerful tected workers and safeguarded citizens Only 78 percent of workers in No journalist believes that serving the powerful is a primary part of his the private sector are unionized This is about the same percentage as or her calling Those in power fear and dislike journalists-and they in the early 1900s There are 50 million Americans in real poverty and should Ask Amy Goodman Seymour Hersh Walter Pincus Robert tens of millions ofAmericans in a category called near poverty Scheer or David Cay Johnston

We hear little about these stories of pain and dislocation We are The comedian Jon Stewart who hosts the popular Daily Show with diverted by spectacle and pseudo-events We are fed illusions We Jon Stewart on Comedy Central has become one of the most visible are given comforting myths-the core of popular culture-that exalt and influential media figures in America In an interview with Jim our nation and ourselves even though ours is a time of collapse and Cramer who hosts a show called Mad Money on CNBC Stewart asked moral and political squalor We are bombarded with useless trivia his guest why during all the years he advised viewers about investshyand celebrity gossip despite the valiant efforts of a few remaining ments he never questioned the mendacious claims from CEOs and newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post banks that unleashed the financial meltdown~r warned viewers along with Democracy Now National Public Radio Pacifica and Jim about the shady tactics of short-term selling and massive debt leveragshyLehrer of the Public Broadcasting Service These organizations still ing used to make fortunes for CEOs out of the retirement and savings practice journalism as an ethical pursuit on behalf of the common accounts of ordinary Americanss good but they are a beleaguered minority The Federal Communicashytions Commission in an example of how far our standards have STEWART This thing was ten years in the making The idea fallen defines television shows such as Foxs celebrity gossip program that you could have on the guys from Bear Stearns and Merrill TMZ and the Christian Broadcast Networks 700 Club as bona fide Lynch and guys that had leveraged 35 to 1 and then blame newscasts The economist Charlotte Twight calls this vast corporate mortgage holders thats insane

168 I BMPIRB OF ILLUSION CHRIS HEDGES 169

CRAMBR I always wish that people would come in and swear themselves in before they come on the show I had a lot ofCEOs lie to me on the show Its very painful I dont have subpoena

power STEWART You knew what the banks were doing and were touting

it for months and months The entire network was CRAMER But Dick Fuld who ran Lehman Brothers called me

in-he called me in when the stock was at forty-because he was saying Look I thought the stock was wrong thought it was in the wrong place -he brings nte in and lies to me lies to me

lies to me STEWART [feigning shockl The CEO of a company lied to you

CRAMER Shocking STBWART But isnt that financial reporting What do you think is

the role of CNBC CRAMER I didnt think that Bear Stearns would evaporate

overnight I knew the people who ran it I thought they were honest That was my mistake I really did I thought they were honest Did I get taken in because I knew them before Maybe to some degree Its difficuh to have a reporter say I just came from an interview with Hank Paulson and he lied his darn-fool head of[ Its difficult I think it challenges the boundshy

aries STEWART But what is the responsibility ofthe people who cover

Wall Street Im under the assumption and maybe this is purely ridiculous but Im under the assumption that you dont just take their word at face value That you actually then go around and try to figure it out Applause

Cramer like most television and many print reporters gives an uncritshyical forum to the powerful At the same time they pretend they have vetted and investigated the claims made by those in power They play the role on television of journalists It is a dirty quid pro quo The media get access to the elite as long as the media faithfully report what the elite wants reported The moment that quid pro quo breaks down reporters--real reporters--are cast into the wilderness and denied

access

170 BMPIRE OP ILLUSION

The behavior of a Hm Cramer as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in an article on Saloncom mirrors that of the reporters who covered the lead-up to the war in Iraq Day after day news organizations as diverse as the New York Times CNN and the three major television networks amplified lies fed to them by the elite as if they were facts They served the power elite as Cramer and most of those on television do rather than the public

In Bill Moyers 2007 PBS documentary Buying the War Moyers asked Meet the Press host Tim Russert why he had passed on these lies without vetting them-and even more damaging he contrasted Russetts work with that of Bob Simon of CBS who had made a few phone calls and had quickly learned that the administrations pro-war leaks so crucial in fanning public and political support fur going to war were bogus Moyers focused on a story given to the New York Times by Vice President Dick Cheneys office that appeared on the front page ofthe paper the Sunday morning the vice president was also a guest on Meet the Press6 Moyers began by setting up a video clip of Cheneys performance

BILL MOYERS Quoting anonymous administration officials the Times reported that Saddam Hussein had launched a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb using specially designed aluminum tubes

Moyers then ran the clip of Cheney on Meet the Press the same morning the Times story appeared

CHENEY bull Tubes Theres a story in the New York Times this morning this is-and I want to attribute this to the Times I dont want to talk about obviously specific intelligence sources but-

Jonathan Landay a reporter who had written news stories at the time questioning Cheneys prior assertions that Saddam Hussein had been seeking to acquire nuclear weapons gave us the sneaky reason the White House bad leaked the information-specifically so Cheney could discuss previously top-secret information on national Tv Even though

CHRIS BBDGES 171

sets of statistics lines on a graph that chart stocks or the absurd

utopian faith in unregulated globalization and complicated trade deals

It is understood in the eyes of a man or woman who is no longer makshying enough money to live with dignity and hope

Elba Figueroa forty-seven lives in Trenton New Jersey She

worked as a nurses aide until she got Parkinsons disease She lost

her job She lost her health care She receives $703 a month in govshy

ernment assistance Her rent alone runs $750 a month And so she

borrows money from friends and neighbors to stay in her apartshy

ment She laboriously negotiates her wheelchair up and down steps

and along the sidewalks of Trenton to get to soup kitchens and food

pantries to eat

Food prices have gone up Figueroa says waiting to get inside the

food pantry run by the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton I

dont have any money I run out of things to eat I worked until I physishy

caUy could not work anymore Now I live like this

The pantry occupies a dilapidated three-story art deco building in Old Trenton the poorest neighborhood in the city The pantry is one

of about two dozen charities in the city that provide shelter and food to the poor Those who qualify for assistance are permitted to pick up

food once a month Clutching pieces ofpaper that show the number of

points they have been aUotted they push shopping carts in aU-shaped course around the first floor Every food item is assigned a number of

points Points are allotted according to the number of people in a household The shelves of the pantry hold bags of rice jars of peanut

butter macaroni and cheese and cans of beets corn and peas Two

refrigerated cases have eggs chickens fresh carrots and beef hot dogs

All Fresh Produce 2 pounds 1 point a sign on the glass door of the

refrigerated unit reads Another reads I Dozen EGGS equal 3 protein

points Limit of1 dozen per household

The swelling numbers waiting outside homeless shelters and food

pantries around the country many of them elderly or single women

with children have grown by at least 30 percent over the last year Genshy

eral welfare recipients struggle to survive on $140 a month in cash and another $140 in food stamps This is all many in Trenton and other impoverished pockets now have to survive Trenton a former manushy

facturing center with a 20 percent unemployment rate and a median

160 I EMPIRE Of ILLUSION

income of$33000 is a window into our unraveling And as the governshyment squanders taxpayer money in fruitless schemes to prop up insolshyvent banks and investment houses citizens are thrown into the streets without work a place to live or enough food

There are now 362 million Americans who cope daily with hunger

up by more than 3 million since 2000 according to the Food Research and Action Center in Washington The number of people in the worstshy

off category-the hungriest-rose by 40 percent since 2000 to nearly 12 million people

We are seeing people we have not seen for a long time says the

Reverend Jarrett Kerbel director of the Crisis Ministrys food pantry

which supplies food to 1400 households in Trenton each month We

are seeing people who havent crossed that threshold for five six or

seven years coming back We are seeing people whose unemployment

has run out and they are struggling in that gap while they reapply and

of course we are seeing the usual unemployed This will be the first real test of [Bill] Clinto~s so-called welfare reform

The Crisis Ministry like many hard-pressed charities is over

budget and food stocks are precariously low Donations are on the

decline There are days when soup kitchens in Trenton are shut down because they have no food

We collected 170 bags of groceries from a church in Princeton and it was gone in two days Kerbel says We collected 288 bags from a

Jewish center 1n Princeton and it was gone in three days What you see

on the shelves is pretty much what we have

States facing dratnatic budget shortfalls are slashing social assisshy

tance programs including Medicaid social services and education

New Jerseys shortfall has tripled to $12 billion and could soar to $5 bilshy

lion Tax revenue has fallen to $211 million less than projected States

are imposing hiring freezes canceling raises and cutting back on sershyvices big and small from salting and plowing streets in winter to heatshy

ing assistance programs Unemployment insurance funds especially

with the proposed extension of benefits are running out ofmoney Dolores Williams fifty-seven sits in the cramped waiting room at

the Crisis Ministry clutching a numbered card waiting for her number to be called She has lived in a low-income apartment block known as

The Kingsbury for a year Two residents she says recently jumped to

CHRIS HEDGES I 161

their deaths from the nineteenth floor She had a job at Sams Club but

lost it No one she says is hiring She is desperate

She hands me a copy of the Trenronian a local paper The headline on the front page reads Gangster Slammed for Bicycle Drive-By It is the story of the conviction of a man for a fatal drive-by shooting from a

bicycle The paper is filled with stories like these the result of social ecoshynomic and moral collapse Poverty breeds more than hunger It destroys

communities In one Trentonian story a fifty-six-year-old woman is

robbed and pistol-whipped in the middle of the afternoon Another artishy

cle reports the plight of four children whose parents had been shot and

seriously wounded laquoLibraries OK Now but Future Is Murky a headline

reads Another reads Still No Arrests in Hooker Slayings

It is like this every dayWilliams says

~

Corporations are ubiquitous parts of our lives and those that own and run them want them to remain that way We eat corporate food We

buy corporate clothes We drive in corporate cars We buy our fuel

from corporations We borrow from invest our retirement savings with and take out college loans with corporations and corporate

banks We are entertained informed and bombarded with advertiseshy

ments by corporations Many of us work for corporations There are

few aspects of life left that have not been taken over by corporations

from mail delivery to public utilities to our for-profit health-care sysshytem These corporations have no loyalty to the country or workers Our

impoverishment feeds their profits And profits for corporations are

all that count

The corporation is designed to make money without regard to

human life the social good or the impact of the corporations activities

on the environment Corporation bylaws impose a legal duty on corshy

porate executives to make the largest profits possible for shareholders

In the 2003 documentary film The Corporation by Mark Achbar Jenshy

nifer Abbott and Joel Bakan management guru Peter Drucker tells Bakan If you find an executive who wants to take on social responsishy

bilities fire him Fast And William Niskanen chair of the libertarian Cato Institute says that he would not invest in a company that proshy

moted corporate responsibility

162 I EMPIRB OF ILLUSION

A corporation that attempts to engage in social responsibility that tries to pay workers a decent wage with benefit that protects workers

rights that invests its profits to limit pollution that gives consumers better deals can actually be sued by shareholders Robert Monks an investment manager says in the film The corporation is an externalizshy

ing machine in the same way that a shark is a killing machine There isnt any question of malevolence or of will The enterprise has within

it and the shark has within it those characteristics that enable it to do that for which it was designed

Ray Anderson the CEO of Interface Corporation the worlds

largest commercial carpet manufacturer calls the corporation a presshy

ent-day instrument of destruction because of its compulsion to extershy

nalize any cost that an unwary or uncaring public will allow it to externalize

The notion that we can take and take and take and take waste

and waste without consequences is driving the biosphere to destrucshytion Anderson says

The film based on Bakans book The Corporation The Pathological Pursuit ofProfit and Power asserts that the corporation exhibits many

of the traits found in people clinically defined as psychopaths Psycholshy

ogist Robert Hare recites in the film a checklist of psychopathic traits and ties them to the behavior of corporations

bull Callous unconcern for the feelings for others

bull Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships bull Reckless disregard for the safetyofothers

bull Deceitfulness repeated lying and conning of others for profit bull Incapacity to experience guilt bull Failure to conform to sodal norms with respect to lawfulmiddot

behavior

And yet under the American legal system corporations have the same legal rights as individuals They make contributions to candishydates They fund 35000 lobbyists in Washington and thousands more in state capitals to write corporate-friendly legislation and defang regushylatory agencies They saturate the airwaves the Internet newspapers

and magazines with advertisements promoting their brands as the

CHRlS HEDGES I 163

friendly face of the corporation They have huge legal teams tens of thousands of employees and scores of elected officials who ward off public intrusions into their affairs or lawsuits They hold a near monopoly on all electronic and printed sources of information A few media giants such as AOL Time Warner General Electric Viacom Disney and Rupert Murdochs NewsGroup control nearly everything

we read see and hear laquoPrivate capital tends to become concentrated in [a] few hands

partly because of competition among the capitalists and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones Albert Einstein wrote in 1949 in the

Monthly Review in explaining why he was a socialist

The result ofthese dewlopments is an oligarchy ofpINate capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who for all practical purposes separate the electorate from the legislature The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population Moreover under existing conditions private capitalshyists inevitably control directly or indirectly the main sources of information (press radio education) It is thus extremely diffuult and indeed in most cases quite impossible for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to Illlllre intelligent use of his

political rights4

The growing desperation across the United States is unleashing not simply a recession-we have been in a recession for some time nowshybut rather a depression unlike anything we have seen since the 1930S It has provided a pool of broken people willing to work for low wages without unions or benefits This is excellent news if you are a corporashytion It is very bad news ifyou are a worker For the bottom 90 percent

164 1 EMPlRE OF ILLUSION

of Americans annual income has been on a slow steady decline for three decades The majority of that sectors workers had an average annual income that peaked at $33000 in 1973 By 2005 according to David Cay Johnston in his book Free Lunch it had fullen to a bit more than $29000 in adjusted dollars despite three decades of economic expansion And where did that money go Ask Exxon Mobil the biggest US oil and gas company which made a $109 billion profit in the first quarter of 2007 Or better yet ask Exxon Mobil Corporation Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson whose compensashytion rose nearly 18 percent to $217 million in 2007 when the oil comshypany pulled in the largest profit ever for a US company His take-home

pay package included $175 million in salary a $336 million bonus and $161 million in stock and option awards according to a company filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission He also received nearly $430000 in other compensation including $229331 for personal security and $41122 for use of the company aircraft In addition to his pay package Tillerson received more than $76 million from exercising options and stock awards during the year Exxon Mobil earned $4061 billion in 2007 up 3 percent from the previous year But TiUersons 2007 pay was not even the highest mark for the us oil and gas indusshytry Occidental Petroleum Corporation Chairman and CEO Ray Irani made $336 million and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation chief James Hackett took in $267 million over the same period

For each dollar earned in 2005 the top 10 percent received 485 cents That was the top tenths greatest share of the income pie Johnshyston writes since 1929 just before the Roaring 20S collapsed in the Great Depression And within the top 10 percent those who made more than $100000 nearly all the gains went to the top tenth of1 pershycent people like TiUerson Irani or Hackett who made at least $17

million that year And until we have real election reform until we make it possible to run for national office without candidates kissing the rings ofTillersons Irarus and Hacketts til get hundreds of milli)ns of dollars this cannibalization ofAmerica will continue

Our elites manipulate statistics and data to foster illusions of growth and prosperity They refuse to admit they have lost control since to lose control is to concede failure They contribute instead to the colshylective denial of reality by insisting that another multibillion-dollar

CHRIS HEDGES 1 165

bailout or government loan will prop up the dying edifice The wellshypaid television pundits and news celebrities the economists and the banking and financial sector leaders see the world from inside the comshyfort of the corporate box They are loyal to the corporate state They cling to the corporation and the corporate structure It is known It is safe It is paternal It is the system

Our government is being wrecked by corporations which now get 40 percent of federal discretionary spending More than 800000 jobs once handled by government employees have been outsourced to corshyporations a move that has not only further empowered our shadow corporate government but also helped destroy federal workforce unions Management offederal prisons the management of regulatory and scientific reviews the processing or denial of Freedom of Informa- tion requests interrogating prisoners and running the worlds largest mercenary army in Iraq-all this has become corporate And these corshyporations in a perverse arrangement make their money directly off of the American citizen This devils deal is an expansion of the corporate welfare enjoyed by the defense industry

Halliburton in 2003 was given a no-bid and non-compete $7 bilshylion contract to repair Iraqs oil fields as well as the power to oversee and control Iraqs entire oil production This has now become $130 bilshylion in contract awards to Halliburton And flush with taxpayer dollars what has Halliburton done It has made sure only thirty-six of its 143 subsidiaries are incorporated in the United States and 107 subsidiaries (or 75 percent) are incorporated in thirty different countries This arrangement allows Halliburton to lower its tax liability on foreign income by establishing a controlled foreign corporation and subshysidiaries inside low-tax or no-tax countries used as tax havens Thus the corporations take our money They squander it They cleverly evade taxation And our corporate government not only funds them but protects them

The financial and political disparities between our oligarchy and the working class have created a new global serfdom Credit Suisse anashylysts estimate that the number of subprime foreclosures in the United States by the end of 2012 will total 1390000 If that estimate is correct 1Z7 percent of all residential borrowers in the United States will be forced out of their homes

166 I EMPIRE OF ILLUSION

The bailout for banks and financial firms who feel no compuncshytion to account for taxpayer funds pulled the plug on the New Deal The Great Society is now gasping for air mortaUy wounded coughing up blood Power no longer lies with the citizens of the United States who with ratios of100 to 1 pleaded with their representatives in Washshyington not to loot the national treasury to bail out Wall Street investshyment firms Power lies with the corporations These corporations not we pick who runs for president Congress judgeships and most state legislatures You cannot in most instances be a viable candidate withshyout their blessing and money These corporations including the Comshymission on Presidential Debates (a private organization) determine who gets to speak and what issues candidates can or cannot challenge from universal not-for-profit single-payer health care to Wall Street bailouts to NAFTA If you do not follow the corporate script you become as marginal and invisible as Dennis Kucinich Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney

This is why most Democrats opposed Pennsylvania Democratic House Representative Tohn Murthas call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq-something that would dry up profits for companies like Halliburton-and supported continued funding for the war It is why most voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act It is why the party opposed an amendment that was part of a bankruptcy bill that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent It is why corporatist politicians opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Minshying Law of 1872 which allows mineral companies to plunder federal land for profit It is why they did not back the single-payer health-care bill House Resolution 676 sponsored by Representatives Kucinich and fohn Conyers It is why so many politicians advocate nuclear power It is why many backed the class-action reform bill-the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA)-that was part of a large lobbying effort by finanshycial firms CAFA would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits Workers under CAFA would no longer have redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporations CAFA moves these cases into corporate-friendly federal courts dominated by Republican judges

The assault on the American working dass-an assault that has devastated members ofmy own family-is nearly complete In the past

CHRIS HBDGBS I 167

three years nearly one in five US workers was laid off Among workers system of spectacle and diversion in which we get to vote on Amerishylaid off from full-time work roughly one-fourth were earning less than can Idol or be elevated to celebrity status through reality television $40000 annually There are whole sections of the United States that programs participatory fascism now resemble the developing world There has been a Weimarization Washington has become our Versailles We are ruled entertained of the American working class And the assault on the middle class is and informed by courtiers-and the media has evolved into a class of now under way Anything that can be put on softWlrre-from finance courtiers The Democrats like the Republicans are mostly courtiers to architecture to engineering--can and is being outsourced to workers Our pundits and experts at least those with prominent public platshyin countries such as India or China who accept pay that is a fraction of forms are courtiers We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of their Western counterparts and without benefits And both the Repubshy political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power It is smoke lican and Democratic parties beholden to corporations for money and and mirrors tricks and con games and the purpose behind it is power have allowed this to happen deception

Over the past few decades we have watched the rise of a powerful Television journalism is largely a farce Celebrity reporters masshyweb of interlocking corporate entities a network of arrangements querading as journalists make millions a year and give a platform to the within subsectors industries or other partial jurisdictions to diminish powerful and the famous so they can spin equivocate and lie Sitting in and often abolish outside control and oversight These corporations a studio putting on makeup and chatting with Joe Biden Hillary Clinshyhave neutralized national state and judicial authority The corporate ton or Lawrence Summers has little to do with journalism Ifyou are a state begun under Ronald Reagan and pushed forwardby every presishy true journalist you should start to worry ifyou make $5 million a year dent since has destroyed the public and private institutions that proshy No journalist has a comfortable cozy relationship with the powerful tected workers and safeguarded citizens Only 78 percent of workers in No journalist believes that serving the powerful is a primary part of his the private sector are unionized This is about the same percentage as or her calling Those in power fear and dislike journalists-and they in the early 1900s There are 50 million Americans in real poverty and should Ask Amy Goodman Seymour Hersh Walter Pincus Robert tens of millions ofAmericans in a category called near poverty Scheer or David Cay Johnston

We hear little about these stories of pain and dislocation We are The comedian Jon Stewart who hosts the popular Daily Show with diverted by spectacle and pseudo-events We are fed illusions We Jon Stewart on Comedy Central has become one of the most visible are given comforting myths-the core of popular culture-that exalt and influential media figures in America In an interview with Jim our nation and ourselves even though ours is a time of collapse and Cramer who hosts a show called Mad Money on CNBC Stewart asked moral and political squalor We are bombarded with useless trivia his guest why during all the years he advised viewers about investshyand celebrity gossip despite the valiant efforts of a few remaining ments he never questioned the mendacious claims from CEOs and newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post banks that unleashed the financial meltdown~r warned viewers along with Democracy Now National Public Radio Pacifica and Jim about the shady tactics of short-term selling and massive debt leveragshyLehrer of the Public Broadcasting Service These organizations still ing used to make fortunes for CEOs out of the retirement and savings practice journalism as an ethical pursuit on behalf of the common accounts of ordinary Americanss good but they are a beleaguered minority The Federal Communicashytions Commission in an example of how far our standards have STEWART This thing was ten years in the making The idea fallen defines television shows such as Foxs celebrity gossip program that you could have on the guys from Bear Stearns and Merrill TMZ and the Christian Broadcast Networks 700 Club as bona fide Lynch and guys that had leveraged 35 to 1 and then blame newscasts The economist Charlotte Twight calls this vast corporate mortgage holders thats insane

168 I BMPIRB OF ILLUSION CHRIS HEDGES 169

CRAMBR I always wish that people would come in and swear themselves in before they come on the show I had a lot ofCEOs lie to me on the show Its very painful I dont have subpoena

power STEWART You knew what the banks were doing and were touting

it for months and months The entire network was CRAMER But Dick Fuld who ran Lehman Brothers called me

in-he called me in when the stock was at forty-because he was saying Look I thought the stock was wrong thought it was in the wrong place -he brings nte in and lies to me lies to me

lies to me STEWART [feigning shockl The CEO of a company lied to you

CRAMER Shocking STBWART But isnt that financial reporting What do you think is

the role of CNBC CRAMER I didnt think that Bear Stearns would evaporate

overnight I knew the people who ran it I thought they were honest That was my mistake I really did I thought they were honest Did I get taken in because I knew them before Maybe to some degree Its difficuh to have a reporter say I just came from an interview with Hank Paulson and he lied his darn-fool head of[ Its difficult I think it challenges the boundshy

aries STEWART But what is the responsibility ofthe people who cover

Wall Street Im under the assumption and maybe this is purely ridiculous but Im under the assumption that you dont just take their word at face value That you actually then go around and try to figure it out Applause

Cramer like most television and many print reporters gives an uncritshyical forum to the powerful At the same time they pretend they have vetted and investigated the claims made by those in power They play the role on television of journalists It is a dirty quid pro quo The media get access to the elite as long as the media faithfully report what the elite wants reported The moment that quid pro quo breaks down reporters--real reporters--are cast into the wilderness and denied

access

170 BMPIRE OP ILLUSION

The behavior of a Hm Cramer as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in an article on Saloncom mirrors that of the reporters who covered the lead-up to the war in Iraq Day after day news organizations as diverse as the New York Times CNN and the three major television networks amplified lies fed to them by the elite as if they were facts They served the power elite as Cramer and most of those on television do rather than the public

In Bill Moyers 2007 PBS documentary Buying the War Moyers asked Meet the Press host Tim Russert why he had passed on these lies without vetting them-and even more damaging he contrasted Russetts work with that of Bob Simon of CBS who had made a few phone calls and had quickly learned that the administrations pro-war leaks so crucial in fanning public and political support fur going to war were bogus Moyers focused on a story given to the New York Times by Vice President Dick Cheneys office that appeared on the front page ofthe paper the Sunday morning the vice president was also a guest on Meet the Press6 Moyers began by setting up a video clip of Cheneys performance

BILL MOYERS Quoting anonymous administration officials the Times reported that Saddam Hussein had launched a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb using specially designed aluminum tubes

Moyers then ran the clip of Cheney on Meet the Press the same morning the Times story appeared

CHENEY bull Tubes Theres a story in the New York Times this morning this is-and I want to attribute this to the Times I dont want to talk about obviously specific intelligence sources but-

Jonathan Landay a reporter who had written news stories at the time questioning Cheneys prior assertions that Saddam Hussein had been seeking to acquire nuclear weapons gave us the sneaky reason the White House bad leaked the information-specifically so Cheney could discuss previously top-secret information on national Tv Even though

CHRIS BBDGES 171

their deaths from the nineteenth floor She had a job at Sams Club but

lost it No one she says is hiring She is desperate

She hands me a copy of the Trenronian a local paper The headline on the front page reads Gangster Slammed for Bicycle Drive-By It is the story of the conviction of a man for a fatal drive-by shooting from a

bicycle The paper is filled with stories like these the result of social ecoshynomic and moral collapse Poverty breeds more than hunger It destroys

communities In one Trentonian story a fifty-six-year-old woman is

robbed and pistol-whipped in the middle of the afternoon Another artishy

cle reports the plight of four children whose parents had been shot and

seriously wounded laquoLibraries OK Now but Future Is Murky a headline

reads Another reads Still No Arrests in Hooker Slayings

It is like this every dayWilliams says

~

Corporations are ubiquitous parts of our lives and those that own and run them want them to remain that way We eat corporate food We

buy corporate clothes We drive in corporate cars We buy our fuel

from corporations We borrow from invest our retirement savings with and take out college loans with corporations and corporate

banks We are entertained informed and bombarded with advertiseshy

ments by corporations Many of us work for corporations There are

few aspects of life left that have not been taken over by corporations

from mail delivery to public utilities to our for-profit health-care sysshytem These corporations have no loyalty to the country or workers Our

impoverishment feeds their profits And profits for corporations are

all that count

The corporation is designed to make money without regard to

human life the social good or the impact of the corporations activities

on the environment Corporation bylaws impose a legal duty on corshy

porate executives to make the largest profits possible for shareholders

In the 2003 documentary film The Corporation by Mark Achbar Jenshy

nifer Abbott and Joel Bakan management guru Peter Drucker tells Bakan If you find an executive who wants to take on social responsishy

bilities fire him Fast And William Niskanen chair of the libertarian Cato Institute says that he would not invest in a company that proshy

moted corporate responsibility

162 I EMPIRB OF ILLUSION

A corporation that attempts to engage in social responsibility that tries to pay workers a decent wage with benefit that protects workers

rights that invests its profits to limit pollution that gives consumers better deals can actually be sued by shareholders Robert Monks an investment manager says in the film The corporation is an externalizshy

ing machine in the same way that a shark is a killing machine There isnt any question of malevolence or of will The enterprise has within

it and the shark has within it those characteristics that enable it to do that for which it was designed

Ray Anderson the CEO of Interface Corporation the worlds

largest commercial carpet manufacturer calls the corporation a presshy

ent-day instrument of destruction because of its compulsion to extershy

nalize any cost that an unwary or uncaring public will allow it to externalize

The notion that we can take and take and take and take waste

and waste without consequences is driving the biosphere to destrucshytion Anderson says

The film based on Bakans book The Corporation The Pathological Pursuit ofProfit and Power asserts that the corporation exhibits many

of the traits found in people clinically defined as psychopaths Psycholshy

ogist Robert Hare recites in the film a checklist of psychopathic traits and ties them to the behavior of corporations

bull Callous unconcern for the feelings for others

bull Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships bull Reckless disregard for the safetyofothers

bull Deceitfulness repeated lying and conning of others for profit bull Incapacity to experience guilt bull Failure to conform to sodal norms with respect to lawfulmiddot

behavior

And yet under the American legal system corporations have the same legal rights as individuals They make contributions to candishydates They fund 35000 lobbyists in Washington and thousands more in state capitals to write corporate-friendly legislation and defang regushylatory agencies They saturate the airwaves the Internet newspapers

and magazines with advertisements promoting their brands as the

CHRlS HEDGES I 163

friendly face of the corporation They have huge legal teams tens of thousands of employees and scores of elected officials who ward off public intrusions into their affairs or lawsuits They hold a near monopoly on all electronic and printed sources of information A few media giants such as AOL Time Warner General Electric Viacom Disney and Rupert Murdochs NewsGroup control nearly everything

we read see and hear laquoPrivate capital tends to become concentrated in [a] few hands

partly because of competition among the capitalists and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones Albert Einstein wrote in 1949 in the

Monthly Review in explaining why he was a socialist

The result ofthese dewlopments is an oligarchy ofpINate capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who for all practical purposes separate the electorate from the legislature The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population Moreover under existing conditions private capitalshyists inevitably control directly or indirectly the main sources of information (press radio education) It is thus extremely diffuult and indeed in most cases quite impossible for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to Illlllre intelligent use of his

political rights4

The growing desperation across the United States is unleashing not simply a recession-we have been in a recession for some time nowshybut rather a depression unlike anything we have seen since the 1930S It has provided a pool of broken people willing to work for low wages without unions or benefits This is excellent news if you are a corporashytion It is very bad news ifyou are a worker For the bottom 90 percent

164 1 EMPlRE OF ILLUSION

of Americans annual income has been on a slow steady decline for three decades The majority of that sectors workers had an average annual income that peaked at $33000 in 1973 By 2005 according to David Cay Johnston in his book Free Lunch it had fullen to a bit more than $29000 in adjusted dollars despite three decades of economic expansion And where did that money go Ask Exxon Mobil the biggest US oil and gas company which made a $109 billion profit in the first quarter of 2007 Or better yet ask Exxon Mobil Corporation Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson whose compensashytion rose nearly 18 percent to $217 million in 2007 when the oil comshypany pulled in the largest profit ever for a US company His take-home

pay package included $175 million in salary a $336 million bonus and $161 million in stock and option awards according to a company filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission He also received nearly $430000 in other compensation including $229331 for personal security and $41122 for use of the company aircraft In addition to his pay package Tillerson received more than $76 million from exercising options and stock awards during the year Exxon Mobil earned $4061 billion in 2007 up 3 percent from the previous year But TiUersons 2007 pay was not even the highest mark for the us oil and gas indusshytry Occidental Petroleum Corporation Chairman and CEO Ray Irani made $336 million and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation chief James Hackett took in $267 million over the same period

For each dollar earned in 2005 the top 10 percent received 485 cents That was the top tenths greatest share of the income pie Johnshyston writes since 1929 just before the Roaring 20S collapsed in the Great Depression And within the top 10 percent those who made more than $100000 nearly all the gains went to the top tenth of1 pershycent people like TiUerson Irani or Hackett who made at least $17

million that year And until we have real election reform until we make it possible to run for national office without candidates kissing the rings ofTillersons Irarus and Hacketts til get hundreds of milli)ns of dollars this cannibalization ofAmerica will continue

Our elites manipulate statistics and data to foster illusions of growth and prosperity They refuse to admit they have lost control since to lose control is to concede failure They contribute instead to the colshylective denial of reality by insisting that another multibillion-dollar

CHRIS HEDGES 1 165

bailout or government loan will prop up the dying edifice The wellshypaid television pundits and news celebrities the economists and the banking and financial sector leaders see the world from inside the comshyfort of the corporate box They are loyal to the corporate state They cling to the corporation and the corporate structure It is known It is safe It is paternal It is the system

Our government is being wrecked by corporations which now get 40 percent of federal discretionary spending More than 800000 jobs once handled by government employees have been outsourced to corshyporations a move that has not only further empowered our shadow corporate government but also helped destroy federal workforce unions Management offederal prisons the management of regulatory and scientific reviews the processing or denial of Freedom of Informa- tion requests interrogating prisoners and running the worlds largest mercenary army in Iraq-all this has become corporate And these corshyporations in a perverse arrangement make their money directly off of the American citizen This devils deal is an expansion of the corporate welfare enjoyed by the defense industry

Halliburton in 2003 was given a no-bid and non-compete $7 bilshylion contract to repair Iraqs oil fields as well as the power to oversee and control Iraqs entire oil production This has now become $130 bilshylion in contract awards to Halliburton And flush with taxpayer dollars what has Halliburton done It has made sure only thirty-six of its 143 subsidiaries are incorporated in the United States and 107 subsidiaries (or 75 percent) are incorporated in thirty different countries This arrangement allows Halliburton to lower its tax liability on foreign income by establishing a controlled foreign corporation and subshysidiaries inside low-tax or no-tax countries used as tax havens Thus the corporations take our money They squander it They cleverly evade taxation And our corporate government not only funds them but protects them

The financial and political disparities between our oligarchy and the working class have created a new global serfdom Credit Suisse anashylysts estimate that the number of subprime foreclosures in the United States by the end of 2012 will total 1390000 If that estimate is correct 1Z7 percent of all residential borrowers in the United States will be forced out of their homes

166 I EMPIRE OF ILLUSION

The bailout for banks and financial firms who feel no compuncshytion to account for taxpayer funds pulled the plug on the New Deal The Great Society is now gasping for air mortaUy wounded coughing up blood Power no longer lies with the citizens of the United States who with ratios of100 to 1 pleaded with their representatives in Washshyington not to loot the national treasury to bail out Wall Street investshyment firms Power lies with the corporations These corporations not we pick who runs for president Congress judgeships and most state legislatures You cannot in most instances be a viable candidate withshyout their blessing and money These corporations including the Comshymission on Presidential Debates (a private organization) determine who gets to speak and what issues candidates can or cannot challenge from universal not-for-profit single-payer health care to Wall Street bailouts to NAFTA If you do not follow the corporate script you become as marginal and invisible as Dennis Kucinich Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney

This is why most Democrats opposed Pennsylvania Democratic House Representative Tohn Murthas call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq-something that would dry up profits for companies like Halliburton-and supported continued funding for the war It is why most voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act It is why the party opposed an amendment that was part of a bankruptcy bill that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent It is why corporatist politicians opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Minshying Law of 1872 which allows mineral companies to plunder federal land for profit It is why they did not back the single-payer health-care bill House Resolution 676 sponsored by Representatives Kucinich and fohn Conyers It is why so many politicians advocate nuclear power It is why many backed the class-action reform bill-the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA)-that was part of a large lobbying effort by finanshycial firms CAFA would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits Workers under CAFA would no longer have redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporations CAFA moves these cases into corporate-friendly federal courts dominated by Republican judges

The assault on the American working dass-an assault that has devastated members ofmy own family-is nearly complete In the past

CHRIS HBDGBS I 167

three years nearly one in five US workers was laid off Among workers system of spectacle and diversion in which we get to vote on Amerishylaid off from full-time work roughly one-fourth were earning less than can Idol or be elevated to celebrity status through reality television $40000 annually There are whole sections of the United States that programs participatory fascism now resemble the developing world There has been a Weimarization Washington has become our Versailles We are ruled entertained of the American working class And the assault on the middle class is and informed by courtiers-and the media has evolved into a class of now under way Anything that can be put on softWlrre-from finance courtiers The Democrats like the Republicans are mostly courtiers to architecture to engineering--can and is being outsourced to workers Our pundits and experts at least those with prominent public platshyin countries such as India or China who accept pay that is a fraction of forms are courtiers We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of their Western counterparts and without benefits And both the Repubshy political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power It is smoke lican and Democratic parties beholden to corporations for money and and mirrors tricks and con games and the purpose behind it is power have allowed this to happen deception

Over the past few decades we have watched the rise of a powerful Television journalism is largely a farce Celebrity reporters masshyweb of interlocking corporate entities a network of arrangements querading as journalists make millions a year and give a platform to the within subsectors industries or other partial jurisdictions to diminish powerful and the famous so they can spin equivocate and lie Sitting in and often abolish outside control and oversight These corporations a studio putting on makeup and chatting with Joe Biden Hillary Clinshyhave neutralized national state and judicial authority The corporate ton or Lawrence Summers has little to do with journalism Ifyou are a state begun under Ronald Reagan and pushed forwardby every presishy true journalist you should start to worry ifyou make $5 million a year dent since has destroyed the public and private institutions that proshy No journalist has a comfortable cozy relationship with the powerful tected workers and safeguarded citizens Only 78 percent of workers in No journalist believes that serving the powerful is a primary part of his the private sector are unionized This is about the same percentage as or her calling Those in power fear and dislike journalists-and they in the early 1900s There are 50 million Americans in real poverty and should Ask Amy Goodman Seymour Hersh Walter Pincus Robert tens of millions ofAmericans in a category called near poverty Scheer or David Cay Johnston

We hear little about these stories of pain and dislocation We are The comedian Jon Stewart who hosts the popular Daily Show with diverted by spectacle and pseudo-events We are fed illusions We Jon Stewart on Comedy Central has become one of the most visible are given comforting myths-the core of popular culture-that exalt and influential media figures in America In an interview with Jim our nation and ourselves even though ours is a time of collapse and Cramer who hosts a show called Mad Money on CNBC Stewart asked moral and political squalor We are bombarded with useless trivia his guest why during all the years he advised viewers about investshyand celebrity gossip despite the valiant efforts of a few remaining ments he never questioned the mendacious claims from CEOs and newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post banks that unleashed the financial meltdown~r warned viewers along with Democracy Now National Public Radio Pacifica and Jim about the shady tactics of short-term selling and massive debt leveragshyLehrer of the Public Broadcasting Service These organizations still ing used to make fortunes for CEOs out of the retirement and savings practice journalism as an ethical pursuit on behalf of the common accounts of ordinary Americanss good but they are a beleaguered minority The Federal Communicashytions Commission in an example of how far our standards have STEWART This thing was ten years in the making The idea fallen defines television shows such as Foxs celebrity gossip program that you could have on the guys from Bear Stearns and Merrill TMZ and the Christian Broadcast Networks 700 Club as bona fide Lynch and guys that had leveraged 35 to 1 and then blame newscasts The economist Charlotte Twight calls this vast corporate mortgage holders thats insane

168 I BMPIRB OF ILLUSION CHRIS HEDGES 169

CRAMBR I always wish that people would come in and swear themselves in before they come on the show I had a lot ofCEOs lie to me on the show Its very painful I dont have subpoena

power STEWART You knew what the banks were doing and were touting

it for months and months The entire network was CRAMER But Dick Fuld who ran Lehman Brothers called me

in-he called me in when the stock was at forty-because he was saying Look I thought the stock was wrong thought it was in the wrong place -he brings nte in and lies to me lies to me

lies to me STEWART [feigning shockl The CEO of a company lied to you

CRAMER Shocking STBWART But isnt that financial reporting What do you think is

the role of CNBC CRAMER I didnt think that Bear Stearns would evaporate

overnight I knew the people who ran it I thought they were honest That was my mistake I really did I thought they were honest Did I get taken in because I knew them before Maybe to some degree Its difficuh to have a reporter say I just came from an interview with Hank Paulson and he lied his darn-fool head of[ Its difficult I think it challenges the boundshy

aries STEWART But what is the responsibility ofthe people who cover

Wall Street Im under the assumption and maybe this is purely ridiculous but Im under the assumption that you dont just take their word at face value That you actually then go around and try to figure it out Applause

Cramer like most television and many print reporters gives an uncritshyical forum to the powerful At the same time they pretend they have vetted and investigated the claims made by those in power They play the role on television of journalists It is a dirty quid pro quo The media get access to the elite as long as the media faithfully report what the elite wants reported The moment that quid pro quo breaks down reporters--real reporters--are cast into the wilderness and denied

access

170 BMPIRE OP ILLUSION

The behavior of a Hm Cramer as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in an article on Saloncom mirrors that of the reporters who covered the lead-up to the war in Iraq Day after day news organizations as diverse as the New York Times CNN and the three major television networks amplified lies fed to them by the elite as if they were facts They served the power elite as Cramer and most of those on television do rather than the public

In Bill Moyers 2007 PBS documentary Buying the War Moyers asked Meet the Press host Tim Russert why he had passed on these lies without vetting them-and even more damaging he contrasted Russetts work with that of Bob Simon of CBS who had made a few phone calls and had quickly learned that the administrations pro-war leaks so crucial in fanning public and political support fur going to war were bogus Moyers focused on a story given to the New York Times by Vice President Dick Cheneys office that appeared on the front page ofthe paper the Sunday morning the vice president was also a guest on Meet the Press6 Moyers began by setting up a video clip of Cheneys performance

BILL MOYERS Quoting anonymous administration officials the Times reported that Saddam Hussein had launched a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb using specially designed aluminum tubes

Moyers then ran the clip of Cheney on Meet the Press the same morning the Times story appeared

CHENEY bull Tubes Theres a story in the New York Times this morning this is-and I want to attribute this to the Times I dont want to talk about obviously specific intelligence sources but-

Jonathan Landay a reporter who had written news stories at the time questioning Cheneys prior assertions that Saddam Hussein had been seeking to acquire nuclear weapons gave us the sneaky reason the White House bad leaked the information-specifically so Cheney could discuss previously top-secret information on national Tv Even though

CHRIS BBDGES 171

friendly face of the corporation They have huge legal teams tens of thousands of employees and scores of elected officials who ward off public intrusions into their affairs or lawsuits They hold a near monopoly on all electronic and printed sources of information A few media giants such as AOL Time Warner General Electric Viacom Disney and Rupert Murdochs NewsGroup control nearly everything

we read see and hear laquoPrivate capital tends to become concentrated in [a] few hands

partly because of competition among the capitalists and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of the smaller ones Albert Einstein wrote in 1949 in the

Monthly Review in explaining why he was a socialist

The result ofthese dewlopments is an oligarchy ofpINate capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who for all practical purposes separate the electorate from the legislature The consequence is that the representatives of the people do not in fact sufficiently protect the interests of the underprivileged sections of the population Moreover under existing conditions private capitalshyists inevitably control directly or indirectly the main sources of information (press radio education) It is thus extremely diffuult and indeed in most cases quite impossible for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to Illlllre intelligent use of his

political rights4

The growing desperation across the United States is unleashing not simply a recession-we have been in a recession for some time nowshybut rather a depression unlike anything we have seen since the 1930S It has provided a pool of broken people willing to work for low wages without unions or benefits This is excellent news if you are a corporashytion It is very bad news ifyou are a worker For the bottom 90 percent

164 1 EMPlRE OF ILLUSION

of Americans annual income has been on a slow steady decline for three decades The majority of that sectors workers had an average annual income that peaked at $33000 in 1973 By 2005 according to David Cay Johnston in his book Free Lunch it had fullen to a bit more than $29000 in adjusted dollars despite three decades of economic expansion And where did that money go Ask Exxon Mobil the biggest US oil and gas company which made a $109 billion profit in the first quarter of 2007 Or better yet ask Exxon Mobil Corporation Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson whose compensashytion rose nearly 18 percent to $217 million in 2007 when the oil comshypany pulled in the largest profit ever for a US company His take-home

pay package included $175 million in salary a $336 million bonus and $161 million in stock and option awards according to a company filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission He also received nearly $430000 in other compensation including $229331 for personal security and $41122 for use of the company aircraft In addition to his pay package Tillerson received more than $76 million from exercising options and stock awards during the year Exxon Mobil earned $4061 billion in 2007 up 3 percent from the previous year But TiUersons 2007 pay was not even the highest mark for the us oil and gas indusshytry Occidental Petroleum Corporation Chairman and CEO Ray Irani made $336 million and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation chief James Hackett took in $267 million over the same period

For each dollar earned in 2005 the top 10 percent received 485 cents That was the top tenths greatest share of the income pie Johnshyston writes since 1929 just before the Roaring 20S collapsed in the Great Depression And within the top 10 percent those who made more than $100000 nearly all the gains went to the top tenth of1 pershycent people like TiUerson Irani or Hackett who made at least $17

million that year And until we have real election reform until we make it possible to run for national office without candidates kissing the rings ofTillersons Irarus and Hacketts til get hundreds of milli)ns of dollars this cannibalization ofAmerica will continue

Our elites manipulate statistics and data to foster illusions of growth and prosperity They refuse to admit they have lost control since to lose control is to concede failure They contribute instead to the colshylective denial of reality by insisting that another multibillion-dollar

CHRIS HEDGES 1 165

bailout or government loan will prop up the dying edifice The wellshypaid television pundits and news celebrities the economists and the banking and financial sector leaders see the world from inside the comshyfort of the corporate box They are loyal to the corporate state They cling to the corporation and the corporate structure It is known It is safe It is paternal It is the system

Our government is being wrecked by corporations which now get 40 percent of federal discretionary spending More than 800000 jobs once handled by government employees have been outsourced to corshyporations a move that has not only further empowered our shadow corporate government but also helped destroy federal workforce unions Management offederal prisons the management of regulatory and scientific reviews the processing or denial of Freedom of Informa- tion requests interrogating prisoners and running the worlds largest mercenary army in Iraq-all this has become corporate And these corshyporations in a perverse arrangement make their money directly off of the American citizen This devils deal is an expansion of the corporate welfare enjoyed by the defense industry

Halliburton in 2003 was given a no-bid and non-compete $7 bilshylion contract to repair Iraqs oil fields as well as the power to oversee and control Iraqs entire oil production This has now become $130 bilshylion in contract awards to Halliburton And flush with taxpayer dollars what has Halliburton done It has made sure only thirty-six of its 143 subsidiaries are incorporated in the United States and 107 subsidiaries (or 75 percent) are incorporated in thirty different countries This arrangement allows Halliburton to lower its tax liability on foreign income by establishing a controlled foreign corporation and subshysidiaries inside low-tax or no-tax countries used as tax havens Thus the corporations take our money They squander it They cleverly evade taxation And our corporate government not only funds them but protects them

The financial and political disparities between our oligarchy and the working class have created a new global serfdom Credit Suisse anashylysts estimate that the number of subprime foreclosures in the United States by the end of 2012 will total 1390000 If that estimate is correct 1Z7 percent of all residential borrowers in the United States will be forced out of their homes

166 I EMPIRE OF ILLUSION

The bailout for banks and financial firms who feel no compuncshytion to account for taxpayer funds pulled the plug on the New Deal The Great Society is now gasping for air mortaUy wounded coughing up blood Power no longer lies with the citizens of the United States who with ratios of100 to 1 pleaded with their representatives in Washshyington not to loot the national treasury to bail out Wall Street investshyment firms Power lies with the corporations These corporations not we pick who runs for president Congress judgeships and most state legislatures You cannot in most instances be a viable candidate withshyout their blessing and money These corporations including the Comshymission on Presidential Debates (a private organization) determine who gets to speak and what issues candidates can or cannot challenge from universal not-for-profit single-payer health care to Wall Street bailouts to NAFTA If you do not follow the corporate script you become as marginal and invisible as Dennis Kucinich Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney

This is why most Democrats opposed Pennsylvania Democratic House Representative Tohn Murthas call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq-something that would dry up profits for companies like Halliburton-and supported continued funding for the war It is why most voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act It is why the party opposed an amendment that was part of a bankruptcy bill that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent It is why corporatist politicians opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Minshying Law of 1872 which allows mineral companies to plunder federal land for profit It is why they did not back the single-payer health-care bill House Resolution 676 sponsored by Representatives Kucinich and fohn Conyers It is why so many politicians advocate nuclear power It is why many backed the class-action reform bill-the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA)-that was part of a large lobbying effort by finanshycial firms CAFA would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits Workers under CAFA would no longer have redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporations CAFA moves these cases into corporate-friendly federal courts dominated by Republican judges

The assault on the American working dass-an assault that has devastated members ofmy own family-is nearly complete In the past

CHRIS HBDGBS I 167

three years nearly one in five US workers was laid off Among workers system of spectacle and diversion in which we get to vote on Amerishylaid off from full-time work roughly one-fourth were earning less than can Idol or be elevated to celebrity status through reality television $40000 annually There are whole sections of the United States that programs participatory fascism now resemble the developing world There has been a Weimarization Washington has become our Versailles We are ruled entertained of the American working class And the assault on the middle class is and informed by courtiers-and the media has evolved into a class of now under way Anything that can be put on softWlrre-from finance courtiers The Democrats like the Republicans are mostly courtiers to architecture to engineering--can and is being outsourced to workers Our pundits and experts at least those with prominent public platshyin countries such as India or China who accept pay that is a fraction of forms are courtiers We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of their Western counterparts and without benefits And both the Repubshy political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power It is smoke lican and Democratic parties beholden to corporations for money and and mirrors tricks and con games and the purpose behind it is power have allowed this to happen deception

Over the past few decades we have watched the rise of a powerful Television journalism is largely a farce Celebrity reporters masshyweb of interlocking corporate entities a network of arrangements querading as journalists make millions a year and give a platform to the within subsectors industries or other partial jurisdictions to diminish powerful and the famous so they can spin equivocate and lie Sitting in and often abolish outside control and oversight These corporations a studio putting on makeup and chatting with Joe Biden Hillary Clinshyhave neutralized national state and judicial authority The corporate ton or Lawrence Summers has little to do with journalism Ifyou are a state begun under Ronald Reagan and pushed forwardby every presishy true journalist you should start to worry ifyou make $5 million a year dent since has destroyed the public and private institutions that proshy No journalist has a comfortable cozy relationship with the powerful tected workers and safeguarded citizens Only 78 percent of workers in No journalist believes that serving the powerful is a primary part of his the private sector are unionized This is about the same percentage as or her calling Those in power fear and dislike journalists-and they in the early 1900s There are 50 million Americans in real poverty and should Ask Amy Goodman Seymour Hersh Walter Pincus Robert tens of millions ofAmericans in a category called near poverty Scheer or David Cay Johnston

We hear little about these stories of pain and dislocation We are The comedian Jon Stewart who hosts the popular Daily Show with diverted by spectacle and pseudo-events We are fed illusions We Jon Stewart on Comedy Central has become one of the most visible are given comforting myths-the core of popular culture-that exalt and influential media figures in America In an interview with Jim our nation and ourselves even though ours is a time of collapse and Cramer who hosts a show called Mad Money on CNBC Stewart asked moral and political squalor We are bombarded with useless trivia his guest why during all the years he advised viewers about investshyand celebrity gossip despite the valiant efforts of a few remaining ments he never questioned the mendacious claims from CEOs and newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post banks that unleashed the financial meltdown~r warned viewers along with Democracy Now National Public Radio Pacifica and Jim about the shady tactics of short-term selling and massive debt leveragshyLehrer of the Public Broadcasting Service These organizations still ing used to make fortunes for CEOs out of the retirement and savings practice journalism as an ethical pursuit on behalf of the common accounts of ordinary Americanss good but they are a beleaguered minority The Federal Communicashytions Commission in an example of how far our standards have STEWART This thing was ten years in the making The idea fallen defines television shows such as Foxs celebrity gossip program that you could have on the guys from Bear Stearns and Merrill TMZ and the Christian Broadcast Networks 700 Club as bona fide Lynch and guys that had leveraged 35 to 1 and then blame newscasts The economist Charlotte Twight calls this vast corporate mortgage holders thats insane

168 I BMPIRB OF ILLUSION CHRIS HEDGES 169

CRAMBR I always wish that people would come in and swear themselves in before they come on the show I had a lot ofCEOs lie to me on the show Its very painful I dont have subpoena

power STEWART You knew what the banks were doing and were touting

it for months and months The entire network was CRAMER But Dick Fuld who ran Lehman Brothers called me

in-he called me in when the stock was at forty-because he was saying Look I thought the stock was wrong thought it was in the wrong place -he brings nte in and lies to me lies to me

lies to me STEWART [feigning shockl The CEO of a company lied to you

CRAMER Shocking STBWART But isnt that financial reporting What do you think is

the role of CNBC CRAMER I didnt think that Bear Stearns would evaporate

overnight I knew the people who ran it I thought they were honest That was my mistake I really did I thought they were honest Did I get taken in because I knew them before Maybe to some degree Its difficuh to have a reporter say I just came from an interview with Hank Paulson and he lied his darn-fool head of[ Its difficult I think it challenges the boundshy

aries STEWART But what is the responsibility ofthe people who cover

Wall Street Im under the assumption and maybe this is purely ridiculous but Im under the assumption that you dont just take their word at face value That you actually then go around and try to figure it out Applause

Cramer like most television and many print reporters gives an uncritshyical forum to the powerful At the same time they pretend they have vetted and investigated the claims made by those in power They play the role on television of journalists It is a dirty quid pro quo The media get access to the elite as long as the media faithfully report what the elite wants reported The moment that quid pro quo breaks down reporters--real reporters--are cast into the wilderness and denied

access

170 BMPIRE OP ILLUSION

The behavior of a Hm Cramer as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in an article on Saloncom mirrors that of the reporters who covered the lead-up to the war in Iraq Day after day news organizations as diverse as the New York Times CNN and the three major television networks amplified lies fed to them by the elite as if they were facts They served the power elite as Cramer and most of those on television do rather than the public

In Bill Moyers 2007 PBS documentary Buying the War Moyers asked Meet the Press host Tim Russert why he had passed on these lies without vetting them-and even more damaging he contrasted Russetts work with that of Bob Simon of CBS who had made a few phone calls and had quickly learned that the administrations pro-war leaks so crucial in fanning public and political support fur going to war were bogus Moyers focused on a story given to the New York Times by Vice President Dick Cheneys office that appeared on the front page ofthe paper the Sunday morning the vice president was also a guest on Meet the Press6 Moyers began by setting up a video clip of Cheneys performance

BILL MOYERS Quoting anonymous administration officials the Times reported that Saddam Hussein had launched a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb using specially designed aluminum tubes

Moyers then ran the clip of Cheney on Meet the Press the same morning the Times story appeared

CHENEY bull Tubes Theres a story in the New York Times this morning this is-and I want to attribute this to the Times I dont want to talk about obviously specific intelligence sources but-

Jonathan Landay a reporter who had written news stories at the time questioning Cheneys prior assertions that Saddam Hussein had been seeking to acquire nuclear weapons gave us the sneaky reason the White House bad leaked the information-specifically so Cheney could discuss previously top-secret information on national Tv Even though

CHRIS BBDGES 171

bailout or government loan will prop up the dying edifice The wellshypaid television pundits and news celebrities the economists and the banking and financial sector leaders see the world from inside the comshyfort of the corporate box They are loyal to the corporate state They cling to the corporation and the corporate structure It is known It is safe It is paternal It is the system

Our government is being wrecked by corporations which now get 40 percent of federal discretionary spending More than 800000 jobs once handled by government employees have been outsourced to corshyporations a move that has not only further empowered our shadow corporate government but also helped destroy federal workforce unions Management offederal prisons the management of regulatory and scientific reviews the processing or denial of Freedom of Informa- tion requests interrogating prisoners and running the worlds largest mercenary army in Iraq-all this has become corporate And these corshyporations in a perverse arrangement make their money directly off of the American citizen This devils deal is an expansion of the corporate welfare enjoyed by the defense industry

Halliburton in 2003 was given a no-bid and non-compete $7 bilshylion contract to repair Iraqs oil fields as well as the power to oversee and control Iraqs entire oil production This has now become $130 bilshylion in contract awards to Halliburton And flush with taxpayer dollars what has Halliburton done It has made sure only thirty-six of its 143 subsidiaries are incorporated in the United States and 107 subsidiaries (or 75 percent) are incorporated in thirty different countries This arrangement allows Halliburton to lower its tax liability on foreign income by establishing a controlled foreign corporation and subshysidiaries inside low-tax or no-tax countries used as tax havens Thus the corporations take our money They squander it They cleverly evade taxation And our corporate government not only funds them but protects them

The financial and political disparities between our oligarchy and the working class have created a new global serfdom Credit Suisse anashylysts estimate that the number of subprime foreclosures in the United States by the end of 2012 will total 1390000 If that estimate is correct 1Z7 percent of all residential borrowers in the United States will be forced out of their homes

166 I EMPIRE OF ILLUSION

The bailout for banks and financial firms who feel no compuncshytion to account for taxpayer funds pulled the plug on the New Deal The Great Society is now gasping for air mortaUy wounded coughing up blood Power no longer lies with the citizens of the United States who with ratios of100 to 1 pleaded with their representatives in Washshyington not to loot the national treasury to bail out Wall Street investshyment firms Power lies with the corporations These corporations not we pick who runs for president Congress judgeships and most state legislatures You cannot in most instances be a viable candidate withshyout their blessing and money These corporations including the Comshymission on Presidential Debates (a private organization) determine who gets to speak and what issues candidates can or cannot challenge from universal not-for-profit single-payer health care to Wall Street bailouts to NAFTA If you do not follow the corporate script you become as marginal and invisible as Dennis Kucinich Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney

This is why most Democrats opposed Pennsylvania Democratic House Representative Tohn Murthas call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq-something that would dry up profits for companies like Halliburton-and supported continued funding for the war It is why most voted to reauthorize the Patriot Act It is why the party opposed an amendment that was part of a bankruptcy bill that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent It is why corporatist politicians opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Minshying Law of 1872 which allows mineral companies to plunder federal land for profit It is why they did not back the single-payer health-care bill House Resolution 676 sponsored by Representatives Kucinich and fohn Conyers It is why so many politicians advocate nuclear power It is why many backed the class-action reform bill-the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA)-that was part of a large lobbying effort by finanshycial firms CAFA would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits Workers under CAFA would no longer have redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporations CAFA moves these cases into corporate-friendly federal courts dominated by Republican judges

The assault on the American working dass-an assault that has devastated members ofmy own family-is nearly complete In the past

CHRIS HBDGBS I 167

three years nearly one in five US workers was laid off Among workers system of spectacle and diversion in which we get to vote on Amerishylaid off from full-time work roughly one-fourth were earning less than can Idol or be elevated to celebrity status through reality television $40000 annually There are whole sections of the United States that programs participatory fascism now resemble the developing world There has been a Weimarization Washington has become our Versailles We are ruled entertained of the American working class And the assault on the middle class is and informed by courtiers-and the media has evolved into a class of now under way Anything that can be put on softWlrre-from finance courtiers The Democrats like the Republicans are mostly courtiers to architecture to engineering--can and is being outsourced to workers Our pundits and experts at least those with prominent public platshyin countries such as India or China who accept pay that is a fraction of forms are courtiers We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of their Western counterparts and without benefits And both the Repubshy political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power It is smoke lican and Democratic parties beholden to corporations for money and and mirrors tricks and con games and the purpose behind it is power have allowed this to happen deception

Over the past few decades we have watched the rise of a powerful Television journalism is largely a farce Celebrity reporters masshyweb of interlocking corporate entities a network of arrangements querading as journalists make millions a year and give a platform to the within subsectors industries or other partial jurisdictions to diminish powerful and the famous so they can spin equivocate and lie Sitting in and often abolish outside control and oversight These corporations a studio putting on makeup and chatting with Joe Biden Hillary Clinshyhave neutralized national state and judicial authority The corporate ton or Lawrence Summers has little to do with journalism Ifyou are a state begun under Ronald Reagan and pushed forwardby every presishy true journalist you should start to worry ifyou make $5 million a year dent since has destroyed the public and private institutions that proshy No journalist has a comfortable cozy relationship with the powerful tected workers and safeguarded citizens Only 78 percent of workers in No journalist believes that serving the powerful is a primary part of his the private sector are unionized This is about the same percentage as or her calling Those in power fear and dislike journalists-and they in the early 1900s There are 50 million Americans in real poverty and should Ask Amy Goodman Seymour Hersh Walter Pincus Robert tens of millions ofAmericans in a category called near poverty Scheer or David Cay Johnston

We hear little about these stories of pain and dislocation We are The comedian Jon Stewart who hosts the popular Daily Show with diverted by spectacle and pseudo-events We are fed illusions We Jon Stewart on Comedy Central has become one of the most visible are given comforting myths-the core of popular culture-that exalt and influential media figures in America In an interview with Jim our nation and ourselves even though ours is a time of collapse and Cramer who hosts a show called Mad Money on CNBC Stewart asked moral and political squalor We are bombarded with useless trivia his guest why during all the years he advised viewers about investshyand celebrity gossip despite the valiant efforts of a few remaining ments he never questioned the mendacious claims from CEOs and newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post banks that unleashed the financial meltdown~r warned viewers along with Democracy Now National Public Radio Pacifica and Jim about the shady tactics of short-term selling and massive debt leveragshyLehrer of the Public Broadcasting Service These organizations still ing used to make fortunes for CEOs out of the retirement and savings practice journalism as an ethical pursuit on behalf of the common accounts of ordinary Americanss good but they are a beleaguered minority The Federal Communicashytions Commission in an example of how far our standards have STEWART This thing was ten years in the making The idea fallen defines television shows such as Foxs celebrity gossip program that you could have on the guys from Bear Stearns and Merrill TMZ and the Christian Broadcast Networks 700 Club as bona fide Lynch and guys that had leveraged 35 to 1 and then blame newscasts The economist Charlotte Twight calls this vast corporate mortgage holders thats insane

168 I BMPIRB OF ILLUSION CHRIS HEDGES 169

CRAMBR I always wish that people would come in and swear themselves in before they come on the show I had a lot ofCEOs lie to me on the show Its very painful I dont have subpoena

power STEWART You knew what the banks were doing and were touting

it for months and months The entire network was CRAMER But Dick Fuld who ran Lehman Brothers called me

in-he called me in when the stock was at forty-because he was saying Look I thought the stock was wrong thought it was in the wrong place -he brings nte in and lies to me lies to me

lies to me STEWART [feigning shockl The CEO of a company lied to you

CRAMER Shocking STBWART But isnt that financial reporting What do you think is

the role of CNBC CRAMER I didnt think that Bear Stearns would evaporate

overnight I knew the people who ran it I thought they were honest That was my mistake I really did I thought they were honest Did I get taken in because I knew them before Maybe to some degree Its difficuh to have a reporter say I just came from an interview with Hank Paulson and he lied his darn-fool head of[ Its difficult I think it challenges the boundshy

aries STEWART But what is the responsibility ofthe people who cover

Wall Street Im under the assumption and maybe this is purely ridiculous but Im under the assumption that you dont just take their word at face value That you actually then go around and try to figure it out Applause

Cramer like most television and many print reporters gives an uncritshyical forum to the powerful At the same time they pretend they have vetted and investigated the claims made by those in power They play the role on television of journalists It is a dirty quid pro quo The media get access to the elite as long as the media faithfully report what the elite wants reported The moment that quid pro quo breaks down reporters--real reporters--are cast into the wilderness and denied

access

170 BMPIRE OP ILLUSION

The behavior of a Hm Cramer as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in an article on Saloncom mirrors that of the reporters who covered the lead-up to the war in Iraq Day after day news organizations as diverse as the New York Times CNN and the three major television networks amplified lies fed to them by the elite as if they were facts They served the power elite as Cramer and most of those on television do rather than the public

In Bill Moyers 2007 PBS documentary Buying the War Moyers asked Meet the Press host Tim Russert why he had passed on these lies without vetting them-and even more damaging he contrasted Russetts work with that of Bob Simon of CBS who had made a few phone calls and had quickly learned that the administrations pro-war leaks so crucial in fanning public and political support fur going to war were bogus Moyers focused on a story given to the New York Times by Vice President Dick Cheneys office that appeared on the front page ofthe paper the Sunday morning the vice president was also a guest on Meet the Press6 Moyers began by setting up a video clip of Cheneys performance

BILL MOYERS Quoting anonymous administration officials the Times reported that Saddam Hussein had launched a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb using specially designed aluminum tubes

Moyers then ran the clip of Cheney on Meet the Press the same morning the Times story appeared

CHENEY bull Tubes Theres a story in the New York Times this morning this is-and I want to attribute this to the Times I dont want to talk about obviously specific intelligence sources but-

Jonathan Landay a reporter who had written news stories at the time questioning Cheneys prior assertions that Saddam Hussein had been seeking to acquire nuclear weapons gave us the sneaky reason the White House bad leaked the information-specifically so Cheney could discuss previously top-secret information on national Tv Even though

CHRIS BBDGES 171

three years nearly one in five US workers was laid off Among workers system of spectacle and diversion in which we get to vote on Amerishylaid off from full-time work roughly one-fourth were earning less than can Idol or be elevated to celebrity status through reality television $40000 annually There are whole sections of the United States that programs participatory fascism now resemble the developing world There has been a Weimarization Washington has become our Versailles We are ruled entertained of the American working class And the assault on the middle class is and informed by courtiers-and the media has evolved into a class of now under way Anything that can be put on softWlrre-from finance courtiers The Democrats like the Republicans are mostly courtiers to architecture to engineering--can and is being outsourced to workers Our pundits and experts at least those with prominent public platshyin countries such as India or China who accept pay that is a fraction of forms are courtiers We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of their Western counterparts and without benefits And both the Repubshy political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power It is smoke lican and Democratic parties beholden to corporations for money and and mirrors tricks and con games and the purpose behind it is power have allowed this to happen deception

Over the past few decades we have watched the rise of a powerful Television journalism is largely a farce Celebrity reporters masshyweb of interlocking corporate entities a network of arrangements querading as journalists make millions a year and give a platform to the within subsectors industries or other partial jurisdictions to diminish powerful and the famous so they can spin equivocate and lie Sitting in and often abolish outside control and oversight These corporations a studio putting on makeup and chatting with Joe Biden Hillary Clinshyhave neutralized national state and judicial authority The corporate ton or Lawrence Summers has little to do with journalism Ifyou are a state begun under Ronald Reagan and pushed forwardby every presishy true journalist you should start to worry ifyou make $5 million a year dent since has destroyed the public and private institutions that proshy No journalist has a comfortable cozy relationship with the powerful tected workers and safeguarded citizens Only 78 percent of workers in No journalist believes that serving the powerful is a primary part of his the private sector are unionized This is about the same percentage as or her calling Those in power fear and dislike journalists-and they in the early 1900s There are 50 million Americans in real poverty and should Ask Amy Goodman Seymour Hersh Walter Pincus Robert tens of millions ofAmericans in a category called near poverty Scheer or David Cay Johnston

We hear little about these stories of pain and dislocation We are The comedian Jon Stewart who hosts the popular Daily Show with diverted by spectacle and pseudo-events We are fed illusions We Jon Stewart on Comedy Central has become one of the most visible are given comforting myths-the core of popular culture-that exalt and influential media figures in America In an interview with Jim our nation and ourselves even though ours is a time of collapse and Cramer who hosts a show called Mad Money on CNBC Stewart asked moral and political squalor We are bombarded with useless trivia his guest why during all the years he advised viewers about investshyand celebrity gossip despite the valiant efforts of a few remaining ments he never questioned the mendacious claims from CEOs and newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post banks that unleashed the financial meltdown~r warned viewers along with Democracy Now National Public Radio Pacifica and Jim about the shady tactics of short-term selling and massive debt leveragshyLehrer of the Public Broadcasting Service These organizations still ing used to make fortunes for CEOs out of the retirement and savings practice journalism as an ethical pursuit on behalf of the common accounts of ordinary Americanss good but they are a beleaguered minority The Federal Communicashytions Commission in an example of how far our standards have STEWART This thing was ten years in the making The idea fallen defines television shows such as Foxs celebrity gossip program that you could have on the guys from Bear Stearns and Merrill TMZ and the Christian Broadcast Networks 700 Club as bona fide Lynch and guys that had leveraged 35 to 1 and then blame newscasts The economist Charlotte Twight calls this vast corporate mortgage holders thats insane

168 I BMPIRB OF ILLUSION CHRIS HEDGES 169

CRAMBR I always wish that people would come in and swear themselves in before they come on the show I had a lot ofCEOs lie to me on the show Its very painful I dont have subpoena

power STEWART You knew what the banks were doing and were touting

it for months and months The entire network was CRAMER But Dick Fuld who ran Lehman Brothers called me

in-he called me in when the stock was at forty-because he was saying Look I thought the stock was wrong thought it was in the wrong place -he brings nte in and lies to me lies to me

lies to me STEWART [feigning shockl The CEO of a company lied to you

CRAMER Shocking STBWART But isnt that financial reporting What do you think is

the role of CNBC CRAMER I didnt think that Bear Stearns would evaporate

overnight I knew the people who ran it I thought they were honest That was my mistake I really did I thought they were honest Did I get taken in because I knew them before Maybe to some degree Its difficuh to have a reporter say I just came from an interview with Hank Paulson and he lied his darn-fool head of[ Its difficult I think it challenges the boundshy

aries STEWART But what is the responsibility ofthe people who cover

Wall Street Im under the assumption and maybe this is purely ridiculous but Im under the assumption that you dont just take their word at face value That you actually then go around and try to figure it out Applause

Cramer like most television and many print reporters gives an uncritshyical forum to the powerful At the same time they pretend they have vetted and investigated the claims made by those in power They play the role on television of journalists It is a dirty quid pro quo The media get access to the elite as long as the media faithfully report what the elite wants reported The moment that quid pro quo breaks down reporters--real reporters--are cast into the wilderness and denied

access

170 BMPIRE OP ILLUSION

The behavior of a Hm Cramer as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in an article on Saloncom mirrors that of the reporters who covered the lead-up to the war in Iraq Day after day news organizations as diverse as the New York Times CNN and the three major television networks amplified lies fed to them by the elite as if they were facts They served the power elite as Cramer and most of those on television do rather than the public

In Bill Moyers 2007 PBS documentary Buying the War Moyers asked Meet the Press host Tim Russert why he had passed on these lies without vetting them-and even more damaging he contrasted Russetts work with that of Bob Simon of CBS who had made a few phone calls and had quickly learned that the administrations pro-war leaks so crucial in fanning public and political support fur going to war were bogus Moyers focused on a story given to the New York Times by Vice President Dick Cheneys office that appeared on the front page ofthe paper the Sunday morning the vice president was also a guest on Meet the Press6 Moyers began by setting up a video clip of Cheneys performance

BILL MOYERS Quoting anonymous administration officials the Times reported that Saddam Hussein had launched a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb using specially designed aluminum tubes

Moyers then ran the clip of Cheney on Meet the Press the same morning the Times story appeared

CHENEY bull Tubes Theres a story in the New York Times this morning this is-and I want to attribute this to the Times I dont want to talk about obviously specific intelligence sources but-

Jonathan Landay a reporter who had written news stories at the time questioning Cheneys prior assertions that Saddam Hussein had been seeking to acquire nuclear weapons gave us the sneaky reason the White House bad leaked the information-specifically so Cheney could discuss previously top-secret information on national Tv Even though

CHRIS BBDGES 171

CRAMBR I always wish that people would come in and swear themselves in before they come on the show I had a lot ofCEOs lie to me on the show Its very painful I dont have subpoena

power STEWART You knew what the banks were doing and were touting

it for months and months The entire network was CRAMER But Dick Fuld who ran Lehman Brothers called me

in-he called me in when the stock was at forty-because he was saying Look I thought the stock was wrong thought it was in the wrong place -he brings nte in and lies to me lies to me

lies to me STEWART [feigning shockl The CEO of a company lied to you

CRAMER Shocking STBWART But isnt that financial reporting What do you think is

the role of CNBC CRAMER I didnt think that Bear Stearns would evaporate

overnight I knew the people who ran it I thought they were honest That was my mistake I really did I thought they were honest Did I get taken in because I knew them before Maybe to some degree Its difficuh to have a reporter say I just came from an interview with Hank Paulson and he lied his darn-fool head of[ Its difficult I think it challenges the boundshy

aries STEWART But what is the responsibility ofthe people who cover

Wall Street Im under the assumption and maybe this is purely ridiculous but Im under the assumption that you dont just take their word at face value That you actually then go around and try to figure it out Applause

Cramer like most television and many print reporters gives an uncritshyical forum to the powerful At the same time they pretend they have vetted and investigated the claims made by those in power They play the role on television of journalists It is a dirty quid pro quo The media get access to the elite as long as the media faithfully report what the elite wants reported The moment that quid pro quo breaks down reporters--real reporters--are cast into the wilderness and denied

access

170 BMPIRE OP ILLUSION

The behavior of a Hm Cramer as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in an article on Saloncom mirrors that of the reporters who covered the lead-up to the war in Iraq Day after day news organizations as diverse as the New York Times CNN and the three major television networks amplified lies fed to them by the elite as if they were facts They served the power elite as Cramer and most of those on television do rather than the public

In Bill Moyers 2007 PBS documentary Buying the War Moyers asked Meet the Press host Tim Russert why he had passed on these lies without vetting them-and even more damaging he contrasted Russetts work with that of Bob Simon of CBS who had made a few phone calls and had quickly learned that the administrations pro-war leaks so crucial in fanning public and political support fur going to war were bogus Moyers focused on a story given to the New York Times by Vice President Dick Cheneys office that appeared on the front page ofthe paper the Sunday morning the vice president was also a guest on Meet the Press6 Moyers began by setting up a video clip of Cheneys performance

BILL MOYERS Quoting anonymous administration officials the Times reported that Saddam Hussein had launched a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb using specially designed aluminum tubes

Moyers then ran the clip of Cheney on Meet the Press the same morning the Times story appeared

CHENEY bull Tubes Theres a story in the New York Times this morning this is-and I want to attribute this to the Times I dont want to talk about obviously specific intelligence sources but-

Jonathan Landay a reporter who had written news stories at the time questioning Cheneys prior assertions that Saddam Hussein had been seeking to acquire nuclear weapons gave us the sneaky reason the White House bad leaked the information-specifically so Cheney could discuss previously top-secret information on national Tv Even though

CHRIS BBDGES 171

tllere was no wrroboratioh of that information (and never would be siaceitwas inaccurate) Cheney could now speakef it pubtically as if it wete fact Now said Landay ~ordinarily informatien lib the alushyminum tubes w(Hddnt appear It was top-seq~ int~mgenCeand the Vice President and the National Security Advisor wonldll6t be allowed to talk about this on the Sunday talk shows But it appeared thlll morning in the New York Times and therefore they were able to talk

about went bad to the clip of the Cheney pltrrormance

CImNEl Its now public that in fact he has been seeking to acquire and we have been able to intercept to Drevent him

acclni1~ through this particular channelthe that afe necessary to builda cintrifuge and the is required to take low-grade uranium and enhance it into highly enriched uranium which is what you have to have itt ocrder to

build a bomb

Moyers) in the studio asked Bob Simon ofCBS what he thought of

CheneyS actions

MoYERs Did you sec that performaIce BOB SIMON I did MOYERS What did you think SIMON I thouglit it was remarkable MOYERS Why SIMON Remarkable You leak a story andtben youquote the

story I mean thats a remarkable thing to do

oontinued the video asking a question that appears to accept ttreduloll$ly

the very statement Cheney had just made

TIM RUSSE_iT [To CKBNBlJ Whatspecifi~has [~ddamJ obtained that you believe will enbl1lnce hisJ)udear development program

172 f EMPlRE 011 fLLUSlON

Moyers back in the studio asked RUiSert who was with him why he had not been more incisive and skeptical with his questions especially with material that was so unprecedented andpotentjally expl~ve

MOYERS Was it just a coincidlllnce in )Pur mind that Cheney came on your show and others weIrt on the mher Sunday shows

the very morning that that story appeared TIM RUSSERT I dont Know The New York a better judge

of that than I am

MOYERS No one tipped you it was bappeD RUSSBRT No 00 I mean-MOYERS TheCDeney Office didnt leak to thattheres g(lilrul

be a big story RtrSSERT No N(tl lIleail I dont have know-

on Meet theFress pmple come on and ooground

rules We poundliJn ask any question wewant I did not know about the aluminum tubes story until I read it in the New York Times

MoYERs Critics point to September 8 ~ and to your show in particular a$thecla~ie case of how the press and the governshymentbecameinseparabie SOmeone III themiddotadtninistration plants a lt-tramatic story in the New Times And then the Vice Presishydent comes on your ~ow and pGints to tlte liTew York Times Its a drcular self-confitmingleak

RUSSEllT I dont know h6w Judith Miller and Mimael Gordon reported that st0ry were Itwas afront-page story of the NiJW Wh~ SecretarymiddotICondoLeezza] Rice and Vice otllersolDle upmiddot that Sunday

5undily shows they did ~octly that Myconshycern was concerns ~eSSed by other goveell-

I wish myphone bad mng or I had access to them

Moyers then told the audience Bob Simon didnt wait for the phone to and returned to bis conversation With Simon of CBS

CHRIS HEDGES I 173

I I

Once

as fa1se~

afe

r~eatedly characterized and l)emOtlatsin O~ngressMoYE~S too BobSimoJl~ a moment ago when we as Russian communists intent on rampant wealthdeSttuction He has started talking to who knew about ~~mum tubes refetted to Obamaas cues from Lenin He

What geople---who were you talking to has ~ used terms comrad~s

SIMON We were talking to ampC~ti$S--40 scientists mereJrlce to Democrats and askedmiddotwhethamp

and to repoundcentarchersand to who had been investigating House Speaker N~nq Pelosi j th~ general secretary of the Commushy

Iraq from the start nist Party On the March 3 2069 edition of NBCs Tetia) CramerMOYlRs Would tbese people have been available to any reporter attacked Obamas purp0rteurodradical agenda and ciaiIned that this iswho called or were they exdqsive sources for 60 Minutes the most greatest wealth destruction Ive seen by a president Stateshy

SIMON No I think that many of them would have been available ments like these ftom courtiers like Cramer will grow in intensity as the

to any reporter who called economic mOf3ssdeepens and the government is forced to be increasshyMOrRR5~And you just picked up the phone ingly interventioni$t rncluding the possible nationalization of many

SIMON~ Just picked up the phone banks MoYEUz Talked to them The most egregious lie istile pretense that these p00p1e function asSurow 1alked to them and then went down with the caJlleras

reporten that they actualtyrepon on our behalf It is not one or two

repor~s Or are corrupt The media ins1tituti0ll5~U~~hington Post ~d

are oorrupt especially thoSe based in WalOhilulshyute indicated a nrllure of many media figures laquoMare ton work shamelesSly for ourelites In theweeks beiAre the occupilticnin the media I think common carriers of altiministration

of Iraq media workers were too busy posturing as red-bloOded Amerishystatements and critia (If the administration And can patriots to report Tbey randy challenged the steady assault by the up being independent on our ownlt Bush ~bite HOU$e against our dyilliberties and the trasbing

F Constitution The role oicoartiersis to parrot official propagandi) Courtiers do jfot the elite or question the structure of the corpOshy

Russert like Cramet when exposed as complicit in the disseminirtjon rate state The COrpOmlGDS in refurn employthem and promote themof misinf9rmation attempted to portray himself as an innocent victim

as celebrities The alJqw the courtiers into their inner As as did New York reporter Judy Miller who along with het rol~

Saulpoillts out~ no class of euroourtiers from the eunUcllsMICftaet ~~uvugtworked 1aIgdy as stenogr~letS fer the Bush

M~neurohllS in the mneteenth ~ntury to the Baghdadthe propaganda campaign tQ

Abbasid caliphate ever transformed itself into a responsible and adrrunistrati(m claims justifying the war had been

Courtiers aTe hedonists hoQds Miller quipped that she was only as gpod as my SOlJtCES

OOtlttiers eKtends beyond the press Elected officials logk upends the traditional role of reportiQg govern under the that they serve the public with a ~ begin with assumption that those in power have an

eKCeptIons actually wllrkhlg 011 behalf of corporations In2oo8y a Conshyrarely bound to $e truth All g(vernments lie as 1 F Stone pointed

gress with a majolity of Democrats passed the FISA bin which proshy(lut and it is the joofthe journalistto do the harlti tedious reporting

vides immunity for tt)e telecommunicaumsthattoeJcpOse these lies It is the job of courtielS to feed off the scraps tossed

cooperated with the NatlonaiSelurity Agencys illegal smveillance ovet to thenl by thepowetful and ~e the interests of the powere1ite the Irevious six years Such a bill endangers the WDIk of journalists

poundtamer eontinues to serve his elite mastms by lashing out atgovshyhuman rights workers crusading lawyers and whistle-blowers who

emment attemptS to make the financial system accountable He has

CHIUS HlmGBS t in 174 BMPllU ()f lLUJSlON

attempt to expose abuses the government seeks to hide This bill means we will never know the extent of the Bush White Houses violation of our civil liberties Worst ofall since the bill gives the US government a license to eavesdrop on our pbone cTUs and e-maiIs it effectively demnlishes our right to privacy These private communications can be

stored indefinitely and disseminated not just to the US government but to other governments as well The bill will make it possible for

those in power to identify and silence anyone who dares to make inforshymation public that defies the official narrative or exposes fraud or abuse of power But the telecommunications corpmations which spent

some $l5 million in lobbying fees wanted the bill passed so it was

passed Being a courtier requires agility and eloquence The most talented

of them should be credited as persuasive actors They entertain us

They make us feel good They persuade us they are our friends They

are the smiley faces of a corporate state that has hijacked the governshyment Alhen the corporations make their inn demands these courtiers

drop to their knees They placate the telecommunications companies that want to be protected from lawsuits They permit oil and gas comshypallies to rake in obscene profits and keep in place the vast snbsidies of corporate welfare doled out by the state TheyalIow our profit-driven health~care system to leave the uninsured ltmd underinsured to suffer and die without proper care

We trust courtiers wearing face powder who deceive us in the name of Journalism We trust courtiers in our political parties who promise to fight for our interests and then pass bill after bill to further

corporate fraud and abuse We confuse how we are made to feel about

courtiers with real information facts and knowledge This is the danshy

ger of a culture awash in pseudo-events The Democratic Party refused to impeach Bush and Cheney It allows the government to spy on us without warrants or cause It funnels billions ill taxpayer dollars to investment firms that committed fraud And it tells us it cares about the protection of our civil rights and democracy It is a form of collecshytive abuse And as so often happens in the weird pathology of victim and victimizer we keep coming back for more

Our political and economic decline took place because of a cQrposhyrate drive for massm deregulation the repeal of antitrust laws and the

176 I EMPIRE OF ILLUSION

countrys radical transfimnation from a manufacturingeccmomy to an economy of consumptioil~ Pranklin Delano Roosevelt recognized this

danger He sent a messqge ~o Congress on Aprilzg 1938 titled Recomshymendations to the Congr~ss to Curb Monopolies and the Concentrashytion of Economic Power In it he wrote

the first truth is that thd liberty of democracy is not safe if the peopleI

tolerate the growth of power to a point where it becomes stronger

than the democratic 1gt1ate itself That in its essence is Fascismshy

ownership of Government by an individual by a group or by any

other controlling prrvate power The second truth is that the liberty

of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide

employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way to SllSshy

tain an acceptabk stan~rd ofliving8

The fise of the cerp9rate state has grave political consequences as we saw in Italy and Gerniany in the early part of the twentieth century Antitrust laws notonly regulate and control the marketplace They also

serve as bulwarks to prqtect democracy And now that they are gone now that we have 8 state tun by and on behalfofcorporations we must eltpect inevitable and terl-ifying consequences

As the pressure moJnts as this despair and impoverishment reach I

into larger and larger s~gments of the populace the mechanisms of corporate and governrn~llt control are being bolstered to prevent civil unrest and instability the emergence of the corporate state always means the emergence of the security state This is why the Bush hire House pushed th1tlughthe Patriot Act (and its renewal) the suspenshy

sion of habeas corpus the practice of extraordinary rendition the

practice of warrantless wiretapping on American citizens and the

refusal to enSllre free ~d fair elections with verifiable balJot-c0untmg It is all part of a pacbge It comes together The motive bihind these

measures is not to fight terrorism or to bolster national security It is to seize and maintain internal contro1

Hints of our brave new world seeped out when the director of national intelligence retired admiral Dennis Blair testified in Fehruary and March 2009 befo((j the Senate Intelligence Committee He warned

that the deepelling ecoJlomic crisis posed perhaps Our gravest th~at to

CHRrs HEDGE~ 177

attempt to expose abuses the government seeks to hide This bill means we will never know the extent of the Bush White Houses violation of our civil liberties Worst ofall since the bill gives the US government a license to eavesdrop on our pbone cTUs and e-maiIs it effectively demnlishes our right to privacy These private communications can be

stored indefinitely and disseminated not just to the US government but to other governments as well The bill will make it possible for

those in power to identify and silence anyone who dares to make inforshymation public that defies the official narrative or exposes fraud or abuse of power But the telecommunications corpmations which spent

some $l5 million in lobbying fees wanted the bill passed so it was

passed Being a courtier requires agility and eloquence The most talented

of them should be credited as persuasive actors They entertain us

They make us feel good They persuade us they are our friends They

are the smiley faces of a corporate state that has hijacked the governshyment Alhen the corporations make their inn demands these courtiers

drop to their knees They placate the telecommunications companies that want to be protected from lawsuits They permit oil and gas comshypallies to rake in obscene profits and keep in place the vast snbsidies of corporate welfare doled out by the state TheyalIow our profit-driven health~care system to leave the uninsured ltmd underinsured to suffer and die without proper care

We trust courtiers wearing face powder who deceive us in the name of Journalism We trust courtiers in our political parties who promise to fight for our interests and then pass bill after bill to further

corporate fraud and abuse We confuse how we are made to feel about

courtiers with real information facts and knowledge This is the danshy

ger of a culture awash in pseudo-events The Democratic Party refused to impeach Bush and Cheney It allows the government to spy on us without warrants or cause It funnels billions ill taxpayer dollars to investment firms that committed fraud And it tells us it cares about the protection of our civil rights and democracy It is a form of collecshytive abuse And as so often happens in the weird pathology of victim and victimizer we keep coming back for more

Our political and economic decline took place because of a cQrposhyrate drive for massm deregulation the repeal of antitrust laws and the

176 I EMPIRE OF ILLUSION

countrys radical transfimnation from a manufacturingeccmomy to an economy of consumptioil~ Pranklin Delano Roosevelt recognized this

danger He sent a messqge ~o Congress on Aprilzg 1938 titled Recomshymendations to the Congr~ss to Curb Monopolies and the Concentrashytion of Economic Power In it he wrote

the first truth is that thd liberty of democracy is not safe if the peopleI

tolerate the growth of power to a point where it becomes stronger

than the democratic 1gt1ate itself That in its essence is Fascismshy

ownership of Government by an individual by a group or by any

other controlling prrvate power The second truth is that the liberty

of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide

employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way to SllSshy

tain an acceptabk stan~rd ofliving8

The fise of the cerp9rate state has grave political consequences as we saw in Italy and Gerniany in the early part of the twentieth century Antitrust laws notonly regulate and control the marketplace They also

serve as bulwarks to prqtect democracy And now that they are gone now that we have 8 state tun by and on behalfofcorporations we must eltpect inevitable and terl-ifying consequences

As the pressure moJnts as this despair and impoverishment reach I

into larger and larger s~gments of the populace the mechanisms of corporate and governrn~llt control are being bolstered to prevent civil unrest and instability the emergence of the corporate state always means the emergence of the security state This is why the Bush hire House pushed th1tlughthe Patriot Act (and its renewal) the suspenshy

sion of habeas corpus the practice of extraordinary rendition the

practice of warrantless wiretapping on American citizens and the

refusal to enSllre free ~d fair elections with verifiable balJot-c0untmg It is all part of a pacbge It comes together The motive bihind these

measures is not to fight terrorism or to bolster national security It is to seize and maintain internal contro1

Hints of our brave new world seeped out when the director of national intelligence retired admiral Dennis Blair testified in Fehruary and March 2009 befo((j the Senate Intelligence Committee He warned

that the deepelling ecoJlomic crisis posed perhaps Our gravest th~at to

CHRrs HEDGE~ 177

stability and national security It could trigger he said a return to the

violent extremism of the 1920S and 30S The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and

its geopolitical implications Blair told the Senate

The crisis has been ongoing for over a year and economists are divided over whether and when we could hit bottom Some even fear that the recession could further deepen and reach the level of the

Great Depression Of course all of us recall the dramatic political consequences wrought by the economic turmoil of the 19205 and

19305 inEurope the instability and high levels ofviolent extremism

The road ahead is grim The United Nations International Labor

Organization estimates that some 50 million workers will lose their jobs worldwide in 2009 The collapse had already seen dose to 4 milshylion lost jobs in the United States by mid-2009 The International

Monetary Funds prediction for global economic growth in 2009 is 0middot5 percent--the worst since the Second World War There were 23 million properties in the United States that received a default notice or were repossessed in 2008 And this number is set to rise especially as vacant commercial real estate begins to be foreclosed About 20000 major

global banks collapsed were sold or were nationalized in 2008 An estishy

mated 62000 US companies are expected to shut down in 2009middot We have fewtools left to dig our way out The manufacturing sector

in the United States has been dismantled by globalization Consumers thanks to credit card companies and easy lines of credit are $14 trillion in debt The government has spent lent or guaranteed $128 trillion

toward the crisis most of it borrowed or printed in the form of new money It is borrowing to fund our wars in Mghanistan and Iraq And

no one states the obvious We will never be able to pay these loans back We are supposed to spend our way out of the crisis and maintain our part of the grand imperial project on credit We are supposed to bring

back the illusion ofwealth created by the bubble economy There is no coherent and realistic plan one built around our severe limitations to

stanch the bleeding or ameliorate the mounting deprivations we will suffer as citizens Contrast this with the national security states preparashytions to crush potential civil unrest and you get a glimpse of the future

178 1 BMPIllS OF ILLUSION

Senator Frank Church as chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence in 1975 investigated the governments massive and highly secretive National Security Agency He was alarmed at the ability of the state to intrude into private lives He wrote when he finished his investigation

That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no Americanwould have any privacyleft such is the capashy

bility to monitor everything telephone conversations telegrams it doesnt matter There would be no place to hide If this gover11lllent

ever became a tyranny ifa dictator ever took cbarge in this country

the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort

to combine together in resistance to the government no matter how privately it was done is within the reach of the government to know

Such is the capability of this technology I dont want to see this country ever go across the bridge 1know the capability that is there to mm tyranny total in America and we must see to it that this

agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss That is the abyss from which there is no return bullbullbull0

At the time Senator Church made this statement the NSAWalI not authorized to spy on American citizens Today it is

The military can be ordered by the president into any neighborshyhood any town or suburb capture a citizen and hold him or her in prison without charge The executive branch can do this under the Authorization for Use ofMilitary Force passed by Congress after 911

that gives the president the power to use all necessary and approprishyate force against anyone involved in planning aiding or carrying out terror attacks And if the president can declare American citizens

living inside the United States to be enemy combatants and order them stripped of constitutional rights which he effectively can under this authorization what does this mean for us How long can we be held without charge Without lawyers Without access to the outside world

CHR1S HEDGES I 179

The sp~~etof secial unrest was rai$ed at the Strategic Studies

Institute ofthe Us Army War College in Novemkler 2008 ina mOl1O~ g~h by Nathan Freiet titled Known Vnknowns Un(i()~tiQrtaJ StTategicShotksiW Defense $traug Development The ~taty must

prepared Freilr warned for a viclent sttategic diamploltatWn inside the United States~ that could be provoked by ltunfureseen economic

collapse purposeful domestic resistance pervasive public health

emergencies ot loss of functioning political and legal order The

resulting laquowidesplead cool violence tbe document said would wrce

thedefellse establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend

basic domestic order and human securityll laquoAn AmericlUl govectmnent and defen~e establishment lUlled into

C()mplacency hya long-ampeeure domestic order wonld be force4 to rapshyicUydivest some Qrmost external security p()mmitments in order to addresS rapidly ~ding hwnan insaU1ityat homeraquoit wetJt OIl

Under the most extreme circnmstaoces this might include useof ooilitltity force against h)Stile groups inside the lJnit~dstates Fm1heI [the DepaTtment of Defense] would be 1gtynecessity an essential

enabling hub for the continuity of polifiqll authority in3 multistate or

nationwidedvil conflict Qf disturban~e) the document read In plain Jmglish this translates into the imposition of martial law

lJilld a de frutQ g~mment run and administered by the Department of

Derense TIley arecol1sidermg it Soshouid we Blair warned the Senate that roughlya quarter of the countries in

the world have already experienced low-level instabIlity suell as g()Vshy

etnmentchanges becanseof the current slowdown He noted that the

bulk ofanti-state ~onstratious internationally have been seen in B~ and the former Soviet Union but this didn0t mean they could

notspread to the United States He mMtresenltitoIs that therollapseof the~obalfrnancial srstejTI is likely to produci1 a waye of ~oo1l1ic crises in emerging market nations over the next He added that laquomuch Latin America fmIDer Soviet Union states and subcSaharan Aicica lack suffi~kntash reserves aec~ to international aid or credit

or other coping mechanism ~ltWben tho~ gCWtb rates go down my gut tells me tbat there are

geing to be prQbiemsooming out of tttlll and we1te looking fur thal

130 I EM Pllrl(J~ JLI]SfON

he said He refeJ1red to laquo$tatistkal toodelJhg showing that laquoeiXlnomic

crises increase the risk of reginlj-thrMterii))g instability if they persist

overa one- to tWQ-year period Blair artic~tedmiddotth~ tleWest narrative of fear As the ecnnomit

unrav~ing acctlera1e$ we wilt be rold it is not the beard~d fslamic extremists who threaten us most ~though tbose in power wiJI drag them out of the Halloween closet wnenevertbey need to give U$ an

exotic shock but in~tead thedrunestic riftlaf environmentaliatsanarshy

chists unions right~wing militias and eunrgedmembers of our disshy

possessed working class Cri~ as it always in times of poverty

and tWmoil will grow Those who oppo~e the iron fist of the state

secUrity apparatus will be lumped together in slick oorporate news

reports with file grm~ing criminal ulid~r~ass Iltcent destf1lCti~nthecorporateuro state haswrqught has been m~Sked

by lies The consumer price in~ (CPl) ror example used by thegoVshy

ern~t tOIDeasure inflation is meaningless To hYep the official inflashy

tion figures low the government h3$ Ix~l substituting basK prodndS they Oh~e tntcked to ch~ck forinflation with ones that do not rise very

much in price This trick ha$ ke~t the cost~ofliving increases tied te the CPlartificially low The disoontlect betWeen what we are tohland

what is actually trrreis worthy of the deceit ppound3cticeuin the oM East Germany The New Yurt Times tonsumer ~rtetj W Po Dunleavy

wtotethat her ~iesnow cn$t $587 a month up irom$4oo oneeaT eadier This is a 40 perecentJLtincrease Otlifornia economist John

Will~ who runs I)n organization called Shadow StatistWs~ contends

that ifWashington stUlllsed th~ OFI measUrements applied back in the

1970S inflation would beaboutro percent The advantage of f~e sfati~tks to the corporations is huge An

artifidal inJlation rate one fat lower than the real Fate keeps down eqmtltthle interest payments on bank acconnts and certifiGates of deposit It ma$ks tnl deterioration of the American laquobnomy The fabshy

ricated statistics allow eor~rations and the Gorporate state to walk away tNm obligations tied to real adjustmentsfQr illflation These stashy

tistics mean that less isgtp~id out in Social Security and pensions These statisti~ reduce the interest on the mllltitrillwll-dotlar debt Corpgrashytions never have to pay relttl cost-ofmiddot4iving increases to their employees

CHRlS HEDGE$ I

fhe lies employed to carnouflagetbe ~mllnic damptine have been in plaee for lleveral decades President R0naid Reaga~ included 15

mi1lionU$ Army Navy Air Fotce and hlfatine servIce perSGnnelwith the civilian WQrk fotCf tQ magl(aliy redlJ(( the natiQtfs unempkgtyment rate by lpetcent President Clinton decided that those who bad wven up looking for work or those wno wanted full-time jobs but couldnnd oruy part-time elnployment were nQ lopgcentt to bemiddot(ourtted as Wlemshyployed His triCk disappeared some S million unemployed from the official unemployment rolls tf you work more than twenty-one hours a week--Inost low-wage workers at plaees like Wal~Ma[t average twenty-eight hours a week-you are GQunted as employed although your real wages put you below the poverty line Our actual ~mployshyment rate when you includ~ those whonave stoPped looking for work andth~who can find Ollly poorly paid part-time jobs is not Its pershycent but 15 percent A $ixtb of the nntry was eft1Ctivcly unemployed in hlfayof ~09 And we were sheddingjob$at a faster Tate than in tbe mQaths afteJ7 the 1929 crash

Individualism is toured as the core value ofAmerican culture and yet most of us meekly submit as we are supposed tQ to the tyrannY of thecorpQlate state We define ourselves IfS a demottacy and meanwhile

voting rates in nationltl eleCtlOlS are tepid and voting o~ local issues is often iJ1 the single digits Our elected 0tlyeniallbase their deGisions not on the public goodln~t on the possibility of campaign contributions and lucrative employmentofl leaving offi(le Purwllotate elite tell us gQvcrnment is part of the problem and thenmrkets s1t0wd reguJate themselvelgt-alld tben that same elite plmIdel7S the Us Treasurywben they trash the economyWe insist we area marmeconomy 0ne based on the principle$ of ~pitalism and free tradeandyet die single largest sectors of internationalmiddot trade are armaments and weapons sy~tems

There is a vast and growingdisltonnect between what we SIIY we bdieve ~d what we do We are blinded enchanted and finany enslaved by illusion

Itwas the eoonomk meltdQwn of Yugqslavia that~e US SlolxrshydlmMilosevic Itmiddotwas the c()lIapse of the Weimar Republic that V)mited up Adolf Hitler And it was the breadQwn I~ ltzariSt Russia that opened the d(lor for Vladimir Lenin and the Boishevijs Financial

182 I EMPIRE OF UUlS1GN

wl1apses lead to politkal extJemSQ1 The ~e bubbling up fEomour impoveri$l1ed and elisemranchised working dass pfe$ages a IOOtping

and dangeromriglitmiddotwing back]aIb I sp~t two Y~1S traveling tnt cotntry t(l write a bo9k on the Christianmiddot Right caUed Am~ri4m Fil$shyrim the Christian 1iglttand the War on AmeriClt I v~itedformer Imi1shy

ufacturmgtowns wherefor many the end of theWotld is no 101 an abstraction They have lost hope Fear and imtahilityhave plunged the working classes into profuund personal andeWIlomic despair and IlQt

Surprismgly info the arms of the demag(lgues and charlatans of the radical Christian Right who offer a belief in magic miracles and the fiction ofa utopian Christian nation And llnless we rapidly re-en11anshyIhise our di$pos~sed Workers Into the ecormmy unless we give them hope 6urdemQcraeyiGdaomed

In Iris book CollaP5lr econ(uhist JaredOiarnpnd lim five factors that ltian lead to social deaIf tJldnding a middotfailure to understand andlaquoI pc-event cause$ of enviromllentai damage diQlate ehltmge depredations by hostile neighoor~the inability of friendly neighbltm to mnfinue trade and finally nQwthe regdety itself deal$ wJth the prfiblems raised by the first four factorsAcommon f1iilillg invl)lved tn the last item i$ the disloc~ti()n between the short-term interests of elitesand the l0nger-tenn interests of the societies the clit~ don)inate and apltiit

ffis last point is crudal Conruption mismanagement and politishycal inerna by an elite~ whid is ~nd the ream of the law aItn9ampt always result in widespread cyniciSm disengagement apathYiand finally rage Tnb5e who suffer the cQnsequences of this mismanageshyment loseanyloyalty to the nation and ineuroteasingly nurse fantasies or vialent revenge The C6Jlcept of the common good mocked by the behavior of the prhileged dassesdisappears Not~jng matters It is only aboutMe

As the public hegins te grilsp the depth of the bcenttrayaI and abuse by out ruling class as the Democratic and Republicanprnies expose themselves as craven tools ofour corporate state as Slivings altcounts~ cbUege funds and retirement plal1s become worthless as unemployshyment skyrockets and home values go up in smoke wcent mUst preparefor the politicaI resurgenee Qf reinvigorated right-wing radicals including those within the Christian ttight The engine poundIf the Christian Rightshy

CHRIS9JDOEll I 183

as is true fQr ill radiGal tnovemootr-ispe1sonal aQd eCflllonik despair Artddespair iuan age of iIitrJallsingshortages poverty and hopelessshynes$ will be one of our few surplus oommpdities

But OUI collapse is IDGre than an eCQAomic and politieuroI (oUapstl It is 1a crisis offaith The capitalist ideology of unlitnited growth has fitile-d It did not take into account tlil massive depletion oftm world~s reS0urces from fossil fuels to dean water to fish stocks to soil erosion as well as Ovet]))pulatioll global warming and climate change It failed to understand that tm huge unregulated international flows of ltapital and assault on manufacturing would wreck the globallinancial system Anovervalued dollar (which couId soon deflate) wild t~h itoQlt and housing financial bubbles unch~ed greed the decimatiGfl of our IDanUfilcturing sector the empowerment of an oHgarchi~ class the corruption of our politicaleliteuro the impoyenerishment of workers a bloated military and middotdefense budget and unrestrained credit bampgesare euroQnsequences of a fuileltl ideology and conspire to bring us down The finandal crisis may soon become a (ur~y Grists This second shock will threaten our financial viability We letthe market rule Now we8re paying fGr iL

In his book The Groat Tmnsformatiol1 written in 1944 Katl POlanyi laid CHit the devastating col1seguencesc-the depr~sions wars and totautarianism-tbat grow ontof a 5o-ltalied self-regulated free marshyket He grasped that fascism likf1 socialism was rooted in a ma(ket society that refused tofunction He watned that a financial system always devo1ved without heavy governtnent control into a Mana euroapishytalism-and a Mafia fqliticcal system-which is a good description of out power elite

PoLanyi who fled fascist Europe in 193J andeventually taught at CollJmbia University wrote that a self-regulating mlIlret turned human beings and the natutalemrironment into commodities a situashytiltm that ensures the destruction ofboth oociety and the natural envishyronment He decried tbe ftee markets assumption that nature and human beings are objects whose worth is determined by the maiket He reminded us that a SQcietytbat no longer reoognizes that nature and human life have a sacred dimension an intrinsic worth beyond mon~tary value ultimakly conunits Collective suicide Such societies QInnibalize thernseive$ until they die Speculative excesses andgrowiog

164 IllIPLRE OF middotJLLUSIGJN

inequality he wmtealw3ysdestroy the f~)Undation fora continued prosperity

Weface au environmental tnelldownaswellasaneeanomic meltshydownThis would not haw surpEised Po4nyi Polar ice C1lPSllfe meltshying Sea levels are rising tbeplanet is warming at an alamung tate Droughts are destti)Ying croplands Russias northern coastline has begun produang huge quantities of tOX1e methane gil$ 3cientls1$ with the International Siberian Shelf Study describe what th~y saw along the coastline recently as methane chimneys reaching from the sea floor to the oceans surface Methane locked in the permafrost of ArctiG landshymasses is being released at an alarming rate as average Arctic temperashytures ijSe Methane is a greenhmtse gas twenty~five tim~ mOle powerful than carbon dioxide The release of mi1liMS of tons oft will onlyaaelerate the rate of global ~arming

Those who run Qur CQrpccate state llave futtgnt eflvirooUleutal regJllaticm as tenaciously as they have fought financial regtilRtion They are respousihk as Ptllanyi predkted our ~nal impovershyishment alld the impoveIlishmettt of oureeosylltem~ We remain addictetl courtesy of the Qjl gas aIla automobiIeindustries and a corpOJate--controUed government to fossil fuels Species are v~n1Shshying The great human migE~tion from ooastlmes and deserts has begun And as temperatures continue to rise nqge pitrfs of the globe will ~ome uninhal)itabl the continued release of large quantities of methane SOIDe SCientists have warned qJuld aspby$te the human ~edes NASA climate scientist James Hansen has demonstrated that any roncentration of Gaipan dimdde grelt1t~t than 35lt1 pirrtS per million in the atmosphere is not colltlpatible with maintena~ of the hiosshyphere olithe planet on whidl civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted To halt this self--Unmolation he bas lktermined the Wttrld mnst stop buming coal by 203(-and the industrialized world Well before that-ifwe aremiddotto have any h9j)euro ofever getting the planet back down below tn~ 350 number And in the United States coal supplies half o(our electtkity

DemocrllCY is not an Qutgrowth of free marke~ Demoaacy and capitalimt are antagonistic entities Democracy IilmiIi1iVidualiSil1 is ~ not on persoIlAl gain but on selfsacritile A functiOning demoshycracy must often deiy the economic intetests of el1re~ on behalf of

Cf[nrs lItgtIXiBS f r85

The sp~~etof secial unrest was rai$ed at the Strategic Studies

Institute ofthe Us Army War College in Novemkler 2008 ina mOl1O~ g~h by Nathan Freiet titled Known Vnknowns Un(i()~tiQrtaJ StTategicShotksiW Defense $traug Development The ~taty must

prepared Freilr warned for a viclent sttategic diamploltatWn inside the United States~ that could be provoked by ltunfureseen economic

collapse purposeful domestic resistance pervasive public health

emergencies ot loss of functioning political and legal order The

resulting laquowidesplead cool violence tbe document said would wrce

thedefellse establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend

basic domestic order and human securityll laquoAn AmericlUl govectmnent and defen~e establishment lUlled into

C()mplacency hya long-ampeeure domestic order wonld be force4 to rapshyicUydivest some Qrmost external security p()mmitments in order to addresS rapidly ~ding hwnan insaU1ityat homeraquoit wetJt OIl

Under the most extreme circnmstaoces this might include useof ooilitltity force against h)Stile groups inside the lJnit~dstates Fm1heI [the DepaTtment of Defense] would be 1gtynecessity an essential

enabling hub for the continuity of polifiqll authority in3 multistate or

nationwidedvil conflict Qf disturban~e) the document read In plain Jmglish this translates into the imposition of martial law

lJilld a de frutQ g~mment run and administered by the Department of

Derense TIley arecol1sidermg it Soshouid we Blair warned the Senate that roughlya quarter of the countries in

the world have already experienced low-level instabIlity suell as g()Vshy

etnmentchanges becanseof the current slowdown He noted that the

bulk ofanti-state ~onstratious internationally have been seen in B~ and the former Soviet Union but this didn0t mean they could

notspread to the United States He mMtresenltitoIs that therollapseof the~obalfrnancial srstejTI is likely to produci1 a waye of ~oo1l1ic crises in emerging market nations over the next He added that laquomuch Latin America fmIDer Soviet Union states and subcSaharan Aicica lack suffi~kntash reserves aec~ to international aid or credit

or other coping mechanism ~ltWben tho~ gCWtb rates go down my gut tells me tbat there are

geing to be prQbiemsooming out of tttlll and we1te looking fur thal

130 I EM Pllrl(J~ JLI]SfON

he said He refeJ1red to laquo$tatistkal toodelJhg showing that laquoeiXlnomic

crises increase the risk of reginlj-thrMterii))g instability if they persist

overa one- to tWQ-year period Blair artic~tedmiddotth~ tleWest narrative of fear As the ecnnomit

unrav~ing acctlera1e$ we wilt be rold it is not the beard~d fslamic extremists who threaten us most ~though tbose in power wiJI drag them out of the Halloween closet wnenevertbey need to give U$ an

exotic shock but in~tead thedrunestic riftlaf environmentaliatsanarshy

chists unions right~wing militias and eunrgedmembers of our disshy

possessed working class Cri~ as it always in times of poverty

and tWmoil will grow Those who oppo~e the iron fist of the state

secUrity apparatus will be lumped together in slick oorporate news

reports with file grm~ing criminal ulid~r~ass Iltcent destf1lCti~nthecorporateuro state haswrqught has been m~Sked

by lies The consumer price in~ (CPl) ror example used by thegoVshy

ern~t tOIDeasure inflation is meaningless To hYep the official inflashy

tion figures low the government h3$ Ix~l substituting basK prodndS they Oh~e tntcked to ch~ck forinflation with ones that do not rise very

much in price This trick ha$ ke~t the cost~ofliving increases tied te the CPlartificially low The disoontlect betWeen what we are tohland

what is actually trrreis worthy of the deceit ppound3cticeuin the oM East Germany The New Yurt Times tonsumer ~rtetj W Po Dunleavy

wtotethat her ~iesnow cn$t $587 a month up irom$4oo oneeaT eadier This is a 40 perecentJLtincrease Otlifornia economist John

Will~ who runs I)n organization called Shadow StatistWs~ contends

that ifWashington stUlllsed th~ OFI measUrements applied back in the

1970S inflation would beaboutro percent The advantage of f~e sfati~tks to the corporations is huge An

artifidal inJlation rate one fat lower than the real Fate keeps down eqmtltthle interest payments on bank acconnts and certifiGates of deposit It ma$ks tnl deterioration of the American laquobnomy The fabshy

ricated statistics allow eor~rations and the Gorporate state to walk away tNm obligations tied to real adjustmentsfQr illflation These stashy

tistics mean that less isgtp~id out in Social Security and pensions These statisti~ reduce the interest on the mllltitrillwll-dotlar debt Corpgrashytions never have to pay relttl cost-ofmiddot4iving increases to their employees

CHRlS HEDGE$ I

fhe lies employed to carnouflagetbe ~mllnic damptine have been in plaee for lleveral decades President R0naid Reaga~ included 15

mi1lionU$ Army Navy Air Fotce and hlfatine servIce perSGnnelwith the civilian WQrk fotCf tQ magl(aliy redlJ(( the natiQtfs unempkgtyment rate by lpetcent President Clinton decided that those who bad wven up looking for work or those wno wanted full-time jobs but couldnnd oruy part-time elnployment were nQ lopgcentt to bemiddot(ourtted as Wlemshyployed His triCk disappeared some S million unemployed from the official unemployment rolls tf you work more than twenty-one hours a week--Inost low-wage workers at plaees like Wal~Ma[t average twenty-eight hours a week-you are GQunted as employed although your real wages put you below the poverty line Our actual ~mployshyment rate when you includ~ those whonave stoPped looking for work andth~who can find Ollly poorly paid part-time jobs is not Its pershycent but 15 percent A $ixtb of the nntry was eft1Ctivcly unemployed in hlfayof ~09 And we were sheddingjob$at a faster Tate than in tbe mQaths afteJ7 the 1929 crash

Individualism is toured as the core value ofAmerican culture and yet most of us meekly submit as we are supposed tQ to the tyrannY of thecorpQlate state We define ourselves IfS a demottacy and meanwhile

voting rates in nationltl eleCtlOlS are tepid and voting o~ local issues is often iJ1 the single digits Our elected 0tlyeniallbase their deGisions not on the public goodln~t on the possibility of campaign contributions and lucrative employmentofl leaving offi(le Purwllotate elite tell us gQvcrnment is part of the problem and thenmrkets s1t0wd reguJate themselvelgt-alld tben that same elite plmIdel7S the Us Treasurywben they trash the economyWe insist we area marmeconomy 0ne based on the principle$ of ~pitalism and free tradeandyet die single largest sectors of internationalmiddot trade are armaments and weapons sy~tems

There is a vast and growingdisltonnect between what we SIIY we bdieve ~d what we do We are blinded enchanted and finany enslaved by illusion

Itwas the eoonomk meltdQwn of Yugqslavia that~e US SlolxrshydlmMilosevic Itmiddotwas the c()lIapse of the Weimar Republic that V)mited up Adolf Hitler And it was the breadQwn I~ ltzariSt Russia that opened the d(lor for Vladimir Lenin and the Boishevijs Financial

182 I EMPIRE OF UUlS1GN

wl1apses lead to politkal extJemSQ1 The ~e bubbling up fEomour impoveri$l1ed and elisemranchised working dass pfe$ages a IOOtping

and dangeromriglitmiddotwing back]aIb I sp~t two Y~1S traveling tnt cotntry t(l write a bo9k on the Christianmiddot Right caUed Am~ri4m Fil$shyrim the Christian 1iglttand the War on AmeriClt I v~itedformer Imi1shy

ufacturmgtowns wherefor many the end of theWotld is no 101 an abstraction They have lost hope Fear and imtahilityhave plunged the working classes into profuund personal andeWIlomic despair and IlQt

Surprismgly info the arms of the demag(lgues and charlatans of the radical Christian Right who offer a belief in magic miracles and the fiction ofa utopian Christian nation And llnless we rapidly re-en11anshyIhise our di$pos~sed Workers Into the ecormmy unless we give them hope 6urdemQcraeyiGdaomed

In Iris book CollaP5lr econ(uhist JaredOiarnpnd lim five factors that ltian lead to social deaIf tJldnding a middotfailure to understand andlaquoI pc-event cause$ of enviromllentai damage diQlate ehltmge depredations by hostile neighoor~the inability of friendly neighbltm to mnfinue trade and finally nQwthe regdety itself deal$ wJth the prfiblems raised by the first four factorsAcommon f1iilillg invl)lved tn the last item i$ the disloc~ti()n between the short-term interests of elitesand the l0nger-tenn interests of the societies the clit~ don)inate and apltiit

ffis last point is crudal Conruption mismanagement and politishycal inerna by an elite~ whid is ~nd the ream of the law aItn9ampt always result in widespread cyniciSm disengagement apathYiand finally rage Tnb5e who suffer the cQnsequences of this mismanageshyment loseanyloyalty to the nation and ineuroteasingly nurse fantasies or vialent revenge The C6Jlcept of the common good mocked by the behavior of the prhileged dassesdisappears Not~jng matters It is only aboutMe

As the public hegins te grilsp the depth of the bcenttrayaI and abuse by out ruling class as the Democratic and Republicanprnies expose themselves as craven tools ofour corporate state as Slivings altcounts~ cbUege funds and retirement plal1s become worthless as unemployshyment skyrockets and home values go up in smoke wcent mUst preparefor the politicaI resurgenee Qf reinvigorated right-wing radicals including those within the Christian ttight The engine poundIf the Christian Rightshy

CHRIS9JDOEll I 183

as is true fQr ill radiGal tnovemootr-ispe1sonal aQd eCflllonik despair Artddespair iuan age of iIitrJallsingshortages poverty and hopelessshynes$ will be one of our few surplus oommpdities

But OUI collapse is IDGre than an eCQAomic and politieuroI (oUapstl It is 1a crisis offaith The capitalist ideology of unlitnited growth has fitile-d It did not take into account tlil massive depletion oftm world~s reS0urces from fossil fuels to dean water to fish stocks to soil erosion as well as Ovet]))pulatioll global warming and climate change It failed to understand that tm huge unregulated international flows of ltapital and assault on manufacturing would wreck the globallinancial system Anovervalued dollar (which couId soon deflate) wild t~h itoQlt and housing financial bubbles unch~ed greed the decimatiGfl of our IDanUfilcturing sector the empowerment of an oHgarchi~ class the corruption of our politicaleliteuro the impoyenerishment of workers a bloated military and middotdefense budget and unrestrained credit bampgesare euroQnsequences of a fuileltl ideology and conspire to bring us down The finandal crisis may soon become a (ur~y Grists This second shock will threaten our financial viability We letthe market rule Now we8re paying fGr iL

In his book The Groat Tmnsformatiol1 written in 1944 Katl POlanyi laid CHit the devastating col1seguencesc-the depr~sions wars and totautarianism-tbat grow ontof a 5o-ltalied self-regulated free marshyket He grasped that fascism likf1 socialism was rooted in a ma(ket society that refused tofunction He watned that a financial system always devo1ved without heavy governtnent control into a Mana euroapishytalism-and a Mafia fqliticcal system-which is a good description of out power elite

PoLanyi who fled fascist Europe in 193J andeventually taught at CollJmbia University wrote that a self-regulating mlIlret turned human beings and the natutalemrironment into commodities a situashytiltm that ensures the destruction ofboth oociety and the natural envishyronment He decried tbe ftee markets assumption that nature and human beings are objects whose worth is determined by the maiket He reminded us that a SQcietytbat no longer reoognizes that nature and human life have a sacred dimension an intrinsic worth beyond mon~tary value ultimakly conunits Collective suicide Such societies QInnibalize thernseive$ until they die Speculative excesses andgrowiog

164 IllIPLRE OF middotJLLUSIGJN

inequality he wmtealw3ysdestroy the f~)Undation fora continued prosperity

Weface au environmental tnelldownaswellasaneeanomic meltshydownThis would not haw surpEised Po4nyi Polar ice C1lPSllfe meltshying Sea levels are rising tbeplanet is warming at an alamung tate Droughts are destti)Ying croplands Russias northern coastline has begun produang huge quantities of tOX1e methane gil$ 3cientls1$ with the International Siberian Shelf Study describe what th~y saw along the coastline recently as methane chimneys reaching from the sea floor to the oceans surface Methane locked in the permafrost of ArctiG landshymasses is being released at an alarming rate as average Arctic temperashytures ijSe Methane is a greenhmtse gas twenty~five tim~ mOle powerful than carbon dioxide The release of mi1liMS of tons oft will onlyaaelerate the rate of global ~arming

Those who run Qur CQrpccate state llave futtgnt eflvirooUleutal regJllaticm as tenaciously as they have fought financial regtilRtion They are respousihk as Ptllanyi predkted our ~nal impovershyishment alld the impoveIlishmettt of oureeosylltem~ We remain addictetl courtesy of the Qjl gas aIla automobiIeindustries and a corpOJate--controUed government to fossil fuels Species are v~n1Shshying The great human migE~tion from ooastlmes and deserts has begun And as temperatures continue to rise nqge pitrfs of the globe will ~ome uninhal)itabl the continued release of large quantities of methane SOIDe SCientists have warned qJuld aspby$te the human ~edes NASA climate scientist James Hansen has demonstrated that any roncentration of Gaipan dimdde grelt1t~t than 35lt1 pirrtS per million in the atmosphere is not colltlpatible with maintena~ of the hiosshyphere olithe planet on whidl civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted To halt this self--Unmolation he bas lktermined the Wttrld mnst stop buming coal by 203(-and the industrialized world Well before that-ifwe aremiddotto have any h9j)euro ofever getting the planet back down below tn~ 350 number And in the United States coal supplies half o(our electtkity

DemocrllCY is not an Qutgrowth of free marke~ Demoaacy and capitalimt are antagonistic entities Democracy IilmiIi1iVidualiSil1 is ~ not on persoIlAl gain but on selfsacritile A functiOning demoshycracy must often deiy the economic intetests of el1re~ on behalf of

Cf[nrs lItgtIXiBS f r85

fhe lies employed to carnouflagetbe ~mllnic damptine have been in plaee for lleveral decades President R0naid Reaga~ included 15

mi1lionU$ Army Navy Air Fotce and hlfatine servIce perSGnnelwith the civilian WQrk fotCf tQ magl(aliy redlJ(( the natiQtfs unempkgtyment rate by lpetcent President Clinton decided that those who bad wven up looking for work or those wno wanted full-time jobs but couldnnd oruy part-time elnployment were nQ lopgcentt to bemiddot(ourtted as Wlemshyployed His triCk disappeared some S million unemployed from the official unemployment rolls tf you work more than twenty-one hours a week--Inost low-wage workers at plaees like Wal~Ma[t average twenty-eight hours a week-you are GQunted as employed although your real wages put you below the poverty line Our actual ~mployshyment rate when you includ~ those whonave stoPped looking for work andth~who can find Ollly poorly paid part-time jobs is not Its pershycent but 15 percent A $ixtb of the nntry was eft1Ctivcly unemployed in hlfayof ~09 And we were sheddingjob$at a faster Tate than in tbe mQaths afteJ7 the 1929 crash

Individualism is toured as the core value ofAmerican culture and yet most of us meekly submit as we are supposed tQ to the tyrannY of thecorpQlate state We define ourselves IfS a demottacy and meanwhile

voting rates in nationltl eleCtlOlS are tepid and voting o~ local issues is often iJ1 the single digits Our elected 0tlyeniallbase their deGisions not on the public goodln~t on the possibility of campaign contributions and lucrative employmentofl leaving offi(le Purwllotate elite tell us gQvcrnment is part of the problem and thenmrkets s1t0wd reguJate themselvelgt-alld tben that same elite plmIdel7S the Us Treasurywben they trash the economyWe insist we area marmeconomy 0ne based on the principle$ of ~pitalism and free tradeandyet die single largest sectors of internationalmiddot trade are armaments and weapons sy~tems

There is a vast and growingdisltonnect between what we SIIY we bdieve ~d what we do We are blinded enchanted and finany enslaved by illusion

Itwas the eoonomk meltdQwn of Yugqslavia that~e US SlolxrshydlmMilosevic Itmiddotwas the c()lIapse of the Weimar Republic that V)mited up Adolf Hitler And it was the breadQwn I~ ltzariSt Russia that opened the d(lor for Vladimir Lenin and the Boishevijs Financial

182 I EMPIRE OF UUlS1GN

wl1apses lead to politkal extJemSQ1 The ~e bubbling up fEomour impoveri$l1ed and elisemranchised working dass pfe$ages a IOOtping

and dangeromriglitmiddotwing back]aIb I sp~t two Y~1S traveling tnt cotntry t(l write a bo9k on the Christianmiddot Right caUed Am~ri4m Fil$shyrim the Christian 1iglttand the War on AmeriClt I v~itedformer Imi1shy

ufacturmgtowns wherefor many the end of theWotld is no 101 an abstraction They have lost hope Fear and imtahilityhave plunged the working classes into profuund personal andeWIlomic despair and IlQt

Surprismgly info the arms of the demag(lgues and charlatans of the radical Christian Right who offer a belief in magic miracles and the fiction ofa utopian Christian nation And llnless we rapidly re-en11anshyIhise our di$pos~sed Workers Into the ecormmy unless we give them hope 6urdemQcraeyiGdaomed

In Iris book CollaP5lr econ(uhist JaredOiarnpnd lim five factors that ltian lead to social deaIf tJldnding a middotfailure to understand andlaquoI pc-event cause$ of enviromllentai damage diQlate ehltmge depredations by hostile neighoor~the inability of friendly neighbltm to mnfinue trade and finally nQwthe regdety itself deal$ wJth the prfiblems raised by the first four factorsAcommon f1iilillg invl)lved tn the last item i$ the disloc~ti()n between the short-term interests of elitesand the l0nger-tenn interests of the societies the clit~ don)inate and apltiit

ffis last point is crudal Conruption mismanagement and politishycal inerna by an elite~ whid is ~nd the ream of the law aItn9ampt always result in widespread cyniciSm disengagement apathYiand finally rage Tnb5e who suffer the cQnsequences of this mismanageshyment loseanyloyalty to the nation and ineuroteasingly nurse fantasies or vialent revenge The C6Jlcept of the common good mocked by the behavior of the prhileged dassesdisappears Not~jng matters It is only aboutMe

As the public hegins te grilsp the depth of the bcenttrayaI and abuse by out ruling class as the Democratic and Republicanprnies expose themselves as craven tools ofour corporate state as Slivings altcounts~ cbUege funds and retirement plal1s become worthless as unemployshyment skyrockets and home values go up in smoke wcent mUst preparefor the politicaI resurgenee Qf reinvigorated right-wing radicals including those within the Christian ttight The engine poundIf the Christian Rightshy

CHRIS9JDOEll I 183

as is true fQr ill radiGal tnovemootr-ispe1sonal aQd eCflllonik despair Artddespair iuan age of iIitrJallsingshortages poverty and hopelessshynes$ will be one of our few surplus oommpdities

But OUI collapse is IDGre than an eCQAomic and politieuroI (oUapstl It is 1a crisis offaith The capitalist ideology of unlitnited growth has fitile-d It did not take into account tlil massive depletion oftm world~s reS0urces from fossil fuels to dean water to fish stocks to soil erosion as well as Ovet]))pulatioll global warming and climate change It failed to understand that tm huge unregulated international flows of ltapital and assault on manufacturing would wreck the globallinancial system Anovervalued dollar (which couId soon deflate) wild t~h itoQlt and housing financial bubbles unch~ed greed the decimatiGfl of our IDanUfilcturing sector the empowerment of an oHgarchi~ class the corruption of our politicaleliteuro the impoyenerishment of workers a bloated military and middotdefense budget and unrestrained credit bampgesare euroQnsequences of a fuileltl ideology and conspire to bring us down The finandal crisis may soon become a (ur~y Grists This second shock will threaten our financial viability We letthe market rule Now we8re paying fGr iL

In his book The Groat Tmnsformatiol1 written in 1944 Katl POlanyi laid CHit the devastating col1seguencesc-the depr~sions wars and totautarianism-tbat grow ontof a 5o-ltalied self-regulated free marshyket He grasped that fascism likf1 socialism was rooted in a ma(ket society that refused tofunction He watned that a financial system always devo1ved without heavy governtnent control into a Mana euroapishytalism-and a Mafia fqliticcal system-which is a good description of out power elite

PoLanyi who fled fascist Europe in 193J andeventually taught at CollJmbia University wrote that a self-regulating mlIlret turned human beings and the natutalemrironment into commodities a situashytiltm that ensures the destruction ofboth oociety and the natural envishyronment He decried tbe ftee markets assumption that nature and human beings are objects whose worth is determined by the maiket He reminded us that a SQcietytbat no longer reoognizes that nature and human life have a sacred dimension an intrinsic worth beyond mon~tary value ultimakly conunits Collective suicide Such societies QInnibalize thernseive$ until they die Speculative excesses andgrowiog

164 IllIPLRE OF middotJLLUSIGJN

inequality he wmtealw3ysdestroy the f~)Undation fora continued prosperity

Weface au environmental tnelldownaswellasaneeanomic meltshydownThis would not haw surpEised Po4nyi Polar ice C1lPSllfe meltshying Sea levels are rising tbeplanet is warming at an alamung tate Droughts are destti)Ying croplands Russias northern coastline has begun produang huge quantities of tOX1e methane gil$ 3cientls1$ with the International Siberian Shelf Study describe what th~y saw along the coastline recently as methane chimneys reaching from the sea floor to the oceans surface Methane locked in the permafrost of ArctiG landshymasses is being released at an alarming rate as average Arctic temperashytures ijSe Methane is a greenhmtse gas twenty~five tim~ mOle powerful than carbon dioxide The release of mi1liMS of tons oft will onlyaaelerate the rate of global ~arming

Those who run Qur CQrpccate state llave futtgnt eflvirooUleutal regJllaticm as tenaciously as they have fought financial regtilRtion They are respousihk as Ptllanyi predkted our ~nal impovershyishment alld the impoveIlishmettt of oureeosylltem~ We remain addictetl courtesy of the Qjl gas aIla automobiIeindustries and a corpOJate--controUed government to fossil fuels Species are v~n1Shshying The great human migE~tion from ooastlmes and deserts has begun And as temperatures continue to rise nqge pitrfs of the globe will ~ome uninhal)itabl the continued release of large quantities of methane SOIDe SCientists have warned qJuld aspby$te the human ~edes NASA climate scientist James Hansen has demonstrated that any roncentration of Gaipan dimdde grelt1t~t than 35lt1 pirrtS per million in the atmosphere is not colltlpatible with maintena~ of the hiosshyphere olithe planet on whidl civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted To halt this self--Unmolation he bas lktermined the Wttrld mnst stop buming coal by 203(-and the industrialized world Well before that-ifwe aremiddotto have any h9j)euro ofever getting the planet back down below tn~ 350 number And in the United States coal supplies half o(our electtkity

DemocrllCY is not an Qutgrowth of free marke~ Demoaacy and capitalimt are antagonistic entities Democracy IilmiIi1iVidualiSil1 is ~ not on persoIlAl gain but on selfsacritile A functiOning demoshycracy must often deiy the economic intetests of el1re~ on behalf of

Cf[nrs lItgtIXiBS f r85

as is true fQr ill radiGal tnovemootr-ispe1sonal aQd eCflllonik despair Artddespair iuan age of iIitrJallsingshortages poverty and hopelessshynes$ will be one of our few surplus oommpdities

But OUI collapse is IDGre than an eCQAomic and politieuroI (oUapstl It is 1a crisis offaith The capitalist ideology of unlitnited growth has fitile-d It did not take into account tlil massive depletion oftm world~s reS0urces from fossil fuels to dean water to fish stocks to soil erosion as well as Ovet]))pulatioll global warming and climate change It failed to understand that tm huge unregulated international flows of ltapital and assault on manufacturing would wreck the globallinancial system Anovervalued dollar (which couId soon deflate) wild t~h itoQlt and housing financial bubbles unch~ed greed the decimatiGfl of our IDanUfilcturing sector the empowerment of an oHgarchi~ class the corruption of our politicaleliteuro the impoyenerishment of workers a bloated military and middotdefense budget and unrestrained credit bampgesare euroQnsequences of a fuileltl ideology and conspire to bring us down The finandal crisis may soon become a (ur~y Grists This second shock will threaten our financial viability We letthe market rule Now we8re paying fGr iL

In his book The Groat Tmnsformatiol1 written in 1944 Katl POlanyi laid CHit the devastating col1seguencesc-the depr~sions wars and totautarianism-tbat grow ontof a 5o-ltalied self-regulated free marshyket He grasped that fascism likf1 socialism was rooted in a ma(ket society that refused tofunction He watned that a financial system always devo1ved without heavy governtnent control into a Mana euroapishytalism-and a Mafia fqliticcal system-which is a good description of out power elite

PoLanyi who fled fascist Europe in 193J andeventually taught at CollJmbia University wrote that a self-regulating mlIlret turned human beings and the natutalemrironment into commodities a situashytiltm that ensures the destruction ofboth oociety and the natural envishyronment He decried tbe ftee markets assumption that nature and human beings are objects whose worth is determined by the maiket He reminded us that a SQcietytbat no longer reoognizes that nature and human life have a sacred dimension an intrinsic worth beyond mon~tary value ultimakly conunits Collective suicide Such societies QInnibalize thernseive$ until they die Speculative excesses andgrowiog

164 IllIPLRE OF middotJLLUSIGJN

inequality he wmtealw3ysdestroy the f~)Undation fora continued prosperity

Weface au environmental tnelldownaswellasaneeanomic meltshydownThis would not haw surpEised Po4nyi Polar ice C1lPSllfe meltshying Sea levels are rising tbeplanet is warming at an alamung tate Droughts are destti)Ying croplands Russias northern coastline has begun produang huge quantities of tOX1e methane gil$ 3cientls1$ with the International Siberian Shelf Study describe what th~y saw along the coastline recently as methane chimneys reaching from the sea floor to the oceans surface Methane locked in the permafrost of ArctiG landshymasses is being released at an alarming rate as average Arctic temperashytures ijSe Methane is a greenhmtse gas twenty~five tim~ mOle powerful than carbon dioxide The release of mi1liMS of tons oft will onlyaaelerate the rate of global ~arming

Those who run Qur CQrpccate state llave futtgnt eflvirooUleutal regJllaticm as tenaciously as they have fought financial regtilRtion They are respousihk as Ptllanyi predkted our ~nal impovershyishment alld the impoveIlishmettt of oureeosylltem~ We remain addictetl courtesy of the Qjl gas aIla automobiIeindustries and a corpOJate--controUed government to fossil fuels Species are v~n1Shshying The great human migE~tion from ooastlmes and deserts has begun And as temperatures continue to rise nqge pitrfs of the globe will ~ome uninhal)itabl the continued release of large quantities of methane SOIDe SCientists have warned qJuld aspby$te the human ~edes NASA climate scientist James Hansen has demonstrated that any roncentration of Gaipan dimdde grelt1t~t than 35lt1 pirrtS per million in the atmosphere is not colltlpatible with maintena~ of the hiosshyphere olithe planet on whidl civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted To halt this self--Unmolation he bas lktermined the Wttrld mnst stop buming coal by 203(-and the industrialized world Well before that-ifwe aremiddotto have any h9j)euro ofever getting the planet back down below tn~ 350 number And in the United States coal supplies half o(our electtkity

DemocrllCY is not an Qutgrowth of free marke~ Demoaacy and capitalimt are antagonistic entities Democracy IilmiIi1iVidualiSil1 is ~ not on persoIlAl gain but on selfsacritile A functiOning demoshycracy must often deiy the economic intetests of el1re~ on behalf of

Cf[nrs lItgtIXiBS f r85

citiZens but this is not bappening The corporate managers arid govshy

ermnent officials trying tom the economic meltdown ar~ pouring

money and reSOurces into the financial sector becaqse theyaIe trained

only to manage and s1Jstltiin the establi$hed system not change it

Saul writesthat the first thr~eaims ofthc corporatistmovement in

Germany Italy and France during the 19205 those that went on to become part of the fascist experience were to shift pGWer ~re(tly to

economic and social interest groups tQ push entrepreneurial initiative

in areas normally reserved for public bodies and to laquoobliterate the

boundaries between public and private interest-that is challenge the idea of the publidnterest It sounds depressingly familiar

The workingdass which has desperl-tety borrowed money to stay

afloat as real wages have dropped now face years maybe decades of

stagnant or declining incomes without access to new credit The

natioruU treasury mea1lwhile is being drained on behalf of speculative

commercial interests The government-the only institutioJl citizens

have that is big eU0l1gh aull powerful enol1Sh to protect their rights-cis becoming weaker more anemic and increasingly unable to help the

mass of Americails who an embarking on a period of deprivation and

suffering unseeil in this country since the 1930S Creative destruction

Joseph Schumpeter und~rstood is the essential fact about unfuttereltI

capitalism You are going to see the biggest waste fraudartd abuse in Amerishy

can history Ralph Nader told me when I asked about the bailouts

Not only is it wrongly directed not only does it deal with the perpeshytrators instead of the people who were victimized but they dont have a

delivery system of any honesty and efficiency The Justice Department

is overwhelmed It doesnt have a tenth of the prosecutors the investishy

gators the auditors the attomeys needed to deal with the previous corshy

porate crime wave b~fore the bailout startediast September It is

especially tmahle to deal with the rapacious ravaging of this new

money by these oorporJte recipients You Can see it already The corposhy

rations havent lent it They have used some of it for acquisitions or to

preserve their bonuses or their dividendsAs long as they know they are

not going tojailand they dont see many neWspaper reports about

tbcir colleagues going to jail they dont care It is total impunity If they

186 I EMPIRE OF ILLUSION

quit they quit with a golden paracbutt Even IGeneral Motors CEO Riqc] Wagflner is taking away $21 million

There ate a handful of funner ~cutiVes who have ltorrceded that the bailouts are a waste the former chairman of Amelitanlntemashy

donaL Group Inc (AlG) Maurice R Gt~nberg)told the House Overshysight and Government Ref0rm Committee that the effort to prop up

the firm With $170 billion has failed Resaid the company should be

restructured AIG he said would have been better offfilil1gfor Chapter

n bankruptcy protectiOn instead ofseeking government help

These are signs of hyper-decay Ralph Nader said from his office

in Washington laquoYou spend this kind of money and do notknowlf it witl work

Bankrupt corporate capitalism is Oil its way to bankrupting the

socialism that is trying to save it he added laquoThat is the end st~ If

ther no longer have socialismto save them then weare into feudalism

We are into privatepPlicegatampicommunities and serfs with a twelltyshyfirst--century nomenclature

We will not be able to raise another $3 or $4 trillion especially

with our commitments now totaling mOtl than $i2 trillion to fix the

mess It was nct lcng ago that snch profligate government spending

was unthinkable Th~wasmiddotmiddotan $800 billion limit placed on the Federal

ReServe The economic stimulus and the bailouts will not bring back

our casino capitalism And as the meltdown shoWs no signs of abating

Jnd the bailouts showno signofworking the recldessness and despershy

ation ofour capitali$t overlordshaveincreased The cost to the working

and middle class is belZonring unsustainable The Fed reported that

holiSebolds lost $51 trillion or 9 percent of their wealth in the last

three months of 2008 the most eer in a single quarter in the frltyshy

seven-year history of reCQrdkeeping by the central bank For the full

year household wealth dropped $n1 trillion Or about IS percent

These figures did not rerord the decline of investments in the stock

market which hasprobably erased trillions mOre in the countrys colshylective net worth

The butlet to out head inevitable if we do not radically alter

course will be sudden We have been borrOwing at the rate of more

than $2 billion a day over the last ten years and at sorne poinUr has to

CHRIS HEDGBS I 187

$Wp The lllCltment (11ma the 6il-tich states and dtner international

inlestors stop bnyit1g iS Treasury Bonds the ckillar will Delttlmejunk Intlatton will roclietupward We wi become Weimar GernJariy A fudshyous and sustained bacldasb by a betray~ and angry popldaCeuro one

IInpltepaJed intellectnallyand psychologicaily for w1lapse will sweep aside the Demo~ratsmd most of the Republkat1$ A Gabal of protoshyfaslist mhfits frCltm Christian demagogues to simpletQDS liKe Sarah Palin to loudmouth taik-show hosts whom we ruiively dismiss as bnfshy

loom will find a following with promises revengf and moral

renewaL The elites the ones with their Harvard Business School

degrees and expensive vocabularies will retreat into their sheltered enclaves of privilege and comfort We will be left bereft abandoned

outsidemiddotthe gates and at the mercy ofthe security state

Lenin said that the best way to destloy the ~pita1ist System wasta

debauch its ltcurrency As our financial crisis tJnrave1s and our curshy

retlq becomes worthless there v-ill be a loss Qf cOBfide~ in the trashyditional mechaJrisms that regulate society When money becomes

worthless so does govemment All traditional standards and beliefs

are shattered in a severe economic crisis The moral order is turned llpside down The honest and induStrious are wiped out while the

gangsters profiteets ~d speculators walkltM1Y with millions There are signs that this bas begun Look at Lehman Brothets CEO Richard

Fwd Many of his iHVestorslost everything and yet he poclceted $485 million An eool1omic aillapse does not meanliJnly the degradation of tr~e and commerce food shortages bankrupttiepound and unemplQYshy

~nt It also means theqstematic dynamiting of the foundations ofa

$Odety I watch~ this happen in Yllgoslavia I watch it now in the

united States The free market and globalization premised as rootes to worldshy

wide prosperity haVe heltlft exposed as two parts of a con game But this ~ure does not mean our corperate mastecs will disappear Totalishy

tarianism as GeQrge Orwell pointed out is not50 much an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia A society IDeromes totalitarian wben its ~wture becomesffagrantlyarti6cial Orwdi wrote That is when it~ ruling class has lost its function but succeeds in clinging to poWer by fprce or fraud- Theyruwe engaged in massive fraud Force is aU they

havdeft

188 I EMIIRE OFllL~StQN

Tbere are 110Wa1hl COlJPOE~teentities karful oflosmgtheirinfiushyence and wealth arrayed against us They~waitingfQra moment to strike a n~onal vQsi( that will allow tnem in the name of national security and moral renewal to take comp1et~ control The t~ol$ate in place The~ antidemoeratic f()rces whidl wUi seek to ttlm an alliance with the radical Christian llightand other extremiSts will use fear lthllOS thcent hatred fur the ruling elites and the spetSter of left-wing disshysent and terlorism ro impose draconian controls to exti~guish our

democracy And while they do it they will be waviug the Amencan flag chanting patriotic slogltlns promising law and order and clutching the Christian cross By then exhausted and bmken we may ha~ lo~ the power to resist

-=

In Joseph Rallhs book Jhe 1npetors Tombwhkh nronicles the deary of the Atlsfr-Q~Hungarlan Empire he Wliote fcbat at the very end

of the empire even the streetlights longelti fur mofiling SQ that t~y CQuld he extinguished The undercurrent ofa wodd lik1e ours~ Where people are reduced to objects aud where there are no higher values Wbere national mythswflap$e triggers a similar longing fur annihilashytion and a motal deenne into hedonism andgktdy wmmunalmadshy

lle~ The earth is strewn with the mins of powerful cMfizatiQnsrbat deeayed-Egj])tPersil tlie Mayan elnpir~ Romebull By~tinru and the Mugh~d Ottoman and Chinese kingdolrul Not all died for fhe siube reasons RltUllli for ~ple never faced a depletion of natural resources etC environDlenml catastrophe Btft theyall at a certaib

pOlntwere taken Over by a bankrupt and corrupt elite This elite squandering resouroe$ and pUiaging the state was no longer able to

mUster interllaI allegiance and cohesivene9i These empires died moraily The leaders in the final peried ofdeCayincr~singlyhad to rely (gtnatmed menrenarieSi as we do in Iraq and AfghanistslIbecause cttjzens would no longet serve in the mill$y They de~ded into

orgi~ of self-indulgenc~ surrendered their civic and emotionalliv-cents to the glitter elOtemeqt and spectacle ofthe arena became politishyeally apatbetilt and wllapsed

The mOTe we Slver ourselves from a literate print-based world a woddmiddotofcomplexity and nuance a worki of ideasfot oneinformed by

eurocHRI$ HEDGflS I 189

comforting re~uring imases fimtasies slogans celebrities and a lust for violence the more weare destined to implode At the collapse conshytinues lJud our suffering mouDts~ we yearn like World Wrestling Entertainment funs or those who confuse pGrnography lOve for the comfort reassurlll1ce and beauty of illusion The illusioo makes us

good It is its own reality And the lonely Cassaadraamp who truth about our misguided imperial wars the e~onomk meltshy

or the immi11etlt danger of multiple pollutions and soaring

overpopmationare drowned out by arenas full of excited fans chantshying Slutl Slut Slut or tdevision audiences chantin~ JER-RYl

fER-RY JER-RY1 The wo~e reality becomes the less a beleaguered papulation

W3uts to hear about it and tiJe nrore it distracts itself with sqtlaiid pseudo-events of celebrity breakdowns gossip and trivia These are1he debauched wrels of a dying civm~tion The most l)miJlous cultural

lies betwcetl those who ch~ after th~ manuwtured illusions and those whltgt are to pUncture the illusion and conftmt reality More than the divides of race class or geuder mlue than rural or urban believer or nonbeliever red state or blue state our culture has been carved up into I1adically distinct unbridgeable andlntagonistic

entities that no longer speak the ~me hmgu~ and cannotconununishycate This is the divide between a literate roargirtaliwl minority and

those who have been consumed by an illiterate mass cultme Mass culture is a Peter Pan culture It tells us that if we close our

eyes if we visualize what we want ifwe have faith in ourselves ifwe tell God that we bll1ievein miracles if we tap into our inner strength ifwe

that we are truly exceptional if we fo~s on happinessour lives will be harmoni(us and cmnplete This cultural retreat into ilhimon

whether peddled by positive psychologists BoUywood or Christian preachers is a furm of magical thinking It turns worthless mo~tgages and into wealth It turns the destruction of our manufacturing base into an opportunity growtb It turns alienation andanldety into a cheerful amformity It turns a nation that wages illegal wars and administers off-shere penal coloni~ where it openly practices torture

lnta the greatest demQCtaCl on The world that awaits US will be painful and difsectcult We will be

dragged to to the understanding that we cannot mold

190 I BMJgtIRB 011 ILLUSION

and reality a~ordiilg

potism We will learn to adjust ottr meStyle~ ~dlcallY~ to diminiShed iesotmeSenvironmentaI ~ and a eontracting econshyomy as wen as ourdetJine as a military p6wer~ ormiddotWe will diecIiQsjng to dur illusions Th~ are the stark choke8bewre us

Rut even ifwe fail to halt thededineitwill not be the end ofhope The we fucemay he powerful and ruthleuroSS They may have the call~city to plunge us into a tertifYing dystopia one where wemiddot will see our fr~doms curtailed and widespread economic deprivation Rut no tvramw ill history has crushed the human capacity for love And this lOVle--un~llg1lni~ed irrational often pwpclling us to carry out acts of cQlnpassion that jeopardize our existence-is deeply subversive to

in power Love which appears in small blilidaqs of kindness rnanifested itself even in the nOrto of the Nazi death camps in the killing fields ofCambodia in the Sovietguiags and in the genocides in the and Rwauda

The Russian novelist VlSily GrOSsttlall wrote of the power of th~ actS in his masterpiece Ufe and Fate

f have seen that itis not man who is impotent in the struggle ag~inst evil but the power (If il that is irnp()1eotin the struggle against

man The powereSSl1ellS of kindness of senseless kimfuess is the Igtecret of its immortality It qln never be tenquereli The IllQrestupid

the more the more helpless it milyS~ tlievaster it is Evil is impotent it Tire prgtophets religiousteachers reformers social and pollticalleaders are impotent before it This dlUnb blind love is mans meaning

Human not the battle ofgood $tllIggliiJig tfl overcome

ecvil It is a bat~le ~tbra great evil struggliI1g mcrusha small kershynel of human But jf what is human in Pnman beings has not been evmllroW then evil will never~nquergtJ

What was a surap to a commander of the Khmer kouge or Joseph WMt Was a scrap of to Russian poet Osip Manddstam reign of tetlOt ox the Hungarian poet Miklos Radnoti on body found in a ma5S grave weJe ~ms that condemned his fascist killers and are today taught to

CHRIS HEDGES I 191

I

schoolchildren in Hungary Im a poet whos fit for the stakes fire Radn6ti had scribbled because to the t~uth hes testified One who knows that the snow is white the blood is red as is the poppy and the poppys fUTry stalk is green One whom they will kill in the end because he himself has never killed tfhat were the teachings of Jesus to the Roman consuls or the sayings ofBJddha to the feudal warlords Vhose words decades later do we heed iche pompous and grandiose rants of the dictator and the politician or the gentle reminders that cal us back to the human

I am not nalve about violence tyranny and war I have seen

enough of human cru~ty But I have also iseen in conflict after conflict that we underestimate the power of love the power of a Salvadorian

archbishop even tough he was assaS~hplusmnted to defy the killing t~e power of a mayor m a small Balkan vt1l~ge to halt the attacks on hIS

Muslim neighbors These champions of~e sacred even long after they

are gone become invisible witnesses to tIfse who follow condemning through theirsoarage their own execu~ioner$ They may be few in number but their voices ripple outward rover time The medirnrities who mask their feelings of worthlessness and emptiness behind the fa)ade of power and illusion who seek tOI make us serve their perverse

ideologies fear most those who speak in the language of love They

seek as others have sought throughout h~man history to silence these lonely voices and yet these voices always rise in magnificent defiance

All ages all cultures and all religions produce those who challenge the oppressor and fight fur the oppressed Oms is no exception The ability

to stand as an ironic point of light that flashes out wherever the just

exchange their messages is the ability to ~ustain a life of meaning Itis to understand as Cyrano said at the end of his life I know you will leave me with nothing-neither the lanre Gorthe rose Take it all then

I There is one possession I take with me mpm this place Tonight when I

stand before God-and bow low to him1 so that my rorehead brushes

his footstool the frrmament-I will st~nd again and proudly show Him that one pure possession-which l~ve never ceased to cherish or

to share with a11- Our culture of illusion is at its core~ a culture of death It will die

and leave little of value behind It was Sl1arta that celebrated raw milishytarism discipline obedience and poweli but it was Athenian art and

192 I EMFIRE OF ILLUSION

1~pound~~i~~

philosophy that echoed down the ages to enlighten new worlds includshy

ing om own Hope exists It will always exist [t will not come through structures Of institutions nor will it come through nation-states but it will prevail even if we as distinct individuals and civilizations vanish The power onove is greater than the power of death It canuot be conshytrolled It is about sacrifice for the other-somerhing nearlyeveryparshyent understands--rather than exploitation It is about honoring the sacred And power elites have for millennia hed and failed to crush the

force of love Blihd and dumb indifferent to the siren calls of celebrity

unable to bow before illusions defying the lust for power love conshy

stantly rises up to remind a wayward society of what is real and what is illusion Love will endure even if it appears darkness has swallowed us all to trimnph over the wreclGlge that remains

CllRIS HEDGES I 193