Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
goingundergroundRT on Jan 28, 2017
We talk shop with former UK business minister Vince Cable over Theresa May’s attempts at post-Brexit damage control. We speak to the Director of a new Oliver Stone-exec produced film about mainstream media parroting government lies. We ask Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Chris Hedges about why if you are a journalist who cares, you don’t get a promotion.
Watch the video here. (Hedges begins at 17:44 minutes into the video report)
Arrest of RT America journalist ‘an absolute outrage’
RT America on Jan 25, 2017
RT America’s Alex Rubinstein was reporting on the unprecedented Inauguration Day protests on Friday, when he and five other journalists were arrested and charged with felony rioting. RT America correspondent Manuel Rapalo brings us media reactions to their arrests and the charges.
Related article here.
From the archives:
Glen Ford: There is No Such Thing as a Progressive Movement That is Aligned with the CIA
Chris Hedges and Glen Ford: Obama’s Legacy–The Smashing of the Left
The Enemy is Not Trump, It is Ourselves by John Pilger
Chris Hedges and Abby Martin: What Is The Purpose Of The Intelligence Report?
Chris Hedges: Journalism Should Be About Truth, Not Career
Chris Hedges Booed off the Stage as He Delivered a Graduation Speech on War and Empire (2003)
Dandelion Salad 
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I’ve been listening to a selection of TED talks today, going back 10 years; two recent ones about the great US divide ~ discussing strategies for reconciliation and effective communication based on research in moral and social psychology. Both presentations are from men; valuable and relevant of course, but somehow missing something.
So I then opted for some women’s talks, covering recent politics (in Iceland) and issues of development in Asia and Africa. These were particularly interesting, because they opened up (for me) the enormous incoherence that exists between business, health and wealth; and helped me to understand how enterprise coupled with politics and cultural development initiatives, can be so powerful in addressing the big empowerment questions of gender and poverty at the grass roots.
Meanwhile back at the Ponderosa Ranch, the same old, same old Bonanza cliches are being played out with tedious predictability, and a thoroughly gauche paucity of universal imagination. Gender stereotypes still rule the reactionary roost.
How sad it is, that Hilary Clinton was the ‘women’s candidate’ and not Jill Stein.
That said, Vince Cable, articulates our Brexit dilemma very well; of course General de Gaulle might have cheered heartily to learn of Britain’s reckless referendum result, were he still with us. What a mess.
So our Lady PM heads off to Washington to peck at the GM crumbs on the ‘primitive’ gargantuan platter of Trump-steak promises. What a joke. This catastrophic trend is going to take years to resolve, if indeed it can ever be resolved given the present dynamics and configurations. Breakdown not breakthrough seems probable, if not inevitable. For this is what fake democracy produces: limitless chaos.
And why? because democracy can only function effectively where there exists the highest level of informed diversity and inclusive discourse. A pseudo-culture that runs on propaganda can never be a ‘free’ & open society. Reality is a mix of stories. Simplistic monoculture-narratives are doomed to fail us.
Which leads us to the crack-down on independent media. Franco and Mussolini would have thoroughly approved. Pinochet would be literally soiling his Opus Dei under-pants with enthusiasm.
So I look forward to the new Stone film immensely; & totally concur with Chris Hedges, when he says Obama handed over the iniquitous shiny tool-kit for massive repression, all ready to use & prepared in advance for Trump’s megalomaniac delectation. Obama proved to be a cunning shyster. A slippery, quicksilver-tongued and elegant assassin.
The USA needs a brand new Constitution; not ever more glitzy war-toys for morally lobotomized ‘girls’ who want to be ‘bad boys.’
So well stated, David.