Days of Revolt - Neoliberalism as Utopianism

In this episode of Days of Revolt, host Chris Hedges and author John Ralston Saul discuss neoliberalism as an ideology, the breakdown of that ideology, and what comes next. The two draw parallels between historic systems of power and the current corporatism that exists in the West today, and unveil the tactics used by both to control language and collective memory. teleSUR multimedia.telesurtv.net/v/day...

[@annberry8149]

This is the kind of program Americans desperately need to watch and hear in media... but instead, the vast majority of the population have never heard of these speakers.

[@joshuapowell114]

Very true....

[@BD-fq5rp]

There’s a reason for that.

[@SetTrippin82]

I’m afraid that the majority of most populations in many nations ignore the warnings and insight Hedges and other progressive critical thinkers provide.

[@brawndo8726]

I'd love to hear the 2020 retrospective on this interview 😳

[@55ella2007k]

Excellent ! This should be shared widely !

[@markodochartaigh4097]

+mrsme1234 Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

[@bouranel]

+mrsme1234 what are you talking about? go away if you cant come op with anything constructive. Why would you not want to share this?

[@bouranel]

+mrsme1234 stop being so cynical and pessemistic then. I have hope for humanity, you dont obviosly , thats the difference between us. Peace from copenhagen

[@55ella2007k]

I actually understand and share your pessimism. And I don't believe that humanity will survive, at least not in its present form. Global warming will wreak absolute havoc a few decades from now, and the continued mantra of "growth" and the environmental destruction it produces, is not survivable for most humans and/or other species - with the exception of organisms which can adapt to hostile conditions far more quickly than most. As far as nihilism is concerned, I view it as a philosophical position, and perhaps even a valid one, but not as something of practical importance in the here and now. Imagine a real world scenario, in which nothing matters, all sorts of violence is ok, because in the end, we all die anyway. I would not want to live in such a world. What I don't understand about Hedges, and I admire him greatly, are his personal choices, in such a terrible world, to have more children - he is a father of 3 children, I believe. Why do this, when he knows, what a fucked up planet they will be living in? Trump is just the latest reactionary phenomenon in history and nothing new. It's also not unique to America, as you know. In any case, it's all downhill from here.

[@deonal]

Wow what a loaded interview, thanks to two great citizens of the word er world.

[@heliosabbot838]

Technocracy... the death of the renaissance man.

[@khaartoumsings]

Superb concise discussion of our modern day 1750 political elite... ; ) K

[@JohnMccart777]

Great to hear the TRUTH! Thank you.

[@blackhawck70]

John Ralston Saul, wisdom speaks

[@Planetgonenuts]

"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking. And out of it we get an aggregation which we consider a boon. Its name is public opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. Some think it is the voice of God." - Mark Twain, Mark Twain On The Damned Human Race.

[@MistahRapsey]

I wish Chris Hedges has allowed him to finish a few more of his sentences. great interview though, thank you!

[@biggerson51]

Mistah Rapsey unfortunately that's Chris's MO

[@juliusschwencke142]

...can't imagine what could have been said, but through interruptions at the most innopportune moments, I feel the thread of of discourse has been compromised. I'd rather listen to the interviewee, and not the interviewer.

[@jamescreek1319]

Mistah Rapsey he has an impulse to explain things to the public he feels they don’t understand without his input on the subject of discussion it’s really annoying when an interviewer keeps interjecting and interrupting the guests and won’t let them finish their conversation very rude not saying that Chris hedges dose that but some of the interviews I’ve watched lately make me want to slap the person interrupting the speaker with their arrogance and trying to get their voices over the important people speaking and it’s distracting to the guests and they don’t get to finish their train of thought

[@patrickholt2270]

I have been thinking in terms of the end of the Roman Republic for a long time, but also of the crisis which immediately preceeded the French revolution. I wasn't aware of Solon of Athens as a relevant example, which demonstrates my ignorance of that history. Certainly the looting of the state by private interests resulting in its bankruptcy and having to reach for yet for extreme measures to obtain revenue before having to turn to the people in the form of a special parliament (it could be a new constituent assembly, like Wolf-pac.com is going for), triggering revolution with the inability of the old ruling clas to continue to rule in the same old way and the refusal of the people to continue to be ruled in the same old way, is obviously coming over the horizon. Also, the looting of the state by private interests is a central feature in the collapse of the Roman Empire, which was ultimately unable to afford the army required for the national defense, with that elite corruption, tax evasion and larceny directly producing feudalism as they took to their private estates and built themselves pocket economies of barter and labour servitude within them.

[@AxmedBahjad]

Language is a useful tool to inform the masses!

[@AxmedBahjad]

It depends on who. I am referring to this discussion - to inform the masses!

[@ThePp12345678]

Language is used to control the masses is the worry. When speech is restricted/outlawed/illegal as in "Hate speech" as what is deemed OK now, those who want political change can deem hate speech to repress opposition to their agenda.

[@malachi5813]

Wonderful, thank you!

[@endershepard7117]

When they started talking about the power of language, words and communication and how those in power today and thousands of years ago have ever feared thinkers and dreamers. And saw them as a threat that must be neutralized. I couldn't help but think about how Jesus was called the Word of God and how he too like Cisero and Martin Luther King Jr. was killed for what he said and believed. So its fair to put him in that company of writers who have been executed by the state.

[@patrickholt2270]

Absolutely. And of course he was executed as a traitor, in the manner reserved for traitors ('bandits'), rebelling slaves and deserters (think about those categories in relation to his teachings, whenever you hear the scripture about taking up our crosses and following him). He proclaimed a rival form of kingship for a rival form of kingdom, in which the Jubilee decrees of the Law of Moses, not being enforced at the Temple, in fact being reversed at the Temple, which were the same things demanded by the prophets, would be delivered. Thus living out of a common purse in the gospels, and then after the resurrection, ascension and pentecost, literally the next verse in the Acts of the Apostles, adopting original-sense communism as the specific manifestation of the kingdom of God in progress. While that practise petered out, it remains in scripture as effectively the official Biblical model, whatever else we have been doing instead since, Rome continued to take the church's proclamation of the kingship of Jesus and of the kingdom of God on earth as a real existential threat to the Empire, to the political authority of the Empire, as a literal rival state in miniature and as a political plan, and perscuted the faith on that basis. That the Christians wouldn't sacrifice to the divine emperors was actual political treason, and that was the meaning and purpose of naming Roma as a deity as well as many of the Emperors, so that religion should enforce the authority of the state.

[@goodlife1150]

Any critical thinker is a rebel to the power structure

[@goodlife1150]

You don’t need to eat the forbidden fruit thy shall surely die know as forbidden knowledge

[@pureenergy5051]

Ender Yeah, BUT, these people don't understand quantum physics. God is literally conscious light. We and this whole universe IS literally light. I found this information in the subject of quantum physics. Solidity does not exist. From the book "The Quantum World" written by the physicist Kenneth Ford I found these words: 'magically bursting forth are quarks spinning billions of times a second as 3 points of light, forming what are called protons and neutrons'. People consist of 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms, all spinning and vibrating at super fast speeds as conscious light. Hydrogen atoms spin as 7 points of light. Carbon atoms spin as 42 points of light. Oxygen atoms spin as 56 points of light. Barbara Brennan, a physicist that wrote the book "Hands of Light", wrote that we are eternal, electromagnetic, holographic and multidimensional energy and light beings. She trained herself to see people as holograms. This way she sees into their bodies to see where they are holding energy, which is always because of fear. So her practice is helping people to discuss what their stresses are. Since we are energy itself, it only makes sense that stress resonates within our holographic bodies, changing them constantly. Stress can act like a dam, which stops the flow of our perfect energy creation. Stress causes sneezes and coughs and tumors and cancer and AIDs, heart attacks and strokes AND polio, etc. Everyone is so afraid of death that their whole lives are lived in a frenzy of stress. We live saturated in a perfect mind many call God. We breathe God, eat God, walk with God and see out the eyes of a God that is constantly creating us. Death does not exist because we are spinning and vibrating way too fast to be solid. At "death" we literally just pop out of these bodies to see ourselves as light.

[@PortlandsTransport]

Incredibly excellent thought provoking presentation

[@TranscendianIntendor]

I have come to imagine having such as I find put on my own Channel. I am a working class independent scholar. I am near able to keep up, just nearly. Without systems engineering we cannot figure it out.

[@garrydavidson1]

Imagine if the population watched this instead of the mindless super bowl. Just imagine!!

[@juliusschwencke142]

...some people can do both

[@ranger14809]

i concur excellent!!!!!

[@rosebiceps]

My hero Chris hedges

[@alfredomontealegre7132]

I agree 100% 55ella2007k. This program must be shared widely!

[@injusticeanywherethreatens4810]

Just wow. I'm just learning about all this today? 25 years of lies. I'm finally waking up.

[@BirdArvid]

3:28 "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough." - Einstein. Or.. you want to confuse and obfuscate..

[@johnconnors1112]

The MarketPlace as the Number 1 Important thing in Society. Bad Idea ( The LOVE of MONEY is the Root of All Evil)!!! By the Way the Guest Was Brilliant. Good Job Chris

[@FrancineDozoisPeoplePower]

Great interview. Who knows, it might even convince the sceptics... euh... on second hand... maybe not. Damn it, it hurts.

[@Captain_MonsterFart]

+Francine Dozois Skeptics of what?

[@ChateauGuitars]

How does one square the comment "Declaration of Inevitability and the Declaration of Truth are two characteristics of an ideology" with the current rhetoric surrounding climate change?

[@NEMO-NEMO]

What memory is Mr. Saul talking about?

[@PeachesCourage]

Would I want to know those at the top of cream No. Power over others?

[@JamesOGant]

His first statement about predictability is a bit undermining because then he talks about predictability. The difference is the difference between rationale and rationalization, and moralizing and morality. The difference is the assumptions of the worldview and whether those assumptions are met by reality. The real kicker in this discussion is that the Neoliberals propose ideas only for sheer opportunity, power, money etc. It has nothing to do with rationale based in reality, and it's all about the culture of spin. So I wish he had not made that opening statement bc what makes it ideology vs accurate worldview which can be used for prediction is the measurable reality of the world we live in.

[@Jraymiami]

🤯

[@---Free-Comics---IG---Playtard]

03:29 - Such tactics are also used to procure social inclusion.

[@Dhumm81]

The poor masses are not as ignorant of our problems and solutions as these, perhaps well-meaning, "middle-class" folks like to repeat among themselves.

[@sonofatiger]

What a very nice video to here from intellectuals that learn from everyday life and learn from it to improve on it. I have artistic skills and I'm so happy that my mother let me that way because it makes you great things out imagination and put beauty on this earth with all the corruption and violence that dictators put on their people. It's just a good thing to have a place in your heart for all mankind and try to improve all their lives instead of destroy it. But sometimes religion and politics leads to fascism and that's not a very good thing because some politicians hide behind religion just to get their votes as soon as they get in power like George W. Bush saying that god wanted to be president and he ignored seven warnings before 911 happened and he did do nothing to try to stop it. Because he was just looking for the weapon manufactures to get rich and probably get some of them from donations and I find that crony capitalism when you let people die to get rich and don't care for your fellow man that is so hypocritical. And that's one reason that I am the anti hypocrite I want society to be better for all mankind but we have certain people that take advantage of people and steal from them and it's all because the white collar crime and these individuals should be locked up and throw away the key because they're not helping society they're destroying it.It was something I was younger that people would put down artist because Adolf Hitler was an artist but every person is a way individual and everybody is somewhat an artist how they do the things that they do. But I think that some people are afraid of imagination and to improve on people's lives because every artist as an individual and have love and respect for their fellow man but someone like Adolf Hitler was not a true artist because mostly artist see the beauty and everything . But I think Adolph Hitler did what he did because a religion because he was a catholic and in care for what the Jews did to Jesus so he retaliated on them all because of some old gossip so many centuries ago. Myself I'm an atheist and I know there's no god when I see people hide behind religion and commits sins and go to their place of worship and repent from all their sins and they repeat them the next week and repeat the process all over and over again. I can prove there is no god because if you had all the religious people to pray and have the sun come up in the west and set in the east is approved there's god and when it doesn't happen there is no god. That's another reason I am anti hypocrite because I see reality for what it is and I know it can be improved but some people just never won a try.

[@davidlangouet9439]

30 mn only but definitly go buy his books.

[@idicula1979]

Reason can be gamed reason repeats over and over and it gets stale, we need intellectual who care about the problem not Pharisees of legalizing around and making the law a bloodless husk of itself with no connection to those it serves. Great people who inspire, because after all that is the only thing the people can do Jesus inspired that's all he did he did and in the end he is a serv s the butt of cruel jokes for being tortured, who cares what color he was, or what his exact words where. He inspired and if you inspire you live on and on in the hearts and minds of those after you

[@pureenergy5051]

"reducing public chatter to idiocy"? Is that why I am alone all the time? I had a NDE as a child and people called that idiocy then and still do now, mostly, yet I have found books that champion NDEs as being proof that all of us are eternal energy beings right here and right now. These books are about quantum physics. Why is it that quantum physics is not being discussed in politics? I stongly feel that all your issues would melt away if people knew that they are constantly being created as light beings or holograms. Protons spin as positive charges and electrons spin as negative charges. Why has this sentence been put on the back burner when it proves all by itself that we are all electrical magnetic energy field vibrations? This is what physicists say atoms are. People consist of 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms, all spinning and vibrating and otherwise doing what energy and light does. Has anyone at all thought about what quarks are? They are spinning billions of times a second as 3 points of light, forming what are called protons and neutrons. Electrons spin and vibrate as 1 point of light. Add these together and a hydrogen atom spins as 7 points of light. Carbon atoms spin as 42 points of light and oxygen atoms spin as 56 points of light. I am not a physicist, yet I think that I can safely say that all atoms spin as points of light. This is what solidity is. I don't see solidity in spinning points of light. I see that we all come from the light. I see that all of us ARE light. literally. The physicist Barbara Brennan that wrote the book "Hands of Light" sees people as holograms/images. When subatomic particles are spinning and vibrating super fast they are not solid AND they are creating images. We are "created in the image of God". This is why solidity is an illusion, literally. This is where those sayings come from that I have heard forever about energy not dying but transforming and this whole life being a dream. Non solid subatomic particles that spin and vibrate super fast are the answer to this corporate fascism. The way I see it, any disfunction is based on fear. The only true fear is death. These corporate types are the ones most afraid of death. That is why they are the biggest bullies on the playground. They think that there are too many people on the playground of earth so the earth is going to deconstruct if they don't do something about it. I have read this. So they built a depopulation plan full of chemicals and all corporations are a part of it. Get that book "Hands of Light" and give it away. Give billions away. Teach people that they are literally eternal light constantly being created. This light is our literal oneness AND it is the gateway to really fast healing.

[@MrTimeless101]

this should be in the ny times but they don't have the courage.

[@EggsOverGreasy]

You deleted my comments on Cicero. Anyway. You're all wrong about him. See Michael Parenti's book on Julius Caesar.

[@Yourismouter]

+EggsOverGreasy what was it that you said?

[@noooreally]

I disagree with the rob ford comment... he did crack but he wasn't whack.... otherwise I agree with everything he said.

[@jstroncheck]

Hedges is either a wanna be elitist or is one. Rather than work for any justice, he'd rather talk about the poor poor little people.

[@Trenton.D]

Um, he was at Standing Rock. He was at Zuccotti Park. He's been with Knights of the Alt-Right. He's travelled around the country documenting and speaking with disaffected people. He's been to Trump's now defunct and Taj Mahal casino, with mothballed rooms, drug users getting high in elevators, urinals with plastic over them, rats fighting on the floor...