Somebody had to formally declare class war on the oligarchs and plutocrats on American Labor’s behalf, and that’s what Chris Hedges, with a little help from his friends, did with the great finesse and clarity he’s famous for. In Baseball, a Big Fly is a home run, and that’s just what team Hedges & Fish, batting from Robert Scheer’s internet platform scheerpost.com, with an assist from Matt Taibbi, have accomplished with Hedges: America’s New Class War, posted on Scheer’s site January 18, 2022. When great journalists get together and take a swing at informing their readers about an issue of far-reaching significance, a hit is to be expected. The synergy of Hedges, Fish, Sheer and Taibbi always assures readers that serious oligarch ball-busting will at least make the game interesting. All of these writers have been reliable producers of some real “dingers” over the years, but this time at bat the “ball was blistered,” as they say in the dugout. It’s a “Jack” and a “Moonshot” guaranteed to “touch ‘em all.”
Hedges is one of the teams most formidable “sluggers,” and his books and articles over the years have enlightened millions about the importance and power of workers’ movements throughout American history. In this piece he points out that “There is a growing consensus—68% in a recent Gallup poll with that number climbing to 77% of those between the ages of 18 and 34—that the only way left to alter the balance of power and force concessions from the ruling capitalist class is to mobilize and strike, although only 9% of the U.S. work force is unionized. Forget the woke Democrats. This is class war.” Calling the cynical responses of the Biden administration to confront the Republican forces of fascism “empty political theatre,” Hedges outlines the myriad ways Democrats “have been full partners in the dismantling of our democracy” and he makes it clear that “as history has repeatedly proven, organized labor, allied with a political party dedicated to its interests, is the best tool to push back against the rich.”
“Unions break down political divides,” Hedges also writes, “bringing workers of all political persuasions together to fight a common oligarchic and corporate foe. Once workers begin to exert power and extract demands from the ruling class, the struggle educates communities about the real configurations of power (italics mine) and mitiagtes the feelings of powerlessness that have driven many into the arms of the neofascists. For this reason, capitulating to the Democratic Party, which has betrayed working men and women, is a terrible mistake.”
The human impulse to be governed by a transcendent ideal in times of crisis takes many forms, such as voting for demagogues, and/or believing the bogus promises of what writer Anne Lamott calls “narrow and darkly narcissistic colorectal theology, offering hope to no one.” Representatives of the genre abound in America’s narcissistic, instant gratification culure, amply supporting H.L. Mencken’s view that self interest has always facilitated religious belief. Religion, Mencken contended, gives “man access to powers which seems to control his destiny and its simple purpose is to induce those powers to be friendly to him.” Reverend Ike, the late televangelist who famously said “You can’t lose with the stuff I use,” while exhorting his audience to guarantee salvation with a generous donation, comes readily to mind. Sadly for the future of democracy, a profession of blind faith in the ideology or Christian fascist charlatan of the moment is deemed more worthy as an agent of social change than political action. All across the land, from the White House to the humblest farm house, radical belief systems abound where truth is validated via emotional consensus rather than syllogistic proof in the realm of verifiable facts.
In his blockbuster piece, Hedges also cites Matt Taibbi’s recent story about the Wall Street banks’ record profits for 2021 and how they’re using the money to pay executives bonuses, buy back company stocks with the net effect of increasing the number of American billionaires to 745, while ordinary workers lose. Taibbi also reported on his Substack blog TK News, that “while the (vaccine ) shame campaign has been a catastrophe as public health strategy, it has been effective as autocratic misdirection, a way to keep the public’s eye off the vault.” As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich pointed out on Substack recently “Capitalism and democracy are compatible only if democracy is in the driver’s seat.” Today, Capitalism is at the wheel, recklessly driving the country to ruin for everyone except the rich. “Profits of the nation’s corporations have reached a 70-year high,” Reich said, “despite the pandemic, while the ratio of CEO pay in large companies to average workers has ballooned from 20-to-1 in the 1960s, to 320-to-1 now.” Concurrently, in his January 19, 2022 edition of TK News, Matt Taibbi documented the falling poll numbers and other consequences of the Democratic Party’s failure to reign in the excesses of the grifter class. “If the Democrats had just figured a way to deliver a few things for ordinary people over the years,” he wrote, “they would never have lost again. I’m giving the party more credit than it deserves for actually wanting to remain in power, but if that were its real goal, the formula was obvious. Single-payer health care, bulk negotiation of drug prices, antitrust action against Too Big To Fail banks or Silicon Valleys surveillance monopolists—really anything that demonstrates a willingness to prioritize voters over the takeover artists and CEOs who fund the party would have given them enduring credibility.”
The situation outlined by Taibbi and Reich makes Hedge’s article on Scheerpost a “grand slammer” must read for the working classes, which is expertly illustrated by the incomparable Mr. Fish, another “slugger” journalist whose cartoon captures the whole sickening tragedy about the capitulation of the American people to corporate rule in one masterful picture. The forthright clarity of the piece and the power of the message makes it a call to arms for workers across America to join together in solidarity to “throw off their chains.” As Hedges points out in his writings, again and again, it is the only way to create a just society that works for everyone, not only the wealthy, but “a new society within the shell of the old” as the International Workers of the World slogan characterized the struggle over a century ago. Hedges and company have pointed the way: stop voting for candidates of the corrupt two-party system; stop believing that demagogues like Donald Trump will save the day, and above all, stop “licking corporate ass crack,” as Mr. Fish once put it.
We now have proof, that as Hedges says, “There is one last hope for the United States. It does not lie in the ballot box … the democrats won’t save us. They have sold out to the billionaire class. We can only save ourselves.” On January 19, passage of the voting rights bill, the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act was blocked by Senate Republicans who used the filibuster to accomplish their undemocratic, dirty deed with two Democrats, Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), joining their effort to kill the measure. This morning I posted my response to the bad news which I include here at the end of this piece because it reflects the spirit and language of truth that Chris Hedges has given to so many of us in his writings, speeches and sermons.
“No one is above the law,” except apparently the people who make the laws. Today’s events in the Swamp demonstrate how dishonorable, venal politicians create loopholes in the fabric of Justice, manipulate the rules to suit themselves and the monied interests that support them, and arrogantly betray their responsibility to the Constitution they took an oath to protect and defend. Instead of serving the highest aspirations of the American people, these weasels blatantly cater to the demands of the corporations who financed their elections. From this day forward the names Manchin and Sinema will live in infamy as the leading culprits who helped extinguish the dying embers of democracy. No surprise there, but in addition to committing the moral crime of restricting our freedoms by taking away significant voting rights, these so-called representatives of the people have accomplished something else of even greater importance. They have made it clear what We, the people must now do to reignite the spark of American democracy from the ashes of political corruption. We must revolt non-violently at the grassroots level through boycotts, work stoppages and mass protests. America is now held in the grip of a radical evil that will not be released through violent reactivity. We must act peacefully, in solidarity, as one unified force for Justice and the inalienable rights bequeathed to us by the nation’s founders. We must Resist! Organize! Strike! And above all, we must ensure that our actions demonstrate the power of love that still informs the “better angels of our natures” also inspiring us, as the great poet Wendell Berry said, to “practice resurrection” in all our affairs.