It has the capacity to commodify everything. ibid.
They are taking from us our constitutional rights by judicial fiat i.e reinterpreting the right of unlimited corporate power through a distorted interpretation of the constitution. ibid.
Jesus didn’t come to make us rich. ibid.
There used to be a liberal wing of the Democratic Party but it’s long gone. ibid.
You can’t maintain a democracy in an oligarchy. ibid.
They are playing a very dangerous game by refusing to address the fundamental issues that have distorted our society. ibid.
You’re not going to rationally argue these people out of their world-view. ibid.
He [Trump] is the classic con artist that rises up out of a decayed state. ibid.
You’ve created fertile ground for the rise of American fascism. And our only response now is sustained mass acts of civil disobedience. ibid.
The state will be viscous … They will throw everything at us … We have no time left just from climate change, we have no time left, and in that sense resistance becomes a moral imperative. We have to stop being constrained by the tyranny of the practical. ibid.
Revolution is what I’m calling for … I’m calling for the overthrow of the corporate state. ibid.
But if we don’t stand up, it can’t be seen and we can’t use the word hope. I don’t know if we will win. I don’t even know if we will survive as a species. But these corporate forces have us by the throat and they have my children by the throat. And in the end, I don’t fight fascists because I will win, I fight fascists because they are fascists. ibid.
The planet has become a sacrifice zone. Chris Hedges, Constructing Rebellion: The Overthrow of Corporate Tyranny, Youtube 2019 1.33.48
The solution I believe is revolution: it is the overthrow of corporate tyranny. ibid.
The message that is sent to us by the corporate state is that we don’t matter … It’s a game where we don’t count any more. ibid.
We have now created a system internally that replicates the structure of any totalitarian society. ibid.
The reconfiguration of the global economy into a form of terrifying neo-feudalism; the rise of a corporate oligarchy elite that cares nothing for human life. ibid.
They will exploit everything. ibid.
Resistance, as my students taught me, is not about what we can achieve, it is about who we are able to become. Resistance is an act of faith, belief that the good draws to it the good. ibid.
The most dangerous institution in American is the military industrial complex, which is bleeding us dry – one trillion dollars a year, which is terrorising the wretched of the Earth … The disease that is eating at the very core of our society. ibid.
We are seeing corporations feed off the body politic. ibid.
We have to stop sitting here and taking this stuff. We have to recognise that all of these systems are designed to crush us and that it’s time to rise up. It’s time to resist. ibid.
These myriad corporate dictatorships, or private governments, ensure American workers are docile and compliant as the superstructure of the corporate state cements into place a species of corporate totalitarianism. The ruling ideology of neoliberalism and libertarianism, used to justify the corporate domination and social inequality that afflict us, sells itself as the protector of freedom and liberty. It does this by subterfuge. It claims workers have the freedom to enter into employment contracts and terminate them, while ignoring the near-total suspension of rights during the period of employment. It pretends that workers and corporations function as independent and autonomous sellers and buyers, with workers selling their labor freely and corporate owners buying this labor. Chris Hedges, Truthdig online 2019, ‘The Private Governments that Subjugate US Workers’
The brutality of our corporate executioners grows by the day. They will stop at nothing, including wholesale murder, to consolidate power and amass greater profits. Blinded by hubris, driven by greed, disdainful of democracy, foolishly believing their wealth will protect them, they will herd us over the cliff unless they are overthrown. ibid.
Sadism defines nearly every cultural, social and political experience in the United States. It is expressed in the unchecked greed of an oligarchic elite that has seen its wealth increase during the pandemic by $1.1 trillion while the country has seen the sharpest rise in its poverty rate in fifty years. Chris Hedges, lecture New York Sanctuary for Independent Media 2022, Youtube 1.59.32
The leaked pictures from Abu Ghraib are the true face of America. ibid.
Laws, institutions and bureaucratic structures are formed to serve the interests of a tiny cabal, a rapacious elite which enriches itself at the expense of everyone else. ibid.
Sadism is the chief characteristic of imperialism. ibid.
Heart of Darkness: He [Kurtz] went to Africa fired by noble ideals and virtues: he ended his life as a self-deluded tyrant who thought he was a god. ibid.
Empires in the end cannibalise themselves. The tyranny we long imposed on others we now impose on ourself. ibid.
The obescene avarice of the very rich now dwarfs the hedonism and excesses of the world’s most heinous despots and wealthiest capitalists of the past. ibid.
The grinding machinery of predatory capitalism and the sadism that defines it will poison the society as mercilessly under Biden as it did when Trump was conducting his Twitter presidency. ibid.
Terror for a revolutionary government is very different from the terror used by tyrants in the past. Because now it meant the destruction of those whose moral corruption was barring the way to a new society of virtue. Terror has become the despotism of liberty against tyranny. Maximilien Robespierre
Taxation without representation is tyranny. James Otis
The mob is the mother of tyrants. Diogenes
There have been thousands of tyrannical governments in history, and less than ten that can be called free. Alex Jones, Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement, 2007
The real damper on employee engagement is the soggy, cold blanket of centralized authority. In most companies, power cascades downwards from the CEO. Not only are employees disenfranchised from most policy decisions, they lack even the power to rebel against egocentric and tyrannical supervisors. Gary Hamel
The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections. Lord Acton
The terrible tyranny of the majority. Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
How Walmart is Destroying America (and the World). Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price, Brave New Films 2005, book Bill Quinn
I’ve seen a lot of small communities crucified and forced out … It appears that that is their intent. ibid. Don Hunter
Walmart drives down retail wages $3 billion every year. ibid. caption
Walmart public costs: $86 million to California taxpayers; $25 million more to County taxpayers: health care, income tax credits, housing subsidies, food stamps. ibid.
Walmart workers on public assistance: Alabama: 3,864 children of Walmart employees are enrolled in Medicare; Arizona: 2,700 workers on Medicaid … Walmart costs taxpayers $1,557,000,000 to support its employees. ibid.
Walmart is very opposed to unions. ibid. Jon Lehman, store manager 19 years
$7,000 anti-union camera package per store; $30,000 undercover spy van per store; $100,000 24-hour anti-union hotline; $7,000,000 rapid response team with corporate jet. ibid. caption
Walmart is fighting legal battles with scores of former employees in 31 states, hourly workers who say the company has cheated them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime pay. ibid. news report
Walmart is paying $11 million to settle federal allegations it used illegal immigrants to clean its stores. ibid. news report
We truly are living the American dream. ibid. television advert
City of Cameron gives Walmart $2.1 million to set up shop. ibid. caption
Currently in the US there are 26,699,678 square feet of empty Walmarts. ibid.
2001: EPA orders Walmart to pay $1 million fine for Clean Walter violations in Texas, Oklahoma and Massachusetts … fined $3.1 million etc. ibid.
The worker is given a fake pay slip … We really work day and night in order to get the wage of less than $3 a day. ibid. Chinese Walmart worker
Bangladesh: forced to work from eight in the morning to ten o’clock at night … trapped in utter misery … sucking down standards all around the world. ibid. critic
Cruelty is a tyrant that’s always attended with fear. Thomas Fuller
The ultimate political goal at the heart of our age is the idea of individual freedom. In Britain our government has set out to create a revolution that will free individuals from old elites and bureaucracies. A new world where we are free to choose our lives not be trapped by class or income into predestined roles … ‘To liberate Britain from all the old class divisions, old structures, old prejudices [Blair] …’ Adam Curtis, The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom: Fuck You Buddy, BBC 2007
It is a very strange kind of freedom. The attempt to liberate people from the dead hand of bureaucracy has led to the rise of a new and increasingly controlling system of management driven by targets and numbers. While governments committed to creating freedom of choice in all areas have actually presided over a rise in inequalities and a dramatic collapse in social mobility. The consequence has been a return of the power of class and privilege. And abroad the attempt to create democracy has led not just to bloody mayhem but a rejection of the American-led campaign to bring freedom. ibid.