..we founded the nation on genocide & slavery, we ravage the globe with endless wars and the theft of its resources, enrich an oligarchic elite at the expense of our citizenry, empower police to gun down unarmed citizens in the streets, and lock up a quarter of the world’s prison population.. while wallowing in the supposed moral superiority of American white supremacy...
..the more debased the nation becomes, the more it seeks the reassurance of oily con artists to mask truth with lies."
.."..in a 2005 promotional video for a scam that made him about $40 million, [he] employs the familiar hyperbole of the con artist in declaring: “At [My] University, we teach success. That’s what it’s all about—success. It’s going to happen to you. We’re going to have professors and adjunct professors that are absolutely terrific—terrific people, terrific brains, successful. We are going to have the best of the best. These are people that are handpicked by me.” ..... Only there was no university."
.."[His] get-rich-quick schemes and seminars, including his books, were a con. His casinos were a con. His paid speeches on behalf of self-help gurus such as Tony Robbins were a con. Tales of his sexual prowess, spread by himself masquerading over the phone as a Trump spokesperson, were a con. His building projects were a con. [He] even had.. “imaginary employees.”
Trump and his kleptocrats and grifters are today triumphant, and neither democratic norms or simply human decency will inhibit their pathological lust for more."
.."..skillful creation of illusion and the manipulation of our emotional response, actions that profit the elites to our financial and political detriment, have seeped into religion, education, journalism, politics and culture. They solidify mob rule and magical thinking.
Trump’s crass vulgarity, greed, unchecked hedonism and amorality, along with his worship of himself, are intrinsic to America, but his ascendancy, and the ascendancy of the character traits he personifies, represents cultural death."
~ @ChrisLynnHedges
.."We live in an age when the fake, the fraudulent, the fabricated and the theatrical supplant reality"
..Chris Hedges is an astute seer.. with knowledge vast & profound..
"The Cult of Trump"
- an American journalist, Presbyterian minister, & visiting Princeton University lecturer...
- he has to date written 14 books, winning various awards for his many works..
- a columnist for the progressive news & commentary website Truthdig... also a host for the television program On-Contact on RT. ..
- spending nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, West Asia, Africa, the Middle East, & the Balkans...& has reported from more than 50 countries..
- he has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, Dallas Morning News, & The New York Times, where he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years (1990–2005).
- in 2001, Hedges contributed to The New York Times staff entry that received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for the paper's coverage of global terrorism.
- he's also received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism.
..he has taught at Columbia University, New York University, the University of Toronto & Princeton University, where he is a visiting lecturer in African American studies.
..Hedges has taught college credit courses for several years in New Jersey prisons...
- he teaches a course through Princeton University in which the class is composed of half prisoners & half Princeton undergraduates.
- he describes himself a socialist & more specifically a Christian-anarchist, identifying with Catholic activist Dorothy Day.
... he is a brilliant writer & scholarly thinker.. well worth listening to carefully..
..his harsh criticisms & outlook, come in part from his background as a former war correspondent, witnessing & reporting all the horrible things human beings do to other human beings..
...this is a important talk.. don't fall to the temptation not to listen.. he's saying what many don't want to believe or hear.. but what he's referring to will unquestionably rule all our lives completely.. unless we act on our own behalf to now change direction..
..and be sure to go on YouTube to watch his other speeches & interviews..
..his ultimate outlook for the predicament in which we have embroiled ourselves requires our efforts to have any hope of salvation.. huge amounts of effort..
..only if we truly comprehend that we must firmly attempt to try, can we have ANY prospect at all of succeeding..
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