Chris Hedges and Jill Stein speak on Sat at Socialist Alternative in DC

Saturday evening in DC Chris Hedges and Jill Stein kicked off the evening at an event presented by Socialist Alternative across from Franklin Square park.

Socialist Alternative  is the organization that spearheaded the campaign to elect Kshama Sawant to Seattle City Council in 2013, the first independent socialist elected in a major U.S. city in decades. We then led the successful campaign to raise Seattle’s minimum wage to the highest in the country, providing a massive boost to the $15 Now campaign that is spreading around the country. Kshama Sawant was successfully re-elected to the Seattle City Council in 2015 as a Socialist Alternative candidate, without any corporate cash, despite half a million dollars being spent on the campaign to unseat her.

Socialist Alternative is a national organization fighting in our workplaces, communities, and campuses against the exploitation and injustices people face every day. We are community activists fighting against budget cuts in public services; we are activists campaigning for a $15 an hour minimum wage and fighting, democratic unions; we are people of all colors speaking out against racism and attacks on immigrants, students organizing against tuition hikes and war, women and men fighting sexism and homophobia.

We believe the Republicans and Democrats are both parties of big business, and we are campaigning to build an independent, alternative party of workers and young people to fight for the interests of the millions, not the millionaires. https://www.socialistalternative.org/about/

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Chris Hedges Christopher Lynn Hedges (born September 18, 1956) is an American journalist, activist, author, and Presbyterian minister. Hedges is also known as the best-selling author of several books including War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002)—a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction—Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2009), Death of the Liberal Class (2010), The New York Times best seller, written with cartoonist Joe Sacco, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (2012), and his most recent Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt (2015). – Wikipedia

 

Chris Hedges spoke in his usual Pull-No-Punches manner giving the audience the full picture of what is to come if the people to not stand in revolt of the Corporate coup de tat that’s been bubbling over for decades.

He began by talking about the fear the ruling “elite” had of the uprisings of the left in the 1960’s. He spoke abut how the “elite” built counter institutions to “delegitimize and marginalize criticism or corporate capitalism and imperialism”. How the “elite” bought the 2 main political parties and “imposed ideological obedience”. The “neo- liberal agenda within academia and the press”. Chris Hedges mention Lewis Powell and his memo of 1971.

Because it signaled the beginning of a major shift in American business culture, political power and law, the Powell memo essentially marks the beginning of the business community’s multi-decade collective takeover of the most important institutions of public opinion and democratic decision-making. At the very least, it is the first place where this broad agenda was compiled in one document.

That shift continues today, with corporate influence over policy and politics reaching unprecedented new dimensions. The decades-long drive to rethink legal doctrines and ultimately strike down the edifice of campaign finance laws – breaking radical new ground with the Roberts Court’s decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission – continues apace. – Common Dreams http://www.commondreams.org/views/2011/08/25/lewis-powell-memo-corporate-blueprint-dominate-democracy

“The blue print for the creeping Corporate Coup de Tat and 45 years later is complete”.

About half way through his talk Chris Hedges spoke about William Faulkner’s Snopes Clan; It recounts how the wily, cunning Flem Snopes dominates the rural community of Frenchman’s Bend – and claims the voluptuous Eula Varner as his bride. The Town, the second novel, records Flem’s ruthless struggle to take over the county seat of Jefferson, Mississippi. Finally, The Mansion tells of Mink Snopes, whose archaic sense of honor brings about the downfall of his cousin Flem. “For all his concerns with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man,” noted Ralph Ellison. “Thus we must turn to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for the greatness of our classics.” (less)

In the novel, Hedges states, the Snopes takeover of the Aristocratic elites. “The Snopes family included a killer, a pedophile, a bigamist, an arsonist, a mentally disabled man who copulates with a cow and a relative sells tickets for people to witness the beastiality, are fictional representations of the scum now elevated to the highest level of the Federal Government.”

Hedges ends his talk by saying,, “If those in power become frightened of us, we are victorious. I do not know if we can build a better society. I do not even know if we will survive as a species. But, I know that these Corporate forces have us by the throat and they have my children by the throat. I do not fight fascists because I will win, I fight fascist because they are fascists”. he

To see the complete 16 minute video please see April Watters youtube

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Dr. Jill Stein was the Green Party’s 2012 candidate for President. She holds the current record for most votes ever received by a woman candidate for President of the United States in the general election. She is a mother, an organizer, physician, and pioneering environmental-health advocate. She has helped lead initiatives to fight environmental racism and injustice, to promote healthy communities, to strengthen local green economies and to revitalize democracy. She has helped win victories in campaign finance reform, racially-just redistricting, green jobs, and the cleanup of incinerators, coal plants, and toxic threats. She was a principal organizer for the Global Climate Convergence for People, Planet and Peace over Profit. As a practicing physician, Jill became aware of the links between toxic exposures and illness emerging in the 1990s. She began to fight for a healthy environment as a human right, assisting non profits, community groups and Native Americans combating environmental injustice and racism in dangerous exposures like lead and mercury in air and water pollution, incinerators and land fills, toxic waste sites and more. She helped lead the fight to clean up the “Filthy Five” coal plants in Massachusetts, raising the bar nationally to a cleaner standard for coal plants. She helped close a toxic medical waste incinerator in Lawrence, MA, one of the poorest communities in New England. She played a key role in rewriting the Massachusetts fish advisories to better protect women and children, Native Americans and immigrants from mercury contamination. She also helped preserve the moratorium on new toxic trash incinerators in Massachusetts.- http://www.jill2016.com/about

 

Jill Stein began her talk by thanking the Socialist Alt and those in the audience for coming out to join the fight. “Welcome to the resistance”, acknowledging that many have already been a part of the resistance for quite some time. “As awful, as despicable, as scary as this moment is at least the veil has come off. Whether we were heading for a slow demise being strangled by neo liberalism under the Democratic party or whether we are actually engaging a battle right now facing this neo- fascist administration.”

Jill stated that she was pleasantly surprised that there was as much resistance in the streets at “Ground Zero” for the “Billionaire Takeover”.

“People are really recognizing that Donald Trump really is a symbol of this predatory, bipartisan political system brought to us by the predatory banks and fossil fuel giants and war profiteers. Donald Trump is the face of that bipartisan system”.

Jill spoke about Ranked Choice voting that will not be supported by the Democratic party who consistently fought against Ranked Choice voting and that “they do not support us and they do not deserve your vote on that basis alone”.

Jill went on to speak about bailing the students out of their college debt rather than bailing out Wall Street banks. Help those who need it rather than those who deserve to fail.

“A political party that is a real political party over time, over issues over geography with a clear agenda. The agenda of People, Planet and Peace over an agenda of profit. It is not an agenda of window dressing, of marginal changes around a crisis.”

Full video of both talks will be at April Watters youtube

 

Author: Cat April Watters

On a Truth Diet! Purging myself of all the LIES from Society.