General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Chris Hedges: America is a Tinderbox [View all]Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)He is giving his conclusions which I believe to be pretty much accurate although with no doubt a more polemic style than he had when he worked as a mainstream journalist. Although I see where he is polemical I don't see where he is factually wrong. Even what he said about the founding fathers was pretty much the case. The 17th and 18th Century Age of Enlightenment was pretty much an enlightenment by and for the upper classes. I don't see a lot of evidence that the founding fathers genuinely believed in the universal franchise or the kind of egalitarianism that is now assumed to be part of modern democracy. In regards to the current state of affairs, I believe he has actually arrived at some of the same fundamental conclusions about the nature of American politics and the nature of the Democratic Party that you have also arrived at.
I think Mr. Hedges is even more correct when he speaks of the need to have those in authority afraid of the people. All the great social changes came - not just because the right people won the elections - They came when government needed to pacify the people. With the end of the kind of popular protest that we once saw coupled with the end of the need for capitalism to prove its superiority to a competing ideology - we now see little need for authority to be responsive to the demands of the masses of people.