Chris Hedges "We have shifted, , from a democratic state to a species of corporate totalitarianism.

[rrneck]

41. It's not the liberal elite. It's liberals.

Ideology has become a sort of affectation or social plumage. On the right that affectation is manifest in libertarian ideology. On the left identity politics makes money for those who make a living at it, but the practice of it by the rank and file isn't profitable at all. So people who claim to be liberals, (there ain't many) wind up expressing emotional solidarity with any number of culturally oppressed groups and then telling their accountants to squeeze another 1% out of their investments no matter what. Do you really think teabaggers were the only people flipping houses and buying esoteric investments during the housing bubble?

People need resources to live. That need has been turned into a product to be sold to them. People also need to be recognized as people who are unique and have unique desires and goals. That has become a product too. The marketplace of ideas has been turned into a weapon to be used against us. When we stop behaving like ideological consumers and start behaving like citizens the tide will turn. Unfortunately, I expect that we won't start doing that until we run out of money to pay people to tell us what we want to hear.