Here are links to Chris Hedges interview with Les - April 5, 2024.
The Chris Hedges Report with Les Leopold on how corporations and the billionaire class have made war on workers, subverted our democracy and created the conditions for a Christian fascist state.
Took me awhile to get back here to comment since I spent the day reading my newest book: //Wall Street's War on Workers.// I certainly concur with Robert Kuttner's review blurb that you explain "the dynamics of mass lay-offs and the reality that the white working class did not desert the Democrats--the Democrats deserted them." Which I know firsthand through bitter experience.
Furthermore, says Kuttner, "Leopold also offers ingenious and practical solutions to take back our politics from plutocracy." Indeed. While there will be a place for in-depth analyses of the horrors of a totally financialized econ system, the superficiality of its philosophical justifications, and detailed info on what once worked as the New Deal alternatives, most needed are immediate, persuasive first steps. Because real people are suffering right now.
Unlike the fantasies of the far left, which still believes that 'it has to get worse before it gets better,' I'm appalled by any assertion that by definition, trauma is transformative. Of course as a labor populist (and my grandfather was a Wobbly) I'm also appalled by those smug claims to 'vanguard of the working class.' Yeah, we get it; these types think we're too stupid to lead ourselves. Especially aggravating when appropriated by white male armchair intellectuals who insist that issues of identity they haven't had to fight for are a mere distraction. And who've never held a tool in their lives. As I did for 25+ years; solidarity is not an abstraction for me. Nor is materialist accumulation the only meaning of human life. Some of us even feel a deep, reverent connection to the Earth itself and the other lifeforms we share the planet with. A version of which you have p. 28.
Which makes for a nice segue to your reference "offer up employees as human sacrifices to Mammon, god of Wall Street." (109) In //One Nation Under God (How Corporate America Invented Christian America)// by Kevin Kruse, he quotes FDR's 1932 acceptance speech as placing blame for the Depression on the "many among us [who] have made obeisance to Mammon." (5) Plus noting that much of FDR's language was that of the Social Gospel. I'm also reading the behemoth 799 pp intricate //The Enchantments of Mammon (How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity)// by the erudite Roman Catholic scholar Eugene McCarraher. Part 7 is titled "One Vast and Ecumenical Holding Company: The Prehistory of Neoliberal Enchantment, 1945-1975" Within that is chapt. 27, The Statues of Daedalus, (Postmaterialism and the Failure of the Liberal Imagination). Its opening sentence begins "American liberals certainly never expected to see the restoration of a plutocratic vista..."
Quite frankly, I doubt much of anything will be done. The only wavelengths of green Global Mammon can see are species of currencies. We workers are no longer personnel--you know, like people--but human resources which like natural resources only have value when used by the system. What happens to the cast aside remnants after clear cutting and strip mining is an irrelevant "externality." You and I know what happened in the Rust Belt. And BTW, about the Clinton era repeal of Glass-Steagall; I've pretty much finished researching the New Deal finance regs. Sen. Glass had the part about regulation and was opposed to the Steagall part FDIC, which Glass thought would be a temptation for exploitation. Only the Glass part was deregulated and yeah, exploitation it is while leaving the appearance of safety. We're in the Gilded Age 2.0, Roaring 2020s. TBC until Oct. 2029...but even so, we have to try.
Thanks so much for your very kind words and astute analysis. Maybe you could write a review of the book on Amazon or some place else? Much appreciated.
It gets top priority. Then 4 others on New Deal subjects which I will write up. Unlike the negative reviews repeating the usual simplistic anti-New Deal blather used since the '40s, I wanted to actually read the books first. Also several books that are comprehensive critiques of capitalism/finance...which maybe I'll get around to.
Here are links to Chris Hedges interview with Les - April 5, 2024.
The Chris Hedges Report with Les Leopold on how corporations and the billionaire class have made war on workers, subverted our democracy and created the conditions for a Christian fascist state.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-chris-hedges-report-with-les
From layoffs to lawsuits, billionaires are striking back to crush worker power
https://therealnews.com/from-layoffs-to-lawsuits-billionaires-are-striking-back-to-crush-worker-power
Billionaires are pillaging America. How do we fight back? | The Chris Hedges Report
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfgKTZHcHQM&t=2s
--
Also, to share this show for broadcast on your Local Public TV station (not NPR) phone them and ask them to broadcast this show on PEGMedia.org
- Episode: Chris Hedges - Les Leopold's New Book - Wall Street’s War on Workers - And What To Do About It .
The station can download the show - no charge - in ready for TV broadcast format - 58 minutes.
I love this! If Fain takes you up on the idea, let me know when he's hiring. I'm in.
Will do! (And I'll eat my hat as well) Best to you.
Took me awhile to get back here to comment since I spent the day reading my newest book: //Wall Street's War on Workers.// I certainly concur with Robert Kuttner's review blurb that you explain "the dynamics of mass lay-offs and the reality that the white working class did not desert the Democrats--the Democrats deserted them." Which I know firsthand through bitter experience.
Furthermore, says Kuttner, "Leopold also offers ingenious and practical solutions to take back our politics from plutocracy." Indeed. While there will be a place for in-depth analyses of the horrors of a totally financialized econ system, the superficiality of its philosophical justifications, and detailed info on what once worked as the New Deal alternatives, most needed are immediate, persuasive first steps. Because real people are suffering right now.
Unlike the fantasies of the far left, which still believes that 'it has to get worse before it gets better,' I'm appalled by any assertion that by definition, trauma is transformative. Of course as a labor populist (and my grandfather was a Wobbly) I'm also appalled by those smug claims to 'vanguard of the working class.' Yeah, we get it; these types think we're too stupid to lead ourselves. Especially aggravating when appropriated by white male armchair intellectuals who insist that issues of identity they haven't had to fight for are a mere distraction. And who've never held a tool in their lives. As I did for 25+ years; solidarity is not an abstraction for me. Nor is materialist accumulation the only meaning of human life. Some of us even feel a deep, reverent connection to the Earth itself and the other lifeforms we share the planet with. A version of which you have p. 28.
Which makes for a nice segue to your reference "offer up employees as human sacrifices to Mammon, god of Wall Street." (109) In //One Nation Under God (How Corporate America Invented Christian America)// by Kevin Kruse, he quotes FDR's 1932 acceptance speech as placing blame for the Depression on the "many among us [who] have made obeisance to Mammon." (5) Plus noting that much of FDR's language was that of the Social Gospel. I'm also reading the behemoth 799 pp intricate //The Enchantments of Mammon (How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity)// by the erudite Roman Catholic scholar Eugene McCarraher. Part 7 is titled "One Vast and Ecumenical Holding Company: The Prehistory of Neoliberal Enchantment, 1945-1975" Within that is chapt. 27, The Statues of Daedalus, (Postmaterialism and the Failure of the Liberal Imagination). Its opening sentence begins "American liberals certainly never expected to see the restoration of a plutocratic vista..."
Quite frankly, I doubt much of anything will be done. The only wavelengths of green Global Mammon can see are species of currencies. We workers are no longer personnel--you know, like people--but human resources which like natural resources only have value when used by the system. What happens to the cast aside remnants after clear cutting and strip mining is an irrelevant "externality." You and I know what happened in the Rust Belt. And BTW, about the Clinton era repeal of Glass-Steagall; I've pretty much finished researching the New Deal finance regs. Sen. Glass had the part about regulation and was opposed to the Steagall part FDIC, which Glass thought would be a temptation for exploitation. Only the Glass part was deregulated and yeah, exploitation it is while leaving the appearance of safety. We're in the Gilded Age 2.0, Roaring 2020s. TBC until Oct. 2029...but even so, we have to try.
Thanks so much for your very kind words and astute analysis. Maybe you could write a review of the book on Amazon or some place else? Much appreciated.
It gets top priority. Then 4 others on New Deal subjects which I will write up. Unlike the negative reviews repeating the usual simplistic anti-New Deal blather used since the '40s, I wanted to actually read the books first. Also several books that are comprehensive critiques of capitalism/finance...which maybe I'll get around to.
How do workers survive this insanity? How can the US survive it?
Am hoping that's not the case, but I fear you could be right. sigh.