Quote

Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds expression in the anonymity of the Corporate State. It purports to cherish democracy, patriotism, and the Constitution while manipulating internal levers.

Chris Hedges

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Chris Hedges
Age: 68
Born: 1956
Born: September 18
Author
Journalist
War Correspondent
Writer
St. Johnsbury
Vermont
Christopher Lynn Hedges
Christopher Hedges
Expression
Internals
Revolve
Leader
Internal
Inverted
Democracy
Unlike
Manipulating
State
Patriotism
Levers
Around
Cherish
Totalitarianism
Doe
Finds
Charismatic
States
Corporate
Anonymity
Purports
Constitution
Classical
Demagogue

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They [Harvard academia] liked the poor, but didn't like the smell of the poor.
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It is one of the great ironies of corporate control that the corporate state needs the abilities of intellectuals to maintain power, yet outside of this role it refuses to permit intellectuals to think or function independently.
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I'm not saying we're going to win. I am saying rebellion becomes a way to protect your own dignity. Corporations are, theologically speaking, institutions of death. They commodify everything - the natural world, human beings - that they exploit until exhaustion or collapse. They know no limits.
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The violence of war is random. It does not make sense. And many of those who struggle with loss also struggle with the knowledge that the loss was futile and unnecessary.
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The imperial projects will continue, Wall Street will be unimpeded in its malfeasance and criminal activity, social programs will continue to be cut, maybe not at the same speed as under a Republican Administration, but it's all headed in the same direction.
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The arts often realize human truths well before other branches of human endeavor.
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The moral nihilism of celebrity culture is played out on reality television shows, most of which encourage a dark voyeurism into other people's humiliation, pain, weakness, and betrayal.
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Violence is a disease, a disease that corrupts all who use it regardless of the cause.
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The belief that rational and quantifiable disciplines such as science can be used to perfect human society is no less absurd than a belief in magic, angels, and divine intervention.
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Patriotism, often a thinly veiled form of collective self-worship, celebrates our goodness, our ideals, our mercy and bemoans the perfidiousness of those who hate us.
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No real journalist makes $5 million a year... Those in power fear and dislike real journalists.
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I used to wonder: Is Huxley right or is Orwell right? It turns out they're both right. First you get the new world state and endless diversions as you are disempowered. And then, as we are watching, credit dries up, and the cheap manufactured goods of the consumer society are no longer cheap. Then you get the iron fist of Oceania, of Orwell's 1984.
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We on the left have forgotten that the question is not how do you get good people to rule, most people who rule are mediocre at best and usually venal. The question is how do we make those in power frightened of us and not be seduced by formal political processes.
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The split in America, rather than simply economic, is between those who embrace reason, who function in the real world of cause and effect, and those who, numbed by isolation and despair, now seek meaning in a mythical world of intuition, a world that is no longer reality-based, a world of magic.
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Poor people, especially those of color, are worth nothing to corporations and private contractors if they are on the street. In jail and prisons, however, they can each generate corporate revenues of $30,000 to $40,000 a year.
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War is not about flag-waving and patriotism. War is about killing and death.
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Again, although I'm not a particularly religious person, I go back to the religious left that I come out of: There are moral imperatives to fight back. As Daniel Berrigan says, We're called to do the good. And then we have to let it go. It's not our job to know where the good goes.
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Positive psychology is to the corporate state what eugenics was to the Nazis
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