Social Conflict: Violence Brewing

Social Conflict: Violence Brewing

Conversation on Facebook on a post by Bill Hodgson

Henry Giroux on Zombie Politics

November 22, 2013

In his book, Zombie Politics and Culture in the Age of Casino Capitalism, author and scholar Henry Giroux connects the dots to prove his theory that our current system is informed by a “machinery of social and civil death” that chills “any vestige of a robust democracy.”

This week on Moyers & Company, Giroux explains that such a machine turns “people who are basically so caught up with surviving that they become like the walking dead – they lose their sense of agency, they lose their homes, they lose their jobs.”

What’s more, Giroux points out, the system that creates this vacuum has little to do with expanding the meaning and the substance of democracy itself. Under “casino capitalism,” the goal is to get a quick return, taking advantage of a kind of logic in which the only thing that drives us is to put as much money as we can into a slot machine and hope we walk out with our wallets overflowing.

A cultural and social critic of tireless energy and vast interests, Giroux holds the Global TV Network Chair in the English and Cultural Studies Department at McMaster University and is a distinguished visiting professor at Reyerson University, both schools in Canada.

November 30, 2013

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Morris Creedon-McVean That's the grand plan of the super rich: they return us to the late middle ages and become kings and queens and the rest of us as" wage slaves". One major problem with this plan: aristocracies have failed uncountable times in history. Who is going to fight for them? Not the American Military or any law enforcement agency, they are already wage slaves. And the wage slaves to be, are heavily armed, thanks to the NRA and the second amendment. I can perceive a brief civil war where the citizens surround the fortress homes of the super rich, high paid minions, and corporations. A siege takes place, demanding the perps of this plot come out and face charges of being traitors to the Constitution they are trying to destroy. The eventually give in as their mercenaries, decide they are not dying for these sad little old men who aren't even willing to fight themselves. With no dedicated support within the populous, at least no one willing to fight, they are alone. That means you GW Bush, Dick Cheney, and Carl Rove.

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Bill Hodgson The days of Kings, Queens government also had a strong Religious power that provided people control to backup the ruling class.
My lifetime has seen the people control function given to the local, state police and military who protect the lower class, ruling class, rich and powerful. The controlling class of the protectors are shifting more to the rich and corporations. For example, the city of Bellevue sent the police to Walmart today and arrested a few people from a very gentle group of protesters.
I remember the Chicago 7 trial and Ohio college campus shootings by the National Guard.
Today's police protection-gear is more like military gear.

Bill Hodgson, all good points.  It is all a sure sign that violent confrontation is brewing.  The nation is divided with one side who is so concrete in their thinking that they refuse to negotiate on anything. Rigid thinking and action resulting in the shutdown of Government and an international panic that the US might default on it's debt, sending the entire world into economic chaos.  Such idiotic mindless behavior to punish a very moderate President for trying to establish universal health care, which is a good thing for everyone in this country.  We are the lone prosperous nation without it.  Health care, a life and death issue, simply cannot be run for profit without unfairness that defies the purpose of this nation as defined by the Founding Fathers, and documented in the Constitution.  Most of the American population believes in these principles, even if they have not paid attention to the erosion until recently.  While the situation is frightening, on the side of the pro Constitutionalists is: Truth, history of the failure of aristocracies, a well armed populous that will make it almost impossible for the super rich to win a fighting confrontation (unless the American military obeys orders and supports the ruling rich---which would mean destruction of several American cities), at present I do not believe the military would fire on citizens because they are already wage slaves, and the Internet which prevents any surprise moves by the elite.

I find it fascinating that given his "zombie" hypotheses, he fails to even mention Marshall McCluhan's (now proven) theories that TV has a "heroin like addition".  Sometimes it seems, the academics once they have an established theoretical basis and a following of readers and students, they stop exploring other thinker's work.  I have found this type of oversight many times in my years of reading "what is new" in various fields.  I read such a book from the "New Releases" table at B&N, and observe that Professor Smith published the exact same set of ideas 6 mos. ago.  This clearly demonstrates the value of well read generalists to keep the intellectual community "honest".