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#Post#: 1306--------------------------------------------------
American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse(?)
DIR By: guest5
Date: September 27, 2020, 7:59 pm
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American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse. Chris
Hedges Joins
--- Quote ---
> Julianna welcomes back Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and
best-selling author, Chris Hedges, to discuss how in his current
book, America: The Farewell Tour, Hedges takes a close look at
the array of pathologies that have arisen out of a profound
malaise of hopelessness as the society disintegrates due to the
"slow moving [corporate] Coup d'état" instituted by the ruling
classes in the '70s in reaction to the activist movements and
reforms of the '60s. And how this disintegration has resulted in
an epidemic of diseases, despair, and a civil society that has
ceased to function.
> You may know Chris from reading one of his best-selling books
including American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On
America, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph
of Spectacle, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, Days of
Destruction, Days of Revolt, Death of the Liberal Class. Or his
weekly interview show On Contact where he interviews “dissident
voices” currently missing from the mainstream media, the black
sheep of the establishment, leading to discussions that are not
easy to find.
> Chris is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a New York Times
best-selling author, a professor in the college degree program
offered to New Jersey state prisoners by Rutgers University, and
an ordained Presbyterian minister. He has written 12 books,
including the New York Times best-seller “Days of Destruction,
Days of Revolt” which he co-authored with the cartoonist Joe
Sacco. His latest book is "America: The Farewell Tour" (2018).
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em2aWT2T4E0
The Collapse of the American Empire?
--- Quote ---
> The Agenda welcomes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris
Hedges, who over the past decade and a half has made his name as
a columnist, activist and author. He's been a vociferous public
critic of presidents on both sides of the American political
spectrum, and his latest book, 'America, the Farewell Tour,' is
nothing short of a full-throated throttling of the political,
social, and cultural state of his country.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPk9HSLagVg
#Post#: 1549--------------------------------------------------
Re: American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse(?)
Chris Hedges Joins
DIR By: guest5
Date: October 15, 2020, 11:53 am
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Rising U.S. weekly jobless claims cast shadow on economic
recovery
--- Quote ---
> The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits
unexpectedly increased last week, heightening fears the COVID-19
pandemic was inflicting lasting damage to the labor market.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyZlRodhR0A
Trump Brags About Jobs As 8 MILLION Just Fell Into Poverty
--- Quote ---
> The Young Turks’ Emma Vigeland
(
HTML https://Twitter.com/EmmaVigeland)
breaks down the infuriating
disconnect between Trump's narrative about the economy and the
actual reality of mass poverty for Americans.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOvObDjll-M
#Post#: 1598--------------------------------------------------
Re: American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse(?)
DIR By: guest5
Date: October 17, 2020, 3:42 pm
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'I'm Still Unemployed': Millions In Dire Situation As Savings
Start To Run Out
--- Quote ---
> When the coronavirus pandemic hit this spring, government
relief payments provided a life raft to millions of people who
had been thrown out of work.
>
> That life raft, however, is now losing air, threatening to
leave the unemployed in a perilous situation just as Washington
leaders struggle to clinch a new package of aid ahead of the
November election.
>
> New research from JPMorgan Chase Institute and the University
of Chicago focused on 80,000 unemployed people shows savings
built up when the government provided aid is now rapidly running
out, leaving people like chemist Kate McAfee fretting about
their futures.
>
> "I'm still unemployed," said McAfee, who was laid off from her
job outside Cleveland back in April. "I've now exhausted my 26
weeks of unemployment here in Ohio and have moved on to the
additional 13 weeks of extended benefits from the federal
government."
>
> Millions of Americans are in a similar situation as the
pandemic downturn drags on.
>
> The downtown Denver coffee shop where Terrah Burton used to
work tried to reopen during summer, but with little foot traffic
from vacant offices nearby, it temporarily closed its doors
again.
>
> "I hang onto that word, 'temporarily,' " Burton said. "To see
so much slipping through our fingers in this community is hard."
>
> Throughout the spring and early summer, Burton and her partner
got by financially, thanks in part to the extra $600 a week in
jobless benefits that Congress approved back in March.
>
> Burton recalled her surprise when she received her first
unemployment check. It was almost twice as much as she'd been
making at the coffee shop.
>
> "I'll accept it because I've worked hard all my life," Burton
said "We were able to put a little bit extra in savings and pay
off a couple of low bills. Our going out budget was zero. Our
going-to-the-bar budget was zero."
>
> But for the unemployed, the picture changed abruptly once the
extra $600 a week ran out at the end of July.
>
> McAfee, the Cleveland-area chemist, saw her jobless benefits
cut by more than half, putting a strain on her husband and their
two kids.
>
> "We're slowly eating away at our savings that we have from the
good times of earlier this year and it's getting challenging
now," McAfee said.
>
> Researchers at JPMorgan Chase Institute, in collaboration with
the University of Chicago, found many of the unemployed managed
to sock away extra money between March and July while the
government was spending freely to cushion the downturn. Median
family savings roughly doubled during that period.
>
> But the researchers found that the jobless started to drain
their savings in August, burning through roughly two-thirds of
the money they'd squirreled away during the four previous
months.
>
> "The cushion has worn thin, and we haven't yet regained all
the jobs that we lost," said Fiona Greig, director of consumer
research for the JPMorgan Chase Institute. "This is a critical
time for jobless workers."
>
> Job growth has slowed in each of the last three months. And
with layoffs continuing, almost 1.3 million people filed new
claims for unemployment last week.
>
> Jobless workers are spending less now than they were early in
the summer. And their spending is likely to fall further as
their newfound savings are exhausted.
>
> Kelly Griffin, an IT worker in Massachusetts, saw her income
drop by about two-thirds once the extra $600 a week benefit ran
out.
>
> "It was hard," Griffin said. "You don't go out to eat. You
don't spend things unnecessarily. I scrimped and saved and
started to panic. 'Am I ever going to get a job again?'"
>
> Fortunately, Griffin did get a job offer, and she's set to
start next week. But many others have not been as lucky.
>
> "I hate it when people say the extra $600 was keeping us from
working," McAfee said. "It was never keeping me from working. I
want to be back to work and I would love to have a job again."
>
> McAfee has been trying to earn some extra money sewing
facemasks. But it's no substitute for a regular paycheck.
>
> "It's not a situation I would wish on anybody, to be
constantly stuck in this with no foreseeable end to it," she
said. "I don't know when I'm going to get a job again. Hopefully
it will be soon. But until then it's just constant stress for
everybody."
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924682991/i-m-still-unemployed-millions-in-dire-situation-as-savings-start-to-run-out
#Post#: 1617--------------------------------------------------
Re: American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse(?)
DIR By: guest5
Date: October 18, 2020, 9:32 pm
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America's Infrastructure Is Crumbling
--- Quote ---
> America’s infrastructure is in desperate need of more than $4
trillion in upgrades and improvements. President Trump
campaigned heavily on overhauling the country's crumbling
infrastructure and promised to invest big to fix it. VICE
correspondent Thomas Morton explores the most vital bridges,
tunnels, and waterways in the U.S. to see how much the situation
has deteriorated and to find out if the Trump Administration's
promise is being kept.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdvJSGc14xA
America's Public Defense System Is in Crisis
--- Quote ---
> Public Defenders are facing soaring caseloads, and flatlining
budgets, and with 80% of all criminal defendants in the US
unable to afford a lawyer, the system is collapsing. With the
Constitutional right to fair representation in a court of law in
jeopardy, VICE's Cord Jefferson heads to one of the worst-hit
states to see how overworked and underpaid public defenders are
grinding the legal system to a halt.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqLE4ryWMX4
A House Divided: The Dis-United States of America
--- Quote ---
> Today parts of America feel like they’re at war again, as this
powerful country battles disease and division under its
polarising and unpredictable President.
>
> As the nation gears up for the presidential election, the
ABC’s US Bureau Chief David Lipson takes us on a road trip
through the northeast swing states to talk to ordinary people
about the coming contest.
>
> Trump’s re-election looked like a certainty before the
pandemic. Now, with the economy buckling under more lockdowns,
COVID cases rising and civil unrest running in the streets, his
grip on power looks more tenuous.
>
> As fringe groups arm themselves for conflict, will this
fractured country survive the ultimate democratic stress-test?
>
> David meets Phil from the Michigan Liberty Militia who’s angry
about his state’s lockdown orders describing them as ‘a stomp on
our constitutional rights’. In protest, the Michigan Patriots
Militia took control of the State parliament in April. Now Phil
warns a Trump defeat could get ugly.
>
> ‘There's a lot people out there that would not be able to
handle that… there is people… that just think Trump is…like a
God.”
>
> ‘Bikers for Trump’ member Londa has kept her faith in Trump
and is banking on him to deliver the prosperity America used to
enjoy.
>
> ‘He doesn’t care what anybody thinks. He’s doing what’s best
for the country.’
>
> In middle-class Ohio, a professional soccer mum with six
children says she’s changed her mind about Trump because he’s
‘unkind’.
>
> ‘It's just not the way that I would want my kids to be
treating anybody ”.
>
> In Detroit, once the engine of America’s car industry, Dave
meets African American woman Desha. She watched her husband die
a painful death from COVID-19 and is now urging African
Americans to come out and vote on election day.
>
> “Gotta do it. Like we have to, you have to, it is so much more
important, you know, now than ever before.”
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqY3baNuImA
#Post#: 1702--------------------------------------------------
Re: American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse(?)
DIR By: guest5
Date: October 22, 2020, 10:41 pm
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How America could lose its allies | 2020 Election
--- Quote ---
> For 150 years, the US avoided formal alliances. It
occasionally went to war -- fighting the War of 1812, the
Spanish-American War, and World War I -- but did so without
entangling itself in promises to other countries. Then, after
World War II, it abruptly changed course, and began to build a
network of alliances unlike anything that had come before.
>
> Over the next few decades, the US used those alliances to keep
countries around the world close, and to fight Soviet expansion,
by making a promise that it would go to war if any of its allies
were ever attacked. After the Soviet Union fell, the initial
purpose of those alliances was gone, but the US recommitted to
them, signaling again and again that the central promise of
those relationships was still in effect. It kept doing so for
the next 25 years.
>
> Then the US elected a leader who took America’s global
relationships in a new direction. President Trump was skeptical
that America’s network of alliances was still beneficial to the
US. He began to distance the US from those alliances, raising
doubts about whether America would actually follow through on
the promise at the core of them if provoked. Some allies moved
closer to Russia or China, both of whom had attempted to
undermine America’s alliances.
>
> Today, the future of those alliances is on the ballot in the
US. One of the major presidential candidates in the 2020
election wants to return the US to its former status with its
allies; the other finds its decades-old alliances costly and
cumbersome. The world is waiting to see which vision Americans
prefer.
>
> This video is the sixth in our series on the 2020 election. We
aren’t covering the horse race; instead, we want to explain the
stakes of the election through the issues that matter the most
to you. To do that, we want to know what you think the US
presidential candidates should be talking about.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5LrQv496Iw
#Post#: 1724--------------------------------------------------
Re: American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse(?)
DIR By: guest5
Date: October 23, 2020, 11:04 pm
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How America Got Hooked on Opioids | The War on Drugs
--- Quote ---
> In The War On Drugs Show, we examine the social implications
of prohibition worldwide.
>
> Any attempt to shut down the trade in drugs such as heroin,
> cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine or weed invariably sets off a chain
of events that just makes things worse, leaving a trail of
death, illness, violence, slavery, addiction, crime and
inequality across the globe. Everyone loses – except, in a weird
kind of way, the drugs themselves.
>
> Around 58,000 Americans were killed in the Vietnam War. But in
2017 alone, 70,237 Americans died of drug overdoses; the War on
Drugs is like a Vietnam War every year.
>
> This is the story of the North America Opioid Crisis – how an
oversupply of the prescription drug oxycodone collided with
fifty years of drug prohibition to create an epidemic every bit
as serious as COVID-19.
>
> This terrifying crisis reaches every corner of American life,
far beyond the clichés of the 'inner-city drug user'.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJc-YI7OWfY
#Post#: 1741--------------------------------------------------
Re: American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse(?)
DIR By: guest5
Date: October 24, 2020, 1:43 pm
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America's Unemployment Problem
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUbiGS7_oqM
--- Quote ---
>
> Diceman82
> 1 day ago
> Made worse by the media generation baiting all the old into
thinking us "Millennials" are just lazy. "I could afford a
house, education car and kids when I was 19!" yeah and when you
were 19 your 5$ an hour factory job is the equivalent of making
52$ today. In Ohio the minimum wage is 8.30 which assuming full
time(HA) is 1155$ or so after taxes.Average rent for a 1 bedroom
in all but the worst roach ridden, crime infested ghettos is
about 600$ for a 2 bedroom on the low end.
>
> The only way to make minimum wage work would be living in a
friggin van down by the river.
--- End Quote ---
--- Quote ---
> lmfao
> 1 day ago
> Why aren't stuff like paid vacations, days off, maternity
leave, pensions etc. included in most US jobs? That's literally
standard here in Europe. Kinda shocked to hear about this for
the first time considering in Ireland every employee is given
minimum 4 weeks annual leave.
--- End Quote ---
--- Quote ---
> Haebris
> 1 day ago
> An important thing you did not mention is that people cannot
afford to upskill, because they can't afford to take
qualifications. It means that people truly cannot escape from
being a wage slave. It's the same in the UK, but not quite as
extreme.
--- End Quote ---
--- Quote ---
> Question Everything — Thought Provoking Ideas
> 1 day ago
> "Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how
extremely expensive it is to be poor"
> --James Baldwin
--- End Quote ---
America's Overwork Obsession
--- Quote ---
> Work hard, make money, send your kids to college, retire to
Florida. it sounds nice in theory, but the reality of work in
America is dramatically different from the American Dream we've
all been taught to believe in.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejoAG5n19iE
#Post#: 1742--------------------------------------------------
Re: American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse(?)
DIR By: guest5
Date: October 24, 2020, 1:53 pm
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Capitalism And Monopolies: How Five Companies Control All US
Media
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1_lCe3vyyc
#Post#: 1748--------------------------------------------------
Re: American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse(?)
DIR By: guest5
Date: October 24, 2020, 3:28 pm
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Why American public transit is so bad | 2020 Election
--- Quote ---
> Most Americans have no choice but to drive. How do we change
that?
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZDZtBRTyeI
#Post#: 1913--------------------------------------------------
Re: American Empire Collapse: It's About To Get Much Worse(?)
DIR By: guest5
Date: November 1, 2020, 12:57 am
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America Compared: Why Other Countries Treat Their People So Much
Better
--- Quote ---
> We're taught to believe that America is the greatest country
on earth and that it couldn't possibly get any better. Let's put
that claim to the test. In this episode, we'll compare the US to
other wealthy nations using several key metrics: "low-skilled"
job compensation, vacation time, length of the work week, and
paid parental leave. The results may surprise you.
--- End Quote ---
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhBkeAo2Hlg
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