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A Virtual War On Poor People Trying To Navigate The Despair Machine

“Navigating the netherworld of America’s criminal caste system”

[Update: 11/14/21 – Chris Hedges explains how this all works in his talk American Sadism. ~~~ end update]

In a 2013 book and essay, Professor and writer Henry Giroux wrote of today’s Neoliberal US political economy as a spirit crushing “dis-imagination machine” (emphases mine):

The commanding economic and cultural institutions of American society have taken on what David Theo Goldberg calls a “militarizing social logic.”[1] Market discipline now regulates all aspects of social life, and the regressive economic rationality that drives it sacrifices the public good, public values and social responsibility to a tawdry consumerist dream while simultaneously creating a throwaway society of goods, resources and individuals now considered disposable. […]

The political, economic, and social consequences have done more than destroy any viable vision of a good society. They undermine the modern public’s capacity to think critically, celebrate a narcissistic hyperindividualism that borders on the pathological, destroy social protections and promote a massive shift towards a punitive state that criminalizes the behavior of those bearing the hardships imposed by a survival-of-the-fittest society that takes delight in the suffering of others.

Giroux sees the “rise of a dis-imagination machine” as a response to this punishing and humiliating Neoliberal economy and culture:

The “disimagination machine” is both a set of cultural apparatuses extending from schools and mainstream media to the new sites of screen culture, and a public pedagogy that functions primarily to undermine the ability of individuals to think critically, imagine the unimaginable, and engage in thoughtful and critical dialogue: put simply, to become critically informed citizens of the world.

Giroux provides several specific examples of the dis-imagination machine  (read the whole 2013 article, many of his examples have proven prescient). And Giroux is not alone in his analysis.

Today, in part 2 of the interview of Chris Hedges on his brilliant new book: “Our Class – Trauma and Transformation In An American Prison“, Hedges explains how Giroux’s “dis-imagination machine” operates in the lives of black men and their families and communities.

I found this anecdote of the life experience of one of Hedges’s students in what Hedges calls “navigating the netherworld of America’s criminal caste system” to be especially disturbing and terrifying (emphases mine):

If you come out [of prison] without a strong support system – and that’s not just a family, but a family that has some financial means – then you are cast aside. … No matter how hard you try, there are all these mechanisms to beat you down.  And that’s what’s so criminal on the part of our society.

All of these people who …want to reintegrate, who want to have a normal life: a car, an apartment, a job, all of these mechanisms work to deny them that possibility and drive them into deeper and deeper despair and frustration and anger.

I can assure you – from personal experience – that these mechanisms are real, that they do “beat you down“, and that they do not operate only on black people, “criminals”, or formerly incarcerated people.

After an Ivy League graduate education, home ownership in an upscale community (Hopewell NJ), and a 30+ year solidly middle class professional career, I now live a nomadic life and have limited means.

I hope that it is a life of “integrity”, especially as Chris Hedges characterizes the word in his “final sermon” to his prison class.

I have daily experiences with these mechanisms, including: harassment by law enforcement and the judicial system; exploitation by the financial system; disrespect, rejection, and even outright hostility by bourgeois society.

And despite having personal resources to cope with these attacks, sometimes I feel an overwhelming overall frustration with daily life, including the simple basics of a daily routine.

All of it seems to be designed to humiliate and harass poor people, almost all of whom lack the privileges I have been able to take advantage of.

I literally can not imagine what they must experience and frankly, can’t understand the lack of rage and political rebellion given the gross injustices, corruption of corporate capitalism, and ugly nature of this dynamic.

This is the dynamic that explains the “deaths of despair” as well as the political apathy (or “dis-imagination”) that impedes democratic political revolution and reforms.

Something’s gotta give. And soon.

This level on inequality can not persist: (Gatsby Meets The Green New Deal – Saratoga Springs, NY – that’s a 1930 Pace Arrow):

Let’s hope the revolutionary tide breaks left – but many signs indicate a right wing Fascist moment is in the cards.

(Photo – Ticonderoga, NY – the local tourist slogan is “America’s Fort”.)

[Update – 10/22/21 – At the outset, we felt that this climate protest was political cover. We wrote that it was:

designed to provide cover for Congressional Democrats, like their “progressive” friends AOC and Co., who are NOW caving to Manchin/Sinema

Well, right on time, here they are:

Echoing the demands of demonstrators who were arrested outside the White House throughout last week, Congresswoman Cori Bush led a dozen other progressive lawmakers Friday in pressuring President Joe Biden to block fossil fuel projects and immediately declare a climate emergency.

But still, progressives did nothing with their legislative power, they merely wrote a letter to Biden, that praised him!

While praising the president’s commitments to climate action and serving frontline communities, the 13 House Democrats sent Biden a letter to express their “grave concern that ongoing actions by your administration threaten to undermine our shared goal to further climate, racial, and economic justice.”

Lame and shameful – again.

[Update: 10/14/21 – I need to clarify this post. Of course – and I shouldn’t have to say this – I support climate activists taking direct action, occupying public space, and protesting to hold political officials (like Biden) accountable and demand real climate action. See just one example, from 2014:

• The Way To Beat The Frackers –Mass Movement Politics – Resistance – Street Tactics – Political Accountability 

But the timing, location, target, message, and demands for this action are all wrong, i.e. “Build Back Fossil Free” or People Versus Fossil Fuels.

Perhaps hypotheticals might help:

• suppose anti-Vietnam war activists, during the DNC Chicago 1968 convention, instead held a protest at the Pentagon demanding cuts to the military budget?
• Suppose anti-globalization and anti-corporate protesters, instead of engaging the Battle In Seattle, went to Washington DC HQ of the WTO or World Bank and demanded loan forgiveness for third world countries?
• Suppose the original Occupy organizers went to San Francisco to target Silicon Valley to protest the internet’s treatment and harm of women and young girls, instead of to Wall Street to protest income and wealth inequality and the abuses of the 1%?.

Get it: wrong place, wrong target, wrong time, wrong demand – and they missed the real target. (even though the issues and targets were legitimate grievances).

The time to organize and mobilize protesters to focus demands on Biden was BEFORE the election. The time to Occupy Washington DC to focus on Biden and demand strong executive branch actions (i.e. Executive Orders, policy, regulatory, legal strategy, and appointments/personnel) – or to “declare a climate emergency” – was during the period after the election and before the Inaugural (i.e. the transition). That action could have been sustained through the first 100 days.

Activists did none of that. Biden’s executive branch agenda is locked in – and it sucks.

In contrast, now is the critical time to focus on Congress and the infrastructure and climate reconciliation bills. Democrats are caving to the hostage taking of Manchin and Sinema. Those Senators are blocking an already drastically watered down and weak climate package and the infrastructure bill has lots of really bad stuff in it, including: promotion of logging under the guise of wildfire prevention; rollback to NEPA; new loopholes in other environmental regulations; huge subsidies to carbon capture and nuclear; more privatization and deregulation; and lots of pork barrel traditional road building projects that will INCREASE carbon emissions. Yet activists are silent on all that.

Worse, by now focusing on the Biden executive branch agenda, they throw in the towel on the Congressional battle and divert resources from the real battle.

And all that is just either incompetence, more over-reliance on cultural and identity politics issues, or designed to provide cover for Congressional Democrats, like their “progressive” friends AOC and Co., who are NOW caving to Manchin/Sinema – or all of the above. Strategy and tactics matter and require careful thought, planning, organizing, and discipline. I see none of that.~~~ end update]

My head is spinning right now upon reading this.

After negotiating a compromise with Biden (e.g. the Sanders – Biden Taskforce, et al), and months of praising his Administration;

And then walking away from the Green New Deal (and now even the CCC) in favor of “pragmatic progressivism”;

And then neglecting to organize or mobilize massive public support for the Congressional battle on infrastructure and climate legislation;

And now, just at the moment we’re getting screwed by Democrats in Congress on Infrastructure & Climate, the activists abandon that fight & shift focus to Biden’s Executive authority!

• ‘To Change Course of History,’ US Climate Movement Takes Aim at Biden White House

WTF are they doing? Clueless clowns.

DEP Relies On Market Forces And Individual Decisions – No Need For Immediate Action

DEP downplays the reality of current climate impacts

[Update: 10/19/21 – I just ate across my legislative testimony – from back in 2006:

In the final paragraph on an otherwise well written story about environmental and coastal groups valid criticisms of NJ’s beach replenishment program – NJ enviros oppose increased funding for beach replenishment – we get to the buried lead and heart of the matter:

Coalition members say the state itself has already listed ways for New Jersey to gird its treasured shoreline against extreme weather events and rising sea level linked to climate change in a document produced by the Department of Environmental Protection titled Climate Change Resilience Strategy.

That creates the highly misleading impression that DEP is on top of the situation, i.e. they’ve “listed ways” and is taking steps to address the problem.

What the coalition members and media failed to note, however, was that the DEP Climate Change Resilience Strategy is still in draft form.

And the strategy itself is extremely weak in terms of “listing ways” that NJ can “gird its treasured shoreline”.

The key policy issues with respect to “coastal resilience” involve what’s called “managed retreat” – which is a taboo topic as it involves loss of hundreds of billions of dollars in real estate value along the coast and rivers.

It’s a lot easier for coastal environmental groups to call for reallocation of beach replenishment funds than to demand action on DEP regulatory development restrictions and managed retreat from highly vulnerable locations.

It’s DEP that is in retreat – not the developers. DEP still hasn’t even restored the rollbacks of the Christie administration.

The DEP Climate Change Resilience Strategy also is fatally flawed – in several important ways.

Here’s what it says about the taboo topic of “managed retreat” (emphases mine):

Alternately referred to as managed retreat, managed realignment, resilient relocation, or transformational adaptation, whatever the term, the result is the same; whether through individual or market decisions, people, businesses, and coastal functions will eventually move to safer areas. While large-scale managed retreat from New Jersey’s coast is unlikely to be necessary or mandated in the immediate future, planning, policy, and regulatory actions must be taken now to alleviate the potential economic and societal losses that will be caused by significant unplanned migration away from vulnerable areas. Coastal stakeholders may disagree about the implementation of managed retreat as a resilience strategy, but sea-level rise will ultimately make it a necessary consideration.

Did you get that? Let’s repeat:

whatever the term, the result is the same; whether through individual or market decisions, people, businesses, and coastal functions will eventually move to safer areas.

DEP is relying on “individual or market decisions”, despite the fact that they know that “sea-level rise will ultimately make it a necessary consideration.”

That is an extremely irresponsible policy assumption.

Furthermore, DEP is denying the current reality of climate change driven coastal hazards and impacts and delaying regulatory response.

Despite recent Superstorm Sandy and Ida devastation, DEP claims that:

large-scale managed retreat from New Jersey’s coast is unlikely to be necessary or mandated in the immediate future

DEP is literally putting its head in the sand.

Finally – and here’s the heart of the matter – DEP is not only deferring real action, they are even delaying their own meager draft commitments to real action.

The draft Strategy notes:

The [Gov. Murphy] Executive Order mandated that DEP update its FHA Rules, Stormwater Management Rules, and Coastal Rules to reflect the best available science on climate change. DEP intends to release the proposed rules by mid-2021.

Well, it’s now fall 2021 and DEP climate resilience regulations are nowhere to be seen.

The last I heard from DEP Commissioner LaTourette was that DEP might get around to proposing climate PACT regualtions in early 2022.

Note that that’s conveniently after the election.

Systemic Risks Remain – Republicans Acting To Exploit 

The Senate Judiciary Committee just released an important Report, see:

The Report is far too narrowly focused on the role of the Justice Department, as opposed to the applicable Constitutional procedures and the role of States. It also fails to expose what Republicans are currently doing to lay the groundwork to overturn the 2024 election results.

As a result, in general, the report over-emphasizes the “palace intrigue” drama, overstates the role and effectiveness of individual integrity and threats of resignation, and underestimates the serious systemic risks that remain and are actually getting worse.

Of course, the media has hyped the “palace intrigue” and threats of resignation at DoJ – echoes of Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre”.

In “Key Finding 3″ (begins on page 3), the Report exposes the most serious threat to a stolen election in ’24, but contextualizes and describes it in a way that subordinates it to “Trump’s potential offer to install [Clark] as Acting Attorney General” and thereby downplays and fails to adequately convey the scheme and its actual risk.

Here’s how the Report presents that systemic risk and what derailed it: (the heading of this key finding is similarly mis-focused)

Clark pushed Rosen and Donoghue to publicly announce that DOJ was investigating election fraud and tell key swing state legislatures they should appoint  alternate slates of electors following certification of the popular vote. He did so following personal communications with Trump, including at least one meeting that Clark attended in the Oval Office without the knowledge of DOJ leadership.

On December 28, 2020, Clark emailed Rosen and Donoghue a draft letter addressed to the Georgia Governor, General Assembly Speaker, and Senate President Pro Tempore. The letter was titled “Georgia Proof of Concept” and Clark suggested replicating it in “each relevant state.” The letter would have informed state officials that DOJ had “taken notice” of election irregularities in their state and recommended calling a special legislative session to evaluate these irregularities, determine who “won the most legal votes,” and consider appointing a new slate of Electors. Clark’s proposal to wield DOJ’s power to override the already-certified popular vote reflected a stunning distortion of DOJ’s authority: DOJ protects ballot access and ballot integrity, but has no role in determining which candidate won a particular election.

Documents and testimony confirm that Donoghue and Rosen rejected Clark’s recommendation but that Clark—potentially with the assistance of lower-level allies within DOJ—continued to press his “Proof of Concept” for the next several days. Clark eventually informed Rosen and Donoghue that Trump had offered to install him in Rosen’s place, and told Rosen he would turn down Trump’s offer if Rosen would agree to sign the “Proof of Concept” letter. Clark’s efforts culminated in an Oval Office meeting where Rosen, Donoghue, and Steven Engel, the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, informed Trump that DOJ’s senior leaders would resign if Trump carried out his plans.

The Report tends to undermine the credibility and feasibility of this State strategy by essentially downplaying and dismissing it as an “audacious proposal”: (@ page 19)

The “audacious proposal” is described thusly: (@ page 21):

Finally, the opening paragraph of the Report mentions the role of the Supreme Court (but does not adequately discuss the substance of such a legal attack):

On January 23, 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had urged DoJ to file a lawsuit in the Supreme Court seeking to invalidate President Biden’s victory.

Here’s how that legal attack is summarized (and simply dismissed as a “discredited” legal argument):

The Senate Report vindicates my concerns and predictions.

Back one November 3, 2020 (Election Day), I focused on exactly this State elector slate fraud scheme – and possible Supreme Court intervention:

• Here’s How I See The Election Unfolding

I outlined two coup scenarios:

So, all that paves the way to 2 alternative coup scenarios:

1) The 12th amendment route: Swing States with Republican legislatures (e.g. Pennsylvania, et al) claim fraud, reject the vote counts for Biden, and select Trump electors. This results in neither candidate getting the necessary 270 electoral college votes, which throws the election to the House, where Republicans have 26 State delegations. TRUMP wins, and its all legal. (The Atlantic story outlined this scenario, while Greg Pallast has been warning about it for months). OR

2) Trump (using AG Barr, Republican Party lawyers, & loyal State Attorneys General & State officials) challenges state vote counts. The challenges wind up in the Supreme Court. Justice Kavanaugh has already laid the groundwork for relying on State LEGISLATURES over all other state powers (Courts, Governors). Chief Justice Roberts will defend the integrity and legitimacy of the Court, with Justice Barrett casting the deciding vote in a 5-4 decision. Trump wins, and it’s all legal.

The Senate Report also documented my prior concern about the corrupt role of AG Barr: (at page 11):

I now have little confidence that the Democrats and the media are adequately focused and engaged on this key systemic risk and are taking the necessary steps to prevent it from happening in a stolen ’24 election.

All the evidence I see points to how the Republicans are aggressively laying the groundwork for exactly this scheme to prevail in ’24.

Republicans are doing this in the media, in right wing activism, in all sorts of electoral fraud (from gerrymandering to voter suppression) and at the State level.

And that’s a huge problem.

For Years, Pipeline Opponents, The DEP, and The Media Ignored The DEP Regulatory Tool They Now Claim To Have Used To Kill The Pipeline

Instead, Opponents Pursued A Failed Two Prong Strategy That Focused On FERC And Eminent Domain

If you’ve read NJ Spotlight lately (see this and this and this and this), then you believe these truths to be self evident:

1) that the PennEast pipeline is dead.

2) that it was killed by Gov. Murphy and DEP.

3) that the murder weapons were DEP’s denial of permits and the Clean Water Act’s Section 401 Water Quality Certificate – acting on the direction of Gov. Murphy.

4) that the DEP’s accomplices in the murder were Rethink NJ (Tom Gilbert), NJ LCV (Ed Potasnak), Environment NJ (Doug O’Malley), Delaware Riverkeeper Network (Maya Van Rossum), and wealthy landowners in Hunterdon County.

5) that the motives were to protect water quality and address the climate crisis by blocking new fossil infrastructure.

6) that this represents some powerful new precedent that will block future fossil infrastructure projects, as NJ Spotlight’s speculative fact free story claimed and headline blared:

• Fossil-fuel projects may face greater scrutiny after PennEast scraps pipeline

But, I’ve been conducting my own inquest and forensic analysis, and have come to some very different conclusions that completely destroy every one of the above 6 elements of the Spotlight narrative:

1) We’ve not recovered the body.

The closest we’ve come to finding a corpse – and a motive, cause of death and suspect – is not in NJ Spotlight  coverage, but in a Philadephia Inquirer story about corporate investors writing off millions of dollars in “impaired” investment.

(just Google: “tax rules on write off of impaired investments”)

2) There has been no autopsy or inquest – And no coroner’s Report, with an official cause of death.

Just the opposite: in fact, DEP is erecting obstacles to access to the public regulatory documents that would provide evidence of what really went on. Senator Bateman has declined to provide the letters to DEP he claims to have written – as have other legislators.

3) The actual motives of the suspects contradict the publicly asserted motives.

In fact, the alleged suspects and accomplices were focused on and brandishing other deadly weapons that not only failed to kill the victim, but had nothing to do with the alleged murder weapons.

In fact, former Christie Administration DEP Commissioner Bob Martin testified to the Legislature that DEP could NOT deny permits and WQC approval.  Martin provided highly misleading responses, basically saying that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) preempted DEP environmental reviews. Martin responded:

They (FERC) are the overall controlling entity on it at the end of the day. They could over-ride anything we could even do from the State of New Jersey. […]

We can not fight that .. If we did reject a pipeline it would end up in court very quickly.

Current Murphy Administration Treasurer Muoio validated Martin’s lies.  As Assemblywoman and sponsor, Muoio introduced a Resolution and said the intent was to:

ensure that FERC provides a comprehensive consideration of cumulative impacts, and gives deference to competing state policy determinations, especially open space and farmland preservation.

Notice the failure of Muoio’s Resolution to mention State policy determinations under Section 401 WQC powers. I was shut down by Chairman Reed Guscioria for making this point in my testimony when I testified:

So what I want to focus on are the competing state policies in NJ that are key, because I don’t think that it is properly and fully understood that under the Natural Gas Act, state and local laws, policies, and standards are pre-empted, with 2 exceptions.

And that’s State powers under the Clean Water Act and State powers under the Coastal Zone Management Act.

Both those powers were recently used in the State of Connecticut to deny a pipeline permit and in the State of New York to deny a pipeline permit.

Those should be the leading cases that we should focus on as a State, because we currently have that authority at the Department of Environmental Protection – right now – to deny permits for these pipelines.

This Administration is not utilizing those powers.

So if the Legislature wants to express a progressive state policy to FERC AND to the Administration and to the people of the State, there has to be inclusion in this  Resolution of the powers of the State under the Clean Water Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act.

The Rethink NJ people, their advocates Assemblywoman Muoio and Chairman Guscioria, and the press all worked hard to suppress my testimony and any focus on the DEP 401 WQC issue.

And DEP themselves, like the denials of Peter, never asserted 401 WQC review authority and instead subtly denied those powers.

4) In fact, we’re not sure the victim is even dead:

a) PennEast Pipeline’s statements are vague and conditional;

b) PennEast has not withdrawn or surrendered FERC approvals, which were extended and remain valid;

c) PennEast has not withdrawn DEP permit applications and publicly stated they would not seek DEP approvals.

d) The status of the Pennsylvania segment of the pipeline is equally vague, leaving open the possibility of re-routing in NJ;

e) the NJ Attorney General has not secured finality in pending litigation.

f) FERC is contemplating regulatory policy changes that could impact the pipeline;

g) there is legislation pending in. Congress that could impact the pipeline.

h) President Biden issued an Executive Order that could impact the pipeline.

5) We’ve not recovered the murder weapon – there is no smoking gun, no fingerprints and no crime scene: 

a) there is no document by DEP denying permits (final agency action, on the merits, with prejudice); (My Central Jersey)

The DEP denied the permits because adequate information had not been submitted to complete the application, but it said PennEast could submit a new application.

b) there is no document by DEP denying the WQC (final agency action, on the merits, with prejudice);

c) the DEP Commissioner is silent about and has not publicly explained DEP’s position, or confirmed, praised, or taken credit for the kill – or even supported the policy alleged to have caused the kill;

d) Gov. Murphy’s public statements support the death, but they do not take credit for the kill;

e) the DEP just denied a petition for rulemaking that would have committed DEP to promulgating regulations to block new fossil infrastructure like PennEast;

f) Gov. Murphy’s BPU Energy Master Plan projects continued reliance on natural gas, particularly as a backup source for off shore wind and renewables.

6) The alleged accomplices were nowhere near the murder scene and had no involvement in the alleged murder weapon.

In fact, the alleged accomplices not only ignored and diverted public attention from the alleged murder weapon, but they actively undermined the use of that weapon by others.

Let me now expand upon and provide evidence to support these curious conclusions that directly contradict the narrative created by NJ Spotlight.

That analysis will be forthcoming in our next post.

[End Note: The bald headed guy on the left above the “Deny” placard is your author. [Photo Credit: Burlington County Times]

Actually, its kind of creepy. Reminds me of the appearances by Alfred Hitchcock in his movies.]