Don't listen to Morning Edition, listen to this

But it is radically different from an image-based culture, which is primarily emotion-driven, and most of the images which are disseminated throughout our culture are skillfully put together and disseminated by for-profit corporations. So that we are made to, or we confuse how we are made to feel with knowledge. Which is precisely how we ended up with Barack Obama.

I haven't gotten to the 20-minute mark yet.

Here's Wikpedia's summary:

>>>>>Clinton made it one of his goals as president to pass trade legislation that lowered the barriers to trade with other nations. He broke with many of his supporters, including labor unions, and those in his own party to support free-trade legislation. Opponents argued that lowering tariffs and relaxing rules on imports would cost American jobs because people would buy cheaper products from other countries. Clinton countered that free trade would help America because it would allow the U.S. to boost its exports and grow the economy. Clinton also believed that free trade could help move foreign nations to economic and political reform.

The three-nation NAFTA was signed by Present George H. W. Bush during December 1992, pending its ratification by the legislatures of the three countries. Clinton did not alter the original agreement, but complemented it with the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation, making NAFTA the first "green" trade treaty and the first trade treaty concerned with each countries labor law, albeit with very weak sanctions.

NAFTA provided for gradually reduced tariffs and the creation of a free-trading bloc of North American countries–the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Opponents of NAFTA, led by Ross Perot, claimed it would force American companies to move their workforces to Mexico, where they could produce goods with cheaper labor and ship them back to the United States at lower prices. Clinton, however, argued that NAFTA would increase U.S. exports and create new jobs. He convinced many Democrats to join most Republicans in supporting trade agreement and in 1993 the Congress passed the treaty.

Clinton also held meetings with leaders of Pacific Rim nations to discuss lowering trade barriers. In November 1993 he hosted a meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Seattle, Washington, which was attended by the leaders of 12 Pacific Rim nations. In 1994, Clinton arranged an agreement in Indonesia with Pacific Rim nations to gradually remove trade barriers and open their markets.

Officials in the Clinton administration also participated in the final round of trade negotiations sponsored by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), an international trade organization. The negotiations had been ongoing since 1986. In a rare move, Clinton convened Congress to ratify the trade agreement in the winter of 1994, during which the treaty was approved. As part of the GATT agreement, a new international trade body, the World Trade Organization (WTO), replaced GATT in 1995. The new WTO had stronger authority to enforce trade agreements and covered a wider range of trade than did GATT....

[In 1999] Clinton signed a landmark trade agreement with the People's Republic of China. The agreement–the result of more than a decade of negotiations–would lower many trade barriers between the two countries, making it easier to export U.S. products such as automobiles, banking services, and motion pictures. However, the agreement could only take effect if China was accepted into the WTO and was granted permanent “normal trade relations” status by the U.S. Congress.

Under the pact, the United States would support China’s membership in the WTO. Many Democrats as well as Republicans were reluctant to grant permanent status to China because they were concerned about human rights in the country and the impact of Chinese imports on U.S. industries and jobs. Congress, however, voted in 2000 to grant permanent normal trade relations with China. Several economic studies have since been released that indicate the increase in trade resulting lowered American prices and increased the U.S. GDP by 0.7 percent throughout the following decade.<<<<<

Having been there in the '90s, is this not how you remember it?

Who knew? Is this the part in his talk where you're thinking Hedges is saying that the unemployed want to be on welfare?:

[21:40] The reforms that have been instituted by the Democratic Party are so alien to the rhetoric that the mechanism, that safety valve which can make a capitalist democracy function, has essentially been turned shut. So that now, with the creation of a kind of permanent underclass -- and even Lawrence Summers acknowledges this when he talks about a jobless recovery -- the inability on the part of working men and women to get access to credit, they keep prolonging unemployment benefits because, courtesy of Bill Clinton, once unemployment benefits run out people are going to have to try and live on the $143 a month they receive from welfare.

So the anger we are seeing expressed throughout the society, through the Tea Party, through militias, through the Christian right -- which I'm going to speak about in a minute -- comes with a two-pronged attack; one is against the power elite, which for them is defined as Washington -- one of the most interesting aspects of the Tea Party movement is the way Dick Armey, with corporate money, went into the Tea Party and made sure the anger was deflected from Wall Street and directed towards government with not very subtle undertones of overt racism -- and the other prong of the attack is against the liberal class, hatred for the liberal class. And I would argue that this hatred is not misplaced....

It's almost like he reads the blog nobody reads and everybody hates!

He's got it right in a couple of places, esp. where the source of the anger expressed by the Tea Party goes:

The anger throughout society we are seeing expressed, through the Tea Party, through militias, through the Christian Right, comes with a two-pronged attack. One is against the power elite, which for them is defined as Washington. [23:01] … And the other prong of attack is the liberal class. Hatred for the liberal class. And I would argue that this hatred is not misplaced. That the hatred for the liberal class is deserved. [23:44]. Because, the liberal class, and especially the progressive wing of the Democratic Party did traditionally watch out for the interests of the working class. And for money, for corporate money they sold workers out. And now the middle class. And so you can watch it with Obama.

....

[Dostoevsky expressed:] When the liberal class collapses, when the pillars of the liberal establishment no longer function, you enter an age of moral nihilism...the inevitable result of a system that didn't work. And that's where we are, our system that doesn't work. And it doesn't work, ultimately, not because of Sarah Palin, or the Christian Right, or Glenn Beck. It doesn't work because the liberal class failed us. The liberal class failed to find the intellectual and moral fortitude to defend liberal values at a time they were under egregious assault. 30:48.

...

[43:57] Anybody who's foolish enough to think that going to a ballot box at THIS point, and voting for a Democratic is going to change anything I think is living in a universe that is as non-reality-based as the Christian Right.

The Democrats number one goal is the same as that of corporate America (and the Republicans, of course, although Hedges is most concerned with destroying the myth that the Democrats give a cr*p, we already know the Republicans don't): to disemploy and dispossess the working class, and then the middle class. We're all just serfs in various phases of becoming and dawning realization.

His remedy is to acknowledge that voting is not the path to change, but making the boyars afraid of us, because that's the only path to political progress which has ever worked:

Most people frankly, who are attracted to power, are at best mediocre, which is Obama, or venal, which is Bush. The question is, how do we make the powerful afraid of us? And all of the social movements that were built, starting with the Liberty Party which fought slavery, the suffragists for women's rights, the labor movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, made the powerful frightened of them. Which is why the last truly liberal president in the United States was Richard Nixon. Because he was actually scared of movements. And passed OSHA, and the Clean Water Act, and the Mine and Safety Act. 43.53.

We have to remember that is not our job to take power. … Our job is remain fast around moral imperatives that we do not compromise on. It is our job to defend a dispossessed working class. It is our job to defend sick children. It is our job to defend those who are being tortured, abused and killed in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan...and we have to be willing to get up and make personal sacrifices on behalf of these moral imperatives, even if at first we become pariahs. That is the only hope left.

I share your appreciation of Hedges's talk.

I disagree, however, that he loses credibility on the basis of his critique of Clinton as you have described it: that Clinton was impeded by "backstabbing Democrats" and Gingrich Republicans.

Please notice that Hedges' is not criticizing Clinton for capitulating to a Republican congress and right wing Democrats, but rather for being the driving force behind much of the most destructive legislation which emerged during this period. Remember, it was the Clinton administration, and its dominant Rubinite wing, which pushed for NAFTA, Welfare Reform, repeal of Glass Steagal, and, were it not for the Lewinsky affair was moving forward on his own plan to privatize Social Security.

In fact, these were advanced against the opposition of the Democratic caucus and only passed into law with the overwhelming support of the Republicans.

It may be that Clinton is being unfairly maligned by Hedges, however, you will need to cite specific examples to make a compelling case along these lines, and I for one and dubious as to whether this is possible.