Chris Hedges's Blog, page 245

The Only Solution to America’s Political Crisis

Hardly a day has gone by over the last two years when one hasn’t been able to learn of yet another soul-numbing outrage on the part of President Donald Trump and his administration. The stories have been relentlessly disturbing:

Trump’s suggestion of moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and civil rights protesters in Charlottesville, Va.
The vicious separation of children from their migrant parents at the southern border.
The concoction of a fake national emergency involving invading criminal immigrants to divert taxpayer dollars to the building of a wall on that border.
The shutdown of the federal government, inflicting economic terror on millions of government workers, in the name of that white-nationalist political vanity project.
The assault on international law regarding the right to asylum, combined with the callous cutting of aid to desperately poor Central American states where U.S. policy has long fueled the misery that feeds northward flight.
The accelerated ecocidal deregulation of fossil fuels, combined with the denial of anthropogenic climate change and the handing over of vast swaths of the nation’s public land to corporate pillagers.
Repeated sadistic efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s provision mandating that insurance companies cannot deny health coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
The holding of presidential campaign rallies where Trump calls reporters “the enemy of the people” and purveys xenophobic lies about invading armies of Mexican and Central American rapists and drug dealers coming to despoil the United States.
A plan crafted by the president’s top political adviser, Stephen Miller, to conduct a giant “shock and awe” sweep-up of thousands of migrants in 10 large U.S. cities.
Trump’s suggestion that any attempt to remove him from office will spark violence from “tough guys,” including “bikers,” police officers and the military.
Trump’s determination to run cover for a Saudi monarch who ordered the vivisection of a Washington Post reporter.
Trump’s reckless sign-off on the export of nuclear technology to the absolutist, arch-reactionary Saudi regime.
Trump’s brazenly false and repeated claim that the Mueller report is a “total exoneration” of his presidency, when that report concludes by saying precisely the opposite and in fact is a referral for impeachment.

Most recently, the White House is engaged in chilling and open defiance of Congress’s clear constitutional power to oversee and investigate the executive branch. In a recent hearing held by federal Judge Amit Mehta on the administration’s lawsuit claiming that Congress possesses no legitimate power to obtain Trump’s financial records, Trump’s lawyer, William Consovoy, argued that Congress lacks authority to investigate and publicize possible wrongdoing by the president. An incredulous Mehta asked Consovoy if this meant that Congress’s investigations into Watergate and Whitewater (here we night add the Iran/Contra affair and more) were unconstitutional. Consovoy hemmed, saying it would depend upon the basis for those investigations. It was “straightforward,” responded Mehta: “Congress was inquiring into possible violations of the law by the president.”

“In that case,” Consovoy said, “then yes, perhaps Congress did overstep its authority.”

The president, in short, is above the law, according to his lawyers.

Piecing all these and countless other horrific stories about Trump and his presidency together, anyone with any basic knowledge of fascism, past and present, can easily and correctly identify him as an aspiring fascist leader. It is rare, however, for liberal corporate media operatives to go all the way with the F-word—fascism—when it comes to describing Trump.

Their silence here is ironic. Worried talking heads at MSNBC—an outpost of the Democratic Party’s reigning corporate establishment—and across the liberal punditocracy warn frequently and loudly about what they consider the Democratic Party’s “socialism problem.” They do this even though just a small handful of Democrats (Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib) identify as “democratic socialists.” They fret over the socialist menace despite the fact that all these “radical” Democrats mean by “socialism” is capitalism with some long overdue Western- and northern European-style social reforms.

Meanwhile, the party in power is headed by a white nationalist authoritarian buoyed by a significantly fascist base. The norm-smashing president is moving from fascist-style politics to fascist-style policy with audacious speed and zeal. His politics and policies draw heavily on the classic fascist notion that the nation is menaced by a big, radical left—a notion that liberal media is helping spread with its warning against Democratic “socialism.”

Two other mainstream media silences deserve mention in the age of Trump. The first is the absence of any serious discussion of how fundamentally defective the American social and political system was—and is—to allow someone like Trump to rise to power and stay there. The dominant media beyond Fox and right-wing talk radio appear to think that everything was fine and democratic when Barack Obama sat in the White House. In the mainstream telling, Trump and his minions enter the stage of history almost out of nowhere, as if dropped from outer space—or by Vladimir Putin and Russian military intelligence. Trump, his agents and his backers are portrayed as deviant anomalies, strange products of weird quirks in the election cycle, including supposedly potent “Russian interference in our democratic elections.”

This is nonsense. Trump is as American as apple pie. He is the latest poison icing on the cake of an American fascist nightmare that has been cooking in the homeland’s hidden ovens of neoliberal race-class oppression for decades. He is the ugly outcome of a long process of social, cultural and political decay that has been underway since at least the mid-1970s. He reflects our failed, oxymoronic “capitalist democracy”—what Noam Chomsky has cleverly called “really existing capitalist democracy: RECD, pronounced as ‘wrecked.’ ”

It was the neoliberal nothingness of corporate Democrats, with their abject subservience to Wall Street and corporate America and their cold-blooded globalist betrayal of the working-class majority, that demobilized the nation’s majority-progressive voting base and opened the door for the reactionary populist Trump to shock the world (including himself, though not Steve Bannon) in 2016. But, deeper still, the Democrats’ dismal centrism reflects the wildly disproportionate power of concentrated wealth in a plutocratic winner-take-all social and political order in which the democratic promise of elections is trumped by the unelected dictatorships of money and empire (no Russian assistance required). This trumping continues regardless of which party or configuration of parties holds sway in federal, state and local government.

You won’t hear about the deeper system that hatched Trumpenstein on cable news, where, as leftist historian and journalist Terry Thomas told me in January:

The Trump fiasco allows the inauthentic opposition [Democrats] to sit around and smugly refer to themselves as “the adults in the room,” as if that’s now all that’s required. There’s no need for Bernie or radical change, we just need someone who is not mentally ill, an “adult in the room.” The Democrats act like we’ve got this covered because we’re sane and the Orange Dumpster’s not, our point has been proven, so now just give us power again, and we’ll put everything back together, nothing more needed. But the truth is glaringly obvious: how flawed and fundamentally dysfunctional must the system be to allow something like this to happen?

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Democratic Elite Could Care Less About the Life of the Party



by Eric Hacopian

“Please don’t insult our intelligence, Thomas adds: “The adults were in the room—by their estimation, Obama was the epitome of adulthood—and it produced this.”

The harsh systemic reality—the ways in which the corporate state discredits liberal institutions and democracy to provide ground for the development of far-right and even fascist politics—is a nonstory in the dominant media and politics culture.

A second and related media silence is on the need for massive popular protest—real resistance—beyond the election cycle to bring down the Trump regime and the system that gave rise to it. The media may come up short by failing to properly portray Trump as a fascist, but they do accurately present a vicious authoritarian, a racist, a sexist, a gangster, a malignant narcissist and a modern-day “royal brute” (to use the Declaration of Independence’s language referring to King George in 1776).

What should the populace do about the presence of a soulless despot atop its government who thinks he’s above the law? Tyrants who would rule like kings are supposed to face popular upheavals, aren’t they? You won’t hear word one about the need for disruptive mass action of the kind liberal talking heads and pundits endorse when it emerges inside such officially designated enemy and “adversary” states as Venezuela, Russia and Iran. The implicit and sometimes explicit counsel here in the supposedly civilized homeland is to play by the rules: Be good citizens and let the Constitution and (to use Thomas’s phrase) the adults in the room (the Democrats) do their good works. The guidance is to chill and the let the business and professional class “experts” handle things. Keep calm and let the system work. Wait for the congressional investigations to reach fruition. Wait for Nancy Pelosi to explain again why she is or is not pursuing impeachment. Wait for the next quadrennial presidential electoral extravaganza to play itself out. Wait for the Democrats to nominate the right-wing, arch-corporatist-imperialist Joe Biden, adding Kamala Harris to his ticket for some deceptive, fake-progressive race and gender identity ballast. Spend our time between now and then learning about all the interesting and wonderfully “diverse” Democratic presidential candidates (up to 24 in number by now) as they fly around the country this year.

It’s bad advice. Depressing Wall Street corporate Democrats and identity politicos like Biden and Harris are part of how we got in this pathetic, creeping-fascist mess in the first place. They are unlikely to break through the Electoral College (which grants disproportionate power to white red state voters) and defeat Trump. Their party is determined to once again (as in 2016) rig the game against Sanders, the Democratic candidate who is running closest to majority opinion on key issues—and the one most likely to rally demobilized and disadvantaged segments of the electorate to defeat Trump.

Even if Biden—or whatever corporate centrist the Democrats will likely affix atop their ticket—somehow defeats Trump (a recession would help), the rightward drift of American society will continue unabated, given the not-so-leftmost major party’s determination to ignore and silence popular voices to its wide and deep port-side. Popular resentment abhors a leftist vacuum.

If we, the people, are serious about stopping Trump, we’ll take to the streets en masse to engage in substantial and unrelenting civil disobedience. If we are serious about democracy beyond just the removal of a single noxious ogre, we won’t go home just because a narrow-spectrum, big money, major media candidate-centered election is being held on its regular, absurdly time-staggered, once-every-1,460-days schedule. We won’t go home even if Trump loses and agrees to leave without incident. If we’re serious about popular sovereignty, we’ll stick around to “dismantle the corporate state” (Chris Hedges) that birthed both Trump and the inauthentic opposition party (the neoliberal era Democrats), along with so much else that has long outlived its expiration date (i.e., the fossil fuel industry and the Pentagon system).

Don’t hold your breath waiting for liberal talking heads or politicos to tell the people the truth about how they need to take to the streets to fight Trump. As Thomas explains:

There are now legal scholars making the case on national television that the president must be judged by an entirely different standard than the rest of us lowly citizens. That’s how this works: Trump types keep pushing the envelope, and by doing so push the terrain of discourse ever closer to fascism. And if he has sufficiently captured the federal court system, Trump could win. I would say the proper response is for House Democrats to call for mass demonstrations to give evidence that people oppose this authoritarian shit. But they will never do it, in part because they are afraid of the people in the streets. It’s the centuries-old dilemma faced by the likes of John Adams in the American Revolution. Once you put the people in the streets, you run the risk of losing control of them.”

Daniel Ellsberg: Julian Assange’s Espionage Charges Are a Travesty

What follows is a conversation between Daniel Ellsberg and Sharmini Peries of the Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.

SHARMINI PERIES: It’s The Real News Network. I’m Sharmini Peries, coming to you from Baltimore.

In breaking news, the U.S. Department of Justice just charged Julian Assange on 18 counts of having violated the 1917 Espionage Act. This is a significant escalation of charges against him. Previously he was indicted on a charge of hacking into a Pentagon computer system. Assange is currently in prison in London after Ecuador revoked his political asylum at the London embassy, where he lived for almost seven years.

Joining me now to discuss the Assange indictment is Daniel Ellsberg. Daniel is a former U.S. military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who became famous in 1971 when he released the Pentagon papers. The papers revealed top secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision making about the Vietnam War. His recent book is The Doomsday Machine, and you’ll find a series of interviews right here at The Real News Network with Daniel Ellsberg about the book. Good to have you here, Daniel.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Glad to be here, though not under these circumstances, Sharmini. Go ahead.

SHARMINI PERIES: Daniel, last time we spoke, which was just after Julian Assange was removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, you already expected that this might happen, that Assange might be indicted under the Espionage Act. What is the significance of this move, and why did they do it now and not wait until he was extradited to the U.S.?

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The Martyrdom of Julian Assange



by Chris Hedges

DANIEL ELLSBERG: I was sure that the Trump administration would not be content with keeping Julian Assange in prison for five years, which was the sentence for the one charge of conspiracy that he was charged with earlier. So I was sure they would go after him with a much longer sentence under the Espionage Act. I was charged with 12 counts, including one of conspiracy, in 1971, for a possible sentence of 115 years. In this case they brought 17 counts under the Espionage Act, plus the one conspiracy. So they’re facing him with 175 years. That’s, frankly, not that different from 115. It’s a life sentence. And it’ll be enough for them.

They weren’t anxious, I think, to bring it while he was still in Britain because it’s so clearly a political offense, and Britain isn’t compelled to extradite under the treaty for a political offense. And that’s what they’re charging here now, as well as a politically motivated charge. But apparently they had to bring the charges now rather than after he is back in the States, which was what I had expected, because they have to tell Britain, in deciding whether to extradite him to the U.S. or not, the full scale of the charges that he would be facing. In particular, both Sweden and the U.S., I think, are reluctant to extradite people on charges that hold the death penalty. That’s true I think for Sweden in particular, which is also trying to extradite him. They’re not going to charge him with the death penalty. Just a life sentence, as I was facing.

This does, however, complicate somewhat their extradition. And I thought that Trump would hold off on declaring war on the press until the extradition matter had been settled. But no, the declaration of war came today. This is a historic day, and a very challenging one for American democracy.

SHARMINI PERIES: Now, Daniel, Ecuador, at the time they released him or revoked his stay at the embassy, made it a condition that Julian Assange be not extradited to a country where there is the death penalty. Now, you said that there could be a lifelong sentence here in terms of prison. So the fact that there is a death penalty in the United States is insignificant, as far as you’re concerned?

DANIEL ELLSBERG: My understanding is that Sweden, which is trying to extradite him as well, cannot extradite somebody to a country that has a death penalty. But I think they would probably try to get around that if the prosecutors said we’re not seeking the death penalty, and that’s surely the case right now. Actually, the death penalty under the Espionage Act only applies in certain circumstances; probably not the paragraphs of 18 USC 793, paragraphs D and E, which I was charged under, didn’t carry a death penalty. That was essentially for people who were spies in wartime against an enemy country. So they’ll say they’re not seeking the death penalty. But the problem remains that these are very clearly political offenses. And the question whether they should extradite him for that, that will complicate the appeals in the extradition process, and probably make it longer. So I don’t expect him in the U.S. very quickly, unless the U.K., with their special friendship, just ships him off very quickly, instead of to Sweden.

But the challenge is on as of now, right now. Every journalist in the country now knows for the first time that she or he is subject to prosecution for doing their job as journalists. It cuts out the First Amendment, essentially. That eliminates the First Amendment freedom of the press, which is the cornerstone of our American democracy and of this republic. So there’s an immediate focus, there should be an immediate concern not just for journalists over here and publishers, but for everyone who wants this country to remain a democratic republic.

SHARMINI PERIES: As journalists we engage with states all the time. We engage and we ask questions, and we try to assess and ascertain information. How does it actually specifically affect journalists working?

DANIEL ELLSBERG: John Demer for the Department of Justice, I notice just now, is trying to distinguish Julian from journalists. In fact, he’s saying he’s not a journalist, although the New York Times, to whom he gave Chelsea Manning’s information initially, as I did, is saying very frankly that what he does is what The New York Times does. And clearly if he’s prosecuted and convicted, that confronts the New York Times, The Washington Post, and you, and every other journalist, with the possibility of the same charges. A second DOJ is saying he didn’t act like a responsible journalist. Well, people who are responsible journalists often do what Julian criticized, actually, and that is they give their stuff to the Department of Defense, or the Department of Justice, or the White House, before it’s printed. That’s a very questionable practice, really, and he certainly doesn’t do that. And it was not done, for example, in the case of the Pentagon papers, because they knew they would get an injunction before they published instead of an injunction after they had started publishing.

So this shows, in other words, that they’re saying, well, we won’t prosecute responsible journalists. But that assurance is worth nothing, aside from the question of who they’ll consider responsible or not. Remember that President Trump’s unprecedented charge here is that the American press, the mainstream press, is the enemy of the people. That’s a phrase that was used under Stalin, and also under Hitler, to describe people who were to be eliminated. It’s a very, very ominous historical phrase. But he has now declared war on the enemy of the people. And by saying that, for example, that he requested information, classified information, from Chelsea Manning, and that’s what distinguishes him from the press, or the responsible press, well, let me tell you, I can’t count the number of times I have been asked and urged to give classified information to the responsible press. The Times, the Post, AP. Anything you can name.

So that is journalism. And the idea that they’re distinguishing that should not reassure any journalists. I’m sure it won’t, actually. So they’re feeling the chill right now, before the prosecution actually begins. These indictments are unprecedented. And I would say they are blatantly unconstitutional, in my opinion. Which is not worth that much, except it’s a subject I’ve been close to for a long time. This is an impeachable offense, to carry on a prosecution this blatantly in violation of the Constitution, which the president and the attorney general are sworn to uphold. They are not doing that at this moment.

SHARMINI PERIES: Daniel, the 18 counts of violating the Espionage Act, what are they, as far as you know?

DANIEL ELLSBERG: What is most ominous to me, by the way–it’s not obvious–is that they referred to 2010, when he was dealing with Chelsea Manning. Now, I followed those charges, and the material that was released by the Times, Le Monde, the Observer in London, and several, a number of other papers. I followed that fairly closely, including in the Chelsea Manning trial. That clearly was shown to result in no damage, no harm to any individual, which was precisely what they’re charging him now with having risked. And they weren’t able to come up with a single instance in these hundreds of thousands of files which were released in which a person had, in fact, been harmed. Now, I thought they would probably bring charges under his very recent revelations of various kinds, of which I don’t know the substance, entirely, what he had or what he released, and they might have come up with something that looked very questionable. I know that for 2010 we now know that what he released was in not violation of national security, did not harm any individuals, and is indeed what journalists do all the time.

His releasing himself, in contrast to some of the newspapers he gave it to, of unredacted material was questionable at that time, including by me, and raised questions of whether that was the right way to do it. As I say, though, that was tested over a matter of years in terms of not having done any harm, given the sources from which that was drawn, and that reassured me about the judgment of both Chelsea and Julian in having released at that time. But in any case, there’s no question that the 2010 material is is material that should have been protected by the First Amendment. And he is. And if the current court fairly judges the intent and effect of the First Amendment, this case would be dropped. As we all know, we can’t count on that. And a 5-4 decision now by this Supreme Court is probably another reason why Trump has gone further in attacking the First Amendment than any previous president, because he has an unprecedented court.

SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Daniel. I’ve been speaking with Daniel Ellsberg, former U.S. military analysts employed by RAND Corporation who released the Pentagon papers. I thank you so much for joining us today.

DANIEL ELLSBERG: Very good. Thank you.

SHARMINI PERIES: And thank you for joining us here on The Real News Network.

Ralph Nader: We Know Exactly Who Gave Us Trump

Donald J. Trump’s presidential ambition has simmered for decades. He was and is a regular TV watcher and saw the changing political landscape. One by one, previous presidents diminished the integrity of the presidency and violated the rule of law, paving the way for Trump’s candidacy.

Bill Clinton was exposed for serial adulteries and abuses of women and lied under oath. This perjury led to him being impeached in the House (though he was acquitted in the Senate). “Hmm,” thought Donald, a serial abuser of women, “Clinton got away with it and was elected twice.” One potentially career-ending violation no longer had the weight it once did.

Then came George W. Bush – selected by the Electoral College and a Republican Supreme Court. “Hmm,” thought Donald to himself, “Even though Gore won the popular vote, Bush won because of Electors in swing states.”  Despite Gore’s crushing loss, the Democratic Party refused to support ongoing Electoral College reform (see nationalpopularvote.com). Once in office, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney lied repeatedly to start an unconstitutional illegal war with Iraq, which caused huge Iraqi and U.S. casualties and wreaked havoc on the U.S. budget. Bush and Cheney not only got away with these atrocities, but were reelected. A majority of voters believed their lies.  Violating the laws did not matter. “Hmm,” thought Donald to himself, “The President is above the law.” Positions of power and the trampling of laws appealed to Trump, a lawless, failed gambling czar.

Then along came Obama. He too got away with all kinds of slaughter abroad without authority of the Constitution, statutes, or international treaties. He too was reelected. Domestically, Obama did not prosecute any of the big Wall Street crooks that brought down our economy in 2008-2009, even though a vast majority of the population loathed these reckless financiers. With all of these misdeeds and violations of law on full display, Trump a big business crook himself, must have thought that he would not be held accountable. Even better, he knew how to use television to manipulate the media to his advantage. These examples are just some of the major ways that past presidents, Democrats especially, handed Trump his opportunity. I describe these and other presidential abuses of power in my recent book, To the Ramparts: How Bush and Obama Paved the Way for the Trump Presidency, and Why It Isn’t Too Late to Reverse Course.

Given these inoculations for breaking social norms and laws, Trump felt he could break additional norms and laws and still secure the Presidency. It almost didn’t work – Hillary Clinton’s campaign bungling lost three key states, which provided Trump a path to the White House. The crazy, antiquated Electoral College sealed the deal.

Trump has always known how to use power to get more power. He went after his opponents with harsh nicknames, repeated verbatim by a supine press. The name calling stuck and influenced voters. Democrats did not reciprocate with nicknames like “cheating Donald,” “corrupt Donald,” “Dangerous Donald,” etc.

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The Only Solution to America's Political Crisis



by Paul Street

Emboldened, Trump, with his television knowhow, grasped that many people prefer fiction to non-fiction. Fantasy is big business and it can serve to distract from grim real-life injustices.  Day after day, the mass media proved this point by giving huge time to entertainment compared to news and civic engagements locally and nationally.

Donald, through his daily tweets and assertions, shaped a story – true or not, that would help him win the White House. Reporters have collected over 10,000 of Trumps lies and seriously misleading statements since he became President (see the complete list here via the Washington Post).

But Trump, with his 50 million Twitter followers, has his own media machine, which grows because the mass media replays so many of his fictions as if they were real.

Still, the Democrats should have defeated him handily and, failing that, should have since driven his poll numbers below 40 or 42 percent, where they hover.

Democrats having lost the crucial election of 2010 in Congress, most state legislatures and governorships, Democrats lost the gerrymandering battle. This set the stage for Republicans to seriously suppress the vote in many ways documented by the League of Women Voters and the Brennan Center. Some of this suppression occurred in key swing states like Wisconsin.

Today, Trump seems impervious to the many accurate accusations of corruptions and impeachable offenses. He ruthlessly scuttles lifesaving health/safety protections for the American people, undermines law enforcement, and breaks his repeated promises to provide “great” health insurance, “pure” clean air, and jobs for workers displaced by globalization. The norms that restrain politicians and their constitutional duty to “faithfully execute the laws” have been deeply eroded.

Trump is undeterred by the hundreds of syndicated columns and the regular television commentary by leading conservatives who despise him. George Will, Michael Gerson, Max Boot, David Brooks, Bret Stephens, and others have gone after Trump repeatedly. The attacks on the Prevaricator in Chief are like water off a duck’s back. Even Trump’s trail of broken campaign promises is routinely overlooked by the press and the Trump base.

Next week my column will address what to do to make Trump a one-term President. Only a landslide defeat in 2020 will keep Trump from tweeting “fake election” and demanding a recount.

The Americanization of Popular Culture Should Terrify Us All

The verdict is in, and Hollywood has won the global culture wars, according to Violaine Roussel, a French scholar and professor who has had unusual access to the California entertainment industry. In her view, American culture, packaged neatly in film and television for global consumption, has cast a shadow over cultural products in much of the world.

“The influence of Hollywood has definitely grown these past years, these past decades,” the University of Paris professor tells Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer in the latest installment of “Scheer Intelligence.” “That’s true in the realm of cinema, and, of course, maybe even more as far as TV is concerned.”

European nations, among others, are attempting to preserve their artistic industries through government subsidies. And yet state-funded works continue to fall short of the influence of multimillion-dollar American productions that flood cinema listings from Paris to Pittsburgh.

“The Americanization of the world [is] sort of a horrifying prospect when you extend it to cultural life,” Scheer remarks. “It’s one thing when we used to make very good cars, and maybe people wanted them. But what the world seems to be most influenced by [now] is our technology and our cultural output. And I find that depressing, because it suggests a certain uniformity; it suggests a certain commercialization, a certain jingoism, in a way. What happened to world culture?”

Part of the problem with the homogenization of Hollywood’s output is that conglomerates such as Comcast, Viacom and AT&T have taken over the entertainment industry. And while it may seem like movies make companies a lot of money, the profits are a pittance to these companies. The emergence of streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon raised the possibility of greater variety, but they ultimately come with their own issues related to data collection. None of these companies, be it Netflix or Comcast, seems to truly care about film and television as artwork, however.

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For the Love of Cinema



by Jordan Riefe

“The time of the great artist may be over in the world of entertainment that shapes the world’s culture,” Scheer tells Roussel. “The American entertainment industry that shapes the world’s culture—at least you could count on, somehow, the maverick director, the maverick artist, the person who could open a movie and yet had an idea, the great scriptwriter—and you can’t count on that anymore.”

“Hollywood has changed, and the power of the director, or the power of the star, is not what it used to be,” Roussel agrees. “So it’s another reason why we should try to find, collectively, any way we can to use the new tools to sort of reactivate or rejuvenate that power of the artist.”

Roussel and Scheer’s discussion, which you can listen to in the media player, leads them to different conclusions regarding the future of film and television around the world and whether it’s even possible for artists in the film and television industry to produce less uniform, more profound work, given the obstacles they face. You can also read a transcript of the interview below the media player and find past episodes of “Scheer Intelligence” here.

Robert Scheer: Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence, where the intelligence comes from my guests. In this case, it’s professor Violaine Roussel. I probably screwed up the whole pronunciation already. She is a professor at the University of Paris, No. 8, which is not to be confused with the Sorbonne, which is No. 1 at the University of Paris. So, but she’s also here at the University of Southern California and is a—amazingly enough, because I always think of the French as having a great film industry. And when I was young, we were very excited to go to foreign-language theaters and see the movies of Godard and everyone, or the Italian films, “8½,” or what have you, and Fellini’s movies, and even some British movies. And that was the center. And we thought Hollywood was for dummies—simplistic movies and so forth. And we don’t hear that much about the foreign film market. And one reason I was curious to talk to you was because you’ve become a major expert on the Hollywood film industry. You wrote probably the best book ever written about being an agent in Hollywood; amazingly enough, these hucksters—these operators called agents—were willing to let you hang around with them, shadow them, see their life, and explore what their contribution is, whatever that is. And also, you’ve written a book about politics in the movies and so forth. So what I want to do is ask you just the first question: Is there much of a European film industry? Is it significant in any real way? I mean, is it—was its heyday really in the postwar period?

Violaine Roussel: Thank you, first of all, for having me. And everything you said was absolutely perfect. Yes, there are several, maybe, European film industries, I would argue. First of all, in France, where I come from and which is, maybe after Hollywood, what I know best, the state still has an important role and subsidizes the film industry in ways that you don’t really find here. So this helps, maybe, keeping some independent cinema alive that struggles a little bit more, or differently—or, I would say, has to find different avenues to exist in the U.S. or in other film industries. So that’s at a national level. And then the EU also has regulations and policies to help the cultural industries in general, and cinema in particular. But the influence of Hollywood has definitely grown these past years, these past decades. And that’s true in the realm of cinema, and of course, maybe even more as far as TV is concerned. Because there is still in Europe this sense that there is a European cinema; even if it doesn’t have the same reach as Hollywood can have, globally speaking, it exists, and there is quality to it. But the place, maybe, where the dominance of Hollywood is the greatest, I would argue, is television. Because it’s also not just something that has a global reach and impact—and what is the TV that we watch in Europe? It’s mostly American shows, but it’s also the ones that are supposed to have, to be, best quality. So, you know, it’s part of this revolution. But other than that, yes, there is still very much—

RS: See, that’s one of the most depressing things I’ve heard in a long time. [Laughter] I, you know, the movies that most influenced me—well, I don’t want to exaggerate. But I certainly grew up with, you know, Resnais and Godard and Fellini and so forth. And I think of it as the heyday of film.

VR: Yeah.

RS: Now, in that period—I guess that goes right through the 1960s, certainly the ’50s and the postwar period. And I remember sitting in the Thalia Theatre in Manhattan. My god, that’s what you did as a college kid, and you watched one foreign film after another. Even when I went to graduate school in Berkeley, we had the Pacific Film Archive—they actually still do—and that was a mark of your intelligence and sophistication—that you didn’t bother with Hollywood tripe; you went there. Now, of course, we did have important Hollywood movies. Now, during that period, was that a subsidized film industry?

VR: Yes.

RS: It was.

VR: Yes.

RS: So in addition to having an intelligent way of doing medicine, and having some government subsidy for medicine and for health care, you also had it in this area, where we’re very afraid of government involvement. The irony is that what I would consider the heyday of the French, Italian and English film industry—it was this dreaded thing, a nonfree market, to some degree. Right? Yet it was highly experimental, it was highly provocative and challenging of power. So that’s just an interesting footnote, I think, to make. And then, what you’re suggesting is that the Americanization of the world’s culture moved on and kind of steamrolled a lot of that, and when you throw in television. And now, you’re here studying, and have been studying for some time, the American cultural industry at a time when it is probably what people back home in France are watching most. Is that a good summation?

VR: At least as far as TV is concerned, definitely. There is still a vibrant film industry in France. It’s small, and it doesn’t have the sort of global reach that Hollywood has. But it exists. You don’t see that much outside of the EU; it’s possible to see some of it, you know; there is even a French film festival here in L.A., Colcoa, every year. And you see—you can see those movies, if really you want to make a great effort. But it’s much harder; it’s more confidential than it used to be in the great years that you described.

RS: OK. So let’s focus on this a little bit: the Americanization of the world. It’s sort of a horrifying prospect when you extend it to cultural life. It’s one thing when we used to make very good cars, and maybe people wanted them—that’s no longer the case. The irony here is our exports are primarily intellectual and cultural now, rather than our great engineering work. Agriculture remains an important export. But the irony is that what the world seems to be most influenced by is our technology and our cultural output. And I find that depressing, because it suggests a certain uniformity; it suggests a certain commercialization, a certain jingoism, in a way. What happened to world culture? Let me take advantage of your knowledge—I’m talking to one of the great professors of sociology, an expert on popular culture. And I’m going to mispronounce the name again, so I’m not going to try too often. It’s Violaine Roussel, right? Yes.

VR: Violaine Roussel. [Laughs]

RS: So much for my five years of French, or whatever it was. But let me take up that point. Because we have resistance against what’s called cultural imperialism. And I know, for example, the Chinese market looms very large in the mind of Hollywood. Increasingly, movies have to succeed in China. And they get tailored a bit. And then, yeah, we’re starting to see some movies made in China. India, of course, has a vibrant film market. So could you give me kind of a summary view? At this point in history, is the American cultural experience, whatever that means, extended through television and film, more powerful than ever in the world? Are there challenges to it?

VR: There are challenges to it. It’s probably true—it’s always difficult to respond in a very simple way to such a complex question. It’s definitely, at this point, a dominant industry, very influential; I think China is sort of a promised land for Hollywood, but Hollywood sometimes doesn’t yet know quite how to conquer it. It’s in the process of happening, but not—it hasn’t happened fully yet. And as far as Europe is concerned, there is a, you know, a dominant position of Hollywood. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that there is hegemony, cultural hegemony of Hollywood, in the sense that locally, there are local pockets of resistance with industries that still flourish and exist and have an audience. France is an example of it; there are other European examples. There are rules and regulations and limitations that are created, both by certain countries in Europe and also at the EU level, to try to limit the impact of this cultural dominance of Hollywood. And it works to an extent, but it does not—it’s not enough to really stop it. It just creates—

RS: OK, so give me a percentage. And maybe I’m simplifying, but after all, you know, we’re doing journalism here, not a doctoral dissertation. Let me ask you, I mean, is Hollywood responsible, what, for 50% of the—first of all, let’s take a worldwide picture, because you have expertise, or at least some sense of it. Worldwide, is the export of Hollywood culture—Hollywood defined as made in America, both television and movies—is it 50% of the world’s culture, 70%?

VR: It’s really hard to give just a single number like that, because countries like China are able to limit that with their own rules much more—

RS: Well, let’s take the EU, then.

VR: In France, at least, it’s—it depends what kind of—you know, what categories of movie you’re looking at. If you are looking at blockbuster movies, the big franchise movies are really huge in France. And you have—I don’t have, like, a very precise number, but you have maybe 80% of what’s in the theater that is that. But you also have a lot of small—but that’s, you know, I really want to make the point that it’s not the only thing that you find. That you still have this industry and the small movies, and people go to the theater. Which is also something that’s at stake, why in France a service like Netflix has had so much trouble, so much that they had to move to a different country in the EU, in Europe. Because there is a real desire, I think, both from the government and the people, and also the professionals of the industry, to preserve this active practice of people that they go in the theater, and to see the small movies.

RS: OK. But it’s the conceit—it was the conceit, at least, of exponents of the value of French culture, Italian culture—let’s stick to those—well, we’ll throw in England, and OK, Spain, yeah, Germany, whatever. It was the conceit that you somehow would develop your own vibrant—or retain your own vibrant culture. And it extended to every aspect of life, the food, the way you consume food, the music, the way you relate, the conversation, and so forth. I know; I traveled to these countries extensively. And that was the assumption. And when we talk about blockbuster movies and so forth, you’re talking about capturing the imagination of the youth; you’re talking about defining a culture. And so the reason I’m trying to put this in some percentage terms, after all of this time—and now we’re talking, you know, a century, going, starting to get on a century of influence. Taking that 80%—and I realize this is a crude statistic—these are—the blockbuster movies—are also the ones that use the highest level of technology, the best special effects, you know, and so forth. So you’re really determining—it’s like the old thing about the cuisine being challenged by fast-food, you know, McDonald’s or what have you—you’re actually determining the culture of people in Italy and Germany and France, who were very prideful concerning the preservation of their culture. And you’re basically suggesting that war has been lost.

VR: Ah, I don’t want to be too—you know, I don’t want to go too far by saying it’s already lost. But it’s definitely, there is definitely dominance there from Hollywood.

RS: Dominance by the U.S., by America.

VR: Yes.

RS: OK.

VR: And not just by America; by Hollywood. And you know, because there are also—I also don’t want to give the impression that in France or in Europe, it’s all indie movies, and here in Hollywood, it’s only blockbuster movies, because it’s not the case. There is also a culture of indie films here. And there are, by the way, one of the good effects of France still subsidizing film and cinema and offering stable conditions for partnerships—unlike China, for instance, where you know, maybe it’s a promised land, but tomorrow we don’t know what’s going to happen, it’s pretty unstable—is that there are a lot of co-productions. Even if there is not like a co-production agreement signed between the U.S. and France, practically, there are a lot of joint productions between European countries and producers and artists and creators from the U.S. in the indie film world.

RS: OK. I get it. We live in a multinational world economy, and there’s a lot of transference. But I, you know, I’m old enough to remember, as I used the word, the conceit of—you know, I remember, I knew some of these French filmmakers, Resnais and Godard in particular, and so forth. And the fact is, they thought they were in a war against Hollywood commercialism and so forth. And again, it seems to me that war has been lost. Now, you have been to the belly of the beast. You live a good part of your life now here in Hollywood, right?

VR: Yes.

RS: Even here at the University of Southern California, where you’re an affiliated professor. But we are, even though we’re in downtown L.A., South Central L.A., we are nonetheless a center for Hollywood. We have a very big film school, we have a lot of Hollywood people; evidently some of them pay a lot of money to help get their children in here and elsewhere. So you know, what I’m asking you basically is, you’ve now seen these people up close. And in fact, interestingly enough, you took kind of the—I don’t know what the right word is; I don’t want to say sleazy—but you took the sort of hustler aspect of the business, the agent, right?

VR: Yes.

RS: And you decided to become an expert on Hollywood agents. And I find that fascinating. And I also find it interesting they let you in—they let you actually, you know, because they got security over at CAA and everything, you know, but they let you hang out with them, right? And be—so let me ask you about a particular movie, “The Player.” Are you familiar with “The Player”? Tim Robbins stars in it—

VR: Yes, uh-huh, yes.

RS: And what interests me about “The Player”—and before we take a break, let me, I just want to settle that idea—it presented a notion of Hollywood and the agent and the people in the front office and their relation to the creative part, the writer and so forth. And—it was Altman’s movie. And what was interesting is so many famous Hollywood actors and actresses gave their time at rate, at the low rate, because they believed in it; they thought it was a good movie, an accurate movie; you could even find Whoopi Goldberg in there, you find a lot of people; Dustin Hoffman, I believe—I don’t know, maybe he’s not in there. But there are a lot of famous actors. And everyone I’ve talked to in the industry—because I show that in my classes—they tell me it was a very good, certainly for the time, a very accurate depiction of Hollywood. And basically, what that movie suggests is when it comes to content, ideas—it’s just gimmickry. It’s just, you know–oh, you have an idea; let’s change it. And the whole dialogue in that movie at the beginning is, oh, I see—it’s some, you know, whatever, something, but we add music and it becomes something else. And it’s all how do you sell it, how do you package it. I’m going to hold that thought and take a break, but I’m going to ask you, as having spent so much time and written a really important—the most important book on Hollywood agents, really, who are they? How much power do they have? And you know, is this an exaggeration to say that they control the action? They certainly make a lot of money. [omission for station break] OK, we’re back with Violaine Roussel. We’re talking about her book about Hollywood agents, her study; major professor from the University of Paris, not the Sorbonne, but No. 8 in the university; the No. 1 is the famed Sorbonne, but I also, I gather they’re all of great value, equal value. And you’re here at the University of Southern California, which is certainly a center of film culture, film analysis. And you are teaching in the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. So let me rephrase that question: How important are these Hollywood agents? Do they dumb down the product, do they package it? And you, tell us about your experience. You went in the door. And why did they let you in the door?

VR: Oh. That’s a very good question that I asked myself. So when I decided, that was almost 10 years ago that I started doing the investigation for this book that came out in 2017; “Representing Talent” is the title of the book. And my project initially was to study the agents in the agencies, Hollywood agents, mostly because it had never been done before, at least not from a social science, sociological perspective. And I was really curious, really, you know, not having a lot of preconceived ideas, because I’m really, literally, coming from a different world. Especially then, I was just arriving in California from Paris, and I didn’t know a lot of people in Hollywood at all. And I was really curious about their role and their power, given that the biggest agencies—CAA—WME now—UTA, ICM, what they sometimes call the Big Four agencies—they are huge organizations. They have thousands of employees, sometimes. And so all of this activity, and the power of the very famous figures of agents, was very, just, puzzling to me. So I decided to study what they do, what is their impact, what’s their role, and how do they really affect and maybe contribute to shape the art.

RS: So what’s the quick and dirty answer? Are they a sleazy bunch who just want to make every buck they can? Or, as they often pride themselves, they elevate the product, put together the magical director with the actor, wonderful things happen, and they are basically the master chef who produces the wonderful cake?

VR: I think they are both. So on one hand, of course there is business in show business. And they are the guardians of that sort of dirty secret of Hollywood: that there is business in show business, and it’s—in a way, you know, it’s easy to blame the agent for worrying about the money. But the clients, the artists, also want to get paid and make money, and make good money, if possible. So even though they are, for the most part, really dedicated to making good art. So the—what I was looking at, and what I was able to see when I was—you know, at the beginning it wasn’t that easy to get into the agencies, and being able to interview—I interviewed 122 agents and their counterparts, or the Hollywood professionals that they are working with.

RS: Did any of them offer you jobs?

VR: Ah—[Laughs]. Ah—yeah, I almost got offered a job at an agency—

RS: Or did you offer them a script?

VR: No, not at all. [Laughter] And what I’m doing is really different from what they can make money off. But I also made it clear that I couldn’t, I couldn’t be affiliated with any agency in particular, because you are very quickly placed in the game. And I couldn’t be associated with one agency and then do my observation—

RS: The reason I make that point is, my experience with these folks, the money—you mentioned the money; yes, they want to make good money. The money is incredible. And you know, yes, people don’t talk about it; they talk about the art, they talk about everything else. But when you’re there and when you’re in on it, you know, my goodness. People are cognizant of the money. It’s a drug; it’s everything. And these people, if they make this decision and they put you with that one and you get green light and you go, then suddenly we’re talking about megabucks, right?

VR: Yeah, yeah. Well, the money—there is big money, especially towards the top of the game, meaning what I called “big Hollywood.” Because there are—you know, when I started this study of agencies, I also realized that there are really two Hollywoods, two film and TV worlds, two entertainment industries in one, in a way. One is this world of the very small, sometimes just one person, or small agencies that have clients that are either developmental—you know, people who are not yet very well-known, who are just starting—or people who have fallen out of favor. And they work with casting directors, and for the most part, their clients find, you know, a role in a, a job in a TV show or something like that. And then you have the big Hollywood, with the big agencies—what I called before the Big Four agencies—and this is really where the power play is happening, with the big studios being the counterparts and the stars being the clients. So, of course, this is where there is big money. And, but this is also where people want to—or everybody wants to make a lot of money, not just the agents. So—and that’s interesting. You know, right now there is this big controversy between the Writers Guild and the Association of Talent Agents regarding what they call packaging. And for the most part, packaging for television— putting together the key elements in a show and selling it as a package to a buyer, the buyer being the network, the studio. And the agency is making money from that, a fee from, packaging fee from packaging television shows. And there is this controversy with who—where is the money coming from, who is benefiting the most. Is it the client, is it the agency, is it both? Because normally, and legally, the client and the agent have exactly the same interest. The agent is making—or not the agent, but the agency—is making 10% of what the client is making. So it’s in the agent’s best interest that the client is making more money, and vice versa. So there is also this very close tie between, you know, who is on the side of the, on the business side of show business? Everybody. And who has an interest in having some quality work attached to their name as an agency? It’s also everybody.

RS: OK, I understand that. But the, again, the scam here—and it comes out in the Academy Awards more than any other place, but the other awards as well—is that there is somehow important art content controversy associated with these things. And, of course, there is, to some degree. But Hollywood is one of the most amazing industries in being able to hold both an enormous sense of market corruption and advancement and greed in your head with a notion of idealism and art and saving humanity. It’s stupefying to experience, both from the outside watching some of this—and yes, there are great movies, there is great art, and so forth. A lot of it is crap, a lot of it is exploitive, and so forth. It’s an odd industry in that respect. And one thing that I’ve noticed—I happen to actually belong to the Actors Guild and the Writers Guild, only because I was required working on different things. Not that I’m against them; I think the guilds are wonderful. But I’ve noticed when I go to these guild things, screenings of movies and so forth, 95% of the people haven’t worked regularly in their life. You know, they had one thing; one thing popped up. Most of the time, they’re sitting at Starbucks working on some project that hopefully will get to turn around, but never be turned around, and so forth. Now, I understand that. But you have a weird industry where you have a medieval notion of the guilds, the unions. And there is a pretense that there’s some order to it, moving up the levels and so forth, you know, the Directors Guild and all that. And on the other hand, you have these cartels owned by, you know, very powerful, you know, foreign companies, often, or big companies, who are squeezing every dollar and maximizing every bit of sales. And didn’t you find—don’t you find it kind of one of the oddest, most hypocritical, confused centers of life?

VR: What I would say is that the way the industry is currently transforming is making it much less about art and much more about turning a buck. And the whole media conglomerates, global growth, concentration that we are now observing, has an effect that, you know, you could think is a terrible effect. Because what’s happening in the movie industry itself doesn’t matter that much anymore for these very big conglomerates and for—

RS: Name some of those conglomerates as an example.

VR: Well, the big studios are now owned by Comcast, Viacom, AT&T. So, you know, the movies—

RS: Where they’re getting most of their money from other things.

VR: Exactly. And it doesn’t move the needle if a movie makes it or doesn’t, is good or is bad, and even makes a lot of money or doesn’t. Because this is—this is not that much money for those big media conglomerates. And that, to me, presents a risk. In terms of impacting—

RS: So Hollywood is now the tail of the dog, right?

VR: Yes. [Laughs]

RS: Well, no, I mean, because most people thinking about it, when they watch, you know, stars, and when they watch the academy—oh, these people are setting the whole culture. No, they’re responding to commercial market people, right? Who see them as just sort of one of their smaller lines of activity.

VR: And star power, for better or worse, is not what it used to be. You know, partly because of that, and also in relationship to that to some extent, the studios are now, as you have all noticed, I’m sure, making a lot of these franchise movies, reboots and sequels, and not as much original one-off movies that could be more creative, more, you know—

RS: Right, and one of the things that’s confusing, particularly you find it with documentaries, where there are a lot of very good documentaries made that no one ever sees, or very few people do. There are a lot of small movies made that we like, we recommend it to our friends, and then you ask other people, they’ve never heard about it. And then the big blockbusters are the ones that get the attention. I want to conclude this, we’re going to run out of time, but I find this fascinating, because again, to get back to our original point, whoever owns it, the American entertainment industry, broadly speaking, sets the example, the culture, is the main educator. I don’t want to go too far, but it’s kind of the ball game in defining who we’re going to be as people, no matter where we live. What we think about love, what we think about integrity, what we think about race, what we think about gender—pretty much—sometimes it’s good. I think you could argue on the question of gay rights, Hollywood broke, made a revolution almost overnight. And that was very significant. You could argue in a number of other areas, some not so good when it comes to exposing corporate corruption or so forth. But, OK. The reason we need to know about this is it sets the world’s culture; it’s not isolated, it’s America’s main, most significant export, OK. Now I want to get to what people see as this great crack in the system, this great, where the light gets through, to quote Leonard Cohen, you know. And that is the new technology, the new streaming, the new distribution. And I know you’ve done a lot of work on it; we don’t have time to give it, do it justice. But give us the picture now. Is the industry changing in a fundamental way, and is this good or bad?

VR: It is huge. And I am still studying it; it’s my next book. The streaming platforms, the streaming services, and now the new giants that are on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and also the newcomers—Apple, Apple TV Plus just, you know, launched its program; Facebook and YouTube are creating original content. These are very, very important new players in this game that you just described that’s very influential for global culture. And it’s very interesting; there are many, many dimensions; it is changing what we consume, the way we consume it, the tool with which, on which we consume it. Now we can watch movies on our phone anywhere, cut it in small pieces. These are also entities, companies, that have a lot of money or put a lot of money out there, and sometimes directors, creators like it, because they are offered the opportunity to do some of the projects that they couldn’t do before in the old system. And it’s also, in this way it’s a great opportunity; it also creates a very complex situation in the new ways in which they are paid. They don’t get the same type of royalties that they used to get with television, for instance, where there was syndication; this is gone, practically. So it’s a revolution, and yes, it is changing what we get, you know, as viewers, as users of these platforms, what is the type of culture that we get? And how we get to—

RS: Well, but that’s what I want you—and I know we don’t have time to do this in a complex, scholarly way. But I want to know, you know, is this good or bad?

VR: I think it’s potentially good, but it could turn out to be bad if we are not paying attention. It’s really, as with technology; technology, to me, is that good and bad per se. So I’m not going to say it’s necessarily bad because it’s more technical or clinical, or anything like that, even if in Hollywood sometimes I hear people lament about the lost art of, you know, their old professional practice, it was much more intuitive. You can use technology and make it wonderful, but it’s only if, I guess, we as citizens are careful about the way in which it may just become the only thing that we are offered. You know, it’s really hard to sum it up in 10 seconds.

RS: Yeah, but let me—let me challenge you right there. We were discussing oxymorons before; the idea of a careful consumer is an oxymoron. The whole idea of sales, marketing, advertising, is to get people not to be careful. It’s to get them to lust for—I mean, I don’t want to oversimplify the whole history of marketing. But to put the, to define it as an answerable question, will there be a greater diversity, will there be greater choice, in the product? Does this liberate more people to make things that might find an audience?

VR: They want you to believe that it’s greater choice. It’s all—it’s all that Netflix tells you, that now they offer greater choice, and that they have a different model that allows them to create things for different kind of niche audiences that didn’t get their specific type of product before. On the other hand, they are using data, and the data that they have that we give them—this is where the citizen can be careful and have their eyes open, and not just—not be too naive in terms of what is the data that we willingly give to all of these big players. You know, Google and Amazon—they do a lot of things, you know, other than just making—

RS: I know. I recently wrote a book called “They Know Everything About You,” and it explored this. But when you say—

VR: Exactly. Yeah. So I think there is something for the citizen to do. It’s not just—

RS: I know, but you say there’s something for the citizen to do—this is, I think, the illusion, if I can challenge this. Because I sign on to Netflix, and say I want to watch a movie like “Fifty Shades of Grey.” OK, does this mean I’m a sadomasochist? Does this reflect—no. If it’s something that’s discussed, I want to watch it. In fact, I found it very boring, only watched it for five minutes. That data is in their system. Now that, then, defines me as a customer. Now, I really didn’t have much choice, because if you really want to sign on, can we use your data, can we use your location—all of this data is what makes the whole experience accessible. And if you rebel, you might as well go live in a shack somewhere and cut off the grid. Because the fact is, it’s not designed to empower us. That’s an illusion.

VR: Absolutely. It’s built in, you’re right; it’s not designed to empower us. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot empower ourselves, by, for instance, using other platforms, other tools, or even building them. Right now there are, you know, there are also other options; that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to use Netflix, but I can try. And there are users that are trying to trick the system by using the sort of subgenres that Netflix is creating and typing them in in the, you know, the sort of subject line, and you can in this way, get another list of shows offered to you as your personalized, you know, screen that you wouldn’t with their algorithm.

RS: OK, I understand that, and if I’m being abrupt it’s just because we’re going to run out of time. But I want to push this a little bit further. And this is where government can come in, or other watchdogs, consumer and so forth. So we’ve had some pushback on the privacy issues, data mining, and everything from the European Union. They have actually challenged Google and Facebook, which make most of the money now, and they get it off invading your privacy and getting this data. And there’s been pushback. We don’t get much pushback in America, and protection of consumer rights. So let me ask you, as somebody who crosses the Atlantic frequently and so forth, will there be counterpowers in the world to this internet commerce and commercialization of everything? Is the pushback, say, from the European Union, is that significant?

VR: It is something that is happening right now, before our eyes. It’s difficult to know if it’s going to be successful and to what extent right now. But I think maybe I’m too much of an optimist; I’m playing the optimist right now. But I think there is, there are ways in which as citizens, and collectively by organizing, and maybe with the—

RS: No, as citizens—as individuals, it’s hopeless. You cannot—I’m sorry, I—

VR: No, collectively, but as citizens.

RS: Yeah. Through—that’s the whole reason for government, for God’s sake, it’s to extend the power of the citizen to provide more choice—we used to have antitrust; we don’t have that anymore. We used to break up cartels; we don’t do that anymore. We celebrate monopoly. We celebrate, basically, the monopoly of Google over search. We celebrate basically the monopoly of Apple over all sorts of new innovations and so forth. We celebrate Amazon, which has taken over much of retail, you know, so it’s not even the choice of an individual bookstore what to stock; we get this from this monolith. And what I’m asking you, and I think maybe the most important question—because it’s not, when you say the individual should do this or should do that, we know that doesn’t work. The question is, what should we demand our government do to protect us in this marketplace?

VR: The government is also very worried about getting money from those big companies that have sort of an extraterritorial status, in terms of where they pay taxes or where they don’t pay taxes. Like for instance, in the EU, one of the reasons why the EU wants to mobilize and create new regulations to control those Netflix and Amazon and Google and the likes, is not–I mean, I don’t want to say that they don’t care about protecting the citizens. But it’s also primarily because they want those taxes not to just, you know, disappear, but they want for the state to be able to restore some control about that. So, maybe as a side effect of that, we’ll also have some form of control—

RS: So we’re screwed. You’re basically saying we’re screwed.

VR: I wouldn’t—I mean, no, I think that collectively, if we organize, but not necessarily by expecting the state to solve it for us—maybe I’m not as hopeful.

RS: How do we collectively organize against Amazon? Let’s take Amazon as an example. They now are in everything—you want to buy organic food, they own Whole Foods. You want to buy this here—you know, they—they will present you with the choices. You want those earphones? Here, here are the other five you might consider. They have all your data, they can target you. And if you cannot think that through the democratic process, through government, that you can control this, it’s obviously hopeless.

VR: It’s complicated, because right now governments are also challenged for not necessarily offering those democratic avenues that you’re talking about. And to compare with something that—we are as, you know, French people, we are living on a day-to-day basis right now, this big social movement of the yellow jackets—these are people who have first organized through the internet. It’s a really bottom-up movement. And whether you like them or not, because there is a controversy around them and their mode of action, they are an organized group using the internet—at the start at least, and even now—to tell the government, “We want more social justice, and we want more democracy in a more participatory way.” So I don’t think—I don’t want to say that the individual is a solution, but I do believe—maybe it’s naive of me, but I really do believe that collectively, there are possibilities. And I’m not saying that it’s easy, at all. But there are possibilities to organize. And of course, yes, use the governmental resources when we can, but also when the government doesn’t provide those responses, to go and get them.

RS: No, I understand. And I think it’s a good point on which to end this. The internet is the best and worst of all worlds. It has the potential of an Orwellian control of the population and every detail of life; it also has the possibility of a highly educated mass of people who can see alternatives, learn about other cultures. I think it’s good, it’s better to end on that, more accurate to end on that possibility than one gloomy perspective or optimistic perspective. But I do want to summarize, I think, and ask you as a takeaway from this. Basically what you’re saying is the old engines that were driving world culture are not what they used to be. Studios really don’t matter; the big filmmakers don’t matter; the big directors don’t matter in the old way. That they have now been overwhelmed by these huge conglomerates. And these huge conglomerates can now—and this is the example of Amazon or Netflix or whatever—they can also develop alternative ways of shaping our mind, our culture, our aspiration. And from my point of view, which is more pessimistic than yours, this is a prescription for the end of freedom. However—however, the yellow jackets, other movements people used to hold out the Arab Spring and what happened in Egypt, with Google, but then of course the military took over; they now can use the internet to more effectively control the population, and the Arab Spring seems to have been snuffed out. Maybe by the time this is even heard on the radio, the yellow jackets will have been snuffed out in France. So yes, it’s the best and worst of worlds, but you can’t take anything for granted, and you can’t even take the mythology of Hollywood, of a strong, independent director saying to the studios, “I’m going to make this movie”, and managing to get the movie. And for instance, just last night, here at USC, in class, I had one of America’s truly great directors, Oliver Stone, who dared use movies to challenge the dominant narrative, to raise questions. And that, really, is not possible anymore in this configuration. Yes or no?

VR: Yes. [Laughs] Absolutely.

RS: Yes. If you want to add another sentence, since you are a professor and deal with complexity, take two sentences.

VR: No, I have to agree with Oliver Stone that Hollywood has changed, and that the power of the director, or the power of the star, is not what it used to be. So it’s another reason why we should try to find, collectively, any way we can to use the new tools to sort of reactivate or rejuvenate that power of the artist. And I even think—maybe that’s a little bit of a provocation, but that some of the agents that I interviewed in my book, who were really nostalgic from that time where they were taking pride in representing great artists, would join us.

RS: That is—I know I keep promising to end this, but that’s a powerful thought. The time of the great artist may be over in the world of entertainment that shapes the world’s culture. The American entertainment industry that shapes the world’s culture, at least you could count on, somehow, the maverick director, the maverick artist, the person who could open a movie and yet had an idea, the great scriptwriter—and you can’t count on that anymore.

VR: It has become marginal. It exists, still—

RS: Marginal, that’s a good word. It’s become marginal. And the main activity is exploiting our privacy, our data, sales, shaping us—you may be an optimist, boy, that’s Orwellian. But maybe it’s reality, and we covered it here. I want to thank—should we wait for your new book, or should I hype your last book? Give us the titles.

VR: Well, my book on agents, “Representing Talent,” came out in 2017, and it was the University of Chicago Press.

RS: Yeah. And then the new one we’ll wait for. And that’s—I’m going to spell it in case you want to look it up. V-i-o-l-a-i-n-e—you who all took French can pronounce it your own way—R-o-u-s-s-e-l, Roussel. And I think your insight is really important. And you know, I don’t always praise the academy—not the Academy of Motion Pictures, the academic world. And yet what you’ve brought in your writing and your scholarship really is the excellence of academic life. And yet you applied it to the nitty-gritty of this real world. I want to thank you for your work, I want to thank you for sharing it with us.

VR: Thank you.

RS: That’s it for this edition of “Scheer Intelligence.” Our producer is Joshua Scheer. Our engineers at KCRW are Mario Diaz and Kat Yore. And here at USC at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Sebastian Grubaugh has once again delivered excellent engineering at, I would say, the best school of communication and journalism in the country, if not the world. Thank you.

Theresa May Resigns as British Prime Minister

LONDON — Theresa May announced Friday that she will step down as U.K. Conservative Party leader on June 7, admitting defeat in her attempt to take Britain out of the European Union and sparking a contest to become the country’s next prime minister.

She will stay as caretaker prime minister until the new leader is chosen, a process likely to take several weeks. The new Conservative leader will become prime minister without the need for a general election, and will take up the task of trying to secure Britain’s exit from the EU.

Her voice breaking, May said in a televised statement outside 10 Downing St. that she would soon be leaving a job that it has been “the honor of my life to hold.”

May became prime minister the month after Britons voted in June 2016 to leave the European Union, and her premiership has been consumed by the attempt to deliver on that verdict.

Now she has bowed to relentless pressure from her party to quit over her failure to take Britain out of the EU on the scheduled date of March 29. Britain is currently due to leave the EU on Oct. 31, but Parliament has yet to approve divorce terms.

“I feel as certain today as I did three years ago that in a democracy, if you give people a choice you have a duty to implement what they decide,” May said.

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“I have done my best to do that. … But it is now clear to me that it is in the best interests of the country for a new prime minister to lead that effort.”

Multiple contenders are already jockeying to replace her and take up the challenge of securing Britain’s EU exit. The early front-runner is Boris Johnson, a former foreign secretary and strong champion of Brexit.

Conservative lawmakers increasingly see May as an obstacle to Britain’s EU exit, although her replacement will face the same issue: a Parliament deeply divided over whether to leave the EU, and how close a relationship to seek with the bloc after it does.

May spent more than a year and a half negotiating an exit agreement with the EU, only to see it rejected three times by Britain’s Parliament.

Pressure on May reached breaking point this week as House of Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom quit and several Cabinet colleagues expressed doubts about the bill she planned to put before Parliament in a fourth attempt to secure Parliament’s backing for her Brexit blueprint.

Leadsom, another likely contender to replace May, joined colleagues in paying tribute to the departing leader. She tweeted that May’s “dignified speech” had been “an illustration of her total commitment to country and duty. She did her utmost, and I wish her all the very best.”

Johnson, whose relentless criticism helped push May out of the door, tweeted: “Thank you for your stoical service to our country and the Conservative Party. It is now time to follow her urgings: to come together and deliver Brexit.”

But Johnson, or any other successor, will face a tough challenge to unite a country and a Parliament still deeply divided over the country’s relationship with Europe.

The next British leader is likely to be a staunch Brexiteer, who will try to renegotiate the divorce deal, and if that fails to leave the bloc without an agreement on departure terms.

Most businesses and economists think that would cause economic turmoil and plunge Britain into recession. Parliament has voted to rule out a no-deal Brexit, though it remains the legal default option.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker praised May as “a woman of courage” for whom he has great respect.

EU spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said Juncker will “equally respect and establish working relations” with any new British leader.

But the bloc insists it will not renegotiate the Brexit deal.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte tweeted that the “agreement reached between the EU and the United Kingdom for an ordered Brexit remains on the table.”

Angela Merkel’s spokeswoman, Martina Fietz, said the German chancellor noted May’s decision “with respect” and would continue to work closely with her successor for “an orderly exit.”

In an emotional departure speech, with close aides and her husband Philip looking on, May said she was Britain’s “second female prime minister but certainly not the last.”

She said she was leaving “with no ill-will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.”

U.S. Charges WikiLeaks’ Assange With Publishing Classified Info

WASHINGTON — In a case with significant First Amendment implications, the U.S. filed new charges Thursday against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange that accuse him of violating the Espionage Act by publishing thousands of secret and classified documents, including the identities of confidential sources for American armed forces and diplomats.

The Justice Department’s 18-count superseding indictment alleges that Assange directed former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history. It says the WikiLeaks founder damaged national security by publishing documents that harmed the U.S. and its allies and aided its adversaries.

The case comes amid a Justice Department crackdown on national security leaks and raises immediate media freedom questions, including whether Assange’s actions — such as soliciting and publishing classified information — are distinguishable from what traditional journalists do as a matter of course. Those same concerns led the Obama administration Justice Department to balk at bringing charges for similar conduct.

Assange’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, said Thursday that the “unprecedented charges” against his client imperil “all journalists in their endeavor to inform the public about actions that have been taken by the U.S. government.” The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said the case was a “dire threat” to media freedom.

But Justice Department officials sought to make clear that they did not view Assange’s actions as protected by the First Amendment.

“Julian Assange is no journalist,” said Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the Justice Department’s top national security official. “No responsible actor, journalist or otherwise, would purposely publish the names of individuals he or she knew to be confidential sources, exposing them to the gravest of dangers.”

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Prosecutors sought throughout the document to make a distinction between what Assange did as the founder and “public face” of WikiLeaks and the work of journalists.

They noted, for example, that he promoted his site to a convention of European hackers and published a list of the classified information he sought as “The Most Wanted Leaks of 2009.” They described how Assange worked with Manning to improperly access Department of Defense computers to gain access to thousands of pages of material and encouraged her as she delved through databases for information.

Prosecutors also say the danger wasn’t just to the U.S. government, but to people who worked with it.

Reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq published by Assange included the names of Afghans and Iraqis who provided information to American and coalition forces, while the diplomatic cables he released exposed journalists, religious leaders, human rights advocates and dissidents in repressive countries. “Assange created a grave and imminent risk that the innocent people he named would suffer serious physical harm and/or arbitrary detention.”

Assange in an August 2010 interview called it “regrettable” that sources disclosed by WikiLeaks could be harmed, but said WikiLeaks was “not obligated to protect other people’s sources,” according to the indictment.

The new Espionage Act charges go far beyond an initial indictment against Assange made public last month that accused him of conspiring with Manning to crack a defense computer password.

First Amendment aside, the indictment poses a secondary ethical question for journalists. News organizations around the world widely used the Manning material, which provided previously unavailable information about the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and international diplomacy.

Assange is now being prosecuted for releasing documents that many reporters found inherently newsworthy.

Assange, 47, is in custody in London after being evicted from the Ecuadorian Embassy in April. The U.S. is seeking his extradition.

Manning, who was convicted in military court for providing a trove of classified documents to WikiLeaks, is currently in a northern Virginia jail on a civil contempt charge.

Manning spent two months in the Alexandria Detention Center beginning in March after she refused to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. That grand jury is sitting in Alexandria, where Assange is charged. She could remain in jail for up to 18 months, the length of the current grand jury’s term.

Manning has said she believes prosecutors want to question her about the same conduct for which she was convicted at her court-martial. She served seven years of a 35-year military sentence before receiving a commutation from then-President Barack Obama.

____

Associated Press writers Ben Fox in Washington and Matthew Barakat in Alexandria, Virginia contributed to this report.

Slavoj Žižek Nails ‘Game of Thrones’ Unsatisfying Finale

“Game of Thrones,” HBO’s insanely popular television series, has finally ended after eight seasons that gripped viewers the world over. While some, like “Seinfeld’s” Jason Alexander, have defended the controversial final season, at least a million others were so unhappy with the denouement to the series that they signed a petition to have the entire eighth season redone. Hate it or love it, about 13.6 million people around the world watched the finale of  “Game of Thrones” on Sunday, and it turns out that Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek was among them.

Unlike many viewers who were focused on how the show’s creators, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, may or may not have butchered author George R.R. Martin’s as-yet-unfinished book series, Žižek was more concerned with the sociopolitical messaging behind the sloppy, rushed narrative and computer-generated imagery  spectacles. The series ends with the death of Daenerys Targaryean, a ruler who liberated slaves in various parts of the world, only to lose her sanity in the penultimate episode and burn down an entire city using her remaining dragon. Following the new queen’s demise is a quick summary about how the rest of the characters would proceed with ruling the fictional Westeros after Cersei Lannister’s horror-ridden reign and Daenerys’ massacre.

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Creeping Toward Tyranny



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Perhaps one of Weiss and Benioff’s most controversial narrative choices was Daenerys’ rapid descent into madness. Misogyny certainly plays a part in the destruction of this once-revered female character, as Žižek points out in a piece for The Independent. Reminding readers that the two show-runners are indeed male, the philosopher posits, “Daenerys as the Mad Queen is strictly a male fantasy [that] expresses patriarchal ideology with its fear of a strong political woman.” To top it off, Žižek argues, the finale not only fits into patriarchal themes most women would recognize from their daily lives, but there’s an another disturbing ideology at play that echoes modern politics.

The stakes in the final conflict are thus: should the revolt against tyranny be just a fight for the return of the old kinder version of the same hierarchical order, or should it develop into the search for a new order that is needed?

The finale combines the rejection of a radical change with an old anti-feminist motif at work in Wagner. For Wagner, there is nothing more disgusting than a woman who intervenes in political life, driven by the desire for power. In contrast to male ambition, a woman wants power in order to promote her own narrow family interests or, even worse, her personal caprice, incapable as she is of perceiving the universal dimension of state politics.

The same femininity which, within the close circle of family life, is the power of protective love, turns into obscene frenzy when displayed at the level of public and state affairs. … This marginalisation of women is a key moment of the general liberal-conservative lesson of the finale: revolutions have to go wrong, they bring new tyranny, or, as Jon put it to Daenerys: “The people who follow you know that you made something impossible happen. Maybe that helps them believe that you can make other impossible things happen: build a world that’s different from the shit one they’ve always known. But if you use dragons to melt castles and burn cities, you’re no different.”

Consequently, Jon kills out of love (saving the cursed woman from herself, as the old male-chauvinist formula says) the only social agent in the series who really fought for something new, for a new world that would put an end to old injustices.

So justice prevailed – but what kind of justice? The new king is Bran: crippled, all-knowing, who wants nothing – with the evocation of the insipid wisdom that the best rulers are those who do not want power. A dismissive laughter that ensues when one of the new elite proposes a more democratic selection of the king tells it all.

Žižek also notes that Daenerys’ followers, such as the Dothraki and the formerly enslaved Unsullied Warriors—all of whom promptly leave Westeros after their queen is murdered—are far more diverse than the all-white crew that takes up the reins from the fallen queen. What about Sansa, some die-hard fans may ask? The Stark sister, who many believed might become the ruler of Westeros, is crowned Queen of the North instead, gaining freedom for her native region with a simple request to her “baby brother,” the newly-minted King Bran. According to the Slovenian thinker, however, Sansa is “a type of women beloved by today’s capitalism: she combines feminine softness and understanding with a good dose of intrigue, and thus fully fits the new power relations.”

Meanwhile, Žižek depressingly concludes, “The radical queen who wanted more freedom for everyone irrespective of their social standing and race is eliminated, things are brought back to normal.” As much of the West, like Westeros, finds itself battling authoritarian leaders who are increasingly turning the vestiges of democracy into a laughingstock, and political revolutions led by grass-roots movements are dismissed as pipe dreams that should give way to the same old elite-led political system, it turns out truth is not stranger than fiction. Rather, fiction produced by our own modern-day nobility ends up holding a mirror to their own pathetic desire to quash any struggle against the status quo.

Migrant Child’s Death in Custody Raises Cover-Up Questions

CBS News reported Wednesday that a 10-year-old girl from El Salvador died in a facility run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in September. She was the first of six migrant children to die in U.S. custody, in a hospital, or shortly after being released, in the last eight months, but the government didn’t acknowledge her death until Wednesday. Her name has not been released.

Mark Weber, spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees ORR, told CBS News that the girl was “medically fragile” due to a congenital heart condition she had prior to entering U.S. custody in Texas. “She passed due to fever and respiratory distress” after being treated in multiple facilities, including a San Antonio hospital, a nursing facility in Phoenix and a children’s hospital in Omaha, Neb., Weber said,

The girl was the first migrant minor to die in U.S. custody since 2010, ORR and Department of Homeland Security officials told CBS. On Monday, 16-year-old Carlos Hernandez Vazquez died in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) shelter in Weslaco, Texas. Hernandez was from Guatemala, as were the four other children whose deaths were previously reported.

Vazquez’s death “has renewed national attention and outrage from December, when two young children died in CBP custody in three weeks,” Dara Lind writes in Vox. “It’s becoming increasingly clear that the government is in the midst of a broader public health crisis regarding migrants, especially children, in its care.”

Minors, Lind explains, are generally supposed to be held in Border Patrol facilities for less than 72 hours before being transferred to ORR or to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Vazquez was held for six days. The other children who died were held for varying lengths of time. Some died—from ailments ranging from a severe brain infection to pneumonia—while in the hospital or in custody, others after being released.

The facility in McAllen, where Vazquez died, is in the middle of a flu outbreak, leaving current occupants essentially quarantined. The situation has become so dire that officials have suspended intake. Prior to the quarantine, that shelter, Lind writes, was “held up as a model for what CBP wants to build more of.” Now, she says, “CBP is essentially improvising.”

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Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, believes the Trump administration may have covered up the death of the 10-year-old who died in September.

“I have not seen any indication that the Trump administration disclosed the death of this young girl to the public or even to Congress,” he told CBS News. “If that’s the case, they covered up her death for eight months, even though we were actively asking the question about whether any child had died or been seriously injured.”

Chris Hedges Honored by American Academy of Arts and Letters

The American Academy of Arts and Letters on Wednesday awarded Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges one of eight prizes for his contributions to American literature. Other winners include University of California at Berkeley professor Robert Alter, poet and activist Marilyn Chin, novelist Siri Hustvedt, playwright Matthew Lopez, fiction writer John McManus, poet and author Eileen Myles and playwright Lauren Yee.

“Chris Hedges’s big, brash, impassioned voice is a reviving tonic, an accelerant to our weary spirit’s fresh resolve to confront the powerful institutional attacks on our environment and political integrity,” the academy wrote in its citation. “His many books and columns on the website Truthdig about our broken democracy, corporate tyranny, and ecocidal madness inspire us to articulate action. His work is enlightening and intense—a furious necessity.”

The academy was founded in 1898, and some of its charter members include Henry James, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. According to its website, the academy “seeks to foster and sustain an interest in Literature, Music, and the Fine Arts by administering over 70 awards and prizes, exhibiting art and manuscripts, funding performances of new works of musical theater, and purchasing artwork for donation to museums across the country.”

Truthdig offers Hedges its heartfelt congratulations.

Joe Biden Is Not the Pragmatic Choice for 2020

An insidious idea pervading media analysis and public discourse around the 2020 presidential election is that voters looking to defeat President Donald Trump are locked into an ideological battle between pragmatism and idealism. Voters backing former Vice President Joe Biden find him to be “electable” rather than being a candidate whose values they support. But is Biden really the pragmatic choice?

Before Biden announced he was running, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders appeared to be the front-runner, boosting hopes among those who supported him in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. But a new poll found Biden garnering the highest “favorability rating” among the many Democratic contenders. As the 2016 race underscored, polling numbers ought to be taken with a giant grain of salt. But still, Sanders’ lead seems to have evaporated once the more “electable” Democrat announced his bid.

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Let’s face it — both Biden and Sanders are older white men. But the demographics of the voters they attract are quite different from one another. Another poll, focused only on Iowa—the state with the earliest primary of the season—showed Biden and Sanders tied at exactly 24%. But 30% of Biden’s support is from those aged 65 and older, compared to only 15% for Sanders. Meanwhile, young Americans aged 18 to 31 prefer Sanders by 41%, compared to only 9% for Biden. One can speculate with a fair amount of confidence that this difference lies in Sanders’ unapologetic progressiveness versus Biden’s centrist waffling and his image as the “safe choice.”

Biden has made it very clear he is the leader who can be counted on to return the nation to its pre-2016 status quo, as if the Trump presidency were an inexplicable hiccup that briefly and horribly set us off course. In fact, he has said at various political rallies that “four years of this presidency will go down in history as an aberration.” Meanwhile, other Democratic contenders have rightly pointed out Trump is a symptom of the rightward political march in the nation, not a temporary setback. Biden appears to be espousing the same disastrous outlook his close ideological kin, Hillary Clinton, held in July 2016 when she responded to Trump’s slogan by retorting, “America is already great. America is already strong.”

Biden believes he is the only one who can take on Trump, reportedly saying, “If you can persuade me there is somebody better who can win, I’m happy not to do it.” He thinks he is the only one who can save the nation from another four years of Trump, just as Clinton felt she was easily poised to beat Trump. Yet on issue after issue, Biden is out of step with those Democrats who have successfully pushed their party to the left since 2016. For example, Biden, who has come under fire for supporting the 1994 crime bill, proudly asserted, “I’m the only guy ever nationally to beat the NRA because when we did the crime bill—everybody talks about the bad things. Let me tell you about the good thing in the crime bill.” In response, acclaimed filmmaker Ava DuVernay fired back, “Wait til you get in front of a crowd that actually knows what you’re doing. Knows the bill. Knows the generational damage. Wait. I hope I’m in the crowd.”

When a report emerged that Biden was taking a “middle-ground” approach to tackling climate change, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also pushed back, slamming him at an event promoting her popular Green New Deal resolution. She said, “I will be damned if the same politicians who refused to act then are going to try to come back today and say we need to find a middle-of-the-road approach to save our lives.”

Influential progressive voices like DuVernay and Ocasio-Cortez will push back on every issue in which Biden chooses the milquetoast center because they know American policies are not working for most Americans and a return to 2016-era policies will doom the nation.

Those who paint Biden’s detractors as being driven by idealistic motivations we cannot afford to espouse are ignoring the fact that Americans are at a breaking point. We do not have the luxury to wait another four or eight years to pick someone who will truly be a climate justice warrior—the planet’s atmosphere is at a breaking point. We do not have the luxury to wait four or eight years for a better candidate to usher in Medicare-for-all at a more practical time far off into the future—Americans are dying today in our broken health care system. We do not have the luxury of allowing millions of Americans to languish in prison cells, or allowing immigrant children to die in Border Patrol custody, or hampering the futures of college graduates burdened by debt. We do not have the luxury to allow our endless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen to continue as whole families are obliterated or turned into refugees. And we certainly cannot afford a new war on Iran. Choosing a president who promises a radical departure from the status quo is actually an act of pragmatism.

Trump won the White House by boldly promising change. Call it radical right-wing idealism or call it fascist pragmatism, but Trump’s supporters demanded a complete re-envisioning of American government as a dystopian world in which immigrants are erased, women are shackled and gay rights are turned back. And that is what they seem to be getting under Trump. Meanwhile, Clinton lost by promising the status quo, and that 2016 status quo is exactly what Biden is promising us now. How is this pragmatic? As Michelle Goldberg wrote in The New York Times, “in contemporary politics, the quest to find an electable candidate hasn’t resulted in candidates that actually win. Voters don’t do themselves any favors when they try to think like pundits.”

Indeed, those who choose a candidate like Biden are the idealists in such a scenario. They live in a fantasy world in which the disastrous 2016 election never happened and Clinton never failed in the face of the worst Republican nominee in U.S. history. Behind Biden are all the elite forces who dream of retaining the status quo that preserves their profits. Biden’s corporate backers imagine their planetary pillaging and worker oppression can continue into some endless horizon. Biden’s war backers imagine some fantasy in which bigger and deadlier weapons can fix problems they have not fixed for decades and that such a trajectory is limitless. They have all failed to realize the limits of what we can tolerate.

To be pragmatic in today’s electoral landscape means choosing a radically different path from the one we have been on—the path that gave us Donald Trump. The idealists will seek to convince us their fantastical imaginary world that Biden and Clinton represent is our best hope of survival. They are wrong. Our survival depends on our pragmatism and our courage to demand better than Biden.