America, The Farewell Tour
Chris Hedges
The America Chris Hedges lives in is not a happy place: locked in terminal decline while ruled over by vicious and exploitative elites and soulless corporations, it seems ripe for revolution. Government has proven to be worse than useless: “a motley collection of imbeciles, con artists, thieves, opportunists, and warmongering generals.” Donald Trump is only “the grotesque visage of a collapsed democracy,” “what lies behind the mask of our professed civility and rationality – a sputtering, narcissistic, imbecilic, megalomaniac.”
Though America, The Farewell Tour is a scattershot book, jumping about crazily even within its different thematic chapters, there is a coherence to the argument. A malaise not restricted to America (there is a “single discontent” that spans the globe) has been brought about by global capitalism and its neoliberal ideology. Instead of directing anger at their oppressors people fall into despair and pursue various highly-addictive avenues of escape, from opium to porn to gambling. In all of this “we flee toward the promise of magic, unchecked hedonism, and perpetual stimulation. There is a pathological need in America to escape the dreary and the depressing.”
“The whole earth is our hospital / Endowed by the ruined millionaire.” It’s a famous line that could use some updating. We’d want to make it an endowment from a billionaire today. And not a hospital but a hospice. Attached to a prison.
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