I felt my intelligence and moral consciousness increase as I listened to this. Chris Hedges is a man of deep experience and of obvious integrity. These are my notes on this important interview.

Roger Hallam asks him how we should understand the CV crisis.

Chris sees the crisis as the first fatal blow against the structures of industrial neoliberalism and says that the US is going to be hit particularly badly because it, particularly, has destroyed the protections of society. The US doesn’t have an have an NHS and can’t contain the virus. Many people will not go for testing.

Already in the US the capitalist class is calling for a quick return to work to save the economy.

The agreed stimulus package is designed to help the capitalist few. It is designed to help the slum landlords not the tenants.

Unfettered capitalism commodifies everything. It is part of a triad, with imperialism and white supremacism, that is inherently racist; using force to appropriate cheap labour and resources. It is an expression of self interest that, unregulated, is destructive.

As the situation deteriorates Trump will incite violence and racism. The US has already been moving towards a corporate totalitarianism with militarised police and secret trials. The coronavirus crisis will accelerate this.

British society may be different but in America the trend is towards fascism; the Christian Right has given fascism a headstart there.

The coronaviris crisis is a precursor to the climate change crisis. The beginning of the end.

The system is not going to respond.

We have to create power outside of the system.

We need to rebel.

We must use our numbers to oppose corporate power. Through our numbers we have power to cripple the profits and the economy of the ruling elites.

This is our only hope, but we have to face the bleakness of no hope and accept that we may not succeed.

But even if we fail we create a community; we nurture life in a culture of death.

The ethic we return to needs to be an ethic that says ‘everyone eats or no one eats’.