Jim Hightower's "end user license agreement" example — supports Chris Hedges' "Dance of Death" analysis

© 2017 Peter Free

 

02 August 2017

 

 

Two days ago, I remarked that truth frequently sounds insane — to our brainwashed ears

 

I used excerpts from a Chris Hedges essay to illustrate. Among those was this one:

 

 

The ruling corporate elites . . . . crave the unimpeded power to cannibalize the country and pollute and degrade the ecosystem to feed an insatiable lust for wealth, power and hedonism.

 

© 2017 Chris Hedges, The Dance of Death, TruthDig (12 March 2017, reposted 30 July 2017) (excerpts)

 

 

Serendipitously

 

Jim Hightower recently pinpointed a good example of the trend that Hedges is addressing:

 

 

[B]rand-name profiteers are pushing a new abuse: Repair prevention.

 

Chances are you’ve bought an Apple iPad, Chevy Malibu, Amazon Kindle, Samsung TV, GE Frigidaire or some other brand-name consumer product equipped with a dazzling array of digital doodads.

 

[I]n doing so, you unwittingly consented to the corporation’s repair-prevention “gotcha” tucked into its license agreement. [called an "end user license agreement"]

 

[P]owerhouse corporate marketers are increasingly forcing customers to bring all their repair business to them.

 

Such an attack on individual and independent fixers is unprecedented — with cabals in industry after industry asserting their ownership control far after sales.

 

This explosive, defining issue . . . has received little media coverage, is not on the radar of either major political party, and it is not widely understood — even by people who rely on the repair economy.

 

© 2017 Jim Hightower, We Shouldn't Have to Be Doing This, But It's Time to Fight for the Right to Fix Your Own iPhone, AlterNet (30 July 2017) (excerpts)

 

 

The moral? — If we leave it to the oligarchs, we will not exist without their oppressing consent

 

For the prescient, this is not exaggeration.