Calling All Rebels
There are no constraints left to halt America's slide into a totalitarian capitalism. Electoral politics are a sham. The media have been debased and defanged by corporate owners. The working class has been impoverished and is now being plunged into profound despair. The legal system has been corrupted to serve corporate interests. Popular institutions, from labor unions to political parties, have been destroyed or emasculated by corporate power. And any form of protest, no matter how tepid, is blocked by an internal security apparatus that is starting to rival that of the East German secret police. The mounting anger and hatred, coursing through the bloodstream of the body politic, make violence and counter-violence inevitable. Brace yourself. The American empire is over. And the descent is going to be horrifying.
Those singled out as internal enemies will include people of color, immigrants, gays, intellectuals, feminists, Jews, Muslims, union leaders and those defined as "liberals." They will be condemned as anti-American and blamed for our decline. The economic collapse, which remains mysterious and enigmatic to most Americans, will be pinned by demagogues and hatemongers on these hapless scapegoats. And the random acts of violence, which are already leaping up around the fringes of American society, will justify harsh measures of internal control that will snuff out the final vestiges of our democracy. The corporate forces that destroyed the country will use the information systems they control to mask their culpability. The old game of blaming the weak and the marginal, a staple of despotic regimes, will empower the dark undercurrents of sadism and violence within American society and deflect attention from the corporate vampires that have drained the blood of the country.
"We are going to be poorer," David Cay Johnston told me. Johnston was the tax reporter of The New York Times for 13 years and has written on how the corporate state rigged the system against us. He is the author of "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With the Bill," a book about hidden subsidies, rigged markets and corporate socialism. "Health care is going to eat up more and more of our income. We are going to have less and less for other things. We are going to have some huge disasters sooner or later caused by our failure to invest. Dams and bridges will break. Buildings will collapse. There are water mains that are 25 to 50 feet wide. There will be huge infrastructure disasters. Our intellectual resources are in decline. We are failing to educate young people and instill in them rigor. We are going to continue to pour money into the military. I think it is possible, I do not say it is probable, that we will have a revolution, a civil war that will see the end of the United States of America."
"If we see the end of this country it will come from the right and our failure to provide people with the basic necessities of life," said Johnston. "Revolutions occur when young men see the present as worse than the unknown future. We are not there. But it will not take a lot to get there. The politicians running for office who are denigrating the government, who are saying there are traitors in Congress, who say we do not need the IRS, this when no government in the history of the world has existed without a tax enforcement agency, are sowing the seeds for the destruction of the country. A lot of the people on the right hate the United States of America. They would say they hate the people they are arrayed against. But the whole idea of the United States is that we criticize the government. We remake it to serve our interests. They do not want that kind of society. They reject, as Aristotle said, the idea that democracy is to rule and to be ruled in turns. They see a world where they are right and that is it. If we do not want to do it their way we should be vanquished. This is not the idea on which the United States was founded."
It is hard to see how this can be prevented. The engines of social reform are dead. Liberal apologists, who long ago should have abandoned the Democratic Party, continue to make pathetic appeals to a tone-deaf corporate state and Barack Obama while the working and middle class are ruthlessly stripped of rights, income and jobs. Liberals self-righteously condemn imperial wars and the looting of the U.S. Treasury by Wall Street but not the Democrats who are responsible. And the longer the liberal class dithers and speaks in the bloodless language of policies and programs, the more hated and irrelevant it becomes. No one has discredited American liberalism more than liberals themselves. And I do not hold out any hope for their reform. We have entered an age in which, as William Butler Yeats wrote, "the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity."
"If we end up with violence in the streets on a large scale, not random riots, but insurrection and things break down, there will be a coup d'état from the right," Johnston said. "We have already had an economic coup d'état. It will not take much to go further."
How do we resist? How, if this descent is inevitable, as I believe it is, do we fight back? Why should we resist at all? Why not give in to cynicism and despair? Why not carve out as comfortable a niche as possible within the embrace of the corporate state and spend our lives attempting to satiate our private needs? The power elite, including most of those who graduate from our top universities and our liberal and intellectual classes, have sold out for personal comfort. Why not us?
The French moral philosopher Albert Camus argued that we are separated from each other. Our lives are meaningless. We cannot influence fate. We will all die and our individual being will be obliterated. And yet Camus wrote that "one of the only coherent philosophical positions is revolt. It is a constant confrontation between man and his obscurity. It is not aspiration, for it is devoid of hope. That revolt is the certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it."
"A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object," Camus warned. "But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object."
The rebel, for Camus, stands with the oppressed-the unemployed workers being thrust into impoverishment and misery by the corporate state, the Palestinians in Gaza, the civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, the disappeared who are held in our global black sites, the poor in our inner cities and depressed rural communities, immigrants and those locked away in our prison system. And to stand with them does not mean to collaborate with parties, such as the Democrats, who can mouth the words of justice while carrying out acts of oppression. It means open and direct defiance.
The power structure and its liberal apologists dismiss the rebel as impractical and see the rebel's outsider stance as counterproductive. They condemn the rebel for expressing anger at injustice. The elites and their apologists call for calm and patience. They use the hypocritical language of spirituality, compromise, generosity and compassion to argue that the only alternative is to accept and work with the systems of power. The rebel, however, is beholden to a moral commitment that makes it impossible to stand with the power elite. The rebel refuses to be bought off with foundation grants, invitations to the White House, television appearances, book contracts, academic appointments or empty rhetoric. The rebel is not concerned with self-promotion or public opinion. The rebel knows that, as Augustine wrote, hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage-anger at the way things are and the courage to see that they do not remain the way they are. The rebel is aware that virtue is not rewarded. The act of rebellion defines itself.
"You do not become a ‘dissident' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career," Vaclav Havel said when he battled the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. "You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society. ... The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public. He offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin-and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost."
Those in power have disarmed the liberal class. They do not argue that the current system is just or good, because they cannot, but they have convinced liberals that there is no alternative. But we are not slaves. We have a choice. We can refuse to be either a victim or an executioner. We have the moral capacity to say no, to refuse to cooperate. Any boycott or demonstration, any occupation or sit-in, any strike, any act of obstruction or sabotage, any refusal to pay taxes, any fast, any popular movement and any act of civil disobedience ignites the soul of the rebel and exposes the dead hand of authority. "There is beauty and there are the humiliated," Camus wrote. "Whatever difficulties the enterprise may present, I should like never to be unfaithful either to the second or the first."
"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop," Mario Savio said in 1964. "And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."
The capacity to exercise moral autonomy, the capacity to refuse to cooperate, offers us the only route left to personal freedom and a life with meaning. Rebellion is its own justification. Those of us who come out of the religious left have no quarrel with Camus. Camus is right about the absurdity of existence, right about finding worth in the act of rebellion rather than some bizarre dream of an afterlife or Sunday School fantasy that God rewards the just and the good. "Oh my soul," the ancient Greek poet Pindar wrote, "do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible." We differ with Camus only in that we have faith that rebellion is not ultimately meaningless. Rebellion allows us to be free and independent human beings, but rebellion also chips away, however imperceptibly, at the edifice of the oppressor and sustains the dim flames of hope and love. And in moments of profound human despair these flames are never insignificant. They keep alive the capacity to be human. We must become, as Camus said, so absolutely free that "existence is an act of rebellion." Those who do not rebel in our age of totalitarian capitalism and who convince themselves that there is no alternative to collaboration are complicit in their own enslavement. They commit spiritual and moral suicide.
380 Comments so far
Show AllI appears to me that most, if not all, of us here would self-identify as members of the Liberal class discussed in this essay. Isn't it peculiar to us that our adversary, has co-opted what historically has been the most effective tool of the left, the creation of a vanguard.
We think we can win this battle through protest, through rational arguments, by producing our own food, depositing money in bank B rather than bank A and we complain that Hedges isn't giving us any solution. I think what he's done is the important first step, he's diagnosed us, we've been defanged. And rational arguments, protests, yelling ourselves hoarse into the vacuum won't resolve anything.
I'm a repentant Bush voter. I was raised by a Marxist-Leninist mother, that fought a guerrilla war in latin american country, and came to the US after my first decade of life, and reached manhood when GWbush came into power, and bought into the lie he sold. America had been good to me, and I though if as an immigrant I could make it here, surely it must be fair and just system. The brazeness of the last 10 years has surely changed my mind.
I've always wondered why class sentiment has never dominated American life in the way it did European or Latin American life. There are theories that it's because of the historical upward mobility in this country, because of schisms caused by race, etc. As mobility has diminished to the point of being reversed over the last 60 years, and as as society we've overcome many (not all) of our prejudices, how is it that the American people continue to fight against their own economic interests?
The Right controls its message tightly and is able to influence the overall narrative more effectively than all the individual voices of the left. We liberals are so convinced that we are correct that we think our rational arguments will convince others. We puzzle at the "craziness" of tea partyers, but we don't puzzle at our own greater insanity. You cannot convince the crazy with reason.
There is a belief in the mainstream that the Right is energized like never before. That our shill of a president has so offended Americans that they are taking to the streets to protest and voice their opposition. These teabaggers are not a new manifestation of anger at the Government. These are the same people that wanted to kick a corporatist like Bill Clinton out of office. These are the same people that were harrasing election officials in florida. These are the same people, that 30pct, that though GWbush was a great president till the very end.
They are pulled by a right-wing vanguard that dissiminates a unified message. When they protest it is a manifestation of the American people and their indignation. When we protest at 2x, 3x their number, it doesn't make the news.
We can't hope to conciliate with these people, they are fanatics, and we have to respond in kind. We have to fight them, not compromise. We shouldn't be pulled to the center by them, we should tear the rope and stand on our side, let go of notions of civility and bipartisanship. Disown ourselves of those who say they stand for us, but vote with them. Make Democrats and Liberals run to the left and not the center. Combat the Rights message with our own message, not our rational arguments.
It might not seem noble, but we are on the precipice, and we have to get our hands dirty. Better they be dirty by politics than anything else.
I like this comment, very perceptive. My one little comment to hitch to it is that protest can be absolutely civil. No need to say no without a smile on ones face and proud, honest determination in ones heart. In fact, when one is sure of their right and wrong, it is not a protest of what we decry, as much as it is an affirmation of what we believe in.
This fact is what divides the left and the right, and this is what would unify us;
Knowing to the core what one's principles are, living them and standing on them.
What are our shared principles in this country? Freedom, equality the right to health and happiness. The right to choose. We on the left exercised this right by voting in Obama. The Obama choice was a wrong choice. But that is not a crime, that is a learning experience. Realize it, get over it, and realize every day is a new day and another day to choose again.
I think maybe I'm not clear about civil protest. I think part of our problem as liberals is that we are too conciliatory. The right has pulled the narrative of this country too far in their direction, and rather than pull harder in our direction, we have allowed ourselves to be dragged. The problem then becomes that people who are cleary batshit, sarah palin, are considered mainstream, while we are considered fringe.
I think part of the reason is that we are looked at as idealogues, while they present themselves as practical. Superficially this is seen in the contrast between a "cerebral" liberal and a "folksy" conservative. On a deeper level you can see it at play in the recent financial meltdown. For instance, market infalliability is a tenet of faith among the right. It is supposed to be scientific in its veracity, thought of by hayek, proved by friedman. In a way capitalist are as ideological as Soviet economic planners and their faith in the marxist command economy. When the market fails, and the public has to bail-out market participants, the wisdon of the efficacy of markets is not questioned. That markets are efficient is a fact, practical. But when a nationalized health care system is proposed, the socialistic, counter market principle of the notion is assaulted as ideological.
We've retreated so much we are seen as the crazies. So when I say we should toss civility aside, I don't mean that we should take to the ramparts. I think that we should call a spade a spade, and pull harder in our direction when they pull in theirs.
Nothing will happen until the people who were the middle class see their children starving. And then I really doubt that people will do anything.
Whatever social engineering slavery project that we have been under for the past 50-100 years is truly working.
Chris continuously stands up and says what everyone is already thinking but afraid to say. I can't repeat this enough "Start speaking up!" Speak up at the grocery stores , speak up at the school board meetings, speak up at soccer practices, speak up wherever you are. Speak with calm intelligence using fact and rationale. Intitiate comments that motivate people to question the status quo and think about realistic non-violent solutions. The wrong wing is invigorating violent rage within people, that's a tool the "ruling families" have used for thousands of years in order to maintain control over the masses. It's now time for the masses to realize the control tricks the abusers have been using over them. And say to them "NO, no more of your ugly behavior". We must treat these little power hungry psychopaths as if we are the parent and they are the toddler throwing a tantrum because he can't have his way. When you look at the problem this way it is fixable without violence.
I agree with you, stringbean. I've been starting my own personal revolutions in public places for years now. We must do this without violence. Some of us may die for our actions, but we will be free having honored an integrity knowing of a different way we all can live. We can help those who do not yet know to find their way as we save some children from this hell the believers are creating. Peace
"Speak with calm intelligence using fact...". That is something everyone can do. Put your formulations to the next-door-neighbor test. (Some of the angry rants and to-do lists on this thread would get nowhere in person in the neighborhood or on the job!) And do not forget to listen and show respect.
The content of the message can be angry. How could it not be? But the delivery should not be arrogant. Only a small % of the message received will be influenced by new facts. The majority is body language and thoughtful validation and extension of the other person's experiences. You will not win everyone over the first time you discuss something. You will win some, and open up some dialogue with others.
Joe
Joe and Stringbean, these comments deserve to top off the rest, thank you so much for such concise and thoughtful calls to action.
NO Chris Hedges is not on the side of the fairness for all etcetara...He is another mouthpiece for the fear mongering crazies in DC. And he never addresses what is actually happening nor is he capable of reporting truth and being ballsy enough to say it. For example, anyone watching the Kucinich debate in the House would note that there were no people there except the ones who spoke. There was no debate, there was blather so the appearance was made, attempted, but discredited by the mere lack of your elected officials being present ; therefore, not listening to the debate...so already had their corpoRAT LOBBOTame heads made up because they are supported by the thieves of the MIC. How come no one calls them out on this? How come there is barely a breath blown over the Boeing candidate or the Grumman candidate...?
Hedges doesn't name names ...he is one of these in his own words.
"No one has discredited American liberalism more than liberals themselves." Then become a radical ass hole with a non-violent pen in hand and tell us what is really going on. Chicken shit.
This is a great thought provoking essay by Chris Hedges, and such writing is long overdue. I thank Common Dreams for publishing Chris Hedges articles and I thank many CD posters for their thoughts that are left for deep personal reflection and discernment.
I hate to see such confrontation between Michael Lerner and Chris Hedges, because I greatly respect both men and they are not far apart. But their difference illustrates the great issue of our time, how do we confront the severely dysfunctional society that has been created by corporate capitalism. The urgency of the issue and the method of change is the dividing issue.
Institutional Christianity has walked away from spirituality in order to control the faithful with religious absolutes, thus making Christianity not a means of personal transformation but an institutional system of “us against them” that has failed for two thousand years to heal the world. Christ was all about healing the world. .. In turn, consumer capitalism has hardened the human heart and crushed the spiritual dynamics democracy that should care for the common good.
Current times have proven capitalism to be as Godless as communism. The great Cold War between communism and capitalism, with its allied forces of Western Christianity, only resulted in corporate capitalism being the big winner and Christianity being duped and severely compromised.
It is now time for the third way, democratic socialism.
The big issue Chris Hedges raises is can the world afford to wait any longer for a spiritual awakening and an emerging higher global consciousness. No, I do not think so but an emerging higher comciousdness will help in the revolution. We cannot lose sight that spirituality is an essential element for radical social change.
Maybe things will have to get worse before millions of Americans hit the streets with nonviolent civil disobedience. But one must expect some broken windows and a few flipprd cars. In fact security forces will see to it that it happens to warrant greater police brutality. The ruling capitalists fear massive demonstrations because it works in sufficient numbers. The increasing numbers must come from the power of the human spirit that seeks human liberation and greater human dignity. The time will soon come when more people will sense the American dream has ended and they have nothing to lose but the hope and imagination for radical social change.
There are no rebels in Gringolandia.
Show me one.
I promise I will eat him or her.
This site is nothing but a safety valve for folks to come and make themselves feel better by whining about how powerless they are.
Wouldn't be surprised if it were funded by the US and Israeli governments.
I will state one more time on this article. The problem we face is a human one, it is manifesting at it furthest degrees specifically in western developed and eastern developing countries. When we go and protest the 'corporations' or the 'government' or something that is a manifestation of the problem and not the problem it's self, it is a protest against the effect and not the cause. If you want to put out a fire, why would you throw wood at it? That is all that is occurring in these reactionary efforts to change the course of humanity.
The host of the problem is the individual, of which people in power are. So we see it clearer there, where it's effect seems the greatest. But because the effect is in us all, until we each address this, and this is no easy task, we simply waste our time by insisting others address it. It's like the petty thief insisting the mobster stop his lying and stealing. Most of us are petty thieves, and there are a few that are mobsters, and a few that are honest decent folks. But it is the majority that rules and that petty majority can and will turn on the mobsters, each other and the honest folks at a moments notice if the right conditions are present. This is what Chris is clearly stating. He sees the few mobsters, he sees the few decent folks and he sees the majority of people who are petty thieves. He is putting his group, the liberals, the progressives in this petty party and he is stating something as clear as day, about this stratum. This thin layer within the petty party could change the day if they would stand on their own beliefs and instead of supporting the mobsters which really serves the worst in them, support the best in themselves and in our dream of freedom and equality for all. He is saying look you petty liberals, your time for excuses is gone, and if you have the intelligence to see your own fate, if you who can, don't stand up, you will not escape the wrath of those who could not stand up until a violent rage possessed them and drove them to insanity from which no one, innocent or guilty will escape.
It has happened in the past, over and over and over. Insanity has swept through populations of people who sat too long and lost all connection with heart and soul.
None of us, none of us want to be here when that happens, none of us can imagine the scope in our day and age of such terror.
But it can be stopped by those who wake up and start to live and love in the spirit of freedom and equality. That spark, once struck, will clear a way for all of us into the golden age of humanity where this dark time will be left to the ghosts of the past.
First, anyone who got seriously depressed reading that, as well as Hedges, take a Prozac or eat some 'shrooms. Then get off your proverbed and intellectualized liberal asses and stop whining.
Hell ya, people have been jailed and disappeared all over the world for trying to make a difference. Yes, it is damn scary facing down a storm trooper only to get shoved into a wire cage. Yes, it is damn scary when they come for you. But if any of you are peaking out from behind your curtains, then you will get all that comes down and have no one to blame but yourselves and those who also do nothing.
IF YOU AREN'T AT A PROTEST MARCH 20, THEN YOU HAVE NOTHING LEFT TO FIGHT WITH.... CONSIDER IT D-DAY...
D...DESIGN AGAINST THE BULL SHIT
D...DESIGN AGAINST POLITICIAN ASS HOLES
D...DELIVER MESSAGES DAILY IN YOUR FACE FROM YOUR TOWNSHIP TO THE FEDS
D...DON'T VASCILLATE
D...DESIGN AGAINST PARTYISTS
D...DELIVER A MESSAGE
D...DRIVE LESS
D...DEBATE
D...DESIGN THE REVOLUTIOM
Last time I saw Hedges was on MLK's birthday at an evening vigil and street play on behalf of Syed Hashmi outside the Federal Metropolitan Correctional Center. Chris was one of the speakers, as was a teacher from Brooklyn College who had Mr. Hashmi as a student. Hashmi's mother was also there. She was happy that her son had not been completely forgotten. Chris Hedges celebrated King's birthday, not with safe and sanctimonious allusions to the past, but by taking up the unpopular but imperative causes of TODAY. We tried to raise our voices to shout to the prisoner so he would know someone was outside. Literally.
Here is an excerpt about the Hashmi case from solitarywatch.wordpress.com.
"In a much-quoted Truthdig piece, Chris Hedges wrote last week about the case of Syed Fahad Hashmi, a Muslim American imprisoned at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan as he awaits trial for conspiracy to provide support to terrorists (as Hedges puts it, he is “accused of facilitating the delivery of socks to al-Qaida.”) The piece includes a powerful description of the extreme lockdown measures used for suspects who are charged with–and not yet convicted of–terrorism-related offenses.
Hashmi, who if convicted could face up to 70 years in prison, has been held in solitary confinement for more than 2½ years. Special administrative measures, known as SAMs, have been imposed by the attorney general to prevent or severely restrict communication with other prisoners, attorneys, family, the media and people outside the jail. He also is denied access to the news and other reading material. Hashmi is not allowed to attend group prayer. He is subject to 24-hour electronic monitoring and 23-hour lockdown. He must shower and go to the bathroom on camera. He can write one letter a week to a single member of his family, but he cannot use more than three pieces of paper. He has no access to fresh air and must take his one hour of daily recreation in a cage. His “proclivity for violence” is cited as the reason for these measures although he has never been charged or convicted with committing an act of violence…."
More about the case can be found at
http://solitarywatch.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/the-hashmi-case-and-the-psychological-torture-of-solitar...
Joe
I have just finished watching the movie ZEITGEIST: ADDENDUM http://www.thezeitgeistmovementuk.com/site/zeitgeist-addendum
please go & watch it too, what an eye opener!
these are my next steps:
1. EXPOSE THE FRAUD THAT IS BANKING (fractional banking is a con, plain & simple, doesn't matter which country you are in.)
2. BOYCOTT ALL NEWS NETWORKS. use independent news outlets. like the following:
http://www.mikeruppert.blogspot.com/
http://www.digitaljournal.com/
http://wikileaks.org/
http://www.bbc5.tv/
http://news.infoshop.org/index.php?topic=20
http://www.informationliberation.com/?categories
http://www.alternet.org/
This next step is quite hard, I was once a soldier, I consider 99.9% of all soldiers I know / knew to be honourable, decent human beings. I believed in everything we were told about the wars we went to: like the gulf (pt. 1& 2), the Falklands, Bosnia/ Croatia/ Macedonia/ Kosovo, Northern Ireland, etc.
The wars we were sent to were / are all about corporate profit, UK/EU/USA hegemony & power & control over other nations wealth & resources. So with the greatest of respect, here goes:
3. DO NOT LET ANYONE YOU KNOW JOIN THE MILITARY, IF YOU ARE STILL IN THE MILITARY, GET OUT. IF YOU KNOW SOMEONE IN THE MILITARY ENCOURAGE THEM TO GET OUT.
4. STOP SUPPORTING ENERGY COMPANIES, GET OFF THE GRID. (buy solar, wind, etc home power generation kits )
5. REJECT THE POLITICAL SYSTEM, this 'democracy" is an insult to us all.
6. JOIN THE ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT & SPREAD THE WORD.
The choice lies with us all, don't dismiss this, open you mind & see the truth.
peace & freedom
voluntaryist-uk
A number of posters in this discussion suggest joining or supporting the Green Party as a simple solution to our governmental crisis.
I agree that the Green Party has some attractive positions, but it is also true that it is affected by the current political environment that is awash in money and dominated by the two major parties and the corporate media.
How are the Greens faring today?
To answer this question, it is worthwhile to examine the current state of the Green Party in San Francisco, California. You may want to read the following article, which appeared in the January 14, 2010, issue of the Wall Street Journal:
"San Francisco Green Party Sees Its Fortunes Sour--Declines in Membership, Donations Mirror National Organization's Struggles; Headquarters Close but Meetings Remain."
By the way, Noam Chomsky often recommends the WSJ for its news content (as opposed to its op-ed pages) because it is true that businesses need accurate information to be able to develop their economic strategies.
The significance of the article is that the Green Party is in a period of decline in the SF Bay Area--just the kind of progressive stronghold that should be fertile territory for its programs and positions.
If people seriously want to try to reinvigorate the Green Party, I highly recommended that they deal with the questions that are raised in this article about image, focus, strategic planning, message, outreach, organizational structure, and fundraising.
And there is another issue that is significant, I think, although it is under the radar for a lot of folks. The term "green" has become so commonplace in corporate and government enterprises that it has lost a great deal of its impact. Worse, the term "green" has been co-opted by many people who use it to promote anything they want to sell these days, like nuclear power plants and "clean" coal and cap-and-trade policies. Honestly, whenever I hear the word "green" these days, the first reaction I have is the strong suspicion that somebody is trying to fool me.
The name of the Green Party just may not be effective any more. When it was introduced, it sounded like its members would strongly support environmental protections (and frankly that may have been a bit too limiting). Now, with the meaninglessness of the term "green", it may not even have that going for it.
I will say this: Some of my best friends are Greens. Er, scratch that...were Greens. They just changed to Independents.
What I find alarming is the shameless sales job being done in comment sections like this one. Take any given article, regardless of content and we get boilerplate sales pamphlets posted. They don't talk about the article, they just shamelessly pimp what they are selling. I am not in a buying mood and if it doesn't involve some sort of socialist solution, I don't really want to hear about.
As for the Orwellian chess match that goes on in our modern society, what word can't these corporates fascists co-opt? And it doesn't stop at words. Music, ideas, art can all be consumed by this ever widening corporate fascist maw and then spit back out at us as some sort of sales pitch for a car, insurance policy, or credit card.
Good points,Lefty. Many times it seems the article wasn't actually read.
And while i'm at it. It also can become personal attacks sounding a lot like fox and friends.
There are two ways to be a slave, physically and spiritually. The former enslavement relies in its success to be perpetrated upon a person who has as precondition a belief of spiritual enslavement or 'death' as would have been said in the past that is caused not by self, but by another. The slave masters are serving the spirit of darkness, and capitalizing on this later slavery. The enslaved, the sleeping, and this death of choice they are in is a condition that relies on the loss of knowing they have the choice to be the enslaved of spirit, or free of spirit as a simple thought, a simple belief. To rebel here is to rebel against self belief not against the slave master, and when that battle is won, the elements necessary for spiritual freedom are unleashed and so the physical enslavement has been dissolved.
Our first act of rebellion is against our own self delusions, and then we are free to choose what we will serve. Nature in life, or nature in death. This story is as old as is our humanity. But the balance of life and death has been thrown askew because not enough souls are alive to the choice, and making up a life of love according to their will and their fate. These people, the suppressed and the trodden down, need that message of hope and wings of choice that carry it so they may finally be free. Democracy does not create freedom or love or right, it stands for the choice, and then the people make it. The statue of liberty that beautiful lady frozen with her torch across all of time is the torch bearer to that truth.
Let us see the choice, and let us see what choice we make.
We must rebel....and rebel we will, but against the loss of our belief in our freedom to choose. Not against those who would have us believe we lost that choice.
Yes, we must rebel against our own false beliefs, delusions, erroneous thoughts in order to be truly free. The egoic mind causes our own enslavement. Rebel, rebel against the ego you falsely believe to be the real you.
Follow the words of The Bob..."Emanciapate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds."
Thank you stringbean. Such an old message repeated over and over and over through time, time which ego created.
What a load. Here we go again with the The Liberal Shibboleth of Choice
There are no fucking "choices." Being lectured about choices is being told that "I can afford to do these things and you can't so fuck you."
Choices is a key part of the foundation of white suburban privilege, and I am convinced that the entire political discussion is dominated by people deeply steeped in white suburban privilege and that this is the most important political force we face. It is destroying everything and having a seriously suppressive effect on all discussions.
But we can't talk about it, except in the most detached and theoretical ways.
I swear, we can't even talk - we talk about talking, as though we were neutral academics, dispassionate and aloof observers of the show.
So what I want to know is this: where are people living? How are they surviving? What are they doing? How can they be so oblivious to the most important and obvious factor in modern politics, and keep pretending that it doesn't exist? How are they not running into tons of first hand evidence - overwhelming, obvious examples - of this force at play every single day? How are they immune? How are they existing? What are they telling themselves about their lives?
What is the truth, because it sure as Hell is not being revealed in any political discussions.
If your 'choice' is between the 'free clinic' and bankruptcy, where is the freedom?
If your 'choice' is between medicine and food, where is the freedom?
If your choice is between housing and heating, where is the freedom?
Don't give me this crap about choice.
Those are all physical choices mcoyote. That is what is lost as you note with valid anger. Do we want to give up and give in to this fact? How do we gain power in this scenario. I suggest the way is through personal power in the freedom to realize we have more power than we know in how we think. Thinking is tightly controlled by the media mouthpiece of the corporate death system for a reason. It is not because it is not our way to freedom.
Thanks for stirring the pot and adding to my limited comment, you filled it in more and I appreciate it.
Leea
That the moment has arrived is suggested by the many and diverse groundswells of public indignation now emerging in the form of tea partiers, coffee partiers, tax resisters, war-resisters, environmentalist and student protesters. What's missing is a sense of urgency to match the seriousness of the threat to all living beings that's posed by the combination of global warming, perpetuals wars and economic collapse. What, alas, isn't clear to all who seek to turn things around is that no way can this be accomplished by our sticking with the same old same old business as usual status quo incrementalism, since, that's what's gotten us into this here guagmire of capitalism, glub, glub, glub. What's the answer? That we rise up en masse. How? Well, sorry about this, but rather than repeat "Revolution Is Not Only Possible It's Doable", please see yourstruly's 2:53 pm post to Sunday's "Time For A Revolution - 15 Reasons" by Bill Quigley. What's proposed there are tactics for starting up a peaceful popular movement for change, beginning with very safe and easy ways for rebels to publicly come out of the closet, and then, step-wise, upping the level of peaceful action. Very little on the vision "thing", believing as I do that that's a collective matter to be decided online, democratically, based on the principle of one equals one. Back to tactics, though, the start-up is deliberately very simple, easy and low risk (wearing arm bands inscribed with the "Count Me In", then bumper stickers with the same words, thereby enabling solidarity to build up, such that, when it's time for peaceful street action, the heretofore timid will be emboldened. Have confidence, revolutionaries. We can do this!
That's why I ended my post earlier in this thread with "Count Me In." I remembered your suggestion and really liked your idea. There needs to be a way to forge solidarity among those of us who want to communicate our protest of what is happening in this country. A bumper sticker/arm band is one easy way to do that. So what color should the armband be? I've already gone to a website to make up a bumper sticker that says "Count Me In." So thanks, yourstruly. And count me in.
You won't get away with wearin' no armband at work. And if anyone from work sees you outside of work wearing it, you will soon be branded a rebel against the status quo. Let us just see how long you keep that job.
The sixties brought death and jail time to those who tried to forge a new way. So, don't expect nonviolent success. Blood will surely spill, and lots of it. If they couldn't do it in the sixties, it is only going to be that much harder to accomplish now unless people do some heavy brainstorming. Half the problem is convincing people we are in a hole we can't get out of.
Yourstruly, 2:53 on which day? There are a million comments there!
I hear support for the Green Party as a possible avenue to start a revolution. And I agree that a third party would be one tactic to start bringing about change. But I don't think that a renewed third party is the only way to go.
What if we built a coalition of progressive nonprofits with progressive political parties (Greens, Socialists, others?) that pushed for political reform on one front but also set up communities that help themselves with social reform? The coalition could disseminate workable reforms to local communities and unite political lobbying for nonprofit programs for a stronger voice. Combining the political platforms of the smaller progressive political parties and pushing to get progressive candidates into local, state and federal campaigns to offer people a real choice in elections could provide the impetus for more lasting change by changing the political field.
I have been hearing small beginnings toward these revolutionary (but non-violent) tactics. But I think we need to join together under one umbrella with some strong advocate voices - like Chris Hedges - to make our united voices heard over the din generated by imperial capitalism.
What if we called it the "Common Good" party - Common Sense reform for the Common Good of our society? Is anyone interested in such a movement?
readjr: "What if we... pushed for political reform" What political reform? Make other parties illegal? Got to have the secret decoder ring before you can vote?
The only political reform worth talking about is whether money should vote in our democracy before people. Most people would say no, but the problem is that the money says yes, and the money is already in charge. But, not completely. fixcongressfirst.org aims to put people back in charge of our democracy.
Go ahead and form a third, or forth, Common Good party, I wish you luck. But, if you don't take the money out of the democracy FIRST, I worry that the common good will end up like the democrats: long on 'common-good' talk, and short on 'common-good' action. You changed the name and little else.
The first part of identifying a victory, is identifying a foe. Too many progressives think the political parties are the bad guys in all this. Nothing could be further from the truth. The bad guy is what it has always been... greed. Greed is a universal human attribute so good luck taking it out of your 'common good' parties functionaries. But our democracy isn't human, its merely a human-engineered construct. This is good, since we actually have a chance to formally take greed out of that construct. We were all supposed to hold hands and vote in a representative. We weren't supposed to find him representing 'king capital'. We need to fundamentally take back our democracy. Against that imperative, no party, no representative, no hero anywhere is significant, cuz they're all human, and thus susceptible to corruption. Democracy was an idea that became a set of relationships, complete with the method of their own improvement, the first of which was the Bill of Rights. Fix the construct or go home. fixcongressfirst.org
Forgive me for not being more specific in the first comment - I'm rather new to this blogging.
I had in mind actually to take the money out of politics. In my opinion the first action has to be campaign reform. Take all corporate money out and severely restrict the amount individuals may contribute to any campaign. You are absolutely right that money is in charge and that we need to have the government responsible to the common people, not the top 1% or the corporations.
I also agree with you that greed, otherwise known as unfettered capitalism, is the main foe. Our economic system based on this free-wheeling capitalism is the driving force behind the destruction of our democracy. After campaign reform then we need to reinstate strong financial controls to rein in Wall St. and the big banks. There is much more to be accomplished but I'm no expert. I just hope that those who are experts will step up to outline the actions needed to turn this around.
But I also think we can't wait for corrective legislation. That is why I was talking before about supporting local communities' actions to start economic and civil change on the ground level. If this political party could serve as a clearinghouse to help communities find better ways to function, then there could also be a groundswell of support to get things changed at the upper levels. This is where I see more "action" taking place instead of just talking about the common good.
My "not fully developed" vision of this political party is not just doing the same 'ol, same 'ol. It's getting out and pushing for reform at many different levels. So if you have more ideas on how this type of movement could get started and the type of actions that could be incorporated, please write them up. I'm very interested in trying to get something started. Do you blog on fixcongressfirst.org that I should look for more comments?
readjr said: "I also think we can't wait for corrective legislation. That is why I was talking before about supporting local communities' actions to start economic and civil change on the ground level."
Well, I support that as well. We do need a new discussion in this country about what its driving ethic is. It seems though that may be a multi-year project. On the other hand, what fixcongressfirst.org is advocating is an Act that could be passed in three months, if enough Americans just stood up and said to their representatives: 'do it or else'. I agree that it would only be a first step, but it would be in the right direction.
The forces that have hijacked our democracy are hoping that, recognizing its been hijacked, we will all scatter in different directions. Perhaps some of that is inevitable. But, before we scatter, can we all agree on the simplest of principles for tossing THEM out of our democracy? The concept is not complicated: if our representatives are already funded for their elections, what power does a corporate lobbyist hold over them? Citizen lobbyists would then note: "What about us? Doesn't that reduce our power also?" No, because power is relative. The relative reduction in power of corporate lobbyists would be massive compared to that of citizens lobbyists. Hence, their power would actually increase. Citizens lobbyists should also take comfort in the fact that they are composed, and act on behalf of, actual citizens. When money is taken out of the equation, this actually matters to our representatives because they are also people. Only corporations would find their interests massively disrupted, and subject to citizen oversight.
Which is absolutely as it should be. Unlike you, I like our capitalism and its dynamic developmental model. I also worry that many a capitalist is right when they say: if you don't embrace the profit motive, your neighbor will, and end up enslaving you. Thats a sad but true observation. But, our capitalism was never intended to be the driver of our society, just the engine. The driver was always intended to be the ordinary citizen, acting with an eye to what's right for his/her community, children, and self. Corporations aren't people. Their drive is purely for profit. Giving our government over to them would be a disaster for humans, as has proven so far.
Sounds wonderful -- very (in a positive way) utopian.
But... er... how long is this supposed to take?
If it takes more than five years -- and that's being optimistic -- it will matter not because the entire system will be crashing down, and as metal has pointed out, starving urban citizens will be gunning for food. So we don't have much time.
That is why rebellion is in the air. The United States is dying around our ears, jobs lost forever to slave labor. Empire is straggling and murdering the Earth, while the planet itself is drowning in waste. Peaks have been reached in oil and gas and the scraps will be fought over (as will drinkable water).
We need quick solution for the now -- not somewhat airy prescriptions for a better future when we may not have a future unless action is taken now.
Sorry to rain so hard on your parade, I like your thoughts, just think they are impractical for the near future and that is what we need to be concerned with immediately.
Gary
“Abandon all hopes of utopia -- there are people involved”
-- Clayton Cramer
Money, like guns, both are abused and used to kill by people. Take away guns and money and you still have the problem, people who's choice is abuse and death. Change not the bad people who choose abuse and death, change the good people who do not understand they can choose. This is the majority, pushed around by the bad choices of the minority combined with their own lack of choice that leaves them without anchor and mooring and so easy to be pushed by bad.
You are definitely on the right track. We need to blanket medium and large radio markets with low power FM radio stations operated by progressive non-profit organizations as well.
Common Good Party is a good name. Chris Hedges would appeal to many well-informed progressives (and scare many others with his call to rebellion) but he might sound in general a little strident to average mixed audiences. I basically agree with him but I am a progressive who also is a gun owner and that puts me in the minority.
Please read my post from 1:02 PM on this thread below. Thanks.
How about the Choice party? Because that is what is missing, choice and so no change can come about.
I still like "The People Party," think it has zing. Besides, "Choice" brings back bad memories of "Choice We Can Believe In" and how much bull THAT was.
Ditto "Change Party."
Gary
“To a warden, Utopia is an escape-proof jail”
-- Gregory Nunn
Yeah, I like the sound and feel of "The People Party".
Hedges voices no plan for changing the structure of the US system at the core—fixing a flawed Constitution—one that allows no referendum of the people; has ridiculous requirements of up to a 95 percent supermajority for approving amendments; tolerates corporate bribery; and much more.
He advocates rebellion but fails to articulate what steps in a rebellion would transform the system towards democracy.
His label "liberals" is not defined and fails to the political adversaries in both parties: conservative, corporate militarists.Democrats and conservative, corporate, militarist Republicans.
He fails to identify the features of the system he says we need to rebel against.
He identifies not one scenario of success, but concedes defeat as inevitable.
He recommends abandoning the Democratic Party in our two-party system. This is the great dream of the corporate regime people in both parties.
I agree with his description of complaints. And I like his passion. But his recommends don't rise to the level of pragmatic or thoughtful.
Progressives need to unite ourselves politically.
I say progressives need to infiltrate and take over the Democratic Party.
And, of course, strengthen our Green Party.
>>Hedges voices no plan for changing the structure of the US system at the core—fixing a flawed Constitution—one that allows no referendum of the people; has ridiculous requirements of up to a 95 percent supermajority for approving amendments; tolerates corporate bribery; and much more.
You want an encyclopedia for an article. I get it.
>>He advocates rebellion but fails to articulate what steps in a rebellion would transform the system towards democracy.
Not true. He enumerates specific actions we can take.
We have the moral capacity to say no, to refuse to cooperate. Any boycott or demonstration, any occupation or sit-in, any strike, any act of obstruction or sabotage, any refusal to pay taxes, any fast, any popular movement and any act of civil disobedience ignites the soul of the rebel and exposes the dead hand of authority.
>>He fails to identify the features of the system he says we need to rebel against.
Not true. Anyone who has been reading CD and similar websites for ONE MONTH has a true understanding of the myriad of these features. Once again, your criticisms are based on the need for an encyclopedia condensed into one article.
>>He identifies not one scenario of success, but concedes defeat as inevitable.
Let us face facts. We have been humiliated and defeated on nearly every front the last 30 odd years. You expect him to list a handful of hollow victories? He would make himself look like a fool if he took your advice. He is calling all rebels. Hardly an admission of defeat.
>>He recommends abandoning the Democratic Party in our two-party system. This is the great dream of the corporate regime people in both parties.
I disagree. I think it would send a shiver down their spines if large numbers of people dropped out. It would demonstrate to them that the public is no longer interested in playing their game.
>>I agree with his description of complaints. And I like his passion. But his recommends don't rise to the level of pragmatic or thoughtful.
Once again, the list above is both pragmatic and thoughtful.
>>Progressives need to unite ourselves politically.
There we go again. More central planning, more rules, more sign up sheets. The immediate path should be void of such structure. If we are to rebel, the tear down phase does not require much organization. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop this corporate fascist juggernaut, first and foremost.
>>I say progressives need to infiltrate and take over the Democratic Party.
I used to feel the same way. After witnessing this debacle called Obama, who can deny that the Democratic party is a lost cause. You could have stopped Hitler by taking over the nazi party but is that really the best way? Same goes for the Democratic party. Corrupt through and through. There will be no reforming.
>>And, of course, strengthen our Green Party.
Moribund attempts to work within this failed system are pipe dreams at best. Assuming they raise the money and organize within this stacked system, they'll find themselves as beholden to big money interests as the Democrats and Republicans. The barriers to entry are that great.
You won't find a more committed true believer on the planet than Earthian folks.
The corporate regime people in both parties do not want the two party system or the Democratic party to be abandoned. These corporate lackeys love the two party system that gives the appearance of competition between two parties with different ideologies competing for the support of the voting public. In truth, the two are one that take turns doing the bidding of the wealthy elite. It is the phoney fight and loyalty to one or the other of the corporate parties that allows and facilitates the charade to go on, accompanied by the destruction of our democracy.
Best thing we can do is to not vote again for any member of either of these corrupt political parties. Lots of people over many years, seeing the failure of the Democratic party to really have the interests of the working people at heart, have tried to "infiltrate and take over" the Democratic Party. Don't waste your time and effort. We need to vote independent and form new political parties.
The Demos are Deado --- and have been for a long, long, long time..
As I wrote in my Boston Globe more than a decade ago:
"Clinton's legacy? It will be as the Neville Chamberlain of the democratic
party, and for the same reason: that he caved to fascism ---- not the old
personalized, nationalist fascism, but a newer 'friendly fascism' of global
corporate empire.
Clinton tried to triangulate corporate fascism with a slightly friendlier
version, that could feel our pain while applying it also. He learned too
late that you can't co-opt fascists by applying half their programs for
them. They will only grouse and continue to do the second half with rougher
hands on the controls.
Clinton has left America without the defense of a democratic party ----
without an opposition party to the rule of global corporate empire.
Clinton and the DLC hijacking of the democratic party were a 'one trick
pony', as proven by Gore's loss.
Christopher Hitchens has summarized better than anyone, "The democratic
party is not so much dead, as actually, visibly, palpably rotting on the
slab".
Clinton, like Chamberlain stepping off the plane, is smiling to the crowd,
while waving the death certificate of the democratic party, which he has
just negotiated.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, ME."
The only hope now is certainly not Obama, and not "the Super-rich Can Save Us", but rather only the Global People's Anti-EMPIRE Movement which Kevin Zeese, David Beito, and Ralph Nader have formed ---- join it today!
As I read this article and the comments, I was shocked at the the despair and hopelessness that seems to be the recurring theme. WE are America and We can fight and win.
Our forefathers, at the beginning of our country, fought and won a victory over the similar conditions we have today. They then set up the solution we have to follow to win.
They realized that when your own government becomes overbearing, uncaring, and driven by greed that it was time for a change. Our governing bodies DO NOT care about or represent the American people. They only care about and represent the corporations, special interests and anyone else that can provide power, money, and fame to them. It doesn't matter which political party they belong to, they all work for the survival of their own governance. A prime example of this behavior is the fact that in the last ten years, our governing bodies have not passed one piece of major legislation that benefits the middle or lower class of Americans.
Okay, so it is time for another American Revolution and our forefathers provided the method to conduct it. This November, all 435 members of the House of Representatives are up for re-election. This happens every 2 years. Also, 34 members of the Senate are to be elected. To conduct our revolution all we have to know is who our incumbent is and vote for someone else who is running. It is time to fire all of our Representatives and 34 Senators. WE have to forget about political parties. It is more important to clean house then to worry about which party we put into to power.
If we can pull this off, WE will have the power back with the American People. No more will OUR representatives be able to ignore our wants and wishes because they will know that we can do this again in two years. The corporations and special interest groups power will be diminished. Our representatives will have to put the American people in front of them if they want to continue to represent us. This solution to our problems seems simple. The only thing left to wonder is will WE the American People have the courage to conduct this second American Revolution?
WTF?
Somebody help here as I have no time to even begin on this, but I would point out that the 'American revolution' was progressive in some ways but at its heart was conducted by a small class of land owning white men who formally and institutionally denied the rights and even the humanity of the vast majority of their 'country,' i.e. Native Americans, slaves, freed slaves, women, white men without property, indentured individuals, debtors, and more. Let's give up once and for all the worship of "America." Most of what we today consider 'noble rhetoric' was meant to apply only to the tiny ruling faction.
And a federated republic does not set up the conditions of 'abolishing a government.' There is no potential for 'revolution' there, and as things stand now, it only provides for a reshuffling of the tiny clique that run the country.
And the electoral college, etc...? Bottom line, our problems go far deeper than you suggest.
It is the spirit of what they did that is the heart of the matter. They cast of the chains that did not allow them the right to choose for themselves in their time. If we collectively are able to have the courage to do the same, we will make mistakes too but we will at least give future generations the chance to improve on them. This is what is at stake as the spirit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is being cast into the garbage heap by those who's sole interest is greed.
no doubt, but I was just saying the problems go far deeper than the post suggested.
VERY well-said Leo March.
the foudnation of american "law and order" IS simple:
CLASS divisions....gotten and established through an even more brutal history :
THEFT of land from Native indians and then the establishment of SLAVERY.
the LAND and RESOURCE GRABS continue on a world wide scale - going by the name of "capitalism, free market, demcoracy"....
the ENSLAVEMENT continues under the corporatist culture and poltics and economics.
what was BEGUN as a "new world" in which to BECOME little kings and little queens "away from the oppression" of "european kings and rulers" really just became a SUBSTITUTE and a LARGER enterprise of the SAME
LAND, RESOURCE GRAB enslaving process billing itself as a "nation of laws" - known as the USA.
If only it were that simple.
But the enemy is well-entrenched. And will fight back with gobs of money to propagandize the American people into voting AGAINST their own best interests. How do you overcome that advantage?
I am afraid voting out the rascals will not change the system and corruption; just the names and faces of the criminals in charge. The system itself is BROKEN, not fixable. I wish like hell it was. I wish we COULD vote in a new beginning for America. A sane set of policies to fight corruption and save the country and the world from empire and resource depletion and pollution.
But I don't believe that is possible anymore.
Gary
"In America, they are paranoid about ruining the reputations of people once they are dead and cannot answer back. They have this fascination which to me seems cruel and morbid. I do not want any part of it."
-- Isabella Rossellini
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Interesting Rossellini quote. I'd love to hear her elaborate on that one.
It may have come from her autobiography "Some of Me."
Gary
"[I'm] very happy that way. Many women depend on men socially, financially, psychologically. Not me."
-- Isabella Rossellini, on being single.
If you don't want to be complicit in the corporatist militarist policies of the Democratic-Republican duopoly, get active with the Green Party and help build America's only national political party that isn't dependent on corporate money.
Do you share a commitment to grassroots democracy, social justice, nonviolence and ecology, as well as a belief that corporate money (and private money generally) in politics is wrong? Then you're Green, and you should help build the party that shares your values.
It won't be quick, but by building the Green Party from the grassroots up we can be in position to elect members of Congress within the decade. Otherwise, things will continue to get worse as we ping-pong back and forth between the center-right and hard-right branches of the corporatist militarist duopoly.
Live Green, vote Green! gp.org
There's not a chance in hell that the people who 'own' this country are going to allow greens into power. Forget about it. For that matter, they will not allow anyone into power that doesn't represent the interests of capital. That includes any progressive minded party.
To understand the lengths these people will go to, you must read Daniel Ganser's book NATO's Secret Armies: Operation GLADIO and Terrorism in Western Europe.
They will murder anyone that gets close to challenging their power via elections. The quicker we all understand that there is no democracy in the U.S., the better off we will be in beginning the dialogue for a revolutionary movement.
I would argue for a non-violent movement that isn't pacifist at its core, but begins with non-cooperation and the development of community councils, block by block, that will be prepared for the support infrastructure we will need. There has been a lot of good work done on these ideas by the Institute for Social Ecology. I'd start there.
This is an impressive article. I am confused at the start of it by the doom and gloom right wing visions. I don't subscribe to them and I see the rebel right in this country as nothing more than illiterate, cowardice goof balls playing war games in the woods. I have this vision of Mark Koernke running through the swamps of Florida and I can't shake it.
The article takes a schizophrenic turn and two things jump out at me:
"You do not become a ‘dissident' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career," Vaclav Havel said when he battled the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. "You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society. ... The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public. He offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin-and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost."
Oddly enough, I find myself falling down this path. I am not sure how many more are like me, but I hope I am not alone.
"We have the moral capacity to say no, to refuse to cooperate. Any boycott or demonstration, any occupation or sit-in, any strike, any act of obstruction or sabotage, any refusal to pay taxes, any fast, any popular movement and any act of civil disobedience ignites the soul of the rebel and exposes the dead hand of authority."
I see a lot of people who are angry and frustrated and they frequently ask how we might break these chains of corporate fascism. This paragraph sums it up nicely and we should keep the list in our back pocket. I also see a number of people who think we'll have rules, sign up sheets, central umbrella groups and the likes. I doubt this happens. From each according to their ability. Any and every act of defiance will be meaningful, no matter how large or how small. Last but not least, this whole revolution thing is ugly business. If you are really serious about changing this failed system, you need to mentally gird yourself about the realities of what really needs to be done.
So many brilliant comments earlier.
For my own part, I esp. like Kitaj's observations on Wilhelm Reich's statements to Freud. Reich was "more nearly" correct of course. Why should I feel guilty for the sins of my fathers? History is replete with rejection of inheritance (of acquired characteristics!).
Meanwhile, on the issue of criticisms of Chris Hedges, as one who has witnessed atrocities and has been slammed against the walls of insanity by such witness, I have only the highest regard for the clarity of his perspective, especially in this article. It is the most lucid discussion on Existentialism I have read in years. I can recall Camus On the Algerian Beach. I assassinate my mother. The State Will Make It Right. Also Sartre on the Nature of Hell. Incessantly yapping male to horny female. No wonder we have had a former Senator promoting a drug for "erectile dysfunction," now acronymed to ED.
But just one other thing: Are Teabaggers "Rebels Without a Cause"?
Chris Hedges, I salute you. I now intend to blow myself up in the liverwurst aisle at Wal*Mart! Are we PTSD yet?! How do we inform the couch-potatoes? You are recognized by people who read. How to touch the rest?
-30-
Reminds me of the scene in the Jerk where the man is trying to kill Steve Martins character, and his aha moment is that it's the cans the guy is after. "He hates these cans!" Wal Mart is not the problem, we and our inability to be clear on our power is the problem.
>>Chris Hedges, I salute you. I now intend to blow myself up in the liverwurst aisle at Wal*Mart! Are we PTSD yet?! How do we inform the couch-potatoes? You are recognized by people who read. How to touch the rest?
I read about some old man who blew up Wal*Mart's electrical box outside the store, late at night, from a safe distance with no bystanders around. They never caught him and he's known as the "gray bomber". Since I hang out in the liverwurst aisle at Wally World, your post alarms me.
Hedges is late--The Right-wing coup occured in 2000 and was done again in 2004. When passions start to run as high as 1858-1861, then I'll take heed. Where is the 21st Century John Brown and what will he be protesting? And will that protest be of a sort that will irk and unnerve a significant segment of one geographical section's populace?
Liberalism's been dead for decades, replaced by neoliberalcons starting with Nixon. Again, Hedges is late. He's also clearly frustrated as are many of us. Has he called Obama Public Enemy #1 yet? Why not call the Banksters Vampires? If we here in Oregon just managed to raise taxes through the ballot box, then we don't yet live in a totalitarian society.
A couple of laps jogged arond the block would have served Hedges well, and we would have had a much better essay to read.
Liberals and Conservatives, two extremes that are so extreme that they are too extreme.
They cannot help us they create what harms us.
I would never say I am either. What does a name have to do with doing the right thing anyways. You either are or you are not.
If you are right you are alive, if you are wrong you are dead.....as John Wayne said...or something like that anyways. Party of the dead or party of the living.
I feel alive....how about you?
Leea--I know I'm alive: Cogito ergo sum. Interesting Hedges brings forth Havel and Camus, with Camus being directly related to your question. So my further answer would be that I am being yet still becoming and hoping to always be that way.
karlof1, your reply hit me deep in the gut, you are alive indeed and that one life has more power compared to all the death in thousands of corporate souls. We must look for this in each other, because that light in one human being will burn off all the darkness that can be dredged up by all the lost souls in the corporate world.
here is our hope, and here is the way to change.
thank you for simply being, alive.
Leea
I think it very important that Existentialism as a philosophical force came about during resistence to Nazi Fascism in France: Camus, Sarte, de Beauvoir, etc. Further, Simone de Beauvoir unmasked Libertine sociopaths like the Marquis de Sade, which enables some of us to understand the inner workings of de Sade's kin: Cheney, Obama, Bolton, Clinton, Bush, Rice, etc. from our time; Himmler, Goebbels, Stalin, etc. from her time. By Becoming your Being on an ongoing basis, one continued to be free regardless of the restraints imposed. This is what Simone means by Projects in "The Second Sex." And it would certainly be better to have a conversation about this instead of playing message board tag.
I think the point you're trying to make is that we must be free in our Selves before we can hope to uplift others. We must Know that we are Free Beings capable of creating and finishing our own Projets, and if something stops us from consummating our project, we know that it is not our fault, that if unhindered we would have succeeded. This promotes self-assurance and allows one to continue regardless of the forces stacked against one and not become frustrated. There are still many opportunities for Free Agency and thus Become by Being, which is the essence of Free. Winston Smith was defeated by his inability to no longer Be the Agent of his Self--a condition of many US citizens. In "The Soft Parade," Jim Morrison "couldn't take it any more/the man is at the door" and sought an escape he could not provide himself--another big problem for the US populace, thus the high levels of belief in magic and superstition, faries and supernatural beings.
Many have demanded people "Free your mind" and thus free your Self. Peoples in "resistence mode" quickly learn this. But most of the US populace has yet to learn this because they've yet to be forced into resistence mode, a state often characterized as "Soft." Hedges goes about saying this in a very obtuse manner. Furthermore, he's writing at the same elite level he's condemning, which by his own argument renders his essay moot. Thus my first comment.
A society consisting of people who cannot possibly know each other and is further atomized and compartmentalized is easily conquered. That would be the USA. The solution is simple and ought to be clear: Re-establish community to defeat the atomization and compartmentalization while taking ownership of the projets that sustain the community. Thus we are Being while Becoming, and Becoming while Being.
karlof1-this should be an article posted on the Dreams site here and Chris Hedges would do well to study it until he gets an inkling of what you are stating. Then he could turn his passion into a true message for rebels. But is he indeed on our side?
I often wonder, when we are dealing with educated supposedly passionate people. Though I also know from my own experience it is easy to be very lost and think you are found and profess to others your salvation and theirs as well. No the map to our shared understanding is one that indeed takes one down resistance road, a long road indeed. But I am so enthralled with our crossing and look forward with anticipation to further exchanges in this. As only one person is added to this knowledge and then two become four and four eight....and so on that is when the the people will be seen rising up again in numbers that speak in the language of freedom.
Thanks so much karlof1.
Leea--Thanks for staying with this thread and the soothing words you offer.
Is Hedges a False Prophet or just another Lost Soul seems to be your worry. I think the latter as it's clear he's searching for some sort of meaning and isn't satisfied with Manichean polarities or other dualities that don't honor resistance to the evil within. Every essay he writes allows him to learn and evolve and helps some to do the same. But one cannot just Become by reading and agreeing with what I describe; rather, one must live it, feel it, experience it otherwise the Freedom is false and cannot be perpetuated. Many artists thought they'd found Freedom through heroin, but it is a crutch like all other crutches that prevent the Self from Realization. One of the great failures of today's society is the perceived need to validate one's Self at the expense of someone or something else and then thinking that is enough to make one Free. That is false because you are now dependent upon an Other to define your Self. "Keeping up with the Joneses" is an easy to see example of this problem.
One of the most profound concepts I've encountered is de Beauvoir's "Slave to the Species" from "The Second Sex." Although I'm a male, I found it easy to identify with and see how it works in other apsects of modern existence. I've given that book to my family and closet friends hoping they will be able to make the key to the lock that imprisons their Self. It makes me happy that you're happy to have this interaction; that the effort resulted in a satisfactory outcome.
Aloha Leea!
Aloha indeed..for here between us sits the awareness of god, and goodness and life in it's pure desire to achieve existence through cooperation and balance with other life.
In this microscopic exchange, the potential, the seed of what can be, had it's moment in time. I have no doubt that this moment will flow into more moments and the momentum we need to change and move on at some point will coalesce and sweep us all forward toward our goal.
I feel like you and I are watching and keeping watch over this awesome process as we add what we can here and there as we participate, as we must.
We are fortunate.
Aloha karlof1 :)
"Hedges is late--The Right-wing coup occured in 2000 and was done again in 2004."
Actually, the right-wing coup occurred in 1787.
Bravo!! So you agree that the overturning of the Articles of Confederation by the Philadelphia "Convention Set" was an actual coup. I've been putting forth that POV and pointing to historical works that prove that allegation for well over a year on CD's comment forums. But I would still argue that 2000 was certainly a "Judicial Coup" much like Honduras's, and that Diebold and the Republican Party were only able to win in 2004 through fraud. There was also a coup in 1876, if we are to count all of them.
"If we here in Oregon just managed to raise taxes through the ballot box,"
To restate, Oregon raised taxes on the rich by fair voter initiative and referendum. Unlike California's that are corrupted by super-majority requirements and unlimited Big Money ads, Oregon's is a great example of how progressive laws can be passed direct democratically at state and federal level, circumventing the corporate politicians. This is the peaceful revolution the online public could be fighting for instead of calling for armed revolt where the only winners are the MIC and the gravediggers.
"War does not determine who is right - only who is left." -
-- Bertrand Russell
"Warmaking doesn't stop warmaking. If it did, our problems would have stopped millennia ago."
"A tyrant is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader."
Thanks for the reply ezeflyer. Funny how the word Tyrant has been turned inside-out, like a lot of terms and important historical events. Back in olden Greece, the Tyrant was the individual who put an end to oppressive oligarchies and returned governmental control to citizens, sort of like Zorro or Robin Hood--a person to be feared by the rich and powerful, not the commonfolk. Now the term is construed to mean the exact opposite. Where is the Solon in our midst?
Chris Hedges--love you!
George Washington: "Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."
I think the fascist plutocrats who helped shape the current situation starting several decades back knew that the "free trade" regime would make it much more difficult for American workers to put their bodies upon the gears of the Machine to make it stop by scabbing out as many of their jobs and factories as possible outside the U.S. It will take skillful tactics to surmount this difficulty. Our current ruling elite regard labor, the people's tax revenues, their own corporate linkage between patriotism and geographic location as fungible, readily transferable across borders and expendable. It may not be sufficient merely to throw our bodies on the "gears" of the domestic manifestations of their Machine. But it would be difficult to coordinate labor strikes of workers working for the same company operating both in the U.S. and, say, in China or India. This is because many of the foreign workers perceive the influx of offshored U.S. jobs into their countries as an opportunity, whereas for the working-class in America, it's a deliberate destruction of opportunity for us and our children that is nearing the end of its rope.
Because "free trade" has offshored some 20 million manufacturing jobs--mostly unionized jobs--American organized labor is no longer powerful enough to shut down an economy that is no longer as dependent on heavy industry. Most Americans are so dumbed-down, lacking in social conscience or imagination, that they will not give up the current economic system--no matter how inequitable or fascist or militarist--unless there is another more severe economic collapse that FORCES them to search for economic & political alternatives in order to survive. But well over a hundred million of them will be psychologically and logistically unprepared for such a collapse, let alone to be self-sufficient, and most will degenerate into armed mobs seeking to take what they want or need by force.
The "leadership" of America is now so easily bought, sold and licentiously unhinged from the concept of competent government that it is still pursuing anti-regulatory banking & monetary policies that are replicating the recent housing bubble in the form of a stock market bubble inflated by on-demand TARP money handouts to the banks. So the more severe secondary economic collapse I referred to above may be unavoidable--making related grim scenarios merely a matter of unpredictable but not too distant time.
Recognizing these grim probabilities, progressives need to organize at the local, State and regional level both for political unity and to provide a mutual economic support system for each other, and, if need be, to provide for their common defense. Co-ops, barter exchanges, local co-op farming & protecting clean water sources should be of paramount importance. Links with liberal churches and monasteries should be forged. Home energy generation with wind, solar or geothermal energy should be undertaken where possible. As should, unfortunately, firearms training and training in militia-scale military tactics. Progressives need to recognize that in the event of a deeper economic collapse they have as much to fear from tens of millions of dumbed-down typical "Amurkans" from densely over-populated urban areas (including armed ethnic & drug gangs) as they do from the more suburban & rural armed right-wingers, white supremacists, and apocalyptic Christian fundamentalists. If you don't have a few friends living out in the country with their own arable land and their own clean water well, now is the time to make some.
I think more Americans are coming to realize the increasingly rapid transformation of the U.S. into a totalitarian capitalist nation, consciously and sub-consciously. A lot of people feel it in their guts but have been conditioned as dumbed-down Americans not to allow their feelings to coalesce into any critical thinking about it.
It is important for progressives to unite, not just to try to educate as much of the public as possible of the merit of progressive ideas and policies, but also to become more economically self-sufficient on the local level, and to better defend themselves and their communities from the spreading Amurkan barbarism.
Common Security Clubs are one way to help progressives band together in local communities for mutual assistance and collective security. What do Common Security Clubs do? From their website:
"Three basic purposes of a Common Security Club:
"LEARN TOGETHER: Through popular education tools, videos and shared readings, participants increase their understanding of the larger economic forces on our lives.
"MUTUAL AID: Through stories, examples, web-based resources, a workbook and mutual support, participants take action for collective security.
"SOCIAL ACTION: Many of our challenges won’t be solved through personal or local mutual aid efforts. They require us to work together to press for larger state, national and even global changes.
"The Common Security Club idea was created by a number of individuals and organizations. The initial institutional sponsors include the Program on Inequality and the Common Good, based at the Institute for Policy Studies, and On The Commons. Allied organizations include: The Movement Building Project, Working America, Center for Community Change, and JustFaith."
They have a free .pdf about how to organize a Common Security Club in your locality that is downloadable from their website at: http://commonsecurityclub.org/index.php
Their web page of Resources for People in Deep Distress is at: http://commonsecurityclub.org/?page_id=61
Uniting with self proclaimed progressives is one thing. But I have been to such meetings and I wonder. The leaders of these meeting strike me as potential infiltrators sent by those in power to mislead the meeting. Those who wish to be free but have not chosen to be free are easily misled.
It is pretty easy for me to tell if a person is really free in spirit and has the spark necessary to fuel the change that we need.
I have not found that spark and that freedom so far. So far I see only the deeply suppressed rage, despair and antipathy cloaked in the desire to move beyond that.
That desire is usually drowned by the grief and overshadowed by despair and rage that are created by years of desires un spoken, unlived, unloved. Years of humiliation and unfair treatment.
This time is a time where we need such great support and awareness amongst us all, each a human and nothing else. To encourage and even insist that we all choose the the dignity of freedom.
I'm surprised by the criticism leveled at the "darkness" of Hedges' essay, especially since the intellectual caliber of CD comments is usually above average. Mr. Hedges is merely describing a very real picture of the present. The majority of the population is Disneyfied and nursing on numbing TV distractions; it is drifting in a sea of fake "positive" programming and forever-happy endings. It is the product of an educational system that doesn't encourage deep, complex thinking or explorations of difficult and nuanced themes. A call to civic rebellion may be the only way to wake up the lobotomized "citizenry." The Germans did not wake up from their nightmare until the game was finally over, at which point they finally "saw" the monstrous reality they had created.
"It Can't Happen Here," a novel by Sinclair Lewis, should be required reading in every school; a film called "Dogville" should also be screened, followed by a discussions. These two works are examples of how man can descend into the "darkness" without being aware of it.
Brilliant as ever, Mr. Hedges.
Isn't it interesting though that what he describes is a very real perception that is created by those who believe in it, but not a description of all the potential perceptions we can take as humans. The world we live in is the one we choose to see. If we all choose to see Chris's world, that is the one we will have. That is not a perception I will collude with ever, I have no need to, I am free to choose the world I see and work in based on that choice. The more I see a world of freedom and the more work I do there, the more I give to that. Giving to despair and hopelessness and bloody rebellion will bring nothing but despair and hopelessness and bloody rebellion. That is why rebellion of the violent kind brings nothing. Chris seems to be fixated on being a victim of the violence of a people too long suppressed, as it is what he imagines is the only outcome based on past occurrences in time. He seems to give nothing to the fact that we live in the present and in the now, and in this time, the promise of change and hope can become a reality if we choose it.
- "That is not a perception I will collude with ever, I have no need to, I am free to choose the world I see and work in based on that choice."
Good for you. I bet you are white, probably middle class, probably male, and probably have a job.
I feel Hedges completely. I am concerned for the families of a million dead Iraqi's. I am concerned for the families whose children and mothers get blown to pieces by U.S. drones. I am concerned about the oppression of immigrants and all people of color, and the sick institutionalized racism in America. Indeed, I feel the pain daily of this diseased system.
I want a revolution. I want to save the planet from capitalism. I want to end the suffering that this system inflicts on millions of people worldwide.
While you continue to "choose the world [you] see", I want to fight against the very real structures of power, in the real world. I want to rebel. And I will.
And I am. This was an excellent reply. I am working class and I have not lost my job yet. You do not have to be female, non-white and unemployed to understand the realities you speak of in your post.
A bunch of liars and shills have shown at a late hour up to piss in the proverbial punch. Most actual CommonDreams readers agree with Hedges.
Note: you can spot the goons because they can't help bashing/patronizing Nader.
They're probably Obamabots--lol!
This is as clear and unblemished as a call can be for rebellion to commence. I get it and also the blare from the trumpet of Robert Blake. When I read his poem “The Second Coming”, I understood immediately he was depicting our situation. Eventually, as the force of betrayal becomes evident within the minds of the recipients, us, we will slouch enough to absorb the burden of our complicity. We have allowed ourselves to be used, over and over, because of our trust in a system of false empowerment. It is time to cease...
Every particle in my body knows you, Chris, are onto something barely discernable in our consciousness. The call is for a collective, conscientious objection to the compliance of capitalism, the dumbness of cultural immersion, the gullibility of believing repetition as the truth, the economic dependence on patriotism, and the deceitful information disseminated by arrogant agents of conceit. No one picks up leaflets dropped from helicopters and believes the content, except Americans who are addicted to the status quo. We have endorsed cynicism and empowered lying and liars at all significant levels of common engagement. Social institutions have become farcical. Banks are taking deposits of bundled insincerity and cashing them in. Schools are wasting educational energy on a No- child-left-behind political boast, which is actually a test for failure (déjà vu). Churches are condescending, pronouncing judgment against non-believers- anyone who is not being obedient. Their business as usual is a collection plate lined with the condemned. Government has turned to the “racket of war” as a redemptive quality. There is no innocence in America. We are all complicit. I have rebellion on my insidious mind. The King is totalitarian capitalism.
"We have allowed ourselves to be used, over and over, because of our trust in a system of false empowerment. It is time to cease..."
Well said yanakis. But when one decides to cease being abused, one must cease
a known and comfortable life. Yes we become comfortable in what we know no matter how miserable that known is, and leaving it to the unknown is hardest of all, for in that strange land even happiness becomes a threat even if it promises all he have ever secretly yearned for and dreamed of. Choosing to change and proclaiming ones painful steps in the process is the hardest journey that leads to freedom and happiness. Choosing to stay victim, is easy but leads to further misery and enslavement and finally an end in the death that we all share. I'd rather live in spirit and enjoy that freedom and die, than be dead in spirit and from that prison, then die.
"The King is totalitarian capitalism." Well said. However, if that is the King, and war is on, I still think the cruise missile to his nerve center is the campaign finance reform proposed in fixcongressfirst.org. If its revolution we're talking about, we might as well use the tools for revolution the founders left us. Making changes to the way campaigns are run, so that King capitalism is prevented from larding his gifts where we are most vulnerable (i.e. where morals become ethics and are codified into laws), seems the appropriate first step toward reclaiming this society.
Rabbi Lerner’s Response to Commenters
Editor’s Note: Last week, AlterNet ran an article that featured a piece by Chris Hedges and another by Rabbi Michael Lerner, titled: “Should Progressives Give Up on Obama?” The article incited lively debate in the comments section and now, Rabbi Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine and head of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, has penned a response to the article’s comments addressed to him by AlterNet readers. It follows here.
The dispute between me and Hedges is about what is the best strategy to rebuild a powerful anti-corporate movement, not about whether or not we like Obama’s policies. As editor of Tikkun, I’ve been outspoken in opposition to his war in Afghanistan, his continuation of the human rights violations of the Bush administration, his handing trillions to banks and investment companies rather than creating a national bank to fund social projects and allowing the privately owned banks to be dealt with by the “free marketplace” that conservatives have been praising all these decades, his failure to support Medicare for Everyone (single-payer) health care reform and instead embracing policies that will further enrich the insurance companies and pharmaceuticals, his support of “cap and trade” rather than a carbon tax to stem global warming, his capitulation to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu rather than using American power to end the Occupation of the West Bank, his rejection of the Goldstone recommendations on Israel’s human rights violations in Gaza, his support for firing teachers in Rhode Island for working at a school that did not meet the teach-to-the-test absurdities of No Child Left Behind rather than question the validity of the goals that are measured by that legislation, and the list goes on and on and on.
These terrible policies are plenty reason to be angry at the Obama Administration. But they have not provoked a huge outcry, even among those most adversely impacted by those policies. Just last week Tikkun received advice from some leading African American progressives that in their community Tikkun was losing credibility by being so outspoken in critiquing Obama, given the widespread perception in that community that attacks on Obama from whatever corner are really expressions of covert racism. Nor have those who have lost their homes to escalating interest rates on mortgage loans or those who have lost their jobs while the money that could have saved them has poured into the coffers of the rich managed to assemble on the streets of our country to demonstrate their outrage.
So when developing a strategy, one must take into account the emotional temper of Americans today including their continued willingness to support the Democratic Party, in no small part because of a perception that had Nader not run in 2000 there would never have been a Bush presidency or a war in Iraq or the irresponsible economic policies that led to the economic meltdown.
So those of us who wish to stop the growing corporate dominance of the world and reverse the destruction of the environmental destruction of the planet and the erosion of human relationships and ethical values in our society that is labeled “the globalization of capitalism” but which I prefer to call “the globalization of selfishness,” need to develop smart strategies to change the consciousness of Americans.
I believe that there are three elements to such a strategy:
1. We need to move from a Left that is identified primarily in terms of what it is against to a Left that is known for WHAT WE ARE FOR. That’s why we at Tikkun created the Network of Spiritual Progressives with its central demand: We need a New Bottom Line. Instead of judging corporations or government policies or our educational system, legal system, health care system or even our personal behavior by how much money or power the generate (the Old Bottom Line), we need to judge all of this to be effective, rational or productive also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, kindness and generosity, ethical and environmentally sustainable behavior, enhance our capacities to respond to other human beings as embodiments of the sacred and to respond to the universe with awe, wonder and racial amazement at the grandeur and mystery of consciousness and Being itself. How that translates into specific programs is detailed in our Spiritual Covenant with America at www.spiritualprogressives.org.
2. We need to insist that the best path to “homeland security” lies not in domination of others around the world, but in a path of generosity based on genuine caring for others plus a rational understanding that our well-being depends on the well-being of everyone else on the planet. For that reason, we at the Network of Spiritual Progressives developed a Global Marshall Plan to once and for all end global poverty, homelessness, hunger, inadequate education and inadequate health care—and to repair the global environment. This is our positive alternative to the defense budget.
3. We need to build a third party by first organizing a massive progressive voice inside the Democratic Party and then leading it out of that party. Nader could have done that if instead of running as an independent candidate in 2000 he had run in the Democratic primaries for President against Gore, gained the votes of 25% or more of that party’s voters, and then led his constituency out of the Party into an independent force. The Progressive Democrats of American (PDA) and the Progressive Caucus of the House of Representatives are important and impressive steps on this path, but until they actually organize their constituency into a membership-based progressive wing of the party that gets at least 25% of the vote in elections, it is premature for them to split to form a third party or to attempt to transform the Greens from its current political-correctness-dominated politics and its aroma of “we act as though we always will be losers” style to a potentially winning third party configuration. This takes the kind of discipline that would prevent the kinds of personal attacks you can read in the above comments on my article, and the development of an ethos of solidarity among those who share common values but who disagree on strategies and tactics. It is that ethos of solidarity that makes us at Tikkun proud to print Christopher Hedges even when we disagree with him, and to offer criticisms of style without suggesting that there is something fundamentally “off” about those with whom we disagree.
Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives (and no, you don’t have to believe in God to be a spiritual progressive—you only to have to agree with out New Bottom Line stated above) are hosting a demonstration at the White House June 13 to challenge Obama’s policies and to urge him to join the very movement that he helped congeal in 2008 but which he subsequently abandoned.
There will certainly be a place for anger at that rally, but our task is not to “change Obama’s mind” but to help people who are being hurt by his policies to feel that it is ok to challenge his policies and the corporate takeover of the world without supporting the vile discourse and racist assaults of the Right wingers or the Tea Party conservatives.
We will be crafting at our conference in DC that weekend of June 11-14 two Constitutional Amendments: one that is narrowly framed to overturn the recent Supreme Court “Citizens” decision and to declare that corporations are not persons and money is not protected speech; and a second more broadly conceived amendment, the Environmental and Ethical Responsibility Amendment to the Constitution that will require corporate social responsibility and enforce it. I hope that if you agree with the need for a nuanced strategy that doesn’t dismiss our potential allies in the struggle for a world of peace and justice and love and caring or assault them verbally, you’ll sign up for the conference and come to the demonstration at the White House.
– Rabbi Michael Lerner
Hedges anticipated this:
"Liberal apologists, who long ago should have abandoned the Democratic Party, continue to make pathetic appeals to a tone-deaf corporate state and Barack Obama while the working and middle class are ruthlessly stripped of rights, income and jobs. Liberals self-righteously condemn imperial wars and the looting of the U.S. Treasury by Wall Street but not the Democrats who are responsible. And the longer the liberal class dithers and speaks in the bloodless language of policies and programs, the more hated and irrelevant it becomes. No one has discredited American liberalism more than liberals themselves."
How sick is some 'rabbi' who wants to redefine 'homeland security'? I smell sulfur. Lerner is an apologist for Israel. He believes it was okay for Zionists to steal land and homes from Palestinians after WWII and we're supposed to 'dialogue' with him?
He writes, "we need to judge all of this to be effective, rational or productive also to the extent that they maximize love and caring, kindness and generosity, ethical and environmentally sustainable behavior, enhance our capacities to respond to other human beings as embodiments of the sacred and to respond to the universe with awe, wonder and racial amazement at the grandeur and mystery of consciousness and Being."
Does Lerner understand that the power elite, the Wall St playaz, the MIC, will just laugh themselves silly reading this kind of stuff? And I say that as someone who spent over 30 years doing exactly what is stated above.
to paraphrase Jefferson, if the corporate plutocracy fears the people, there will be liberty, but if the people fear the corporate plutocracy, they will live under the tyranny of the few. Is Lerner going to integrate this valid and tested insight into his worldview, or, like some here, is he going to condemn this insight as somekind of horrible, spiritually incorrect proposition?
All of this is predicated on the illusion that the elites are not going to viciously and violently suppress ANY democratic movement that even begins to threaten their privilege (privi lege - "private law"). His program, like David Korten's is great, but drawing up such a program is the very easy part.
The hard part - which is the subject of the Hedges article above, and some of the comments below - is how to even survive the onslaught of raw, violent state power that will surely be directed at any attempt to tamper with the privileges of the elite.
I spent years thinking that spiritual evolution might solve this problem, but had to face the fact that it did not, because there hasnt been enough of it.
That being so, one must face the opposition as they in fact are. Some of them are just seriously neurotic, but some of them are vicious sociopaths who could care less how many people have to die-off so that they can live in luxury.
So is Lerner willing to integrate such realism into his program, or does he expect us to just disregard this fact of life and live in fantasyland all so we can smugly assure ourselves that we are spiritually correct, and therefore never engage in integrating facts that are unpleasant to contemplate?
Wilhelm Reich, one of Freud's proteges, said to Freud, in 1930, that since humanity is sick on a mass scale, creating neurosis and psychosis on a mass scale, that individual therapy was a dangerous illusion and that psychotherapy could only fullfill its function by becoming radical social critique, an integration of depth psychology and Marxism. Freud, horrified by the idea, wrote "Civilization and Its Discontents" partly as a rebuttal to Reich, because he felt that psychotherapy had to support the status quo to survive.
Reich went on to live in Berlin and study the Nazi phenomenon for a few years, after which he wrote one of his most famous books, "The Mass Psychology of Fascism."
Now of course, we today have a better understanding of humanity's mass sickness - which Reich called "The Emotional Plague" - than Reich did, but that doesnt change the fact that humanity has still never radically confronted the truth of its condition, despite the Death Camps, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc. It all got filed as some anomaly. That Naziism broke out in one of the most educated, literate, scientific cultures in the world at that time, is an indication that fascism, Nazi-style, wasnt and isnt exclusive to the Germans but is an example of a mass sickness that can break out anywhere if the conditions are right.
Hedges and others are suggesting that we are dangerously close to the kind of conditions that could foster the eruption of some form of fascism in this country. Is Lerner willing to integrate all of this into his program?
Last, is Lerner aware of the facts about Peak Oil/Water/Arable land and etc,. and that we are becoming poorer and poorer by trillions of dollars years after year from resource depletion and environmental degradation and, if we dont radically change course, we will have pissed away our fossil fuel inheritance and will no longer have the wealth necessary to redirect global civilization onto a Controlled Green Descent rather than the Crash we are heading toward now?
In other words, we might not soon HAVE the wealth necessary to make reforms, redirections and a create a sustainable-energy-and-economy build-out. In other words, does Lerner understand that global industrial civilization may well Crash with catastrophic results long before his program of slow reform even begins to make headway, and is he ready to integrate that into his program?
Just wondering.
"All of this is predicated on the illusion that the elites are not going to viciously and violently suppress ANY democratic movement that even begins to threaten their privilege (privi lege - "private law")."
Absolutely correct.
Lerner et al don't seem to understand the nature of the state, the history of CIA/NATO terrorism and their ability to undermine social movements that think they can rise into state power via elections. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN.
Lerner is well meaning. His list of Obama's failings is a classic. But he believes that spirituality will make the difference, and with a ruthless and powerful enemy as the klepocracy with all its weaponry and its strong propaganda wing, it is very much like a few churches against the Nazis. Some dared and were quickly shut down. So would too any real movement toward our common goals of closing down the corporations and saving the planet.
The notion of leading a progressive buildup out of the Democratic Party is frankly laughable; the progressives there have proved weak and split upon those who STILL support Obama and those who do not. So there is not a tinker's dam worth of a chance a unity party could form within the DP to be lead away. That's silly.
The decline and probable fall of the Amerikan Empire is well documented in these discussions and is a huge factor to be considered. The time-table is short and the clock ticking down. We are close to implosion. Too close for tactics that take much time. And Lerner's "solution" would take DECADES.
Gary
"Even a paranoid can have enemies."
-- Henry A. Kissinger
"That Naziism broke out in one of the most educated, literate, scientific cultures in the world at that time, is an indication that fascism, Nazi-style, wasnt and isnt exclusive to the Germans but is an example of a mass sickness that can break out anywhere if the conditions are right"
yes
Chris Hedges and his Great Leap Forward. One moment, US citizens who are incredibly politically backwards having been raised on anti-communism and individualism are going to instantly "see the light" and unite in a mass revolutionary movement and put things right. Give me a break. He must be looking at Souix Rose's astrology charts. His writings are continuing to move from the stupid to the more than stupid. Must be the divinity school education he received.
Typical petti-bourgeoisie thinking. Clueless!
Cheers.
I completely disagree. I found his article one of the most inspiring, and truth telling, articles in a very long time.
It's about time we start having a conversation about rebellion.
And for someone whose name is "struggle" and uses 100 year old antiquated language that is sure to connect to the "politically backwards", I am guessing you come from an authoritarian communist/socialist background. So your arrogance must have been learned selling party newspapers to the uninterested.
don't you mess with SR!
Chris Hedges isn't that bad. His problem is getting too negative and idealistic. Complicated yeah but not divine thinking that I know of. Don't worry about rosieface. I'll invite friends from DailyKos and Huffington Post to balance the conversation. I'm running out of ammo progressive ammo and need more backup. You cool man.
So you are going to invite trolls over to CD? Great. I would suggest stop polluting another board with the ridiculous party hackery and Obama apologia. This site has moved far beyond those avenues of power politics.
For most of the online public, Chris' "revolt" is probably premature. We will hit the streets when we are driven from our computers, teevee sets and munchies:
You say you want a revolution
Well you know
We'd all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well you know
We'd all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be alright [x3]
You say you got a real solution
Well you know
We'd all want to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well you know
We're all doing what we can
But if you want money for people with minds that hate
All I can tell you is brother you'll have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be alright [x4]
You say you'll change the constitution
Well you know
We'd all love to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well you know
You better free your mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know know it's gonna be alright [x3]
Alright [x7]
Yep, the wisdom of the ages, finding voice in art and music. But because it is art and music, we don't really seem to get it, now do we?
"For most of the online public, Chris' "revolt" is probably premature. We will hit the streets when we are driven from our computers, teevee sets and munchies."
You're right about above, but unsure of the point of adding politically naive screed against stalinist/communist revolutionaries of 1960s. Did poor John Lennon not understand that changing the institutions changes, and has the capacity to free, minds? That's part of many of the posts here, esp some of the better ones like kitaj's. Being creates consciousness mi companeros.
To get to the nut of it, just to be empirical, it would be quite easy to shut down huge swaths of Faux Noise by shutting down Time-Warner satellites. Ditto much of the electrical grid. Traffic and delivery patterns are also easily disrupted.
Taking down the Machine really wouldn't be that difficult.
The real question is with what and how do you replace it?
The Mullahs planned for many years the Iran Revolution of 1979. They had heart. The CIA did not. One may disagree with their organizing principle (the Koran?) but give credit where it is due.
The Left in this country needs to create a Shadow Government. The Brits have one and they are not alone. Not secret. Blatant.
-30-
Take this article and replace the word rebel by the word terrorist and you have the answer to actions contemplated even in dream state. The UC student protests are just the latest example. A small but poignant one. Anyone- ANYONE who would dare to protest doth rightly deserve a severe thrashing! Imperialism did not die with the Revolutionary War. It simply migrated from fallow ground to a land where those less than human might be exploited for the good of humanity. Now that the land in the USA is becoming fallow the bar separating humanity from sub-humanity is being raised, and abetted by hate-mongering self-serving humans who loath anyone and everyone for a buck! Only mother nature has a chance to stop the ascent of humanity that would encompass at best the top 0.1% wealthiest. And who will they have to rape if she doesn't? Each other. It WILL be painful. Unless a true rebel emerges and ignites a firestorm of the hearts of the down trodden. We'll see.
As many mentioned here. Yes. I will be on the streets of DC march 20. For the thousandth time!
The marches and most actions are so organized and rote. It is not like what i see on "The US Versus John Lennon". It was organic and visceral and spontaneous. But that was a different time. This is a post post modern time. We need something new.
Where did it get us for the past ten years? It made me feel better and connected. Sure. But it didn't matter as far as changing policy is concerned. Or am i missing something?
Hedges:
This piece doesn't really ring true to me until Hedges starts to talk about Camus, and then it really resounds with the vibrato of truth. It flies. Prior to that it wafts in Hedges' sometimes customary and somewhat histrionic clanging Cassandra-esque predilection for fortune-telling.
As much as I am open to the probabilities of deep truth-telling that, as if from some exact arrangement of atoms, can cross over and through the membranes of time, vast probability does not often imply possibility or imminence. We cannot know what the future holds in as specific a fashion as Hedges relies on for his dialectic... even though I think we can pay attention to the deep foreboding of a world social and ecological order gone awry or at least disastrously unfamiliar and heading to territories even less known.
I am not sure where Hedges gets this almost sci-fi doomsday habit. When does fear mongering from the privileged left become the same as fear mongering from the privileged right?
Why does motivation by fear, instead of by authentic, unbastardized hope and change... hope FOR change... seem more easily arrived at by the upper classes?
Or is it just that when the veils are lifted the privileged are finally and so horribly traumatized by what the vast majority of the human race has had to endure for their benefit from the beginning of time that they can never see their way back to a future of possibilities. For to have a future of possibilities, one must be able to dream them.
Certainly Camus did... and one must remember what he was able to dream in spite of the very real carnage that was occurring around him. His may have only been a hope for those who were willing to sacrifice allegiances to all forms of subjugation and be buried for their perceived sins against the wicked power structures in all their forms and masks, but it was hope none-the-less.
I'll take less prediction please... and more instruction about how to be authentic and realistically hopeful... even if it turns out we are being marched into a pit of lime or the ovens once again. We can still sing.
bob, excellent comments --- and beautifully expressed.
Let's hope that Chris can stop his gyre.
Best,
Alan
bobv, you are right on and poignant!
Indeed. I can even offer a response for you here. Chris Hedges does have a dark view of human nature, as he has said he believes in original sin. At least he did about seven years ago. And this is the problem in our civilization.
If human nature is innately flawed, then what is the use? There is no hope. We can't go beyond certain parameters. We can talk all we want about religious superheroes, but we can't really expect much of ourselves, when all is said and done.
I actually did discuss this with him after a talk he gave. I could tell that as a man who was all but ordained, he held these very unsustainable beliefs. He did admit it. So. I asked him, well, then you don't have hope, do you? He had to admit he really didn't. So, i asked him why he bothers to write. This is when "War is the Force that Gives Us Meaning" was out.
He basically responded that he feels the need to. Something along those lines. We went on to discuss our feelings about "christian fascism" in america, which is what he was writing about at the time.
I have come to read his stuff, knowing it will be very dark and science fictiony. Although i feel it in the atmosphere myself. I tend to have similar visions, really. But i also believe in creativity. We can't know all the variables in an infinite universe. As you've implied. This is what he doesn't consider, in my opinion. But if nothing changes, and our beliefs about human nature remain the same. His visions have a high probability of becoming our reality.
For what it's worth
Thanks for this.
I worked for over a decade with dying and grieving people and I never saw an absence of hope. Outside of that I have worked with those often permanently afflicted with the worst and most debilitating mental disorders (and if you want to see a community that has been a pawn to the money changers in the capitals, just take a look at the services that are whittled away at and gambled with that go to these voiceless and impoverished people) and hope is ever-present in some form or another. Certainly not Obama's brand... it cannot be branded and sold.
I am also not willing to relegate this issue to an argument between the pro-Obama Black community and the progressive Jewish community. Neither is monolithic. There are plenty of Black folk out there who are and have been completely disillusioned by Obama... go find them.
Hope and meaning keep our feet moving. Without them we die. Even if it is a hope in hopelessness and meaninglessness and the ability to express it.
Victor Frankl, the great psychoanalyst who survived Auschwitz, wrote about his experiences that those who lived in the camps often were sustained only on the smallest increments of meaning and hope... many were people who really had surpassed their body's capability to sustain life... but they had saved a piece of ribbon from a daughter's hair, had found an extra crust of bread, or were the lucky inheritors of some other inmate's shoes. People naturally adjust what they place ultimate meaning in and their reason to stay alive as they must. When they lose that ability they die. Frankl became accustomed to seeing that light go out in the prisoners' faces, and they would be dead by morning.
I became accustomed to hearing dying people, suffering horribly, tell me they wished to die... all the while they behaved as if nothing could kill them. I came to understand this not as a threat to commit suicide, but as an exclamation that said “I no longer wish to live the way I am living” inherently expressing the hope for life the way it was or might again be. Most never choose death, just as in Oregon, those given the pills to end their lives while suffering from intractable or terminal suffering never choose to do so.
So perhaps when someone says they are hopeless, they have no hope, what they are saying is they have no hope in the world as it is, not as they wish it might yet become. Why else would one choose to continue?
bobv, you are most welcome.
I am a pschologist. And Frankl is one of my all time favorites. I have referenced him in articles i've written on israel/palestine (i am jewish) and anti zionist. But that is another story.
Hope is innately imbued within every cell of our bodies. If not for this kind of 'faith' (not in the religious sense), there would not be any cell division and no child would ever begin to crawl.
The calvary of shills has ridden in, eureka! Look everyone! Our liberal saviors are here to poo-poo that naughty Hedges and his naughty naughtiness.
It's called democracy fake_french. We all have the right to choose. Some will choose with Chris, and some will not. It looks like you are throwing your lot in with Chris? I am not. Wow, isn't it great to be able to choose?
Honey... you must not be reading very closely... or are incapable of conceiving the complex ambivalences that these issues are rife with, and without which would sink to the level of the single direction arrow dystopic or utopic treatise.
Save it Fake-French, dear.
Although i ususally don't bother with the trite schoolyard barbs here, (i'm over 30), i have been involved with this site since 2001 and have had three pieces published here as well.
I was getting arrested in nyc in 2004 blocking the entrance to the RNC. Wonder where you were back then? Doing your geometry homework if i may hazard a guess. ;-)
Your name isn't familiar to me. I wonder who the interloper might be?
Cheers!
Nothing more than a troll who suckles at the millionaire teat of Ralph Nader. Sad and pathetic.
Looks like Left[ies] little oars about ready to snap again while sucking the teat of millionarire Barack Obama and his millionaire Administrative handlers, Geithner, Summers, Volker, Clintons, Rahm, et al...
If any of u have been following the latest news about what is happening right this second in the Siberian Arctic sea then you'd know that the final script for our society has already been written by Nature for us and all these rants will blow away like a fart in a Methane wind storm a few decades ahead. yes, dear friends Nature Mother Nature to be exact is getting ready to launch a counter attack against us that will end our civilization and with it most life on Earth when its all said and done for. Right now, huge vols. of methane gas are bubbling to the surface from masses of a substance called Methane Hydrate. This stuff is natures ultimate counter attack and once released into the atmosphere as Methane gas will not stink us to death but it will warm the atmosphere 50X's faster then CO2 which is also rising at alarming rates. Considering the facts that our ignorant lying scumbag so called leaders haven't a clue or a care about any of this you can bet nothing will be done and since its already to late its doesn't matter anyway! You see it appears that tipping pt. the scientists have been talkin about has been passed already. The train has as they say already left the station. By 2100 temsp. could be nearing 6 degs. above the present temps. and the last time that happened was 40 mil. yrs. ago during what is known as the Eocene Maximum. It was at the time of the last great extinction event on Planet earth and the cause was METHANE. So enjoy yourselves folks its GAME OVER TIME!!
Well, don't think climate scientists are sitting idly by waiting for the worst to happen and that we're completely powerless to do anything. The doomsday via earth warming from Methane gas is not inevitable, yet.
This is a very important point. While a lot of the people here at CD are very familiar with the facts you mention - one guy used to post this link on "methane burps"
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1215-24.htm
all the time - a lot of progressives are not factoring in climate change with Peak Oil/Energy/Growth/Water and etc., and dont realize that we are rapidly losing wealth through resource depletion, such that we will no longer HAVE the wealth necessary for reform, redirection and preparation for the future upon us.
In other words, they often think we have all the time in the world to engage in slow political reform.THAT is what is different and makes our times unique and unprecedented. Since The Situation is unprecedented, we should expect that the "old truths" are obsolete, no matter how "holy" some of their believers want them to be.
As Dr. John Lilly said, we test models of the universe, we do not worship them.
Kataj, excellent points and quite relevant.
Actually, I would add there IS some urgency to political reform currently happening, however, it seems to be in the wrong direction. It was disturbing enough to see how thoroughly corporatized the Bush White House had become. It's doubly disturbing to see the so-called 'peoples' party is just as corporatized. And, if it wasn't clear what kind of 'coup' was going on before, the recent Supreme Court decision giving corporate persons all the rights they need to 'elect' representatives has made it crystal clear. The politics has been reformed in a very short period of time: this is now a corporatocracy. I can't help but think that the reason for this may have to do with the 'unprecedented' situation we find ourselves in. And I worry, because I haven't seen much in the behavior of corporations that celebrates humanness, at all. They rule our economy, why do they need to rule our government as well? It may simply be easier for them to sacrifice us, when the time comes.
fixcongressfirst.org: we need to sever corporate money from control of legislation.
ubrew12,
Great points. It appears the banned KEMPATRICK was right all along. The problem is that we may already be past a point of no return anyway, since some scientist I have read predict that it can take 30 years for a counter-measure to take effect. The "heat-sink" feature of the Oceans drives night-time thunderstorms even when the sun isn't shining, and they prevent heat energy from radiating into space.
Even if we shut down every internal combustion engine today, temps would increase for another 30 years, goes the theory.
Methane is a fuel; it's a shame we didn't come up with a way to harvest it. But that still wouldn't have reduced global warming would it? Many known planets and moons in this solar system have high concentrations of frozen Methane including clouds and possible oceans of the stuff.
Our future, I'm afraid, is Venus. Our beautiful "morning star" sister planet is actually a hell-world where lead melts at the surface. The planet is so like ours, it's always been a riddle why Earth didn't see the same fate.
Classified as a terrestrial planet, it is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet" because they are similar in size, gravity, and bulk composition. Venus is covered with an opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, preventing its surface from being seen from space in visible light. Venus has the densest atmosphere of all the terrestrial planets, consisting mostly of carbon dioxide, as it has no carbon cycle to lock carbon back into rocks and surface features, nor organic life to absorb it in biomass. A younger Venus is believed to have possessed Earth-like oceans,[8] but these totally evaporated as the temperature rose, leaving a dusty dry desertscape with many slab-like rocks. The water has most likely dissociated, and, because of the lack of a planetary magnetic field, the hydrogen has been swept into interplanetary space by the solar wind.[9] The atmospheric pressure at the planet's surface is 92 times that of the Earth.
...The CO2-rich atmosphere, along with thick clouds of sulfur dioxide, generates the strongest greenhouse effect in the Solar System, creating surface temperatures of over 460 °C (860 °F).[32] This makes Venus's surface hotter than Mercury's which has a minimum surface temperature of −220 °C and maximum surface temperature of 420 °C,[33] even though Venus is nearly twice Mercury's distance from the Sun and thus receives only 25% of Mercury's solar irradiance.
Studies have suggested that several billion years ago Venus's atmosphere was much more like Earth's than it is now, and that there were probably substantial quantities of liquid water on the surface, but a runaway greenhouse effect was caused by the evaporation of that original water, which generated a critical level of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere.[34]
Thermal inertia and the transfer of heat by winds in the lower atmosphere mean that the temperature of Venus's surface does not vary significantly between the night and day sides, despite the planet's extremely slow rotation. Winds at the surface are slow, moving at a few kilometers per hour, but because of the high density of the atmosphere at Venus's surface, they exert a significant amount of force against obstructions, and transport dust and small stones across the surface. This alone would make it difficult for a human to walk through, even if the heat were not a problem.[35]
Above the dense CO2 layer are thick clouds consisting mainly of sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid droplets.[36][37] These clouds reflect about 60% of the sunlight that falls on them back into space, and prevent the direct observation of Venus's surface in visible light. The permanent cloud cover means that although Venus is closer than Earth to the Sun, the Venusian surface is not as well lit. Without the greenhouse effect caused by the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the temperature at the surface of Venus would be quite similar to that on Earth. Strong 300 km/h winds at the cloud tops circle the planet about every four to five earth days.[38]
NeoCons won't be happy until they turn this place into Venus.
TJ
“Royal consciousness is what drives the structures of political power---institutions that, devoted only to their perpetuation, exploit and oppress the people they are charged with protecting and serving.
“Royal Consciousness is concerned only with maintaining the systems that will increase power and wealth for the few.” [Ibid]
Perpetuating the status quo is the foremost goal in the maintenance of Royal Consciousness, which runs through state, church and corporate media.
Hierarchy always interprets any expression of doubt or inquiry as a threat.
Those that question a policy or decision are perceived as undermining authority, but dissent and investigative journalism are the means to assure a healthy democracy.
In 1958, Edward R. Murrow warned that as television became more about entertainment and not about shows of enlightenment, the republic would be dumbed down.
The royal consciousness thrives when people are in a state of comfortable numbness; a society dominated by the royal consciousness becomes easily anesthetized by politicians who can also do a little stand up comedy.
The Daily Show, Sarah Palin, etc:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1598&Itemid=230
eileen, very enlightening.
I like your term, "Royal Consciousness".
Though I have been using the term "Empire-thinking", it seems that we have the same mind-set in mind, that of; elitism, hierarchy, centralization, control, authoritarianism, lack of empathy, etc.
Best,
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Register Green ... Vote Green ...
What other choice is there?
Hedges' individual acts need to be channeled into action
not despair ...
Yes, mmckinl, not only for the sake of any progressive movement and Hedges value to it, but also for Chris himself.
I am concerned that he is spiraling in his (very justified) frustration, and am worried about the personal toll on himself and his family.
Perhaps, hopefully, Chris will find Kevin Zeese's recent formation of a People's "Anti-Empire" Movement something that he can believe in and invest himself in a seminally rebellious movement, but with some level of hope for himself and the future.
Like Chris I am often overwhelmed by the scale of the confrontation with the Empire, which seems to inexorably hold all the power cards, but some possibility of solidarity still seems possible -- or at least worth our efforts.
Best,
Alan
Be sure to, if you don't already, check out http://www.antiwar.com/ -- good news coverage and more.
Gary
"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives."
~- Abba Eban
Too bad Abba refused, so often, to behave wisely, as well as justly.
Good link though.
Thanks for the reply ... I whole-heartedly agree with your post.
Now is not the time to surrender to our frustrations but to look forward to the coming generations that will indeed be inclined to seek a fundamental change in politics.
I have no illusions about the coming election cycles. I can only make my stand and share the reasons for it ...
It is my opinion that like Nader, Hedges biggest failing is that they leave no legacy party behind to build on ...
The children and those now coming of age our my hope, not the dinosaurs that repeatedly get herded like sheep to political slaughter every election.
It has proven difficult to tell the people the truth about the destruction of our industrial base. It was Nafta and Bill aka Slick Willie Clinton who destroyed the Glass Steagle act that controlled the Banking system. It was the same Clinton who through Nafta, caused our industrial base to be outsourced to China. It was Hillary Clinton who was outsourcing our computer jobs to India, through the same company that hired her daughter
for big bucks. The Clintons in return were receiving money from the Red Chinese. During WWII some of these people would have been charged with Treason. Our ability to defend ourselves from outside trouble is being threatend as we produce nothing.
Obama is to young and to ignorant. His Ivy League education has not helped things based on past performance.
Some posters on this site seem to believe that it is just too much trouble to mount any effective opposition to the current elite oligarchy we live in. Okay, so then what?
Shall we just organize a few more marches and demonstrations similar to the ones we had in 2003--the ones that acted as a prelude to Bush's invasion of Iraq in 2003--and then be done with it?
Shall we continue to boldly "speak truth to power" and watch our duplicitous, greedy leaders--who profit mightily off of the suffering and death of others--furtively slip into their gated communities where they will laugh and backslap each other at the great sport of scamming the public once again?
Truth does not really matter in this game.
Power matters.
Now that the U.S. aggressive wars are coming home to every American city and town--in the form of draconian service cuts and soaring joblessness and mounting home foreclosures and unavailable credit and shuttered main streets and disappearing health clinics and rising homeless populations--the ruling class understands full well the need to prepare the home population for its proper role in the coming transition period.
The U.S. public's role will be:
(1) follow the ruling class's directions about who to blame for the misery engulfing them;
(2) ignore the direct connections between U.S. military adventurism and their own suffering;
(3) endure humiliation after humiliation without complaint, including the loss of home, health, family, and community;
(4) celebrate the new corporate fascism that has stolen our hearts and minds;
(5) smile, and hope that the bread and circuses will be at least as entertaining as those in the Roman Empire;
(6) say good-bye to your children.
Ready?
Not me, thank you very much. For my money, a general strike sounds a hell of a lot more fun than that.
Thanks, Chris Hedges, for stating aloud what we all sense to be true, but are simply afraid to face.
A general strike, preferably a global one, sounds good to me. It would prevent many unnecessary deaths and make it clear to the elitists that their "end game" is not the one we want to play.
Sioux Rose
VISITING PROF: I find your posts quite enightening and well-written. Thank you for contributing to the forum.
SIOUX ROSE: You are one of the members of the Common Dreams community who reads comments very carefully and tries to highlight essential points and raise connections to other relevant issues. You help raise the level of the discourse here and move it into productive directions. I greatly appreciate your contributions to our ongoing discussions.
Sioux Rose
V.P. How very kind of you. You certainly understand my inner mission statement. It's a shame that sometimes I find myself having to defend the wide reference field I draw from to a number of vicious, narrow-minded detractors. Suggesting that the world is not so linear as they might suppose appears to be intensely threatening to the likes of these.
I just began a new book (sequel) this week and will be showing the original to some literary agents this week. I'd like to think that the success of Harry Potter will help open the door to the mystical topics I'd like to share with young readers. I'm about to test the envelope there. Your compliment arms me for battle against the guardians of the cultural status quo. And then I heard from a friend now based in Argentina who's put her considerable talent and energy to the task of translating books for the Spanish-speaking audience, and then streaming them on live video (via Internet). I'd love to see some of my books shared with populations in South America. Given the breakthroughs in the political processes of several nations there, I believe my work might be well-received. I have never given up yet, and thank you again. You delivered a "vitamin" to my spirit.
SIOUX ROSE: You are one of the members of the Common Dreams community who reads comments very carefully and tries to highlight essential points and raise connections to other relevant issues. You help raise the level of the discourse here and move it into productive directions. I greatly appreciate your contributions to our ongoing discussions.
General Knox in a letter to Washington before the Constitutional Convention: “These soldiers of the revolution come back and they think because they fought in the revolution they deserve an equal share of the wealth of this country.”
The hows and whys of the Constitution being written, especially the Bill of Rights, is lost on many.
We are merely experiencing the desired and expected outcome of that which began over 200 years ago. Time to level the playing field, finally.
norske, hopefully you are right, as Leonard Cohen sings, perhaps "Democracy is (finally) coming to the U.S.A." with this second American Revolution --- perfecting and correcting the application of democracy to all the spheres of our lives this time; political, economic, social, spiritual ...
Best,
Alan
Heed the call! The time for endless intellectualizing is over!
Smash your car, your teevee, get the hell out in the streets March 18, March 20, in your town, in every town and refuse to leave...
It seems to me that there are some effective, non-violent approaches we can take. First, whatever money people have, move it to local banks or credit unions. I have belonged to a reputable credit union for more than 20 years, and have no complaints at all. Second, pay off and cancel all of your credit cards. While this will slightly dent your credit score, it will not do that much damage (and save you a lot of money). Third, boycott the big corporations. Minimize what you need to purchase from them. Try to purchase from local merchants. Fourth, if you have a farmer's market in or near your community, purchase your food there. While it is a little pricier, at least the food is pesticide-free, and local farmers do great things for the community. Fifth, vote third or fourth party. I have been a registered Independent since 2000, and like it way better than being a member of the party duopoly. There are many more things we can do, but at least this is a start to waving the big middle finger at the corrupt Reps and Dems and avaricious corporations.
"It seems to me that there are some effective, non-violent approaches we can take."
Those times and non-violent measures may already be a missed window of opportunity. The recent actions of Joe Stack in Austin,TX and the Pentagon shooter are evidence of that.
The Government has Echelon and Promis in place, and has already amassed a massive database of who is speaking out, via forums like CD and others. They can and do routinely intercept e-mail, chat programs, text messaging and cell phone calls, mining them via sophisticated computer programs for key words and combinations there of, looking for dissent and 'actionable' intelligence.
The US Supreme Court has handed Corporations all the benefits of the US Constitution, ruled that the CIA and other parties may assassinate US citizens on foreign soil, and is waiting to make their informed decision on the impending Congressional decision on indefinite detention on suspicion.
Your simple and non-confrontational actions will be mere irritants to the PTB.
What is needed is complete and radical abandonment of the status quo.
"The mounting anger and hatred, coursing through the bloodstream of the body politic, make violence and counter-violence inevitable. Brace yourself."
LOL.
I know the ideology of a lot of "liberals" makes them think such threatening noises as those squeaked by Hedges here are credible, but I kind of doubt it.
There will no doubt be some more lone nut attacks on the IRS and such, but as a whole, Americans are actually singularly given to blaming themselves for whatever happens to them. They've drank the individualist kool-aid all up.
Americans are a-political. The amount of consciousness raising to get a good collective rise out of them any time soon is not even humanly possible.
I understand the desire to pretend that something truly shattering will occur--the tea baggers will do it!-- that will shake off our national political sclerosis, but it ain't happening.
I really feel like the "liberals" who insist the Nazis are about to march are the rough equivalent of the "tea bagger" types who insist the Nazis have already occupied the White House.
What you have in common is the (frankly wimpish) DESIRE for some real "divine violence" that works a political miracle FOR you, when what you really need is to constitute, yourselves if necessary, a very serious reformist class--which you simply do not have, thus the irrational panting after cataclysm.
You need to engage in a little less culturally derived anti-red state invective and engage in a little more SELF examination.
(Which isn't to say there AREN'T fascists in the White House).
Socialism, Chris.
Go ahead and say it. It won't hurt. Promise.
coyote, as Warren Beatty rapped in "Bulworth", "say that dirty word, Socialism, yeh, Socialism":
Interesting to view this more than decade old film (1998) in terms of today's alignment of the Global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE which now so more fully controls 'our' country by hiding behind the facade of its TWO-PARTY improved Rel 2.0 'Vichy' sham of faux democratic government (aided by its equally 'Vichy' corporatist media.
Even the fictional Bulworth had more balls (and a better rap) than the fictional Obama:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6ag_2dg8nI
Enjoy it. It will be the only time you see a politician confronting the EMPIRE.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Not Socialism... Communism and Anarchism... that's what I read into Hedges.
Excellent comments today mcoyote. Spot on.
Fight the old or build the new, your choice. They're not likely to see you as you build the new though because they're busy defending the old and they won't notice you.
Build the old in the shell of the old. It's fun. If you've got anger written all over you, you can only create an angry world. Work hard but relaxedly and build a more beautiful world where you are.
www.RadicalRelocalization.com
We're going there anyway, might as well get on it!
To many CD posters are waiting for direction and leadership. The date is March 20, 2010, just go to the nearest demonstration. Be there and feel the passion. I'll be in SF.
Paul Hawken, in his book Blessed Unrest, makes this powerful point:
There could be as many as one to two million organizations in the world working toward ecological sustainability and social justice. The movement though doesn’t fit the standard model as it has no manifesto or doctrine, no overriding authority to check with. It is almost mysterious, a sacred act emerging as a global humanitarian movement arising from the bottom up. It is engaged in protecting citizens, workers, and environments from the juggernaut of free market fundamentalism.
A revolution does not start at the top with printed invitations. It starts at the bottom with individual fire in the belly. If enough people have fire in the belly, leadershiop will emerge.
Yes, Steven, you note, "It is almost mysterious, a sacred act emerging as a global humanitarian movement arising from the bottom up."
This is the "Multitude" (predicted by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri). It is the Global People's Anti-Empire Movement (birthed by Kevin Zeese, David Beito, and Nader) --- where the Global involvement of people out where the 'tip of the Empire's spear' is being thrust in their faces will buoy the American domestic side of the movement.
Antiwar Radio promoting the Global Peoples' Anti-Empire Movement:
http://antiwar.com/radio/2010/02/27/kevin-zeese-and-david-t-beito/
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
I will answer the Rebel call.
And in the name of the founders of the United States of America, if you love freedom and liberty, you must also.
The first step, for any patriotic American, whether they work for the government or the military or the church (the three sectors essential to bring on board for a successful outcome of reform) or for the common citizen, is to clearly outline a list of grievances against the corporate crown.
I offer as an outline format,
www.planetliberty.wikidot.com
Any of us may modify it simply by clicking on the edit button, and later saving it.
If we are to submit a 100 million citizen strong Declaration of No-Corporate Confidence, we must meticulously document every atrocity and grievance like was done in 1776. This is very time consuming, but essential. And as in 1776, we will have to drop far-left positions and views if we are to coalesce with Libertarians (the third biggest party) and tea baggers without a clue.
The outcome will be decided on numbers and nothing more. Having been involved in a number of Union actions to shut down the machinery (legally within Federal Labor Law) I can tell you that this effort is all about numbers.
We must not exclude anyone. Not an Astrologer, Not a Teabagger, Not a Fed, Not a Religious Zealot. Not a soul.
No.
For this effort to be successful, we must center on our common enemies: The Banker, The "Taskmaster" and the Ivy League CEO.
I am most encouraged to see Chris stop whining about the unfairness of the internet to journalists financially, and to focus on the tremendous power it's about to give him. I submit that this intoxicating essay by Hedges is one of the best we have read for a long time.
TJ
"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American War? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people." John Adams, Rebel and "Voice of the Declaration of Independence".
"Timid men... prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty" - Thomas Jefferson (Author of the Declaration of Independence) to Philip Mazzei, April 24, 1796
Why was this comment removed from this site? I would also like to know why my comments have disappeared from the article on Marja.
Bodi-Hawk,
I usually agree with you but I think the other poster has a very good point. There aren't that many people in a position to be the monks of the revolution. Arrest isn't a good thing for people caring for the sick, who are sick, who care for children, an elder, a SO, a friend. The people I know who can and have been arrested had certain characteristics, they are unattached or with someone who doesn't need their help, they had resources such as money/connections, friends who have money/connections--things like this. I am happy that such people exist and that they have these resources to help when they get arrested. I fully support civil disobedience with arrest. But sometimes rebellions get on a kind of ascetic trip and try to pretend that everyone should do the same thing and that everyone is in the same position to do the same things. It mirrors the church and I think it's a mistake.
For example, there are lots of smart people into accounting. A lot of them work for the "dark" side but not everyone. Why not let them come up with a way for ordinary people to avoid taxation? The rich don't get arrested for not paying taxes, they do it legally. So maybe we don't need to be arrested, maybe there's a legal way to shut off the money spicket. Refusing to pay and being arrested could be done by some and the "legal" avenue could be taken by others.
There is so much that needs to be done. It's actually better that different people, with different abilities work how they can. It's exactly like biodiversity. So I don't think that it's wrong to seek ways for people who different to contribute, I think it's a really good idea. A revolution works best by enabling the most number of people to participate. That's a strategy that we should think about.
P.S. I am not trying to argue for the sake of arguing. I really feel strongly about this.
You highlight one of the big problems, that people dont have the resources to get to protests, to take time off from work, or risk getting fired.
The power elite know all of this. They know how little time people have after struggling to just survive. I dont even have enough spare money to help my friends who are one step from being homeless as much as I would like to. It truly is an aweful situation we are in.
I support what you say totally. What I would simply like to see is more and more people openly discussing The Situation more and more with a sense of urgency.
The same reason they banned Cindy Sheehan: they are engaged in the same censorship driving the Obama administration. If one does not puppet the expected script the post gets deleted like many of mine have.
Wow Chris Hedges, thanks for that, I feel so much better about life and my day! Always one to bring out the sunshine, you little munchkin you!
I think Chris Hedges article is very good, and his assessment of the current situation in the US is very accurate. No one can predict what will happen in the future, not even Chris Hedges. Therefore, to wonder what utopia is going to come after the revolution is meaningless and irrelevant. You could have a revolution overnight if we all just lived by our principles (assuming those principles are good). In fact, there are many silent, effective ways to rebel, some of which are almost effortless, which you can accomplish simply by doing absolutely nothing. Here are two examples of this:
1-Turn off the television, forever. (at least stop watching commerical TV).
2-Stop voting for Republicans or Democrats.
Neither of these suggestions take any effort. If you think this is because they also wouldn't accomplish anything, think again. If enough people stopped watching TV, the power elite would take notice, indeed. For they would know that a good chunk of their brainwashing capability had been diminished; people wouldn't be getting bogus news, watching commercials that make them feel needy and ugly and unimportant, and people might even use the extra time to educate themselves, organize with one another, etc. Commercial tv would not be a lucrative place to advertise, and advertisers would have to go someplace else. Maybe we could make the airwaves so commercially unimportant that people, not corporations, could actually have control of the airwaves.
Not voting for Democrats is not the same as not voting. But voting for Democrats goes a long way towards legitimizing them, and they are an illegitimate party, because they do not represent their supporters. Consider this, for example. Democratic voters probably feel worse, now that Obama is President, than they did when Bush was president. Why? Because they didn't vote for the first tyrant, they voted for this one. Nader voters have the satisfaction of saying they don't have this vote on their conscience. Who do you think we were going to get if we didn't vote for Obama, Hitler? No, we were going to get McCain. And he may have been worse than Obama, but it's hard to figure out how at this point. Still, if Obama really is not as bad as McCain, he has the same masters and is taking us along the same road to the same destination, he's just taking us a little more slowly and being dishonest about it.
Many other acts of disobedience are almost as easy, don't require violence, and are, importantly and oddly enough, legal (at least for now). If you're really in bad financial condition, go bankrupt. Even Chapter 13 is better than taking a second job (especially if you're taking it away from someone else). If you're angry at the bankers, get your money out of their bank and into a credit union, or at least out of Citibank, Chase, etc., and into one of the smaller banks. Anything that you can do that disrupts the capitalist applecart will be effective; and if you can get 1 or more persons to do the same things you're doing it will be effective eventually.
Good points.
This whole problem could be turned around by reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. When the message is controlled and the debate is framed to protect the big 4 (wall St, Big Oil, Health/Pharma and war profiteers)they can control the people.
Joseph Goebells once said you can control a people any where at any time by doing 3 things
1. Always have an enemy (Obama, Liberals, Government, gays, illegals)
2. Always wrap your message in the flag and be the uberpatriot.(Beck, Hannity)
3.control the message and be able to repeat and repeat and repeat it until it becomes the truth (see talk radio)
This 1 format reaches over 30 million listeners each week. The hosts are highly paid corporate whores that wrap their message in thre flag and behave like populists while always protecting the big 4 industries.
Rush Limbaugh. You don't get 50 million/yr for nothing. He is good at what he does. Unfortunately the biggest losers are the self proclaimed dittoheads that listen to him.
Let's face it. The Polar ice cap could become the size of an ice cube and he would still deny climate science. Why? Big oil/coal need to be protected. At the end of every issue he and the others always have the big 4's back and the USA loses big time.
"...This whole problem could be turned around by reinstating the Fairness Doctrine..."
- No, it couldn't, for 2 reasons. First, liberals have a greatly exaggerated notion of how effective the Fairness Doctrine actually was. It was never that big a deal. It was in force from about 1949 until the later Reagan years, a period that included the Cold War, the McCarthy era, Vietnam, the JFK assassination, the rise of Reaganism, & CIA coups all over the world. Since all those horrific things took place EVEN WITH the Fairness Doctrine in force, one can't seriously believe that simply reinstating the FD would prevent similar things from occurring. The F.D. was like a Band-Aid. It had only very limited effectiveness in raising the quality of media coverage. It's true that getting rid of it made things worse, but it's not true that US media coverage was "good," even with the FD in force.
Second, to think that reinstating the FD would turn everything around is like saying, "All we need to do is get the money out of politics," or "All we need is Instant Runoff Elections." That is, it's easy to say things like "Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine!," or "Money out of Politics!" -- but if corporate America believes such reforms would be to its disadvantage, they can't happen. To put all your eggs in hoping for limited progressive reforms (like reinstatement of the FD) is putting the cart before the horse.