As an person who abhors the snake oil salespeople on MOSSAD supported DAYSTAR.... FUNDED BY ME thru the corruption of
the US CONGRESS

AMEN, AMEN, AMEN

For all the reasons Chris mentions the US is gettiung and will get what it has coming to it. The moral and political ennui of the so-called left is born of the same stuff as the
xenophobic and fascist self-righteousness of the so-called right.

Both are overcome with self-centered contentedness with the status quo and no evident conscience towards the suffering of those less fortunate in their midst.

I hear more passion on sports talk radio stations than on so called "hate radio". What is someone in the US more likely to get seriously upset over, political disputes or sports championship outcomes?

It will take forced hunger and homelessness with no relief in sight before this changes. That's what it took to get our grandparents militant during the Great Depression. Then there will be riots and the lliquidation of tangible assets along with the deaths of those deemed on both sides of the dispute to be responsible for it.

Eventually, the rest of the world will have to intervene in order to keep us from destroying ourselves and the rest of life on the [planet with our own WMD's and predatory economic practices.

Stop shopping except for survival
Stop driving except for work and shopping as described above.
Turn off the TV, radio, and other distracting media.
Meet and get to know your neighbors.

Poet

But if I get mad at Obama that means I have to admit that I made a mistake supporting him, it means that my political system has failed me, it means that that I have to take responsibility myself and take a stand on issues rather than follow the cult of Obama. Gee, that's a lot to ask of a self indulgent yuppie like me.

Last night at a union town hall I heard Rich Trumka, and Leo Gerard tell me to support Obama's pathetic Health care reforms with its "strong public option." They caved on Single Payer and supported Obama care as a compromise to get on the Obama bandwagon and get support for an Empoyee Free Choice Act. How's it working out for you guys? Even the limited health reforms of Obama care are failing and the checkoff part of Employee Free Choice has already been taken out and I'm pretty sure that the rest will soon be gutted. Let's see you whip up support from the rank and file for your craven "leadership". What do you have left to say, "We have to support Obama-- he's all we got." You're more pathetic than Obama.

Chris thank you for speaking the truth. The American people have no one to blame except themselves.
"We" use their banks- pay those fees, shop at their corp stores, use their corp products. Due to an unexcused desire for needing everything the rich corp have, we have propped them up, given them our money and the outcome is what we as a nation have done.
As for myself, I understand the calling of this time is to reduce, reuse and stop giving them your money. Get a little back bone! Reduce your salary so you do not give so much tax money. Buy second hand so you do not pay the corp.

We as a nation have become blinded by "needing" and feeding the monster that we have created. This problem was happening long long before Obama.

As a Vietnam veteran, I think that the issue that Chris Hedges raises concerning the trauma that veterans face when they return to this country is especially acute. The only conclusion that one can draw is that the politicians such as the Democrats simply do not care that these soldiers are ending up as cannon fodder by their most uncaring government. If only there were a Smedley Butler around today who could inform the government and the media that he and the rest of the soldiers have been used to justify American imperialism that the United States has wrought upon the people in the Middle East.

As Hedges implies, the Democrats in Congress, like the Republicans, are merely ciphers who have sold their souls to serve the corpofiendocracy. So we should probably stop focusing on them as they are not really the important players. Too many in the US think of the elections system as some sort of black box that magically transforms the wishes of the majority of the people into government policies consistent with those wishes. But when one looks inside that black box, one finds that the votes put there are discarded into a giant trash heap and have no influence on shaping the policies. The policies have already been determined by the corpofiendocracy and the only point of keeping the black box is to distract, confuse, and misinform enough of the little people so that no consensus will form among such little people that they are being played by the corpofiends and their servants in government.

Anybody can abandon themselves to the lust for blood on a grand scale. What takes real courage is the tedious, boring, mundane life of work, family, and friends.

Staying permanently high on drugs, carnage, or risk taking may be fun for a wile, but when you have to do it even when it's not fun anymore you have nothing to show for your miserable existence.

When your soul has been bartered away then you find out what it is to be destitute. It's easy to find your way to hell. It's not so easy to find your way back.

Once there "you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave".

Chris Hedges nails it. I saw a 1/2 hour video (don't remember how I came across it - maybe www.counterpunch.com?) in which Hedges filmed members of militias, some of whom are vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, who are angry and mobilizing for the coming unrest. Something is happening in this country; there is a growing anger and realization at how corrupt our government and Congress are. Some of the protesters we see on TV are right-wing nuts, but some of them are people like us who are angry about the huge Wall Street bailouts and Washington corruption. The tea party protesters see "Obamacare" as just another big government program that Americans can't afford and that will solve nothing. They are right. But they need to be educated about Single Payer -- which is clearly not Obamacare -- and the ways in which a Single Payer system -- while a "big government" program -- would actually save hundreds of billions a year by removing the health insurance companies from the health care system.

Dennis Kucinich recently held a nationwide conference call with Single Payer supporters to try to rally people to get out there at the local, grassroots level to educate people about Single Payer - e.g., by going to meet ups, writing letters to the editors of your local newspapers, rallying, organizing, going door-to-door, etc. Dennis sees the struggle for a single payer, health-care-for-all system as a long term movement, akin to the civil rights and Vietnam War movements, and believes that the more people learn about Single Payer, the more we can grow a movement so large that Congress will have to take notice. Dennis is far more of an optimist than me, but I agree with him and with Hedges that we need to GET OUT THERE and be vocal about Single Payer and about reforming our corporatocracy.

Speaking of getting mad, please check out http://madashelldoctors.com - they are making their way across the country and are getting local press coverage along the way. I wish they'd get national media coverage, but yeah, fat chance of that. Nevertheless, they need our support - if you're along their planned route to D.C., please join them at their scheduled rallies or contribute money if you can.

Brilliant and inspired, as usual, from Hedges. So, when, how and where do we begin the revolution he clearly calls for? Aren't most *liberals*, even progressives and lefties, still too comfortable to bestir themselves and flock to Washington, or at least their state capitols, and begin the necessary organizing and communicating this sort of thing would take?

How do we do this? How do we get past all the inevitable bickering and parsing, grandstanding and ego battles that have defined every last feeble effort leftists and liberals have attempted to MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN for 35 years? All we ever do is argue, while the tea baggers on the far right steal all the thunder and make the waves.

We don't know how to even mass in DC, much less come together on some common platform and begin exerting pressure on the elites who neither know nor care that we exist. Or if they do know, only wish we'd go away.

We lack the leadership all this would take as well, like it or not. Even anarchism requires at least nominal leaders. Information is too diffuse today: too much Internet, too many conflicting messages and interpretations of events, too much fucking TV, all amounting to a confusing cacaphony of signals, images, emphases, demands, outrages, to the point of creating more and more inertia, or at best halting efforts that flounder into dead ends. How do we sort through all this mess and emerge with something coherent and sustainable?

When we think about the latest "leader" on the scene to give us some sense of direction, the only one who comes up is Obama, now the very obstacle to everything he pretended he'd be (hope, change). How do we transform Hedges' rage, and ours, into a potent movement, not just another non-profit organization or clearing house where some can hide out and feel politically righteous. We have millions of ideas. What we don't have is the will to act, or even the knowledge of how to proceed effectively.

It is not us.
We know the score.
But we are marginalized and framed as the Left-wing version of the Rightwing reactionaries regardless of how many times we are proven right.
They say we should make Obama do something like he serves us. We know he doesn't serve us, we recognize the lies and talking points and don't have his back because there is nothing to back.
The first step to action is the recognition that Obama must be opposed, not supported. We are not on the same side.

Yes, we need real anger that can only come from a secular Left, and we need less prayers, preaching about 'non-violence', and worship of idols like Gandhi, Jesus, etc from people that havr nothing to offer us politically other than voting for the corporate Democratic Party once again. Pacifism tied to the Democratic Party will be the death of the American Left if we let it continue to march us up into blind alleys candles in hand.

The American people have got to STOP voting for the lesser of two evils and start voting third party and for the quality of the man. We need to make our candidates earn and prove themselves worthy of our vote and not just jump on the cute sloggan bandwagan. We need to demand real election campagin reform where we take the MONEY out of the political process. We need to demand REAL debate and not these FAKE debates and town hall meetings. WE need to open the process up to third party candidates.

Until we have real election campaign reform we will continue to have the best government MONEY can buy and the worst government for the AMERICAN PEOPLE.

Yes, Progressive need to get ANGRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Though I fear that they will continue to MAKE EXCUSES of why they need to continue to support and defend the party who is just as corrupted as the Republicans. I will admit that the Republicans are 90% corrupted and the Democrats are 85% corrupted. The fact is they are both corrupted and no REAL CHANGE WILL EVER COME FROM EITHER OF THOSE TWO PARTIES.

Chris Hedges says it like it is. We all are at fault for letting it get this far--But there is still a chance to end this system of abuse--it will take a lot of people--we need to start at once by mobilizing ourselves against the leaders who have failed us--it's been done before against the Vietnam debacle in the early seventies--it was lead by veterans against the Vietnam war(VVAW) who held fast at Camp Dewey Canyon III--they could not be moved even when the Supreme Court ruled that they be moved off the mall in DC during the week of April 21st 1971--followed by the largest Peace Protest that American History ever witnessed as people converged from every state in the union--including Alaska and Hawaii--there are three weeks left--this time though, there needs to be a economical strike plan to back up the marchers by the ones who can't make it to DC. Just imagine the gas glut if people stayed home and didn't drive for a week--Imagine how nervous you would make the corporations which rely on their daily profits--it will be a sacrifice, but for a noble cause of empowering the people once again to determine their own national destiny by changing the ugly face of evil that has been revealed by the greedy war mongers for too many years. Please join with us and help give us this victory over evil--it may be our last chance for redemption. Thanks!

Chris is a great writer and I aplaud his passion. However, he is forgetting a few things.

The regressives - like the ones who marched in Washington - get extensive press coverage. And a lot of there agenda is very useful to the corporatocracy, which uses them as stormtroopers.

In contrast, the progressive agenda seeks to limit the power of the corporatocracy and re-direct our wealth away from the war machine, and does anyone here actually think that the power elite are going to allow that?

Look at all the anti-war marches - did it have any influence on the media or on the government?

Voting with your dollars as some suggested above is all well and good, but the big drain on our country's wealth, the Military-Industrial complex and our Imperial project, is going to continue. I mean stop right now and ask yourself, what would it take to stop it and force the government to change course?

Peak Oil is now upon us. The elites have squandered the wealth that could have been used to fund our preparation for it. We are trillions in debt and slipping into financial collapse. Our entire over-populated planet is facing the same predicament, so in the end we will all go down together. So what can be done?

As I said above, the first thing that needs to be done is to stop the Imperial project and drastically reduce military spending and use that wealth to prepare this country for Peak Oil. But the U.S. is number one in the world in arms sales, so how could all of this possibly happen? These industries are going to let their gravy train end?

No, they wont, even though it is destroying this country. We are ruled by a sick corporatocracy that doesnt give a damn about all the things Hedges mentions above. So what happens?

When it all collapses, the state will go totalitarian for as long as it can fund its police state. Fascism will rule, and as we slide deeper into Peak Oil, even that will collapse, into feudalism and then anarchy as Peak Water, Peak Arable Land and climate change kick in.

Even if millions of progressives could afford to get to Washington and march, how effective would it be? I think that Hedges' anger is actually stemming from the knowledge, deep down, that there isnt a hell of a lot we can do now. Twenty years ago? Yeah. Now, the problem is virtually insurrmountable.

I hate to play Devil's Advocate, but between massive debt and Peak Oil, we just arent going to have the wealth to do what needs to be done, as we slowly become a third world nation, possibly on our way to a planetary Dark Age.

Hedges is right. People are getting beyond fed up with the Democrats for betraying the public and more liberals, moderates, and independents are leaving the building en masse. That's why Virginia and New Jersey are already turning RED and according to the gubernatorial race polls, both Democrats are in big trouble ! Put it this way. One day, a farmer detects smoke in his corn field. One week later, the entire farmland and village town is covered in lava. The Democrats, progressives, and liberals are in very very bad shape. This year's gubernatorial election results are already a strong OMEN of things to come. Look for Pawltry, Mcdonnell, and Christie to be competing. The Republicans are already well aware that running candidates from red states will no longer be enough. They will find Republicans who survived and won in swing states such as Minnesota and Virginia and strong blue states such as New Jersey and California. The Republicans can count on the Democrats to do almost anything for them including making it legal for Arnold Schwarzenegger to be president.