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TechnoratiCalling 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.
388 Comments so far
Show AllWon't someone, anyone, write a comment?
Why didn't you write one?
q
What else is there to say?
Not bad, Chris.
Revolution is fine with me as long as the members of the controlling elite suffer and suffer quickly and horribly.
How do we get to the ones that we can't see? Easy; just start eliminating the ones that we can.
Unfortunately, these monsters have the money to put countless drones between the rebels and themselves and many people who simply cannot understand what Hedges is saying will suffer. Perhaps their suffering is inevitable or if it's even possible to get there.
The corporate leaders will see to it that children die - as many children as possible. As these bastards look at it, if they need more workers then they can always create more children.
The French Revolution succeeded when the situation for most people became so dire that the army turned against the royalty. I wonder how far we are in the US from that breaking point.
BTW, Hedges lists the Jews among the groups which will be targeted for exclusion. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't mean zionists.
q
My suspicion is that the soldiers of the French army in the eighteenth century were more intelligent and better informed about the power structures in their own country than American soldiers are now at the dawn of the last century. So I'm not optimistic. As always, our armed forces, national guards, police forces, etc. etc. etc. will be making common cause with the right-wing wacko groups and their fascist masters.
And as long as they're paid, they'll behave like every other instrument of state repression throughout history.
My suspicion is that as far as Jews are concerned, Hedges is right: Lots of them will die. The rich ones, just like the rich pasty-faces, will retreat into their gated communities, complacent in the belief that they will manage the slaughter from a comfortable distance.
I have been suggesting our bastille day for a while.
This is a brilliant article by Mr. Hedges, which makes us examing the way we interact as humans. This is not a condition that is peculiar to America. It is how power is achieved even in a democarcy.
We again come up against our existence, and the dichotomy between those in the know and those outside of the that sphere of incfluence.
What do you know? You will come up against people who things differently than you, and people who choose not to know things at all. At some point, you will assume the role to be a politician, to campaign for what you know is right.
Who you know is all important, and that is why the college system becomes important. And in the college system, as we have seen in california, those who can establish themselves with the power brokers children go on to make good. The others end up protesting. Even there, those who already have the power dictate things. Ok, so now YOU WANT to be in their position.
Let us say that the Utopia Hedges suggests comes to fruition. (How it would is another story- how do you pick and choose who to eliminate from the power hierarchy? why do you eliminate them?) So let us say that only what you know becomes important, and we are all only working towards the commong goal of common good.
So no one "rises" in the system? and who judges that?
Who establishes what degree of Greed is ok? and its starts with things really small, because we are not talking of a world where goods are not that abundantly available, for our moral green conscience should technically speaking not allow us to produce.
I dont know the right way, I just think we have too many laws already, and to radically jerry the system to be more equitable more of us will need to speak louder, and some of us will have die for it. And once we have the leaders of that movement, they will become the targets of some new mcCarthy's, and new emperors.
And so the cycle goes...........
Love
Zero
"Revolution is fine with me as long as the members of the controlling elite suffer and suffer quickly and horribly."
You completely missed Chris's, and more specifically Camus' point. We must consider revolt as a means in and of itself, for a validation of this otherwise incompreghensible thing called "being". Otherwise, we are just waiting for Godot, death, nothingness.
Chris picked a very tough way to sell revolt in in this impressive manifesto. But, I suspect that Existentialism is pretty foreign a concept to most USAns.
No, I don't believe that I missed anything. I simply added my own observations about revolution and considered some of its ramifications.
If we (the non-elites) are going to define ourselves through our response to desperation (including our death) then I wish to define myself not by the particular action that I choose to take (or in the way that I end my life) but in my choice of whom to affect (take with me).
Please reconsider this quotation from the article: "'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."
Hedges is inviting us to consider how we will apply ourselves when things become unbearable; he is not simply indulging in some depressing ritual of navel-gazing.
Just making yourself cannon fodder would be meaningless.
From the article: "We must become, as Camus said, so absolutely free that "existence is an act of rebellion."
Freedom, as Kristofferson famously wrote, means that you have "nothing left to lose."
q
There is a god. She sent Chris Hedges.
Thank you Chris for the pure and singular beauty of your courageous example of one who cannot be bought.
The vast majority of Americans are utterly clueless regarding how far the US has fallen and exactly how dire circumstances really are. Public schools have been transformed into medium security prisons, our universities have been bought by the corporate military industrial complex
There's a nation of people utterly bereft of education and humanity.. Times are dark, and an ill wind blows across the land.
Chris Hedges knows what time it is.
"The vast majority of Americans are utterly clueless ..."
You may be right but the vast majority of them - according to poll after poll - see the US going in the "wrong direction."
There is potential out there! We can't allow the mainstream to channel this energy rightward!
"Public schools have been transformed into medium security prisons..."
Really? Interesting how an article about the collapse of a society is twisted into an indictment of the only social construct that brings people together.
Fascists always have the answers, simple as they may be.
good article, but c.h. leaves out the fact that nature is becoming more violent toward us who are despoiling her. the impact of this fact on our future, political & otherwise, is unpredictable.
in any case, if you want a group to target for political action, might i suggest the d.c. public transportation sector, the washington metro area transit authority? striking workers here could shut this whole country down. besides the fact these workers are treated like crap by WMATA, something i learned 1st hand riding various bus routes extensively for a job in N. VA. outside DC, 1/3 of the DC work force takes metro to the job.
shut 'em down.
Agreed. There's three huge trains all headed for the same intersection, all loaded for bear, and as self righteous and ego bound as possible. They are: Political, economic and environmental. What good will come out out of this disaster remains to be scene, but this much is sure, they will all impact each other and the environmental and natural disasters will both encourage and mitigate the other two extremes in ways expected and unkown!
" 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."
I disagree. The USA was, in fact, founded on crushing those who couldn't defend themselves from the latest technological gadgets.
Whatever happened to *their* revolution?
And do working class Americans think they can defend themselves any better than the Cherokee? Perhaps we have all grown used to the idea of being herded into little potemkin "prolo reservations" in front of our TVs and cinema screens?
What technological gadgets? The industrial revolution would not reach the US until almost four decades after the US was created.
q
I think he means guns.
The native population of America was easily identifiable and separable from the gringo population. That conflict was a genocidal war, not a revolution.
It does not matter what technological gadgets they have to use against us. We are enmeshed in the body of America; any violent action taken against us will kill the entire body. We are like a cancer spread throughout every part of the American body. In it's current weakened state, it will not be able to stand the cure.
Thank you Chris, for calling it as you see it. I fear you may be one of the most accurate analysts I see on this or any other site.
That we are a dumbed down and distracted society plays into the hands that hold and retain power here. There is always that reactionary anti-progressive tendency that can be rallied by fear-mongering and paranoia, the George Wallace voters in 1968 and '72, the Perot campaign in '92. The "tea party" folks now are a latest manifestation.
The high hopes cultivated by the Obama campaign will add to a cynical, hopeless period on the left among those who hoped for a quick fix. It won't be quick; it will be a struggle, the same struggle it has been since the fight for the 8 hour day, for women's right to vote, for civil rights, and every other progressive issue. Organizing and struggle...for health care, for peace and justice, for the environment, for education.
Even when you have pessimism in the head, you need optimism in the heart. Fight back, feel human, do what you can; don't just wring you hands or sulk. We need to figure out how to fight together.
We already know how, Joe.
Again, and again, we hear the end is nigh and yet ANY reasonable suggestion on how the people can do things in a united, coordinated fashion gets ignored, or unspoken, or dismissed. Maybe, I´ll try, yet again myself here. Obvioulsy, I everyone else here to write a comment, too. But cd´ers are becoming quite pathetic in their "sky is falling" admission while doing absolutely nothing to encourage realistic--and potentially quite powerful resistance.
For example, yesterday in Iceland over 90% of the people took it upon themselves to vote a resounding "NO" to a plan that would force each person to pony up tens of thousands of dollars to pay back to England for example, the losses created by the USAmerican-copying banksters who ruined their economy. The people said no.
How about a general strike?
How about joining a union, or creating one at your workplace, where most USAmericans spend 40+ hours of their lives weekly, and force companies to treat people better and pay better wages alonwith better working conditions.
Ever heard of a 35 hour week? Or 4-6 weeks PAID vacation yearly? or...
SINGLE PAYER...where anyone who gets sick gets treated for free?
All those things Europeans--and others--fought for, usually starting with their unions, demanding, then fighting for on the streets.
Get off your computers and get together--start in your workplace, then your neightborhood and spread it from their. Jesus people! Do something!
"Get off your computers and get together--start in your workplace, then your neightborhood and spread it from their. Jesus people! Do something!"
What are you doing?
I don't mean this in a snarky way, I'm just starving to hear what others here on CD are doing. Maybe we could join up if we're neighbors.
A first big step would be to read the comments; otherwise, nobody will know that Ted wants to meet or communicate with you to promote solidarity.
I would assume that he has read the comments in full but is concerned about the quality of some of them. Someone once talked about quantity vs quality and I have wondered the same on the bigger blogs and forums having thousands of comments per article. I would rather read 300 comments at the most per article than 10,000 per article because the fewer the number, the greater the odds of more thoughtful discussion that could actually help. Contrary to what I used to believe, I don't think he opposes posting at all but worries about whether the Internet's advantages are slipping into disadvantages similar to what happened to TV and radio.
The first part of the article seems to reiterate an idea of Zizek's (which he attributes to Benjamin, who probably would attribute this insight largely to Marx's writings on the French Third Republic), that Fascism is consequence of failed leftist revolutions. So, America's shift to the right is largely a reaction to the failed "revolutionary change" of Obama. It is largely debatable whether America 2010 is similar to the 1920's Weimar Republic or in the case of Zizek.. the former Yugoslovia- but certainly worth contemplating as a serious "terror" possibility.
As for the existential rebel stuff... without a vanguard or revolutionary class, that anarcho view may feel good, but in the bigger scheme of things is largely symbolic.
I agree with Hedges.
But if his notion of "revolution" is quotations from Camus and Mario Savio ( I was at Berkeley at the dawn of the Free Speech Movement and all that ensued, by the by) I have no idea what that will look like, but it surely will not look good.
Some weeks back I cited a Robinson Jeffers poem titled 'Shine, Perishing Republic,' and was called every kind of hopeless defeatist in the book.
So be it.
Although I enjoy and am inspired by Hedges' rhetoric, it somehow leaves me cold as far as a practical guide to action beyond "rebellion." I found Robert Jensen's March 2 piece, where he interviews radical activist Abe Osheroff, to be closer to where the fight takes place "on the ground."
I agree with Hedges that we are sliding towards a corporate totalitarian state, and enough pieces are in place to suggest that it is already here, just ask all those "illegal aliens" incarcerated in what amount to black sites hidden away in office parks in our cities. Or ask all those people who are on "no fly" lists compiled by Homeland (Fatherland?) Security. Most people don't know or undertand what is taking place, or are glad that the government is acting to "keep us safe."
I also believe, with another poster, that nature is not giving us much time to get it right or start to reverse, let alone stop, the damage we do. I think rebellion at this point may simply lie in understanding and speaking out against what is happening to each other, to nature, to the planet. Those kinds of connections are not part of the discussion.
"nature is not giving us much time to get it right or start to reverse"
This comment implies the existence of a universal external conscience that discerns right from wrong.
Only humans make that assertion. To assume omnipotence has been our unnatural downfall from the beginning. Certainly we continue to practice the righteous arrogance that will destroy us. It would make more sense to assume that our species has been an inglorious freak of nature and the sooner we destroy ourselves the better.
This is indeed a brilliant manifesto.
Lets make it so! EVERYONE to DC - MARCH 20 - LAFAYETTE PARK.
No excuses.
www.march20.org
If you can't make it to DC, get to a demonstration near you. Portland, Oregon or Seattle for West Coasters? San Francisco?
Good article. I'm confused though, Hedges has stated he's a Christian and even written a book denouncing atheists. The last paragraph seems to contradict that stance. Just wondering.
One can be a Christian - furthering the values Christ spoke of, without also buying that being nice and pasive while waiting for the the sweet by-and-by-pie-in-the-sky nonsense.
In fact, Christians invented Existentialism way before it was re-discovered by Camus, Sartre or Beckett.
I figured as much, thanks. Don't hear about that type of Christian much anymore in this country.
Buddhists were existentialists long before the followers of John the Baptist invented the fictional Christ.
Agreed.
The Buddha was an existentialist at least 1000 years before anyone else, although he he presented a far less despairing prescription to it than Camus or Sartre did, nor did he even need to resort to a paradise after death like Jesus did.
None of this "the only serious question in philosophy is whether to commit suicide" (Camus), or "Hell is other people" and all that "nausea" stuff of Sartre.
As far as whether a historic Jesus Christ actually existed or not, or for that matter whenther Siddhartha Gautama Buddha existed or not, does not interest me much. What is important is that the teachings attributed to them are valid.
Beat me to it.
Christianity is really just a mixture of ancient Judaism and Buddhist philosophy anyway.
q
Good point. Why would a hater of atheists be quoting atheists like Camus? desperation, perhaps?
Can you cite a source for Mr. Hedges's supposed "hate of athiesm"? Accusing someone of being a "hater" is a strong accusation, You need to back it up.
I think corvo is confusing C. Hedges with C.Hitchens.
more hedges brilliance, and for a change, most posts here as well.
as hedges points out, the cunning of the corporation is merciless. we are a country divided. the rebels will be cast aside as the sheople buy obama's slick talk and palin's tight skirts on fat thighs routines.
quickstepper, i agree with all you say except for the killing of children. from the corporation's point of view, wouldn't it be easier to rid the children of their strength: mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents? much easier to manipulate the young through a false sense of security, controlled by deep fear. the 10 year old rebel is much easier to break than the 40 year old rebel.
the "monkey wrench gang" concept is perhaps the only means of taking back what is ours, and is perhaps something we should all be practicing. if there's a better way, i'm all for it, and am open to suggestions.
"from the corporation's point of view, wouldn't it be easier to rid the children of their strength: mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, and grandparents? much easier to manipulate the young through a false sense of security, controlled by deep fear."
You make a good point.
My view is based on the fact that the adults have the skills that the corporations need right now and threatening the lives of their children is what the elites see as the easiest way to control them.
Yes, the ten-year old is easier to break but he or she can't provide skilled labor.
But perhaps you're correct. The corporations so far have been successful in convincing skilled workers that they can be part of the elite. That is, until their jobs are outsourced.
q
The corporate culture doesn't need to do any more than it already has to our children: financially crush their parents so much that the parents have little time to spend with their children, so the children are plopped, at an early age, in front of the boob tube to begin their indoctrination into the consumptive (pun intended) media culture.
Later, the children will be ready for dehumanizing violent and sexist movies and video games, insipid TV "dramas" and "comedies", then iPhones, iPods, iPads and the Internet so they can remain passive, electronically-addicted drones easily manipulated by the corporate-militarists who run everything.
For one antidote, see https://www.adbusters.org/ View some of their brief videos and spoof ads.
"the "monkey wrench gang" concept is perhaps the only means of taking back what is ours, and is perhaps something we should all be practicing. if there's a better way, i'm all for it, and am open to suggestions."
Agreed. How do we monkey wrench the system?
My suggestion is to do it economically. But that will require us to embrace austerity and to form community with others to do the same.
Are there other ways?
My suggestion is to work at political reform politically, not via economics. We need to separate the two realms in our thinking as a first step.
In very general terms, the wrong people are making the decisions, and that should be the focus of our efforts. Change the political structure so that the people make the decisions, not a bunch of mere politicians.
Decentralize. Abolish the Congress. Become a true democracy.
No austerity is required, only concerted action. But the prerequisite to that is a much clearer vision of the problem.
I tried that, even got a t-shirt for my troubles.
Good luck, but I think you're barking up the wrong tree.
Agree 100% about Monkey Wrench Gang, direct action gets the goods and works, when I was in California we saved a couple of groves of Redwood trees by direct physical but non violent confrontation with power.
In fact the only disagreement I'd have with Hedges is he seems to imply the U.S. as a Federal government collecting taxes is going to survive all this which I doubt, I think revolution will come from the bottom up first as random events like the nut in Austin with has airplane, but eventually leading to revolts against *both* the governments and corporations in whole regions like northern California, Oregon, and places like Vermont. I believe the long term outcome of this won't be a Federated U.S. but rather people taking care of everyone and the environment in bioregions without need of governments or cops through cooperative syndicalist arrangements. At least that is the dream. I personally think the U.S. government is played out and not worth saving, that a Republic is just more monarchy where the proles are pacified by the pretense of choosing pre selected people in a jeerry rigged system not all the different than voting in the Soviet Union. The only difference is that here it is money instead of a party elite selects amongest itself who they are going to present to us a "leader" to rob and control us. Fuck "leaders" and hierarchy!
First things first though Hedges is right we need to abandon reformist thinking that the Dims are going to save us and start rebelling against the fascists currently in charge to save ourselves. Only we are going to be able to save ourselves no government is going to do it for us.
I suspect that popular and large-scale actions meant to defend America’s civil society against the work of its polity and the global economy will fail if they take the form of an insurrection. My suspicion springs from my belief that the observation and crowd control techniques now available to the security-surveillance technocrats and their political controllers will prove to be vastly superior to the methods used in the past. Briefly put, crowd control today need not be bloody to be efficient and effective thanks to the developers of Long Range Acoustical Devices and other kinds of potent but non-lethal weapons. Likewise, contemporary surveillance technologies need not depend on informants to be effective. Both efforts mostly require a working electrical grid and the will to use the technologies already at hand.
Given this constraint, what method might a present-day resistance movement take from the past? The general strike, for one. Why choose this method? Simply put, the general strike makes sense today because massive and complex social systems like we have in the United States need the governed — the overwhelming majority of those living here — to conform to its norms and methods. They sputter and cough when the lower classes fail to conform to its ways. America’s worker bees must work, consume and obey! Goods need to be made and distributed, water needs to be cleansed, the electricity must remain flowing throughout the grid if the system to function effectively. It also helps when the worker bees stay sober much of the time, pay their taxes, obey the traffic laws, refuse to shoot Pentagon Security Guards or annihilate federal office buildings. Camus’ weak and insignificant individuals have social roles to play. They may be unimportant as individuals. But the social roles they occupy must be filled if the society in question is to function adequately. Because these worker bees are needed, insofar as they fill their worker bee roles, and because they are not wholly without significance, they can always seek to make their historical marks in solidarity with others. They need only act to affirm their personal humanity and also the humanity of those others who share the common fate of weakness and insignificance. They need only to act collectively and reasonably under the circumstances of the moment. Solidarity is the antidote to personal insignificance.
I believe a general strike would not only express the presence of this self-organized solidarity, it would also enable the weak to circumvent, in part, the techniques of control and observation now in the hands of the powerful. It promises to be both morally justified and potentially effective as used.
Political success is not guaranteed, however and unfortunately. Acting also has its risks; so too a failure to act.
General strike yes absolutely, and hopefully that's enough. However if it isn't I am *much* more confident we can fight back and win against the security forces. We have all the resources available to us that the insurgents have in Afghanistan to fight back with and they are fighting the U.S. military to a stalemate. Further he military would have to use far more restraint here because if they attack civilians widely it won't just be us on the left fighting but the militia people as well, I strongly believe that even though they disagree with us ideologically that they wouldn't stand for U.S. military attacks on civilians, most would understand that would be their dreaded New World order in action.
My brief and obviously under-supported reply: There are social and political problems with the insurgency option. Among them I would include:
First, an insurgency would militarize America’s civil society and deepen the militaristic biases found in American politics. I cannot think of any reason whatsoever to hope that a militaristic politics or an armed insurgency would serve to promote freedom and solidarity, democracy and social rationality. Such a politics would, I believe, normalize violence as a political technique. Arms, not reason, would resolve all conflicts. El Salvador during its civil war, Lebanon decades back, Afghanistan since the late 1970s and Iraq since the 2003 invasion provide just four examples of societies that have fallen into this quagmire. There are more, of course. Each example points to an outcome sensible Americans would want to avoid, I would think. They would wish for this because catastrophes of this kind remain relevant for quite some time. Indeed, the United States has yet to recover from its Revolutionary and Civil Wars!
Second, a durable insurrection, one that would not quickly fizzle out or end in a crushing defeat, would likely spawn political organizations that would threaten if not directly vie for state power. They would manage pose this threat whether or not they meant to undermine the existing state. Opponents of the current regime might consider this threat and the possibility it indicates a desirable outcome Americans would want to achieve if they had the choice before them. A much better world — who but the evil sort oppose this kind of future? Yet, this utopian future must also be assessed in light of its dystopian alternative: Not only would America’s existing “liberal democratic” state respond to the threat with force, the very nature of the insurgency along with the revolutionary situation it generated would produce organizations constructed to manage the emergency that had replaced normal social life. These organizations can be expected to create dictatorships when they become sole holders of state power. After all, once they secure state power, they tend to mobilize the forces at their command to restore order or to create a new order. Necessitas legem non habet (Necessity knows no law), as the maxim goes. The rule of law would become a practice of the past, so too the security and minimally rational control it provides.
Assuming the truth of this line of reasoning, I believe sensible Americans, should they opt for the insurrectionary option, would thus find themselves participating in what looks to be a lose-lose situation: They would be active or passive supporters of the dictatorship in power or the dictatorship in the process of coming to power. Speaking for myself, I’m not a proponent of any form of enlightened despotism. Despotism is just that — tyranny or dictatorship. The government produced by the resolution of the revolutionary situation would initially stand before “the people” as such and before individual Americans as an actual threat to democracy and freedom or, in the worst case, as the realized destruction of democracy and freedom.
Third, an insurrection or civil war would not only destroy the old regime if it proved to be successful, it would also destroy some or a lot of the old society worth preserving. Consequently, the post-insurrection society and its government would need to rebuild some of what was consumed by the civil war. This point leads me to pose a rhetorical question: What sense does it make to destroy homes, farms, capital and infrastructure in an age marked by resource depletion and growing global consumption of the resources which remain? There is little sense in destruction of this sort.
Fourth, I would not count on any current or prospective and likely American government exercising restraint when it comes to controlling an organized and violent opposition movement. It is prudent to expect the governors to defend their positions along with the positions of the economically and socially powerful. What from their point of view makes the new technologies desirable? I believe it is the non-lethal and massive output of these weapons. Putting a million people on the Mall in Washington, DC is impressive up and to the point when a sitting government can deploy weapons which quickly pacify the whole crowd without killing anyone. The near effortless pacification of so many protesters most be considered a significant act in itself. It signifies the futility of directly and actively confronting a government possessing these capacities. The ‘beauty’ of the technology: It enables the government to pacify society while preserving its hoard of worker bees!
I also would not count on the federal government backing down when it confronts home-grown terrorist attacks and guerilla war-making. We already know that the federal and many state governments have already failed to practice restraint in the past. This history also includes the recent past. The present situation does not indicate that the elite have learned not to use violent and destructive methods when they believe these to be necessary. It does not care if it jails, tortures and murders its own citizens. Why, after all, did the government create NORTHCOM if it did not intend to use the capacities located there. Besides, producing a military stalemate in the United States is not at all an attractive goal for radical democrats for the reasons I gave above.
The upshot: The ability to take the fight to a militarized government is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for achieving desirable social and political goals. Civil war may actually be counter-productive.
To my mind, self-organization, solidarity and the use of the general strike form the basis of any feasible and defensible strategy for the left.
Obviously we should try general strikes and other non violent tactics first and foremost. My only point was that *if* those don't work I don't think we are hopelessly screwed and we keep forging forward.
Heges notes:
"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."
Now that is speaking truth to power and to the Lip Service liberal/progressive class!
Amen!
It's interesting to read CH.
He seems like the only voice that's in sync with what many liberals are feeling intuitively.
Being 72 helps...having the time to read and keep up on a daily basis is a luxury most cannot afford.
So here I am in the choir agreeing with everything Chris says but it's more like a tree falling in a forest....no one else hears it...and when they do it will be too late.
This piece seems confusing. I do appreciate the very strong reply to Rabbi Lerner but I worry that this essay contributes to hatred between the "commoners" of the right and left wing. It needs to be made clear that fascism has come from the top of our own govt and ruling elite. That is a place where left and right do not exist. While I do believe the "lower orders" on the right will be used as footsoldiers for the govt they profess to hate, it's very important to see that the "lower orders" on the left are being used as footsoldiers as well. By refusing to face the truth about Obama and the Democrats, left wingers are easily riled up into defending the indefensible because, now, it's their guys/gals doing it. Instead of reaching out to people on the right, the left wing commoners side with the powerful and are ready to turn on their neighbor. In effect, both the right and left are siding with the powerful elites when they become ready to turn on their fellow citizens. That is something we should all stop doing.
I'm linking to Gene Sharp's website below. I think he presents some excellent non-violent tactics of resistance. http://www.aeinstein.org/
Jill, Re: it's very important to see that the "lower orders" on the left are being used as footsoldiers as well.
This is just what he is talking about with the 'liberals' stuff. Liberals, usually referred to as being on 'the left' in conventional political thinking, are 'allying' themselves with powerful interests for the sake of their limited benefits within the system. This is really the mechanism the American system has always used, and has been very effective in preventing or delaying substantial changes such as ending slavery, in providing for women's rights and now abolishing the publically traded corporation or markets.
Early in the 20th century it used to be 'the working class' given marginal benefits and privledges within the society, now its 'liberals' or what could also be called 'the coordinator class,' in the sense Michael Albert and Barbara Ehrenreich use the term. And Chris is very much in favor of non-violent resistance, he just sees it as urgent and is wanting everyone to get up off their collective asses.
Jill, you have a good point here. Both right and left are being used. What the "top tier" is most afraid of is that we "lower tiers" begin to form alliances with one another. Can it be done? It's worth a try and, imy opinion, is better than making enemies out of people who should/could be our allies. Look at the polls, most Americans are rather progressive! They just don't know it.
Any suggestions on how to build these necessary bridges?
I agree with most posters here - this is a brilliant and succinct Manifesto. Bravo!
Particulary the last paragraph. Oh my God, he's nailed it. As a Christian pacifist I can say with my Quaker forebears, "this friend speaks my mind."
And, I will add, bye bye miss American pie. I'd like to say I'll miss 'ya, but I won't so I won't.
But let's hope this revolution is as non-violent as possible. Let's take our cues from Gandhi and King and others throughout history who have turned their world around by resistance and ridicule and refusal. THAT's the Revolution that will BE a revolution.
I fear that Hedges is right about a right-wing insurrection in this country. The downturn that was set in motion by the Bush Administration will now be laid at this administration's feet. I would like to hope this anger could be redirected towards a viable third-party candidate instead of some demagogue wrapped in the American flag and clutching a cross.
"I would like to hope this anger could be redirected towards a viable third-party candidate instead of some demagogue wrapped in the American flag and clutching a cross."
Good luck with that. I would bet my last dollar on it being "some demagogue wrapped in the American flag and clutching a cross," given of course that the demagogue is merely a puppet for those behind the curtain.
Chris Hedges has sounded the alarm, and we best heed his warning. Glad to see his direct rebuff of Rabbi Michael Lerner's piece posted here on Common Dreams last Thursday:
"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."
Count me in.
"Count me in."
Me too.
It is Wall Street and the investor class that are destroying us. totalitarian capitalism is the perfect description to what is happening to this country and world. Time to start movements to bring Wall Street to its knees.
*Comment deleted by site administrators for being off-topic.*
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Hedges once again waxes eloquent as he preaches to the choir. We're screwed, and we know exactly why. Sure, we need a revolution. But if we're waiting for "young men [to] see the present as worse than the unknown future", that's going to take a while. The young men of America are either in the Middle East killing innocent people or behind the controls of their video games killing virtual people. Most twenty-something young men that I know don't even recycle.
Mr. Hedges, if you want to do something worthwhile, come up with a way that a bunch of aging baby boomers can get up off their arthritic backs and revolt. And don't say it's about not paying taxes unless you want to lay out a strategy by which we can all do that in a way that doesn't bury us in IRS agents.
I personally am gonna suck when it comes to pitchforks and torches. And I can't see the benefit of throwing my body into the wheels of the machine, either. But I want to change our country's path of destruction. And from MY perspective here on the Christian left, there IS a better way.
Spread courage by example.
Most 20 something boys I know are still talking about their pyrtoechnic exploits, watch similar tv show, and the women they have asked to "SHUT UP".
The most arrogant listen the least.
And they are the ones who rule this country.
Love
Zero
Hedges has always been a member of the marginal, radical class, as evidenced by resigning from the New York Times and going it alone. Like Nader, he leads by example, always has. If there is a “choir” in the body politic, one can find it in the mantra of “change the Democratic Party from within” crowd.
My Grandmother had an powerful axiom for people like you when she noted: “Big talkers, little doers.”
Personal empowerment does not ask for someone else to hold your hand for you.
Actually, I did do something. I went down to my local board of elections and became a candidate. Did Nader? Did YOU?
The sentiment is admiral, but part of the point here is that electoral democracy is rotten, and probably of limited benefit. Activism takes many forms and we who want a better world shouldn't a priori rule out any, including elections, but they should be based on those traditional values of the left such as democracy, solidarity, freedom, etc. I'm sure we can agree on that.
"electoral democracy is rotten" indeed, and I don't understand why there aren't hundreds of angry Americans running for office this year.
The Secretary of State of Ohio has assured that there will be continued ballot access for the Libertarian, Green, Socialist and Constitution parties. This is something new here due to all the work of third party members who challenged Ohio's restrictive rules in court. Yet the November ballot will contain precious few minor party candidates.
There are some days when I can barely heft a gallon of milk; physical violent revolution is just beyond my ability, and I think I can do better mentally and morally. The traditional value that I rely on most is "do unto others as you would have done to you".
Each person has to choose their role, but choose they must.
The enemy of courage is indifference
Yes, all good. I agree with you that physical violent revolution is also beyond my ability (though it may not be beyond the right wing's) and I also think it is absurd, as there is no such thing as challenging the power of the US state with arms, unless part of the military revolts, in which case may the gods help us all. I believe in all forms of resistance to unjust power which I think can win real changes, and for me these don't include any kind of violent action as these would probably degenerate into some kind of right wing counterrevolution, for which there is plenty of historical precedent. The enemy of courage is indifference -no doubt.
Leo, a very real question for us to ponder is if it comes to armed revolt, will the military and police join with the common human or turn their guns against us?
I was paraphrasing Cornel West; I believe he actually said the opposite of courage is indifference. I'm not sure if it is OK to post a You Tube link here, but if you Google "Cornel West on Courage" and You tube together you will come up with an excellent interview.
Ah, yes, I am familiar with this interview. And I think Dr./Professor/Brother West has much to offer. Good question about police/military. I'd be surprised if they do anything but support power, given their indoctrination and what they, as individuals, stand to lose if they either defect to the plebs or turn it on the powers, but we'll see.
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 have 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 are in different circumstances 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.
Jill, I think you stated it quite well. We need to stop kvetching about what should be done by others and start acting on what CAN be done by each and every one of us. The body has many parts.
Don't buy into the elites trying to set different age groups against each other, when I was doing environmental activism in California 6 years ago the kids in their late teens to late 20s were smart, caring and dedicated, living out in the rain in the branches of Redwoods and under tarps in the cold rain for months at a time to save old growth forest. It was non violent guerilla war against the timber companies. And there are millions more working on anti racism, anti homophobia, anarchist, and other movements as well. Dissing the young is another divide and conquer tactic the elite uses to keep us divided and defeatist.
Not dissing, just making a true personal observation of the young men I know. Not all, but most. But then I don't live in California either.
Young males have always been poisoned by testosterone and thus easy prey for the militarists. Perhaps your golden memories of the 60s are leaving out the buzzcut young Republicans William Buckley dupes that supported Vietnam? True there is a lot of tee vee and video game brainwashing of the youth but then we have been under a heavy propaganda regime in the U.S. since WWI and Edward Bernays promoted the Orwellian "making the world safe for liberty" sound familiar?
What I can tell you for sure is writing off the youth with a "git off my lawn you punk" is a recipe for disaster for any movement.
Sadly I am not in California anymore but Ypsilanti Michigan in the rustbelt.
Much as I sympathize with the sentiment....the average age of a teabagger is?
I do not see the sizable hispanic and black populations joining these right-wing causes. They are populated by the old...the over 50 crowd who are blindly terrified and have no clue what the 'intraweb' means.
Sorry, violent revolutions started by legions of geriatrics just aren't going to get far.
I expect we are seeing a resurgence of liberalism instead. It looks blackest right now, but that is what needs to happen to get more and more Americans to wake up. In that sense maybe it was a good thing Obama was elected...to demonstrate to the left that there is no rescue from above.
People the world over are starting to wake up to the fact that the have been conned by the neoliberals into acting against their own best interests and those of their children.Having said that things will most likely become worse before they improve as those who can not admit they were conned will embrace this failed ideology even more fiercely.
However there will come a time when the weight of the evidence will become far too heavy for all but the most obtuse. This is what I see when looking at the tea party
I too believe that Obama becoming president is a great thing because it has disabused many of the notion that there is a difference between the two ruling parties and will hasten the process towards the awakening of the majority of the American people.
The enemy is not any type of person so much as attitudes and beliefs that denigrate the whole range of non-white, non-American-born, non-male, non-youthful fellow citizens. We are not going to get very far by practicing the very sexism, racism, nationalism, elitism, and ageism! we observe and mock in others. Ignorance and prejudice, not types and groups of people, are the enemy!
[I am responding to the remarks: "causes... populated by the old... the over 50 crowd who are blindly terrified and have no clue what the 'intraweb' means... violent revolutions started by legions of geriatrics just aren't going to get far."]
This rage, this will to violence is silly, unproductive and self-defeating. It's so American.
The pen is mightier than the sword. The American narrative must change. Old ideas must be destroyed, new ones created.
The conservative ideology of the past 30 years must be shown to have failed Americans and be thoroughly rejected. The conservative false promises and failed ideas must be exposed and renounced.
Cleanse American politics of conservative ideals in order to find "personal freedom and a life with meaning."
There is no way to erase these erroneous, discredited ideals. Do you ever talk with people on the right? For example, they believe the financial meltdown was caused by the community reinvestment act, a bill designed to help poor people buy homes. They cling to this little aspect of the meltdown and ignore the major deregulations that allowed the bubble to expand and infect the global economy. For them, the cause was the welfare state and poor people defaulting on their liar loans.
The elites can manipulate these fox viewers till the cows come home. It is a done deal. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the TV is mightier than both, and they own it.
Thats why I believe we need to tell conservatives about fixcongressfirst.org: public financing of elections. Whatever Faux News says, the system is filled with examples of LIBERAL democrats taking corporate cash in return for votes. They can understand, at some level of logic, how making 'our' legislators dependent on corporate cash reduces our power to direct elections, including the elections of conservatives with true conservative ideologies.
Conservatives are suspicious of government power, but also of corporate power. It isn't lost on them how dangerous that second power has become, alloyed with the first. It isn't lost on them that the recent Supreme Court decision is primed to take democracy completely away from ordinary Americans, including conservative Americans. We need to get them to support publicly financed elections, a true marketplace of ideas, including conservative ideas far to the right of standard Republicanism. And the trick to doing that is to point out that conservatism isn't the enemy here: corporatism is the enemy.
Archimedes said, give me a lever and a firm place to stand and I can move the world.
Chris hedges hits on the ability to move the world. There is no greater power than the human spirit.
In East Germany, they even collected people's smells and stored them in jars on shelves.
Is there yet a techno that can register our smell-print?
"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. "
Chris is right on here. It has been apparent that the culture which portends to value freedom above all else has long since forfeited that condition in favor of the totalitarian oligarchy and associated spoils many believe are their due, but in actuality only accumulate at the top.
We have sold out for a cacophonic, tuneless song.
Hedges is not an instigator of violence. Systemic violence surrounds us. Now. With ruthless tentacles that snatch the young, the old, the economically exploited, the rebel, the unaware, all those who have ceaed to have value to the enslavers. Capitalism is the predator.
And I think Chris is correct that the window of opportunity to resist without grave and lethal consequencesa to the resistance is closing very quickly. Does anyone naively believe that these drones will not be used on us?
We need to develop a strategy of resistance. And we need to work to stop the violence that engulfs us.
Carve out a niche? They not only want us vanquished, but they are planning on doing just that.
Gargantuan Chambers Of Death are constructed and ready. They're called convention centers.
Death trains are waiting.
Millions are slated for slaughter.
We are seeing this, but not believing it?
The Rebellion is coming to DC and cities across the country: Let's march on MARCH 20! I'll see you In San Francisco, shutting down the bourgeois liberal town that claims to be progressive.
If the 20 million unemployed folks got off their ass, that would certainly send a shiver down the kleptocrats back. Refuse and Resist! All power to the people!
www.march20.org
www.socialistworker.org
MARCH 20! I'll see you In San Francisco, shutting down the bourgeois liberal town that claims to be progressive.
The fact that Pelosi so easily defeated Cindy Sheehan is proof positive that San Francisco is indeed "the bourgeois liberal town that claims to be progressive."
You can say that again Mordie!
Vintage Hedges--plenty of bile and bite. Everything is the fault of the liberals, the United States, the Democrats, the Republicans, the oligarchs, the media--except it isn't. So many of the world's problems are due to humans generally: pollution, global warming, overconsumption, religious conflict, overpopulation, pandemics. Hedges insists "just engage in revolution and all will be well," but it won't. The problem has to do with man and his insatiable desire for power and wealth. Socialism and democracy by themselves won't stop the planet from warming, won't quell the religious fanatics, won't stop people from craving more and more stuff--no matter the consequences. Chris, it's time to give up on simplistic explanations and solutions.
What is your suggestion? Sit on your ass and do nothing? We tried that for decades, it don't work.
You need to read some Howard Zinn and then get back to us with a detailed refutation of his claims. Otherwise your post appears ignorant of history and apologising for the status quo.
I've read plenty of Zinn--he offers a tunnel view of human history, often ignoring important factors like demographics, technological advances, environmental change, historical(!) explanations for American actions, as well as sociological insights including in-group vs. out-group conflict dynamics.
1. Demographics: How much of American individualism comes from an underpopulated land given to poor immigrants suffering under European class-based regimes? Can American exceptionalism be explained similarly? To what extent does the increase in a diverse population over the past fifty years explain racial attitudes?
2. Europe sent America strongly religious Protestants (at first) with little education--how does that fact relate to our present political and religious values?
3. American is enormous in land area--Europe is small by comparison. How does this very fact--the limitlessness of the environment--combined with the notion that land was free for the taking just by improving it--have anything to do with self-reliance, a concept always dear to the American way of thinking? Does self-reliance have anything to do with the way we regard the poor in this country?
4. America first constructed a vast array of highways and made it possible for ordinary people to get cars. Europe and the rest of the world lagged. Does American reliance on the auto have to do with the peculiar advantages of owning and driving your own car, advantages like freedom, for one. In Europe people didn't own personal cars--never did--is it surprising that they should develop mass transit sooner than us?
5. Americans, unlike Europeans, still have wilderness readily available in most parts of the country. Because the Europeans have cut down most of their forests, they tend to appreciate the things they have lost. We haven't lost them entirely. Does that have anything to do with our differing views of global warming?
6.Is America unique in having a ruling class--or is it like amost all the rest? When countries become huge--like China, Russia, and the United States--power does not reside with the people. It never has. Only in small nations like Denmark or Finland do people have control over actions the government may take. In short, there always has been and always will be an in-group that makes the decisions and an out-group that wishes they could. America is no different from any other country.
There you have it. Zinn and most of the posters here attribute America's failings to the oligarchs or to just plain wickedness. I am saying it is a lot more complicated than that--there are REASONS for what we do--and that it accomplishes nothing to rail at the United States as Hedges frequently does.
Good questions. In order to draw an accurate conclusion you have to look at Australia, Canada and Brazil as well rather then just the Europe and America comparison.
Now in theory Canadians as example , being a smaller population living in a larger landmass would be even more the "Rugged Individual".
One then has to look at how Centralized a Country as as far as its Central Government goes. As example compare the States power inside the USA against their federal Government, to that of the Provinces in Canada.
Lets look at transit. Why are there such differences between cities inside the same country.?
As example Vancouver has the lowest GHG emissions per capita of any major city in North America at 4.6 metric tons C02.
Toronto is in Canada yet at 9.3 tons.
London England is 6.2
Seattle is 7.1 Stockholm 4.0 Chicago 12.2.
Make internal State to State Comparisons inside the USA. Are the same statistics uniform or are they also showing significant differences. If so why?
I quite agree with your point. We need to look far beneath the surface to see what leads to differences if we are to understand where we are today and map a road to a more progressive future.
I would argue people are the way they are because of their history--primarily. Why does Vancouver have such a low carbon footprint? The answer is to be found in the people that moved there. In time, those with "green" attitudes attract others with similar values. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Vancouver is "green" because the majority of people attract people with that value. You might ask--well--if the "green people" left for Seattle, Vancouver, or wherever, what about the cities they left? Isn't it likely they would more skeptical about global warming, turning down the thermostat, driving Priuses? Of course. I believe one reason Europe is so "green" is that a fair number of Europeans with values emphasizing individuality, skepticism about government, and self-reliance migrated to the States. Take my area of Michigan, represented by Hoestra, a conservative Republican. He gets many votes from Dutch Reformed conservatives living in Grand Rapids. The Dutch? I thought they had liberal tendencies--at least in Europe. They do---that's because they sent their conservatives to the States! Maybe a bit of hyperbole is operating here--but you get the point.
I do not think it hyperbole at all. A good many left wing types left the USA during the Vietnam war. This helped pull Canada more to the left. Doctors that Move North to South from Canada tend to be the ones who do so for the big bucks. Their goal is more money. On the other hand we have a net inflow of Dotors in Canada including Doctors coming from the USA because they think the money a secondary issue to helping the sick.
Many of those Doctors that went from Canada to the US are amongst the most zealous supporters of for profit health care. At the same time those coming into Canada believe fully in a Publicly funded system and are amongst its strongest supporters.
I grew up in Alberta and my family grandfather dates back to the founding of the province. There is no way I saw him or my folks as the stereotypical redneck Conservative types. That type tends to be the more recent immigrant to Alberta who moved there because they heard it was redneck :)
Self fulfilling prophecy is exactly right.
Maybe waht we need to do is have a population swap. We can send the US all of our religous right and the true believers in the "Free market" , "Capitalism" and the Copoaration and they can send us up all their Socialists who want to see Universal health care and an end to the Corporate state. A tem nillion for 10 million swap straight across.
To push the point further, what about gays in places like Oklahoma City? Some stay in the closet and live out their lives in that conservative environment, but many more will move to New York and San Francisco. Cities--and countries, and states, and provinces-=take on a social climate and people either adapt to it or move to a place more agreeable. For myself, I would resist a transfer to Oklahoma with all my being--and, no doubt, a fundamentalist Baptist would have problems being transferred to New York. People choose social environments and social environments choose them. That helps us to understand the American (and Canadian) character.
Forgive me for being dense, what exactly is your suggestion then?
You are not being dense. I never entertained the question about what to do. For myself, I believe local issues are where the action is at. In my community the local power utility is deciding whether to burn biomass to generate power. There are strong differences of opinion--but there is the possibility that progressives can win with these kinds of disputes. As far as national policy goes, I don't have many answers, but I wouldn't go around arousing the anger of most Americans by calling them "sheeple" or "stupid"--a word, by the way, that expresses the anger of the user and does not point to any reality.
Taking the power away from the corporations and giving it back to the people could indeed stop the planet from warming, while improving the lives of every person, elites included (IMO).
I love reading Chris - but I suspect even he pulled a few punches here. The gaping whole in his piece is a lack of general suggestions on how to best position ourselves - economically, financially, domestically, etc, to optimize our eventual resistance.
We need some ideas, Chris!
I must tell you my head has been spinning even since I chose to adopt the school of thought that thinking about economic and societal collapse - mentally rehearsing it and accepting its inevitabilty is infinitely more wise than plunging feet first into the darkness.
So just what do we do? Where do we go? What do we say those who are standing in our way, namely our family and friends who insist we are deranged and paranoied??
I miss Mike Rupert's weekly articles, but thankfully his book "Confronting Collapse" is out there for us with a 25-point program of action for each of us. Katherine Austin Fitts is another person I trust on this topic.
My belief is that it is all going down, but will take longer than the "2012 Mayan Calendar" thesis.
In the mean time, I will continue to read Chris' articles here purely for their entertainment value. His writings take my mind off of the mamoth task confronting me.
When we die we cease to exist? Having been a secularist for several decades, I'm familiar with this certainty, that there is no After Life, that my "individual being will be obliterated" upon body-death.
What war does to faith can be told to us by those who have known and survived it.
Can war have such people wanting not to exist? Can it have them determined to obliterate all human life on this planet? My answer to these two questions is: Yes.
By way of a powerful, transformative LIGHT in my mind across the month of October 1981, I am brought to see that, on the contrary, the mind's eye of our such (our consciousness) never blinks, never closes, never sleeps and never dies, so that we pass through awake from this world into glassless clarity.
A Divine Intercession has taken place. There will be peace on this earth.
Believe it, or not.
Early this morning, I read this Chris Hedges article.
Chris Hedges took a road trip, talking to people along the way, and it is frightening! But, his findings go hand-in-hand with today's article. If you haven't already watched the video, posted on July 8, 2009, it's well worth the time.
www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20090708_time_for_a_second_revolution/
Brace yourself. The American empire is over. And the descent is going to be horrifying.
You got that right! And Obama, because he is black, will be among the first to "disappear".
I respectfully disagree, Mordechai, that Obomba will be "among the first to go."
On the contrary, an obedient boy like barack can be used by the robbers ad infinitum. He has high value.
Racism, sexism, patriotism, is pablum to control the masses. The oligarchs are equal opportunity exploiters. All that matters to them is their own self interested greed.
shut it all down...withdraw...endgame is real...we must act before it is too late...we cannot win, but we can stop...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...no more jobs...cessation of industry and private property...local living...individual engagement in sustenance and defense...communal sharing and managing of local resources...
let's get those gardens growing!
Came across this and had to share:
Middle-Class White America is Shocked!!
The ruling class saw the Red Man with all this land, they said, "They're wasting this land. We must take it from them." And they did. Nobody complained because they were Red.
When the monied class wanted to produce crops cheaply they said, "The Black man is wasting his time running around in Africa. We must use them as slaves." And they did. Nobody complained because they were Black.
When the elite business men wanted cheap products they looked at the Yellow Man and said, "They waste all their time growing rice and such. We must use them as cheap labor."And they did. Nobody complained because they were Yellow.
Then the rich and powerful looked around and saw the great, big, fat American middle class and said, "They have too much money. They waste it on frivolities. We must take that money from them." And they are doing that.
But now everyone is complaining! "But we're white, you shouldn't exploit us." And the truth comes out. It really wasn't about race, was it? It's always about the money.
===============
We are trained against solidarity our whole lives.
Maybe not in our families or certain personal influences, but on a societal/cultural level we are never taught that one person's suffering belongs to everyone, and that we are all responsible for alleviating anyone's suffering in our society.
Even further, we are taught that other struggling people are our competition, our enemy.
So we have a tendency to compartmentalize our political picture, as if all of these 'issues' are separate - war, immigrants' rights, environment, corporate welfare, unemployment, globalism, outsourcing, healthcare... But in reality, these are all part of the same overarching problem. The biggest fear of the ruling class is that all the people will figure that out and turn against their true enemy.
For any movement to become successful we need to learn how to overcome those obstacles, we need to learn why/how we are alienating potential allies.
I think it is all or nothing right now, and 'nothing' is winning...How do we harness the 'all'?
yes...we are trained, in fact, to not live...to not think...
to rely on others for our basic wants and necessities, up to and including our very thought processes and philosophies, and to trade our lifetime's days and hours for them...
we are receivers only...
generation is ours to choose, but we choose the lethargy of leisure...our abilities to generate thought and action are disintegrating...
our minds and bodies waste away as we eat, sit, stare and sleep...
the true revolution coming is the battle for the self...land is required...
free the land, free the people, free the soul...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...
mcoyote your post sums it all up rather nicely
thank you
"We are trained against solidarity our whole lives."
Yes, and now it has gotten so bad that a commenter in today's Chicago Tribune, responding to the news that Illinois' budget cuts include 17,000(!) fired teachers, said that "childless taxpayers should not be taxed to pay for breeders' brats."
Wow. The children of our state, the future of our species, are simply regarded "breeders' brats." Even when I was at my most self-absorbed, I couldn't even imagine writing off the children of the world.
*****
A few years ago, a co-worker saw me reading *The Fountainhead.* "Ah, Ayn Rand," he smirked, "philosophy for those people who gave birth to themselves."
That said, and says, it all really. Not only have we lost solidarity with one another as working men and women, we've gotten to the point where we actually believe that we exist purely as individuals in a vacuum. We are the people who believe they gave birth to themselves.
*****
Neimoller said it too, of course. When we're on the "inside," we don't notice all the horrors perpetrated against those on the "outside," forgetting all the while that it only takes one instant for us to make that transition ourselves. So we are anti-social security because we're young, or anti-childcare because we're childless, or anti-affirmative action because we're university legacies, or anti-single payer because we have decent insurance, or we support police state tactics because our party is currently in power.
And so it goes.
Capitalism is the tool used to separate the people from one another. By nature it sets the group and the individual against the other.
Capitalism is very clever as to how it garners followers. By allowing in a certain small few and giving the ILLUSION that anyone can make it and prosper in such a system it counts on a persons Greed and or desire to be perceived as "above the other".
The same principles were used by Imperialist powers when they were gaining controls over nations such as India. Turn the people on one another by exploiting a perceived or historical differences.
I remember a time when I was a violent revolutionary type. In fact the name solrev is a name I picked up in the 60’s, it comes from solution revolution. Not much has happened on the revolutionary front in the last 40 years, or has it? As time passed we lost our revolutionary spirit. The domino war was history and we had no civil rights battles to fight. Marx predicted that “the revolution” would happen in the US first, so I looked at Marx again to fine out what happened to “the revolution”. Then it dawned on me what “the revolution” Marx talked about really was. To understand Marx one has to separate Marx the messenger from the message. The revolution Marx spoke of was not the violent revolution, I once dreamed about. It is a revolution of the mind that can only happen when a society has achieved the means of production to provide the needs of the people. Now, that’s a revelation, if Marx would not have been such an enemy of institutional religious control over an individual, he may have used that word himself. The revolution is happening all around you as you read this. The revolution does not require supermen who can leap tall buildings in a single bound, and fight for truth, justice and the American way. What drives the revolution will be the fall of Babylon, and Babylon always falls. When the masses that have been clinging to the bootstraps of Babylon for survival have a revelation, you will have the revolution. Why will they have the revelation, because the boots will come off in their hands and the means of production exists? We Mystics take it a step farther, “and the Holy Spirit entered into their hearts, that they would agree to turn their land over to the beast”, we do not underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit to dispense a revelation hear and there. Unfortunately, it takes three generations to change, one to think it, one to learn it, and one to live it, welcome to the first generation.
three generations? may we have three remaining...
a nice phrase, but I think we must declare it just that, and prepare this generation for action beyond thinking...
let's get those gardens growing!
Marx also said religion (mysticism/spirituality) is the opiate of the masses. Nothing is going to happen for free or because it's preordained by non existent gods, goddesses, or energies we are going to have to do it ourselves, or not. But thanks for the unnecessary 3 generation stall I'll take a pass on that one, thanks.
Stereohead:
Lenin also said on his deathbed that if he had it to do it all over again, he would hire ten St. Francis's of Assisi.
Lenin and all school state centralist Communists who ruined Marxism is hardly a hero to me. Also a source on the quote please?
"Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system."
Dorothy Day - Radical Catholic Activist 1897-1980
This is the quote we should run with.
I can certainly agree with you there!
Lemme just say this:
Read: http://tinyurl.com/y8vjogx
And remember - one thing 'the system' is actually not in any way prepared for is a serious revolt and resistance. It may appear that it is, but it's actually the last thing our CorpoGovernment expects from us fat, lazy, stupid 'Mercans...
Now get to work. And don't forget to keep your f**king mouths shut.
I am pessimistic about our once-great nation, true, but nowhere near to the degree that Hedges is. He sees the USA dropping like a stone; I see it more or less floating downward like a feather. It took the Roman Empire 500 years to fall, but that was because lack of advanced technology impeded their descent. We will fall over a shorter period, but it will still feel like a slow-motion descent over the course of 50-100 years. Oh, we'll still show signs of coming back to life occasionally: a boom in the stock market here followed by a tanking there; a pundit or two trying to sell us on the notion that we're still No. 1, but 300 million of us gradually descending into poverty, homelessness, joblessness and sickness will speak otherwise. A half a century from now we'll lack both the physical strength (from hunger) and the drive to do anything about it (our leaders know there's nothing like starvation to sap an anarchist of the will to do anything but sit on a street corner with a placard). We are on the path to third-world status as Mr. Hedges says and maybe there'll be a small riot or two but nothing to rival the American Revolution. Like getting old, we'll wake up one morning, look at ourselves in the mirror and ask, "When did this happen to me?" In short, we'll look like India in a few decades, with a population to match. Take a look at the other three most populous countries in the world from highest to lowest: China, India, and then Indonesia and notice the standard of living for 95% of their people: no healthcare, massive unemployment, grinding poverty, slums, squalor. That's our destiny.
The US of A was never a great nation. We can't stop living the lie until we stop telling it.
A quibble I have with Hedge's article, and a consistent theme in his writing, is that he all too often looks at the situation as if somehow where we are today is a deviation from a once acceptable course. Perhaps this is because he has only recently been awakened to the profoundly belligerent aspects of the USofA. It would be interesting to speak to him about this in greater detail. The implication in articles like this is that we need to "restore" the USofA back to it's "naturally democratic trajectory." Of course nothing like that ever existed, this has been an Empire since day one. Note that it's primary symbol of nationalism, Stars and Stripes, has been cumulative right from the start.
A gentle reminder:
What gets to me is people thinking America was once a great country with a moral compass? When was that? I must have missed that part of history. From the massacres of Indians, to slavery, to Hiroshima, Vietnam, to its policies in Latin America, to its support for the creation of the terrorist state of Israel, to supporting the Shah of Iran, to supporting Saddam with intelligence and chemical weapons against the Iranian people, to these modern day Middle East debacles, America has by far the worst track record. They just have a very powerful propaganda machine to show they are the land of the free.
"We" stole half of Mexico by armed force -- the nice parts with rich deposits of gold and silver (and, as it turned out, oil -- though "we" didn't actually recognize that at the time.)
"We" made sure that "our" influence over Latin America was such that wealth would be steadily transferred from their countries to ours. "We" sent the Marines to Nicaragua, Haiti, & Guatemala often enough to insure that life in those countries would be a permanent living hell for most of the inhabitants. "We" imposed military dictatorships in almost every Central & South American country, stunting the aspirations of their people, & imposing conditions from which some of those countries will never recover. (So if some of the people want to escape from the living conditions in those countries, "we" had very much to do with creating those conditions.)
Interestingly, "we" started doing all this at the same time that "we" were exterminating the indigenous people here, AND using black slaves from Africa. What a loveable, righteous people "we" are, here in the "Land of the Free"!!
"We" came here somewhere in the early 1600s. "We" found this Promised Land, rich beyond imagination with fresh water and fertile earth and abundant game and timber for the felling. And to "our" further delight, it was largely uninhabited--if "we" didn't count the Red Ones.
"We" didn't see too many of them at first; they avoided our noise and the smoke from our fires, which were always too big. But soon enough, "we" were here in such numbers that they couldn't go around us anymore.
"We" were shocked--SHOCKED, I tell ya--that there were Savages in "our" Promised Land! So "we" set about exterminating them. "We" killed them whenever "we" saw them, "we" drove them from their land and their homes, "we" slaughtered their food supply and left the buffalo bodies to rot in the sun by the hundreds of acres. "We" gave them blankets full of smallpox, murdered their children and raped their women before "we" murdered them as well. "We" rounded them up into concentration camps and ate their food while they starved. "We" made them cut their hair, wear britches and beat them to death if they wouldn't speak "our" language.
"We" stole a whole fucking continent from them and paid them in Genocide.
mcoyote:
Brilliant post. You have the gift to write and tell the truth as it was, not like the usual suspects......
>>>>>>"The US of A was never a great nation. We can't stop living the lie until we stop telling it."
By way of explanation, I realize we have a lot of skeletons in our closet, human rights-wise. I was more referring to the the years from 1945 to 1980, when Ronnie Raygun got into the WH and systematically began to destroy everything of value under orders from his paymasters. These were the decades, Vietnam notwithstanding, when the common man was at his peak of affluence: one-income family; husband on a stable job he could expect to retire from; two/three kids he and his wife could afford to raise in their own little affordable dream home and then put them through university and still have enough left over to go into retirement without having to worry about medical bankruptcy wiping out their nest egg. I come from that background and, despite being mature, I get a little misty thinking back on those good times (and they WERE good for most of us). I miss them.
Again, before you get all misty-eyed reliving the good old days of post-WWII Amerikkka...
Look up Guatemala circa 1954. Iran circa 1953 (Operation Ajax).
Eisenhower golfed while the MIC exploded with taxpayer-infused dollars, then warned the people about it as he made his exit (stage left?).
Yes, the people of Amerikkka enjoyed a grand old time here at home while we made sure to protect our neighbors from THEIR leaders who wanted nothing more than peace, security and prosperity for their OWN people using their OWN resources.
This affluence came with the nascent strings of Empire attached.
The 60s brought us revolutionary times (affluence and education will do that), and Nixon, and the concept of Executive Power, and Watergate, and the neo-cons---these people HATE democracy, it is messy, ultimately they see it as an inability to control the masses. Can't have people thinking CRITICALLY! The answer of course is to make them feel financially insecure. Oh, but we need them to keep shopping? Ah, just extend them CREDIT. Don't believe me? Read their own words starting with Leo Strauss.
Read history, or better yet, get a passport (and if you already own one, splendid!) and travel outside of the US. But don't do the touristy thing and visit all of the places-of-interest. Get out there and talk with the natives, the foreigners, people from different cultures with different perspectives. Can't afford it? Start renting foreign films that have a social conscience. Perhaps then the layers of American Exceptionalism will peel away and you will be able to glimpse the true Human Spirit that resides in all of us, regardless of nationality or ethnicity, the one that points to our true connectivity.
Thank you Chris, for another good piece of writing.
I am 61, was a draft resister who refused induction in 1970 and expatriated to Canada for a couple of years and then ended up getting a deferment before the amnesty. It disrupted my life a lot, but compared to what the soldiers went through, it was relatively painless.
I thought the U.S. learned something from the long nightmare in Vietnam. But what it learned was to A. keep anything resembling a free press away from access to military conflicts, and B. Avoid a citizen army of draftees and instead use mercenaries, both corporate and within the military establishment.
I never thought I would ever advocate the draft, but had there been a draft since 2003, the two "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan might well have been over by now. We'll never know if that would have been the case, but it's possible.
On a nuts and bolts level, it is money which enables these two illegal, wasteful, pointless "wars". A tax revolt would only work if hundreds of thousands or even millions of taxpayers stood in solidarity. Otherwise, the IRS picks people off one by one, and thus terrorizes the rest into compliance. This is very similar to the reprisal tactic that the Germans used on the WW2 French Resistance: if one German was killed, fifty random French were killed. Uprisings don't work well piecemeal, and I don't see a mass uprising happening in the U.S. any time soon, unless perhaps if beer was banned and TV was not allowed to broadcast football. THAT would get Americans riled up and in the streets. Illegal wars of aggression? Not so much.
Americans love violence. In fact, I would say that love of violence is the true American religion, more so that Christianity, which is a religion of pacifism- or is supposed to be. (IMHO I mean). Americans love violence, as long as it is NIMBY. Having the archetypical "islamic terrorist" as a boogeyman is very effective and allows Americans to channel their free-floating resentments at someone. All it takes is a reading of comments on any of hundreds of forums or comments sections on the Web to see how much nastiness there is out there, how much expressed desire to hurt, kill, blow up, maim, or "turn their country into glass" sentiment there is, right here at home. Yet we persist in the illusion that we Americans are the nicest guys, the "good guys" of the world.
Our country has become the very definition of hubris- a land of "overweening pride". I don't even feel like it's my country any more. I think the "revolution" has already happened and it has been a stealth coup, and that our government is acting more and more like our former worst enemies- the Nazis, or the worst of the Soviet regimes, in past years.
To me, the worst blasphemy of all regarding the wars has been the "Christianity"- (so-called)- the crusader mentality of "kill for the Lord", that has deeply infected (it does seem very like an infection) our government and military establishments. This has been supported, or even led, by many of the churches- especially from the fundamentalist "Christian" sector, which, nowadays, takes all of its lessons from the Old Testament, and mostly ignores the New.
If the public could connect the bad state of the economy with the huge costs of "defense", that would help us toward a strong popular movement to end the "wars." But most Americans do not see, or don't want to see, the connection. To me it is a elementary: if my tax money is going to things that just blow up, chances are everything I buy is going to get more and more expensive.
Insightful comments. Thanks.
This is a painfully sad but excellent article reminding us that this nation is a lost soul. I am still burned with anger that other beautiful cultures around the world whose cultural and economic values of socialism actually built a somewhat good global economy in the past are being written off and replaced with yuppie capitalism by some people who still think that the US is somehow a beacon of "democracy". But there is one thing I disagree with Chris on. We can stop this war machine even if we cannot steer it away. To leave the ship and start a new life on a peaceful frontier may look frightening at first but how long can we afford to allow our misery to burn within us? It can't go on and has to stop.
"We can stop this war machine even if we cannot steer it away. To leave the ship and start a new life on a peaceful frontier may look frightening at first but how long can we afford to allow our misery to burn within us? It can't go on and has to stop."
Amen, max!
And, we can start right where we are. We can start the peaceful frontier with others who want the same.
Thanks Ted. Right now, after being given boring tasks and finding my job sappy these days, I'm looking for a new job. I have gotten into too many arguments with management every time I tried to direct project priorities towards projects geared for helping local businesses over projects to help big banks and the military. I'm tired of watching my neighboring Norfolk and Suffolk counties withering away unless they tie themselves to the Military Industrial Complex. The contract which lasted for years ends in August and they're trying to bid for a new one. They think they're so big when they kiss up to the MIC or some big corporation for customer relations. It was always this way but not as bad as it is today.
Good on you Max...
for doing all you can within the "system" to support local businesses, and for realizing the limitations therein...
Good luck with whatever you end up doing next...
Thanks Goldenmean and glad to see you again. As the contract is not too far from coming to an end and the future is uncertain, I begin to take the time to thinking my next job in a more thoughtful manner. The one fundamental lesson I learned the hard way was to never ever accept a job offer that hypes about reaching out to small business customers while contracting with the government. When they contract to government, life at work can be either very dull or very stressful. I will expand on this lesson learned in future posts where I can.
PS - I might also be able to convince my wife out of birth control pills if I can land a better job that will allow me to be a loving father and not allow work to force me into neglecting my family. More than hurting myself, I don't like hurting the ones I love the most. Thank you again and thank you Common Dreams and posters for giving me a new direction in thinking away from the stale liberal type towards true progressive thinking and learning.
Hedges: "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."
Can we all agree, right from the start, that no human being was ever, or ever could be, 'complicit in their own enslavement'?
Constructively, here's how I think we should 'rebel': fixcongressfirst.org. If enough of us swamp this website and volunteer, pay our dues, and warn our legislators of their abrupt firing from office if they don't push it through NOW (as in right now), INCLUDING the Constitutional Convention it calls for, then we can throw the money-lenders out of the temple of our democracy once and for all.
And, if that doesn't do it, we can all take Hedges somewhat unfocused advice, and go the 'mad as hell' route.
Can we all agree, right from the start, that no human being was ever, or ever could be, 'complicit in their own enslavement'?
I wish I could agree, ubrew, but what about ADVERTISING?
The very successful ads for predatory lenders.
The Vogue models who convince sentient women to starve themselves.
The working class family driving around in their old beater car with a "W" on their cattywampus bumper.
The Obomber bamboozlees.
America is the birthplace of psych-manipulative science. We have turned the production of self-enslavement into a fine art.
This is the formidable barrier that confronts all our efforts to organize a people's movement. It is what we need to understand and dismantle so that people regain their capacity for critical thought.
To take only a couple of examples, aren't heroin addicts and folks massively addicted to cigarettes complicit in their own enslavement?
What needs to be considered here are the phenomena of self-deception, self-lying, self-loathing, self-destroying, and such. Unfortunately, human beings are slavish in more than one way. Many people do not know how to manage their desires. This applies to all kinds of people, from lower-class heavy drinkers to greedy bankers and financiers and other greed-driven capitalists.
It goes without saying that the kind of capitalism we have developed over the last century encourages hedonism, loose desires, all manner of licit and illicit addictions, for the latter lead to consumption and over-consumption and thereby maintain constant growth. Economies of constant growth promote self-incurred tutelage to the consumption cycles.
I think that heavy drinkers, for example, are complicit in their own destruction. But, to be complicit in their own enslavement implies an enslaver, someone other than themselves. And I think we can be more constructive with the situation by identifying the 'enslaver', rather than just blaming the victim of enslavement as someone who 'did it to himself'. Americans who watch Faux News are, in my opinion, complicit in their own destruction (Whats the matter with Kansas?). But they didn't choose to be enslaved, someone chose that for them.
I believe that corporate forces have used the 'privatized campaign financing' model to horribly corrupt our democracy. THEY are the enslavers of us all, even of those of us who watch Faux News, or are liberals. THEY need to be identified and thrown out of our democratic temple. Yesterday. So we can all go back to drinking ;)
How about debt slavery? I was certainly complicit in my own financial enslavement, like millions of other Americans, and am still working to break free of the banksters' financial chains. Indeed, our financial enslavement may well be the cause of this country's demise.
No, you were not complicit in your financial enslavement. Thats what the consumer financial protection act is all about. Its a specific admission that it was unreasonable to expect you to juggle the many things in your life AND an avalanche of financial instruments designed to fleece you when you weren't looking.
If you've been enslaved, someone did that to you. That someone is a villian. Period. (to the point: these WallStreet banksters knew EXACTLY what they were doing. The oodles of fine print basically say that lawfully, they don't have to fulfill a single promise to you, so bend over.)
Revolution will not come as a result of critical thought. Hunger will be the catalyst.
You're right, Buck, hunger will be a catalyst. But I think that 'hunger' will effectively be psycho-social. People hunger for community, security (and I don't mean the MIC version,)and equality.
There is a distict, palpable rage in our culture now. A very justified and healthy rage. But we are delimited by a corporate media whose role is to misdirect the focus of that rage. So that the legitimate targets are protected and able to maintain their control.
I think if the people are ever able to see through the deceptions and figure out who the rel terrorists are, that will be the revolution.
People who lack critical thinking skills are easily distracted by xenophobic and rel. fundamentalism.
what do you see as the cause of the justified and healthy rage, and how would you best see that rage focused?
"So that the legitimate targets are protected and able to maintain their control"
This is where Stark, McVeigh, and Bin Laden (maybe) failed. They attacked innocents, not the culprits. Who will be the next John Brown? Is V for vendetta? Should the media figures go first?
Remember, remember eleven September.
40 million people suffered food insecurity last year. Why aren't they angry, are they sitting at home with their hunger.
Hunger isn't the impetus, the impetus to act are feelings of injustice and the knowledge of a parent that the only chances for their children lie in change.
Advertising is just enforced 'Stockholm Syndrome'. I took you hostage, now you love me. That doesn't make me any less a villian, an enslaver. (It does, though, make you rather f**ked up psychologically). We need to identify these villians, and fight them (and not for their Gucci shoes either).
(Boy, you guys have been busy since i read this article and had to run. I share this computer and the other "computer" lady keeps coming out here a LITTLE earlier every day.)
I'd like to hope Chris was right about "we are not slaves," but I am afraid we are. Many (most) of Americans are enslaved to their jobs, their cars, their sports and reality and below-average scripted programs on their big flat screen TV, their fast food, their partying, their homes and (to a certain extent) to their families. For many it's not a bad life at all. And it is easy to look away from the evidence that all is not well here in the United States.
So will it be the working poor that leads the revolution? It has been thus in other countries, but I suspect not here. Americans like to think of themselves (even when they clearly are not) as middle-class or soon to be so, and the middle-class rarely leads revolt. It certainly will not come from the upper-classes -- they're the fucking problem.
So who is left? The truly poor and students. The underclass has few resources to support marches other than in their neighborhood. So we are left with students.
They mobilized quickly enough in California when their college programs and tuition were in jeopardy. Not how to get that sense of urgency for the overthrow of the kleptocracy. They need to be made to understand they will have to PAY for and LIVE in the mess that corruption of the system has left. That the world is choking on its own shit is known to them. But how to change that and the other problems may not be. Revolt and rebellion are not exactly taught in our schools -- exactly the opposite; complacency and docility and greed for their own share of the pie.
But they are in a period when they are open to new ideas, willing to experiment, to gain wisdom. And perhaps, just perhaps, fight for their future.
I think students will lead the rebellion and shape the revolution. With I hope some sound advise from their elder rebels. I just hope the bloodshed will be minimal.
Gary
King Louis XVI: "Is this a revolt?"
Duke of Rochefoucauld-Liancourt: "No, sir, it's a revolution."
Exchange after the fall of the Bastille,14 July 1789. Quoted in F Dreyfus La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt (1903), ch.2, section 3.
Interesting post Gary. Some, Like Michael Albert think its the poor and working poor who will have 'to lead,' Howard Zinn in The People's History floated the idea of 'the guards,' the bought-off middle and upper middle class leading, and even Ralph Nader has put out this, I assume at least semi-serious, idea of the 'super rich' doing some such shit. What do you think? We all, as classes, seem to be limited in so many ways. We on the left are all groping around, it seems, wondering where to put our effort to have maximal effect.
I do think I agree with Chomsky on this that this is kind of a pointless exercise because you just don't know, and never can know, where the best effect will be so we kind of paralyze or limit our efforts or digress into parochialism, in-fighting, etc. I tend to think there are not formulaic or doctrinal answers to these things, though we always apply our intelligence AND our values whether it comes to strategy or tactics, and what comes out comes out. If we don't have success then we go back to the drawing board and try harder. Thoughts?
Revolution is like war -- you can only be sure you will have results you don't expect.
I suppose I should be clearer; I think the students, SPURRED ON BY OLDER REBELS, will be the spark, not just the troops. I'd hope unions and "third parties" and churches and much more of our society would join in the revolution -- without them it would fail.
There will be crossing of the class line. Some, afraid and ignorant will fight FOR the status quo. Some of the police and security forces will fight for their masters, but not I think all. I suspect someone will get shot or head beaten in. Maybe, sadly, several will be martyred. Rebellion is a condition very alike war itself, and can easily slip into it.
At the least we have come to common opinions about what we DON"T want in a government, and the culture. Several people here have listed most that Hedges managed no to get to in that beautiful rant.
Gary
"A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence."
-- Sigmund Freud
As always, Hedges is excellent. I have recently been thinking about the past 40 years, and the role that voices like that of The Nation's has played in bringing us to our present, sorry pass. Always pledging allegiance to whatever falls out the donkey's backside, these useful idiots of the corporate status quo have shown us what faux "realism" brings: things get worse. That's what happens when you give your life's effort to the lesser evil...because evil doesn't make things better, and it doesn't stand still.
But there is no learning curve there--none at all. Pretendgressives and lemming liberals still, as Hedges points out, repeat the same brain-dead mantra of "elect Democrats." Isn't it funny that, even with a majority in both chambers, and a President, Democrats are making matters worse on all fronts? The self-deception of The Nation and its ilk is pathetic--and also dangerous.
It is long past time to completely break with these occupants of the tree house allotted to them by their corporate host. The question is, is there time enough for us to do anything other than prepare for a descent into barbarism...the rule of contending armed groups fighting over remaining sources of potable water and food?
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Odubya is worse than Bush.
acutenecrotizingfasciitus
power + money = govorporation = fascism
And gangrene of democracy.
Hedges' ditty can best be summarized as: Yes, you're all going down, but at least go down fighting."
Or as Todd Rundgren put it:
"Why suffer for nothing?
Suffer for something."
"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."
This is what I'm talking about.
Armed insurrection is one thing, and should be the last thing we do. First, we can do what we can to prevent the machine from working.
This will mean that we have to change our lives. Actually, whatever the meaning, we WILL be changing our lives in the not too distant future. What is unsustainable will not be sustained.
I have been calling for people to start reaching out and building community. Do it, now. No one will survive alone. Interdependency is key, and it will be what saves our lives.
Hedges articles are sounding more serious - desperate, almost. And for good reason. Things are looking pretty bleak. While no one has a crystal ball, it just takes a sober assessment to see that the good days are most likely over, and it's going to be a long mud season ahead.
Permaculture
Food buying co-ops
Expanded gardens and season extenders
Barter groups
Time banks
Simplicity circles
Create a food storage system
Have food and water for at least a week
March and protest
Join up. If there is not a group in your area, start one. If no one in your area wants to join, move to where there are some. Community will be our life saver in the near future even more than it is now.