Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion

Monday 22 November 2010

Power and the Tiny Acts of Rebellion
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: philentropist, massenpunkt)

There is no hope left for achieving significant reform or restoring our democracy through established mechanisms of power. The electoral process has been hijacked by corporations. The judiciary has been corrupted and bought. The press shuts out the most important voices in the country and feeds us the banal and the absurd. Universities prostitute themselves for corporate dollars. Labor unions are marginal and ineffectual forces. The economy is in the hands of corporate swindlers and speculators. And the public, enchanted by electronic hallucinations, remains passive and supine. We have no tools left within the power structure in our fight to halt unchecked corporate pillage.

The liberal class, which Barack Obama represents, was never endowed with much vision or courage, but it did occasionally respond when pressured by popular democratic movements. This was how we got the New Deal, civil rights legislation and the array of consumer legislation pushed through by Ralph Nader and his allies in the Democratic Party. The complete surrendering of power, however, to corporate interests means that those of us who seek nonviolent yet profound change have no one within the power elite we can trust for support. The corporate coup has ossified the structures of power. It has obliterated all checks on corporate malfeasance. It has left us stripped of the tools of mass organization that once nudged the system forward toward justice.

Obama knows where power lies and serves these centers of power. The tragedy—if tragedy is the right word—is that Obama, after selling his soul to corporations, has been discarded. Corporate power doesn’t need brand Obama anymore. They have found new brands in the tea party, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. Obama has been abandoned by those who once bundled contributions for him by the millions of dollars. Obama and the Democratic Party will, I expect, spend the next two years being even more obsequious to corporate power. Obama clearly loves the pomp and privilege of statecraft that much. But I am not sure it will work.

Reformers on the outside, while they remain militant and faithful to issues of justice, nevertheless depend on the liberal establishment to respond to public pressure. If these reformers cannot pressure the liberal class and the power elite to evoke real change, they become ineffectual. Our fate is intimately tied to the liberals who have betrayed us. We speak in the language of policies and issues. We will find it harder and harder, given our impotence, to compete with the impassioned calls for new glory, revenge and moral purity that resonate with a public beset by foreclosures, long-term unemployment, bankruptcies and a medical system that abandons them. Once any political system ossifies, once all mechanisms for reform close, the lunatic fringe of a society, as I saw in Yugoslavia, rises out of the moral swamp to take control. The reformers, however well meaning and honest, finally have nothing to offer. They are disarmed.

We have reached a point where stunted and deformed individuals, whose rapacious greed fuels the plunge of tens of millions of Americans into abject poverty and misery, determine the moral fiber of the nation. It is no more morally justifiable to kill someone for profit than it is to kill that person for religious fanaticism. And yet, from health companies to the oil and natural gas industry to private weapons contractors, individual death and the wholesale death of the ecosystem have become acceptable corporate business. The mounting human misery in the United States, which could lead to the sporadic bursts of anger we have seen on the streets of France, will be met with severe repression from the security and surveillance state, which always accompanies the rise of the corporate state. The one method left open by which we can respond—massive street protests, the destruction of corporate property and violence—will become the excuse to impose total tyranny. The intrusive pat-downs at airports may soon become a fond memory of what it was like when we still had a little freedom left.

All reform movements, from the battle for universal health care to the struggle for alternative energy and sane environmental controls to financial regulation to an end to our permanent war economy, have run into this new, terrifying configuration of power. They have confronted an awful truth. We do not count. And they have been helpless to respond as those who are most skilled in the manipulation of hate lead a confused populace to call for their own enslavement.

Dr. Margaret Flowers, a pediatrician from Maryland who volunteers for Physicians for a National Health Program, knows what it is like to challenge the corporate leviathan. She was blacklisted by the corporate media. She was locked out of the debate on health care reform by the Democratic Party and liberal organizations such as MoveOn. She was abandoned by those in Congress who had once backed calls for a rational health care policy. And when she and seven other activists demanded that the argument for universal health care be considered at the hearings held by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, they were forcibly removed from the hearing room.

“The reform process exposed how broken our system is,” Flowers said when we spoke a few days ago. “The health reform debate was never an actual debate. Those in power were very reluctant to have single-payer advocates testify or come to the table. They would not seriously consider our proposal because it was based on evidence of what works. And they did not want this evidence placed before the public. They needed the reform to be based on what they thought was politically feasible and acceptable to the industries that fund their campaigns.”

“There was nobody in the House or the Senate who held fast on universal health care,” she lamented. “Sen. [Bernie] Sanders from Vermont introduced a single-payer bill, S 703. He introduced an amendment that would have substituted S 703 for what the Senate was putting together. We had to push pretty hard to get that to the Senate floor, but in the end he was forced by the leadership to withdraw it. He was our strongest person. In the House we saw Chairman John Conyers, who is the lead sponsor for the House single-payer bill, give up pushing for single-payer very early in the process in 2009. Dennis Kucinich pushed to get an amendment that would help give states the ability to pass single-payer. He was not successful in getting that kept in the final House bill. He held out for the longest, but in the end he caved.”

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“You can’t effect change from the inside,” she has concluded. “We have a huge imbalance of power. Until we have a shift in power we won’t get effective change in any area, whether financial, climate, you name it. With the wealth inequalities, with the road we are headed down, we face serious problems. Those who work and advocate for social and economic justice have to now join together. We have to be independent of political parties and the major funders. The revolution will not be funded. This is very true.”

“Those who are working for effective change are not going to get foundation dollars,” she stated. “Once a foundation or a wealthy individual agrees to give money they control how that money is used. You have to report to them how you spend that money. They control what you can and cannot do. Robert Wood Johnson [the foundation], for example, funds many public health departments. They fund groups that advocate for health care reform, but those groups are not allowed to pursue or talk about single-payer. Robert Wood Johnson only supports work that is done to create what they call public/private partnership. And we know this is totally ineffective. We tried this before. It is allowing private insurers to exist but developing programs to fill the gaps. Robert Wood Johnson actually works against a single-payer health care system. The Health Care for America Now coalition was another example. It only supported what the Democrats supported. There are a lot of activist groups controlled by the Democratic Party, including Families USA and MoveOn. MoveOn is a very good example. If you look at polls of Democrats on single-payer, about 80 percent support it. But at MoveOn meetings, which is made up mostly of Democrats, when people raised the idea of working for single-payer they were told by MoveOn leaders that the organization was not doing that. And this took place while the Democrats were busy selling out women’s rights, immigrant rights to health care and abandoning the public option. Yet all these groups continued to work for the bill. They argued, in the end, that the health care bill had to be supported because it was not really about health care. It was about the viability of President Obama and the Democratic Party. This is why, in the end, we had to pass it.”

“The Democrats and the Republicans give the illusion that there are differences between them,” said Dr. Flowers. “This keeps the public divided. It weakens opposition. We fight over whether a Democrat will get elected or a Republican will get elected. We vote for the lesser evil, but meanwhile the policies the two parties enact are not significantly different. There were no Democrats willing to hold the line on single-payer. Not one. I don’t see this changing until we radically shift the balance of power by creating a larger and broader social movement.”

The corporate control of every aspect of American life is mirrored in the corporate control of health care. And there are no barriers to prevent corporate domination of every sector of our lives.

“We are at a crisis,” Flowers said. “Health care providers, particularly those in primary care, are finding it very difficult to sustain an independent practice. We are seeing greater and greater corporatization of our health care. Practices are being taken over by these large corporations. You have absolutely no voice when it comes to dealing with the insurance company. They tell you what your reimbursements will be. They make it incredibly difficult and complex to get reimbursed. The rules are arbitrary and change frequently.”

“This new legislation [passed earlier this year] does not change any of that,” she said. “It does not make it easier for doctors. It adds more administrative complexity. We are going to continue to have a shortage of doctors. As the new law rolls out they are giving waivers as the provisions kick in because corporations like McDonald’s say they can’t comply. Insurance companies such as WellPoint, UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Cigna and Humana that were mandated to sell new policies to children with pre-existing conditions announced they were not going to do it. They said they were going to stop selling new policies to children. So they got waivers from the Obama administration allowing them to charge higher premiums. Health care costs are going to rise faster. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimated that after the legislation passed, our health care costs would rise more steeply than if we had done nothing. The Census Bureau reports that the number of uninsured in the U.S. jumped 10 percent to 51 million people in 2009. About 5.8 million were able to go on public programs, but a third of our population under the age of 65 was uninsured for some portion of 2009. The National Health Insurance Survey estimates that we now have 58 or 59 million uninsured. And the trend is toward underinsurance. These faulty insurance products leave people financially vulnerable if they have a serious accident or illness. They also have financial barriers to care. Co-pays and deductibles cause people to delay or avoid getting the care they need. And all these trends will worsen.”

In Manuel de Lope’s novel “The Wrong Blood,” set during the first rumblings that led to the Spanish Civil War, he writes “... nobody knew this at the time and those who had premonitions wouldn’t go so far as to believe them, because fear rejects what intuition accepts.”

But the signs are now so palpable that even fear is not working. Our worst premonitions are becoming reality. Our intuition has proved correct. We are reaching the breaking point. An explosion, unless we halt the increased pressure, seems inevitable. And what is left for those of us who cannot embrace the contaminants of violence? If the system shuts us out how can we influence it through nonviolent mechanisms of popular protest? How can we restore a civil society? How can we battle back against those who will mobilize hatred to cement into place an American fascism?

I do not know if we can win this battle. I suspect we cannot. But I do know that if we stop resisting, if we stop rebelling, something fundamental will die within us. As the corporate vise tightens, as the vast corporate system begins to break down with fossil fuel decline, extreme climate change and the expansion of global poverty, even mundane and ordinary acts to assert our common humanity and justice will be condemned as subversive.

It is time to think of resistance in a new way, something that is no longer carried out to reform a system but as an end in itself. African-Americans understood this during the long night of slavery. German opposition leaders understood it under the Nazis. Dissidents in the former Soviet Union knew this during the nightmare of communism. Resistance in these closed systems was local and often solitary. It was done with the understanding that evil must always be defied. The tiny acts of rebellion—day after day, month after month, year after year and decade after decade—exposed to everyone who witnessed them the heartlessness, cruelty and inhumanity of the oppressor. They were acts of truth and beauty. We must take to the street. We must jam as many wrenches into the corporate system as we can. We must not make it easy for them. But we also must no longer live in self-delusion. This is a battle that will outlive us. And if we fight, even with this tragic vision, we will lead lives worth living and keep alive another way of being.

Chris Hedges is a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and writes a column every Monday for Truthdig. His newest book is “Death of the Liberal Class.”

All republished content that appears on Truthout has been obtained by permission or license.

Comments

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Time to bring out the

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 16:46 — Anonymous (not verified)

Time to bring out the guillotines.

Seriously.

Some 2nd amendment solutions towards CEOs, banksters and other vorocrats will definitely send a strong message.

Know your front groups,

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 17:11 — Military Corporation (not verified)

Know your front groups, (including MoveOn)

Of all those who comment on

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 17:20 — Terry B. Whelan (not verified)

Of all those who comment on the contemporary world situation, this writer shames the other chatterers with a grim truth.

You have fought valiantly,

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 17:55 — BillyDoc (not verified)

You have fought valiantly, Chris, and I love you for it. But I fear the battle can no longer be won. Our people have been conditioned at every opportunity to to be helpless and passive, to "respect authority," and to fear the unknown. Most also realize at a deep gut level how delicate our interconnected society has become. How will they eat if the "system" collapses and nobody brings food to the stores? If money fails? Where will they buy the ammunition for their "second amendment" solutions? How will they stay warm in winter? These are truly fearful prospects!

My inclination is to cut and run. Like you, but certainly not as effectively as you, I have tried and tried to stop this decline and been blocked at every turn. I am so angry at the willful ignorance of the American public that it is becoming easier to just walk away and leave them to their fate. "Conspiracy theorist," they call me, in order to relieve themselves of actually thinking through the facts. The simple example of applying the rather well established laws of gravity to the events of September, nine years ago, and drawing the obvious conclusions comes to mind in this context. I even have to be oblique to reference those events here, or the "spam filter" will block my comment.

So, I'm now actively working on a plan to leave for a more civilized climate. I'm old, and it is not easy to do this, but I know many who are doing the same. I think the company will be better in the remote areas of the world, and I do hope to see you there. You can write and fight from anywhere on the planet, Chris, so please save yourself if no one else.

Rebel peacefully with non

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 18:01 — www.democratz.org (not verified)

Rebel peacefully with non cooperation and boycott companies that give money to conservatives.

We the people of the United States of America form this Liberal Democratic Party of the United States of America for the promotion of a progressive agenda for America.

We generally support the progressive and liberal candidates that run in the regular Democratic party. We do not run candidates. We do not handle money. Our power comes from the unionization of our party members who tell GOP contributors and other regressive contributors that UNTIL you get the House and Senate and the President to enact our party platform at the present point into law YOU will lose our business as consumers. By doing this we avoid petitioning a corporate corrupted congress and go to the source of corruption and pressure them for the legislation under threat of massive boycotts.

Party members will send the party agenda by email to these GOP and regressive contributors and get new people to join us.

Imagine it and it will happen.

The Republican party appears weak and vulnerable at the cash registers of those companies that give money to them.

To join us go here www.democratz.org and send some emails and get others to go there. If you like this message then Join us.

The bitter truth is at last

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 18:27 — Loren Bliss (not verified)

The bitter truth is at last unflinchingly expressed by a major writer. Mr. Hedges and Dr. Flowers accurately describe the new paradigm: the American Dream is dead; the American Experiment in constitutional democracy has been overthrown; the capitalists truly are the new Tsars, the new Hitlers, the new Pinochets...and we truly have nothing left to lose but our chains.

Money is fluid. The

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 18:31 — mysterioso (not verified)

Money is fluid. The economic power center for money was once the Roman Empire. Then it imploded and the money center moved to Europe and England. Wars caused that decay within the last hundred years. Since, it has migrated to the US and the time seems right to move again. The economic system in the US is rotting from within. Corporate greed, (one cannot be mentioned without the other), will cause all products to be unaffordable by people who no longer make those products and have become jobless. Only the non-corporate tax system in place in the US keeps the corporate HQ's here. Their factories are long gone to third world countries and with them the jobs we were once proud of. In a decade or less, the US will no longer be the consumer nation it was a decade ago. The jobless cannot afford the trinkets and bobbles when they are trying just to put food on the table and keep their kids healthy. But, the US corporate tax system is the only thing keeping those same corporations here. They have no particular love for this country. They have no allegiance to the working men and women who built their thrones. The worship at the alter of profit. The make sacrifice to the god of the bottom line. They lay off, they fire, they foreclose. They lobby for lower taxes and in some cases like B of A, pay no taxes at all. Exxon/Mobile with a multi-billion dollar profit actually got a refund at tax time. As long as this is our new Fascist state, the corporations will stay, but the money center will move back to England and Europe, as has been planned for at least a hundred years.

This is the most honest

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 18:34 — Anonymous (not verified)

This is the most honest article about our current political existence I've read. Thank god not another spew about supporting the democratic party; that's anything but. Poor and working class Americans that identify with progressive left principals need to know and feel this in the marrow of their bones: We've lost and a state of war based on individual civil disobedience now has to be waged for future Americans and citizens of the world. Change won't come in our life time but must come by any means necessary; daily, weekly, monthly, starting now.

Changes are exceptionally,

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 18:34 — Orly (not verified)

Changes are exceptionally, rarely, propelled by the powerless. Most have been initiated by the powerful, the elite, when factions of the same elite fight those in power to regain it for themselves. The republican barbarian approach to politic is a necessary evil. Those childish, erratic and obstructive initiatives fuel the process of change, whatever direction it may take. The country is getting in that direction. The system has to practically collapse for people to become aware that something is wrong. In house, the living conditions of our people are eroding and will be worsened. The republicans will proudly further it. In other fronts we are not doing well either. Look around us, Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal. Like us they are applying the same practices which ruined them. Our political class is totally out of touch with our problems, and the people’s. We have lost our capacity to lead. Just look at the G20 negative reaction to Obama. Brazil, China, India are developing their own regional hegemony, getting us out of the loop. For the time being there is no hope of any change. People are totally controlled. And the elite are busy fighting for the power. This is what we are facing. They just want to grab the power for enrichment. Eventually they will have no alternative but to face change.

Nice to have some common

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 19:20 — Anonymous (not verified)

Nice to have some common sense in media. It is usually so lacking.

Reality CHECK, Please! And

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 19:23 — Vic Anderson (not verified)

Reality CHECK, Please! And again, Some SPECIFICS!

During the French

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 19:43 — Anonymous (not verified)

During the French Revolution, Obama would
have been the first one in the line at the
Guillotine. The fact that the Blacks still support
him is a sign of Racism on their part.

With all due respect: You

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 19:53 — Anonymous (not verified)

With all due respect: You just figured this all out when? You are correct, it is now too late. All of the so called academic ilk waited until 'we the conspiracy type' brought this "truth out" and the MSM could no longer ignore the :facts". Well when they come for you, 'we conspiracy freaks' will be long gone. Thanks a bunch, not. Good luck practicing your goose step.

If I had any money to buy

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 19:56 — Wayne Freeman (not verified)

If I had any money to buy anything, I'd boycott somebody; but I don't, so that's out.

Any other suggestions?

So where are these

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 20:06 — Anonymous (not verified)

So where are these corporations going to go? China? Interestingly enough, corporations are running rampant there as well as here, but same as here, the system is not sustainable. The streets are not yet owned by corporations - people in China are getting out in the street to protest the death of 50 people who died from a fire resulting from unregulated and/or construction that does not meet housing standards. We can do the same here - take to the streets or at least talk to everyone you know about the situation we find ourselves in. I did so with a banker to day who smiled when I told her about how the banks were running amuck and were going to lead to the demise of the economy. She smiled - not clear if she understood or thought it was cute, but all we can do is educate. Do not give up!

Very well written exposition

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 20:07 — Anonymous (not verified)

Very well written exposition on the current situation and the dynamics that shape it. Very important.

However, there is a gaping hole: any path whatsoever towards solutions. I am not faulting the author, it is merely reflective of the reality out there. We haven't "hit" on the solution yet. Hedges mentions at the end of the article that tiny little acts of rebellion helped during other struggles. But those struggles were ended, and overcome, by larger forces. I am not at all denying the power of all those tiny acts, and am in fact quite taken with the notion of creating a culture of resistance.

What I really think is that humanity itself is at a turning point, or hopefully a flowering point, in terms of IDEAS. All of our actions are reflective of our deeply held beliefs. This is simply how things work. There are the powerful and less powerful, but ALL of us hold beliefs that keep us blind to other ways of doing things. The thinkers, the intellectuals, the poets, the truth-tellers can see beyond, and can envision solutions that effect change through the altering of ideas. However, I believe that even amongst those who dream and plan and take seriously real change there is no consensus on what to do about the world situations. We know too well how poorly other strategies have worked... look at history. We need something new. Real change.

The people know this instinctively. THIS is why we voted for Obama. We fell for the rhetoric because the words spoke truth. The man behind them fails to live up to them. Hedges: start amassing people who are grappling with how to change things. Write about them. Or, perhaps your role is to report very well on how bad things are. Your choice.

Thank you, Chris, for being

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 20:39 — Ryan Langemeyer (not verified)

Thank you, Chris, for being willing to to say the things that so few are willing to even think about. I must agree with BillyDoc above that the battle is lost. The tidal wave of corporate control is unstoppable in North America and most European countries. It is time to retreat to safer ground and to prepare to fend off the corporate octopus from there. I am strongly advocating for all committed progressives to immigrate to a country in South America. There are very exciting experiments in social democracy and socialism in Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, and Venezuela. Argentina and Chile are also experimenting with new ideas.

I have chosen Uruguay as my new home, and I am very excited about being a part of their experiment.I have absolutely no regrets about leaving.

the bitter truth indeed. i

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 20:58 — Anonymous (not verified)

the bitter truth indeed. i practically fell off my chair reading it. a truly unflinching declaration of the present situation we find ourselves. so, are we all human beings or sleep walking zombie slaves?

@Anon 1:06, Yes they do

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 21:45 — Anonymous (not verified)

@Anon 1:06, Yes they do protest in China. And yes, they are put in prison for it. The Nobel prize is being awarded to a man in prison, in China, for protesting. The Chinese government is threatening everybody they can think of to stop this award from being given to his relatives. Seems he can't make the ceremony.

The US is on an irreversible

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 22:16 — Mr. (not verified)

The US is on an irreversible track to self-destruction. Even if another world war can be avoided, the US will drag the western industrialized nations down with it. The good news is that this will open up new opportunities for the rest of the world. Asia will emerge as the new world-leader, but continents like Africa and South America will also be able to grow and develop. It will be a long and painful process, but eventually Planet Earthwill be a better place for it.

Organized action doesn't

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 22:35 — Anonymous (not verified)

Organized action doesn't seem to do much through the elections because the sole individuals running for these offices are bought by, and answerable to, corporations.

Organized action on issues, however, is a different story. Something that Americans have a lot of trouble with, unless they're Republicans self-advocating for the tax breaks.

more..

more .. I think the answer,

I think the answer, with health care, seems to lie in the ability of people to mobilize in dropping their health care policies.

The reason why they run into roadblocks with this, is because Dr. Flower's colleagues, overall, while advocating for single payer at a rate of 55% of the profession, are unwilling to back it up by providing health care to people on demand, and for free.

You can't get people to drop their plans unless there are more doctors willing to back such a movement.

Americans can't even mobilize for a demonstration, though. They're so brain-creamed and cowardly insofar as what others "might think" of them for doing so.

In France, where they take to the streets in large numbers, even that is being termed passe, these days.

globalcrisisnews.com/europe/eric-cantona-calls-for-run-on-the-banks/id=1922/

My thinking is that, in terms of healthcare, the same type of concerted action is called for.

The power of the boycott seems to always have been the most effective. It's the one thing, ultimately, you cannot say they stopped you from doing. Since it is an act by virtue of omission, an act they depend upon.

My suggestion for a small or

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 22:57 — Jodjac33 (not verified)

My suggestion for a small or tiny act of rebellion is to have your cable TV turned off. This will slip much of your attention away from the corporate message and will save you, I don't know, $50 to $150 a month. That may be chicken feed to the corporate elites, but it is a healthy amount of money to me and my kids.
If enough people do this it would send a message- not sure what it would say- maybe for me it would say that my hard earned money means more to me than your pathetic attempt to distract me from the harsh reality that your mega corporations have entrapped me in. I'd rather suffer with this fifty bucks in my hand than be sucked into the plasma world of maketv.

"To live outside the law you

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 23:21 — Pooleside (not verified)

"To live outside the law you must be honest"

We have NO POWER to force society to become what we would like it to become.

Having no power is a good starting point.

It's a place to start living from.

@3:35...i think you've

Mon, 11/22/2010 - 23:34 — Anonymous (not verified)

@3:35...i think you've pointed out one good approach. i always felt that massive boycotts or a similar active 'consumer' power move is the best way. but you need big numbers to make it work. like when the telecoms enabled spying through their networks, if vast numbers of ppl would have simultaneously cancelled their verizon accts. etc. it could have had an effect. but ppl have to be willing to put up with a certain amount of inconvenience. having doctors give free health care would be great but then those dr's need to be protected by the ppl and helped too. can this realistically happen in today's america?

02:45 — Anonymous -- "Yes

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 00:12 — Anonymous (not verified)

02:45 — Anonymous -- "Yes they do protest in China. And yes, they are put in prison for it. The Nobel prize is being awarded to a man in prison, in China, for protesting."

The Nobel Prize is politicized beyond belief, for how else can you explain Obama getting the Peace Prize, for one? And how often to you see an American, like the above mentioned Dr. Margaret Flowers for all her protest and organizing, to her often detriment and persecution, with her devotion to the Single-Payer issue, being recognized by the Nobel?

Hedges is spot on, once again. The present and future is mightily opaque and shadowy at best, and perversely cruel and with utter human character debasement at worst.

I have thought about leaving

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 00:14 — Anonymous (not verified)

I have thought about leaving this country as well. But I like where I live and have a community I feel comfortable in. So, if I want change and don't wish to leave, I'm going to have to think outside the box.

What about a movement to withdraw the state I live in from the union? There'd be lots of advantages; I'd gladly bring our National Guard back from the endless wars, gladly fund our schools with taxes sent to the federal government and I bet so would a majority.

Just thinking...

First, one wonders how it

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 00:52 — Anonymous (not verified)

First, one wonders how it could be that
14 billi0n years of evolution in this universe
culminate with barking-at-the-moon loon ball
humans. But then, after taking a breath, one
sees beyond that, we humans are no more
significant than the bacteria that preceded us
4 billion years ago. The machines will
succeed us and their problems will be their own
and we will never have solved ours or
have known any single era of true peace and justice.

Have you no awareness about

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 00:56 — Elizabeth Sarfaty (not verified)

Have you no awareness about - or if you do, Chris, do you have any faith in the proposals being suggested by Gene Sharp's newest booklet (so much work distilled for us! And available for downloading? See: which is titled: SELF-LIBERATION - or is that what we all truly fear - that to save our own life we have to get up and do it for ourselves - and we can't do it alone; we need each other - and it just MGHT work - better than not having tried at all!! Well, that's my best bet! Try Gene Sharp (now 82!) We just might be very grateful for his hope and inspiration!

Thank-you, Chris

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 03:15 — samd11 (not verified)

Thank-you, Chris Hedges.....a very depressing article with a small ray of hope at the end. It is more than we self-absorbed North Americans deserve. I include Canada with the U.S. because where you go we follow. In all the comments I have read so far, one stands out..."To live outside the law you must be honest". Here's to honesty.

SHAME ON YOU, CHRIS HEDGES.

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 03:37 — Anonymous (not verified)

SHAME ON YOU, CHRIS HEDGES. Shame on you! How revolting that the first person you laud in your article is Ralph Nader. How pathetic! This is the Ralph Nader who strove so hard in Florida in the 2000 national election to garnish almost 100,000 votes, when 600 more votes would have given us Al Gore as president. Nader protested that there was no significant difference between Democrats and Republicans. Our gift from Ralph Nader was president George Bush. Place the bodies of thousands of dead Americans and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis on the altar of Ralph Nader, because, make no mistake, the war in Iraq was Nader's War. The mention of "Ralph Nader" should drive every caring citizen to the nearest vomitorium. Chris Hedges owes us all an apology.

"No Hope. No Fear." ~

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 06:28 — DJ (not verified)

"No Hope. No Fear." ~ Buddha

Read "Cognitive

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 08:38 — Anonymous (not verified)

Read "Cognitive Infiltration" by Dr. David Ray Griffin. I truly can't not understand how Chris Hedges can have such a clear understanding of our overall state of affairs and yet still believe the Bush-Zelikow Official Story of what happened on 9/11. Chris should really take some time to read "Cognitive Infilration" and learn something about the most important event of our time. The event that has more than anything else helped to bring us to this terrible place.

This article proves a bitter

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 09:18 — David (not verified)

This article proves a bitter pill to swallow. Chris Hedges has managed to capture much of what I feel as I daily watch liberalism disappear from our political landscape. A corporation has no soul - nor does our government or our courts. And yes, we must fight, but not out of despair, but hope.

Rebel in what ways? -

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 09:28 — Taylor (not verified)

Rebel in what ways?

- Pulling your money out of Bank of America or Citi and putting it in a local, responsible bank.

- Changing your phone plan from AT&T (huge Tea Party supporter) to CREDO mobile

- Buying a hybrid/electric or taking public transit/biking/walking rather than contributing to our national oil addiction

- Talking to your neighbors about how absurd our government and economy has become

- Protesting unjust war and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, still the greatest threats to the world and the U.S.

I was deeply moved by the

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 09:58 — Anonymous (not verified)

I was deeply moved by the unflinching result of this essay--truth--so seldom encountered any more. I remember Dr. Flowers being turned away from the hearings by Max Baucus. I remember my confusion about supporting Obama's health care reform, and trying to swallow that we should still support it after single-payer was a dream. I also remember finding out more details about it, and suspecting the reason, which Dr. Flowers provided.

So what should we do? I am too old to start a revolution, although I would surely be a part of one. Boycotts can be powerful. Look at Ceasar Chevaz.

But until we get to the heart of it the revolution will not begin. Until we stand up to the corporations taking over our public schools, we will live with this disaster and be a part of it. Young minds are all we have left. If a child has a simple unit on the difference between fact and opinion, the beginning of a lesson on propaganda, how can we expect to change anything? Sarah Palin would be my best example of "glittering generalities." We need to take all energy and put it into preserving public education instead of condemning it as the "Education Nation" and the Charter School corporations would have us do. Look around. Do you know what is going on in public schools?

The worst, most underfunded for decades, schools are held up as the state of public education. No one talks about the other 80%, maybe 90%. I'm not leaving this country. I have friends so disillusioned they are willing to go deep south Mexico and hope the drug cartels don't decide to take over a town full of Americans. Even if I and others are unsuccessful, we will know that we fought for "another way of being."

Blame Ralph Nader? If Gore

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 10:11 — ron (not verified)

Blame Ralph Nader?

If Gore had managed to carry his home state—something nearly every successful President has done (Bush did!)—then he would have been elected President, WITHOUT FLORIDA!
And Nader got almost no votes in TN (19K out of 2 million cast, far less than the margin).

Don't blame Nader for Gore's poor campaign.

"Apartheid has taught me

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 10:53 — skye (not verified)

"Apartheid has taught me that freedom isn't necessarily democracy. An oppressed people do not necessarily change with change; the privileged resent losing their privileges, the bigoted have a hard time trying to learn goodwill and charity. The right-wing never sleeps." Hugh Masekela

man is not a moral actor.

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 11:15 — Anonymous (not verified)

man is not a moral actor. hatred is the beginning of all thought and action

Chris, thank you for

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 12:24 — Art Brennan (not verified)

Chris, thank you for articulating the struggle. Small acts, I'm thinking of small acts.

Its time, my friends, for

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 12:32 — Anonymous (not verified)

Its time, my friends, for revolt...and it wont be pretty.

Democracy is a method of

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 14:31 — Anonymous (not verified)

Democracy is a method of control for powerful interest groups. The only path to justice for the unempowered is through a benevolent dictator, and that comes with its own set of problems.

History repeats itself with

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 15:55 — John C (not verified)

History repeats itself with monotonous regularity. Here we are repeating the demise of the Roman Empire - who will the modern day Huns be - the new "economies", and if so how quickly will they succumb to financial overload in this all to new global arena.
We are in new times and the old dynamics no longer apply - not least with the advent of the internet and the ability for people to communicate directly with each other for the first time in our history as a species - watch this space AND DON'T GIVE UP!!!!!

If, as the Supremes decided,

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 16:41 — Anonymous (not verified)

If, as the Supremes decided, corporations are artificial humans and have the right to contribute to election campaigns, then they also should have the same limited lifespan as humans -- fourscore and ten -- oh heck, round it off to 100 years -- after which they have to dissolve and sell off their assets. Only fair. Otherwise we're headed for a future in the hands of large conglolmerates that are considered 'too big to allow to fail.'

Lots of tiny (lets call it

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 16:57 — CRW (not verified)

Lots of tiny (lets call it TAR) add up to a big, persuasive one - first the rebellion against the NOs - organize to threaten recall locally; then, organize against the yes, buts - organize locally to threaten non-reelection support; and economically, clearly - need a new car? buy a second-hand one. Don't pay more for insurance than you can have returned. Just for starters.

Blaming Nader is a waste of

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 20:20 — Vandrop (not verified)

Blaming Nader is a waste of breath. Isn't it clear from this article that it's so much bigger than that? In fact, I think focusing on the corporatocracy itself is thinking too small. Chalmers Johnson spoke about militarism being a form of tyranny - which we've been living under and suffering from (sep eleven) since Eisenhower warned us all of it happening - it's rotted us out, mind, body and soul, enough to allow the corporate cleptocracy to waltz in and gut us the rest of the way.

This is a good article.

New computerized system for

Tue, 11/23/2010 - 23:34 — John Luebben (not verified)

New computerized system for sharing information among 31 police agencies.

.....the Coplink program, an integrated information sharing system, has connected 31 law enforcement agencies in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties, allowing them to consolidate thousands of records into one large database and access it easily from the field, according to Sgt. Rick Sung, a sheriff’s department spokesman…..

.....The information being shared includes open and closed case documents, investigative reports, criminal event data, criminal history and incarceration information, and identifying information about individual offenders.

.......The $2.86 million project was established in the Bay Area at the request of the Northern California Regional Terrorism Threat Assessment Center in partnership with the Bay Area Urban Area Security Initiative. and paid for largely through state and federal grant money, according to the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office…...

....There are other Coplink nodes in San Mateo and Contra Costa counties. Eventually, law enforcement agencies throughout California will be connected through Coplink.

‘Nuff said !!

May be that the time has

Wed, 11/24/2010 - 02:15 — SOF (not verified)

May be that the time has come. I think we should be scrambling to protect basics; survival, housing, emergency services, free speach, Public non-profit media, net neutrality. And renew our commitment to non-violence. For our soul and the law of Do no Harm.
There will be Art. Let it seduce by its beauty or laughs. There will be new marchin’ songs. Graphics, street performance art, Startling images. The heart understands what the brain can’t figure out. We can Imagine. Imagine Peace. Plant gardens.

there have been some deeply

Wed, 11/24/2010 - 10:07 — Anonymous (not verified)

there have been some deeply moving responses to what has been said. i have noticed that since the election we have had fewer hate filled rants, which may validate those who suspected the right wing extremist of being disruptive. one post suggested dropping support of the cable media. great idea, it is this mind numbing, pimping for the egotistical sooth sayers, while pandering, for drug companies, insurance companies and dishonest political ads that has fed the monsters and blinded the gullible who buy and believe. thank you chris.

I have one question for

Thu, 11/25/2010 - 01:02 — lazer-eye (not verified)

I have one question for you, Chris:

Who did you vote for in the last presidential election?

Really?

I thought so!

lazer-eye

"electronic hallucinations",

Sun, 11/28/2010 - 01:17 — Anonymous (not verified)

"electronic hallucinations", bravo. what worries me most is that the earlier commenter is right, the alarm is sounding far too late. the europeans who knew fascism have been warning us and we didn't listen. america has already lost its mind and its beautifully crafted government has succumbed to a hundred-and-fifty year campaign of subversion. i don't know when it happened, but now as i enter my adulthood, it dawns on me how the events of the past two years forced them to reveal their grip on power. what happens next, i can't guess. i find myself standing in the kitchen, staring at a pizza box, not knowing what to do or think.

Most Americans don't WANT

Sun, 11/28/2010 - 14:56 — maddog (not verified)

Most Americans don't WANT profound change. We believe we can change with enough votes. Perhaps we in the tea party are wrong. We feel that the major problem is not big business, but big govt, which is too expensive and too obtrusive, and takes too much of our money to spend rewarding it's friends. The housing bubble, for instance, at root, back in the 70's and '80's, started with people in govt wanting to reward their poorer followers with houses. So far so good, but the laws they passed enabled irresponsible people to profit by actions that everyone knew were reprehensible and ultimately unsustainable. In the meantime, the poorest that actually got houses have one of the highest repayment rate, because they know they'll never get another chance.

Not arguing that poor people shouldn't be given the opportunity to own homes, but more about the laws of unexpected results. Govt wonks always believe that their laws will have the desired results with no undesired side effects. "Every man has a plan that will not work."

Maybe we can't fix the problem peaceably. Bullets work just as well as ballots, but ballots are much cheaper. But leftist ideas of big govt intervention are the main cause of our govt being out of balance, every single country that I can think of has eventually run into serious problems. As your own sainted Jimmy Carter once observed, "Life is not fair." Govt intervention to attempt to make it fair, isn't fair either.

Most of the article is good,

Mon, 11/29/2010 - 04:11 — kim (not verified)

Most of the article is good, but if we have lost the government, then, obviously, protest will no longer work. And it doesn't. It hasn't since the right wing corporatists took over the Main Stream Media.
Here's a brief outline of what to do. We have to make an end-run around the corporations and form our own, separate, economy.
1) Take your money out of Wall St. and big banks. Sell any stocks (including 401Ks, etc.) and put your money into locally owned credit unions, which invest in your community.
2)Support local businesses: shop at one-of a kind small businesses and farmers' markets and quit buying anything you can from big corporations. Some stuff you can't avoid, but think about every purchase that supports the enemy.
3)To really fundamentally change the economy, shop at worker-owned businesses. They redistribute the wealth to the people who actually do the work. This is a true alternative to Predatory Capitalism.
4) Work to elect really Progressive candidates to office -- they can't do anything until they are a majority in congress, but let's be patient and build them up slowly until ready to spring.

Please don't be so hard on Obama -- his heart's in the right place, but he must have been severely threatened when he got into office. Also, I think he's taking the long view: Americans want a Moses figure to lead us to the promised land, but we don't want to wait the forty years it takes to get there. Plus, he doesn't understand economics and has succumbed to the common fallacy that people who have a lot of money must understand economics. They don't.
Oh, and a note to the tea-party-er: This is (or was) a democracy. That means the government=the people. What you are arguing for is less of the people and more of the corporations to run things. Your example is wrong because the easing up of regulations on banks was asked for by the bank lobbyists.

Love it - exchange of ideas!!

Thu, 12/02/2010 - 22:02 — Anonymous (not verified)

Sat, 12/04/2010 - 11:35 — Rich (not verified)

And Lieberman as VP and therefore potential POTUS. Thanks, but no thanks.

I think Lieberman as VP

Mon, 12/06/2010 - 18:12 — Kimc (not verified)

I think Lieberman as VP would have been worth the risk to have had Gore as President in place of Bush. We would be well on our way to paying real serious attention to global climate change if Gore had been pres. and if we don't pay attention to that, we are so screwed that not much of the rest of everything makes any difference. Once there is widespread famine all around the globe, there will no longer be any functioning democracies. We will see the kind of cruel dictatorships that come out of anarchy. This is exactly what people like W want for us -- because he is sure he will be one of the dictators.

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