Three cheers for this piece.

Now comes the part where the capitalist apologists, the "pro-capitalist progressives" [sic], worm out of the woodwork to denounce Hedges as a socialist. They'll do this for the same reasons they lapped up the corporate culture that Hedges describes: they've been indoctrinated by the propaganda to equate capitalism with freedom as opposed to slavery.

Nobody wants to be told that they're not in control of their own lives, and that includes wage slaves. Capitalism is nothing less than a restructuring of feudalism, which was itself a restructuring of the slave societies of antiquity. The labels have changed, but the basic social relations have remained the same.

What we need is radical democracy -- a.k.a. "socialism" -- but that can only happen once we tear down the propaganda machine that Hedges portrays so accurately here.

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The Right Wing Noise Machine has used the oldest trick in the book to destroy what was good about America ... selfishness. For over 30 years now we have heard that the Public Good is short sided and fool hardy and that it can't be trusted because of waste, fraud and abuse, that government can't solve problems, it can only create problems.

The Corporate Media, Washington DC, Madison Avenue echo chamber bellowed the mantra of distrust and selfishness touting the society of the self where ownership and money were the keys to success and happiness. It started with conspicuous consumption and then planned obsolescence was built in to remind us of the mortality of our acceptance into this bright new world.

Individualism and liberty came to mean the right to credit and mass consumption ... McMansions, SUVs and granite countertops were the new freedom. Credit Cards and HELOCs, the passports to truth and justice and the American Way.

Well it has all come crashing down. The freedom of cheap debt are now the chains of debt servitude not just for the people but the whole country. The trinkets of truth and justice are the caskets of our future.

How do we break out of this? We must become selfish of our eternal truths, our humanity and our commonality. This will be countered by what we see, hear, feel, breath and eat. The lies, designed by psychologists and marketers batter us everyday from every medium through our eyes, ears and emotions. They tell us we are only as worthy as the goods we consume. We are told we smell and that we are too fat yet they feed us food that makes us stink, makes us fat and drives our metabolism crazy with hypertension, diabetes, clogged arteries and attention deficit disorder.

How do we break free ? ... see through the lies of their pictures, don't believe a word of their propaganda, don't let them control how you feel and don't eat the poison they call food ... In your heart you know what is right, be selfish of what is good and true and spiteful and rude to the selfishness, egoism and hatefulness they call success ... to be sure find the truth tellers like Chris Hedges ... those that will help you unravel the tangled web of their heinous deceit ...

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What can we do to reverse the cannibalization of government and the national economy by the corporations?

The biggest revealing of the Orwellian corporate media and Big Brother government is the awakening to the big lies of 9/11 and the concerted campaigns by mass media to keep the truth suppressed and ridiculed. The looting of all of us depends upon keeping a veil over the truth--keeping us afraid and willing to surrender the fruits of our labors and our freedoms for a promise of security.

http://ae911truth.org
http://wtc7.net
http://whodidit.org/cocon.html

It takes very little intellectual effort to see that two planes cannot turn three buildings into dust--the laws of physics and logic don't support the enforced myth of 9/11 called the 9/11 Commission Report. It takes an enormous emotional courage to confront the pure evil that manipulates minds and hearts and steers humanity to debt-slavery.

What now supports the official lies of 9/11 are the GuitarBill's of the world and the mass media which breeds mass deception.

You can take it from here, GuitarBill. Show us your beguiling nature.

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When the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, hanging, drawing and quartering was still a legal punishment. When Benjamin Franklin said, "We must all hang together or we will all hang separately" he would have been aware of this.

Bernie Madoff was never in any danger of being hung until almost dead and then experiencing his body body being hacked into pieces, but I think that his crimes were motivated by the fear of suffering before personal extinction. Even when circumstances change, the memory lingers on...

Think of life as a game of musical chairs, only the person left without a chair when the music stops will be waterboarded, raped or otherwise tortured and then killed. Well, anyone with a strong survival instinct would do whatever they could to see that they weren't left without a chair. This includes taking all the chairs at gunpoint or even murdering all the other players.

Yes, Madoff would have found some pleasure in his lavish lifestyle, but I think he--and others who ride roughshod over others and blank out the suffering they cause--see themselves as being in constant danger. For them, the world is full of enemies when in fact it is full of potential friends.

Can we wake up from our common nightmare and create a society which is not based upon winners and losers? We have created a bad enough outcome for those who are born poor or become poor (homelessness, drugs, vulnerability to crime) to motivate plenty of people to lie, cheat and steal in order to avoid this fate.

Raise up the poorest and everyone will be better off. (That's not just a theory. See The Spirit Level: how more equal societies almost always do better by Wilkinson and Pickett.).

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we're soul sick because we're all about the outside vanities and distractions. Looking for a protective parent to tuck us in at night.

Someone tell Frank Capra, George Bailey was killed on 9/11 and Bedford Falls went dark.

Chris Hedges, please don't let up. You took the high road and put a stake in the ground, I can't thank you enough.

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This is the best piece of journalism I have read in thirty years.

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let mankind hope Barack Obama will become the GORBATSCHOV of the USA.

the world only can survive as corporate greed and puritanisme end.

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I said it grow a pair and use em. We say we want to fight the right , then get up and do it. We know what weapons they use , but for those who don't here's a recap; the right uses lies, hate and ingorance. That's pretty much it , oh I forgot a big one they repeat the crap until some of it sticks. Example GW use of 911. What do we do call em on all if it don't allow a statement to go without challenge. Theres a reason Rush doesnt' have guests and Billo the clown gets bitch slapped often on his own show.. Write letters to the editor in your local newspaper. Logic and reason is good but we must also appeal to common mans emotitions in short we must make sure our story is told and our vision of America is one that all can understand

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1. We really should raise a stink about the FTC's most recent attempt to expand to investigate both blog owners and commenters who happen to make a claim...

2. Start protesting your local media. The government will ignore you but a local newspaper or station that is pretty much starving for attention will have a much harder time, though of course they still have their large status quo interests.

3. Make our signs clear and relevant, like "stop lying for crooks", "happy fascist censored news is not news", "talk about Goldman, not JLOW".

just a thought. Of course such views put you on the terrorist watchlist, at least they do in Denver, but what can you do? They're systematically making it no safer to complain in your own home.

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while reading this article and he named classical works to read that are actually roadmaps for our future, so many snippets of each came to mind... all were right in warning us now in this future about what would happen if a capitalist system was allowed to run roughshod over people... what we need is grassroots social change...

but first, before we can create meaningful change, we have to face reality... what we are going through as a nation is mass mourning about the death of our dreams... we're still in shock and denial and working on the acceptance and moving on with life part... humans are kind of slow compared to society, so this disconnect we are seeing is actually correct... we still want, but are realizing it's not a need... look at all the advertising on this page... can you just go and click the link and buy or donate like you could even you did a year ago???

change is a personal issue... each of us has different priorities for the top spot, but we seem to agree on the same list of items, basic needs; food, water, warmth, shelter... everything else is a want... even if we all just cover these needs without corporate influences that we can avoid, we have won a small sliver for the overall fight...

we need a paradigm shift, which is very hard for many to accomplish, especially corporations that refuse to acknowledge that the game is up, so they are ramping up the rhetoric to try to force us to spend what we don't have... expect this behavior to ramp up to hysteria on all product fronts, including health care in the mix...

as a wise man once wrote, a friend actually who was a financial planner... "one thing we all have going for us is that we all came from (a neighborhood) where we had nothing, but we all somehow figured out how to survive, so we're better off that a lot of others who never had the chance to grow up with nothing but each other'...

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What makes this writer think that we have been operating within a free market system? Interest rates aren't artificially lowered by a Federal Reserve System in a free market. Trade Agreements are needed in a Free market. Government doesn't subsidize agriculture, and health care in a free market. There wouldn't even be the need for a federal income tax in a free market. No tariffs, no bureaucartic regulations.., just the Rule of Law. Fiat money wouldn't exist in a free market. The only thing the progressives offer is bigger government and higher taxes.

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Corporations exist because the government allows them to exist. A corporation is a legal construct. A single act of legislation could eviscerate every corporation in America -- are you willing to make that act happen?

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Chris -

Could you please check out our new, albeit no budget, film that is a direct media response to the promotion of the torture policies of the Bush administration through shows like "24"?

"Shocking, Compelling... Intense" - Thom Hartmann

The Torturer (http://thetorturer.com)

Coming OCT 13, 2009 - Starring Nichelle Nichols (Lt Uhura on Star Trek)

Shocking teaser trailer (not for the weak of heart):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcl-uofCzRc

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I laugh whenever I hear a conspiracy theorist claim the Free Masons are some Tryannical secret society hell bent on taking over humanity. Nearly as much as I laugh at those Neo Cons who rely on the Propagandaized fairy tales about what constitutes an 'American Value'
FYI When you start out a set of Guiding principles with "We the People", you are NOT a trynnical sect,in fact you are a blatant Socialist(in it's most basic form). When you promise those People the inalienable Right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness"- again you are NOT a group of Meglomaniacs, nor conceding that instititions take precedence over the citizen- in the market place, in the halls of justice and certainly not in the Wells of Governance.
What is most hyterical is that the Conspriacy theorist see 'Nuvus Ordo Seclorum' as the desire to create an Order which controls the World, Like a new global Monarchy or dictatorship- If so why again begin our Constitition with 'We the People'? As for those who proclaim their "patriotism", they misconstrue this idea to mean the US must conquer the world, which makes no sense because England was an Empire which our Founders felt had no right to impose it's will on other nations, or people. In fact the real meaning most likely has to do with breaking the chains of Oppression imposed by Governance,Commerce and Religions upon the masses (humanity)
Funnier still is the claim of the Evangelicals and their pocket politicans that America was founded, and meant to always be, a 'Christian nation', merely because of the Phrase "In God We Trust"- It does not say "In Jesus We trust". the Concept of 'God' crosses most organized Religions, so infact they were intentionally not designating our Country to the adhrence to Catholism nor any form Protestantism.
In both instances these followers of twisted 'logic' need to take a remedial class in History to give them the backstory on what motivated our Founders to Declare our Independence, Write the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Both the paranoid Free Mason conspiracy theorist and the misguided,gullible Right wingers have been spoon fed information and refused to exercise the grey matter between their ears to discern propaganda from Fact. A good number of 'We the People' have not only become couch potatos, but mental vegatables.
Thank You,Founders (9 of which were Masons) for our gov't (and Free market) "Of for and By the People", the declaration of Humanity's Inalienable Rights and the Separation of Church and State!

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An excellent insight & call to action. Until the young US generation stands up and demands a change on the order of what happened in the 60's, the best that we can do (in my opinion) is organize consumers to boycott advertisers on Fox News and Limbaugh. The corporate complicity in all this is atrocious. I sent one advertiser on Fox News a letter demanding that it stop advertising on Fox because of the channel's hateful rants. I got back a reply which said that the company had nothing to do with Fox's selection of stories or programming and that the advertiser chose its outlets based upon audience demographic. I wrote back reminding the spokesperson that all media advertising attempts to equate the product with the kind of person who enjoys its programming, an implicit “stamp of approval” on the programming. I haven't heard back. The conservatives understand how important it is to impose financial pressure on advertisers. The progressive movement needs to also develop a similar & overwhelming strategy.

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I'll bet Hedges must have taken a lot of lessons from George Lakoff. When you're framed, you can't just unframe yourself but you must reframe yourself and fight back.

P.S.:

Time to do to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and the rest of the criminals in Washington what the legendary "Max Payne" did to Nicole Horn and Vladimir Lem except I won't shoot but would much rather Pelosi, Reid, Obama, etc ... pay dearly even if I have to put them in a hurt locker for betraying us even beyond our suspicions. Sorry to sound like a brutal officer but I'm getting frustrated that despite all the majorities the Democrats have asked for and gotten, they keep fucking up and joining the Rethugs on everything.

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Do we really need a better style of BS? Why does that sound like what someone who makes a living providing BS would write?

Sure, we could use some modern Tom Paines. There never are enough of those. But corporations have a permanent place in our economic structure, so what we need most are regulations to keep them from employing their privileges beyond reason.

The facts are that corporations are paying less for public services while depending on them more. So long as the electorate can be swayed by just raising the specter of "higher" taxes--it works everytime; look at California's current predicament--those who can spread that message buying advertising prevail.

We need an educated electorate, not a better class of propagandists. We need sacrifices from those who want a better life, not smooth talkers or writers. We need to be organized for our self-interest. Americans don't like to be organized--just look at the condition of labor.

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"Our bankrupt liberalism, which naively believes that Barack Obama is the antidote to our permanent war economy and Wall Street fraud, will either rise from its coma or be rolled over by an organized corporate elite and their right-wing lap dogs."
Unfortunately, spineless Liberalism is not likely to grow any cajones—it never has. The last part of the graph above describes what we'll likely have. This country is ripe for some kind of authoritarian takeover and it will come in tromping on the backs of whining liberals. "The road to fascism is paved with liberal bricks." — Mort Sahl.

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Nice article Chris. I am reminded of Woodrow Wilson's words that liberty is a disipline and has to be earned. The biggest problem I see is that people think earning liberty means leveling the playing field. This is impossible as long as we keep sending incompetence to Washington. Those who can't end up ruling over those who can.

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I don't know. Do we on the left really want to become another manifestation of Faux "News"? (Some have argued that MSNBC has already done that. I disagree. While I'm not going to rant about MSNBC's "objectivity," at least Keith and Rachel have some capability to analyze and not just shoot their mouths off and pout like, say, Glennie Beck, Sean Hannity and bill o'lielly).

There's a lot of truth in what the writer says. But I've always felt we'd be in a tiny minority. Face it, most people DON'T think. Many of them don't because they're too busy trying to make a living, and others don't because it's much easier to believe in what your 5th grade history books tell us. You know, we Americans are SPECIAL, that are feces stinketh not.

And I'm afraid using emotion will simply lead to a civil war, lots of people throwing pies at, or killing each other. (Heaven knows, the right has already started, with Dr. Tiller, and the Holocaust Museum, etc.)

Then there's also the fact that's been covered in a lot of books, that much of what has been symbolic of the left has been coopted by the corporate culture. (What comes to mind is many populare 60s tunes now becoming corporate jingles!) So such symbolism can be abused.

I don't know. But I'm glad the article is here in that it gives us much to talk about and consider.

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Chris, you ask good questions: How do we recover what was lost? How do we reclaim the culture that was destroyed by corporations? How do we fight back now that the consumer culture has fallen into a state of decay? What can we do to reverse the cannibalization of government and the national economy by the corporations?

You provide lots of examples of what's wrong and a teaser to instill a measure of hope: "The lie is being exposed. And the corporate state is running scared."

But where are your specific examples to illustrate how we are on track to "recover what was lost?" to "reclaim the culture?" "to reverse the cannibalization?" Where are your success stories to inspire us and to emulate?

I'm afraid that your admonition that "We must appeal to reason and emotion" isn't going to take most of us very far on the load road to change.

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"All periods of profound change occur in a crisis. It was a crisis that brought us the New Deal, now largely dismantled by the corporate state. It was also a crisis that gave the world Adolf Hitler and Slobodan Milosevic. We can go in either direction."--Chris Hedges

Yes a manufactured crisis to give us a full blown dictatorship of a group. Plutocracy of an obvious type. It is a dangerous game they play because if they fail we can be reduced to a broken country of fiefdoms instead of a lean, mean empire they want. Just how do we go about stopping them? Obama is the most reacent face of their cabal as they eat away the republic till it falls from lack of inner support like a building that is very old and not maintained.

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There's nothing like a great writer to focus a subject into fewer words and save us the need to read several books a day to sift and winnow through the verbage.
We have a mighty mountain to climb if we're to unravel the dense fabric of lies and intimidation the current capitalistic/militaristic oligarchy has woven over generations.
It seems everything our Founders have warned us about has come to pass-big time. We've merely traded one form of monarchy (foreign) for another (home-grown, and a LOT nastier).
Beware of those who would return us to the "glory days", which never existed, or who espouse the "American Way" as something good and glorious. We know better, now.
Freedom of the press is more precious than ever.
A first-rate education, devoid of religious twaddle is, as well.
Guess what two things are being resisted by our owners?

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Truth wins out over BS in the long run. Most Americans now understand the bias and GOP slant of Fox News, despite it screaming for years "Fair & Balanced"

Let them be the ones to leap around and yell. NeoCons lose on facts & proven-wrong ideology, every time -- found a cool site; Balkingpoints ; incredible satellite view of earth

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All should read William Greider's "Come Home America" for a good analysis of the big picture of how America (that's us) went wrong and how we can start to correct it. Also J.K. Galbraith's "Predator State" which outlines the financial situation. Then get in the faces of the a**holes (corp. bosses, politicians, etc.) and force change.

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Those who care about the plight of the working class and the poor must begin to mobilize quickly or we will lose our last opportunity to save our embattled democracy.
----------------------------------------------
Precisely. The back-bone of this corporate state are the major banks (not only JPM,GS, but also Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, UBS, Societé Général, etc). The media are just their shills, if the money-source dries up, they just fade away.
They only have loyality when the money flows.

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a fine investigative journalist named mcchesney has spent the past 30 years detailing and warning about the hegemony of the now incredibly conglomerated media, from a hundred firms down to twenty down to ten covering the globe with brainwashing propaganda and a pharma ad very 2 minutes...

but as for america being force-fed its 'beliefs' being any new thing which so-called progressives should suddenly wake up to and fight... what a joke. the trouble is more that the rightwing absconded with the theatricality and persuasiveness which should belong to the more creative team. where's our abbie hoffman saying "freedom of speech is the right to yell 'theatre!' in a crowded fire.'? getting tens of thousands at the pentagon to try levitating the pentagon... he and ginsberg and others of the beat-hippie sort throwing money over the balcony at the stock exchange while chanting, "the war is over!" watching as the stockbrokers scramble around on the floor to grab a warbuck like the money-whores they are...

in 1870, a survey by the new york tribune, as i recall, did a national survey that showed 72% of americans were in favor of THE COMPLETE ANNIHILATION OF ALL NATIVE PEOPLES. considering that there were roughly 20 million 'indians' in the land which would become the usa in 1500 and less than a million by 1900... they basically got their white christian wish, eh? a sick society then; a sick society now. the first act of president george washington was to hire thugs to go mass-murder native people down to the babies. fascist from the word go; a nation based solely upon never-ending racist genocide and imperial colonial resource-theft.

if anything will end this disease, it will not be a bunch of lame 'liberal progressives' wringing their hands and voting for goons like obamabush who then continue the exact same policies as before. 'liberal' wilson got the usa into the king's madness of WWI. american money and technology made the german nazis possible while 'liberal' FDR watched and backed the fascist franco who america propped-up til 1978. 'liberals' JFK and LBJ brought about the deaths of over a million vietnamese before nixon took over the killings. 'liberal' clinton continued the embargo which killed 800,000 iraqis, including over half a million children by usg admission. 'liberal' clinton also engaged in massive war crimes in the balkan/bosnia/albania war; continued usg support for the guatemala genocide of at least a quarter million and backed the japanese fujimori committing genocide on native peoples in peru; plus did nothing about usg-exxonmob-indonesian genocide of the penan and other indonesian natives until there was too much attention on it – then acted indignant as if innocent. think the 'liberal' obama will be any better than this trash? dream on.

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Join Slaves Anonymous

“You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting amongst themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you are tired of merely complaining about being enslaved and seeing others threatened with more enslavement, join us in Slaves Anonymous to make local changes to improve your security. You and your neighbors have the autonomy, creativity, diversity, potency and transcendence to become self-owners and create the conditions necessary for emancipation of your local community from the tyranny of colonization, corporatism, debt-based money, empire, eugenics, fascism, psychopathy, serfdom, slavery, or whatever-you-want-to-call-it. You can create ways that lead to less bondage and more humane treatment for your neighbors and yourselves. Solutions for the common man, woman, or child have been and forever will be grassroots ones that emerge organically from within each of us. Let's work together: You create solutions in your community; I'll create them in mine.

Slaves Anonymous is a support group for people who want to be self-owners and create conditions to emancipate our local communities.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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in 2004, we were working ourselves to dath on thia and that antiwar protest activity leading up to the enormous demonstration at the republican national convention here in new york. far from supporting us or this action, the spineless folk at truemajority and moveon were actively trying to dissuade people from coming to the protest as IT MIGHT NOT LOOK GOOD!

at that demonstration, which got over 700,000 people attending, i'll never forget this gutsy guy leading this chant, "THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!" like i say, democracy is a riot!

turemajority/moveon are perfect examples of how 'liberals' are worse than useless; they are cowardly and treacherous even to their own. like obamabush they will just continue the genocide and the trillions in 'bailouts' begun by bush to the very criminals who schemed this disaster. on his second day in office, while one side of his mouth is saying "we don't stand for torture;" obama signed for the continuation of the CIA 'rendition' program of disappearance and torture and still hasn't closed gitmo, while expanding the wars in afghanistan into pakistan... and the rendition torture was always larger than =lil gitmo, just outsourced...

want anything to ever change around here? you have to think and act like jefferson, franklin, danton, che, ho chi minh, abbie hoffman. otherwise you're just a couch critic

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How great that not only the author of this article but most of the people commenting on it have taken their heads out of the clouds and can see what is going on around them. It does my heart good, mainly because i have just finished writing a satirical novel entitled UP WITH APES. My book is for progressives and it was written with the following two quotes in mind: (1) George Carlin said, "The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other going in opposite directions." and (2) George Bernard Shaw who said, "if you want to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh or else they'll kill you."

I'm not having any luck placing this book because agencies and big corporate publishers want only more media circus material. I'm contemplating self-publishing because, just like this excellent article by Chris Hedges, the word needs to get out there. I'm trying to do it with humor and satire. How do progressives get heard in this country? I have tried emails by the hundreds and never hear back so I wrote the book. I'm getting to sound like a shot going off in an empty room.

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would that it were.

but i bet in two or three years we'll be back in line for the "freedom" to buy a pink or black or blue ipod, and back to "normal."

in a more rational world, or one with a more educated and reflective populace, the author's proclamations might hold true.

but we live in a world poisoned with the falsehoods that promote corporate control, and until we no longer are lulled by personal goodies to mask this fact, and until we redefine "normal", we're stuck with this rotten setup.

##

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can you imagine, people coming from a progressive and conservative place, discussing how to bring down the cost of health care while covering services we believe should be rights, in a way that didn't need the blessing of big pharma medical corporations, big money and the political parties just to discuss it in congress and on tv?

can you imagine coming up with a fee schedule that took care of our doctors and prevented patient gouging, and leaving room for a low cost risk pool for these required services, while leaving most of us with more money than we currently have for optional plans, solutions or services?

can you imagine what washington called "the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests", instead of what he called "the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community" and their "ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction".

hey, a guy can dream that enough others would try

http://www.laughtergenealogy.com/bin/history/politics.html

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Chris Hedges' remarks on the "soul-breaking corporate media" have certainly struck the hearts of progressive people anxious for insight and eager to help. I offer only a corrective pinch of ideological Valium.

Emotion and passion are splendid commodities but, like all Dionysian enthusiasms, they can be overdone and later produce enormous hangovers. This is especially so when we are led to believe that current events embody extraordinary crises. We are breathlessly told, for example, that this may be "our last opportunity to save our embattled democracy." That was what I was told by Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War leaders forty years ago. Then, the Nixon victory in 1968 that sent others to the "disco" led me to trade unionism (and not just because I couldn't dance). Then, as now, North American liberal democracy was embattled.

What is now fashionably called "corporatism," is really no new wrinkle in the fabric of oppression. The term was already in play over seventy-five years ago when it was used approvingly and perhaps apocraphylly by Benito Mussoloni to describe the unique combination of state authority and capitalist wealth in fascist Italy. And, let us also not forget that it was that loveable old rogue, Karl Marx, who quite soberly pointed out that the state is the executive committee of the ruling class. New bottles; same old wine.

So, to deal effectively with both state authority and class structure, we must see that this is nothing new, and we must learn that more rationality than explosive populist energies may be needed. After all, populist passion and emotion are currently in full spate in the vitality of the religious right, the murderous fringes of "pro-choice" and "anti-gay" activism and the carefully crafted persona of Governor Palin. A form of yeasty youthful populism was also recently evident in President Obama's campaign. There was much chanting and cheering. Some saw him as a Messiah, and many of them are now becoming disillusioned as they painfully realize that he was and is merely a centrist, brokerage-style, pragmatic politician - with the gift of the gab.

These comments are not intended to counsel quietism or withdrawal into the idiocy of private life. I do, however, urge us all - but especially those only lately drawn to politics - to stick to it. In some areas, Mr. Obama is succeeding; in some, he is failing; and in many he remains annoyingly ambiguous or merely absent.

Advancing progressive positions entails the hard slogging of political organization and the abandonment of personality politics, the daft belief that one person can steer a democratic society on any course, much less an ennobling one. After all, democratic leadership is almost oxymoronic; the demos is either literally self-governing or a volatile "mob," and hero-worship is a sure sign of the latter.

So, yes, it is important to fight the good fight using whatever rhetorical skills and media savvy can be commandeered; but, it is essential to understand that the fight must be fought by real people, rooted in real conditions. Otherwise, it will be just another instance of the battle of the brands. When observing and counter-intuitively expressing admiration for the American "New Left" in the 1960s, the conservative Canadian philosopher George Grant (1918-1988)cautioned that "moral outrage is too valuable to be put in the service of anything but reality." The same applies today.

I generally approve what Chris Hedges says, and I suspect that he would agree to some of my reservations. We are on the same side. I just hope that his cri de coeur inspires more than moral outrage, for populist disenchantment turns too often to quietism or, on occasion, to terrorism.

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Don't get me wrong; I like Hedges and agree with nearly everything he writes, and I like and agree with this article.

But how can he argue for the need to present the facts in a compelling way, to appeal to the emotions as well as the intellect, to use popular media (film was mentioned), etc.---how can he argue this and neglect to mention the one prominent leftie who's made a career out of DOING EXACTLY THIS?

Give credit where credit is due. Moore is the most brightly shining example of what Hedges is talking about.

(I'm not a Moore fanatic, but I do get tired of liberals dogging Moore for "sensationalism" when he's only trying to convey his message with all the force available in his medium ... which, of course, is exactly what he should do.)

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Assimilation is inevitable resistance is futile.

The fight is over and so is Merka

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because if we don't start outing the main offenders in a a very public manner, we lose. I think some of the blogs out there are doing a brilliant job, but I sense a lack of subversiveness in the reaction of the general populace to corporatism. I am one if its victims myself. Today, thanks to Apple, Inc. I am starving because I was misclassified as an independent contractor when I was an employee. Because of said Permatemp status, I was denied unemployment benefits when I was laid off. I worked alongside regular employees, doing exactly the same thing for three years straight with no break in the contract and no benefits.

And now I get to hear that Steve Jobs bought himself a new liver! Woo hoo! Steve the gazillionare refused me health insurance while I worked in a high profile job. Believe me when I say that he and other CEOs will live forever. They have the means and the support to do so. We the 'little people' do not, so it is even more crucial that we get the the word out there as to EXACTLY who it is who is abusing our rights, and not just some vague notion about corporate evil. We can do it folks. Exposure of abuse is simply a matter of speaking up, which requires practically no effort. Well... I guess it requires some balls too, but that's easy when you're starving and your eyes are popping out of their sockets, no?

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to do anything. Several days ago Obama signed legislation that, to the best of my understanding, turns the economy over to the (private) Federal(sic) Reserve Bank which apparently is run by and for the same Goldman Sachs criminals who deregulated the banking-mortgage sector in 1999, orchestrated the housing bubble and the economic crash (see the Cockburn's "American Casino") and are now and have been, to all apparent appearances, working to actually sink the economy into an even deeper, more prolonged depression-recession e.g. Congress fails to pass mortgage holder protection law; endless trillions shoveled into private banks and no accountability called for (refer to Prof. Eliz. Warren). I can't help but feel that this has been an intentional attempt to, if not destroy the American middle class, at least to siphon off most of the middle classes assets to the banking elites.

Chris Hedges, I greatly admire your work and the insights they provide; now please tell me it's not too late...

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Nothing, nothing, suggests otherwise. Hedges calls for an appeal to emotion, but to what audience and via what medium?

Rebirths of the past that Hedges mentions were marked by profound crises and war, where all of the organs of the state were channeled into self-preservation, leading to an embrace of the common man.

And do not forget that we had a bountiful continent to exploit with plentiful slave labor.

After WWI and WWII we were alone in the world as the only major industrial power not bombed into oblivion, with a growing industrial sector available to rebuild the world. This opportunity also put demands on the ruling class to embrace worker demands with very little short term discomfort (long term they had to ship their plants overseas to break those same contracts - no big deal).

Now things are very different. The US has none of its historical imperatives with respect to worker empowerment, and the middle class is in rapid decline across all fronts.

Average Americans have zero power. Government, media and wealth are all firmly in the grasp of corporate America - we are a corporate state.

Things will not change until things are so bad that people are willing to die for it. That is the way it has always been throughout history and I don't see why things will be any different now.

peace,
Paul

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Have you seen the movie "Pete Seeger: the Power of Song"? PBS airs it periodically on its "American Masters". It's a bio of Pete Seeger, and inspiring as just that, but it's also a roadmap to the power of home-grown music to mobilize people and remind them that they hold change in their hands. The unionizers sang, the civil rights movement ran on song (see Bernice Johnson Reagon on this topic), the antiwar movement of the Viet Nam era ran on song. After that, our voices started to get co-opted, and thus silenced.

Watching Seeger (who was better at bringing an audience out of its silence than anyone of the past hundred years) in the film made me remember what it feels like to sing, uncritically, in unison with a thousand other people. You not only remember that you have a voice, you experience the very literal power of being part of a thousand-person voice, and you experience what collective unity feels like. From there to taking to the streets is a very short step.

We all know that government requires the consent of the governed -- that is really what the intense PsyOps war on the American people over the past 50 years has been about, making sure that "the governed" are sound asleep, or at least that they forget they have any power. The corporate media have done their job -- the erasure of American culture, and even the erasure of the core teachings of Christianity, which both are radical and populist, has made people isolated and powerless. Yes, there has been financial profit in turning us into nothing but consumers, a collection of giant bipedal tapeworms who do nothing but ingest and shit out the leavings of "globalization". But the disempowerment of the people is by far the more important result.

But back to singing. Here's the note I appended to the end of this article when I sent it to everyone I know:
I recently happened upon a trilogy by SF writer Elizabeth Scarborough, called "The Songkiller Saga". Basic premise: the Devil and his forces of darkness rejoice because they have corporatized all the arts and made the people into passive, unthinking consumers -- except for the one great holdout, folk song, which keeps popping back up like crabgrass and empowering people to sing about their lives and speak out through music. So they set out to complete the extinction of homemade music, which will make their rule on Earth complete. Made me remember the days when I never went anywhere without my guitar, and would sing at the drop of a hat -- and a lot of the songs I knew were, uh, "socially conscious". I've been silent for so long -- it was kind of a shock to realize that there was a time when I knew my contribution was valuable, even though my voice was amateurish.

PBS' "American Masters" aired an amazing movie ("The Power of Song") about the life of Pete Seeger, whose whole life was devoted to raising people's political awareness and unity through un-slick, imperfect, homemade music -- if you get the chance, be sure to see it. It made me realize that one reason we "seventies" types felt empowered to speak up was that we'd been part of groups that sang together -- a general opening of our throat chakras as well as our minds, and a raising of our collective energies as well as our voices. That opening and raising was what Pete Seeger was all about -- in fact, in Scarborough's trilogy, Seeger (thinly disguised) has died, and has become an even more powerful force than he was in life. In the trilogy, working through the banjo he left behind on earth, he is the Devil's prime opponent in the final attempt to turn people into silent cattle.

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YOUR HOUSE WILL BE “CAPPED”

http://boortz.com/more/newsletter/070209_capandtrade.html
JULY 2.2009
Last Friday the House passed this cap-and-tax bill.

So now we have this 1,200 page long bill with a last-minute 300 page amendment filled with sweeteners and “place holders” … and no one really knows what’s in it. But it passed.

Almost a week later, we are coming to find more details on what exactly is in the darn thing. This is where you homeowners need to pay attention.

The plan is called REEP — Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance. If you sell your house, you will be required before to sell it to retrofit your home to meet any federal green guidelines drawn up by some government hacks. It says, “The Administrator shall develop and implement, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy, standards for a national energy and environmental building retrofit policy for single-family and multi-family residences … The purpose of the REEP program is to facilitate the retrofitting of existing buildings across the United States.” Details? That’s for the EPA to decide. Payment? Well that is up to the states to fund, and ultimately passed on to the taxpayers. Just another unfunded federal mandate.

The bottom line is that you put your home on the market, and as part of the closing process, you will have to cough up some sort of certificate to say that your home is compliant with green guidelines as promulgated by the federal Department of Energy. For example, does your home have roofing materials that reflect solar energy? That will be a requirement if you want to sell your home under green guidelines. That means that you as a homeowner will have to put a new roof on your home before you can sell it, and not just a new roof but one that reflects solar rays. How much does a new roof cost nowadays? Maybe $9,000 or $10,000. Yeah, and that’s just one of the mandates. The government is going to test air quality around your home, take infrared readings of your house. How much is all of this compliance going to cost you when you try to sell your home?

According to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, “If we were to retrofit 3 million homes over the next decade, we would only consume 10 days less petroleum (.27% less). If we were to retrofit 10 times as many homes, 30 million, (which is almost certainly not possible to do in 10 years), we would save just 100 days of oil over a 10 year period (2.7% less).”

You let Barack Obama and the global warming nutcases out there get this cap-and-trade bill and you can bet that you will be paying out the nose as a homeowner.

CRAWFISH NOTE: Do not get upset…democrats are doing what they do best…making your life more complicated and expensive as they grow the gov-meant control over everything in your life…womb to da tomb!

http://conservablogs.com/theconservativecrawfish/

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[Tweaked from the original for emphasis...]

The real power to persuade and dominate a public remains with corporations and the government through control of the airwaves and domination of most publications by corporate advertisings, while news is restricted to reporting facts, to "objectivity and balance." The public is bombarded with carefully crafted images meant to confuse propaganda with ideology and knowledge with how we feel.

This indeed has been an issue with 9/11.

Every time a government spokesman or agency wanted to speak to 9/11, they could pretty much present their full argument in the corporate media with nary a dissenting or questioning commentator to offer a comprehensive opposing point of view. On the rare occasions when someone from 9/11 Truth was given air time, observe how they were treated:

- They were often marginalized by the "objective" host as early as their introduction, and certainly in loaded adjectives used in the questions and descriptions (e.g., nutty, loony, kooky).

- They rarely appeared alone, but always with someone representing the government's view. Because the host in many cases was not impartial, they were outnumbered.

- The discussions were steered into truly fringe areas of the movement, and the attention-deficit host jumped from one topic to another.

- After the small talk, commercial breaks (lead-out, lead-in), other side rebuttals, fast topic-hops, and detours away from the most solid arguments, the total airtime to present a case dissenting with the official 9/11 view was tiny.

Treatment of the 9/11 Truth Movement in the printed media may have been worst of all. Has Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times ever devoted a special issue to this topic from the 9/11 Truth Movement's point-of-view? Have they even ever published an in-depth article (or series of articles) presenting faithfully the 9/11 Truth Movement's case without undermining it in the very same article, not to mention accompanying ones?

Whereas hometown newspapers retained their names, consolidation turned them into mini-McGannetts always drawing on the same pool of articles. The first hurdle is whether local editors would even run the story. The second hurdle is how much hacking they'd do prior to publication. The third hurdle is where they'd run it (e.g., bury it) and split it to make it more difficult for a reader to find and follow.

[continued]

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Americans do not seem to realize that we need to look past our hubris that we are the greatest forever, and perfection itself. We think it is enough to fly our flags and sing the national anthem rather than guard our liberties. It is no wonder that corporations rule us now. I find deaf ears when I tell people to look around at what is happening. I for one am losing my ability to afford medical care, parking, and even decent groceries.

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some smugglers convinced the citizenry that armed rebellion against their neighbours was a *lovely* idea.

"we don't need no debates, diplomacy, patience or laws... we got WEAPONS... its all about ME & NOW!!!!"

THUS ... ever since, picking up a weapon & bashing in the head of your neighbour has been 'patriotic' for Americans.

no, American culture has been fucked since before 1776.

you just TELL yourselves after the fact that violence, narcissism & greed is a lovely cultural model... forced upon you by Other People...

then you call it 'history' when most of the American historical record is simple propaganda to keep the banditry & cruelty a 'normative' influence on 'culture'.

There are plenty of nations where corruption, greed & armed conflict aren't considered 'normal' or patriotic.

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Look Who Funds them, along with others who hide. Do The Research down to the bottom-THEN BOTHER TO RESPOND.
Otherwise you are just knee-jerk spouting The Corporate-Government Media State programming.

* Alki Fund of the Tides Foundation
* Arca Foundation
* Bauman Foundation
* Carnegie Corporation of New York
* Cloud Mountain Foundation
* Compton Foundation
* Funding Exchange (Donor Advised)
* Glaser Progress Foundation
* LP Brown Foundation
* Nathan Cummings Foundation
* Panta Rhea Foundation
* Park Foundation
* Anonymous Donor of RSF Social Finance
* Wallace Global Fund
* Working Assets Grantmaking Fund of the Tides Foundation

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The emergence of the value of diversity, equal rights for minorities (including the LGBT community), and women, pluralism, and revival of roots and true history that happened as the postmodern wave emerged in the 60s and 70s, the wave ushering in the worldcentric stage, was built on the necessary homogenization and nation-centric awareness of the melting pot transforming from the ethnocentrism of the 19th century, and eariler.

The fact that the neoconservatives did not allow this natural evolution to exist in anything but starved-for-air underground venues and actively fought to react AGAINST the postmodern wave has brought us to this point when we should be quite green and postmodern in the developed countries and moving into the Integral planet-centric phase. This, as I said, was blocked, imo, by Rove, Norquist, and the corporatists who did not want to give up their old melting-pot elitist plutocratic power, excess wealth, and advantages, who had not transformed their consciousness upward and outward.

The marriage of reason and emotion is feeling-attention, (Da) aka vision-logic (Wilber), a higher faculty of consciousness promoting compassionate interdependent awareness and wise action.

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