"You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." –Abbie Hoffman
Abbie killed himself shortly after uttering this realization, demonstrating his conviction about its hard-edged reality in America.
It's ludicrous to even mention that D word any longer. Or to entertain any hope or expectation that anyone will do anything about any of this because, as you write: "They will steal as much as they can, as fast as they can, on the way down". In a neofeudal capitalist monstrosity, it's always about self-enrichment.
Mother Nature WILL end this shit show sooner than we can pretend it won't, for you and I and every living thing on our only home, because of our ignorance, arrogance and hubris of those who own us and govern us - we are totally fucked. Check out Robert Hunziker at CounterPunch - he offers NO bull on the state of our environment - I don't like being lied to and least of all I detest false hope.
Hope doesn’t mean anything without action, John. Otherwise, it’s just another opiate of the people. Maybe we should relegate that word to the dustbin, at least for the time being, and instead work on galvanizing people including ourselves to act. All the best to you.
Good points as usual Nancy. Any of my hope for hope was largely crushed by the Hope & Change guise from several years ago. What bothers even further is there is no criticism or critique of that particular false hope guy - he STILL has his fan base fooled who are all too ready to defend his 2 term record as POTUS. This is what we get when it's all the NPR, PBS. NYT, BBC, etc., crowd that considers themselves more enlightened and deserving than the likes of me or other detractors of their failed party. We need those people to wake the F up.
Absolutely, John. Don’t forget that the Obama campaign got some kind of award for “advertising.” Back when he was running in the primary, a small group of my coworkers and I went to lunch and the rest were all excited about him and his “Hope you can believe in” message. I remember asking, what does that even mean. I had actually been reading coverage of his record and his rhetoric apart from the slogans. It was all there, including his reluctant opposition to the Iraq War at the behest of his advisors (ad men), who said opposition to the war in his campaign for the Senate would play well in his Illinois district. I remember that after he was elected, he would have done the same thing as Bush had he been president at the time. And he stuck with Bush’s timetable, only pulling out (some) troops when the Iraqis rightly refused to guarantee immunity to U.S. troops who committed atrocities against Iraqi civilians. I came to this issue of Hedges Report relatively late, but wrote more about Obama in a separate comment. Hope you get to it .
Maybe stuck to the ever present danger of Trump . This is a ominous moment in history that is down to a sexual predator, greedy and narcissistic moron who was allowed to run for president and voted in but when you look at the voting numbers , her barely won. That is where any sort of hope might be found - all those who didn't voted need to be the target of a campaign in the mid term elections. I believe in the Churchill quote: Never give up. He certainly had his flaws but he was left with the mess of Chamberlain who thought he could rely on diplomacy. Americans have the responsibility of turfing this lot out. Get it done.
Hi John, while I am generally attuned to your malaise, I believe, as a biologist, that it won't go completely dark. Bacteria/ archaea in remote places like deep ice caves and elsewhere will likely make it through. Chemoautotrophs, like sulfur and iron oxidizers. Whether more complex cells and ultimately photosynthesis-based life will re-evolve is anyone's guess. I just try to take heart that old Mother Earth won't give up the last of her living cells too easily; simple, but self-organized, life will keep trudging on.
I read Robert Hunziker on CounterPunch every time he has an article. He tells it like it is. I agree completely with your assessment regarding climate change. Another site I check regularly is: https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
“Whether the Doomsday Glacier craters with a big splash today, tomorrow, or next century, the fact remains that polar scientists agree it is ultra-high risk surrounded by uncertainty. The dimensions are well known, timing of sea level rise is guesswork. But because it is huge and known to be extremely unstable, someday it’ll disrupt civilization beyond the comprehension of today’s stubborn ill-informed climate deniers. And, assuming the 450 polar scientists are close to correct; they’ll see it during their lifetimes. Then what?”
I used to be (and still am, to an extent) very involved in dem elections, making thousands of phone calls, getting people to volunteer to get out the vote in their precincts, training them, keeping track of progress, through the country dem party here. After the technology became too difficult for me, I got involved in individual races--Bernie twice, and most recently phone banking for Mamdani (how rewarding!). In 2020 I walked in the poorer parts of town, telling people that their vote was their voice. Now the party is split: those who say, vote for the person who is most likely to win against the Republican, and those, like me, who say that your vote is your voice--vote for whoever most reflects your values. Which means the possibiity of losing.
I keep looking for a safe place/country to move to. Any suggestions? Even Greenland...It breaks my heart.
If my partner and I were younger our first choice would be Ireland. But given our ages and a much beloved cat we are forever fostering we feel doomed to ride out the ever increasing dystopian madness in the shit hole USA.
I’m 70 and my partner is 78. If we were younger we might really consider leaving. But we did just renew our passports just in case that might change. We’ve had a good life. We lived simply and kindly toward others all our lives and now have an “exit plan” for if and/or when things get too draconian. I guess it might be considered selfish as there are many in the world who are living in a draconian life now who manage to keep on going. I won’t be one of them when the time comes. I no longer have any so-called hope for humanity to wake up and live in a caring and balanced manner towards the earth and each other. It seems humanity would rather go extinct than live in such a simply sane manner.
Your following words from below echo what I feel and have done with others in our lives: “Our only hope is mass civil disobedience, and I am too fucking old to be sitting picket lines and being arrested again. I do what I can - I have the money to bail out my kids and their friends, to support journalists like Chris, and to make sure the people in my closest circle are materially safe.”
I’ve come to a point in my life where I realize there is no saving the USA from its ongoing collapse. I still see far too many idiots proclaiming the Democrats will save us. Nope. There are two brands of the corporate/oligarch uni-party who only serve their masters and not the citizens. They have done nothing but enable this wholesale destruction of the USA along with their Republican brethren for decades now.
It’s over now and as you also posted below which sums it up nicely: “I don't understand why people aren't more afraid. We are on the eve of destruction, and it is coming faster than I believed possible.”
ireland (non-colonial, and had suffered greatly from having been colonized by UK therefore compassion/action for the persecuted ones ) and spain : yes, safER.
portugal (colonisation started 500 yrs ago, deep in DNA): a myth. wake up! started when gov lured foreign investments with shady gold card deals. right extremists taking over, following the tRUMP script too. I live here. Becoming hard to stay as immigrant, even as EU citizen. some yankes have already understood what it is about and have looked at and chosen alternatives.
I can relate. We have a small dog, but mostly it's about the kids and grands. If I thought immigrating to Ireland would solve anything, I would have years ago. I can't claim Irish citizenship because there are too many generations between me and my immigrant ancestors who left County Mayo in the 1830's to immigrate to Canada, but I can support what I can from the Americas. With the U.S. fast disintegrating into a autocracy like Russia, I'm wondering about where to go if things get really bad. I am one generation out from even claiming Canadian citizenship. And as a retiree, I would be one of the last people Canada would accept as a refugee since I can't work as much as I used to when I was a lot younger.
I will stick it out for now. If the government does end up failing massively, and I lose all of my pensions, and thereby my house, I will be forced to apply to Canada for refugee acceptance. But by then, so will millions of other Americans. Canada has the room for us but we'd all be living in tents and RV's due to severe lack of housing. We're caught betwixt and between now with nowhere to go in the short term.
Fun story (I hope): I played in the San Diego Symphony and one day it was decided that we would play side by side with the Maryiinsky Orchestra (from St. Petersburg, or whatever it's called now.) Well, there was a real demarcation in the orchestra lounge between westerners and the Russians, and I decided, student of improv that I am, that that was just silly. So I waltzed up to one member and couldn't think of anything else to say but, "What will it be like when we're a colony of Russia's?" So the Russian member called the third flutest/piccolo player to come and translate. I repeated the question, it was translated, and then the answer, "You won't have 'things'". We laughed, the ice broken.
The Russians were amazing musicians, sweet people, and I loved being in the host orchestra. But, yes, when we are a colony of Russia's, we may not have "things", but we'll have each other.
I get it. My son and grand-kids are in the same town as I am, here in Florida (I know, God help us just from that) But if they were to somehow decide to leave, I'd be right behind them. I wish you safety and best of luck...
Our cat is named Zelda Louise. Her previous “caretaker” Gretchen (I don’t like the word “owner” when it comes to pets) named her that and had her since when she was a kitten. We were blessed to have her come into our life just this last August 1st. Her previous owner Gretchen now in her eighties took a fall, was in the hospital and then rehab for weeks so the director of the our local cat sanctuary (named Catmandu) where we have volunteered for six years now asked us if we would take her in as on top of everything else, Gretchen has severe dementia and was not caring for the cat before the fall. And clearly was unable to do so going forward. So Zelda Louise is now in our care for the duration and will turn 15 in February. She still has the energy of a kitten and amazes us every day with her energy. Hopefully I have not gone off track too far with this response, but somehow Zelda Louise keeps reminding us of what things are truly important as things continue to collapse around us. Love and caring for all flora and fauna.
As a side note Catmandu as are so many good things, is run on a shoestring budget as it houses anywhere from 80 to 100 cats. Check out their website and donate if you are moved to do so.
The last election that gave me hope was Obama's first term. And he turned out to be a Manchurian candidate, owned lock-stock-and barrel by the same people who own everything now.
This last election - do I support someone who supports a genocide while touting giggles and vibes? Or someone else who supports a genocide and lies whenever his mouth is open? A vacuous queen or a mad king; and neither any more than mascots for people who rule both parties.
And how the fuck have we come to a point where our choices are between two people who support the mass murder of infants?
Our only hope is mass civil disobedience, and I am too fucking old to be sitting picket lines and being arrested again. I do what I can - I have the money to bail out my kids and their friends, to support journalists like Chris, and to make sure the people in my closest circle are materially safe.
I don't understand why people aren't more afraid. We are on the eve of destruction, and it is coming faster than I believed possible.
I voted for Obama in 2008. I regretted my vote two weeks later when he appointed the same Wall Street crooks to his administration as Bush had in his. That is when I finally woke up to the reality of the USA having nothing to do with being a democracy except is some nonsensical name only. Looking back before that I am ashamed to say I voted for the Democrats every election since Carter in 1976. I was nothing but an ignorant fool all those years, voting out of fear of the other like a good little citizen. I should have woken up earlier, especially when Gore and Kerry both rolled over in the face of apparent election fraud to steal the election from them. I haven’t voted on a national level ever since 2008. If I was able to wake up, so can others. But I fear it is too late now. Speaking of hope, hopefully the USA goes down the drain like all the failed empires that preceded it ASAP before it does take all life on earth in its insane quest to rule the world.
Marcia Z: "I give hope to men, I keep none for myself."
I suffered despair when I was clinging to a passive hope of deliverance that never came. My new kind of hope is defiant and muscular. It's not a hope for my own safety, because that is a fantasy. Chris Hedges clearly states what we're up against. I work to counterbalance and realign the destructive power-corrupted forces that seem bent on destroying our planet for their short-term gains, and I do it for the sake of our children, and our children's children. If not me, then who? If not now, then when?
This is what you've been doing, and THANK YOU so much! Stay strong. Stay defiant. Keep working. More power to you!!
There is an interesting history to that book. Hoffman in fact stole much of the material, as recounted by a guy named Izak Haber in the 9/30/1972 issue of Rolling Stone.
Irony abounding: in that same issue (as it sits in front of me), the full-spread page 1 photograph is of Woody Allen. (Again, the Epstein files. It's good to hold onto little pieces of historic information, even something like pop culture artifacts. It casts a light years later, a perspective on character.)
And an story in The Guardian identifies Steal This Book as the sixth most stolen book in the U.K.
Abbie was a great jester. Like General Hershey Bar and General Wastemoreland.
It would be nice to see a few like that now, but they are products of a long-gone zeitgeist I fear.
They're murdering her as quickly as they can also......remember, she's the inexhaustible female resource they've built their fortunes on. We should perhaps ask Chris to review the sacrifice zones we've created around the world....places like Black Mesa come to mind.
Oh they're well aware of at least some of the limitations, e.g. rare metals and fossil fuels, which is why they're trying so hard to grab as much as they can right now. What they don't understand is the "web of life" concept. What it means when the world loses its trees due to global climate change. No amount of advanced ag technology can fill that gap, Bill Gates!
We had a symposium of art recently where I live.......that I mostly missed. But I did see one picture they advertised with...made by a native artist......in the British Columbian west coast style.......it was called "THE TREE SPIRITS, LEAVING". I cried...because many trees are dying where I live.....of a number of things, but not just drought......those along our river are dying as well.
Wildfires are newsworthy, and news articles sometimes cite bark beetles as the culprit for tree die off, but I have yet to see any news article on fires that mentions that the tree die off is global and caused by climate stress. Canada and California already had millions of dead trees before the recent wildfires, and even the ancient baobabs in Africa are dying off. Our children and grandchildren face hellish futures if we fail to step up.
Yes. ANother thing we should speak more of..........we have a book on our coffee table for the grandchildren.......called Trees. It's a beautiful book in which I learned of the baobab....but not that it is dying.
We have so many trees only half leafed out in the summer..........but of course, the bourgeoisie who ignore what America does to other countries also are quite good at ignoring their stress as well............or putting it down to a single 'cause' that they've identified.
Yes. I have read it. And the best part for me is where she shares evidence that the mother trees feed all the little saplings in the neighbourhood.......but each mother tree sends her own little ones just a bit more.
CASoS Theory is about as rare an item to these reprobates as their sense of morality. Nature is the ultimate Complex Adaptive System of Systems, and the complexity of the web of feedback interactions implicit in that understanding is opaque to the entrepreneur ethos.
Because to genuinely give it credence would dispossess them of their raison d'etre.
We have a whole history of interventions, in South America since the Cold war, just think Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, etc, etc. We have killed millions of people and to me this is more of the same. Disgusting, and abhorrent but what else is new? We went after Chavez and we didn't stop till he died of cancer. In the 21st century it was the Middle East that got our attention and for the benefit of Israel, and I guess ultimately we think our own. Did you really ever believe we were a real democracy? When ever I thought of America the D word was never for real. By the way when did slavery end and women get the vote?
Whoa, do you really believe that most first graders can shield themselves from the USA, D word, Freedom, Statue of Liberty progaganda? Good lord, go back to your tioddler-self. It's gut-level brainwashing at that age. America's always been good at that. Of course they convinced each of our undeveloped intellects at some point that there might be a smidgen of democratic thought inherent in de Tocqueville, Jefferson, the First Bloody amendment. But one learns. VIetnam cemented my learning curve in place. I think everyone has their own path to the full realization of just how foolish a farce it is.
Your wrong. I was a kid who knew the cowboys stole Indian land and then made them the bad guys. I use to ask adults to make sense of it for me, but none could, or would say anything. I remember having an important epiphany which said my country lies to me, and from then on never said when we saluted the flag the lie, "...with liberty and justice for all." Never did. I remember thinking my allegiance is not to my country, that is it's government, but to it's people. I had an uncle I adored and he was a chief engineer in the Merchant Marines. He would bring me home trinkets, from this country and that, so the world was a big place. He had without having to say anything that he had a global perspective on life, and I really liked it. I think you said seek refuge in nature, and I'm sure you can find that refuge no matter where it is to be found in this world and know it needs to be protected.
There was no attack on you and I am requesting that you never reply to my posts and I will make you the same promise because I'm tired of you using the Fuck word when presenting your perspective on things .Stay away, and I promise I will do the same. No reason at your age to be using the Fuck word to state your position. I will not tolerate it
Didn't finish this comment. You're in denial about the effect of your own rhetoric. Doesn't require pejoratives to be demeaning. You also readily call other commenters "stupid". Then you hide behind "curse words" as the point. Wake up. I will not be demeaned by you or anyone else. There's a difference between telling someone "I disagree", which invites discussion, and "you're wrong" or "what are you stupid" which says, "I'm omniscient, you're a jerk." And invites only negative responses. You need to learn how to write politely, if you don't want impolite responses. NOW, I'm done. Go ahead, block me; you really think I care? Not one iota.
You sound jealous. Why? Were you a stupid kid? In slow classes? Sorry if that was the case, and I know it's hard on stupid kids, but you seem to be somewhat better now. So don't feel bad.
What are you: dumb to the diverse situations encountered in this society? I was in a Catholic grammar school -- tight-assed, nuns, the whole sordid super-patriotic picture, I was a brainwashed young child. My parents were early 20th-century immigrants. That's a common image of immigrant super-patriotism. I was brainwashed early. That takes time to resolve. If you deny that aspect of he American experience because it wasn't yours, the issue is YOURS, a function of your narrow and shallow perspective and ignorance of US history. Jealous of you. Laughing my ass off.
geez to YOU, who feed fear and therefore war/violence/insult in the "I am right/you are wrong" hell. IMO this is how every war starts. violence generates violence. Is that what you REALLY want?
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there" RUMI. think about it. Will you consider a kind RESPONSE from the heart (silent is fine with me:)) instead of a brain reaction? It takes courage/humility to change habit. I too am working on it. this is an invitation not a lecture. Sincerely curious about whether you'll be able to soften and find new ways, in the love field. All the best to you.
I'm simply laying out history of the diversity of the American experience. I'm first-generation here of immigrant parents who got here shortly after the turn of the 20th Century. Are you? Likely not. It greatly effects what level of brainwashing one gets as a child.
Hence, this is about diversity, and to call someone's experience "wrong" (ungrammatically) is downright destructive, not constructive in any way shape or form.
Nor, frankly is your citing me Rumi particularly helpful, or telling me it's about "invitation" to change habit. I've had my metamorphosis -- fully, completely, being potentially pulled from grad school to go to war to kill people I had no quarrel with. Did you face getting drafted to go kill in 'Nam? Go through a draft physical? Probably not. It's a solid invitation to evolve.
I was brainwashed early. That takes time to resolve. If you deny that aspect of the American experience because it wasn't yours, then like Nancy's your perspective is narrow and shallow, and all the curiosity about softening and finding new ways is just so much empty rhetoric. All the best to your hopefully broadening perspective around the diverse experiential journeys of others.
At top of the best writing on our national decline! Make sure you're a paying subscriber (I am) to voices like Chris. You can be sure that enormous powers are aligned to suppress his moral truth and clarity.
I wistfully remember the summary of the Carter-Mondale administration: “Together we told the truth, we obeyed the law and we kept the peace.” They had a commitment to ethical governance, constitutional adherence, and maintaining peace domestically and internationally. Quite a contrast from a trumped up charge of narco terrorism.
Yes, and yet, I can’t help but remember Zbigniew Brzezinski was his National Security Advisor, that they began the destabilisation in Afghanistan to draw in the Soviets, and that Carter’s two best friends were the Shah of Iran, and Ferdinand Marcos.
I miss the days when I could snicker at Russia for going up against Afghani resistance fighters on their home turf...then it was the US' turn. This was when I realized that the old idea that the US never started a war was just self-serving propaganda. Even now I still get surprised. If anyone had told me that the US Congress would throw money at Israel to support a massive prolonged genocide that killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians along with a few hundred Hamas combatants, I never would have believed it. How much of this is corruption at the top, and how much is complacency and other moral failings by US citizenry, I can't say. Whatever the case, democracy deserves our greatest devotion if it is to succeed in the face of the climate crisis. (Edited to include mention of Hamas combatants)
Feet of clay for sure. But I believe Carter and Mondale were fundamentally men of integrity. I’m not sure when we lost that expectation for public service.
I don't know if this is true. I made phone calls for Rashida Tlaib. I am Jewish by race. I spoke to people who couldn't vote for Harris because of her supposed stance on Gaza and Israel. I say "supposed" because she said that she wouldn't differ from Biden's positions. No Palestinians spoke at the Dem convention. Many people couldn't stomach voting for her because of this. And we didn't have a primary. If you remember the primary in, I don't remember--2016?--she was the first to drop out due to lack of support.
I plan to support Butch Ware for governor of California. Am I a racist? I vote for the person whose policies are closest to mine. And try to help them win by walking precincts and making phone calls.
You’ve described me. Genocide was a bridge too far for me. Kamala Harris has continued to “shame” pro-Palestinian protesters since her loss. Look up her response to protesters on her book tour. Same for Tim Walz. Look up what each of them said about student protesters, as just one example. And when people protested Netanyahu’s reception by Congress, the only response Harris could muster is to condemn the burning of the U.S. flag. She was silent about the “incineration” of Palestinian children, a word I heard a doctor use to describe what he witnessed in Gaza literally a day before Harris’ criticism. These supporters of genocide, in either party, are radical right. Yet they protect themselves by self-labeling as moderates and centrists and most of us, especially the MSM, acquiesces. Fascism begins with the corruption of language (e.g., Maduro was “captured.”).
Sir Okie Doke, can you point out where you find support for your assertion in the linked article? Because myself, I can't see it. 50% of Hispanic voters went for Trump. An increasing percentage of black voters went for Trump in his second term.
To you, and to all of the "Pangloss" types out there, here's an obvious fact from the link below.
A similar split was seen when voters were asked if there is too much political correctness or too much prejudice in society today. Eighty percent of Republican voters said there is too much political correctness in society. Nearly the same share of Democrats, 77 percent, argued there’s too much prejudice.
Please (tell me/indicate) which one of the following statements comes closer to your own opinion.
Statement A: There is too much prejudice in our society today, and people need to be more respectful in what they do and say to avoid offending other people.
Statement B: There is too much political correctness in our society today and too much pressure on people to limit what they can do or say to avoid offending other people.
We have become at the same time not just an authoritarian country, but a totalitarian country. As Chris Hedges has mentioned, shifted along the spectrum from the inverted totalitarianism of Wolin to a characteristically U.S. form of fascism.
If the majority of the population has a wake-up threshold , when they stir into awareness and due alarm, it seems nowhere evident. The ability to be blind to the reality to what we have become seems at this point willful. (Wow, I can't wait to see the Avatar franchise! The irony of having the Wizard of Oz as the current bread and circuses event at the sphere in Las Vegas seems lost on us.)
.........
Moloch was mentioned. There was nice little piece in The Forward today. And again, it might be a good time to re-read War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.)
Yes.........that little book by Hedges should be compulsory reading for every warmonger out there.....but yikes!!! That would be communism would it not???
A good revisit of the Beatles politics.....but I still think Bob Dylan did a more explicit job of spelling out where we were.......in the early sixties already.
His song that goes "Well I learned to hate Russians/all through my whole life/if another war comes/its them we must fight.
And I learned to accept it, and accept it with pride/cause you don't count the dead/ when God's on your side...."
Says pretty clearly what American foreign policy has been about as long as I've been alive. Demonize the other side......even if that other side just exists in your imaginary..........and then, do everything you do...........to stop that externalized evil from coming for the good people.
THE DEVIL IS ALWAYS IN THE DETAILS OF AMERICAN POLICY...and that devil is a creature mostly of their own creation.
Therefore: THE DEAD AMERICAN POLICY CREATES DON'T MATTER.....they hardly ever existed anyway, and for damn sure, they don't now.
It's a magicians trick. No one gives a flying f.... about the 40 little lives lost to kidnap Maduro.
Those of us who do.........like Chris Hedges.......get deplatformed. Our best friends often joining in the silencing.
A haunting version.......most of us would do well to review Bob Dylan's canon. Because he saw America clearly...........in the 60's, and the big studios have had to inundate us with sexist crap to make us forget.
Another song that so clearly called out the US Empire back in the 1960’s was Monster by Steppenwolf that many don’t know of. Here is a version on YouTube with lyrics.
While my politics originated in the democratic socialism of the CCF, a party that rose out of the Great Depression in western Canada.......my time in the United States was much informed by Dylan.......and the entire counter culture of excellent protest movement that developed in the 60's and early 70's....against the imperial war in VietNam
In recent years, Big American studios have shut down that kind of creativity......todays music, what I can discern of an intelligent voice inside the lyrics, is mostly shlock....most sound either high or dealing with voice defects.........
However, I totally missed this album.....busy teaching and raising my kids by then. But Dylan understood fascism as it operated in America.........as it has always operated.
America's Fantasy that its an equal opportunity Democracy has always been shown up by realities that included the KKK, The House UnAmerican Activities, McCarthey, Assassinations of Progressive leaders, Cop Killings, the CIA, the war on AIM and the Black Panthers..........
...and I could go on. It would have been impossible for an artist as gifted as Dylan, not to see it.....but when I was young, he wasn't the only one.
Our Canadian Neil Young has been pretty prolific on that file as well.
I am a Vietnam vet. My admiration tor the people of Vietnam, the patriots who courageously fought and died to defeat a terrorist enemy, is enormous. We can be beat. We should be beat. We are a cancer, a disease, a blight on the hopes and aspirations of decent people. Our leadership is corrupt and close to the point that writing something like this may have consequences. Two boys out of nine in my fifth grade class didn't come home from Vietnam. The only consolation for their sacrifice is that they never learned that their purpose was evil and apparently for nothing. Many of us have had to live in this reality. If the suicide rate of veterans is any indication, many people can't
Ken, vets "sacrificing for" the country? Really? Sorry you are a vietnam vet, you were obviously blinded by propaganda then. QUESTION AUTHORITIES, MAKE LOVE NOT WAR is what we kept saying already in the 60s - I was born long ago... But the greedy warmongers and their obedient servants-following-orders wouldn't listen. At least you are waking up after the fact, discovering that Vietnamese are kind, now that you too have suffered from your decision/actions. While the French invasion then usa massacres ended 50 years ago, basically thanks to the ACTION of a very courageous whistleblower and from mobilizing citizens, the harm done just to Vietnam alone, continues. For instance: usa agent orange keeps poisoning everything in the country. 1 obvious way: poisoned mothers and their babies, the latter severely handicapped.
Vietnamese refugee Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hanh ("Thay") created Plum village/village des Pruniers in SW France. some usa Vets had the courage to take their unbearable guilt to the monastery, by acknowledging in public what they had done to Vietnamese people. 1 example I have never stomached so to speak: usa soldiers would give hungry kids sandwiches with hidden explosive inside. Imagine the consequence. This kind of cruelty has spread for instance all over Palestine, embodied by isrHELL's IOFs (offensive not defensive). The enormity of it will never lead me to normalize such viciousness. All I can do is keep remembering and do my little bit at the service of awakening to the truth of it. Thank YOU CHRIS H for your precious contribution!!!
Since you were an insider, did you find a way to "understand" such atrocities with your heart? On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur, St Ex. And alone or better with other vets, to make amends the best you could? Check out the Thay monasteries in the usa - Escondido in CA, or on E. Coast?
This being said, how about we are all responsible for everything that's happening anywhere?. Check for instance "hubpages, How Dr. Hew Len healed a ward of mentally ill criminals with Ho'oponopono" in the HI indigenous sacred tradition.
I hope this is helpful. If not, so be it :)) May we all be happy (serene, heart connected and safe, for ourselves and all beings).
What the fuck lady? I wasn't "blinded" by anything. I was an 18 year old kid who grew up in a small village in Maine. I was never asleep and never had any inclination towards patriotism , I went and I experienced the conflict. No one dissuaded me prior. Many people had parents and influences that might have dissuaded participation; I didn't. The experience left me with question, questions that required investigation. I was never a fucking hippy. personally never liked a hippy and I don't have any guilt. I didn't do anything to be guilty about. I've read Thich Naht Hanh. I'm not a pacifist. There is a war I would very much like to fight. I consider myself a socialist. I have considered myself that since before I knew what that meant. For your information the "atrocities" have never stopped and new levels of carnage are imminent. You might want to leave your "heart" out of the impending battle unless it is the heart of a lion - so to speak. There is a difference between fighting for something you believe in and being cannon fodder for our owners. Patriots don't commit suicide. People murdering people for other people's benefit do.
MSN headline Maduro "brazenly flashes a peace sign" - guffaw!
Maria Corina Machado can't replace Maduro because she doesn't command enough respect, according to Pres. Trump. Looks to me like her worst sin was being awarded the Nobel Prize that Trump wanted. How dare she!
The whole charade plays out like some kind of burlesque except with very real consequences for democracy, humanity, and our planet's future. Welcome Moloch.
Machado is likely not much different from Guido......he didn't run in the election Maduro won (fairly....our United Church, Unifor, Council of Canadians etc. were there to monitor it)...he didn't run because the opposition knew they wouldn't win.
Better to declare the free election rigged and try for a coup. America back then, just before covid, thought they could effect that coup with a selfie. Didn't work, so now they have to kidnap Maduro......before Trump (advised likely by people who know) tells the truth about her lack of support.
We need to also put the Nobel Committee on trial.......for their servile willingness to destroy what has been a trusted award committee............because I'm betting Trump once again, said the quiet part out loud.
THE OPPOSITION IN VENEZUELA HAS THE SUPPORT OF THE CIA, NOT THE VENEZUELAN PEOPLE.
I read up on the election monitoring efforts that certified them as fair and free, and I hope that no one in the Trump administration expects the world to believe their shoddy frame up.
Lot's believe it..........they only read Canada's Globe and Mail......or America's New York Times.
If we in Canada were the good people we like to imagine we are........the Trudeau government of the day wouldn't have had the guts to fete Juan Guido as the rightful President of Venezuela. If half the people of Canada and the USA knew that shameful story........they'd be more sceptical of calling Maduro a dictator.
The best LIES of the west are those of occlusion. We go silent...stare the truth tellers down. I know. I've friends who've mastered that hard stare of refusal to know the whole story.
Denialism is a strong defence mechanism. We should know that by now.
In Canada too.....I've already discussed with a friend the hard look of someone 'staring you down' because they don't want to acknowledge what you're saying.
The only thing that could save us is mass action, worldwide. But it is only a minority that resists, and here in the U.S. we’ve become like our supine Congress — we have the power, but we don’t use it. We will (and have) allowed the minority who resist, like Francesca Albanese, to be punished and sacrificed. I’m tired, dispirited and worn out from being in such a small minority. The 2% or 2.5% who participated in the U.S.’s largest protest is not enough. And the portion of those who protested the genocide in Gaza was even smaller, the organizers having been mostly message carriers for the Democratic Party. Many if not most of the people I know are “concerned,” but inactive, going about their lives as usual, albeit with a growing sense of dread. This has happened over decades, as consumerism has increasingly supplanted citizenship. Nonetheless, the minority cannot give up. Perhaps our numbers will grow. We need to look elsewhere than the Democratic Party. Remember, as just one of many examples, that Obama justified the overthrow of the Libyan government by saying we were not engaged in a “war,” because we were not sending in ground troops. Even his own Justice Department rejected his definition, so he went around it to White House and Department of Defense lawyers to get support for his unconstitutional acts. Yet the Democrats continue to send him out to rally the voters, ignoring, for example, that he has stayed quiet about Gaza and withheld support for Mamdami.
I thought it was interesting that in her speech condemning the U.S.’s invasion, interim Venezuelan president Rodriguez laid at least partial blame on “the Zionists.” This accusation does not appear to have been explored in the media.
Thank you, Chris Hedges and your community of readers for an island of sanity. I guess all we can do is keep trying.
This is a trajectory that predates Trump and Biden. Focusing on the individual distracts from the systemic failures being eroded over years of neglect. Chris always has the gift of being able to connect the historical dots in a way that keeps me searching for a clearer understanding of what is unfolding.
As someone who was born in the USA and a citizen of the USA, I say this to the country of my birth: GO FUCK YOURSELF. I have detested the country of my birth and what it has always stood for, A ROGUE STATE, since my high school days. I am 70 years old now. I refused to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance everyday in high school. I was the only one who refused to do so. The USA needs to be taken down by any means necessary. The world needs to rally against the USA like it did against Nazi Germany. The USA is the Fourth Reich now and deserves the same fate of the Third Reich. What the hell are you all waiting for. The USA wants to dominate and rule the world. There is no country the USA will not take out given enough time. We have no allies, just cowering countries currently bending the knee to the world’s largest terrorist organization, arguably in history. Make it collapse before it kills us all.
Yes, I almost wrote that in my post. But given the USA’s history of violence in the world since its inception and betrayal to the concept of law, there is no country that is safe from its madness given time, assuming nuclear war or climate catastrophe doesn’t take us out first. But I agree with you for now regarding Israel.
Now that the US attempt at detente with Russia has failed, current leadership seems to have shifted focus to military "involvement" in the Caribbean, Central and South America, annexing Canada and Greenland. Israel seems like a mightily fortified outpost but it's on the wrong side of the world. Will greed for conquest within puerile macho echo chambers cause the US to overextend its hand?
I see Israel rather as a temporizer and an exploiter of the U.S. Israel seems to get what they want from us, even if they don't always get it all right away. Just look at all the Congress critters who compete with each other to display the most self-effacing subservience and unpatriotic disloyalty to a foreign country.
i agree, except for the violent go fuck yourself (while i interpret it as you feeling sorrow, helplessness, shame, anger at what we all are responsible for, especially usa born citizens). Any creative idea on how to collapse the profiteers and complicits, and create new life? boycott? Other?
This post reviews murderous American regime change wars I am familiar with.......but so much information about ill conceived regime change wars and the oft dismissed horrors of 'collateral damage' visited upon little people fades over the years..........and I like most westerners, have been glad to forget. The horrors America brought to Iraq and her people during and between the two Gulf Wars are blots on the Western conscience..........so we want to forget about them.
Chris won't let us. We should thank him for that........because the starvation deaths of half a million Iraqi children are not forgivable. The tortures Americans enjoyed inflicting in Abu Greib aren't either.........but that debacle at least became visible, public and unforgettable.
What Hedges does in this post is something even more valuable for all of us privileged westerners to grapple with..........and we need to do so quickly. There is not much time left to abandon our fantasies of the noble American Empire, and look clearly at the messes she has caused, is causing, and likely intends to increase..............as her world implodes.....
and the insatiable gangsters she's created come for the furniture. So please: lets spare ourselves pleasant fantasies about all those 'evil big Others'......and put what energy we have into active resistance of the fascism rising in Amerika. That is the threat. That is the evil Empire.
The good news is its close enough to home, for all of us to do something other than point fat fingers into the darkness rising around us. It's not Putin. It's not even Trump.
It's a free market unregulated privatized capitalism that has gone windigo. Our native brothers and sisters understood the dangers of the Windigo. Look that concept up.
Thank you, Mr Hedges. Perfect, once again. Just one thing I would like to mention: does it make anyone else sick to their stomach to hear the way these people speak? Was it Hegseth who said something like "he fooled around too eff-ing long and now he's paying the price" (referring to Maduro)? "Fooled around" and "eff-ing" (which is both vulgar and hypocritically evasive) make my skin crawl and are (or should be) unimaginable coming out of the mouth of a head of state. I in no way imply that the deeds are not much much worse than the vocabulary. But there is surely a sinister connection between the two, no?
You are the best at describing all that we are living through. What can we do now? I am ready for anything that might produce a better outcome for our grandchildren.
Its been funny to see european vasal elite " justfications" to Trump Don by saying "Maduro has not legitimate power" like Kallas and choir says. Where are laws, rules, principles, western values, democratic suvereignty etc now? Follow Don Rogue!
"You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." –Abbie Hoffman
Abbie killed himself shortly after uttering this realization, demonstrating his conviction about its hard-edged reality in America.
It's ludicrous to even mention that D word any longer. Or to entertain any hope or expectation that anyone will do anything about any of this because, as you write: "They will steal as much as they can, as fast as they can, on the way down". In a neofeudal capitalist monstrosity, it's always about self-enrichment.
Never heard Abbie’s righteous quote before, thanks! Getting very hard to avoid despair. I fear only Mother Nature can end the horror show.
Mother Nature is always where I seek solace. The one I can turn to without encountering the agenda: "shop now".
same here. She is my safe house from a man-made world gone mad
Mother Nature WILL end this shit show sooner than we can pretend it won't, for you and I and every living thing on our only home, because of our ignorance, arrogance and hubris of those who own us and govern us - we are totally fucked. Check out Robert Hunziker at CounterPunch - he offers NO bull on the state of our environment - I don't like being lied to and least of all I detest false hope.
Hope doesn’t mean anything without action, John. Otherwise, it’s just another opiate of the people. Maybe we should relegate that word to the dustbin, at least for the time being, and instead work on galvanizing people including ourselves to act. All the best to you.
Good points as usual Nancy. Any of my hope for hope was largely crushed by the Hope & Change guise from several years ago. What bothers even further is there is no criticism or critique of that particular false hope guy - he STILL has his fan base fooled who are all too ready to defend his 2 term record as POTUS. This is what we get when it's all the NPR, PBS. NYT, BBC, etc., crowd that considers themselves more enlightened and deserving than the likes of me or other detractors of their failed party. We need those people to wake the F up.
Absolutely, John. Don’t forget that the Obama campaign got some kind of award for “advertising.” Back when he was running in the primary, a small group of my coworkers and I went to lunch and the rest were all excited about him and his “Hope you can believe in” message. I remember asking, what does that even mean. I had actually been reading coverage of his record and his rhetoric apart from the slogans. It was all there, including his reluctant opposition to the Iraq War at the behest of his advisors (ad men), who said opposition to the war in his campaign for the Senate would play well in his Illinois district. I remember that after he was elected, he would have done the same thing as Bush had he been president at the time. And he stuck with Bush’s timetable, only pulling out (some) troops when the Iraqis rightly refused to guarantee immunity to U.S. troops who committed atrocities against Iraqi civilians. I came to this issue of Hedges Report relatively late, but wrote more about Obama in a separate comment. Hope you get to it .
Maybe stuck to the ever present danger of Trump . This is a ominous moment in history that is down to a sexual predator, greedy and narcissistic moron who was allowed to run for president and voted in but when you look at the voting numbers , her barely won. That is where any sort of hope might be found - all those who didn't voted need to be the target of a campaign in the mid term elections. I believe in the Churchill quote: Never give up. He certainly had his flaws but he was left with the mess of Chamberlain who thought he could rely on diplomacy. Americans have the responsibility of turfing this lot out. Get it done.
I got it Nancy - thank you for writing it and especially for even knowing it / having the courage to state it. All the best to you.
Hi John, while I am generally attuned to your malaise, I believe, as a biologist, that it won't go completely dark. Bacteria/ archaea in remote places like deep ice caves and elsewhere will likely make it through. Chemoautotrophs, like sulfur and iron oxidizers. Whether more complex cells and ultimately photosynthesis-based life will re-evolve is anyone's guess. I just try to take heart that old Mother Earth won't give up the last of her living cells too easily; simple, but self-organized, life will keep trudging on.
Thanks for this Vin , beautiful and profound .
I read Robert Hunziker on CounterPunch every time he has an article. He tells it like it is. I agree completely with your assessment regarding climate change. Another site I check regularly is: https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/
Opening the first article at the arctic blogspot is very depressing. Looks like methane accelerated climate change due to sea ice loss here we come.
My god, a simply worded report with real data measurements as proof. Must be making it up.
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2026/01/sea-ice-loss-increases-methane-danger.html?m=1
lol, and then what?
Complete chaos and carnage no doubt?
“Whether the Doomsday Glacier craters with a big splash today, tomorrow, or next century, the fact remains that polar scientists agree it is ultra-high risk surrounded by uncertainty. The dimensions are well known, timing of sea level rise is guesswork. But because it is huge and known to be extremely unstable, someday it’ll disrupt civilization beyond the comprehension of today’s stubborn ill-informed climate deniers. And, assuming the 450 polar scientists are close to correct; they’ll see it during their lifetimes. Then what?”
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/12/19/the-doomsday-glacier-flunks-2025-checkup/
If there's anything I love less than false hope, it's thumb-sucking defeatism.
Right. One is not defeated until he/she agrees. We don't agree!
Yes!
I stole that book a long time ago. ;)
Flush that despair. Embrace hope. Defy.
Where do you find hope? Elections?
I used to be (and still am, to an extent) very involved in dem elections, making thousands of phone calls, getting people to volunteer to get out the vote in their precincts, training them, keeping track of progress, through the country dem party here. After the technology became too difficult for me, I got involved in individual races--Bernie twice, and most recently phone banking for Mamdani (how rewarding!). In 2020 I walked in the poorer parts of town, telling people that their vote was their voice. Now the party is split: those who say, vote for the person who is most likely to win against the Republican, and those, like me, who say that your vote is your voice--vote for whoever most reflects your values. Which means the possibiity of losing.
I keep looking for a safe place/country to move to. Any suggestions? Even Greenland...It breaks my heart.
Please--tell me about hope.
If my partner and I were younger our first choice would be Ireland. But given our ages and a much beloved cat we are forever fostering we feel doomed to ride out the ever increasing dystopian madness in the shit hole USA.
Get out. Your cat can travel under the seat of your plane.
Nowhere is really safe, but Ireland, Portugal, and Spain haven't fallen (yet.)
I’m 70 and my partner is 78. If we were younger we might really consider leaving. But we did just renew our passports just in case that might change. We’ve had a good life. We lived simply and kindly toward others all our lives and now have an “exit plan” for if and/or when things get too draconian. I guess it might be considered selfish as there are many in the world who are living in a draconian life now who manage to keep on going. I won’t be one of them when the time comes. I no longer have any so-called hope for humanity to wake up and live in a caring and balanced manner towards the earth and each other. It seems humanity would rather go extinct than live in such a simply sane manner.
Your following words from below echo what I feel and have done with others in our lives: “Our only hope is mass civil disobedience, and I am too fucking old to be sitting picket lines and being arrested again. I do what I can - I have the money to bail out my kids and their friends, to support journalists like Chris, and to make sure the people in my closest circle are materially safe.”
I’ve come to a point in my life where I realize there is no saving the USA from its ongoing collapse. I still see far too many idiots proclaiming the Democrats will save us. Nope. There are two brands of the corporate/oligarch uni-party who only serve their masters and not the citizens. They have done nothing but enable this wholesale destruction of the USA along with their Republican brethren for decades now.
It’s over now and as you also posted below which sums it up nicely: “I don't understand why people aren't more afraid. We are on the eve of destruction, and it is coming faster than I believed possible.”
ireland (non-colonial, and had suffered greatly from having been colonized by UK therefore compassion/action for the persecuted ones ) and spain : yes, safER.
portugal (colonisation started 500 yrs ago, deep in DNA): a myth. wake up! started when gov lured foreign investments with shady gold card deals. right extremists taking over, following the tRUMP script too. I live here. Becoming hard to stay as immigrant, even as EU citizen. some yankes have already understood what it is about and have looked at and chosen alternatives.
I can relate. We have a small dog, but mostly it's about the kids and grands. If I thought immigrating to Ireland would solve anything, I would have years ago. I can't claim Irish citizenship because there are too many generations between me and my immigrant ancestors who left County Mayo in the 1830's to immigrate to Canada, but I can support what I can from the Americas. With the U.S. fast disintegrating into a autocracy like Russia, I'm wondering about where to go if things get really bad. I am one generation out from even claiming Canadian citizenship. And as a retiree, I would be one of the last people Canada would accept as a refugee since I can't work as much as I used to when I was a lot younger.
I will stick it out for now. If the government does end up failing massively, and I lose all of my pensions, and thereby my house, I will be forced to apply to Canada for refugee acceptance. But by then, so will millions of other Americans. Canada has the room for us but we'd all be living in tents and RV's due to severe lack of housing. We're caught betwixt and between now with nowhere to go in the short term.
Fun story (I hope): I played in the San Diego Symphony and one day it was decided that we would play side by side with the Maryiinsky Orchestra (from St. Petersburg, or whatever it's called now.) Well, there was a real demarcation in the orchestra lounge between westerners and the Russians, and I decided, student of improv that I am, that that was just silly. So I waltzed up to one member and couldn't think of anything else to say but, "What will it be like when we're a colony of Russia's?" So the Russian member called the third flutest/piccolo player to come and translate. I repeated the question, it was translated, and then the answer, "You won't have 'things'". We laughed, the ice broken.
The Russians were amazing musicians, sweet people, and I loved being in the host orchestra. But, yes, when we are a colony of Russia's, we may not have "things", but we'll have each other.
I get it. My son and grand-kids are in the same town as I am, here in Florida (I know, God help us just from that) But if they were to somehow decide to leave, I'd be right behind them. I wish you safety and best of luck...
Oh, my. I get it. We have three dogs: Ysabella, her only surviving puppy, Gnome Chompsky, and Murphy Einstein Winston, a greyhound mix. All rescues.
There's a metaphor in there, somewhere.
Our cat is named Zelda Louise. Her previous “caretaker” Gretchen (I don’t like the word “owner” when it comes to pets) named her that and had her since when she was a kitten. We were blessed to have her come into our life just this last August 1st. Her previous owner Gretchen now in her eighties took a fall, was in the hospital and then rehab for weeks so the director of the our local cat sanctuary (named Catmandu) where we have volunteered for six years now asked us if we would take her in as on top of everything else, Gretchen has severe dementia and was not caring for the cat before the fall. And clearly was unable to do so going forward. So Zelda Louise is now in our care for the duration and will turn 15 in February. She still has the energy of a kitten and amazes us every day with her energy. Hopefully I have not gone off track too far with this response, but somehow Zelda Louise keeps reminding us of what things are truly important as things continue to collapse around us. Love and caring for all flora and fauna.
As a side note Catmandu as are so many good things, is run on a shoestring budget as it houses anywhere from 80 to 100 cats. Check out their website and donate if you are moved to do so.
Catmanducc.org
Elections?
The last election that gave me hope was Obama's first term. And he turned out to be a Manchurian candidate, owned lock-stock-and barrel by the same people who own everything now.
This last election - do I support someone who supports a genocide while touting giggles and vibes? Or someone else who supports a genocide and lies whenever his mouth is open? A vacuous queen or a mad king; and neither any more than mascots for people who rule both parties.
And how the fuck have we come to a point where our choices are between two people who support the mass murder of infants?
Our only hope is mass civil disobedience, and I am too fucking old to be sitting picket lines and being arrested again. I do what I can - I have the money to bail out my kids and their friends, to support journalists like Chris, and to make sure the people in my closest circle are materially safe.
I don't understand why people aren't more afraid. We are on the eve of destruction, and it is coming faster than I believed possible.
I voted for Obama in 2008. I regretted my vote two weeks later when he appointed the same Wall Street crooks to his administration as Bush had in his. That is when I finally woke up to the reality of the USA having nothing to do with being a democracy except is some nonsensical name only. Looking back before that I am ashamed to say I voted for the Democrats every election since Carter in 1976. I was nothing but an ignorant fool all those years, voting out of fear of the other like a good little citizen. I should have woken up earlier, especially when Gore and Kerry both rolled over in the face of apparent election fraud to steal the election from them. I haven’t voted on a national level ever since 2008. If I was able to wake up, so can others. But I fear it is too late now. Speaking of hope, hopefully the USA goes down the drain like all the failed empires that preceded it ASAP before it does take all life on earth in its insane quest to rule the world.
I voted for Obama once and got smacked hard for it on the first day of his term when I learned who his cabinet was - same as it ever was. Be well SC.
Marcia Z: "I give hope to men, I keep none for myself."
I suffered despair when I was clinging to a passive hope of deliverance that never came. My new kind of hope is defiant and muscular. It's not a hope for my own safety, because that is a fantasy. Chris Hedges clearly states what we're up against. I work to counterbalance and realign the destructive power-corrupted forces that seem bent on destroying our planet for their short-term gains, and I do it for the sake of our children, and our children's children. If not me, then who? If not now, then when?
This is what you've been doing, and THANK YOU so much! Stay strong. Stay defiant. Keep working. More power to you!!
There is an interesting history to that book. Hoffman in fact stole much of the material, as recounted by a guy named Izak Haber in the 9/30/1972 issue of Rolling Stone.
Irony abounding: in that same issue (as it sits in front of me), the full-spread page 1 photograph is of Woody Allen. (Again, the Epstein files. It's good to hold onto little pieces of historic information, even something like pop culture artifacts. It casts a light years later, a perspective on character.)
And an story in The Guardian identifies Steal This Book as the sixth most stolen book in the U.K.
Abbie was a great jester. Like General Hershey Bar and General Wastemoreland.
It would be nice to see a few like that now, but they are products of a long-gone zeitgeist I fear.
They're out there but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. https://www.jezebel.com/jon-stewart-is-a-symbol-of-a-crumbling-america
Defy through courageous action.
They're murdering her as quickly as they can also......remember, she's the inexhaustible female resource they've built their fortunes on. We should perhaps ask Chris to review the sacrifice zones we've created around the world....places like Black Mesa come to mind.
Oh they're well aware of at least some of the limitations, e.g. rare metals and fossil fuels, which is why they're trying so hard to grab as much as they can right now. What they don't understand is the "web of life" concept. What it means when the world loses its trees due to global climate change. No amount of advanced ag technology can fill that gap, Bill Gates!
We had a symposium of art recently where I live.......that I mostly missed. But I did see one picture they advertised with...made by a native artist......in the British Columbian west coast style.......it was called "THE TREE SPIRITS, LEAVING". I cried...because many trees are dying where I live.....of a number of things, but not just drought......those along our river are dying as well.
Wildfires are newsworthy, and news articles sometimes cite bark beetles as the culprit for tree die off, but I have yet to see any news article on fires that mentions that the tree die off is global and caused by climate stress. Canada and California already had millions of dead trees before the recent wildfires, and even the ancient baobabs in Africa are dying off. Our children and grandchildren face hellish futures if we fail to step up.
Yes. ANother thing we should speak more of..........we have a book on our coffee table for the grandchildren.......called Trees. It's a beautiful book in which I learned of the baobab....but not that it is dying.
We have so many trees only half leafed out in the summer..........but of course, the bourgeoisie who ignore what America does to other countries also are quite good at ignoring their stress as well............or putting it down to a single 'cause' that they've identified.
So smart in such narrow circles most of us are.
Ingamarie, you are probably already aware of Susan Simard's work.
https://suzannesimard.com/finding-the-mother-tree-book/
Yes. I have read it. And the best part for me is where she shares evidence that the mother trees feed all the little saplings in the neighbourhood.......but each mother tree sends her own little ones just a bit more.
Grandma's are prone to this bias as well.
CASoS Theory is about as rare an item to these reprobates as their sense of morality. Nature is the ultimate Complex Adaptive System of Systems, and the complexity of the web of feedback interactions implicit in that understanding is opaque to the entrepreneur ethos.
Because to genuinely give it credence would dispossess them of their raison d'etre.
We have a whole history of interventions, in South America since the Cold war, just think Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, etc, etc. We have killed millions of people and to me this is more of the same. Disgusting, and abhorrent but what else is new? We went after Chavez and we didn't stop till he died of cancer. In the 21st century it was the Middle East that got our attention and for the benefit of Israel, and I guess ultimately we think our own. Did you really ever believe we were a real democracy? When ever I thought of America the D word was never for real. By the way when did slavery end and women get the vote?
Whoa, do you really believe that most first graders can shield themselves from the USA, D word, Freedom, Statue of Liberty progaganda? Good lord, go back to your tioddler-self. It's gut-level brainwashing at that age. America's always been good at that. Of course they convinced each of our undeveloped intellects at some point that there might be a smidgen of democratic thought inherent in de Tocqueville, Jefferson, the First Bloody amendment. But one learns. VIetnam cemented my learning curve in place. I think everyone has their own path to the full realization of just how foolish a farce it is.
Your wrong. I was a kid who knew the cowboys stole Indian land and then made them the bad guys. I use to ask adults to make sense of it for me, but none could, or would say anything. I remember having an important epiphany which said my country lies to me, and from then on never said when we saluted the flag the lie, "...with liberty and justice for all." Never did. I remember thinking my allegiance is not to my country, that is it's government, but to it's people. I had an uncle I adored and he was a chief engineer in the Merchant Marines. He would bring me home trinkets, from this country and that, so the world was a big place. He had without having to say anything that he had a global perspective on life, and I really liked it. I think you said seek refuge in nature, and I'm sure you can find that refuge no matter where it is to be found in this world and know it needs to be protected.
And YOU'RE fucking rude. So you learned early. Brava! Some of us took longer. There's no right or wrong. Just a realization. Geez.
There was no attack on you and I am requesting that you never reply to my posts and I will make you the same promise because I'm tired of you using the Fuck word when presenting your perspective on things .Stay away, and I promise I will do the same. No reason at your age to be using the Fuck word to state your position. I will not tolerate it
Didn't finish this comment. You're in denial about the effect of your own rhetoric. Doesn't require pejoratives to be demeaning. You also readily call other commenters "stupid". Then you hide behind "curse words" as the point. Wake up. I will not be demeaned by you or anyone else. There's a difference between telling someone "I disagree", which invites discussion, and "you're wrong" or "what are you stupid" which says, "I'm omniscient, you're a jerk." And invites only negative responses. You need to learn how to write politely, if you don't want impolite responses. NOW, I'm done. Go ahead, block me; you really think I care? Not one iota.
You sound jealous. Why? Were you a stupid kid? In slow classes? Sorry if that was the case, and I know it's hard on stupid kids, but you seem to be somewhat better now. So don't feel bad.
What are you: dumb to the diverse situations encountered in this society? I was in a Catholic grammar school -- tight-assed, nuns, the whole sordid super-patriotic picture, I was a brainwashed young child. My parents were early 20th-century immigrants. That's a common image of immigrant super-patriotism. I was brainwashed early. That takes time to resolve. If you deny that aspect of he American experience because it wasn't yours, the issue is YOURS, a function of your narrow and shallow perspective and ignorance of US history. Jealous of you. Laughing my ass off.
geez to YOU, who feed fear and therefore war/violence/insult in the "I am right/you are wrong" hell. IMO this is how every war starts. violence generates violence. Is that what you REALLY want?
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there" RUMI. think about it. Will you consider a kind RESPONSE from the heart (silent is fine with me:)) instead of a brain reaction? It takes courage/humility to change habit. I too am working on it. this is an invitation not a lecture. Sincerely curious about whether you'll be able to soften and find new ways, in the love field. All the best to you.
Similar answer to you as to Fran
I'm simply laying out history of the diversity of the American experience. I'm first-generation here of immigrant parents who got here shortly after the turn of the 20th Century. Are you? Likely not. It greatly effects what level of brainwashing one gets as a child.
Hence, this is about diversity, and to call someone's experience "wrong" (ungrammatically) is downright destructive, not constructive in any way shape or form.
Nor, frankly is your citing me Rumi particularly helpful, or telling me it's about "invitation" to change habit. I've had my metamorphosis -- fully, completely, being potentially pulled from grad school to go to war to kill people I had no quarrel with. Did you face getting drafted to go kill in 'Nam? Go through a draft physical? Probably not. It's a solid invitation to evolve.
I was brainwashed early. That takes time to resolve. If you deny that aspect of the American experience because it wasn't yours, then like Nancy's your perspective is narrow and shallow, and all the curiosity about softening and finding new ways is just so much empty rhetoric. All the best to your hopefully broadening perspective around the diverse experiential journeys of others.
Nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And damnation if such a thing ever existed.
At top of the best writing on our national decline! Make sure you're a paying subscriber (I am) to voices like Chris. You can be sure that enormous powers are aligned to suppress his moral truth and clarity.
So true.
I wistfully remember the summary of the Carter-Mondale administration: “Together we told the truth, we obeyed the law and we kept the peace.” They had a commitment to ethical governance, constitutional adherence, and maintaining peace domestically and internationally. Quite a contrast from a trumped up charge of narco terrorism.
Yes, and yet, I can’t help but remember Zbigniew Brzezinski was his National Security Advisor, that they began the destabilisation in Afghanistan to draw in the Soviets, and that Carter’s two best friends were the Shah of Iran, and Ferdinand Marcos.
I miss the days when I could snicker at Russia for going up against Afghani resistance fighters on their home turf...then it was the US' turn. This was when I realized that the old idea that the US never started a war was just self-serving propaganda. Even now I still get surprised. If anyone had told me that the US Congress would throw money at Israel to support a massive prolonged genocide that killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians along with a few hundred Hamas combatants, I never would have believed it. How much of this is corruption at the top, and how much is complacency and other moral failings by US citizenry, I can't say. Whatever the case, democracy deserves our greatest devotion if it is to succeed in the face of the climate crisis. (Edited to include mention of Hamas combatants)
Feet of clay for sure. But I believe Carter and Mondale were fundamentally men of integrity. I’m not sure when we lost that expectation for public service.
Eloquent and truthful, as always. Thank you.
Racism is why 60% of the majority race in America voted for a maniac.
I don't know if this is true. I made phone calls for Rashida Tlaib. I am Jewish by race. I spoke to people who couldn't vote for Harris because of her supposed stance on Gaza and Israel. I say "supposed" because she said that she wouldn't differ from Biden's positions. No Palestinians spoke at the Dem convention. Many people couldn't stomach voting for her because of this. And we didn't have a primary. If you remember the primary in, I don't remember--2016?--she was the first to drop out due to lack of support.
I plan to support Butch Ware for governor of California. Am I a racist? I vote for the person whose policies are closest to mine. And try to help them win by walking precincts and making phone calls.
You’ve described me. Genocide was a bridge too far for me. Kamala Harris has continued to “shame” pro-Palestinian protesters since her loss. Look up her response to protesters on her book tour. Same for Tim Walz. Look up what each of them said about student protesters, as just one example. And when people protested Netanyahu’s reception by Congress, the only response Harris could muster is to condemn the burning of the U.S. flag. She was silent about the “incineration” of Palestinian children, a word I heard a doctor use to describe what he witnessed in Gaza literally a day before Harris’ criticism. These supporters of genocide, in either party, are radical right. Yet they protect themselves by self-labeling as moderates and centrists and most of us, especially the MSM, acquiesces. Fascism begins with the corruption of language (e.g., Maduro was “captured.”).
"I don't know . . ."
Here's the Link. See for yourself.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patterns-in-the-2024-election/
Do you like Donald's policies? If so, then I'd like to know how you knew what they'd be. He doesn't even know from day to day.
Sir Okie Doke, can you point out where you find support for your assertion in the linked article? Because myself, I can't see it. 50% of Hispanic voters went for Trump. An increasing percentage of black voters went for Trump in his second term.
Hiding behind the old, "Well, other races did it, too" ruse, eh?
The majority race [Whites] was the majority of those who did vote.
Yeah, I don't agree with Okie Doke's assertion, except for the "maniac" part.
To you, and to all of the "Pangloss" types out there, here's an obvious fact from the link below.
A similar split was seen when voters were asked if there is too much political correctness or too much prejudice in society today. Eighty percent of Republican voters said there is too much political correctness in society. Nearly the same share of Democrats, 77 percent, argued there’s too much prejudice.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5200425-dei-programs-americans-divided-survey/
From the survey, here are the statements:
Please (tell me/indicate) which one of the following statements comes closer to your own opinion.
Statement A: There is too much prejudice in our society today, and people need to be more respectful in what they do and say to avoid offending other people.
Statement B: There is too much political correctness in our society today and too much pressure on people to limit what they can do or say to avoid offending other people.
The majority didn't vote.
The majority race [Whites] was the majority of those who did vote.
Hint: Try to read for understanding.
We have become at the same time not just an authoritarian country, but a totalitarian country. As Chris Hedges has mentioned, shifted along the spectrum from the inverted totalitarianism of Wolin to a characteristically U.S. form of fascism.
If the majority of the population has a wake-up threshold , when they stir into awareness and due alarm, it seems nowhere evident. The ability to be blind to the reality to what we have become seems at this point willful. (Wow, I can't wait to see the Avatar franchise! The irony of having the Wizard of Oz as the current bread and circuses event at the sphere in Las Vegas seems lost on us.)
.........
Moloch was mentioned. There was nice little piece in The Forward today. And again, it might be a good time to re-read War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.)
https://forward.com/opinion/794623/michael-walzer-just-unjust-wars-trump-venezuela/
Yes.........that little book by Hedges should be compulsory reading for every warmonger out there.....but yikes!!! That would be communism would it not???
Yes -as claimed by those who are by nature the actual totalitarians.
ANd the book burners. Let's remember that, because I'm pretty sure that Chris Hedges is on their list of truths to be expunged.
I coincidentally just commented on something related to that.
I loved that book. Truth plus fabulous writing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usNsCeOV4GM
Irony again: Mick Jaggar, in the light of the Epstein files.
I don't think Lennon would have been among that group.
A good revisit of the Beatles politics.....but I still think Bob Dylan did a more explicit job of spelling out where we were.......in the early sixties already.
His song that goes "Well I learned to hate Russians/all through my whole life/if another war comes/its them we must fight.
And I learned to accept it, and accept it with pride/cause you don't count the dead/ when God's on your side...."
Says pretty clearly what American foreign policy has been about as long as I've been alive. Demonize the other side......even if that other side just exists in your imaginary..........and then, do everything you do...........to stop that externalized evil from coming for the good people.
THE DEVIL IS ALWAYS IN THE DETAILS OF AMERICAN POLICY...and that devil is a creature mostly of their own creation.
Therefore: THE DEAD AMERICAN POLICY CREATES DON'T MATTER.....they hardly ever existed anyway, and for damn sure, they don't now.
It's a magicians trick. No one gives a flying f.... about the 40 little lives lost to kidnap Maduro.
Those of us who do.........like Chris Hedges.......get deplatformed. Our best friends often joining in the silencing.
“If god’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war!”
Yes. That was Dylan's conclusion, and I concur with it.
America works for quite other powers. It's her that has nearly 800 military bases on other people's lands.......not Russia.
Yes, it's a very good time for it.
This version by Aaron Neville is just breaking my heart right now, in the light of what is going on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH_6qdk8zAE
A haunting version.......most of us would do well to review Bob Dylan's canon. Because he saw America clearly...........in the 60's, and the big studios have had to inundate us with sexist crap to make us forget.
Another song that so clearly called out the US Empire back in the 1960’s was Monster by Steppenwolf that many don’t know of. Here is a version on YouTube with lyrics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHVinSzYquk&list=RDsHVinSzYquk&start_radio=1
It's about a week later as I write, but this article on Dylan just came up in The Forward. It seemed appropriate to mention. https://forward.com/culture/795706/bob-dylan-stephen-miller-infidels/
While my politics originated in the democratic socialism of the CCF, a party that rose out of the Great Depression in western Canada.......my time in the United States was much informed by Dylan.......and the entire counter culture of excellent protest movement that developed in the 60's and early 70's....against the imperial war in VietNam
In recent years, Big American studios have shut down that kind of creativity......todays music, what I can discern of an intelligent voice inside the lyrics, is mostly shlock....most sound either high or dealing with voice defects.........
However, I totally missed this album.....busy teaching and raising my kids by then. But Dylan understood fascism as it operated in America.........as it has always operated.
America's Fantasy that its an equal opportunity Democracy has always been shown up by realities that included the KKK, The House UnAmerican Activities, McCarthey, Assassinations of Progressive leaders, Cop Killings, the CIA, the war on AIM and the Black Panthers..........
...and I could go on. It would have been impossible for an artist as gifted as Dylan, not to see it.....but when I was young, he wasn't the only one.
Our Canadian Neil Young has been pretty prolific on that file as well.
Again, so true
and necessary.
I am a Vietnam vet. My admiration tor the people of Vietnam, the patriots who courageously fought and died to defeat a terrorist enemy, is enormous. We can be beat. We should be beat. We are a cancer, a disease, a blight on the hopes and aspirations of decent people. Our leadership is corrupt and close to the point that writing something like this may have consequences. Two boys out of nine in my fifth grade class didn't come home from Vietnam. The only consolation for their sacrifice is that they never learned that their purpose was evil and apparently for nothing. Many of us have had to live in this reality. If the suicide rate of veterans is any indication, many people can't
Ken, vets "sacrificing for" the country? Really? Sorry you are a vietnam vet, you were obviously blinded by propaganda then. QUESTION AUTHORITIES, MAKE LOVE NOT WAR is what we kept saying already in the 60s - I was born long ago... But the greedy warmongers and their obedient servants-following-orders wouldn't listen. At least you are waking up after the fact, discovering that Vietnamese are kind, now that you too have suffered from your decision/actions. While the French invasion then usa massacres ended 50 years ago, basically thanks to the ACTION of a very courageous whistleblower and from mobilizing citizens, the harm done just to Vietnam alone, continues. For instance: usa agent orange keeps poisoning everything in the country. 1 obvious way: poisoned mothers and their babies, the latter severely handicapped.
Vietnamese refugee Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hanh ("Thay") created Plum village/village des Pruniers in SW France. some usa Vets had the courage to take their unbearable guilt to the monastery, by acknowledging in public what they had done to Vietnamese people. 1 example I have never stomached so to speak: usa soldiers would give hungry kids sandwiches with hidden explosive inside. Imagine the consequence. This kind of cruelty has spread for instance all over Palestine, embodied by isrHELL's IOFs (offensive not defensive). The enormity of it will never lead me to normalize such viciousness. All I can do is keep remembering and do my little bit at the service of awakening to the truth of it. Thank YOU CHRIS H for your precious contribution!!!
Since you were an insider, did you find a way to "understand" such atrocities with your heart? On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur, St Ex. And alone or better with other vets, to make amends the best you could? Check out the Thay monasteries in the usa - Escondido in CA, or on E. Coast?
This being said, how about we are all responsible for everything that's happening anywhere?. Check for instance "hubpages, How Dr. Hew Len healed a ward of mentally ill criminals with Ho'oponopono" in the HI indigenous sacred tradition.
I hope this is helpful. If not, so be it :)) May we all be happy (serene, heart connected and safe, for ourselves and all beings).
What the fuck lady? I wasn't "blinded" by anything. I was an 18 year old kid who grew up in a small village in Maine. I was never asleep and never had any inclination towards patriotism , I went and I experienced the conflict. No one dissuaded me prior. Many people had parents and influences that might have dissuaded participation; I didn't. The experience left me with question, questions that required investigation. I was never a fucking hippy. personally never liked a hippy and I don't have any guilt. I didn't do anything to be guilty about. I've read Thich Naht Hanh. I'm not a pacifist. There is a war I would very much like to fight. I consider myself a socialist. I have considered myself that since before I knew what that meant. For your information the "atrocities" have never stopped and new levels of carnage are imminent. You might want to leave your "heart" out of the impending battle unless it is the heart of a lion - so to speak. There is a difference between fighting for something you believe in and being cannon fodder for our owners. Patriots don't commit suicide. People murdering people for other people's benefit do.
MSN headline Maduro "brazenly flashes a peace sign" - guffaw!
Maria Corina Machado can't replace Maduro because she doesn't command enough respect, according to Pres. Trump. Looks to me like her worst sin was being awarded the Nobel Prize that Trump wanted. How dare she!
The whole charade plays out like some kind of burlesque except with very real consequences for democracy, humanity, and our planet's future. Welcome Moloch.
Today I see for the first time the number of lives sacrificed in the frenzy to get Maduro. 80, according to Chris Hedges and 'Tempo". Appalling.
Murder most foul...........to quote Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Machado is likely not much different from Guido......he didn't run in the election Maduro won (fairly....our United Church, Unifor, Council of Canadians etc. were there to monitor it)...he didn't run because the opposition knew they wouldn't win.
Better to declare the free election rigged and try for a coup. America back then, just before covid, thought they could effect that coup with a selfie. Didn't work, so now they have to kidnap Maduro......before Trump (advised likely by people who know) tells the truth about her lack of support.
We need to also put the Nobel Committee on trial.......for their servile willingness to destroy what has been a trusted award committee............because I'm betting Trump once again, said the quiet part out loud.
THE OPPOSITION IN VENEZUELA HAS THE SUPPORT OF THE CIA, NOT THE VENEZUELAN PEOPLE.
I read up on the election monitoring efforts that certified them as fair and free, and I hope that no one in the Trump administration expects the world to believe their shoddy frame up.
Lot's believe it..........they only read Canada's Globe and Mail......or America's New York Times.
If we in Canada were the good people we like to imagine we are........the Trudeau government of the day wouldn't have had the guts to fete Juan Guido as the rightful President of Venezuela. If half the people of Canada and the USA knew that shameful story........they'd be more sceptical of calling Maduro a dictator.
The best LIES of the west are those of occlusion. We go silent...stare the truth tellers down. I know. I've friends who've mastered that hard stare of refusal to know the whole story.
Denialism is a strong defence mechanism. We should know that by now.
Willful Ignorance is the operating principle in the USA.
In Canada too.....I've already discussed with a friend the hard look of someone 'staring you down' because they don't want to acknowledge what you're saying.
As if we can't read belligerant silence!!!
Moloch licks its greedy lips
Machado is not chosen to replace Maduro because it is not necessary.
Darly Rodriguez already has folded.
The only thing that could save us is mass action, worldwide. But it is only a minority that resists, and here in the U.S. we’ve become like our supine Congress — we have the power, but we don’t use it. We will (and have) allowed the minority who resist, like Francesca Albanese, to be punished and sacrificed. I’m tired, dispirited and worn out from being in such a small minority. The 2% or 2.5% who participated in the U.S.’s largest protest is not enough. And the portion of those who protested the genocide in Gaza was even smaller, the organizers having been mostly message carriers for the Democratic Party. Many if not most of the people I know are “concerned,” but inactive, going about their lives as usual, albeit with a growing sense of dread. This has happened over decades, as consumerism has increasingly supplanted citizenship. Nonetheless, the minority cannot give up. Perhaps our numbers will grow. We need to look elsewhere than the Democratic Party. Remember, as just one of many examples, that Obama justified the overthrow of the Libyan government by saying we were not engaged in a “war,” because we were not sending in ground troops. Even his own Justice Department rejected his definition, so he went around it to White House and Department of Defense lawyers to get support for his unconstitutional acts. Yet the Democrats continue to send him out to rally the voters, ignoring, for example, that he has stayed quiet about Gaza and withheld support for Mamdami.
I thought it was interesting that in her speech condemning the U.S.’s invasion, interim Venezuelan president Rodriguez laid at least partial blame on “the Zionists.” This accusation does not appear to have been explored in the media.
Thank you, Chris Hedges and your community of readers for an island of sanity. I guess all we can do is keep trying.
This is a trajectory that predates Trump and Biden. Focusing on the individual distracts from the systemic failures being eroded over years of neglect. Chris always has the gift of being able to connect the historical dots in a way that keeps me searching for a clearer understanding of what is unfolding.
As someone who was born in the USA and a citizen of the USA, I say this to the country of my birth: GO FUCK YOURSELF. I have detested the country of my birth and what it has always stood for, A ROGUE STATE, since my high school days. I am 70 years old now. I refused to stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance everyday in high school. I was the only one who refused to do so. The USA needs to be taken down by any means necessary. The world needs to rally against the USA like it did against Nazi Germany. The USA is the Fourth Reich now and deserves the same fate of the Third Reich. What the hell are you all waiting for. The USA wants to dominate and rule the world. There is no country the USA will not take out given enough time. We have no allies, just cowering countries currently bending the knee to the world’s largest terrorist organization, arguably in history. Make it collapse before it kills us all.
US has one ally…Israel.
Yes, I almost wrote that in my post. But given the USA’s history of violence in the world since its inception and betrayal to the concept of law, there is no country that is safe from its madness given time, assuming nuclear war or climate catastrophe doesn’t take us out first. But I agree with you for now regarding Israel.
Now that the US attempt at detente with Russia has failed, current leadership seems to have shifted focus to military "involvement" in the Caribbean, Central and South America, annexing Canada and Greenland. Israel seems like a mightily fortified outpost but it's on the wrong side of the world. Will greed for conquest within puerile macho echo chambers cause the US to overextend its hand?
I see Israel rather as a temporizer and an exploiter of the U.S. Israel seems to get what they want from us, even if they don't always get it all right away. Just look at all the Congress critters who compete with each other to display the most self-effacing subservience and unpatriotic disloyalty to a foreign country.
And together, they just might take us all down with them.
Spot on SC - thank you.
i agree, except for the violent go fuck yourself (while i interpret it as you feeling sorrow, helplessness, shame, anger at what we all are responsible for, especially usa born citizens). Any creative idea on how to collapse the profiteers and complicits, and create new life? boycott? Other?
This post reviews murderous American regime change wars I am familiar with.......but so much information about ill conceived regime change wars and the oft dismissed horrors of 'collateral damage' visited upon little people fades over the years..........and I like most westerners, have been glad to forget. The horrors America brought to Iraq and her people during and between the two Gulf Wars are blots on the Western conscience..........so we want to forget about them.
Chris won't let us. We should thank him for that........because the starvation deaths of half a million Iraqi children are not forgivable. The tortures Americans enjoyed inflicting in Abu Greib aren't either.........but that debacle at least became visible, public and unforgettable.
What Hedges does in this post is something even more valuable for all of us privileged westerners to grapple with..........and we need to do so quickly. There is not much time left to abandon our fantasies of the noble American Empire, and look clearly at the messes she has caused, is causing, and likely intends to increase..............as her world implodes.....
and the insatiable gangsters she's created come for the furniture. So please: lets spare ourselves pleasant fantasies about all those 'evil big Others'......and put what energy we have into active resistance of the fascism rising in Amerika. That is the threat. That is the evil Empire.
The good news is its close enough to home, for all of us to do something other than point fat fingers into the darkness rising around us. It's not Putin. It's not even Trump.
It's a free market unregulated privatized capitalism that has gone windigo. Our native brothers and sisters understood the dangers of the Windigo. Look that concept up.
Thank you, Mr Hedges. Perfect, once again. Just one thing I would like to mention: does it make anyone else sick to their stomach to hear the way these people speak? Was it Hegseth who said something like "he fooled around too eff-ing long and now he's paying the price" (referring to Maduro)? "Fooled around" and "eff-ing" (which is both vulgar and hypocritically evasive) make my skin crawl and are (or should be) unimaginable coming out of the mouth of a head of state. I in no way imply that the deeds are not much much worse than the vocabulary. But there is surely a sinister connection between the two, no?
Yes, it was Hegseth. These people can’t distinguish between internal boyhood fantasies, and external realities that have lethal consequences.
Yup. Probably why everyone seems to referencing the movie Idiocracy these days.
For those of us who live in this USA rogue state, who protest with signs and banners calling for the end of
trumps “empire”, there is for me a looming sense of total
disaster. Chris, your words
are harsh and yet powerful
and true. I thank you, as always, and hope someday
that truth will take down
power.
Linda
You are the best at describing all that we are living through. What can we do now? I am ready for anything that might produce a better outcome for our grandchildren.
Its been funny to see european vasal elite " justfications" to Trump Don by saying "Maduro has not legitimate power" like Kallas and choir says. Where are laws, rules, principles, western values, democratic suvereignty etc now? Follow Don Rogue!
The eurojackals are whispering in Trump's ear that Russia would be a pushover, just do it.