Chris, the only way to change this ungodly country we live in is to get money out of politics. Then AIPAC couldn't own our Congress. 1. Any chance of that ever happening? 2. What are the chances of Armageddon in 2026 if the US thinks it can use nuclear weapons on Russia and not wind up killing everyone? (Our leadership does not understand Putin). 3. Will Israel cease to exist within a decade?
Any one of these questions answered would be appreciated.
Dear Chris, here’s the pitch I sent to Kamala Harris to make you Vice-President. I sent a follow-up e-mail because I forgot to add in the Rutgers programs you run in prisons.
My question: If asked, would you serve?
I’m hoping that my recommendation coming out of darkest Scotland may shock and awe them into actually thinking about it.
Dear Vice President Harris,
Christopher Lynn Hedges is the ideal running mate for you because:
He’s Harvard educated, a 65 year old white male Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent, activist, author, speaker and ordained Christian Minister with a large social media following. He lives in Princeton with his Chinese-American wife, an actress.
He speaks enough Arabic to have talked himself unaided out of detention by radical forces in Palestine; and fluent Spanish from his covering wars in South America.
He has written books about the Christian Right; about the economic sacrifice zones and the opioid crisis, and these include his book America, the Farewell Tour.
He walked out of the New York Times and his job as the Middle East Bureau chief after being warned for practicing activism, being a born campaigner critical of the Military Industrial-Security Complex as it operates. He survived the war in Bosnia and saw how the the US prosecutes foreign policy. He’s not beholden to any billionaire legacy newspaper owner, he’s his own man. He supported Julian Assange, the world’s most honoured investigative reporter, throughout his confinement and torture by a CIA which meant to kill Assange for publishing true information.
His analysis of the origins and appeal of Trump and his ability to take him down are breathtaking.
May I suggest that you just ask to see him? This man is America’s foremost public intellectual after Chomsky, and this contrasts starkly with Trump. At university he set up a society where homosexuals could get support, not being homosexual himself. The list goes on. This is a man of real depth, a seasoned man of the world able to address any audience, with a strong knowledge of the operations if the U.S. empire abroad and how they look from inside and out. He can elevate your campaign with a depth of structure and meaning which you may not find from other candidates.
I am voting for Jill Stein, bar none. How do you see her campaign playing out in terms of continued ballot access, and if she does over 5%, will she (Green party) have any leverage whatsoever?
Thank you for your comment. I feel so lonely as a JIll Stein supporter here in A2, Michigan. Here is my email so that we can stay in touch: linda@lindawan.com.
The Democratic Party’s lack of faith in the process and wisdom of democracy manifests in its arrogance and control of determining for whom we get to vote. Witness the automatic anointing of Harris effectively ditching an open convention in which we would have gotten to see with our own eyes and feel in our own bones whose voice resonates most deeply for the most of us citizens. Next to the corporate Big Money domineering destructiveness of democracy, is the unquestioned and unchallenged seemingly exclusive,locked in authoritarian power of the Democratic Establishment. How is their hubris any less pernicious than the Corporate Big Money Fraternity? In bas relief, both rule from exclusive dominance at the top. Not of, by, for the entire of us. Question: How can we neuter their power?
what you and almost everyone fail to realize is that the democratic "party" and the republican " party" are private corporations. they can do whatever the fuck they want. just ask Bernie Sanders.
I agree w/ SS's reply to you--her point was about what you say she missed.
Your words imply that we the masses, we ignorant lessers, haven't figured out what the superior few like you know.
But contrary to assumptions, some of us blue collar types can actually read, write, and think. We don't need a vanguard of the working c;lass, nor the D party oligarchs, nor a smug intellectual elite, nor any other self-appointed set of superiors to lecture us. D as corp. has been known for years; it became a popular meme during the Bernie for Prez campaigns for obvious reasons.
I was a blue collar union activist for 28 years plus being a former local D campaign mgr. So by long, bitter, direct experience well aware of D party structures. As well as how the neolib elite usurped the D party, dumped the New Deal, abandoned labor, supported deregulation, and purged the party of rank and file democracy.
Interesting, that you missed the point of my comment that is the point which you said I missed. Maybe you just needed to say it in your own words. Progress is being made then. We all must find our own words for the reality that we are all swimming in. Together.
Do you agree with certain news media outside of the country stating that Kamala Harris will just be more of the same and the situation in Palestine and Ukraine will remain as they are?
Do you think the third party candidates Stein, Cornell and La Cruz should come together to try to gain some ground in this election. Not to win but to build a left that can have momentum? Or the Democratic have rigged the system so much that it is not even an viable option
Looking back on the Bernie campaigns of '16 and '20, I now see how much they suffered from the lack of any integration of domestic and foreign policy analysis. No one who fails, as Bernie does so miserably, to take a consistent stance against all of the neocon endless-wars can hope to build a politically viable and intellectually coherent populist movement of opposition to the MIC and the shadow oligarchy that run the country.
I am on the left, but I immediately feel a sense of solidarity with just about anyone who is (1) post-duopoly and (2) against both the genocide in Gaza and the proxy war in Ukraine. I wonder if you could comment on a (perhaps?) nascent reconfiguration of American politics along these lines-- beginning with the essential question of being anti- vs pro- imperial war?
Chris, What do you make of the various theories that state that current day Israeli Zionists, especially the most extreme, are part of a very old demonic cult? It seems they control Congress and the Presidency here. Is this in reality a spiritual war?
I've wondered about some of this too. Simplicius talks about the House of Rothschild and Wall Street bankers creating the OSS then CIA as secret police. All about money. And he alludes to fanatical religious factions like the Sabbatean Frankists and the Temple Mount end times movement that follows the ancient Babylonian Talmud in Israel that Netanyahu apparently has some connection with(?). Disturbing stuff. Makes me feel like I've entered a Dan Brown novel.
This is a rabbit hole that I've chosen to not go down. Way too complicated, and too many sources of unreliable information. That's what made me think to ask Chris.
I've started to go through this source, which seems like a great introduction to the question of who's really running things:
We know that most elections present plutocrat-approved candidates, and that our votes will rarely budge the needle towards the interests of the common people. We've witnessed recent chaos within attempts to grow third parties such as The People's Party. You've posited that the only political tool left for the people is the General Strike. How likely do you see Americans ever rising up to that extent? Can you think of any other political activities that would directly challenge the power of the 1%?
Hi Chris: Are we as Americans dealing with the real banality of evil in this election?
Evidence suggests that Hannah Arendt didn't quite get it right when she examined Adolf Eichmann, that he was less banal than she thought, that he was brighter, more energetic, and more committed to the Nazi cause, including the Holocaust, than he let on during his trial.
But I really wonder about figures like Biden, Harris, and Trump, especially their words on the genocide in Gaza. They seem truly banal in a way that perhaps Eichmann wasn't.
Perhaps it's difficult to attack evil in American politics because it is so banal, at least in those presented to us as our leaders. I welcome your thoughts here. Thanks!
The pre-coronation of Kamala Harris feels alarmingly like the dismissals of any examinations of the 2024 presidential elections. The DNC party machine has excempted all pre-nuptuals and are racing ahead with this presumed gun-shot wedding--whether the majority of registered Democrats approve, ot not.
As a life-long independent-Democrative-leaning citizen, I cannot support this anti-democratic, anti-voter scheme, regardless of the ever-looming and learing Trumpism plague.
Iconic Ameican Historian, Doris Kearns, exressed the same alarm in a recent podcast interview saying that neither the paries of Lioncoln nor Jackson would ever condone or endorse this.
NOW is the time for Kamala herself to address this glaring mis-carriage of anti-democratic voter in-justice. Too many of us are asking!
If she does not address this, what does this tell us about her as the one and ONLY? candidate to be coronated? Thank you for giving this priority attention in your forum.
Sorry but from the French word Couronne for Crown, you MUST mean crowned, not coronated. Unless you meant coroneted, but that makes no sense. I hate myself
Since the SOS reading off an Israeli teleprompter can hardly be taken seriously, what are your thoughts on this particular incident? Was it an accidental Iron Dome launch as some are suggesting? Or is this yet another attempt to drag the US into a wider regional confrontation with Hezbollah (maybe 55+ standing ovations created the impression that Washington would be more receptive to the idea this time)?
Also, on a separate but not unrelated note, according to your sources, how much of a beating, and how many casualties has the IOF taken since Israel's latest genocidal campaign began last October?
Do you think that both Trump and Harris are merely pretending to want Netanyahu and Israel to come to some ceasefire deal? Are is it merely close to an election gaslighting politics?
Do you have any sense of Kamala Harris's political stance on Israel and Gaza (including weekly sending weapons) going forward, apart from her expressions of empathy (which at least makes her human)? Or is she and all the other D & R's simply hand picked pawns with no power over the military-industrial multi-national corporate elite and AIPAC machine at this point? Since that Monday morning the day after Biden was removed from running, it's been Kamala Kamala Kamala non stop, frantic even, and non stop fund raising texts without even knowing where she stands on anything! And who is the actual President/Acting President right now? Biden seems to have for the most part disappeared.
2. Is it possible that AIPAC and underling jewish lobbies be forced to register with FARA?
And B. if that happened, would it deflate the power of the Jewish lobbies?.
3. Let'say you're in charge Chris, so how would you take power away from genocidal Zionist control that is holding a death grip on our government, tax $$$ and US Citizenry?
Chris, the only way to change this ungodly country we live in is to get money out of politics. Then AIPAC couldn't own our Congress. 1. Any chance of that ever happening? 2. What are the chances of Armageddon in 2026 if the US thinks it can use nuclear weapons on Russia and not wind up killing everyone? (Our leadership does not understand Putin). 3. Will Israel cease to exist within a decade?
Any one of these questions answered would be appreciated.
Dear Chris, here’s the pitch I sent to Kamala Harris to make you Vice-President. I sent a follow-up e-mail because I forgot to add in the Rutgers programs you run in prisons.
My question: If asked, would you serve?
I’m hoping that my recommendation coming out of darkest Scotland may shock and awe them into actually thinking about it.
Dear Vice President Harris,
Christopher Lynn Hedges is the ideal running mate for you because:
He’s Harvard educated, a 65 year old white male Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent, activist, author, speaker and ordained Christian Minister with a large social media following. He lives in Princeton with his Chinese-American wife, an actress.
He speaks enough Arabic to have talked himself unaided out of detention by radical forces in Palestine; and fluent Spanish from his covering wars in South America.
He has written books about the Christian Right; about the economic sacrifice zones and the opioid crisis, and these include his book America, the Farewell Tour.
He walked out of the New York Times and his job as the Middle East Bureau chief after being warned for practicing activism, being a born campaigner critical of the Military Industrial-Security Complex as it operates. He survived the war in Bosnia and saw how the the US prosecutes foreign policy. He’s not beholden to any billionaire legacy newspaper owner, he’s his own man. He supported Julian Assange, the world’s most honoured investigative reporter, throughout his confinement and torture by a CIA which meant to kill Assange for publishing true information.
His analysis of the origins and appeal of Trump and his ability to take him down are breathtaking.
May I suggest that you just ask to see him? This man is America’s foremost public intellectual after Chomsky, and this contrasts starkly with Trump. At university he set up a society where homosexuals could get support, not being homosexual himself. The list goes on. This is a man of real depth, a seasoned man of the world able to address any audience, with a strong knowledge of the operations if the U.S. empire abroad and how they look from inside and out. He can elevate your campaign with a depth of structure and meaning which you may not find from other candidates.
I am voting for Jill Stein, bar none. How do you see her campaign playing out in terms of continued ballot access, and if she does over 5%, will she (Green party) have any leverage whatsoever?
Thank you for your comment. I feel so lonely as a JIll Stein supporter here in A2, Michigan. Here is my email so that we can stay in touch: linda@lindawan.com.
Oops. I thought I was replying privately to " Shell".
I got it and will send email. Carry on. You're not alone. I'm in Texas. I get it!!
The Democratic Party’s lack of faith in the process and wisdom of democracy manifests in its arrogance and control of determining for whom we get to vote. Witness the automatic anointing of Harris effectively ditching an open convention in which we would have gotten to see with our own eyes and feel in our own bones whose voice resonates most deeply for the most of us citizens. Next to the corporate Big Money domineering destructiveness of democracy, is the unquestioned and unchallenged seemingly exclusive,locked in authoritarian power of the Democratic Establishment. How is their hubris any less pernicious than the Corporate Big Money Fraternity? In bas relief, both rule from exclusive dominance at the top. Not of, by, for the entire of us. Question: How can we neuter their power?
what you and almost everyone fail to realize is that the democratic "party" and the republican " party" are private corporations. they can do whatever the fuck they want. just ask Bernie Sanders.
I agree w/ SS's reply to you--her point was about what you say she missed.
Your words imply that we the masses, we ignorant lessers, haven't figured out what the superior few like you know.
But contrary to assumptions, some of us blue collar types can actually read, write, and think. We don't need a vanguard of the working c;lass, nor the D party oligarchs, nor a smug intellectual elite, nor any other self-appointed set of superiors to lecture us. D as corp. has been known for years; it became a popular meme during the Bernie for Prez campaigns for obvious reasons.
I was a blue collar union activist for 28 years plus being a former local D campaign mgr. So by long, bitter, direct experience well aware of D party structures. As well as how the neolib elite usurped the D party, dumped the New Deal, abandoned labor, supported deregulation, and purged the party of rank and file democracy.
Solid Rafi - your comments. Heart breakingly real. A very important contribution Yours.
Interesting, that you missed the point of my comment that is the point which you said I missed. Maybe you just needed to say it in your own words. Progress is being made then. We all must find our own words for the reality that we are all swimming in. Together.
I agree with you--read my reply to your critic.
Do you agree with certain news media outside of the country stating that Kamala Harris will just be more of the same and the situation in Palestine and Ukraine will remain as they are?
Do you think the third party candidates Stein, Cornell and La Cruz should come together to try to gain some ground in this election. Not to win but to build a left that can have momentum? Or the Democratic have rigged the system so much that it is not even an viable option
Looking back on the Bernie campaigns of '16 and '20, I now see how much they suffered from the lack of any integration of domestic and foreign policy analysis. No one who fails, as Bernie does so miserably, to take a consistent stance against all of the neocon endless-wars can hope to build a politically viable and intellectually coherent populist movement of opposition to the MIC and the shadow oligarchy that run the country.
I am on the left, but I immediately feel a sense of solidarity with just about anyone who is (1) post-duopoly and (2) against both the genocide in Gaza and the proxy war in Ukraine. I wonder if you could comment on a (perhaps?) nascent reconfiguration of American politics along these lines-- beginning with the essential question of being anti- vs pro- imperial war?
Chris, What do you make of the various theories that state that current day Israeli Zionists, especially the most extreme, are part of a very old demonic cult? It seems they control Congress and the Presidency here. Is this in reality a spiritual war?
I've wondered about some of this too. Simplicius talks about the House of Rothschild and Wall Street bankers creating the OSS then CIA as secret police. All about money. And he alludes to fanatical religious factions like the Sabbatean Frankists and the Temple Mount end times movement that follows the ancient Babylonian Talmud in Israel that Netanyahu apparently has some connection with(?). Disturbing stuff. Makes me feel like I've entered a Dan Brown novel.
This is a rabbit hole that I've chosen to not go down. Way too complicated, and too many sources of unreliable information. That's what made me think to ask Chris.
I've started to go through this source, which seems like a great introduction to the question of who's really running things:
https://isgp-studies.com/pilgrims-society-us-uk
Yes, definitely rabbit hole territory.
We know that most elections present plutocrat-approved candidates, and that our votes will rarely budge the needle towards the interests of the common people. We've witnessed recent chaos within attempts to grow third parties such as The People's Party. You've posited that the only political tool left for the people is the General Strike. How likely do you see Americans ever rising up to that extent? Can you think of any other political activities that would directly challenge the power of the 1%?
Hi Chris: Are we as Americans dealing with the real banality of evil in this election?
Evidence suggests that Hannah Arendt didn't quite get it right when she examined Adolf Eichmann, that he was less banal than she thought, that he was brighter, more energetic, and more committed to the Nazi cause, including the Holocaust, than he let on during his trial.
But I really wonder about figures like Biden, Harris, and Trump, especially their words on the genocide in Gaza. They seem truly banal in a way that perhaps Eichmann wasn't.
Perhaps it's difficult to attack evil in American politics because it is so banal, at least in those presented to us as our leaders. I welcome your thoughts here. Thanks!
The pre-coronation of Kamala Harris feels alarmingly like the dismissals of any examinations of the 2024 presidential elections. The DNC party machine has excempted all pre-nuptuals and are racing ahead with this presumed gun-shot wedding--whether the majority of registered Democrats approve, ot not.
As a life-long independent-Democrative-leaning citizen, I cannot support this anti-democratic, anti-voter scheme, regardless of the ever-looming and learing Trumpism plague.
Iconic Ameican Historian, Doris Kearns, exressed the same alarm in a recent podcast interview saying that neither the paries of Lioncoln nor Jackson would ever condone or endorse this.
NOW is the time for Kamala herself to address this glaring mis-carriage of anti-democratic voter in-justice. Too many of us are asking!
If she does not address this, what does this tell us about her as the one and ONLY? candidate to be coronated? Thank you for giving this priority attention in your forum.
Sorry but from the French word Couronne for Crown, you MUST mean crowned, not coronated. Unless you meant coroneted, but that makes no sense. I hate myself
Do you have any comments on Kamala’s appointment to be the prominent and only person as the democratic choice in the election for president?
PS i'm voting for Jill Stein also
The horrific events of July 28th in Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights seem to have a lot of similarities with the IOF's bombing of the al-Ahli at the start of Israel's latest genocidal assault on Gaza (see: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/israeli-disinformation-al-ahli-hospital#:~:text=Most%20of%20the%20damage%20to,their%20propellant%20while%20in%20flight.). As was the case then, the Zionists seems to be spreading disinformation by pinning the blame on Hezbollah and Blinken is parroting Israeli talking points (apparently, "every indication" points to a Hezbollah rocket strike, see: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/28/will-attack-on-occupied-golan-heights-push-israel-hezbollah-towards-war).
Since the SOS reading off an Israeli teleprompter can hardly be taken seriously, what are your thoughts on this particular incident? Was it an accidental Iron Dome launch as some are suggesting? Or is this yet another attempt to drag the US into a wider regional confrontation with Hezbollah (maybe 55+ standing ovations created the impression that Washington would be more receptive to the idea this time)?
Also, on a separate but not unrelated note, according to your sources, how much of a beating, and how many casualties has the IOF taken since Israel's latest genocidal campaign began last October?
Do you think that both Trump and Harris are merely pretending to want Netanyahu and Israel to come to some ceasefire deal? Are is it merely close to an election gaslighting politics?
I too am voting for Jill Stein.
Do you have any sense of Kamala Harris's political stance on Israel and Gaza (including weekly sending weapons) going forward, apart from her expressions of empathy (which at least makes her human)? Or is she and all the other D & R's simply hand picked pawns with no power over the military-industrial multi-national corporate elite and AIPAC machine at this point? Since that Monday morning the day after Biden was removed from running, it's been Kamala Kamala Kamala non stop, frantic even, and non stop fund raising texts without even knowing where she stands on anything! And who is the actual President/Acting President right now? Biden seems to have for the most part disappeared.
Sir, have you ever considered a presidential run?
2. Is it possible that AIPAC and underling jewish lobbies be forced to register with FARA?
And B. if that happened, would it deflate the power of the Jewish lobbies?.
3. Let'say you're in charge Chris, so how would you take power away from genocidal Zionist control that is holding a death grip on our government, tax $$$ and US Citizenry?
thank you. joseph woolslayer.