When we discuss the steepness of learning curves, we need only hold up as our standard this speech, which reminds us that human history overflows with examples of this self-appointed master-race syndrome that somehow always leads to the murder of masses of "the other", designated always as subhumans, untermenschen; yet our species never seems to learn much of value from these episodes, beyond their existence as spectacles to bemoan, opportunities to shed tears that never come close to cleansing the crimes.
Amazing and well articulated speech. It is so heart warming to see people like Craig and Chris expose the realities of genocidal colonial history which continues to this day. Thank you
The writings and speeches of Chris Hedges make it evidently clear why he is ignored and likely hated by the moguls of the mass media like the New York Times and other so called reporting agencies.
Thank you Chris Hedges for always keeping it real. When I read your work I ask myself what made Lincoln believe that “our better angels” could win out? What made Camus write that “there is more in [man] to admire than to despise”? What convinced Dr. King that “the arc of history bends towards justice”? I’m sure that as a minister you have many occasions to encourage the goodness but doesn’t it seem to be outweighed by a perniciousness that blows it away like dark embers in a breeze? Despite our paltry attempts at civility (let alone love!) it seems we are marching to oblivion. As Einstein said after the first nuclear explosion reigned down immeasurable terror from the sky, “Everything is changed except human consciousness, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Still waiting for that change but the drift is unmistakable.
I would say that the arc of history bends not towards justice but towards power.
At least the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings had the option of getting rid of the One Ring. We are not so lucky, and someone else will use whatever power we turn away from
Thank you, Chris Hedges, for this hard-hitting gut punch of reality. I have decades-long friends who are Jews. I never broach the subject of Israel vs. Palestine. Some thoughts are best left unspoken.
When I listen to Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, I get a sense of what you speak in your speech: Jews can do no wrong and to criticize them in any way is automatically anti-Semitic, aka anti-Jew. That the Biden administration has given full and free rein to Netanyahu/Israel makes us complicit in the slaughter of thousands of the innocent, the Palestinians. How does Biden's Catholic "charity" fit into that narrative? It does not. It is just another iteration of the Crusades.
Netanyahu has made this clear: The “Israel vs. Hamas” war is really a war against Palestine and a drive to exterminate the Palestinians. How do the Israelis reconcile their murderous bloodlust with their Holocaust history? The Nazis saw the Jews, the Partisans, the homosexuals as less than human. Is Israel any different in their quest to annihilate any presence of Palestine?
Dear Vince, perhaps bring it up to see who are your real friends, the ones who are keepers. Who needs the rest.
I’ve lost many so-called friends over Israel Palestine (were they ever friends?) but gained many others, many of whom are Jews. It has been a favourable trade for me.
Thank you, Chris Hedges, for your unwavering commitment to saying it like it is. Shukran.
A great many Jews, including especially the younger adult generation are expressing outrage at what Netanyahu's fascistic version of Israel is doing to Palestinians, the former occupants of the land who have been there since ancient times. And Netanyahu has been invited to speak to a joint session of Congress, for the second time in a year. This is a shameful thing. He has presided over between thirty and forty thousand Palestinian deaths, and this current holocaust is continuing daily. There is nothing in the Torah, the most sacred writings of Judaism, that could justify such a thing. It is yet another enactment of the old story of the strong destroying the weak in order to steal their land. Israel emulates its big brother, the U.S., which did the same to Native Americans, and in our day Vietnamese and Iraqis, neither of whom was any threat to us. And the U.S. supports Israel's genocidal killing of the Palestinians. It is nauseating. Israel will be the ultimate loser because it will lose, has already lost, the respect of most of the world. And while U.S. officialdom continues to support Israel's genocidal behavior, a great many younger Jews on college campuses like Columbia and U.C.L.A. have been holding mass demonstrations. Participants in these demonstrations also include faculty and a great many non-Jewish students who are appalled at Israel's behavior.
Stephen Berk Emeritus Professor of History California State University Long Beach
Thank you for this very thoughtful reply. "Losing respect of the most of the world" simply does not matter to Netanyahu and his conservative cabal. Bibi is on a tear and enjoying every moment of his slaughter crusade. During my graduate study at Seminary many years ago, I studied some Judaism; and, logically, parts of Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). I have known good and bad Jews just as I have known good and bad Christians. I have worked for them, with them and befriended them. It angers and saddens me to see the ongoing killing of the innocents with the "claim" being to kill the enemy, Hamas. Yet, if one looks behind the curtain one will discover that the Netanyahu government has been funding Hamas. WHAT!? Add to that the Biden admin's pipeline of arms being fed to Israel uninterrupted and we see that what the "rest of the world" thinks does not matter. The American Military Industrial Complex will continue to sate the bloodthirst of Israel with the blessings and endorsement of the Biden White House.
Have you heard anything about an American politician who has the moral character of Murray and is campaigning for a free Palestine? Is it that I'm not well informed or is it that the political system in our country is completely rotten by bribery?
Sheeps and lemmings are not murderers and we humans should follow the herd of the righteous. I believe my question about Palestine is relevant on how we can elect politicians that are not guided by the donor's class. I'm convinced that AIPAC's and our war industry bribes alone is what keeps our leaders perpetrating the genocide in Gaza.
I'm so glad that Mr. Hedges along with the rest of the highly respected intellectuals is not one of Nero's guests who are indifferent to the Palestinian plight. Neither was Gandhi who was asked by one influential Zionist settler about his opinion of the colonization program and Gandhi response is quoted by historian Ilan Pappe in his reveling book "Ten Myths About Israel":
"Gandhi’s major statement on Palestine and the Jewish question appeared in his widely circulated editorial in the Harijan of November 11, 1938, in the middle of a major rebellion by the native Palestinians against the British government’s pro-Zionist policies. Gandhi began his piece by saying that all his sympathies lay with the Jews, who as a people had been subjected to inhuman treatment and persecution for centuries. But, he added, my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and in the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after their return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?"
And as we have witnessed the Zionist experiment has been a tragedy. I continue quoting Mr. Pappe:
"What can the Palestinians do? The Israeli message is very clear: If they comply with the expropriations of land, the severe restrictions on movement, the harsh bureaucracy of occupation, then they may reap a few benefits. These may be the right to work in Israel, to claim some autonomy, and, since 1993, even the right to call some of these autonomous regions a state. However, if they choose the path of resistance, as they have done occasionally, they will feel the full might of the Israeli army. The Palestinian activist Mazin Qumsiyeh has counted fourteen such uprisings that have attempted to escape this mega-prison—all were met with a brutal, and in the case of Gaza, even genocidal, response. Thus we can see that the takeover of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip represents a completion of the job that began in 1948. Back then, the Zionist movement took over 80 percent of the Palestine—in 1967 they completed the takeover. The demographic fear that haunted Ben-Gurion—a greater Israel with no Jewish majority—was cynically resolved by incarcerating the population of the occupied territories in a non-citizenship prison. This is not just a historical description; in many ways it is still the reality in 2017."
I am not indifferent to the slaughter and starvation of the people in Gaza, but I have come to be very afraid of what will happen to my family and the United States of America if Trump wins the election due due to the 2025 plan. I must vote for Biden while I speak against sending weapons to Israel. What else can we do?
Maybe stand up against both Trump and Biden, to both Republicans and Democrats. Maybe say no to the two cheeks of the same ass? (to steal a phrase from George Galloway). Maybe vote for Jill Stein or Cornell West?
Have you read the 2025 plan? When oxygen is required on an airplane, there is a good reason to put your own mask on before putting the oxygen mask on your children.
Imperfect as it is, our democratic republic is currently the only realistic political option we have for dealing with horrible moral dilemmas facing this country. A Trump victory is a victory nihilistic chaos and authoritarian aspirations. At least with Biden we have a leader, however imperfect, professes to believe in the US Constitution and rule of law. With Biden a political mechanism would exist by which to make moral improvement. With Trump there is not even the recognition of moral improvement.
One may want to argue that the probability of moral improvement under Biden is very small. But very small is greater than zero.
Like you, Gloria, I will pursue the option that best ensures Trump not winning. And I think Biden is that option.
In 1968, many Democrats said they could not bring themselves to vote for Humphrey because he was morally compromised. Nixon won. Now look at our situation. If that is "humanity surviving" I'm not impressed.
I don't see any leader in Biden unless you are talking of the leading politician accepting Jewish lobby's bribes (over US$4'400.000 so far) and yes, "he professes to believe in the US Constitution and rule of law" just like any other politician, but he forgets that our laws prohibit to sell guns or give any help to terrorist's organizations like Israel. Would have been Humphrey better than Nixon? Has been Biden better than Trump? What I have observed is that our country has been in an increasing decline since the 1980 no matter which party has been in power because we all know we are under a corporate dictatorship. I got tired of this game and for a long time I have been voting only for third parties to protest the status quo.
I cannot say with any kind of certainty that Humphrey would have been better than Nixon, but my sense at the time based upon his support of civil rights was a large part of my reason to support him.
I do believe that Biden as you point out has many short-comings. But I do not believe another four years of his being president will usher in an authoritarian regime. I believe Trump's would.
Do I wish there were other alternatives for president that I considered viable -- read "electable"? Yes.
I have no illusions about what my approach will produce. At best, it is stop-gap. I appreciate your disgust with the continuing decay or our politics.
Something really different has to happen to give us a real choice. I wish I had something unique to offer, but I don't.
For my part I chose not to participate in the decay, and from my selfish point of view, to avoid being repented and ashamed to have casted my vote as I was in the past on several occasions.
If Muh Democratic Republic (don't make me laugh!) gives us a choice between Biden and Trump then perhaps it is best to toss it aside if that is the best it can do.
I think you are a confused person, mistaking a regulative ideal for a constitutive ideal, when you are not making ad hominem comments. I do not take your comments seriously.
The future is unwritten, although many pretend to already read the tea leaves. Do we relativize - make compromises over - what we know is antilife? cruelty? barbarism? unspeakable maddened violence? Do we stay in the present trusting our inner guidance about what serves life today?Americans today have a President who votes for genocide. Can you stomach that?
Thank you Selina. I for one cannot stomach that. There is no "lesser of two evils." There is only evil. Both are anti-life, cruel, barbaric and violent. They both lie through their senile teeth. We have the illusion that we are spared, but it is only a matter of time where the forces of fascism are growing. There are many actions we can take, and votes we can cast, that are morally sound. Will they make a difference? In the short run, and certainly in the long run, absolutely.
And it needs to be added: These two "choices" are both straw men, tools of the military-industrial complex, oil conglomerates, financial elites, etc. that have been running this show for some time and raping and pillaging, as in Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, most of Africa, Central America and on and on and on all over the world It's past time to throw back the curtain and not take part in their horribly cruel and destructive rampage!
What else can we do? Anything else. Forgive me, but your solution lacks both courage and imagination. And of course a vote for Biden is very likely a vote for Harris, one of the most odious figures in recent political history. I’m with Mr. Hedges, I wouldn’t vote for Biden if you held a gun to m head.
A Trump presidency lacks one critical feature of a Biden 2.0: It probably won’t be better, but it can’t be seen as a reward for what’s happening now.
There is so much more to exercising one's democratic rights than casting a vote for a president in a republic where your vote doesn't fully count anyway. Think about how you "vote" with your time, energy, and money. Protest, join the Green Party, send letters to your local newspaper, send money to genuinely progressive candidates who are under attack by anti-progressives within their own party.
Another very powerful speech, Mr Hedges. Thank you for your clear denunciation of crimes against humanity. I hope these words go viral and mainstream. We can no longer pussyfoot our way around this ugly, volatile and dangerous reality and pretend that all’s fine with the world, when plainly it ain’t! Wake up world!!🌎
Don't hold back, Chris; tell us how you really feel. Seriously (not to be flippant about the ghastly slaughter that Israel and the U.S. are responsible for), we could sure as hell use more pieces like this in the mainstream media (not that that'll happen). I may be wrong, but it seems as if Israel's PR machine is finally running out of gas, and that the place will get the kind of boycotts and ostracism it deserves.
Thanks, as always, for a forceful, truthful analysis of the current situation in Israel and its implications for other so-called democracies like the United States. We live in very perilous times!
We need this hard hitting interweaving of harsh present time truths and their embodied reality by the people of Gaza to blast through all the mentalized abstractions, lies and propaganda we are being flooded with.
As this horrifying genocide gets worse by the days, weeks, months, and the unspeakably barbaric details emerge that crush and numb our hearts, our will to act and our humanity itself, there sometimes comes the desire to look away from the unimaginable suffering being endured by the Gazans/Palestinians (and so many more as in Yemen and Syria happening right now). It's hard to stay present 24/7 to the terrorizing, the unimaginable losses, grief, pain and relentless fear they are being forced to endure night after day after night. I don't experience this as indifference, but as emotional exhaustion in my heart, sometimes evoking my own past traumas.
I know I am blessed to have the luxury of taking little breaks, even if only for a few moments with my beloved cats, feeding the hummingbirds, taking a walk with a friend or lover, connecting with community... the little human things that renew inner strength and replenish the soul. In the midst of war it is that necessity called R&R (which the Gazans are completely denied, not even a brief ceasefire!), and we are in the midst of war, even if at a distance. The internet has shortened and altered time and space in ways we hardly know. But, if we are deeply committed to truth and justice, I've come to feel those breaks can also help our witnessing and compassion to go deeper and steadier, to last longer, so that even as we walk or connect with the other kingdoms offering to help us, our witnessing and prayers for these beloved Gazans, truly our brothers and sisters and children, will increasingly stay more continuously within us and with them.
I can't thank you enough for your courage and commitment to speak out, your strength, endurance, unflagging devotion and love of truth. Your gift of clear seeing and speaking is such a gift to us all.
Wishing Craig Murray the very best outcome in his race for Parliament!
Thank you, Chris for such an accurate, insightful assessment of the human situation, not just in Gaza, but across the globe and across the millenia of human existence. And yet, despite knowing that, you persist in speaking the truth and refusing to be one of Nero's guests, as should we all.
Kia ora Chris, an erudite and powerful discourse indeed. Shades of Robert Fisk; I hope I’m not ignorant or out of place making that comparison. Thank you for maintaining the courage and conviction to continue shining the light on depravity and darkness infecting this world.
When we discuss the steepness of learning curves, we need only hold up as our standard this speech, which reminds us that human history overflows with examples of this self-appointed master-race syndrome that somehow always leads to the murder of masses of "the other", designated always as subhumans, untermenschen; yet our species never seems to learn much of value from these episodes, beyond their existence as spectacles to bemoan, opportunities to shed tears that never come close to cleansing the crimes.
Amazing and well articulated speech. It is so heart warming to see people like Craig and Chris expose the realities of genocidal colonial history which continues to this day. Thank you
The writings and speeches of Chris Hedges make it evidently clear why he is ignored and likely hated by the moguls of the mass media like the New York Times and other so called reporting agencies.
Thank you Chris Hedges for always keeping it real. When I read your work I ask myself what made Lincoln believe that “our better angels” could win out? What made Camus write that “there is more in [man] to admire than to despise”? What convinced Dr. King that “the arc of history bends towards justice”? I’m sure that as a minister you have many occasions to encourage the goodness but doesn’t it seem to be outweighed by a perniciousness that blows it away like dark embers in a breeze? Despite our paltry attempts at civility (let alone love!) it seems we are marching to oblivion. As Einstein said after the first nuclear explosion reigned down immeasurable terror from the sky, “Everything is changed except human consciousness, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.” Still waiting for that change but the drift is unmistakable.
I would say that the arc of history bends not towards justice but towards power.
At least the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings had the option of getting rid of the One Ring. We are not so lucky, and someone else will use whatever power we turn away from
Thank you, Chris Hedges, for this hard-hitting gut punch of reality. I have decades-long friends who are Jews. I never broach the subject of Israel vs. Palestine. Some thoughts are best left unspoken.
When I listen to Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League, I get a sense of what you speak in your speech: Jews can do no wrong and to criticize them in any way is automatically anti-Semitic, aka anti-Jew. That the Biden administration has given full and free rein to Netanyahu/Israel makes us complicit in the slaughter of thousands of the innocent, the Palestinians. How does Biden's Catholic "charity" fit into that narrative? It does not. It is just another iteration of the Crusades.
Netanyahu has made this clear: The “Israel vs. Hamas” war is really a war against Palestine and a drive to exterminate the Palestinians. How do the Israelis reconcile their murderous bloodlust with their Holocaust history? The Nazis saw the Jews, the Partisans, the homosexuals as less than human. Is Israel any different in their quest to annihilate any presence of Palestine?
Dear Vince, perhaps bring it up to see who are your real friends, the ones who are keepers. Who needs the rest.
I’ve lost many so-called friends over Israel Palestine (were they ever friends?) but gained many others, many of whom are Jews. It has been a favourable trade for me.
Thank you, Chris Hedges, for your unwavering commitment to saying it like it is. Shukran.
A great many Jews, including especially the younger adult generation are expressing outrage at what Netanyahu's fascistic version of Israel is doing to Palestinians, the former occupants of the land who have been there since ancient times. And Netanyahu has been invited to speak to a joint session of Congress, for the second time in a year. This is a shameful thing. He has presided over between thirty and forty thousand Palestinian deaths, and this current holocaust is continuing daily. There is nothing in the Torah, the most sacred writings of Judaism, that could justify such a thing. It is yet another enactment of the old story of the strong destroying the weak in order to steal their land. Israel emulates its big brother, the U.S., which did the same to Native Americans, and in our day Vietnamese and Iraqis, neither of whom was any threat to us. And the U.S. supports Israel's genocidal killing of the Palestinians. It is nauseating. Israel will be the ultimate loser because it will lose, has already lost, the respect of most of the world. And while U.S. officialdom continues to support Israel's genocidal behavior, a great many younger Jews on college campuses like Columbia and U.C.L.A. have been holding mass demonstrations. Participants in these demonstrations also include faculty and a great many non-Jewish students who are appalled at Israel's behavior.
Stephen Berk Emeritus Professor of History California State University Long Beach
Thank you for this very thoughtful reply. "Losing respect of the most of the world" simply does not matter to Netanyahu and his conservative cabal. Bibi is on a tear and enjoying every moment of his slaughter crusade. During my graduate study at Seminary many years ago, I studied some Judaism; and, logically, parts of Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). I have known good and bad Jews just as I have known good and bad Christians. I have worked for them, with them and befriended them. It angers and saddens me to see the ongoing killing of the innocents with the "claim" being to kill the enemy, Hamas. Yet, if one looks behind the curtain one will discover that the Netanyahu government has been funding Hamas. WHAT!? Add to that the Biden admin's pipeline of arms being fed to Israel uninterrupted and we see that what the "rest of the world" thinks does not matter. The American Military Industrial Complex will continue to sate the bloodthirst of Israel with the blessings and endorsement of the Biden White House.
Craig Murray is good people.
Have you heard anything about an American politician who has the moral character of Murray and is campaigning for a free Palestine? Is it that I'm not well informed or is it that the political system in our country is completely rotten by bribery?
I doubt that anything so crude as outright bribery is needed.
I hope that our human nature is a little better. What is your solution to fix the Palestinian problem?
I am not sure that question is relevant. Anyway, humans are herd animals to rival any sheep or lemming.
Sheeps and lemmings are not murderers and we humans should follow the herd of the righteous. I believe my question about Palestine is relevant on how we can elect politicians that are not guided by the donor's class. I'm convinced that AIPAC's and our war industry bribes alone is what keeps our leaders perpetrating the genocide in Gaza.
Call humans dogs or wolves then. They certainly are not cats.
The greater of two evils is the bipartisan consensus to inflict genocide and jackboot protest.
I'm so glad that Mr. Hedges along with the rest of the highly respected intellectuals is not one of Nero's guests who are indifferent to the Palestinian plight. Neither was Gandhi who was asked by one influential Zionist settler about his opinion of the colonization program and Gandhi response is quoted by historian Ilan Pappe in his reveling book "Ten Myths About Israel":
"Gandhi’s major statement on Palestine and the Jewish question appeared in his widely circulated editorial in the Harijan of November 11, 1938, in the middle of a major rebellion by the native Palestinians against the British government’s pro-Zionist policies. Gandhi began his piece by saying that all his sympathies lay with the Jews, who as a people had been subjected to inhuman treatment and persecution for centuries. But, he added, my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and in the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after their return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?"
And as we have witnessed the Zionist experiment has been a tragedy. I continue quoting Mr. Pappe:
"What can the Palestinians do? The Israeli message is very clear: If they comply with the expropriations of land, the severe restrictions on movement, the harsh bureaucracy of occupation, then they may reap a few benefits. These may be the right to work in Israel, to claim some autonomy, and, since 1993, even the right to call some of these autonomous regions a state. However, if they choose the path of resistance, as they have done occasionally, they will feel the full might of the Israeli army. The Palestinian activist Mazin Qumsiyeh has counted fourteen such uprisings that have attempted to escape this mega-prison—all were met with a brutal, and in the case of Gaza, even genocidal, response. Thus we can see that the takeover of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip represents a completion of the job that began in 1948. Back then, the Zionist movement took over 80 percent of the Palestine—in 1967 they completed the takeover. The demographic fear that haunted Ben-Gurion—a greater Israel with no Jewish majority—was cynically resolved by incarcerating the population of the occupied territories in a non-citizenship prison. This is not just a historical description; in many ways it is still the reality in 2017."
I am not indifferent to the slaughter and starvation of the people in Gaza, but I have come to be very afraid of what will happen to my family and the United States of America if Trump wins the election due due to the 2025 plan. I must vote for Biden while I speak against sending weapons to Israel. What else can we do?
Maybe stand up against both Trump and Biden, to both Republicans and Democrats. Maybe say no to the two cheeks of the same ass? (to steal a phrase from George Galloway). Maybe vote for Jill Stein or Cornell West?
Another rationalization to justify voting for an open genocide.
Own it.
Have you read the 2025 plan? When oxygen is required on an airplane, there is a good reason to put your own mask on before putting the oxygen mask on your children.
We heard the same hysteria in 2016. Somehow, humanity survived.
Imperfect as it is, our democratic republic is currently the only realistic political option we have for dealing with horrible moral dilemmas facing this country. A Trump victory is a victory nihilistic chaos and authoritarian aspirations. At least with Biden we have a leader, however imperfect, professes to believe in the US Constitution and rule of law. With Biden a political mechanism would exist by which to make moral improvement. With Trump there is not even the recognition of moral improvement.
One may want to argue that the probability of moral improvement under Biden is very small. But very small is greater than zero.
Like you, Gloria, I will pursue the option that best ensures Trump not winning. And I think Biden is that option.
In 1968, many Democrats said they could not bring themselves to vote for Humphrey because he was morally compromised. Nixon won. Now look at our situation. If that is "humanity surviving" I'm not impressed.
I don't see any leader in Biden unless you are talking of the leading politician accepting Jewish lobby's bribes (over US$4'400.000 so far) and yes, "he professes to believe in the US Constitution and rule of law" just like any other politician, but he forgets that our laws prohibit to sell guns or give any help to terrorist's organizations like Israel. Would have been Humphrey better than Nixon? Has been Biden better than Trump? What I have observed is that our country has been in an increasing decline since the 1980 no matter which party has been in power because we all know we are under a corporate dictatorship. I got tired of this game and for a long time I have been voting only for third parties to protest the status quo.
I cannot say with any kind of certainty that Humphrey would have been better than Nixon, but my sense at the time based upon his support of civil rights was a large part of my reason to support him.
I do believe that Biden as you point out has many short-comings. But I do not believe another four years of his being president will usher in an authoritarian regime. I believe Trump's would.
Do I wish there were other alternatives for president that I considered viable -- read "electable"? Yes.
I have no illusions about what my approach will produce. At best, it is stop-gap. I appreciate your disgust with the continuing decay or our politics.
Something really different has to happen to give us a real choice. I wish I had something unique to offer, but I don't.
Best.
For my part I chose not to participate in the decay, and from my selfish point of view, to avoid being repented and ashamed to have casted my vote as I was in the past on several occasions.
Best.
If Muh Democratic Republic (don't make me laugh!) gives us a choice between Biden and Trump then perhaps it is best to toss it aside if that is the best it can do.
"By their fruits ye shall know them."
I think you are a confused person, mistaking a regulative ideal for a constitutive ideal, when you are not making ad hominem comments. I do not take your comments seriously.
Oh dear, John doesn't take my comments seriously. Whatever shall I do?
I am saying that if this is what the system belches up, then maybe we need a different system.
Anyway, I haven't made a single ad hominem.
The future is unwritten, although many pretend to already read the tea leaves. Do we relativize - make compromises over - what we know is antilife? cruelty? barbarism? unspeakable maddened violence? Do we stay in the present trusting our inner guidance about what serves life today?Americans today have a President who votes for genocide. Can you stomach that?
Thank you Selina. I for one cannot stomach that. There is no "lesser of two evils." There is only evil. Both are anti-life, cruel, barbaric and violent. They both lie through their senile teeth. We have the illusion that we are spared, but it is only a matter of time where the forces of fascism are growing. There are many actions we can take, and votes we can cast, that are morally sound. Will they make a difference? In the short run, and certainly in the long run, absolutely.
And it needs to be added: These two "choices" are both straw men, tools of the military-industrial complex, oil conglomerates, financial elites, etc. that have been running this show for some time and raping and pillaging, as in Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, most of Africa, Central America and on and on and on all over the world It's past time to throw back the curtain and not take part in their horribly cruel and destructive rampage!
What else can we do? Anything else. Forgive me, but your solution lacks both courage and imagination. And of course a vote for Biden is very likely a vote for Harris, one of the most odious figures in recent political history. I’m with Mr. Hedges, I wouldn’t vote for Biden if you held a gun to m head.
A Trump presidency lacks one critical feature of a Biden 2.0: It probably won’t be better, but it can’t be seen as a reward for what’s happening now.
Not to mention that liberals and the MSM might suddenly rediscover human rights, if Trump and not Biden were presiding over the atrocities.
There is so much more to exercising one's democratic rights than casting a vote for a president in a republic where your vote doesn't fully count anyway. Think about how you "vote" with your time, energy, and money. Protest, join the Green Party, send letters to your local newspaper, send money to genuinely progressive candidates who are under attack by anti-progressives within their own party.
Aurora Levins Morales says that when we vote for President we only vote to choose our enemy. Biden is the better enemy based on domestic policy.
Another very powerful speech, Mr Hedges. Thank you for your clear denunciation of crimes against humanity. I hope these words go viral and mainstream. We can no longer pussyfoot our way around this ugly, volatile and dangerous reality and pretend that all’s fine with the world, when plainly it ain’t! Wake up world!!🌎
Don't hold back, Chris; tell us how you really feel. Seriously (not to be flippant about the ghastly slaughter that Israel and the U.S. are responsible for), we could sure as hell use more pieces like this in the mainstream media (not that that'll happen). I may be wrong, but it seems as if Israel's PR machine is finally running out of gas, and that the place will get the kind of boycotts and ostracism it deserves.
Thanks, as always, for a forceful, truthful analysis of the current situation in Israel and its implications for other so-called democracies like the United States. We live in very perilous times!
We need this hard hitting interweaving of harsh present time truths and their embodied reality by the people of Gaza to blast through all the mentalized abstractions, lies and propaganda we are being flooded with.
As this horrifying genocide gets worse by the days, weeks, months, and the unspeakably barbaric details emerge that crush and numb our hearts, our will to act and our humanity itself, there sometimes comes the desire to look away from the unimaginable suffering being endured by the Gazans/Palestinians (and so many more as in Yemen and Syria happening right now). It's hard to stay present 24/7 to the terrorizing, the unimaginable losses, grief, pain and relentless fear they are being forced to endure night after day after night. I don't experience this as indifference, but as emotional exhaustion in my heart, sometimes evoking my own past traumas.
I know I am blessed to have the luxury of taking little breaks, even if only for a few moments with my beloved cats, feeding the hummingbirds, taking a walk with a friend or lover, connecting with community... the little human things that renew inner strength and replenish the soul. In the midst of war it is that necessity called R&R (which the Gazans are completely denied, not even a brief ceasefire!), and we are in the midst of war, even if at a distance. The internet has shortened and altered time and space in ways we hardly know. But, if we are deeply committed to truth and justice, I've come to feel those breaks can also help our witnessing and compassion to go deeper and steadier, to last longer, so that even as we walk or connect with the other kingdoms offering to help us, our witnessing and prayers for these beloved Gazans, truly our brothers and sisters and children, will increasingly stay more continuously within us and with them.
I can't thank you enough for your courage and commitment to speak out, your strength, endurance, unflagging devotion and love of truth. Your gift of clear seeing and speaking is such a gift to us all.
Wishing Craig Murray the very best outcome in his race for Parliament!
Always a pleasure to see Chris and Craig together, whether in New York or over in Blackburn, joined here with Richard Medhurst.
Another fine speech by Chris. Hope that this will seen or read by many.
Thank you, Chris for such an accurate, insightful assessment of the human situation, not just in Gaza, but across the globe and across the millenia of human existence. And yet, despite knowing that, you persist in speaking the truth and refusing to be one of Nero's guests, as should we all.
Kia ora Chris, an erudite and powerful discourse indeed. Shades of Robert Fisk; I hope I’m not ignorant or out of place making that comparison. Thank you for maintaining the courage and conviction to continue shining the light on depravity and darkness infecting this world.