The longer the proxy war in Ukraine continues, the closer we come to a direct confrontation with Russia. Once that happens, the Dr. Strangeloves running the show will reach for the nukes.
I would say that they are very very good at certain types of status games and infighting, at symbol and spectacle, especially as no matter how catastrophically they mangle things, there are no real consequences for the truly Great And Good.
The problem is that these types of games have little to do with any sort of real world competence, any more than skill at chess translates to an ability to captain a nuclear submarine.
Chris Hedges just wrote the most important message to date. And, he conveys many powerful ones to us and the world. Our “elected leaders” must take heed and listen to this wisdom.
I don’t know where you find the courage to even write these articles. To confront these truths is an act of courage and integrity in itself and then to write about them with such clarity and insight...
Unbelievable.. and there is seemingly nothing NY of us can do about it to influence the outcome aside from banding.together is a physical 10 million person March on the white house... but even then, the police would use assault weapons on citizens at this stage. The only thing there is sto do is to watch from a place of ultimate quietness (which is limited and blurred line of sight from God herself) and observe it all without judgement as the humans who wish to punish are ultimately the ones who will be punished as the perpetrators causing all of humanity to be evaporated from this planet... just like a virus should be. Are we collectively anything better than a temporary virus on this floating rock?
Let's see if a miracle happens and the Puppet Masters all die from Sars Cov 2 first... I would imagine they are all in their 70s and have several co-morbidities as well.. so the odds are about the same as a lottery ticket.
Even so, others will fill their place until humans in critical mass realize we are all the same underlying person... who am I or anyone else to determine if humanity should survive.
Governments need to be defunded and starved to death.. they have accumulated far too much power and forgotten they are not to exist without the consent of the people. Democracy died a long time ago... we are already in WW3. Find your joy and peace in this moment everyone.. it may be some of your last.
Chomsky has noted multiple times that avenues of interactivity are all blocked in the U.S. notwithstanding churches and ethnic meeting halls. Unions have been decimated by legislation. Americans are meant to be atomized, separated consumers. Maybe Substack subscribers should initiate a movement of constructive idleness. Nobody needs to refrain from essentials like toiletries, food and medicinal weed, but letting the Madison Avenue mandarins feel the sting of an underwhelming 4th quarter of aggregate sales, and telling them that it is all in response to the war path this country is on...that could create a buzz! Imagine if they had a Super Bowl, and nobody watched!
"watch from a place of ultimate quietness" - "others will fill their place until humans in critical mass realize we are all the same underlying person"- Interesting statements. I am a meditation instructor and ethics commentator. I should have my first SS article up today or tomorrow. I would definitely like to get your take on it. Meditation allows me to maintain some sense of sanity while engaging a troubled world.
Happy to discuss it anytime. It permeates my day as I intention to apply the ancient wisdom of the Tao to my activity in trading the Dow, which is the theme if my soon to launch Intaday Insights substack.
Risk and vulnerability are siblings who often are crushed by callow power.
In this, the crushers only expose their own fear and insecurity. leaving them open to reprisal.
There is no invisible hand, only human agents who have created an illusion which has hypnotized many, as these agents enact another failed attempt at playing god in order to line their pockets.
"Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity." (Tao, V9)
I patiently await your arrival. In the interm, peace to you and to those in your care, Guy
Was just talking to a friend and client about knowing when to stop... the hardest hurdle flr most of my clients to overcome is to crystallize their gains and stop while you are ahead... enjoy the fruit of your efforts, and be grateful for your blessings. Man/woman must work and create value and apply knowledge to feed themselves... greed is the ever present observer and tempted waiting beside those hard at work.
How incredible for it to be 2022 and the last year has transported me back to the late 70s and early 80s, as a child and young adolescent. Nuclear war was a constant in the books I was reading, and a significant theme in the Madeline L'Engle's classics that so transported me. Will we see the pussywillows again? Will there be a next spring? And then Carl Sagan's wise counsel in the OG "Cosmos" of 1980, with the threat of nuclear extinction raised again and again. Can technological societies survive this turbulent adolescence?
Sagan's sensible dream of abandoning the arms race and MAD for mutual exploration of the universe may have always been a pipe dream, but even living this reality, it's difficult to imagine a more total rejection of a peaceful future than what the failson and faildaughter sociopaths now running the show have arranged. We're one transposed security code or misheard order from blowing up the world. In the 70s and 80s, people were upset about it. Now, aside from Hedges and Caitlin Johnstone and the few of us here, nobody knows. Rabid American support for yet another war, and right after having been lied to for 20 years about Afghanistan, is just incomprehensible.
It pains me to say this, but I'm glad Carl's dead. I would hate for him to have lived this long only to be so disappointed.
Beautifully said. I'm glad you mentioned Caitlin. She is not as even and solid as Chris Hedges, but she is one of the greatest thinkers on this planet. A 47-year-old mother in Australia, recently trying to find a rental house she and her family could afford, she is telling us the same things that Chris is, but also throwing in some beautiful poetry and philosophy. Without some kind of surge in human enlightenment, there is NOTHING that can save the world from nuclear holocaust and a climate catastrophe, with or without a nuclear war, that will soon make the living envy the dead. I hope you will will direct some of your attention to this beautiful human writer: caitlinjohnstone.com
Some damn straight thinking. It really seems insane, a vicious oaf like Donald Trump being the only voice of sanity here. Putin may be the ultimate cutthroat, but he doesn’t want to see his country (and himself) annihilated anymore than anyone else would, and when leaders in the west posture and refuse to talk to him, they’re making a mistake of possible catastrophic proportions.
Trump is vicious but I think as a counter puncher. The elite are oh so very polite as they impale you. He is the right oaf for our time: colon hydrotherapy.
My thoughts as well. If it happens I want one right over my head.
Even the bunker life only lasts for so long. The food runs out, the fuel is used up, there is no more manufacturing capacity. How does that end for them?
Well, I don't entirely agree with Chris. Most wars are fought to defeat "the enemy" and force him to submit to your will. This is not a war that Russia wants to fight and I don't think that they think that things are going all that badly nor do I think that they want to crush the Ukraine, either. Why do I say that? Well, Shoigu is still the head military man. Putin has demonstrated a willingness to can anyone who isn't doing what he thinks needs done. And Shoigu is still there. I don't think that Russian losses are anything like what the US claims. They've been fighting this whole time with forces smaller than the Ukraine's so I don't think this call up is because they're running out of troops. I think the Russians have finally gotten pissed and they are starting to kick the Ukraine's ass by knocking out a substantial portion of their power grid, for example. And the Z-man immediately started bleating about more weapons.
So what does all this mean? I think Russia wants to raise the pressure on the Ukraine to get them to come back to the table but the wild card is the US/UK/EU/Ukrainian Nazis threatening the Z-man to within an inch of his life. The reality is that every time the Russians have stood and fought, the Ukrainians got their asses kicked. The US wants to make it seem as if the Russians are at the end of their tether. Oh, they're running out of missiles and two day later they unleash a barrage. They're getting drones from Iran. Really? Proof? This is all because Russia keeps hitting the Ukraine with drones. I think the US has a serious case of blinded by their own preconceptions.
What I really fear is the Deep State won't give it a rest and will keep pushing including putting US forces into the Ukraine. If that happens, all hell is likely to be loosed.
Chris, I love your work. I sometimes wonder if public truth tellers like yourself ever feel isolated and alone among your own family/friends. I wonder if the people in your company are hip to your clear sighted understanding of geopolitics, or if you are constantly suppressing conversations in the name of keeping peace with those who might be easily triggered or in denial.
From the beginning of the Russian invasion, I was devastated when people close to me started waving the blue & yellow flags without any recognition of what this war could and likely would lead to. No mobilization or outspokenness about the dangers of this proxy war. It's been like watching something horrifying in slow motion.
I wish we ALL could be children of Chomsky and the great thinkers who not only analyzed geopolitics, but the social psychology of a culture enslaved by endless war--how it's manufactured in ubiquitous, myriad forms, and the demoralizing effect it has on society. I wish I had thinkers like Chris in my immediate circle. It quite possibly would make this time less painful.
Erica, every word of this is beautifully stated. That is the hell that every one of us who has commented here is going through. It's not even slightly surprising that the great Caitlin Johnstone, Naomi Klein, and Media Benjamin (leader of Code Pink) are on our "side" (wanting to save terrestrial life on Earth!), but SO SO SO disappointing that our intelligent, loving, progressive friends and family members are pounding their chests and waving the Ukrainian flag, while scum-of-the-Earth criminals like Kissinger and Trump are actually getting this one right!
Thank you for your words. At least we have communed here together today. Read Selina Sweet's post above, and my response to it, and think about what you can do personally. It's very sickening that there are actually millions of us but that we are scattered so widely, we're like a single mote of dust catching the light of a sunbeam in front of a window.
If Taylor Swift posts a photo of her new sneakers on Instagram, she'll get 2 million views today, but here, on THE MOST IMPORTANT MISSIVE IN THE WORLD, Mr. Hedges has so far gotten 37 comments and maybe a few thousand views. We need to rock our friends, rock our communities, rock our cities. Try to nail your representatives that you can get closest to. Our government is corporate owned and operated now, and completely dysfunctional, never to be viable again. But it's not DEAD, and it can still accomplish a few things piecemeal. I wouldn't have been able to retire early if not for Obamacare, sh*tty as it is.
Lately I struggle with people who overly identifying with abusive behaviors or people. Like, "Antony Blinken is just a fallible human too. He shits and feeds his cat too." What does an individual's personality have to do with their role in causing harm on a massive scale? Blinken could be a saintly husband and father for all I know, but why focus on his imagined personality? Do people think playing the "glad game" with these folks is going to magically undo the violence of imperialism? Do people do this because it relieves them of the harder feelings that come up when considering the untold harms such people perpetuate? It's as if people do this in order to rid themselves of the responsibility to act. Perhaps that is why it upsets me so much.
Caitlin Johnstone has written eloquently about this, expressing how when the abused is finally able to dis-identify with their abuser, it's common for the victim to become angry and outraged. It's important, iow, to dis-identify with abusers so that we can mobilize our way towards something healthier, neither vilifying nor sanctifying these people.
I think it's important to grieve. The grieving process is the salve that keeps us from falling into despair and depression. It allows us to stay in the fight or "in the light."
Perhaps many people are unwilling to feel grief simply because they don't have the tools or bandwidth to manage it. Maybe people confuse grieving with despair, and don't want to walk that fine line. I can identify with that and can empathize with this. I just really struggle with the massive denial that often accompanies this.
Thank you Erica for this very thoughtful comment. I hear you. I find it bizarre how people try to see the good in our leaders and seem to completely forget who and what these people really are. Joseph "Goebbels" Biden was a co-creator of the 2003 Iraq invasion, the biggest and most heinous war crime, so far, of the 21sth century, dwarfing what Putin has done so far in Ukraine. You can hear it right out of the horse's mouth here, less than 3 minutes long.
I like the concept of "dis-identifying" with the abuser. And I appreciate the distinction you make between grieving and despair. That's a good think to think about and analyze within ourselves. It is definitely like walking a tightrope.
Are there any serious attempts to stop the warmongers or deter them from their path? Can the upcoming November elections change anything in this grim scenario?
I've signed a good number of CodePink & other peace petitions & wonder what it will take for antiwar sentiment to gain traction, make an impact.
Doesn't help, of course, that even NPR tends to spout the party (Neo-Con) line ...
All the protesters in the streets against the Vietnam War DID make a difference. As long as the citizenry cozies with Netflix and wastes their steam making comments to the gallery - instead of grasping the enormity of the catastrophic possibility and puts their feet in the street en masse to insist Peace Now! - then the more our silence colludes with - as consent to -the insanity of the shots our sociopaths are calling for today and concocting for tomorrow. And the deeper the guilt, the lassitude, the passivity, the self-reinforced passivity and self-disempowerment and resentment if not fury poison our beings. Britain's recent mass demonstrations in the streets sparked the resignation of their uselessly dangerous Prime Minister. I'd love to hear/see what each person here is willing to do to walk their talk.
This is beautifully stated. Cozying with Netflix, colluding with our silence, and being psychologically and physically poisoned by guilt, lassitude, passivity, resentment, and fury! It's true!
"I'd love to hear/see what each person here is willing to do to walk their talk."
This is what I'm going to do: I'm sending this truly amazing, short, powerful piece by Chris Hedges, the most brilliant and formidable American/global political commentator of our time (along with Chomsky of course, but I think this is Chris's show now), by paper and email to AOC, Bernie, and Michael Moore, 3 influential Ukraine war hawks. And to the 200 people on my mailing list, and I will post it on Quora, where I've my "answers" have been read 1.8 million times in the past 2 years. And that's just for a start.
ALL of my loving, intelligent, progressive friends are pounding their chests for this proxy war in Ukraine. So far, in my local sector, I've got zero followers for our peace movement. The threat to their own children's lives leaves them absolutely unfazed.
Thank you Jeff…your voice makes a difference - for sure. Your decisions hearten me. What we give attention to - grows and develops. Your pouring your energies into filling up space with sounds and images of peace combined with mine and others will help peace become a force not to be ignored. More power to you! To us all together for Peace now!
And thank you, Selina! Your sentiments pushed me a bit farther than I might have otherwise gone today. I just sent this email (see below) to 200 smart people I know, who all like and respect me. There may, however, be only 4 or 5 out of that whole group who think we should end our proxy war now via serious US and Russian negotiation (Ukraine could only fight for a few more HOURS if USA and EU pulled the plug). Both sides have to make hard and even ugly compromises, just like the US and Soviets did all throughout our lives, to avoid nuclear war. No one predicted that Gorbachev would show up and that the Berlin Wall would fall, but these things happened. Because we were patient AND WE UNDERSTOOD THE DANGER OF NUCLEAR WAR!
Hedges proves in this great article that for the US/EU to compromise is NOT "Chamberlain-esque". It is simply required. It is the only move on the chessboard.
And I'm working on my letter to AOC and Bernie now, and will do all in my power to make sure, somehow, that it gets to them. How in the WORLD could AOC not read Chomsky and Hedges?
Here's what I wrote to the 200 friends, former co-workers, and family members today:
Hi Fellow Lovers of Peace and Dreaders of Being Nuked,
This article, published a few hours ago, is the BOMB to wake up your usually smart, progressive friends who are pounding their chests for the US proxy war in Ukraine, a war that very well might find us all dead within the next week or month. If you know even a fraction of the history of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, you know that this is not exaggeration or hyperbole.
This laser-sharp piece by Chris Hedges is, I think, the most important missive in the world. I hope that we will all find ways to ACT on it! Here's a beginning:
I would like a 1- or 2-sentence report from every one of you, but NOT until you've read the whole 3-page article, AND, not until you've explored every point you don't believe and agree with by clicking on the link Hedges provides to back it up. Pulitzer prize winning former NY Times journalist and author Hedges cites the most solid of sources, and I don't expect you to read every linked article you go to, but I hope you'll at least skim the beginning of each one to get an idea of what he has provided for you.
Boy o boy, is that ever a great, fresh down to earth intelligent sound appealing invitation to get the scoop and do what needs doing!
Your salutation is the best! “ Hi Fellow Lovers of Peace and Dreaders of Being Nuked,! “ Made me laugh . Perfect. Yes, we think we know all the pieces til we suddenly discover a new item has been inserted that transforms everything . Like Reality really wants us to know it for what it is - all hubris and chest beating aside. Good work Jeff!
People who are genuinely concerned need to reach out to/join forces with other anti-war/pro-peace people in their communities; small-scale local demonstrations at least show that not everyone is willing to swallow the official line ...
NPR *ALWAYS* supports Americas fake wars. I really studied during both Bush invasions of Iraq (91 and 03). You are SO RIGHT about our failure to get traction! I heard Media Benjamin of Code Pink the other day. She's on the same page as Chris and Caitlin, but look at Michael Moore, waving the Ukrainian flag!!! OMG help us!!
I would never trust Michael Moore's judgment having, long ago, been on a panel with him and observed, close-up, his obnoxious narcissism. He's not in the same league as Medea Benjamin or Hedges or Caitlin Johnstone.
I agree, SG. He has been a good soldier, though. His Fahrenheit 9/11 was amazing, as was his Sicko. That makes it all the harder for me to see him falling behind. Same with AOC and Bernie. They actually support this proxy war!
Agreed about some of his films. But there is a significant distinction to be made between a gadfly like Michael Moore and serious thinkers like Chomsky, Hedges, etc. I am fearful that AOC and Bernie are, like all those Progressives and Dems in past administrations who voted for horrible wars like Afghanistan and Iraq, too beholden to the Party line.
I agree completely with you about the difference between Moore and Chomsky/Hedges. Moore's ego really gets in his way. Notice how concise Hedges is and then listen to Moore's recent podcasts and notice how incredibly long-winded he is, like a boring old man in his rocking chair forcing you to listen to too many stories and making them all too long. This Hedges piece is truly only 3 pages long and yet he NAILS the whole argument against proxy war solidly. I will never have to argue with my friends about this war again. All I will do from now on is send this piece to them, or quotes from it. It is done. Why would I serve a hamburger when I have a perfectly cooked filet mignon simmering on a plate and ready to serve?!
My son told me in early 2020, when Bernie's popularity was starting to surge and I was all excited that Bernie might actually win:
"A lot of progressives are going to be heartbroken when Bernie bombs his first brown country."
The worst response we can have to this article is to throw up our hands and say there is nothing we can do, it is out of our control. Too many comments here reflect that resignation. But we can lobby our representatives in Congress, and Biden himself, to stop escalation and start diplomacy. Call or write them now.
Absolutely, I contacted the white house several times, and most of the time I got a wonderful stylish letter (emailed) with a lot of senseless words - well well but the citizen (I am not one) can have his say - or???
I called my rep Barbara Lee on Monday and would like to believe it had something to do with the letter the CPC released that day. (Yes, I know it was a simple coincidence.) As we saw, even tepid calls for diplomacy are too much in this climate. I called her office again today to let her know this constituent's thoughts on their cowardly retraction.
You think the system works, how old fashioned. We are now a low trust society, any political system needs high trust to work. I wish you were right but sadly....
I am as cynical and despairing as anyone, especially so after the CPC letter and retraction fiasco. But even if our calls and letters and emails are dismissed by the most hawkish political establishment in our lifetimes we can't let that stop us.
Thanks for this.......I wish I knew how citizens could contribute to the calls for negotiation. Where I live the cheering for war seems to have gone silent, but the calls for a peace settlement that allows both sides to save some face is absent.
We have to do more than just grow weary of the cheerleading for Ukraine. But its hard to know what.
Mass non-violent intervention across the public sphere. We can do this. The 18 to 45 crowd is terrifed by all this. They will back a responsible group of leaders who step forward to organize a massive intervention. Notice how I am staying away from the word resistance.
I wonder. Even if such a massive peace movement erupted in some of our western cities....would we hear about it? Part of the hegemony that America....and her western allies seem to have achieved now, is that resistance, opposition, sober second third and fouth thoughts..........or whatever we want to call them, seem to go unreported. And few ordinary citizens seem to know enough......about what they don't know......to be able to marshal coherent arguments....
It's not just the nuclear threat that should have us worried. Climate change is here....and showing itself everywhere in extreme weather events. Ukraine is the world's second bread basket (I learned this only recently) and the world sits idly by....or lisps none sense about a free Ukraine.......while in fact Ukraine is being destroyed.
The longer the war goes on......nuclear option or not.........the greater the damage to the country. Perhaps then American contractors will move in and make their killing, by rebuilding at western expense. But unless money is infinite (American Republicans insist it isn't) that means truly essential transitional infrastructure may go unbuilt.
Nuclear catastrophe is only one option. Catastrophic options proliferate in warfare....now more than ever, with the Man versus Nature plot thickening.
"Ukraine is the world's second bread basket (I learned this only recently) and the world sits idly by....or lisps none sense about a free Ukraine.......while in fact Ukraine is being destroyed."
Thanks for your response. Your concerns come from an honest heart.
My heart breaks, not only for the living earth and the atmosphere that encompasses it, that we have all but destroyed, but for the human cost to ALL the people of Ukraine.
In the typical fashion that has been demonstrated in a large way since WWII- the intelligence agencies infitrate a country, pit factions of the populace against each other, ignite a civil war which draws the rest of the populace into the conflict, a good portion of the populace is publicly murdered (the low estimates of dead among the Armed Forces of Ukraine are in the neighborhood 350,000), the country's environment and infrastructure are decimated to facilitate high, long lasting civilian deaths and to slow reconstruction, the US vows dollars to help rebuild- making the country and the population slavishly dependent on the US, and then they steal any of the countires resources that they want, while assuring a high poverty and mortality rate in the host country to keep the cost of labor at humanly unsustainable levels. And on and on...
As recent history attest, the American Supremacy apparatus has NOT been able to completely suppress dissident rallies or independant voices. If a mass peace movement urupted we would certainly know about it.
This is a very accurate, scary analysis of what is happening in relation to Ukraine. I also believe that there are elements in the Biden administration that are escalating the conflict with the expectation that Russia will use a tactical nuclear weapon in response which would be an excuse for the United States to directly attack Russia, believing that they can win the and don’t care if millions die. This may a reason why the Biden administration is not interested in negotiations.
Agreed. But the ultimate goal of the members of apocalyptic sects is not to win but to bring the end of times. While pushing for and witnessing these events they are probably singing Halleluiahs while celebrating, with champagne, that their prayers have been listened.
We are governed by sociopaths.
Politicians: Sociopaths, narcissists, crooks. Or any combination of the three.
Extraordinarily stupid ones. Impressively so.
I would say that they are very very good at certain types of status games and infighting, at symbol and spectacle, especially as no matter how catastrophically they mangle things, there are no real consequences for the truly Great And Good.
The problem is that these types of games have little to do with any sort of real world competence, any more than skill at chess translates to an ability to captain a nuclear submarine.
Except Trump as per Chris - the voice of reason.
Chris Hedges just wrote the most important message to date. And, he conveys many powerful ones to us and the world. Our “elected leaders” must take heed and listen to this wisdom.
I don’t know where you find the courage to even write these articles. To confront these truths is an act of courage and integrity in itself and then to write about them with such clarity and insight...
Unbelievable.. and there is seemingly nothing NY of us can do about it to influence the outcome aside from banding.together is a physical 10 million person March on the white house... but even then, the police would use assault weapons on citizens at this stage. The only thing there is sto do is to watch from a place of ultimate quietness (which is limited and blurred line of sight from God herself) and observe it all without judgement as the humans who wish to punish are ultimately the ones who will be punished as the perpetrators causing all of humanity to be evaporated from this planet... just like a virus should be. Are we collectively anything better than a temporary virus on this floating rock?
Let's see if a miracle happens and the Puppet Masters all die from Sars Cov 2 first... I would imagine they are all in their 70s and have several co-morbidities as well.. so the odds are about the same as a lottery ticket.
Even so, others will fill their place until humans in critical mass realize we are all the same underlying person... who am I or anyone else to determine if humanity should survive.
Governments need to be defunded and starved to death.. they have accumulated far too much power and forgotten they are not to exist without the consent of the people. Democracy died a long time ago... we are already in WW3. Find your joy and peace in this moment everyone.. it may be some of your last.
Chomsky has noted multiple times that avenues of interactivity are all blocked in the U.S. notwithstanding churches and ethnic meeting halls. Unions have been decimated by legislation. Americans are meant to be atomized, separated consumers. Maybe Substack subscribers should initiate a movement of constructive idleness. Nobody needs to refrain from essentials like toiletries, food and medicinal weed, but letting the Madison Avenue mandarins feel the sting of an underwhelming 4th quarter of aggregate sales, and telling them that it is all in response to the war path this country is on...that could create a buzz! Imagine if they had a Super Bowl, and nobody watched!
I like your simple, true statement: "We are already in WW3."
"watch from a place of ultimate quietness" - "others will fill their place until humans in critical mass realize we are all the same underlying person"- Interesting statements. I am a meditation instructor and ethics commentator. I should have my first SS article up today or tomorrow. I would definitely like to get your take on it. Meditation allows me to maintain some sense of sanity while engaging a troubled world.
Happy to discuss it anytime. It permeates my day as I intention to apply the ancient wisdom of the Tao to my activity in trading the Dow, which is the theme if my soon to launch Intaday Insights substack.
I have subscribed to your post. Love to read what you got.
Thanks.. I began my daily writing schedule this week.. still outlining topics but would like to produce 1 piece per week beginning in January :)
I'm excited to share some heart felt lessons
Risk and vulnerability are siblings who often are crushed by callow power.
In this, the crushers only expose their own fear and insecurity. leaving them open to reprisal.
There is no invisible hand, only human agents who have created an illusion which has hypnotized many, as these agents enact another failed attempt at playing god in order to line their pockets.
"Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity." (Tao, V9)
I patiently await your arrival. In the interm, peace to you and to those in your care, Guy
Was just talking to a friend and client about knowing when to stop... the hardest hurdle flr most of my clients to overcome is to crystallize their gains and stop while you are ahead... enjoy the fruit of your efforts, and be grateful for your blessings. Man/woman must work and create value and apply knowledge to feed themselves... greed is the ever present observer and tempted waiting beside those hard at work.
Leviathan is upon us: the administrative state is the problem.
.. or maybe that our collective allowance and slowness to revolt against it, is feeding their growing boldness.
How incredible for it to be 2022 and the last year has transported me back to the late 70s and early 80s, as a child and young adolescent. Nuclear war was a constant in the books I was reading, and a significant theme in the Madeline L'Engle's classics that so transported me. Will we see the pussywillows again? Will there be a next spring? And then Carl Sagan's wise counsel in the OG "Cosmos" of 1980, with the threat of nuclear extinction raised again and again. Can technological societies survive this turbulent adolescence?
Sagan's sensible dream of abandoning the arms race and MAD for mutual exploration of the universe may have always been a pipe dream, but even living this reality, it's difficult to imagine a more total rejection of a peaceful future than what the failson and faildaughter sociopaths now running the show have arranged. We're one transposed security code or misheard order from blowing up the world. In the 70s and 80s, people were upset about it. Now, aside from Hedges and Caitlin Johnstone and the few of us here, nobody knows. Rabid American support for yet another war, and right after having been lied to for 20 years about Afghanistan, is just incomprehensible.
It pains me to say this, but I'm glad Carl's dead. I would hate for him to have lived this long only to be so disappointed.
Beautifully said. I'm glad you mentioned Caitlin. She is not as even and solid as Chris Hedges, but she is one of the greatest thinkers on this planet. A 47-year-old mother in Australia, recently trying to find a rental house she and her family could afford, she is telling us the same things that Chris is, but also throwing in some beautiful poetry and philosophy. Without some kind of surge in human enlightenment, there is NOTHING that can save the world from nuclear holocaust and a climate catastrophe, with or without a nuclear war, that will soon make the living envy the dead. I hope you will will direct some of your attention to this beautiful human writer: caitlinjohnstone.com
I gave her a g-note
That's very cool of you. She lives very simply and could use it!
Better the cold hard truth than the comforting fantasy. Said it himself.
Disappointed, sure. But he was already that after learning about the Library of Alexandria.
Carl would’ve hoped. And so should we.
Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland are married, right? What is their reason for this?
Yes, that was exactly the question I had when I heard this.
Ha ha.
Some damn straight thinking. It really seems insane, a vicious oaf like Donald Trump being the only voice of sanity here. Putin may be the ultimate cutthroat, but he doesn’t want to see his country (and himself) annihilated anymore than anyone else would, and when leaders in the west posture and refuse to talk to him, they’re making a mistake of possible catastrophic proportions.
Trump is vicious but I think as a counter puncher. The elite are oh so very polite as they impale you. He is the right oaf for our time: colon hydrotherapy.
It’s at least a 50/50 at this point ...
Guaranteed mutual destruction
I’m figuring the govt idiots are stupid enough to think they’ll win
And we can see the billionaires know better and will be fleeing to their multimillion dollar bunkers
WHY?
Me?
I’d rather walk out and watch them coming ... be annihilated in the first round
I certainty don’t want to be alive, suffering and trying to keep alive in what will be an unrecognizable world
If it happens -I’m going out with a bang
Those bloody idiots 😥
My thoughts as well. If it happens I want one right over my head.
Even the bunker life only lasts for so long. The food runs out, the fuel is used up, there is no more manufacturing capacity. How does that end for them?
Well, I don't entirely agree with Chris. Most wars are fought to defeat "the enemy" and force him to submit to your will. This is not a war that Russia wants to fight and I don't think that they think that things are going all that badly nor do I think that they want to crush the Ukraine, either. Why do I say that? Well, Shoigu is still the head military man. Putin has demonstrated a willingness to can anyone who isn't doing what he thinks needs done. And Shoigu is still there. I don't think that Russian losses are anything like what the US claims. They've been fighting this whole time with forces smaller than the Ukraine's so I don't think this call up is because they're running out of troops. I think the Russians have finally gotten pissed and they are starting to kick the Ukraine's ass by knocking out a substantial portion of their power grid, for example. And the Z-man immediately started bleating about more weapons.
So what does all this mean? I think Russia wants to raise the pressure on the Ukraine to get them to come back to the table but the wild card is the US/UK/EU/Ukrainian Nazis threatening the Z-man to within an inch of his life. The reality is that every time the Russians have stood and fought, the Ukrainians got their asses kicked. The US wants to make it seem as if the Russians are at the end of their tether. Oh, they're running out of missiles and two day later they unleash a barrage. They're getting drones from Iran. Really? Proof? This is all because Russia keeps hitting the Ukraine with drones. I think the US has a serious case of blinded by their own preconceptions.
What I really fear is the Deep State won't give it a rest and will keep pushing including putting US forces into the Ukraine. If that happens, all hell is likely to be loosed.
Your analysis is pretty much dead on. Your concerns are certainly warranted.
Chris, I love your work. I sometimes wonder if public truth tellers like yourself ever feel isolated and alone among your own family/friends. I wonder if the people in your company are hip to your clear sighted understanding of geopolitics, or if you are constantly suppressing conversations in the name of keeping peace with those who might be easily triggered or in denial.
From the beginning of the Russian invasion, I was devastated when people close to me started waving the blue & yellow flags without any recognition of what this war could and likely would lead to. No mobilization or outspokenness about the dangers of this proxy war. It's been like watching something horrifying in slow motion.
I wish we ALL could be children of Chomsky and the great thinkers who not only analyzed geopolitics, but the social psychology of a culture enslaved by endless war--how it's manufactured in ubiquitous, myriad forms, and the demoralizing effect it has on society. I wish I had thinkers like Chris in my immediate circle. It quite possibly would make this time less painful.
Erica, every word of this is beautifully stated. That is the hell that every one of us who has commented here is going through. It's not even slightly surprising that the great Caitlin Johnstone, Naomi Klein, and Media Benjamin (leader of Code Pink) are on our "side" (wanting to save terrestrial life on Earth!), but SO SO SO disappointing that our intelligent, loving, progressive friends and family members are pounding their chests and waving the Ukrainian flag, while scum-of-the-Earth criminals like Kissinger and Trump are actually getting this one right!
Thank you for your words. At least we have communed here together today. Read Selina Sweet's post above, and my response to it, and think about what you can do personally. It's very sickening that there are actually millions of us but that we are scattered so widely, we're like a single mote of dust catching the light of a sunbeam in front of a window.
If Taylor Swift posts a photo of her new sneakers on Instagram, she'll get 2 million views today, but here, on THE MOST IMPORTANT MISSIVE IN THE WORLD, Mr. Hedges has so far gotten 37 comments and maybe a few thousand views. We need to rock our friends, rock our communities, rock our cities. Try to nail your representatives that you can get closest to. Our government is corporate owned and operated now, and completely dysfunctional, never to be viable again. But it's not DEAD, and it can still accomplish a few things piecemeal. I wouldn't have been able to retire early if not for Obamacare, sh*tty as it is.
Nice to hear from you, Jeff, and thank you too.
Lately I struggle with people who overly identifying with abusive behaviors or people. Like, "Antony Blinken is just a fallible human too. He shits and feeds his cat too." What does an individual's personality have to do with their role in causing harm on a massive scale? Blinken could be a saintly husband and father for all I know, but why focus on his imagined personality? Do people think playing the "glad game" with these folks is going to magically undo the violence of imperialism? Do people do this because it relieves them of the harder feelings that come up when considering the untold harms such people perpetuate? It's as if people do this in order to rid themselves of the responsibility to act. Perhaps that is why it upsets me so much.
Caitlin Johnstone has written eloquently about this, expressing how when the abused is finally able to dis-identify with their abuser, it's common for the victim to become angry and outraged. It's important, iow, to dis-identify with abusers so that we can mobilize our way towards something healthier, neither vilifying nor sanctifying these people.
I think it's important to grieve. The grieving process is the salve that keeps us from falling into despair and depression. It allows us to stay in the fight or "in the light."
Perhaps many people are unwilling to feel grief simply because they don't have the tools or bandwidth to manage it. Maybe people confuse grieving with despair, and don't want to walk that fine line. I can identify with that and can empathize with this. I just really struggle with the massive denial that often accompanies this.
Thank you Erica for this very thoughtful comment. I hear you. I find it bizarre how people try to see the good in our leaders and seem to completely forget who and what these people really are. Joseph "Goebbels" Biden was a co-creator of the 2003 Iraq invasion, the biggest and most heinous war crime, so far, of the 21sth century, dwarfing what Putin has done so far in Ukraine. You can hear it right out of the horse's mouth here, less than 3 minutes long.
https://youtu.be/Ru5djS2GSVk
I like the concept of "dis-identifying" with the abuser. And I appreciate the distinction you make between grieving and despair. That's a good think to think about and analyze within ourselves. It is definitely like walking a tightrope.
You miss judge Trump, otherwise I agree with you.
As usual, The NY Times editorial (naively? or corruptly?) gets it very wrong in asking:
"Has the administration’s goal shifted to destabilizing Putin or having him removed?"
Regime change has always been - from before day one - one of Biden/Blinken's strategic objectives.
Interesting that they take a stance opposed to the security state, it’s been years of loyal obfuscation and outright corrupt lies. Interesting!
Are there any serious attempts to stop the warmongers or deter them from their path? Can the upcoming November elections change anything in this grim scenario?
I've signed a good number of CodePink & other peace petitions & wonder what it will take for antiwar sentiment to gain traction, make an impact.
Doesn't help, of course, that even NPR tends to spout the party (Neo-Con) line ...
All the protesters in the streets against the Vietnam War DID make a difference. As long as the citizenry cozies with Netflix and wastes their steam making comments to the gallery - instead of grasping the enormity of the catastrophic possibility and puts their feet in the street en masse to insist Peace Now! - then the more our silence colludes with - as consent to -the insanity of the shots our sociopaths are calling for today and concocting for tomorrow. And the deeper the guilt, the lassitude, the passivity, the self-reinforced passivity and self-disempowerment and resentment if not fury poison our beings. Britain's recent mass demonstrations in the streets sparked the resignation of their uselessly dangerous Prime Minister. I'd love to hear/see what each person here is willing to do to walk their talk.
This is beautifully stated. Cozying with Netflix, colluding with our silence, and being psychologically and physically poisoned by guilt, lassitude, passivity, resentment, and fury! It's true!
"I'd love to hear/see what each person here is willing to do to walk their talk."
This is what I'm going to do: I'm sending this truly amazing, short, powerful piece by Chris Hedges, the most brilliant and formidable American/global political commentator of our time (along with Chomsky of course, but I think this is Chris's show now), by paper and email to AOC, Bernie, and Michael Moore, 3 influential Ukraine war hawks. And to the 200 people on my mailing list, and I will post it on Quora, where I've my "answers" have been read 1.8 million times in the past 2 years. And that's just for a start.
ALL of my loving, intelligent, progressive friends are pounding their chests for this proxy war in Ukraine. So far, in my local sector, I've got zero followers for our peace movement. The threat to their own children's lives leaves them absolutely unfazed.
Thank you Jeff…your voice makes a difference - for sure. Your decisions hearten me. What we give attention to - grows and develops. Your pouring your energies into filling up space with sounds and images of peace combined with mine and others will help peace become a force not to be ignored. More power to you! To us all together for Peace now!
And thank you, Selina! Your sentiments pushed me a bit farther than I might have otherwise gone today. I just sent this email (see below) to 200 smart people I know, who all like and respect me. There may, however, be only 4 or 5 out of that whole group who think we should end our proxy war now via serious US and Russian negotiation (Ukraine could only fight for a few more HOURS if USA and EU pulled the plug). Both sides have to make hard and even ugly compromises, just like the US and Soviets did all throughout our lives, to avoid nuclear war. No one predicted that Gorbachev would show up and that the Berlin Wall would fall, but these things happened. Because we were patient AND WE UNDERSTOOD THE DANGER OF NUCLEAR WAR!
Hedges proves in this great article that for the US/EU to compromise is NOT "Chamberlain-esque". It is simply required. It is the only move on the chessboard.
And I'm working on my letter to AOC and Bernie now, and will do all in my power to make sure, somehow, that it gets to them. How in the WORLD could AOC not read Chomsky and Hedges?
Here's what I wrote to the 200 friends, former co-workers, and family members today:
Hi Fellow Lovers of Peace and Dreaders of Being Nuked,
This article, published a few hours ago, is the BOMB to wake up your usually smart, progressive friends who are pounding their chests for the US proxy war in Ukraine, a war that very well might find us all dead within the next week or month. If you know even a fraction of the history of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, you know that this is not exaggeration or hyperbole.
This laser-sharp piece by Chris Hedges is, I think, the most important missive in the world. I hope that we will all find ways to ACT on it! Here's a beginning:
I would like a 1- or 2-sentence report from every one of you, but NOT until you've read the whole 3-page article, AND, not until you've explored every point you don't believe and agree with by clicking on the link Hedges provides to back it up. Pulitzer prize winning former NY Times journalist and author Hedges cites the most solid of sources, and I don't expect you to read every linked article you go to, but I hope you'll at least skim the beginning of each one to get an idea of what he has provided for you.
Boy o boy, is that ever a great, fresh down to earth intelligent sound appealing invitation to get the scoop and do what needs doing!
Your salutation is the best! “ Hi Fellow Lovers of Peace and Dreaders of Being Nuked,! “ Made me laugh . Perfect. Yes, we think we know all the pieces til we suddenly discover a new item has been inserted that transforms everything . Like Reality really wants us to know it for what it is - all hubris and chest beating aside. Good work Jeff!
Thank you so much, Selina.
People who are genuinely concerned need to reach out to/join forces with other anti-war/pro-peace people in their communities; small-scale local demonstrations at least show that not everyone is willing to swallow the official line ...
Right on! Invite all your friends and have a potluck party for the finale!
Call your reps in Congress and Biden. Make noise with the people who have some power to stop this madness.
Yer a famous man
NPR *ALWAYS* supports Americas fake wars. I really studied during both Bush invasions of Iraq (91 and 03). You are SO RIGHT about our failure to get traction! I heard Media Benjamin of Code Pink the other day. She's on the same page as Chris and Caitlin, but look at Michael Moore, waving the Ukrainian flag!!! OMG help us!!
I would never trust Michael Moore's judgment having, long ago, been on a panel with him and observed, close-up, his obnoxious narcissism. He's not in the same league as Medea Benjamin or Hedges or Caitlin Johnstone.
If the Establishment is good at nothing else, it is very good at determining whom to buy off, whom to co-opt, whom to neutralize, and whom to ignore.
I agree, SG. He has been a good soldier, though. His Fahrenheit 9/11 was amazing, as was his Sicko. That makes it all the harder for me to see him falling behind. Same with AOC and Bernie. They actually support this proxy war!
Agreed about some of his films. But there is a significant distinction to be made between a gadfly like Michael Moore and serious thinkers like Chomsky, Hedges, etc. I am fearful that AOC and Bernie are, like all those Progressives and Dems in past administrations who voted for horrible wars like Afghanistan and Iraq, too beholden to the Party line.
I agree completely with you about the difference between Moore and Chomsky/Hedges. Moore's ego really gets in his way. Notice how concise Hedges is and then listen to Moore's recent podcasts and notice how incredibly long-winded he is, like a boring old man in his rocking chair forcing you to listen to too many stories and making them all too long. This Hedges piece is truly only 3 pages long and yet he NAILS the whole argument against proxy war solidly. I will never have to argue with my friends about this war again. All I will do from now on is send this piece to them, or quotes from it. It is done. Why would I serve a hamburger when I have a perfectly cooked filet mignon simmering on a plate and ready to serve?!
My son told me in early 2020, when Bernie's popularity was starting to surge and I was all excited that Bernie might actually win:
"A lot of progressives are going to be heartbroken when Bernie bombs his first brown country."
--George Chen-Wei Syrop, 2020/01/13
The worst response we can have to this article is to throw up our hands and say there is nothing we can do, it is out of our control. Too many comments here reflect that resignation. But we can lobby our representatives in Congress, and Biden himself, to stop escalation and start diplomacy. Call or write them now.
I have called my representatives many times and have had zero success in influencing their behavior.
Absolutely, I contacted the white house several times, and most of the time I got a wonderful stylish letter (emailed) with a lot of senseless words - well well but the citizen (I am not one) can have his say - or???
I called my rep Barbara Lee on Monday and would like to believe it had something to do with the letter the CPC released that day. (Yes, I know it was a simple coincidence.) As we saw, even tepid calls for diplomacy are too much in this climate. I called her office again today to let her know this constituent's thoughts on their cowardly retraction.
You think the system works, how old fashioned. We are now a low trust society, any political system needs high trust to work. I wish you were right but sadly....
I am as cynical and despairing as anyone, especially so after the CPC letter and retraction fiasco. But even if our calls and letters and emails are dismissed by the most hawkish political establishment in our lifetimes we can't let that stop us.
Yes, you are 100% correct! We owe it to ourselves to try; we owe it to our children; we owe to our ancestors who toiled for us.
Are you the famous guy, like, the guy on TV?
Thanks for this.......I wish I knew how citizens could contribute to the calls for negotiation. Where I live the cheering for war seems to have gone silent, but the calls for a peace settlement that allows both sides to save some face is absent.
We have to do more than just grow weary of the cheerleading for Ukraine. But its hard to know what.
Mass non-violent intervention across the public sphere. We can do this. The 18 to 45 crowd is terrifed by all this. They will back a responsible group of leaders who step forward to organize a massive intervention. Notice how I am staying away from the word resistance.
I wonder. Even if such a massive peace movement erupted in some of our western cities....would we hear about it? Part of the hegemony that America....and her western allies seem to have achieved now, is that resistance, opposition, sober second third and fouth thoughts..........or whatever we want to call them, seem to go unreported. And few ordinary citizens seem to know enough......about what they don't know......to be able to marshal coherent arguments....
It's not just the nuclear threat that should have us worried. Climate change is here....and showing itself everywhere in extreme weather events. Ukraine is the world's second bread basket (I learned this only recently) and the world sits idly by....or lisps none sense about a free Ukraine.......while in fact Ukraine is being destroyed.
The longer the war goes on......nuclear option or not.........the greater the damage to the country. Perhaps then American contractors will move in and make their killing, by rebuilding at western expense. But unless money is infinite (American Republicans insist it isn't) that means truly essential transitional infrastructure may go unbuilt.
Nuclear catastrophe is only one option. Catastrophic options proliferate in warfare....now more than ever, with the Man versus Nature plot thickening.
"Ukraine is the world's second bread basket (I learned this only recently) and the world sits idly by....or lisps none sense about a free Ukraine.......while in fact Ukraine is being destroyed."
Thanks for your response. Your concerns come from an honest heart.
My heart breaks, not only for the living earth and the atmosphere that encompasses it, that we have all but destroyed, but for the human cost to ALL the people of Ukraine.
In the typical fashion that has been demonstrated in a large way since WWII- the intelligence agencies infitrate a country, pit factions of the populace against each other, ignite a civil war which draws the rest of the populace into the conflict, a good portion of the populace is publicly murdered (the low estimates of dead among the Armed Forces of Ukraine are in the neighborhood 350,000), the country's environment and infrastructure are decimated to facilitate high, long lasting civilian deaths and to slow reconstruction, the US vows dollars to help rebuild- making the country and the population slavishly dependent on the US, and then they steal any of the countires resources that they want, while assuring a high poverty and mortality rate in the host country to keep the cost of labor at humanly unsustainable levels. And on and on...
As recent history attest, the American Supremacy apparatus has NOT been able to completely suppress dissident rallies or independant voices. If a mass peace movement urupted we would certainly know about it.
Well said Cris, thanks.
This is a very accurate, scary analysis of what is happening in relation to Ukraine. I also believe that there are elements in the Biden administration that are escalating the conflict with the expectation that Russia will use a tactical nuclear weapon in response which would be an excuse for the United States to directly attack Russia, believing that they can win the and don’t care if millions die. This may a reason why the Biden administration is not interested in negotiations.
Agreed. But the ultimate goal of the members of apocalyptic sects is not to win but to bring the end of times. While pushing for and witnessing these events they are probably singing Halleluiahs while celebrating, with champagne, that their prayers have been listened.