Hunter S. Thompson said it years ago: When the going gets weird the weird turn pro. I would substitute the word “insane” for the word “weird.” But Thompson nailed it regardless. Try to be kind and compassionate to each other, and to hold onto whatever semblance of sanity you can as the USA goes down the drain into some dark and dystopian place. Personally I like to hold onto the thought that multiverses and parallel worlds do indeed exist and on some of them humans have learned to live in balance with the environment and never came up with the idea of abstract wealth and the desire to amass vast amounts of it by a tiny few at the expense of the rest of us. One can dream.
Maybe it would really help if the average American made themselves aware of the realities around them, since more often then not their perception of reality is determined by FOX or MSNBC news , or the NY Times which continues to push itself as a newspaper s of record, An informed public is a real adversary.
I have a dream of a better world too - I think everything is currently inverted in our current western societies.
Here's my idea - please don't be scared away by the Gnostic basis. It can work for any religion - its just a way to look at the world - at suffering from another angle.
"a betrayed population is conditioned to exploit everyone around them in a desperate scramble to advance. People are objects to be used, mirroring the cruelty inflicted by the ruling class".
The sheer volume of hackers maniacally attempting to steal resources and identities from working and retired people provides a good measure of this exploitation that drives so much of the ethos by which this society operates. And it is indeed a mirror of the root illness.
I don't think the average person exploited by their society turns around and becomes one with the perpetrators of exploitation, no more then children abused at home by parents, become abusive in their adult life.
See, I just don't ken "average person". You mean, I would guess, someone not predisposed -- combo biologically and sociologically to end up on the sociopathy scale. Because clearly some do -- become abusers, scammers, hackers. Humans are a diverse group in every way, more genetically so than most folks allow, with this 99.9 % identity crap going around to quell racist urges (hell, there are probably upwards of a hundred billion genetically different immune systems out there). This is why the backdrop, the context of conditioning Chris cites is so critical, a setup for that fraction of humanity just waiting on the shoulders of the Bell Curve to become predators.
Your statement, begins by saying a betrayed population is conditioned to exploit everyone around them which sounds all inclusive rather then providing a training ground for the few who by all means can cause significant problems for the many and very obviously displayed in the USA. I guess it depends how people will read it, but I have often heard people say, or believe that abused children will become abusers, or it's true for the majority, but it isn't. As I said the majority do not become abusers. Most people in any given country I think are descent.
I'll just say that you're far more of an optimist than I am. and I am citing stats from personal observation of friends, acquaintances and personal experience of attempted hacks; it's bloody epidemic.
I have never been called an optimist, and I'm not, but I do believe people are basically good, and the few who control things too often are very self serving.
NEW YORK — Andrew Cuomo joined the legal team defending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from war crime charges. His leading opponent in the New York City mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani, vowed to arrest Netanyahu if he stepped foot in the city.
The politically moderate Cuomo, on a redemption tour boosted by donors who support Israel, has gone to lengths to portray antisemitism as a leading issue in a race that’s more about subway safety and housing costs. He’s called it “the most serious and the most important issue” in New York City and deemed himself a “hyper aggressive supporter of Israel and proud of it.”
Mamdani — a democratic socialist lawmaker making a splash with slick campaign videos and a robust fundraising operation — would be the first Muslim mayor of New York City, and has accused Israel of committing an American-funded genocide in Gaza.
Absolutely disgusting, and disgusting so many New Yorkers are giving a thumbs up to Israel even though they are implementing a genocide. Totally disgusts me. Maybe you're right, people aren't that good.
I don't know Fran. This one may just be desperation-level politics, Cuomo figuring -- being told by advisors probably -- that he must harvest ALL of that dependable voting bloc of over-60 NYC Zionist Jews because other constituencies are abandoning him. The man is nothing if not baldfaced opportunist. As I've written elsewhere, he makes me ashamed to be Italian-American.
Yes, hackers and scam artists flood my inbox daily, no matter how many times I unsubscribe to their cons, which I never subscribed to anyway. Deleting their bullshit over and over is how I spend way too much time. If I could meet any of these assholes they'd never forget it.
Thank you, Mr. Hedges... This essay explains so much that has perplexed me since the election of a bumbling, reality-deficient, fascist fool to be governor of California, later to become President Reagan. When W "won" in 2000, and Trump in 2016, I again asked myself, "How can people be so stupid?"
As darkness envelopes this land, I turn to the points of light which still shine. You, Mr. Hedges, are among those. Thank you.
Those whom you name as the cause of our many failures are republicans, so why not be honest and come out and say what you really mean, democrats will save us, and see how many would agree with that assessment. Lets just look at this century. Obama was a democrat, yet he funneled weapons from Libya (Also destroyed under Obama) to Syria to overthrow the Assad regime, Operation Timber Sycamore, where the CIA trained and armed Syrian rebels to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad, or what about his coup in Ukraine, and Biden's desire to get rid of Putin, as he said. Or what about Biden, a devout Zionist who stepped up to plate for Israel and provided the weapons to implement a genocide. Don't forget those democrats next time. P. S. Also lets not forget Reagan at least wasn't an Israeli ass kisser either.
Thanks for the calling out the Democrats as at least half the mess we are in. As bad as the Republicans are does not make the Dismal Vichy Dems any better. It amazes me how most of the people I know here in Blutopian Santa Fe (and beyond), refuse to see their party for what it is and has been. I have been vilified for years for calling out the "inauthentic opposition party." The Democrats abandoned their base long ago - they are the party of war and a party that asked the voters to support genocide by voting for them.
Too often their comeback to criticisms is, well they're better then republicans. End of discussion, they win. I remember a video clip of Glen Greenwald challenging two journalists from the Intercept, and simply asked them for proof of Russia-gate. They looked at him with utter contempt.
When I am critical of the Democratic Party my intention for attempting to share that with their supporters is to encourage them to push the party leadership to improve. What has happened at least since Clinton began taking corporate money is the parallel slide to the right, just like the Republicans - essentially the Democrats have become Republicans, and the Republicans have gone off the rails, especially now with Pres Trauma. The abandoned voters that have left the D's in droves have no one that represents them and the present Democratic Party doesn't seem to notice or care. When the Democrats lose the presidency to one as horrible as DJT, we are all losers and have to endure what he and his wrecking crew have in their very small minds and hearts.
I was always a registered democrat until they became a party no longer committed to the working class, or those in the middle, since they shoved them aside and embraced the corporate world and the cultural elite. In 2016 I supported Bernie Sanders, but interestingly enough the mouth pieces that backed the democratic party like MSNBC were pushing for a Clinton win, and to me she is nothing but a war monger who doesn't give a damn about anyone other then herself, well, and wars, not to mention she is someone who can get a good laugh when she hears someone was sodomized by a sword. Julian Assange has the same take on her, but feels sorry for her because he perceives her as sick, which I definitely do not, that is, feel sorry for her. When she won the primary and Sanders sang her praises he became a lost cause as well. To me they used Trump as a scape goat to enhance their own image and a lot of people bought it. I think the Biden years proved that. I'm not thrilled with Trump, and his continued support for a genocide in Gaza, and he seems to have turned a deaf ear to ending the calamity in Ukraine. I'm not even going to mention, well in detail, the necklace, the 100 million, and the cardiac surgeon who wants Israel to have the West Bank. Well, okay, AIPAC has got to goooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I won't even begin to write about my loathing for HRC - I have a difficult time even seeing a photo of her or her husband.
I recommend a recent piece by John Kiriakou in Consortium News - "Leaving the Democrats for Good" about his feelings about the D-party - the comments that follow are quite good.
I found this in a file I keep on the D-party - David Sirota: “There’s not a single Democratic Party official, powerbroker, elite, pundit, or politician who has faced any negative political, financial, or social status consequence from their participation in the decisions that resulted in their party losing two elections to Donald Trump.”
I really mean Democrats will save us? I don't suffer under any such delusions, but thanks for having the presumptuous rudeness to put words like that in my mouth.
In your statement you identified only republicans as the fools, so if you have a broader perspective on things lets hear some screw ups who belonged to the democratic party. You can start with Biden. I also believe you should reference Obama, the droner and, chief and the president who cooed up into us Ukraine.
True, Reagan was a pest, but correctly expressed that the government is the problem. When I remember that I'm sure he has been proved right by the administrations of George W. and Trump.
My government pays my rent, provides health insurance, and gives me enough to live on with a modicum of dignity--I'm retired--and they run a really cool library, and we've got a hot (yes, this will be a pun) fire department. The parts of government which work, and which are numerous, should be celebrated and strengthened. When Reagan quipped that govt is the problem, then worked to destroy the parts that work and thus fulfill his own prophesy, he was conning us (or trying to). Government of, by, and for the billionaire class works great: for billionaires. Hopefully the masses will wake up and organize, and make govt serve us rather than the opposite.
I have read Chris Hedges' books and columns for more than twenty years and consider him a prophet. Unfortunately, most of our fellow citizens would have no idea what he's talking about here, nor could they identify the historical references. I refer to this time as the Age of Stupidity. The catalyst was neoliberal capitalism, practiced by both corrupt political parties for fifty years; we're commodified beings, spectators of the spectacle, and many cheer for their own demise.
I, too, have followed Mr. Hedges from way back. A point of interest, I ordered Chris Hedges latest book from my independent bookstore. When I picked it up, the young clerk (maybe 25 to 30) got so excited as she had just started reading his books. Her eyes sparkled as she talked about all the books he has written. I was impressed. His words are reaching a young audience. I could almost believe in hope.
Walking a neighborhood to get the vote out for Paloma Aguirre for County Board of Supervisors I came across a neglected dog in her very neglected yard, and two dogs without an owner in sight, having a quixotic adventure exploring their neighborhood. On the way home I burst into tears: we humans have as much autonomy as these dogs. Who is born rich, who born poor. Who has good looks, who has a creative talent that goes undetected for a lifetime. Whose mother drank alcohol, and whose mother avoided peanut butter her entire pregnancy. How much power do any of us have? Our fates seem to come at us like waves in the ocean.
But I will still knock on doors, and make phone calls, and meet some wonderful, friendly, kind, wise people. And talk with the people who have lost all hope, if there was any there to begin with.
Thank you, Chris Hedges, for modeling your exquisite way with language, our road to and from thought, and for bringing together like-minded, lovely people. So grateful.
After the fall of organised, governed society we will enter the ‘age of the warlords’. Again. Those in positions of power - especially the Zionists - have already set about forming organisations with its top people connected to the authority of the state and those at the bottom to the mindless hunter/shooter mafia.
We focus a lot on the politics of power and control at the top end of the pyramid but - excepting Chris’ excellent piece here - not enough on the ‘goonishness’ of the masses below who set the tone for the acceptance of the ‘masters’. To this end we are all - or nearly all - complicit in this decline.
Yes, and not in occupied territory. It's more that the individuals are able to hide themselves behind tactical assault weapons and body armor, becoming uncritical agents of the state. (Unless they are acting in their plain clothes guise more like the gangs in any thug state, bundling people into cars and dragging them off to god knows where).
Only a insanely stupid populace would willingly fund stormtroopers who are sure to come for them after renditioning their neighbors. They’ve been so entertained/numbed in a toxic culture they’ve lost the ability to recognize a mortal threat right in front of them.
Can't argue with that, and I would add, a population that would rather not know too much, because the the more they find out, the less they want to know. A population that has been psy-opped to the point that they are arfaid to pay attention- better not to look, because we are bound to not like what we see.
Celebrity gossip, Porn Hub and Pro Sports are all fed into your mobile phone for a reason: information age panem et circenses. Keep your eyes on that screen, there's nothing to see here.
"There are some questions that mankind was meant to ask- such as, what WE are doing." - Wm. S. Burroughs
ICE won’t go ‘full IDF’. But this organisation - also drawn from the hunter/shooter ‘militia’ - will come to act more and more as a secondary National Guard and will conduct ever-more repressive interventions on the US population. It will be controlled by some shadowy agency close to the President. Or whoever controls the President.
The same thing is happening elsewhere in the West though it hasn’t shown its hand yet (except to those under ‘state’ surveillance like me). But it will.
Astringent (with a little sting) but clarifying. Truth telling. Again, I've decided that what I can do is build community in small ways. Spoke to a young staffer of one of my Senators. She told me how she remains optimistic. Saber rattling (with American fingerprints on it) in Ukraine, ramp up the threat of a nuclear incident. Climate change looms. Whistling while walking past the cemetery. This essay is spot on.
to think and see that history does indeed get repeated by insatiable simpletons while those who should know better stand idly by or even egg on instead of preventing humanity's downfall. nevertheless, we try to resist as best we can. also THANKS to sane, sound, courageous journalism by people like chris hedges and many others!
Sitting here watching Musk and Trump publicly taunt each other like children over their ill gotten gains and horrific behavior and I can't disagree at all. I really wish I could.
How do we get out of this? Does it all have to come crashing down before people will get a clue?
Like all respected preachers, you quote many authoritative voices from the past and I always learn a lot from your elegant and resonant posts. I also see that you proudly and angrily take a stance outside the herd. As a retired 39 year Presbyterian pastor and now no-God truster, I continue to find the idea of our "total depravity" quite accurate. As one, who through my own small experiences in Latin America, never trusted the US' exceptional narrative, I'm glad to see our Empire falling. Like Joni Ernst' said, "We're all gonna die someday." I suspect there's a limit to the beneficial effects of calling everyone else "stupid" over and over again. I have no answers, though attempt to do "no harm" in my own relationships (an impossibility but what else is there). I appreciate all the voices you share. Am "enjoying" All the Water in the World via your recommendation. Learning now how AI is going to use up more of earth's resources as it moves forward, some day hearing "The End is Near" won't seem so silly. Meanwhile I find it oddly comforting to watch shows about dinosaurs though we all know how that story ends. Life endures, somewhere, somehow.
"Donald Trump, and the sycophantic buffoons in his administration, are updated versions of the reigns of the Roman emperor Nero, who allocated vast state expenditures to attain magical powers...."
Narrator voice: "Nero was in fact only the fourth Roman emperor, and the western Roman Empire had over 400 years left to run following the death of Nero.
"Finally, the emperor’s advisors arranged to have him strangled to death in his bath by a professional wrestler after he announced that he would assume the consulship dressed as a gladiator. But his assassination did nothing to halt the decline. Commodus was replaced by the reformer Pertinax who was assassinated three months later. The Praetorian Guards auctioned off the office of emperor. The next emperor, Didius Julianus, lasted 66 days. There would be five emperors in A.D. 193, the year after the assassination of Commodus.
Like the late Roman Empire, our republic is dead."
Similarly, the Roman empire in the West survived Commodus for almost 200 years. In fact, his clownishness wasn't all that new, nor was he the first emperor to be assassinated by his own bodyguards. I think that was Caligula.
I would say that the United States is more like the late Roman Republic, and is rapidly dropping any pretense to being anything other than an empire.
“When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”
I wonder, Fester if the US is even a nation. With States' rights, what does KY have in common with Idaho? Or New York with Alaska? Or Oklahoma with N. Dakota?
The US is a patchwork of colonies, stolen and some, like Louisiana, paid for. There is no such thing as the United States. There is no moral consistency among the 4.5% of the planet called the United States. It is an oxymoron. It is merely real estate with nuclear weapons.
As the Empire of Rome, it will fragment and recede into a future of digital madness and despair, for as Chris alludes to it will be governed by fools, ineptitude and rank gangsterism.
The ruling class has the plan homogenized while we are still not saddled up while we watch the horses drink and proceed to put on the saddles.
Time and the incredible development of technology in the hands of psychotics cannot be destroyed overnight.
As where I live in S. America, in my country the first cause of death among youth is suicide the second is homicide.
North America will now enter into the zone of insanity as the ruling elite set in motion their fascist global project.
Just wondering if your last sentence should have read: “…will NOW enter…” instead of NOT. If so you can easily edit it by clicking on those three dots to the far right of your name. Thanks for your post.
Weather Report: "We are going down the pan, herded by military morons, corporate ghouls, perverted police, demented technocrats, media succubi, medical profiteers, cowed academics and echo chamber economists; a puppet population in love with their right to be stupid, spellbound by magical thinking maniacs, presided over by a criminal cohort of power crazed zombie actors, where self worship and a complete lack of empathy or sympathy are the norm, a people inured to their own depravity." What could possibly go wrong?
But, does this analysis of the US going down the drain, which I agree with, suggest that things used to be different or better? Haven’t we always had grifters and incompetents and also forces that push back against them? I’m not sure that a revolution isn’t possible, led by working people who reject Trump and his sycophants. Supplanting the control of the billionaires, authoritarians, and tech predators with organized working people, socialists, and a politics of care will be challenging, of course.
It is possible that amid the decaying husk of imperial rot, small groups of would-be reformers can meet together and study the sources of decay and plan alternatives. They do not do so with the aim of taking over the fatally wounded state. They do so in the same way as new organisms begin to grow in the midst of organic decomposition.
There is a moral rot at the core of Western society. What kind of an idiot would build an atomic bomb. A scientist. What kind of an idiot would give the President a machine that allows him to order a nuclear holocaust that would destroy all human life on the planet. A scientist. What kind of an idiot believes that there is no morality, only a deterministic system of cause and effect. A scientist. What is the God who cannot be questioned without the taint of blasphemy? Science.
Hunter S. Thompson said it years ago: When the going gets weird the weird turn pro. I would substitute the word “insane” for the word “weird.” But Thompson nailed it regardless. Try to be kind and compassionate to each other, and to hold onto whatever semblance of sanity you can as the USA goes down the drain into some dark and dystopian place. Personally I like to hold onto the thought that multiverses and parallel worlds do indeed exist and on some of them humans have learned to live in balance with the environment and never came up with the idea of abstract wealth and the desire to amass vast amounts of it by a tiny few at the expense of the rest of us. One can dream.
Maybe it would really help if the average American made themselves aware of the realities around them, since more often then not their perception of reality is determined by FOX or MSNBC news , or the NY Times which continues to push itself as a newspaper s of record, An informed public is a real adversary.
<if the average American made themselves aware of the realities around them>
Perish the thought. This is why we have spectacle sports, porn, and videogames.
It'll never happen until there is a massive and sustained shut-down of electricity.
If they shut down electricity they wouldn't have access to the TV "news" another good thing.
exactly.
Parallel worlds. But yes, dreaming of a better world is about all we have left.
Oops. Thanks for the catch. I edited it to be correct now.
Same hope here, the universe is 'endless' so there must be others and hopefully INTELLIGENT RATIONAL BEINGS out there!
I have a dream of a better world too - I think everything is currently inverted in our current western societies.
Here's my idea - please don't be scared away by the Gnostic basis. It can work for any religion - its just a way to look at the world - at suffering from another angle.
https://awakenedsociety.world/
I liked your response, calling forth quantum speculation. Meanwhile, I guess we are only left with hope.
"a betrayed population is conditioned to exploit everyone around them in a desperate scramble to advance. People are objects to be used, mirroring the cruelty inflicted by the ruling class".
The sheer volume of hackers maniacally attempting to steal resources and identities from working and retired people provides a good measure of this exploitation that drives so much of the ethos by which this society operates. And it is indeed a mirror of the root illness.
I don't think the average person exploited by their society turns around and becomes one with the perpetrators of exploitation, no more then children abused at home by parents, become abusive in their adult life.
See, I just don't ken "average person". You mean, I would guess, someone not predisposed -- combo biologically and sociologically to end up on the sociopathy scale. Because clearly some do -- become abusers, scammers, hackers. Humans are a diverse group in every way, more genetically so than most folks allow, with this 99.9 % identity crap going around to quell racist urges (hell, there are probably upwards of a hundred billion genetically different immune systems out there). This is why the backdrop, the context of conditioning Chris cites is so critical, a setup for that fraction of humanity just waiting on the shoulders of the Bell Curve to become predators.
Your statement, begins by saying a betrayed population is conditioned to exploit everyone around them which sounds all inclusive rather then providing a training ground for the few who by all means can cause significant problems for the many and very obviously displayed in the USA. I guess it depends how people will read it, but I have often heard people say, or believe that abused children will become abusers, or it's true for the majority, but it isn't. As I said the majority do not become abusers. Most people in any given country I think are descent.
I'll just say that you're far more of an optimist than I am. and I am citing stats from personal observation of friends, acquaintances and personal experience of attempted hacks; it's bloody epidemic.
I have never been called an optimist, and I'm not, but I do believe people are basically good, and the few who control things too often are very self serving.
NEW YORK — Andrew Cuomo joined the legal team defending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from war crime charges. His leading opponent in the New York City mayoral race, Zohran Mamdani, vowed to arrest Netanyahu if he stepped foot in the city.
The politically moderate Cuomo, on a redemption tour boosted by donors who support Israel, has gone to lengths to portray antisemitism as a leading issue in a race that’s more about subway safety and housing costs. He’s called it “the most serious and the most important issue” in New York City and deemed himself a “hyper aggressive supporter of Israel and proud of it.”
Mamdani — a democratic socialist lawmaker making a splash with slick campaign videos and a robust fundraising operation — would be the first Muslim mayor of New York City, and has accused Israel of committing an American-funded genocide in Gaza.
Absolutely disgusting, and disgusting so many New Yorkers are giving a thumbs up to Israel even though they are implementing a genocide. Totally disgusts me. Maybe you're right, people aren't that good.
I don't know Fran. This one may just be desperation-level politics, Cuomo figuring -- being told by advisors probably -- that he must harvest ALL of that dependable voting bloc of over-60 NYC Zionist Jews because other constituencies are abandoning him. The man is nothing if not baldfaced opportunist. As I've written elsewhere, he makes me ashamed to be Italian-American.
Yes, hackers and scam artists flood my inbox daily, no matter how many times I unsubscribe to their cons, which I never subscribed to anyway. Deleting their bullshit over and over is how I spend way too much time. If I could meet any of these assholes they'd never forget it.
Ditto. Lower than soil bacteria for sure, and manifestly far less useful to the biosphere.
Yes I agree unfortunately.
Thank you, Mr. Hedges... This essay explains so much that has perplexed me since the election of a bumbling, reality-deficient, fascist fool to be governor of California, later to become President Reagan. When W "won" in 2000, and Trump in 2016, I again asked myself, "How can people be so stupid?"
As darkness envelopes this land, I turn to the points of light which still shine. You, Mr. Hedges, are among those. Thank you.
Those whom you name as the cause of our many failures are republicans, so why not be honest and come out and say what you really mean, democrats will save us, and see how many would agree with that assessment. Lets just look at this century. Obama was a democrat, yet he funneled weapons from Libya (Also destroyed under Obama) to Syria to overthrow the Assad regime, Operation Timber Sycamore, where the CIA trained and armed Syrian rebels to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad, or what about his coup in Ukraine, and Biden's desire to get rid of Putin, as he said. Or what about Biden, a devout Zionist who stepped up to plate for Israel and provided the weapons to implement a genocide. Don't forget those democrats next time. P. S. Also lets not forget Reagan at least wasn't an Israeli ass kisser either.
Thanks for the calling out the Democrats as at least half the mess we are in. As bad as the Republicans are does not make the Dismal Vichy Dems any better. It amazes me how most of the people I know here in Blutopian Santa Fe (and beyond), refuse to see their party for what it is and has been. I have been vilified for years for calling out the "inauthentic opposition party." The Democrats abandoned their base long ago - they are the party of war and a party that asked the voters to support genocide by voting for them.
Too often their comeback to criticisms is, well they're better then republicans. End of discussion, they win. I remember a video clip of Glen Greenwald challenging two journalists from the Intercept, and simply asked them for proof of Russia-gate. They looked at him with utter contempt.
When I am critical of the Democratic Party my intention for attempting to share that with their supporters is to encourage them to push the party leadership to improve. What has happened at least since Clinton began taking corporate money is the parallel slide to the right, just like the Republicans - essentially the Democrats have become Republicans, and the Republicans have gone off the rails, especially now with Pres Trauma. The abandoned voters that have left the D's in droves have no one that represents them and the present Democratic Party doesn't seem to notice or care. When the Democrats lose the presidency to one as horrible as DJT, we are all losers and have to endure what he and his wrecking crew have in their very small minds and hearts.
I was always a registered democrat until they became a party no longer committed to the working class, or those in the middle, since they shoved them aside and embraced the corporate world and the cultural elite. In 2016 I supported Bernie Sanders, but interestingly enough the mouth pieces that backed the democratic party like MSNBC were pushing for a Clinton win, and to me she is nothing but a war monger who doesn't give a damn about anyone other then herself, well, and wars, not to mention she is someone who can get a good laugh when she hears someone was sodomized by a sword. Julian Assange has the same take on her, but feels sorry for her because he perceives her as sick, which I definitely do not, that is, feel sorry for her. When she won the primary and Sanders sang her praises he became a lost cause as well. To me they used Trump as a scape goat to enhance their own image and a lot of people bought it. I think the Biden years proved that. I'm not thrilled with Trump, and his continued support for a genocide in Gaza, and he seems to have turned a deaf ear to ending the calamity in Ukraine. I'm not even going to mention, well in detail, the necklace, the 100 million, and the cardiac surgeon who wants Israel to have the West Bank. Well, okay, AIPAC has got to goooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I won't even begin to write about my loathing for HRC - I have a difficult time even seeing a photo of her or her husband.
I recommend a recent piece by John Kiriakou in Consortium News - "Leaving the Democrats for Good" about his feelings about the D-party - the comments that follow are quite good.
I found this in a file I keep on the D-party - David Sirota: “There’s not a single Democratic Party official, powerbroker, elite, pundit, or politician who has faced any negative political, financial, or social status consequence from their participation in the decisions that resulted in their party losing two elections to Donald Trump.”
I really mean Democrats will save us? I don't suffer under any such delusions, but thanks for having the presumptuous rudeness to put words like that in my mouth.
In your statement you identified only republicans as the fools, so if you have a broader perspective on things lets hear some screw ups who belonged to the democratic party. You can start with Biden. I also believe you should reference Obama, the droner and, chief and the president who cooed up into us Ukraine.
True, Reagan was a pest, but correctly expressed that the government is the problem. When I remember that I'm sure he has been proved right by the administrations of George W. and Trump.
My government pays my rent, provides health insurance, and gives me enough to live on with a modicum of dignity--I'm retired--and they run a really cool library, and we've got a hot (yes, this will be a pun) fire department. The parts of government which work, and which are numerous, should be celebrated and strengthened. When Reagan quipped that govt is the problem, then worked to destroy the parts that work and thus fulfill his own prophesy, he was conning us (or trying to). Government of, by, and for the billionaire class works great: for billionaires. Hopefully the masses will wake up and organize, and make govt serve us rather than the opposite.
Amen.
This echoes my feelings. I actually feel it went on before Reagan. More like the Nixon era.
I have read Chris Hedges' books and columns for more than twenty years and consider him a prophet. Unfortunately, most of our fellow citizens would have no idea what he's talking about here, nor could they identify the historical references. I refer to this time as the Age of Stupidity. The catalyst was neoliberal capitalism, practiced by both corrupt political parties for fifty years; we're commodified beings, spectators of the spectacle, and many cheer for their own demise.
I, too, have followed Mr. Hedges from way back. A point of interest, I ordered Chris Hedges latest book from my independent bookstore. When I picked it up, the young clerk (maybe 25 to 30) got so excited as she had just started reading his books. Her eyes sparkled as she talked about all the books he has written. I was impressed. His words are reaching a young audience. I could almost believe in hope.
Suggest you familiarize that clerk to the writings of others like Zinn, Chomsky, and others along those lines.
Walking a neighborhood to get the vote out for Paloma Aguirre for County Board of Supervisors I came across a neglected dog in her very neglected yard, and two dogs without an owner in sight, having a quixotic adventure exploring their neighborhood. On the way home I burst into tears: we humans have as much autonomy as these dogs. Who is born rich, who born poor. Who has good looks, who has a creative talent that goes undetected for a lifetime. Whose mother drank alcohol, and whose mother avoided peanut butter her entire pregnancy. How much power do any of us have? Our fates seem to come at us like waves in the ocean.
But I will still knock on doors, and make phone calls, and meet some wonderful, friendly, kind, wise people. And talk with the people who have lost all hope, if there was any there to begin with.
Thank you, Chris Hedges, for modeling your exquisite way with language, our road to and from thought, and for bringing together like-minded, lovely people. So grateful.
After the fall of organised, governed society we will enter the ‘age of the warlords’. Again. Those in positions of power - especially the Zionists - have already set about forming organisations with its top people connected to the authority of the state and those at the bottom to the mindless hunter/shooter mafia.
We focus a lot on the politics of power and control at the top end of the pyramid but - excepting Chris’ excellent piece here - not enough on the ‘goonishness’ of the masses below who set the tone for the acceptance of the ‘masters’. To this end we are all - or nearly all - complicit in this decline.
ICE = IDF
I get you, but if ICE were to actually go full IDF we might see an insurgency in this country.
Not seeing cities reduced to rubble by ICE.
Yes, and not in occupied territory. It's more that the individuals are able to hide themselves behind tactical assault weapons and body armor, becoming uncritical agents of the state. (Unless they are acting in their plain clothes guise more like the gangs in any thug state, bundling people into cars and dragging them off to god knows where).
Only a insanely stupid populace would willingly fund stormtroopers who are sure to come for them after renditioning their neighbors. They’ve been so entertained/numbed in a toxic culture they’ve lost the ability to recognize a mortal threat right in front of them.
Can't argue with that, and I would add, a population that would rather not know too much, because the the more they find out, the less they want to know. A population that has been psy-opped to the point that they are arfaid to pay attention- better not to look, because we are bound to not like what we see.
Celebrity gossip, Porn Hub and Pro Sports are all fed into your mobile phone for a reason: information age panem et circenses. Keep your eyes on that screen, there's nothing to see here.
"There are some questions that mankind was meant to ask- such as, what WE are doing." - Wm. S. Burroughs
ICE won’t go ‘full IDF’. But this organisation - also drawn from the hunter/shooter ‘militia’ - will come to act more and more as a secondary National Guard and will conduct ever-more repressive interventions on the US population. It will be controlled by some shadowy agency close to the President. Or whoever controls the President.
The same thing is happening elsewhere in the West though it hasn’t shown its hand yet (except to those under ‘state’ surveillance like me). But it will.
Yeah, I reckon you're probably right. It's cannibal time.
https://youtu.be/9hJ96c9VvR4?si=oDPB1clDqDl68UHb
Massacre Of The Dreamers
“While Pan dances
skeletons build thrones...”
Anonymous
“The talent to mystify others
is the queen of tyranny.”
Ernest Becker
“…forgetting that we are all
in the ghetto, that the ghetto is
walled in, that outside the ghetto
reign the lords of death, and that
close by the train is waiting.”
Primo Levi
1) Millennialists’ Denouement
Giggles, hoot
& howl erupt from rank
crypts of deep state goons
in the machine, trolls, flaggots
& factcheckers who mock
with pitch & insult stinko
with panic porn, pro forma accusations
& token phantasmagoria sure to
set agog cybernaut junkies,
dimwits & future catechumens
primed to take refuge
in nonsensical ad hominem,
to repose in mass-formation
psychosis, to wither when fingered
for failure to comply by phantom
kapos of 5G digital gulags, who
check on em’& double check
as accountability fades within
redeye google protocols
& faceless facebook
algorithms.
Somewhere,
therein, in bouts
with fractious passions
stress spills over in free fantasia
of animus & vitriol. And
virulence blights intriguers’ jaded
body politic with calor, rubor,
dolor & tumor, as incurable seers
of the Great Reset, “therapeutic” fascism,
& AI rulable utopias breed outa’
control, goose-stepping across
world stages clustered round by
stoked proles outfitted with pitchforks
& AK 47 assault rifles, prowling
amongst gaslit multitudes....
Meanwhile in Montana,
thruout Massachusetts, in Idaho,
in Ohio, fer crissake! fellow late day
wannabe saints & end-timers, otherworldly
brethren bred on Biblical apocrypha
mindfly under man-gods’ heavenly
vapours seeded with deceits
& debasements.
And even—god willing—any
should be intervened—YEA,
even once & for all opt out!
—they’ll still fall prey
to ultimate predators: fiasco
jack-offs, blowback profiteers
& shock & awe autocrats....
Still fall prey to black
budget racketeers selling them
on how & when to slowly
die to self interests:
Get a job, Dork!
Your right-to-work
To top off corpo-techno
Communists’ coffers.
Nine-to-five, eight-to
Four...
CLOCK DA FUCK IN!
And as NYSE
futures push past last
restraints of “free” market
supplies & demands, death-eaters
surface to nourish themselves
without end, feasting on youth
bred to obesity on banal evils,
cowed by political correctness
in coca cola schools endorsed
& policed by parental snowflakes
blown away by so prodigal
a display...
O Hail! Hail Hearty
Corrupting Winds! howling
Through media conglomerates,
WEF & big pharma hallways,
Stripmalls & supreme court
Chambers...
FEED THE BEAST!
FEED THE BEAST!
Critical thinking
so finally breached, flood gates
swing wider open still & sick-slick
scholars, craven apologists
& pay rolled polltakers run amuck
with consensus glut & studies
concocted by corporate
thinktankers.
And when so speciously
un-refutable a SAY SO sez so&so&so...
realpolitik fallout flares across
bio-regions gone dark. And NO ONE
can go on doubling down on
climate denial free of lethal toxins
& vulturine perfidy; NO ONE
can go on unpolluted in ashrams,
secluded in gated communities;
nor hunkered down in Homeland
Security bunkers no matter
how assuredly secured.
No! only outcries
of rescue will escape onto
deaf ears of brutes,
gaolers & powerbrokers who
rule Wal-Mart’d ghettos
with icy contempt for inmates
long satisfied with victimage comforts;
defrauded inmates condemned
in absentia to Exxon debtor
prisons patrolled by lurid habeas
corpses tolling death knells
to quicken ecocide & kick-start
the Massacre Of The
Dreamers...
Once begun,
& heroic, consolatory myths
no longer hold sway, some biden
fluffer neocons or “last emperor”
trumpster dumpster divers—plugged
with electroplated gold amulets
of le culte maga up da ass—
will kneel in extreme unction on
desolate cul-de-sacs & be
reborn into a manic evangelism
of gangster priests robed in kevlar
& nazi regalia, extolling virtues
of mutual suicide pacts tapped out
on split skulls with shinbones
of martyrs to the “cause”...
And some will GO
hoping for asylum somewhere,
anywhere else...Oh, but some
will COME hoping & hoping,
fresh blood smeared on
prayerful hands, pressing
close for doled out
blessings...
Some will not...Phew!
Intuit who
to trust in this realtime
sordid debacle. Act out! Militate
in a furor of “Great Refusal”
to hasten collapse of a defunct epoch.
Be nomadic. Explore beyond
where photons go—curved toward
black holes. And finagle to manifest
light with a flicker of intent
on event horizon, so to illumine
nascent worlds into
bright being…
For combat-tested
DREAMERS, flying by the seat
of his/her pants, windborne in eternal
NOW with both eyes wide open
are most apt to escape future
turbulence & survive to seed
fruitful moments...all-ways
trusting in what yearns
to be
free
in all of us.
2. Poet’s Modus Operandi
“ Remember the cruelties!”
Voltaire
My own
severest critic, I strive
to employ an open contempt
so potent to justify my
revolt against cruelest normalities.
And so with sigil, shibboleth,
trope (that human born, that lyrical
kosmic whispering) & discrete metre,
I mean to stave off the tyranny
of bullet-proof, slam dunk truth
before paralysis overtakes in
contagion of pedestrian intrigues,
suddennesses & incoherence.
Then to proclaim
with much fanfare & horns
a-tootin’ Sanctuary!
Sanctuary! from the Massacre
of the Dreamers!
And, oh yeah! Poetry
to be the only absolutely
absolute.
Astringent (with a little sting) but clarifying. Truth telling. Again, I've decided that what I can do is build community in small ways. Spoke to a young staffer of one of my Senators. She told me how she remains optimistic. Saber rattling (with American fingerprints on it) in Ukraine, ramp up the threat of a nuclear incident. Climate change looms. Whistling while walking past the cemetery. This essay is spot on.
to think and see that history does indeed get repeated by insatiable simpletons while those who should know better stand idly by or even egg on instead of preventing humanity's downfall. nevertheless, we try to resist as best we can. also THANKS to sane, sound, courageous journalism by people like chris hedges and many others!
Sitting here watching Musk and Trump publicly taunt each other like children over their ill gotten gains and horrific behavior and I can't disagree at all. I really wish I could.
How do we get out of this? Does it all have to come crashing down before people will get a clue?
YES!
Like all respected preachers, you quote many authoritative voices from the past and I always learn a lot from your elegant and resonant posts. I also see that you proudly and angrily take a stance outside the herd. As a retired 39 year Presbyterian pastor and now no-God truster, I continue to find the idea of our "total depravity" quite accurate. As one, who through my own small experiences in Latin America, never trusted the US' exceptional narrative, I'm glad to see our Empire falling. Like Joni Ernst' said, "We're all gonna die someday." I suspect there's a limit to the beneficial effects of calling everyone else "stupid" over and over again. I have no answers, though attempt to do "no harm" in my own relationships (an impossibility but what else is there). I appreciate all the voices you share. Am "enjoying" All the Water in the World via your recommendation. Learning now how AI is going to use up more of earth's resources as it moves forward, some day hearing "The End is Near" won't seem so silly. Meanwhile I find it oddly comforting to watch shows about dinosaurs though we all know how that story ends. Life endures, somewhere, somehow.
"Donald Trump, and the sycophantic buffoons in his administration, are updated versions of the reigns of the Roman emperor Nero, who allocated vast state expenditures to attain magical powers...."
Narrator voice: "Nero was in fact only the fourth Roman emperor, and the western Roman Empire had over 400 years left to run following the death of Nero.
"Finally, the emperor’s advisors arranged to have him strangled to death in his bath by a professional wrestler after he announced that he would assume the consulship dressed as a gladiator. But his assassination did nothing to halt the decline. Commodus was replaced by the reformer Pertinax who was assassinated three months later. The Praetorian Guards auctioned off the office of emperor. The next emperor, Didius Julianus, lasted 66 days. There would be five emperors in A.D. 193, the year after the assassination of Commodus.
Like the late Roman Empire, our republic is dead."
Similarly, the Roman empire in the West survived Commodus for almost 200 years. In fact, his clownishness wasn't all that new, nor was he the first emperor to be assassinated by his own bodyguards. I think that was Caligula.
I would say that the United States is more like the late Roman Republic, and is rapidly dropping any pretense to being anything other than an empire.
“When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”
—Erich Fromm, Escape From Freedom
I wonder, Fester if the US is even a nation. With States' rights, what does KY have in common with Idaho? Or New York with Alaska? Or Oklahoma with N. Dakota?
The US is a patchwork of colonies, stolen and some, like Louisiana, paid for. There is no such thing as the United States. There is no moral consistency among the 4.5% of the planet called the United States. It is an oxymoron. It is merely real estate with nuclear weapons.
As the Empire of Rome, it will fragment and recede into a future of digital madness and despair, for as Chris alludes to it will be governed by fools, ineptitude and rank gangsterism.
The ruling class has the plan homogenized while we are still not saddled up while we watch the horses drink and proceed to put on the saddles.
Time and the incredible development of technology in the hands of psychotics cannot be destroyed overnight.
As where I live in S. America, in my country the first cause of death among youth is suicide the second is homicide.
North America will now enter into the zone of insanity as the ruling elite set in motion their fascist global project.
"I wonder, Fester if the US is even a nation."
I have seen many families and many businesses in which the principals roundly detest one another, but they stay together as long as the money is good.
The United States will remain united, as long as people of influence and authority think it is worth more as a going concern than broken up.
Just wondering if your last sentence should have read: “…will NOW enter…” instead of NOT. If so you can easily edit it by clicking on those three dots to the far right of your name. Thanks for your post.
Thank you for reading and your helpful editing.
Weather Report: "We are going down the pan, herded by military morons, corporate ghouls, perverted police, demented technocrats, media succubi, medical profiteers, cowed academics and echo chamber economists; a puppet population in love with their right to be stupid, spellbound by magical thinking maniacs, presided over by a criminal cohort of power crazed zombie actors, where self worship and a complete lack of empathy or sympathy are the norm, a people inured to their own depravity." What could possibly go wrong?
But, does this analysis of the US going down the drain, which I agree with, suggest that things used to be different or better? Haven’t we always had grifters and incompetents and also forces that push back against them? I’m not sure that a revolution isn’t possible, led by working people who reject Trump and his sycophants. Supplanting the control of the billionaires, authoritarians, and tech predators with organized working people, socialists, and a politics of care will be challenging, of course.
It is possible that amid the decaying husk of imperial rot, small groups of would-be reformers can meet together and study the sources of decay and plan alternatives. They do not do so with the aim of taking over the fatally wounded state. They do so in the same way as new organisms begin to grow in the midst of organic decomposition.
There is a moral rot at the core of Western society. What kind of an idiot would build an atomic bomb. A scientist. What kind of an idiot would give the President a machine that allows him to order a nuclear holocaust that would destroy all human life on the planet. A scientist. What kind of an idiot believes that there is no morality, only a deterministic system of cause and effect. A scientist. What is the God who cannot be questioned without the taint of blasphemy? Science.
I would say an stupid scientist. I would say the God of faux science.
"The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
As silence drowns the screams"
Confusion will be my epitaph
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh,
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying,
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying"
King Crimson, Epitaph
https://youtu.be/vXrpFxHfppI