As a veteran of the Viet Nam war, underage protester division, I’m as confused as anyone by the current pro war stance of so called progressives.
Perhaps it’s as simple as the concept that it gives their lives meaning, (thanks Mr. Hedges), in which case I understand completely. How much meaning is there in Starbucks and Facebook?
Or are these happy, Volvo driving, NPR-brain-scrubbed masses really happy with America’s endless attempts at world domination, doomed though it must be? Which is more frightening?
As a veteran of the Vietnam war, combatant division, I hate war and I'm not confused at all by "the current war stance of so called progressives." It's all about the money, lots and lots of money for the elite investor class and little or none for We, the people and the common good. That's what oligarchy is all about. That's what Empire is all about. Enrich the rich and fuck the poor. The so called progressives are just that--"so called." Most of the self-identified progressives I've met are in reality regressive war mongers. These are people who love war, but who actually have no interest in participating themselves. And God forbid that their precious children should have to "serve" the Empire in combat. That's for the offspring of the working class, the legions of "cannon fodder" that have fought and died in wars for millennia. As Mr. Hedges makes clear in his great book What Every Person Should Know About War, "We ennoble war. We turn it into entertainment. And in all this we forget what war is about, what it does to those who wage it and those who suffer from it. We ask those in the military and their families to make sacrifices that color the rest of their lives. Those who hate war the most, I have often found, are veterans who know it."
If the "so-called progressives" think war is the answer, what we should do is declare a cultural war, a non-violent assault on Facebook, Fox News, NPR, MSNBC, and well, the entire propaganda media machine that's driving America insane and take our Democracy back to its fundamental foundations. That would be a war worth waging and a cause worth fight for! A war that would be a "Force That Gives Us Meaning," to quote part of the title of Chris Hedge's other classic book about war that should be required reading for every American citizen.
These people are no longer progressives, if they ever were. The current mess started with the Russiagate lies & propaganda. Anyone who believed that and opposed Trump on that basis was not a progressive, even if they were so previously.
Trump broke a lot of people's minds, what is called Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). What TDS basically means is that you're so freaked out that Trump is president that your entire political world revolves around him. The result of this is that you hate Trump so much that you support anyone who opposes him, including all the U.S. war-mongers.
One of the reasons for Russiagate (beside making an excuse for the Democrats losing the presidential election to a vile clown like Trump) was to brainwash people into really hating Russia. Now that they've got the proxy war against Russia that they created and wanted, all the brainwashed TDSers support that war because they now really hate Russia, even though Russiagate was totally made up BS and there's no rational reason for people in the U.S. to hate Russia (any more than there is for them to hate any big country, but that's another issue).
Excellent points, Sera. I was deeply involved in the Vietnam antiwar movement in college and barely escaped the draft due to a short-term loophole.
I, too, have had a hard time getting my head around the almost complete lack of antiwar sentiment in the US. Have we finally become the sheeple who just eat their pablum and go to bed? It's really quite distressing.
I don't think the masses you describe are actually happy. All but the wealthiest are facing other problems that are more present and urgent, e.g., COVID, inflation, and simply aren't paying enough attention to what is going on in the outside world. For the youth, it's a matter of poor jobs and debt. They don't have time to be activists.
It's a shame we have become so siloed and atomized. If we are to save this nation, assuming that's worthwhile, organizing is going to be the key to any success.
My biggest political mistake was to oppose the draft during the Vietnam war. Now that we got our way, young people don't care if the U.S. murders people in other countries and destroys their societies, because they don't have to risk their own lives to do it. We need a reinstatement of the draft so that young people are once again at risk of having to go to war. College campuses across the U.S. were in open rebellion during the Vietnam war, which almost culminated in an actual rebellion or a revolution because of the Kent State murders. That's what we need again.
Not gonna work. During Vietnam we sent 2.6 million people over there of which some 1.6 million were in, or adjacent to, combat.
The US is no longer sending numbers that large into combat. It's mostly a much smaller cohort of more highly trained operatives who are fighting on the ground in the many places where the US has military operations, especially since we left Afghanistan. (And, yes, there are exceptions.)
Besides as Feral Finster says below, it's the kids of the PMC that matter, so the draft is a political dead end.
It doesn't matter how many people we send into harm's way. It's the threat of having to risk your life that creates the resistance, not some mathematical calculation. The point is to make all youth feel at risk so they rebel. Otherwise, you get the apathy that we're now experiencing.
BTW, what does PMC mean? If you are going to use an acronym, you need to define it first unless it's very common, like BTW or lol.
"Now that we got our way, young people don't care if the U.S. murders people in other countries and destroys their societies, because they don't have to risk their own lives to do it."
At least not the offspring of the PMC, which are the people who matter most.
One thing to keep in mind is that easy money is a hell of a drug, but debt is a hell of a discipline.
Can't protest if you are afraid of losing your job and you and your mortgage are living hand-to-mouth.
As a feral cat, I needs must live by my wits, and I never know where my next meal will come from. This is scary and liberating, compared to the life of a housecat.
"...I’m as confused as anyone by the current pro war stance of so called progressives."
Because Team D. The election of Obama basically neutered what remained of the antiwar Left, since an antiwar stance was tantamount to criticism of St. Barack.
This was cemented by the growing alliance between Team D and the National Security State.
You’re right, but what prompted the canonization of a war-mongering, torture loving, hypocrite? What made their neutering possible while some saw through him at first sight, (e. g. : Adolph Reed in 1997)?
Very good question. My take is that Obama's race made him perfect for the lifestyle left to burnish their bonafides.
Note how so much of ostensibly leftist discourse now is preoccupied with pronouns and the discovery of new sexual minorities at the expense of economics and peace.
These people are not "left." They are right wingers who support superficial BS like identity politics and whatever PC/woke issues are in vogue, instead of real leftist values, like peace, single-payer health care, a much higher minimum wage, a wealth tax, breaking up of the big banks and corporations, public ownership of natural monopolies like utilities, etc.
Well, it is interesting and instructive to observe how humans who once had supported such causes suddenly forsook economic justice and anti-militarism over endless lectures over pronouns and interminable struggle sessions trying work out whether a bisexual Native American with clubfoot and seasonal affective disorder was worth more Wokemon points than a mixed race individual who identifies as a genderqueer furry.
Lol, good one! You must be a professional comedian.
I couldn't agree more, I hate all this woke PC BS, always have. I moved to California from Chicago in 1983, and that was the first time I ever heard the term "politically correct." I had to ask my friend what it meant. And now people obsess, often psychotically, on these minor and superficial issues and ignore the real and large issues. Ain't it great?
How do you find this instructive? The only thing I get out of it is that our society is totally decadent and that people have totally lost it. It's been going that way for decades, but it gets worse by the minute.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen was the Danish prime minister, who lied to the Danish parliament and the Danish people in order to trick Denmark into joining the warmonger states in the Iraq War. He is a war criminal, like Bush and Blair. As a thank you, he became general secretary of NATO and he is now on the board of NewsGuard.
He also presided over the cartoon scandal, where he played a role as a stout supporter of the freedom of expression against so-called "religious terrorists". Until Turkey a few years later made clear, that if he was to be secretary general of NATO, he would have to do something about the Kurds, who lived in Denmark as political fugitives. So he promptly banned the major European Kurdish TV-station as a "terrorist organisation". It was was based in Copenhagen, Denmark, but had to move to Sweden. This is "Western values" at their finest: Freedom of expression for me, not for you.
The Kurds had to move to Sweden, but now Sweden wants to be a member of NATO, and Erdogan has repeated his claims: Abandon the Kurds, or forget about NATO. Funnily enough, no big Western media outlets seem to care. Fuck the Kurds, fuck Julian Assange, fuck Russia seems to be the password, if you want to join Western corporate media.
The only thing that still makes me feel a little optimistic is the decline of the USA. I feel for the Americans (and the British), but I am looking forward to the coming collapse and sinking of the flagship of West. With a little luck I will live to see it happen in my lifetime.
Powerfully presented. This Disney narrative on war has me heartbroken. War is the enemy of the people, and the business of war is an engine that needs to be stopped
Tucker Carlson recently made the point that the targeted material that the Biden Administration confiscated in their likely illegal FBI raid on the former President's home was likely evidence of the US government's involvement in international arms trading.
Related to this, Carlson made the accurate point that our mainstream media, previously the forth arm of government to keep it straight and honest, is curiously incurious about the actual content of these documents seized.
I am not surprised at all about that as the mainstream media is owned by Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street... trillion dollar asset management Wall Street firms that manage the assets of our globalist billionaires. The corporatist cabal aligned with the American political establishment that today is 80% Democrat... this cabal benefits from the lucrative market of war and this explains why they bought the media and keep the media from digging into the stories.
But I am still confused over why the young people on the left support the political establishment. They rage against Trump and Trump supporters... who are against the US being involved in international conflict, against the giant globalist corporatists, and against the US political establishment.
Young people seem to be brainwashed clones sleepwalking in support of the very things they should be ideologically and idealistically against.
Because Trump is a racist, sexist, misogynist who only cares about his money and ego. He doesn't really care about U.S. militarism, as proven by the fact that whenever he proposed something to the contrary -- such as peace with North Korea, or removing U.S. troops from Syria, Afghanistan, or Somalia -- and got resistance from the military/intelligence/industrial complex, he backed down. He's not willing to fight for anything except for himself, as is totally clear from the fact that he won't give up his Stop the Steal BS, even though it's water under the bridge and furthermore has no basis in fact.
None of this means that people should support Democrats either. The issue isn't Democrats v. Republicans, they're all evil representatives of slightly different factions of the ruling class. Our electoral system is totally corrupt and not at all representative (one-dollar-one-vote, no proportional representation, censorship of anyone but Democrats and Republicans, etc.) and will not provide solutions to any of our problems. We either need a radical change to our electoral system, or a revolution in order to get the needed changes.
A non-establishment billionaire? You're clueless. As president, Trump governed like any other Republican president, nothing anti-establishment about him. That's just phony BS for suckers like you.
And BTW, I don't consume establishment news. I didn't need anyone to tell me that Trump is sexist and racist, it's obvious from what he's said and done. Did you know that Trump's real estate company was convicted of racial discrimination? I've heard racist and ethnocentric comments right out of Trump's mouth, but I guess that as one of his cult members, you just ignore those things. Do you think that a man who says it's OK to sexually abuse women (just grab them by the pussy) is not misogynist? You've been brainwashed bub.
Somebody does not understand what the “establishment” is. But that same person seems to get “TDS”. Which ironically, the establishment pushes and wants everyone to have.
Do you have a common challenge to miss the joke and/or sarcasm and thus become easily triggered over slights that are not?
The point I am making is that the Biden administration is taking unprecedented moves to keep current information about US arms dealing secret. And they don't want voters to know this at risk of pissing them off and losing votes.
Many people in this society have become grossly oversensitive. The recent story about some podcast group apologizing for the "harm" it caused by allowing Ben Shapiro to be there was as hilarious as it was disgusting. I don't know whether this was caused by parents being overly protective or what, but if this trend isn't reversed, it could cause humans to be unable to survive, because you can't freak out at every little thing and survive.
Agree. And my left leaning friends seem to struggle more owning a sense of humor in being able to laugh about themselves or any topic that they see as critical of their tribe.
We are so far from "The Terror of War" AP photo that won a Pulitzer in 1973, the photo of the nine-year-old girl who survived a napalm bomb by tearing off her clothes. I recall that this photo turned many against the war. Would AP circulate such a photo again? Not likely. Thank you, Chris, for this incisive critique. The question that follows is what-to-do.
Yes, "Cloud Wars" to corner the global market on rain, seems to be a very appropriate multi-metaphor and multi-country race in heated conflicts for exploiting, extracting, expropriating, economics of; rain water, energy, technology — along with, the darker-arts of weapons, propaganda, social-media platform sophistication, and skills in precipitating proxy-wars through the eternal and successful actions of Empires employing the tried and true weapon of guileful 'Divide and Conquer' — together with increasingly popular proxy-wars of the three, four, or more party types.
Turgidson:
I think we should look at this from the military point of view. I mean, supposing the Russkies stashes away some big bomb, see. When they come out in a hundred years they could take over!
General:
I agree, Mr. President. In fact, they might even try an immediate sneak attack so they could take over our mineshaft space.
Yeah. I think it would be extremely naive of us, Mr. President, to imagine that these new developments are going to cause any change in Soviet expansionist policy.
I mean, we must be... increasingly on the alert to prevent them from taking over other mineshaft space, in order to breed more prodigiously than we do, thus, knocking us out in superior numbers when we emerge! Mr. President, we must not allow... a mine shaft gap!
[From "Dr. Strangelove" Stanley Kubrick, Peter Sellers 1964]
Dr. Strangelove was both hilarious and terrifying. It came out around the same time as Fail Safe, which had no comedic aspect to mitigate the sheer terror. Unfortunately, Dr. Strangeloves and General Rippers seem to be running the planet, and we'll be lucky to avoid nuclear war over the war in Ukraine.
To understand the U.S. position on the current Russia-Ukraine war – and many of our previous wars, incursions, etc. – just follow the money - as Chris has. As he notes in this article, “Congress has approved over $53.6 billion ($13.6 billion in March and a further $40.1 billion in May) since Russia’s February 24 invasion. War takes precedence over the most serious existential threats we face. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion while the proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Our approved assistance to Ukraine is more than twice these amounts.”
And six months ago Chris explained why NATO continued to expand after the fall of the Soviet Union even though many political leaders expected no such expansion. “How naive we were. The war industry did not intend to shrink its power or its profits. It set out almost immediately to recruit the former Communist Bloc countries into the European Union and NATO. Countries that joined NATO, which now include Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia were forced to reconfigure their militaries, often through hefty loans, to become compatible with NATO military hardware. There would be no peace dividend. The expansion of NATO swiftly became a multi-billion-dollar bonanza for the corporations that had profited from the Cold War.” – Russia, Ukraine And The Chronicle Of A War Foretold (February 25, 2022) – https://www.mintpressnews.com/chris-hedges-ukraine-soviet-union-russia-war/279793/
But what about our press which constantly reminds us of Ukraine’s cause for freedom and sovereignty vs. Russia’s authoritarianism and corruption? Manufacturing consent long has been at the core of our MSM as Herman and Chomsky reminded us of so many years ago (Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=herman+chomsky+manufacturing+consent.) And Chris discussed this media control with Matt Taibbi in two On Contact programs in 2019: Matt Taibbi – The Deep Rot of American Journalism Part 1 (28:19) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wTClM2xaM0 and Matt Taibbi – Deep Rot in American Journalism Part 2 (30:07) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFaGSuubMHs.) Chris also recommends Matt’s book on our media. This is the revised edition, revised after Trump won the presidency in November 2020:
I've been anti-war for years, but this Ukraine war is different. Some of my family is Ukrainian and anyone who thinks that we should stand by as Russian rockets tear in to apartment buildings and war crimes are committed is not walking the same side of the street as me. Yes, Ukraine has too much corruption, yes NATO makes Russia nervous. None of that excuses what they are doing. I opposed the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, the bungled Afghan War, and many other stupid actions this country has engaged in, but regarding Ukraine: thank god for the military industrial complex. It's time Russia's army is forced to go home. Let them drink their oil.
About 2/3 of Americans trust the U.S. military, making it the most trusted U.S. institution. So much for the new world that the '60s should have ushered in where military spending and U.S. militarism would be greatly decreased. Whether it's propaganda or just the personality of the U.S. populace, this strong support for the military of the evil empire is as concerning as it is disgusting.
As to the Wikileaks comment here: Wikileaks is not credible regarding political issues, because it has ties to the CIA, and because it has posted smears of real progressives without even giving them a chance to respond or to add their own comments to their own pages. Jimmy Dore has done some good reporting on this, see his podcasts for details.
CORRECTION: I meant Wikipedia, not Wikileaks. Wikileaks is as credible as it gets. It has never had to retract anything it ever published because it's all true and correct.
The Hedges link to the 2004 NY Times obituary of Dr. Melman is an incredible example of how severely our journalism has declined - it not only does a good job summarizing Melman's work, it also uses Chomsky as a source. These are ideas that are taboo and have been virtually eliminated from public discourse. Read it and check out how bad our current "journalism" is:
No journalism, ever, anywhere? Never? You paint with too broad and ideological a brush.
You missed my point. Did you read that obituary? It was based on a real event about an important intellectual (news) and it did a good job in presenting ideas and it quoted Chomsky. It was real "journalism".
There has been a decline in real journalism and a rapid rise in propaganda. Those are real fact based trends too.
Yes, but stories like that are exceptions, not the rule. I have been reading underground publications since around 1970, when I realized that I can't trust anything from mainstream/establishment/corporate media. That doesn't mean that everything they publish is false, but again they're more propaganda and money-making machines than anything.
That was MY POINT! Chomsky is never quoted and the ideas in that article are taboo. I provided it and my comment to illustrate this point, which you apparently missed (again!). I'm done.
Thank you Mr Hedges, this is so right on target for the problems in the US and due to their foreign policy also for the whole planet!! The unbelievable part is that WE do not march on Washington and demand CHANGE (not - of course - the promised Obama change ...) and of course peacefully ...
I would suggest not having someone else read your commentary. It’s hard to listen to what comes across as melodrama. Much better to have you say your own stuff in your own voice. I had to turn this one off — the reader exhausted me.
I wouldn't expect anything more in matters of propaganda and spinning of truths from our Department of Defense that once was called, more appropriately, Department of War. Personally, the big issue here is the lack of veritable news providers. I stopped watching commercial net works since the Gulf war, and I have become adept to listening in the radio or watching in the Internet Amy Goodman's Democracy Now daily program.
As a veteran of the Viet Nam war, underage protester division, I’m as confused as anyone by the current pro war stance of so called progressives.
Perhaps it’s as simple as the concept that it gives their lives meaning, (thanks Mr. Hedges), in which case I understand completely. How much meaning is there in Starbucks and Facebook?
Or are these happy, Volvo driving, NPR-brain-scrubbed masses really happy with America’s endless attempts at world domination, doomed though it must be? Which is more frightening?
As a veteran of the Vietnam war, combatant division, I hate war and I'm not confused at all by "the current war stance of so called progressives." It's all about the money, lots and lots of money for the elite investor class and little or none for We, the people and the common good. That's what oligarchy is all about. That's what Empire is all about. Enrich the rich and fuck the poor. The so called progressives are just that--"so called." Most of the self-identified progressives I've met are in reality regressive war mongers. These are people who love war, but who actually have no interest in participating themselves. And God forbid that their precious children should have to "serve" the Empire in combat. That's for the offspring of the working class, the legions of "cannon fodder" that have fought and died in wars for millennia. As Mr. Hedges makes clear in his great book What Every Person Should Know About War, "We ennoble war. We turn it into entertainment. And in all this we forget what war is about, what it does to those who wage it and those who suffer from it. We ask those in the military and their families to make sacrifices that color the rest of their lives. Those who hate war the most, I have often found, are veterans who know it."
If the "so-called progressives" think war is the answer, what we should do is declare a cultural war, a non-violent assault on Facebook, Fox News, NPR, MSNBC, and well, the entire propaganda media machine that's driving America insane and take our Democracy back to its fundamental foundations. That would be a war worth waging and a cause worth fight for! A war that would be a "Force That Gives Us Meaning," to quote part of the title of Chris Hedge's other classic book about war that should be required reading for every American citizen.
These people are no longer progressives, if they ever were. The current mess started with the Russiagate lies & propaganda. Anyone who believed that and opposed Trump on that basis was not a progressive, even if they were so previously.
Trump broke a lot of people's minds, what is called Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). What TDS basically means is that you're so freaked out that Trump is president that your entire political world revolves around him. The result of this is that you hate Trump so much that you support anyone who opposes him, including all the U.S. war-mongers.
One of the reasons for Russiagate (beside making an excuse for the Democrats losing the presidential election to a vile clown like Trump) was to brainwash people into really hating Russia. Now that they've got the proxy war against Russia that they created and wanted, all the brainwashed TDSers support that war because they now really hate Russia, even though Russiagate was totally made up BS and there's no rational reason for people in the U.S. to hate Russia (any more than there is for them to hate any big country, but that's another issue).
Excellent points, Sera. I was deeply involved in the Vietnam antiwar movement in college and barely escaped the draft due to a short-term loophole.
I, too, have had a hard time getting my head around the almost complete lack of antiwar sentiment in the US. Have we finally become the sheeple who just eat their pablum and go to bed? It's really quite distressing.
I don't think the masses you describe are actually happy. All but the wealthiest are facing other problems that are more present and urgent, e.g., COVID, inflation, and simply aren't paying enough attention to what is going on in the outside world. For the youth, it's a matter of poor jobs and debt. They don't have time to be activists.
It's a shame we have become so siloed and atomized. If we are to save this nation, assuming that's worthwhile, organizing is going to be the key to any success.
My biggest political mistake was to oppose the draft during the Vietnam war. Now that we got our way, young people don't care if the U.S. murders people in other countries and destroys their societies, because they don't have to risk their own lives to do it. We need a reinstatement of the draft so that young people are once again at risk of having to go to war. College campuses across the U.S. were in open rebellion during the Vietnam war, which almost culminated in an actual rebellion or a revolution because of the Kent State murders. That's what we need again.
Not gonna work. During Vietnam we sent 2.6 million people over there of which some 1.6 million were in, or adjacent to, combat.
The US is no longer sending numbers that large into combat. It's mostly a much smaller cohort of more highly trained operatives who are fighting on the ground in the many places where the US has military operations, especially since we left Afghanistan. (And, yes, there are exceptions.)
Besides as Feral Finster says below, it's the kids of the PMC that matter, so the draft is a political dead end.
It doesn't matter how many people we send into harm's way. It's the threat of having to risk your life that creates the resistance, not some mathematical calculation. The point is to make all youth feel at risk so they rebel. Otherwise, you get the apathy that we're now experiencing.
BTW, what does PMC mean? If you are going to use an acronym, you need to define it first unless it's very common, like BTW or lol.
It's a lot more than just apathy as I have said elsewhere.
PMC means the Professional Managerial Class, and it's quite commonly used.
"Now that we got our way, young people don't care if the U.S. murders people in other countries and destroys their societies, because they don't have to risk their own lives to do it."
At least not the offspring of the PMC, which are the people who matter most.
One thing to keep in mind is that easy money is a hell of a drug, but debt is a hell of a discipline.
Can't protest if you are afraid of losing your job and you and your mortgage are living hand-to-mouth.
As a feral cat, I needs must live by my wits, and I never know where my next meal will come from. This is scary and liberating, compared to the life of a housecat.
Your second sentence is spot on. Sadly, that situation is very widespread.
"...I’m as confused as anyone by the current pro war stance of so called progressives."
Because Team D. The election of Obama basically neutered what remained of the antiwar Left, since an antiwar stance was tantamount to criticism of St. Barack.
This was cemented by the growing alliance between Team D and the National Security State.
You’re right, but what prompted the canonization of a war-mongering, torture loving, hypocrite? What made their neutering possible while some saw through him at first sight, (e. g. : Adolph Reed in 1997)?
Very good question. My take is that Obama's race made him perfect for the lifestyle left to burnish their bonafides.
Note how so much of ostensibly leftist discourse now is preoccupied with pronouns and the discovery of new sexual minorities at the expense of economics and peace.
These people are not "left." They are right wingers who support superficial BS like identity politics and whatever PC/woke issues are in vogue, instead of real leftist values, like peace, single-payer health care, a much higher minimum wage, a wealth tax, breaking up of the big banks and corporations, public ownership of natural monopolies like utilities, etc.
Well, it is interesting and instructive to observe how humans who once had supported such causes suddenly forsook economic justice and anti-militarism over endless lectures over pronouns and interminable struggle sessions trying work out whether a bisexual Native American with clubfoot and seasonal affective disorder was worth more Wokemon points than a mixed race individual who identifies as a genderqueer furry.
Lol, good one! You must be a professional comedian.
I couldn't agree more, I hate all this woke PC BS, always have. I moved to California from Chicago in 1983, and that was the first time I ever heard the term "politically correct." I had to ask my friend what it meant. And now people obsess, often psychotically, on these minor and superficial issues and ignore the real and large issues. Ain't it great?
How do you find this instructive? The only thing I get out of it is that our society is totally decadent and that people have totally lost it. It's been going that way for decades, but it gets worse by the minute.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen was the Danish prime minister, who lied to the Danish parliament and the Danish people in order to trick Denmark into joining the warmonger states in the Iraq War. He is a war criminal, like Bush and Blair. As a thank you, he became general secretary of NATO and he is now on the board of NewsGuard.
He also presided over the cartoon scandal, where he played a role as a stout supporter of the freedom of expression against so-called "religious terrorists". Until Turkey a few years later made clear, that if he was to be secretary general of NATO, he would have to do something about the Kurds, who lived in Denmark as political fugitives. So he promptly banned the major European Kurdish TV-station as a "terrorist organisation". It was was based in Copenhagen, Denmark, but had to move to Sweden. This is "Western values" at their finest: Freedom of expression for me, not for you.
The Kurds had to move to Sweden, but now Sweden wants to be a member of NATO, and Erdogan has repeated his claims: Abandon the Kurds, or forget about NATO. Funnily enough, no big Western media outlets seem to care. Fuck the Kurds, fuck Julian Assange, fuck Russia seems to be the password, if you want to join Western corporate media.
The only thing that still makes me feel a little optimistic is the decline of the USA. I feel for the Americans (and the British), but I am looking forward to the coming collapse and sinking of the flagship of West. With a little luck I will live to see it happen in my lifetime.
Powerfully presented. This Disney narrative on war has me heartbroken. War is the enemy of the people, and the business of war is an engine that needs to be stopped
Tucker Carlson recently made the point that the targeted material that the Biden Administration confiscated in their likely illegal FBI raid on the former President's home was likely evidence of the US government's involvement in international arms trading.
Related to this, Carlson made the accurate point that our mainstream media, previously the forth arm of government to keep it straight and honest, is curiously incurious about the actual content of these documents seized.
I am not surprised at all about that as the mainstream media is owned by Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street... trillion dollar asset management Wall Street firms that manage the assets of our globalist billionaires. The corporatist cabal aligned with the American political establishment that today is 80% Democrat... this cabal benefits from the lucrative market of war and this explains why they bought the media and keep the media from digging into the stories.
But I am still confused over why the young people on the left support the political establishment. They rage against Trump and Trump supporters... who are against the US being involved in international conflict, against the giant globalist corporatists, and against the US political establishment.
Young people seem to be brainwashed clones sleepwalking in support of the very things they should be ideologically and idealistically against.
Because Trump is a racist, sexist, misogynist who only cares about his money and ego. He doesn't really care about U.S. militarism, as proven by the fact that whenever he proposed something to the contrary -- such as peace with North Korea, or removing U.S. troops from Syria, Afghanistan, or Somalia -- and got resistance from the military/intelligence/industrial complex, he backed down. He's not willing to fight for anything except for himself, as is totally clear from the fact that he won't give up his Stop the Steal BS, even though it's water under the bridge and furthermore has no basis in fact.
None of this means that people should support Democrats either. The issue isn't Democrats v. Republicans, they're all evil representatives of slightly different factions of the ruling class. Our electoral system is totally corrupt and not at all representative (one-dollar-one-vote, no proportional representation, censorship of anyone but Democrats and Republicans, etc.) and will not provide solutions to any of our problems. We either need a radical change to our electoral system, or a revolution in order to get the needed changes.
Funny how you have absorbed all the anti-Trump rhetoric from the political establishment and then claim you oppose the political establishment.
I were you, I would be feeling a bit like a hopeless tool.
Let me help you here. Trump is the only non-establishment presidential candidate since Eisenhower.
A non-establishment billionaire? You're clueless. As president, Trump governed like any other Republican president, nothing anti-establishment about him. That's just phony BS for suckers like you.
And BTW, I don't consume establishment news. I didn't need anyone to tell me that Trump is sexist and racist, it's obvious from what he's said and done. Did you know that Trump's real estate company was convicted of racial discrimination? I've heard racist and ethnocentric comments right out of Trump's mouth, but I guess that as one of his cult members, you just ignore those things. Do you think that a man who says it's OK to sexually abuse women (just grab them by the pussy) is not misogynist? You've been brainwashed bub.
Somebody does not understand what the “establishment” is. But that same person seems to get “TDS”. Which ironically, the establishment pushes and wants everyone to have.
Of course US engages in international arms trading and it is no secret. What aspect of it has to be kept a secret.
Watch this... https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-fbi-has-become-an-agency-that-seeks-to-exert-control-over-info-you-read/
LOL. I cannot tell you as it is a secret. And if you knew you might not like it, and you might vote differently.
You response is obnoxious and unkind. You should show more respect.
Do you have a common challenge to miss the joke and/or sarcasm and thus become easily triggered over slights that are not?
The point I am making is that the Biden administration is taking unprecedented moves to keep current information about US arms dealing secret. And they don't want voters to know this at risk of pissing them off and losing votes.
Many people in this society have become grossly oversensitive. The recent story about some podcast group apologizing for the "harm" it caused by allowing Ben Shapiro to be there was as hilarious as it was disgusting. I don't know whether this was caused by parents being overly protective or what, but if this trend isn't reversed, it could cause humans to be unable to survive, because you can't freak out at every little thing and survive.
Agree. And my left leaning friends seem to struggle more owning a sense of humor in being able to laugh about themselves or any topic that they see as critical of their tribe.
Thank you Rev Hedges for speaking truth to power.
We are so far from "The Terror of War" AP photo that won a Pulitzer in 1973, the photo of the nine-year-old girl who survived a napalm bomb by tearing off her clothes. I recall that this photo turned many against the war. Would AP circulate such a photo again? Not likely. Thank you, Chris, for this incisive critique. The question that follows is what-to-do.
As I commented today to "these 'TIMES' they are a-changing" but too slowly re. the 'TIMES' article this Sunday:
"Cloud Wars: Mideast Rivalries Rise Along a New Front"
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/28/world/middleeast/cloud-seeding-mideast-water-emirates.html#commentsContainer
Yes, "Cloud Wars" to corner the global market on rain, seems to be a very appropriate multi-metaphor and multi-country race in heated conflicts for exploiting, extracting, expropriating, economics of; rain water, energy, technology — along with, the darker-arts of weapons, propaganda, social-media platform sophistication, and skills in precipitating proxy-wars through the eternal and successful actions of Empires employing the tried and true weapon of guileful 'Divide and Conquer' — together with increasingly popular proxy-wars of the three, four, or more party types.
Turgidson:
I think we should look at this from the military point of view. I mean, supposing the Russkies stashes away some big bomb, see. When they come out in a hundred years they could take over!
General:
I agree, Mr. President. In fact, they might even try an immediate sneak attack so they could take over our mineshaft space.
Turgidson:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/28/world/middleeast/cloud-seeding-mideast-water-emirates.html
Yeah. I think it would be extremely naive of us, Mr. President, to imagine that these new developments are going to cause any change in Soviet expansionist policy.
I mean, we must be... increasingly on the alert to prevent them from taking over other mineshaft space, in order to breed more prodigiously than we do, thus, knocking us out in superior numbers when we emerge! Mr. President, we must not allow... a mine shaft gap!
[From "Dr. Strangelove" Stanley Kubrick, Peter Sellers 1964]
Dr. Strangelove was both hilarious and terrifying. It came out around the same time as Fail Safe, which had no comedic aspect to mitigate the sheer terror. Unfortunately, Dr. Strangeloves and General Rippers seem to be running the planet, and we'll be lucky to avoid nuclear war over the war in Ukraine.
To understand the U.S. position on the current Russia-Ukraine war – and many of our previous wars, incursions, etc. – just follow the money - as Chris has. As he notes in this article, “Congress has approved over $53.6 billion ($13.6 billion in March and a further $40.1 billion in May) since Russia’s February 24 invasion. War takes precedence over the most serious existential threats we face. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion while the proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Our approved assistance to Ukraine is more than twice these amounts.”
And six months ago Chris explained why NATO continued to expand after the fall of the Soviet Union even though many political leaders expected no such expansion. “How naive we were. The war industry did not intend to shrink its power or its profits. It set out almost immediately to recruit the former Communist Bloc countries into the European Union and NATO. Countries that joined NATO, which now include Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia were forced to reconfigure their militaries, often through hefty loans, to become compatible with NATO military hardware. There would be no peace dividend. The expansion of NATO swiftly became a multi-billion-dollar bonanza for the corporations that had profited from the Cold War.” – Russia, Ukraine And The Chronicle Of A War Foretold (February 25, 2022) – https://www.mintpressnews.com/chris-hedges-ukraine-soviet-union-russia-war/279793/
But what about our press which constantly reminds us of Ukraine’s cause for freedom and sovereignty vs. Russia’s authoritarianism and corruption? Manufacturing consent long has been at the core of our MSM as Herman and Chomsky reminded us of so many years ago (Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=herman+chomsky+manufacturing+consent.) And Chris discussed this media control with Matt Taibbi in two On Contact programs in 2019: Matt Taibbi – The Deep Rot of American Journalism Part 1 (28:19) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wTClM2xaM0 and Matt Taibbi – Deep Rot in American Journalism Part 2 (30:07) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFaGSuubMHs.) Chris also recommends Matt’s book on our media. This is the revised edition, revised after Trump won the presidency in November 2020:
Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another https://www.amazon.com/Hate-Inc-Todays-Despise-Another/dp/1949017257.
We have become an empire that depends on permanent war!
I've been anti-war for years, but this Ukraine war is different. Some of my family is Ukrainian and anyone who thinks that we should stand by as Russian rockets tear in to apartment buildings and war crimes are committed is not walking the same side of the street as me. Yes, Ukraine has too much corruption, yes NATO makes Russia nervous. None of that excuses what they are doing. I opposed the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, the bungled Afghan War, and many other stupid actions this country has engaged in, but regarding Ukraine: thank god for the military industrial complex. It's time Russia's army is forced to go home. Let them drink their oil.
About 2/3 of Americans trust the U.S. military, making it the most trusted U.S. institution. So much for the new world that the '60s should have ushered in where military spending and U.S. militarism would be greatly decreased. Whether it's propaganda or just the personality of the U.S. populace, this strong support for the military of the evil empire is as concerning as it is disgusting.
As to the Wikileaks comment here: Wikileaks is not credible regarding political issues, because it has ties to the CIA, and because it has posted smears of real progressives without even giving them a chance to respond or to add their own comments to their own pages. Jimmy Dore has done some good reporting on this, see his podcasts for details.
CORRECTION: I meant Wikipedia, not Wikileaks. Wikileaks is as credible as it gets. It has never had to retract anything it ever published because it's all true and correct.
The Hedges link to the 2004 NY Times obituary of Dr. Melman is an incredible example of how severely our journalism has declined - it not only does a good job summarizing Melman's work, it also uses Chomsky as a source. These are ideas that are taboo and have been virtually eliminated from public discourse. Read it and check out how bad our current "journalism" is:
https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/18/obituaries/seymour-melman-86-dies-spurred-antiwar-movement.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
There is virtually no "journalism" in mainstream, establishment, and/or corporate media. It's propaganda, not news or journalism.
No journalism, ever, anywhere? Never? You paint with too broad and ideological a brush.
You missed my point. Did you read that obituary? It was based on a real event about an important intellectual (news) and it did a good job in presenting ideas and it quoted Chomsky. It was real "journalism".
There has been a decline in real journalism and a rapid rise in propaganda. Those are real fact based trends too.
Yes, but stories like that are exceptions, not the rule. I have been reading underground publications since around 1970, when I realized that I can't trust anything from mainstream/establishment/corporate media. That doesn't mean that everything they publish is false, but again they're more propaganda and money-making machines than anything.
"stories like that are exceptions, not the rule."
That was MY POINT! Chomsky is never quoted and the ideas in that article are taboo. I provided it and my comment to illustrate this point, which you apparently missed (again!). I'm done.
Thank you Mr Hedges, this is so right on target for the problems in the US and due to their foreign policy also for the whole planet!! The unbelievable part is that WE do not march on Washington and demand CHANGE (not - of course - the promised Obama change ...) and of course peacefully ...
I would suggest not having someone else read your commentary. It’s hard to listen to what comes across as melodrama. Much better to have you say your own stuff in your own voice. I had to turn this one off — the reader exhausted me.
Chris Hedges is the best as are his many books. Please check out my sub stack it's free, A builder's Tale, a novel with additional chapters weekly
Thank you for this article. I have remained your loyal fan for decades because you are one of the few voices that speak out against this insanity.
I wouldn't expect anything more in matters of propaganda and spinning of truths from our Department of Defense that once was called, more appropriately, Department of War. Personally, the big issue here is the lack of veritable news providers. I stopped watching commercial net works since the Gulf war, and I have become adept to listening in the radio or watching in the Internet Amy Goodman's Democracy Now daily program.