I think we dodged the bullet with Trump. Imagine a president who wasn't openly evil, but seemed good.

So we have two options: anarchist insurrection that is likely to be crushed after refusing to consolidate and take the reins of power; Marxist workers' state that could degenerate into a new class society.

What would a Friday be without the empty mewling of Hedges.

From my experience most Americans can not even define the differences in the words "liberty" and "freedom".

One is from Latin, the other is from Anglo-Saxon.

USA = United Suckers of America
http://www.commonsnews.org/...

The catastrophe lies in the fact that America as strong as it is, is sleep walking into a big disaster on a world level ,because it has appointed it self the Police Man of the World and not because it is virtuous or just.It happens that America has become an Empire duo to different reasons and now it is drunk with that power.Resources in nature are limited and should be left to the owners of the land in the way they deem suitable ,but that is against the ethos of the Empire which like a parasite that keeps sucking the blood out of all the small and economically weak nations like Bolivia.Morales the rightful president of Bolivia who was removed by American planned and supported coop ,because he refused to let American and Canadian corporations from taking over the vast supply of Lithium ,which is extremely important component in new technologies .The list is long and every one 's patience has run out.What will the sleep walker do when he wakes up to see what was done by him ,when it is too late.

"...owners of the land". And who might that be?

Just boycott mainstream western media. I started two years ago.

" America, land of Make-Believe "? America land of not believe,...truth.

From whence hope, Chris?

Read the recent TD article about Mexico.

"The rhetoric we use to describe ourselves is so disconnected from reality that it has induced collective schizophrenia."

----I experienced this with a longtime friend who came for a 2 day visit not long ago. He maintained that even though he lived in a country where habeus corpus was suspended and he could be killed without review, that he nonetheless lived in a democracy. He really thought that, somehow.

I showed him the famous map of the 900 military bases the U.S. runs around the world, and he denied its existence. He deflected, prattled, then talked about the scale of the map. He refuses to consider that the US just might be an empire. I mentioned as part of a larger point that Cheney ran U.S. foreign policy from 2001 through 2005 and he guffawed and called this a "conspiracy theory."

The worst part of this? My friend is "educated." He has a degree in economics. He reads constantly. He reads history and periodicals. He considers himself well-informed and, for an American, probably is. Yet he knows nothing. He has swallowed the lie, whole. Every U.S. atrocity is well-intentioned. They are in the service of something greater. Accidents happen. And when Henry Kissinger gets a medal from a Democratic president in our White House?

"How's the weather out there?"

According to Noam Chomsky of MIT, educated people are the most indoctrinated.

Every friggin' time I've tried to discuss something serious in this nation I either get a "it's a nice day out there" or someone will mention last night's ballgame. No wonder Tocqueville wrote in 1833 that " there is no freedom of thought in America".

I had a similar experience with a tech friend who worked for the MIC as an engineer. I recently ended our 50 year friendship over his aggressive stupidity and rudeness toward anyone who disagreed with his delusions.

I'm surprised you're surprised, when it's almost prima facie that the higher one goes in society the less likely one is to notice that society's warts. Because it's then, primarily, that the Upton Sinclair observation that "It's difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" kicks in. Those of us down here, who never get to travel because we can't afford it, have very little trouble picking out the warts. We don't carry a Get Out Of Conspiracy Theory Card in our pockets.

Gad

The interminable wrangles between political parties and within the parties themselves only serve to show the inevitable results of unsatisfied, reluctant, compromised positions and bearing this in mind “we are never the people united”. The disparity created between us leads to increasing disillusionment and loss of identity. We seem to be incapable of measuring up to the sacrifice that will have to be made if we are to have any sense of decency or justice. We are going off the rails with one another and a legitimate balance to the equation, so to speak, must be found.

Of course many factors have contributed to this pathetic state of affairs but there is one in particular which attributes much to human suffering. It is the complicity we all share in and with the system. It has been mentioned in passing a number of times in Truthdig but it really deserves rigorous and thorough attention. I am here referring to the acquiescence that the public in general gives, not in a small way, to the status quo by taking advantage, to a degree, of the financial mechanisms, the instrumental vehicles available for the generation of profits, without either fully realizing or even ignoring how all this comes about. It’s not magic. It can and it could be rationally explained – but as we say “there is the rub”. It is to the banks, the insurance companies, stock market, brokers, financial advisers that we go to in order to safeguard and improve our savings. In the western democracies the status quo is the practice of capitalism and its “modus operandi” with money is one with which investors generally agree or concur.

It is this “I, mine and me” and the like that is at the root of our problems - the recovery from which is in the evolution of the human conscience.

The practitioners of capitalism are not restricted to the devotees of its followers – for anyone who wishes to open a checking account, to the intricacies of future markets, it is an open road. Some will be satisfied some will not and for many different reasons. But the point to be made is that capitalism cannot fulfill the expectations of the many. It is only by work that we provide the necessities with which we survive and by exploiting the surplus value that has arisen out of work’s creation we set upon a path that produces deception and the more likelihood of fraud and corruption. It is romanticized as an individualism of spirit but its time has passed. Economics is not science. Increasingly to put a credible face to capitalism is an exercise in futility. The time is for a new world order. The new adventurers have to be instigators for harmonizing an integration with ourselves not an alienation.

When we speak of real power, compassion for others comes a poor second to the status quo. With the general affluence of society favoring individualism, community is of secondary interest and the welfare of those disadvantaged by those of a fundamentally uncaring disposition are marginalized as a separate, different humanity and thus socialism will always be found non negotiable to unconscionable private interests.

There are many people who have seen through the lack of reality.

Unfortunately, those people get demonized , threatened and persecuted, usually by Progressives.

I hear this often from people who spend far too much time on right wing sites, usually the sites of peddlers of cheap and easy division, who because those peddlers can't discuss even the basics of left-economic populism and progressive economic policy, substitute screechy 19 year old social justice warriors for the entirety of the left.

They'll also paint the Democratic party as somehow "far left," when of course they're a right wing party on nearly every issue other than abortion.

Be skeptical of the worst kinds of conflation. The most 'liked' videos I typically see on progressive youtube channels come from the likes of Krystal Ball launching tirades against the cheap identity politics dribble from Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren.

Not seeing what your post had to do with mine.

Martyrdom is a lonely business. As to Joseph Roth, he also says in his

'Auto-da-fe of the Mind', "The great historical error of the younger generation in Germany was that it subjected itself to the Prussian drill sergeant, instead of joining
forces with the German intellect." It is bad enough that many older Americans soothe themselves to sleep at night with the pablum of Fox News and CNN nonsense and adopt this as their reality. And this from 'the greatest generation." Many of those are beyond help. But the true, true danger is the young person who, at the encouragement of possibly both his parents and his teachers, lives mostly for competitive sports, military glorification, feats of superhero sequeldom, and financial 'success'. We do not need more money for 'education'. We need more readers. We need more intellect, more creativity and more critical thinkers - all of which are basically FREE. It is sad and dangerous what our young encouraged to do and think under the guise of 'patriotism' in the schools we pay for. Sad and dangerous. Children ask big questions, good questions, important questions. At least they try to start off that way. Sadly, many public and private U.S. schools are no place to help young person's developing mind. You can tell by the help they hire. Are they intellectuals? Or, more typically, coaches and moralizers. BTW, is your highschooler having lunch period or before or after school activities with the military recruiter present? Chances are, they are. Pay attention, parents.

National Socialism rose in response to the Bolsheviks and threats by their fellow travelers in Germany. But don't let the truth get in the way of your state-approved narrative and 70 year old war propaganda.

What a load of cow puckies....

My mother came to the US back in 1937, Germany was suffering from the cruel treaty of Versailles terms made at the end of WW1 that basicly forced Germany to pay reparations that bankrupted GeGermany. Germany lost the Sara region, the industrial area of Germany, and so had little industry. There were few jobs, little money and even on farms food was tight due to government rules. My mother grew up on a farm and had to leave as a young teenager because of these conditions, she told us about being hungry and eating bark from trees.

Things there were pretty much like the US today, low wages that had not kept up with inflation, wages went up but cost of food, etc went up much higher. Pensioners (think Social Security) were on fixed incomes and inflation meant they had less money for food, etc. as the months went by. Interest rates were low, so those who lived off the interest earned on their money invested, had less to live on. Judges were very conservative and were for limiting government, and less social programs.

Everyone was suffering and angry about conditions.

The communist tried their thing in 1919 and either died or were imprisoned, after 1919 there was no communists free in Germany.

Bolsheviks and Other Travelers is nonsense, my grandparents, uncles and aunts all lived through this era, so I know the real story.

The Nazi lies were done to inflict fear and to control people. The Bolsheviks and Travelers are just lies.

Just as an aside, there are numerous countries today who have "official" communist political parties and over the years have never really been able to obtain majority powers.

Let's make believe that "white nationalists" are the biggest threat to America instead of the liberal/conservative paradigm.

And the conservatives can pretend the evil socialists are coming to get you!!

Isn't that how divide and conquer work, Chris?

"America, founded on the evils of slavery, genocide and the violent exploitation of the working class, is a country defined by historical amnesia. The popular historical narrative is a celebration of the fictional virtues of white supremacy. "

Part of liberal doublethink is to, at the same time, deny that the US was created by and for White people....and that it was.

Americans unable to think either dialectically or dialogically as vast scholarship demonstrates, live in a "mediated reality" Thomas de Zengodita, "a representational reality". Guy Debord, "hyperreality" Jean Baudrilliard...etc etc
amerikans--the most freedom hating puritanical stupefied robots on the planet----many actually claim that voting matters in their police state....Gorer wrote, "only in USA do people act like machines , r treated like machines and only in amerika r machine metaphors used to describe human behavior"---and this was observed before amerikans sexually assaulted cell phones

Sexually assaulted cell phones???!!!!????

Getting even more off-the-wall with your rants. You should try meditation and finding your own center, rather than proclaiming the supposed faults of others.

The variety of people who are Americans is so vast , your mumblings hardly fit more than a minority.

obviously u r a xenophobic monolingual murikan that has never lived in a civilized nation....
Koestler compared u to 5th century Romans: "a similarly contactless society populated by automatons...a similarly soulless, politically corrupt, everybody for themselves society"
Horkheimer/Adorno wrote,"individuality has entirely decayed in amerika"
David Riesman described u as "over-conformist semi-automatons"
Simmel found that only in primitive individualistic tribes where individuality was denied was fashion brought closer to the body (tattoos).....when Riesman described you as "semi-automatons", the only people that had tattoos in the USA were criminals, biker gangs...today u r primitive tribes w zero individuality.....if you visit civilized nations w collectivist cultures where there is individuality, u will find that tattoos r quite rare
LOL...next

You are babbling pure nonsense.

I lived in Europe, went to school at local schools speaking the local language, speak three languages and know exactly how clueless Americans are about the rest of the World.

A condition due completely to their total isolation physically from other nations.

Collectivist cultures do not even exist, except in your empty head.

You are babbling deranged nonsense of no value at all regarding Americans, it is like watching a dog bite his tail raw from his inability to ignore an itch.

Typical Bot zero value mumbling.

sexually assaulted cell phones?! Crazy fukken Amerikans!!

cultural relativism and strong materialist determinism both deny the value of human life, truth, goodness and beauty. the sea of lies we are inundated is an artificial lake whose dikes and dams are cultural relativism and materilaist determinism

I don't think racists and religious fanatics are motivated by materialist determinism.

No but if there no such thing as truth than the idea that human life and consciousness are realities is as valid as the idea that human beings are only chemical reactions, with no more significance than a pot of boiling eggs. Racists and religious fanatics don't think about it but post modernist thinkers dont attack these beliefs as untrue, as lies that deny the fundamental importance of human life

Is that what they call postmodernism?

I think so, in post modernism you have the idea that logic and reason just another kind of narative, no more valid than fairy tales. I honestly dont really get it, i think i am right

Our Jeremiah Chris Hedges conveys the grim, grim truth.

A comment I just posted on NYTimes is on a parallel track to this. There was an opinion piece about youth-gang databases compiled by local police, saying that they were very unreliable and sometimes fraudulent but could have very serious legal consequences. The following is my reply to the most popular comment.

I’m not sure what to make of this.

The US has always had a tradition of self-congratulation for its “freedom” and “liberty” We celebrate “The land of the free and the home of the brave”, “My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty”, and so forth. In terms of the government I think it never really meant much more than freedom from England, except that we do have the Bill of Rights. However I think that it used to reflect our popular sentiment to a great degree.

But here we see that the most popular comment is from an exponent of the Police State. And this is in The New York Times whose readers mostly identify as Liberal Democrats. Should we conclude that Liberal Democrats are authoritarians at heart? Or is it a statistical fluke? I don’t know what to make of this.

The quintessential patriotic American, celebrating the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave is a direct descendant of those Europeans who blazed the road west, killing Indians and stealing their lands along the way. This divine right to freely maraud the lands of other people lies at the core of our God-given exceptionalism, that we take what we want and make it "free".

It also explains our unblinking support for the State of Israel, kindred in spirit to ourselves.

But Americans also saw themselves as relatively free from their government. When a stranger asked for permission for something we used to say "It's a free country", meaning do what you want. Somehow I doubt if they say that any more. White people, formerly privileged, have been taught to be servile now.

I don't follow. How have "white people" been taught to be servile?

Very good piece, however it is part of a continual reframing of his years of making the same points. But i find interesting historical facts i wasn't aware of.

Aaron Maté
@aaronjmate
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@democracynow
has frozen out longtime guests who criticize the Syria proxy war, Russiagate, and Ukrainegate, but don't worry -- it will platform Iraq war propagandist
@davidfrum
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Democracy Now!
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Can Bernie Sanders Defeat Trump? Jacobin’s Bhaskar Sunkara & The Atlantic’s David Frum Debate https://bit.ly/2OtsBOh

Probably got corrupted by corporate donations like most all other media has. MSM is obvious - those million dollar pharmaceutical ads in the breaks pay them to pan pharmaceutical reform for example let alone "socialized medicine". Indys and NPR less so but still get corporate grants to push the neo-liberal empire USA consensus. Democracy Now is probably getting some heavy hitter money now....This site is still one of the good guys but always in jeopardy unless we support it.

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Americans Should Be Freaking Out About Online Censorship ...]
Aug 20, 2018 - The approaches Facebook and Google are taking toward free speech are a serious cause for concern; scientists have found a song that ...
Look who's protesting CENSORSHIP ! You and Marxist charlatan David North of the World Socialist Web Site.
Can't you let INTELLIGENT readers think for themselves about my comments here ?
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