Chris Hedges at the "Voices of Hope in a Time of Crisis" symposium

[marmar]

Published on Nov 13, 2014

This is Chris Hedges' talk at the November 2014 "Voices of Hope in a Time of Crisis" symposium, an event sponsored by Local Futures/ISEC. For more talks from the symposium, or to learn more about Local Futures' work, go to www.localfutures.org

[Plucketeer]

1. I love hearing Chris talk

He's one of a very few that speak OF the truth as opposed to ABOUT it. We're all so obsessed about this public servant or that - this party vs the other - all of it either corrupted BY money or stifled (mired) BECAUSE of money. And ol' Chris - he just keeps telling us that there IS NO course adjustment to be made with things the way they are. There's only flipping the whole damned boat - righting it - instituting a new crew and the subsequent collective decisions as to how the boat will sail forth after that civil mutiny.

I've honestly thought how I might start such an uprising. I'm just a simple citizen - not wealthy - not particularly healthy either. But that aside, just how long could I go marching - hollering - stopping folks and asking them to join me - before armed authorities took note?

I'm comfy here - me 'n the wife in our very modest California home - trying to live the retirement we striven for for decades. But we SEE this country of ours being hijacked..... AND WE DO NOT LIKE IT ONE BIT!

We bought food and supplies in support of Occupy. It would have been really tough (as it would be now) to take leave of our animals and property, but IF there were enough genuine revolutionaries - if there were enough folks willing to forgo the comfort of their warm abodes for something BIGGER than themselves - I could be swayed from bangin' this keyboard so I could join an overwhelming throng.

[chervilant]

2. It will take an overwhelming throng...

And, many of us will be the older, wiser ones--folks like you and me, Chris' contemporaries for whom his rhetoric rings horrifically true. I hope that our younglings will look up from their ipads and iphones long enough to grasp the need for revolution. It's the only option we have left.

[MrMickeysMom]

4. The young will do that...

… but I think it's we who have to model what to do.

[chervilant]

6. Yes, indeed.

Occupy has given me hope. We will have to have each others' backs, and it will be much more challenging before it gets better. I am an old woman now, but I have lots of energy and determination. I will not go quietly into their dark night. I think there are many more who feel the same.

[MrMickeysMom]

7. … chervilant….

I am with you… I'm not going quietly either.

[chervilant]

3. I just watched this video,

only to discover that Chris is saying the same thing I've been saying for the past two decades. If we don't acknowledge and address the corporate hegemony that exists now--and has existed for the past two decades (at least)--we're destined to be powerless, propagandized Sheeple for multiple generations, until our ecosystem becomes untenable for our entire species.

It doesn't have to end this way...

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Mr. Hedges says what needs to be said

The system is broken. The patient is in critical condition, in a coma, and beyond the point where she can heal herself.

The only rational path is to take to the streets and push back against the oligarchs who are the dictators of America. Never mind their political stooges, who putatively represent us, but only fool would think more than a handful of elected representatives really do.

Go ahead and vote for Hilary Clinton if she is the Democratic Party's nominee. You can say she is better than any Republican, but if that left-handed compliment is the best that can be said of her, then we should expect nothing more than a continuation of the corporate state that must be killed and buried with a stake through its heart. Mrs. Clinton really is better than a generic Republican: she supports civil rights for gays and other minorities, but not civil liberties, such as the right not to spied on by the NSA; she believes that climate change is a real crisis, but she won't oppose fracking; she bemoans income inequality, but she won't oppose "free" trade deals that enhance corporate tyranny and exacerbate the problems of social inequality and environmental degradation. She'll talk of human rights, but will she go so far as to say that all human beings are made of flesh and blood? I may vote for Mrs. Clinton in 2016, but, as things stand, I cannot in good conscience do any more than that.

Civil disobedience and defiance of corporate "authority" is the order of the day. Bankrupting the oligarchy is the goal. If the oligarchs can be separated from the wealth that they wield as a weapon against us, then we will have done the preliminary work necessary to creating the other world that is possible.

K/R for Chris Hedges.

[markpkessinger]

8. Very well said!

Thank you!