Chris Hedges: 2011: A Brave New Dystopia

[marmar]

from truthdig:



2011: A Brave New Dystopia

Posted on Dec 27, 2010
By Chris Hedges


The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984.” The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled.

Orwell warned of a world where books were banned. Huxley warned of a world where no one wanted to read books. Orwell warned of a state of permanent war and fear. Huxley warned of a culture diverted by mindless pleasure. Orwell warned of a state where every conversation and thought was monitored and dissent was brutally punished. Huxley warned of a state where a population, preoccupied by trivia and gossip, no longer cared about truth or information. Orwell saw us frightened into submission. Huxley saw us seduced into submission. But Huxley, we are discovering, was merely the prelude to Orwell. Huxley understood the process by which we would be complicit in our own enslavement. Orwell understood the enslavement. Now that the corporate coup is over, we stand naked and defenseless. We are beginning to understand, as Karl Marx knew, that unfettered and unregulated capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse.

“The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake,” Orwell wrote in “1984.” “We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.” ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/2011_a_brave_new_dystopia_20101227/

[maryf]

1. "capitalism is a brutal and revolutionary force that exploits human beings

and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse." K&R

[Spyderama]

2. Excellent Article, Mr. Hedges!

The subject of this article is quite appropriate for our time. Next week the authoritarian buttheads officially enter Congress and Paradigm Shift: The Palin Matrix (The Progressive Left Strikes Back!) will be released.

http://www.e-tabitha.com/

http://palinbabygate.blogspot.com/

[snappyturtle]

6. Thanks for the links! and Welcome to DU! nt

[maryf]

3. Great point in this article on Manning's status

"The psychological torture of Pvt. Bradley Manning—who has now been imprisoned for seven months without being convicted of any crime—mirrors the breaking of the dissident Winston Smith at the end of “1984.” Manning is being held as a “maximum custody detainee” in the brig at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia. He spends 23 of every 24 hours alone. He is denied exercise. He cannot have a pillow or sheets for his bed. Army doctors have been plying him with antidepressants. The cruder forms of torture of the Gestapo have been replaced with refined Orwellian techniques, largely developed by government psychologists, to turn dissidents like Manning into vegetables. We break souls as well as bodies. It is more effective. Now we can all be taken to Orwell’s dreaded Room 101 to become compliant and harmless. These “special administrative measures” are regularly imposed on our dissidents, including Syed Fahad Hashmi, who was imprisoned under similar conditions for three years before going to trial. The techniques have psychologically maimed thousands of detainees in our black sites around the globe. They are the staple form of control in our maximum security prisons where the corporate state makes war on our most politically astute underclass—African-Americans. It all presages the shift from Huxley to Orwell."

Thanks again for posting.

[snappyturtle]

4. I think we're in trouble. (Is that an understatement?)

Huxley was right....we're headed into a world where no one wants to read books...or this article, for that matter. How many people do we know who choose simply 'not to worry about IT', IT being the state of the American people? Those same people need to read this article but won't. They would see Orwell and Huxley in the same sentence and have flashbacks to their high school literature classes and shelve it.

I think this is a very interesting article. Thanks for posting it. BTW--K&R

[MadMaddie]

13. Sadly if they read it they wouldn't comprehend it

Critical thinking and analytical thinking are seen as uppity, arrogant and elitist. We are in dangerous times because the simple answer no matter how wrong it is, is being accepted by many Americans because there is no effort involved.

In many ways the treatment of minorities over the decades was seen as "them" and those that could have done more chose not to because they weren't impacted. Now most Americans regardless of race are "them" and many are bewildered as how it could have happened. The model was already in place and ready to be implemented.

[txlibdem]

16. +1 to both you and turtle

Excellent points, both of you. We are at the mercy of the oligarchs at this moment. Only time will tell if their intentions are benign or evil. The distracted and exhausted population isn't going to do a damn thing about the takeover when it eventually comes. Perhaps it's already happened and our "elected" leaders are only for show. Before Pres. Obama gave 2 years of tax cuts for the rich in return for one year of unemployment extension I might have been able to deny it, but not after this.

[snappyturtle]

19. First, thank you! Second, if the oligarchs were operating with good

intent, why do we feel as we do? I so agree with you in regard to '...the distracted and exhausted population..." and I think the takeover has for all practical purposes, happened. Now TPTB are tightening the screws. Some will awaken but I fear it is too late. It will take diligent effort and decades to turn the country around. IMHO

[txlibdem]

24. On their intent

The question in my mind is, when the oligarchs finally tire of stealing from the American taxpayer (when they've bled us dry that is) will they be benign fascists and allow us to continue to live as slaves or will they go all out and start shipping us off to the showers.

There are no other outcomes while the populace is so complacent and controlled.

[Overseas]

5. K&R. Eerie. //nt

[nashville_brook]

7. this is a must read. thanks for posting!

k and r, of course.

[AmandaMae]

8. Hedges nails it again.

[craigmatic]

9. Doesn't Hedges ever put out anything that focuses on what's going right with this country?

I know things are fucked up right now but damn can't we get something optimistic every now and then?

[sirthomas66]

10. What exactly would that be? I see nothing and I constantly look

for something, anything!, to hang a hat on.

[maryf]

18. I would like to see some discussion from him on what to do about

the problems; at least he did some civil disobedience in DC with the Vets for Peace this month...

[DeSwiss]

21. Here ya go.....

[femrap]

22. Looks like a drag pig. nt

[sirthomas66]

11. This was simply brilliant. The one leading to the other. I've read both

of them. Why couldn't I have seen the progression? I wonder it was planned all along.

[Bozita]

12. Hedges was on w/Bob McChesney for an hour 8 days ago - Good stuff! - link to audio

http://will.illinois.edu/mediamatters

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Chris Hedges and Bob McChesney Sunday at 1pm

Chris Hedges, whose column is published Mondays on Truthdig, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. Call and comment during this live program. http://www.truthdig.com

Audio archivess:

Play now:


RealAudio archive

Download: mp3 file

[snappyturtle]

23. VERY good stuff. Would make a great thread on its own. Thank you. nt

[dotymed]

14. K&R

I don't post a lot these days. I sound like gloom & doom.... that sucks for an optimist..lol

[90-percent]

15. Problem solving

I think more and more Americans are beginning to realize that their government doesn't care about them and instead is totally corrupted in service of the powerful elites and corporations.

In the words of my hero Frank Zappa; "There's more of us ugly fuckers than you are"

How can the American aristocracy at the Top One Percent hope to control the bottom 99% of us when we all realize in irrefutable terms that our government and institutions have all been hijacked by selfish sociopaths?

I think the noose tightening is accelerating because the elites know the bottom 98%'s awareness of what the fuck is going on is also accelerating. This awareness is now blown and on fuel* with the efforts of Wikileaks.

-90% Jimmy

* a term from drag racing describing unlimited Top Fuel Dragsters and Fuel Funny Cars. "Fuel" is a synonym for nitromethane.

[Amonester]

17. For a couple of 'things' to control any 'rebel' movement, they have these:

ADS ("Active Denial System") This is fundamentally a titanic microwave oven, without the oven. It emits microwaves with a wavelength of around a millimeter (95GHz). You can think of it as a "pain ray". They'll aim this beam of concentrated agony on the hostile crowd and they will run like scared chickens ... er, ah, "disperse".

Initial tests show that it is reasonably non-lethal, but it will occasionally raise blisters. The microwaves only penetrate a short way into the skin, not deep enough to do permanent damage but more than deep enough to roast all the target's pain nerve endings. As with all microwave oven based designs, the heat comes from water molecules being vibrated by the microwaves. For this reason, the range of the ADS is drastically reduced by rain or heavy humidity (in tech-speak: "rain attenuates the beam.").

They also have many other "high-tech" devices not too many even know about them (aside for a growing number of 'drones' spreading all sorts of deadly poisons & bombs.go

For theiR http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1296155071179146825#">wicked ultimate goal, they've pretty much covered all theiR bases already, bought all the pols they needed (and those they will need, already). Their evil plan has been initiated some three decades ago now, only accelerating since 2000.

[DeSwiss]

20. K&R

What America needs is some balls

So if we are talking change through revolt, we're necessarily talking about deconditioning because the thing we fear already has a life deep in our own consciousness. Deconditioning from cultural ignorance is at the heart of any insurrectionary politics.

Deconditioning also involves risk and suffering. But it is transformative, freeing the self from helplessness and fear. It unleashes the fifth freedom, the right to an autonomous consciousness. That makes deconditioning about as individual and personal act as is possible. Maybe the only genuine individual act.

Once unencumbered by self-induced and manufactured cultural ignorance, it becomes clear that politics worldwide is entirely about money, power and national mythology, with or without some degree of human rights. America still has all of the above to one degree or another. Yet for all practical purposes, such as advancing the freedom and the well being of its own people, the American republic has collapsed.

Of course, there is still money to be made by the already rich. So the million or so people who own the country and the government use their control to convince us that there is no collapse, just economic and political problems that need to be solved. Naturally, they are willing to do that for us. Consequently, the economy is discussed in political terms, because the government is the only body with the power to legislate, and therefore render the will of the owning class into law.

But politics and money are never going to fill what is essentially a public vacuum that is moral, philosophical and spiritual. (The latter was instantly recognized by fundamentalist Christians, disfigured by cultural ignorance, as they may be.) Not many ordinary Americans talk about this vacuum. The required spiritual and philosophical language has been successfully purged by newspeak, popular culture, a human regimentation process masquerading as a national educational system, and the ruthlessness of everyday competition, which leaves no time to contemplate anything.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/12/america-y-ur-peeps-b-so-dum.html">~Joe Bageant, "America Y UR Peeps B So Dum?"

- RESISTANCE by disengaging. All. At. Once. Everyone. Together, we're the greatest power on earth. And we don't even know it.....

[guitar man]

25. Brilliantly written

And right on target. But I'm afraid far too few of us in this country will get what he'a talking about until it's way too late :(

[Name removed]

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