The American empire is over. Our descent into a totalitarian capitalism in going to be horrifying

[Better Believe It]

"No one has discredited American liberalism more than liberals themselves"



Calling All Rebels
By Chris Hedges
March 8, 2010

There are no constraints left to halt America’s slide into a totalitarian capitalism. Electoral politics are a sham. The media have been debased and defanged by corporate owners. The working class has been impoverished and is now being plunged into profound despair. The legal system has been corrupted to serve corporate interests. Popular institutions, from labor unions to political parties, have been destroyed or emasculated by corporate power. And any form of protest, no matter how tepid, is blocked by an internal security apparatus that is starting to rival that of the East German secret police. The mounting anger and hatred, coursing through the bloodstream of the body politic, make violence and counter-violence inevitable. Brace yourself. The American empire is over. And the descent is going to be horrifying.

Those singled out as internal enemies will include people of color, immigrants, gays, intellectuals, feminists, Jews, Muslims, union leaders and those defined as “liberals.” They will be condemned as anti-American and blamed for our decline. The economic collapse, which remains mysterious and enigmatic to most Americans, will be pinned by demagogues and hatemongers on these hapless scapegoats. And the random acts of violence, which are already leaping up around the fringes of American society, will justify harsh measures of internal control that will snuff out the final vestiges of our democracy. The corporate forces that destroyed the country will use the information systems they control to mask their culpability. The old game of blaming the weak and the marginal, a staple of despotic regimes, will empower the dark undercurrents of sadism and violence within American society and deflect attention from the corporate vampires that have drained the blood of the country.

“We are going to be poorer,” David Cay Johnston told me. Johnston was the tax reporter of The New York Times for 13 years and has written on how the corporate state rigged the system against us. He is the author of “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With the Bill,” a book about hidden subsidies, rigged markets and corporate socialism. “Health care is going to eat up more and more of our income. We are going to have less and less for other things. We are going to have some huge disasters sooner or later caused by our failure to invest. Dams and bridges will break. Buildings will collapse. There are water mains that are 25 to 50 feet wide. There will be huge infrastructure disasters. Our intellectual resources are in decline. We are failing to educate young people and instill in them rigor. We are going to continue to pour money into the military. I think it is possible, I do not say it is probable, that we will have a revolution, a civil war that will see the end of the United States of America.”

“If we see the end of this country it will come from the right and our failure to provide people with the basic necessities of life,” said Johnston. “Revolutions occur when young men see the present as worse than the unknown future. We are not there. But it will not take a lot to get there. The politicians running for office who are denigrating the government, who are saying there are traitors in Congress, who say we do not need the IRS, this when no government in the history of the world has existed without a tax enforcement agency, are sowing the seeds for the destruction of the country. A lot of the people on the right hate the United States of America. They would say they hate the people they are arrayed against. But the whole idea of the United States is that we criticize the government. We remake it to serve our interests. They do not want that kind of society. They reject, as Aristotle said, the idea that democracy is to rule and to be ruled in turns. They see a world where they are right and that is it. If we do not want to do it their way we should be vanquished. This is not the idea on which the United States was founded.”

It is hard to see how this can be prevented. The engines of social reform are dead. Liberal apologists, who long ago should have abandoned the Democratic Party, continue to make pathetic appeals to a tone-deaf corporate state and Barack Obama while the working and middle class are ruthlessly stripped of rights, income and jobs. Liberals self-righteously condemn imperial wars and the looting of the U.S. Treasury by Wall Street but not the Democrats who are responsible. And the longer the liberal class dithers and speaks in the bloodless language of policies and programs, the more hated and irrelevant it becomes. No one has discredited American liberalism more than liberals themselves. And I do not hold out any hope for their reform. We have entered an age in which, as William Butler Yeats wrote, “the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

Please read the full article at:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/calling_all_rebels_20100308/

- While I don't agree with all of his views the writer does make some important points regarding the dangers of the right-wing building a mass movement with significant support in the working and professional class. Right now it seems the far right has an open recruitment field and a huge "populist" propaganda advantage that is not being effectively challenged by the left and progressives.

However, I'm not as pessimistic as the author seems to be about the possibility of mass left-wing independent political movements emerging that can effectively resist the right and corporate led government policies. BBI -

[kgnu_fan]

1. It did happened in Germany -- bringing in Nazi era

Same old brew. Need to study history. When we do not learn from the history, it repeat itself.

[glinda]

38. You are right about the whole layout of this. That is why Republicans are doing nothing to stop hate

[cali]

60. What do you think, specifically, are the similarities between the Weimar

Republic and the U.S. today?

[closeupready]

108. You know, Cali, I respect you, but now you see, look at how many people are saying the same thing?

You keep trying to avoid acknowledging the ugliness of today's political process and the current actors, but it isn't just me or one other fringe person. Did you ever think that maybe you have it wrong?

[cali]

116. no, I really don't ignore the ugliness of today's political process

and no, I don't think I have it wrong. Sure it's possible that we'll devolve in the way hedges' says we will. Odds are against it. More likely an ongoing slow slide than the cataclysm he predicts.

[happygoluckytoyou]

95. IN A RELATED STORY fangs pulled from teabaggers... only 2 teeth left, dog has no real bite

[Deep13]

2. I hit "rec." and it stays at zero.

Friends sometimes tell each other bad news. The worse the news, the better the friend who tells it.

[LiberalLoner]

5. Amen n/t

[paulsby]

3. ah, more chicken little'ism

from the anti-capitalists

we have seen it many times before.

and they are always wrong

[Better Believe It]

7. You're dead wrong. Are you blind to what is now happening in our nation?

This is new. The deepest economic and political crisis since the Great Depression and the first serious danger of an authentic neo-fascist or even openly fascist mass movement arising in the United States since the Great Depression.

And yet you dismiss this and suggest it's just the old discredited claims from the 60's to the 80's that capitalism is in crisis?

I find it hard to believe you're that out of touch with what is happening now in the economy and politics and how this radically different crisis is very real and unlike old predictions of crisis.

[paulsby]

13. no, i'm not

and the "it's different each time" anti-capitalist chicken littles never learn from history

it's just like the bubble followers (and god knows, i love a bubble and a crash) always claim it's different this time whether it's silver, gold, real estate, tech stocks, etc.

they don't learn from history either.

they want capitalism to fail badly enough they will see its fall at every opportunity, just like those who see jesus in a piece of toast.

[Better Believe It]

14. So you don't think this is different and is a real economic crisis. I'd like to know why.

I'm listening.

[paulsby]

16. EVERY recession/depression is "different"

in the same way every snowflake is different (allegedly)

it doesn't therefore follow that (to borrow from fred sanford) "it's the big one"

smart investors buy panic and sell euphoria

that holds true on a macro as well as a micro scale

when the dow was under 7k i can GUARANTEE you these idiot chicken littles were not a buyin'

capitalism is dead, long live capitalism. study history. it's been declared dead or dying oH SO MANY time before.

of course this a REAL ECONOMIC CRISES.

that is entirely different from saying it's the end of america as we know it, or capitalism.

we've had MANY REAL ECONOMIC CRISES and god knows some worst ones than this

[Better Believe It]

17. So when was the last economic crisis before the current "Great Recession"?

By "different" recession you surely understood that I meant deeper, longer and more serious than any economic decline since the Great Depression .... or did I need to spell that out better for you?

It seems that you don't agree that this is the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression and believe this is just your "normal" cyclical "boom and bust" decline that we've witnessed many times over the past half century. Perhaps you can post some links to credible economists who have that point of view.

It seems that you've also failed to notice the world-wide nature of this economic crisis.

[paulsby]

21. depends on how you define "crisis"

but the last pretty significant one prior to this was the tech bubble collapse.

heck, i work with a cop (another bubble follower) who watched his portfolio go from 700k to 150k

and i didn't say this was or wasn't the most serious economic crises since the great depression. it ARGUABLY is. and of course the great depression, which anybody who lIVED through will say was far worse, was not the end of the US or the end of capitalism. quite the opposite, actually.

as for the world-wide nature, i most definitely have noticed this. as a trader, over the years, it's become clear that "diversification" via many foreign equities is not diversification at all, since the markets are FAR FAR more correlated than they were 20 yrs ago.

this is due to a # of things, but imo mostly due to ETF's allowing international access, some FOREX hijinx, and the opening of easy access to foreign markets to foreign trader. heck, i've traded HSI (hong kong) and Nikkei Futures many times.

fwiw, when the market was in full euphoria mode, it was *i* who was amongst the most bearish. god knows i wasn't buying real estate. i was waiting for the crash to buy (i bought a smaller house in 1999 and ended getting a VERY nice return, selling it at a pretty good time).

was the black thursday crash of 1987 part of a normal "cyclical boom and bust"? not by most definitions of "normal", and god knows in 1987, MANY "credible economists" were wrong about the implications.

[JDPriestly]

42. You know when I knew for sure that the market would crash in

the dot.com crash? Must have been 1998. I was sitting in the back of a courtroom with a bunch of lawyers in different cases. Instead of discussing their cases of just sitting quietly, they were exchanging market tips. When well-paid people with real demanding jobs are more excited about investment "opportunities" than in the work they do for a living, it's a boom close to a bust. Why? Because there is too much money, too many armchair investors in the market. That much excitement about investment means that people are gambling, not really investing.

[paulsby]

44. that's actually a very intelligent way to look at it.

iirc, it was JP morgan who famously pulled his money out of the market before the 1929 crash when he overheard an elevator operator bragging to his buddy about the killing he was making in the stock market

as for the real estate market, i recall CNBC interviewing two former vegas strippers who were cleaning up the vegas real estate market.

if that's not a bubble (strippers turning to real estate spec'ing), NOTHING is

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BonnieJW]

71. What I find different

is that we aren't doing anything to "cure" the problem so that it doesn't happen again. Wall Street is right back swapping derrivitives and everyone is hanging on the rising numbers. At least after the Depression, Congress quickly put in legislation to prevent another Depression. We aren't doing any of that. I also cannot understand Obama's thinking in putting criminals in positions of decision making. Tim Geithner as Sec. of Treasury? Arne Duncan in charge of education? By the way, why isn't Arne doing anything about the slaughter of textbooks in Texas?

[JDPriestly]

34. And some of those chicken littles are very pleased with themselves

because they never invested in get-rich-quick Ponzi schemes and got their retirement money out of the market in time to save it.

Chicken littles tend to be the winners in economic downturns. If you haven't learned that already, it's because you aren't old enough. That's one of life's fundamental lessons about economics.

Never, never live above your means. Never, never overborrow. Never, never believe purveyors of get rich schemes -- even if they dominate the airwaves with their optimism and make you feel like a fool.

[Swede]

90. You should be buying,when everone else is selling.

Chickenlittles sold at the bottom and lost their shirts. Money I put in last March,has gained 60% since then. Buy and hold isn't get rich quick,it's a 25-30 year plan.

[rhett o rick]

119. you are talking about buying and selling when many people around me cant

make house payments. Some people not to far are living in the woods in tents. The only way to turn this around is the policies that got us here have to be changed and no one is doing that. Glad you have extra money to invest.

[laughingliberal]

125. +1 nt

[JDPriestly]

146. Good point. Lot's of us never had anything to buy or sell but got

caught in the economic downturn that resulted from the gambling of the greedy. I had very little, so I'm more in your position, but I did see the crash coming. I was not in a position to benefit from my understanding. And besides, I really am not a gambler. The problem with gambling is that it is an addiction that gradually takes over the gamblers' judgments so that they are behaving compulsively. That is why they do not foresee crashes.

The rest of us suffer.

[rhett o rick]

152. The stock market is the biggest con game ever.

The stock market has nothing to do with investing in companies. Once the companies initially sell the stock all subsequent sales are between gamblers. The market is made up of bubbles and bubbles within bubbles. IMO most of these bubbles are manipulated to allow those that do the manipulation to reap the benefits. If you happen to get in at the start of a bubble and get out near the end, you can win big. You also might win the lotto. But most of us average stock market gamblers dont get the privilege of the insider info and cant catch the bubbles right. I am currently helping with the finances of a relative that recently passed away. She had been investing regularly for over 30 years only to see most of her "investment" evaporate in 2008, when she needed it the most. Another family member, a widow, lost a lot of her savings because of an unscrupulous stock broker. He did nothing illegal because he got her to approve his actions but he churned away a lot of her money.

[JDPriestly]

157. Agreed. 100%. The stock market is just a big gamble.

[rhett o rick]

158. Yes, where the house manipulates the game. nm

[Better Believe It]

159. Got any good bets working people can place at the Wall Street casino?

We're looking for a sure thing .... just let us all in on your bets so that we can all make a fortune.

[patrick t. cakes]

41. the op wasnt about the "death of capitalism"

more about the death of liberalism and the rise of fascism in america.

its definitely happening

[Fire1]

82. Bingo!! n/t

[girl gone mad]

28. Do yourself a favor, put this one on ignore.

They thrive on these stupid, pointless back-and-forth attacks that do nothing but distract from the topic.

Better to just leave their substanceless posts alone.

[BrklynLiberal]

36. LOL. Whoever that is is ALREADY on my ignore list!!!!

I guess this is not the first time for stupid, pointless attacks on their part.

[Occulus]

53. I had to log out to make sure it was who I thought it was.

And it was.

A one-trick pony, that one.

[glitch]

92. handy tip - printer friendly view shows the ignored nt

[closeupready]

109. yup.

Over and over and over they chime the same thing, every day. It's almost like they're getting paid to refute threads that are merely observations of reality.

[cali]

61. bullshit. a heaping pile of hysteria

it's arguable whether this is new- or is the deepest political crisis since the depression. It's certainly not the first serious danger of an "authentic neo-fascist or even openly fascist mass movement since the depression". HUAC ring a bell?

Yes, we live in a perilous time, but it's not like those times haven't existed in the past. Mr. Hedges hardly make his case.

And hysteria is disgusting.

[JTFrog]

64. +1

[bread_and_roses]

68. because the subtext is that Obama and the Ds offer nothing but the garbage from the plates

of the upper 1%? a pile of stinking scraps and bones for the hoi-polloi (us) while our Corporate Overlords feast on our life's blood?

I offer you the trajectory of health care "reform" as a perfect example of how Hedges' "spiritual and moral suicide" plays out in the real world.

we are to be grateful for the scraps and bones, according to the apologists for the entrenchment of the power elites

i once read a post-apocalyptic novel in which some traveler and companions moved through a blasted landscape trying to avoid gangs of nihilistic youth who burned people alive for fun...in my worst moments i fear such for my little grand-daughter...

that's the path we are on

for truth, Camus harsh croaking carries far more power than Obama's soporific mellifluousness

and for those who's response to an article like this is frothing rage, i'd examine that response closely - after all, there's a reason that the saying goes ... "anger masks fear"

[cali]

75. no, because it's hysterical end-timer crap

we are highly unlikely to see the kind of total collapse hedges sees.

[femrap]

102. We are just one drought

away from a Total Depression and violence. Or maybe just one earthquake. The world can change in the bat of an eye. And TPTB will use 'Divide and Conquer' like there is no tomorrow.

I've read Chris Hedges' new book, "Empire of Illusions." I highly recommend. He was a reporter..covered wars all over the world. He is NOT some academia in a lofty tower. I see him as a realist.

Back in 1945 after WW2, this nation had vast amounts of natural resources and an educated population. That is GONE.

Wake up...this isn't hysteria. This is a distinct possibility.

[kenfrequed]

118. There you go again

Using religious eschatological terminology to try to undermine legitimate concerns about socio-economic collapse and resultant possibilities for despotism.

Despite the fact you accuse people who see these troubles as those having fixations with 'end-times' and 'apocalypse' to diminish or demean, governments actually do collapse sometimes. It is a part of the historical record and dictators and opportunists do rise to power.

[laughingliberal]

126. I think by the time it's all said and done many of us will wish it had been the end

I believe we will have far more people living lives they feel aren't worth living at some point than we can even imagine. Those who have not felt the worst of this one, undoubtedly, see little problem. After all, the trains are running on time.

[Better Believe It]

73. HUAC and the red-baiting hysteria of McCarthyism rose during the early days of the post-World War II

U.S. economic expansion, not during a world-wide economic crisis. It was the beginning of the prolonged decades long period of economic boom with usual "up and down normal" cycles of mild economic recessions.

So to compare this period to the 1950's is nonsense.

[BREMPRO]

86. i agree- although he touches on some reality, his negative hyperbole is way over the top

doom, gloom etc... sure we have problems, but in case he hasn't noticed, the rest of the worlds economies are picking up and so are we. The crisis was created by a fascist corporatocracy that ran the white house for 8 years, with roots in the Reagon era. The Greenspan no regulation, corporate welfare state has been revealed as the core root of our economic collapse. the crisis is far from over, but his empty glass critique is just too hysterical. A better approach than the sky is falling would be for him to use his platform to hightlight our problems and suggest solutions. David Cay Johnston balances his critique of the corporate welfare etc.. with real solutions to the problem. If we can create more awareness, these problems can be addressed through grass roots, internet, political actions.

[Better Believe It]

96. Suggesting we had fascism for 8 years and than ended it with an election in 2008 is pure fantasy.

Now that's way over the top!

So if the Republicans should win back control of Congress and the White House in 2012 will that mean that a fascist dictatorship will have won back control of this nation via an election?

More nonsense from self-proclaimed "fascist fighters".

Like I have pointed out many times, the use of the term fascism had been so overused and abused to describe anything right-wing that it has almost lost all serious meaning.

And it's generally used by well intentioned people who know little or nothing about the rise of fascism in Europe and what it represented.

[BREMPRO]

120. of course it is- you didn't read my post clearly- i mentioned "roots with Reagan admin"

greenspan etc... it's obvious to most DU'er here that the eight years of bush were not the beginning of corporatocracy/fascism, just the acceleration and blatent unrepentant practice of it. The right wing nuts calling OBama policy fascist is a real joke- especially after eight years of Bush and 30 years of public policy influenced by corporate money.

lets work together instead of trying to parse who here knows more about how bad things are and when it started. We are fighting the same fight. The Republicans are the more blatent face of corporate influece- at least the dems try to fight it publically and privately.

[Better Believe It]

134. "corporate influece- at least the dems try to fight it publically and privately." Which Dems are?

They didn't do a very good job fighting corporate influence on the health insurance industry bill now, did they?

And they seem to be doing even more poorly on Wall Street financial reform.

[icee]

66. You are 100 % right. But the reason some people can't see it

is because of their frame of reference. Things look far worse today if you were born in 1946, as I was, than if you were born in the sixties, seventies or eighties. It's relative. But, yes, it is all about over. I would bet a sizable chuck of change the United States will not even be a sovereign nation within 35 years IF it is not bombed out of existence via nuclear war. Until it ends, a relative minor few will do all right; the rest will simply get by, go through the motions of life as the fascist government sucks the life out of everything. The general public already knows this. Not just here but in Europe also. Look at the rates of population growth among the educated... Another thing: find out what people know. Go to the average person in the street and ask them who the Vice President is. Ask them to make change for a $20.00. Go to any school in the US, enter a seventh grade English Class and ask the teacher to conjugate a verb. Ask her what a present participle is. Anyway, I diverge... As for advice: bifurcate your investments, planning on the one hand for rampant inflation, on the other, for mind-boggling deflation.

Icee--Former controller


PS--But not to worry. I mean this generation has Lady Gagga and Dancing With the Stars.

[Bluenorthwest]

69. So of course you do understand that 1946 might have been

'better' for you, which means you are straight and white, and probably male. You are out of touch with reality. Teachers I know most certainly can diagram or conjugate a sentence in at least two languages. In '46, most of them spoke English only, they were all women, they were all white. At least in the white schools. Such a charming time.
One man's glass ceiling is another man's floor I guess. Just for those of us who are not part of your majority population, things in the halcyon days you recall were awful. Dogs. Arrests, segregation, oppression.
During your youth, there were civil rights marches, murders and arrests, there was war, the draft, the Stonewall riots. Great times. To me, today looks so much better than then, I can not tell you.

But then yours is the generation that made a star out of Pat Boone after his performance on The Original Amateur Hour. It was American Idol in black and white. Was black and white better too?

[icee]

78. "Pat Boone?" Right. "...halcyon days?" Right..... "Can diagram

or conjugate a sentence in at least two languages?" lol Cannot even spell "conjugate", and maybe not even "sentence". Nice talking to you. I trust you're enjoying the Martian sunset.

[laughingliberal]

127. Your post brings up an excellent point

I was born in 1955 and the deterioration of the standard of living for workers and middle class Americans is glaringly obvious to me and even more so to my husband who was born in 47. We have huge numbers of citizens for whom current economic policy and the erosion of rights is not really new. And I don't think it's an accident that the further we get from the generations who lived through the depression and WWII the more it is ratcheted up. The lack of historical perspective is lost and the destruction of our educational system since the days of Reagan insure most will be blissfully unaware of the future we are facing. And, as always, it will be ignored as long as the trains run on time.

[icee]

135. That's the point I was trying to make. Back in the old days, despite

some really bad times as the US was exploring the post war environment, we had an ethic, as well as a certain degree of brotherhood, even if, admittedly, that brotherhood didn't apply to all. Now, we go from red light to red light without direction or reflection on where we have been. We are like zombies. Me, I'm a real zombie; I am so stressed I am losing my memory. I can do complicated taxes and other stuff like that but I can't remember much about my life events. Now, where is that train?

[Hestia]

84. This is not new - in the 1930s, FDR was elected to assauge the populous

who was going and actively turning towards Communism. It's how Huey Long rose to power in Louisiana. Before History Int'l was taken over by Rupert Murdock, they had a great series on Depression and 1930s. This was the biggest fear of TPTB, communism in this country. Not that the monied didn't fight FDR tooth and nail, but they did know and see the writing on the wall.

This time *we are being told* the country is turning right, but if you actually talk to moderate modest people, they don't understand this vitriol either. It's the paid goons who are on the news night after night *telling* us they are going to take over this country. The reason I personally feel that this won't happen is that the right doesn't stand *for* anything at all. People don't follow No and that is the only argument out there - no, why, because...

If there is anytime in history we could look at, (again MHO) is the French Revolution. People were starving due to the price of bread costing a weeks wages. The economy was out of control and clueless monarchs, with their clueless advisers. If there is any fear to found, it would to be to keep a Robespierre from coming to power if this happened. History Channel has a fantastic 2 hour documentary on him. It is something we definitely want to keep from happening here.

In my soul, I feel we can fight the right if we keep our heads and fight them with their weapons, but ours - our minds. Keep a clear head and an honest goal, and we will get there.

[Richardo]

94. How can it be 'new' if it's the "first fascist movement in the US *since the Great Depression*?

If it were 'new' it would be the first fascist movement in the US period.

It's hysteria and hyperbole.

[Dogtown]

11. ad hominem?

You've reached a new low. Come on, paulsby. You're often wrong, but you've more skill than this.

[Deep13]

19. Um, usually their warnings go unheeded as "chicken little'isms"...

...we do nothing to correct the problem and in the end we get fucked.

[Odin2005]

30. Ah, more head-in-the-sand-ism

Two can play this game! :-)

[JDPriestly]

32. I hope you are joking.

Our economic crisis is different from those in the past. Our problems were not caused by anti-capitalists, but by an immoral selfishness that infected our capitalism.

Capitalism is pretty much a given. The issue is not whether we have capitalism but whether we have a capitalism in which the rewards for work and for capital are balanced so as to provide not only an incentive to invest but also an incentive to work. When the incentive to invest is greater than the incentive to work, people chase "easy money," and we end up with a lot of Ponzi schemes. That's why cheap labor is actually detrimental to healthy capitalism. Value is produced by work. Capital is necessary to provide an environment in which to work. Over the past 30 years, the swan song of "easy money" has lured too many Americans into get rich schemes that involve no work. As a result:

a) We import virtually everything (at cheap prices) and export very little (our goods are too expensive). The resulting trade deficit dooms us to poverty and indenture. Already, the high value of our dollar is supported mostly by fear on the part of the nations with which we trade to let it free-fall. It's just a matter of time until something triggers a readjustment in our currency's value. And when that happens we will import far less. Theoretically, we will export more. But can we?

b) We have virtually no manufacturing base and therefore little of value to export. Over the past 30 years, investors in the United States chased easy profit. Rather than invest here, they gutted our factories and shipped the innards to Mexico, China and other cheap-labor countries. No one dared to say the awful truth -- that by investing in other countries, these greedy people were destroying their own. The investing class in this country, the ownership class has done more damage to our nation by outsourcing our jobs, equipment, know-how and even brand names than any terrorist in our history since the Civil War. American investors will be viewed by historians as selfish traitors. But, of course, at this time, those same investors control our media, so we never hear about that treason.

c) Thanks to a) and b), our government and the middle class are gagged and tied down, rendered immobile -- by debt. We hear a lot about government debt. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. The real problem is the debt of individual middle class Americans. We are not earning enough to support the standard of living that we have been led to believe is our birthright. When Americans wake up to discover that they can no longer afford to drive a car and that their towns, cities or communities can no longer afford to provide basic services like police protection, a fire department, regular garbage pick-up, a working sewage system, or even clean water, they will enter a state of shock such as we have not seen.

So what is different from the past. In the 1920s and 1930s, we were an exporting nation. International trade was less developed than today, but even impoverished Germany and other European countries imported our manufactured goods. When we needed to tool-up for WWII, we were able to do so because we had factories. A factory that had produced tractors or cars could be converted to produce tanks or military equipment. We don't have that reserve capacity any more.

We have great electronic technology, but I don't know that we still produce large quantities of computer chips for ourselves, much less the rest of our computers. Certainly, if we do, our capacity is very, very limited.

I don't think that the problems America faces have been caused by anti-capitalists. They have been caused by a lack of anti-capitalists, by a lack of criticism of the excessive exuberance of the investing and middle classes, by a lack of loyalty to country, by a lack of love for fellow countrymen and women, by ignorance about how our national market really works and by disrespect for hard work.

It will be a long, long, miserable time before we recover. And a lot of Americans will become very frustrated long before any recovery takes place. Many desperate Americans will reach to extremist ideas of various kinds.

Obama has stayed calm, and that is good. But Obama has not been able to inspire Americans to reach out and help each other. His economic team seems to have ignored that key to FDR's success.

It wasn't so much the details of FDR's economic programs that brought the U.S. out of the Depression. Our country survived intact because he and Eleanor brought the nation together through their commitment to equality, to their firm belief that Americans should work together to overcome the difficult challenges of their time. They demonstrated how they cared about each and every American, rich or poor.

As we all know, FDR practiced determination and humility in order to overcome great personal limitations. His shared his strength with the nation. I read books by Eleanor Roosevelt when I was in college. She was so wise, so patient, so dedicated to furthering human rights. Together, the Roosevelts were able to inspire Americans to act in a morally correct way in spite of economic difficulties. They were not anti-capitalists. In fact, they were capitalists. They were wealthy. They understood that the real problem was moral, not economic. Obama just has not spoken to Americans about the moral implications of greed and the need to sacrifice and work together.

My pessimism about the future isn't about capitalism or not capitalism. Capitalism is pretty much a given in the real world. But excessive selfishness and failure to respect work are not. Excessive selfishness and the belief in easy money are what brought us to this disaster. Reorienting ourselves to look to moral values of sharing, working hard, caring for others in our capitalist society is what will help our economy and our society recover.

[icee]

79. Simply excellent....

[BREMPRO]

89. brilliant insights- bravo! it is a moral crisis- selfishness is endemic

especially in times of crisis- a leader who can curb that selfishness and turn our energies toward weorking together to help our neighbor is needed. I believe Obama has that capacity, but has yet to fully tap it. perhaps we needed a greater crisis? my 401k now has more in it than before the crisis began, houses are selling, stocks are rising, jobs are now being created, manufacturing and exports are up, alternative energy projects are growing, economic stimulus and health care reform has passed, but are we, individually, fundamentally changed? that is the question we should be asking and needs to be addressed.

[Better Believe It]

98. Good points, however, you somehow managed to leave out of your history ....

of the FDR period the mass movements and radical organizations that mobilized millions of working class folks that put the heat on FDR and corporate America.

Perhaps you could elaborate on those movements and their impact on society along with the lessons they may hold for today.

[femrap]

103. Don't forget

that the world's population growth has simply become unsustainable given what finite resources we have. The world needs to take a huge technological Sustainable leap into the future.

But what does Obama do? Drill for oil in the Atlantic and Gulf. Makes no sense except to the Rich Oil Boyz.

And TPTB have been buying up WATER!!! They see what is coming. They're evil, but not stupid.

[Name removed]

40. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[L0oniX]

43. Welcome to my ignore dungeon.

[kenfrequed]

107. right...

Because after the 80's and Reaganism suddenly we snapped back to a fairer division of wealth or maybe the glory and wonder of the free market resulted in a less uneven distribution of wealth.

Oh wait... no the opposite happened.

[Greyhound]

112. Says the man that made his career making everything worse.

Stealing Grandma's pension was pretty good to you wasn't it?

[rhett o rick]

153. Libertarians shouldnt even be allowed in DU unless they promise to at least

discuss issues in lieu of just being a shit. I dont resent being called an "anti-capitalist" although it isnt accurate, but I do resent your attempt to use it as a slang. Also it is intellectually dishonest to say that those that you disagree with are just "always wrong". You post didnt add anything to the discussion one way or other and I personally think you are here just to disrupt.

Pepperoni or Canadian Bacon?

[leftstreet]

4. The 'empire' is going strong, and will continue. American Dream R Dead

K&R Interesting article

[Xenotime]

88. Is that the american dream of the rich white racists ruling over the poor?

I sure hope so.

[Echo In Light]

164. +1

[laughingliberal]

6. Democrats have failed to marshal the populist angst to their benefit

Really the only way they could have would have been with policies from the more liberal side of the party. Instead they have chosen the Third Way. Centrist policies are, basically, more of the same and might mitigate the damage done to working and middle class Americans but they offer no solution which turns back the tides against us.

[Better Believe It]

9. And probably won't because they don't want Republicans to attack them for promoting "class war"

Let the Republicans attack us and defend the super rich billionnaires! Let them attack progressives/liberals for standing up on the side of working people against the Wall Street banksters and corporate tycoons who are responsible for this crisis!

[salguine]

25. because Democrats are just as culpable as Republicans in bringing this disaster about.

[DJ13]

8. ......

It is hard to see how this can be prevented. The engines of social reform are dead. Liberal apologists, who long ago should have abandoned the Democratic Party, continue to make pathetic appeals to a tone-deaf corporate state and Barack Obama while the working and middle class are ruthlessly stripped of rights, income and jobs. Liberals self-righteously condemn imperial wars and the looting of the U.S. Treasury by Wall Street but not the Democrats who are responsible. And the longer the liberal class dithers and speaks in the bloodless language of policies and programs, the more hated and irrelevant it becomes. No one has discredited American liberalism more than liberals themselves. And I do not hold out any hope for their reform. We have entered an age in which, as William Butler Yeats wrote, “the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity.”


Thank you Better Believe It, a very good article.

[dkofos]

10. Is Totalitarian Capitalism the new term for Fascist??

[Better Believe It]

15. Since the term "fascist" is frequently mis-used to describe anything right-wing you might be right.

[Deep13]

20. Guess so since they are the same thing. nt

[treestar]

12. Not having to really prove any of the conclusions in that first paragraph

Made this rant easy to write.

[ProSense]

18. "The American empire is over." OK

Now what, another article declaring "we're doomed"?

"Those singled out as internal enemies will include people of color, immigrants, gays, intellectuals, feminists, Jews, Muslims, union leaders and those defined as 'liberals.'"

Good grief. The enemy is every group? The only groups left out were teabaggers. Are they the "American empire"?

:rofl:

[cutlassmama]

22. Article is a month old. Why is it being posted now?

[liberation]

26. I didn't know there was a statue of limitations regarding publication dates for links in this site

[Better Believe It]

31. I just read it and didn't see it posted earlier. Was it posted before on DU?

[cali]

62. 4 other times that I know of.

[Dr.Phool]

72. And you had to read it again?

:rofl:

[fascisthunter]

99. so what?

[crazyjoe]

24. blah blah blah, people have been pushing this crap forever

and we always seem to make it through

[branders seine]

27. this column is WAY too optimistic

:cry:

[troubledamerican]

35. Here's one.

I think Chris Hedges is a giant fraud (check out his March 2003 NPR Talk of the Nation appearance -- he wasn't opposed to the Iraq War).

But here's his latest column (slightly more realistic):

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/29-2

Is America ‘Yearning For Fascism?’

I have seen this drama. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in other tongues in other lands. I recognize the same stock characters, the buffoons, charlatans and fools, the same confused crowds and the same impotent and despised liberal class...


The unraveling of America mirrors the unraveling of Yugoslavia. The Balkan war was not caused by ancient ethnic hatreds. It was caused by the economic collapse of Yugoslavia.


The Democrats and their liberal apologists are so oblivious to the profound personal and economic despair sweeping through this country that they think offering unemployed people the right to keep their unemployed children on their nonexistent health care policies is a step forward.


Our continued impotence and cowardice, our refusal to articulate this anger and stand up in open defiance to the Democrats and the Republicans, will see us swept aside for an age of terror and blood.

[branders seine]

97. The Balkanization of the US is inevitable.

Other than the South versus the world, though, the divides are not conveniently geographical. It's even worse than the Balkans in many respects.

[troubledamerican]

105. Chile 1973 is more likely.

Republicans ensure that Democrats "can't govern" then demand that "only military discipline can save us".

[branders seine]

106. I see the whole thing splitting into rival neo-feudal such states though.

[troubledamerican]

122. ...each with nuclear weapons & state-of-the-art military hardware?

[branders seine]

144. some with more than others

[Odin2005]

29. We are SOOO fucked.

:scared:

[amborin]

33. K&R

some of the rabid denials of this OP only serve to further support its claims! message discipline is part of the dynamic

[cali]

63. uh, no sorry. that is flawed logic of the first order.

sad to see it.

[dionysus]

80. you might be confused. it's called ridiculing hedges hysterical BS...

[Echo In Light]

163. Says you

[BrklynLiberal]

37. They Thought They were Free....

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
<snip>

more at link. It gets even more depressing and prescient...

[tnlefty]

45. I have that book, have read it, along with recounts

of a journalist whose name I can't recall, but who traveled between the Soviet Union and with the crazed, mustachioed one in his ascent to power. The journalist turned up dead, but one of the things that stuck out in my mind was the taking over of the judicial branch in favor of the corps. and the totalitarian state(s).

One reason that I've been alarmed that the Obama administration renews the unPatriot Act, but has done little else to push back against the, well, crap, of the Bush** misadministration.

[truedelphi]

57. One of the smartest people I ever knew turned me on to that book

a good thirty years ago. (He was an engineer for Bell Labs, and he had created more patented items by the time that he was twenty eight than any other human up to that point.)

That book is just such a remarkable piece of writing. I wish it was mandatory reading. I think that for most people in our society, they have this notion that Hitler's average supporters were very bad people. Many people don't realize that the "Final Solution" happened at a time when the bombs were falling on the average German's heads - you don't worry that much about your Jewish neighbors when your house has just been blown up.

The concept behind the book is so powerful on so many levels. That an American Jew would take the time to go to Germany in the early fifties, pretend to be Gentile, and dig around in the psyche of the German people that he met and then report his findings. That he included one of the "Saints" of the Third Reich era and one of the Big Sinners (or Demons) and then he also gave space to examine the lives of the more ordinary citizens as well demonstrates the power of the gestalt that he was creating.

[BrklynLiberal]

130. Mayer was a fascinating man in many, many ways...

http://www.quaker.org/quest/issue-8-milton-mayer-1.htm

He was involved in creating, and some say titling, the Quaker pamphlet "Speak Truth to Power", arguably, one of the great pacifist pieces of writing in history.

[truedelphi]

151. I did not know of his Chicago background.

He was born around the same time as my father. And it makes me wonder if they ever met.

It also makes me regret I did not look him up back when I lived in Chicago and was reading his book.

My dad would totally understand this section of the bio:

Born in Chicago of a German Jewish father and an English-born mother, Mayer was educated in the public schools of the city where, he reminded readers constantly, he received a classical education with a heavy emphasis on Latin and languages; he graduated from Englewood High School. His Reform Jewish family was well enough off that young Milton visited Germany probably after World War I.

My dad gave me his seventh and eighth grade school books when I was in fifth grade. One of them was a text book for geology - it was written on a level that I doubt many college freshmen taking introductory geology would comprehend today. Dad's courses in Latin and Greek paid off - he was puzzled why I kept running to the dictionary whenever reading that tome.

And like Mayer, he would say things like this about WWII - "If we ever succumb to having a band of thugs running our nation, while acting as though they alone have a handle on patriotic behavior, we could find ourselves in the same situation as Germany did."

Quotes like that one rang through my mind every time I'd hear George W incite the public for more "war for Democracy." And my dad often referred to WWII as the war "where they sent me off to kill my cousins."

[Echo In Light]

81. Thanks for sourcing that!

[glinda]

39. K&R n/t

[Skittles]

46. "Liberal apologists"

plenty of them on DU

[lonestarnot]

47. Welp, Oprah is starting a TV network.

:P

[Angry Dragon]

48. K&R

[tomp]

49. what, me worry?

not with the our phenomenal 3-d chess player at the helm.

[SpankMe]

50. Great piece.

I'd like to put the first two paragraphs in a time capsule and open it up in, say, 20 years and see if it came true. I put the odds at 40% that it will.

[icee]

67. I put it at 70%.

[grahamhgreen]

51. I, too, am extremely disappointed, but mostly in the liberal leadership, like the Progressive Caucus

who I wished had refused to sign health care without a public option, thereby forcing the party to accede to some of our concerns.

It's not over yet, though!

[truedelphi]

58. Yes I too am disappointed in the way they allowed the DLC

To force their hands. If they had all stuck together, they might have really created some true and lasting change.

I realized by Listening to Kucinich in interviews after he changed his mind that the most likely reason for him doing so was to stay at the head of some of the committees that he is on. (Oversight and reform, is it?)

It was a blow that all of them folded. And none of them demanded that any concessions be made at all!

[Better Believe It]

83. This Democratic congressman didn't fold.

Lynch: Why Obama Didn't Convince Me on Health Care
By Suzy Khimm
Suzy Khimm is a political reporter in the Washington bureau of Mother Jones
March 19, 2010

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass), who switched from "yes" to "no" on the health reform bill, is insisting that his vote will not kill the legislation, noting that the House Democrats have the votes to pass the measure this weekend without his support. He also says that during a meeting with President Barack Obama on Thursday, the president failed to win him over with a promise to make the reform package more progressive down the road.

Lynch slams the legislation as "a poor bill" that would continue the worst elements of the status quo. In explaining his switch, Lynch cites the absence of a public option, the failure to repeal the anti-trust exemption for insurance companies, and the inclusion of the excise tax on high-end insurance plans. (These are some of the key differences between the final bill and the House version, which he had supported.) "There's a difference between compromise and surrender, and this bill is surrender," Lynch tells Mother Jones. "It's a surrender to the insurance companies, it's a surrender to the pharmaceutical companies."

But Lynch doesn't see his "no" vote as a bill-killer," saying it's very likely to pass during Sunday's scheduled vote: "I don't think they would be calling the bill up on Sunday if they didn't have the votes. if I had a bet on it, yeah, I'd probably bet that it would pass."

On Thursday, Lynch met with Obama, who made a personal appeal for his vote. During the meeting, according to Lynch, Obama said that he'd consider trying to reinsert some of the progressive provisions left out of the final package. "He said we can't do it this year, but next year he'd be willing to consider inserting a public option," Lynch says. "I talked about the repeal of the anti-trust exemption—he said he would try to do that down the road." Lynch, however, remained unconvinced.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/03/lynch-health-bill-surrender-it-will-pass-and-ill-help-fix-it

[truedelphi]

124. Good to know. Let me know when he runs for office -

We are no longer contributing to Obama/Rahm (Let their corporate friends fund their needs) but we will be glad to send a few bucks to someone like Lynch.

[speedcat]

52. move out!

http://americathegrimtruth.wordpress.com/

this guy is on a major rant, but he's right on a lot of things too. Great read!!

[Ghost Dog]

54. That's very articulate.

Good one, thanks!

[Hestia]

87. Great article

I remember reading in 2002 or 2003, that 10 million people "disappeared" after Bush was elected. The IRS was scanning the globe for these missing taxpayers, and the IRS couldn't find them. They got on a plane and left the country. Interesting...

[cali]

55. Not this piece of shit again.

hysterical screeching, poorly written doomsdayism.

[JCMach1]

59. +1, It is rather naive

to think of our situation as a Fall. Most of the negative mentioned by the OP have been as bad, or far worse throughout American history.

Democracy has always been a struggle... Sometimes we tend to forget that.

We on the Left can sometimes be as bad as the Right when conjuring up an idealized past.

The American Empire is in its adolescence (not decline)... the sooner we accept this we can become adults and start changing our ways.

[cbdo2007]

65. Yeah it's kind of just a writers sort of narcicism (sp?) thinking they're

more important than they really are and thinking they're witnessing history and that they have all the answers....yeah, the American Empire is going down the tubes and the only person who can save us is the writer of this article and all of his genius ideas... *laughs*

[Octafish]

132. How's your war going, cali?

Two U.S. service personnel died in Iraq today.
Who knows how many civilians died there today?

I know, I know. You don't like the war.

There are a lot of things going on I don't like: Don Siegelman should be free. Health care shouldn't be through the insurance companies. And the banksters shouldn't be escaping justice, let alone investigation.

The point is: The war shouldn't be going on.

Control of the oil isn't what's necessarily best for America. It's good for Texas oil men and Wall Street. Apart from them, I can't think of a reason for us to be there. Especially after voting for Obama.

[Echo In Light]

161. +1

[cali]

162. Why call it my war, genius if you know I"m staunchly against both of them?

and yes, I'm aware that bad things are happening, but sorry, not being either ignorant or stupid, I can easily parse this crap.

[my2sense]

56. K&R

[newtothegame]

70. Well you should get your recs. nt

[Echo In Light]

74. k/r - this angers the Right people for accurate reasons

[dionysus]

76. more fail porn, eh BBI?

:rofl:

[Moostache]

77. The author is doing it wrong....

This kind of hysteria - the end is nigh! Run away! Run Away! - is about the same as the crazed fundie cults who decrypt the bible every few decades to decide that NOW is the end times and you must REPENT NOW!

The Republicans are beginning to realize that serving as lapdogs to Faux Gnus and being Murdoch's bitch is harmful to their long term survival. Their party may fracture (as may the Dems on the left) but what we will be left with is a better alternative to the status quo. If we end up with 4 parties instead of 2, it will make us look long and hard at our parliamentary rules and we will need to form coalition governments to survive....so if 2-party politics is your definition of "America", then maybe the author is correct afterall...

[LiberalLovinLug]

117. The Republicans are where they want to be

"The Republicans are beginning to realize that serving as lapdogs to Faux Gnus and being Murdoch's bitch is harmful to their long term survival."

Yes, but they do not need long term survival in the short term, if that makes sense.

They will ride whatever populist train they can. "Just say no", "Read my lips no new taxes", "you're either with us or against us". I don't think they have any long term plan other than how to increase their individual wealth, but certainly not ways to improve average US citizens lives.

They only need a string of short term bumps that are strung together to create a perpetually eroding of progressive values and solidifying the ease that they can pillage. They jump on any rumor or downright lie, and exaggerate any scandal their opponents have, while at the same time they use a combination of stoking basic human fears of having Government dictate all aspects of life, and internationally that everyone else is either out to get us or they are jealous of us. Anyone who says there are things we could improve on in the country are American traitors.

Stupid will have stupid kids that they will indoctrinate them until they are old enough to indoctrinate themselves and it goes on. A new generation who will listen to stooges like Beck directing them to fight for the corporations rights to rob them, and against the governments job to take care of them.

[deutsey]

85. I initially thought this was going to be another gloom-and-doom screed

I was pleasantly surprised (and inspired), however, by the focus on the kind of rebellion dissidents like Vaclav Havel have helped to instigate.

I'm not sure I'm as certain as Hedges that we face such a bleak future (although I'm not very optimistic, either), but regardless, we can learn from the examples of rebellion that he cites.

[Autonomy]

91. Oh no it's all OVAR!!!!

Time to give up my principles and start my life of crime, I suppose. Senseless murder spree, here I come! -- I'm starting with the first person to suggest I start with myself :) Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[caseymoz]

93. Ask any weatherman how accurate forecasts usually are.

It's seldom that history takes people straight from point A to point B. Trends do reverse.

[Politicub]

100. It will be swift and brutal if we go this direction

Perhaps more horrific than the world has ever seen.

[fascisthunter]

101. notice how many recs this gets

and yet that small big mouth right leaning minority is still yapping. How many times have these people argued against those revealing truth here, and yet turn out to be wrong almost all the time? Ignore is a great feature folks... use it, because arguing with people who obviously have agendas is not worth your effort or time.

[h9socialist]

104. Isn't "CAPITALIST TOTALITARIANISM" here already?

I mean Marx did call the "capitalist epoch" the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie." I agree that there's cause for concern: the Tea Party rallies could start looking like Nuremburg, 1937! But, my suggestion to those who are worried about "capitalist totalitarianism" is that they might want to consider that their observation is a couple of centuries too late.

[Better Believe It]

113. We don't live under a political or fascist dictatorship yet. If we did, you wouldn't be posting.

At least not legally and certainly not on DU which would be closed down by the government along with the "ringleaders" being arrested or disappeared.

[h9socialist]

114. Have you ever read "1984"????

The proles could do just about whatever they wanted to. It was the Party members who were subject to surveillance. The problem the right-wing has with Obama is that he is messing up some of their plans for fascism. However, capitalism has developed to a point where corporate autocracy can exist next to freedom of speech. As long as the Supreme Court allows "free speech" to be denominated in dollars, the big capitalists don't care how your penny-and-a-half. But the Republicans are egging on the Tea Party crowd to take the role of the "brownshirts" when the Republicans can get back in power.

[truedelphi]

140. I am reminded of "1984" almost every day I participate in the "outer reality"

Even if my participation is nothing more than watching a single news show, or reading a newspaper.

Everything is fodder for a mind like Orwell's. Everything. Those "Clean Coal" and "Safe Nuke's" labels... (Has Obama commented on the coal miner deaths in West Virginia yet? Were these clean deaths?)

Then you have the Sarah Palin - David Frum types, with their followers in the brown shirts, and that is Orwell fodder as well. "1984" stuff indeed.

And what doesn't remind me of "1984" reminds me of "Animal Farm." Most people live their lives according to these very narrow mantras -- "Four legs good, two legs bad," except it's things like Tobacoo smoking being the worst thing a person can do, followed by driving a large car.

Meanwhile the chemtrails haze up the sky, but no, we all know those don't even exist. We know that because we are told so, except for that day one year ago, when Obama Administration admitted the technology was there and maybe they would "start to chemtrail."

Like Vonnegut was fond of saying, "And so it goes."

[h9socialist]

142. You are hereby entitled to . . .

. . . an extra half-litre of Victory Gin.

[truedelphi]

149. Oh thank you! Serve it up soon please

California is considering some $ 5 a drinkie poo tax on alcohol. As though booze and grass are not the only things keeping people in this state sedate enough to handle the condition we are facing.

Meanwhile the makers of Febreeze and Lysol insist we all spray the air with benzenes, alkyls, phenols, and formaldehydes, as those are A-okay.

Here's a nice cartoon my buddy Bobbolink is promoting:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user&saz=inbox&ssaz=show_mesg&m_id=4768008

"Computers good - paper bad!"

[Odin2005]

154. I liked your post until you started up with the chemtrail insanity.

[truedelphi]

156. Okay Odin2005 - I am TOTALLY open to anyone who can explain this

Flight pattern.

I live in a bowl _ I am in a valley that has high foothills whose ridges are separated some eight or nine miles from each other.

One of these ridges is the Clearlake Ridge. The other is Mt Konocti.

So what can possibly explain the fact that on any given day, one can sit and watch from the middle of the bowl (one quarter mile from where I live) jets skimming over the top of the Clearlake ridge missing it by 1500 feet, then going up in a altitude till the plane is over 15K to 30K high, and then nine miles later, barely skimming above the Konocti ridge. (again maybe fifteen hundred feet above it.)

Commercial plane pilots could not do that. Ever. If they do that once, it is on the evening news. (And they will keep their license ONLY if there was some emergency factor involved in doing this to passengers.)

Military claim they are not making these flights.

So who the heck, what the heck is happening?

Again I am open to any explanation you have, and bear in mind - the sky is made to go from pristine deep aqua blue to milky haze after half a day of these jets operating in this manner.

I can provide camera footage if you would like to view it.

[Echo In Light]

160. .

[h9socialist]

115. Besides, mine isn't the biggest overdramatization we've heard lately!

Is it?

[DirkGently]

110. Spot on

... as is the poster's observation that it's not too late to do something about it. Liberals are not, in fact, "hapless."

[davidthegnome]

111. Predictions of the future

Aren't generally reliable. I can't say with any certainty that we're headed in a good direction right now, that things will get better before they get worse, or that grave disaster is not coming our way. Trying to determine, based on current events, what the future will look like, is an effort in futility. It's fascinating to speculate - but it's also pretty depressing considering the current state of things.

What I can do is try to be optimistic and remind myself constantly that anything is possible. Climate change, from what I have read, is predicted to destroy the vast majority of, if not the entire population of the human race. The guesses and predictions of how much time we've got left are uncertain at best. That being said - Nasa could come up with something to turn the problem around, we ourselves could possibly find a way to turn the problem around. A new science, a brilliant idea, anything could happen, including absolute disaster.

If I focus too hard on what is wrong or what might be go wrong, I'll be unable to function in the present. It's no surprise that we have so many seriously depressed and anxiety filled people in America (myself being one of them). Even turning on the news, some times I feel as if I'm watching a dramatic movie, or reading a novel about the "end times".

To refer to people as "chicken little" is insulting and condescending. The sky may very well BE falling. It may not, we are not oracles, we don't have crystal balls to predict what may happen. While many of us fear the worst, the worst is always possible, even if not probable. Consider Hitler's rise to power - prior to that, had you told the Germans what would have happened to their Nation, they would have thought you were crazy, or simply laughed. Perhaps some warned of what was coming and were ignored. I can only speculate.

It's best to keep in mind though, that all any of us can really do is speculate, in regards to the future. There are many terrible things in the world, but there are many great ones as well. I am unemployed - but I have a family that loves me. I am uninsured, but I am in relatively good health. Every day is a struggle, but I'm holding on to hope.

The controversial nature of this issue tends to inspire heated debate. I would hope though, that most of us would be able to refrain from insulting the intelligence of those who disagree with us.

Well, guess I've rambled enough.

[sendero]

128. The specifics..

.... of where we are going are impossible to know. But the general outline is clear, and has been for several years.

There are a lot of folks who wish to dismiss it because they cannot face facts.

The fact is our government has been co-opted. Exactly where that leads isn't cast in stone but the fact isn't really debatable any longer.

[davidthegnome]

129. I have to agree

In regards to our government. But we can change things. The idea of mandating that all elections be federally funded is one that I think many have considered. Getting the lobbyists out of the government would take care of half the problem. I know it's much easier said than done.

Perhaps a system in which someone would need to be nominated by State or National voters alone, able to campaign only through the federal dollar, with an organization keeping watch.

I think it's likely that a revolution may be around the corner, but I hope that it will not be a violent one. I'll give my life for my Country if I must, but not by fighting my own friends and neighbors.

These facts are extremely hard to face. I like to think of myself as someone who gives a damn, but a great deal of the time the news alone can be enough to make me wish I lived on another planet. Overwhelming - and ignorance in such cases is indeed bliss. For many people who have a deep faith in the system, admitting that it is broken would turn their worlds upside down. Though deep down inside they may be aware that it IS broken, denial is far easier to manage than despair.

I admit it's too much for me. I tend to be a lurker here, but over the last year I've found myself coming back more than I used to, and posting a bit more frequently - mainly because I want to be more involved in bringing about positive change. All the same, it's difficult for me. It's difficult to maintain any sense of optimism when the things we read about and debate about can often be so terrible. On top of this we have natural disasters that seem to be increasing in frequency, armed lunatics all over the Country calling themselves Patriots, two wars, a broken health care system, unemployment rate... I could go on and on.

I just can't help feeling overwhelmed by it all. Hope and change, that's what I'm here for, that's what I hope we can accomplish. Regardless of the state of our Government, if we give up hope we have nothing left.

I apologize for being so long winded.

[colsohlibgal]

121. Quite Feasible

It's going to take a people's movement outside the current two political parties as they are now constituted to bring about real systematic change. There are democrats in Washington who are progressive/populist and act totally in a altruistic manner but just not enough of them and they are treated like redheaded stepchildren by the official party apparatus anyway. Obama said as much recently when he dissed the liberal base in a mean, flip manner.

In a nutshell too many democrats and about all the republicans are bought and paid for, are beholden to their benefactors.

The MSN types pretend that not much is that out of whack and there you are, we, the people, the vast majority of us, are in a pickle and being played every day of our lives whether we know it or not.

[Echo In Light]

123. Bump

[Octafish]

131. I gotta take issue with one thing...

...starting to rival that of the East German secret police...

We are so past that, it's not even funny.

Other than that, it's a great OP and thread. We the People aren't getting the truth from the noose papers, tee vee and -- apart from Pacifica -- the ray dee oh. Thank you, Better Believe It.

[Echo In Light]

145. +1

[Swamp Rat]

150. You should re-post this.

:hi:

[RagAss]

133. Quasimodo predicted this !

[BlooInBloo]

136. Isn't there an End Of Days website or something that people like you would be happier at?

It's like you guys are just begging for the apocalypse.

[Better Believe It]

137. Just waiting around for the Democrats to fight the Republicans.

Think that might happen anytime soon?

Well, I suppose the Democratic Party must first win control of the Congress and White House in order to take on corporate America and Wall Street and defend the interests of working class people.

They'll show the rich corporate bastards the door once that happens!

It not the "endtimes". That will be the beginning of a great new day for workers and organized labor!

What?

The Democrats won in 2008?

Nevermind.

[n.michigan]

143. Yes- we all were/are waiting for Democrats to stand for something on their left platform

Agree. We were slapped down and ignored.
I and others won't vote for another incumbent Democrat (or Republican.)
We just can't trust the Democrats anymore. They don't work for the people -look at their policy. They have not used progressive strength for policy and have abandoned traditional Democratic goals. Why is there no voice of the unions for nurses, teachers, police, etc?? We are paying an ungodly price.

Do they think we can't see? Or are they just totally bought out and simply, brazenly doing corporate bidding?
It is leadership: Obama, Reid, Pelosi.... Dodd, Frank, Levin... Stupak, Feinstein..so many, even Kucinich is a sell-out. They are completely responsible for our circumstances. They offer no democratic voice of challenge and condemnation of the evils that have preceded.

So many sellouts. Obama is the worst-at least Bush was direct about his greedy motives.

When the 2000 election was stolen with little Democratic protest, that pretty much sent the greed signal.

[Echo In Light]

147. +1000 (don't hold your breath, though)

[davidthegnome]

141. I don't think anyone is begging for it

I think people are scared and depressed. The possibility of disaster is only a possibility, but a very real one. Considering the wide range of issues discussed here, I don't believe this conversation is out of place.

I don't see anyone begging for the apocalypse, but I do see a lot of condescending remarks, which I guess should be expected in such a debate. That said though, if you consider the reality of climate change, it may very well be that fairly soon we'll all be talking "end of days". Maybe we'll turn it around and save the world. Maybe we'll all be wiped out. Maybe a political fart somewhere will set off a nuclear weapon or ten and we're all gone.

Maybe we'll be invaded by aliens who call themselves the tea party... wait a sec, there it is, I knew there was something fishy about those guys.

[MellowDem]

138. Really? I think it will be fun.

[tjwash]

139. Hey...didn't I see you ranting wildly on public access cable the other night?

nt

[Better Believe It]

148. Who do you mean? The author or me?

I don't rant.

[Echo In Light]

155. Goddamn liberals

;)