Chris Hedges talks to a doctor about universal health care.
That is all.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Attack of the Hedges
Yes, that's right:
Another Hedges link.
Going to go watch it... NOW.
EDIT: Just finished watching it and... wow... best video about his new book yet!
Here are some great quotes:
"Let's remember that Fox is a non-reality based belief system; it is about catering to emotional consistency, not to truth."
"We have a choice, you can either be complicit in your own enslavement or you can lead a life that has some kind of integrity and meaning." (on the question of why someone should be a radical)
"...the capacity to rebel, the capacity to stand up and have the moral autonomy to say no ... let's not be naive, you're not rewarded in this kind of a system for virtue, probably in any kind of a system... that is the price for having a life worth living."
"...if you don't have anger and courage then hope is not a possibility."
Another Hedges link.
Going to go watch it... NOW.
EDIT: Just finished watching it and... wow... best video about his new book yet!
Here are some great quotes:
"Let's remember that Fox is a non-reality based belief system; it is about catering to emotional consistency, not to truth."
"We have a choice, you can either be complicit in your own enslavement or you can lead a life that has some kind of integrity and meaning." (on the question of why someone should be a radical)
"...the capacity to rebel, the capacity to stand up and have the moral autonomy to say no ... let's not be naive, you're not rewarded in this kind of a system for virtue, probably in any kind of a system... that is the price for having a life worth living."
"...if you don't have anger and courage then hope is not a possibility."
Monday, November 15, 2010
Article of the Day
Where is the liberal/progressive/Democratic/decent-person/common-sense outrage over how completely idiotic this nation is for still being in Afghanistan?
Read this.
I have been trying my best not to be too disillusioned lately. I can feel that old familiar sting of cynicism more or less wash over me when I think about these things too much. Because, really, it is a question of efficacy. How can I affect the world so that it is a place of more general well-being?
Frustrating, yes?
Read this.
I have been trying my best not to be too disillusioned lately. I can feel that old familiar sting of cynicism more or less wash over me when I think about these things too much. Because, really, it is a question of efficacy. How can I affect the world so that it is a place of more general well-being?
Frustrating, yes?
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Where's the Class Warfare?
I just finished the first chapter of Chris Hedge's new book. Before I talk about it, here are some links from the past couple of days.
Joan Walsh writes here about the failure of the Democrats to fight for the rights of the people who elect them. Also great in that article (about midway down, read the bullet points) is that she addresses rising inequality in this country.
Since, alas, Russ Feingold is gone, the search for another senator who doesn't bend over for special interests continues. Even though Bernie Sanders will always have my heart (also Patrick Leahy is awesome - really wish I lived in Vermont), Jim Webb looks like a Democrat who actually has balls. I posted recently about Sirota's wonderful exclamation to the Blue Dog Democrats who betrayed the public option and voted against extending unemployment insurance. Maybe there should be a purging of these 'liberals' from the party? The Left has to take back the anger that historically belongs to them. What happened?
Democrats, like their Republican counterparts (if you can even call them that, doesn't it feel like they don't have any real differences?), have betrayed the working class. And now, the middle class as well. They are subservient and will only pay attention to the banking class. Well? Where is the revolt? The blood and the guns? The Revolution?
Where are these so-called Progressives? Environmental groups have still struggled to condemn the Obama administration for the Gulf disaster. Liberal legal groups are not talking about habeas corpus not being reinstated. We still have extraordinary rendition. We still have two illegal occupations. We still have lobbyists with this insane amount of influence. Capitalism has failed yet we still go day-to-day pretending that it hasn't. People are losing their homes. No one is finding decent work. What the hell?
Hedge's dissects these questions and proclaims that the Liberal Class is Dead. Those old institutions (the universities, labor unions, the media, the arts, the Democrats) that used to promote civil rights, woman's rights, economic rights are gone. They have all sold out to corporate money and now, well, now we have no one who is fighting for us. That is how the Tea Party got to co-opt the rage over the bailouts. An extremists right-wing group got to take all of the political capital from the past two years because we have no liberal voice in this country who could articulate the underclass's frustrations.
Instead, in the saddest irony imaginable, we elected candidates who are fighting this phantom 'Socialism' that Obama has been supporting. The anger of the unemployed has been stolen from the Left by Republicans, from the same fucking billionaires who ruined the country.
I can't articulate my frustration and rage. It seems like most of the Tea Party cannot either, which is why they have voted for their own destruction. We, America the Sinking Ship, are about to enter another era of tax-cuts for the Masters and starvation for the Serfs.
Social Security will be attacked. Obama, the corporate bitch that he is, will vote for the Bush Tax Cuts in exchange for something small and negligible. In the same way that financial reform, health-care reform and the stimulus failed by not going far enough, he will sell us out the same way the Democrats have sold us out for the past thirty years.
(Caveat: right now I wish I lived in France because they seem to actually have a fucking class consciousness. I would rather be rioting in the streets that sitting in my apartment impotently writing in some stupid blog no one reads. But what are my options? How do I protest? How do I affect real change? How do I fight for real democracy? Real justice? Real ethics?)
As always, I have no answers.
To end on a lighter note, our friend Tom Tomorrow has another dissection of modern politics.
Joan Walsh writes here about the failure of the Democrats to fight for the rights of the people who elect them. Also great in that article (about midway down, read the bullet points) is that she addresses rising inequality in this country.
Since, alas, Russ Feingold is gone, the search for another senator who doesn't bend over for special interests continues. Even though Bernie Sanders will always have my heart (also Patrick Leahy is awesome - really wish I lived in Vermont), Jim Webb looks like a Democrat who actually has balls. I posted recently about Sirota's wonderful exclamation to the Blue Dog Democrats who betrayed the public option and voted against extending unemployment insurance. Maybe there should be a purging of these 'liberals' from the party? The Left has to take back the anger that historically belongs to them. What happened?
Democrats, like their Republican counterparts (if you can even call them that, doesn't it feel like they don't have any real differences?), have betrayed the working class. And now, the middle class as well. They are subservient and will only pay attention to the banking class. Well? Where is the revolt? The blood and the guns? The Revolution?
Where are these so-called Progressives? Environmental groups have still struggled to condemn the Obama administration for the Gulf disaster. Liberal legal groups are not talking about habeas corpus not being reinstated. We still have extraordinary rendition. We still have two illegal occupations. We still have lobbyists with this insane amount of influence. Capitalism has failed yet we still go day-to-day pretending that it hasn't. People are losing their homes. No one is finding decent work. What the hell?
Hedge's dissects these questions and proclaims that the Liberal Class is Dead. Those old institutions (the universities, labor unions, the media, the arts, the Democrats) that used to promote civil rights, woman's rights, economic rights are gone. They have all sold out to corporate money and now, well, now we have no one who is fighting for us. That is how the Tea Party got to co-opt the rage over the bailouts. An extremists right-wing group got to take all of the political capital from the past two years because we have no liberal voice in this country who could articulate the underclass's frustrations.
Instead, in the saddest irony imaginable, we elected candidates who are fighting this phantom 'Socialism' that Obama has been supporting. The anger of the unemployed has been stolen from the Left by Republicans, from the same fucking billionaires who ruined the country.
I can't articulate my frustration and rage. It seems like most of the Tea Party cannot either, which is why they have voted for their own destruction. We, America the Sinking Ship, are about to enter another era of tax-cuts for the Masters and starvation for the Serfs.
Social Security will be attacked. Obama, the corporate bitch that he is, will vote for the Bush Tax Cuts in exchange for something small and negligible. In the same way that financial reform, health-care reform and the stimulus failed by not going far enough, he will sell us out the same way the Democrats have sold us out for the past thirty years.
(Caveat: right now I wish I lived in France because they seem to actually have a fucking class consciousness. I would rather be rioting in the streets that sitting in my apartment impotently writing in some stupid blog no one reads. But what are my options? How do I protest? How do I affect real change? How do I fight for real democracy? Real justice? Real ethics?)
As always, I have no answers.
To end on a lighter note, our friend Tom Tomorrow has another dissection of modern politics.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Article of the Day
Chris Hedges, once again,writes about things that I am not seeing anywhere else. It mentions two things.
First, why is no one in the supposedly libertarian Tea Party talking about the biggest source of waste in the budget: the military. Last time I checked it was around 600 billion, right?
Second, why are we still talking about capitalism as if it is a viable model for how the world should run? How many times does it have to fail before we realize that it should be abandoned?
Socialism is not a dirty word. Socialism's main goals is economic equality. Why are so many Americans against this? Is it because they cannot distinguish between Communism and Socialism?
First, why is no one in the supposedly libertarian Tea Party talking about the biggest source of waste in the budget: the military. Last time I checked it was around 600 billion, right?
Second, why are we still talking about capitalism as if it is a viable model for how the world should run? How many times does it have to fail before we realize that it should be abandoned?
Socialism is not a dirty word. Socialism's main goals is economic equality. Why are so many Americans against this? Is it because they cannot distinguish between Communism and Socialism?
Friday, November 5, 2010
Article of the Day
David Sirota writes a fantastic article about the Democratic Party betraying their purpose and their never-ending desire to be a watered down version of the Republicans.
I agree Mr. Sirota! To all of the conservative Democrats and corporate pawns: Go Fuck Yourself.
I agree Mr. Sirota! To all of the conservative Democrats and corporate pawns: Go Fuck Yourself.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Articles of the Day and a Lament
Robert Scheer has a lovely short article about the main failure of the Obama administration and Amy Goodman writes about the corrupt media.
My sister sent me a great cartoon about historical perspectives and tax rates. It might be a re-blog.
But hey, let us have a moment of silence for America. While we do so we can think about the unemployed and we can think about those in severe poverty. We can think of people in their twenties, like myself, who are college educated and can find nothing. Or the uninsured who will go bankrupt because of health care or bad mortgages. Maybe the elderly who might see their social security gutted or privatized. Austerity is a good euphemism - but what it is really saying when we use this word is, essentially, pain. Pain for those that didn't have the privilege of being rich. Pain for those with the wrong upbringing or the wrong skin tone. Pain for the sick. Pain for the weak. Pain for those that this country has turned its back to. Everyone that voted for the Republicans to take control, yet again, of Congress have the blood of the underclass on their hands. The underclass even voted for them, thinking that, for some reason, they will listen to them.
They won't.
If the Democrats, traditionally the party of the middle and working class, don't listen to the poor masses then why do they think the Republicans will? Obama, in his moderate neo-Clinton capacity, will probably vote for whatever Congress gives him. I, for one, can't wait for the Bush tax cuts to be permanent; it'll be nice to have clear class divisions so that when the poor revolt from frustration and destitute then maybe they will take down the right people. Most likely not. Chances are we will keep voting for the Grand Ole' Party of Freedom and Capitalism until the last house is foreclosed and the last industrial job is lost. There are no liberals in this country. There is only fear and corruption and greed and ignorance.
I am a man without a Party. I am a man without a Country. I am lost in this un-Reality where the paupers vote for princes and where the rich will continue to consume and consume until everything is spent.
Fuck you America.
My sister sent me a great cartoon about historical perspectives and tax rates. It might be a re-blog.
But hey, let us have a moment of silence for America. While we do so we can think about the unemployed and we can think about those in severe poverty. We can think of people in their twenties, like myself, who are college educated and can find nothing. Or the uninsured who will go bankrupt because of health care or bad mortgages. Maybe the elderly who might see their social security gutted or privatized. Austerity is a good euphemism - but what it is really saying when we use this word is, essentially, pain. Pain for those that didn't have the privilege of being rich. Pain for those with the wrong upbringing or the wrong skin tone. Pain for the sick. Pain for the weak. Pain for those that this country has turned its back to. Everyone that voted for the Republicans to take control, yet again, of Congress have the blood of the underclass on their hands. The underclass even voted for them, thinking that, for some reason, they will listen to them.
They won't.
If the Democrats, traditionally the party of the middle and working class, don't listen to the poor masses then why do they think the Republicans will? Obama, in his moderate neo-Clinton capacity, will probably vote for whatever Congress gives him. I, for one, can't wait for the Bush tax cuts to be permanent; it'll be nice to have clear class divisions so that when the poor revolt from frustration and destitute then maybe they will take down the right people. Most likely not. Chances are we will keep voting for the Grand Ole' Party of Freedom and Capitalism until the last house is foreclosed and the last industrial job is lost. There are no liberals in this country. There is only fear and corruption and greed and ignorance.
I am a man without a Party. I am a man without a Country. I am lost in this un-Reality where the paupers vote for princes and where the rich will continue to consume and consume until everything is spent.
Fuck you America.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
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