The U.S. is on the edge of rebellion, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges warns in new book

a reply to: Aazadan

You don't engage something unless it hovers.
You overun it's basing and logistical chain.
Capture drone pilots or their family would usually do that.
The .50 would be a ground engagement only .
TO me as a former scout It is only a matter of information and numbers, if things are THAT far gone we vets will have all of that.
the best experts are already out of service. The younger people who might be naive enough to support such an effort would be easy to circumvent.
I've no doubt after it's over I would be beyond sick, mentally ,but to preserve Constitutional law it would be a scarifice we as vets would have to make.

So many whiners. If you want a bunch of money or a high paying job then go do it! This is America, you can get an education, you can work hard to put yourself in the right position. I'm so sick of people crying about thier low paying labor jobs...do something about it instead of complaining about the white collars. Do people realize most of the upper class put in a lot of work and made a lot of good choices in order to reach their goal? Believe me, that's what it takes.

Do yourselves a favor and watch BOTH parts of this video. Aside from reading Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States I have never heard a more powerful, articulate and moving message. What Hedges posits is that rebellion is a moral imperative. It's not about whether or not we can even succeed but it is because it is the right thing to do, it is something we must attempt if we are ever able to look our children in the eye and tell them we tried to make the world a better place.

Most of you are here because you understand something is deeply wrong with the world. It is because corporate structures and values have replaced human structures and values. Profit at any cost and the discovery that war, incarceration, indoctrination, disease - all of the horrors of human existence can be profitable. Let that sink in for a minute - human misery is now a commodity to be traded.

Our greatest institutions have been subverted to prop up the corporate state and to serve them and them alone. Our schools no longer teach the humanities but how to best serve the corporate system. Every branch of government does likewise.

This is not an indictment of those institutions but of those who have come to hold power over them. They are the centers of power and culture that once belonged to all of us and can again if we but stand united. All hope is not lost so long as any of us yearning to be free draws breath. Until that final spark of human dignity is extinguished we must continue to try.

Our species is in peril and Hedges asks: can we save us from ourselves? Yes we can and we must for our existence becomes meaningless in a world without hope and without justice. Are we human beings or are we just extensions of the corporate state? They are mutually exclusive and irreconcilable at this point.

I bought the book.

So far, I'm only into chapter 1, but in it Chris points out that no rebellion can succeed unless the:

foot soldiers of the elite- the police, the courts, the civil servants, the press, the intellectual class, and finally the army- no longer have the will to defend the regime, the regime is finished.

(pg. 9 of the introduction, Wages of Rebellion, Chris Hedges)

How far along that line does anyone think we are?

How does one rebel against a faceless enemy?
The corporate state shelters it's own and alleviates personal blame.
Who then is the enemy if we have no "evil leaders", no Nazi party?
Yet it is fascism that must be fought.
The corporate structure itself must be outlawed and understood to be the refuge of scoundrels and psychopaths.
It is inhabited by the criminal class and even blind obedience to them is an extension of their evil.

The corporation must die, it is nothing but a legal fiction. UNITED STATES INC. must be replaced by a human system to serve it's citizens and reinstate personal accountability.

a reply to: lambs to lions

Yeah and a lot of the upper classes are part of 185 families who've had money for generations - approx. $1.2 trillion. The 400 Rich List has a few new starters like Gates and yet most of them are from wealthy families and elite backgrounds.

People can rise up within certain limitations. Socio-economic conditions need to be good and the area where someone lives is influential too. If a modern Bill Gates lives in Detroit and opens a business, how well will that go? If you live in some dirt poor area, how do you get a good education, a good job or raise money to move to a successful area?

There's no harm in trying to get out of a hole, but let's be realistic here? Not so long ago, 60% of the US population owned 5% of the net wealth of the nation. Surely that's not because those 60% are 'whiners' who lack ambition and drive?

a reply to: Asktheanimals

A good first step would be the removal of Citizens United. That corporations are able to buy politicians is an untenable situation.

a reply to: masqua

The "people" still get to vote;
Jefferson
Washington
Jackson
Grant
Franklin

- us?
Not so much.

a reply to: Helious


I will whole heatedly agree that there are whispers everywhere now. People who basically banned me from their houses for my views on government and 9/11 are now asking me a lot of questions. Some of them have turned full blown preper.
Personally I think it will be another decade or so, but it is coming.

Rebellion comes when all comfort has been stripped away, and every man, woman, and child...finds themselves standing in the same line waiting for bread and soup, where race, religion, and inane political ideologies no longer matter, and it becomes a matter of the few who have...and the millions who have not.

a reply to: WCmutant

Many people are going to cheer this man for what he is saying........FOOLS.....FOOLS. He is part of a greater plan and is a sign of the end game that is coming. He makes sense and tells the truth but the solutions he puts forward will enslave even further.



The progressive plan is to create a climate that is so bad they can manipulate the fools into crap like this. Socialism does not work and never will and that is why the founding fathers made a republic and not a democracy. Individual rights over the rights of the masses is the key infrastructure that is the key to success or failure of the state. When men like this start getting air time it is a sign they are just about ready for the coming collapse and what the state will transform into after it.



He does speak truth.....Corporate Oligarchy.......Banking ruling class.....Liberty being under siege........Liberals being used. But dig deeper and understand what his solution really is.....Socialism. It can not and will not work with the constitution in it's current form......Hmm what does that mean.....They want to get rid of the constitution or amend the crap out of it.



Keeping things simple is the best plan for keeping liberty and freedom. If they put the rights of the masses before the rights of the individual it will fail and lead into the abyss......Simple and honest.

a reply to: SubTruth

I think Hedges advocates for pure socialism, something more like Sweden than the socialist/communist states we usually associate with it. At least that's what I'm hoping, I'm all for keeping the Constitution and form of government we already have minus corporate/banking influence.

I'm for capitalism but it must be tempered with some socialist elements (food stamps, social security, medicare) for those who cannot do for themselves.

a reply to: Asktheanimals

There definitely won't be 40 million new jobs added to the economy anytime soon.

Some of the ultra rich get it. This thread reminds of an old thread:


Ultra-rich man's letter: "To My Fellow Filthy Rich Americans: The Pitchforks Are Coming"

"...And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.

If we don’t do something to fix the glaring inequities in this economy, the pitchforks are going to come for us. No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.

Many of us think we’re special because “this is America.” We think we’re immune to the same forces that started the Arab Spring—or the French and Russian revolutions, for that matter. I know you fellow .01%ers tend to dismiss this kind of argument; I’ve had many of you tell me to my face I’m completely bonkers. And yes, I know there are many of you who are convinced that because you saw a poor kid with an iPhone that one time, inequality is a fiction.

Here’s what I say to you: You’re living in a dream world.

The herds are much too divided to ever organize any kind of revolt. I am sure down the road we will see many small factions of lawless imbeciles attempting a take over, only to then be ruthlessly crushed and made an example of.

Anarchists and their pipe dreams about a society with no Government are always a good laugh too. At the end of the day, without the backing of The United States Military, it would be suicidal to try to take on The U.S Government.

I would not bank on your visualized rebellion utopia being a pleasant World to live in either, I know what side I will be on. ~$heopleNation

a reply to: johnwick
I appreciate all you do!! I'm there with you. I work EMS and bust my back and brain for many days and long hours to help bring a positive change to those in my community. Hard workers are out there, they just go unnoticed because it "cooler" to work for Google or a ceo because of the $ and social status.

originally posted by: Ancient Champion
If it does happen I see the south breaking away and California and Texas forming their own Republics.

...or maybe Mexico retaking the southwest (including California), while leaving Texas alone, in order for it to serve as a buffer country.

originally posted by: lambs to lions
So many whiners. If you want a bunch of money or a high paying job then go do it! This is America, you can get an education, you can work hard to put yourself in the right position. I'm so sick of people crying about thier low paying labor jobs...do something about it instead of complaining about the white collars. Do people realize most of the upper class put in a lot of work and made a lot of good choices in order to reach their goal? Believe me, that's what it takes.

Ditto, and could not have said it any better. Fortune comes to those that seek it. I will add something here as well.

The price of education is terrible, yes, much worse than in my day. However, even with paying back the student loans that they will certainly offer, you will be ahead of the game 2,3... maybe 10 times more. Pay attention, go to school. College or Trade. Participate.

The U.S. is on the edge of rebellion.

If the US is on the verge of rebellion, then so are many other Western countries, because the self-same mechanisms of oligarchy are at play all over the North-Western hemisphere, and certain parts of Australasia. Russia, China, Japan, all around the asiatics, too are being run by oligarch methods. How can anyone expect globalisation to be implemented if countries don't follow the global plan?

Here in the UK we are mulling over the breakup of the Union. Scotland could eventually go it's own way and become a member of the EU, whereas the remaining parts of the UK will more than likely leave the EU, even though capitalists will shout the loudest on how the UK would suffer if it did leave the EU.

We have just had a general election that returned one of the most nasty and vicious coalition-led governments in living memory. The returning government, however, no longer have to pander to a coalition partner, it now has a mandate to follow its own agenda, which will once again use austerity to rob from the poor to give to the rich. In every Western country it is the same process being implemented, and the poor and the not-so-well-off will end up becoming the pariah enemy within just as they have become so in the US...but there will be no rebellion, but certainly a revolution.

The revolution is occurring now, right in front of your faces, and under your very noses, and it is a capitalist's revolution that's been underway for a couple of decades.

There will be no revolt, no separate states will secede from the Union, countries will go the way of the capitalist agenda and eventually crumble out of exhaustion...there is no happy or glorious ending to our species' story, we will die and fade away by our own hand. A global natural catastrophe that wiped our species away would be a kindness, and save many from an extended suffering. There's no stopping it, we will bump and grind our way to global collapse, fractious global conflict, and utter global ruin. We will fall not into a rebellious revolution, but a chaotic anarchy that will spread virally around the planet. It's over for us all, we just haven't accepted it yet.