A Different Wind is Blowing

Just when I start to believe that everyone is finally wising up and getting the true picture of how things really are in this country, I read an article like this: "Bill Moyers: The Biggest Problem With Obamacare's Rollout Is Being Caused Intentionally by Republicans". (No offense to Bill Moyers). The reason I mention this at all is because the article's title is just so inane. First of all Mr. Moyers, the biggest problem with Obamacare's rollout is Obamacare itself. The ACA is a poorly crafted piece of legislation that has managed to not only offend just about every demographic possible by being a giant giveaway to the private insurance companies. While claiming to address the inequalities of the US healthcare system, the ACA does nothing to protect the American healthcare consumer. In fact, it forces people to purchase medical insurance or risk being penalized. Secondly, the Republican's are not the reason that the ACA is an unmitigated disaster. The damage was done by the Democrats. They wrote the law, passed and implemented it. The website is substandard and is a threat to everyone's personal information. The people that designed the website should be fired and fined. In fact, the entire ACA should be scrapped. If this piece of legislation is Obama's signature achievement, it illustrates how badly flawed his Presidency really is.

This article is not about Obamacare however. I just used the title of the article to illustrate how preposterous our political landscape really is. I wanted to see single-payer healthcare, more like Medicare for all. I would have desired legislation that allowed the government to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies and allowed them to negotiate set fees for procedures. This will never happen however... the medical industry, part of the corporate oligarchy that runs this nation through political patronage, would never allow it. It doesn't matter that Americans pay more than any other nation on the planet for their medical costs, while our ranking is a paltry 38th compared to other health systems, our health care industry puts profits over people.

The reason I claimed that Americans are just not getting the true picture of how the powers that be who are running this country into the ground is because of the discourse I see in the media. I'm not just talking about the mainstream media, I'm talking about the internet and all other alternative media also. People that are usually pretty fast on the uptake still fall for the "blame game" that the people who really run things in this country want us to play. The only reason that they allow two political parties is because it gives the people an illusion that they have a choice in who represents them. The choice is always between the lesser of two evils, but in most people's eyes that is better than no choice at all, right? The fact is, we really have more than two choices. We have a multitude of choices. The problem we really face is that through decades of propaganda, we believe that there are only two viable political parties in this country.

Most people when asked, claim to be independent. This has only recently changed. The percentage of people that consider themselves to be Democrats or Republican is dropping. This should be a good thing as both of these political factions, for all of their bluster and propaganda, are two sides of the same coin. They are supported by the same corporate benefactors (by and large) and on most issues, when push comes to shove, vote the same way, especially when it comes to foreign policy (supporting the empire).  That isn't to say that there are not side issues such as LGBT issues, abortion, gun control and religion, but on the whole, there isn't much difference.

I'm sure that there are many reading this that are scratching their heads right now and wondering how I could say such a thing. There are some people however, that understand exactly what I'm saying, and probably know what I'm going to say to justify what I've written. Before I do this, let me give you a list of  political article headlines and tell you where they came from.1. Right vs. Left in the Midwest Editorial, By   Lawrence R. Jacobs, NY Times . This editorial discusses the discourse between the Democrats and Republicans in Minnesota. In reading this, one must first understand that there is no real "Left" in Minnesota. In fact, in my humble opinion, there is no real "left" anywhere in mainstream politics. This is just an example of how a "choice" is being portrayed...falsely.2. Wash. Inmates Learning Aerospace Work Nichola K. Geranios, Associated Press .   " The prison system must constantly adapt its training programs, as even traditional inmate jobs such as welding and auto mechanics have become more complex. I think we all know that the United States has more inmates per capita than any other nation on the planet.   It's only logical to train them in occupations where they will probably need a security clearance. 3. Gov't Claims Americans Have No Right To Challenge NSA Phone Surveillance Matt Sledge Huffington Post. " No telecommunications firm   has ever fought   an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees the NSA program and is closed to the public. " Thanks for that information. It sure makes me want to stand up to the system.
One more...
4.  Reform the New York Times! Stop Protecting Companies Tied to Chinese Corruption.Patrick L. Smith, Salon. " The flow of under-the-table funds from Western banks and corporations is essential to Chinese corruption and those who benefit from it on both sides. Follow the logic out: It is one reason (of many, of course) that China is among the world's most inequitable societies by way of income distribution. JPMorgan did but one thing differently: It got caught (which seems to be   CEO Jamie Dimon's special gift. At least Salon  recognized that the New York Times did not just protect corrupt Chinese!
These articles and editorials are based not on truth, but on propaganda. As I said about the first article, there is no left in American politics, not in Minnesota nor any other State. The media uses the term "left" to describe anything that isn't hard right. The second article about the inmates is another bit of propaganda that can lead people to believe that even though we jail people like no other place on Earth, we can "feel good" about "rehabilitating" them. The third article makes it clear that any reasonable expectation of privacy is an unreasonable expectation. The fourth article is truthful and illustrates just how much we will submit too.
When people point out the ridiculousness of the whacked-out Republican Party, they are not standing up for women's rights or anyone's rights, for that matter. Railing against the GOP doesn't make any thinking person respect you, it just leads them to believe that you have partaken in the Democratic Kool-Aid that they are serving up. Everyone knows that most of the Republicans are either bat-sh*t crazy or pandering to the insanity of the people they need to win over to win their elections in their gerrymandered districts. All that you need to know about the GOP was there for you to see in their last Presidential Primary. They are not a threat ... they are a joke.

The real threat to our freedom and our sustainability as a nation comes from both parties, but it appears that the Democrats are actually winning hearts and minds. That shouldn't be difficult when you consider the alternative...and that is exactly what they are counting on! The people that really wield the power behind the throne don't care what corporate party gains power in any election as long as they control them. What they are deathly afraid of is any kind of real democracy coming to the fore. The thing that gives them nightmares is Socialism, especially Democratic Socialism. That would end their century old party.
When you read an article, watch a video or TV, ask yourself who produced it. Ask yourself why we spend over half of our budget on the military. Look at Worldwide rankings on healthcare, incarceration, middle class income and productivity and then wonder why we are failing so miserably in comparison to other nations. If we are the richest nation on the planet, why are people struggling and pinching pennies to get by? Who exactly is making all the money on Wall Street as the DOW makes the largest gains in history? This is a question that all Americans should be asking, other great powers have fallen, we would be just another. Don't believe for a second that the wealthy would care all that much, they would just move to a more favorable location.
So what can a person do to change things for the better when we exist in the largest surveillance state in history? A nation that has thrown the Constitution and The Bill of Rights overboard years ago? How can we take back the economy from the Bankers and the corporate hierarchy? How can we extricate ourselves from the military operations and all of the military bases we have in almost one thousand places? How can we restore the Middle Class and make life better for the poorest Americans that don't have adequate shelter or enough to eat? How can we stop this endless "War on Terror" that is nothing more than a ruse to control the World and keep the defense contractors wealthy? How can we stop corporations from poisoning our food with GMO's and destroying our soil? How can we stop greenhouse gases from destroying human life on the planet? How can we give our children and grandchildren a chance for a productive life free from tyranny and neglect?
I can't answer these questions or tell you what to do in this short article, but I can tell you what not to do. Stop listening to the media when they tell you what we can or cannot do. These people don't have a clue. Try to realize that most of the millionaires and billionaires that we pay homage to are either sociopaths or they were born into money.  They also have an agenda...keeping what they have. Try to realize that America is not an exceptional nation, we were fortunate enough to have a nation with many natural resources and two oceans that separated us from any existential military threats. Understand that we are fortunate enough to have had remarkable people that had the audacity to build a government unlike any in modern history and understand that it is our job to continue to make it work. Most importantly... understand that we are bound together as a nation, to sink or swim together and that we deserve nothing from other nations.
Don't expect the wealthy to take care of the needy, they won't. They didn't get where they are by giving money away. Most (not all) give to charity for tax breaks. Don't expect the government to respect your rights if you don't respect them enough to fight for them. They will do as much as we let them get away with. Try to understand that the "free market" system is a ruse to keep the fruits of our labor in the hands of the wealthy and that "right to work" states are anti-worker and anti-union. Free trade is another name for outsourcing our manufacturing base. Free trade agreements mean corporate control of government. Corporations if they were people would be considered sociopaths. They only exist to turn a profit.
Sitting on the sidelines is no longer an option. The simple truth is that capitalism is an inequitable and corrupt economic system. Things under capitalism work when an economy is expanding, but it crumbles when an economy shrinks. The markets that kept capitalism alive are no longer enough to sustain it. The time has come to take a more humanistic view and create some kind of hybrid economic system that combines a degree of capitalism with socialism. Latin America and the Scandinavian nations have made great strides in this. The time for billionaires is over.
Question everything and trust your own judgment. Spirituality is good for the soul but religion is anathema to any type of progress. If you wish to believe dogma, keep it to yourself and let others live their own lives. Try to let others speak and find out what they think instead of attacking them because of your own preconceived notions of what you read in a book, or heard from another imperfect human being, no matter how good or wise they appear to be. We are in a time of great change, I think everyone can feel this if they just take the time to understand which way the wind is blowing.

America's Greatest Challenge

I've been reading a few articles on the “alternative” media which really have me thinking. One, by Chris Hedges entitled “Rise Up or Die” made me think about just how bad things really are nowadays here in the USA. The other article by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, “You are The Hope” was also a particularly dark piece.

It’s not that I don't agree with what the two have said…I do; still, I don’t think they quite accurately reflect the growing disconnect between what many Americans and the mainstream media, along with the Powers That Be would have us believe.

At this moment in time (I reserve the right to change my mind at a moment’s notice), from talking to people I have been meeting in my travels, there really isn't much support for the President or the Congress. People don’t seem to be buying what they are selling on the corporate media. I heard today (mostly from the Democrat megaphone on MSNBC) that the President’s approval rating is actually up this week. I'm starting to wonder who exactly was really polled.

Contrary to what the MSM tells us, most people are not idiots. I think that most Americans can look at their lives and pretty much come to this conclusion; they are not living as well as their parents did. There are many Americans who really don't believe that the new American “normal” of working two part-time jobs with no health benefits isn't a “be all, end all” situation. Young people graduating from colleges and universities, saddled with huge student debt, aren't exactly bowled over with their job prospects.

There are also very real problems that have yet to make their mark on our much-touted American society. The treatment the government has given our Veterans is a blemish on our nation. Our government, fighting this over-hyped “War on Terror”, has demanded that not only active duty soldiers been required to fight multiple combat deployments, but National Guard and Reserve soldiers too. Suicides, PTSD, broken marriages, sexual trauma (in the case of rape) and backlogs for disability claims have been the other “new normal”. The phrase “Thank you for your service” does not make up for the abysmal treatment they are getting from the government that has used and abused them. The truth is…millions of disgruntled veterans have made life difficult, not only in this nation, but other nations, throughout history.

There is something going on in this country, and it is not good. Everyone in government, Wall Street and in the corporate boardrooms think they have a handle on the economy. The truth is, they have over-looked the most important part of the equation, once they have raped the American Middle Class and have lined their pockets with the assets they have stolen from us, who is going to buy their products?

Ask yourself some questions: How many people do you know have lost their once good credit ratings? How many people are paying a mortgage that is higher than the home is worth? Who do you know that has recently moved back in with Mom and Dad or vice-versa? When was the last time anyone you know took a two-week vacation? When was the last time you heard someone bragging about their “portfolio”? I could go on, but I bet you get my drift.

The simple truth is that this great nation of ours can’t keep spending over 50% of our discretionary budget on the military, while spending only 6% on education and another 6% on social programs! The simple truth is that we get no return on our buck for spending on the military! All we get in return are more enemies that wish the worst for us. Still, they keep selling us this “Superpower” rhetoric. What’s the good of being a superpower when 22% of Americans are living under the poverty level?

We have the power to change this country for the better.

The first thing Americans need to do is to get off this label kick that the PTB want us on. It should be apparent to most Americans that there is very little difference between the two corporately controlled political parties. In reading this article I would like people to understand one thing; they want us to fight amongst ourselves. The more we fight with each other, the more divided we are, the more power they have over us.

This is the game that the Republicans and Democrats are playing. The more we focus on differences they foster, the less we focus on how we are being screwed. We all know who controls the GOP, but where were the Democrats when they cut food stamps? Where were the Democrats when they smashed Occupy? Where were the Democrats when they passed and signed the NDAA? Where were the Democrats when they sent whistleblowers to prison? Again, I can go on and on. The point is, stop supporting these two political parties. As George Carlin once said; “It’s a big club, and you ain't in it. It’s the same club they hit you over the head with.”

We need to talk to our friend and relatives’. We need to sit down and write articles and call in to talk shows. Those that can need to start their own radio show on the internet or small community radio or host a show on public access TV. We all need to share articles on Facebook and Twitter. If we all could just spend one hour of our day doing these things we could make profound changes.

"Though [the people] may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand." --Thomas Jefferson

It is our duty as citizen’s to educate those who are currently ignorant in the present situation. There is no free lunch when it comes to this. Either we will rise to the occasion or give away our freedom and prosperity to those who will take it from us. This is the challenge we as Americans face.

Ben Shaw and Tim on BTR

Listen to internet radio with Tim Gatto Unedited and Uncut on BlogTalkRadio

You are The Hope

By Paul Craig Roberts

If there is hope, dear readers, you are it.

You are motivated to find truth.

You can think outside the box. You can see through propaganda.

You are the remnant with the common sense that once was a common American virtue. You come to this site, because you get explanations that are not agenda-driven, that are not BS, that are not right-wing or left-wing, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat. You get explanations based on my lifetime of unique education and experience. Some of you are young enough to be equipped with the energy and courage to organize whatever resistance there may be to the Gestapo State that is descending on the United States of America.

Until the George W. Bush Regime, I never thought that it could happen here. I could not imagine law professors and Department of Justice (sic) officials writing legal memos justifying, in the name of a hyped “war on terror,” the termination of civil rights for United States Citizens. We were the land of the free. The Constitution was our bedrock. Yet, the Constitution and Bill of Rights were easily taken away from the inattentive American people.

The Constitution did not protect native inhabitants and slaves who were not considered part of the American population, but the universal suppression in the US of non-whites’ rights produced in the end the civil rights movement that brought moral awareness of the wrongs and successfully hitched its cause to the founding documents of the country.

Where today is moral awareness as Washington bombs civilian populations around the globe? Where is the moral conscience of the civil rights movement as the First Black President, the first member of the oppressed class to sit in the Oval Office, validates the Bush Regime’s assertion of the right of the unaccountable executive to ignore habeas corpus and due process? Not satisfied with this crime, Obama asserted the right of the executive branch to murder any citizen suspected, without proof being offered to a court, of undefined “support of terrorism.” Today all Americans have fewer rights than blacks had prior to the Civil Rights Act.

Anything, including a column critical of war and the police state, can be declared to be “in support of terrorism.” As the tyrant Bush put it: “You are with us, or you are against us.”

The print and TV media and many Internet sites got the message: Serve Washington’s agenda, and will you will prosper. Advertisers and the CIA will pump money into your coffers. Challenge us and you will be demonized and could face a military tribunal, indefinite detention, or assassination. Bradley Manning and Julian Assange are being persecuted for telling the truth.

So far, Washington has convinced the public that Washington’s terror is mainly limited to Muslims, who are obligingly demonized by print, TV, and much of the Internet media. However, if Muslim American citizens lack civil liberty, so do all other American citizens. Those who are safe are those who ally with the tyrant and remain subservient.

To ally with the tyrant, a United States citizen must have no moral conscience, no sense of justice, no compassion for the innocent and dispossessed. These are the worst kind of Americans; yet, they are the only ones who can succeed in the present environment.

Every time I write a column that is the truth or the truth as I am able to discover it, instead of hawking the propaganda line, I move up on the list of those who are persona non grata in the Empire.

A writer can find himself demonized and declared a kook simply by reporting findings from distinguished scientists, high-rise architects, structural engineers, first responders, and an international collection of high government officials. Not too long ago a writer or reporter for the Huffington Post discovered to his surprise that Pat Buchanan and I disagreed with all the wars that had been launched to protect us from terrorism. He asked me for an interview, and I agreed.

An hour or so after the interview was posted on the Huffington Post, I received an emergency call or email. He had been criticized for interviewing me, “for giving you a forum when you are a 9/11 sceptic.” He was unsure that it was possible for a Reagan presidential appointee to be a 9/11 sceptic and asked if I was.

I replied that I had reported the findings of scientists, architects, engineers, and the public testimony of first responders, because I thought these were qualified people whose opinions at least ranked equally with the politicians on the 9/11 Commission and the talking heads on Fox “News” and CNN, none of whom could pass a high school test in the laws of physics, much less high-rise architecture and structural engineering.

The Huffington Post writer panicked. Instead of taking down the interview, he felt impelled to assure readers and his boss that he had been deceived. He wrote at the beginning and ending of the interview that he did not know he was interviewing someone about the Iraq War who had given ink to those conspiracy theorists who raised questions about the truthfulness of the US government. He wrote that my views on the wars should be disregarded, because I wrote that scientists, architects, engineers, and first responders provided evidence contrary to the government’s claims.

And there you have it.

The Huffington Post has far more readers than I do, and far more money. There is no limit on the ability of the Huffington Post to tell and sell the lies of the Agenda.

I can remember when I was a Wall Street Journal editor and columnist, a Business Week columnist, a Scripps Howard News Service columnist and appeared regularly in the major mainstream print media and even from time to time on TV talking head programs. Today, the editor or producer who gave me a forum would be fired instantly, and they all know it.

It is discouraging that after so many transparent lies and orchestrations–weapons of mass destruction, al-Qaeda connections, Iranian nukes–the majority of Americans still believe the government. Americans are even buying into the line that Syria is ruled by a brutal dictator whose overthrow justifies Washington’s alliance with its 9/11 enemy, al-Qaeda, in order to overthrow a secular ruler who constrains al-Qaeda.

Washington has come full circle. Its enemy is now its ally. Washington wasted trillions of dollars and countless lives in eleven years of war and constructed a domestic police state all in order to combat al Qaeda with whom Washington is now allied against the Syrian government.

The public’s response to the Boston Marathon Bombing is even more discouraging. Not even King George and his Redcoats could achieve what Homeland Security just pulled off–locking down 100 square miles of Boston and its suburbs with heavily armed troops tramping through citizens’ homes barking harsh orders, all justified by a hunt for one 19-year old suspect. It was the Third Reich’s Gestapo in operation right here in “freedom and democracy” America. Ron Paul is correct that the suspension of civil liberty is a greater threat than the bombing. Note the government’s euphemism for martial law–”shelter-in-place.”

Two brothers have been convicted in the media and by the Obama Regime, including the president’s own words, of a bombing without the public ever being presented with any evidence except anonymous unattributed reports and a film of the alleged brothers walking with backpacks, which were ubiquitous.

I am old enough to remember when it was impermissible for government and media to convict a person prior to the jury’s verdict. Americans once lived in a free country governed by the rule of law in which a person was innocent until proven guilty.

What was the reason or evidence for naming the brothers suspects? Was any reason given, or was the film of the two walking with backpacks simply shown over and over, hour after hour, day after day, with the media reporting that these are the suspects. In other words, was it beat into your brain that they were suspects because there they are in the film? If not, why was the same film shown repeatedly? Fox “News” was still showing the film on April 26, eleven days after the bombing and might still be showing it. Did you experience: “Here are the suspects. See them. They have backpacks. See. We know that they are suspects, because, see, there they are.”

When is the last time the media investigated anything? A good candidate for investigation is the post-bombing rampage the brothers allegedly went on, robbing a 7/11 store (later contradicted by local police), killing a campus policeman, shooting a transit cop, high-jacking a SUV and releasing the owner.

Why would terrorists seeking to escape in order to strike again call attention to themselves in such outlandish ways and release a car-jacked owner to alert the police of the tag number? If the brothers were willing to kill police with gunfire and innocents with bombs, why release the guy whose vehicle they stole so he could inform the police of the license plate and make the brothers’ capture easier? What is the evidence, other than “reports from authorities,” that these events occurred or had any more connection to the brothers than the falsely reported 7/11 robbery that local police disavowed? Why does the US media simply accept whatever government authorities say?

Where is the evidence of a first shoot-out and a second shoot-out? The second shoot- out consisted of the authorities bombarding a motionless youth bleeding from wounds in a boat with multiple volleys of stun grenades and then multiple gunshots. The unconscious 19 year old was unarmed and unable to respond to the boat owner who discovered him. As he lies there, he is shot many times, including through the throat, and is on life support. But the very next day, according to the presstitute media, he is providing hand-written confessions.

Was the purpose of the reports of a murderous rampage to create fear among the population so that they would accept martial law and home invasions by armed troops ordering American citizens out of their homes with hands over their heads on the pretext that they might be harboring the Boston Marathon Bomber?

The videos of the street celebration in which Bostonians thank the police and of the two Boston families, if not scripted by actors, shows Americans who far from opposing the police state welcome it. A father says that he with his daughter in his arms was forced out of his home by troops pointing automatic rifles at their heads, but that he was thankful for the safety the police provided him by violating every civil right that the Constitution gave him. A woman says it was scary but that “the police are just doing their jobs.” Are Americans now so brainwashed that they attribute their safety to the presence of a Gestapo Police State?

Why have detention facilities been built? Why did Homeland Security purchase a billion or more rounds of ammunition? Why does Homeland Security have 2,700 tanks and a para-military force? Why aren’t these questions being investigated?

The US Constitution is the product of 900 years of human efforts to restrain brutal government and to make government subject to law. It only took Bush and Obama eleven years to get rid of it.

Paul Craig Roberts

       

Rise Up or Die

By Chris Hedges

May 20, 2013 "Information Clearing House" -"TruthDig" -  Joe Sacco and I spent two years reporting from the poorest pockets of the United States for our book “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.”We went into our nation’s impoverished “sacrifice zones”—the first areas forced to kneel before the dictates of the marketplace—to show what happens when unfettered corporate capitalism and ceaseless economic expansion no longer have external impediments. We wanted to illustrate what unrestrained corporate exploitation does to families, communities and the natural world. We wanted to challenge the reigning ideology of globalization and laissez-faire capitalism to illustrate what life becomes when human beings and the ecosystem are ruthlessly turned into commodities to exploit until exhaustion or collapse. And we wanted to expose as impotent the formal liberal and governmental institutions that once made reform possible, institutions no longer equipped with enough authority to check the assault of corporate power.

What has taken place in these sacrifice zones—in postindustrial cities such as Camden, N.J., and Detroit, in coalfields of southern West Virginia where mining companies blast off mountaintops, in Indian reservations where the demented project of limitless economic expansion and exploitation worked some of its earliest evil, and in produce fields where laborers often endure conditions that replicate slavery—is now happening to much of the rest of the country. These sacrifice zones succumbed first. You and I are next.

Corporations write our legislation. They control our systems of information. They manage the political theater of electoral politics and impose our educational curriculum. They have turned the judiciary into one of their wholly owned subsidiaries. They have decimated labor unions and other independent mass organizations, as well as having bought off the Democratic Party, which once defended the rights of workers. With the evisceration of piecemeal and incremental reform—the primary role of liberal, democratic institutions—we are left defenseless against corporate power.

The Department of Justice seizure of two months of records of phone calls to and from editors and reporters at The Associated Press is the latest in a series of dramatic assaults against our civil liberties. The DOJ move is part of an effort to hunt down the government official or officials who leaked information to the AP about the foiling of a plot to blow up a passenger jet. Information concerning phones of Associated Press bureaus in New York, Washington, D.C., and Hartford, Conn., as well as the home and mobile phones of editors and reporters, was secretly confiscated. This, along with measures such as the use of the Espionage Act against whistle-blowers, will put a deep freeze on all independent investigations into abuses of government and corporate power.

Seizing the AP phone logs is part of the corporate state’s broader efforts to silence all voices that defy the official narrative, the state’s Newspeak, and hide from public view the inner workings, lies and crimes of empire. The person or persons who provided the classified information to the AP will, if arrested, mostly likely be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. That law was never intended when it was instituted in 1917 to silence whistle-blowers. And from 1917 until Barack Obama took office in 2009 it was employed against whistle-blowers only three times, the first time against Daniel Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The Espionage Act has been used six times by the Obama administration against government whistle-blowers, including Thomas Drake.

The government’s fierce persecution of the press—an attack pressed by many of the governmental agencies that are arrayed against WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and activists such as Jeremy Hammond—dovetails with the government’s use of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force to carry out the assassination of U.S. citizens; of the FISA Amendments Act, which retroactively makes legal what under our Constitution was once illegal—the warrantless wiretapping and monitoring of tens of millions of U.S. citizens; and of Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which permits the government to have the military seize U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and hold them in indefinite detention. These measures, taken together, mean there are almost no civil liberties left.

A handful of corporate oligarchs around the globe have everything—wealth, power and privilege—and the rest of us struggle as part of a vast underclass, increasingly impoverished and ruthlessly repressed. There is one set of laws and regulations for us; there is another set of laws and regulations for a power elite that functions as a global mafia.

We stand helpless before the corporate onslaught. There is no way to vote against corporate power. Citizens have no way to bring about the prosecution of Wall Street bankers and financiers for fraud, military and intelligence officials for torture and war crimes, or security and surveillance officers for human rights abuses. The Federal Reserve is reduced to printing money for banks and financiers and lending it to them at almost zero percent interest; corporate officers then lend it to us at usurious rates as high as 30 percent. I do not know what to call this system. It is certainly not capitalism. Extortion might be a better word. The fossil fuel industry, meanwhile, relentlessly trashes the ecosystem for profit. The melting of 40 percent of the summer Arctic sea ice is, to corporations, a business opportunity. Companies rush to the Arctic and extract the last vestiges of oil, natural gas, minerals and fish stocks, indifferent to the death pangs of the planet. The same corporate forces that give us endless soap operas that pass for news, from the latest court proceedings surrounding O.J. Simpson to the tawdry details of the Jodi Arias murder trial, also give us atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide that surpass 400 parts per million. They entrance us with their electronic hallucinations as we waiver, as paralyzed with fear as Odysseus’ sailors, between Scylla and Charybdis.

There is nothing in 5,000 years of economic history to justify the belief that human societies should structure their behavior around the demands of the marketplace. This is an absurd, utopian ideology. The airy promises of the market economy have, by now, all been exposed as lies. The ability of corporations to migrate overseas has decimated our manufacturing base. It has driven down wages, impoverishing our working class and ravaging our middle class. It has forced huge segments of the population—including those burdened by student loans—into decades of debt peonage. It has also opened the way to massive tax shelters that allow companies such as General Electric to pay no income tax. Corporations employ virtual slave labor in Bangladesh and China, making obscene profits. As corporations suck the last resources from communities and the natural world, they leave behind, as Joe Sacco and I saw in the sacrifice zones we wrote about, horrific human suffering and dead landscapes. The greater the destruction, the greater the apparatus crushes dissent.

More than 100 million Americans—one-third of the population—live in poverty or a category called “near poverty.” Yet the stories of the poor and the near poor, the hardships they endure, are rarely told by a media that is owned by a handful of corporations—Viacom, General Electric, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Clear Channel and Disney. The suffering of the underclass, like the crimes of the power elite, has been rendered invisible.

In the Lakota Indian reservation at Pine Ridge, S.D., in the United States’ second poorest county, the average life expectancy for a male is 48. This is the lowest in the Western Hemisphere outside of Haiti. About 60 percent of the Pine Ridge dwellings, many of which are sod huts, lack electricity, running water, adequate insulation or sewage systems. In the old coal camps of southern West Virginia, amid poisoned air, soil and water, cancer is an epidemic. There are few jobs. And the Appalachian Mountains, which provide the headwaters for much of the Eastern Seaboard, are dotted with enormous impoundment ponds filled with heavy metals and toxic sludge. In order to breathe, children go to school in southern West Virginia clutching inhalers. Residents trapped in the internal colonies of our blighted cities endure levels of poverty and violence, as well as mass incarceration, that leave them psychologically and emotionally shattered. And the nation’s agricultural workers, denied legal protection, are often forced to labor in conditions of unpaid bondage. This is the terrible algebra of corporate domination. This is where we are all headed. And in this accelerated race to the bottom we will end up as serfs or slaves.

Rebel. Even if you fail, even if we all fail, we will have asserted against the corporate forces of exploitation and death our ultimate dignity as human beings. We will have defended what is sacred. Rebellion means steadfast defiance. It means resisting just as have Bradley Manning and Julian Assange, just as has Mumia Abu-Jamal, the radical journalist whom Cornel West, James Cone and I visited in prison last week in Frackville, Pa. It means refusing to succumb to fear. It means refusing to surrender, even if you find yourself, like Manning and Abu-Jamal, caged like an animal. It means saying no. To remain safe, to remain “innocent” in the eyes of the law in this moment in history is to be complicit in a monstrous evil. In his poem of resistance, “If We Must Die,” Claude McKay knew that the odds were stacked against African-Americans who resisted white supremacy. But he also knew that resistance to tyranny saves our souls. McKay wrote:

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

It is time to build radical mass movements that defy all formal centers of power and make concessions to none. It is time to employ the harsh language of open rebellion and class warfare. It is time to march to the beat of our own drum. The law historically has been a very imperfect tool for justice, as African-Americans know, but now it is exclusively the handmaiden of our corporate oppressors; now it is a mechanism of injustice. It was our corporate overlords who launched this war. Not us. Revolt will see us branded as criminals. Revolt will push us into the shadows. And yet, if we do not revolt we can no longer use the word “hope.” 

Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick” grasps the dark soul of global capitalism. We are all aboard the doomed ship Pequod, a name connected to an Indian tribe eradicated by genocide, and Ahab is in charge. “All my means are sane,” Ahab says, “my motive and my object mad.” We are sailing on a maniacal voyage of self-destruction, and no one in a position of authority, even if he or she sees what lies ahead, is willing or able to stop it. Those on the Pequod who had a conscience, including Starbuck, did not have the courage to defy Ahab. The ship and its crew were doomed by habit, cowardice and hubris. Melville’s warning must become ours. Rise up or die.

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

© 2013 Truthdig, LLC. All rights reserved.

An Independent Running for the US Senate

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Wrong is Wrong

The last few days have seen abuses of the worst kind emerge from the Obama Administration. I have seen all sorts of people rise to the defense of the administration, mostly claiming that the Bush regime did far worse during their terms in power. The truth is this, just because the GOP pulled this kind of behavior in the past, it doesn't justify what the present administration has done. This kind of behavior is just plain wrong. What really bothers me is what the PTB did to the Occupy movement. If there are so-called “Progressives” that wish to defend Obama and his cronies, they might just wish to take a minute to reflect on how they crushed the most promising populist movement in the 21st Century. Wire-tapping the phone lines of reporters and reading their emails is just about the worst violation of the 1st Amendment that I can think of. The scandal involving the AP warrants a special investigator. It is my opinion that all who were involved should be heavily censured and I wouldn't discourage criminal proceedings against these people. The IRS scandal involving the Tea-Party groups also warrants a special prosecutor. The point I'm making is this; either we have a free society or we don’t. We can't have wrongdoers investigating wrongdoers. I could have understood it if the IRS was investigating all of the groups that claimed not to be political organizations but “social welfare” organizations. Yet no “Progressive” PAC’s were looked at. As far as Benghazi goes, we should have been prepared. It was foolish of us to believe that the people there would forgive us for interfering in their internal affairs by bombing the country back to the middle ages. This is the definition of hubris. Watching the government trying to squirm out of the trap it has dug for itself amuses me. I have no illusions when it comes to the Democrats. I remember LBJ and the Southern Democrats. I also remember all of the grand promises Obama made when he first ran for office. This is a good time to take the power of the Federal government down a notch. People like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren should take the lead and introduce legislation to stop the “witch hunts” that the Federal government unleashes. Instead of defending the Democrats, the people that desire a just system of government should join in with those calling for investigations. We might just find out that if we call out injustice when we see it, no matter which party does it, those in power might just think twice before doing it again.