The analogy he made to modern life and Moby Dick was just exquisite in his critique and overall direction of this lecture. I am haply we still have men of greatness around to subdue the grasp the current social veneer has on the public. Thank you Chris and I am a better man for hearing you speak.
This man is my hero, a wonderful man with great values. He has shown me that not every person in this world is a scum. Thank you chris for the amazing words of wisdom.
His notion of faith is not at all the boilerplate Xian response at all. Faith is actually not even the bible verse idea of: 'Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things unseen ' no it is more about trust, or acceptance of the good in strangers to not be suspicious of them and be fear driven to the point of shying away from them.
Majority of people overlook what is happening before us, but Chris Hedges is reminding us what we've been ignoring. Give this talk enough time and it will be historic one. I thank Chris for his honesty and courage to speak up!
Mama ain't raise no fool dawg. Homeboy could see into the future! Future....future.....future.....future......future....future.... *echo with gradually decreasing volume*
Chris moves me everytime.... What a speach.. Tears ran down my face. I love this man... He reminds me through his words, deads and writings how sublime this struggle of life against oppressive tyrannies corporate/individual or other is life affirming. Thank you Chris for illuminating this struggle...
Thank you Chris Hedges for so eloquently stating what so many of us are seeing happen right before our eyes but lack the ability to communicate it so forcefully and clearly. Thank you to the uploader for posting.
I believe that we need to take Hedges' ideas very seriously. There does seem to be a fierce urgency of now...as MLK once was quoted as saying. I worry about our environment, about the vast disparities between the rich and the poor, about the negative effects of a corporate state, about the pessimism and apocalyptic themes on TV and on the internet, and the disallusionment of our youth. It seems that many people are not dreaming about good days ahead but are fearful about the future.
'tis given us, to have our days in a sunless place, and light with soothlight, a trail for our race 'tis given us, to stand in the lands of the sun and this losing battle to be won 'Tis given us, a share in the spoils of dissolution, and from the dread harvest of dragon's teeth, absolution. 'tis given us, this weight of novembers tear, and earth's silent scream to hear:
And why is college tuition so high? Because students are made to take out loans. And the loans are backed by the government. So your clever colleges can jack up tuition as high as they please.
So often revolutionaries become the new tyrants. Once they taste power and control. And the liberals and radicals can be the most intolerant of any on the scene. They have their agenda and methods as evil as the state which needs these rebels to make into scapegoats. Which is exactly what Hitler did to the Jews. Scapegoats to blame. As happened in our time with the Spanish Inquisition. The globalists no longer need migrant farm workers because of robotazition on the factory farms. They don't need the migrant farm workers. Therefore the Spanish are made into criminals and put into Concentration Camps. ONLY IN AMERICA
More relevant than ever. Me. Hedges, your serious attitude and brilliant oration keeps me sane and focused. As an older working class female, I am surrounded by pawns and imbeciles of the corporate state, ( who has also captured all aspects of mental health, and shoved the culture of “toxic happiness “ down everyone’s throat.
I rebelled against that culture and now I have been ostracized, blacklisted and living a tortured life as a targeted individual! I wish I had listened to this 9 years ago because this how long I have fought to survive corporate America jobs only to end up just as he described it! 😢
Yes. Toxic positivity wears away at you as much as despair. It's exhausting to be forced to be agreeable constantly - especially about our own disenfranchisement.
So true I went to one of the top art schools in the world and I tried to get people to talk about politically agitating and no one cared because 70 percent of them were 1 percenters. Such a contrast from the state school I went to for my core classes.
Honest, insightful, and disturbing. This is the brutal truth of what is happening all around us. It’s a sad reality but I applaud Chris Hedges and others for bravely waving the warning flags of civilizations demise- and the planet we occupy. Unfortunately, those in authority will do nothing and the masses (us) are trapped with no real collective power. It’s game over for our species.
I'll tell you what we're being prepared for: the dehumanization of the poor lost souls who supported Trump and were ready to risk their livelihoods and their lives for him. The next time, they will be greeted with force.
Trump wasn't the cause, Trump was the sign of the cause. Don't not threaten use of force unless you understand the consequences. History is full of examples, and they are stained with blood of millions.
"We must become a threat to the security and surveillance state and its corporate overlords and we cannot become a threat if we do not engage in actions that actively obstruct power." (Hedges) (&) "The Church has retreated, largely, into a kind of 'how is it with me' spirituality, which is just narcissism . . . "
I admire Chris and his efforts. He reminds me of Chomsky, as an excellent purveyor of truth. But I am left wondering whether the work of Hedges and Chomsky, and many others, is making sufficient impact. I do hope so
Cass Dvorak lol great reply! People keep saying, "well dude there's nothing we can do about it". So I get pissed and say "if everyone stopped saying that we could do something overnight. It's our moral cowardice that makes us doubt our true potential to change our circumstances".
I fervently hope that Chomsky has no influence, Chomsky is an armchair Marxist who has no problem with the atrocities committed by Lenin, Stalin,Ho Chi Minh ,and Pol Pot
Yes, his answer to the last question was powerful. I think a lot about the myth of Sisyphus, the koan "Before enlightenment hew wood & fetch water; after enlightenment hew wood & fetch water," and other tales of "futile" efforts. I've been fortunate to have once or twice gotten feedback that someone actually paid attention and benefitted when I did something "futile," so I know that Chris's answer to that question is true.
We as a society worship money, we worship the rich, the celebrity and the elite, to our detriment. We cannot form a coalition against our oppressors with the intrinsic trait of greed. We will stand idly by and watch injustices so as to not rock the boat and ruin our selfish illusions of grander. Self sacrifice is what we need, love of ourselves and neighbors is what we need. If we stand together with love, we can easily non-violently win and take back our nation. Vote the opposite of the polls, (Ron Paul). We can do it.
why don't we just stop voting, and just live our lives...trying to ignore the government, (as much as possible) until it collapses. EVERY vote shows that we accept and support the system that harms Us All. EVERY vote says "i want a master With A Whip who doesn't whip me much"
We are too late. Read the Bible 2Timothy 3:1-5. Read Daniel Chapter 4, about the beast representing the political system. Chapter 2:44 tells what will happen to the beasts
When I entered the work force I though I would be welcomed and treated with dignity, be well-paid, and given a chance for advancement, Instead I was regarded with contempt, paid slave-wages, and expelled from job after job without mercy.
Many of us hippies totally got this decades ago. I along with multitudes embraced a cooperative introspective joyous lifestyle. We were systematically deprived of our choices. It may not be too late if we all awaken to truth and embrace Love
Thank goodness for someone who can actually articulate what the problem is globally; a thinking person. "White", is just a "state of mind". All people who think as broadly as Chris Hedges cannot be defined as black or white. Just love people, and love the earth.
This video was in Oct 2013, it is now Nov 2019 and I readthis week in TheNation where there are people in their 30s and 40s who cannot buy a car, or a house, and must delay expenses for those and some must pay premiums for Dr bills first in order to pay on Student loans, and I also read that retired folks whose pensions were lost in 2008, are paying on Student loans from their meager Social Security, that the GOP hopes to take away or to lessen the benefits of.
Mr Hedge's should read Michael Rowbotham's book Grip of Death to begin to form some hypotheses about this dark force pushing us forward into destruction. Karl Polanyi also wrote copiously about this process from when it was first observed in the West. The form of money itself compels us forward into this destructive "progress". There could be alternatives to the debt-based form of money that grips more and more of us to choose death. But, they will require a new awareness of details about money. The etymology of the word "mortgage" says it all.
and the video ended just as i feel right now... why is it worth living? no matter what we achieve the majorities will always stay ignorant... and ignorance will always diminish any achievements knowledge can create.
I prefer the definition of fascism as being the merger of corporations and the state and I’m aware that every species of fascism is particular to the country it sprung from The United States has two species of fascism in competition one is the old school version that emphasizes race represented by the old organizations like the kkk and others The other version is a more subtle form which tolerates members of dispossessed groups in our country but in practice still promotes a system that encourages social inequality and maintains systematic racism
It is untrue to say that there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening a manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer. - George Orwell
A lot is wrong in the world. He's just telling it like it is. No use putting your head in the sand. By acknowledgement hopefully he would be in the process of seeking solutions. I find AWAKE Magazine presents problems and yet always addresses solutions to what it presents. Try reading it
There was a video I saw that shows Chris getting up from an interview where he begins beating the fuck out of people who question his position. He uses a combination of skull crushing elbows and right hooks. He beat one guy unconscious with a Sunday New York Times. Then I woke up.
Revolt will only happen when those who are revolting have some measure of confidence that reform is possible, that institutions can be reformed, that intelligent economic programs are achievable. This might be the stumbling block for many persons who are unhappy with the political and economic realities in the USA.
He always has an important message. But I have yet to hear Hedges describe to us how, exactly, we can be successful in changing our situation. If anyone has read or heard that message, please share a source. The words are very dispiriting, even if they help the listener feel self-congratulatory. We need to know what to do.
We know what to do. We have enough info, we have the technology. Switch to renewable energy on a massive scale, fund conservation efforts, deploy electrified mass transit on a large scale to reduce the need for cars, remodel our cities to be walkable or bikeable to reduce the need for cars some more. Switch as much as we can to a plant-based diet to reduce the amount of land dedicated to growing animal fodder so we can re-grow the native ecosystems. Work to shield the most vulnerable costal cities, by concrete walls and mangrove floodlands. Shit, turn New York into New Venice if we must. Stop with the for-profit construction and focus on essential construction. Encourage local community agriculture, invest in permaculture projects, standardize electrical grids across countries and continents to enable power distribution in case of shortfalls. We've had proof-of-concepts on all of these. This has been done already, in places. Work with other nations no matter how much we dislike them. It's possible if we think about doing this not in terms of cost in money, but in terms of cost if we don't do it.
So, if one has learned some of lessons from history one can say that all of the political systems/ideologies have failed through time in terms of generating a stable society that prosper and generates progress and well being for the masses. Given that, a scan of the law systems through time, and the factual conditions of the then existing societies ought to yield fact as to what has caused the recurrent degenerating effect.
I've been mostly listening while working on a project. I'm a teaparty,conservative that believes America was founded on a Christian Foundation. So, he hates my kind, we are trying to go back to the rule of law, back to the Constitution, our officials swore to uphold. Further, we are against outside interest overriding the people's voices. We do not hate immigrants, we want legal immigrants, some people have waited for years in the legal process... I agree with Chris Hedges on most points, not all, but most- I've retweeted some of his material- I too see the decline in America because I've been here before Harry Truman was elected. I lived the best of the years America had, I feel sorry for those being born not to have known my American experience. I may listen to more of Chris Hedges' clips, as I work on charity projects. We are trying to fill a 40ft cargo shipping crate to send our clothes for the children,this time in Africa. If you can sew- I have the url. with instructions.
There is 1 matter that Hedges rarely mentions, which is the responsibility of citizens to be judicious consumers and to have an understanding of what effect their consumption patterns have on the environment and on their fellow human beings.
That's probably because Americans are real sticklers about being told what they should and shouldn't buy. Can't expect to go the the "Land of the Free" and hope to get much ear time trying to dissuade them from buying monster trucks, personal jets or miniguns, its just not the American Way...
Warren Flood As Morris Berman has pointed out, it's not the "American way" unless you're part of a tradition that includes Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain and others. Berman speaks of a "New Monastic Tradition" which might include eco-villages, intentional communities, off-grid homesteads and lifestyles, etc. In all cases it would involve a more agrarian lifestyle with an emphasis on permaculture, integrated organic gardening and farming, etc.
I think that changing the focus to work creation is a must part of the needed solution. To keep 4 billion adults working within a minimum to maximum income you would need about 0.5-1 trillion per year of a currency. Go from there to make the planning of work based on needs, and wants, of which there many and some rather urgent.
This was posted 9 years ago. And... as CH says... "Like Ahab, we will not change course." And we haven't. 30:28 "The urban poor are in chains, and those chains are being readied for the rest of us."
Chris Hedges's application of 'Moby Dick' to our sociopolitical problem is a work of genius. And his hypothesis, that frustrated college graduates and service workers will foment revolution if they are not allowed to better themselves in society, corresponds closely to circumstances that led to the French Revolution. Karl Marx was wrong, as Hedges implies. The hopeless, downtrodden, proletarian working poor are unlikely to rise in revolt, but middle class people, whose pensions and jobs and mortgages and futures are looted by a predatory elite-- they might, quite possibly, rise in revolt if no other recourse is in sight. It's madness on the part of the unempathetic predatory elite to keep on doing what they've been doing for the last thirty years.
My favourite public intellectual along with Chomsky. His talks, lectures and debates are virtually unrivalled in terms of their brilliance and passion. But Hedges was wrong about the BBC. This UK corporation is little more than a passive reporter of the awful status quo. Certainly the BBC was complicit in the establishment hatchet job that was carried out against Jeremy Corbyn. And on Israel the BBC has utterly failed to shine an honest light on the continuing state repression of the Palestinians. The political and economic systems of the Western world are demonstrably unjust, but the BBC has never really been interested in asking the fundamental questions about the system within which we live.
George Orwell noted that mechanization had become quasi-instinctive throughout almost the whole world. That means too many people are developing too much technology for the upper class to keep it secret and under their control. If alternate energies, anti-gravity, quantum computers and A-I robots slip out there's six billion people who can seize it to discover even more technology and use it to escape the yoke of the tyrannical forces that rule and plunder us today.
After every time I listen to Chris Hedges I I drive out to downtown Austin looking for the throngs of others like me ready to make our voices heard in the streets of America with a full-throated "ENOUGH!" But find myself standing there alone, watching people in their own fantasy bubbles and expensive shoes paid for with plastic go about their business as if nothing is wrong; looking at me like I'm just some unlucky fool. After a while no one else comes to join me. I must be an unlucky fool, I think. I give up and go home and listen to some more Hedges. Get pumped again. Do it all over again. Same outcome. Sad. But true. We are doomed.
Plato's philosophy of unwritten poetry gives us the poetry of accidental philosophy.... And, as to "where is the Church" on the question of "corporate capitalism" -- well, Chris: the RC Church is, basically, the Great, Great, Great (...) Grandfather of corporate capitalism. Compound Interest and flesh-exacting Bankers included. So much for Divinity School....
The analogy he made to modern life and Moby Dick was just exquisite in his critique and overall direction of this lecture. I am haply we still have men of greatness around to subdue the grasp the current social veneer has on the public. Thank you Chris and I am a better man for hearing you speak.
This man is my hero, a wonderful man with great values. He has shown me that not every person in this world is a scum. Thank you chris for the amazing words of wisdom.
His notion of faith is not at all the boilerplate Xian response at all. Faith is actually not even the bible verse idea of:
'Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things unseen ' no it is more about trust, or acceptance of the good in strangers to not be suspicious of them and be fear driven to the point of shying away from them.
Your words resonate powerfully with my feelings. 🌹
Majority of people overlook what is happening before us, but Chris Hedges is reminding us what we've been ignoring. Give this talk enough time and it will be historic one. I thank Chris for his honesty and courage to speak up!
Listen to the talk with Alex Epstein who demolishes him! Love Alex Epstein! Many YT videos with Alex.
This speech may have been 8 years ago, but it is even more true today in 2022.
True. What do you think about Dr. Thomas Sowell?
Mama ain't raise no fool dawg. Homeboy could see into the future! Future....future.....future.....future......future....future.... *echo with gradually decreasing volume*
Ikr
Thank you for making the date clear
@@barackthecomposer6642 Smart man worth listening too !
Chris moves me everytime.... What a speach.. Tears ran down my face. I love this man... He reminds me through his words, deads and writings how sublime this struggle of life against oppressive tyrannies corporate/individual or other is life affirming. Thank you Chris for illuminating this struggle...
so pleased to have watched this. i can listen to Chris. for hours.. thank you
Your words are still relevant even today. Nothing has changed for the better. God help the people at the bottom.
100%
Agree
Chris has a calm, magisterial manner of speaking. He is one of the best intellectuals on the present scene.
🙏🙏🙏true insights..! Thanks,Chris
Thank you Moravian College for putting this up.
Chris Hedges articulates the reality, fear and desperation, of what is and what's to come, superbly!
Thank you Chris Hedges for so eloquently stating what so many of us are seeing happen right before our eyes but lack the ability to communicate it so forcefully and clearly. Thank you to the uploader for posting.
Thank you, Chris Hedges for all your years dedicated to truth.
I believe that we need to take Hedges' ideas very seriously. There does seem to be a fierce urgency of now...as MLK once was quoted as saying. I worry about our environment, about the vast disparities between the rich and the poor, about the negative effects of a corporate state, about the pessimism and apocalyptic themes on TV and on the internet, and the disallusionment of our youth. It seems that many people are not dreaming about good days ahead but are fearful about the future.
Light and truth is such a rarity.
A j 0
0p
Wonderful to hear another Hedges talk. Thanks for posting!
We are rebels or we are slaves. It's easy to tell who is what. We need more rebels!
'tis given us, to have our days in a sunless place,
and light with soothlight, a trail for our race
'tis given us, to stand in the lands of the sun
and this losing battle to be won
'Tis given us, a share in the spoils of dissolution,
and from the dread harvest of dragon's teeth, absolution.
'tis given us, this weight of novembers tear,
and earth's silent scream to hear:
His description of capitalist culture is deep and on point The social inequality is growing as the economy goes from crisis to crisis
He's great on inequality but his apocalyptic stuff makes him look like an idiot
I love this man. Great speech. Intelligent.
Chris Hedges speeches make me happy
Me too
I’ve been saying we will see the most heroic acts of rebellion in world history when this maniacal insanity finally falls.
And why is college tuition so high? Because students are made to take out loans. And the loans are backed by the government. So your clever colleges can jack up tuition as high as they please.
So often revolutionaries become the new tyrants. Once they taste power and control. And the liberals and radicals can be the most intolerant of any on the scene. They have their agenda and methods as evil as the state which needs these rebels to make into scapegoats. Which is exactly what Hitler did to the Jews. Scapegoats to blame. As happened in our time with the Spanish Inquisition. The globalists no longer need migrant farm workers because of robotazition on the factory farms. They don't need the migrant farm workers. Therefore the Spanish are made into criminals and put into Concentration Camps. ONLY IN AMERICA
A fantasy....you will be a victim of humanity, which is greedy, violent and sadistic.
That is part of the reason.
Let's not forget that under Clinton, they changed the laws and now student debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.
@@footlicker6585you sound vaccinated.
We need to honestly assess what is best for our children and grandchildren.
More relevant than ever. Me. Hedges, your serious attitude and brilliant oration keeps me sane and focused. As an older working class female, I am surrounded by pawns and imbeciles of the corporate state, ( who has also captured all aspects of mental health, and shoved the culture of “toxic happiness “ down everyone’s throat.
I rebelled against that culture and now I have been ostracized, blacklisted and living a tortured life as a targeted individual! I wish I had listened to this 9 years ago because this how long I have fought to survive corporate America jobs only to end up just as he described it! 😢
Yes. Toxic positivity wears away at you as much as despair. It's exhausting to be forced to be agreeable constantly - especially about our own disenfranchisement.
must watch to the end... Practical hope, when we each speak our truth to power!
Good man. You inspire us.
first time i ever see this video but that's exactly what i been saying.
So true I went to one of the top art schools in the world and I tried to get people to talk about politically agitating and no one cared because 70 percent of them were 1 percenters. Such a contrast from the state school I went to for my core classes.
Honest, insightful, and disturbing. This is the brutal truth of what is happening all around us. It’s a sad reality but I applaud Chris Hedges and others for bravely waving the warning flags of civilizations demise- and the planet we occupy. Unfortunately, those in authority will do nothing and the masses (us) are trapped with no real collective power. It’s game over for our species.
I'll tell you what we're being prepared for: the dehumanization of the poor lost souls who supported Trump and were ready to risk their livelihoods and their lives for him. The next time, they will be greeted with force.
Trump wasn't the cause, Trump was the sign of the cause.
Don't not threaten use of force unless you understand the consequences.
History is full of examples, and they are stained with blood of millions.
"We must become a threat to the security and surveillance state and its corporate overlords and we cannot become a threat if we do not engage in actions that actively obstruct power." (Hedges) (&) "The Church has retreated, largely, into a kind of 'how is it with me' spirituality, which is just narcissism . . . "
The merger of corporation and state is not merely fascism - it is corporatism. - Benito Mussolini.
I admire Chris and his efforts. He reminds me of Chomsky, as an excellent purveyor of truth. But I am left wondering whether the work of Hedges and Chomsky, and many others, is making sufficient impact. I do hope so
Lol you could stop wondering and do something. And then you wouldn't have to wonder.
Cass Dvorak lol great reply! People keep saying, "well dude there's nothing we can do about it". So I get pissed and say "if everyone stopped saying that we could do something overnight. It's our moral cowardice that makes us doubt our true potential to change our circumstances".
I fervently hope that Chomsky has no influence, Chomsky is an armchair Marxist who has no problem with the atrocities committed by Lenin, Stalin,Ho Chi Minh ,and Pol Pot
Aside from "Green eggs and ham," "The Origins of Totalitarianism" is the only book I've read twice.
"When we do the good, it draws the good to us." ~ Chris Hedges
Sure man,let's smoke a joint and go to Woodstock
Yes, his answer to the last question was powerful.
I think a lot about the myth of Sisyphus, the koan "Before enlightenment hew wood & fetch water; after enlightenment hew wood & fetch water," and other tales of "futile" efforts. I've been fortunate to have once or twice gotten feedback that someone actually paid attention and benefitted when I did something "futile," so I know that Chris's answer to that question is true.
Chris Hedges on fire.
As usual, he nails it. With alarming exactitude.
For 40 years now we have been talking about "changing course."
Might be too late.
We as a society worship money, we worship the rich, the celebrity and the elite, to our detriment. We cannot form a coalition against our oppressors with the intrinsic trait of greed. We will stand idly by and watch injustices so as to not rock the boat and ruin our selfish illusions of grander. Self sacrifice is what we need, love of ourselves and neighbors is what we need. If we stand together with love, we can easily non-violently win and take back our nation. Vote the opposite of the polls, (Ron Paul). We can do it.
Yes we worship the rich and realty shows and CEO's. It's sad.
why don't we just stop voting, and just live our lives...trying to ignore the government, (as much as possible) until it collapses.
EVERY vote shows that we accept and support the system that harms Us All.
EVERY vote says "i want a master With A Whip who doesn't whip me much"
11:35 "the power elite will not respond rationally to collapse "
great lecture, I hope we are not too late to turn things around
We are too late. Read the Bible 2Timothy 3:1-5. Read Daniel Chapter 4, about the beast representing the political system. Chapter 2:44 tells what will happen to the beasts
Thank you Chris.
Plant a tree/most importantly a fruit bearing tree. Love! To the honesty of Mr. Chris Hedges. Thank you kind sir.
Good talk. Chris is a hero
Capitalism is a two-edged sword. One edge is exploitation. The other edge is unemployment.
You do not grasp meaningful usage of that metaphor, but it is true that cap. brings those two negatives
I feel the same way you do toward Hedges. Wish he were our president. He tells it as he sees it, and his vision is startlingly clear.
When I entered the work force I though I would be welcomed and treated with dignity, be well-paid, and given a chance for advancement, Instead I was regarded with contempt, paid slave-wages, and expelled from job after job without mercy.
2013? ...I wonder how these people feel NOW?
GREAT question.
Thank you.
Many of us hippies totally got this decades ago. I along with multitudes embraced a cooperative introspective joyous lifestyle. We were systematically deprived of our choices. It may not be too late if we all awaken to truth and embrace Love
Thank goodness for someone who can actually articulate what the problem is globally; a thinking person. "White", is just a "state of mind". All people who think as broadly as Chris Hedges cannot be defined as black or white. Just love people, and love the earth.
The voice of one that cryeth in the wilderness
Truth to power.
Thankyou
This video was in Oct 2013, it is now Nov 2019 and I readthis week in TheNation where there are people in their 30s and 40s who cannot buy a car, or a house, and must delay expenses for those and some must pay premiums for Dr bills first in order to pay on Student loans, and I also read that retired folks whose pensions were lost in 2008, are paying on Student loans from their meager Social Security, that the GOP hopes to take away or to lessen the benefits of.
Mr Hedge's should read Michael Rowbotham's book Grip of Death to begin to form some hypotheses about this dark force pushing us forward into destruction. Karl Polanyi also wrote copiously about this process from when it was first observed in the West. The form of money itself compels us forward into this destructive "progress". There could be alternatives to the debt-based form of money that grips more and more of us to choose death. But, they will require a new awareness of details about money. The etymology of the word "mortgage" says it all.
and the video ended just as i feel right now... why is it worth living?
no matter what we achieve the majorities will always stay ignorant... and ignorance will always diminish any achievements knowledge can create.
'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.'
May Allah bless you with more light in your heart and give you long life by eluminating other. Fe Aman Lillah
Chris for president 🎉2024
I have shared the same sentiments of the last woman who posed her question.
free for humanity
I'm even more a misanthrope than ever before.
4.5k likes tells you all you need to know about the state of this world. This should have hundreds of millions
LOVE CHRIS
It would be great if Hedges turns his mind toward Asia in his next book and examines modern-day nationalism and tribalism here.
I would be surprised if Mr Hedges is wrong about any of this. In fact if he is I will eat my hat.... I'll eat all the hats.
So were all well aware of the problems we face, how about some actions we (every day people) can take?
I prefer the definition of fascism as being the merger of corporations and the state and I’m aware that every species of fascism is particular to the country it sprung from The United States has two species of fascism in competition one is the old school version that emphasizes race represented by the old organizations like the kkk and others The other version is a more subtle form which tolerates members of dispossessed groups in our country but in practice still promotes a system that encourages social inequality and maintains systematic racism
Everything Chris Hedges says, my mind. Blown !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Everything Chris Hedges says, another wealthy white liberal virtue signaling
Politics is the entertainment division of the military industrial complex
~ Frank Zappa
Lot so much reality since childhood! There more be mad, along awards given in question.
It is untrue to say that there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening a manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer. - George Orwell
Th last 5 minutes were so powerful.
A lot is wrong in the world. He's just telling it like it is. No use putting your head in the sand. By acknowledgement hopefully he would be in the process of seeking solutions. I find AWAKE Magazine presents problems and yet always addresses solutions to what it presents. Try reading it
always fascinating of universities lack the ability to professionally record their most important lectures
Resistance to these "systems of control & death" is all we have left!
Such exquisitely painful honesty. I love it.
There was a video I saw that shows Chris getting up from an interview where he begins beating the fuck out of people who question his position. He uses a combination of skull crushing elbows and right hooks. He beat one guy unconscious with a Sunday New York Times. Then I woke up.
3:23 Chris Hedges
yes thank you
Revolt will only happen when those who are revolting have some measure of confidence that reform is possible, that institutions can be reformed, that intelligent economic programs are achievable. This might be the stumbling block for many persons who are unhappy with the political and economic realities in the USA.
pukulu hope..
And this was 5 years ago
He always has an important message. But I have yet to hear Hedges describe to us how, exactly, we can be successful in changing our situation. If anyone has read or heard that message, please share a source. The words are very dispiriting, even if they help the listener feel self-congratulatory. We need to know what to do.
We know what to do. We have enough info, we have the technology. Switch to renewable energy on a massive scale, fund conservation efforts, deploy electrified mass transit on a large scale to reduce the need for cars, remodel our cities to be walkable or bikeable to reduce the need for cars some more. Switch as much as we can to a plant-based diet to reduce the amount of land dedicated to growing animal fodder so we can re-grow the native ecosystems. Work to shield the most vulnerable costal cities, by concrete walls and mangrove floodlands. Shit, turn New York into New Venice if we must. Stop with the for-profit construction and focus on essential construction. Encourage local community agriculture, invest in permaculture projects, standardize electrical grids across countries and continents to enable power distribution in case of shortfalls. We've had proof-of-concepts on all of these. This has been done already, in places. Work with other nations no matter how much we dislike them. It's possible if we think about doing this not in terms of cost in money, but in terms of cost if we don't do it.
That's the problem: The cult of Consumerism is self-congratulatory.
So, if one has learned some of lessons from history one can say that all of the political systems/ideologies have failed through time in terms of generating a stable society that prosper and generates progress and well being for the masses. Given that, a scan of the law systems through time, and the factual conditions of the then existing societies ought to yield fact as to what has caused the recurrent degenerating effect.
Is this 8 years or 8 weeks ago
F..k hope. - George Carlin (1991)
I've been mostly listening while working on a project. I'm a teaparty,conservative that believes America was founded on a Christian Foundation. So, he hates my kind, we are trying to go back to the rule of law, back to the Constitution, our officials swore to uphold. Further, we are against outside interest overriding the people's voices. We do not hate immigrants, we want legal immigrants, some people have waited for years in the legal process... I agree with Chris Hedges on most points, not all, but most- I've retweeted some of his material- I too see the decline in America because I've been here before Harry Truman was elected. I lived the best of the years America had, I feel sorry for those being born not to have known my American experience. I may listen to more of Chris Hedges' clips, as I work on charity projects. We are trying to fill a 40ft cargo shipping crate to send our clothes for the children,this time in Africa. If you can sew- I have the url. with instructions.
So many of our problems could have been avoided if we had heeded George Washington's advice to avoid entanglement with foreign powers
There is 1 matter that Hedges rarely mentions, which is the responsibility of citizens to be judicious consumers and to have an understanding of what effect their consumption patterns have on the environment and on their fellow human beings.
That's probably because Americans are real sticklers about being told what they should and shouldn't buy. Can't expect to go the the "Land of the Free" and hope to get much ear time trying to dissuade them from buying monster trucks, personal jets or miniguns, its just not the American Way...
Warren Flood As Morris Berman has pointed out, it's not the "American way" unless you're part of a tradition that includes Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain and others. Berman speaks of a "New Monastic Tradition" which might include eco-villages, intentional communities, off-grid homesteads and lifestyles, etc. In all cases it would involve a more agrarian lifestyle with an emphasis on permaculture, integrated organic gardening and farming, etc.
pukulu Sounds great, now we just need to figure out how to get him a broader audience
I think that changing the focus to work creation is a must part of the needed solution. To keep 4 billion adults working within a minimum to maximum income you would need about 0.5-1 trillion per year of a currency. Go from there to make the planning of work based on needs, and wants, of which there many and some rather urgent.
Download and share (in that order).
This was posted 9 years ago. And... as CH says... "Like Ahab, we will not change course." And we haven't. 30:28 "The urban poor are in chains, and those chains are being readied for the rest of us."
Chris Hedges's application of 'Moby Dick' to our sociopolitical problem is a work of genius. And his hypothesis, that frustrated college graduates and service workers will foment revolution if they are not allowed to better themselves in society, corresponds closely to circumstances that led to the French Revolution. Karl Marx was wrong, as Hedges implies. The hopeless, downtrodden, proletarian working poor are unlikely to rise in revolt, but middle class people, whose pensions and jobs and mortgages and futures are looted by a predatory elite-- they might, quite possibly, rise in revolt if no other recourse is in sight. It's madness on the part of the unempathetic predatory elite to keep on doing what they've been doing for the last thirty years.
No, Moby Dick is not what you think, perhaps you are thinking of Bartleby The Scrivener?
No "system"is either just or unjust it is people who are either just or unjust.
My favourite public intellectual along with Chomsky. His talks, lectures and debates are virtually unrivalled in terms of their brilliance and passion. But Hedges was wrong about the BBC. This UK corporation is little more than a passive reporter of the awful status quo. Certainly the BBC was complicit in the establishment hatchet job that was carried out against Jeremy Corbyn. And on Israel the BBC has utterly failed to shine an honest light on the continuing state repression of the Palestinians. The political and economic systems of the Western world are demonstrably unjust, but the BBC has never really been interested in asking the fundamental questions about the system within which we live.
"Google Murray Bookchin" - Chris Hedges
"shut the damn country down"! 👍🏻
George Orwell noted that mechanization had become quasi-instinctive throughout almost the whole world. That means too many people are developing too much technology for the upper class to keep it secret and under their control. If alternate energies, anti-gravity, quantum computers and A-I robots slip out there's six billion people who can seize it to discover even more technology and use it to escape the yoke of the tyrannical forces that rule and plunder us today.
The reality is someone made all this up in the first place
I like the way you talk Hedges. I never liked Hitchens or Dawkins even though Im Agnostic.
"When we do the "good", It draws the good to us".
Good luck with that
After every time I listen to Chris Hedges I I drive out to downtown Austin looking for the throngs of others like me ready to make our voices heard in the streets of America with a full-throated "ENOUGH!" But find myself standing there alone, watching people in their own fantasy bubbles and expensive shoes paid for with plastic go about their business as if nothing is wrong; looking at me like I'm just some unlucky fool. After a while no one else comes to join me. I must be an unlucky fool, I think. I give up and go home and listen to some more Hedges. Get pumped again. Do it all over again. Same outcome. Sad. But true. We are doomed.
Miguel Pazos its going to take some really dark days ahead to bring people out of their bubble...Hedges knows this now
Perhaps you should grow up and get a job and become a productive person
The World does not owe you happiness, Attitude is Everything
I assume this is why rich people are racing to get into space...😒
Where is the transcript of the speech?
Of course you realize by watching this you could disappear.
Plato's philosophy of unwritten poetry gives us the poetry of accidental philosophy....
And, as to "where is the Church" on the question of "corporate capitalism" -- well, Chris: the RC Church is, basically, the Great, Great, Great (...) Grandfather of corporate capitalism.
Compound Interest and flesh-exacting Bankers included.
So much for Divinity School....