Chris Hedges: Time to Get Crazy

[marmar]

from truthdig:



Time to Get Crazy

Posted on Jul 2, 2012
By Chris Hedges


Native Americans’ resistance to the westward expansion of Europeans took two forms. One was violence. The other was accommodation. Neither worked. Their land was stolen, their communities were decimated, their women and children were gunned down and the environment was ravaged. There was no legal recourse. There was no justice. There never is for the oppressed. And as we face similar forces of predatory, unchecked corporate power intent on ruthless exploitation and stripping us of legal and physical protection, we must confront how we will respond.

The ideologues of rapacious capitalism, like members of a primitive cult, chant the false mantra that natural resources and expansion are infinite. They dismiss calls for equitable distribution as unnecessary. They say that all will soon share in the “expanding” wealth, which in fact is swiftly diminishing. And as the whole demented project unravels, the elites flee like roaches to their sanctuaries. At the very end, it all will come down like a house of cards.

Civilizations in the final stages of decay are dominated by elites out of touch with reality. Societies strain harder and harder to sustain the decadent opulence of the ruling class, even as it destroys the foundations of productivity and wealth. Karl Marx was correct when he called unregulated capitalism “a machine for demolishing limits.” This failure to impose limits cannibalizes natural resources and human communities. This time, the difference is that when we go the whole planet will go with us. Catastrophic climate change is inevitable. Arctic ice is in terminal decline. There will soon be so much heat trapped in the atmosphere that any attempt to scale back carbon emissions will make no difference. Droughts. Floods. Heat waves. Killer hurricanes and tornados. Power outages. Freak weather. Rising sea levels. Crop destruction. Food shortages. Plagues.

ExxonMobil, BP and the coal and natural gas companies—like the colonial buffalo hunters who left thousands of carcasses rotting in the sun after stripping away the hides, and in some cases carrying away only the tongues—will never impose rational limits on themselves. They will exploit, like the hustlers before them who eliminated the animals that sustained the native peoples of the Great Plains, until there is nothing left to exploit. Collective suicide is never factored into quarterly profit reports. Forget all those virtuous words they taught you in school about our system of government. The real words to describe American power are “plunder,” “fraud,” “criminality,” “deceit,” “murder” and “repression.” .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/time_to_get_crazy_20120702/

[xchrom]

1. i on't know why -- but pt barnum springs to mind -- there's one born every minute.

you would think that people would stop wanting to be the prey for those at the top.

but we are so indoctrinated that they are our betters.

bp or enron or any number of other extreme events like these -- should have had people shaking with rage.

[Dustlawyer]

2. I can say from vast personal experience of have fought BP since they blew up

their Texas City, Texas plant on March 23rd 2005, killing 15 and injuring thousands (not less than 200 as the media reports to this day, BP under reports everything), and now the Gulf oil spill, killing 11 plus one, our Gulf of Mexico, that they will stop at nothing for $. Remember when Iran took our hostages in 1979 and we wondered why they hated us so much? Our media called them all, the whole country religious fanatics. BP did not like it that their prime minister and Parlament wanted to nationalize their own oil. BP got Britain to ask the US to help b/c we wanted the oil to continue to be virtually free (I suspect we paid in beads). The CIA brags that this was their 1st overthrow of a government. They had the Prime Minister hanged for treason. Eliminated the democratically elected government and installed the Shah of Iran, one of the most brutal dictators of all time. No wonder they hated us! F*ck BP!!!!

[TahitiNut]

6. It's not just BP.

Union Carbide. Exxon. Enron. ... the "Hall Of Infamy" merely identifies those corporations whose egregious conduct became so obvious, so excessive, so overwhelming that no amount of spin and deception could keep it from the global public's vision.

The global corporate colonialism of today is akin to the age of European monarch dividing up the (known) world into fiefdoms and colonies ... where the power of governance created the entitlement to engage in rape and exploitation without fear of liability for the harms inflicted. "Corporate capitalism" is, in essence, the very same thing. Capitalism is, and never was, about the worker owning the means of his own production. The worker has never been without liability for his tortious behavior. That has always been "sovereign immunity" -- the absence of recourse when the sovereign (monarch or state) inflicts a harm. Affording 'limited' sovereign immunity to the wealthy acting behind the legal fiction of a 'corporation' is the very essense of an entitlement.

Once upon a time, it was rationalized that such an entitlement was a "deal with the devil" ... created by our democratic republic in order to induce investment in projects and activities for the Public Good. For a time, it was felt that the state was superior to and in control of those entities which it created. It's no longer clear at all. When the state is owned, then it becomes subordinate to the interests of our new sovereigns ... the wealthy in control of the global corporations. Yes, it can be called a "plutocracy" ... but that's really not sufficient. "Corporatocracy" seems more appropriate to me.

[reeds2012]

10. and 'corporate capitalism' has a name

when it reaches the heights (or depths) that we have seen manifest today: fascism.

When a president (Bush) can put into position a former CEO of Goldman Sachs (Paulson) as Secretary of Treasury, it should come as no shock that bailing out the banks would soon come down the pike.

This type of conflict of interest has run rampant and has gone completely unpunished. Hedges is frighteningly right from a certain point of view: we may be incapable of stopping the elites and their oppressive stranglehold on society.

[SHRED]

3. "I have no intention of accommodating corporate power ...

...whether it hides behind the mask of Barack Obama or Mitt Romney."

I admire Chris.


---

[Catherine Tarry]

4. Spam deleted by Violet_Crumble (MIR Team)

[Chiquitita]

5. Summing up...

I'm not critiquing Hedges' essay. I read the whole thing with interest. But just to be sure, what I got out of it is: we are supposed to believe that in reality the corporate elites know the capitalist system is coming down sometime soon, along with climate change and that they are aware that a range of disasters that will decimate the human population is on the horizon. They are preparing by hoarding as much as possible and getting ready to hunker down while the rest of us are left to fend for ourselves. We can either acquiesce (and eventually perish) or fight back (and eventually probably perish too). Hedges seems to be calling on the reader to fight back, and to consider imitating the models of Crazy Horse and non-centralized, egalitarian Native American customs of wealth sharing.

Is that what you got out of it?

[Zorra]

7. Kudos to Chris for giving First Nations socio-political systems and individuals some well deserved

respect. Much of what they understood about existence will be the things we must learn if we are to survive as a species.


I love these quotes

“Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power,” wrote the philosopher John Locke, “they put themselves into a state of war with the people who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience."

"the Iroquois’ “whole civil policy was averse to the concentration of power in the hands of any single individual, but inclined to the opposite principle of division among a number of equals. …” This was a way of relating to each other, as well as to the natural world, that was an anathema to the European colonizers."

"Those who exploit do so through layers of deceit."

[Gregorian]

8. Here's crazy- start decreasing population. He's talking about population.

Of course he's talking about much more than that. But at the very foundation of what he is discussing is just that.

The only crazy solution is one that we can all accomplish, and without any resistance.

But it's too crazy for almost anyone to even accept, let alone understand. Even though it's obvious.

[Huey P. Long]

9. Chris Hedges is correct. Fight and maybe die, or don't fight and SURELY die.

Likely, we will fight over crumbs with each other, while they destroy us and pit us against one another.

Change this. Fuck all corporatists.

[reeds2012]

11. Fuck all fascists. We need to start calling it what it is.

[Democrats_win]

12. The Crazy confrontation versus the Catch-22 Italian

Hedges' excellent article suggests a crazy confrontation (perhaps even violent). But consider the idea that if the fascists get what they want, they may still be quite miserable while we, those who were not crazy, are completely happy. Consider this quote form the Crazy Italian in Catch-22:

"America," he said, "will lose the war. And Italy will win it."
"America is the stongest and most prosperous nation on earth," Nately informed him with lofty fervor and dignity. "And the American fighting man is second to none."

"Exactly," agreed the old man pleasantly, with a hint of taunting amusement. "Italy, on the other hand, is one of the least properous nations on earth. And the Italian fighting man is probably second to all. And that's exactly why my country is doing so well in this war while your country is doing so poorly."

"I'm sorry I laughed at you. But Italy was occupied by the Germans and is now being occupied by us. You don't call that doing very well, do you?"

"But of course I do," exclaimed the old man cheerfully. "The Germans are being driven out, and we're still here. In a few years, you will be gone, too, and we will still be here. You see, Italy is really a very poor and weak country, and that's what makes us so strong. Italian soldiers are not dying anymore. But American and German soldiers are. I call that doing extremely well. Yes, I'm quite certain Italy will survive this war and still be in existence long after your own country has been destroyed." "America is not going to be destroyed!" he shouted passionately.

"Never?" prodded the old man softly.

"Well..." Nately faltered.

"Rome was destroyed, Greece was destroyed, Persia was destroyed, Spain was destroyed. All great countries are destroyed. Why not yours? How much longer do you really think your own country will last? Forever? Keep in mind that the earth itself is destined to be destroyed by the sun in twenty-five million years or so."