America today, summed up nicely by Chris Hedges:

[marmar]

.....(snip).....

What kind of nation is it that spends far more to kill enemy combatants and Afghan and Iraqi civilians than it does to help its own citizens who live below the poverty line? What kind of nation is it that permits corporations to hold sick children hostage while their parents frantically bankrupt themselves to save their sons and daughters? What kind of nation is it that tosses its mentally ill onto urban heating grates? What kind of nation is it that abandons its unemployed while it loots its treasury on behalf of speculators? What kind of nation is it that ignores due process to torture and assassinate its own citizens? What kind of nation is it that refuses to halt the destruction of the ecosystem by the fossil fuel industry, dooming our children and our children’s children? .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_movement_too_big_to_fail_20111017/

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[ThomWV]

2. What kind of nation indeed. K&R

[randr]

3. This about sums it up as well

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2127396

[Kablooie]

4. Why, America the Beautiful, of course!

The American Dream isn't dead!
It lives on in glorious style in the lives of hedge fund managers!

And those amber waves of grain bring in lots of bucks, eh?

[Pacifist Patriot]

5. a morally bankrupt one

[coalition_unwilling]

6. My favorite lines are a punch to the gut:

"But the liberal class has no credibility left. It collaborated with corporate lobbyists to neglect the rights of tens of millions of Americans, as well as the innocents in our imperial wars. The best that liberals can do is sheepishly pretend this is what they wanted all along."

Zing! Snap! Buh-bye Democratic Party.

[bvar22]

9. "The Liberal Class" ?

Not THIS FDR/LBJ "Liberal",
and the "Liberals" on DU and elsewhere.

We have consistently opposed the policies of:
De-Regulation (especially Banking & Insurance),

Privatization,

Free Trade,

Military Spending & Unnecessary Wars of Aggression,

the Shredding of the Constitution,

Wealth Disparity,

The Consolidation & Conglomeration of Wealth & Power

The Influence of MONEY on our Government

Opaque, Unverifiable Elections

the attack on LABOR & the Working Class.....

Unequal Protections & Liberties


no matter WHO was in the White House
or which "Party" controlled Congress.

If someone does NOT consistently fight the above,
they have not earned the label "Liberal".


"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone

photo by bvar22
Shortly before Sen Wellstone was killed


You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.

Solidarity99!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[coalition_unwilling]

10. Your italicized list reads like the Communist Manifesto, not like

some catalogue of liberal position points. I guess it's proof Shakespeare's oft-quoted line: 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

[bvar22]

14. The Communist Manifesto?

Hardly.
It is aligned with this List list of Basic Human Rights:

*The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

*The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

*The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

*The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

*The right of every family to a decent home;

*The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

*The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

*The right to a good education.

[Dragonfli]

15. FDR was a communist? Didn't know that, no wonder I liked his bill of rights so much /nt

[Raksha]

19. I think he means the inside-the-Beltway liberals,

the ones whose liberalism is always within safe boundaries of moderation, or what I would call pseudo-liberals. As Chris Hedges so eloquently points out, they failed in their societal function as a safety valve for popular discontent by selling out completely. I've gotten to the point where I can recognize them almost instantly by their talking points, and I have total contempt for them.

[CrispyQ]

7. A good read worth the time.

snip...

The Occupy Wall Street movement, like all radical movements, has obliterated the narrow political parameters. It proposes something new. It will not make concessions with corrupt systems of corporate power. It holds fast to moral imperatives regardless of the cost. It confronts authority out of a sense of responsibility. It is not interested in formal positions of power. It is not seeking office. It is not trying to get people to vote. It has no resources. It can’t carry suitcases of money to congressional offices or run millions of dollars of advertisements. All it can do is ask us to use our bodies and voices, often at personal risk, to fight back. It has no other way of defying the corporate state. This rebellion creates a real community instead of a managed or virtual one. It affirms our dignity. It permits us to become free and independent human beings.

=====
Most excellent!

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. A dying empire

[phantom power]

11. "Corporate power forgot that the liberal class ... gives legitimacy to the power elite"

The liberal class functions in a traditional, capitalist democracy as a safety valve. It lets off enough steam to keep the system intact. It makes piecemeal and incremental reform possible. This is what happened during the Great Depression and the New Deal. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s greatest achievement was that he saved capitalism. Liberals in a functioning capitalist democracy are at the same time tasked with discrediting radicals, whether it is King, especially after he denounced the war in Vietnam, or later Noam Chomsky or Ralph Nader.

The stupidity of the corporate state is that it thought it could dispense with the liberal class. It thought it could shut off that safety valve in order to loot and pillage with no impediments. Corporate power forgot that the liberal class, when it functions, gives legitimacy to the power elite. And the reduction of the liberal class to silly courtiers, who have nothing to offer but empty rhetoric, meant that the growing discontent found other mechanisms and outlets. Liberals were reduced to stick figures, part of an elaborate pantomime, as they acted in preordained roles to give legitimacy to meaningless and useless political theater. But that game is over.

Human history has amply demonstrated that once those in positions of power become redundant and impotent, yet retain the trappings and privileges of power, they are brutally discarded. The liberal class, which insists on clinging to its positions of privilege while at the same time refusing to play its traditional role within the democratic state, has become a useless and despised appendage of corporate power. And as the engines of corporate power pollute and poison the ecosystem and propel us into a world where there will be only masters and serfs, the liberal class, which serves no purpose in the new configuration, is being abandoned and discarded by both the corporate state and radical dissidents. The best it can do is attach itself meekly to the new political configuration rising up to replace it.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/a_movement_too_big_to_fail_20111017/

[Eyerish]

12. K&R

[Solly Mack]

13. K&R

[markpkessinger]

16. Wow, that's a powerful indictment! Thanks for sharing it! K&R!!

[Raksha]

17. I posted this on Facebook earlier today.

One of Chris Hedges' more powerful articles--and that's saying a lot, because they are ALL powerful. But he's obviously at the top of his form since OWS got started. I believe it's actually given him hope for this country he didn't have before.

[Romulox]

18. "The best that liberals can do is sheepishly pretend this is what they wanted all along."

:applause:

[chill_wind]

20. k & R. What a voice. I can't get enough

of his writing right now.