Considering the depth and the data compiled I expect this book to have lots of information most of us are unaware of, ofersince72</b>. Even you.

Chris Hedges has not only talked the talk but walked the walk
Rudolfo  as has Vassily Grossman. Check it out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_and_Fate

What this world needs is another dumbass ‘progressive’ that knows everything and
just spends all day writing separate comments that could be condensed into one
on truthdig.

Scheer has a new book out about how the Dems and Pubs

helped Wall Street mug and stickup the American Public.

This is Top Secret information that no one knows about
so be sure to buy and read it.

And Gee Whiz,  I wonder what this book is going

to tell us that we don’t already know?

What America needs is another book..

Write another book,  Write another book, write anotherbook

Yep, thats what we need, another book.

I have to wonder what the naysayers are doing besides naysaying.

‘He doesn’t respond because he is a coward.’

Or he doesn’t have time. He does do quite a bit of speeches, he is finishing his
new book I assume since it is coming out in October.

I agree with Rudolfo, no matter where Hedges sits
around.

  His weekly columns say little.  He has admitted that
we have been routed by the fascists, yet offers no
solutions, no organizing, knowing durn well that the
media is 100% controlled by the same people that profit
from the military economic employment structure, making
the podium he uses at Truth Dig obsolete.

Hey Gerald, I would recommend reading Derek Jensen Endgame Volume II:
Resistance. I think he thoughtfully contemplates non-violence and violence.

If you don’t feel like it or want to see the condensed version look at this…

http://zinelibrary.info/files/DJ on pacifism & violence, web_0.pdf

Ask the moderaters about that not here. But they will see it.

My guess is that Mr. Hedges doesn’t just sit around at TruthDig unlike your conception of him.

Chris Hedges is a coward.  To wit, he is a writer for TruthDig, this is his main forum.  Well, where the hell is he?  Why can’t he respond to comments?  Why can’t he tell us why he kow-tows to the Zionists?  Why he thinks one of the most degenerate propagandists the world has seen, Vassily Grossman, is one of his heros?  Why he writes a book about threats to free speech in the US and identifies the only people defending free speech, the religious right, as the villain, and completely ignores the thirty year campaign, increasingly successful, of the ADL to stifle free speech? 

He doesn’t respond because he is a coward.

If enough people were and were active then maybe. Remember in the recent past our gov’t ignored hundreds of thousands protesting both attacks on Iraq. The recent protest to lower the CO2 levels was global with millions and it was too ignored. So what to do now?

I am absolutely NOT sure of much of anything these days!  I am reasonably sure that force won’t work, for obvious reasons.  I have some vague inkling that there are moral counter-forces that might be tried with less mayhem to follow. I’m fishing for ideas, hoping there is enough creative thinking left in our brow-beaten reactionary anger to cook up something that might serve better than a blood bath—or a complete rout of human decency.
  If enough people fish ...... maybe ......???

The process is called extrapolation from known facts. Last that I recall there was no internet in the 1940’s. Second you just don’t want to address the reason I said such a thing. Sometimes passive resistance fails. Many times violence fails also. We are in a definite predicament. One manufactured by the richest among us to bring down our Republic.

It will take not just moral courage but getting past our fears of torture, incarceration and death. I can’t say that I would be able to do that. I’m not sure how we can overcome something that has been developing against us for 40 years. Do you Gerard?

Night Guant:  Nobody knows that Ghandi would have failed or would not have failed.  How can they?

They can only guess on projections made from the difference in circumstances, then and now.  That is not the same as knowing. 

Several elementary things indicate that he might have failed:  Modern brutality would have eliminated him sooner—but maybe not. Maybe the Internet would have aided him in accumulating a huge following.  Whether others would have risen up as a result is, of course, pure speculation, but possible.
  People’s reluctance to even try civil disobedience, let alone understand it, has increased due to prejudicial treatment, or lack of treatment, of the entire subject.  Whether he could have counteracted such prejudices we’ll never know—but again, the Internet might have helped.  We can only speculate that he would have been overcome by prejudices and adverse publicity.
  How long he would have waited before he tried is another unknown.  Also, the nature of “followers” then and now.  Hundreds of imponderables makes it impossible for us to know. 
  Point is, he had very little assurance when he risked the tactic. A large part of his success was quite possibly due to that “moral courage” Chris exhorts us about, and which we all seem to lack significantly.  Let’s just admit it and move on.
  Moving on may actually help us to move on.  I hope so.My concern is only with moving on to what? It is a cinch we can’t keep on bitching forever.  It’s a waste of time and energy.

Night Guant:  Nobody knows that Ghandi would have failed or would not have failed.  How can they?

They can only guess on projections made from the difference in circumstances, then and now.  That is not the same as knowing. 

Several elementary things indicate that he might have failed:  Modern brutality would have eliminated him sooner—but maybe not. Maybe the Internet would have aided him in accumulating a huge following.  Whether others would have risen up as a result is, of course, pure speculation, but possible.
  People’s reluctance to even try civil disobedience, let alone understand it, has increased due to prejudicial treatment, or lack of treatment, of the entire subject.  Whether he could have counteracted such prejudices we’ll never know—but again, the Internet might have helped.  We can only speculate that he would have been overcome by prejudices and adverse publicity.
  How long he would have waited before he tried is another unknown.  Also, the nature of “followers” then and now.  Hundreds of imponderables makes it impossible for us to know. 
  Point is, he had very little assurance when he risked the tactic. A large part of his success was quite possibly due to that “moral courage” Chris exhorts us about, and which we all seem to lack significantly.  Let’s just admit it and move on.
  Moving on may actually help us to move on.  I hope so.My concern is only with moving on to what? It is a cinch we can’t keep on bitching forever.  It’s a waste of time and energy.

Still didn’t answer because you know that Gandhi would have failed against the modern barbarians that were Nazis, the Bolshivecks too would have stamped him an his followers out. Just as the White Rose society was in Germany.

Another question:  Would force have “worked” any better?

Question:  What were the causes of Nazism? Could they have been faced in such a way as to have prevented the rise of Hitler, fascism, and the Holocaust?

Question:  How can holocausts be prevented in future?

Question:  Are we preventing them?  If so, where and how?

Irrelevant. Look at how they treated the peoples they took over in places like Poland. You are dodging the question.

By Night-Gaunt, September 5 at 6:32 pm Link to this comment

Tell how non-violent protests would have worked against the Nazis? That is the question.

That is not the question.  Hitler was a popular leader adored by the Germans.  I just googled popularity of Hitler and read ... first hit ....

“Adolf Hitler was a popular leader, adored and worshipped by the Germans. After the defeat of the World War II Germany was in a difficult political and economical position. Under the Versailles Treaty, Germany had to disarm, give up land and pay heavy reparations. The devastated country suffered from widespread unemployment, runaway inflation, and low national morale. In 1919 the Weimar Republic was established. The Germans were used to a strong autocratic regime and here they had to deal with a fractionalized democratic Reichstag with many parties: Communists, Socialist and Rightist and live under a constant threat of a communist revolution.”

The Nazis were not an oligarcy completely out of touch with the common people.  They were a popular party that was responsive to the needs, economic and psychological, of the common man, at least in the beginning.

Tell how non-violent protests would have worked against the Nazis? That is the question.

Night Gaunt: Yes, but ... working out possible scenarios is not to know.  I wish it were!  The only thing that seems fairly certain to me—and even that is a guess—is that, being Gandhi, he would probably be looking for a way to change our political situation non-violently, possibly coming up with a viable idea, and then—hopefully—able to inspire people to grasp his idea and go for it in great numbers. Even at the time, and considering all he knew, I doubt that he went into his campaign convinced that he would win.  I think he knew he was taking great risks into unknown territory. What he did have, probably, was the conviction that force would not work. 
  How close are we to realizing the same thing now?  Very close?  Far away? It’s hard to say, but our persistent national reliance on force as an adequate tool of policy may have habituated most of us so that we can never see any other way.  I hope this is not true. More later.

By gerard<?b>, September 5 at 12:21 am Link to this comment

We can look at how <b>Gandhi and his people worked, how the British operated, and how the Germans were operating in the lands they conquered. It could be extrapolated. If the Germans had defeated the British and took position of their lands in India as the setting proposition. Would Gandhi‘s ideas of non-violence have worked against the fanatical Nazis? I would say no. The British were a tired tottering empire that the war had just spread to its conclusion. The Germans were an eager fresh group who were mystical and fanatical and a different group psychology from the British. Yes it is possible to work our possible scenarios.

What progressive legislation by Congress???

I consider myself a liberal. However most liberals and
progressives act like wimps. Why? Because they refuse
to pressure donors to conservatives with consumer
boycotts in order to get progressive legislation passed
by congress. If you do not consider yourself a wimp
then go to http://www.democratz.org/ or to
http://www.hoflink.com/~dbaer/help-me-change-
america.htm

Night Gaunt:  How could anyone know what Gandhi would do today or whether he would succeed of not. The situation is similar only in that ordinary and very poor people united under his campaign based on non-violent response, no matter what the government did.  Some people did die. The point is that if they had tried to fight back, many more would have been killed.  As it was, the carnage that was used to repel the unarmed people made large number of others turn against that method and the Gandhi forces gained rather than losing.  The principle of non-violent action is that it disarms the opponent without creating worse problems.
  Nobody knows—maybe nobody is even thinking seriously—about what techniques might work best in the situation now.  It takes creative leadership which we don’t have—yet.  But it is certain that when the police use violence against unarmed people, a large number of people criticize it.
  Also, you have to remember that armed response indicates fear—at least as much fear as that felt by the protesters.  Training in nonviolence and understanding of its power are required, I don’t deny. And that we do not have yet.
But it has possibilities that I hope will get explored as time goes on.  Other, more creative tactics are out there somewhere in someone’s mind,
But negativism certainly doesn’t help bring it about. Predicting it won’t work is a sure guarantee that it won’t.

Night Gaunt:  How could anyone know what Gandhi would do today or whether he would succeed of not. The situation is similar only in that ordinary and very poor people united under his campaign based on non-violent response, no matter what the government did.  Some people did die. The point is that if they had tried to fight back, many more would have been killed.  As it was, the carnage that was used to repel the unarmed people made large number of others turn against that method and the Gandhi forces gained rather than losing.  The principle of nono-violent action is that it disarms the opponent without creating worse problems.
  Nobody knows—maybe nobody is even thinking seriously—about what techniques might work best in the situation now.  It takes creative leadership which we don’t have—yet.  But it is certain that when the police use violence against unarmed people, a large number of people criticize it.
  Also, you have to remember that armed response indicates fear—at least as much fear as that felt by the protesters.  Training and understanding are required, I don’t deny. And that we do not have yet.
But it has possibilities that I hope will get explored as time goes on.  Other, more creative tactics are out there somewhee in someone’s mind,
But negativism certainly doesn’t help bring it about. Predicting it won’t work is a sure guarantee that it won’t.

Conservatives and the REPUBLICAN Right-Wing are into being moral hazards to the populace as a whole, as without a standard of morality, conservatives have no idea what moral courage or character is; and there is NO LEGISLATED STANDARD.

This is mostly from his essay in Adbusters 88

https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/88/chris-hedges.html

These comments are nauseating. I would suggest, as Americans, you learn to distinguish between governments and the citizens who support them, and all the people in a nation or of an ethnicity who do not support murder, torture, rape, and invasion. No country has done more villainous deeds around the world since WWII than OUR country. Fortunately, many of the people whom we have bombed, shelled, poisoned, and napalmed, have an ability these commenters do not: they are able to distinguish between the American government and American people.

Thank you Chris Hedges not only for speaking but living a life of moral courage. One hears so little about moral courage now days,  some may want to hear even less.

NG
“I know the blood libel charge is a lie. I was expecting you to use it next:.... I never said that, you do not know me, just spinning things to twist what I say..

“Except the USA finds Israel to be such an important ally that they overlook things like the USS Liberty”..Israel was an important strategic asset in the Cold War, right now its a liability.  The only way to keep America as its protector is to use money to get the candidates from both parties to do their bidding. Nearly 60% of funding for the Democratic Party comes from wealthy American Jews. The Republicans are no chasing the same pot.  The other weapon they use is their iron grip on the media, if anyone steps out of line whether Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, former President Jimmy Carter, Ted Turner, Oliver Stone, Norman Finkelstein, Desmond Tutu etc they slander them, as you did me. The lobby uses blackmail, mischaracterisations to exhort what it wants.

So if you want to write ill of any group write about them. And Hollings was right “Congress is Israeli Controlled Territory”

As for the Saudis they have dug their own grave by promoting an extreme form of Islam, they have not taken on the imans, instead they are clinging to the United States, so they don’t end up being beheaded.
It is worth noting that Osama Bin Laden turned violently against the West when the Saudi Government asked the Americans to throw Saddam Hussein out of Iraq, thus bringing infidels into the Land of Mecca.  Bin Laden also declared war against the Saudi government.  The israeli Palestinian issue is a constant reminder to Muslims of the Middle East (and Asia where most live, in places like Indonesia) of the sacrilege, as they see it, being perpetrated by their leaders.

ohmygodnotagain
You’ve identified Hedges’ Achilles heel.  He kow-tows to the Zionists.  He wrote a book about the threats to free speech in the US, and identified the religious right as the problem.  In fact the religious right, led by Ted Pike, is the only group actively combating the only real and substantial threat to free speech that comes from the ADL and the ‘hate crime’ laws that are being pushed in the US and all over the world.  He lists as one of his idols Vasily Grossman, a Jewish Soviet writer and one of the worst propagandists of WW II, co-author of the ‘Black Book of Soviet Jewry’, one of the most absurd books of Jewish anti-German holocaust phantasmagoria ever written.

I know the blood libel charge is a lie. I was expecting you to use it next. So far much of what they want dovetails together, but where it differs they go their own way. Except the USA finds Israel to be such an important ally that they overlook things like the USS Liberty. But you confuse similar needs in cooperation with one controlling the other. It just isn’t it. So stop talking about ZOG it is garbage.

It also doesn’t change my point if your would read it more carefully. Israel is a ready made anchor in the Middle East, Iraq is now controlled enough to be number two. Hopefully neither the radicals in Israel or here will get their wish of flattening Iran. Which is what they will have to do to stop it from retaliating. Then we shall have a crushing Great Depression instead of the Depression we have right now.

If it weren’t for the oil there and the Christian fanaticism here Israel would just be another country in the Middle East. Oh & look up that special relationship between the USA & Saudi Arabia. See any similarities? It is much quieter though, since there is no minority being persecuted in Saudi Arabia, unlike in Israel.

FYI Night Gaunt here is Senator Hollings remarks you can find them in the Congressional record
http://www.ihr.org/news/040716_hollings.shtml

How about an apology

Night Gaunt
The usual Jewish slanders, well it doesn’t work anymore. When Senator Fritz Hollings left the Senate after working there for decades he described Congress as “Israeli Occupied Territory”. One has only to look at what happened with the Goldstone Report, produced by a South African Jewish Jurist, the UN, Red Cross and Amnesty International.
For your information this whole thing about 2000 years of blood libel is bs. The reason the Nazis turned on the Jews was that they financially backed the Bolshoviks, Jews were 2/3 of the Checka (the forerunner to the KGB), the Communists (all the leaders were Jews) attempted a coup in Munich in 1919, it failed and brought Adolf Hitler to the fore as the spokesperson for the Nationalists. When the markets collapsed in 1929, 1200 or the 1400 members of the Berlin Stock Exchange were Jewish. They did not need 2000 years of history they needed to know “who stabbed Germany in the back”, and by 1933 the Nazis had enough of recent history to sell that bag of goods to the German people.

Better still get your hands on Solxzhenitzn’s “200 years Together” (sorry its only in German and Russian), our publishing industry doesn’t want people to read about what the Jewish lead Checka did during Stalins Great Terror.
This slander Bs has to stop th fact of history can no longer be distorted or hidden by the Zionist controlled media.

One more thing no more American boys and girls are going to die in the Middle East for Zionist lies and wet dreams. So tell your kin Iran ain’t gonna happen

omygodnotagain not that Nazi-Christian anti-Jew canard of them running the world myth again? Next thing you will tell us that they are really aligned with the Serpent and commit blood sacrifices of blond haired, blue eyed babies.

The Christian Zionists here aren’t Jews and they are doing it for their own reasons, just as the Jews of Israel do the same to the USA escaping the down side. Each manipulates the other in order to get what they want and think they can out wit the other. There is not ZOG here. The hatred of Jews go back to the beginning when they put the blame for Jesus’ crucifixion of them. [The predictions of this and the resurrection and such somehow escapes their praise.] So please go to a place where you baseless libel will be accepted. Plenty of Nazi sites out there.

Excellent analysis, but I wish it had included the Zionist take over of our Congress, our media, finance etc.
We needs the Jews outs of our government, our media and finance in fact I agree with Helen Thomas they should all go back to Eastern Europe and take their sleazy low life ways with them.

By gerard, September 2 at 2:24 pm Link to this comment

Question:  How can one advocate nonviolent resistance and at the same time predict (expect?) that violent resistance to that resistance is inevitable?  A primary reason for using nonviolence to resist is that it undermines and (in the long run if not immediately) de-activates a violent response.

Do you think Gandhi would have had the same success with the Germans as he did with the British? Such is our problem in general.

Because the ones behind all this will expect violence from someone as the last vestiges of the Republic dies with a futile gesture from the desperate few. They are well prepared for it and they don’t even have to fire a shot.  LRAP and the microwave cannon can end it and no trooper will have to fight anyone. Just pick up the people incapacitated by extreme, excructiating pain. All they would have done would be to gather in a place & not leave when the police told them to. Something no dictatorship has had in the past but will now.

I disagree with Mr. Hedges on this, it isn’t the Empire that is falling, it is the Republic! One being rotted from the inside by those same forces of the oligarchs in their long term plan to remove the republic and have it fund the rise of their empire to be. We are a kluge of external empire and damaged republic. After failing in 1934, not punished, they laid their plans and in 1980 launched their operation that has not faltered under any president in either party up to today. No change except in tempo.
The system of being paid for work done is right, just that the workers since the 1970’s have been stiffed on payments. That needs to change too.

The Democrats are also taken over like the Republicans, just not entirely. However any who run for president better be with them or they get pushed out as we saw in the last so-called election. Obama is doing his job to hold the seat and continue the project and be kicked around by Republicans, all part of the deal. (I wonder what they promised him? The same with Clinton.)

What will happen is whatever laws the last administration violated will be changed to make it legal. What Nixon<?b> did and was impeached for is legal now, the same is coming for <b>Bush/Cheney. Then Obama next if we will still play at elections.

The slow coup isn’t over till the gov’t falls right after the economy and the fascists come out to save us. (The ones who caused this will say our form of gov’t was destined to fall anyway and they are the cure.) Something long planned. They liked the conditions of 1934, which was so conductive to their wants, they just chose the wrong general to lead their ITT armed army of veterans. Only it will be so much worse since there are many more people and a middle class they had to spend time killing a slow death. [They will have plenty of excess people as slave labor to help clean up the cities afterwords.]

Unfortunately, the harsher climate being created will help to promote the kind of venal dictatorships and would benefit the goals of the corporate theocrats in their plans for a Holy American Empire. One that runs without the mess of democratic gov’t and groups protesting, and going to court. That will of course cease under their control. Only the corporate owners would squabble in court and maybe in the streets as they jockey for power within the internicen Byzantine machinations behind the scenes. On the other hand what worked under the inverted totalitarianism will still be in use, only wit

Even if at the end it could be shown to them that they would still die in the near future from their economic polices of reaping regardless of the cost to others or the earth itself, they would continue anyway. Such is the authoritarian personality.

thanks Chris—needed it ...

for Sustainable Community help—- try googling “sustainable communities” ...
top of the list is: http://www.sustainable.org/

My community has a local sustainability project wrt greenhouse/gardens which complements our food co-op ... you may find local resources in your yellow pages ...

Courage on battlefield? Or fright, anger, hate, stpidity, servitude, wishing the battelfield go away or soldiers come home? But only by some people!

Moral courage sans knowledge, power, colective will-power not to wage wars appears a spook; a nonexistent entity.

Is hedges not aware that one cannot have courage without knowing the truth—one can only have a lunatic courage;which means more damage to peace activism—than being cowardly or otherwise!

And there is no truth but truth1,2,3,4,5,x at a point in time; so that truth1 today, the american truth, would not be truth1 tomorrow.
Or does not everything change; tho eyes don’t always perceive it.

But even american truth1 today cannot exist without knowledge,justice,peace. Only american lie or lie 1 can exists and without knowledge, peace, etc.

This solves the riddle of americans waging wars based on truth. Not ever possible! tnx

Based on following Chris Hedges writings for more than 20 years,I can say,with a degree of certainity,that he is more than qualified to tell me what moral courage is all about.

THANK YOU,CHRIS,FOR EVERYTHING YOU DO TO ADHERE FIRMLY TO THE MORAL HIGHG GROUND OF HUMANITY.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS6v0rK5W2Q

diman, moral courage consists of resisting the status quo, resisting the gun at the back (how much courage does it take to stay on the battlefield when not only are you facing a gun, but there is one at your back if you refuse to fight?), resisting the pressure to conform, resisting the oligarchy. People without ethics or morals sometimes display physical courage, which often comes about without much mental engagement. Biologically based?

Cris Hedges,  you have some political sway. Do think

you just might be able to find out from Patrick Leahy

these concerns about the Truth Commission he is wanting

to form

1.  How do we know it isn’t just Democrat electioneering?

2.  It is being set up to examine abuses of the law by
  the Bush/Cheney Administration.
  Since it is a fore gone conclusion that they were
  operating outside the law..

  And the present Admenistration is following the very
  same policy,
  Will the Obama Administration be taken to task also?

We need to know this for the following reason
You Democrats have absolutely no more credibility than
the Republicans.  This could go a long way to restoring
the image of the Democrat Party, or, could prove that
they are the same big fat liars that they have always been

But what are we supposed to do with this moral courage?

We are still floundering for a leader.

Look how quick the right comes up with one, they can
make another one tomorrow, and another one the next day.

We sure can’t do it without you Journalists and you
Cris,  are still straddling the Democrat fence.  You
don’t say you support them, but you don’t ever offer an
alternative.  So if you want the ones with “moral courage”
to support the Democrat Party, you are going to have to
give more reason than just “be afraid of fascists”.
We are already there, you point that out all the time.
And the Oligarchs who own the Plutocracy no where their
bread and butter is and it isn’t with the goose step that
Democrat supporters try to keep us afraid of so they can
scare into voting Democrat..
So give some solutions Cris, since you state that the
political process is over, and I believe you right on that
Or are you going to continue to take us about twenty feet
from the starting gate but afraid to go through it.??????

Champion for truth!

And much more capable of compassion than myself.

Beauty!

Thanks Chris, Democracy a slave to Corporate dictatorship!
Violence is a drug, killing and getting away with it, makes ONE blood thirsty,perverts you, addiction to killing! military is very aware of this. The resistence that Chris would like to see, is,
The Glen beck uprising,to mesmerize the public.
I agree TOTALY, with Chris; And between the Climate disasters plus economic collapse and increase in crime will force gun owners to express themselves this, is the resistence, not print on the net, but, guns on the road!
Sorry Chris, your right they WON!
Corporate Feds take over, electri-city, water, food, school, communications, employment maybe. No privacy, only FALL IN LINE!
There is no denying Chris, Here in Mexico, a fear based society, can`t go out at night, can`t drive a nice car or truck, you never know who is with who, local police take advantage of public fear, reminds me of Peter Finch, Network 1976, Remember!
” I want you to get up, GET UP, and go the the Window and stick out your head, SCREAM; I`M MAD AS HELL AND I`M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANY MORE!”

More nonsense from Chris Hedges. 

He says ... ‘We were fooled by Obama’?  Say what?  Who was fooled?  Was anyone really fooled.  Obama was perfectly clear ... he chanted ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ in every speech, he promised to expand the war in Afghanistan, he was Goldman Sach’s boy, who in the hell in their right mind could have been ‘fooled’?  Hedges?  Apparently.

Hedges is, from my perspective, the fundamental cause, he is an ‘intellectual’, no doubt he is smart enough, but his analysis avoids the truth.  He doesn’t talk about the Zionist conspiracy that controls the government, the media, politics.  If he cannot give an incisive analysis, who in the hell can?  Well, David Duke can !  Yep, crazy old David Duke at least possesses the clarity of thought to see what is happening in the US and say so.  Our ‘liberal’ intellectuals, without the Jews to prop them up (and the Jews have abandoned the left), just flounder about like landed fish, gasping for air, and incapable of even conceiving any effective response to their predicament.

I, too, deeply appreciate Chris Hedges. There are a
couple of points with which I have to disagree. 1)
Although armed struggle often results in the worst
people rising to the top, I think the case of the
Zapatistas is a notable exception. Perhaps Cuba as
well. 2) Although hanging one’s clothes out and
composting may not save the world, without doing those
things we can’t save the world either. There’s a place
for lofty polemics (and I don’t say that mockingly) and
a place for taking care of the everyday in a conscious
and sane way.

When Chris Hedges speaks, I listen, not just with my ears but with my soul. I had the wonderful experience of chatting with him after one of his inspirational talks up here in Maine. I love the man and am drawn to him as if he were Christ. I was an atheist until I met him, now I am not.

The moral courage to say NO in a corporate/militarized world may be all we have left, but it is a powerful weapon. Use it.

Question:  How can one advocate nonviolent resistance and at the same time predict (expect?) that violent resistance to that resistance is inevitable?  A primary reason for using nonviolence to resist is that it undermines and (in the long run if not immediately) de-activates a violent response. 
  The point being that all the system’s “security equipment” in its arsenal of violence, if and when it is used, is ultimately counter-productive because it is obvious “overkill”, unjust, and so disproportionate that it awakens resentment and criticism even from people who are “uninvolved.”
Result:  They tend to become involved, at one level or another, in the resistance itself.
  Nonviolent resistence projects moral courage, not physical force.

diman

I had the exact same thought.  Courage does not exist externally.  Courage is a state of mind.

I miss his voice on TD.

“Physical courage is something you see on a battlefield. Moral courage you almost never see.”

Wow, all this time, I’ve been thinking that one can not exist without the other, but apparently for Mr. Hedges these are two diffrent notions.

Interesting to hear Chris pepper his talk with Anarchist philosophy, has he been reading some Bakunin lately? However, although his statements on violence are wise and profound, violent confrontations with the current capitalist system are almost inevitable such as what was seen in Greece in May (and things are still boiling under the surface). In Bolivia we saw in 2008 how the old guard still resorted to savage violence against a peaceful government of change. It may sound crazy, but if things continue as they are, revolutionary upheavals will sooner or later erupt.

Well,  I sure can’t accuse Cris of beating around
the bush on this one.  I hope everyone listens to what
Chis said.  I can only hope that his weekly columns will
carry the same urgency.

Thanks to the editors for airing this…

I have no doubt a peaceful renaissance can transpire
not only here but globally.  It will require unity
rather than divisive journalism.  There are ways to appeal
to tea baggers, criticizing them is not one of them.

Heh, tell that to Gordon Duff from the Veterans Today
(http://is.gd/ecGmv)