By FRTothus, November 30 at 7:47 pm

Yours and a few other comments seem to really get what hedges is about on
this article and that is the subverted msm with its 4 or 5 conservative
owners(used to be 70 or more or less) and the use and abuse of the
information they let the people have, if they let them have any information and
what has been said here in the comments that ‘this is what the public needs to
see or read’ well that flies in the face of the exact opposite of what the
‘redesigned, and downsized ministry of truth’ is all about.

In short, this new msm is how the ‘elite’ mislead the people(most who just turn
the tv on and accept what is shoved into their brain) and since there is still most
of the population that get information this way, well, guess what, most of the
people still don’t know squat about what is happening in this country and the
world.

It will take nothing less that stopping the msm lobby in its tracks, reinstating the
fairness doctrine and dusting off and dragging out or re-writing antitrust laws
to even begin to get a msm to believe in because if you are reading this and
agree or disagree, most of the people will never even know the article exists or was written.

“The biggest political joke in America is that we have a liberal press. It’s a joke taken seriously by a surprisingly large number of people… The myth of the liberal press has served as a political weapon for conservative and right-wing forces eager to discourage critical coverage of government and corporate power ... Americans now have the worst of both worlds: a press that, at best, parrots the pronouncements of the powerful and, at worst, encourages people to be stupid with pseudo-news that illuminates nothing but the bottom line.”
(Mark Hertzgaard)

“Television is altering the meaning of “being informed” by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation… Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information - misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information - information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing.”
(Neil Postman)

“We’re not in the business of providing news and information, We’re simply in the business of selling our customers’ products.”
(Clear Channel CEO Lowry Mays)

“The media want to maintain their intimate relation to state power. They want to get leaks, they want to get invited to the press conferences. They want to rub shoulders with the Secretary of State, all that kind of business. To do that, you’ve got to play the game, and playing the game means telling their lies, serving as their disinformation apparatus.”
(Noam Chomsky)

“For the media owners, allegations of a liberal bias make it easier for them to impose the conservative bias they prefer. For the pseudoliberals who work in the media system, confessing to a liberal bias is far more comfortable than admitting that they’ve sold out their beliefs for a nice salary. It’s only because the mainstream media is so conservative that all these right-wing pundits can make accusations of liberal bias without opposition.”
(John K . Wilson)

“To keep information from the public is the function of the corporate media.”
(Gore Vidal)

“The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.”
(Former CIA Director William Colby)

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed…”
(H. L. Mencken)

“Our rulers make the news, but they do not appear in the news, not as they really are-not as a political class, a governing establishment, a body of leaders with great and pervasive powers, with deep, often dark, ambitions. In the American republic the fact of oligarchy is the most dreaded knowledge of all, and our news keeps that knowledge from us. By their subjugation of the press, the political powers in America have conferred on themselves the greatest of political blessings-Gyges’ ring of invisibility. And they have left the American people more deeply baffled by their own country’s politics than any people on earth. Our public realm lies steeped in twilight, and we call that twilight news.”
(Walter Karp)

“One of the great attractions of patriotism—it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.”
(Aldous Huxley)

You posters are acting as though everything matters.  Nothing matters.  Everthing is nothing.  We are bacteria, springing up from eternal nonexistence and returning there soon.  The human race is a cancer in the final stage of devouring its once fertile host.  Check it out:

http://www.drhern.com/fulltext/why/paper.html

To further illustrate our obvious insigficance, take a look at this:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060927.html

That was a good post, Mike3. I enjoyed reading it.

A condenced version of your wordy article is simply that the media is nonsense. A long time ago I took heed of the advice of an enlightening bumper sticker. It said simply and concisely, “ignore the media”. The more I ignore the media & especially the extortations of their sponsors, the happier I am. I highly recommend it to others. One caveat however involves American Idol. It is for the most part just an old fashioned talent show. It is harmless entertainment that I can watch with my two teenaged kids. I suspect that most of us have one or two such t.v. shows that make our lives more enjoyable. I wouldn’t deprive anyone of such entertainment. As to the rest of the junk you describe, the ‘off’ button works wonders. Lest I become wordy, let me say in parting that I ignore you as well. Just happened to stumble through. It’s ridiculous that I had to make up a user name and password to comment on some silly web site that I doubt I’ll ever encounter again.

Swept up in his own splenetic fevers, Hegdes settles in for a litany of symptoms that
somehow fail to describe the disease.

Status anxiety—dissatisfaction with one’s station—is the prime mover of the capitalist
juggernaut. Collective belief in the worth of social status is the engine that drives “History”
on the molecular level of personal achievement. Unhappiness engendered by status anxiety
is not only a necessary element in this construct, it is the preferred condition. The
caricature of the self-made man, perennial protagonist in the theater of celebrity spectacle,
spawns armies of “go-getters” who fuel the engine. Why else would everyone bother to get
out of bed? It’s all a serious business, and reveals a culture which, while morally anemic and
aesthetically offensive to some, shows no sign of decline in the Roman sense that Hedges
intends.

Celebrity worship may appear nonsensical until one understands that it is the shorthand
form of the free-market capitalist bootstrap credo. As such, a preoccupation with those
who are perceived to “have it made” is healthy and normal. It is when the working class no
longer erect shrines to the wealthy and famous that true decline is imminent.

There are always a few miscreants, pariahs, and outliers like myself (and Hedges, clearly)
who, haunted by an itch money can’t scratch, might welcome an end to the capitalist thrall.
But most, including some of those pom-pomming Hedges’ screed in this thread, would be
utterly lost in that brave new world. They have been irretrievably tainted by consumerism’s
ontological bootprint. It’s easy to be seduced by the idea that one is breaking the chains of
bondage, but kicking the commodification addiction would feel a lot closer to being cut
adrift from one’s existential moorings, and would ultimately achieve little—apart from a
booming new business in anchors and oars.

If vicious little Israel gets its war against Iran, with America sucked into the fatal
vortex, we’re all going to wish that the super-collider had indeed wiped us out
with a black hole as feared.

ardee, November 30 at 9:30 am:
‘I assume that those who criticze Hedges for every word he pens will soon show up and seek to minimize and diminish these words as well.

Anarcissie:
I continue to find Hedges superficial, and his hysterical writing style is off-putting and tedious.  As for his well-worn cliché of the moment: Celebrity culture may be boring to us intellectual giants, but those who pursue it usually know it’s silly and largely fictional, which is more than you can say for most of the devotés of the New York Times.

See!

Seriously though, I wonder if it is Hedges style or his message that offends thee, Anarcissie. Youze intellectual giants may overestimate those who pursue such trivial lives in suspecting they actually do see it for the shallowness it really is. I at least gave them the out that they might be forced by an inability to cope with real world problems….

Well, Mike3, your own Brit Robert Browning said a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?  Not only Gatsby, but Captain Ahab as well are burdened with the need to exceed, or at least numerous schoolish interpretations of that sort: burdened, filled up, pressed down, and running over.

Do you think this has much to do with celebrity, though?  It seems to me most celebrity-watchers are just trying to get a little light entertainment from some pretty, loaded, salacious people.  We might prefer it if they listened to Bach, but de gustibus, eh?

Actually, it’s been the dumbing down of Americans.  Somewhere after the “Reagan revolution” when Americans were taught that “the government was on our backs” and that “Free-Markets” should rule, that was part of the decline!  In the meantime the Oligarchy has consolidated it’s media take-over so now we get Info-tainment instead of real NEWS, what’s passing for public education is underfunded and now just “teaches to the tests”, and somewhere along the way the religiousity folk started having a “religious test”(guns, gays, G-d, “life”) for it’s people!

What passes now for a “national debate” about any topic would be laughable, if the consequences weren’t so serious and destructive!  This is a failure of both the right and the left, religious and secular, educated and non educated, somewhere this nation & her people has lost itself in it’s own sense of grandeur, hubris, and “entitlement” to everything.  Even now, whether we’re talking about universal health-care, there are those people who actually believe that “Universal health-care” is something that shouldn’t happen, that anything that “the government” does to help strengthen the safety-net of Americans is a bad thing, and the “Free-markets” should be allowed to function because they will take care of everything!  The truth is if we had a better crop of honest politicians in office we as a society might have a better government that actually is working for ALL of the people, instead of the Oligarchy!

So can someone tell me exactly what part of the Banksters ripping off the tax-payers and rewarding themselves handsomely don’t you understand?  Can someone answer why we can’t have the taxes raised on the 5% of the Oligarchy that has been receiving massive tax breaks?  Can someone answer why you people keep voting for people that are betraying your pocketbook issues as they deregulate and pretend that “Washington” can’t get things done?  Can someone tell me why is it that nothing but debt is manufactured in the USA?  Can someone tell me why cleaning up the environment, and moving toward a greener economy that will produce jobs is a bad thing?

Yes, one can only hope that the dumbing down of Americans culminated with the election of George W., but as I see the attention paid to the Glenn Becks, Sean Hannity’s, Rush Limberger’s and other darlings of the MSM - I have to wonder what is in the koolaid these people are drinking, and make sure that I don’t drink any!

But now we know, and with knowledge comes responsibility.  Toe-picking is out-dated.

Does Chris or anyone else imagine that it wasn’t always thus?  That as Empires have teetered in the past, on the eve of the Battles of Salamis or Hastings or Waterloo, \the normal average citizen didn’t sit picking his toes, concerned about minutiae while history took shape above his head?

As a Brit, I watch America, fascinated. It’s like a gorilla in a zoo gone mad – ripping its left arm off with its right. Notice the subtle political meaning.
For the literary, the best description of America and its end (for me), comes from the last chapter of “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. What was Gatsby, if not the American dream writ large?

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Perhaps Hedge’s may argue that America is inhabited by penniless Gatsby’s? But the fantasy dream is a distraction, what may well finish America, are the monsters of the past. The monsters that were never laid to rest.

Kill your Television. Isn*t that the source of most of what Chris is ranting about?
America is delusional, violent, fat, greedy,stooopid and it wouldn*t be if it were not Addicted to Television.

Infotainment is part of the dumbing down process delivered to the masses by the moneyed elites to prevent them from knowing how to change the system.
To the extent that those “intellectuals” (for want of a better term) understand what is happening, those “intellectuals” have an obligation to point to solutions at the same time they are truth-telling.

If they do only part of the job (which is all too common) their readers and listeners will pass out because of an overdose of a very complicated and threatening reality.  That is happening, I think.  The evidence is in the spiritless apathy and the spontaeous rage seen over and over in these columns—without let.

People have organized and made big changes—some violent, and also some non-violent. The latter is of course vastly preferable because violence is often counter-productive and brings down reigns of terror. Are people who can organize not doing so because of fear?  Or because of fatalism? Or what?

Why does Hedges think that Jeremiad sermons can pass for journalism? Shooting off weekly puritanical presages of doom is a far cry from true reportage. Furthermore, any broadly defined understanding of culture (an understanding that could be shaped in the kinds of academic settings where Hedges likes to hang out) is absolutely lost in his weekly screeds. Dig Hedges! And work to tell the truth, the kind of truth that comes out of honest academic inquiry. Recycling cliched complaints about the culture, jesus freaks and republicans will get us nowhere.  Stop thinking like Reinhold Niebuhr and more like a responsible academic critic of culture like Clifford Geertz or William James. If you want to elevate the culture with truth than stop burping out knee jerk leftoid shibboleths that seem only to differ in key from what is offered on FOX.

Its always struck me as odd how Hedges describes the danger to our freedom in such a way that the threat is always and only from conservatives and/or Christians. Odd indeed, since the tone of his writings suggest that some extremist action by the Left is needed.

For example, Hedges never fails to induce responses like this:

omygodnotagain said: I agree with Chris Hedges, we are on the Eve of Destruction, I would welcome a military take over by Patriotic Generals like General Odom..

Which indicates that the Left can be just as much a danger to freedom as the Right.

Our freedom is fragile, and moreso in times like these. I think that the inflammatory writing of Mr Hedges is no help. He is the Rush Limbaugh of the Left.

I have never watched a single episode of Oprah, but I don’t see her that way, though I do agree with your premise.

Devaluing, people serves a purpose, as does trivalizing their intellect. Don’t just chalk that up to the psychopathology of everday life.

It’s a tool that slave owners and coroporations have used time and time again, against people to make them obediant workers, and to make believe that only those in charge have the ability to understand and do something, about what’s going on - even when they don’t.

They must make people feel devalued, and unable to be in charge of their own futures, their own health and their own government in order to continue their domination of this country.

Their bottom line is to keep people from being upset by the facts. Because then they may stop consuming, stop being led obediantly to the slaughter house. And that would negatively effect this quarters sales, and profits.

funny, but I never dreamed of celebrity and being before cameras.  And I just do not worship it.
But, our media has trained many to do so.  They present us with hollywood gossip style of reporting and news, shallow and silly.  Endless discussion of who will win a dance show or American Idol.
Our so called hard news not only does days of Michael Jackson, Nicole Smith and the likes but, our political news is not on issues and facts but, divided between the polls, (no matter how obscure),  name calling and and fear mongering. 
They will not get into the facts and issues because most reporters today do not understand it and find it ‘boring’.  Or they feel it will hurt their access or their ability to mingle with the Georgetown cocktail set.
I just sent an email to msnbc this morning blasting them for pointing the fingers at us for their obsessive coverage of Woods.  And their embarrassing behavior with Palin’s new coloring book.
while ignoring the fact that Iran wants to build 10 new nuclear sites, the fall of Dubai, the president’s speech, ect.
I told them it is not like they are starving for news.  It’s just that journalists would rather do celebrity over real news and the people are aching for some substance.
Why do they think we fled to the internet.

I agree with Chris Hedges, we are on the Eve of Destruction, I would welcome a military take over by Patriotic Generals like General Odom.. and a purging of our elites. I think our banks should be nationalized and a cap put on executive salaries. There should be a massive penalty for any corporation who has closed factories in the last decade, and an offer of amnesty if they return them Stateside.
The last two administrations should be arrested and charged with crimes against the American people held in public. Lobby’s with overseas interests should be put under CIA surveillance, and we should change the campaign law so it is paid by the public with the media giving free air time in return for its right to broadcast the drivel. In addition an Affirmative action program should be installed to reflect the ethnic and racial make up of the country. After the purge there should a multi-party system so that the current lot never get their hands on power again. In addition more rights should be returned to the States so that the Federal Government is kept in check.

I visited ground zero in lower Manhattan and as I was leaving I became nauseaus.  Now we find that powder-thermate coats all of lower manhattan.  Military grade thermite and thermate, positioned everyday by people in jumpsuits all throughout the guts of the world trade centers for up to nine months before the demolitions.  This is what is being covered up.  This is the lynchpin of our msm imposed make believe reality.  By lifting the veil here, the true picture is enough to make you vomit.

Purple girl- “The acceptance of Palin as a viable VP,let alone Gov, is evidence enough, but playing with the idea of Beck Or Dobbs running is criminal. They are suggesting a Flim Flam Man as a candidate for POTUS!”
    We have a flim flam man for a president now.  Nice speeches, inhuman policies.  Like Reagan, or Clinton, or W.  All Flim-Flam-Bomb you ma’am…

omop,

Lindsey Graham is a shill for the Zionists….  He is representing Israel first and then America… Like Lieberman he is a traitor….  If these people do not parrot the Zionist line they will be out of a job….  Before yelling “anti-semite” read “they dared to speak out” by rep Paul Findley… 

Afghanistan and Iraq are not a threat to US… Never have been. Never will be… Israel is our ONE and ONLY enemy in the Mid East….

ps Nothing personal Jesus….

Add Senator Lindsey Graham pontification on television that regardless how
many billions and dead US soldiers the war in Afghanistan must be won so that
“America is safe”.

Is that nonsense or is that nonsense when one claims that Americans can only
feel safe after it kills several thousand barefooted cave dwelling Afghans?

Obviously having military bases in over 150 countries is not enough in providing for the safety of America.

Lack of security is the core problem in America.  Most if not all the other “problems” have their root in this central core problem. Without security, people are fearful.  When people fear the future, they become vulnerable to all sorts of social distortions and can be radicalized very easily.

Hunger is the best sauce.

Once again, Chris Hedges has described the landscape. The unfortunate reality is, America is too distracted by the banal, by the trivial, to heed to what he has to say.

Since I have won the Chicken Little drivel award of the year I felt a duty to read Hedges article this week. 

Chicken Little comes back to haunt me, Hedges seems to be telling us the sky is falling, but as one who already knows it, what am I to do, by stock or in umbrellas?

Several things come to mind, all this talk of delusions and illusions seems Hedges may be subliminally experiencing enlightened reevaluations of his deluded experiences in seminary.

Agreeing with Hedges basic premise, I have a problem with his approach of the problem from the standpoint of we, his use of the words “we” and “success” seem short sighted. 

If the Christian right is to be the new power movment, we may find the world as American as apple pie, being divided into thrids as the Muslims and Catholics and the Christians demand their pieces, while some watch with amusement, then burnt to a crisp at the stake.

From what has been told, during the depression of the 1930’s it was found people went to movies and watched rich people live and also spent more time in their gardens.  (I do not know what apartment people did for gardening?)

ardee, November 30 at 9:30 am:
‘I assume that those who criticze Hedges for every word he pens will soon show up and seek to minimize and diminish these words as well.

I wonder if the realities that Hedges notes are symptomatic of the gulf between our govt and our citizenry. When one cannot read the news without experiencing rage or pain one escape might be the shallowness of the current cultural ikons.’

I continue to find Hedges superficial, and his hysterical writing style is off-putting and tedious.  As for his well-worn cliché of the moment: Celebrity culture may be boring to us intellectual giants, but those who pursue it usually know it’s silly and largely fictional, which is more than you can say for most of the devotés of the New York Times.

By johannes, November 30 at 10:27 am #

To Anamaan,

The same in Europe, over en over again, like a stupid idiot who push all the time on the same
button where the carrot is hanging.
——————————————————————————-
You are absolutly correct this is a global problem. The American people are no less intelligent than anyone else, they just have the misfortune of living at ground zero of the elites propaganda campaign designed to pre-emptively discredit their critics.

This has been brilliantly executed not only using the news but also the entertainment industry. How better to discredit ones reality than to make it the the stuff of movies and fantasy.When one raises legitimate fears they are labelled as conspiracy theorists who have watched too many Hollywood blockbusters.

Just finished reading Chris Hedges’ article “Addicted to Nonsense” on http://www.truthdig.com/

As a practicing counselor I spend a considerable amount of time teaching the client how to pull back the “veil”.  I think that Mr. Hedges is right on with his thoughts about illusion and the society that we are living in.  I do not want to ever take away the possibility or potential for growth from a client, but keeping the clients sight on how he is living in his milieu and how he can take meaning away from that is paramount.

My work as a counselor can be very saddening at times, in fact, it is often very sad most of the time.  I care for my clients and I always hope that they will find what they are searching for but I believe that they cannot solve the current distress they are in with the same thinking and actions that got them to this point of distress in the first place.

That is the long way around to saying that living in preparation for an illusory lifestyle vs. preparation and work towards an attainable, sustainable, and meaningful lifestyle is two very different paths.

I don’t know if celebrity/superficiality worship is unique to the USA, but it has a long history. My mother believed she failed as a parent because I had no interest in maintaining a movie star scrapbook—she, on the other hand, bragged (by her standards, was more exited about receiving an autographed Jean Harlow photo than her high school graduation on the same day. She kept telling me about this so I would know how a female should live her infantalized life. There were no books in the house—didn’t fit with the decor. We went to Disneyland—never camping. The plastic, fake world was an improvement over God’s creation. When the Reagan administration printed Change of Address Forms in case of nuclear war, it demonstrated that the government cared.

It’s really important not to buy (literally) into the paradigm.

Thank-you, so much, Chris. The news explored in depth during the holidays has especially disturbed me.

I am an avid reader of Chris Hedges, including but not limited to his recent Empire of Illusion book, and believe him to be brilliant. However, it would be a very useful to all of us if he could please take the next step beyond telling us what is wrong and suggest actions each of us could take to remedy the serious ills of our time to which he points.

In his Empire of Illusion, he states quite clearly that the political power is with the corporations rather than the individual. Fine. So what does he suggest we can do about it since we are out gunned by corporate money?

To always criticize and not suggest solutions moves him over to the Ralph Nader approach, from whom I get my weekly rant but seldom if ever a meaningful suggestion as to how to remedy the situation.

Simply put Chris, we all know it is all broken, but how do you suggest we go about fixing it?

“and usher in a new dark age.”  What the f@%K?  Where’s the happy ending Mr. Hedges?....  I like my stories to be like commercials for Bud-light—-lots of frolicking young white people and fornication… 

Anywho, I seen Bill Gates and his dead-eyed wife on the TV yesterday and Mr. Gates thinks things are just hunky-dory…..  He thinks capitalism in its present state is just great and pretty soon, if people start buying things again, everything is gonna be OK…  So there you go… Stop worrying..

Seriously folks… Soon we will be at war with Iran and that will officially signal the beginning of the end…. 

Personally I’m looking forward to the end of the American Empire…  We have become Nazis and our footprint on the world stage should be erased as soon as possible….  How’s that for a happy ending boys and girls????

To Anamaan,

The same in Europe, over en over again, like a stupid idiot who push all the time on the same
button where the carrot is hanging.

Dead on the money, again, Mr. Hedges.

Anything to misdirect the public mind from the unpleasant convulsions of their dying empire:

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/the-gas-must-flow/

Choosing Wealth over Wisedom.
Our Founders imparted a great deal of Wisedom in the documents they created as framework for this new nation.
And wisedom comes from knowing the past and acting upon it’s lessons.
Ignorance is not Bliss. But the means by which others are able to carry out more insideous covert agendas.
Regardless of the method the outcome remains the same. Whether you influence the individual psyche or the collective psyche through subliminal messaging or ‘In your face’ repetative inciteful hysteria, both are forms of mind control techniques.
A clear distinction must be made between what consitutes a News Outlet and an Entertainment Outlet- the two are not only becoming blurred, they have had adverse effects on the People of this Democratically controlled Republic.
The acceptance of Palin as a viable VP,let alone Gov, is evidence enough, but playing with the idea of Beck Or Dobbs running is criminal. They are suggesting a Flim Flame Man as a candidate for POTUS!
Sorry boys even Hypnotism can’t override common sense, morals or persoanl safety concerns, so neither will your predatory marketing campaigns. No matter how much you try to convince yourselves otherwise. You bet the Neo cons, and some of their Blue Laps dogs are banking (paying and praying) on these shiny objects to keep the Public eye off them and the criminal acts they have committed, against US and the World.
Reality is that far more Americans are absorbed in the Healthcare debate, the Afghan policy, and Jobs than Media covers. Either as a means of burying their own cat shit in the kitty litter called Information Or as a means to relieve stress, they are doing US no favors.
For those with genuine intentions to help soothe over some of the nations fears with antidotes, you are in fact helping to keep US from the dire work that lies ahead. A Momentary distraction will not solve our long term problems, just delay action and the resolution. Our Countrymen and our Country need the Mass communications industry to do the job they were created to perform.
The Free Press was not just the means of Free Speech, but of informed Decision making in a Democracy. The Free Press was not to act as a propaganda tool, a placebo or a tranquilizer.
If you claim the Right to Free Speech as an Owner/employee of a Free Press then you must adhere to your obligations as a servant to ‘We the People’.
Information, not entertainment, is the reason for their very existence in Our Democracy.

ardee, November 30 at 9:30 am #
When one cannot read the news without experiencing rage
or pain one escape might be the shallowness of the
current cultural icons.
========================================
How truly sad; surely anything would be better than
that…

Why is anyone amazed by the drivel America thinks is entertainment? Once upon a time I figured most Americans were fairly intelligent—-and then George W. Bush was elected to a second term. I have since had to reevaluate my understanding of our overall mental competence.

I assume that those who criticze Hedges for every word he pens will soon show up and seek to minimize and diminish these words as well.

I wonder if the realities that Hedges notes are symptomatic of the gulf between our govt and our citizenry. When one cannot read the news without experiencing rage or pain one escape might be the shallowness of the current cultural ikons.

Inherit The Wind, November 30 at 8:57 am #
...it’s nothing more than entertainment and should be
seen as such (which is one reason I’ve stopped going to
football games at Giant Stadium—fans who don’t realize
it’s entertainment, not Life).
========================================
But isn’t that precisely the point?

Through the first 4 paragraphs I was thinking “Hey, Hedges is finally on to something!”

But then I got to the 5th paragraph where he starts into his usual attacks on American culture and styles, attacking Martha Stewart for being nothing more than what she claims to be: A person who shows you how to do things in your home and Hedges bitches that MS isn’t discussing relationships instead (Wouldn’t attacking Dr. Phil and Dr. Laura be more apt?).

Still, the rest of Hedges’ article can be distilled down into two ideas:
1) That what Michael Moore calls Pyramid Capitalism (ie ‘King of the Hill’) promises that 90% of us can be in the top 1%. (there was a funny poll where something like 22% of Americans described themselves as being in the top 1% in terms of wealth—can’t remember the exact ref.)
2) “Pie in the Sky”—Joe Hill’s re-write of “In the Sweet By-and-By” about charlatan preachers.

But what Hedges seems to miss is two things:
1) All this entertainment “news” should go off the front pages and back to the Arts and Sports sections…it’s nothing more than entertainment and should be seen as such (which is one reason I’ve stopped going to football games at Giant Stadium—fans who don’t realize it’s entertainment, not Life).
2) The far more treacherous descent into fascism that, while slowed by the elections of 2006 and 2008, has not ended, and, in many quarters has gotten more intense. Fundamental racism and a fervent, dogmatic belief in unprovable concepts sweeps from far right to far left, so that even blatantly false ideas like “The Narrative” (as Thomas Friedman calls it) is accepted as fact by TDers.

Still, this is far better than Hedges usual shrill irrational tirades on why America is bad (rather than what is WRONG in America) though not as good as his last piece.

I think Americans in particular, are a very shallow
and silly people. Their lack of character and applied
intelligence has led them to apathy and an unfounded
trust in a government that hasn’t had their best
interest in mind since Eisenhower. This makes
Americans (and their government) the most dangerous
people on the planet. We will become a third world
country; really, we’re already there. If you’ve ever
lived in a third world country you’d know exactly
what I’m talking about.
In third world countries the gap between wealthy and
poor is immense and the middle class is minute.
My major concern is how the American government will
react to it’s declining status as an economic
superstar; I fear we are witnessing the precursors
now with perpetual wars.

I will read the whole article later but hedges has this american attribute nailed to a tee and that can be taken as pun because this is just another revealing episode of how the msm don’t give a flying rat’s ass about anything of worth about informing people with real information to help make the real decisions people need to make on a daily basis and YES, oprah and tiger are part and parcel of the way the msm use these favorites to keep the vegetable garden well fertilized and I would have thought that someones such as oprah and tiger would not condescend to being used to be a part in the msm’s strangle hold on america’s information system, buy I have to say all 3, the msm, oprah and tiger are all of the ‘elite’ that have that need to be aloof from the rabble that the pretend to relate to and act so benevolent to but just for their own status.

What does anyone else think would happen to them if they refused to talk to the police after leaving the scene of an accident?

Curtis,
I was thinking the same as I was reading Hedges article.  The financial elite has gone global and are not interested in the American worker.  There is no need to re-infranchise anyone in their eyes.  The field of exploitation is global not local.

Here’s the rest of that story: We deserve what we get.
What is it?..Only 22% or so,of American adults,
actually vote.  So while following the
celebrity/fantasy adventures of Oprah, et al, we, as a
nation, are not voting.  We are getting that same vapid
mentality in our leaders due to what? Apathy?  Sloth? 
Stupidity?  I don’t know, but we have already fallen
into the abyss.  The author is right; soon there will
be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Until then, the
majority of Americans are blissfully snoring away.

What can one say?  As our nation “dumbs down” there is little energy to address and solve all our problems.  So we have entered the slippery slope and will soon enough join the 3rd world many of us have so much contempt for.  I was listening to a retired Lehmann Brothers analysis the other day who said that the big banks have already written America off and will be concentrating their efforts on Asia.  They believe America will soon become a low wage, 3rd world country.  I, unfortunately, have to agree with them.

Addicted to Nonsense
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/addicted_to_nonse
nse_20091129/

Posted on Nov 30, 2009 By Chris Hedges

Hey Chris Hedges:

This essay is beyond brilliant.

Since Truthdig doesn’t have a venue allowing readers
to

contact authors, I’m forced to ask you here: What is
your

meaning behind the last paragraph?

When you say:

“Unless we rapidly re-enfranchise these dispossessed
workers,

insert them back into the economy, unless we give
them hope,

these demagogues will rise up to take power.

Time is running out.

The poor can dine out only so long on illusions.
Once they grasp

that they have been betrayed, once they match the
bleak reality

of their future with the fantasies they are fed, once
their homes

are foreclosed and they realize that the jobs they
lost are never

coming back, they will react with a fury and
vengeance that will

snuff out the remains of our anemic democracy and
usher in a new dark age.”

This has already happened, and the privatized
mercenary army & regular army

are ready to surpress any uprisings that could make

Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 seem mild.

Amen.

Let the disney world implode on itself now.