Chris Hedges writes at least one essay a week, published at Truthdig and Common Dreams (maybe elsewhere too). His writings can be depressing, he is unafraid of telling the dark unvarnished truth (as he sees it) about our political situation in the USA and in the world; he's one of the few brave enough to do so regularly. This week his essay is titled
"Rise Up or Die". Links to both sources and accompanying comments:
Common Dreams
truthdig
Key paragraphs from
Rise Up or Die:
"Corporations write our legislation. They control our systems of information. They manage the political theater of electoral politics and impose our educational curriculum. They have turned the judiciary into one of their wholly owned subsidiaries. They have decimated labor unions and other independent mass organizations, as well as having bought off the Democratic Party, which once defended the rights of workers. With the evisceration of piecemeal and incremental reform—the primary role of liberal, democratic institutions—we are left defenseless against corporate power."
"More than 100 million Americans—one-third of the population—live in poverty or a category called “near poverty.” Yet the stories of the poor and the near poor, the hardships they endure, are rarely told by a media that is owned by a handful of corporations—Viacom, General Electric, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Clear Channel and Disney. The suffering of the underclass, like the crimes of the power elite, has been rendered invisible."
"A handful of corporate oligarchs around the globe have everything—wealth, power and privilege—and the rest of us struggle as part of a vast underclass, increasingly impoverished and ruthlessly repressed. There is one set of laws and regulations for us; there is another set of laws and regulations for a power elite that functions as a global mafia. "
"It is time to build radical mass movements that defy all formal centers of power and make concessions to none. It is time to employ the harsh language of open rebellion and class warfare. It is time to march to the beat of our own drum. The law historically has been a very imperfect tool for justice, as African-Americans know, but now it is exclusively the handmaiden of our corporate oppressors; now it is a mechanism of injustice. It was our corporate overlords who launched this war. Not us. Revolt will see us branded as criminals. Revolt will push us into the shadows. And yet, if we do not revolt we can no longer use the word “hope.” "
" ........We are sailing on a maniacal voyage of self-destruction, and no one in a position of authority, even if he or she sees what lies ahead, is willing or able to stop it. Those on the Pequod who had a conscience, including Starbuck, did not have the courage to defy Ahab. The ship and its crew were doomed by habit, cowardice and hubris. Melville’s warning must become ours. Rise up or die. "
The question hangs over the engaged reader: Rise up? How? Especially for those of us marooned in red states, and probably most in need of a rising up....but how?
A few commenters raised similar questions. Here are one or two of the responses - I feel certain none would object to my using their words, with screen-name credit here:
The way to sabotage the corporate machine is to back a nationwide boycott –– for tactical reasons, one product or service at a time. Some business savvy committee of an able activist organization should consider (carefully) which corporation to target first. Then let the publicity about the boycott go forth on blogs and around water coolers. The more foul the corporation, the easier the sell to friends and family, with little physical risk or hardship to them.
Change one buying habit at a time. Much easier than changing people's politics or world view. Boycott! The only question is which corporation is to be tagged first and which organization is best equipped to decide the order of these rolling boycotts. Don't Occupy. Boycott!!! (John Janitz)
Good question. Is anybody out there ready for some answers? All readers, all people, are you ready?? Because the answers will turn your "be good" mentality upside down. The solutions available will mess with our heads, but since it's our heads that are all "f'd" up, that's where we MUST start.
1. Get over your compliant and fearful and embarrassed attitudes. Forget what other people will say or think. What other people think of you is their problem. There will be NO change until you get that. Until you get THAT, the world is doomed.
2. Yes, it's about you! Not "us", not the crowd...so stop looking for a leader. BE A LEADER. Good grief! We all need to get some guts! "Don't go where the path leads. Make a path for other's to follow."
3. Do the exact opposite of what the sheep do. Now this is going to tick some people out there off (and I rest my case about the "be good" programming we have all been inculcated with; to the benefit of the oppressors and the endless, bottomless system of deceit.) For example,
a. If you get ticketed because of a surveillance camera at an intersection, FIGHT IT. RAISE HELL. Make your case to the judge and don't back down. Be heard.
b. If your kid gets sent home from school for making a gun with his fingers or drinking herb tea or some other idiotic control madness, FIGHT IT. RAISE HELL. Make your case to the school board and don't back down. Be heard.
c. Humans are animals that have been overly domesticated in order to serve the system. Recognize when and how you are under attack and don't stand still for abuse. A lioness doesn't wonder what will happen to her when she protects her cubs. She just does it. A hummingbird will attack a person too close to the nest. Period. Nature is in you and nature is GOOD. Find it!
d. Understand your rights are not granted by government. Rights to freedom, the pursuit of happiness, life, health, home, equality, truth, and justice are given by Life itself, what some call God, or Divine Right. It's time to stop being owned. Get that in your head, first, and all else will follow.
e. Stop watching the damn television set!
f. Demand from grocers, growers, legislators and anybody that will listen that your food be labeled properly: GMO's anyone? Good God, it's gone mad...ARE YOU INFORMED????
g. Do you know what Fukishima is doing to this planet? GET INFORMED. Oppose nuclear power in all its forms. It's the death knell.
h. Don't donate to churches!! Give money to any one of the millions who are in dire need. You won't have to go far...your neighborhood is ripe with suffering.
i. Don't donate to money-sucking corporate jokes like the American Cancer Society or the United Way. Give money to someone you know who needs it.
j. Don't judge/exlude/condemn other people: stop persecuting smokers, (government wants you to do that as they are one of the many litmus tests for the cessation of personal liberty) stop railing against the poor as if they are the leeches of the world, and go out of your way to help old people. Kindness kills evil and evil is inciting people to cold indifference and separation. Honest to God, we've gone mad and the only cure for our insanity is love and decency of mutual respect.
k. Don't use credit cards routinely. Work with cash as much as you can. Buy used items. NEVER go into Walmart, or KFC, or any of the corporate monstrosities that have gotten more money than God and more power than Congress because we made them stinking rich. Shop local. Don't buy junk. Live lean.
l. Defend the defenseless. Speak up. Somebody been beaten by the cops? Somebody being mauled by the system? Step UP. Don't look the other way. You're next. Guaranteed.
This list could go on....there are thousands of ways to rebel.
It begins with attitude, folks. Get strong. Lead. Don't follow. (Sarah)
All revolution is local. The best way to rebel/revolt is first to know the painful truths of empire and not be afraid of them. Then we must communicate those truths directly through words or indirectly through action to friends, family, neighbors, at work, etc. on a daily basis. Then we also need to have faith that the revolution will necessarily have to spread gradually, slowly, and unpredictably over time until it reaches a tipping point (which may or may not be in our lifetimes). We must therefore not be afraid to feel sad and angry to some extent every day, because that is the right way to feel, and those feelings impel us to continue to resist on a daily basis, and over the course of our lives. (Feeling sad and angry daily does not mean we can't also feel love, joy, etc. as well, because we will be living a good life, fighting the good fight).
All other actions (e.g. Occupy) while beautiful and good, will be easily resisted by empire until the local work is done, and that may take many years. In order to be successful, we must take the long view, we must be patient, and we must have faith that acting locally, one person at a time, will spread. (DL)
There are but a few people I encounter who are aware of this state of affairs and even fewer willing to take any action -- most of them are deceived and deluded by their blind faith in the institutions they trust to ultimately "do the right thing" for the people. They are ensconced in a cocoon of daily ritual -- job, family, and entertainment -- unable to accept the vast dysfunction as anything but an aberration that those in charge will "fix" given enough time. "Obama is a nice guy who's trying to do the right thing against overwhelming opposition, and I support him", one fellow told me. The problem is not just the "lesser of two evils" illusion, it is the lack of imagination of how things could be different if they would consider alternatives. That applies not only to elections, but to every aspect of life. Individuals' minds already have been enslaved, and their critical faculties have been dulled by distractions and material comforts. The only way the dire predicament we are facing will be confronted is through the impact of disaster, which is destined repeatedly to befall us.(norecovery)
Most of us who are older here have all seen the same things. I can only tell you how I deal with sense of helplessness and inevitability when it threatens. I have 8 neighbors. Of those, 6 are as you describe. One is an ardent supporter of power. Another sympathetic to the people's cause. Forget about 7 of those 8. You live for that one. You are not trying to wake everyone up or persuade the world of anything. That would be futility at its grandest. The good news is that you don't need to. Historical conflicts are waged by minorities. We don't need everyone on board. We just need enough.(drone1)
This should be all about rebellion, not violent revolution: it means finding ways to stop "feeding the beast" as a first step, and doing what each of us can to raise awareness. It'll seem like a pretty pointless exercise for a while, but at some point, if enough of us participated, a powerful single movement would eventually form, embracing any seminal movements which are already out there, and a leader would emerge. I have faith in that old saying "cometh the hour, cometh the man" (nowadays it could well be a woman); or a slightly different version of the same idea: "when the student is ready a teacher will appear". "The hour" is perhaps not quite here yet, "the students" (us) not quite up to scratch. It's up to us, all of us who see the sense in Chris Hedges' words and in suggestions from those commenters, to make sure that when "the hour" does eventually "cometh" - we'll recognise, understand, and have done all we can to help things along.
There's a video of a brief interview with Chris Hedges on this topic at Common Dreams today:
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2013/05/22
