The Death of the Liberal Class:Chris Hedges

[Peter Lemkin]

Chris Hedges new article at Truthdig can be found HERE.

I do not know if we can win this battle. I suspect we cannot. But I do know that if we stop resisting, if we stop rebelling, something fundamental will die within us. As the corporate vise tightens, as the vast corporate system begins to break down with fossil fuel decline, extreme climate change and the expansion of global poverty, even mundane and ordinary acts to assert our common humanity and justice will be condemned as subversive.
It is time to think of resistance in a new way, something that is no longer carried out to reform a system but as an end in itself. African-Americans understood this during the long night of slavery. German opposition leaders understood it under the Nazis. Dissidents in the former Soviet Union knew this during the nightmare of communism. Resistance in these closed systems was local and often solitary. It was done with the understanding that evil must always be defied. The tiny acts of rebellion—day after day, month after month, year after year and decade after decade—exposed to everyone who witnessed them the heartlessness, cruelty and inhumanity of the oppressor. They were acts of truth and beauty. We must take to the street. We must jam as many wrenches into the corporate system as we can. We must not make it easy for them. But we also must no longer live in self-delusion. This is a battle that will outlive us. And if we fight, even with this tragic vision, we will lead lives worth living and keep alive another way of being.

Chris Hedges is a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and writes a column every Monday for Truthdig. His newest book is “[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYCvSntOI5s"]Death of the Liberal Class.”[/URL]

Great article by Hedges.....and reflects my sentiments and sorrows exactly.....America is Dead - now we must fight for something new by keeping resistance alive....or face a permanently bleak and I fear short future for humankind and all of life on Gaia. The Corporations and the Militarists; the Banksters and Oligarchs have rolled back all of the gains of the last few hundred years - or will shortly - momentum and control is on their side, and the resistance and mechanisms to stop them all but gone now. What applies for America applies as well for the UK, with the rest of the European countries and their allies worldwide only a step or two behind. Some world we have inherited on our watch, if you are of my age. In one generation we have gone from savior of the world against fascism to its greatest engine of its promotion. A sad tale. A desperate situation. Hedges is completely correct, IMO, but singing to the choir, the rest unable and unwilling to face such a reality and the MSM keeping it away from them. As he says one must fight on, though it looks so hopeless at times...for to do otherwise is to give in to the Beast. Carry on. It is heartening to see others, as here, and on other islands in the wasteland of the internet who 'get it' and are fighting.....but I fear our relative numbers are still rather small. One can only hope they are growing and that is very hard to judge. They are working overtime to take away our power and even our right to speak truth to power and object to what is going on...mark my words. The mother of all battles is engaged. They killed or marginalized all of our leaders, so we must each lead the best we can and leave a seed here and there and hope it will grow. Carry on. Good luck to us all - I fear we are going to need it!