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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChris Hedges: Our Invisible Revolution
from truthdig:
Our Invisible Revolution
Posted on Oct 28, 2013
By Chris Hedges
Did you ever ask yourself how it happens that government and capitalism continue to exist in spite of all the evil and trouble they are causing in the world? the anarchist Alexander Berkman wrote in his essay The Idea Is the Thing. If you did, then your answer must have been that it is because the people support those institutions, and that they support them because they believe in them.
Berkman was right. As long as most citizens believe in the ideas that justify global capitalism, the private and state institutions that serve our corporate masters are unassailable. When these ideas are shattered, the institutions that buttress the ruling class deflate and collapse. The battle of ideas is percolating below the surface. It is a battle the corporate state is steadily losing. An increasing number of Americans are getting it. They know that we have been stripped of political power. They recognize that we have been shorn of our most basic and cherished civil liberties, and live under the gaze of the most intrusive security and surveillance apparatus in human history. Half the country lives in poverty. Many of the rest of us, if the corporate state is not overthrown, will join them. These truths are no longer hidden.
It appears that political ferment is dormant in the United States. This is incorrect. The ideas that sustain the corporate state are swiftly losing their efficacy across the political spectrum. The ideas that are rising to take their place, however, are inchoate. The right has retreated into Christian fascism and a celebration of the gun culture. The left, knocked off balance by decades of fierce state repression in the name of anti-communism, is struggling to rebuild and define itself. Popular revulsion for the ruling elite, however, is nearly universal. It is a question of which ideas will capture the publics imagination.
Revolution usually erupts over events that would, in normal circumstances, be considered meaningless or minor acts of injustice by the state. But once the tinder of revolt has piled up, as it has in the United States, an insignificant spark easily ignites popular rebellion. No person or movement can ignite this tinder. No one knows where or when the eruption will take place. No one knows the form it will take. But it is certain now that a popular revolt is coming. The refusal by the corporate state to address even the minimal grievances of the citizenry, along with the abject failure to remedy the mounting state repression, the chronic unemployment and underemployment, the massive debt peonage that is crippling more than half of Americans, and the loss of hope and widespread despair, means that blowback is inevitable. ............................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/our_invisible_revolution_20131028
LuvNewcastle
(16,847 posts)trying to get us to revolt. Over and over again, they have screwed the people and given more and more to the wealthy and powerful, and they don't even try to hide it anymore. It's blatant and in-your-face. It's like they're slapping us over and over again and saying, "what are you gonna do about it?" I don't know why they're goading us into action, but I suspect something is planned for when we do -- something very nasty.
DontTreadOnMe
(2,442 posts)It's more like they "know" they are ripping us off, and they can't believe no one is stopping them, so they keep doubling down. You can never have enough money, so just KEEP going for more.
LuvNewcastle
(16,847 posts)They have been in the past, mostly. And why get everything all at once? Why wouldn't they at least throw us a bone now and then? I really don't think they're so stupid that they wouldn't realize they might be going too far. And now, after all we've been through, it looks very much like they're going to cut Social Security. I think it's already a done deal; they're just releasing a little bit more and a little bit more about another person in government who says it's inevitable. They've got to know people are fed up. It just seems to me like their testing us to see how much we'll take before we fight back. Why would they want to risk that?
DontTreadOnMe
(2,442 posts)anyone can join the club, just reach your hand in and grab some!