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Chris Hedges: "Our Liberty Has Been Sacrificed On The Altar Of National Security"

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

The relationship between those who are constantly watched and tracked, and those who watch and track them, is the relationship between masters and slaves.

- Chris Hedges

Below you will find an extremely powerful and inspiring speech by Chris Hedges. The award winning journalist has been ahead of the curve on many issues of national and global importance, including being one of the earliest critics of the Iraq war. Chris has an unshakable moral compass and a passion to match it. He has been a shining light in a sea of darkness and cowardice when it comes to public figures speaking truth to power, including having led the charge to sue the Obama administration on the right to imprison American citizens without trial.

Thank you for all you do, Chris.

 

Here is Chris Hedges' infamous comparison of two frightening visions of the future...

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.

 

We have been gradually disempowered by a corporate state that, as Huxley foresaw, seduced and manipulated us through sensual gratification, cheap mass-produced goods, boundless credit, political theater and amusement. While we were entertained, the regulations that once kept predatory corporate power in check were dismantled, the laws that once protected us were rewritten and we were impoverished. Now that credit is drying up, good jobs for the working class are gone forever and mass-produced goods are unaffordable, we find ourselves transported from “Brave New World” to “1984.” The state, crippled by massive deficits, endless war and corporate malfeasance, is sliding toward bankruptcy. It is time for Big Brother to take over from Huxley’s feelies, the orgy-porgy and the centrifugal bumble-puppy. We are moving from a society where we are skillfully manipulated by lies and illusions to one where we are overtly controlled. 

 

...

 

The corporate state does not find its expression in a demagogue or charismatic leader. It is defined by the anonymity and facelessness of the corporation. Corporations, who hire attractive spokespeople like Barack Obama, control the uses of science, technology, education and mass communication. They control the messages in movies and television. And, as in “Brave New World,” they use these tools of communication to bolster tyranny. Our systems of mass communication, as Wolin writes, “block out, eliminate whatever might introduce qualification, ambiguity, or dialogue, anything that might weaken or complicate the holistic force of their creation, to its total impression.”

 

The result is a monochromatic system of information. Celebrity courtiers, masquerading as journalists, experts and specialists, identify our problems and patiently explain the parameters. All those who argue outside the imposed parameters are dismissed as irrelevant cranks, extremists or members of a radical left. Prescient social critics, from Ralph Nader to Noam Chomsky, are banished. Acceptable opinions have a range of A to B. The culture, under the tutelage of these corporate courtiers, becomes, as Huxley noted, a world of cheerful conformity, as well as an endless and finally fatal optimism. We busy ourselves buying products that promise to change our lives, make us more beautiful, confident or successful as we are steadily stripped of rights, money and influence. All messages we receive through these systems of communication, whether on the nightly news or talk shows like “Oprah,” promise a brighter, happier tomorrow. And this, as Wolin points out, is “the same ideology that invites corporate executives to exaggerate profits and conceal losses, but always with a sunny face.” We have been entranced, as Wolin writes, by “continuous technological advances” that “encourage elaborate fantasies of individual prowess, eternal youthfulness, beauty through surgery, actions measured in nanoseconds: a dream-laden culture of ever-expanding control and possibility, whose denizens are prone to fantasies because the vast majority have imagination but little scientific knowledge.”

 

Our manufacturing base has been dismantled. Speculators and swindlers have looted the U.S. Treasury and stolen billions from small shareholders who had set aside money for retirement or college. Civil liberties, including habeas corpus and protection from warrantless wiretapping, have been taken away. Basic services, including public education and health care, have been handed over to the corporations to exploit for profit. The few who raise voices of dissent, who refuse to engage in the corporate happy talk, are derided by the corporate establishment as freaks.

 

...

 

The façade is crumbling. And as more and more people realize that they have been used and robbed, we will move swiftly from Huxley’s “Brave New World” to Orwell’s “1984.” The public, at some point, will have to face some very unpleasant truths. The good-paying jobs are not coming back. The largest deficits in human history mean that we are trapped in a debt peonage system that will be used by the corporate state to eradicate the last vestiges of social protection for citizens, including Social Security. The state has devolved from a capitalist democracy to neo-feudalism. And when these truths become apparent, anger will replace the corporate-imposed cheerful conformity. The bleakness of our post-industrial pockets, where some 40 million Americans live in a state of poverty and tens of millions in a category called “near poverty,” coupled with the lack of credit to save families from foreclosures, bank repossessions and bankruptcy from medical bills, means that inverted totalitarianism will no longer work.

 

...

 

The noose is tightening. The era of amusement is being replaced by the era of repression. Tens of millions of citizens have had their e-mails and phone records turned over to the government. We are the most monitored and spied-on citizenry in human history. Many of us have our daily routine caught on dozens of security cameras. Our proclivities and habits are recorded on the Internet. Our profiles are electronically generated. Our bodies are patted down at airports and filmed by scanners. And public service announcements, car inspection stickers, and public transportation posters constantly urge us to report suspicious activity. The enemy is everywhere.

 

...

 

“Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating?” Orwell wrote. “It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself.”

And while Hedges nails it, we leave it to Emmet Scott to sum up the present in relation to Huxley and Orwell's prophecies:

The most striking parallel of course is that both men foresaw the future as totalitarian rather than democratic and free. Neither presumably believed their vision of the future to be inevitable, though it is equally clear that each saw aspects of mid-twentieth century life which clearly pointed in the totalitarian direction. Thus 1984 and Brave New World may be seen as warnings against what might be if the trends identified by the two authors persisted. What these trends were and why the authors saw them leading towards totalitarianism is an important question and one that will be addressed presently.

 

The totalitarian states described by Orwell and Huxley differed in most details, though there were also many correspondences. Both Big Brother’s world and the Brave New World are ruled by authoritarian elites of a basically socialist/communist nature, whose only real purpose is the maintenance of their own power and privileges.

 

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Thu, 08/28/2014 - 05:23 | 5152879 Pundit
Pundit's picture

Who's gonna monitor the monitors of the monitors? 1998 Enemy of the state movie got it all right about what was and is now going on but in a much greater proportions in the US.

Thu, 08/28/2014 - 05:49 | 5152899 falak pema
falak pema's picture

Should say : OUR liberty has been sacrificed on the alter of THEIR Oligarchical greed dressed up in the fake clothes of "National Security". 

Thu, 08/28/2014 - 06:28 | 5152916 shutupnsing
shutupnsing's picture

The Hedges Fund...now that is something worth investing in!

Thu, 08/28/2014 - 07:27 | 5152988 Roanman
Roanman's picture

I like cris hedges ok, but I can never shake the feeling that his real issue is that it ain't him on top.

Thu, 08/28/2014 - 11:11 | 5153841 william114085
william114085's picture

great video....share it.

Thu, 08/28/2014 - 11:45 | 5153965 moneybots
moneybots's picture

Nothing ever stays the same.

 

The United States began morphing, the day the ink was dry on the first printing of The Constitution.

For all the talk of liberty and justice for all, black people were held as slaves through the Civil War era.

The country started as 13 states and morphed into 50, by purchase and war.  The U.S. morphed into the most powerful nation on earth.

A few million people of several nationalities has morphed into over 300 million from numerous nationalities.

July 4th, 1776, morphed from a day of defiance, to a day of picnics and fireworks displays.  A holiday taken for granted.

History is a process of morphing.  Europe morphed into the Dark Ages and morphed into The Enlightenment.  Martin Armstrong warns that if the financial excess is pushed too far before correcting, we could enter into a new Dark Ages.

Benjamin Franklin said it was a republic, if we could keep it.  History has shown that nothing stays the same forever.  Cycles always move on to the next phase.

 

Thu, 08/28/2014 - 11:59 | 5154035 moneybots
moneybots's picture

 "Both Big Brother’s world and the Brave New World are ruled by authoritarian elites of a basically socialist/communist nature, whose only real purpose is the maintenance of their own power and privileges."

 

Look at both political parties.   How long have McCain or Feinstein been in office?  One a republican, one a democrat.  Both McCain and Obama supported TARP.  What privilege has that bought them?

 

 

Thu, 08/28/2014 - 12:05 | 5154056 rwe2late
rwe2late's picture

Instead of describing a Huxley/Orwell dystopia as one of totalitarian rule,
the article quotes Emmet Scott who describes the problem as being

"ruled by authoritarian elites of a basically socialist/communist nature".

Although that depiction may find favor with many, including here at ZH,
such a depiction only promotes political division by mistaken attribution.

Totalitarian rule of any nature should be opposed.

Can there be totalitarian rule, for example, by corporatists, bureaucrats, or religious zealots?

There are self-identified "libertarians" who range from "no-government anarchists" to ones who support "a supposedly free market protective of corporate rights", a "strong military" and "anti-terrorist policing".

Similarly, there are various others, self-professed socialists, liberals, conservatives, Jews, Christians, Republicans, Democrats, etc. who support militarism, the "war on terror", the "war on drugs", "Patriot" Acts, and NSA monitoring.
And there are many self-professed leftists, socialists et al who oppose all of that.

Shifting the focus away from opposing totalitarianism instead to opposing some political label opens the door for prejudices, misunderstandings, self-righteous myopia, and self-defeating divisiveness.

Fri, 08/29/2014 - 22:07 | 5161095 Ckierst1
Ckierst1's picture

"Can there be totalitarian rule, for example, by corporatists, bureaucrats, or religious zealots?"

Of course!  And of course there can be self proclaimed "libertarians" of all sorts of stripes.  There can be neocons who proclaim themselves to be "conservative" and neolibs who proclaim themselves "liberal".  The libertarian label still has ideological rigor.  The other two terms are essentially worthless.  Phony "libertarians" may try to pass themselves off as libertarians but they fail to pass the litmus tests.  The jokers at the Cato Institute leap to mind.  They still frequently gravitate to statist mechanisms to address pressing domestic and international issues.

At least real libertarians such as those associated with Lew Rockwell and the Mises Institute refuse to tolerate the bullshitters.  You can try to muddy the waters but it won't work.  We know bullshit and will confront it.  By and large, socialists in general lack the ideological backbone to call out their statists and sit on their hands.

Thu, 08/28/2014 - 12:33 | 5154244 novictim
novictim's picture

I'm just going to say this once and with the utmost seriousness: 

 

DO. NOT. BLINK!

Thu, 08/28/2014 - 21:22 | 5156690 metaStable
metaStable's picture

"There be no shelter here. Tha frontline is everywhere." - RATM

Just change VCR to iPhone and the lyrics are still ring true.

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!