US empire could collapse at any time, Pulitzer winner tells Raw Story

[Ares]

America's military and economic empire could collapse at any time, but predicting the precise day, week or month of its potential demise is unattainable, according to a former New York Times war correspondent who spoke with Raw Story.

"The when and how is very dangerous to predict because there's always some factor that blindsides you that you didn't expect," Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges said in an exclusive interview. "It doesn't look good. But exactly how it plays out and when it plays out, having covered disintegrating societies, it's impossible to tell."

He explained that he learned this lesson as events unfolded around him in the fall of 1989. Then, members of the opposition to the Soviet Empire told him that they predicted travel across the Berlin Wall separating East from West Germany would open within the year.

"Within a few hours, the wall didn't exist," he said.

Hedges was one of the 131 activists were arrested in an act of civil disobedience outside the White House yesterday, even as Obama was unveiling a new report citing progress in the Afghanistan war.

Speaking to Raw Story on Wednesday night, he said the signs of US collapse are plain to see and compared the country's course through Afghanistan to Soviet Russia's.

"We're losing [the war in Afghanistan] in the same way the Red Army lost it," he said. "It's exactly the same configuration where we sort of control the urban centers where 20 percent of the population lives. The rest of the country where 80 percent of the Afghans live is either in the hands of the Taliban or disputed."

"Foreigners will not walk the streets of Kabul because of kidnapping, and journalists regularly meet Taliban officials in Kabul because the whole apparatus is so porous and corrupt," he said.

One day after this interview was conducted, reports hit the global media noting the CIA's warning to President Obama, that the Pakistan-supported Taliban could still regain control of the country.

Hedges predicted that President Obama's war report released Thursday would "contradict not only [US] intelligence reports but everything else that is coming out of Afghanistan."

His prediction came startlingly true: the CIA's own assessment was said to stand in striking contrast with President Obama's report.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, however, insisted that the US controlled more territory in Afghanistan than it did a year ago.

'A corporate coup d'état in slow motion'

Hedges said he attended the protest and planned to get arrested because he is against the corporate powers that have enveloped the nation.

"We've undergone a corporate coup d'état in slow motion," he said. "Our public education system has been gutted. Our infrastructure is corroding and collapsing. Unless we begin to physically resist, they are going to solidify neo-feudalism in this country."

"If we think that Obama is bad, watch the next two years because these corporate forces have turned their back on him," Hedges warned.

Hedges, author of "Death of the Liberal Class," said that his vision of America is one with a functioning social democracy, which stands in stark contrast to the nihilism of the corporate state.

"American workers, as they are repeatedly told, will have to become competitive with prison labor in China," he said. "That's where we're headed, and all the pillars of the liberal establishment are complicit in this."

"At least if you get sick in the UK, you don't go bankrupt or die," he added.

Hedges said that another pressure point is the US dollar, which he pointed out had been dropped by Russia and China in favor of modified ruble/renminbi exchanges.

"A few more deals like that, and our currency becomes junk," he said.

Hedges continued, "As long as we have relative stability, these lunatic fringe movements can be held at bay, but if we don't undertake serious structural reform, which we're not doing, then it is inevitable that we will come to a tremendous crisis - economic and political as well as environmental."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOde31QYbI0

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/untitled-chris-hedges-interview/

[mick silver]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/untitled-chris-hedges-interview/ .... America's military and economic empire could collapse at any time, but predicting the precise day, week or month of its potential demise is unattainable, according to a former New York Times war correspondent who spoke with Raw Story.

"The when and how is very dangerous to predict because there's always some factor that blindsides you that you didn't expect," Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges said in an exclusive interview. "It doesn't look good. But exactly how it plays out and when it plays out, having covered disintegrating societies, it's impossible to tell."

He explained that he learned this lesson as events unfolded around him in the fall of 1989. Then, members of the opposition to the Soviet Empire told him that they predicted travel across the Berlin Wall separating East from West Germany would open within the year.

"Within a few hours, the wall didn't exist," he said.

Hedges was one of the 131 activists were arrested in an act of civil disobedience outside the White House yesterday, even as Obama was unveiling a new report citing progress in the Afghanistan war.

Speaking to Raw Story on Wednesday night, he said the signs of US collapse are plain to see and compared the country's course through Afghanistan to Soviet Russia's.

"We're losing [the war in Afghanistan] in the same way the Red Army lost it," he said. "It's exactly the same configuration where we sort of control the urban centers where 20 percent of the population lives. The rest of the country where 80 percent of the Afghans live is either in the hands of the Taliban or disputed."

"Foreigners will not walk the streets of Kabul because of kidnapping, and journalists regularly meet Taliban officials in Kabul because the whole apparatus is so porous and corrupt," he said.

One day after this interview was conducted, reports hit the global media noting the CIA's warning to President Obama, that the Pakistan-supported Taliban could still regain control of the country.

Hedges predicted that President Obama's war report released Thursday would "contradict not only [US] intelligence reports but everything else that is coming out of Afghanistan."

His prediction came startlingly true: the CIA's own assessment was said to stand in striking contrast with President Obama's report.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, however, insisted that the US controlled more territory in Afghanistan than it did a year ago.

'A corporate coup d'état in slow motion'

Hedges said he attended the protest and planned to get arrested because he is against the corporate powers that have enveloped the nation.

"We've undergone a corporate coup d'état in slow motion," he said. "Our public education system has been gutted. Our infrastructure is corroding and collapsing. Unless we begin to physically resist, they are going to solidify neo-feudalism in this country."

"If we think that Obama is bad, watch the next two years because these corporate forces have turned their back on him," Hedges warned.

Hedges, author of "Death of the Liberal Class," said that his vision of America is one with a functioning social democracy, which stands in stark contrast to the nihilism of the corporate state.

"American workers, as they are repeatedly told, will have to become competitive with prison labor in China," he said. "That's where we're headed, and all the pillars of the liberal establishment are complicit in this."

"At least if you get sick in the UK, you don't go bankrupt or die," he added.

Hedges said that another pressure point is the US dollar, which he pointed out had been dropped by Russia and China in favor of modified ruble/renminbi exchanges.

"A few more deals like that, and our currency becomes junk," he said.

Hedges continued, "As long as we have relative stability, these lunatic fringe movements can be held at bay, but if we don't undertake serious structural reform, which we're not doing, then it is inevitable that we will come to a tremendous crisis - economic and political as well as environmental."

This video, featuring portions of a speech given by Chris Hedges, was shot outside the White House on Dec. 16, 2010.


Updated from an original version.

With editing by Stephen C. Webster.

[mick silver]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOde31QYbI0&feature=player_embedded

[mick silver]

i am sorry i dint see it posted , then i look down move an saw it ... mods you can remove it

[FunnyMoney]

With words like that, "hope" may indeed become a strategy after all.

[SilverMagnet]

They should have all chained themselves to the fence like that guy with the U shaped bike lock at 2:11 and thrown the keys into a single pile to make security earn their money through analytical problem solving instead of just allowing themselves to be carried away like sacks of potatoes.

Either way, I extend my gratitude for their personal integrity.

[FunnyMoney]

From the video...

Hope has a cost. Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risk, it is not about the right attitude or peace of mind. Hope is action; hope is doing something.

The more futile, the more useless, the more irrelevant and incomprehensible an act of rebellion is, the more potent hope becomes. Hope never makes sense. Hope is weak, unorganized and absurd. Hope, which is always non-violent, exposes in its powerlessness, the lies, fraud and coercion employed by the state. Hope knows that an injustice visited on our neighbor is an injustice visited on all of us.


- Words from Chris Hedges prior to his arrest for speaking outside the White House on Dec. 16, 2010.

[Shami-Amourae]

Comment from user seen2much:


So the obvious has finally started to become impossible to ignore, as I have stated over and over that it would...

So, in that tradition, I will fill you all in at what so many of you obviously miss...

The collapse of our empire will end our planetary warmongering. The drone attacks will stop, troops will be brought home (or left stranded if the collapse is sudden enough..), our navy will drastically shrink ending our easy power projection, as will our air force.. The drastic reductions will be billed as "movements toward efficiency and modernization", truth is the only "movements" going on will be the death-crap our empire is taking during the final death-spasms..

So, defense spending cuts are coming no matter what... Good riddance to the death machine.

Social security is collapsing, as is all the other "chicken in every pot" socialist initiatives that idiot FDR foisted upon us.. Forced wealth distribution has been and always will be ROBBERY, and people will always find ways to deal with robbers, peaceful and otherwise.

We could have unwound this at a reasonable pace, immediately and drastically slashed the defense budget, took the savings and used them for infrastructure repair and advancement, as well as carefully weaning our population off the government cheese addiction, educating them for a more productive and self-reliant future... No, you had that choice and laughed him of the stage and shut him out out of the debates in 2008...

Now you will endure the consequences of willful ignorance:

First, The aforementioned military collapse, the powers that be will hold the military up as long as possible, for they are all that stand between them and the angry mobs that intend to take them to the nearest lamp posts.

SO.. The FIRST stuff that will get drastically slashed when the economic hammer comes down (when people finally realize that the "impossible" is now reality, that default is inevitable.), will be the "social safety net". Hospitals will shut down in droves, welfare checks stop coming, granny will have to pay for her own oxygen, millions will lose access to medications. That's right, you all will have to go cold turkey and figure out how to survive, more than a few of you will be priced out of survival.. You will get plenty of warning, students protesting impossibly high tuition combined with severe reductions in student aid and loan availability, skyrocketing hyperinflation, huge public worker lay offs and cut backs...

Then, some of you will scream for more socialism, but you who do are too stupid to see that there is nothing left to give out, no magic hat that springs forth with government cheese eternal... You will attempt to take from those that have, you will instead induce capital flight as well as passive and violent resistance... Those who produce will join with others who produce, and work together to resist and neutralize you takers.

The country will fracture, breaking along every line you can conceive, but mostly ideological lines. foreign influence will be at a minimum, as they will actually have larger problems than us. China will implode, right after it violently expands in asia, Russia will hold as long as Putin is alive, and he looks pretty healthy. Europe will devolve into the tribal mess it always was. The developing countries will be knocked back severely, war will be everywhere and mostly internal.

World war 3 is not completely off the table. If WW3 happens, we will be extinct when it ends. I think WW3 has less than a 50% chance of happening, but never underestimate the hateful desperation of our "leaders" if they cannot maintain their privileged state.

So there it is, the cliff notes of the next 40 years of the 21st century.. Most of you reading this will be compost by 2020. All of you will lose more than you can bear to lose. All of us are to blame, as much for how we lived as well as what we ignored. I'm just as guilty as you, I am no better than anybody else on this, I too may not live to see 2020, and if I do, I probably won't want to live to see 2021.

These are the wages of willful ignorance.

Reality will no longer be ignored.

Got Republic?

[FunnyMoney]

From the video...


Hope will only come now, when we physically defy the violence of the state.

All who resist, all who are here today, keep hope alive. All who succumb to fear, despair and apathy become an enemy of hope. They become in their passivity, agents of injustice.

If the enemies of hope are finally victorious in this nation, the poison of violence will become not only the languange of power but the language of opposition. And those who resist here today with non-violence are the last thin line of defense between a civil society and its' disintegration.


- Words from Chris Hedges prior to his arrest for giving a speech outside the White House on Dec. 16, 2010.

[FunnyMoney]

From the video...



Hope, is what this corporate state is determined to crush. "Be afraid," they tell us, "...surrender your liberties to us so we can make the world safe... do not think, obey."


The powerful do not understand hope. Hope is not part of their vocabulary. They speak in the cold, dead words of national security, global markets, electoral strategy, staying on message, image and money.

The powerful protect their own, they divide the world into the damned and the blessed, the patriots and the enemy, the privileged and the weak. They insist that extinguishing lives in foreign wars or in our prison complexes is a form of human progress. They cannot see that the suffering of a child in Kandahar or a child in a blighted urban pocket of our nation's capital diminishes and impoverishes us all. They are deaf, dumb and blind to hope.

Those addicted to power, enthralled by self-exaltation cannot decipher the words of hope... "hope" to wall street bankers and politicians, to the masters of war and commerce is not practical, it is gibberish; it means nothing, and this is because they kneel before the idols of greed and money.


- Chris Hedges prior to his arrest for saying the word "hope" in front of the White House on Dec. 16, 2010.

[Book]

http://obeygiant.com/images/2008/11/obama-hope-shelter-copy-500x752.jpg

http://www.changethethought.com/wp-content/hope_obama.jpg

http://www.ortzion.org/Obama-acceptance-speech.jpg

Obama acceptance speech on Thursday August 28, 2008.

:oo-->

[FunnyMoney]

I noticed the similarity also Book, Chris Hedges basically took a theme which Obama used as the basis of lie and turned it around into the basis of truth.

Obama was all about "hope" during his run for office, but not a single item of hope he projected turned out to be anything more than a complete lie.
But Chris Hedges has defined "hope" to allow for no fudging, no gibberish as he called it in his speech. Either you support his message and confront the politicians' lie (likely landing you in jail as it has for him) or you reject all hope and give in to apathy (as he described it).

So I guess in a way, the advertisements you plaster on this thread to remind of us of Obama's "hope" are nothing but a lie. I see only pictures and empty words and empty promises in Obama's speech. Maybe you still believe in him, but most of GSUS I believe does not.

[Book]

I noticed the similarity also Book, Chris Hedges basically took a theme which Obama used as the basis of lie and turned it around into the basis of truth.

Obama was all about "hope" during his run for office, but not a single item of hope he projected turned out to be anything more than a complete lie.
But Chris Hedges has defined "hope" to allow for no fudging, no gibberish as he called it in his speech. Either you support his message and confront the politicians' lie (likely landing you in jail as it has for him) or you reject all hope and give in to apathy (as he described it).

So I guess in a way, the advertisements you plaster on this thread to remind of us of Obama's "hope" are nothing but a lie. I see only pictures and empty words and empty promises in Obama's speech. Maybe you still believe in him, but most of GSUS I believe does not.



I post them to remind everyone of this:


Obama was all about "hope" during his run for office, but not a single item of hope he projected turned out to be anything more than a complete lie.

|--0--|

[FunnyMoney]

I post them to remind everyone ...

You could have done that, if that was your true motive, in a sinlge line of words.

But instead you took up 3 billboard size images of the status quo and a huge graphic advertisement, by itself larger than my several posts on this thread put together. I think you either greatly underestimate the power of first impressions or have a hidden agenda. If I am wrong about that, then maybe you should provide your ideas in words that are clear, complete and comprehensive. While at times, your pictures add to the discussion, this is definately not one of those times. Chris Hedges took a serious stand, those people, many of them veterans, went to jail and took a serious stand, in person, for what they believe in. I did not find your pictures supportive of them in the least and I don't even believe you watched the video of those people.

[Joe King]

I post them to remind everyone ...

You could have done that, if that was your true motive, in a sinlge line of words.

But instead you took up 3 billboard size images of the status quo and a huge graphic advertisement, by itself larger than my several posts on this thread put together. I think you either greatly underestimate the power of first impressions or have a hidden agenda. If I am wrong about that, then maybe you should provide your ideas in words that are clear, complete and comprehensive. While at times, your pictures add to the discussion, this is definately not one of those times. Chris Hedges took a serious stand, those people, many of them veterans, went to jail and took a serious stand, in person, for what they believe in. I did not find your pictures supportive of them in the least and I don't even believe you watched the video of those people.
That certainly gets my vote.

[FunnyMoney]

I'm sure he's out of jail by now, let's see what's next.

Will it be a one-off speech about hope, or will there be a speech about the crimes of the elite coming up? Nobody has tried to take charge of a serious movement, Ron Paul was the most recent hope back in '08 and that didn't get very far at all. I wrote his name in on the ballot, me and about hundred other GIM1 members I figure - regardless the "hope", that's not going to get it done.

[FunnyMoney]

They should have all chained themselves to the fence like that guy with the U shaped bike lock at 2:11 and thrown the keys into a single pile to make security earn their money through analytical problem solving instead of just allowing themselves to be carried away like sacks of potatoes.

Either way, I extend my gratitude for their personal integrity.


The soldiers in the video are very aware and should be proud of the stand they have taken. Basically, they have admitted that they were duped (young adults are often easily manipulated by the state) and that the wars have absolutely nothing to do with the stated goals provided by the state.

[Ponce]

The US is already down and out........all that they are doing now is getting everything in position for when the sheeps realises that.