I've heard people mentioned (and reference) Chris Hedges' "Calling All Rebels" essay (published on March 8th, 2010 at TrughtDig.com), but until tonight, I have never read it, and thus I wasn't familiar with its content.
Now that I am, it helps me in understanding the total disconnect between those who have come to the same conclusions as Hedges, and those who haven't.
Here's what I find interesting about this subject... Just by (carefully) observing the world around me, I have come to the exact same conclusions as Hedges, long ago.
I see his essay as unadulterated truth, at many levels.
There are no constraints left to halt America's slide into a totalitarian capitalism. Electoral politics are a sham. The media have been debased and defanged by corporate owners. The working class has been impoverished and is now being plunged into profound despair. The legal system has been corrupted to serve corporate interests. Popular institutions, from labor unions to political parties, have been destroyed or emasculated by corporate power. And any form of protest, no matter how tepid, is blocked by an internal security apparatus that is starting to rival that of the East German secret police.
There are many other voices who have been speaking this truth, as well. People like Noam Chomsky, Jeremy Scahill, Naomi Klein, Cenk Uygur, David Cay Johnston, Ralph Nader, and many others.
Yet, it seems like their voices are muted. It seems that even these people, who have reached the highest levels of education, intellect, and true understanding about the status quo are somehow marginalized.
The engines of social reform are dead. Liberal apologists, who long ago should have abandoned the Democratic Party, continue to make pathetic appeals to a tone-deaf corporate state and Barack Obama while the working and middle class are ruthlessly stripped of rights, income and jobs. Liberals self-righteously condemn imperial wars and the looting of the U.S. Treasury by Wall Street but not the Democrats who are responsible. And the longer the liberal class dithers and speaks in the bloodless language of policies and programs, the more hated and irrelevant it becomes. No one has discredited American liberalism more than liberals themselves. And I do not hold out any hope for their reform. We have entered an age in which, as William Butler Yeats wrote, "the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity."
The emphasis is mine
I suspect that the reason for this is because admitting that the two political parties serve the interests of an increasingly fascistic corporate state, and choosing not to rebel against this increasingly criminal and oppressive system would clearly make us accomplices.
The capacity to exercise moral autonomy, the capacity to refuse to cooperate, offers us the only route left to personal freedom and a life with meaning. Rebellion is its own justification...
- snip -
Rebellion allows us to be free and independent human beings, but rebellion also chips away, however imperceptibly, at the edifice of the oppressor and sustains the dim flames of hope and love. And in moments of profound human despair these flames are never insignificant. They keep alive the capacity to be human. We must become, as Camus said, so absolutely free that "existence is an act of rebellion." Those who do not rebel in our age of totalitarian capitalism and who convince themselves that there is no alternative to collaboration are complicit in their own enslavement. They commit spiritual and moral suicide.
The emphasis is mine
I think like that. Once one realizes that behind all the subterfuge, all the lies, all the propaganda and distractions, what we are facing is a brutal and oppressive fascistic corporate state, morality dictates that one most rebel against it.
The rebel, however, is beholden to a moral commitment that makes it impossible to stand with the power elite. The rebel refuses to be bought off with foundation grants, invitations to the White House, television appearances, book contracts, academic appointments or empty rhetoric. The rebel is not concerned with self-promotion or public opinion. The rebel knows that, as Augustine wrote, hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage-anger at the way things are and the courage to see that they do not remain the way they are. The rebel is aware that virtue is not rewarded. The act of rebellion defines itself.
Those words speak to me. I am angry at the way things are, and I will continue doing everything possible (within my capabilities, and peacefully) to make sure "they don't remain the way they are."
P.S. I highly recommend people listen to Hedges' himself as he deconstructs the corporate state (second video).