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Chris Hedges on The Myth of Human Progress -- "The honest eye of Starbuck fell downright..."
This speech is four years old, but, given the new state of America's governance, it's more relevant than ever and needs to be re-seen regularly.
As DU'ers look to politics, Chris Hedges' review of complex societies' collapses reveals what is going on.
Can we face this? Ourselves? Can we think and act in ways to stop digging this hole we're in?
"...This understanding comes at a high cost...Dying civilizations make war on independent intellectual inquiry, art, and culture, and on their 'burnt' children.
The masters of the corporate state do not want us to peer into the pit, or heed the cries of those who've seen what awaits us. The corporate state, rather, feeds the thirst for illusion, happiness and hope...
...the argument of globalizatin is that our voyage is unalterable, decreed by Natural Law...Those who challenge this myth are heretics...
...catastrophic climate change is virtually certain...To emotionally accept impending disaster, to attain the gut level understanding that the power elite will not respond rationally to collapse, is as difficult to accept as our own mortality.
The most daunting existential struggle of our time is to ingest this awful truth, intellectually and emotionally and yet rise up to resist the corporate forces that are destroying us...the game is up...the technical and scientific forces that created a life of unparalleled luxury, as well as unrivaled military and economic power for a small global elite, are the forces that now doom us...the capitalist expansion ... is now a curse... we lack the vision and the courage to shut down the engines of global capitalism...when we go down, the planet will go with us..."
The masters of the corporate state do not want us to peer into the pit, or heed the cries of those who've seen what awaits us. The corporate state, rather, feeds the thirst for illusion, happiness and hope...
...the argument of globalizatin is that our voyage is unalterable, decreed by Natural Law...Those who challenge this myth are heretics...
...catastrophic climate change is virtually certain...To emotionally accept impending disaster, to attain the gut level understanding that the power elite will not respond rationally to collapse, is as difficult to accept as our own mortality.
The most daunting existential struggle of our time is to ingest this awful truth, intellectually and emotionally and yet rise up to resist the corporate forces that are destroying us...the game is up...the technical and scientific forces that created a life of unparalleled luxury, as well as unrivaled military and economic power for a small global elite, are the forces that now doom us...the capitalist expansion ... is now a curse... we lack the vision and the courage to shut down the engines of global capitalism...when we go down, the planet will go with us..."
Transcript:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/page2/chris_hedges_jan_27_column_transcript_collapse_of_complex_societies_2014012
Recommended reading:
Ronald Wright -- A Short History of Progress(2006)
Peter Frase -- Four Futures - Life After Capitalism (2016)
Paul Mason -- Postcapitalism (2015)
