The Coming Collapse by Chris Hedges

Echonomix

Hedges is a journalist who has refused to soften his message. His world view is dire and he crunches all the horrors he has seen into one tidy paragraph:

"All the harbingers of collapse are visible: crumbling infrastructure; chronic underemployment and unemployment; the indiscriminate use of lethal force by police; political paralysis and stagnation; an economy built on the scaffolding of debt; nihilistic mass shootings in schools, universities, workplaces, malls, concert venues and movie theaters; opioid overdoses that kill some 64,000 people a year; an epidemic of suicides; unsustainable military expansion; gambling as a desperate tool of economic development and government revenue; the capture of power by a tiny, corrupt clique; censorship; the physical diminishing of public institutions ranging from schools and libraries to courts and medical facilities; the incessant bombardment by electronic hallucinations to divert us from the depressing sight that has become America and keep us trapped in illusions."

Read the article here: Commondreams. Chris Hedges. The Coming Collapse

Comments

Letter to BC Ferries

I am a resident of Gabriola and often travel Taylor Bay Road to get to the village.

I have noticed the line up takes cars onto the road where there are bends. Because some of the cars are part way on to the road I must pass on the oncoming traffic lane. This is dangerous because oncoming traffic cannot see me. I move as close as possible to the cars in the line up but still go to the oncoming traffic lane.

It appears that we need more frequent ferries to avoid this long line up. When catching a ferry I get in line as the previous ferry is leaving, which is possible for retired people, but not everyone can do this.

Overburdened line ups also cause some to get too frustrated and do dangerous things. We are all responsible for our own behaviour but so much of our civil society is being destroyed by ruthless economic ideologies.

Climate change, abusive treatment of workers and the economic trend which intentionally pushes people to a deep sense of insecurity, calls for a renewal in comm…

Anonymous Sources

Where does "Greatness" come from? The imagination? Facts? Confidence? A willing suspension of disbelief in a slogan that makes us happy? A capacity to judge well? An ability to observe and find solutions that benefit most if not all? Taking responsibility for the community? A masters degree from Oxford or Yale?

Let me offer the opinion that greatness comes from extraordinary effort or talent. Greatness as it may exist in our anonymous ambitions does not win fame except in isolated circumstances. That is to say, fame is not a realistic goal for an individual.

Greatness is like a dove in the imagination, an angel, a temporary insight, a fleeting epiphany. Something aspired to in the privacy of our minds.

Greatness was an ambition I held when I was a teen and had no proof that I was good at anything or useful to the world at all. After repeated criticism and dismissal from the community around me where I attempted to win something, anything, like a medal, a competition, or a…

A Prayer for Little Children

I wonder how to protect you keep you safe from uniforms with men inside who have pledged to follow orders in prisons where doors are locked so I can’t get in and you can’t get out even though all you want is your mother or brother or sister and the crying of other children warns of danger as if there was anything you could have done different and the uniformed bodies are not smiling but hard and I suspect your infant heart beats louder than your screams sensing that something you can’t name has gone terribly wrong.
But these words are merely a stranger’s attempt to do something, anything like send a card with butterflies that opens to a nursery rhyme to make the terror go away knowing she can't.

Infinite Power

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