Obama has been discarded - rapacious greed fuels the plunge of tens of millions of Americans into abject poverty and misery

reading a chris hedges column is like coming face-to-face with the nine circles of dante's hell...

The tragedy—if tragedy is the right word—is that Obama, after selling his soul to corporations, has been discarded. Corporate power doesn’t need brand Obama anymore. They have found new brands in the tea party, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. Obama has been abandoned by those who once bundled contributions for him by the millions of dollars.

[...]

We have reached a point where stunted and deformed individuals, whose rapacious greed fuels the plunge of tens of millions of Americans into abject poverty and misery, determine the moral fiber of the nation. It is no more morally justifiable to kill someone for profit than it is to kill that person for religious fanaticism. And yet, from health companies to the oil and natural gas industry to private weapons contractors, individual death and the wholesale death of the ecosystem have become acceptable corporate business. The mounting human misery in the United States, which could lead to the sporadic bursts of anger we have seen on the streets of France, will be met with severe repression from the security and surveillance state, which always accompanies the rise of the corporate state. The one method left open by which we can respond—massive street protests, the destruction of corporate property and violence—will become the excuse to impose total tyranny. The intrusive pat-downs at airports may soon become a fond memory of what it was like when we still had a little freedom left.

All reform movements, from the battle for universal health care to the struggle for alternative energy and sane environmental controls to financial regulation to an end to our permanent war economy, have run into this new, terrifying configuration of power. They have confronted an awful truth. We do not count. And they have been helpless to respond as those who are most skilled in the manipulation of hate lead a confused populace to call for their own enslavement.

ready to jump off a tall building...? me too... in fact, i've BEEN ready for several years now, minus the small detour into self-delusion i took when supporting obama's election... so, what DO we do...? basically, what i've been doing all along...

again, chris hedges...

It is time to think of resistance in a new way, something that is no longer carried out to reform a system but as an end in itself. African-Americans understood this during the long night of slavery. German opposition leaders understood it under the Nazis. Dissidents in the former Soviet Union knew this during the nightmare of communism. Resistance in these closed systems was local and often solitary. It was done with the understanding that evil must always be defied. The tiny acts of rebellion—day after day, month after month, year after year and decade after decade—exposed to everyone who witnessed them the heartlessness, cruelty and inhumanity of the oppressor. They were acts of truth and beauty. We must take to the street. We must jam as many wrenches into the corporate system as we can. We must not make it easy for them. But we also must no longer live in self-delusion. This is a battle that will outlive us. And if we fight, even with this tragic vision, we will lead lives worth living and keep alive another way of being.

i did what i was threatening to do... i closed my accounts with wells fargo and hsbc and consolidated them into my credit union account making loud noises in the process about not wanting to do any more business with "too big to fail" failed banks...

i've been debt-free for over ten years...

i live simply... my needs are very small... (i'm not into survivalism nor will i ever be, but i think i could make do reasonably well even if most of our infrastructure was to collapse...)

i publish this blog... (yeah, i know... woo-hoo...)

i try to be a role model for what i believe and what i teach...

i honestly don't know what more i can do although i'm certainly open to ideas...

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