A Clear Assessment of Our Current Condition

This article found at AlterNet provides a clear and concise assessment of our current political, economic and moral condition. NO false hopes or Pollyanna saccharine here. If you only read one political article this year this should be the one.
We Stand on the Cusp of one of Humanity's Most Dangerous Moments by Chris Hedges

QUOTE Democracy, a system ideally designed to challenge the status quo, has been corrupted and tamed to slavishly serve the status quo. We have undergone, as John Ralston Saul writes, a coup d’état in slow motion. And the coup is over. They won. We lost. The abject failure of activists to push corporate, industrialized states toward serious environmental reform, to thwart imperial adventurism or to build a humane policy toward the masses of the world’s poor stems from an inability to recognize the new realities of power. The paradigm of power has irrevocably altered and so must the paradigm of resistance alter. UNQUOTE

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Daily Economic Update

Robert Denner makes more sense than any twenty "professional" financial reporters/observers rolled together and sifted. It is my great pleasure to introduce his brand-new blog, Daily Economic Update. I know Robert from the LATOC forum, where you can get your daily dose of doom and more importantly, some truly fine out-of-the-box thinking. Click on over to the Daily Economic Update and see for yourself!

DJY
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Monkeywrench The Machine With La Vida Loca

Another winner from the irrepressible Joe Bageant. And another reminder from me to tune in(to the green subculture and tribal resurgence), turn on (to the spiritual and your Higher Power) and drop out (of the rat race). I also plead with you to stop using the word consumer to refer to people. Use citizen, person or worker instead. The word consumer has a lot of negative baggage, and it is the result of a concerted ad campaign of dark intent and dubious integrity. It is demeaning. (BBC's The Century of the Self argues -- quite successfully -- that we have all been brainwashed to see ourselves as consumers first. It documents how capitalists and politicians in the US and in Great Brittan used psychological warfare to turn the masses in the US and UK from seeing themselves as workers to seeing themselves as buying machines. Freud, his daughter Anna and his diabolical nephew Edward Bernays -- who according to the documentary founded the profession of public relations -- are the villains in this evolving story.)

"But you won't hear anyone complaining. America doesn't like whiners. A whiner or a cynic is about the worst thing you can be in the land of gunpoint optimism. Foreigners often remark on the upbeat American personality. I assure them that our American corpocracy has its ways of pistol whipping or sedating its human assets into the appropriate level of cheeriness."

Our Produce-or-Die Culture Is Killing Us -- And We're Idiotically Grinning and Bearing It by Joe Bageant

The Monday Cassandra

Great rant this week by Jim Kunstler, with the usual drill: Eff Bomb alert.

Obama has the same problem that Bush had. His adminstration has already been hijacked by the Washington political class. Just look at his cabinet picks and leaders he is dealing with in Congress. Taking away gun rights, crushing freedom of speech, promoting abortion, corporatism and expanding the Dem party base while ignoring the real issues.

Be sure and read it all. And BTW I do not endorse the limiting of property rights. He's a Cassandra, not a Christ-figure.

QUOTE The argument about "change" during the election was sufficiently vague that no one was really challenged to articulate a future that wasn't, materially, more-of-the-same. I suppose the Obama team may have thought they would only administer it differently than the Bush team -- but basically life in the USA would continue being about all those trips to the mall, and the cubicle jobs to support that, and the family safaris to visit Grandma in Lansing, and the vacations at Sea World, and Skipper's $20,000 college loan, and Dad's yearly junket to Las Vegas, and refinancing the house, and rolling over this loan and that loan... and that has all led to a very dead end in a dark place. UNQUOTE
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Doom & Gloom from FOX News

The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions - all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.

Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week. Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.

Fasten your seat belts, m'dears ~ it's going to be a bumpy ride.
http://www.trendsresearch.com/


"When CNN wants to know about the Top Trends, we ask Gerald Celente."— CNN Headline News

"A network of 25 experts whose range of specialties would rival many university faculties."— The Economist

"Gerald Celente has a knack for getting the zeitgeist right." — USA Today

"There’s not a better trend forecaster than Gerald Celente. The man knows what he’s talking about."- CNBC

"Those who take their predictions seriously ... consider the Trends Research Institute."— The Wall Street Journal

"Gerald Celente is always ahead of the curve on trends and uncannily on the mark ... he's one of the most accurate forecasters around." — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Mr. Celente tracks the world’s social, economic and business trends for corporate clients."— The New York Times

"Mr. Celente is a very intelligent guy. We are able to learn about trends from an authority."— 48 Hours, CBS News

"Gerald Celente has a solid track record. He has predicted everything from the 1987 stock market crash and the demise of the Soviet Union to green marketing and corporate downsizing."— The Detroit News