America the Farewell Tour by Chris Hedges

[Pozlover1]

This guy claims that most of our problems with drugs and self destructive behavior are symptoms, not causes, of an empire in freefall. 

He accurately describes the fantasy America vs the reality America, and the difference between the penny capitalism of farmers and local bakeries vs the Corporate Fascism that has taken over this country and other places that we either control or that are following our model. 

An awakening does not mean an armed revolution, in fact, most of those create something worse than they replaced. 

Freedom to love whoever we choose is a good start. Ignoring disabilities and diseases and seeing the real person is the next positive step, but damaging ourselves just to commit partial suicide is of no benefit. We need everybody. 

[Butcher]

.....Wow, totally unexpected to see this here but I can both agree with Chris and disagree.  I can agree that that many of the symptoms of America aren't causes but rather symptomatic of not an empire in free fall but rather capitalism in free-fall.  Naomi Klein covers this hugely (and is a contemporary of Hedges) in Shock Doctrine (and in Disaster Capitalism).  Where I disagree with Chris is in the character of revolution.  Revolution is always armed and will always rely on the threat of violence to afford change.  This doesn't necessarily mean that the character of the revolution need be only violence but rather the understanding that the formerly oppressed will rise and smack the living shit out of those who stand in their way.  You just don't voluntarily disarm in the face of an enemy that is more than willing to shuffle you off to a camp for eradication at worst or "reeducation" at best.   But with that said, when it comes down to it the thing I always push in these type of conversations is that ultimately the most brutal revolution can be avoided if we can find common ground with the people we have commonality with.  In other words despite the seeming differences in political views we probably have far more in common with the straight white conservative Christian down the street who is supposed to "hate us" but who realistically is set against us by the power political elite and by the business class.  The distinctions between race, religion, and sexuality seem bigger to us because those are wedges that have driven us apart but in the end the war, the real war is a class war.

But I'm an old anarchist and punk....  what do I know?