thenatureofmind

Chris Hedges: Welcome to The Asylum

"When civilizations start to die they go insane. Let the ice sheets in the Arctic melt. Let the temperatures rise. Let the air, soil and water be poisoned. Let the forests die. Let the seas be emptied of life. Let one useless war after another be waged. Let the masses be thrust into extreme poverty and left without jobs while the elites, drunk on hedonism, accumulate vast fortunes through exploitation, speculation, fraud and theft. Reality, at the end, gets unplugged. We live in an age when news consists of Snooki’s pregnancy, Hulk Hogan’s sex tape and Kim Kardashian’s denial that she is the naked woman cooking eggs in a photo circulating on the Internet. Politicians, including presidents, appear on late night comedy shows to do gags and they campaign on issues such as creating a moon colony. “At times when the page is turning,” Louis-Ferdinand Celine wrote in “Castle to Castle,” “when History brings all the nuts together, opens its Epic Dance Halls! hats and heads in the whirlwind! Panties overboard!”"

Welcome to the Asylum 

Chris Hedges on "Empire of Illusion"

Social critic and author of "Empire of Illusion", Chris Hedges talks about the end of literacy and the triumph of spectacle in American culture.

Sometimes Civil Disobedience is the Only Way to be Heard

Leah Bolger is a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Navy who retired in 2000 at the rank of Commander. She was elected as the first female president of Veterans For Peace. Bolger has been involved in several national efforts and she has been arrested several times for acts of civil disobedience, most recently in a hearing of the Super Committee, where she called on the Committee to "End the Wars and Tax the Rich."

A Top Adviser to Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Warned the Bush Administration That Its Use of Water Boarding Was A War Crime

General Strike in Spain

Report from Madrid on Growing Anti-Austerity Protests

Nader and Fein at Harvard Law School: "America's Lawless Empire"

Ralph Nader '58 and Bruce Fein '72 visited Harvard Law School for a talk sponsored by the HLS Forum and the Harvard Law Record. At the event, "America's Lawless Empire: The Constitutional Crimes of Bush and Obama," both men discussed what they called lawless, violent practices by the White House and its agencies that have become institutionalized by both political parties.

Chris Hedges: Murder Is Not an Anomaly in War

Chris has a way of getting down to the real nitty gritty, but when it comes to war, his years of experience reporting from war zones makes him someone who we should really listen to. This is not a man in a diner speaking, this is someone who has experienced the worst of what war is. Would that everyone in the world could read this moving piece. 

Murder Is Not an Anomaly in War

Yes, There Really Is Bi-partisanship In Washington

When it comes to shreding the constitution the Democrats and Republicans are in complete agreement.

Bipartisan Approval for Targeted Killing of Suspected Terrorists 

Chris Hedges: Supreme Court Likely to Endorse Obama's War on Whistleblowers

"Totalitarian systems disempower an unsuspecting population by gradually making legal what was once illegal. They incrementally corrupt and distort law to exclusively serve the goals of the inner sanctums of power and strip protection from the citizen. Law soon becomes the primary tool to advance the crimes of the elite and punish those who tell the truth. The state saturates the airwaves with official propaganda to replace news. Fear, and finally terror, creates an intellectual and moral void."

Supreme Court Likely to Endorse Obama's War on Whistleblowers 

America Beyond Capitalism