Chris Hedges would make an awesome guillotine salesman.

*promote first, quality later

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Saturday, December 7th, 2013 7:04am PST - promote requested by radx.

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by lurgee.

I'm no fan of Bush obviously, but the guy needs to tone down his hatred of Bush. It kinda undercuts his otherwise accurate message. He keeps talking about the contempt the rich has for the poor. Well...he's displaying that same contempt.

They keep referring to things like revolution and "coming storms" I don't think that's how change is going to occur. Back when people were ACTUAL slaves or maybe they were free but were starving to death. They pretty much had nothing to lose so I think it was actually easier for them to commit to change by violent means.

well...things are different now. We're not physical slaves, but you can argue that we're economic slaves. Even poor people usually aren't starving. food is cheap, at least shitty food is. It's a sort of gilded cage. So it's harder to get to that tipping point of committing to a "revolution"

I think he's wrong though, I think change will occur through democracy. It's just going to be extremely slow, extremely painful, and it's going to be a lot of setbacks along the way. I think there will be a lot of moments that will generate outrage. I just don't think there will ever be revolts as this guy describes unless the vote gets taken away and things get monumentally worse.

I just don't there will be any magic shortcuts to a fair and equitable society. Even if there was a revolt. what do the revolutionaries do to make things better? It's relatively easy to revolt, but if you win, then the real work begins. It's easy being an armchair general, but when you actually do have to make decisions that affect thousands, if not millions of people, It's not that easy.

I think the key thing is that there are just too many who don't actually agree with the founding fathers "that all men are created equal" If we actually believed in that idea. A lot of these injustices would not occur.

People are starving in Greece, fascists are marching in the streets of Athens.

And given that SNAP participation went from ~26 million in January of '07 to ~39 million in January of '10 to ~47 million in January of '13, I'd say the US is getting there as well. The planned cuts to SNAP will only accelerate it further.

But everything's good in the UK though. People are not likely to starve, now that food banks are popping up everywhere and the Red Cross is distributing care packages for the first time since the end of WW2.

Besides, those likely to starve will freeze first anyway. They had ~31k of excess winter deaths last year, while this year's prognosis was going for ~35k, last I heard. Food or fuel, can't have both.

Those riots in London two years ago, they were a singular occurence. All the underlying issues have been addressed. Youth unemployment is #1 on David Cameron's list, I'm sure of it. Well, maybe #2. Privatisation of the NHS has priority after all.

I apologize for my sarcasm and my cynicism, but mass violence is not unimaginable anymore in the Old World and it's pissing me off. We are in the process of flushing an entire generation of people down the toilet. These current rates of youth unemployment are unsustainable in a democratic society. The banlieus of Paris, the boroughs of London... shit will hit the fan eventually, unless there's a radical change of policy from within the system.

The elections to the European Parliament in May next year will be an indicator. As of now, it looks as if a whole lot of (far) right wing parties will enter the stage.

Also, keep an eye on the island of bliss(ful ignorance) within Europe: Germany. We're heading straight for a grand coalition that would control ~80% of parliament, rendering all instruments at the opposition's disposal inert. Did I mention they also have the neccessary 2/3 majority to institute changes to our constitution? Fucking awesome!

Again, sorry for being a grumpy fuck, but everytime I open the paper, it's a bloody nightmare -- and that's before you take away the sugar coating.

I don't think you're grumpy, radx. Granted, my posts tend to have that same ominous tone, in general so I guess I'm a grump too. If you really think about the scale of inequality today, the absolute plundering the ultra-rich enjoyed during the recent recession and the efforts to keep money in politics to perpetuate this cycle with brilliant tools like Citizens United, it's hard not to be bleak.

Unfortunately, what we like to call democracy simply does not have the teeth to affect meaningful change. I am encouraged by the relative economic performance from the list of countries that have scrapped first past the post (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation ) except for maybe Portugal, but even with more effective elections there is still an extra seat for the rich in every government.

Even more unfortunate will be the painful revolution the world will endure to either change from capitalism to some other form of economics (maybe resourced-based, a-la Peter Joseph.) If we don't simply slide obediently into greater and greater concentrations of wealth for the ultra-rich, we get closer and closer to revolution. But all it will take will be one upheaval to spur the revolution into action, be it:
- another, even more severe recession (maybe the EU will implode, taking the world economy down with it)
- severe global warming positive feedback loop from the arctic methane stores
- nuclear war

And who the hell knows what else might set people off. Maybe a solar flare will fry all the satellites in orbit and the lack of new tweets will create a world-wide frenzy of irate twats. And who knows when it will happen. Maybe 5 years, maybe 50 years. Since money pulls the strings, I think we're doomed to guess as to the source of VoodooV's "tipping point."