Rise up and die

After you, Mr. Hedges...

Chris Hedges has written an excellent article about where we're at and how we got here.

Not much there to disagree with, and the article makes a perfect exclamation point for today's testimony at the Senate by Apple CEO Tim Cook. Cook stated flat-out that anyone who thought Apple would repatriate it's off-shored billions without a massive reduction in the US corporate tax rate was dreaming in Technicolor.

That blunt "go fuck yourself" is what Cook refers to as honoring the spirit of  America's tax laws.

But back to Chris Hedges. I have one question;

Rise up and do what?

Of course we need to support the Bradley Mannings and the Julian Assanges in their struggles. Those are our struggles too, after all.

But beyond that, what?

Does Hedges intend his screed to be a call to arms? If so, he is seriously deluded. With all due respect to those who have fetishised the second amendment, armed resistance is a dead-end. There's a reason America's military-industrial complex wants drones in the sky over your house; that arsenal in your spare room doesn't mean a damned thing to the Hellfire missile coming at you from 30,000 feet.

There is no future in armed resistance. Americans need to reclaim their democracy. This is not an exclusively American problem of course, but the world looks to America's 99%  for leadership.

After all, they've made up the most ground in the race to the bottom over the past forty years or so.