Chris Hedges Thought For The Day

Violence as a primary form of communication has become normalized. It is not politics by other means. It is politics. Democrats are as infected as Republicans. The war machine is impervious to election cycles. It bombs, kills, maims, tortures, terrorizes and destroys as if on autopilot. It dispenses with humans around the globe as if they were noisome insects. No one dares lift his or her voice to protest against a war policy that is visibly bankrupting the United States, has no hope of success and is going to end with new terrorist attacks on American soil. We have surrendered our political agency and our role as citizens to the masters of war.

"It seems to me that nearly the whole Anglo-Saxon race, especially of course in America, have lost the power to be individuals," wrote the artist Roger Fry. "They have become social insects like bees or ants."

Soren Kierkegaard in "The Present Age" warned that the modern state seeks to eradicate conscience and absorb individuals into a public that can be shaped and manipulated by those in power. This public is not real. It is, as Kierkegaard wrote, a "monstrous abstraction, an all-embracing something which is nothing, a mirage." In short, we became part of a herd, "unreal individuals who never are and never can be united in an actual situation or organization -- and yet are held together as a whole." Those who question the public, those who denounce endless war, are dismissed as dreamers or freaks. But only they, according to the Greek definition of the polis, can be considered citizens.

In endless war it does not matter whom we fight. Endless war is not about winning battles or promoting a cause. It is an end in itself. In George Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" Oceania is at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia. The alliance then suddenly is reversed. Eurasia becomes an ally of Oceania and Eastasia is the enemy. The point is not who is being fought. The point is maintaining a state of fear and the mass mobilization of the public. War and national security are used to justify the surrender of citizenship, the crushing of dissent and expanding the powers of the state. The point is war itself. And if the American state, once a sworn enemy of Hezbollah, gives air cover to Hezbollah fighters in Syria, the goals of endless war remain gloriously untouched.

But endless war is not sustainable. States that wage endless war inevitably collapse. They drain their treasuries, are hated by the wretched of the earth, and militarize and strangle their political, social and cultural life while impoverishing and repressing their populations. They are seduced by what Sigmund Freud called the "death instinct." This is where we are headed. The only question is when it will unravel.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Becoming-Hezbollah-s-Air-F-by-Chris-Hedges-Allies_Hezbollah_Madness_Politics-140929-809.html

Should you doubt his claim about how individuals are being treated, take a look at this report. Granted it's from the UK, but here in the US similar monitoring is already underway. If someone doesn't like your "extremist" views, your social media accounts are cancelled and your name is forwarded to the thought police:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11129474/Extremists-to-have-Facebook-and-Twitter-vetted-by-anti-terror-police.html

And just how is "extremist" being defined?

• Anyone seeking to tear apart the social fabric is tolerated and even supported by the government as long as it serves the government's agenda, while
• Anyone seeking to hold the social fabric together in its current form or in opposition to the government's destructive initiatives is labeled an "extremist".

Obama ad-Dajjal and his minions think they have to destroy the village in order to save it. 'Nuff said?