Article: "Addicted to Nonsense" by Chris Hedges

[JJ]

for some reason for a while I've had the feeling that we are just trying to fill our time until we die, a kind of time management if you will...

good read: link

[Revi]

I read his book and I have to say that this is what all Empires do. The inhabitants of the empire are so full of nonsense that they can't think about what's really going on.

[vtsnowedin]

It certainly takes him a while to get to the point. That last paragraph was rather chilling and fits right in with the best doomer porn zombism around here.

[sittinguy]

AAHHHH, that last paragraph, I think it is true, and coming soon.

Its true I'm addicted to doom, I need to go back to the hun, and forget this crap,,,, but I can't

[Sixstrings]

I spent two years traveling the country to write a book on the Christian right called “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” I visited former manufacturing towns where for many the end of the world is no longer an abstraction. Many have lost hope. Fear and instability have plunged the working class into profound personal and economic despair, and, not surprisingly, into the arms of demagogues and charlatans of the radical Christian right who offer a belief in magic, miracles and the fiction of a utopian Christian nation.

Unless we rapidly re-enfranchise these dispossessed workers, insert them back into the economy, unless we give them hope, these demagogues will rise up to take power. Time is running out. The poor can dine out only so long on illusions. Once they grasp that they have been betrayed, once they match the bleak reality of their future with the fantasies they are fed, once their homes are foreclosed and they realize that the jobs they lost are never coming back, they will react with a fury and vengeance that will snuff out the remains of our anemic democracy and usher in a new dark age.

Wow, that's some grade-A Doom.

Fundamentalist Christianity doesn't concern me though. This is very common during hard economic times -- the bleaker the conditions, the bleaker the sermons.

A more interesting question is what will become of the "prosperity gospel" that's gotten so popular in the last couple of years. Protestantism in America has been trending to less guilty, and more new agey "the Secret" kind of stuff. I'm not so sure we'll see a switch back to the old Depression era fire and brimstone.

[pablonite]

The American oligarchy—1 percent of whom control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined—are the characters we most envy and watch on television.

Huh? This is the problem with starting a witch hunt. The writer implies "TV people" run the show

You can bet the last place you will see the %1 is on the idiot box which this guy is watching too much of.

[Sixstrings]

The American oligarchy—1 percent of whom control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined—are the characters we most envy and watch on television.

Huh? This is the problem with starting a witch hunt. The writer implies "TV people" run the show

You can bet the last place you will see the %1 is on the idiot box which this guy is watching too much of.

People don't stop to think about the huge impact TV has on us.. rather than connect with our local communities and those in our own socio-economic class, TV encourages average folks to "identify" with the rich and famous. This is why every Joe the Plumber really thinks he's gonna buy out his boss one day, and votes with the rich even though he is poor. And this is why everyone wants to be a star now -- from the balloon-boy family to the tens of millions posting youtube videos and splashing their personal lives all over Myspace.

It's all a ponzi shceme, of course. By design, only a small percentage can ever be materially rich. And the funny part is that the guy richer than you is unhappy cuz he's not as rich as the guy above him.

Honestly, I think average folks were better off not knowing just how good it is to be a Bankster.

[pablonite]

People don't stop to think about the huge impact TV has on us.

Platos Cave taken to a whole new level. My point was many of the uber elite who own the cave have no need to appear on its walls, but yeah, the manufactured "stars" sell the dream.

It's no accident they call them "stars" when you think about it. Building a whole new alternate universe really.

[rangerone314]

People don't stop to think about the huge impact TV has on us.. rather than connect with our local communities and those in our own socio-economic class, TV encourages average folks to "identify" with the rich and famous. This is why every Joe the Plumber really thinks he's gonna buy out his boss one day, and votes with the rich even though he is poor.

I agree with some of what you said, but I'm not sure that wasn't true before TV was invented.

I mean, poor white southerners went off during the American Civil War to "defend" their states' rights, which essentially supported the right of rich slave owners to drive down the price of labor and keep them in poverty.

[Kristen]

The American oligarchy—1 percent of whom control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined—are the characters we most envy and watch on television.

Huh? This is the problem with starting a witch hunt. The writer implies "TV people" run the show

You can bet the last place you will see the %1 is on the idiot box which this guy is watching too much of.

People don't stop to think about the huge impact TV has on us.. rather than connect with our local communities and those in our own socio-economic class, TV encourages average folks to "identify" with the rich and famous. This is why every Joe the Plumber really thinks he's gonna buy out his boss one day, and votes with the rich even though he is poor. And this is why everyone wants to be a star now -- from the balloon-boy family to the tens of millions posting youtube videos and splashing their personal lives all over Myspace.

It's all a ponzi shceme, of course. By design, only a small percentage can ever be materially rich. And the funny part is that the guy richer than you is unhappy cuz he's not as rich as the guy above him.

Honestly, I think average folks were better off not knowing just how good it is to be a Bankster.

This is exactly why I haven't owned a tv in five years. Not being so exposed to advertisements and people telling me how I should live my life makes me feel more pure and less polluted.

[Daniel_Plainview]

The inhabitants of the empire are so full of nonsense that they can't think about what's really going on.

Cornucopian paradise.

[Sixstrings]

People don't stop to think about the huge impact TV has on us.

Platos Cave taken to a whole new level. My point was many of the uber elite who own the cave have no need to appear on its walls, but yeah, the manufactured "stars" sell the dream.

It's no accident they call them "stars" when you think about it. Building a whole new alternate universe really.

Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," a very good read. The only reason I read that in college was because I happened to take a philosophy 101 class. It blew me away.. the realization that what we see as reality is only a construct of what we've been allowed to see.

[efarmer]

Quote: "The poor can dine out only so long on illusions."

Silly man, you look at illusions not eat them, illusions are what you look at
to get your mind off of the horrible things you do often have to eat in life.
And you don't dine out in times like these, you make sure you have some
illusions to look at while you eat some horrible stuff at home.

And addicted to nonsense? I think nonsense has found out how good of
an environment we provide for it to prosper and thrive, and it is instead,
hopelessly addicted to us, and is in fact a blasted parasite that takes
our attention away to where we can't look at illusions, and take our minds off
of all the horrible stuff we are being served daily.

I must admit that last paragraph was a gut wrenching jump off the Angst
Street Bridge into the dumpster of doom, with sufficient landing impact to
flip the lid shut once you slam down inside.

You write good, and you doom pretty swell, got any happy stuff?