Chris Hedges on Useless Liberals

Chris Hedges has no use for modern liberals:

I save my anger for our bankrupt liberal intelligentsia of which, sadly, I guess I am a member. Liberals are the defeated, self-absorbed Mouse Man in Dostoevsky’s “Notes From Underground.” They embrace cynicism, a cloak for their cowardice and impotence. They, like Dostoevsky’s depraved character, have come to believe that the “conscious inertia” of the underground surpasses all other forms of existence. They too use inaction and empty moral posturing, not to affect change but to engage in an orgy of self-adulation and self-pity. They too refuse to act or engage with anyone not cowering in the underground. This choice does not satisfy the Mouse Man, as it does not satisfy our liberal class, but neither has the strength to change. The gravest danger we face as a nation is not from the far right, although it may well inherit power, but from a bankrupt liberal class that has lost the will to fight and the moral courage to stand up for what it espouses.

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Premier episode of Lee Camp’s Redacted Tonight

Lee Camp's premier episode of Redacted Tonight begins with a head-on assault upon Monsanto. It's hard hitting and deals with extremely serious issues. Here's the description of the show: "In this episode, Lee Camp bites into Monsanto, which makes him ill, and John F. O'Donnell gets molested by the tentacles of the billionaire Kochtopus. Obama ends the War in Afghanistan with something other than peace, Chilean magician Papas Fritas makes $500 million in student debt disappear. Sam Sacks examines NSA reform - and by "reform," we mean ''business as usual." A second Deutsche Bank video against boasting bankers is mysteriously leaked, and speaking of leaks - radiation is leaking in New Mexico. Tennessee brings back a shocking punishment, and more!"

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Tax breaks are as big as the deficit

According to the National Priorities Organization:

In 2013, the cost of tax breaks was equal to the entire U.S. discretionary budget [1]. However, the discretionary budget is subject to an annual appropriations process, where Congress debates the proposed spending. Tax breaks, on the other hand, remain on the books until lawmakers modify them. As a result, over a trillion dollars a year in lost revenue – more than 1.6 times the 2013 budget deficit – goes largely unnoticed.

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Chris Hedges on the NDAA

From Truthdig:

The U.S. Supreme Court decision to refuse to hear our case concerning Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which permits the military to seize U.S. citizens and hold them indefinitely in military detention centers without due process, means that this provision will continue to be law. It means the nation has entered a post-constitutional era. It means that extraordinary rendition of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil by our government is legal. It means that the courts, like the legislative and executive branches of government, exclusively serve corporate power—one of the core definitions of fascism. It means that the internal mechanisms of state are so corrupted and subservient to corporate power that there is no hope of reform or protection for citizens under our most basic constitutional rights. It means that the consent of the governed—a poll by OpenCongress.com showed that this provision had a 98 percent disapproval rating—is a cruel joke. And it means that if we do not rapidly build militant mass movements to overthrow corporate tyranny, including breaking the back of the two-party duopoly that is the mask of corporate power, we will lose our liberty.

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