Chris Hedges: Occupy Wall Street is ‘where the hope of America lies’

It's an amazing website. Everyone should check it out.

They just don't! They are heartless head dwellers.

Appreciate your comment!

There is so much information out there for those who care enough to seek it. With knowledge comes understanding. With understanding comes wisdom. With wisdom comes compassion and love. I believe love is the answer - it does no good whatsoever to hate the oppressors. Yes, we can dissent. Yes, we can support those who are protestors on the front lines. Yes, we can vote for and support those who we believe can make a change. In addition, we can quit buying more stuff we don't need, share whatever we can with those who are in need, live simply, and be as peaceful and loving in our hearts as we can possibly be. I believe a better world is coming. So many people are awakening. It's always the darkest before the dawn!

Great video, buckeye - it got me thinking!

No, you haven't and yes, I did! enjoy, that is.

Many thanks, Buckeye!

Mainstream media, unfortunately, is owned by Wall Street.

Mainstream media is owned by the powers that control our government, i.e., corporations, i.e., Wall Street.

That's why watching "the news" on TV is a waste of time. Not to mention, you get all these brainwashing commercials from big pharma. (ask your doctor, ask your doctor . . .)

Thanks for commenting, letsliveinpeace!

You're welcome.

He's a psychopath.

Yeah!

Thanks for the great links, leen61. The Shock Doctrine book by Naomi Klein was an eye-opener for me. I wish more people would ignore TV and read books like this that clearly explain what is happening.

You're welcome, PIANORAMA. Me too--I wish people would read more.

Thanks for your comment - so very true.

What's happening on Wall Street right now is that courageous people from all walks of life are transcending parties with their right-wing or left-wing elements.

And I also appreciate your opinion regarding peaceful activism, in the steps of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Peaceful protests, peaceful gatherings, peaceful actions!

Not sure what you mean by signature name. Good letter, but I would suggest that you correct some of the grammar and spelling issues if you're going to send it to the prez.

I agree with the sentiments expressed in your letter. Thanks for sharing the link!

That's a good point and the one argument I would have with Chris Hedges. Thanks for your comment!

Big thank you bravatravels!

Right on!

Back in the depression even the very wealthy lost everything, the ones who held on or robbed the country are the wealthiest today and have gamed the system to make sure they would not feel the effects this time. We live under a white trash mantra, "as long as it looks good" many are totally unaware of the pain and suffering going on, not just here but world wide, much less why things are the way they are. Many from the depression era voted for Reagan and his bigotry and free market economics, unaware of the gun they put to their own foots and their kids and grandkids. I was a therapist in a nursing home and took the photo book of the wpa to share. It brought up alot of memories, many were kids or teens. One story was horrendous. One woman said her dad got hired by the city (through wpa) to clean out the public out houses and latrines. He would find dead babies on occasion. This tiny town on Oklahoma saw 2 million men and their families come through to work the oil fields. Many are buried as john and jane does with kids in Seminoles graveyard.

Name some very wealthy families that lost all their money. I've been scratching my head trying to come up with a name...any name.

The Carnegie, Morgan, Firestone, Ford, Rockefeller, Chase, Getty, Vanderbilt, Du Pont, Mellon, Hearst, Forbes, Schwab, Baruch, Kennedy, Kellogg, Hughes and more...others... than I can name! Then there were those than got rich WHILE the Depression was ongoing. Gene Autry, Babe Ruth, James Cagney, Michael J. Cullen, Charles Darrow, Glen Miller

Many rich people were in the stock market, but they owned so many other assets they were immune to the fluctuations of the stock market. Many knew what was about to happen and braced for it by selling high and then they turned right around and bought up everything when the prices were low, because they were the only ones with cash! Many MADE millions during AND after the Depression and became much richer as a result.

So many wealthy that owned factories made money hand over fist because of the war machinery that was needed to make all those weapons, tanks, planes and ships. Uniforms, boots, coats and anything you can think up that the branches of the military needed, they made money supplying them.

Yes, it was the Great Depression for a very good reason.

But not for them!

Sure, there might have been a few....a minute number of rich who lost their wealth compared to most everyone else. But give me a name...please.

I can't think of one name off the top of my head.

So, help me out with a name.

I'm not sure if the term is used on purely economic terms but the concept is the same. In politics it's referred to as "Realism". Overall power is not the most important element. It is relative power that is the goal of those that espouse this concept (unfortunately this is such a widely held belief that it almost considered politics 101 "law") . Think of the story of the man with a most hated enemy where he is promised anything in the world but his enemy would receive twice that which he would receive. So the man asks to be blind in one eye. In politics that is called "Realism". The land in which the man with one eye is king.

A sad and telling story.
I fear that even with the advances we've made in communication and technology since then, that the pressures of a larger population, (read "surplus labor" in Republican argot) both here, and around the world, will result in even more horrendous devastation as national economies fall like dominoes.

History repeats itself, that's for sure. I believe we might be even more vulnerable to food shortages; nowadays with agriculture taken over by Montesanto and ConAgra. I grew up on a small farm and we grew most of our own food, raised chickens and cows, had plenty of , fruits, vegetables, eggs, milk, meat, and all of it "organic" by today's organic standards. We didn't have money to speak of, but didn't notice the lack of it since we had everything else we needed.

Thanks once again for your wonderful comment and video, Buckeye!

This is so true, percipi224. I agree with Buckeye Bill that those who could grow food back then at least wouldn't have had to starve to death. But there were countless families and individuals in towns and cities who didn't have any land on which to grow food. And what you say about many who survived the depression era voting for Reagon is true; i grew up in Republican country (Kansas) and it was considered downright heretical to vote Democrat! Thank you for your insightful comment. Btw, we had relatives in Bethany, Oklahoma (Oklahoma City); the Phillips Oil family was very active in the Nazarene church there.

Another term that could be used is "Pyyrhic Victory" in which the victor loses as much as the defeated

Yikes! and that about sums up the cutthroat tactics of political powermongers today.

The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein. An eye-opening book. Makes me wonder about 9/11, Fukushima, and other disasters.

Some disasters, such as the never ending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or the endless and sadly comic drug "wars" are explicitly planned for, and you can scale up corporate production to benefit from them stupendously.

You can work both sides of the street, so to speak, in drug wars by prohibiting some easily obtained more common remedies and marketing more "high tech"unneeded products to the public to the point of insensibility, all with government sanction and support. 10 year olds in the US know more about "erectile dysfunction" than they do about what a healthy human diet is.

If you do construction, as well as train private armies, and have stock in major "defense" contractors, you can have the State Department authorize you to reconstruct what the US Army just paid you to destroy.

Siemens just pulled out on any future nuclear plant development in Europe. Private insurance groups were just not going to provide unlimited coverage for that any more.
In the US there had been a government backed (paid by taxpayers not by investors naturally) insurance to cover huge nuclear plant disasters.

Factory farm corn and antibiotic ridden mystery meats and their unhealthy intrusion into practically every form of food in the US is subsidized by the US government.
Locally sourced and healthier fresh food is not.
In fact, as those producers note, there are more barriers to entry to produce and sell non-factory food than for factory food with a long history of contamination and long term poor health effects.

You can pick your disaster on every front of the human experience in the U.S.

One doesn't need to imagine short term conspiracies in the ever unfolding glory of disaster capitalism. Even your reference to 9/11 and the Pentagon, itself has a long back-story that never quite seems to make it in the same articles designed to evoke the sentiments of patriotic memory or patriotic rage.

The story we've been told is so full of holes. I'll try to find a link or two on this for you.

Love that picture - those cronies pulled a good one, didn't they.

Wealthy businessmen and THE WEALTHY FAMILY EMPIRES are two completely different worlds.

Jim Bob's Carpet Emporium could be considered "wealthy" in comparison to you or me, but his "wealth" is not Old Money, handed down from father to son that are considered America's Aristocracy.

Jim Bob might take offense, but that's the way it is.

Like Mark Cuban, Walter O'Malley or how about Bernie Madoff...now there's examples of wealthy knuckleheads that I would NOT put in the same category as a Du Pont...would you?

One Trick Ponies...that's ALL they are!

JKF vs. the Federal Reserve: http://www.john-f-kennedy.net/thefederalreserve.htm

Two U.S. presidents assassinated: http://www.michaeljournal.org/lincolnkennedy.htm

JKF's famous speech on government secrecy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlghYpDx0f4

Eisenhower's warning (he was leaving office so he was not shot): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd8wwMFmCeE&feature=related

an interesting website with interesting questions: http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/lieofthecentury.php

That's the plan!

You might want to start up that family farm again...water and food security will be the dominate issue in the 21st century

VERY few things come out of the mouth of Greenspan that could be construed as the use of the English language. This video was one of the few that could be interpreted.

But most of his "sayings" can't be deciphered using any language spoken.

Pray tell...is that a New Castle I see on the table Zaphod? Very suggestive, in a good way ;-)

You'll have to ask jmarkred (Zaphod) about that. My memory is clouded on that subject.

Here's to revolutionary pubs!

Yes, it is. Though in my defense, I'm just trying to get though a case of the vile stuff. I normally have a Pacific NW Porter.

Here's the truth: If you're going to lie, don't tell little lies. LIE BIG! Then people will look up to you and vote for you. If you're going to commit a crime, don't commit a little crime (steal a loaf of bread to feed your kids, God forbid) because they'll haul you off to jail in a heartbeat. No, no, commit a BIG CRIME! Then you'll get rewarded with a big bonus and live like a king!

Now wait a minute, what was Jesus' first miracle. I thought it had something to do with wine.
Thanks, Buckeye . . .

Right on! with an Irish band, even better.

Too true. Check out my friend, jmarkred, with his musical take on this: http://current.com/entertainment/music/93466048_manly-men-unleashed.htm?xid=45

India pale ale is practically a health food, I understand . . .

Yes, and He was put on the spot by His mother Mary, who insisted that He do it! He really didn't want to do it.

FYI

Hiccup!

I hear the Rogue Dead Guy Ale ain't bad either....but Hair of the Dog Fred, who can resist?

This is so cool. I enjoyed it.

Didn't he say something like "woman, get thee behind me," LOL!!

Thanks for the beer education, Buckeye!