This ‘Sott.net’ post by Chris Hedges runs deep into our comprehension faculty. I like it and have yet to really absorb it all, but it seems to run true, very true in assessing the weirdness of the current world in which we find ourselves. Sharing it around seems to be the sensible thing to do. A masterpiece of literature and philosophy.
This extracted conclusion provides the gist and the incentive to read, understand and adjust our own thinking. (I do need to point out, that I am not in agreement with his inclusion of catastrophic global warming as a disaster towards which we are turning a blind eye. The blind eye in this case is actually towards the scam which is termed “climate change” action, which in turn is contributing to the world’s political and social downfall).
“And here is the dilemma we face as a civilization. We march collectively toward self-annihilation. Corporate capitalism, if left unchecked, will kill us. Yet we refuse, because we cannot think and no longer listen to those who do think, to see what is about to happen to us. We have created entertaining mechanisms to obscure and silence the harsh truths, from climate change to the collapse of globalization to our enslavement to corporate power, that will mean our self-destruction. If we can do nothing else we must, even as individuals, nurture the private dialogue and the solitude that make thought possible. It is better to be an outcast, a stranger in one’s own country, than an outcast from one’s self. It is better to see what is about to befall us and to resist than to retreat into the fantasies embraced by a nation of the blind.”
© Associated Press/Michael Probst
Cultures that endure carve out a protected space for those who question and challenge national myths. Artists, writers, poets, activists, journalists, philosophers, dancers, musicians, actors, directors and renegades must be tolerated if a culture is to be pulled back from disaster. Members of this intellectual and artistic class, who are usually not welcome in the stultifying halls of academia where mediocrity is triumphant, serve as prophets. They are dismissed, or labeled by the power elites as subversive, because they do not embrace collective self-worship. They force us to confront unexamined assumptions, ones that, if not challenged, lead to destruction. They expose the ruling elites as hollow and corrupt. They articulate the senselessness of a system built on the ideology of endless growth, ceaseless exploitation and constant expansion. They warn us about the poison of careerism and the futility of the search for happiness in the accumulation of wealth. They make us face ourselves, from the bitter reality of slavery and Jim Crow to the genocidal slaughter of Native Americans to the repression of working-class movements to the atrocities carried out in imperial wars to the assault on the ecosystem. They make us unsure of our virtue. They challenge the easy clichés we use to describe the nation – the land of the free, the greatest country on earth, the beacon of liberty – to expose our darkness, crimes and ignorance. They offer the possibility of a life of meaning and the capacity for transformation.
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The GOLDEN RULE 
Spam Comments
Every day I receive many spam comments. Occasionally one might be genuine and it can be approved.
Today, I have received many, all related to the same facebook address, and many are actually relevant to posts on this blog. However, except for two, they are associated with inappropriate posts. Some are referenced to a person and are obviously originated to display elsewhere.
Just for fun, I will display the useful ones here, and invite comments of any sensible nature, on their content and my reaction to them. I am not involved with facebook, concerned about privacy, and fail to understand what the processes of these spam comments mean.
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