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Either you are a rebel or a slave by Chris Hedges + Bernie Sanders on #OccupyWallStreet

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
Sept. 29, 2011

20110924 OccupyWallSt-94

Image by marniejoyce via Flickr

There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.

To be declared innocent in a country where the rule of law means nothing, where we have undergone a corporate coup, where the poor and working men and women are reduced to joblessness and hunger, where war, financial speculation and internal surveillance are the only real business of the state, where even habeas corpus no long[er] exists, where you, as a citizen, are nothing more than a commodity to corporate systems of power, one to be used and discarded, is to be complicit in this radical evil. To stand on the sidelines and say “I am innocent” is to bear the mark of Cain; it is to do nothing to reach out and help the weak, the oppressed and the suffering, to save the planet. To be innocent in times like these is to be a criminal. Ask Tim DeChristopher.

[…]

via Truthdig

Copyright © 2011 Truthdig

Chris Hedges spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. His latest books are Death of the Liberal Class, and The World as It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress.

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[DS added the video.]

Note: replaced video Aug. 6, 2012

on Sep 30, 2011

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Get Involved: Occupy Together

see

Speech: Chris Hedges at Occupy DC: Either you are a rebel or a slave

Save the Postal Service Rally + Occupy Wall St goes Postal

Chris Hedges: Occupy Wall Street Interview – We have a moral imperative to fight for life

#OccupyWallStreet: Police Kettling Protesters + Live Stream + Protesters arrested

#OccupyWallStreet Protesting Outside Wall Street + Live Stream

This Hero Didn’t Stand a Chance by Chris Hedges

Report from the Frontlines: The Long Road to #OccupyWallStreet and the Origins of the 99% Movement | David DeGraw

17 thoughts on “Either you are a rebel or a slave by Chris Hedges + Bernie Sanders on #OccupyWallStreet”

  1. Pingback: Chris Hedges at Occupy DC: Either you are a rebel or a slave | Dandelion Salad

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  12. Chris, magnificant passionate writing. Thanks. You have a typo para 2, first sentence, after habeas corpus, shld be “longer”, now says long. Am rattled and challenged by what you wrote. Know you’re right, and how do you see this all ultimately unfolding? What do you see replacing aspects of the system you feel are broken and criminal. Is there the political will? This is the ultimate civil rights struggle. Will oligarchs allow it? Do they want, prefer a weakened middle class? Do you see a coalition of progressives and moderates forming? You see the problem with clarion alertness. Thanks for writing more about solutions, methods, alternative systems, outcomes. And how we get there. Corporatism has a history of dark hands, but in earlier days minus wikileaks and social media some sort of benign balance (appearance) seemed to exist. The American mythos was more intact, and we had a middle class, China wasn’t what it is now – the worls was different, govt had its problems…but the societal struggles, while huge, seemed to be morally waged. What’s going on now feels different. Bigger. This all to say the situation looks bad, and the possible cure or remedies not so hot either. Given your seriously pessimistic assessment, what exactly are you advocating? Or what do you forsee?

  13. And with threatened US citizen ASSASSINATION now executed, the Baracketeer-in-chief’s The WORST! 0bomanible MIRRORSPEAK: “You can smear a pig with lipstick; but he’s Still A PIG!”! (And he’s our Premier Bush-HOG!)!! IMPEACH.

  14. That pretty much sums up mostly everyones sentiments, now is the time to start taking action, there just can’t be any more talk and for those who would rather sit on the sidelines, “beware” you are involved too…

  16. Pingback: Chris Hedges: Occupy Wall Street Interview – We have a moral imperative to fight for life « Dandelion Salad

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