Image by silverfuture via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
teleSUR English on Dec 15, 2015
In this episode of Days of Revolt, host Chris Hedges and author Vijay Prashad trace the acceleration of U.S. militarism since the collapse of the Soviet Union. They also discuss the nature of U.S. domination over global affairs, and the resulting consequences for not only the world, but also the U.S. itself.
From the archives:
Abby Martin and Lawrence Wilkerson: The US Empire Is Ready To Collapse
We Are In Pitiless Times by Vijay Prashad + Beirut Bombings
Abby Martin: 9/11 and the Belligerent Empire
Dandelion Salad 
Pingback: How a Hillary or Bernie Government Would Relate to the World by David Swanson | Dandelion Salad
Pingback: What Obama Did While You Were Watching Elections by David Swanson | Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Saudi Invasion of Syria: The Bluff That Could Ignite World War III by Finian Cunningham | Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Abby Martin and Vijay Prashad: Examining the Syria War Chessboard | Dandelion Salad
Another example of a half-hour program that just starts getting somewhere and concludes. Independent media participants and peace/social justice activists would do well to begin producing discussions which are open-ended in length, in other words continued until specific problems and solid solutions become identified and fully articulated. Massive issues require equally massive discussions to effectively arrive at the solutions phase. Vijay Prashad is one of the most clear-thinking, insightful analysts around, at least as far as identifying the problematic aspects facing societies.
I don’t know, Jerry, there are quite a lot of longer videos on Youtube, and elsewhere. The Real News Network did a multi-part series with Vijay Prashad. See: Part 1, https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/vijay-prashad-marx-and-tolstoy-helped-me-see-the-limits-of-liberalism/
Personally I like the half-hour format. It’s long enough to get into the issue(s), but not too long so more people are likely to watch the entire program.
Maybe Hedges will invite Vijay back on his program in the near future.
Perhaps a more precise way to state the point is as disappointment with the progressive movement in the arena of solutions content. From my perspective it seems time to close the chapter on describing societal problems repeatedly in varied but similar ways and start the chapter on solving those now exhaustively explained problems. To shift to the “next higher gear” might be analogous, revealing one person’s impatience and desire for activists to get on with effecting good change after taking it to the next higher, more intensified level.
Or, maybe it’s burnout. 🙂
OK, I do understand your point now, Jerry.
Dandelion Salad started to do just that a few years ago, but it was not successful. When you are so involved on a daily basis with news of death and destruction it takes a toll. I wanted to change the blog to have more “good news” so-to-speak, and solutions, articles and videos on sustainability, etc. It wasn’t too long before the articles and videos posted here went back to hard news analysis, more death and destruction.
Here is my blog post describing the change of focus on Dandelion Salad: https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/five-years-for-dandelion-salad-so-time-for-a-new-focus-by-lo/
A valuable exchange, I appreciate both perspectives and concur.
What is also relevant though, is the extent to which too much (ie interminable, careerist) discussion produces information glut and a type of intellectual/academic rigor mortis ~ professionally induced mental congestion that inhibits rather than stimulates or inspires action.
What are we trying to achieve here? Clearly we need to refine our narratives, get more solution focused, clarify the context of each “problematique” and also contemplate our ignorance.
For example, we have great aspirations to reorganize and regulate society, but as yet, we (that is to say, in our self-defined and reciprocated, sense of rational identity) do not even understand how fundamental human biology works, let alone how it is integral to the fractal ecology of life.
So I think it may be helpful to invoke a pedagogical model of exponential apprehension, based on the reflexive principle that articulates learning objectives as expected outcomes in terms of the reciprocal process itself.
This way there is always a gain, that feeds into the cycle, and nourishes its continuity through progressively deeper meaning.
Does that make any sense?
Always my favorite teacher of our language is a education, the insane consumption and extraction related to the Planets eco system is pertinent, in as much as we are as individuals phoned to solicited to free of charge as government policy having a electrician to install halogen ceiling lighting and remove leds, I say without cost other than we all pay taxes for this activity, why I am I stating this peculiar aspect as a contribution to the article? considering Australia is fast descending into International debt it is incongruous the government so concerned with conserving energy and yet we are about to embark on a contract with Japan on 10 or so submarines costing between 20 billion to 60 billion dollars, surely the cost of energy in making steel and all manufacturing costs will be huge energy cost to the Australian taxpayer? is changing our lights and concern for energy savings is a strange equation? and bringing it back to Davids concern for our eco system?
The Western Allies having exported jobs to China and in the process making China into a militarized country and China now forced to protect it self against potential threats or its now industrialized infrastructure?
As far as I know their is no serious movement to demilitarize? as the reader knows by the time a military item has been designed and manufactured it is already out of date? the ambiguity of military equipment built abroad with the possibility of supplies and reliance on over seas manufacturing and not knowing who may be the enemy of future conflict? all of what I have said is obvious and yet we need to state this as being a insane situation that world leaders are not acknowledging the inconsistent pursuit of our present policies, the future uncertainty of world events as a result, a condition of myopia that is embedded in to the brain of those arising to power being unsuitable leaders for favorable decisions of a future vision for life on our planet?
Good points, Don.
The changes we need are so fundamental, I’d say it needs a revolution in consciousness that really amounts to an epigenetic evolution away from the current nihilistic political dementia, that now typifies our current, prevailing leadership ~ world-wide.
dw may find additional nourishment & confirmation of his truthful assessment from the campaign against arms trade https://www.caat.org.uk/media/caat-in-the-media/2015
Also, I highly commend him Lo, to your recent Arthur D Robbins post on the Shaping of American Character….
Thanks David.
American militarism since the collapse of Russia? Cuba was thought by many at the time WW3.
Incredibly interesting interview. The work of the late Giovanni Arrighi is obviously of substantial relevance.
So, how do we now recalibrate our management of the global commons, as the exhausted carrying capacity of the Earth struggles to support the increasingly relentless demands of an urbanised population driven by wasteful and socially irresponsible corporate agendas?
What will it take to constrain this insane ecocidal empire of consumption and extraction at any cost? Can the USA redeem its bad debt to the planet?
Pingback: Abby Martin and Lawrence Wilkerson: The US Empire Is Ready To Collapse | Dandelion Salad