Chris Hedges: My Thoughts On the Attempted Trump Assassination

This is an excellent piece.

I have long held Chris Hedges with the highest respect, appreciation, and gratitude. In posting this essential larger picture that Chris illuminates here, I also again affirm that, for me, I will vote for whoever the democratic candidate is. I recognize the even more dangerous threat to us all that Trump poses — and especially when taking into account that we absolutely do not have four more years to waste on inaction on the climate crisis. 

All this said, I recognize the deep truths that Chris has long been shining bright light on related to the many layers of what has brought us to the precipice that we find ourselves at today. This didn't happen overnight and certainly both political parties have played major roles. Continuing to choose between the lesser of two evils is not sustainable and must be transformed if we are to save ourselves and life on Earth.

I believe that it is essential for us to courageously inform ourselves, deeply and in an ongoing way. There is such great need for more and more of us to be actively engaged in truth-seeking and shedding our indoctrination, ignorance, illusions, and unknowing collusion with what has for so very long been the roots of so much suffering and violence and death. 

Another world is possible. Together we must coordinate and collaborate on getting the truth out and sharing and acting upon visions of a radically different nation and world — one which honors and protects life rather than destroys it. — Molly

Trump raises a fist after being shot at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. Source: screenshot (Reuters)

By CHRIS HEDGES

The assassination of Trump would not remove the yearning of tens of millions of people, many conditioned by the Christian right, for a cult leader. Most of the leaders of the Christian right have built cult followings of their own. These Christian fascists embraced magical thinking, attacked their enemies as agents of Satan and denounced reality-based science and journalism long before Trump did. Cults are a product of social decay and despair, and our decay and despair are expanding, soon to explode in another financial crisis.

The efforts by the Democratic Party and much of the press, including CNN and The New York Times, to discredit Trump, as if our problems are embodied in him, are futile. The smug, self-righteousness of this crusade against Trump only contributes to the national reality television show that has replaced journalism and politics. This crusade attempts to reduce a social, economic and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It is accompanied by a refusal to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for our failed democracy. This collusion with the forces of corporate oppression, which have impoverished the working class, fostered endless war, militarized our police, created the largest prison system in the world, licensed corporations to exploit the most vulnerable and transferred wealth upwards into the hands of a billionaire class, neuters the press, Trump's critics and the Democratic Party.

Our only hope is to organize the overthrow of the corporate state that vomited up Trump. Our democratic institutions, including the legislative bodies, the courts and the media, are hostage to corporate power. They are no longer democratic. We must, like resistance movements of the past, engage in acts of sustained mass civil disobedience, especially strikes, and non-cooperation. By turning our ire on the corporate state, rather than Trump, we name the true sources of power and abuse. We expose the absurdity of blaming our demise on demonized groups such as undocumented workers, Muslims, African-Americans, Latinos, liberals, feminists, gays and others. We give people an alternative to a bankrupt Democratic Party — whose presidential candidate is in clear cognitive decline — that is a full partner in corporate oppression and cannot be rehabilitated. We make possible the restoration of an open society. If we fail to embrace this militancy, which alone has the ability to destroy cult leaders, we will continue the march toward tyranny.

Please go here for the original: https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/my-thoughts-on-the-attempted-trump