As I pointed out (although not specifically) he gets it right – specifically when he says the current system cannot be fixed. His recommendation of forming sustainable communities is also something I wholeheartedly agree with. After that, he decends (quickly) into the darkest and most dystopian future I’ve ever read – worse than any cyberpunk novel, and worse than Mad Max. At least with Mad Max you could carve out your freedom against more or less equally lethal foes. What he is saying is smack full of contradiction – a total collapse of civilization, of economics, of the environment, of civil society, while the elite still maintain control. Given the total system collapse he describes, control of what exactly? And how? What he describes is basically post-Roman Empire Dark Ages stuff. With a few citadels holding onto the knowledge (as monks did during the Dark Ages) until civilization rises from the ashes some centuries later. And he says with a deterministic certainty that puts his entire argument into question. Is it possible that some kind of new dark age could come? Yes. But there are so many other countervailing trends that are coming into play. What I have discovered is that we have been so programmed to be afraid of ANY alternative to the current system, that it’s end automatically entails the doom and gloom he talks about. We’ve seen it in numerous and more recent examples in our media culture – dystopian movies, dystopian scifi (seen any positive scifi lately, how about in the last 20 years?). I have discovered and realized far too many positive pathways out of our current dilemma. I can’t be alone. We need more positive can-do people. “Calling all 21st century Bucky Fullers – your world needs you – now!” In the bigger scheme of things, people like Hedges and Orlov are doing everyone a great disservice.
I just read Hedges bio on Wikipedia. It explains everything. The guy is a WAR correspondent, and has been for the last 20 years, spending most of that time in awful war torn places around the world. No wonder he has no optimism – he has placed himself DELIBERATELY, at any given time, in the worst possible places on Earth. Like I said, “he needs to get out more.” There is a whole world out there of can-do practical people who desperately want to live in a world of peace and prosperity. When hard times hit, they take care of each other. They do not turn on each other.
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