Exclusive: US empire could collapse at any time, Pulitzer winner tells Raw Story
By Nathan Diebenow
Friday, December 17th, 2010
America's military and economic empire could collapse at any time, but
predicting the precise day, week or month of its potential demise is
unattainable, according to a former New York Times war correspondent who spoke
with Raw Story.
"The when and how is very dangerous to predict because there's always
some factor that blindsides you that you didn't expect,"
Pulitzer-winning journalist Chris Hedges said in an exclusive interview.
"It doesn't look good. But exactly how it plays out and when it plays
out, having covered disintegrating societies, it's impossible to tell."
He explained that he learned this lesson as events unfolded around
him in the fall of 1989. Then, members of the opposition to the Soviet
Empire told him that they predicted travel across the Berlin Wall
separating East from West Germany would open within the year.
"Within a few hours, the wall didn't exist," he said.
Hedges was one of the 131 activists were arrested in an act of civil
disobedience outside the White House yesterday, even as Obama was unveiling a
new report citing progress in the Afghanistan war.
Speaking to Raw Story on Wednesday night, he said the signs of US
collapse are plain to see and compared the country's course through
Afghanistan to Soviet Russia's.
"We're losing [the war in Afghanistan] in the same way the Red Army
lost it," he said. "It's exactly the same configuration where we sort of
control the urban centers where 20 percent of the population lives. The
rest of the country where 80 percent of the Afghans live is either in
the hands of the Taliban or disputed."
"Foreigners will not walk the streets of Kabul because of kidnapping,
and journalists regularly meet Taliban officials in Kabul because the
whole apparatus is so porous and corrupt," he said.
One day after this interview was conducted, reports hit the global
media noting the CIA's warning to President Obama, that the
Pakistan-supported Taliban could still regain control of the country.
Hedges predicted that President Obama's war report released Thursday would
"contradict not only [US] intelligence reports but everything else that is
coming out of Afghanistan."
His prediction came startlingly true: the CIA's own assessment was said to
stand in striking contrast with President Obama's report.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, however, insisted that the US controlled more
territory in Afghanistan than it did a year ago.
'A corporate coup d'état in slow motion'
Hedges said he attended the protest and planned to get arrested
because he is against the corporate powers that have enveloped the
nation.
"We've undergone a corporate coup d'état in slow motion," he said.
"Our public education system has been gutted. Our infrastructure is
corroding and collapsing. Unless we begin to physically resist, they are
going to solidify neo-feudalism in this country."
"If we think that Obama is bad, watch the next two years because
these corporate forces have turned their back on him," Hedges warned.
Hedges, author of "Death of the Liberal Class,"
said that his vision of America is one with a functioning social
democracy, which stands in stark contrast to the nihilism of the
corporate state.
"American workers, as they are repeatedly told, will have to become
competitive with prison labor in China," he said. "That's where we're
headed, and all the pillars of the liberal establishment are complicit
in this."
"At least if you get sick in the UK, you don't go bankrupt or die," he added.
Hedges said that another pressure point is the US dollar, which he pointed out
had been dropped by Russia and China in favor of modified
ruble/renminbi exchanges.
"A few more deals like that, and our currency becomes junk," he said.
Hedges continued, "As long as we have relative stability, these
lunatic fringe movements can be held at bay, but if we don't undertake
serious structural reform, which we're not doing, then it is inevitable
that we will come to a tremendous crisis - economic and political as
well as environmental."
This video, featuring portions of a speech given by Chris Hedges, was shot
outside the White House on Dec. 16, 2010.
Updated from an original version.
With editing by Stephen C. Webster.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/untitled-chris-hedges-interview/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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