Chris Hedges: Call to Action
Channel: Joe Friendly
Date: 2012-02-08

Chris Hedges calls us to action, to create a new political movement to replace our corrupt government and obsolete economic institutions, building on what's begun by Occupy Wall Street. Talk at Church of All Souls in New York City February 7, 2012. Video by Joe Friendly. Apologies for occasional camera shaking, but the speaker's audio is extra fine as result of that tiny wireless AZDEN mic at Chris's lips that the church let me stick on with a tiny rubber band at the last moment before he was about to speak!

My own offering for a plan of action: 

Here's a New York City citizen's effort to put in clear and simple terms a plan to achieve the fundamental changes we need to create a rational, moral order.

The People need to begin considering a peaceful revolution along these lines: 
Whereas the US Government has become terminally corrupt with bribery ruling Washington, and in the service of the rich has turned against its people and in violation of treaties it has signed and in violation of international law has made war against and invaded so many countries,  has shamed us before the world by engaging in torture, has taken steps like NDAA toward fascism, and our economic system is failing,


We launch national and local thinking sessions, on the internet, live-streaming from the job site and the neighborhood, what's wrong and how to make it right,  to save the planet and promote planetary prosperity so humanity thrives,  how to create a fair, just, wise, sustainable economic system that cherishes human dignity, fosters both community and individuality.

We recognize that commercialism/capitalism is a mentality so lacking in morality that it should no longer be the basis of our economic order. We give new meaning to money in our lives.  We come to realize the need to rescue our culture from commercialism, that it is an irresponsible, pathological, degenerative  force, that has degraded us,  urged a preoccupation with appearances, a status system based on wealth and looks, not inner workings of mind and heart, failed to encourage and bring out the good in human nature, caring about people.  

We face squarely the complicity of our commercial media in the corruption, how they have fooled us with lies and tricks, hid the truth from us.  As a whole people we begin to wake up to destructive US foreign policy, hearing from victims the sad and shameful truth about US wrongdoing country by country.  The US has been a monster unto the world, not a force for freedom and democracy as it claims. 

We the people must alas wake up and be a positive force in the world, restore good will! 


Joe Friendly's currently Proposed Candidates for Government-in-waiting to conduct a national discussion about what's wrong and what The People can wisely choose as an alternative:
 
Mumia Abu-Jamal 
Michael Albert 
Michelle Alexander
Stanley Aronowitz 
Tom Ashbrook
Ed Asner 
Ben Barber 
Brian Becker 
Harry Belefonte 
Medea Benjamin
Phyllis Bennis
Danniel Berrigan
Frida Berrigan 
William Blum 
Heidi Boghosian 
Robert Borosage
Roy Bourgeois 
Robert Bowman
Barbara Boxer
Ellen H. Brown
John Burroughs
Jackie Cabasso 
Noam Chomsky 
Ward Churchill 
Ramsey Clark 
John Conyers 
Angela Davis
Lamis Deek 
Phil Donohue
Barbara Ehrenreich
Daniel Ellsberg
Herman Ferguson
Johanna Fernandez
Sara Flounders 
Laura Flanders 
Margaret Flowers
Jane Franklin
Joe Friendly
Bruce Gagnon  
James K. Galbraith
Joseph Gerson 
Tiokasin Ghosthorse
Danny Glover
Fred Goldstein
Amy Goodman 
Juan Gonzalez 
David Graeber
Mike Gravel 
Glen Greenwald
Robert Greenwald
Michael Greger 
David Ray Griffin
Deirdre Griswold
Teresa Gutierez 
James Hansen 
Thom Hartman 
William Hartung 
Tom Hayden 
Doug Henwood 
Chris Hedges
Sander Hicks
Jim Hightower
Larry Holmes
Connie Hogarth 
Barbara Marx Hubbard 
Max Keiser
Kathy Kelly 
Robert Knight
Paul Krugman
Dennis Kucinich 
Gloria LaRiva
Lyndon LaRouche 
Barbara Lee
Brian Lehrer 
Michael Lerner
Laurence Lessig 
Leonard Lopate 
Jeff Mackler 
Ray McGovern 
Bill McKibben 
Mark Crispin Miller
Michael Moore 
Monica Moorehead
Bill Moyers
Susan Metz
Ethan Nadelman 
Jerrold Nadler
Rosie O'Donnell 
Keith Olberman 
Patrick Oliphant
Ed Ott
Michael Parenti 
Christian Parenti
Robert Parry
Leonard Peltier 
Sean Penn
Dan Perkins
John Perkins
Peter Phillips
William Rivers Pitt
Miles Rapoport
Michael Ratner 
Robert Reich
Jeremy Rifkin 
David Rovics
Bernie Sanders 
Lydia Sargeant 
Jeremy Scahill
Danny Schechter 
Jonathan Schell 
Pete Seeger 
Assata Shakur 
Cindy Sheehan
Robert Scheer
Norman Siegel 
Alice Slater
Joseph Stiglitz
Brenda Stokely
Lisa Sullivan
David Swanson
Sunsara Taylor 
Garry Trudeau 
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Jesse Ventura
Dahlia Wasfi
Harvey Wasserman 
Maxine Waters 
Cora Weiss
Peter Weiss
Cornel West
Tim Wise
Sherry Wolf
Richard Wolff
Ann Wright 

So far Michael Parenti and Mark Crispin Miller and Susan Metz have accepted.