<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">This is the concluding paragraph in an article by Chris Hedges. It expands on some of the conclusions of Sheldon Wolin, retired Princeton Professor, regarding our current dire political predicament, i.e., our false "democratic republic". <div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/25">http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/25</a><br><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; "><i>…The civic, patriotic and political language we use to describe ourselves remains unchanged. We pay fealty to the same national symbols and iconography. We find our collective identity in the same national myths. We continue to deify the Founding Fathers. But the America we celebrate is an illusion. It does not exist. Our government and judiciary have no real sovereignty. Our press provides diversion, not information. Our organs of security and power keep us as domesticated and as fearful as most Iraqis. Capitalism, as Karl Marx understood, when it emasculates government, becomes a revolutionary force. And this revolutionary force, best described as inverted totalitarianism, is plunging us into a state of neo-feudalism, perpetual war and severe repression. The Supreme Court decision is part of our transformation by the corporate state from citizens to prisoners.</i></span></div></div><br />--
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