Resit Or Become Serfs

A new piece from Chris Hedges called "Resit Or Become Serfs" is up at truthdig.org. The piece is a great warning of things to come if the American people don't signal that our country needs to take a new direction. The changed promised, is only a change in delivery, a friendlier face to imperialism. The piece will be linked to below, but I though I should highlight a little section.

A few months ago I posted a piece by Paul Craig Roberts that said our unemployment rate is actually at 15%, Hedges not only backs this up but goes on to explain the logic behind it.

"The lies employed to camouflage the economic decline are legion. President Ronald Reagan included 1.5 million U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine service personnel with the civilian work force to magically reduce the nation’s unemployment rate by 2 percent. President Bill Clinton decided that those who had given up looking for work, or those who wanted full-time jobs but could only find part-time employment, were no longer to be counted as unemployed. This trick disappeared some 5 million unemployed from the official unemployment rolls. If you work more than 21 hours a week—most low-wage workers at places like Wal-Mart average 28 hours a week—you are counted as employed, although your real wages put you below the poverty line. Our actual unemployment rate, when you include those who have stopped looking for work and those who can only find part-time jobs, is not 8.5 percent but 15 percent. A sixth of the country is now effectively unemployed. And we are shedding jobs at a faster rate than in the months after the 1929 crash."

In short the American people need to wake up before its too late. Our government is choosing to leave us in the gutter while they back up and bail out the corporate crooks who got us into this mess.

Click here to read the piece: "Resit Or Become Serfs" by Chris Hedges