"Shock gonna come"

   It's not every day I endorse the screeching of a self-professed "socialist," but after hearing the oratory of Christopher Lynn Hedges earlier this week I may have seen the light [or maybe half-light].
   It is probably because the more I read about the man the more I agree with his equal distaste for the Right and the Left; the fundamentalists and atheists; the peaceniks and the war-mongers. Essentially it's all crap because our rights have been marginalized and the middle class vaporized by those who have the power.
  One of Hedges' drumbeats is that during the past 40 years we have gone from a producing society to a consuming society — constantly force-fed overhyped celebrities and pseudo news at the expense of rational discussion and critical thinking.
  One thing I will say is we have be deceived about how much freedom we have as everything has been divided up into two or fewer camps: Coke or Pepsi; Budweiser or Miller; Democrats or Republicans; Microsoft (a near-monopoly) or Apple; Nike (even more of a monopoly) and a bunch of also-rans — and the longer this mock duality persists, the more these "opposites" move toward each other, the more that differences are marginalized and real choice is reduced.
   All this has probably given rise to the literal and figurative branding of every person and thing in America: we have to make us/it appear unique despite there being piss-little difference between people or products. Humans have one head, two arms and two legs ... well ... then ... you must need a tattoo to advertise that you are different [not to mention desperately insecure].
   Water? You mean drinking water? Would that be Aquafina, Apollinaris, Evian, Fiji, Gerolsteiner, Perrier, Poland Spring, Dasani or the obligatory Trump Ice {just to name a few}?
   It's water, for Christ's sake, and most of it is just tap water! But we have been conditioned (more than the water) to believe this specially packaged elixir is somehow different, thus making ourselves different, special.
   So I think I'll be checking out "Empire of Illusion" by Mr. Hedges.
   That "Change gonna come," campaign chant by the Obamanators sounds pretty empty right now as we may be on the cusp of some real revolution. {Change is always in play, by the way; change can be either good or bad, so it's a safe promise. I'm much more interested in progress.}
   It is way past time for a viable third party. I'm just afraid it's going to take economic shock for real change to occur.