Worth reading: "Why I Am a Socialist"

From Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author, Chris Hedges.  Here's an excerpt:

"The Democratic and Republican parties have become little more than squalid clubs of privilege and wealth, whores to money and corporate interests, hostage to a massive arms industry, and so adept at deception and self-delusion they no longer know truth from lies. We will either find our way out of this mess by embracing an uncompromising democratic socialism—one that will insist on massive government relief and work programs, the nationalization of electricity and gas companies, a universal, not-for-profit government health care program, the outlawing of hedge funds, a radical reduction of our bloated military budget and an end to imperial wars—or we will continue to be fleeced and impoverished by our bankrupt elite and shackled and chained by our surveillance state."

Hedges piece is less an exposition of his socialist leanings than a critique of the American "corporatocracy", largely unregulated and left free to wreak whatever damage to the  economy that benefits the corporate bottom line.  Hedges pulls no punches in his scathing indictment of the corporate presence:

"The creation of a mercenary army, the privatization of public utilities and our disgusting for-profit health care system are all legacies of the corporate state. These corporations have no loyalty to America or the American worker. They are not tied to nation states. They are vampires."

But that's alright with me.  Reigning in the excesses of Wall Street --and rethinking corporate "personhood"-- is the sort of change I can believe in.

Happy 2009!