By Ben Cohen

Chris Hedges believes the financial crisis is so dire, the American dream is officially dead:

At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril

or has the possibility of totalitarianism been as real. Our way of life

is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will

never have the standard of living we had. And poverty and despair will

sweep across the landscape like a plague. This is the bleak future.

There is nothing President Obama can do to stop it. It has been decades

in the making. It cannot be undone with a trillion or two trillion

dollars in bailout money. Our empire is dying. Our economy has

collapsed.

Hedges is somewhat of a pessimist, but he has been right about pretty much everything else so far. Depressing, yes, but probably true.