from www.basilandspice.com – Chris Hedges [pictured] is a senior fellow at The Nation Institute, spent fifteen years at the New York Times, has been awarded a Pulitzer prize, and has written several prior books. His newest, Empire of Illusion, tells us that America is engulfed in illusion and fantasy, and if we don’t change we’ll inevitably turn to demagogues to entertain and reassure us as we’re led towards despotism. Embracing illusion has brought us a free market system taken hostage by corporations en route to casino capitalism, exploding debts, the dismantling of our manufacturing base and working class, and the decay of our infrastructure.

Hedges begins building his case while describing scenes at World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) where spectators happily pay to suspend reality watching ‘momentous’ staged battle scripts between fierce opponents, with divas added to fuel sexual fantasies. Similarly, Hedges sees celebrity worship arising from our dreams of likewise succeeding; then there’s America’s Next Top Model, Survivor, American Idol and other respites from reality (eg. cosmetic surgery). We’re also transfixed by its inverse – humiliation and debasement such as featured on The Jerry Springer and Howard Stern shows.

Momentarily diverging, Hedges tells us that functional illiteracy is epidemic in America – 7 million total illiterates, another 27 million unable to read well enough to complete a job application, and still another 50 million who read at a 4th-5th-grade level. In total, nearly one-third of us are illiterate or barely literate. Further, a third of high-school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives, and neither do 42% of college graduates. In 2007, 80% of U.S. families did not buy or read a single book. Instead, the average American watches four or more hours of TV each day, live WWE or other sports, and porn films.

There are some 13,000 porn films made every year. Hedges sees this industry as supplying the illusion of love. Worldwide revenues top $100 billion. A large proportion of female stars ($1,000/movie) are said to work as prostitutes making as much as $2,000/hour ($30,000/week). Males receive about one-third the income of females, and often require drug injections to perform. All performers are tested for STDs once/month (whether they need it or not). There are an estimated 4.2 million porn web sites, about 12% of the total; these sites are the target of about one-quarter of all search engine requests.