Chris Hedges Has Something to Sell You
Chris Hedges is a useless windbag who harms the left. He is a businessman-journalist peddling liberalism and failure to the populist left. He occupies a position between anti-capitalism and naked power, a space where he can use the arbitrage of his understanding of the mechanisms of the dominant ideology to turn a profit. He knows the dimensions of this space down to the width of a dollar bill. We are ready to call Hedges a bullshitter.
Take this addition to brand Hedges, published on 2 July by the liberal media site truthdig, entitled “Time to get Crazy”. Under a Mr. Fish cartoon of Crazy Horse wearing a mask used by right-wing populists in the occupy movement and on the internet that is disturbingly reminiscent of minstrel vaudeville paint, Hedges writes the following:
Crazy Horse was bayoneted to death on Sept. 5, 1877, after being tricked into walking toward the jail at Fort Robinson in Nebraska. The moment he understood the trap he pulled out a knife and fought back. Gen. Phil Sheridan had intended to ship Crazy Horse to the Dry Tortugas, a group of small islands in the Gulf of Mexico, where a U.S. Army garrison ran a prison with cells dug out of the coral. Crazy Horse, even when dying, refused to lie on the white man’s cot. He insisted on being placed on the floor. Armed soldiers stood by until he died. And when he breathed his last, Touch the Clouds, Crazy Horse’s seven-foot-tall Miniconjou friend, pointed to the blanket that covered the chief’s body and said, “This is the lodge of Crazy Horse.” His grieving parents buried Crazy Horse in an undisclosed location. Legend says that his bones turned to rocks and his joints to flint. His ferocity of spirit remains a guiding light for all who seek lives of defiance.
This is the story of the heroic martyrdom of a great human that any person who wants to fight the colonial-capitalist system should cherish and remember. So what is it doing in an article by a guy who in February of this year called militants in the occupy movement who merely harmed private property “The Cancer of Occupy.” Militants participating in black or red bloc tactics are breaking shop windows, throwing bottles at kettling pigs, and generally causing a nuisance to property and its defenders. Bloc tactics are a far cry from putting one’s knife in an oppressor’s throat, or massacring a column of oppressor soldiers. But bloc tactics are far beyond the pale for Hedges. So why is he talking about “Crazy Horse?” What is he asking the progressive left to do when it “gets crazy.” Well, he has another quote in the article:
Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power,” wrote the philosopher John Locke, “they put themselves into a state of war with the people who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.”
John Locke is the philosopher of private property. He is certainly no leftist. A good liberal, though, is John Locke. He argues for property, the sovereign man, his sovereign rights, and all of that ideology used to deny oppressed groups the ability to organize as a group in the face of systemic capitalist exploitation. One of those Europeans who were happy enough to break their word with any “members of a primitive cult,” as Hedges so unhappily describes someone else given the context, Locke would have put a bullet in Crazy Horse. Or more likely paid someone to do so.
Suddenly his previous attack on those participants in #occupy, whose tactics of struggle include hurting property makes sense. They are actually doing what Hedges merely romanticizes in order to get attention. He says:
And while I do not advocate violence, indeed will seek every way to avoid it, I have no intention of accommodating corporate power whether it hides behind the mask of Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. At the same time, I have to acknowledge that resistance may ultimately be in vain. Yet to resist is to say something about us as human beings. It keeps alive the possibility of hope, even as all empirical evidence points to inevitable destruction. It makes victory, however remote, possible. And it makes life a little more difficult for the ruling class, which satisfies the very human emotion of vengeance.
Except he has no intention of doing anything but selling copy and books. He’s not going to actively resist, he’s going to put native heroes in masks and use their stories to enrich himself. I don’t give a shit if he profit shares with “progressive media” (a topic for another post), this guy is a poisonous liar profiting off of other people’s struggles. Yeah, he’s been arrested. Sometimes getting arrested at a protest is about selling books that are ultimately about reproducing the ideology of the oppressor among those of us who get arrested. Hedges is that guy on the margins of the dominant ideology, but the dominant ideology is what he is selling. Don’t buy it.
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Chris Hegdes says:
” At the same time, I have to acknowledge that resistance may ultimately be in vain. Yet to resist is to say something about us as human beings. It keeps alive the possibility of hope, even as all empirical evidence points to inevitable destruction. ”
Interesting! So the Haitian revolution was in vain? Was Nat Turner and Denmark Vessey’s rebellion in vain? Was the Cuban revolution in vain? I could go on but you get the point. Hell no! Although these actions were weakened or ultimately crushed they were not in vain. They are just incomplete due to the period of counter-insurgency that we live in. It’s people like Hedges who will have the audacity to minimize resistance as futile while Black and Brown people die daily. His white ass has the luxury of taking that position because he doesn’t live our lives! The rebellions and revolutions of the past let us know that the state can be touched and Hedges is completely anti-dialectical to imply that, no matter what, world power will stay the same. It is people like him that claim pacifism which helped to crush any revolutionary movement, so as The Cyclist so accurately stated, he’s selling his commodity of liberalism in this niche market.
Chris Hegdes also says;
“It makes victory, however remote, possible. And it makes life a little more difficult for the ruling class, which satisfies the very human emotion of vengeance.”
Does this MF think we want vengeance? Is he serious! This ain’t no Hollywood movie where the Black people “get back” at our oppressors! It’s about winning back our lives and human dignity! It’s about everyone in our communities having something to eat and being able to name and carry out the terms and direction our African, Asian, and Indigeneous nations. Hedges has no analysis of colonialism and even if he does, his political position as a non-violent liberal implies that he places his own privilege at the center of his public analysis. We should definitely leave his bullshit on the shelf!
July 3, 2012
RE Chris Hedges Has Something To Sell You
Very powerful article! Thanks for having the courage to write it! What more can I say? Allow me please to share the articles below with you and your readers:
1)THE MOVEMENT PIMPS
http://www.blackcommentator.com/476/476_kir_movement_pimps_share.html
2)Leonard Peltier: In The Spirit Of Crazy Horse
http://www.blackcommentator.com/440/440_kir_peltier_share.html
3)Liberals And Pimping The Pain Of The People
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/03/13/liberals-and-pimping-the-pain-of-the-peo
4) THE CELEBRITY GROUP OF FIVE DOES NOT REPRESENT EVERYDAY PEOPLE
http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/3817
Stay strong…
In struggle,
Larry Pinkney
Editorial Board Member & Columnist
THE BLACK COMMENTATOR
Why does every piece on this site have to traffic in hyperbolic ranting and raving?
Most of the writers on this blog are nothing more than pimps. You pimp the pain, anxiety and bitterness of black and brown people, all in an effort to whip them into an inarticulate frenzy.
All you’ve done in this piece is engage is idiotic race baiting…
Maybe you should read some of Hedges’ work. His ‘white ass’ might have something to teach you. Or maybe reading white books isn’t permitted for writers and readers on POCO LOCO. Huh?
You have some shit reading comprehension, RT.
First of all, I’m white. I know that doesn’t come across in the piece, but since you are accusing the writers on this site of operating with a “white dude = bad dude” ideology, I think it’s relevant.
Second, there just isn’t any “race baiting” here. This isn’t complicated shit. Hedges attacked leftist militancy. Hedges now says the US left should act like Crazy Horse. Since Crazy Horse was engaged in violent resistance against colonizers, acting like Crazy Horse would mean violently resisting. But Hedges opposes violent resistance. Thus Hedges is romanticizing a dead Indian fighter in the same way that he romanticizes John Locke. Hedges, being a liberal douchebag celebrity, doesn’t really care about the material Crazy Horse, or the material John Locke, or he wouldn’t have used them in the way he did in his article. Given his politics I think it should be clear that he would side with the material Locke against the material Crazy Horse. This isn’t even an issue of race except in the usual ways that race cuts across class in American society, along with the creepy romanticizing of Crazy Horse by a liberal pacifist. This is, centrally, about class, about who owns what and why, and about what liberals mean to do about that. In Hedges’s case he means to make a living.
To be honest I doubt you are very familiar with Hedges’s work. I don’t recommend you read it, as it will likely make you even dumber than you already are. I do like POCO LOCO, though. I might requisition that from your dumb troll grasp.
Ok. Resident white dude. Thanks for the ad hominem. And by the way Hedges has publicly stated that he is not in fact a pacifist. How many firefight and gun battles have you personally been in? What are your personal experiences with violence? Or is violence merely a theoretical consruct for you?
And what is the value of breaking shop windows anyway? What political strategy is advanced by such acta?
If you could answer civil and resist personal insults I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.
An insult is not an ad hominem, it’s an insult. When I say “you are dumb,” that is not an ad hominem. If I were to argue that you are wrong about something because you are dumb, that would be an ad hominem. I argued that you are dumb because you are wrong. See the difference? You are welcome in advance for the lesson in logic. Now please use the term correctly going forward.
I’m aware that Hedges has stated that he is not a pacifist. The article I am critiquing here makes that assertion through its bizarre metaphor. That’s sort of the point of what I wrote. Nothing about race-baiting, lots about how Hedges has shitty politics. Why are they shitty? Because they are nothing but a call for reforming capitalism along with a lot of frowny preaching about how liberal democracy has been subverted by a plutocratic elite. That’s when he’s not throwing his hands in the air and despairing for the future. There’s nothing radical there. I don’t expect much from a guy who thinks that the fall of the Berlin Wall needs to be upheld as a progressive revolutionary event, though.
I’ve never been in a firefight and I don’t plan on being in one anytime soon. I experience violence daily, and I’ll bet you do to. My personal experience with gun battles is sort of unimportant, and it’s the wrong question. The only questions for radical politics are “What class interest is served by a strategy?” and “Does this strategy help or hurt the struggle.” Hedges’s politics serve capitalism, and they don’t help the struggle. A masquerade is never as useful as the real deal.
The value of breaking shop windows is, like everything, contextual. At the very least the vandal is going to be more radicalized by crossing that line. Sometimes the targets are poorly chosen. Sometimes the blocers are a bunch of macho kids harming the larger strategy. Usually its a mix. I’m not uncritical of bloc tactics, but in general I think the left should defend them and expand on them. Certainly if Hedges was really as open to proletarian violence as he plays at being he would never have called them a cancer, he’d be trying to organize more and better bloc-like stuff. You can’t talk up working class rage and then dismiss the effects of the rage you talk up. Unless you want to be a world-class dick, like Hedges.
I’d take Chris Hedges over anonymous CYCLIST any day. Perhaps, mr CYCLIST if you would give us your idea of what change needs to be put in place, and what action is going to be more effective than civil disobedience recommended by Hedges? Hedges makes a contribution. It comes out of war: knowing what happens when a population goes down the war road. Knowing what we become. People like Gar Alperovitz make a more useful contribution, towards institutional reform. CYCLIST: the world WILL be run by somebody. Let it be run more justly. This takes brains and persistence and work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3l4PtC7iTA
I really don’t think anyone needs to make a choice between a pseudonymous blogger on this website and a progressive media celebrity. I’m not arguing that I need to replace Hedges, I’m arguing that, like most liberals, he’s a hypocritical lying git who dresses up a politics that fundamentally serve the capitalist class in a sanctimonious churchy moralism that appeals to leftys who don’t have a very strong analysis of what the people need to be fighting.
The fact that one commenter here argued that Hedges is not a pacifist, while you seem to be arguing that he is a pacifist, is evidence that I am correct. As I wrote in the article, Hedges knows how to manipulate progressives by occupying a sort of imaginary anti-capitalist ideological space. He knows the dimensions of this space very well. He knows how to talk out of both sides of his mouth like a pro. The effect of that is deradicalization and wasting time. His contribution is a roadblock to a good, effective mass politics, of which we have several historical examples, none of which are advanced by Hedges.
I’m not familiar with Alperovitz, but I’ll happily listen to this lecture series (I am always on the lookout for lefty audio to listen to while I ride. I even listen to Hedges. He’s certainly prolific enough to provide hours of audio that I can listen to and disagree with), and I thank you for it.
I agree that the world will be run by somebody. I want it to be run by the representatives of a liberated, radicalized, decolonized working class. I obviously don’t think Hedges helps with that goal. Nor do I think civil disobedience is, in general, an effective revolutionary tactic. It has led to some advances in some circumstances, but it has always been assisted by violent criminality. By itself it is a near-total waste of time. As for what we become, well, I think I know what we are now, and I think it’s pretty bad already, it’s just that victims are made invisible. On the question of violence, I rather like Bert and Ernie’s lesson here http://i.imgur.com/XBAKb.jpg.
As a point of clarification, the Guy Fawkes mask isn’t “a mask used by right-wing populists in the occupy movement”, it’s used by groups like Anonymous and left-wing Occupiers.
To clarify my position, I would argue that Anon is most certainly a right-wing populist group, and in my experience a Fawkes mask at occupy events meant the wearer was not left-wing. This could have had some regional variation, though.