New s
Page 7
Hedges, from page 5
C.H.: It was episodic. With the breakdown
of capitalism in the 1930s, we created
enough pressure on the oligarchic class that
they responded. So Roosevelt created 12
million jobs. We had the movements in the
1960s. Out of that came the environmental
movement, the feminist movement, arid of
course until the end of Vietnam War, the
anti-war movement, which terrified the
elites.
And with the 1971 (Supreme Court
Justice) Lewis Powell memo - which is a
blueprint for a corporate destruction of
those movements - they really made war
against what the political scientist Samuel
Huntington called the “excess of
democracy.”
The current period is from the early
1970s until now, w ith th e collu^ion o f th e
Democratic P arty - iii particular Bill
Clinton, who sold out to corporate power,
destroying welfare - and 70 percent of the
original recipients of the welfare program
were children. Our mass incarceration
exploded from about 700,000 to 2 million.
And he militarized the police and extended
the length of sentences, because he and Joe
Biden wanted to take back the law-and-order
issue from Republicans. The destruction of
Glass-Steagall, which ripped down the
firewalls between commercial and
investment banks, which precipitated the
(financial crisis) - all of that was Clinton.
So at that point, you didn’t have a
functioning liberal class. You had a faux
liberal class that spoke in the traditional
“feel your pain” of liberalism but assiduously
served corporate power. That’s Pelosi, that’s
Schumer, that’s Obama and that’s Clinton.
And at that point, we just lost any
mechanism to get the centers of power to
respond. Now the only thing we have left is
to try and mobilize sustained civil
disobedience in the hope that we can wrest
power back from the hands of these
corporations that are cannibalizing the
country, further impoverishing and
repressing the working class and the poor,
and who are, in the name of short-term
profit, destroying the ecosystem on which
we depend for life. I mean, it’s really the
gravest crisis in human history, and we’re all
sitting in front of the TV talking about Brett
Kavanaugh being drunk at Yale.
J.Z.: So who are the leaders that you look to,
or are there any?
C.H.: I wouldn’t look to leaders. That’s
kind of a mistake.
You have to understand power before you
can confront i t Education is a fundamental
component to resistance because the ruling
I
1
Hedges doesn’t put much faith in
so-called leaders..
1
I
*1 look to people like Noam
Chomsky and Antonio Gramsci, Rosa
Luxemburg and Karl Marx. All of the
theorists who understand how
capitalism and imperialism works.
1
1
1
1
You need that literacy,” he said.
We asked Hedges for a short,
1
1
recommended reading list - in
addition to his new book. Here are his
I
suggestions:
I
I
■ “Capital. Volume 1: The Process of
Production of Capital” by Karl Marx.
j
1
(1367) “There is no analysis of
capitalism and how it works that’s
been better,” Hedges said.
I
■ “A Brief History of Neoiiberalism”
1
by David Harvey (2005) “if you want
1
to understand the ideology of
neoiiberalism, read David Harvey’s
book,” Hedges said.
1
1
■ “A People’s History of the United
States” by Howard Zinn (1930) A
grassroots view of American history
from laborers, women, people of color
1
1
1
I
and others fighting for equal rights
and justice.
■ ‘Death of the Liberal Class” by
Chris Hedges (2010). A primer on
how foe hallmarks of liberalism have
collapsed and the extremes foat filled
the vacuum left behind.
■ “Blowback; The Costs and
Consequences of American Empire,”
“The Sorrows o f Empire: Militarism,
Secrecy, and foe End of the
Republic” and “Nemesis: The Last
Days of foe American Republic” all by
Chalmers Johnson. These three
bookes are known as The Blowback
Trilogy and address the illegal
operations foe U.S. conducts abroad
and the world’s response.
'
J.Z.: Zf seemed like we were trying, though.
When looking for guidance or
inspiration for the resistance, Chris
S
C.H.: There’s never a time when we got it
right America was always created as a
closed system. And it is radical movements
that opened up the space in American
democracy as Howard Zinn writes in “A
People’s History of the United States.” The
labor movement - we had hundreds of
American workers murdered. We had the
bloodiest most violent labor wars in the
industrialized world. The civil rights
movement, the struggle of African-
Americans for freedom, which they still
don’t have. So we never got it right.
RECOMMENDED READING |
O
right? And what do we do about this? You’ve
talked about taking to the streets in the past.
s
that’s the only way revolution succeeds. And
became criminalized. And you lock these
the system is so corrupt, so gamed, so
people up as a form of social control. You
rigged, so rotten that we have the capacity
lock the men up - I mean, you lock the
to appeal to those forces successfully. That’s
our only hope. Because at this point,
women up too, but it’s disproportionately
unfettered, unregulated capitalism with no
poor men of color. And what you do to the
internal or external constraints will
women and children is evict them every six
commodify everything. Human beings in
months so they can’t build any community
their eyes are commodities; the natural
or network to resist It’s why when you visit
world is a commodity that it exploits until
an incarcerated relative in prison, it’s so
exhaustion or collapse. And there’s nothing
unpleasant. They make it unpleasant,
now within the structure of power that will
especially for the children. They don’t want
stop th at
people to build any network in which they
can confront these forces. Because we can’t
J.Z.: You talk about appealing to people for
confront them alone.
the revolution. B ut it feels like they’ve already
You have a group of very serious and
cut us off on that front, including gutting net
impressive people who find whatever
neutrality. For example, we as an organization
freedom they can find in prison through the
can’t promote most of our news stories on
life of the mind.
Facebook because its algorithm categorizes
And I’ve watched them carry out acts of
them as political ads and
resistance in prison. One
won’t let us do it. So it
of my classes led a sit-
feels like that reach has
down strike in the prison,
been shut down.
and it was moving because "The only thing we have
they knew what was going
C.H.: It is being shut
le ft Is to try and m obilize
to happen, which did
down. Nobody’s buying
sustained
c
iv
il
happen, which was
the ruling ideology,
disobedience in lite hope
everybody had their cells
which is neo-liberalism
that we can wrest power
searched, everybody was
- the idea that you
interrogated, and you’re
bach fro nt the hands of
structure your society
threatened with losing
these corporations that are around the dictates of'
what little you have in
eaatidhalfsfng the country, the marketplace - and
prison: the ability to be in
fa rth e r im poverishing and that’s across the
the education program,
political spectrum. So
repressing
the
your rec time, your job.
they are going after the
w orking class and
Until they found the two
critics, such as myself,
leaders, and they sent
the poor, and who are
who has already been
th e m to an o th e r p rison,
In th e n a n e o f s h o rt-te rm * p u sh ed to the m argins
and they’re in indefinite
of this society, because
p ro fit destroying the
solitary confinement.
they don’t have a
ecosystem on w hich we
Everybody knew (what
counter argument. So
depend
fo
r
life
."
would happen), but they
they impose algorithms
rose up and resisted
as they have on the
anyway. And that for me >
website I write for,
was instructive.
Truthdig.
That’s what we have to do. We have to
So impressions - you go into Google and
stop asking ourselves if we’re going to
you type a word like “imperialism.’’ If I had
succeed, because if we don’t rise up, we’re
written a story on imperialism a year and
definitely not going to succeed. And at the
half ago, it would have come up with any
same time we have to be very conscious of
other recent article. Now it doesn’t So
the forces that are raised against us. I think
referrals from impressions to Truthdig alone
the greatest existential crisis of our time is
have over the last year declined from over
to at once grasp what it is we have to
700,000 to below 200,000.
confront, and yet resist anyway. And I see
Altemet’s traffic has dropped by 63
that in the prison.
percent World Socialist Web Site by 83
percent Black Lives Matter. Any of these
• J.Z.: Do you support a civil war?
groups that are critics of the stated ruling
ideology are targeted, and net neutrality is
C.H.: Civil war? No. Number one because
another weapon to tier the internet and
violence is the language the state can speak
marginalize them even further. There’s no
far better than we can. Number two, it won’t
question that it’s under way. I have a show
work. I mean, the state wants i t They love
on RT America because it’s the only place
the Black Block, or Antifa. It’s a gift from
left where I can respectfully interview
heaven because it demonizes the movement
Mumia Abu-Jamal or interview David
and makes people frightened of i t That’s
Harvey, the great Marxist economist, or
the basic goal of any counterinsurgency. I
Spenser Rapone, who was thrown out of the
mean, the whole idea of throwing bricks
Army because he stood up for Kaepemick
through windows? Look, I’ve covered war. I
and declared himself a socialist (RT
know what special forces are equipped with
America) is funded by the Russian
and what they can do, and this is insane.
government - I won’t pretend that it isn’t -
Revolution is not a form of catharsis. I
but they’ve already targeted i t They’ve
support a revolution, but we won’t win if we
already managed to get RT off of the cable
deploy violence. Any revolutionary
channels in New York state and California,
movement succeeds by appealing to certain
and they’ll shut the whole thing down. It has
elements within structures of power and
nothing to do with Russian propaganda. It
getting them to defect That’s what I saw in
has to do with a relentless campaign to
Eastern Europe, when I covered the
revolutions in East Germany, Czechoslovakia silence voices like mine. And they will.
and Romania. And what all the theorists like They’ll do i t
Crane Brinton (“The Anatomy of
- - 3<Z.i
there ever a time when we got it
Revolution”) and others have written that
elites are never going to give you the
information. You’v e got to go out and find it
for yourself. All of the anarchists,
communists, socialists, all of the radicals -
we had a strong radical movement at the
turn of the century, and they understood
th a t Sweatshop workers were spending 10
to 12 hours a day on the Lower East Side
and then going to their study groups.
That’s kind of why I teach in a prison. As
my students say, it makes them kind of
lonely because they can’t talk to anyone,
who are spitting back these thought-
terminating cliches that are fed to them on
television screens. On the other hand, how
power works, that is the prerequisite of
becoming an effective opponent But if you
don’t understand how power works, you
can’t oppose i t
joanne@streetroots. org
@jozuhl