These
are difficult words to write for me as I have always looked up to
Chris Hedges in a way I have towards Noam Chomsky.
Perhaps
it is an indication that he has not changed, and I haven't changed
but the times have changed radically since the heady days of Occupy
and when he successfuly sued the Obama legislation over the NDAA?
Hedges
is still one of the most clear-seeing commentators shown by the fact
that he has been pushed by the Deep State to the margins.
However,
for all that I found his presentation far too painfully ideological
for me.
The
dangers associated with a rapid collapse of the United States are
all-too-clear and especially the dangers of a theocratic, right-wing
Christian regime. However, I no longer see any "solutions"
in a left-wing socialist movement any more than than a right-wing
populist movement.
Hedges
paints a picture of the anti-imperialist Left being pushed to the
edges on the internet but totally ignores that the anti-war Right is
equally in the sights of Silicon Valley and the Deep State.
He
is also guilty of a mistake I never thought he would fall into –
and that is anachronism – the judging of the past in the terms of
present-day "identity politics". He says that the Founding
Fathers were racists,mysogonist, which of course they were. He is
giving succour to the Left who are keen on tearing down statues and
banning books they don't like.
In
short, I am not as uncritically supportive as I once was
It
is worth listening to his brief comments on climate change and I am
deeply in favour of seeing things as they are without recourse to
hope..
Chris
Hedges, "America: The Farewell Tour"
A
longtime foreign correspondent, Hedges has reported from more than
fifty countries. His latest book is a profound exploration of one of
the most troubled: today’s United States. Hedges, author of
American Fascists and War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, cites the
opioid crisis, the increases in gambling and magical thinking, and
the explosion of xenophobia as symptoms of a society that has lost
hope. He traces this disillusionment to the twin ills of a de facto
corporate coup d’état and a failed democracy. The anger and
frustration these have spawned helped bring Trump to power and Hedges
issues a passionate call to action to reverse them.
Chris
Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign
correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times where he
served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for
the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News,
The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He writes a weekly column for
the online magazine Truthdig out of Los Angeles and is host of the
Emmy Award–winning RT America show On Contact. Hedges, who holds a
Master of Divinity from Harvard University, is the author of the
bestsellers American Fascists, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt,
and was a National Book Critics Circle finalist for War Is a Force
That Gives Us Meaning. He has taught at Columbia University, New York
University, Princeton University, and the University of Toronto. He
currently teaches college credit courses in the New Jersey prison
system.
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