Introduction to Chris Hedges

By John Ballard

A single blog post cannot do justice to Chris Hedges. My aim here is to toss out a few sparks of interest that will stretch the boundaries of comfortable Liberals passing this way. I mentioned Hedges a few weeks back and since then have got his book, Death of the Liberal Class. Reading it stirs forty-year old coals in me that had almost gone cold over the years.

Readers are invited to take twenty minutes to listen to this interview and more time than that reflecting on what is said.  For me he is preaching to the choir but after so many years of working, waiting and hoping I had begun to slip into hopelessness at the widening gap between the vision and the reality of what real Liberalism means. Toward the end of this interview Hedges quietly reminds us that hope is always real and present.

Journalist: You must have a little bit of hope, though. You have one kid and another one on the way.

Hedges: Yeah...if I didn't have hope I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't write this stuff  You know hope has -- as Augustine said -- two beautiful daughters: courage and anger... anger at the way things are and courage to see they don't remain the way they are. If you don't have anger and courage then hope is not a possibility.

 

Further to a better understanding of Hedges, here is part of what he has written about what he calls inverted totalitarianism.

Corporate forces, long before the Supreme Court�s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, carried out a coup d��t in slow motion. The coup is over. We lost. The ruling is one more judicial effort to streamline mechanisms for corporate control. It exposes the myth of a functioning democracy and the triumph of corporate power. But it does not significantly alter the political landscape. The corporate state is firmly cemented in place.

The fiction of democracy remains useful, not only for corporations, but for our bankrupt liberal class. If the fiction is seriously challenged, liberals will be forced to consider actual resistance, which will be neither pleasant nor easy. As long as a democratic facade exists, liberals can engage in an empty moral posturing that requires little sacrifice or commitment. They can be the self-appointed scolds of the Democratic Party, acting as if they are part of the debate and feel vindicated by their cries of protest.

Much of the outrage expressed about the court�s ruling is the outrage of those who prefer this choreographed charade. As long as the charade is played, they do not have to consider how to combat what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of �inverted totalitarianism.�

Inverted totalitarianism represents �the political coming of age of corporate power and the political demobilization of the citizenry,� Wolin writes in �Democracy Incorporated.� Inverted totalitarianism differs from classical forms of totalitarianism, which revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader, and finds its expression in the anonymity of the corporate state. The corporate forces behind inverted totalitarianism do not, as classical totalitarian movements do, boast of replacing decaying structures with a new, revolutionary structure. They purport to honor electoral politics, freedom and the Constitution. But they so corrupt and manipulate the levers of power as to make democracy impossible.

Inverted totalitarianism is not conceptualized as an ideology or objectified in public policy. It is furthered by �power-holders and citizens who often seem unaware of the deeper consequences of their actions or inactions,� Wolin writes. But it is as dangerous as classical forms of totalitarianism. In a system of inverted totalitarianism, as this court ruling illustrates, it is not necessary to rewrite the Constitution, as fascist and communist regimes do. It is enough to exploit legitimate power by means of judicial and legislative interpretation. This exploitation ensures that huge corporate campaign contributions are protected speech under the First Amendment. It ensures that heavily financed and organized lobbying by large corporations is interpreted as an application of the people�s right to petition the government. The court again ratified the concept that corporations are persons, except in those cases where the �persons� agree to a �settlement.� Those within corporations who commit crimes can avoid going to prison by paying large sums of money to the government while, according to this twisted judicial reasoning, not �admitting any wrongdoing.� There is a word for this. It is called corruption.

More at the link.

Here is another link to an interview about twelve minutes long.

A couple days ago, via a Lindsay Bayerstein Facebook link, I found a post by Bruce A. Dixon with the provocative title Top Ten Reasons Why Black Leaders Are Ignoring President Obama's Good Cop-Bad Cop Attack on Social Security. Barack Obama's election was emblematic of one of the highest aspirations of modern Liberal agenda, but his apparent capitulation to what Hedges terms inverted totalitarianism with all its attendant betrayals underscores the impact of Hedges' argument.  Bouncing off the Catfood Commission's list of recommendations, Dixon's list takes a harsh look at reality.

The list starts with Reasons #10 Quite a few black �leaders� have no idea the Cat Food Commission even exists and #9 Some black leaders with a vague idea that the Cat Food Commission exists haven't read its recommendations or just aren't paying attention. But the top reason, #1 on the list, hits the inverted totalitarianism nail squarely on the head. His comments are worth a replay.

Reason #1

 

Some black leaders and their organizations aren't clueless. They're disciplined. They're waiting for the Obama White House to tell them what their position ought to be, so they can fall in line.

The heads of the biggest shops, like the NAACP and the Urban League, and some others we won't mention, are not about to serve their constituents on this one. They see their duty not as standing up for millions of ordinary black families, but worshipfully covering the president's behind. When the White House tells them their position on Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, then they'll have one. Till then, they remain silent.

Is there still a place for black leadership? If so, what would it look like?

As long as black people are separate and unequal, and that looks like some distance into the future, there will be a need for black leadership, a need which is currently unfulfilled.

If we had real black political leaders they would be ignoring the president's call to calmly assess his cat food commission's recommendations. Real black leaders would stand up for the interest of real black families, real American families, millions of whom are hurting. Real black leadership would be orchestrating meetings, daily conference calls, heading raucous and disrespectful demonstrations of elderly and not-so-elderly. Real black leadership would be marshalling youth and elders against mass incarceration and against gutting Social Security. Real black leadership would be throwing shoes.

If some of these leaders were preachers they would be thundering the word from their pulpits and calling prayer meetings at rush hour in the middle of busy intersections. If some of these leaders were creative artists, the heirs of Fela, they would have us all dancing to poems and songs that heaped hilarious scorn and disapproval on suggestions to raise the retirement age instead of creating new jobs. If they were academics and researchers they would be countering every TV and radio and print voice in our community that tells us this is all we can expect, this is as good as it gets.

If there was ever a time for black leadership to begin to emerge, this is it.

~~~�~~~

Insert LIBERAL leadership for BLACK  leadership and we have a call to arms as compelling as any issued by Dr. King. Part of MLK's genius was coupling the Vietnam war with the plight of oppressed blacks. He recognized that the movement was about more than racism.The struggle then, as now, embraced gender and class as well as race, with today's mission even broader. The civil rights movement of the Sixties was about women's liberation and the dignity of ALL people, including poor whites as well as blacks.

Today's struggle includes gender, worker and immigrant rights as well.  People with non-traditional sexual orientation and immigrants will always be a minority. And as long as days and weeks have limited duration, those who depend on labor rather than commerce and/or investment to provide security for themselves and their families will always be at a disadvantage.  We're not yet there, but if intolerance continues to increase, and the safety net for those unable to work (or furnish a reasonable standard of living) continues to erode, there will soon be enough people to put a stop to the conditions now getting worse instead of better.  We're not there yet, but there will be a tipping point.