Why the Trans-Pacific Partnership Is Bad for Animal Rights
This would make a great article, but I haven’t written it yet.
This would make a great article, but I haven’t written it yet.
This would make a great article, but I haven’t written it yet.
SALON }
Chris Hedges
[dropcap]In recent years,[/dropcap] there’s been a small genre of left-of-center journalism that, following President Obama’s lead, endeavors to prove that things on Planet Earth are not just going well, but have, in fact, never been better. This is an inherently subjective claim, of course; it requires that one buy into the idea of human progress, for one thing. But no matter how it was framed, there’s at least one celebrated leftist activist, author and journalist who’d disagree: Chris Hedges.
In fact, in his latest book, “Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt,” Hedges argues that the world is currently at a crisis point the likes of which we’ve never really seen. There are similarities between our time and the era of the 1848 revolutions throughout Europe — or the French Revolutionary era that preceded them — he says. But in many ways, climate change least among them, the stakes this time are much higher. According to Hedges, a revolution is coming; we just don’t yet know when, where, how — or on whose behalf.
Recently, Salon spoke over the phone with Hedges to discuss his book, why he thinks our world is in for some massive disruptions, and why we need revolutionaries now more than ever. A transcript of our conversation which has been edited for clarity and length can be found below.
Do you think we are in a revolutionary era now? Or is it more something on the horizon?
It’s with us already, but with this caveat: it is what Gramsci calls interregnum, this period where the ideas that buttress the old ruling elite no longer hold sway, but we haven’t articulated something to take its place.
That’s what that essay I quote by Alexander Berkman, “The Invisible Revolution,” talks about. He likens it to a pot that’s beginning to boil. So it’s already taking place, although it’s subterranean. And the facade of power — both the physical facade of power and the ideological facade of power — appears to remain intact. But it has less and less credibility.
There are all sorts of neutral indicators that show that. Low voter turnout, the fact that Congress has an approval rating of 7 percent, that polls continually reflect a kind of pessimism about where we are going, that many of the major systems that have been set in place — especially in terms of internal security — have no popularity at all.
All of these are indicators that something is seriously wrong, that the government is no longer responding to the most basic concerns, needs, and rights of the citizenry. That is [true for the] left and right. But what’s going to take its place, that has not been articulated. Yes, we are in a revolutionary moment; but maybe it’s a better way to describe it as a revolutionary process.
Is there a revolutionary consciousness building in America?
Well, it is definitely building. But until there is an ideological framework that large numbers of people embrace to challenge the old ideological framework, nothing is going to happen. Some things can happen; you can have sporadic uprisings as you had in Ferguson or you had in Baltimore. But until they are infused with that kind of political vision, they are reactive, in essence.
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A blueprint for action. The central challenge for humanity is how to defeat malignant corporate power, the inevitable outgrowth of global capitalism in our age.
SOLDIERS FOR PEACE INTERNATIONAL
“One of the objectives of any strategy must be to find a way to get partisans to understand that neither party represents them…”
Note that this definition of fascism does not require a dictator, the only thing lacking in the US. There is no dictator, but a small oligarchy of powerful individuals who have no concern for the good of the nation, its people or that of any other nation. There is no need for a dictator in a fascist nation whose people have willingly given control of their government to the economic elite in exchange for promises of endless wealth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
RICK STAGGENBORG, MD, founder of FB’s Soldiers for Peace International (SPFI), is a dedicated social justice /authentic democracy activist working to build a viable, revolutionary alternative to the rigged game of American party politics.
Thank you for providing such clear and coherent commentary on the real state of the world today. This is vital information.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Skywalker. I hope that you will share the ideas with others.
It is past time for us to get a discussion going about how to build a revolutionary movement. Most prominent writers are focusing solely on the problems and perhaps some defensive actions, while ignoring the fact that you cannot build a movement to deal with 10,000 problems separately.
You have to attack the root problem, and that will require a strategy to build a united international front against fascism and war.
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ITERATIONS
1. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2013