Why Chris Hedges Believes That Serious Revolt Is the Only Option People Have Left

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/books/why-chris-hedges-believes-serious-revolt-only-option-people-have-left




Chris Hedges, a former New York Times reporter, has become perhaps the foremost media scribe and most prolific advocate of a need for revolutionary change in our current institutional oppression and control of the government by the oligarchical and political elite. Hedges writes with a reporter's detail, a prophet's eloquence and a compelling sense of urgency. This is evident in his latest book, which visits the "sacrifice zones" of America. Get the just-released " Days of Destruction Days of Revolt " (with illustrations by Joe Sacco) directly from Truthout right now by clicking here. Make a minimum donation and support progressive writers and Truthout.

Mark Karlin: You begin "Days of Destruction Days of Revolt" with a visit to and reflection upon the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the poorest and perhaps most hopeless Native American settlement in the United States. Indian reservations were a tragically ironic result of the American revolt to throw off the shackles of being a colony, only to become a colonial power over the indigenous residents that lay in its way to achieving "Manifest Destiny." Is this irony the reason why you begin your journey across the "sacrifice zones" of the United States at Pine Ridge?

Chris Hedges: This is where the dark ethic of endless expansion and limitless exploitation, of ruthless imperial conquest, subjugation and extermination of native communities, began in the name of profit. Commercial interests set out to obliterate native peoples who stood in the way of their acquisition of the buffalo herds, timber, coal, gold and later minerals such as uranium, commodities they saw as sources of power and enrichment. Land was sliced up into parcels - usually by the railroad companies - and sold. Sitting Bull acidly suggested they get out scales and sell dirt by the pound. The most basic elements that sustain life were reduced to a vulgar cash product. Nothing in the eyes of the white settlers had an intrinsic value. And this dichotomy of belief was so vast that those who held on to animism and mysticism, to ambiguity and mystery, to the centrality of the human imagination, to communal living and a concept of the sacred, had to be extinguished. The belief system encountered on the plains and in the earlier indigenous communities in New England obliterated by the Puritans was antithetical and hostile to capitalism, the concept of technological progress, empire and the ethos of the industrial society.

***SNIP

MK: You write in your introduction, "We [you and Joe Sacco] wanted to show in words and drawings what life looks like when the marketplace rules without constraints, where human beings and the natural world are used and then discarded to maximize profit." This is pretty much a definition of neoliberal economics. Is the United States creating an internal economic system of colonies?

CH: The forces of colonization that were applied to the "sacrifice zones" Joe and I wrote about have been turned inwards on the rest of us to create a global form of neofeudalism, a world of corporate masters and serfs. The central point of the book is to show what happens when human beings, communities and the natural world are forced to prostrate themselves before the demands of the marketplace. Itis incumbent on us to look closely at this system of neo-liberal economics because it is now cannibalizing what is left, including our eco-system. These forces know no limits. They will exterminate us all, as Joseph Conrad pointed out in "Heart of Darkness," his masterpiece on the savagery of colonial exploitation. Kurtz in Conrad's book is the self-deluded megalomaniac ivory trader who ends by planting the shriveled heads of murdered Congolese on pikes outside his remote trading station. But Kurtz is also highly educated and refined. Conrad describes him as an orator, writer, poet, musician and the respected chief agent of the ivory company's Inner Station. He is "an emissary of pity, and science, and progress." Kurtz was "a universal genius" and "a very remarkable person." He is a prodigy, at once gifted and multi-talented. He went to Africa fired by noble ideals and virtues. He ended his life as a self-deluded tyrant who thought he was a god. That pretty much sums up what we have become as a nation.

[marmar]

1. k/r

[roguevalley]

10. it is inevitable. they are controlling the price of food and several

countries in africa have hunger now already

[nichomachus]

17. Not just controlling it

speculating in it -- as they do with oil -- and driving prices up -- as they do with oil

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/barclays-makes-500m-betting-on-food-crisis-8100011.html

Barclays Makes 500million (pounds) Betting on Food Crisis

[yurbud]

19. there should be an international criminal charge for economic terrorism as serious as

bomb throwing terrorism and war crimes.

Those who kill and oppress with banks and market manipulation do far more harm than any handful of religious cranks.

[limpyhobbler]

2. kick and rec

[KG]

3. DURec

[polichick]

4. "it is now cannibalizing what is left"

A scary truth that we all need to wake up to. k&r

[DLevine]

5. K&R. n/t

[BrainMann1]

6. I think Obama

and his administration has offered a better alternative. Not on my watch.

[Fuddnik]

8. And exactly what is that?

[fusilier0770]

7. Victory begins on K Street

The first step in taking the government back is to walk right past the Capitol and the White House and go north a few blocks. Politicians are mere whores and pawns that give us the illusion of choice. You have to go after the sugar daddies of K Street who are the bag men of the oligarchy that really owns this country. Lobbying is nothing more than organized and legalized bribery and until we deal with money in politics we are never going to have a responsive government.

[OnyxCollie]

9. Here's Chris Hedges

talking about "sacrifice zones" on Bill Moyers' show:

http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-capitalism’s-‘sacrifice-zones’/

[snappyturtle]

12. Thanks! For those interested in the book:

Truthout's price is a donation of $35.00 and money well spent I'm sure but for those of us on a strict money diet Amazon has new books from 12.89...to 17.00 plus shipping. Read reviews before ordering on Kindle. There's been problems with that.

[Comrade_McKenzie]

11. There's no organized movement by us on the left big enough to revolt...

They can't even get moderate Dems elected in most states.

[plethoro]

13. There is now no other way....

Will it happen now or when those diabetics under 55 find their vouchers won't fully pay for a foot removal. Regardless of who wins the election, the Republicans, now aided by Citizens United, will mount heavily financed efforts to eliminate the middle class and have more poor people living under freeway overpasses. Their extreme positions now fully known leave little to compromise. A compromise would simply move fixes further right at this point. I'm ordering my anti-Romney yard signs today for a lot of people. I'm trying to decide what succinct message would hit home the most. It has to hit people where they live--

[dixiegrrrrl]

14. "The most basic elements that sustain life were reduced to a vulgar cash product."

I see no way of changing this by any passive means, to be honest.
The people who perpetuate planatary rape are not beholden to any election process.

[Doremus]

15. K&R Thanks for posting this. nt

[CrispyQ]

16. "Sacrifice zones."

WTF?

k&r

[kenny blankenship]

20. Areas encircled or abandoned by capitalism, which the political system writes off

Last edited Tue Sep 4, 2012, 02:21 PM - Edit history (2)

and leaves people without any mediating institution between them and the full destructive power of capitalism.

http://billmoyers.com/segment/chris-hedges-on-capitalism%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98sacrifice-zones%E2%80%99/

For example, coal country in W.Virginia. The environment and people there are exploited without restraint from the government which decided long ago to ignore what is happening. The zone and all in it are in effect "sacrifices" to the God of free market capitalism. The political system at all levels from local to federal is bought off and instructed to turn its back on the total destruction of ecosystems and human communities, and if it thinks of the deal it has made at all it excuses itself with "Well, we needed the coal..." and there's the end of it; but the destruction goes on and spreads. It is easy to see the raw destructive nature of capitalism here since it is location where capital extracts value directly from the environment, creating a poisoned lifeless moonscape around it. Then there is the example of Camden NJ, a zone which likewise has been completely written off and abandoned, but where capitalism once grew up and provided manufacturing jobs through companies like Campbell Soups, RCA, and the Camden Shipyards. A large community grew up around this activity, as capital extracted value from labor. Given the demographics of DU, it would be fair to say that in the lifetime of the average DUer, Camden NJ was a thriving US city, known around the world for the products made there. Then the God of capitalism decided it could move everything to a cornfield in Indiana and thence to Mexico or Asia, always in pursuit of a lower hourly wage and less empowered workers. The jobs in Camden vanished and the city fell into utter ruin. But hundreds of thousands of people were left trapped inside. They are treated as a nuisance, an industrial waste byproduct, like a captive and foreign population - much like the inmates of a prison or an Indian reservation. They've been written out of any social contract. No one will pester Capitalism for help to do anything to alleviate the situation it left in its wake. So the fallback course of action is just to keep the problem people of Camden bottled up in their decaying warrens and hope they kill each other off. If some make it out on their own that's fine: they saved themselves. There is no thought given to saving the others, as the example of the few escapees provides all the proof needed that the rest are not worth saving and can therefore be forgotten.

The political system of capitalist society has nothing to say to the decisions of this God, except prayers inviting it to move its temples to this or that new locale (where the corporate tax rate has been lowered to 0% and land is set aside for pennies an acre - a sweet deal just for Them!) and to spurn the old locale, where the God was previously residing. It is an athletic competition between two or more groups of human contestants called the "Race To The Bottom" in which the people and the place are to be sacrificed to the God, in a fashion similar to the Aztec game of Ullamaliztli - albeit with a much higher body count. The population of the old location which loses out is sacrificed - and the population of the new location will be sacrificed too, in their turn, although they are not told this.

As Capitalism erodes national sovereignty around the globe, subduing all countries' governments and compelling worship and obedience to itself, the "sacrifice zone" becomes an all-encompassing term co-extensive with Capitalism's unified domain. The "sacrifice zone" began as a rationalization within the political classes when they believed themselves and their country to be autonomous - this particular area and these people we must sacrifice and forget in order to preserve, protect and prosper in the remainder of our country. But already and in the future, as Hedges indicates, the success of globalization means the sacrifice zone will cease to exist as a concept because it will become ubiquitous. All governments prostrate themselves before global capitalism and therefore surrender their former powers. They can no longer say THIS zone we will sacrifice to the God, to secure His blessing and soothe his anger; but the REST we keep for ourselves. It is all for the God to dispose of as He will.

[CrispyQ]

21. Oh, I understand what it is.

What I don't understand is why we allow it? How many sacrifice zones before the people of the world wake up & say no more? We need a better model.

[Electric Monk]

18. .