Book Corner

++I spent last night reading Chris Hedges' new book Wages of Rebellion:The Moral Imperative of Revolt. If you have seen the videos of Hedges' recent lectures and speeches you will have seen summaries of his critique of our current domestic situation and his proposal for mass non-violent rebellion. In this book he brings to bear his historical understanding of historical revolution and its problems from the Russian Revolution through the changes in Central Europe in the late 1980s and 1990s to the Occupy Wall Street Movement.

++He talks about the "sublime madness" of those who envision change and the price they are willing to pay. There is an element here of urging those on to actions which they fail to consider the consequences of their deeds. In his closing of the book he talked about various major figures "visions" and how they shaped their actions. As purely an analytical view of dissent, it is compelling but I also get nervous with Hedges' exhortations.

++As always his writing is sharp and eloquent. The most compelling stretches of the book are about average Americans who are resisting and trying to foster change whether it is Occupy Sandy dealing with the social and economic ravages of Hurricane Sandy in New York and New Jersey,the Christian fundamentalist farmer resisting the oil producers in Canada,or the hackers and whistleblowers.

++Hedges' account of subcommandante Marcos of the Zapateros abandoning his identity because the media made him a celebrity and failed to cover the issues of his movement was fascinating. 

++I am skeptical when Hedges' buys into Cornel West's take on Barack Obama as a type of updated Booker T. Washington. It reminds me of buying into all the black raps in the 1970s. Hedges' blast at Obama is that he didn't do anything about black poverty and has used the Foreign Espionage Act more times than any past President. That having an African-American President was just the thing to continue the failed endeavors of empire.

++Since Hedges teaches in prisons,his take on our penal colonies and their for-profit schemes reflect the issue that created many of the late 70s and early 80s radical movements in the United States like the Black Liberation Movement. Our judicial system is broken and it has rendered millions of people "second-class" citizens severely limited legally once they are out of prison. Hedges' own international experience informs his take on our prison system and how many of the practices like solitary confinement and sensory deprivation are domestic versions of torture. It is a service when Hedges talks about prisoners who are by any definition political prisoners.

++The culminate effect of Hedges' book is a powerful indictment of where we are today. The problem I have always with Hedges is that you know he is right and his portrait of today's America is so oppressive that just reading about it is demoralizing. Then he calls for  rebellion. 

++I sense Hedges really is the frustrated protestant minister he aspired to at Harvard Divinity challenging his congregation to a higher moral life they are incapable of.  Hedges does try to walk the walk with his activism and his acting as a legal plaintiff against abuses by the national security state. But I also sense there is a bit of a frustrated college professor filling the expected role of the avant garde revolutionary thinker. I'm not sure Hedges has integrated these different personas yet into a coherent persona.