If Hedges knew as much about Libya as he claimed, he wouldn't be "waiting for a trucked-in crowd to rejoice." On February 20th Libyan's went to what is now known as Martyrs Square to protest the Qaddafi regime peacefully and in large numbers, about 800 of them were murdered. The people rejoicing there as Hedges penned that line represented the freed people of Tripoli in their tens of thousands and they didn't have to be "trucked in." There is no "occupation" of Tripoli. The uprising from within the city led its liberation on August 20th.
He thinks he knows Libya, but he has only known Libya under the dictatorship Mummar Qaddafi, a man that even Hedges calls "insane" so he has no sound basis for now predicting "chaos and bloodletting." He supported "stopping Gadhafi forces from entering Benghazi." but apparent thinks nothing should have been done to stop him from entering Misrata. He is clearly opposed to NATO having any role in protecting civilians in Sirte now, where Qaddafi may be holding as many and 60,000 people as human shields. Because of that, NATO really can't do much, which is why it is turning into a house-to-house slug feast.
He claims the NTC has put the number of Libyan's killed in the civil war at 50,000 whereas their official number is 30,000 according to the interim health minister. The 50,000 figure was given by a colonel according to PressTV.
For a guy that came from Harvard and use to work for the NY Times, to produce work of that quality is to produce garbage. Besides which, it is this last paragraph that contains what we call in filmmaking "the money shot", or in comedy "the punchline", or more appropriately in this case, what we call in business "the bottomline."
And the bottomline is that the "socialist" and "anti-imperialist" Chris Hedges is joining the chorus of voices led by NATO, that now include Russia and China, that are demanding UN intervention, not in the war in Libya but in the peace. Every paragraph that proceeds this is just more garbage heaped on top of garbage in the hopes that by the time you reach what we call in the protest movement "the demand", you won't notice that what he is demanding is the capitulation of the revolution to imperialism.
Beside which, the thinking behind Hedges' dismal outlook for the Libyan revolution really has nothing to do with Libya or the facts on the ground there. If we want to understand what is going on in Chris Hedges' head, rather than spending more time on this piece he recently wrote about Libya, we would be better served by looking at a piece he wrote almost a year before the February 17th uprising. That piece is Zero Point of Systemic Collapse, and although it doesn't even mention Libya, I think we will find a better explanation for his views on Libya there than anything in the more recent piece that we have been examining. Here he sums up his worldview:
We stand on the cusp of one of the bleakest periods in human history when the bright lights of a civilization blink out and we will descend for decades, if not centuries, into barbarity. The elites have successfully convinced us that we no longer have the capacity to understand the revealed truths presented before us or to fight back against the chaos caused by economic and environmental catastrophe. As long as the mass of bewildered and frightened people, fed images that permit them to perpetually hallucinate, exist in this state of barbarism, they may periodically strike out with a blind fury against increased state repression, widespread poverty and food shortages. But they will lack the ability and self-confidence to challenge in big and small ways the structures of control. The fantasy of widespread popular revolts and mass movements breaking the hegemony of the corporate state is just that a fantasy.So even before it happens, the possibility that the Arab Spring, or any other mass movement could result in any revolutionary, or even long lasting progressive change, is completely denied. Believing this, how could he possibly see a way the Libyan revolution could succeed? More gems from this piece include:
We have undergone, as John Ralston Saul writes, a coup d'etat in slow motion. And the coup is over. They won. We lost.So you see that the possibility that the Libyan uprising could create anything substantially better that Libya under Qaddafi is completely denied before it even begins. He doesn't need to call on his vast experience in the 3rd world or Libya at all to reach his conclusion, that's just to convince you he knows what he is talking about. And his conclusion is that the Libyan revolutionaries, if there really are any, were beaten before they begin and just don't know it yet.
and
We will begin a period in human history when there will be only masters and serfs.
In other words, Resistance is Futile. Not that Hedges thinks that we should stop resisting:
The increasingly overt uses of force by the elites to maintain control should not end acts of resistance. Acts of resistance are moral acts. They begin because people of conscience understand the moral imperative to challenge systems of abuse and despotism. They should be carried out not because they are effective but because they are right. Those who begin these acts are always few in number and dismissed by those who hide their cowardice behind their cynicism.If resistance is purely a moral act, with no practical possibility of success, then any compromise to enhance that success can also be denied.
We must continue to resist, but do so now with the discomforting realization that significant change will probably never occur in our lifetime.his is not a theory for building a popular revolutionary movement.
Chris Hedges thinks that the best thing progressives can do is find a quiet, secure place, perhaps in Canada, to weather the coming storm. I think that is exactly what he should do, or maybe he should go back to the NY Times, if they will have him. That is his proper place. The bourgeois press is already home for many petty-bourgeois cynics. But he should stop spreading his cynicism and pessimism and he should stop calling himself a progressive. Progressive are people with an optimistic outlook and great faith in what humanity can accomplish and he should certainly stop calling himself a socialist because socialists are revolutionaries that not only wish for a better world and are willing to fight for it, but also have a clear and confident vision of how it can be achieved.
In short, he should get out of the way, go write a long novel or something.********
Bio of Clay Claibonre:
Clay Claiborne has been a computer hacker and political activist for more than 40 years. He founded Linux Users Los Angeles [LULA] in 1996 and served as it's president for 8 years. He is also a filmmaker who produced and directed Vietnam: American Holocaust and other documentaries. He writes regularly about the uprising in North Africa and the Middle East, the Internet and pretty much anything. His principle website is Linux Beach, his most recent writings can be seen there or at the DailyKos and WL Central. On Twitter he is clayclai.
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