@mimi I wrote a few essays in the last week or so, pointing this out far less eloquently what Chris Hedges said so much more effectively.

We, the 99%, are effectively left with one of two paths: cooperation between the have-nots from "both sides" of the political spectrum who share much more in common than they realize--or are willing to realize; second path is protracted violence from both. Violence is like a forest fire in a densely populated assemblage of discontents. It may start as a "controlled burn" as professional fire-fighters are wont to do, but without strict discipline and knowledge of this technique has the enormous potential to escalate well past containment.

Think of Ghandi and MLK as two charismatic proponents of peaceful revolution. Both succeeded. Both were assassinated. Progress in the US and India has been retrograde ever since. It is my feeling that the masses with their growing discontent are unlikely to show the patience required for peaceful revolution. Loss of civil liberties? We've lost more than most people realize. A cornered animal has no choice if it wants to survive. Collectively, a cornered society, beset with artificial constraints from above, will eventually strike out. At first perhaps against others in the same economic straits, but eventually against those that still oppress them, rather than their original targets. Amerikkka is too much bread and circuses, but the bread supply is running out. The circuses are becoming less entertaining.

Bernie is the only charismatic leader we have who gives us any semblance of a way out. Many of his supporters are disappointed in his capitulation to the Evil Queen after the primary was stolen. He is probably the only person in the country that could pull off a successful "regime change". Lacking that, the result will be violent confrontation. A grassfire spreads to the trees. Those on top beware if they think igniting confrontation at the base will spare them from the flames.

#4
unity demonstrations are? I mean for the media? You bet that they won't talk about the peaceful demonstrators, but focus on the few "sxyz bloc troublemakers".

I do not believe that Hedges is not aware of that fact. It's imo not the numbers of peaceful demonstrators that counts anymore.

There are parts in Hedges article, which go into that.

Behind the rhetoric of the “alt-right” about white nativism and protecting American traditions, history and Christian values is the lust for violence. Behind the rhetoric of antifa, the Black Bloc and the so-called “alt-left” about capitalism, racism, state repression and corporate power is the same lust for violence.

I would go so far to say that behind all the rhetoric is the "lust to hate" without representing itself as violent. Hate is inside and doesn't have to show up, but it is there.

Their lives, battered by economic misery and social marginalization, have suddenly been filled with meaning. They hold themselves up as the vanguard of the oppressed. They arrogate to themselves the right to use force to silence those they define as the enemy. They sanctify anger. They are infected with the dark, adrenaline-driven urge for confrontation that arises among the disenfranchised when a democracy ceases to function. They are separated, as Sigmund Freud wrote of those who engage in fratricide, by the “narcissism of minor differences.” They mirror each other, not only ideologically but also physically—armed and dressed in black, the color of fascism and the color of death.

I would add to this that the narcissism of minor differences doesn't have to bubble up in violent behavior, but the hate, which is the basis to develop those narcissistic beliefs is simmering inside and can so easily be used by unsavory powers.

It was inevitable that we would reach this point. The corporate state has seized and corrupted all democratic institutions, including the two main political parties, to serve the interests of corporate power and maximize global corporate profits. There is no justice in the courts. There is no possibility for reform in the legislative bodies. The executive branch is a dysfunctional mess headed by a narcissistic kleptocrat, con artist and pathological liar. Money has replaced the vote. The consent of the governed is a joke. Our most basic constitutional rights, including the rights to privacy and due process, have been taken from us by judicial fiat. The economically marginalized, now a majority of the country, have been rendered invisible by a corporate media dominated by highly paid courtiers spewing out meaningless political and celebrity gossip and trivia as if it were news. The corporate state, unimpeded, is pillaging and looting the carcass of the country and government, along with the natural world, for the personal gain of the 1 percent. It daily locks away in cages the poor, especially poor people of color, discarding the vulnerable as human refuse.

Isn't that enough of an explanation of why the numbers of peaceful demonstrators become irrelevant?

Economic and social marginalization is the lifeblood of extremist groups. Without it they wither and die. Extremism, as the social critic Christopher Lasch wrote, is “a refuge from the terrors of inner life.”

Inner hate is the terror of your inner life. It can result and pop up in violence, but doesn't have to. Powers who want to trigger and catalyze your inner hate to turn into violence, will do so. That's why the role of the police at such demonstrations is so important. Not to intervene, if groups in an otherwise peaceful demonstrations, start to destroy property and attack physically other groups, is imo criminal behavior. It is the duty of the police to prevent it and it can easily be dome, even without weapons. Has been done in the past in Germany all the time.

you said:

"How do we get from here to there, Chris"

This is a question everyone has. To attack him for not giving you the answer to the 60 million dollar question, is not helpful. Nobody really knows. Here is what I think is the closest that comes to an answer to that question:

Street clashes do not distress the ruling elites. These clashes divide the underclass. They divert activists from threatening the actual structures of power. They give the corporate state the ammunition to impose harsher forms of control and expand the powers of internal security. When antifa assumes the right to curtail free speech it becomes a weapon in the hands of its enemies to take that freedom away from everyone, especially the anti-capitalists.

The focus on street violence diverts activists from the far less glamorous building of relationships and alternative institutions and community organizing that alone will make effective resistance possible. We will defeat the corporate state only when we take back and empower our communities, as is happening with Cooperation Jackson, a grass-roots cooperative movement in Jackson, Miss. As long as acts of resistance are forms of personal catharsis, the corporate state is secure. Indeed, the corporate state welcomes this violence because violence is a language it can speak with a proficiency and ruthlessness that none of these groups can match.

“Politics isn’t made of individuals,” Sophia Burns writes in “Catharsis Is Counter-Revolutionary.” “It’s made of classes. Political change doesn’t come from feeling individually validated. It comes from collective action and organization within the working class. That means creating new institutions that meet our needs and defend against oppression.”

Really, there is a lot in his article that answers to what he thinks is important to have positive effects and outcomes.
You just need to want to read it.

@mimi I think we are really on the same page, but my response emphasized one aspect of current anti-fascism and yours another. Hedges' approach that seemed to equate both sides as equally bad was a take that I disagreed with given the numbers (violent minorities on both sides, with the majority trying to do the right thing). Thanks again for your post.

#4
unity demonstrations are? I mean for the media? You bet that they won't talk about the peaceful demonstrators, but focus on the few "sxyz bloc troublemakers".

I do not believe that Hedges is not aware of that fact. It's imo not the numbers of peaceful demonstrators that counts anymore.

There are parts in Hedges article, which go into that.

Behind the rhetoric of the “alt-right” about white nativism and protecting American traditions, history and Christian values is the lust for violence. Behind the rhetoric of antifa, the Black Bloc and the so-called “alt-left” about capitalism, racism, state repression and corporate power is the same lust for violence.

I would go so far to say that behind all the rhetoric is the "lust to hate" without representing itself as violent. Hate is inside and doesn't have to show up, but it is there.

Their lives, battered by economic misery and social marginalization, have suddenly been filled with meaning. They hold themselves up as the vanguard of the oppressed. They arrogate to themselves the right to use force to silence those they define as the enemy. They sanctify anger. They are infected with the dark, adrenaline-driven urge for confrontation that arises among the disenfranchised when a democracy ceases to function. They are separated, as Sigmund Freud wrote of those who engage in fratricide, by the “narcissism of minor differences.” They mirror each other, not only ideologically but also physically—armed and dressed in black, the color of fascism and the color of death.

I would add to this that the narcissism of minor differences doesn't have to bubble up in violent behavior, but the hate, which is the basis to develop those narcissistic beliefs is simmering inside and can so easily be used by unsavory powers.

It was inevitable that we would reach this point. The corporate state has seized and corrupted all democratic institutions, including the two main political parties, to serve the interests of corporate power and maximize global corporate profits. There is no justice in the courts. There is no possibility for reform in the legislative bodies. The executive branch is a dysfunctional mess headed by a narcissistic kleptocrat, con artist and pathological liar. Money has replaced the vote. The consent of the governed is a joke. Our most basic constitutional rights, including the rights to privacy and due process, have been taken from us by judicial fiat. The economically marginalized, now a majority of the country, have been rendered invisible by a corporate media dominated by highly paid courtiers spewing out meaningless political and celebrity gossip and trivia as if it were news. The corporate state, unimpeded, is pillaging and looting the carcass of the country and government, along with the natural world, for the personal gain of the 1 percent. It daily locks away in cages the poor, especially poor people of color, discarding the vulnerable as human refuse.

Isn't that enough of an explanation of why the numbers of peaceful demonstrators become irrelevant?

Economic and social marginalization is the lifeblood of extremist groups. Without it they wither and die. Extremism, as the social critic Christopher Lasch wrote, is “a refuge from the terrors of inner life.”

Inner hate is the terror of your inner life. It can result and pop up in violence, but doesn't have to. Powers who want to trigger and catalyze your inner hate to turn into violence, will do so. That's why the role of the police at such demonstrations is so important. Not to intervene, if groups in an otherwise peaceful demonstrations, start to destroy property and attack physically other groups, is imo criminal behavior. It is the duty of the police to prevent it and it can easily be dome, even without weapons. Has been done in the past in Germany all the time.

you said:

"How do we get from here to there, Chris"

This is a question everyone has. To attack him for not giving you the answer to the 60 million dollar question, is not helpful. Nobody really knows. Here is what I think is the closest that comes to an answer to that question:

Street clashes do not distress the ruling elites. These clashes divide the underclass. They divert activists from threatening the actual structures of power. They give the corporate state the ammunition to impose harsher forms of control and expand the powers of internal security. When antifa assumes the right to curtail free speech it becomes a weapon in the hands of its enemies to take that freedom away from everyone, especially the anti-capitalists.

The focus on street violence diverts activists from the far less glamorous building of relationships and alternative institutions and community organizing that alone will make effective resistance possible. We will defeat the corporate state only when we take back and empower our communities, as is happening with Cooperation Jackson, a grass-roots cooperative movement in Jackson, Miss. As long as acts of resistance are forms of personal catharsis, the corporate state is secure. Indeed, the corporate state welcomes this violence because violence is a language it can speak with a proficiency and ruthlessness that none of these groups can match.

“Politics isn’t made of individuals,” Sophia Burns writes in “Catharsis Is Counter-Revolutionary.” “It’s made of classes. Political change doesn’t come from feeling individually validated. It comes from collective action and organization within the working class. That means creating new institutions that meet our needs and defend against oppression.”

Really, there is a lot in his article that answers to what he thinks is important to have positive effects and outcomes.
You just need to want to read it.