I am in awe of Chris Hedges. I mean, I am awed by him. Christopher Lynn Hedges is awe-full.
Here’s the Chris Hedges who amazes me so:
“You resist, not because of what you achieve, but for what it allows you to become.” What a wonderfully humble way to say “I resist.” And, “I do it for this reason, for what it makes of me.” And finally, “you can too.”
I don’t even know if he doesn’t know that he is pretty much alone in his ability to stand up to, and push back on the puppeteers who pull the strings of the Dick Cheneys of our time. Those guys–yes they’re almost all men–are the one-thousanth of 1% ers who really run this world.
Chris Hedges, on the other hand, is a guy who, like George Bush was middle-schooled with the sons of privilege. Then later he, like Barack Obama studied with and rubbed shoulders with future one percenters at Harvard. But he wasn’t swallowed up by the attraction of one day becoming as powerful the rulers of ancient empires, possessing more wealth than the kings of old ever dreamed of. What did he do? He became (drum-roll) a newspaper reporter! And he did his reporting from hellishly scary places like San Salvador in El Salvador and Gaza in Palestine. And his reporting was not nuanced, so much so that it got him fired from the New York Times. And just recently, he was ordained as a Minister of the Word and Sacrament by the Presbyterian Church USA no less.
Last month the newly minted minister’s minister Hedges announced the publication of his latest book “The Wages of Rebellion” as in “Not the Wages of Sin.” What are we to rebel against? The Corporate State, that’s what. [If Corporate State is a new term to you, google ‘Hedges, corporate state.’] Standing before several hundred disciples last month at the Truthdig Forum in Los Angeles, when confronted with the enormity of his task, he said: “Yes. I may fail. But at least I will be able to say to my four children ‘I tried.'”
Stay tuned. There is much more to come about Rev. Hedges–and how we can have his back, so to speak.
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