Journalist Chris Hedges is a passionate and principled man,
and these attributes have brought him into a direct conflict with the Obama
administration and the US
state over the dubious “legality” of anti-terror laws.
Hedges’ 15-year career as foreign correspondent for the New York Times ended in 2003 when he was
reprimanded for opposing the unlawful invasion of Iraq . In 2011 he took part in Occupy Wall Street,
and was among those arrested.
In September last year, with others, he defeated the Obama
government in court, challenging the administration’s new anti-terrorism
legislation. Hedges argues that it restricts news reporting, protest and
political organising in defence of controversial causes and could be used to
indefinitely imprison journalists, activists and human rights workers.
The appeal, which opens in court today coincides, with the publication of a hitherto 16-page
secret memo prepared by Obama’s Department of Justice that sets out to
justify the president’s power to target even Americans for assassination by
drone without due process.
Glenn Greenwald, noted writer on civil liberties and
constitutional issues, commented:
“The core distortion of the War on Terror under both Bush and Obama is the
Orwellian practice of equating government accusations of terrorism with
proof of guilt. One constantly hears US government defenders referring to ‘terrorists’
when what they actually mean is: those accused by the government of terrorism.
This entire memo is grounded in this deceit.”
Hedges’ co-plaintiffs in the case include Pentagon
Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, linguistic philosopher and
campaigner Noam Chomsky, Icelandic parliamentarian Birgitta Jónsdóttir,
Jennifer Bolen, founder of the activist media group RevolutionTruth and Occupy
London activist Kai Wargalla.
Hedges took his campaign to the People’s Recovery Summit in Brooklyn , on Saturday. The opening words of his extraordinarily
stirring speech
are about as direct and uncompromising as you can get:
The corporate state has made it clear there will be no more Occupy encampments. The corporate state is seeking through the persistent harassment of activists and the passage of draconian laws such as Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defence Authorization Act…to shut down all legitimate dissent. The corporate state is counting, most importantly, on its system of debt peonage to keep citizens — especially the 30 million people who make up the working poor —from joining our revolt.
Hedges has teamed up with political activist and former
consumer champion Ralph Nader, launching a campaign to raise the minimum hourly
wage in the US from its current $7.25 – the lowest amongst the rich Western
countries. Nader is pushing for $10.50 – to bring the value back up to what it
would buy in 1968. Hedges is going
further. He wants it to be $11.
He argues that the dominance of the economy by credit and
debt has changed the character of class warfare. He believes that a mass
movement to raise the minimum wage by 50% will be a challenge to the corporate
state, discrediting it, even paralysing it. He says:
This debt peonage must be broken if we are going to build a mass movement to paralyze systems of corporate power. And the most effective weapon we have to liberate ourselves as well as the 30 million Americans who make up the working poor is a sustained movement to raise the minimum wage nationally to at least $11 an hour.
Hedges believes that the moment workers rise up and demand
justice is the “moment the staggering inequality of wealth begins to be
reversed”. Hedges is clear that the campaign for a minimum, let alone a living
wage is inseparable from the conflict with the state.
But the bankrupt capitalist economy cannot and will not
concede to even such minimal demands. Inequality is not going to be “reversed”
by mass pressure, athough the Hedges-Nader campaign deserves everyone's support. Inequality is actually built into global capitalism in whichever
country it operates. And if the state decides to use anti-terror laws to
suppress dissent and protest it won’t hesitate to do so because it exists to
defend the status quo. Never forget that.
Gerry Gold
Economics editor
