Chris Hedges: Hear the 99% Roar

Yves Smiths posts an interview with Chris Hedges: Hear the 99% Roar on TVO. He answers some questions about his latest book, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, and the Occupy Movement in general.

Hedges sees the Occupy Movement as the genesis of a revolutionary movement. He sees parallels with the Solidarity and other East European movements of the 1980's as well as the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's.

Hedges says that the revolutionary movements develop from the declasse intellectuals favoured by Mikhail Bakunin rather than the proletariat promoted by Karl Marx. My understanding is that some intellectuals will separate themselves from the ruling class and align themselves with the oppressed class in order to articulate what the oppressed are feeling. The oppressed classes lead the revolution, not the intellectuals.

The Tea Party in the USA is seen by Hedges as a proto-Fascist movement. He gives a checklist rather than a class analysis of the movement. My own opinion is posted at Proto-Fascism in the USA back in 2005.

Hedges sees the Black Bloc movement as disruptive and divisive in the Occupy Movement because they allow the police and media to discredit the Occupy Movement as violent, and so alienate it from the main-stream. This goes against the non-violence that Hedges is promoting as a necessary prerequisite for a successful revolution.

Hedges sees the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917 as a putsch rather than a social revolution. I see this as a canard to discredit the Bolshevik Party.

I think Hedges sees revolution as a change in the power structure. He would see that a corrupt elite is replaced by a more liberal one. I see revolution as a change in the social relations. Serfs would become workers. Or workers would become owners.