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Chris Hedges’ disoriented concept of “political maturity”

This article was originally posted as a thread on Twitter.

In his book American Fascists, Chris Hedges denounced negotiations with the fascist right. He wrote that they are beyond reasoning with, hostile to democracy, and “bent on our destruction.” Now Hedges justifies his capitulation to neo-Nazis as “political maturity.”

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On January 16, 2018, Hedges and I held an hour-long online discussion on the issue of Internet censorship and the political crisis in the United States. Watch this to see how far to the right he has moved during the last five years.

Full video of the webinar “Organizing resistance to Internet censorship”

At about the 55-minute mark in the discussion, I proposed united action by socialists and progressive forces on the left against war, censorship and all attacks on democratic rights. Hedges agreed with this proposal. He even urged the reading of Marx and Trotsky!

Following this discussion, Hedges invited me to appear on his program “On Contact.” But after that interview, Hedges, increasingly demoralized by the apparent power of the right, began to orient himself toward the reactionary MAGA movement.

So now he has reached the point of advocating joint action with the fascists. What a pathetic degeneration of a talented and formerly left-wing and principled journalist.

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