i still haven’t forgiven chris hedges for calling black bloc “the cancer” of occupy wall street, but i don’t know of any other positions hes taken that i dislike.
edit: split comments, video info
The Cancer in Occupy
The Black Bloc anarchists, who have been active on the streets in Oakland and other cities, are a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state.
https://web.archive.org/web/20240119192855/https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-cancer-in-occupy/
Interview With Chris Hedges About Black Bloc
A black bloc (sometimes black block) is a tactic used by protesters who wear black clothing, ski masks, scarves, sunglasses, motorcycle helmets with padding or other face-concealing and face-protecting items.[1][2] The clothing is used to conceal wearers’ identities and hinder criminal prosecution by making it difficult to distinguish between participants. It is also used to protect their faces and eyes from pepper spray, which is used by police during protests or civil unrest. The tactic also allows the group to appear as one large unified mass.[3] Black bloc participants are often associated with anarchism, anarcho-communism, communism, libertarian socialism and the anti-globalization movement. A variant of this type of protest is the Padded bloc, where following the Tute Bianche movement protesters wear padded clothing to protect against the police.
The tactic was developed in the 1980s in the European autonomist movement’s protests against squatter evictions, nuclear power, and restrictions on abortion, as well as other influences.[1] Black blocs gained broader media attention outside Europe during the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, when a black bloc damaged property of Gap, Starbucks, Old Navy, and other multinational retail locations in downtown Seattle.[1][4]
- 0:00 Introduction by Omayma Mansour
- 6:30 Talk by Chris Hedges
- 1:02:17 Audience Q&A moderated by Saffet Catovic
This talk by Chris Hedges was recorded by Skalli Events at The Islamic Society of Central New Jersey on January 18, 2024.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.
He was a member of the team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for The New York Times coverage of global terrorism, and he received the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism. Hedges, who holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, is the author of the bestsellers American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle and was a National Book Critics Circle finalist for his book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. He writes an online column for the website ScheerPost. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University and the University of Toronto.
