this article got some push back; hedges is widely seen as a reactionary liberal and is not particularly well regarded on the left.

my feed has been weird recently. a few days ago, i realized democracy now disappeared about a month ago. truthout disappeared about two weeks ago. the solution is easy: unlike, wait five minutes, like. why this is happening in the first place, i don't know. democracy now and truthout are both popular sources of fairly *centrist* news perspectives. they're both pro-capitalist; neither are very far from the democrats. if somebody is targeting these sources for being radical, that's just hilarious. only in america?

so, yeah, the hedges article that got some pushback. i think he's being pretentious and don't want to really fall into the trap. we expect pretension from the likes of chris hedges. it's probably better to point it out and then ignore it.

he's not completely wrong, and i've never argued that he is. when he talks about the pointlessness of property damage (and he calls that violence, why i don't know - his point would be better taken if he'd say property damage), he makes good sense and has the potential to hold an audience. nor are many people going to disagree that non-violence is preferable to violence in theory - even if there's disagreement about whether meaningful, systemic peaceful change is actually possible or not. it's only when he rejects violence on a dogmatic, ideological level that people start calling him a liberal reactionary - and for good reason, because that's what his arguments logically imply.

this article seems to suggest that he doesn't really understand the criticism. quoting emma goldman to present a position of dogmatic non-violence? listen, he could quote god herself, it wouldn't matter. what's being rejected, chris, is your dogmatism, your suggestion that violence is always wrong under any circumstance. as anarchists, we reject the idea because it's dogmatic, not because we like violence. responding with what you perceive to be your opponent's dogma is just really head-scratching.

but, as mentioned, he's really just being pretentious, and it's better just to ignore it - except to point out that if somebody could convince him to be less dogmatic then having him on board would be an asset.

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/19658-our-invisible-revolution