An Evening with Chris Hedges and Mr. Snarky

Professor J,

Our readers may recall the year (!) we spent discussing Chris Hedges' book, Empire of Illusion. Since that book was released in 2009 he's become synonymous with the Occupy movement. I was fortunate enough to attend an event over the weekend sponsored by the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center where Mr. Hedges was to be the keynote speaker.

Earlier in the week my son had discovered CH's many speeches, both formal, like the one we attended and informal, like the ones at ground zero of the Occupy Wall Street camps and other protests. A week ago he came downstairs and asked "Didn't you read a book by that guy?" I resisted the urge to make our year's worth of blog posts required reading and simply said that I had and "Oh, by the way he's coming to town Saturday night to give a speech."  We decided to go and I ordered tickets online. We discussed how early we might need to get there to get a good seat and Mr. Snarky remarked that when he watches the video online the crowds are often sparse. Considering his reputation and the fact that it was at a church on the weekend of Dr. King's birthday I envisioned standing room only.

We arrived later than I had hoped but still in plenty of time to get a first rate seat. I scanned the crowd. It was diverse. I'd expected mostly a young age group but lots of gray hair was visible around the banquet tables. Compared to my last TEA Party experience I felt quite at home. Unlike that group, no one seated under white doves hanging from the ceiling looked threatening at all. Not a single person on hand could have been described as militant in any sense of the word. My son leaned over and said "I'll bet no one in this room owns a gun." He was trying to square what he was seeing and hearing with things he'd heard from the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, and O'Reilly.

As the speakers who preceded Hedges spoke, the priorities of the attendees became clear: righting injustice, building stronger communities, caring for the homeless and disadvantaged, improving education, improving community/police relations, and creating safe neighborhoods. I was noticing the disparity between what I'd heard and what I was seeing along with my son.

Mr. Hedges used his allotted time to cover things he frequently addresses in his books and in his columns on Truthdig so I'll not cover them here. (My son will be wondering why I took all those notes.) Maybe next time. Instead while he was speaking, I was struck by something. He's not a large man, nor an imposing one in any way. But he is authoritative, honest, and direct. The greatness he projects is in the power of conviction about the things he shares.  A conviction, it seemed that was honed through experiencing first hand the suffering of victims he'd come in contact with. Victims of war, victims of poverty, victims of greed.

The speech ended with a standing ovation and then the line began to form at the back of the room for book purchasing and signing. I picked up a copy of his latest work, my son purchased Death of the Liberal Class, and naturally I dragged along my dog eared, highlighted copy of Empire for him to inscribe.

As my son and I left the building he said "Are these the community organizers the right was so worried about before the 2008 election?"

I acknowledged that, indeed, they were.

"I've never seen a more harmless group of people in my life."

As we walked across the chilly parking lot in the dark he let me know that this had been the most enlightening thing he'd ever been to. I smiled one of those secret parent smiles and thought what a good lesson we'd both had. One about continuing to be open to new ideas and perspectives. Checking things out for yourself instead of taking someone else's word for it. And never being too young or old to challenge your own previous assumptions.