Edward Said’s Pedagogy of Wakefulness in an Age of Educational Repression

HENRY GIROUX
JUNE 27, 2025

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The War at Home—State Terrorism on Full Display.

Across the globe, we are living in a moment of profound crisis where the very essence of education as a democratic institution is under attack. In the United States, the assault on higher education is part of a broader war waged by authoritarian forces aiming to dismantle the pillars of not only academic freedom, dissent, and human rights, but also the essential foundations of democracy itself. Universities are no longer seen as spaces of intellectual freedom and critical inquiry but as battlegrounds for ideological control. Campus protests are met with police brutality; students are abducted for their political views, and those who dare to speak out against the prevailing orthodoxy face expulsion, censorship, and criminalization. Trump’s administration has fueled this campaign, not only targeting academic freedom but also pushing policies that criminalize dissent, especially when it comes to movements like those advocating for Palestinian liberation. The erosion of civil liberties extends to international students protesting in solidarity with Gaza, with threats of deportation looming over them. The chilling message is clear: higher education is no longer a sanctuary for free thought; it is a field of repression where the rule of authoritarianism dominates.

State terrorism at home targets those who dare to engage in the dangerous practice of critical thinking and the courageous act of holding power accountable. It is a violent apparatus that imposes terror on all who are deemed “other”—immigrants, Black people, trans people, brown people, campus protesters, and anyone who refuses to conform to the narrow, racist vision articulated by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff. He is notorious for his white nationalist views, has become a central figure in shaping the Trump administration’s policies. At a Trump rally in Madison Square Garden, he boldly declared that “America is for Americans and Americans only,” a mantra that echoed the Nazi slogan, “Germany for Germans only.”  As Robert Tait reports in The Guardian, Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill, warns that his rise is a direct threat, as he now wields the power of the federal government to impose his fascist worldview.

Setmayer, who now leads the women-led political action committee Seneca Project, explains that his vision has been fully embraced as a core political strategy under Trump. “That view has now been transformed into the main political policy and aim of Donald Trump’s presidency,” she states. The demagoguery surrounding immigration has always been at the heart of Trump’s political ascent. With Miller’s goal to make America whiter and less diverse now backed by the unchecked power of the presidency, Setmayerwarns that this combination is not just dangerous, it poses a grave threat to American values and the rule of law itself.

Under the Trump rule, state terrorism is not confined to domestic borders; it extends its reach through reckless, international aggression. Trump’s administration is waging war not just within the U.S., but abroad, with flagrant violations of international law. His unprovoked aggression against Iran, coupled with his unwavering support for Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza and its unthinkable war on children, exemplifies the regime’s disregard for global norms and human rights. Beyond the Middle East, Trump’s regime seeks to impose its will through threats, tariffs, and naked displays of power. His brutal crackdown on immigration, the transformation of I.C.E. into a Gestapo-like force, and the relentless narrowing of who is permitted entry into the U.S. expose his deeper authoritarian impulses. In this vision, the international community becomes little more than a pawn in his relentless pursuit of geopolitical dominance.

Trump’s disdain for allies and international cooperation reached alarming heights, exemplified by his call to attack Panama, annex Canada, and seize Greenland. These wild, imperialistic notions reflect  a deeply rooted belief that America’s might should dominate the global stage, with little regard for diplomacy or the sovereignty of other nations. In Trump’s worldview, global relations are defined by the logic of conquest and dominance, where the violence of state terror is justified by the expansion of America’s influence and control. This is a regime that knows no limits, expanding its machinery of  fear and violence, both at home and across the globe, in a sustained assault on humanity, justice, and the most basic principles of international law.

The Scourge of Neoliberalism.

The ongoing assaults on democracy, both domestically and globally, are not isolated events but part of the groundwork laid by gangster capitalism for the rise of fascism in American society. Central to this process is the transformation of the university from a public good to a privatized institution, where students are seen as human capital, courses are dictated by consumer demand, and more recently the curricula is whitewashed and filled with far-right propaganda, often  under the cover of implementing patriotic education, cleansed of antisemitism. Under the market-driven logic of neoliberalism, universities have become spaces that prioritize economic outputs over intellectual autonomy, turning critical thought and democratic engagement into commodities. This shift has undermined the university’s role as a crucible for challenging the status quo, replacing it with a system of training rather than fostering a culture of critical learning, dialogue, and informed judgment.

As neoliberal policies encourage privatization, restrict access, and force institutions into service to corporate interests, the university is no longer seen as a public trust. It has become a tool for ideological indoctrination, training citizens to uphold the status quo rather than challenge it. This transformation, in part, is a direct response to the democratization of the university that reached its peak in the 1960s, with intellectuals, campus protesters, and marginalized communities seeking to broaden the educational mission. The assault on higher education as a site of critique and democratization has intensified over the last four decades with the rise of the far-right, with broader implications that include intellectuals, minority students, and critical formative cultures essential to the foundation of a substantive democracy.

As the South African Nobel Prize winner in literature, JM Coetzee,  points out in a different  context, the reactionary hedge-fund billionaires “reconceive of themselves as managers of national economies” who want to turn  universities into training schools equipping young people with the skills required by a modern economy.”  Coetzee’s words are even more relevant today, given that  this attack on higher education, which is both ideological and increasingly dependent on the militaristic arm of the state, reflects a broader attempt to eliminate the university’s critical function. Rather than serving the public good, the university is increasingly framed as a private investment, or an arm of state repression, where its governance mirrors  the merging of the exploitative practices of corporate models, such as Walmart’s labor relations and the governing principles of fascism. In the spirit of this concern, Coetzee advocates for the defense of education as an institution dedicated to cultivating intellectual insight, civic responsibility, social justice, and critical thinking.

The questions we must ask at this crucial moment in American history are not about how the university can serve market interests or the authoritarian ideologies of the Trump regime, but how it can reclaim its role as a democratic public sphere. How might we redefine the university to safeguard the interests of young people amidst rising violence, war, anti-intellectualism, authoritarianism, and environmental collapse? As Zygmunt Bauman and Leonidas Donskis astutely point out, “How will we form the next generation of intellectuals and politicians if young people will never have an opportunity to experience what a non-vulgar, non-pragmatic, non-instrumentalized university is like?” In this spirit, we must recognize how larger economic, social, and cultural forces threaten the very idea of education, especially higher education, at a time when defending it as a space for critique, democracy, and justice has never been more urgent. Moreover any defense of the university as a public good demands an alliance of diverse groups willing to recognize that the fight for higher education cannot be separated from the wider struggle for a socialist democracy. The threats being waged against higher education are also a threat to the nation, a culture of informed citizens, and how we think about agency and its fundamental obligations to democracy itself.

At the same time, as neoliberalism faces a profound legitimacy crisis, failing to deliver on its promises of prosperity and social mobility, it increasingly resorts to fascist rhetoric. This rhetoric scapegoats Black communities, immigrants, and dissenting students, blaming them for the deepening crises plaguing America. In doing so, neoliberalism shifts blame while reinforcing a narrative that justifies authoritarian measures, further marginalizing those already oppressed. As this rhetoric spreads, the very institutions meant to foster critical engagement—like the university—are further corrupted, their original role of challenging the status quo replaced with one of reinforcing the existing power structures.

Edward Said’s Pedagogy of Wakefulness -Dreaming the Impossible.

It is within this oppressive context that Edward Said’s work gains renewed relevance, offering the crucial pedagogical framework for resisting authoritarianism and reclaiming higher education as a site of resistance. In opposition to the debased view of educational engagement promoted by the neoliberal agenda and far-right politicians, Said championed what I label as the “pedagogy of wakefulness.” This pedagogy emphasizes the need for intellectuals to remain vigilant, awake to the realities of power, work with an array of social movement, and actively engaged in resisting systems of oppression. Said’s pedagogy demands that education be used as a vehicle for social change, not simply as a means of economic productivity or ideological conformity. Moreover, he argued that cultural workers and all manners of engaged intellectuals work in a variety of sites and on different platforms in  order to address the public in a language that was rigorous, accessible, and comprehensive in its ability to connect a variety  of issues.

In defining Said’s pedagogy of wakefulness, I am reminded of a deeply personal passage from his memoir, Out of Place, where he reflects on the final months of his mother’s life in a New York hospital. Struggling with the ravaging effects of cancer, his mother asked him, “Help me to sleep, Edward.” This poignant moment becomes a gateway for Said’s meditation on sleep and consciousness, which he links to his broader philosophy of intellectual engagement. Said’s meditation moves between the existential and the insurgent, between private pain and worldly commitment, between the seductions of a “solid self” and the reality of a contradictory, questioning, restless, and at times, uneasy sense of identity. The beauty and poignancy of his moving commentary is worth quoting at length:

‘Help me to sleep, Edward,’ she once said to me with a piteous trembling in her voice that I can still hear as I write. But then the disease spread into her brain—and for the last six weeks she slept all the time—my own inability to sleep may be her last legacy to me, a counter to her struggle for sleep. For me sleep is something to be gotten over as quickly as possible. I can only go to bed very late, but I am literally up at dawn. Like her I don’t possess the secret of long sleep, though unlike her I have reached the point where I do not want it. For me, sleep is death, as is any diminishment in awareness. ..Sleeplessness for me is a cherished state to be desired at almost any cost; there is nothing for me as invigorating as immediately shedding the shadowy half-consciousness of a night’s loss than the early morning, reacquainting myself with or resuming what I might have lost completely a few hours earlier….A form of freedom, I like to think, even if I am far from being totally convinced that it is. That skepticism too is one of the themes I particularly want to hold on to. With so many dissonances in my life I have learned actually to prefer being not quite right and out of place.”

Said’s reflection here is more than a personal meditation; This passage becomes a powerful metaphor for Said’s pedagogy of wakefulness. It is a call to remain in constant motion—intellectually, politically, and socially. The metaphor of sleeplessness, for Said, embodies a refusal to succumb to the seductions of conformity or passive consumption. This state of “wakefulness” requires intellectual vigilance, a refusal to settle for easy answers or unchallenged ideologies. It speaks to the necessity of embracing discomfort, of being “not quite right and out of place,” as Said himself puts it. In this intellectual space of uncertainty, a new, critical sense of identity can emerge—one that is always questioning, always in motion.

For Said, intellectuals–those who are alive to thinking critically and acting bravely–must engage critically with the world, confronting its injustices and inequalities, and using their positions to challenge power. His pedagogy insists that education is not merely about transmitting knowledge but about awakening students to the complexities of the world. It demands that we lift complex ideas into public discourse, recognizing human suffering and injustice both inside and outside the academy, and using theory as a tool for critique and change.

This pedagogy is particularly urgent in the context of the current Trump regime, where the state has weaponized ignorance and repression, seeking to silence dissent and erase marginalized histories. Said’s pedagogy of wakefulness provides a framework for resisting this intellectual and cultural erasure; what Marina Warner in a different context called “the new brutalism in academia.” By embracing Said’s vision, educators can transform their classrooms into spaces of radical engagement—spaces where students are encouraged not only to critique but to act, to connect their private struggles to the larger social issues that shape their world. This is particularly relevant in the fight for Palestinian liberation, where Said’s work has long offered a framework for resisting colonial violence and challenging the narratives that justify oppression.

In a time of rising civic cowardice in the mainstream media, elite education institutions, and cravenly law firms, hiding behind appeals to balance and objectivity makes it difficult for educators, journalists, public servants, and media pundits to recognize that being committed to something does not cancel out what C. Wright Mills once called hard thinking. More specifically, Mills argued “that  social analysis could be probing, tough-minded, critical, relevant and scholarly, that ideas need not be handled as undertakers handle bodies, with care but without passion, that commitment need not be dogmatic, and that radicalism need not be a substitute for hard thinking.”  Building on Said’s pedagogy of wakefulness “hard thinking” points to a pedagogy that needs to be rigorous, self-reflective, and committed not to the dead zone of instrumental rationality or the abyss of indoctrination, but what  Gayatri Spivak calls “the practice of freedom,” to a critical sensibility capable of advancing the parameters of knowledge, addressing crucial social issues, and connecting private troubles and public issues.

The Role of Culture in Pedagogy: A Call for Resistance.

 In my own work, I have long argued that culture plays a crucial role in shaping the civic consciousness necessary for resistance. Culture is not merely a passive reflection of society; it is a dynamic force that shapes our understanding of the world and our place within it. In an era where neoliberalism and fascism are increasingly intertwined, culture becomes a vital space for alternative narratives to take root. It is crucial to acknowledge that culture has become a tool for authoritarian regimes to control public consciousness, suppress dissent, and maintain the status quo. However, it remains one of the few spaces where resistance can also flourish.

Said’s pedagogy of wakefulness offers a critical lens through which to view the role of culture in education. It calls on educators to resist the commodification and militarization of culture and instead cultivate a pedagogy that is engaged, critical, and rooted in the politics of resistance. This is not simply an intellectual exercise in critical thinking or a new found attentiveness about the rise of fascist politics,  but a call to arms—an invitation to create a culture of resistance within the university and other cultural apparatuses, that equips students and the broader public with the tools to challenge the growing tide of authoritarianism.

This cultural resistance must be grounded in the belief that education is a public good, a space where the radical potential for social change can be realized, anti-capitalist values can be challenged, and the groundwork can be laid for mass resistance to an America marked by what the late Mike Davis, cited in Capitalist Realism, called “an era in which there is a super saturation of corruption, cruelty, and violence…. fails any longer to outrage or even interest.” Universities must reject the neoliberal redefinition of education as a commodity and instead embrace the idea that education is a moral and political practice, one that is central to the health of democracy. As Said argued, intellectuals and educators have a responsibility to bear witness to human suffering, to challenge power, and to use their positions to promote justice. In doing so, they can help reclaim education as a space for imagination, resistance, and liberation.

Conclusion.

The current assault on higher education is not just an attack on academic institutions but on the very idea of humanity, thinking, and democracy itself. As universities become increasingly corporatized and ideologically colonized, we must resist the neoliberal and fascist forces that seek to transform education into a tool of indoctrination. Edward Said’s pedagogy of wakefulness provides a vital framework for this resistance, offering a vision of education that is both critical and politically engaged. By embracing this pedagogy, educators can help transform the university from a site of ideological compliance into a space where students are empowered to resist, imagine, and fight for a more just and democratic world. The struggle to reclaim education as a democratic force will determine not only the future of the university but the future of democracy itself.

Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. His most recent books include: The Terror of the Unforeseen (Los Angeles Review of books, 2019), On Critical Pedagogy, 2nd edition (Bloomsbury, 2020); Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy: Education in a Time of Crisis (Bloomsbury 2021); Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance (Bloomsbury 2022) and Insurrections: Education in the Age of Counter-Revolutionary Politics (Bloomsbury, 2023), and coauthored with Anthony DiMaggio, Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2025). Giroux is also a member of Truthout’s board of directors.

First published on CounterPunch.org.

 

 

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JUNE 21, 2024.

By Henry Giroux

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If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.

– Malcolm X

Bearing witness is a crucial marker of a responsible press and media. It brings to light the unnecessary suffering and hardship of those rendered voiceless and disposable, as well as the underlying forces that produce such conditions. It also serves to challenge those who “wallow in willful ignorance.”[1]Shattering the lies concealed by claims of innocence is a powerful weapon for holding power accountable, making it visible and subject to exposure and resistance. Bearing witness does not guarantee justice, but it provides the awareness necessary to turn propaganda against itself and mobilize people to function as a collective force of resistance.

The corporate media undermines moral witnessing by often prioritizing the discredited notion of balance over the more crucial goal of seeking truth in the service of accountability and democracy. This retreat from holding power accountable not only discredits the pursuit of truth in the service of justice and the strengthening of democracy but also tends to fall prey to the seductions of corruption, political theater and entertainment.[2]

The dialectic within journalism encompasses what could be termed, on one hand, a politics of erasure and distortion, and on the other, a politics of moral witnessing. The politics of erasure is apparent in how corporate mainstream media disproportionately covers Israel’s aggressive actions in Gaza and portrays Trump as a conventional political candidate rather than an authoritarian threat to democracy both domestically and internationally. This erasure is also evident in how far-right journalism consistently distorts the truth when reporting on issues that conflict with reactionary conservative politics.

Conversely, the pursuit of truth and moral witnessing is exemplified by journalists from sources such as The Intercept, CounterPunch, Truthout, LA Progressive, and other alternative media platforms. These journalists engage deeply with critical social issues and consistently hold power accountable. Despite their commitment to journalistic integrity, these outlets are often marginalized within the media landscape dominated by corporate control.[3]

In what follows, I will comment briefly on how these two modes of journalism operate. First, I will briefly focus on the reporting of Scahill and Grim in The Intercept, which exposed how The New York Times and several other major newspapers underplayed the despair, suffering, and death that Israel is brutally imposing on Palestinians. On the other hand, I will examine how corporate-controlled media failed to address historically, contextually, and critically both Trump’s delusional ramblings and his clear and dangerous threats to democracy.

Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim reported in The Intercept that an internal memo from the New York Times “instructed journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land…The memo also instructed] reporters not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians expelled from other parts of Palestine during previous Israeli–Arab wars.”[4]

Scahill and Grim also note that major newspapers such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times“reserved terms like ‘slaughter,’ ‘massacre,’ and ‘horrific’ almost exclusively for Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians, rather than for Palestinian civilians killed in Israeli attacks.”[5]

This is more than mere style guidelines; it is censorship in service of partisan reporting and moral irresponsibility. Instances of war crimes, the horror of genocide, and the reality of Israel’s violence against Palestinians are being distorted and erased. Critical of the babble of balance, Scahill and Grim highlight the importance of reporting on Israel’s savage war against Palestinians while making clear that the mainstream press represses such reporting, enabling the slaughter to continue.

 Rather than “hating the people who are oppressed,” CounterPunch is another truth-seeking media source that has covered the war on Gaza in great detail, providing both personal accounts of the suffering while placing the conflict in a broader history and political narrative.

The punishing state now wraps itself in censorship, propaganda, and cruel invective parading as a mix between political theater and both sides journalism. Americans are bombarded with the babble of liberals who are too cowardly to name Trump as a budding fascist or as a racist, treating him as either a normal candidate or a bullying clown rather than as a symptom of a deeper malaise of fascism, echoing a pernicious and frightening past. Corporate media normalcy bias treats Trump as simply another choice in the run for the presidency. Under the false insistence on balance, Trump and Biden are treated as two candidates with simply different views, rather than treating Trump as a dangerous and unbalanced threat to democracy itself.

Meanwhile, the corporate-controlled press focuses on the release of thankfully freed hostages and the unfounded charges of antisemitic politicians, who use the guise of antisemitism to undermine free speech and transform higher education into centers of indoctrination. Almost no coverage is given to the indictment by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.”[6]  Bombs explode, and blood flows freely over the bodies of more than 37,000 Palestinians, including thousands of women and children in Gaza. Ten children in Gaza lose a limb daily to war; according to the World Health Organization some “citizens in Gaza are now reduced to drinking sewage water and eating animal feed.”[7] These horrors disappear from mainstream news in their cycle of erasure, misrepresentation, and politics of balance.

It is truly alarming to see and hear how Trump’s frequent lapses into babble and gibberish are either ignored, barely commented on in a serious way, or treated as normal. It has become uneventful in the eyes of the corporate media to acknowledge critically that at his rallies Trump substitutes meaningful discourse with oratory that suggests he has “fallen off one verbal cliff after another, with barely a ripple in national consciousness.”[8] He has spoken incoherently about sharks and electric boats in the same sentence. He rants about Taylor Swift, claiming she is beautiful, but liberal and that he is “more popular” than her. He has made cruel remarks about Nancy Pelosi’s husband, joking about the violent attack he suffered at the hands of a right-wing conspiracy theorist. He has attacked Jack Smith and his wife. In a “bizarre, moment. Trump called Pelosi’s daughter a ‘wacko,’” and referred to the Department of Justice as “dirty no-good bastards.”[9] Rarely do these comments get the coverage they deserve in the mainstream media.

There is little commentary about how unfit he is emotionally and what the consequence for the country might be if he is elected to the presidency. As Tim Nichols noted in The Atlantic, Trump’s delusional behavior should “terrify any American voter, because this behavior in anyone else would be an instant disqualification for any political office, let alone the presidency.” He further adds:

I am not a psychiatrist, and I am not diagnosing Trump with anything. I am, however, a man who has lived on this Earth for more than 60 years, and I know someone who has serious emotional problems when I see them played out in front of me, over and over. The 45th president is a disturbed person. He cannot be trusted with any position of responsibility—and especially not with a nuclear arsenal of more than 1,500 weapons. One wrong move could lead to global incineration.[10]

A dangerous right-wing firewall protects Trump and his delusional ramblings and reactionary policies from being identified as a dangerous authoritarian who poses a serious threat to democracy at home and abroad. The cowardly politics of normalization shield him from the criticism and exposure the public deserves. Additionally, he is protected by a right-wing echo chamber that legitimizes, propagates, and celebrates his lies, corruption, and criminal convictions. They also lie for profit. But there is more at work here than a politics of disappearance, there is also a relentless barrage of lies and distortions. Thom Hartman refers to the dominant right-wing echo chamber as “The GOP’s MAGA lie machine,” one that represents “dark side of politics.”[11]  False claims by mainstream conservative media became more visible with Fox News’s nearly $800 million dollar settlement with Dominion for lying about the 2020 presidential election. Unfortunately, the distortion machine continues with impunity. For instance,  Judd Legum recently reported that the Sinclair Broadcast Group is engaged in a systemic campaign of presenting misleading stories about President, which are then distributed on a range of social media. He writes:

This month, Sinclair Broadcast Group has flooded a vast network of local news websites with misleading articles suggesting that President Biden is mentally unfit for office. The articles are based on specious social media posts by the Republican National Committee (RNC), which are then repackaged to resemble news reports. The thinly disguised political attacks are then syndicated to dozens of local news websites owned by Sinclair, where they are given the imprimatur of mainstream media brands, including NBC, ABC, and CBS.[12]

 Trump has transformed the Republican Party into a cult of morally vacuous and politically maligned sycophants who are complicit in his actions and cover for him. Trump and his followers live in a bubble of deceit, hidden through a powerful and expansive culture of ignorance and hatred. This is a party that spreads false and deranged stories about Jewish space lasers, voting machines corrupted by alleged Venezuelan communists, and Democrats who drink the blood of kidnaped children, among other insane conspiracy theories.

The mainstream and right-wing media have emptied language of any substantive meaning, turning it into a poisonous cacophony of lies, bigotry, and deranged conspiracy theories. One crucial caveat must be made. While Trump’s bizarre ramblings rightly suggest an unstable and unhinged mind, this criticism should not but used to overshadow his fascist politics and the conditions that have given rise to Trumpism. The latter is a historical and political issue that cannot be reduced to psychological language.

More to the point. There is more at play here than Trump’s delusional ramblings. There is also his attack on the justice system, his lies about the election, his role in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, his history as a sexual predator, his support for Project 2025 and its planned subversion of democracy, and his history leading up to his thirty-four felony convictions. While these events receive critical commentary, they are rarely analyzed as part of a larger program that supports an upgraded fascism. Deceit, ignorance, and the death of civic responsibility now function as the perfect storm enabling fascist politics. America is no longer ashamed of its ignorance; it is now a matter of fondness, provides a sense of community, and serves as a measure of loyalty.[13] What does it take under these circumstances for struggling to prevent democracies from dying? What questions do we need to ask to rethink the meaning of politics, struggle, and collective resistance?

How do we account for this dramatic refusal by liberals and others to name and recognize the ongoing threat of fascism in the U.S.? What institutions under the regime of gangster capitalism have surrendered their educative, political, cultural, and economic responsibilities? How has white supremacy, with its logic and politics of hate, exclusion, and violence once again been able to define who counts as a citizen in the United States? What conditions have allowed the collapse of civic culture into a culture of commodification, surveillance, and punishment? What will it take to develop a world where democracy can breathe again? Where are the public spaces calling for a revolution of values that challenge the war machines and expansive militarized propagandistic cultural apparatuses? What kind of mass movement is necessary to shift public consciousness and the centers of corrupt politics in American society? How can these questions be answered within a broader understanding of the connection between neoliberal capitalism and fascism?

Where is the language we need to bear witness to resist the country’s death drive while affirming the need for justice? How can the language of compassion and solidarity overcome the discourse of institutionalized neoliberalism, rancid individualism, greed, and self-interest? Where are the spaces,  emerging institutions and social movements that will create the conditions to say yes to justice and no to cruelty, systemic racism, mass ignorance, and unfettered greed? What will it take to cultivate a willingness to say no, and the energy necessary to put our minds and bodies on the line for a future in which our children can experience dignity, justice, and joy? What might it mean to inhabit what James Baldwin called a “despairing witness” and, at the same time, to be prepared to lose everything in order to struggle for a world in which economic, political, and social rights are guaranteed for everyone?

All of these questions pose challenges that need to be addressed given the historical crisis facing the U.S. Baldwin never despaired of the struggles and potential danger of being a moral witness, and his words offer hope in the ongoing individual and collective efforts to be strong, brave, and willing to continue the fight for a radical democracy. His words are more urgent and powerful than ever:  “Not everything is lost. Responsibility cannot be lost, it can only be abdicated. If one refuses abdication, one begins again.” In the age of emerging fascism, there is no other choice but to begin again to fight the ghosts of a fascist past that have returned with a vengeance.

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Notes.

[1] Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons For our Own (New York: Crown, 2020).p.53

[2] This issue has been discussed in great depth by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in their landmark Manufacturing Consent. See also the work of  Jason Stanley’s  How Propaganda Works, and Robert McChesney’s Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times, and too many other critical sources to mention.

[3] Sonali Kolhatkar, “When Corporate Media Fail, Independent Media Rise Up,” Counterpunch (June 15, 2023). Online: https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/15/when-corporate-media-fail

[4] Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, “Leaked NYT Gaza memo tells journalists to avoid words ‘genocide’ ‘ethnic cleansing,’ and ‘occupied territory.’’ The Intercept(April 15, 2024). Online: https://theintercept.com/2024/04/15/nyt-israel-gaza-genocide-palestine-coverage/

[5] Ibid.

[6] Jon Quellay, “93 Nations Back ICC as Israel Faces Charges for War Crimes in Gaza,” Common Dreams (June 15, 2024). Online: https://www.commondreams.org/news/icc-war-cimes-gaza?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=af4dfba027-Weekend+Edition%3A+Sun.+6%2F16%2F24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-3b949b3e19-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

[7] Cited in Jeffrey St. Clair, “Whoops, They Did It Again–The Scourging of Gaza: Diary of a Genocidal War,” Counterpunch + (June 8, 2024). Online: https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/06/08/whoops-they-did-it-again/

[8] Tom Nichols, “Let’s Talk About Trump’s Gibberish,” The Atlantic (June 12, 2024). Online: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/06/trump-sharks-las-vegas-rally-speech/678667/

[9] Annie Grayer, Melanie Zanona, Lauren Fox and Kit Maher, “Inside Trump’s gripe-filled meeting with House GOP and his reunion with McConnell,” CNN(June 13, 2024). Online: https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/13/politics/trump-closed-door-meeting-house-gop/index.html

[10] Ibid. Tom Nichols.

[11] Thom Hartman, “The Dark Side of Politics: The GOP’s MAGA Lie Machine,” The Hartmann Report (June 17, 2024). Online: https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-dark-side-of-politics-the-gops-749

[12] Judd Legum, “Sinclair floods local news websites with hundreds of deceptive articles about Biden’s mental fitness,” Popular Information (June 17, 2024). Online: https://popular.info/p/sinclair-floods-local-news-websites?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=f0dw&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

[13] Mark Slouka, “A Quibble,” Harper’s Magazine ( February 2009). Online: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/02/0082362

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