Chris Hedges is an American journalist, author, and commentator. He is also a Presbyterian minister. Hedges writes, quite often, for Consortium News. In an article posted on the Consortium News' website, on January 3, 2025, Hedges has warned us, as follows: "Don't Deify Jimmy Carter." Carter's distorted image, above, headed up Hedges' commentary, which can be summarized in the following excerpt from what Hedges has written:
Jimmy Carter, out of office, had the courage to call out the “abominable oppression and persecution” and “strict segregation” of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza in his 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
He dedicated himself to monitoring elections, including his controversial defense of the 2006 election of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and championed human rights around the globe.
He lambasted the American political process as an “oligarchy” in which “unlimited political bribery” created “a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors.”
But Carter’s years as an ex-president should not mask his dogged service to the empire, penchant for fomenting disastrous proxy wars, betrayal of the Palestinians, embrace of punishing neoliberal policies and his subservience to big business when he was in office (emphasis added).
I have a number of friends who, like Hedges, call the United States government, "The Empire." Most recently, my friends who use this term have been linking their use of it to the United States' assistance to Israel, as Israel's actions in Gaza become ever more difficult to support.
I feel certain that I am not the only one who hears this language - calling the United States government "The Empire" - as an intentional reference to Star Wars. In the movie, and in all of its derivatives, "The Empire" is described as follows (calling upon what Wikipedia says): "The Empire is a fictional autocracy ... an oppressive dictatorship with a complicated bureaucracy ... [which] seeks the rule and social control of every planet and civilization within the galaxy, based on anthropocentrism, nationalisation, state terrorism, power projection, and threat of lethal force."
"The Empire," in other words, as the Star Wars franchise employs the term, is a shorthand way to call out a government that represents total and absolute evil.
Is such a characterization of the United States' government really "fair"? And is it really "fair" for Hedges to name Carter as a lackey to "The Empire," despite all the good thing that Hedges admits that Carter has done?
My own sense is that while the United States government has made many mistakes, of both omission and commission, including some things it has done to support Israel in its actions in Gaza, some of which are quite probably violations of international law, and while the United States government has done other horrible things, it is probably not "fair" to equate the United States government to a government (the fictional "Empire") that can properly be called "absolutely evil." I also think that it is not "fair" to identify Jimmy Carter as a "dogged servant" to a government that can properly be thought of as absolutely evil.
However, my objection to equating the United States government to "The Empire" as a government that is absolutely evil (and to suggesting that former President Carter was just a lackey for such a government) is not, in fact, an objection based on what I think of as an "unfair" equivalency.
Here is why I object to using "The Empire" as a way to describe the United States' government (even admitting that our government has done many terrible things in the past, and in the present, and is likely to do even more in the future). Designating our own government as "The Empire" implicitly suggests that our government approaches us from outside. Now, in the Star Wars' movie and literature, "The Empire" IS an external force, and a force of "absolute evil." But OUR government is NOT an "external" force. WE are the government.
Characterizing our own government as "The Empire" is a way to let ourselves off the hook. If the United States, or any of its representatives, are engaged in evil actions, our role is not simply to observe and decry them. When we assert that we have a system of democratic self-government that means that when evil is being done by the United States, that can't be attibuted to some "external" entity. We are on the hook for what our government does.
When we name "The Empire" as the problem (meaning our own government), we impliedly excuse ourselves from complicity and responsibility.
How about we take responsibility, instead? That means open political action in opposition to evil actions, not denunciations of our government as though it can properly be considered as some outside force.
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