By Chris Hedges / Truthdig.org — A close reading of the new health care legislation, which will conveniently take effect in 2014 after the next presidential election, is deeply depressing. The legislation not only mocks the lofty promises made by President Barack Obama, exposing most as lies, but sadly reconfirms that our nation is hostage to unchecked corporate greed and abuse. The simple truth, that single-payer nonprofit health care for all Americans would dramatically reduce costs and save lives, that the for-profit health care system is the problem and must be destroyed, is censored out of the public debate by a media that relies on these corporations as major advertisers and sponsors, as well as a morally bankrupt Democratic Party that is as bought off by corporations as the Republicans.
The Christian Fascists Are Growing Stronger by Chris Hedges
By Chris Hedges: The rise of this Christian fascism, a rise we ignore at our peril, is being fueled by an ineffectual and bankrupt liberal class that has proved to be unable to roll back surging unemployment, protect us from speculators on Wall Street, or save our dispossessed working class from foreclosures, bankruptcies and misery. The liberal class has proved useless in combating the largest environmental disaster in our history, ending costly and futile imperial wars or stopping the corporate plundering of the nation. And the gutlessness of the liberal class has left it, and the values it represents, reviled and hated.
Is America Yearning For Fascism
Chris Hedges: The similarities between the former Bush Administration and those of a fascist government were overwhelming. And when a recent billboard popped up with a photo of W and the caption Miss Me Yet? it has to make you wonder whether or not Americans actually prefer a fascist form of government. Thats exactly the question that best-selling author Chris Hedges has posed, and he recently spoke to Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio about his reasoning behind this very serious observation.
BP and the Little Eichmanns
By Chris Hedges: Cultures that do not recognize that human life and the natural world have a sacred dimension, an intrinsic value beyond monetary value, cannibalize themselves until they die. They ruthlessly exploit the natural world and the members of their society in the name of progress until exhaustion or collapse, blind to the fury of their own self-destruction. The oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico, estimated to be perhaps as much as 100,000 barrels a day, is part of our foolish death march. It is one more blow delivered by the corporate state, the trade of life for gold. But this time collapse, when it comes, will not be confined to the geography of a decayed civilization. It will be global.
Chris Hedges – War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning
talkingsticktv — May 02, 2010 — Talk by Chris Hedges author of “War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” given April 23, 2010 at the 8th Annual Western Regional International Health Conference “War & Global Health” held at the University of WA in Seattle.
Chris Hedges on Poverty and the Permanent Lower Class
VIDEO – Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary brought Chris Hedges to their Poverty Scholars Strategic Dialogues on Media and Religion and he delivered a monumental address urging the poor deal effectively with the right wing’s grip on power, counter their fascistic racial targeting of Islam and other scapegoats like immigrants, gays, feminists, and lefties, by getting the public to see it’s a deliberate distraction to prevent our realizing the need to replace obsolete economic institutions, a corrupt media, and a criminal government lacking in legitimacy. Poverty Initiative convened 90 Poverty Scholars–low-income organizers, faith leaders and media makers from over 41 organizations. Check out povertyinitiative.org and help make change happen!
Chris Hedges: One Marine’s ‘Liberty Walk’ for the Rest of Us
I met Ernest Logan Bell, a 25-year-old Marine Corps veteran, as he walked along Route 12 in upstate New York with a large American flag strapped to the side of his green backpack. There was a light drizzle and he was wearing a green Army poncho. Bell was on a six-day, 90-mile-long self-styled “Liberty Walk” from Binghamton to Utica in a quixotic campaign to challenge Democratic incumbent Rep. Michael Arcuri in the 24th Congressional District.
Ethnically Cleansing Palestinians by Chris Hedges (Video)
By Chris Hedges. The author spoke at the Revolution Books Town Hall Meeting at Ethical Culture Society on January 13, 2009 condemning Israel and USA complicity in Israel’s murderous destruction and genocide of the innocent men, women and children of GAZA and the West Bank.
Is America ‘Yearning for Fascism’?
Chris Hedges: The shouting of racist and bigoted words at black and gay members of Congress, the spitting on a black member of the House, the tossing of bricks through the windows of legislators’ offices, are part of the language of rebellion. It is as much a revolt against the educated elite as it is against the government. The blame lies with us. We created the monster.
The Health Care Hindenburg Has Landed By Chris Hedges
The only good news is that health care stocks and bonuses for the heads of these corporations are shooting upward. Chalk this up as yet another victory for our feudal overlords and a defeat for the serfs.
Ralph Nader Was Right About Barack Obama
Chris Hedges-Truthdig: We owe Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney an apology. They were right about Barack Obama. They were right about the corporate state. They had the courage of their convictions and they stood fast despite wholesale defections and ridicule by liberals and progressives.
Boycott FedEx
Chris Hedges: Our destitute working class is beginning to grasp that Barack Obama and other elected officials in Washington, who speak in a cloying feel-your-pain language, are liars. They are not attempting to prevent wages from sinking, unemployment from mounting, foreclosures from ripping apart communities, banks from looting the U.S. Treasury or jobs from being exported.
The Pictures of War You Aren’t Supposed to See
Chris Hedges – The power of these industrial weapons is indiscriminate and staggering. They can take down apartment blocks in seconds, burying and crushing everyone inside. They can demolish villages and send tanks, planes and ships up in fiery blasts. The wounds, for those who survive, result in terrible burns, blindness, amputation and lifelong pain and trauma.
One Day We’ll All Be Terrorists
This corruption of our legal system, if history is any guide, will not be reserved by the state for suspected terrorists, or even Muslim Americans. In the coming turmoil and economic collapse, it will be used to silence all who are branded as disruptive or subversive. Hashmi endures what many others, who are not Muslim, will endure later.
After Religion Fizzles, We’re Stuck With Nietzsche
By Chris Hedges: We are rapidly losing the capacity for the moral life. We reject the anxiety of individual responsibility that laid the foundations for the open society. We are enjoined, after all, to love our neighbor, not our tribe. This empowerment of individual conscience was the starting point of the great ethical systems of all civilizations. Those who championed this radical individualism, from Confucius to Socrates to Jesus, fostered not obedience and conformity, but dissent and self-criticism. They initiated the separation of individual responsibility from the demands of the state. They taught that culture and society were not the sole prerogative of the powerful, that freedom and indeed the religious and moral life required us to often oppose and challenge those in authority, even at great personal cost.