Stories by Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, is a senior fellow at the Nation Institute. He writes a regular column for TruthDig every Monday. His latest book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. subscribe to Chris Hedges's feed

Mind Raped by the Christian Right

Posted on: Jul 22, 2013, Source: Truthdig

A former professional skier who sought help for alcoholism became locked in a cultish life that destroyed her self-esteem and independence in the name of Jesus.

Toilet Bowl Phone Sex -- The Amazing Method That Prisoners Use to Stay Human and Communicate in America's Harsh Jails

Posted on: Jul 1, 2013, Source: Truthdig

Prisoners in an NJ jail, like prisoners across the country, have built a subterranean system of communication to defy the conditions of incarceration and keep themselves connected.

Chris Hedges Defends Snowden's Heroism in the Face of a Growing Smear Campaign

Posted on: Jun 18, 2013, Source: Democracy Now!

Hedges: "If there are no Snowdens, if there are no Mannings, if there are no Assanges, there will be no free press."

Chris Hedges: Monitoring of AP Phones a "Terrifying" Step in State Assault on Press Freedom

Posted on: May 15, 2013, Source: Democracy Now!

The Pulitzer-prize winning columnist calls the revelations "one more assault in a long series of assault against freedom of information and freedom of the press."

Murder, America's Favorite Pastime

Posted on: May 13, 2013, Source: Truthdig

Strap the criminal into the gurney. Plunge the needles into veins. Haul away the corpse. God Bless America!

Will a Legal Defender of Terror Suspects Die of Cancer in Prison?

Posted on: Apr 22, 2013, Source: Truthdig

Lynne Stewart's "Crime?" Steadfastly fighting for justice in courts that have surrendered their independence to serve the security and surveillance state.

Corporate Greed Has Disemboweled America's Public Transportation System, Causing Deadly Accidents All over the Country

Posted on: Apr 15, 2013, Source: Truthdig

These are the worst conditions for mass transit since the Depression.

How America's Imperial Class Has Hijacked Human Rights to Further Its Interests

Posted on: Apr 8, 2013, Source: Truthdig

There is a campaign to turn U.S. human rights organizations into propagandists for pre-emptive war and apologists for empire.

America's Sell Out Intellectuals and the Perks They Get

Posted on: Apr 1, 2013, Source: Truthdig

And the rewards range from tenured professorships, to book contracts, television appearances, and generous lecture fees.

The Day That TV News Died

Posted on: Mar 28, 2013, Source: Truthdig

A good candidate would be Feb. 25, 2003, when MSNBC took Phil Donahue off the air because of his opposition to the calls for war in Iraq.

Gulag Nation USA: 2.3 Million Inmates, Forced Labor, Rancid Food -- and It's Making the Corporate Overlords Wealthy

Posted on: Mar 18, 2013, Source: Truthdig

Until we slay the beast of corporate capitalism, our prison industry and the horror it perpetuates will only expand.

Don't Look Away: We Must Confront the Horrific Industrial Violence the American Military Is Capable of

Posted on: Mar 14, 2013, Source: Truthdig

Nick Turse's Vietnam War book, 'Kill Anything That Moves,' shows how the trauma that plagues most veterans is tied to the horrors they inflicted.

One of First Iraq Veterans to Publicly Oppose War Will Die for Our Sins

Posted on: Mar 11, 2013, Source: Truthdig

Tomas Young is the face of war they do not want you to see.

The NDAA and the Death of the Democratic State

Posted on: Feb 17, 2013, Source: Truthdig

If the corporate state is handed the tools to use deadly force to criminalize dissent, then our decline will be one of repression, blood and suffering.

Michael Moore and Chris Hedges on the 'Corporate Coup d’État' and the Govt's Moves to Jail People without Charges or Trial

Posted on: Feb 11, 2013, Source: Democracy Now!

Scary moves by the Government in the name of 'fighting terrorism."

The Confederacy Making a Comeback in the South? KKK Grand Wizard Glorified, Civil Rights Heroes Ignored

Posted on: Jan 28, 2013, Source: Truthdig

As Southern whites sink into economic despair, more and more are retreating into a fictional past.

The Myth of Human Progress

Posted on: Jan 20, 2013, Source: Truthdig

The technical and scientific forces that created a life of unparalleled luxury—as well as unrivaled military and economic power—for the industrial elites are the forces that now doom us.

How Our Government Is Trying to Scare Us into Submitting to Corporate Dominance

Posted on: Jan 7, 2013, Source: Truthdig

The FBI's surveillance of Occupy is an explicit warning by the security services to all who consider dissent.

Hedges: We Distract Ourselves With Petty Spectacles While the World Goes to Hell

Posted on: Sep 3, 2012, Source: Truthdig

In America, when reality is distasteful we ignore it.

Dave Eggers' Gem of a New Novel Goes Right After the Decadence and Heartlessness of Corporate Capitalism

Posted on: Aug 27, 2012, Source: Truthdig

"A Hologram for the King" explores the horrendous toll that ruthless capitalism takes on self-esteem, on family, on health, on community and finally on the nation itself.

A World of Hillbilly Heroin: The Hollowing Out of America, Up Close and Personal

Posted on: Aug 21, 2012, Source: TomDispatch

In a new book Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco explore the poorest pockets of the United States. In West Virginia they found communities ravaged by drugs.

How Thousands of Clandestine Operatives Are Fueling a Shadow War

Posted on: Aug 20, 2012, Source: Truthdig

There are now many thousands of clandestine operatives, nearly all of them armed and equipped with a license to kidnap, torture and kill, working overseas or domestically with little or no oversight and virtually no transparency.

How Hazing, Frats and Big-Time Athletics Are Ruining University Life and Real Scholarship

Posted on: Jul 30, 2012, Source: Truthdig

Four years of college has been turned into a mindless quest for collective euphoria and athletic dominance.

Chris Hedges: How Careerism Is a Big Part of Our Social Predicament

Posted on: Jul 26, 2012, Source: Truthdig

The greatest crimes of human history are made possible by people with the blandest occupations.

A Piece of American History That the Corporate Capitalists Want Us to Forget: Battle of Blair Mountain

Posted on: Jul 26, 2012, Source: Truthdig

A reminder that all the openings of our democracy were achieved with the toil, anguish and sometimes blood of radicals and popular fronts.

Bill Moyers and Chris Hedges: How Whole Regions of America Have Been Destroyed in the Name of Quarterly Profits

Posted on: Jul 21, 2012, Source: Bill Moyers

Hedges discusses his new book with Moyers and the totally unchecked corporate power that is destroying our democracy.

We Need Free Thinkers Or Society Will Shrivel Up and Die

Posted on: Jul 9, 2012, Source: Truthdig

Artists, writers, poets, activists, journalists, philosophers, dancers, musicians, actors, and renegades must be tolerated if a culture is to be pulled back from disaster.

Time to Get Crazy: What We Can Learn from Native American Resistance to Colonists' Greed

Posted on: Jul 8, 2012, Source: Truthdig

The ideologues of rapacious capitalism, like members of a primitive cult, chant the false mantra that natural resources and expansion are infinite.

Hedges: The Christian Right's Crusade Against Gays Is Far Scarier Than You Think

Posted on: May 29, 2012, Source: Truthdig

The money available to the Christian right is solidifying institutions -- from right-wing universities to media outlets -- that propagate a culture of hate.

Colonized by Corporations

Posted on: May 15, 2012, Source: Truthdig

A change of power requires a destruction of corporate domination and a new mechanism of governance to distribute wealth and foster the common good.

Hedges: How Our Demented Capitalist System Made America Insane

Posted on: May 14, 2012, Source: Truthdig

When civilizations start to die they go insane. Let the ice sheets in the Arctic melt. Let the temperatures rise. Let the air, soil and water be poisoned. Let the forests die.

The Globalization of Hollow Politics

Posted on: Apr 28, 2012, Source: Truthdig

The emptying of content in political discourse in an age as precarious and volatile as ours will have very dangerous consequences.

Black Bloc: The Cancer in Occupy

Posted on: Feb 6, 2012, Source: Truthdig

Black Bloc adherents detest those of us on the organized left and seek, quite consciously, to take away our tools of empowerment.

Chris Hedges: Why I'm Suing Barack Obama

Posted on: Jan 22, 2012, Source: Truthdig

With the latest National Defense Authorization Act, the military can indefinitely detain without trial any U.S. citizen deemed to be a terrorist or an accessory to terrorism.

Occupy Wall Street is a Movement Too Big to Fail

Posted on: Oct 17, 2011, Source: Truthdig

The movement spreading around the United States and the world is simply too big and too radical to be co-opted by political parties or establishment groups.

Why Corporate Elites Should Be Petrified of Occupy Wall Street

Posted on: Oct 10, 2011, Source: Truthdig

The occupation of Wall Street has formed an alternative community that defies the profit-driven hierarchical structures of corporate capitalism.

No Excuses -- Join the Occupy Wall St. Movement or Stand on the Wrong Side of History

Posted on: Sep 30, 2011, Source: Truthdig

Either you obstruct the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street or become the passive enabler.

America to the World: We Want Everything -- If You Stand in the Way We'll Kill You

Posted on: Sep 5, 2011, Source: Truthdig

Once our seizure of Libyan oil becomes clear it will only ramp up the jihadist hatred for America that has spread like wildfire across the Middle East.

How Corporate and Political Forces Have Almost Neutralized All Avenues of Resistance in US Culture

Posted on: Aug 29, 2011, Source: Truthdig

The only commodity our state offers is fear.

Militarized Police: Why Is the FBI Treating Americans Like Enemy Combatants?

Posted on: Jul 11, 2011, Source: Truthdig

The widening use of militarized police units effectively nullifies the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits the use of the armed forces for civilian policing.

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