Chris Hedges: The Cannibalization of the State

used with permission
photo by William Bowles
http://williambowles.info/

with Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
April 8, 2011

http://www.ianmasters.com
March 31, 2011

Chris Hedges discusses the betrayal of the American people by the American financial elite.

“Adequate food, clean water and basic security are already beyond the reach of perhaps half the world’s population. Food prices have risen 61 percent globally since December 2008, according to the International Monetary Fund. The price of wheat has exploded, more than doubling in the last eight months to $8.56 a bushel.

When half of your income is spent on food, as it is in countries such as Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia and the Ivory Coast, price increases of this magnitude bring with them malnutrition and starvation. Food prices in the United States have risen over the past three months at an annualized rate of 5 percent. There are some 40 million poor in the United States who devote 35 percent of their after-tax incomes to pay for food. As the cost of fossil fuel climbs, as climate change continues to disrupt agricultural production and as populations and unemployment swell, we will find ourselves convulsed in more global and domestic unrest. Food riots and political protests will be inevitable. But it will not necessarily mean more democracy.”

Chris Hedges spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. He has written nine books, including Death of the Liberal Class, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2009) and War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2003).

see

The Collapse of Globalization by Chris Hedges

This Is What Resistance Looks Like by Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges: It’s Over, They Won

Chris Hedges: Our Liberal Class failed us

Chris Hedges: Democracy is on life support in the U.S.

Death of the Liberal Class on Dandelion Salad

Food on Dandelion Salad