Sent to DS by David Gutnick, CBC radio
with Chris Hedges
CBC Radio’s Ideas
By David Gutnick
Paul Kennedy, interviewer
February 9, 2015
Chris Hedges (Photo credit: Dandelion Salad)
Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges spent decades as a war correspondent for the New York Times and other publications before the suffering he witnessed became too much to bear.
Now he is minister of social witness and prison ministry at the Second Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth, New Jersey, a popular public speaker, and an author and freelance columnist who does not shy away from controversy.
[…]
Listen: http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/ideas_20150209_82879.mp3
via http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ex-correspondent-chris-hedges-on-covering-war-dealing-with-ptsd-1.2947101 (with a partial transcript)
see
from the archives
Chris Hedges: We’ve Decapitated More Civilians Than ISIS Ever Has
The Ordination Service for Chris Hedges, with Cornel West
Chris Hedges Booed off the Stage as He Delivered a Graduation Speech on War and Empire (2003)
Chris Hedges: Media Sanitizes War
Chris Hedges: War is a Force that Gives us Meaning (2004; must-see; transcript)]
Dandelion Salad 
War is a addiction, however many killed or maimed cannot satisfy the lust for more blood, in particular countries that have developed advanced weaponry such as Britain, America, France and those countries having had a history of colonization, just cannot help themselves, this phenomena coincides with a mind set of superiority having the belief those killed are all part of the culling system of mankind ridding itself of those deemed as little more than cattle ready for the abattoirs, this propensity is the same as dogs here in Australia, once they taste blood it becomes a addiction, the lofty turrets of the ecstasy on hearing The London Philharmonic Orchestra, backed with the restrains of The London Philharmonic Choir, exalting us to heavenly highs, have little to no effect upon these issues, of wholesale violence, endorsed by the State and murder being no longer a crime on the contrary, those who are the most reckless are rewarded with either their name in marble in the village square, exalting the marvel of their deeds, or a medal, and those who die young have the bonus of being killed in action as opposed to those who suffer the vagaries of age, as the young die are good, whereas personnel such as myself is by necessity of age evil or at least not to be trusted,
Don W., Good post! As individuals, we seemed to have learned very little from the massive wars in the past century which was the bloodiest one ever, and started off this century waging “crimes against humanity” from the get go, and now believe a nuclear war is winnable.
Look at the robotic police forces, heavily militarized and literally scared of their own shadows, and the murder they are getting away with, especially here in the U.S. but in too many other countries as well.
The United Nations is a farce, and even more of a joke is the International Criminal Court at the Hague in Belgium. They pick and choose who they want to prosecute for ulterior reasons, but refrain from going after criminals in the United States or it’s vassal governments abroad.
As long as people rely on the armed forces (of any nation) for a job, most of them will justify the murder, mayhem, misery and suffering they’ve caused to people they don’t know or who have done nothing to them.
Throughout history, men (and now women) have sold their souls for “thirty pieces of silver” and economic security for themselves and their families, justifying their actions for whatever reasons.
American Hubris is at an all time high, and the slimy, deceitful politicians in Washington, D.C. who serve the rich and the super-rich are in for a rude awakening. Maybe I’m wrong. Time will tell.
The world is changing at a rapid pace, an unnatural one at that, where people in industrialized nations are starting to lose everything they take for granted now, which was hard fought for by working-class people who came before us. Meanwhile, the rich filth have become richer, and richer. Billionaires? Does anyone need that much money to live comfortably?
Welcome to the new millennium!