Image by Backbone Campaign via Flickr
with Chris Hedges
Originally published January 27, 2013
NashvillePress on Jan 25, 2013
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Chris Hedges speaks at the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center banquet Jan. 19, 2013. Hedges and others have sued President Obama and the Department of Defense to squash the National Defense Authorization Act, which permits the government to pick up anybody they wish at any time and hold him however long they want—without charging the alleged offender with a crime and without notifying family members of his or her whereabouts. A federal court agreed and ruled the law unconstitutional; however, Pentagon lawyers immediately made an “emergency” plea to the appellate court, which stayed the law and set a hearing date for Feb. 6. Hedges retraced the history of the corporate takeover of democracy and the U.S. government, and he said the only remedy is massive civil disobedience. Hedges’ latest book is Days of Destruction; Days of Revolt.
Video by Citizens Media Resource.
From the archives:
Chris Hedges: A New McCarthyism
Pieces of Truth Forged Into Daggers of Deception + ‘Fake News’ Covers Up Domestic Propaganda Law
NDAA: Hedges v. Obama: Did The Bill of Rights Die Today? by Jill Dalton
George Orwell’s 1984 (must-see film)
Dandelion Salad 
Pingback: The Problem is Civil Obedience by Howard Zinn – Dandelion Salad
Pingback: Ralph Nader: The Corporate Lies Behind Tort Reform – Dandelion Salad
Much of what Hedges says is true, but I disagree with him both regarding when we were subjugated, and regarding what we must do about it. Hedges seems to believe that it is possible to reform capitalism.
Hedges supports the notion that our subjugation was fairly recent — perhaps it began a few decades ago, or a few centuries ago; he’s not entirely precise about it. I think we were subjugated about 10,000 years ago. Perhaps we have occasionally known brief periods of freedom — for instance, I think the USA may have been free for white males during the years 1783 to 1789 — but for the most part we have been ruled by the rich, ever since the invention of private property 10,000 years ago. The mythologies with which the rich have justified their rule have varied from one era to another, but the rule hardly ever let up.
And Hedges says we need civil disobedience, and we do, but we need more than that. The people who mainly advocate civil disobedience seem to be saying that “everyone already knows the truth; we just have to get people organized.” But I think relatively few people know the truth, and so we need to wake people up. Harriet Tubman allegedly said “I freed thousands of slaves — I could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves.” That is also true of wage slaves, the people who believe capitalism can be reformed.
I’m not convinced that Hedges believes that capitalism can be reformed. Also, Hedges is doing his best in educating the masses through his writing and lectures.
See:
https://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081229_why_i_am_a_socialist/