Chris Hedges: War is a Drug

Dandelion Salad

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.

1918 by Michael Parenti

by Michael Parenti
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Michael Parenti Blog
michaelparenti.org
October 24, 2014

Image by Diego Sideburns via Flickr

Looking back at the years of fury and carnage, Colonel Angelo Gatti, staff officer of the Italian Army (Austrian front), wrote in his diary: “This whole war has been a pile of lies. We came into war because a few men in authority, the dreamers, flung us into it.”

No, Gatti, caro mio, those few men are not dreamers; they are schemers. They perch above us. See how their armament contracts are turned into private fortunes—while the young men are turned into dust: more blood, more money; good for business this war.

Chris Hedges and Dwayne “Fish” Booth: War Is A Business

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

LeighaCohen on Apr 25, 2014

Image by tsweden via Flickr

Chris Hedges and Dwayne Booth “Mr. Fish” spoke on April 24, 2014 at the University of Connecticut. This was part of a week long event sponsored by The Humanities Institute and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The title for today was “War and Its Meaning”. The first 32 minutes of the video Chris Hedges gives an impassionate talk on his personal experiences and political thoughts on this topic. This is then followed by an amazing 25 minute Q&A period where both Chris Hedges and Dwayne Booth respond to several questions asked by the audience and as always what is said is amazingly thought provoking.

[…]

The Great Challenge-Oil + The Secret of the Seven Sisters

Image by http://maps.bpl.org via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

PressTV documentaries on Apr 5, 2014

This doc shows the US policies in the Middle East designed according to its dire need for oil. The US overthrows governments if they don’t comply with its policies or support them if they prove to be helpful in this regard.

David Swanson: Lies and War, Part 1 + What Drives War? Part 2 + Are There Just Wars? Part 3

Image by codepinkhq via Flickr

with David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
warisacrime.org
December 15, 2013

TheRealNews on Dec 14, 2013

On RAI with Paul Jay, David Swanson, author of “War is a Lie”, talks about becoming a full time activist for peace. 

“Moral Injury”–One Military Veteran Kills Teenager, Another Kills Himself by Shepherd Bliss

by Shepherd Bliss
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Santa Rosa, California
December 12, 2013

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

Thirteen-year-old Andy Lopez was killed by sheriff’s deputy Erick Gelhaus on October 22, as the boy walked home in his Latino neighborhood in Santa Rosa, California. The Iraq War veteran claims he mistook the eighth-grader’s toy rifle for a real one.

A month later another Army vet, Paul Duffy, took his own life nearby. Duffy, as some friends called him, was found by his wife hanging from a rope in the writer’s cabin he had built outside his Tomales home by the Pacific Ocean.

The Man From the North: The War On Terror is a Typo by Rivera Sun

The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
November 17, 2013

Image by AK Rockefeller via Flickr

The Man From the North is a fictional writer in Rivera Sun’s novel, The Dandelion Insurrection. The novel takes place in the near future, in “a time that looms around the corner of today”, when a rising police state controlled by the corporate-political elite have plunged the nation into the grip of a hidden dictatorship. In spite of severe surveillance and repression, the Man From the North’s banned articles circulate through the American populace, reporting on resistance and fomenting nonviolent revolution. This article is one of a series written by The Man From the North, which are not included in the novel, but can be read here.

Drone Island in the East River by David Swanson + UNMANNED: Americas Drone Wars (clip)

by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
warisacrime.org
October 24, 2013

Image by Abode of Chaos via Flickr

Remarks at New York University forum with http://NYACT.net.

The primary problem with weaponized drones is that the weapons murder people. And they murder people in a way that looks more like murder to a lot of observers than other forms of military murder do — such as murder by indiscriminate bombing or artillery or infantry or dropping white phosphorous on people.

Chris Hedges: Afghanistan, the Longest War in US History

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

wearechange on Oct 7, 2013

Chris Hedges on the 12 year war in Afghanistan anniversary.

Chris Hedges: What Are the Myths, Realities and Costs of War? (2005)

Image by pixieclipx via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

C-SPAN
Dec 8, 2005

Mr. Hedges spoke to students about the myths and costs of war, and about his experiences in various war zones as a war correspondent. He also talked about opposition to warfare, social and political activism in response to violence and warfare, and representations of war through the eyes of the press. The event was moderated by Mr. Mileweski and Mr. Hedges responded to questions from students in the audience. Chris Hedges is the author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, published by PublicAffairs.

Want to Buy a War? The MoD Wants to Sell You One by Lesley Docksey

by Lesley Docksey
Writer, Dandelion Salad
England
September 27, 2013

Image by chrisjohnbeckett via Flickr

The UK Ministry of Defence is worried; worried that the public have become ‘risk averse’ to the point that we won’t want to go to war anymore; so worried that in November 2012 they wrote a report – The Implications of Current Attitudes to Risk for the Joint Operational Concept – made public today by the Guardian. The report, while purportedly studying ‘risk’, is really asking ‘How do we sell war to the public’?

The Folly of ‘Commemorating’ War by Lesley Docksey

by Lesley Docksey (with grateful thanks to Nick Spurrier)
Writer, Dandelion Salad
England
September 9, 2013

Any student of history knows that many of the problems the Middle East and Africa are now experiencing stem from the Great Powers having parcelled up the land, drawn borders where none had existed and put into power various friendly leaders in the aftermath of World War I. That includes the failures of Western actions in Iraq and Libya, and the ongoing failure of Syria, the West’s refusal to accept a popular President in Bashar al Assad and its efforts to undermine him, resulting in a horrific humanitarian mess.

World’s Most Evil and Lawless Institution? The Executive Branch of the U.S. Government by Fred Branfman

by Fred Branfman
Writer, Dandelion Salad
originally published on Alternet, June 26, 2013
July 1, 2013

Image by Franco Folini via Flickr

Executive Branch leaders have killed, wounded and made homeless well over 20 million human beings in the last 50 years, mostly civilians.

America has a secret. It is not discussed in polite company or at the dinner tables of the powerful, rich and famous.

Parents do not teach it to their children. Best-selling authors do not write about it. Politicians and government officials ignore it. Intellectuals avoid it. High school and college textbooks do not refer to it. TV pundits do not comment on it. Teachers do not teach it. Journalists from the nation’s most highly regarded TV news shows, newspapers and magazines, do not report it.

Humanity Imperiled–The Path to Disaster by Noam Chomsky

Image by Synne Tonidas via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

by Noam Chomsky
www.tomdispatch.com
June 4, 2013

War Is A Soulless Void by Chris Hedges

Repost of War Is Betrayal by Chris Hedges.

by Chris Hedges
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
July 13, 2012

Image by daveeza via Flickr

This piece originally appeared in the Boston Review.

We condition the poor and the working class to go to war. We promise them honor, status, glory, and adventure. We promise boys they will become men. We hold these promises up against the dead-end jobs of small-town life, the financial dislocations, credit card debt, bad marriages, lack of health insurance, and dread of unemployment. The military is the call of the Sirens, the enticement that has for generations seduced young Americans working in fast food restaurants or behind the counters of Walmarts to fight and die for war profiteers and elites.