Chris Hedges "The Politics of Cultural Despair" 

Partly why they did it that way; it's virtual/pandemic related. It's meant to convey the emptiness intentionally.

Very cool. I'm sure hollywood will steal this scene

@Incognito Bandito I think so as well. What would you think the empty room would give it more relevance? Or it wasn't on purpose?

@Incognito Bandito it's a wonder he is still alive. Together with Noam Chomsky. true prophets in modernity.

The empty chairs are significant . . . . indicating the 'empty' minds of the people who do not think deep enough to see what is actually going on.

We are too preoccupied with big screen TV, big houses and cars, drama, religion, and sports. It’s all a purposeful distraction.

This. I’m not even a US citizen but to me, this speech is to be placed just between MLK‘s I have a dream and Charlie Chaplins end monologue. Imagine him as a president but he would need a lot of support similarly intelligent and empathic, courageous.

originalgospel.blog

Well said.

Yes and with more lockdowns coming, say goodby to the theater industry, along with the resturaunt industry, and small business in general. Amazon, walmart and other big corporations continue to make record profits as they eat small business alive.

Is it not during a pandemic?

@@paulamcminn5480 Yes but the evoked image is a very powerful symbol of how disconnected most people are of reality.

He's not alone

*GASP* It truly is! Great observation! I need to find a (heh, totally legal way, heh) to download this lecture for this very reason! I mean, it's this way because of Covid, but that, in and of itself, says so much about this time.. . . and Covid aside, the "organic metaphor," as we "creative nonfiction" writers call it, (aka just a real-life metaphor, LOL) is SO, SO poignant. . . the lone voice in the wilderness.. . . heartbreakingly beautiful in its way. I love this man; I don't know how he bears his burden. I've been reading (okay, listening to the audiobook of) "America, The Farewell Tour," and I do recommend the audio version because it's a beast and just not for the faint of heart; I'm not sure I could get through the print book of this one, BUT it's great. It's made me question *so much*, and it's not like Hedges is new to me! It even made me take a second look at issues I thought were kind of non-issue in the greater scheme, like antifa and porn--especially porn, damn what a chapter! Anyway, I love this man, and I love all of you--for being here instead of "clicking on" and looking away. Stay strong, comrades, brothers and sisters, fellow humans. . . however this ends, fight the good fight, go with love and light.

It says so much about the sad state of the US to see one of the greatest humanists and intellectuals of our time, possibly THE greatest, speak to an empty room. Even large academic studies have shown that the US is a corporate oligarchy with 2 conservative parties that work for corporations & wealthy elites, and millionaire Congressional “representatives” from both parties who pass policy that does not reflect the will of the majority of the people, but that is favorable to the corporations and wealthy elites who donate to Congressional campaigns and provide multimillion dollar elite class jobs to the family members of Congressmen and Senators and to the representatives themselves once out of office. Members of Congress are even free to buy and sell stock based on insider information that they receive as members of the various Congressional committees. It’s all blatant bribery. Although we don’t officially have “state media,” we have its equivalent or worse in our corporate controlled media. Our horrible educational system doesn’t teach our children the true history of our country built upon genocide and slavery, or of the history of the dirty wars and coups of the American Empire. The people don’t have a clue as to what’s going on. And the corporate cable news media channels which are all controlled by either the Republicans or the Democrats, divide and conquer the working class and disintegrating middle class by keep their watchers actually believing that they belong to Team Red or Team Blue and that it’s the other team, not the corporate state and ruling elites who are keeping the status quo, with its immense and ever growing wealth inequality, a minimum wage that isn’t a living wage, unaffordable healthcare, unaffordable college, spending more and more on the military to make fortunes for defense contractors, and keeping the majority of the people in a condition of debt peonage, with a majority who can’t afford to recover from a $400 financial setback. If only the American people would wake up and stop believing that this is a meritocracy or that they’re all one good idea away from becoming a billionaire, then we just might garner the power to join together and through revolt, stand up to the oppressive climate- destroying corporate oligarchy.

He referred to the attempted kidnapping of the Michigan governor. There was only 1 person in that group that wasn't being paid by federal law enforcement. How can that be anything but a false flag? I'm 5 minutes in and I'm pretty sure he is a communist death cultist. I can explain why, and it's my scholarly opinion.

You just described the US.

Greate quote I really like it but I have a question... if you love your servitude then are you really a slave? To me slave has to be unhappy, doing something against his/her will... if you're happy then...?

@@MarkoMijuskovic slavery isn't a matter of happy or unhappy. it's a matter of control. the mastery of another perceived as inferior to oneself. in other words it's a characteristic not a feeling.

@@intuitionz1198 I see your point but I don't think it's that clearly cut out. I mean if they feel free then who are you to tell them otherwise? Suppose we have two groups, one lives as slaves but very happy ones who are not even aware that they are slaves because their masters provide them with everything that they need to be happy. The other group is fully free, masters of their own fate, but they struggle with survival and life in general is miserable. Which one would you rather be? I guess what I'm trying to get to is that if you're a slave but you're not aware of it because all your needs are met and you are happy then why does it matter?

To paraphrase a silly but fun film, Welcome to New World. God save us all, if it is right that (s)he should do so.

lol

My 67 years.. I used to think so. Here's what they're NOT saying! Because NO ONE talks about Israel & Zionists amongst us, the L&R arms of the ROTHSCHILD octopus. Power is going EAST, the Belt&Road Project. Greater Israel using us, stealing our tech, blaming Russia, lol. AIPAC, BIRD & BARD, Amazon Pentagon Cloud & Intel chips in Israel now. The U.S. is going down. ALL PLANNED FOR DECADES! BRENDON O'CONNELL channel & videos! (bitchute.com if not on RU-vid.) THE ANTEDOTE, podcast. JOHNNY GATT channel. RU-vid "HOW THE MILITARY KNOWS ISRAEL DID 9-11" It's time to get the U.S Companies but really Israel, in Cyber-security, in space, OUT OF OUR COUNTRY. TIME TO END AID TO ISRAEL. TIME TO GET DUAL CITIZENSHIP KUSHNER OUT OF OUR WHITE HOUSE. TIME TO SHUT PIEZNICK UP! KISSINGERS LAPDOG! TOLD ALEX JONES THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS OUTDATED! while drooling Hebrew about Kushners peace deal between ISRAEL & Arabia recently, lolololol. Move on! This implosion is DELIBERATE!

@@susanmcdonald9088 yes. And don’t forget about the federal reserve. It could be argued the financial impoverishment of the nation is due to the usurious policies of the fed. which is a privately owned banking cabal and deceptively called federal. Ed Griffins book “The Creature from Jekyll Island” should be required high school reading.

@@susanmcdonald9088 Too many roads lead to israeli intervening that is why i not disagree.

@@susanmcdonald9088 talk much? Crazy loon

Pity he wasn't reporting much truth here, I've watched Hedges for years and the work he does is exceptional but when it comes to the Liberal pushed lie of CO2 caused Manmade climate change he is totally wrong and has no idea what he's talking about. These fools at IPCC etc pushing all these dire predictions and yet they've been wrong 100% but Hedges believes them and repeated some of their lies here.

I've not been so fortunate. I listened to this guy too long before learning to turn a deaf ear to his boilerplate rants.

@@correspondencecommittee5746 but we're the few who have.

@@correspondencecommittee5746 He's been a bit of a broken record recently sure, saying this as someone who has read his books too. But could you elaborate on your objections to his ideas? I'm sincerely interested in someone who was "inside" his opinions and now rejects them. For instance, I think I have a relatively rare perspective because I held hardcore establishment neoliberal positions and I worked for the DC machine and the Democratic party but now I've escaped.

Not my ears.

@@correspondencecommittee5746 You can't handle the truth.

This is actually poignant and excellent metaphor. Think about a prophet speaking the truth and al he has in front of him is empty chairs as the population is mired in bread and circuses. We are all there in spirit but it’s quite a powerful statement.

That's what it looks like in Congress too. They speak to a camera while the chamber is empty

amen

I'm 3 minutes in and I've heard a couple communist buzz words. I'll withhold judgment, but communism is a straight up satanic anti-human religion.

When we were growing up in occupied Jerusalem, the people seeking to expel us from our neighborhood were Jewish, and their organizations often had “Jewish” in their name. So were the people who stole our home, scattered our furniture in the street, and burned my baby sister’s crib. The judges banging their gavels in favor of our expulsion were also Jewish, and so were the lawmakers whose laws facilitated and systematized our dispossession. The bureaucrat issuing-and sometimes revoking-our blue ID cards was a Jew, and I especially despised him because a stroke of his pen stood between my father and my father’s great-great-grandfather’s city. As for the soldiers that were frisking us to check for those IDs, some of them were Druze, some Muslim, most of them Jewish, and all of them, according to my grandmother, were “godless bastards.” Those who administered the rifles and handcuffs, those who wrote the meticulous and murderous urban plans were-you guessed it. This was no secret. We lived under the rule of the self-proclaimed “Jewish State.” Israeli politicians have exhausted this line, and their international peers nodded along. The army declared itself a Jewish army and marched under what it has called a Jewish flag. Jerusalem city councilmen boasted “tak[ing] house after house” because “the bible says that this country belongs to the Jewish people,” and Knesset members sang similar tunes. These legislators weren’t fringe or far-right: the Israeli nation-state law explicitly enshrines “Jewish settlement” as a “national value … to encourage and promote.” Still, though this was no secret, we were instructed to treat it as such, sometimes by our parents, sometimes by well-meaning solidarity activists. We were instructed to ignore the Star of David on the Israeli flag, and to distinguish Jews from Zionists with surgical precision. It didn’t matter that their boots were on our necks, and that their bullets and batons bruised us. Our statelessness and homelessness were trivial. What mattered was how we spoke about our keepers, not the conditions they kept us under-blockaded, surrounded by colonies and military outposts-or the fact that they kept us at all. Language was more of a minefield than the border between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights, and we, children at the time, were expected to hop around them, hoping we don’t accidentally step on an explosive trope that would discredit us. Using the “wrong words” had the magical ability to make things disappear; the boots, bullets, batons, and bruises all become invisible if you say anything in jest or in fury. Even more dangerously, believing in “the wrong things” rendered you deserving of this brutality. ✓✓ Muhammad al qurd, Palestinian poet and a man who lost his home to Yacov, the Jewish fat thief who infamously claimed "If I don't steal your house, someone ( another jew) else will".

Well worded. He is a rare gem. Wish more Hedges around.

A1 Nobelprize candidat, US finest.

Yes, unfortunately it’s once again a case of casting pearl before swine

@@vladimir0700 No, not really. It’s more a case of a voice in the wilderness. Hedges never gets a platform on the mass media. But if the people heard his message, they would embrace it. He does is the truth and most people do want to know the truth.

Chris Hedges speaks truth. He keeps me sane.

Arrogance is also a form of blindness. It blinds one to their own demagoguery enough to tell people with nothing that they're privileged because they were born white simply because people born not white have nothing too. He seems blind to the harsh language he uses towards white people as if the people of Appalachia have any control over the system. He brings up Flint, MI often but only in reference to how blacks have been harmed as if 40% of Flint isn't white and dealing with the exact same thing. Then in the same speech he'll talk about how splitting up people based on ethnic demographics destroys the ability to organize based on class. I would bet a significant amount of money that he's never spent any real time to try and talk to any Trump supporters yet he makes blanket claims about their motives and intent for supporting Trump because he reads some news paper data. I've never heard him call the many minority voters who voted for Trump Christian Fascists. Just white people. I could go on and on but just because he's an ordained priest from the liberal church who speaks in moral Christian prose doesn't mean he can't be engaged in arrogant demagoguery himself. Especially when he openly lies. President Trump did not strip LGBT rights and he did not ban Muslims. Banning travel from specific countries, is not the banning of religion given there's more than just Muslims in those countries who were banned too. He ignores there are demographics in the locations he brings up when they don't fit his argument. I like hearing his speeches because he does have many great points but for someone who wants the working class to work together he spends a lot of time ostracizing a lot of the majority of the working class who are white and only Republicans because Democrats demonize them as racist, sexist and homophobic also without knowing anything about them, for privilege they don't have and for intents and motives he could not possibly know without talking to them.

@@peaknonsense2041 I'm on the left of the spectrum from the UK. Yet despite our differences two things unite us. The search for truth and the anger at its denial.

@@peaknonsense2041 When you look at how every aspect of life has been monetized and how this monetization is not only a denial of death but a denial of life, a fantasy land, a mirror of the ego in contrast to theidesty loses by science, where a minority benefit from privilege and /or aggression benefit off the backs of most, and where some of the most worship the privileged to create own fantasy and bask in their glow, you realize that tbis guy is getting a little closer to truth. That is closer to what Mr. Hedges than your straw man interpretation. He has no issue against disenfranchised whites in Flint, Appalachia, or anywhere else.

@@peaknonsense2041 Can you be a demagogue if you are seeking to disperse entrenched power rather than creating it? You raise some good points, which indeed I take as a call for more people to speak to each other, and to develop a more nuanced view of society generally. However, I think it's inappropriate to refer to Hedges as being "unaware of his own demagoguery" in regards to privilege. His talking about white privilege is not an attack on white people. It's a concept that describes a dynamic/force that is real and has tangible outcomes in western society. I' don't really hear anywhere in this talk where he indicts white people or the working class, though he many times points a finger at middle and upper classes for their collusion in corporate/economic imperialism (black or white). Your point about working class whites voting for trump because democrats demonize them is exactly the point that Hedges is trying to make more than once about the dysfunctions in our democracy. I understand him to be well aware of working class white people's lives, and his book "America the farewell tour" recounts many of his experiences spending time in white areas of the country economically "sacrificed" by corporate imperialists. In regards to the lies you accuse him of saying, I'm not an expert on these issues, but Trump clearly has eroded LGBTQ rights (e.g., www.hrw.org/news/2021/01/08/trump-administration-again-weakens-lgbt-protections). Again, I'm no expert, but Trump's rhetoric has been incredibly anti-muslim, as are at least some policies (e.g, www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2020/08/26/fact-check-and-review-of-trump-immigration-policy/) Perhaps, you can accuse Hedges of not being thorough enough in his glib summations of these issues, but I wouldn't characterise this as lying. Nor do I think he arrogantly ignores white working class people, quite the opposite, I think he holds great sympathy and compassion for those that suffer under imperial/corporate oppression. It's who he's fighting for!

@@CCDR07 Yes. In Greece and Rome a demagogue could be any orator, political or otherwise. Only modern people limit the word so narrowly. And generally it's narrowed by those who are one.

You and I both!!!

@@briobarb8525 🕊️

Humans never learn. Not really.

same here, Poland.

The bible says: fear not Abraham Hicks teaches how to deal with fear and emotions Channeling Jesus an Ananda is also profound

Yes. Australian here too

@@nickiemcnichols5397 Well they don't learn history.

Too bad no one could be in the audience to hear him speak.

@@brian-beeler he spoke there about two years ago-speech online

@@eileenmc4746 I meant this time because Chris connects so very well with those in a room. BTW I've seen that speech and he was great, as always.

Same. I listen to everything I can find of him. I better get around to read some of his books.

Me too. He was the first person to articulate my despair by simply admitting he too lapses into and out of despair because the state of America. But nobody, not even Chris will acknowledge or even mention the force at the top of the pyramid: UN Agenda 21. It's a topic that is literally not open for public discussion. All of our leaders are silently on board with it. I expect to be forced off of the property I own and the house I love by 2025 per the goals of A21.

Same here. I respect Hedges far more than any minister I've ever met.

He is good but I go to Church because I need a real savior when it is time to die.

@@emiyashirou2752 you do you bud.

@Zarish Mischa Rosenfeld covid . but still , yeah , the empty room is a good symbol of our rotten times .

amen . at risk of being a total hypocrite identifying as a agnostic - still , amen to that . not being coy - i like to listen to mr. hedges at least once a week - often on sundays .

to bad voting against what you hate leads to terrible results, as Biden is floundering spectacularly kamala no were to be found. CDC pushing mandates the supreme court is striking down tyranny is here and it didn't come from trump.

It is a warning and watch nothing being done as we are distracted by the three ring circus in Washington DC.

Decay has taken the place of normalcy for many Americans. They can’t see it, but it shows up in a form of absurd psychosis which they act out.

Isn't he amazing. He is a beacon of truth.

It is a warning and signs pointing towards a collaps. Maybe I wont wirness it but my kid will, in one or the other form. Peace!

DADASH jane man tarjome nakhun age mituni neveshte khodesho bekhun mitunimam komaket konam age khasi foghe lisasne zaban shenasi daram

I okays finned being around the French people intelligently refreshing.

American sadist, behtarin ketabash

@@maryschott9765pathetic. It's racist, unfunny and pathetic

we are in a pandemic or havent u heard?

Yes, in past visits from Chris, a large audience crammed into our intimate space! This past Friday night, only our tiny production crew was there with Chris, with our moderator asking all of the questions from the zoom audience chat box. We set up the chairs as a metaphor in the pandemic. Your virtual views are symbolized by these empty chairs... and may the audience for the prophetic words of Chris Hedges continue to grow!

@@mediasanctuary Chris isn't about superspreader events, that's tRump's thing.

But no one talks about Israel & Zionists amongst us, the L&R arms of the ROTHSCHILD octopus. Power is going EAST, the Belt&Road Project. Greater Israel using us, stealing our tech, blaming Russia, lol. AIPAC, BIRD & BARD, Amazon Pentagon Cloud & Intel chips in Israel now. The U.S. is going down. ALL PLANNED FOR DECADES! BRENDON O'CONNELL channel & videos! (bitchute.com if not on RU-vid. THE ANTEDOTE, podcast. JOHNNY GATT channel. RU-vid "HOW THE MILITARY KNOWS ISRAEL DID 9-11" time to get the U.S Companies but really Israel, in Cyber-security, in space, OUT OF OUR COUNTRY. TIME TO END AID TO ISRAEL. TIME TO GET DUAL CITIZENSHIP KUSHNER OUT OF OUR WHITE HOUSE. TIME TO SHUT PIEZNICK UP! KISSINGERS LAPDOG! TOLD ALEX JONES THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS OUTDATED! while drooling Hebrew about Kushners peace deal between ISRAEL & Arabia recently, lolololol. Move on! This implosion is DELIBERATE!

Dig much much deeper I used to think so. Here's what they're NOT saying! Because NO ONE talks about Israel & Zionists amongst us, the L&R arms of the ROTHSCHILD octopus. Power is going EAST, the Belt&Road Project. Greater Israel using us, stealing our tech, blaming Russia, lol. AIPAC, BIRD & BARD, Amazon Pentagon Cloud & Intel chips in Israel now. The U.S. is going down. ALL PLANNED FOR DECADES! BRENDON O'CONNELL channel & videos! (bitchute.com if not on RU-vid.) THE ANTEDOTE, podcast. JOHNNY GATT channel. RU-vid "HOW THE MILITARY KNOWS ISRAEL DID 9-11" It's time to get the U.S Companies but really Israel, in Cyber-security, in space, OUT OF OUR COUNTRY. TIME TO END AID TO ISRAEL. TIME TO GET DUAL CITIZENSHIP KUSHNER OUT OF OUR WHITE HOUSE. TIME TO SHUT PIEZNICK UP! KISSINGERS LAPDOG! TOLD ALEX JONES THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS OUTDATED! while drooling Hebrew about Kushners peace deal between ISRAEL & Arabia recently, lolololol. Move on! This implosion is DELIBERATE!

Although I understand why he's this way, he's far too pessimistic and negative about the Democratic Party, he doesn't give them nearly the credit they deserve. For example he completely trashes Biden but Biden has been significantly more Progressive than pretty much anyone thought he would be as president. Biden is pushing hard to completely end private prisons in the US, for example, something basically no one could even imagine being done a year or two ago. Chris strikes me as an incredibly intelligent man that is allowing perfect to be the enemy of good.

Please, in all seriousness, seek professional help. This guy is depressive/affective disorder personified. A good study of the disorder, yet sadly all too often leads to suicide. I applaud his honesty in his feelings within his illness, but if you can strongly identify with him, it stands to reason that you likely too have depressive symptoms. I've seen too many people like this commit suicide. It's sad, it's tragic, but is very real. This video should be used in advanced psychology and psychiatry coursework. There's nothing but hours of depressive rants, without any positivity, not a single step towards changing anything to make any of his perceptions positive change. He has some very bizarre and warped views of the world. Sure, some of these things are real, yet a normal person would be lecturing on how people can change things for the better. Some of his views are simply untrue, yet common in those with depressive illnesses or bipolar illness with psychotic features. Very sad to see a man who seems rather bright with such a horrible mental illness.

@@CarolReidCA you're simple in the head. He was lecturing ten and twenty years ago about how to make things better, nothing ever worked, it's actually insane to continue to do the same behavior over and over if it's not changing anything. His feelings seem completely in line with reality to me.

@@aeriagloris4211 They're simply changing where the profits lie mostly from increasing pushback in the past couple decades over mass incarceration of US citizens. Biden refused to end for-profit migrant detention centers, kept Trump's insanely low 15,000 annual cap on refugees, and as of last month saw a 50% increase of migrants in detention, deportations have hardly decreased, and the profit structure has moved. We now incarcerate migrants en masse and of course subject them to forced slave labor for corporate profits as the political tide has started to slightly shift on federal and private prison reform for citizens. Migrant children speak of horrible conditions in detention centers set up by the Biden administration: www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/06/24/immi-j24.html Immigrant detention increased by 50% under Biden: www.nationalimmigrationproject.org/pr/2021_26May_biden-admin-detention.html The Democratic Party deserves no credit for preserving these systems of human rights abuses, and demonstrate daily in their failures how unwilling they are to fight against the brutal politics and structures of the ruling class.

@Lean What progressives are you talking about? This lady is calling out Chris Hedges, a stark leftist, as insane... she doesn't sound "progressive" to me.

So do i.

Fear for yourself!

This isn't the far future. This is what's already begun and will be the full reality within five to ten years at most.

What's really depressing is coming across truth seekers falling for this guy's schtick.

It's best to face the horror.

@@correspondencecommittee5746 I'm genuinely interested; where do you feel he is employing a "schtick"? I don't think he says anything he doesn't believe to his core, although I do disagree with some of his prognosis. Or are there certain facts you think he is misrepresenting?

besides, its the lies that make the truth ugly.

@@JackFlash771 I replied elsewhere here regarding my principal objection to Hedges right now as misrepresenting what's really going on with the con-rona coup underway. By 'schtick' I'm referring to his professional MO as some sort of radical prophetic voice, especially for fawning followers, when I find him little more than a moralizing liberal renegade peddling opinions which ride on the coattails of MSM propaganda, effectively keeping people bound within its sphere of influence by way of disempowering doom-and-gloom, guilt-ridden criticism, as he makes a career of jeremiads.

It’s not enjoyable to hear but after listening to this I don’t think I’ve been overly pessimistic in my own observations and assessment of the unfolding situation. Is this just the ‘winter’ described in ‘The Fourth Turning’ or something more final? Who knows. I watch with interest and horror in equal measure.

Or can't say as eloquently

@@alisonbrockbank6677 ....it's the winter of our discontent

I'd never heard the term "Christian Fascism" until this speech but it makes sense. It's kinda like Muslim Fascism.

I used to think so. Here's what they're NOT saying! Because NO ONE talks about Israel & Zionists amongst us, the L&R arms of the ROTHSCHILD octopus. Power is going EAST, the Belt&Road Project. Greater Israel using us, stealing our tech, blaming Russia, lol. AIPAC, BIRD & BARD, Amazon Pentagon Cloud & Intel chips in Israel now. The U.S. is going down. ALL PLANNED FOR DECADES! BRENDON O'CONNELL channel & videos! (bitchute.com if not on RU-vid.) THE ANTEDOTE, podcast. JOHNNY GATT channel. RU-vid "HOW THE MILITARY KNOWS ISRAEL DID 9-11" It's time to get the U.S Companies but really Israel, in Cyber-security, in space, OUT OF OUR COUNTRY. TIME TO END AID TO ISRAEL. TIME TO GET DUAL CITIZENSHIP KUSHNER OUT OF OUR WHITE HOUSE. TIME TO SHUT PIEZNICK UP! KISSINGERS LAPDOG! TOLD ALEX JONES THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS OUTDATED! while drooling Hebrew about Kushners peace deal between ISRAEL & Arabia recently, lolololol. Move on! This implosion is DELIBERATE!

@@susanmcdonald9088 peepeepoopoo

A genuine prophet. And he's treated the way that true prophets always have been.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-49HZgqz0m78.html

Chris Hedges is Charles (Chuck) Fuller , my classmate at Mark Keppel H.S. of Alhambra - Monterey Park , CA , USA (1965-1969). He was a political flyweight back then , almost a "dunno" donkey. Whenever I would do a frustrated political Daffy Duck screeding on something Republican that had irritated me (mostly in Mrs. Murphy's Latin Studies or Mr. Katz's AP American History) , typically Chuck's unsolicited reaction was disinterest or "Duhhhhh". Today Chris Hedges leaves me in the dust with his unique lifetime experience , erudition , rhetorical skill , diction , passion , and radical commitment. PREACH ON ...... Brother Chris.

Don't feel badly. I'm 67 and have learned more relevant truth in the last year than I knew in my first 66 years.

At 49, I'm still open to being schooled, too. There's still so much we don't know.

@@stillsearchingforsanity4332 God it never ends. At 54, I feel like I'll learn all I can and then it'll be over. Frustrating.

@@stillsearchingforsanity4332 at age 44, I have learned more in two years than I ever have in my life.

Life is one long learning experience, when you stop learning you stop living.

I also just discovered Chris. I'm in France, but lived most of my life in UK, and come from a European background. Chris speaks to me and I know it's an American commentary, but it could equally be much about UK. Everyone should listen to him.

IF NOT CHRIS THAN WHO?

Not enough to cry.....we need a plan to to change our system..I would like to hear someone outline that plan!

Only by a tiny minority sadly

Remember privilege is blindness

I love the guy, only thing I wish he would touch on is the that some of these right wing groups are not organic and the CVE model creates extremists. These are usually mentally unwell people who are entrapped using scumbag informants and used to push consent for more draconian control measures. We need actual viable derad solutions, CVE was a nightmare for Muslims now it's come to main street.

The only one to exceed this inflated opinion of the prophet by his cult followers is the wanker himself.

Merely speaking truthfully these days is so rare among public figures that it makes Hedges remarkable.

@Miss Dor's daughter He is a journalist, a war reporter and a writer, and has been in every war up to and including the iraq wars. And he went into the actual war zones. He speaks several languages, including spanish and arabic. He got around. Not like the "embedded" pussies that travelled with the US military and reported on their press releases.

Which is exactly why most Americans ignore him. He’s brilliant and that threatens 99% of Americans agenda.

its one thing to listen and its another thing entirely to UNDERSTAND AND ACT

I’m so sorry. Be strong. Love yourself. Love your son. Fight for a better future. Seek out kind people. They do exist.

So sad to hear about your friend. Infuriating to hear about your son having to deal with ignorant people/kids who are by products of what was inculcated in them by their ignorant families. God bless you. Keep caring.

Hang in there, friend. You are all we've got, all WE are. We are the people. We are doomed, but we will continue in fine style.

Sorry to hear your friend took his own life, we have to stop giving money such value, let's value or loved ones and our lives over money that the man makes

Your Child's experience is very common for non whites. There is a reason i moved out. I don't care if i have less money or opportunity. I'd rather live without shame of who i was born as.

Don't go either. Quit going when not one church but several began "preaching" who to vote for and who to disdain instead of how to accept and love all. You'd be hard pressed to find a Christian in a church.

Chris is a fully ordained Presbyterian minister.

His words are scarier than the angry god from the old testament! I agree with a lot of what Hedges says but dang... there's gotta be something good out there right? Something to build off of?

@@selfignorance Of course there is. But you don't stop to give attention to the garden while the house is burning to the damned ground - you deal with the fire first, front and center.

@@realcukiemonster fair point. I guess it depends on the path of each individual. I know what the problems are by now - how do we move forward on one issue? For example ranked voting

i will copy and paste your wise words for people ready to hear them

Agree With U That Mr. Hedges is Brilliant, and For Real.... But Like The Old Adagio Said...There if Not Worst Blind, Than The One That Doesn't Want To See...🙈 And Not Worst Deaf, Than The One That Doesn't Want To Hear, 🙉 Or Something Like That....i Try. Salutes From 🇵🇷.

NBC news

He's used critical theory dog whistles @ 5 minutes in. I am completely sure that critical theory/neo-marxism is a intentionally destructive and evil ideology. Society is messed up, but intersectional critical theories, are madness.

HELL YES THEY ARE THE GREATEST OF US ALL

where are you finding hope in anything this man is saying????? are you actually listening to the same thing as the rest of us?

@@jallowgayle984 Even Mr. Hedges holds out no hope.

The only ordained people I allow into my brain

Agreed. The establishment lost their minds over Trump, whose only offense against them was a lack of presidential decorum. He literally did no substantive harm to the establishment, even as they waged war on him. Imagine if someone with a minimum level of dedication and average attention span gets in.

Fyodor Dostoevski already has written it down, in his novel Notes from Underground.

I used to think so. Here's what they're NOT saying! Because NO ONE talks about Israel & Zionists amongst us, the L&R arms of the ROTHSCHILD octopus. Power is going EAST, the Belt&Road Project. Greater Israel using us, stealing our tech, blaming Russia, lol. AIPAC, BIRD & BARD, Amazon Pentagon Cloud & Intel chips in Israel now. The U.S. is going down. ALL PLANNED FOR DECADES! BRENDON O'CONNELL channel & videos! (bitchute.com if not on RU-vid.) THE ANTEDOTE, podcast. JOHNNY GATT channel. RU-vid "HOW THE MILITARY KNOWS ISRAEL DID 9-11" It's time to get the U.S Companies but really Israel, in Cyber-security, in space, OUT OF OUR COUNTRY. TIME TO END AID TO ISRAEL. TIME TO GET DUAL CITIZENSHIP KUSHNER OUT OF OUR WHITE HOUSE. TIME TO SHUT PIEZNICK UP! KISSINGERS LAPDOG! TOLD ALEX JONES THE U.S. CONSTITUTION IS OUTDATED! while drooling Hebrew about Kushners peace deal between ISRAEL & Arabia recently, lolololol. Move on! This implosion is DELIBERATE!

I'm hoping to live long enough to see someone successfully dissolve the welfare state, swap out all government pensions with 401K's, and remove the "strike clause" from public schoolteachers "gangland" contracts.

@Annie S. Tucker Carlson would make a great President, but I'm not sure he'd be willing to take the pay cut. (He's currently making $6 million dollars a year.) Of course, the potential for making tons of money is there, judging by what the Clintons and the Obamas have raked in.

Most people are too stupid to listen, sorry to say.

It feels awful.

I didn’t notice that at first soul hitting is the perfect way to put it

The fasces are a nation's most cherished symbol.

Exactly! Most people have no idea in America that the suicide rate through the roof!

Yes the american public today have no idea where we heading.

@@koorabelayo4035 they really, really, have no idea.

He is describing exactly what is happening in the US.

at around 37:00 he's denouncing violence and picking sides, when he's well known as advocating some form of violence or "social disobedience" when it suits his circumstances; and has previously stated how that has worked in places he's reported on. treading a very fine line. he's also a christian preacher now in favor of abortion given that he doesn't expand on the topic of women's rights; makes implications of a police state with army grade weapons when in reality the riots this summer caused by blm were pretty much left to their own accord. picking stats to suit a point of view is not that difficult for someone in this business for many decades and it can be frustrating to listen to, despite his honorable intentions.

All of us have seen it in history clearly outlined and copiously proven.

And we are presently traveling down that very path.

Tribalism broke up Yugoslavia, NOT FASCISM! That whole 'Diversity is our strength" LIE!

I mean, did you listen to the man. Rational thought is out for the people who need it the most. It was rational thought that sold them down the river after all. Their plight would have no argument if this country delivered on the promise of a meritocracy. It's a failure.

He didn't win it, the NYT did; from where he was fired for speaking out against the war in Iraq.

If you've never fact checked Zinn's A People's History, please do. It's riddled with factual errors, incorrect context for quotes, incorrect timelines, half truths and outright falsehoods. My junior year at university, I was going to write a general paper on it but the paper turned into a critique of how falsehoods in historical narratives alter a nations political and social trajectory because I found so many aspects of it that simply didn't have the evidence in the citations and footnotes given for what Zinn claimed, many objective claims without citations at all, timeliness that didn't match, and half truths I have a hard time believing were accidental because if the full context was told, it wouldn't have been able to be used as evidence his argument.

Yes, there is a great bit in one of Michael Moore's movies that show what a puppet he was. So sad. Great username by the way.

@@revengeoftheultaterrestria292 Much obliged.

At least Reagan God curse his soul, could pull off a cowboy movie. tRump is a worse actor than Wally George plus Wally George has far more magnificent hair.

Not true, the decline really started by British bankers who started the Federal Reserve.

Yes seeds were sown in the 70s with the ‘Powell Memo’-the call for sabotage of the New Deal. Yes, Reagan was our moral leader because cinema and TV IS and has always been our source of moral modeling, and when family modeling, PR sitcoms were replaced by reality TV, the seeds of trump were sown. Now we will glean our moral norms from social media stars, and they’ll be our moral leaders. Anybody noticing the amorality afoot, in light of a verifiable 21st century Defacto Eugenics regime?

I would broaden that statement to include the entire human race.

Sad

@Bill Randall who do you think he is referring to when he talks about christian fascists? the problem is both parties.

"No cause is lost as long as someone is still willing to fight for it" I'm sorry, I don't remember who said that.

@@dankyden Christian fascists only vote Republican my guy. The republicans are by definition a fascist party, democrats are a socially liberal centre-right party mixed with a few social democrats

Indeed

2 months later it's up to 220K almost

300 million is needed.

Share it, friends!

truth is complicated....too few have patience and the ability to listen and to understand......

He needs to provide solutions to the whining diatribe of problems that he correctly observes. Just pointing out the mediocre nature of our political system does nothing to solve our problems.

It may have been the intention.

Because of the pandemic.

theres a woman in the second to last row

@FKR No question.

Pandemic

Thank You.

If you (anyone really) doesn't feel both shock and profound sadness with Hedge's message, that person is incapable of rational understanding. Hedge's message is horrifying, unbelievably sad, huge in perception.

Because the truth is devastating and difficult to digest.

You're not alone, many of our eyes are tearing up. I have grandchildren, my heart aches for them and everyone else's children.

No. Allergies.

YES!!

Idiocracy was supposed to be a comedy, not a documentary

It has always been easy to ignore the killings, the colonization, the destruction, but it has always been there. The natives are referred to as "savages" in founding documents, and described more as a pest or a nuisance for the government led by Washington to deal with.

It's east to not thing hard when you are a white person Since ignoring it has little to no consequence The rest of the world has nothing left but rage towards the west.

Don’t watch TV. . . .Read.

Better late than never sister

Hedges has been around for some time....better late than never

He's the BEST!

Check out Joseph Tainter. Hedges refers to him a lot. He wrote "collapse of complex societies" the similarities between USA and Roman empire are striking

The real world of US. US don't represent the world 🙂

Chickens will come home one day to roost ; I fear and May god forbid this Russo-Ukrainian war might result in Russia nuking the US and other NATO nations before getting defeated …

Right!? I've seen so many lectures and interviews, much of the material is the same. This QandA was one of the better ones and really adds depth.

Thank your teacher.

Must have been as agonizing as when I had to read Jonathan Edward's "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," which I've come to associate with Hedges' moralizing politics of doom and damnation.

@@correspondencecommittee5746 You vomit a lot of denigration of Hedges, however you offer no criticism based on facts...you are the epitome of delusion. People like you are the reason why civilization is doomed...good job.

@@paulbuschman8318 'Facts.' That's funny to hear in reference to another op-ed columnist like Hedges, as well as coming from you as you carry on your own apocalyptic rant...bad job.

@@brianjacobsen5762 Both are named Chris!

I listen to Chris Hedges. Many times. I love him. He speaks the truth. Greetings from Germany

Many do! Germany was there in the 1930s.

Fr, its been what, 2 years since he spoke like this?

It's way to late!