HEDGES: Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt

[Oscar]

HEDGES: Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt


QUOTE: " . . . he argues Canada is suffering the same disease of decay."
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MUST LISTEN - Chris Hedges on The Current - July 9, 2012 (24 minutes)

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/news-promo/2012/07/10/
chris-hedges-days-of-destruction/

Chris Hedges has spent much of his life covering the world as a foreign correspondent. Lately, he's been focused on what he calls the Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt in the United States. That's the title of his new book, which documents the devastation of a series of U.S. communities in excruciating, heart-rending detail. He argues, based on reporting from countries where people have risen up against injustice, that a sort of revolution is brewing in the U.S. right now. He's controversial, a supporter of the Occupy movement, wildly popular in some circles... and he argues Canada is suffering the same disease of decay.

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Part Two of The Current

We started this segment with a clip from the classic CBS news documentary Harvest of Shame, an investigation into the desperate lives of migrant agricultural workers in the United States. Fifty-two years later, journalist and author Chris Hedges tells us the harvest is as shameful as ever.

He's written a book investigating what he calls America's sacrifice zones, including farms, mines and Native reservations. It concludes with a plea for change, much more radical than the change President Barack Obama used to campaign on.

The book is called Days of Destruction/Days of Revolt. It's illustrated, strikingly illustrated, by Joe Sacco. And Chris Hedges was in Toronto.

This segment was produced by The Current's Howard Goldenthal.

[Oscar]

QUOTE: " . . . It's absolutely imperative that we begin to understand what unfettered, unregulated capitalism does, the violence of that system, which is portrayed in all of the places that we visited." - Chris Hedges

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WATCH: Bill Moyers and Chris Hedges: How Whole Regions of America Have Been Destroyed in the Name of Quarterly Profits

http://www.alternet.org/economy/156410/
Bill_Moyers_and_Chris_Hedges%3A_How_Whole_Regions_of_America_Have_Been_Destroyed_in_the_Name_of_Quarterly_Profits/?page=entire

Bill Moyers / By Bill Moyers and Chris Hedges

Hedges discusses his new book with Moyers and the totally unchecked corporate power that is destroying our democracy.

July 21, 2012 | (Full Transcript on site.)

BILL MOYERS: Here we are, barely halfway through the summer, and Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have stepped up their cage match, each attacking the other, throwing insults and accusations back and forth like folding chairs hurled across the wrestling ring.

Governor Romney pummels away at the economy; President Obama pummels away at Mr. Romney—when he was or wasn’t at his company Bain Capital, his tax returns and his offshore accounts. All the while, as they bob and weave their way through this quadrennial competition, punching wildly, the real story of what’s happening to ordinary people as capitalism runs amok is largely ignored by each of them. But not in this book “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt”—an unusual account of poverty and desolation across contemporary America. It’s a collaboration between graphic artist and journalist Joe Sacco, and my guest on this week’s broadcast, Chris Hedges.

CHRIS HEDGES: All of the true correctives to American democracy came through movements that never achieved formal political power.

BILL MOYERS: This is just the latest battle cry from Hedges, who, angry at what he sees in the world, expresses his outrage in thoughtful prose that never fails to inform and provoke. As a correspondent and bureau chief for “The New York Times,” he covered wars in North Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East—leaving the paper after a reprimand for publicly denouncing the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

MORE:

http://www.alternet.org/economy/156410/
Bill_Moyers_and_Chris_Hedges%3A_How_Whole_Regions_of_America_Have_Been_Destroyed_in_the_Name_of_Quarterly_Profits/?page=entire

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Veteran journalist Bill Moyers is the host of “Moyers & Company,” airing weekly on public television. Check your local listings.

More at www.billmoyers.com

Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, is a senior fellow at the Nation Institute. He writes a regular column for TruthDig every Monday. His latest book is Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.