bank of america. and we need to find leverage by which these monopolies can be broke and up and the power of these corporations can be true. and so, i think ron paul is pretty good in terms of empire, in terms of fiscal responsibility. in terms of constitutional rights. but the core of his message which is essentially to get government is one that i think is going to do anything to diminish the power. >> host: this is from peter, another e-mail. your claims about the way the u.s. is run seems plausible, but hasn't it always been run alongside similar lines since 1776? haven't the least always run societies? >> guest: yes. everything that one could argue that the battle for american democracy has been one long battle against those elite.

that, you know, the native americans, african-americans, women, men without property, none of these people were invited to the constitutional conventions. it became a battle to open up american society, and these radical movements do that. so, none of these radical movements achieve political power, but they were potent forces that the power had to reckon with. i think the destruction of those movements has disempowered as. one could argue that in april, 1968, the most powerful political figure in the unit states was martin luther king. johnson was scared to death of him. the year before, team had denounced the vietnam war. it is because when king went to memphis, 50,000 people went within. i think we have to rebuild those moments. ..

>> you know, all of these people are figures that at no didn't me those concessions, and they never achieved formal positions of par, -- power, nor, frankly, did they strive to achieve normal positions of power. >> host: this tweet from nyc118 for you, mr. hedges, what do you think of oprah's role in the culture and religious pursuit of personal wealth?

>> guest: negative. oprah peddles this fantasy that we can have everything we want if we just focus on happiness and grasp that we are truly exceptional and dig deep enough within ourselves, and this is just magical thinking. it's not just peddled by oprah, i don't want to pick on oprah. the christian right does it, hollywood does it, corporate, corporatism does it. tony robbins, self-help gurus do it. and it's just a myth. and, frankly, it's a myth that's used to beat up on the poor. so there are no jobs in camden. they used to make campbells soup in cam men, and even that's gone. the schools are dysfunctional, gigantic dropout rate, the streets are unsafe. and to somehow tell a poor black child who who's not getting an adequate education, not being raised in an environment that provides safety and security and nurturing and upon that being

tossed out into a city where there is no work, that they have to dig deep enough within themselves is really a way for us to turn our backs on the vulnerable and the poor and to say you are responsible. this is what the cultural message is, you are responsible for your fate. and that's just the way the corporate state wants it. as it sheds job after job after job. as larger and larger segments of american society are reduced to the subsistence level without any kind of job security, without any kind of adequate health insurance, that it's sort of their fault because they haven't managed to tap into their inner strength. um, this is not only delusional, but in the end, i think, callous to the weak and to the poor and to the working class. >> host: does campbells have any presence left in camden? >> guest: yes. they have a kind of international office, but it's a complete ligated community. you take the train to cam

camden, you go through the gate, and you don't go out again. they don't make soup there anymore. >> host: glenn, good afternoon, you're on booktv on c-span2. >> caller: thank you very much. mr. hedges, some people now say the holocaust is a lie. at the time, at least, some people had the excuse of saying they didn't know because there was no television and internet and stuff like that. now with what's going on in syria, you can see the torture and the atrocities and all that kind of thing, and the peaceful protesters, they're carrying signs that say, i guess it comes primarily from the holocaust, all it takes, um, is for good people to do nothing and evil people will triumph or whatever exactly it is. um, i don't know exactly what you should do, but when you see, um, some of this atrocious stuff coming out of syria in particular and some of these

other arab nations going on now, don't you think we should be -- i mean, i'm not talking as some, um, trigger-happy armchair warrior or anything. i was against the iraq war -- >> host: what's your question? >> caller: don't you think there's something more we could be doing, um, in situations like syria now? >> guest: well, i supported the intervention in bosnia. i was much more skeptical about the intervention in libya. we became embroiled in a six-month-long civil war in libya, hundreds of people, thousands of people perhaps died, we don't know the actual count. once you stop using cruise missiles and sophisticated weaponry like that, you inevitably have civilian casualties. i think intervention in syria would probably not be quick or

easy. um, and in terms of loss of life as we saw in libya may, in fact, drive up the body count. the problem with syria as is the problem with libya, is that they are sort of the chow chess cas of the middle east. if you remember the revolutions in eastern europe, the polish government eventually built a kind of coalition with solidarity, east germany and the communist regime went down as it did in sec slovakia -- czechoslovakia relatively peacefully. there was violence, but not as we saw in chow chess ca where thousands of people were murdered in the city where the rebellion began. and i think in libya and syria we've seen the same kind of recals trance on the part of the

regimes, they're quite happy to kill their own, and it's tough to know how to respond. but i think libya's an example of, perhaps, how we don't want to respond in syria, you know? what we have to do is put as much pressure as we can on the outside, but i think becoming embroiled in a is -- in a syrian civil war is not astute. >> host: about 50 minutes left with this month's "in depth" guest, christopher hedges. for what did you win the pulitzer? >> guest: i was part of a team of reporters that won a pulitzer prize for our coverage of al-qaeda. i was based in paris, and i covered al-qaeda in europe -- not in germany, i don't speak german. >> host: and he is the author of nine nonfiction books, his most recent book is "the world as it is," a compilation of his columns from truth dig, and his newest book will be coming out in the june. will that also be published by the nation?

>> guest: yes, with joe sacco who's done some amazing stuff. >> host: queens, new york, you're on. happy new year. >> caller: happy new year. thank you for what you do, sir. i appreciate what you said about men of privilege fighting for social justice. one such man, mr. john brown, who back in 1859 died along with his six sons for the cause of freedom and against slavery. fast forward a couple of generations, and argentinean doctor went to cuba to fight, also, for freedom. and i think in today's world no matter where you are, what color your skin is, we can all see truth, and we can all see injustice. and here in new york there's a stop and frisk policy that plain bely violates the -- plainly violates the fourth amendment, however, it's only brought against poor black and latino men. and i think whatever your color is, as human beings, as americans we have to stand up for the constitution or for the spirit of the constitution, the

declaration of independence that says god gives rights to men, that men cannot take away. and, again, thank you for what you do, and we would really appreciate you to help voice the stop and frisk in new york city against the violation of the fourth amendment. >> guest: well, i've already told carl dicks and cornel west the next time they go up and get arrested at a stop and frisk event in harlem, i'll join them. i've got a court date on january 20th for my arrest in front of goldman sachs, so i want to ration my court dates, but after i go to court, i'll get arrested again. >> host: was that as part of the occupy? >> guest: yes. cornell and i did a people's hearing of goldman sachs in zucotti park where it was broadcast live by a station in new york where we had people who had lost their homes, lost their jobs come and testify and then several hundred of us marched to the headquarters of goldman sachs and then a group of us sat down and linked arms and were arrested in front of goldman sachs. >> host: i don't know if you

read your erstwhile newspaper this morning or not or saw the picture of zucotti park. >> guest: i did. >> host: any reaction to the, to that picture and that story about the park? it was barren and now they're checking bags? >> guest: yeah, right. well, i mean, they -- the foolishness of these corporate forces, they think they can physically push people out of these spaces, and the problems will go away. the problems aren't going to go away. the movement's not going to go away. and how will it manifest itself in the future, i don't know. none of us know. but because they refuse to address the core issues that have driven people into public spaces around this country, hundreds of public spaces around this country, because their only response is, essentially, draconian forms of police control then they're in for a really long fight, and i hope they lose. >> host: vince williard e-mails in, mr. hedges, i have read

empire of illusion three times, probably one of the most important books i have ever read, dispels quite a few myths of what it means to be a liberal. my question to you is this: do you agree with berman in the assessment that america is a failed experiment and that it will be necessary for the u.s. to collapse as a capitalist system for us to move on? >> guest: i would agree with morris in the sense that we are in the process of collapse. the looting of the u.s. treasury. i mean, the figures that are coming out that "the new york times" reported, the trillions of dollars that have gone into wall street which they've used for these obscene bonuses and swelling corporate profits, this is our money. and it should have gone to those people who are bearing the price and the cost of their malfeasance, and it's not. the -- unless there is a radical

redirection, then i think that collapse is, you know, i'm too good a reporter to predict the future, but collapse is a possibility. i mean, let's look at the banking crisis in europe and the eurozone. hypothetically. we see a lot of -- they're bleeding money out of greece, out of italy because they don't trust the system. well, countries like italy and greece are in a terrible bind because if they go back to their own currency, then their banking system will go under. and in order to go back to their own currency, they'd have to shut down the banks for a week or something, and you can be damn sure that by the time depositors showed up at the bank windows, what they had in euros would never be given in drachma or lira. and the political ramifications could be immense.

we have a very disturbing, bubbling right wing within countries throughout europe, and i'm not saying that's going to happen. but it's certainly not beyond the realm of possibility. the problem with a financial meltdown of 2008 is that we never reformed the system. they're right back doing the same kind of speculative activity that they were engaged in before. and, look, in the 17th century speculation was a crime, and speculators -- it was a capital offense. and now they run the economy, and we have no way of controlling them. so it doesn't look good because we've not addressed the core problem. and that is somehow that money is real, that we can destroy our manufacturing base and can make money by betting. well, in 2008 $17 trillion -- mostly in the form of small

holdings by people who had 401(k) and pension plans and money they'd saved for college vanished, evaporated, and $40 trillion worldwide. and if speculators retain control of the global economy, then it's pretty certain it's going to happen again. >> host: in your book "empire of illusion, 2009," you have a chapter where you visited las vegas for a month, or for a while. what chapter is that? >> guest: on the porn industry. and -- >> host: illusion of love. >> guest: yeah. and i get very angry with the liberal class and the left over their refusal to condemn pornography. why is it morally indefensible to physically abuse a woman in a sweat shop in the philippines or in southern china, but somehow it's an issue of free speech when it's done by the sex industry in the united states? when i started interviewing

these women who came out of the porn industry having suffered from post traumatic stress disorder, they instantly after a minute or two said all these people have ptsd. and i wrote, i wrote it graphically and brutally, and i think intended to engender a kind of disgust. i never write in the chapter we should or shouldn't ban porn. i just said if you want to defend porn, then you'd better understand what it is you're defending. these women -- and they're just thrown up, you know, they last one or two years on the sets and then, you know, if they continue within the industry, they just, in essence, become call girls shipped around the country and hotel rooms, and it's just awful. but they're popping handfuls of painkillers before they go on the sets. this violence, which sells -- and porn, it's not the soft-lit porn of the playboy channel anymore. it's so-called gonzo porn.

the violence is not simulated, it's real. these women are black and blue by the time they finish. they are constantly going in for surgery for anal and vaginal tears because they're penetrated by two, three dozen men in the course of an afternoon, knocked around, abused, insulted verbally, assaulted physically. and i was as somebody who doesn't watch porn, i was pretty blown away. it was really sick. and i end the chapter, you know, because the only emotion that women on porn sets are allowed to express is a craving desire to be degraded physically and morally, physically and verbally and morally. and i end the chapter two ways, talking about these 7,500 dollar silicone dolls which are anatomically correct and people take home and buy victoria's secret clothing for because, in essence, porn is really, finally, about necrophilia. and if you look closely at the

images out of abu ghraib, they all look like stills from a porn film. the porn miuation of the culture and especially in the young, most of the viewers of porn on the internet are between the ages of about 13 and 18. it's a completely pornfied culture, and i think in this, boy, i stand with the right wing on this. i think it is a symptom of deep moral degeneracy and an utter failure on the part of the so-called liberal class to stand up for the values it purports to espouse. it won't take a stand against it. >> host: we are talking with chris hedges on "in depth." he was just discussing his book from 2009, "empire of illusion." our next call comes from john in las vegas. hi, john. >> caller: happy new year. a wonderful way to start the new year, listening to chris hedges, a very reasoned man. and, mr. hedges, i would imagine your life experience especially as personified by your

appearance at rockwell must lead you to the conclusion that no matter how bright we are, man is an emotional creature and just uses his mind to justify his prejudices. and i think the most perfect example of that is your former friend, christopher hitchens. i mean, for christopher hitchens to look at henry kissinger and his involvement in the assassination and murder of a democratically-elected socialist in chile and conclude that he is a war criminal and then to look at the more egregious behavior of george bush and his lying getting us into iraq and the murder of thousands of iraqis and the murder of saddam hussein and conclude he is not a war criminal and the fact that christopher hitchens would totally belittle anyone who remotely questioned 9/11 leads

me to the conclusion that even the sharpest mind can be dulled by privilege. now, we've lost that very sharp mind. perhaps christopher hitchens had already lost his mind before he died, and i'd just appreciate your comments. >> guest: well, as somebody who has lived in disintegrating societies, i would certainly agree that human beings are not particularly rational. freud got this in civilization and its discontents. written on the eve of world war ii. where he talked about two forces, both within the individual and within the society. one being that force of eros, of love, of nurturing, of protection of life, and the forces of the death instinct, that instinct to annihilate all living things including, finally, ourselves. and that these two forces are in eternal conflict both within the individual and within societies at large and that whole societies can be gripped by forces of death.

i think the serbian society was at the end of the war. they giddily sort of embraced their own self-destruction and death. i think if you look at the end of nazi germany, there's a wonderful movie, "downfall," that i think captures it, this german film on hitler's bunker, it's brilliant. having lived in those kinds of environments, it captures that intoxication with death and longing for it. so, yeah, i don't think human beings are rational. my struggles with hitchens were that he, you know, when he was on the left or the right, there was never any nuance for him. he had been a former trotskyite and became a confidant of wolfowitz. unfortunately, you know, that is

a vision of reality that the closer you get to the ground just doesn't hold up. >> host: how would you describe your relationship with mr. hitchens over the years? friends? adversaries? >> guest: deeply antagonistic. >> host: deeply? >> guest: yeah. >> host: in your book "wars of force that gives us meaning," you write that war finds its meaning in if death. the cause is built on the backs of victims portrayed always as innocent, the dead become the standard-bearers of the cause, and all causes feed off a steady supply of corpses. mr. hedges, what's the worst place you've ever been? or the worst situation you've ever been in? >> guest: there have been moments, of course, where i thought i would be killed, so, i mean, but those were moments. in terms of a place, it would be share sarajevo was there was nowhere to hide. you sort of have to come out of the military to understand what

it was like because you have to know the weapons systems that were being used against us. 155 howitzers, katusha rockets fired in bursts of 12 or 24 and can take down an apartment build anything a matter of seconds, killing everyone inside. this was being lobbed on top of us 24 hours a day. and coupled with the sniper fire. so that was, it was like being in a, you know, in a kind of -- it was like being a rat in a cage. i mean, you couldn't get out, and you were constantly being zapped, and it had the same kind of psychological effect where it just ground you down. it was really -- your nerves break. i mean, combat units know this. i mean, you can't keep -- i think it's, they did studies in the military that after 30 or 60 days of continuous combat, 98% of the unit will have become,

um, psychologically impaired, and the 2% that aren't were psychologically impaired to begin with. in other words, you know, you stay that long in a situation like that, you inevitably go insane which is why combat units are rotated out of conflict. courage is never a constant. despite all these john wayne movies. and that was true of sarajevo, it just ground you down. el salvador, you would go out to conflicted areas, but you came back to the relative safety of the capital. in sarajevo there was no save place to be. >> host: in your book "i don't believe in atheists," also known as when atheism becomes religion, the belief that we can achieve human perfection, that we can advance morally is itself an evil. it provides a cover for criminality and abuse, a justification for murder. it sanctifies war, murder and torture for an unattainable

absolute. >> guest: yeah. the idea that time is linear. that's peculiar to both the hebrew and the christian bible. which was adopted by the enlightenment, the idea that, you know, we're getting better and better, that human progress is inevitable. it's a myth. you know, the greeks, most asian cultures see time as cyclical, that you have both within the individual and within civilizations a time of birth and maturation and decay and decrepe tuesday and death. and i think history bears that out. i don't think there's anything in human history or human nature to justify the idea that we are advancing morally as a species. that doesn't mean we don't make moral advances, we do, but we also make moral reverses. and i think what we've done is equate technological progress with moral progress, and that's very dangerous. that technology is an instrument that serves the ambitions of

humankind, but i don't think human nature changes very much. and this being lulled into this false belief that science or technology will, for instance, save us from global warming is, essentially, the modern equivalent to the ancient religious sects that people adopted as easter island was decimated and the environment, essentially, destroyed to a point where it no longer could sustain a human population. and i think we have to wake up, that there is nothing inevitable about human progress, that it's far more important that we face and confront reality and deal with it. and if we don't, if we keep this naive believe, in essence, technology sort of serves what in medieval times would have been god, and unless we shake ourselves free from that, we're in very big trouble. >> host: in your book "the world as it is," the creed of

objectivity killed the news, and you quote molly i've advance in here, and i just want to read just a little bit of that. this is molly eye venns writing. i've heard many an editor say, well, we're being attacked by both sides, so we just be right stems from the curious notion that if you get a quote from both sides, preferably in an official position, you've done the job. in the first place, most stories aren't two-sided, they're 17-sided at least. in the second place, it's of no help to either the reader or the truth to quote one side saying cat and the other side saying dog while the truth is there's an elephant crashing around there in the bushes. >> guest: well, she got it. and that's why programs like the daily show or colbert are so popular because they poke fun at this absurdity of balance. where you get one lying pundit from the right and one lying pundit from the so-called left, and some cynical, overpaid news celebrity sitting in the middle

who knows that both are lying through their teeth and refuse to say anything. and i think that that is a kind of betrayal of the viewer or the reader, that it's our job as journalists insofar as we can to tell the reader or the viewer the truth. however unpleasant that truth may be. and however it may cost us in terms of popularity. and i think journalists are, you know, if you go into that profession and you're looking for popularity, you're in the wrong profession. we should have a kind of constant antagonism to power, whoever's in power. i don't really care where it comes from. you know, figures like i.f. stone or orwell are sort of my heros because of that, and these were not impartial people, these were not people who didn't have strong opinions, but they understood that the truth was sacred. and orwell, like stone, they were quite willing to anger their leftist support.

and remember homage to catalonia, orwell's great memoir of the civil war, included a chapter where he was an anarchist, he was fighting with the plum, and the the communists gunned them all down, and orwell published the book while it was still going on. it only sold 600 copies during his lifetime, but orwell said, you know, the power of the short-term lie is just not something i'm going to engage in. and in the long term, you know, the truth has to be told even if it ostensibly hits -- now, orwell was shot through the neck and wounded, almost killed, fighting against the fascists. and yet he wouldn't, he wouldn't lie on behalf of the republicans. and that really is the gold standard. so these people were not in the way of sort of commercial journalism defined in any way as objective or impartial, but they told the truth. >> host: chris hedges is our guest this month on "in depth."

we have about a half an hour left. frieda in albany, thanks for holding, you're on the air. >> caller: thank you. mr. hedges, i'd like to know what your thoughts are on slavery, blacks in america and reparations for the oppressed. the oppressed black population. i think something similar to the marshall plan would be in order. >> guest: well, the civil rights movement was a legal victory, but it was not a victory in the sense that martin luther king and malcolm x defined it because they knew that if there was no economic justice, there could never be racial justice. and i think part of the power of the occupy movement is that it picks up where the civil rights movement left off. that economic justice is the only way to finally overcome racial injustice. that for the bottom two-thirds of americans, the civil rights

movement pulled about a third of the african-american community into the middle class, but remember, if you look at the statistics, now that the bottom is falling out on the middle class, it's african-american families that are suffering disproportionately even within the middle class itself. and i think one could argue that for the bottom two-thirds of african-americans in this country, things are worse than they were when king marched in memphis or birmingham or zell -- selma. and so we as white americans have a special responsibility because of the long night of slavery, the destruction of families, the destruction of religion, the destruction of language, the destruction of culture, even their names were taken from them in the same way that germany has a kind of eternal responsibility for what was done to jews during the holocaust. and we have walked out on that responsibility. the best schools in this country should be in the cities like camden. the most intricate systems of

familial and especially childhood support and medical care should be in the poorest aspects of this country because these are the people who have had the least chance to go anywhere. and one understands very quickly when you spend times in places like rocks bury or camden, all of the institutions that work to keep the poor poor. rents in cities like camden are staggeringly high. any kind of ability to sustain yourself within the informal economy which often revolves either around -- and families are split. you're either working for the police in the corrections system, or often times you're on the street trying to make money selling drugs. the prison industrial complex and what it has done to african-americans as the great poet has written, you know, the cell block has replaced the auction block. and that's part of the reason i teach in a prison, because these people have had no chance.

and they know that when they get out and they apply for a job even if they can find a job to apply for, they have to check that box saying they were a felon. they're stigmatized. they can't vote, they can't get loans, their credit rating is destroyed. and, you know, the last time i taught there i taught american history. what i did is bring in copies of howard zen's people's history of the united states which, fortunately, nobody in the prison vetted and taught it. zen is particularly conscious of what african-americans have suffered throughout american history. but, i mean, there were days i just walked out into the parking lot of the prison and just wept because there were so many great minds, so many great kids, they tend to be young, who wanted, thirst for knowledge, who wanted a life. and i understood, but more importantly, they understood all of the walls that had been built around to deny them that. so i think when you use the word "reparations," i think, yes.

um, not in terms of maybe cash checks, but in terms of building social programs. lyndon johnson made a step towards this, towards bringing these people back into the embrace of the country as a whole. >> host: chris hedges is the author of nine nonfiction books. in 2002, wars of force that gives us meaning, what every person should know about war in '03. losing moses on the freeway came out in 2005. american fascists, 2006. when atheism becomes religion, 2008. that's when collateral damage came out as well. "empire of illusion," 2009, the best-selling death of the liberal class in 2010. his most recent, "the world as it is," came out in 2011. and coming out in june 2012 is -- >> guest: days of destruction, days of revolt that i'm doing with joe sacco. fifty pages will be illustrations and comic panels. >> host: and if people want to read your writing or read about

you, what's the best web site? >> guest: truth dig. i don't have a personal web site, and i don't tweet. >> host: why? >> guest: oh, i'd rather read books. i think that there are too many distractions offered, these kind of virtual hallucinations. in order to think, you need quiet and solitude. you can't have anything in your ear, and you can't have somebody tweeting you, you know, that they're going downtown to go eat -- >> host: do you think at some point, at some point you will need to develop your own web site? >> guest: no. i don't -- that's all about the culture of self-promotion, i think, and, um, it's something that i really want to guard against. i mean, i don't have a television. i read, i try and read every night for, you know, two, three, four hours. >> host: vermont, you're on with chris hedges. go ahead, jack. >> caller: hey, chris, your amazing to -- you're amazing to listen to. you and richard wolf, between the two of you, i take up a lot

of my time listening. i'm going to -- i'm going toward the environment. i've got a list here of a million things, and i only have a short time. so we're running out of time. you know it, i know it, the people that know it really know it. we've been trying to tell 'em since the '70s, the environmental scientists first brought out the issue of it was the green originally. the progress is pretty grim when you look at what we just did down in durbin, it's almost criminal, the response of the united states in terms of not taking any leadership and putting this thing off. when you have a -- scientists around the world saying we only have a short period of time here to get going on this, and we're going to tip to the other side and not be able to bring it back, somehow and how are we going to do it?

we need to take this corporate. and i bet you're a marine -- were you a marine? >> guest: no, i spent time with the marines. they did make me boot which if you're a marine, you'll know what i'm talking about. [laughter] >> caller: out of the '60s. >> host: jack, quickly, if you could wrap this up. >> caller: and i'm looking at crazy horse here on the wall, that monument they've -- yeah, okay. i'm wrapping it up. >> host: all right, jack, tell you what. a lot of comments there on the table, and we'll get an answer from mr. hedges or a comment from him as well. >> guest: well, when we talk about the giddy intoxication with the death instinct, i think the, the self-denial or self-delusion around global warming is terrifying because you have two responses equally self-delusional. one is that it doesn't exist, you had 50 members of congress

sign this thing when they came in that global warming doesn't exist, or you have the self-illusion that somehow we can adapt. we'll just plant palm trees in chicago kind of thing. and the fact is, if we don't break the back of the fossil fuel industry -- and carbon emissions have gone up this past year -- we're finished, we're cooked. even if we stopped all carbon emissions, temperatures would still rise to about 350 parts per million being what throughout human history has sustained the human species. it is, it is, you know, the book "empire of illusion," the subtext is the end of literacy and the triumph of spectacle. what are our emotional and intellectual energies diverted to what? the kardashians -- i can hardly keep up with it, anthony weiner's boxer shorts, you know? every week there's something else. and it's, go back and read the

end of ancient rome. cicero, you know, in vain against the absurdities of a nero and of the coliseum and the investment of emotional and intellectual life into the arena, and look at the entertainment industry, the way sports, professional sports, college sports, celebrity culture has, essentially, they flicker like the images on the wall of plato's cave. and we're unable to see that the world's on fire. and so i think the caller is right, it really is that dire, it really is that serious. and yet the culture of celebrity and the culture of spectacle and the culture of illusion is so powerful and is disseminated in so many ways that we're anesthetized. >> host: a couple of related e-mails here. this is from paul, and we have another one here from shepherd, and they're both talking about their grandchildren.

what is the most effective action an older, dispensable war vet can do to help his grandkids have a better life, that's paul. and then shepherd asks, i want to give advice to my 13-year-old granddaughter. what country should she be thinking about emigrating to to live a happier, more moral and productive life. canada? costa rica? singapore? norway? other? >> guest: well, canada just walked away from the kyoto accords because of the -- [inaudible] so i'm not sure canada anymore. i don't want to go anywhere. i want to save this country. my family's been here for a long time, 1633. there's a lot that i love and care about, and i think it's worth fighting for. so get up and fight. and that's going to mean civil disobedience, and it's going to mean the discomfort of being arrested. and i think, for me, the really

great moral voices, wendell berry, cornel west and others, have made this decision that, you know, wendell, i think wendell's about 77, beautiful poet, writer, oral philosopher. and he went and occupied over the destruction of his beloved ap la cha mountains in kentucky, the governor's office. and as he went in there, he said, you know, going to jail's more time than i really care to donate to the u.s. government, but he did it. and i've been arrested here in washington and new york and probably be arrested again, and it's, it's not fun. bill mckibbon was here, arrested in front of the white house, bill's another one, another person i respect a lot. and went to jail for 52 hours. and i think that's what we have to do because i'm, because of my background and because of what i've seen and experienced, i'm deeply committed to nonviolence, and i think that in order to make a better world, we have to

put our bodies on the line peacefully, respectfully through acts of civil disobedience to challenge what i think in theological terms could be called these corporate systems of death. >> host: when you're on the front line like that or with somebody like cornel west, well known, are you treated with a deference, or are you treated differently at all? >> guest: yes. >> host: do people know who you are? >> guest: yes. i am treated with deference, and when i was arrested in front of goldman sachs, everyone was cuffed in front of the cameras except i was not cuffed. and the police inspector was running the operation told the patrolman not to cuff me. i did get cuffed, but not in front of the cameras. i got escorted to a paddy wagon, then i got cuffed. [laughter] that's public relations. i don't know if that's deference or astute public relations. [laughter] >> host: maryland, please, go ahead. >> caller: thank you very much. mr. hedges, i think your work is

wonderful. you talk about the media and how they don't like to intimidate the power centers, but there's one story out this foreign policy that is not covered and i think is really terrible. the united states supports a whole lot of dictators and thugs, some of which come back to haunt the u.s. and i would think that there ought to be a national conversation, is it in the national interests to be supporting all these dictators? >> guest: well, i think you saw that in the middle east, the way the american government clung to hosni mubarak until the last minute deeply angered an egyptian population that was looking for genuine democratic reform. who's interests, you know, are they promoting? they're not promoting the interests of their people, and they're certainly not promoting the interests of genuine chem accuracy. and -- democracy.

and yet they are reliable allies in the quote-unquote war on terror. and against the rise of islamic fundamentalism or islamic radicalism. but, you know, the war on terror has just become the new mantra in the way that we supported all sorts of very heinous dictators in the war on communism, including figures like pinochet in chile. you know, it becomes a kind of simplistic way to deal with the world and, i think, ultimately in ways that are to our detriment. because standing up for human rights, i mean, one of the things about being in latin america during the carter administration was that carter actually tried to take human rights seriously and alienated the hundred that in around yen -- junta in argentina, bolivia, simosa himself turned

away weapons ships, so the governments of latin america were screaming sort of bloody murder and announcing carter -- denouncing carter as a trader, and yet when you walk t through -- the only time in my life, really, except maybe in eastern europe or in iran which is on the street probably the most pro-american country in the world, that i go through the street, and people lauded me because i was an american. and i think that determining foreign policy based on commercial or corporate interests is not only morally wrong, but misguided. and winning the hearts and minds of the populace itself is a far more effective tactic. unfortunately, foreign policy has dominate -- is dominated by these interests, and both military force and diplomatic policy largely sees itself as, as making host countries amenable to corporate domination. >> host: american hero twiets in to you -- tweets in to you, glad

to see someone looking at camden, new jersey. it's like a city under occupation by some outside forces referencing your upcoming book. this e-mail from gary ham ill in strauss berg, pa. why is the political right much more articulate and effective than the left in communicating their political philosophy to the working class? >> guest: well, that's a good question. and i think it's because traditional liberals in this society are hypocrites. they speak in that kind of feel-your-pain language, clinton being a good example of that, obama does it too, and yet asidously betray the interests of the poor and working men and women. and that hypocrisy is not lost on the working class and the poor. they see it, they understand it, and it enrages them. they have every right to feel betrayed, and that's why i think the occupy movement is an important movement, because it begins to speak about issues of

economic justice. and it holds the democratic party and the traditional liberal establishment accountable for the destruction of those forces that once made it possible to be a working man and woman in this country and live with some kind of financial security and dignity. and those people who present themselves as liberals within the society are, essentially, traitors to those interests, and that's why the right wing captures that and mobilizes it because, frankly, it's true. >> host: in "death of the liberal class," chris hedges write obama, seduced by power and prestige, is more interested in courting the corporate rich than in saving the disenfranchised. asked to name a business executive he admires, the president cited frederick smith of fedex, although smith is a union-busting republican. smith, who was a member of yale's secret skull and bones

society along with george w. bush and john kerry, served as senator john mccain's finance chair during mccain's failed run for the presidency. smith founded fedex in 1971, and the company had more than 35 billion in revenue in the fiscal year that ended may '09. smith is rich and powerful, but there is no ethical system, religious or secular, that would hold him up as a man worthy of emulation. such men build fortunes and little monuments to themselves off the pain and suffering of people like somebody you referred to earlier, henderson. north platte, nebraska. ann, go ahead with your question for chris hedges. >> caller: yes, mr. hedges, um, you are truly a truth sayer, and i have two things i'd like to throw out there. one is that i keep hoping it's not true, but i have come to believe that the elections and voting is just an exercise in

futility. it's like theater, and it doesn't make a difference. and somehow or other we're supposed to believe that it gives us a voice and that by voting we can make a difference. and the other thing is that, um, i'm a disabled grandma who would love to be part of the occupy movement, but in the heart of ethanol country there is no occupy movementment -- movement. and what can i do individually, um, without transportation somehow to make a difference? >> host: thank you, ann. >> guest: i think it is political theater. i think that's the problem. just about every campaign promise that was made in 2008 by barack obama whether it was

filibustering the reform act or closing guantanamo or restoring civil liberties, he's failed us upon. and that's why i think that this movement and civil disobedience are the only weapon we have left, peaceful, nonviolent civil disobedience. it's not what we do with life, it's what we do with what life gives us. and, you know, we all have limitations and struggles. you have personal limitations, and you shouldn't beat up on yourself for what you can't do. you do what you can. we change the world, i think, one person at a time. that's why in the christian gospels the concern for the neighbor is absolutely paramount, especially for the neighbor who is poor, dispossessed, suffering. that's what the story of the good samaritan is at its core, it's about a person left beaten on the side of the road, and i think it's within your circle when you see that kind of suffering reaching out in any

way that you can to ameliorate it becomes an act that is not only one finally that is about compassion and empathy, but i think in the state of affairs of america even a political act. >> host: mr. hedges, who else is there to stop the wars and the banks but ron paul if u.s. lasts that long? who are we to vote for? and i ask that in the sense of how closely are you following iowa, and what do you think of the process, the whole process? >> guest: well, i try not to follow it. i don't really care what newt gingrich said or what mitt romney said or, i mean, nobody's talking about issues, frankly. ron paul talks about issues, but for the rest of it it's just vacuous garbage for the most part, and i just don't want to fill my head with it. um, i mean, the whole republican primary has just been sort of the march of the trolls, you know, one troll replacing another week after week. i think we'll probably end up

with mitt romney who's as soulless as barack obama and as captured to the interests of corporations as obama is. i just, i think there are aspects to ron paul's ideology that i find disturbing. i think that as a previous caller mentioned, there should be heavy state intervention into impoverished areas not only in our inner cities, but in rural enclaves where poverty has become tremendous. much of my own family comes from rural areas of maine. food deserts, supermarkets closed down, loss of employment, tremendous suffering, and i, you know, in that sense am a believer of the, you know, i lived in switzerland, and i saw a state certainly not in any ways a perfect state, but one where everybody had health insurance, tax rates are very

high, 40 or 50%. it has one of the best public education systems in the world. senior teaches earn as much as doctors. this is more towards the kind of society that i would like to see us build where we distribute our resources so everyone has a chance. look, i've spent a lot of time with military units, and the best military units never leave their wounded or dead on the field. even corpses. they still mean something. they're not just commodities, although they're utility to the unit, i suppose -- their utility to the unit, i suppose, could be argued is gone. and i've seen soldiers and marines crawl out and bring these bodies back. and these were always the units with the highest morale and the most effective fighting capacity. it's the units who left their wounded and dead on the field and walked away that rapidly disintegrated, and i think that's what we're doing as a nation. we need to rebuild that solidarity, that community, that sense that when you stumble and fall, i will reach down and help pick you up if we're going to make it. and i think we have allowed

corporate values whether it's through reality television -- i mean, reality tv is, essentially, about corporatism. it's about the celebration of values that are, that are characteristic of psychopaths; self-aggrandizement, incapacity for remorse or guilt, betrayal, one builds false friendships and then betrays them. for what? for fleeting fame and a little money. and it's just writ large throughout the whole culture, and we have to begin to question our value systems if we're going to make it. and i think one of the most important questions is what are we going to do about all those people that we've turned or allowed to be treated like human refuse. >> host: eric tremont e-mails from albany, california, although my politics are far to the right of mr. hedges, i do think that "death of the liberal class" is an interesting book,

in particular the book's blistering critique of higher education resonated with me. i am curious, was this critique prompted by mr. hedges' personal experience in trying to land a job in academia? >> guest: i've never tried to land a job in academia. i have taught as a visiting professor at places like princeton, columbia, new york university, university of toronto, um, although i will admit that i'm pretty clear i probably would have great difficulty landing a job in academia. no, it was more prompted by my deep love of the humanities. you know, a belief that people need to be taught not what to think, but how to think and understanding the true intellectual activity is by its nature subversive. plato understood this. it's about questioning structures and assumptionings. the withering of the liberal arts which frightens me, you know, we see, like, university of albany has budget cuts, so it closes the classics department,

its foreign language departments, theater departments, and everybody is sort of trotted off towards a major in economics. the rise of for-profit universities where they don't even teach humanities. this is, i think, very frightening because it robs us of a vocabulary and robs us of an ability to critique the systems around us, and we all end up serving systems. we're trained how to serve these systems which is what happened in 2008. a figure like lawrence summers who had been the treasury secretary under clinton, came back to the obama white house, it's about funneling -- he sees the bubble implode, and he funnels trillions of dollars of taxpayer money to reinflate that bubble because they only know how to serve a dead system, they don't know how to critique it. >> host: el paso, texas. jack, we have a few minutes left. please, go ahead. >> caller: okay, thanks a lot. fine program. say, mr. hedges, you mentioned

about campbells soup in camden? also rca victor. >> guest: yep, they used to be there. >> caller: but more important, walt whitman, he wrote a beautiful poem about the opening of public school and howard hanson wrote a magnificent oratory y'all to accompany the words. and it's very stirring because you said that camden should have the west schools. -- best schools. well, they have one of the greatest poems by one of our greatest poets, and maybe if you would get a chance, you would -- or are you familiar with it? >> guest: not that poem. i am familiar with whitman and the chapter on camden begins with a whitman poem and, of course, joe and i visited his grave which is in the cemetery in camden as well as his house. >> host: g. wesley, altoona, pa. as a journalist who has devoted much of his work to the coverage and analysis of war, what do you

make of carl van white house wit's declaration that war is a continuation of politics, and what advice would you give to a recent college graduate -- i presume it's g -- interested in pursuing foreign correspondence? >> well, war is not the continuation of politics by other means, war is about the destruction of all living systems, economic, political, familial, social, communal. war is something very different from politics which is about compromise. war is about death. the essence of war is death. van carouse wit is wrong. in terms of a future as a print journalist, it's really tough because the monopoly that newspapers once had connecting sellers with buyers is gone. and that no nonly -- monopoly has seen newsrooms that once had hundreds of people radically diminished, the "philadelphia inquirer" once had 7, 800

reporters, they're now down to about 200. this is being replicated across the country. it is much more difficult for a young person who begins, as i did, as a freelance reporter because there just aren't the outlets, and the internet doesn't pay. these commercial interests don't need news organizations to connect anymore. with potential consumers. and i think this means that a journalist like actors, classical actors like my wife will increasingly economically have to live on the margins, that that -- a period when you could get a job with a major metropolitan daily and earn a middle class salary are probably over. >> host: and from "empire of illusion," the government stripped of any real sovereignty provides little more than technical expertise for elites and corporations that lack moral restraints and a concept of the common good. america has become a facade. it has become the