host: >> you know writes brace yourself the american empire is over and the dissent is going to be for a fine. how did you come to thatdit conclusion? >> first of all i'm 20 years on the outer reaches of the empire of local foreign correspondents who foreign correspondents always seen an aspect of the empire that most people have not and perhaps the military and perhaps the foreign service and i think all of the signs that the red warning signs are there. we are have run up the largest deficit in history which is a

bottom line because we can't repay it. our infrastructure and public education or working-class hollowing the country out from the inside and the physical evidence is all around us. plunging one third of americans into poverty or near poverty according to the latest p statistics. our bridges and roads are collapsing. the libraries are being closed, fire stations are being closed. these are the signs of a nation are what's called an empire that is reaching a terminal point. >> chris hedges that was 11 years ago today. do you t still feel that same w? >> yes and i think it's more pronounced.. i think it's expressed in political dysfunction in the polarization within society where you have a divided nation

that can no longer communicate. the situation with all of those schools and bridges, 300,000 schools short, 3000 staff and teachers. they are crumbling so if anything it's more pronounced. it is beginning to be felt in termsse of these messianic whatever you want to call them right-wing populists, neofascist, neo-confederate, the epidemic of mass shootings, all of these things are symptoms of a society that is in serious trouble. >> why doo you think we haven't found a road to redemption? >> because corporate forces have seized control. only of the economy and we don't control the economy ourselves but that the political system as well. and those forces have essentially seized up to be we

have watched in washington that kind of political stagnation between the two parties for various reasons, unable to get anything for her exceptns for of course massive military budgets, $850 billion, $45 billion more than the biden administration even requested and we just went through the covid crisis of all of the industrialized nations we were probably least able to cope with the pandemic and 16% of the world's mortality within the united states, less than 5% of the world population worlds population that's because we have are privatized health care service unlike most other countries. we havee no central control. again we watched hospitals, hospital closures especially in rural areas and the diminishing of hospital in hospital care to

not serve the health of the public but to serve the bottom line. >> you know selecting your since we last saw you at this table you have put out another six books and in your book wages of -- you write the last days of any civilization where populations are averting their eyes from the unpleasant realities before them become carnivals of hedonism. the road to oblivion becomes an end in narcotic. cement that sums up american hedonism and american culture. i've written quite strongly against on many levels because of the objectification and degradation of women in the form of eroticism. i'm with the christian right on

that. and that's from "empire of illusion" a book we talked about. and this kind of retreat into the cult of the self has become more and more pronounced and fueled by social media. ornstein wrote that great look of the image of life, comedy called at live, the movie. everybody is capable of making life, the movie. it's not about honesty or authenticity, it's about self presentation. >> chris hedges if any would read the first chapter of oasis of herwa billion in didn't know the word that you could say someone who's a populist wrote that? >> yes the mass was interesting because i think some of the critique are survived by forces the ultra-right, the radical right and i have written about the movement some of the

critique is correct. they aren't always wrong and thate could shake the critique but i would disagree them on the solution. >> the solution being? >> i'm i am the old-style swedish socialists back in the 70s when having control of capitalism heavy taxation strong empowerment of unions and social equality and you reach a point in a country like sweden where you have eradicated poverty. i'm from out of that old not marxist but that old socialist tradition john dewey these figuresoh reinel dnieper a very big influence and remains one of the few. so the solution is to address the ills of dislocation the disenfranchised. you have the book their

"america, the farewell tour." he asked the question what is it that drives individuals and societies to commit acts of self annihilation and that was a study and that's where he gets the word anime. he says it's about the rupture of the social bonds and when you have a job, when you have a place in society and this is why thehi whole book is important. when you are knit to a community then w goes our formed inadvertently of social control. when the social bonds are eradicated than social control becomes much more coercive which is how you get militarized police and our internal colonies, simply functioning in environments of occupation and mass incarceration. so it is going from durkheim but it does nasa question of how we get there.

it looks at the pathology of opioid, gambling and i've wrote it out of the trump before announce. durkheim writes those who seek annihilation of others is driven by -- which i think we've seen the mass shootings.st >> is somebody who went to the harvard divinity school and is a presbyterian minister what about , i don't know if failure of christianity is the correct term that christianity is failing at this point in america. is that correct way of putting it? >> yes i think you are right >> and those bonds as well. >> i think too much of the wider culture includinglu the church.

i'm talking about the liberal church and how is it with me? for me that's a form of narcissism. the fundamental question is not how is it with me but how is it with my neighbor and have been critical of the christian right that i consider them radical. it was an unpopular stance when i wrote "american fascists" that when we look at the connecting tissue with what i would call christian fascism a term used by my great professor at harvard. he was in his 80s when i had him and he had been in germany in 193519 and 1936 and watching heidelberg began his lectures. he dropped out and joined the

underground church until he was expelled by the gestapo itself and he thought this was a massive beginning of what he had seen in germany which was the so-called german christian church that was pro within on one side of the pulpit. this is one of the failings ofhe the will or will church if they didn't stand up. did not come to make us rich. he did not come to class and empire were raised or the american race above others. i think they reflected the wider culture and they withdrew from the social -- which my father is

a presbyterian minister was in north africa in world war ii and was sent army veteran and he came back and war and with was called a pacifist and was involved in the civil rights movement and the war movement against vietnam but that created fiction. i think that social commitment actually is the lifeblood of what it means to there are christian witness. >> the prosperity gospel is not one that you agree with? >> no, i think it's terrible and i think again is what we've seen is the worst aspect of the cult of the self and the consumer culture and imperialism have been capitalized by the christian i right. that's not uncommon. the catholic church did it in

franklin in spain and i lived in argentina at the end of the war and i think the church bears responsibility for 30,000 deaths. it's not an uncommon rule and i saw when i covered the war in the former yugoslavia embracing nationalism under slow pagan milosevic. have to draw an extension between the institution and the christian call. he writes all institutions including the church are inherently -- and of course my father was present -- pretty much kicked out of the church as this was not a particularly popular stance.at >> he didn't become an ordained minister until 2014.

>> you are approved for ordination before you go to the school so it's just a matter of going to committee once you've finished the academics which i did and telling them what your callers. a traditional call would be a pastor of a presbyterian church. i said i'm going to go to el salvador. the head of the committee said we don't ordained journalists and i remember my dad was seated outside who was a parish minister for 30 or 40 years and there must have been disappointment but he said well you were ordained to write and i came back after 20 years overseas covering conflicts around the globe and iar began teaching in the prison system where i met a professor and this

was before there was the college program. it was a certificate that had no academic validity. show that they had done the work. i taught to students one i of wm had taken my course on king lear said done in the supermax prison over the summer and the american history in a preparation for wonderful program. so i came back and began working with my friend michael branson who i had gone to harvard divinity school with in it new jersey and is getting health insurance from the tryst between church and the minister complained that was an ordained. so i went to the firestone

library at princeton university and and i had forgotten i have to admit almost everything. i resurrected it all and ind passed it all five exams. we had a moving ordination service where cornel west spoke and we invited all the families. it's on youtube and my wife who stole the show. >> in the book unspeakable and all that you describe what this book isn't just a second david talbott says hedges who is the son of a presbyterian minister and a graduate of the harvard divinity school has the temperamentt of a biblical prot as he rails against the of capitalism. >> i think that's probably right and i sometimes look back at my own railings and had wished i had toned them down a little bit let's not forget most of the biblical profits were considered

a bit eccentric if not. i think a book calledd the profits which was a great story. i think that's the role of good writer and the role of a good minister orwr a pastor. that is commitment to truth even unpleasant truth and my career was within the newspaper industry 15 with "the new york times" and what we really do as journalists journalists and let's talk about. journalists as we manipulate facts. we select facts and we manipulate those facts to tell a e particular story. you can take all those facts and we can all do it in it in one or another in their journalists who will the stories so it we don't set the centers of power and they are a journalist too are committed to t the truth.

marshall goes back to tell the truth. influenced by george orwell but that commitment to the truth defines a good. she. >> i want to go to "america, the farewell tour."e how did you organize that book? >> i selected what i thought was the most prominent that we were suffering the opioid crisis with over 100,000 people a year die from opioid overdose is so i time with heroin addicts. a lot of heroin addicts begin on prescription drugs and switch to heroin. and that was drawn from d my reading and i wanted to look at

how these pathologies were tearing a car -- tearing apart the country and these pathologies are the natural consequence of societal decline. >> i want to read to quote from "america, the farewell tour" one is about gambling and the source when i'm going to read is about prostitution. it is difficultt to challenge te lies disseminated by six rings just as challenging the lies of military for june the second quote is slot machines cater to the longing to flee from the world of dead-end jobs, crippling debt, social stagnation and a dysfunctional political system. so prostitution and gambling. >> so the prostitution industry which is very wealthy will put forward people who'll be gonel for half of it.

and those who speak more honestly rachel moran who wrote a book on this, their voices are quite actively pushed aside. so prostitution, and i don't even like the word prostitution and the fact that people are being prostituted because they are pushed. i covered the war and in greater institutions in the war zone. when szabo drove in the rural areas were decimated many women now living without spousesro or brothers and moved into the capitol.

it wasn't a choice. they had no othe' choice. i also saw this and the war in yugoslavia. maybe for ass small percentagef women it's a choice that my experience especially having been a more sound that people who are being prostituted don't have any other choice. and there are all sorts of studies of trauma and sexually-transmitted disease and those women and girls who are being prostituted have an appallingly short --. if people want that is a choice that's fine. my experiences it's a vast vast majority they are cornered and they have no choice. women and girls should have

choices. >> gambling. >> yeah, i don't gamble. it was really new to me. they call it in the zone and it's quite scientific. they have done also to studies than they know exactly what they are doing. that was fascinating for me because you would think from an outside perspective that people go to the slot machines or whatever they do itt to win, to make money. no. if they win anything a kind of disrupts the fact that they are thrown into kind of a coup for there are no clocks on the wall. it's ain kind of labyrinth. as soon as you go when you don't know where the exit doors and that's all on purpose. so what they seek is not so much winning that they seek removing themselves from the struggles and despair of daily life. and of course these casinos play

on that effectively and once you get into the habit, their lives are destroyed not just financially but their marriages and e their jobs because they start in order to feed the addiction and start doing things financial including stealing. >> when it comes to these two pathologies which you called them, work and gambling is there a legislative or societal cure or moral cure quack. >> no, there is a societal cure. there is no legislative cure and that is wet' integrated -- wheni did my book on the christian right eye when an with who liberal bias. in fact listening to the stories of people within these vintage

jars you have to be. it fictions, domestic abuse, substance abuse, prolonged chronic unemployment or under employment and the first title of that book is called despair and at the end i say the only way to break the back of this thesent is to reintegrate people into society and i think when i write america -- "america, the farewell tour" what i'm saying is these peopleh have to be reintegrated back into society given a sense of being dignity and meaning, and income that is beyond subsistence level some sense of meritocracy. all of that is what's going to cure it. we are going to do it legislatively by outlying gambling. >> chris hedges in "america, the farewell tour" you write that we live in a two-tier legal system.

>> i know about that because i teach in the prisons. if you worked for goldman sax or lehman brothers or if you orchestrate the largest financial fraud in decades, if you don't go to jail. and if you walk into a bodega and grab a couple of cases of beer and run out the door you will end upan in jail. ishmael reed has that great line and i heard him give a talk at the miami oak festival and he said people shouldn't try to steal. we don't know how to steal. leave that to the people. matt taibbi wrote a good book on this. if you follow the people who carried out financial fraud and what happens to them in the

courtroom in the civil courts whereci poor people were -- a lt of these counties depend on 30 to 40% of their income in fraud so they invent crimes. my favorite is obstructing pedestrian traffic. these things do harass the poor to generate income. it seemed completely two-tiered legal system and we must not forget although everyone on the right does, 95 or 96% of those people in our prison system never get a jury trial because they can't play out. they staff charges against you many of which the prosecutor and the police know you admit and thent they bargain. kidnapping is 25 years while we will take off a few and then if

you go to a jury trial you rarely have adequate people representation in all of those escharges stay. one oful the tragedies and i wod estimate 20 or 25% the crime whichfo they are in prison for often don't go to trial because they thought they were innocent. that was a big mistake because they are used as an example. you don't want to play out -- plea out. >> mr. hedges you have referenced or alluded to this a couple of times and we are going to talk about your work in prison in your book "our class." >> there are two books that to be honest i can't talk about

without getting emotional and one of them is "our class" about the culture of war on drugs. i went into the system, i come back from being overseas. there's a six-month lag when you finish a book before you start your book tour. it's kind of the dead time and you might write a proposal but it's hard to start another book until that book tour is on a whim i went to congressional facility in new jersey. what i found is there is this percentage of people within the pr system who have turned themselves into libraries and academically they grew up in committees were the schools were

dysfunctional where there was no stability growing up at home and i found such remarkable students that i stayed with it. i iin this particular book in 3 i held the class in the east jersey statesonnd had them write a play about their lives. ended up being called. >> what is the p we e showing now? >> that is the class. they are all there. i stumbled into it. it was a drama class talking about james baldwin and the great playwrights and i realized when i asked if they had ever seen theater and of course they didn't have the money and it was

exorbitant price to what to theater production so on a whim i said why don't you write so you begin dramatic dialogue. almost everything is through dialogue and what i didn't know it is one of my students. he had listened, he heard me on the pacifica station and had recruited the best writers in prison. i'm reading through it and i get to it and it's unbelievable a really gifted writer. this happened after couple of weeks and i showed them to my wife eunice and i said i think

i'm going to help them write a play. i was working on a book and it was one of those moments where -- i added another class. i can add another class that they need remedial help so i signed up 20 students for remedial help. they all came. there was a little grumbling. it was two nights a week. i abuse the system and it was fascinating because when you go in they arvery wary. i'm and i haven't gone through their experience at all and you don't express a motion in prison. in fact you don't even tell your story. you don't say why you're there and you don't often use your legal name. they all had prison names.

if people started writing seems and they were justst heartbreaking. some of them date get up in their hands would shake and they would break down. some of them they couldn't even read. .. this form of therapy. when i began, i said who wants a part, we will write a play. seven people wanted parts. a few weeks later, .. he had a rough and actual experience of someone who had been incarcerated.

and we go back. i had kind of a squad of three or four really good writers. they'd be sent to the library to write something and bring it back. it's an amazing process. but it exposed so much. not only about mass incarceration but where that came from, what they had en endured. and so i wrote the book as a kind of vehicle to look at that whole system of poverty police violence courts and of course the prison system. it was eventually performed at the passage theater in trenton, new jersey. it was sold out every night because of course trenton was a city where most families have experience with mass incarceration. we had one night for the families which was very moving after three or four minutes i hear someone start sobbing and

they wept to the whole plate. and that it was published by haymarket books. so this book my heart is on every page of this book. andd i think it gives a window into a segment of our population that's not only been demonized but rendered invisible and explains who they are, where they came from. and also their hopes and their dreams. and there are parts of it it can be very raw humor. there parts of it that a very fun funny. it's a book i spent two years on it. it's a book that means a y lot o me. we went couple of follow-ups. what was the process like to get into the prison and teach a class to begin with? >> guest: have to be cleared by the department of corrections and that is a two-month process. and of course i have since 2013

done this through rutgers university. so you need at least a masters degree, which i have. and i have to, like all of the professors i think i have to express my gratitude to the department of corrections. for them to run this program is a lot more d work. it entails a lot of work. i was a hesitancy when we began. , of course i've been in there's a lot i know all the corrections officers names and how their families are doing. they havew been great they've been really great. and i think part of it is, in order to get into the program -- about what had 40 a college degree program at east jersey state. there are hundreds that apply about 2000 people in the prison. you cannot get in unless your disciplinary record is clean.

see you have a significant portion of that prison that's working very hard to not create problems because they want to get into the program. and then we have that recidivism statistics are staggering but we've run 3000 people through the college program. now some of the simile taken one course. but 3000, of that 3005% have gone back to prisonce part of te 184 people who have finished their ba, one his come back to prison that's less than 1%. and it is a sacred moment in the classroom because they are not a number, they are a student. what they feel, what they think is important. i once taught in what's called insight outclassed through princeton university where i've also taught. you brought the princeton kids into the prison break taught at the women's prison. and i didn't like it only because thoseli princeton kids d not get how sacred this was.

how important that moment in the day is to those students. it also because knocks half of my class. give a class of 30 that means i've only got 15 from the prison. there is no shortage of great professors at princeton. it is very powerful. just as you know we finished teaching all three volumes not the abridged. and it -- you know it can be really emotional. could east jersey prison relate to archipelago? >> yes. that of course is far more extreme under stalin. not in any way equating u.s. prison system. you might be able to equate that with one tomo but they do not suffer the weight stalin's victims did.

but, there is a lot of commonality, arrest, the experience of arrest, the trial, interrogation, dealing with a corrections officer who are all powerful. one of the things you must do in a prison issue can't -- even if you are just respected for you to respond even verbally means you get a charge you lose every privilege you have, go into isolation. and so there's a lot of contained which writes about. i think it's one of the great works of nonfiction of 20th century. it's not just a history it's a meditation on morality. there is a chapter at the end of fall and you him to called a sense where social needs in god's blessing prison. who writes god bless prison because he learned his own humility. and it kept it in the red army. he comes of that kind of arrogance of course is highly educated.

and he has to decide what kind of person is he going to be? is he going to live at the expense of someone else? or is he going to accept work detail rather than a job that would protect him death rate was quite high given that working conditions in siberia and the whole area he becomes a moral being he also becomes a. christian. the two groups who are best able to endure where the muslim christian, it's a really amazing book. that chapter is the kind of distillation of being a moral being. nelson mandela writes about this. i'm not romantic about suffering but he saw a lot of it is a work correspondent and it can destroy

you. for others it can elevate. that is how we would describe our students. in fact that the sent chapter before the class. who would read roughly three chapters each student will do one chapter. the student who did the sent chapter was in prison at the age of 16. here's the other thing, imprisoning children. write about the lawrence belt was up prison at the age of 14. lawrence got a sentence to sentence the age of 14 he was not eligible to go before a parole board until there's 70. lawrence is a good example. taught a class called conquests.

at that point we do know is going to get out. you got to move quick you got to be in the hall and they tell you otherwise they charge you. i don't want to die in this prison. i work as hard as i do because someday i'm going to be a teacher liked you. people ask about hope. i can live off of that it does not change the world. maybe we do only change the world one person at a time, i don't know but that is where hope lies. there is an intangible quality to it. which i think gets back to my own religious training. i asked great radical pre-suit baptize my oldest daughter howie to believe the good draws to the good. the buddhists call karma. that's what faith is. evidence in my workha overseas.

there are over half a million checks it is snowing, december the great czech singer comes out of the balcony. she had suddenly prior which was the anthem of defiance in 1968 when the soviets over through the regime. and put in place a pro- soviet regime. it was destroyed she was banned from the airwaves. she worked in the intervening years on the assembly line at the toy factory. she walked out and began to's thing a prayer in the crowd knew every word. when you brought along some your students writing. >> guest: i did, they are so gifted. i'm just going to read two poems. one of the poems, i teach, they

don't have a in the super max prison site teach noncredit courses. if they have a ged to prep them. i do plan to six professors the other who have dropped out. the graduate of julliard to teach poetry my son is a graduate student at columbia. three it was a family affairy . [laughter] but this was a problem by mallard. it was a poem about waking up in fifth grade had abandoned him and his younger siblings. his mother never returned. his namer again? speech at tehran mallard. i waken on my own strange, mommy normally wakes me up, us rather. my three brothers and baby sister. but not today.

today i awake on my own, why? where is mommy? i am the only one awake, five children, one pullout bed in the living room. where is mommy? i walked toward the bathroom cold, wooden floors and squeaking with every step, nobody, nobody is in there. where is mommy? she's got got to be in a room, it must be. no place else she could beat. no one, nothing but empty beer bottles and cigarette butts. party time is over, but where is mommy? gone. not only is she gone but where? gone is her security, gone is my innocence. gone is my childhood. ushering in responsibility prematurely, gone is a mother's love for her children.

gone is the protection. gone, but where? will she come back? i don't know. but if she ever does i will have already been gone. cookson just got my papers which were brilliant. this is easter g? >> guest: i know some are watching and c-span in prison. one of my really remarkable students, francisco wills, with this paper slipped in a bunch of poems he wrote. this isoe just one of them. it's called urgency. before the source of words drowns the sea of stones and forgetfulness, and life so easily threatened by the vertigo of narrow corridors counting down on me finally smothers the claimant. i must write. searching for images i'm trying to fitin my head through bars, just to get stuck like a child

playing on a veranda. but these bars are wrapped in razor wire in writing is not a child's game. cookson chris hedges is our guest for c this the second appearance on in-depth rate is 11 years ago today that he made his first appearance. since that time he has written six books. we have discussed several of them. now it is your turn to call in, talk to him, ask questions but the numbers are on the screen divided byre geographical division. (202)748-8200 for those in the east and central time zone spring (202)748-8201 if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones. you can also send in a text to mr. hedges (202)748-8903. those are for text messages only. please include your first name and your city if you would do so. plus, it will cycle through our social media sites.

just remember @booktv is our handle. forgo two calls described the cover of our class and the names written on those pencils. >> guest: this is written by the great political cartoonist dwayne booth notice mr. fisher. it is his design. it's pencils with the names of great writers. michelle alexander, nugent crow is a book i've taught and admire very much. piner wilson, and baldwin. they're all writers my students are familiar with. he is brilliant. he did discover two. just came out this year. we are -- lester i should say. talking about that little later in the program.

let's hear from our viewers, michaelm broward county florid, you are on with author chris hedges. >> yes, hello mr. hedges. your work spans so much. you describe a general sense of the main imbalance. what if you've heard a doctor of sanford or frederick schiffer, he d developed dual brain psychology. i really think his work, fredericks would help your work in the prisons as well. what we are talking about culture is biology. and biology is culture. it is a projection of internal dichotomy between self interest and group interests. and he also bring this up in your books quite a bit. by member by self-interest in group interests of the concept battle for blood within our brains and within our culture. if your complete focus on self

interests you eat other peoples children with your hunger picture completely focus on group interest you help other people's children and you start to death. it's about the balance. >> i think we got your points. >> guest: i don't know this authors i will look at them. i'm actually reading mike davis' book, victorian holocaust. i think the point is well made. talk about the famines that ripped through late 19th century africa. in the response of colonial authorities. there exporting wheat out of india clearly millions of people were dying of starvation. after some good moral philosophers have written about that. and an understanding that there are times make that moral stance

and to defy an obsession with self interests. can be a willing form of suicide. that's a difficult moral choice for many people to make. stuart cornelius, alexandria, louisiana good afternoon. >> good afternoon and happy to your child the book tv and c-span2 listeners and everything. chris, i am really enjoying you. i was a former corrections officer of the federal correction institute at oakdale one louisiana prince also federal inmate because the fbi set me up. my question to you work on these inmates and stuff which like i said i worked at the federal institution, i think you worked at state institutions from what i am hearing. i'm going to try to get that book, higher class and everything. it seems like you really listen

to the inmates to find out what was wrong with them and that their path. it might have been sexually abused, or emotionally abuse, or physically abuse and things like that. i have studied sociology at louisiana tech university. gary stokely was my professor louisiana tech but like i said you learn to listen to these inmates. they responded to you with love and affection. i would love to see that play online and stuff like that. i wish you couldch get it onlin. is there anyway i can contact you? i got the information with the fbi lied on me and stuff to set me up. g and put me in prison but they put a piece of rope and my food to get me too plead guilty. but i am innocent and i can prove it. >> guest: sent an e-mail to book tv with your e-mail and will contact you after the show. you have to listen.no

prison as you know is a subculture. subcultures are always fascinating to me with its own language, its own set of rules you have to stand up for yourself was in a prison often means a physically no one is going to fight for you. although people might fight with you. the predatory nature of prison, knowing who to trust where there's a chapter in this class called the antenna. and i know having covered or, that you have to read people really well and a war zone, knowing who to trust in her not to trust. if you trust the wrong person you may never come back. i certainly found that among my students. they had a remarkable ability to read people very quickly read that probably comes off of the streets were that quality was important to survive. but that quality is essential in the prison itself. just the reporter in me is

fascinated. i will say and i'm told this to my students many time, having been overseas for 20 years and having lived in countries where people are not whites, latin america and the middle east a little different in yugoslavia. i spent a lot of time in gaza for instance and i speak arabici however tried you try to understand privilege as a form of blindness. that's why taught in the prison. he can only see when he's naked on the heat and stripped of power and pomp and status. it is our job people such as myself to come out of positions of privilege to listen and learn as much as we can. too always understand that we can never cross that divide. that privilege will always inhibit us from fully seeing the

way through to things that provoke wisdom, prison and poverty. i think my relationship with my students and thankfully many of them are getting out. i was just in having lunch the other day with one of my students who gotsu out 38 years for crime he did not commit. and i think if we honor that divide or if i honor that divide we can have real relationships with people who have endured horrific oppression. understanding we do not fully understand. >> chris hedges, two things. i am going to guess there are people in the audience who rolled their eyes when cornelius said he was set up by the fbi. and i went to ask you, how do you know that your student after 30 years of prison did not commit that crime? >> because the chief of the public defenders office in the state of new jersey has taken the case a wrongful conviction

case and told me she is one 100% certain. they did not have dna back then. this was a murderer or i didn't know anything about this until she explained. people who study the decay of the body and particularly the various of bugs that begin to feast on a court. that is the way determine the time of death. because the body has been there a certain number of days and they have already traced it back, these experts to the day and he is not even the state when she was killed. i have other students i'm pretty certain but in this i'm completely certain. >> what about cornelius when he said he set up by the fbi? when you hear that, given your experience with your book, our class on the work you have been doing to you here that's not

quite true? >> 's widget know the of all sorts of people. i think many of these young muslims have been hauled off on quote unquote terrorism jobs a dead enders from somalia or something. cannot handle the logistics with the money or anything else. go back to the black panthers. when malcolm x was assassinated the first person to get to him was a police informant. i don't a police officer undercover, hiding as a black muslim. they were reputedly nine fbi informants no police protection. unfortunately this has a long but i don't know i haven't read his case. i would have to look at it but simply not impossible.

to what next call is rodney from baltimore. good afternoon your book tv. >> happy new year's. hi chris i want to discuss theec devastation comed had on the economy and people. david is showing covid vax the most dangerous of acts ever made and ignored by the cdc. this also declared a pandemic by the world health organization. now, under the pcr testing which was used to determine if you have covered could not determine because the covid test was never desperate even the inventor said it couldn't determine if he had covered or not. my concern is there still pushing this vaccine. it's an mrna designed toin redue symptoms. this is the only mrna approved for his use and can cause what they say is ade which is antibiotic dependent

enhancement. which means that once you getet the vaccine of course you going to be exposed to the virus. but if you come in contact again with the virus, this could possibly kill you. most of the steps received from covid is probably from ade. and those who have been envaccinated. are you aware of that situation and why they're so promoted this vaccine? >> i am not. and i did get the vaccine. unlike you i have not investigated. his old newspaper reporting in me i don't believe anything until i have looked at in depth and reported it. but that is not an area that i know. >> host: if i got the production staff and i'm having a little trouble with this phone if they could punch up line for i would appreciate that. there we go, kelly salt lake city, hi. >> hello peter, hello chris.

chris, what would you just speak a little bit about cynicism? you deal with reality so well. but i just don't see a lot of that, in view of lesson most print most of the public. is that something you actively work against or part of your normal nature to be nonsensical? >> guest: thanks, i do not consider myself a cynic bread been accused of being a cynic. but i am not. as a former divinity student, what he called christian realism. it is understanding of human nature and how it works and responding. an understanding power for how it works.

with the power or human nature. then i i make responses based on illusion rather than reality. reality is very bleak, though certainly true in the words i covered. a coolen assessment of the reporter of what weapon systems were at the end of the road. the chances those systems were of taking me out. and then responding. kind of had a pollyanna's view of the world did not live very long but as a reporter for instance in sorry about what i can cover the war. i had an armored car, yet thin skin it meant a normal car. he is to tautly serve snipers pretty extra spray paint on the side of his car, save your

bullets i am immortal. which is stupid, or drive across the airport which is a contested area. it was foolish bravado. and of course is badly shot up. so i don't consider myself a cynic. i consider myself a realist for the promise cynic is those from ethe underground is that they become passive.us but because they are cynical they don't resist radical evil and therefore they become complacent. sterile dreamers. see what it's been 11 years since chris hedges has sat at this table. and in that time is hosted a couple of different programs. one was on rt which is known as russia today at one point. but i want to read a quote from your most recent book the greate evil is war. my public denunciation of the invasion of ukraine, was treated very differently by rt america that my public denunciation of the iraq war was treated by my

former employer, the "new york times". s: after i denounced russia's invasion of ukraine, already closed down. but during those six days, >> in the new york times, did not respond well to my boy been in the at least come i spent seven years there and to my call or my critique of the bush administration and now for all of the reasons we know. people forget that the arabist was with the state department in the military, there was no date on that so that's what you had them cook up this kind of a cause a kind of artificial intelligence filter information to the white house. but i was booed off the

commencement stage for denouncing the war shortly after the invasion and then the right wingng media pick up suresh lumr i do have dedicated 40s me in the wall street journal the road and into editorial denouncing his left-wing pacifist and i'm not and the times hand was forced arabist not economists and reporters alive, had been there for 15 years and i knew what i was doing and was given a formal written reprimand i was called in and it was in writing and told that i had impartiality in the new york times no longer allowed to speak about the work that point, i was not going to be silenced tenant with the paper. >> another quote and this is from sure post, what is it. >> so that is run by bob scheer former editor for empire and robert scheer, used to run

tri-state for seniors into the publisher publisher decided to fire him and that i organized all of us to go on strike and we all got fired. [laughter] and so when management had a headacheafter another and so hed one and a social security check as far as i can tell and so stick .com and this is subscriber service which is great, looking like $6 mother something. >> chris hedges .com and what it hadoes is well so i obviously don't charge bob for my stories and the weekend fund this program weekly program on the real news. with a certain amount of a mosh to brian lamb without his show, his weekly show, book notes because he readd the books. [laughter]

like you do and so it funds that. so scheer post is what bob set up and he is legendary. >> and this is something that you wrote the end of last year come the democrats especially wi the presidency of, became mentally for nor under corporate america pump and the weapons manufacturers in the pentagon system is too costly. no war, no matter howtl distrous, goes unfunded no military budget is too big, including the 850 billion in military spending allocated for the current fiscal year. an incase of $45 billion above what the biden administration requested. >> right and this was insanity if anybody is read the history of the pacifiers understands. that the death of the empires the unchecked military coming

life from the country is been disemboweled and democrats under clinton, and tony follow congressman california, decided they would take corporate money what you take corporate money, do corporate billings the virtually abandoned the labor the push through a series of policy and policy deeply and they abolished welfare and 70 percent with children that will for system deregulated the fcc that consulted and consolidate immediate and half-dozen huge corporations and the firewall between investment and commercial banks and they not have a banking crisis for banks about two or 50 banks failed in 2008, they did not have a because it didn't turn it up as another ball and in the greatest betrayal of the american working class since 1947. that makes it very hard to organize and so if fundraising

parity with the republicans but essentially became one corporate globally that unfortunately, that's a problem. so in cultural issues the democrats to be liberal would on the trade guilds and work in wholesale surveillance, and as mentioned, new york times ever and if you story few days go to think this largest military budget but for one since world war ii and this is just inside. this whole war with ukraine enemy i think we've given all told about $100 billion. what is the goal, quite clearly to degrade the russian military and potentially overthrow printed and what will be left if ukraine. very cynical policy and is all proxy wars are in it impress are

full partners as they have been for a long time. and it is that german socialist going military in the enemy from within. their unaccountable. and anybody who has looked out australian orher ottoman or the german empire or anything else, will recognize stunning classics at harvard. the same of the roman empire, so you're at the end, malnutrition and the hunger industries of rome and you have of course have hathis elite then you have 1 million man roman army of the guard and the elite within the roman military there auctioning off the roman environment of empire to the highest bidder so that is we are following that

trajectory. this was. a dangerous in the democrats, will there's more opposition to pray from the republican party. in the opposition this massive $1.7 trillion spending bill, it was the republican. >> and cortez did not report but it was a republican opposition. >> so what is the solution to the ukraine russia. do we have a roll. >> i never thought i would be holding up and re- kissinger but i will on this issue. and i think kissinger is right, and the new york times wrote an editorial couple of months ago, and this idea that eastern part of ukraine it don bass is going to be part of ukraine's what is happened since 2014 is a fantasy not realistic i'm not sure the

exact word that he used as kissinger pointed out of the rock to be negotiation and an exchange for peace and as kissinger also pointed out thehe longer this goes on and we are provoking a nuclear power will succumb and we have seen this constant escalation and help were about to send missiles and strikes deep inside russia present feels cornered and i think kissinger also said that we don't want put him to be humiliated a quarter did so there will be negotiated settlements of the estimate for the longer thatt it goes on, the more volatile and unstable it becomes and the more that ukraine is destroyed and who will rebuild it and having been in war, it is ukrainian blood and i don't want any way to minimize the suffering which isi horrific and real but i do think that the policy out of washington while thus and thus by the way out of europe because europe is paying the economic

price out of the some german industries us crippled and energy bills in the uk i think are up by 80 percent and inflation is ripping apart. so think like a 20 year back on the middle east, the architects of the proxy war in ukraine have not really thought out well were supposed to be ending up and that is dangerous. >> is filled message which is right here, you are on with chris hedges. i think he is god of us try bonnie anyone i'm having a little trouble with the phones if i can get some help and if we could get rid if you come i cannot hear him and us try line five, bonnie new jersey. >> is a joy, yes and it is a joy to listen to the program and and chris.ete i would like to give it back to

what many people i work with, i bear witness is a human rights advocate on behalf of imprisoned people. they call this the work at home, mass imprisonment awarded home and i would love chris, some of your thoughts on the causes of us were at home. the conditions and alternativest to the massive imprisonment that we are saying. i think you speak well of the loss to society. of the mass imprisonment and the challenge that lies behind the walls of the creativity the lies behind the walls. i would love your thoughts. >> thank you bonnie, chris

hedges. >> it is a war at home without question and we do you industrialize the urban pocket enforce people into the illegal economy in order to make a living. in essentially an internal armies and militarized police forces to retain control because as i mentioned earlier from the social bond that provides and of all people john paul ii wrote that i think cyclical on the importance of work. in its roll within society and why denying meaningful work to people, is against religious teachings as of the war on homes destroyed in this recent we have 25 percent of the world is in population and as i mentioned before, less than 5 percent of the world's population i think that 40 percent of the people within a prison system are there for nonviolent crimes another

under never been purged with physically harming another person is dead as a form of social control jitter moves knowingly removes men and boys from ten women largely men and boys from the streets of the city's but when i get out, because of parole and their fellas as michelle alexander has writing on the turn into this criminal classes and when they cannot getre work, their denied public assistance including public housing 101 of my wonderful students, wonderful guy, during the covid-19 crisis, to get a job and whole foods in newark in the background check came a few months i for because the court system was behind they saw he had been imprisoned then they fired him la was a model employee in, he was there at 6:00 o'clock in the morning and i had visited him there so proud of his white jacket and was heartbreaking la to the manager

and i might have been as will talking to a stone wall. and so every thing that is inspiring as these people is why we have high recidivism rate 76 percent i think if that is the correct figure within five years as i guess we have criminalized poverty isso what s happened. if you're poor and especially you are a poor person of color, there is almost no way out and the other thing bonnie erased, even important and i thank you so so moving, those i of us who teach within the system is the level of talent and not just the level of telepathic of all of integrity these people are not the crimes they did commit a crime. i have seen transformation and redemption and i have 11 of my students who graduated all with college degrees from rockers and there working hand industrial area foundation it as community

organizers around the country. in this one of the leaders of industrial conditions will become of these are the model community organizers may come out of poor neighborhoods, there largely black and they have beec through the prison system and they are brilliant covet up that you mess with and they are very very effective at what they do. but unfortunately, so many messages get out in a matter how great they are held well educated they are, is very hard to break out of that criminal. >> what is he doing today and did he have any chance of getting back in whole foods. >> no any struggling because if you get out without family support, he's in a homeless shelter la got him into a room and hehe got season for christms but it was imprisonment and had

an old car the car would break down at me as the other thing, that is in the that you live economically such a precarious level that if one thing goes wrong public your car breaks down, but that meansg you lose your job that means you can't pay your rent. and it's just a cascading effect of disasters. and that creates of course tremendous things happen so i love him to death, he is struggling and through no fault of his own. >> ray, in aurora, colorado newark on with author chris hedges and please go ahead. >> i think you for takingll my calls mr. hedges how are you this afternoon. >> good and thank you. >> twice i've heard you use the phrase, rather the term, cult of stands was wondering william to grudges about that is one come i was wondering if you can provide

a explanation or definition of that term and also i am wondering if that term when applied to someone like me, i'm e a dues paying member of the libertarian party but i'm but maximum effort into the pursuit of truth. >> no i don'ts: think well anotr libertarian that although, it's interesting on civil liberties, libertarians are great and in 2012, i suit president barack obama over section 1021 of the national defense authorization act which overturned the 1870 poverty - act which limits the government from using the military to military is the mistake resource in libertarian groups ron paul and others, and so we carried out that case and obama with their support hedges versus the obama's annoy would not necessarily call them libertarians and i think that is

more driven by celebrity culture consumer society, social media where as we said earlier can penetrate meaning to life movie and not about truth or authenticity or honesty. but are many version of the kardashians everyone so much it on facebook or however you printed out that's what i'm referring to add everything is centered on myself at the expense of everyone else but also at the expense of on itself reflection of self-criticism i think that is kind of societal disease. >> wolf speaking of auto self-criticism, unspeakable what is the format of unspeakable and that come about. >> this was david talbot, great braided journalist and author who founded salon.

he came to princeton i did many hours of interviewing me for this book but as we said i think before we went on the air, the quality of an interview depends on the interview are. and he just asked a lot of really smart questions i thought and so that was the book a lot of stuff that a lot of that he was smart to pick up on that perhaps other people who've interviewed me have not always picked up on. >> such as. >> i think a aretha just well yu know i don't wear it on my sleeve but i remain grounded in that kind of christian realism. in the social gospel and i think as i also said coming away wrote is a critique of theology another marxist and i don't

embrace violence as a form of social change and i saw enough of it to know that violence does nothing and freeze nothing and only destroys and only destroys but destroys the people. so i think he brought a lot of that stuff out. >> when at the same time, in wages of rebellion, you describe and describe it was a brilliant scholar. >> yes in terms of critique of capitalism i think he is essential as of the first volume of capitol, which is a slog of well i think thatarxist solution is utopian, to seal the word from thomas moore which in its original definition means no place. i am not a marxist in terms of the withering away of the state hadhe its well he holds up the proletarian and i just don't,

yeah, also in that since we have to remarks in terms of course he was going on angles and his father was a huge mill owner so you got it actually have a calculator if you really want read his rights but they had all of the statistics and they understood the predatory nature of capitalism. and that capitalists are about reducing the production and increasing profits and those that you you know it's always if i was running out wall street firm, tire marks as i marcus says without restraint they will deform your society which is what is happened. that's what capitalists do with us why it has to be and not anticapitalist because i think the people often are driven by motives m of wealth and self

advancement in all of that but it has to be regulated and controlled and you don't want those motives to take over your society and turn the entire society into it into a kind of a predatory enterprise that's what you see like utility like private firms buying utilities and jacking up the prices the healthcare system and we live in a country where it is legal for corporations to bankrupt the parents bother trying to save their sons or daughters coming erthis is just inexcusable and o i accept the kind of you know that comes again the kind of dark side and on the other side, doubts recognize and it does have to be monitored and controlled so it does not deform and destroy the entire society. >> , california, a text message, what is your assessment if you have one, on so-called new

atheism is proponents and are there criticisms relevant. >> i wrote a book on it and the hardcover as i don't believe in atheists which may be a little bit too cute so when atheism comes religion i don't like that who i didn't a lot of attention to the mentally debated christopher burke at berkeley had close the other big new atheists are debated at ucla and at ucla and so but i was kind of stunned i said why didn't anybody take these people on how to find it a binary view of the world politically, they embrace in many cases the politics of the christian right because they substituted the glories of western civilization for you know, for god and a set of

muslims means attending the barbarians and, i mean, it is that kind of view of the world. and i know they call them fundamentalist for the state religion. i think that is kind of right and so i did write a book about it which they say was my best book some joe psychos and when i spoke to be about theologians that i like. [laughter] so the review of books, said it was the best critiques of new atheism and catalase out also a very book but my argument against that which i wrote after doing this to debase because that i had read harris had to read hitchens and i had a read darkens all the others which i had not been paying close attention to. >> toms river new jersey, murray you're on with author chris hedges scenic highway, and i was

wondering if you by the way i love that you mention it - and i saw your interviews with him and i hope you interview and again said but i was wondering if you when zelenskyy speech to congress recently, and how it seemed like itan was actually written by u.s. officials over any form of anyone in the united states government or military or state department did i was wondering your thoughts on that. >> i don't know that for a fact really would not be surprised in a covered nicaragua when tomorrow was running for president and i know that they were helping writing the speeches. but i have no evidence that is the case. boeing say the very least they read it before he delivered it i would suspect. >> hamptond new jersey, anton.

>> hello, hey professor chris hedges, one of your students. i want to thank you for all of the wonderful wonderful work you doing and sharing your book in the work that we are currently doing. and the deliberation of theology and the work that you whether doctor cornell west brought into as is monumental in shaping the work that your students and myself are currently doing in the world today. we thank you and we love you and thank you for not giving up on us and thank you for believing in us and the most darkest places and in most darkest time in her life. >> anton before you let us know you gotta tell us a little bit about yourself and will let chris hedges takeover. >> well my name is anton and i start whatever 730 you your to the life sentence i'm met chris hedges when we started our

program and inside the state prison in an adult male facility and i am currently a graduate student at rutgers and then and working on my masters in criminal justice likewo most of chris hedges students i graduated from - and justice studies from rutgers university and i also graduated with honors from mercer county community college with a degree in liberal arts and chris hedges, my professor was greatly influential in shaping how we did what wonderful book that is still reaping the benefits, and showing in politics and vision and it was hard and it was tough but is, what were doing now and we are manifesting a lot of the things that he taught us. >> to mature doing in camden. >> oh,. [laughter] i have a full profit business

initiative that helps formerly incarcerated men and women coming home and their families and communities and stakeholders legislatures and understand what is the process of coming out and what is needed so it looks like the reentry but as we know injury and we what work all of the state and welcome people home and we go to the prisons we welcome our brother jim river home which is one of our professor chris hedges lucky like me that after 30 years, for a crime that he did not commit is just wonderful, we've just been working at only been known for years, but we have not stopped working and it was because of the materials in the education to open up our lives undermines and of accepting the current conditions of property at about we from and how the transcendent transformative.

>> what was the process for you applying to this class and was the first day with professor chris hedges likes you ♪ ♪ me interject because that would not have been this program without him and he can explain that process. >> will and one of the founding members of the step and when i first went to present in 1988, the pell grants from the bill ended it by the time that i got my ged at we fought for 28 years to get higher education back in prison and when we did, that is when we met chris hedges adams a long battle. i presented a white paper to the noticeably woman body, to makeap education mandatory to all of the students and signed and it wasn't funded with and we went and got our community organizers on the ground and got funding and we started in 2012, and from 2012, until now we have made it biggest impact in new jersey,

not only bringing people home and keeping them home but educating the whole person on what's needed to be successful in your life in your community. and pretty much in the world. >> thank you. >> they delegate out in the their college degree the very few of us could go through what they went through and overcome with the over him and imagine earning a college degree much less summa come about eight to 1988 and is been home for four years. >> that is a long time, the history. >> bills were long sentences, and even if you do your 30 years, you get the two men panel so these are two political appointees and coming in whether or not you can go before the parole board and there is no reason given. and they say you can't even meet

and meet with the parole board and then if you do meet with them in one of the reasons that jean and she spent 38 years in prison is because you have to express remorse for the crime as a condition of the release and jean said but i'm not expressing remorse for a crime that i did not commit. ... that his integrity was more important and he would die in prison rather than take -- then to confess to a crime to did not commit. the head of the public defenders office intervened and said that cannot be a precondition for parole. it is not written. there is no law that says you have to express remorse. it was only then that he was released but he was prepared to die in prison. >> host: grand junction, colorado please have your question or comment for author chris hedges.

>> hello mr. hedges, professor hedges. i am a retired teacher, i just retired this year. i taught high school english primarily and some drama too. and i have worked internationally. i flipped all over the world like yourself. and worked all over the world. and i really enjoyed some of your comments about teaching and about the international community and the various effects. one of my stateside jobs was with job corps. i taught at a center in colorado that had a high school program that wasm coordinated with the school district, the local school district. we actually gave out real high school diplomas. i f did that for five years. and teaching those kids, who had nott been in prison or jail but had fallen through the crooks. they were at risk students, generally speaking. they came from disadvantaged backgrounds. and they came from urban settings primarily. and here they were in a center,

a living center that was fairly remote in the rural areas of colorado. and over the years teaching i discover how similar the talents, the inborn talents were with these kids who i was teaching that came from these disadvantaged backgrounds, compared to the kids i taught internationally at the american international school who had very highly literate backgrounds culturally rich backgrounds. but they had similar talents. and they demonstrate those things in our interaction. i was fascinated with the idea where that talent came from. then i evolve the kind of theory about it that i worked on but have not been able to really execute. i'm not a hard-working scholar like you are. but, part of our job as teachers is to better identify with the knowledges that exists in that child, in that students are. it was put there i don't know

how, but they have it. and when they do something that they have those gift in the jute remarkable things. there is nothing in their background that would say they could do this and they do it. have you observed that with prisons? stuart we are going to leave it there and let mr. hedges responded. speech that's a very good point as an organic intellectuals. their intellectuals within every strata in society. but when you are poor you get at best a one and often you get no chance. and i saw that in my own family, my grandfather was a very gifted students. he was a senior in high school and his sister's brother died and they were farmers in maine. he had to drop out of school and run the farm because she had three kids.e that was it, that is the end of his education. and i think i see that among my students. i would add this caveat and that is because they come out of oppressed societies, oppressed

conditions they have a more acute understanding of capitalism, white supremacy, social control that i find often when i teach atwh schools whichi have let columbia, or princeton, or nyu. again that's a form of blindness. often i talked one semester. he talks about the talented ted. i had just given a sermon at a very wealthy suburban church in new jersey or its peace and justice sunday i started walking out when they said we had decapitated and killed far more people including children than isis through our aerial drones and everything else. we are not the talented tenth. later by the way backed away from this.

they are the talented tenth i'm sure they all had at least university degrees or higher, almost all white. because the press community within elite institutions where people are essentially yearning to be part of the 1%. the tragedy is a tragedy saw my own family got a scholarship to elite new england border school. the given chance after chance after chance both see as you point out again that kind of intelligence that's exactly what i found in the present and why am so dedicated to teaching in prison. rex text message for you, thank you for being a book tv starting 2023 with discussion on our forgotten people and prisons. i'm curious about your claim you're not a pacifist.

i would guess you would be. xo's and sorry about during the war. we were being hit with hundreds of shells a day. we were under constant sniper fire, 45 journalist has been killed by the time i arrived in sorry about. four -- five people were dying fin the city a day. a couple dozen people were wounded. the city was started by trench system. we understood at the serbs broke through those trenches it was world war i type scenario. every once in a muslim commander it would fire up starburst and get these young muslim men to charge over the trench with serbian machine guns with expected result. they broke through those trenches one third of the city will be slaughtered the rest of the trip driven into refugee and emplacement camps with sought conjecture that's what happened. at that point it's an

existential crisis. there are forces bent on not only your annihilation with the annihilation of your family and your community. you pick up a weapon. you cannot sit in the basements and sorry able to have discussions. now, that does not save the poor's attention poison. that is why the book has the greatest evil is war. so i tell the story about thisth book about a muslim soldier trying to make a move into a serb suburb hears a noise behind a door he fires his automatic weapon. a few seconds delay and a combat situation can get you killed. he pushes open the door and finds he has killed a 12-year-old girl, and he is a 12-year-old daughter an event for which he never recovered. that's the point. we are pushed to moments or we are pushed to violence i don't believe in just war or good

work, you become poisoned as well. society's response to christian pacifists. but he would consider christian utopias. he understood violence wast evi. but he also understood there were moments when human beings were pushed to that place where violence. >> host: how may times he been arrested? >> guest: in the states are outside left back. >> host: i did not know was asking a difficult question. so is it we shut down goldman sach's. [laughter] i've been arrested a few times. i was arrested with motor 31 veterans outside the white house, it was a very moving protesting the wars in iraq and afghanistan.

overseas several times. i was a prisoner, i was captured by the republican guard at the uprising as a prisoner for a week. i was imprisoned in iranian jail. i always carry a book. i read 170 pages when is a present racked at three bucks outcast of guns by conrad. anthony and cleopas might favorite shakespeare play. text he fails because it's not cold-blooded like caesar. if we had to get rid of all of shakespeare's plays, and thank god we do not, the one i would say i would save us anthony and cleopas because it's the highest level of poetry. but it is a play that i love. because showing human compassion with anthony has and does, in the face ofce cold-blooded denns

and they say it your desserts you when you are around -- mark octavia becomes a gustus. so i have those books. i was taken prisoner by the contra nicaragua. they're very angry, as with tom from npr they march us off into a cornfield of it radioed back to honduras to see whether they should shoot us. so we are sitting in the cornfield waiting with these guys with guns on us for the reader back and say no, let them go. they call us an unrepeatable word in english for what they called the journalist that that we are all working in nicaragua. they said tell them they may never come back with the jew we will kill them. and we will burn their car. i thought you know, tell me i don't really care if you burn my car. [laughter] but numerous times i have been held, was beaten. the last day as a in iraq i was

turned over to the secret police in baghdad i was beaten. many times i don't like it by the way. student what is your connection to princeton? >> right now nothing, i've taught there three times. when you live in that area? >> guest: yes because of that library. the firestone library. but that is my connection. and as any writer i have to near a very good researchby library. so that is huge. select your friendship with cornell west? >> guest: i love cornell. cornell's were the most remarkable people i've ever met. it is been my privilege or my curse to meet three of the smartest individuals in the country, susan, norm and cornell

west. i think i'm very well read until i sit down with any of them. i have to admit to trying to impress all them. once this is a light beard the conversation to theology to show how much i knew it and of course she buried me and admitted after she finished her graduate work at columbia she taught religion at harvard she taught religion at columbia. i once set that are members of middle east bureau chief in your time seven years, knowing the middle east was a hobby. he's reeling off dates and i don't even remember. there with cornell had dinner with cornell when knights that i would beer him towards shakespeare. i was english lit was my undergrad project graduate goshen harvard. after 50 minutes of taking notes under the table. they are all -- i think we are

all such in debt toum noam chomsky. i wrote a book of death of the liberal class session to put your name on it as a co-author but everything understand about the role of liberals in society comes out ofes what you wrote street this is like the fateful triangle. and cornell but what i loved about both susan, cornell unknown as these are intellectuals who could have skewed the political debate in the controversy and belt monuments to themselves within academia, so many people do. but they have such a conscience. i brought him into the president all my students said you come teach us for thispr guy has a schedule that would kill and slay other mortals and he did pretty came back. it wasn't paid for, there were no cameras he taught a wonderful philosophy class which i went with him too. there are three people i admired

deeply. stu and all three but on the program. bustamante cornell west on he was on this good friend robert george. >> is also in princeton. >> guest: they teach a class together he's from the medicinet society. cornell is kind of a so charming. i do not note robert george would ever ask me too teach, i did the oxford union debate your opening statement is seven minutes. and so i'm writing it down in timing it, cornell had done a couple years before he said how did you manage the seven minutes? he said he just told them i'd come along way and kept going pretty look on youtube that's exactly does. i'm never going to get away with it. i do not have his charm. there are three amazing people are so blessed to have all of them. our member once saying to susan something about us being intellectuals and she said no, you and i love books.

now you know susan, i met her in bosnia. she had mounted a production and a theater. now people with visits with the cease fire pit susan went, i went with her it was very dangerous. i have a lot of respect for her for that. she was then about my age, she was in her 60s. i know people say she can be difficult. but i had a good relationship with her. >> host: you say you love books every time an author's on in-depth we ask him or her what they are currently reading. and some of their favorite books bu here are the answers that chris hedges gave us, in searc of lost time by marceaux is one of his favorite books along with moby dick, ..., life in fate. eulag arcpego by, the

origins of totalitarianism by hannah aarons. moral man and a moral society, the collect essays of james baldwin. the costed essays, journalism and letters of george orwell and the brothers. currently reading the gulag archipelo. in the late vtorian holocaust, el nino family in the making of the third world by the late mike davis. and germinal by a meal? >> guest: it's been a mining strike. like dickens he was a great report as well as a writer pretty went up in the mind is very powerful work about the plight of the working class. when the funeral was taken to the streets of paris the crowds

shouted, he was an amazing writer. so what book i read before and it rereading now with age i have too. reporter: . of course i just finished reading archipelago and i am about three quarters of the weight through mike davis' great work which is a really stunning piece off scholarship. to what i should not have this out loud too but i've not read the first three of your favorite books. i have them on my bookshelf, always wanted too. i'm admitting something here, in search of lost time, moby dick. i thought it's a whale story. text you ... i have heard is very, very difficult. >> guest: i don't think it's that difficult, i don't bring search of lost time i read it during the war in bosnia because in war zones you have lots of dead time. like they take the bridge out for twoot to sit there days. i don't think uss is that.

think moby dick i t greatest american novel. i think a clr james r forget who said it's about the death of a civilization, which it is. everything is encapsulated within the people and the obsessive hunt for the white whale. what's interesting about melville as he thought the deity was malevolent. he actually empathizes with ahab. you know who also believe that was eight oman was the deputy commander of the uprising only one who survived. there is a brilliant book here a little history of the geico which is o flat. but a great journalist gets back to the interviewer, wrote a book called shielding the flame. which is amazing.e it is not long. she interviews him as both a moral consequences. he talks about how in the uprising they all new at that point they were doomed was how they're going to die he became a doctor after words. and he said both my role as a

get out fighter and my role as a doctor is to shield the flame to protect life as long as i can from eight malevolent deity. but that isn't melville over that's why told hawthorne he'd written evil book. see what so when you teach shakespeare, what is the first thing you say to people who are not familiar with the language, with the pros, sweetie what i taught lear, that's the only player i taught because we read line by line. because you are dealing with th language. what i loved your not allowed other recording devices the prison. i wish i'd written down that had to summarize the scenes. but they would summarize it so they would go will lear come showed up with this posse, daughters, but they got it, they got it.

but you have to goou through it line by line by line in order to become familiar with the language. but want to become an opens up a door. floyd comes the greeks myth from shakespeare. it was the power of shakespeare's a deep understanding of human nature. almost unrivaled. i love first two. priest also does that. and i know people are reading shakespeare less and less. i live on a steady diet of shakespeare. my wife is about to appear in new york. the reunion scenes in the late play of course he lost, his son died, shakespeare's son. and after the death of his son they are all these reunion scenes for people who you thought were lost to find again presents that winter's tale. he finds his daughter, marina and our youngest daughter's name

is marina. my wife had played marina when she was at julliard. and when she was born i recited that i whole scene right after e was born by memory. i was terrified it would forget it. so i was kind of mumbling it. my wife said i thought you were praying. i said yeah i was praying. stu and liz, new jersey thank you for holding on your on with author chris hedges. >> caller: good afternoon. i was a teacher at a new jersey state prison for a period of 15 years. and of course our coursework was geared toward getting the student his high school diploma. these would be capable of it and had enough time to get there. i think the college programs, as

some kind of predict earlier than the gentleman from camden who talked about getting his ged in 1988. i started working at this state prison in 1985. and remain there through 1999. at that point there were times when due to state layoffs one of the areas that were susceptible to layoffs were teachers. we had a small faculty at our prison to begin with. we had an even smaller one after a few budget crisis. we got some of that reversed with the help of state senator jon ewing. stuart liz, what did you think of your time this 15 years that your teaching at the state

prison? what was that expense like for you? >> caller: i had taught in public school prior to that and then i took this position. it was an adult mail inmates of the setting i was at. so what i'm going to apologize i'm going to have to let you go unless you can give us something you want mr. hedges to respond to, we are running out of time. it's really okay does he think about the need to invest more heavily in education, not just for the ones that are going to get colleges but for the non- readers that enter the remedial reading class. so when thank you manley appreciateed it. >> guest: about 40% are a literal or functionally illiterate they read at a fourth or fifth grade level. there is study after study the

moran corporation down a couple years ago that shows the higher level of education people are able to attain as an prison system the less likely we see recidivism. and so there's just a very practical effort of the factt that if we are going to put people into prison it should be ldabout reform. and about equipping them when they leaven, prison to functions solid citizens within the society rather than just warehousing them and increasing their trauma. i think there is also the moral element of allowing them to ask questions and struggle with their own dignity. and find themselves that is i think a component of any good educational system especially within thego humanities. so for those two reasons and i

was a huge proponent of the governor of new york i think it was chris comeau read all of the studies had is going to educate, provide education to all the prisoners in your state system and there's huge blowback from the right and he dropped it. think that is the solution if we are serious about rehabilitation. statement susan, caldwell i don't give 30 seconds. >> caller: could you please speak to the increasing crescendo not come in conflict with china? and mr. hedges you have 30 seconds. switch to stoking the conflict that with taiwan, the south china sea, it of course you cannot keep these massive military budgets and less you have an enemy. i covered the fall of eastern europe, gorbachev wanted to build an alliance both strategic and economic within the arms

industry were determined to make a russian enemy whether they wanted to be or not spray that's not defending the invasion of ukraine which is a war crime. i see the same thing with china and it worries me. she went mr. hedges early on the conversation you said our class is a book that gave them yourme heart, does that make it harder toha write or easier to write? >> carter. war is a force i'd ever want to write again i was done with trauma there are days i just wept. even when i pick it up now it is quite emotional. because i care so deeply about these people and it is so heartbreaking. everything has been stacked against them. but yes when you are emotionally involved it is harder. stu and chris hedges think of them back to book tv into our in-depth program for a repeat performance. we appreciate it. >> guest: thanks for having me.

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