Sunday, October 2, 2016

Chris Hedges Ad Lib.

New World Notes #448, 28:47 (October 4)
Broadcast quality MP3 (40 MB)
Decent quality MP3 (13 MB)


Unscripted, incisive discussion of a range of issues by Progressive journalist, essayist, and activist Chris Hedges.

Topics include the corruption of the judiciary ... the mass media as the propaganda organ of the Corporate State ... how the Democratic Party has betrayed its constituents ... the false promises of Barack Obama ... the growing public opposition to Israel's Palestine policies ... and (not unrelatedly) the increasing attacks on free speech.

Hedges' remarks are taken from a question-and-answer session following his lecture, "The Algebra of Revolution" (Seattle, April 2016). The lecture was broadcast by New World Notes in August 2016. Thanks to Pirate TV Seattle for the original video recording. I have condensed and edited the audio.


2 comments:

Dave Thompson said...

Excellent show, Hedges is a smart up front man. I just wonder why he never did any in depth 911 investigating or comments. Hedges admits he was in NY on 911 yet gets very testy when asked his opinion on this very controversial topic. I suspect he has been told under no uncertain terms to keep his mouth shut on the topic of 911, leading me to believe that he knows and can prove certain aspects of who, what, when, where, how, and why 911 came about. In that sense Hedges is being disingenuous at best, or just plain down right deceptive at worst. In other words a bald faced liar about what he knows about 911.

Kenneth Dowst said...

Dave, thanks for the comments. "Bald faced liar" strikes me as too strong, but I agree with you to a large extent. Many usually bold Progressive voices have been surprisingly silent (or worse) on the subject of 9/11--Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman, you name it. And I guess Hedges too, now that you mention it. Michael Parenti has been not totally splendid on the issue but at least very much better than his peers.

It seems to me likely that Hedges probably DOESN'T know any more about "who, what, when, where, how, and why" than the rest of us do. But that doesn't warrant his silence on the matter. The Official Story is so obviously preposterous--so unbelieveable in almost every detail. As a public intellectual, Hedges OUGHT to point out, loudly, that the Official Story is crazy B.S. (And so should the rest of us.) And then try to dig up the true story.

Thanks for listening to the show, and thanks again for writing.

Best, Ken