Chris Hedges

Paul Krugman wasn’t the only old soul at The New York Times who refused any urge to be patriotic on September 11. Former Times reporter Chris Hedges unleashed a tirade on Truthdig on Saturday. It was titled: “A Decade After 9/11: We Are What We Loathe.”  He began by suggesting coverage of 9/11 was sanitized by the Bush "lap dogs" of the press because the occasion “demanded images and stories of resilience, redemption, heroism, courage, self-sacrifice and generosity, not collective suicide in the face of overwhelming hopelessness and despair.”

Hedges lamented that the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks wasn't turning everything over to the diplomats to negotiate and apologize profusely for our support of Israel. He charged the 9/11 dead were exploited to "sanctify the state's lust for war," and the "plague of nationalism" took effect immediately, which is "anti-thought" and racist to boot. He really hates the people with big American flags:

The New York Times's former Middle East Bureau Chief thinks violent revolt is a laudable response to economic woes, and that murder is at least acceptable in pursuit of a far-left agenda. The media so concerned with the potential for violence from conservative groups are completely silent.

"Here’s to the Greeks," wrote Chris Hedges at Truthdig.com. "They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country." Riot, by Hedges's account, is the correct response. That the riots in Greece have so far killed three innocent people doesn't seem to bother him.

Oh but it's not violence borne of a frustration with an unsustainable welfare state that finally reached the inevitable conclusion of skyrocketing public benefits coupled with a fast-shrinking population. No, the riots are "a struggle for liberation" against the oppressive bourgeoisie (capitalists). Hedges is advocating in no vague terms mass political violence. The response from the media: crickets.

The leftist blog The Raw Story is hyping an exclusive: "Famed NYT reporter tells Michael Moore capitalism driving humanity’s downfall." It’s merely an outtake from Moore’s hostile movie Capitalism: A Love Story. Former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, the radical author of books like "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America," warns of the coming eco-catastrophe.

But in one clip cut from the documentary -- which Moore provided exclusively to Raw Story -- he interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, who explains how capitalism is actually contributing to the very downfall of the human race and the "degradation of the planet."

Hedges is not a scientist. He's been a foreign correspondent. It's anybody's guess how reporting from Africa or the Middle East makes you an authority on climate patterns:

Surprise! Surprise! Former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges has admitted what almost anyone familiar with his reality-challenged rantings already knew: he is a socialist. Hedges explains in Truthdig Why I Am a Socialist (emphasis mine):

The corporate forces that are looting the Treasury and have plunged us into a depression will not be contained by the two main political parties. The Democratic and Republican parties have become little more than squalid clubs of privilege and wealth, whores to money and corporate interests, hostage to a massive arms industry, and so adept at deception and self-delusion they no longer know truth from lies. We will either find our way out of this mess by embracing an uncompromising democratic socialism—one that will insist on massive government relief and work programs, the nationalization of electricity and gas companies, a universal, not-for-profit government health care program, the outlawing of hedge funds, a radical reduction of our bloated military budget and an end to imperial wars—or we will continue to be fleeced and impoverished by our bankrupt elite and shackled and chained by our surveillance state. 

Considering how many hyperventilating media leftists broke their promises to leave the country if George W. Bush won reelection in 2004, I'm not exactly holding out hope we'll see the IRS arrest former New York Times bigwig Chris Hedges (file photo at right) anytime soon.

Hedges, if you recall, was the paper's former Middle Eastern bureau chief who became more famous (infamous rather) for his lengthy anti-war diatribe during a 2003 speech to graduates of Rockford College.

The devoutly left-wing Hedges has hardly stopped proclaming his bona fides since that time, even writing a book comparing American religious conservatives to the Taliban. Today, our hero is busy concerning himself with the conspiracy theory that the United States will soon invade Iran. If that proves to be the case, the unbiased former Timesman will refuse to pay his income taxes in that same year:

A battle of wits between two men named Christopher took place in Berkeley, California, on May 24. Unfortunately, one contestant came embarrassingly unequipped, so much so that by the end, he chose to not even respond.

Break out the cashews and your favorite libation, sports fans, because this debate between former New York Times Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges, and the never at a loss for words Christopher Hitchens was one for the ages.

The following video is an edited compilation of key moments as prepared by our friend at Zombietime (h/t Allah). What follows is ZT’s transcript of this video. However, the reader is highly encouraged to view all of the videos of this event created for your viewing pleasure:

Chris Hedges, who served at the Times as a reporter and Middle East bureau chief for a total of 15 years, appeared last Thursday on Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," hosted by Stephen Colbert, to discuss his new book, "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."

You may remember Hedges for being booed off a college commencement stage in the middle of an anti-war rant in May 2003.

Here's a selection of the transcript from the second half of the interview with host Stephen Colbert, who kept up his act as conservative Christian straightman, setting up the dour Hedges to make cracks at Christianity:

Last weekend, the Chicago Sun-Times gave nearly an entire page in their "Controversy" Section to a man who feels America is under attack by a radical, religion that is inseparable from Nazi Fascism. He feels it is a hateful religion that is out to destroy America and everything it stands for and it must be stopped at all costs.

No he did not mean Islamism, amazingly enough, but Christianity.

There are times when people find their lives empty and begin to look for a "new" way of life. Sometimes they find that life in a cult and become brainwashed converts like "Azzam The American", the recent American born al Qaeda mouthpiece, or Johnny Lindh Walker, the young enemy combatant from California who was caught fighting for al Qaeda against US forces. If one looks for something, one usually finds it. And too often when what is being looked for is found, it causes more trouble than it really is due or takes on a larger meaning than reality permits. The saying "Be careful what you wish for comes to mind.

Remember Chris Hedges, the former Times reporter and Middle East bureau chief for the paper who got unplugged for his anti-war ranting at a Rockford College graduation ceremony in 2003?

Here was his stirring opener to the assembled graduates:

“Thank you very much. I want to speak to you today about war and empire. The killing, or at least the worst of it, is over in Iraq, although blood will continue to spill, theirs and ours; be prepared for this. For we are embarking on an occupation that if history is any guide will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security. But this will come later, our empire expands and in all this we become pariahs, tyrants to others weaker than ourselves."

Former Times' reporter Chris Hedges, who never let his job as a journalist get in the way of his strident anti-war activism, finds war veterans a self-pitying lot, blind to their own complicity in the horrors of war. At least that's how Hedges comes across in his review of "Black Virgin Mountain -- A Return to Vietnam," an autobiography by Vietnam veteran and author Larry Heinemann.

Hedges, a longtime NYT foreign affairs reporter, is now a senior fellow at The Nation Institute, affiliated with the left-wing Nation magazine. Strangely, the byline of the review says nothing about his years at the Times. Embarassment? And if so, on whose end?