The Chris Hedges Report

Chris Hedges

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges interviews a wide array of authors, journalists, artists and cultural figures on complex topics of history, politics and war.

  1. 30 SEPT

    It's Time to Fight Back Against Trump's Fascist Regime (w/ Ralph Nader) | The Chris Hedges Report

    "Are you a worker? Yes. Are you a consumer shopper? Yes. Are you a taxpayer? Yes. Voter? Well, sometimes. Are you a parent? Yes. Are you a veteran? Sometimes. Well, how can you say you're a nobody? You know things about those roles. You've experienced them. You've been frustrated. If you lie to yourself to be a nobody, you're going to be treated like a nobody. You're going to be treated like someone who doesn't count, someone who doesn't matter, somebody who can be disrespected, someone who can be ripped off, somebody who could be underinsured, somebody who can be suppressed."   Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate, asks these questions to demonstrate how Americans often sell themselves short regarding their power as citizens.   Nader, whose life-long mission has been to empower people to fight back against corrupt politicians and greedy corporate criminals, joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to continue to spread this message at a critical juncture in American politics.   With Donald Trump’s increasing fascistic repression and an impending government shutdown, Nader offers a roadmap for how both government officials and ordinary people can fight back.   His latest book, Citizen Self-Respect, serves as a call to action, arguing that Americans must not passively allow the Trump administration and corporate elites to consolidate their power.

    39 min
  2. 24 SEPT

    Trump's Crackdown on Anti-War Activists (w/ CODEPINK's Medea Benjamin)

    Medea Benjamin and CODEPINK, the organization she cofounded, are synonymous with accosting power in the United States. Their fearless confrontations with the nation’s most prominent and powerful politicians in the halls of Congress, often seen through viral videos, are a stark embodiment of the First Amendment. Despite over 20 years of activism and consistent critique of America’s representatives over their subservience to the military industrial complex and other big money interests, their ability to have these conversations is beginning to dwindle.   Benjamin joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to discuss the current moment in American politics, which sees free speech sitting on a knife’s edge following the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the American political class’s continued support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.   Benjamin was recently arrested after questioning Rep. Darrell Issa about Israel’s recent airstrike targeting Hamas negotiators in Qatar. Despite police saying she did nothing wrong, Issa continued with lodging a complaint against her, a move she believes is also in line with the suppression of activists and free speech.   Furthermore, after CODEPINK activists confronted Donald Trump and his cabinet at a restaurant and chanted at the president, ““Free DC, free Palestine, Trump is the Hitler of our time,” Trump said he is looking into having US Attorney General Pam Bondi bring RICO charges against the protestors “because they should be put in jail.”

    38 min
  3. 9 SEPT

    The Death of Holocaust Studies (w/ Raz Segal) | The Chris Hedges Report

    Raz Segal, an Israeli historian and an associate professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University, analyzes how the weaponization and distortion of the Holocaust, in the midst of the genocide in Gaza, has been used to serve the narrative of Zionists and the Israeli government. He tells host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report: “We know that Holocaust education eventually was more focused on transmitting this feeling of exceptionality than actually teaching about Holocaust as history, as real history, as normal history, as a part, indeed, of the making of the modern and late modern world.” Segal recounts his personal experience learning about the Holocaust in Israel, revealing a Zionist perspective that is both skewed and contradictory. “Jews, because they were a unique people, always faced a unique hatred, anti-Semitism, which then culminated in a unique genocide, really the only genocide ever in human history, in this framework: the Holocaust,” he explains. Though Segal outgrew this propagandized view, he explains that many in Israel and its international supporters still frame Jews and the Holocaust as exceptional. This belief in exceptionalism, Segal argues, blurs the history that led to the Holocaust and the events that have followed. “We really can't understand the phenomena of modern genocide without understanding the nation-state system, the exclusionary nation system and colonialism, European expansion around the world, settler colonialism and colonial genocides that accompanied this expansion for hundreds of years,” Segal contends.

    47 min
  4. 3 SEPT

    GHF Contractor Tells All On Genocidal Israeli 'Aid' Plan (w/ Anthony Aguilar) | The Chris Hedges Report

    “I've witnessed a lot of war and in that there is nothing that compares to the level of destruction, the level of [dis]proportionality, the absolute disregard for Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law and considerations of the laws of armed conflict. [Nowhere] in my career… have I witnessed anything close to the absolute escalation of violence and [unnecessary] force I witnessed in Gaza.” This is what Anthony Aguilar, a retired Lieutenant Colonel who served for 25 years in the U.S. Army Special Forces as a Green Beret, tells host Chris Hedges in this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, as he recalls his experiences in Gaza serving as a subcontractor for UG Solutions, which provides security for The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). His testimony has added another crucial dimension to understanding the genocide in this late stage, as hundreds of thousands face starvation and desperation for food and aid. While GHF presents itself as a humanitarian aid group, in reality it is an arm of Israel’s infrastructure of genocide, facilitating violence and imposing increased desperation against Palestinians at the behest of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Aguilar’s testimony — detailing the weaponry he was supplied as a contractor, the money he was paid, the operating procedures he was given and the internal structure linking the GHF and the IDF — provides undeniable evidence of Israel’s continued aggression and depravity. From high tech-surveillance that beams Palestinians with biometric scanners to scan their faces at aid sites, to dehumanizing crowd control techniques, to blatant indiscriminate murder, Aguilar makes clear that GHF is a project of Israeli genocide.

    1h 9m
  5. 29 AUG

    Reporting on War (w/ Ben Anderson) | The Chris Hedges Report

    It is rare to find war correspondents who are willing to break the rules of access and safety imposed by dominant powers. Only by challenging these structures and facing the dangers of war can journalists begin a true effort to report the truth and, if they are lucky, materially alter the course of conflict. Journalist, author and documentary filmmaker Ben Anderson joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to detail what it means to be a reporter who is committed to chasing and documenting the truth in a media landscape that often chooses complacency. Anderson chronicles his motivations and influences, such as the late John Pilger, early on in his career. “Back then, I really believed that if I went to these places, got this shocking footage, something would happen to help the people that you were actually covering,” he explains. Over time, Anderson realized that this youthful optimism may not translate to reality — but his cynicism did not deter him from covering brutal conflict in Afghanistan. Anderson went far beyond typical embedded reporting, choosing to spend weeks away operating independently with other journalists to the point of exhaustion and hunger, refusing to submit to the relatively comfortable lifestyle of most foreign correspondents. Anderson’s commitment to journalism drove him and his work: “I just thought, this is obviously the most important story in the world and here is something I can do. Just by having a bit of endurance, I can stick it out and get footage that might make a difference.”

    1h 8m

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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges interviews a wide array of authors, journalists, artists and cultural figures on complex topics of history, politics and war.

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