The genocide in Gaza is the final stage of a process begun by Israel decades ago. Anyone who did not see this coming blinded themselves to the character and ultimate goals of the apartheid state.
Western nations sanctioned South Africa and ended their apartheid, now they MUST do the same to Israel, whose behaviour is infinitely worse. It is to our eternal shame that we did not do this decades ago, when the peak cruelty began.
It is all part of the same problem: a deeply corrupted government that works for its sponsors, and not for its constituents. However, if given a choice between being a Gazan, or and an American, nobody would choose the former, because Americans are simply suffering neglect. Gazans are suffering cruelty, and genocide. The only way to end this holocaust is to have voices like Chris Hedges' educating people about just how cruel and destructive that the Israelis really are.
Please elaborate ... all I've done here is benchmark Hedges' spoken and written words against his true actions to demonstrate how he has broken his many implicit promises and deserted the U.S working class ... my perspective IS NOT opinion, but totally factual using his direct verbatim comments ... so please tell me, how exactly are my criticisms disingenuous?
Because Chris has focused on Gaza (THE issue of the present time), you are accusing him of "deserting the working class". That is arrant nonsense. In fact your comments on this thread appear to me to be adversarial for the sake of it - perverse attention-seeking. Either that or you are trolling for the Israelis. Either way you are wide of the mark.
Perhaps the more accurate expression of the US's view of human rights for poor and marginalized minorities is this:
the poor minorities, whether within the US or in foreign countries, do not 'Not Matter', they matter but only for the US to uphold its self-image of superiority, of benevolence, of generosity, of star-spangled compassion and righteousness. That is it. When it serves American interest to invade, destabilize, exploit, pilfer poor countries of their resources, or replace their leaders with pro-US corrupt kleptocrats, or convert them to do US bidding, these same poor minorities will be cast aside, driven into the gutter, forced to leave their homes, and in some cases, become cannon fodder against countries the US wants destroyed. The many examples are well-known and well-documented. Gaza is perhaps the most egregious of these examples. In front of the World, the US aided the mass-murder of civilians, mostly women and children, for more than 6 months. Relentlessly, unflinchingly, without pause, without remorse. There is no way back from this. We remember Nazi Germany for their heinous crimes from 1937-1944. We remember Imperial Japan for their heinous crimes from 1937 - 1945. We remember Cambodia for the Killing Fields in 1970s. We remember Rwanda in 1994. We will remember Israel and the US for what is happening in Gaza in 2023-24.
Yes, but let us not forget what happened in Yemen a few years ago ...
Here's a post made by another subscriber last year in response to "Hedges obsession" :
--------------------------
"My criticism is that since October 10th the tenor and the headlines of his (Hedges) pieces fulminate against Israel and their ‘genocide’ without a shred of balance and behaving as if he has never seen worse--and I believe he has. If not then let me call his attention to the report from the UN that states Yemeni deaths from the US (sorry--he is an American) enabled and armed Saudis at 377,000. This slaughter puts Gaza on Page 3 of the newspaper news. His headlined prediction of the ‘death’ of Israel is pure Jew baiting besides having been predicted countless times. Nothing stirs up people like Jews with weapons."
The great irony here is that for the past 6 months, the story in Gaza has not really changed ... Bibi recently said he does not recognize the authority of the ICJ and will not stop the cleansing ... nothing has changed and in the immediate wake of the ICJ's findings, Hedges also predicted as much ...
Hedges' obsession with Gaza does not empower us in any meaningful way ... he writes to put us right down there in the streets with the victims ... he wants us to feel their pain and see, hear and smell the carnage because that is where we all go blind! ... so blind that nothing else in the world matters, not even the tyranny here in the U.S. that now threatens our privacy, peace and freedom ...
I no longer consider Hedges to be a true activist because of none of his content here is actionable ...
The following suggestions are in the best interest of all parties:
1) Why not regularly drop the names of several GAZA support orgs ... list them at the top of each of his posts here on Substack and we can then respond accordingly ... Substack reports that Hedges now has 88k SUBs ... why has he never once mentioned any of these support orgs since OCT 7? ... and if he is uncomfortable with mentioning these organizations by name, why not just encourage us to Google "gaza palestinian refugee support organizations" ...
2) Alternate his posts between ASSANGE/GAZA and those issues that now threaten our freedoms and privacy here in America? ... why hasn't he written a single piece here on the relentless invasion of illegal immigrants and the scary amendments to the WHO pandemic treaty? ... Like GAZA, these are now urgent issues ... why does Chris Hedges continue to ignore developments here in the U.S.? ...
I miss the old, pre-pandemic Chris Hedges ... there was a time when he would not have dodged commentary on hard news here in the U.S. ... he would have called out the culprits out by name, set the record straight and pointed us in the right direction ... but not anymore ...
Here's an excerpt from the intro to his March 8th interview with author John Valaint: "... if left unchecked, (the excavation of the Fort McMurray tar sands) will SOON render the planet uninhabitable" ...
Oh really? ... how soon Mr. Hedges, WHEN? ... handicap it for us, give us a time window ... you've actually said this many times Mr Hedges, but this old world just keeps on turning! ... yes, we are in fact in the midst of a climate crisis, but Hedges continues to push a hoax on us that global warming poses an existential threat to our species ...
Why was Hedges diverting our attention to a Canadian fire that occurred 8 years ago while Texas is in the midst of the worst fires in its history?
CBS reported 7,000 cattle had been killed, so we know that figure is probably larger ... this area accounts for nearly 90% of the beef production in the U.S ... the WEF is on record as saying that the global livestock population must be reduced because of its supposed role in global warming ... ya see, TPTB are just trying to save us, right? ...
But he has refused to comment on THE GREAT RESET, The World Economic Forum and the proposed tyrannical amendments to the WHO Pandemic Treaty ...
Hedges abandoned the U.S. working class and the U.S. Constitution in an AUG 27, 2021 interview with Jimmy Dore, and he has now brazenly hidden behind ASSANGE and Gaza for the past 6 months ... his predictable decision to once again leave us all hangin' here with no hope on GAZA has become his trademark ... Chris Hedges is deliberately misdirecting our attention here ...
His relentless recounting of the horrors of the Gaza genocide for the past 6 months has passed the point of diminishing marginal returns for the marginalized millions in HIS U.S. working class ...
I now count over 70 pieces he has posted here since OCT 7, with only 8 addressing issues OTHER THAN the Gaza genocide, and only his recent interview with Les Leopold striking at the heart of the problems now facing Americans ... we are the people who bought his books, attended the his public signings, smashed THUMBS UP and always commented accordingly ... and we deserve much, much more from this once good man ...
------------------
DIVISIVENESS
Hedges is deceptively divisive and he obviously has no problem with it ...
Rather than comment on the ominous threats posed to our freedoms by the WEF and the WHO, he would also have us believe the problem is TRUMP-MAGA ... just listen to the extremely divisive, out-of-context comment he makes here in his otherwise terrific AMERICAN SADISM speech ... listen as he blames the MSM for splitting us into "warring factions" and then demeans those of us who question the motives and tactics of our elected officials as "members of the lunatic fringe and conspiracy theorists" ...
Start at the 43:10 mark and then listen very closely to him at the 44:32 mark:
Many times, Hedges has been quick to point out the problems of our binary reaction to political reporting but once again, he chooses to deftly demonize and conflate law-abiding Christians with fringe MAGA types ...
Hedges' words do not empower us, his pessimism demoralizes us ...
Here's a few more head-scratching comments that now have even more meaning since the March 2020 lock downs:
------------------
ON THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
He says all the right things here:
“We cannot be paralyzed by fear. We will be stripped, if we do not resist, of our few remaining rights. To resist, while there is still time, is not only the highest form of spirituality but the highest form of patriotism. It is, if you care about what is worth protecting in this country, a moral imperative."
And on another occasion: "The Constitution remains a sacred document."
------------------
ON THE MANDATES & PASSPORTS
But then, after the lock downs ...
He threw us AND the Constitution under the bus with COVID in an interview with Jimmy Dore ... just listen him equivocate and watch him dance to avoid a direct answer when asked about the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports before sheepishly blowing it off by saying: "that was a decision that I made."
Jimmy: “I’d like to get your thoughts on the vaccine mandates and passports”:
Hedges: “So I got the vaccine … the fact is these things were rolled out without proper vetting, that’s real … but I understand how people are weary about it, because they were turbo-charged … but that was a decision I made to get it … I am quite certain, in the history of pharmaceuticals that they work very hard to bury the negative consequences … that was a decision that I made”
TRANSLATION: He temporarily suspended his principles because things just got too hot in his kitchen.
And on USEFUL IDIOTS on SEP 21, 2021
Go to the 1:50 mark ...
Another less-than-passionate, half-hearted response ...
The FDA was compelled by a court ruling to release Phizer's vax trial data that revealed 1,223 post-jab deaths and 34,762 adverse events in the first 10 weeks of its trial ... The FDA attempted to delay the full release of this data for 75 years! ...
This proved that the COVID vax was not "safe & effective"!
"I don't think we're going to stop the pandemic and mutations until everybody gets vaccinated" ...
Chris Hedges DID NOT have to take sides on this issue ... He could have said it's a personal decision, but no ... most people would never tell another person to "walk the plank" if they knew better, but that's exactly what Hedges did here ... he knew the VAX was rushed to market after only one year (the average is 10 years), he knew about the explosive FDA FOIA release and he had to have seen the many videos of vax-injured people ... but he chose to push the "safe & effective" narrative on us anyway! ... and then about 2m after making that same comment during the interview above, Hedges rubbed our nose in it by openly admitting that he "does not trust Moderna or Phizer" ... livelihoods and lives can hang in the balance of reckless, irresponsible comments like this but clearly, this man did not give a hoot about the consequences.
Of course, Hedges is free to write about any topic he chooses ... but although the 2024 PRES election is 8 months away, we've only got 2 months to stop the WHO from implementing those scary amendments to the pandemic treaty ...
Read about James Roguski and the Amendments to the W.H.O.'s International Pandemic Treaty here on Substack ... Hedges should be front and center on this ... in tough times like these, why won't he even mention this topic? ... WTF is his problem?
I would suggest the real irony is your obsession with discrediting Rev Chris Hedges. That you have been allowed to continue with your obsession shows a patient belief in free speech. Your misguided (misguided in of itself is charitable) diatribes work to the favor of some individual or group of which readers much more intelligent than I, have already figured out. If your are not being paid for your efforts, help is available.
I am not paid, I am not a Trumper, I am not a Zionist or a closet Democrat ...
I am an independent progressive just as Hedges once was ... I followed him very closely for the past decade, he used to be my hero until he began bust up many of his implicit promises to fight the good fight with us when the lock downs were declared ...
HE BROKE HIS WORD and has essentially deserted we the people of the U.S. working class.
I stand for integrity of the spoken and written word and the only affiliation I now have is with those of us who are inspired by persons who stick to their publicly stated principles when things get dicey ...
Read my entire post and then get back to me ... his duplicitous words and actions since the lock downs actually betray the principles they supposedly teach at Harvard Divinity School!
You have an opinion and you are angry and that somehow makes you special?
I think what makes you special is that you have the time to follow Chris Hedges and point out anything that disagrees with your worldview, something that the vast majority of humanity considered 'working class' would consider a luxury.
All I've done here is benchmark Hedges' spoken and written words against his actions to demonstrate how he has broken his promises to fight the good fight with us since the lock downs ... so what could possibly be wrong with that?
And Hedges continues to play his "broken record" by covering GAZA these past 6 months at the direct expense of the U.S. working class ... and I ask you, what on earth can an unemployed divorced mother of 4 children take away from Hedges' indulgent coverage of the Gaza genocide? ... for every Palestinian killed in Gaza, there is certainly an unemployed and divorced mother here in the U.S., but they've all become invisible to St Chris ...
I don't doubt Yemen's tragic loss of life as a result of Saudi and US backed civil war and intervention. But there are two things we need to keep in mind, when assessing Hedges' position on Gaza:
1. The UN estimates 150k killed in the Yemen war from 2014 - 2022, and another 227 died because of famine. By all accounts a horrendous humanitarian disaster. This happened over 7-8years. What we're seeing in Gaza, 33 killed in 160 days, is another level of mass-murder. Also, there's no place to go, no safe harbour for Gazans from direct Israeli fire. Only more crowding in ever denser makeshift camps which the Israelis continue to target like shooting fish in a barrel.
2. Much of the deaths in Yemen were due to war-induced famine. This is deliberate and unconscionable. We're seeing the beginnings of mass starvation in Gaza, due to deliberate action of the Zionist state. The only difference is, the mass dying from hunger hasn't fully kicked-in ... YET! If the restriction/blockade of food and water into Gaza persists for another 50 days, we will start seeing deaths perhaps hundreds/day. This is something the World (except the US) is trying desperately to prevent from ever becoming reality. The Yemen war did not see the level of intervention by the International Community, this is true. But it was a different time, where few countries are in a position to challenge the US and its G7 cronies. 2023-24 is not the same world.
Lastly, I don't think Hedges is Jew baiting. He has on many occassions lauded the protests from various Jewish civil groups pushing for a ceasefire, and stressed the importance of keeping the matter in the consciousness of the public. His animosity is towards the Zionists, not Jews. This is an important difference.
And as I have repeatedly noted here, Hedges actually pushed the "safe & effective" narrative on us just 30 days after the explosive, court-ordered FDA FOIA release ...
The problems of a mother of four watching her children STARVE TO DEATH, having lost her husband, parents and siblings to Israeli bombing, are far more pressing. Red herrings are not appreciated.
Unfortunately, correct. What will it take for the real people of the global south to organize an effective resistance movement? I'm talking about groups and leaders no one has yet heard of, not the heads of state who fight for the crumbs of power and wealth that fall from the tables of the global north, the United States, Russia, and China in particular. And we, the figurative south who live in the north, need to reach out to our comrades in subservient countries and make common cause with them.
The swift response of Israel to Oct.7 betrays advance knowledge, even possibly participation, in the attack, by IDF forces. We are dealing with a most duplicitous country imaginable after all, and based on the sheer violent depravity of its response, nothing is off the table with these Jewish Nazis.
It was only a year or so ago that the world was fretting, wringing its collective hands, at what Netenyahu's far right government would do once in power. Less than a year later, Gaza has been completely obliterated and nearly 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, are. Now we know what Netanyahu would do.
Let’s get the Biden Administration to focus on the criminal charges they so rightly deserve. 18 U.S. Code § 1091 is the statute, the Genocide Convention in US criminal law. Members of this administration shouldn't go a single day without have this statute in their faces, up front and center at every protest at every meeting, press conference, briefing, and trips home and abroad. They may feel they are immune now, let's get them considering what is possible when they leave office. They should have visions of prison all the days of their lives. Let us find the way.
There must be an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Pope Francis has said what is needed, now he must do what is needed by going to Gaza and standing for peace, justice and freedom.
Let us also support UNRWA. If our governments won’t act in accordance with humanity, then we will. https://www.unrwausa.org/donate Let us do it to honor Aaron Bushnell, or in memory of Hind Rajab.
Let us call for a No Fly-Zone over Gaza!
These are a few small things we can do. If we can do more, let us do more.
I don't think that it was, because Hamas were so well prepared for the follow up. Still, who believes the Israelis stats on the number of IDF killed in the subsequent IDF actions in Gaza? On Oct 7th Hamas did a military raid to kill soldiers, and to take hostages, and they succeeded in doing this. However, the MSM reports about Oct 7th fail to mention that 80% of the CIVILIAN deaths were due to IDF actions. Firing from tanks, on houses that had both Hamas and Israeli civilians in them, and turning helicopter gunship fire on people and cars at the music festival - AND posting footage of same.
All I know is every single time I've followed the "narrative" it's been an outright lie. And indiscriminate killing of their own seems to tell me I'm on the right track. It's hard to believe this stuff because we've been so conditioned over our lifetimes to believe something else.
@CraigMokhiber 'The Israeli slaughter of the starved, sick, brutalized, displaced civilians sheltering in Rafah has begun, in the final phase of this #genocide in #Gaza. Forgive us. We have failed. But the perpetrators & their supporters will be held to account.'
Western nations sanctioned South Africa and ended their apartheid, now they MUST do the same to Israel, whose behaviour is infinitely worse. It is to our eternal shame that we did not do this decades ago, when the peak cruelty began.
Israel's older bible: "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."
Israel's newer bible: "A thousand Palestinian eyes for an Israeli eye, and 20 thousand Palestinian teeth for an Israeli tooth"...!!!
And what about what's now happening here in the U.S.?
It is all part of the same problem: a deeply corrupted government that works for its sponsors, and not for its constituents. However, if given a choice between being a Gazan, or and an American, nobody would choose the former, because Americans are simply suffering neglect. Gazans are suffering cruelty, and genocide. The only way to end this holocaust is to have voices like Chris Hedges' educating people about just how cruel and destructive that the Israelis really are.
And what good does such an "education" really do for us here in the U.S.?
To suggest that we are merely suffering from neglect is more than a bit naive ...
...and your criticisms of Chris over this essay are more than a bit disingenuous.
Disingenuous? ... how?
Please elaborate ... all I've done here is benchmark Hedges' spoken and written words against his true actions to demonstrate how he has broken his many implicit promises and deserted the U.S working class ... my perspective IS NOT opinion, but totally factual using his direct verbatim comments ... so please tell me, how exactly are my criticisms disingenuous?
Because Chris has focused on Gaza (THE issue of the present time), you are accusing him of "deserting the working class". That is arrant nonsense. In fact your comments on this thread appear to me to be adversarial for the sake of it - perverse attention-seeking. Either that or you are trolling for the Israelis. Either way you are wide of the mark.
Perhaps the more accurate expression of the US's view of human rights for poor and marginalized minorities is this:
the poor minorities, whether within the US or in foreign countries, do not 'Not Matter', they matter but only for the US to uphold its self-image of superiority, of benevolence, of generosity, of star-spangled compassion and righteousness. That is it. When it serves American interest to invade, destabilize, exploit, pilfer poor countries of their resources, or replace their leaders with pro-US corrupt kleptocrats, or convert them to do US bidding, these same poor minorities will be cast aside, driven into the gutter, forced to leave their homes, and in some cases, become cannon fodder against countries the US wants destroyed. The many examples are well-known and well-documented. Gaza is perhaps the most egregious of these examples. In front of the World, the US aided the mass-murder of civilians, mostly women and children, for more than 6 months. Relentlessly, unflinchingly, without pause, without remorse. There is no way back from this. We remember Nazi Germany for their heinous crimes from 1937-1944. We remember Imperial Japan for their heinous crimes from 1937 - 1945. We remember Cambodia for the Killing Fields in 1970s. We remember Rwanda in 1994. We will remember Israel and the US for what is happening in Gaza in 2023-24.
Yes, but let us not forget what happened in Yemen a few years ago ...
Here's a post made by another subscriber last year in response to "Hedges obsession" :
--------------------------
"My criticism is that since October 10th the tenor and the headlines of his (Hedges) pieces fulminate against Israel and their ‘genocide’ without a shred of balance and behaving as if he has never seen worse--and I believe he has. If not then let me call his attention to the report from the UN that states Yemeni deaths from the US (sorry--he is an American) enabled and armed Saudis at 377,000. This slaughter puts Gaza on Page 3 of the newspaper news. His headlined prediction of the ‘death’ of Israel is pure Jew baiting besides having been predicted countless times. Nothing stirs up people like Jews with weapons."
The great irony here is that for the past 6 months, the story in Gaza has not really changed ... Bibi recently said he does not recognize the authority of the ICJ and will not stop the cleansing ... nothing has changed and in the immediate wake of the ICJ's findings, Hedges also predicted as much ...
Hedges' obsession with Gaza does not empower us in any meaningful way ... he writes to put us right down there in the streets with the victims ... he wants us to feel their pain and see, hear and smell the carnage because that is where we all go blind! ... so blind that nothing else in the world matters, not even the tyranny here in the U.S. that now threatens our privacy, peace and freedom ...
I no longer consider Hedges to be a true activist because of none of his content here is actionable ...
The following suggestions are in the best interest of all parties:
1) Why not regularly drop the names of several GAZA support orgs ... list them at the top of each of his posts here on Substack and we can then respond accordingly ... Substack reports that Hedges now has 88k SUBs ... why has he never once mentioned any of these support orgs since OCT 7? ... and if he is uncomfortable with mentioning these organizations by name, why not just encourage us to Google "gaza palestinian refugee support organizations" ...
2) Alternate his posts between ASSANGE/GAZA and those issues that now threaten our freedoms and privacy here in America? ... why hasn't he written a single piece here on the relentless invasion of illegal immigrants and the scary amendments to the WHO pandemic treaty? ... Like GAZA, these are now urgent issues ... why does Chris Hedges continue to ignore developments here in the U.S.? ...
I miss the old, pre-pandemic Chris Hedges ... there was a time when he would not have dodged commentary on hard news here in the U.S. ... he would have called out the culprits out by name, set the record straight and pointed us in the right direction ... but not anymore ...
Here's an excerpt from the intro to his March 8th interview with author John Valaint: "... if left unchecked, (the excavation of the Fort McMurray tar sands) will SOON render the planet uninhabitable" ...
Oh really? ... how soon Mr. Hedges, WHEN? ... handicap it for us, give us a time window ... you've actually said this many times Mr Hedges, but this old world just keeps on turning! ... yes, we are in fact in the midst of a climate crisis, but Hedges continues to push a hoax on us that global warming poses an existential threat to our species ...
Why was Hedges diverting our attention to a Canadian fire that occurred 8 years ago while Texas is in the midst of the worst fires in its history?
GO HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Pz9gvdvWmU&t=334s
CBS reported 7,000 cattle had been killed, so we know that figure is probably larger ... this area accounts for nearly 90% of the beef production in the U.S ... the WEF is on record as saying that the global livestock population must be reduced because of its supposed role in global warming ... ya see, TPTB are just trying to save us, right? ...
10 Reasons Global Warming is a hoax ...
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-06-27-top-10-reasons-climate-change-is-a-complete-hoax-ponzi-scheme.html
This one is even better ...
https://eartheclipse.com/environment/climate-change/10-reasons-climate-change-is-hoax.html
-------------------------------------------------
BACKGROUND
Chris Hedges has deserted the U.S. working class! ...
HEDGES: "Let us stand up and resist so future generations will at least say ‘they tried.’ We cannot do this alone ... together we have a chance" ...
https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/11/hedges-the-pimps-of-war/
But he has refused to comment on THE GREAT RESET, The World Economic Forum and the proposed tyrannical amendments to the WHO Pandemic Treaty ...
Hedges abandoned the U.S. working class and the U.S. Constitution in an AUG 27, 2021 interview with Jimmy Dore, and he has now brazenly hidden behind ASSANGE and Gaza for the past 6 months ... his predictable decision to once again leave us all hangin' here with no hope on GAZA has become his trademark ... Chris Hedges is deliberately misdirecting our attention here ...
His relentless recounting of the horrors of the Gaza genocide for the past 6 months has passed the point of diminishing marginal returns for the marginalized millions in HIS U.S. working class ...
I now count over 70 pieces he has posted here since OCT 7, with only 8 addressing issues OTHER THAN the Gaza genocide, and only his recent interview with Les Leopold striking at the heart of the problems now facing Americans ... we are the people who bought his books, attended the his public signings, smashed THUMBS UP and always commented accordingly ... and we deserve much, much more from this once good man ...
------------------
DIVISIVENESS
Hedges is deceptively divisive and he obviously has no problem with it ...
Rather than comment on the ominous threats posed to our freedoms by the WEF and the WHO, he would also have us believe the problem is TRUMP-MAGA ... just listen to the extremely divisive, out-of-context comment he makes here in his otherwise terrific AMERICAN SADISM speech ... listen as he blames the MSM for splitting us into "warring factions" and then demeans those of us who question the motives and tactics of our elected officials as "members of the lunatic fringe and conspiracy theorists" ...
Start at the 43:10 mark and then listen very closely to him at the 44:32 mark:
https://scheerpost.com/2021/06/29/chris-hedges-speaks-on-american-sadism/
Many times, Hedges has been quick to point out the problems of our binary reaction to political reporting but once again, he chooses to deftly demonize and conflate law-abiding Christians with fringe MAGA types ...
Hedges' words do not empower us, his pessimism demoralizes us ...
Here's a few more head-scratching comments that now have even more meaning since the March 2020 lock downs:
------------------
ON THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
He says all the right things here:
“We cannot be paralyzed by fear. We will be stripped, if we do not resist, of our few remaining rights. To resist, while there is still time, is not only the highest form of spirituality but the highest form of patriotism. It is, if you care about what is worth protecting in this country, a moral imperative."
And on another occasion: "The Constitution remains a sacred document."
------------------
ON THE MANDATES & PASSPORTS
But then, after the lock downs ...
He threw us AND the Constitution under the bus with COVID in an interview with Jimmy Dore ... just listen him equivocate and watch him dance to avoid a direct answer when asked about the illegal and unconstitutional mandates and passports before sheepishly blowing it off by saying: "that was a decision that I made."
AUG 27, 2021 ...
Go to the 8:12 mark ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NusQH0pnX7Y&t=509s
Jimmy: “I’d like to get your thoughts on the vaccine mandates and passports”:
Hedges: “So I got the vaccine … the fact is these things were rolled out without proper vetting, that’s real … but I understand how people are weary about it, because they were turbo-charged … but that was a decision I made to get it … I am quite certain, in the history of pharmaceuticals that they work very hard to bury the negative consequences … that was a decision that I made”
TRANSLATION: He temporarily suspended his principles because things just got too hot in his kitchen.
And on USEFUL IDIOTS on SEP 21, 2021
Go to the 1:50 mark ...
Another less-than-passionate, half-hearted response ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7ZGT8raQS8
“It’s a hard question, I guess”
------------------
ON THE COVID VAX
On DEC 2, 2021 ...
The FDA was compelled by a court ruling to release Phizer's vax trial data that revealed 1,223 post-jab deaths and 34,762 adverse events in the first 10 weeks of its trial ... The FDA attempted to delay the full release of this data for 75 years! ...
This proved that the COVID vax was not "safe & effective"!
https://yandex.com/search/?text=FDA+FOIA+release+1223+deaths+phizer+covid+vaccine+december+2%2C+2021&lr=21504&search_source=yacom_desktop_common
But then, just 30 days later ...
On JAN 1, 2022 ...
Chris Hedges made this comment on the Krystal Kyle & Friends Podcast (Episode #54):
Go to the 1:08:47 mark:
https://krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/p/episode-54-audio-chris-hedges#details
"I don't think we're going to stop the pandemic and mutations until everybody gets vaccinated" ...
Chris Hedges DID NOT have to take sides on this issue ... He could have said it's a personal decision, but no ... most people would never tell another person to "walk the plank" if they knew better, but that's exactly what Hedges did here ... he knew the VAX was rushed to market after only one year (the average is 10 years), he knew about the explosive FDA FOIA release and he had to have seen the many videos of vax-injured people ... but he chose to push the "safe & effective" narrative on us anyway! ... and then about 2m after making that same comment during the interview above, Hedges rubbed our nose in it by openly admitting that he "does not trust Moderna or Phizer" ... livelihoods and lives can hang in the balance of reckless, irresponsible comments like this but clearly, this man did not give a hoot about the consequences.
Of course, Hedges is free to write about any topic he chooses ... but although the 2024 PRES election is 8 months away, we've only got 2 months to stop the WHO from implementing those scary amendments to the pandemic treaty ...
Read about James Roguski and the Amendments to the W.H.O.'s International Pandemic Treaty here on Substack ... Hedges should be front and center on this ... in tough times like these, why won't he even mention this topic? ... WTF is his problem?
I would suggest the real irony is your obsession with discrediting Rev Chris Hedges. That you have been allowed to continue with your obsession shows a patient belief in free speech. Your misguided (misguided in of itself is charitable) diatribes work to the favor of some individual or group of which readers much more intelligent than I, have already figured out. If your are not being paid for your efforts, help is available.
Is that all ya got, is that the best you can do?
I am not paid, I am not a Trumper, I am not a Zionist or a closet Democrat ...
I am an independent progressive just as Hedges once was ... I followed him very closely for the past decade, he used to be my hero until he began bust up many of his implicit promises to fight the good fight with us when the lock downs were declared ...
HE BROKE HIS WORD and has essentially deserted we the people of the U.S. working class.
I stand for integrity of the spoken and written word and the only affiliation I now have is with those of us who are inspired by persons who stick to their publicly stated principles when things get dicey ...
Read my entire post and then get back to me ... his duplicitous words and actions since the lock downs actually betray the principles they supposedly teach at Harvard Divinity School!
Eagerly awaiting your reply!
You have an opinion and you are angry and that somehow makes you special?
I think what makes you special is that you have the time to follow Chris Hedges and point out anything that disagrees with your worldview, something that the vast majority of humanity considered 'working class' would consider a luxury.
All I've done here is benchmark Hedges' spoken and written words against his actions to demonstrate how he has broken his promises to fight the good fight with us since the lock downs ... so what could possibly be wrong with that?
And I got a question: just who is supposedly granting me my right to speak freely here?
Didn't you know? ... it's NOT "the Rev", it's the gatekeepers with Substack!
Substack's gatekeepers could be forgiven for invoking the 'broken record' clause in dealing with your posts.
And Hedges continues to play his "broken record" by covering GAZA these past 6 months at the direct expense of the U.S. working class ... and I ask you, what on earth can an unemployed divorced mother of 4 children take away from Hedges' indulgent coverage of the Gaza genocide? ... for every Palestinian killed in Gaza, there is certainly an unemployed and divorced mother here in the U.S., but they've all become invisible to St Chris ...
I don't doubt Yemen's tragic loss of life as a result of Saudi and US backed civil war and intervention. But there are two things we need to keep in mind, when assessing Hedges' position on Gaza:
1. The UN estimates 150k killed in the Yemen war from 2014 - 2022, and another 227 died because of famine. By all accounts a horrendous humanitarian disaster. This happened over 7-8years. What we're seeing in Gaza, 33 killed in 160 days, is another level of mass-murder. Also, there's no place to go, no safe harbour for Gazans from direct Israeli fire. Only more crowding in ever denser makeshift camps which the Israelis continue to target like shooting fish in a barrel.
2. Much of the deaths in Yemen were due to war-induced famine. This is deliberate and unconscionable. We're seeing the beginnings of mass starvation in Gaza, due to deliberate action of the Zionist state. The only difference is, the mass dying from hunger hasn't fully kicked-in ... YET! If the restriction/blockade of food and water into Gaza persists for another 50 days, we will start seeing deaths perhaps hundreds/day. This is something the World (except the US) is trying desperately to prevent from ever becoming reality. The Yemen war did not see the level of intervention by the International Community, this is true. But it was a different time, where few countries are in a position to challenge the US and its G7 cronies. 2023-24 is not the same world.
Also, Hedges is not the only one projecting the death of Israel. Check out German scholar Tarik Cyril Amar's clip on Syriana Analysis https://www.youtube.com/live/mhZ1Iwzhnjo?si=c6p1EL2J9JMX2HiF
Lastly, I don't think Hedges is Jew baiting. He has on many occassions lauded the protests from various Jewish civil groups pushing for a ceasefire, and stressed the importance of keeping the matter in the consciousness of the public. His animosity is towards the Zionists, not Jews. This is an important difference.
“Since Kennedy assassination all US presidents were factotums” – Jeffrey Sachs
As chairman of the Covid Commission, Sachs had declared that the virus responsible for killing more
than a million Americans and perhaps another twenty million worldwide had almost certainly been
produced in a biolab, while he denounced the U.S. government for desperately working to conceal those facts.
The Transformation of Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, by Ron Unz - The Unz Review
https://www.unz.com/runz/the-transformation-of-prof-jeffrey-sachs/?display=footnoted
Yes, of course ...
And as I have repeatedly noted here, Hedges actually pushed the "safe & effective" narrative on us just 30 days after the explosive, court-ordered FDA FOIA release ...
See my post at the top of this thread ...
The problems of a mother of four watching her children STARVE TO DEATH, having lost her husband, parents and siblings to Israeli bombing, are far more pressing. Red herrings are not appreciated.
Unfortunately, correct. What will it take for the real people of the global south to organize an effective resistance movement? I'm talking about groups and leaders no one has yet heard of, not the heads of state who fight for the crumbs of power and wealth that fall from the tables of the global north, the United States, Russia, and China in particular. And we, the figurative south who live in the north, need to reach out to our comrades in subservient countries and make common cause with them.
The swift response of Israel to Oct.7 betrays advance knowledge, even possibly participation, in the attack, by IDF forces. We are dealing with a most duplicitous country imaginable after all, and based on the sheer violent depravity of its response, nothing is off the table with these Jewish Nazis.
It was only a year or so ago that the world was fretting, wringing its collective hands, at what Netenyahu's far right government would do once in power. Less than a year later, Gaza has been completely obliterated and nearly 40,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, are. Now we know what Netanyahu would do.
Are dead, my sentence should have read.
Let’s get the Biden Administration to focus on the criminal charges they so rightly deserve. 18 U.S. Code § 1091 is the statute, the Genocide Convention in US criminal law. Members of this administration shouldn't go a single day without have this statute in their faces, up front and center at every protest at every meeting, press conference, briefing, and trips home and abroad. They may feel they are immune now, let's get them considering what is possible when they leave office. They should have visions of prison all the days of their lives. Let us find the way.
There must be an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Pope Francis has said what is needed, now he must do what is needed by going to Gaza and standing for peace, justice and freedom.
Please sign the petition and share widely.
https://chng.it/CRQ7qw4Gzn
Code pink
https://www.codepink.org/cnngaza?utm_campaign=12_15_pali_update_alert_3&utm_medium=email&utm_source=codepink
Let us also support UNRWA. If our governments won’t act in accordance with humanity, then we will. https://www.unrwausa.org/donate Let us do it to honor Aaron Bushnell, or in memory of Hind Rajab.
Let us call for a No Fly-Zone over Gaza!
These are a few small things we can do. If we can do more, let us do more.
It's our bombs
Snuffing out the life force
and vibrant potential of the young.
It's our weapons
Delivering the indignity
Of burnt body fragments,
Crushed limbs and deadly shrapnel
To bodies once lovely.
The sudden deaths of children,
Beloved by large families,
Leave psychological holes,
Make rubble of lives.
O these pointless tragedies;
Their biographies nag at my heart.
How difficult to love life,
One's intimate life,
When this genocide is allowed,
With more bombs on the way.
I'd be suprised if October 7th wasn't an inside job.
I don't think that it was, because Hamas were so well prepared for the follow up. Still, who believes the Israelis stats on the number of IDF killed in the subsequent IDF actions in Gaza? On Oct 7th Hamas did a military raid to kill soldiers, and to take hostages, and they succeeded in doing this. However, the MSM reports about Oct 7th fail to mention that 80% of the CIVILIAN deaths were due to IDF actions. Firing from tanks, on houses that had both Hamas and Israeli civilians in them, and turning helicopter gunship fire on people and cars at the music festival - AND posting footage of same.
All I know is every single time I've followed the "narrative" it's been an outright lie. And indiscriminate killing of their own seems to tell me I'm on the right track. It's hard to believe this stuff because we've been so conditioned over our lifetimes to believe something else.
I can only hope that these Zionists are swinging in the air from a tree branch.
@CraigMokhiber 'The Israeli slaughter of the starved, sick, brutalized, displaced civilians sheltering in Rafah has begun, in the final phase of this #genocide in #Gaza. Forgive us. We have failed. But the perpetrators & their supporters will be held to account.'
“The U.S. funds wars, while China funds development.”
Yellen Dispatched to Beg China for Face-Saving Slowdown – Simplicius - Apr. 9, 2024
https://substack.com/inbox/post/143376573
Worth careful reading -- Such a thought / analysis is VERY rarely stated: