Chris, Your voice is a glimmer of light in all the darkness we face these days. I hope and pray you stay safe while bearing witness to the horror inflicted upon the children (and the adults) in Palestine. Your words break my heart every time I read them, but I must read them to hold onto my humanity. Thank you for all you do.
Your words released a river of tears, frozen for days in the horrors we are witnessing. Thank you for giving voice to what we are all feeling. Your words are not "infomation," "numbers dead," (what about the numbers of wounded, maimed and traumatized for life that are never mentioned???), "the numbers of bombs," "numbers of hospitals or buildings," which we need to know, but they don't touch us as deeply as even one person's honest description of what it means to go through the lived horrors of war. We hear or see the "news" with at most two numbed senses - seeing selected images, hearing distancing words and interpretations. But what you describe the children going through, and yourself as a reporter having gone through, not once but thousands of times in the flashbacks to follow, is and was lived with all the senses - hearing the endless screams and explosions, smelling the stench of death and destruction from a body half starved and sick and terrified, tasting that stench and the spoiled, poisoned water, tasting the child's, the mother's, the father's, your own, cold fear, touching and feeling the hard crumbling concrete, the suddenly grey lifeless loved ones who will never return.....all of this is true seeing, feeling, heartbreaking experience. It breaks my mother's heart.
Even without our realizing it, our "news" has already been taken over by A.I. because the five plus senses are missing. People believe what they are told by their selected propaganda sites and the selected images they are shown that fit with their preconceptions devoid of personal experience. But so many modern people - and we are all affected because we live in networks - cannot FEEL what they are seeing or reading as you do, Chris, coming from your deep commitment to truth, to human life - all Life - and articulated through your calling/witnessing as a member of the Press, willing to enter into the shared lived experiences of the worst kind repeatedly with the greatest courage for the sake of us all.
So many in the modern West will even believe what they are told over what they are seeing with their own eyes. We are all affected to one degree or another. Pre-programmed opinions remain intact while our humanity slips away, hearts close. Neighbors, friends, family - ordinary human beings turning in part into blank receivers of dehumanizing propaganda. It is terrible to witness. What the Palestinians are going through is not thousands of miles away. With every death, with every cluster bomb, a part of the Western soul is dying too and our own children will carry this burden for generations.
Take good care of yourself - we love you and we need your compassionate and articulate witnessing more than ever.
This made me cry again. For the horror of genocide in broad daylight the world stands with Palestine. Anyone not filled with tears for the children and innocents slaughtered has no humanity.
In fairness to Genocidin Biden he is just as comfortable killing kids & civilians of diverse ethnicity & Nationalities.. even Americans had mandated death shots or no jobs.. comply or starve.. gentler version of Palestine policy, do our will or die!
Conflating the genocide in Gaza with Covid vaccinations is something called a false analogy. Science isn't the enemy, its Western Imperialism, currently being spearheaded by your nation. In Canada, we'd have demanded a cease fire by now, if our leaders weren't afraid of the Fascistic American tendency to believe you're either with them, or you're the enemy in need of sanctions....but when it came to vaccination, we considered ourselves lucky to have the vaccines, but shamed we didn't share them with the third world.
"we considered ourselves lucky to have the vaccines" is something called a false narrative. Speak for yourself.
IMO (that means I do not speak for you), the vaccines were not science. They were scientific experiments whose unscientific conclusions were determined in advance of testing. Thus, science was no allowed to run its logical course...and that is why we end up with illogical and false narratives you espouse.
BTW, Canada being opposed to Fascistic tendencies? What a joke. What do you call the Canadian government freezing the bank accounts of Truckers rallying their opposition to vaccine mandates? You appear to be living in a terrifying fantasy world involving the denial of reality.
Well well............this post explains alot ww........you're an anti-vaccer. AND a convoy apologist.
I speak for my country sir, and am not to be bullied by a few fascists who think they know better than medical science and so can hold a democratically elected government hostage by waving confederate flags and tooting their horns all night.
Canadians developed the polio vaccine which has all but eradicated a disease that in my childhood, crippled and killed many kids. Vaccine science is over 100 years old...and has proven successful in creating a much healthier world.
Imagining that the men and women who do medical science are a bunch of Mengele driven experimenters is conspiracy thinking. Conspiracy thinking thrives when ordinary citizens start thinking they're smarter then the experts. It happens when right wing fundamentalists insist on their 'beliefs' superceding public health policy.
It's causing a lot of problems in both our countries. But if you think a majority of Canadians supported these faux truckers, you're dreaming. Most truckers were vaccinated and kept on trucking through the convoy.........their livelihoods depended on it. The inability of unvaccinated truckers to cross the border was because of an AMERICAN RULING...Canada had 0 ability to change that, had it wanted to.
The False Narrative is yours world war.........and I'm too educated a woman to be intimidated or silenced by it. We had a reliable post pandemic study done in Canada, which found that had we done just as well as you Americans had done.....70,000 more Canadians would have died.
But you'll dismiss that data....and claim bogus statistics to suggest the vaccine and not the virus, was the problem. The only good I can see coming of you and your conspiracy crowd, is that you just might get yer behinds kicked into the next world, by the next pandemic.
Which, by the way, is likely unavoidable, given the rapidity of those melting glaciers and permafrosts......as global heating keeps rising in our dumbed down militaristic world new pathogens will likely be released.
PS: No educated person simply speaks for themselves. They speak for the record of evidence accumulated over time. THAT'S WHY EDUCATION BEATS CERTAINTY, and always will.
The ignorance, false assumptions, and wishful thinking of your latest, long-winded (with all capitals on some particulary neurotic points that indicate yelling and uncontrollable anger) diatribe only help to reinforce my earlier points. Thank you!
Btw, good luck with that compromised immune system that you allowed your government to coerce you into. You're now on the perpetual "booster" treadmill for life- literally. It's no wonder you're angry about it.
Seems like a revised version of history to say Canadians felt lucky to have vaccines. Politicians might have taken that stand but the majority of the public was terrorized and coerced to accept mRNA transfection. When the mandated experimental products destroyed lives and business in violation of laws against human medical experiments the Truckers Convoy who spoke out against the kill shots were smeared as Nazis.
Washington Mafia declares war on an unseen enemy and millions die in service to profiteers agenda. The analogy is only false if you are still in denial about the devastation all the policies and jabs caused and swallow the lie about a deadly novel virus. Analogy is perfect. analog.
NONE SENSE MY DEAR. Over 80% of Canadians got vaccinated and consequently our dealth rate was lower than yours. The problem is, once you become an anti vaccer, you discount surveys that say so.............and stick with the belief that a wacky fringe of Canadians...funded quite heavily by American right wingers........are a Canadian majority.
True, they are a loud bunch....honking horns in heavily populated areas being a favourite form of expression. But vaccine science is an old technology and the majority of Canadians trusted the science and got the jab.
It's you who are in denial....but that denial, like the current one around the genocide going on in Gaza......depends on sticking to what you believe, and ignoring any evidence to the contrary.
it also depends on believing that all expertise is tainted by the death instinct. It's a fascistic mindset where disagreement is a form of treason. Of course, the mandates made life difficult...and business in some cases impossible. But in Canada we also had generous CERB payments, of 2000 a month, for people who couldn't work during the pandemic.
Our current right wingers are blaming the government for those programs...but they were a large part of why so many Canadians followed the rules. Too bad your unregulated free enterprise system down there wasn't up for the challenge.
"NONE SENSE MY DEAR. Over 80% of Canadians got vaccinated and consequently our dealth rate was lower than yours. The problem is, once you become an anti vaccer, you discount surveys that say so............."
Look at Our World Data and any tracking system from UK to Israel.. deaths from Covid and all cause mortality are astronomic in vaccinated and grow w each jab... Flinging the anti-vax label will not change the reality the mRNA transfection offered NO benefits & great harm.
Try looking at data the all cause mortality & Covid deaths soared after jabs in US Canada etc
Very heartfelt and well written. Those poor babies and children in Gaza being slaughtered by two of the most powerful militaries in the world--the U.S. and Israel. It is perverse, gross, and evil! God damn!
This is one of the very most empathetic and poignant essays of values-based journalism i've ever read over the past 50+ years of deeply reading about various injustices. Thank you, Rev. Chris. 🙏💜
(And thank you for your years of ethical veganism and speaking out for that other, massive population of hyper-vulnerable sentient beings, the hundreds of billions of animal persons who suffer unimaginable pain and atrocities every hour of their lives, on the land and in the waters, because of human madness and callousness.)
Thank you, Mr. Hedges, for helping humanize the plight of Gazans living under the Israeli genocide, and revealing for your readers what so many of your colleagues in "journalism" actively work to obscure. I've cited your posts in some of my own recent columns, including one last week recalling that genocide is, unfortunately, entirely on brand for the United States. Too many Americans forget how recent was the genocide of indigenous Americans. It seems our nation has learned less from its own history than we wish. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/indigenous-lives-matter-from-north
This is such a deeply moving and empathetic piece of writing, so powerful and all the better for the simple, direct language. I confess it moved me close to tears, and that's fairly unusual. I'm a retired psychiatrist, ethnically, culturally Jewish but atheist and strongly anti-Zionist, ongoing events again demonstrating how much Zionism was always the wrong answer to centuries of European Jewish persecution. Neither Palestinians nor Jews will be free until the state structure of Zionism is dismantled. That dream seems so unrealisable now but other unrealisable dreams in the past have been fulfilled when people realised they were the only way to resolve disputes. It seems right now the only just solution to the problem is the single -- *secular* -- democratic state for all its citizens, with freedom of -- and freedom from -- religion, be it fundamentalist theocratic Islam or Judaism. The attempted "final", oh dear, "solution" of the current fascist Israeli government is no lasting solution at all. It will lead only to more frustration, anger and violence. Freedom for Palestinians, and REAL freedom too for Jews!
Brian, I agree that Zionism wasn't the proper response to pogroms and other difficulties that Jews had living in a much larger non-Jewish society. (This is called the "Jewish Question," or the "Jewish Problem.")
My view is that a proper response would be to study the psychological and sociological mechanisms at play, among both Jews and non-Jews. For instance, one must bring into the understanding the concept of the "us/them" instinct all we humans have, as a result of our biological evolution. The instinct obviously had survival value in the biological environment, but in the modern man-made environment, it's extremely problematic. The instinct shows up not only with the Jewish Question, but in virtually all other kinds of interactions among humans. But that doesn't stop us from looking at it in terms of the Tribe.
Perhaps as a psychiatrist, this idea might appeal to you. I don't mean only the instinct I mention, but also all the psychological and social mechanisms at play. It amazes me that even the most learned Jews don't seem to understand this. The usual response is to express a fear that the Goyim will exterminate Jews at the drop of a hat, "just because we're Jews." That's B.S., of course, propagated by Jewish leaders who want the members of the Tribe to feel that they need their leaders, to protect them from the Goyim. In fact, the Jewish leaders need examples of true Jew hatred, to validate their leadership role.
Yes, from my humble understanding the sociological and psychological factors here are the damaged created on the Israelis since their birth caused by a society who teach them to hate those "animals called Palestinians." By reading Max Blumenthal's book "Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel" I arrived at the conclusion that the Israeli society is mentally sick. Of course, our natural make up and our "Narcissism of minor differences" will always be present and historically we have the record of tribalism being useful not only for the own tribe but for the others too. Great empires like the Persian benefited other countries' commerce and culture without apartheid vassal regions.
On questions of this sort, I always recommend a few books by the late cultural anthropologist, whose work you may know. Principally of course, The Denial of Death; also Escape from Evil; and The Birth and Death of Meaning. Also worth reading is the book by Sheldon Solomon et al, The Worm at the Core. And have a look at the website of the Ernest Becker Foundation, EBF.
It has to become possible...the alternative, which as a planet we are pursuing now, is extinction from War, Famine, Ecocide, and the continual destruction of the Living Natural Web we have all depended on, from the beginning.
Going to rallies in support of Palestine is a small step forward. I am amazed by the diversity of cultures, ages and origins I'm meeting in my Canadian city. Go to a gathering near you, and talk to the people gathered there..........already, a majority of the world's citizens want another way forward.
Together we can find it..........and we must. My 9 year old grand daughter slept over last night...she still sleeps as I write. Waking I looked at her open clever face and realized she will be roughly my age in the year 2200.
I weep for her already, if we don't find the path to PEACE. All the current warmongers will be dead by then. I pray they will have no replacements in her time, but it likely does depend on us....and what we do in the next few years.
Chris is on the right track....in any way we can, let's join him.
Beautifully written and truly captures every emotion that they are experiencing. How sad for them, how sad for us all. This letter should be shown to all, but we know that will never be, but for those who pay attention we appreciate you so please never stop. Thank you for all you do Chris, you are the truth, and the light in this very dark world.
Thank you for going to Rafah. Thank you for writing this. It made me cry.
I was in Cairo October 7th (coincidence) and also a week later. These were events that shook Egyptians to the core.
I can't go right now. Most of us are unable to help the way you do. I would love to be able to. Thank you again. You expressed succinctly what many of us think and feel. Thank you for all you do.
This letter made me cry. I feel the same way as a protestor in my small Western city- helpless but feeling the imperative as a fellow human to speak out. Thank you Chris for reminding us of the need to bear witness and not simply to go about our daily lives as if genocide is another mass shooting or robbery.
Thanks Chris. Too bad the MSM media and the NY Times will not print the ugly truth! Has Zionist fascism taken over the world through the USA? I only see sheer hate in the dead eyes of IDF spokesman and politicians. With insane hasbara from Bloody Blinken who even had the audacity to say "2 State solution" with Hamas crushed and Gaza disarmed. Not much to say about the West Bank pogroms or daily Kristallnacht's against the unarmed Palestinian's and the Hill Top Youth Brown Shirts! Butcher Biden the Chicken Hawk has ALWAYS hated Palestinian's and Arabs, like the rest of the Neo Con, Neo Liberal PNAC fascists. Sadly I saw on Al Jazeera today the journalist who tore off his helmet and vest in defiance, rage and the hopelessness of never ending bombing, was murdered yesterday under IDF bombs. ( sorry I will post his name latter). Stay safe Chris. Your voice is needed for humanity. Maybe as a witness to war crimes in the Hague! ( I know not much of a chance for that).
This makes me weep. Heart hurting. For the children on whom the brutish Israelis are raining terror wounds deep into the psyches of these dear innocents and their families if they manage to survive. And tears also fall witnessing my own country’s depravity. Actively supporting these Israeli coarsened psychopaths. Biden and his morally blind neoconservative hawks til -the- end triplets - Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland. Appallingly inferior to the historical moment that will forever announce the USA’s moral stuntedness. So within so without. A selfish gaming bullying entity inside its borders controlled by the corporate and Fat Rich, a mindset wholly absent service to life itself. Where people are viewed solely as profit opportunities. And doing their damnedest not to pay a dime to the community (taxes) yet use its infrastructure and schools. The corporate mindset is that of the user. Defiling the public trust it creates systems (medical, insurance, legislative, war complex) that further scourge communities with armies of lobbyists to restrict and minimize the public good (universal healthcare, not for profit prisons, free public college university and trades education, mega climate amelioration efforts, etc). So this morally deficient anti-life corporatized mindset intent on power and profit is that of our mediocre Biden Administration on vivid display in its subservience to abysmal Israeli dictation. So within so without. Our backside in full view of the world. This will become a marker of the USA’s decline.
Thank you, Chris Hedges. I've followed your work and humanity for some time, now, since college days and now... we are all getting old and this issue continues to be tragic and confounding. I just read another sanctimonious testimony from "the other side" that gave no acknowledgement toward the suffering on the other side... It's astounding, the depths of that victimhood, the narcissism, the insistence that the other side IS evil despite the lack of material power - violence - in comparison. I get that this is the depth of the Trauma that has been created over decades, centuries. But there is a toxic mental illness at work that desires to master the tools of Death and Destruction to this degree and rationalize it away by one's own trauma committed by previous events, previous actors. In fact, it is Anti-Western because it does NOT hold individuals responsible for their own acts of criminality, and instead, engages in collective punishment in a stark tribal framework. Irony of ironies. Ta Nehisi Coates - a newcomer to this issue, for which he says he is working hard at making up for his own ignorance - was just talking about how it had not occurred to him that someone would ever get "the wrong message" from the Holocaust, but now he sees it. He referenced MLK's insights into how embracing violence so tightly would corrupt the soul, and in turn, how profound an insight it is that Nonviolence is such a critical path - without qualifiers. Without ifs/ands/buts. That there is a difference in recognizing how you are caught in the Cycle of Suffering, the Cycle of Violence, which contrasts with getting "the wrong message" which is the idea that one must get the Power, and once gotten, then holding onto that Power is what keeps you safe, rather than seeing the Cycle of Violence that you are trapped in. These kids... To stop the Cycle of Hate, the rest of us must bypass the grownups and do what we can to extend the message of Love to the kids. Help them know that despite what is happening, the World does not hate them, just a select group of Grownups who are trapped in their own toxic cycles... (with the help of a lot of prominent American intellectuals, some I get, some I don't, but the Vehemence displayed on the pages of the NYTimes is so ugly, unkind, and unbecoming of what should be an advanced and magnanimous civilization ... like, I get it about Brett Stephens, he's not very modern in his thinking, but I do NOT get what is going on in Nick Kristof's head with his "faux humanistic apologist I only see terrorism on one side" pseudo-wise uncle unbalanced hot takes... my GenZ child thinks he's right wing "OK Boomer"... And who woulda thought it's good-ol' smug T Friedman who has a clear view of Reality these days...!) Whatevs. You, Chris Hedges, remain the true Humanist after all these wretched decades.
Chris, Your voice is a glimmer of light in all the darkness we face these days. I hope and pray you stay safe while bearing witness to the horror inflicted upon the children (and the adults) in Palestine. Your words break my heart every time I read them, but I must read them to hold onto my humanity. Thank you for all you do.
“Your words break my heart every time I read them, but I must read them to hold onto my humanity.” Thank you for this potent sentence!
Your words released a river of tears, frozen for days in the horrors we are witnessing. Thank you for giving voice to what we are all feeling. Your words are not "infomation," "numbers dead," (what about the numbers of wounded, maimed and traumatized for life that are never mentioned???), "the numbers of bombs," "numbers of hospitals or buildings," which we need to know, but they don't touch us as deeply as even one person's honest description of what it means to go through the lived horrors of war. We hear or see the "news" with at most two numbed senses - seeing selected images, hearing distancing words and interpretations. But what you describe the children going through, and yourself as a reporter having gone through, not once but thousands of times in the flashbacks to follow, is and was lived with all the senses - hearing the endless screams and explosions, smelling the stench of death and destruction from a body half starved and sick and terrified, tasting that stench and the spoiled, poisoned water, tasting the child's, the mother's, the father's, your own, cold fear, touching and feeling the hard crumbling concrete, the suddenly grey lifeless loved ones who will never return.....all of this is true seeing, feeling, heartbreaking experience. It breaks my mother's heart.
Even without our realizing it, our "news" has already been taken over by A.I. because the five plus senses are missing. People believe what they are told by their selected propaganda sites and the selected images they are shown that fit with their preconceptions devoid of personal experience. But so many modern people - and we are all affected because we live in networks - cannot FEEL what they are seeing or reading as you do, Chris, coming from your deep commitment to truth, to human life - all Life - and articulated through your calling/witnessing as a member of the Press, willing to enter into the shared lived experiences of the worst kind repeatedly with the greatest courage for the sake of us all.
So many in the modern West will even believe what they are told over what they are seeing with their own eyes. We are all affected to one degree or another. Pre-programmed opinions remain intact while our humanity slips away, hearts close. Neighbors, friends, family - ordinary human beings turning in part into blank receivers of dehumanizing propaganda. It is terrible to witness. What the Palestinians are going through is not thousands of miles away. With every death, with every cluster bomb, a part of the Western soul is dying too and our own children will carry this burden for generations.
Take good care of yourself - we love you and we need your compassionate and articulate witnessing more than ever.
Forever grateful.
the Stories we tell
and are told are the
Narratives that Define
how we Think about things
that Shape the Wolrd we Live In
.
Chris brings the Horror
that is War -- in this case
a "war" that is Genocide on
one side & raw Terrorism for
for the human Beings subjected
to BiBi Nuthyahoo's desperate ploy
to keep outta Prison long enough so
maybe his Electorate Forgets & Forgives
his Incompetence & attempts to Redifine
Israel's Democracy in BiBi's horrific Image.
.
Israel and its Citizens are Better
than this and Palestinians and their
Children Deserve better than Nutnyahoo's
incessant Terror rained upon them relentlessly.
This made me cry again. For the horror of genocide in broad daylight the world stands with Palestine. Anyone not filled with tears for the children and innocents slaughtered has no humanity.
dehumanizing
is epidemic
it Stops
with
Us.
.
Godspeed
Mr. Hedges.
.
mind the Target
Nutnyahoo's
likely put
onto
you.
In fairness to Genocidin Biden he is just as comfortable killing kids & civilians of diverse ethnicity & Nationalities.. even Americans had mandated death shots or no jobs.. comply or starve.. gentler version of Palestine policy, do our will or die!
Conflating the genocide in Gaza with Covid vaccinations is something called a false analogy. Science isn't the enemy, its Western Imperialism, currently being spearheaded by your nation. In Canada, we'd have demanded a cease fire by now, if our leaders weren't afraid of the Fascistic American tendency to believe you're either with them, or you're the enemy in need of sanctions....but when it came to vaccination, we considered ourselves lucky to have the vaccines, but shamed we didn't share them with the third world.
"we considered ourselves lucky to have the vaccines" is something called a false narrative. Speak for yourself.
IMO (that means I do not speak for you), the vaccines were not science. They were scientific experiments whose unscientific conclusions were determined in advance of testing. Thus, science was no allowed to run its logical course...and that is why we end up with illogical and false narratives you espouse.
BTW, Canada being opposed to Fascistic tendencies? What a joke. What do you call the Canadian government freezing the bank accounts of Truckers rallying their opposition to vaccine mandates? You appear to be living in a terrifying fantasy world involving the denial of reality.
Well well............this post explains alot ww........you're an anti-vaccer. AND a convoy apologist.
I speak for my country sir, and am not to be bullied by a few fascists who think they know better than medical science and so can hold a democratically elected government hostage by waving confederate flags and tooting their horns all night.
Canadians developed the polio vaccine which has all but eradicated a disease that in my childhood, crippled and killed many kids. Vaccine science is over 100 years old...and has proven successful in creating a much healthier world.
Imagining that the men and women who do medical science are a bunch of Mengele driven experimenters is conspiracy thinking. Conspiracy thinking thrives when ordinary citizens start thinking they're smarter then the experts. It happens when right wing fundamentalists insist on their 'beliefs' superceding public health policy.
It's causing a lot of problems in both our countries. But if you think a majority of Canadians supported these faux truckers, you're dreaming. Most truckers were vaccinated and kept on trucking through the convoy.........their livelihoods depended on it. The inability of unvaccinated truckers to cross the border was because of an AMERICAN RULING...Canada had 0 ability to change that, had it wanted to.
The False Narrative is yours world war.........and I'm too educated a woman to be intimidated or silenced by it. We had a reliable post pandemic study done in Canada, which found that had we done just as well as you Americans had done.....70,000 more Canadians would have died.
But you'll dismiss that data....and claim bogus statistics to suggest the vaccine and not the virus, was the problem. The only good I can see coming of you and your conspiracy crowd, is that you just might get yer behinds kicked into the next world, by the next pandemic.
Which, by the way, is likely unavoidable, given the rapidity of those melting glaciers and permafrosts......as global heating keeps rising in our dumbed down militaristic world new pathogens will likely be released.
PS: No educated person simply speaks for themselves. They speak for the record of evidence accumulated over time. THAT'S WHY EDUCATION BEATS CERTAINTY, and always will.
The ignorance, false assumptions, and wishful thinking of your latest, long-winded (with all capitals on some particulary neurotic points that indicate yelling and uncontrollable anger) diatribe only help to reinforce my earlier points. Thank you!
Btw, good luck with that compromised immune system that you allowed your government to coerce you into. You're now on the perpetual "booster" treadmill for life- literally. It's no wonder you're angry about it.
Seems like a revised version of history to say Canadians felt lucky to have vaccines. Politicians might have taken that stand but the majority of the public was terrorized and coerced to accept mRNA transfection. When the mandated experimental products destroyed lives and business in violation of laws against human medical experiments the Truckers Convoy who spoke out against the kill shots were smeared as Nazis.
Washington Mafia declares war on an unseen enemy and millions die in service to profiteers agenda. The analogy is only false if you are still in denial about the devastation all the policies and jabs caused and swallow the lie about a deadly novel virus. Analogy is perfect. analog.
NONE SENSE MY DEAR. Over 80% of Canadians got vaccinated and consequently our dealth rate was lower than yours. The problem is, once you become an anti vaccer, you discount surveys that say so.............and stick with the belief that a wacky fringe of Canadians...funded quite heavily by American right wingers........are a Canadian majority.
True, they are a loud bunch....honking horns in heavily populated areas being a favourite form of expression. But vaccine science is an old technology and the majority of Canadians trusted the science and got the jab.
It's you who are in denial....but that denial, like the current one around the genocide going on in Gaza......depends on sticking to what you believe, and ignoring any evidence to the contrary.
it also depends on believing that all expertise is tainted by the death instinct. It's a fascistic mindset where disagreement is a form of treason. Of course, the mandates made life difficult...and business in some cases impossible. But in Canada we also had generous CERB payments, of 2000 a month, for people who couldn't work during the pandemic.
Our current right wingers are blaming the government for those programs...but they were a large part of why so many Canadians followed the rules. Too bad your unregulated free enterprise system down there wasn't up for the challenge.
"NONE SENSE MY DEAR. Over 80% of Canadians got vaccinated and consequently our dealth rate was lower than yours. The problem is, once you become an anti vaccer, you discount surveys that say so............."
Look at Our World Data and any tracking system from UK to Israel.. deaths from Covid and all cause mortality are astronomic in vaccinated and grow w each jab... Flinging the anti-vax label will not change the reality the mRNA transfection offered NO benefits & great harm.
Try looking at data the all cause mortality & Covid deaths soared after jabs in US Canada etc
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths
and make BiBi
a Martyr? put
him in Prison
where he Be-
longs and let
Attrition run
its Course
Thanks for going Chris. Your love is contagious. Keep it alive. Be safe.
Lol
Very heartfelt and well written. Those poor babies and children in Gaza being slaughtered by two of the most powerful militaries in the world--the U.S. and Israel. It is perverse, gross, and evil! God damn!
This is one of the very most empathetic and poignant essays of values-based journalism i've ever read over the past 50+ years of deeply reading about various injustices. Thank you, Rev. Chris. 🙏💜
(And thank you for your years of ethical veganism and speaking out for that other, massive population of hyper-vulnerable sentient beings, the hundreds of billions of animal persons who suffer unimaginable pain and atrocities every hour of their lives, on the land and in the waters, because of human madness and callousness.)
Thank you, Mr. Hedges, for helping humanize the plight of Gazans living under the Israeli genocide, and revealing for your readers what so many of your colleagues in "journalism" actively work to obscure. I've cited your posts in some of my own recent columns, including one last week recalling that genocide is, unfortunately, entirely on brand for the United States. Too many Americans forget how recent was the genocide of indigenous Americans. It seems our nation has learned less from its own history than we wish. https://shahidbuttar.substack.com/p/indigenous-lives-matter-from-north
You be careful over there!
It Shouldn't Hurt to be a Child
This is such a deeply moving and empathetic piece of writing, so powerful and all the better for the simple, direct language. I confess it moved me close to tears, and that's fairly unusual. I'm a retired psychiatrist, ethnically, culturally Jewish but atheist and strongly anti-Zionist, ongoing events again demonstrating how much Zionism was always the wrong answer to centuries of European Jewish persecution. Neither Palestinians nor Jews will be free until the state structure of Zionism is dismantled. That dream seems so unrealisable now but other unrealisable dreams in the past have been fulfilled when people realised they were the only way to resolve disputes. It seems right now the only just solution to the problem is the single -- *secular* -- democratic state for all its citizens, with freedom of -- and freedom from -- religion, be it fundamentalist theocratic Islam or Judaism. The attempted "final", oh dear, "solution" of the current fascist Israeli government is no lasting solution at all. It will lead only to more frustration, anger and violence. Freedom for Palestinians, and REAL freedom too for Jews!
Brian, I agree that Zionism wasn't the proper response to pogroms and other difficulties that Jews had living in a much larger non-Jewish society. (This is called the "Jewish Question," or the "Jewish Problem.")
My view is that a proper response would be to study the psychological and sociological mechanisms at play, among both Jews and non-Jews. For instance, one must bring into the understanding the concept of the "us/them" instinct all we humans have, as a result of our biological evolution. The instinct obviously had survival value in the biological environment, but in the modern man-made environment, it's extremely problematic. The instinct shows up not only with the Jewish Question, but in virtually all other kinds of interactions among humans. But that doesn't stop us from looking at it in terms of the Tribe.
Perhaps as a psychiatrist, this idea might appeal to you. I don't mean only the instinct I mention, but also all the psychological and social mechanisms at play. It amazes me that even the most learned Jews don't seem to understand this. The usual response is to express a fear that the Goyim will exterminate Jews at the drop of a hat, "just because we're Jews." That's B.S., of course, propagated by Jewish leaders who want the members of the Tribe to feel that they need their leaders, to protect them from the Goyim. In fact, the Jewish leaders need examples of true Jew hatred, to validate their leadership role.
Can you understand the picture I'm painting here?
Yes, from my humble understanding the sociological and psychological factors here are the damaged created on the Israelis since their birth caused by a society who teach them to hate those "animals called Palestinians." By reading Max Blumenthal's book "Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel" I arrived at the conclusion that the Israeli society is mentally sick. Of course, our natural make up and our "Narcissism of minor differences" will always be present and historically we have the record of tribalism being useful not only for the own tribe but for the others too. Great empires like the Persian benefited other countries' commerce and culture without apartheid vassal regions.
On questions of this sort, I always recommend a few books by the late cultural anthropologist, whose work you may know. Principally of course, The Denial of Death; also Escape from Evil; and The Birth and Death of Meaning. Also worth reading is the book by Sheldon Solomon et al, The Worm at the Core. And have a look at the website of the Ernest Becker Foundation, EBF.
Brian, please stop with the homework assignments. Show us your heart, if you're brave enough.
It has to become possible...the alternative, which as a planet we are pursuing now, is extinction from War, Famine, Ecocide, and the continual destruction of the Living Natural Web we have all depended on, from the beginning.
Going to rallies in support of Palestine is a small step forward. I am amazed by the diversity of cultures, ages and origins I'm meeting in my Canadian city. Go to a gathering near you, and talk to the people gathered there..........already, a majority of the world's citizens want another way forward.
Together we can find it..........and we must. My 9 year old grand daughter slept over last night...she still sleeps as I write. Waking I looked at her open clever face and realized she will be roughly my age in the year 2200.
I weep for her already, if we don't find the path to PEACE. All the current warmongers will be dead by then. I pray they will have no replacements in her time, but it likely does depend on us....and what we do in the next few years.
Chris is on the right track....in any way we can, let's join him.
It takes a lot of reading biblical scholars to understand how when and. Why the Hebrew testament came to be written as we have it in the Bible
Do not take it as literally history
Thank you for asking, but I'm really not the right person to attempt an answer. All best.
Beautifully written and truly captures every emotion that they are experiencing. How sad for them, how sad for us all. This letter should be shown to all, but we know that will never be, but for those who pay attention we appreciate you so please never stop. Thank you for all you do Chris, you are the truth, and the light in this very dark world.
Thank you for going to Rafah. Thank you for writing this. It made me cry.
I was in Cairo October 7th (coincidence) and also a week later. These were events that shook Egyptians to the core.
I can't go right now. Most of us are unable to help the way you do. I would love to be able to. Thank you again. You expressed succinctly what many of us think and feel. Thank you for all you do.
This letter made me cry. I feel the same way as a protestor in my small Western city- helpless but feeling the imperative as a fellow human to speak out. Thank you Chris for reminding us of the need to bear witness and not simply to go about our daily lives as if genocide is another mass shooting or robbery.
Thanks Chris. Too bad the MSM media and the NY Times will not print the ugly truth! Has Zionist fascism taken over the world through the USA? I only see sheer hate in the dead eyes of IDF spokesman and politicians. With insane hasbara from Bloody Blinken who even had the audacity to say "2 State solution" with Hamas crushed and Gaza disarmed. Not much to say about the West Bank pogroms or daily Kristallnacht's against the unarmed Palestinian's and the Hill Top Youth Brown Shirts! Butcher Biden the Chicken Hawk has ALWAYS hated Palestinian's and Arabs, like the rest of the Neo Con, Neo Liberal PNAC fascists. Sadly I saw on Al Jazeera today the journalist who tore off his helmet and vest in defiance, rage and the hopelessness of never ending bombing, was murdered yesterday under IDF bombs. ( sorry I will post his name latter). Stay safe Chris. Your voice is needed for humanity. Maybe as a witness to war crimes in the Hague! ( I know not much of a chance for that).
This makes me weep. Heart hurting. For the children on whom the brutish Israelis are raining terror wounds deep into the psyches of these dear innocents and their families if they manage to survive. And tears also fall witnessing my own country’s depravity. Actively supporting these Israeli coarsened psychopaths. Biden and his morally blind neoconservative hawks til -the- end triplets - Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland. Appallingly inferior to the historical moment that will forever announce the USA’s moral stuntedness. So within so without. A selfish gaming bullying entity inside its borders controlled by the corporate and Fat Rich, a mindset wholly absent service to life itself. Where people are viewed solely as profit opportunities. And doing their damnedest not to pay a dime to the community (taxes) yet use its infrastructure and schools. The corporate mindset is that of the user. Defiling the public trust it creates systems (medical, insurance, legislative, war complex) that further scourge communities with armies of lobbyists to restrict and minimize the public good (universal healthcare, not for profit prisons, free public college university and trades education, mega climate amelioration efforts, etc). So this morally deficient anti-life corporatized mindset intent on power and profit is that of our mediocre Biden Administration on vivid display in its subservience to abysmal Israeli dictation. So within so without. Our backside in full view of the world. This will become a marker of the USA’s decline.
You put a scared little face onto what horror is unfolding
Netanyahu is and has been a war criminal - just like the USA
It’s shameful and heartbreaking
God speed to you brave warrior with a pen
Thank you, Chris Hedges. I've followed your work and humanity for some time, now, since college days and now... we are all getting old and this issue continues to be tragic and confounding. I just read another sanctimonious testimony from "the other side" that gave no acknowledgement toward the suffering on the other side... It's astounding, the depths of that victimhood, the narcissism, the insistence that the other side IS evil despite the lack of material power - violence - in comparison. I get that this is the depth of the Trauma that has been created over decades, centuries. But there is a toxic mental illness at work that desires to master the tools of Death and Destruction to this degree and rationalize it away by one's own trauma committed by previous events, previous actors. In fact, it is Anti-Western because it does NOT hold individuals responsible for their own acts of criminality, and instead, engages in collective punishment in a stark tribal framework. Irony of ironies. Ta Nehisi Coates - a newcomer to this issue, for which he says he is working hard at making up for his own ignorance - was just talking about how it had not occurred to him that someone would ever get "the wrong message" from the Holocaust, but now he sees it. He referenced MLK's insights into how embracing violence so tightly would corrupt the soul, and in turn, how profound an insight it is that Nonviolence is such a critical path - without qualifiers. Without ifs/ands/buts. That there is a difference in recognizing how you are caught in the Cycle of Suffering, the Cycle of Violence, which contrasts with getting "the wrong message" which is the idea that one must get the Power, and once gotten, then holding onto that Power is what keeps you safe, rather than seeing the Cycle of Violence that you are trapped in. These kids... To stop the Cycle of Hate, the rest of us must bypass the grownups and do what we can to extend the message of Love to the kids. Help them know that despite what is happening, the World does not hate them, just a select group of Grownups who are trapped in their own toxic cycles... (with the help of a lot of prominent American intellectuals, some I get, some I don't, but the Vehemence displayed on the pages of the NYTimes is so ugly, unkind, and unbecoming of what should be an advanced and magnanimous civilization ... like, I get it about Brett Stephens, he's not very modern in his thinking, but I do NOT get what is going on in Nick Kristof's head with his "faux humanistic apologist I only see terrorism on one side" pseudo-wise uncle unbalanced hot takes... my GenZ child thinks he's right wing "OK Boomer"... And who woulda thought it's good-ol' smug T Friedman who has a clear view of Reality these days...!) Whatevs. You, Chris Hedges, remain the true Humanist after all these wretched decades.