12 Comments
founding

I have read most of your books, Chris, my two favorites being "War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning" and "Wages of Rebellion", and I have listened to many of your speeches, but none of

these has moved me as deeply as following your work with the prisoners you've taught, from the

story of the play they wrote to their going on to Rutgers. It's their stories in their own words that

cut so deeply. I can only comprehend what they have endured as a triumph of the human spirit.

Thank you for sharing their stories and your relationship with them. Olenka Folda

Expand full comment
author

Thanks Olenka. I think you would like my latest book Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison as it deals with these issues and my students. Chris

Expand full comment

speaking

of Moving

Chris & Joe Sacco

wrote/illustrated a brilliant graphic

guide to America's Sacrifice Zones which

oughtta be required reading in high schools

Days of Destruction Days of Revolt

corporate greed

meets manifest destiny

where We the People are

merely the collaterally damaged

and are as Disposable as dirty diapers

Expand full comment

God bless you Chris Hedges

Expand full comment

Great reporting on an insane situation. Invest in lower income areas so people actually have a chance to escape poverty and crime, novel idea. And yet our Politicians on all sides have setup a system so Corporations get deferred prosecution of major felonies every year and make billions off of their deviousness. Then just pay off the govt with million dollar fines. What a country!!

Expand full comment

Even jobs where we pay folks to do anything instead of caging them like animals at many time the cost of productive employment. Here in NYC we pay $95,000/year per inmate for squalid conditions. We can pay 3 people $30,000 per year for every one we jail but like wars, nobody asks if the money spent is benefiting the citizens.

Expand full comment

Chris Hedges, Thank you for working with the incarcerated, to help improve their lives and share their stories with the public. I have read your book Our Class, and found it to be excellent, and the best of your books that I have read. We live in a very sick country where people in need are ignored, treated badly and not given the help they need. The people who are most helped are the people who need the least help, the wealthy and the corporations. Our country is heading in a very wrong direction.

Expand full comment

So powerful; thank you for allowing us to share in their stories Chris.

Expand full comment

great!

Expand full comment

I watched the wonderful, eye-opening Powell's Books (can be found on YouTube) conversation with you and Boris and read the great Our Class, the topic of conversation. Thank you so much for bringing the prison experience and aftermath out for our view. Incarceration, and the affects, is one of the great issues of our time. Thank you, thank you.

Expand full comment

And here's the link to the interview: https://youtu.be/JtEvGi5UGqo (hope it works!), my favorite Powell's Books interview.

Expand full comment

It's so powerful hearing their own words. The trapped elevator anecdote was such a nice illustration of so many of the emotional conflicts and FDNY rescue a nail biter for everyone. Hats off to anyone who stand with the elevator alarms and radios and the jumpy jolts, by minute four I'm in a corner, curled up like a toddler until there's a fireman's hand to grab.

Gotta love FDNY who do serve and protect. It's heartbreaking that America's promise we carry in our hearts and lives in the spirit of our firemen and EMTs is the virtual opposite of the cruel, corrupt exploitative Banana Republic we live in with the best propaganda money and technology can buy. We the People deserve better in the form of more self rule less carnivorous corps and their pay to play minions. Can't wait for part two and so happy we have you at Substack!!

Expand full comment