Chris Hedges

The vanquished know war. They see through the empty jingoism of those who use the abstract words of glory, honor, and patriotism to mask the cries of the wounded, the senseless killing, war profiteering, and chest-pounding grief.

Chris Hedges (born 18 September 1956 in St. Johnsbury, Vermont) is a war journalist and the author of War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002) and What Every Person Should Know about War (2003).

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• The vanquished know war. They see through the empty jingoism of those who use the abstract words of glory, honor, and patriotism to mask the cries of the wounded, the senseless killing, war profiteering, and chest-pounding grief.
  • War: Realities and Myths

• Over the last few decades these radical religious broadcasters, who have essentially taken control of the airwaves, have built a parallel information and entertainment service that is piped into tens of millions of American homes as a way of essentially indoctrinating listeners and viewers with this very frightening ideology.
  • The Christian Right and the Rising Power of the Evangelical Political Movement

• As I looked out on the crowd, I was witnessing things I had witnessed in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina or in squares in Belgrade… it breaks my heart when I see it in my country.
  • New York Times Reporter, Chris Hedges was Booed off the Stage and had his Microphone Cut Twice as he Delivered a Graduation Speech on War and Empire at Rockford College in Illinois.

• Most of these who are thrust into combat soon find it impossible to maintain the mythic perception of war.
  • War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning

• Patriotism, often a thinly veiled form of collective self-worship, celebrates our goodness, our ideals, our mercy and bemoans the perfidiousness of those who hate us.
  • War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning

• Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history.
  • What Every Person Should Know About War

• We on the left have forgotten that the question is not how do you get good people to rule, most people who rule are mediocre at best and usually venal. The question is how do we make those in power frightened of us and not be seduced by formal political processes.
  • Transcript: Thom Hartmann talks to Chris Hedges about how liberals are a useless lot. 07 Dec '09.

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• We have to be clear that we don't know what's going on in Iraq.
  • 2005 April 23