Chris Hedges: "There is a recipe for breaking popular movements."

AP / Evan Vucci-An Occupy demonstrator sprawls beside a police car in Urbandale, Iowa, during a protest last December outside Republican presidential campaign offices in the Des Moines suburb.

Chris Hedges:

There is a recipe for breaking popular movements. I watched it play out over five years in the war in El Salvador. I now see these familiar patterns in the assault against the Occupy movement. It goes like this. Physically eradicate the insurgents’ logistical base of operations to disrupt communication and organization. Dry up financial and material support. Create rival organizations—the group Stand for Oakland seems to be one of these attempts—to discredit and purge the rebel leadership. Infiltrate the movement to foster internal divisions and rivalries, a tactic carried out consciously, or perhaps unconsciously, by an anonymous West Coast group known as OLAASM—Occupy Los Angeles Anti Social Media. Provoke the movement—or front groups acting in the name of the movement—to carry out actions such as vandalism and physical confrontations with the police that alienate the wider populace from the insurgency. Invent atrocities and repugnant acts supposedly carried out by the movement and plant these stories in the media. Finally, offer up a political alternative. MORE...

"Chris Hedges-Occupy the Courts NY Jan 20 2012 w/ Lawrence Lessig Occupy Wall St" (with video)

NewYorkRawVideos, with video (28:23):

Filmed January 20, 2012. Chris Hedges, Lawrence Lessig, Virginia Rasmussen on the eve of the 2nd Anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision "Citizens United v. F.E.C.". The video begins with a march from Liberty Plaza a/k/a Zuccotti Park to the rally point at Foley Square across the street from Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse at 40 Centre St. The Rude Mechanical Orchestra plays their "Smash a Bank Polka" followed by Chris Hedges giving an update to his lawsuit against Barack Obama and Leon Panetta. Virginia Rasmussen offers a historic perspective on the Citizens United decision. Laurence Lessig gives an inspirational speech on restoring democracy. Other speakers: Alexis from Occupy Wall Street, Camille Rivera, and Amy Muldoon. The video ends with the Rude Mechanical Orchestra finishing of their song.

Howie P.S.: Hedges writes about this event and his experience earlier in the day "sitting on a wooden bench in a fourth-floor courtroom in the New York Criminal Court in Manhattan."

Chris Hedges: "Turn off your televisions. Ignore the Newt-Mitt-Rick-Barack reality show."

A protester with the Occupy Wall Street movement waves to Auubi, a 17-month-old boy whose father was also demonstrating, on the grounds of the Capitol in Washington, on January 17, 2012. Protesters plan events in Washington throughout the week. (Photo: Doug Mills / The New York Times)

Chris Hedges:

The real debate, the debate raised by the Occupy movement about inequality, corporate malfeasance, the destruction of the ecosystem, and the security and surveillance state, is the only debate that matters. You won’t hear it on the corporate-owned airwaves and cable networks, including MSNBC, which has become to the Democratic Party what Fox News is to the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party. You won’t hear it on NPR or PBS. You won’t read about it in our major newspapers. The issues that matter are being debated, however, on “Democracy Now!,” Link TV, The Real News, Occupy websites and Revolution Truth. They are being raised by journalists such as Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi. You can find genuine ideas in corners of the Internet or in books by political philosophers such as Sheldon Wolin. But you have to go looking for them.

Voting will not alter the corporate systems of power. Voting is an act of political theater. Voting in the United States is as futile and sterile as in the elections I covered as a reporter in dictatorships like Syria, Iran and Iraq. There were always opposition candidates offered up by these dictatorships. Give the people the illusion of choice. Throw up the pretense of debate. Let the power elite hold public celebrations to exalt the triumph of popular will. We can vote for Romney or Obama, but Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil and Bank of America and the defense contractors always win. There is little difference between our electoral charade and the ones endured by the Syrians and Iranians. Do we really believe that Obama has, or ever had, any intention to change the culture in Washington? MORE...

"In Depth with Author and Journalist Chris Hedges" (video)

C-SPAN, video,(02:59:45):

On Book TV’s In Depth, author and journalist, Chris Hedges. The Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent spends three hours taking viewers’ calls, emails and tweets on topics such as terrorism, religion and politics.

The National Book Critics Circle Award nominee has a Masters degree in Divinity and is the author of nine books. His works include, “War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning,” “Empire of Illusion,” and his latest release “The World As It Is.”

Howie P.S.: My father wrote his master's thesis in 1932 on James Joyce's "Ulysses" which Hedges puts on his favorite books list. I have yet to read or understand it. To give you the flavor and tone of this interview here's a quote from Hedges

Wall Street is a criminal enterprise.

"Occupy Wall Street Declares Goldman Sachs Guilty" (video)

TheRealNews, video (03:50):

General Assembly holds mock trial and journalist Chris Hedges reads indictment accusing Goldman Sachs of financial crimes against humanity.

Chris Hedges and Amy Goodman Talk OWS on ‘Charlie Rose’ (video)

charlierose.com, video (24:33):

A discussion about Occupy Wall Street with journalist Chris Hedges and Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!

Chris Hedges on "where the Occupy movement has come from and where it is heading" (video)

OccupyTVNY, video (06:58):

On October 15th Occupy TVNY met with Pullitzer prize-winning author and journalist Chris Hedges in Times Square, New York City where tens of thousands of people assembled on a global day of action. Chris shares his feelings on where the Occupy movement has come from and where it is heading.

"Chris Hedges speaks at Occupy Wall Street" (audio)

BlindBlannche, with audio (13:27):

Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges' discussion with livestream viewers at Liberty Plaza for Occupy Wall Street 9/25/11, protesting corruption in corporate ruled media, government, and life.

Chris Hedges: "it’s about forgetting that terrorism is a tactic."

Chris Hedges:

And it’s about forgetting that terrorism is a tactic. You can’t make war on terror. Terrorism has been with us since Sallust wrote about it in the Jugurthine Wars. And the only way to successfully fight terrorist groups is to isolate themselves, isolate those groups, within their own societies. And I was in the immediate days after 9/11 assigned to go out to Jersey City and the places where the hijackers had lived and begin to piece together their lives. MORE...

"Obama's Business" (with video)

MSNBC-The Last Word (Chris Hayes), video (17:02).

Howie P.S.: Adam Green, Roger Hodge and Ari Berman discuss ObamaWorld post-"shellacking" with Chris Hayes. H/t to Digby who comments

I watch a lot of cable news (so you don't have to) and have heard so much conventional wisdom by now that I can recite entire exchanges without even turning the sound on. It's always the same people, saying the same things.

That's why today I'm thankful for Chris Hayes, who does consistently unexpected and interesting work both in print and on television. Filling in for Lawrence O'Donnell last night, he hosted a segment that made me come in from the kitchen while I was preparing dinner, sit down and pay attention. It was an extended analysis of the Obama administration from a perspective you rarely see fully aired on television(although those of us who read blogs are familiar with it.)

Thanks Chris, for the most interesting panel discussion I've seen on cable in quite some time.

"March to Nowhere"

Chris Hedges:

Mass support for anti-democratic movements and public acceptance of open violations of human rights are not caused, in the end, by the skillful dissemination of misinformation or brainwashing. They are caused by the breakdown of a society and the death of a liberal class that once made reform and representative government possible. The timidity of our liberal class was on public display during the march in Washington. Speakers may have called for jobs, but none would call on citizens to abandon the rotting hull of the Democratic Party and our moribund political system or put Wall Street speculators in prison. The speakers at the rally proposed working within the current electoral system, although most Americans are aware that it has been gamed by corporate interests. This is hardly a call, especially given the failures of the Obama administration, that will fire up the unemployed and underemployed. MORE...