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War is not about flag-waving and patriotism. War is about killing and death.

Chris Hedges

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Chris Hedges
Age: 68
Born: 1956
Born: September 18
Author
Journalist
War Correspondent
Writer
St. Johnsbury
Vermont
Christopher Lynn Hedges
Christopher Hedges
Waving
Flag
Flags
Patriotism
Killing
War
Death

More quotes by Chris Hedges

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The violence of war is random. It does not make sense. And many of those who struggle with loss also struggle with the knowledge that the loss was futile and unnecessary.
Chris Hedges
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The moral certitude of the state in wartime is a kind of fundamentalism. And this dangerous messianic brand of religion, one where self-doubt is minimal, has come increasingly to color the modern world of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Chris Hedges
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Poor people, especially those of color, are worth nothing to corporations and private contractors if they are on the street. In jail and prisons, however, they can each generate corporate revenues of $30,000 to $40,000 a year.
Chris Hedges
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I used to wonder: Is Huxley right or is Orwell right? It turns out they're both right. First you get the new world state and endless diversions as you are disempowered. And then, as we are watching, credit dries up, and the cheap manufactured goods of the consumer society are no longer cheap. Then you get the iron fist of Oceania, of Orwell's 1984.
Chris Hedges
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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.
Chris Hedges
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Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds expression in the anonymity of the Corporate State. It purports to cherish democracy, patriotism, and the Constitution while manipulating internal levers.
Chris Hedges
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The imperial projects will continue, Wall Street will be unimpeded in its malfeasance and criminal activity, social programs will continue to be cut, maybe not at the same speed as under a Republican Administration, but it's all headed in the same direction.
Chris Hedges
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It wasn't a direct route. I began as a freelance reporter. That's an important distinction, because people who rise through the ranks of The New York Times become vetted, conditioned, harassed, and shaped by the institution. That never happened to me.
Chris Hedges
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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.
Chris Hedges
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War is addictive. Indeed, it is the most potent narcotic unleashed by mankind.
Chris Hedges
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Becoming vegan is the most important and direct change we can immediately make to save the planet and its species.
Chris Hedges
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The inability to grasp the pathology* of our oligarchic rulers is one of our gravest faults.
Chris Hedges
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The moral nihilism of celebrity culture is played out on reality television shows, most of which encourage a dark voyeurism into other people's humiliation, pain, weakness, and betrayal.
Chris Hedges
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Again, although I'm not a particularly religious person, I go back to the religious left that I come out of: There are moral imperatives to fight back. As Daniel Berrigan says, We're called to do the good. And then we have to let it go. It's not our job to know where the good goes.
Chris Hedges
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I don't know who you would blame for this, whether Ricardo or others, but we created a fictitious economic theory to praise a rentier or rent-derived, interest-derived capitalism that countered productive forces within the economy.
Chris Hedges
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Our system doesn't work, and it doesn't work, ultimately, not because of Sarah Palin, or the christian right, or Glenn Beck. It doesn't work because the liberal class failed us. The liberal class failed to find the intellectual and moral fortitude to defend liberal values at a time that they were under egregious assault.
Chris Hedges
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Legitimate rage on the part of working men and women is directed not only towards government but, I think quite correctly, towards liberals, who speak in a very hypocritical language about caring for their interests and yet support institutions that carry out an assault against working men and women.
Chris Hedges
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The arts often realize human truths well before other branches of human endeavor.
Chris Hedges
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They [Harvard academia] liked the poor, but didn't like the smell of the poor.
Chris Hedges
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I have seen children shot in El Salvador, Algeria, Guatemala, Sarajevo, but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.
Chris Hedges