Written by John Lounsbury
In 2018 Chris Lydon and Chris Hedges had a discussion about the factors that are leading to the decline of America. The focus was on corrupted systems that are slowly destroying the principles of democracy. They say the fault is widespread – specifically mentioned are the liberal elite, the Christian right, the corporate oligarchy, the military-industrial complex, …
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Chris Hedges (l) and Chris Lydon (r). WGBH TV Boston.
Chris Lydon is the host of Open Source Radio originating on FM 90.9 WBUR, Boston, that city’s NPR News Station.
From the Open Source website:
Christopher Lydon covered politics for The New York Times from the Washington bureau in the 1970s. He hosted The Ten O’Clock News on WGBH TV through the 1980s, and he co-founded and hosted The Connection on WBUR in the ’90s. He recorded the original podcast in 2003 with Dave Winer. The rest is history in the making.
Chris Hedges is an award winning journalist and author. From Wikipedia:
Christopher Lynn Hedges (born September 18, 1956) is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Presbyterian minister, author and television host. His books include War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2002), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction; Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2009); Death of the Liberal Class (2010); Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (2012), written with cartoonist Joe Sacco, which was a New York Times best-seller; Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt (2015); and his most recent, America: The Farewell Tour (2018). “Obey”, a documentary by British filmmaker Temujin Doran, is based on his book Death of the Liberal Class.[1]
Hedges, who wrote a weekly column for the progressive news website Truthdig for 14 years, was fired along with all of the editorial staff in March 2020.[2][3][4] Hedges and the staff had gone on strike earlier in the month to protest the publisher’s attempt to fire the Editor-in-Chief Robert Scheer, demand an end to a series of unfair labor practices and the right to form a union.[5] He hosts the Emmy-nominated program On Contact for the RT (formerly Russia Today) television network.[6] Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, West Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, Dallas Morning News, and The New York Times,[7] where he was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years (1990 – 2005) serving as the paper’s Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief during the war in the former Yugoslavia.
In 2001, Hedges contributed to The New York Times staff entry that received the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for the paper’s coverage of global terrorism. He also received the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism in 2002.[8] He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, the University of Toronto and Princeton University.[7][9][10][11]
Hedges has also taught college credit courses for several years in New Jersey prisons as part of the B.A. program offered by Rutgers University.[12] He has described himself as a socialist[13][14][15][16] identifying with Catholic activist Dorothy Day in particular.[17]
This hard-hitting video is heavy with pessimism but has its moments of optimism. It is almost an hour and a half long, but if you are ready to pay attention that time will fly. The first 57 minutes are the Chris-and-Chris discussion, followed by discussion of questions from the audience.
Source: YouTube
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