The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress

by Chris Hedges

Overview

Drawing on two decades of experience as a war correspondent and based on his numerous columns for Truthdig, Chris Hedges presents The World As It Is, a panorama of the American empire at home and abroad, from the coarsening effect of America's War on Terror to the front lines in the Middle East and South Asia and the continuing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Underlying his reportage is a constant struggle with the nature of war and its impact on human civilization. "War is always about betrayal," Hedges notes. "It is about betrayal of the young by the old, of cynics by idealists, and of soldiers and Marines by politicians. Society's institutions, including our religious institutions, which mold us into compliant citizens, are unmasked."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781568587288
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	02/12/2013
Edition description:	Revised Edition
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	1,050,318
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. He spent nearly two decades as a correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans, with fifteen years at the New York Times. He is the author of numerous bestselling books, including Empire of Illusion; Death of the Liberal Class; War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning; and Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, which he co-wrote with Joe Sacco. He writes a weekly column for the online magazine Truthdig. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Politics

It's Not Going to Be OK 2

The False Idol of Unfettered Capitalism 8

Resist or Become Serfs 14

Buying Brand Obama 19

Hold Your Applause 25

The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free 28

The Crooks Get the Cash While the Poor Get Screwed 35

The Man in the Mirror 40

So Much for the Promised Land 46

Nader Was Right: Liberals Are Going Nowhere With Obama 52

This Isn't Reform, It's Robbery 57

Go to Pittsburgh, Young Man, and Defy Your Empire 62

Food Is Power, and the Powerful Are Poisoning Us 66

Liberals Are Useless 71

The Creed of Objectivity Killed the News 75

Calling All Rebels 81

How the Corporations Broke Ralph Nader and America, Too 87

Noam Chomsky Has Never Seen Anything Like This 94

BP and the Little Eichmanns 100

This Country Needs a Few Good Communists 105

Freedom in the Grace of the World 110

Obama's Health Care Bill Is Enough to Make You Sick 114

Calling All Future Eaters 120

Do Not Pity the Democrats 125

Israel and Palestine

Mutually Assured Destruction 132

Israel's Barrier to Peace 135

Coveting the Holocaust 157

Bring Down That Wall 161

Israel's Toy Soldiers 164

The World as It Is 168

Party to Murder 172

Lost in the Rubble 178

Israel Crackdown Puts Liberal Jews on the Spot 184

Israel's Racist-in-Chief 189

The Tears of Gaza Must Be Our Tears 192

Formalizing Israel's Land Grab 200

The Middle East

Inside Egypt 206

A Culture of Atrocity 223

Becoming What We Seek to Destroy 227

Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away 232

Opium, Rape, and the American Way 237

Afghanistan's Sham Army 242

The Decay of Empire

Surviving the Fourth of July 250

America's Wars of Self-Destruction 256

Confronting the Terrorist Within 260

Man Is a Cruel Animal 266

We Are Breeding Ourselves to Extinction 271

War Is Sin 275

The American Empire Is Bankrupt 279

Globalization Goes Bankrupt 284

Celebrating Slaughter: War and Collective Amnesia 288

Reality Check from the Brink of Extinction 291

War Is a Hate Crime 296

The Pictures You Aren't Supposed to See 300

The New Secessionists 305

No One Cares 311

They Kill Alex 317

Notes 323

Bibliography 327

Index 329

Editorial Reviews

Former New York Times correspondent Hedges (The Death of the Liberal Class) offers a collection of his recent articles (many culled from his regular column at Truthdig.com), grouped under a handful of topics: "Politics," "Israel and Palestine," "The Middle East," "The Decay of Empire." It's indicative of the longtime war correspondent's experienced eye and commitment to social justice that these areas include subject matter of especially pressing concern, whether the task is understanding the assault underway on organized labor in Wisconsin and elsewhere, liberal disillusionment with Obama, or the dynamics of foreign dictatorships subsidized by the U.S., as in the timely "Inside Egypt" and other dispatches providing vivid background and astute observations on a roiling Middle East. Hedges is equally direct and damning in assessments of Israel's ongoing occupation and colonization of Palestine, including some stirring reportage from within the shadow of the mammoth and destructive separation wall. While things may be changing given the current international upsurge of mass public democratic action, the author's pointed descriptions of the dangers of American "political passivity" deserve careful consideration along with much else in these powerfully written pages. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly