Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges
Born	(1956-09-18) 18 September 1956 St. Johnsbury, Vermont, USA
Nationality	American
Education	Colgate University (B.A., English Literature) Harvard Divinity School (M.Div)
Occupation	Journalist, writer
Spouse(s)	Eunice Wong

Christopher Lynn "Chris" Hedges (born September 18, 1956) is an American journalist specializing in American politics and society. Hedges is also known as the best-selling author of several books including 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) and his most recent New York Times best seller, written with the cartoonist Joe Sacco, "Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt" (2012).

Chris Hedges is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than fifty countries, and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News, and The New York Times, where he was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years (1990–2005).

In 2002, Hedges was part of the team of reporters at The New York Times awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the paper's coverage of global terrorism. He has taught at Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University and The University of Toronto. He writes a weekly column on Mondays for Truthdig and authored what The New York Times described as "a call to arms" for the first issue of The Occupied Wall Street Journal, the newspaper giving voice to the Occupy Wall Street protests in Zuccotti Park, New York City.

Biography

Personal life

Christopher Lynn Hedges was born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, the son of a Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Thomas Hedges. He grew up in rural Schoharie County, New York, and graduated from the Loomis Chaffee School, a private boarding school in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1975.

He attended Colgate University, where he received his bachelor of arts in English Literature. He later gained a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, where he studied under James Luther Adams. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in May 2009 from the Unitarian Universalist seminary, Starr King School for the Ministry, in Berkeley, California.

Chris Hedges is married to the Canadian actress Eunice Wong; they have two children. Hedges also has two children from a previous marriage.

Political views

Hedges is a critic of Israel's policies towards Palestinians, and was also an early critic of the Iraq War. In May 2003, Hedges delivered a commencement address at Rockford College in Rockford, Illinois, saying: "We are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security."

His newspaper, The New York Times, criticized his statements and issued him a formal reprimand for "public remarks that could undermine public trust in the paper's impartiality." Shortly after the incident, Hedges left The New York Times to become a senior fellow at The Nation Institute, and a columnist at Truthdig, in addition to writing books and teaching inmates at a New Jersey correctional institution.

In his December 29, 2008, column for Truthdig, Hedges identified himself as a "socialist" in contrast to what he sees as "ruthless totalitarian capitalism." On November 4 2011, Hedges was arrested with others in New York as part of the Occupy Wall Street demonstration. Hedges has appeared on the syndicated Democracy Now! television program. and George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight.

In October of 2012, Hedges publicly supported Jill Stein, the candidate of the Green Party of the United States, in the 2012 United States presidential election. On April 7, 2013, Hedges delivered the keynote address at the Green Party of New Jersey state convention.

NDAA lawsuit

Main article: Hedges v. Obama

In 2012, after the Obama Administration signed the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, Hedges sued members of the U.S. government claiming that section 1021 of the law unconstitutionally allowed presidential authority for indefinite detention without habeas corpus. He was later joined in the suit, Hedges v. Obama, by activists including Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg. In May 2012, Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the Southern District of New York ruled that the counter-terrorism provision of the NDAA is unconstitutional. The Obama administration has appealed the decision.

Books

• 2002 : War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (ISBN 1586480499)
• 2003 : What Every Person Should Know About War (ISBN 1417721049)
• 2005 : Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America (ISBN 0743255135)
• 2007 : American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (ISBN 0743284437)
• 2008 : I Don't Believe in Atheists (ISBN 141656795X)
• 2008 : Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians, with Laila Al-Arian (ISBN 1568583737)
• 2009 : Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (ISBN 9781568584379)
• 2010 : The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress (ISBN 9781568586403)
• 2010 : Death of the Liberal Class (ISBN 9781568586441)
• 2012 : Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, with Joe Sacco (ISBN 9781568586434)

Book Reviews

• 2012 : Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt
• New York Journal of Books “This is a punch-packing, heart-breaking, and ultimately invigorating book . . .”

See also

• Hedges v. Obama

External links

• Chris Hedges on the Internet archive. Retrieved July 30, 2012
• Chris Hedges on Charlie Rose

• I Don't Believe in Atheists – An interview by Charly Wilder with Chris Hedges on salon.com. Retrieved July 30, 2012
• Capitalism’s ‘Sacrifice Zones’ Bill Moyers talks with Chris Hedges, and comic-journalist Joe Sacco talking about their collaboration and showing drawings for their book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, July 20, 2012. Retrieved July 30, 2012
• Interview with Chris Hedges on In Depth. C-SPAN2, January 2012 (on YouTube).
• Chris Hedges at the Internet Movie Database