The Chris Hedges Report Podcast

This article is read by Eunice Wong. You can find her work at www.eunicewong.actor.Text originally published June 8, 2026.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Full Text: NEWARK, N.J. — The worst is not the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and private contractors, wielding baseball bats and batons, who flood the parking lot at the end of their shifts and unleash on protesters outside the gates the sadism practiced on those incarcerated inside Delaney Hall.The worst is not the tear gas, the tasers, the pepper spray or the dozens of arrests.The worst is not the beatings and the riot shields, raised above the heads of New Jersey State Police and Newark police and brought down swiftly on bodies, leaving severe lacerations.The worst is watching the children.The ones heaving and sobbing as they leave Delaney Hall, saying goodbye to their mothers, fathers, sisters or brothers who took them to school, who cheered them on at their soccer games, who told them they are beautiful and talented, who woke up before dawn to work menial jobs so they could have a future, who love them in a world where love is a diminishing commodity.I am seated against a cyclone fence a block from Delaney Hall, New Jersey’s largest ICE jail, with a protester who goes by the name of Basher. He is 41. He has a thick black beard. His nails are dirty. His hands are scarred from clashing with police. His head is wrapped in a green keffiyeh. The stench of the sprawling Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission treatment plant across the street saturates the air. When it comes to the children, the ones ripped from their parents by a nation that is institutionalizing cruelty, even Basher must catch his breath and stop. The scenes are too much to bear.The savagery at Delaney Hall is the warm-up act. The goons, the ones who attack those demonized on the inside of the ICE jail and those demonized on the streets outside of it, are in training for the rest of us. Delaney Hall, run by a private prison company — The GEO Group — is the template for a world where we will be stripped of our rights; routinely jailed and tortured; denied adequate medical care; fed rancid, expired and moldy food infested with worms and maggots; forced to drink contaminated water and breathe polluted air; and work for poverty wages — in the case of those inside Delaney Hall, a dollar a day.Some 300 of the roughly 600 people detained at Delaney Hall — which includes teenagers, the elderly and pregnant women — began a hunger and labor strike on May 22.ICE and GEO Group guards reacted as you would expect. They beat the strikers. They seal vents and toss tear gas and pepper spray into cells. They place suspected leaders of the strike in handcuffs and force them out of the facility to unknown locations, or isolate them, in “punishment units.” They manipulate the heating and cooling systems so prisoners endure extreme heat or cold. They cut telephone and internet access and suspend visitation rights. They sexually harass women.On May 31, 56 of those held inside Delaney Hall issued their fourth public letter. It was handwritten in Spanish on ruled paper:“The conditions in this prison are not fit for human beings over such a long period of time: medical neglect, water unfit for consumption, food that is past its expiration date and in poor condition, bathrooms that are unusable, and ventilation systems that have never been maintained and because of this, we are constantly sick,” the latest letter reads. “We demand freedom, a fair trial, and for our rights to be respected. S.O.S.”On July 24, last year, at around 6:45 a.m., ICE vehicles blocked a van carrying 15 Guatemalan workers, three blocks from my house. I went to see the men at the ICE jail in Elizabeth, New Jersey, because I speak Spanish and because their families, terrified of being targeted, could not. The men told me they were threatened with lengthy prison sentences, followed by certain deportation, if they did not sign papers agreeing to their immediate deportation. They signed. It was my job to inform their families they would not be coming home.A Guardian analysis of government records found that during the first seven months of Trump’s second term, the parents of at least 27,000 children — 12,000 of whom had U.S. citizenship — were arrested.These men were my neighbors. Their children attend high school with my children. The kidnapping of parents — often at work or at immigration hearings and ICE check-in appointments — not only traumatizes the children of these families, but the entire community. Every child in the high school wonders if their parents will also one day be seized and disappear. Every child wonders how this cruelty can be inflicted on their friends. Every child wonders what kind of country we live in.The state and the media organs that act as its echo chamber are doing their best to convince the public that those locked up in Delaney Hall are “criminals,” “the worst of the worst.”But a review of ICE data by Austin Kocher — an assistant research professor at Syracuse University and an immigration data and policy expert — exposes the lie.Kocher found that 88 percent of immigrants detained at Delaney Hall have no criminal conviction and more than 70 percent have no criminal history. Those with criminal convictions almost universally committed low-level offenses.The rogue paramilitary forces that pour daily out of the gates of Delaney Hall are unaccountable. They ignore the law. They are the Satanic foundation of our emergent police state. The terror they inflict on those in this small patch of Newark will soon be inflicted on all of us.New Jersey Senator Andy Kim — who was pepper-sprayed outside Delaney Hall by ICE agents — and Governor Mikie Sherrill were denied entry into the facility. Kim, after an appeal to the Director of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, was eventually given a lightning tour, but forbidden to speak to any detainees. City and state health inspectors have also been blocked from fully accessing the ICE jail.The message is clear: We will carry out any abuse with immunity.On Saturday afternoon, after about a dozen protestors blocked cars from driving out of the facility, ICE agents, wearing combat gear and face coverings, charged the protesters with pepper-ball guns, mace and tasers.“Move back! Get back!” they shouted as they unleashed clouds of pepper spray.Cars leaving the facility struck at least one protester.By around 10:00 p.m., some 100 protestors had set up a barricade of barrels filled with sand to block the facility’s exits and entrances. The blockade saw a huge influx of ICE agents, GEO Group guards and Newark police push the protestors several hundred yards down the street.Police announced a ban on protesters wearing protective gear, including respirators and goggles, although Delaney Hall is located in an industrial area with extensive air and water contamination known as “Chemical Corridor.”The battle at Delaney Hall is not over. It is a battle not only for justice, for the rights of our neighbors, for a world where all are treated with dignity and respect, for children who should never be separated from their fathers and mothers, but a battle to save our country from galloping fascism.Join it now.Soon it may be too late.Thanks for reading The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.Photos TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICTTOPSHOT - A man takes cover behind a column as an explosion propagates smoke and dust during an Israeli strike which reportedly targeted a school in the Zeitoun district on the outskirts of Gaza City, on September 1, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP) (Photo by OMAR AL-QATTAA/AFP via Getty Images)Demonstrators face riot police during a protest against theNAPLES, CAMPANIA, ITALY - 2025/10/02: Demonstrators face riot police during a protest against the intervention of the Israeli navy, which arrested the crews of the Global Sumud Flotilla that was heading towards the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Salvatore Laporta/KONTROLAB/LightRocket via Getty Images)Fourth Anniversary of Gaza Freedom Flotilla(AUSTRALIA OUT) Men pray in front of the Turkish ship, MV Mavi Marmara, which is docked in the Port of Istanbul, Turkey, on the fourth anniversary of the Gaza flotilla raid, May 31, 2014. The MV Mavi Marmara was one of six civilian ships carrying supplies to the people of Gaza in May 2010. Israeli commandos boarded the vessel at sea, killing ten passengers and injuring many more.(Photo by Kate Geraghty/The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty Images).‘Freedom Flotilla’ And Greta Thunberg Prepare To Depart Italy For GazaCATANIA, ITALY - JUNE 01: Greta Thunberg with part of the crew of the ship Madleen, shortly before departure for Gaza, during the press conference in San Giovanni Li Cuti on June 01, 2025 in Catania, Italy. (Photo by Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images)Dozens of ships set sail in the Mediterranean to break Israel’s blockade and show solidarity with PalestineBARCELONA, SPAIN - AUGUST 31: Swedish activist Greta Thunberg boards on a ship of the Global Sumud Flotilla as ships set sail from Barcelona, Spain, heading towards Gaza on August 31, 2025. (Photo by Burak Akbulut/Anadolu via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-MIDEAST-ISRAEL-PALESTINIANTOPSHOT - Palestinians walk next to the Israeli separation barrier near the Kalandia crossing between Jerusalem and West Bank town of Ramallah 02 Jenuary 2006, one day before the start of campaigning for the 25 January legistlative ballot in the Palestinian territories. AFP PHOTO/MENAHEM KAHANA (Photo by Menahem KAHANA / AFP via Getty Images)President Trump Meets With Israeli PM Netanyahu At His Palm Beach EstatePALM BEACH, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 29: U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club on December 29, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida. The two leaders held a bilateral meeting to discuss regional security in the Middle East as well as the U.S.-Israel partnership. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)Groups Continue To Risks Jail Time Supporting Palestine ActionLONDON, ENGLAND - JULY 5: Police detain a protester for holding a sign that reads “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” on July 5, 2025 in London, England. Following the Home Secretary’s order to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, supporters sit down in front of the Gandhi statue in Parliament Square holding signs saying, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” (Photo by Guy Smallman/Getty Images)TOPSHOT-MIDEAST-CONFLICT-GAZA-AID-RAIDTOPSHOT - Israeli soldiers stand guard on a missile ship as the Israeli navy intercepts a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea on May 31, 2010, killing several pro-Palestinian activists in a pre-dawn raid that sparked global outrage. AFP PHOTO/POOL/URIEL SINAI (Photo by URIEL SINAI / POOL / AFP) (Photo by URIEL SINAI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT-FLOTILLATOPSHOT - Security personnel escort Brazilian activist Thiago Avila to a court in Ashkelon on May 3, 2026. (Photo by Ilia YEFIMOVICH / AFP via Getty Images)ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT-FLOTILLASpanish activist Saif Abu Keshek arrives at a court in Ashkelon on May 3, 2026. Two foreign activists from a Gaza-bound flotilla who were brought to Israel for interrogation appeared before an Israeli court on May 3, a rights group defending them told AFP. (Photo by Ilia YEFIMOVICH / AFP via Getty Images)Israel-Hamas War: Gaza Death Toll Surpasses 20,000 As Famine LoomsRAFAH, GAZA - DECEMBER 28: Citizens queue for food that is cooked in large pots and distributed for free during war-time on December 28, 2023 in Rafah, Gaza. (Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)TOPSHOT-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICTTOPSHOT - Israeli soldiers transfer Palestinian men arrested during a military raid on Jenin, near the Muqeibila crossing on the border with the occupied-West Bank, on January 22, 2025. Gunfire and explosions rocked the Jenin area of the occupied West Bank on January 22, an AFP journalist reported, as the Israeli military kept up a large-scale raid for a second day. (Photo by GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP) (Photo by GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP via Getty Images)Palestinian Prisoners Start Hunger Strike In Israeli JailsHADARIM PRISON, ISRAEL - AUGUST 15: (ISRAEL OUT) Palestinian security prisoners stand at the bars of their jail cells at the start of their hunger striket Hadarim Prison August 15, 2004 near Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-DETAINEESPeople lift placards bearing portraits of Palestinians currently detained by Israel, including the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza Hussam Abu Safiya, during a protest in solidarity with them in Ramallah city in the occupied West Bank on January 14, 2025. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP) (Photo by ZAIN JAAFAR/AFP via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-MIDEAST-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-BARGHUTITOPSHOT - Hand cuffed and flashing the ‘V’-sign, Marwan Barghuti the leader of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement in the West Bank is flanked by Israeli policemen as he is led to a police vehicle 29 September 2003 on his way back to jail, after appearing before a Tel Aviv court. (Photo by TAL COHEN / AFP) (Photo by TAL COHEN/AFP via Getty Images)Activist Flotilla Departs For Gaza From VeniceVENICE, ITALY - APRIL 18: A “Spring Mission” sailboat passes near St. Mark’s Square as it departs to join the Global Sumud Flotilla’s “Spring Mission 2026” on April 18, 2026, in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Stefano Mazzola/Getty Images)A protestor holds up a placard with Bezalel Smotrich andTEL AVIV, ISRAEL - 2024/08/10: A protestor holds up a placard with Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir strangle PM Benjamin Netanyahu with a yellow ribbon that says: ‘Senior political figures’ during the rally. Thousands of Israelis demonstrated with the hostage’s families against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanding an immediate hostage deal and ceasefire - as Israel awaits the Iranian and Hezbollah attack. (Photo by Matan Golan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)Right-Wing Activists And Politicians Hold Conference On Building Jewish Settlements In Gaza StripJERUSALEM, ISRAEL - JANUARY 28: Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir speaks during a convention calling for Israel to resettle Gaza Strip and the northern part of the West Bank at the International Convention Center on January 28, 2024 in Jerusalem, Israel. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-GAZAA Palestinian man waits on a street near a concrete block (back) marking the “Yellow Line” drawn by the Israeli military in Bureij, central Gaza Strip, on November 4, 2025. Under a US-brokered ceasefire, Israeli forces have withdrawn to a “Yellow Line”, leaving them in control of around half of Gaza, and the United States has spoken of reconstruction aid in the area under Israeli control. (Photo by Bashar Taleb / AFP) (Photo by BASHAR TALEB/AFP via Getty Images)ICE Continues To Make Arrests At New York City Immigration CourtNEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 4: A woman pleads with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers not to detain her because she has a 15 year old son at home, as she leaves her scheduled court appearance at Federal immigration court, June 4, 2025, at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City, New York. (Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrishedges.substack.com/subscribe

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible’s list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actorText originally published September 18, 2025.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Full Text: Trump’s designation of the amorphous group antifa, which has no formal organization or structure, as a terrorist organization permits the state to charge us all as terrorists. The point is not to go after members of antifa, short for anti-fascist. It is to go after the last vestiges of dissent. When Barack Obama oversaw the coordinated national campaign to shut down the Occupy encampments, antifa -- so named because they dress in black, obscure their faces, move as a unified mass and seek physical confrontations with police – was the excuse.“I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” the president wrote in a Truth Social post. “I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”I have no love for antifa. The feeling is mutual. I was a fierce opponent of the Black Bloc anarchists who identified with antifa. They embedded themselves in Occupy encampments and refused to take part in the collective decision making. They carried out property destruction and initiated clashes with the police. Occupy activists were antifa’s human shields. I wrote that antifa was “a gift from heaven to the security and surveillance state.”David Graeber, whose work I respect, wrote an open letter criticizing my position.I was doxed. My lectures and events, which received phone threats forcing venues to hire private security, including bodyguards, were picketed by men dressed in black, their faces were covered by black bandanas. They all carried the same sign, no matter which city I was in, that read: “F**k You Chris Hedges.” During a debate with an anarchist supporter of antifa in New York City, several dozen black-clad men in the audience jeered and interrupted me, often yelling out sarcastically “amen.”The state effectively used antifa -- I am certain antifa was heavily infiltrated with agents provocateurs -- to shut all of us down. The corporate state feared the broad appeal of the Occupy movement, including to those within the systems of power. The movement was targeted because it articulated a truth about our economic and political system that cut across political and cultural lines.Antifa, let me be clear, is not a terrorist organization. It may confuse acts of petty vandalism and a repellent cynicism with revolution, but its designation as a terrorist organization has no legal justification.Antifa sees any group that seeks to rebuild social structures, especially through nonviolent acts of civil disobedience, as the enemy. They oppose all organized movements, which only ensures their own powerlessness. They are not only obstructionist, but obstructionist to those of us who are also trying to resist. They dismiss anyone who lacks their ideological purity. It does not matter if individuals are part of union organizing, workers’ and populist movements or radical intellectuals and environmental activists. These anarchists are an example of what Theodore Roszak in “The Making of a Counter Culture” called the “progressive adolescentization” of the American left.John Zerzan, one of the principal ideologues of the Black Bloc movement in the United States, defended “Industrial Society and Its Future,” the rambling manifesto by Theodore Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, although he did not endorse Kaczynski’s bombings. Zerzan dismisses a long list of supposed “sellouts” starting with Noam Chomsky and including myself.Black Bloc activists in cities such as Oakland smashed the windows of stores and looted them. It was not a strategic, moral or tactical act. It was done for the sake of destruction. Random acts of violence, looting and vandalism are justified, in the jargon of the movement, as components of “feral” or “spontaneous insurrection.” These acts, the movement argues, can never be organized. Organization, in the thinking of the movement, implies hierarchy, which must always be opposed. There can be no restraints on “feral” or “spontaneous” acts of insurrection. Whoever gets hurt gets hurt. Whatever gets destroyed gets destroyed.“The Black Bloc movement is infected with a deeply disturbing hypermasculinity,” I wrote. “This hypermasculinity, I expect, is its primary appeal. It taps into the lust that lurks within us to destroy, not only things but human beings. It offers the godlike power that comes with mob violence. Marching as a uniformed mass, all dressed in black to become part of an anonymous bloc, faces covered, temporarily overcomes alienation, feelings of inadequacy, powerlessness and loneliness. It imparts to those in the mob a sense of comradeship. It permits an inchoate rage to be unleashed on any target. Pity, compassion and tenderness are banished for the intoxication of power. It is the same sickness that fuels the swarms of police who pepper-spray and beat peaceful demonstrators. It is the sickness of soldiers in war. It turns human beings into beasts.”But while I oppose antifa, I do not blame them for the state’s response. If it was not antifa it would be some other group. Our rapidly consolidating police state will use any mechanism to silence us. It actually welcomes violence. Confrontational tactics and destruction of property justify draconian forms of control and frighten the wider population, driving them away from any resistance movement. It needs antifa or a group like it. Once a resistance movement is successfully smeared as a flag-burning, rock-throwing, angry mob — which those in the Trump administration are working hard to do — we are finished. If we become isolated, we can be crushed.“Nonviolent movements, on some level, embrace police brutality,” I wrote. “The continuing attempt by the state to crush peaceful protesters who call for simple acts of justice delegitimizes the power elite. It prompts a passive population to respond. It brings some within the structures of power to our side and creates internal divisions that will lead to paralysis within the network of authority. Martin Luther King kept holding marches in Birmingham because he knew Public Safety Commissioner ‘Bull’ Connor was a thug who would overreact.”“The explosive rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement came when a few women, trapped behind orange mesh netting, were pepper-sprayed by NYPD Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna,” I went on. “The violence and cruelty of the state were exposed. And the Occupy movement, through its steadfast refusal to respond to police provocation, resonated across the country. Losing this moral authority, this ability to show through nonviolent protest the corruption and decadence of the corporate state, would be crippling to the movement. It would reduce us to the moral degradation of our oppressors. And that is what our oppressors want.”I saw how antifa was weaponized to break the Occupy movement. Now it is being weaponized to throttle any resistance, no matter how tepid and benign.This justification for widespread repression is absurdist theater, characterized by fictions, including the supposed “Red-Green” alliance of Islamists and the “radical left.” Stephen Miller, Trump’s top policy adviser, insists there was an “organized campaign” behind the assassination of Charlie Kirk, whose martyrdom has turbocharged state repression. Any Trump opponent, including billionaire financier George Soros and his Open Society Foundations, will soon be caught in the net.We are all antifa now.Photos Occupy Wall Street Holds Major Day Of Action In New York CityNEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 17: Occupy Wall Street protesters clash with police in Zuccotti Park on November 17, 2011 in New York City. Protesters attempted to shut down the New York Stock Exchange today, blocking roads and tying up traffic in Lower Manhattan. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)Protesters Gather At State Capitols On Presidential Inauguration DayDENVER, CO - JANUARY 20: Members of the Communist Party USA and other anti-fascist groups burn an American flag on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol on January 20, 2021 in Denver, Colorado. Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States with Vice President Kamala Harris at an inauguration ceremony in Washington DC earlier in the day. (Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)May Day Protesters In ParisPARIS, FRANCE - MAY 01: Masked demonstrators wave flares during the Labor Day demonstration on May 1, 2018 in Paris, France. According to the police around 1200 Black Bloc demonstrators took to the streets. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images)No Future For YouThe Baffler presents “No Future for You: David Graeber versus Peter Thiel” at General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen on Friday night, September 19, 2014.This image:The anthropologist David Graeber in a debate.(Photo by Hiroyuki Ito/Getty Images)TOPSHOT-US-ECONOMY-PROTESTS-STRATEGYTOPSHOT - “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators occupy a park near Wall Street in New York, October 3, 2011. The protestors, speaking out against corporate greed and other issues carried on their occupation of Zuccotti Park, near the New York Stock Exchange, despite mass arests over the weekend. AFP PHOTO/Emmanuel Dunand (Photo by Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP) (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-US-PROTEST-FINANCE-OCCUPY WALL STREETTOPSHOT - Members of Occupy Wall Street are arrested as they struggle with police during a celebration march after learning that they can stay on at Zuccotti Park in New York, October 14, 2011. (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP) (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP via Getty Images)John ZerzanJohn Zerzan discusses The Coming Insurrection during a lecture at the 2010 San Francisco Anarchist BookfairAuthorities Escorting Unabomber Theodore KaczynskiPolice officers bring Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, to court for arraignment, April 4, 1996. Kaczynski later pled guilty to the mail bomb attacks that killed three people and injured 23. (Photo by © Ralf-Finn Hestoft/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)Protestors In Seattle Rally Against Police Brutality In Death Of George FloydSEATTLE, WA - MAY 30: Protesters riot in the streets following a peaceful rally expressing outrage over the death of George Floyd on May 30, 2020 in Seattle, Washington. Protests have erupted nationwide after Floyd died while in the custody of police in Minneapolis. (Photo by Karen Ducey/Getty Images)May Day DemonstrationsBERLIN - MAY 01: Demonstrators clash with riot police during May Day clashes in Kreuzberg on May 1, 2009 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin police arrested 57 people in protests that turned violent. A police spokesman said 48 police officers were injured during the clashes. (Photo by Carsten Koall/Getty Images)Protesters Demonstrate In D.C. Against Death Of George Floyd By Police Officer In MinneapolisWASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 01: A demonstrator is doused with water and milk after being hit with pepper spray from law enforcement during a protest on June 1, 2020 in downtown Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)Martin Luther King With Civil Rights MarchersDr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (center) with John Lewis,(2d from left) of SNCC, King’s aide, Rev. Ralph Abernathy (3d from l), Dr. Ralph Bunche (5th from l), Mrs. King (next to King), and Rev. Hosea Williams (carrying little girl, r) arrive in Montgomery, Alabama. King leads an estimated 10,000 or more civil rights marchers out on last leg of their Selma-to-Montgomery march.Protesters Being Hosed by Fireman(Original Caption) Firemen bear in on a group of African Americans who sought shelter in a doorway as hoses and dogs were used in routing anti-segregation demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, 3rd May 1963.US-POLITICS-SHOOTING-KIRKWhite House Deputy Chief of State Stephen Miller speaks during the public memorial service for right-wing activist Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on September 21, 2025. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)Memorial Service Held For Slain Conservative Activist Charlie Kirk At State Farm StadiumGLENDALE, ARIZONA - SEPTEMBER 21: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller speaks during the memorial service for political activist Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium on September 21, 2025 in Glendale, Arizona. Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed on September 10th while speaking at an event during his “American Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)Milliardär George SorosMilliardär George Soros, Deutschland, Berlin, Eröffnung des Europäischen Roma Instituts für Kunst und Kultur (ERIAC) durch StM/AA Roth, 08.06.2017 (Photo by Popow/ullstein bild via Getty Images) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrishedges.substack.com/subscribe

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actorText originally published September 11, 2025.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Full Text: The assassination of Charlie Kirk presages a new, deadly stage in the disintegration of a fractious and highly polarized United States. While toxic rhetoric and threats are lobbed across cultural divides like hand grenades, sometimes spilling over into actual violence — including the murder of Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband and the two assassination attempts against Donald Trump — Kirk’s killing is a harbinger of full-scale social disintegration.His murder has given the movement he represented — grounded in Christian nationalism — a martyr. Martyrs are the lifeblood of violent movements. Any flinching over the use of violence, any talk of compassion or understanding, any effort to mediate or discuss, is a betrayal of the martyr and the cause the martyr died defending.Martyrs sacralize violence. They are used to turn the moral order upside down. Depravity becomes morality. Atrocities become heroism. Crime becomes justice. Hate becomes virtue. Greed and nepotism become civic virtues. Murder becomes good. War is the final aesthetic. This is what is coming.“We have to have steely resolve,” said conservative political strategist Steve Bannon on his show “War Room,” adding, “Charlie Kirk is a casualty of war. We are at war in this country. We are.”“If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die,” wrote Elon Musk on X.“The entire Right has to band together. Enough of this in-fighting b******t. We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell,” wrote commentator and author Matt Walsh on X. “Put the personal squabbles aside. Now’s not the time. This is existential. A fight for our own existence and the existence of our country.”Republican Congressman Clay Higgins wrote that he will use, "Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk..." He further states "I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers licenses should be revoked. I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination."Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale capitalized on Kirk’s death to advocate for a takedown of the “red-green alliance” of “Communists and Islamists” who he claims have united to destroy Western civilization. He proposes an app where citizens can upload pictures of crime and homelessness in exchange for “property-tax rebates.”Far-right comedian Sam Hyde, who has nearly half a million followers on X, wrote in response to Trump’s announcement of Kirk's death that it is, "Time to do your f*****g job and seize power… if you want to be more than a footnote in the ‘American Collapse’ section of future history books, it's now or never.” In his tweet, he tags members of the administration and private military contractors.Conservative actor James Woods warned, “Dear leftists: we can have a conversation or a civil war. One more shot from your side and you will not get this choice again.” His tweet was reposted by almost 20,000 people, received 4.9 million views and over 96,000 likes.These are a sample of the slew of vitriolic sentiments shared and cheered on by tens of millions of Americans.The dispossession of the working class, 30 million who have been laid off because of deindustrialization, has engendered rage, despair, dislocation, alienation and fostered magical thinking. It has fed conspiracy theories, a lust for vengeance and a celebration of violence as a purgative for social and cultural decay.Christian fascists — like Kirk and Trump — have astutely preyed on this despair. They stoked the embers. Kirk’s killing will set it alight.Dissidents, artists, gays, intellectuals, the poor, the vulnerable, people of color, those who are undocumented or who do not mindlessly repeat the cant of a perverted Christian nationalism, will be condemned as human contaminants to be excised from the body politic. They will become, as in all diseased societies, sacrificial victims in the vain attempt to achieve moral renewal and recapture a lost glory and prosperity.The cannibalization of society, a futile attempt to recreate a mythical America, will accelerate the disintegration. The intoxication of violence — many of those reacting to Kirk’s killing seemed giddy about a looming bloodbath — will feed on itself like a firestorm.The martyr is vital to the crusade, in this case ridding America of those Trump calls the “radical left.”Martyrs are memorialized in ceremonies and acts of remembrance to remind followers of the righteousness of the cause and the perfidy of those who are blamed for the martyr’s death. This is what Trump did when he called Kirk “a martyr for truth and freedom” in a video message on September 10, awarded Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff until Sunday. It is why Kirk's casket will be flown back to Phoenix, Arizona on Air Force Two.Kirk was a poster child for our emergent Christian Fascism. He peddled the Great Replacement Theory, which claims liberals or “globalists” allow immigrants of color into the country in order to replace whites, distorting immigration trends into conspiracy. He was Islamophobic, tweeting “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America,” and that it is “not compatible with western civilization.”When children’s YouTuber Ms. Rachel said “Jesus says to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself,” Kirk retorted that “Satan has quoted scripture plenty” and added “by the way Ms. Rachel, you might wanna crack open that Bible of yours, in a lesser referenced part of the same part of scripture is in Leviticus 18, is that thou shall Lay with another man and be stoned to death.”He demanded we roll back the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and disparaged civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. He was demeaning towards Black people, “If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman...is she there because of affirmative action?” He said “prowling Blacks” are targeting white people “for fun.” He blamed Black Lives Matter for “destroying the fabric of our society."Kirk insisted the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. He founded Professor Watchlist and School Board Watchlist to purge professors and teachers with what he called “radical leftist” agendas. He advocated televised public executions which he insisted should be mandatory viewing for children.The idea that he championed free speech and liberty is absurd. He was an enemy of both.Kirk, who was a cheerleader for the cult of Trump, embodied the hypermasculinity that is at the core of fascist movements. This was perhaps his primary attraction to youth, especially white men. He claimed there is “a war on men,” fetishized guns and sold Trump to his followers as a man’s man.“There’s a lot you can call Donald Trump,” he wrote. “No one has ever called him feminine. Trump is a giant middle finger to all the screeching hall monitors that attacked young men for just existing. He’s a giant F YOU to the feminist establishment that was never challenged before he came down the golden escalator. Most of the media missed this. Young men did not.”History has shown what comes next. It won’t be pleasant. Kirk, elevated to martyrdom, gives those seeking to extinguish our democracy the license to kill, just as Kirk was killed. It lifts what few constraints still exist to protect us from state abuse and vigilante violence. Kirk’s name and visage will be employed to accelerate the road to tyranny, which is as he would have wanted it.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Thanks for reading The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.PhotosTOPSHOT-SAFRICA-US-HOMOCIDE-MEDIA-POLITICS-CRIMETOPSHOT - A general view of a wreath laid by mourners outside the US Embassy in Pretoria on September 11, 2025 following the fatal shooting of US youth activist and influencer Charlie Kirk while speaking during an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, United States. US youth activist and influencer Charlie Kirk, a major ally of President Donald Trump, was shot on September 10, 2025 at a US university. (Photo by Phill Magakoe / AFP) (Photo by PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP via Getty Images)Conservatives Gather For Annual CPAC Conference In Washington DCOXON HILL, MARYLAND - FEBRUARY 20: Steve Bannon, media personality and political strategist, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort Hotel And Convention Center on February 20, 2025 in Oxon Hill, Maryland. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 - Day 3NEW YORK, NY - MAY 01: Joe Lonsdale of Formation 8 speaks onstage with Alexia Tsotsis at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013 at The Manhattan Center on May 1, 2013 in New York City. (Photo by Brian Ach/Getty Images for TechCrunch)FILES-US-POLITICS-SHOOTING-KIRKUS right-wing activist Charlie Kirk (R) speaks on stage with President Donald Trump at America Fest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona, on December 22, 2024. Right-wing youth activist and influencer Charlie Kirk, a major ally of President Donald Trump, was shot dead on September 10, 2025 in a murder that sparked fears of more political violence in an increasingly febrile United States. Trump confirmed on social media that Kirk, 31, had died from his injuries. (Photo by JOSH EDELSON / AFP) (Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)US-POLITICS-HOMICIDE-MASS-MEDIA-CRIMEA photo of youth activist and influencer Charlie Kirk is seen at his makeshift memorial at Orem City Center Park in Orem, Utah, a day after he was shot during a public event at Utah Valley University on September 11, 2025. (Photo by Melissa MAJCHRZAK / AFP) (Photo by MELISSA MAJCHRZAK/AFP via Getty Images)VP Vance Transports Charlie Kirk's Body Back To Phoenix Via Air Force TwoPHOENIX, ARIZONA - SEPTEMBER 11: The casket containing the body of Charlie Kirk is removed from Air Force Two at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on September 11, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona. Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed on Wednesday in Utah. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)Room To Grow's 25th Anniversary Gala - ArrivalsAron Accurso and Ms. Rachel a.k.a. Rachel Griffin-Accurso at Room To Grow's 25th Anniversary Gala held at the Ziegfeld Ballroom on October 25, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by John Nacion/Variety via Getty Images)Politicon 2018 - Day 1LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 20: Charlie Kirk speaks onstage during Politicon 2018 at Los Angeles Convention Center on October 20, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Politicon)US-POLITICSUS conservative political activist and YouTuber, Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, speaks at University of Nevada in Reno during his "You're Being Brainwashed" tour, October 8, 2024. (Photo by Andri Tambunan / AFP) (Photo by ANDRI TAMBUNAN/AFP via Getty Images) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrishedges.substack.com/subscribe

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actorText originally published July 26, 2025.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Full Text: Israelis do not see the images of skeletal corpses of Palestinian children who they have starved to death as a curse. They do not see the slain families they gun down at food hubs — designed not to deliver aid but lure starving Palestinians into a massive concentration camp in the south of Gaza in preparation for deportation — as a war crime. Israelis do not look at the savage bombing and shelling that kill or wound dozens of Palestinian civilians, where an average of 28 children die daily, as anything extraordinary. They do not see the wasteland of Gaza, pulverized by bombs and methodically being torn down by bulldozers and excavators, leaving virtually the entire population of Gaza homeless, as barbaric. They do not see the destruction of water purification plants, decimation of hospitals and clinics, where doctors and medical staff are often unable to work because they are weak from malnutrition, as savage. They do not blink at the assassinations of doctors as well as journalists, 232 of whom have been murdered for trying to document the horror.Israelis have blinded themselves morally and intellectually. They view the genocide through the lens of a bankrupt media and political class that tells them only what they want to hear and shows them only what they want to see. They are intoxicated by the power of their industrial weapons and license to kill with impunity. They are drunk on self-adulation and the fantasy that they are the vanguard of civilization. They believe that the extermination of a people, including children, condemned as human contaminants, makes the world, especially their world, a happier and safer place.They are the heirs of Pol Pot, the killers that carried out the genocides in East Timor, Rwanda and Bosnia and, yes, the Nazis. Israel, like all genocidal states — no population since World War II has been dispossessed and starved with such speed and ruthlessness – has a final solution that would have earned the stamp of approval from Adolf Eichmann.Starvation was always the plan, the preordained final chapter of the genocide. Israel methodically set out from the beginning of the genocide to destroy sources of food, bombing bakeries and blocking food shipments into Gaza, something it has accelerated since March, when it severed nearly all food supplies. It targeted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) — on which most Palestinians depended on for food — for destruction, accusing its employees, without providing evidence, of being involved in the attacks of Oct. 7. This accusation was used to give funders such as the United States, which provided $422 million to the agency in 2023, the excuse to halt financial support. Israel then banned UNRWA.Over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and U.S. mercenaries in the chaotic scramble to get one of the few food packages distributed during the brief blocks of time, usually an hour, at the four aid sites set up by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office.Once Gaza was turned into a moonscape after 21 months of saturation bombing, once Palestinians were forced to live in tents, under crude tarps or in the open air, once clean water, food and medical aid became nearly impossible to find, once civil society was obliterated, Israel began its grim campaign to starve the Palestinians out of Gaza.One in three people in Gaza are going multiple days without eating, according to the U.N.Starvation is not a pretty sight. I covered the famine in Sudan in 1988 that took an estimated 250,000 lives. There are streaks in my lungs — scars from standing amid hundreds of Sudanese who were dying of tuberculosis. I was strong and healthy and fought off the contagion. They were weak and emaciated and did not.I watched hundreds of skeletal figures, ghosts of human beings, trudge at a glacial pace across the barren Sudanese landscape. Hyenas, accustomed to eating human flesh, routinely picked off small children. I stood over clusters of bleached human bones on the outskirts of villages where dozens of people, too weak to walk, had laid down in a group and never got up. Many were the remains of entire families.The starved lack enough calories to sustain themselves. They eat anything to survive — animal feed, grass, leaves, insects, rodents, even dirt. They suffer from constant diarrhea. They have trouble breathing because of respiratory infections. They rip up tiny bits of food, often spoiled, and ration it in a vain attempt to hold off the gnawing hunger pains.Starvation reduces the iron needed to produce hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body, and myoglobin, a protein that provides oxygen to muscles, coupled with a lack of vitamin B1, which affects heart and brain function. Anemia sets in. The body, in essence, feeds on itself. Tissue and muscle waste away. It is impossible to regulate body temperature. Kidneys shut down. Immune systems crash. Vital organs atrophy. Blood circulation slows. The volume of blood decreases. Infectious diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis and cholera become an epidemic, killing people by the thousands.It is impossible to concentrate. Emaciated victims succumb to mental and emotional withdrawal and apathy. They do not want to be touched or moved. The heart muscle is weakened. Victims, even at rest, are in a state of virtual heart failure. Wounds do not heal. Vision is impaired with cataracts, even among the young. Finally, wracked by convulsions and hallucinations, the heart stops. This process can last up to 40 days for an adult. Children, the elderly and the sick expire at faster rates.This is the future Israel has preordained for the two million people in Gaza.But it is not the future Israelis see. They see paradise. They see an ethno-nationalist Jewish state where Palestinians, whose land they stole and occupied and whose people they have subjugated and forced into an apartheid existence, do not exist. They see cafes and hotels rising up where thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of bodies lie buried under the rubble. They see tourists frolicking on the Gaza beachfront, a vision enhanced by an Artificial Intelligence-generated video uploaded to social media by Israeli Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Gila Gamliel. It is what a Gaza devoid of Palestinians would look like, echoing the absurdist AI video posted by Donald Trump.In the new video, carefree Israelis eat at seaside restaurants. Anchored in the sparkling Mediterranean are luxury yachts. Gleaming hotels and office high rises, including a Trump Tower, dot the beachfront. Attractive residential neighborhoods stand where now there are broken, jagged mounds of concrete. The video shows Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, as well as Trump and Melania, strolling along the seaside.Gamliel, like other Israeli leaders and Trump, cynically uses the term “voluntary emigration” to describe the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. This omits the stark choice Israel actually offers the Palestinians — leave or die.Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for a “security annexation” of the northern Gaza Strip and vowed that Gaza will become an “inseparable part of the State of Israel.” He made the remarks at a Knesset conference called “The Gaza Riviera — from vision to reality,” which presented proposals for the building of Jewish colonies in Gaza. Smotrich said Israel would “relocate Gazans to other countries,” and that Trump endorsed the plan.Israeli Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu, who once proposed dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza, declared that “All Gaza will be Jewish.” The Israeli government “is racing ahead for Gaza to be wiped out,” Eliyahu said. He described Palestinians as Nazis. “Thank God, we are wiping out this evil. We are pushing this population that has been educated on ‘Mein Kampf.’”Genocidal killers embrace fantasies of eradicating a native population and expanding their ethnonationalist state. The Nazis carried out their genocidal assault, which included mass starvation, on Slavs, Eastern European Jews and other indigenous people, dismissed as Untermenschen, or subhumans. Colonists were then to be shipped to Central and Eastern Europe to Germanize the occupied territory.These killers do not reckon with the darkness they unleash. The upscale beachfront properties dreamt of by Israel will never appear, just as the modern, exclusively Serb capital, with its golden domed cathedral, imposing presidency building, 15-story clock tower, state-of-the-art medical center and national theater with a 72-foot revolving stage was never built on the ruins of Bosnia.Rather, there will be ugly apartment blocks, populated by the usual miscreants, proto-fascists, racists and mediocrities who live in the Jewish colonies in the West Bank. These ultranationalists, who have formed rogue militias to seize Palestinian land and joined the Israeli army in murdering over 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since Oct. 7, will define Israel. They are the Israeli version of the 3-million-strong Pancasila Youth — Indonesia’s equivalent of the Brown Shirts or the Hitler Youth — that in 1965 helped carry out the genocidal mayhem that left half a million to one million dead.These rogue militias, equipped with automatic weapons provided by the Israeli government, lynched Saifullah Musallet, a 20-year-old Palestinian-American, who was attempting to protect his family’s land two weeks ago. He is the fifth U.S. citizen killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7.Once these Israeli goons and thugs are done with the Palestinians, they will turn on each other.The genocide in Gaza signals the abolition, for Israelis as well as Palestinians, of the rule of law. It marks the obliteration of even the pretense of an ethical code. Israelis are the barbarians they condemn. If there is any warped justice in this genocide it is that Israelis, once they finish with the Palestinians, will be forced to live together in moral squalor.Thanks for reading The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.PhotosChris HedgesChris Hedges, a former Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times and best selling author of 'Empire of Illusion', stands next to a window for a portrait, Princeton, NJ, November 2010. Hedges is also the author of 'Death of the Liberal Class' and is a columnist for Truthdig. (Photo by Oliver Morris/Getty Images)TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-GAZA-AIDTOPSHOT - Palestinians gather at an aid distribution point set up by the privately-run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on June 25, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP) (Photo by EYAD BABA/AFP via Getty Images)Right Wing Supporters Take Part In March Towards GazaSOUTHERN ISRAEL, ISRAEL - JULY 30: An explosion is seen in the northern Gaza Strip as right-wing activists observe from a vantage point during a rally calling to resettle the Northern Gaza Strip on July 30, 2025 in Southern Israel, Israel. Reports in the Israeli press suggest that President Netanyahu has promised far-right politicians in the coalition government that Israel will begin to resettle North Gaza in the near future. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)Israeli army withdraws from Al-Shifa Hospital in GazaGAZA CITY, GAZA - APRIL 1: A woman mourns as the Palestinians gather around the burned and destroyed Al-Shifa Hospital after the Israeli attacks as Israeli forces withdrew from Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Gaza on April 1, 2024. (Photo by Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-GAZA-CONFLICTTOPSHOT - Israeli soldiers prepare tanks at an Israeli army deployment area near the Israel-Gaza Strip border for a potential ground operation in the Palestinian coastal enclave on November 20, 2012. AFP PHOTO / JACK GUEZ (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)IDF Soldiers Remain On The Gaza Border After CeasefireISRAEL/GAZA, ISRAEL - NOVEMBER 22: Israeli soldiers laugh and dance to music provided by visiting Hassidic Jews who visited to show their support to soldiers at the border with the Gaza Strip on November 22, 2012 close to the northern Gaza Strip border with Israel. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)An undated photo of genocidal leader Pol Pot (L) wANLONG VENG, CAMBODIA: An undated photo of genocidal leader Pol Pot (L) with former Khmer Rouge foreign minister Ieng Sary (C) recovered from the guerilla's former stronghold of Anlong Veng by Agence France-Presse reporter Reach Sambath on March 28 1998. The picture was believed to be taken in China in the late 1970's, according to Pich Chheang, former Khmer Rouge ambassador to China. Man on the right is unidentified. AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read AFP via Getty Images)Prime Talking5th November 1975: Foreign Minister Ernesto Melo Antunes with his Indonesian counterpart Adam Malik outside the Portuguese Embassy in Rome, discussing the civil war on the Portuguese island of Timor. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)Hitler And Goebbels Being Saluted(Original Caption) 10/31/1933.Berlin, Germany- Chancellor Adolf Hitler & Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels (left) receiving the cheers and Nazi salutes of their followers in the Berlin sports Palast where they opened the campaign of Hitler's government to get the support of the citzens for their program for the nation.The ballots for this election do not contain names of candidates for this or that office.Food distributed to Palestinians struggling with hunger in GazaGAZA CITY, GAZA - AUGUST 01: Palestinians, including children gather with cooking pots to receive hot meals distributed by a charitable organization in the Al-Ansar area of western Gaza City on August 1, 2025. The food distribution comes amid severe hunger and humanitarian crisis caused by ongoing Israeli attacks. (Photo by Abdalhkem Abu Riash/Anadolu via Getty Images)Ethiopian RefugeesAn Ethiopian woman from Eritrea and her starving children sit in a hospital tent located in a refugee camp in eastern Sudan. (Photo by Peter Turnley/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)SUDAN-FAMINEAn elderly woman and some children shown in a file photo dated 03 November 1988 waiting by an empty bowl in Juba, southern Sudan, four days after their last meal. The international medical charity Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF-Doctors without Borders) warned 08 June of famine in southern Sudan's Bahr el-Ghazal state and called for urgent measures to avert disaster. (Photo by ALEXANDER JOE / AFP FILES / AFP) (Photo by ALEXANDER JOE/AFP FILES/AFP via Getty Images)ISRAEL-IRAN-POLITICSIranian crown prince Reza Pahlavi (L), whose father was the shah overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution, alongside Israel's Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel visit the Sorek Desalination Plant, south of Tel Aviv, on April 19, 2023. (Photo by JACK GUEZ / AFP) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-ISRAEL-ARGENTINA-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-PARLIAMENTTOPSHOT - Israel's (L to R) Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attend the address of Argentina's President to a session of the Israeli parliament (Knesset) at its headquarters in Jerusalem on June 11, 2025. (Photo by Menahem KAHANA / AFP) (Photo by MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)Amichai Eliyahuhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amichai_Eliyahu.jpgIsraeli settlers march to Gaza border, demand resettlementISRAEL - JULY 30: Jewish settlers and far-right activists march from Sderot toward the northern border of Gaza, calling for the re-establishment of settlements in the territory, on July 30, 2025, in Israel. Chanting slogans such as "We are returning to Gaza," the demonstrators carried Israeli flags throughout the march. (Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)Sumpah Pemudahttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HUT_Sumpah_Pemuda_.jpg This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrishedges.substack.com/subscribe

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actorText originally published July 12, 2025.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Full Text: The refusal by the Trump administration to release the files and videos amassed during investigations into the activities of the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, should put to rest the absurd idea, embraced by Trump supporters and gullible liberals, that Trump will dismantle the Deep State. Trump is part of, and has long been part of, the repugnant cabal of politicians – Democrat and Republican – billionaires and celebrities who look at us, and often underage girls and boys, as commodities to exploit for profit or pleasure.The list of those who were in Epstein’s orbit is a who’s who of the rich and famous. They include not only Trump, but Bill Clinton, who allegedly took a trip to Thailand with Epstein, Prince Andrew, Bill Gates, hedge fund billionaire Glenn Dubin, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, former Secretary of the Treasury and former president of Harvard University Larry Summers, cognitive psychologist and author Stephen Pinker, Alan Dershowitz, billionaire and Victoria’s Secret CEO Leslie Wexner, the former Barclays banker Jes Staley, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, the magician David Copperfield, actor Kevin Spacey, former CIA director Bill Burns, real estate mogul Mort Zuckerman, former Maine senator George Mitchell and disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who reveled in Epstein’s perpetual Bacchanalia.They also include law firms and high-priced attorneys, federal and state prosecutors, private investigators, personal assistants, publicists, servants and drivers. They include the numerous procurers and pimps, including Epstein’s girlfriend and daughter of Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell. They include the media and politicians who ruthlessly discredited and silenced the victims, and strong armed anyone, including a handful of intrepid reporters, seeking to expose Epstein’s crimes and circle of accomplices.There is a lot that remains hidden. But there are some things we know. Epstein installed hidden cameras in his opulent residences and on his private Caribbean island, Little St. James, to capture his high-powered friends engaging in sexual romps and abuse of teenage and underage girls and boys. The recordings were blackmail gold. Were they part of an intelligence operation on behalf of the Israeli Mossad? Or were they used to ensure that Epstein had a steady source of investors who funneled him millions of dollars to avoid being outed? Or were they used for both? He shuttled underage girls between New York and Palm Beach on his private jet the Lolita Express, which was allegedly outfitted with a bed for group sex. His coterie of famous friends, including Clinton and Trump, are recorded as traveling on the jet numerous times on released flight logs, although many other flight logs have disappeared.Epstein’s videos are in the vaults of the FBI, along with detailed evidence that would rip back the veil on the sexual proclivities and callousness of the powerful. I doubt there is a client list, as Attorney General Pam Bondi claims. There is also no single Epstein file. The investigative material amassed on Epstein fills many, many boxes, which would bury Bondi’s desk and probably, if collected in one room, dominate most of the space in her office.Did Epstein commit suicide, as the official autopsy report claims, by hanging himself in his jail cell on August 10, 2019 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City? Or was he murdered? Since the cameras recording activity in his cell the night were not functional, we do not know. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein's brother, who served as the chief medical examiner for New York City and who was present at the autopsy, said he believes Epstein's autopsy suggests homicide.The Epstein case is important because it implodes the fiction of deep divisions between Democrats, who had no more interest in releasing the Epstein files than Trump, and the Republicans. They belong to the same club. It exposes how the courts and law enforcement agencies collude to shield powerful figures who engage in crimes. It lays bare the depravity of our exhibitionist ruling class, accountable to no one, free to violate, plunder, loot and prey on the weak and the vulnerable. It is the tawdry record of our oligarchic masters, those who lack the capacity for shame or guilt, whether dressed up as Donald Trump or Joe Biden.This class of ruling parasites was parodied in the first-century satirical novel “Satyricon” by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, written during the reigns of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. As in Satyricon, Epstein’s circle was dominated by pseudointellectuals, pretentious buffoons, grifters, con artists, petty criminals, the insatiable rich and the sexually depraved. Epstein and his inner circle routinely engaged in sexual perversions of Petronian proportions, as The Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie Brown, whose dogged reporting was largely responsible for reopening the federal investigation in Epstein and Maxwell, documents in her book “Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story.”As Brown writes, in 2016 an anonymous woman, using the pseudonym “Kate Johnson,” filed a civil complaint in a federal court in California alleging she was raped by Trump and Epstein when she was thirteen, over a four-month period, from June to September 1994.“I loudly pleaded with Trump to stop,” she said in the lawsuit about being raped. “Trump responded to my pleas by violently striking me in the face with his open hand and screaming that he could do whatever he wanted.”Brown continues:Johnson said that Epstein invited her to a series of ‘underage sex parties’ at his New York mansion where she met Trump. Enticed by promises of money and modeling opportunities, Johnson said she was forced to have sex with Trump several times, including once with another girl, twelve years old, whom she labeled ‘Marie Doe.’Trump demanded oral sex, the lawsuit said, and afterward he “pushed both minors away while angrily berating them for the ‘poor’ quality of the sexual performance,” according to the lawsuit, filed April 26 in U.S. District Court in Central California.Afterward, when Epstein learned that Trump had taken Johnson’s virginity, Epstein allegedly ‘attempted to strike her about the head with his closed fists,’ angry he had not been the one to take her virginity. Johnson claimed that both men threatened to harm her, and her family if she ever revealed what had happened.The lawsuit states that Trump did not take part in Epstein’s orgies but liked to watch, often while the thirteen-year-old “Kate Johnson” gave him a hand job.It appears Trump was able to quash the lawsuit by buying her silence. She has since disappeared.In 2008, Alex Acosta, who at the time was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, negotiated a plea deal for Epstein. The deal granted immunity from all federal criminal charges to Epstein, four named co-conspirators and any unnamed “potential co-conspirators.” The agreement shut down the FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful figures who took part in Epstein’s sex crimes. It halted the investigation and sealed the indictment. Trump, in what many consider an act of gratitude, appointed Acosta as Secretary of Labor in his first term.Trump contemplated pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell after she was arrested in July 2020, fearing she would reveal details of his decades-long friendship with Epstein, according to Trump biographer Michael Wolff. In July 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison.“Jeffrey Epstein’s closest relationship in life was with Donald Trump…these were two guys joined at the hip for a good 15 years. They did everything together,” Wolff told host Joanna Coles on The Daily Beast Podcast. “And this is from sharing, pursuing women, hunting women, sharing at least one girlfriend for at least a year in this kind of rich-guy relationship with each other’s planes, to Epstein advising Trump on how to cheat on his taxes.”The legal anomalies, including the disappearance of massive amounts of evidence incriminating Epstein, saw Epstein avoid federal sex-trafficking charges in 2007, when his attorneys negotiated the secret plea deal with Acosta. He was able to plead guilty to lesser state charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution.The prominent men accused of engaging in Epstein’s carnival of pedophilia, including Epstein’s attorney Dershowitz, viciously threaten anyone who seeks to expose them. Dershowitz, for example, claims that an investigation which he has refused to make public, by the former FBI director Louis Freeh, proves he had never had sex with Epstein’s victim Virginia Giuffre, who was trafficked at 17 to Prince Andrew. Giuffre, one of the few victims to publicly take on her abusers, said she was “passed around like a platter of fruit” among Epstein and Maxwell’s friends, until at the age of 19 when she escaped. She “committed suicide” in April 2025. Dershowitz has sent repeated threats to Brown and her editors at The Miami Herald.Brown continues:[Dershowitz] kept referring to information that was contained in sealed documents. He accused the newspaper of not reporting “facts” that he said were in those sealed documents. The truth is, I tried to explain, newspapers just can’t write about things because Alan Dershowitz says they exist. We need to see them. We need to verify them. Then, because I said “show me the material,” he publicly accused me of committing a criminal act by asking him to produce documents that were under court seal.This is the way Dershowitz operates.What disturbs me the most about Dershowitz is the way that the media, with few exceptions, fails to critically challenge him. Journalists fact-checked Donald Trump and others in his administration almost every day, yet, for the most part, the media seems to give Dershowitz a pass on the Epstein story.In 2015, when Giuffre’s allegations first became public, Dershowitz went on every television program imaginable swearing, among other things, that Epstein’s plane logs would exonerate him. “How do you know that?” he was asked.He replied that he was never on Epstein’s plane during the time that Virginia was involved with Epstein.But if the media had checked, they could have learned that he was indeed a passenger on the plane during that time period, according to the logs.Then he testified, in a sworn deposition, that he never went on any plane trips without his wife. But he was listed on those passage manifests as traveling multiple times without his wife. During at least one trip, he was on the plane with a model named Tatiana.Epstein donated money to Harvard and was made a visiting fellow in Harvard’s Department of Psychology, although he had no academic qualifications in the field. He was given a key card and pass code, as well as an office in the building that housed Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. He referred to himself in his press releases as “Science Philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein,” “Education activist Jeffrey Epstein,” “Evolutionary Jeffrey Epstein,” “Science patron Jeffrey Epstein” and “Maverick hedge funder Jeffrey Epstein.”Epstein, replicating the pretensions and vacuity of the characters who were parodied in the “Dinner with Trimalchio” chapter of Satyricon, organized elaborate dinner gatherings for his billionaire friends, including Elon Musk, Salar Kamangar and Jeff Bezos. He dreamed up bizarre schemes of social engineering, including a plan to seed the human species with his own DNA by creating a baby compound at his sprawling ranch in New Mexico.“Epstein was also obsessed with cryonics, the transhumanist philosophy whose followers believe that people can be replicated or brought back to life after they are frozen,” Brown writes. “Epstein apparently told some of the members of his scientific circle that he wanted to inseminate women with his sperm for them to give birth to his babies, and that he wanted his head and his penis frozen.”The Epstein story is a window into the moral bankruptcy, hedonism and greed of the ruling class. This crosses political lines. It is the common denominator between Democratic politicians, such as Bill Clinton, philanthropists, such as Bill Gates, the billionaire class, and Trump. They are one class of predators and grifters. It is not only girls and women they exploit, but all of us.Thanks for reading The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.PhotosChris HedgesChris Hedges, a former Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times and best selling author of 'Empire of Illusion', stands next to a window for a portrait, Princeton, NJ, November 2010. Hedges is also the author of 'Death of the Liberal Class' and is a columnist for Truthdig. (Photo by Oliver Morris/Getty Images)Donald TrumpDonald Trump (L), owner of the New Jersey Generals, of the U.S. Football League, said 10/18 his league’s $1.32 billion antitrust suit against the national Football League will crack “one of the great monopolies in the is country.” At right is his attorney Roy Cohn.Robert MaxwellBritish media proprietor Robert Maxwell (1923 - 1991), UK, 21st November 1973. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)"Chinese Box" ScreeningGhislaine Maxwell attends "Chinese Box" Screening at the Paris Theater in New York City on November 22, 1997. (Photo by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)Bob Woolmer Death Investigation ContinuesKINGSTON, JAMAICA - MARCH 27: A CCTV camera operates in the Pegasus Hotel in Jamaica where Pakistan Coach Bob Woolmer was found dead a week ago, March 27, 2007 in Kingston, Jamaica. A murder investigation is now under way into the death of Bob Woolmer after the post-mortem results proved that Bob Woolmer's death was due to asphyxia as a result of manual strangulation. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)Messy Retro Desk - stock photoIntentionally aged wide angle photo of a cluttered desk with old monitor. High dynamic range photo. (by DaveLongMedia)Dr. Michael Baden Testifying(Original Caption) WASHINGTON: Dr. Michael Baden, chief medical examiner of New York City, uses drawing during testimony before the House Assassination Committee 9/7 on the shooting of President Kennedy demonstrating the path of the bullet through Kennedy's head.Bust of Claudius(Original Caption) Claudius, Roman Emperor. 41-54 A. D.Bust Of Roman Emperor Nero(Original Caption) Bust of the Roman Emperor Nero (37-68 A.D.). The bust is in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Undated.CPJ's 29th Annual International Press Freedom AwardsNEW YORK, NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 21: Julie K. Brown speaks onstage at the Committee to Protect Journalists' 29th Annual International Press Freedom Awards on November 21, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)President Donald Trump Departs White House For Midwest TripWASHINGTON, DC - JULY 12: Labor Secretary Alex Acosta stands with U.S. President Donald Trump while announcing his resignation to the media at the White House on July 12, 2019 in Washington, DC. Acosta has been under fire for his role in the Jeffrey Epstein plea deal over a decade ago when he was a U.S. Attorney in Florida. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)Author Michael Wolff Discusses His Controversial New Book On Trump AdministrationPHILADELPHIA, PA - JANUARY 16: Author Michael Wolff discusses his controversial book on the Trump administration titled "Fire and Fury" on January 16, 2018 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Trump's lawyer had previously sent a cease-and-desist letter to the author and publisher of the book claiming that it was defamatory and libelous and should not be published or distributed. (Photo by Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images)Ghislaine MaxwellTenerife, Mort du magnat et homme politique britannique Robert Maxwell. Ici, sa fille Ghislaine Maxwell sur le yacht de son père "Le Lady Ghislaine". Elle sera, au début des années 2000, la compagne de l'homme d'affaires Jeffrey Epstein (Photo by Mathieu Polak/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)Trump, Knauss, Epstein, & Maxwell At Mar-A-LagoFrom left, American real estate developer Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. (Photo by Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)Senate Impeachment Trial Of President Trump ContinuesWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 29: Attorney Alan Dershowitz, a member of President Donald Trump's legal team, speaks to the press in the Senate Reception Room during the Senate impeachment trial at the U.S. Capitol on January 29, 2020 in Washington, DC. Wednesday begins the question-and-answer phase of the impeachment trial that will last up to 16 hours over the next two days. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)Donald Trump Holds Campaign Rally At Madison Square Garden In NYCNEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 27: Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk raises his hands as he takes the stage during a campaign rally for Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, at Madison Square Garden on October 27, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)International Center For Journalists 2012 Awards DinnerWASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 13: Salar Kamangar poses for a photo during the International Center for Journalists 2012 Awards dinner at the Ronald Reagan Building on November 13, 2012 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kris Connor/Getty Images)British PM Boris Johnson Meets With Amazon Founder Jeff BezosNEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 20: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos arrives for his meeting with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the UK diplomatic residence on September 20, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrishedges.substack.com/subscribe

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actorText originally published May 26, 2025Full text:War opens a Pandora’s box of evils that once unleashed are beyond anyone’s control. The warmongers who ordered the strikes by U.S. bombers on Iranian nuclear sites have no more of a plan for what comes next in Iran than they had in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria. European allies, whom Israel and Trump have alienated with these air assaults, are in no mood to cooperate with Washington. The Pentagon, even if it wanted to, does not have the hundreds of thousands of troops it would need to attack and occupy Iran -- the only way Iran might be subdued. And the idea that the marginal and discredited Iranian resistance group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), which fought alongside Saddam Hussein in the war against Iran and is viewed by most Iranians as composed of traitors, is a viable counter force to the Iranian government is ludicrous. In all these equations the 90 million people in Iran are ignored just as the people of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria were ignored. They will not welcome the United States and certainly not Israel as liberators. They may hate the regime, but they will resist. They don’t want to be dominated by foreign powers. A war with Iran will be interpreted throughout the region as a war against Shiism. Soon there will be retaliation. Lots of it. It will come at first with desultory missile strikes and then attacks carried out by elusive enemies on ships, military bases and installations. Steadily it will grow in volume and lethality. The death toll, including among the some 40,000 soldiers and Marines stationed in the Middle East, will mount. Ships, including aircraft carriers, will be targeted. We will, as we did in Iraq and Afghanistan, begin to lash out with a blind fury, fueling the conflagration we began. Those who lured us into this war know little about the instrument of war and even less about the cultures or peoples they seek to dominate. Blinded by hubris, believing their own hallucinations, they have learned none of the lessons of the last two decades of warfare in the Middle East. A war with Iran will be a self-defeating and costly quagmire, one more nail in the rotting edifice of the empire.The Chris Hedges Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Thanks for reading The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.PhotosIRAN-US-ISRAEL-CONFLICTA banner bearing a painting that represents various categories of the Iranian society is deployed against the facade of a building in Tehran, with a message that reads in Farsi: " we are all soldiers of Iran", on June 22, 2025. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)Chris HedgesChris Hedges, a former Pulitzer Prize winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times and best selling author of 'Empire of Illusion', stands next to a window for a portrait, Princeton, NJ, November 2010. Hedges is also the author of 'Death of the Liberal Class' and is a columnist for Truthdig. (Photo by Oliver Morris/Getty Images)President Trump Addresses Nation After US Bombs Iranian Nuclear SitesWASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 21: U.S. President Donald Trump delivers an address to the nation from the White House on June 21, 2025 in Washington, D.C. President Trump addressed the three Iranian nuclear facilities that were struck by the U.S. military early Sunday. (Photo by Carlos Barria - Pool/Getty Images)The Iran–Iraq WarMojahedin women during the Iran–Iraq War. The People's Mojahedin of Iran (aka Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK)) is an Iranian leftist revolutionary organization that participated in the 1979 Revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi Shah. (Photo by José Nicolas/Corbis via Getty Images)Remaining US Troops In Iraq Patrol Restive Babil ProvinceISKANDARIYA, IRAQ - JULY 18: Military vehicles that have been cleaned and repaired are lined-up for return to the U.S. from Iraq at U.S. military base Kalsu on July 18, 2011 in Iskandariya, Babil Province Iraq. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)(FILE) The Third Anniversary Of The Fall Of BaghdadBAGHDAD, IRAQ - APRIL 9: (FILE PHOTO) U.S marines and Iraqis are seen on April 9, 2003 as the statue of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is toppled at al-Fardous square in Baghdad, Iraq. (Photo by Wathiq Khuzaie /Getty Images) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit chrishedges.substack.com/subscribe