Scheerpost: Chris Hedges Speaks On American Sadism

Chris Hedges gave this talk on American Sadism at The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy, New York on Sunday June 27.

Sadism defines nearly every cultural, social, and political experience in the United States. It is expressed in the unchecked greed of an oligarchic elite that has seen its wealth increase during the pandemic by $1.1 trillion while the country has suffered the sharpest rise in its poverty rate in more than 50 years.  It is expressed in the wanton killings by police of unarmed citizens in cities such as Minneapolis. It is expressed in the “enhanced interrogation techniques” used by the CIA at secret black sites, Guantánamo Bay, and our prisons at home. It is expressed in the separation of children from their undocumented parents, where they are held as if they were dogs in a kennel.

It is expressed in the pornification of American society, where women are tortured, beaten, degraded, and sexually violated, often by numerous men, in porn films, and then discarded after a few weeks or months with severe trauma, along with sexually transmitted diseases and vaginal and anal tears that must be repaired surgically.  It is expressed in the “incel” movement that perpetrates violent assaults against women by men who say they have been spurned or ignored by women.

It is expressed in the predatory health care system where, as Steven Brill writes, a trip to the emergency room for chest pains that turn out to be indigestion can exceed the cost of a semester of college, simple lab work done during a few days in a hospital can be more expensive than a new car, and a drug that requires $300 to make and that the manufacturer sells to a hospital for $3,000 to 3,500 can cost the patient to whom it is prescribed $13,702. It is legally permissible in the United States for corporations to hold sick children hostage while their parents bankrupt themselves to save their sons or daughters.

This sadism is expressed in payday loans, for-profit prisons, the privatization of public education and public utilities and the rise of for-profit mercenary armies.  It is expressed in the cultural glorification of violence by mass media, the state and the entertainment and the gaming industries. It is expressed in the nihilistic mass shootings at schools, including elementary schools, and workplaces. And it is expressed in the murderous and futile wars we prosecute or support in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen.

….. [Excerpt from talk]

First published and aired on Scheerpost.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License