The Chris Hedges Report Podcast (private feed for Ian.Dudley@optusnet.com.au)

The Persecution of Francesca Albanese - Read by Eunice Wong

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 9, 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: When the history of the genocide in Gaza is written, one of the most courageous and outspoken champions for justice and the adherence to international law will be Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur, who today the Trump administration is sanctioning. Her office is tasked with monitoring and reporting on human rights violations that Israel commits against Palestinians.Albanese, who regularly receives death threats and endures well-orchestrated smear campaigns directed by Israel and its allies, valiantly seeks to hold those who support and sustain the genocide accountable. She lambasts what she calls “the moral and political corruption of the world” that allows the genocide to continue. Her office has issued detailed reports documenting war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, one of which, called “Genocide as colonial erasure,” I have reprinted as an appendix in my latest book, “A Genocide Foretold.”She has informed private organizations that they are “criminally liable” for assisting Israel in carrying out the genocide in Gaza. She announced that if true, as has been reported, that the former British prime minister David Cameron threatened to defund and withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, which Cameron and the other former British prime minister Rishi Sunak could be charged with a criminal offense for, under the Rome Statute. The Rome Statute criminalizes those who seek to prevent war crimes from being prosecuted.She has called on top European Union (EU) officials to face charges of complicity of war crimes over their support for the genocide, saying that their actions cannot be met with impunity. She was a champion of the Madleen flotilla that sought to break the blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid, writing that the boat which was intercepted by Israel, was carrying not only supplies, but a message of humanity.You can see the interview I did with Albanese here.Her latest report lists 48 corporations and institutions, including Palantir Technologies Inc., Lockheed Martin, Alphabet Inc. (Google), Amazon, International Business Machine Corporation (IBM), Caterpillar Inc., Microsoft Corporation and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), along with banks and financial firms such as BlackRock, insurers, real estate firms and charities, which in violation of international law, are making billions from the occupation and the genocide of Palestinians.You can read my article on Albanese’s most recent report here.Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned her support for the ICC, four of whose judges have been sanctioned by the U.S. for issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant last year. He criticized Albanese for her efforts to prosecute American or Israeli nationals who sustain the genocide, saying she is unfit for service as a special rapporteur. Rubio also accused Albanese of having "spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West." The sanctions will most likely prevent Albanese from travelling to the U.S. and will freeze any assets she may have in the country.The attack against Albanese presages a world without rules, one where rogue states, such as the U.S. and Israel, are permitted to carry out war crimes and genocide without any accountability or restraint. It exposes the subterfuges we use to fool ourselves and attempt to fool others. It reveals our hypocrisy, cruelty and racism. No one, from now on, will take seriously our stated commitments to democracy, freedom of expression, the rule of law or human rights. And who can blame them? We speak exclusively in the language of force, the language of brutes, the language of mass slaughter, the language of genocide.“The acts of killing, the mass killing, the infliction of psychological and physical torture, the devastation, the creation of conditions of life that would not allow the people in Gaza to live, from the destruction of hospitals, the mass forced displacement and the mass homelessness, while people were being bombed daily, and the starvation — how can we read these acts in isolation?” Albanese asked in an interview I did with her when we discussed her report, “Genocide as colonial erasure.”The militarized drones, helicopter gunships, walls and barriers, checkpoints, coils of concertina wire, watchtowers, detention centers, deportations, brutality and torture, denial of entry visas, apartheide existence that comes with being undocumented, loss of individual rights and electronic surveillance, are as familiar to desperate migrants along the Mexican border, or attempting to enter Europe, as they are to Palestinians.This is what awaits those who Frantz Fanon calls “the wretched of the earth.”Those that defend the oppressed, such as Albanese, will be treated like the oppressed.Thanks for reading The Chris Hedges Report! This post is public so feel free to share it.Photos 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)NATO Foreign Ministers Meeting April 2024BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - APRIL 03: Britain's Foreign Secretary David Cameron speaks to the press after his arrival at NATO headquarters on the first day of the NATO Foreign Ministers' meeting on April 03, 2024 in Brussels, Belgium. The meeting of foreign ministers from NATO countries coincided with the 75th anniversary of the alliance's founding. (Photo by Omar Havana/Getty Images)The State Visit Of The President Of The Republic Of Korea - Day 1LONDON, ENGLAND - NOVEMBER 21: Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right, and David Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, left, walk across Horse Guards parade for the Ceremonial Welcome by King Charles and Queen Camilla for the President of Korea Yoon Suk Yeol and First Lady, Kim Keon Hee, on November 21, 2023 in London, England. The President of Korea Yoon Suk Yeol is on a four-day State visit to Britain. (Photo by Frank Augstein - WPA Pool/Getty Images)'Freedom Flotilla' And Greta Thunberg Prepare To Depart Italy For GazaCATANIA, ITALY - JUNE 01: The bow of the Madleen ship, featuring an illustration inspired by the Palestinian flag, ready to set off from the port of San Giovanni Li Cuti on June 01, 2025 in Catania, Italy. (Photo by Fabrizio Villa/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)Senators Meet For Their Policy Luncheons On Capitol HillWASHINGTON, DC - MAY 10: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) leaves the Senate Chamber following a vote at the U.S. Capitol on May 10, 2023 in Washington, DC. Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders met with President Joe Biden at the White House yesterday to continue to negotiate how to raise the debt limit. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)TOPSHOT-US-ISRAEL-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-TRUMP-NETANYAHUTOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 7, 2025. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-FOODPalestinians shove to receive a hot meal at a charity kitchen in the Mawasi area of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on July 22, 2025. The head of Gaza's largest hospital said 21 children have died due to malnutrition and starvation in the Palestinian territory in the past three days, amid a devastating assault by Israeli forces. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-US-BARRIER-TRUMPTOPSHOT - A man walks past graffiti depicting US President Donald Trump on the controversial Israeli separation barrier in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on August 4, 2017. (Photo by Musa AL SHAER / AFP) (Photo by MUSA AL SHAER/AFP via Getty Images)Emergency Ministerial Conference on Global Leaders Convene in BogotaBOGOTA, COLOMBIA - JULY 15: Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanes attends the Emergency Ministerial Conference on Palestine at the San Carlos Palace in Bogota, Colombia, on July 15, 2025. (Photo by Juancho Torres/Anadolu 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

Trump, Epstein and the Deep State - Read by Eunice Wong

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

War Deja Vu - Read by Eunice Wong

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 June 19, 2025Full text: There are few differences between the lies told to ignite the war with Iraq and the lies told to ignite a war with Iran. The assessments of our intelligence agencies and international bodies are, as they were during the calls to invade Iraq, airily dismissed for hallucinations.All the old tropes have been resurrected to entice us into another military fiasco. A country that poses no threat to us, or to its neighbors, is on the verge of acquiring a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) that imperils our existence. The country and its leaders embody pure evil. Freedom and democracy are at stake. If we do not act now the next smoking gun will be a mushroom cloud. Our military superiority assures victory. We are the saviors of the world. Massive bombing, an updated version of Shock and Awe, will bring peace and harmony.We heard these canards leading up to the 2003 war in Iraq. Twenty-two years later they have been resurrected. Anyone who advocates for negotiations, for diplomacy and peace, is a stooge for terrorists.Did we learn any lessons from the fiascos in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, not to mention Ukraine?All the ghouls who sold us these past wars on false pretenses, such as conservative talk show host Mark Levin, Max Boot — who writes, “that strategic imperative argues for bombing Fordow,” where Iran’s nuclear enrichment program is buried underground — David Frum, John Bolton, Gen. Jack Keane, Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity and Thomas Friedman, have returned to saturate the airwaves with breathless fearmongering.Never mind that their grand plan to topple the Taliban in Afghanistan and then invade and replace the regimes in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia — and finally in Iran — blew up in their faces. Never mind that their lust for war left hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions dead and drained trillions from the U.S. Treasury. Never mind the sheer idiocy of their arguments. Their megaphones are secure. They are dutiful shills for the war industry, brain dead neoconservatives and genocidal Zionists, who believe in the magical regeneration of the world through violence, ignoring catastrophe after catastrophe.Forget the intelligence community’s Annual Threat Assessment that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003,” something reiterated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi this week. Forget that Benjamin Netanyahu, for almost three decades, has been breathlessly warning that Iran is on the cusp of producing a nuclear weapon. Forget that the preemptive attack on Iran by Israel is a war crime, not to mention the bombings of a hospital, ambulance and journalists. Forget the hundreds of Iranian civilians Israel has slaughtered in its waves of airstrikes. Forget that Israel launched its attack on Iran as the sixth round of negotiations on nuclear enrichment between the U.S. and Iran were set to take place in Oman. Forget that it is the Israeli prime minister, not the leader of Iran, who is subject to an arrest warrant, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Forget that Israel, in the midst of carrying out a campaign of genocide against the Palestinians, possesses at least 90 nuclear weapons — built in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) — and blocks inspections by the IAEA. Forget that Donald Trump ripped up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018, an agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program, which Iran was abiding by. Forget that Washington and London orchestrated the 1953 coup to topple Iran’s democratically elected government, the first in the region, and installed the compliant Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi into power. Forget that the U.S., along with Israel, trained and equipped the SAVAK, the Shah’s savage secret police.Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!Iran’s purported nuclear weapons program is the evidence-free equivalent of Saddam Hussein’s mythical WMDs and alliance with Al-Qaeda.The invasion and occupation of Iraq, which led to the deaths of over 4,000 U.S. soldiers and Marines and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, resulted in widespread destruction, regional instability and gave birth to a range of fanatical extremist groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The assurances — that our invasion would implant democracy in Baghdad, which would emanate outwards across the Middle East, that we would be greeted as liberators and that the oil revenues would pay for the reconstruction — were a fantasy dreamed up by the George W. Bush administration and Washington think tanks. These shills for endless war do not grasp the mechanism or the consequences of war. They are culturally, historically, and linguistically illiterate about the countries they attack. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. Syria. Iran. I doubt they can tell the difference.These cheerleaders of war, once they are proven wrong, are adept at issuing mea culpas. They assure us of their good intentions. They did not mean to peddle disinformation. They only wanted to keep the world safe from “evildoers” and protect our national security. No one, even those within the Bush and now Trump administrations, are intentionally dishonest. It is not their fault if they act on flawed intelligence. The problem is one of judgment, not virtue. They are good people.But this, perhaps, is the biggest lie. The intelligence assessments used to justify the war against Iraq were cooked up by a cabal of lunatic neoconservatives and rabid Zionists because they did not like the assessments of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other intelligence agencies. Now another cabal, dominated by Israel-firsters, is concocting bogus intelligence assessments to justify a war with Iran. These wars are not prosecuted in good faith. They are not based on a careful and rational assessment of verifiable intelligence. They are utopian visions severed from reality where our own intelligence agencies are ignored along with international bodies such as the United Nations, WMD inspectors or the IAEA.The history of modern Iran is the history of a people battling tyrants propped up and funded by Western powers. The brutal crushing of legitimate democratic movements over the decades resulted in the 1979 revolution that brought the Iranian clerics to power. The new Islamic government of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini championed Islam and argued for standing up to “arrogant” world powers and their regional allies, who would oppress others – including Palestinians – to serve their own interests.“The central story of Iran over the last 200 years has been national humiliation at the hands of foreign powers who have subjugated and looted the country,” Stephen Kinzer, the author of “All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror,” told me. “For a long time the perpetrators were the British and Russians. Beginning in 1953, the United States began taking over that role. In that year, the American and British secret services overthrew an elected government, wiped away Iranian democracy, and set the country on the path to dictatorship.”“Then, in the 1980s, the U.S. sided with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war, providing him with military equipment and intelligence that helped make it possible for his army to kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians,” Kinzer said. “Given this history, the moral credibility of the U.S. to pose as a promoter of democracy in Iran is close to nil.”You can see an interview I did with Kinzer about Iran here.How would we react if Iran orchestrated a coup in the U.S. to replace an elected government with a brutal dictator, who for decades persecuted, assassinated and imprisoned democracy activists? How would we react if Iran armed and funded a neighboring state, as we did during the eight year war with Iraq, to wage war against us? How would we react if Iran shot down one of our passenger jets as did the USS Vincennes (CG49) — caustically nicknamed the “Robocruiser” by the crews of other American vessels — when in July 1988 it fired missiles at a commerical aircraft filled with Iranian civilians, killing all 290 passengers, including 66 children? How would we react if Iranian intelligence services sponsored terrorism within the U.S., as our and Israel’s intelligence services do in Iran? How would we react if these state-sponsored terrorist attacks included suicide bombings, kidnappings, beheadings, sabotage and “targeted assassinations,” of government officials, scientists and other Iranian leaders? How would we react if, like Israel, a country attacked us based on a hypothesis, an attack that is illegal under the U.N. charter, which forbids preemptive war?The pimps of war who orchestrate these military fiascos have risen once again from the crypt. They migrate like zombies from administration to administration. They are ensconced in think tanks — Project for the New American Century, American Enterprise Institute, Foreign Policy Research Initiative, The Atlantic Council and The Brookings Institution — funded by corporations, the Israel lobby and the war industry. They are puppets jerked up and down by their masters, given megaphones by a bankrupt media, urging us forward from one quagmire to the next.The old faces and the old lies are back, exhorting us into another nightmare.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.Photos TOPSHOT-UN-SECURITY COUNCIL-POWELL VIAL 2TOPSHOT - US Secretary of State Colin Powell holds up a vial that he said was the size that could be used to hold anthrax as he addresses the United Nations Security Council 5 February, 2003 at the UN in New York. (Photo by Timothy A. CLARY / AFP) (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)Iranian Supreme Leader Ali KhameneiTEHRAN, IRAN - MAY 10: (----EDITORIAL USE ONLY MANDATORY CREDIT - 'IRANIAN LEADER PRESS OFFICE / HANDOUT' - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS----) Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei attends an event in Tehran, Iran on May 10, 2025. (Photo by IRANIAN LEADER PRESS OFFICE/Anadolu via Getty Images)Baghdad Under SiegeBAGHDAD, IRAQ - MARCH 21: (USA and Canada SALES ONLY) Fires rage on the west bank of the Tigris river on March 21, 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq as hostilities between U.S. led Coalition forces and the Iraqi Regime continue. (Photo by Mirrorpix/Getty Images) GETTY IMAGES HAS EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS TO THIS IMAGE IN NORTH AMERICARadio Hall Of Fame 2018 Induction CeremonyNEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 15: Inductee Mark Levin speaks on stage during Radio Hall Of Fame 2018 Induction Ceremony at Guastavino's on November 15, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Radio Hall of Fame )Max Boot at the 2024 Library of Congress National Book Festival on August 24, 2024https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Max_Boot_at_the_2024_Library_of_Congress_National_Book_Festival_on_August_24,_2024_(cropped).jpgPoliticon 2017 - Day 1David Frum speaks during Politicon at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California on July 29, 2017. Politicon is a bipartisan convention that mixes politics, comedy and entertainment. (Photo by: Ronen Tivony) (Photo by Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto via Getty Images)John Bolton Joins NCRI-US Conference Examining Iran's Nuclear AgendaWASHINGTON, DC - AUGUST 17: Former National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks at a panel hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran – U.S. Representative Office (NCRI-US) at the Willard InterContinental Hotel on August 17, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)House Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing on TerrorismUNITED STATES - NOVEMBER 18 - Ret. Gen. Jack Keane, Chairman of the Board of the Institute for the Study of War, listens during a House Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs Committee joint hearing on "on examining the rise of radicalism, growing terrorist sanctuaries, and the threat to the U.S. homeland," on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, November 18, 2015. (Photo By Al Drago/CQ Roll Call)Newt Gingrich Speaking to PressHouse Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks to the press about term limits at the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by © Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)Gov. Ron DeSantis Visits "Hannity"NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 13: Sean Hannity host a live taping of Hannity at Fox News Channel Studios on September 13, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Steven Ferdman/Getty Images)"Women In The World: Stories And Solutions" Summit - Day 2NEW YORK - MARCH 13: Thomas L. Friedman attends day 2 of the "Women In The World: Stories and Solutions" Summit at Hudson Theatre on March 13, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Marc Bryan-Brown/WireImage)Intelligence Chiefs Testify To House Select Committee On IntelligenceWASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 26: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testifies during an annual worldwide threats assessment hearing at the Longworth House Office Building on March 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. The hearing held by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence addressed top aides inadvertently including Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief for The Atlantic magazine, on a high level Trump administration Signal group chat discussing plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)International Atomic Energy Agency Holds Annual Board MeetingVIENNA, AUSTRIA - SEPTEMBER 11: Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrives for a meeting of the Board of Governors at IAEA headquarters on September 11, 2023 in Vienna, Austria. (Photo by Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Front)WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 10: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Front) addresses the joint session of US Congress as the Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R) and US Vice President Al Gore (L) listen 10 July at the Capitol in Washington DC. Netanyahu called on Europe and Asia to join efforts to isolate Iran and Iraq and prevent them from developing nuclear capabilities that he warned would bring catastrophe. AFP Photo Travis HEYING A (Photo credit should read Travis HEYING/AFP via Getty Images)Israel Holds Successful Test Of Arrow Anti-Missile MissileISRAEL - DECEMBER 2: In this photo released by Israel Aircraft Industries, an Arrow II anti-missile missile is successfully launched December 2, 2005 from an unnamed military base in central Israel. (Photo by IAI via Getty Images)TOPSHOT-IRAQ-UNRESTTOPSHOT - Military helicopters fly over the Green Zone area in Baghdad following a loud explosion early on October 18, 2010. Violence in Iraq has plunged dramatically since its peak in 2006-2007 but casualties from insurgent and military action still remain part of daily life. AFP PHOTO / SABAH ARAR (Photo by SABAH ARAR / AFP) (Photo by SABAH ARAR/AFP via Getty Images)Islamic State/Iraq/Syria: A masked Islamic State soldier poses holding the ISIL banner somewhere in the deserts of Iraq or Syria. ISIL publicity image, 2015Islamic State/Iraq/Syria: A masked Islamic State soldier poses holding the ISIL banner somewhere in the deserts of Iraq or Syria. ISIL publicity image, 2015. (Photo by: Pictures from History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)Rumsfeld, Libby And CheneyWASHINGTON, UNITED STATES - SEPTEMBER 5:Vice President Dick Cheney (left) with Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Scooter Libby (centre), and Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, outside the Pentagon briefing room September 5, 2002 in Washington, DC. (Photo by David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images)Tehran MarchDemonstrators guided by clergymen in Tehran, during the Iranian Revolution, 19th January 1979. As many as 17 million people up and down the country marched peacefully to demand the removal of the Shah and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini. (Photo by Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)IRAN-POLITICS-REVOLUTION-ANNIVERSARYThis handout picture provided by the office of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shows him praying inside the tomb of the late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in Tehran on January 30, 2025, ahead of the 46th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. (Photo by KHAMENEI.IR / AFP via Getty Images)Exiled Shah Reads Telegram(Original Caption) 8/22/1953-Rome, Italy- Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi is flanked by reporters, as he reads a telegram urging him to return to Tehran. After five days in exile in Rome, the ruler of Iran was notified that Mossadegh's coup was thwarted and that it was safe to return.IRAN-COUP D'ETAT-MONARCHISTESDes manifestants monarchistes qui viennent d'incendier un journal gouvernemental, défilent sur l'Avenue Chah Abbas en plein centre de Téhéran le 26 août 1953. Le Shah d'Iran est rentré d'Italie le 22 août, où il était en exil, après la réussite du coup d'Etat pour restaurer la monarchie. (Photo by - / INTERCONTINENTALE / AFP) (Photo by -/INTERCONTINENTALE/AFP via Getty Images)Saddam Hussein with Soldiers in North IraqIraqi leader Saddam Hussein visits soldiers in northern Iraq. (Photo by Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma via Getty Images)USS Vincenneshttps://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-020/h-020-1-uss-vincennes-tragedy--.html 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

War With Iran - Read by Eunice Wong

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

Rule of Idiots - Read by Eunice Wong

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:The last days of dying empires are dominated by idiots. The Roman, Mayan, French, Habsburg, Ottoman, Romanoff, Iranian and Soviet dynasties crumbled under the stupidity of their decadent rulers who absented themselves from reality, plundered their nations and retreated into echo chambers where fact and fiction were indistinguishable.Donald Trump, and the sycophantic buffoons in his administration, are updated versions of the reigns of the Roman emperor Nero, who allocated vast state expenditures to attain magical powers; the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, who funded repeated expeditions to a mythical island of immortals to bring back a potion that would give him eternal life; and a feckless Tsarist court that sat around reading tarot cards and attending séances as Russia was decimated by a war that consumed over two million lives and revolution brewed in the streets.In “Hitler and the Germans,” the political philosopher Eric Voegelin dismisses the idea that Hitler — gifted in oratory and political opportunism, but poorly educated and vulgar — mesmerized and seduced the German people. The Germans, he writes, supported Hitler and the “grotesque, marginal figures,” surrounding him because he embodied the pathologies of a diseased society, one beset by economic collapse and hopelessness. Voegelin defines stupidity as a “loss of reality.” The loss of reality means a “stupid” person cannot “rightly orient his action in the world, in which he lives.” The demagogue, who is always an idiote, is not a freak or social mutation. The demagogue expresses the society’s zeitgeist, its collective departure from a rational world of verifiable fact.These idiots, who promise to recapture lost glory and power, do not create. They only destroy. They accelerate the collapse. Limited in intellectual ability, lacking any moral compass, grossly incompetent and filled with rage at established elites who they see as having slighted and rejected them, they remake the world into a playground for grifters, con artists and megalomaniacs. They make war on universities, banish scientific research, peddle quack theories about vaccines as a pretext to expand mass surveillance and data sharing, strip legal residents of their rights and empower armies of goons, which is what the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has become, to spread fear and ensure passivity. Reality, whether the climate crisis or the immiseration of the working class, does not impinge on their fantasies. The worse it gets, the more idiotic they become.Hannah Arendt blames a society that willingly embraces radical evil on this collective “thoughtlessness.” Desperate to escape from the stagnation, where they and their children are trapped, hopeless and in despair, a betrayed population is conditioned to exploit everyone around them in a desperate scramble to advance. People are objects to be used, mirroring the cruelty inflicted by the ruling class.A society convulsed by disorder and chaos, as Voegelin points out, celebrates the morally degenerate, those who are cunning, manipulative, deceitful and violent. In an open, democratic society, these attributes are despised and criminalized. Those who exhibit them are condemned as stupid; “a man [or woman] who behaves in this way,” Voegelin notes, “will be socially boycotted.” But the social, cultural and moral norms in a diseased society are inverted. The attributes that sustain an open society — a concern for the common good, honesty, trust and self-sacrifice — are ridiculed. They are detrimental to existence in a diseased society.When a society, as Plato notes, abandons the common good, it always unleashes amoral lusts — violence, greed and sexual exploitation — and fosters magical thinking, the focus of my book “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.”The only thing these dying regimes do well is spectacle. These bread and circus acts — like Trump’s $40 million Army parade to be held on his birthday on June 14 — keep a distressed population entertained.The Disneyfication of America, the land of eternally happy thoughts and positive attitudes, the land where everything is possible, is peddled to mask the cruelty of economic stagnation and social inequality. The population is conditioned by mass culture, dominated by sexual commodification, banal and mindless entertainment and graphic depictions of violence, to blame itself for failure.Søren Kierkegaard in “The Present Age” warns that the modern state seeks to eradicate conscience and shape and manipulate individuals into a pliable and indoctrinated “public.” This public is not real. It is, as Kierkegaard writes, a “monstrous abstraction, an all-embracing something which is nothing, a mirage.” In short, we became part of a herd, “unreal individuals who never are and never can be united in an actual situation or organization — and yet are held together as a whole.” Those who question the public, those who denounce the corruption of the ruling class, are dismissed as dreamers, freaks or traitors. But only they, according to the Greek definition of the polis, can be considered citizens.Thomas Paine writes that a despotic government is a fungus that grows out of a corrupt civil society. This is what happened to past societies. It is what happened to us.It is tempting to personalize the decay, as if ridding ourselves of Trump will return us to sanity and sobriety. But the rot and corruption has ruined all of our democratic institutions, which function in form, not in content. The consent of the governed is a cruel joke. Congress is a club on the take from billionaires and corporations. The courts are appendages of corporations and the rich. The press is an echo chamber of the elites, some of whom do not like Trump, but none of whom advocate the social and political reforms that could save us from despotism. It is about how we dress up despotism, not despotism itself.The historian Ramsay MacMullen, in “Corruption and the Decline of Rome,” writes that what destroyed the Roman Empire was “the diverting of governmental force, its misdirection.” Power became about enriching private interests. This misdirection renders government powerless, at least as an institution that can address the needs and protect the rights of the citizenry. Our government, in this sense, is powerless. It is a tool of corporations, banks, the war industry and oligarchs. It cannibalizes itself to funnel wealth upwards.“[T]he decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness,” Edward Gibbon writes. “Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest; and, as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of the ruin is simple and obvious: and instead of inquiring why the Roman Empire was destroyed we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted for so long.”The Roman emperor Commodus, like Trump, was entranced with his own vanity. He commissioned statues of himself as Hercules and had little interest in governance. He fancied himself a star of the arena, staging gladiatorial contests where he was crowned the victor and killing lions with a bow and arrow. The empire — he renamed Rome the Colonia Commodiana (Colony of Commodus) — was a vehicle to satiate his bottomless narcissism and lust for wealth. He sold public offices the way Trump sells pardons and favors to those who invest in his cryptocurrencies or donate to his inauguration committee or presidential library.Finally, the emperor’s advisors arranged to have him strangled to death in his bath by a professional wrestler after he announced that he would assume the consulship dressed as a gladiator. But his assassination did nothing to halt the decline. Commodus was replaced by the reformer Pertinax who was assassinated three months later. The Praetorian Guards auctioned off the office of emperor. The next emperor, Didius Julianus, lasted 66 days. There would be five emperors in A.D. 193, the year after the assassination of Commodus.Like the late Roman Empire, our republic is dead.Our constitutional rights — due process, habeas corpus, privacy, freedom from exploitation, fair elections and dissent — have been taken from us by judicial and legislative fiat. These rights exist only in name. The vast disconnect between the purported values of our faux democracy and reality means our political discourse, the words we use to describe ourselves and our political system, are absurd.Walter Benjamin wrote in 1940 amid the rise of European fascism and looming world war:A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.Our decay, our illiteracy and collective retreat from reality, was long in the making. The steady erosion of our rights, especially our rights as voters, the transformation of the organs of state into tools of exploitation, the immiseration of the working poor and middle class, the lies that saturate our airwaves, the degrading of public education, the endless and futile wars, the staggering public debt, the collapse of our physical infrastructure, mirror the last days of all empires.Trump the pyromaniac entertains us as we go down.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.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. (Photo by Oliver Morris/Getty Images)Joined By Elon Musk, Trump Holds First Cabinet Meeting Of His Second TermWASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 26: U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on February 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)Saluting New DictatorA jubilant crowd salutes Nazi Leader Adolf Hitler outside the Reich Chancellery, Berlin, after a plebiscite, which gave Hitler absolute power as German Fuhrer, 19th August 1934 (Photo by FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-COMPUTERS-CLIMATE-ENERGY-CRYPTOCURRENCYTOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump (2R), flanked by US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick (L), US Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent (2L) and White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks (R), attends a the White House Crypto Summit in Washington, DC, March 7, 2025. (Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP) / ALTERNATE CROP (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)National Guard Continues Border Security In TexasEAGLE PASS, TEXAS - FEBRUARY 4: U.S. Border Patrol agents guard migrants that crossed into Shelby Park as they wait to be picked up for processing on February 4, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas. (Photo by Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images)Portrait Of Hannah ArendtPortrait of German-born American political theorist and author Hannah Arendt (1906 - 1975), 1949. (Photo by Fred Stein Archive/Archive Photos/Getty Images)TOPSHOT-US-POLITICS-CPACTOPSHOT - Elon Musk (L) holds a chainsaw alongside Argentine President Javier Milei during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, on February 20, 2025. The chainsaw was a present to Elon Musk from Argentina's President Javier Milei. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)Washington DC Celebrates Army's 250th Anniversary With Parade And FestivitiesWASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 14: U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump stand together at the end of the U.S Army parade on June 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)Magic Returns to Disneyland Park as Theme Parks Plan to Reopen April 30ANAHEIM, CA - AUGUST 27: Mickey Mouse poses in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland Park on August 27, 2019 in Anaheim, California. Disneyland plans to reopen on April 30, 2021. (Photo Joshua Sudock/Walt Disney World Resorts via Getty Images)New American Citizens Pledging AllegianceAlmost ten thousand new citizens, predominantly Hispanic, pledge allegiance to the United States of America during a naturalization ceremony at Miami's Orange Bowl Stadium.Thomas Painecirca 1770: The English-born American revolutionary philosopher Thomas Paine, (1737 - 1809), who wrote and published 'The Rights of Man', (1791 - 1792), in England. In it he expressed his support for the French Revolution and called for the overthrow of the British monarchy. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)President Of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky Addresses CongressWASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 21: President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky receives an American flag from U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Vice President Kamala Harris as he addresses a joint meeting of Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on December 21, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)The Rachel Maddow Show - Season 2019THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW -- Pictured: (l-r) Rachel Maddow, Secretary Hillary Clinton -- Interview with Secretary Hillary Clinton in Studio 3A, 30 Rockefeller Plaza on Wednesday May 1, 2019 -- (Photo by: Mackenzie Calle/MSNBC/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)NYCC Protest Against Trump's Recent Financial Executive Order at NY, USANYCC is protesting due to the recent comments from Donald Trump on rolling back Dodd-Frank and his recent Finanical Executive Order written by former Goldman employee Gary Cohn at Liberty St near Federal Reserve Bank of New York, NY, USA, 7 february 2017. (Photo by Anik Rahman/NurPhoto via Getty Images)Portrait of Edward GibbonEdward Gibbon (1737-1794), British historian. His best known work is The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.The Roman Emperor Commodus Fires an Arrow to Subdue a Leopard Engraving by Giovanni StradanoThe Roman Emperor Commodus Fires an Arrow to Subdue a Leopard Engraving by Giovanni Stradano (Photo by © Historical Picture Archive/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)Portrait and scene of assassination.Commodus (161-192 AD). Roman emperor (177-192 AD). Nerva-Antonine Dynasty. Commodus had a passion for gladiatorial combat. Laetus formed a conspiracy with Eclectus and Marcia. The gladiator Narcissus strangling him in his bath. Portrait. Watercolour painting by Francisco Fonollosa, Spanish illustrator (late 20th century). (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)WALTER BENJAMIN (1892-1940). German philosopher and writer.(Eingeschränkte Rechte für bestimmte redaktionelle Kunden in Deutschland. Limited rights for specific editorial clients in Germany.) WALTER BENJAMIN (1892-1940). German philosopher and writer. (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)Bill Tompkins The Celebrity Aprentice Donald Trump ArchiveNEW YORK, NY - May 10 MANDATORY CREDIT Bill Tompkins/Getty Images Joan Rivers, Donald Trump and melissa Rivers pose during the Season Finale of the Celebrity Apprentice on May 10, 2009 in New York City. (Photo by Bill Tompkins/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