Chris Hedges on trauma & teaching writing in prison

 

Since 2013, Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and host of The Chris Hedges Report, has taught college courses in drama, literature, philosophy, and history at East Jersey State Prison (aka “Rahway”) and other New Jersey prisons. In one such course, after reading plays by Amiri Baraka and August Wilson, among others, Hedges’ students wrote a play of their own. The play, “Caged,” would eventually be published and performed at The Passage Theatre in Trenton, New Jersey, for a month-long run in 2018 to sold-out audiences. In his latest book, “Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison,” Hedges chronicles the journey he and his class embarked on together. Joining Mansa Musa on Rattling the Bars, Hedges speaks about his book and the transformations he witnessed among the men he taught behind prison walls.

 

Chris Hedges is the former Middle East bureau chief of The New York Times, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and a columnist at ScheerPost. He formerly hosted the program Days of Revolt, produced by TRNN, and currently hosts The Chris Hedges Report. Hedges is the author of several books, including “America: The Farewell Tour”; “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America,” and “Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison.” Read the transcript of this video: https://therealnews.com/chris-hedges-… Pre-Production/Studio/Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

 

 

Extremely important Chris is to get students to write about trauma, real experiences. It is for most of us therapy , a breakthrough of communication of trauma. Again, thank you for being the example for all of is, a man with a moral compass. PLEASE RUN FOR PRESIDENT. (CHUCKLES) It is a dream for many of us. THANK YOU.❤️
I read that play “Caged” a couple of years ago. It was very good. Much better than I was expecting. Such a sad story, but a very important story and play. I highly recommend everyone read it.
Mr. Hedges goes directly to the defining features of the U.S. It’s really nice that he can account for the humanity in one of the most systematically inhumane systems.
Of course they need to silence Chris Hedges. He’s legitimate.
Excellent interview. Not easy to see the subject matters through the context of the prison system unless one has been in it.
<– found a copy of “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.” I should read it sooner than later!

 

Cops wanted to make her a felon, but missed a key piece of evidence

Michelle Lucas, a community activist and grandmother of four, was devastated when she was charged with two felonies for allegedly passing a counterfeit bill. Our investigation uncovered evidence that forced prosecutors to admit the police had made a mistake and had an unexpected impact on her case.

A cop charged a man with multiple crimes, but the video tells a different story

A small-town police department in Milton, West Virginia, is facing more scrutiny after another troubling video surfaced of a questionable arrest. The newly obtained video contradicts the sworn statement of a Milton police officer who said the man who was arrested resisted arrest and tried to escape. PAR investigates the case and delves deeper into the finances of the town, which has nearly doubled its collections of court fines and fees over the past decade.

 

Read the transcript of this video: https://therealnews.com/west-virginia…

The US military is poisoning the water in O’ahu

As Director for the Sierra Club of Hawai’i Wayne Tanaka recently wrote in The Guardian, the US Navy’s Red Hill Fuel Storage Facility is “a massive underground ‘farm’ of 18-million liter fuel tanks and pipes just 100 feet above metropolitan O’ahu. Its construction began before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Since then, it has leaked over 180,000 gallons of petroleum into the groundwater aquifer that provides drinking water for over 400,000 residents and visitors from Hālawa to Hawaiʻi Kai.”

Regardless of the major threat the facility poses to the local water system and demands from Native Hawaiians and supporters to address the crisis and hold the US military accountable, it wasn’t until hundreds of military families living near Pearl Harbor reported symptoms of petroleum poisoning that Red Hill’s operations were paused in late November. But the root causes of the environmental and public health crisis remain untouched and the fight to shut down Red Hill is still very much ongoing. In this segment of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks about that fight with Mikey Inouye, an independent filmmaker born and raised in Hawai‘i, community organizer, and member of O‘ahu Water Protectors. The O‘ahu Water Protectors is an organization that formed out of a coalition of Kānaka Maoli organizers, Sierra Club members and supporters, Hawai‘i Peace and Justice, and other groups working toward sovereignty, decolonization, and demilitarization.