Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is Abby Martin. This is the audio version of each episode of the Empire Files hosted on Telesaur English. You can watch every episode at the Empirefiles. TV.

This week I sat down with Chris Hedges, Polser Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author, who's reported from war zones in Latin America, the Middle East, and beyond.

His most recent book is titled Wages of Rebellion, The Moral Imperative of Revolt.

Hedges is also the host of the new show on Telesaur English Days of Revolt, with new episodes airing every Monday night.

From someone who's been on the receiving end of bullets from El Salvador to Iraq and covered

uprisings from North Africa to Europe, I wanted to talk to him about war, propaganda,

and revolt.

Chris, Eugene Debs, famous socialist candidate back during World War I was sent to 10 years in prison for his

opposition to it.

And in fact, the Sedition Act made it illegal for anyone to speak in opposition to the war

at that time.

What does that say about the myth of democracy from that early on?

Well, it says that if you challenge the structures of power, and in particular, particularly military

power, you are at best marginalized, if not imprisoned.

You know, those kind of few radical voices that held fast, Randolph-Borne, Jane Adams, Eugene

Debs were excoriated in the press, Emma Goldman eventually deported, along with Alexander

Berkman and others.

So, yeah, it's, you know, wars, Randolph-Borne said, is the health of the state.

And what you saw in World War I was the rise

of the military corporate machine, which made war against these radicals through the Sedition

Act, the Espionage Act, and more importantly, the Committee for Public Information,

or the Creole Commission, which created the system of modern mass propaganda, employing

...