World of Kirk Fares, my name is Nathan Robinson.

I'm the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs magazine.

My guest today is legendary journalist Chris Hedges. He worked for many years as a war

correspondent for the New York Times before parting with them, in part because of a difference

of opinion over war. He has taught for many years in a New Jersey state prison and other

prisons, and that's the subject of his latest book.

His books include Wars of Force that gives us meaning,

American fascists, the world as it is,

and most recently our class trauma transformation

in an American prison available from Simon & Schuster.

Chris Hedges, thank you so much for talking to me today.

Thanks, Nathan. Sure.

You've written a lot of books now.

You've reported from a lot of different places.

And it seems to be like one of the things that is common across a great deal of your writing

is an effort to get those of us who have a

blindness to some of the darker truths about the world and about the country that we live

in to face those truths squarely, whether that's war or whether that's, in this case,

the prison system. One New York Times review of a book of yours that I read said here, a fire and

brimstone preacher who preaches the damnation of America. I think that's particularly

fair. But I do think what is true is that there is a lot we prefer not to look at in this country

that you force us to look at. And so what I want to start by asking you is in this particular

...