Another excellent presentation by author and journalist Chris Hedges. Here he discusses his book “Death of the Liberal Class” and the destruction of critical culture, which flourished before World War I, but was destroyed soon afterwards. He provides a short, but spot on overview on the history of the American labor movement, the historical congealing of the forces aligned against it, and its relationship to the modern Occupy Wall Street movement.

Of particular importance and relevance is the history of the rise and dominance of state/corporate propaganda from World War I. This apparatus was originally employed against the Germans, but was then quickly turned against the labor movement. This is particularly relevant and telling history, which he begins to get into the meat of around the 12-minute mark in the video.

Hedges is one of the few people to openly and persistently discuss what I personally feel to be some of the most important and least talked about history in America; that of the ubiquitous but sublimated role of propaganda. Here, Hedges goes into some detail about the creation of the Committee on Public Information (The Creel Commission), and the employment of modern propaganda in America through the ideas of people like Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays. These are names known to very few Americans, but whose impact on our nation and our world is incalculable.