Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges (Interview and Excerpts)

You may also want to check out a CBC interview around his Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

From Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt
From the Introduction:
AMONG INDUSTRIALIZED NATIONS, THE UNITED STATES HAS THE:
• highest poverty rate, both generally and for children;
• greatest inequality of incomes;
• lowest government spending as a percentage of GDP on social programs for the disadvantaged;
• lowest average number of days for paid holiday, annual leaves, and maternity leaves;
• lowest score on the United Nations index of “material well-being of children”’
• worst score on the United Nations gender inequality index;
• lowest social mobility;
• highest public and private expenditure on health care as a percentage of GDP;

THESE TRENDS ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THE
• highest infant mortality rate;
• highest prevalence of mental-health problems;
• highest obesity rate;
• highest proportion of population going without health care due to cost;
• second lowest birth-weight for children per capita, behind only Japan;
• highest consumption of antidepressants per capita;
• third-shortest life expectancy at birth, behind only Denmark and Portugal;
• highest carbon dioxide emissions and water consumption per capita;
• second-lowest score on the World Economic Forum’s environmental performance index, behind only Belgium;
• third-largest ecological footprint per capita, behind only Belgium and Denmark;
• highest rate of failure to ratify international agreements;
• lowest spending on international development and humanitarian assistance as a percentage of GDP;
• highest military spending as a portion of GDP;
• largest international arms sales;
• fourth-worst balance of payments, behind only New Zealand, Spain and Portugal;
• third-lowest scores for student performance in math, behind only Portugal and Italy, and far from the top in both science and reading;
• second-highest high-school dropout rate, behind only Spain;
• highest homicide rate;
• largest prison population per capita;

Page 150
The unrest in the Middle East, the implosion of national economies such as those of Ireland, Italy, and Greece, the increasing anger of the beleaguered working class at home and abroad, the desperate and growing human migrations, and the refusal to halt our destruction of the ecosystem, are the harbingers of our own decline.Our march toward self-annihilation has already obliterated 90% of the large fish in the oceans and wiped out half of the mature tropical forests, the lungs of the planet.
Contaminated water kills more than 6000 people every day around the globe. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere 390 parts per million (ppm) and climbing, with most climate scientists warning that the levels must remain below 350 ppm to sustain life as we know it.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that the measurement could reach 541 to 970 ppm by 2100. At that point, parts of the planet, beset with overpopulation, droughts, soil erosion, freak storms, massive crop failures, and rising sea levels, will be unfit for human existence. And yet we retreat into fantasy. The U.S. Senate, in the summer of 2010, refused to take a vote on the watered-down and largely ineffectual climate bill. The House, in April 2011, voted 184 to 240 against legislation asserting that global warming was real.

A few pages further:
About the Appalachians:
Martin: “It’s a sacrifice zone, it’s so the rest of the country can have electric toothbrushes and leave the lights on all night in parking lots for used cars and banks lit up all night long and shit like that.”

Talking Stick, Town Hall, Seattle, June 2012