Chris Hedges, a former New York Times reporter, has become perhaps the foremost media scribe and most prolific advocate of a need for revolutionary change in our current institutional oppression and control of the government by the oligarchical and political elite. Hedges writes with a reporter's detail, a prophet's eloquence and a compelling sense of urgency. This is evident in his latest book, which visits the "sacrifice zones" of America. Get the just-released "Days of Destruction Days of Revolt" (with illustrations by Joe Sacco) directly from Truthout right now by clicking here. Make a minimum donation and support progressive writers and Truthout.

Mark Karlin: You begin "Days of Destruction Days of Revolt" with a visit to and reflection upon the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, the poorest and perhaps most hopeless Native American settlement in the United States. Indian reservations were a tragically ironic result of the American revolt to throw off the shackles of being a colony, only to become a colonial power over the indigenous residents that lay in its way to achieving "Manifest Destiny." Is this irony the reason why you begin your journey across the "sacrifice zones" of the United States at Pine Ridge?

Chris Hedges: This is where the dark ethic of endless expansion and limitless exploitation, of ruthless imperial conquest, subjugation and extermination of native communities, began in the name of profit. Commercial interests set out to obliterate native peoples who stood in the way of their acquisition of the buffalo herds, timber, coal, gold and later minerals such as uranium, commodities they saw as sources of power and enrichment. Land was sliced up into parcels - usually by the railroad companies - and sold. Sitting Bull acidly suggested they get out scales and sell dirt by the pound. The most basic elements that sustain life were reduced to a vulgar cash product. Nothing in the eyes of the white settlers had an intrinsic value. And this dichotomy of belief was so vast that those who held on to animism and mysticism, to ambiguity and mystery, to the centrality of the human imagination, to communal living and a concept of the sacred, had to be extinguished. The belief system encountered on the plains and in the earlier indigenous communities in New England obliterated by the Puritans was antithetical and hostile to capitalism, the concept of technological progress, empire and the ethos of the industrial society.

The effect of this physical and moral cataclysm is being played out a century and a half later, however, as the whole demented project of endless capitalist expansion, profligate consumption and growth implodes. The suffering of the other, of the Native American, the African-American in the inner city, the unemployed coal miner or the Hispanic produce picker is universal. They went first. We were next.

Occupy Wall Street will turn one year old in a few weeks, and organizers with the group want to make sure the movement's first anniversary won't be forgotten. To commemorate, OWS plans on staging a mass protest outside the New York Stock Exchange.

Organizers with Occupy, a protest movement formed last year to address issues of corporate greed and big businesses' relationship with politics, are asking supporters to participate in a mass sit-in outside the NYSE when their first birthday comes around next month on September 17.

"There'll be a mass of people converging on the Stock Exchange to deliver our message: that we're the 99 percent and we're not going to take it," OWS organizer Dana Balicki tells AFP.

The spokesperson with the group says that Occupy hopes to erect a massive "people's wall" outside the NYSE.

"That will be a pretty substantial act of civil disobedience," Balicki says.

Augusta - Authorities say a gunman robbed two men for 12 cents in Augusta.

Police say the men were walking down a street around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday when they were approached from behind by a man with a gun, who demanded that they empty their pockets.

Police tell The Augusta Chronicle that one of the men handed the gunman 12 cents from his pocket. The other man claimed his pockets were empty.

The gunman was last seen fleeing on foot on Jenkins Street.

Gates, New York - A man was shot and killed while waiting in line at a Gates store early Friday morning.

Montre Bradley, 19, was in a crowd waiting for the retail release of a new sneaker when he was shot. He died later at the hospital.

A crowd of people were lined up at the Street Games store on Chili Avenue for the release.

Witnesses say two men robbed people in line waiting for the expensive shoes.

Gates Police Chief David DiCaro said, "Look this was a 19 year-old that was killed because they were trying to steal his money. All he wanted to do was buy a new pair of shoes. It is a tragedy, it really is a tragedy and we're going to do everything we can to bring him to justice."

His family told 13WHAM News, Bradley came to Rochester from California at the age of 14 after getting into some trouble while living with his mom.

Man was already on probabtion for theft charge.

Ocala, Florida - A Central Florida judge has sentenced a 21-year-old homeless man to 180 days in jail for stealing $2 worth of candy.

Delvis Rodriguez-Ramos, already on probation for theft, pleaded guilty Wednesday to taking Twix and Snickers bars from an Ocala store.

An employee noticed the candy missing Saturday. Rodriguez-Ramos denied taking the candy, but returned to the store Monday and confessed.

The employee asked him to come back Tuesday to talk about it. When Rodriguez-Ramos showed up, the employee called police.

Rodriguez-Ramos said he had not eaten in a few days and was hungry.

But Futch asked why Rodriguez-Ramos didn't try to find a job or seek help from a homeless shelter. Futch also fined him $500.

Source: The Associated Press

Chicago - A teenage boy was shot about a block from President Obama's home, in the second such incident in the past week.

The 17-year-old boy was shot in the leg and buttock in the 5000 block of South Woodlawn Avenue about 4:20 a.m., police said.

The shooting scene is about a block east of the heavily guarded street where the Obamas have a home in the Kenwood neighborhood.

He was taken in "stable" condition to an unidentified hospital, according to police.

Last weekend, another shooting a few blocks from President Barack Obama's Chicago home turned out to be fatal.

"Three blocks over, that's it. Three blocks. He's right there," said Freeman Richmond, who lives on the next block on Drexel Boulevard.

Old Bridge, New Jersey - An ex-Marine wearing desert camouflage opened fire at a supermarket in New Jersey early Friday, killing two of his co-workers and himself as other terrified store employees ran for cover, authorities said.

Terence Tyler, 23, left his shift at a Pathmark store in Old Bridge Township about 3:30 a.m., drove off and returned 20 minutes later to the closed store with a handgun and a semiautomatic rifle similar to an AK-47, Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said. About 12 to 14 workers were still there.

He first fired outside the store at an employee, who ran inside and warned co-workers as Tyler kept firing and entered the store, Kaplan said. Tyler stopped at one of the supermarket aisles and fired at five other workers, killing Christina LoBrutto, 18, and Bryan Breen, 24, as other workers hid, officials said.

"I do not believe that they were specifically targeted. I believe everybody in the store was a target," said Kaplan.

After firing at least 16 shots, the gunman then drew his handgun and killed himself, the prosecutor said.

Tyler was discharged from the Marines in 2010 after just under two years in the service, the Marines said. His uncle, Christopher Dyson, said he had left after suffering from depression.

But Tyler, who lived with his uncle, also a Pathmark employee, was happy with how well he was getting paid, Dyson said. "He wasn't sad," he said. "I don't know what triggered him to do what he did."

Geneva - An unlicensed acupuncturist in Switzerland has been accused of intentionally infecting 16 people with the HIV virus for over a decade, authorities announced Thursday.

The unidentified man was indicted by a five-judge panel in Bern-Mitelland regional court on charges of intentionally spreading human disease and causing serious bodily harm, offenses that carry maximum penalties of five to 10 years respectively, said the regional prosecutor's office in Bern, the Swiss capital.

The office said in a statement that most of the victims attended a music school that the man operated.

A spokesman for the prosecutor, Christof Scheurer, said the man also practiced as an unlicensed, self-styled acupuncturist -- a trade which he is believed to have used between 2001 and 2005 as a pretext to prick and infect some of his victims with blood that was infected with AIDS.

HIV is transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood, semen or breast milk. According to international AIDS and HIV organization Avert, about 34 million people worldwide were living with HIV or AIDS as of 2010, 2.7 million of which were newly infected that year. Deaths attributed to the AIDS virus in 2010 totaled 18 million.

Global food prices have leapt by 10% in the month of July, raising fears of soaring prices for the planet's poorest, the World Bank has warned.

The bank said that a US heatwave and drought in parts of Eastern Europe were partly to blame for the rising costs.

The price of key grains such as corn, wheat and soybean saw the most dramatic increases, described by the World Bank president as "historic".

The bank warned countries importing grains will be particularly vulnerable.

From June to July this year, corn and wheat prices each rose by 25% while soybean prices increased by 17%, the World Bank said. Only rice prices decreased - by 4%.

In the United States, the most severe, widespread drought in half a century has wreaked havoc on the corn and soybean crops while in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, wheat crops have been badly damaged.

The World Bank said that the use of corn to produce ethanol biofuel - which represents 40% of US corn production - was also a key factor in the sharp rise in the US maize price.

Overall, the World Bank's Food Price Index - which tracks the price of internationally traded food commodities - was six percent higher than in July of last year, and one percent over its previous peak, in February 2011.

© AFP

The upper house has passed a censure motion against Yoshihiko Noda, piling more pressure on him to make good on his promise to call an election to parliament's lower house

Japan's government is planning to suspend some state spending as it could run out of cash by October, with a deficit financing bill blocked by opposition parties trying to force Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda into an early election.

The impasse in Japan's parliament has raised fears among investors that the world's third largest economy is being driven towards a "fiscal cliff", Reuters reported.

"The government running out of money is not a story made up. It's a real threat," Finance Minister Jun Azumi told a news conference, making a last-ditch appeal for cooperation by opposition parties to pass the bill.

"Failing to pass the bill will give markets the impression that Japan's fiscal management rests on shaky ground," he said.

Unless the bill clears the current parliamentary session that ends next week, the government will start suspending or reducing some state spending to avoid running out of money for as long as possible, the finance ministry said.

Noda's ruling Democratic Party passed the deficit-financing bill through the lower house on Tuesday. But the opposition boycotted the vote, signalling the bill has little chance of clearing the opposition-controlled upper house.