Rob Kall: You mention NAFTA, what's your feeling about global trade agreements, about...?
Chris Hedges: It's great if you're Apple, it's pretty bad if you're a worker (laughs).
And you look at the conditions that the 700,000 workers in China endure to make Apple products, and the New York Times actually did a pretty good series a couple of months ago on it, and it's just awful, and that's the world we are headed for.
Rob Kall: And what do you feel about both TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and global trade agreements? What should the U.S. do with them?
Chris Hedges: Well, the problem with all of those agreements is that they're written to increase corporate profits, not to protect the working class.
Rob Kall: Last question, and I appreciate the time. I know you've got six more interviews going today. You finished the book talking about how thirty [30]- plus years ago, you were a boxer. And it's an interesting metaphor that you bring that up now. How do you see that applies to people who care about activism, and making something change in this world?
Chris Hedges: Say that question again?
Rob Kall: You wrap up the book talking about how you were a boxer, and...
Chris Hedges: Well, only as a metaphor. I used it as a metaphor because there were moments when, as a semi-pro, we would have pros who would come who were in training just to sort of "tune up," and they would allot you... if you had long professional fight records, you weren't allowed to fight in these clubs, so they'd lie. And as soon as they got in the ring, everybody knew, including us, and then those fights became about something else. They became about personal dignity. It was pretty clear fairly quickly that you weren't going to win, and nevertheless, every once in a while, they get careless. And that I felt that I had the same kind of feeling that I had thirty years ago, when I was fighting boxers who were fare more adept and skilled than I was, that the mighty can fall, that the system is that arrogant, that out of touch, that corrupt, and that decayed, that we can bring "em down.
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