Transcript
Intro
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I mean we have one party it's the corporate party and you get to choose between the more stayed and controlled
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figure of an Obama or a Biden or a Harris or you get the cult leader
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demagogue Proto fascist Trump now the capitalist class would prefer the more
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measured and somber tones of the Democrats but they can live with Trump
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Chris Hedges is a pter prizewinning American journalist who was a foreign correspondent for nearly two decades at
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the New York Times where he was appointed as the paper's Middle East bureau chief and later their Balan
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bureau chief he's also the author of several bestsellers including death of the liberal class and American fascist
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the Christian right and the war in America he currently hosts a Chris Hedges report on YouTube and you can find him at Chris hedges. substack
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docomo us now from New Jersey Chris Hedges thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us on real talk not not
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at all Muhammad I want to ask you I mean how have you been intereting the last few weeks um you know we've seen the the
This moment in American history
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Trump Biden debate you know the Fallout that Biden had from it um the assassination attempt uh on Trump and
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then the the shifting sentiment towards Cala Harris right now how do you see this moment in American history well
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it's the throws of a Dying Empire and a dysfunctional system I don't think
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there's much shifting sentiment to Harris other than among the billionaire class that stopped funding Biden because
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because he's incapacitated clearly has severe cognitive issues the internal polling
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within the Democratic party uh showed a route not only for Biden as the
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presidential candidate but for members of Congress as well and the pressure
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because we live in a system of legalized bribery where uh it is that corporate
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billionaire class that determines who runs and let's be clear Biden has worked for these people for 47 years they used
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to call him Senator credit card and he was behind every disastrous neoliberal
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policy whether revoking glass steagle that was the firewall that protected commercial and investment Banks and led
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to the global financial crash or whether it was he was calling for an invasion of
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Iraq five years before we invaded Iraq he was behind NAFTA he was Behind These
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tough on crime bills that doubled our prison population we have 25% of the
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world's prison population we're less than 5% of the world's population militarizing our police the Patriot Act
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I mean the list goes on and on and on so he was a creature of this system he
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served this system and the system uh essentially threw him overboard when he
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became incapacitated or or he had obviously been incapacitated for some while uh but they had kept it hidden
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from the public public uh no news conferences that he just read from teleprompters although even then he
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stumbled and uh would sometime read the directions like turn right this kind of stuff so yeah that that's what what
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we're seeing uh nobody voted for Harris nobody really voted for Biden remember in the primaries the Democratic party uh
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essentially blocked any uh rival candidates from running there were no
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debates in the primaries uh Biden if you go back to the 20 20 election uh Bernie
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Sanders was clearly on his way to the nomination and the Democratic power hierarchy intervened to get the other
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candidates to drop out and use Biden as a foil to Sanders he had done very
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poorly in the initial primaries so this is uh we have to understand the engine
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of power the the the machine itself remains untouched I I find it staggering
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the the Democratic voters have absolutely no say have had no say in who their presidential candidate is they're
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little more than stage props uh and that that that has been true in the past but
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now of course it's an extremist so uh that's on the one side on the other side we see a disenfranchise largely white
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workingclass 30 million Americans have lost their job since 1996 that's when
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recordkeeping started in Mass layoffs that is the fundamental problem the
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election of trump had nothing to do with Russia uh or anything else it had to do
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with this uh deep Despair and even rage among people who have been betrayed
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largely by the Democratic party because it was the Clinton Administration and Biden was a key Ally that pushed through
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NAFTA this trade deal that de-industrialized the country was probably the greatest betrayal of the
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working class since the 1947 Taft Harley act which makes it very very difficult to organize uh strikes
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outside of your workplace sympathy strikes I mean essentially the labor movement in the United States so
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uh that's what we're seeing and meanwhile we leap from one catastrophic military Fiasco to the next uh and you
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know the list as well as I do uh Afghanistan Iraq Syria Libya Ukraine
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Gaza uh and of course the only people who profit uh quite literally is the arms industry
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most of this money goes directly to the arms industry so it it it is a dysfunctional system if youve been to
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the United States our cities are in Decay our rail service doesn't work uh
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our roads are a wreck uh the electrical grids are going out the it it's uh and
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that's what happens with empires in Decay they eat their Urban centers first and then the political machinations that
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we see are really a symptom of that decay Trump is not the disease he's the
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symptom uh he's a classic demagogue who Rises up out of profound despair among
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huge sectors of the population who engage in magical thinking uh but they
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this this sector of the population the Christian right for instance engaged in magical thinking and uh fact-free
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visions of Science and History and everything else long before Trump so uh
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Trump really built on on a malaise that was already widely prevalent within the
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United States but that globally is is where I see where we are um and
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unfortunately I don't see counter forces that are going to rectify our rather
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Swift descent there's a lot from what you just said that we're going to unpack as a conversation goes on but I do want
Biden dropping out
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to go back to Biden basically pulling out of the race um you know this
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argument that he was thrown out by the system or you know that the elites uh were behind him dropping out you know
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there's another argument basically from the other side that couldn't have the the the the the Elites in the Democratic
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party have been actually listening to the base I mean there was a poll that came out last year that found that 77%
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of Americans thought Biden was too old for a second term so what do you make of
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this argument that the you know that this is actually the the the the the elites listening to the voter base no
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the the elites haven't listened to the voter base for a very long time uh I mean for instance most Americans want
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the genocide in Gaza to stop most Americans think a big Bank should be regulated uh most
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Americans uh uh support Universal healthc care I mean etc etc so the base
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is irrelevant and there have been all sorts of studies there were Princeton professors who did a study a few years ago that essentially pointed that out no
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we we know exactly why Biden pulled out and that is because the donor class said
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we won't fund you and they stopped funding them and now you see all these reports of uh Camala Harris raises $200
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million yes they are funding her no it had zero to do with a base and everything to do with the donor class
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and there were apparently internal polls that the Democratic party had carried out that were far Grimmer than many of
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the public polls and the donor class said you're done you're finished that's what happened let's actually talk about
Kamala unpopular vice president?
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kamla Harris I mean you know she wasn't a popular vice president uh there was an NBC poll that showed that 49% of Voters
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had a negative view of her versus 32% who had a positive view I mean granted
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this poll could have also had you know biases against her race and gender but she clearly struggled with public
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opinion now that's not really what perspective you'd see if you if you look
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at the media coverage of her right now what made the sharp pivot in your view fear of trump I mean the the the and I I
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fear Trump like everyone else uh I just I think the root cause of it is different from what many in the
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mainstream signal as the root cause and ultimately has nothing to do with Trump and if Trump wasn't there there would be
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another demagogue or cult leader to take his place uh yeah she's an empty suit uh
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she's very unimpressive she's uh and so the pivot is a kind of whipping up a
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kind of report that I don't think is reflected and I think the polls show that is not reflected at all in how most
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people view her uh and and I think she's going to have a tough time beating Trump why do you say that because she's a
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terrible politician I mean her if you look at her statements you know when she
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makes a statement about a policy issue it's almost unfathomable and has so many caveats she's just a terrible politician
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uh she doesn't stand for anything other than her own advancement this has been true throughout her career so she
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doesn't light a fire among the Bas the way Trump does now that Bas under Trump
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is fascistic of course but uh when you jux oppose the two candidates there is
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uh a very real passion for Trump on the part of Trump's supporters many of his
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supporters you don't see that with Harris I mean that that is a fabricated passion largely uh handed down from the
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top by the medium political Elites it's not reflected in the base but but Trump supporters I mean they're trying to
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paint her as a radical leftist I mean based on her views on healthc care policing reform immigration the
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Environmental Policy I mean do you see her as a radical leftist no it's ridiculous I mean but you know let let's
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not even get in I mean the Trump Campaign lies like it's breeze it's it's
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a uh no she's a corporatist uh from head
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to toe and always has been Biden so uh you know what what they're doing is
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attempting to demonize a Democratic party that did betray the working class
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in this country that is a legitimate uh uh anger that is that that
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betrayal is real but they're not leftists I mean uh they're corporatists I mean we have one party it's the
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corporate party and you get to choose between the more stayed and controlled figure of an Obama
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or a Biden or a Harris or you get the cult leader demagogue Proto fascist
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Trump now the capitalist class would prefer the more measured and somber
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tones of the Democrats but they can live with Trump but we we saw when Bernie
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Sanders was making uh or you know building a a real base I mean most of
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his supporters of course uh were uh small donors then you saw major figure
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major donors in the Democratic party for instance Lord blank fine the former CEO of Goldman Sachs saying that if Sanders
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was the nominee he and many of the other donors would support Trump uh so the
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capitalist class can live with Trump um however impulsive he is and however
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erratic and even embarrassing he is what they can't live with is any kind of a
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reformist candidate and let's be clear Bernie Sanders was no radical uh and so
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they they did to Sanders what the labor party did to Jeremy Corbin I want to get
Media coverage of US elections
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your thoughts on the media coverage of these events I mean how do you interpret it in a matter of days we went from
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framing Trump as inevitable after his assassination attempt um you know then
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portraying him as being too scared to debate Kamala Harris and then highlighting her record-breaking
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fundraising numbers as you mentioned earlier I mean how do you find context
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in all of this I do do you find the coverage to be more emotionally charged than it is providing context no I would
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describe it this way so I'm old enough to remember the old media model which I used to work for some of these
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organizations including the New York Times so the old media model was that you had a broad audience this is before
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the age of the internet and so you tried to reach as much of that audience as you
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could that was clearly the model of the three major networks CBS ABC NBC maybe
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we could throw in PBS NPR which I used to work for the New York Times who I worked for for 15 years that was the old
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model that broke down in the age of the internet uh where people could Retreat
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into their own political ghettos or intellectual ghettos where they were fed
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what they wanted to hear so that siloed the media and the media model changed
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dramatically after that uh you catered to a particular demographic whether that
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was Fox News catering to the Republican Party Breitbart uh catering to Trump
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supporters and old organizations old established media Legacy organizations
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like the New York Times Like NPR CNN catered to the liberal Democratic party
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that became their demographic so the uh switch from Prince
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subscriptions at the New York Times to digital subscriptions skyrocketed
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during the Trump Administration there's two things about digital subscribers they pay less but also they're more
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fickle they're more apt to cancel their subscriptions and from internal polls
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that the New York Times did it was very clear that most of their subscribers especially their new subscribers
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hungered for news that discredit and attacked Trump and that's what they did
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uh but that's an economic model it's not a journalistic model and so we got two years in the New York Times of Russia
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gate that somehow Trump was a Russia asset of course the FBI investigation completely debunked all of that uh we
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got all sorts of you know salacious that this podcast they put out called the
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caliphate a 10-part podcast that that turned out to be a con artist claimed he
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was a member of Isis I spent 7even years in the Middle East and I I listened to
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about 10 minutes of it and realized it was a fiction I mean he had people being
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crucified on crosses I was kind of audio snuff born or something uh but the times
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didn't pay a price for that uh because that's what their demographic wanted to
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hear in the old New York Times I will say to its credit somebody who had produced something like that would have
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been fired we see the way that they have uh just uncritically and without any
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kind of real investig ation pared Israeli propaganda
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including uh the uh the false stories about systematic sexual assault and rape
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all this kind of stuff I mean in fact they hired a a woman who had never been
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a reporter in Israeli who had been in Israeli intelligence I mean the whole thing so that just shows the kind of for
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me the decline in journalistic standards I I don't want to hold up the New York Times as a paragon of Journalism it was
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always an elitist publication it's its coverage of Israel was always bad uh but
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uh I would say those standards have completely uh uh Fallen uh and there's
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no price because it's what their demographic wants to hear so what we're seeing in the media is uh it's a faux
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enthusiasm it's not a real how how can anyone get enthusiastic about Cala Harris but it is it is it is about that
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drive that belief that we must do everything in our power to defeat Trump and so that's what we're seeing they're
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trying to whip up a kind of enthusiasm uh that I don't think will work and I don't think it will be able to be
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maintained given who Harris is so you think this enthusiasm is basically manufactured as you said it's completely
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manufactured I mean we know from the polls she she she there's you know she's
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neck and neck she hasn't she hasn't bumped Biden it's been a back and forth a kind of Razor thin margin between
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Biden and Trump there no difference between Harris and Trump I mean Trump is is such a goofball and uh and so
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sleazy a credible or a candidate that advocated real policies to ameliorate
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the suffering the working class should be able to wipe him out uh but the fact that the Democrats don't really stand
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for anything uh means that not only are they neck and neck not only is it a
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virtual tie but Trump may win I'm going to come back to that in a second but just a few days ago we saw Netanyahu um
Netanyahu’s Congress speech
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give a speech to to Congress um not really interested in unpacking it but I
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do want to ask about what you made of the American elected officials who were
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clapping and you know standing ovations and whatnot well that's the power of the Israel Lobby APAC in particular so all
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of these our Congress has bought and paid for and has been for decades Biden by the way took more money from the
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Israel Lobby than any other Senate candidate I think he still holds that record and he hasn't been in the senate
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for years I mean he spent eight years as a vice I guess 12 years eight years as a vice president and uh and then or more
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than that and then four years as president almost four years as president so uh yeah they're just they're bought and paid for and uh and they were
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cheering their major funer in essence or the the Israeli Prime Minister who their
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major funer has long supported APAC by the way is a very strong political
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orientation I know because I covered the uh election between Rabin and Netanyahu
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and APAC uh funded and supported Netanyahu through packs and advisors and
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everything else um and uh used to pick it outside of rabin's house I think he
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lived in Herz if I remember um and then when APAC lost and and rabine was
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elected I know know from someone in rabin's office uh that I think he was in the shorum hotel or something and he
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said that some they said some leaders from APAC Mr Prime Minister would like to speak with you and rabine who had a
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very salty vocabulary said I don't talk to scumbags or whatever the Hebrew
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equivalent of that is so uh there's long been a political orientation especially
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after Oslo uh and Netanyahu is hand in glove
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with the Israel Lobby uh he's a creation of the Israel Lobby
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really in essence as a political candidate and um the the Deep Pockets
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that the Israel Lobby has allows it to essentially buy up the American
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political class and so that's why you saw everybody standing and cheering a war criminal I mean it was was a kind of
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deeply embarrassing and sobering site but I think it also illustrates to what an extent the United States has become a
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pariah uh Within along with Israel uh the fact that you would invite uh
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someone who uh is being investigated as a war criminal it's not just a term of
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throwing out he's being investigated by the international court of justice as a war criminal so that they would invite
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him it just shows you how checked out uh both Israel and the United States have come from the global community and what
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was the point of that speech anyway to be honest well the point of the speech
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was uh essential to cater uh to show that the American political class was uh
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solidly behind the genocidal apartheid state of Israel I mean that that was the
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point and uh of course apac's primary mission is to get billions of dollars of
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Weaponry funneled into the Israeli military if I remember correctly I think
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you know Israel's gone through its stockpiles so if I think there was a figure of 68% of iuns that Israel is now using to
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carry out the genocide and let's not forget that the West Bank has also become it doesn't compare to Gaza of
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course but it's also become hell on Earth I was just in romala visiting my friend a Abu uh the great Palestinian
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novelist a few couple weeks ago uh and I had I covered of course the West Bank I
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hadn't been back in 20 years but you can't move I mean the every uh Palestinian Enclave or city is
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completely surrounded uh it used to be that the zionists would
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not make armed raids into ralo which is the seat of the pal Palestinian Authority that's changed I mean a few
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days before I arrived they had come into the city at night and burned all the money transfer shops so people couldn't
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get money from abroad which of course is the point if you want to drive from ramala deblas that's a drive that should
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take about an hour and a half it takes you seven hours because of the roadblocks uh there they have armed the
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ERS that essentially become Rogue militias I'm I'm talking about the West Bank so the uh the uh so and I don't
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want to compare it to Gaza which is uh unfathomable and just by ju deposition I was in Saro I covered Saro for the New
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York Times the waren Bosnia I was based in Saro so when I was in Saro we were being hit with uh 3 to 400
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shells a day and these were big shells they were 155 howitzers katucha Rockets
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90mm tank ground so um and that resulted in about four to five dead a day and
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about two dozen wounded a day uh and I don't want to minimize it I still have
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nightmares about it but you have to compare that to Gaza where hundreds hundreds of people including of course a
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staggering number of children hundreds of people are being killed or wounded daily and the numbers of dead in Gaza I
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think everyone can seeds are far higher than the official estimate because those the names that are listed
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uh by functioning morgs and hospitals of which there are very few now and every
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Palestinian friend I have has uh large numbers of friends and relatives who are
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missing clearly of course buried under the rubble so the the death toll is far
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far higher than the official figure uh it serves hamas's interest to keep the
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death toll low because of course they're all Sheltering in the tunnels and have left the civilians above ground and it
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serves in Israel's interest to keep the death toll low uh but I think there's
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very clear evidence that at this point we're talking about tens of thousands of
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dead uh that's just a number we have not seen I don't know where you'd have to go back to I don't know maybe the Vietnam
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War or something to to to replicate that level of uh bombing and assault and
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missiles and everything else uh and that that level of dead um so yeah the the
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United States is a full partner in the genocide um and uh and there will be no
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change under Camala Harris zero or Trump I mean for a Palestinian it doesn't really make any difference whether it's
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Trump or Harris you don't see a change under Trump or Harris when it comes to what's happening in Gaza right now no
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because the the Israel Lobby and the arms industry they're the ones who play
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the music and everybody the political class dances to whatever tune they play moving to uh kamla and nyah's speech um
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after he was done he actually had a meeting with kamla Harris and following their meeting this is what she said to
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reporters what has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating the
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images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety
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sometimes displaced for the second third or fourth time we cannot look away in
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the face of these tragedies we cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent now
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there is this push and messaging by comma supporters that she'll somehow be
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different than Biden when it comes to Gaza and you were saying that you don't think that's true but there is that push
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in the media isn't there rhetorically she's slightly different from Biden but
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remember Biden finally woke up after a few months and expressed rather tepid
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concern for the civilians of God well if they're that concerned about the slaughter of the Palestinians why don't
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they stop arming them um that will never happen so I don't really care I mean obviously she is uh using the rhetoric
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of empathy or compassion uh as a mask to continue arming and supporting the
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Israeli genocide uh I mean remember she also in that statement talked about Israel's right to defend
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itself so uh no the the rhetoric changes I mean and if you if you want to be
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fooled by that that's you know that's your business uh but rhetorical
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statements are kind of meaningless uh given the quantity of weapons including
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2,000 pound bunker Buster bombs and f35s and everything else that were unloading
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onto Israel so it can continue the slaughter and Israel is talking about
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this genocide continuing act in terms of active
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military assaults until the end of this year I mean is it even possible for her to distance herself from from Biden's
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Gaza policy that would presume that she wants to and she doesn't uh
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so no there's zero there zero change I mean first of all it's Congress that
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controls it's Congress that allocates the money uh and and as we saw with
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netanyahu's speech these people are uh completely captive to the Israel Lobby U
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they couldn't stand up and sheer fast enough uh so uh the the fact that the
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Israel Lobby has essentially seized uh the Congress uh means that
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even if you had a candidate and Harris is not a candidate would do this who
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opposed arming Israel uh and holding Israel accountable for the genocide they
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wouldn't be able to do anything remember that the last time Netanyahu spoke was during the Obama Administration and he
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was invited to attack Obama's Iran nuclear deal uh so essentially he was
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subverting the policies of the executive branch what do you think Biden's Legacy will be I mean the Democratic
What is Biden’s legacy?
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establishment have come out and you know a lot of them have said that he's done more than than other two-term presidents
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have done in their presidential terms I mean how do you see Biden's Legacy
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pretty much of an abysmal failure just about every promise he made on the campaign Trail he
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did not or was not able to uh accomplish raising the minimum
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wage Child Care the massive infrastructure bill I mean there's a long list extremely
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mediocre uh largely ineffectual and then of course on top of that he uh has
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perpetuated the proxy war in the Ukraine which is not going well for the ukrainians and for their supporters and
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of course has perpetuated the genocide in Gaza so pretty dismal Legacy I mean under international law he he's
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complicit in genocide you believe that Bernie Sanders could have defeated Trump how do you see the role of progressives
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in US politics today so I I mean the problem with Bernie Sanders and I think
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Bernie Sanders commitment to the working class is real I don't want to pretend it isn't I think he has a lifelong track
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record that supports that the problem with Bernie is that he's made what I would consider kind of fousy and bargain
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with the Democratic party that's one by the way that Jeremy Corbin who I admire
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very much never made and it was this if watch Bernie he'll never go after the
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military-industrial complex ever and he will always support the Democratic candidate so after NAFTA in
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1996 Sanders was campaigning with Clinton now you know Bernie's a smart guy he knows very well what NAFTA did to
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the working class but by although he is an Independent by essentially working
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within the rubric of the democratic party establishment he uh was able to
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get seniority and committee chairmanships and I spoke to him once I
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I used to be Ralph nater's speech writer worked with Ralph yeah in his independent presidential bids and I
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remember asking Bernie why he wouldn't step outside the Democratic party and challenge the
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Democratic party and his answer answer to me was I don't want to end up like Ralph nater I.E I don't want them to
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turn me into a political Pariah which is what they did to Ralph nater so there was a conscious career decision uh on
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the part of Bernie Sanders remember that after Hillary Clinton became the nominee
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uh his quote unquote political revolution morphed into supporting Hillary Clinton you don't build a real
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movement within an election cycle it took Sera the leftwing party we won't go
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into what happened to ca later but it took Sera 10 years to build a political
31:05
movement to take power in Greece and that's that's Bernie's decision I guess he
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feels although I would disagree that making those concessions makes him uh or
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allows him to at least accomplish some of his agenda certainly continues to
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give him a voice and a platform um uh but those aren't concessions that I would have made so that that in a
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nutshell is the problem with Sanders I I don't think the Democratic party is
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reformable uh I think that we have to step outside the party I think we saw this from the disaffected voters in the
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UK in the last parliamentary elections five independent candidates were elected largely on a on the anti-genocide
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platform Craig Murray uh if he not had not had uh an independent Adan Hussein running
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against him would have uh won on a landslide um as it was ad non1 by very
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few votes I mean the labor collapsed in in Blackburn so um I think we've got to
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begin to challenge that political hemony uh and we've got to do it from
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the outside uh I mean Ralph when he ran for president of course he none of us
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thought he was going to win that wasn't the point the point was to pull 10 15 million disaffected voters away from the
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Democratic party uh to create pressure on the Democratic party and so even
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though stommer is about as repugnant as you can get um uh you have seen subtle
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shifts in the labor government because so many people in the last elections
32:54
refused to vote for them you've got uh the UK is now resumed its funding to
32:59
unra uh there's been talk of I don't know to what extent it's real but there
33:05
have been talk of potentially halting armed shipments to Israel but that that's the political pressure we have to
33:12
create but it's not created if we surrender to the ruling doop we we've
33:19
got to challenge it but how do you even Implement that in the US I mean when there's so much money being poured in uh
33:25
in the US elections and US campaigns how do you implement your your I guess your the strategy that you're highlighting I
33:32
don't any I don't have any Muslim friends who are going to vote on the Democratic ticket so uh and that also
33:39
includes a lot of young people I spent time at the encampments at Columbia University
33:44
and at Princeton University um they get it completely so it's essentially by
33:50
refusing to collaborate with a system that perpetuates genocide in any way you
33:57
know it is it is a game of fear it's a game of I've said this story so many
34:02
times you know viewers may have seen it but there's a moment in Henry
34:09
Kissinger's Memoirs uh I think it's 1971 and tens of thousands of anti war
34:14
protesters and my father who was a presbyterian Minister and a World War II veteran he'd been a sergeant in North
34:20
Africa was very involved in the an War movement even though I was a boy he would drag me off to these events so
34:25
tens of thousands of an War protesters had surrounded the White House and to protect the white house uh they had put
34:31
empty uh buses city buses end to end to end and kind of Wagon Train around the
34:36
White House and uh according to Kissinger Nixon is looking out the window at these protesters and he goes
34:43
Henry they're going to break through the barricades and get us and that's our that's our job that's where we have to
34:49
that's where people in power have to be they have to be scared because they don't have any moral core uh they
34:55
politics is a game of fear and they respond to fear uh and it's our job to make them
35:00
afraid it's one of the reason why the ruling classes work so hard to destroy labor unions and the ability to strike
35:06
because Mass strikes can the uh can the state and and when
35:14
they're carried out they're very very effective uh so I don't know what the numbers of labor union members are in
35:20
the UK but in the United States it's about 11% and 6% of those are public sector workers like Railroad Freight
35:28
workers that are essentially by law prohibited from striking so um we have to regain that kind of Power Max of vber
35:35
writes about this and politics is a vocation it's a lifelong Pursuit uh and that's our job and and unfortunately the
35:43
ruling class has done a very good job of disempowering disempowering us
35:48
propaganda is key you just recited many propaganda points that they've pumped out all of which are ridiculous um but
35:56
so is taking away the tools we have by which to create pressure on the dominant
36:02
Authority and when you say taking away the tools would that be something like voting for a third party candidate for
36:07
example yeah well so in the United States it's a little different from the UK so Craig in six weeks managed to put
36:13
he got 7,000 votes he almost won I mean so uh it's different you need at least a
36:19
million dollars to run for the House of Representatives but more importantly the two parties have colluded to uh put up a
36:27
series of roadblocks for third party candidates and I was not involved in the ballot access uh efforts by the NATO campaign
36:35
but I was there I watched it and um they every state has a different rule uh so
36:43
you need it's not a nationwide effort the Democratic party immediately went in
36:48
and challenged the petitions or the voter lists even though they were legitimate but just to run up the legal
36:55
costs I mean the head of the campaign Teresa Amato very accomplished lawyer in her own right they were just a teams of
37:02
lawyers were running from court to court to court uh and they locked them out of the
37:08
debate uh so there are all sorts of mechanisms the two party Teresa M wrote
37:13
a good book about it if anyone wants to know in detail how it works I can't off chance I can't remember the name of it
37:19
but it's Amato am AO um so yeah they fixed the system uh
37:26
and and you're right they make it almost impossible for third party or Independents to get
37:32
on the ballot and then they they don't have any advertising they don't you know because you need millions and millions
37:37
of I mean you know the Biden campaign it's a it's a billion dollars to run a presidential campaign so Ralph could
37:45
fill Madison Square Garden and he he didn't have the money to rent it he just gambled and everybody paid $5 do at the
37:51
door and he filled it I don't know what that is 10,000 people but he was locked out of the media so while he could
37:57
energize 10,000 people in Madison Square Garden he could never reach millions of viewers and in a debate that's tens of
38:04
millions of viewers he was prohibited from doing that I mean who'd want to debate Ralph nater that'd be pretty I
38:10
wouldn't want to do it um so uh yeah the ma the the system's fixed it's fixed and
Influence of third-party candidates?
38:17
the reason why I asked you that is is you know somebody comes along and says okay if I vote for Jill Stein or Cornell
38:22
West or whomever um you know first of all they're not going to be in in the ballot in every on the ballot in every
38:29
state that's one but two is that what what difference will they actually make
38:35
um because neither of them is going to be actually voted in as as president so what would your answer to that be it
38:42
makes a huge difference because it frightens the ruling class so you know for instance if you go back and look at
38:48
the United States the Progressive Party we had a power very powerful socialist movement on the eve of World War I led
38:54
by Eugene V Debs we had radical labor unions like the wobblies the Communist
39:00
uh labor unions especially in the 1930s were very powerful they make a huge
39:05
difference uh because they frighten the ruling Elite and uh and because you you're
39:14
you're no longer controlled uh the the the ruling Elite spend a lot of energy and a lot of money
39:23
uh propagandizing the public which is as Antonio gry right so pressingly is a
39:29
form of control is a way to cultural hemony assures political hemony um so
39:36
when people are not buying it uh when people are willing to fight the system and and the internally these people are
39:43
far more aware than you or I of how corrupt and gamed the system is uh so it
39:49
has a huge effect so for instance the Progressive Party which was calling for the breakup of monopolies it forced
39:56
retrograde politici like Teddy Roosevelt to break up monopolies Roosevelt in his
40:01
private correspondence which I've read he remember he Roosevelt said that his
40:07
greatest achievement was that he saved capitalism so while I support New Deal reforms he he was in service to the
40:14
capitalist system but he writes his brother and he said that if we don't begin to Grant uh concessions and
40:21
reforms including employment I think the Roosevelt administration provided jobs for about 12 million Americans in the
40:28
depression then we are going to get Revolution those are Roosevelt's words and of course the Spectre of the 197
40:35
Bolshevik Revolution terrified uh the industrial capitalist
40:41
class in the western Nations including the United States so yeah that that's the game we have to play um and that's
40:49
the game they don't want us to play speaking of Revolution I mean years ago in an interview you said that you H that
Hoping for a revolution?
40:54
a revolution would happen in North America these still have that hope and what would that Revolution look like well I'm a socialist I'm not a Marxist
41:01
I'm kind of a Swedish socialist I don't know I once gave a talk at I think it was University of Alberta or somewhere
41:08
and when I finished there were a bunch of professors in the back row one of them stood up and said to the students before he answers any questions I just
41:15
want you to know that he's only a radical Keynesian um so uh which is true
41:21
um and it turns out that unlike the United States the entire economics Department was were Marxist well uh I
41:28
mean I would like to see uh a system uh where by unregulated unfettered
41:35
capitalism which as Carl Pani writes and the great transformation commodifies
41:40
everything the natural world becomes a commodity human beings become a commodity that then exploits until
41:46
exhaustion or collapse I would like to see that stopped if only because we're headed for Eos side I mean the planet is
41:53
literally breaking down the ecosystem is breaking down as we speak and the capitalist class will do nothing to stop
42:00
it in fact of course they will accelerate it through the fossil fuel industry um so yeah I would like to see
42:09
a movement that that uh ends the militarism I mean the United St in the
42:15
United States basically the only thing we make anymore are weapons uh and The psychosis of permanent War defines
42:23
American policy uh and as Arnold ton the historian writes the the ends of Empires
42:31
any every Empire he argues is that you have a rampant uh militarism that can no
42:37
longer be controlled and engages in uh acts of military adventurism and that's
42:43
what we just saw in the last two decades in the United States that essentially
42:48
accelerate uh the collapse of the decline of Empire of course the American Empire will collapse once the US dollar
42:55
is no longer the world's Reserve currency I don't know when that's going
43:00
to happen some economists have put dates on it I'm not an economist I don't know but when that happens then we can
43:07
because we fund the Empire through debt through treasury bonds which we sell to countries like China That's not nobody's
43:12
going to buy it anymore I mean the value of the dollar is going to plummet very similar what happened to the pound
43:17
sterling in the 1950s when it was dropped as the world's Reserve currency so we're at the end of Empire um and uh
43:26
I would like to see us go in a Direction Where We uh end the the the the power of
43:35
the military-industrial complex and the War Industry which essentially profits off of war or proxy wars like Ukraine um
43:43
and I would like to see us begin to deal with the suffering of the vulnerable remember as I mentioned before we have
43:49
25% of the world's prison population almost all those people are poor people of color why because in
43:56
these deep industrialized Urban Pockets what Malcolm X called internal colonies
44:02
um there's no work and the only way to make a living is in the illegal economy
44:07
so when um the sociologist Emil durheim when he writes his great book uh on
44:14
suicide and he he set out to look at what it is that caused individuals or
44:21
societies to commit Collective suicide and that's where you get the term anomy but it's this kind of this kind of
44:28
Despair um and and he writes that when you're integrated into a social system
44:35
and and and work of course is one of the key uh factors in terms of a sense of
44:40
belonging a sense of purpose a sense of dignity which I'm no fan of John Paul II
44:46
but his encyclical on work makes this point very well um when you take that
44:53
away um then essentially what you've done is rupture the bonds that Niche you to the society around you and those
45:01
bonds are a form of social control because if you have a sense of worth meaning purpose uh Focus uh dignity and
45:10
even feelings of the potential of advancement within the society you're not the social structure you're not
45:16
going to destroy it you take that away then you need other social bonds uh to
45:22
essentially control the population and in these de-industrialized Urban Pockets
45:28
those bonds are militarized police which function as internal armies of occupation and the largest carsal state
45:35
in the world so I would like to see us I mean to be cute about it invest in
45:41
people not systems of control I get into our the Health Care System uh which is
45:46
just mercenary I mean you know we live in a system where uh parents are forced to
45:54
frantically bankrupt themselves to save sick children I mean that's really in a
46:00
moral sense what it is uh we we I would like to see all of the
46:06
objectives uh of this corporate State reversed how is it going to come about
46:13
well I don't have any answer for that but but movements erupt um and I've
46:18
covered as a reporter as a foreign corespondent I covered all sorts of mass
46:23
movements including the two Palestinian anatas I covered the Revolutions in East Germany
46:29
Czechoslovakia Romania I covered the street demonstrations that brought down s mosovich so you know the Tinder is
46:36
there but you never know what it is that ignites it um you can't predict it I mean in the
46:41
first inat what was it that you know set the Palestinians a blaze it was a traffic accident was a an Israeli
46:48
vehicle slammed into I think it was a truck or a van carrying Palestinian day workers and and several of whom were
46:55
killed and that what you know what is it what is it in Tunisia it's when this
47:00
fruit vendor sets himself a light and emulates himself I mean you never know what what starts it um it's not it's not
47:10
predictable is the Tinder there yes the problem is that that same Tinder can be
47:17
directed towards fascism or totalitarianism um in the 1930s most of
47:23
Europe went one way and the United States went another under the same economic us and right now those of us on
47:29
the left are uh very disempowered in a way that perhaps we have never been
47:34
within American history and we see through the Christian right Trump has no
47:40
ideology of his own that ideological void is filled with Christian fascism I
47:45
spent two years writing a book called American American fascist the Christian W right in the war in America like you
47:52
said you wrote a book called American fascist the Christian right and the war in America in which you B basically
Trump & Christian nationalism
47:57
describe Christian n nationalism as fascist and an exist existential threat
48:02
to American democracy um now I I'll just read you one quote from the book um uh
48:08
the radical Christian right calls for exclusion cruelty and intolerance in the name of God its members do not commit
48:14
evil for Evil's sake they commit evil to make a better world to attain this better World they believe some must
48:21
suffer and be silen and at the end of time those who oppose them must be destroyed the worst suffering in human
48:27
history has been carried out by those who preach such Grand utopian Visions those who seek to implant by force their
48:34
narrow particular version of goodness how have you seen Trump tap into the
48:39
Christian right through his magum movement well first of all that book was is about 10 years old but turned out to
48:45
be very very preent and I took a lot of yeah absolutely it's a New York Times
48:50
bestseller so it sold well but um the academic world uh really went after me
48:56
well it turn out they were wrong and I was right and I just want to say I have a Divinity School degree I I my my
49:02
mother was a Seminary graduate my father was a presbyterian Minister I grew up in the church I graduated from Harvard
49:07
Divinity School so uh I'm not I'm I identify as kind of I don't know what
49:13
did Graham green say Christian agnostic uh uh but I come out of that radical baragan leftwing of the Christian Church
49:21
the Social Gospel all of that was where my family was oriented and where largely I remain oriented so I'm not unlike much
49:28
of the left I'm not uh censorious of religion I think uh you know religious bigotry is the last acceptable bigotry
49:35
of the left unfortunately um but I I'm because I'm biblically literate and and I understand
49:42
the church I'm acutely aware of how the Christian fascists or the
49:47
Christian nationalists have distorted the Christian religion to sacralize the worst elements of American imperialism
49:54
white supremacy and capitalism and they're Heretics they're you know Jesus did not come to make us rich Jesus would
50:03
not have blessed the dropping of iron fragmentation Bombs all over Iraq or
50:09
anywhere else so um it it's a complete sacrilege modeled very much on the
50:14
so-called German Christian Church which was pro-nazi and uh and and these mega churches and I
50:23
would go to I spent two years on this book so I would go I was everywhere Pro life weekends and evangelism explosion
50:30
seminars and uh creationist classes I mean I spent a lot of time reporting off
50:36
the ground because it's the only way you can understand it but I would go to these decayed former industrial centers
50:43
and places like Ohio and the only building that was new and and uh and and
50:52
uh had any kind of Vitality to it were these mega churches and in evitably you would have uh quote unquote Christian
51:00
pastors almost always white men of course and you would have a cult following around them they were in touch
51:06
with god um and so when Trump first ran that many people asked how can the
51:13
Christian right Embrace Trump and my answer was no no the the mega pastors
51:18
are exactly the same as Trump they pray on the despair in the same way that
51:23
Trump prayed on the despair of people in his inos or a sham University they pray
51:29
and the irony is that because so many of these Mega pastors endorsed Trump that
51:35
he he took that cult-like power that they had onto himself they disempowered
51:40
themselves by essentially backing Trump uh I used to say the only difference
51:46
between Trump and the mega pastors that I could see anecdotally is that the mega
51:51
pastor's sexual proclivities are usually kinkier than Trump's um but the same
51:57
people exactly the same people and remember these Mega pastors are worth millions they the ones who are very
52:02
successful they fly in private jets and have you know same way that Trump you
52:08
know uh flaunts his wealth they do as a gift from God so Trump who who has no
52:15
ideology other than you know an outsize narcissism but he used the ideology of
52:21
the Christian right in his first Administration to fill that ideological void his own ideological void and that's
52:27
how you got Pence as vice president that's how you got William bar attorney general that's how you got Betsy DeVos
52:33
running education these people all come out of the Christian fascist movement now a second Trump presidency will be
52:39
different from the first um it'll be far far more vindictive um especially at The
52:46
Establishment institutions that sought to bring Trump down that would be the courts the press and the Democratic
52:53
party people like me are an afterthought they'll get to us later but that will be the primary target um
52:59
and they will distort the system every way possible to do it uh and you will
53:05
see a a much uh more virent and uh a much more pronounced
53:12
Christian nationalism in a second Trump Administration uh and it you know we
53:18
will bring us a a very very close if not finally complete this move towards the
53:24
kind of Christian fascism that I wrote about in my book how do you differentiate between fascism in 2024
53:30
and basically fascism how it was in 1936 obviously the US is not Germany back
53:36
then that was a regime um what we're talking about right now is a movement well the fascism is always defined by
53:44
the symbols of a particular nation state to which it arises in so German fascism
53:49
for instance was sent around Tut tonic myths and all this kind of stuff well that wasn't like Italian fascism which
53:56
parken back to ancient Rome very different in fact anti-Semitism until
54:01
late was not really part of melini's fascist agenda at all um yeah Robert
54:08
Paxton wrote a book the anatomy of fascism and he said that when fascism comes to the United States it will be
54:14
clutching the Christian cross and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance fascism there is no coherent ideology to
54:20
Fascism it's it's more of an emotional state built around hyper masculinity um I think it's thessal
54:27
weight M's bodies a German scholar wrote that two volume set spends a lot of time arguing that point um it's always as
54:35
Hannah Aaron pointed out uh about magical thinking that's what to any totalitarian movement ER writes is about
54:41
magical thinking um so yeah fascism will come in the comforting guise of uh the
54:48
reassuring symbols of the nation uh or of the state or of our history I mean
54:56
that's why you get these you know quote unquote strict constitutionalists um which is of course
55:03
you know is is not fact-based it's ideologically absurd um but that that
55:09
they speak in the the language uh of of hyper nationalism they
55:16
don't they don't bring outside myths they distort myths uh and so that's I I
55:23
did not use the word fascist lightly in then fact before I published the book
55:30
I spent several hours with Fritz Stern uh who wrote the politics of cultural despair on the origins of fascism uh
55:37
himself a refugee from Nazi Germany left the country when he was 18 and Paxton
55:42
who wrote the anatomy of fascism and I laid out over several hours the ideology
55:49
of the Christian right and essentially gave them the opportunity to argue me out of using the word fascist to
55:55
describe them and I came away from those meetings believing that the Christian
56:00
right is fascistic um and Stern at the end of his life although he didn't like
56:06
to speak about it publicly he was Jewish essentially embraced that view I want to invoke another book that you uh wrote
America’s future
56:13
and this will be the last part of our uh conversation um America the farewell
56:18
tour so in that book you painted quite a bleep picture of the US um you declared
56:24
that the American Empire is coming to an end as you mentioned earlier and you say that and this is another quote this
56:31
moment in history marks the end of a long sad tale of greed and Murder By The White races it is inevitable that for
56:37
the final show we vomited up a figure like Trump those who disagree with you
56:43
they might say that you know the US and its history has overcome much darker periods so why do you not see a
56:49
different scenario I mean why is this the end of the American Empire as you put it because we've trashed our economy
56:56
we we don't we fund the Empire on debt we don't make anything anymore we've
57:02
dispossessed the working class the the infrastructure in the United States has
57:08
collapsed um you know we all the palpable signs of physical Decay are all around us I mean 100,000 Americans a
57:16
year die from opioid overdoses um all of the diseases of
57:22
Despair these pathologies gambling addictions uh it's it's run rampid
57:30
within American society and uh and the bleakness I mean
57:36
even the average citizen doesn't expect things to get better and they certainly
57:41
don't expect things to get better for their children not with the way the system is and this of course is in large
57:47
part why so tens of millions of Americans have turned towards Trump so yeah I mean the the we have overcome
57:56
moments of you know difficulty in the past I mean capitalism is cyclical we
58:01
had depressions at the end of the 19th century and then 1929 uh with the Great Depression Etc uh
58:09
but this is different because we've ripped the guts out we we've allowed a corporate capitalist class to
58:15
cannibalize the country and there's nothing left that's also true in the UK I mean I mean your male service is run
58:21
by a private Corporation um that has destroyed the male service
58:26
of course they're the capitalists are working to destroy the NHS by underfunding it as they are also doing
58:32
in Canada um look these these figures which are Global it's a global Elite
58:38
they only know one word and that's more uh and and they have created mechanisms
58:45
of surveillance and militarized police and a caral system to make sure that when those of us rise up we're taken
58:52
care of and I want to go back to my friend Roger H who just got a five sentence for non-violent protest uh
58:59
under just stop oil to essentially decry the collective suicide that the suicidal
59:07
March that we are on uh given the the the destruction of the ecosystem that
59:13
sustains life and not just our life but life within the oceans and and all other
59:18
species you said earlier that you don't think uh Kamala Harris could defeat Trump you said you fear Trump coming
59:25
again what do you expect to see the next four years well I'm not going to predict the elections because anything can
59:31
happen and it's still 100 days out so she could but it's we know it's very
59:36
very tight um it would not I would rather say it would not surprise me if
59:41
Trump wins um if Cala wins then essentially the the status quo
59:48
continues uh which is the uh licensing of corporate power uh and the
59:55
billionaire class to to essentially exploit the vulnerable I mean let's put it in its simplest terms uh the
1:00:00
militarism the democ there's more opposition for instance the war in Ukraine including of course uh the new
1:00:06
vice president Presidential nominee under Trump there's more opposition to
1:00:12
the war in Ukraine which has been a disaster predictably uh than in the
1:00:18
Republican party than there is in the Democratic party but I don't you know the Empire will continue its downward
1:00:24
trajectory the if Trump comes uh then uh you will see the snuffing out of what is
1:00:31
left of our very anemic democracy um Trump will clearly go after the Press he
1:00:37
will go after the Democratic opposition in very nefarious ways um he will like
1:00:43
all cult leaders essentially Bend or attempt to bend or distort the instruments of power to serve his own
1:00:50
personal interests not ideological interests personal interests um and will just become you know a Banana Republic
1:00:58
with nukes um but you know the difference between a Harris Administration and a trump
1:01:04
Administration is often more one of image than it is of substance and on
1:01:11
that note Chris Hedges I thank you for taking the time and thank you for coming on to speak to us it's much appreciate
1:01:16
not at all Muhammad thanks for having me thank you sir
1:01:22
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