Loading summary
Transcript56 lines
- [00:10]
Chris Hedges
There are few artists or musicians who have stood as doggedly on the side of the oppressed as Roger Waters. The co founder, bassist, singer and songwriter for Pink Floyd, he has been an outspoken defender of Palestinian rights and critic of the apartheid state of Israel long before the genocide. He was one of the principal signers of an open letter called Artists against Apartheid and supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement denouncing musicians who performed in Israel. He called out the fabrications disseminated by Israel that Hamas carried out systematic sexual assaults. In October 7, he attacked labor leader Keir Starmer for his backing of the genocide and headlined a concert for Palestine with with Cat Stevens and the rapper Loki. He came to the defense of the British punk rap band Bob Villain, who at this year's Glastonbury Festival led the chant of death, death to the idf, referring to the Israeli Defense Force. After the British government banned Palestine Action, labeling it a terrorist group in the UK under the Terrorism act of 2020-and then arresting a hundred people for expressing their support for the group, Roger posted a video to X in which he praised Palestine Action as a, quote, great organization, noting they were nonviolent and quote, absolutely not terrorists in any way. Membership in or public support for the group is now classified as a criminal offense and is punishable by up to 14 years in prison and or a fine. In the video, Roger can be seen making a sign from a piece of cardboard. This says, roger Waters supports Palestine Action. Parliament has been corrupted by agents of a genocidal foreign power. Stand up and be counted. It's now the musician read. This is the moment. I am Spartacus. Israel and its Zionist allies have mounted vicious and sustained assaults against him, producing slanderous documentaries, engaging in the stream of defamatory attacks and character assassination, blocking publicity for his this is not a drill concerts, pressuring music companies to cancel publishing agreements, forcing concert venues to blacklist him, even denying him hotel rooms while on tour. But Roger has never wavered. He helped launch the campaign called Countdown to close Guantanamo. He stood fast with Julian Assange during his long persecution, once performing outside the UK Home office, just miles from Belmarsh prison where Julian was incarcerated, singing Pink Floyd's iconic song, wish you were here. The behavior of the British government towards Julian Assange is a disgrace. He said a profanity on the very notion of. Of human rights. It's no exaggeration to say that the treatment and persecution of Julian Assange is the way that dictatorships treat a political prisoner. He backed the attorney Steven Donziger who won a $10 billion settlement against the oil giant Chevron on behalf of the indigenous peoples in Ecuador whose land was poisoned and who suffered serious illnesses from toxins dumped by Chevron. Donziger endured a prolonged and savage campaign by Chevron that led to him being disbarred and placed under house arrest. Roger, who a year ago released the songs Resist this Genocide and Stand up for Palestine, has launched a giant inflatable pig with Donald Trump's face on it. At concerts in Mexico City, where Pink Floyd's the Wall is not an abstraction, he showed images of Trump dressed as a Nazi and before the 300,000 fans in Mexico City flashed the words Trump eres un pan dejo. Trump is scum. He calls out Trump, along with Joe Biden, as war criminals. He endorsed Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, calling him, quote, a beacon of hope. In short, his is an example of the moral life which. Which is always a life of confrontation. His courage is a reminder that standing against the forces of oppression comes with a cost. The global theatrical release of his new concert film, this Is Not a Drill. Live from Prague. The movie has just been released by Trafalgar, releasing Ansony Music Vision. Joining me to discuss our rapid descent into authoritarianism and the imperative of resistance is Roger Waters. And before I begin, I want to make it clear that I also stand with you, Roger, with Palestine action. And just in case MI5 gets a hold of this, that's hedges. H E D G E S Roger, let's talk about where we've ended up. This fear of a creeping fascism authoritarianism, which you have called out for decades, has now come to fruition.
- [05:28]
Roger Waters
Yeah, well, this morning I woke up and the first thing I read, I think it was in the ft, is that some NATO general this morning or yesterday stood up and said, we must prepare for a world war in 2027, because Russia is going to try and steamroll its way with armored divisions across Europe and it won't stop until it reaches the English Channel. Why they would stop at this channel, God only knows. But this is what this bloke's saying. And so he's really. He's drumming up support for taxing all the people of Europe, which they're now talking about trying to raise 4 or 5% of GDP to spend on weapons, and they're talking about importing many more nuclear weapons, so on and so forth, and saying his great concern is that at the same moment that the Russians invade Paris or march into Paris, the Chinese will be invading Taiwan. So it's absolute baby talk, warmongering. But we shouldn't be surprised because they've been doing it ever since I was alive, practically. You know, we had one or two years after the Second World War, which I don't remember too well because I wasn't old enough to really be taking notice, but we did. We got a National Health Service and we sort of pretended that we were going to look after one another and that we weren't going to have any more wars. And look at us now. They're like, they're absolutely going gangbusters to make certain that war is permanent, because that's how they make their living and they're entirely happy about it. And if they have to starve babies in Gaza, so be it. They couldn't care less. They have no interest in human rights. This is what I always say when they say, what's the difference between, like, the bloke who owns the Four Seasons Hotel, who won't let you stay in any of his hotels ever, anywhere in the world again, and you? The difference is that I believe in human rights. It's very, very simple. My platform is tiny. It's the Universal of Declaration of human rights from 10 December 1948. I believe in it. I support it. They don't. They never have. You know, I live in America. In America, since 1776, they've been absolutely clear that they have no interest in human rights, freedom of speech, democracy, any of the things that they pretend to support. They don't, and we know it. But what can we do about it? All we can do is go on encouraging ordinary people all over the world, and there are billions of us, to stand shoulder to shoulder and resist them and say no. You may want to devote your entire life to making Raytheon and Grumman and Palantir richer and keeping Jeff Bezos in, you know, $50 million weddings. But I don't. I want to live in a world where my children can go to school and we can talk to one another and, you know, maybe go for a swim in the river, a weekend. That's the world where we look after one another and we look after the weakest amongst us and so on and so forth. I am a socialist. Oh, God, no. What could be? Oh, that's awful. You mean look after people, you know, instead of stealing from them and spending all the money on weapons so that we can kill people? Yeah, that's. That's exactly what I mean. I know it's a bit long winded and I'VE spoken to Chris and I have had conversations before and we're very similar. Both of us could go on forever.
- [09:36]
Chris Hedges
Well, as I come out of the church, how can I not be a socialist? Well, exactly, and I want to just on the point that you made, this is the brilliance of Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. He showed that all of the gains that were made for working men and women, for people of color, for women, were done because of movements that fought against the dominant centers of power to open up space in our democracy. Which is why, of course, they hate Zinn, why they're canceling him. Trump denounced him by name. Not that he's read him, of course, but this is the point that you're making, that it's only by essentially forming groups of solidarity like Palestine Resistance, that we have any hope of pushing back against these forces. And then I also want to raise the great Francesca Albanese report, her most recent report, which again, buttresses the point that you just made, and that is that there are many, many corporations, Palantir and others, who of course are making huge profits not only off of war, but off the genocide.
- [10:47]
Roger Waters
Yep, this is true. Everything that you say is true. So the trick is to wake up in the morning and not throw your hands up in despair and shoot yourself or whatever. But to go, I know it's crazy that the world is like this. Clearly the lunatics have taken over the asylum, obviously the Keir Starmers and Donald Trumps and Macrons. In fact, almost all the world leaders in the west are criminally insane and we should be looking after them on the National Health Service. They should be locked up in a loony bin with people going, there, there, Kier, calm down. You know, here's your pills for today. Just sit in the sun and be quiet. But they're not. They're running the world and they're running it extremely badly. So all we can do is what you do and what I do and keep organizing and keep encouraging all those brave, wonderful people who go out every Saturday into the streets of London. Oh, that 83 year old lady who was, you know, arrested outside the High Court in London. And hats off to her and how courageous and whatever. But so. And that's all we can do or that's all we can do. Do you know what? The only thing I do, Chris, is I wake up in the morning and I go, I have to do one thing today and I have to do it every single day. I have to do one thing. Whether it's Making a little video or, or doing this show with you or whatever, any opportunity that I get, I will speak out and I'm beginning to speak out a bit more about the, about my industry and about, you know, how I've been, how they've tried to shut me up and still do. There's all kinds of stuff comes out all the time at the moment. I'll tell you this now because at the moment I've been working on a new version of the Wall, a new theatrical version of the Wall, and was. Have been in conversations with the Sphere in Vegas to put it on there.
- [13:03]
Chris Hedges
But save me tickets, okay, I will, I will.
- [13:08]
Roger Waters
I promise to save you tickets. Okay?
- [13:10]
Chris Hedges
That's a promise. That's recorded, Roger.
- [13:12]
Roger Waters
Yeah, except, except I don't think it's going to happen. Irving Azoff, who is a well known scionist and a big figure in the music industry, he's the manager of the pop group the Eagles and he's also, I think, an investor in the sphere and a big and very close to this to Jim, our friend Jim Dolan, who built a bloody thing. I'm pretty sure that they're going to go, oops, we've changed our mind. Their voice will be in their ear the whole time. You can't have Roger Waters. You can't encourage people to think that he has a voice or that he's got anything important to say. It doesn't matter that he wrote Dark side of the Moon and the Wall and you know, another brick in the wall and all that and comfortably now my blah blah blah and wish you were here and all those songs that our friend there with you has got on vinyl handed down to her by her father. It doesn't, none of that matters because he opposes the genocide and he's very vocal about it. So we want, he. He is not allowed a platform. So there we are. I'm not whining. I mean, I, I do understand, I understand that that's the case though, and they will stop at nothing. Luckily most of them have got IQs of about 30. Like Greenblatt, for instance. Jonathan Greenblatt, he's that he's such a fool, but there you go. But he's got a loud voice and some quite a big following and lots of fun.
- [14:47]
Chris Hedges
I want to go back to the lyrics you wrote for Pink Floyd, which is how many years decades ago. But they're so prescient, I mean, as to where we've ended up.
- [14:58]
Roger Waters
Yeah, that is true. I mean, I mentioned Comfortably Numb, you know, and I'm not going to repeat the. I'm not going to spew the lyrics out now. I could. But, yeah, it's like. Because that's a conversation between a disaffected rock star who, who. Who is affected by the fame and fortune that he has stumbled upon through his chosen profession and turns into a Nazi thug. And, and, and, And I play the Nazi thug in the piece. You know, luckily, he wakes up, he goes, stop. In fact, the film that I've just released, in it, at the end of the song. In the flesh. No, at the end of Run Like Hell, which I. I do two songs from the wall in the Nazi get up. And at the end of Run Like Hell, where it goes, stop. I want to go. I'd start. I take off that and I make a speech. And the speech I make in the movie is about the fact that there's been a huge uproar because I juxtaposed the names of Anne Frank, who was a victim of the Nazis in, you know, in. Where? Holland. Was it Holland?
- [16:15]
Chris Hedges
Yeah, I think it was Holland.
- [16:16]
Roger Waters
Holland. Right. In 1943 or 44. I juxtapose her name with Shireen Abu Akle, who was murdered by the Israelis a couple of years ago in Jenin, I believe, or on the outskirts of Jenin. And they went. The Zionists went apeshit. How dare you desecrate Anne Franks. Yeah, I also mentioned Sophie Skoll. Do you remember her? The Germans killed the White Rose. The White Rose movement in Munich. Yeah. In. In 1943. She was, along with her brother Hans and Christopher Probster. They were all killed. They were all guillotined.
- [16:59]
Chris Hedges
You know, let me just interrupt. For handing out leaflets.
- [17:02]
Roger Waters
For handing out leaflets. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Well, what, Chris, you and I, today, we're handing out leaflets.
- [17:09]
Chris Hedges
I know that's.
- [17:10]
Roger Waters
This is what we're doing, but thank goodness we are.
- [17:13]
Chris Hedges
But the walls are closing in. I mean, we know where it's going. I covered Pinochet's chili. I. You know, we know what ICE is going to become our version of the Brown Shirts, if anybody thinks they're going to stop with undocumented migrants. And of course, they're seizing people who have legal residence within the United States. Students, they just are utterly blind to the mechanisms of authoritarianism and history. And I think that's one of the things that I have written, you know, about the death of the liberal class empire of illusion. And in many ways, in written form, what you've done musically and signal this kind of warning. We can't allow this erosion of the open society, because this is where we end up. And I know that you've been attacked for that, you know, using that fascist uniform. But, of course, that is the denouement of the assault that has been carried out in the name of neoliberalism and national security on our open society.
- [18:19]
Roger Waters
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. You know what struck me when I was listening to you talking then was thinking about Trump. Let's just say Trump, because he's the biggest of the leaders out there at the moment, leading this charge on everything. Trump is beyond ignorant in every way, and he always was. He's always been monumentally stupid. He's a terrible businessman. Everybody knows. Nobody in New York will. Will speak to Trump, particularly lawyers, because he never pays his bills and contract.
- [18:59]
Chris Hedges
He doesn't pay his contractors either.
- [19:01]
Roger Waters
Well, there you go. So he never pays anybody. He's an ignorant thug. And that's what he. That is why he appeals to the MAGA crowd. I guess they actually believe the slogan Make America great again. America is becoming tiny and also a massive carbuncle on the potential beautiful face of the human race of homo sapiens. We have the potential to actually move into a future where we believe in love and. And truth, and we look after one another, and we refuse to murder one another. That's the absolutely, completely verboten in our brave new world. Okay, but he. But they're not. They believe. No, no, no, let's murder everybody. Let's starve children to death because we can make money. And that's all they care about, is making a profit. And it's enshrined, sadly, in American law. You know, the only responsibility that the corporations have is to maximize the bottom line of the profits for their shareholders. It's capitalism at work. But. And capitalism could not be less interested in ordinary people.
- [20:27]
Chris Hedges
The other thing it does is inculcate within the society a culture of fear. So you have the internal and the external enemy. Look, I mean, you have. You've raised this point many times, but it's about creating fear, even if that enemy is a fatim. The way we've demonized hardworking immigrants who make $14,000 a year and work 10, 12 hours a day. That has become a mechanism by which they will create this police state which will affect all of us the same way they have weaponized anti Semitism as a way to shut down free speech. These are all tropes. These are all mechanisms. The idea that, you know, Trump cares about antisemitism is patently absurd, but it's about profit, but it's also about fear.
- [21:19]
Roger Waters
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's the exercise of control. You need to create an atmosphere of fear in the people. And I confess, Chris, that they've almost achieved it with me saying, if you come back to England, we're going to lock you up for 14 years or we have the legal right to. It's now the law of the land. And so I can sit here as long as I want and go. But the law is an ass. Just like it was an ass when it locked Julian Assange up. Thank goodness he eventually managed to do a deal and escaped, you know, back to Australia and is back in society with us now. But. But for them to corrupt the legal process like that, that's why I did my piece of cardboard on that Saturday morning, July 5, 2025. That was my Independence Day. I am independent from the government of the United Kingdom because the government of the United Kingdom is a fascist cesspit. And so we have to stand up against. Whether I'll go back and go to prison like a good, you know, resistor. I'm no idea. We. But it remains to be seen. Maybe, you know, but we have to, though, all those brilliantly brave, wonderful people who take to the streets every Saturday, they do it, and they certainly have done since October 7, 2023. And so, you know, there is hope. There is hope in my heart because I see all these wonderful people continuing to resist, and all I can do is cheer them on and go for it and try and increase the volume of the voices in the crowd so that our voice gets louder and louder. And is it a vain hope? No, no, it's not a vain hope. This is, you know. But has it ever succeeded before in the long term? No. They always seem to be able to get the Pinkerton men together in large enough numbers with enough six shooters to shoot us down. So when we. When we organize that, their only recourse is to shoot us down, to hire mercenaries to kill us. And that's what they're doing. This is what Trump stands for and that's what they're trying to do now. And, you know, Sumud, the perseverance in resistance to the occupation in Palestine that the Arab speakers of the engaged in, in their resistance against that occupation is a guiding beacon for all of us. But, my God, God, what they're having to suffer now is unconscionable and extra. It's extraordinary that 300 million Americans are not in the streets going, stop. Yeah, not in my name. Well, they're not maybe 3 million are, but what about the other 200, you know, 297 million? Why aren't they in the streets going, no, this is not who I am, so I don't know, let you know, let's see what happens today and tomorrow and the day after that. Because none of this shit is going away in the near future.
- [24:47]
Chris Hedges
No. I want to ask about the fact that the genocide is in many ways a message by the global north to the global South. The genocide in Gaza, whether you think. I think many people in the global south see it as such, with the breakdown of the climate and the flight of climate refugees. But this, of course, it rips off the veneer. It exposes what industrial nations like the United States or the UK are about. But to what extent is it a harbinger of a new world?
- [25:24]
Roger Waters
Well, I don't know. But I have said recently or in the last few months, written articles where I, I talk about the genocide in Gaza being like Narcissus Paul and that when we stare into it, we see our own reflection. And it's only really dawned on me that actually when you look at the what's gone on and the facts of it, this is just the advance of European white man hegemony and imperialism and it never changed. And I'm surprised by it when I saw the whole of the European ruling class standing behind the United States and supporting this murdering of an entire indigenous people in what we call the Holy Land. I went, oh my God, nothing has changed since the 15th century. This all carries on from, you know, the Spanish and the English in 1492. And there it was, Zion. They even called North America the brave New World. There was their Zion. So the idea that it's okay to murder indigenous people in order to steal everything that they've got and to take over territory is something that the imperialist mind of the white European can't seem to let go of. I thought we had, we were all told after the Second World War, no, that's all in the past. We're not doing that anymore. We never really said we're sorry that we killed 160 million Indian indigenous people or whatever, or that we ran a drug company, the East India Company was selling drugs to the Chinese and making huge profits out of it all that we're not actually apologizing for that. What we are doing in, in supporting the genocide is saying, no, that is the model. That was the British Empire and we believe in that model and we'll kill everybody on Earth except us if we have to. And the Global south are going. I think they mean us. And they're right, they do.
- [27:44]
Chris Hedges
That's what they've been doing in the Global south. Whether it's the 1943 Bengal famine, whether it is the MAU MAU, the British MAU MAU Rebellion, which has been completely covered up in British history. There's a very good book on it called Imperial Reckoning. Whether that's the Spanish in the Americas, whether that's the Euro Americans carrying out the genocide against Native Americans. Genocide is baked into our DNA.
- [28:15]
Roger Waters
Yeah, sadly, you're right. I mean, you know, one of the things that I'm doing at the moment, and it's sidelined completely, I am speaking up for Pedro Castillo, okay, who was the duly elected president of Peru and who's in prison because the ruling class didn't like it because he's indigenous. Okay? And the other is, now there's massacres going on at the moment in Bolivia because the miners, indigenous people who in small cooperatives and family businesses have been doing all the mining, have been told, no, we're going to give all of that to an American corporation. You are done. Well, there's 300,000 of them and they've gone, no, we're not. And they brought Bolivia to a. Well, Peru as well. Miners in Peru have sort of brought Peru to a standstill. No lorries are going in and out of limbo. Nobody knows about this because nobody reports it. But I talk to my friends in these South American countries and that's. And I watch it very carefully because as we know, like a huge country like Brazil we saw in the last election, hangs on a knife edge between a Bolsonaro or a Lula da Silva, and they are diametrically opposed in terms of their political philosophies. Lula is one of us and Bolsonaro is one of them. So there is that. And weirdly enough, the propaganda machine is so powerful that a complete, complete, utter asshole like Bolsonaro can garnish votes from poor people just by doing what Trump does, pretending that he will represent their needs and their aspirations and their futures. And we all know that Trump doesn't. Couldn't give a fig for working people. He never has and he never, ever will. Well, it's exactly the same with Bolsonaro, but people get persuaded from the propaganda. You know, it's why Rupert Murdoch is so important and all of them in all of this. So we're watching that battle at the same time, will they believe the lies that they're being told? By Maga. By Maga and Bolsonaro. Or will they look at things to go, hold on a minute, they're not. You know, at least Lula was involved in labor unions before he became a political figure and appears to have a heart and a soul. So let's keep voting in the Lulus.
- [31:00]
Chris Hedges
You know, well, they, these demagogues like Trump and so you have, I mean, in some ways, I don't know if you feel the same way. I hate the liberals like Starmer, Tony Blair even more because with an Orban or a Trump you get, you know, they are, you know, they kind of advertise their thuggishness and. But these, these, these liberals, my friend Glenn Ford used to call them the more effective evil, the Democratic Party, because they mask it. I mean, you've called out Starmer, you've called out Blair, you know, they purport to defend these values that they betray.
- [31:40]
Roger Waters
Yeah, yeah, Blair, Blair, you know, after Margaret Thatcher came in and to destroy England. I don't know if you know what her, what her popularity ratings were until the Malvinas, until the folk, she was very low 2%. Suddenly she has a small war, of course, a boom. She's a great heroine. She was a disgusting person and she was not stupid like Trump. You know, she actually got a perfectly decent 2:1 or something from a college in Oxford University where you have to actually study, you have to read books, you have to. Yeah, yeah, you have to read books. And Blair was just the follower. He, Blair said, yeah, let, let's sell, let's sell the Great Britain that was created by Anarian Bevan and Clement Attlee and, you know, and Wedgwood, Ben and Michael Foote and some left wing labor politicians and Jeremy Corbyn attempted to get back into that kind of training. Well, excuse my French, we'll put that to one side and we'll just sell out to the American model. We'll sell out to the corporations. And Pilger, John Pilger, our late great friend, great journalist, he made a wonderful movie about the National Health Service and there's a scene in it where a lady who's been a nurse all her life and carried on trying to work in a hospital that was taken over by an American corporation. And she actually breaks, I'm nearly breaking down now. She breaks down in front of the camera saying, we realized that we weren't there to look after people. She said, I'd been looking after people in the national health service for 25 years and suddenly it wasn't that it was, how much profit can we make out of each body? And if we can't make a profit out of them, kick them out the door. That's the model. And we know that you don't have to live in North America very long to understand that is how it works. The only people who profiting or making are the insurance companies and big pharma. And the care of the patient is completely lost, except for the very, very wealthy.
- [34:08]
Chris Hedges
Well, and it's worse here in the United States with, where you have private insurance. Private.
- [34:14]
Roger Waters
That's what I'm talking about.
- [34:17]
Chris Hedges
It's, it's, it's legally permissible to hold sick children hostage while their parents bankrupt and themselves trying to save their sons or daughters. That's the system we, we advocate. And, and of course, what they do is they starve the national health system. They're doing the same thing in Canada to break it, to destroy it.
- [34:34]
Roger Waters
Yep, yep. So this is, this comes back, Chris, to ordinary people standing shoulder to shoulder from the river to the sea. Sumud, Perseverance, Steadfast perseverance is what the word sumud means. And that is what we have to show. But we have to make as much noise while showing it as possible to encourage the young particularly. I always said that the Holy Land, the question of the Holy Land, was the battle was going to be fought on the campuses of the American university I was saying this 15, 20 years ago, okay? And it turns out that that's correct. And look how Columbia University in New York City has capitulated completely and is now. And they have now, they've moved now to accept the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which is insane, and has been adopted by 35 states, state jurisdictions. That is now the official definition of antisemitism.
- [35:48]
Chris Hedges
And I just want to interrupt you, Roger, because they've codified it to add examples which in essence say that any criticism of the Israeli state is anti Semitic. I was just at the Trenton State Capitol testifying against the adoption of the measure. The committee unanimously passed it for approval. It goes to the Senate. But immediately when I began, they muted my mic and the Zionist jeered and shouted me down along with Roz Stegall, an Israeli genocide scholar. So there we were, arguing that this measure would curb or shut down free speech. And we weren't allowed free speech, which gets into, you know, kind of Alice in Wonderland world. But that's. All of these creeping steps, you know, are very, very frightening. And I think what's, what's, what's shocked me is the Rapidity. How fast it's coming in the United States?
- [36:44]
Roger Waters
Yeah, no, it is. Yeah, it's very rapid and it's very, very scary. People spit on me, literally. And I go, wow, wow. Why? And they spitting on me because I believe in human rights. That's the only difference. That's the only. That's why you oppose the IHRA definition, because it doesn't believe in human rights. It believes in genocide. It says, yeah, Israel could commit genocide. And if you oppose it, that is anti Semitic. That is a hate crime, Roger. Opposing the Israeli policy of genocide. That thing where they've got them now and they're funneling into them and pretending that they're going to give them food and then they shoot them. They're shooting them.
- [37:34]
Chris Hedges
Yeah, well, it's just bait. They bait. It's to lure starving Palestinians to the south. They only give food for at four hubs for an hour a day. It is highly inadequate. It's exactly what they did in the Warsaw ghetto, where the Nazis starved the residents of the Warsaw Ghetto and then offered loaves of bread if you would get on the trains. That is exactly the same tactic.
- [37:56]
Roger Waters
Yes, it is exactly the same tactic. So the big battle is in the hearts and minds of men. So we come back always to the propaganda battle. Is Rupert Murdoch going to win the battle, or are you and I going to win the battle? Because what do we have on our side, Chris? We have love and truth on our side. Rupert Murdoch and Trump and all. And Starmer and all of. All they have on their side is greed and hatred and lies. So you would think that you understand then, why billions of people all over the global south, but all over the west as well, are going. Not a mess. Not a mess. They see. They see ordinary people, they can tell the difference between love and hate. Yeah, you know, I know they can. I feel. I get emotional even talking about.
- [38:56]
Chris Hedges
Well, I. I knew Waslav Havel. I covered the Velvet Revolution in the Magic Lantern Theater with him every night. And he talked about this, which is really what you're saying is he called it living in truth. But living in truth, if you hold fast to that truth, is terrifying to these despotic centers of power because it exposes who they really are. And if they can't intimidate or cow you to be silent, then they'll physically silence you.
- [39:27]
Roger Waters
Yep.
- [39:29]
Chris Hedges
I want to talk just when we close here, you mentioned it, and I agree with you. The Empire always wins. As a former divinity student who, you know, watched Jesus Christ get abandoned by all his friends Turned on by the mob and killed as an insurrectionist by the state. That was the message. And yet we must fight anyway, if not just to slow the process, but also to keep alive another way of living, another orientation to the world. Vasily Grossman writes about this quite eloquently as kindness in these despotic times being acts of subversion. And he writes at the end of this beautiful passage that if they can't crush even a small kernel of kindness, which is what these systems attempt to do, then evil will never be conquered. I mean, this gets into maybe, you know, a more theological or existential discussion, but it's one I believe in. It's one. I think you believe as well, that it's important for us to keep these powers alive regardless of what happens to us and as distinct individuals.
- [40:49]
Roger Waters
Yeah, well, it's. That's another interesting conversation, obviously, because I'm an atheist, you're not. And yet we love each other.
- [41:00]
Chris Hedges
Yeah.
- [41:00]
Roger Waters
And we love our brothers and sisters. And for. For whatever the reasons may be. Maybe it has something to do with our parents. Because your father was a. A preacher, right? Yeah. Yeah. And my mother was an atheist, but she was communist and a socialist and all of those. So she and my father, who died fighting the Nazis, they inculcated into me a sense of responsibility and love for my fellow human beings. Your father did the same with you. And it's a different. You know, it's a different route and it's a different journey, but the result is the same thing. You and I, Chris, both work tirelessly for love and truth, and there ain't nothing that's going to change that. And if we go down fighting, we go down fighting. But we have love in our hearts, and so do millions and millions of us. And if I get emotional, it's because I feel for those millions of me I can see, you know, and people, sometimes when I meet them, they get hold of my hand and, you know, there was one guy at a gig 20 years ago, or. I don't know when it was some gig, when I had veterans coming to the show every night. Every night. I would have 10 veterans, and I would always invite them to come with a helper, either a loved one or whatever, because often they can't. They've got so much ptsd, they can't go out on their own. It's too scary. They. And they would come to the show and I would go and see them halfway through the show and just say hello and chat a bit, and they go, oops, I've Got to go and do hey you. Now. It was during the wall shows, right? Okay. And so I. I was leaving one time, and an older bloke, he must have been a Vietnam vet because most of them are Afghanistan and, you know, and. And Iraq and. And whatever. Awful, awful injuries. Anyway, that's my. This older bloke, as I was going, he put his hand up, so I shook his hat. He wouldn't let go. I went, I've got to go on stage now. We're just about to do hey, you. It's the second. And he held my. And he wouldn't let go. And so I relaxed a bit and I let him hold my hand. And then he looked me in the eyes like that piercing, and he said, your father would be proud of you. I mean, I'm crying now because I just thought, fuck, you know, wow, what an amazing moment. And it was an amazing moment. And I'll never forget him, and I'll never forget that. But, yeah, we can hand this from generation to generation. You can hand love and truth down to the next generation. And your primary responsibility in life is to do exactly that and to not give in to the monsters, trumps and starmers of this world.
- [44:01]
Chris Hedges
And Roger. Yeah, and Roger, that's the resurrection. I mean, I always say that it's my voice, but it's my father's words. It's your music. It are your lyrics, but they're your father's words. Who was. I want to say, as I understand it, a Christian and a member of the Communist Party. Yeah, bless him.
- [44:21]
Roger Waters
Yeah, he was. He was. At the beginning of the war, he was conchy because of his Christianity, his devotion to. Is it the sixth commandment, Thou shalt not kill. Exactly. So he said no. And then he started to get organized and he drove an ambulance through the Blitz and all of that, and at certain point he joined the Communist Party. And then he realized that the need to fight the Nazis trumped his love for Jesus. And so he went back and volunteered. Oh, jolly good. This chap's got a degree. He's officer material. So he was basic training, officer training commission, second lieutenant, dead to, you know, three weeks later, he lost it about three weeks in Ancia. So. So it's. It's not a burden, but. But it's. You. You can't. If you're that man's son, you can't. You'll never. I'll never get. I'll never get over the bravery of those. Both the bravery of being a conscientious objector and then the bravery to give up your life. It's pretty, you know, strong stuff. No wonder I've written some songs.
- [45:40]
Chris Hedges
He, he, he. I think you were five months old when he died.
- [45:43]
Roger Waters
Yeah, I was.
- [45:44]
Chris Hedges
But look at the gift that he gave you.
- [45:46]
Roger Waters
Yeah.
- [45:48]
Chris Hedges
And that's the gift my father gave me. And I can never betray him. And you can never betray your father, which is mean. They can't do anything to us.
- [45:55]
Roger Waters
Yeah, that's. This is true.
- [46:00]
Chris Hedges
All right. Bless you, Roger.
- [46:02]
Roger Waters
Things could be worse.
- [46:04]
Chris Hedges
They can always be worse. They're going to get worse.
- [46:06]
Roger Waters
Yeah. No, they will get worse. But we will hold on to. We will. To that truth and that love that we inherited. Great.
- [46:17]
Chris Hedges
That was the great Roger Waters. I want to thank Sophia, Max, Thomas, Victor and Diego, who produced the show. You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com thanks, Chris.
- [46:37]
Roger Waters
Sam.