Ep. 209: It's Time For "Sublime Madness" (w/ Chris Hedges)

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A transcript of this episode will soon be available at:
https://rumble.media/category/podcast/transcripts/

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Chris Hedges is one of the great journalists, thinkers, war reporters and truth-tellers of our time. He won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting on global terrorism while at the New York Times, who later fired him for speaking out against the Iraq war.

He joins Michael to speak on Afghanistan, the collapse of the American empire, the upcoming 9/11 anniversary, and the end of abortion rights in Texas (and around the U.S.)

Hedges was a war correspondent for many years and has seen awful human degradation, societies in collapse, social bonds being ruptured, and people turning to “self-destructive behavior and magical thinking.” Alarmingly, he sees all of these signals of decay here in America.

Hedges has also studied the Evangelical Christian Right in America and wrote a prescient book in 2008 titled, “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” He details the decades-long battle on women’s reproductive rights, the cynical and dishonest methods used to restrict access to abortion and how this pernicious form of fascism has only grown stronger since that book was published.

However, as a teacher, an ordained Presbyterian minister, and a graduate from Harvard’s Divinity School, Hedges draws on the teachings of great philosophers and theologians to lay out a moral imperative for solidarity and struggle and explains why we must not succumb to despair.

Episode Notes:

His most recent piece on the Christian Right in ScheerPost – The evil within us: How Christian fascist ideology led to the Atlanta killings
https://scheerpost.com/2021/03/22/hedges-the-evil-within-us/

Hedges in Truthdig on abortion rights back in 2007 – The Greatest Threat to Choice:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-greatest-threat-to-choice/

And Hedges’ piece on The Collective Suicide Machine and the Fall of Kabul in ScheerPost:
https://scheerpost.com/2021/07/26/hedges-the-collective-suicide-machine/

You can order “A Bomb in Every Issue How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America” here:
https://thenewpress.com/books/bomb-every-issue

And pre-order Hedges’ forthcoming book here:
https://bookshop.org/a/1381/9781982154431

Music in the episode:

"Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)" - George Harrison
https://open.spotify.com/track/4XMRt4xFqLzGs4wDKkSSeu?