Chris Hedges: "I Wasn't Surprised by 9/11"

Useful Idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Maté

Useful Idiots, LLC

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.6 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2021

⏱️ 85 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

See the full interview at http://usefulidiots.substack.com “The charade of statesmanship played out by George W. Bush and his enabler, Condoleezza Rice, as they wander the Middle East is a fitting end to seven years of misrule, stripped of power and transformed from monsters into buffoons. One half expects to see him stand up at the next president's inauguration and screech ‘I’m melting! I’m melting!’ as he sinks into a puddle of slime.” This was penned by friend-of-show and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges back in 2008. And at the time, it seemed to reflect the opinion of George W. Bush among Leftists and Liberals. But now, he’s back. Liberals who used to condemn him now love him! He hangs out with Obama, he gives speeches denouncing Trump, he paints! Now that’s a thoughtful and cultured war criminal with whom we’d like to grab a Sauvignon blanc. In addition to blasting the grotesque rehabilitation of Dubya, Hedges shares his experience of 9/11 which he witnessed in New York City where he happened to be for a meeting with his then-employer The New York Times. He recalls those who jumped from the buildings who were edited out because “that mass suicide just didn't fit the narrative that both the media and the ruling elites were propelling.” When we asked him if 9/11 surprised him after years of serving and reporting in the Middle East, watching US bombs fall on cities, he responded, “That is how we communicate with the rest of the world. Huge explosions and death above a city skyline. That's how we have communicated for decades. And the hijackers learned to communicate back to us in the language we taught them. So when I saw the devastation, it was familiar. That was of course lost on most of the public who drank deep from that very dark elixir of nationalism.” Plus, the new Useful Idiots Wigged Moose Party announces a plan to ride in an armored pangolin and shoot Covid pellets at the Pharma companies refusing to share the vaccine. Maybe you have to see it to get it. It’s all this, and more (including a #JacoOfTheWeek), on this week’s episode of Useful Idiots. Check it out. And don’t forget to subscribe to hear the rest of the interview with Chris Hedges, which drops Monday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	All right, welcome to its validity. It's time Matt Taiubi and I'm Katie helper. You are Katie helper. I too. I Katie helper.
0:13.3	You look for you. You look for a break and happy today, Katie. It's funny. I was just saying don't be fooled by the glasses. I said, don't be fooled by my bright and happy demeanor inside. I'm feeling
0:23.1	Taiybyanly dark. That's funny. I actually don't feel terribly dark. Oh really? Maybe I'm carrying your emotional
0:32.0	energy transfer movie. The bio transfer. Yeah. Right. Like so, so who's who's in it? It's Steve Martin and
0:41.1	Who is that other right? Yeah, all of me. Right. All of me. So all right. Yeah, who will I live? Tyler? It's it's
0:48.5	God. Lily Tomlin. Yeah, because we're confusing you with Lily Taylor. Yeah. I just thought this whole thing. I like that.
0:58.0	Live Tyler, Lily Tomlin. That's not so far off. Right. What are some of the other. There's another
1:04.3	what's the cross-robbed? I transfer movie. Oh, is he a halo? Is there a halo involved? I forget, but he's like
1:12.8	like the sort of soul of an old white dude is reincarnated in him. Oh, interesting.
1:19.5	We should make a list of the best and worst body transfer movies. Yeah. Then big isn't body transfer. That's just
1:26.3	age transfer. It's kind of a body transfer movie. I mean, I think that counts. Yeah. Down to earth. Down to earth is the
1:35.1	Chris Rock vehicle. Right. So we're in a body transfer movie. I actually am feeling pretty good, but look terrible.
1:42.0	And you're feeling kind of dark inside. Yeah, but good. So that's a good place to start the show. We have a great show. We
1:49.7	have a few surprise winning reporter slash author Christopher Hedges on to talk about some things that we're going to
1:58.2	get to in a minute. It is very upper-potat. I haven't on this week. Yeah. And a lot of stuff to get to. A lot of interesting news. Matt is help.
2:08.4	Matt's health is good. People were worried. People who don't watch who mistakenly and maybe out of ignorance will give them
2:14.6	a band to doubt who don't watch our Monday morning live show on YouTube where we go over the Sunday morning shows.
2:20.4	Like that for seamless. We did establish that Matt was still alive, but I guess Matt, you put out on your own
2:26.0	sub-stack and we had to put out on this podcast that you had lost your voice. So I did. I lost it for two days there. It was
2:33.1	pretty bad. I thought I had COVID. Oh, yeah. That's the other news. We didn't want to. Here's an exclusive. You
2:38.1	heard it here first. Learned here first, ladies and gentlemen. We did think that Matt may have had COVID. Yeah. I had to I had to drive myself to a
2:48.6	testing spot in the middle of the day. It was it was pretty horrible, but mostly through it now. So so all's good. And Matt did I'm not
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