Welcome, everybody to Crystal, Kyle, and Friends.

We are very fortunate to be joined this morning by Chris Hedges, man who scarcely needs an introduction,

but he's a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, of course.

He was bureau chief in the Middle East and Balkans for 15 years to New York Times and host of the Chris Hedges report on YouTube, which I highly recommend.

Great to see you, sir.

Thanks.

Thanks, Crystal.

Yes, of course.

So we wanted to dig into your knowledge and study in particular on the topic of fascism, which is extraordinarily uncomfortably relevant right now.

And let's kick it off with current events. You wrote an extraordinary piece about the way that Charlie Kirk is being

put into the role of a martyr in the way that this regime is using his assassination to consolidate

their project. Now we also have this ice shooter that killed

one migrant and critically injured to others in Dallas, Texas. What is this regime doing to make use

of these killings? So all radical movements are built on, quote, unquote, the blood of martyrs.

The 1905 aborted revolution in Russia, took its first Bolshevik, I forget his name,

who was elevated to martyrdom.

The 1905 revolution was kind of the dress rehearsal for 1917.

Of course, the Nazis did it with Yost Wiesel.

But this was true in El Salvador, the war I covered, in Bosnia, everywhere else. So why is a martyr important?

Well, a martyr, it becomes sanctified.

And that was immediate, even before the suspect Robinson was apprehended.

You had Trump declare him a martyr. You had the announcement that he would get the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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