Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore is preparing for the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks—or more specifically, for the barrage of mainstream media coverage and commemoration soon to dominate screens big and small. For the latest episode of his podcast, “Rumble With Michael Moore,” he picked just the right guest to take on “the collapse of the American empire and to pre-empt the propaganda onslaught we’re about to be hit with,” as Moore put it in his show notes.
That would be author, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and ScheerPost columnist Chris Hedges. Moore and Hedges’ unflinching discussion ranges from a preview of Hedges’ newest book, “Our Class Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison,” to the “creeping fascism” that didn’t start (or end) with Trump, the war in Afghanistan, and the calamitous threat to millions of Americans posed by the imminent ending of pandemic-era unemployment benefits.
And that’s just for starters. They also weigh in about President Joe Biden’s role in perpetuating both empire abroad and “creeping fascism” at home, the lack of meaningful push-back from figures like Sen. Bernie Sanders, and the relentless influence of the Christian right in U.S. politics. Press play in the window above to catch their whole conversation, and listen for Moore’s enthusiastic signal boost of ScheerPost starting around the 8:35 mark.