This is Rumble with Michael Moore and I am Michael Moore.
Welcome everyone. Well I've got a great guest
coming up here on today's episode, my old friend, John
Schwarz, who writes for The Intercept.
He worked on my film capitalism. Love story, great guy, great
thinker. Funny.
So I'm looking forward to try to cover a number of things with
him. We can fit it all in here within
the hour. Be great.
So please stick around for that, it's just coming up here in a
few minutes and thanks to all of you out there.
All you listeners who gave me some great and incredible
feedback on episode 1 97. Which was called Welcome to the
Department of restorative justice and Redemption.
And my guest Dan Berger who has written and worked on this issue
of mass incarceration for Many years, great feedback, great
ideas. Let's stay with this topic.
The topic of what we're going to do to get rid of the systems
that we have had for so many years that don't work, whether
it's policing, whether it's incarceration, what we call,
Justice, all of this, we can fix.
We can fix all of this and have a better safer Kinder society
and and help those who fall between the cracks who make
mistakes. Steaks.
We can do this better. We can do this better and so we
will stay with us topic here for the rest of this year.
Frankly, every now and then when we have time to come back to it,
I'm going to come back to it and present new ideas on what we can
do to have a more just Society than the one that we have right
now. So please keep sending me your
feedback to Mike, Michael more.com, it's that easy.
I read every email, I don't have time to respond to all of them.
Sorry for that but I do Read them and you can leave me a
voicemail. There's a link here on my
podcast platform page and just click on that and there's a 60
second thing where you can just record and I listen I listen to
to all the the voicemails. So a lot is going on this week
in the world. In this country the latest where
Biden has compromised with the conservative Democrats and
moderate Republicans read. What's he done is reduce this,
the original two trillion dollar infrastructure, bill, Because he
said, infrastructure has to do with climate has to do with
childcare. It's not just Bridges and Roads.
Well, he gave in essentially to the Republicans.
They probably won't vote for it anyways, because they don't
matter. They don't care now if you give
in, but it's like down to five hundred and eighty billion
dollars down from the whatever. It was a trillion and a half.
Two trillion. That's not going to work.
We've got a fight. We've got a fight.
We got to fight for all these things, the majority of
Americans have made their voices, very clear that they
wanted the The controlled Senate house and White House, and the
policies that we believe in of the policies that the majority
of our fellow Americans agree. And so, let's make sure we do
that. Lets us.
So, we before bring John on here as my guest, I want to thank our
underwriter for today's episode Netflix.
Once again has come through to support this podcast to support
my voice. And I want to thank them first,
of all. And then point out that they
have this excellent Documentary Series going on right now called
high on the hog. How African-American Cuisine
transformed America. This is a wonderful documentary
series and you will be hungry while you're watching it.
Now, the series was directed by Roger, Ross, Williams, who is an
academy award-winning documentary filmmaker and
actually, one of our great documentary filmmakers right
now. I hired them cheese, I don't
know when was that 20? 25 years ago.
He worked with me on my television.
Carrie's wonderful guy. And the series of his is based
on the book, high on the hog by food historian, Jessica be
Harris. It's a beautifully shot.
Travelogue actually, that honors, and celebrates the
traditions, and the Heritage. And the Artistry of black food,
and black chefs that have helped Define the American Kitchen.
This is something you rarely see on any of these other channels.
So you're going to salivate while watching this over western
African, stews, soul food, BBQ and fine dining.
You'll learn the culinary history that was shaped by
slavery and the Civil War in June 10th, right up until
present day events. This is an intelligent
thoughtful entertaining documentary series.
And did I mention? It's very appetizing.
So, there's a reason everyone's talking about this wonderful
series. High on the hog, find out why
The praise for it is much deserved.
So please watch this. I've watched it.
It's incredible. And I'll have a link for it on
the description page right here of my podcast, you can click on
it and watch it. And thanks again, Netflix for
supporting my voice, supporting this podcast supporting
non-fiction works of art. It's greatly appreciated, not
just by documentary filmmakers, but by all Americans, and people
around the world who believe in facts and it Love the truth.
A new story popped up in my notifications of this week and
maybe some of you might have missed it.
It's one of those stories and the this happens every week.
I know you probably see the same thing going on, where you go?
Oh my God, this is so I can't believe this and then it's the
last you hear of it. I mean somebody might mention it
once or twice and then it's gone.
And I hate it. I hate it when they're gone.
It's this particular story this week reveals many truths about
how the world works and too often.
Gets forgotten as we move on to the next distraction.
So here's the headline from The New York Times, this is hot red.
Saudi operatives, who killed khashoggi received paramilitary
training in the US. And then it goes on to say the
training approved by the state department, underscores The
Perils of military Partnerships with repressive governments Wow,
I saw that and I was like Not only was the Washington Post
journalist Jamal khashoggi murdered by the American
government's close Ally Saudi Arabia but the operatives who
carried out the assassination or given paramilitary training in
the u.s. one year earlier under a contract approved by our state
department. Because Yogi's body was
dismembered using a bone saw, what kind of state department
funded training? Is this G's before anyone argues
that? Well Mike, of course, you know,
America did brutal and ugly things.
And Donald Trump was our president.
I must point out to you. What this article says, quote,
the state department initially granted this license for the
paramilitary training, The Saudi Royal Guard to these American
contractors starting in drumroll, please 2014.
During the Obama Administration. The training continued during at
least the first year of the former president known as Donald
Trump. My friends, if I have said this
once I've said it a thousand times Donald Trump did not just
fall from the sky. He was actually the perfect
embodiment of American cruelty and inhumanity.
And while removing him from office was thoroughly necessary,
I don't even need to state that toy.
It is this cruelty and inhumanity that we must now
extinguish. And whenever I think of Cruelty
and inhumanity I think of my guest today on Rumble.
John Schwarz. John is one of my favorite
writers, thinkers humourists, he always keeps a close eye on the
inner workings of the American Empire and never allows us to
forget these ugly details. John always has a great eye for
irony and a deep commitment to undoing.
The propaganda that our media, our educational system and our
culture, bombards us with on a daily basis.
John currently writes for The Intercept, he's also contributed
to the New Yorker, the New York Times slate as well as NPR and
yes, in his younger years, Saturday Night, Live and a full
disclosure John used to work for me.
As a researcher on capitalism, a love story and way back in the
day. He ran Michael more.com.
So it is a huge pleasure and an honor to have my old friend here
with me for the first time here on Rumble.
John Schwarz. John, how are you?
Well, I'm great. Thank you for saying so many
kind things. I should say that you know
working with you working with everybody else on capitalism,
love story the other stuff too. Was a huge education in how to
cause trouble. Well, thank you.
I think that's a compliment. Yeah, thank you for that.
You have continued to do this though, and I'm so grateful.
And so when I saw this article bezel and I were talking in
this, this is right up jonn's alley.
And then you like so many times start to write about these
things before were even trying to kind of gather our thoughts.
And, and I want to start here, but I have a bunch of things.
I want to throw at you, because my head is spinning and I think
the heads of millions of Americans and people around the
world are spinning right now. So if we could just start with
khashoggi, and give me your take on this and what it is, we can
do about it because I do not want this story to die.
Yeah. Well I mean, this is the kind of
thing where if you know anything about u.s. history, you read it,
you're like, wow, like this is incredibly shocking and
Incredibly unsurprising, you know, it's, it's the kind of
thing that is like a As ugly as it gets with human beings.
And yet at the same time, the kind of thing that we've done a
million times before. And I think people should look
at the story and look at a little bit of the background.
You know, first of all, the company that did the training to
your one group, it's owned by a private Equity Firm, which is
called Cerberus Capital Management.
And if I'm pronouncing that right, people may know, server
is the the three-headed dog. That guards, the Gates of Hell
in mythology. Edgy to prevent people from
escaping from hell, that's not just a, that's not a joke.
That's actually, that's true. Yeah, that's that's absolutely
true. And, you know, if people name
their company that you kind of get where they're coming from
from the beginning, and end, if you want to think like this is,
you know, okay? So Obama was involved, the Trump
State Department was involved but it's still an anomaly.
Well, one of the top officials at this private Equity.
Firm is George HW. Bush's vice president Dan Quayle
like hmm. This is the people Who run this
country. And this is the way they see the
world. And this is kind of thing they
do, and you kind of gotta face that and figure out, you know,
how to go on from there. So, okay.
So again, as you said, not, surprising and I don't know why
it is probably because, you know, sometimes I just don't
want to think about this stuff. And so you Rita, Rita horrible
headline or even a, you know, when it happened, when the
assassination of khashoggi took place, you know, your brain
should just automatically by now go to this the to this default
that says oh we had a hand in this home where we the United
States government, you know somebody somebody did something
with this this this pot this this and sure enough we learn
now this week some years now after his death that we did have
a hand that a private contractor from our state department and
back during his back during the Obama Administration training,
Rain, these assassins. To commit their crimes on
whatever they were going to do with the training that we gave
them. I mean, I don't, I worry when
people hear this and they listen to this podcast that they just
start to sink like a cheese. Of course, what a same old same
old, what do we do about this now?
And I want to like, jump out of my chair and go, there is
something we can do. I'm not quite sure what it is at
this moment, but I refuse to let this be done in my name, my tax
dollars and And you know, somebody's going to have to pay
for this. Yeah, you know, and I would say
like even though it is no surprise, I don't think people
should read the story and just like, give up in despair in it.
Like, one of the things about this story is that they felt it
was necessary to keep it secret, you know, like it in the past
that speaks that speaks highly of us exactly lips.
Like, they're that worried about us, right?
They know that normal Americans were to find out about this.
Like, it would really cause some trouble for them.
And, and that wasn't necessarily the case in the Past.
I mean, America is done some pretty awful things without
feeling the need to cover it up. So like that in and of itself is
progress and even though they're never going to tell us that it
was like like weirdos you yelling about this stuff in the
past that caused them to keep this secret.
It actually was and the more you yell about it, the more like you
go, like, like go and and talk to your, like, your elected
representatives. I know that seems Like, you
know, this is sort of like schoolbook thing to do, but
there are a lot of people in Congress who actually are
outraged about, this will continue to be outraged about
it. They don't want the country to
run like this and it is, it is not necessarily the case that
nothing can be done. I think that we should start
from the premise that something can be done.
Things have changed in the past, they can change again.
Well, I believe that. And I guess what I'll say is
that people listening. First of all, I love to hear
your ideas. Or ideas, you know?
You can always write me here at the bottom.
There's a link on this podcast page.
You can leave me a voicemail. I love to hear your thoughts
about this and I I'm going to be thinking about it, and I don't,
I won't let this drop. I will I'm going to stay on this
because this this has to end this.
This kind of behavior that's done.
In our name, has to be brought to an end and the main thing
right now, I guess John is one of the Reasons, I wanted to have
you on today. One of a number of reasons, I
want two things. I want to get into with.
You is that that story from the past week?
Just doesn't fade away. Yeah, this is what I always
worry about, you know, it just so much going on and it comes
and it goes, well, here's here's the thing.
I just read a proverb for the first time that I had never seen
before, which I think is a good thing to keep in mind about this
kind of stuff, which is The axe forgets, but the tree remembers.
And wow, regular people are the tree continually being hit with
the ax like it's our job to like like to do that.
To be the remembering part and it's natural for the people in
charge to try to throw this away and make it vanish from history.
And if you take seriously anything about politics, like
you realize that just remembering stuff and bring it
up again and again and again really doesn't make a
difference. They there's nothing that they
hate more than that. That and you know, you can see
that and what's going on all over the country is like all the
state governments where they're like, yeah, we're going to make
teaching actual history illegal. Like there's a good reason for
that. They know what they're doing.
So I agree with you. Like this, this story says so
much about how the world works. That it's really important that
we remember it. I bet that there is more, that
is going to come out and we should keep talking about that
whenever that happens, right? And and not and not be bullied
by it, like, like you mentioned the history, they don't want us
to know, they The big, the Bugaboo of the week is critical
race Theory must not be taught in our schools and and then when
I'm watching the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday
in Congress, like dressing them down for how dare you say we
don't talk about this or learn about it or try to understand
you know, institutional racism in this country.
First of all on the issue of critical race Theory, Etc.
I love you have to get much smarter on whatever the theory
is. But I do think it's important.
Actually, for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be
widely read and the United States Military Academy is a
university and it is important that we train and we understand.
And I want to understand white rage and I'm white and I want to
understand it. So what is it, that caused
thousands of people to assault this building and try to
overturn the Constitution of the United States of America?
What Is that I want to find that out.
I want to maintain an open mind here and I do want to analyze
it. That was just last thing.
I expect to see out of the mouth of the, the chair of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. And yet, you know it.
I thought, yes, everybody take take a cue from this guy and
stand up again. Don't let this happen in your
local school districts. This is so important that we
teach our children about this and how we got here, how we got
here? Racially, it's this is one of
the most important things we need to be.
Talking about in schools these days.
But, but the way that they go, after you've got a thing in the
intercepted, a coming up here about the Hulk concept of the,
the moral equivalency. It can we just talk about that
for a second and about our, the congresswoman ilhan, Omar and
what she's had to go through in the last couple of weeks because
she just happened to point out that a lot of bad things are
done in the world. A lot of different people, some
of those bad things are done by the United States.
Some of them are done by Israel. Sorry, to have to point that out
to everybody. I know you opposed the courts
investigation in both Palestine and in Afghanistan, I haven't
seen any evidence in either cases that domestic port scan,
both can and will prosecute alleged war crimes, and crimes
against humanity. And I would emphasize that in
Israel and Palestine. This includes crimes.
Dated by both Israeli Security Forces than Hamas in
Afghanistan. It includes crimes committed by
the effect on national government, and the Taliban, and
man, did the world come down on her?
Yeah, people probably saw this happening, it was extremely ugly
at awful. Because what she was talking
about specifically was the international criminal court in
2020 had opened investigations into atrocities, committed on
all size and half. Gana stands.
So that means the US government, NATO the government of
Afghanistan and the Taliban and they had opened an investigation
into conflicts between Israel and Palestinians and so that's
what she was referencing, you know?
Like, We should have a neutral Arbiter enforcing the law
equally, and people went nuts, it was incredible to see, but
the thing that was the most interesting to me was that they
use this term moral equivalence. And this is a terrible crime.
She didn't actually say, like the United States is morally
equivalent to Hamas. She didn't say that at, all
right? They love this term, which is
This, this term of propaganda. Like it's very rare that you can
say like propo would propaganda. Was invented here at this place
on this date, but that actually is true with moral equivalence.
It's a term from the Reagan Administration that was invented
by his state department and the most prominent neoconservatives
of that era to defend him from criticism of the unbelievably
awful foreign policy, that his administration was conducting
especially in Central America. And so I wanted to do this.
To just look remind people this history, I think almost no one
remembers this anymore. It's only a oddballs like
ourselves. Make many things that happened
here this is 35 years ago. Thanks for including me.
Yeah. Yeah, you're right.
But explain this because I just found this fascinating.
Go ahead. Yeah.
So what happened was that? The neoconservatives became very
concerned that, you know, carping Intellectuals with their
hatred of America and so forth. We're criticizing the United
States too much and they held a conference in 1985.
As I say, sponsored by the state department that was called,
moral equivalence false images of US and Soviet values.
And so this is people like Jean Kirkpatrick, you know again
probably somebody who's largely forgotten now but she was a very
prominent, then she was Reagan's ambassador to the UN, William
Bennett who Who was the Secretary of Education, he later
wrote a book, a best-seller, that was something like, like, a
treasury of values. It's all about bringing preemie,
America back to Traditional Values and and what they wanted
to say. Like it's a term that is
intended to bully people into silence.
Like, if you criticize America, like, how can you do that?
Because the Soviet Union is so much worse.
And then the Soviet Union collapsed, but moral,
equivalence continued onward, like you can At the Google has
this really amazing feature that allows you to see how frequently
words were used in books over the past. 200 years, what you
can see is that moral equivalence barely ever appeared
in the English language until the 1980s until the Reagan
Administration created and then it exploded and even after the
Soviet Union disappeared, the politicians and pundits, found
it so useful that it continues to this day Is constantly used
the British government during the beginning of the invasion of
Afghanistan in 2001. They said that merely quoting
the Taliban was moral. Equivalence Dick Cheney said
that criticizing the Bush Administration for torture was
moral equivalence. So they love it.
It's just a term intended to shut you up, but if you think
about it for one second, you realize that it doesn't make any
sense at all, like, what is moral equivalence?
What is the yardstick that we're using here?
And so, it's really whenever you hear this, you should The, the
people using it are morally bankrupt and you should ignore
them. I mean, just just before this
happened, where they'll on Omar, Mitch McConnell was accusing.
Nancy Pelosi of moral equivalence.
So what was he going after four? When he said that?
That was because she was saying that there should be a ceasefire
like in the recent conflict between Gaza and Israel and that
was that was World covalence, putting Hamas and the Israeli
government on the same level. So anything Anyway it's just
right because Nancy Pelosi such a huge Hamas, supporter that's
right. There's nothing more that the
Nancy Pelosi loves that him boss.
Right. Right.
So so how do we deal with this? I mean I guess just being aware
of it is probably the most important thing that when you're
being Bamboozled with this term and and and and put on the
defensive which you should never be that somehow you're you're
morally inept for raising issues drawing.
Comparisons, or just talking about two different things in
the same sentence to not. Let them get away with that,
right? Exactly.
I mean here's the way I think people should look look at this.
There are two possibilities here, right?
The first possibility is that America?
You know, we started out as 13 colonies on the Eastern
Seaboard. Then we took over most of North
America. Now, we have Like 800 military
bases, all over the world in 70 countries.
And then we did this just by being super, super nice.
You know, like that's that's one possibility and the other
possibility is that we're just like other huge Empires
throughout history and sometimes Empires do things that are
morally like pretty good. Most of the time, what they do
is awful and truly evil. And in this article, I use this
quote from from Thomas Merton who is a poet and also a monk.
Really interesting guy and in 1962, To.
He was corresponding with a friend of his about the very
beginnings of Vietnam. So he saw it coming long before
most everybody else. And he said the world is full of
great criminals with enormous power and they are in a death
struggle, with each other. It is a huge gang battle of
supremely well, armed and well, organized gangsters let us avoid
false optimism and approved gestures and seek truth.
And I find that like incredibly profound, like yeah, avoid
approved Jesters, avoid things meant to stop you from thinking.
And I'll just mention, I think it's the end of the One.
If I'm remembering. Right.
Like where you say like one evil empire down.
One to go. Yeah.
Right. Right.
And I don't I don't think you can look at The History of the
United States, honestly, and and think that we are a shining
Beacon of morality. Like that doesn't mean that
people in the United States are awful.
Like I like Americans, I like us but it means that you just
shouldn't have faith in governments.
Like I thought that was a conservative idea, right?
Like I thought, conservatives are the ones who are supposed to
be skeptical of government power.
And I agree with that. I think you should always be
skeptical, skeptical of government.
So anyway, it's It's just it's nonsense.
I quoted George. Orwell in 1984 talking about
this kind of propaganda. I think people should should
keep that in mind where he said it's just sort of like It's not
even human speech. It's not somebody using their
brain. It just sounds like a duck
quacking. Yeah.
This is so important to point out John because the right
always seems to get away with it, they just invent these terms
and you know why don't we do that?
Why don't why don't we come up with our own language?
Just take a page out of their book and start using language
words to change the world for the better.
Not do it in the way that they do it.
We have a few smart people on our side of the fence, right?
Can't we do this? What they do, but do it for a
good cause? Yeah, I mean, I absolutely think
that we could do this and it is kind of amazing.
Like people who like words, like do tend to be sort of
progressive like that. Those two things often go
together and people. You know who hate words and
hate, the fact that they can be used for honest communication
you know, to be conservative and so I completely agree with you.
I think it's amazing that that progressives have failed like
this but that doesn't mean that we can't succeed in the future,
you know. There's some really, really
interesting experiments I think happening online right now where
where people are recognizing that so I think there should be
a lot more of that and I'm confident that we can do it.
The only problem is that you know what you really want is for
people to encourage Courage people to think these things
through for themselves and that's a much more long and
laborious project than just shutting down thought and it
takes longer, but I think you get better results in the long
run, so I'm hoping that we can pull it off.
You know, I have a huge amount of admiration for ilhan, Omar
representing the people of Minneapolis thing in Congress,
but this pile on, that seems to take place every few months on
her. We're Republicans and Democrats
get together to just beat up on her.
Try to weaken her influence. They tried very hard to get her
removed in the last election. She was up for second term and
she crushed it. She won by an overwhelming
majority, but I'm sick of this. I'm sick of this pile on that,
that the leadership does on her. And I wanted to stop and I don't
want them to get away with it. It and and I want I want our
kids. I want people across the country
to listen to her because she's saying some very important
things. Yeah I'm completely completely
with you, she's extremely impressive person.
Be willing to like the stand-up tell the truth and face me
weird. Crazy.
Scary consequences and again this is something where like
this is not for ordained the like you can go and yell At your
elected representatives. But equally people in the house
and you saw some people who are willing to stand up and say like
this is wrong, we should not be doing this on the Democratic
side. There were not a chance finally,
right? Yeah.
And that was great to see and there could be more you know?
And so that's that's something that is in our hands.
Like that's something that we can make happen and so I
encourage people to think about that to do it.
You brought up the israel-gaza tragedy that's been going on.
The killing of so many civilians in Gaza by the Israeli military.
During all of this, there was another little story that
happened here in the US regarding this savagery that was
going on. And that got very little notice
an AP reporter by the name of Emily Wilder.
And you wrote about this, you wrote about her, they fired her,
the AP fired her as CNN, Reported the story John they
wrote before. Joining the Associated Press
Emily. Wilder was an active member of
pro-palestinian groups at her college.
She was a proponent of Palestinian the hold on to your
seats here. Palestinian human rights and a
Critic of the Israeli government.
Last week during the height of the recent war war, I love that
the war between Israel and the Palestinians nuclear power
versus people that are sending a little helium balloons with a
semi lighter fluid in them, the Stanford College Republicans.
Okay, this is a group, they called out Wilder for her tweets
and soon after the AP fired, er, a unanimous decision among
senior, Jurors at the AP the AP believes that Wilders.
Tweets could have put its journalists in danger.
If a perception exists that the AP is taking sides in a
conflict, it could endanger journalists who are reporting
incite a war zone as AP journalists were doing at the
time, Wilder was tweeting this blew my mind.
So so they go back to what she did in college as a citizen as a
student. And for that she should be fired
from her first job here at the AP in Arizona.
I mean this is a perfect example of something that I've believed
for a long time, which is that Cancel culture, political
correctness, like it's a huge problem in America.
Absolutely, the thing is 90% of it comes from the right.
And there is like Progressive, left, wing, cancelled culture,
and I think that's prodigious, and I think that people should
like be concerned about it. But the fact is, this is the
kind of thing that happens every single day and no one ever talks
about it. It's just taken to be like,
like, well, this is just the way the way the world works, but
this is what cancel culture is Emily.
Wilder, she's only 22. I believe.
She just graduated from college. She got, you know, this entry
level position at the Associated Press working in Arizona, I
believe, just on the Arizona politics like not working on
u.s. foreign policy or anything having to do with Israel and
during this conflict. She like retweeted some things
said like Said some things herself that I think we're all
like pretty Anna died and straightforward and then she
immediately got fired. And this was thanks to a
right-wing pressure campaign. I think, even like Tom Cotton
was talking about this like this 22 year old as this terrible
danger to American society. And we don't know exactly why
she was fired because the Associated Press like devoted to
uncovering the truth refuses to say, you know, so we don't know
what precisely she did. She violated their social media
policy somehow. And I just wanted to write
something to remind people that the media is always like their
other there. So amazingly liberal, well, the
history of AP actually is that it is a very conservative
organization, you know, it is one of the most important news,
organizations in America. Like they often are the only
people at this point covering certain stories, right?
But their history shows, like who they are.
There should have been, no surprise that they immediately
fired her. It's like in their DNA.
It was formed by five New York newspapers during the
Mexican-American War. Whenever that was like the 1840s
when we do just stole this gigantic chunk of Mexico.
Yeah. You know, is now a I think like
what the California and lots of Texas and Texas.
Yeah. And then yeah there's a keyword
One of the places that we stole it's called New Mexico history
they should have they should have just called it you know
Columbus or something. Our Mexico.
Yeah our our Mexico but just leaving the word Mexico in their
sort of implies. It's not really ours.
But anyway, so yeah. So so the a tell the story
though, the ap of being why they've always been
traditionally very conservative, that isn't exactly as balanced
as they would try to. They want you to think, right?
Well, so it was five, New York newspapers.
I wanted to cover the Mexican-American war that was
costly. So they decided to, you know,
share the cost of it and create this like Syndicate, where they
would just pay for coverage and then they all the newspapers
could use it, and it's a bit, like, just this, by itself, is
this kind of Amazing Story. The guy Moses, Yale Beach.
Who is the publisher of the New York Sun?
This is how objective AP was from the start during the war.
He traveled to Mexico like on orders from the US government
using a false passport, in an attempt to under behind the
Mexican war effort. And so like again, like he
should probably be fired for that violation of objectivity,
the founder Vicki went on, they went on to do things like like
the first. AP correspondent who died during
a war. Was a guy named Mark Kellogg.
This was 1876. He was leaving to go cover the
Battle of Little Bighorn. And his last dispatch was, by
the time this reaches you, we will have met and fought the Red
Devils with what result remains to be seen.
I go with Custer and will be there at the death.
And the Dow was not like I may be in danger of dying at the
death was a phrase. From fox hunting.
We're like you're there when the animals are run to ground and
killed, so he was anticipating going to see the Red Devils
being slaughtered again. How liberal can you get?
And, you know, to to this guy's surprise both he and Custer
ended up dead instead. Instead of killing these inhuman
creatures that went on. Like, during the late 1900s, the
early 20th century. They were extraordinarily
anti-labor. They tried to get a no Miss
succeeded getting like other journalists thrown in jail for
making fun of them. Like there's a famous cartoon
about the AP where they almost made that happen and there's a
great book, Upton Sinclair, famous for the Jungle, the sort
of the muckraking book about the meat industry in the early 20th
century wrote, another book, that was very famous at the
time, called The Brass check, which is all about the news
industry and how terrible it was in the US.
In a big section of the book is about a pea justjust their lives
and their unwillingness to ever correct their laws Seymour.
Hersh said that he worked for AP for a while because it actually
does provide like good training for journalists and in the
beginning of their careers. And there are tons of great
journalist who worked for the AP is just like the management
would allow them to tell the truth.
He said he could never have covered the meal.
I'm a sucker for a pee and most recently.
One of the ugliest examples of this is that Robert parry and
Brian Barger were AP reporters in Central America and they were
covering the story about how we were supporting the contras.
The contrary, who are trying to overthrow the government of
Nicaragua and they had uncovered what, you know what?
We now know to be the truth with his CIA itself has acknowledged
is true, is that a lot of the leaders of the contras were
involved in Cocaine. Smuggling a lot of this cocaine
ended up in the United States? The the Central Intelligence
Agency knew about this and didn't do anything because the
conference were too valuable to us and so they stopped any
investigation of what was going on and couldn't.
And here's the hilarious thing. Like this is how history is
made. These guys had filed their story
and a pee. made them go through this crazy round of edits taking
out, a lot of the most important stuff and then finally killed
it, but it was still there in the AP computer system and Like
an AA nighttime. Spanish-language editor.
Yeah, because they also have a spanish-language wire saw it in
the system. Didn't realize it was not
supposed to be published and ran it.
Hmm it just it just is you know it was just escaped escaped from
the lab wow. And then AP had actually posted
an English so it's just that this is who AP is this is as I
say, one of the most important news organizations in the United
States and They often is not try to prevent the truth from
getting out. And again I want to emphasize
like that's that's the management there.
Tons and tons of really, really good AP reporters but it's a
struggle for them to report the news John.
Let me see if I can. Just can I go into another thing
that you've written about here lately that has caught my eye
and it's this is just driven me crazy.
And you know, for those of us who did grow up in the working
class who come from Union families, Who understand what
the struggle is all about, when it comes to work and being paid
properly and and having some form of benefits to make life a
little easier. You know, the Press has been
harping on this thing over the last couple weeks that
businesses just can't find workers.
You know, there's the workers aren't coming back to work and
the reason they're not coming back to work is because we've
given them too much. Unemployment, we going Um too
much stimulus money and and we got to stop handing out all this
free money because they're not coming back to work, to flip
some burgers and and to be a, you know, I just this thing is
just sort of every time and it seems like every day there's
some story about the worker shortage and and you wrote about
this and I just thought men, you know, you really nailed this in
the sense that what are they really trying to?
say here, when they're, when they're talking about this and
why why are they punking on working people often the Working
Poor, who have been perhaps wanting to take their time and
think about the getting back to the old normal because the old
normal Hasn't been very good for the working people of this
country and and now they have some leverage to say, you know
what, maybe work in America should be looked at in a
different way and maybe you're going to have to treat us
differently. I'll just let you take it from
there because I just thought what you were saying about this
and and again, very little criticism of the media, just now
they've got their the new Moral equivalency is now, the worker
shortage? Oh my God.
The worker shortage just just sure.
Share with people listening to this episode.
Your thoughts about this? Yeah, well, I hope you can read
this. You have to understand that the
idea of a worker shortage, like whatever that is like in the
context of history and I would actually say your family is an
important example of that history.
Like I've always Believed that like people may not know this
but like you're not the only person in your family like
you're not the only sibling who has caused enormous irritation
to the people running the world. Yes, it's true.
You know, I know the activities of your sister and the best and
I guarantee you that there are a lot of people, a lot of offices
who are very unhappy about and more and like I think they like,
like if you're the people in charge Art and they look at the
Moore family and the three siblings and like, we'd let like
one guy. One dad create a decent life for
his family working, in an auto plant and then look what happens
look like you. Give this one family.
This little bit of wiggle room and they go crazy.
Like we've got to shut this down immediately, right?
But this is the story of millions of families though.
And and millions of people who were raised by moms and dads,
who worked on assembly lines, who worked in cubicles, who
work, you know, scrubbing, floors and what we called our
essential workers that we were. So you know, so grateful for
during the pandemic. And now since things have
started to open up a little bit now it's time to go back to
punking on the people who are the people who take care of you
and who keep your floors clean. And who build your cars and all
this other stuff and it's just it's it's I just want to call
the media out on this. It's it until the real story as
to. Why why working people in this
country are are not only just still trying to survive to get
through this pandemic. It's not over for them, and
they've lost so many people in their families, and their
extended. Emily's, the 600,000 plus just
in this country deserve more respect than being ridiculed.
It seems on the news, every day for sitting around sitting
around, you know, with their big stimulus checks, not getting
back and doing the work. We need them to do, right?
It's incredible. Like it is as it is so uniform
in the media and so uniform among politicians.
It makes you think that there must be like some like central
office where they're sending out marching orders and I didn't
even think she actually true but just like the uniformity of it
is amazing. And in to understand it to
understand why they're so angry. You really have to go back and
look at this long long history of the idea of worker shortages
because if you have some sort of big business Enterprise, there's
a core problem which is how do you get people to do, terrible
jobs for terrible pay. Like what what is?
The answer to that and you know originally the answer in North
America was slavery like you just don't give them any choice
and I think people don't know that Native Americans were
subjected to a lot of slavery. Like there was, there were many,
many are millions and millions of enslaved, Native Americans,
but it was a problem because it just, it was hard to maintain
like, Often people who are enslaved, like like the society
that they were from was not that far away so they could just run
off and like, rejoin the all the people that they knew and so
this, this credited worker shortage, this was the first
worker shortage. And so that's one of the reasons
why they're like, hey, let's let's steal a lot of people from
Africa and enslave them. And he amazing thing is like,
eventually, you know, slavery. Was abolished.
It was you know the British abolished slavery in the 1830s.
But this this is really is crazy.
When you look back at it just how straightforward they were
because they're like okay yeah we're getting rid of slavery but
we still need people to work on our plantations.
So right. How do we square that Circle?
And so they were particularly worried that they were there was
a lot of land available where people could just go off and
like farm the land and They'd be able to support themselves and
they wouldn't want to work at these terrible jobs.
And so the, this is a direct quote from From one of these
guys said, like we need to fix such a price upon Crown lands.
As May place them Out Of Reach of persons without capital Wow.
Just dissing it straightforward. Another guy in Parliament said
so honest yeah, I know it's like it's like well thank you.
Thank you for being so open and straightforward about this.
Another guy in Parliament, the British Parliament said, like
the danger is that the whole, the laboring population of the
West Indies should as soon as they become entirely free,
refuse to work for wages and that thus capitalist should be
left without laborers. Well, okay, you know, like how
at least, at least we're facing the problem.
All right, head on and so, That's pretty much how things
worked out, like, they wanted to make sure there was no like way
for people to use or like public resources.
The crown lands were public lands, right?
That would prevent them from showing up to work every day on
time. And they also, I didn't mention
this. It's also kind of amazing how
straightforward they were about this.
They also discussed how they had to addicted people to
consumerism. That they needed people to be
obsessed with a crime. Acquiring like a little
meaningless Trinkets and that the only way they could get the
trinkets was by, you know, working for wages.
And that if they just supported themselves, like they would be
free and they wouldn't have to answer to anyone.
But you know they wouldn't have liked the latest dresses from
London and stuff like that. Right.
And so that story has been
re-enacted over and over and over again.
Over the past hundreds of years, it happened in another form in
England. And that's exactly the thing
that's happening today. Like people were getting some
kind of public support, like not so much that they're going to go
out at blow it on a new car. Like they're not going to buy a
Porsche with this money, but it does give them a little wiggle
room. It does give them some leverage
and you can imagine a world where they would want to come
back to work. Where, you know, Like jobs,
don't have to be horrible. Like, they really don't like,
jobs can be a lot of fun, even things that we think of, as
like, menial tasks, if you have control over them, maybe maybe
businesses pay people better. They could allow workers to set
their own, you know, conditions for work.
They could give workers ownership of, you know, part of
the Enterprise but they're not interested in that, like the
people who were all like this, those are not things that
capture their Education. They want everybody to come back
to work for the federal minimum wage which is 725 an hour or you
like even better like the tipped waitresses even less.
So as I say it's just like it's a core problem of how capitalism
Works. They only have one answer for it
and that's what we've been seeing happening now and watch
how she people, you know, when they're just talking to friends
or family and this issue comes up about, yeah, you know, Bill's
Bar down there, you just can't get enough workers and what is
what? What is the clear and simple way
to explain this critical capitalism Theory to be two
people when what's really going on here, what is the media and
the government, and the rich really saying when they're
complaining about this so-called worker shortage?
Yeah. I mean, the message really is
the message they have for all of us is like you better get back
to work or you're going to starve to death.
And they always want that threat to be hanging over everybody and
the other way of looking at it, which is the right way.
The true way of looking at it. Is that like The world like like
like America is an incredibly rich country and this wealth was
created by everybody. You know, that's that's just a
fact. Like, that's a basic fact, Jeff
Bezos didn't invent the internet?
Yeah. The inventor, the internet was
invented by all of us. It was in fact, like based on a
ton of government research in spending and so the idea that
the SuperDuper wealthy can just use the stuff like capture the
wealth that was created by all of us is just it's morally wrong
and it leads to a world that is much much uglier than it needs
to be. And so like these are really
deep questions, but once people start thinking about them, I
think that they grasp it pretty quickly and just, I would really
encourage. Yes.
Like, like a lot of people just understand this intuitively
right because it is obvious depending on the family, right?
Erupted. And what kind of life you had?
Yes. Yes, my family understands it,
right. And I think a lot of people
who've grown up that way. But but what, why does the media
participate in this? Because some many of them grew
up in a working-class home. Many of them saw their parents
struggle. Why?
Even put this kind of propaganda out there like this, during this
time when we're trying trying to get back to some sense.
Sense of people being able to get by just to get by and and
not get sick, not get sick. Yeah, you know, I wish I knew
but I would say like, look at AP, you know, and Upton
Sinclair's book. He actually talks about having a
discussion with like an AP editor and the editor says, you
know, I'm a socialist. like, That's what I believe but I
would be fired tomorrow. If I allowed any of my thoughts
about the world, you know, make it onto the wire.
And so I think lots of journalists absolutely do no
better some don't, but I think a lot of them absolutely do.
It's just these are the rules of the road like there is not a
whole lot of of freedom to call things as you see them.
I have like two more hours of things I want to talk to you
about but we can't so promise to come back.
Okay, will you come back? To talk about things like this
because it's this has been very uplifting for me just to get
into these two, three, four things just in the last month
that just disappeared, just disappeared.
And I think one of the great things that you do, and The
Intercept does is to keep us focused on these things and
other things. The story behind the story
behind the story and it's what you and the others they're do.
So. Well, your much needed in people
if you don't know what the intercept is, I will have here
on this on the platform page of this podcast, you will see links
not only to these different things.
I've referred to that John has written about.
You can read his writings on this and also too.
I think they also we should put up the link to get Upton.
Sinclair's the brass check, I mean, I think is incredibly
interesting like you're interested in like this, kind of
stuff is something that you're into.
It is like it reads like it was written yesterday and, you know,
it's free online. You know, it's 100 years old.
I think the copyright has expired, so go check it out.
It's a free book. Yes.
And you know, it's one I've wanted to read for some time and
I'm now going to thank you for the recommendation for me.
This will be my book of the week.
The, but before we go, John just, is there anything else we
need to be thinking about right now?
Maybe something that. Obviously I haven't brought it
up. In this episode but you've been
thinking about it or something that you want.
You are going to be writing about in the next week or two or
three. But just to give us a just a
hint of that or to stimulate our own brains, in terms of what we
should not be ignoring right now.
Well something that I'm working on, that should be coming out in
the next couple of weeks is about the enormous like
Yammering about the idea that the coronavirus escaped from a
lab in China. And like, I should say this,
like I really, I'm kind of allergic to speculation about
this by people who don't have PhD sort of stuff because like,
it is a kind of thing where you need a lot of specialized
knowledge. But I just want to remind people
of the Iraq weapons of mass destruction, the story because I
paid super close attention to that and I was so frustrated by
the fact that no one would listen to.
By saying that I actually bet somebody a thousand dollars that
are rock wouldn't have anything. Wow.
Yeah. And the guy came through like he
paid up in the end and one key thing I think you need to
understand is that at the time, everybody was like, look, the
Iraqi government is acting so suspiciously, obviously, they're
they're covering up the fact that they have weapons of mass
destruction. And the truth is, they were
acting suspiciously and they were covering things up.
But they were covering Not the fact that they had weapons of
mass destruction, but all kinds of stuff that was totally
invisible to us and seems crazy in retrospect, it was stuff like
the head of their biological weapons program had secretly
destroyed their Anthrax at the end of the Gulf War in 1991.
So they didn't have anything left but she would not say where
she had destroyed it and we later found out that the reason
again, it wasn't that they had tons of Anthrax that they were
hiding. It was that She had destroyed
and outside of one of Saddam Hussein's palaces and she didn't
want him to know like and I wouldn't want it on fire you
know, to know that about me destroying the anthrax either
like he could really see where she was coming from.
So anyway the point is just that like I have absolutely no idea
what the truth is about the coronavirus and I mean sure like
it's maybe that happened but the fact that the Chinese government
is acting suspiciously like doesn't get you very far so I
think that's I think that's something that's important for
people to know and I'm To go into sort of more detail about
in this article. And now there's a second thing
that that I want to say, I want to make sure that I get this in
before the end of the podcast. Which is that I am going to
reveal your deepest darkest secret and I know you're not
trying to make you uncomfortable but I mean me, you me me?
Yeah. Oh my God.
Yeah and and but you know look like I'm a journalist and my job
is to report the truth and just let the chips fall where they
may now, I don't know if you're minded men, Lately when here.
But I just want to give you a clue about what I'm about to
say. So there's a land that I see
where the children are free. So, I think, you know where I'm
going here, which is. Okay.
So you know what I'm talking about, right?
Yes, I do. Yeah.
And I know you've been trying to write this out of History.
Hmm. But the truth is one of your
first papers was, I believe Hold free to be yes, one of my yes, a
my youth. I put out a little paper called
free to be and I actually like, honestly, I think that is
beautiful because I love that record people.
This again, actually is something that has kind of been
forgotten. I've been shocked to find, but
Marlo Thomas, and a bunch of her Show Business friends, put out a
record in the 1970s. I think it's also like a TV
special, something called free to be you and me, right?
And it is like, I think it's beautiful.
Like it's like fantastic songs and they're all about, you know,
men should do housework and Rosey Grier.
You know this who I think was a defensive lineman is that right?
Yes. Like this huge Guy saying like
it's okay for men to cry and I it's wonderful but it is sort of
a kind of cultural moment that strikes people a little bit
strange. Now?
Yeah, I just want to make it clear.
I had nothing. I was not connected.
The free to be TV. This is way back in in Flint
when I thought maybe we should start some newspaper or
something. Well what could we call it?
I don't know man. How about like free to be and so
so it lasted for about a year or so and yes, it was called free
to be. I'm not ashamed of it.
There were secrets of mine. You could have revealed but but
that one time I will I'm proud of it and in the fact that I got
you, I've never heard you sing. So the fact that you saying, on
my podcast, makes it all the better here.
I know I wanted to get into talking about this awful vote on
the Senate this week on are all the Voting Rights things that
we're trying to get past. This this is not going away.
I know people are going to be very active here over the
Congressional break, over the holiday to contact their
senators in there. Dates and demand that this
capacity and we have to demand that the Biden.
And the Democrats have to get rid of the filibuster.
This has got to end right now or we're not going to get any of
these things that we need. I mean I know you.
I've seen you tweet about this, you've talked about this but
man, we John, we this is, this is a critical moment.
Yeah, no, I agree. People should look this up
before the people act. It's incredible to me that the
Democrats have not gone out. Absolutely.
All out to past this because they need it just to win
elections. Like Joe manchin needs it.
Like if he wants to run again, it's it would actually change a
lot of like the core structural problems of democracy in the
United States and the Democrats need it.
Like, if they want to exercise power at any point in the
future, like they've got to pass this now.
So check this out again, like a go yell at the people in power,
do everything you can like, if You would like for the United
States to continue to have any kind of way for normal people to
have input into what happens like like this has got to
happen. Well, I can't say enough about
it and I'll be talking about it on social media here, this week.
Next week, our upcoming podcasts and this is my friends.
Everybody, I don't need to tell you how important this is that
we get this passed. And we get rid of this
filibuster, we're not going to get anything done for the next
year and a half, I guess in. Closing have, we've covered so
much stuff. I'm thanks for talking about
the, our government, paying for, and training, the Assassins of
Jamal khashoggi and in moments, like this to, I just think his
family. Whether it's his family that's
here in the US what our family he has back home in Saudi Arabia
or whatever. When I read this story here in
this came out this past week, I'm just speaking just as an
individual, but I feel this stuff individual.
I feel. This is a person is an American
that my government, my tax dollars.
Went to murdering him. And it was done in my name.
And so, then I take it very personally, and so should any
friend, family member, whatever of mr.
Khashoggi happens to be listening to this podcast.
I would like to offer my It's not even enough to say this
sincerest apologies because it's not really an apology until we
stop this sort of thing. This this training that we do
and we've always done to help murderers around the world.
That's on us, my friends and John I'm so grateful that you
come on today so we could talk about this but I guess I just
wanted to close by offering that to those who knew him personally
to those who are related to him that now even more so myself.
You listening to this. John Schwarz, bezel every all of
us. Now, we really, really can't let
this go. And now we there really has to
be Justice and we have to stop participating in this in this
kind of evil doing that. So much blood on our hands and
I'm I'm sickened by it and I'll do what I can encourage all of
you to do what you can. To put an end to this.
Thank you for letting me say that John.
I just want to close by offering that out there.
Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm with you. And the only thing that I would
add is that the people who do this count on us, getting tired
going away, right? I'd like this is It's a
marathon. Like we may not find out the
truth for 10 years or 20 years or 30 years, and it's a good
reason to stay alive to keep on fighting and finally discover
what truly happened. And that's First step to
stopping it. So hang in there is my message?
Yes, all of us. Yes, now is not the time to give
up and John Schwarz. Thank you for the good work that
you do. Thank you for all that.
You did to help me on my projects back in the day and and
keep up the important writing that you're doing and please
come back on Rumble sooner rather than later.
Absolutely. I would, I I'd love to and
thanks. Thanks for giving me the
opportunity to talk about my favorite weird history
everybody. This is a John Schwarz that were
talking to you'll have links on my podcast page here to read
some of his writings and and we're all joining the John
Schwarz book club in our first book that we're going to be
reading is Upton, Sinclair's the brass check.
Thank you so much John. Thank you.
So that's it for today. Thank you for joining me Rumble
with Michael Moore. I'm Michael Moore.
Thanks to our executive producer, bezel Hamden, our
editor and sound engineer, and you quas, and everybody else.
Who had any hand in today's episode.
Thank you for your support. We'll talk to you next week.
Have a good weekend be. Well, don't forget to rumble,
take care. Come with me, take my hand.
I see your bright and clear you and the times coming here, when
will live in this line? You and me a hand in hand.
Take my hand. Come on.
Lend your voice to my song. Come Along.
Take my hand. Sing a song.