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The Joe Rogan ExperienceThe Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan Experience #1878 - Roger Waters

Roger Waters is a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, co-founder of the legendary rock band Pink Floyd, and successful solo artist. Catch him live on the worldwide "This is Not a Drill" concert tour. www.rogerwaters.com

Roger WatersguestJoe Roganhost
Jun 27, 20242h 48mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:23

    Pool-table warmup and setting the tone for a wide-ranging conversation

    1. RW

      (drum music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

    2. NA

      The Joe Rogan Experience. (drum music)

    3. JR

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) So thank you very much for doing this. I- I really appreciate it. I'm a gigantic fan, so it's- it's a real honor. And it's- it's very nice to know that you could actually play pool.

    4. RW

      Well, we've only played two racks.

    5. JR

      Yeah, but I could see.

    6. RW

      (laughs)

    7. JR

      I could see how you move the ball around.

    8. RW

      (laughs)

    9. JR

      You gotta get a little warmed up, you know.

    10. RW

      Yeah, well-

    11. JR

      We just started.

    12. RW

      ... yeah, well, it- it is true that if you start playing pool against somebody you don't know and you discover that they do understand that control of the cue ball is everything-

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. RW

      ... then that's something. You think, "Oh, well, maybe we could have a game."

    15. JR

      Well, as soon as you looked at the table and said, "These are very unforgiving pockets," I was like, "Oh, you know."

    16. RW

      A little bit, yeah.

    17. JR

      Yeah. Well, uh, first of all, uh, it's an honor to have you in here. I'm very excited. But, uh, second of all, uh, you're in the middle of a lot of things. You've- you've got your tour, you've got a lot of controversy going on. It's, uh ... I really enjoyed that conversation that you had with CNN because that kind of conversation is- is rare to see on air and see someone as informed as you are to have, uh, these opinions and express them so honestly and, uh, bravely.

    18. RW

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      And, uh, it was a very interesting conversation.

  2. 1:23 – 4:46

    BDS, antisemitism accusations, and why Waters says the label is used to shut debate down

    1. RW

      Well, I've- I'd known Michael a bit for, uh, a year or two. And he- he actually ... my last kind of engagement with him, with Michaels McConnish, I'm talking about, uh, we ... right, the interviewer, uh, was when I was playing in Miami a few years ago and the local Jewish community decided that I shouldn't be allowed to use local school children to sing Another Brick in the Wall, part two, because all during the war tours that I did, I always used local children, um, preferably from, you know, undernourished communities, um, to come and sing with me. M- I mean, between eight and 12 of them, uh, every night. And they would come in, having- having listened to the song a bit, and I would rehearse them at five o'clock in the afternoon, and then boom, at half past eight, they're on stage singing. And they get very excited and- and obviously, but it- it's a wonderful thing-

    2. JR

      Yeah.

    3. RW

      ... for them, but also for me and also for the band, to have these children come and perform with us on stage. And the mayor of North Miami Beach, or wherever it was, came under some pressure from the local community and they did ... and they weren't allowed to play. So I got some other kids, but-

    4. JR

      What was the objection?

    5. RW

      That I'm an antisemite. Obviously, I'm not an antisemite.

    6. JR

      Clearly.

    7. RW

      Let's get that clear-

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. RW

      ... straight away, if you don't mind. Um, because I'm obviously not. You can- you- you study my record going back as far as you want. Um, so that, yeah, that's- but that's always the objection because- because I support BDS and because I have for the last 16 years or so.

    10. JR

      BDS?

    11. RW

      You know what BDS is. Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

    12. JR

      Okay.

    13. RW

      It's a- it's a movement that was started in 2005, uh, in Palestinian civil society and it stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. And, uh, so it's a movement to try and, uh, shine a light on the predicament of the Palestinian people, particularly in the occupied territories, um, but also, I guess, in Israel itself, um, using those ... using boycott and divestment from companies that ... like Caterpillar or Hewlett-Packard, people like that, uh, who deal in the illegal settlements in the occupied territory. And sanctions, well, there are ... there's- there's n- not many people out there who are powerful enough to impose sanctions on other people and, um, and most of those with that much power are allies of the Israeli government, and so wouldn't do so. But anyway, that's what it is, by and large. And since then, we have made great strides in that movement and it's a much bigger movement than it was and in- and in consequence, um, the- the sort of battle lines have been drawn, but it's g- got more intense and it's slightly less gentlemanly sport than it was 16 years ago, in my experience anyway.

    14. JR

      So 16 years ago, you were allowed to have different opinions about conflicts?

  3. 4:46 – 15:20

    Firsthand experiences in Israel/Palestine: checkpoints, segregation, and the word 'apartheid'

    1. RW

      Well, no, but nobody knew about the conflict.

    2. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    3. RW

      It was largely unknown that there was a problem at all in the- in- in the Holy Land, uh, certainly by most of the public in this country and where I'm from, from ... in the UK as well. And in me. I mean, I- I had accepted back in 2005 or '06, one of those years, s- ... to do a- to do a gig in Tel Aviv, I was asked in the middle of a European tour, "Hey, Rog, they want you to go and do a gig in Tel Aviv." He said, and I went, "Yeah, all right." I didn't- I- I didn't think twice about it. So that's where I was then. So I'm not blaming people for not having known about the Zionist project since 1948 and everything that had happened. Uh, although I was vaguely aware of the Yom Kipp- Yom Kippur War, the '67 War and the '75 War and so on and so f- ... I knew a little bit about the history, but I wasn't really au fait. And that's how I learned because as soon as I said I would do that gig, I started to receive emails from supporters of BDS, although it was only five or six months old at the time. Mainly from North Africa to start with, but then-... I got an email from Omabaguti, who is, um, who was one of the sort of founding forces behind, uh, the beginnings of BDS. And he tried to persuade me to cancel the gig in High Comp- which had sold out, of course, in a few minutes, you know. And, uh, eventually I was persuaded to cancel that gig, but as an act of compromise, as I thought ... I feel as if I'm repeating a speech that I've al- That's okay. ... made already, which I am. That's all right. You know, I've said this so- often before. Anyway, so I moved the gig to an ecumenical agricultural community called Wahat Asalem in Arabic, and translated into Hebrew, it's, um, Neveh Shalom, so something about peace, uh, where Muslims and Christians and Druze and atheists and, all live together in a community. And all their children all go to the same school, and they all mix together, and they live peacefully and grow chickpeas, mainly, as an example to the rest of us, if you like. So we did a gig there in the open air, and it was huge. Uh, 60,000 Israelis came. What I didn't realize at the time, of course, was of course they were all Israelis, because Palestinians aren't allowed to travel, so there couldn't be any Palestinians there. They would need special permission, you know, to cross, to cross through checkpoints and things, which they wouldn't get. So we did this gig, and at the end of it ... And it was lovely. They were extremely enthusiastic. They knew the work very well, and it was very, "Ah, Pink Floyd, blah, ra-ra-wah," and all of that. And lovely food backstage, and it was a warm summer evening. At the end of it, I thought, "I'm gonna say something." I- it was euphoric at the end of the gig. And I said ... So I made a little speech and I went, "You are the generation of young Israelis who need to make peace with your neighbors. Start talking to the Palestinian Authority, and the blah, blah, blah, and whatever, and da, da, da, dah." And they went from, "Ah, Pink Floyd," to (gasps) nothing. Nothing. It was like steel shutters had come down behind the eyeballs of e-every one of those 60,000 young Isra- ... shh-hum, they were gone. And I was staggered by that, and I th- I was really shock- really, really, really shocked. I couldn't believe it. And I saw it, I went back the next year and traveled extensively in the occupied territories. And until you go there and you see it, you cannot believe what a shock it is. You know, you- things that you wouldn't believe possible anywhere on the world, like different roads for people with different religion. Can you imagine? Really? Yeah, really. Can you imagine? You're going from Austin to, you know, to Dallas, and you can only go on the road if you're Christian. If you're not a Christian, you can't go on the road. S- so if you're, if you're atheist or some other thing, you're not allowed to drive on the road. You have to go on back roads, and them only f- and they're all filled up with boulders, and there are checkpoints everywhere. So the local indigenous people are not allowed to use the roads. And you see that, and the- when you see it, you think, "I don't believe this," but you get to believe it as you drive round. And all the checkpoints, and they, they have to go this way. Only people with yellow license plates can go through here, which means that they're Jewish Israelis. And it's ... mind-numbingly, um, fills you with despair when you see. You think, "How can this possibly be happening?" You know, this is, it's 2007 or, or whenever it was. How can this be happening in the world and nobody where I live knows about it? Or if they do, they don't care. How can they not care? I'm, uh, and I say, you might bring it up here and say, how would you feel if you weren't a Christian and that meant you couldn't use the road? I mean, it's so weird that it's hard to get your mind around believing that that is the case, but it is. And that is what is called apartheid. And in those days, you couldn't use the word apartheid in relation to Israel. It was completely verboten in 2006. You could not use the word. You would've been strung up in the press and everywhere else and accused of being a Holocaust denier and a this and that and Hitler and whatever. Now, it's very difficult for anyone to have a conversation about Israel and Palestine without using the word apartheid, because it is in the lexicon. And the problem is far more in the light, and we are looking at it more, and there's more information for all of us about it than there was then. That is the work that BDS has done. And so it has made progress, and I'm glad it has, because what I desperately hope to live to see is a Holy Land, I don't care what it's called, from the River Jordan to the sea, where the people all have equal religious and political and social rights, all of them, equal. And so that's what I work for in the movement. And maybe we should talk about something else, 'cause I, I'm ... If you wind me up, I might go on- (laughs) ... for hours and- Well, I'd be happy to wind you up. I, I mean, th- the definition- It just might cover- ... of apartheid is ... Yes, it is. Yeah. It- it's segregation. I mean, that is segregation, clearly. Yeah. Yeah. What is this- It's the oppression of one ethnic- Yes. ... group by another ethnic group. Yes.... for those reasons, for the fact that they're a different ethnic group. So the South African model clearly applies, except that the South Africans who survived the S- South African model all say that the Israeli model is far worse than the white South African model was. The white South Africans at least tried to build ... well, they tried, they've poured money in for a start, trying to keep the Black population quiet, which they failed to do. Um, but both Desmond Tutu, before he sadly died, and, um, Mandela, obviously, as well, both came out completely and said, "This is a lot worse than our conditions were in South Africa before apartheid."

    4. JR

      So just discussing this and having compassion for the plight of the Palestinian people, that, that made them categorize you as antisemitic?

    5. RW

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      Did, did anyone have ... and, and I'm sure someone must have talked to you about this segregation. Did anyone have any kind of argument that they wanted to bring to you as, for any justification of that?

    7. RW

      You mean from the Israeli side?

    8. JR

      Yes.

    9. RW

      No. That's why they call me antisemitic. That's why they label anyone who criticizes the apartheid policies of the state of Israel without criticizing the Jewish religion or any Jewish person. I mean, the fact that a lot of the people who are in the government are J- of the Jewish faith means that they can somehow feel they can conflate criticism of the apartheid policies with a general criticism of, uh, an antisemitic criticism of the Jewish people or people who ... well, they ... nice try, fellas, but it won't wash. That's not what it is. And most of us who get labeled as antisemites are not. And, but ... like Jeremy Corbyn, for instance, the guy who was removed from the Labour Party in England on the grounds that he was accused of being a ... he's not antisemitic. He's left-wing, and he's pro-Palestinian, pro the idea that they should have human rights, the, the Palestinian people, who after all were the huge majority of the indigenous people, um, in the Holy Land back in the start of the 20th century, before the start of the Zionist enterprise, which didn't really get going till 1920. Although, the idea, um, the idea was happening in the late 19th century, in the 1880s and 1890s. Um, can't remember the guy's name now, but he was a R- Russian who thought up the idea of a return to the promised land, as it's called.

    10. JR

      Out of a- all the people that perform music, and travel, and are as prominent as you are, you're, you're probably one of the most outspoken and informed when it comes to issues on foreign policy and human rights. And how, h- when did this become a big part of your life, and when did discussing this publicly become a big part of your life?

  4. 15:20 – 23:22

    Waters’ political formation: his father’s death, his mother’s activism, and a lifelong moral framework

    1. RW

      Well, it became a big part of my life the day my father died, I think. I mean, I wouldn't know, because I was only five months old. My father, as you might or may not know, died at Anzio on the 18th of February, 1944. And I was born September '43. So I was only a few months old. But when it, when I started to understand some of this was when he didn't come home and start picking me up from school when I was a little kid. And then, all through my childhood, I lived ... I was brought up by my mother. My brother and I, my big brother John and I, were brought up single-handed by my mum, who was a school teacher, but she was also very left-wing. She's an interesting woman, because, um, she came from a very kind of middle class family in London. Funnily enough, they lived in Golders Green, which was sort of well-known for being a Jewish community in North London. Um, her father ran a, ran a business that ... sort of middleman in fancy goods, toys and things like that, so there was a big warehouse in London. And ... but my mother ... and she went off to boarding school, girls' school, so she was very ... brought up in a very fairly straight-laced English Christian middle class way. She then trained as a teacher, and her first teacher training was in a town called Bradford, which is in the north of London. Uh, not north of London, north of England, far north of England, in Yorkshire. And it was a huge eye-opener to her. There she was, first winter comes along, it's really cold, there's a foot of snow on the floor. And she suddenly notices that half the kids in her class are walking to school with no shoes. (laughs) And something went bing. This would have been in 1935, '36, something like that. And she suddenly went, "What?" And she started to look into social conditions there in the industrial north. And, and even then, in the, in the mid to late '30s, she understood that there were inequalities in the context of the society that she lived in that, that she felt a personal need to do something about, and she became extremely left-wing. Um, anyway, cut to later on. So our front room was always a Labour Party committee room, and she was always off in the evenings canvassing at elections or ... and dragging me and my brother to British China Friendship Association mee- meetings in the evening. And ... but she was always very...... careful and clear with us that she would... I remember one day she said to me and my brother when we'd come back from a meeting, interestingly enough at the Friends' Meeting House, which is the place the Quakers meet, you know. And yet wherever it is in the world, it's always called the Friends' Meeting House. And we'd been watching films of kapok-clad Chinese, you know, soldiers fighting against Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalist puppet government and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she said, "You know where we've been tonight, don't you, Roger?" And I said, "No." And she said, "We've been at the Friends' Meeting House. That is where the Quakers meet." She said, "Well, as you know, I'm an atheist, so I can't subscribe to their religious beliefs, but I will say this. They are very, very good people." That stuck with... I can still recount that story now because it's so important. You don't have to subscribe to people's beliefs. You can... I can be a radical atheist and you can be a Hindu. The important thing is that we're good people, that we have hearts and that we care about our brothers and sisters. And s- and my mum did. I'm gonna tell you one more Mum story, and then I'm gonna-

    2. JR

      (laughs)

    3. RW

      And then I'll stop about Mum, 'cause this is the most important bit. I was 13 years old. I had just gone through a phase where I suddenly realized I was gonna die. I don't know if all adolescents have this existential crisis in their young, in eh- early puberty, but I did. And I thought, "F me. (laughs) I'm gonna die."

    4. JR

      (laughs)

    5. RW

      "This is scary as shit," you know?

    6. JR

      Yeah.

    7. RW

      "Oh, oh my God." And I was... It might've been that or it might've been something else, but anyway, something was worrying me. And it was probably more some kind of political thing that I'd latched onto, maybe through her. And she's l- and she looked at me and she said, "All right, I'm gonna give you some advice now." "Uh, come on then, Mum." "All through your life, you're gonna be faced with difficult questions, and you're going to have to figure things out. This is my advice. When a- anything crops up, so it could be Israel, Palestine, it could be anything, it doesn't matter what it is," she said, "you must read, read, read, read, read." That's what Smaconish was telling me-

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. RW

      ... but he had, he hadn't. He'd only read one side. That's the difference between Michael Smaconish and me. I've tried to look at all sides of these things so I'd know a bit more what I'm t- Anyway, she said, "Read, read, read. And very important, learn everything you can about the subject that's troubling you. And importantly, uh, look at it from both si- If you, there's another opinion, make sure you study that as well," and blah, blah, blah. "It'll take some time, it'll be hard work, but when you've done that, the work is over. You have done all the heavy lifting. The rest of it is easy." And I went, "Uh, what is the rest of it, Mum?"

    10. JR

      (laughs)

    11. RW

      And she looked at me and she said, "The rest of it? Well, that's simple. You do the right thing."

    12. JR

      Sounds like you had an amazing mum.

    13. RW

      A- amazing, amazing. Imagine giving... Ev- every young adolescent should be given that advice by a parent or someone they respect, you know, s- because it's... I'm, I've... That's been jangling around in my head ever since. Not every day, but very often I remember it. And I tell it to anybody who cares to listen as well, because it was so important.

    14. JR

      It's incredibly important, and not said nearly enough. It's rare. That's what's amazing. Like, it sound, it resonates, it sounds so powerful and true, and yet rare.

    15. RW

      Yeah, but what happens then, if we're sitting down the pub and I tell you that story and we've got all night, one of us will have another drink and then we might start talking about the philosophical implications of how you decide what's the right thing to do.

    16. JR

      Right.

    17. RW

      Because some bloke listening to this wherever, it doesn't matter where they are, who's a, who's Zionist and who believes in the Zionist empera- uh, you know, enterprise in Israel and in the occupied terr- in fact, in the whole of the palas- palis- uh, Promised Land. Let's call it the Promised Land. It's, it's dangerous to call it the Promised Land, 'cause then you start in get, getting biblical.

    18. JR

      Right.

    19. RW

      "Promised? Who was it promised to?"

    20. JR

      Right.

    21. RW

      "Well, ah, it was promised to the Israelis," you know. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, sorry, I didn't mean the Promised Land. I meant the Middle East." "What do you mean the Middle East? That was made up by Sykes and Picot after the First World War," you know. So, but you do get into the thing of, wow, what... Now this really is a fascinating conversation. The right thing to do. Should we start talking about now and what's going on in the world now and what the right thing to do might be? I mean, you said a,

  5. 23:22 – 26:23

    Ukraine: ceasefire advocacy, escalation fears, and the Cuba Missile Crisis analogy

    1. RW

      a few minutes ago that I'm a b- I've been a bit controversial, particularly recently. And part of the c- controversy is about, um, the Ukraine and what's the right, what's the right thing to... All I've done about the Ukraine is to try to lend what little weight I have, to put that tiny bit of power I have in my shoulder to the wheel of encouraging anybody I can get to listen to stop the war, including Putin. I've written to Putin. I wrote to Putin four or five days ago, 'cause people were saying, "Why don't you tell Putin? He..." Well, just hold on a minute. If you wanna join this conversation, you have to do a bit of research, you know. Well, you don't have to, obviously. You can believe-

    2. JR

      But you should.

    3. RW

      You should. You... It would be wise of... If you took my mother's advice, you would, before you expressed an opinion-... about what's the right thing to do. And also, when you're thinking about it, if you want my advice, you will constantly put yourselves in the position of that young Ukrainian man or woman on the front line, and that young Russian man or woman in the front line, and their parents, and their uncles and aunts, and their brothers and sisters, and the misery and pain, and the lack of anything good at the end. And the more it- and the more it escalates, the more we send arms, the more Putin... The- the less... The only thing that they can do is start to talk to one another, just like JFK and Nikita Khrushchev did in 1962, uh, e- and during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which was kept secret for years and years afterwards because JFK didn't want to look like a wimp. He didn't want to look as if he'd ne- but he did. He and Nikita Khrushchev spoke on the telephone often, and at the end of it, they did a quid pro quo deal where JFK said, "I'll take all our medium-range missiles out of Turkey," and wherever else it was, Turkey was the main one, "If you take your missiles out of Cuba." So they put their hands across the ocean and shook hands, and that was the end of it. And they did it, and they kept their word. They kept their word to that bargain, and that led onto the later- later conversations between Reagan and Gorbachev from the Non-Proliferation Treaties, and all the other things that made our planet a little bit safer from the possibility of nuclear catastrophe. Not safe, but a little bit sa- until now. And now, by the second, it gets more and more and more and more dangerous as this thing is allowed to escalate. So I'm making my position entirely... All I'm interested in is a ceasefire and for talks to begin. That's all. Nothing else.

  6. 26:23 – 29:08

    Open letter to Putin and debate over NATO expansion and security guarantees

    1. JR

      What did you say to Putin when you wrote to him?

    2. RW

      I said that friends of mine think that... I said... Uh, I- I need to pull the letter up if you wanna really hear it. But-

    3. JR

      Sure.

    4. RW

      Okay. I'll tell you one thing I said before I pull it up-

    5. JR

      Okay.

    6. RW

      ... 'cause it will take a minute. Um, was that I said some friends of mine, 'cause I have a guitar-playing friend in England who wrote to me, "Why are you trying to suggest peace and a ceasefire? This man has to be... He's a monster. He's going to invade Poland, and then he'll invade the rest of Europe, and then... And unless we stand up to him now, we're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," and- and all of that. So one of the things I said to Putin, "A friend of mine thinks that you're gonna invade Poland and the other Baltic States, and that you're then gonna advance on Europe and blah, blah, blah. If that's true, please tell us now so we can all just say, 'All right,' and blow ourselves to smithereens 'cause that's what's gonna happen if you do that, for sure, for absolutely sure." You cannot... If you do that, you will start World War III. We know that the Ukraine situation is complicated, and it's been 20 years in the making, and it- and it's... Well, I- I won't go into the American end of it. I'll, I mean, I- I will if you've got a minute. I will find-

    7. JR

      Yeah, I've got plenty of time.

    8. RW

      All right.

    9. JR

      Yeah. Uh, I had Tulsi Gabbard on the other day.

    10. RW

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      And-

    12. RW

      How is she?

    13. JR

      She's great.

    14. RW

      Good.

    15. JR

      And we discussed this very thing, and we, uh, discussed the United States, uh, when they orchestrated a coup in Ukraine and how NATO has been moving their weapons closer and closer to the Russian line.

    16. RW

      Yep.

    17. JR

      And that this is instigating.

    18. RW

      And, and they've been saying all along, "You're breaking the-"

    19. JR

      Yes.

    20. RW

      ... the agreement that was made between Baker, who was Secretary of State in 1990, and-

    21. JR

      Yeah.

    22. RW

      ... Gorbachev, where Gorbachev said, "Okay. I- I will agree to the reunification of Germany so long as NATO doesn't move one inch closer to the Russian border than the eastern borders of Germany." And they went, "Fine, agreed."

    23. JR

      Yeah.

    24. RW

      And they've reneged on it completely since then.

    25. JR

      I think what was very important in the conversation that you had with CNN is not that Russia is good, and that, you know, uh, we should support Ri- you, there was none of that. What- what you were essentially saying was that we have to be honest about what the United States has done, and that narrative is never discussed. When he was talking about the dangers of China, and you brought up the fact that China hasn't invaded anyone in over 100 years. Like, how can you say that when you know about all the interventionist foreign policy decisions the United States has made overseas?

    26. RW

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      And then you look at what China's done.

  7. 29:08 – 32:02

    China, Tibet, resources, and modern power: conquest vs. debt and extraction

    1. RW

      Well, they have actually. They invaded Tibet in 1959.

    2. JR

      Oh, that's right.

    3. RW

      But-

    4. JR

      That's true.

    5. RW

      Which is a huge thing, and it's something that I'm gonna bring up be- and because it's something I've only learned about recently. Funnily enough, I learned about it from my friend, Eric Ripert, who's a very well-known chef in New York, and he's a Buddhist. And so he travels to Bhutan at least once a year, and he was recently in- in India having meetings with people who are... And, uh, we were talking about it, about the predicament of the Tibetan people. What I never understood was that Tibet is one-third of the land area of China.

    6. JR

      Really?

    7. RW

      Exactly. You didn't know either?

    8. JR

      It's that big?

    9. RW

      Apparently, yeah, and I haven't... Whoops. I haven't yet kind of... Look, this was a few days ago. I haven't checked it all out and looked on the map. But, yes.

    10. JR

      I would've never imagined.

    11. RW

      N- I know, but... And you think, "Well, why the hell did they... Who- who wants, you know, hundreds of square miles of mountains and things?" Well, the Chinese, not... Because it's not just mountains. It's water, which is hugely important. The Himalayas, uh, all the glacial streams, they feed water not, uh, not just to India, okay, and- and Pakistan, but also to, um-... to the northeast of the whole of China as well. Plus, apparently, and not surprisingly, it's packed with everything that you make chips out of.

    12. JR

      Of course.

    13. RW

      It's packed and packed with... it's an absolute... it's, I nearly said it's a goldmine. Well, it's not a goldmine.

    14. JR

      It's a mineral mine.

    15. RW

      It's a mineral mine. It's everything that everybody who cares about making money in the world desperately needs and wants. (laughs) So it's a fascinating subject.

    16. JR

      Mm, well, particularly China, right? Because China's so involved in the Congo in extracting these minerals.

    17. RW

      Well, yeah.

    18. JR

      Yeah.

    19. RW

      I mean, they, they... yeah, but to their credit, they didn't invade and kill everybody-

    20. JR

      Yeah.

    21. RW

      ... like w- the Europeans did back-

    22. JR

      Right.

    23. RW

      ... in the, you know, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th century. They actually went, you know, "Would you like to borrow some money?"

    24. JR

      Yeah. (laughs)

    25. RW

      Which is w- more of an-

    26. JR

      Sneaky.

    27. RW

      ... American ploy. Yeah, it's more of a kind of modern way of doing-

    28. JR

      Yeah.

    29. RW

      And if, if people... and who knows what they do if the people say, "Nope. No, thank you. We're good."

    30. JR

      But they said thank you.

  8. 32:02 – 49:53

    Chevron vs. indigenous communities: the Donziger case and why the media won’t touch it

    1. RW

      And they don't want the people who live there to get anything out of it. I mean, I've been involved in a court battle for at least 10 years now with Chevron because of the pollution that they caused in the, in the Amazon, uh, in north, uh, in north... northeast Ecuador, um, with a friend of mine called Steve Donziger, who was sent to prison-

    2. JR

      Yes.

    3. RW

      ... for acting on behalf of-

    4. JR

      Yeah.

    5. RW

      ... these people. I know-

    6. JR

      Well-

    7. RW

      I know I'm digressing.

    8. JR

      Well, that... the Donziger case is atrocious.

    9. RW

      Yeah.

    10. JR

      I mean, it's a terrifying case because there's n- no reason why they had that man in prison. And there's, there's no reason why they keep him under house arrest.

    11. RW

      Well, there is a reason, but-

    12. JR

      Yeah, um, right, but no righteous-

    13. RW

      No legal reason.

    14. JR

      No legal reason.

    15. RW

      No.

    16. JR

      Yeah.

    17. RW

      Righteous. That's interesting, 'cause that comes to... back to my mother-

    18. JR

      Yes.

    19. RW

      ... and doing the right thing.

    20. JR

      Yeah.

    21. RW

      Obviously, the right thing to do, if you were the law in the United States, would be to look at, look at the facts of the matter and come to the conclusion that Chevron should give the $9.5 billion to the people whose lives they've destroyed making money. Or Texaco was the company who actually did it. But things being what they are, that's not the way the law works. The law operates to support whoever can afford it, actually, which in this case is Chevron. They still haven't paid a penny, and they're still fighting, and they will go on fighting. And speaking as somebody who's supporting the other side, who doesn't have bottomless pockets, it's hard. It's hard to find that... tho- that... the amount of money that they spend on it is... because they're worried of a domino effect, that if they lose this case, then they're gonna lose the case in-

    22. JR

      Right.

    23. RW

      ... Nigeria-

    24. JR

      Right.

    25. RW

      ... and they're gonna lose the case in Australia, and they're lose... and then suddenly they can see the whole pack of cards beginning to collapse. Well, it should collapse. Pay up. You've b- you've made enough profits out of the indigenous people all over the world.

    26. JR

      Which is a scary precedent, that they were able to arrest Donziger like that, and that they were able to keep him in jail, and that... what... the way they did it.

    27. RW

      Yeah, and it was p- completely corrupt. They took-

    28. JR

      Yeah.

    29. RW

      They did a... uh, back in 2014, they produced a RICO trial, which is, you know, is, uh, organized crime. It's, um, regulations or something against organized crime. So, so they pretended he was a gangster on a fraudulent mission, and they brought this case in the Southern So-... Southern District of New York. Incredible that they could do it. Um, and they, and they put-

    30. JR

      Incredible that the media is ignoring it too, that this isn't something-

  9. 49:53 – 1:08:21

    Fixing the system: money in politics, oligarch power, and social media censorship

    1. RW

      Which is huge because, um, that jokes a bit of my brain that wants to say, "Go on then, if you could paint a picture of the future, what might it include? What would be the first step?" You're the king of everything. What- what's the first thing that you do tomorrow?

    2. JR

      You gotta take money outta politics, number one.

    3. RW

      Citizens United, pshh, gone.

    4. JR

      Number one, take money outta politics 'cause the decisions that are being made are not being made in the best interest of the people. They're being made in the best interest in the people who have money.

    5. RW

      Quite right. Well, I'm with you on that.

    6. JR

      That's the number one thing. That's the number one reason why we get involved in wars that we have no business in. I mean, Eisenhower warned us about that when he was leaving office with that speech about the military-industrial complex.

    7. RW

      I dunno if you noticed, 'cause I sent you a stick of my show, but before we do the song Sheep, the last thing be- it says, "Orwell was right to warn us in Brave New World in 1984. And Aldous Huxley was right to warn us of the coming dystopia in- in..." Yeah, no. "Aldous Huxley in Brave New World and Dwight D. Eisenhower was right to warm up- warm- warn us in his military industrial speech."

    8. JR

      Yeah.

    9. RW

      I was right to warn us in my song Sheep. (laughs)

    10. JR

      (laughs)

    11. RW

      And then we play it.

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. RW

      Anyway.

    14. JR

      Well, I'm really- really excited to see your show tomorrow night. But one of the things that's so cool about your show is that you do- you have all of these messages that are tied into the music, and you have this incredible visual, uh, accoutrement to this- this gigantic thing that goes along with your show.

    15. RW

      Yeah. Yeah. It's a- yeah, it- there's no question that- that visually and sonically is impressive. And also, I- I use my- almost, that's not my whole body of work, but a small bit of things that go back to the beginning of when I started writing songs and things. So we play about half of Dark Side of the Moon and b- but- but of course all the stuff that from Dark Side, it was all about the same stuff that I'm banging on about now.

    16. JR

      Yeah.

    17. RW

      So it- it's- it's all kind of, um, it's all very relevant. But I'm very interested in what you said. I'd like to pursue that because-

    18. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    19. RW

      ... you're so right about that. All right. What's the second thing?

    20. JR

      Well, money in politics is number one, right? Um, so the only reason why people would get involved in politics without money is to try to make the world a better place. And you would, I think you would- you would recruit more people-

    21. RW

      Yeah.

    22. JR

      ... that have good intentions and you would make it less attractive to people that are just looking to make money.

    23. RW

      Yeah.

    24. JR

      I mean, you look at what's going on, like Nancy Pelosi just shot down this thing where it bans Congress from trading in stocks. It's- she shot down something to ban insider trading. Well, there's only one reason to do that. 'Cause you want to keep making money, insider trading.

    25. RW

      Yeah.

    26. JR

      You're talking about a woman who's on the last days of her life-

    27. RW

      Yeah.

    28. JR

      ... who's worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Like, why do you give a shit, lady?

    29. RW

      Yeah.

    30. JR

      Like, you talk about lost in the game.

  10. 1:08:21 – 1:21:42

    Iraq, the neocon playbook, and the 'seven countries in five years' clip

    1. JR

      I think ... I mean, if you really wanted to find out what a person like that is like, that would be an incentive to go visit George Bush, to find out, like, whether or not that does hang on his conscience. Like, what, what is it like to talk to him?

    2. RW

      That's interesting, yeah.

    3. JR

      I would do that. I would do that just to talk to him, try to figure out, like, what do you, uh, how do you feel knowing that there were no weapons of mass destruction-

    4. RW

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      ... in Iraq?

    6. RW

      Bet you wouldn't get a straight answer from him, would you?

    7. JR

      I don't know. I don't know what you would get.

    8. RW

      I've seen the paintings of his feet that he did in the bath. (laughs)

    9. JR

      (laughs) His bizarre paintings, right?

    10. RW

      Aren't they weird?

    11. JR

      Yeah, they're weird, and it's like, you, uh, uh, I mean, obviously I'm armchair psychologist here. But I'm, I'm looking into him, like, that's a man that's very troubled. That's a man that, I mean, the, the weight of the world and the, the deaths that were caused by the decisions that he made as a president-

    12. RW

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      ... and the amount of American lives that were lost, the amount of, of Iraqi lives that were lost, the, the way the world has changed. The way the world thinks of America post-911 is so different. There was a window of time right after the attacks on the World Trade Center where the, the whole world was united with America. Like, and that was-

    14. RW

      So was.

    15. JR

      ... that was squandered for money.

    16. RW

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      That was squandered. That was squandered when we invaded Iraq, that was squandered when, you know, people had this real, true understanding of what the motivations really were, and the fact there weren't really weapons of mass destruction, and that we saw the devastation and the lo- lost lives, and the way the world looks at us is incredibly different. From September 11th, 2001 to today, it's a, just a complete polar shift.

    18. RW

      The inter- Yeah, you're completely right, of course. But, and the interesting thing as well is that on February, I, I believe it was Valentine's Day, or do- or the 15th or something, there were 20 mil- over 20 million people all over the world in the streets saying, "There are no weapons of mass destruction. What are you thinking about? This is insane. Hans Blix has already told you there's nothing there, they've hunted and hunted and hunted." Colin Powell stood up and lied in the United Nations-

    19. JR

      Yeah.

    20. RW

      ... knowing full well that he was lying. He can't po- He must've had access to all the information. They all knew and whatever. And yet, you know, and yet you're gonna do this thing. My, my theory would be, w- if you go and see George Bush ... He is still alive, is he, George W.?

    21. JR

      Yes, he's still alive.

    22. RW

      Okay. Well, if you go and see him-

    23. JR

      You could drive there from here.

    24. RW

      Why don't you drive over there one weekend?

    25. JR

      (laughs) I think they'd probably shoot me.

    26. RW

      (laughs)

    27. JR

      (laughs) I don't think you're allowed to just drive to George Bush's house.

    28. RW

      Well, they let Bono in.

    29. JR

      Yeah, well, he probably had a meeting in advance and assured them of his intentions, and-

    30. RW

      Yeah.

  11. 1:21:42 – 1:37:10

    Waters’ creative engine: writing songs, memoir prose, and obsessively refining the live show

    1. JR

      How w- what is your creative process when, when you sit down to write music, when you sit down to compose songs? Like, wh- ... how, how do you go about that?

    2. RW

      I always used to say, for years and years, I used to ... I don't go about it, or I haven't in the past. In the past, my answer would always be, "I don't do anything until I get a pregnant feeling." I i- ... and I can't describe the feeling really except that I know that I'm about to give birth to something, so that's as close as I can get. It's a weird sort of f- fog of nothingness that feels as if it might clear and I might see something or something might pop out. And very often after that, I put myself in, in a ... physically in the same room as a guitar or a piano and, and with a legal pad and a biro, and hey, presto, sometimes something pops out and I go, "Oh, that's interesting," and then I work on it. More recently when COVID happened, I did two things. One, I wrote some songs that had been bubbling a bit, and that might, it might be just a little guitar riff or a chord sequence or something, and then ... and I might play it and then ... my brain is a very fertile place for ideas and for lyrics and for the way lyrics scan against bits of music, so it comes kind of quite easily once I've had a first idea. I did that. But also I, um, I thought, "I've got a couple of years of this. I've been meaning to write a memoir, so I'm gonna do it now." So one day I got this out and I went, "Well go on then, you prick."

    3. JR

      (laughs)

    4. RW

      (laughs) "Go on then, clever clogs." So I opened a Word document and I went ... and I started to write. And before I knew it, I'd written 10,000 words and I went ... uh, and I was probably a bit drunk, and so I went, "Well ..." and I went back a couple of days later and I went, "Bloody hell, it's prose," and it's quite funny but it's deep as well and it's actually rather moving. And so I had a eureka moment, you know? I went, "Fuck me, I can write prose." I couldn't believe it, 'cause I love prose. I mean, I, I love to read books. I love books.

    5. JR

      But you never sit down intentionally to write like that?

    6. RW

      I never sit down like ... you know professional writers, sometimes they say, "I get up at 6:00 every morning, have-

    7. JR

      Yeah.

    8. RW

      ... a cup of coffee and a piece of bacon, and then I go to my room and I write until 12:30.

    9. JR

      Right.

    10. RW

      And then I have a bottle of champagne and pass out in my ... " so whatever it is they do-

    11. JR

      Right.

    12. RW

      ... but they have a routine.

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. RW

      I don't have that, so I g- ... I work when I think, "Hmm." Or I might be drifting past the piano and sit down and go, "Oh, that's it." And I might even reach for a pen and write a chord sequence or something down, but ... so it's a very ... it's n- ... it's not, it's, it's not a regimented protest, uh, process at all.

    15. JR

      When you're as busy as you are in touring and all these things, h- how do you find time to create? Do you, do you allocate time to create or do you just sort of, like, let-

Episode duration: 2:48:46

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