RadixJournal - Tommy | ManoWhisper

00:00:00.000 All right, Andrew, Tommy Robinson, what are we going to make of this latest episode?

00:00:10.700 I would say that the two of us, I can tell, are rather ambivalent about what just happened to Tommy Robinson.

00:00:21.720 He was, of course, arrested outside of a London courthouse and was apparently pled guilty to obstructing this trial.

00:00:35.160 But I think that both of us are rather ambivalent about it.

00:00:39.080 And I would say that from a, you know, on both an emotional and an intellectual level, both of us are probably in the same place in the sense that we get the outrage.

00:00:55.020 But there are other deeper questions to it.

00:00:59.360 It's not as simple as many people are making it on Twitter, you know, believe it or not.

00:01:06.360 But let me first just lay down the emotional response to this, which I see almost universally, with a few exceptions, on social media.

00:01:20.960 And that is that there's no more free speech in Britain, which isn't exactly wrong, and that Tommy Robinson was doing journalism. 0.95

00:01:32.220 He was trying to report on this case that had a gag order on it about Muslim rape gangs, and that a malicious and hypocritical establishment is cracking down on him. 0.95

00:01:48.020 They found that this was their opportunity, their moment to pounce. 0.98

00:01:52.280 They did, and they want to put him in jail for 13 months, where he will likely be killed.

00:01:58.200 Let's, let's try to, that is the narrative, at least from a wide swath of the alt-right, the alt-light, mainstream conservatives, the Drudge Report, Alex Jones, etc.

00:02:13.380 Let's dive into this a little bit, and, and I actually want to ask you some questions about this, because this gets into arcane, well, I shouldn't say arcane, just indigenous legal norms of the, of the English system that are a little bit surprising for outsiders.

00:02:35.500 So, first off, what kind of gag order was issued around this case, and what does that actually entail?

00:02:50.840 This is something that, this is something that, there are some similarities in the American system, you know, most of our listeners are from North America, by no means all, in, in which, you know, a, a, a prosecutor and a defendant would not want, and a judge would not want a jury prejudice, so that if, if something is just absolutely sensational, they will move to hold the trial in a different region or something like this.

00:03:19.240 What is, what is going on with the gag order?

00:03:22.960 Because I think from the start, this thing strikes me, and, and I, and probably most other people as, as a bit odd, and it just, it just seems unfair.

00:03:32.280 It seems, you know, one looks at it, and one thinks that the government is trying to suppress reasonable discussion about this extremely sensitive topic.

00:03:43.580 Yeah, I think this question of, of fairness and how fair the whole episode was or is, comes down to how we, how we form our perspective of what actually happened.

00:04:00.660 And there's a lot of layers to what happened, and there's a lot of pretext to what happened.

00:04:06.280 And to answer the first question, the gag order is, is, is fairly straightforward.

00:04:11.660 What it basically did was it, it produced an injunction against press or media reporting of what was going on in the courtroom in relation to Tommy Robinson, not necessarily, and this is what the judge herself explained,

00:04:28.860 not necessarily because of anything that was said to Tommy Robinson or the specifics of what he is, was alleged to have done in order to be arrested,

00:04:42.900 but rather to protect the ongoing grooming case, which, which was still active at that time.

00:04:50.240 For reasons which have never been adequately explained, this grooming case has been shrouded in a media taboo.

00:05:02.240 And if the British government and the British establishment wish to present themselves as being open and fair about these,

00:05:11.420 these, these grooming cases, these, these, these, these, these prolific cases,

00:05:16.600 then they're really going the wrong way about it by shrouding them in secrecy like this in such a way that would,

00:05:23.300 it would attract someone like Tommy Robinson to come and provoke court officials and provoke the legal system and provoke the media

00:05:34.260 into devoting some attention to, to these neglected cases and these, these shrouded cases.

00:05:41.640 So there's the, right in the origins of this,

00:05:45.620 what we're really coming back to is the fact that these grooming scandal,

00:05:50.260 legal cases are mired in media and attention,

00:05:57.580 legal obscurity and a general kind of keeping away from the public.

00:06:05.220 And that builds tension and the tension that's certainly there in England,

00:06:10.620 in particular um but is this normal i mean are are other cases given this gag order or is it

00:06:17.660 done on a case-by-case basis or is this normal for when a trial is ongoing that reports are not made

00:06:26.540 yeah insensitive cases and they normally are rape cases gag orders are certainly more common

00:06:35.120 um in some for drug dealing cases uh where witness protection may be an issue and uh

00:06:44.080 the uh the protection of certain evidence or the reliability of certain evidence

00:06:50.040 gag orders uh certainly have have been put in place um a number of celebrities um who've been

00:06:57.820 accused of crimes have been successful in the past in securing uh gag or gag orders against the

00:07:06.080 press and the press have challenged that and sometimes they've been successful in discovering

00:07:09.740 the identity of the celebrity who's going on trial for a particular offense and in many cases the

00:07:14.400 media has been unsuccessful um the terms of it are normally decided on a case-by-case basis and it

00:07:20.700 can vary uh according to the uh according to the desires of the judge in that particular case

00:07:26.900 so it's the problem really though is that it seems to be almost systematic uh when it comes to these

00:07:35.240 muslim grooming scandals that's not to say that the press hasn't reported on many of them it just

00:07:41.720 seems that there seems to be a slightly higher uh number of instances in which these gag orders have

00:07:47.880 been imposed in these cases now it's my understanding based on the names of the defendants in this

00:07:53.820 particular case that uh the majority of them had already been imprisoned uh and were still in prison

00:08:01.680 for similar offenses uh that they were accused on uh of in this particular trial so why it would be

00:08:10.660 controversial to uh let the public know that convicted rapists are standing trial again uh for another

00:08:21.120 set of charges it kind of baffles me and i can fully understand why someone like tommy robinson would

00:08:28.600 want to go and and be provocative in such an atmosphere and and poke at that and prod at that

00:08:34.500 and see what happens but in terms of what actually happened that day um there are there are kind of

00:08:42.540 three different angles that you can come at to try and get at the truth uh as far as it can be

00:08:50.360 established now you you mentioned there the kind of the emotional social media narrative which is

00:08:55.620 the tommy robinson was kind of innocently so he was standing outside he kind of wanted to break this

00:09:01.040 media taboo on the grooming gangs um he's kind of the brave working class hero he's arrested and

00:09:08.980 imprisoned arbitrarily and and the media is gagged uh vindictive in a kind of vindictive measure

00:09:16.460 to to just uh hush up this this scandal against free speech in britain so that's that's the kind of

00:09:25.560 narrative that's the kind of narrative that spread like wildfire um then there's also you if you want

00:09:31.680 it you can investigate the available footage now i i looked on on the day for uh footage recorded from

00:09:39.700 different individuals uh longer footage but all i could find was a very short piece of footage from

00:09:47.240 tommy robinson's own cell phone um from his perspective uh there's a kind of preamble a conversation

00:09:54.560 between him and some of his colleagues it's a little bit kind of jokey it's a little bit this

00:09:58.340 is what i'm doing i'm standing outside court uh there's a rape trial going on inside and tommy

00:10:03.220 robinson actually sounds like he's being very careful about his use of language but someone beside him 0.87

00:10:08.920 can clearly be heard saying these these people should be should be taken out and hanged um i think 0.98

00:10:14.940 he says if if they're guilty that they should be taken out and hanged but that's what he says and 0.99

00:10:18.980 there's a bit of laughing and at that point it seems like tommy robinson is an understandable response 0.97

00:10:24.440 to be honest yeah he's approached by a female police officer um who says something to the fact 0.73

00:10:30.180 i'm just going to introduce you here to my colleague who's going to and then and then

00:10:34.540 tom robinson says am i under arrest and then this place this particular police officer does proceed

00:10:39.000 down to arrest tommy robinson is that again what you said earlier about fairness is that fair um

00:10:47.020 of course it's not it's not fair um to to be arrested for such an innocuous exchange of

00:10:53.940 of opinions uh outside of a courtroom uh and with state with statements uh which are kind of

00:11:02.320 they're hyperbolic uh they're they're not meant seriously we're not talking about someone who's

00:11:08.320 standing outside the courtroom calling to for an organized posse right to lynch uh the defendant 0.88

00:11:13.840 someone says well if they're guilty in my opinion they should be hanged um to arrest tommy robinson

00:11:20.700 in those circumstances for uh breach of the peace is a gross injustice in my opinion and uh it was 0.98

00:11:31.820 performed if not with some degree of calculation then out of absolutely appalling ignorant overzealousness

00:11:40.580 and it's it's almost inexcusable um tommy robinson was then of course taken inside whenever you look

00:11:47.740 up leeds crown court schedule for that day you can see that he was he was pretty much brought before

00:11:52.520 the judge instantly um the gagging order was put in place before it was put in place the media rushed

00:11:58.680 to get the story out so whenever i first heard about it happened i i googled and there were dozens of

00:12:05.980 hits but when you clicked on them by that point the gag order had been imposed and it said sorry this

00:12:10.280 this link is unavailable um so it was kind of that quick everything happened that quickly

00:12:16.280 so you can see based on the footage uh why the uh why the kind of the emotional reaction would would

00:12:27.100 really spread like wildfire but there is a kind of a third way of looking at the entire scenario and

00:12:32.860 that's by looking at some of the context to all of this one of the one of the contexts is that

00:12:38.640 tommy robinson had a he had a suspended sentence hanging over him and the suspended sentence was

00:12:44.480 for contempt of court and that was for uh the last time these defendants or one of the last occasions

00:12:50.120 on which these defendants went on trial for these uh offenses tommy robinson filmed inside of

00:13:00.160 the courtroom or attempted to film the courtroom or attempted to film the defendants uh within the court

00:13:06.200 precincts and that is illegal in the united kingdom uh under the 1925 criminal justice act uh it's it's

00:13:15.640 illegal to attempt to record film or even uh try to depict the likeness of a defendant in an ongoing trial

00:13:25.180 it's not like um the united states where you can go to crime tv and watch a case as it happens

00:13:33.020 right or but but actually um it's it's slightly different than that and in most federal courtrooms

00:13:40.240 uh cell phones are confiscated as you enter um and so there there there is a i i do think there is a

00:13:50.240 general decorum uh as it were of of not not making clandestine uh recordings um not you know turning

00:14:00.600 a court into a a circus-like atmosphere i i was in federal court not too long about a year ago actually

00:14:06.260 um and we could not take um recording equipment inside i.e and you know of course an iphone is a

00:14:13.240 effectively a better video camera than was uh than these massive things you you we had uh you know 20

00:14:21.860 years ago so um uh that that is not particularly unusual and you know at this this is where i'm

00:14:29.900 ambivalent about this whole thing because i mean i have never made a secret of my criticism of tommy

00:14:39.860 robinson's ideology and we will we'll get more into this later this this anti-jihad group of people

00:14:46.580 and so on um that being said i mean i recognize that the system is against him and so one can rightfully

00:14:59.400 ask should you play by the rules if the system hates you this much the system is unfair the system

00:15:07.920 wants to crack down on you shouldn't you thus act like a real dissident and and and and in a way push

00:15:16.840 the system to its limits and so on um almost in an alinsky like fashion uh i i think that's a

00:15:23.700 that's a legitimate line that being said on the other hand as as you tweeted out uh on the day it

00:15:31.640 happened you know it's it's smarter to fight another day sometimes it you know we you know it's

00:15:40.220 one thing to just go right full frontal go right into the belly of the beast or or just attack your

00:15:49.160 opponent um you know you you've got a a couple of soldiers together and you just do a a rampage you

00:15:57.640 know bull rush of the other opposing army there there's something about that that is simply 0.98

00:16:03.780 unwise or even stupid i mean he was putting himself in all in major jeopardy by simply doing this and 0.74

00:16:15.460 was the was his potential gains of you know snapping photos or or or just documenting this on a on a 0.99

00:16:25.200 little camera or maybe a gopro or something was was that were those gains worth that risk and i guess

00:16:33.480 one could ask then an additional question was he attempting to make a scene to the degree that he

00:16:42.300 would be arrested and there would be this big blow up and you know and then an additional question

00:16:49.360 after that is in a way the outrage a good or bad are we just are we kind of going along with this

00:16:57.740 even though there's there's not a lot to it or actually is supporting tommy robinson because tommy

00:17:03.000 robinson is brave there's there's no question about it um but is is getting excited about this you know

00:17:12.520 tommy in a way kind of you know sacrificing himself uh are we are are we kind of getting

00:17:20.760 go getting following a red herring um these are all important questions and i'm somewhat ambivalent

00:17:28.700 about each of those actually i am i am too um on the first point that this business of um you see a kind

00:17:38.480 oppressive structure or oppressive sets of laws uh you disagree with them and you want to protest them

00:17:48.700 by willfully breaking them um i if that was the case um and i part of me thinks that tommy robinson

00:17:59.780 did not want to get arrested that day um i didn't see it in the footage but people told me

00:18:06.440 that he could be heard saying um you know i'm outside the court precincts aren't i and he was

00:18:14.080 kind of like constantly trying to reassure himself with the police that that he that he wasn't

00:18:19.900 entering into what would be considered court precincts and recording um and in other words he was mindful

00:18:27.000 of his suspended sentence he said something to the effect of i need a solicitor because i'm i'm on a

00:18:33.560 suspended sentence and this leads me he said that after his arrest yeah that leads me to believe

00:18:39.580 that he was not doing this as a publicity stunt yeah and i don't i don't i don't think he was i

00:18:46.240 don't think he was i think he kind of fell into a trap more than anything but to come back to this

00:18:52.380 issue of okay say he to come back to the the offense that he got the suspended sentence for which

00:19:00.160 was a quite deliberate contempt of court i mean he he basically has previous for uh wanting to stick

00:19:07.800 two fingers up to the establishment and say look i'm going to go i know this is illegal i'm going to

00:19:12.320 go and film these defendants in court anyway because i believe that that's what should be done uh whether

00:19:17.460 it's illegal or not i don't think that i i can sympathize with that i can sympathize with wanting

00:19:23.860 to get the faces of these people out there and bring more publicity uh to the to the ongoing trial

00:19:31.540 but the contempt of court legislation is it kind of is regarded as pretty much a pillar of british

00:19:41.080 justice whether it's being used in the service of justice or not that's how it's seen and that's

00:19:46.260 how it's perceived so to attack something like that and to attack the principle of our courts will

00:19:53.180 offer anonymity in certain cases and there will be no filming in our courts that's really difficult

00:20:01.460 and you're already setting yourself an uphill struggle to try and win over public opinion to

00:20:06.400 your cause based on something like that there are other laws you can you can push at uh i can think of

00:20:13.420 something like the hate speech laws or the malicious communications act which have been brought in

00:20:18.240 you know the the business of count dankula the scottish guy who you know who's got a criminal

00:20:24.160 conviction for his dog saluting and things like this these are cases which which normies will take

00:20:28.900 notice of and say you know what that was that was excessive um and and they do have a certain degree of

00:20:35.560 of propaganda value sure but but to to kind of go in uh and try to undermine contempt of court

00:20:43.080 legislation it's it's perhaps not tactically sensible and in some respects tommy robinson was

00:20:52.040 lucky to get a suspended sentence in that case uh given how severely some people who've uh

00:21:00.320 criticized jews or put facebook posts about blacks in britain have been treated where it's immediate

00:21:05.800 prison sentences of up to four years in one case the guy got for facebook posts that guy was lawrence burns

00:21:11.520 um so tommy robinson was was given the benefit of the doubt even for quite flagrantly breaking that law

00:21:20.760 and was given a suspended sentence and told to behave himself and uh i i he was perhaps

00:21:28.300 careless or he was perhaps uh a bit naive in expecting that he could go to this courtroom and

00:21:35.200 that they wouldn't be gunning for him or you know keeping a close eye on him with a view to arresting

00:21:40.720 him at the slightest hint that there may be anything untoward in his behavior and him simply having a

00:21:48.360 discussion with this guy where the words were exchanged to the effect that the defendants have

00:21:52.660 found guilty should be hanged seemed to have been all the pretext that was required by these particular

00:21:57.000 police officers to place him under arrest and trigger that suspended sentence so there's a naivety

00:22:03.280 there um all of us at various times in our lives have been uh guilty of of naivety i you know someone

00:22:12.360 could point at charlottesville and say that there was naivety there in terms of expectations of how law

00:22:17.760 enforcement would behave themselves so we we can we find it difficult to condemn tommy robinson if not

00:22:24.160 for uh any other reason than for his uh naivety um we we certainly can't uh stand by as as people

00:22:32.560 innocent of the same thing but it's still there's still the ambivalence that just runs right the way

00:22:37.840 through this um i think the second question or sort of proposition that you you put forward there was

00:22:45.480 was was there a chance that he kind of did this deliberately for publicity um i think we can

00:22:51.140 probably agree that that he didn't um and then your your final uh comment on this this whole episode

00:23:00.780 was was it something to the effect of um well is the outrage good or bad i mean yeah you know it's

00:23:08.860 and these are all questions it's funny how it's funny just how ambivalent we are in this podcast

00:23:14.840 usually we have strong up down opinions but i i actually am i'm rather ambivalent

00:23:20.880 this time and i and i certainly don't want to i i don't want to throw brave people even if they 0.82

00:23:26.600 have an incorrect ideology you know like count dankula has a terrible stupid ideology but i'm not 0.78

00:23:34.300 going to throw him under the bus you know it's not the right time you know if if late if a year from 0.99

00:23:39.700 now he he does some rally where he you know expounds on his you know libertarian communism or whatever 0.99

00:23:46.940 the hell it is then i'll be like look this is this is stupid but right now it just seems wrong to 0.99

00:23:56.120 throw tommy under the bus he is he is a brave guy i i think his gut is in the right place um but you 0.99

00:24:05.560 know and we say oh is he is he is his head in the right place well look tommy is not an intellectual

00:24:11.720 he's not i i i think that's expecting just too much of tommy of of who he is i mean he is a guy at

00:24:20.240 the pub basically and he he does seem on a on a gut level to understand the demographic demographic

00:24:31.280 implications the the the identitarian implications the racial implications but

00:24:35.500 you know whether this was the right battle to fight just it should be reasonably questioned

00:24:44.960 and that doesn't mean that we don't you know have have a kind of moral support for him you know it's

00:24:52.340 like you know we're with you you're a fighter but you know what one can you know offer good faith

00:24:59.500 criticism of him i think it is interesting to ask you know there is so much outrage he has bright

00:25:04.920 well breitbart actually took down an article on him by the way but he has you know the drudge report

00:25:09.700 the the kind of breitbart crowd is on his side the alt-right is on his side i would say most of the

00:25:15.520 alt-right is kind of like this is an outrage um uh libertarians too so you know there might be

00:25:22.940 one could say that just this kind of awareness of of the issue um awareness of the double standards

00:25:32.080 of the of the system and and and so on you know they they would not i i do think it is reasonable

00:25:38.480 to say that they would not do this to other people um you know or maybe they would i don't know but

00:25:44.740 it's you know is there something good about this outrage i'm ambivalent about that i i think there

00:25:50.520 it is obviously you know one one needs you know points you know fissures that people get excited

00:25:58.020 about what one can see a fissure and be a a a point of salience and say all right let's focus on this

00:26:04.760 but i i have to be honest um i'm i'm getting a little i i am getting a little bit tired of this

00:26:14.740 just endless focus on not just the anti-jihad movement but but really the free speech issue

00:26:23.700 itself and i i think we should discuss this um you know i i don't i don't i don't need to revisit my

00:26:34.940 you know interaction with with sargon of akkad uh but uh first off there is never

00:26:44.380 going to be free speech truly free speech in any kind of community and politics is a community

00:26:54.600 i mean politics is about power no question but it is also it is a polis it is about being together

00:27:03.920 it's what politics is about and in this kind of situation there are always going to be limits

00:27:11.900 there are social norms that one does not cross you know one has to be a truly you know autistic 0.99

00:27:19.380 libertarian to say that oh we we have this videotape of um of of a child pornography but uh you know

00:27:30.160 someone found it so he didn't actually engage in the non-aggression principle he's just publishing

00:27:36.320 it and profiting by it and therefore that's fine i mean i'm sorry you you can make that argument on

00:27:44.280 the basis of the non-aggression principle but i'm sorry that is just awful and wrong and no serious

00:27:50.740 person or non non-autist is going to follow you down that path there are limits in that way and

00:27:58.520 let's also be honest um a government that has sovereignty over a territory is going to look

00:28:07.340 skeptically to say the least on people who are engaging in free speech that that that might

00:28:14.680 undermine its ability to maintain power and also its legitimacy this is why the government attacks

00:28:23.680 us uh and that that includes you and me and and tommy robinson is is that there is a we we are

00:28:31.260 questioning a lot of its sources of legitimacy which are liberalism and you know multi-culti uh

00:28:38.940 race raceless globo gay plex and so basically there's never going to be truly free speech in a 0.88

00:28:48.040 community and we need to recognize that and the the the ironic thing about this recent free speech

00:28:55.700 rally is that you know a none of them actually believed in free speech they were all talking

00:29:03.220 about how much they disliked the quran and how it was this bad book that no one should read and it was

00:29:10.960 just awful and so on and you know i i probably they probably people like sargon of akad and so on will

00:29:16.620 say that oh we want to rationally convince everyone to embrace liberalism or what have you but it was

00:29:23.440 funny that they were talking about speech they don't like and secondly there there it seems like the free

00:29:30.180 speech debate is always about something else it's not like what we care about is not truly free speech

00:29:38.480 uh what we care about is this major demographic question this major spiritual question and cultural

00:29:46.040 question and that we we are trying to talk about it we are ultimately trying to change the social and

00:29:53.940 political order and we are getting pushback but it's not it's not like people in government are like

00:30:03.200 i'm an abstract anti-liberalist i don't approve a free speech in itself it's a bad concept no they don't

00:30:10.520 want our speech is what they don't want and i'll just say it because i have the stones to say it

00:30:21.140 if i were in charge would i be saying oh we let's just hash it out let's have totally open debate about

00:30:30.500 every conceivable issue under the sun let's just let's bring out the transgendered feminist and just 1.00

00:30:37.440 get in an endless debate with them and allow them to go to schools we can just we need to expose our

00:30:44.420 children to this debate and so on of course not you know i mean obviously if we were in charge we would

00:30:52.340 not be autistic libertarians and if you if you believe that some speech is good then you almost 0.96

00:30:59.980 i mean maybe not quite logically but almost inherently believe that some speech can be really bad and evil

00:31:05.740 if a book can change your life for the better or change the world for the better then then a bad

00:31:11.540 book can do the same and we we just simply need to be real about this and i i guess there's something

00:31:19.620 to be said for the argument that that you know that that's too intellectual you're gonna like you

00:31:27.800 know your average normie likes things in black and white and so on but i don't know i i'm i'm kind

00:31:34.880 tired of pretending you know that we're actually liberals or something like this and that all

00:31:42.240 we're doing is fighting for liberalism we just want rights and free speech and stuff i mean no that that's

00:31:48.440 that's part of the problem that that's the that is this that that is the intellectual legitimacy

00:31:54.040 of the current system and the current system is destroying our civilization and race 1.00

00:32:01.840 yeah i i i think you kind of preambled all of that with with the with the discussion of

00:32:11.640 we're coming at this from the perspective of we're ambivalent about the outrage um that's been shown and

00:32:19.180 certainly one of the reasons and one of the biggest reasons for ambivalence about this outrage

00:32:24.900 is that we feel that it's been mispackaged as a kind of straightforward free speech issue

00:32:30.920 um where tommy robinson wanted to speak about the muslims and he was shut up and he was gagged

00:32:37.600 and that's what we're all outraged about and everything else um and to a certain extent it is too

00:32:46.060 simplistic uh it ignores some of the legal pretext to what happened it ignores some of the more nuanced

00:32:55.840 circumstances surrounding multiculturalism in britain and the west and it it just it kind of

00:33:04.340 it's just too easy in a lot of ways um and it's one of those things where

00:33:11.360 um people like alex jones and stephan molyneux to just package it that way makes it really sellable

00:33:20.260 they think um but anyone who really objectively and carefully looks at the situation will see that

00:33:27.440 to sell tommy robinson's free speech to the general public when he's been kind of thoroughly

00:33:33.800 demonized among them for the best part of 10 years or more now it's just not going to happen

00:33:40.740 you're not you're not going to sell it on that basis um especially given as i said the pretext

00:33:47.040 here of the contempt of court conviction and everything that was going on around it i think

00:33:53.040 that there were there there are different ways of trying to tease out some of the things that

00:33:58.260 happened but going down the free speech route which as you say it's we're what frustrated me seeing

00:34:04.620 a lot of the the simplistic packaging along those lines uh it echoes a lot of what you've said there

00:34:11.480 i i felt that it was dishonest and ideologically dishonest um and it's hard for me to sell something

00:34:20.220 i don't believe in um and then to see others kind of convincing themselves of it or convincing

00:34:28.460 themselves that this was somehow still good propaganda was was even more frustrating uh

00:34:35.640 which led to even more ambivalence which in some moments i was almost like uh anti-tommy robinson and

00:34:42.380 then i was kind of more ambivalent again and then i was like well he was kind of a victim in this

00:34:46.520 this issue um and then then i started questioning sort of the broader reasons outside of the kind of

00:34:54.320 simplistic packaging free speech as to why i would be ambivalent about the outrage that was going on

00:34:58.780 and i and i came up with with two more um reasons for my ambivalence the first was that um

00:35:06.460 we seem to really be getting sucked into a pattern of bad news addiction where it's like this is this is

00:35:17.960 what we're trying to fuel our movement with is is is the number of grievances we can accumulate

00:35:23.500 and the number of horrific things that happen to white women or and these are all good 1.00

00:35:30.360 propagandistic devices and they're all legitimate grievances and really legitimate reasons for rage

00:35:36.480 and frustration but i'm not sure that we're digesting it in a healthy way and turning it into

00:35:44.640 something really productive or whether we're in fact starting to fuel a kind of endless appetite

00:35:50.000 for the same um so i i when i saw this kind of mass movement towards glutting ourselves

00:35:59.280 on the misfortune of tommy robinson and everyone's willing to praise how brave he is but i came back

00:36:05.220 and i said to myself tommy robinson was was with other people there why was he the one holding the

00:36:11.980 phone why was he the one doing all of the recording it's like we're we kind of cheer these kind of

00:36:17.980 solo heroes who kind of march off to prison you know jez turner was another one and alice and shabazz

00:36:24.200 and lawrence burns and these people but

00:36:27.260 systems don't really get changed by solo individuals kind of crashing and burning like

00:36:34.340 this normally there's a more systematic or group effort where uh you know people just keep you know

00:36:40.760 in in decent numbers keep throwing themselves at the system deliberately and systematically and

00:36:46.540 with some semblance of coordination but there's this kind of like just random crashing and burning

00:36:55.640 and the misfortune and the kind of endless i i would just like to see us start to pull back a little bit

00:37:01.940 from that and and try and avoid slipping down into resentment and despair because whenever i kind of

00:37:08.860 peek over the edge of this that's what i'm starting to see so i would like us to pull back a little from

00:37:13.820 this and then the other reason for my ambivalence and it's related to what i've just said there is

00:37:18.860 i think that that we've still got a little bit of a hangover from charlottesville

00:37:22.860 i think we still have a little bit of of weariness and wearisomeness about legal entanglements

00:37:31.800 and we're starting to think or certainly i am and i think that you feel the same way

00:37:36.920 as i do is where we rather than kind of getting hopelessly caught up in an endless stream of arrests

00:37:44.700 and legal oppression shouldn't we start thinking about how we can more intelligently approach some

00:37:51.280 of these situations where we avoid senseless or low value arrests and and perhaps start strategically

00:37:59.440 thinking how we can engage with with the legal system as it faces us as it confronts and oppresses us

00:38:05.740 so those are my reasons whenever i kind of interrogate my own thinking on this matter as to why i was

00:38:12.520 ambivalent um and that's not even taking into account where we where we stand in terms of uh

00:38:21.080 what is or what should be the relationship between the alt-right and this counter jihad movement which is

00:38:26.540 which is kind of a whole separate issue altogether this is more specifically relating to the tommy

00:38:32.580 and i i i i agree with with everything you're saying i mean i um i've pulled back from activism um and i have

00:38:46.320 have certainly i mean the the college tour thing was you know a it really set i mean and i i'm i'm not sure i'm not

00:38:57.000 talking about the idea of it i think the idea of it remains good and we had you know some great events

00:39:01.420 in there but um i'm the the precedent that was being set by the the basically the government these

00:39:09.820 university officials and their police forces allowing just enough violence to make it a a a dangerous event

00:39:19.020 and and but then not too much violence where they look bad um it's just this is where we are we were

00:39:27.060 we were getting away with something something was working until it it it doesn't work anymore

00:39:33.040 and going to texas a&m or auburn everything is safe you know there's some fisticuffs outside but

00:39:40.780 everything's safe and there's a lot of energy in the air and you know i'm i'm able to speak i answer

00:39:46.000 questions for an hour with the students and this is unequivocally a positive thing um but and and

00:39:53.800 that's why that's why the the the colleges started preventing it first legally and then preventing it

00:40:01.200 pragmatically you could say by by just making it a an unsafe you know just environment an overly

00:40:08.640 intense environment it's not just a controversial speaker it is you know we are going to allow a riot

00:40:15.300 to take place um so uh anyway this is where we are and we need to i i don't like all the hindsight

00:40:26.180 talk about charlottesville and so on i mean there were people who were making these warnings but

00:40:32.980 many of these people who are now in hindsight were supporting you know the the the 2017 activism and and

00:40:40.020 so i while it was going on and then because they are just you know on the sidelines they're in the

00:40:44.920 audience they can like oh see it was all wrong in the beginning we we we need to do things until

00:40:51.920 they stop working but we also need to go with the trend and so it's a it's a difficult balance to

00:40:59.580 strike and it's you know i don't quite know the answer i don't quite i think we can't we can

00:41:07.660 obviously have conferences and events like that but what can we do in terms of a public gathering

00:41:14.720 this is in question now and here i'm not talking about tommy robinson i'm more talking about

00:41:20.060 the alt-right in in the united states and and so on what can what can we do and you know that this is

00:41:28.380 what i'm struggling with to be honest um but uh yeah anyway we we can talk but before we

00:41:36.280 you know tie a bow in this i i think we should talk a little bit about the the anti-jihad movement

00:41:42.240 because the tommy is associated with that far far more than he's associated with the alt-right i mean

00:41:49.080 he's probably labeled alt-right hero and in the press or something i don't doubt that but um the the he

00:41:56.260 came to prominence and and so on as creating this group called the english defense league

00:42:04.620 which was that name modeled on the anti-deflammation league no i believe it was modeled on the jewish

00:42:13.600 defense league the jewish defense league okay so a similar organization and it was interesting

00:42:20.600 because it was all based on this you know tremendous demographic change and cultural change that was

00:42:28.200 occurring um in britain and uh so it it caught that that that energy that that that racial angst you

00:42:37.380 could say uh but then and it also caught some of the energy of you know football hooligans and things

00:42:43.440 like that uh but then it was translated into uh we are against islam just look at the quran look at 0.99

00:42:54.440 these terrible verses that i can cite from the quran um there's a there's this global jihad that's coming 0.99

00:43:01.520 in and and it just it kind of misses the point i mean pete those people raping young women are doing 0.98

00:43:09.600 it because they're disgusting freaks like they're they're not reading the quran and then doing that 1.00

00:43:17.120 it's as if to assume that if they had only read the bible or something else they wouldn't be you know 0.98

00:43:22.860 criminals i mean they are who they are but most of them i probably know more about islam than the vast 0.99

00:43:30.900 majority of these criminal muslims you know islam you know it's just it's it's getting at it it's 1.00

00:43:39.020 misunderstanding the problem and then turning it into this again turning into a speech debate 0.98

00:43:45.140 about what you know what do we think about the quran look at look at this thing that muhammad said oh my

00:43:50.660 god and it's just always a misunderstanding and the the other fact of it not so much tommy tommy has been

00:43:57.940 an avid israel supporter but the i was always highly critical of the anti-jihad movement uh because

00:44:05.460 with with a few exceptions like sergey trivkovic or something um this movement which was going after

00:44:13.780 islam was kind of like the i don't know what to say the the the the ugly stepchild of the neoconservatives 0.89

00:44:22.020 and the american war machine and foreign policy so you know george w bush can go up there and say 0.96

00:44:28.100 ah islam is a religion of peace we don't have any problem with muslims we we're just overthrowing 1.00

00:44:32.420 these bad regimes or whatever uh but then the the anti-jihad movement can come in and in the you know

00:44:40.160 and in the underbelly of the internet they can start they can just start talking about how evil

00:44:45.580 islam is and they can they can trot out your you know based arab or based african who's given up 0.95

00:44:53.740 islam and embrace christianity or secular humanism or whatever and they can just they can just basically

00:45:01.260 indoctrinate you know prepare the ground for this for american foreign policy in the middle east

00:45:09.180 by ginning up outrage um and and focusing their efforts entirely in the negative you know there

00:45:19.340 there's nothing to anti-islam is is anti it's it's just endless discussion about you know how bad the

00:45:28.380 quran is and then they they throw in some stuff here and there about you know how christianity is

00:45:35.180 actually the foundation of human rights and liberalism and pluralism in fact and you know

00:45:41.420 it's it's you know it's just i i don't know what to say it it it always just struck me as just

00:45:48.060 fundamentally wrong and i got it i get why people are against islam i mean i too am against islam um i i

00:45:58.060 think you know for for in a way different reasons i i think islam is an extremely powerful faith

00:46:03.900 it is able to in a way ennoble these otherwise you know 0.80

00:46:11.420 shit people and it kind of makes them better than they i i i have in a way the opposite 0.95

00:46:18.060 take on islam from the anti-jihad movement it is a great religion in the sense that it improves the 0.98

00:46:25.020 stock of people and gives them a a right and a wrong and it gives them a goal and it gives them

00:46:31.900 energy and vitality and and a willingness to sacrifice so it makes them better in a way more

00:46:38.220 heroic that is that is why it is bad and so in a way what we should be doing is totally demoralizing

00:46:47.420 islam like if we could turn islam into what christianity is now that would be great because 0.93

00:46:55.420 these all of these people who are now energized by by it would just go back to you know smoking 1.00

00:47:02.220 hookah and just being lazy idiots uh so that is why islam is a problem it's it's it's it's not that 1.00

00:47:09.580 it's like inherently immoral or that it has these bad verses or whatever again you can any of these 1.00

00:47:15.580 people have they ever read the old testament um you can find all of that stuff um but it is basically a

00:47:23.660 black flag it's a black flag raised against europe and against other things but but it's certainly 0.95

00:47:29.820 raised against europe and so we we should go about you know demoralizing muslims uh and we should 1.00

00:47:37.260 recognize you know this thing for what it is uh that is basically my take but all of this talk about how

00:47:46.540 islam doesn't support human rights or whatever it's just it's it's totally missing the point islam 1.00

00:47:52.620 is powerful precisely because it doesn't support human rights like it it that's why it is a motivating 0.98

00:48:00.540 force it's not going to be secular and liberal um it is actually going to energize these people

00:48:10.140 and um anyway i i just i the you know the anti-islam movement is like and i would mention this as as the

00:48:17.500 end of my rant um i i've been very discouraged by the fact that people who who call themselves

00:48:28.380 identitarian or who you know want to kind of orbit the identitarian sphere are also orbiting tommy

00:48:37.420 robinson and so it's like oh you know and i'm i'm thinking here in particular generation identity and and

00:48:42.780 martin zellner and so on and the kind of you know these you know girls that that circle them they're 0.90

00:48:50.700 like oh tommy robinson he's he's one of us see we identitarians we're just ethno pluralist patriots

00:48:57.100 who are defending our little place on the map our little plot our nation and uh and we we're also

00:49:05.180 linking up with tommy robinson who's also an identitarian and we're gonna work this stuff is just

00:49:11.340 we're just going back into all of this just like 2000s era nonsense uh tommy robinson i don't know

00:49:19.260 what he actually believes i've never met him um i i don't know if he's he's not really one of us i mean

00:49:26.300 he's just you know at least in his expressed ideology who knows what he he really is in his gut but in his

00:49:32.700 he's a fighter no question but he's an expressed ideology he is uh he's a neocon he's a neocon

00:49:40.860 i mean it's it's just like the the opposite of our version of the right and to get excited by him

00:49:50.380 in itself like again i i get it look i defended you know i'll defend him now because he's under attack it's

00:49:55.660 like all right we got your back on but but to get excited about him and what he represents is just

00:50:01.100 so wrong it's it's just such a betrayal of what the alt-right or identitarianism actually is that i

00:50:09.260 find it extremely frustrating i think what we're looking at here is just an issue an issue that has

00:50:18.780 its origins and blurred lines and that's in much of western europe really kicking off in the 1960s and

00:50:27.660 gaining in intensity by the early 2000s was a really growing dissatisfaction with multiculturalism

00:50:37.900 uh the british national party just to stick with the british context was was certainly starting to

00:50:43.500 enjoy unprecedented success and then almost out of nowhere emerged the english defense league um which

00:50:50.780 kind of was this street based sort of almost single issue focused you know it was as you say it was

00:50:58.860 producing the quran and the verses and everything and it seemed to kind of focus a lot of frustrations

00:51:07.020 about multiculturalism because don't forget that muslim immigration to europe have been one of the most

00:51:14.060 visibly catastrophic aspects of multiculturalism both in the form of islamist terrorism and in 0.99

00:51:20.540 in the quite radical demographic change um but it kind of was able to narrow in and focus in a lot of

00:51:29.020 these frustrations in a single direction which was which was against uh muslims against uh the islamic

00:51:36.220 religion and by packaging itself in this kind of oh we're just against the religion uh we're not against

00:51:43.900 these people for their uh genetic background we're not going to talk about the iq of pakistanis

00:51:49.740 or the rate of inbreeding within these communities uh the rates of mental illness and psychosis

00:51:55.740 um and attending behaviors uh and a tendency towards criminality that would be linked to that we're not

00:52:02.300 going to talk about any of those things it's all it's all about what's in the quran um i i agree with a lot of

00:52:08.860 what you said about uh islam as a religion i think there have been periods in the past where islam has been

00:52:18.220 an energizing force and has been militarily on the march because of that and it's been expansionist

00:52:24.940 the only qualifier i would put there is that it kind of in the end resulted in a kind of

00:52:31.820 socio-cultural retardation where these muslim societies kind of went into 0.99

00:52:38.620 their own little cocoons and just just stagnated and you know i i think when i read the statistics

00:52:47.420 some time ago the number of books published within i think it was something like 25 muslim

00:52:53.660 countries in the space of like 50 years didn't equivalent the number of books published in spain

00:52:59.580 in one year um it was it was something that astonishing um and that it was so

00:53:07.900 energy sapping um in the end certainly approaching modernity one of the things which did energize

00:53:15.100 these islamic countries in the end um two things one was uh western uh foreign adventurism in the middle east

00:53:24.300 uh but also i suppose russia and afghanistan um in in the late 1970s uh concluding in the 80s um but also

00:53:35.020 i think uh we we cannot divest the modern islamic problem from the fact that its main engine is 1.00

00:53:45.580 basically multiculturalism and the fact that we've imported islam en masse uh into the west um if islam stayed in 0.96

00:53:54.460 those lands where it has been historically predominant it wouldn't be an issue would

00:53:58.220 have carried on in its quasi-retarded state um those societies would have remained relatively 0.99

00:54:05.740 technologically and culturally primitive certainly scientifically and we could more or less ignore

00:54:11.820 them or do business with them uh as as as our need for their natural resources demanded but the fact

00:54:18.940 is that in the in post-modernity foreign policy and domestic policy there's no real differentiation

00:54:26.540 between the two anymore i've said it previously that your foreign policy with pakistan

00:54:33.180 changes radically whenever you have whole cities full of pakistanis uh within your own borders it just 1.00

00:54:39.660 changes fundamentally because you have a whole different set of concerns and that's why

00:54:43.980 multicultural multiculturalism destroyed the foreign policy that was that we saw historically it doesn't 0.99

00:54:50.620 exist anymore and that's what we're dealing with um and that's why that was another contributing

00:54:57.820 factor as to why we have this issue of blurred lines so the edl and the whole counter jihad movement

00:55:03.420 is able to kind of hijack tensions about multiculturalism and focus them in a specific area um

00:55:09.900 um and it it kind of produced this whole clash of civilizations narrative which you alluded to

00:55:16.700 um the alt-right of course definitely has a more nuanced take on the whole idea of a clash of civilizations

00:55:23.260 um but you will find some drift from all writers to counter jihadist activism because they can kind of

00:55:31.900 get on board with with an anti-islamic program to the extent that it will involve objecting to

00:55:39.180 to muslim expansion and that is undeniably on some levels political and demographic and these are

00:55:47.340 concerns uh to alt-righters um but there are obviously significant aspects which which we we have to

00:55:55.420 really reject out of hand um we we reject any kind of civic or quasi-cultural uh visions or versions of

00:56:03.340 nationalism um which which are essentially what counter jihad movements uh offer in opposition

00:56:09.660 to muslim expansion and because of that we reject the whole idea as you mentioned based africans based 1.00

00:56:15.500 sikhs or um you know this idea that uh you've got these converts or apostates from uh islam who've seen

00:56:26.300 the light and they're now christians or they're warning about islam or whatever or this idea that that

00:56:32.060 britain should be defined as a christian country uh not white christian not uh white british um or

00:56:40.540 anything else but just just christian um so you know as long as we we can have six million normally

00:56:47.820 christian somalis and that's fine because because they're christian and somehow adherence to the or

00:56:53.500 or quasi-adherence to the christian faith um that that that qualifies them as as suitable uh for

00:57:00.460 citizenship uh within britain um and then even more importantly as you said you know tommy robinson is

00:57:06.380 essentially a neocon the alt-right questions key aspects of of counter jihad ideology the most important

00:57:14.140 being foreign policy we would tend to oppose outright any kind of military adventurism in the middle east

00:57:20.380 and attached to that we certainly oppose any kind of extravagant support for the state of israel

00:57:25.660 just to be you won't clear um i oppose the american foreign policy that is you know attempting to bring

00:57:34.220 democracy and and and just allow people to to die to transform these societies into secular liberalism

00:57:42.540 however foreign adventurism i wish that the west what the white race were so badass that we would 0.97

00:57:50.540 actually take part in foreign adventurism that actually sounds awesome uh intergalactic adventurism

00:57:57.820 is probably what will be next i am in full support of that um i i do think we need to define terms um i i am

00:58:05.980 not in support of engaging in in war for israel's benefit um i am not in support of engaging in war

00:58:16.940 for the the cause of humanitarianism or anything like that but i i think we would be untrue to ourselves

00:58:23.260 if we uh denounced foreign adventurism yeah i look in the in the long term i think we should say this i'm

00:58:31.260 just so over the kind of my being a libertarian and talking like this i i just i don't know it's

00:58:37.980 it's like a a weight has been lifted i i i think we need to just get away from pretending that we're not

00:58:44.780 who we are yeah let's let's have a real war for oil you know we want your oil we're just going to go and take

00:58:53.420 it um right you know without any of the kind of let's spread democracy crap let's just fill all that in

00:58:59.660 in the dustbin um but yeah yeah i i get what you're coming from um but this is but we we object

00:59:06.620 to the kind of flavor and nuance and hypocrisy of kind of counter jihad foreign policy um and and

00:59:15.020 it's and it's pretensions and and posturing and for its part we have to we have to say that counter

00:59:20.620 jihad we would strain to condemn us uh racism and nazis or whatever kind of keywords they want to

00:59:27.260 throw at us i know that tommy robinson uh through everyone at charlottesville under the bus and says

00:59:32.780 if these nazis were walking through my town i would be out protesting against them too and they do that

00:59:39.020 in some cases they do it because the end of the counter jihad individual in question is jewish

00:59:43.660 uh and in other instances is because i think they genuinely believe this will will give them a bit of

00:59:48.780 a pass with with the media and some of their peers and certainly tommy robinson by steering clear of

00:59:53.500 the jewish issue and the race question has got media time uh in the uk piers morgan's had him had

00:59:59.900 him on for interviews and he does get interviews he does get he does get air time that someone like

01:00:05.900 jez turner um or yourself just just wouldn't do i think that for a while in in the united states the

01:00:13.260 media tried to see if you would soften up um and be a kind of media figure like tommy robinson

01:00:21.740 someone that could be kind of pulled out to be booed at occasionally um but it it didn't seem to

01:00:29.260 work so in the end they kind of they kind of readjusted tactics and then uh charlottesville

01:00:33.900 happened and we we've kind of reassumed that place of the media has decided that we really aren't

01:00:41.340 uh able to be incorporated within their kind of superstructure um and having said that you can see that

01:00:49.180 yes you know tommy robinson is against the establishment he's he's very clearly in opposition

01:00:54.140 to it they are opposed to him but at the same time the media and politics does seem to leave some space

01:01:02.060 for that within the bounds of discussion not i'm not going to say acceptable discussion but discussion

01:01:09.820 um there are corners and places where the things that tommy robinson wants to say can be said and

01:01:18.540 there are signs that that is passable for example he's never been convicted of hate speech to my

01:01:26.060 knowledge um whereas people who have said things of a racial nature or who have said things uh about a

01:01:34.700 clash of civilization with jews jewish influence have been given very stiff sentences in prison jez turner 1.00

01:01:43.340 being just the latest um so it's talk about jez turner um uh real quick i i have actually met him

01:01:54.460 i think two times or so when i was when i was allowed in the united kingdom um yeah i've i've met

01:02:00.700 i've met jess too and stayed in touch with him and uh i've i've watched this whole episode on ravel

01:02:08.940 where he gave a speech and in that speech he urged literally word for word he what he said was we

01:02:16.540 should take back control from jews or you know our country's under jewish control and we need to take 1.00

01:02:23.900 take it back and this was complained about by jews who were kind of observing this whole thing and

01:02:33.020 reported it to police and the police passed it on to the prosecution service the crime prosecution

01:02:38.220 service who said that they said that hate crimes can only be perpetrated really against a an individual

01:02:46.220 so he um he was talking about jews so that's kind of vague and you cannot present yourself individually

01:02:57.020 as a jewish person as a victim of that particular hate crime we cannot convict him of uh of racially

01:03:04.860 abusing you for example um so a very senior prosecutor reviewed the case and decided that there would be no

01:03:11.980 no prosecution at that point the campaign against anti-semitism run by a guy called gideon falter

01:03:19.580 stepped in and demanded to be able to meet with the director of prosecutions so the highest prosecutor

01:03:28.620 in britain basically and these jews who lack all influence were able to obtain this meeting and uh 0.82

01:03:35.660 they were able to persuade this uh individual to pass the case to yet another um senior prosecutor and

01:03:45.500 on this occasion the decision was taken to prosecute jez turner so jez turner found himself then going on

01:03:51.260 trial uh despite the first senior prosecutor saying that there really was no legal grounds for such a

01:03:57.100 trial to take place jez turner was asked did he still believe the things that he expressed in the uh

01:04:06.140 in the speech he said that yes i do i think that the jews are quite harmful to british society uh he was

01:04:12.460 completely unapologetic and he was pretty much summarily convicted of hate speech and sentenced to one

01:04:19.740 year in prison so you know that's a roughly equivalent um term to what tommy robinson will serve and

01:04:29.020 they've started those sentences at roughly the same time um but all the free speech discussion is

01:04:36.060 focusing on tommy robinson's conviction is really all about contempt of court whereas the real free

01:04:43.340 speech issue in terms of being able to stand up and give a speech and talk about things that some

01:04:49.260 people don't like to hear jez turner's just kind of been forgotten about already so again we really

01:04:57.820 need to start thinking about these things more intensively and we need to probably discuss them

01:05:04.060 more with each other um rather than kind of just following waves of emotion um we could probably do

01:05:14.860 with a bit more direction than that uh if we're to get the best out of our misfortunes uh and if we

01:05:22.060 really want to avoid them rather than kind of glut ourselves on them as we sometimes seem to be doing

01:05:30.380 question uh i think that is a good note to end on

01:05:44.860 question uh

01:05:55.420 um

01:06:14.860 Thank you.

01:06:44.860 Thank you.

01:07:14.860 Thank you.

RadixJournal - May 30, 2018

Tommy

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