The Critical Compass Podcast - Putin, Tucker, & Corruption in the West ｜ A Critical Compass Discussion

00:00:00.000 It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.

00:00:05.600 Of course, we can hold the ideas in our mind simultaneously that, yes, of course, Putin is a dictator. 0.74

00:00:12.040 Of course, he's a megalomaniac.

00:00:15.080 Of course, he's done the exact same things that we all despise Justin Trudeau over, like debanking people and taking political prisoners.

00:00:25.000 But that doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't have a point about if the U.S. wants to put long-range missile silos on the Ukrainian border next to Russia, of course, there's going to be issue taken with that.

00:00:41.700 And it's completely reasonable to have issue taken with that.

00:00:44.100 One thing Putin did mention, he showed some concern that it doesn't matter who was, like, if Biden was in the seat or who was just being negotiated with because he was saying that the framework, these institutions around whatever leaders elected, the institutions are corrupt and the institutions have their own ideas about what should be done.

00:01:14.100 Hello, welcome to the Critical Compass.

00:01:31.080 This is our weekly chat for the week of February 12th.

00:01:36.300 And my name is Mike.

00:01:37.880 This is James.

00:01:39.080 And we're going to cover a couple topics of interest during the week here.

00:01:44.100 From last week, I think James wants to lead us off with the infamous and kind of a game-changer interview that occurred last week between one Mr. Tucker Carlson and another Mr. Vladimir Putin, if you want to.

00:02:02.060 I haven't seen it, actually.

00:02:03.220 So I've seen clips of it, but I haven't seen the full interview yet.

00:02:06.440 So this is going to be a learning and a reaction video for me.

00:02:12.620 But go ahead, James.

00:02:13.340 Let me know what you thought about it.

00:02:15.400 Yeah, I guess the interview itself was half the excitement. 0.98

00:02:20.440 The other part of the excitement came from the, well, the Western media losing their shit over Tucker Carlson, even getting a interview with him. 0.69

00:02:31.600 Um, and I guess with everything happening with the war, you'd want to understand, like, somebody's perspective, especially, like, you'd want to understand what's going on in Putin's head. 0.93

00:02:46.240 But you'd want to listen to what he has to say, listen to the words and actually, uh, filter that through.

00:02:53.680 Well, does this align with our ideas of, of how things are going?

00:02:57.900 Like, we can still listen to something.

00:02:59.900 We don't have to agree with every single little thing that somebody says in one of these interviews, but the way that somebody answers questions and the way that they approach it and their tone and they're just, you could tell a lot based on that.

00:03:16.660 And to sum up the interview, it was an, the first half was an hour long history lesson about Russia, like all the way from the 1500s.

00:03:28.420 He went through some of the 1800s, into the 1900s, into the 1900s, and then into more of the kind of like current foreign policy and the dynamics of NATO and the kind of the, the, the wrapping up the dissolution of, uh, the Soviet Union.

00:03:48.860 And so I think Tucker Carlson was a little bit frustrated at first because he thought Putin was just wasting time.

00:03:59.720 Just like he thought that was just a power move just to deflect from actually answering questions.

00:04:05.340 But it does seem like Putin believes what he's, what he's saying when it comes to, like, he was framing the history to try to give context to the situation.

00:04:18.500 Because if you just look at the context within a short time span of a year or two years, it maybe doesn't give you the full picture, especially in an area that you have a mixed group of people.

00:04:34.020 Like it's not like Ukraine is homogenized of only Ukrainians.

00:04:38.940 So you've got a mix of people.

00:04:40.300 Anytime you've got territories that have traded leadership and or have a mix of people, it does get complicated, uh, in there.

00:04:50.060 So, uh, yeah, that, that was the first hour.

00:04:52.900 So, um, uh, a lot of it, uh, maybe aligned with, did you ever watch the documentary Ukraine on fire?

00:05:02.580 It was, uh, I'm not sure that I did.

00:05:05.780 I think it was, was it Oliver Stone?

00:05:08.800 Um, and he sat down with, with Putin and that was all about what happened in the 2014, 2015, uh, like the political change in Ukraine at that time.

00:05:20.780 It's worth a watch.

00:05:22.360 Um, and from listening to the.

00:05:26.940 Maybe I did actually, I think actually you sent it to me.

00:05:28.620 Maybe, I think I did.

00:05:29.400 Talks about like Obama's involvement in the, uh, Obama and Biden's involvement in, in the, uh, or non-involvement as it may be in the coup.

00:05:39.160 Yeah.

00:05:39.360 And there was, um, even some direct quotes from Victoria Nuland, uh, her involvement.

00:05:46.420 Um.

00:05:47.760 Right.

00:05:48.300 Yeah.

00:05:48.980 Yeah.

00:05:49.260 Yeah.

00:05:49.460 Yeah.

00:05:49.620 Yeah.

00:05:49.960 I do recall.

00:05:50.620 Yes, I do.

00:05:51.240 I do remember.

00:05:52.160 So given that documentary and some of the interviews, um, both from Putin and, uh, the other

00:05:59.400 other people that they interviewed in that documentary, what Putin was touching on in this interview with Tucker Carlson wasn't too different from, from that context.

00:06:14.180 So I, I think he was touching base on the fact that the, well, there's been corruption in, in that area, there's been corruption in the leadership and there's been, uh, harm against citizens, especially in the Donbass region.

00:06:32.660 Um, so I, I guess, what are your, if just as a, just as a bystander, what can you sum up from the West, like Western media's, like, what have they painted the situation as?

00:06:54.560 If you can just give us a nice little summary.

00:06:56.260 Yeah, well, it feels like they, um, they, they, they want the idea of a, of an independent journal is going to Russia to, to interview Putin as being like some sort of treasonous act as if this is a, uh, you know, a government, um, uh, representative, you know, you know, switching teams as it were or something like that.

00:07:19.580 But it's, it's, it's pretty silly to see that, you know, the, the media that used to pride itself on, on, you know, getting the inside scoop and, you know, being in the, at the scene of the crime and all that, uh, takes such offense to people now actually going out and, and doing that.

00:07:36.240 It's, it seems to be what the reaction of a, uh, uh, uh, compromised corporate press would have if they, uh, were worried about the narratives that they spun about somebody's intentions being unraveled in front of them by actually hearing it from the horse's mouth.

00:07:55.420 Well, wasn't there talk just a few months ago that Putin was in ill health, that he could barely form sentences, that his cognate, like his cognition has declined, um, and that he was not even like going outside.

00:08:14.900 I, I think there was a few reports it's hard to follow all of these random little headlines.

00:08:19.420 Yeah, I, I had heard some, some, I think maybe actually Rogan talked about how he looked, his face looked kind of, uh, swollen as if he was undergoing like, uh, like chemo or something, you know, like how, how sometimes people have that bloated sort of look.

00:08:32.540 Um, but, uh, yeah.

00:08:35.180 Minus, minus what happens just from a weekend of eating way too much food.

00:08:39.420 Yeah, that's right.

00:08:40.240 Different kind of bloating.

00:08:41.240 Yeah, yeah.

00:08:42.380 He, um, when you, when you said that he went on that, you know, hour long kind of history lesson about the region. 0.91

00:08:49.420 Uh, that, rather than, rather than being a time wasting thing, I think that, uh, might have been a more targeted, direct kind of, hey, uh, look how, look how lucid I am and look how much I can speak on a subject coherently compared to your idiot president that can, he doesn't know where he is half the time, doesn't know what planet he's on, doesn't know if he's shaking hands with a ghost or not. 0.81

00:09:12.980 Well, on the same day that Putin gave an hour long history, like complex history lesson on the, like on, of the area of, of Europe and Russia at that time, you had Biden miss, like he misquoted, he said that like Mexico bordered Gaza that same day.

00:09:35.340 So just the, well, his son died in Gaza, so yeah, the juxtaposition between those two things were just, um, what the one thought I had from the interview and you could go through it with a fine-tuned comb and maybe you disagree with certain things that you'd hear.

00:09:57.960 Um, Putin seems to have a very clear vision, uh, for what he wants for Russia.

00:10:04.520 He also seems to be very like laser focused as a leader.

00:10:12.200 And he also is projecting a image of both he's competent and passionate and like a worthy leader that way, a strong leader.

00:10:25.120 And then I look at Trudeau, just spewing, just like incoherent, like incoherent ramblings.

00:10:40.540 And then that's from somebody who's not in their seventies.

00:10:44.860 And then you go to Biden, which is incoherent ramblings from a different, like for a different reason.

00:10:52.440 Look at these two, these two leaders and it feels like the West, the West feels like it's in a decline in a certain way.

00:11:03.320 Like we, we don't have good leadership right now.

00:11:06.640 Um, one thing Putin did mention, he was, well, when he was talking about the negotiation standpoint of it,

00:11:17.180 he even mentioned the fact that, well, Russia was open to more negotiations.

00:11:24.540 Russia didn't close off negotiations, but he showed some concern that it doesn't matter who was like,

00:11:33.660 if Biden was in the seat or who was just being negotiated with, because he was saying that the framework,

00:11:41.640 these institutions around whatever leaders elected, the institutions are corrupt and the institutions have their own ideas about what should be done.

00:11:52.360 And, and I don't know, he's kind of speaking some truth to the situation.

00:11:57.760 Cause you see how it will, some people would call this the deep state.

00:12:04.940 Um, it's hard.

00:12:07.140 You'd be hard pressed not to find too many countries without, uh, either non-government institutions or charities or, um, government institutions.

00:12:16.600 And the money that flows between them and the positions and the key people that get promoted from one position to another.

00:12:24.380 Um, you'd be hard pressed to find any countries right now that don't have corruption within these institutions, uh, especially when it comes to the kind of persuasion power that these institutions have over policies or over what, what gets decided.

00:12:46.600 And I think that's people's biggest criticism right now is both Canada and the U S have been sending a lot of money to Ukraine in this proxy war, which like, if you look at this from Russia's perspective, this is just, they're going to keep on fighting as long as it gets fueled.

00:13:04.420 Like the sending money and fighting a proxy roars, not really, it's not really sending a message of peace.

00:13:14.540 Like, is this getting close?

00:13:16.420 Does this get everybody closer to a peace deal when you just send weapons and you send money over?

00:13:24.560 Oh, of course.

00:13:25.120 I mean, that's like, that's the, the Western countries that are funding this are obviously talking to both sides of the mouth all the time.

00:13:32.320 You know, the, this, this war needs to end here, take some more tanks.

00:13:36.860 You know, it's, it's the, I think the notion of, uh, you know, like you, all you have to do is go back, you know, a year, year and a half and, uh, look at how the headlines are being written about how, oh, this is an easy, this is a walk-off victory for Ukraine. 0.89

00:13:51.540 This is going to be over before it starts.

00:13:53.140 The Russians are, you know, bleeding resources and, and, uh, and troops.

00:13:57.040 And obviously that's just not the case.

00:13:59.900 And Russia has obviously shown its willingness to just, as it has throughout history, as throughout its entire history, just throw bodies at a problem until the problem ends. 0.67

00:14:11.100 There, there, there is no, um, for like sort of what you said earlier, there's, there's a, um, a clear vision and a, obviously a, um, I can't think of the term that I'm, I'm trying to use, but like a, uh, a sort of a pride behind, um, the mission.

00:14:31.980 And it's, it's, it won't be, it's not going to be able to be derailed by just pretty words, you know?

00:14:39.620 I guess the Russian identity, the national identity has been pretty strong.

00:14:45.220 Yeah.

00:14:45.580 Um, they, they also don't spend that much time teaching their army about pronouns.

00:14:50.980 So yeah, or putting tampons in men's washrooms. 1.00

00:14:53.860 Yeah.

00:14:54.000 Yeah.

00:14:54.260 They are quite focused on just creating strong individuals ready to fight.

00:15:01.180 Um, you did say like just throwing bodies into the meat grinder.

00:15:06.520 Uh, I think you can look at Ukraine right now and the fact that there, there there's conscription going on and they've expanded the age range for conscription, meaning that they're running out of bodies that way.

00:15:22.460 They're running out of willing people to fight, especially if they're drawing upon people who are either previously injured or have some physical ailments that would prevent them from being fully body of able-bodied, uh, on the battlefield.

00:15:39.720 So it feels like right now through the money and resources that's being just funneled into Ukraine, lives are being lost endlessly where potentially peace could have been negotiated earlier on.

00:15:55.640 If, if, if, if this adversarial relationship wasn't, wasn't established.

00:16:02.200 And I, I, I think Putin, he was mentioning kind of the, the NATO dynamic to it.

00:16:09.240 And when the Soviet Union collapsed, part of that, part of those discussions was that NATO would never, like there, there'd be no established NATO bases directly beside Russia.

00:16:27.640 Um, and the whole fact that NATO exists is because of the Soviet threat.

00:16:35.180 So for NATO to exist and Russia's not in NATO, for them to continue to exist and then expand and get closer to Russia, what is that?

00:16:47.540 Like, what message is that sending?

00:16:50.680 Well, of course, I mean, that's the, you know, the, the inverse is not mentioned enough about just how much of a thorough, unending, brutal strike would occur if, uh, the Russians ever had the notion of putting, uh, um, you know, military outposts, outposts on the Mexican border.

00:17:14.660 Or in Saskatchewan, I think.

00:17:16.660 Or Saskatchewan would be a great place for. 0.98

00:17:18.520 Or, yeah, or on the, you know, the coast, just, just, uh, off the coast of Alaska or something like that.

00:17:24.140 Or on a, or on a, you know, on an island on the, off the west coast.

00:17:27.700 Like, put something in Cuba, what would happen then?

00:17:30.600 Yeah.

00:17:31.280 Yeah.

00:17:32.300 We'll never know.

00:17:33.200 But, you know, it's, uh, um, I mean, it's just silly when you think about it, like, just for, for more than five seconds.

00:17:40.020 Of course, you know, you can, as you said, but at the very, very beginning, when you began, um, telling me about this.

00:17:47.800 Um, it's, it's, it was an, a reframing of an Aristotelian quote of, it, it, it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.

00:17:59.500 And, of course, we can hold the ideas in our mind simultaneously that, yes, of course, Putin is a dictator.

00:18:06.360 Of course, he's a megal, megalomaniac.

00:18:09.820 Of course, he's, you know, done the exact same things that we, uh, all despise Justin Trudeau over, like, debanking people and, uh, and taking political prisoners.

00:18:19.320 But, that doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't have a point about, uh, if the U.S. wants to put, uh, long-range missile silos on the Ukrainian border next to, uh, Russia, of course, there's going to be issue taken with that.

00:18:35.940 And it's completely reasonable to have issue taken with that.

00:18:39.760 Yeah.

00:18:40.340 The, to be able to look at it from his perspective is, I think, is key for getting closer to peace.

00:18:47.340 Um, well, even, like, well, what's the process of, are we always going to treat Russia as an enemy or is there any way for us to start collaborating?

00:18:58.080 Like, what's the process of getting closer to actually being able to, like, opening up trade?

00:19:05.680 And the stronger, kind of, the net benefit, if there's a net benefit on both sides, you, you think we'd get closer to, you, just this, not needing to treat each other like a potential problem?

00:19:21.580 Yeah.

00:19:22.060 Um, so, if anything, this has strengthened Russia's independence.

00:19:28.560 Yeah.

00:19:28.900 Um, because now you have, Putin was even mentioning how the U.S. dollar, um, with the, with the U.S. dollar being a reserve currency, um, that other countries settle, the settle exchanges in the U.S. dollar, the U.S. dollar has a certain amount of power to it and it can be weaponized.

00:19:51.960 And the U.S. does, through sanctions, weaponize the U.S. dollar, um, right now the U.S. dollar is not backed by gold, it's backed by debt and the, almost the global military presence, which is able to enforce the confidence in the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency.

00:20:15.060 So, Putin talked about the fact that now Russia's been settling more through the BRICS, um, system of countries, uh, that would include, I believe, India, China, um, I think Saudi Arabia, and they're, they've increased a whole lot of trade through these other countries because Russia's full of resources.

00:20:38.940 They have oil, they have food, and they want to trade it, and if there's sanctions against Russia, they're not just going to just keep that, they're going to find a way to trade it, and there's other countries willing to trade for it.

00:20:53.620 So, if anything, this war is hurting the West more than it's hurting Russia.

00:20:59.740 Yeah, 100%, and that reminded me of something that I, I, I don't know if we ever talked about before off the podcast, but, uh, do you remember when, uh, do you remember right when the Ukrainian-Russian war, this latest one, started, um, and the, all the, uh, the talk in Europe and Canada, uh, regarding, uh, emissions targets, uh, started.

00:21:27.020 The, the, the, the, the latest talking point became, uh, decreasing fertilizer usage by 20%.

00:21:32.920 Do you remember that?

00:21:34.640 Yep.

00:21:35.240 Do you want to, do you want to, I know that you know this, but do you want to take a guess as to what, uh, roughly what percentage of the global fertilizer supply Russia contributes?

00:21:44.620 I actually don't.

00:21:46.800 That's about 20%.

00:21:47.940 Okay, there.

00:21:49.820 Yeah.

00:21:50.540 So, uh, that, that number may vary depending on exactly what you're talking about, but, but the, the rough math checks out.

00:21:56.360 And it was, it was just so obvious that, like, okay, so you're going to announce sanctions on Russia because of their, you know, aggression towards Ukraine.

00:22:03.600 And then you're going to turn it into a, uh, a climate clout marketing slogan, of course, which became a big problem amongst farmers.

00:22:13.420 It started the first round of farmers' protests back in, whenever that was, 20, late 2021, early 22, or early 22, I believe.

00:22:21.760 Um, and, uh, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's, it's a, it's a further example of how weak the West looks in comparison because we, we use every opportunity we can here to, uh, distract from real, actual, like, humanity level events.

00:22:47.540 And, uh, I don't exactly know the, the words for what I'm trying to say, but when you, when you have a ethically questionable, strong leader in Russia, literally through, through means of war, taking what he believes to be his.

00:23:06.420 And then you have leaders in the West, either not knowing who they're talking to, or in Canada's case, uh, always looking like you're, you know, putting on a performance to, to no one, you know, in a drama classroom somewhere.

00:23:22.200 It's a, it's a, it's an example of what, I believe Gad Saad has talked about this, about, um, and also Camille Paglia has talked about this, about the, the barbarians gathering around the gates.

00:23:35.840 Um, when you have a, um, when you have a decadent culture that has reached such, such, such heights of, um, um, civilizational comfort, uh, that most people don't ever have to worry about things like food insecurity or, uh, race riots or land wars or things like that.

00:23:55.240 Um, um, you get a little soft and there are always going to be people who are not in that position in other parts of the world who want to rally and take that and make their own lives a little bit easier.

00:24:07.780 And you see it in, uh, many ways nowadays, but, uh, you know, the, the way that the Russians are behaving now, the way that certain Middle Eastern countries are behaving right now, uh, is just a, I think a symptom of that.

00:24:21.420 And I think the West is going to find very shortly that, uh, we've, uh, let our hands get a little bit too soft and we may not be prepared for what's coming.

00:24:30.700 Yeah.

00:24:31.300 It's, it's hard to know to what degree these countries are acting out of more of a conquest mindset and how much of it's, well, trying to assert a certain amount of their sovereignty because in the international community, you have through all these corporations that are multinational,

00:24:50.480 um, it erodes away at the individual sovereignty.

00:24:55.480 And I think countries can be bullied into deals and positions that they otherwise would not.

00:25:01.580 And I think you can draw a parallel between the way that going from a rural lifestyle where maybe somebody has a farm or they produce something off the land.

00:25:15.280 And each homestead or each household is able to produce, produce a little bit for themselves.

00:25:23.200 They're self-sufficient within a certain way, but now you push everybody into cities and you've gained efficiencies in some places, but the base level skills and base level of independence of the average person has decreased because now you're reliant on these systems.

00:25:40.620 And these are systems are very difficult to understand, like the world network of communication and logistics that gets your fruit from South America to North America.

00:25:53.160 So you can just have an avocado with your, with your toast.

00:26:00.320 Like every morning.

00:26:01.180 Yeah.

00:26:01.620 These systems are extraordinarily complex, um, require many, many hands.

00:26:07.420 And, but we saw four years ago, what happens when even the slightest cog in that machine is disrupted, you get, well, going on four years now of struggle and price, uh, uh, fluctuation and like just crazy, you know, do you remember?

00:26:25.040 I don't know if you would remember this in, uh, in maybe at the end of 2021, you know, Q3 and four of 2021, how limited selection of clothes were like certain clothing was just like, you couldn't find like shelves were empty of like just the weirdest things, you know, people, you know, people remember the toilet paper and stuff like that.

00:26:47.760 And like the consumer goods that you're like, um, that, you know, you know, you what were doing?

00:26:55.000 You know, you know, you want to buy a vehicle if you wanted to, there was, you know, four or five, six month long waits to get a vehicle just because of tiny, tiny microchip, you know?

00:27:03.640 Um, uh, you'll get bottlenecks in the process that aren't usually there.

00:27:08.540 Yeah. I think another part of it is you see the complexities of these systems. And given that we almost saw some mini collapses during the pandemic of having to shut things down, right now, just take Canada as an example, we have a carbon tax, which is affecting every stage of the process.

00:27:34.260 Any stage of logistics, if there's a fuel element, a heating element, that's going to affect the prices that way. Anything that makes the job harder for farmers is going to affect food prices. Any additional red tape regulations, it's going to slow down building the building process.

00:27:55.880 There's even cases where to build some homes, there have been builders waiting on the final stamp of approval on some permits for a while, and they're losing money just because they can't finish the job and build something else.

00:28:12.780 They're kind of tied in and they can't start making money on this. Therefore, prices increase that way. So you look at what Canada is doing to itself and other countries, and it's not hard to see that it's a self-inflicted harm through, like one could say, these have the best intentions.

00:28:33.460 You don't need to attribute malice. It feels like malice, but you don't have to. They could still be done, like these things could be done with good intentions, just by somebody who is completely incompetent.

00:28:50.940 So maybe when you funnel things through ideological thinking, you get very, very dumb decisions. Climate would be one filter, one ideological filter that would cause people to hamstring their own country just to solve a problem. 0.86

00:29:09.500 But it does feel like a lot of these problems. The motives, it's hard to see these act motives, but the net effect is harm, and there's denial of harm, and there's no accountability of which policies create which harm.

00:29:25.720 Yeah. Yeah, well, there's the old saying, never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. 0.99

00:29:34.940 I think there's both. 0.90

00:29:36.560 Yeah, it could be both, but in Canada's case, I feel like there's got to be one person who's looked at very, very basic statistics of the total global emissions that Canada is responsible for, and just crunched some very basic numbers and found it doesn't matter what we do.

00:29:57.880 If we could stop producing carbon entirely for a year and have zero impact on any global emission statistic.

00:30:09.580 Because, like, probably in the length of this podcast so far, China's already built, like, three coal mines.

00:30:16.780 Like, there's, China is building coal mines now, actively.

00:30:21.560 Like, there's, there's no, like, there's no hope.

00:30:24.440 You think by taking your bike to the grocery store you're going to do anything? 0.93

00:30:28.020 Like, so, there's, there's the malice and the stupidity, but I also think it's also a lot of hubris by some of these leaders that have zero perspective of how Canada is actually viewed on the global stage, and how little the rest of the world actually cares about the posturing that Western politicians do about any of this stuff. 0.81

00:30:48.020 Did you see the, did you see the, did you see the one today from, is it Stephen Gabot, saying that we should build less roads? 0.97

00:30:56.700 Oh.

00:30:56.900 Like, there's less, there should be less money for road infrastructure.

00:31:00.660 Okay.

00:31:01.580 Not even for bikes?

00:31:04.560 I don't know.

00:31:05.240 I think they want to get down to, down to just, like, public transportation.

00:31:11.300 Yeah.

00:31:11.940 You have to remember, Canada's a very, very long, wide country.

00:31:16.880 Mm-hmm.

00:31:17.260 So, like.

00:31:18.820 We take up a lot of space, and also we all live within, like, like 10 degrees of the border.

00:31:25.020 You know, it's no, there's not a whole lot of expansion north quite yet because it's, you know, the tundra.

00:31:33.400 Yeah.

00:31:34.000 You do have, I guess there's less people in these rural areas, but the majority of the population are in these massive cities, partially because the cities grow exponentially faster than the rural communities do.

00:31:46.120 Mm-hmm.

00:31:46.560 Um, so that, that's where you're getting into this ongoing problem of immigration, where Canada's, they have higher immigration than anywhere else.

00:31:58.400 Because while we have a housing shortage, while we have a cost of living shortage, the majority of immigrants who start a life in Canada in the most recent years have still been dependent on government assistance.

00:32:13.660 Mm-hmm.

00:32:14.660 So, they're not even coming here and getting to a point that they're able to thrive.

00:32:19.860 Yeah.

00:32:20.060 So, if, if there's so many coming in and they're competing for a limited number of either jobs or homes or resources and they're not able to individually thrive, then that means we've exceeded the level of immigration that is beneficial to those individuals because now they're struggling.

00:32:39.360 Of course, they want to come to Canada, they're told they have this amazing opportunity, so they're sold this idea, but I don't know if the reality lines up.

00:32:48.960 And then if they're dependent on help from government, like subsidies for any number of these programs, well, that's not government funded, that's taxpayer funded.

00:32:59.860 That's right.

00:33:00.520 So, they are, they're not generating that, those taxes to pay for those, it's Canadians who have lived here for how many years who are putting in these long hours who are still just struggling to make ends meet by themselves.

00:33:15.400 Yeah, I think I saw the statistic.

00:33:16.880 I think it was, it's probably, there's probably a broader one, but I saw one specifically about Syrian refugees because I don't know how long ago that was, six or seven years ago, maybe when there was a really big influx.

00:33:29.860 Of Syrian immigrants, and I think the statistic was in the last, in the, you know, five or seven years, however much it was since, um, it was, uh, the majority of Syrian immigrants arrived in Canada, uh, only, it's like only 10% or something are earning over the poverty line.

00:33:47.160 And the poverty line, I believe now is like 27K.

00:33:49.500 So, that's 90% of your, uh, new Canadians, uh, not paying any taxes, just like, this sounds harsher than I mean it, but literally being a burden, being like a tax burden on Canadians, like you say, um, on other Canadian workers who, the ones who are earning above, uh, poverty line income.

00:34:13.840 Uh, and it's, yeah, like there's how many, you know, you, it feels like you see a new article, uh, weekly now about people who, from different parts of the world, like I remember seeing one about, uh, uh, Indian immigrants who are leaving because there's like, there's nothing, like nothing of what they were promised is true. 0.66

00:34:30.920 This is not, this is not, this is not, you, you cannot come here and immediately have a higher quality of life.

00:34:35.900 And, uh, that, while that is something that, you know, I believe Canada has prided itself, prided itself on for, uh, uh, for decades now, it's not something that is able to be actually fulfilled anymore.

00:34:51.200 And it's very obvious that, um, this, this shifts party allegiance, you know, kind of by, by the generation.

00:35:01.800 So when I say this, this is not something that like liberals do per se, but this is something that liberals are doing now.

00:35:09.480 Uh, they are importing a voter base is what it feels like.

00:35:14.060 Uh, and they did it in the sixties and the fifties before that.

00:35:17.740 Um, it has switched parties over the years, uh, the, at certain points in history, conservatives have done it in the U S a lot of people, I don't know why people don't talk about this more.

00:35:26.140 And I'm not sure exactly where I heard this, but, um, in, I believe it was, uh, eight of the, of the prior 10 federal, uh, U S elections in California or in the U S California had voted Republican in eight of the past 10, uh,

00:35:47.740 federal, um, federal elections prior to Ronald Reagan.

00:35:53.420 Now, Ronald Reagan, uh, apparently, I don't know the exact details.

00:35:57.440 I have to look into it more, but he was supposedly a proponent of allowing Mexican migration into, into California, California being, becoming a somewhat of a sanctuary state for Mexicans.

00:36:09.200 That flipped that almost in and of itself has flipped California to being almost exclusively Democrat.

00:36:16.040 And when I say that they were voted Republican, eight of 10 prior elections that even included areas like LA.

00:36:22.800 So they were staunch.

00:36:26.520 There was, California was a red state.

00:36:28.540 And when a Republican wanted to use what the, the impression was a Republican wanted to use, uh, immigrants as a, uh, as a voting block.

00:36:39.760 Well, then people started voting against that.

00:36:41.800 So it's not just a liberal thing, but it's a, it's a politics thing.

00:36:44.560 People in politics do it all the time.

00:36:46.700 It's not racist to say that you're, you're using immigrants as a voting base.

00:36:51.460 It's just an observation of what a, a, a struggling political party has determined its only course of action to win another election is.

00:37:01.220 It's yeah.

00:37:02.420 Like it makes sense that within whatever the five years it is to become a citizen, that politically speaking is not a whole long, that's not a long time.

00:37:13.380 Um, so an influx of people at the point that they're voting and if they're still struggling those five years later, they're not going to vote for a party that would decrease their benefits.

00:37:24.220 And if they're sold an idea that only those on the left will provide for you and give you what you need, then that makes sense why there's.

00:37:37.720 It's in their own interest.

00:37:38.640 Of course.

00:37:38.980 Yeah.

00:37:39.100 Even if they may not necessarily, I've talked about this on the podcast before.

00:37:42.100 Even if it's not necessarily in their, uh, in their own personal interests, as most of these people come from areas of the world that are not particularly liberal and don't, they don't lead particularly liberal day-to-day lives.

00:37:54.380 They will vote that way if that's in their own best interest.

00:37:56.820 Of course.

00:37:57.960 Of course they will.

00:37:58.960 Even if it conflicts with some of their like other religious or political or like sociological values.

00:38:05.800 Um, I think there are like, you can look at, um, other demographics where there's some people who do, they immigrate and they do exceptionally well.

00:38:18.920 And that's also maybe when you have an educational factor and, or enough wealth to get you started and, or you can get, uh, a little bit better of a job that way.

00:38:29.140 But in the cases, let's say if, if Canada's letting in 500,000 to almost a million, because some of them are temporary foreign workers.

00:38:39.940 And then you kind of blur the lines with some of the, what that turns into after does temporary, are they able to get fast track to a permanent residence?

00:38:51.000 Um, so let's say 500,000 to a million.

00:38:55.020 And how many of those are equipped with skills, language, and the tools to succeed?

00:39:03.420 And are there enough well-paying jobs for them to succeed as well?

00:39:09.160 Yeah.

00:39:09.360 And also are they, uh, are we making sure that they're not being taken advantage of too in other ways that are not necessarily even, uh, you know, uh, byproducts.

00:39:18.980 But in, in certain cases, active discrimination in like, when you look at cases of, um, when you look at the case of, um, uh, say enrollment at universities, uh, it's well known that a lot of universities charge exponentially higher rates for, uh, foreign students, like sometimes in the four or five times as much for tuition for foreign students.

00:39:41.480 So there you have somebody, there you have an institution actively blatantly, in my opinion, uh, using, they're cashing in, they're cashing in on a, on a social, uh, you know, what other people view as a, as a social, um, uh, obligation that we have as a first world country to welcome people from, you know, places that may not have as many opportunities for them.

00:40:06.480 Um, well, now you have, uh, there's an example of, we're going to talk about him later on, but, uh, Mocha covered a, um, uh, a case of a, I think it was a school in Calgary.

00:40:16.500 Uh, it was a college in Calgary that there's a, there's a group of, uh, Indian students that are protesting them.

00:40:22.560 I don't know if there's been a resolution to it.

00:40:24.060 This was a few weeks ago.

00:40:24.980 Um, because they're, they're pretty convinced that they're being intentionally flunked, even though they're actually passing their classes because, or they should be passing their classes.

00:40:35.700 Is to get them to re-enroll and, and pay for more semesters.

00:40:39.440 Uh, and, and they're kind of stuck here.

00:40:41.580 Like if they're already enrolled, then they have to push through it to, to, to finish it.

00:40:48.360 Like, or they've basically wasted everything.

00:40:50.440 Yeah.

00:40:50.700 They've wasted years here in search of a, of a diploma or a degree or something that there is being held hostage from them.

00:40:56.760 Well, there's one other aspect to this that I was kind of thinking, um, through the DEI, this diversity, equity,

00:41:05.000 and inclusion, um, lens that is, these initiatives are both in our national policies at a governmental level and also in institute institutions like our, uh, they're in the hospitals or in universities and they're in, um, our workplaces as well.

00:41:23.600 Businesses have implemented DEI policies.

00:41:26.160 And there's this idea that the equity component of that is it, it's equal outcomes.

00:41:33.220 Right.

00:41:33.800 And commonly you'll see, well, you'll, somebody will pull up stats and they'll say, well, look at these people.

00:41:40.660 They're not doing as well as other people.

00:41:43.360 Um, but hold on, we were just talking about music.

00:41:49.780 Yeah.

00:41:50.300 He, he was doubling down on that.

00:41:52.660 So this idea that a group of people based on a identifying, uh, part of an identity group, they're not doing as well as other people, but we're just talking about the influx of new, like these, this influx of immigration.

00:42:10.500 How is that messing with our equity numbers?

00:42:14.400 Because we would expect people who are either don't have the skills or maybe don't have the full education to excel, or they haven't had enough time to really establish some roots in a country. 0.98

00:42:26.400 If Canada has a 500,000 to a million per year now of immigration, that's going to show up as proof of systemic discrimination against people who are not in these like dominant groups or Caucasian, or it's going to be used as proof that more equity initiatives are needed.

00:42:51.740 Right. And maybe not in the way that, uh, DEI advocates would want.

00:42:56.640 Yeah.

00:42:57.160 Yeah. So, well, they're already, they're already facing hypocritical, uh, realities when it comes, like Peter Boghossian talks about this all the time.

00:43:05.800 If, uh, if, uh, SAT scores in the U S were truly representative of who was led into post-secondary institutions, uh, 51% of college students would be Asian.

00:43:17.520 And of course that isn't the case. So there is, you know, people forget that it works both ways. You know, you've, you've, in order to discriminate, discriminate on behalf of someone, you have to discriminate against someone else.

00:43:29.780 So you're using, it just, it depends on what metric you want to equalize for. Right.

00:43:33.780 Peterson's talking about this for years.

00:43:35.540 Current discrimination to fix like past injustices.

00:43:39.760 Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's Kendi's idea, right? I mean, it's the only, it's the only remedy, apparently.

00:43:45.440 He, I think he walked that, that quote back after.

00:43:49.060 Did he? That's good.

00:43:50.460 I think it's no longer.

00:43:51.820 The smartest thing he's ever done.

00:43:52.920 No longer on his website.

00:43:54.940 So.

00:43:56.300 It won't be featured in his next, uh, in his next book.

00:43:59.560 But, um, well, Hey, speaking of, uh, how about this for a segue?

00:44:04.400 Speaking of immigrants, why don't we, uh, why don't we segue quickly over? 1.00

00:44:09.760 To, uh, our next, uh, main topic of discussion today.

00:44:12.820 Uh, I, um, I've been following this like a hawk because, uh, it's interesting to me.

00:44:19.700 Uh, and I have a relatively strong dislike for our mayor, uh, Mr. Amarjit Sohi.

00:44:28.160 Uh, Mocha Beziergan.

00:44:31.300 He's been doing amazing work.

00:44:33.720 He's been so good.

00:44:34.620 He's been on fire lately and I'm, I'm, I'm never going to pronounce his name properly.

00:44:38.360 And I feel so bad because I feel like it's, uh, like Iranian or some, some Arabic name

00:44:44.000 like that I should be able to pronounce as a fellow Arab, but, uh, I can't do it.

00:44:49.200 And, uh, I'm just going to call him Mocha.

00:44:50.880 He has a, an exclusive, uh, he's, uh, he's reported on this, uh, back in, I believe, uh,

00:44:57.300 initially, um, this was a couple months ago, I think.

00:45:01.560 But, he's got some more info on it.

00:45:05.840 So, the tweet says, I'll read it from the top.

00:45:07.580 It says, uh, uh, former liberal infrastructure minister, uh, Amarjit Sohi, who is the current

00:45:13.060 mayor of Edmonton, did not disclose his brother Harkesh's trucking company, WRV, which received

00:45:18.700 at least one sole source contract valued at, I believe this is supposed to be, uh, 18.9 million.

00:45:25.400 From the Ministry of Innovations, under Minister Navdeep Bains, Oversight.

00:45:31.320 Uh, there's some quotes here by a whistleblower.

00:45:34.480 Um, both ministers, it appears, are endorsed by the World Sikh Organization.

00:45:39.140 Uh, the tweet goes on to discuss how, uh, Sohi had apparently, uh, faced terrorism charges

00:45:46.620 in India, uh, and he was apparently arrested in 1988, uh, for being a suspected Canadian terrorist

00:45:55.260 despite not being a Canadian citizen at the time.

00:45:58.080 Uh, he was jailed for almost two years, but it looks like his, uh, uh, his family in Canada

00:46:04.300 lobbied their local Conservative MP at the time, who was David Kilgore, uh, and with pressure

00:46:10.020 from Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and CSIS, uh, India released Sohi back to Canada.

00:46:15.540 He, uh, Sohi was, uh, I guess, asked about these, uh, claims and charges, but there has been

00:46:21.580 no response.

00:46:22.060 So, this is a, uh, fairly, uh, dense, uh, series of accusations, but what it comes down

00:46:29.480 to is the, the ultimate issue of corruption here is in, related to the Gordie Howe Bridge

00:46:37.360 Project in Regina.

00:46:38.460 Uh, it looks like, so that was the bridge that required a whole bunch of materials.

00:46:45.880 Like, it needed a whole bunch of rocks and earth, and to do that, you need a certain,

00:46:51.220 like, there's trucking companies involved, and there's also companies that either, like,

00:46:57.060 they're either going to extract on site or get it shipped from somewhere else.

00:47:00.120 Was that, that's part of the context?

00:47:02.340 That's right.

00:47:03.060 That's right.

00:47:03.520 And I found, I found the original tweet.

00:47:05.180 This is from January 8th that he initially talked about this.

00:47:07.780 So, uh, the tweet reads, high-level corruption within the public-private partnership project

00:47:13.980 of the Regina Bypass Project.

00:47:16.060 Uh, the project costing taxpayers $2 billion is now under scrutiny for potentially being

00:47:20.440 the largest documented case of corruption in Canadian P3 history.

00:47:23.460 Uh, Bob Ray, Canadian aggregate supplier armed with leaked documents, secret recordings, and

00:47:28.380 other evidence, alleges that the Saskatchewan government and federal officials were involved

00:47:31.980 in corrupt practices in the Regina Bypass Project.

00:47:34.980 Uh, we'll link to this tweet.

00:47:36.640 It's a fairly long one, but, um, the, where Sohi comes into it is, apparently, he used, he

00:47:46.880 used his position as the Minister of Transportation.

00:47:50.260 He didn't document his travels, even though it was, it was taxpayer-funded travels, but

00:47:55.600 it wasn't documented so that he could apparently travel to this location, uh, without scrutiny.

00:48:02.340 And apparently his brother's trucking company was granted a contract that, uh, it, uh, may

00:48:07.640 or may not have earned.

00:48:09.160 And for, when we're talking about, looks like we're talking about an eight-figure sum, so

00:48:13.420 that's a pretty wild accusation if it proves to be true.

00:48:17.200 That's, that's some pretty high-level, um, high-level corruption from people who should,

00:48:22.980 uh, be facing a little bit more scrutiny than an independent journalist on X.

00:48:27.720 So, so he was, so he went from being tied up in these kind of international, like, being

00:48:35.140 accused of, uh, being an international terrorist.

00:48:39.080 And this is Calistani-related, too, I believe.

00:48:43.500 Like, there's, there's a lot of interesting Calistani, uh, things with Canadian politicians

00:48:48.840 in there.

00:48:49.500 So, but he, well, Paula, Paula Simmons, who is a, she was an Edmonton Journal columnist

00:48:59.100 writer who is now a senator.

00:49:01.460 She was appointed a senator from Trudeau.

00:49:03.520 So, she was the one who helped write some of the articles to get that persuasion.

00:49:09.100 Um, and I think it helped clear his name, like, through her writing, writing about it

00:49:14.540 and kind of set the stage.

00:49:16.240 But ultimately, he didn't, he had no skills or experience or anything special that, we're

00:49:26.320 looking at this, like, why was he a transportation minister?

00:49:29.220 He was a, he was a bus driver, right?

00:49:30.900 Isn't that what he, he primarily-

00:49:32.500 That's, technically, he's been on roads, so that's experience.

00:49:37.200 That's, uh.

00:49:38.300 He has transported people and things, yes.

00:49:40.880 But, like, he has no specific educational or other work experience that would have made him-

00:49:46.680 Other qualifications that you would think a, a, a federal minister should have.

00:49:51.460 Yeah.

00:49:52.020 I don't, I don't think it's elitist to suggest that.

00:49:53.920 Well, you, you would want people to have a, a certain perspective and experience that

00:50:00.300 would set them up to doing the best job.

00:50:02.940 And with a blank resume like that, like, that seems like it was a position not earned by

00:50:10.160 merit.

00:50:10.780 Yeah.

00:50:11.260 And then you look at, well, with him in, as the Edmonton mayor now, that's also not

00:50:17.740 a, did he, did he get the skills to run a city from transportation, like, as a minister

00:50:28.020 of transportation?

00:50:28.900 Like, did he, other than learning how to be in politics, like, I don't think that really

00:50:34.140 gained flesh out his resume that much as well.

00:50:38.200 So, I'm curious to see what, what actually happens with these accusations.

00:50:43.960 Yeah.

00:50:44.240 This is, this is fairly fresh.

00:50:45.760 It's just in the last couple of days here that there's been a, that he's been covering

00:50:49.380 this case again in more depth.

00:50:51.380 So, we'll, we'll see what comes of it.

00:50:53.080 And, yeah.

00:50:55.280 Interesting, though.

00:50:55.880 I wonder if he'll, he'll face any scrutiny from any, any local press.

00:51:01.700 I have a feeling this will be just like all the other Canadian scandals.

00:51:09.420 And maybe we do an episode where we just go through the long list of scandals.

00:51:15.260 And then we remind people how short of a memory.

00:51:19.200 Goldfish memory scandals.

00:51:20.700 Yeah.

00:51:21.220 Yeah.

00:51:21.560 Like, our, our media doesn't talk about it.

00:51:24.120 People forget about it.

00:51:25.260 And then somehow we trust the government to handle all these things.

00:51:30.380 Uh, there's currently like even arrive can that app, which you had, what was the number?

00:51:38.720 Was it like 400,000 reviews or something on it currently?

00:51:42.180 Like some ridiculous amount of reviews that no app gets.

00:51:45.920 Here's the thing about the reviews.

00:51:47.400 It was, it was still getting reviews even after the pandemic like ended and it was not required.

00:51:52.880 So, um.

00:51:53.900 It's got recent reviews on it.

00:51:55.260 Yeah.

00:51:55.540 Yeah.

00:51:55.800 It got as recent reviews and they're all five stars, but you ask anybody, they all hate this app.

00:52:00.900 And.

00:52:01.520 Or they just never used it.

00:52:02.760 Yeah.

00:52:03.420 Um, I think there's been, there's been a few kind of independent, uh, journalists looking into the funding.

00:52:12.000 And there has been funding into like companies that like, oh, they help connect people.

00:52:17.380 With review metrics and, but it's basically paying for a bot farm at that point.

00:52:24.080 Yeah.

00:52:24.600 Um, and if you look at the total cost of this app and you look at what other apps cost, there's a lot of waste of money on this thing.

00:52:34.600 So.

00:52:35.180 Well, I think it wasn't the number, like it was, so it was over 50 million, right?

00:52:38.980 It was close to 60 million, I think, spent on this app.

00:52:41.140 Right.

00:52:41.340 And, and I believe somebody said, uh, in like on record, like under oath had said that, uh, it was his professional opinion.

00:52:50.600 This was a programmer or a coder or something said, um, that that app could be built for less than 80 grand.

00:52:56.760 Yeah.

00:52:57.440 It's, it's not 60 million of programming into this thing.

00:53:02.420 Um, so, and it was given to a numbered company or two numbered companies.

00:53:07.720 Yeah.

00:53:08.320 So maybe this is our, the theme of this episode is that like money laundering and corruption.

00:53:14.680 And it's not just exclusive to like, um, I think if you uncover most countries, they, you, this is just what you get over, over years and years.

00:53:25.400 When you get like corporate interests being mixed with government interests, which is.

00:53:31.800 Well, and having no consequences for behavior like this.

00:53:34.640 Like no one, I'm, I'm sure that even like we've even seemingly forgot from just like a week and a half ago that the emergencies act was unconstitutional.

00:53:46.260 Like no one is even worried about having this, the slightest bit of consequences from that.

00:53:51.640 I hope that, I hope that the, the law firms that are pursuing this, it's an Alberta based law firm, I think that's pursuing this now, but, uh, I hope they don't stop because somebody, I need, this is my inner, like, you know, my inner SJW from 2007.

00:54:10.800 Like somebody needs to face consequences for this, you know?

00:54:13.400 Well, you, you'd hope that there'd be enough checks and balances that like we can both prevent these things from happening again and also punish people, um, who have let these things happen or who were involved in it.

00:54:31.880 Yeah.

00:54:32.440 And actually not, not just someone needs to face consequences, the right people need to, like the actual people.

00:54:38.040 You can't just have a middle management fall guy.

00:54:41.380 Yeah, exactly.

00:54:42.520 Some, some, uh, you know, hedge fund manager, like take the fall for it and get put up in a, put up in a five-star prison for two years.

00:54:49.560 Like there's, there's no way there's, there's gotta be some, because otherwise, like how do you, how do you disincentivize every other politician from just doing the same thing over and over again?

00:55:01.460 Because they found that it can work and we're too weak-willed as a population to actually hold anyone to account about it.

00:55:08.140 Yeah.

00:55:08.780 And maybe you get a perspective of, well, we need to fix this problem by any means necessary, or somebody defines a problem where they say, well, the climate's going to kill us.

00:55:20.560 Because, therefore, we need to fix the climate by taxing, or if you have a, by any means necessary mindset, and, well, what is, yeah, you can, if there's no consequences, then like the sky's the limit, uh, that way, so.

00:55:38.560 Or if the, if the, if you're being gaslit into believing that the consequences are so dire, that this, what is this small inconvenience on top of small inconvenience on top of small inconvenience in the long run, if our children's, you know.

00:55:53.980 It's just a plastic straw, Mike.

00:55:55.620 Stop complaining.

00:55:57.200 It's, yeah.

00:55:58.200 The paper straws are fine.

00:56:00.080 It's okay.

00:56:00.740 It's okay if it melts in your mouth.

00:56:02.460 It's, it's a feature, not a bug.

00:56:04.240 I want to put, I want to get a, I'm going to put a picture up at the end of this.

00:56:08.560 Maybe over top of our faces as we're talking about this.

00:56:11.200 I took a picture of a McDonald's order that I did the other day.

00:56:16.020 I'm on, to our list, to our, to our four subscribers right now, I need them to know I'm on the keto diet.

00:56:22.520 And I can still order things from McDonald's sometimes.

00:56:24.940 I just get them without buns.

00:56:26.960 And, uh, as I was, uh, telling them to shove their notion of me paying 25 cents now at the McDonald's by my place.

00:56:38.980 For a paper bag.

00:56:40.640 They put a tray out the window for me to, like, grab each item individually.

00:56:45.140 And it's these little single serve thin plastic and styrofoam containers with my bunless burgers in it.

00:56:55.960 And my plastic utensils and my napkins and all that.

00:56:59.880 And I have to just pick every one of these out of a window and put them on my car seat.

00:57:03.460 And I just, like, I got home and I looked at all this garbage that I was given.

00:57:09.980 All this single-use plastic garbage that I was given.

00:57:12.920 Because I didn't want to pay for a recycled paper bag.

00:57:17.420 And I just, every day, I just lose a few more neurons.

00:57:22.700 And I get a little bit more ornery and old man yelling at Cloud.

00:57:28.500 The, maybe on another episode, we'll ask the question, are these, is this an accident or is this little bits of humiliation?

00:57:38.160 Well, like, specifically as a demoralization, like, it's an assertion.

00:57:43.840 And do trees not matter anymore?

00:57:44.900 Do you remember when everything was?

00:57:46.500 That was the whole reason.

00:57:48.380 We're, like, we're switched into plastic so we save trees.

00:57:51.320 And now, trees apparently are a renewable resource.

00:57:54.620 Yeah.

00:57:54.880 And there's even, you'll see listed, like, oh, 5% of energy in this area was from ecofuel or renewable resources where it's just wood pellets being burned.

00:58:06.700 That's wood.

00:58:07.040 It's burning wood.

00:58:08.340 You're back to burning wood.

00:58:10.500 Remember when we got to stop burning wood?

00:58:12.320 Because it's such a big, more, such a bigger polluter than natural gas?

00:58:16.580 If you do look at old pictures of any of the, even, like, Edmonton or Calgary, Edmonton River Valley right now is full of trees.

00:58:26.660 And it's one of the most scenic river valleys you can go to.

00:58:30.620 It's gorgeous.

00:58:31.000 If you look at old photos of it, there's almost no trees.

00:58:34.160 Like, all the trees are tiny.

00:58:36.360 Because in the 1900s, wood was burned as fuel for, like, the average house.

00:58:43.240 And they built everything out of wood as well.

00:58:46.600 So most of the trees that we see in all these, like, scenic areas are, it's new growth.

00:58:52.460 It's not the original forests that were there.

00:58:54.900 So the whole reason we've been able to make these massive improvements in our quality of life is because of these energy-dense fuel sources like oil and coal that makes it so we don't have to cut down trees to keep ourselves warm.

00:59:15.860 In this cold, cold country that we live in.

00:59:20.120 Yeah.

00:59:20.600 Or you could be like Germany right now and be reverting to fuel to wood.

00:59:27.600 And I've even heard, I don't know if it was Germany or if it was some other European country, but there was a, whatever the politically correct term is for dung fuel is being floated as an option.

00:59:43.680 When, you know, there's just, hey, the Prime Minister said there's no business case in selling natural gas to Europe.

00:59:50.520 So what do I know?

00:59:52.820 Yeah.

00:59:53.800 Well, there's more to explore there, but.

00:59:56.440 Yeah, we will.

00:59:57.880 We will.

00:59:59.260 James, always a pleasure, never a chore.

01:00:02.500 Anything else you want to say before we cut her off?

01:00:05.060 We're, hey, we managed to keep it to right about an hour.

01:00:08.180 Yeah.

01:00:08.480 The, I think that covers quite a bit.

01:00:10.680 I'm sure give another week, we'll have plenty more to talk about and some other, some other deep dives for us to do as well.

01:00:18.760 Sounds real good.

01:00:19.660 Okay.

01:00:20.120 Thanks a lot as always.

01:00:21.240 And we'll, we'll see you guys in about a week.

01:00:24.000 Cheers.

01:00:24.520 Yeah.

01:00:25.240 Cheers.

01:00:25.600 Cheers.

01:00:25.680 Cheers.

01:00:25.740 Cheers.

01:00:25.780 Cheers.

01:00:25.800 Cheers.

01:00:27.740 Cheers.

01:00:27.800 Cheers.

01:00:29.740 Cheers.

01:00:29.800 Cheers.

01:00:30.800 Cheers.

01:00:31.800 Cheers.

01:00:32.800 Cheers.

01:00:33.800 Cheers.

01:00:34.800 Cheers.

01:00:35.800 Cheers.

01:00:36.800 Cheers.

01:00:37.800 Cheers.

01:00:38.800 Cheers.

01:00:39.800 Cheers.

01:00:41.240 Cheers.

01:00:41.260 Cheers.

The Critical Compass Podcast - February 28, 2024

Putin, Tucker, & Corruption in the West ｜ A Critical Compass Discussion

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