The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1027

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to the podcast of the Lotus Eaters for the 22nd of October. I am joined

00:00:15.340 by Beau and I am Josh. A very tired Josh because I was up late last night watching the Hope

00:00:20.240 Not Hate documentary and that's what I'm going to be talking about first and then Beau's

00:00:24.140 talking about BRICS versus the G7, a bit of geopolitics, a nice bit of light geopolitics

00:00:30.980 and then we're going to be talking about how the state deals with political dissidents because

00:00:35.800 there's been lots of developments and I think it's an interesting thing to examine because

00:00:40.000 there seems to be two different philosophies on either side of the Atlantic actually that

00:00:44.160 we're going to talk about and I suppose it's quite important as well because you know there's

00:00:49.500 an election going on in the US and these sorts of things might be of concern. But anyway,

00:00:55.160 let's get on with the news because I have no announcements and Hope Not Hate have released

00:01:02.560 a movie, a documentary film on Channel 4 which broadcast at the very prestigious slot of 10

00:01:11.500 o'clock at night on a Monday and here is their poster announcing it. It's called Undercover

00:01:20.460 Exposing the Far Right and yes, they're very proud of it and here they are, the members of

00:01:28.780 Hope Not Hate. You've got Nick Lowell's there on the phone looking like he's in a heist film

00:01:34.440 having a very hurried phone call. Is that not Penfold? Oh no, it's Nick Lowell, sorry.

00:01:40.900 And you've got the other members of the team who I'll introduce there, notes in particular,

00:01:45.340 the gentleman with the camera pulling a face like a mixture of Dennis from Always Sunny in

00:01:50.600 Philadelphia and Zoolander. I don't know why he went for that pose. I mean, you've got to give it to

00:02:01.060 them. The composition's interesting. They've gone for something here. It looks professional.

00:02:07.640 I'll give them that. However, here is the trailer and I thought I'd show this. Although it is worth

00:02:17.420 mentioning as well on this poster before I get onto the trailer, you know, they say a stunningly

00:02:22.920 brave investigation. Of course, this is a bit of a meme and I've pointed this out that the meme has

00:02:30.220 become reality because in 2015, South Park had an episode called Stunning and Brave where they

00:02:38.260 repeat the phrase stunning and brave when talking about basically following a woke orthodoxy relating

00:02:45.460 to Caitlyn Jenner. Who's that? Do you mean Bruce Jenner? Yeah, yeah. Might get us in trouble but

00:02:54.280 I'm sure he's all right with it, you know. He seems like one of the more laid back about it. He's like,

00:03:00.300 I don't care what people say. So, fair enough. But anyway, here's a little bit of a taster of the

00:03:06.900 documentary because I watched the whole thing and I'm not going to subject you to the whole thing but

00:03:11.140 we are going to summarise some of it. Here we go. You just get a rough feel for the thing.

00:03:17.400 It's the camera unit. One, two, three. That's going to be the fake button.

00:03:25.680 Ooh, they're spies.

00:03:26.940 Hey.

00:03:28.080 Ooh.

00:03:28.480 Great.

00:03:29.820 They're professional sticks.

00:03:30.640 I'm trying to forget about it.

00:03:32.820 It's going to be fine.

00:03:35.380 It's a mixture of keeping people safe and also understanding, you know, what gives the far right

00:03:40.280 their power.

00:03:41.500 Far right often present one image to the world and what they're saying when they think no one's

00:03:45.400 listening is different. We have to be in the room when they think no one's listening.

00:03:50.900 There are a number of rules you have to follow when going undercover. You need to know your

00:03:56.540 story. Don't come across as too curious. You have to be patient.

00:04:03.220 Spycraft.

00:04:04.320 Let it come to you. The far right are dangerous. Their ideas encourage violence even if they're

00:04:12.920 not explicitly calling for it. And that's something all of us want to stop.

00:04:18.700 We realised there was something very dark and frightening because of connections to

00:04:24.060 money and power.

00:04:26.840 There we go. That's a good point.

00:04:28.080 Dark and frightening. Dangerous.

00:04:30.000 Yeah, you get the idea with that, don't you?

00:04:32.300 And...

00:04:32.780 Yeah.

00:04:33.280 I wonder what they say behind closed doors. I wonder what commie feels they come out

00:04:36.280 with when the mics aren't on.

00:04:38.140 Yeah, there are members of the Communist Party at Hope Not Hate. So it's worth mentioning

00:04:42.940 as well that some of the spycraft aspects are not unwarranted because, of course, they

00:04:48.300 have been shown to have links to British intelligence. And in fact, Connor on his show tomorrow is

00:04:54.660 going to be going in great detail about who is funding them and that sort of thing and

00:04:58.940 the other more back-end things. And so I'm sort of leaving that to him and I'm just focusing

00:05:04.420 solely on the documentary today. However, we've obviously said things about this before

00:05:09.240 and, of course, we've had our run-ins with Hope Not Hate. You certainly have, Beau.

00:05:15.140 Would you be able to tell everyone briefly sort of what happened, if that's okay?

00:05:19.780 Yeah, the great Gregory Davis declined to appear in this one. But yeah, I've been outed, had

00:05:24.700 an expose on me that I wrote a piece that was on the Mallard that called for a remigration

00:05:30.060 and the outlawing of things like the Communist Party, Socialist Workers' Party, even sort

00:05:35.600 of, you know, defunding the BBC, that sort of thing. Nothing all that strong. But yeah,

00:05:40.600 they did an expose on me. But it's just describing truth, reality, things I'm not ashamed that

00:05:46.960 I said.

00:05:47.820 Well, it's things we say on the podcast all the time. So it's not really an expose. It's

00:05:50.980 just like, we've exposed you for saying things that you say openly on the largest platform

00:05:56.280 that is accessible to you.

00:05:57.820 Our country has been flooded with hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of illegal

00:06:02.740 criminal people that we don't know what they are or what their values are and perhaps they

00:06:06.240 should be sent home.

00:06:07.620 Well, that's the majority view of the British public. And if that's far right extreme, isn't

00:06:12.240 it? Then so be it.

00:06:13.820 But yeah, I mean, the thing on the spycraft thing is I'm quite interested in all that sort

00:06:17.800 of thing. In fact, I'll do some content soon all about the Cambridge Fire. I've been reading

00:06:21.680 around the Cambridge Fire for ages and I'm just finishing up a book about slightly later.

00:06:26.260 period of the history of MI5 and MI6 called Spycraft by Peter Wright. Fascinating book

00:06:31.920 anyway. Yeah, they're still just complete rank amateurs. I watched it as well. It doesn't

00:06:38.260 feel like they were given any instruction by MI6 or GCHQ. It's all amateur stuff. He's

00:06:43.940 just got a little thing that he's sellotaped onto himself. It's nothing special. That was

00:06:48.320 one of my takeaway things is that they're LARPing as sort of counter espionage dudes and they're

00:06:54.700 not. They just... I also found that they were sort of going for small fry a lot of the time,

00:06:59.440 weren't they? They weren't like going for the big dogs. They weren't trying to, you know,

00:07:04.480 they mainly focused on Britain first and an organisation that I'd not really heard too

00:07:10.960 much about. I heard bits and pieces, which we'll get into. But I wanted to show some

00:07:15.760 memes that people had replied to me about the stunning and brave review because people

00:07:20.720 really enjoyed that aspect of it, that they included that on their poster. Stunningly

00:07:25.060 brave. Yeah, stunningly brave. Their bravery is stunning. And of course, this is a... I've

00:07:32.080 forgot the name of it now. Turning it up to 11. What's that? Oh, no. How am I forgetting

00:07:36.820 it? You know, the film was... Oh, they have Stonehenge. Yeah. What's it called? Oh God,

00:07:42.760 I can't remember either. Samson put us out of our misery. It's... I'll play you. It's

00:07:48.340 cult classic. It is. Yeah. I've seen it loads of times. The film... Chat again. Turn it up

00:07:56.680 to 11. Yeah. Chat will tell us, won't they? Spinal Tap. Spinal Tap. God, of course.

00:08:00.940 That's embarrassing. Anyway. Anyway. Yeah. They've dialed both the stunningness and the

00:08:06.220 bravery up to 11. That's brave indeed. Stunning and brave. I'm stunned. I'm stunned. And this

00:08:14.100 one, Touch Mean, perhaps, describes them as the soy Avengers. It was remarkably low T, the

00:08:21.640 whole thing. The whole feel of it seemed very soy-infused to me. They seemed, as they were

00:08:29.700 characterising it, they didn't necessarily seem like they were people who were in control

00:08:34.460 of a situation. They were sort of reacting to the situation. They were saying, I'm scared.

00:08:38.980 Oh, these people could be violent. They were sort of setting themselves up to be passive

00:08:43.660 and victims, weren't they? Yeah. Classic. Yeah. Yeah. Cry bullies. Yeah. They go around bullying

00:08:50.260 the whole world, which is to the right of them. But the second anything comes back, oh, Joe

00:08:55.860 Mulhall welling up. Could someone put some... Well, you'll probably get to it, I'm sure.

00:09:00.620 Well, we will be going through these cry bullies and naming them. Don't worry. So here is Nick

00:09:06.260 Lowells, of course. Everyone's favourite member, of course. The founder and CEO of Hope Not Hate.

00:09:12.620 Here he is. A very sort of serious profile shot here. And here is another, Joe Mulhall, as you

00:09:22.020 mentioned. He, of course, was complaining about people leaking his personal information and

00:09:27.100 how afraid it made him feel, which is one of the most ironic moments in the whole documentary,

00:09:33.980 because, of course, that is their bread and butter. You know, speaking of which, our friend

00:09:39.840 Roar Egg Nationalist, or Charles Cornish Dale, had his identity leaked by Hope Not Hate, even

00:09:46.500 though he wanted to keep it private. And he has his suspicions that there was... They're

00:09:52.460 claiming that they used some sort of source to do it, but he suspects that it might have

00:09:58.240 been intelligence involved. But he's looking into it, and I don't know...

00:10:02.580 They're just fighting fascism, though. You know, like, Joe Mulhall is on the right side

00:10:06.240 of history because he's fighting fascism, the evil spectre of modern-day Nazism in the form

00:10:13.500 of Roar Egg Nationalists. Yeah. He's not a fascist, as far as I'm aware.

00:10:17.520 No, not remotely. He's a scholar. A lot of the people in this, yeah. A scholar.

00:10:20.680 A lot of the people in this, as well, I didn't really see much evidence that they were actual

00:10:25.620 fascists. But maybe, you know, they talk a lot about the far-right. Maybe, if you're being

00:10:30.120 charitable, you can say it comes under that umbrella.

00:10:33.760 Well, again, their definition of anything that's far-right is people that, like, want to

00:10:37.520 have a country, or want their country back that's been invaded, or the very concept that

00:10:42.560 there might be any criminality among any immigrants. That's far-right to them, isn't it?

00:10:48.600 Did you find that, a lot of the time, their definition and understanding of the far-right

00:10:53.000 was quite entry-level for an organisation that's meant to be studying them? I was just like,

00:10:58.080 well, there's a lot more difference in the far-right. You can't just make blanket assertions

00:11:04.100 about, well, generally, the far-right believes this. Well, actually, no. There are plenty of

00:11:08.160 groups that are exceptions to that. You could say that it's a very complicated thing, and

00:11:12.600 some of them, or the majority of them, believe this. But it wasn't really how they were approaching

00:11:16.440 it, and I don't know whether they were simplifying it just for the sake of the documentary, or

00:11:21.040 whether that was genuinely their understanding, that they completely missed out on a lot of the

00:11:26.360 nuance involved in politics, right?

00:11:29.680 Considering they had two hours to play with, or, you know, minus adverts, an hour and a half

00:11:33.760 to play with. It was very, very light on any sort of actual detail, or investigation, or

00:11:39.360 anything, really.

00:11:40.140 There were lots of scenes of fiddling with equipment that perhaps could have been cut

00:11:45.820 for the sake of more depth in terms of exploration, because I was actually weirdly looking forward

00:11:52.520 to seeing what they had to say about the right in Britain, because it's an interesting

00:11:57.780 time to be following right-wing politics in Britain. I know that, you know, the right is

00:12:02.040 not exactly prevailing at the minute, but there are lots of things going on, at least.

00:12:06.840 I thought the whole thing was sort of behind the curve, it seemed to me. Talking about

00:12:11.100 Tommy.

00:12:14.860 It's a bit strange, isn't it?

00:12:16.420 He's not on the fringes of the right, is he?

00:12:19.500 No.

00:12:19.960 Tommy. They've been going after him for like eight years, ten years or whatever. Talking

00:12:24.080 about Mark Collette and PA, it's like, yeah, they're not even a registered party, and you've

00:12:29.060 been banging on about them for ages, or talking about Britain First. Like, yeah, they're not

00:12:34.180 really... Or that website they did, the big chunk on, what was it called? Apora or something?

00:12:39.200 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:12:39.880 I've never even heard of that.

00:12:41.000 No, I couldn't even find it on Google.

00:12:43.120 Never heard of it. It's nothing.

00:12:45.460 Well, it was a magazine that belonged to the foundation that they were targeting.

00:12:50.800 Which I'd also never heard of in my life.

00:12:52.660 Yeah.

00:12:53.080 Had you? The Pioneer Fund? Have you ever heard of that before?

00:12:54.980 I've heard of it in passing.

00:12:56.280 But I just thought the whole thing was sort of behind the curve, you know, a bit out

00:13:00.420 of date and super low resolution, like, for example, but deliberately, I think. Like,

00:13:04.280 they'll talk about Cable Street in passing. They'll talk about Moseley in passing. Don't

00:13:08.520 talk about the actual historical milieu or anything.

00:13:12.220 Yeah. Don't talk about... Well, they did that over and over and over again, didn't they?

00:13:15.720 Like, when they mentioned the riots towards the end, just mention, oh, yeah, it was actually

00:13:19.620 in response to three of the most horrific murders you can imagine. But we won't talk about

00:13:23.480 that or anything.

00:13:24.140 There are a couple of things going on here. The first of which is that the way that Hope

00:13:29.380 Not Hate quite often targets some of the right-wing people that it is focusing on is that it

00:13:35.820 smears people by association. And so, you know, they'll have, you know, talks about fascism,

00:13:45.200 Oswald Moseley, and then they'll cut to something else that is a different thing, both temporally

00:13:50.500 and ideologically. And the idea is that the audience is meant to make the link between

00:13:55.000 the two. And they do this in passing out their material as well, in that they hand out reading

00:14:00.280 material that will have, you know, unironic neo-Nazis on one side and then, like, a classical

00:14:07.080 liberal or someone of that stripe. It's like, these are not equivalent. They're political enemies,

00:14:13.320 if anything, and you're trying to present them as all far right. It doesn't make sense.

00:14:17.760 Yeah, smearing by association, classic. And really, it's really lame. Anyone that knows

00:14:23.120 what they're watching sees it a mile away. But they'll show one Molotov cocktail and then

00:14:28.020 cut to Elon on Twitter saying Civil War is inevitable or something. It's just, they don't

00:14:34.020 actually say, we're trying to smear Elon here. But obviously, yeah, they do it over and over again.

00:14:38.580 And the second thing, and I'm curious what you think of this, is that I think the reason

00:14:43.060 that they're so hot on Tommy is that he can get people out on the street, right, in great

00:14:49.740 numbers. And I think that if they are these intelligence assets that people suspect they

00:14:55.700 are, then that would be the point of most concern of the right. It's not necessarily how extreme

00:15:01.460 you are. It's just, do you have a significant ground movement? And there's no denying, you know,

00:15:06.200 with rallies that Tommy puts on, that he can get a lot of people to turn out on a day that

00:15:12.200 he chooses. And that, to their mind, is power. And that's probably why they go after him the

00:15:19.420 most. I don't know.

00:15:20.840 Because he's got a high profile, relatively high profile. Yeah. Yeah. They seem to have

00:15:24.700 such a boner for him. It was ridiculous. Like, how much time and energy are you spending

00:15:28.960 on Tommy?

00:15:30.260 I know.

00:15:30.600 They're so proud that they revealed him as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

00:15:35.260 And they're so proud of that. It's weird and gross. It's like, Tommy's milk toast, right?

00:15:41.880 He said, Tommy's position is basically like, yeah, let loads and loads of millions of people

00:15:47.080 in, or Sikhs and Hindus, as long as they're not Muslim. That's not even that hard line.

00:15:52.420 He's not even a really, really hard line guy.

00:15:54.460 Go back 20, 30 years, that would be a left-wing position.

00:15:58.000 Yeah, he was on Mayatusi recently. And he's like, it's not, he's not far right. But yet

00:16:05.460 still, they've decided he's in their crosshairs and they've decided, you know, they'll do anything

00:16:09.180 they can. I mean, it does seem that Tommy has made a few bad decisions, like getting himself

00:16:15.480 arrested or getting himself done for contempt of court and things like that, missing a court

00:16:19.780 case here or there. So maybe they realise, you know, like, it's possible to actually get

00:16:24.660 this guy.

00:16:25.440 Sort of smell blood in the water.

00:16:26.940 Right, that's what I'm trying to say, yeah. But it's all just so, one of the things that

00:16:32.240 I came away from it was the impression that I already had, but it's reinforced the impression

00:16:41.200 that these are just really weak, pathetic people. Like, really weak. Like, we've got to get Tommy.

00:16:48.760 Yeah, it was a little bit sad, wasn't it, really? It's just like, is this how you, there

00:16:53.400 was one point where they said they spent hundreds of hours sort of reverse image searching where

00:16:58.940 the background in Tommy Robinson videos to find out where he is. It's like, what are

00:17:03.240 you doing?

00:17:03.740 Again, it's like the CIA or the NSA trying to find out where Bin Laden's cave is. It's

00:17:08.060 like, you're not, you're not like MI6.

00:17:11.600 Well, maybe they are.

00:17:13.600 Joe Mulholl with his map and the elastic bands. It's like, what? What do you think you're

00:17:21.060 doing? I mean, what do you...

00:17:23.440 Well, let's go through some of the team, shall we? So here's Patrick Hermanson. He was sort

00:17:30.060 of organising the undercover work and he was the man behind the scenes, so to speak.

00:17:34.220 The handler. The mastermind. The Amazon Screeze. Exactly. And Georgie Lamming is another lady.

00:17:42.440 She sort of features briefly in the documentary.

00:17:45.440 It's always in the eyes. You can always see it in the eyes. Mad.

00:17:48.340 And then here is the guy who did the undercover work, Harry Shuckman, I believe.

00:17:54.280 So brave, putting himself in so much danger, going out and having a dinner.

00:17:58.280 I know. So brave. I know. I mean, most of his undercover work, he's in very public places

00:18:05.100 and I think he was probably... Kim Philby's got nothing on Harry Shuckman, one of the greatest

00:18:09.940 counter-espionage operatives of all time. It is worth mentioning though, he has got it

00:18:15.860 in his blood because I believe some of his family members, I can't remember exactly the

00:18:21.760 relation because I looked it up whilst the documentary was going on. So I only could look at it briefly.

00:18:27.320 I think some of them worked for the intelligence services, so interesting, isn't it?

00:18:34.140 That's at least what I've read. I can't confirm that yet. Connor, I'm sure, will confirm

00:18:38.980 that tomorrow. Allegedly.

00:18:39.980 Yes, exactly. It's just rumours.

00:18:42.480 I don't know. I actually don't know any of these guys, like that really obnoxious Patrick

00:18:47.220 guy with his 2,000 followers on Twitter. I never even heard of this guy before. Like

00:18:53.980 I know Nick Lowell and Joe Mulhall, but all the other people, they're just nothing people,

00:19:00.800 aren't they? An empty bag of trying really, really hard. To be taken seriously. It smacks

00:19:08.980 of try hard. I definitely got that as well. Because by the end of it, I'm jumping ahead

00:19:13.800 by the end of it. You're like, so what have you actually done? What have you really achieved?

00:19:19.020 So this is the final person. She also doesn't feature that much. She's not doing much of

00:19:24.620 the undercover stuff, Anki Dio. But I wanted to talk about Harry Shuckman here went on James

00:19:31.180 O'Brien's show. Of course he did. Because of course, yeah. Why not? It'd be the obvious

00:19:36.400 choice. And he talked about going undercover. And he mentions a couple of things right off

00:19:44.340 the bat. The majority of referrals to the Prevent programme are the far right. And the

00:19:49.120 majority of terror convictions are the far right as well.

00:19:54.220 That can't be right. That can't be true.

00:19:55.740 This is that as a justification. So it's worth mentioning as well, we've talked about James

00:19:59.440 O'Brien's book, you know, in a very detailed book club. It was Harry who'd read the book

00:20:07.580 and he was explaining it to Carl and I. And it was torture, apparently. Just throwing that

00:20:12.340 out there. That's on the website if you want to, you know, have your blood boiled.

00:20:16.960 Yeah, I was asked if I wanted to be on that. I was like, no, I'm not. I'm not reading James

00:20:20.480 O'Brien. I can't. I can't.

00:20:22.040 To sort of put in some perspective here to what Shuckman is saying, I did a calculation

00:20:30.640 here. And I basically controlled for a fair number of things. And I said, despite the media

00:20:37.320 warnings of the rising far right terror threat, Islamic terror attacks account for 96.97% of

00:20:43.180 terror related fatalities since 2005. And that is in Great Britain. So what I said here is

00:20:49.720 I selected 2005 because that's when the IRA attacks ceased. And, you know, it's become

00:20:55.520 sort of obsolete.

00:20:56.320 And 77 was in 2005.

00:20:58.280 Exactly. And so it's sort of a good cut off point where the nature of the terror change

00:21:02.700 from Irish related terror to Islamist related terror, which we're still in today. And I

00:21:10.800 also removed the death of the perpetrator and things like that. So, you know, that is rather

00:21:16.920 than just saying the, you know, the far right is on the march or on the rise or whatever.

00:21:20.900 That is an undeniable fact.

00:21:23.180 Right.

00:21:23.840 So Shuckman was incorrect. Let's not call him an out and out liar. He was just simply incorrect.

00:21:29.720 I think he was mispresenting the reality of the threat here.

00:21:33.800 It's not far right.

00:21:34.520 Yes, I think we can say that. So it's also worth mentioning as well, he's talking about

00:21:40.480 prevent referrals. Well, the prevent referrals here, prevent if you're not familiar, is the

00:21:47.980 anti-terror scheme, basically. And there was a movement, this is an article I wrote in January

00:21:54.040 of 2021, to expand the definition to include the far right. And what that meant was pensioners

00:22:01.440 were regarded as terror threats. And that was up by 90 percent, according to a government

00:22:07.180 report. And there's this really damning statement from Colonel Richard Kemp, who is a terror

00:22:14.180 expert, and he's also chaired the government's Cobra Intelligence Group, so far more qualified

00:22:18.340 than anyone at Hope Not Hate, to talk about this thing. And he says, I know that the authorities

00:22:22.220 are trying to emphasize the far right extremism rather than Islamic extremism. I can tell you

00:22:27.080 that the threat between the two is not comparable. Of course, there is a marginal threat from

00:22:31.040 the left and right, but not comparable. In the interest of trying to appear even-handed

00:22:35.100 and appease people that criticize prevent for focusing on Islamic extremists. I know

00:22:40.140 they are looking at far right extremism more to counter those accusations. The authorities

00:22:43.880 have tried to inflate the threat to try and appease critics of those policies. There you

00:22:48.460 go. There is someone who's probably one of the best qualified people in the country

00:22:51.720 to talk about that, saying it's just BS, basically. It's nonsense.

00:22:55.880 I can't recall the last time in Britain a right-wing terrorist blew up a bus in Russell Square.

00:23:04.980 I can't remember the last time he turned up at a maternity ward in a cab, blew himself up.

00:23:09.980 I can't remember the last time the evil far right anti-gay mob stabbed gay people. I don't

00:23:16.980 remember the last time that happened, but okay.

00:23:19.980 On the tube as well. I don't remember them carrying out any attacks on the tube.

00:23:24.140 Yeah, all those bombings the far right did on the tube. Oh no, there haven't been any.

00:23:28.020 Manchester Arena, you know, they didn't do that. Interesting, isn't it?

00:23:34.560 So Shuckman was objectively incorrect then when he said that on James O'Brien, okay.

00:23:40.020 And then...

00:23:40.920 That's clear.

00:23:41.420 If we go back to the James O'Brien clip, he basically... The main thing he complains

00:23:46.580 about is that one of the groups told an anti-Semitic joke, and he's like really upset about this.

00:23:53.100 Oh no!

00:23:54.520 Like boo-hoo.

00:23:55.680 No!

00:23:56.860 And he's also presenting it as if like, wow, this is exactly what they believe.

00:24:00.780 Let's bang up Mel Brooks then. We can't have that. We can't have that. Ruddy Mel Brooks

00:24:06.700 needs to spend... Is he still alive actually? Not sure. Anyway, carry on.

00:24:11.420 So, I did a massive thread where I tweeted out lots of stuff as it happened, basically

00:24:17.460 to keep track of it all, because of course I was watching it live, and I'd be coming in

00:24:22.400 this morning to talk about it, and so I needed to do that. And so I basically just tweeted

00:24:28.640 everything that I could possibly see. I'm going to go through some of it, obviously I'm not

00:24:32.360 going to read all of it, because the documentary was boring. It was really boring.

00:24:37.580 It was a mixture of pathetic and boring. That was my takeaway.

00:24:40.520 One of the main things that I sort of objected to about the whole thing is that they mix

00:24:46.880 the timelines together and the stories. So you go from Britain first to this group, this

00:24:55.440 biology group, and then back to something else, and then Tommy Robinson. And by weaving

00:25:00.980 all these disparate threads together, all it does is serve to make it more difficult to

00:25:05.840 follow, or less engaging, because you start getting invested in one story, and then it

00:25:10.460 cuts to something else.

00:25:12.200 A bit about poor Nick Lowell's.

00:25:14.560 I know. There was a really good bit. I'll get to it in this eventually. But Nick Lowell's

00:25:20.360 admitted to, when he was a child, hiding in a tent when his family were on holiday, because

00:25:27.840 he was worried he would get tanned skin.

00:25:32.200 Absolutely nonsense.

00:25:34.200 He's also, you know, his complexion's probably lighter than mine. So what's he worried about?

00:25:41.560 We're probably about the same age. I mean, my early 40s. Maybe he's a touch older. We're

00:25:45.400 probably about the same age. Kids in the 80s, teenagers in the 90s sort of a thing. That

00:25:51.560 wasn't a thing, where someone would come back from holiday in their tanned, and they start

00:25:55.480 getting bullied for being a darker shade of brown. That just never, ever, ever happened.

00:25:59.840 Probably the opposite, to be honest. You come back and have a nice tan, and people say,

00:26:03.600 oh, you're looking healthy.

00:26:04.760 Yeah, right.

00:26:05.280 That's what I grew up with, at least. But he also complained about National Front, which,

00:26:11.520 as far as I'm concerned, was a non-entity when he was growing up.

00:26:15.200 Yeah, it was already... Wasn't the clip, like, from the 50s or something? I don't know.

00:26:20.160 Well, there were loads of old clips thrown in there, weren't there? So he's trying to

00:26:26.480 deliberately elevate the potential threat when, actually, it was pretty minuscule.

00:26:31.280 He was terrified his mum's going to get deported. They were nowhere near government,

00:26:35.040 Nick. They were never, ever near government. So what are you talking about? Nonsense. Just,

00:26:39.600 again, just nonsense. That's what they survive on. That's bread and butter, isn't it? Liars and nonsense.

00:26:45.760 It is, yeah. So the main thing, the documentary started off with an undercover sting on the far

00:26:52.160 right race scientists, and they talked about going to a conference held in Tallinn, Estonia, which,

00:26:57.920 you know, Tallinn, Estonia looks lovely. I actually really want to go there, particularly in winter.

00:27:02.720 Looks like a nice place to go. I don't know why I've included that. It's a bit of a tangent,

00:27:07.120 but just throw that out there. If you need a holiday destination, I suppose. They're not paying me.

00:27:12.400 The tourist board of Tallinn. I wish. I haven't even been there myself. But yes, they talk about this,

00:27:20.080 and they have a talk from Mark Webber. They're talking about...

00:27:25.120 F1 driver, Mark Webber. Wow. Not that one. I did think that as well. I was just like,

00:27:30.640 hang on a minute. He's a bit of a changing career from F1, isn't it? And yeah, they talk about the

00:27:37.280 Absolute State of Britain podcast, and describe it as one of the most extreme podcasts. Then it cuts

00:27:42.400 to adverts with someone saying that they're into high IQ breeding, as if this was a bombshell. Just

00:27:48.240 like, yes, I want intelligent people. Surely that should be what everyone wants, right? They want people to

00:27:54.160 have more intelligent children. That is desirous to everyone with a functioning brain.

00:27:59.680 And plus, it's a classic thing that more intelligent people are drawn to the same. You're

00:28:04.320 drawn to whatever you are. Vaguely, very, very broadly speaking. Lots of professors marry other

00:28:09.920 professors, for example, right? Of course, yeah. It's strange. It's a problem, yeah. Then it talks

00:28:16.240 about Nick Lowell's background. He talks about how his mother was half Mauritian. I don't think people

00:28:23.040 would particularly pick up on that, to be honest. I just presumed he was English, to be honest. We

00:28:29.760 didn't even know until he outed himself. And who cares anyway? Yeah, who cares? Right? Like that

00:28:35.280 Joe Mulhall said one of his grandparents was Indian. So? So what? Who cares? Yeah. Oh, so we can't have

00:28:44.400 a country anymore. We have to have open borders and endless, endless immigrants, because one of

00:28:50.080 one of Joe Mulhall's grandparents was an Indian man. So we can't have borders now. One of my,

00:28:56.400 one of my very distant ancestors was Norwegian. Therefore we have to have infinity third world

00:29:02.240 immigration. Yeah. All right. Okay. Yeah. And so, yes, they obviously brought up the Battle of Cable

00:29:08.320 Street just in passing, as well as Oswald Mosley. Don't worry about the details of what happened that day,

00:29:12.880 what really happened. They also discussed that young kid planning to murder Labour MP,

00:29:18.000 Rosie Cooper. They also, this was really strange. So that is bad, by the way. It is bad. Which I

00:29:23.280 think it is true. It is true. Because he was convicted, right? So it's true. That is bad. It is,

00:29:28.160 yeah. Right? So? But the problem is that they contextualise it by trying to, yeah, smear by association

00:29:34.480 again. That this, this kid is not representative of lots of other people, right? Yeah. Right. But yeah,

00:29:42.400 obviously I don't support that. So they also suggested that the term evolutionary psychology

00:29:48.400 is often used by the right to suggest that there is a belief in biological differences between groups.

00:29:54.000 And they said this like, this is a bad thing. But for one, there are biological differences between

00:29:59.680 groups. And two, evolutionary psychology doesn't, you know, that might be how some people use it,

00:30:05.840 but it's a lot more than that. I've studied a lot of it because I am a psychologist, so.

00:30:10.880 You're a postgrad in psychology, so you should. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And there's, there's nothing

00:30:15.680 to worry about there. I think actually evolutionary psychology is really interesting and useful for

00:30:20.080 understanding human nature and is a good thing, but maybe, you know, they're just misspoke.

00:30:26.560 The idea that there's no biological differences between groups. Are you mad? Yeah. Of course there

00:30:33.600 are. Again, just utter, utter nonsense. They're hoping their audience are stupid, I guess. So they, they

00:30:42.960 talk about the Pioneer Fund and bring up Mark Collette because of course they go in and out of lots of

00:30:47.440 different threads. Uh, pretty boring stuff. Uh, they explain what the Overton window is and

00:30:54.080 apparently the, uh, moving the Overton window, um, the end goal of that is to get a white ethno state,

00:30:59.680 which, uh. See, this is where it starts smacking of desperation that even mentioning the Overton,

00:31:06.000 the concept of the Overton window is dangerous and worrying. Tommy Robinson talks about moving the

00:31:11.920 Overton window and he specifically says he doesn't want that. Leftists talk about that.

00:31:17.120 They want to move the Overton window to the left, right? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's just a,

00:31:21.200 it's a bipartisan political phrase really. Yeah. It's silly. Uh, it's silly, yeah. I liked this,

00:31:27.040 that they kept on bringing up how well educated many members of the far right are, which, uh, you know,

00:31:32.880 just, uh, give myself a pat on the back, you know. Well, there's a whole bunch of postgrads

00:31:39.120 and, well, PhD or two flying around our office, aren't there? That's true, yeah.

00:31:43.360 I mean, it's, it's funny how, you know, the left claims the institutions and a lot of the people

00:31:49.040 that do get qualifications go on to create successful businesses rather than just being

00:31:53.760 an employee in a pre-existing one, isn't it? Almost like there's more guts behind a certain

00:31:58.720 group of people. Uh, they bring up Unite, the right rally in Charlottesville in 2017 for

00:32:04.240 some reason. Then bring up, oh, I didn't mean to do that. Uh, and then bring up Richard Lynn and

00:32:08.640 his work on IQ. Uh, they, for some reason claim that scientists view Lynn's work as wrong and

00:32:14.640 misleading. They don't go into any detail about why though, or why that might be, or if that's very,

00:32:19.360 I covered it at university. Or if that's actually true. I covered it at university and it wasn't

00:32:24.000 presented in that way. They said it was controversial. They didn't, they didn't say it was wrong.

00:32:27.920 No, I don't think it is. No. I think it's sort of objective facts, isn't it? I remember one time,

00:32:35.920 um, Peterson and Murray started to talk about that and then both just decided they best just

00:32:41.440 move on and talk about something else because it may be controversial, but I don't think it's wrong.

00:32:47.920 That's probably why they did it, right? Right. Yeah.

00:32:50.480 So obviously they brought up Tommy Robinson because they love him. Um, and there was a hilarious quote

00:32:56.400 from Nick Lowell saying that he, the first time he saw Tommy Robinson's eyeballs,

00:33:00.400 he described him as an angry man. He saw his eyeballs. Ooh, spooky eyes. Nick Lowell strikes me

00:33:09.120 as someone that under the surface is boiling with rage is, is, is, is, is nothing but rage under the

00:33:17.520 surface. It feels like to me. I mean, I'll tell you what he reminds me of. The irony of hope,

00:33:21.600 not hate that they are, they generate hate. You know, in the thick of it, there's the whip that's

00:33:27.280 the rival to Malcolm Tucker with the mustache. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very thinly veiled angry comes

00:33:32.640 across very pleasant. Then as soon as someone does something he doesn't want immediately furious,

00:33:37.120 that's kind of the vibe I'm getting, but maybe I'm wrong. I don't know the guy. So it goes on to talk

00:33:42.880 about many right-wing commentators believe I've got that in quotation marks that Europe is under

00:33:47.600 assault by Islam. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so do we. So does anyone with a pair of eyes. Then they talk

00:33:54.400 about Paul Golding. They talk about his dating life and record him using the N word a few times.

00:33:59.040 Who cares? It's a word. The terrible Paul Golding and Mark Collette and Tommy Robinson. Terrible.

00:34:04.960 They're so terrible. And yeah, they, they show Britain first in Poland at an independence rally,

00:34:10.960 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It keeps on going on and on. I'm not going to bore you with too much

00:34:16.880 more of this. They, of course, they bring up the Holocaust. They talk, to be fair, to give them

00:34:22.000 credit here. They talk about a 19 year old Tommy Robinson and Britain first supporter having been

00:34:28.080 arrested by the national crime agency. And he was reportedly found with Nick Lowell's address. And

00:34:32.880 apparently he bought a gun, which they made a big deal about, which if it is true, would be worrying,

00:34:41.120 to be fair. Yeah. Again, again, they're conflating things that are actually a worry with things that

00:34:46.560 aren't. Like if, if, if someone has your address and a gun and states that they want to kill you or

00:34:52.320 something, that is something to genuinely be worried about, right? And fair enough. But someone like Paul

00:34:56.560 Golding saying, I would like to have a country for my grandchildren, equate that with someone that has

00:35:02.400 bought a handgun, which you're not allowed in this country. Like as if they're, as if they're the same

00:35:07.440 thing or whatever, as if they're all just silly, silliness. So they talk about the Human Diversity

00:35:15.200 Foundation again, that organization and Emil Kierkegaard, whose work on Twitter is very good. I do suggest it.

00:35:21.600 I don't, that's another one I've never heard of before. Oh, he's good. Because there's the real,

00:35:27.200 there's the real philosopher Kierkegaard, right? Yeah. But this, this guy, this guy that's young

00:35:31.600 and alive these days, I've never heard of him before. I think he's a geneticist off the top

00:35:34.960 of my head, or does evolutionary biology or psychology, something like that. But I've just

00:35:38.320 seen a few of his posts about, and I quite like them. It was quite good for the Streisand effect,

00:35:42.160 actually. There's a few things, loads of things I've never heard of before. I'm like, oh,

00:35:44.960 okay, I'll give them a follow. It's basically a reading list. And I like this part as well,

00:35:50.960 that at one point it cut to ads. And the first two ads after the documentary were for KFC and

00:35:56.480 period pads, which I said was brutal targeted advertising. I had to just include that in as

00:36:05.840 just a bit of fun. Don't expand on that. No, of course not. They obviously talked about Southport.

00:36:13.120 They talked, they had an undercover Zoom call. In passing, the Southport thing, as in passing

00:36:17.840 as they possibly could, were actually... It's funny that, isn't it? I wonder why

00:36:22.320 they mentioned it in passing. Is it because Nick Lowell's accidentally tweeted a little bit of

00:36:26.480 misinformation that caused lots of Muslims to go out and beat people up? Oh, I was talking about

00:36:31.200 the actual murder. Oh, right, yeah. The actual murders. I mentioned it in a bit of text on screen.

00:36:36.400 Yeah. Very quickly and moved on. It's funny that, isn't it? I actually talk about

00:36:40.960 the actual horror, an actual slaughter of the innocents. A Rwandan man went in and murdered a

00:36:47.600 bunch of innocent young girls. Didn't focus on that. It's not important to them. And maimed

00:36:53.520 another eight or whatever it was. Yeah, of course. And some of the adults there as well.

00:36:57.920 No doubt scarred them. Don't talk about that though. No. But eventually they talk about

00:37:03.280 something that they published in an article before the documentary anyway,

00:37:07.040 that they named Andrew Conroe as the CEO of Friend Finder and funder of this Human Diversity

00:37:14.560 Foundation. And basically the sort of finale of the documentary is that they take credit for

00:37:21.680 Conroe withdrawing funding from this one project. What a nothing burger. Yeah, slow hand clap.

00:37:28.560 So I'd never heard of that guy either. But okay, he's a billionaire. Okay. And then basically at the

00:37:36.800 at the very end, they flash up some text, didn't they, which only just about caught,

00:37:41.200 which I think to effect was, he didn't even really know or realise that some of his money,

00:37:46.160 some of his billions was being funneled that way. And he's now stopped doing it now. And

00:37:50.400 and he bent the knee. Diversity is great and all that sort of stuff.

00:37:54.960 No consequences. So it didn't really amount to very much. I mean, a few people probably had to

00:38:00.240 look for a new job, but that was it, which is still a bit scummy. But at the same time,

00:38:05.840 it's pretty small fry, isn't it? And that that was it. And then it ended. And I was just like,

00:38:11.280 really? Is that really it? And the final thing I wanted to end on was the usual suspects,

00:38:17.280 of course. Here's the Guardian, Lila Latif, whoever she is. She says it's the bravest documentary of

00:38:25.520 the year so far and gives it five stars. And I would like to point out another documentary that's

00:38:32.560 come out this year is this one. And this documentary, I'm going to read a little summary.

00:38:38.960 After suffering a spinal cord injury, a professional rugby player, Ed Jackson's world changes forever.

00:38:44.720 And then it follows his recovery. And then he climbs Snowdonia, the Alps and the Himalayas.

00:38:50.800 Well, I feel like someone climbing three mountains with a spinal injury, probably braver.

00:38:58.720 That's actually brave. Yeah. Yeah. You know, having a camera in your pocket and talking to

00:39:05.760 some people posing as an investor in a fancy restaurant or going to a meeting in public where

00:39:11.840 people are sitting down and having a conversation is not brave. No one's going to beat you up.

00:39:16.880 None of the people seemed like they were going to turn to violence. You didn't get that impression.

00:39:22.400 They amped it up, but I feel like it was over egged.

00:39:25.440 Well, that guy, that Harry guy's kid, that boy going undercover was in no danger at any point.

00:39:34.000 It required no bravery sitting down and having a dinner in a really nice restaurant with people

00:39:38.640 that aren't intimidating and just pure nonsense, isn't it really? But that sounds cool. That actually

00:39:45.520 sounds like worth watching. I only found out about it this morning. I was just looking at

00:39:49.280 documentaries that have released this year and apparently this is one. So there you go.

00:39:54.240 Touching the Void. If you want a decent documentary, it's a few years old now,

00:39:57.040 Touching the Void. That's a good one. Don't waste your time on Hope Not Hates nonsense.

00:40:01.280 Yeah, watch something nourishing, something apolitical, something good for you.

00:40:04.800 But yes, obviously, Hope Not Hates film wasn't very good. It's a shame it was boring. It could

00:40:10.880 have at least been fun and hilarious and it wasn't even that. I watched it so you didn't have

00:40:15.760 to. And sorry for the long-winded coverage, but it was a long-winded documentary.

00:40:20.720 Right. Don't worry, by the way, we do have extra time today. So I know I've gone double my allotted

00:40:28.240 amount. That's okay. That's okay. Please forgive me, chat. Okay. I have sinned. I repent. But we do

00:40:35.840 have some comments. Are they talking smack about my beard in the chat? Samson gave me a heads up that

00:40:40.880 I need a trim on the beard. I trimmed it a bit. I liked it a bit. I think it should grow it more.

00:40:44.480 Going wild, going the full wild man. No, it looks good. Cultivating mass. I want to get a full

00:40:49.840 full Aristotle going on. Don't listen to the haters. No, people have been very kind in general.

00:40:57.200 Okay, the chat has forgiven me. Thank you. No forgiveness only. I'm not sending pictures.

00:41:05.440 Anyway. We do have to do a quick show of merch at the moment, don't we? We've got a merch store over

00:41:10.880 I've got to read comments first. Oh, sorry. One thing at a time. Too eager. It's all right.

00:41:16.480 So Lowell's very judgmental of others looks reminds me a bit of Eichmann's pre-execution. Blimey.

00:41:23.760 Arch bigot is right. Time to rectify that. Okay, they've said, okay, they can bring up all this

00:41:30.720 nonsense. But Eichat don't even get a mention. And we're the best bigots around. We're many more

00:41:36.000 bigoted than anyone else. That's not right. Well, we recognize you, chat. Don't you worry.

00:41:40.880 The Streisand effect is great. It would be good if they talked about us more, did more on us.

00:41:45.440 It's, they still don't seem to understand that they are actually on the wrong side of history.

00:41:51.120 And the more they mention this stuff, the more people go, oh, oh, right. Okay. Oh, cool.

00:41:55.760 The last time they went after us, they got us more signups to the website. Loads more. Yeah.

00:42:00.160 Yeah. It was great. And even my personal Twitter, when they, when they asked me, it was like, oh,

00:42:05.200 a few more. I got more followers off the back of them mentioning me than, than Harry Shuckman has got

00:42:15.760 in total. So that's really salt to the wound, isn't it? Random name says, it feels like a reverse

00:42:21.840 fellowship of the ring where instead of a group of naval individuals trying to destroy ultimate evil,

00:42:25.920 they have a band of golems harassing people while acting righteous. Not untrue.

00:42:31.440 It's funny how they talk about physiognomy. I know. The irony of these guys.

00:42:37.280 I know. I wonder why they're against it, eh? Nothing screams anti-hate like doxing people who think

00:42:41.920 differently from you. These clowns are pretending to be fighting forces of evil when in reality,

00:42:45.840 they're evil mutants causing strife. Yeah. That's the lie. It's interesting that they don't talk,

00:42:51.360 they talk all about fighting fascism, fighting the far right. Don't talk much about their actual

00:42:55.600 beliefs. It's funny that, isn't it? Whether they believe in like actual communism or what. Well,

00:43:01.840 there are communists in there, right? Yeah. Whether they want sort of an all powerful state,

00:43:07.040 sort of a Maoist state or what, what they actually really want. You're not really invited to think

00:43:11.680 about that very much. What sort of nightmarish socialist world they would have if they were,

00:43:16.400 if they could. Anyway. Take us away. All right. So, can I get, get, get the mouse here?

00:43:25.120 Why is this not working? You're up there, look. Oh. So, okay. Well, I thought we could do a little bit of

00:43:34.800 geopolitics. I like the big picture. Mm-hmm. Um, rather than getting bogged down in the details of

00:43:40.160 things, I do like to have sort of the, the big picture. So, talk a little bit about geopolitics.

00:43:45.040 There are sort of tectonic shifts going on globally, aren't there? Yeah.

00:43:48.480 They're a little bit gradual as all tectonic shifts are, but they are happening at the same time.

00:43:53.440 And, uh, with all shifts, there are, are frictions. And I think that that's probably what you're going

00:43:58.640 to be talking about, right? Yeah. Well, so at the moment, there's, there's the BRICS summit.

00:44:02.720 Um, and the 16th one, and it's being held in Russia at the moment. So obviously in, in Putin's

00:44:10.080 manner, on Putin's manner. And, um, I just think it's interesting to talk a little bit about sort

00:44:15.760 of the shifting power dynamics in the whole world. Mm-hmm.

00:44:19.200 Because there's this classic thing sort of who controls the world. I think we did a round table

00:44:22.560 on it, or we did some sort of thing. I think it was mainly behind the paywall though, a few months

00:44:27.120 back where we talked all about this. We did, yeah. Remember? Yeah, of course.

00:44:30.240 It's a while ago now. I can't remember exactly how it went, but my feeling is that the real,

00:44:34.720 real reality is that there's not a single cabal of people running the world, right?

00:44:41.760 It's not just like a shadowy cabal of like Wall Street bankers or something.

00:44:45.760 It's like they can all fit into one room around one table and they're in this smoke-filled room with,

00:44:51.600 you know, dark wood panelling on the walls and they're smoking cigars and putting their

00:44:57.440 bars of gold on the table.

00:44:58.880 That's not really how it works. So for example, Moscow and Beijing do not have to answer to anyone

00:45:08.640 at the State Department or on Wall Street or in the Federal Reserve or in the White House.

00:45:14.560 They really don't, right? Riyadh doesn't have to answer to Washington.

00:45:21.200 They do sometimes though. Oh, they do. Sometimes they do, yeah. Like we don't have to. We nearly

00:45:26.480 always do, but we don't have to, right? France doesn't have to do what America tells them, right?

00:45:33.200 To be fair, France is one of those countries in Europe that is least inclined to do what the

00:45:38.400 State Department tells them to. So I think there's all sorts of different levels to it, right? So there's

00:45:44.000 money, money, and people argue, don't they? All sorts of people argue about which is the most important

00:45:50.640 in the cathedral, whether it's, anyway.

00:45:53.920 Whether it's money that controls it, whether it's still military might or all sorts of things.

00:45:58.800 I think it's got to be a combination because, you know, these things don't, are not worthless. I think

00:46:04.720 that the way that a lot of these things work is there are networks of people and, you know, particularly

00:46:10.160 in very elite circles, people generally know each other, don't they, quite well. There are sort of

00:46:16.080 business relations that form and break away and it's organic. It is, you know, at the end of the day,

00:46:22.160 they're still human beings and they operate in a similar way. But, you know, it's just that they have

00:46:27.280 different concerns. But I think that money, political power, martial might, you know,

00:46:34.000 potential non-governmental organisational power as well, all of these things are tangible and

00:46:41.120 tie into the nature of power and which elites rule and which ones are out of favour.

00:46:46.880 So even within the West, even if we just talk about the West,

00:46:51.200 we could start with maybe the intelligence services, the Five Eyes, you know, who really,

00:46:56.240 really controls that on sort of a day-to-day or hour-to-hour basis? You know, the giant

00:47:02.240 intelligence networks of the West and sort of Australia and stuff. You know, to what degree

00:47:08.800 are they even... So take, for example, we've got NSA, the CIA, but then Britain, GCHQ, MI5 and MI6.

00:47:17.600 Are they all exactly on the same page, controlled by the same room of cigar-smoking dudes? No.

00:47:22.480 No. No, they're competing with each other, actually, largely. Oh, and the FBI, throw the FBI in there.

00:47:27.680 CIA, FBI, anyway. So it's not as simple as there's someone, there's a handful of guys somewhere

00:47:35.600 controlling all of that. It's not reality, right? And that's just the West.

00:47:40.320 Because, of course, wasn't there a scandal where the CIA or the FBI were caught bugging each other

00:47:46.320 at one point? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mentioned earlier in the last segment, but I'll say again,

00:47:50.960 I'm fascinated by the story of intelligence services. Been reading lots about the Cambridge

00:47:57.520 Five at the moment. Burgess and Philby and Cairncross and all these guys. And there's a great book called

00:48:04.880 Spire Catcher, which I'm just finishing at the moment by Peter Wright. And yeah, the relationship

00:48:08.720 between MI5, MI6 and GCHQ is very fraught. And throw in special branch to the police on top of that.

00:48:18.000 They each think they're the most important and trying to get funding off of each other and

00:48:23.120 and there's revolving doors at the top. And it's a delicate, difficult, interesting relationship.

00:48:27.680 And the same goes in America between the FBI and the CIA.

00:48:29.520 The FBI and the CIA. That's how human incentives work. It isn't like someone is going to overlook

00:48:35.920 their own self-interest within an organisational structure and how they sort of ascend it and get

00:48:40.960 more money, basically, by saying, well, actually, I'm going to defer to this other organisation that

00:48:46.560 I'm not a part of. That's just not how human beings work. There's all sorts of like signal

00:48:51.360 intelligence or pure military intelligence services, like the army will have its own

00:48:55.520 intelligence wing and all sorts of things. So they're all competing against each other.

00:49:00.160 And even if in principle, they're supposed to be someone at the top of it all,

00:49:04.480 like Homeland or something or the guy at the top of the Defence Department or something controlling it,

00:49:09.680 in reality, they will be competing with each other. And so that's just the West. And that's just

00:49:14.000 the intelligence services. Then you've got the money men thrown on top of that. And then you've got

00:49:17.840 people at, say, the State Department or in the White House or in Downing Street that nominally on paper

00:49:24.000 are supposed to control it, or someone at the Foreign Office is competing with someone in the

00:49:28.160 Cabinet Office, right? It's not, it's really quite complicated. There's loads and loads of levels.

00:49:32.080 And that's just in the West. That's not taking into account that Moscow is its own, got its own flag,

00:49:37.920 literally, but you know what I mean. It's its own thing. It's its own power base. Beijing. Beijing

00:49:44.080 doesn't have to answer to anyone in the United States, right? In India, they don't have to do what

00:49:51.280 the Chinese are trying to force them to do. Well, they don't like the Chinese. Right, right.

00:49:55.680 They see them as political enemies. So great, great leading to what I want to talk about then. So

00:50:00.240 there's broadly speaking, and this is low resolution, but you can only really be low

00:50:04.160 resolution when you're talking about geopolitics, right? The sweep of decades and the whole world,

00:50:09.200 when we've only got a few minutes to play with, we can only be fairly low resolution. But broadly

00:50:12.960 speaking, you've got like the G7, the G7 biggest economies, you know, the US, the UK, France,

00:50:19.600 Japan, and then the BRICS, Russia and China, Brazil, yeah. South Africa, isn't it? Yeah,

00:50:27.840 yeah, South Africa. Well, the actual BRICS is, yeah, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

00:50:32.400 But they're also have now included, they've let in, there's like about 30 other countries

00:50:36.800 that want to get in it. But so far, they've let in Egypt and Ethiopia, UAE, United Arab Emirates,

00:50:43.440 and Saudi, Saudi Arabia, right? So, and there's lots of other countries where they're sort of

00:50:50.560 proxies, or they're just on that side of the ledger, like say Iran, Iran's going to be much

00:50:55.680 more closely allied to BRICS than it is to the G7, of course, right? Obviously. Of course.

00:51:01.440 But then, right, it's, it's complicated. So, okay, you've got Iran and Saudi Arabia in the same block.

00:51:10.960 Good luck with that. You're going to have complete cooperation, are you, between them? Yeah, sure,

00:51:16.160 that's going to happen. China and India, classic example. No, no, no, they're, they're strategic

00:51:21.360 enemies, or if not enemies, rivals. Yeah. Absolutely strategic rivals in all sorts of ways.

00:51:26.960 But they're supposed to be completely on board and be working all exactly in the same direction.

00:51:32.320 Even Russia and China, their relationship, going back to the Mao years, or before,

00:51:37.040 going back to the pre-World War II years, it's extremely fraught and interesting. On my own

00:51:42.640 channel, History Bro, check that out. I've got an 18 part series where I talk all about Mao,

00:51:46.800 and I go back to the beginning of the 20th century, when Mao was a child, and obviously you go through

00:51:51.040 the Bolshevik Revolution. The relationship between China, even pre-Communist China,

00:51:56.480 and Bolshevik Russia, is extremely complicated. It's not like, oh, they're all, after Mao anyway,

00:52:02.160 oh, they're all Reds. They're all Communists, so they're on the same page and it's one big block

00:52:05.920 now. No, no, no, not at all. That's not how it works. Like GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 being completely

00:52:11.760 working in unison. No, no, no. The FBI and the CIA absolutely working as one single organism. No,

00:52:17.680 no way, not at all. Right, so BRICS, like this thing, it's like this counterpoint to the G7.

00:52:25.920 It's basically an economic block, isn't it? Yeah, right. That's what it's positioned as.

00:52:30.800 I don't want to sort of steal your thunder here, but could I say what I think the main

00:52:35.760 reason for BRICS existing is? Yeah, go ahead. So my sort of working

00:52:40.240 theory, and they may have even stated it explicitly, it's not particularly revelatory, is that what

00:52:45.600 they're trying to do is undermine the United States dollar as the default reserve currency.

00:52:51.120 That's what Russia wants about. Yeah, sorry, go on. Because I think that that is

00:52:56.000 the main source of the United States' power internationally, isn't it? Is that ultimately,

00:53:03.040 the United States dollar is used as a reserve currency. You know, there was the petrodollar

00:53:07.600 for a very long time. And this gives them real hard power because, of course, the dollar is controlled

00:53:12.880 by, you know, the US central bank. And therefore, you know, what they choose to do has international

00:53:19.680 consequences. And so you want to be favorable with the US because if they affect the dollar in a way

00:53:26.240 that is disadvantageous to you, then you're potentially looking at losing a lot of money,

00:53:30.640 or potentially gaining a lot of money if you are favorable towards them. So there's a lot to be

00:53:36.720 gained or lost. And I think that what's going on here is this coalition is forming to counter this

00:53:43.200 quite extensive power that the US government has created.

00:53:48.640 Hmm. No, absolutely. Putin particularly has been squeezed by sanctions from coming from the West,

00:53:55.280 from the United States. Yeah. And if the if the world currency wasn't pegged to the dollar, that

00:54:00.320 would be extremely profitable for him. So that's one of their main things. But that would be in the

00:54:05.680 benefit of the Chinese as well. And Saudis and the Iranians and whoever in Brazil and on and on.

00:54:12.000 Yeah. So after the Cold War, once the Berlin Wall came down and and in fact, the entire Soviet

00:54:19.280 project collapsed, we were in a world really where the United States was the sole hegemon.

00:54:25.280 of the world really, to all intents and purposes. We're moving now into a world where that's being

00:54:31.040 less and less the case, at least economically. I mean, it is worth pointing out that America still

00:54:36.800 absolutely dominate in terms of military power. People look at recruitment ads for the US military

00:54:42.960 and it's all a bit woke and fae. And they say, Oh, America's weak now. No, well, no, not at all.

00:54:50.560 They're still there. Navy dominates the waves, absolutely dominates in terms of aircraft carriers

00:54:57.680 and helicopter carriers, all sorts. Yeah, the US Air Force is absolutely dominant.

00:55:04.960 It does hurt a British person to say this. We're not saying this to really be nice as well. Yeah.

00:55:10.160 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:55:11.360 Britannia did once rule the waves. It's sort of a sore point for us.

00:55:15.760 In terms of a nuclear submarine program, America's won, won that. Yeah. America dropped out. No one

00:55:22.880 can compete. I mean, Britain is probably one of the closest. China and Britain are probably the

00:55:26.720 closest where we can, we actually build our own nuclear submarines. But still, even our nukes,

00:55:33.120 Britain's nukes are just bought off the Americans, right?

00:55:35.360 Yeah. Like France, I'm pretty sure France completely manufactured their nukes from scratch. Of course,

00:55:41.200 the Chinese do. Of course, the Russians do. So there's many lads talking about nukes,

00:55:46.240 nuclear capability, then talk about a submarine program, then talking about just aircraft carriers,

00:55:51.680 and then just sort of fast jets, fleets and fleets of fast jets. America dominates all this stuff.

00:55:59.440 Because, of course, when it comes down to it, you know, having diplomatic power and having

00:56:04.640 power over currency is one thing. But the real hard power is martial might. And the US still

00:56:10.720 dominates in that by a significant margin. So if it were the United States and Europe,

00:56:15.920 for example, versus the Chinese military, presuming it doesn't go nuclear, of course,

00:56:22.240 you know. It'd be no contest. It'd be no contest.

00:56:24.320 Exactly. Assuming there's no nukes. If America deployed everything it's got against China,

00:56:28.320 there'd be no contest. Yeah. America could do that to anybody, assuming no nukes are in play.

00:56:37.040 Because the Chinese have got a few hundred nukes, we think, most people think. That's enough to,

00:56:43.280 yeah, that's enough. So there's just many, many layers to this. So the BRICS thing,

00:56:48.800 the way the BBC puts it is, they say this, the West has dubbed you, i.e. they're talking about

00:56:54.160 Putin. The West of W Putin, a pariah for invading Ukraine. Sanctions are aiming to cut off your

00:56:59.440 country's economy from global markets. And there's an arrest warrant out for you from

00:57:04.320 the International Criminal Court. How can you show the pressure is not working? Try hosting a summit.

00:57:11.920 And they're basically saying this is just Putin trying to sort of show off, trying to sort of put a

00:57:16.240 brave face on it. In fact, his economy is crumbling under his feet, which may or may not be true. I don't

00:57:21.120 think it is particularly true. I don't think it is true. But there's also a lot of, wasn't it a big

00:57:25.360 expose that a lot of countries were still getting Russian resources just through shell companies in

00:57:30.800 Europe? And a lot of the sanctions were being circumvented and they're sort of sanctions in

00:57:34.960 name only. One reality you cannot get around is that the size of Russia means that it's resource rich.

00:57:42.560 If you've got a country the size of Russia or the United States or China, you're going to be

00:57:47.760 resource rich. Both Russia and the United States don't, if they really, really needed to, they don't

00:57:52.160 need to import anything from anyone ever. They really wanted to, you know, just get all their

00:57:58.080 own resources and maybe with the exception of some rare earth metals and things, but basically...

00:58:03.520 You need Africa for that, don't you?

00:58:05.280 Maybe, yeah. But basically, you know, Russia is resource rich. You know, far,

00:58:13.440 far more resource rich than Britain. We're a tiny little island, really. But yeah, it's just,

00:58:18.720 you know, what I was saying earlier where that we were in a world post-Berlin War of America being

00:58:25.360 the sole hegemon and now we're starting to move away from that a bit because BRICS does represent,

00:58:29.520 if nothing else, not saying China and India are on exactly the same page, you're going to be pulling

00:58:33.920 in the same direction and have no animosity to each other whatsoever. Not saying that,

00:58:38.160 but if BRICS represents some sort of block that can stay in the post-Soviet era, which can stand

00:58:45.120 against the might of the United States and the West, you know, BRICS is something like that,

00:58:52.160 right? I mean, China, China, its economy is sort of monstrous.

00:58:57.440 Yeah, but then again, they do have an incoming debt crisis, like a lot of their local government

00:59:05.120 was funded based on taking out loans on assets, which, you know, is not sustainable. And they're

00:59:11.600 basically going to have to restructure their entire economy. And there is a risk of them being

00:59:15.120 caught in the middle income trap, which would be catastrophic for the Chinese. And I think that

00:59:19.600 there's actually quite a likelihood of that happening. But of course, you know, you never know with these

00:59:23.920 things, right? But also Russia, a lot of fuss is made about Russia, their economy is the same size

00:59:29.920 as Texas. Yeah, right. Yeah. You know, which isn't necessarily a small economy, it's not nothing.

00:59:36.080 However, to compare it to the entirety of the United States would not be an even comparison.

00:59:43.120 When it comes to economics, I think, well, Dan has talked to our Dan Tubb, check out his stuff on

00:59:48.880 LotusEaters.com, his Brokonomics series, where he talks all about economics. You know, the size of

00:59:55.200 the American debt, 33, 35 trillion at the moment, and climbing steadily every single day. But yeah,

01:00:03.200 I mean, China is, you're quite right to suggest that maybe the Chinese economy is a house of cards.

01:00:09.040 Well, I mean, lots of their structures are, aren't they?

01:00:11.440 Well, literally, yeah. If and when the rest of the world, if there's some sort of large scale

01:00:15.600 depression, the rest of the world's Western economies collapse, we stop importing all their

01:00:21.600 stuff, will their internal economy be able to stand up to that? But there's just one graphic here.

01:00:27.360 I mean, look how giant China is compared to even India or Russia. And like Saudi, for all their

01:00:36.560 vaunted wealth with oil. Yeah, some of their royal family can buy a fleet of

01:00:41.040 chrome-plated Rolls-Royces. But Saudi Arabia, compared to the Chinese economy, or compared to

01:00:49.040 India, is still, you know, nothing. Egypt, nothing. UAE, nothing. Well, I say not nothing.

01:00:54.720 But, you know, in comparison, relatively speaking, relatively speaking is what I mean.

01:00:58.800 So China's the big dog. Absolutely the big dog. You know, dwarfs Russia, right? It dwarfs him.

01:01:04.640 Hmm. Um, nonetheless, nonetheless, BRICS does represent an actual counterpoint to G7. It does.

01:01:14.080 And, politically speaking, they're not on the same page. It's hard enough for Britain and America.

01:01:21.920 The story of that, I talked about, um, I talked about the Cambridge Five and,

01:01:26.560 and, uh, Peter Wright as Spycatcher and stuff. How difficult it was just to get the NSA, this is in

01:01:32.800 the 50s and 60s, just to get the NSA and GCHQ to talk to each other. Extremely difficult. And we're

01:01:39.600 basically brothers, cousins at least. We're basically completely on the same side. The special

01:01:44.560 relationship, especially during the early years of the Cold War, absolutely should have been pulling

01:01:49.120 in the same direction. But they were still, like, standoffish with each other and not really prepared to

01:01:54.560 give each other secrets and stuff. Took a long time, a long, long time before Britain and America

01:01:59.680 could truly, really, sort of, pull together. Um, so whether countries like China and India will be

01:02:07.520 able to, um, whether Russia and China will be able to is a different story. And I think they've got

01:02:15.280 two very different agendas, don't they? In two very different situations. And I feel like the

01:02:19.600 circumstances alone are enough that they're not going to unify under a single cause because they've

01:02:26.160 got their own people to worry about, ultimately. Yeah. They truly are a power base in their own right.

01:02:32.800 The Kremlin will never ever want to have to answer to, truly answer to,

01:02:38.400 Beijing and vice versa. And Washington goes for the same, probably, maybe, unless they're already

01:02:45.360 completely, completely infiltrated by the CCP, which may or may not be the case about speculation for

01:02:50.720 another time. Okay. We'll move on from that. But, uh, BRICS is going on at the moment and they may be a

01:02:55.440 true counterpart or they kind of are a true counterpart to the G7. And we're moving into a world where there's

01:03:00.720 more than simply one hegemon. Interesting to note. Okay. I enjoyed that. We don't do enough

01:03:08.240 geopolitics, do we? So we recently, well, I say recently, in August, had a round table discussion

01:03:16.800 with all the hosts about how the state kills dissidents. And this is dated, if we can scroll up,

01:03:23.680 27th of August, uh, we discussed this as the riots were going on in Britain, you know, shortly after they

01:03:29.760 sort of ended really, they fizzled out, didn't they? And, uh, the point of this was saying that,

01:03:36.080 you know, you can jail these, these dissidents for sometimes quite questionable things and send them

01:03:41.920 to prison. And the punishment, the formal punishment, isn't necessarily the actual punishment.

01:03:49.200 And what do I mean by this? Well, um, this video is a good means of explaining.

01:03:55.440 And people are being told that, uh, if they do appear, whether they're pleading guilty or not

01:04:01.680 guilty, they're very unlikely to get bail. Um, and if they do end up in prison, somebody who told me,

01:04:08.960 somebody who knows about these things told me that, you know, any right wing, far right

01:04:13.440 protester landing up in jail, uh, well, you know, they can expect, um, a pretty cold reception from,

01:04:20.640 um, what he says are, uh, Asian gangs inside prison who will be looking out for them.

01:04:28.880 So that's pretty ominous all on its own, isn't it? Um, would you be able to? Yeah, I've got it.

01:04:34.240 There we go. Never mind. Um, so that's seems like a realistic warning really that these, um, British

01:04:41.600 people, nationalists, perhaps, I don't know how you want to describe them, but the people that were out

01:04:46.080 on the streets during the, um, the riots, um, are obviously a very different group than, uh,

01:04:53.360 who is populating our prisons these days. You know, there might be some overlap, but I imagine

01:04:58.000 not as much. And particularly because a lot of them went on up north, these, uh, riots

01:05:05.680 and rioters who've been arrested are probably going to go into prisons that are more or less run by

01:05:12.720 Asian gangs and that their safety is going to be compromised at all times.

01:05:18.160 Asian? What? South Koreans? Uh, yeah, that's right. It's, it's, it's just the Japanese, you know.

01:05:23.280 Sri Lankan, Sri Lankan gangs. The Yakuza, um, no. Tamil Tiger Gang. Normally, um, Muslim.

01:05:29.760 Oh, right. Okay. All right. And of course, okay. They were the one faction that went out in their droves

01:05:37.200 to counter a lot of the protests and actually caused real tensions. You know, there was

01:05:42.000 quite a few of them seen with weapons. Um, you know, I've, I saw examples of them even in,

01:05:49.120 you know, protests where there were no mosques nearby that they were defending, but they still

01:05:54.960 pulled knives, machetes and things like that. And also, um, them getting annoyed at the police being

01:06:00.000 there. They're like, we can sort out ourselves. We don't need you. And obviously the implication

01:06:03.760 there is, we can kill these people. We don't need you here. What you're on about? They've

01:06:06.800 got no weapons. We have weapons. You're just in the way, stopping us.

01:06:10.000 The police are like, would you mind? They, they asked them politely. Stop filing your

01:06:13.360 weapons in the local mosque. Would you mind? They asked them very politely to put their

01:06:16.400 weapons away in the mosque. Madness. Absolutely. Madness. Yeah.

01:06:20.000 Yeah. And you do or say anything about it. And so you go to prison and then.

01:06:26.400 This is a sort of, um, blueprint that lots of other governments can employ because I'm imagining that

01:06:33.360 we're going to see a lot more of, um, this whereby our prisons have always been pretty overcrowded.

01:06:39.600 There's not a particular need to do it. And therefore the notion of releasing lots of prisoners,

01:06:44.640 there's a new prisoner release, uh, soon, I believe that was announced this morning,

01:06:49.840 another 1,100 police, um, police being released. No prisoners. And they're not releasing the police.

01:06:56.400 And, uh, yeah, they're releasing all of these prisoners to put in more dissidents. It's not that

01:07:01.840 the prisons are overcrowded. There's no problem because we can see actually, if anything, there's

01:07:08.160 no change in how overcrowded the prisons are. And also why should we care about the state of,

01:07:13.440 you know, the conditions of prisoners, ultimately they've broken the law. Oh, boo hoo. It's a bit

01:07:18.080 overcrowded. Well, you shouldn't have done it then. I'm not going to lose sleep over, you know, oh,

01:07:23.280 there's, there's, there's a man too close to me in the prison. Tough.

01:07:26.400 You can build hundreds of thousands more homes to put Albanians and Somalis and Bangladeshis and

01:07:32.480 Pakistanis in. Yeah, it's funny how that works. Can't build a new prison. No. Can't build a new

01:07:37.120 prison. Well, the elephant in the room is that a lot of the prisoners in our prisons are foreign

01:07:40.800 and that would require deporting them. Can't do that. No, no, no. We can't deport our precious

01:07:45.840 foreign criminals, can we? We can't deport foreign criminals and we can't build any new prisons.

01:07:50.320 Of course. Both those things are off the table. Yeah, they're definitely not reasonable things.

01:07:55.120 Okay. But what I'm trying to say here is that

01:07:59.360 these prisons being cleared for political dissidents and they're going to be imprisoned

01:08:03.520 on spurious charges and there are going to be conditions created that are going to be so adverse

01:08:10.560 that it's pretty inevitable that worse things than imprisonment are going to happen to them.

01:08:15.120 You know how when there was the Trump assassination people said it was stochastic terrorism that

01:08:22.160 they made the likelihood of a random person taking a shot at Trump and killing him far more likely

01:08:29.440 by their actions without directly doing it themselves. It's a very similar thing here with

01:08:34.720 political dissidents in Britain and I think this will get used in a lot of western countries as well.

01:08:39.840 I think we're sort of a pioneer in a way although we will talk about January 6th as well briefly later.

01:08:46.640 But it seems to me that they know the treatment that these sorts of people will get imprisoned

01:08:53.120 from these largely foreign criminals, people they want to deport and that a lot of the time there are

01:09:01.040 prison shankings and people get stabbed and they're going to have a massive target on their back, right?

01:09:06.880 And the funny thing is that they're more than happy to take paedophiles and remove them from the

01:09:13.760 general population because they get harsh treatment but if it's a British person that's convicted of

01:09:20.240 say rioting that's very very different for some reason.

01:09:24.160 Yeah, just throw them in a prison in Hull with a load of Muslims.

01:09:28.160 Exactly.

01:09:28.640 They'll be fine.

01:09:30.000 So it's also worth mentioning the prisoners that they're releasing

01:09:34.880 are being picked up in Rolls Royces and Bentleys and one of them even said big up Keir Starmer

01:09:42.240 and look at them look these these are the people we want on the streets. Unbelievable.

01:09:47.680 But it's also...

01:09:49.600 It's a commie tactic 101 though in lots and lots of communist countries.

01:09:54.080 Lenin did it didn't he in the Russian Revolution.

01:09:56.320 Loads of people did it, yeah. The communists in the Spanish Civil War.

01:09:59.600 There's lots and lots of examples of where the communists just open the prisons

01:10:05.840 because they're looking to destroy the fabric of society.

01:10:08.320 That's how you know they're bad by the way.

01:10:10.320 If you release lots of murderers on people you're a bad person.

01:10:13.840 It's not that difficult really.

01:10:15.600 It's like there is sort of a war on the people

01:10:18.000 because they need the people to be to be cowed and to and to absolutely do as I told to need

01:10:26.080 the state at every possible moment every possible rung of civilization.

01:10:33.120 It's funny how a lot of countries are now disarmed and we've got to defer our own protection to the

01:10:38.320 state isn't it? So that gives them an enormous amount of power and if they want to impose criminals

01:10:42.880 on us they can and there's nothing we can do about it to protect ourselves without becoming

01:10:46.720 a criminal ourselves.

01:10:48.160 So if you look at Bukele, he's sort of done the opposite.

01:10:51.840 Now I will build a couple of massive prisons or a few giant prison complexes

01:10:56.960 and round up all the criminals, all of them, and throwing them in prison for a very very long time.

01:11:02.160 It's about as easy to spot a criminal as humanly possible because they show it.

01:11:07.360 And his country went from one of the most violent and dangerous to one of the least.

01:11:11.600 It's got sort of an 89% approval rating.

01:11:14.080 One of the most massive transformations of a country's crime rate in human history.

01:11:19.360 Right, yeah.

01:11:20.080 It's an absolute phenomenon.

01:11:23.280 So he's doing it right.

01:11:26.000 He's actually a leader who's got the safety, the best interests of his people at heart.

01:11:32.160 And in the West, or certainly Keir Starmer's Labour, it's the opposite.

01:11:37.120 Of course not. No.

01:11:39.040 No, very much so.

01:11:40.000 Anarcho-tyranny.

01:11:41.600 In fact, dozens are being freed by mistake as well.

01:11:46.640 And one of the people, this was a while ago now, this was in September,

01:11:52.960 and one of those people who was released by mistake re-offended within hours

01:11:58.080 and committed a sexual offence.

01:11:59.760 So the government was directly responsible for a sex offence there.

01:12:04.800 Oh, just one more life ruined.

01:12:06.000 Yeah.

01:12:06.560 That's fine.

01:12:07.040 Just one more life ruined.

01:12:08.080 Okay.

01:12:08.640 So let's take us to this man here.

01:12:10.800 So he was involved in the riot in Rotherham.

01:12:14.720 And the BBC reports that he died in prison.

01:12:19.040 And that word, yeah.

01:12:22.960 So we can't use the actual word because this is going to go on social media platforms.

01:12:27.920 He just shuffled off this mortal coil.

01:12:30.000 So the reality, as I pointed out, is he, I'm going to have to use a euphemism here because of the algorithm picking it up.

01:12:40.080 He unalived himself, right?

01:12:42.480 I can't say that.

01:12:43.360 No.

01:12:44.080 Really?

01:12:44.880 No, you're not allowed to.

01:12:46.100 Really?

01:12:46.360 It's ridiculous, isn't it?

01:12:47.320 That's absurd.

01:12:48.360 I know.

01:12:50.040 Because if you even say that word, it perceives it as if you're trying to encourage it or you're bringing it up in people's minds.

01:12:56.440 It's like, no, obviously don't do it.

01:12:59.080 But you should be able to talk about it without having to censor yourself.

01:13:03.000 It's silly.

01:13:03.960 But a lot of the mainstream media presented it as he just died, you know, but no, it was that he was driven to this.

01:13:13.280 And if we actually have a look here, GB News does report on this because they say a source told the Telegraph.

01:13:23.320 Of course, the Telegraph is paywalled, so you can't see that.

01:13:25.540 So the only article that actually tells you and is publicly available is the GB News one here that tells you he's believed to have taken his own life.

01:13:34.780 You wouldn't have known that if it wasn't for this.

01:13:38.040 Lots of the other outlets didn't report that.

01:13:41.480 The impression I got was just that he was alive and now he's not.

01:13:45.640 And that's it.

01:13:46.180 That's all you need to know.

01:13:47.320 Next thing, move on.

01:13:48.280 So, don't ask why.

01:13:50.920 Hang on.

01:13:51.400 I should have a link to the BBC article here.

01:13:54.400 I'll click on this one quickly.

01:13:56.060 So, I wanted to have a look at this because, well, what did he do for a start?

01:14:02.360 So, I'm going to read from the BBC.

01:14:04.700 This is how the BBC presents it, okay?

01:14:07.140 Family man Lynch, who suffered a heart attack earlier in the year, also had been diagnosed with diabetes, had gone to the hotel to protest against immigration, his defence barrister said.

01:14:16.180 He had a general conspiracy theory against anyone and any form of authority, sounds like my kind of guy, and had taken placard referencing the deep state and the space agency NASA.

01:14:26.360 Not exactly, you know, sort of boomer tier sort of conspiracy theories, isn't it?

01:14:34.840 That, you know, when you're talking about NASA in particular.

01:14:38.420 I've heard about immigration into the US and NASA.

01:14:42.180 Well, the deep state, I imagine, includes here as well, doesn't it?

01:14:45.360 Right, yeah.

01:14:46.480 But, um...

01:14:46.960 Anyway, anyway.

01:14:47.900 So, video played to the court showed Lynch revving up the situation before it turned violent and calling the police scum.

01:14:55.000 That's it.

01:14:56.000 That's all they say he did.

01:14:58.420 Oh.

01:14:59.280 And he was serving two years and eight months for that.

01:15:03.100 Hmm.

01:15:04.660 Seems a bit harsh.

01:15:06.140 It does, doesn't it?

01:15:07.040 So, obviously he had some health conditions, but he did also have a family.

01:15:13.100 It doesn't...

01:15:13.520 He was driven to what he did.

01:15:15.200 Because of what the state did.

01:15:17.840 And I imagine the situation in the prison, because I believe, yeah, he's in HMP Moreland in Doncaster.

01:15:25.480 I imagine Doncaster is going to have a very diverse prison population that isn't going to be nice to a 61-year-old English man involved in those sorts of things, right?

01:15:38.300 Yeah, yeah.

01:15:38.720 It's going to be incredibly hostile.

01:15:40.260 From what I've just heard there, I don't know his case.

01:15:42.340 I don't know anything about other than what we've just heard about what he actually did.

01:15:46.840 But from that, from the strength of that, it doesn't sound like it warranted a custodial sentence at all.

01:15:51.440 But, okay, so he went in there and then was driven to extreme lengths.

01:15:57.540 Yes.

01:15:58.400 And that, to my mind...

01:15:59.960 Just another family ruined.

01:16:01.300 Yeah, just another life lost.

01:16:02.860 To my mind, that seems like part of the intended outcome here.

01:16:06.460 Because they clear the prisons out to put people like him in, who haven't really done that much.

01:16:13.960 Many of the prisoners they're releasing have done less than he has.

01:16:17.620 And because of the conditions, the continual threat, and probably the despair of the injustice of the whole thing.

01:16:25.160 Apart from his family, apart from the injustice of it all, the poor Lynch family,

01:16:29.820 apart from the injustice of everything along the line, what about the actual despair of the man himself?

01:16:34.400 Yeah, because, you know, putting yourself in his shoes, he must have been hopeless, right?

01:16:41.640 I mean, 61, that's not that old.

01:16:44.000 He could have had a good few years left.

01:16:47.920 Yeah, he would have been able to live to see outside of prison, that much is seemingly...

01:16:52.600 I don't know how bad his health conditions were.

01:16:54.960 Obviously, he had a heart attack and diabetes, which isn't ideal.

01:16:57.760 But, you know, when you're in prison, at least you can focus on taking care of yourself, if nothing else.

01:17:02.760 You know, on some level, they do want you gone.

01:17:06.300 People like him, people like us, gone.

01:17:08.340 Of course they do, yeah.

01:17:10.020 And to talk about the US, you know, obviously we've got a line of merch for the upcoming US election.

01:17:16.160 Seems a bit macabre to talk about that now.

01:17:19.620 But it was the only point I could put it in.

01:17:23.300 Don't crop that.

01:17:24.100 So, obviously, we've got...

01:17:26.420 It didn't even occur to me.

01:17:30.040 So, we've obviously got lots of Trump merch.

01:17:32.700 I really want the Trump grilling T-shirt, personally.

01:17:36.480 So, I'm looking forward to getting one of those.

01:17:38.960 So, get them while they're gone, because after the election, they will be gone.

01:17:42.400 So, they're limited edition.

01:17:44.000 But anyway, obviously, I did a lot of work on January 6th in the United States.

01:17:49.140 And they've got a very different philosophy of dealing with prisoners.

01:17:52.320 It's not quite as...

01:17:55.080 It's not quite the same methodology that our state is employing.

01:18:01.160 So, obviously, we did a lot of work.

01:18:04.040 You know, we plotted what happened on January 6th to the minute.

01:18:07.980 And it stood the test of time.

01:18:09.760 No misinformation in there, unlike lots of other outlets that, you know, say that they fact-check, but don't really.

01:18:16.080 And also, I had someone on the ground taking pictures of the whole thing, including the rear entrance where all the violence was.

01:18:25.380 These are pictures exclusive to load-seaters.

01:18:28.260 So, you know, we did a lot of work on it.

01:18:29.720 And I've interviewed Edward Jacob Lang, who was the January 6th prisoner facing the most charges.

01:18:36.140 And I even had a follow-up interview with him.

01:18:38.700 So, the first one was July of 2022.

01:18:42.580 And this one was September of 23.

01:18:44.380 And what he told me about the condition of the January 6th prisoners, because this was really illuminating to me,

01:18:52.400 is that, basically, they've been sat awaiting trial for such a long time now.

01:18:57.280 Loads of them haven't even faced a trial.

01:18:59.340 And they've just been held in prison.

01:19:00.520 High-security prison, you know...

01:19:03.060 Held on remand, what we would call.

01:19:04.560 Yeah.

01:19:05.120 Held on remand.

01:19:05.580 Not having a trial with no sort of date in sight, really.

01:19:09.280 It keeps on getting pushed back.

01:19:11.620 They're held in isolation, not really allowed to see their families very often.

01:19:15.560 They're basically being held with no one but each other away from the entire world and without any end in sight.

01:19:27.120 And so, what Jacob was telling me here, Edward, sorry, was saying here, was that a lot of people were giving in to despair and saying,

01:19:39.220 oh, I don't, you know, Trump's abandoned us.

01:19:44.560 You know, I don't know whether I believe in any of this anymore.

01:19:48.880 And he still was holding on.

01:19:52.080 He still believed in being an American patriot.

01:19:55.760 He hadn't given up.

01:19:56.680 But the idea is, if you just put people in a hopeless situation, it eventually erodes their resolve.

01:20:05.220 You know, it's like keeping a rat in a bucket of water with no sign of escape.

01:20:08.700 Eventually, it will stop swimming voluntarily.

01:20:12.320 And it's that same philosophy.

01:20:14.360 It's a different philosophy to the British one, which seems a bit harsher, really.

01:20:21.320 I mean, they're obviously political prisoners, aren't they?

01:20:24.140 They are, yeah.

01:20:24.960 Like the Zeks in the Soviet Union, in the various archipelagos of gulags.

01:20:31.540 Yeah, just keep you there until you're entirely broken.

01:20:35.020 So rather than, you know, killing you off, they're instead just waiting to crush your resolve, it seems like.

01:20:43.080 That's the case in the U.S. at least.

01:20:45.480 And that's two potential ways in which the state can basically crush dissent.

01:20:53.620 You know, they arrest you.

01:20:55.120 They put you in prison.

01:20:56.020 And either await other prisoners dealing with you, or leave you in such isolation from the world, that you just give up on what brought you there in the first place.

01:21:05.900 And I don't think this nearly gets enough coverage that it does.

01:21:09.440 Because if we saw this from China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, perhaps, we would say, hang on a minute, these people are political prisoners.

01:21:20.100 They're being held.

01:21:20.800 They're not being given trials.

01:21:21.920 This isn't fair.

01:21:23.140 But because it's ourselves, well, all of a sudden we're assessing ourselves to, you know, a different standard.

01:21:30.200 And I don't think that that is reasonable.

01:21:32.500 Yeah, different men have a different breaking point, of course.

01:21:35.340 If you look at, for example, political prisoner Nelson Mandela on Robin Island for what was in 30-odd years or more, something in that ballpark.

01:21:45.320 You know, communist, militant, terrorist Nelson Mandela.

01:21:48.580 True.

01:21:49.020 Yeah.

01:21:49.600 It's a matter of record what they did.

01:21:54.100 It didn't break him in the end.

01:21:55.880 He got out even after decades.

01:21:57.520 So I just hope Edward J. Kim Blagg and the other January 6th people hold out.

01:22:04.300 Because hopefully the Donald will move their cases along at least.

01:22:09.980 If not, just pardon them or something.

01:22:12.560 Yeah, well.

01:22:12.940 Obviously, the Biden administration is holding them like a Guantanamo Bay type situation.

01:22:18.500 Just holding you there very, very deliberately.

01:22:20.240 Or the Department of Justice.

01:22:22.120 Is it Mayorkas?

01:22:23.920 Yeah, just holding them there.

01:22:25.080 Just like Solzhenitsyn.

01:22:27.140 Pure political prisoners.

01:22:29.580 Mad, right?

01:22:30.320 In this day and age.

01:22:31.260 In the land of the free.

01:22:32.580 A few members of Congress did visit them.

01:22:35.460 I know Marjorie Taylor Greene went and visited them in prison a couple of times.

01:22:39.420 I think maybe Thomas Massey did as well.

01:22:41.440 I can't remember.

01:22:42.820 It was, you know, years ago now.

01:22:45.020 But a couple of further to the right Republicans actually went and visited them and made sure they were okay.

01:22:53.080 And, you know, did the best they could within their power.

01:22:55.240 Which is something at least.

01:22:57.720 But they are political prisoners.

01:22:59.420 And I don't think the state is going to be above imprisoning more and more people in the future.

01:23:04.500 You know, depending on how things go in the US, certainly in the UK and other countries in Europe as well.

01:23:11.240 And so I wanted to warn people about this.

01:23:13.680 So Edward Jacob Lang has been being held on remand for, what, three years, knocking four years or something now?

01:23:19.640 Seems like it, yeah.

01:23:20.340 What did he actually do, just out of interest?

01:23:23.100 Because according to Kamala, that day was as bad as Pearl Harbor and 9-11.

01:23:29.640 Well, it's alleged that he was fighting with the riot police in the rear entrance.

01:23:33.540 The one where we've got the photos of people fighting with the riot police.

01:23:38.300 That's also where, I think it's Brian Sicknick, the officer that died later, seemingly to an allergy to pepper spray, was.

01:23:47.820 And so that's what they're alleging.

01:23:51.080 But, of course, he's not had a trial yet.

01:23:55.140 We'll have to see.

01:23:56.900 Right, we have some comments that I forgot to read from your segment there.

01:24:00.720 Would you mind?

01:24:01.480 Of course.

01:24:03.820 Where's the mouse?

01:24:05.020 There we go.

01:24:06.960 Okay.

01:24:08.300 So, if they kick out Brazil and let in Pakistan and North Korea, they can rename themselves Pricks.

01:24:17.560 I've got a very childish sense of humour.

01:24:19.440 That's funny to me.

01:24:20.840 I am partial to it.

01:24:25.120 So, the US Federal Reserve lost control of the US dollar after World War II when European banks started fractional reserve lending in US dollars.

01:24:31.860 This is called the Eurodollar.

01:24:35.580 Wait, Samson, give us the mouse.

01:24:37.280 Sorry, I've got to read these.

01:24:40.960 There we go.

01:24:41.740 I'll scroll up and then you can take the mouse over again.

01:24:43.960 There you go.

01:24:44.500 It's all yours.

01:24:46.500 That's a random name.

01:24:47.380 Says, I don't think Bricks can ever prevail because the moment the US lose their spot as World Hegemon, Bricks' whole purpose is gone, thus leading to infighting and probably disillusioned.

01:24:56.100 That is also true.

01:24:57.380 Fair point.

01:24:57.760 You're referring to the standalone complex where unconnected individuals without coordination or knowledge of each other's actions contribute to a collective effort achieving a common goal.

01:25:06.160 Well, yes, seems like it.

01:25:09.060 Same thing happened in Quebec during COVID when our PM called all the non-vax reprobates and blamed us all for society's ills.

01:25:16.880 People were getting harassed in the street for not wearing masks, etc.

01:25:19.520 And then cases like this old man is why I completely agree with Josh when he says we need Nuremberg-style trials for every traitor who participated in the betrayal of our nations.

01:25:29.820 Hear, hear.

01:25:31.540 Right.

01:25:32.220 Let's have a nice palate cleanser, shall we?

01:25:34.060 October was a great month for stargazing out here.

01:25:36.880 The geomagnetic storm made it all the way down here.

01:25:39.720 It looked like a red fog against the night sky.

01:25:42.660 We were in West Texas for the supermoon, and I thought we were in Tatooine there for a minute.

01:25:48.440 And best of all was the Atlas Comet.

01:25:50.620 Pictures seriously didn't do it justice.

01:25:52.740 It was incredible.

01:25:53.740 It was so huge and bright.

01:25:56.240 Stars at night are big and bright.

01:26:00.000 Deep in the heart of tension.

01:26:04.060 I was going to say, obviously, that's Pee Wee Heaven's a big adventure, isn't it?

01:26:09.060 Of course.

01:26:11.120 Yeah, I was actually going to say that.

01:26:12.840 I was going to say, when it finished, I was going to say, the stars are bright, they're big and bright.

01:26:16.200 I was going to do that exact bit, but she picked me to it.

01:26:18.080 Brilliant.

01:26:19.160 Brilliant.

01:26:20.380 Guys, don't worry about these robots, okay?

01:26:24.420 They might cost $30,000 right now, but then you need to take into account labor costs of maintaining the damn thing.

01:26:33.320 Not to mention all the insurance costs when it finds out that if the batteries on these things go into thermal runaway, this happens.

01:26:42.140 They're not going to outpriced human beings because they're ultimately going to turn out to be so much more higher maintenance than regular people.

01:26:49.540 That's both reassuring and more depressing than before.

01:26:55.200 I wouldn't want one of those things if you give it to me for free.

01:26:59.500 I'm old school.

01:27:00.780 I like old paper books.

01:27:02.140 I don't want a tablet, right?

01:27:04.340 I don't want AI in my life.

01:27:07.200 I don't want ChatGBT to write anything for me.

01:27:10.240 So no, I don't want one of those monstrosities in my home.

01:27:13.000 Thank you.

01:27:13.580 I'm not going to help the evil scientist accusations, but I would like them as sort of henchmen.

01:27:20.220 I'd have it walking like a few paces behind me, preferably armed, with like carrying my stuff for me in like a backpack.

01:27:28.700 And I'm sort of walking ahead with a cape maybe into my lair, which has a lowering platform.

01:27:36.900 That's what I'm imagining.

01:27:37.580 That's a specific image you've got there.

01:27:39.020 Okay, cool.

01:27:40.560 Fair enough.

01:27:41.000 Some of us have goals, Bo.

01:27:43.760 As much as I've been busting on David Lammy, at least he is only an appointee of England's prime virtue signaller, Cunt Starmer.

01:27:52.640 Worse by far is that we in the United States have a candidate for president who is David Lammy in drag.

01:28:00.180 And here we begin our Kamala mentations.

01:28:03.000 This woman is so bad that even though there's a way to remove Joe Biden and boost Kamala by making her president, this wasn't done.

01:28:13.040 Even her own party recognizes that she is unpopular.

01:28:19.280 There's some people, you know, at school where they haven't really done anything really to be bullied.

01:28:24.640 But everyone sort of bullies them without you don't even mean to.

01:28:28.900 You just find yourself being a dick to them.

01:28:30.520 And they can't redeem themselves whatever they do because they're just unlikable.

01:28:36.960 Some people are just, it's just unlikable.

01:28:39.480 Like some people are effortlessly interesting or cool, right?

01:28:45.280 Some people are just.

01:28:46.260 Some people.

01:28:47.880 Some people just can't help but be unlikable, obnoxious.

01:28:52.980 It's just, it's hard baked into them.

01:28:55.280 Everything they do and say is obnoxious.

01:28:59.060 Kamala Harris is one of those people.

01:29:02.460 If she can't win.

01:29:04.060 But to be fair, she not only is one of those people, but she's also done a whole lot of things that are questionable, to say the least.

01:29:11.940 Yeah, yeah.

01:29:12.980 Yeah, yeah.

01:29:14.680 There is a tendency among the Lotus Eaters staff to describe people who, through masturbation, render themselves disinterested or incapable using the internet parlance of kuma.

01:29:24.600 With a Greek on the staff, I'm surprised this is permitted when Stelios knows of a much better word.

01:29:30.820 A malacca is someone whose mind is so degraded and befuddled by masturbation that he's incapable of cogent thought.

01:29:37.780 Additionally useful is that it's an anagram.

01:29:40.020 I've never heard of malacca before.

01:29:46.120 It's got a great ring to it, doesn't it?

01:29:47.280 I've never heard of kuma before until I joined Lotus Eaters.

01:29:50.220 Yeah, well, full of them.

01:29:53.740 Malacca sounds a bit like, it sounds like a nickname for breasts, doesn't it, to my ears.

01:30:00.300 Get your malaccas out, love.

01:30:01.360 Yeah.

01:30:01.720 I don't know why I said that, but there we go.

01:30:07.340 So you notice that one of the hooded figures is a little shorter.

01:30:10.000 I cast vicious mockery, not 20, let's go.

01:30:12.180 You're a short motherfucker and nobody likes you.

01:30:15.740 Short!

01:30:16.120 Everybody says, I'm not fucking sure what that guy is.

01:30:18.200 And that stops you from roaming, meaning for relationships.

01:30:21.020 And when you were born, everybody thought that you were just a head.

01:30:23.920 But then the doctor said, wait, this stupid motherfucker trying to short us, baby.

01:30:27.780 Got a tiny little itty bitty body and I hate it.

01:30:30.000 Your attack lands and absolutely shatters the mind of the cloaked figure.

01:30:32.920 Perception check, please.

01:30:34.040 Mat 20, let's go.

01:30:35.960 That was high octane.

01:30:39.140 It was indeed.

01:30:40.280 Well done, Fane Scotty.

01:30:41.600 I appreciate anyone mocking Napoleon.

01:30:44.260 If anyone's interested on the epochs of the Lotus Eaters behind our paywall,

01:30:48.840 if there's anyone still watching this that isn't already a member,

01:30:51.360 there's a, what, an eight, nine part series on Napoleon

01:30:54.500 and then a further three part series much later on,

01:30:57.600 Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington.

01:31:00.000 And some other bits and bobs in and around that period.

01:31:03.500 So we have, I have covered it.

01:31:06.460 If you don't already know the story,

01:31:07.880 an incredible story of Bonaparte and Wellington.

01:31:12.620 Good plug there.

01:31:13.860 Right.

01:31:14.080 Let's go to some comments.

01:31:16.160 Oh, deity Samson, how much time may you ordain?

01:31:19.940 Um, okay.

01:31:24.160 Can I take the, take the 10 minutes rather than the five to do the comments?

01:31:27.300 Is that all right?

01:31:28.500 Thank you.

01:31:29.460 Samson has granted us 10 minutes.

01:31:31.220 Uh, hallowed be thy name.

01:31:32.500 Uh, so.

01:31:34.680 The all-powerful Samson.

01:31:39.520 Praise him.

01:31:40.480 Anyway, Hector Rex says, hope not hate, could have just asked Bo for an interview

01:31:43.860 and made a better documentary.

01:31:45.440 Yeah.

01:31:45.840 True.

01:31:47.240 I'd do it.

01:31:48.440 Would you?

01:31:49.820 I'd sit down with them and pour scorn at them and reject all of their, uh, premises.

01:31:54.680 Yeah.

01:31:55.860 Just go there, just go to their interview and just abuse them the entire time.

01:32:00.020 Verbally, of course.

01:32:00.820 Yeah, all right.

01:32:01.180 Yeah, verbally, verbally.

01:32:02.560 And, uh, Captain Charlie the Beagle says, ah, yes, Undercover, the best political movie

01:32:06.520 created since Triumph of the Will.

01:32:09.040 Tut, tut.

01:32:09.620 Um, still at least Lenny, uh, Riefenstahl, uh, had the decency to be innovative with her

01:32:15.800 films.

01:32:16.620 Uh, we've got a, another comment here through.

01:32:20.700 Uh, Fred Norton says, I've actually played Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Malacca is translated

01:32:24.360 in the game as PH UK.

01:32:26.880 Don't know how accurate it is.

01:32:29.100 Me neither.

01:32:30.420 Need to talk to Stelios here.

01:32:32.640 Um, so we have, Josh, you have to remember the majority of these left-wing activists

01:32:39.040 have room temperature IQs who try to use, um, its nuanced as a shield for their positions,

01:32:44.480 but when you actually try to engage with them about nuance, they shut down because they're

01:32:47.980 not intellectually capable of comprehending the subject.

01:32:50.700 Their belief is, you either believe and agree with what I say and are therefore good,

01:32:54.860 or you are 100% evil.

01:32:57.520 Yes, well, what I was doing was I was trying to be very charitable because they're no doubt

01:33:00.960 going to watch that, and I know that Hope Not Hate are litigious, and I was just trying

01:33:04.900 to be on my best behaviour and, you know, not give them enough rope to hang myself.

01:33:09.480 I can say that now, I'm not on YouTube, so we're alright.

01:33:12.920 Uh, Thomas Howell says, look at this example of fascism.

01:33:15.800 Um, also here is an image of Tommy Robinson.

01:33:18.260 Yeah.

01:33:18.960 That's true, yeah.

01:33:19.860 And, um, Fane Scottie says, they tried to make a poster look like an action film, compare

01:33:25.780 it to Jason Bourne's movie poster.

01:33:28.060 The guy holding the camera looks like he's posing with a gun.

01:33:30.420 That's true, actually.

01:33:31.960 And, uh, finally for this section, uh, Arizona Desert Rat says, do they not realise that people

01:33:36.640 have evolved based on the regions that their ancestors are from?

01:33:39.980 People who are descended from people in sunny regions tend to have, uh, a sackless skin.

01:33:44.880 I don't know, I've never come across that term before.

01:33:47.100 Yeah, me neither, no.

01:33:47.940 Um, is that an Arizona term?

01:33:49.580 I don't know.

01:33:50.300 Uh, people who are descended from people in cold zones have a higher ability to digest

01:33:54.940 dairy and meat foods, and in fact...

01:33:56.940 No, there's no biological differences between peoples.

01:33:59.700 That actually made me jump.

01:34:00.820 Sorry, sorry.

01:34:02.680 I was going to say, yeah, in fact, Britain, the Netherlands, and Norway is like the, the most

01:34:08.560 concentrated hub of lactose tolerance.

01:34:11.680 So, we should be proud of ourselves.

01:34:13.200 There's a million and one things, sickle cell anemia.

01:34:15.860 There's a million and one things, right?

01:34:18.400 But no, there's no biological differences between humans.

01:34:21.240 To suggest such a thing is the same as being a guard at Belson.

01:34:25.940 It's the same thing, morally, to suggest it.

01:34:28.680 Would you like to read some comments, Bo?

01:34:29.920 Crazy.

01:34:30.980 Okay, uh, Michael Megua says, the war in Ukraine and the endless support for the US makes more

01:34:36.320 sense, uh, if it's over fighting about bricks.

01:34:40.500 That's pretty much what it is about, really, isn't it?

01:34:42.660 Yeah, there's all sorts of proxy conflicts, not necessarily hot conflicts where bullets

01:34:46.980 are flying around and 105mm howitzer shells are flying around.

01:34:50.700 There's all sorts of conflicts.

01:34:53.020 Um, I liked having it up on the big screen, by the way, Samson, because the glare on this

01:34:56.280 thing is bad, particularly if I'm sitting there, almost can't see the screen.

01:34:59.400 Um, okay, can you scroll up a little bit?

01:35:01.500 Monkey Smoke says, scroll down a bit, uh, I was sympathetic to the whole bricks thing

01:35:05.940 and, uh, the diminishing of American foreign policy.

01:35:08.980 I've had to reassess when, uh, when through desperation the Russians have recently tried

01:35:14.240 to sell the idea that North Korea and Iran are the pinnacle of human freedoms, etc.

01:35:18.240 The world is changing, no doubt, but I'll never be convinced that starvation and extreme

01:35:22.340 religious hypocrisy is after the Enlightenment.

01:35:26.880 Hear, hear.

01:35:27.800 Yeah, no, fair enough.

01:35:30.000 Yeah, um, no, if I still had to pick between the G7 and bricks, you know, if you had to live

01:35:38.680 in one or the other, right, it's probably still best to live in the United States or Western Europe

01:35:46.040 or Australia than in Saudi or Iran or China.

01:35:51.020 Well, obviously the best place to live is the United States, but also, I would never move because...

01:35:57.120 Yeah, I'm not leaving Britain, yeah.

01:35:59.300 You know, I'm going to go down with a ship.

01:36:00.760 Even if the island is plunging into the ocean, I'm going with it.

01:36:04.440 Yeah, yeah, I'm going nowhere.

01:36:06.640 Yeah.

01:36:06.880 I will die on this sceptered isle.

01:36:11.020 Ah, Albion.

01:36:12.860 Well, you're going to break into song.

01:36:15.760 Someone online says, being resource rich doesn't do anything if you can't, aren't allowed to

01:36:20.960 get to the resources.

01:36:22.340 Cough, cough, Africa.

01:36:24.080 Right, yeah, that doesn't necessarily, that doesn't, fair point, but that doesn't really

01:36:27.600 apply to Russia.

01:36:29.340 Russia, yeah.

01:36:30.340 No one's stopping Putin from mining wherever he wants within Russian territory.

01:36:35.340 But still, I mean, generally speaking, a good point.

01:36:38.440 Crumpets says, thanks for covering geopolitics, Bo.

01:36:42.260 That's all right.

01:36:42.900 It's my pleasure.

01:36:43.920 It would be great to see you and perhaps, Dan, cover it more on the podcast.

01:36:47.480 Perhaps you could do a video on more modern spycraft, psychological operations and so on.

01:36:52.420 Yeah, so I've done a couple of things with Dan, or at least one.

01:36:56.480 We did a great, I thought it was very good, Brokonomics, on a book called Memoirs of an

01:37:01.980 Economic Hitman, where there's a guy who worked for, well, it would take a while to describe

01:37:09.320 exactly who he worked for, but basically during the 60s and 70s and even into the 80s, I think,

01:37:15.740 how sort of forcing third world or poorer countries to take massive loans from the US

01:37:23.020 or the World Bank and things, and then you end up stripping them of their resources and

01:37:28.280 things, and they end up owing you more money than they ever borrowed and all that sort of

01:37:30.960 thing.

01:37:31.500 Memoirs of an Economic Hitman.

01:37:32.840 And it's not a rare book, it's a famous book, because it just spills a lot of how it's

01:37:38.580 done.

01:37:39.540 Sort of dollar imperialism, how you can control the world without having to send the marines

01:37:43.460 in, like in the Korean War.

01:37:45.880 The Americans didn't want to send the marines in like they did in Korea in the 50s anymore,

01:37:49.640 but they still wanted to dominate the world.

01:37:51.400 They still wanted to defeat the Soviets in every possible sphere.

01:37:56.900 So there's other ways of doing it.

01:37:57.940 There's one way to skin a cat.

01:37:58.940 So there's that.

01:37:59.780 And I will do, I'm doing a long series at the moment on Epochs all about Caesar and

01:38:04.820 Pompey and the end of the Republic, and I've got a couple of things in the pipeline after

01:38:08.260 that.

01:38:08.520 But after that, I am going to do at some point some content about the Cold War and the spy

01:38:17.500 game.

01:38:18.180 Probably about the Berlin Tunnel, yeah, the Cambridge Five, and a few other bits and bobs.

01:38:24.860 Maybe the, maybe the Klaus Fuchs thing and how the Soviets stole nuclear secrets.

01:38:32.400 And yeah, I'm fascinated by all that sort of stuff.

01:38:34.260 So I will be doing something along those lines.

01:38:37.120 Okay.

01:38:37.560 Do you want to go into your dissidents?

01:38:38.740 Of course.

01:38:39.320 Omar Awad says, the sentencing will continue until compliance improves.

01:38:42.760 The law is not for keeping you safe, but a cost-benefit analysis for the regime.

01:38:47.060 Very true.

01:38:48.100 And, you know, the cost-benefit analysis is the correct frame for it in this neoliberal

01:38:53.420 dystopia.

01:38:56.140 Unbreakable Litany says, it's really simple.

01:38:57.840 We don't need to be flooded with prisoners.

01:39:00.640 Just a moderately sized wooden frame.

01:39:02.940 Oh, okay.

01:39:03.900 And some rope.

01:39:04.500 Yes.

01:39:04.940 I do agree with the death penalty.

01:39:06.420 And there are some honourable mentions, actually.

01:39:09.240 So do you want me to read the ones about your beard, just to save you the dignity?

01:39:14.560 So, nobody should quote Lord Flashheart when commenting on Bo's beard, with a wink.

01:39:21.400 And, Bo, when your beard reaches Norse status, you should start coming to work wearing an eyepatch

01:39:26.040 to complete the dark Bo aesthetic.

01:39:28.900 Dark Bo.

01:39:30.400 Lady Dragonhawk says, I, for one, love your beard, Bo.

01:39:33.880 Don't listen to any haters.

01:39:35.000 Yeah, I think your beard looks good as well.

01:39:37.300 And then the final thing I'm going to read is, Rhys Sim says, just got my copy of Islander

01:39:42.340 2, Lotus Eater's Boogaloo, on Monday.

01:39:45.060 Another great edition that has been a pleasure to read so far.

01:39:48.340 I'm glad you're enjoying it.

01:39:50.040 I hope you like my poem.

01:39:51.720 And I suppose that's time to end the show.

01:39:54.560 And I've enjoyed myself.

01:39:56.520 I've had a good time.

01:39:57.200 I hope you have as well.

01:39:58.420 And, of course, make sure to tune in.

01:40:00.460 Same time tomorrow.

01:40:01.580 Same time as always.

01:40:02.400 Thank you very much for watching, and goodbye.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - October 22, 2024

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1027

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