The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1379

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to the podcast of The Lotus Eaters, episode 1379 for Friday the 20th of March

00:00:07.460 2026. I'm your host Luke, joined today by Firas and Stelios. Hello everyone. We're mixing it up

00:00:14.360 a bit. What is normally the Monday panel is now the Friday panel, so now you don't know what to

00:00:19.620 do, do you? Wild things. Yeah, and today we're going to be talking all about the dark developments

00:00:25.440 regarding abortion in the United Kingdom. We're then going to be talking about what's happening

00:00:30.320 in Cuba, and we're also going to have a, I don't know what to call it, a light palate cleanser of

00:00:36.400 a Friday segment talking about the theological differences between Israel and the West.

00:00:43.820 I think it's going to be spicy and nice, but also I want you to appreciate my Cuban attire.

00:00:49.520 Oh! You've come dressed for the occasion. Yes. All right, two announcements for you,

00:00:55.100 ladies and gentlemen. Well, actually three. Obviously, you can join us at three o'clock

00:00:59.600 today for Lads Hour, where we're going to be having a fantasy parliament. Now, Carl has been

00:01:04.900 playing this all morning, chuckling to himself, so I can assure you it's going to be wildly

00:01:10.520 entertaining. We're also, I just wanted to, if that would have worked for me, but it's not, so

00:01:16.240 dragging along. There we go. Thank you. Also, part two of my conversation with Harry on Chronicles

00:01:24.240 is out now. This is going to end up being a three-part discussion all about William Shakespeare's

00:01:29.620 Macbeth, and at the end of it, Harry and I were joking about the fact that our analysis

00:01:34.040 of Macbeth is going to be longer than the play itself. But it's one of the most famous and

00:01:39.880 most wonderful tragedies ever put to stage, and so there's a lot to explore there, isn't

00:01:44.580 there? And another thing just to say is, of course, you'll be aware by now, we do have

00:01:49.060 a live event at the Mecca in Swindon on the 11th of April, and it's on a Saturday, so there's

00:01:55.040 really no excuse for you not to be there, so come join us. There are tickets on sale to

00:01:59.700 the general public, VIP tickets as well, and there'll be all sorts of your favourite hosts

00:02:05.760 there, those that you tune in to enjoy, and we'll be having a Lads Hour, we'll be having

00:02:10.760 a debate about Star Wars. It's going to be really, really good fun, so if you want to get

00:02:15.260 in on it, tickets are on the website. All right then, well, so, gentlemen, shall we just address

00:02:24.240 the fact that whilst the Labour government are going around calling anyone who believes in common

00:02:30.480 decency an extremist, should we just turn our eye to what the people, you know, alleging us of being

00:02:36.920 extremists, are actually doing with the United Kingdom? Because we have here, so this is on the

00:02:43.880 left, Stella Creasy MP, and on the right, the architect for this new, just awful, awful legislation,

00:02:53.000 Tonya Antoniazzi MP for somewhere in Wales, I do believe, and both of them are mothers,

00:03:00.560 which makes it even more, I think, sickening what they've actually tried to do here, and so let's just

00:03:06.920 go through it with some clarity before we discuss what happened yesterday in the House of Lords,

00:03:12.140 shall we? So there is a crime and policing bill that has been going through Parliament towards the

00:03:19.820 end of, sorry, last year, and basically an amendment to this was put forward by Tonya over here, which

00:03:28.380 basically decriminalises women acting in relation to their own pregnancies in England and Wales. So one of

00:03:36.120 the things that people have been, you know, what-abouting and sort of, you know, just trying

00:03:41.040 to obfuscate it all with and make it unclear is they're saying, well, actually, the abortion laws in

00:03:46.400 the United Kingdom are exactly the same as they simply were last week. It's all, you know, through

00:03:52.060 the NHS. It's 24 weeks, which is already, you know, not good enough, but frankly, you get the point.

00:03:59.240 That is what it has been basically since the 60s when the Abortion Act of 1967 was put through,

00:04:05.520 and this seemed to have been the settlement. However, due to some antagonisms about an old

00:04:13.280 Victorian piece of legislation back all the way from 1861, which was the Offences Against the Person

00:04:20.780 Act, this basically meant that, of course, women, mothers-to-be, were rightly visited by police

00:04:28.700 investigations could be had if they took abortion into their own hands, and all these sorts of

00:04:34.000 things. Now, this is, of course, not just against the very sensible Christian morality of Victorian

00:04:39.700 England, but there are also real concerns here about safety, of course. Well, obviously, for the

00:04:47.180 mother, the child would already be gone at this point, but all of this is very, very dark, and really,

00:04:53.200 for my own personal feelings on it, isn't a conversation we should really be indulging

00:04:58.840 in the United Kingdom. All of this is incredibly dark, and it's all just gotten quite a bit

00:05:04.560 darker, because as we can see, the laws have moved to decriminalise abortion up to birth. Now, this is

00:05:10.260 not in the sense that you are, as a pregnant mother, going to be able to go to the NHS in the 39th

00:05:18.560 week and say, I would like this. They will turn you down and say, no, say that's not legal. But what

00:05:23.780 it does is mean that the authorities cannot arrest you, they cannot prosecute you, and you cannot be

00:05:29.380 imprisoned if you go and do this all of your own volition outside of the law, in a way, which is

00:05:37.680 absolutely maddening to think about. It's an invitation to have very late-term abortions

00:05:45.200 illegally outside the NHS. Doesn't that, isn't that one of the side effects?

00:05:50.340 Yes, it's basically giving the law a license to turn the blind eye.

00:05:55.320 Essentially. So when they would say that we want abortion to be, you know, safe, legal, and rare,

00:06:01.280 what they are doing is making it much more common, less safe, and more legal.

00:06:07.940 Excuse me, if they do this, and they say, well, it's legal up to six months, and now we're going

00:06:14.400 to take it up to nine months. How is that pushing people to the black market? I'd say it's the exact

00:06:19.840 opposite. Because it's very, because it's decriminalizes the mother, but it doesn't

00:06:25.560 decriminalize the medical practitioner. And since... How?

00:06:29.020 That's what it does. And since the... Since it's actually very impractical for a mother at,

00:06:40.080 you know, week 27, 28, 30, to have an abortion herself, she would need that assistance. So she'd

00:06:49.260 be able to go somewhere and get it, but claim that she did it herself, which means that it creates a

00:06:57.020 demand for a black market. The other thing as well that was all very dangerous about this was that

00:07:03.480 when this initial amendment passed in the House of Commons back last year, the House of Commons

00:07:09.580 passed the legislation back in June, despite it only having 46 minutes of debate on the issue.

00:07:16.200 And so it was rushed through very much at the last minute. There was no real time for any debate on

00:07:22.120 it. And obviously, it goes without saying this was entirely by design, because once such an issue

00:07:28.160 is put up to debate, it would naturally require a more robust defense for it. But Baroness Monckton,

00:07:37.160 who's a Tory peer in the House of Lords, did her best to come out very, very strongly against this and

00:07:42.480 tabled an amendment to the bill in the Lords to remove the radical proposal, which she said was

00:07:47.580 passed in the Commons without any evidence, scrutiny, public consultation or impact assessment.

00:07:54.020 And she argued that decriminalization actually put women in danger by removing the current legal

00:07:59.460 deterrent against administering abortion away from a clinical setting right up till birth. And

00:08:05.840 Piers rejected the amendment, however, in a vote of 185 to 148.

00:08:12.460 So just to be clear on this, when you want to make some kind of adjustment to your home,

00:08:18.700 very often you'd have to get an impact assessment on what this does to bats. When you want to build

00:08:25.340 any piece of infrastructure, you will spend hundreds of millions of pounds doing impact assessment

00:08:31.840 studies. But when it comes to killing babies and exacerbating the fertility crisis that already

00:08:38.920 exists in Britain, you do zero impact assessments. So this is the sort of madness of this sentimentalism

00:08:49.100 that animates the British government and the British ruling classes, where you have to have

00:08:55.020 due concern for bats, but heaven forbid that you have due concern for babies.

00:08:58.920 Well, this is a point that I was going to bring up as well, because of course, in Britain, you know,

00:09:03.840 the natural disposition of the state, certainly throughout the entirety of my lifetime, has

00:09:08.800 been for it to be, you know, ever expanding for its oversight, for its jurisdiction, for its power

00:09:14.080 to always be expanding and to put the private individual into more and more contact with the

00:09:20.160 state as possible. However, we see that when it came to this particular issue, all of a sudden,

00:09:25.940 it was, well, we need to make sure that everything just gets out the way,

00:09:29.720 so that the woman can exercise absolute sovereignty over herself, or she just takes all of this. But

00:09:36.840 also, so we're empowering the woman to make this decision, whilst denying any sense of

00:09:44.600 legal recourse against her, right? So she's simultaneously absolute agent, and also has no

00:09:52.520 agency whatsoever, according to the way that it's all laid out.

00:09:57.060 Just to sort of add one point, in the legislation that you mentioned, it was crimes against the

00:10:01.460 person. So it was recognized by the Victorians, in that horrendously backwards time, which it

00:10:09.840 wasn't, that this is a person that you're dealing with. The baby is in fact a separate person, which

00:10:15.720 we know for an absolute fact, because it has unique DNA that is not the DNA of the mother, it is a

00:10:21.640 separate person. Now, that baby has been erased as a person in the law, more or less, and has zero

00:10:30.440 protections, and any crime against its person is permitted. And the same baby, I think somebody,

00:10:38.460 Lander might have made that point on X, you know, if it's born prematurely at 34 weeks, 35 weeks, and you

00:10:46.920 kill it, obviously it's a crime. But in the womb, you're still allowed to kill it, up until week 39

00:10:52.040 and a half.

00:10:52.440 Yeah, I was going to pull that tweet towards the end, but you're absolutely right. But the peers

00:10:58.080 rejected the amendment, as I say, 185 to 148. And they also rejected another amendment that would

00:11:04.860 have reintroduced in-person consultations with a medical professional before being prescribed

00:11:10.840 medication to terminate a pregnancy, ending the so-called pills-by-post scheme. Because when

00:11:17.640 COVID came around and everyone was locked into their homes, all of a sudden you could just do a

00:11:22.240 consultation for this on the phone as well. And again, something that was laxed and rolled out

00:11:29.680 under the cover of lockdown, which should never have been removed in the first place as a safeguard,

00:11:34.520 is now just the status quo, which is, as it always seems to come. The Lords, however,

00:11:41.400 supported Lady Thornton's amendment to pardon women convicted of having an abortion and remove

00:11:48.280 their details from police databases by 180 votes to 58. Now, one thing that I must stress, and I,

00:11:57.740 forgive me, I've not come with this particular point with any statistics, other than just to say the

00:12:03.520 fact that, of course, this will work in the state's way for basically covering up a lot of the worst

00:12:13.720 excesses of what happened with the rape gang scandal. If you're deleting all of these files based on

00:12:21.040 abortions from these sorts of things, it's a way to basically hide those numbers and the impact

00:12:28.540 assessment, which is really horrible. Let me ask you here, how is it hiding? Because let's say if you

00:12:35.960 say that the state, I allow abortion up to the ninth month, and when this happens, it's not in the black

00:12:44.140 market, you are registering it, and you can't see that these things happened. Yes. How is that erasing?

00:12:50.920 Because they're going to be erased from the police databases. Okay. Yeah, they're going to be erased

00:12:55.820 from the databases. So, sorry, it's done this again. Don't know why that keeps happening. So, as you see,

00:13:03.840 Right to Life here did quite a large write-up of many of the conversations that were happening in the

00:13:09.480 House of Lords yesterday, and I do think it bears going through some of them in just some detail. So,

00:13:14.800 I've written a lot down. Baroness Monckton took exception to the Royal College of Obstetricians

00:13:20.820 and Gynecologists' support for introducing this extreme change to the abortion law, saying that in

00:13:26.780 their reasoning, the infant, who without the intervention of lethal drugs, would be a fully

00:13:32.720 living person at that stage, if born, is completely unmentioned, and it's as if this is in itself

00:13:39.880 unmentionable. Obviously, it's deeply distressing, as we have heard, for the mother to be questioned

00:13:46.260 by the police in the aftermath of an illegal abortion. This should be done with compassion

00:13:52.300 and sensitivity, but the police cannot act as if it hasn't happened at all, which is what it is really

00:13:58.500 granting permission to do. She also went on to say, voice her support for Baroness Stroud's amendment,

00:14:04.540 which would have required women to have the in-person medical appointments that I'd mentioned,

00:14:09.220 and the Baroness reminded the House that she'd wanted, warned of the potential dangers of the

00:14:14.460 pills by post scheme before it was introduced, stating that these warnings now proved to be prescient.

00:14:19.820 One of the examples that was given in the House of Lords was that by having the pills

00:14:26.340 able to be delivered by post, what had actually happened in one particular scenario was that there

00:14:32.340 was one particular mother-to-be very happily pregnant, ready to have her child, and someone

00:14:37.380 else had gained access to these pills and basically spiked with these pills, which is, of course,

00:14:44.720 absolutely monstrous. And so, yes, there is a very real danger there. She continued saying that

00:14:50.780 allowing these abortions to take place would allow traffickers and abusers to cover up the

00:14:55.480 effects of sexual exploitation by coercing their victims to phone up and ask for the pills as

00:15:00.940 well, which is absolutely true, and says, what do supporters of clause 208, which is what it is in,

00:15:08.920 think the police should do if they discover, and I apologise for the graphic nature of the words,

00:15:14.700 but it is, if they're going to do this, then this is the sort of conversation it forces us to have

00:15:20.640 put forward the stark reality of it. What should the police do if they discover a dead body

00:15:26.220 of a 39-week-old baby in a rubbish bin? Like, what are they supposed to do? Just not investigate it,

00:15:32.300 not ask the mother, because this clause means that they can't investigate it now, because a woman

00:15:37.360 is basically just acquitted of such a thing. And as you point out as well, Firas, just purely on the

00:15:43.520 distinction, not over whether or not the baby could live, but simply whether or not it was already

00:15:48.720 outside of the womb. And the Lord Hogan Howe explained in committee that investigations would

00:15:55.920 often still be required, even if clause 208 passed, as the police would need to investigate the

00:16:02.300 circumstances, of course, of such full-term babies' bodies, of course, being disposed of. And

00:16:08.740 sorry, this isn't the easiest thing to present. It's absolutely terrible.

00:16:14.540 So, we also have Samantha pointing out here as well that the Archbishop of Canterbury was present

00:16:22.440 at this debate, but shall we hear what she has to say?

00:16:26.100 The decriminalisation of abortion is a question of such legal, moral and practical complexity,

00:16:33.240 that I do believe it cannot be properly addressed in an amendment hastily added to another bill.

00:16:39.260 Consideration of any alteration to the abortion laws needs public consultations and robust parliamentary

00:16:48.480 processes to ensure that every aspect of this debate is carefully considered and scrutinised.

00:16:56.320 So, she came out against it in the end, which is a rare example of the Church of England coming

00:17:01.380 out on the right end of an issue. But her framing is, of course, I feel wrong, certainly for someone

00:17:08.220 who is supposed to be of faith, the idea that it's a complex issue, when surely it should be quite a

00:17:14.380 black and white issue. But she is absolutely right in saying that, of course, this was not an actual

00:17:21.020 abortion bill that was put forward. This was merely an amendment to a criminality bill. And, of course,

00:17:28.360 it is being used by the most progressive voices in Parliament to, of course, smuggle in an agenda that

00:17:35.800 is entirely without consent. Alison Pearson, as she points out here, says, abortion term limits, 12

00:17:42.220 weeks, Germany, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Austria, 14 weeks, France, Spain, and now 24 weeks, plus no

00:17:49.280 penalty for a mother aborting up to full term, Britain, vying for the infanticide cup with the

00:17:55.280 People's Republic of China. And again, just so we're not getting abstract about this, this isn't just

00:18:02.520 words. You know, this is life. This is the most precious thing that we humans can hold to. And this

00:18:09.300 is a 34-year-old, sorry, 34-week baby outside of the womb. And as you can tell, it's absolutely

00:18:17.720 confident and it has its entire life ahead of him. It's strong enough to live. And this is a story of

00:18:24.980 basically every life that never got a chance to happen across the West. It's a deeply terrible

00:18:32.220 thing. And the reason that I put in this part from the House of Lords as well, and it being

00:18:38.940 banned, you know, the hereditary peers are basically going to be abolished. Now, this is not something I

00:18:46.860 want to spend too long on. It warrants really an entire segment in and of itself. So I'll probably

00:18:51.440 come back to you on Tuesday to talk about this. But one of the reasons that I wanted to bring this

00:18:56.860 up here and now is not just because the House of Lords have put through the legislation that we've

00:19:03.200 just been talking about, but also because, look at the way that the Cabinet Office frames this.

00:19:08.040 This morning's 700-year-old system of hereditary membership in the House of Lords was abolished.

00:19:13.800 Membership is now earned through public service and merit, not granted by an inheritance. It's like,

00:19:19.260 okay, but does that make the legislation more moral? Does it make it more democratic? Does it matter

00:19:27.140 when the House of Lords are putting through legislation that is only supported by 1%

00:19:34.300 of the British public? How can this possibly be right? This wasn't in Labour's manifesto. They had

00:19:41.420 no right to do this, no license to do this, no mandate to do this. And no wonder they didn't put it in

00:19:48.700 the manifesto, because of course they knew what the answer would be. And quite right, as to reiterate

00:19:54.180 the point, as Lander says for us, if a baby born one month prematurely and I suffocate it, that is

00:19:59.580 murder. However, a mother can now abort her child at eight months in the United Kingdom and face no

00:20:05.380 legal consequences. This was passed as law, despite only 1% of the public supporting it. Is this really

00:20:12.540 democracy? Well, of course it isn't. A point about the House of Lords. Chesterton said that tradition

00:20:19.900 is the most important form of democracy because it is the democracy of the dead. That the past

00:20:25.060 generations who have experienced so many things and so many horrors and so much, and gained from them

00:20:31.120 so much wisdom, passed down tradition. And that tradition is democratic because it encapsulates the

00:20:39.600 wisdom of a nation. And he called it the democracy of the dead as well as the living. And in his view,

00:20:46.600 that is what true democracy is. You respect tradition. So these guys are attacking the past and they're

00:20:54.620 attacking the future at the same time, forcing everybody into the eternal present. Every day is day

00:21:01.500 zero. Every year is year zero. And this is madness. This is purely destructive.

00:21:08.040 I think that Chesterton is committing a category error there because tradition is

00:21:14.520 99% subconscious. It's not something we think about. It's something we do without thinking about

00:21:22.160 it. Whereas democracy is conscious decision-making. You can make horrible decisions. You can make good

00:21:27.980 decisions, but they're conscious ones. So I think that in, I mean, whether it's democratic or not,

00:21:34.040 doesn't mean it's right. If it were a democratic process, it would have to be a sort of referendum

00:21:43.860 or something. Because this is not the kind of, we are living in a situation where lots of parties

00:21:51.020 have an agenda and people are choosing every four or five years in other countries about overall agendas.

00:21:59.980 But within these overall agendas, they can smuggle in policies that are incredibly unpopular. And in

00:22:08.020 that respect, undemocratic or not. And Labour do this every week now.

00:22:13.700 Yes, that's an issue. And you could say that it's, yeah, I just lost my train of thought.

00:22:23.760 That's all right. I take your point. And so that's my point. It's just that they are smuggling lots of

00:22:30.020 things that we don't know whether people want or not. But even if they want, want them doesn't make

00:22:35.840 them right. No, it doesn't make them wrong necessarily. But what people want and what they

00:22:40.700 decide based on what they want is not the criterion of what's going on. Well, exactly. Just because the

00:22:47.440 House of Commons voted through some radically progressive legislation that we know is totally out of

00:22:52.840 whack with the sensibilities of the British public. And it's been passed now by the House of Lords.

00:22:58.820 It's gone through all the proper official channels. That doesn't mean that all of a sudden it's a good

00:23:04.140 decision or a moral decision. It's legalised murder at the end of the day. And you can see here that

00:23:11.780 it's an absolutely mind-blowing figure of almost 10 million babies lost to abortion since the original

00:23:19.660 UK Abortion Act came into effect back in 1968. And just to put that in clear figures for you as well,

00:23:28.360 it is about 10 million people, foreigners that have arrived here since Tony Blair took power,

00:23:34.640 you know, back in 97. So we talk about the fact that, oh, we don't have enough people and,

00:23:40.940 you know, we've got a net, our birth rate replacement is too low. It's like only because we're constantly,

00:23:47.320 as you say, pinning ourselves between eradicating our past, eradicating our future, and then just

00:23:53.660 bringing in a whole supply of foreigners who bring innumerable problems, as we chronicle here

00:24:00.180 all the time on the podcast. And so this entire thing is just such a deeply dark affair. And this is

00:24:07.560 not even me saying that, you know, in situations of rape, this is not me being categorical about the

00:24:15.840 entire issue. But this is me saying that this is clearly too much, should never have been given

00:24:21.520 license. And I think that stuff like this doesn't get forgotten. And when some people with more sensible

00:24:35.320 morals come to power, hopefully a lot of this can start to be, you know, fixed.

00:24:42.340 Anyway, sorry. Thank you.

00:24:48.040 So, Rumble Rants, Cookie Boy says, what way do the Greens vote as Islam only allows 120 days in

00:25:00.160 exceptional circumstance? I don't know. I mean, I've seen...

00:25:04.080 I think it's less than 120 days.

00:25:06.100 I've seen very strange things coming out on it all.

00:25:08.760 That's a random name says, they've turned pregnancy into a survival game for babies.

00:25:13.500 The longer your mum is pregnant, the longer you should pray she doesn't change her mind.

00:25:21.060 And Cookie Boy also says, if a child is born prematurely but needs medical assistance,

00:25:26.840 can the mother deny it on the same grounds that she would have aborted it?

00:25:31.100 Well, these are just simple questions that those in Parliament didn't want to ask, Cookie.

00:25:38.880 So, yeah. Okay. Stelios, over to you, sir.

00:25:43.520 Yes. Oh, you've got everything. Okay.

00:25:46.120 Let me be certain that things are working and they're not going to stop working mid-segment.

00:25:53.520 Yeah, good idea.

00:25:54.400 Mid-sentence maxing.

00:25:55.560 Right. Right now, the world's attention is focused on the Middle East, especially in Iran.

00:26:03.760 But there are other things happening and there are momentous developments that are about to happen

00:26:10.600 in Cuba. And this makes me very happy, I must say. I'm an anti-communist.

00:26:16.420 I understand the dangers that are involved in particular operations and also pressures exerted

00:26:26.360 upon regimes. But yeah, if the Cuban communist regime falls, I'm going to be happy. Sorry.

00:26:35.380 Just no remorse, no hesitation, no reluctance. Yeah, I think I'll be happy. Right. So,

00:26:43.340 there are lots of things happening right now that exert pressure on the Cuban regime,

00:26:50.040 the communist regime. And I must say that this is a very, in some respects, idiosyncratic regime,

00:26:58.400 communist regime, because you could sort of see why some of the Cubans would be a bit more prone to

00:27:05.200 support it, especially due to the dictatorship of Fulgencio Garcia, who left with all the gold and

00:27:12.860 the US dollar reserves in January 1, 1959, I think it was. And generally speaking, there was a really bad

00:27:23.060 regime that was comparatively worse to other regimes before they fell to communist rule around in the

00:27:33.940 world. But there has been a very annoying tradition of communists, especially glorifying Fidel Castro,

00:27:42.980 Raul Castro, and also Che Guevara. It's almost like the gateway dictator. It's just sort of like,

00:27:49.840 you know, the one that you can get into when you're young, wear the t-shirt, and then you can go into

00:27:53.900 the more hardcore stuff. Yes. So, it's especially annoying when the Che Guevara t-shirts, it's just,

00:28:02.560 yeah. Yes.

00:28:04.160 Right. So, let us see what is happening right now in Cuba. And we should have a general geopolitical

00:28:11.020 discussion about what may happen and when and why, in some respects, Trump may be taking,

00:28:20.080 maybe a bit patient with it. Maybe a smooth operator in this. Right. Which is a bit ironic,

00:28:28.300 given the fact that he has started a blockade, an oil blockade on Cuba. So, here he is on March

00:28:35.780 the 7th. He says about Cuba at the Shield of the America Summit in Florida, Cuba's in its last moments

00:28:43.840 of life as it was. It will have a great new life. That will be an easy one. I don't know how easy

00:28:50.300 that's going to be. No, I doubt it'll be quite, I mean, it wasn't easy just after the Soviet Union

00:28:56.040 collapsed for the Russia. I mean, that was when they say it was the hardest for people to live between

00:29:01.180 regimes, not during either. And also, people don't exactly know who the opposition is because there

00:29:06.620 is an opposition, especially, you know, there are some people in jail, political opponents of the

00:29:13.900 Castro regime. But some of them are being released right now as a result of Trump's moves. We'll see

00:29:21.600 what happens. But people are asking just what's going to, what's the next day going to be like?

00:29:26.880 There doesn't seem to be any sort of, any sort of opposition strong within Cuba.

00:29:33.420 Anyway, let's move forward.

00:29:39.300 Trump, Trump's move with Maduro, the extraction of Maduro, he was playing the claw machine where he

00:29:49.520 took Maduro from Venezuela and took him to New York to have him close to him to spend some time with

00:29:55.960 him. He had a massive effect on Cuba, right? Cuba is historically the biggest exporter of oil for,

00:30:05.020 no, importer. Let me rephrase. Venezuela is historically the biggest oil supplier to Cuba.

00:30:14.880 Right.

00:30:14.980 That changed lately in the last years because Mexico was until recently, until the blockade

00:30:22.960 support was sending about 45% of Cuba's oil, 38% is domestic production. But now after Maduro and after

00:30:35.300 the blockade, Cuba has, is strangled, strangulated as far as its energy sector is concerned. And this has

00:30:43.960 sparked protests that happen at night because protests, they, they do tend to happen in some

00:30:51.160 cases, like there were protests in COVID-19 with COVID-19 and in some other cases. But now lots of them

00:31:00.060 are happening during the night. You can see here, you can, we don't need, uh, sound, but you can see here

00:31:06.300 people burning things. Yeah, if we could mute it, that would be great, but it's okay. They're burning

00:31:13.840 things and they are out burning the, uh, headquarters of the, of the communist party in some provinces of,

00:31:23.400 of Cuba here. They say it's the Moron, a province or an area in Cuba. I hope I didn't get it horribly

00:31:31.600 wrong. So people don't know to what extent this is, this is organic or not. And this is always going to

00:31:39.620 be a, a debate that is going to be raging. And I'm sure that at some point, if the regime falls

00:31:47.580 years down the line, there will be people, historians who will say, well, perhaps it wasn't

00:31:53.540 support. It was all CIA organized or, you know, and there will be people who are saying, no, people

00:32:00.400 don't like communism. It makes them incredibly poor. And there is a sort of mythology surrounding Cuba.

00:32:08.720 You hear lots of Cubans who have left Cuba telling you it's a lie. You hear this from lots of

00:32:15.340 communist affiliated people who go to Cuba to experience the myth and they go there and they

00:32:23.040 say, well, I'm a bit unhappy with, uh, with the extent of prostitution. That's what, uh, what I hear

00:32:30.840 here from almost every communist I know who went there and suddenly became an ex-communist say, well,

00:32:39.760 maybe it's not the paradise that you hear when you hear tourist, um, campaigns where Cuba is supposed

00:32:47.080 to be this, uh, scenic sixties Florida with the old cars. Everyone's there happy. Everyone's there

00:32:53.920 singing music, um, singing, uh, what, what's the John Adams mansion. No, no, Benavista or, um, the other

00:33:02.660 song, what is it that I actually like it from Julian Iglesias and the Guantanamera. Oh yeah. That's a good

00:33:08.500 song. We have to give it, we have it to give it. That's a good song. Okay. We'll give it. So there

00:33:13.060 are mass protests that are happening in Cuba. You can see they're fiery. I don't know if they're

00:33:20.260 mostly peaceful. I suspect they tend not to go together. If it's fiery, it's not mostly peaceful.

00:33:28.100 Let's own the CNN. Let's own the CNN. Okay. Here you can have footage showing, showing this. Now let us focus on

00:33:37.620 what happened. The last translators from El Pais, the president of Cuba, Diaz-Canel says that the

00:33:43.940 Cuban government recently held conversations with representatives of the U S government, and they

00:33:49.460 want to seek dialogue and a solution to existing bilateral differences. This is a sort of change in

00:33:55.940 tone that you hear. You didn't hear this before, but Trump is the kind of person who elicits that from

00:34:03.060 people, be they Europeans or Cubans. Well, especially just because of the geographical

00:34:08.740 proximity of the two nations as well. Yeah. Here he is going on a rant about Cuba.

00:34:14.980 He says, I think Cuba in its own way, tourism and everything else, it's a beautiful island,

00:34:19.780 great weather. This is strategic and coherent and strategic rumbling. I don't know if the strategy

00:34:26.820 anymore. I feel like he's just throwing stuff out there. It says they're not in a hurricane zone,

00:34:31.700 which is nice for a change. You know, they won't be asking us for money for hurricanes every week.

00:34:37.220 I do believe I'll have the honor of taking Cuba. That's a big honor, taking Cuba in some form,

00:34:42.260 you know, taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it, I can do anything I want with it. If you

00:34:47.780 want to know the truth. Right. So he is definitely exerting pressure on Cuba in his increasing that

00:34:55.380 pressure. I've said before, because, you know, I think when it comes to Trump's speech,

00:35:00.500 I tend to take it as the speech of someone who is engaging in negotiations at the time. It's much

00:35:08.420 more an expression of resolution at the time than it is the take of a cold analyst talking about a

00:35:15.460 region is in the game. Right. So Reuters says here, Russia says it supports Cuba after Trump says he will

00:35:23.700 take the communist republic, but it's kind of weird when you have a republic that you have, you know,

00:35:30.180 you don't have that much of, of popular sovereignty, but that's me. They are sending a,

00:35:37.700 let me see what they say here. They're sending a tanker already from here. So they are saying that,

00:35:50.020 it exited the Mediterranean on the, there's a, there's a Russian tanker set to reach Cuba on

00:35:56.900 March 23. We will see if they will stop it. And there was also a Chinese oil tanker that left from

00:36:04.180 the Mediterranean on February 13, that hasn't yet reached Cuba. So it looks like they are serious with

00:36:11.860 a blockade. Yeah. Trying to alleviate the pressure. Right. So Russian oil tanker heading to Cuba amid

00:36:19.220 US economic blockade. Yeah, that's, it was in a different article that why, that's why I couldn't

00:36:24.740 find it. And here we have electricity failure. We have Cuba's power grid collapsing and millions in Cuba

00:36:33.780 have been left without power after the national electricity grid collapsed on Monday, the country's

00:36:39.700 power operator says. Match of the island, including the capital Havana was plunged into darkness with

00:36:46.420 streets only illuminated by headlumps and battery powered lights on Monday. And this is what is also

00:36:53.700 taken advantage of by people who are protesting and burning headquarters and cities.

00:36:59.300 But this has all kinds of practical effects. If you're in a hospital and the power dies,

00:37:06.020 you might be as good as dead. If you're elderly and you need to sort of live a decent life and the power

00:37:13.860 dies, that kind of sentences you to either misery or death. So what's happening here is that they're

00:37:20.420 blockading something that is needed by pretty much every single civilian and starving them of power and

00:37:26.980 using that as a power play to drive the regime out. It's a terrible regime, but this isn't coming

00:37:35.060 without a human consequence, right? No, there are human consequences. And sadly, there always are because

00:37:41.460 we live in the real world and there is an element of tragedy that ideologues frequently tend to miss.

00:37:47.700 Ideologues who want to say this is that this is absolute good or absolute evil. And, but I will say that

00:37:54.820 perhaps this isn't something that happens just right now. There are electricity failures across

00:38:03.380 Cuba for years now. It's not that they are the best when it comes to electricity provision.

00:38:11.220 So the question would be, if that is the case, well, are they augmenting an actual problem that must be

00:38:20.420 addressed? And possibly this is short-term bad consequences. Tragic indeed. There is always the

00:38:28.660 element of tragedy in history that could yield very beneficial mid-range and long-range consequences.

00:38:41.220 Right. So Cuba confirms negotiations with US as a country faces effects of oil blockade.

00:38:46.820 And let's see now, let's, let's see now what Greta Thunberg is saying. She seems to have flip-flopped a bit.

00:38:58.820 Right. So let us look at this because suddenly fossil fuel is good. Ah, let us watch this by the Atlas Society.

00:39:06.420 It is what we decide now that will define the rest of humanity's future. And whether we choose to do that

00:39:17.300 or not, if we don't, it will be a death sentence to countless of people. And it is already a death sentence

00:39:25.300 to countless of people living on the front lines of the climate crisis today.

00:39:28.820 We need to talk about what's happening in Cuba right now. As the Trump administration is waging

00:39:34.340 illegitimate wars across the world, killing countless of people, it is also strangling the

00:39:39.460 Cuban people deliberately, methodically and openly. The pedophile Trump himself bragged about it,

00:39:45.780 saying there's an embargo, there is no oil, there's no money, there's no anything. He said it like it was

00:39:51.700 something to be proud of. Well, you see that... Well, to be honest, my biggest takeaway from

00:39:58.580 that was just when she says the pedophile Trump, it's like, okay, so of all the stuff in the Epstein

00:40:03.300 files, Greta, that's what you're going to take away from it all. Okay. But also, I mean, she hasn't

00:40:09.620 necessarily linked... well, she kind of has, but she is mostly the poster girl for no oil. Yeah, yeah,

00:40:17.220 of course. Yeah, yeah. All right. Okay. Jeremy Corbyn here is keeping it real. He says the United

00:40:23.300 States is intentionally starving the people of Cuba with its illegal and barbaric blockade. I thought,

00:40:29.140 you know, he is just a miserable goon. I thought communism was actually good and productive. Why can't

00:40:36.020 they have internal domestic production? I understand that you need trade, right? I understand this. But

00:40:46.260 if it's that great, how is it that, you know, Cuba is so bad at doing this? Well, it's not because of

00:40:54.740 Cuba. It's because of communism. Well, also just the total just doing away with the illusion of

00:41:00.740 international law and the international order. It's like it's an illegal invasion. You know,

00:41:04.500 they said this when Putin invaded the Ukraine, like, oh, he can't do this. It's like, okay, stop him.

00:41:09.060 You know, they're not going to do that. So without... Yeah, but if they throw

00:41:17.540 bean soup on a Salvador Dali painting, maybe Putin's going to stop and maybe Trump's going to stop it

00:41:23.700 now. That's the green mindset. Anyway, we have thousands of anti-fascists from different countries

00:41:31.860 around the world continue to go to Cuba together with collected aid. Well, the interesting thing

00:41:38.100 here is that they're actually doing this meme, which I wanted to show you here. It's Venezuelan

00:41:43.620 socialism only failed because of US sanctions. It says, so the only way for a socialist country to

00:41:48.660 succeed is free trade with a capitalist country. Yeah. So routinely people are doing this and

00:41:56.340 it's a trick by communists. It's like, well, true communism has never been tried. Why? In this

00:42:04.420 case, because communism faces embargo by the other world, the non-communist world. So let's see what

00:42:15.380 happens. One thing I will say geopolitically, and I would like to hear from both of you guys,

00:42:20.660 what you think, is I think Trump is moving fast here, but he will let it simmer a bit. He will wait

00:42:28.580 to see what's going to happen in Iran, how long it will take. And I think that he may be keeping this

00:42:35.540 for an extra thing to show next. Because Trump is very mindful of public image. He's very media savvy.

00:42:45.940 And he does want his audience to have a win in their mind. So I don't know how fast they're gonna

00:42:54.740 move in Iran. In terms of geopolitics, what he's thinking about is securing the Caribbean completely

00:43:00.980 and making sure that all trade between the United States and Latin America doesn't have to go next

00:43:08.100 to what could potentially be a Chinese or Russian base, which is understandable. There's the human

00:43:17.060 element, which is that you're basically starving the civilian population to get them to rise up against

00:43:22.340 their dictatorial rulers. So fair enough. He's surprised that he's willing to make Cuban people pay.

00:43:35.060 Whether or not it works out, the problem for Cuba was that it was being a bit too harshly exploited,

00:43:42.340 shall we say, by previous capitalist regimes, which is why you get this regime, which is both

00:43:48.500 very nationalist in one sense, in the economic sense, socialist as well, and internationalist in

00:43:58.660 that it wants to export the communist revolution, which as we know, is a stupid idea.

00:44:04.180 So like national socialism, international communism, kind of, which is, if you look at North Korea,

00:44:11.300 that's exactly what it is. If you look at what Stalinism was, when push came to shove, he turned

00:44:17.780 to nationalism, right? Especially when he got invaded, and people weren't rallying for the

00:44:23.620 international. That's what I mean. That's what I mean. That's what I mean. So this is what you're

00:44:28.660 getting here. Do I hope they get rid of the dictatorship? Yes. The question always is,

00:44:36.740 how do you manage the transition? Because the transition in Eastern Europe wasn't that bad.

00:44:42.980 The transition in the Soviet Union was absolutely hideous. And the kind of oligarchic class that

00:44:50.340 raped Russia for a decade is exactly what gave us Putin. So what alternative have you prepared?

00:44:57.540 And if the answer is, well, you know, we're going to employ these people as surf farmers now,

00:45:02.820 and reopen the casinos, and reopen the degeneracy that characterized Cuba in the 50s.

00:45:09.780 Yeah, but let's say the degeneracy is still a part of Cuba.

00:45:13.540 It became a part again.

00:45:14.900 I'll just tell you, the Greek Communist Party is organizing excursions in Cuba. And you know,

00:45:23.620 they're the Pyongyang tours. They're taking them along one street. They say, hey, everything is

00:45:30.740 great here. Exactly.

00:45:31.620 They don't zoom out.

00:45:32.740 No, no, no.

00:45:33.380 No, no. And I know...

00:45:35.540 They're defending the Cuban regime.

00:45:36.660 I know lots of...

00:45:37.540 Just like with the Iranian regime. Just like, the only question is,

00:45:42.100 are you going to end up unintentionally making it worse because you haven't thought this through?

00:45:47.620 That's the only legitimate question here.

00:45:49.540 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. On this.

00:45:52.420 Yeah.

00:45:54.500 All right.

00:45:57.940 All righty then.

00:45:59.860 Shall we move to the next segment and discuss the wisdom of Benjamin Netanyahu?

00:46:08.020 Now, the contention that I want to make here is that essentially all conflict one way or another

00:46:15.140 is theological conflict. And this is something that is very real because how you see the world

00:46:24.180 and how you see right and wrong essentially determines your policy.

00:46:28.340 What do you think would have happened?

00:46:30.820 And here, Netanyahu gave a speech in which, among other things, he said, he quoted an American

00:46:40.420 thinker, a former Christian atheist, bit of a libtard, shall we say.

00:46:46.900 Who became Catholic again in the end of his life, received the last rites, Will Durant.

00:46:52.580 Yes, but while he was writing, so he was born Catholic. He was a candidate for the priesthood.

00:46:58.980 He became a mix of socialist, sentimental Christian, rather than actual Christian,

00:47:07.620 atheist agnostic by his own description. And like Oscar Wilde, near death, he changed his mind.

00:47:14.660 That's not exactly what happened. He became a socialist. Then he went to the Soviet Union. He

00:47:19.380 stopped being a socialist in 1932. And the book Netanyahu is quoting was published in 1968.

00:47:26.020 And I really want us to talk about the quote. Also, I think, do you have the same outfit?

00:47:35.780 Well, yes, we coordinate our wardrobe every day, Benjamin and I. We try to sort of, you know...

00:47:42.740 By the way, Will Durant has a really good reputation for being a good historian. He isn't

00:47:47.620 exactly considered their libtard. Hold on. Hold on. In terms of his historiography, yes.

00:47:57.300 In terms of how his wife describes his life philosophy, and in terms of when it was suggested

00:48:04.020 to him, what kind of award do you want or what kind of work do you want to do? His response was,

00:48:09.300 well, let's work on eliminating all racial prejudice. That was his view. I haven't read him. Perhaps you

00:48:16.020 have. I did some very basic research on him. But during the period that he was writing,

00:48:23.300 from the period that Netanyahu is quoting him, he was in the atheist phase. But this isn't the crux of

00:48:32.020 the issue. The crux of the issue is, I want to try to explain what Netanyahu is presenting, and the

00:48:39.300 worldview that he's presenting, and what it actually means for policy. Because that's what really matters,

00:48:45.940 rather than just this one quote. And here is Netanyahu explaining himself. Let's listen to him.

00:48:55.220 But in conditions of existential threats, there's a much greater danger in not acting. What do you

00:49:04.740 think would have happened if America did not act now? Just imagine what would have happened. In a few

00:49:12.100 months' time, no more than a year, Khamenei, still alive, would have ordered the beginnings of the new

00:49:20.500 nuclear program and the reconstructed ballistic missile program to move underground.

00:49:28.580 Now, it'll take them a little time, maybe a few years, but you can't reach those programs. And they

00:49:34.900 develop intercontinental ballistic missiles, okay? That means missiles that can hit Chicago and New York

00:49:42.660 and Florida and Texas and California. Oh, but they don't have it yet. That's what people said. Right, let's wait.

00:49:51.460 Just let them do it. You know, just wait, wait and let them do it. You won't be able to do it. It's the...

00:49:58.260 So the argument that he's making here, essentially, is that this was a preemptive war,

00:50:05.460 kind of like the Saddam War sold on chemical weapons, that he could reach the United States,

00:50:11.220 he could reach the United Kingdom, the famous 45 minutes to hit Britain with chemical weapons.

00:50:17.780 What he's arguing here is that if the Iranians were left to their own devices,

00:50:23.380 their programs would have been secured. And that means that there would have been no ability

00:50:29.700 by the West to prevent the Iranians from perhaps at some point in the future

00:50:35.460 acquiring a nuclear weapon. And therefore, this threat should have been acted on now.

00:50:40.900 That's the mindset. Now, factually speaking, Britain's national national security advisor,

00:50:47.540 Jonathan Powell, who had been Tony Blair's chief of staff, attended the talks with the Iranians.

00:50:56.420 The Americans during these talks didn't bring a technical delegation, which you would need if

00:51:03.620 you were serious about reaching an agreement over something as highly technical as a nuclear program.

00:51:11.540 May I ask you? One second. But what the British and the Omanis had both said

00:51:17.620 was that there had been an agreement almost reached, and that Powell's view was that

00:51:25.540 the war was no longer necessary, because what the Iranians had accepted was that they would not stockpile

00:51:31.540 any nuclear material, and that this would be under surveillance permanently with no time limits,

00:51:38.180 meaning that the ability to acquire nuclear weapons by Iran was going to be gone and

00:51:43.860 placed under permanent international inspections. So just factually, what Netanyahu was saying here

00:51:50.900 isn't true. And the conclusion of this piece is quite important, because what essentially the Guardian

00:51:59.700 quotes diplomatic officials saying was that they believed that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had

00:52:11.620 essentially been acting on behalf of Israel, and this is why they were there, and perhaps that would

00:52:19.140 explain, and this is my analysis, why they didn't bring a technical delegation to something that was this

00:52:27.380 detailed in its nature. So that claim isn't true. And I just wanted to start with that.

00:52:37.380 Right. So I want to start with questioning this, not because I want to say that the exact opposite is

00:52:46.580 true. Personally, I have seen footage of Iranians saying that they do want to develop nuclear weapons,

00:52:54.820 and I don't doubt them. But all this is based on, I want to ask you, this is based on a Guardian article

00:53:03.540 that talks about the testimony of a member of the Tony Blair cabinet.

00:53:11.780 No, a current national security advisor of the Keir Starmer cabinet, and a former member of the Tony Blair cabinet.

00:53:18.180 So if we take their testimony as true, then Netanyahu is lying.

00:53:24.900 If we take the testimony of the British guys who attended the talks with the technical delegation,

00:53:30.900 which the Americans didn't send, and the testimony of the Omani mediators, who had every interest in

00:53:37.540 avoiding this war, and who have every interest in avoiding a nuclear Iran at the same time on their

00:53:42.500 doorstep, and who are seen as highly credible because they negotiated the 2015 agreement,

00:53:49.780 and they have been the main channel of communications with Iran for the better part of three decades,

00:53:56.660 then we conclude that Netanyahu is lying. Yes. So if we take the view of the British and of the Omanis...

00:54:02.980 Of the British government. Well, I would...

00:54:05.060 A member of the British government. Yes.

00:54:07.380 It's not the general view of the British.

00:54:10.100 Well, obviously, I mean the British government.

00:54:11.940 What?

00:54:12.340 And obviously, I don't mean the general view of the Omani people. I mean the people who are actually involved.

00:54:17.300 Yes, obviously. I was just going to say as well, I mean, obviously, I personally haven't attended

00:54:23.940 any of these secret meetings, so why not? Neither have I, unfortunately.

00:54:26.820 But I would say that given the enormous ramifications of the diplomatic ramifications for what the British

00:54:36.260 are saying here, and the amount of strain that this has put on our diplomatic relationship with America,

00:54:42.500 I don't personally believe that the British state, which... And again, to differentiate between the

00:54:49.300 British and the state, of course, the British state has behaved in such a spineless way for these many

00:54:55.380 past years. I don't think that they would say this in something so contradictory to American foreign policy if

00:55:02.820 they didn't genuinely believe it. Exactly.

00:55:05.860 That's just my opinion. Exactly. And so continuing with what Netanyahu is saying,

00:55:12.340 because it's worth pausing here multiple times.

00:55:14.740 I think, and Americans understand this very well, because we're real partners,

00:55:22.100 I think that what has to be done is to have alternative routes. Instead of going through the choke points of the

00:55:30.340 of the Hormuz straits and the Bab el-Mandeb straits in order to have the flow of oil, just have oil pipelines,

00:55:40.900 pipelines going west through the Arabian Peninsula, right up to Israel, right up to our Mediterranean ports,

00:55:48.340 and you've just done away with the choke points for forever. That is definitely...

00:55:53.380 So this is, I would argue, another example of war profiteering here, where he's saying that

00:56:00.740 instead of letting the oil and gas go by ship, it should go by pipeline to Israel. And that means

00:56:08.820 that just as Iran can blackmail the world through the Strait of Hormuz, actually it should be Israel

00:56:14.980 that gains that capability, because the oil and the gas should terminate at their ports. This is what

00:56:22.100 he's advocating here. Plus, this is quite a delusional take on so many levels. Firstly,

00:56:28.980 the Arab states wouldn't want to have their oil terminate in Israel because that gives the Israelis

00:56:35.540 enormous power over them. Second, there is already something called the East-West Pipeline, which goes

00:56:42.740 from the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, close to the Hormuz strait, to the west of Saudi Arabia on the

00:56:50.100 Red Sea, and that allows the export of oil. But this pipeline, like any other pipeline, can be attacked.

00:56:57.300 So just doing it by pipeline doesn't solve anything, because in 2019, the Hothi shut down that particular

00:57:05.300 pipeline by hitting one of the major transmission stations. Because oil, as it goes through pipelines,

00:57:12.980 you need to maintain the pressure. So every once in a while, you need to add pressure to the line

00:57:20.340 to keep the oil or the gas flowing. So that doesn't solve anything. But he's advocating here war

00:57:25.780 profiteering, more or less. From the Saudi perspective, what they would want, essentially,

00:57:31.460 is to send that oil through somewhere like Yemen, which goes directly onto the Arabian Sea and the Indian

00:57:38.180 Ocean, and means that they aren't beholden to anybody, because that part of Yemen, where they

00:57:42.740 would send it through, is essentially under their influence already, as things currently stand. So

00:57:50.500 this is a bit of a weird take to come up with in the middle of a war, to say that the outcome of this

00:57:56.740 war should be one that profits us economically. And it is a bit gauche, shall we say.

00:58:04.100 Well, you don't, to be fair though, you don't engage in a war to end up in a weaker position.

00:58:10.580 Yeah, who doesn't say this? Who doesn't say this, historically?

00:58:14.740 Who doesn't say that I want my enemies to be completely...

00:58:18.660 Who doesn't say that they want to profit from geopolitical events?

00:58:23.860 Well, you want to profit from geopolitical events to some extent. You want to also have a moral framework,

00:58:28.660 which is exactly the point that we're going to get to here.

00:58:30.820 Did he say that this is the only energy avenue that is going to exist between the Middle East and

00:58:38.900 Europe?

00:58:39.300 I'm just saying that this is a bit of an insane take for someone who understands geopolitics as

00:58:43.620 well as Netanyahu does. What I'm saying is that he's basically putting the Gulf and Europe at his

00:58:50.820 mercy as an outcome of this war. And in the same way that the Iranians would be able to blackmail the

00:58:57.140 world with their nuclear weapons, as he hypothesizes, well, he already has nuclear weapons and would be

00:59:02.980 in a stronger position.

00:59:03.780 Would there be such a surge in gas prices right now if such a pipeline existed?

00:59:11.540 Well, for such a pipeline...

00:59:12.420 So, because it sounds like he isn't saying something that is anti-Europe. He is just saying,

00:59:17.780 well, listen, the same way the Iranian regime can exercise pressure on Europe...

00:59:24.420 And that's a wonderful segue.

00:59:25.860 There could be an alternative.

00:59:27.060 And that's an excellent segue.

00:59:28.260 I don't see what the problem is.

00:59:29.860 Excellent segue. That's an excellent segue.

00:59:32.100 Because here what Netanyahu is saying is that the moral thing to do is to reduce dependence on the Iranians

00:59:37.620 and to increase dependence on us. One of the key political virtues at the end of the day is prudence.

00:59:46.420 Prudence means recognizing that the Iranians are an enemy, because they indeed are an enemy,

00:59:51.940 and that all countries are immensely vulnerable to being blackmailed using energy in the same way that the Cubans...

00:59:59.140 So you have to lower your dependence...

01:00:00.900 And therefore, you have to lower your dependency on potential enemies. And therefore, if you're Europe,

01:00:07.700 what you ought to be doing is developing fracking, developing nuclear, developing the North Sea energy

01:00:13.620 reserves as the Norwegians are doing, creating a situation where your dependencies are actually

01:00:21.220 on your friends where they exist, and where generally your external dependencies are reduced to the maximum.

01:00:30.100 Rather than replacing the theocrats in Iran who want to bring the Mahdi with the theologians in Israel,

01:00:40.260 shall we call them, who want to bring the end of the world through building the Third Temple,

01:00:45.540 prudence dictates that you develop your own...

01:00:48.740 Where does this come from, from the end of the world with the Third Temple?

01:00:52.900 Uh, I did a whole segment on that, about the Israeli religious right, and Chabad, and their views,

01:01:02.260 Chabad being an organization of which Jared Kushner is a member, Steve Witkoff is close to them,

01:01:09.380 Mark Levin, the big advocate for the for the war in Iran, he's a he's he's part of that movement,

01:01:15.940 and they tie into the Israeli religious right, who believe that they should build a Third Temple in Jerusalem,

01:01:24.580 and that would bring about the end of the world. That's the kind of uh ideology that animates...

01:01:29.620 Sorry, the end world, the world won't end, if they build a Third Temple, just...

01:01:34.980 Well, it's not what you think, it's what they believe that's animating them.

01:01:40.420 When you're analyzing people... I don't think they want, I don't think they want to

01:01:44.020 destroy the world. I don't think the same about the, either about the Iranians.

01:01:50.660 They, they are animated by a vision of end times. They're animated by...

01:01:56.660 Millenarianism.

01:01:57.540 Yes, they are, they are animated by eschatological visions.

01:02:00.100 Eschatological, yeah.

01:02:01.140 They're animated by eschatological visions, both sides.

01:02:05.620 All sides, arguably, the Sunnis want to bring it about one way,

01:02:10.100 the Shia want to bring it about another way.

01:02:12.020 In the same way that the Ottomans used to think they were just going to take

01:02:15.300 the whole world in Islam, and then that would just end the world.

01:02:18.500 And the Israelis have their own view on that, and the Christian Zionists have their own view on that.

01:02:25.620 So, there is this eschatological framework that these people are operating in,

01:02:30.260 and if you don't get their eschatological framework, you don't fully understand,

01:02:33.700 you don't actually understand what's animating them. You don't understand how they're operating.

01:02:37.460 So, how does, how am I affected if Mark Levin wants to build a third temple in Jerusalem?

01:02:46.420 Then, how am I affected?

01:02:47.940 Let me explain to you how you're affected.

01:02:49.060 I can understand I would be affected if, let's say, some radical, let's say, radicals would get nukes.

01:02:57.300 That's an excellent question.

01:02:58.020 And they could start blackmailing my governments and myself, everyone.

01:03:03.060 I can understand this. How am I affected if Mark Levin wants to build a third temple in Jerusalem?

01:03:09.060 That's an excellent question. Because the only way to do that, to build that third temple,

01:03:15.700 it comes with a project of greater Israel.

01:03:18.820 And the ability to get greater Israel requires endless wars in the Middle East,

01:03:26.260 and requires the conquest of the Middle East at the hands of Israel, which is something that,

01:03:33.860 as a consequence of that, would bring about massive refugee flows, would bring about enormous destruction,

01:03:39.860 would bring about higher energy prices, would bring about warfare on your doorstep,

01:03:45.300 would bring about Muslim riots in your cities.

01:03:48.100 You know what? It actually does affect you.

01:03:51.700 Why I'm a bit skeptical of this, because I see a particular contradiction in the overtly anti-Semitic

01:04:00.020 spheres online. It's that, and I want to say this, I'm not saying that Netanyahu is good, not saying he's bad.

01:04:12.420 I have been very much firm from the beginning that I'm not a geopolitical expert.

01:04:18.100 And I'm not talking about the Middle East. And I am a bit frustrated with the way that things have changed,

01:04:24.980 where from we don't, we generally tend to focus on some issues, to suddenly we can't stop talking about the Middle East.

01:04:32.900 So, and that's, yeah, my frustration comes from there. And the contradiction I see everywhere is

01:04:37.860 from people who are trying to say, well, listen, look at the Islamization of the West.

01:04:43.620 It's the Jews.

01:04:45.380 On the other hand, they're saying, well, the Jews don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

01:04:50.100 And look what they're doing by a nuclear weapon.

01:04:52.820 Yeah, but if Europe gets Islamized, Muslims will get access to nuclear weapons.

01:04:59.380 So that's a massive contradiction that takes me take a massive step back and try to, and take everything like that with a pinch of salt.

01:05:09.380 And I'm not going to try and chase. And I think that this is something that happens routinely.

01:05:16.100 I'm in no position to speak for the anti-Semites.

01:05:18.900 Okay.

01:05:20.500 It's not my, I...

01:05:21.780 I'm not, I wasn't saying anything.

01:05:23.940 It isn't my position.

01:05:25.540 And I'm not in a position to speak for it.

01:05:27.260 But I'm telling you why it seems to me that, and some people need to speak out about it,

01:05:31.860 because there is a climate of, you know, if you don't play the line, you're sort of being paid.

01:05:38.500 I was accused of getting 7K for saying that Greece should defend Cyprus.

01:05:42.340 I think that right now, this is a ridiculous, this is a ridiculous, this is a ridiculous...

01:05:48.820 I think we should definitely defend Cyprus.

01:05:51.060 This is a ridiculous time we're living in when this kind of, this kind of rhetoric takes, takes precedence.

01:05:58.700 No, I'm with you.

01:05:59.380 So I just, I just don't see, I just don't see it.

01:06:04.100 So what I wanted to try to comment on here is basically understanding Netanyahu's moral view.

01:06:10.820 When he says these things, and we try to sort of explain them,

01:06:16.340 we have to see what kind of worldview he holds, and what are the consequences of that worldview.

01:06:21.780 And here, here's another enlightening segment.

01:06:24.820 Churchill said that democracies suffer from the slumber of democracies, as he called it.

01:06:34.660 And they only wake up, he said, they may wake up only when they hear the gong,

01:06:40.820 the jarring gong of danger, is the way he put it.

01:06:44.100 Well, you're hearing the jarring gong of danger.

01:06:49.780 The jarring gong of danger is Iran gets nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

01:06:56.020 That's not a jarring gong.

01:06:58.100 That is an apocalypse.

01:06:59.860 Don't let it happen.

01:07:01.700 And the function of leaders is to stand and tell people the truth,

01:07:07.380 even when things are uncomfortable.

01:07:09.780 That's what you have to do.

01:07:11.380 And you don't always see the danger in time.

01:07:14.180 But leaders are tasked with the task of seeing danger in time and acting on it.

01:07:19.700 And I hope that in time, people will see the wisdom and the courage of President Trump's decision

01:07:25.620 and his leadership, and the fact that we're working together.

01:07:29.300 America is not fighting for Israel.

01:07:31.540 America is fighting with Israel for a common.

01:07:33.940 So this is an important worldview here, because what he's saying, essentially,

01:07:41.700 is the exact opposite of what George Washington advocated,

01:07:45.780 which is that the United States shouldn't be going around finding monsters to slay.

01:07:50.900 It should be focused on defending itself.

01:07:53.540 Netanyahu's vision here is slightly different.

01:07:56.020 Netanyahu's vision of leadership here is that what the responsibility of the United States is to do is,

01:08:05.540 is to identify threats before they become too severe and engage these threats preemptively,

01:08:13.620 which is a recipe for permanent preemptive wars.

01:08:17.940 That's the conclusion of this kind of thinking.

01:08:21.860 That's the thinking of empires.

01:08:24.660 It comes back to romance.

01:08:27.860 You constantly see this, all the time.

01:08:30.580 Not always, and not to the same degree, because there are differences in the

01:08:36.260 perception of the threat.

01:08:38.020 So the objective reality is that Iran, even with nuclear weapons, is a deterrable state.

01:08:44.980 You can deter the Iranians, and you can stop them from doing certain things,

01:08:48.980 and just the threat of retaliation is going to be enough against a state like Iran.

01:08:57.460 And given that Israel has its own extensive nuclear program,

01:09:01.540 it is capable of engaging in this kind of deterrence.

01:09:06.100 And so there is a question here of how do you want to deal with your neighbors?

01:09:11.940 And the answer from Netanyahu is that my neighbors are all my enemies,

01:09:16.980 and I want to keep them weak and keep them subdued.

01:09:20.420 So now the Israelis are talking about the emerging...

01:09:22.740 And we can because we have an alliance with the strongest power on earth.

01:09:25.940 Exactly.

01:09:26.980 Because we have this borrowed power from the United States, this is possible.

01:09:31.380 So Israeli officials are now talking about Egypt becoming a threat.

01:09:35.540 Because Egypt is too dangerous, and it might become a problem for the Israelis,

01:09:39.300 and so on and so forth.

01:09:40.900 And indeed, the Egyptians are massing their soldiers on the borders of Israel,

01:09:45.940 because they are afraid that the Israelis will try to kick out everyone from Gaza,

01:09:50.260 as they said their objective was to do, and throw them on Egypt.

01:09:55.380 And now you're seeing Israeli officials saying that Turkey is becoming a threat,

01:10:00.260 and here you have the leader of the opposition and Netanyahu more or less saying the same thing,

01:10:07.860 or not the leader of the opposition, a former prime minister, Naftali Bennett,

01:10:12.660 saying that Turkey is a threat, and that's becoming another Iran.

01:10:16.660 And Netanyahu is saying something similar,

01:10:19.700 that he needs to build alliances against Turkey, because Turkey is the next threat,

01:10:23.700 and is becoming the next Iran.

01:10:25.060 He has been saying this for a while now.

01:10:27.860 A year or so, since the Gaza war.

01:10:29.300 And it's because Erdogan is trying to

01:10:33.540 appear as the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood,

01:10:36.420 and during the Gaza...

01:10:37.780 Of the Muslim world, not just the Muslim Brotherhood.

01:10:38.580 During the Gaza war, he was basically saying that Israel is a demonic state.

01:10:45.460 That's the thing.

01:10:46.260 And as far as Turkey is concerned, they do want to build nuclear facilities.

01:10:51.860 Yes, and given what just happened with Iran,

01:10:55.780 the reason that Jesus Christ says,

01:10:57.300 do not resist evil, it doesn't mean do not ever resist evil.

01:11:01.220 Where does he say this?

01:11:02.260 In Matthew 5.

01:11:03.220 In Matthew 5.

01:11:04.500 The reason that he says, do not resist evil, it doesn't mean never resist evil.

01:11:08.500 Obviously, you should.

01:11:10.020 But you should resist evil by doing good, not by becoming the kind of evil that you're threatened with.

01:11:16.500 That's the philosophical implication of it.

01:11:18.260 Hold on for a second.

01:11:18.900 Hold on for a second.

01:11:20.180 That's the philosophical implication of it.

01:11:22.740 Whereas the implications of what Netanyahu is saying is that the way to confront every potential evil in the future

01:11:33.220 is to go against it militarily, using the borrowed power of the United States,

01:11:39.780 meaning that the West ends up permanently responsible for securing Israel,

01:11:44.740 meaning that the West is in permanent war against the Muslim world for the benefit of Israel.

01:11:51.940 Now, naturally, any Christian views Islam as a civilizational enemy.

01:11:57.060 Have you heard the saying, life is war?

01:12:00.980 But life is much more than war.

01:12:03.940 But that civilizational enemy can be dealt with in all manner of ways, including deterrence,

01:12:11.780 rather than permanent active engagement in the heart of the Muslim world,

01:12:15.860 that permanent military engagement in the heart of the Muslim world, which is what Netanyahu is advocating here.

01:12:22.020 So, there's something that we need to address here, because I want us to see if we're going to talk about the quote.

01:12:29.700 That's what I want.

01:12:30.580 Let's talk about the quote.

01:12:32.100 And after that, gentlemen, we'll have to, because we have quite a lot of video comments to go through today.

01:12:36.420 Sure.

01:12:36.740 We'll have to draw it to an end.

01:12:37.940 Let's go to the quote.

01:12:39.300 The kind of world we're living in.

01:12:41.300 In this world, it's not enough to be moral.

01:12:46.500 It's not enough to be just.

01:12:48.500 It's not enough to be right.

01:12:50.660 You know?

01:12:52.340 One of the greatest writers of the 20th century, someone that I admire a lot, was the historian Will Durant.

01:12:59.860 And he wrote many volumes.

01:13:03.940 I read most of them.

01:13:04.820 He also wrote The Lessons of History.

01:13:07.940 Very brief, 100-page book.

01:13:11.300 In which he said, well, history proves that,

01:13:14.820 unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Jinn Yis Khan.

01:13:24.180 Because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough,

01:13:29.860 evil will overcome good.

01:13:32.100 Aggression will overcome moderation.

01:13:34.660 So you have no choice.

01:13:36.820 If you look at the world as it is today, you have to be blind not to see.

01:13:42.100 That the democracies, led by the United States, have to reassert their will to defend themselves.

01:13:49.060 And to oppose their enemies in time, while there's still time.

01:13:52.820 Before the jarring gong of danger wakes them up and wakes them up too late.

01:13:59.940 So this is where it's really important.

01:14:02.100 And if you'll give me a minute here, please.

01:14:03.620 There is truth in this statement, in that ruthless evil can sometimes overcome good.

01:14:14.260 The answer to that is just war theory and Christian virtues, like justice, prudence, fortitude.

01:14:23.460 Instead of focusing on, for example, quarterly financial statements,

01:14:27.940 to make sure that you get the cheapest oil possible at the second that you need it,

01:14:33.300 which is the kind of system that has been developed by highly financialized capitalism today,

01:14:38.740 you need a just-in-case economic system that is based on prudence and in your ability to defend yourself.

01:14:46.740 The answer to the fact that the Muslim world dominates energy production,

01:14:50.340 and that Russia dominates energy production in partnership with the Muslim world,

01:14:54.660 isn't to go around endlessly fighting wars in the Muslim heartlands,

01:15:01.140 in areas that are 90% Muslim, in order to impose your will on them.

01:15:06.260 That is never a legitimate answer, even from a just-war theory.

01:15:11.620 A prudent Christian answer is to reduce your dependence on your enemies,

01:15:17.620 rather than endlessly go to war in areas that they fully control and that they have controlled,

01:15:23.860 in the case of Arabia, for 1400 years, in order to secure a country like Israel.

01:15:31.380 So the philosophical implications of what he's saying here are quite important,

01:15:35.940 because what you need to do if you're Europe is to develop nuclear, develop your own hydrocarbon resources,

01:15:45.540 figure out a way to make coal clean, which is incredibly abundant all over Europe, including Western Europe,

01:15:53.220 and use that as your source of energy and reduce your dependence.

01:15:58.020 And then you use conventional things like deterrence and a capable military in order to make sure that you are not vulnerable,

01:16:06.820 and that the wars that you fight actually fit the definition of a just-war theory,

01:16:11.700 and preemptive war, based on just in case that the Iranians might do this and might do that,

01:16:17.700 and then one day that will happen, in fact never fit the definition of a just-war theory.

01:16:24.340 And this is especially important when somebody like Netanyahu ends up saying things

01:16:31.060 that he is on a historic and spiritual mission and feels a great connection to the vision of greater Israel,

01:16:38.260 meaning that Netanyahu's own worldview requires him to be permanently at war with his neighbors,

01:16:46.740 meaning that his neighbors will use the weapons that are at their disposal.

01:16:51.460 And in Iran's case and in Saudi Arabia's case, as we saw in 1973, that does include energy embargoes.

01:16:58.980 And as Christians, you have zero reason to commit to this mission of a greater Israel.

01:17:04.020 There is zero reason for it.

01:17:06.260 You could make a just-war theory case for the defense of Christians in the Middle East,

01:17:11.300 or for the defense of Christians in Cyprus and in Greece.

01:17:14.500 You can make that.

01:17:15.540 Which is what Gladstone did back in the Victorian era.

01:17:20.020 That is a very viable case, and you can make it.

01:17:23.060 But you can't make that case for the building of greater Israel that requires its neighbors to be permanently in war and in chaos.

01:17:32.980 Yes, but I have to answer in this and address this, because people asked us to debate this online.

01:17:38.660 Before you answer this, essentially, the problem here is a theological one.

01:17:45.060 If you don't have Christian morality, and you don't understand what love your enemies mean,

01:17:51.220 and part of loving your enemy is understanding their worldview,

01:17:54.980 including understanding the fact that they will blackmail you using the energy that they have to harm you if you go against their interests.

01:18:03.780 Loving your enemies doesn't mean you surrender to them.

01:18:06.020 It means that you understand them first, and correct yourself where you have a problem,

01:18:12.980 and where you are being unjust, and therefore fight them for what is good based on a just-war theory framing.

01:18:19.540 That's what love your enemies means.

01:18:22.020 Here, instead of loving his enemies and saying,

01:18:25.220 maybe I shouldn't be trying to turn every Palestinian town into a prison.

01:18:30.820 Maybe I shouldn't be trying to expel the Palestinians from the land that they are already on.

01:18:37.060 Maybe I should work on converting them, rather than subjugating them.

01:18:42.180 These are all possibilities and ways of dealing with your enemies.

01:18:46.260 Netanyahu's view here is that no, we are going for the greater Israel project,

01:18:50.260 which by definition requires the depopulation of the Muslims who live in that area.

01:18:55.540 And regardless of what you think of Islam, and I think it's a terrible religious framework,

01:19:01.140 I genuinely think it's a bad religious framework that is by definition an enemy of Christianity.

01:19:08.020 What the Israelis are offering isn't a good alternative.

01:19:12.060 And there is a theological disagreement here.

01:19:15.060 Because Netanyahu's worldview, in essence, says that since they are ruthless, which they are,

01:19:20.800 and since they are willing to inflict violence, which they are,

01:19:25.040 I have to be much more violent than they are all the time in order to conquer them.

01:19:30.160 Not in order to push their evil away from me and prevent them from inflicting evil against me,

01:19:36.720 but in order to conquer them.

01:19:39.440 That's what he's thinking of.

01:19:41.140 And that theological disagreement underpins everything.

01:19:44.400 Because what Netanyahu is asking you to do is to support turning every building in Gaza into a pile of rubble.

01:19:51.440 And you see his ministers, and you see members of the Knesset saying,

01:19:56.000 actually, the Palestinians in Gaza should go to Ireland and to Spain,

01:19:59.460 if they don't like the fact that we've destroyed all of their houses.

01:20:02.900 Well, that's a problem.

01:20:04.760 That is a problem.

01:20:05.900 And that has a theological foundation.

01:20:07.960 And that basis of that theological foundation is the quote that he used from William Durant,

01:20:15.580 which is that Jesus has no advantage over Genghis Khan.

01:20:19.500 But Jesus does have every advantage over Genghis Khan,

01:20:24.720 because you can convert even Mongols just as the Roman Empire was converted.

01:20:30.460 Well, I mean, the best way to defend Mongols, yourself against Mongols,

01:20:36.840 isn't to try to get them into a parliament and an assembly and start telling them,

01:20:41.780 hey, have you considered this?

01:20:43.100 Obviously not.

01:20:43.920 Yes.

01:20:44.340 So that sounds a bit naive and unrealistic.

01:20:48.400 The conversion of the Germans had monks going and dying as martyrs.

01:20:52.540 It didn't happen by debating the Germans.

01:20:54.780 Yes.

01:20:55.100 So if Genghis Khan was developing nuclear weapons, I don't know if that would work.

01:21:01.240 I don't...

01:21:02.040 Your criticism, your criticism is based on the idea that he is lying about Iran having nukes,

01:21:10.080 which I don't agree with.

01:21:11.760 But, sorry, I, what?

01:21:14.520 No, no, I'm just saying we're five minutes from the end and we have to wrap up.

01:21:18.360 I want to say something.

01:21:19.400 What he said there is the exact same thing that lots of people who are talking about hard power

01:21:25.660 and realpolitik are saying.

01:21:27.500 That's exactly what he said.

01:21:29.000 The kind of outrage that you see against Netanyahu over that statement is not present when,

01:21:38.060 for instance, someone on the Christian nationalist side, Joe Webin on the Christian nationalism

01:21:44.120 documentary said, the problem with Christianity is Christians.

01:21:48.500 It's a feminized religion.

01:21:50.400 Christianity is fake and gay.

01:21:51.860 Well, he's completely wrong and that's a disastrous thing to say.

01:21:54.700 Yeah, but I want to see if people who were very vigilant in attacking this specific quote

01:22:02.020 by Will Durant...

01:22:02.860 I promise you, if I see that, I will happily attack it.

01:22:05.780 Well...

01:22:05.980 If I see something like that, I will happily attack it.

01:22:07.740 I want to see also when Tucker Carlson is interviewing Rupert Lowe and 15 minutes in,

01:22:13.320 they are saying about the realpolitik and the heart and the aspect of hard power when it comes to life.

01:22:20.820 I want to see if there was such an outrage against both Tucker and Rupert Lowe at the time.

01:22:25.720 When they were saying that the lesson of history, excuse me, when they say that the lesson of history is that you always go down to realpolitik.

01:22:36.040 No, that is an incorrect take on the lesson of history.

01:22:38.700 That is not an incorrect take.

01:22:40.240 That is exactly what they said.

01:22:43.140 That is what he said here.

01:22:44.580 So it seems to me there are double standards here.

01:22:48.020 All right.

01:22:48.360 Well, they'll have to wait for another time.

01:22:50.040 We can do another discussion.

01:22:52.260 We do need to draw it to an end there, gentlemen.

01:22:54.320 All right then.

01:22:54.920 So, okay, we'll go through some of the...

01:22:58.500 Oh, there was just a rumble rant and then we'll get the video comments going.

01:23:02.220 Now, in fact, we'll leave it.

01:23:04.000 It's just a Sean Bean question.

01:23:06.160 But, yeah, sharp as an answer to that one.

01:23:09.760 Go on then, Samsung.

01:23:10.540 You give us video comments, mate.

01:23:13.360 If they're up.

01:23:18.440 Thank you.

01:23:24.920 Is it giving you some trouble, mate?

01:23:31.760 Hey again, loads of seaters.

01:23:33.040 I'm here with you in Lichfield.

01:23:35.780 Right here is Lichfield Cathedral.

01:23:38.840 One of the only cathedrals in England to have three spires.

01:23:41.900 And it has 113 statues as well.

01:24:03.160 You really do go to the most wonderful places, SD.

01:24:06.440 Very nice.

01:24:07.720 All right.

01:24:08.180 Next one, Samson.

01:24:08.860 Okay.

01:24:11.900 Coming through in a second.

01:24:20.540 Is it there, mate?

01:24:21.500 Is it giving you some trouble?

01:24:25.020 I can see him, folks, clicking all sorts of buttons down here.

01:24:28.580 That's really trying to get this fixed.

01:24:31.760 Right.

01:24:32.320 If anyone can be British, how can someone be diverse?

01:24:35.960 Progressivism makes no sense under scrutiny.

01:24:38.320 So they're desperate to keep those who break free from their silliness out of the limelight.

01:24:42.280 A recent example I can think of is how Markiplier wasn't allowed to walk the red carpet at the Oscars and was instead snuck through a side door.

01:24:49.640 I totally missed that.

01:24:53.560 I'll check it out.

01:24:54.500 But, yeah, you're right about the contradiction.

01:24:57.260 All right.

01:24:59.000 Next one, mate.

01:25:00.860 Hey, Gens.

01:25:01.280 It's been a long while since I uploaded a video comment.

01:25:04.200 Just wondering, for this live event, will there be a chance to play some video comments?

01:25:11.460 Just asking for a friend.

01:25:13.940 Oh, no, I don't believe that there will be, Cooper.

01:25:17.080 But we're keeping joy in them here.

01:25:20.480 Nigel Farage here.

01:25:21.680 Gaz has been in touch.

01:25:22.960 A little message for you.

01:25:24.420 The Big 6-3, well, that's no concern to me.

01:25:27.460 Happy birthday to Richie T.

01:25:29.440 And remember what you said last year.

01:25:31.500 I'll be long gone by then.

01:25:34.720 I wonder if any of that actually, I mean, it's obviously a cameo,

01:25:37.960 but I wonder if any of that resonated with him, if he actually thought,

01:25:42.140 yeah, Richard Tice did say that.

01:25:44.580 It's all right.

01:25:45.000 Go on, mate.

01:25:45.860 Thinking back to the novel, The High Crusade,

01:25:48.920 which is about a bunch of primitive crusader knights capturing an alien starship

01:25:53.280 and flying it back to the empire from which it came,

01:25:55.980 the alien empire is actually a liberal democracy, which they defeat.

01:26:00.160 Because the Whiskers are so modernized,

01:26:02.680 every decision has to go through like a million different people,

01:26:05.820 and they just wind up dithering themselves into indecision,

01:26:09.100 while the knights just decisively act on whatever opportunity presents itself

01:26:13.320 and flit about and capture starships from planet to planet,

01:26:16.400 making alliances of opportunity with whoever happens to be there at the time.

01:26:21.200 That sounds like a wild ride, and I'm a huge John Rhys Davis fan,

01:26:25.400 so I'll check it out.

01:26:26.440 Hey, Lotus Ears.

01:26:30.860 Here in SoCal, we have a nice, brisk day at between 35 and 34 degrees Celsius today.

01:26:39.880 And while I know it's as cool and as potent as Iran news has been and other news topics,

01:26:47.300 can you guys start talking about Cuba real quick?

01:26:51.480 Yeah.

01:26:51.660 I think we're having an East Germany moment right now.

01:26:56.080 Well timed.

01:26:56.820 Well, you got your conversation about Cuba.

01:26:58.440 There you go, Lotus Ears.

01:26:59.920 All right.

01:27:00.640 And I'll just wrap up with a comment or two from as we go around our segments.

01:27:05.040 Derek Power, Master of Chippies from mine, says,

01:27:07.560 in 58 years, you went through 10 songs.

01:27:10.360 I mean, when you put it that way.

01:27:12.360 And Luke West also makes a very good point here,

01:27:14.800 which is that it's like they believe it's a birth certificate that makes someone a human

01:27:18.940 in the same way that they believe it's a passport that makes someone British,

01:27:22.800 which, yeah, there's, yeah, good point, Luke.

01:27:26.320 All right.

01:27:27.080 Stelius, do you want to read some from your segment?

01:27:30.540 It's one or two, and we should wrap up pretty nicely on time.

01:27:33.800 Yeah.

01:27:34.240 Grant Gibson says,

01:27:35.380 thing about Cuba is that there is no rolling,

01:27:37.860 there is rolling power outages on a good day.

01:27:40.480 This is absolutely worse than usual,

01:27:42.560 but short-term pain for hopefully long-term gain.

01:27:45.300 I'm 100% with Stelius.

01:27:46.780 Thanks, Grant.

01:27:47.420 Hopefully, yes.

01:27:48.560 Zesta King.

01:27:49.400 It's funny how Greta Thunberg thinks all is a good thing to own and use in regards to Cuba,

01:27:55.460 but not when it comes to the West.

01:27:57.800 In fact, her entire career has been about how fossil fuels are bad.

01:28:01.480 What a hypocrite.

01:28:02.460 Yeah, I think there are lots of them,

01:28:05.240 because there is massive anti-Western propaganda taking advantage of people in the West,

01:28:10.400 and she's definitely a part of it.

01:28:12.380 Yes.

01:28:13.500 All right.

01:28:14.180 Yeah, Theras, bring us home.

01:28:15.320 Sure.

01:28:16.260 Angel Brain says,

01:28:17.900 a long comment.

01:28:18.820 I'm just going to read the first sentence.

01:28:20.540 One of the fundamental problems with Israel is that it wants to act like a dominant military power,

01:28:25.040 whilst also appealing to be a nation that needs support of other militaries.

01:28:30.540 That's the fundamental issue.

01:28:32.060 But every single war that the Israelis get involved in ends up dragging other countries into it.

01:28:38.020 And the rest are a bit spicier, so I will skip them for now.

01:28:46.220 All right.

01:28:46.660 No honorable mentions.

01:28:47.960 So join us in half an hour, ladies and gentlemen, for Fantasy Parliament Lads Hour,

01:28:53.020 which should be a damn good film.

01:28:55.580 And have a great weekend, and take care.

01:28:58.320 I'll see you next time.

01:29:12.740 All right.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - March 20, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1379

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