The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1403

00:00:00.000 Good afternoon and welcome to the podcast of Lothar Seaters, episode 1,403, on this most wonderful St. George's Day.

00:00:06.920 Happy St. George's Day to all of my fellow Englishmen out there. Thank you for joining us today.

00:00:12.880 I'm joined by Carl, the mixed-race fellow, and Firaz, the third whitest in the office, I'd say.

00:00:23.100 As the only Englishman on this panel, that's why I'm hosting.

00:00:26.680 and today we're going to be talking about the groundhog day discourse of uh saint george's day

00:00:33.620 and what it turns into every year no no point frankly it's we're not going to be focused on

00:00:37.860 that because i think that's become a bit of a distraction everyone's like oh he's taking no

00:00:41.240 no no don't worry about that they're actually they're doing more subversive things behind the

00:00:44.760 scenes well there you go we'll find out more uh we're going to be talking about the gridlock at

00:00:48.820 the strait of hormuz and i'm going to be talking about how your favorite influencer is actually an

00:00:53.820 AI run by an Indian. Before we go any further into all of that, though, for this most special

00:00:59.680 of occasions, we have a special discount just for today. Happy St. George's Day, everybody.

00:01:05.680 There will be 15% off of selected items on the merchandise website, including mugs like

00:01:11.280 this, although there is a new version of it that's available, where it's black and white

00:01:15.040 instead of just all black.

00:01:17.180 The cloth mug is also available.

00:01:18.820 Yes, I believe the Amelia mug is also available on this discount as well.

00:01:23.820 And that will be 15% off applied at the checkout.

00:01:27.380 It does not have a discount code.

00:01:28.740 It will just be automatically applied for you.

00:01:30.600 And that is this day only.

00:01:33.280 So get it while you still can.

00:01:35.440 With that, let's get into the news.

00:01:37.620 Right.

00:01:38.380 So they're trying to steal St. George's Day.

00:01:40.980 This is actually not very surprising.

00:01:43.840 And we've been predicting it for a while now.

00:01:45.780 Because we've memed St. George's Day into becoming a thing.

00:01:49.000 right st george's day being a kind of national event as is a product of the online right it's

00:01:55.580 a product of the people who are doing the flagging campaign it's a product of the patriots who

00:01:58.940 realize their country is being stolen from them uh before i mean all through my life like when i

00:02:03.500 was younger nobody did anything for st george's day it was just never a thing that anyone ever

00:02:07.900 thought about uh and so this whole thing has been um not artificially but organically brought up by

00:02:16.440 people thinking well hang on a second everyone else has their days i mean like you know st david's

00:02:21.120 day st patrick's day st andrew's day these are all things that the celts pay a lot of attention

00:02:25.280 to but what do the english pay attention to and the answer is nothing really uh and so this has

00:02:29.180 become uh a desire for a point of anchor i think in english culture i think a lot of people like

00:02:35.280 hang on a second no we are a people we have a place and this is our thing and of course that

00:02:40.000 means they have to try and subvert it that means they have to try and steal it from us

00:02:43.780 and we're not having it uh so the best way to celebrate st george's day is honestly represented

00:02:52.460 by the japanese ambassador because i mean the man just can't miss everything he does he just

00:02:59.080 does it respectfully and kindly i mean this is this is the video he put out happy st george's day

00:03:13.780 i mean if keir starmer had just done that as a video that would have been fine no one would

00:03:19.700 have had anything to complain about no everyone like well you know i hate keir starmer but fair

00:03:23.520 enough carry on no that that's not what starmer did starmer put out a statement and uh he this

00:03:30.600 is attached to a speech he gave a couple of days ago uh going on his woke crusade as usual and of

00:03:37.700 course you can see him standing behind the uh saint george's flag uh in front of the saint george's

00:03:41.100 flags there and the statement st george's flag stands for unity of hatred and decency over

00:03:46.560 division those are the values i will write so the st george's flag stands for exactly the woke

00:03:53.460 progressive mantra who could have known it's every other flag also stands for exactly that mantra

00:03:59.500 incredible i mean the whole story of slaying the dragon is the killing of evil it's is man rising

00:04:07.000 up against evil and destroying it that'd be ridiculous inherently divisive between good

00:04:12.440 and evil it's about unity over hatred of dragons decency of inviting the dragon in over the

00:04:19.020 division of killing the dragon i mean i thought it just meant the english personally well no there

00:04:23.700 is a moral lesson of course but let's not forget that for centuries if uh if a country if a

00:04:31.800 countries looked out off of their shores

00:04:33.940 and saw a Union Jack, for instance, flying.

00:04:37.140 Or the England flag.

00:04:37.780 Or the England flag flying and heading towards them.

00:04:40.480 They weren't feeling the joy and glow of unity approaching.

00:04:44.380 That's true, but they knew that they were the dragon

00:04:46.120 and they were going to get the rough end of it, right?

00:04:48.500 But for us it's right.

00:04:50.660 It was adopted by, I think it was Edward I

00:04:52.860 in the 13th or 14th century.

00:04:55.600 I can't remember which one.

00:04:56.620 But it was adopted because it was a story

00:04:59.480 that had a moral lecture in it, right?

00:05:01.180 And this actually does matter.

00:05:03.800 And so Keir Starmer here is just trying to completely subvert the moral lecture.

00:05:08.280 You have a duty to destroy evil.

00:05:10.460 And Keir Starmer's like, no, you have a duty to hold hands with evil

00:05:12.740 and maybe give it a cuddle, maybe bring it into your house and let it fester.

00:05:16.600 And so this is the obvious subversion that he's trying.

00:05:20.780 And I do believe the St. George Society versus the Lizard Inclusion Society.

00:05:25.760 Yes. I mean, that's exactly what this is.

00:05:28.360 And again, it's so transparent, right?

00:05:31.120 It doesn't matter what the symbol that you put on the front of what Keir Starmer is going to say is.

00:05:35.960 He's always going to be like, I'm for inclusion.

00:05:37.660 I'm for diversity.

00:05:38.640 I'm for decency over division, unity over hatred.

00:05:41.340 He's always going to say that thing.

00:05:42.780 So the symbol itself doesn't matter anymore.

00:05:45.140 There's always one core ideology, one core message.

00:05:47.600 And so no matter what Keir Starmer claims that he's supporting this day, you know it's a lie.

00:05:52.620 You know he's hollowed out whatever it is.

00:05:54.440 He's wearing it as a skin suit.

00:05:55.980 And they all will do exactly the same thing.

00:05:58.080 i mean this is uh this is exactly what he says in this article uh which is in the mirror um

00:06:04.400 he stands for of course the sorry the flag belongs to the vast majority who want unity over hate

00:06:11.120 decency over division the quiet british patriotism people contributing pulling together and looking

00:06:16.140 out for one of those what makes us stronger a mindless minority brought violence and disorder

00:06:20.200 into our streets what are we talking about yeah what are we he's wrapping it back around to

00:06:25.880 southport he is doing exactly that he's doing exactly that right uh he literally says i know

00:06:33.160 what the flag of saint george stands for it stands for decency of division and not those who stir up

00:06:38.380 hate those are the values i will always fight for so the the the underlying message of his um

00:06:44.400 point here is stop complaining when a foreigner kills your kids that's divisive you are being

00:06:51.500 divisive when a foreigner kills you want to dragon eat your kids and it's like yeah i guess i am

00:06:56.720 being divisive yeah i i own it i'm pro division then this is the anti-dragon party here yes yeah

00:07:02.140 i'm very much yeah exactly very much anti-dragons and if there are dragons then we should be slaying

00:07:06.380 them actually is my moral position um and this he literally says uh that it comes from southport

00:07:14.220 as you said uh this is what happens he calls everyone who is complaining about murderers

00:07:20.180 plastic patriots which is brilliant that's a unifying message yeah yeah that's yeah yeah

00:07:26.920 there's nothing more more unifying than calling the people who disagree with you

00:07:30.680 fakes uh he says it's really important that we do that because there's no getting around the

00:07:35.020 fact that there are voices both here and abroad who would seek to divide us who would set us apart

00:07:38.620 from one another who want to pretend that in this country what we really do is distinguish between

00:07:42.880 people we don't what what i mean what you're in favor of the devolved parliaments right

00:07:48.640 like here because i mean this sounds like oh why do the welsh and scots need their own devolved

00:07:53.400 parliaments if we're not distinguishing between people is that not what that is

00:07:56.300 uh and of course he then uh carries on uh that what they really do is distinguish between people

00:08:03.120 find their points of difference and have a toxic culture of hatred between individuals groups and

00:08:07.680 different communities he then referred to attacks on synagogues and mosques as acts of violence

00:08:12.240 designed to send a message to the muslim and jewish communities of this country to say they're

00:08:16.020 not safe we reject their division completely we will fly our flag proudly it's our flag it belongs

00:08:21.500 to us it'll fly for the values we believe in it's like all right so when muslims wait so was it was

00:08:26.120 it the southport lads attacking the synagogues and mosques uh yes in southport they were attacking

00:08:30.800 mosques but of course there were muslims attacking synagogues uh implying that there is division

00:08:36.540 implying that there's no division oh i missed it remember the division comes from externally

00:08:43.100 yes and not from within the communities the english the muslims and the jews who he wants

00:08:47.580 to all smush together and make them kiss right and so it's like right okay but actually kia

00:08:52.400 there are some there are some real differences here um and when they attack each other's holy

00:08:58.680 places what are we supposed to do pretend there's no division pretend this is all just

00:09:02.260 external if it wasn't for the south port rioters then none of this would be happening come on

00:09:08.060 anyway so this is the the general uh jihad against st george's day that's being carried

00:09:15.240 on by the establishment and you'll see um all of them posting this basically saying no the

00:09:20.520 st george's flag stands for inclusivity it's like no uh actually a flag is a demonstrably

00:09:25.880 exclusive thing it stands for either a people or a concept exclusively of other things and

00:09:31.860 you skin suiting it into the multi-culti uh homogenous blender ideology of everything for

00:09:38.120 everyone all the time isn't actually going to be persuasive and especially when you don't really

00:09:42.420 try look at these crappy graphics that the home officer put up what's what's this big black

00:09:48.780 beam at the bottom you didn't properly align this did you you're crap you didn't even try

00:09:56.520 i mean like yeah nice crop dummies is the first comment so yeah like you're not even trying right

00:10:02.360 and then okay so it's it's pretty hollow when it's coming from kistama because it's just

00:10:06.880 a crusade right i love that it excludes the dragon yeah yeah that's a great point i didn't

00:10:12.440 even notice that the whole thing he he's in the pose of stabbing the dragon there should be some

00:10:18.540 kind of spear or sword going towards the dragon no lance there's no dragon what was saint george

00:10:23.040 even doing don't know it doesn't matter just riding horses for a hobby he was being inclusive

00:10:27.020 and multicultural what was your problem bigger what did you think it was um but anyway yeah so

00:10:33.100 this bad enough from the home office and from keir starmer it's their sort of ideological crusade

00:10:37.100 but it becomes even more laughable when the greens are like oh yes uh happy saint george's party uh

00:10:44.380 saint george's day i'll have to admit the actual graphic that they've chosen is a lot better than

00:10:48.220 the home office yes yeah but that must have been weird can you imagine the conversation that led

00:10:52.660 up to that it's like right so we need to celebrate st george's day what the english nationalist

00:10:55.680 holiday uh yes everyone else is doing it i mean uh it didn't go well i saw there was a there was

00:11:05.480 a comment from connor on here uh somewhere that on my one that was uh you do realize you're the

00:11:10.640 dragon right um so it's just like right okay that's a bit weird uh not many christians in

00:11:17.180 the Green Party. But then you've got Sadiq Khan, and this whole attempt to co-op St. George's Day

00:11:25.060 into multiculturalism is a kind of attempt to put the English people on a reservation.

00:11:30.220 It's an attempt to make us, to sublimate us into the cultural blend of, oh no, everyone gets their

00:11:37.120 own little bit, because really, England is for everyone, doesn't belong to the English, and

00:11:42.360 therefore yeah the english are a culture and they get a little stall at the edge of a little fate

00:11:47.580 and once a day oh look you go and eat scones and jam and things like this and i'm not even joking

00:11:52.700 right um this is what he did this is they had a saint george's day festival in london

00:11:58.560 right so there we go the saint george's day festival i mean literally it's just kitsch

00:12:06.000 it's just a caricature of what english culture is they had little um uh like fates and things

00:12:13.120 like you are all loved yeah like this you are all loved by god but you also have to i mean yeah

00:12:19.320 that's a different conversation right so it's here's all of our american food that we're selling

00:12:23.820 at the saint george's day parade well yeah but um but also they got it on the wrong day

00:12:30.080 so for some reason Sadiq Khan posted it on the 19th so it's like right and you can see his

00:12:41.000 message here today on St George's Day I mean you said I've always said London's diversity is our

00:12:45.140 greatest strength the hell are you talking about what's that got to do with St George well today

00:12:49.000 on St George's Day I'm joined by interfaith leaders from across London again the English

00:12:53.240 on their plantation no you get to sit next to all the foreign colonizers who are just as valid in

00:12:57.520 your own country as you are. We come together to celebrate all that unites us and affirm St.

00:13:02.240 George's Day flag as a symbol that belongs to us all. That sounds exactly like the kind of

00:13:08.820 Christmas message that Hezbollah leaders would put out in Lebanon. I'm not joking because they

00:13:15.100 make a big show of all of this unity and which obviously after a bunch of civil wars kind of

00:13:20.100 fades away but that's the same style of messaging that comes out in Lebanon and Syria when the

00:13:28.320 Muslims try to congratulate the Christians on some Christian holy day yeah but the the question

00:13:33.860 is then well why would Saint George why would his day be a day for people who aren't English

00:13:42.360 but also people who are not Christian like Muslims for example Jews like do they recognize George as

00:13:48.240 a christian saint weirdly enough in lebanon they they they recognize george as some kind of saint

00:13:52.920 maybe in lebanon they do yeah like you know the jewish leaders do this is this you know what are

00:13:57.800 we talking about no it's a particular thing it's parochial it belongs to the english in england

00:14:02.660 as a christian or saint like post christian christian heritage country you can't just say

00:14:08.760 oh this is for everyone now and again we've got the skin suit effect no it doesn't matter what

00:14:13.720 it is the message will always be the same it is the message that everything is for everyone all

00:14:18.600 the time except for you know iftar and eid and all these now that's for that they're for the muslims

00:14:23.360 you don't get to have those things you don't get to go for a pint and a bacon butty on iftar or

00:14:27.720 whatever it is right you know that's for them um and so like you've got like these sorts of

00:14:32.800 caricatures it's like oh look it's got a little cake and tea cakes and scones and a cup of tea

00:14:39.440 and some strawberries. That's your culture to us. That's what you are. You're just on this little

00:14:45.700 reservation. And Sadiq Khan said, our annual St. George's Day Festival is a fantastic opportunity

00:14:51.220 to celebrate the best of English culture in the heart of our capital with great musical performances,

00:14:55.520 blah, blah, blah. Our free family-friendly afternoon brings Londoners and visitors of

00:14:59.160 all backgrounds together to enjoy what it means to be English. Again, you are a sideshow. You are in

00:15:04.900 the circus now you as far as they're concerned you were a part of their plantation and one of

00:15:10.580 the things that really got to me on this was visitors will also have the chance to meet the

00:15:14.640 pearly kings and queens do you know what a pearly king and queen is no right so this is a cockney

00:15:20.500 um uh cultural sort of habit uh they i don't even know what the origin is of it because i'm not a

00:15:27.580 londoner right but um back throughout the 20th century you have the pearly kings and queens who

00:15:32.260 a particular sort of cockney affectation in this culture and the bbc in 2016 did a documentary

00:15:38.480 called the last whites of the east end yes they have the last of these old sort of you know

00:15:42.300 culturally prestigious people uh but they they're they're just the last people in the east end who

00:15:47.400 haven't moved out yep and they're so it's these very old people who are like well yeah back in

00:15:51.340 my day we had the pearly kings queens before we would diversify that of existence so now they

00:15:55.720 don't even exist there so now the the pearly kings and queens are literally the native americans on

00:16:02.740 the reservation as everyone sits around and goes oh go on do your little smoke dance or something

00:16:06.660 like that right that's what's happening yeah well well that's that's the interesting thing you say

00:16:10.480 that this is being shown as kind of like a pastiche of english culture your culture is

00:16:14.480 tea and little uh little china pottery and such and you drink uh you drink your tea and you have

00:16:19.900 a little slice of vanilla spoon victoria sponge or something but the thing is we were actually

00:16:24.500 you know happy to see like the Japanese ambassador basically engage in that same kind of like

00:16:29.780 here's a nice little pastiche of your culture but I think the difference is to try and tie

00:16:37.300 that contradiction together is that with him it feels like he's being like just just nice about

00:16:42.220 it he's being appreciative he's not being condescending he's being appreciative whereas

00:16:45.520 this feels more just like a like you say a handout to the reservation he's not saying

00:16:50.240 diversity is your strength he's saying i respect your traditions whereas here he's taking your

00:16:57.560 traditions sadi khan and sort of putting them in some kind of little pantomime show yes intended

00:17:03.740 to demonstrate that he as a pakistani is english and then like marching out the pearly kings and

00:17:09.380 queens like look here's the last of the native americans you know being like paraded around oh

00:17:14.580 aren't they interesting the feathers on their heads like that's that's basically what he's doing

00:17:18.720 with that and i just found it like especially within living memory these people have been

00:17:22.580 ethnically cleansed from this area of london like it's it's genuinely vile to see and so i it's a

00:17:29.120 weird symptom of the fact that i mean it's the same thing with keir starmer and sadiq khan both

00:17:34.360 putting out these platitudes the role of leader whether it be the local leader the town mayor the

00:17:39.820 regional leader the national leader is their role domestically now is essentially like racial

00:17:46.580 mediator yes between different groups yes and you can say that well the role was always mediating

00:17:51.780 in some way maybe between classes and such but it's so much more complicated and so much more

00:17:57.400 difficult when you've got people from all over the world who all despise each other in one city

00:18:03.040 and then you've still got the people who built that city there to begin with going like well

00:18:06.920 hold up where's where's my city gone yeah and so like and to to reduce it to like this one day

00:18:12.220 reservation is essentially uh and to give them like these perfunctory honors so oh yeah on this

00:18:18.700 day we we i mean it's very much like when the canadians and australians have that sort of like

00:18:25.100 native american ceremony and the aboriginal ceremony we honor the original inhabitants

00:18:29.980 of this land well that's what this is turning into and especially in london which is i mean in

00:18:35.180 2020 it was two-thirds uh non-english it's going to be a lot lower than that now um you can see

00:18:41.900 being given these perfunctory honours as the ties of foreigners have washed over the country that

00:18:46.340 they used to own and the English have been subsumed into one minor aspect of diversity

00:18:52.060 in the sort of pantheon of the diversity calendar. It is a land recognition celebration. Yes that's

00:18:58.440 the word I was looking for land recognition celebration. Yeah but this time it's for culture

00:19:01.960 instead of land because obviously the land belongs to the most recent arrival now. Yeah and we and

00:19:08.000 and that's the point the english claim to england especially in london has been completely

00:19:13.140 overturned through demographic displacement and so it's it's it's a i think it's a totally gross

00:19:19.100 thing and then say yeah now your symbol isn't even your symbol as well it's a symbol of the

00:19:24.400 conquest of diversity and multiculturalism over you it's the most vile thing i can possibly imagine

00:19:30.060 i genuinely on a spiritual level i can feel a kind of grating in my head is that a red dragon

00:19:36.620 there behind the fountain um it is so yeah i mean isn't the point that the dragon as the flying

00:19:44.680 serpent serpent being a father of lies yeah and temptation and the dragon being a symbol of greed

00:19:51.820 isn't the whole point of saint george's day is killing that son of a bitch well i mean maybe

00:19:55.120 that's what's happening on the stage okay so it might you know i guess they have a little stage

00:19:59.400 play of it but it would be quite fitting if they turned it from a celebration of the saint to a

00:20:03.240 celebration of the dragon that he killed i mean i'm genuinely surprised they haven't uh anyway

00:20:07.260 so then you get the sort of like i'm trying not to be mean so i'm sure ross kemp isn't a bad guy

00:20:14.260 but the kind of small-brained celebrities who themselves are like in their 60s now

00:20:19.000 and have watched the diversification of their own town and the city happen i mean ross kemp

00:20:23.820 is london he's east end is hard man so i can't but what's happened to the east end ross but your

00:20:28.440 people have been driven out by diversity and you're like oh we've got to reclaim the england's

00:20:33.300 flag on st george day so the racists don't win it's especially funny when there's footage of

00:20:37.240 ross kemp going to the sorts of countries a lot of these people are coming from and literally in

00:20:41.740 one of them is like but isn't it bad to assault women and the guy he's speaking to is like yeah

00:20:47.220 you can't you could get caught for it and he's like no no no isn't it morally bad to do it yeah

00:20:52.120 sometimes you get an std yeah you know and it's like ross you know what these people are like

00:20:57.360 i can't help but feel that there was probably like a like an email sent to him from like some

00:21:02.600 home office rep just saying like hey ross you're a like hard man eastenders type would you like to

00:21:09.200 do something for the cause of unity in this country and just write a little article that

00:21:13.400 can go out to the gammon so ross kemp is basically playing the hit clip yeah he's playing the hit

00:21:19.140 clip he is essentially he's done well for himself he's part of the institutions he gets bbc or

00:21:24.060 whatever you know tv documentaries so he's he's been taken out of the context and now he's being

00:21:29.700 weaponized against whatever remains of the organic culture and it's it's just really disgusting and

00:21:34.980 i'm i'm sorry i just don't respect this at all and it's just gross uh you know it's like we want

00:21:40.800 to be a nation united in pride not prejudice and it's like well as luca as luca pointed out before

00:21:46.440 the podcast prejudice is an english value like we've always had our prejudices and we've always

00:21:54.820 been proud of them i mean they're they're and they've always served us very well so i don't

00:21:59.060 know if i agree with this like this you know this this woke nonsense but then ross kemp though right

00:22:04.300 you know east enders hard man uh is standing side by side with you know notorious communists like

00:22:09.780 billy bragg who come on go i'm english and i'm a communist so i hate england so you shouldn't be

00:22:15.420 proud of all of this you it doesn't have to be about jingoism it's like no it kind of does

00:22:19.220 actually you know it kind of does it's yours whether you like it or not is it isn't the flag

00:22:24.680 by definition historically a military banner yeah is it i mean that's inherently jingoistic yeah

00:22:30.540 that's what a that's what a flag is right that's what it's there for it's there to determine who

00:22:35.420 owns this piece of territory us or you exactly and the the you know our flag is for us whether

00:22:40.340 you like it or not it's hard to get much more jingoistic in fact i don't even know what would

00:22:44.980 be more jingoistic than that um anyway so this is the point the the whole point is they're trying

00:22:50.100 to subvert they're trying to detach they're trying to steal these things from us um i came across

00:22:56.120 this amazing article by the bbc what's patriotism mean to people in the west as in the southwest of

00:23:01.920 england as in where we are it's like oh right okay well let's have a look through it shall we

00:23:06.520 uh they begin with 80 year old alex adlum who is the flag man he collects flags

00:23:13.060 everyone's flags he's literally got flags from all around the world i fly a flag for every day

00:23:20.120 of each month i just pick them at random so what's this got to do with patriotism like this is a guy

00:23:26.300 he just happens to love flags he just thinks flags are great and so he puts them up at random okay

00:23:31.840 let's move on to the next one um i mean that is a great this uh like example there of just like

00:23:37.480 an old school english eccentric absolutely oh who's who's adam oh he just really loves flags

00:23:42.960 so what does he do with them he just randomly flies them every single day just because you know

00:23:48.020 we have those in every single town across the country where there are still englishmen and puts

00:23:54.780 a random one up every day just for the fun of it because he likes them it's like okay but that's

00:23:58.860 nothing to do with patriotism like this is just a guy's thing he does for fun i mean that's fine

00:24:04.540 totally normal as you say english eccentric totally normal so moving on let's see if we

00:24:09.160 get any other ideas about patriotism here's dr james freeman a senior lecturer in political

00:24:13.840 history at the university of bristol oh brilliant that's going to be a neutral take isn't it a

00:24:18.340 lecturer from the university of bristol uh who's pointed out well there is there is evidence to

00:24:22.600 suggest that people in certain groups have become more assertively english in their identity was at

00:24:26.380 the national flagging campaign where the english flag was going up everywhere james was that the

00:24:30.880 thing that pointed it out to you i think that why people are concerned is about there's another

00:24:34.740 history of the use of our flags in our country and around the world which has been about marking

00:24:38.500 territory what do you mean another use that's all a flag is for that's what the flagging campaign

00:24:43.540 was for the english to make present the idea that no no we're still here we still live in england

00:24:49.220 this is still our country but he does say well i mean i don't i would always say the st george's

00:24:53.740 flag is not a far right symbol but i don't know though i think a lot of people think that it is

00:24:59.100 and i think that's what this attempt to steal it is about because i think you do actually think

00:25:04.100 the St. George's flag is a far right symbol

00:25:06.060 because in reality, from your perspective

00:25:08.400 it's a national flag

00:25:09.660 which is a far right symbol

00:25:11.680 all national flags are far right symbols

00:25:14.100 in the view of the woke left

00:25:15.980 that's what a national flag is

00:25:17.840 that's what the far right is

00:25:19.300 anyway, let's carry on moving on

00:25:20.680 because surely we've got some good takes here

00:25:23.160 here's 49 year old Cherry Lee from Hong Kong

00:25:26.000 West Country patriotism anyone?

00:25:29.920 for her, it's not about flags

00:25:31.620 it's about landscape, history and architecture

00:25:33.700 our community is a melting pot of culture which is important to me for its inclusiveness and

00:25:38.880 respect for people from different cultural backgrounds i never feel as an outsider i'm

00:25:42.560 glad i'm able to keep my own identity as a hong konger how's that integration going boys what's

00:25:47.640 this got to do with patriotism in england what's this got to do with the west country of england

00:25:52.040 let's let's move on here we've got carol burns that doesn't sound like an english surname

00:25:58.940 she's an artist who moved to the town 15 years ago and she said for her patriotism is rooted

00:26:03.200 in creativity and community i've been here long enough to feel like an honorary swindonian well

00:26:07.780 i'm sorry i don't accept you as an honorary swindonian because like you're a scottish woman

00:26:12.420 who moved here and like how do you feel about the saint george's flag scottish woman

00:26:18.160 not great obviously why are you asking her like why are you asking a hong kong woman

00:26:25.260 why are you talking to a guy who's just i just love putting up every single goddamn flag you

00:26:29.080 can imagine like you know i don't want to pass judgment on her art because she's like deliberately

00:26:32.740 you know abstract or whatever i don't care about that right but the point is what what is the

00:26:37.980 premise of this article bbc like how do the people in the west country feel about this why didn't you

00:26:43.680 ask one of them just as a quick note to do these kinds of vox pop pieces you have to go and find

00:26:50.200 a bunch of people interview them yes and you have to consider how many people express the wrong

00:26:55.180 views and were therefore excluded tilted through before they could find these three and spin the

00:27:01.880 narrative according to them yes and at the same time as they're trying to talk about oh it's all

00:27:07.680 about inclusivity and people being whoever they are whatever they want the bbc who just last week

00:27:13.040 released an article uh investigating you know like um people pretending to be gay so that they

00:27:18.440 could infiltrate the country the top story right next to this headline is high street minimart

00:27:23.560 selling cocaine cannabis and prescription drugs bbc secret filming reveals i wonder who's running

00:27:30.760 the mini mart people flying st george's crosses no but people celebrating unity and inclusivity

00:27:38.640 i am sure it's just kind of ridiculous how cocaine i don't know it brings people together

00:27:45.420 but the whole point of this is it's just completely ridiculous right like it's a complete

00:27:50.220 they're trying to do a bait and switch but it's so badly done yes you're just like right so you

00:27:55.440 ask a hong kong or a scottish woman and a guy who just likes flags that's the beginning of a joke

00:27:59.640 it really does sound like and then you know fill it in in the comments folks but anyway so this

00:28:07.640 this is something they're really concerned about because there does seem to be an organic revival

00:28:11.500 of saint george's day celebrations as you can see from uh this website that monitors things

00:28:17.440 monitors people booking things for holidays.

00:28:23.940 Well, there's been a 46% rise as apparently is the pubs leading the revival.

00:28:28.680 Now, if you're going to experience any kind of organic upswing in English culture,

00:28:33.540 it begins in the pub.

00:28:34.600 It always has and it always will.

00:28:36.640 And as you can see, it's on the up.

00:28:39.040 And of course, in this, they're like, well, yeah, this is inclusive, isn't it?

00:28:42.520 It's like, no, you know, I think if you go to like the average pub

00:28:45.380 in the average working-class area of England

00:28:47.620 that's actually like, yeah, we want to celebrate St. George.

00:28:50.320 But they're not feeling all that inclusive about things these days.

00:28:53.420 So there's this undercurrent,

00:28:55.480 and this was shown in the flagging campaign,

00:28:57.740 which is kind of the precursor of all this.

00:28:59.880 They can feel that there's English nationalism on the rise.

00:29:03.920 They can feel it, and what they're trying to do

00:29:05.860 is divert that energy into a progressive and inclusive St. George's holiday

00:29:09.720 where you're a little Native American on the reservation

00:29:12.640 and you get your one day where Sadiq Khan comes and claps

00:29:15.280 at you with a stupid hooked nose uh no just scold you into including the dragon yeah and is that

00:29:21.200 going to work well they don't think so actually uh here's an article in the new statesman uh where

00:29:25.900 they're just like look we're not going to contain this new english nationalism right this is quite

00:29:30.380 militant english nationalism it's had enough uh it is it's definitely something that's not going

00:29:36.600 to be just contained in the sort of kitsch pastiche one day a year reservation uh nationalism

00:29:43.480 just they say it's impossible not seeing this nationalism as a major force in britain's

00:29:48.700 political eruptions a nationalism that has burst the bottle of officialized folklore

00:29:53.940 the campaign for saint george's bank holiday proclaims this post-national banality

00:29:58.520 saint george's day is a cultural celebration where everyone in england can recognize the

00:30:02.440 one thing we have in common we all live in the same country yeah we're not when we're

00:30:05.540 well not when we win but while there is an england for whom that is enough

00:30:11.620 uh there is another one that sees english nationhood not as something to be celebrated

00:30:15.620 but proclaimed defined and enforced and i think they're right right there i think this is genuinely

00:30:21.200 what this uh is the case and you get um left-wing writers uh on their substact being like look the

00:30:27.980 far right is really taking hold of england's politics at this point because this has been

00:30:32.520 the identity that's been denied for a long time and he's worried about farage it's like dude

00:30:36.460 farage is the least worrying of any of these figures for you right but the point of this he

00:30:43.660 talks about tommy robinson's rally uh from last year uh the united the kingdom rally and he says

00:30:49.300 um if labor and conservatives can't muster the political courage to resist farage and his

00:30:53.440 extremist positions from influencing theirs the politics on display at robinson's rally will

00:30:57.580 define britain's future but the problem they have is we've already won right the fact that they're

00:31:02.140 trying to steal the st george's flag for decades they just ignored it they never posted the st

00:31:06.900 george's flag then they were like happy st george's day st george's day means being inclusive no the

00:31:11.400 reason that they're doing this is because we've already made this conversation happen this was

00:31:15.000 the online right and the organic feeling of the english people they are afraid of us and so i just

00:31:19.720 thought i'd go out and post some truth on twitter uh yeah george was born in bognor regis his dad

00:31:26.620 from staffordshire mum from yorkshire he was a racist died in sheffield and never left england

00:31:31.020 probably killed a ton of dragons he was a christian saint uh i i think he also enjoyed

00:31:35.580 smoking and drinking in his local boozer just fyi uh and of course the the one party that did post

00:31:42.880 something very good about this was rupert lowe and restore britain uh where he explains what it is

00:31:48.700 is driving this newfound um sort of energy underneath english nationalism and he extends

00:31:54.120 it with we will restore britain we will restore england and a picture of himself flying the english

00:31:58.320 flag uh you know who's on your side folks it's none of them it's those anyway nice some rumble

00:32:05.380 rants pound put we've seen it we're not gonna read it though why don't you dare blaspheme

00:32:10.940 do you want to read the other ones yeah i'll do yeah uh hayden says as i'm listening i'm walking

00:32:15.980 through sunny corner seaside town i see some st george's flags i love cornwall yeah cornwall's

00:32:20.200 gorgeous i need to go back to cornwall sometime oh yeah i get there i miss when my missus went

00:32:25.300 uni at falmouth because like going to visit her it was like a little holiday every single time

00:32:30.260 gorgeous um the ambassador to japan is showing more respect for english culture than the mayor

00:32:34.400 of london or the prime minister yeah exactly he's not trying to sort of diminish english culture

00:32:40.440 what he's doing is saying i like this thing and he does this with everything he's such a good

00:32:44.440 ambassador which is like i like this thing about your culture i like this thing wow that's all you

00:32:48.800 have to do like it's such a low bar but you know anyway he does a great job i think the japanese

00:32:53.520 at this point they are the ultimate masters

00:32:55.760 of soft power

00:32:57.220 because everybody in the west

00:32:59.820 kind of loves Japan just because

00:33:01.520 they make TV shows that people

00:33:03.760 want to like, they make video games

00:33:05.600 that people like and they come across really

00:33:07.640 polite and respectful

00:33:08.680 and they tidy up after themselves

00:33:10.420 and they're clean, that's literally all you need to do

00:33:13.240 and all of a sudden half of the west is like

00:33:15.320 I love Japan, we need to protect it at all costs

00:33:17.680 and they queue as well

00:33:19.060 one of the few eastern cultures that queues

00:33:21.840 that's incredible

00:33:23.520 anyway ah all right so before we talk about the strait of humus and where we are with the ceasefire

00:33:32.000 or why the ceasefire might break down uh sometime soon uh i just wanted to mention that because it

00:33:38.960 is saint george's day there is a special sale on the website of the lotus eaters for pretty much

00:33:44.880 all of the england related merch and you can get some pretty cool stuff there so please

00:33:50.720 Go and get it.

00:33:51.520 You don't have to apply any special code.

00:33:53.100 It's just automatically applied at checkout.

00:33:55.340 Please go for it.

00:33:57.940 Now, where are we now?

00:34:00.340 Two days ago, President Trump unilaterally extended the ceasefire that he had with Iran.

00:34:08.540 How do you unilaterally extend a ceasefire?

00:34:11.500 He just said we're not going to attack you.

00:34:15.200 What if they have to agree?

00:34:19.180 But they have it attacked.

00:34:20.240 okay implicitly accepted i guess yeah so you know bombs aren't flying right now okay which is

00:34:27.560 nice except if you're a ship in which case you're getting attacked but that's a different story and

00:34:32.140 we'll get to it that's that's outside of the ceasefire for both sides apparently apparently

00:34:40.100 for both sides and uh you know he said that this was the request of the pakistanis but we remember

00:34:48.140 from last time that it was the Americans who had written the draft request for an extended ceasefire

00:34:53.680 that the Pakistanis used. And so he's using that again. It's good that there's a ceasefire. Don't

00:34:59.560 get me wrong. I'm happy that things aren't getting blown up. Before that, the Iranians had said that

00:35:07.400 they were opening Hormuz, but then the Americans said that they were keeping the blockade on Iran.

00:35:12.040 you weren't blockading and that meant that every now hummus is sort of double blockaded

00:35:21.400 there is a iranian blockade and there is an american blockade on the iranian blockade

00:35:27.240 and so this was after trump was like you better open that straight you better not blockade the

00:35:31.680 straight and then suddenly he was like i'm gonna blockade the straight it's like what's the matter

00:35:35.160 carl not trusting the plan well i tell you what this it's pretty clever 40 chess i have no idea

00:35:40.960 what he's gonna do yeah i don't think even trump does that's what makes it all the more ingenious

00:35:46.640 that's why i'm always one step ahead in fairness he is keeping them guessing yeah yeah in fairness

00:35:54.480 he is keeping them guessing and there are signs that the iranians are arguing among themselves

00:35:59.400 over whether or not to offer some kind of concession or not the iranians like are we

00:36:04.680 actually dealing with a madman but that's also happening as well yeah and the strongest case

00:36:10.680 against offering anything is, but he will break the agreement anyway and go back to bombing us

00:36:16.260 when he feels like it. And so the American thinking is that with a blockade, they can bring

00:36:25.860 Iran to its knees. And there is some reasoning behind that. The Iranians import, I think,

00:36:33.360 50 percent of their food right and the iranian currency has been collapsing if you look at it

00:36:42.000 from 2012 2013 uh the iranian rial was worth around 50 000 versus the dollar now it's hitting 1.6

00:36:52.400 million oh right okay and there is evidence that since trump got elected it's gotten really worse

00:37:00.000 for the iranians because of the economic pressure but you know when you see that recent pressure

00:37:07.440 you also have to look at the past pressure that they've been under and realize that this is

00:37:13.040 something that they've gotten used to in the same way that the turkish lira was always collapsing

00:37:19.440 before 2002 2001 i think it was um so this is i mean it's bad but it's not substantively worse

00:37:27.600 than in 2025 right it's it's it's getting worse it's it's you can see the uptick also started

00:37:33.640 halfway through trump one yeah around the time he would have uh collapsed the nuclear agreement

00:37:39.960 so when the agreement collapsed it got a lot worse it had been getting worse since before that

00:37:46.620 the iranians do face protests over living standards and things like that so there is a

00:37:52.720 certain logic to it. But the Iranian counter logic is that, well, okay, but we can sort of

00:37:59.800 make the world suffer more pain and keep on seizing ships if the United States keeps on

00:38:05.840 seizing Iranian ships, which they've begun doing. And I think that there was another one that was

00:38:11.020 announced half an hour before we started. We didn't include it. I think it's around five

00:38:16.520 Iranian ships that they've seized right now. And the idea is to stop the Iranians from exporting

00:38:22.140 any oil. In the hope that Iran will fall apart and we'll have to make an agreement, in the hope

00:38:29.000 that the Iranians don't have enough storage capacity for their oil, and if they start shutting

00:38:33.440 down their oil wells, then they may not be able to reopen them. So that puts a time pressure on

00:38:39.440 them. But the Iranians have been through this before. Because under Obama, their oil exports

00:38:46.180 collapsed, they built more storage. We don't know how much storage there is really. The estimates

00:38:51.740 that we're seeing are quite debated but so trump has basically put iran under siege essentially

00:38:58.980 right and so the question is who whose resources run out quicker who breaks first rather than whose

00:39:06.720 resources well yeah okay who feels the pressure exactly because if you're iran and you're thinking

00:39:12.720 about these countries keep in mind that in the when iraq was under siege from 1990 to 2003

00:39:19.340 half a million Iraqi children died of malnutrition and lack of vaccines and so on and so forth.

00:39:25.940 The sacrifice Madeleine Albright was willing to make.

00:39:28.080 But so were the Iraqis.

00:39:29.260 Correct.

00:39:30.160 So when you want to understand these people, yes, Madeleine Albright says that this was a worthy price to pay,

00:39:37.420 but so did the Iraqi leadership.

00:39:40.040 And there is this tolerance for pain on the part of these Middle Eastern dictatorships.

00:39:47.120 We saw Assad under severe sanctions, collapsed electricity provision, destroyed health care, destroyed agriculture, etc.

00:39:55.800 He stayed in power until he was overthrown.

00:39:57.820 Well, there's essentially no mechanisms for accountability against the government in these countries.

00:40:02.280 Exactly.

00:40:02.740 Because, I mean, what you can do, go out on the streets, they'll just shoot you.

00:40:05.840 Exactly.

00:40:06.440 So.

00:40:07.440 Exactly.

00:40:08.480 Now, why are the Americans not attacking Iran yet?

00:40:12.080 I mean, there's been a massive military buildup that actually exceeds the buildup that happened before the war started in terms of sheer number of cargo flights going in.

00:40:26.280 And we are seeing the Americans also send more ships into the region, including a third aircraft carrier.

00:40:34.160 This has been the point, though, isn't it?

00:40:35.520 It's like, look, you're going to have to do a ground invasion of the land around the Strait of Hormuz if you want to open it.

00:40:40.620 which is, if you think about it, 900 miles of coastland and then behind that mountains behind

00:40:48.300 that are natural fortified positions and you can't take 900 miles of coastland without

00:40:56.180 hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Yeah, it's gonna be a massive invasion. It will have to

00:41:01.180 be a massive invasion if you want to reopen Hormuz. And so one problem that the Americans

00:41:07.660 are facing is that according to CSIS, which is one of the most respected think tanks in D.C.

00:41:13.740 and very specialized in military affairs, the U.S. has consumed maybe a third of all of its

00:41:20.280 tomahawks, which are precision cruise missiles, a quarter of their long-range JA SSMs. These are

00:41:30.820 standoff cruise missiles fired from aircraft almost all of their new artillery launched

00:41:41.120 ballistic missiles and a pretty big chunk of all of their interceptor stockpiles so this this is

00:41:47.740 going to be because they're going to send a lot of equipment to ukraine right well these were the

00:41:52.540 ones that were fired in the iran war according to csis just the iran war what i mean is what what

00:41:57.560 But the pre-war inventory is probably not very high because...

00:42:00.100 Because a lot was used in Ukraine, especially the Patriots.

00:42:04.420 But they didn't give them THAADs.

00:42:06.940 They didn't give them JSSMs.

00:42:08.400 They didn't give them Tomahawks.

00:42:10.120 Putin thought that Tomahawks could be used for a nuclear strike.

00:42:12.940 And he said, if you do that, we're going to go crazy.

00:42:15.880 And so the Americans backed down.

00:42:19.660 So this war has been expensive for the states.

00:42:23.920 And now we're waiting to see whether or not the Iranians send the delegation to negotiate.

00:42:29.580 And the Iranians are saying, we won't participate in the talks so long as there's a blockade.

00:42:35.480 You remove the blockade, then we'll participate in the talks.

00:42:40.040 And it's a total gridlock.

00:42:42.260 Because if Trump does remove the blockade, the Iranians, as of today,

00:42:46.940 have started collecting fees for allowing ships to go through Hormuz.

00:42:50.560 and that's a real problem because if there is an agreement what it confirms is that iran is the

00:42:59.620 hegemon in the gulf that the united states can't protect the gulf states and that if the iranians

00:43:05.180 want to tax the gulf states for the right to trade and export their oil they can and if trump

00:43:11.520 unblocks the strait he is essentially revealing that he's backing down and agreeing to the state

00:43:15.440 of affairs. Exactly. Whereas at the same time, he's engaged in a pretty heavy military buildup.

00:43:20.780 The Israelis are doing everything that they can to collapse the ceasefire in Lebanon.

00:43:24.940 Their media is saying that the war is going to resume. And in the past, they were right about

00:43:32.220 the war starting. So, you know, they're getting briefed that the Americans are getting ready

00:43:36.900 for another round because this situation is completely untenable. Because if you make an

00:43:42.760 agreement today over the nuclear issue, well, that doesn't solve the missile program, that doesn't

00:43:49.120 solve the regional program, and it really confirms that Iran is the regional hegemon, and it will be

00:43:54.540 a defeat. So Trump has this choice, either kick the can down the road and keep the world economy

00:44:02.940 collapsing, which is exactly what's happening, because spot prices for oil are reaching 150

00:44:11.600 sometimes 200 in some cases because there's a very real oil shortage and it takes years to

00:44:20.140 develop new oil sources and solve this problem. And it's very difficult to replace 20% of total

00:44:27.460 oil exported, which is coming out of Hormuz. So Iran has this vice over Hormuz and they don't

00:44:34.820 look like they want to back down

00:44:36.700 anytime soon.

00:44:39.020 And they're threatening more escalation,

00:44:41.260 including cutting off internet

00:44:42.740 sea cables. So the

00:44:44.700 Houthi are located here, in Yemen,

00:44:47.580 meaning that they can cut off

00:44:48.900 these internet cables, and the Iranians

00:44:50.960 obviously can cut off all of the cables in the

00:44:52.920 Gulf. They're in a prime position

00:44:55.060 to do so, if they wanted to.

00:44:56.300 Who would be affected by that?

00:44:58.880 Everyone, including the Iranians

00:45:00.340 themselves. Everyone in the region, or

00:45:01.960 expanding outwards?

00:45:04.380 Some of it would span outwards.

00:45:06.600 So it depends on which countries

00:45:08.400 has how many duplicate connections.

00:45:11.500 So if you look at this map globally,

00:45:14.040 the UK, for example,

00:45:16.060 has massive duplication.

00:45:18.180 Japan has a huge amount of duplication.

00:45:20.460 Are we still going to be able to broadcast?

00:45:22.120 Yes.

00:45:22.480 Okay, fine.

00:45:23.240 Yes.

00:45:23.980 Yes.

00:45:25.080 But a lot of people in the Gulf

00:45:26.360 won't be able to see it anymore,

00:45:27.540 which would be tragic.

00:45:29.560 I'm sure our Gulf audience is huge, isn't it?

00:45:32.340 I actually don't know.

00:45:33.380 um maybe they're avid fans of realpolitik one would hope one would hope and the iranians are

00:45:41.960 winning the meme war yeah

00:45:44.320 we are having very great negotiations with iran

00:45:57.900 If Iran doesn't come to negotiate, we're going to bomb them.

00:46:05.480 Two thousand years later.

00:46:08.640 So where are the Iranians?

00:46:11.080 This is from Iran.

00:46:21.720 All right.

00:46:24.240 Then I will extend the ceasefire at Pakistan's request.

00:46:27.900 i mean that's their consulate in hyderabad in india and pretty much every iranian consulate

00:46:39.700 and embassy is putting out the same message which is kind of stupid of them because it is going to

00:46:45.780 end up in the war resuming yeah yeah they are they are dealing with donald trump who is a man

00:46:52.880 who is very well known for taking things quite personally there was that theory that went around

00:46:57.320 for a long time that he only chose to run for president because obama snuffed him that time

00:47:01.780 yes so literally the white house correspondence dinner yeah he was dunking on him from the stage

00:47:07.400 yes so so maybe this form of diplomacy isn't the best if you're both trying to come to a

00:47:12.740 negotiated peace deal but if you're trying to win over like updoots on social media then

00:47:18.660 what's happening is that thousand likes two million views that's right what's happening is

00:47:24.740 Is that if you remember the North Korean negotiations, if you remember the Trump-Kim negotiations in his first term, what Trump did was by calling him Little Rocket Man and making fun of him, he forced some poor lackey in North Korea to report to the Supreme Leader that Trump is making fun of you personally.

00:47:47.860 Now, God rest that guy's soul.

00:47:49.820 He probably died.

00:47:51.280 But Trump was playing the man.

00:47:54.540 And in playing the man, he forced the North Koreans to negotiate.

00:47:59.320 His playbook is now being used against him.

00:48:03.280 Which is quite dangerous for a country like Iran, given how much it relies on food imports.

00:48:09.560 And given that they are risking their population starving.

00:48:13.540 But like the Iraqis and the Syrians, this isn't going to change the leadership's mind.

00:48:18.580 and their hope is that either the midterms or the 2028 elections will result in a breakthrough

00:48:27.020 that confirms them as the regional hegemon yeah because as far as they as far as they're concerned

00:48:31.780 they have to wait two years for theoretically a democrat victory which means they win yes and

00:48:38.180 and and ultimately i'm sure in the same way that i'm sure this is similar logic to how iraq was

00:48:43.140 rationalizing it as well they're seeing however many lost right now would be made up for by the

00:48:49.360 fact that they are winning iran's long-term sovereignty and independence rather than being

00:48:54.840 potentially permanently folded into just being an arm of the u.s empire administered presumably

00:49:01.740 regionally by israel uh which could go on egypt yeah like like egypt and and like countries like

00:49:08.160 have been toppled over the past few years as well so they're thinking long term even if it does kill

00:49:14.200 a lot of people i mean the problem is short term can the country like maintain itself which through

00:49:21.440 repression and through help from russia they and china they could and this whole blockade thing

00:49:28.880 does it account for the possibility of the syria also kind of relying on russia's backup though

00:49:33.560 and russia just kind of let them fall the russians sold them the russians literally traded assad away

00:49:39.000 but to be fair they had been warning assad for two or three years that he was being too much of a

00:49:45.160 dick but also there's there's a reason you kind of let syria go as well as in syria is a much more

00:49:51.160 precarious and smaller state than iran and it doesn't really have any sufficient natural

00:49:55.480 resources to make it worth an investment in exactly so it was it was uh kind of a holdover

00:50:00.920 from the sort of Cold War chessboard, right?

00:50:03.360 Yes.

00:50:03.840 Whereas Iran is actually a real key strategic place

00:50:08.040 that is actually defensible

00:50:09.300 and actually has something in there worth defending.

00:50:11.320 More importantly, if the Iranians win this,

00:50:15.080 then Iran and Russia together run OPEC+,

00:50:18.220 meaning that they manage the global oil market together,

00:50:22.060 which would be a huge improvement in Russia's situation

00:50:26.920 because the Iranians can enforce any cuts on the Gulf states

00:50:30.820 by threatening to bomb them.

00:50:33.780 So the Russians have a stake in Iran surviving

00:50:37.080 that is considerably bigger here,

00:50:38.780 and they have a stake in the conflict continuing,

00:50:42.460 requiring Iran to survive,

00:50:44.420 because they're selling their oil at twice what they had budgeted for now.

00:50:49.220 And so we're in this gridlock and in this stalemate,

00:50:53.560 and the only way through it is to either fight or give up.

00:50:58.500 and these are the choices facing Trump and if you're Iran you're looking at these numbers of

00:51:04.660 interceptors consumed and you're thinking hold on a second another few months of war and everything

00:51:11.740 we send starts to land and that means that their leverage increases considerably assuming they have

00:51:20.220 enough missiles which I can't imagine they haven't built more than a few thousand and assuming that

00:51:27.840 they have some kind of chinese lifeline russian lifeline thrown at them to keep the regime

00:51:32.020 functioning which i can't imagine china or russia dropping them in a conflict like this that is

00:51:38.420 depleting the states i mean if if you're china and russia even if you don't actually get physically

00:51:43.100 involved it's good to watch a geopolitical rival weaken itself by pouring treasure into a black

00:51:49.780 hole exactly it's like you're brilliant this is great for us exactly i mean the russians have

00:51:54.760 already made this mistake with ukraine so the chinese must be thinking if we do nothing do we

00:51:59.120 win yes like yes actually that's how that's going to work pretty much pretty much so um it it doesn't

00:52:08.480 uh it doesn't look very promising and meanwhile trump is remembering that he has a domestic agenda

00:52:14.760 oh yeah so in virginia a rigged election took place in virginia because essentially they took

00:52:23.640 virginia from being almost half democrat half republican to being nine democrats for one

00:52:28.340 republican because they gerrymandered it voted on it and now he's complaining that elections

00:52:34.540 are still getting rigged why didn't you fix that rather than going to war with iran

00:52:37.960 because israel wasn't making you do that were they and here he's got ranting i think it's

00:52:45.760 from some radio host basically uh from the sat from uh what's his name michael savage whatever

00:52:51.760 he is basically trump copy pasted his opening segment uh railing against the supreme court

00:53:00.180 because they're going to allow birthright citizenship right i mean don't get me wrong

00:53:04.400 good get rid of birthright citizenship but but the supreme court looked like they're going to

00:53:08.900 allow it aren't you the president don't you have congress in the house like well why can't you

00:53:14.580 legislate because it would be a constitutional amendment according to what the court is saying

00:53:20.680 which would be a much more complex problem but savage is calling for trump to go stonewall

00:53:26.640 jackson and ignore the supreme court and so trump how many divisions can they muster exactly

00:53:32.720 so but to do that you need massive political capital and if you're spending your political

00:53:39.940 capital in the persian gulf the kind of political capital he had in like 2021 2022

00:53:45.420 Well, 24, sorry.

00:53:46.660 24, 25, exactly.

00:53:49.540 And he's also complaining about the Supreme Court

00:53:54.700 and how they're all a bunch of lunatics and are too weak.

00:53:59.540 Well, if you're going to ignore the Supreme Court,

00:54:01.800 you need a massive amount of political capital.

00:54:04.200 But also, like, your choices for the Supreme Court

00:54:07.880 haven't exactly been the most reliable.

00:54:09.840 No.

00:54:10.160 Right?

00:54:10.840 Like a bunch of them.

00:54:11.720 Better than what Biden or Hillary would have appointed, yes.

00:54:16.660 Why didn't you put in quite hardliners, you know, rather than kind of soft right?

00:54:22.440 And so he's failing on his domestic agenda, and they completely stripped him of the tariff right, of the right to impose tariffs.

00:54:31.040 Yeah, the Supreme Court overturned the tariffs that he had imposed, and now they're busily paying them back, including to Howard Lutnick's son.

00:54:38.940 How can the court be in charge of who the president tariffs?

00:54:43.480 I don't know.

00:54:44.360 Did you just say the American government is paying money back to Howard Lutnick's sons?

00:54:50.040 So Howard Lutnick's sons have an investment firm.

00:54:53.160 They bought the rights to any reimbursed tariffs before the Supreme Court ruling came.

00:55:02.660 And they bought the rights for 25 cents on the dollar.

00:55:07.780 a policy designed by howard sounds worthless it's because it sounds fucking worthless why would you

00:55:14.880 want that that's so lucky for them and now they're getting like taking out an insurance

00:55:19.220 on world trade center isn't it like three months before it goes down what are the odds

00:55:23.040 and howard lutnick himself who just happened to be taking his kids to school on september the 11th

00:55:29.860 you know like which he never did before but had i mean good luck to him you know his wife told him

00:55:34.540 i'm told yeah howard lutnik and his family and the way and the way he was next door neighbors

00:55:40.820 with epstein but only visited him once and then decided this guy's a creeper never

00:55:45.320 there's so much good fortune around the lutnik family name that's remarkable

00:55:50.400 so yeah he bought all this reimbursed tariff uh money for 25 cents on the dollar and now he's

00:56:01.240 going to make billions make billions on the back of it his sons are not him well sure his sons are

00:56:07.220 i'm sure he's not gonna see a penny of it i mean i'm sure he had absolutely nothing to do with it

00:56:11.560 i'm sure as the architect of the tariffs he had no idea that this could be challenged in this way

00:56:16.740 that i'm absolutely certain of the man is as innocent as it gets of course so he's gonna

00:56:23.020 become incredibly rich on the back of a supreme court decision that went against him as the guy

00:56:28.540 in charge of the tariffs this is all starting to sound a little third world to me i think it's just

00:56:33.760 some people just get lucky the stars are lying yeah and suddenly your kids are making billions

00:56:38.880 on the decision you were trying to make that was reversed that you didn't know was going to get

00:56:42.380 reversed like just sometimes just suck it up just so that's the iran or for you harrod howard

00:56:56.340 lutnik is happy that's the important thing oh thank god yeah i wasn't gonna sleep at night

00:57:00.900 yes i knew thank god yeah we've got some rumble rants if you want to read i'll read them go on

00:57:05.300 trump needs to unilaterally rename it to the gay of hormuz so the fundamentalists will avoid it in

00:57:10.540 the same way they avoid regular bathing and having sex with someone who isn't a goat and or cousin

00:57:13.960 president trump please use the title like it's about time uh trump's also every everybody's

00:57:21.140 known him as trump for ages yeah so it's just normal for everyone to call him seems to forget

00:57:25.120 that china owns most of the u.s debt and if the global economy keeps collapsing and imagine what's

00:57:30.100 going to happen when china calls on all that u.s debt well i've imagined the u.s will default well

00:57:33.940 no they're just print money yeah we're gonna end up in a wave of inflation unlike any other

00:57:38.140 and we're gonna end up with much higher interest rates and the asset bubbles will burst which is

00:57:43.360 a good thing well doing it this way hands power over to put the populist left which is going to

00:57:49.040 be a very bad thing well i mean the whole point of the u.s debt system being able to essentially

00:57:54.400 make it so that the u.s exports its inflation and then gets them to buy treasury bonds so they can

00:58:00.580 get the dollars back to put them back into the system rinse and repeat the whole point of that

00:58:05.420 is to one make it so that the u.s can print infinity dollars without consequence and two

00:58:10.600 that all the rest of the government's holding that debt essentially have to call the bluff of

00:58:14.900 collapsing the global economy if they want to call in the debt that they owe so the whole the

00:58:20.860 whole thing is a confidence if trump is collapsing the global economy anyway then you have no choice

00:58:27.120 yeah then it doesn't matter why as well call the bluff exactly yeah anyway so uh onto onto a

00:58:35.640 sunnier subject which is that of uh political information campaigns now for a long time if

00:58:43.080 you wanted to buy influence with a political influence campaign then what you needed to do

00:58:48.960 was you needed to go out and you needed to find a real person have seven thousand dollars have

00:58:54.000 seven thousand dollars in your back pocket and you name your price and they take your money and

00:58:59.200 they go on social media or on the news or in print depending on what period of time we're talking

00:59:03.460 about here and they go out and they say the line that you've given to them it was uh very simple

00:59:08.280 but in the news you just buy newspapers or you can just buy newspapers there are any number of

00:59:13.020 but now there are entirely new ways of creating fake influencers where the fake influencer doesn't

00:59:20.040 even need to be a real fake person now they can just be a fake person with the advent of advanced

00:59:27.400 artificial intelligence generated fake influencers this is why we did the live event by the way so

00:59:33.420 people wouldn't know we were using holograms that's right it's very impressive thankfully

00:59:38.860 nobody went to shake my hand yeah yeah straight and you can see the the new at times has done a

00:59:45.800 report on all of this but there's a lot more information that we can go through as well

00:59:49.840 that backs all of this up so just you wouldn't know would you no with some of these when you've

00:59:55.240 got phone artifacting in the video and then you've got like interference from streaming it as well

01:00:01.000 a lot of this in still images when you actually see the videos in motion you can you can tell

01:00:08.460 because there's a weird smoothing and the weird lack of blemishes or lighting on the face but if

01:00:13.500 you just look at the images you would look at this and go like this kind of looks like a real guy

01:00:17.900 that guy down there in the bottom with the glasses yeah like that looks like a real guy it helps

01:00:22.700 when you believable when you keep the backgrounds as simple as possible it means that the system

01:00:27.520 that you're using doesn't have to waste resources on it so it'll make the person look better yeah

01:00:32.360 this uh this guy he himself looks all right but you can see from the background that's a very

01:00:37.080 fake looking background either way this is becoming in the run-up to the midterms a very

01:00:44.320 prominent thing where all of a sudden there's just loads of fake people on social media posting the

01:00:51.340 same things like you can see from this cross the same quote the left say republicans aren't united

01:00:55.840 that's funny because i bet again the left say republicans aren't united the left say over and

01:01:00.320 over and over again very dangerous to our democracy it is which suggests that um that it's probably

01:01:06.780 all being run by the same person that same person probably being uh ranjeet uh coming from mumbai

01:01:14.340 presumably and he's probably making a killing off of it because there is some confusion with all of

01:01:20.260 this which is the question of is this a political operation of somebody of like some arm of the

01:01:27.120 republican party trying to gin up a load of momentum for the midterm so that people vote

01:01:32.480 for the republicans when they've become you know they've taken quite a hit or is it just a massive

01:01:36.320 scam or it yeah or is this just a good old-fashioned money scam where somebody is making a killing off

01:01:43.040 of this there is a lot more evidence for the latter although i wouldn't be surprised if a

01:01:48.080 bit of the former is involved as well so what it just says in this article here uh should i keep

01:01:53.360 the no no i'll scroll down i'll get one of the other images and you can see another one here's

01:01:58.400 is this very uh very friendly MAGA lady which that hat isn't even an actual MAGA hat uh which

01:02:05.260 is great but people are watching it in the months leading up to the midterms of elections hundreds

01:02:09.780 of accounts have emerged on social media featuring these AI generated pro-Trump influencers posting

01:02:14.880 at a rapid pace about the radical left and America first President Trump himself has reposted content

01:02:21.640 from at least one of these accounts which might just be his ultimate boomer moment a platinum

01:02:27.580 long sorry in his defense it looks incredible not in motion i'm sure i'm not in motion boomers

01:02:34.480 got bad eyes you can you can see here here's the one this is on his truth social account it's still

01:02:39.520 out there from perez fernando and i'll just play a little bit of it and you can see in motion it's

01:02:45.640 a lot less convincing right california's corrupt governor is being pushed to resign after

01:02:50.020 investigators uncovered a scheme yeah he he posted this and i found the account and you can see

01:02:57.460 her face has morphed yeah since the january post that he did and you can scroll through a one

01:03:03.820 i mean if you want to say that ai is channeling demons like the fact that her face has ended up

01:03:09.520 morphed like this it's kind of given me a little bit of evidence for that but you can scroll down

01:03:15.240 and you can see just like endless content some of it gets you know 23 000 views horrific looking

01:03:21.560 yeah why would you ai generate this person uh account has over 51 000 followers and you can

01:03:28.200 scroll down and you can see oh booger off tiktok you can see how her face just like slowly morphs

01:03:35.500 as they keep you know the way that ai when you put the image into ai and say replicate this image

01:03:40.720 it slowly morphs typically in the past strangely to a fat brown woman but but still this one seems

01:03:47.300 to have got a safeguard against that but it's kind of weird and really creepy and my big question is

01:03:53.040 who is generating all of this content is this a genuine much prettier in the early ones yeah

01:04:00.200 is this a genuine maggot influencer who maybe doesn't think that they have a face for this

01:04:05.420 kind of thing lauren or something or or is this maybe somebody who is just posting all of this

01:04:11.140 because they want to generate content really quickly so that they can make some tiktok money

01:04:15.540 off of it and they see that the maga audience is very profitable look at the one on the bottom

01:04:19.860 right there right that's actually a really pretty girl yeah it looks like the you know the hollywood

01:04:24.560 actresses getting the face sculpting and stuff like that the ai is just like the repeating

01:04:29.940 repeating emphasizing the same traits over and over it's just overemphasizing them into this

01:04:34.340 hideous the crone the ai has uh given her um fat removal yeah surgery it's quite remarkable how

01:04:42.680 AI is imitating life. And you can go all the way down to the bottom there. According to the New

01:04:47.100 York Times article, in these first two videos, she speaks in a very pronounced Hispanic accent

01:04:52.600 and then immediately drops it in every single video following that. But so according to the

01:04:58.560 New York Times, they've spoken to some experts and such and found at least 304 accounts sharing

01:05:05.880 this kind of content, some of which have disappeared. Researchers with the Governance

01:05:09.740 some responsible AI lab at Purdue University known as Grail found another dozen accounts

01:05:14.700 across TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook.

01:05:17.260 They say that the emergence of the AI-generated political avatars suggests a sweeping effort

01:05:22.400 to hook conservative voters, demographic primed by the president, to enjoy this kind of online

01:05:30.960 political content.

01:05:32.140 They say neither the Times nor the researchers in Consulted found any similar left-leaning

01:05:36.620 networks.

01:05:37.400 not that that doesn't mean that they exist but i would imagine for obvious reasons the new york

01:05:41.540 times will want to focus on republican leaning ones but there is another case to be we know the

01:05:45.840 it's hassan piker and destiny this is true israel npcs this is true and i love that further on in

01:05:53.220 the article they use our favorite word they say although the quality of some of the accounts

01:05:57.640 edged towards slop i love that the new york times has just adopted that now an engagement may be

01:06:03.460 inflated by bot activity researchers said that the comments on the posts suggested that many

01:06:08.140 users believe that the avatars were real people and i i can believe that i can believe that that

01:06:14.300 a lot of people would be fooled by it maybe not younger people but i would imagine a lot of the

01:06:19.340 middle-aged to older men out there and women are probably looking at this and like you say their

01:06:25.560 eyes aren't great they're not as internet literate and especially ai literate as a lot of people

01:06:32.380 they're used to just seeing something online and going well looks real to me so why would

01:06:37.940 anybody lie to me and they're getting fooled by it which again suggests to me that a lot of this

01:06:43.420 is people scamming this is just an old school version of uh of indian telemarketer scam

01:06:50.460 nigerian princes yeah you just need to use your bank account this is one of the more bizarre ones

01:06:57.060 and there's a there's a larger story attached to it this one a maggot influencer who racked up

01:07:01.700 millions of followers with patriotic content of her posing in a bikini whilst ice fishing

01:07:07.040 again this looks kind of real until you think like what a bizarre like position to find yourself in

01:07:14.480 but again i'm not american so i don't know how common this kind of thing is uh she has been

01:07:19.320 revealed to be an indian man who put himself through med school on the proceeds of his trickery

01:07:26.220 and there is a among us would do any different exactly there's a larger article from the new

01:07:31.760 york post about this now they've called him sam not his actual name uh here's some more of the

01:07:37.120 content he was posting on social media obviously not a real person this is probably made loads of

01:07:44.320 money this is well yeah he did make a lot of money and there's more information here that i'll go

01:07:48.420 through this is on the wrong direction yeah yeah that's true but who was looking at that

01:07:52.400 yeah good point sam 22 year old orthopedic surgeon in training told wired that he got the

01:07:58.820 idea to sell ai generated images of a young woman in a bikini while scrounging for money

01:08:03.160 in school and trying to save up enough to emigrate to the u.s after after graduation so

01:08:08.200 this man is coming to your shores folks i like that i need to i need to grift as hard as i can

01:08:13.980 to escape india i mean who which of us wouldn't yeah exactly who among us he turned to google's

01:08:19.800 gemini ai for advice and decided to create a hot girl crafted specifically for the maga conservative

01:08:25.580 niche after the software told him that the conservative audience often has higher disposable

01:08:30.660 income and is more loyal i love how strategic this is yep i could very easily grift the they

01:08:37.360 them pronouns group by saying you know trans women women and stuff like that but they haven't got any

01:08:41.400 goddamn money yeah well there's another reason here as well that they name and that's how but

01:08:46.140 just carrying on this so this was supposedly emily hart oh yeah according to her profile she

01:08:51.120 was a registered nurse with jennifer lawrence looks who offered red meat posts to uh lonely

01:08:56.320 conservative men online one post showed her firing a rifle with the caption if you wanted a

01:09:02.320 reason to unfollow christ is king abortion is murder and all illegals must be deported prime

01:09:09.220 probably i won't follow that red meat yeah red meat yeah of course sam told the magazine every

01:09:15.480 day i'd write something pro-christian pro-second amendment pro-life anti-abortion anti-woke and

01:09:20.740 anti-immigration the account blew up and within a month he had 10 000 followers every reel he posted

01:09:26.820 got millions of views and earned him more followers and then he cashed in on the ai models appeal

01:09:31.920 selling MAGA-themed t-shirts and creating an account, right,

01:09:37.840 on the OnlyFans competitor, FanView,

01:09:42.240 where paid subscribers could access lewd AI-generated content,

01:09:47.080 exactly what you want from your pro-Christian, conservative MAGA babe.

01:09:52.720 This man is a genius.

01:09:54.720 I will say nothing against Sam here.

01:09:57.940 He's welcome to come over.

01:09:59.260 elon give this man a job at x right now probably a millionaire he probably is i mean worth more

01:10:06.960 than all of us combined it says it says here fan view the only fans thing differentiated itself by

01:10:13.160 allowing ai generated content so that's why he was able to post all that the move made him a mint

01:10:19.320 he was raking in thousands of dollars a month he used grok ai to generate nude photos of this

01:10:26.680 supposedly christian christ is king conservative world uh girl and uploaded them to fanview where

01:10:33.840 fans sent him money for exclusive content and messages it's genius i don't know what everyone's

01:10:39.460 complaining about he says i was basically doing nothing and was flooded with money yep okay so

01:10:47.840 at this point i would like to revisit the conversation about the labor theory of value

01:10:52.340 right i really really want to re reintroduce that into the conversation because as he says i was

01:10:59.120 doing nothing i was making loads of money where's the labor how does it connect to the value that's

01:11:03.820 what i want to know communists leave a comment i mean he he mentions the left leaning he says

01:11:08.920 despite maggot fans making him rich he still locks down on them calling them super dumb

01:11:14.000 and uh frankly apologies but from his position i would probably think lowly of them as well

01:11:19.940 given that he managed to scam them so thoroughly and again this probably is lonely guys who don't

01:11:25.360 know any better and like older horn dogs yeah this this is going to be like older horn dogs

01:11:32.640 which i'm sure 60 year old dudes among among MAGA there is probably going to be a lot of older

01:11:37.820 horn dogs out there but he also said that he attempted to make a liberal counterpart for

01:11:42.020 heart on instagram but quote democrats know it's ai slop so they don't engage as much

01:11:47.040 i don't know why that might be some say that democrats are more intelligent it might just

01:11:52.580 be because they skew younger and so they might female too yeah skew more female so it they might

01:11:58.400 just be a bit more internet and ai literate his mistake was doing a female one right he should

01:12:04.220 have done a male one that was a super buff dude who was like actually i'm super woke and oh like

01:12:10.340 like they should have done a louis luigi mangi own type guy yes yeah yeah that could have done

01:12:16.240 cast in on the the wine aunts and the cat mums who are like yeah i'm super woke and i support

01:12:21.080 women's rights there is there is also like a weird connection with he's smart he's not that

01:12:26.600 with with the the the like conservative right in america and ai and it's not just because of course

01:12:33.400 like pete uh pete teal has a lot of connections to ai and larry ellison and um and the connection

01:12:40.900 to the current administration through jd vance and elon musk as well and elon musk as well

01:12:46.080 obviously all of these people have a lot of connection to ai and a lot of vested interest

01:12:50.720 in ai but it's also just weird stuff like glenn beck at the beginning of last month in march

01:12:56.200 asking would the founding fathers approve of trump's war in iran no i won't pretend to speak

01:13:02.520 for them but in january i sat down with george ai and asked for its views on foreign entanglements

01:13:08.840 and military action here's what it said should we found out yeah yeah but i know he's the ai if

01:13:13.380 it's accurate i'll say no oh that's where you're wrong but oh we are trying to not fight foreign

01:13:21.980 wars and not be involved in and the world's policemen but there are times that we have to

01:13:26.680 demonstrate strength in order to prevent conflict. But I don't know where the foreign entanglement

01:13:35.100 begins and where it ends. When I was president, I did not crave power. I didn't strut in my uniform

01:13:44.300 dreaming of conquest. In fact, I begged several times to not be the general and not be the

01:13:50.780 president. I didn't want it, but I understood my responsibility. And I also understood that

01:13:56.180 some things that's supposed to be george washington yeah ai george washington in a t-shirt

01:14:03.080 and then it skips to uh where is it uh him yeah here it is him around the table of the rest of

01:14:09.040 the founding fathers all of whom just happen to be the exact same person 130 iq angler

01:14:16.080 this is just bizarre you can see it saying well i didn't want to but i now have a responsibility

01:14:23.340 to bomb iran yeah i mean that's clearly what it is his glenn beck speaks to an ai who just

01:14:28.660 confirms what he already believed don't have an equal number of buttons on the shirts either

01:14:32.540 yeah but they also but they dressed it up in as george washington that's weird like and he seems

01:14:38.160 so like sincere yeah and earnest in his questions like this is a religious experience to him it's

01:14:44.480 similar to the way that they tried to make like a jesus ai as well absolutely bizarre i really am

01:14:50.920 not a big fan of uh of ai and its many uses but before being saint george's day i know there are

01:14:57.680 lots of smug englishmen watching this right now thinking dumb yanks falling for it no no no sadly

01:15:04.280 it's here as well it's in england as well are you saying i can't donate to her any fans

01:15:11.140 well uh you could actually because as maven pointed out here she also had a site uh it was

01:15:20.720 on the same one fan view actually where he points out you know lotty patriot who has incredibly

01:15:27.040 insightful videos of herself posting just i'm racist at lotty from uk here's my tits i'm racist

01:15:36.440 here's me uh like fondling a phallic object for your pleasure all i'm saying is sam is a genius

01:15:45.120 all right yeah this is this might even be the same guy you don't know that it's not yeah which

01:15:50.800 i mean apparently there's enough of a market and an audience for this sort of stuff that it does

01:15:55.600 make people money uh which is just i'm looking at it which is just horrifying but also you know

01:16:00.880 one of the more horrifying things about it is that again according to quite a lot of information

01:16:05.800 that's been taken on this studies of people up to about 77 000 people been tested on all of this

01:16:12.020 even just a conversation with a chatbot can meaningly shift political opinions left or right

01:16:18.960 so the uses of ai in generating consensus are there which is why even if a lot of these ones

01:16:25.320 are going to be scammers from india and nigeria making a lot of money off of people who are just

01:16:30.400 too foolish to know any better this could actually have a massive impact going into the future

01:16:36.660 didn't the adl say that it was working with all of the ai companies to make sure that the

01:16:41.260 ai doesn't turn anti-semitic yeah what a shot gab ai there i don't think they were working with them

01:16:46.560 i don't think they're working with gabby i know remember you're about that your job is to turn

01:16:50.520 the ai far right not the other way well that was the thing i reported on last year was that um

01:16:56.080 a study by gab had looked into all of the other ais out there and found the only one that wasn't

01:17:02.100 programmed to be as anti-white as possible was the gab one and grok and even grok had a minor

01:17:10.380 anti-white bias so all of that's very worrying uh but also hilarious there you go i'll read through

01:17:17.940 some of the rumble rants logan pine has razor said congress are effing cowards and the gop are

01:17:23.560 the lib dems of america yeah actually right yeah yeah bald eagle 1787 i finally get it now the

01:17:30.400 whole iran thing is trump's 4d chess move to get iran to cut the indian internet cables to india

01:17:35.380 which will have user engagement on social media drop 89 80 to 90 it's to stop the grifting of the

01:17:41.200 maga base yeah 4d test in seed he's actually protecting us all yeah unfortunately i know

01:17:47.420 india's underwater ai map you're much more likely to cut off pakistan than india okay

01:17:53.320 i'll take it yeah can we start some kind of domino i'll take it one after the other no you'd need to

01:17:59.440 get to a bunch of different indian ports and cut them we need to give them can we not just ask them

01:18:03.160 to call uh palmput i'm all for it's not x but y and m dashes slop text but these ai voices on

01:18:12.240 the phones and ai video influencers are genuinely sinister yeah that that is the thing is that as

01:18:17.240 much as it's fun to laugh at right now uh this will only this technology at the rate of improvement

01:18:22.540 right now will only get better to the point where it's more and more indistinguishable which makes

01:18:27.080 it all the more worrying because at least if you've got somebody who's like a real person who's paid

01:18:31.880 they might have morals they might have boundaries they might have lines that they're not willing to

01:18:35.800 cross ai is not going to have that they're just going to do and say whatever you want and also

01:18:40.060 the speed of it right because i remember in like 2022 2023 when mid-journey was becoming popular

01:18:45.600 and it would create horrific monster pieces of like weird faces and teeth and fingers and it's

01:18:51.920 wasn't very long ago no exactly it was only a spaghetti test exactly it was only a couple of

01:18:56.940 years ago and i mean yeah okay the video is slightly too smooth and parts you can tell

01:19:01.960 if you've got a trained eye and you're looking for it if you don't have a trained eye if this

01:19:05.800 is just a video on your feed because you're some you know 57 year old better in those areas and

01:19:10.720 yeah exactly and that's how it is now yes three years time you're not gonna know yeah yeah

01:19:17.120 yeah it was it looked weird and also they put him in a t-shirt yeah it looks awful like they put him

01:19:27.320 in a blue t-shirt what the hell yeah fictagious how do we know that fans are not all lefties

01:19:33.120 looking at hot attractive right-wing women because come on have you seen the lefty women

01:19:37.020 that's also a possibility but i'd imagine that a lot of the engagement is probably coming from

01:19:41.460 politically aligned people again the the issue is that it's you you would need to have some maga

01:19:47.120 chud who's ultra buff because a lot of the left-wing women are attracted to the maga chud

01:19:51.560 but the left-wing women uh the left-wing men i mean obviously they're attracted to the women but

01:19:56.520 like they don't have any money so i i do also think that because especially on the left they

01:20:03.020 kind of have not a monopoly but a prominent share of the anti-ai um like activism purely out of

01:20:12.220 artistic reasons because they're always like ai is not art we need to fight back against this so

01:20:16.840 that people will be able to express themselves properly i think that has led and forced a lot

01:20:21.300 of them to become more ai literate than a lot of people on the right who don't see it as much

01:20:26.040 of a pressing issue and also the younger as you said yeah and they're younger as well anyway let's

01:20:30.680 get on with the video comments, which better not be AI.

01:20:34.040 This is Peter Purr, and he loves his gardens. You know what else he loves? He loves the

01:20:43.340 birds singing. He likes his clean air, and he likes his clean water. This is Peter Purr

01:20:53.060 as the Lib Dem leader in his environmental message.

01:20:56.800 Looks like he's having a good time.

01:21:00.000 I love Peter Purr.

01:21:03.680 Hey Losetters, I'm here with you today at Hopton Castle in Shropshire.

01:21:08.320 Here it is right here.

01:21:11.760 It was built in the 1260s, but its biggest fight was in the English Civil War, 31 men

01:21:16.760 against 500.

01:21:19.120 The 500 blew a hole right there, and the defenders still held them off.

01:21:26.100 When the castle surrendered in March 1644, 28 of the defending men were taken off and executed.

01:21:35.100 Probably why it's not worth surrendering.

01:21:37.100 Yeah.

01:21:39.100 Love historical sites though.

01:21:56.100 A random bunny.

01:22:07.420 Not wrong with it?

01:22:08.560 No, that was nice.

01:22:10.080 Love a cute bunny.

01:22:11.620 This is in response to Carl Benjamin's comment last week.

01:22:15.020 Or that there would be a massive uprising from below.

01:22:16.560 No, it seems actually when the missiles are raining down,

01:22:18.580 that isn't when people feel like overthrowing their government.

01:22:20.120 They rallied to the government.

01:22:20.940 Yeah, of course they did, because the country's under attack.

01:22:22.440 Yes.

01:22:22.800 If your country was suppressing your freedoms and killing your people,

01:22:25.400 You would not side with that government. You would side against it and see the invaders as liberators, not the other way around.

01:22:31.220 This is what happened in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, when many people joined against his regime,

01:22:34.680 with only a few elites loyal to Saddam Hussein in 2003.

01:22:38.200 By the way, Carl, nice tie.

01:22:41.780 Thanks.

01:22:44.440 I don't think that's true, and I don't think that's what we've seen.

01:22:48.000 And I don't think that's really what happened.

01:22:50.820 if if the liberators rain down a bomb that kills your children or your next-door neighbors you're

01:22:57.540 not going to see them as liberators this was the this was the problem with germany and why they

01:23:01.660 fought back so hard from 44 to 45 is because yeah the americans and the allies could say that they

01:23:07.960 were liberators but from the average person on the grounds experience no you just fire bombed my city

01:23:13.580 this was the problem during the iraq war i remember it very clearly the the american assumption is we

01:23:18.840 will be greeted as liberators no you were you were greeted as weird foreign hostile occupiers

01:23:23.580 and people generally didn't cooperate as much as you were hoping and it was just it was and

01:23:29.200 and another thing is the americans just did not understand the people that they were occupying

01:23:33.940 and so the the whole thing was i mean that what was the the general's name uh many no no no the

01:23:40.440 american general afterwards it was first schwarzpoff and then it was no schwarzpoff when

01:23:44.920 that was the first one i can't remember the name of it but there's there's video of this american

01:23:49.140 general who you you can watch him you know and just on a stage doing interviews just explaining

01:23:54.220 it's like we have no idea what we're doing and no idea we're engaging with you mean petraeus

01:23:58.080 that's it petraeus yeah and and this went really badly for us and the people did not want us there

01:24:03.820 and it was like it's just not true in 2003 initially the iraqis were happy that saddam

01:24:11.320 was overthrown sure but within a few months it was the shia who were the ones who were most

01:24:17.240 oppressed by saddam who were conducting most of the bombings against the united states

01:24:21.220 so it didn't actually work out so it's not as cut and dried as that and the iranians are not

01:24:28.600 just an islamic country they're also a nationalist country ridiculously nationalistic much more so

01:24:34.820 than iraq yeah because i mean iraq is a fake country basically just fyi uh whereas iran

01:24:40.960 is not a fake country so do you have any more samson

01:24:44.860 it appears not zest he says when leftists say things like saint george's a turk or they never

01:24:52.320 kill a dragon what they're really saying is they reject any notion of commonality between

01:24:55.920 between themselves their ancestors and their countrymen uh yeah and the future point yeah

01:25:00.280 that's a very good point that's a great point um just to reinforce as well cameron are from the

01:25:06.060 office our cameron said the goth mug was not included in the sale until harry and firaz

01:25:10.500 announced it get 15 off your goth mug and other selected merch now you're welcome

01:25:15.660 george says rupert low with the saint george's flag is one of those wholesome images i've seen

01:25:20.340 exactly the kind of attitude we need is the patron saint of brave of the brave so no demoralization

01:25:25.340 is allowed uh well yes exactly and it's exactly but that's why i ended the segment pointing out

01:25:30.160 they they know that this is going to fail right they're not going to be able to channel nationalist

01:25:34.180 energy i mean he he represents goodness overcoming lies yes that that's a huge part of the symbolism

01:25:41.680 in the image so of course it's a wholesome image yes but but the the the sort of like um siddique

01:25:47.800 khan kia starmer types they'll never be able to harness the energy of the patriotic nativists

01:25:53.800 because it's just so completely opposed to them so this is it's a doom project and the thing is

01:25:59.100 the left knows this as well um geordie swordsman says of course it stands for unity man horse

01:26:04.260 lance and sword all working in glorious unified whole to kill a sodding enormous dragon uh well

01:26:09.480 i mean there is that yeah but it's not the the unity of everything with everything uh the unity

01:26:15.280 of uh of good against evil of good against evil yeah uh carl's evil twin vauch says i'm sure the

01:26:20.940 crusaders wearing the saint george's cross were thinking of unity while chopping off heads in

01:26:23.860 the crusades uh sorry saint uh sorry kia uh george's day is ours not yours and we will tell

01:26:31.580 you what it means and that's precisely it and again the point i'm reinforcing that is we are

01:26:37.040 the ones who have made this a salient political issue and battleground right it's mostly like the

01:26:42.560 online right with the general feeling i mean the online right is just an expression of the general

01:26:47.360 feeling of the english people anyway right it's like the english online right um because we don't

01:26:52.300 have any other outlets for it frankly and so the fact that we've made this happen we're making them

01:26:56.640 dance to our tune shows that we're actually the ones steering the ship here so um don't forget

01:27:02.300 your own power this is something the left is very uh focused on making salient is well how much power

01:27:07.360 do we have it's like well they do have power they have quite a lot of power actually uh we're in a

01:27:11.940 similar position where we have a lot of power it's indirect but it does have an effect and this is

01:27:16.700 the effect that we're seeing uh yuen says leftist stereotypes are harmful and dangerous also leftist

01:27:23.060 here is your culture as a stereotype rex says you know the japanese ambassador absolutely loves his

01:27:28.760 job but you could find him pounding guinness and pubs on the weekend i mean what a great job to

01:27:33.040 have you know yeah love to go to another country for like here are the things about your culture

01:27:37.620 i like well what a lovely job uh jimbo says sing a lot of flags in england flags today gentlemen

01:27:44.240 Even my work reception has made an effort this year

01:27:46.140 with the bunting of flags.

01:27:47.340 I think normal people are fed up

01:27:48.360 with being demoralized about who they are.

01:27:50.040 Yeah, this is...

01:27:50.800 That's the whole point of this, right?

01:27:52.220 Yeah, that's the whole point.

01:27:53.240 And they are right to say,

01:27:55.040 well, the flag is like a statement

01:27:56.700 of ownership and domination.

01:27:58.000 It's like, yes, it is.

01:27:59.260 And that's why we're putting the England flag up.

01:28:02.780 Russian says,

01:28:03.620 if we don't know what we're doing,

01:28:04.640 our enemy cannot anticipate our future actions,

01:28:06.760 the American military.

01:28:07.820 I mean, that's true.

01:28:08.560 I imagine it's quite frustrating

01:28:09.900 for the actual commanders and soldiers and whatnot

01:28:12.360 uh in the actual ranks where they're like okay we expected a plan um paul says not going to war

01:28:20.440 with iran would have been far more expensive um i don't know i'm not persuaded by this to be honest

01:28:25.320 i agree though he says iran has been at war with the us and the west and the arab states since

01:28:29.560 1979 finally putting an end to it so yeah but the problem i have with it is not america overthrowing

01:28:36.340 the iranian regime it's america being at the behest of israel this is netanyahu's war it's not

01:28:41.400 war so and he's been pining for this forever oh yeah he's been pushing for this forever my entire

01:28:48.040 life and iran historically has always allied with the west against its sunni neighbors and that was

01:28:55.020 the policy under the safavids and that was the policy under the shah and the only complication

01:29:01.880 in that happening in exactly the same way today is israel that's the only reason it can't happen

01:29:07.860 under this regime and with israel so it's you know things aren't that simple

01:29:14.360 omar echoing the question about the indian cables depending on which

01:29:19.460 communications cables they cut they can make themselves very popular in the west i can send

01:29:22.920 you a map a lot of people are cutting off cut off india asking for no particular reason

01:29:30.140 maria says for the advances advances in military war fighting technology you cannot take in whole

01:29:35.860 ground without an infantry soldier on the ground that will be there to hold it be it ukraine israel

01:29:40.980 or iran so bullets and grit are key modern political west has deliberately ignored this

01:29:45.000 simple truth well this is this is the point as you're making it's like look trump has basically

01:29:48.780 got to sack up and actually do the invasion or not right he's put himself in a corner where he's

01:29:54.540 only got this choice well the problem with putting himself in this corner is as far as i can tell

01:29:59.200 there's very very little domestic approval for such a thing there's very little international

01:30:04.720 approval for such yeah but he but he does have to think about the domestic state of america right

01:30:10.380 now in the lead up to the midterms if because if he does such a thing and then it leads to a wave

01:30:16.540 of unpopularity that wipes them out in the midterms you are handing over america to the

01:30:20.300 democrats and then also you're basically handing over a lot of meaningful members of his

01:30:25.240 administration to prosecution yeah and this who who is the priority here securing the gulf or

01:30:31.140 securing america what's the priority you're securing israel or securing america and then

01:30:35.280 the reason you can see that this is clearly not a war of trump's choosing is because why would you

01:30:39.520 have chosen it before the midterms you just do it after you do it like oh day after the midterms

01:30:44.360 okay we won by a small margin great okay now we're going to do it because we want it done right you

01:30:49.340 wouldn't do it a really unpopular war leading up to an important election why would you do that

01:30:55.100 problem they have is that they have an election every two years oh yeah and but the point is if

01:30:59.860 it was directly after the midterms trump's got two years where it just doesn't matter anymore

01:31:03.760 because he can't get re-elected so he could just get it done but anyway we're out of time there

01:31:09.080 yes we are well thank you all very much for joining us today i hope you have a very happy

01:31:14.920 saint george's day and we'll see you again tomorrow take care and get some merch off

01:31:19.340 the website while it's still on discount

01:31:29.860 Bye.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - April 23, 2026

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1403

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