00:06:51.740um so i i i don't what do you see as the efficacy of uh describing yourself with that label
00:06:59.220yeah your criticism is valid in that i am not satisfied with the label i just
00:07:05.240i know that politically i don't align with either left or right and there doesn't seem to be another
00:07:10.020pigeonhole for me well i i can resolve that in one in one question do you think some people are
00:07:15.360better than others? No. Well, hold on. Do you mean more valuable or do you mean superior in one way
00:07:24.940or another? Do you think some people are better than others? At some things, yeah. Okay, so you're
00:07:30.460on the right. If you're on the right, you answer yes. And if you're on the left, you have to give
00:07:34.200a speech. So that is a litmus test that people can use to figure out if they're on the right or left.
00:07:39.160Francis, he claims to be old school left wing. Can you debunk him live on that?
00:07:43.280Many people who are old school left wing would be regarded as the right.
00:07:46.720There's this very silly idea, which I'm positive you two don't ascribe to, which regard right and conservative and Republican and Tory as synonymous.
00:07:56.660You know, as people who understand world politics, to claim these three, these terms are interchangeable is very bizarre.
00:08:04.600But it's very useful for corporate media because if there's two choices and right equals Republican or Tory in your case and left equals Labour or Democrat and I dismiss one of the two teams then in a binary fashion, therefore I've proven the other one and things get very simple.
00:08:22.080Right and left are just complicated, nuanced positions, and they depend on what the axis happens to be.
00:08:27.880But this kind of attempt, and this is also done in political parties as well, to reduce it to, you know, I'm right, therefore I'm for Boris Johnson, who is identical somehow to Theresa May, or as if Sir Keir and Jeremy Corbyn are the same phenomenon either.
00:08:44.920It's a very, or Tony Blair, it's a very wacky way of systemization.
00:08:51.620And if it is a very wacky way of systemization, doesn't that therefore mean that our political systems are no longer fit for purpose because they don't represent us adequately?
00:09:01.240They've never been fit for purpose. That's the basic anarchist critique, that the idea of representation is inherently not just false, but nonsensical.
00:09:10.880What does that mean? Elaborate on that a little bit.
00:09:13.160Meaning that if I go to the supermarket, you know, I have infinite choices of what to buy to drink, breads, so on and so forth.
00:09:21.620But that I have to pick someone who's going to speak for me both for foreign policy and for health care and for taxation.
00:09:31.400And I don't get to pick the person I want because a lot of my neighbors think otherwise.
00:09:36.200This is a very bizarre claim that if I vote for Tony Blair and I get Theresa May, then Theresa May represents me.
00:09:47.560And obviously they didn't run against each other.
00:09:49.120So that whole basis, which we're all, many people seem to accept, would only be regarded even as a hypothesis if we've been trained to believe this since birth in government schools.
00:10:01.060If someone came to you as an adult and say, if you vote for person A, but a lot of people vote for person B, person B represents you, it wouldn't even make sense as a hypothesis.
00:10:12.720Like, what are you even talking about?
00:12:12.500So this concept that you need to have some kind of political figurehead to represent you and this person is irreplaceable is simply not true.
00:12:20.940No, but those two things, well, not those two things, but King George was replaced with an alternative power structure, one that you guys in America are still fighting to shape exactly as you want.
00:12:30.760uh he he was actually replaced with a power structure that was itself replaced in a coup
00:12:37.040uh in philadelphia the constitutional convention where that it was a conspiracy where everyone
00:12:41.380swore themselves to secrecy lock the door and basically overthrew the government
00:12:45.060through largely peaceful means the replacement for any um organization would be you know infinite
00:12:53.080people uh providing solutions and everyone else in a position to either uh use their services or not
00:13:00.140But this applies to security. This applies to health care. This applies to education.
00:13:05.820No matter what field you're thinking about, you want more freedom, more choices, which means more peace and more calm, happy neighborhoods.
00:13:15.920Are you tired of using bulky old wallets, giving you a bulge where you don't want it to be?
00:13:21.740My old wallet was massive, so it brought all the ladies to the yard,
00:13:26.420which was a huge distraction and got in the way of my esteemed work on trigonometry.
00:13:31.860Ridge Wallets have an incredible solution for you.
00:13:35.120This is mine, sleek, stylish, and with an industrial look to it.
00:13:38.900It can fit 12 cards with cash on the back using a clip like this one or a strap.
00:16:44.220Basically, the line I always had is even Stalin had the courtesy to knock.
00:16:49.640So they break down your door and it was, I think, 3 in the morning.
00:16:52.600He was in bed with his pregnant girlfriend.
00:16:54.840They murdered him through the window and they dragged her through the broken glass.
00:16:59.740They won't release the body cam footage and none of the police are having any consequences.
00:17:03.840At the very least, if you had choices in security, there would be consequences for the perpetrator, and you wouldn't have the ability to choose another agency as the one providing security for you.
00:17:17.900and there would be immediate huge social media and probably corporate media reactions to this
00:17:24.660consequence. As it is, having a government monopoly and having the corporate media very
00:17:30.140much in bed with them, which I certainly have in the UK here in the States, there are no
00:17:34.940consequences for everyone and everything's swept under the rug. So that is one example of how if
00:17:40.380you did not have a government monopoly and had competition and choice, there would be more
00:17:45.320accountability and less murder by the state. Okay, Michael. So I'm going to push back with
00:17:50.320you. So let's say that works on a national level. What about a global level? You're going to have
00:17:55.640countries like China. You're going to have countries like Russia, totalitarian regimes
00:17:59.940are interested in power, land grabs, et cetera, et cetera. Doesn't it leave you open and vulnerable
00:18:04.500to these types of nations? Why aren't we invading Canada? Why aren't you guys invading? Iceland
00:18:11.000doesn't have a military why hasn't britain conquered it and you we're too incompetent mate
00:18:15.960well actually i would argue that because they live under the american umbrella of protection
00:18:19.840like right of the west sure so the the point is there's just because governments exist on earth
00:18:25.920does not mean anarchism is not tenable i'm not arguing at all that for this perspective to work
00:18:31.300it has to work globally china will still exist but i don't understand a mechanism if say uh um
00:18:37.540Scotland, right? If Scotland seceded from the UK and, you know, they just did not have a
00:18:42.900government and became a stateless society, how is China going to be invading them or any other
00:18:48.580nefarious nation other than Britain itself? But you aren't advocating this for Scotland,
00:18:52.860you're advocating it for America. I think it would be easier to invade Scotland than to
00:18:57.120invade an anarchist America, don't you? You haven't seen them drinking much. You haven't
00:19:03.380many Scots, have you? I'm not even advocating this for America. I'm just advocating this for
00:19:09.260whoever wants it. And if it has to be a small Isle of Wight or whatever, that's perfectly fine with
00:19:14.720me. There's I'm not someone who thinks and, you know, it historically, and this is something the
00:19:21.220West needs to appreciate. If you read comic books, if you read sci fi movies, the guys who want to
00:19:26.460conquer the world are the bad guys. So I'm in no case advocating that this has to work and it has
00:19:33.220to work on a global scale. It is my view that if this does work, it'll certainly attract people
00:19:39.020towards that area. And if it doesn't work, okay, that area is a disaster. In neither case is there
00:19:44.100a claim that this is something that needs to happen or should happen on a global scale.
00:19:48.720And we've been touching actually on authoritarianism. This is something that I
00:19:52.520really wanted to speak to you about, Michael. So you've got your roots in the USSR, Soviet Union.
00:19:58.720you went to America I believe at the age of two years old. Constantine is from the USSR. My mother's
00:20:04.300Venezuelan. We've all experienced different forms of authoritarianism. One of the things that I found
00:20:09.840really shocking in the UK, I don't know as much as in America, is just how willing people in this
00:20:15.320country were to submit to an authoritarian, let's call it what it was, an authoritarian rule, but
00:20:22.060not only that, also to snitch on their neighbors, also to feel this sense of paranoia in everything
00:20:29.700they did and everything they said. And the way we descended into that just seemed to happen
00:20:36.220practically overnight. Did that surprise you? It surprised me to the extent, but it's useful
00:20:42.380information. H.L. Mencken, who I'm sure many of your listeners are familiar with, was a great
00:20:47.040newspaper man of the early 20th century. And he had a quote which I've been using, I think,
00:20:51.460on a daily basis in the last few months, which is the average man does not want to be free.
00:20:55.440He merely wants to be safe. And I do think that's the case. I think if I'm an average person and I
00:21:01.680really don't want to stick my neck out and I want to be someone in a school of fish, that's not a
00:21:06.080bad strategy for me. You know, I'm going to, you know, put food on the table. I'm going to have
00:21:10.820some modicum of happiness. People like to claim that we're living in 1984, but I think Aldous
00:21:16.460Huxley's Brave New World is a lot closer to the reality. Instead of that hard authoritarianism
00:21:21.400of you know the stalinist 1984 you have the soft corporate authoritarianism of come to the office
00:21:27.800do your job come home you can watch crap television eat crap food but you're never going to have to
00:21:33.380be worried that you're going to have to think or that anyone is going to threaten you given that
00:21:38.780that's the case of the a mindset of the typical human being uh democracy on its face is something
00:21:45.300i do not therefore find palatable it is i have a different preference their preference is for
00:21:50.220safety, over freedom. That's fine. I'm not interested in changing their mind. What I am
00:21:54.980interested in is creating mechanisms to make sure they are not in a position to use their fear of
00:22:01.140autonomy to have restrictions on my freedom. And now how that would work out is obviously a very
00:22:06.220complicated, long conversation. My gut tells me technology is the best way to make this happen.
00:22:12.180But I agree with you. But the other thing that I think is of interest that people need to
00:22:16.560appreciate is what the lockdowns gave is a position for lowest status people to have ways to increase
00:22:24.520their status and to assert dominance over others. Because I saw this on the subway. I had my podcast
00:22:31.800so I could actually go into the studio on a daily basis. And first of all, seeing the New York City
00:22:37.820subways dessert in the middle of the day is something very surreal. It's hard to describe
00:22:42.800as a lifelong New Yorker. It's like being in a movie. And I'll never forget this moment I put
00:22:47.000on my Instagram. This was a year ago. It takes a lot for me to get offended. And this was really
00:22:51.960one of those moments. There was an Asian dude in his 30s. You know, he was very Western in his
00:22:56.380appearance. This wasn't someone who was, you know, some kind of stereotypical immigrant or
00:23:00.640something like that. This older man, his 50s, white man, stood over him on the subway, literally
00:23:06.300screaming at him, why aren't you wearing a mask? You're in America, so on and so forth. Just the
00:23:10.800most base vulgar uh you know xenophobia and that's a word i don't think i've ever said before you
00:23:17.280know even thought about and i realized wait a minute if you were really scared of this virus
00:23:21.880which i can understand why you would be why are you getting physically close to him the train car
00:23:27.040is quite large this guy's a jerk he's you know in your in his mindset okay he's a moron doesn't
00:23:32.060speak english whatever stereotype you want to ascribe to him get away from him but clearly
00:23:36.260the guy felt empowered and understandably so given the context of the media and the culture
00:23:42.180to scream and stand over in a very aggressive manner and another human being so given that
00:23:49.600uh this is not an uncommon mindset and we've seen it over and over where people were proud of
00:23:54.940themselves uh to turn on their neighbors and call the authorities on them you know i had this tweet
00:23:59.920where there was a huge reaction to it um uh and i stand by completely one of the questions we always
00:24:06.060had in the West, and I'm sure everyone listening to this has thought about at one point in their
00:24:10.700life, is how did Nazism happen, right? Were the Germans uniquely evil? Was this something where
00:24:18.380they just, you know, everyone just like, I got to get along or else I'm the next target. And what
00:24:23.260we saw is that once enough of the kind of decision makers create an outclass or an enemy, very
00:24:31.660quickly everyone is champing at the bit to kind of join in on them so all these people on social
00:24:37.160media love to think that they're the ones who would be hiding Anne Frank in their attic but
00:24:41.180what we've seen is they not only would turn them in turn her in and her family they would go on
00:24:46.340social media boasting that they kind of turned in someone who's the enemy and I'm doing the right
00:24:51.680thing and I should receive accolades for it and that kind of uh scary aspect of the mindless
00:24:57.700malevolence which is so common to the average person who does not really a thinking being
00:25:03.240is something i think more of us are increasingly coming to grapple with now whether this is good
00:25:08.400or bad i think is secondary i think once you have data you have to accept it as a given and make
00:25:14.680decisions accordingly as opposed to thinking in some kind of weird leninist way well we can just
00:25:19.780remake these human beings and make them something they're not all the evidence i've seen is to the
00:25:24.320contrary, that these are roughly the equivalent of barking dogs. And if you have barking dogs,
00:25:29.860you have to deal with them as barking dogs. I'm not saying you put them down, but I'm saying,
00:25:33.980all right, we've got a lot of dogs in this neighborhood. What are we going to do about it?
00:25:38.260It's interesting because I put a tweet out exactly saying this very thing. What you've
00:25:42.560seen in the last 18 months is which side of the barbed wire fence you would have been on.
00:27:56.980I'm sorry, but I don't think Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, even if they were committed
00:28:03.020ideologues intent on spreading their, you know, agitprop, which I don't think they are to the
00:28:08.260full extent at all, are anything comparable to, you know, the Stalinist era and the CP,
00:28:15.120especially in Britain. It's, I don't, if you ask me what Mark Zuckerberg or Jack Dorsey's politics
00:28:21.780are, none of us know really fully. I would regard them as probably these kind of, you know,
00:28:27.360left of center, typical urban, you know, elites. But at worst, these people are nothing in terms of
00:28:35.740both their motivation and in terms of their vision of what a society should look like to be
00:28:42.160What about the fact that they can take down the president of the United States and prevent him
00:28:46.060from speaking to the people that he normally speaks to just like that? I'm not in favor of
00:28:51.060any politician being allowed to speak. And that's the glib answer. The serious answer is
00:28:57.760they are not in a position to completely censor the president. They're in a position to censor
00:29:04.040him. I don't even like using the word censor here, but they're in a position to block him
00:29:08.220from using their mechanisms to speak. But there's no shortage of alternative sources for him to have
00:29:16.100immediately been able to get his message out so even when they're doing their best they can't do
00:29:22.000anything about it meanwhile if you look at 70 years ago their entire schools of thought which
00:29:27.740were not only regard were completely invisible but were regarded as heretical and just nonsensical
00:29:32.780to even discuss so i think that i i do i'm not a utopian i look at improvement and progress in a
00:29:40.200context i think it's asymptotic but you i think that's what people uh we have kind of recency
00:29:46.020bias. Right. So we look at things that have they been the last 10 years. I'm taking the longer
00:29:51.060view. And I think if people do take that longer view and compare things to how they were to look
00:29:56.800at this, look at the winter discontent in Britain. I mean, in the 70s, you guys didn't have
00:30:01.640electricity. I mean, it's just bizarre. People don't realize because we have it so good now,
00:30:08.560even during these lockdowns, how bad it was basically yesterday. And we forget about it
00:30:15.620because we weren't there or because we're not living it. And that's just the 70s. That's even
00:30:19.680talking about the 40s and the 30s, which were just, compared to today, absolute nightmare dystopias.
00:30:25.900And do you think part of your worldview, Michael, is informed by your roots, as it were? The fact
00:30:31.780that you probably had parents, grandparents telling you about what it was like to live in
00:30:35.180the Soviet Union. So you have a point of comparison. I have the same, Constantine has the same. But
00:30:40.440the reality is for a lot of people growing up in America or the UK, they don't understand that
00:30:46.020because that has never been explained to them. Someone should write a book about that, don't
00:30:50.440you think? Yeah. So stay tuned. It'll be out within a year. That is something that you as
00:30:58.520a fellow countryman appreciate, the complete naivete of people in the West of just how bad
00:31:05.820it can get you're from venezuela i mean it's that's like the unspeakable horrors that are
00:31:11.380going there we're just completely oblivious to it uh there's this american idea like let's talk
00:31:18.020about the russian mindset versus the american mindset right i had a i have i pay a decent rent
00:31:23.140my rent's pretty low it's below the market because i'm a good tenant and i had an issue with my sink
00:31:27.900um and every american's like just go complain to your landlord and make him fix it and i go
00:31:32.860So from the Russian mindset, it's like, OK, if this costs him $100 to fix, he's just going to raise my rent by $100.
00:31:41.660So now I'm out $1,200 for the year instead of fixing it myself.
00:31:45.380This concept that authorities are self-serving and catching their attention is a bit like the eye of Sauron is something that in the West, maybe until last year, it never even entered their heads.
00:31:57.540But as those of us from Eastern Europe and from Venezuela appreciate, we do not have that perspective on authority as, you know, neutral or benevolent.
00:32:06.480We, you know, inherently are like, all right, I may have to pick up this snake, but I have to be aware that it has teeth.
00:32:13.720Yeah, well, it's funny you mentioned that you're writing a book about it.
00:32:16.960I'm also writing a book called An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West, covering much of the same ground.
00:32:22.560But we kind of hijacked you when you were on the train of thought about your optimism for the future.
00:32:29.160And part of that, I hear you, if you take the long view, absolutely, we live in better times than we have in the past.
00:32:35.860I guess the question I would have for you is one of the things we also know from the past is things can go from very good to very bad quite quickly.
00:32:44.340and a lot of the conversations we've had recently haven't exactly left us or our audience with it
00:32:50.260with the sense of optimism about the future so why are you optimistic that things will get better
00:32:55.680from here rather than a lot worse a lot very quickly sure so i think there's an increasing
00:33:01.380amount certainly in america i can't speak for britain although i would suspect it's the case
00:33:05.920there where uh the population by and large certainly the ones who are kind of intellectually
00:33:11.920curious have are just completely tuning out the agit prop coming out of corporate media and the
00:33:18.300universities and the politicians it's no long it used to be even 10 years ago uh someone put forth
00:33:24.300an issue and then you you spend time discussing the pros and cons of the issue now uh you
00:33:31.380increasingly especially with since trump uh you'll have some politician put forth an idea
00:33:37.160and it's dead on arrival there's not even a pretense that we're going to sit down and have
00:33:41.540this discussion. Increasingly, people think that the other team, correctly, is not engaging good
00:33:46.840faith. A good issue on this is gun legislation here in the States. Obviously, we are much more
00:33:51.780liberal in that subject in the classic liberal sense than they are in the UK. But for a long
00:33:57.100time, it used to be, all right, Democrats will put forth gun restrictions. The conservatives
00:34:02.600will argue about gun restrictions. Now conservatives are increasingly understanding, okay, this is just
00:34:08.720a nonsense article argument. There's no such thing as an assault weapon, AR-15. It's a standard
00:34:13.700weapon. So our answer isn't going to be to discuss things with you. We are going to put forth our
00:34:20.180bills. We are going to increase gun proliferation, which is the best answer to gun control. So at the
00:34:25.720end of the day, no matter what you guys are stamping your feet about, there's nothing you're
00:34:29.880going to be able to do about it. So that kind of change in tactics to, as opposed to we're going
00:34:36.340to argue issue by issue, as now we're going to look at your techniques, disarm them, and make
00:34:42.500sure you can't use them in the future. That is very, very healthy. Ann Coulter, who's obviously
00:34:47.760a very controversial figure, who says things very provocatively, made a good point in one of her
00:34:52.800books where she said, if you're a Republican, the New York Times isn't calling you racist,
00:34:57.400you're losing. There have been school shootings in America, which is something that is just
00:35:02.860unspeakably horrible and tragic and whenever these things happen immediately the next day
00:35:08.480you'll have politicians trying to leverage this to argue for gun control and this used to be for
00:35:13.260the gun rights people something that would knock them on their heels and there was a huge media
00:35:17.860campaign after um there was a school shooting in florida david hogg and all these kids you know
00:35:22.900regard as propaganda figures we should listen to the children because somehow they know what
00:35:26.240they're talking about why i don't know why they're in school i don't understand if they're so wise
00:35:29.280just like Greta Thunberg but that's a separate issue and there was no no I was shocked um back
00:35:36.360and forth on the gun rights issue they're like yeah we're not having this conversation and this
00:35:40.360is when the bodies were still warm so to have that kind of change where you know they're not
00:35:46.980engaging good faith they're not letting a tragedy go to waste we need to take these people at face
00:35:51.780value that's fallen away and that I think is a much more effective strategy where you understand
00:35:58.500all right there's always going to be a group you could they could call themselves republican they
00:36:03.880call themselves democrat who are interested in oppression and putting forth their cockamamie
00:36:08.880schemes onto the population and there's increasing people who are like all right what mechanisms can
00:36:15.040we put in place that whatever bs they put forward in the future they're not going to be able to do
00:36:20.520anything about it here's another great example there was a lot of hand-wringing in 2016 about
00:36:25.340the american election putin putin putin the russians the russians the russians it was not
00:36:30.920legitimate 2020 the day after the election oh this was the most honest election in history
00:36:36.680somehow trump in four years went from being complete corrupt to being a complete angel when
00:36:41.920it comes to uh democracy i don't know how they managed to talk out of both sides of their mouth
00:36:47.960but they don't care it's whatever furthers their agenda at the moment increasingly uh because many
00:36:53.220of these ballots were mailed in, which is open to fraud. I'm not at all claiming that there was
00:36:57.480systematic fraud. Different Republican states are putting mechanisms in place to restrict
00:37:03.840one's ability to vote. There's a, oh my God, this is racism, the Klan, Nazism, blah, blah, blah.
00:37:11.160But they're realizing you're going to be called racist Nazi Klan regardless. We might as well
00:37:16.840change the rules so that we win because we're paying the cost of having this outrage and
00:37:22.940insults and beratement, we might as well reap the benefits. So that kind of approach is, I think,
00:37:28.320a big sea change from how things used to be 10 years ago. And that is one big reason for optimism,
00:37:35.080a change in strategy for those of us who are in favor of freedom, which I do not regard as
00:37:40.440synonymous with democracy, of course, and opposed to, you know, what Menchus Malbuck calls the
00:37:45.480cathedral. But Michael, let me push back on that somewhat, because isn't debating ideas the very
00:37:51.920foundation of our society and by debating ideas don't you find that actually you find where the
00:37:58.160strengths are to your argument you find out where the weaknesses are and you find actually you truly
00:38:02.960find what out what you think because you have your ideas challenged and the second part of the
00:38:08.480pushback is the weapons that you use against your opponents will invariably you be used against you
00:38:14.640when they are in power yeah sure so first of all i don't think the basis of a society good ideas
00:38:20.780the basis of a good society is peace. And I think the biggest threat to peace is the state.
00:38:25.920It is only the state that can wage murder in a systematic way. It is only the state that can
00:38:30.420wage theft in a systematic way, both through theft and taxation, excuse me, and something
00:38:35.000called asset forfeiture. I don't know if you have that over there. Over here, we have something
00:38:38.260called asset forfeiture, which is a very bizarre legal system, which is if I'm a police officer
00:38:44.500and I believe that you used your car, your house, your bank account in furtherance of the drug
00:38:49.480trade. I can seize it. It is added to my budget. And then you have to go through a whole legal
00:38:55.360process, although you don't have any money or a car anymore, to try to get it back. And as a result
00:39:00.820of this, the total of asset forfeiture has now in America surpassed the total of all burglaries
00:39:05.620combined. So that sort of thing is something that has to change immediately. I'm not interested in
00:39:11.780having the right ideas or the wrong ideas. That is secondary to me in terms of putting food on the
00:39:17.600table, being secure in my person, all these other things. I'm perfectly happy being wrong
00:39:24.320as long as I have Maslow's hierarchy of needs being met. There's lots of people who have
00:39:30.920disparate ideas in every country. By definition, many of them are going to be wrong. I still want
00:39:36.300them to have food and I still want them to be secure in their property and their person and
00:39:40.100their family. So that is much more primary than having the right ideas. Well, I'm sorry. In terms
00:39:44.980of the tactics yeah it is my view that the enemy class will use any tactics in its capacity up to
00:39:53.660and including mass murder and once you realize this is what you're up against you have to start
00:39:59.180fighting back so i do not agree for one second uh that the villains in in either of our respective
00:40:05.360countries the only thing that is restraining them is their inability or they're not having a need
00:40:11.320at the moment to put these um tactics into practice but in terms of them like kind of oh
00:40:17.960should we really do this i don't think that's a concern in their part at all they genuinely if you
00:40:22.760watch those footage from belgium uh where there were people sitting in a public park and police
00:40:28.340on horseback were clubbing old men in the face because they're outside in a park uh i don't
00:40:34.660think you can put anything past these people uh aren't there was talk wasn't there talk in britain
00:40:40.220of going door to door to make sure people were staying home or being vaccinated. There was talk
00:40:45.080of that here. It's just, I don't see how you could put anything past these people.
00:40:49.420So Michael, I want to ask you actually a question, a longer question, but the short question is who
00:40:54.440are they? Sure. So it's the power structure. It's the ruling class. So who is that exactly?
00:41:01.960Sure. It would be the universities. So how it's, the ideas start the universities,
00:41:06.200which are literal monasteries of the progressive faith.
00:41:09.160They're promulgated and turned into kind of sleeper cells
00:41:12.420or shock troops via the media and entertainment industries
00:41:16.780where a certain mindset is regarded as not as true and just a given.
00:41:23.280And then it's promulgated further through government schools
00:46:51.540because their argument is all right we can't have a totalitarian dictatorship voted overnight
00:46:57.380but what we can do is death by a million cuts little by little we implement these ideas and
00:47:04.960by the time we're done we're going to have everything within the context of the state
00:47:09.380later they were realized you know maybe if we're calling ourselves a wolf of sheep clothing we're
00:47:14.380showing our hands so they change their mascot to a turtle or a tortoise rather um but that
00:47:20.400These people are playing the long game they have for 100 years.
00:47:24.400They've been after everyone's children for over a century.
00:47:27.900The whole point of government schooling is, in their words, to create good citizens, which is a euphemism for breaking young independent minds, banishing critical thought from their psyche, and making them malleable, subservient, and interchangeable with everyone else.
00:47:44.440They got the idea from Bismarck and the Prussian model where his idea was, OK, let's take schools and basically create an army starting from age five kindergarten.
00:47:54.080There's a reason why it's a German word.
00:47:56.240So I think when people realize how long this has been going on and how systemic and deep these roots go, there's going to be a lot of epiphanies in terms of what the consequences of this have been.
00:48:09.160All right. So these evangelical progressives, as you call them, I was just coming back to the question that I'm still desperately trying to ask, but I appreciate the clarifications because they are important.
00:48:22.860They have been using these tactics against the rest of society or whoever it is that they're targeting them at.
00:48:31.140And now you are optimistic because some of the people who are, in terms of the examples that you gave in America, identifiably on the right, the people who care about gun rights, etc., etc., they are now fighting back and ignoring the tactics and not, they're essentially not complicit in their own demonization anymore, right?
00:48:53.220They're refusing to play along in this stupid game.
00:48:56.200Now, if I play that movie forward, there's two ways that ends. And I know you're a big advocate for one of them. Either you get a civil war or you get a peaceful separation of the United States into red states and blue states.
00:49:09.360that's that's a that's a medium-term goal yes i mean and this claim this it's a so one of the
00:49:15.480lies we hear here in the states is that any kind of national separation has to be done violently
00:49:21.780uh and they're like can you give me one example of a country where allowed secession it's like
00:49:26.980yeah czechoslovakia brexit norway and sweden these were all done very peacefully and everyone lived
00:49:33.500happily ever after as a result brexit of course was not a smooth transition but it was hardly you
00:49:38.420know violent uh or you know a civil a lot of milkshakes got thrown man a lot of milkshakes
00:49:43.260went flying a little bit of epithets were hold on twitter yeah yeah so but i mean you yeah yeah
00:49:48.620but i mean the joke is important because one of the techniques they use is look as bad as thing
00:49:56.240if i had the choice between the status quo and another american civil war i would probably choose
00:50:03.700the status quo because this a civil war was just a complete nightmare situation the loss of life
00:50:10.120and property and and recovery was unconscionable so it's behooves them uh you know it's the kind
00:50:16.960of like you don't want your battered wife to leave it's like baby you're not going to find
00:50:20.560anyone else who's going to love you as much as i do and at a certain point you realize oh this is
00:50:25.620a lie they're saying this because they realize i do have other options and they have to persuade
00:50:30.720me to stay because they have to paint the alternative as full of just blood and destruction.
00:50:36.660And when you realize that there's plenty of contemporary counterexamples and, you know,
00:50:42.100who's going to do what, who has the will to do this, it becomes very clear which option
00:50:47.560I'll ask a final question in this line of discussion, because this is interesting to
00:50:51.740explore intellectually, if nothing else.
00:50:54.000There seems to me the obvious contradiction in your argument is that you've got these
00:50:58.340people that you refer to who will use any means including up to and including mass murder.
00:51:04.280And at the same time, you think they will let half the United States go peacefully
00:51:08.400if it so chooses. That doesn't seem to square to me.
00:51:12.740So Al-Qaeda is a good example. Al-Qaeda would have no problem committing mass murder. They
00:51:17.020just don't have the power to do so. So at a certain point, it becomes a matter of do they
00:51:21.600have the will do they have the capacity uh and i and the more people are becoming aware that this
00:51:28.640is a situation the harder it's going to be to pull off their uh bullcrap you had in the american
00:51:35.860civil war you know they fought there was it was not at all inevitable uh what happened was the
00:51:41.540south had something called fort sumter which was the north considered northern property they had
00:51:45.580barricaded and then they fired a shot we wouldn't have been in world war ii rightly or wrongly and
00:51:52.120i'm not at all implying that it was the wrong thing to do without the attack on pearl harbor
00:51:56.560right previously to pearl harbor this is a european war we just did that with woodrow
00:52:01.220wilson the great war why are we killing ourselves for them again we just went through this this was
00:52:05.880a complete calamity then there's a strike and it's like all arms uh on deck so it's not at all
00:52:12.060inevitable that there would be a violence at all or that if there was violence it would necessarily
00:52:18.540lead to a large scale it could be very the civil war for example is a good example when there when
00:52:23.960it first started uh the south the confederates who i do not at all regard as the heroes let me be
00:52:29.180clear had an opportunity to seize washington take over the white house and hold lincoln captive
00:52:35.180they were so invested in their ideology of national sovereignty that they felt okay if we cross this
00:52:42.880line across this rubicon we're going to be hypocrites so they didn't do it if they had done it
00:52:48.080and kind of been a little bit hypocritical the war could have been resolved very very quickly
00:52:52.380so it's not at all the case that if there is a conflict that it has to be that long or that and
00:53:00.160Even if they win, look at it this way. Let's suppose there's like 100,000 people who agree with me who want separation. If they're put down with great force, which I am terrified to imagine, that still wouldn't have to take five years. It could be resolved very quickly. So it's all a matter of willpower. And that, I think, there's a decreasing amount on behalf of some of these people, certainly among the masses.
00:53:26.520So, Michael, the question I want to ask is what part do the corporations play in this?
00:53:31.060Because there's many people who argue the corporations are now far more powerful than any government.
00:53:35.400We can see this with regard to taxation.
00:53:37.820They essentially do what they want, how they want, whenever they want.
00:53:41.940They don't do what they want, however they want, because they can't come in your house and kill you.
00:53:45.720One of the tweets I had, which I certainly think, is that corporate America has done a far better job of spreading Maoism than the Chinese Communist Party ever dreamed of in the States.
00:53:58.040So when the riots were happening here, I tweeted out that they're about 48 hours from getting corporate sponsorship.
00:54:05.320It was within minutes when that ended up happening.
00:54:08.020But I mean, you laugh, but growing up, we were all taught that corporations are basically like mild Republicans.
00:54:17.460They're kind of the fat guy with the cigar, whoever pops out to the golf course or like Mitt Romney, you know, or like David Cameron.
00:54:25.680Right. Like that's the corporations. It's this kind of vaguely right of center, doesn't want to ruffle feathers, you know, just wants business and everyone to get along.
00:54:34.000And it's kind of this milquetoast mindset. What we're seeing instead is given that corporations are almost exclusively manned by people who are the products of these universities, which are spreading these depraved, malevolent ideas, once they're in place, this is Gramsci's march through the institutions, then they are going to, without having to have anyone in their earpiece, organically spreading this kind of ideology and philosophy.
00:55:01.500now does that mean we have to raise harvard to the ground no does that mean does that mean it
00:55:09.640would probably be a net benefit yes wow so you think that because surely that we can reform
00:55:17.960institutions can we not michael or create alternatives or create alternatives at the
00:55:22.040very least that's the one okay go for it explain why we create alternatives and how and how and not
00:55:28.820reform institutions? I think some institutions are inherently irredeemable. And I think it's
00:55:34.500also useful in terms of morale to watch them raised and burned to the ground, because that's
00:55:39.880a concrete victory that people who are less intelligent can point to and regard as an
00:55:45.220accomplishment. In a very evil sense, if you look at 9-11, that must have been incredibly motivating
00:55:51.100for the terrorist class in the Middle East, because North Korea, that's the book I wrote,
00:55:55.580obviously, dear reader, what they often talk about is we're a shrimp among whales, that we're a tiny
00:56:01.600country, and yet we're giving the finger both to China and to the United States. And from their
00:56:08.220perspective, there's something to that. They're punching way above their weight class. So I think
00:56:13.020many institutions are inherently evil. They've been evil for a very long time. Their complicity
00:56:20.760in things like, uh, the Ukrainian genocide, uh, you know, Hitler, uh, Stalin is something they've
00:56:27.000never had accountability for. And I'm not interested in accepting their apologies, uh,
00:56:33.080this many years after the fact for what they've done. I'm interested in watching them, uh, be
00:56:38.760destroyed and suffer in the process. And how do we create alternatives? That's my Soviet mindset
00:56:43.080coming through. Yes, I can, I can feel that. Uh, but we, we talked about creating alternative
00:56:48.620institutions. How do you do that? I mean, how does anyone create anything? You have,
00:56:55.720I have an idea, I get capital, I put my shingle up and then I attract people to
00:57:01.580my venue. Creating alternatives to universities is going to be increasingly easy because for
00:57:10.140example, I had a fan who, I'm going to show all of our age now. He sent me a contribution. He said,
00:57:17.160oh, can I interview you for my school paper? I looked at his Twitter, the kid's in high school.
00:57:21.040I'm like, kid, I'm not taking money from you. And he goes, no, no, no. I have a hundred grand in the
00:57:24.940bank. I do e-commerce, right? So it's very hard to tell this person, you should go to university
00:57:31.960for four years. And if I'm an interviewer, a recruiter, and I have two resumes, this person
00:57:38.560went to Cambridge and this kid in high school is making a hundred grand a year because he invented
00:57:44.500a website, who would I want to hire? Now, the Harvard guy is going to, or the Cambridge guy,
00:57:48.860excuse me, is going to have technical knowledge and he's going to bring a lot to the table.
00:57:51.940It's no question. But in terms of being competitive, it is not at all clear to me,
00:57:56.660or I don't think to anyone, that it's clearly the Cambridge guy who you want to choose from,
00:58:01.240as opposed to, let's suppose, 40 years ago, it would have been absolutely clear where,
00:58:05.500okay, this kid's some young entrepreneur who made some butcher shop. This guy went to Cambridge.
00:58:11.220If I'm playing roulette, I'm putting my money on Cambridge.
00:58:14.500There we go. I mean, Michael, it has been an absolutely fascinating interview. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We've got a couple of questions for our local supporters after this, but our interviews always end with the same question, which is, what's the one thing we're not talking about, but we really should be?
00:58:31.100um that's a great question i'm not a big should person but i think what the issue that i think
00:58:40.500is the least discussed is the increasing inability in european parliaments which is going to spread
00:58:48.160to the states to form coalitions uh you saw it in the swedish elections you saw in the italian
00:58:53.760elections on the czech elections um increasingly we used to and you're seeing in germany now where
00:58:59.820the elections are going to be in September, and for the first time in German history,
00:59:03.500they're going to have to almost certainly have a three-party coalition, whereas historically
00:59:08.440it's always been one. And then under Merkel, she's had to have a coalition with the Social
00:59:11.640Democrats. This inability to form a majority, well, Iceland's another example, a majority in
00:59:18.540terms of putting forth the state's vision, I think is a very healthy thing to the breakdown