In this episode, we discuss the new satirical book, "Supreme Leadership Guide for the Aspiring Authoritarian" by Canadian comedian and political activist, Michael O'Leary. The book is a satirical look at the decline of democracy and the rise of authoritarianism in post-secondary education.
00:00:00.000So I do appreciate the book and the title. I got to admit, I haven't gotten a copy here fast enough. But yes, the Supreme Leadership Guide for the Aspiring Authoritarian. So lots of tips and tricks, I imagine. I mean, this has been a void that needs to be filled. I mean, there is no dictatorship one or one or, you know, how to be a tyrant in post-secondary education. So you've given aspiring dictators the means now to start figuring out how to get into that world of authoritarianism.
00:00:25.540Yeah, I used my secondary education to, you know, do good for a while. And then I decided to turn it towards the evil. So it was a good way to transition from my degree in, advanced degree in international relations and democracy and governance and go, hey, what if we just turn this around for a little bit and see what it looks like?
00:00:50.500And look, the real fun about this is it's not just a satirical humor book, but it's showing a little bit about the decay of democracy that I've seen in my work.
00:01:03.840You know, I've been in this industry for about 12 years now, and it's interesting to see for people who aren't in this industry to see, hey, look, this is how quickly you can see your government and your democracy be exploited by just one person or a group of elites.
00:01:28.260It's it's pretty quick. I was supposed to say individual liberties.
00:01:34.200I mean, we've kind of seen more challenges in this last couple of years than we have probably in decades for a number of reasons, I guess.
00:01:39.960But there's nothing like a great emergency to give the authoritarian minded the inspiration to try and see how far they can push the limits.
00:01:47.100And I just like things being brought up. You know, you can have a tongue in cheek way and still examine a serious message.
00:01:52.340Absolutely. I think, you know, one of the things that I've learned in my work and I've been in government for 12 years in intelligence agencies with nonprofits and a lot of people look at government and democracy.
00:02:09.740And they they they get bored because, you know, most of the books about it are 400 pages and they're dry as hell.
00:02:18.080And what I'm trying to show here is that for, you know, the common person here, this this is how easy it is for someone to take over your rights and your freedoms.
00:02:31.500Like it's it's it's incredibly easy and it's happening more often now.
00:02:35.980I you know, the the impetus for this book came in 2010 when the Arab Spring happened.
00:02:42.180We all thought social media was going to support the improvement of people's lives and it ended up giving a a method for dictators to utilize it to take more power.
00:02:58.160Yeah, well, information, I mean, it can cut both ways.
00:03:00.900I mean, you know, I don't expect you to know too many on Canadian issues, but things that we've got coming down from Parliament, it's kind of scary lately.
00:03:07.200We've got a bill coming forth that is going to give customs agents the power to force you to give the password to your phone or tablet when you're crossing the border so they can look within it in case you're carrying any information that's not supposed to come into the country.
00:03:21.840Again, people brush that off saying I got nothing to hide.
00:03:23.800Well, careful, guys, this is you know, your whole world is on these digital devices now, and this is a government that feels entitled to go and look into it.
00:03:32.100Yeah, it's it's you make a good point, Corey, it this is this is the modern version of how dictators control the message and its information.
00:03:43.520And that's what we've seen air spring 12 years ago, we saw we thought Twitter and social media was going to actually support the prominence of democracy.
00:03:57.700And instead, dictators and dictator wannabes have used it to actually either delay the information, remove the information, create misinformation or disinformation.
00:04:12.600And we see that with Russia. We see that with China. We see that with the West now that it's been struggling with it.
00:04:18.840You know, six years. I mean, I'm the US, you're Canada. We see it.
00:04:22.500Yeah, well, then we see sometimes dictators come into power through a revolution or a big turnover or a military coup or something like that.
00:04:30.440But it seems with us in the Western world, we're doing it more with a incremental frog in water sort of approach.
00:04:35.280But the outcome is going to be the same if we don't pay attention pretty soon.
00:04:38.440Yeah, you're absolutely right. It's it's it's not as slow moving as we think.
00:04:44.440We see it in the developing world in the Middle East and we go, well, that wouldn't happen to us.
00:04:49.840But it's happening. It's been happening for decades and it's just been a little bit slower because we've had the institutions and infrastructure to avoid it where the developing world hasn't.
00:05:03.540But it's it's coming and it's becoming easier and easier for them because people don't know what the hell is going on anymore.
00:05:11.460It's it's and I hate to just push on social media because here we are on social media doing this, but it's taking complex situations and driving them down to 280 characters.
00:06:12.400Those are fundamental rights for people to to exist in the world today.
00:06:17.560And Internet and social media as a subset of that is a fundamental right.
00:06:26.160And dictators are using that or want to be dictators, you know, wherever you make the line in life is they're using that as a way to deny rights here.
00:06:39.560And that's what we've been seeing. And I mean, you need that to do work.
00:06:43.460You need that to pay bills. You need that to basically communicate these days.
00:06:49.760And we're seeing that utilize more and more against the people who need it.
00:06:56.140And you make a good point. I just want to add this additional point because my second book is going to be So You Want to Be a Capitalist.
00:07:04.240And I think you probably agree with me that they and dictators probably match.
00:07:12.880You know, this isn't against capitalism. This is against the people who abuse capitalism in that way.
00:07:19.120Yeah. Well, there's this crony capitalism and there's you know, you couldn't call the oligarchs in Russia proper capitalists.
00:07:25.400I mean, they're entrenched with a dictatorial government.
00:07:27.980But they use capitalism as a way to get there.
00:07:30.260Yeah. You can't open a corner store and compete with one of those guys. You'll find it burned to the ground all of a sudden.
00:07:35.140So it's kind of a misnomer to call it capitalism.
00:07:37.540Yeah. Well, Putin's 7-Eleven is great. But I mean, yeah.
00:07:41.440Yeah. Well, and it's funny. I got to actually travel the Soviet Union at the end of the 80s before they sort of sort of open up, I guess you could say.
00:07:49.400At least, you know, it was formerly Soviet at that time.
00:07:51.120And when we crossed the border, they searched the bags. This is typical in customs.
00:07:55.520But the difference was they weren't looking for drugs and contraband like that.
00:07:58.720They were looking for books and cassettes because information was everything.
00:08:02.500They wanted to make sure the citizens never saw what's happening outside.
00:08:05.720They got their source from Pravda. They got their cassettes from local.
00:08:09.400God, I couldn't imagine how terrible the Russian bands were.
00:08:12.820But just the extreme lengths they went to to make sure that this sort of stuff didn't come in shows that how important they realize that information is.
00:08:19.780And dictators today realize the same thing. And that source of information now is the digital world.
00:08:24.960Yeah, it really is. I mean, we we have a digital science dot. I mean, and and that's that's a big thing.
00:08:33.900And and dictators have been able and and and, you know, want to be dictators have utilized it so well.
00:08:45.000And not only that, not just social media, but just controlling the Internet.
00:08:48.600I mean, you talk about Myanmar, they they can shut down.
00:08:52.920They shut down the Internet. Turkey shut down the Internet.
00:08:55.920Iran shut down the Internet so they could just control it because that's the only way to communicate anymore.
00:09:02.440I mean, you can't just share pieces of paper across that to build a following.
00:11:53.800I think, you know, I I can't say I'm, you know, a full libertarian here, but I think that there's there there is a balance here.
00:12:03.960And I'm a little bit disappointed in the way that it government kind of takes the the full attack on everything versus the full freedom that,
00:12:20.720And I think that we we tend to forget the world of regulation.
00:12:26.320And, you know, there's I mean, that's how society works to to an extent.
00:12:32.400I just think the government tends to get to, you know, overbearing at a time.
00:12:41.360And and then that causes a bad reaction from everyone in the US is a is a great example.
00:12:50.000And again, I'm not an expert on Canadian politics, but I assume, you know, that it's a similar thing.
00:12:59.000You know, here in the West, we've just we're starting to see that we're starting to see that, you know, tension, if that makes sense.
00:13:08.680Yeah, our Western democracies are all sort of grappling with similar issues.
00:13:12.760I mean, we'll have some some nuances between our constitutions and things like that.
00:13:16.480But for the most part, you know, we've got similar, particularly Canada, the United States, similar cultures and governance systems and challenges,