Western Standard - Hey Censors Hands Off James Bond!

00:00:00.000 it's Creighton here David Creighton that's how James Bond always introduced himself I'm sure

00:00:12.360 you remember and can easily recognize the theme from James Bond fantastic piece of music great

00:00:21.360 jazz by the way but everybody I think on earth who has ever watched movies knows that theme song and

00:00:29.340 know James Bond and I'm by the way I must confess I'm not packing a Walther PPK or her Peretta because

00:00:40.380 you know how gun laws are in Canada and I probably have the cops knocking at my door looking for

00:00:46.620 weapons if I had any such thing on me right now so I haven't even got a cigarette I have a cigar over

00:00:54.300 there but no cigarettes but it all comes down to why am I here today we're talking about how the

00:01:01.740 estate of Ian Fleming the author of all those James Bond films wants to censor his work this is

00:01:10.800 absolutely outrageous and I have to say I am a huge fan of Ian Fleming as a man and as a novelist because

00:01:20.280 he was a fascinating character absolutely fascinating he served in naval intelligence

00:01:25.200 during the Second World War but prior to that he spent six years in Moscow during the height of the

00:01:32.400 Stalinist purges as a reporter for Reuters and this is really how he learned how to write in the manner 0.70

00:01:41.220 he did which was succinct and precise and you always understood what Ian Fleming was trying to say and if

00:01:48.660 you've read his novels no there's not a hint of pornography in them there's not a there's not a hint of

00:01:54.840 egregious violence or sex in his novels what they describe is a man named James Bond who is ruthless and

00:02:07.140 cunning highly intelligent physically fit but also likes a smoke drink and womanize and this is what makes 0.99

00:02:18.480 his character so fascinating I must say have I read them all yes a couple of years ago if you can see

00:02:25.800 this without the the glare I went and bought these let's get them balanced here the completes a complete

00:02:34.800 set of the Ian Fleming James Bond novels now I had read James Bond over the years but sparingly and I had

00:02:43.680 not read the minor works I think I read Dr. No and I read from Russia with love and a few others but but

00:02:51.660 I sat down a couple of summers ago and I read every Ian Fleming James Bond novel in succession from the

00:02:58.800 first to the last so I could say I did it you know much like the way I've read all of Dostoevsky

00:03:06.060 because I said I want to read them all if I'm going to talk about these things read them and in

00:03:13.380 Fleming's the same way and you read these books and you say my god this man knows how to write it's

00:03:18.480 because he honed his writing he as a reporter and in those days reporters are reporters they were very

00:03:26.460 objective and they got to the news quickly and that's what the James Bond novels are not I'd like they're not

00:03:32.740 written for children obviously and I'm not saying they're simple or simplistic but they're very clear

00:03:38.120 much like a John Kennedy speech and we're going to put this all together in a minute how this is all

00:03:44.600 related and and but I'm I'm telling you when you start censoring somebody's work it is should be

00:03:51.840 anathema we do not censor people's works read them or don't read them you don't like them don't read

00:03:59.060 them like them or hate them but for God's sake don't change them to suit the current taste which

00:04:07.760 right now to me is deplorable but James Bond if they're going to start attacking the books you can

00:04:15.980 imagine they're going to start attacking the films next and you think they can't do this with CGI and the

00:04:24.360 way we can computer generate imagery you can bet that they can take scenes out and add new scenes

00:04:32.820 and will this happen of course it will this is the insane society we're living in but it's got to stop

00:04:40.080 and I say let's make this the hill no way are they touching James Bond hands off the James Bond novels and

00:04:49.260 the James Bond movies you can just remember how James Bond is introduced in 1962's Dr. No and the

00:04:58.260 unforgettable Sean Connery is playing James Bond he's gambling in a private club in London in a casino

00:05:07.560 and he's asked his name and he and he has a cigarette in his hand and he says Bond James Bond and that's the

00:05:19.020 introduction that has led to the most successful series of films in the history of mankind and they'll

00:05:24.960 can I don't like the the current James Bond and I God help us if they politically change James Bond in the

00:05:34.560 future which I'm sure they will want to do but Sean Connery for me is the archetypical James Bond I also

00:05:41.220 like Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan because when I was a young man I used to be mistaken for Pierce Brosnan

00:05:48.180 when he was doing Remington Steel so so I've got my tux on today I used to wear this as a singer and this

00:05:56.760 brings us to another thing what does James Bond represent especially since the film came out 1962 what else was

00:06:04.020 popular well president named Jane John F Kennedy who happened to say he had just read Dr. No and from

00:06:11.840 Russia with love and this this of course catapulted the sales of James Bond in the United States through

00:06:18.840 the roof at the same and who is John Kennedy's favorite singer Frank Sinatra and what was Frank Sinatra

00:06:26.460 doing in 1962 playing Las Vegas and quite often he was joining his friends Dean Martin Sammy Davis Jr and

00:06:35.280 Peter Lawford as part of the Rat Pack and this was a heck of a good time and I'll tell you what why do we

00:06:44.880 look back on on the early 60s the Kennedy years with such fondness and such envy because we understood

00:06:53.160 the roles of men and women we understood that men were men and women were women there is no 0.54

00:06:59.760 confusion about sexuality there is no real questions being asked we did not have this huge desire for

00:07:14.580 children to change their sex and or the gender there was there was clearness clarity about these issues

00:07:24.060 and my god when you listen to Frank Sinatra doing fly me to the moon you know it understands who he is

00:07:34.320 as a man and John F Kennedy loved that sort of thing and the Kennedy administration was quite clear the best and

00:07:40.380 the brightest but it all comes down to though whether a lot you're listening to Frank Sinatra singing a

00:07:45.540 tune or John F Kennedy making a speech or reading Ian Fleming the English is impeccable and it's quite

00:07:57.540 clear what they're trying to say we live in a society today where politicians don't have a clue in hell what

00:08:04.620 they're trying to say they're trying to please everybody at the same time they're trying to

00:08:09.000 appease portions of the population they don't even understand or have no connection with so what do we

00:08:15.780 have we have word salads and in the music world we have people repeating the same word over and over and

00:08:22.000 over again and the music getting louder and louder and louder and and novels today I don't think there's

00:08:29.380 anybody really with the clarity of Ian Fleming writing novels today but this is a foregone period that we

00:08:36.140 all look back on and say my god I wish we could get back there we could find our way back to some of

00:08:42.020 some of the euphoria and the can-do attitude of those years because we're running in circles today

00:08:49.900 now I'm not saying I agree with everything Ian Fleming wrote in his novels I'm not saying that

00:08:59.500 everything about 1960 to 62 was perfect yes of course there were issues and there were problems

00:09:07.120 and of course there's portions of Ian Fleming's books that I certainly wouldn't repeat today but I tell

00:09:15.340 you I don't give a damn about that I want to know what people thought in 1962 or 1956 I want to know

00:09:24.560 what those attitudes were I don't want the books changed to reflect attitudes today because believe

00:09:29.840 me in 10 years time we're going to be looking back on 2020 to 2023 as dark years where we could not focus

00:09:38.440 on real things that we had biological men competing in women's sports and we had biological men

00:09:46.120 taking their clothes off and little girls change rooms and saying how the heck did this ever happen 0.90

00:09:52.300 how did we get there why couldn't we focus on real things like keeping people employed and fed

00:10:00.100 and motivated what happened to our society so don't change it now because 10 years from now we're going

00:10:07.680 to have to change it right back and this is what makes it all so incredibly banal and but in the larger

00:10:16.320 picture this is so Orwellian this is so Orwellian and I was I was noting a column the other day

00:10:26.160 written for MSNBC and the entire piece was a string of cliches just strung together and it reminded me of

00:10:36.720 George Orwell's wonderful essay politics in the English language and I encourage anybody who is

00:10:44.640 a journalist to read that now Orwell always called himself a socialist but he was never a socialist

00:10:50.720 who buried the truth and it wasn't afraid to criticize other socialists and he hated the way so many left

00:10:58.400 leaning writers wrote and he said so that people basically just strung together slogans

00:11:07.760 and a bunch of words that in the end didn't mean anything anymore and this is exactly how a lot of

00:11:13.840 people write today especially politicians how they speak today it's all talking points that are meaningless

00:11:18.960 and we need to get back to words that have meaning that are grounded in substantive

00:11:27.520 comprehensive speech and that we don't have anymore and Orwell is never more relevant than he is in 2023

00:11:37.680 not only with the way people write their columns today and their books today but the way politicians speak

00:11:44.240 today and get your hands off books because this is what Orwell imagined in 1984 that they would be

00:11:51.200 redefining and reimagining the past they wouldn't just destroy the present they weren't satisfied with

00:11:59.200 destroying the present they had to put their hands on history they had to put their hands on the way people

00:12:04.560 wrote and what was said 10 20 30 years ago and that is completely destructive it's fetid it is diseased it is 0.58

00:12:15.600 contrary to all good sense and all good democratic values of free speech and free thought and we are killing

00:12:26.320 ourselves with this and i tell you i wanted to stop and i think it's time that we said

00:12:35.520 enough is enough and with that it's creighton david creighton

00:12:46.960 canadian shooting sports association without the cssa our gun rights would have been taken long 1.00

00:12:52.720 long ago these guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and

00:12:59.680 legislation in canada and more importantly educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands

00:13:05.360 of the wrong people who become a member it's absolutely worth every penny

00:13:20.320 fantastic

00:13:24.240 so

00:13:31.280 well

Western Standard - March 08, 2023

Hey Censors Hands Off James Bond!

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