Western Standard - The Pipeline - Episode 3 - Iran, World War 3, Missiles and Ricky Gervais

00:00:00.000 Welcome to The Western Standard's The Pipeline. My name is Paul Holmes and I'm the digital editor

00:00:15.180 of The Western Standard coming to you from Victoria, British Columbia. Joining me today

00:00:20.480 is Derek Fildebrandt, publisher of The Western Standard coming to you from Calgary, Alberta.

00:00:25.560 How are things in lovely Calgary, Alberta today, Derek? It's snowing in nearly negative 50.

00:00:32.540 Well, fantastic. This is The Western Standard's weather report. Make sure you stay warm.

00:00:39.580 Outstanding. So this is, of course, our weekly show. We're going to cover a few topics today,

00:00:48.300 Iran being the big topic of the week. And we're going to touch a little bit on the Golden Globes

00:00:55.400 because, hey, why not? And then we're going to talk a little bit about the Trans Mountain Pipeline

00:01:00.780 and the committee of the United Nations that condemned said pipeline as well. So without

00:01:07.980 further ado, let's get on with the show. Derek, we all woke up one morning or went to bed one evening

00:01:15.160 hearing about Iran and suddenly it was World War III trending on Twitter. What's going on?

00:01:23.140 Well, I was a bit alarmed yesterday when Google Ads algorithms had matched up the Iran stories we

00:01:32.160 were covering yesterday on The Western Standard with advertisements for a World War III simulation

00:01:37.400 game. So I thought that Google might know something that we don't. So I was a bit concerned. But yeah,

00:01:45.020 it's obviously been a mess in the Middle East with the Iran situation now. Until this morning, I actually 0.98

00:01:52.740 didn't see much of a way to disentangle this from continuing to escalate. Trump says Iran is blinked,

00:01:58.780 but it actually looks to me like Trump is blinked, which is very surprising to me. His whole personality,

00:02:04.960 for better or worse, is not the type to back away from the ledge here.

00:02:09.860 I mean, the drone strike on the Iranian general Suleimani, his first name I cannot pronounce, that

00:02:19.420 was in the American view of retaliation for the attack on the US embassy from Iranian sponsored

00:02:24.800 militias in Baghdad. The Iranians did not see the scores even after Suleimani was taken out. He was a big 0.93

00:02:31.760 deal. He was their top general. And they sought to even the score with a missile attack, a ballistic

00:02:40.700 missile attack on a few US air bases in Iraq, where Canadians are stationed as well. And this has

00:02:48.260 kind of gone unnoticed that this is, unless I'm mistaken, this is the first conventional military attack on

00:02:58.200 a US base since Pearl Harbor. This hasn't happened in peacetime. So I wouldn't be counting, you know,

00:03:05.400 an attack on a base in Afghanistan, the Americans set up or in Vietnam during war times there. But

00:03:11.880 during peacetime, if we could call this peacetime, this would be the, this is the first conventional

00:03:17.280 military attack on a US base since Pearl Harbor. No one was killed. And Trump has emphasized that. But

00:03:24.960 it's very much not in keeping with his whole modus operandi. He's a tough guy. He is not though,

00:03:30.900 a neoconservative imperialist and the tradition of most American presidents, regardless of party,

00:03:37.380 he's been trying to extract America from overseas commitments, particularly in the Middle East,

00:03:41.700 which I think has been a positive move. And one thing that's put him at odds with the warfare party,

00:03:47.760 the warfare state sorry, that dominates both parties in Washington, and really left him as an outsider.

00:03:54.180 And, you know, alienated him from many, much of the traditional hawkish neoconservative base of the

00:03:59.480 Republican Party. But it did look yesterday, in my view, that just Trump's personality does not allow

00:04:07.380 America to take an attack on its bases, even if someone's killed, that would not allow an attack

00:04:13.360 on its bases to go unanswered. And I didn't think any American president, especially Trump would allow

00:04:19.940 that. But today, he went to a press conference after his signature kind of crazy tweets about

00:04:30.820 we're the best. Then he comes out and says Iran's blinked. And I actually haven't seen how Iran's

00:04:36.500 blinked. Iran took the United States, punched them in the nose, and they punched America, kicked America in the 0.98

00:04:43.780 shin. And then America says they've blinked. But it looks to me like the United States is blanked, 0.97

00:04:48.020 actually, which perhaps is going to keep us from a major war.

00:04:51.460 There's a couple of very peculiar things here. First of all, Soleimani, or however you pronounce

00:04:59.060 it, nobody knew who this guy was a week ago. Like, certainly unless you were, you know, a political

00:05:06.020 scientist that studied Middle East politics, you know, short of those people. I had no idea who this

00:05:12.180 guy was.

00:05:12.260 No one could even name Canada's top general.

00:05:13.780 No. Well, that's fine. Actually, I can't. I have no idea who that is.

00:05:17.620 There you go.

00:05:18.180 But, and I was, I was in the army. But yeah, the, and this is, so if you're going to take out a big,

00:05:25.460 a big name like that, don't you demonize them a little bit ahead of time? Or was that,

00:05:29.940 you know, it's just strategically best to kind of get in there and do it and then do the demonizing

00:05:36.980 afterwards?

00:05:37.540 Well, you know, it's been pointed out, I think rightfully, that there is no Trump

00:05:42.180 doctrine. You know, we always say like, you know, there's a Reagan doctrine,

00:05:44.900 there's a Bush doctrine, a Clinton doctrine, Obama doctrine. There's not really a coherent

00:05:49.780 Trump doctrine. He is an opportunist. And I don't mean that in the pejorative sense. I mean that

00:05:54.420 he has very little ideological view of foreign affairs other than that he doesn't like China.

00:06:00.020 That's about it. He doesn't like China.

00:06:01.220 Well, he loves China, but he doesn't like China.

00:06:04.580 Well, he likes China. He hates Jaina.

00:06:06.260 I love hate sort of situation.

00:06:10.980 So that's the one consistent is kind of an anti-Chinese containment foreign policy. Everything

00:06:15.540 else is what you might almost call a Bismarckian realist policy of being opportunistic in the

00:06:23.460 sense of just reacting to events as they come, not trying to play some long grand strategy game

00:06:28.660 Sure.

00:06:29.220 With pieces on the board, something happens and he reacts to it.

00:06:33.540 So I was very telling, it's very telling that in American politics, the fact that Donald Trump

00:06:39.540 doesn't despise Vladimir Putin is, is problematic for the Democrats. You know, that you all, he must be

00:06:47.300 cozying up to them. You know, we hear that all the time because he doesn't hate them and he doesn't hate

00:06:52.100 the Russians enough, right? 0.96

00:06:53.540 Well, I thought it was always supposed to be the, the Democrats, well, the Democrats were 0.87

00:06:57.780 always accused of sucking up to the Russians when they were communists.

00:07:00.260 Now that they're kind of a neo-imperialist, a reactionary regime, the, you know, now the Russians 0.84

00:07:07.060 are bad guys, but they were okay when they were communists.

00:07:08.980 Yeah, yeah.

00:07:09.860 But, so Suleimani was in Iraq though, which, and he's, because he's in Iranian general,

00:07:16.100 he's not normally in Iraq. So I think they, they just saw the opportunity because I,

00:07:20.180 I, a drone strike on a major general of an enemy state is a provocative thing. You,

00:07:27.460 I think it was justified to take the guy out. It was a, I think it was a reasonable retaliation

00:07:31.700 for the attack on the embassy. Was it a wise move to attack a man that senior that would obviously

00:07:37.380 be very provocative? That's a completely different question that I don't really know the answer to,

00:07:42.420 but it's, it was much more acceptable to hit the guy with a drone in Iraq than in Iran,

00:07:49.540 where the United States does not have authority to have military, any military action. So that's

00:07:54.660 probably why they didn't go through a, a protracted propaganda campaign to hate the guy,

00:08:00.100 because as you said, no one had heard of him until he ended up as a pile of mist.

00:08:04.820 My, my favorite conspiracy theory that I, I've heard from a few sort of pundits online,

00:08:12.100 a few tweets here and there, is this idea that there was a mutual need,

00:08:18.420 that Soleimani was freelancing too much. Uh, the, uh, the Ayatollah was unhappy about that,

00:08:24.420 but couldn't really take them out or demote them, uh, internally without there being a whole lot of,

00:08:29.700 uh, uh, blowback. And, uh, of course, Trump wants to get out of the region, wants to close some bases,

00:08:35.780 wants to, wants to, uh, withdraw. And, uh, so this worked out beautifully. Just a, just a one quick,

00:08:42.340 um, uh, perfect phone call and, uh, they can make the exchange and, and maybe, uh, maybe that's why

00:08:50.900 we're not seeing further escalation. Uh, you think there's anything to, to that?

00:08:55.060 You know, uh, uh, I don't normally attribute a complicated explanation to it when a simple one

00:09:02.260 will do. Fair enough. Um, I do love it though, from an entertainment value perspective.

00:09:07.540 Now, again, using a term used by conspiracy theorists, deep state, I think it is a,

00:09:12.900 it's a real thing in that there is a, there's a bureaucratic inertia within every government

00:09:18.420 that stays there regardless of which power, uh, party is in power at the time. At least this exists

00:09:23.060 in democracies, uh, where we turn over government governing parties from time to time. And you know,

00:09:31.220 do actors within the so-called deep state act independently and do things? Absolutely. Uh,

00:09:39.620 you know, politics is dishonest and full of misinformation enough, but when you're talking

00:09:44.180 foreign policy, when you're talking intelligence and counterintelligence and defense, um, misinformation,

00:09:50.900 lies and propaganda is, uh, just currency, it's, it's absolutely necessary, which is why you can't

00:09:57.780 trust anything from any government we're told. Right. Um, so you're almost forced to take every,

00:10:02.900 to make, you have to make a judgment though on these things. So you almost have to take it at face value

00:10:07.140 to a reasonable extent, but you have to keep in mind that they're probably lying to you somewhere.

00:10:11.780 Just how, how much are they lying to you based on the facts we have, I'd say the United States was

00:10:17.780 probably justified in what it did. Uh, was it as a different question was, was it a wise move?

00:10:24.900 I don't know. I thought when Iran launched those missiles at the United States that that was the

00:10:29.140 dumbest thing they could possibly do. Their special, their conventional forces, while semi-strong 0.95

00:10:34.660 are no match for the United States, let alone the United States, plus the Sunni Arab powers, Israel, 0.99

00:10:39.700 possibly Turkey and a few other of the Western allies, they would stand no chance whatsoever.

00:10:44.820 Their strength is an asymmetrical warfare, terrorism, militias, um, you know, uh, electronic warfare,

00:10:54.260 that kind of thing. That's where they're strong. And so their policy is simmer, not boil. They don't

00:10:59.860 want a conventional war with the United States cause it's suicide. Well, and, and, and really the,

00:11:05.220 the best way to end it, cause they had, cause they, you know, certainly if,

00:11:09.540 if the protests happening on the streets in Iran are, are legitimate and I, we have no reason to

00:11:14.500 suspect otherwise, um, there was an appeasement to the people that needed to happen. And so sending

00:11:20.980 some missiles to a base that also, by the way, didn't kill anybody. Um, just gosh, darn, we missed. 0.98

00:11:29.460 Um, uh, sounds to me like a really great way to end it. You, you struck back, you hit them hard. 0.98

00:11:36.340 Well, nobody does. I thought they would have been smarter going with traditional terrorism,

00:11:39.540 like blow up a hotel of innocent people or somewhere. Like they do it all the time and

00:11:43.140 they get away with it. There's plausible deniability. You're like, oh, geez, uh, Hezbollah, 0.96

00:11:50.340 you know, bombed a bus full of kids. Oh, what are we going to do? I mean, that's what they do.

00:11:56.420 Cause they can deny it constantly. They couldn't deny these missiles. They, they took credit for

00:12:00.420 it, which gave the United States a cause belli for war. If they so choose. Trump has decided not to

00:12:07.300 do so. Right. Because even though he, he might be just, again, if we could take the facts at face

00:12:12.980 value, which you never can, but if you do, he, I think had justification for war and he chose not to

00:12:18.900 take it, which I can't remember the last time an American president had cause for war and didn't

00:12:24.180 jump at it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and, uh, of course the, the terrorist angle wouldn't have worked

00:12:30.340 super well because they just took out their top terrorist or the terrorist organizer, I should

00:12:36.180 say, not the terrorists, the terrorist organizer, the guy who helped organize the terrorists. So we're

00:12:41.300 told anyway, so speaking of alternative, um, uh, angles, of course, uh, coincidentally, um, an Iranian

00:12:53.220 jet crashed on its way, or sorry, a Ukrainian jet crashed on his way from Tehran to, uh, the Ukraine

00:13:01.700 two minutes after takeoff, um, killing, I think everybody on board, including 63 Canadians, about

00:13:09.300 people. Yeah. But half of whom were from Edmonton, of course, um, Alberta, Canada. So, uh, so what's

00:13:18.180 going on? What do we know so far? Well, this is, I just said we almost have to take everything at

00:13:24.820 face value, but we should be highly suspicious. Um, so while everything's going on here, you know,

00:13:31.460 there's rumor, obviously that turned out not to be true, but there's rumor that American warplanes are

00:13:36.420 already in the air headed for Tehran to, you know, strike back for the missile strikes. And,

00:13:43.620 uh, you know, late last night, I got notification from Dave Naylor, a news editor that this had

00:13:49.460 happened. And I have a hard time believing this was just a technical error. We plane crashes over land

00:13:59.460 with everybody lost two minutes after takeoff just don't happen anymore. I mean, this kind of thing

00:14:05.700 is so rare and that it happens to be filled. Um, well, we can only speculate with who it's been

00:14:11.860 filled with, but it's filled with Ukrainians and Iranians, many of which live in Canada. Now,

00:14:17.620 uh, at least in my own anecdotal experience, the vast majority of Iranians living in Canada

00:14:22.580 do not even call themselves Iranians. They call themselves Persians and they are vehemently, uh, 1.00

00:14:29.300 uh, against the Ayatollah, um, uh, theocratic regime. Like these tend to be Western liberals,

00:14:38.420 liberals in the classical, uh, political sense, not in the party sense that we think of. Uh,

00:14:42.740 these tend to be people who are not big fans of the regime. Some of them are allowed to travel back

00:14:47.220 because they're not blowing the government up or something, but, um, and then full of Ukrainians, 0.93

00:14:52.820 uh, power generally considered to be pro Western. I'm a bit suspicious about what it's what's happened

00:14:59.140 here. Uh, I should say a lot suspicious. It just doesn't smell right. No, there, it certainly doesn't

00:15:06.340 pass the smell test, but you know, planes do crash. So I guess we'll, we'll find out potentially,

00:15:15.460 um, you know, whether there's more to it. And, um, I don't think we're going to find anything or we

00:15:20.740 won't kind of like, um, like this just don't crash. Yeah. Yeah. Um, unless there, um, was it the max eight,

00:15:34.100 which was the, the ones, the, the Boeing one that, uh, that they, uh, that they took out of service.

00:15:40.420 They lost a couple of those. This was a 737. They, these things do not just fall out of the sky.

00:15:48.180 It seems, uh, very suspicious. All right. Well, I guess we'll, you know, what else is suspicious?

00:15:53.300 Tell me what else is suspicious, Derek? Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein's death,

00:15:59.220 which is a good segue to the golden globes. Why don't you set it up?

00:16:05.700 Well, you just did it. We're, we're, we may as well be live. Jeffrey Epstein. Ladies and gentlemen,

00:16:11.620 did Jeffrey Epstein, uh, no, um, Ricky Gervais was, uh, the only reason. Well, he, he, uh,

00:16:19.780 he kind of rubbed it in their faces at the golden globes. So I've been trying to segue for you and

00:16:24.260 you're not picking up on my signals. Set us up with what happened. You've completed the segue. Well,

00:16:30.020 of course, Ricky Gervais. I've segued. Now, now you set it up. Ricky Gervais, uh, um, was the host

00:16:36.580 of the golden globes for the fifth and final time. This is gonna be final. Okay. Okay, man. Well,

00:16:44.660 and I kind of, you gotta, you gotta think the guy's like, you know, not going to apologize for something

00:16:50.260 and he's there anyway. There had to be like a pretty tight contract and, uh, you can bet if that

00:16:56.020 contract is in fact up, it's probably not getting renewed. Um,

00:17:01.380 Well, so like, I guess everybody's seen the video. I, I, I'm, I'm guessing there's very few

00:17:06.420 people who have not seen the video. Yeah. Um, but good God, that was satisfying. I, I so rarely watch

00:17:14.420 something 15 times and I, I, I must have watched this video 15 times. It's not just that it's funny.

00:17:21.860 It's just that it's so satisfying to see these smug superior people just, just broad down our level

00:17:31.380 a bit, you know? Yeah. Well, and, and yeah, I mean, I don't remember when I was growing up that

00:17:39.940 actors and singers were seen as competent lecturers of the political discourse of the day. This is a,

00:17:48.660 I think this is a fairly new phenomenon and, uh, you know, I, I can respect if, if, if, if we have

00:17:55.460 some famous actor or musician who's, you know, got their PhD in political science or, you know,

00:18:01.780 had a hat, got their feet wet in journalism or politics or whatever.

00:18:05.380 If you invented a light bulb before you got into acting, then tell us about electricity.

00:18:09.700 Yeah. Otherwise shut the whatnot up. 0.59

00:18:12.820 Well, and they're, I mean, they're certainly welcome to their opinion and this is the problem,

00:18:16.340 right there. You're welcome to your opinion. Everybody is, but they also have a platform,

00:18:20.820 right? They have a, they have a platform, people listen. Um, but I think most people

00:18:25.860 take everything that famous people say with a bit of a grain of salt. Um, you know, just one person's

00:18:32.740 opinion. And, uh, I don't, I don't think anyone's saying they don't have a right to, it's just,

00:18:37.860 it just grates on you when like every second, um, you know, to, to paraphrase Ricky Gervais,

00:18:44.020 he said, like, you know, most of you was, you know, have no experience in the real world

00:18:48.500 whatsoever. You don't know how you're not qualified to speak about anything. Most of you have spent

00:18:53.300 less time in school than Greta Thunberg, which in addition to being true, it was like very,

00:19:02.580 like, like a double attack. Cause you're not allowed to go after her saying,

00:19:07.300 Greta and you're not allowed to talk about how these guys know nothing. And just like,

00:19:12.100 don't use it to give a political speech. Uh, thank your agent, thank your God and F off.

00:19:19.380 And I guarantee you, you know, at least half the people who were nominated for a

00:19:26.260 award were sitting at their tables and they pulled out their little speeches and a pen and

00:19:29.780 like panicking. I can't give a shout out. There was one in particular that I can't remember who it

00:19:40.900 was or what the award was. Cause of course I only watched the clips from, uh, Ricky Gervais,

00:19:46.580 like most people. Um, but, uh, you know, one actress won an award and got up and proceeded to 0.99

00:19:54.100 give a political. Jennifer Aniston apparently did, but like, but by Gervais doing this in advance,

00:20:00.660 he kind of salted the fields of everything to come. So I think it was Jennifer. Again,

00:20:07.700 I didn't, I've only watched, uh, I've probably watched the length of the golden globes twice over

00:20:12.580 just by repetitively watching Ricky Gervais. Yeah. But, uh, Jennifer Aniston, uh, was apparently the 1.00

00:20:18.900 one who, uh, did her little speech, but I bet you half the people had these, because these things

00:20:24.900 are always full of political lecturing speeches. And, um, all it was, uh, uh, I always have a hard

00:20:30.580 time saying his name, Joaquin Phoenix. Yeah. Joaquin Phoenix. Yeah. Um, he had an interesting

00:20:37.220 thing. He went out, uh, I don't know if he had changed his speech or it was intending to say,

00:20:41.300 but I actually listened to it to a clip of what he had to say. And he went up there and said like,

00:20:44.740 look, guys, let's stop being a bunch of hypocrites. You know, we're lecturing everybody, but like, 0.98

00:20:49.460 you know, we're flying around, we got our jets. It's essentially the whole thing.

00:20:53.140 You could just like zoom the camera in on Leo, uh, Leonardo DiCaprio at this point,

00:20:57.220 or half the guys, I guess, but he's probably the poster boy for it. But like saying like,

00:21:01.300 guys, we've got no right to speak about this. We're being hypocrites. 0.97

00:21:04.420 I did like the dig to Apple as the CEO was sitting across the room and they panned over to Apple.

00:21:10.740 And just as Ricky Gervais was talking about the, uh, the, the, the virtue, the great virtue of the new

00:21:16.260 show, uh, which was amazing coming from a, uh, a company with sweatshops in China.

00:21:21.860 They're talking about justice and all these things coming from, just the whole thing.

00:21:27.700 Well, and what's funny of course, is, uh, Ricky Gervais' show is on, uh, I believe it's on Amazon.

00:21:35.700 Yeah. Well, it's, they just renewed for season two, apparently.

00:21:38.580 And you know, like the thing is like, but he, he, he dug against them.

00:21:42.100 It's like, you know, this is the fifth time he's done it. And he's always been like pretty tough.

00:21:46.340 And every time he's saying like, I'll never get invited back.

00:21:48.900 Cause he's not just giving like little good natured ribbings. He's like always kind of

00:21:53.140 given it like in a serious way. And I think today, like that, well not today, just a couple of days

00:21:58.020 ago, he, he just like packed the place with dynamite. And during his speech, he's just pouring

00:22:02.180 gasoline around the crowd. Like he went out of his way to never get invited back.

00:22:06.340 Yeah. And, but that's what made it so great. So bizarrely without him, the ratings would be

00:22:12.020 nowhere near what they were. So it's almost like there's a bizarre incentive now to permanently

00:22:17.060 make him the host. He's there to crap on the whole event. He's what brings the ratings now. 0.99

00:22:22.660 Well, what's interesting about the, you know, the, the state of the culture war,

00:22:26.340 I think this is really interesting. And I hope that 2020 sort of, we turn it, we turn the page

00:22:34.820 a little on this because Ricky Gervais is no conservative. No, he's, he's, he's, he's,

00:22:40.980 you know, he's a liberal. His, his, his wife is very notable, um, uh, approached pro choice advocate,

00:22:48.340 you know, with very strong political views, you know, um, and here we are in the middle of this,

00:22:55.060 this disgusting culture war where everything has just become personal. And here's a guy who's,

00:23:02.580 you know, I think pretty arguably pretty safely to say he's on the left. Um, and he's lecturing people

00:23:09.940 on the left to just basically stop being a bunch of, um, virtue signaling hypocrites and, you know, 0.95

00:23:17.780 be nice to people. And I actually, I think it was Brad Pitt who, uh, after winning the award or 0.88

00:23:22.580 presenting the award, whatever it was said something along the lines of, Hey, why don't we all just go

00:23:26.740 out and do something nice for somebody tomorrow? And I thought, you know, yeah, there's a great message.

00:23:32.020 I think you actually watched the award show. I mean, you've cited, I've cited two clips and they

00:23:36.740 were just clips. I think you watched it. Admit it. You didn't just watch the Gervais clip.

00:23:41.540 I don't even have cable. You watched the whole show. Admit it.

00:23:46.020 I wish it was true, but the most, okay. So the, so the greatest moment and, and you can do yours.

00:23:51.700 The greatest moment for me was, uh, not from the monologue, but it was when he introduced

00:23:57.860 Sandra Bullock to present an award. So you watched the whole thing. I know you did,

00:24:02.020 because that would not, that's not in the clip. You watched the show. You have incriminated yourself.

00:24:06.580 You watched it. Fine, fine, fine. I watched the whole thing. All right. So excited about Hollywood.

00:24:11.540 All right. Um, so this, this was the moment. So, and I did, and I do love Sandra Bullock. I think

00:24:15.940 she's a, she's a fabulous, uh, actress and I do love the, the birdcage, which was the, um, or the,

00:24:25.780 sorry, it's not the birdcage. Whatever. Yeah. We all know it's the bird, bird movie. The bird,

00:24:29.540 it's a meme everywhere. So yeah. Um, but of course the concept with the bird movie was that you could not

00:24:36.900 look, you know, you couldn't look at the thing that was haunting the world because it would corrupt

00:24:41.300 you and you, you think terrible things would happen. And, um, and for those of you who haven't

00:24:47.140 seen it, it's an excellent show. So, so Ricky Gervais is introducing Sandra Bullock and he,

00:24:52.500 he says, uh, he says, yeah. So basically, uh, the next person is the star of this Netflix show that we

00:24:57.940 may have seen, uh, where essentially, um, you couldn't look at what was right in front of your

00:25:03.620 face, kind of like Harvey Weinstein. And, uh, and then of course there was, there was groans

00:25:14.260 coming from the audience, like, uh, this Hollywood audience. And, uh, um, and then he,

00:25:20.340 and basically at that moment, he's, Hey, you did it, you know, to the, to the crowd. So yeah,

00:25:26.340 I think it's probably fairly safe to say that he's not going to get invited back next year,

00:25:30.740 which gives me no reason to watch it next year, to be honest.

00:25:33.620 You know what? I didn't think he'd get invited back this year. So let's just pray that, you know,

00:25:39.380 as much as he was there to kind of take a turd sandwich on them all, the ratings were good enough

00:25:44.180 that they'll be forced to bring him back. I don't even know if it's possible to top what he did,

00:25:50.820 short of physically burn the place down. So despite, despite your, uh, insistence otherwise,

00:25:56.500 I did not watch it. But if Ricky Gervais comes back next year, I vow that I will watch the whole show.

00:26:04.260 I believe you as about as much as I believe Iranian intelligence.

00:26:08.260 There we go. Okay. Speaking of intelligence, uh, we have the United Nations, the most intelligent

00:26:14.820 organization on the planet and, um, a certain committee that condemned the Trans Mountain pipeline.

00:26:23.940 What's the, uh, name and acronym of this committee? Well, it's the United Nations Committee,

00:26:30.100 uh, for the eradication of racial discrimination, which, uh, abbreviates to UNERD. And when I first

00:26:39.140 saw it, I, I thought it was funny, but I thought it was funny for a different reason. So, so what,

00:26:44.180 how did you read the name of the committee? I thought it was unearned. Unearned. So like,

00:26:48.980 it's just, uh, you know, it's, uh, some nice countries on there, but then it's a bunch of, 0.99

00:26:53.300 you know, jerk countries and they're all there to lecture us about racism and things. 0.99

00:26:57.380 And there you go. 0.99

00:26:58.020 And I thought, uh, you know, it's criticism when it's unearned, but you had a different take on

00:27:02.660 it. And I giggled because the first thing I saw was the, the, what was right in front of me,

00:27:07.860 which was UNERD. It's just a bunch of nerds. I think this was like a, this was like an inkblot

00:27:14.420 Rorschach test or something. Like you look at this name of a committee and you see different.

00:27:22.580 And so this particular committee, um, hasn't been newsworthy, um, very much,

00:27:28.500 but was, it's, it's news has not been earned. It's been, it's been unearned media. And then they

00:27:34.420 came for you nerds anyway. So, uh, they have condemned, how long can we do this?

00:27:40.980 I don't know. Days. We could, uh, this is, by the way, for those of you who watched previous episodes,

00:27:47.300 this is officially the silliest version of the pipeline, despite probably the most serious news

00:27:55.140 of the, uh, yeah, we're discussing war and golden globes. Yeah. We're going to have to,

00:28:00.500 we have to bring it up a little level here. All right. Yeah. Let's class it up. Let's class it up.

00:28:05.220 All right. Sit up straight. Uh, so, uh, any, does anybody care about this committee condemning

00:28:10.660 the Trans Mountain pipeline? It's going to change anything. Well, well, I guess we have to explain

00:28:15.060 what happened that the UN, the UNERDS or, uh, the unearned guys, uh, issued a report. Um,

00:28:25.060 apparently pipelines are racist. They, uh, they demanded that Canada cease construction and

00:28:30.580 approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline, the site sea dam and the gas link coastal pipeline.

00:28:37.860 If I got that correct, three big, important projects. Um, and this is all based on the UN

00:28:43.380 declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples, which sounds nice as a title, but if you read it,

00:28:47.700 it's a crazy document written by countries with no indigenous populations. At least as we understand 0.90

00:28:53.060 the term indigenous, an old time Englander, I suppose is an indigenous Englishman, but we're

00:28:57.460 not referring to the term in that sense. We're talking about former colonial societies. So all

00:29:02.020 these old countries that are, haven't gone through any of the experiences we have, uh, they write this

00:29:08.180 thing and it essentially is about giving, uh, indigenous peoples, uh, not just the right of

00:29:14.020 consultation, which is, I think most of us would agree very reasonable and, and important. Um,

00:29:20.100 uh, not just compensation, uh, for property, et cetera, but talking about giving them an outright

00:29:26.260 veto. And it doesn't even define who has a veto. Is it, if, if all the first nations agree, except

00:29:32.020 for one particular band disagrees, then they have a veto. Um, is it, if just one individual in a band

00:29:39.380 disagrees, and then we've got the issue of who's actually speaking for the bands. Cause in many cases,

00:29:43.700 the elected chiefs are actually supporting, uh, pipelines of resource developments,

00:29:48.340 but the hereditary chiefs, which about, which have about as much legitimacy as Prince Charles,

00:29:53.220 um, they often, uh, are against it. And I'm not sure why we would take the political advice of Prince

00:29:59.780 Charles or hereditary chief. Um, so this is the UN saying that there are a few hereditary chiefs

00:30:05.700 who disagree with this. So Canada should just stop the development of its economy, essentially.

00:30:10.820 And as far as I know, the federal government hasn't responded to this, even though they

00:30:14.260 ostensibly do have a presence at the UN. Well, and interestingly, we talked on a previous episode,

00:30:21.300 um, British Columbia has, um, uh, recognized, uh, through, I think just through a, um, resolution

00:30:29.940 to, uh, recognize the United Nations, uh, declaration on the rights of, uh, indigenous people.

00:30:37.060 Well, didn't BC say it was going to enshrine it in legislation?

00:30:41.220 I, I, I believe that they did, but I believe that they, that all the back down now,

00:30:48.180 I think that, I think all that's actually passed was the resolution to do that. Uh, but I could be

00:30:53.140 completely wrong. I, I, I, I, you know, more than I do, but like, do you think there's any chance

00:30:57.380 they're actually going to give it legal weight that this, uh, this nebulous document can trump all

00:31:03.380 legislation? Like it was some kind of constitution in BC after, um, cause I, I know Trans Mountain's

00:31:09.540 opposed by the provincial government at least now, but I thought the, the, the, the, the coastal

00:31:14.820 gasoline pipeline, isn't that supported by the provincial government? Oh, they love gas in, in

00:31:18.980 the province of British Columbia. Yeah. As long as it's not Alberta's, they're great with it.

00:31:22.820 Absolutely. Move that, you know, it's the Northeast corner of the province where all the gas is

00:31:27.540 coming from. So they're, they're, you know, and it's successive governments, the, the BC liberals,

00:31:32.660 when they were in charge. And of course the BC and so we'd like, you know, what do you think

00:31:37.460 the chances are they'll actually put this in legislation? I think it's, I think it's a ways

00:31:41.300 off anyway. Right. I think it's all, you know, it's feel good. And, um, I mean, part of the, there,

00:31:46.900 there's a, there's a downside to the vagaries of it, but there's also an upside in that, you know,

00:31:51.540 it leaves enough things open for, to interpretation. You can interpret things. Then you leave it to

00:31:55.540 courts to interpret and our courts tend to be pretty damn bad at interpreting law. That's, that's a valid point.

00:32:00.260 Yeah. That's, I, I, uh, when I was in politics, I voted, uh, I voted against more legislation

00:32:06.900 than any other MLA in the legislature in the four years by a, by like a ridiculous margin,

00:32:11.940 not by a Ron Paul margin to my shame. Uh, but by, by an approaching Ron Paul margin,

00:32:18.260 I voted against everything pretty much. Added to the size of government and aggregate,

00:32:22.260 I voted against it. If it was a vague law and not strictly defined in what it's trying to do very

00:32:27.700 specifically, I voted against it, but you know, that's tends not to be much of a habit for most

00:32:33.380 politicians. They're, they like vague laws. No, here, here in British Columbia, the rule is, uh,

00:32:39.860 you know, you vote pretty much almost a hundred percent of the time with whichever direction your

00:32:45.380 party is voting. That's a long, proud tradition. That was not, uh, that was not very good for my political

00:32:51.620 career. Yeah. Well, yeah. And that's true actually in Canada more generally. Uh, interestingly,

00:32:57.540 you know, we borrowed the system from the UK and it's very common for MPs to vote against their

00:33:03.540 party in the UK. It's just extremely uncommon. It's not inherent to a Westminster parliament. It's a,

00:33:08.500 it's just inherent to Canada and our provinces. It's very strange. Well, you know, we, we should get,

00:33:14.500 um, Scott Reed, the MP from Ontario for, he was one of the only reformers elected in Ontario in 2000.

00:33:21.060 Uh, he, he just wrote an essay published about how he was whipped to vote, uh, against marijuana

00:33:26.260 legalization, even though he's a libertarian and he came out saying, I was forced to lie. I'm sorry.

00:33:30.420 I lied about it because I had to maintain party unity, but I was punished, kicked out of my position

00:33:34.660 because he was pro legalization. Uh, a few things like that. We should, uh, we should really get him

00:33:40.340 on, uh, we should get him on the drill. He would be a really good, uh, guy to have on.

00:33:45.220 That would be good. Yeah. Um, I, a friend of mine, journalist friend, uh, left wing journalist friend,

00:33:50.340 uh, Sean Holman did a documentary called whipped a few years ago that, um, was all about, all about

00:33:57.060 this and the, the, the weird history of British Columbia. The conclusion was kind of like, I don't

00:34:01.860 know why it's so weird, but there's lots of potential reasons. Right. But, uh, it's very,

00:34:07.060 it's a very true fact of Canada. Uh, but nobody can point to exactly why it is just some potential

00:34:13.620 reasons and, um, and why it would be any more so than say the UK or another country that has

00:34:19.860 a similar parliament. Well, maybe we could consider doing a whole episode with, uh, with Scott Reed there

00:34:25.540 and kind of get, get into that maybe a bit more. I think, uh, I think there's a lot of, a lot of

00:34:29.540 discussion for us to have on the topic so much. And, uh, if you're listening right now, uh, to us on

00:34:35.060 YouTube, remember you can get our show on the podcast channel, your favorite podcast app,

00:34:40.660 subscribe and rate us there. And if you're listening to us on the podcast channel,

00:34:45.380 then find us on YouTube and subscribe and like and comment. And we'd love to hear your thoughts

00:34:50.180 in the comments as well about, uh, topics like this. What topics would you like to see us cover,

00:34:55.940 um, during our shows, the, the pipeline and, uh, the drill. So thank you very much, Derek.

00:35:02.660 And don't forget to become a member of the Western standard. Of course,

00:35:05.700 Western standard online.com slash member. Just, just, just go there. You'll find it.

00:35:13.700 Yeah. Western standard online.com. And of course, uh, the Western standard does not take government

00:35:20.260 money. Uh, so we, we rely on the goodwill of good folks like yourself. If you guys don't give us

00:35:27.540 money, we're going to have to get bought by Trudeau. And you really don't want that to happen.

00:35:31.060 I completely changed the editorial slant. My bet. Well, thank you so much,

00:35:37.460 Derek and have a terrific week and we'll see everybody next week. Thank you, Paul.

Western Standard - January 13, 2020

The Pipeline - Episode 3 - Iran, World War 3, Missiles and Ricky Gervais

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