Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

March 9, 2022 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:30:57

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #345

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Hello and welcome to the podcast The Lotus Eaters for the 9th of March 2022.
	I'm joined by Carl.
	Hello!
	And today we're going to be talking about Russian propaganda being insane.
	And also we're going to be looking at Let Them Buy Teslas, the Western response to the oil crisis, and the mid-century German enthusiasts for Ukraine.
	There are a few of them.
	There are quite a few.
	It's really, really unusual.
	We'll get into it.
	I'll save that for then.
	So anyway, some things to mention first on the website.
	So the new stuff that's up.
	So the first one here being Watchmen and the Art of Adaptation.
	This is by Harry here.
	So this was the big old rant he promised he would have about Watchmen, and he's done it.
	So do go and check that out.
	Excellent.
	I believe that one's free as well.
	If we go to the next one, we have another free thing.
	This is an article from Luna.
	The Evils of Empathy, and especially when it comes to the left.
	Toxic empathy.
	I did see the best one she included in here was from Occupy Democrats who were like, no civilian has the right to have an AR-15.
	They don't need it.
	Unless they live in Ukraine.
	Yeah, next week was, oh, I'm so glad they're giving AK-47s to every citizen in Ukraine.
	No, no, the distinction was the make of the gun, not the arming of the civilians.
	That's it, I get it.
	Soviet made, so it's better.
	It's for the defence of the motherland, Comrade.
	Oh boy.
	We'll go to the last one here.
	There's another thing up, which is Thomas Dowling's new Deep Think.
	So, is Christianity responsible for its own self-destruction?
	Part one, Deep Think number two there.
	Excellent.
	I believe this also has an audio track for Silver and Gold Team members to listen in their own time instead of reading, of course.
	But without further ado, we'll get into the Russian propaganda because the matter is mad.
	It's your speciality, this, isn't it?
	So, I've been keeping an eye on Russian propaganda as best I can.
	And before we get into this, can only scratch the surface, of course, not there.
	Don't know what's being said on state TV and whatnot.
	But I try to keep up with what I can online and social media.
	Because, as I've mentioned previously, let's take Russia Today or Sputnik, it is advisable to know what is being said on the other side of the debate.
	And if it's insane, if it's weird...
	Or if it's got any truth to it, you know, it might be a nugget of truth in there.
	All this kind of stuff, right?
	So I thought we'd go through a bunch of it.
	And if for no other reason, because I just find some of it funny, I think we'll enjoy that.
	But we'll start with something serious, which is the situation for Russian citizens.
	So as you can see, an article here saying, Putin signs law introducing 15-year jail term for fake news on the army.
	It's anyone who spreads fake news.
	Jail terms are varying length and fines against people who publish, quote, knowingly false information about the military with harsher punishments to hit when dissemination is deemed to have serious consequences.
	So if you dare say anything wrong about the military, who decides what that is?
	The government.
	Well, yeah.
	That's gotta be normal.
	Putin also signed a bill that would allow fines or jail terms for up to three years for calling for sanctions against Russia, with Moscow facing harsh economic penalties from Western capitals over the invasion.
	Russia's media watchdog said Friday it had restricted access to the BBC and other independent media websites and blocked social media giant Facebook.
	Do you remember what we were all saying?
	We'll make any comment on it.
	If we ban Russia today and all this...
	Can we do that over here?
	Distract access to the BBC. I'd love to.
	But what were they going to do with the BBC? Well, they banned it.
	Yeah.
	This was all predictable, which is why banning information exchange, of course, doesn't help this discussion.
	If we go to the next link, this is also something to keep in mind.
	There was some polling done on the special military operation, as it is always called, according to the Russians.
	It's not an invasion, is it?
	No, no.
	It's a special military operation.
	Right, okay.
	That's what they call it.
	Good euphemism.
	The polling in here is that more than half of respondents, 58.8% of Russians, support the actions in the territory of Ukraine.
	There is a connection between age and the positive assessment of the special operation.
	The older the respondents, the more likely they are to support the special operation.
	So the level of support among young people, 18 to 29, is slightly more than 40%, whereas everyone over 60, it's more than 70% support for the war.
	So there's that divide as well.
	I imagine they're looking at this thinking it's going to make Russia great again.
	There's very much of we've been through worse.
	But it's an interesting correlation to the MAGA boomers in America.
	Certainly.
	There is also the aspect which is a lot of people have said, well, can you trust these things?
	Maybe not, but I've seen Konstantin Kisan tweeting about this as well, and he says, no, seriously.
	I don't trust their own polling.
	But I've seen Konstantin saying, no, seriously, people genuinely support the war in Russia.
	And of course, there are plenty of people protesting who don't support it, and they're getting arrested for doing so.
	So there's that to keep in mind.
	Just like over here.
	But that is the situation.
	Well, no, you could protest your actual war.
	If you're a trucker.
	You get protesting, you get arrested.
	I was thinking more of a war rather than...
	Sure, but I was thinking the general concept of protesting against the government.
	Yes, okay.
	You're only allowed to protest in favour of the government over here.
	Let's get into the war propaganda itself.
	Not at all like Russia.
	So we go to the next one.
	There is, of course, this Z, as you saw.
	At least this is the meme version.
	All the vehicles have little Zs on them.
	And this is, of course, an identifier.
	If we go to the next link, we can see the Wikipedia page on this.
	It's not a Z column, it's a Z. Whatever.
	It's not even in the Russian alphabet.
	In English, it's a Z. It's not even a letter in Russian.
	Well, then we use the English one, so it's a Z. Not the American Z. In Russia, the basic one is symbols for those coming from the Eastern Military District, apparently, and those within a square are from Crimea, and then several other symbols for such things.
	But this has become just, you know, an obvious symbol of the Special Military Operation.
	Yeah.
	So, a lot of Russians have started to take different meanings to this, and I don't know if this is organic or if it's from the government, it's hard to tell, but they've taken it to mean like, which is like, you know, go Russia, go Putin instead, which we will see.
	Let's go to the next one, we can see some events.
	Terminally ill children in Russia line up outside hospice in shape of Z to support the invasion.
	If we could scroll down to get the image, there's the mothers of the children as well taking part in this.
	Which, um...
	Okay.
	This is the level of support you can see there.
	This is lending credence to the idea that this invasion has widespread support.
	Yeah, well, it demonstrates from the polling as well.
	And we'll go forward and see more of this.
	If we go to the next one, we can see car parade.
	Oh, sorry, this is actually probably the most extreme version of this Zed thing I've seen, which is the Russian military apparently made a Zed out of little patches from dead Ukrainian soldiers.
	Can't confirm if they're dead or not, but there's that.
	If we go to the next one, we can see the car parades I was mentioning.
	So this is just footage from...
	I can't remember where.
	You see those just cars with Russian flags, Zeds on them, all driving around.
	These are literally Russian MAGA boomers.
	Russian MAGA boomers.
	You remember the car parades for MAGA? Same tactics, you know.
	Those people who remember the 20th century.
	Kind of.
	I don't know what level of this is operated by the government, though.
	It's hard to tell.
	Well, sure.
	Because that's the other aspect, of course.
	This is a different place.
	And they are all over the place.
	I've seen footage of these cars in loads of different places in Russia, so not small.
	It's Russian booming.
	Oh, God.
	Oh, God.
	Soviet Union again!
	Yeah, make Russia great again.
	It seems to be some of that.
	If we go to the next one, we can see some setup of these Zs and Vs and so forth.
	I took some examples that I found on various pro-Russian outlets.
	So there's one there.
	You can see of cars.
	If we skip through these images, some people have been putting them on their trucks in mud.
	If we go to the next one, there's some more mud trucks.
	Every car in Moscow is dirty, so that's easy to do.
	We carry on.
	They see there's more here again.
	They're all over the place.
	I mean, I can't believe this is all government-orchestrated activism.
	There's a lot of money to be spent on such things, and activists to be used.
	Sure, but it looks like there is some sort of popular support here.
	It also seems that may be the case.
	If we go to the next one, there's also an incident which caught some attention.
	So this is Russian gymnast Ivan Kulik, who wore a Zed symbol at the World Cup in Doha yesterday to show support for the invasion of Ukraine.
	Which, yep, there's that as well.
	Yep.
	Then we get onto these definitely state-organized activities.
	State-organized rallies.
	These are weird.
	You can kind of see why, if you're a Russian nationalist, you can see why these are positive, but they are strange.
	Let's go to the next link.
	So this is the first one, and we'll play this clip.
	It's in foreign, of course, so there's text, but we'll try and discuss what was said afterwards.
	Let's play.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry.
	protests.
	The streets of Russian cities are the two of our armed forces and we promise that we don't leave it without защиты.
	The task will be completed.
	Want to do this or not.
	I'm concerned with all our military workers, work, brothers and be calm.
	You are for us heroes.
	For Russia.
	For President.
	So this is a video of a bunch of guys with zeds on them.
	And they're in some kind of car park.
	Hundreds of them with flags all shouting for Russia, for Putin.
	Yeah, it's the Russian equivalent of a Black Lives Matter protest.
	Endorsed by the state, by a bunch of people who literally stand to lose nothing by doing it.
	No.
	They are perfectly fine.
	Nothing is going to happen before it.
	Unlike on the other side.
	If we go to the next one, there are more of these rallies.
	So this link here.
	This is in St.
	Petersburg.
	And I cut this down because they're largely the same, but let's play this one as well.
	As you can see, again.
	And this just on Twitter had like 1.3 million views.
	So, you think about especially on like VK and everything as well, where this is all being shared.
	All of these things are going to be mass shared.
	This one, they also said in there that we are the ancestors of the heroes of Leningrad.
	Leningrad being a hero city, because it's one of the frontline cities that didn't fall.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	You can see the nationalistic sentiments.
	And then this last one here, this is probably the most weird organized rally, which is like some kind of...
	I don't know...
	Pop show?
	Almost?
	Let's play?
	Yeah, so sorry for the low quality there, but it's a big old, like, hall where they've got hundreds of people all lined up in formation.
	They look like thousands, to be honest.
	Yeah, I mean, it probably is thousands.
	It's not social distancing or anything.
	Nope, and they get some speeches from some guys who say that Russia is great, of course, and then music about how Russia is great, and they all stand there and it's all filmed with drones and stuff, and...
	Apparently, as you can see Visegrad saying, it's the pro-Putin youth organization, Nashi, that Putin has spent a fortune on building up.
	There's lots of money going around here, so you can see that.
	But that was weird.
	I found this one the particularly weirdest of the state rallies.
	But then there's other propaganda, which I think we should look at to know what's going on.
	If we go to the next image, you can see here a lot of these posters.
	I don't know what you can call them are being made.
	So comparing our guys and liberals.
	Liberating Europe from the Nazis.
	Yeah.
	Because remember, they're denazifying Ukraine.
	Oh, we'll talk about that shortly.
	That's their rhetoric.
	And if we go to the next one, I think these are some older posters, but I've seen them popping back up, you know, comparing their soldiers to the Spartans.
	We've got the next one.
	We have this one here.
	It's just this one.
	The feet of the Russian soldiers.
	Again, trying to make them look cool.
	And if we go to the next one here, there's also, as someone noted, a lot of sharing of war footage, where you've just put nationalist music or orthodox chants over footage of people being killed.
	We're not going to play this, because there's a lot of corpses.
	But this is a video that is being shared en masse on Russian social media, apparently, and there's plenty more.
	Although I did also check out Instagram, because I thought we'd go look at that, and...
	Yeah, these nationalist sentiment does seem to be as widespread as the polling suggests.
	Really?
	So if we go to the next image, so there's one.
	If we go to the next one, there's a second video I found.
	This was from two days ago at some school.
	And if we go to the next one, we have another video that's orchestrated, clearly by the state.
	And I've put them all together because they're always in the same song, which is a bit annoying, but there's what it is.
	Let's play.
	The love of our love is our love.
	The love of our love is our love.
	The love of our love is our love.
	This reminds me of the NHS stuff.
	They've turned this into a massive national effort for the government, and I just can't stop thinking about how this is clap for the NHS. State propaganda does all ring of the same tune, regardless of the message.
	Exactly, yeah.
	It doesn't matter what the cause is, it all looks basically the same and has the same ethos behind it.
	It definitely feels kind of cringe as well, all of it.
	All state propaganda never really hits the mark in a way.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	None of it feels authentic.
	No, especially with the choreographed dancing that they've obviously organized in 24 hours, so it's crap.
	But the hashtag at the end there, I don't know if you saw, they had on the ski slope or whatever that is, along with at the end, was don't abandon our own, because of course the rhetoric is as well, we're going to go and save our Russian comrades in Ukraine.
	There is also, as we mentioned before, but in that section on St.
	Petersburg, I forgot to mention, there's also the rhetoric of we've been through worse.
	Because they're here doing the sanctions.
	Our sanctions are slowly getting their stuff disappearing.
	But the rhetoric or the line that's being given to everyone is...
	Oh, come on.
	Well, I predicted this earlier, didn't I? Yes, you did.
	We were talking about this before the podcast.
	And this is the problem with the sanctions.
	The sanctions targeting the Russian people makes it look like the West hates Russians.
	Individual Russians.
	When I was there a couple of years ago, I was in the hotel.
	I just turned on the TV and it's just like some guy talking about how NATO is out to get us.
	Which it seems to be.
	That seems to have been the rhetoric for years.
	And then this coming, the case, this is why you need to be smart about sanctions otherwise.
	Yeah, I mean, the problem is that the sanctions do nothing to drive a wedge between the people and the government.
	The sanctions push the people into the sphere of the government because the government will be like, well, we don't hate you.
	We're not going to sanction you.
	You know, the West is literally taking away your ability to watch Netflix.
	You know, like, what the hell is wrong with them?
	The BBC. Yeah.
	The BBC's fine.
	You can say, oh, well, that's opposition propaganda.
	Obviously, that's going to go.
	No, no.
	The BBC pulled out their own services before they were fully banned.
	Oh, right.
	Okay.
	So it's just like, why would you do that?
	Yeah, that is weird.
	You know, but the point is, the Russian people, like, there's no reason they wouldn't be pushed closer to the government.
	It's not going to push them away from the government.
	Because the government will be like, well, look, these foreign corporations are punishing you for being Russian.
	Which is literally what's happening.
	That is the line that's being given, and some examples you can say with the sanctions, oh, the weird stuff would be banned the word poutine.
	That story doesn't end here, it gets into the Federation and people see that as well.
	Yeah, but banning PayPal and things like that, like actual regular services that just regular people use, whether they support the Russian government or not, okay, now that you're Russian and therefore we're taking that away from you, well, that's punishing you for being a Russian.
	We have the alternatives, which I imagine is what you're saying.
	So we in the UK, at least I know, we have a sanctions list where we just name individuals.
	Anything connected to their name just gets frozen.
	And that's what we've done in the past.
	I don't think we have many Russians on it, but I don't know.
	I have no idea.
	But the point is, we're doing it to the entire country, so it is for being a Russian.
	Yeah, again, we're looking at what is the narratives in this place.
	Not that I necessarily agree with the narratives.
	I mean, much of them are...
	No, no, obviously.
	But the point is, we're doing ourselves no favours.
	And, like, this...
	Constantine Kissin's been really, really hard on this.
	Like, look, you're not driving the Russians away from Putin.
	And why would you think you are?
	You know, we're going to punish the Russians if they overthrow Putin.
	No, you're going to look like an outside foreign aggressor who's racist against Russians and hates them all and wants them all to die.
	That's a narrative you can say to Russian people, and a lot of them are buying it, because that's how it looks, as you say.
	If we go to the next one, we can see, I just wanted to mention that song there, the one you were hearing, Ola Gazmanov, Forward Russia here.
	If we can hit play without the audio, just because I want to show you this, because also I found it funny.
	This has got 14 million views.
	It's a nationalist song.
	He's a bit of an old guy, but he scrolls out here with the camera, and then I don't know if you can see Crimea is part of the Russian Federation.
	That got him banned from Lithuania and Latvia.
	He went to go on tour and they were just like, no, you're not coming in.
	So there is that as well.
	If you go, you don't need to, but in the comments it is also just spammed with people saying, you know, Slava, Ukraine, so glory to Ukraine.
	Right, okay.
	Because people are not happy, of course.
	And then this is something else I also wanted to mention because I said about, you know, you get this rhetoric really leading up to this, that the West is out to get us, everyone's out to get us constantly.
	Yeah.
	And, well, you can also see this in another one of Ola Guzmanov's songs, in which there's a short animation here.
	I don't know if we can play this without the audio as well.
	It's some kid who's with his Russian tank, and it's like, oh, look, or at least this is an image you can see frequently.
	It's like, oh, there's us, who are just, you know, perfect and polite, and then there's the NATO side.
	Who's running NATO? It's Mickey Mouse!
	It looks like a South Park episode.
	I know!
	For people listening, it's Mickey Mouse with a big old club with spikes coming out of it on top of a bunch of tanks and missiles, which...
	Yeah, this is it.
	Okay.
	I just find it funny, if nothing else.
	Let's move on.
	Let's go to the next one, because there's some other stuff I wish to mention.
	So, Mikhail Svetov, who I've said before, he's in exile, because he was the Libertarian Party and obviously anti-Putin.
	Well, yeah.
	He's, I believe, out in South America in exile.
	All right.
	And he was mentioning here, there's also the strangeness because there's a Putin propagandist who runs this channel apparently called Sololove Live, and his channel has also been banned from YouTube, because YouTube is annexing itself powers of the state.
	Yeah, well they banned Russia today, didn't they?
	YouTube has a foreign policy.
	Yes.
	What?
	But so does MasterCard and PayPal and Netflix.
	Yeah, but you could argue these could be economic things, and that's why there's a distinction here.
	But an information exchange website, YouTube, where there are just videos.
	Well, honestly, I find that far less disturbing than entertainment platforms.
	McDonald's saying, no, we have a foreign policy.
	We're pulling out of Russia.
	I don't know.
	I can see the economic ones.
	I can see the argument for that.
	But with Netflix, you could argue it's just information.
	Then we want Russian money.
	Sorry?
	Isn't it good if we take money out of Russia?
	Well, it depends on the relationship, because both trades, you know, everyone wins in a good trade.
	Sure, sure.
	But, like, still, I mean, I don't think these corporations should be operating foreign policies.
	It's very strange, in the least.
	And as you can see, Svetov just being like, well, great, now YouTube's going to be blocked for all of us.
	Thanks for that.
	You guys have annexed yourselves a foreign policy, and now will the Russian state, if they turn around tomorrow and ban YouTube, This is a precursor to war.
	There's that perspective as well.
	There is also the Russian diaspora around the world who are setting up the little pro-Russian rallies.
	If we go to the next one, or at least this one actually is in Serbia, in which you've got the Serbians who...
	Yeah, Russia is their brethren, as a guy I spoke to about this said.
	I spoke to a guy who's a friend of the podcast who works in Serbian politics, and he was like, yeah, everyone's kind of keeping their heads down in government, but, you know, on the ground there's a lot of friendship, frankly.
	Really?
	Especially with the NATO bombings that Serbia face.
	So, of course, they have no love towards the West in this regard.
	Yeah.
	So, there's that.
	And as you can see, this is a protest in Serbia.
	Yeah.
	Saying, you know, Russia did nothing wrong.
	And playing the Russian national anthem at ridiculous decibels.
	God, this is like Turks protesting in German cities, isn't it?
	If we go to the next one, there's also in Kazakhstan this was noted, people putting Zs on their cars, which I did see a post that alleges that this guy then got stopped and fined for it, but I don't know if that's true.
	If we go to the next one, we can also see Syria have organised some protests in favour of the Russians.
	We're only Middle Eastern allies, so I guess...
	Yeah.
	There was also, I saw, I didn't get it up, but the bad man, the evil man, Robyn Tomlinson, he posted some footage of there was a bunch of Russian-Australians who all got together and did like a little protest just being like, Yeah, Putin!
	Za Putin!
	Because, well, they see it as an ethnic conflict.
	Or some Irishman's gonna give him a truck of peace.
	What, in Australia?
	Yeah.
	What?
	It happened in Ireland.
	I don't see why it won't happen in Australia.
	I was just joking about being Irish, but like...
	Okay.
	I mean, there have been loads of what I guess you could call racist attacks against Russians.
	This kind of stuff isn't useful.
	I mean, I did see even Mehdi Hassan, of all people, saw that there were some restaurants in New York that are apparently Russian-owned and they've been attacked.
	Yeah.
	And he was like, can we not do this, please?
	Yeah.
	Mehdi Hassan?
	I mean, people often flee Russia.
	Like...
	Svetov is an exile.
	You know, the Russians living in the West are not usually very pro-Putin.
	So anyway.
	This is just a thing I wanted to do, just to go through and see what is on the other side.
	What are these people being told?
	Because how do you end up with a support, apparently at 60-70%?
	Yeah.
	Well, this is some of what's being said, and I think it's good to understand it, even though I don't agree with it.
	No, obviously, but we're not helping ourselves.
	That's the problem.
	But anyway, let's have a talk about the Russian economy.
	Not that I'm an expert on this, so I'm going to defer to people who are.
	This is a Twitter photo I found by Camille Galeev, who's a fellow at the Wilson Center, has various degrees in various things, and a Master's in China Studies from Peking University, so he's an academic.
	And he is just giving us an overview of the Russian economy.
	Basically, he's saying that Russia is well integrated into Western technological chains.
	What it produces is produced on Western industrial machines with Western technology and Western software and Western details.
	But the thing is, this is not what Russia exports.
	Russia exports resources, not complex technologies.
	And so it gains the resources with the complex technologies.
	And so the Russian government has for years now been pressuring them to be self-reliant.
	And this has been a big thing.
	Putin ordered this a few years back to launch what they call import substitution.
	As in, don't import that thing, build it in Russia.
	This is interesting because Russia is basically a mafia state, and he's got some theories on how mafia states operate, and I think this is really fascinating.
	So basically what he's saying is that mafias can't really run complex industries, but they can run extractive industries, because it's just pumping oil out of the ground.
	Or he gives, in this thread, the example of Mexican cartels.
	The avocados are basically all cartel-dominated industries.
	Buying avocados means you're funding cartels.
	So think about that, progressives, when you're sat there eating your avocado on toast.
	I mean, apparently the colloquial term is blood avocados.
	I love the taste of beheadings.
	Yeah, well, that's basically it, right?
	And so in Russia, this is quite interesting.
	Because he says the dominance hierarchy in Russia means that the people closest to Putin, because it's essentially a mafia state, the people close to him have oil and gas because that's easy to pump out of the ground, but they don't have the really complex industries.
	And so, as he says here, the complex industries such as competitive machinery production are mostly run by low-indominance nerds.
	Which means that they won't be allowed to grow.
	If the extractive businesses can rip them off, they will.
	And if they can't, they better transfer their production to the EU. And this domestic production is not neutral.
	You can't directly control complex industry, you allow it to enrich, and then you feed a rival interest group, which may become more powerful, Over time and demand redistribution of power, so obviously if you're a mafia state you don't want that, and that's unacceptable.
	So this socio-political context makes any sort of serious import substitution or self-reliance absolutely unrealistic in the short run.
	With the current power balance and the current institutions, Russia simply can't do it.
	But because of its powerful cartel-like interest groups, this will end up sabotaging its own internal complex machinery technologies.
	Who knows where this goes, right?
	But he basically views Putin's invasion of Ukraine as a fairly rational decision because one of the ways that cartels maintain their dominance is by what appear to be irrational acts of violence.
	And I don't think there's necessarily an irrational act of violence, but the point is you've got to show people that you're serious, that you will use force, and they will have to do as they're told.
	But this is important because basically it's going to show that in the long term, well, at least in the short term, but in the sort of medium to long term, Russia's going to have real productive problems, right?
	Because they need things like ball bearings.
	You know, you need to run the wheels on a tractor.
	Well, you need to import them from the West.
	And if the West is completely sanctioning you, and you're completely sanctioning them, well, this is all going to go downhill quite quickly, right?
	And it's going to undermine the cartel nature of the Russian government.
	But anyway, so let's move on to things that just that's just the framing.
	So we've got a brief overview of how Russia basically conducts itself.
	Like I said, I'm not an expert.
	I can't confirm it.
	But this seems to be plausible from what I've read.
	So Russia has moved to stop exports.
	Now that's interesting, isn't it?
	Because that's the Russian economy, basically.
	Sending things outside of Russia.
	Because Russia is a massive country that has loads of natural resources.
	But apparently Putin is banning export products and raw materials outside the Russian Federation until at least 2023.
	And the government will define the list of states to be covered by these decisions within two weeks.
	Well, they seem to have drawn up a list of unfriendly countries.
	Well...
	I don't know why he's done that.
	Also, Putin, not Pew.
	No.
	Pew.
	Pew.
	Whatever.
	It's like it's a Z and not a Z. It's neither.
	Anyway.
	Is he not even exporting to...
	China?
	What's the plan?
	I don't imagine that it's going to be a full-spectrum ban on any exports to any countries, but I think this is paving the way to say, well, look, a kind of disengagement from the Western global economic order is what I think is happening here.
	So the Kremlin has drawn up a list of approved countries who have been unfriendly to Russia.
	They obviously include Australia, the UK, the EU, Iceland, Canada, Liechtenstein, Monaco, New Zealand, Norway, Korea, San Marino, Singapore, USA, Taiwan, Ukraine, Montenegro, Switzerland, and Japan.
	Going on the friendly, that's the 10 years.
	But this doesn't include lots of Russian trading partners in Asia or the Middle East, right?
	And so the interesting thing now is that wheat prices are surging because Russia is 18% of global wheat exports.
	We can go to the next one.
	So we see the graph.
	You can scroll down a bit.
	You can see the graph.
	You can see the spike in wheat prices.
	Boom.
	Massive.
	But the thing is, this is actually not our problem.
	If we can go to the next one, Ukraine is also 10% of all wheat exports.
	Yeah, it is.
	It's something like 9% or something.
	But yeah, you can see this is Russia and Ukraine's global wheat exports.
	So Russia is 18% of international exports, and Russia and Ukraine together are nearly 26%.
	So that's massive.
	And the war has also caused Ukraine to stop exporting wheat.
	Literally on the day of the Russian invasion, Ukraine stopped wheat exports as well.
	This is bad for...
	Those people?
	But who are those people?
	You can see Israel, Spain, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia going up to Bangladesh, Turkey and Egypt.
	It's amazing that Egypt needs to import grain.
	You're on the Nile and you need grain.
	What the hell's wrong with you?
	But anyway, the point is, they're not going to the West.
	So it's other countries that are going to be affected by this.
	The third world, as you would call it.
	The third world.
	Not the West, not the enemy block, but instead those in between.
	Yeah, exactly.
	But the thing that we do import from Russia, or the US, when I say we, but we probably do as well, I didn't look into it, but the US imports fertilizer from Russia, and this is what is actually important.
	So it gets most of its fertilizer from Morocco, but the next biggest exporter of fertilizer to the US is Russia.
	This is millions of metric tons.
	And of course, you need this for domestic food production.
	This is what makes the food grow really well out of your ground.
	And there are separate tariffs on various other countries that produce fertiliser as well, such as China and various other places.
	And apparently that leaves 15% of the global phosphate market open to US farmers without tariffs.
	So if they're going to import food from China or wherever, fertiliser from China or wherever, then they're going to be paying a tariff.
	So what this means, if you're in America, your food bills are going to go up.
	Even though Russia doesn't export wheat to you, your food bills are still going to go up.
	And this is also an interesting point as well.
	If you get to the next one, I think it was the New York Times that made this point, or the Washington Post, sorry.
	They point out that, quote, unlike oil production, which can be ramped up quickly, farms can't go back in time and plant extra crops to make up for Ukraine's lost production.
	The spike in global hunger could be a disaster and may have grave political consequences as well.
	So Russia, and I think the point to make here is that when it's like, oh, we're going to sanction Russia, okay, but Russia isn't powerless, it's not unconnected to the global economy, and there is going to be major, major consequences to this.
	Like, millions of people could end up starving out of this because of our unwillingness to negotiate, basically.
	But anyway, so Biden, of course, did the sensible thing and decided to ban Russian oil imports into the U.S., Because I said yesterday, it was kind of...
	Like, you have to respect the hustle at the time yesterday, when we were selling weapons to Ukrainians and then buying Russian oil.
	Yeah, not anymore.
	Okay.
	What is gas in America now?
	Like, $7 a gallon?
	We'll get to it.
	It's not quite that high, but it's getting there.
	But the point is, this actually doesn't have much of an impact, because apparently America's imports of Russian oil are like 4%.
	Oh.
	So this barely touches their market anyway.
	And of course, this is Biden's statement.
	He says, I'm announcing the United States is targeting the main artery of Russia's economy.
	We're banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy.
	Well, most of Russia's gas and energy goes to Europe.
	I don't know where the rest of that oil is going, but it's not to America.
	So what does that do?
	Russia doesn't actually supply that much energy to the United States.
	I mean, merely a year ago, the US was energy independent.
	Do you miss me yet?
	Yeah, exactly.
	We'll get to the orange man in a minute.
	But the point is, this is not a great blow against Russia.
	They think it is.
	And of course, Zelensky thinks this is a great idea, if you can get to the next one.
	We're thankful for the US in striking a blow at the heart of Putin's war machine, banning oil, gas and coal from the US market.
	Well, I don't know how much of an impact that's really going to be.
	But the framing is what I find most disgusting about this, coming from the Biden regime, of course.
	We've got a clip here, but I'm not going to play it.
	I'm just going to read it for time's sake.
	He says, quote, Putin's war is already hurting American families at the gas pump.
	I'm going to do everything I can to minimize Putin's price hike here.
	The increase in American fuel prices is not to do with Putin.
	It is not to do with the invasion of Ukraine, and it happened before the invasion of Ukraine.
	We have the graphs, Joe.
	We know.
	We have the oil production going through there, energy independence, and you just turned it off and went down.
	Yes.
	We will go through it, in fact.
	So, obviously, massive record fuel price increase in the United States at this point.
	The average national price has reached more than $4 a gallon.
	It was less than $2 a gallon under the evil orange man.
	It's $5 in California, according to subscribers of ours who have messaged me going, look at this picture of the price.
	It's $5.20 or something.
	It's like, oh my god.
	And obviously this is just going up.
	Trump, of course, did call this.
	He said in one of his campaign rallies a couple of years ago, if Biden got in, you'd be paying $7, $8, $9 and then they'll say, get rid of your car.
	Well, we're nearly there.
	Give it a couple of months and it will probably be in that position at this point.
	Because for some reason, Biden just won't do what he can to become energy independent.
	He'll tweet that that's what you need to do.
	You can see the next one.
	This crisis is a stark reminder.
	To protect our economy over the long term, we need to become energy independent.
	You're already there.
	Says Biden today.
	You were there when you got in.
	You're the one who killed that.
	You ruined it.
	You ruined that.
	Unbelievable.
	But of course, it should motivate us to accelerate our transition to a clean energy future.
	Ideology.
	Pure ideology.
	He's not wrong though.
	He's not wrong when he points out his ideological things.
	And so let's just have a quick refresh of how brilliant things were under Trump.
	You may remember that at one point you were being paid $38 for your petrol.
	Literally, the price of oil went to minus $38 because Trump had brought in so much oil that the storage facilities needed to get rid of it.
	There was also the pandemic, of course, that made it that funny, but Trump's work was not nothing.
	No.
	And this was literally being paid to take fuel.
	And now...
	I should have taken the deal.
	I'm just saying, it's so extreme, the contrast in a year.
	I know where you get Trump in and it's like, I've got the art of the deal, we'll get paid to take oil.
	That's a good deal.
	And Biden's like, no, I'm going to ruin this.
	But literally, a year ago, that's all this was.
	Right?
	And the reason this happened, of course, is because Biden literally won't let them drill for oil in America.
	You may remember that on day one, he killed the Keystone Pipeline, which was to tap Canada's massive oil reserves.
	Can't have that.
	Why?
	Because it's not environmentally friendly.
	Okay?
	I don't care.
	Yeah, I don't care.
	I don't care at all.
	And the thing is, well, so America has got like large petrol fields of its own.
	What's the problem?
	Well, the problem is the Biden administration literally won't let them drill.
	As the people involved in the petrol industry in America are saying, this is something that Jen Psaki had said.
	She says the United States is already producing oil at record numbers and there are 9,000 approved drilling permits that are not being used.
	So the suggestion that we're not allowing companies to drill isn't accurate.
	I would suggest you ask the oil companies while they're not using those if there's a desire to drill more.
	As if the petrol industry doesn't want to make money.
	You know, they always hate money.
	They hate the smell of money.
	They're throwing it away just to get rid of it.
	Exactly.
	I mean, they were literally paying you to take it away at one point, so maybe that's their reasoning.
	Oil exempt.
	Can't stand being rich.
	Yeah, exactly.
	It's ridiculous, right?
	And so the American Exploration and Production Council CEO Anne Bradbury told Fox Business, this is a red herring.
	It's a distraction from the fact that this administration has paused leasing on federal lands, something that we're concerned about and we need to continue right away, leasing.
	The American Petroleum Institute president, Mike Summers, said, Once you lease land, there's a whole process you have to go through.
	First, you have to discover whether there's oil on the land, and then you have to get a permit to develop the land.
	Right now, we're actually developing more leases than we have in decades, so the White House doesn't have their facts straight on this.
	And Energy Workforce and Technology Council CEO, Leslie Beyer, says, The moratorium on leasing certainly adds an additional block to American energy production.
	So that is the opposite of what we need to be doing right now.
	They're saying, you won't let us drill new fields.
	Psaki's lying.
	Biden's lying, and they're trying to blame Putin.
	It's not true, right?
	And the worst part about this is it's humiliating for the United States.
	Imagine spending the last, oh, I don't know, decade or so sanctioning Iran, Venezuela, wherever else, and saying, yeah, no, you're bad people.
	We're not going to import from you.
	This is it.
	And then things not going your way, and then going, right, could we have a deal on oil, please?
	Why would they do it?
	Why wouldn't they be like, no, $300 a barrel, now what?
	You know?
	Why wouldn't they humiliate you and rinse you?
	Also, why would they not want more money?
	Like, the higher the price of oil goes, the richer they get.
	Exactly.
	I think it was like $109 or something when I looked the other day.
	And it's like, why wouldn't they just absolutely gouge you for prices?
	And the thing is, they know, they're not stupid, they know the United States a year ago was energy independent.
	That was terrifying.
	To them, yeah, exactly.
	It was terrifying to them.
	And so now, for Biden to come, cap in hand, going, like, can I get some cheap oil, please?
	Like, are you mad?
	Like, what are you doing?
	Like, you're sat on billions of barrels of oil and you're coming to us for cheap oil.
	You're an idiot, you know?
	And anyway, but this is the problem of the American elites.
	The American elites seem to be absolutely lost in ideology.
	The thing that's going around at the moment in all the economist circles is maybe we need price controls.
	Really?
	Really?
	Price controls were long ago dismissed as communist bunk.
	All they do is make shortages.
	All they do is create a black market as well.
	And the Austrian economists were absolutely right on price controls.
	Business Insider is wrong.
	This is an experiment that has been done dozens of times, going all the way back to the Roman Empire.
	We know that price controls don't work.
	Anyway, so what's Biden using your money on?
	Well, he's just managed to send 14 billion over to the Ukraine.
	In what?
	Weapons?
	Yeah.
	Aid, weapons, money.
	For free?
	We're not even selling them to them now?
	Not to my knowledge.
	It's an aid package.
	So it's just free cash.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	14 billion free cash to Ukraine.
	Hmm.
	He's not corrupt or anything.
	Zelensky wasn't in the Panama Papers, was he?
	Oh wait, he was.
	Right, okay, that's right.
	Because Ukraine is as corrupt as Russia.
	I'm sure this is going to go exactly where it needs to go.
	But the thing is, the Republicans had a...
	This was something that Mitch McConnell was championing.
	He said that the settled-upon figure was difficult.
	It was like pulling teeth, negotiating a higher dollar value with Democrats.
	So the Democrats are actually the ones who are like, maybe we shouldn't give them so much.
	And the Republicans are like, no, we need to give them as much as we can.
	The Democrats are like, yeah, but they are Nazis.
	Well, some of them are.
	Yeah, I know.
	We'll get to this in a minute.
	But literally, some progressives have raised questions about the scale of weapons shipments being sent to militia groups aligned with Ukraine's government, some of whom experts have warned to have white nationalist ideologies.
	Yeah, so there was meant to be a debate about making sure, like having some procedures in place so it doesn't end up with those guys, but then everyone went, we'd rather just not know.
	Yeah.
	And that's been the solution.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I didn't include this, but Facebook used to have a banning on praising Azov Battalion that they recently reversed.
	It's like, yeah, you're not allowed to praise these Nazis.
	But now we're at war with Russia, you are allowed to praise these Nazis, isn't it?
	They are white nationalists, but they are white nationalists.
	That's exactly what it is.
	Ceausescu is our commie, Reagan's phrase.
	Yeah, yeah, no, that's exactly what it is.
	But anyway, and of course, it was International Women's Day yesterday, if any of you celebrate that communist holiday, and Biden does, so he's like, yeah, what we need is $2.6 billion for foreign assistance programs that promote gender equality worldwide.
	Are we sending it all to Pakistan again?
	This is your money, Americans.
	They're absolutely pissing up the wall when you are about to encounter a massive economic downturn and all of your food, your fuel, and when fuel goes up, food goes up anyway because, of course, you need fuel for the tractors and farm equipment and whatnot and to get the food to the shops so you can buy.
	Everything's about to go up in price, right?
	And so what's the opinion of the rich elites in America?
	Are they like...
	This is bad for regular people.
	Of course they're not.
	Of course they don't care, right?
	Let's go to the next one.
	George Takei.
	I knew he was coming.
	Yep.
	I think he's worth about $20 million.
	Americans, we can endure higher prices for food and gas if it means putting the screws on Putin.
	Consider it a patriotic donation for the fight for freedom over tyranny.
	Donations are voluntary.
	We.
	We.
	We can do this.
	From his mansion in California.
	You are making patriotic donations.
	I mean, this is the kind of language, especially the, you're making a donation by having higher prices.
	Yeah.
	I remember reading from, like, North Korean propagandists writing about how we're going through the arduous journey.
	And don't worry, it's for the party.
	I mean, that's literally his position.
	This is literally the party.
	But the best one was, of course, Stephen Colbert.
	Who, I mean, when he is eventually dragged out into the street and eaten raw by poor people, when they actually finally eat the rich, I'm not going to shed a tear.
	Because this is a disgusting statement, and I really despise it.
	Quote, today, we played the clip, but we don't want to get copyright struck.
	Today, the average gas price in America hit an all-time record high of over $4 a gallon.
	They used to pay you to take it away.
	Okay, that stings, but a clean conscience is worth a buck or two.
	It is important.
	I'm willing to pay $4 a gallon.
	Hey, I'll pay $15 a gallon because I drive a Tesla.
	I hate it.
	They deserve everything they're going to get.
	When the guillotines come out, they deserve it.
	The left-wing vision of the future.
	Yeah.
	I drive a Tesla.
	It doesn't matter to me.
	Put it up to $30.
	Exactly.
	That really is good.
	Also, he's worth $75 million.
	So what does he care?
	He can afford it.
	He'll buy another Tesla.
	He'll have three Teslas.
	Exactly.
	He'll buy an entire fleet of bloody Teslas.
	And so this Let Them Buy Teslas is basically the clarion call of the Mary Antoinettes of the left-wing establishment.
	Again, Pete Buttigieg came out and was like, if gas prices are too high, just buy an electric car.
	They cost at minimum like $50,000.
	You can't pay for your week's fuel costs?
	And they're like, yeah, we'll just buy a Tesla, bro.
	It's like, sorry, we're not all multi-millionaire Californians.
	Don't know what to tell you.
	That actually is really, really gross.
	It's disgusting.
	Like, isn't the let them eat cake thing meant to be fake?
	It is, yeah.
	She definitely didn't say it, but it definitely encompassed the spirit of the time.
	But Pete did say this.
	Yeah, let them buy Teslas.
	It's unbelievable, right?
	But okay, so let's ask the guy who owns Tesla.
	I mean, he must be like, brilliant!
	No.
	Hate to say it, but we need to increase oil and gas output immediately.
	Extraordinary times demand, extraordinary measures, says Elon Musk, the guy who makes and owns the Teslas.
	Tesla man says no.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And he just replies, obviously this would negatively affect Tesla, but sustainable energy solutions simply cannot react instantaneously to make up for Russian oil and gas exports.
	It's not even the Russian oil and gas exports that are the problem.
	But as you said, we need to increase the output.
	He's thinking of a global perspective as well.
	Of course, he's not just thinking the United States, but also just absolutely correct.
	Yes, 100% correct.
	The Mary Antoinettes and the Democrat regime are ludicrous and totally disconnected from reality.
	Anyway, I don't know what's going on, but we're going to go on because there's a lot to cover.
	And so he also wants us to return to nuclear energy because you may remember that Germany shut down their last remaining nuclear plants the other day.
	So they can import gas from Russia?
	Yeah, I don't know why.
	What the hell's wrong with them?
	Trump told them not to do it, and they did anyway.
	They were like, oh, this is for the planet?
	It's like, no, it's the most green energy.
	What now?
	Anyway, they're, of course, totally dependent on Russian gas to heat their homes.
	And this was brought up in the EU Parliament the other day, being like, well, hang on a second.
	We've bought 10 billion euros worth of gas and oil from Russia in the last 12 days.
	Are we funding this war effort?
	Yeah, you might be.
	You might be funding the war effort.
	Good point.
	You know, people have been pointing out all the burnt Russian vehicles and how that's going to cost them.
	And now I'm thinking, nah, no, it's not.
	They don't care.
	It's probably good for their economy.
	But anyway, so Europe is, of course, going like, okay.
	And what I love about Europe, right, is it's such a big, dense bureaucracy that if something gets through, it must be really important, right?
	And so even Ursula von der Leyen was like...
	Hmm, maybe we actually shouldn't be completely dependent on Russia for our energy.
	Maybe that's bad.
	Oh, brilliant.
	Big brain thinking here.
	You know, maybe Merkel closing down all the nuclear power plants wasn't in our best interest.
	Maybe other kinds of independence are good, Ursula.
	Yeah.
	And so what they've done is outlined a plan to achieve energy independence from Moscow well before 2030.
	2030?
	You need it tomorrow!
	In fact, you needed it yesterday, or about five years ago.
	But now you've got it in 2030.
	Unbelievable.
	Unbelievable.
	We must become independent from Russian oil, coal and gas, says Ursula von der Leyen.
	We simply cannot rely on a supplier who explicitly threatens us.
	Then why did you?
	Because it was cheaper, isn't it?
	That's why you did it.
	But anyway, we are, of course, in Britain also going to pay for this.
	Liz Truss, I think it was, who was in Parliament the other day, was like, there will be an economic cost for British people from the sanctions in the terms of their energy bills.
	That cost is nothing compared to the cost of the people of Ukraine for this horrific barbarism.
	I've seen people on Facebook just posting, my bills have gone up by 100%.
	How the hell am I going to pay for this?
	Yes, it's disgusting.
	And then people discussing, should I just buy a wood-burning stove to try and heat the house?
	I can go out and chop some trees.
	I mean, they're just free in the forest.
	There's also people talking about how to mess with their me is.
	Don't do that.
	But this is the point.
	Like, we are going to pay the cost of all of this.
	And so the question is, why is this happening?
	And there are theories that this could be a long-running judo move by Putin, and that he has been planning this for quite some time.
	This is a very interesting thread.
	A link will be in the...
	Notes of the show on the website, so go and check that out because it's really worth it.
	But basically, this is a summary of someone who's been looking into this and he thinks that this will lock the US into a spiral of inflation, increased debt, insecurity in the dollar, continued money printing, and an inability to trade our way out of it.
	Entirely possible.
	Essentially, what this is an attempt to do is abolish the dollar as the world reserve currency by making it worthless.
	And that's not good for the West.
	And we seem to be playing right into what looks like a long-term plan by Putin.
	So if we go to the next one, it turns out that Russia's been stockpiling gold for quite some time.
	Sorry, I'll get to that in a second.
	Russia has returned to the gold standard, allegedly, right?
	So they're putting forward a bill in their parliament and the state duma.
	So purchasing gold bars or other precious metals from the bank, the 20% tax on top of it will be abolished.
	And this is interesting.
	I mean, I'm no financial expert, but surely it was the abolition of the gold standard that made the dollar what it was.
	And so if people are like, yeah, we're not going to do that, then that's going to take away what the dollar is.
	And this is something that's important, I think, because it seems that Russia and the People's Bank of China have both been stockpiling gold for quite some time.
	Here's a 2019 article talking about it.
	Watch out.
	China and Russia are stockpiling gold.
	They've been doing this since 2014 at the very least.
	I remember Tick making this point as well, which is if gold is so worthless and the gold standard means nothing, why does even the British government have huge reserves of gold just sitting around just in case?
	Well, our reserves are less than they used to be, actually.
	I know, but why do we even keep any?
	If gold standard's worthless and gold isn't really worthwhile keeping, why do we do it?
	It's because it's reality.
	Yeah, but we actually have a very small amount of gold compared to many other countries.
	Which is why do you even collect it if it's worthless?
	The reason is because things have value if we think they have value, and the thing about gold is it can't inflate.
	Because there's literally been something like 174,000 tons of gold that's been mined in all of human history.
	We actually know the exact amount of gold that has ever been mined.
	You can't just money, printer, go burr.
	Which means that if gold is the thing that underpins transactional cost, then the amount of labor that a piece of gold is worth is actually fairly constant.
	It's something you can't just inflate out into nothing.
	But anyway, so another thing that Russia had been doing, again, reported in 2019, is that it's trying to reduce dollar transactions.
	Russia has been concluding currency swap deals with countries that have poor relations with the US, including Iran, Turkey, and China.
	And another one from the Financial Times, we'll quickly get to the next one.
	This was, can we scroll down?
	I can't remember what year this was in.
	2020 was.
	Russia and China are partnering to reduce their dependence on the dollar, a development some experts may lead to a financial alliance between them.
	Looks like this was a long-term plan for the Russians and the Chinese to essentially Judo move the American's stupidity and arrogance against them.
	You're going to cut everything off from the world economy?
	Okay, let's do it.
	Russia and China are stockpiling gold.
	Notice that when the MasterCard and Visa cut off Russia as we covered the other day, the Chinese stepped right in with their, what was it called?
	The payments...
	Oh, I don't remember.
	The Chinese one.
	Apparently the Russians are going to replace it with MIR, which is their own system.
	That means peace in Russian, which is very funny, because it's obviously ironic.
	Shockingly, they have a word for peace.
	I suppose it just means not war, right?
	But the point is, this is not good for America and the West, right?
	Because it looks like there's a kind of growing awareness, a kind of consciousness among the various enemies of America that actually America is really weak right now.
	It's a really vulnerable position.
	And maybe now is the time to just go all in.
	Because, like you were saying, the Russians are going to be like, well, we've suffered worse.
	If not now, when?
	Exactly.
	If not now, when?
	I was talking to my mate about this.
	He's just like, with Biden in.
	If not now, when?
	Yeah.
	Trump might get back in.
	Don't want to be doing all that.
	Exactly.
	You're not going to do it with Trump in because he was going to do something about it.
	Biden is going to be like, well, we're going to sanction you.
	We know.
	We've sanctioned you already.
	Now get out.
	You know, which they have done.
	And so, just to end this is, okay, well, like, it can't be all bad.
	Surely, like, you know, the Saudis are still on side.
	Except they're not returning Biden's calls.
	It's weird, isn't it?
	But apparently, they did accept a call from Putin, according to the Wall Street Journal.
	It's weird.
	We seem to be putting the entire world in a coalition against us.
	Remember, democracies are only 20% of the world's governments.
	Like, the West is actually a really small number of people in the world.
	And it's a shrinking number of people in the world.
	It's even a small number of countries.
	Yes.
	But, like, most of the world's population are now in league with...
	With Russia and China.
	It's not good.
	Anyway, let's talk about the mid-century German enthusiasts of the Ukraine after that.
	Because I hate watching all of this just propaganda, frankly.
	All unfettered, uncritical views of anything I think are absolutely wrong and exactly the reason why massive mistakes happen.
	And one of the things I don't want Russia to invade Ukraine.
	I don't support Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
	Illegal war is bad.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Don't even need to be said, really.
	Well, you would think so.
	But then I've actually opposed all illegal wars in the last 30 years.
	I wasn't in favour of the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan or anything like that.
	And so I've got a pretty clean record on this, being like, just don't invade.
	That's not good.
	Let's talk about it.
	Pacifist.
	Yeah, I know.
	It's terrible, isn't it?
	But one of the things I really hate about the discussion around Ukraine is that, look, there are actually loads of Nazis in Ukraine, and it's actually kind of gross.
	Like, I don't want to support Nazis.
	I don't support Nazism.
	I think Nazism is bad.
	I'm an Englishman who was born in the 20th century.
	Obviously, I think Nazis are bad.
	And so I'm like, okay, why are we giving so much money and sucker to Nazis?
	To actual Nazis?
	To oppose Russia?
	Okay.
	So anyway, Putin, one of the justifications for invading Ukraine was he wanted to denazify it.
	And you get articles like this one.
	That doesn't make any sense.
	What do you mean?
	Doesn't make any sense.
	Like, this argument makes no sense.
	So there's someone who doesn't live anywhere near Ukraine.
	That wasn't his whole argument, though.
	It was that the government is run by Nazis.
	Like, not just there are Nazis in existence or in the National Guard.
	It's that the whole thing is a Nazi state.
	Yeah, I'm not saying that Putin was telling the truth.
	But the point is to say that it makes no sense that Ukraine needs a bit of denazification is also not true.
	So, basically, Putin said he was acting...
	That doesn't mean war.
	No, I'm not saying it means war.
	Just to be clear.
	I'm not saying it means war.
	But anyway, he said he was acting for genocide against Russian-speaking people in Ukraine, and aimed for denazification, blah, blah, blah.
	And this is something that this chap rejects.
	He said, well, this claim was striking, and in opposition to reality, for one thing, the Ukrainian president, Zelenskyy, who is democratically elected, is Jewish.
	Oh, well then, there can't be any Nazis in Ukraine.
	Zelensky's Jewish.
	The Israelis were actually, at one point, the ones giving weapons to the Avzov Battalion and got criticised for it because they were like, mate, you're Israel?
	Yeah.
	What are you doing?
	Why, I mean, like, literal neo-Nazis.
	Anyway, so there seem to be a lot of Nazis in Ukraine, actually.
	So let's just have a quick look.
	There's an amazing thread on Twitter that just literally lists it all.
	You'll have to translate all of these things.
	And this has got about 50 different reply links in it.
	So I'm not going to go through them all.
	But this is just a list of Nazism and anti-Semitism in present-day Ukraine.
	So you've got neo-Nazi organizations destroying graves and monuments honoring the victims of the Holocaust in Lyshekansk in 2021.
	Remember when they lied about destroying the Holocaust Memorial?
	The Russians doing it?
	Well, these people are actually doing it.
	Interesting.
	There were the graves of 800 Jews murdered by Nazis and collaborators.
	Next one, you've got Ukraine, the Prime Minister in 2019, was at a concert by an openly Nazi rock band, not Zelensky, the previous guy, Gorchunk or something.
	I can't pronounce any of these words because they're foreign.
	Give me a break.
	Maybe they can make out the swastika.
	Yeah, yeah.
	They played their famous song, Six Million Words of Lies.
	What the hell?
	And the Prime Minister was there in 2019.
	Then you've got the children's play at Starchy Catholic Church.
	The children portray the Jew as Hitler, and they say, quote, Get out of our way, Jew.
	Doing business with you is not the same as respecting ourselves.
	Kids play at a church, mate.
	This actually kind of does remind me of the critical race theorists in the United States.
	Remember when that lady organised them into Nazis and Jews and had them do their thing?
	Yeah.
	I mean, like, John's just scrolling through.
	That's the rock band with the six million lies.
	But the...
	It just keeps going.
	It just keeps going.
	You've got loads of these kids' plays where one of the kids is dressed as the evil Jew.
	Oh, God.
	Right?
	I can see the...
	Oh, boy.
	And the kids are obviously...
	For people listening, it's like watching Borat.
	A child version.
	No, it really is.
	It's like a skit from Borat, which makes people like Sacha Baron Cohen silence on this, all the more ominous.
	It's like, sorry, there really does seem to be a bit of a Nazi problem in Ukraine.
	I mean, don't get me wrong.
	I appreciate that you opposed the Soviet Union.
	Didn't appreciate what they did to you.
	You know, one genocide doesn't really equal out another.
	Cancel out another, though, in my opinion.
	But anyway, so let's go to where it really matters.
	Because it's one thing it being in the culture, I guess.
	But it's another thing it being in the military.
	You know, with government assistance.
	We'll get to the next one.
	You've got this one.
	So the armed forces of Ukraine, after the Minsk ceasefire agreements, posed with a poster wishing the death of Donbass residents.
	These are Russians.
	Along with fascist and Nazi symbols.
	So the Ukrainians have been shelling them for quite some time.
	And it starts to make Ukraine look like 4chan's country, frankly, if you go to the next one.
	So the steel men of this, as I understand it, again, this isn't a huge thing, but it's that they didn't really have any forces and therefore were, like, desperate for anyone and ended up with these guys as the only ones who were worthwhile fighters.
	And then, well, they've stuck around.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Because that's what's happened.
	Yeah.
	But look at the Ukrainian flag with the Nazi symbol on it.
	It's like the Ukrainian flag in America with the American flag.
	Well, the Germans did try some of this when they invaded the Second World War.
	They did try to set up, what would you call it, helpers?
	Yeah.
	But as he points out, there are loads and loads of these pictures.
	This is a very small selection of Ukrainians posing with Nazi flags.
	Well, military units.
	Military units, yeah, posing with Nazi flags, right?
	And there's not just the Azov Battalion, apparently.
	And you get literally, even on the front lines, this is a trench in Donbass, where the Ukrainians have been shelling Donbass for quite some time, basically at war with them.
	Oh, that's a nice swastika.
	Bravo!
	Like, literally in the trench, attacking Russians with a bloody giant swastika.
	Yeah, I can see why if you're a Donbass resident, you might not be too pleased.
	I can see that if you're a Putin, like, yeah, I think there might be a little bit of denazification needed.
	It's one thing being at war with someone.
	You can see where the rhetoric comes from.
	And you can see how it could be justified, right?
	There is also, it's not only the fact that, so if you listen to them talk about their goals, it's not only they want to then basically cleanse Luhansk and Dunyansk.
	You then want to move into Rostov and the Kuban and take that back, because that's sovereign Ukrainian territory as well.
	Right, okay.
	That's like the greater Ukraine thing.
	Okay, quick question.
	Do we think these guys are being capable of the genocide?
	Nazis are...
	Incapable.
	Oh, no, they would be capable.
	Yeah, exactly.
	You know, it's like, look, am I going to give these Nazis the benefit of the doubt that they're not going to genocide all the Russians if they manage to take these cities?
	You wouldn't want them anywhere near government.
	No, not really.
	And not particularly in the army, either.
	But let's go to the Dottnesk, is that how it's pronounced?
	Trench?
	Oh, there's another swastika.
	Just amazing.
	How this just keeps getting flown.
	Ukrainian army soldiers waving swastikas from their trenches.
	Do we know if these particular ones are eyes off, or are these just other units, or we don't know?
	We don't know, because, I mean, you can't tell from the thing, but it's a Ukrainian trench flying a Ukrainian flag with the Nazi emblems on it.
	Brilliant.
	Just brilliant.
	And then it gets worse.
	Like, the Black Sun.
	Is it possible to take a picture of anyone in Ukraine who's not wearing a Black Sun?
	Probably yes.
	Well, then why can't NATO manage it?
	I don't know.
	I did see that tweet.
	Yeah, we'll get to it in a second, but if you can click on that first one, the kids in the yellow shirts, this is obviously an Azov battalion training thing with just kids, black son.
	I mean, is that concerning?
	Is anyone concerned that this is happening?
	They seem to be able to indoctrinate a generation of young people into Nazism.
	This is why you think, or you would think, a precondition for the weapons would be, it doesn't go to these guys.
	Yeah.
	Like, we'll send weapons to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, but not the Mujahideen.
	Sorry, no, not the Al-Qaeda guys.
	Like, we'll give it to the Mujahideen, but not Al-Qaeda, or something like this.
	We'll get to that in a minute.
	But, you know, Zelensky is Jewish, right?
	So he's not going to be, like, shaking hands with Nazis or anything.
	It's a wild, wild east.
	It is.
	It's a really wild east.
	He's bestowed the title National Hero of Ukraine with the Order of the Golden Star to Dmitry Kozybial, a neo-Nazi and outspoken, bandarist leader of Pravi Sektor.
	Like, this is literally a Nazi, an open Nazi, shaking the hand of Zelensky after being awarded National Hero of Ukraine.
	I'm surprised the Nazi would.
	Well, I'm shocked too, frankly.
	But, I mean, I guess the Wild East, isn't it?
	This is like Zamora all over again.
	I make a synthesis.
	I guess it kind of is.
	I made the Nazis non-anti-Semitic.
	Just rossophobic, I suppose.
	But, I mean, it's like, okay, well, how do they feel about, like, you know, Western ideology?
	Well, not very good about it.
	The next one, this is them burning an LGBT flag.
	I believe this is a traditional flag as well, not with its racial pride.
	Yeah, this is the conservative LGBT flag.
	But they're hunting for homosexuals and subhumans.
	They also do a few Nazi salutes later on in this video.
	Is this a concern for anyone?
	Anyone in the West?
	Or just uncritical support for what's going on in Ukraine right now?
	I think most people do make the distinction.
	Do they?
	Well, they do when they speak about it.
	I don't know.
	Apparently our politicians don't do it with the weapons they give up.
	Exactly.
	Uncritical support is all I've seen, frankly.
	I've not seen anyone in the West...
	We should get that off.
	Yeah.
	I think they're actually torturing someone there.
	Yeah, I'm going to have to censor that in post as well.
	So next one, John.
	Yeah.
	So, you know, getting images.
	Here's a picture from the war zone.
	Zoom and enhance, please.
	Boom.
	Yeah.
	NATO. I want to post out some pro-Ukraine pictures of the military doing some stuff.
	Let's go to the next one.
	All women and girls must live free and equal.
	This is International Women's Day.
	We think of the remarkable women of Ukraine.
	Their strength, bravery, resilience.
	A symbolic of the spirit of their nation.
	This is a tweet by NATO. NATO verified account.
	Then there are images.
	Zoom and enhance, please.
	Oh, what's that?
	If you scroll down a little bit.
	Oh, it's a black sun.
	Yeah.
	Oh, wow.
	NATO deleted this tweet.
	After people were like, yeah, that's a nasty.
	It's a Nazi woman who's so brave and inspirational and remarkable.
	Sorry, what was the bravery, resilience, strength, symbolic of the spirit of their nation?
	I love women.
	Women are timeless, formless.
	They can be anything they want.
	She wants to be a Nazi.
	Oh, God.
	Delete, delete, delete.
	We give women freedom to choose their future.
	Ah, no!
	But how embarrassing is this?
	They can't stop themselves posting Nazi propaganda.
	How bad are things, if that's the case, right?
	Anyway, so the next thing, let's talk about As of Battalion very briefly, because we're over time.
	As you can go to the Wikipedia page, they make no bones if you scroll down a little bit.
	Ideology section, please, John.
	Neo-Nazism!
	Yeah.
	It's just it.
	That's all their ideology is.
	And so in January 2015, they were formed in 2014, so they're not even an old thing.
	In 2015, they were founded.
	In 2014, they were founded.
	300 people, they reckoned.
	This was 900 people in 2015.
	Der Spiegel in Germany puts them out at 2,500 people because invasion, propaganda, and no disavowal.
	Why would you not join them?
	So this is rapidly growing, is the takeaway I would suggest.
	And of course, we're giving them weapons.
	Sorry, we can go to the last one there, John.
	That was the speaker one, which says, well, we reckon there are about 2,500 of these, but of course we don't know, and we won't know until they have their own march on Kiev.
	They're in Kiev, actually.
	That's where their training base is, by the way.
	My understanding is a bunch of them, or at least the majority of the battalion itself, were in Mariupol and therefore are encircled.
	I don't know where they're on combat deployment, but like...
	But the rest of them, yeah.
	Yeah, their training base is in Kiev.
	And so if you go to the last one, yes, we've been sending the Ukrainians rocket launchers.
	Yes, these are members of the Azov Battalion receiving the weapons.
	I don't know why there weren't any checks.
	It would have been an easy thing to do.
	Well, this happened in Syria, in Iraq, where we...
	The thing is, well, right?
	You say checks, like as in different, you know, make sure they don't go to the wrong people.
	But you remember what happened in the Middle East, where it's like, ah, we're not sending them to ISIS or Al-Qaeda.
	We're sending them to the Syrian Liberation Front.
	Well, who are they?
	Well, they used to be ISIS like five minutes ago, and in two weeks' time, they'll be ISIS again.
	Yeah.
	People are not doing checks there either, frankly.
	No, but there are no checks you can do because it's not a hard border between these groups.
	It's very fluid and the members go back and forth.
	There is crossover, but to make absolutely no effort, I mean, that is what was in the bill, which is just, there was the discussion of, should we try and make some checks?
	And then they went, nah.
	No, we'll just give them straight to the Nazis in Ukraine.
	It's just, we'd rather not know, and therefore we're not complicit, and it's just like, that's not a good argument.
	It's awful, in my opinion, but there we go.
	So the West is currently actively funding and arming Ukrainian Nazis.
	And other than that, let's go to the video comments!
	So continuing book recommendations, I've got Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield.
	It's a novelization of the Battle of Thermopylae, and it's actually interesting because it's not told through the eyes of a Spartan.
	It's told by a different Greek who's there with the Spartans.
	But it's a very good book.
	It's a novel, not a documentary.
	So the author does take some creative liberties.
	But honestly, it is one of the most powerful and touching works of military fiction I've ever read.
	And I do not say that lightly.
	So I highly recommend it.
	The guy on the cover looks like a Roman, not a Spartan.
	They didn't have that kind of sword.
	The shield's not really very accurate, and the armour's probably not accurate either.
	The helmet is definitely not accurate.
	But it's nice that the non-Spartan Greeks get a piece of reference in there, because in the Battle of Thermopylae, there were like 7,500 Greeks, and only 300 of them were Spartans, and they're the only ones anyone remembers.
	No one ever remembers the thespians.
	Thespians are great.
	I'll do a thing on them.
	What happened?
	Did they stay in flight as well?
	Yeah, they're mad.
	They didn't retreat at any point?
	No.
	And the thespians have a tradition of just getting themselves slaughtered for no reason.
	It's time to run away.
	No, we don't do that.
	Well, yeah, but you're outnumbered like 100 to 1.
	Yeah, we came here to be martyrs.
	That's literally, yeah, it's mad.
	Anyway, we'll talk about them another time.
	Let's go, next one.
	So, I was watching Carl's discussion with AA a few days ago, and I had a bit of a quibble with his assertion that AA's firing was not a matter of state persecution.
	The issue is that through grants, mandates, or persecution, the state is forcing companies to have diversity quotas or diversity departments, which are just roundabout ways of them forcing companies to hire people of certain political parties to enforce their will.
	Therefore, it is a state matter.
	I don't think that's a fair characterization in the UK. I'm not saying that they don't get state funding or anything like that, but the impetus to ideologically purify themselves is definitely coming from within the institution itself.
	I mean, what was the Conservative MP who put forward the bill that literally is the free speech bill on campus or whatever?
	So it'd be illegal to de-platform and things like that.
	It's not that...
	I don't think the Conservatives are in favour of that.
	it's just they're committed to funding these institutions and the impetus for this comes from within the institution i disagree okay so tony blair he instituted the equality and diversity statute or whatever the word is in which every government department had to come up with guidelines on how they would further diversity and equality within the departments yeah and then this became beached into the legislation on equality that every company should also look at this i don't know if it's uh legally mandated for every company i don't think it is
	But on every governmental department or anything that is close to the government, they are mandated to push this stuff in the guidelines, in the practices, and come up with new ways to do it.
	Even if they've reached any goal you can think of, they have to come up with something new.
	This isn't an order for universities to fire people for being dissidents.
	I don't know the university relationship with the state there.
	I imagine it is not...
	No, the diversity hiring is not getting rid of people for having unorthodox political views.
	Oh, I think that a lot of that is.
	I think this comes from an ideological drive from the institution.
	Yes, and the ideological drive from the institution has made the law what it is through Tony Blair, and then it's a bit of a circle there.
	Yeah, but it's not fair to say the Conservative government are responsible for AA's firing, basically.
	The Conservative government is responsible for not getting rid of that...
	Absolutely.
	I'm not saying they're not complicit or anything like that.
	It's pathetic, as you say.
	God, I don't want to defend the Conservative government.
	But I don't think that's fair.
	I mean, there are going to be much more influential agents closer to the situation who have much more control over whether AA gets fired or not.
	That's what I think.
	That I can agree with.
	Today I just want to make Carl jealous.
	So this is my Greek Aspis shield.
	That's a correct shield.
	It's about three feet across.
	That's a correct sword.
	It has a glute on linen facing that's been painted and then a thin layer of brass around the rim.
	You can see the Argive grip here actually gives me a great deal of control over it.
	These ropes here can be used for backpacking it for long tracks.
	Unless he holds it on his shoulder.
	It's not even actually that heavy to hold.
	Right now it's just resting on my shoulder.
	I'm literally not even holding it.
	But it offers a great deal of protection, and in a future video I'll explain why that's particularly helpful in shield walls.
	See, and there's the leaf-shaped sword as well, not the straight sword, the gladius-style sword that was on the cover of the video.
	I'd have police uniforms with that stuff.
	Oh, it's awesome.
	Walking around in London, some, like, loser pulls out a kitchen knife and you just have your shield on your back.
	But this is exactly historically accurate, whereas the other one, the guy had tiny shield, straight-edge Roman-style sword and Roman-style armour and stuff.
	It's like, no, no, no, that's correct.
	So, nice coincidence that came up, and yes, I am jealous.
	It looks awesome.
	Go to the next one.
	I'd like to add a little more context as to how tied we are economically to Russia.
	So apparently about a third of all imported ammunition is from Russia, including all this cheap steel kit stuff for ARs, AKs, and so on and so forth.
	And it is on Biden's radar because he did restrict this earlier last year for no particular reason other than political reasons.
	I didn't know that.
	And I was like, you know how tight we are into Russia?
	All our guns come in.
	I love that.
	The only thing I know on that, and I want to find out more, if someone knows, which is apparently the Chinese bullpops.
	They made a weapon so cheap that, frankly, every American would buy one if they got the option.
	But the American government sanctions the Chinese because of old laws and has kept them in place that you cannot buy communist China's guns.
	So they're not in sale in America, or at least officially.
	Well, it's lucky because Biden's giving out those $1,000 stimulus checks.
	Yeah, I wonder what the restrictions are on that kind of stuff.
	Let's go to the next one.
	So I've had an idea to kill three birds with one stone, particularly in Scotland.
	We're going to get rid of trident.
	That'll get the lefties on side.
	We're going to go for clean power sources.
	That'll get the green party on side.
	Third one is, we're going to build loads of nuclear plants using the materials we've rescued from the Tridents.
	That'll get all the people who need to pay their bills on site.
	Ideas?
	Apart from getting rid of Trident, it sounds good.
	I mean, I'm all for nuclear energy, and it's insufferable.
	There's a stigma around it that is just totally undeserved.
	I agree.
	The Greens will never be on side, even if you get nuclear fusion.
	I remember I did a project when I was in college on nuclear fusion, because it's the cleanest form of energy literally possible.
	No radiation waste either.
	And the Green Party still went all the way to France to protest its building.
	It's just like, you guys are really dumb.
	Well, it's totally ideological.
	It just has the word nuclear in it.
	That was it.
	But it's not even because it's nuclear.
	What it is, is because it's a pro-human move.
	Did you know there might be a future for humanity?
	Exactly.
	Exactly.
	We're not evil because we're going to save the planet by doing something that's in our own interest.
	It's like, no, no, no.
	We need to suffer.
	We need to go without.
	We need to build stupid wind plants and stuff like this.
	We need to rewild everything.
	Or we could build nuclear power plants to solve the problem.
	It's like ISIS who are like, no, we need the apocalypse.
	That's what we're doing this week.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Exactly.
	And it's a pro-us move to have nuclear power.
	And that's why...
	And notice, whenever you challenge these sort of green people on nuclear power, they'll give you lies.
	They'll be like, oh, it's dangerous.
	No, it's not.
	It's the safest form of energy.
	Oh, it's not productive.
	No, it's the most productive form of energy.
	Oh, it's bad for the environment.
	No, it's the cleanest form of energy.
	So what's your opposition?
	Well, it just doesn't...
	It helps you and doesn't help me.
	It doesn't help my cause.
	It's like, well, too bad.
	I've heard the word Chernobyl and that's it.
	It's like, you're very educated on this topic.
	Exactly.
	You don't know anything about the topic.
	I don't know anything about the topic, but I know I know more than you.
	But yeah, I don't think we should get rid of Trident since we seem to be going into World War 3.
	Let's go to the next one.
	Asking questions doesn't make you pro-anything.
	It just makes you a person who thinks.
	Yep.
	99% of the time, there is the occasional Cartman move where you're just like, I'm just asking questions, bro.
	Did Wendy Sweet sleep with the entire football team?
	I don't know, but I'm just asking questions.
	But yeah, true.
	Let's go to the next one.
	Okay, I'll indulge in a little private conversation with Harry, but I'll also extend it to the wider audience.
	Take your time with book reviews.
	Harry is right to re-read terms before comments so that the review can be precise.
	The tragedy with the apparent general lack of reading by people today is that they don't get to re-read their books and see how the world, or they, have subsequently changed.
	I am re-reading a book by D.L. Hughley at the moment.
	I didn't think it could be worse since the first time, but oh dear, it is.
	That'll be a challenging book club.
	It's interesting.
	The next book clubs I'm going to do are Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract.
	And I haven't read them for like five years.
	And I remember five years ago being, oh, that's interesting, you know, clever stuff.
	And now I'm just like, wow, this is mad.
	Yeah, we had a similar thing with the On Liberty book club.
	I remember reading it the first time after Voltaire's ghost set, everyone showed it, and I was like, this is amazing.
	The second time I was like, eh.
	This is terrible.
	It wasn't awful, but there was a lot of stuff that's questionable.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And it's the same with Russo, who seems to be the foundation of all the problems that we experience.
	But don't worry, that book will be in the next couple of weeks.
	Let's go to the next one.
	So my contact in Russia tells me that almost all payment processors have dumped Russia.
	Many people aren't able to do business.
	And in a country with a puny economy like that, that means overseas buyers, which is really, really bad for them.
	But if you're not, MasterCard and Visa aren't the only payment processors in the world.
	In fact, there's an entire world superpower willing to bank with Russia.
	Great going, heroes!
	You pushed Russia into a financial alliance with China instead of America.
	I'm sure that's definitely going to help stop Putin and prevent World War III. Yeah, we're never going to get that back either.
	No.
	They're never going to rejoin any Western system.
	No.
	They'll either make their own or stay with the Chinese.
	Yes.
	Yeah, that was a self-own.
	Do you remember the video we covered with Di Dongsheng?
	Yes.
	Where he was talking about the Western financial system and their own outgrowth of it and what we need to do is plant our own tree.
	Seems like they knew what they were doing.
	Let's go to the next one.
	Hey, what's going on fellow Lotus Eaters?
	DJ Chee here.
	Just wanted to stop in and talk about blockchain and cryptocurrency.
	So over here at Stowa Group, we're basically on all the major technologies, YouTube, Instagram, we do live streaming on Twitch.
	I've recently been integrating us into all the alt tech, mines.com, Odyssey, and soon we'll be doing exclusive releases on See?
	Bitcoin and that.
	That's a good substitute for gold, if we don't have gold.
	Because it can't just be inflated.
	That's what the Ukrainians were doing.
	It's like, if you want to donate, donate in Bitcoin.
	Because your dollars aren't going to be worth anything in six months.
	Let's get the next one.
	The system is based entirely in violence and built upon the erroneous and dogmatic belief, or the religion, that a certain group of people are masters who possess the moral right to issue commands, while all other beings are subjects who have the moral obligation to obey the commands of the master.
	Once again, if you think there's any difference between this and the old world order, these are called opposames, as David Icke likes to call them.
	They're not opposites.
	They're the exact same thing, euphemized with a different word.
	It's all language.
	It's all word games, word magic.
	Okay?
	Ultimately, it's the exact same core thing.
	And that's called slavery.
	I don't agree.
	I don't agree that the North Korean state and the Western world is the same because it's run by people.
	I don't follow that those apply equally to the West and the East.
	What he's identifying is merely the structure of power systems.
	Yeah, he's saying that it's just words that make the difference.
	This is kind of like the magic again, just because we all agree that we don't have X thing.
	That's all political systems, just how much do people agree that a way that things should work or not.
	But the magic is real if you believe in it.
	Yes.
	Yeah, that'd be sad.
	Let's go to the next one.
	...canceled due to the weather, so instead, I'm making some sparring blades for an upcoming event.
	So I've taken my sword here, traced it onto a couple of poplar planks, and now we're going to head to the belt sander.
	Now, being honest, I probably could have saved myself a fair bit of time if I had done like a rough saw cut along the tentative edge of the sword and then just come back to finish it with the sander.
	But converting massive amounts of wood into sawdust is fun, so I did it this way.
	And here it is after a little chiseling and hand sanding to finish.
	Man, do you know what?
	I've been trying to get, like, something like that, just wooden swords off, like, Amazon or something.
	Can't get them.
	Yeah?
	Like, they're crap.
	Like, no half-decent, like, wooden sparring swords.
	My son loves doing it.
	He loves, like, you know, play fighting with, like, you know.
	But the only ones I could get were, like, these really heavy long swords that he can barely wield.
	I can barely wield because it's unbelievably heavy.
	And so we can't have sword fights.
	And so I've been looking for this.
	So, like, send me a bill or something and I'll buy a couple of you.
	You ever got the little ones from English Heritage?
	You can always buy it.
	Yeah, no, we did get them, but they break easy.
	They're quite thin, and they're not just carved from a single lump of wood.
	So, you know, he's hitting as hard as he can, and it's shattered now.
	And they're quite expensive as well.
	So, dude, send me an invoice.
	I'll buy some off of you.
	Let's go to the next one.
	No, I'm joking.
	How's it going guys?
	Haven't been doing very many video comments for a while because I haven't actually been watching the show for the past two weeks.
	I actually found that this show, Tim Pool, all the stuff that was happening was actually making me kind of loopy and I wasn't really doing well so I've taken a step back.
	Kind of like giving it up for Lent.
	But I'm still supporting you guys.
	I really like what you do and I'll still be occasionally advertising.
	Don't worry.
	That's fine, man.
	Everyone gets bored of...
	And take care of your mental health first.
	It's one of those things.
	I've been taking a lot of refuge away from politics outside of my family in 40k, frankly.
	I've been enjoying it a lot.
	Because it's just not connected to politics and it's just nice to do something it's not.
	Totally understand, man.
	Anyway, let's go over to the written comments on the site, so I'll start off with the Russian propaganda.
	I'll do, I'm sorry.
	I'm done for ages.
	Ignatius says, the black and white polarisation about the Ukraine situation is really annoying.
	Yeah, this is exactly how I feel about it.
	Look, Ukraine has a Nazi problem, and we can actually say that.
	It's true.
	I had an argument at work today, as my co-worker was arguing Ukraine deserves everything because NATO bad and Putin didn't do nothing.
	What?
	Ukraine doesn't deserve to be invaded by Russia.
	I don't know why I say that!
	Like, you know, but Ukraine, not, you know, shining example of beacon of goodness, because of that.
	Anyway, everyone is a sinner and has gone back on promises, has been encroaching on one another, the mentality of X team perfect and good is idiotic.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Absolutely.
	Steve says, Zed's dead baby.
	Don't know what that's a reference to.
	Omar says, I'm surprised no one has tried claiming the word Zed has rotated N for Nazi, or other N words.
	They have, in some memes.
	That was the meme, yeah.
	Fran says, Hitler Youth, maybe.
	Pretty much.
	He means the Putin's guys.
	Oh, right.
	Kind of.
	To be honest, they're mostly just kind of, from what I can tell, like paid schmucks.
	Yeah.
	I mean, Russian nationalism, I don't think, is Nazism.
	But I mean, they're actually on the other side.
	There are a lot of extremists in Russia as well.
	Sure, but literal Hitler Youth movements in Ukraine actually exist as well, as we saw.
	So, anyway.
	This Russian propaganda segment really scared me.
	So, you say it makes the Russians think NATO is coming for them.
	I don't know.
	After seeing this, maybe we should be coming for them.
	This is pure Nazi communist propaganda, Hitlerjugend stuff.
	This needs to be nipped in the bud quickly before they try to invade Europe.
	Well, yeah.
	I mean, what are you going to do?
	This kind of Russian nationalism, it isn't new though.
	So this has been going on for years.
	Of course, it has gotten more extreme as Putin's policy has been what it is.
	It's hard to tell how much of it's real because it's such a big place and a weird place.
	So far away from it.
	But they're also not the only state on Earth that has this kind of infrastructure of weird rallies and that sort of thing.
	Most countries in the East do.
	And I mean, that is a general rule.
	Yeah, yeah, the sort of military pride is something that they've all had forever.
	The military pride everyone has that isn't us, apparently.
	I don't mean Eastern Europe.
	I mean the East as in, you know, you get to China and you get to Iran.
	Yeah, yeah, that's what I mean.
	These things all exist.
	Yeah, and like, you know, Arab countries, African countries, South American countries, they have like these military parades.
	And the thing is, we probably did 100 years ago.
	It's just we don't now.
	I told you about the Primrose League.
	Remember when we were talking about that?
	Why don't we not have that?
	Why don't we not have concerts where we sing nationalistic songs just for a laugh?
	Like, who cares?
	Because it gets everyone scared.
	Kulain says, honestly, this is more like the Russian equivalent of the Nuremberg rallies.
	I didn't think it was that impactful, actually.
	I think this might be because I consume a lot of, like, dictator propaganda from various different places.
	Having a lot of flags in a big old rally is pretty normal.
	It's not a bunch of army guys marching about how SSI for Reich, we mustn't do Jordan.
	Yeah, if it was literally goose-stepping regiments, then I'd agree.
	But this was like people, like normal people waving flags.
	I didn't see it as being that threatening.
	I mean, like when we went out to Poland, they had the same thing over there.
	Yeah, if you want to see a nice patriotic example, go and look up the...
	What was the video we called?
	What do we call it in the end?
	Stupid Sagan of a Cad, Poland.
	Yeah, something like that.
	But it was...
	Don't get me wrong, I felt it was all cringe rather than threatening.
	I didn't find myself threatened by it.
	That choreographed dancing on a hill?
	Yeah.
	Like, you can clearly see that no one really wants to be there.
	Yeah, and it all felt very artificial.
	Anyway, George says, the vapid anti-American Hollywood celebs talk about patriotism and sacrifice.
	Cringe on this level should be considered a war crime.
	Well, that's exactly how I feel about it, actually.
	I mean, Tucker Carlson made the excellent point.
	It's like, look, you know, they're patriotic for that country, not for this country.
	That's an issue.
	That is an issue.
	David Starkey's been doing great work on YouTube on this, actually.
	He's been watching his videos.
	No, I didn't know I had a YouTube channel.
	Oh, well, I'll send you a link.
	It's good.
	Free Will says, I might be getting this wrong, but you seem a bit surprised at all the propaganda from all sides.
	Well, I'm not surprised, but the thing is, I haven't actually seen any Russian propaganda.
	Yeah, I had to go looking for it.
	Yeah.
	Because I knew, just scrolling through West on social media, I was like, hang on a minute.
	Why have I not seen any?
	Yeah, and it made the Russians, to be honest with you, it made the Russians look a lot more reasonable to me.
	Because it's like, okay, well, if they're not telling obvious lies, like we are, and the Ukrainians are, then...
	Yeah, there are obvious lies going on, of course.
	Yeah, well, that's the point.
	I'm not saying they're not lying.
	I'm saying I never get to see the lies.
	So, as far as I'm concerned, they haven't lied to me, whereas you guys are lying to me all the time.
	Snake Island.
	Well, the ghost of Kiev.
	Shut up.
	You know, you fucking idiots.
	I still have no idea if that is true or fake.
	It's fake.
	It's from a video game.
	It's footage from a video game.
	No, no, no.
	I know the video game footage, but, like, is there an ace pilot out there somewhere?
	No, it's bollocks.
	No, it's bollocks.
	Let me see.
	It's not a transgender pilot driving around?
	No.
	Black, transgender, Ukrainian pilot gunning down hundreds of Russian planes.
	For LGBT rights!
	Exactly!
	You know, waving their pride flag.
	No, it's nonsense.
	But this is the point.
	I really think we're doing ourselves a disservice to not show people the Russian propaganda because, I mean, they're acting like people aren't aware that there's propaganda out there.
	Like, we're not lying and things like this.
	It's like, no, there is quite a large constituency of people on social media who spend their time debunking, from the West, debunking Western propaganda.
	I'm one of them.
	I'm sick of the lies.
	I am reminded of Mike Scheuer, who did a lot of interviews after 9-11, in which he was saying, well, look, this is what al-Qaeda believe.
	And one of the main gripes was the US military is still in Saudi Arabia from Osama.
	He was like, well, yeah, we did agree to leave.
	We never did.
	And there's that.
	It's not to say that he's justified in anything he does.
	It's to understand the situation.
	But anyway, as Free Will says, I'm not surprised, it's just that it's new, I guess.
	To me, anyway.
	But during World War I and II, everyone used propaganda all the time.
	Yes, they did.
	I think today we're not used to conflict that is engendering this level of totality on the economic as well as cultural fronts alongside military actions.
	It has not happened since World War II, not even in the Cold War.
	Perhaps there's a precursor to a wider war.
	We can only hope that's not the case and sense will prevail.
	To be honest with you, that's one of the things I'm most concerned about, is that look, when you get these kind of two totalising narratives where a Opposition bad?
	We need to fight them.
	Not doing any more trade?
	Why wouldn't we fight them?
	Well, I mean, it looks like it's a precursor to war.
	These seem like the perfect conditions for a massive war to break out.
	I don't really want a massive war.
	I didn't want Russia to invade Ukraine.
	I don't really want to throw all of the West under the bus in nuclear fire.
	I mean, we have our problems, but do we have to go for World War III? George says, Regarding looking like a foreign aggressor, with all the anti-white ideology in the West, why wouldn't the Russians feel that they are a racial target?
	Eastern part of Russia is where the term Caucasian originated, isn't it?
	No, it's the Western part.
	Russia's massive.
	Remember how you said about the Hollywood celebs who are always nationalistic for some other country or something else?
	Never their own.
	You notice that when people are like, you don't want to start World War III over Ukraine, you're a traitor?
	A traitor to who?
	Because I'm nationalistic for England, Britain.
	I want us to do well.
	I don't see how starting World War III over Ukraine helps us.
	No.
	Anyway, something I've seen from the more extremist types.
	But I mean, I do think it's fair for the Russians to feel like they're a target.
	Because I mean, look at the last five years.
	Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, bad.
	It's like, okay, yeah, I agree.
	Yeah, yeah, not wrong, but like, they're also not taking over your country, lunatics.
	Unless you're a Ukrainian.
	Well, I mean in America, obviously.
	And in Ukraine they are.
	But I can understand how the Russians would look at what's happening in the West and feel like we're coming for them.
	And the thing is, when I've discussed this with people who are pro-Ukraine, I consider myself neutral on the conflict.
	I don't want the conflict, obviously.
	But I'm not going to say one side good, the other side bad, and that's the end of the story.
	There is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy there though, which is like, you know, the West says Russia bad.
	Oh look, they say we're bad.
	Well, we're gonna have to act against them.
	Yeah, exactly.
	We'll poison people in the West or opposition leaders and stuff to try and secure our position.
	It's like, yeah, that makes you look bad.
	But like the other person was saying, well look, look at the expansion of NATO. So yeah, I don't think that's, like, good.
	You know, I can see from the Russian position that the expansion of NATO looks threatening.
	I'm not even sure that was really thought out.
	I mean, when you think about it, not to be rude, but would we really all die for Estonia?
	And it is weird that they were able to join our club in NATO. Yeah.
	It's because it's under the assumption that we're never going to have to dive for Estonia.
	Yeah.
	That's why.
	No one's pulling the trigger over Estonia.
	And so NATO is going to end up looking like a paper tiger, or we'll go down in flames over a country that literally no one can point out on a map.
	Because it's literally too small.
	Like, sorry, but again, I'm not like pro-Russia or pro-Ukraine either.
	We're a third party to all of them.
	Exactly, and if you look at it from an outside perspective, I mean, a lot of this looks like it could have been averted.
	Anyway, we're out of time, so as you say, if you want more from us, you can go check us out, of course, at lowdiseasers.com.
	Please do subscribe, because that's how you get access to all the premium content and how we fund the show.
	Thank you to everyone who is, obviously, otherwise we wouldn't be able to do what we do.
	And otherwise, we'll be back tomorrow at 1 o'clock.

▲