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June 12, 2024 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

01:39:09

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #935

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	Hello and welcome to the podcast of Lotus Eaters episode 9.
	I'm your host Harry, joined today by Stelios and a very hydrated Josh.
	Hello there!
	And today we're going to be talking about the gayest Star Wars ever.
	I know, high bar to reach, but Josh assures me that it has been met.
	We're also going to be talking about right-wing derangement syndrome, and then I'm going to beg Josh and Stelios to talk me down from the ledge that I've found myself on after looking into Ukraine.
	Do a flip!
	Jump, jump.
	No, no, no.
	You need to talk me down without jumping.
	I don't know what you're talking about, but I will try to do what you're asking.
	That's alright, because it turns out looking into different parties escalating different parts of the Ukraine conflict right now, you can make a guy a little bit anxious.
	You can make a guy a little bit worried about nuclear war.
	That's all I'm thinking right now.
	Josh, what's a few nukes between friends?
	I think it would improve things, personally.
	Well, it depends where you send them.
	But anyway, I think I'll mention as well, we've still got Islander on sale and we are taking that off sale for pre-orders next Monday.
	So right now is one of the last chances that you might have to pick yourself up a copy before they are all gone.
	So if you don't want to be fake and gay, get one right now.
	Alright?
	Otherwise you're going to be cast in the next Star Wars.
	No one wants that.
	Yeah, and it'll be gayer than ever because you'll be in it.
	It's the gayest Star Wars ever, everyone.
	It's a strange time to be alive that this is proclaimed by the creators of the show itself.
	So yes, here is the Acolyte, which is the new Star Wars TV series produced by Disney, I believe.
	And yes, you can look at the rating there, 4.3 out of 10, and you can infer something about How good it is, in that it's not good.
	It's bad.
	I haven't seen it because I have will to live that needs to be preserved.
	Is there a single man in that poster?
	Yes.
	Blue lightsaber.
	It's the guy from Squid Game.
	They gave him the John Boyega treatment.
	The Chinese John Boyega.
	Well you know in China when the original one of the new ones came out they shrunk John Boyega the black guy down as small as possible on the poster so Chinese people wouldn't have to... I think they'll be okay with that fella.
	I've stopped watching Star Wars at episode 8.
	Same!
	Yeah just I haven't I just stopped I couldn't continue.
	It's just the original trilogy and the prequels and maybe... Which are the better ones?
	I quite enjoyed the first series of Mandalorian as well.
	I didn't watch it.
	I had too many friends soy-facing over the Mandalorian when that first came out and like a contrarian I said well if you all love it so much I hate it and guess what then I saw that it went massively downhill in the later series so I was vindicated yet again.
	Also I would be remiss not to give a shout out to the Clone Wars which I've been assured I haven't seen but I've been assured that is very good and I'm sure there'll be comments saying Josh you're an idiot.
	There we go, see?
	Sam says it's good.
	Samson's already on it.
	See, I remember, if you're talking Clone Wars, I remember the old 2D animated ones that were 5 minute shorts on Cartoon Network, I think, back in the day, that filled in the gaps between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.
	Now, they were good.
	They were done by the Samurai Jack guy, and also you'd have no idea what's going on in Revenge of the Sith if you hadn't watched that first.
	Well, there we go.
	We've given you alternatives and I found this interesting.
	This is Rotten Tomatoes and you can see the critics score and the audience score being a gulf.
	Critics liked it and the audience did not, which is true of a lot of woke things.
	This is like the ultimate way of finding out whether your entertainment is woke, is the audience hate it, the critics love it.
	So it's a pretty easy Google before you dedicate hours of your life to find this sort of thing out.
	There you go.
	You know now your entertainment is improved.
	Thank you, Lotus Eaters.
	At this point, they must know it because every company that has a brand ambassador that tries to do something doesn't go that well.
	So, there's a pattern here.
	Maybe they should start noticing this pattern.
	They didn't necessarily think of it in woke terms.
	It was more, we have women.
	It is the Star Wars most defined by feminine touch, which is interesting.
	An interview happened, this interview here, and I believe the spirit of that Ugandan interviewer was channeled into this interviewer because he basically says, why are you gay?
	Except in a more polite and socially acceptable way.
	So I wanted to watch this because it is very revealing.
	So just to introduce who these people are and why it's important.
	On the left there is Amandla Stenberg.
	So her first name is Zulu, which I believe is the Zulu word for power.
	It's not a dyslexic person tried to write Amanda and got it wrong.
	And her second name is Danish.
	It's a shame there's no Zulu word for unlimited in there as well.
	I know, yeah.
	I think this was one of the most weird scenes ever.
	What, the unlimited power scene?
	Yeah, there's power.
	Unlimited power.
	I love the fact that in Revenge of the Sith, he just starts chewing the scenery.
	It's one of the best and most fun performances of just an unapologetic bad guy you'll ever see.
	I love everything to do with the Emperor in that film.
	It's awesome!
	So, she's part African American, part Inuit, actually, via her Danish sides, which is a very rare combination.
	She also identifies as LGBT.
	On the right there is Leslie Hedlund, who is the creator and showrunner, and she is a lesbian.
	She also spent four years as Harvey Weinstein's personal assistant and insists she wasn't molested, which... So she was helping?
	I'm not suggesting that.
	No, no, that wasn't a suggestion that she was doing, that was an honest question.
	But I can see why that didn't happen, personally.
	Here is the actual interview itself.
	This needs to be watched.
	I want to ask you both because this is, I would say, arguably the gayest Star Wars I've seen by a considerable margin.
	Are you excited about that?
	Are you bracing yourself?
	It's pretty gay, let's be honest.
	Leslie, are you... how do you feel?
	Am I gay?
	Yes!
	Well, no, I know you are gay, but I'm asking are you excited about putting this, you know, this is gonna be a talking point.
	Is it gonna be a talking point?
	I'm sure some nerds... Because nerds are gay.
	Yeah!
	Well, some nerds are very not gay and are very... Twelve-year-old Josh Vindicated.
	Well, that's true, but in my world, nerds are gay.
	Okay.
	Was this the fun element of it?
	No!
	I don't think so, and yet people have told me that it's the gayest Star Wars, and I frankly You're offended?
	Into it.
	I think that Star Wars is so gay already.
	Okay.
	I mean, have you seen the fits?
	We'd be like, look how gay this is, and then send each other a reference photo.
	And are you telling me, with a straight face, that C-3PO is straight?
	They're a couple.
	That's what I think.
	But, this is more outward.
	I think it's canon that R2-D2 is a lesbian.
	Oh, interesting.
	Now, I think they're probably joking around a little bit there towards the end.
	I thought I also are too detailed bisexual.
	He's robo-sexual, obviously.
	He's being a bit of a centrist fence-sitter there at Stereos.
	This is a very important question.
	M2D2 plays both sides.
	Let's be honest.
	Sorry, you always... No, I won't finish that sentence.
	We always drop Always Sunny references.
	But I think... Well, I'm just wondering, is the interviewer gay as well?
	I don't know.
	Because he looks and sounds pretty gay.
	Because if so... If he was not, if he was not, he would have been cancelled by now.
	That's true, asking a question like that in the way that he did.
	So what I'm seeing is gay interviewer, gay star, gay showrunner.
	I'm thinking that Hollywood and Disney is run by a very particular kind of person making films and TV for another very similar particular kind of person.
	It's all gay.
	It's all just gay.
	That's what it is.
	And they're proud of it, whatever.
	Yeah, I think that although they are joking around and they're not being too serious about it, which is fair enough really, I think there is an element of they are genuinely proud of how gay they made it.
	I picked up on that, I don't know whether you got that as well, that's just my interpretation.
	Yeah, clearly they are.
	But they are proud of pushing this ideology into Star Wars and they're also insulting the original Star Wars fans by just like, yeah it's pretty gay isn't it, you know.
	almost using it in the pejorative sense in the same breath, but then they're allowed to do that because they are one of the alphabet people and therefore it's okay.
	But the mainstream media picked up on this and reported on it.
	You know, Fox, lots of other outlets as well.
	And I think that the response here to an original post talking about this is my feelings.
	It's a gif of Yoda saying, this is why you fail.
	Because you're inserting politics into something that is an escape from the world, right?
	That's why people watch.
	You know, sci-fi and fantasy.
	Obviously it needs to relate to the world in some respects, but the things that chip away at your will to live don't necessarily need to be in there.
	And these sorts of things just aren't ordinary people's concern.
	The interesting thing that you bring up there is that you say that they're inserting politics.
	And if I remember correctly, the fact that so much of the films was dedicated to Machiavellian power politics going on behind the scenes was one of the reasons that people said back in the day that they really didn't like the prequels when they first came out.
	And one of the reasons that people praised The Force Awakens when that came out was they said, oh, they got rid of all the boring political stuff, thank God.
	Evidently they didn't, even in The Force Awakens there's some obvious social messaging going on in there.
	What they did was they just removed the, you could say, quite interesting internal political stuff that was specific to the Star Wars universe that was going on in the prequels and they just added all of the, you know, rubbish that we have out in the real world.
	Yeah, I actually quite enjoyed that aspect of the prequels but I think that the The problem is it's sort of contemporary political messaging is what I mean when I'm talking about the politics.
	Obviously you can portray politics because it's a part of life and it's inevitable that it's going to come up in a series like this.
	However... You could say the prequels were maybe allegorical, and I think this is fair, allegorical to the early Bush years.
	But it still works within the context of the universe and can be told as an internal story within that universe without you having to be aware of the outside context.
	All of this is just going, oh I'm gay, let's make everything gay.
	Yeah, and I think that the fundamental disagreement with this sort of thing is that it's taking a franchise that was good and it's making it bad.
	It's not telling good stories.
	You know, if you want to have your own thing that's bad, that's telling these sorts of stories, go ahead.
	You know, no one at Loaded Seated is going to discourage people.
	If they want to make a show about, I don't know, lesbian space samurais, then, you know, go and do it.
	But just don't ruin other stuff.
	We don't have to watch it.
	That's fine.
	No one really cares about that.
	I mean, we're at this point where we kind of expect it.
	I mean, if there's a movie without lesbians, I'm starting to think that there's something wrong.
	I mean, an alternate universe or something.
	Steli, you're spending a lot of time on the internet these days.
	Stelios has watched plenty of films starring lesbians.
	Yeah, to be fair, some of the best films.
	Sorry, Harry's getting uncomfortable so I'll have to move on to a meme.
	I'm not sure I can read this out otherwise YouTube will tell me off, but it's a reimagining of the prequels with the new ideology of the current year.
	And yes, there has also been news in Pink News, which is of course the premier gay publication.
	The Acolytes' Amandla Stenberg is unbothered by haters dubbing the new Star Wars series Woke.
	It's because she agrees with the messaging, as she has said.
	Well, she stars in it, so I'm not that shocked.
	They paid her a lot of money, and that's already been done.
	Also, she says she's gay.
	But yeah, she's, I mean, someone named after the Zulu word for power by an African American.
	I think we know what their politics are going to be.
	You don't name your son or daughter power, do you?
	Unless there's some sort of chip on your shoulder.
	That's pretty much obvious, right?
	And so, yes, the politics and the people involved are pretty obvious.
	And talking of the people involved, One of them, mentioned in this article actually, is one Abigail Thorne, I think the name is, who runs Philosophy Tube, and there's this interesting phenomenon, this is a bit of an easter egg here, that if you sort by oldest and then hover here... Wait a second!
	An entirely different person appears, but we can't talk about that, but it's just worth bearing in mind.
	I mean, in philosophy, when you're talking about personal identity and how it changes through time, you could say that it's a different self in the past and your future selves.
	Spoken like a true philosopher there, Stelios.
	Exactly.
	Also, I would say don't look up Philosophy Tube's inter-internet personal relationships that may or may not have happened between other transgender YouTubers and some controversies regarding that.
	Also, didn't Philosophy Tube accept money from the UK state To promote COVID stuff?
	I don't know.
	I didn't really follow it, but I can believe it.
	I'm pretty sure that Philosophy Tube was involved in some kind of government internet social media push.
	But I think one of the most egregious things is, here is Amandla Stenberg talking to Trevor Noah, saying white people crying was the goal.
	When people watch The Hate U Give, what do you want them to walk away with?
	Because I know everyone has a slightly different feeling.
	Well, I mean, white people crying actually was the goal.
	So I know she's trying to be clever and tongue-in-cheek, but you can tell that there's substance there, right?
	Even though she is half white, all of a sudden white people, you know, doesn't claim any of that identity for herself, but that is the goal.
	And she's also suggesting that all the people complaining about Star Wars, well, they must be white and just, you know, bigoted.
	Well, I need to issue a correction there, which is I've seen other people sharing this.
	I believe this clip is actually from 2018.
	Is it really?
	Yes, because of course Trevor Noah isn't part of the Daily Show anymore.
	Of course, yeah.
	Well, thank you.
	You're basically my equivalent of Jamie here.
	However, the principle still stands.
	I doubt she's changed her views on something like this and I imagine this is still a motivating factor for both her and the projects that she chooses and also the creators.
	There's also the fact that the people involved in it don't really understand the source material of Star Wars.
	Like, I'm just going to explain this one because it's quite long winded, but basically he's talking about Anakin blowing up the Death Star, which doesn't happen.
	That was Luke, his father.
	His son.
	That one, yeah, the other way round.
	Oh no!
	You don't even understand the source material!
	I've been reading about this for too long already.
	Samson's got his head in his hands!
	What have you done, Josh?
	No, this is a very niche reading of Star Wars.
	Luke is actually Anakin's father.
	So when Luke kisses Leia in Empire, he's not diddling his sister, he's diddling his mother?
	Yeah, this is the Freudian reading.
	Wait, is the water?
	I don't know, you've mixed it up.
	It's already confusing.
	However, I am going to carry some water for one of the people.
	This is the guy, Li Zhengjia, I think you pronounce his name, who was the lead actor in Squid Game.
	Apparently he learned English especially to star in this and he's a massive Star Wars fan and he looked up to sort of Qui-Gon Jinn as the inspiration for his role.
	Poor guy!
	Which sounds like he put in a lot of work, cared about the source material, you know, a dream came true for him that he's in something that he is actually excited about but unfortunately it is Star Wars Acolyte and I would like to, you know, Say my sincerest apologies to this poor gentleman who probably doesn't deserve this.
	I mean he did agree to be in it but also...
	I feel a little bit sorry for him, really.
	What even is Star Wars Acolyte?
	I know it's a TV show.
	What's it about?
	How are they still drawing blood from this stone?
	Well, you see, because I don't want to lose my will to live, I haven't seen it.
	I'm just talking about the stuff around it.
	And plus, you shouldn't watch it at home either.
	So the plot, I'm going to talk about a few little bits about it that are silly.
	But other than that, we're not going to touch on it really.
	So there aren't going to be spoilers.
	Although if you're halfway through this video, I imagine you probably figured that out.
	So let's go to the director.
	Here she is.
	This is happening now.
	And so you are watching the lessons of and it's it's a dramatization of the lessons of it as an activist and an artist.
	Do you make that calculation?
	Who is my target?
	You talked a little bit about I want women to watch this, and I want them to feel empowered, and I want my daughter to have heroes.
	I couldn't help but notice a thread through each of these that the men were assholes.
	And I'm wondering, as one of them, What is the balance of activating a force for change But also... I like to make men uncomfortable.
	Look at the like to dislike ratio.
	They're getting absolutely hammered.
	Oh my God, he's still going. - Oh, absolutely.
	I like to make men uncomfortable. - There it is.
	- There we go.
	- Fucking hell, Jon Stewart.
	- Look at the like to dislike. - Oh yeah, they're getting absolutely hammered.
	And because of the torture of that, I'm not gonna play this one because Jon Stewart was just insufferable, but she's talking about playing the woman card and how much she likes getting special treatment as a woman, So she's not oppressed then, okay.
	We cleared that up nice and quickly.
	But yes, she hates men obviously, and here she is, her IMDb page, she's Produced and directed some not particularly well rated stuff.
	A lot of it features women with Gloria Steinem.
	But also, is there a downward trend?
	You are right there.
	It gets worse over time.
	I suppose so, yeah.
	The further you go towards the Star Wars series, the worse it gets.
	So Disney was watching this person going, wow, she's getting absolutely terrible.
	She started off okay, but now she's awful.
	Let's hire her.
	What a great CV.
	So the New York Times was talking about the backlash about it and in this article something mentioned was quite funny to me.
	They mentioned the South Park episode where they portrayed Kathleen Kennedy as saying, put a chick in it and make her lame and gay.
	Well, and they said well that's our mission statement.
	Yeah, turns out It's not actually satire.
	It is just what happened.
	And she actually talked about this.
	My belief is that storytelling does not need to be representative of all people.
	Thank you for correcting my reading.
	That's an easy decision for me.
	So this is why this is going on.
	It comes straight from the top, doesn't it?
	Now that women are solely involved in creating Star Wars, there are some pretty glaring problems.
	So here's a quick clip.
	This is a fire in space which, if we've got any physicists in the audience or anyone with common sense, There's no oxygen in space.
	What they can just take, evidently there is, so they can take their helmets off, right?
	It's also a good opportunity to have a flashback whilst staring into a flaming ship.
	Rubbish engineering.
	But yes, as NerdRotic points out, a fire in space.
	That's what happens when people don't mansplain stuff to you.
	And here we have what can only be described as a radical feminist art collective performance.
	The power of one.
	The power of two.
	The power of many.
	And this goes on for a long time.
	The power of one.
	It's terrible, isn't it?
	What is this nonsense?
	Can you replay it?
	It's funny.
	Alright, well, just one replay for Stelios, but not the whole thing.
	No, it's okay, it's okay.
	Let's not make the audience uncomfortable.
	No, let's talk to you a little bit.
	I never wanted to make the audience uncomfortable.
	You liar.
	This feels like it came straight from Wakaliwood.
	Honestly!
	But I have read online, because I've not watched this, that there are two women who have a forced baby created.
	And I think that this might be the scene where they're harnessing the Force to make the Force Baby with these space lesbians.
	So this is the first official Star Wars sex scene.
	And it's a group activity.
	If you like lesbian orgies, watch the new Star Wars.
	That's what they should have marketed it as, but there we go.
	Maybe them that have got the male audience banged.
	There have also been outlets complaining, woke outlets of course, that it's not the series that's bad, it's the audience that are ruining it.
	And they're basically saying... It's not outright shocking to see something like The Acolyte marred by racist, misogynistic and even anti-LGBTQ backlash.
	The Star Wars devotees would rather share multiple bad-faced treatises about the series on YouTube or tank its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
	It's just par for the course at this point.
	No, if you make bad stuff, people won't like it.
	If it's good, they will like it.
	It's that simple.
	And interestingly enough, recently George Lucas complained about Hollywood for lacking original thinking.
	Is this a veiled comment about this new series?
	Perhaps.
	He is right, though.
	Of course he's right, yeah.
	We can all go back and say that, oh yeah, the prequels weren't exactly what people were hoping for after the original trilogy.
	They were what I was hoping for.
	But I think right now we can accept that, one, I think they're a lot better than people gave them credit for it.
	Even I gave them credit for at some point.
	And also, they have a clear authorial mark on them.
	There's intent in them.
	They feel like the work of one man with a vision.
	Unlike the paint-by-numbers committee stuff that we get these days.
	I for one think Jar Jar didn't do nothing.
	George, that was great.
	I'm glad he aided the rise of our Lord and Saviour, Emperor Palpatine.
	And the final thing I wanted to end on was a message of solidarity to you all, and that is this meme.
	No hate watching.
	No effing hate watching.
	Don't you dare.
	Don't even, you know, give them those viewing figures.
	Just ignore it.
	Pretend it doesn't exist.
	That's all you need to do.
	Watch this video and forget about it.
	Because that's what most people are probably going to do.
	They're just going to forget about this series.
	And that'll be that.
	So don't give them the numbers.
	Let it tank.
	Let them suffer the consequences of their own terrible decision making.
	You need things?
	Yes, I need things.
	Here are the things.
	It's a high-tech operation.
	As always.
	Sounding very hoarse there.
	Soldiers on.
	Auditioning for the next Batman film.
	Lotus Eaters.
	Lotus Eaters never changes.
	Harry, assist me.
	Is that everything?
	What is going on?
	There you go.
	Right.
	If you sign up to Lotus Eaters, one day we'll have a third mouse in steam.
	We'll have a wireless mouse, maybe.
	Let's not push that.
	That's kind of luxury, no.
	Right.
	Give me a moment.
	Okay, so the results of the recent EU elections have caused a panic amongst the progressives.
	We will show you very delightful videos about this today, but before we begin, check out Islander, our magazine, and when is the deadline for ordering?
	Next Monday.
	Next Monday.
	So, Islander, it has been a massive success.
	If you want to be part of that success, consider It has some big names in there which you'll have to at least read the write-up to figure out who they are.
	Right, so I think we should call the reaction of the left to the right and the rising of the right of the last years as right-wing derangement syndrome and you will see why this relates to the constant use of the term far-right But not only.
	So we have been exposed to unbelievably weird statements by leftists.
	And I want to show you this statement by Justin Trudeau, which I really want to ask you if you can spot something weird in it.
	Let's listen to it.
	We have seen around the world a rise of populist right-wing forces in just about every democracy that we've seen and it is of concern to see political parties choosing to instrumentalize Anger, fear, division, anxiety.
	My approach has always been to respond to it, to understand it and to look to solve it, to roll up our sleeves, work hard and with ambition for this country and for our future.
	And I continue to be convinced that Canadians are thoughtful about the challenges we're facing and ready to see them solved rather than just allow themselves to have their anger amplified without any solutions offered. - Thank you.
	I continue to be convinced.
	That's very convincing.
	I'm so assured.
	Yeah, so I think there are many problems with this.
	What are the other problems you can find with it?
	The fact that it's completely vacuous, empty, meaningless, political dribble.
	He sounded like a kid who didn't do his homework, just making up a sort of book report.
	Just like, well, you know, there's a couple of people, they do some stuff, you know, there's things happen, events unfold.
	Well, of course, he was also lying through his teeth the entire time and saying that he...
	He solves problems.
	No, Justin, you create problems and you do it with a giddy smile on your face.
	Other people instrumentalling anger, fear, division, anxiety.
	You have implemented far-ranging hate speech laws.
	Your healthcare system is an international joke because of the maid.
	And also, let's not forget that you actively shut down people's bank accounts for protesting against your ridiculous lockdown measures.
	So, the left really needs a mirror to hold and look and see the reflection in the mirror, because they literally project always, always.
	And this is very narcissistic.
	I mean, Josh, you're a resident psychologist, you know far better than I do about the use of the term.
	Psychopaths are drawn to power and psychopaths, one of the ways you define what a psychopath is, is excessive narcissism.
	It's one of many, you know, you have the dark triad but you've also got psychopathy as a metric on its own and also Machiavellianism which does Machiavelli dirty.
	Yeah.
	But narcissism is the third and quite a central component of it and I think that people who want to dictate what others do and use power against them tend to be predisposed to be narcissists, right?
	So, one beautiful thing here is the way in which he just holds himself accountable to standards other than those that he uses to criticise his political opponents.
	Because, as Harry, you said, yes, his basic philosophy, wokeism, because he's the darling of the woke, is all about instrumentalising anger, fear, division and anxiety.
	All of that is He routinely does exactly what he's criticizing.
	But it's good that he finally found out that in popular governments, if you alienate the people, the people will start to turn their back on you.
	So that's a good thing.
	Now, let's look at how the leftists are reacting, because you see, what Justin Trudeau said, that he is just responding to things, he's not just doing it, he's responding to things, reminds me a lot of the communist tactic of just sticking an anti in front of anything they criticize, and somehow, miraculously, it gets justified.
	So, is it violence?
	Just stick an anti-violence in front of it, and it's for good purpose, according to how they think.
	Is it imperialism?
	No, they're going to call it anti-imperialism, because there's just magic when it comes to just putting anti in front of everything.
	It just makes the immoral unquestionably moral.
	Well, Stelios, I think you're failing to see the inherent logic in this, which is... Sorry, let me... Stelios, just to spell it out for you, it's very, very simple.
	If they call themselves the good guys, well, they can't be the bad guys, can they?
	Have you considered that?
	Yeah.
	So you have here leftists in France attacking the streets and routinely causing violent episodes.
	Because what they're doing is anti-protest.
	It's not protest, it's anti-protest.
	So according to themselves it must be justified.
	You might want to mute it because your audio is probably overlapping that.
	By all means, anyone who wants to watch this video, you can just click on our link and visit our website on our rating list.
	There are lots of videos with footage of leftists just engaging in violence and civil discord.
	They will, of course, put an anti in front of it.
	Now, Jeremy Corbyn made some very interesting statements.
	I want to ask you if you see again something weird with them, if you notice something.
	So he says, the far right is rising across Europe because politicians on both sides have pandered to their rhetoric and normalized their ideas.
	The only answer to hatred is hope.
	We have to stand up to racism, defend refugees and inspire people to believe that a kinder world is possible.
	Yeah, so... okay.
	What do you make of this?
	Implicit in it is that politicians have allowed the rhetoric to exist.
	It should have been clamped down on and persecuted.
	These opposers to my ideology, talking from Jeremy Corbyn's position, should have been cracked down upon.
	They deserve government oppression by merit of their politics is implicit in there.
	And the fact that he's talking about, oh, the only answer is hope.
	It's like, no, that's just nonsense.
	This isn't Star Wars, right?
	You know, it's not, you know, it's love and the light side versus the evil dark side.
	No, life is a bit more nuanced than that.
	Yeah, but apparently not Jeremy Corbyn.
	Well, of course not.
	Here we have Zahra Sultana.
	She says, The far right is on the rise across Europe.
	They peddle a politics of hate.
	We must promise a politics of hope.
	Combating racism, not stoking it.
	Defending refugees, not scapegoating them.
	Building a society that works for all, not protecting a system rigged for the rich.
	Then why do you present your ideology as a zero-sum game?
	Because anything that you're criticizing there To be fair, the party she represents does make me hope.
	It makes me hope that when I'm walking through the streets at night, I don't get raped or murdered from all the people that they imported without any correct documentation.
	Well, of course, what they're talking about here is both Jeremy Corbyn here talking about defending refugees and inspiring more hope and her, Zahra Sultana, saying defend refugees as they're completely ignoring that one of the main reasons that there has been such a backlash to their policies is the demographic change, the people coming over.
	They don't care.
	They want this.
	I mean, Jeremy Corbyn, he hates the West.
	He's a communist subversive of course he does.
	Zara Sultana is just a foreigner so she doesn't have any sort of care or love for the place that she's in right now.
	She just sees it as a place where all of her family members can come here and get a free check.
	Well, you see that what they're doing is they're routinely obfuscating the fact that they are employing direct anti-Western propaganda.
	They do hate the West and they do stoke racism.
	It's just racism against Westerners.
	And they are scapegoating Westerners for everything.
	For every evil in the world, it's always the Westerner.
	Always.
	And anything that happens in the world, any kind of conflict, wherever it takes place, it is always presented as, let's say, something that is caused by the internalization of the pressure to assimilate to Western culture.
	So she does exactly what she's criticizing.
	Now, again, let us see how this plays into real life and how, apart from the statements, we come to the allocation of blame and to the double standards when it comes to civil protest.
	Now, we have here some grannies from the Just Up Oil Organization, the pressure group, who are smashing the glass around the Magna Carta.
	Everyone knows this clip.
	Let's just remind people of it.
	That's the problem when you've got old people on the front lines is they can't use a hammer and chisel very well.
	This is a pathetic showing, right?
	They're trying to basically desecrate the Magna Carta.
	Hey, maybe somebody stopped them.
	But you know why they did so?
	You know why they did so?
	Because the government is breaking the law.
	Sounds like they're breaking through the TV as well.
	The grannies are going to be in the room.
	What kind of thought went to their heads?
	So the government is breaking the law, so let us basically desecrate one of the most historically important documents that tries to hold government into account to some laws.
	But they're old.
	They know better than us youngsters, Stelios.
	She's even wearing a habit.
	I mean, a lady of God, she can't be wrong, Stelios.
	Yeah, but they're doing it for good purpose, Josh.
	So here we see also the desecration of statues constantly, and apparently all these are isolated incidents, but when it comes to some Pride murals that have skid marks and tire marks, the whole country needs to be announced to be on an epidemic of hate.
	So again there are some double standards.
	Well they're facing a ridiculous prison sentence as well, and you know teenagers as well.
	Yes, and no one is reacting in the way I'm going to show you here, which I have shown you before, and you loved it, and this is why exactly I'm going to show it to you again.
	They are reacting like that for the mural, but they are not reacting like that, for instance, for the desecration of the Magna Carta and the glass, or for the desecration of statues, or for Western symbols.
	Let's look at this.
	And it starts every day.
	It's just habits.
	It's how we show up for each other and our families and our homes and our communities and our neighborhoods.
	We've got to show people some love.
	We have to show people some love.
	It's not okay what people are experiencing.
	So, on behalf of Expo, on behalf of the community of Spokane, I'd like to apologize, but I'd also like to issue a challenge.
	Let's do better.
	We can be better.
	We can be an example.
	And frankly, we need to be.
	Thank you.
	One way of starting is to not present your woke ideology as a zero-sum game.
	It is a zero-sum game, so maybe you should consider revising your ideology.
	Well, they're treating the people they're arresting with love, right?
	They're sentencing them to a decent amount of their life in prison.
	Basically, it's right-wing derangement syndrome.
	Anything that is contrary to progressivism is just horrible to them.
	It's an epidemic of hate.
	And they are the only ones who hope, they are the only ones who love, they are the only ones with sentiments against people.
	But I have good news.
	Suddenly, the entire politics of the UK was revealed to me this morning by a tweet by Josh Sheldon who is having this graph and he's explaining how basically the parties in the UK are parties that all belong into right-wing authoritarian territory.
	Are they crazy?
	Also, why are the Greens close to libertarian?
	They're basically communists.
	It's like, yeah, Joseph Stalin, known libertarian.
	Okay, so how do you feel that Labour here is basically well into right-wing authoritarian right what the the labor party where their members are open socialists yeah center right if anything if you shifted that right quadrant all the way to the left maybe yeah you know it where labor of far left and reform and conservative are still left wing but closer to the center yeah
	This is like the meme with the far right where, you know, everything is just far right except from one area.
	Yeah, except the political quadrant exists in the top left corner and everything else is Nazi.
	Also, why are the Conservatives more right wing than Reform when Reform's whole shtick is that the Conservatives aren't Conservative?
	Economics, I would suppose, because the left and right axis is supposed to be economic.
	But the conservatives are socialists.
	But there is a very interesting implication from this graph.
	What about those who are saying zero seats for the conservatives?
	Are they pushing against the right here?
	Well, surely we'd be completely off the reservation in that case, because I'm saying zero seats for the Conservatives from a right-wing perspective, so presumably I'm somewhere off on a completely different political compass.
	Harry, you're actually far left.
	It actually spins around.
	Is that why I've been growing my moustache?
	How do you feel now that, basically, you know when people are using graphs like that and they routinely put the Roman Empire?
	And it's funny because they also have the SBQR symbol, meaning when they want to refer to the Empire, where, you know, the SBQR is the Senate and the people of Rome that was primarily a symbol for the Republic.
	But anyway, how do you feel that Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives are very deep into Roman Empire logic?
	I wish.
	I wish I lived in the world.
	Also, these insane people.
	Also, Keanu Starmer is very, very into Roman Empire now.
	You haven't seen him come out in his toga, with a chariot flanked.
	Is Starmer the Caesar we've been after this whole time?
	I'm pretty sure Starmer sacrificed a goat and said for Jupiter at the start of the campaign, didn't he?
	Yeah, so basically what this is, is basically that's the meme, intended as a serious political graph.
	And there's a reason why this happens, and I think that the main core of right-wing derangement syndrome comes with the attempt to present anything To the right of social democracy as far right and they do this for specific purposes and we'll talk about them right now.
	So there's a very interesting tweet here by the rabbit hole and it has a meme that is very funny and it says the term far right has become so loosely applied that it's effectively useless in sniffing out genuine cases of extremism and more often use slander reasonable people.
	And what is interesting here is that you can see here the bell curve, and you see the first, here you have the left and then the right, which I would say in common parlance, especially in the EU, these are the people who call themselves center-right.
	And what is interesting is that The left has all sorts of reasons why they would do propaganda for political, amoral reasons, why they want to call everything the far-right.
	It's really interesting to ask why people who call themselves center-right, especially in the EU, are buying that rhetoric.
	And they basically present everything as far right.
	And I would say that they also suffer from right wing derangement syndrome.
	Because if you see in the EU, especially as they are talking about, they present the right area of the spectrum as a horseshoe, basically.
	There is no right wing between the center right and what is conventionally referred to as the far right.
	There's no such thing.
	It's an interesting question why the center-right parties would engage in such rhetoric.
	Now, what do you make of this?
	Well, it's all part of being engaged in the dialectic, correct?
	If we truly are, as I suspect we are, in both the US and the UK, but certainly it seems more so, more solidly so in the UK because our system is so much more centralized than in the US, if we truly are ruled by a uniparty, then of course it makes sense for that uniparty to present itself within different fronts.
	And through that, through the dialectic that it creates between the left and the centre-right, it can gatekeep out dissident voices from the dialectic.
	So if the centre-right is presented as far right as you can go while still being part of the respectable dialectic, then anything that goes beyond that is automatically disqualified from being seen as legitimate.
	They're just trying to demonise their political opponents, basically. - Yeah, so I have a thread about this.
	Check it on my account if you want.
	But I have two main reasons why the left wants to do it and why the center-right wants to do it.
	So first of all, we need to understand why this takes place.
	And language is always language that is situated.
	It occurs in a society, a concrete culture, where there is linguistic use and many terms are associated with symbols of good and evil, for whatever reason.
	I'm not a big fan of that unsituated language, my goodness.
	Yes, so basically, in a nutshell, I think that in Europe, those who are in the center-right camp are doing this for two main reasons.
	Number one is to gain votes from the right and present themselves as the last bastion before extremism.
	And they want to take advantage of those who are, let's say, on the right, but they're not sufficiently well-versed into political theory and political philosophy.
	That's one reason.
	And number two is to virtue signal to the Social Democrats.
	And this is important because what you will see is that when you look at the parties who call themselves center-right, and I think philosophically they're not, by the way, I think that what they're doing is very simple.
	They have zero substantive values.
	All their values are essentially procedural.
	They want to show that they are very much in favor of what is called civil discord.
	And they really have no vision.
	And in fact, they're penalizing vision, they're demonizing vision.
	And the only thing that Well, let me tell you what those people in the centre-right, as represented here, want.
	begin to mimic social democrats and those further to the left because they do commit themselves to some substantive values even though i think that most of them are wrong well let me tell you what those center people on the center right as represented here want they want leftism with lower taxes with brakes that's that's all they want well it's the old adage that the tories are labor driving at the speed limit isn't it it's that same sort of philosophy but applied to all politics and there is a really good essay by hayek
	when he was writing about why he's not calling himself a conservative and he's very adamant about what he means by conservative he means about people who treat conservatism purely as temperament and they have no substantive values so this kind of conservatism
	conservatism that isn't attached to substantive and traditional values is precisely the kind of conservatism that is visionless and is slowly starting to mimic social democracy and occasionally those to the further left and the left does this for two main reasons one One is to demonize everyone who is
	to the right of social democracy, and also to sort of pre-justify violent action in the name of self-defense.
	Because, as I said at the beginning, the left is known for sticking an auntie in front of everything, and suddenly any kind of act that they think the other side is immoral when performing, they suddenly become moral when they are performing it.
	Because all of that is in the name of the good, in the name of the progress.
	And I want to show you how this term is basically routinely abused, and it presents politicians who aren't in any way related to what is conventionally associated with the term far-right in post-World War II continental Europe.
	I want to show you the Guardian and how they refer to Xavier Millet.
	So, 19th of October 2023, Argentina's far-right front-runner reopens wounds of dictatorship.
	Who is Javier Millet?
	Argentina's new far-right president, El Loco, takes the stage.
	That's from the 20th of November 2023.
	And from June 7th, Argentina's far-right president posed to shut down anti-gender violence agency.
	So basically they're completely abusing the term, they're trying to lead to a communication breakdown, and they're trying to Demonize those to the left of social democracy.
	And those on the center-right, especially those who call themselves center-right, should bear that in mind.
	And if they're not basically leftists in disguise, and they have been.
	taken advantage of, if their ignorance has been taken advantage of by the other side, perhaps they should start revising how they use language and stop identifying and using the language of the left.
	Well, the Guardian would call the mid-century Germans far right, wouldn't they?
	And then they're also calling Malay far-right who is happy to wear a yarmulke and he visited the Wailing Wall and he talked about his great admiration for Judaism.
	So how can these two things coexist?
	It doesn't matter.
	All of it is just demonizing because at the end of the day, they're trying to bombard the general public.
	That's what the propaganda, the propagandist mindset is.
	Just throw mud and some of it will stick.
	It doesn't matter if it makes no sense.
	What matters for them is if it promotes their interests and if it aids them to demonize anything to the further left, to the right of social democracy.
	And they also think, those on the far left, they think that social democracy basically is a facade for them, it's just a means.
	That's why they constantly talk about, it's not our democracy, and they talk about our democracy.
	And even if the people vote differently, the people are not enlightened enough.
	We need an enlightened, vanguard party, as they say, to tell the people how to think.
	So that even those to the further left, than social democracy they also view social democrats as uh their they see their difference as a matter of time so that is what i think is behind a right-wing derangement syndrome leftist propaganda was there not an extra link that you wanted to look at or was this
	Yeah, that's a middle-aged baby sent to me and I think that it's absolutely hilarious where it's a normal communist says every other political or social belief is far right.
	The normal is just communism and I think this shows exactly how the leftist propaganda is using this and how those on the All right then, let's pass over the mouse of power.
	And the box of power.
	I've got two boxes now, so I'm twice as powerful as I once was.
	substantive values and they need to recover them all right then let's pass over the mouse of power and the box of power unlimited i've got two boxes now so i'm twice as powerful as i once was so what are you a cat yes all right so um i don't mean to be alarmist here and i don't want to be alarmist through this segment but i'm going to do a bit of a review of what's been going on with the ukraine conflict
	and some of the discussions that have been going on and some of the statements that have been made from western leaders regarding the conflict that seem to be escalating it to me so Certainly there seems to be a lot of sabre rattling goes on.
	Uh, that is going on right now, and I want to try and understand why that is, because it does really worry me at the moment, and I know that there's some arguments against this, but it seems as though they are behaving as though we can escalate to a ground war with Russia, at least parts of these elite establishments are, and I want to understand why, and I want to understand why they seem to be so blasé about the fact that there could be potentially nuclear exchanges.
	Is it that they're not particularly Confident in that Russia can fire nuclear exchanges accurately?
	Is it they think that they won't do that much damage?
	Is it they think that they can neutralize that kind of threat before it even gets here?
	I'm very concerned about what's going on and I want to approach this with caution.
	Before I go any further, though, we do still have copies of Islander available for pre-order, if anybody is interested, which you should be, because it truly is an excellent magazine that we've produced here, and it's got articles from very, very interesting writers on very interesting subjects, and the pre-orders are still available up very interesting writers on very interesting subjects, and the pre-orders are still available So after that, you won't be able to get your hands on a copy, except for one which I assume will be marked up to an incredible price on eBay because this will be a rare collector's edition.
	Very, very valuable.
	Very, very expensive, maybe.
	So, get a hold of one while you still can.
	Anyway, so, I'll move on to what's been going on recently.
	So, I have spooked myself, I will admit, looking into what's going on.
	Because one of the recent reports that I was seeing was this, that Ukraine has been allowed to use US weapons to strike targets on Russian soil, and this is according to senators and other Western officials.
	This has been approved under guidance from Joe Biden.
	What I believe it is that they're allowed to strike tactical strategic targets within Russian soil using US weapons.
	The Ukrainians have been calling for more tech so they could defend new attacks that have been coming to Kharkiv.
	And Germany has also stated, Olaf Schultz has, that they will be allowed to use German weapons to strike similar relevant strategic targets.
	Putin has warned Germany on Wednesday that the use of its weapons by Ukraine to strike inside Russia would mark a dangerous step.
	He said Moscow could in turn provide long-range arms to others to strike Western targets.
	And also, NATO is fully backing these developments, where the Admiral, Rob Bauer, who's NATO's military committee officer, was saying that we shouldn't allow Putin to deter us in supporting Ukraine by claiming sending M1A1 tanks and high-mobility artillery rocket systems would cross a red line and escalate the war, shortly after the possibility of deploying trainers, French trainers,
	Uh, surface news reports French President Emmanuel Macron said his government would provide Kiev with combat aircraft and trained pilots and crews in France.
	There absolutely would be pushback in the alliance if Trump moved to pull the United States out of the alliance because this is a genuine concern.
	It seems that a lot of Europe and NATO has that Trump will get in if he gets elected in.
	and decides to pull out of Europe because it's either too costly or people within the NATO alliance aren't paying their fair share of the bills as he sees it, which would leave Europe vulnerable because Europe for such a long time has relied on American backing for its own military security.
	Bauer also said that since it was a treaty the House and Senate would have to concur as well so there would be pushback against Trump and all of this seems to be developing and I think recently over the past few weeks there was the approval of a 60 billion dollar aid bill to Ukraine from the US which had spent months circling around without much going on which meant that Ukraine is in a worse situation now because it's really not going well in Ukraine.
	The war effort in Ukraine right now is going terribly for Ukraine.
	There will be spin doctors saying one way or another that Ukraine is actually just on the cusp of winning against Russia.
	We're finally going to stick it to Putin.
	But they've been saying that for about two years now.
	I actually saw the BBC last month talking to military commanders and former commanders in the UK and they were saying that well there's a good chance they're going to lose this year, Ukraine that is.
	Although with the sort of fog of war it's very difficult to say what will happen right?
	I'm not willing to put myself out on a limb and say what's going to happen but it's interesting to say the least.
	I'm willing to hesitate a prediction.
	All right.
	Obviously, I don't know, but I think that this is going to drag for a long time, for many years, because first of all, I think that what Trump says about NATO, he's not going to pull the US out of NATO.
	Because, yeah, NATO is also aiding the US.
	It's not only as he tries to portray that NATO is primarily for the protection of Europe.
	Obviously, the US is massively gaining from NATO.
	So that's a given.
	The reason why he does this is the art of the deal.
	And it's understandable.
	He wants to get NATO members to pay for more.
	Well, of course, that's how it comes across to me.
	Yeah, so definitely.
	But I think that when it comes to claims about what is going to happen with the war, you see claims from both sides.
	They try to portray this as a done deal, either full Russia's victory or full Ukraine victory.
	Both sides have maximalistic expectations because that's where the propaganda is.
	So personally, I think The war is going to drag for a long time.
	The US is definitely not going to pull out of NATO.
	Most probably it's going to be a stalemate and we're going to go to an antebellum.
	How do they call it?
	Balance?
	You know, post-war understanding.
	And fundamentally, I think that the West is not going to leave Ukraine, because at the end of the day, it's a matter of prestige.
	The economics is just aside.
	It's what most people think.
	But as far as the leadership is concerned, if you can't hold your alliance, and if you send the message to your alliance that you can't defend them, your prestige is massively harmed, and this is going to massively affect.
	So I don't think that even a Trump-led US is not going to... But we were not allied to Ukraine.
	We've got no obligation to them.
	Yes, I think by this point we have pretty solidly shown, even if it's not necessarily formal, that we are clearly aligned on the side of defending Ukraine's sovereignty, whatever that may mean at this point.
	But in doing so, we've completely devastated Ukraine.
	By trying to expand NATO to Ukraine to the point where Russia took its special military operation, police action, whatever it did.
	We've devastated Ukraine to the point where, as I said, carrying on... On your point about Trump and NATO, No, I don't think that he'd want to pull out of NATO.
	You are right that he's trying to get people to pay up their fair share of the bill as he sees it, but I do think that he is much more willing to speak peace terms than Biden is and the Biden administration is, and he is not happy about the money that is being spent.
	Trump would not be very happy about seeing all of that money continually going over to Ukraine, especially when he is considered by American terms An anti-war candidate, you could say.
	Part of his whole reputation from 2016 through 2020 lies on the fact that he didn't start any new wars.
	I think you're correct.
	And I think he's way more willing to negotiate a kind of peace deal.
	Yes, and I think that would probably be best for everybody if we did.
	One thing to note because I have friends from both sides and you know I haven't spoken about this for a long time and purposefully so but I want to say one thing that a lot of Ukrainians don't see it that they have been ruined by the West and I had
	A lot of Ukrainians really don't, they much rather have a devastated Ukraine that isn't Russian-occupied than have a Ukraine that isn't devastated but is Russian-occupied.
	That's just what I'm being told by some people.
	This has nothing to do with other sides, what is the West's involvement in the war.
	I'm just saying what I'm being told by people from both sides.
	That's absolutely fair, but of course, as far as I'm concerned, there comes a point where you have to accept and acknowledge a lost cause, and it seems that our leaders, from the saber-rattling that I'm reading, are not willing to accept that, and are on some level willing to escalate it further to avoid losing face in the way that you're describing.
	So, at the moment, this is one of the more recent reports, is that Ukraine is short on ammunition.
	Which is mainly artillery shells and air defense missiles.
	The average age of frontline soldiers is 43 years old and draft dodging amongst younger people who are coming up to conscription has become a very big problem and they're very short on manpower soldiers.
	When the war first broke out 650,000 Ukrainian men of fighting age fled And that's been over the past two years as well.
	Metro stations have police mounting document checks looking for draft dodgers.
	People are getting knocks on their doors.
	People are getting press ganged into it who are up for conscription.
	A lot of people are trying to dodge it.
	And there's a statement in this article here from an official saying this is becoming a real mess in, I think you told me that it's pronounced Levov?
	I think, Lwof, I think.
	L-V-I-V, so you might want to correct us if that's wrong.
	People are buying apartments but not signing a purchase agreement to avoid it being formally registered, or they register it in a friend's name because they're afraid later it could be confiscated.
	Others are emptying bank accounts in case legislation is approved and their money is frozen.
	And all of this is to avoid having to go out onto the front lines because at this point after two years a lot of people, as far as I'm aware from these reports, know people There was a report in The Economist a few weeks back talking about people who knew their friends had gone over to fight in the front lines and had either died or been horribly wounded, come back not able to serve anymore.
	After two years, you get that initial burst of patriotism, that desire to defend yourselves.
	After two years, it does start to grind people down.
	The reality of war sets in, doesn't it?
	I've told you before we started shooting that I lost communication with a friend.
	Yeah I'm really sorry to hear about that.
	She went to fight and we've lost contact.
	Yes and then you see what's going on over here and here's an interview with the insane madman Emmanuel Macron.
	Now this might not matter as much going forward because I know that he's just put up a A snap election following the changes that happened in the EU elections recently, although being President, as far as I'm aware, his position is not up for election until 2027, somewhere around there, so he's still securely in his position, even if the Parliament and Prime Minister changed underneath him.
	So what's he talking about here?
	And he does seem to be referencing the fact that Europe would be in a position of strategic weakness if America were to pull out.
	He's starting to talk about how Europe could die.
	He's saying that we need to ensure European military security in the case of America pulling out.
	We need European economic security.
	He's blaming all of this on Russia, saying through its behavior and choices it has become a threat to European security, despite all the efforts made by France, but also by Germany and the United States, and we can fact check how honest that is later.
	But of course he's basically saying that if Europe doesn't get its act together, create some kind of military, and immediately go and assault Russia.
	To a certain level, then we will all be in mortal danger when it seems to me that this idea that if Ukraine falls the rest of Europe is just a sitting duck is somewhat overstated because if Russia really had the kind of power to be able to take on the rest of the mainland continent They probably would have flattened all of the areas they were after in Ukraine in about two weeks.
	Yeah, it's a load of nonsense.
	That argument is ridiculous.
	It's just meant to make people afraid so they support the proxy war, isn't it?
	That's the whole purpose of it.
	It's not actually factual.
	And the idea that Europe as it existed historically or even it is existed now could be united and empowered under a former investment banker like Emmanuel Macron who is somebody who has gone quite a long way for opening up the borders he was a big supporter of Angela Merkel in 2015-2016 when she opened the floodgates to third world immigration into Europe
	The idea that he's somebody who doesn't even really believe in a European identity being specific to the people who have existed here historically.
	pushing i believe along with a few others to get a basically an eu army a common army made you know where each member state contributes soldiers towards a military and that is just further undermining the division between the countries as in the actual borders and it's trying to create this homogenous blob of sort of central or western europe but even then i mean he doesn't really
	it doesn't seem to me that he really believes in like individual european identities outside of i've got a piece of paper saying i'm french i've got a piece of paper saying that i'm So he goes on later in this interview to talk about the threat of monationalists saying that I'm a patriot, I love my country in Europe, but the best way of building together is to have as few nationalists as possible.
	Nationalists are just distorting the European debate.
	Brexit has impoverished the United Kingdom and all European nationalists are hidden Brexiteers.
	So of course He's the one saying, earlier on in the interview, when he's asked, do you stand by what you said about possibly sending ground troops to Ukraine?
	He says, absolutely.
	We're the ones threatening Europe.
	We're the ones threatening European security.
	He, who has become one of the most hawkish against russia saying that we need to escalate by sending french troops german troops all other troops u.s troops probably as well i'm sure it would be his best case scenario to fight russians on the ground therefore escalating it into a greater conflict you mean to say a man with a napoleon complex wants to avenge his idol's last defeat i know yeah well What a question.
	And he also says that he's got Franco- and he talks about how he would want to neutralize nationalists in Europe.
	And he says, we have a Franco-German agreement with Chancellor Scholz to move a move to qualified majority voting on the two main issues that still require unanimity, namely taxation and foreign policy.
	Foreign policy probably being the more important of the two in his mind right now.
	The reality of European practice is that even when you have a policy that is under qualified majority voting, when you are at a moment of crisis, a serious moment, unanimity comes back in because the leaders bring it back to the council table.
	So what that sounds to me, translated from bureaucrat speak, is to recreate crisis to drive consensus.
	We have all of these nationalists threatening our vision, our way of life that we have created in Europe, which is impoverishing European people.
	So if we create a crisis, escalate something for instance, then that will force the nationalists and populists to step aside or toe the line.
	That's what it sounds like to me.
	What is absolutely appalling with a lot of EU bureaucrats is that they are I think basically they believe nothing because a lot of the times I hear this rhetoric that Merkel and Macron in 2015, they just wanted to do what they did.
	I think it's not so much that they want it, it's not that they have any humanitarian values or something.
	I think it was a political, what was seen as a political necessity at that moment because we had the Grexit discussion and at the time Greece had the awful Syria is a government that flooded Greece with 10% of Greece's population with immigrants.
	Yes, and there was this pressure to somehow relocate them in the EU.
	So, Merkel didn't just wake up one day and they said, OK, we are humanitarians.
	It's not that they did it because they want, it's just amoral politics.
	This is an easier way to manage the situation.
	This is an easier way to manage.
	And what is absolutely wrong about this is that What they are doing is that they are, obviously they care for the next re-election, the next re-election period, but also they dropped their plans as bureaucrats and they have completely given up on the idea of the nation-state.
	They try to demonize any kind of appeal to a nation, and what ends up happening on paper is that their plans are actually making
	the demographic problem worse, not because it's something that there's an intention behind it, but because when you have, let's say, a demographic issue, bureaucrats are treating it just like Chuck Schumer is treating it in the US, as purely an economic problem.
	But most people in Europe and in the West are saying it's not just an economic problem, it's also a national and a cultural problem.
	And we want somehow to, let's say, go back and rediscover our culture, reaffirm our values, and improve our numbers.
	The kind of bureaucratic forecasting and the plans that they are devising, and the constant going after the GDP every year, Is what is actually doing things worse, not because they have any values or they have a plan.
	I think they just care about the GDP and indexes of the sort.
	I do think that that is clearly something that they prioritize over any other what you could call humanitarian values.
	I do think there is an aspect of this where people like Macron, people like the elites that we have in the UK and in other parts of Europe have separated themselves so much from the population below them.
	No doubt.
	The citizens of their nations, that they see themselves not only as being above them in a hierarchical sense, in just terms of, I've got the levels of power, but also better than them.
	And see the concerns of those lower than them, specifically the middle classes, as being petty, they would probably use terms like bourgeois, To describe them, and they have a certain disdain for them.
	So I agree with what you're saying there, but I do think that there is a somewhat intentional element in the demographic change that's been foisted upon Europe as a way to try to destroy those values that they see as being disdainful and oppressive, to a certain extent.
	I think on a certain extent, these people have drank the Kool-Aid of their own insane ideology.
	But if I carry on, so Russia, of course, in response to this, said, well, if we find French troops, we're going to shoot them.
	It's simple as that.
	Surprising no one.
	Yeah.
	If the French appear in the conflict zone they will inevitably become targets for the Russian armed forces.
	It seems to me that Paris already has proof of this.
	Zakharova said Russia was already seeing growing numbers of French nationals among those killed in Ukraine.
	Russia said on Monday it would practice the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise after what Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States.
	And regarding Trump as well, it does seem that parts of the US security state are trying to do what they're calling Trump-proofing.
	Ukraine aid.
	They want to make sure that if Trump gets in that he won't be able to reverse the escalation and they won't be able to reverse the commitments that the U.S.
	has made to Ukraine in prolonging the conflict.
	So NATO is considering taking over the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the U.S.-led group of nations that coordinates military aid deliveries to Kiev.
	It's also looking to establish a five-year aid package to Ukraine worth more than $100 billion, alliance officials confirmed to sit rep, with NATO Secretary General Jen Stoltenberg pitching the effort to the allies directly.
	So that does seem to suggest what you were talking about earlier, that they want to extend it for as long as possible, that it will drag on and on and on.
	Because for whatever reason, there does seem to be a lot of pride and there does seem to be a lot of investment put into the Ukraine conflict and making sure it goes on.
	And foreign policy here just says that much of this effort centers on future-proofing the alliance and Ukraine's security if Donald Trump wins a second term as US President.
	And if you want to learn more about how the conflict started, we've got videos on that when it first happened.
	But also an excellent, excellent source of information for this is any discussion that Professor John Mearsheimer has had on this, especially with Judge Napolitano.
	Absolutely Napolitano, sorry.
	I know.
	Very interesting discussions that the two of them have together.
	So some of this discussion, what they were discussing was that the US equipment that's been approved to allow targets to be hit in Russia is operated using particular codes.
	Strategic and confidential codes that the U.S.
	aren't just going to release to Ukraine, Ukrainian officials, so in all likelihood when they are making strikes using U.S.
	equipment there are U.S.
	men with those codes operating them.
	But I've heard from a number of different independent sources that there have been Westerners, so you know Western European countries and Americans, Um, in combat roles since the beginning of the conflict.
	It's been kept under wraps and it's sort of emerging now as it's been going on.
	But it's been something that's been going on and I don't think it's something we should really doubt or even be surprised by.
	No.
	Perhaps it's more expansive than we've been led to believe.
	I wouldn't be shocked.
	And again, none of this is to say that Ukraine should not be able to exist as an independent and sovereign nation, if that's what it is able to do.
	I'm not saying that the people who have sacrificed their lives in Ukraine, on the Ukrainian side, should have been able to sacrifice them in vain.
	What I'm saying is that our leaders in the West seem hell-bent on, one level or another, escalating and prolonging this conflict for as long as possible.
	And the only thing that you need to do to confirm that this seems to be the intention is to go back and look at what happened in the months following the beginning of this conflict.
	Now this is an excellent article from the Foreign Affairs, written by Samuel Charup and Sergei Radchenko, where they analyze the peace talks that were initially going on in the months following the conflict's beginnings.
	Where they examined draft agreements that were given by both sides, they conducted interviews with the participants and government officials, they've reviewed interviews and statements that have been released since then, and developed a full timeline of the events.
	Now I won't go over all of this, but I'll read some of it and try and give you some of the main points because we're running out of time now.
	So it was only a few days after the war started that Moscow was starting to look for agreement between the two countries.
	Putin arranged a negotiating team, as did Ukraine.
	The reason for it being so soon after seems to be the initial push into Ukraine did not go as well as Russia were expecting.
	They pushed a certain distance onto the territory, but they were unable to take Kiev, they were unable to take Kharkiv, and Putin realized that he was in for the long game.
	If he wanted to carry this on.
	So perhaps it was time to get to the negotiating table already and see what we can work out here.
	They exchanged demands and draft agreements over an immediate ceasefire, humanitarian corridors, etc.
	Zelensky and Ukraine were primarily after absolute security agreements from Russia and other states, which would mean that they wouldn't be part of NATO.
	They would actually have the opportunity to join the European Union.
	As part of these talks, that was a very strange thing, seeing as Putin was very against that in 2013.
	But it would require them to be neutral.
	And here's the logic as put in the article.
	Russia would be a guarantor too, which would mean that Moscow essentially agreed that the other guarantors would be obliged to intervene if it attacked again.
	In other words, if Moscow accepted that any future aggression against Ukraine would mean a war between Russia and the United States, it would be no more inclined to attack Ukraine again than it would be to attack a NATO ally.
	So it's just a, if you attack us it immediately escalates, you don't get this buffer period like we're in right now.
	That's a really good point, because that sort of plays into my interpretation of everything.
	Do you want me to go over it very quickly?
	Yes, go over it.
	So, my understanding of this conflict is that the Ukrainian resentment against Russia is legitimate, right?
	They've got a long history of not getting along since the Russian Revolution of 1917, and they have good reason to hate the Russians.
	Obviously their resistance against them is legitimate.
	However the countries that are funneling in weapons and money and resources are using Ukraine as a proxy to get back at Russia and I think the idea of the intelligence agencies, the military analysts and our politicians in the Western world is that sure we'll be draining lots of resources supplying Ukraine but we'll be wearing down Russia and eventually maybe we'll be able to wear them down to a point where we can take them over and then
	Yeah, and then this can be our territory, if you will, and in the long term this is going to benefit us more, as well as allowing us to focus on places like China, which would be the last sort of redoubt.
	It would be a hell of a geographical grab.
	Yeah it would.
	Moving into China's territory.
	So I think what they're trying to do is sort of resource extraction really is that they're playing a long game where they're throwing in resources to Ukraine to drain those of Russia and then they can sort of pick the bones clean if you will once it collapses but it doesn't seem to have played out that way.
	Yeah, it seems to be quite the Hail Mary at this point, judging by how events have turned out.
	So they actually had a draft framework treaty that both sides had accepted by about March, and they were exchanging drafts and amendments of that kind of central framework.
	And they laid out certain provisions.
	If they had been attacked, what would happen from the guarantors?
	What would their obligations be?
	No-fly zones, supplying weapons, or possibly directly intervening.
	And it says, although Ukraine will be permanently neutral under the proposed framework, Kiev's path to EU membership would be left open, and the guarantor states would explicitly confirm their intention to facilitate Ukraine's membership in the European Union.
	And the communique they say here also includes another provision that is stunning in retrospect.
	It calls for the two sides to seek to peacefully resolve their dispute over Crimea during the next 10 to 15 years.
	Which just goes to show that to a certain extent this must have been relatively quite serious in terms of the peace talk if Russia was willing to put Crimea on the table and say we can negotiate this if it means that we can end this conflict early.
	I'm not sure if I'm stealing your thunder here but I know that a few Western leaders played significant roles in sabotaging these early peace deals to keep the conflict going on.
	Well, the article isn't quite as cut and dry as to say that it's explicitly just the result of someone like Boris Johnson meddling in the affairs.
	I'm sure it's more complicated.
	It does mention it because it seems that it was after these peace talks started that they were able to push the Russians back even more so than had initially happened that had led to the peace talks starting in the first place and it kind of gave the Ukraine government the sense that they would be able to forge on and possibly push them all the way out so maybe these peace talks aren't entirely needed but of course Outside parties weren't enthusiastic about them either.
	The West, like you say, has a massive vested interest in attacking Russia.
	They see Russia as kind of a historical enemy at this point, ever since the end of the Second World War.
	And there are still a lot of people within the Western establishment who probably go back to those Cold War years, who carry on that same animosity.
	But they say here already on March 30th Boris Johnson seemed disinclined towards diplomacy stating that instead we should continue to intensify sanctions and with a rolling program until every single one of Putin's troops is out of Ukraine.
	On April 9th Johnson turned up in Kiev the first foreign leader to visit after the Russian withdrawal from the capital.
	He reportedly told Zelensky that he thought that any deal with Putin was going to be pretty sordid.
	Any deal he recalled saying would be some victory for him.
	If you give him anything he'll just keep it bank it and then prepare for his next assault.
	In a 2023 interview, David Arakamaya ruffled some feathers by seeming to hold Johnson responsible for the outcome.
	When we returned from Istanbul, he said, Boris Johnson came to Kiev and said that we won't sign anything at all with the Russians and let's just keep fighting.
	So it does seem to a certain extent that part of this was pushed from leaders in the West going to Ukraine and saying, Well, I know it would be nice to get peace right now, but we don't want it.
	We'll keep it going.
	You can win this.
	Which has just extended the conflict for another two years and led to death and injury for everyone involved.
	They conclude by saying...
	Ultimately, however, in his discussions with Western leaders, Zelensky did not prioritize the pursuit of diplomacy with Russia to end the war.
	Neither the United States nor its allies perceived a strong demand from him or them to engage in the diplomatic track.
	At a time given the outpouring of public sympathy in the West, such a push could well have affected Western policy.
	The Ukrainians' newfound confidence that they could win the war also clearly played a role.
	The Russian retreat from Kiev and other major cities in the Northeast and the prospect of more weapons from the West changed the military balance.
	Optimism played a big role and so they carried on and by late April they'd hardened their position demanding a Russian withdrawal from the Donbass as a precondition to any treaty.
	And so the chair of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council put it on May 2nd, a treaty with Russia is impossible.
	Only capitulation can be accepted.
	And that's all you can really say about it.
	So it does seem to me that the war has been escalated needlessly and is still being escalated right now.
	If the saber rattling is anything to go by, you can read that one way or another.
	But again, not to be alarmist, it worries me greatly.
	And with that, let's get on to the video comments.
	They're like, oh, May was the hottest May on record.
	It's like, no, it's freezing.
	I know it's freezing.
	You know, you bloody liars.
	The trouble with experts is not that they lie, it's that they're utterly execrable when it comes to communicating the truth.
	I had to step in and remind a meteorologist friend of mine making disparaging remarks about people online saying stupid things, his words not mine, that if only the so-called experts would just say that it was the month's average and then explain how the daytime temperatures were lower, I enjoyed that.
	That's good.
	were much higher, and that's what pushed the average up.
	Then he wouldn't have to be so rude.
	I enjoyed that.
	That's good.
	Yeah, that was a good explanation of it as well, Alex.
	A Gentleman's Observations of Swindon, Chapter 2.
	As mentioned in the last entry, Swindon was first recorded as Swindun, with swin meaning pig and dun meaning hill.
	This is an old English name, which means that the settlement was founded somewhere between 449 AD and 1066 AD, as we know that prior to the Battle of Hastings, the Swindon estate was owned by an Anglo-Saxon thane named Léa Fierté.
	Following the Norman conquest, Swindon was divided among five Norman lords, as we can see in the Doomsday Book.
	As its name suggests, Swindon revolved around farming livestock and trading these basic goods, making it a barter market town, and it remained this way for literally over a thousand years.
	Cheers for the history lesson.
	I know you told me that I was going to get it, but that was very quick and very good actually.
	Yeah, that was great.
	And all that history.
	Of course, I was on the podcast yesterday, wasn't I?
	Or was I not?
	No, I wasn't.
	I'm losing track of what day it is.
	No, I think it was on Monday.
	I watched also part one.
	And all of that history just so it can end up what it is now.
	Let's go to the next one!
	We're making it great again.
	Here's a fun little chart I found about the US job market and why it seems like no one you know has a job.
	It's because they don't.
	Despite what they say, it's all just people being imported, as usual.
	Yeah, that's a really good graph actually, isn't it?
	It really illustrates the point perfectly.
	I mean, that point where it diverges in about, what was that, September of 2021?
	That's a massive difference.
	Unemployment figures are looking so good these days.
	Record low unemployment.
	And I think we've got one more.
	Do we?
	Yes.
	Ari Josh's Tokoloshi segment, there are some people in South Africa that put their beds on bricks because they think it will safeguard against a little creature jumping up and stealing their life force out of them.
	Now, I think that's an external locus of control.
	Nobody wants to die.
	Death is uncontrollable.
	We're all scrambling for ritual or something that will safeguard against it.
	I also think it's an avoidance of accepting medicalised reasoning and rationality as to why some people pass.
	I think you're spot on there.
	I have heard repeatedly, since doing that Goblin segment, about people in the South of Africa putting their beds on bricks, the legs of their beds on bricks, to avoid the goblins.
	And I think that it's sort of this magical thinking, it's almost a bit childlike, it It's giving the world a sense of agency over yourself, fundamentally, I think.
	It's removing agency from individuals and trying to prescribe forces of nature and things like illnesses as having agency of their own.
	I think goblins exist.
	I was going to say, I think it's the goblins is the problem, clearly.
	Josh, You know how they say about the devil, that the greatest weapon the devil has is to convince people that the devil doesn't exist?
	That's the same with goblins.
	Yeah, that's what the tooth fairy has you believing as well.
	And the Easter bunny.
	I don't trust that bunny.
	Written comments, I'm going to make an executive decision right now that we run over till at least 35 minutes past.
	That is fair?
	Yes.
	Is that okay, Sam?
	Alright.
	Fantastic.
	Alright, so starting off, Jared Human Man says, it makes me suspicious that you may not be human.
	Are you sure?
	I would like to say thank you to you all.
	Oh, you're welcome.
	You and the Lotus Eaters helped me to find my way back to a better political path in life.
	Also, I'm getting married at the end of the month.
	Well, congratulations.
	Congratulations, yeah.
	Do you want to read your comments Josh?
	Go on then.
	MC says the reason these people always take over a beloved franchise and make it gay and woke is that their ideas simply can't survive on their own merits.
	Of course they can't.
	We've been saying this for such a long time so obviously we agree.
	If they make an original Gay and Woke series, seven people will watch it and it will crash and burn and they know it.
	Well, the Gay and Woke series already exist and it's just that no one knows about them.
	It's only when something that's already beloved becomes Gay and Woke that we talk about it because it's got a reputation because it was once good.
	If it's Gay and Woke from its conception, then no one cares.
	I imagine that's getting cut at some point.
	Annie Moss says, Disney stars show and demonstrate that the message is more important than making money.
	They're not interested in good storytelling, acting or building a wider audience.
	They kill people's dreams by taking beloved intellectual property and destroying it and making everyone Hate it, who liked it in the past.
	That's very true.
	I mean, a lot of them are talking about the message is more important than even Kathleen Kennedy, isn't she?
	She's saying, well, diversity above all.
	George Happ says, remember when Kathleen Kennedy wore the Forces female t-shirts?
	I almost included that in the segment, but thought it was too much cringe for one segment.
	She was honest from the start.
	This is what feminists do, destroy culture at this point.
	Anything Star Wars is a waste of time, including the Cope examples like Rogue One and Andor.
	Yes, they are Cope, you're right.
	I thought Rogue One was okay.
	It had some good action sequences.
	The story and characters were lacklustre.
	AZ Desert Rat.
	So it's good job in alienating about 80% of your audience.
	But I think I have read enough.
	So Stelios?
	Yes.
	So I wanted to say from Angela McCall, so sorry to hear about your friend Stelios.
	Thank you very much, Angela.
	I hope she and her family are alive.
	So, Richard Monekindam, Zara Sultana.
	Why do we have to listen to these foreigners with their foreign ideologies, obfuscating, stoking, disquieting and pointing the finger at the Westerner?
	These people are so transparent and yet they have representation.
	Why is that?
	Weakness and a historical inability or desire to speak up about this contradiction to the culture of this country.
	Well, just as we were saying in the segment, I really think that this social justice multiculturalism is a zero-sum game.
	Westerners are losing from it.
	Yeah, and Zara Sultana and her type see it as that, and she sees that she gains from it.
	That's why she supports it.
	They demoralize us.
	They can take the fruits of our banquet on the table without us putting up any resistance.
	That's what it is.
	Chase Ball.
	Wow, I can't believe ancient civilizations used to sacrifice babies for rain.
	Guys, you have to cut your son's balls off.
	Sobbing we.
	You have to do better.
	That's on the internet forever, Stelios.
	MC.
	Leftists seem to love throwing around the word hope, but besides being a meaningless platitude, what exactly are we meant to be hoping for?
	They speak as if we're living an apocalypse movie.
	Yes, they want people to hope for their domination, basically.
	Hope is for people without agency, that's my view.
	Hope is for losers.
	Don't hope, do it!
	You remember Aragorn in Helm's Deep urging people to hope?
	He was urging them to hope and also show agency.
	Last stand, right?
	You still do, you take ownership of the actions you do.
	You don't just hope, just like, oh well.
	Josh wants to virtue signal his libertarian credentials.
	There's nothing libertarian about it, it's just human psychology.
	If you conceptualize, I don't need hope, I just do things because I'm an independent libertarian.
	No, bad Harry!
	Where's my spray bottle?
	But no, it's about human psychology.
	If you externalise your future to other things, it's going to make you feel powerless.
	If you actually take steps to improve your life, then it is a positive thing.
	So I'm not virtue signalling, it is an important psychological point, it's nothing to do with politics.
	I have two more.
	One is George Happ.
	Since Corbyn and Sultana are preaching about hope, not hate, I assume they will vote for their biggest supporter, Reform.
	Those two would not be out of place as conform MPs.
	And, I want to tell you from the chat, Unbreakable Litany says, Harry, it's not an executive decision if you ask for permission.
	Well I made the executive decision and then I asked for permission knowing that I would get it.
	See, that was actually my internalised Blairism going to the floor.
	I was just about to say that.
	Yes, I've learnt well from the Dark Lord.
	I made the decision, then I'll ask for permission.
	Shall we go for comments from yours?
	Yes, we'll do a few from mine while we've still got time.
	Derek Power, can we conscript all of the bureaucrats to the war that they love so much, if only?
	you know i think system of a down bog bog the russians down with paperwork yes it's like we would have taken you know kiev but we had to fill out all these forms system of down put it best in byob you know why don't presidents fight the war good question i've I would like to see, I mean if they're so eager, I'd like to see Biden and Putin have a boxing match about it, really settle this.
	Zelensky can ref, of course, because that's actually what's going on.
	Rue the day.
	This war is solely to drain us of money and morale and it will go on as long as it needs to.
	We have always been at war with Russia.
	Yeah, well, Since the end of the Second World War.
	Pretty accurate.
	Good reference to 1984 there.
	1984 then.
	Biggie Bigfoot.
	I was a bit blasé about the prospect of World War III, but I've recently become a father.
	Congratulations.
	And I can't help but worry about my son and what he might be embroiled in, especially if it is preventable today.
	And yeah, that's the big problem that I have, really, with it, which is that many of the steps that have been taken to get where we are right now have been completely preventable every step of the way, completely.
	There could have been different decisions made, different paths taken, but they haven't, and it seems to be out of a mixture of self-interest from our elites and resource extraction, and also a certain level of arrogance.
	I have a particular theory that, psychologically speaking, some of our leaders aren't eager to be known as having been peacetime leaders, specifically people like Boris Johnson.
	Being the big Churchill fan that he is, I would expect that he wants to emulate Churchill in a certain way, because Churchill gets statues made out of it.
	Churchill gets known in the history books as a great hero and leader of a nation.
	Which he isn't.
	But if you are a peacetime leader, you might have many great accomplishments, but you don't get that necessarily.
	And so he wants to forge his name, or wanted to in 2022, forge his name in history by extending a conflict that he thought he could win.
	But in reality, all that's happened is it's gotten people killed.
	On both sides and as far as I'm concerned that's a tragedy.
	I want to say something about this if I have half a second.
	Of course, of course.
	Obviously I come from it from another angle because I'm from Greece and you see things but I have a soft spot for Churchill.
	Because he was one of the reasons why Greece went into the sphere of influence of England as opposed to the USSR after the World War II.
	I mean, I kind of have to give it to him.
	Oh, of course.
	That's why I think right-wing Greeks are really...
	Perhaps they really have a soft spot for Churchill.
	But this is not to make a claim about other aspects of Churchill.
	I'm not saying anything about Churchill.
	I'm saying that Boris Johnson sees Churchill's legacy and says, I would like a legacy like that.
	So if I can extend this war and make a name for myself in that war, which he didn't because he ended up getting ousted from his office just a few months later, then that's what he was going for, which is terrible.
	But anyway, on that down note, I think we'll call it a day.
	So thank you very much for watching.
	Remember to pick up your copy of Islander if you haven't yet.
	You honestly will not regret it.
	Thank you to both of you for sitting on this podcast with me.
	It's been a pleasure as always.
	Take care.

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