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Aug. 8, 2023 - Uncensored - Piers Morgan
46:48
20230808_piers-morgan-uncensored-woke-brand-boycott-us-covi
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Shopping Values vs Cost of Living 00:13:57
I am Rosanna Lockwood on Uncensored Tonight.
From boycotting woke companies to only buying ethical brands, cultural warriors on both sides demand we shop our values.
But during a cost of living crisis, is it a price that consumers should be willing to pay?
A lawsuit in the US meanwhile is trying to prove the US government pressurised social media companies to censor dissent around COVID mandates.
Now critics say it is just another conspiracy.
We'll be debating that.
And is the number one song on the Billboard chart really a racist dog whistle?
Country music fans are standing by their man.
Live from the news building in London, this is Piers Morgan uncensored with Rosanna Lockwood.
Welcome to Piers Morgan Uncensored with me.
Rosanna Lockwood still here whilst Piers is away having, well, probably not having to fight for a sunbed if we're being honest, but at least he's having a nice time.
Now, go woke or go broke.
That's a topic that Piers talks about a lot.
It's the phrase, of course, associated with companies exploiting social justice causes in their branding efforts.
You know the big ones recently.
Bud Light in the US featured a trans influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, and then they saw their own sales absolutely plummet off the back of that.
Meanwhile, here in Britain, people boycotting cost of coffee over this illustration of what appeared to be a post-doc transgender man caused a lot of debate that did.
Well, to me, all of this is corporate exploitation of everyone involved.
To others, it's virtue signalling.
And they actually design their lives around avoiding it.
There's even a new app that will allow you to shop your values simply by scanning a barcode because it really does get people hot under the collar, doesn't it?
This topic, including the very man whose seat I'm keeping warm tonight.
But there's a problem.
They hate you.
And they don't seem to care if you know it.
At some unidentified point in recent history, companies lost interest in simply selling things and decided it was their duty to change the way that you and I think.
Someone somewhere said corporate board members of the world unite.
And suddenly the people who sell you fizzy drinks and credit cards were also telling you that Black Lives Matter, that Pride Month is more important than Christmas.
You're personally to blame for climate change because of your filthy carbon footprint and so on and so on.
Well at the moment all of this is very much focused on this woke or anti-woke issues but it is nothing new.
Remember, do you remember this?
The uproar about the Nestle Yorkie chocolate bar, their campaign in the early 2000s saying it's not for girls.
Well as far as I last check, York bars still exist.
Women still dare to eat them, me include, and we're still talking about them.
So that is exploitative marketing done right.
So sometimes the gamble does pay off and sometimes in the case of Bud Light, it doesn't.
But what about when money gets tight for consumers like at the moment with sky-high inflation?
Do you really stick to your values when it comes to your shopping list?
In the cost of living crisis, what is more important?
Values or value for money?
Today it was announced that sales at Beyond Meat, that maker of vegan burgers, have fallen by almost a third.
Now this is in part because consumers are choosing cheaper, regular animal products, going back to the traditional old meat.
Now it's highly unlikely, isn't it, that vegans are suddenly giving up on veganism.
Only about 1 to 2% of the UK's population is actually estimated to be vegan.
And yet one report found nearly a quarter of all food products launched in 2019 were labelled vegan.
Now from a business perspective that is just absurd.
If you ask me, too much expensive supply, not enough core demand means that vegan food bubble is bursting.
So is it a triumph over woke?
I don't think so.
I think it's a triumph of market forces and consumer choice.
Vegan alternatives are always still going to be there.
There'll just be fewer of them and they might be cheaper because those companies are now scrabbling to lower their prices to keep all of us buying.
So my question is this, what if Costa Coffee suddenly started offering 50 pence lattes?
What if Bud Light sold 50 cent beers?
Would those values-based boycotts continue?
Or would value for money begin to triumph there too?
In this economy, I don't think anyone, any of us, should be attacked for buying whatever we can afford.
Ignore the culture wars.
Things are hard enough.
Enjoy the savings where you can make them.
Joining me to discuss all of this, Talk TV presenter Richard Tice and political journalist Ava Santina.
Thank you to you both.
Also joined by Chris Rhodes, founder and CEO of Veebs.
This new shopping app we were just talking about promises to help shoppers find brands that align with their values.
Chris, thanks for making time for us.
Just start off very simply by telling us how the app works.
Sure.
Yeah.
The Veebs app is designed to make it effortless to shop based on your values.
The way it works is you download the app, you get the 99 cent per month subscription.
You load up the value pack that most aligns with what your interests are.
There's seven to choose from, and then you're ready to shop.
You go to the store, you scan the product you're thinking about buying.
Veebs returns a value score from one to 100 based on that company's values and the ones that you chose.
Then you're able to say that's good or it's not good.
If it's too low, Veebs offers some alternatives that might fit you better.
You can look at those alternatives, choose, do I want A or do I want B?
Pick the one you want, put it in the cart, and you move on to the next thing.
It makes it easy.
It makes it, you know, you use your normal shopping routine.
And most importantly, we keep everything updated so you don't have to be digging down internet rabbit holes all day.
And you're not targeting any side, and particularly are you in this?
You're looking at all ends of the spectrum from liberal to conservative.
So in terms of the data that you've picked up on so far, the users, as far as I know, it's only based in the US so far, your app.
What are you noting from that?
Do you find it's more liberals or more conservatives using it?
Yeah, so we haven't done a ton of marketing yet.
We don't have a marketing campaign to really count against.
So it's really been very news cycle driven so far.
And we see spikes in all seven different value packs that we have based on kind of what's happening in the news.
So far, we've seen, you know, based over the last month that we've been on the market, it's obviously been a big month for conservative news stories.
We've seen a lot of conservative uptake.
That's definitely the majority, but we see spikes here and there of all seven.
Do you get on board with the argument I've been making that the companies are basically just exploiting everyone at this point in the pursuit of just making a quick buck, whether it be left or right, everyone involved is just being exploited?
I don't think everybody, I don't think every instance of values signaling is exploited.
But I think there are certainly companies that are trying to jump on that bandwagon and gain market share or whatever based on a value story that they may or may not be wholeheartedly believing in.
So yes, there's some of that going on.
I do think you don't necessarily have to make a decision, either values or savings.
You just need the right data to make the decision.
And so that's kind of what we're trying to offer at Veebs is the ability to go to your regular store, your regular aisle, choose a product based on your values.
We know the pricing will be more or less similar in the same aisle.
And hopefully you can buy on your conscience, but also save money.
That's a dream, isn't it?
Give people the choice to make those informed decisions, whether it be based on value or values.
Let's come to the panel.
Chris, stay with us.
We'll come back to you.
But you were listening to that, Richard and Ava.
Quite fascinating, isn't it?
Would you use the app?
I love it.
I mean, that is the American dream, isn't it?
It's free market forces working out their best.
Chris, he's identified a space in the market and he's basically with a subscription base, he's gone in the middle, he says, which do you want?
And it'll be fascinating to see how it goes.
My question to Chris is, when's it coming to the UK?
Because, look, only this week, I've stopped buying Costa coffee.
I put a tweet out there.
Yeah, I just think they've suffered.
So they haven't exploited people.
They've made a terrible mistake, just like Bud Light did, and they're paying the price for it.
And, you know, that's what happens with boards.
You make decisions, you make mistakes, they'll learn from it.
So you make your values-based decisions in shopping.
You've decided to boycott Costa Winnick Cutter.
You're an investor.
You're a businessman as well.
Have you ever invested in companies that have links to, for example, arms manufacturing, tobacco?
So you've made values-based decisions on that side as well.
Actually, in fairness, I don't think I've ever been presented with an opportunity, but I'm a real estate guy.
I'm a property guy.
So no, I focus on what I know.
And look, I just think that lots of companies recently, they've tried to virtue signal it.
You saw it with Coots.
They've made some terrible mistakes.
But equally, what you don't hear about is the smart companies that focus on looking after what actually the customer wants, a good product at a competitive price.
Fundamentally, that I think is what most people want at any time of a cycle, in particular when money's really, really tight.
We will go back to Chris and ask him whether he fancy SEDI on the UK once he hears this conversation.
Maybe I'll be his franchise.
He might be put off, Ava, coming to you on this.
I mean, exploitative, that's what worries me about the cost of coffee side of things when it comes to trans people and the way they're being represented.
The Dylan Mulvaney case in particular, that person, that individual, she felt that she was left by the company abandoned.
Yeah, I mean, well, she was abandoned because that campaign blew up completely out of proportion.
It was never meant to be an ad campaign.
It was a little bit of sponsored content that went way out of the, you know, way out of the water.
And it means that people like Richard and I were talking about it on panels in a way that I don't think Dylan expected.
And I don't think Bud Light did either.
I'd like to go back a little bit though to your point about veganism earlier.
I think that the reason that Beyond Meat are failing is because the product is not very good.
I've been a vegetarian for nearly 20 years now.
I mean, I don't go after products because they are virtue signaling or because they are, you know, well-packaged.
I go after them because they're healthy.
And a lot of the alternatives that have come out in the past few years aren't.
So it doesn't matter if you put a tram slag on there.
If it's not healthy, I'm not going to eat it.
What do you make of all the sort of politicization of corporate products and food products in the time of what we're calling a cost of living crisis where people are strapped anyway?
Do you think people feel judged for their decisions in the supermarket?
I think that people should feel judged, but not in the supermarket.
I think you can look up, you know, companies like Shell and BP who have been greenwashing for the past 10 years.
So these huge oil companies that make these big ad campaigns claiming that they are environmentally friendly and therefore you should go and fill up your car there.
That's where our concern should be.
Not a tiny little coffee company like Costa, which I'm sorry, that little sign, but it showed a double mastectomy.
I mean, I could count that.
That was grotesque.
It was abusive.
It was exploitative.
It was the most revolting thing I can think I've seen in an advertising campaign.
Why were you celebrating the mutilation of healthy breasts?
Why were you so offended, Richard?
I was offended because I just thought it was awful.
My other half, Isabel, was appalled by it.
And we just told it as we see it.
And I think Costa will deeply regret that.
Were you offended, Ava?
Not at all.
Not at all.
And also, there's no indication to show that that is supposed to be a depiction of someone who is trans.
What else is it?
That could just be someone who has had a double mastectomy, which is quite common.
I really don't mind that at all.
I just don't think that the coffee there is very good.
That's why I don't go there personally.
But, you know.
Yeah, well, let's bring that up because a lot of these high street coffee chains at the moment are also under fire for passing on a lot of these high input costs, as we call them, inflation, onto the customer.
You go and buy a coffee and a pastry, it's costing you just shy of 10 quid here in London, you know, somewhere around the 17 pound mark.
I'm talking about the main ones, I won't name them.
You know, if if, and, and if they're also pushing values as well, do you think they're essentially going to lose consumers over?
I don't know.
I think it actually might be a way to get consumers to go there.
I mean, if you look at Starbucks, for example, the main reason that young teenage girls go there is because they like the photograph with their coffee.
I mean, if this is something that you align yourself with, if you're a big believer in the LGBT community and movement and you want to be a part of it, then great.
Get your consumers that way.
Richard just won't go.
I won't go there, but I go to Pratt's because it's better value.
I'm a subscriber and I'm looking for value for money.
That's what I'm really focused on, as well as quality.
I'd love us to have a conversation about the sort of exploitation that goes on abroad.
Okay, so if you look at fast fashion, you look at where we're getting coffee from, where these companies are bringing in their products.
Yeah, but that would be a really good conversation to happen.
It would be because actually the hypocrisy of many people, young people, who buy clothes, wear it once and then ditch it because it's so cheap.
Fast fashion.
But you know, they're exploiting people in developing countries who are being paid an absolute pittance.
If you pull the thread on most things in this studio, what we're wearing, everything we eat and breathe, you can almost always find abuse along the chain.
I think making people more aware of it, of course, and allowing them to make informed decisions.
Speaking of which, let's go back to Chris, who's developed this app, Veebs, which does allow people to make these values-based choices when it comes to these kind of cultural issues.
Chris, you had a chance to listen to that debate here in the studio amongst a couple of Brits talking about values and shopping.
Are you enticed to bring your app over here?
Absolutely.
We've gotten a ton of interest from Great Britain and Australia in particular, a little bit from the rest of Europe, and we definitely are looking at those as our first geographic expansions.
We want to have more products, more customers here as we build a foundation, but there is a lot of enthusiasm for this from Great Britain in particular.
Chris, can I just ask you what strikes you as comparatively between the US sort of culture that's going on with regards to products for shopping and the UK as well?
Do you think they're similar or do you think that Britain is different to the US in any way?
I think they are relatively similar, to be honest with you, in a lot of ways, in that there's kind of two sides.
Building Trust After the Pandemic 00:13:56
There's a, you know, maybe each side calling hypocrisy on a number of things.
I think it's a little bit of a different starting point.
You know, Great Britain and the US have a different kind of cultural foundation.
And with Brexit, that's a kind of a big turning point maybe in Britain that we didn't have as much here that makes it a little bit different.
But there's people who want to shop on their values.
There's people who want to make their dollar or pound go as far as it possibly can while buying on their conscience.
And we want to address that need.
Chris Rhodes of Veebs will look forward to seeing the app when it lands here in the UK.
Best of luck.
And Richard and Ava are going to stay with us throughout the show.
Thanks for joining us for that first section.
Now, on Uncensored Next Tonight, did social media companies conspire with the Biden administration to censor COVID dissent online.
A court case in America is arguing just that.
We'll have both sides of that debate after this break.
Now it has been described as one of the most important free speech cases in US history.
Now I'm not talking about Trump's third indictment.
A class action against the Biden administration for allegedly colluding with and coercing social media platforms to suppress disfavoured speakers' viewpoints and content during the COVID pandemic.
Make no mistake, this is a lawsuit of which the outcome could have implications for us all, wide-ranging and massive indeed.
Joining me to debate this two very interested parties, Dr. Jay Battichari is a co-signatory to this lawsuit, a very outspoken voices against lockdowns during the COVID pandemic, and former White House coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Deborah Burks, who publicly witnessed one of the most infamous, it could be called moments during the pandemic.
Let's just remind ourselves.
Right, and then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute.
One minute.
And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning?
Because you see, it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number of lungs.
So it'd be interesting to check that.
Dr. Deborah, I will come to you first on that.
I know you probably end up getting asked this a lot.
We don't want to dwell on that past too much.
But I remember watching that very clearly, listening to the president at the time, Donald Trump, talking about that, talking about injecting bleach, watching you on the sidelines there and wondering what was going through your mind.
Well, you know, he was talking to Dr. Bryant.
You can see his head and you can see he's turned away from me.
And we actually had scientists, Dr. Bryant, do a study so the kids would get back outside.
It was April, it was spring.
I was worried about kids being inside.
Mayors would not let.
They closed all the playgrounds and I wanted children out on the playgrounds.
So we asked the scientists to study sunlight compared to disinfectant for metal, plastic, and cardboard to be able to reassure parents and mayors that children could go outside because the sun was a great disinfectant for COVID.
Somehow, between when we discussed that at Task Force and 45 minutes later, when we came to the press briefing, I think Dr. Bryan had gone to the Oval and engaged the president in discussing this as a therapeutic.
It was never studied as a therapeutic.
It was studied.
In fact, that would be dangerous.
It was studied for playgrounds and to get children outside.
So you're saying there was a bit of a miscommunication going on.
And I do want to say you've got a book coming out, Silent Invasion, The Untold Story of the Trump Administration, COVID-19 and Preventing the Next Pandemic Before It's Too Late, of which our viewers can maybe hear a bit more about that.
But Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, I want to come to you on this court case we're hearing about at the moment, the Biden administration, well, a case against the Biden administration, this idea that the government allegedly is coercing or suppressing social media companies to silence voices like yours.
I think it's fair to say, because you have said you've been sort of shadow banned on Twitter, for example, for things you've said about lockdowns.
What made you a co-signatory on this lawsuit?
There's nothing alleged about it.
The Biden administration has an enormous censorship complex basically aimed at controlling and silencing voices on social media that criticize its policies.
In fact, it uses the muscle it has over the regulatory regulation of social media to induce Twitter, Facebook, you name it, to slag lockdown opponents and in fact, to suppress criticism of the misinformation that the Biden administration itself is putting out on things like immunity after COVID recovery, on the inefficacy of the vaccine to stop disease spread, on the efficacy of masks,
vastly overstating the evidence on that, on the harms of the school closures.
It was on item after item, what you see is the Biden administration suppressing the speech of critics using its government power to censor in a way that is not consistent with the American First Amendment.
Well, it's alleged until it's proven in a court of law, of course, and that's what we'll have to wait and see.
But thanks for setting out your stool on that.
Dr. Burks, I want to come to you and get your response to that, because you have said previously with regard to kind of the post-match analysis, even though some would argue the pandemic's still going, that some of the backlash against the way it was handled to some extent is deserved or warranted.
Do you think the same with this social media argument?
Well, you know, I loved your last segment because it talked about empowering the consumer with all the information they needed in order to make decisions on what to buy.
And even today, we don't put transparent information out there about infectious diseases.
I mean, we're talking about an app on buying coffee, and we don't have an app where everybody across the world can see what's circulating in their area so they can make decisions about themselves and their families.
Because there are people that are still very vulnerable to COVID.
My mother is 94 in a multi-generational household.
Yes, she's been vaccinated, but vaccines and someone that elderly with that poor of an immune response, she may not mount an immune response.
And so it's my job to provide the tools that we have to protect her.
But every family is different.
And that's why I've always found, I've worked in pandemics around the globe, if you empower the community with the information that they need, they will make common sense decisions that protect themselves and their families.
I've seen this with COVID.
I've seen it with SECA.
I've seen it with Ebola.
And I don't know why we can't give people transparent information that they can utilize on a day-to-day basis.
Well, certainly plenty of health officials, yourself included, both of you, trying to get the information that you saw was right and scientific out during the pandemic.
Also, Dr. Fauci, also here in the United Kingdom, Chris Witte, these top scientists.
But it could be argued that the relationship between the public and the scientists, the public health authorities, broke down so dramatically over the course of the pandemic, whether that was due to government behavior or what some would call unelected bureaucrats overstepping the line, depending on what side of the argument you sit on.
But in terms of disseminating that information and the public actually taking it on board, Dr. Bhattacharya, can you not understand that there is an element of misinformation when it comes to things like Twitter, or should we probably call it NATX?
Does it not concern you?
I mean, I think the solution to misinformation of any sort is trust.
And what happened during the pandemic is that the government embraced censorship, it embraced positions that were contrary to the science, and then closed up the possibility of debate and criticism from the outside.
And as a result, vast numbers of people no Longer trust the government, the information that provides.
And so, when there is actual misinformation afoot, you know, they're not going to trust the US CDC or the US NIH anymore because the NIH and the CDC itself embraced in misinformation.
So, if you want to combat misinformation, the answer is not censorship.
The answer is to build trust in public institutions by behaving in trustworthy ways.
And that is not what happened.
By the way, a court actually did find the findings that it's not no longer alleged.
The court actually did find that the censorship is going on by the Biden administration.
These are facts that were entered in court, not disputed by the government.
There are emails, depositions of Tony Fauci, and others in the government who participated in the censorship industrial complex.
I just want to ask you what that trustworthy behavior would look like, if you have to boil it down, because if you have that volume of information coming at the public, they're trying to work out who they can trust or not.
And this is what the COVID pandemic felt like for many.
What does that trustworthy behavior look like?
How can people discern it?
Well, I think one is humility and openness to criticism, right?
So, if you have a high government official saying, if you criticize me, you're not simply criticizing a man, you are criticizing science itself.
Well, that's just ridiculous.
No one who can look at that and say, well, yeah, that person actually is able to keep an open mind and see if he's wrong, admit it.
That kind of behavior exemplifies exactly how the government behaved throughout the pandemic.
And as a result, a tremendous number of people, and they got things wrong.
It wasn't simply that they were embracing science and they got it right and they're criticizing people on the outside who got it wrong.
They got things wrong over and over and over again.
They overestimated the efficacy of masking and mask mandates.
They ignored immunity after COVID recovery.
They ignored the vast evidence that if you get the vaccine, you can be infected again and embrace mandates in its place.
A lot of people lost their jobs over this.
So, you know, it's not like it's so clear that the government got it right.
And then they also block debate.
I mean, I think if you want to build trust, you have to build institutions that are willing to engage in debate and be open-minded instead of what we had during the pandemic.
And it's funny, Dr. Burks, you mentioned that we're speaking about cultural wars that start the show and values-based buying, because a lot of this does strike to that argument about whether people are thinking in an ideological way or believing science and whether both can happen at the same time.
It's all about freedom of speech.
It's all about being able to choose your side, isn't it?
But when it comes to a pandemic and a public health emergency, do scientists know best?
Is there a rationale for them overstepping and dictating how people should live?
Well, I think we've learned from prior pandemics that you have to put all the information out there in a digestible way.
And when you cut corners, when you cut corners pretending that if you are infected, you are protected from future infections.
You're not protected from COVID if you've been naturally infected or multiply vaccinated.
You can get infected.
And I just feel like we've divided this into an absolute when this is not an absolute virus.
We don't even know to this day whether long COVID, what it really is, how many people get it, and what are the long-term consequences of multiple COVID infections.
It is not flu.
It's a unique virus.
It is still being discovered what it does.
And I agree with Dr. J about really continuing to put the information out there in an honest and transparent way so that people can make decisions by both ignoring the fact that COVID is still with us, as well as pretending that our vaccines can reduce herd immunity and protect against infection, leaves people absolutely confused.
And you see this even now today in the United States, where they have politicized rural health and implying that people in rural areas are dying at a higher rate because of their vaccine status.
It is because they don't have access to any tools, because primary care isn't there anymore.
And they've been dying at a higher rate from cancer, diabetes, hypertension, all of these other diseases for 15 years.
And we're acting like it was because of how they voted versus their access to healthcare.
So I'm hoping that everybody steps back and looks at what the true issues are.
And for the UK, please keep your data up.
We've decided that COVID doesn't exist and we've taken our data down.
So I use your data to understand what's happening and what we're going to see in the United States in order to protect my mother.
Well, you're going to get a lot more data about it.
There's a lot of people with COVID in the UK at the moment.
Dr. Jay, before we wrap up this conversation, I just want to ask you: information is one thing, but legislation, of course, is another.
At least 30 states with Republican legislation have passed laws since 2020 limiting public health authorities.
That was reported in the Washington Post.
So basically, legislating into the next pandemic that health authorities can't say you must wear a mask or these schools can't be locked down.
Depends on a state-by-state basis.
Do you think that's wise?
Yes, I do.
I think that the public health authorities abused their trust the public had in them during the pandemic, violated basic civil liberties, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to worship, and huge, huge violations of basic rights.
People need to live.
They need to go see their elderly parents.
And authoritarian orders that violate that should not be given in the hands of public health who can't be, who have shown themselves to be untrustworthy.
If public health wants to control behavior, they should do it in honest ways by giving good, solid information, being open to correction from the outside.
And then if they're giving honest advice, people will listen to it.
It's trust that is the key, not mandates and authority of the sort that public health arrogated to itself during the pandemic.
Trust certainly is key.
We've been hearing from some top scientific voices this evening.
Dr. Jay, Dr. Deborah, thank very much for your time.
Thank you.
Tommy's Song and Incited Violence 00:09:32
Uncensored next tonight: the racism row that has rocked the country music world.
We'll debate the rights and wrongs of trying that in a small town.
All will become clear next.
Country music, it's faced controversy over the last few weeks.
All of this centering around a song by Jason Aldean called Try That in a Small Town.
Critics saying the lyrics and images in the video are racist dog whistles.
Take a look and listen.
Try that in a small town.
See how far you make it down the road.
In case you missed it, in the accent there, he said, cuts out a cop, spit in his face, stomp on the flag and light it up.
Yeah, you think you're tough?
Well, try that in a small town.
Sounds a bit different coming out of British mouth, doesn't it?
What do you think of it all?
The video, meanwhile, has caused uproar.
It's set on the steps of Maury County Courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, the site of a 1927 lynching of a black man.
Not that the controversy has been bad for the record's chart position saying all this at the weekend, Try That in a Small Town, rocketed to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 charts, the first country song to achieve that feat in over a decade.
We thought it was worth debating the rights and wrongs of this song.
I'm joined from Nashville, the home of country music, of course, by Outkick host Tommy Lauren.
Tommy, thanks so much for making time.
Here in the studio, comedian and radio presenter James Barr and Talk TV contributor Paula Roan Adrian.
And I feel like I should make some personal disclosures before starting this debate because I live in a small town or a village, we call them here in the UK.
I absolutely love country music and I can declare some ignorance when it comes to watching this video.
I watched it on my way in today and I thought, well, I don't see much race kind of presented here.
The rioting footage they've used is quite carefully selected.
Some saying it's coming from the 2020 COVID riots, not quite confirmed.
But then I learned about the building they're standing in front of.
Just to remind you, it is a county courthouse in Tennessee when an 18-year-old black man named Henry Choate was lynched in 1927 and they're quite visibly standing outside it throughout.
So I think important direct context, let's head to Tommy Laron standing by for us in Nashville.
Tommy, I mean, I know you're going to make a defense for this because you've been very outspoken about it.
Why isn't it racist?
Well, first of all, it's not racist because we're using actual footage of the summer 2020 riot season, you know, when COVID took a hiatus for several weeks in the United States.
So I don't know how something could possibly be racist when you're actually showing depictions of real events that actually happened.
It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with behavior.
And furthermore, there's been a lot to do about this courthouse, but it's also important to note that this courthouse is a popular filming location, not just for this music video, but for Hallmark movies, other music videos, and other Christmas specials.
So it's not as if this was picked out of the oblivion.
Like this is the first time this has ever been used.
Yes, it has a dark history, but since then, there's been several projects done there that have nothing to do with race, nothing to do with politics, and for a Hallmark Christmas special, for goodness sake.
So people trying to make this about race is just because they want to ignore the message, try that in a small town.
And what that means has nothing to do with race and everything to do with basic human decency.
You can't get away with this kind of thing in small towns because in small towns, people look out for one another.
They don't put up with people rioting, looting, burning the city down.
And that is the intention of this song.
And to me, that's where this song lands.
I mean, it has been called out for encouraging violence.
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store.
You think it's cool?
Well, act a fool if you like.
They talk about getting their own ones.
Got a gun that my granddad gave me.
So it's meeting violence with violence.
Let's bring in our voices from the studio.
Paula, do you feel it's racist?
So, look, we can't deny that there is a very micro-aggressive underbelly here in terms of where this video was shot.
We can't deny that the images that have been portrayed are about violence and about people protesting.
And we know that people were protesting.
Black Lives Matter.
It was all tied up in relation to race.
But can I just say something to Tommy?
I think Tommy knows this is about race because Tommy understands what the Deep South is about.
Tommy understands the history of the Deep South.
Tommy understands what happened to the gentleman who was lynched.
Tommy understands about the riots that happened in the 1940s in relation to this particular building and the black men who were killed.
Tommy understands all of that.
And, you know, we are very clear about the message that's being sent.
This isn't a person who is saying, we are a small town and we uphold the law and we should report bad things to the police.
This is a person who is saying, I'm a member of a gang and if you come into my town, I'm going to deal with you.
It's an eye for an eye justice.
And we are past that, surely.
Surely, I respond to that.
Are you aware of that?
Are you just choosing to willfully ignore it?
That's laughable.
And clearly, from somebody who doesn't understand country music or really the United States of America and our culture.
You know, I'm not familiar with my favorite.
I have my blue jeans, Tom Tennessee.
Tommy, I have my blue jeans and I'm proud to wear them.
I love them.
I love country music.
And I love that you love country music.
But I will tell you this.
I am from a small town in South Dakota, not the deep south.
And this song speaks to me because in my small town in South Dakota, in the Midwest of the United States, it has nothing to do with come into my town and I'm going to enact violence upon you.
It's saying, if you're going to come here, be decent.
If you start burning things down and looting, you will probably be dealt with in the way that you should be dealt with.
And that is a turtle.
Let me know.
We can't sit here and say we're from a small town.
I'm from a small town as well.
And, you know, my neighbor, Gladys, might take the post-in for me if I'm out, but she's not going to pull a gun on someone that has a different opinion, Tommy.
Tommy.
I think I also want to say it's funny that you can't get a lot of people in the world.
A different opinion.
2020 riot season.
It has nothing to do with the different approaches.
The protests after the death of Georgia is aware of what happened in the riots in the summer of 2020.
If you want to look at footage of a riot, maybe you should look at the Capitol riots.
That would be a more interesting.
If you don't live in the United States, you do not live in the United States for a solid two months of the world.
And it's upsetting that I understand culture war and race issues more than you and Jason Aldean, considering I don't live in the U.S.
This is a song lyrically with very threatening language and a video that has been filmed outside of a courthouse with a very deeply racist history.
Why didn't you just Google it?
Why don't you choose that footage?
It is racist, Tommy, and you know that it is.
Tommy, we're not talking about God bless USA, are we?
We're not talking about that great patriotic song, which I appreciate that not everybody loves.
But, you know, that is a song that a lot of people will sign up to and understand the words and understand what it was hoping to achieve.
This song is clearly about getting sales.
It's clearly about making people angry.
It's clearly about getting people to fight one another.
But Tommy, you've already said, you know, we're not Americans.
We're wading in an American issue here.
Is it just that Brits don't get country music?
Yeah, that's partly it.
But I'll also say this.
I find it rather disturbing that those of you have such an issue with this song and music video, but don't seem to have much of an issue with American cities being burned to the ground, businesses owned by black people, white people, brown people being looted for every penny that they have.
The fact that you are angry at a music video for showcasing that behavior and not that behavior to me is very telling and very appalling.
I'd like to say actually I'm not angry about this song.
It's got quite a nice melody, Tommy.
Like it's a fine song, but lyrically, you can't argue with the fact that it is threatening.
Also, the last time I visited New York, it hadn't burned down.
It was perfectly fine.
I think most Americans are very loving, empathetic people.
I think it's really sad that you can't see the truth behind this song.
It's stoking a culture war to hit number one, and it did it.
I want to ask in the studio as well whether country music's just going to country music, James.
Also, no.
Well, there have been some, but very few, it must be said, gay country singers.
There have been very few black country singers.
The top hundred and whatever country music artists, 139 that there are, I think three of them are black.
But then black music has its own space as well.
Is there an argument for separate spaces here?
It's...
Listen, that doesn't give you the excuse to incite violence.
And actually, there are a lot of different musicians from all sorts of different genres that do that too, and that's also wrong.
And a lot of the country and Western singers, they do collaborate with black artists, black artists from the hip-hop world, black artists from the pop world.
So this isn't about country and Western music.
This is about this song and the message that this song is giving out to people.
Thank you both in the studio.
Tommy, before we go, give our sense, our international audience, a sense of what the reception of this song's been like.
And I understand you know the singer, Jason Aldean, personally.
Sinead O'Connor's Pop Legacy 00:09:21
How's he been dealing with it all?
Listen, he's not backing down.
Go woke, go broke.
And this song is getting the reverse butt light treatment and for a good reason because Americans are so sick and tired of being told that we should deal with rioting and burning and looting.
We'd like to get back to good old American values and that works for all races.
We all love each other.
We defend each other.
That's what try that in a small town means.
How many innocent children have a gun?
How many more innocent children who are walking down the street or who knock on the wrong door, who knock on the door by mistake and get shot at?
How many more children do we need to see lose their lives to guns?
That's what this song is telling.
It's saying, pick up your gun and come to my town and I will deal with you.
I won't go to the police.
I'll deal with you.
All of you, it's been fascinating.
We appreciate it.
Thank you.
Uncensored next tonight.
It's been a day of commemoration in Ireland where the great Sinead O'Connor was laid to rest.
We're talking to Dave Fanning about the legacy she leaves behind.
Coming up next.
Welcome back to Uncensored.
Now, Sinead O'Connor was laid to rest today in her home county of Wicklow.
Thousands of locals turned out to pay their respects, including former survivors of the infamous Magdalene Laundries, the president of Ireland, and pop legends Bob Geldof and Bonno from U2.
Well, joining me to discuss Sinead's legacy is Irish DJ and friend of the singer, Dave Fanning.
Thank you for making time on this day, Dave.
And just talk to us a little bit about the legacy that Sinead leaves behind and what you knew of her.
Well, the legacy would probably be, I mean, like, if you look back, like 33 years is a long time.
So that was the time she made a really big impact when she tore up the picture of the Pope on TV.
And a lot of people thought, you know, what's this about?
And a lot of people there today probably were even behind the idea that, you know, who is this kind of uppity, petulant woman, you know, who was sort of basically put out in front for a metaphorical sort of stoning.
She was the target of a staggering amount of vitriol, including public protest, etc.
And this worldwide sort of misogynistic temper tantrum, she really took it on the chin and she knew exactly what she was doing and she was telling the truth completely.
And a lot of people just didn't really want to know.
10 years later, we found out that she was telling the truth.
And 10 and 10 more years, in other words, 30 years now since we find out just how bad the situation actually really was.
A nest of devils, she called it, right up at the top of the Vatican.
And she was 100% correct.
But other things too, many other social issues.
She spoke about so many things.
And she was a spiritual seeker in the deepest sense as well.
And her religion, like today for the last day too, the Imam said some fantastic things about her too, which basically, you know, she just, it was just too much of a world that she had to live in because she was not, you know, she was never, she had a lot of sort of issues in terms of her mental health down through the years.
Yeah, I mean, so many different strands that we can go into there, too much the world.
And yes, to remind our viewers that she did convert to Islam a few years ago.
So she had a Muslim burial today.
Also, just the facts of what's going on, just in case anyone watching isn't aware, no cause of death has yet been revealed.
And she was, of course, a mother of four.
She's survived by three of her children.
One of the Magdalene survivors actually says that Sinead changed Ireland forever.
What do you think was meant by that?
Because as you said there, she was just never shy to stray away from these really complex topics and speak out on them.
Changed Ireland.
Absolutely.
She changed Ireland.
I mean, even in terms of hashtag me too.
I mean, like, you know, she was many years before all of that kind of thing.
There was a huge breakthrough for feminism every few years with the type of things she was saying.
Some people were there today.
I saw them being interviewed talking about the fact that, you know, she gave me the kind of opportunity or she gave me the right to be who I actually am, as opposed to who society might have wanted one to be.
Because this was a very patriarchal society at the time.
And she was really like out there in terms of this is what I want to say.
This is what I want people to believe.
And in so many ways, there's been a lot of documentaries recently that have sought to correct kind of the record of several women who are once punching bags.
You know, I mean, even we're all guilty maybe of looking at, you know, red top newspapers from 13 or 14 years ago and whatever, Britney Spears.
Oh, look, she's cut her hair off and all the rest.
But Britney Spears and Lorena Bobbitt and Pamela Anderson and Monica Lewinsky and Sinead was probably what the first to be cancelled of all the ones I'm mentioning.
And then people have seen today, people have seen in the last two weeks, I should say, just how prescient she was and just how much she had her finger on the pulse.
Absolutely.
Now, those mental health concerns that you raised, again, very, very public for Sinead.
She was outspoken about them.
How do you think she changed the way that mental health was perceived, especially amongst celebrities and singers, as you said there, who are very much in the glare of the public eye all the time?
I don't think that Sinead herself was very much kind of on some kind of a crusade on that level, because she had a lot of problems of her own.
There was a lot of trauma, a lot of controversies, and big mental health struggles, which of course she played out of the public house.
She always wanted to be listened to.
She always wanted to be heard.
She certainly wasn't shy about it all.
But just, you know, obviously, in terms of so much that we've seen with Amanda Bynes and so many others down through the last few years, it is out there in the open.
And I would say also that even in terms of singers, from PJ Harvey to Alanis Marissette to a few others, Sinead opened the door for all of that kind of thing to be angry and upfront and, you know, not necessarily to be the, what was it that she said about, you know, you don't have to sort of be there just for men's sort of approval or whatever.
You have to be who you want to be.
And she very much was, as you said, almost too much for this world.
Morrissey has come out in the days after we found out about her death to say, look, where were you all?
In essence, I can't remember his exact wording, but where were you all when she most needed it?
Here you are with your platitudes now.
You're crying for her now, but where were you then?
Do you think that's fair?
I do actually, in so many ways.
Yeah, I do think it took a long time for people to actually embrace Sinead, if you like.
Many people did in the 90s.
But I mean, it has taken the last two weeks, it's changed an awful lot of things.
It's terrible to think that her death had to do all of that.
But she was exposing the sexism and the casual cruelty that was rampant in the media, not just stuff that was going on in the Catholic Church.
And I do think that, you know, what she has done, I can get exactly what I think there was somebody else was giving out about that today as well.
I can't remember who it is.
Oh, Lily Allen.
She was also saying the same thing.
And they have a point because at the time, you've got to remember that there were people even there today at the funeral who probably feel slightly guilty that back in the early 90s, they were kind of going, who is basically this loony?
What's her problem?
And they were.
Now, you know, we've covered some very heavy topics from her lifetime.
It seemed to be scattered with them.
But of course, she was also just, as you, a personal friend to you.
I'm sure you shared light moments as well.
Have you got any personal recollections that you can share of your favorite times with Sinead?
But one of the things a couple of years ago, we were going to make this documentary about her.
And she said, listen, most people think I'm, you know, complete and absolute loony.
And I said, really?
I wonder why.
And we just fell around laughing.
I mean, like, obviously, she knows she wasn't stupid, you know, like she was very fearless.
She was very fragile, often at the same moment and often in the same song.
She was very self-deprecating.
She was uncompromising.
She was a sharp observer of so many different things, but also she was incredibly kind.
And I like there was nothing in her life.
She never wanted the fame that she got from that second album from Nothing Compares to You.
And she immediately threw it all away.
In fact, her next album was a selection of jazz classics.
And then after that, knowing that her albums weren't going to top charts, they weren't going to get in the way of all the pop music that was going on.
By the way, nothing to do with like, say, you know, the Madonna, who was just as famous at the time.
If they want to go off and want to be pop stars, that's fine.
And she wasn't even against that.
It just was not for her.
And the albums she released were kind of explorations of certain genres of music that she wanted to go to.
So for instance, in 2002, the Shan No Snua album was just old Irish traditional singing album.
Three years later, popped off to Jamaica.
And Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, the two famous producers, produced a reggae album.
And that's what she wanted to do.
She has a bunch of songs ready to go, which she played me recently, which David Holmes, the Belfast musician, DJ producer, et cetera, has made.
And I presume that's the last that she has.
But I mean, her last two albums, actually, from 2012 and 2014, some of the best pop songs she's ever released.
But by that stage, people weren't necessarily buying Sinead albums.
That didn't really worry Sinead, I can tell you.
That's not what she was in it for.
Working right up until the end.
Just quickly, Dave, before we let you go, and thank you for sharing all your recollections.
One track that people should listen to when they're thinking of Sinead.
Well, I'd go for Troy myself or go for one of the happy ones on the last album, like Forth and Vine.
I think that's a great song.
But, you know, Troy is the one from the early album.
Fourth and Vine.
There you go.
That's a recommendation from Dave Fanning.
Thank you for sharing your recollections of Sinead Connor's day when she was laid to rest.
That is it from me.
Whatever you're doing.
Make sure it is uncensored.
I'll be back here in the chair tomorrow night.
Good night.
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