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Can America’s Implosion Be Stopped? · UK Column Radio

• 0:38
  Speaker 1: I was taught never to trust a guy with a
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: bow tie.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: I don't know where that came from, but that's in
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: America too, you know. It's one of the things. It
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: comes from the Gilded Age because that's it separated classes
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: and people that wore bow ties were, uh I guess
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: what we would call the bourgeois, and it separated people.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: But you know, the bow tie gets a bad rap
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: because why was the bow tie invented in the first place,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: That's a great question. I don't know.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Well, it's because of the way shirts were made. Uh
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: they were. There was basically no buttons then, and so
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: it would be there would be a V neck with
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: a collar. Why with the collar because you need to
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: close it up and keep yourself warm, and a bow
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: tie was invented to keep the collar closed. And then
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: it became a commodity and a social status. So, I
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: mean a bow tie had has a very utilitarian purpose.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: It's not used that way today obviously, but that's what
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: it was, to keep your shirt closed.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, I didn't know that. That's fascinating. Actually, And do
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: you do you still do the bow tie? Old school
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: you tie it or do you have a clip on.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: I Uh, well, first of all, it's it's not a
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: clip on that. It is a misnomer. It's called pre tide. Okay.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: And and if you if you'll bear with me just
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: for a second, I have a lot of bow ties
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: and they're not pre tie. This tie is because tomorrow
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: is going to be victory Day jen Pobieda in Russia,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: and it's orange and black. It goes to the Saint
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: George ribbon that everybody is wearing. If I was wearing
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: a waistcoat or I mean a jacket, I'd be wearing it.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: But this is what everyone is wearing at Moscow right now.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: So I'm trying to be in the mood, have the vibe.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Well that's a great segue, pizza. So take me back
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: your American and you ended up in Russia. Take me
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: through that journey. How did you end up in Moscow?
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Well, I was I was an academic before all of this,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: and I studied modern European history with a emphasis on
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Eastern Europe and Russia, which really you know, in the
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: early date when I was started in academia, early eighties,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: there were a small group of hardcore Eastern Europeanists, but
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: most people studied Italy, you know, Spain, Portugal, warm places
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: where you can go to. Okay, Obviously, study of the
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: UK is very popular in the United States, so to
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: get a little bit of competitive edge, I started doing
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Eastern Europe and went to Poland in nineteen eighty one
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: during the at that time it was martial law, when
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: the Solidarity trade union was shut down by the Communist government,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: and that was really one of the most It was
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: a real benchmark in my life because I'd never really
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: been outside of the United States before, and it was
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: so enlightening for me just how different other places are,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: and you know, and for someone that was brought up
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: from the age of five to fifteen in a suburb
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: of Denver, Colorado, going to Eastern Europe, going to Poland
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: was really something that really made me grow and made
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: me a lot of learn And it was at stage
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: in my left I started questioning a lot of things
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: that I'd been taught. And I've been on that trajectory
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: ever since. I did you know that? And then I
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: did graduate work in it. And I must say when
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: there was a certain point where the trajectory of my
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: academic endeavors kind of made me into a kind of
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: an expert on Eastern European communist regimes. Well, between nineteen
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: eighty nine and ninety ninety one they were all gone.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: So you know, I went from I went from kind
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: of a historian too, a political scientist in a way,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: because then at that point it's all about EU integration,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: it's all about NATO expansion, which I'm against both. And
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: so I left academia. There were no prospects for me.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Being a white guy didn't didn't help. Let's be honest, okay.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: And and at the time, I didn't really begrudge and
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: I was saying that that's the pendulum of history. Okay, I
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: guess that's okay. I didn't take it very personally. And
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: then I just I got a Before I left Academia,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I had a two year full Fulbright scholarship to uh
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: to Poland. So during those two years, I you know,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I kind of got the lay of the land because
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: I was in the back of my mind, I was thinking,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna probably stay here for a lot longer than
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: just my two years. And that's what happened. I went
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: back and I started working. I went from Academia to
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: I worked for Colgate palm Olive and did consumer uh
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: consumer research on toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, shower gels. And because
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: of my kind of my character, my nature is that
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: I thought, well, if this is what I'm going to do,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: I'm going to try to do it well. And I
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: actually to this day, are you know, I go to
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: a supermarketer, a shopping well, I look at all of
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: the marketing and marketing. I like marketing. I'm very interested
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: in how people pitch things and messaging and that goes
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: from you know, shampoo to ideas. Obviously there's not it's
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: not a big jump, really, Okay. So then at one
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: point I ended up working for a financial services company
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: as an editor. And it was a company that was
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: had obviously polls because it was in Warsaw, Americans, Brits, Australians,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: other Eastern Europeans, some Czechs, some Slovak, Hungarians. And I
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: became a financial I went from editor to a financial analyst,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: and I didn't really particularly like it, but it made
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: a whole lot more money. And after doing that for
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: a stint, my American boss in this company he moved
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: to Moscow and he said come along. And that was
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety eight, and I remember that, you know,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: it was in the internet. We did have the Internet,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: but people still used fax machines. And he faxed me
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: a contract, and I thought, how can I say no?
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: And I was quite rusophobic at that time, being an
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Eastern Europeanist in American academia, it's almost a default position
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: to be rusophobic. So what it was am I thinking, well,
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: what they were offering, Yeah, do that for two or
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: three years, put some money in the bank. Then you
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: can just make thing, you know, decide the next step.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: There was just a means to an end. I had
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: no intention of staying here at all. And when I
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: came here in early nineteen ninety eight, it was you know,
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: gangster land. I mean it was razy. I mean it
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: was really insane. I mean there was kind of an
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: appeal because like, wow, this is really screwed up. This
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: is a really screwed up place, Okay, And so it was,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: you know, you're, you know, kind of being a voyeur
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: about other people suffering, and you know, you know, that
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: was you know, a curiosity for me. And plus my
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: academic background was always kicking in because when I came here,
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: I met other foreigners, but they knew nothing about Russia.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: I knew a lot about Russia. Okay, so going down
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: the street and you see a statue of Mayakovski or
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Tchaikovski or you know, you know these cultural icons. I mean,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: it was familiar, it was odd. It wasn't foreign to me.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, okay, maybe I'm seeing the statue. But I
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: read all of his books, so that transition wasn't so
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: hard for me, and and I, you know, quickly kind
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: of learned to appreciate it. Then the financial crash came.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I was working for ALFA Bank and they gave a
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: generous sovereigance package, and so I had a golden parachute
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: to kind of stick around. And I started working in journalism,
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: and then in two thousand and five Artis started in
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: the rest is History.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: As they said, cross Talk. Yeah, and you've been hosting
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: cross Talk ever since.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I've been hosting cross back for fifteen years.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: The problem that I have with this is you're such
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: a pleasant guy, and your show is called cross Talk.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: You don't look cross at all.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's interesting that you bring that up,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: because it was designed to be a debate program, but
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: essentially what it has been essentially since the beginning. It's
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: a critique of Western narratives about all kinds of things.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: And ever since the coup and Kiev in two thousand fourteen,
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: you know, the news came to me. I mean, in
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: the early years, we would do like should there be
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: a fat tax? Was Jesus really a Christian? Uh? Should
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: there was that whole debate, you know, that triple the dot,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: triple X, Should there be all porn? Should be put
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: into one domain? You know? And we were doing stuff
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: like that and kind of like Jerry Springer stuff, and
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: then the world came crashing down on us. The the
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia in August two thousand
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: and eight, and then the Syria Dirty War, and so
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: it just kind of invaded us, and I just embraced it.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: I said, let's just do this, okay. And so instead
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: of being a debate program, it's a big tent for
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: people that are contrarian to American and Western forum policy
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: and Western ideologies too. I mean, we get a lot
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: of dissidents, a lot of dissonance, some very very interesting people,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: some really far out people. But it is a place.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: It's a Big ten for the Contrarians to show up.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: How do you view the US now?
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: It's a very alien place to me. Okay. I was
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: brought up in a very conservative environment, like I said,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: from the age of five to fifteen, and a suburb
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: of Colorado, of Denver, Colorado. It was everybody was conservative.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: And you know, you know, if you're cutting up, you know,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: like smoking a cigarette or getting into a fight after school,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: by the time you got home, somebody had called your mom,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean, like, you know, that's how it worked. Okay.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: You didn't need police, you didn't need truant officers. Moms
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: and grandmam ran the place, okay, because they're me looking
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: out the curtain, like what's going on out there? Okay?
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: And then I'm going to call across the streets because
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: you're cutting up. And then when you get home, well
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: you get home, okay. There were consequences. Then we moved
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: to California, and you know, the weather's nice and there's
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of institutions. But I hated living there because
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I didn't like the people. I didn't like the vibe.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Do you see the US as a sinking ship or
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you know, is it is? It just is it just rudderless.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: I think it's rudderless and sinking, and I think it's
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: a danger to the world, a big danger. You know,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: you have to step out of it. I mean, you
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: have an outside view living in South Africa. You know,
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: the United States is seen as a very aggressive country
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: around the world. I mean, you know, there's this nonsense
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: about I'm not against tariffs you okay, don't get me wrong,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: but this approach, I mean, this is this is a
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: this is insanity, this is a it's not scoring any
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: points for the United States around the world. And it's
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: because it's a it's a crumbling empire. And when empires
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: start to crumble, they lash out, Okay, they look for
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: the magic bullet to solve the problem of you know,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: the contraction in all of that. And you know, you
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: know the you know, we've together with our colleague John
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: John Well Lachlan, we've talked about bricks and stuff like
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: you I mean, you know, on on Monday, it can
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: be skeptical. On Tuesday, I'm a little bit more enthusiastic.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: But it's a reality and it's and it's an answer
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: to American slash Western hegemony, and so yeah, I don't.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: I it's not the the the beacon of light for
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: the future, that's for sure. And it's just going And
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: is the American power declines relatively, it will lash out
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: even more. So you and you know people. You know, Peter,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: what do you miss about America? I don't miss anything
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: at all.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: But are you able to travel there? I mean, you're
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: a Russian citizen now.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm still an American citizen also. I have both,
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: but my American passport has expired, and because of the
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: breakdown during the Biden administration of US RUS relations, there's
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: no consulate here for me to get it renewed, and
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: I don't think they would renew it if I had asked.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: I mean a lot of people don't understand is that
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: the US government cannot take an American citizenship away. But
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: they don't have to give you a passport, Okay, there's
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: no obligation for them. Okay, So you know, just because
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: of work and whatnot, and plus obviously I would fear
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: for my own personal freedom if I visited a NATO country,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of off the board for maybe for
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: the rest of my life, okay, but other travel, yeah,
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: but I'll be honest with the viewers. I have to
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: check about extradition. I have to you know, I have
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: a family, I have dogs, I have property. I'm not
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: gonna that's Those are not trifles to me.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Did you at any point come to mass out of
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the pond, Well, you have on the African continent.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: Well, Egypt, But you know, I don't really think of
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: you know, I think Africa, Yes, I mean in a
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: in a in a strict technical sense, yes, but I
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: mean I think most of us think of you know,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: the you know, the the the Arab north of the
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: continent where the desert is.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, Yes, Egypt is more Middle East, Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: No, So I haven't No, I don't know Africa.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Well, thankfully, because we're both bricks countries, you shouldn't have
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: any issues visiting South Africa. Hopefully you will.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Well I would, actually I would very much like that.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: You know. But before covid Uh we had I had
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: these grand ambitions and plans and I wanted to do
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: is I wanted to go to do a series of
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: crosstock programs in every single brick country and it was
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: it was being entertained, and that was they kind of
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: liked the idea, okay, and then COVID came. And then
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: COVID suddenly came to an end. No one has explained
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: to me why, but it suddenly came to an end.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: And then uh, then the next uh turbulence, and that
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: was the Ukraine conflict. So and you know, I've because
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: of that, I've just been swamped. And then after October seventh,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: what happened in Israel Palestine, that has also been a
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: really uh pressing and absorbing issue. So you know, for
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: for about a six month period there, we'd tell my
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: producers Tuesday, Ukraine, Thursday, Palestine, and that's what we did
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: over and over and over again, which I think is
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: I feel obligated because Western coverage of Ukraine is abysmal.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Every once in a while, they'll kind of pull the curtain,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: you know, like this New York's Time story about a
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: month ago, six weeks ago, about oh, well, this is
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: what the CIA and the Pentagon is doing in Ukraine
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: from the very beginning. And then the reporting on what's
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: going on in Palestine, which is a genocide and it's
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: a crime of our time, and the consequences I will
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: never there will be consequences, certainly for the rest of
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: my life. And I think it's a it's a condemnation
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: of the West and its behavior. It makes up all
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: these rules and demands people follow with them, but it
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: doesn't follow. It's on and that is one of the
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: big outcomes of this is the absolute rank hypocrisy of
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: the West, and people see it all over the world.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: You might have made a Freudian slip there, but it
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: was quite profound. So I'm gonna quickly bring you back
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: to that. You said brick countries, and you left out
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the s now that is. But that's a good point
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: because South Africa is the smallest of the bricks region.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Do you think so that Africa we'll have a role
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: to play in the future.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Long story short, if it has better governance, of course,
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I'll even go much further better governance, and uh, South
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Africa will become one of the great powers.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Easily, particularly because of our of our geographical positioning.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Well, and then you're just the natural endowment. I mean,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: you guys got a lot going for you. Okay, it's
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: a governance issue and uh, and I look forward to
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: that because it's very, very rich and rich in every
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: single way. And you know, and we need South Africa
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: to be that way. We need the world needs a better, stronger,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: self confident South Africa. It's very important.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Let's just stay on bricks for a moment. You were
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: alluding to multipolarity when you're talking about the US earlier.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Do you think bricks is going to go somewhere.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, but it's going to go a different path. First
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: of all, there's not going to be a leader of bricks.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: It's good to have to be very democratic, okay. And
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: I think what it needs to do is it when
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: a lot of people want it to be. They wanted
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: to be a anti Western alliance or grouping and all that.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: That's unnecessary. It's unnecessary. Bricks doesn't have to be against anything.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Bricks has to be four lots of things, okay, but
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: they need you know, one of the things I would
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: like to see is a bricks communications node, you know.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: You know, how do I learn about South Africa through
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Western media? How do you learn about Russia through Western media?
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: You know? And I was at a bricks conference, I
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: guess really what was it maybe eight years ago and
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: in Beijing, and that was my calling card, you know,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: because I'm in the South African delegation. You know, we
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: had the Indians and the Chinese, and I'm just saying,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: but it was it was kind of pointed at the
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Chinese a little bit, you know, like you guys got
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: more money than God. I mean, let's get you know,
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: let's get a bricks Bloomberg going on here. Okay, but
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: those are kind of things, you know. I mean there
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: were in Kazon last year there was a big bricks confab,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: you know, and they're talking about, you know, a bricks
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: currency and all that. No, that's not going to happen
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: for a long time. It's not okay, because it gets
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: into centralization and all that. What Bricks's strength is that
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: it is diverse and there has to be some very
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: basic buckets of of of agreement. But you know, when
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: you try to institutionalize it, you know, ahead of this
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: and all of that, it'll it'll slow it down. You know,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Bricks is a feeling and it is a outlook, and
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: I think we can fill it in as we go along.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: I'm not it's not press anything, let's not force anything,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: and certainly let's not look at it as an anti
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Western alliance because I know people that like bricks. This
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: is our way to fight the Americans and all that. No, no, no,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: the Americans in Western Europe, they're going down all by themselves.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Russia doesn't have to meddle in their elections, okay, because
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: they're fundamentally anti democratic. These elites, the current elites are
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: so fundamentally and anti democratic, they're going to create their
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: own demise. Nobody needs to push him, nobody.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: But isn't bricks also a response to NATO.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: No, not necessarily, because bricks wisely stays away from the
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: security military dimension. That's very wise. Okay. Look, countries like
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: China and Russia, they don't have It's part of their constitutions,
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: if I can use that in air quotes, is not
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: to be joined military alliances. Okay. Now, Russia and China
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: have an extensive military cooperation, but there is no Article
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: five in the Russia Chinese relationship, and I don't think
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: it should be. Okay, these countries have faced Western imperialism
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: for five hundred years. They prize their sovereignty. They really,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: you know, the West doesn't even know what that word
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: means anymore. Okay, but you know, you know, as Russians
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: are celebrating the anniversary of the defeating fascism eighty years ago,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: you know, but you know that's not the first time. Okay, Well, Napoleon,
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: you know, and his Western coalition tried to dismantle Russia.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Hitler and his coalition tried to dismantle Russia. And you know,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: and those coalitions get bigger and bigger because during the
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: Napoleonic time, the US wasn't part of that. During the
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Hitlarian coalition, you know, the United States was on the
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: side of Russia. Now we have the collective West, it
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: gets worse and worse for Russian security through time. Okay,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: that's why they prize their their their sovereignty so much,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: and they they're not going to make a commitment to
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: another country's a security. It'll work really closely. Look for example,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: what the relationship that Russia has with Iran, for the
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: kind of security and military and relationship they have. It's
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: written into the documents that Iran must remain a non
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: nuclear weapon country. Okay, they must respect the NPT and
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: so you know, Russian diploma is so much more sophisticated
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: and and and detailed driven these bozos that come flying in,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: you know, like Keith Kellogg or you know, uh with
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: cough and all that. I mean, they're all amateurs. They're
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: hard to take seriously, you know. Uh. And and that's
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: why the worldwide, the Russians are widely respected. You may
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: not like Russia, but there their state craft, their diplomacy
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: is quite sophisticated. What is the West, I've made programs
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: about that. It's because you can go, you can go geographically,
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: you can the origins of the West would in twenty
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: first century parlance is the Christianity. The Christian world right now,
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: it's where neoliberalism has dominion. And this is what brings
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: these elites together. It's really remarkable. If you look at
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: the European elites now, they're all cookie cutter replacements. For another,
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: if you took the prime minister from Lithuania and switch
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: it out for the prime minister in France, no one
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: would notice, No one would know. Maybe maybe it would
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: be a fashion statement, okay, Because all of these elites
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: are making fashion statements all of the time. They don't
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: have anything important to say or interesting to say whatsoever.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: And then is because their minds have been colonized by
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: neoliberal ideology. And so where there's neoliberalism, there's a pretty
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: strong case to say, you're in the West. Okay, this
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: could apply to Japan and you know, Australia and all
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: of that. Are they part of the Western world when
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: it comes to a mindset, obviously, and the Western world
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: is also defined by its relationship with the United States.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually quite true. But when we speak about
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the West imploding, Peter, what do we mean.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: First of all its own self. They're not self sufficient anymore.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: They cannot use the tools of neo colonial colonialism as
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: they have in the past. I mean over the last
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: two years. Well, look what's happened to the French in Africa.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: I mean pretty a good swift kick to the ass Okay,
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: And that's what they've gotten. In many ways, Russia's replaced them.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: That's more rhetorical than anything else. I mean, that's a
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: way for African elites to stick it to the French
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: after hundreds of years of colonialism and neo colonialism. You know,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Russia is very very careful. It's not it doesn't spend
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: it's not the Soviet Union. It doesn't spend a lot
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: of money on this kind of foreign aid and all that. Now,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: that's not Russia doesn't is not interested in that Russia
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: is a status quo power. It wants to keep what
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: it has essentially, Okay, but the West is in decline
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: because it doesn't believe in itself anymore. It doesn't believe
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: in the people, that's for sure. Okay, look what they
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: did in Romania. You know, you know, Oh, we don't
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: like that guy. You you have to have another election.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Well that's a real sovereign choice, isn't it. Wow. And
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: then you have this Moldova and Aspirin to become part
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: of the European Unit in their last election. Well they
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: had because Moldova is a very very poor country, had
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: very bad governance. Moldovan's live all over the world. There's
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of Moldovans in Western Europe, there's a lot
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: in Russia. Oh, they had polling stations all through Europe
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: for Moldovans. They had one polling station in Russia where
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: you know there are hundreds of thousands of Moldovans. Oh,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: they don't get to vote. They completely disenfranchise those people.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: And it tilted the And it was like razor thin.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, this was razor razor thin. And if they
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: had allowed the Russian diaspora, Moldovan diaspora in Russia to
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: vote would have gone a different way. But you know,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: oh we won. We declared victory by the most undemocratic means.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: And now they have ADF in Germany, a FD in
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Germany being outlawed. It's the most popular party in Germany
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: by public opinion polls, but they're going to outlawn. So
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I mean, what is is that the West? Because that's
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: what the West is to me? Referendum referended in Europe
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: on the European Union treaties. Oh the people voted against it,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: but Parliament will pass it. Then why did you have
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: the referendum? We see this over and over and over again.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: And so the West is a group of elites in
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: a pecking order. I mean, you know, if you if
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: you look at look at the military, every single NATO country,
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: they have their cadre sent to institutions in the United States,
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: they study at this War College and all of that.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, they reproduce themselves. And so you know, it's
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: not an Alina Bedebach the Foreign Minute. I think she's
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: still currently the Foreign Minister, maybe a few days after
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: a coalition is voted in, but she said, I don't
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: care what my voters think. You know, we're going to
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: be pro Ukraine. Well that's an archetype for Western leadership today.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: And then adding to that, you've got EU policy that
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: is whether by designal emergence, I don't know, but they
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: are actively destroying Europe. I mean you have a mass
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: immigration crisis there.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, you know, you can have your opinion
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: on Kadafi, but he made it very clear. He said,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: you take me out and you will rue the day
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: because they're just going to cross the Mediterranean. And so yeah,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: I mean their whole energy policy. You know again, you
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: know this Frederick Mertz that finally passed the bar and
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: became chancellor. You know, and you have this Queen Ursula
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: over at the European Commission. We will cut all reliance
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: on Russian energy. Yay, at what cost? It's you know,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I came up with this about a year ago. We
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: used to say future historians will explain why this or
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: that happen, but no, we've got that wrong. Future psychologists.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: Well we need psychologists to explain why, what, what what?
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: What drives a nation? Uh nation states that leads to
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: self harm? This is health, This is self harm, okay,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: And and again, where is the democratic dimension to all
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: of this. It's it's just not there. I mean, you know,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: it's they want to cancel the people because they failed.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: Can it be pulled back?
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: I don't think so. No. No. Look in the in
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: the in this large scheme of things, you know, empires
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: coming up. Western dominance of the world is about five
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: hundred years. Every single empire comes to an end. There's
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: there's no there's no end of history. Okay. And this
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: is this is what neoliberal believes. And history has ended
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: and we must maintain the status quo because there's nothing
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: We've already reached the pinnacle of human experience. Well that's nonsense, okay.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: And this is and you know, like look at the terms.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: You know, we hear in the media all time, the
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: rise of China. Well they don't look at it that way.
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: They the return of China to its natural place in
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: the world. Not an aggressive China. China is not an
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: aggressive doesn't have a history of aggression. You know why,
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: because they do what's called the demonstration effect. People will
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: come to us, people want to be in our orbit,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: people will kow tao, Okay, you know, they because we
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: are an exemplar of the human condition at that time.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: And so you know, we don't need to send flotillas
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: around the world and conquer. Now the world comes to us.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: We are the Middle Kingdom, you know, we're in the
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: middle and this is what they believe. You can just
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: agree with it, fine, okay, but this is their mythology,
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: their imagined community about themselves. And then you know, I mean,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: you know, with trade, Trump's trade war with everybody. Yeah, well,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: you know, Vietnam and the Philippines and Indonesia said well,
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: let's sit down and talk to the Chinese. Let's see.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: You know, they're more reasonable people. Okay, And that's it.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: People are looking towards and Chinese doesn't export its ideology. Okay,
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: they you know, you can emulate us if you want,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: but we're not going to force it on you. Let's
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: and anesthetical to what the West did for five hundred years,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: still still does. Yeah.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: And another interesting observation is the Chinese of a history
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: of playing the long game, very long game.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well they don't. You know, in our case, it's
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: the election cycle. And if you look at the United States,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: it's every two years. Yes, yeah, you know, you know,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: there isn't maybe there's a one month break, a hiatus
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: of one month when people aren't talking about the next midterms. Okay,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: maybe after the midterms for months they take a break,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: then they're thinking about the next one. Okay, so you know, yeah,
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, and plus we had their Western elites, don't
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: they don't because so much of it is tied to
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: special private interests. I mean, and look look at to
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: be a politician in Europe and the United States. These
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: are wealthy people. I mean, how many people, how many people,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: how many people in the British Parliament have any idea
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: what working class people, what their existence is like. There
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: was this woman, Corey Bush. I think she was from Missouri.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: She was, you know, she came from poverty, Okay, I
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: mean before she was elected. I mean she, you know,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: I think, was facing bankruptcy or something at the very
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: least extreme financial hardship. And she goes to Congress. I mean,
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: there's no one that understands her class whatsoever. Okay. And
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: she took a noble position on Israel Palestine, and they
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: got rid of her in one of the most expensive
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: congressional races. Apak and others just outspent her and put
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: and they got their puppet in office. But you know,
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: if you go through all three years, I mean, look
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: at under Land, and she comes from a very wealthy
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: family and she married very well. Okay, I mean, you know,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: you can make the case. And I think there are
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: cases in the past. I mean you had like Franklin
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Delano Roosevelt. I mean, you know, he was a patrician
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: and came from very nice money, pampered existence. But every
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: once in a while, the system generates someone that is
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: so unexpected. He actually sympathized with the working people. My
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: my father's family were always died in the world. Republicans. Okay,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: they hated Franklin Roosevelt because he was a class trader. Okay,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: but these people in power now, they don't betray their class.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: They can't even imagine it. Okay, look at I mean,
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: this is bits reported. I'm not the source for this, Okay.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: But you know Steve Whitcoff, the guy that is Trump's
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: envoy to Russia and Iran, no no official American Uh,
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: he's not employed by the US government, he wasn't confirmed
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: by anyone. He's just Donald Trump's friend and so his
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: Whitcoff's son and Donald Trump's on Don Jr. They were
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: apparently in train to someone to the Middle East when
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: whitcoff is dealing when he went to Oman. Well that
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: the sons of two major power brokers. They were making deals,
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: you know, huge multi million dollar, ten millions of dollar deals.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: You know, I mean here they go. I mean they
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: use their status, their power and so people you know Hunter, Biden,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Nickeled and Diamond. I mean they were they were the
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: ragtag uh sellers of influence. I mean it looks like
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: with coffin Don junior. You know, they do it on
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: a grand scale. See, this is the problem. This is
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: the the what is the Is there a social good involved?
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Is there is there a social uh a good that
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: we want to create? There's no vision. It's like I'm
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: it's my turn to pile in, It's my time to collect. Okay,
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: we post the question what is the West? Well, but
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: I think if you look at where places that we
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: would nominally think is the West, what what what do
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: you see? You see replicas of Roman architecture, the arcs
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: and the pillars and all that. You see? Okay, well, well,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: I mean a lot of it's still in Europe. Okay,
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: if you look at American architecture of the turn of
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: the nineteen twentieth century. Rome was the inspiration. And so
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: why am I bringing this up. I'm going to answer
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: your question. This is a clown show. Yeah, it's bread
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: and circuses, that's what it is. You know, immigration is
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: a huge problem in the United States, but it was
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: a design to be a problem. Okay, this was something
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: in the making for decades. And now there's finally a
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: political figure that wants to push back. But what is it?
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: What is he selling? We will find you. Well, that
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: doesn't help people. Does it make you feel? Oh yeah,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: they got him, they sent them out. Yay, But the
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: price of gasoline is the same, the price of food
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: is the same. And that's the circus part. They have
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: this and what we have is a conservative, woke culture
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: right now because I'm the victim, I'm the victory. Yeah,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: they got rid of another guy, they send him down Salvador. Well, yeah,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: but how does that make your life better? How does
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: it make the country better? What does it do with
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: the rule of law? You know? And I'm for even
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: you know, very extreme measures if necessary, but you have
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: to do it within the law, you know, because then
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: you short circuit, the whole thing. And so yeah, it's
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: a hang on for the ride, because that's going to
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: be the substitute for substantive changes over the next three
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: to six months. The US economy can be turned upside down.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: And because of the petical implications. Yeah, I mean, because
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: you know, I maybe like you, I've listened to hundreds
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: of hours of what's going to happen. Okay, I'm not
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: going to say I have any particularly special knowledge, but
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: it looks kind of grim. And how are you going
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: to sell that to your people? Oh, we got rid
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: of these and we sent these guys to a supermax
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: in El Salvador. It's not going to be enough. Okay,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: it's not. So it's bred in circuses and we'll see
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: how long that can last. I mean, it's something that's unsustainable.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is not going to reindustrialize the United States
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: with these policies. The people that could do it, you know,
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know me well enough. I consider myself conservative.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: I'm leaving personal freedoms. I'm not a big fan of government.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: But what Donald Trump should have done with his mandate,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: he should have been FDR. He said, we're going to
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: have to spend our way out of this mess. We're
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: going to have to reindustrialize this country or we're just
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: going to lose it. And if you want to use
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: be a strong man, as I say, authoritarian and start
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: leaning on the rich, Okay, to start, they have to
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: you become fabulously rich. Your great great grandchildren won't be
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: able to spend the amount of money that you've you've
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: been able to hoard. Now you have to step up
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: and save the country. That's not going to happen. In
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: no way it's going to happen. Okay. At the end
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: of the day, the the the one, this is my prediction.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: After four years of Trump, then one percent will probably
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: double triple their value.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: But what happens off to Trump.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: Well, reaction, then another reaction. It is a deeply divided country.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: But again that's part of the bread and circuses, you know,
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: the the the it's it's all kind of a parlor
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: game for the people with power, you know. Yeah, Trump
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: is he is keeping the peasants preoccupied. That's a good thing, Okay.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: I mean if it doesn't, if it doesn't didn't impact
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: their bottom line, then then what interest did they have maintained?
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: He goes onto Twitter, I don't know if you saw
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: and he tells the whole world not to buy oil?
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Is it from Iran? Does he how does he think
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: this is going to play out?
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: Well, people feel good about it. See he's being a leader,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: he's being strong. Okay. And you know, the the the
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: the the the narrative that China is a threat. I
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: mean we've you know, we've seen that CCP, the CCP,
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: the CCP, over and over and over again.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: China, China, China.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a As I've said to
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: one of my to a talk show host in China,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: I said, now it's your turn. They're shifting their attention.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: What what what that will do is well, China is
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: the major importer of Iranian oil. The Chinese are not
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: going to pay attention to what Trump past to say,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: but the rest of the world will say, well, why
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: do you get to dictate the terms and conditions of
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: global trade and made you rich? Why can't we become rich? Okay? So,
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: I mean it's like India. They looked at what happened.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: You know, Germany became the economic powerhouse, the industrial powerhouse
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: of Europe. Why well, because they're Germans. Culture is very
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: important in the very industrious people, very good work ethic,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: as I like to show people I collect mom blanc peens.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: I love German technology, precision instruments. And the Indians say, well,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: we'll do the same thing. We got smart people, but
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: we need cheap energy, because that's how the German economic
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: miracle came about. Cheap energy. That was the most important ingredient.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: And so now the American don't you important Russian energy?
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: Well no, no, we're We're going to do the same
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: thing the Europeans and they don't want to do it anymore.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, and then you know what the Russians will
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: send us. We'll buy crude oil from the Russians. We'll
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: refine it in our nice new refineries. There's no new
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: refineries in the West, okay, but India has them. We'll
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: refine it and we'll send it to we'll sell it
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: to the Europeans at a five hundred percent markup. Okay.
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, everybody knows this is happening. The Europeans knows, no, no,
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: they know what this is happening. The see, that's why
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: I said, we're going to need psychologists to explain to
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: us this mindset.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: What do you think the world is going to look
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: like in two hundred and fifty years time, Europe, the
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: United States, Russia's.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: That's a little too far out. Let's say one hundred years.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: What is happening right now, I think is only going
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: to accelergrate. We're going to go back to the great
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: power of competition that we saw that went all the
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: way up into the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Will
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: one hundred years from now we will look at the
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: period of nineteen forty five to twenty fifteen, you know,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: as an anomaly, a huge anomaly, because you had the
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: most powerful parts of the world that were informed by
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: an ideology. Well, ideology. Geopolitics is very rarely informed by ideology.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: It can play a role, but I think it's negligible, okay,
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: because great powers have interests. They don't have friends. But
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: neoliberalism says, our friends and our values are far more
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: important than power calculations, which is absolutely nonsense. Okay, because
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: you make huge mistakes. See the United States, because of
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: its largess, can make huge foreign policy mistakes and still
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: move on. But you can't do it forever. Okay. You know,
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: American dominance of the world will be question if we
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: leave Indo China, Well, that didn't happen, Okay. You know
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: Iraq catastrophe, Afghanistan catastrophe. Did it affect the average American?
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: They were probably vaguely aware of it, Okay. But going
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: toe to toe with Russia with this proxy war in Ukraine,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: then it starts people start feeling it, particularly with like
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: with energy prices. So I think we're just going to
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: go back to a very dog eat dog, dog eat
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: dog world of just geopolitical posturing. Is that a better world?
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: Probably not? Okay, we'll avoid us going into nuclear war.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: Probably see that they, you know, to solve the security
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: problems in the Middle East, Durand should have a nuclear
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: weapon that will kind of even the playing field. Okay,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: but that's great politic, great power politics. It's not like,
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: should the Mulas have a nuclear weapon? No, should the
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: nation state of Iran have a nuclear weapon? Also in
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: one hundred years, we still we'll see a pattern. We
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: have Chinese han civilization, we have the Persian civilization, we
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: have the Russian civilization. Okay, Europe decided to get rid
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: of that, Okay, so Europe will just be the western
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: tip of Asia. Maybe in one hundred years, we won't
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: even call it Europe anymore. It'll be the western tip
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: of Asia, Okay, because they've made that decision. But what
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: I'm saying is that history has a way of not
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: repeating itself, but kind of repairing trends that have been
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: as old as a millennia. Okay, and so this interignum
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: nineteen forty five, my arbitrary twenty fifteen will just be
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: seen as an oddity. That's also the experience with democracy. Well,
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: democracy play a big role in one hundred years. I
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: don't think so. No, I don't know.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's on its way out.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: Also, I do too, I do too.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's not a reason why you need to
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: keep changing the leadership every four or five years.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Look an American academic who really dislikes me a lot
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: because he's a big democracy guy, and you know, he've
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: made a career out of it. And you know, he
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: asked me, said what about Russian democracy? And I said, well,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: what about it? Well, what do you think the state
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: of it is? And I said, We'll ask most Russians.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: They'll say, yeah, I'm for democracy if it works. I'm
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: for democracy if it generates results. Okay. Other than that,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: I don't think about it. That's not a topic of conversation.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: What is the topic of conversation. I want to make
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: sure I have a future for my children, okay, kind
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: of like to take a vacation once in a while.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: It's good that we have health care, you know. Speaking
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: of healthcare, you know, I had an eye surgery a
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: week and a half ago. It was kind of a
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: serious thing. It was an emergency. And in the hospital, Jeremy,
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: what did I see? Working class people, elderly people, you know,
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: it was everybody. It was a very good, excellent institution,
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: very the bedside manner was wonderful. It was. It wasn't elitis.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a special hospital for the rich or anything
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: like that. No, I have insurance, and my insurance is
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: accepted there. But if you don't, you're still going to
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: get the same treatment because you're a citizen and you're
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: and a lot of these people were pensioners, and you know,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: so they would you know, what's important to them is healthcare.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: If I were to start, you know, you know, sitting
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: there in the waiting room and say well, what do
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: you think about democracy? And they'd say, I'm not sure
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: what you're talking about, young man, but I'm glad we
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: have this. You know, you know, democracy is a Western fetish.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: It's a fetish, okay, because most of the wrror looks
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: at it as a procedure. It's not a fetish, you know,
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: it's not an ideology. And that's why most of them
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: is like scratch their heads, you know, like, what are
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: you talking about. We have turned it into a fetish,
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: a fetish that works against the interests of the vast
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: majority of people that whose elites fetishize it. Okay, everything
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: is legitimate because it was democratically Like well, I mean
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: if the if the democratic choice is so limited, I
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: mean the overdin window, it's like, ah like that. I
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: mean no, it's it's a fetish to legitimize the current
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: power structures and relations. That's not, in my mind democracy.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: I'd like a nugative wisdom from you, Peter.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: It's too vague. Look, I I we we live in
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: very perilous, perilous times. I think we'll get through it,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: but at great cost. What what I think is that
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: we have to abandon a lot of these pieties that
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: you know that that we're indoctrinated with Okay, and and
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: and I think a lot more self awareness. You know,
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: my generation I am. I'm at the end of the
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Boomer generation. I'm one of the last boomers. We really
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: fucked up the world. Sorry for the language. Okay, we
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: don't need another generation of boomers because they were very selfish.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: They were narcissistic. They you know, look at the identitarian politics,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: you know, being the identity project, placed looking for redemption,
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: saving our souls. Okay, we we forgot all about those things.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: We want to be. We want gratification, but we we
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: don't want absolution. And I and that's that's where Western
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: liberalism just short circuited humanity put us on a very
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: very bad trajectory. And the good thing is, I think
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: most of the world see that and and and say,
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: you know, you've got nice little gimmicks, you know, make
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: life a little bit easier. But you know, westernization and modernization,
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: they're not the same thing. We'll take the modernization. You
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: keep your stuff to yourself, Okay, you know, we'll watch
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: your kind of fetishes on Netflix, but you keep that there.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: We were not really interested in this because we're not
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: interested in your identitarian project. Because what's at the end
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: of the day, why do we have society? Why was
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: the idea of society invented? And to protect the vulnerable
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: and to promote the very best of us? Okay, you know,
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: you know the the you know, one of the worst
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: things that came out of Western culture is that all
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: men were created equal.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: That's not that's not true. I'm not Einstein, I'm not Tchaikowsky. Okay,
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: I'm not rockmull Enough. We're not all equal. But a
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: society that looks for the social good can can promote
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: the best of us while at the same time protecting
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: the most valuable.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: That's what society is. It's not you know how I
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: get ahead of everybody else that that leads you to
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: a dead end.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Or Peter, how can I follow you?
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: Well, everybody knows I'm quite notorious. I'm at our team.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: My program is called Crosstalk. I'm on what used to
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: be called Twitter. It's a p L crosstalk. You can
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: follow me there. I'm very proud out and happy that
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: I do a podcast with you and John Lachlan of
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: Horum and Friends, which is catching on and I find
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: it very stimulating. And I do a podcast with my
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: friend George Samuel, who it's called the Gaggle YouTube is
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: quite cruel to us. But George is very energetic on
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: the locals page, so I keep myself busy, but I'm
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: much more interested in listening to others before I comment.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: That's one thing again, a new thing that we should
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: all do. Listen more.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: Peter Level, thank you for joining me in the drenches
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: fun