Latest / UK Column Radio / What does freedom even mean? | Jerm Warfare Weekly Banter

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What does freedom even mean? | Jerm Warfare Weekly Banter · UK Column Radio

0:30
Speaker 1: My name is.
0:31
Speaker 2: This is germ warfare, the battle of ideas. Today in
0:36
Speaker 2: South Africa is a public holiday called Freedom Day. The
0:40
Speaker 2: world doesn't really care too much about that, but what
0:44
Speaker 2: is interesting is that this is the day that South
0:48
Speaker 2: Africa officially became a post aparteit country. In other words,
0:53
Speaker 2: it's the day that all South Africans voted in a
0:57
Speaker 2: national election back in ninetinety four hours young to vote.
1:01
Speaker 2: Of course, it's called Freedom Day, which is are on it?
1:03
Speaker 2: Because what freedom?
1:04
Speaker 1: I mean?
1:05
Speaker 2: Does everybody think that being locked down and you know,
1:09
Speaker 2: being told to get vaccinated is freedom? It's insane. But
1:14
Speaker 2: at the same time, the whole discussion around a Parteit,
1:19
Speaker 2: I think is at least for somebody who's South African,
1:22
Speaker 2: is important because the world largely thinks it was it
1:26
Speaker 2: was just white Africanas that did this, but if you
1:30
Speaker 2: actually look into it, it goes all the way back
1:32
Speaker 2: to Cecil John Rhodes. And I hate doing this sometimes
1:34
Speaker 2: because it sounds like I'm always dunking on the US
1:36
Speaker 2: and the UK, but it is what it is. You know,
1:39
Speaker 2: it is part of history and the UK particularly had
1:44
Speaker 2: a huge role to play in the creation of a
1:47
Speaker 2: parthet I don't know if you if you if you know.
1:49
Speaker 3: That, well, I think we can treat you as the
1:53
Speaker 3: subject matter experts on this one, can't we. Why do
1:56
Speaker 3: you go on and go a bit further what I
1:59
Speaker 3: would say, though, sorry, just invert briefly. I mean, it's
2:04
Speaker 3: sort of amusing in a way to think that there
2:06
Speaker 3: are three hundred and sixty five days in the year,
2:08
Speaker 3: and yet just one of them is a freedom day.
2:11
Speaker 1: But now go on tell us more.
2:14
Speaker 2: Well, look, I mean every country's got its history. I
2:20
Speaker 2: sitting here in Cape Toan am a result of effectively,
2:24
Speaker 2: you know, the British coming down to the southern Tip,
2:29
Speaker 2: and it is what it is. And I'm very happy
2:31
Speaker 2: to be South African, and I can't change history. In
2:34
Speaker 2: my family and extended family is history and multiple generations.
2:38
Speaker 2: But what is very interesting to me is how little
2:41
Speaker 2: is known about the kind of deep state intelligence operations
2:46
Speaker 2: that were involved in setting up not just A Part eight,
2:51
Speaker 2: but the post apartheid.
2:52
Speaker 1: Here.
2:53
Speaker 2: It was the British government as well as the American
2:55
Speaker 2: government that attempted to preserve the apartheid them, which is
3:00
Speaker 2: ironic because they helped set it up and then infiltrate
3:04
Speaker 2: the poster pilot system with huge amounts of help from
3:07
Speaker 2: from Israeli intelligence, which we now have today. So whether
3:11
Speaker 2: or not you can claim that South Africa is now
3:15
Speaker 2: out or separated from a Part eight, it isn't really
3:20
Speaker 2: because of the amount of foreign infiltration in our in
3:25
Speaker 2: our not only in our government, but in.
3:26
Speaker 1: Our private private sector.
3:28
Speaker 2: I mean, I told you previously that in nine ninety
3:30
Speaker 2: four Anglo American held something like a quarter of No, no,
3:36
Speaker 2: it was way more. It was nearly nearly half of
3:38
Speaker 2: all private industry in South Africa. And of course Namibia
3:43
Speaker 2: played a huge part in the Angolan border wars. Also,
3:48
Speaker 2: there were all these attempts to try and preserve a
3:52
Speaker 2: system that was obviously going to fail. I grew up
3:55
Speaker 2: in it, and you know, the opros and cons. I'm
3:58
Speaker 2: not going to just say it was all bad. It's
3:59
Speaker 2: a bit two binary. There were obviously good, good aspects
4:02
Speaker 2: of a system like that, but overall, you know, I
4:06
Speaker 2: think the net benefit was was was not a good one.
4:08
Speaker 2: And you're you're never going to win the future by
4:14
Speaker 2: creating such an authoritarian system of a society. Anyway, I'm
4:19
Speaker 2: just kind of rambling, but today is that day.
4:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, jem this is kind of a continuation
4:26
Speaker 4: of the discussion we had last week. And it's interesting
4:30
Speaker 4: that the discussion about multipolarity that we had resulted in
4:36
Speaker 4: conversations with with people that how do I put this?
4:43
Speaker 4: What I discovered was that that pretty much confirmed what
4:48
Speaker 4: and knew already. Actually, you know, the people that that
4:53
Speaker 4: may disagree with us on on what we said on
4:56
Speaker 4: multi multipolarity last week probably aren't that or rather we're
4:59
Speaker 4: not that far away from their position. Actually, it's inevitable
5:04
Speaker 4: that if a system is changing and the establishment par
5:10
Speaker 4: that was there before is being kicked out, it's going
5:15
Speaker 4: to want to try and co opt whatever comes next.
5:20
Speaker 4: It's going to try to steer whatever comes next. And
5:24
Speaker 4: I don't know enough about the post apartheid government in
5:29
Speaker 4: South Africa to really comment in detail about it, but
5:32
Speaker 4: it is it is a theme historically that you know,
5:37
Speaker 4: when empires disappear, the the main driver for the reason
5:44
Speaker 4: for the colonialism in the first place, which is you
5:47
Speaker 4: know is always economic, is still wanting to have that
5:52
Speaker 4: economic control, so they will attempt to bribe or kill
5:58
Speaker 4: and make sure that they and in that control in
6:02
Speaker 4: whatever follows. So, you know, but I think I think
6:08
Speaker 4: there's a lot of focus on reparations and and truth
6:16
Speaker 4: well and reconciliation and these kinds of things for for
6:20
Speaker 4: what has happened in the past. It seems to me
6:23
Speaker 4: that that the people that were actually the victims of
6:29
Speaker 4: that colonialism aren't around anymore because that because because it's historic,
6:35
Speaker 4: there's there, their successors are and maybe that those people's
6:40
Speaker 4: lives would have been different, But of course there's no
6:42
Speaker 4: way to know how those people's lives would have been
6:44
Speaker 4: different if the colonialism hadn't happened, So how do you
6:50
Speaker 4: how do you how do you make reparations for that?
6:54
Speaker 4: But but the more important question is if we agree
6:59
Speaker 4: that that colonialism is not something that we should be supporting,
7:06
Speaker 4: then what lessons can we take historically that make sure
7:09
Speaker 4: that that type of that we recognize, that type of
7:12
Speaker 4: exploitative behavior from governments and from corporations and increasingly these
7:17
Speaker 4: days it is a corporate colonialism that happens. How do
7:22
Speaker 4: we recognize that that that behavior and how do we
7:26
Speaker 4: oppose it if if we think that it's not a
7:28
Speaker 4: good thing.
7:29
Speaker 2: Well, like I said, look at Gaza, So there's definitely
7:36
Speaker 2: there's definitely that well, I mean there's a variation of
7:39
Speaker 2: that happening there.
7:41
Speaker 4: Well, there's certainly an openly stated goal that you know,
7:46
Speaker 4: people in that part of the world need to move
7:48
Speaker 4: out of the way to create this super resort that
7:52
Speaker 4: they're wanting to they've declared they want to create. And
7:56
Speaker 4: so how does that how does that sit with the
8:00
Speaker 4: average person in the street. Is that something that we're
8:02
Speaker 4: comfortable with that. I'm certainly not comfortable with that, because
8:05
Speaker 4: if they're if they are willing to do that there,
8:08
Speaker 4: they're willing to do it anywhere. It's it's everything that
8:14
Speaker 4: we're talking about here is a representation of how those
8:19
Speaker 4: who desire to be at the top of the pyramid,
8:22
Speaker 4: whether it's at a political level or or a financial level,
8:25
Speaker 4: or a corporate level, how they think about ordinary human beings.
8:32
Speaker 4: And you know, I've used the phrase we are being farmed,
8:39
Speaker 4: and I've used many times and it's I believe it's
8:42
Speaker 4: absolutely right. It doesn't matter what the what the what
8:47
Speaker 4: the harvest is. Increasingly it's digital, it's data. But you know,
8:54
Speaker 4: the the average human being is exploited by the political
9:01
Speaker 4: and corporate elites, and that exploitation maintains them with their
9:07
Speaker 4: as a billionaire Epstein class, which makes the whole left
9:14
Speaker 4: right paradigm just so absolutely ridiculous, because this is something
9:19
Speaker 4: which only applies to the man in the street. It's
9:22
Speaker 4: only the man in the street that thinks in these terms.
9:25
Speaker 4: And yes, there are some play actors that sit at
9:29
Speaker 4: the political level and pretend to be on one side
9:32
Speaker 4: of the political spectrum or the other. You know, we've
9:35
Speaker 4: said it before on this program. We've got to be
9:37
Speaker 4: thinking in terms of up down rather than left and right,
9:41
Speaker 4: and start recognizing that the differences between us as individuals
9:47
Speaker 4: aren't that great. And we might argue about you know,
9:52
Speaker 4: this detail or that detail, but if we actually talk
9:55
Speaker 4: to each other, then maybe we find who a real
10:00
Speaker 4: target of our interest should be.
10:04
Speaker 2: The undercurrent of what I was saying, is not necessary
10:07
Speaker 2: to have a discussion about a parteates South Africa and
10:10
Speaker 2: Freedom Day which is today, because that's very domestic, but
10:14
Speaker 2: the parallel. So let me give you context. I'm going
10:19
Speaker 2: to read you a paragraph here that will create the
10:21
Speaker 2: context which you'll easily understand what I'm getting at. So
10:25
Speaker 2: the history summarized is basically from cecil John Rhoades and
10:30
Speaker 2: Rothschild Money in the eighteen eighties, through British colonial race laws,
10:35
Speaker 2: cold War CI operations, the illegal occupation of Namibia, the
10:39
Speaker 2: Angolan War, and Western corporations plundering the region's minerals, all
10:45
Speaker 2: the way to the military defeat in quita Quonavalley, which
10:49
Speaker 2: is an Angola that finally forced the whole apartheate system
10:52
Speaker 2: to collapse. Now with Israel woven throughout the secret military alliance,
10:57
Speaker 2: the offer to sell nuclear warheads Israeli officers and in Angola,
11:01
Speaker 2: and the ongoing influence of Israeli link to money in
11:03
Speaker 2: South African politics today. A Partey wasn't an Afrikaan idea.
11:07
Speaker 2: It was a Western project built for profit, maintained by
11:11
Speaker 2: the Empire to maintain the Empire, with Israel as one
11:14
Speaker 2: of its most intimate partners. You can immediately see the parallels. Hea, Yes, absolutely,
11:28
Speaker 2: I would say this.
11:31
Speaker 1: Just to go back.
11:32
Speaker 3: Obviously we've referred back to what we spoke about last
11:34
Speaker 3: week and multiple out in Africa.
11:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, But.
11:37
Speaker 3: I think an important part of that was the necessity
11:40
Speaker 3: to define terms, or at least to try to define terms,
11:45
Speaker 3: or just to put out there that when we say
11:48
Speaker 3: one thing, somebody else might actually be thinking something that's
11:51
Speaker 3: similar but distinct. And I think a part of this,
11:55
Speaker 3: which you've already alluded to, is the idea that colonialism
12:02
Speaker 3: represents a particular thing in people's minds. And I think
12:06
Speaker 3: that is another thing that means that we need to
12:09
Speaker 3: define terms talking about roads or any of the people
12:14
Speaker 3: that were involved in that period at that time Milner
12:17
Speaker 3: or Jamison or any of those guys that was primarily
12:22
Speaker 3: about personal fortune, and that I spoke about greed last
12:29
Speaker 3: week because I think that the idea of the idea
12:34
Speaker 3: of multipolarity as a racket in which everybody loses because
12:40
Speaker 3: it's all coordinated, to me, doesn't stack up on that
12:45
Speaker 3: basis because of greed and the idea that people will
12:48
Speaker 3: actually act collaboratively for a shared goal. And I think
12:55
Speaker 3: that colonialism is an interesting example in this respect in
13:02
Speaker 3: that if you go back, if we acknowledged that in
13:07
Speaker 3: the modern era, at the start of the colonial period
13:11
Speaker 3: was in a way born of the actions of the
13:14
Speaker 3: East India Company. Now that was that was started entirely
13:18
Speaker 3: as a as a private venture, and only after a
13:22
Speaker 3: certain amount of time did there was it was a
13:25
Speaker 3: sort of government architecture laid over the top of it,
13:28
Speaker 3: which was then the model for the colonial project that
13:32
Speaker 3: there was. There were corporate interests and government activity were
13:38
Speaker 3: overlaid and overlapped until such point as that became either
13:44
Speaker 3: impractical or impossible. But that's not to say that the
13:49
Speaker 3: corporate interests just think, right, okay, well that's that we'll
13:52
Speaker 3: we'll we'll move off and do something else. That that's
13:55
Speaker 3: not how it works at all. And that's exactly why
13:57
Speaker 3: when you describe South Africa going back in the grip
13:59
Speaker 3: that American had, that there might be divergences and convergences,
14:05
Speaker 3: but ultimately these are they are sort of parallel tracks.
14:10
Speaker 3: And so I think that the times at which we
14:12
Speaker 3: see superficially at least change like you know, oh, apartheid
14:17
Speaker 3: begins or it ends or whatever. In fact, if you
14:19
Speaker 3: look at the activities of a particular organization, they're probably
14:25
Speaker 3: going to be on a more or less flat line.
14:27
Speaker 1: And I think that.
14:30
Speaker 3: Is a really important point to make. And certainly with
14:33
Speaker 3: regard to reparations or this sort of universal idea that
14:37
Speaker 3: the colonial period was bad, I'm certainly not. I'm not
14:40
Speaker 3: advocating for it, but what I would say is that
14:45
Speaker 3: because of the overlay at that point it meant that
14:49
Speaker 3: at least the colonial power in most instances, let's use
14:54
Speaker 3: the British model as an example, they were at least
14:59
Speaker 3: investing the i'm an effort into producing a state architecture.
15:03
Speaker 3: So they created infrastructure, they created bureaucracy, they created a
15:09
Speaker 3: health and education system.
15:10
Speaker 1: And all that kind of thing.
15:11
Speaker 3: So they made sure that the area the provinces they
15:16
Speaker 3: were running did actually run at the same time as
15:20
Speaker 3: gifting the resources and all the rest of it to
15:23
Speaker 3: the corporate interests. I think what's happened in the colonial
15:26
Speaker 3: or the post colonial period is that that side of it,
15:29
Speaker 3: of course, has just totally fallen away, and you're only
15:33
Speaker 3: left with the corporate plundering. So I think it should
15:37
Speaker 3: just make people think a little bit about the sort
15:39
Speaker 3: of baby and bathwater thing. And again I'm not saying,
15:42
Speaker 3: oh yeah, we should just wind the clock back restart
15:44
Speaker 3: the colonial the colonial projects, but it is I think
15:49
Speaker 3: it is just interesting when you consider it in those terms,
15:55
Speaker 3: and then to your point about about that always being
16:00
Speaker 3: the intent that whoever was involved in the first place,
16:03
Speaker 3: they absolutely want to keep their hand in.
16:05
Speaker 1: Of course they do.
16:05
Speaker 3: We look at Iran, go back to nineteen fifty three,
16:09
Speaker 3: and then nineteen seventy nine, and then now, I mean, effectively,
16:12
Speaker 3: it's the same, It's the same actors trying to manipulate
16:16
Speaker 3: the same outcome, just via whichever means are appropriate for
16:21
Speaker 3: that particular period. And if the project goes south, will
16:24
Speaker 3: you just have to change tack and you have to
16:26
Speaker 3: do something that tries to reassearch or control over the situation.
16:31
Speaker 3: So I do think I think all of this is
16:33
Speaker 3: completely fascinating, but it is really in many ways, it's
16:38
Speaker 3: very complicated. I think in other ways it's actually quite simple,
16:41
Speaker 3: because we are always going to be dealing with corporate greed,
16:44
Speaker 3: and we were always going to be looking at the
16:48
Speaker 3: involvement in the apparent levels of control that are held
16:51
Speaker 3: by governments. But are we accurate in describing it like that?
16:54
Speaker 3: So when we consider multiplarity and we talk about the say,
16:58
Speaker 3: United States being the dominant force economically and militarily whatever
17:03
Speaker 3: in sort of world affairs, is that accurate? Should we
17:06
Speaker 3: really be regarding that as the efforts or the control
17:10
Speaker 3: of that country or of the corporations that are in
17:15
Speaker 3: effect representing that country because they're based there, or they're
17:18
Speaker 3: American individuals. Which way do we look at it. How
17:23
Speaker 3: much complexity should we build into any discussion about this.
17:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean your point is well made about not
17:33
Speaker 2: changing history. You can't obviously change history. Things are what
17:36
Speaker 2: they are. I mean, if it weren't for you know,
17:40
Speaker 2: the arrival of the Europeans in the Cape, we wouldn't
17:44
Speaker 2: have the Africana population. They are entirely a result of that,
17:49
Speaker 2: and that is now part of African history. But the
17:55
Speaker 2: point that I was making is that there is a
17:58
Speaker 2: lot of misunderstanding, I think, and incorrect conclusions being made
18:06
Speaker 2: where ultimately we see the same pattern over and over
18:11
Speaker 2: and over where you have intelligence operations and as you
18:13
Speaker 2: point out, corporations, I mean, Anglo American is not is
18:17
Speaker 2: not a government operation. It's a private operation, but it's
18:20
Speaker 2: exceptionally powerful, same as Black Rock, which has you know,
18:26
Speaker 2: fingers in every single pie. Am.
18:31
Speaker 4: This is a this is a we can't just let
18:33
Speaker 4: that pass because that's that is a fascinating angle to this,
18:38
Speaker 4: and it's something that that it's very very hard to
18:42
Speaker 4: get a definitive answer on. You know, how what is
18:47
Speaker 4: the control hierarchy? Is it?
18:52
Speaker 1: That?
18:52
Speaker 4: Is it that corporate is at the top, because corporate
18:56
Speaker 4: is using its corporate money to fund politics, or is
19:01
Speaker 4: it that political agendas help drive corporate interests.
19:08
Speaker 2: It's isn't it?
19:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's it's without that is symbiotic relationship. But
19:14
Speaker 4: but you know, is it is it is real driving
19:20
Speaker 4: Trump at the moment, or is is real acting on
19:23
Speaker 4: behalf of something else. It's it's a very it's the
19:30
Speaker 4: kind of thing that people argue about forever. Actually, and
19:35
Speaker 4: in a sense, it's an interesting conversation. I'm not sure
19:37
Speaker 4: that that it's useful to get too far into the
19:41
Speaker 4: weeds of it, but it just, you know, I think
19:45
Speaker 4: it's worth just highlighting the fact that it's not clear
19:48
Speaker 4: exactly what at that level, the exactly the precise hierarchy
19:54
Speaker 4: of of hierarchy is and operates.
19:59
Speaker 3: I think it's a really sorry sorry Mike, Yeah, go on, No,
20:02
Speaker 3: go ahead, No, sorry, I was just going to say,
20:04
Speaker 3: I think it is. I think it's completely fascinating also,
20:06
Speaker 3: especially if we consider it from a financial point of view,
20:08
Speaker 3: which is that a government doesn't have any money and
20:11
Speaker 3: it doesn't really have any people either. It's got a
20:13
Speaker 3: bunch of paper shufflers or digital paper shufflers sitting in
20:17
Speaker 3: sitting in Westminster, sitting in Whitehall. But apart from that,
20:20
Speaker 3: it doesn't have anything. It uses the money of the
20:23
Speaker 3: people that are passively at least supporting it. Whereas corporations
20:29
Speaker 3: do have their own people, they do employ people, and
20:34
Speaker 3: they generate money through different means, so in many respects
20:40
Speaker 3: they they do hold, on the face of it, much
20:43
Speaker 3: more power than governments. And I think I'm not suggesting
20:48
Speaker 3: we have a definitive answer to this, but you and
20:51
Speaker 3: I in so far as a lot of the news
20:54
Speaker 3: items we cover, I mean, it's so so often the
20:57
Speaker 3: case that we will look at the way in which government,
21:02
Speaker 3: sorry that particularly the British government, is presenting a way
21:06
Speaker 3: in which it's influencing something, often in another part of
21:09
Speaker 3: the world, and in fact, when you read between the
21:12
Speaker 3: lines and when you look further into it, in actual fact,
21:15
Speaker 3: this will be a collaboration, often between two or more
21:19
Speaker 3: corporations that's going to deliver a particular outcome, and effectively
21:23
Speaker 3: all the government is really doing is just rubber stamping
21:26
Speaker 3: that and saying that that was also part of our idea,
21:29
Speaker 3: you know, wanting to piggyback what it is that was
21:33
Speaker 3: ultimately already going to happen. And I do find that
21:40
Speaker 3: sort of continually fascinating in terms of how we do
21:44
Speaker 3: regard this balance of power and what it is exactly
21:47
Speaker 3: that does drive what it seems to be.
21:50
Speaker 4: One of the other things that sorry, John, one of
21:52
Speaker 4: the other things that governments do is facilitated and they
21:57
Speaker 4: provide a legislative framework for through which corporations can operate
22:02
Speaker 4: and which yeah, absolutely and and but but which actively
22:09
Speaker 4: prevent any kind of challenge to that corporate par so,
22:14
Speaker 4: so it's impossible for you know, individuals or small groups
22:20
Speaker 4: of people to in any way realistically compete with the
22:24
Speaker 4: big boys, because the legislative burden is onerous in many cases,
22:31
Speaker 4: and so people have got to look for for a
22:33
Speaker 4: particular niche so that they can maybe break into that
22:35
Speaker 4: that doesn't have quite the same But you know, we've
22:37
Speaker 4: been talking on the on the column for the last
22:40
Speaker 4: number of years about mh r A and with respect
22:43
Speaker 4: to healthcare, and with Offcom, with respect to telecoms and media,
22:50
Speaker 4: and you know that they are increasingly open about wanting
22:56
Speaker 4: to facilitate creator regime which is which is one in
23:04
Speaker 4: which helps these corporate interests achieve their goals rather than
23:10
Speaker 4: regulating to protect the you know, the the on the
23:14
Speaker 4: face of it, a regulator is there to protect the
23:17
Speaker 4: general public from the excesses and the extremes and the
23:22
Speaker 4: the possibility that corporate entities will try to shortcut safety
23:26
Speaker 4: and these kinds of things. But of course increasingly we're
23:28
Speaker 4: seeing the regulator being a facilitator and and that that
23:33
Speaker 4: gives a good glimpse into the relationship between politics and
23:38
Speaker 4: corporate m But.
23:39
Speaker 2: I mean, as Katherine Austin Fitz points out, you've got
23:43
Speaker 2: you've got this this public private partnership occurring with the
23:48
Speaker 2: central banks, for example, the Federal Reserve, which is supposedly private,
23:55
Speaker 2: but the head of the Federal Reserve is appointed by
23:59
Speaker 2: the President of the United States. How how is that
24:03
Speaker 2: in any way a private company, And the same thing happens. Yeah,
24:07
Speaker 2: by the way, in South Africa, the head of the
24:08
Speaker 2: South African is a bank, is appointed by the president.
24:14
Speaker 1: So you so you have a relationship. That's the point.
24:19
Speaker 4: Yes, it's it's it is absolutely symbiotic. But but the
24:22
Speaker 4: fact that the fact that the Prime Minister of the
24:26
Speaker 4: UK has a role in the appointment of the governor
24:29
Speaker 4: of the Bank of England, or the fact that the
24:31
Speaker 4: president has a role in the appointment of the head
24:34
Speaker 4: of the Fed doesn't really change what those organizations are.
24:40
Speaker 4: They are corporate in nature, and uh, you know that
24:45
Speaker 4: the it is it is a three way thing actually,
24:50
Speaker 4: as as Charles Rightley points out, because the finant you
24:53
Speaker 4: cannot ignore the financial aspect of this, and so the banks,
24:57
Speaker 4: the corporations and the government act together to create what
25:03
Speaker 4: we might call empire. But you know, empire is you know,
25:08
Speaker 4: we're taught in school that empire is about countries occupying
25:12
Speaker 4: other countries and creating a mirror of your own political
25:17
Speaker 4: system in those countries. And our school education basically ignores
25:22
Speaker 4: the financial and the and the or at least minded
25:26
Speaker 4: largely the financial and the corporate aspect of this. But
25:31
Speaker 4: in fact it's the financial and the corporate aspect which
25:34
Speaker 4: is the true nature of colonialism and corporate and sorry sorry,
25:40
Speaker 4: and empire it always has been historically too.
25:47
Speaker 1: Charles Well, I mean, no, I totally agree.
25:50
Speaker 3: I think that's my point about looking at the East
25:52
Speaker 3: India Company as the model, the template, and.
25:57
Speaker 1: You know what a classic.
26:00
Speaker 3: For anyone who's not familiar with the geography of London,
26:03
Speaker 3: where the Foreign Office, which still occupies very grand buildings
26:07
Speaker 3: and in fact, sorry, just as a side and aside
26:10
Speaker 3: to that, Mike, I was thinking the other day we
26:14
Speaker 3: walked past the Foreign Office in late November. We've just
26:18
Speaker 3: been to an exhibition run by the excellent Jake Fern
26:22
Speaker 3: his thousand Words podcast. I just thought i'd shoehorn that in.
26:25
Speaker 3: But we were walking through the Foreign Office and that
26:31
Speaker 3: part of central London since well, I don't know what's
26:34
Speaker 3: been sort of the well I suppose since two thousand
26:36
Speaker 3: and one has been absolutely riddled with police and sort
26:39
Speaker 3: of you know, over the top security barriers and all
26:42
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff. And yet learn behold, directly opposite
26:45
Speaker 3: the main entrance to the Foreign Office is a sort
26:50
Speaker 3: of tented camp occupied by I think only one person,
26:56
Speaker 3: apparently protesting against the oppression of the Iranian regime. I
27:00
Speaker 3: say this is going back to November twenty five. I
27:02
Speaker 3: think it had been there for some time. And the
27:04
Speaker 3: question has to be why how is it that everybody
27:08
Speaker 3: else gets swept off the streets, you know, as soon
27:11
Speaker 3: as they've put their deck chair down to you know,
27:15
Speaker 3: argue the toss over anything, and yet somebody is able
27:18
Speaker 3: to occupy a space that's pretty much the size of
27:19
Speaker 3: a Tennis Court directly opposite at the Foreign Office and
27:24
Speaker 3: protest on this issue that lo and behold has just
27:28
Speaker 3: come into the spotlight. Is that is an interesting side note,
27:32
Speaker 3: But no, the point I was going to make is
27:34
Speaker 3: that the statue at the end, at the western end
27:39
Speaker 3: of the Foreign Office is of Clive Clive of India,
27:45
Speaker 3: who again, I mean, I'm not best qualified perhaps to
27:50
Speaker 3: talk about this, but you know it can be said
27:53
Speaker 3: with I think a fair degree of certainty that his
27:58
Speaker 3: actions and decision and were absolutely not to the benefit
28:04
Speaker 3: of the Indian the people of the Indian subcontinent at
28:08
Speaker 3: that time. However, they did create enormous personal wealth for him,
28:14
Speaker 3: and he is in effect the emblem of the Foreign Office,
28:19
Speaker 3: which was It's just it's absolutely articulating what I'm saying,
28:24
Speaker 3: which is which is the overlaying of government policy at
28:29
Speaker 3: that point government policy onto private and corporate interest, and
28:34
Speaker 3: that's that's their sort of Yep, here we are, there's
28:36
Speaker 3: Foreign Office. This is what we do. Have a look
28:38
Speaker 3: at the behavior of Clive of India. I mean, it
28:41
Speaker 3: is it's there for all to see. Of course, it's
28:45
Speaker 3: lost on I would say ninety nine percent of the
28:48
Speaker 3: people that do walk up those steps, because all it
28:52
Speaker 3: says on the plinth is Clive doesn't give any detail
28:57
Speaker 3: but that, but that is I think that is not
28:59
Speaker 3: to be a ignore. That is absolutely how it started.
29:02
Speaker 3: And for the state as it was then, of course,
29:06
Speaker 3: is a very different state that we talk about now.
29:09
Speaker 3: But this is the thing, the way in which those
29:12
Speaker 3: two entities have become completely and utterly enmeshed in each
29:16
Speaker 3: other and symbiotic now, largely due to the fact that
29:21
Speaker 3: the majority of people working in either of those fields
29:26
Speaker 3: do periodically cross the lines. You know, now many many
29:29
Speaker 3: politicians are, if not ex employees of corporations that are
29:34
Speaker 3: on the board of or this, that and the other.
29:36
Speaker 3: I mean, there's the permeability one imagines of information flowing
29:42
Speaker 3: both ways is absolute. So I think it would be
29:46
Speaker 3: naive in the extreme to imagine that we wouldn't be
29:49
Speaker 3: in the situation we're in now.
29:50
Speaker 4: And here we are twenty first century and exactly the
29:55
Speaker 4: same gag because as we know, Trump launches as Wore
30:00
Speaker 4: and Iran, and suddenly we have undisclosed people making tens
30:06
Speaker 4: of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars speculating on every
30:12
Speaker 4: action that Trump takes, and Strangely enough, people seem to
30:15
Speaker 4: be on the right side of every one of those bets,
30:18
Speaker 4: as if they knew what was going to come. It's
30:22
Speaker 4: the same kind of profiteering from government decisions.
30:28
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it is aggreing.
30:30
Speaker 3: But this, I think, Mike, this is what's so important
30:32
Speaker 3: about this. Going back to the you know, I don't
30:34
Speaker 3: want to suggest that there are distinctions where there aren't,
30:37
Speaker 3: but this is why I think the multiplarity thing has
30:39
Speaker 3: so much more to it than just a simple sort
30:42
Speaker 3: of binary debate as to sort of oh, well know,
30:44
Speaker 3: actually it's that this is this is absolutely all part
30:47
Speaker 3: of it. And yeah, I mean think of you know,
30:51
Speaker 3: twenty twenty again, what an amazing example. The Church of
30:54
Speaker 3: England made a billion pounds in twenty twenty off the
30:58
Speaker 3: back of stuff that well, I mean don't know. Was
31:02
Speaker 3: the church in on it? Did the church know? Well, yeah,
31:03
Speaker 3: effectively the Church was absolutely in on it because they
31:07
Speaker 3: have they are an interested party. The church commissioners sit
31:10
Speaker 3: on a fund of what was then nine billion pounds,
31:13
Speaker 3: so of course they're an interested party. They're going to
31:15
Speaker 3: make money out of decisions that governments and corporations make.
31:19
Speaker 3: So when governments Corporations Act apparently in concert. Then one
31:25
Speaker 3: really has to look at who's who's benefiting from that.
31:27
Speaker 3: But that, but that again, the twenty twenty project was
31:30
Speaker 3: absolutely prime example. Everybody made squillions, and as he Duncan
31:34
Speaker 3: Smith said, at the outset, you know, in those sort
31:37
Speaker 3: of early days or it was also confusing, we just
31:39
Speaker 3: didn't really know what was happening in Duncan Smith admitted
31:42
Speaker 3: totally candidly and without any sense that there was any
31:45
Speaker 3: impropriety in the first instance. You know, well it was
31:48
Speaker 3: so terrifying. All we knew, I mean, what is he
31:52
Speaker 3: on about. We knew that sort of covering our faces
31:55
Speaker 3: with bits of porous cloth was going to make all
31:58
Speaker 3: the difference. So therefore, you know, obvious within the house,
32:01
Speaker 3: within the House of Commons, we were all asked to,
32:05
Speaker 3: you know, sort of look to our friends, to those
32:07
Speaker 3: that we knew, and you know, who can help out.
32:09
Speaker 3: As though there was nothing wrong with that. I mean,
32:11
Speaker 3: first of all, the whole thing was completely wrong. I'm
32:14
Speaker 3: not again, I'm not at all trying to suggest that
32:16
Speaker 3: there was a proper way of sticking bits of cloth
32:19
Speaker 3: over people's face. It shouldn't have happened, even at all,
32:23
Speaker 3: but the fact that somebody who had been in line
32:27
Speaker 3: to run the country. I mean, he was leader of
32:29
Speaker 3: the opposition for a period of time, and yet he
32:31
Speaker 3: didn't think there was anything wrong in saying that supposedly
32:37
Speaker 3: democratically elected representatives should just call their mates to say,
32:43
Speaker 3: are you up for a government contract?
32:46
Speaker 1: I mean that. I think that again tells one quite
32:49
Speaker 1: a lot.
32:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like your use of phrasing this supposedly democratically elected.
32:55
Speaker 2: I had Patrick Fagan on my show a couple of times.
33:00
Speaker 2: He was the chief behavioral psychologist at or scientist at
33:07
Speaker 2: Cambridge Analytica, and in twenty sixteen they were involved with
33:12
Speaker 2: a big nudging campaign, particularly on Facebook, where they tried
33:16
Speaker 2: to manipulate the voting of the US election. I don't
33:21
Speaker 2: know if you remember that, and Zuckerberg had to sit
33:25
Speaker 2: in front of Congress to explain things eventually, And when
33:32
Speaker 2: I had Brian on my show last week, which is
33:35
Speaker 2: coming out this week, he was talking about the fact
33:38
Speaker 2: that there's a huge psychological war going on. Also the
33:43
Speaker 2: idea that somebody's democratically elected, Well, how democratically elected are
33:48
Speaker 2: they really when you have Google and Facebook and huge
33:53
Speaker 2: private companies quote unquote private companies playing psychological wars with
33:59
Speaker 2: millions and millions and millions of people.
34:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it depends where you want to look at it.
34:06
Speaker 3: But I mean, let's just we could just start with
34:08
Speaker 3: the statistics, which is that any any government in recent
34:13
Speaker 3: ti I mean, somebody I dare say, We'll be able
34:15
Speaker 3: to thumb through a copy of something and tell me
34:18
Speaker 3: at which point this ceases to be true. But I'm
34:21
Speaker 3: not sure how far back you have to go through
34:24
Speaker 3: to find a time where an actual majority of people
34:28
Speaker 3: voted for the thing that happened, because of course we
34:32
Speaker 3: always get the well, you know, buy a landslide and
34:36
Speaker 3: you get the way it's framed in the result in
34:39
Speaker 3: that Yes, okay, the Labor Party beat the other party
34:44
Speaker 3: or whatever it is, and it's just it's amazing, it's
34:46
Speaker 3: just this. Well, but that's the system we said. We're
34:49
Speaker 3: just saying that's the system. We put that system in place,
34:51
Speaker 3: and so there we go. You know, if you're not
34:53
Speaker 3: going to go along with it, well, I mean, tough luck.
34:56
Speaker 3: Is that really democracy? When I forget I think it
35:01
Speaker 3: was only I think I'm right the Starmer administration that's
35:04
Speaker 3: in at the moment. I think was voted for by
35:05
Speaker 3: only nine million people. Well, there are forty five million
35:08
Speaker 3: adults in the United Kingdom, so if nine million voted
35:14
Speaker 3: for the Starma government, then thirty six million didn't.
35:19
Speaker 1: And yet here we are apparently happy with that.
35:26
Speaker 4: I don't think anybody you.
35:28
Speaker 1: Know, you know what I mean.
35:30
Speaker 3: I mean, happy enough to go along with the system
35:31
Speaker 3: and just say, y okay, well you know, butter luck
35:34
Speaker 3: next time it didn't really work out. It's it's not
35:38
Speaker 3: to describe that system as iman. We again, you know,
35:41
Speaker 3: we're back to sort of defining term. I'm to sit
35:43
Speaker 3: here and have a pedants revolt. But I mean, seriously,
35:45
Speaker 3: what do we actually mean by democracy? It's an absolutely
35:51
Speaker 3: pointless concept. It's just yet another instance of manipulating the
35:55
Speaker 3: public consciousness in order to make them think that they're
35:58
Speaker 3: part of a process that they're actually not part of
36:00
Speaker 3: at all.
36:01
Speaker 2: Have you read Hans Hermann Hopp's book Democracy, The God
36:05
Speaker 2: That Failed?
36:08
Speaker 1: No, but that's very very name.
36:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very very good. Hans Herman Hopp The Democracy
36:13
Speaker 2: the God That Failed, And he makes the argument that
36:17
Speaker 2: democracy effectively benefits the only the only garchy. It benefits
36:25
Speaker 2: the elite classes the most, the government and private or
36:30
Speaker 2: corporate classes the most. Because it's an exceptionally weak system,
36:36
Speaker 2: and it can be infiltrated and is infiltrated very easily
36:39
Speaker 2: and all the time.
36:41
Speaker 1: And because I remember, I.
36:42
Speaker 4: Think, I think, though jerem, that's that's largely because of
36:46
Speaker 4: the way that it has been implemented. I mean, for example, uh,
36:49
Speaker 4: you know, corporate money it comes into politics, and and
36:56
Speaker 4: of course that creates fastest interests. The political the party
37:02
Speaker 4: system creates vested interest because people only want to you know,
37:08
Speaker 4: they are wanting to obtain good jobs if they if
37:13
Speaker 4: they should be elected, they want to obtain a good
37:15
Speaker 4: job within the party, and of course in the meantime
37:18
Speaker 4: their decisions are whipped. It's even worse in the United States,
37:21
Speaker 4: where there seems to be limitless or at least no
37:24
Speaker 4: restrictions on how much money can be given to political interests,
37:28
Speaker 4: to political politicians and sowan over there. What would what
37:34
Speaker 4: would democracy be like, even even as it is largely
37:38
Speaker 4: at the moment, What would it be like if, for example,
37:41
Speaker 4: no external money was permitted to come into the election
37:46
Speaker 4: process whatsoever, that everybody, whether they were from a political
37:50
Speaker 4: party or students, an independent, was given an identical budget
37:55
Speaker 4: from taxpayer money and no other money was allowed to
38:00
Speaker 4: be spent if what would happen if at Hustings independence
38:05
Speaker 4: had the same status as people in political parties Because
38:10
Speaker 4: at the moment in Hustings in the UK, if you're
38:13
Speaker 4: standing as an independent, or even if you're standing for
38:16
Speaker 4: a very small party, you're unlikely to be allowed to
38:19
Speaker 4: sit at the table with the Labor Party, the Tories,
38:23
Speaker 4: the Reform and the Greens. So, you know, the issue
38:28
Speaker 4: I don't think is democracy in and of itself. It's
38:30
Speaker 4: the way that the system is gamed. And you know,
38:35
Speaker 4: it shouldn't be beyond the wit of humanity to create
38:38
Speaker 4: a level playing field where all voices that might want
38:42
Speaker 4: to take part get to take part equally, and before
38:44
Speaker 4: you know it, you might find that some people that
38:49
Speaker 4: are more interested in actually the community that they live
38:53
Speaker 4: in get to represent the voice of the people in
38:57
Speaker 4: the community that they live in. So know, it's not
39:00
Speaker 4: I don't think, you know, I think we've got to
39:02
Speaker 4: be again careful not to throw the baby with the bathwater.
39:05
Speaker 4: And there are other people that would argue that any
39:10
Speaker 4: centralization of power whatsoever is a bad thing, and well,
39:16
Speaker 4: maybe there's never been a a a true effort to
39:22
Speaker 4: to sort of get to that point. But my observation
39:27
Speaker 4: of humanity is that we are always going to have
39:31
Speaker 4: people that want to be in control and want to
39:34
Speaker 4: be in charge, and so the question is how are
39:38
Speaker 4: those impulses managed? Because because the people that are are
39:42
Speaker 4: inclined in that way tend to bully, conjole, or whatever
39:47
Speaker 4: in an effort to an otherwise manipulate and an effort
39:51
Speaker 4: to get their way. So it seems to me that
39:54
Speaker 4: that you know, if that is, if that if that
39:57
Speaker 4: is a part of the human race, if if we
40:00
Speaker 4: have a small number of people that are relatively small
40:02
Speaker 4: number of people that are inclined in that way, then
40:06
Speaker 4: then the issue for the rest of us is how
40:09
Speaker 4: that gets managed rather than you know, because what's the alternative?
40:14
Speaker 4: Do we do? We string them up against the nearest
40:18
Speaker 4: wall and shoot them, or what do we do? There's
40:21
Speaker 4: got to be a way that that that these impulses
40:23
Speaker 4: could be managed, And the first thing it seems to
40:27
Speaker 4: me is to is to take away the the ability
40:32
Speaker 4: for them to fund the activities that they or the
40:37
Speaker 4: the nepotism or the corruption that that exists.
40:42
Speaker 2: Well ironically, and also at the risk now of being
40:46
Speaker 2: called a CCP shill. But Carl law has has has
40:50
Speaker 2: spoken about this a lot, even on my show. He
40:56
Speaker 2: makes the point that and I'm not again, this is
40:59
Speaker 2: not now saying this is a good system, but this
41:02
Speaker 2: is a very effective system. The way the Chinese government
41:05
Speaker 2: works is that the state is the state, right, it
41:08
Speaker 2: doesn't change. So the framework is there, the only thing
41:12
Speaker 2: it changes here, and there are members within the party,
41:16
Speaker 2: but they don't accept any kind of external funding for
41:20
Speaker 2: that exact reason, so that they can be manipulated. Whereas
41:25
Speaker 2: when Trump leaves office, the entire government can change the
41:30
Speaker 2: entire thing and everything that he quote unquote did can
41:33
Speaker 2: be changed. So it's a very very short term operation.
41:38
Speaker 2: It's four or five years and then it can change again.
41:40
Speaker 2: And so it's basically, you know, like schizophrenic, whereas the
41:44
Speaker 2: Chinese system is rock solid, stable and they working to
41:48
Speaker 2: the next hundred years, and you can only really get
41:52
Speaker 2: into those positions of power through decades of hard work
41:56
Speaker 2: and trust and loyalty, et cetera, et cetera. Sure it
41:59
Speaker 2: has its what but there is a sense of of
42:03
Speaker 2: of foundational, cemented roots that can't really be infiltrated.
42:11
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, I think there's a there's a be
42:13
Speaker 4: interested in Charles a few of those. But I think
42:15
Speaker 4: there is a case to be made for the idea
42:17
Speaker 4: of the benign dictator. But what happens if the dictator
42:20
Speaker 4: is not benign? And what happens if the dictator is
42:23
Speaker 4: susceptible to to external influence no matter what you know
42:29
Speaker 4: on the surface rules you may have in players, I mean,
42:33
Speaker 4: this is, this is this is a very tricky.
42:35
Speaker 1: Well there you go.
42:37
Speaker 2: I mean, Vaness will point this out right where they
42:42
Speaker 2: will become susceptible to to say, Israeli interests.
42:47
Speaker 4: So I think I think, you know, I'm not certain
42:50
Speaker 4: that there is you know, a system which is and
42:55
Speaker 4: I'm not sure that there's any system which is capable
42:57
Speaker 4: of of operating and being not susceptible to external influence
43:06
Speaker 4: without the oversight of people. And and my point is,
43:18
Speaker 4: my point is that that that the issue isn't so
43:21
Speaker 4: much the system that you have. The issue is whether
43:26
Speaker 4: you are simply saying to the people that occupy the
43:31
Speaker 4: positions of so called authority, yeah, you go, you go
43:36
Speaker 4: right ahead. I'm not I'm not interested in what you're doing.
43:39
Speaker 4: And I think you know that is that is largely
43:43
Speaker 4: the problem with with the West in particular at the moment.
43:46
Speaker 4: Is that the the fact that the majority of people
43:50
Speaker 4: don't want to engage. I don't want to hold anybody
43:56
Speaker 4: to a kind and are quite happy to leave them
43:59
Speaker 4: to it. That's not necessarily in our interests.
44:04
Speaker 2: I don't know terbly much about the British political system,
44:09
Speaker 2: but do political parties in the UK receive a lot
44:12
Speaker 2: of donation and private funding.
44:19
Speaker 4: Depends which political part I mean. The Tories have a
44:23
Speaker 4: relatively restricted membership base and they tend to accept quite
44:29
Speaker 4: a bit of corporate funding. The Liver Party would argue
44:32
Speaker 4: that they have a much broader membership base and that
44:37
Speaker 4: they are mostly funded by individual donations, except for the
44:41
Speaker 4: fact that, of course, in their case they get big
44:44
Speaker 4: donations from the unions, and so if you are a
44:48
Speaker 4: member of the Union in the UK, you are giving
44:51
Speaker 4: money to the Liver Party, whether you like it or not.
44:55
Speaker 4: The smaller parties, I'm not exactly sure. I mean, certainly
44:58
Speaker 4: reform is going to be I guess receiving money from
45:03
Speaker 4: from corporate interests, but I don't Charles helped me out
45:07
Speaker 4: because I can't remember what the details of that might be.
45:11
Speaker 1: I'd be a bit out of date.
45:12
Speaker 3: I mean, I know that Aaron Banks was giving considerable
45:15
Speaker 3: amounts of money to reform prior to the twenty twenty
45:18
Speaker 3: four general election, and that was an interesting one because
45:20
Speaker 3: of his links to various so called defense companies, I
45:24
Speaker 3: think Kinetic being the main one. So it sort of
45:27
Speaker 3: looked like, again, it doesn't matter which way you vote,
45:30
Speaker 3: you're going to get the same outcome. Exactly where that's
45:33
Speaker 3: gone now, because of course reform has had it's been
45:36
Speaker 3: quite a bit of ebb and flow. I think at
45:40
Speaker 3: the high level sort of sort of say corporate view
45:43
Speaker 3: of reform. I mean Elon Musk of course being good example,
45:48
Speaker 3: he dabbled with being interested and then sort of said
45:51
Speaker 3: he wasn't and had to go up for us. I mean,
45:52
Speaker 3: it's all you know, it's theatrical, but there is an
45:56
Speaker 3: effect exactly where any corporate support is coming from. No
46:00
Speaker 3: for reform, I must admit, I don't know. I'm not
46:03
Speaker 3: up to speed on that, but I think the other well, sorry,
46:07
Speaker 3: there's just two things I would add in. I think
46:10
Speaker 3: we're all far too used to the state having a
46:13
Speaker 3: level of control that is completely unwarranted and unnecessary, frankly,
46:18
Speaker 3: and so that's a big part of it. You know,
46:21
Speaker 3: we talk about the idea of what you know, what's
46:23
Speaker 3: what's the alternative We have a slightly different process that
46:27
Speaker 3: we describe as being democratic, or we have a benign dictatorship,
46:31
Speaker 3: or this, that and the other. And I think actually
46:34
Speaker 3: the one thing that doesn't get talked about nearly enough
46:37
Speaker 3: is that all the various things that we think of
46:41
Speaker 3: the state as being responsible for, it should not be
46:45
Speaker 3: responsible for. And you could say, well, that's just leaving
46:49
Speaker 3: the door open for more corporate control. Well, yes, okay,
46:54
Speaker 3: you could look at it like that. But as this
46:56
Speaker 3: conversation is highlighting, well what's the what's the difference? And
47:00
Speaker 3: I think again to put perhaps a you know, this
47:05
Speaker 3: might be regarded as a positive spin on it. I
47:07
Speaker 3: mean my point is always that, well, if for the
47:11
Speaker 3: sake of argument, the government didn't run an education program,
47:15
Speaker 3: and let's face it, previously that was the case. I mean,
47:19
Speaker 3: it's still within living memory that that changed. In the
47:22
Speaker 3: same way that it's within living memory that the health
47:24
Speaker 3: service became a state enterprise. All of these things can
47:29
Speaker 3: be done differently. Now, whether like colonialism, you know where
47:36
Speaker 3: the path forked. It's impossible. We can never know whether
47:39
Speaker 3: it would have been better if such and such a
47:41
Speaker 3: thing hadn't happened, or had happened in the same way
47:45
Speaker 3: that we won't know now if we just if we
47:48
Speaker 3: were to stop the National Health Service today, would the
47:50
Speaker 3: outcome tomorrow be better or worse? Well, it entirely depends
47:54
Speaker 3: on how it's managed, of course, so all of this,
47:57
Speaker 3: I concede is entirely hypothetical. But the point that I
48:01
Speaker 3: would like to make is just to get to get
48:03
Speaker 3: people to think in the bigger context of well, what
48:10
Speaker 3: aspects of our lives should really be controlled by.
48:13
Speaker 1: A state?
48:14
Speaker 3: And my view is really very very few and essentially
48:19
Speaker 3: they are the idea of a government is just a
48:24
Speaker 3: pretty dull admint tool. It just does a few things
48:27
Speaker 3: for you, and that's why you're that's why you're prepared
48:30
Speaker 3: to pay a small amount of tax to the government
48:33
Speaker 3: to make that happen. At my view is that anything
48:36
Speaker 3: beyond that is unnecessary overreach and only it can only
48:41
Speaker 3: ever result in confusion and corruption. It's just too big
48:46
Speaker 3: to manage. Look at the ways. Also, going back to
48:48
Speaker 3: your point about China, and I know this at firsthand,
48:52
Speaker 3: because I have worked on the receiving end of government
48:57
Speaker 3: departmental budgets the short term exactly, like you point out,
49:02
Speaker 3: the way that the entire government is swept away results
49:06
Speaker 3: in short termism. In the extreme. Some government departments, or
49:11
Speaker 3: at least organizations that are funded by government departments, operate
49:16
Speaker 3: on a year to year basis. I mean, that makes
49:18
Speaker 3: life absolutely impossible. So the problem here is is absolutely enormous,
49:25
Speaker 3: and it's one that doesn't really need to be made.
49:27
Speaker 3: And I think the reason so many people were turned
49:32
Speaker 3: over in their thinking in twenty twenty is because all
49:36
Speaker 3: of these things that we talk about, all of the excess,
49:40
Speaker 3: the corruption that, this, that and the other. Going back
49:42
Speaker 3: to what day it is today being freedom Day. In
49:46
Speaker 3: actual fact, whilst these were sort of frustrations and inadequacies
49:50
Speaker 3: and corruptions and all that, they didn't really necessarily stop
49:54
Speaker 3: you from doing what you wanted to do in life.
49:55
Speaker 3: And then suddenly the hammer dropped in twenty twenty and
49:58
Speaker 3: people were stopped from doing what they were doing. I'm
50:00
Speaker 3: not talking about you know, oh, you just had to
50:01
Speaker 3: go along, that, you had to comply. It wasn't that,
50:04
Speaker 3: it was just that the stuff that you wanted to
50:05
Speaker 3: do wasn't even there anymore, so you couldn't. So you
50:08
Speaker 3: really had to evaluate, well, what the heck is going on,
50:11
Speaker 3: and why on earth should the state be telling me
50:13
Speaker 3: that I'm in danger or I'm going to make this
50:16
Speaker 3: person ill, or any of those sorts of things that
50:19
Speaker 3: previously the state had absolutely no remit to be even
50:22
Speaker 3: engaging in conversation about, let alone articulating policy and legislation around.
50:27
Speaker 3: So I would say there's a lot of thinking to
50:29
Speaker 3: be done about the general principle of the state, the
50:34
Speaker 3: sort of parameters of what the state should and shouldn't
50:36
Speaker 3: do in the first place.
50:38
Speaker 4: And that's a that would be a really good reform, actually,
50:43
Speaker 4: wouldn't it. What you do is you remove the did's
50:49
Speaker 4: ability to demand money with menaces. This business of tax
50:55
Speaker 4: is absolutely at the heart of the whole thing right now.
50:59
Speaker 4: Chris Covered makes the point that illegal wars are being
51:05
Speaker 4: funded by our tax dollars, and therefore, if there is
51:07
Speaker 4: a war crime committed, that every one of us is
51:11
Speaker 4: responsible for that, and therefore we should not be contributing
51:15
Speaker 4: to the war machine through our taxes. And I agree
51:18
Speaker 4: with them one hundred percent, but it goes beyond that.
51:22
Speaker 4: If any government thinks that their existence is justified, if
51:28
Speaker 4: they think they're doing a good job, then no problem.
51:32
Speaker 4: Remove the requirement to pay tax, make it a voluntary thing,
51:37
Speaker 4: and immediately you find the relationship between the individual and
51:41
Speaker 4: the state changing, because if the individual feels that the
51:44
Speaker 4: state is not doing the right thing, they would at
51:47
Speaker 4: that immediately have the ability to withhold their cash. This
51:50
Speaker 4: should happen at local level as well, and you know
51:53
Speaker 4: in the past that people that have been working with
51:57
Speaker 4: in the past have absolutely argued that council tax should
52:02
Speaker 4: be paid on the basis of a contractual agreement between
52:05
Speaker 4: the individual and the and the the local authority. So
52:08
Speaker 4: if you want your ben collected, then you pay a
52:11
Speaker 4: little bit of money. If you want your if you
52:13
Speaker 4: want the fire service, which is funded through the local authority,
52:17
Speaker 4: to come to your house in the event of a
52:19
Speaker 4: house fire, you pay a little bit of money and
52:21
Speaker 4: so on. But that that the the absolute state backed
52:27
Speaker 4: protection racket of the tax system. It becomes, you know,
52:32
Speaker 4: it's not a mandatory thing anymore. That that would focus
52:37
Speaker 4: minds within the public sector very significantly if they felt
52:42
Speaker 4: that their their livelihoods we were at risk if they
52:44
Speaker 4: were not doing a good job, and maybe that's the
52:47
Speaker 4: place to start.
52:49
Speaker 2: Well, that's an argument made by Mario Rothwood. Voluntary taxation.
52:55
Speaker 2: It's it's quite possibly the most effective, I suppose thought
53:00
Speaker 2: experiment because we don't really know in practice what it
53:02
Speaker 2: what it would be like, but it is the best
53:05
Speaker 2: way to hold those in political power accountable mm hmm,
53:12
Speaker 2: which is why they don't want to implement it.
53:16
Speaker 4: Well precisely, but also but also because they don't have
53:19
Speaker 4: to implement it because they do have the monopoly and
53:22
Speaker 4: violence and so you know, they you know, the entire system,
53:28
Speaker 4: the court system, the the fact that the the only
53:33
Speaker 4: people that are entitled to use violence are this is
53:36
Speaker 4: the state itself. That that that effectively turns the state
53:43
Speaker 4: into a mafia style operation. And of course along with
53:48
Speaker 4: the mafia, you know, the mafia runs around taking money
53:52
Speaker 4: from from local businesses in a particular city because they're
53:56
Speaker 4: running we will protect you. It's it's about your safety,
54:00
Speaker 4: will protect you as a protection racket. Well, increasingly the
54:03
Speaker 4: language out of governments is the first role of government
54:06
Speaker 4: is to keep the people safe. So they're even acknowledging
54:09
Speaker 4: in their own rhetoric that what they're running is a
54:12
Speaker 4: protection racket.
54:14
Speaker 2: What is the influence of the crown on British politics?
54:21
Speaker 4: It depends what your definition of the crime. Is that
54:28
Speaker 4: a helpful answer.
54:33
Speaker 1: I don't know.
54:34
Speaker 2: I don't know what. Okay, let's go as simplistic as possible.
54:38
Speaker 2: The queen now, I guess, the king.
54:41
Speaker 4: Now, that's the monarchy. I think the crime is something
54:45
Speaker 4: something very different. And again, you know, the crime h
54:49
Speaker 4: represents the corporate state merger that we've been talking about,
54:55
Speaker 4: the empire that we've been talking.
54:57
Speaker 2: About in the monccusation, I mean, the royal family.
55:01
Speaker 4: I suppose, well, the royal family is is just a
55:06
Speaker 4: corrupt criminal enterprise. And you know the role of the
55:13
Speaker 4: monarch it constitutionally has been is a water dying at
55:17
Speaker 4: this point that is non existent. So so you know,
55:21
Speaker 4: they are well, Charles, you can tell me if this
55:28
Speaker 4: is if this is unfair, but but they it's definitely.
55:32
Speaker 4: It looks to me like it's pretty parasitic at this point.
55:38
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I mean, I think what what is obvious
55:41
Speaker 3: is that there is there is a directly beneficial effect
55:45
Speaker 3: from the sorts of.
55:49
Speaker 1: The sorts of causes.
55:50
Speaker 3: Let's say that the members of the royal family have
55:54
Speaker 3: been able to advocate for and I think as a
55:56
Speaker 3: very good example of that talking about the Crown, I
55:58
Speaker 3: mean the the the now King since the beginning of
56:04
Speaker 3: the nineteen seventies has been a very strong advocate for
56:08
Speaker 3: let's say, the environment, given the benefit of the doubt,
56:10
Speaker 3: of course, that's in more recent times become climate change
56:14
Speaker 3: in this, that and the other. And without wanting to
56:15
Speaker 3: get too much into the weeds, it is impossible to
56:20
Speaker 3: ignore the coincidence in the enormous jump in profits of
56:24
Speaker 3: the Crown Estate due to the fact that they have
56:28
Speaker 3: the offshore wind capability. Capability is quite the right word.
56:34
Speaker 3: The offshore infrastructure is sold by the Crown State and
56:41
Speaker 3: therefore they receive huge amounts of money off the back
56:46
Speaker 3: of policy that is shaped by this idea that climate
56:51
Speaker 3: change is a thing and that we can do something
56:53
Speaker 3: about it. And if you are if you were the
56:56
Speaker 3: Prince of Wales and now the King, and you're saying
56:58
Speaker 3: that we're facing a climate catastrophe, and you own the seabed,
57:02
Speaker 3: or supposedly own the seabed, that then off your wind
57:05
Speaker 3: turbine is put in and then the Crown Estate receives
57:08
Speaker 3: those funds and then I'd have to check back through
57:10
Speaker 3: the detail. But this coincides rather remarkably between the distinction
57:14
Speaker 3: between the what's called the consolidated fund and the other
57:18
Speaker 3: one which escapes my mind right now. But basically it's
57:22
Speaker 3: to do with where money goes in that the government
57:25
Speaker 3: handles and where money goes out, and effectively it is
57:29
Speaker 3: completely it's completely corrupt. I mean it's it should not
57:33
Speaker 3: be allowed to happen like that. And there's no doubt
57:36
Speaker 3: that what the Prince of Wales and now King has
57:41
Speaker 3: said has provided him with the direct financial or you know,
57:46
Speaker 3: the sort of the Crown estate, the corporation, the corporate.
57:49
Speaker 1: Side of it provide.
57:50
Speaker 3: There's a director benefit has been seen that is that
57:54
Speaker 3: is completely improper, but somehow it exists. And not only that,
58:01
Speaker 3: but it's it is made to happen by the government
58:06
Speaker 3: and of course the corporations that that actually carry out
58:09
Speaker 3: the work. So yes, extremely unfortunate in terms of the
58:16
Speaker 3: way it looks the way it is.
58:19
Speaker 2: Okay, I see we are running out of time, so
58:21
Speaker 2: there isn't really space for any further analysis, but I
58:27
Speaker 2: am going to go and enjoy my freedom day.
58:31
Speaker 4: Yes, South Africa, what do you do on Freedom Day,
58:35
Speaker 4: joam I? Or what does one do on Freedom Day?
58:39
Speaker 4: Rather than you specifically.
58:40
Speaker 1: Record excellent podcasts for UK columns.
58:43
Speaker 2: Exactly, and and and do what everybody else does. You
58:47
Speaker 2: go to the shopping mall and and engage in consumerism.
58:51
Speaker 2: That's completely mindless. All right, I be doing that part No,
58:58
Speaker 2: I shall not be doing that Part fifte