This month we’re looking (again) at the US’ ban of TikTok, and their veto over Palestine’s membership in the UN, as well as the Australian government trying to censor X and we ask if what Israel is doing  is “genocide”. 

00:00 Welcome to the Bullshit Filter: Unpacking Contemporary Issues
01:21 Freedom of Speech and Social Media: A Deep Dive
03:44 The Role of the eSafety Commissioner in Online Safety
06:32 Exploring the Impact of Social Media on News Consumption
11:56 The Complex Landscape of Free Speech and Regulation
32:26 The Future of AI in Ethical and Content Regulation
35:01 The Decline of Free-to-Air TV and the Rise of Streaming
44:33 The Future of AI in Media Production
46:24 The Evolution of American English
47:48 TikTok’s Global Impact and US Policy Challenges
55:48 Exploring the Moderation and Influence of Social Media
59:59 Navigating News Consumption in the Digital Age
01:08:33 Analyzing the US’s Stance on Palestine’s UN Membership
01:18:42 Exploring the Implications of Palestine’s UN Membership
01:20:05 The Hypocrisy of the US and Its Allies on the Two-State Solution
01:21:30 Drawing Parallels: US Support for Apartheid and Israel
01:23:39 The Shift in Public Opinion and Policy on Social Issues
01:25:20 Debating the Definition and Occurrence of Genocide
01:25:23 Analyzing the Email: Is What Israel Doing Genocide?
01:35:13 The Complex Dynamics of International Condemnation and Israel’s Actions
01:52:23 Campus Protests and the Future of Political Activism
01:55:32 Concluding Thoughts and Humorous Banter

The post BS 125 – Come On Feel the Noise appeared first on The BS Filter.

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Today we delve into the ACTUAL reasons behind the US attempts to ban / force a sale of TikTok. And we also look at some newspaper headlines and break them apart.

Transcript

BS 124

[00:00:00] Cameron: Alright, yeah, both of you give me a one, two, three, one at a time, Ray.

[00:00:15] Ray: One, two, three.

[00:00:18] Tony: Oh, is that how you do it? Okay.

[00:00:19] Ray: I don’t know what he’s doing. I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. I really don’t.

[00:00:24] Tony: Four, five, six.

[00:00:27] Cameron: just to be clever. Welcome back to the Bullshit Fielder episode 124, recording this on the 22nd of March, 2024, uh, with me today, um, my two, uh, but you know, this is like a threesome, uh, rare

[00:00:46] Ray: An intellectually threesome. Yes. Yeah.

[00:00:50] Cameron: wife number two, Ray Harris, and, uh,

[00:00:54] Ray: been demoted.

[00:00:55] Cameron: Wife number three, Toni Kynaston. Um, I feel like, like a fundamentalist, uh, Mormon right now with everyone.

[00:01:05] Cameron: Get Chrissy in here and it’ll be scary.

[00:01:07] Tony: Well, I only get Cameron on Tuesday, so now I’m being promoted, I get Friday as well.

[00:01:12] Cameron: Big love. Once a month, once a month on the Friday, yeah.

[00:01:16] Tony: right.

[00:01:18] Cameron: Um, alright, well, um, Tony, Tony had such a good time last time he was on the bullshit filter. He said he wanted to come back and, and Ray’s happy because it means he needs to do even less work. Which, uh, less than

[00:01:32] Ray: that is correct.

[00:01:34] Cameron: Negative

[00:01:35] Ray: Negative. Yeah. Negative one third.

[00:01:38] Cameron: We’re going to cover a couple of stories today.

[00:01:40] Cameron: We’re going to try to anyway. Uh, we’re going to talk about the TikTok ban that’s happening, not just in the US, but there’s hints that it’s going to happen in other places as well, like Australia. Uh, we’re going to take a newspaper headline, a front page of a newspaper each and, and deconstruct it. And we’re going to talk a little bit at the end about China’s economy, so let’s, that’s a lot.

[00:02:03] Cameron: I’ve got a lot of notes here, so we’ll see how we get, how far we get. Who wants to start with the TikTok ban? Who wants to be the first cab off the rank? With that?

[00:02:15] Ray: Well, I do know this. Um, the House of Representatives have passed a version. The Senate is working on their version, which it means if it passes it, we’ll have to go to the House to then be reconciled. Um, it will be in committee for a while, so if it is going to happen, it is going to be still quite some time down the road, and even if it does pass the current bill, say, we’ll The company has six months to divest themselves.

[00:02:39] Ray: And so for the people in America who are freaking out like me, cause I pretty much give it, it’s my new crack cocaine, uh, Tik Tok is. And, um, so if it does happen, it’s not going to happen right away. But, um, again, I guess it goes to the very fundamental. The question of, you know, for, um, freedom of speech, um, we all know that Facebook steals our, our, our, our information.

[00:03:02] Ray: They sell it, whatever. Is TikTok doing anything else that any of these other social, uh, companies are doing? Are they just doing it for the Chinese government? So it’s a whole bunch of shit. There’s a lot of people in America who are absolutely pissed, even at the idea, the, the chance that this could go through.

[00:03:18] Ray: What are y’all hearing on your side of the pond, of the

[00:03:21] Cameron: I know why. I know why You like TikTok rage. I just realized it because they call it short form content and

[00:03:27] Ray: Yes. It matches me perfectly.

[00:03:30] Cameron: Yeah, yeah. Just you have loyalty to anything that’s short.

[00:03:33] Ray: in fact, in fact, most of the TikToks are too long. If I had to complain about anything, but yeah, yeah. Short and

[00:03:40] Tony: well, I mean, if someone, someone of our, some of the Raise Vintage and Our Vintage is on TikTok, is it dead anyway? Is it going to last six months? Really?

[00:03:49] Ray: Yeah.

[00:03:49] Cameron: yeah, that’s true. That’s what Taylor keeps telling me. TikTok’s dead. Anyway,

[00:03:54] Ray: Well, what’s

[00:03:55] Cameron: this is, this is a really, I don’t know, um, uh, shorter, shorter form content.

[00:04:00] Ray: Just a tick. Just a tick. Tick. Tick.

[00:04:03] Cameron: just the tip, just the tip. That’s what it’s going to be. Tip, tip, tip top is going to be called. Just the

[00:04:09] Ray: We’re going to be rich.

[00:04:12] Cameron: I found this, um, really interesting to dive into because I think what we’re looking at here is a whole bunch of conjoined interests.

[00:04:25] Cameron: When, when you do the Quibono. Follow the money, who benefits? There’s a whole bunch of parties, I think, that benefit from this, overlapping interests, conjoined interests. So, and I, because obviously we’re trying to answer the question, well, why is this? Well, I mean, okay, so there’s the official story, which is China bad, China spying, etc, etc.

[00:04:48] Ray: Right.

[00:04:49] Cameron: If we accept that, that, at least, if that is true at all, at all. As the reason for it, it’s only one of the reasons for it, and you start to look at who benefits, or who would benefit from this. It becomes quite fascinating. There’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes, I think. But, before we talk about the US, uh, Tony, are you aware of the Australian, uh, calls to ban TikTok coming out of the coalition’s cyber security spokesperson, Senator James Patterson?

[00:05:21] Tony: I am. Yeah, I actually, actually found a list of all the countries in the world that have banned TikTok. I’m just trying to find it now, but they fall into two camps. One’s like in Australia, because TikTok’s banned for government employees in Australia, which it is across all the five I’s. So, Canada. New Zealand, us, England, I think India’s the fifth member, anyway, they’re all banned on government issued phones and tablets.

[00:05:48] Tony: And then there are other countries who generally have a problem with China, anyway, countries like Pakistan, Taiwan, Nepal, who have banned TikTok as well. So, you know, that’s It’s a thing, but I agree with you, Cam. I think this is one of the, this is a case of, you know, there’s a hundred or a thousand issues crossing the desks of politicians all the time.

[00:06:14] Tony: But as soon as someone with a bit of money spots one and thinks, I don’t really care about TikTok, but I can get behind this because it suits me. That’s the one that gets prevalence and gets traction. And, uh, so I think you’re right. I think, um, I think it, you know, the traditional line is a media hype.

[00:06:30] Tony: Social media because it’s stolen their news feed and subscribers are down because they’re going to, they get free news from Google, they get free news from Meta or TikTok or whatever. So they hate it. Um, so it’s a divide and conquer strategy by them, but also too, if ByteDance has to divest, which is kind of an interesting strategy to take by the government.

[00:06:51] Tony: No, we don’t want to get rid of TikTok, you just have to sell it. Well, who’s going to buy it? It’s probably Facebook. So you get concentration in the social media space. You’ve got concentration in the traditional media space and they do a deal when everyone’s happy. So that’s, that’s what I think is behind all this.

[00:07:06] Cameron: Yeah, I agree, Tony, and I think there’s some other parties there, but the large media companies is definitely, I think, one of them that has an interest in this. But just getting back to the Australian guy, I had a laugh at this, Senator James Patterson, who’s been on this, you know, for a couple of years. He, um, said that, uh, data on the more than 8 million Australians who use TikTok could be used to build a very sophisticated picture of our society.

[00:07:32] Ray: Hmm.

[00:07:32] Cameron: the fear. They might build a very sophisticated I was thinking, well, they could just watch Neighbours. Are we going to ban China from watching Neighbours? I mean, like, he won’t and he also is talking about TikTok having alternative ownership, so. I mean, just the fact that China would need to Our number one trading partner, who owns half of the country now, would need to use TikTok to develop a very sophisticated picture of our society, I find.

[00:08:04] Cameron: Just

[00:08:04] Tony: Yeah, or they’re trained.

[00:08:05] Cameron: statement to make.

[00:08:06] Tony: And the other argument I’ve heard is it’s going to be used by China to train its AI. in um, English language. I’m like, mate, if you’re not trying an AI based on Australians watching TikTok, it’s gotta be a very skewed picture. Good luck to you,

[00:08:21] Cameron: here’s one of the main arguments I had against the official narrative of this, is when you drill down into it, there seems to be very little backing it up. So the official story, of course, is, you know, China’s spying, or might spy, or could be spying on Americans. But, when they had congressional hearings and the CEO of TikTok was on the, on the, you know, the, the, whatever it is, what do you want when you’re being in a congressional, he’s not on the stand, but, he’s being, he’s being questioned, he kept saying to the Congresswoman I saw, Or a senator who was challenging him.

[00:08:57] Cameron: He was like, I’ve seen no evidence that this is actually happening. Do you have any? She was just going, oh, I find it very hard to believe. And he kept saying, well, where’s the evidence? She’s going, well, I’m just sure there is. And so I, in nothing that I saw, was there any evidence? But anyway, we’ll get into that.

[00:09:14] Cameron: So a bit of background for people that are confused about this, because I was. Trump. So this started under Trump back in 2020. Trump said he was gonna ban TikTok, and he signed an executive order in 2020 saying he was gonna ban TikTok, gave them a period of months in which to either sell their business or do something, um, as well as WeChat, wasn’t just TikTok, it was also WeChat, and he also had the thing with Huawei, Huawei.

[00:09:46] Cameron: where he was banning them and they, the Canadians grabbed the chief financial officer or something of your way at the time. Um, the Chinese government at the time called it a smash and grab forced sale and, and I, I tend to agree with that today. I think that’s what this is at the end of the day. I think it’s a smash and grab.

[00:10:06] Cameron: They’re basically just trying to figure out a way to crush TikTok and steal it, you know, for a, buy it in a fire sale. Um, they, the, the TikTok fought against Trump in the U. S. with this. They claimed he was doing it as retaliation for TikTok campaigns against his reelection. And they were given a preliminary injunction by the courts against Trump’s order.

[00:10:36] Cameron: So they, the, the court stopped his order and then he left government. So it all kind of, you know, fell off the radar sort of in January 2021 when Biden was sworn in. About six months later, Biden signed an executive order revoking Trump’s ban on TikTok, but ordering the Secretary of Commerce to investigate the app to determine if it did indeed pose a threat to U.

[00:11:04] Cameron: S. national security. Now, we did some stories about this at the time, I remember a few years ago, and one of the things that, um, we found at the time was that Facebook, or Meta, Facebook’s parent company now, Zuckerberg, had paid, uh, Public relations firm that had previously worked for the Republicans to, uh, according to, I’m reading this from the Washington Post’s article.

[00:11:31] Cameron: This is going back to March, 2022. It said, Facebook parent company Meta is paying one of the biggest Republican consulting firms in the country to orchestrate a nationwide campaign seeking to turn the public against TikTok. The campaign Includes placing op-eds and letters to the editor in major regional news outlets promoting dubious stories about alleged TikTok trends that actually originated on Facebook, and drawing and pushing to draw political reporters and local politicians into helping take down its biggest competitor.

[00:12:04] Cameron: These bare knuckle tactics, long commonplace in the world of politics, have become increasingly noticeable within a tech industry where companies vie for cultural relevance and come at a time when Facebook is under pressure to win back young. So we, you know, we know that Meta is running a campaign and whenever you see this, situation where claims are being made, but when you ask for evidence of the claims, there are none.

[00:12:34] Cameron: And people just go, you know, don’t look into my eyes. Don’t look into my eyes. Don’t look into my eyes. Don’t look around my eyes. Look into my eyes. Look at my eyes. It immediately, I’m like, Oh, okay, what’s going on here? And then you combine that with Meder, among others, probably are running a massive. PR campaign trying to convince, you know, a lobby government to do this.

[00:12:55] Ray: yeah.

[00:12:56] Cameron: starts to smell, it starts to smell very quickly, very, uh, badly. So anyway, so, uh, Biden did this thing, um, said that they had to, the Secretary of Commerce had to investigate it and that’s been going on. Now, meanwhile, late last year, the state of Montana banned it, but a federal judge Again, stopped it, called the measure unconstitutional.

[00:13:19] Cameron: So then, now they’re trying to do it via Congress. They’ve got this thing called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act

[00:13:27] Ray: Wow.

[00:13:29] Cameron: that passed 352 to 65, as Ray was indicating before. Now, and this is interesting, they’ve done this before. Now, um, I know you would have followed this much more closely than I did, um, Ray, but in March of 2020, they forced the Chinese owners of Grindr to sell the application, um, because of its connection to China.

[00:13:57] Ray: Can I just say, worst day of my life.

[00:14:00] Tony: Is that why Ray’s smoking a pipe now?

[00:14:03] Cameron: Yeah.

[00:14:03] Tony: He’s thinking

[00:14:03] Ray: That’s all I got. That’s all I got to do with my hands.

[00:14:07] Cameron: yeah, and your

[00:14:07] Tony: And your mouth.

[00:14:08] Cameron: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:10] Ray: Thanks, Tony. Thanks.

[00:14:12] Cameron: Tony’s just slid right into the, uh, right into the tone of this podcast. So easily, isn’t he?

[00:14:19] Ray: little too easy.

[00:14:25] Cameron: So, uh, a Chinese company called Kunlun, Had acquired a hundred percent ownership of Grindr. Uh, well, it was 98. 59 percent actually of the company. They had to sell it, uh, because of, you know, basically the government came after them. They, this is great. They sold it to a US based company called San Vincente Acquisition LLC, March 2020 at a valuation of 608.

[00:14:51] Cameron: 5 million. Less than 18 months later, Grindr went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Guess what the valuation was at that point?

[00:15:05] Ray: Bye.

[00:15:06] Cameron: 1 billion dollars. Went from 608 million to 2. 1 billion dollars in under 18 months. November 2022, they went public. Now the way they went public is great. It was, they didn’t IPO.

[00:15:20] Cameron: They, it was via a SPAC. Tony, explain to everyone what a SPAC is.

[00:15:27] Tony: You can’t say that anymore, Cam. No, it’s a special acquisition, special acquisition, special acquisition company. So there was a thing back in the last sort of tech boom, especially around COVID, where In Australia you couldn’t do it, but in America you could, so it’s called listing a cash box. So basically it’s taking a fund, which doesn’t have anything in it, just the cash that’s been put into it by investors, and then IPO ing it, listing it on the exchange in the US.

[00:16:00] Tony: I think the law allowed them to have, I think, two years before they had to invest and buy something. And that’s one of the reasons why tech companies went for a run around that COVID time, was because you had all this money sloshing around that had two years to find something to acquire, and they were overpaying for things, basically.

[00:16:20] Cameron: It’s like the craziest fucking story. The way these things work, people just sink, you know, a couple hundred billion dollars into a vehicle, float it, it’s got no business, no cash flow, no nothing, but they go, Eh, we’ll buy something. And the deal was, yeah, you had a period of time you had to buy something, otherwise you had to give the money back to investors. So, um, a particular SPAC at the time called TIGA, T I G A Acquisition Corp, based in Singapore, uh, Why? Hmm, who knows. Um, acquired Grindr, and then, um, you know, it was publicly listed, like, bang,

[00:17:02] Tony: Mm-Hmm.

[00:17:03] Cameron: Um, now, I went into details. Who owns San Vincente Acquisition? Who owned Tiger? Surprisingly, Uh, I’d buy the same guy, um, a guy called Raymond Zage, who’s, um, now got something to do with Australia, according to his Twitter feed, but, um, he was the founder and CEO of Tiger Acquisition Corp, and also part of the San Vincente Partners Consortium that acquired it, um, so they, It, the shares, when it, when it went public, the shares went from 10 bucks to 70 bucks. And then there was a lot of selling and it quickly dropped to 4. 60. But

[00:17:50] Ray: when I’d get in.

[00:17:51] Cameron: where it’s been ever since. Yeah. No, you would’ve got in at 70 and it’s going to the moon and it dropped down to 4. 60.

[00:18:02] Ray: Sell, sell, sell!

[00:18:03] Tony: Well, and I guess the other question is, cam, we can’t track this, but did, did Raymond make many donations to a political, uh, party in the US to one of the packs over there?

[00:18:15] Cameron: yeah, possibly, I mean, I, I didn’t drill down that far, you can track some of that stuff. The point here I wanted to make is that, um, the, the, the Chinese owners were planning on floating grinder. Um, couldn’t. Shut down by the US government. So then Americans were able to acquire Grinder, bump up the valuation, float it.

[00:18:43] Cameron: Somebody sold a shit ton of shares at 70 bucks. Um, I’m not, I don’t know who, but I’m not casting aspersions, but somebody sold a shitload of shares and it was only like, uh, 500, 000 shares available in the public float. I mean, the rest were all, you know, Owned by the people behind the acquisition, the SPAC.

[00:19:08] Cameron: And, um, yeah, and, and a lot of people lost a lot of money. Obviously the people that bought in between 10 and 70 were deeply underwater and a lot, and, and the people that own this thing made a lot of money.

[00:19:21] Cameron: So, my point is that we’ve seen this before and, and in that case, it does very much look like it was a smash and grab to get this Chinese IP floated and somebody made a shit ton of money out of it. So the question then is what’s this really all about, the TikTok one? So, national security, as Tony pointed out, It’s already banned on government phones all around the world.

[00:19:41] Cameron: Um, corporations, if they have concern about security, can ban it from their phones. What’s really the national security concern when it comes to consumers phones? There’s this idea that, oh, they, they, they can develop this picture of what Americans are talking about on their phone, or they can maybe malware in the app.

[00:20:05] Cameron: But as part of the whole Trump thing. TikTok spent a shit ton of money to migrate all of their US customer data over to Oracle. And it’s a thing called Project Texas, because Oracle’s based in Texas. Um, and they’ve already done all of that. They’ve transferred 100%, supposedly, of their US customer data to Oracle’s cloud.

[00:20:30] Cameron: So, the first question, and, but, but now they’re claiming the, the Congressional hearings and all the Senators are claiming, We have leaked reports that the CCP is still getting access to all of U. S. customer data. So the first question I would have is, great, we’ll put the Oracle, put Larry Ellison, put the Oracle team on the stand and ask them, Well, how are they getting access to this?

[00:20:55] Cameron: You’re supposed to be controlling the security of all of this. Funnily, Uh, no one’s asking Oracle to provide evidence that the Oracle system that was put into place to protect US data is failing. The only thing I could see, uh, like no one from Oracle in the congressional hearings, uh, I think it was, uh, New York Times article said they reached out to Oracle for comment and Oracle declined. So surely if, if they’ve, if TikTok have spent a ton of migrating everything over to Oracle to protect the security of the US data, and if they’re suggesting that’s not working, that’s on Oracle.

[00:21:40] Ray: Yeah.

[00:21:41] Cameron: They should be forcing Oracle to divest its shares. But there’s no talk about that. I mean, unless I’m missing something.

[00:21:48] Cameron: Did you see anything about, Oracle being questioned about why the CCP is still getting access to US data?

[00:21:54] Tony: nothing.

[00:21:55] Cameron: would be the obvious question, right?

[00:21:57] Tony: of articles about that particular issue and, and uh, there was one from USA, a story from USA Today, and the quote is, uh, these threats are not theoretical, that’s the threat of data access by the CCP. In 2022, ByteDance admitted its China based employees brazenly access sensitive TikTok geolocation data to monitor American journalists.

[00:22:22] Tony: And they go on to say, this and subsequent revelations make clear that TikTok and other Chinese technology platforms are morphing into fully fledged state instruments of surveillance.

[00:22:33] Cameron: But that was before they migrated all over to Oracle.

[00:22:36] Tony: right. Well, I was gonna, I was gonna make the point that, um, do they, did the Chinese government really need to access TikTok data to track people?

[00:22:48] Ray: Thank you.

[00:22:50] Tony: If they do, you know,

[00:22:52] Ray: Yes.

[00:22:57] Tony: they don’t have ByteDance’s data, but they seem to be pretty good at tracking down and surveilling people.

[00:23:03] Tony: So I think it’s a bit of a spurious argument myself.

[00:23:07] Cameron: I agree. And, but I, I want to point, I, I get the security concerns. I’m not, I’m not, Pissing on the idea of, you know, security concerns and also the idea of foreign media, foreign media ownership. If you accept that TikTok is a media

[00:23:24] Tony: Mm hmm.

[00:23:26] Cameron: and a lot of people, like apparently half of America, has TikTok on their phones and particularly with younger 20s, they’re on TikTok all the time.

[00:23:35] Cameron: So it is a place where they get news. I mean, mostly. Dancing, and lip syncing, and comedy, but, but,

[00:23:45] Ray: That’s how I like my news. Yeah. That’s how I like my news. Yeah. Today.

[00:23:49] Cameron: to have, we used to have foreign media ownership laws. In Australia, until former Prime Minister John Howard scrapped them in 2007. And just, you know, I amped up cross media ownership, so you can only owe 2 out of 3.

[00:24:04] Cameron: And there was this, when that happened, there was this big, um, gobbling up of media in Australia. We now, you know, Most of our media is owned by either News Limited, Rupert Murdoch, or Nine Entertainment. Um, is News Limited a foreign owned entity? Um, I think probably it is. Rupert’s an American citizen. And that leads me to the next one.

[00:24:34] Cameron: America used to have laws against foreign media ownership as well, which is why Rupert Murdoch needed to become an American citizen when he started acquiring television stations to build Fox back in the 90s. He owned newspapers in the U. S. before that, uh, but in order to own TV stations, he needed to be an American citizen.

[00:24:53] Cameron: But then they got rid of that. The U. S. got rid of that 10 years ago as well. So 10 years ago, America said, you know what? We don’t need to worry about foreign media ownership anymore. We can scrap the foreign media ownership laws. Um, But now all of a sudden, we need to ban TikTok because it’s owned by a foreign adversary, which is a whole other thing.

[00:25:15] Cameron: I wanted to ask, when did China become an adversary? I thought they were your number one trading partner slash manufacturing outsourcer. Now all of a sudden they’re a foreign adversary. I guess they can be both. By the way, up until last year, Forbes, Magazine slash website was owned by a Hong Kong company.

[00:25:38] Cameron: Um, Hong Kong was also China. Um, but they only hold a minority stake today. There’s a German company, Axel Springer, that owns Business Insider and Politico. Um, so you still have, you know, foreign media or media organizations in the U. S. owned by foreign companies.

[00:25:59] Tony: And you can reverse Well you can reverse your argument about Rupert Murdoch and say he’s an Australian. I mean is it, if, if those other companies you mentioned, if their CEOs took out US citizens, if, if Xi Jinping took out US citizenship, he’d be able to buy, uh, media companies in the US. I mean, it’s a bit of a technicality.

[00:26:18] Cameron: Yeah, yeah, they might, uh, they, they might have to take a hard look at that if you try to become an American citizen, or any Chinese, any Chinese citizen. Could do it.

[00:26:28] Ray: right.

[00:26:29] Cameron: So, look, the whole security concerns thing I find, again, and when the CEO of TikTok asked them to present evidence, they just sort of, uh, rolled their eyes, they couldn’t provide him with anything, so, I haven’t seen any evidence for this, apart from, there were some claims that, uh, there were some leaked emails from TikTok employees saying that the CCP was still looking at it, But, you know, how much of that is real versus Meta’s PR campaign is difficult to tell,

[00:27:03] Tony: Well, there’s an interesting article I came across when I was doing research on this. It’s by our old friend Alan Kohler in The Guardian. And he, he, um, is Rallying against TikTok, I guess. I guess, you know, traditional media person rallying against TikTok. What’s new there? But he paints two reasons for that.

[00:27:24] Tony: One is the TikTok pixel, which he, uh, which he says, I’ll quote, All social media collect web browsing data on their users for advertisers to better target their ads. And while TikTok does that, it also gathers email addresses, phone numbers, locations, the destination of phone and video calls, the device’s metadata and more.

[00:27:48] Tony: It’s like a listening bug in the person’s home, as well as a GPS tag in their car, without their knowledge or consent. Permission is given in the T’s and C’s, of course, but no one ever reads them. So, he’s saying that TikTok goes further than the other pixels that are used by Whatever else. Um, but you know, the counterargument to that is, he’s probably got Alexa in his phone, listening to everything he says anyway, so,

[00:28:14] Cameron: which

[00:28:14] Tony: I’m not buying that one.

[00:28:16] Cameron: built in

[00:28:16] Tony: Um, but the other point he made, and this gets back to your, why is the conservative coalition in Australia against TikTok, um, he talks about, um, the fact that there is a, He says, right now, TikTok appears to be favouring pro harmless videos, and during last year’s voice referendum campaign in Australia, it appeared to favour the no case.

[00:28:36] Tony: So he’s also mounting the argument that TikTok is biased. And I think that’s what’s getting the conservative side of politics in Australia excited about TikTok and it being banned.

[00:28:47] Cameron: So that’s the second argument that is being made in the U. S. is that their TikTok are using their algorithm to influence the views of young Americans about political issues like Ukraine, like Gaza, and ostensibly the upcoming presidential election. So there, uh, the Department of Energy and Commerce that Biden told to, to do an investigation of this, I read their report.

[00:29:18] Cameron: One of the things they said was a recent office of the director of National Intelligence, ODNI report showed that the CCP was using TikTok to target political candidates and influenced to 2022 election cycle. But I went to the ODNI. Report that they referenced and when you go to that report, it just says that TikTok accounts run by a PRC propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates from both political parties during the U.

[00:29:51] Cameron: S. midterm election cycle in 2022. So they’re not like, so when you read the, the energy and commerce thing, it suggests that they’re hacking TikTok to influence stuff. No, they just set up some fucking accounts where they were doing TikTok videos, which they could do if it was owned by Americans. Like,

[00:30:10] Ray: Yes.

[00:30:11] Tony: Which happens on Meta. I

[00:30:14] Cameron: everything.

[00:30:15] Tony: welcome, you know, recall back to the Cambridge Analytica controversy during the Trump campaign. It’s the same deal.

[00:30:22] Cameron: And again, this is, this is sort of my point here, is when the department that has been appointed by Biden to investigate this for the last three years, in their official report, building a case for it, that’s the best they can come up with? And they, and they kind of give you, like, their report goes, well, the ODNI found that, But when you go and read the report, it’s a fucking nothing burger in the report.

[00:30:53] Ray: Whoop!

[00:30:53] Cameron: just the skinny, if that’s the best they could come up with after three years, is well, they set up some fake accounts on TikTok to try and influence, like really? That’s it. That’s what you’ve got.

[00:31:08] Tony: But also too, my rebuttal to the alleged bias with TikTok is, thank God, because the mainstream media is full of pro Israel stories. So, of course, you know, the other side is going to get squeezed in too. Doing TikTok videos or, or, you know, making their points known through the Guardian or whatever else they do.

[00:31:28] Tony: Of course they are. There’s no room for it in mainstream media.

[00:31:31] Cameron: Yeah.

[00:31:33] Ray: Well, it’s like you said, um, like you said, just, excuse me, it’s like you said a second ago, Cam, it’s a, it’s a sexy headline with a nothing burger inside the actual details, and that’s where you have to go is check out the details. So, yeah, it’s tantalizing as long as you don’t read the report. And on a side note, didn’t Rupert just recently get married?

[00:31:52] Ray: I’d like to wish him and

[00:31:54] Tony: He’s about to.

[00:31:55] Ray: bro a good bow too. I hope they have, um, all the happiness and, and for decades. Decades to

[00:32:01] Cameron: many happy

[00:32:02] Tony: He’s marrying a, he’s engaged to a Russian. So,

[00:32:06] Ray: that should be illegal. That should be illegal. I’m sorry. I don’t know what, I don’t know anything about it. I’m sure

[00:32:12] Tony: your media, your foreign media ownership laws, they’re like a wet paper bag over there. Come on,

[00:32:17] Ray: if you got enough money, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t freaking matter. And going back to,

[00:32:22] Cameron: media ownership laws. That’s my point. They scrapped

[00:32:24] Ray: we got rid of, well, they get in the way of making money, and that’s what America is all about. And going back to Cam’s question about China, um, And I think we’ve touched on this before, but World War II and the Cold War really shaped America.

[00:32:37] Ray: We don’t really know where we stand, unless we have an enemy. They don’t have to be a real enemy, they just have to be a declared by us enemy. Then we have something to focus on and it justifies our massive military budgets. But, again, the um, The reverberations of Cold War, uh, Cold War history will be with America for a long time.

[00:32:58] Ray: If it’s not China, it’s gonna be somebody else. We have to have an adversary because if you don’t, then you’re just left with trying to have a good life and America doesn’t do that very well. We need to be fighting. We need to be pitted against someone.

[00:33:15] Cameron: Well, I can tell you who your adversaries are because I looked it up. So, as I said before, this new congressional act is saying that they’re gonna ban any app that’s owned or controlled by a foreign adversary. My first question is, when did China become a foreign adversary? I couldn’t figure out. Um, when, the closest I can come, I could come, to finding out when China was first declared a foreign adversary by the United States was during the Trump administration.

[00:33:47] Cameron: Uh, to the best of my knowledge, that’s when they suddenly decided China was a foreign adversary. Now, according to the definitions, a foreign adversary is a nation or an entity that poses a strategic, military, or economic threat, to To another country’s national security, interests, or values.

[00:34:06] Ray: Right.

[00:34:08] Cameron: So, any country that’s competing with you, economically, is a threat to your economic interests.

[00:34:15] Cameron: And therefore, could

[00:34:17] Cameron: be, could be declared a foreign adversary, seems very loose sort of an argument. Now the US, of course, is a strategic military and economic threat to every country on the planet, so I hereby announce that Australia has declared the US as a foreign adversary.

[00:34:37] Ray: Right back at ya.

[00:34:39] Cameron: now, I want to, I know people are going to be thinking this, um, Steve Sammartino says this all the time, he’s very anti China, married to a Chinese woman.

[00:34:48] Cameron: He says China already blocks many foreign media outlets, social media platforms, other websites, Facebook, Twitter, Google, you know, the BBC, CNN, Wall Street Journal, Time, New York Times are all banned in China.

[00:35:03] Ray: Mm hmm.

[00:35:04] Cameron: Uh, Reddit, Snapchat, et cetera, et cetera. They’re all banned in China. So he is always like, well, fuck China.

[00:35:11] Cameron: We can ban China. China bans Western apps. We can ban China’s apps and it’s all good. Fair enough, we can do that. But when they do that, we accuse them of censorship. It’s an autocratic, they don’t believe in freedom of speech. It’s autocratic, it’s outrageous when we do it.

[00:35:32] Ray: Yes.

[00:35:33] Cameron: do it, we go, well, it’s national security.

[00:35:37] Ray: it’s measured. It’s measured. It’s thoughtful.

[00:35:40] Cameron: when they do it, they say it’s national security. You’re trying to, you know, Western media organizations are trying to infiltrate our society. We say it’s outrageous. When they do it, we say, eh, you know, it’s fine. So there’s this thing called the code of foreign, uh, CFR. And they have a determination of foreign adversaries.

[00:36:04] Cameron: Here’s what it says. The secretary has determined that the following foreign governments or foreign non government persons have engaged in a long term pattern or serious instances of conduct significantly adverse to the national security of the United States or security and safety of the United States persons and therefore constitute foreign adversaries solely for the purposes of the executive order this rule and any subsequent rule.

[00:36:29] Cameron: Here’s the list. The People’s Republic of China, including the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Two, the Republic of Cuba. Three, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Four, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, aka North Korea. Five, the Russian Federation. Six, Venezuelan politician Nicolas Maduro. Just Nicolas Maduro.

[00:36:54] Cameron: The rest of Venezuela’s fine, it’s just Nicolas

[00:36:57] Ray: lovely people.

[00:36:59] Cameron: The other name, the unofficial name of this list, is the list of countries the US failed to overthrow in the last 75 years.

[00:37:06] Ray: Yeah, we don’t like that. We don’t lose

[00:37:08] Tony: ha ha.

[00:37:09] Tony: ha.

[00:37:10] Cameron: You’re now a foreign adversary. Cuba, for fuck’s sake, what? What is Cuba’s military or economic threat against the United States? Like, is it Cuban cigars? They’re trying to infiltrate the country with good tobacco? Well aged tobacco? I don’t know.

[00:37:29] Ray: That’s the best I got is the cigars. Yes.

[00:37:33] Cameron: Okay,

[00:37:33] Cameron: so

[00:37:34] Ray: don’t like to lose. Yeah.

[00:37:37] Cameron: up with. Um, number one, tech companies. I’m gonna, I’m gonna drill down into these a little bit, but tech companies. Big tech companies, particularly Meta, the Military Industrial Congressional Complex, the MIC, Jewish lobbyists, and, uh, large media organizations.

[00:37:59] Cameron: And the politicians that get funded by all of the above, right? That’s who stands to benefit as five, five basic, uh, conjoined groups here, I think. Now,

[00:38:12] Ray: brokers of America. Yeah.

[00:38:14] Cameron: yeah. Um, you know, we were talking about Meta’s campaign against him before. ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is often described as the world’s most valuable non public startup.

[00:38:30] Cameron: Last year it was valued at 300 billion.

[00:38:34] Tony: Oof.

[00:38:34] Cameron: publicly listed, but they plan to, they plan to IPO in China. Um, but of course, if they lose the U S market, that’s probably going to be more difficult. Uh, but if the U S if some U S organization, it’s not just Meta, there’s also the Trump’s former treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, who, you know, he’s talking about putting together.

[00:39:02] Cameron: He said, he’s already got a group of investors ready to jump in and buy this. Well, yeah, of course you do.

[00:39:08] Cameron: Wow.

[00:39:08] Ray: me last week. Yeah.

[00:39:09] Cameron: Trump was trying to ban it and Trump’s former Treasury Secretary is ready to buy it.

[00:39:15] Tony: Well, Trump’s flip flopped. He’s in favor of it now. He doesn’t want ByteDance to be sold.

[00:39:20] Cameron: we will talk about that too, I’ve got stuff on that, we’ll talk about

[00:39:23] Tony: do I.

[00:39:24] Cameron: Right, so, most valuable non public startup in the world, um,

[00:39:31] Tony: you need to add, sorry, excuse me Cam, you need to add Wall Street investment bankers to your list because if ByteDance lists in China, they don’t get a taste, so they would be against it too.

[00:39:44] Cameron: yeah, good point, your Goldman Sachses, your Morgan Stanleys, all those guys. We’re going to underwrite the, but it’ll probably be a SPAC anyway. They don’t have to do a traditional IPO. It’ll just be a SPAC. Um, in terms of the threat to Meta, I looked up a number of, uh, studies on where TikTok ranks, um, in terms of social media, penetration, hours, all that kind of stuff.

[00:40:11] Cameron: Globally, they come in at number three. After Facebook and YouTube, but, uh, they, they, they sometimes appear lower down in the rankings, like number five, but that’s when the studies break out various Facebook properties. So you have Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, et cetera, which are all owned by Facebook.

[00:40:34] Cameron: So if you merge them all together, it’s number three after Facebook and YouTube. Um, it’s the fourth most popular social platform in the US, but Again, the top three are all Facebook properties. So it’s actually number two in the U S and as I said before, almost half of the population in the U S are on Facebook.

[00:40:57] Cameron: And obviously it’s a major threat to Facebook’s revenues. If it’s gobbling up. As much, uh, user minutes as it is, user attention. So, it’s a threat to Facebook, and it tends to be capturing a lot of the younger demo, which is probably a pretty big advertising demo. Facebook’s playing back well with its, it’s like, reels and that kind of stuff, but it’s got a long way to go.

[00:41:23] Tony: That’s what I was going to say. Imitations of, the fact that Facebook launched Reels suggests that they see TikTok as a threat.

[00:41:30] Cameron: Yeah! And, you know, we know basic capitalism is, if you can’t beat them, buy them or kill them, right? And they’re trying to do one or the other here. They’re trying to kill it or buy it. And I love the, the US politicians position on this. This is also in the secretary of the energy and commerce paper.

[00:41:50] Cameron: They’re like, Hey, we’re not trying to ban TikTok. Don’t come after me saying we’re trying to ban it. We’re not trying to ban it. We’re just trying to force them to sell it. It can still be around. If China doesn’t, if the ByteDance or the CCP won’t allow them to sell it, that’s on them. That’s not, that’s not about us, that’s on them.

[00:42:11] Cameron: By the way, Chinese government has said that any sale of TikTok would have to comply with their law on tech exports, exporting Chinese IP, and they may just shut it down and say no. Like the US government is preventing American companies from selling chip technology. To an AI technology to China, China can go, fuck you.

[00:42:35] Cameron: You’re not getting out TikTok. And then it just, yeah, just ceases to exist.

[00:42:41] Tony: That’s, that’s an interesting curveball. Where does the Oracle data sit then?

[00:42:45] Cameron: Yeah, who owns the

[00:42:46] Cameron: Oracle

[00:42:48] Tony: and is there a

[00:42:50] Cameron: They don’t have, they don’t have the algorithm.

[00:42:52] Tony: if we if we see Steve Zuckerberg walking out with a very big hard drive from, from the data

[00:42:58] Ray: One into each arm. Yeah. Tackle that guy. Yeah.

[00:43:04] Cameron: So drilling down into, um, some of these other, so the, the military industrial congressional complex. So if, if TikTok, if the content on TikTok is turning young Americans in particular against continual support of the war in Ukraine, against continual support of Israel and the genocide that they’re committing in Gaza.

[00:43:26] Cameron: Then that’s a threat to the military industrial congressional complex. I didn’t call it that. Um, Eisenhower called it that. If you have an issue with that, take it up with, uh, President Eisenhower. Um, And you know, I tend to, as listeners of the show know, I mean, my, my, my basic premise of the way that the U.

[00:43:47] Cameron: S. economy works is that it’s largely driven by the military industrial congressional complex. These are the issues that tend to drive a lot of the big ticket items. Like wars, you know, Ray, you said earlier that we need an enemy. That’s because the M. I. C. needs money. And the easiest way of extracting money out of the U.

[00:44:06] Cameron: S. Treasury, uh, It’s to say, Oh, we need to go and fight this war over here. Or we need to prepare for a war over there. You know, you know, the, the Pentagon’s budget is like one third of the US budget. And that money goes straight from US taxpayers to all of the tens of thousands of companies that, uh, benefit from Pentagon contracts.

[00:44:28] Cameron: So. Um, I, I see that this is a threat. Any, any media platform that’s a threat to U. S. ‘s geopolitical warfare, be it military or economic warfare, um, needs to be shut down. The Jewish lobbyists will get to. Um, Tony’s talked about, that’s part of the whole Gaza thing. Tony’s talked about large media oil goods and Wall Street bankers.

[00:44:52] Cameron: But when you get any situation where you have multiple, very powerful interests. All having a united view. You know what it reminds me of? The Kennedy assassination. we, when you look at, you know, who killed Kennedy, if you don’t believe the official cover story, you know that, well, the Mafia wanted Kennedy dead because they felt like he fucked them.

[00:45:16] Cameron: They got him elected and then he fucked them on Cuba. Yeah, thumbs up. Um, LBJ wanted him dead. Because he was about to kick LBJ off the ticket. He was running for re election. They hated Johnson. They were going to kick him off the ticket. Johnson’s lifelong, when you read the biographies on Johnson, um, you know, his lifelong dream was to be president and he was in his 60s.

[00:45:39] Cameron: He knew this was his last shot. So, he needed to, you know, he needed to stay on the ticket. Best way to stay on the ticket was to have Kennedy dead. Um, the CIA hated Kennedy because he was talking about, um, defunding the CIA because they fucked him over Cuba. Um, the Cuban emigres wanted him dead because he gave up on overthrowing Castro in Cuba and pulled out.

[00:46:06] Cameron: Um, the, the American military wanted him dead because they felt he’d fucked them on Cuba as well. Uh, uh, J. Edgar Hoover hated him. Because he was, you know, trying to fuck with Hoover. Um, he was one of many presidents that tried to fuck with Hoover and his brother as well, Bobby. The two, the Kennedys hated Hoover and vice versa.

[00:46:29] Cameron: Um, cause Hoover was still saying the mafia didn’t exist. It was made up. And Bobby Kennedy was running his own parallel investigation in the mafia and showing that Hoover had basically been, um, covering up the existence of the mafia for decades. So you had all these different interests that hated the Kennedys and wanted the Kennedys gone.

[00:46:49] Cameron: Um, to what level were they all involved, uh, individually or, or colludingly in his assassination? I don’t think we’ll ever know, but certainly there was a lot of people that wanted him gone.

[00:47:03] Tony: you’ve got to throw JFK’s either arrogance or stupidity into it to get into an open topped car in LBJ’s home state

[00:47:13] Ray: Good point.

[00:47:14] Tony: and go for a drive in public with all these people against him, yeah.

[00:47:18] Cameron: yeah.

[00:47:20] Ray: think about that.

[00:47:21] Cameron: getting back to TikTok, a lot of these powerful interests want TikTok gone. Now, one of the things I’ve heard from Hunter, my son, who’s a TikToker, is that it’s all, he goes, it’s all about the election. But I don’t get that because it’s basically got bipartisan support. It’s not like the Democrats or the Republicans are siding on this.

[00:47:38] Cameron: They both seem to be, um, on board with this, except for Trump. The Republican presidential candidate is the one major Republican, I mean there’s also Rand Paul, we’ll talk about him in a second, and there’s a few outliers, in both the Democrats and the Republicans,

[00:47:57] Tony: yeah.

[00:47:57] Cameron: yeah, but it’s mostly bipartisan. Now, um, you’ve researched the Trump story, Tony?

[00:48:06] Tony: Yeah, well, so, uh, as you said before, Trump tried to do this when he was in, uh, in power, uh, and it fell over with a thing called the Berman Act, which, um, uh, they’re now saying they’ve learned from that, or the legislators are saying they’ve learned from that, and they’ll get round the Berman Act, um, in this, in this case.

[00:48:26] Tony: But, you know, what I, what I read in the research in this piece was that Trump had been lobbied by TikTok and convinced that he was Out polling Biden on TikTok and doing much better, and then therefore now was in favor of TikTok. So it’s the old, it’s the old story of, it’s the old story of when he, when he was empowering, his daughter used to say, put it in pictures, make it into a kid’s storybook, and put it in front of him. Otherwise, he’ll lose, he’ll lose attention. Yeah,

[00:48:57] Cameron: different story, but just to quote Trump first, he said if you get rid of TikTok, Facebook, and Zuckerschmuck, we’ll double their business. Zuckerschmuck

[00:49:08] Tony: got, I’ve got that, I’ve got that quote as well from last week, came out in opposition to the legislation, partly because he says it would help Facebook, which banned him from its platform for two years.

[00:49:19] Cameron: they are the true enemy of the people. But the other story is that his change of heart about TikTok came very shortly after he repaired his relationship with Republican mega donor Jeff Yass. Whose firm has a multi billion dollar stake in TikTok. Um, now Jeff Yass, you know, Jeff Yass, I’m sure Tony, he, he’s one of your heroes, Jeff Yass,

[00:49:48] Tony: No,

[00:49:48] Cameron: no?

[00:49:49] Tony: No, don’t don’t.

[00:49:51] Cameron: he will be one of your heroes after I tell you this story. The 65 year old Yass, who grew up in Queens, made his first riches when he and poker playing buddies from the State University of New York found ways to tilt horse racing odds in their favor.

[00:50:07] Tony: fantastic.

[00:50:08] Ray: Wow. Wow.

[00:50:15] Cameron: double A, uh, double S Tony. So he runs, he runs, uh, an investment firm called, uh, Susa International Group based outta Philadelphia. Um, he’s also in the advisory council of the Cato Institute. He’s the richest man in Pennsylvania, largest donor in the 2024 US election cycle. He’s donated 46 million to Republican groups and campaigns.

[00:50:45] Cameron: Um, the Sasquatch, the Sasquatch International Group invested in TikTok in 2001. They were one of the earliest investors. Um, So they’ve made, it was into ByteDance, I guess. So they’ve made a shit ton of money out of TikTok. I think they own about 15 percent now of ByteDance

[00:51:09] Tony: I think it’s important. I’m sorry to interrupt. It’s important to point out, though, in this situation, they’ll only make money if it sells or if it lists.

[00:51:16] Cameron: Yeah, good point. Yeah, but he is against the TikTok ban Um, and now so is Trump, after Yass had a meeting and agreed to support Trump, and then Trump changed his position on TikTok. Yass is also a major donor to Senator Rand Paul, who’s also come out against the TikTok ban. But, having said that, unlike Trump, Rand Paul’s position on things like this, freedom of speech, has been consistent over his political career, as was his father’s, Ron Paul.

[00:51:48] Cameron: So I don’t think there’s a correlation between, you know, Yass probably supports Paul because of Paul’s position on libertarian free speech and that kind of stuff. I don’t think Rand Paul’s switched his views. Trump, on the other hand, has obviously flip flopped on this. Um, but here’s the interesting thing, because I want to talk about the Jewish lobby.

[00:52:10] Cameron: Um, but Jeff Yass and his partners in Susquehanna are all Jews and major supporters of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, et cetera, et cetera. So, um, that’s interesting because as we said before, one of the big arguments that’s being made, uh, for the banning of TikTok is it’s influencing young Americans on their views of things like Israel and America’s funding and support of Israel, which is potentially going to impact.

[00:52:41] Cameron: Uh, Biden’s chances of re election. He’s got this massive amount of voters that are angry at him. Young voters angry at him about what’s happening in Gaza, but they probably aren’t going to vote for Trump either. So they probably just, you know, may not vote depending on how scared they are of another Trump victory.

[00:53:00] Cameron: But just sticking on Trump for a second. Um. Trump apparently doesn’t campaign on TikTok. Biden does, but MAGA figures are very support, uh, very, very popular on TikTok. Conservative comedians. I’ve never actually seen a conservative comedian. I don’t believe that such a thing exists, but I did read that there are conservative comedians, um,

[00:53:28] Ray: they’re not funny, or you just haven’t seen them?

[00:53:31] Cameron: I just don’t think you’re

[00:53:33] Tony: it used to be people like Dennis Leary and uh, who’s the guy now that, I forget, I forget their names, I don’t watch them. There are a couple out there.

[00:53:41] Cameron: The other Dennis, the guy who used to host, um, SNL’s, um, Weekend Update,

[00:53:47] Ray: Oh,

[00:53:47] Cameron: can’t remember his last name. Dennis, uh, yeah, whatever his name is. Guy with a beard. Yeah, he talks like that. Um, Donald Trump Jr. last year, Uh, ripped the idea of a TikTok ban saying it was government overreach and, uh, support from establishment of both parties and big tech.

[00:54:09] Cameron: He was all for it in 2020. Now, to do it would be government overreach. Tucker Carlson, who I have a newfound respect for, surprisingly, after his interview with Putin and then his interview on Lex Freeman. Did either of you, I know Tony and I did several hours on his Putin interview. Did you then listen to it?

[00:54:29] Cameron: Lex Freedman’s interview of Tucker Carlson,

[00:54:32] Tony: No, I don’t like Tucker Carlson.

[00:54:35] Cameron: but do you like Lex Freedman?

[00:54:36] Tony: No.

[00:54:38] Cameron: Okay. Well, why don’t you like Lex Freedman?

[00:54:42] Tony: Oh, I, I subscribed to his podcast and I forget now who it was, but he had some conservative. Jordan Peterson or someone like that, and I just went, no, forget it.

[00:54:51] Cameron: No, I didn’t listen to that one. Well, he did an interview with Tucker Carlson, which I listened to, not liking Tucker Carlson, and listened to the whole thing and at the end of it went, You know what? I agreed with at least half the things that Tucker Carlson said. Half the things that he said I thought were batshit crazy, but half the things he said I was like, yeah, I agree with that.

[00:55:09] Cameron: So, which surprised me because

[00:55:12] Ray: Yeah.

[00:55:12] Cameron: thought he was a complete tool. Um, but anyway, on this he has said that, uh, there was a hidden agenda. It’s a creepy, low IQ Chinese plot, but that does not mean that people trying to ban TikTok have your interests in mind, he said. And again, I tend to agree

[00:55:29] Tony: A creepy low IQ plot. That’s,

[00:55:32] Cameron: That’s what he says, I don’t agree with that bit.

[00:55:35] Cameron: But the bit about

[00:55:37] Tony: he’s standing from the lofty heights of a high IQ looking down on the low

[00:55:40] Cameron: Yeah.

[00:55:40] Tony: plot.

[00:55:43] Cameron: And the funny thing is, like, he’s very self deprecating in the Lex Friedman interview. He basically says, Listen, I’m not a very smart guy, I’m not a very good interviewer, I’m not, uh, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I’m not very clever. Um, you know, he’s very self deprecating, which was interesting.

[00:56:00] Tony: And he’s being named as a potential VP for the Trump ticket as well.

[00:56:05] Ray: Oh, that would be sweet.

[00:56:07] Cameron: guy when he was at Fox writing internal emails saying Trump was a fucking idiot and he couldn’t, he couldn’t wait for Trump to be out of government because he was sick of interviewing him. How are they gonna, how are they gonna spin that?

[00:56:19] Tony: Uh, they don’t need to, it’s Trump, right? I’m gonna, I’m gonna sell TikTok, I’m gonna ban TikTok. No, I’m in favor of TikTok. It doesn’t matter. It’s just, it’s just, yeah.

[00:56:29] Cameron: voters, logic, reason, history, nothing

[00:56:32] Tony: No, no.

[00:56:34] Cameron: I want to talk about

[00:56:34] Cameron: the

[00:56:34] Ray: of the cult.

[00:56:36] Cameron: So I know, um, you know, particularly some of our Israeli, uh, listeners, and I gotta, I gotta, uh, shout out, I won’t name him, but the particular listener who I’ve corresponded a lot with in the past, I called him a Jewish listener in the past.

[00:56:51] Cameron: He said, Hey, I’m not Jewish. I live in Israel, but I’m not Jewish. My apologies. Israeli listeners, um, may have an issue with this, but the, here’s what I found. The, the progressive group Roots Action noted that AIPAC. Big Jewish lobbyist group in the U. S. is the largest donor to this bill’s author, Republican, uh, Mike Gallaher.

[00:57:13] Cameron: The Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella organization that represents hundreds of Jewish communities, backs the bill. Um, the JFNA said the single most important issue to our Jewish communities today is the dramatic rise in anti Semitism. Our community understands that social media is a major driver of the drive in anti Semitism, and that TikTok is the worst offender by far.

[00:57:40] Cameron: Today’s vote showed the strong bipartisan support for ensuring that TikTok cannot continue to push hateful messages into our communities, and we urge the Senate to To quickly take up and pass this legislation. That was a quote from

[00:57:54] Tony: essentially,

[00:57:55] Cameron: CEO, Eric Fingerhut.

[00:57:58] Tony: me just butt in here because it’s not TikTok that’s driving the anti Jewish movement. or anti semitism, uh, that they’re talking about. It’s turning Gaza into a concentration camp that’s driving the anti semitism that people

[00:58:13] Cameron: always been a concentration camp. It’s always been a concentration camp. It’s the genocide in the concentration camp. Well, their argument is, okay, so the, like, it’s not, it’s not TikTok that’s creating the content. It’s, American and you know, Gaza, like a lot of the, um, TikTok feeds that I follow are citizen journalists in Gaza reporting on what’s happening in Gaza.

[00:58:42] Ray: Mm hmm.

[00:58:42] Cameron: And these were people I followed before the war in Gaza as well. The, they were, you know, reporting on Gaza for years from TikTok. And of course, you know, they’ve been reporting on it. Some of them still alive. Some of them have been killed as part of this. Um, But what the, the accusation is that TikTok’s algorithm is presenting more anti Israel content to American audiences, uh, than pro Israel content.

[00:59:17] Cameron: Um, but again, you know, is there evidence for that? No.

[00:59:22] Tony: too, my understanding, very limited of how the TikTok algorithm works, is it gives you what you want to see, based on what you’ve seen before. So TikTok isn’t sitting, Xi Jinping isn’t sitting there going, in front of the keyboard going, Oh, bro,

[00:59:37] Tony: pro Palestinian TikTok reels to North Dakota now, ding, push the button.

[00:59:42] Tony: No one’s

[00:59:42] Ray: And, and, and, go ahead. Sorry.

[00:59:44] Cameron: my mother, my mother sent me a message like a day or two ago, um, saying, I think the universe is trying to tell me something, uh, YouTube just suggested a video by that same neuroscientist who was presenting it with wacky ideas that I watched like last week. I said, oh, well, if by the universe, you mean YouTube’s algorithm that’s designed to try and get you to watch more stuff like the same stuff that you.

[01:00:11] Cameron: Spent two hours watching a week ago, then yes, the universe is trying to send you a message. She goes, but I did, this was a completely different podcast on YouTube that had the same person. I’m like, yeah, that’s how the algorithm works. And I’m pretty sure the people in Congress have the same view as my mother.

[01:00:28] Cameron: It’s like, Oh, but in their case, the universe is the Chinese communist party presenting people with more anti Israel, uh, commentary.

[01:00:38] Ray: Well, I don’t know about the algorithms, but I do know that if you kill, you know, 32, 000, you know, 99 percent of them are innocent people in an area like Gaza, and it’s on tape. That’s going to do a lot more than any algorithm will. That’s just facts. That’s just bloodletting.

[01:00:56] Cameron: Semite. You’re an anti Semite, Ray,

[01:00:59] Ray: and that’s exactly what I wanted to get to later.

[01:01:01] Ray: The State of Israel, however, um, maybe they hired Barry and Stan, but you cannot criticize anything Israel does, because if you do, you’re an anti Semite, and then they’ve got you pegged, and it’s a brilliant, brilliant campaign, marketing, whatever, uh, and so, yeah, it’s just one of those things, what do you do, but clearly, because you’ve been saying this for years, Clearly what they do, they overstep the line a lot of times since the creation of that company, excuse me, of that country, but they, if you do criticize them, then you are the worst person in the world because you’re an anti Semite.

[01:01:38] Ray: They’ve got that locked in a bag and it’s

[01:01:41] Cameron: And there’s a, there’s a great book on that that John Mearsheimer co wrote, um, 15, 20 years ago now called the Israel Lobby. Highly recommended. I read it when it came out and he talks about, he’s got the evidence and the history behind how they weaponized the term anti Semitism to mean any criticism of Israel’s actions, um, and it’s been incredibly successful.

[01:02:06] Tony: I’m very reminiscent of what you spoke about before, Ray, about needing an enemy to bolster your own psyche. It’s just like the US.

[01:02:15] Ray: Well, not only that, but Israel can, all Israel has to do is go What the Holocaust, and it’s like a Trump card. They win. What are you gonna argue? You know? You know what I’m saying? Uh, it’s, it’s the ultimate Trump card. We can’t let this happen again. So we have to kill a lot of them before they kill a lot of us again.

[01:02:36] Ray: It’s hard to argue, you know, circular.

[01:02:38] Cameron: not just the JFNA, um, the Republican Jewish Coalition also supported the bill’s passage, the head of, um, the International Relations Department at Istanbul’s Yildiz Technical University, um, I read this in a Turkish, cause I was reading a lot of Al Jazeera and trying to get international perspectives on this, um, Turkish news sources.

[01:03:02] Cameron: The, uh, he said that the U. S. House move is aimed at protecting Israeli interests. In a recent interview with MSNBC, ADL head, uh, Jonathan Greenblatt said, TikTok has become the 24 7 news channel of so many of our young people, and it’s like Al Jazeera on steroids, amplifying and intensifying the anti semitism and the anti zionism with no repercussions.

[01:03:29] Cameron: So the Jewish lobby in the US, very big supporters of the bill, very much against TikTok for these reasons. But as I said before, the weird thing is Jeff Yass,

[01:03:38] Ray: Yeah.

[01:03:38] Cameron: ByteDance, who owns 50 percent of ByteDance, seems to have been the guy that convinced Trump to flip flop, is also a major supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu and the far right Israeli government that’s doing all of this stuff.

[01:03:54] Cameron: So, you know,

[01:03:56] Ray: Well,

[01:04:00] Cameron: in recent years according to tax records. Um, Oh no, so that’s Greenberg, one of the co founders of Sasquana, who runs a family foundation called Seed the Dream. He’s given more than three million. But Yass and his other co founders, um, Arthur Danchik, um, have funded a whole bunch of Israel related and Jewish causes.

[01:04:19] Cameron: So, I guess you can sit in both camps. You can be supporter of Israel, is, you know, Jewish lobby hates TikTok, but you own TikTok. You know, that’s capitalism for you, right? It reminds me of when Reminds me of when we were doing shows about what was going on in Syria, when the Obama administration was fighting ISIS in Northern Syria and Al Qaeda were fighting ISIS in North Syria.

[01:04:51] Cameron: So the Obama administration was supporting Al Qaeda to fight ISIS, but also hunting Osama Bin Laden. Uh, but they’re like, you know, it’s, uh,

[01:05:02] Ray: it’s complicated. 3D chess. It’s 3D chess. But here’s

[01:05:07] Cameron: is my friend, except

[01:05:08] Ray: what, but exactly. But here’s what I’ve learned. You can be a president. You can be a prime minister. Yeah, yeah. All that’s nice. But if I’m a multi billionaire, they knock on my door. They come to me because they’re going to need me for the next election.

[01:05:21] Ray: So, this guy, Yaz, can do whatever he wants and to a degree. It has to be tolerated because you’re going to, some politician is going to ask him for more money in the future. He can, he can, he can be controversial. He can, he can not, he doesn’t have to be, you know, consistent the entire time. He can do whatever he wants to do.

[01:05:38] Ray: They will still come to him because they have to.

[01:05:43] Cameron: The other argument that I’ve seen Matt Taibbi make is that this is a really bad president because if this goes ahead, it will enable future administrations, including a future Trump administration, to just start calling things owned by foreign adversaries and it’s very loosey goosey. But my counter argument to that is Trump just does whatever the fuck he wants anyway.

[01:06:05] Cameron: He doesn’t give a

[01:06:06] Ray: That particular day,

[01:06:08] Cameron: Yeah,

[01:06:09] Ray: day, and it could change,

[01:06:11] Cameron: but I get Tabi’s rule. I mean, we saw what happened when, uh, W started, you know, basically just declaring anyone foreign enemy, uh, enemies of the state. And then that, once that got enshrined, that just, you know, continued into the Obama administration. Um, you, it, it, once these things become precedence, Uh, it’s very, I mean, you know, the biggest example in the Trump era, I remember, was people started going, um, what are the checks and balances on a president starting a nuclear war again?

[01:06:44] Cameron: Oh, we don’t have any. Uh, really? Yeah, yeah, we don’t have

[01:06:48] Ray: I set a precedent? Yeah.

[01:06:50] Cameron: He could, and I don’t think anything’s been done about that since then either. I mean, everyone was horrified in 2020 when we realized, um, well, before that, when did Trump become president? 2016, when Trump could, when Trump could. Launch a nuclear missile and there’s nothing anybody could do about it because there are no checks and balances in place.

[01:07:15] Cameron: The only hope you had is that the generals with the briefcases would go, no, I’m not going to do that. Yeah, uh, that’s the only, only way of stopping somebody like Trump or any other batshit crazy or president with Alzheimer’s, like Biden, um, to launch a nuclear weapon. There’s no checks and balances in place.

[01:07:42] Cameron: And I don’t think anyone, but we’re gonna ban TikTok. Let’s focus on banning TikTok, not changing that fucking rule.

[01:07:49] Tony: We rely on the submarine commanders to just go, really? Is that the order? Are you sure?

[01:07:54] Cameron: Yeah, yeah, yeah, like the

[01:07:56] Ray: Can I get a check? Check on that. Exactly. Yeah.

[01:08:00] Cameron: I’m done on this topic unless you guys want to keep

[01:08:03] Tony: One last thing, and it was in an article I was reading about this, it talked about how the vote was, um, It was partly swung by the, uh, security intelligence officials in, um, in the U. S. And the quote is, House legislators also received a series of classified briefings by intelligence officials that observers said helped boost support for the bill.

[01:08:27] Tony: Senators will receive similar briefings over the coming weeks, which will help determine the way they vote. So that raises two things for me. First of all, if that’s swaying the legislators into voting for this, What the fuck was in the briefing? And why isn’t it made public? If they really have hard evidence that something’s going on or,

[01:08:46] Ray: And they want support.

[01:08:47] Tony: yeah, why don’t they just tell us and then we’ll get our, get our support as well.

[01:08:51] Tony: Which leads me to the second conclusion. There’s something, there’s something in there which may not, the legislators may not want to have leaked. And going back to the article about all the pixels tracking everything, I mean, you know, is there, are the CIA going to the legislators going, well, you might want to support this, however, If we do, if ByteDance continues, we might just have to release where your car’s been in the last 48 hours and what you’ve been saying and what you’ve been watching on TikTok and all those

[01:09:20] Ray: Yeah.

[01:09:21] Tony: So that’s what annoys me about these things is the secret briefings going on. It’s supposed to be an open and transparent democracy and it’s swaying voters and we don’t hear a thing. It’s swaying legislators and we don’t hear a thing about it.

[01:09:32] Cameron: But the other, and the other argument though is, I remember when secret intelligence briefings had convinced the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, turned out to

[01:09:44] Cameron: be Bullshit. I remember when secret intelligence briefings were driving the media narrative that Trump was in cahoots with Putin to win the 2016 election.

[01:09:59] Cameron: And we had to have massive investigations into that, that cost hundreds of millions of dollars and went for three and a half years. At which point they came in and said, yeah, there’s no evidence for any of that. It was all made up and it was all bullshit. Based on the, uh, Steele dossier, which was fucking bullshit, and we all knew it was bullshit from well before 2016, because he’d been peddling it for a couple of years.

[01:10:21] Cameron: So this whole, and that’s, this gets me about America every time. Every couple of years, we go through the same thing. Oh, we have secret intel. That we can’t reveal to you, that means we have to go and do all this stuff and spend all this money. And then five years later, we find out that was complete fucking bullshit.

[01:10:40] Cameron: And they go, And the New York Times, which pushed the stories, like the WMD story, does a Mia Culper and says, Oh, we’ve learned our lesson, we will never, Run stories from anonymous sources that turned out to be Shalabi, the guy that hated Saddam Hussein and was in exile and wanted to be the president, and then we made him the president, and then he turned out to be a cunt, so we had to get rid of him.

[01:11:00] Cameron: But we will never do that again! And then, a couple of years later, they do the whole fucking thing again, and it’s just rinse and repeat, and no one ever goes, Hold on, didn’t you just say a couple of years ago that you wouldn’t do this again? No one ever, it just never happens!

[01:11:17] Ray: Yeah.

[01:11:18] Tony: not just that, but the news, news, um, traditional media or newspaper people, they’re defunded so much that, you know, I would have hoped that as soon as a person with a nose for news read that quote, they’d be trying to find out what was in the secret briefing. You know, surely one of the politicians that was lobbied would leak it, or, uh, you know, even, even in deep background, but we don’t hear a thing about it.

[01:11:41] Tony: There’s no one following up

[01:11:42] Cameron: CCP probably knows what it is. They probably heard somebody talk about it on TikTok. Uh,

[01:11:48] Ray: Aha.

[01:11:50] Cameron: Um, And the other point, you know, uh, before we close this off, I’ve seen a lot of, a lot of people are making on TikTok is if you have issue with the way that social media companies are using consumer data, great. Let’s pass some laws that prevent social media companies from using consumer data. And let’s put some restrictions into place and let’s put all the, you know, legislative things into place that monitor, track, blah, blah, blah.

[01:12:19] Cameron: But no, they’re not going to do that because that would affect Facebook and Google and Microsoft and Apple, et cetera, et cetera. So the Mag 7, which, did you see what happened to Apple’s share price today, Tony, the Mag 7? Uh,

[01:12:35] Tony: I didn’t.

[01:12:36] Cameron: Apple’s just been hit with a, uh, um,

[01:12:40] Tony: Ah, the,

[01:12:42] Cameron: yeah, uh, what do you call

[01:12:44] Tony: about restricting trade.

[01:12:46] Cameron: Yeah. What do you, what do you call those things?

[01:12:47] Cameron: A frigging monopoly. They’ve just, just been hit with a monopoly lawsuit. The share price just crashed. Um, you know, it’ll probably recover cause who the fuck cares? It’ll take years. Um, so, so to wrap up, what’s going to happen with this? My guess what’s going to happen is I think the Senate will pass it, I think, um, Biden will sign it, I think TikTok will fight it in the courts, they’ll appeal it, it’ll go to the Supreme Court, That’ll take a bunch of time, Biden’s going to lose the election, Trump will be back in, and then it’s just a fucking coin toss to see what Trump does about it on any particular day.

[01:13:29] Tony: It was shut down meta. Because he banned for two years.

[01:13:33] Cameron: yeah, yeah.

[01:13:35] Tony: Yeah. Well, and the other

[01:13:36] Cameron: of the country, which plays into my next story.

[01:13:39] Tony: there is a side issue to all this too, which is kind of tangential, but in little old Australia, there’s an issue going on about the fact that the social media outlets signed a deal, self enforced deal, with the newspaper originators of news to pay for that News content on their platforms.

[01:14:03] Tony: And then Meta pulled out last week or the week before and now there’s pressure on the government to enforce the deal. And it’s being watched quite closely around the world. So, you know, there are these, these issues on social media are really attracting some heavyweight hitters, um, to, to the party.

[01:14:20] Cameron: I loved Hunter or Taylor’s analysis on that the other day was, ah, Facebook is struggling. They can’t afford to pay the news companies. Like, yeah, I don’t think that’s the point. I think their point is, fuck you. We don’t need to pay you this money. What do you, you need the money more than we need your news on our platform.

[01:14:38] Cameron: Um, they’ve let it run for a couple of, I think it’s a negotiating tactic, right? It’s like, they’re going to cut the fee that they pay by, you know, 50 percent or whatever it is, because at the end of the day, the media companies in this country are running out of cash. They know they need it, you

[01:14:54] Tony: Yeah, absolutely.

[01:14:56] Cameron: Media companies are fucked.

[01:14:57] Cameron: Speaking of media companies, we said we were going to dissect some headlines.

[01:15:00] Tony: Yes.

[01:15:02] Cameron: Who wants to go first?

[01:15:04] Tony: Well, I’ll, I’ll kick it off. Um, and I, what I’ve done is slightly different to that, but I’ve looked at the Murdoch headlines in Australia. And this goes back to two days ago to, to Wednesday of this week, which was the 20th of March when I sat down and did the exercise. So I asked myself, first of all, what, what did I think was the top three things going on in Australia on Wednesday, the 20th of March?

[01:15:28] Tony: And I thought of, The visit to Sydney by the China’s Foreign Minister, which hadn’t happened for a long time. The possibility of an Israeli war crime trial over starvation in Gaza. And a local issue, the RBA left rates on hold, which is kind of like what the Central Reserve did in America. And I’d I rate that as an issue because out of those, it has the biggest impact on my life.

[01:15:53] Tony: So they’re the kind of big picture things going on for the newsworthy. In Australia, there is a very large concentration of the media in the hands of Rupert Murdoch. And you, you sort of feel that the most if you leave the capital city. So he has a newspaper headline in every capital city. He has a national newspaper, and he basically has all the regional.

[01:16:15] Tony: Towns sewn up as well. So, the Australian headline, that’s the newspaper, that’s the national newspaper that Murdoch owns. The top three headlines on the front page of the Australian were Conviction PM has a caveat. And that’s the other thing about Murdoch’s headlines. They don’t pause, they’re not, there’s no grammar.

[01:16:33] Tony: I mean, Conviction PM has a caveat was their headline. I’ve got no idea what that even means. The sub headline is Anthony Albanese, who’s the Australian Prime Minister. His decision to add the condition of bipartisanship to putting forward promised religious freedom laws has revived the cultural political wars.

[01:16:50] Tony: Well, Modoc never let the cultural political wars go into remission. There’s no reviving them. This is a continuance of them. The other two headlines were Monitor on rapist, detainee, taken off, and Wong’s message to Beijing, don’t accept the gospel of Paul as the word of Australia. So, a common theme to the Murdoch front page is a crime and order headline, and for background to people who aren’t in Australia, Uh, we’ve had some overseas, uh, immigration detainees, they tried to get into Australia illegally, they were put into, um, again, what allegedly were concentration camps offshore.

[01:17:29] Tony: Uh, there’s been a law, um, changed, or, or a high court decision which has allowed some of those to go free. Turns out some of them were, uh, criminals in, in their past lives, but they’ve been, um, forced to wear, uh, Ankle monitors, and it’s been a hot cultural war issue in Australia about law and order. And so someone’s been able to get their ankle bracelet off.

[01:17:51] Tony: That’s front page news according to Rupert Murdoch. And the last one was, again, um, about the culture wars. Paul Keating is a past Prime Minister of Australia. He is, he is not buying into the Orca steal, which we’ve signed for defence relations with the US and the UK. And he’s not buying into the China bad.

[01:18:12] Tony: Um, image of China. And, uh, so the Chinese foreign minister said, hey, I wouldn’t mind meeting with Paul when he comes to Australia, because at least he’s the same one, okay, in the, in the country. And so Rupert Murdoch’s taken a pot shot of that. Um, I’ll just do one more. The Herald Sun is the Murdoch newspaper in Melbourne.

[01:18:30] Tony: There’s a similar one called the Telegraph in Sydney. The headlines on the Herald Sun on Wednesday were Fossil Fools, Appeal Backfires, Climate Protest Pests Who Blocked Westgate Bridge. in brackets, forcing mum to give birth on side of road and at longer jail terms. So again, there’s a lot of grammar you need to unpack in that sentence, and the question that begs me is that these are people who were forcing the bridge closure with their protests, putting a gun to the head of the mum, forcing her to give birth, I mean, it’s just, it’s inane, and the other two headlines were Top Nick, Best First 50 Games Ever, Sporting headline, I don’t know who Topnik is, uh, and smiles as Kate on the Mend, so Royal Celebrity.

[01:19:16] Tony: So this has been the Murdoch way of doing things, the Murdoch strategy in Australia. I’m going to talk to people with what they like in terms of sport and celebrities. I’m going to push crime, crime is a problem, and make people fearful. And I’m then going to slip in a bit of a conservative, um, You know, rationale or a conservative line on things that are going on in the big news.

[01:19:40] Tony: And that’s, that’s been going on for years and years and years. And if all you get Access to is if you’re in a like a Wagga Wagga or somewhere in the country, all you’re getting access to is that kind of news. That really does shape the culture in Australia. And it doesn’t just happen in Australia. I mean, in the, in the States, the New York Post, which is owned by, Murdoch on Wednesday had only had one headline, Strong Arm of the Law, High Seas, SIEZ, James plots to take Trump’s buildings, help Democrats by bankrupting the Don.

[01:20:16] Tony: James is the prosecutor in New York who’s, uh,

[01:20:20] Ray: James.

[01:20:21] Tony: Yeah, he successfully, um, won the case against, uh, Donald Trump. In the UK, his, the, he owns the Telegraph, and the headline there was Diversity Drivers Backfired, Warns Bad Knock. So, again, if you’re only getting that side of things, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, Reinforcing that the culture wars, it’s not really news and it’s pushing a point and it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a well worn path for him.

[01:20:50] Tony: I was, it may happen in the US if you ever get concentrated media ownership like we do here and, and Murdoch gets that big, but it really does have a sway on, on society in Australia that follows this and, and talks about it around the water cooler and, you know, amongst friends and it’s just pisses me off no end.

[01:21:10] Ray: Well, it shapes their world. Yeah. Sorry,

[01:21:13] Cameron: Rupert isn’t actually immortal, Tony, um, and a vampire, what happens when Rupert dies, do you think?

[01:21:20] Tony: Well, I think it’s been the big power struggle, and, you know, Michael Wolff and people like that have written books about this, but Lachlan seems to be the anointed successor. There was a battle between James and Lachlan, and we can just go and watch Succession to see how that goes. But, um, James was the, was the more progressive of the two and wanted to shut down, um, Fox News and, and become a, uh, a more, uh, progressive organization.

[01:21:44] Tony: Independent or centrist view in the news media. And Lachlan’s going, nah, this stuff sells. I’m going to back what my dad did. So I, if, if, if Lachlan does take over, when Rupert goes, I think it’s business as usual. It continues on.

[01:21:59] Cameron: Mmm. You don’t think it’ll all be divested?

[01:22:01] Tony: and, and there is concentration in the US too. I mean, I was surprised when my travels over there last year, when I was going to places like Augusta in Georgia and Las Vegas, that the local news station is a Fox News station.

[01:22:14] Tony: So it is still, if you want to turn on the nightly news or the morning news in, in anywhere in America, perhaps outside of New York and LA, you’ll get the Fox News. And it’s the same sort of, um, sly strategy that Murdoch uses here. It’ll be stories about celebrities, stories about sport, that’ll be the headlines, and then there’ll be just this little article about, you know, how it’s, how crime is a problem and how it’s due to the woke nature, woke nature of the legislators or something like that.

[01:22:43] Tony: It’s a, it’s a very well worn, um, playbook for him.

[01:22:47] Cameron: Culture Wars?

[01:22:48] Ray: If it ain’t, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So, and it’s making money, so yeah. Well, my first one we’ve already touched on, we were talking about Israel earlier, and what it is, is um, this war’s been going on for five, what, five and a half months, 32, 000 Palestinians dead, obviously the vast majority of them are innocent civilians, women and children, and what it is, is Biden has, you know, Again said, can we please, can we just please get a six weeks, six week, uh, ceasefire?

[01:23:18] Ray: Let’s exchange the hostages, you know, all that kind of stuff. Uh, Hamas is saying we will not give back any more people until this, there’s a permanent solution, which of course is not going to happen. But the point I want to make is, If America can’t check Israel, then nobody can check Israel, and if they want to go into Rafah, which they’re planning on doing, and it’s going to be a ground campaign with men with machine guns and tanks, uh, there’s going to be a lot of collateral damage, but if we can’t If we can’t get them to slow down or, or whatever, do a cease fire.

[01:23:50] Ray: This is just gonna go on and, and there’s gonna be more and more people and entities that are gonna turn against Israel just because they’re becoming the very monster that they supposedly are trying to defend themselves from. So it’s, it’s just getting, I don’t know who knows where it’s gonna end. It’s not gonna end anytime soon.

[01:24:08] Ray: Does this play into certain Hamas leader’s hands? It seems like it does. I don’t know, but it’s just very scary that this could go on for a very long time and there could end up being hundreds of thousands of deaths, not soldiers, women and children, and it’s just going to happen and we’re not going to, or we can’t stop it unless we’re willing to go in.

[01:24:30] Ray: And we’re not going to do that. So, and there’s an election coming up. It gets convoluted very quickly. So it’s just a nightmare. It’s just like the perfect storm of a nightmare.

[01:24:41] Tony: Where was the, where was the headline that you picked up that story from? Where was it

[01:24:44] Ray: Oh, I got this. I’m sorry. Um, I got it from Reuters. I got this particular, uh, the several articles from Reuters. Um, and what it is, is, um, And, and Netanyahu is pretty much just coming out and saying, look, we’re going to do this no matter what. Uh, let me see if I can find the actual quote. Um, well, there’s the, there’s the Israeli strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, who’s basically saying, we’re quite confident that we can do this.

[01:25:12] Ray: And when he says this, he means the raid on Rafa. We can do this in a way that will be effective, not only militarily, but also on the humanitarian side. So basically, They’re somehow going to send in men in tanks when there’s over a million people in Rafa, and they’re only going to kill the bad guys. And if anybody has studied history for even five minutes, you know that the army is not a scalpel, it’s a broadsword.

[01:25:36] Ray: There will always be. Collateral damage. So the point is, this is going to get, um, very ugly, but as we all know, politics is always local. Netanyahu is going to do whatever he thinks is going to be best for him, his party, whether he needs to get re elected or just to stay in power. They will, they will, just like everybody else, they will do whatever they think is best for them.

[01:26:00] Ray: Um, and it’s probably going to mean the death of a lot of people. Sorry,

[01:26:03] Tony: Yeah, no, look, I, I completely understand what you’re saying, but I want to come back to where you read that because was the headline about Biden trying to stop it or was the headline about Israel going into Rafa?

[01:26:14] Ray: It was, it was more about Israel, and I’m sorry I don’t have it in front of me, but the headline pushed the idea that Netanyahu was going to do whatever he was going to do despite Biden’s for a ceasefire.

[01:26:30] Tony: Yeah.

[01:26:30] Ray: the thrust. Uh, the article, yeah.

[01:26:33] Tony: so yeah. So that’s, I guess that’s the point I wanted to explore. Um, the, the, the story is about, you know, should, it should be Netanyahu, push on into Ra, into, um, Raffa, but the US media puts the headline, Biden tries to stop it, or Biden, you know, is unsuccessful in trying to stop it. So it’s. Again, there’s, there’s, you know, there’s a political slant to the story and I’d like to unpack, you know, who’s pushing that and who benefits from that.

[01:27:04] Ray: Yeah, that’s a good point, because obviously the election’s coming up, Trump is a pro Israel, he’s just gonna back him, and let’s be honest, he doesn’t care, but if there’s anything, I, and I, and Cam, with all due respect, I disagree. I think unless something completely crazy happens, and it’s probably going to, I think Biden’s going to win in, in that it’s not so much Biden winning the election, it’s Trump has alienated so many other people.

[01:27:28] Ray: Unless you’re a white guy, there’s very little reason for you to vote for Trump, but that’s a discussion for another day. But if there’s anything that they can do to chip away at Biden’s chances, and one of them is saying, look, he won’t even support Israel in their hour of need. They were attacked. And if he can’t support them, then is he really the right guy to be the President of the United States?

[01:27:52] Ray: So I, I take your point, Tony.

[01:27:55] Tony: I’m just looking at the betting market for the US elections and Donald Trump is the favorite on Betfair.

[01:28:02] Ray: Mmm,

[01:28:03] Cameron: I’m looking

[01:28:03] Ray: well maybe for me it’s,

[01:28:05] Cameron: FiveThirtyEight’s polls have Trump, um, uh, overall, um, well ahead, but some polls Biden wins, but mostly Trump’s way ahead in the polls.

[01:28:19] Ray: Here’s the next thing, and Tony mentioned Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York. She has already, and this is a very convoluted legal thing, which I am not an expert in, she’s already filled out some of the paperwork to start grabbing possessions of Trump in New York on Monday. Um, we all know that Trump is self centered, we all know Trump is not quite there in the head, but he’s got a proven track record of Browbeating people over decades.

[01:28:44] Ray: He’s very good at it. But what happens when the very base, the very essence, the very thing that makes Trump who he is, he’s a, he’s someone who owns a lot of real estate. What if he suddenly loses, has taken from him some of his real estate? He’s said some crazy things in the last 70 whatever years. I think that’s nothing compared to what he’s going to say between Monday, if she starts taking property.

[01:29:10] Ray: And the election day, it’s literally, it’s like, you’ve got all these models. You’ve got all these predictions. You’ve got all these things. All to me, all of that goes out the window when he truly flies off the cliff, when he starts losing his golf courses and, and his place in New York, something seven, I can’t remember what it’s called anyway.

[01:29:29] Ray: So all the models go out the window when he starts losing. The very things that make him who he

[01:29:35] Tony: Really? He’s been bankrupted six times before. Didn’t hurt his

[01:29:40] Cameron: shit for years. Like he just gets more and more popular. The crazier the shit he says, the more popular he

[01:29:46] Tony: and that’s a good point.

[01:29:47] Ray: with the, within a certain group of, of Americans.

[01:29:51] Cameron: that are going to vote.

[01:29:53] Ray: we, we will say, and Seven Springs, that’s the place. But anyway, so, uh, and maybe on my part, it certainly could be wishful thinking because. He could really fuck up this country if he gets elected again.

[01:30:07] Cameron: the

[01:30:08] Ray: He could really fuck up a lot of things.

[01:30:09] Ray: Yeah.

[01:30:10] Cameron: The fact that he’s ahead in nearly all of the polls at this stage is just mind numbingly fucking mind fucked. Like, what? How? How is that even remotely possible in any sane universe where after Like, when did he start, like, seriously running for president? Like, say, 2014, 2015.

[01:30:37] Cameron: Um, it’s been ten years of Trump insanity, four of which he was actually the president, and, you know, 1. 6 million of whatever Americans died of COVID, and yet he’s still winning in the polls! Like, what?! The fuck? It was crazy enough. I remember when the show that we did on the bullshit filter, when he got elected and, you know, my opening line was, what the actual fuck, America?

[01:31:02] Cameron: Like, I did not expect that to actually happen.

[01:31:07] Tony: what the actual fuck Democratic Party if you can’t beat someone like Trump? Come on.

[01:31:11] Ray: It was, yeah. Hillary.

[01:31:14] Cameron: Well that’s what I said back then, like, after everything that’s happened since then, and he’s still winning in the polls, like, how fucking broken do you have to be as a political party when you can’t even beat Donald Trump in the polls? Like,

[01:31:28] Tony: Yeah, and why are you still running Kamala Harris? I mean, I think there should be a poll as to whether Biden lives to get to the election, but, um, you know, whether you like Biden or not, I think people are saying, forget Biden, he’s not going to make four years. We, we’re not voting for Biden because of Kamala Harris.

[01:31:45] Ray: Exactly. Her negatives, exactly. Her negatives almost rival Hillary’s and you make a very good point. I think what a lot of people are thinking is like, well, let’s get Biden elected and then he could die and we’ll have Kamala. And she’s not perfect, but the point is she’s not Trump, but there’s enough, how should I put this delicately?

[01:32:02] Ray: There’s enough white Democrats who would rather not see her be president. Uh, you know, For four years, if Biden can’t, if Biden were to win and then not be able to fulfill his duties. So racism is still quite powerful in America. We cannot, America still got a ways, a ways to go. We still got a ways to go.

[01:32:24] Ray: Speaking of which,

[01:32:26] Tony: The other, the other issue about, sorry, just, sorry, right, before you leave that topic, the other issue that there was a good opinion piece that I read in the, um, our financial review today saying that, um, if Trump is bankrupted, that it does expose him to being supported by foreign actors, um, to, to pay for his campaign and get him into office.

[01:32:45] Tony: And that’s, that’s got to be a risk for the U. S. in some, in some respect.

[01:32:49] Ray: not only is it a risk, but Alina Haba was asked that very question in the last 24 hours. And they said he, that they, they said something like, they asked her, we’ve heard rumors that Trump has made feelers to Saudi Arabia. And Russia, uh, about maybe someone helping him out in his moment of need. Um, and of course she’s a lawyer so she gave a very vague answer.

[01:33:13] Ray: She’s like, well, there are certain rules and stuff like that, but all options are being explored, but you’re absolutely right if you have, if, like Elon Musk said something like, um, if I loan, I’m not gonna loan Trump money, but if I loaned him the money, And he wins. To have the President of the United States owe me big time?

[01:33:31] Ray: That would be incredible! You know, you could, you could write your own laws or whatever, but it’s a very valid, uh, Criticism.

[01:33:37] Cameron: Isn’t that how the system’s always worked?

[01:33:40] Tony: It is.

[01:33:41] Cameron: said before, that’s why the mafia assassinated Kennedy, because they got him elected. That was in 1959.

[01:33:49] Ray: yeah. So Trump could be in jail and still win the election, and then I guess he could just pardon himself.

[01:33:57] Ray: Except for the stuff in Georgia. That’s a state crime. He cannot pardon himself for that. Yes. Who he could run this country from the jailhouse. What? That would be awesome. That would be

[01:34:07] Cameron: Alright, I took the New York Times, and there was a number of, uh, things on the front page on this day, which was Wednesday, March 20th, but the one that I chose was, Heating Beijing, Hong Kong Passes Anti Dissent Bill.

[01:34:23] Ray: Oh, mm-Hmm.

[01:34:24] Cameron: Um, now interestingly enough, the front page of the New York Times paper on that day, when you compare it to their online today’s paper, Uh, Things are a little bit different.

[01:34:36] Cameron: Um, the, the article, same article, but, um, the headline in the online version was Hong Kong adopts sweeping security laws bowing to Beijing. Slightly different.

[01:34:53] Ray: Tone,

[01:34:54] Cameron: that was, that was the story that I picked up on. So first of all, the term bowing to Beijing, or in the paper version, heeding Beijing.

[01:35:02] Ray: mm hmm,

[01:35:03] Cameron: In other words.

[01:35:05] Cameron: Obeying the government because Hong Kong is a part of China and Beijing is Chinese government. So, but when they do something that the government wants, they’re bowing. To the government or heeding the government, just the very terminology of the headline speaks volumes. And one of the things I’ve learned about the New York Times over the years we’ve been doing this show, and I’ve been dissecting and analyzing, it is, it’s really interesting when it comes to domestic stories, uh, I think the New York Times is actually Quite reasonable journalism.

[01:35:41] Cameron: Whenever they’re dealing with a quote unquote foreign adversary is where it’s just bias to the hills. Like it’s written by the State Department or the CIA when you read the New York Times foreign adversaries. And this is, you know, we’ve done stuff on Cuba and Venezuela and looked at how blatantly biased the New York Times coverage is.

[01:36:02] Cameron: This is another one. So it’s bowing to Beijing. Which suggests, when you read it, that Hong Kong is some sort of independent country that’s being told what to do by the Chinese government, not that it is China. So

[01:36:20] Ray: They’re being bullied, the perception. Yeah.

[01:36:22] Cameron: um, and one of the things that I did is I read the New York Times article and then I read The coverage in the South China Morning Post, which is a pro Chinese paper based out of Hong Kong, but reading their coverage of it where they were, they were criticizing the Western media coverage of this passing of the laws.

[01:36:43] Cameron: So they’re both biased, right? But it was interesting to get the two sides of the story. So Alex Lowe, longtime journalist with the SCMP, and I read the SCMP every day. It’s like Haaretz. I read Haaretz every morning. I read the SCMP every morning. When I say read, I scan it and a whole bunch of global news sources, just part of my waking up routine every morning.

[01:37:04] Cameron: He writes, since there are 160 articles under the basic law, I suppose our critics can claim that we have been bowing to Beijing 160 times since Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule in 1997. New York Times article says, The new legislation which was passed with extraordinary speed. Low says, The passage of the domestic national security law has taken almost 27 years, yet some of them describe it as being fast tracked.

[01:37:35] Cameron: So for anyone who remembers. They tried to pass laws like this in Hong Kong, uh, like 23 years ago or something in the early 2000s and there were massive protests about it. Um, and so they’ve been trying to pass these national security laws, basically rewriting the laws that were left over from the British rural era for decades.

[01:38:03] Cameron: And they finally got it through, but in the Western media, it’s fast tracked through. Like they have literally been trying to get this passed for decades. The New York Times says the new laws are establishing penalties including life imprisonment for political crimes like treason and insurrection which are vaguely defined.

[01:38:26] Cameron: It also targets offences like external inference, sorry, external interference, interference in quotation marks. And the theft of state secrets, creating potential risks for multinational companies and international groups operating in the Asian financial center. So, for a start, I like the fact that they put external interference in quotation marks, like it’s not a real thing, they just made it up.

[01:38:55] Cameron: MEANWHILE, THE U. S. IS TRYING TO BAN TIKTOK! Because of external interference, and multi nati like it’s a multinational company that’s operating in the American financial center, and they’re trying to ban it or force the sale of it. Under by the way, under current US federal law, anyone convicted of treason against the United States can face the possibility of death.

[01:39:22] Cameron: Or at least five years in prison. Um, but in China, in Hong Kong, it’s apparently really bad that you could get life imprisonment for treason. In America, you can get the death penalty, but they don’t point that out in the article. By the way, Yeah, we get the death penalty here for it, but they’re just doing prison.

[01:39:43] Cameron: It also says that in the US, the punishment for insurrection or rebellion against the authority of the United States, or for giving aid or comfort to its enemies, can lead to a fine imprisonment of up to 10 years and ineligibility to hold any office under the, in the United States. So. But in the, but in Hong Kong now you can get imprisonment for treason.

[01:40:06] Cameron: That’s apparently big news and a horrible thing, but in the US, um,

[01:40:11] Tony: to China and of course there’s been a lot of people getting five to 10 year jail terms after January 6th as well.

[01:40:17] Cameron: Yes. Now, uh, Lowe in the SM, in the South China Morning Post says, you don’t get to pick and choose which constitutional provisions you will respect and legislate and which to ignore and denigrate, or at least that’s what Western societies claim is the basis of constitutionalism. But if it’s being done by some other societies to which they are antagonistic.

[01:40:36] Cameron: Their propagandists will enter a united front to claim you can’t do it, even if that’s how we do it. It’s the same old, do as I say, not as I, not as I do.

[01:40:47] Ray: I love that. Yeah.

[01:40:49] Tony: be interesting to see what happens to the financial district in Hong Kong. There’s been some moves out of Hong Kong to Singapore by some of the big banks, big players, and there’s been speculation that the inaction of that law may cause more, but it’ll be interesting to see if it actually does.

[01:41:04] Cameron: And if they do, is that an inference that they’re actually encouraging treason and insurrection in Hong Kong? And if, if, if a law passes against treason and insurrection, and you have to leave the country, Uhhhhhhhhhh

[01:41:22] Tony: Yeah, we’re not guilty, nothing to see here.

[01:41:24] Cameron: Yeah,

[01:41:25] Ray: I’m leaving anyway,

[01:41:26] Cameron: it’s not because of that.

[01:41:28] Ray: gotta go, yeah,

[01:41:30] Cameron: health reasons. It’s like when, who was the CEO over here that just, uh, resigned?

[01:41:36] Cameron: Uh, Amcor. The Amcor CEO I pointed out in the Facebook chat group just resigned due to health reasons. I was like, yeah, sure it is. Yeah, that’s, that’s the go to line, right? Uh, New York Times says analysts say that analysts Say the legislation, which will take effect on March 23rd, could have a chilling effect on a wide range of people, including entrepreneurs, civil servants, lawyers, diplomats, journalists and academics, raising questions about Hong Kong’s status as an international city.

[01:42:09] Cameron: Analysts say. Very Trumpy, I thought. It’s like, people say that I’m the greatest president who ever lived. New York Times analysts say, which analysts? Were they? New York

[01:42:20] Cameron: Times? No.

[01:42:21] Tony: That’s very sloppy journalism, isn’t it?

[01:42:23] Cameron: don’t quote any particular analysts that say that. We just say, analysts say. Um, So, Lew, again, from the SCMP, talking about American criticisms, writes, This is coming from the same government that has been aiding and abetting Israel to commit genocidal acts against Palestinians by supplying them with some of the most destructive weapons known to man.

[01:42:45] Cameron: America’s murderous hypocrisy used to make me laugh, now it just makes me sick to my stomach.

[01:42:52] Ray: Nice line.

[01:42:53] Cameron: I mean, drawing maybe a bit of a long bow here, comparing domestic laws with support for genocide. But I would point to the current American president, uh, Joe Biden, Lazy Joe Biden. Um, what is it, like, uh, Forgetful Joe Biden. Um, his claim to fame, as people may or may not remember, before becoming VP in 2008, was how he pushed through tough on crime laws in 1984, 1986, 1988, and 1995. For the big one, which according to many studies, and I’m not just saying that I can point you to them if you want me to, led to mass incarcerations in the US.

[01:43:38] Cameron: There’s some debate over whether the federal law did that or they were state laws and his tough on crime stuff was just copying what was already happening at a state by state basis. But he was part of the whole very, very public justification on pushing through tough on crime laws in that 10 year period.

[01:43:58] Cameron: Which, whether it was at a federal level or a state level, um, pushed through, uh, you know, millions of families ended up in jails. But at the time of the 1994 law, during the Clinton administration, he publicly bragged how the Democratic Party at the time was supporting 60 new death penalties, 70 enhanced penalties, 100, 000 more cops, and 125, 000 new state prison cells.

[01:44:28] Cameron: That was Joe Biden’s public bragging in 1994 about how tough the Democratic Party was getting on crime. Let’s also recall that the United States of America currently has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. And has a greater percentage of incarceration of its population than any other country in the world, including China, Cuba, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

[01:44:57] Cameron: In addition to people actually in jail, 4. 8 million Americans are on probation or parole, which means on top of the 3 million odd, uh, People in jail. You’ve got over 7 million people under correctional control in the United States, 3 percent of the adult population that in many places therefore can’t vote, etc, etc, etc.

[01:45:19] Cameron: Um, so the hypocrisy of the New York Times on this and, and, and, and the lack of comparison with China versus the United States position on all these sorts of things always astounds me. I’m going to play a clip. This is guy now, this guy, Nury, he’s um, a British, British. journalist who lives in Hong Kong. Um, uh, some people say that he’s, you know, paid by the CCP.

[01:45:47] Cameron: He’s very pro CCP in his content, but it’s worth listening to as, you know, worth reading the SCMP. Here’s his, um, I’ll just play the first minute or two of this. Hopefully you guys will be able to hear it. Okay. This is the thing that started playing when it shouldn’t have before. Yuri Itachi. Western media outlets are telling you that China has imposed a tough security law on Hong Kong.

[01:46:13] Cameron: Ooooooh. But I live in Hong Kong and people in general here are happy about it. Why? Because we know something that the world is not being told. And I’m going to tell you what. First, this law specifically targets the hybrid warfare techniques used by the US, often called colour revolutions. Hong Kong leader John Lee said that in so many words.

[01:46:36] Cameron: Now the technique is for US agents to quietly go overseas and incite protests that build a very specific, a very particular narrative. Let me show you. The same colour revolution script was used in Hong Kong in 2019 and reused in Bangkok afterwards. Now on the left is the Hong Kong. So here he’s putting up media coverage of the protests in Thailand and the protests in Hong Kong and they’re almost identical.

[01:47:05] Cameron: Like, he’s got them side by side. You can see the exact same narrative, the exact same photographs being reused. To tell these stories. It’s quite interesting. And you know, his allegations about color revolutions in the U. S. We’ve talked about that a lot on this show. Uh, Tony and I talked about it, uh, on the Putin show last month.

[01:47:26] Cameron: This is fairly well accepted by critics of America’s, um, role in geopolitics around the world, Mearsheimer, Chomsky. People like that, people have analyzed this stuff is the so called color revolutions that happened in the early 2000s, uh, were being driven, engineered, supported to varying degrees by the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, all of America’s, you know, quasi government funded, uh, Uh, institutions in these countries that supposedly support democracy.

[01:48:05] Cameron: And this gets back to what you and I are talking about in the Cold War show at the moment, Ray. The playbook that they used in Iran in 1953 to overthrow Mossadegh, which is to take huge buckets of money and funnel them covertly into a country to fund criminal elements, um, political opposition, Uh, whatever it is, media, to buy media coverage, to basically create massive amounts of discontent, to organize protests, and, you know, as many people believe, happened in Ukraine in 2004 and 2014, actually to fund and organize and orchestrate it.

[01:48:44] Cameron: revolutions to topple governments, covertly run. And, you know, as in the case with Iran, America didn’t admit to this until 50 years after the events, denied it for 50 years, and then went, Oh, that, yeah, no, no, we did. We did do that when the, when the, you know, the, the laws on, um, secrecy and, you know, freedom of information were up, they finally had to go, Oh, yeah, no, that thing we’ve been not denying for, wait, no, no, that, that was.

[01:49:14] Cameron: Us. Yeah, we did that. Um, so he’s, he’s got a point on whether or not, to what degree, I shouldn’t say whether or not, to what degree that that’s happening in Hong Kong.

[01:49:25] Ray: hmm.

[01:49:25] Cameron: You know, I don’t know, but, and probably won’t know for 50 years, but it’s, it’s definitely happening at some level. And

[01:49:31] Tony: Well, there was, sorry, I was going to say, there certainly was strong pro democracy protests in Hong Kong a couple of years ago. So,

[01:49:39] Cameron: Yeah. But the question

[01:49:40] Cameron: is, to what degree are they being funded and driven by the US? Yeah. You know, we’ve got a story I’ve been meaning to do on Bullshit Filter, um, we might do it in Cold War actually, coming up, is how the US was involved in Tibet. And the, the problems that China had with Tibet back in the fifties, which led to China taking over Tibet and everything that happened there.

[01:50:07] Cameron: You know, they were, they were involved in supporting the Kuomintang in Taiwan. They were involved in trying to, uh, influence what was going on in Tibet, trying to, you know, uh, topple the Maoist control over different regions of China. As we’ve talked about on this show, they’d been doing in Xinjiang. Um, it’s a whole part of the Uyghur pro, um, independence movement, largely influenced by the CIA last 20 years in the outskirts of China.

[01:50:38] Cameron: So anyway, that’s New York Times very, very biased, uh, coverage of, um, the Hong Kong vote.

[01:50:47] Tony: Yeah. I mean, it must be a legislative issue there, too, which hasn’t been drawn out. But if Hong Kong is a state and it had conflicting laws to the You know, tip it on its head, if Virginia came out and said we have these laws which are completely different and overridden by the federal ones, we have to change our laws to come into law. They couldn’t pass laws in Virginia that are unconstitutional. And

[01:51:16] Ray: There’s a hierarchy.

[01:51:17] Tony: thing, I guess the same thing applies in Hong Kong, but that’s not covered in the article.

[01:51:23] Ray: Right.

[01:51:23] Cameron: it’s the same thing with Xinjiang, like when the, um, when the, they were bringing Xinjiang into line with, um, China’s one child policy and, or, you know, the removal of the one child policy even, and, and, and increasing the amount of children that a family can have, people, you know, the Western media was saying, oh, they’re oppressing the Uyghurs and the amount of children they gave.

[01:51:47] Cameron: No, they were just, actually, the, that community had been given an exemption on the one child policy for decades, then they removed the one child policy and moved it up to like two or three kids, three kids you could have. They were bringing Xinjiang down into that level and they were like, oh, they’re oppressing the Uyghurs.

[01:52:06] Cameron: And the Chinese are going, no, we were just bringing it into line with the rest of the country and our policy on birth rates. But that was never told in the Western media versions of the story. All right. I’m cognizant of the fact that we’re two hours in, we haven’t even got to story number three.

[01:52:21] Tony: Yeah.

[01:52:22] Cameron: I’ve, I suggest that we maybe put a, draw a line under it.

[01:52:25] Cameron: Cause the next story is going to take another hour at least to talk about China’s economy. Maybe we can save that for next month.

[01:52:33] Ray: There we go,

[01:52:34] Tony: Sounds good.

[01:52:35] Cameron: Thank you boys. That was fun as always. Thank you, TK. Thank

[01:52:39] Tony: Yeah, thank you. Thanks for the invite. Thanks, Ray.

[01:52:41] Ray: yeah, thank you sir, gentlemen, yes, all

[01:52:46] Cameron: a good, have a good month.

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My guest co-host today is Tony Kynaston from the QAV Investing Podcast. We’re talking about the Tucker Carlson interview with Putin and breaking down the lies, distortions and misinformation ABOUT the interview that we’re reading in the mainstream media, and asking why there is a need to distort Putin’s words in the West.

Transcript

BS 123
[00:00:00] Tony: 3,
[00:00:12] Tony: 2, 1.
[00:00:13] Cameron: Welcome to the Bullshit Filter episode 123 Special edition because, uh, Ray has been replaced
[00:00:23] Cameron: with a, uh, smarter, better looking version of Ray, uh, my o my other Ray Tony
[00:00:30] Cameron: Kynaston, and welcome to the Bullshit
[00:00:33] Cameron: Filter, Tony.
[00:00:35] Tony: Thank you, Cam. Thanks for the invite. And I, I feel special
[00:00:39] Cameron: Uh, you invited, you, you, you invited yourself? I think, uh,
[00:00:43] Cameron: actually, yeah. Yeah.
[00:00:45] Tony: I do.
[00:00:46] Cameron: We had a lot, we had a lot of people offered to come on, and I appreciate everyone’s offers, but I did say condition was, you had to watch the Putin interview. No one else, uh, seemed to be up for that. Tony goes, yeah, I can do that.
[00:00:58] Cameron: So he
[00:01:00] Tony: And that, and that was a high price to
[00:01:01] Tony: pay too, by the way.
[00:01:02] Cameron: Was it?
[00:01:03] Tony: Well, I didn’t mind listening to Putin, but
[00:01:06] Tony: Tucker Carlson, gimme a break.
[00:01:09] Cameron: Well, the, the upside is he didn’t, didn’t have much to say in the two
[00:01:13] Tony: it was a, I think a, a journalist would call that a softball interview.
[00:01:17] Cameron: Well, they’ve called it much, much worse than that. But look, and, and here’s, you know, there’s, there’s a couple of reasons for me being interested in this. Uh, number one.
[00:01:28] Cameron: Yeah. Uh, Putin’s obviously a, a major player in global geopolitics right now, and we don’t get to actually hear from him very often in the west.
[00:01:40] Cameron: Uh, and this is the first interview that an American journalist has got with him in over two years since the, this latest phase of the war, uh, began, the invasion began. Um, secondly, uh, you know, I think he’s, uh, he’s an interesting character. You, you know, you, you, you don’t run Russia for twenty-five years or whatever it’s been now, um, without having something going on.
[00:02:10] Cameron: He’s a smart canny player. Brutal, probably. And thirdly, and this is, I guess the main focus I want to give is just the level of outrage in the Western media about. Interview itself, even existing about Carlson doing the interview and, uh, and, and the outrage about the things that Putin allegedly said, which he didn’t actually say, I think, in the interview.
[00:02:45] Cameron: So I wanna cover the media coverage of it, and that’s kinda what the bullshit Filter originally was about, was looking at media coverage of big stories in the West and picking them apart to see if they’re providing a fair and reasonable, uh, coverage of the stories or if it’s bullshit. And I’ve read a lot of new stories about this and, and by and large, uh, I’m calling bullshit on a lot of it.
[00:03:12] Cameron: Anyway, let’s start with the interview, Tony. Um, I mean, I, you and I, I don’t think have talked a great deal about we, uh, Putin or Russia or Ukraine. Do you wanna give me your high level view on what’s been going on over there for the last 10 years?
[00:03:31] Tony: I’m not sure I can or I’m qualified. You, you probably know that far better than I
[00:03:36] Cameron: No.
[00:03:36] Cameron: one on this show has ever qualified
[00:03:38] Tony: yeah.
[00:03:38] Cameron: anything, don’t he?
[00:03:40] Tony: Well, you talk interesting, you said 10 years. I assume you’re referring back to the last time the
[00:03:45] Tony: government changed when, um, uh, Russia, annexed Crimea, and then there was a bit of a coup around that time as Well, Is that what you’re talking about? Is that why you said 10 years?
[00:03:55] Cameron: Well, uh, yeah. So Putin’s view, and, and I
[00:03:59] Cameron: tend to agree with him, is that in 2014 in Ukraine there was a coup, it was a US.
[00:04:05] Cameron: Uh, supported, if not engineered coup. There was an earlier coup, it was a 2004 coup, then there was the 2014 coup, uh, both led slash supported slash engineered, we believe by the, I believe by the United States.
[00:04:22] Cameron: To what degree? It’s hard to say, but there seems to be sufficient evidence to say that they were involved to some degree. Um, but you know, it’s the last 10 years is really when the Donbass situation became a thing. The Crimea became a thing, et cetera, et
[00:04:38] Cameron: cetera. Yeah.
[00:04:40] Tony: Yeah, I found it really hard to, to get to the truth, I guess, on the Donbass thing. I remember, um, when the, uh, probably prior to the Ukraine war, um, starting, I, I did hear some interviews. I think it was on the BBC World Service with, uh, which alleged that there was a flood of. Russian-speaking, um, Russian-affiliated Ukrainians crossing the border back into Russia.
[00:05:09] Tony: And that, that was because of alleged persecution from neo-Nazis in Ukraine on that sort of border region. And therefore, that was the justification for Putin having to take action. So, um, I tried to look up those articles in preparation for this and I couldn’t find them. So I can’t really talk about it in depth, but, but it’s, to me, it’s really hard to, to drill down and find out exactly what’s going on.
[00:05:35] Tony: Um, uh, it, it’s been hard as it always is in, I guess in a wartime situation. It’s been hard to get even accurate information about what’s going on in Ukraine during the war. And I probably relied a bit more on Al Jazeera for, for news on that rather than the Western media. Um, now Al Jazeera does have its problems too, but at least it was reporting issues like that.
[00:05:58] Tony: Pretty failure. And it was actually quite riveting the way they were reporting they were on the ground in the early days, reporting as, as suburb by suburb. The Russians started to get close to Kiev and, and get into Kiev and what was going on there. So that was, that was far better than the Western journalism.
[00:06:15] Tony: Um, and it was far more independent. So, uh, listening to the Putin interview, I think it was really interesting when he started to talk about his point of view on things like, uh, the, uh, the visit of Zelensky to the Canadian Parliament when the speaker and the Canadian parliament, uh, praised a, a war hero who turned out to be a, um, a Nazi or a neo-Nazi.
[00:06:39] Tony: A Nazi, I think actually. And then the speaker had to resign. So that didn’t get, that was the first time I’d heard of that. That didn’t get much coverage over here at all. So there is obviously two sides to every story. And I think, you know, it’s a show like this, which is good to pull it apart because. You know, as, as you know, it’s, um, the media is one of the institutions that manipulates us in, in our points of view and our, our lifestyles.
[00:07:03] Tony: And definitely in the West, that can be shaped by just straight capitalism and who, uh, who is paying for what ads in the media and, and who, what kind of agendas are they pushing and what kind
[00:07:16] Tony: of, uh, you know, political, uh, persuasions are they pushing and or do they have allegiances to or do they control?
[00:07:23] Tony: So it’s a, it’s a big issue.
[00:07:25] Cameron: mm It is, and it it, you know, I guess part of the reason
[00:07:31] Cameron: for me being interested in doing this show
[00:07:33] Cameron: is, uh, you know, the historian side of me knows how I. Regularly Western populations have been lied to historically during wars, uh, going back to World War I all the way through to, you know, Vietnam, um, and the, the Gulf Wars.
[00:07:53] Cameron: And, you know, there seems to be this fascinating cycle where we go through a war, we go through a conflict that we’re either directly involved in or indirectly involved in. And the government of the day and the media of the day spin a whole bunch of propaganda about it. We find out years later that they lied or spun or manipulated or there was no evidence for WMD and, you know, the attacks on this ship or that ship weren’t really
[00:08:25] Cameron: attacks ill that Yeah.
[00:08:28] Cameron: And, and the media says Mia culpa will never do that again. I. And the people tend to say, wah-ha. Now we understand that we will never be lied to again. And then the cycle just repeats. You know, within a decade there’s another incident and the media jump on board. The governments jump on board and the people just go along for the ride and believe everything again.
[00:08:50] Cameron: And inevitably a few years later they’ll go, oh no, we were lied to. Oh,
[00:08:53] Cameron: never again, you know?
[00:08:56] Tony: Well, you raised some great points, Cam, and they’re pertinent to this topic as well. And you know, it’s interesting, I think that there is no crime of misrepresentation in journalism, even though journalists will always say, we need to get to the facts and we want to, um, report them objectively, and we need two sources and we need hard evidence if none of those things happen.
[00:09:16] Tony: They get off Scot-free, and in fact, if they don’t happen, their readership may actually go up. So that’s, that’s the first thing to, to address what you’ve said. But the second thing about what you’re saying as well is that, particularly in this case, there’s an awful lot of money involved. Um, you know, Congress has stalled now on a multi-billion dollar aid package to Ukraine.
[00:09:38] Tony: And as, as we both know, that, that aid probably won’t ever reach Ukraine. It’ll be given to American companies providing arms to, uh, Ukraine, which is, which is fine in terms of helping Ukraine, uh, fight off the Russians, but it’s, it, you know, leads you to think, well, who’s behind that? Who benefits from that?
[00:09:56] Tony: And it’s the arms dealers in the, in the us the ominous manufacturers in the us. To benefit from it. So they’re always spoiling for a fight. ’cause it, it’s a good way to increase sales. So, um, yeah. The, the last 10 years, has it, has it been a swing to the Western Ukraine and has it been natural that Ukraine has therefore felt, um, more antagonistic or antagonized by Russia?
[00:10:24] Tony: And has that been fueled by the military-industrial complex in the US who are saying, well, you know, we, we kinda like it that there could be an antagonism on the border. It may actually work out for us.
[00:10:37] Cameron: mm
[00:10:41] Cameron: mm mm
[00:10:47] Cameron: mm mm mm mm. Mm mm. The, there, there are certain interests in Western countries who love good war because it’s economically profitable. And it’s not just the, the weapons manufacturers, it’s the media. ’cause big conflicts drive newspaper sales, television viewership, radio listeners, which means you can sell more ads.
[00:11:09] Cameron: Uh, and they’re cross related, obvious, uh, uh, often ownership issues between the owners of big media companies and the owners of weapons manufacturers. And, but it’s also, as we’ve, we’ve talked about on the Cold War Show, uh, many, many times and on this show, when there have been studies done on this in the US primarily. Who benefits from the industrial military complex over there? It’s not just weapon manufacturers, it’s businesses of all shapes and sizes. Because particularly US America’s, 800 odd military bases around the world need socks and condoms and food and computers and software paperclips, right? And so every congress person, every senator in the US has people in their district who run businesses, who have Pentagon contracts, and it’s a big chunk of their revenue.
[00:12:05] Cameron: And it’s easy money once you have that contract. It’s not competitive. They’re not like, uh, running a, a tender every year for this. If you’ve got it, you’ve got it. Quite often there’s, there’s a sense of urgency. Oh, we just need the stuff. We’ve gotta get it now. It’s urgent. We need it
[00:12:22] Tony: It’s a rush job.
[00:12:23] Cameron: Yeah. So it’s, it’s good for business.
[00:12:27] Cameron: Anyway, back to the coverage. So most of the coverage that I’ve read, and obviously I haven’t read everything, but I try and get a smattering of, you know, I, I read the BBC and the New York Times, and the Guardian and the ABC here in Australia and CBC in Canada, and try and get a coverage of what the, the major media outlets, uh, saying about this.
[00:12:47] Cameron: It’s a combination, I think, of lies, outright lies and distortion of what Putin said. And a lot of it is just attacking Carlson, both for giving Putin airtime in the first place, or for his weak interviewing skills. To me, the only real crime Carlson committed is having a very punchable face. Uh, he’s, he, he’s just one of those guys that just Chrissie walked through the, the living room a couple of times and I thought she’s going, oh my God, I just wanna punch him in the face.
[00:13:25] Tony: Yeah, he’s a smug white man, isn’t he?
[00:13:27] Cameron: He is, look, he is, uh, like, I mean, you’ve gotta be a pretty horrible person for the Murdochs to get rid of you. You know, when he got fired from Fox
[00:13:36] Cameron: last year, he was the most viewed cable network host in, not only in Fox, but in the United States. And they got rid of him when they were in the dominion of Voting Systems lawsuit.
[00:13:50] Cameron: And a whole bunch of his texts and emails were gonna become released as evidence. And, you know, it was just evident that he was a racist, vile piece of shit. And it, it was probably gonna cost them. Uh, and, you know, he was up on harassment, uh, accusations from employees. And it had come out that while they were pushing Trump in the last election behind the scenes, he was saying that he hated Trump.
[00:14:17] Cameron: And Trump was awful and he hoped Trump loses so they wouldn’t have to talk about him anymore. I dunno if that’s in the plus or the minus column for him, but he, you know, he was saying that internally, but publicly
[00:14:28] Cameron: praising Trump, you know, so
[00:14:30] Tony: Oh, and pushing the, pushing the voter fraud argument for Trump. That’s why he was so pivotal in that Dominion settlement. That’s an interesting book by Michael Wolf, if anyone wants to read it, to go through that whole process and
[00:14:41] Tony: how they thought in um, offering up Carlson’s resignation, it might help lower the settlement, but it didn’t.
[00:14:46] Tony: Of course, they paid a record settlement to, um, to the Dominion to drop the case.
[00:14:52] Cameron: So I’m in no way, shape or form a fan of Tucker Carlson or, uh, uh, trying to apologize for Tucker Carlson. But
[00:15:01] Cameron: I, I, I think the, the amount of coverage that’s given in these stories to, instead of coverage of what Putin actually said is disproportionate.
[00:15:12] Tony: Right.
[00:15:13] Cameron: If they don’t actually, when they do talk about Putin, they don’t tend to address his actual claims.
[00:15:18] Cameron: One of the exceptions by the way, is Al Jazeera, like the Al Jazeera coverage is typically very dry and factual. Here are the five major points that Putin made in the interview kind of thing, right? So I agree with you, Al Jazeera increasingly is the place where I go to, if I want to actually find out what’s going on or what was said.
[00:15:38] Cameron: Um, they don’t talk about Putin’s actual claims. You know, about NATO enlargement, about the CIA blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, which we’ve talked about a lot on this show over the last year or so about the US and the UK preventing Ukraine from agreeing to a negotiated end of the conflict early on, which we’ve also talked about a lot on the show.
[00:15:58] Cameron: Like a lot of the points that Putin was making are valid. Uh, and you know, we’ve gone over them in previous episodes, so I’m not gonna like reiterate all of them, but the, the. Key issue here is that the Western media, by and large, doesn’t talk about them. If they do, they dismiss them in a couple of words as being nonsense and just move on.
[00:16:23] Cameron: Like there’s no real addressing of the issues in a serious way. And the two questions that I have, Tony, is one, why the lying by the media? Why the lying and the distortion? Why is it that the media needs to demonize our enemies and the Western journalists? And it’s not just when it comes to external enemies.
[00:16:45] Cameron: This happens over and over with internal enemies. We’ve seen this with Julian Assange, we’ve seen this with Glenn Greenwald, we’ve seen this with Matt Tabe. These are, you know, journalists who, when they’re writing stories that the left in support of, they’re considered heroes of the left when they’re attacking the right.
[00:17:07] Cameron: As soon as they write stories that are attacking. The left, particularly the Democrats in the us, they’re vilified not only by, you know, democratic politicians, but all of the Democratic supporters and the media. They attack their own, they eat their young attack. The journalists as being, you know, when Matt Tabe was writing the, uh, Twitter files stuff, he got absolutely attacked mercilessly by the rest of the media.
[00:17:36] Cameron: Greenwald gets it every time. He, you know, says something negative about a Democratic administration. Julian Assange obviously still in prison, and, uh, they’re trying to extradite him so he can serve 173 years in jail in the United States for revealing their crimes. And the second question, building on that is, is how is it coordinated?
[00:17:59] Cameron: How is it that all of the Western media in this particular instance, seem to have the same script? How does that work? How is it coordinated? Like there’s plenty of clips, I dunno if you’ve seen them on YouTube, where they do this with say, Fox News, where they’ll have, uh, you know, one reporter or on one of the shows on Fox, uh, not just on Fox News, but all the Fox stuff making a statement about, you know, this something wrong with the system.
[00:18:28] Cameron: And then they’ll just start adding clips of different Fox hosts saying the exact same words. And it’s just, they, they often when it’s talking about, you know, we’re fair and balanced and giving you independent thinking and it’s just, they’re all reading from the same script. So, and obviously it’s easy to understand how that happens inside of one outlet, but how does it happen right across.
[00:18:51] Cameron: Countries, different media outlets, some of them supposedly independent, like not government, uh, or, or the ABC, whatever we call the ABC here. Like it’s a independent government funded media company that supposedly independent and, and, you know, aspires to a higher level of journalistic integrity. But they’re singing from the same hymn sheet as Fox News and MSNBC and everybody else.
[00:19:23] Cameron: I can’t figure out really how that works if it’s coordinated or it’s just, Hey, we’re on this side of the, we’re on this side of the camp, so we’re just gonna
[00:19:35] Cameron: jump on board.
[00:19:36] Tony: Well, I think the answer is multifaceted. I think lazy journalism plays a part. So, you know, if Tucker Carlson broadcasts an interview overnight in Australian time, then there’s probably gonna be something on the wire. So on the Reuters or AAP or whoever else that these news outlets use, summarizing it.
[00:19:56] Tony: And they, oftentimes, it’s, it’s not the headline story for Australian News, so they’ll just copy and paste paragraphs and put it into their, their newspaper or into teleprompter for the news, and then maybe a day or two later realize they’ve got some of the things wrong, but it’s the news cycles moved on then.
[00:20:12] Tony: So I think lazy journalism is a part, I don’t think there’s a coordinated effort apart from that. I mean, those, those wire services go into every news outlet in the world. So there is a certain amount of similarity in, in what gets reported,
[00:20:28] Cameron: A Reuters or an
[00:20:28] Cameron: AAP feed that they’re grabbing it from.
[00:20:30] Tony: Correct, yeah. Quickly. And, you know, having an editor shout at them that the deadline’s looming and we have to put a story out about Putin.
[00:20:39] Tony: Um, I think there’s a bit of that. I think there’s also, unfortunately, these days probably, maybe it’s always been the same, but it didn’t feel that way when I was younger. There’s more of it these days where it’s an echo chamber. The media’s, the media outlets have drawn sides, which I think is also behind the attacks on Tucker Carlson.
[00:20:58] Tony: He’s from the other side and he’s an easy target, so we’re gonna focus on him. We’re not of that side because our listeners, our readers wanna hear something, you know, written about. It’s written about what they think. Um, and their, their point of view was they’re against the war in Ukraine, they’re against Putin and therefore against Putin, and they’re against.
[00:21:19] Tony: Fox News and therefore Tucker Carlson, even though Tucker Carlson doesn’t work for Fox News anymore. So there’s, there’s that kind of mindset as well. The, the tribalism of the media is more exaggerated these days I think, as well. Um, and then there’s the political sphere of things too. The tribalism either bled from politics or it’s bled into politics from the media, but the same sort of thing.
[00:21:40] Tony: I mean, uh, media Bytes a show on the ABC here at nine 30 in Australia on a Monday night regularly shows every morning news presenter across the commercial networks across the ABC saying the same thing, using the same phrase. So, you know, there’s an element of, of, um, it’s quick journalism. It’s coming from the same source, and occasionally they’re putting their
[00:22:02] Tony: own slant on it to try and appeal to their audience and
[00:22:05] Tony: get them to keep listening and watching what they say.
[00:22:08] Cameron: I think you’re probably right. Um, I think media outlets. No, you know, it’s an increasingly competitive media landscape and hard to run a profitable media business. Um, there’s been a number of articles I’ve read over the last month or so about all the major newspapers in the us, including the ones bought by billionaires like Jeff Bezos are struggling to make money.
[00:22:34] Cameron: They’re, they’re bleeding money and, uh, you know, smaller media outlets like Vice have shut down ’cause they couldn’t become or maintain profitable. Um, it’s, it’s a tough time out there. So they, you know, there’s business people knowing who their audience is. This is what our audience wants to hear, this is what our advertisers need to hear us say.
[00:22:58] Cameron: So they’ll continue to support it and you
[00:23:00] Cameron: just toe the line.
[00:23:02] Tony: Yeah, I was, I mean, I’d add to that. That, um, it was really the internet which killed journalism because when classified ads moved from newspapers to online, and we had companies like Seek in Australia and Realestate.com.au and Domain, and they’ve got other examples around the world where home ads and job ads go online.
[00:23:26] Tony: Then the newspapers lost what was called the rivers of gold, and they became unprofitable and they started sucking journalists to try and, um, cut costs to keep, keep things profitable. So they just isn’t the staff anymore to check. And coupled with, uh, as you say, ad advertisers who. Know that if they take out an ad in the garden, they’re not gonna sell many fridges, but if they take it out in a telegraph, they’re gonna sell all the fridges.
[00:23:54] Tony: So then, you know, you get this sort of cycle of we’ll advertise with you as long as you’re engaging with the readers in the western suburbs who are all new homeowners and wanna buy fridges. As soon as you lose that market, we’ll
[00:24:06] Tony: take our ads and put it somewhere else. So it’s a, it is a real echo chamber,
[00:24:10] Cameron: Or it’s, it’s as simple. Even if that conversation doesn’t happen, it’s like, give me your media kit. Who are your, who are your customers? What are the demographics? Yeah. Okay. That’s not our demographic. Sorry. If you wanna appeal to us, you have to be appealing to
[00:24:24] Cameron: that demographic, and that
[00:24:26] Tony: And the flips.
[00:24:27] Cameron: read you if they hear a certain kind of story.
[00:24:29] Tony: and the flip side applies too. Um, if, if, uh, the Guardian in Australia ran an article praising a. Tucker Carlson, it would start to lose readership and it would start to lose advertisements. And there are just different type of supplies with those ads in the Guardian. I mean, I haven’t read the Guardian for a long time, but I imagine it’s, you know, ads for wind farms and alternative energy and things like that.
[00:24:51] Tony: And they’re not gonna um, they’re not gonna keep paying the price they pay. Now if the Guardian’s readership goes down.
[00:24:58] Cameron: Yeah, so it’s, it’s basic economics, which is driving the slant on the coverage for a lot of these stories. And you know, it reminds me when I first moved to Brisbane, nearly, I don’t know, 16 years ago this year, I guess I was invited to, I think it was University of Queensland to speak as part of a panel to, uh, an incoming bunch of, uh, journalism students.
[00:25:29] Cameron: This is about 2008, would’ve been. And middle of 2008, and they got to, you know, my turn. It was, and the other people on the panel were all like editors and, you know, whatever’s, uh, real media, real journalists sort of people. And they’re all like, oh, it’s a very fine profession and it’s a, you know, it’s congratulations and blah, blah, blah.
[00:25:52] Cameron: They got to me, it’s a bunch of these poor eighteen-year-old kids. And I said, I just feel sorry for the lot of you because by the time you leave here, there aren’t gonna be any jobs left in journalism. And they’re like, oh, what? And, and, and they were like having a go. And I said, look, it’s just the economics man.
[00:26:06] Cameron: Like these journalism businesses are bleeding money and it’s not gonna stop. The economics of the, of the industry has fundamentally changed you. You, there aren’t gonna be any jobs. And they, they all said that I was being hyperbolic, uh, classic Cameron Reilly hyperbole, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know, it played out that way.
[00:26:25] Cameron: You can’t fight the economics right.
[00:26:27] Tony: No, you can’t fight economics
[00:26:29] Tony: You’re right. But I think also too, around that time, I, I mean, um, wind the clock back a bit further, when I did intro journalism at Queensland Uni and, uh, I, I worked out pretty soon that, you know, from talking, but being in tutorials with editors from papers and, you know, lots of people would come and talk to the journalism classes almost every week.
[00:26:47] Tony: There’d be a different editor or, or someone coming along. They, you know, first of all, sport played a big part in, in journalism in Queensland. And secondly, it was a, it was a club, it was a network and they, the people who would, you know, that they were after were knock about rugby types who could have a beer with anyone and get, you know, catch someone off guard and do a gotcha type article.
[00:27:08] Tony: Uh, there there was two camps. There was those types of people, which was I think the, the, the majority. And then there was the, the, um, as you say, the honest independent professionals like Eleanor Taylor, I. Who argue at university. I think she now edits the Guardian, um, who does have, have high journalistic
[00:27:26] Tony: standards, but, but they’re in the minority. And and they’re in the minority because they, the careers that that they started off in just weren’t there
[00:27:33] Tony: for them in the end.
[00:27:35] Cameron: I think they’ve always been in the minority. And have you ever read Chomsky and Herman’s
[00:27:40] Cameron: manufacturing consent?
[00:27:42] Tony: Yeah. And seen the documentary.
[00:27:43] Cameron: Hmm. So the model that they put forward, which was Herman’s model, um, Chomsky gives him credit for it, and they got it from an Australian guy. You ever read the Australian guy that they got that from Herman Got it from, can’t remember his name.
[00:27:58] Cameron: He passed away quite young, sadly. Um, but he, he was a, I think he was from Queensland. He wrote a book in the early nineties, um, which I’ve got somewhere. But he, he basically broke down the model in the same way. And they, and Herman and Chomsky reference him and, um, give him credit for breaking it down. But he was basically saying that. You know, uh, and I, I think I talked about this a bit in our psychopath book, but that if you are, when you are interviewing as a journalist to get inside of a media organization, they’re looking for are you gonna fit in? Are you gonna be part of the team? Are you gonna work well? Are you, are you going to fit in with the culture of the organization?
[00:28:40] Cameron: And they will weed out people that have views that are diametrically opposed to them politically. Uh, and if somebody sneaks through and who has diametrically opposed, uh, political views and it starts to show up and they’re writing, they’ll be, they’ll be urged to get in line. And if they don’t, they’ll be put on the.
[00:29:02] Cameron: You know, a different bait, a sport bait or something that doesn’t have a political leading or, or an independent opportunity for independent thinking, or they’ll get fired or, or, you know, or conditions will be made so difficult for them to continue working there that they will pack their bag and go somewhere else.
[00:29:20] Cameron: There are different filter mechanisms that have always been in place to weed out the
[00:29:25] Cameron: undesirables.
[00:29:27] Tony: And the, the classic example, which happened just recently was Antoinette Latouf at the ABC.
[00:29:32] Cameron: exactly. Which you might wanna explain that story for our many international
[00:29:36] Cameron: listeners.
[00:29:38] Tony: Yeah. So, uh, she was a casual presenter who came in, uh, to the ABC, which is our, our national broadcaster, um, just on a short-term contract. Uh, and it was, you know, a light and breezy type type role. But, but she was, uh, an Arab Australian who was, um, pro-Palestine and, uh, and, and, um, against the Israeli aggression in Gaza.
[00:30:05] Tony: And she lasted three days and then was, um, sacked under pressure from a bunch of, uh, well, supposedly under pressure from a bunch of Jewish lawyers. I’m
[00:30:13] Tony: not sure if that actually happened, but that was alleged.
[00:30:16] Tony: Uh, but she was sacked by the ABC anyway, ’cause of, um, uh, certainly a, a heightened media profile over her stance.
[00:30:23] Cameron: Well there, I mean, there’s, there was evidence that the um,
[00:30:27] Cameron: Zionist Lobby group of Jewish lawyers, etc. Tried to put pressure on the
[00:30:32] Cameron: ABC. Coincidentally or not fired her. So yes, it’s not hard to draw the dots, even though the ABC denies that it had,
[00:30:43] Cameron: uh, any influence on it.
[00:30:45] Tony: Yeah. And I’ll say it. allegedly happened that way, but, but certainly the fact is she was, she was sacked after three days.
[00:30:52] Cameron: So I wanna talk a little bit about, uh, Putin’s, uh, claims
[00:30:57] Cameron: about the history. So,
[00:30:58] Cameron: uh, early on in
[00:30:59] Cameron: the interview, he says to Tucker, are we gonna have a serious conversation or is this just gonna be light frothy entertainment? Um, Tucker says, no, it’s gonna be serious. And Putin says, let me, let me take
[00:31:10] Cameron: 30 seconds to explain the history of Russia and
[00:31:12] Tony: Yeah.
[00:31:14] Cameron: And he’s obviously a fan of my podcasts because
[00:31:18] Cameron: half an hour later,
[00:31:19] Tony: podcast. Yeah.
[00:31:21] Cameron: half an hour later, he finally wrapped that up. But. Uh, a lot of the criticism about Putin in the media when he does this stuff is about his version of the history of Russia and Ukraine. Uh, and I, I’ll give you an example here. This is from the BBC, an article entitled Tucker Carlson Interview Fact Checking, Putin’s Nonsense History.
[00:31:49] Cameron: And they say, Sergey Radchenko historian at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Study says the President’s claim is a complete falsehood. Vladimir Putin is trying to construct a narrative backwards, saying Russia as a state began its development in the ninth century. You could equally say that Ukraine as a state began its development in the ninth century exactly with the same kind of evidence and documents. So you, you see a lot of this in, um, the media coverage sort of. Uh, uh, sweeping attacks on Putin’s version of the history. But then they don’t actually say what he got wrong. It’s a complete falsehood. Alright, what did he actually get wrong? They don’t actually say what he got wrong. It’s just, oh, it’s just all nonsense.
[00:32:42] Cameron: So not being an expert on the history of this part of the world, um, what I did was I took the transcript, um, of the interview, took all of Putin’s statements and I put them into ChatGPT and I said, let me give you some quotes about the history of Russia and Ukraine and tell, tell me if they’re factually correct or not.
[00:33:08] Cameron: So I threw it all into ChatGPT and basically what it gave me back was, listen, this is actually correct. Um, the interpretation though. Of what this means is, uh, it’s a particular interpretation. Uh, and there are, it could be debated, you know, there are other views and, you know, it’s complicated. State-nation history, state history, very complicated and complex.
[00:33:39] Cameron: And there are a lot of intertwining factors and, you know, a, a different points of view that could be debated, et cetera, et cetera. But factually, it didn’t really have, um, any criticisms of, uh, I mean, I, I sent you the, the, the link to the
[00:33:55] Cameron: chat. Did you have a chance to read through that?
[00:33:58] Tony: I did, yeah. I read the other links too, from the B, B, C, et cetera on what they were saying about, about that too. Um, I, I, I guess, you know, let me preface my comments by saying, I, I think there’s a reason behind Putin spending half an hour at the start of the interview saying what he did.
[00:34:13] Cameron: Sure.
[00:34:13] Tony: Um, it’s, and it was, I, I, um, looked up.
[00:34:18] Tony: You know, the, the history as well. And I came across a Forbes magazine article, which I thought was, um, interesting, where they went into the, the fact that Putin had written an essay about this before the war and was basically regurgitating this in the first part of the interview. Um, I. Yeah. But, um, but, uh, the essence of that, of the Forbes article was that Putin wasn’t speaking to Carlson.
[00:34:42] Tony: He was speaking to his own people that, yeah, the, the Forbes article didn’t call it propaganda, but that’s probably what it was. It was Putin laying out his reasons for the war and hugging on the heartstrings of a particular demographic in Russia that, you know, he thought would support it, um, by going through the history of Ukraine, especially people who were older and, and probably had memories from World War II.
[00:35:06] Tony: So I, I think that’s one of the reasons why Putin did all that. I think the other reason he did it was it’s not a bad ploy. If you’re being interviewed and you’re not a hundred percent sure that the interview is going to give you a good hearing, it’s just to. To keep talking, to keep pushing your point of view and just see if they push back and ask questions.
[00:35:25] Tony: And, and Carlson didn’t, so Putin just laid out his whole manifesto for invading Ukraine, um, and which was, you know, couched in the guise of history. So I think that’s the first thing to say about it. Whether it’s right or wrong, Putin was talking to a demographic in Russia. It was, it was essentially propaganda and Carlson never picked him up.
[00:35:44] Tony: The other beautiful thing about that is because probably a lot of journalists didn’t have two hours to listen to the whole interview. They focus on the first 10 minutes. Um, and Criticise the history of it. But, but as we both know, it’s, it. History’s always open to interpretation. You know, I was trying to find analogies to it, and I sort of came up with two.
[00:36:04] Tony: One would be to say, if Australia invaded New Zealand on a justification that Captain Cook landed in both places, that, you know, it’s, it’s a pretty weak justification for it. But on the other hand, if the Aboriginals say, you know, we wanna take back Australia and we wanna fight for it because we were invaded, that’s probably a closer analogy to the sort of line that Putin was pushing, that Ukraine was part of Russia historically, and it’s, you know, through various events in history got separated and now it should be rejoined.
[00:36:33] Tony: So, you know, I, I get why he’s pushing that argument. But it, but you’re right, it was weak journalism to focus on that and to try, and it was smart of Putin to pick a fight on that. Like, let the journalists debate history with him.
[00:36:45] Tony: They’re not gonna win.
[00:36:47] Cameron: Yeah, look in Tucker Carlson’s preemptive example to airing the interview, he talked about the history lesson that Putin gave him and that they, he thought it was filibustering. He’s just trying to use up the time. Um, but then he changed his view on that. Uh, I don’t, I disagree that Putin was doing that for a Russian audience because Putin has no trouble.
[00:37:13] Cameron: Communicating to a Russian audience in Russia. He, he’s in Russian Media all the time. You know, he’s written articles, he gives speeches. He doesn’t need to tell this story to a Russian audience. The Russian audience that support Putin know this story and they
[00:37:29] Cameron: know his views on it.
[00:37:30] Tony: Well, sure. But, but this was the biggest story in Russian News. I mean, every, every news outlet was trumpeting the fact that a Western journalist had come to Russia and, and sat, sat down with Putin for two hours,
[00:37:41] Tony: and it had been a good interview. So it was getting a higher media profile. And the Russian audience he may have been targeting may not live in Russia.
[00:37:47] Tony: They may have
[00:37:48] Tony: maybe expats in the west as well.
[00:37:51] Cameron: Okay. I I, I do think he’s telling that story for international audiences as well.
[00:37:58] Tony: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:59] Cameron: But here’s my point, is that whatever his reasons are for telling the story, the story’s not incorrect as far as I can tell. With the limited amount of time I’ve had to research it. And also the fact that when I read the Western Media criticisms of the history, they don’t actually point out where he’s wrong.
[00:38:19] Cameron: They don’t say, this is factually incorrect or that is factually incorrect. Look it up. They go, well, yeah, but I could say that about this. Or it’s a, or blanket statements like it’s a complete falsehood, which it’s obviously not. Now I’ve got a lot of time for Sergey Rodchenko read a couple of his books.
[00:38:38] Cameron: He’s written a lot of good books on particularly the Cold War and the Atomic Bomb. Now he’s a Russian born academic, uh, I think Canadian academic. Um, Russian Canadian, but based at John Hopkins now. But, um, it’s obviously not a complete falsehood. So again, I have this question in my head is why can’t.
[00:39:02] Cameron: Academics or the media that are choosing which academics, and we know that they pick and choose who they’re gonna quote from. Why do they have to lie about this? Why do they have to say, why can’t they say, well, look, factually what he’s saying is correct. However, his interpretation of it is biased. Why does it have to, why do they have to say it’s a complete falsehood?
[00:39:24] Cameron: I remember when, um, the invasion first happened and I was on Facebook and I saw his story and friends of mine, um, in, in the US saying the same thing, complete falsehoods, including one guy who comes from that part of the world, complete falsehoods, f you know, Putin’s, fake history, blah, blah, blah. And I go, well, tell me exactly where he is wrong with the history.
[00:39:49] Cameron: Then they just disappear and they don’t come back to it. Like, he’s not like Putin’s a, he’s not an idiot. I love the fact that he said, uh, Carlson, I believe your background is in history. Right? ’cause Carlson’s got his Bachelor of history. I was thinking, yeah, Ray’s got a Bachelor of history too. I mean, they’re not worth much in the US apparently.
[00:40:06] Cameron: Uh, he, uh, but I’m pretty sure that Putin knows his history. He’s not just making this stuff up. Like he’s, he knows what he’s talking about. He’s, he’s a smart guy. He’s very well, you know, and, and, and the other thing I always think is,
[00:40:25] Cameron: I’d love to see an American president sit down and give an hour-long lecture on history.
[00:40:32] Cameron: Could you imagine Joe Biden sitting down and giving an hour-long lecture on something that happened, like the history of a region of the world over
[00:40:40] Cameron: 1500
[00:40:41] Tony: Well, you. You’d need a, like a
[00:40:43] Tony: sign language expert beside a, beside just going, no, no, no, no. Just
[00:40:48] Tony: He
[00:40:48] Tony: didn’t mean the, he didn’t mean the
[00:40:49] Tony: president of Mexico. He meant the president
[00:40:51] Cameron: Of Egypt. Yeah. Did you see John Stewart on the Daily Show last
[00:40:56] Cameron: week covering that?
[00:40:58] Tony: no.
[00:40:59] Cameron: He was telling the story and you know how the, um, special prosecutor looking into Biden’s Garage document said that he was a,
[00:41:08] Cameron: a well-meaning not nice old man with a poor memory. And then he had the bit where Biden got up, uh, in front of the Press Corps to like dispute this.
[00:41:16] Cameron: And then he, he walked away from the podium and John was like, yes, you nailed it. And then Putin starts to walk away. And then, uh, sorry. Putin. Biden starts to walk away. Then he stops and turns around and goes back to the party, mean John’s. Like, no, don’t go back. Don’t go back. And that’s when he delivered the president of Mexico line.
[00:41:36] Tony: Uh.
[00:41:38] Cameron: Like he is like, let, let me do a, let me do a one, uh, man play of what all of Biden’s advisors were doing at this moment. It’s just they’re throwing their notepads and pulling their hair out and screaming. Uh, anyway, um, so again, uh, the key point here is that it, it, it’s often interesting when I’m analyzing media stories about stuff like this to pay attention to what they’re not saying
[00:42:05] Tony: Mm-Hmm.
[00:42:07] Cameron: versus what they are saying.
[00:42:10] Cameron: Again, it’s if he is factually incorrect, if it is a complete falsehood. Why aren’t you telling me how it’s factually incorrect? I mean, that would be the obvious thing to do. It’s complete falsehood. For example, he made, he made points 1, 2, 3, 4, and five, and they’re all, and this is why they’re incorrect, right?
[00:42:30] Cameron: When they don’t do that, my bullshit filter goes off and I’m like, hold on a second, and well, why aren’t they telling me why it’s wrong? This article goes on to say, Mr. Radchenko denies Mr. Putin’s claims that Ukraine is not a real country because it was formed in its modern form in the 20th century. Now, Putin never said, Ukraine is not a real country.
[00:42:50] Tony: Mm.
[00:42:51] Cameron: Carlson said that,
[00:42:53] Tony: Yeah.
[00:42:55] Cameron: but Putin never said that. So again, they’re putting words in his mouth to make it seem
[00:43:04] Cameron: like he’s taking view. Now, what he did say is. After World War II Ukraine received, in addition to the lands that have belonged to Poland before the war, parts of the lands that have previously belonged to Hungary and Romania today, Western Ukraine.
[00:43:18] Cameron: So Romania and Hungary had some of their lands taken away and given to the Ukraine, and they still remain part of the Ukraine. So in this sense, we have every reason to affirm that Ukraine is an artificial state that was shaped at Stalin’s will. Now, I don’t think that’s the same as saying Ukraine is not a real country.
[00:43:38] Tony: Yeah.
[00:43:39] Cameron: Am I being
[00:43:40] Tony: Look. No, no. Look, I agree with you a hundred percent. Um, but again, I, I think I’m kind of chomping at the bit to go past the history part of this interview because, uh, you know, I think, I think Putin’s very smart and he knows that a lot of the journalists wouldn’t get past the history part of the interview.
[00:43:56] Tony: And you can debate history until the cows come home and, and, uh, you know, he, neither side’s really gonna win. I agree with all your points about, about the attacks being subjective and,
[00:44:08] Tony: um, not focusing on the facts and just focusing on interpretation, but I’d much rather talk about some of the other things that Putin’s talked about in the, in the interview.
[00:44:19] Tony: Yeah.
[00:44:19] Cameron: let’s get to it
[00:44:20] Cameron: then. What do you wanna talk about?
[00:44:22] Tony: Well, I think all of the, all of the things that, um. He, he spoke about that interests me, were after that. So he, he, he made a claim that Poland started World War II, which I thought was, was interesting about the invasion of Poland and, and how they invited Hitler to, to come into Poland. Um, you know, so again, not
[00:44:43] Cameron: no, not that
[00:44:44] Tony: historical subjective interpretation, but a quite a big one I thought.
[00:44:49] Cameron: he didn’t say they invited him to come into Poland.
[00:44:52] Tony: I think he did. I’ll try and find, I’ll try and find the, the, um, art, the article, if I can do it quickly.
[00:44:58] Cameron: What he said from memory was that he called
[00:45:03] Cameron: Poland a collaborator. he said they collaborated with the, Nazis. Some historians have taken issue with that, and I think that’s a, that’s a fair thing. Like collaboration is a big word, but. What is factually correct is that when Hitler was, um, when, when the Munich agreement was signed, which was going to give Germany some land, and Czechoslovakia, Poland jumped on board and took land from Czechoslovakia as well when they were weak.
[00:45:37] Cameron: They took advantage of Czechoslovakia’s, uh, weakness at the time to grab some territory. And then Hitler wanted some territory from Poland. The Danzig corridor. Poland refused to give it up, and so Hitler invaded, but they had been in, in Putin’s words, they collaborated. Now, you know, you could pick that apart.
[00:46:06] Cameron: Did they collaborate or did they just take advantage? Like the, the issue that I’ve read that historians have is that collaboration. Suggests, uh, joint strategic diplomatic agreement to attack a, a country in this instance. Um, did they have, were there diplomatic conversations between Nazi, Germany and Poland?
[00:46:30] Cameron: Yes. Is that collaboration the way it’s portrayed as well? Poland didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter because Nazi Germany was this more powerful, aggressive country on the border, and so they had to go along with it wasn’t really collaboration. And I’m like, Hmm. Yeah. Well, you know, you could say the same thing about the Munich agreement.
[00:46:56] Cameron: Um, you know, was Neville Chamberlain collaborating with Hitler when they agreed to the Munich agreement, or was he just feeling like I. They couldn’t, they didn’t want to have a war with Nazi Germany at the time. So appeasement was the better option. Is that collaboration? I think it maybe is
[00:47:18] Tony: Yeah, maybe so. So the, you’re right about, I, I shouldn’t have said that. Putin said Poland invited Hitler in the quote is in 1939. This is Putin speaking After Poland cooperated with Hitler, it did collaborate with Hitler, you know, Hitler offered Poland Peace and a Treaty of Friendship and Alliance. We have all the relevant documents in the archives demanding in return that Poland give back to Germany.
[00:47:39] Tony: The,
[00:47:40] Tony: so-called Danzig Corridor, which connected the bulk of Germany with East Prussia and Königsberg. Yeah, so the, the, the, the claim was collaboration.
[00:47:51] Cameron: collaboration and cooperation, and
[00:47:53] Cameron: again, like he’s not wrong. From a particular point of view, you can argue what is the definition
[00:48:00] Cameron: of collaboration and cooperation. But they did, you know, they did cooperate, they did take advantage of the situation. You can say, well, they didn’t have much option, but you know, neither did the, the Vichy government in France have much option, but we still criticized them as collaborators.
[00:48:22] Cameron: I mean, you can say no and get shot, but, or you can collaborate and try and make the best of a bad situation,
[00:48:29] Cameron: I guess. I dunno,
[00:48:31] Tony: Yeah, Well, I guess like,
[00:48:33] Tony: sorry. No, I’m not disagreeing with you. I guess the reason for raising that is to talk about, there seems to be the, the link between what happened in that part of Europe and World War II and what’s happening in Ukraine and neo-Nazis, and that that was a, a kind of a key point that, that Putin’s making.
[00:48:49] Tony: He was, he was saying that one of his reasons for invading Ukraine is a denazification, or that’s one of, one of his requirements for a truce is the Denazification of U of Ukraine. And I thought, I still think that’s very interesting. And, and again, I’m wondering whether he’s, he’s playing to his audience at home on that one because I read a couple of articles.
[00:49:10] Tony: NPR was this one. Uh, NPR was a good one. Um, about, about the issue in Ukraine, I won’t read it out, it’s quite long. But basically it says that, um, sure they’re in the N Nazis in Ukraine, about 2% of the population. There’s the people who fall in the, I think it’s called the ZOS Regimen. Um. Before the Ukraine war and during the Ukraine war.
[00:49:33] Tony: Uh, but they point out that 2% of the population who claim to be neo-Nazis is actually less than that. The situation in the US where there’s far more ultra-right, uh, members of the public than in Ukraine. So it’s a fairly normal thing in a lot of Western countries. It’s particularly in Europe to have, uh, sort of fringe neo-Nazi element.
[00:49:51] Tony: So why, why do you think
[00:49:53] Tony: Putin is making a big deal of Denazification, the denazification of
[00:49:59] Tony: Ukraine?
[00:50:01] Cameron: I think, I think this is, um, part of, you know, his, um, propaganda back to his home audience. Um, and I’ve always felt that this is the weakest of his arguments and his justifications. But what I also have seen happen in the last couple of years is how the Western media has absolutely tried to refute. This argument that there are neo-Nazis in Ukraine when before February, 2000 twenty-two, the Western media was regularly running stories about Nazis being a big problem in Ukraine.
[00:50:47] Cameron: And I’ve got an archive of documents about this. Here’s a quote from a rolling, recent Rolling Stone article about the interview. It says, Putin spoke at length about his wish to bring Denazification to Ukraine. And while the nation does have a dark history of association with Nazism and neo-Nazi factions, particularly in the context of World War II experts widely agree, this is a propaganda ploy used as a justification for the invasion.
[00:51:13] Cameron: Except, um, you know, there are lots of, uh, articles, as I said that seem to think that West had a problem with the Nazis in Ukraine before the invasion. Here’s a link to a Reuters article. From, um, the 7th of February, 2024, it said, oh, hold on. No, that’s on, uh, that’s on Nord Stream. Let me, um, get to the find.
[00:51:49] Cameron: Yes. Here we go. This is from the Guardian in 2014, Azov fighters are Ukraine’s greatest weapon and maybe its greatest threat. And this is around about the time of the beginning of the Donbass situation, the Guardian says, but there is an increasing worry that while the Azov and other volunteer battalions might be Ukraine’s most potent and reliable force on the battlefield against the separatists, they also pose the most serious threat to the Ukrainian government and perhaps even the state.
[00:52:17] Cameron: When the conflict in the east is over. The Azov causes particular concern due to the far right, even neo-Nazi leanings of many of its members. The battalion’s symbol is reminiscent of the Nazi wolf’s angel. Though the battalion claims, it is in fact meant to be the letters N and I crossed over each other standing for national idea.
[00:52:37] Cameron: Many of its members have links with neo-Nazi groups, and even those who laughed off the idea that they are neo-Nazis did not give the most convincing denials. Fighters from the battalion told the Guardian last month, they expected a new revolution in Ukraine that would bring a more decisive military leader to power in sentiments similar to those of many Azov fighters.
[00:52:58] Cameron: Despite the desire of many in the Azov to bring violence to Kiev when the war in the east is over. The battalion receives funding and assistance from the governor of the Donetsk region, the oligarch Serhii Taruta. In 2018, the US declared C-Fourteen or S-Fourteen, the CIS Group, uh, in Ukraine as a hate group.
[00:53:23] Cameron: And I’ve got a, an article from Radio Liberty, which is a. US, uh, propaganda Radio station in Europe. Set up part of the Marshall plan says Ivan Stupak, a former SBU employee, SBU being the secret service of the Ukraine with 10 years of experience, said at certain stages the SBU involved its operational contacts.
[00:53:49] Cameron: That is, they found certain common points of view with leaders of C-Fourteen, and directed them to solve certain operational tasks. Um, and it goes on to talk about all the connections between government funding and Secret service and the far-right movement, et cetera, et cetera. So there’s plenty of stories like that.
[00:54:09] Cameron: Uh, but from before twenty-Twenty-two Western governments and the Western media definitely did see these Nazi groups in Ukraine as a significant issue. But post the twenty-two invasion, oh, it’s all just propaganda that Putin. Is spinning. Now, I do think, as I said, it’s his, probably his weakest argument. I think his strongest justification is for is the Nazi, the NATO, uh, enlargement.
[00:54:37] Cameron: But,
[00:54:39] Cameron: you know, I do think he is being genuine when he says part of the conditions that they have is the elimination of neo-Nazis off the border between Ukraine and Russia. I mean, I, I, you know, it’s important for us outside of Russia to remember that the Nazis killed 20 million Russians in World War II
[00:55:04] Cameron: and you know, part of.
[00:55:07] Cameron: The breakup of Germany after World War II was to ensure that the Russians were never bothered by the Germans, the fascists. Again, fascists obviously having a big hatred at the time for communists and Jews, uh, and particularly Jewish communists, um, Ukraine. It’s more Catholic fascists that have been the problem.
[00:55:28] Cameron: But, you know, he, it is a, I think it’s a genuine concern and I think it’s a, a genuine issue, whether or not it’s as big a deal as he makes it out to be,
[00:55:38] Cameron: you know,
[00:55:39] Tony: Well, well actually, I mean, I highlight it because I think, I think you’re right. I think it was a big deal and I think that there was certainly Russian. Speakers in Donbass who were chased out back into Russia by, by, uh, some element of that military slash neo-Nazi, um, power in the Donbass reasons. So I think it is actually an, an issue.
[00:56:03] Tony: Um, but, but as you say, that’s one of the things about the war that gets, gets clouded. It’s, uh, the West has gone from a, from acknowledging the existence of these people to saying it’s propaganda by Putin. But I actually think it’s a key issue for them, not just because of the history of fighting against the Nazis and, and all of that, but because in the Donbass region that’s kind of borderland.
[00:56:25] Tony: There is a, I can’t, I can’t speak to it being a, a neo-Nazi mentality, I’ll call it the pro-Ukrainian mentality. And there’s a Russian affiliated population, and the two haven’t mixed very well, and I think Putin probably is legitimate in asking for claims. Whether it should be called Denazification or not
[00:56:43] Tony: is another issue.
[00:56:45] Cameron: The ABC had an article that I read, Tucker Carlson Vladimir Putin interview explained. It said. Russia’s aim to denazify, Eastern Ukraine, a claim that has been described as propaganda by hundreds of historians who study genocide. I read that and I thought, what if historians who, what do historians who have studied genocide have to do with his claims about Nazis in Ukraine?
[00:57:11] Cameron: It seems like a non-secretary, but, but I read, um, this article again, this is, um, from Radio Freedom. Facebook bans Ukrainian, far-right Group Over Hate speech, but getting rid of it isn’t easy. And it said Human rights groups such as Free. This is from 2019. Human rights groups such as Freedom House of Warned that Azov’s increasing visibility and impunity is a cause for concern.
[00:57:37] Cameron: Far-right? Political forces present a real threat. To the democratic development of Ukrainian society set a recent Freedom House report referring to Azov and similar groups. That threat is not due to political support. Polls show its political party. National Core is supported by less than 1% of Ukrainians.
[00:57:54] Cameron: But because the far right is aggressively trying to impose the regender on Ukrainian society, including by using force against those who oppose political and cultural views. Last month, group of seven ambassadors in Kiev sent a letter to Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov urging him to act against the groups, which it said threatened to disrupt the country’s election and usurp the role of the Ukrainian National Police.
[00:58:20] Cameron: The ambassadors asked the ministers to also consider outlawing the groups down the road. Would you be so kind as to outlaw Nazi groups? That’d be great. Thanks. So in twenty-nineteen, the G-Seven was writing a letter to the Ukrainian government. Say, you’ve gotta denazify your country. Now Putin says it and everyone’s like,
[00:58:41] Cameron: ah, what’s he talking about?
[00:58:42] Cameron: It’s all
[00:58:43] Tony: Yeah. And look, and not just that, but like this NPR article. Uh, talks about, it’s a harmful distortion and dilution of history. They say, talking about the, um, Holocaust experts, even though many people appear not to be buying at this time round. Laura Jakusch, a professor of Holocaust studies at Brandeis University in Massachusetts told NPR over email that Putin’s claims about the Ukrainian army allegedly perpetrating a genocide against Russians in the Donbass region are completely unfounded, but politically useful to him.
[00:59:14] Cameron: See, like,
[00:59:15] Cameron: so
[00:59:15] Tony: Were they there? That’s the first thing. But the other thing too is these articles always end with the point
[00:59:20] Tony: being made. Anzalensky is a Jew.
[00:59:23] Cameron: yeah.
[00:59:24] Tony: As if, as if that kind
[00:59:25] Tony: of, you can just go, okay, well, we’ll just wipe our hands of a
[00:59:27] Tony: Nazi problem in Ukraine then.
[00:59:29] Cameron: Which Putin himself said in the interview, and he said, and Zelensky’s father or grandfather fought the Nazis. He goes, why? I said to this is Putin saying it. He said, I said to Zelensky, why aren’t you getting rid of these guys like your own father or grandfather who was fought against these guys? Seems strange to me that you’re allowing them in your country, but what am I gonna do?
[00:59:51] Cameron: Kind of thing. Um, but like, I dunno, man, like it just drives me nuts that Cameron Reilly with a couple of hours on his hands can look up the history of neo-Nazis in Ukraine and there’s all this stuff. And yet the mainstream media seems to think they can just run this stuff. And like, there’s just no sense of, oh, maybe we should
[01:00:16] Cameron: just tell the truth about this. And, you
[01:00:18] Tony: and there’s, no fact-checking, right? Like you would think NPR, which is the National public radio in the US, would have a more independent stance on things, but. Putin says that he needs to denazify Ukraine. They go straight to an academic who disagrees with that, and they publish the academic side.
[01:00:33] Tony: Now, whether this is meant to be balanced journalism, I’ve got Putin’s argument on one hand, and there’s academics on the other. I’m not sure, but it doesn’t, I found it very hard to get to the facts on this, you know, what is happening in the Donbass region? How many, how many Russian speakers had fled across the border back into Russia?
[01:00:50] Tony: Was that a legitimate reason for Putin invading and what’s happening now? Why is there a Jewish president in in Ukraine, but he’s allowing the neo-Nazi Azov’s brigade to take a lead part in the war? They’re really interesting questions. I don’t have an opinion either way, but I’m not getting at the facts through the media.
[01:01:09] Cameron: Well, you know that before Zelensky was the president of Ukraine, he played the president of Ukraine on television. Which reminds me of,
[01:01:17] Cameron: I don’t know, just Ronald,
[01:01:19] Tony: Ronald, Reagan Yeah.
[01:01:21] Cameron: even to a certain extent.
[01:01:23] Tony: Yeah.
[01:01:23] Cameron: also, look, we’ve, we’ve talked about this a lot on this show, Tony, but there, um, are you aware of the Victoria Newland
[01:01:30] Cameron: phone
[01:01:31] Cameron: call from 2014?
[01:01:32] Cameron: You’ve
[01:01:33] Tony: I’ve heard it on your show before.
[01:01:34] Tony: Yeah.
[01:01:34] Cameron: Right. So there seems to be, uh, that as evidence that, uh, among other things like her talking in other interviews about
[01:01:44] Cameron: how much money they spent on democracy in Ukraine before the Maidan protests it, it just fits the, the template, the CIA’s template that they’ve been following since they overthrew Mossadegh in the early fifties in Iran for going into a country, uh, behind the scenes funding.
[01:02:09] Cameron: Protest movements, activists, uh, political troublemakers saying, listen, do this. We’ll, we’ll have your back, you know, we’ll, we’ll give you air cover, et cetera, et cetera, and if you win, we will support, you know, you and your chosen, or we’ll tell you who to put in power, but we’ll give you air cover. It just fits the model.
[01:02:29] Cameron: And then when that call was leaked, it just seems to be pretty strong evidence that that’s what was
[01:02:35] Cameron: going on behind the
[01:02:36] Tony: Yeah, well, I’m gonna draw a longer bow, right? That, that the, if the CIA was gonna fund anybody, it’s more likely to be on the right than on the left. And if, if the, if the military industrial complex in the States is funneling money towards fighting in the Ukraine, and the league group is the ASOS group and they have links to neo-Nazis, and you could also draw the line that America’s happily funding them.
[01:03:01] Tony: So
[01:03:03] Tony: we’re not finding out what’s going on
[01:03:05] Tony: here, unfortunately.
[01:03:06] Cameron: Well, the US tends to. Support whoever’s going to best serve their interests, which makes sense, whether they’re on the left or the right, but usually it’s on the right, as you say. Um, there’s the famous, uh, uh, what was her name? Jeannie. Something begins with Letter F doctrine. Can’t remember her name. Fitz Gibbons or something like that.
[01:03:36] Cameron: Fitzsimmons. She was a strategic advisor, uh, in the Reagan years and basically her doctrine was, yeah, it’s easier for us to do business with guys who are on the right than guys on the left. Right. You
[01:03:52] Tony: Yeah.
[01:03:52] Cameron: So they’re usually gonna be the ones we’ll do business with. The other issue that all these articles take is about the outbreak of the conflict in Donbass in 2014, uh, which they usually try and, um, lay at the feet of Putin, make it sound like Putin invaded.
[01:04:13] Cameron: But I always point to a Rand Corporation, uh, um, article investigation report on this Rand Corporation being obviously a, an American, um, think tank when they did their report on it, uh, 10 years ago. They said the conflict started as a local affair, but was quickly supported by Russia. Set a coterie of, well-known local political agitators, businessmen and members of fringe political organisations with a Russian imperialist bent led the effort.
[01:04:48] Cameron: Moscow sought to foster this movement in Ukraine through oligarchic connections and intertwined circles of powerful regional business interests. Combined with local criminal elements. The tactics appeared to be improvised, employing a diversity of individuals with little in common, other than their opposition to Ukraine’s new government.
[01:05:06] Cameron: Russia fostered the subversion with a supporting cast of intelligence operatives, its own citizens and informal network of fighters from the post-Soviet space and local security forces who turned against Ukraine’s government. So if the Americans were running their own. Secret operations to install a pro-American government in Ukraine Russia had their own forces in there to maintain a pro-Russian government.
[01:05:33] Cameron: Uh, and the two were fighting behind the scenes. But you know, what ended up happening is the Donbass breakout was genuinely, according to Rand, a civil war. It was a local affair with both sides, you know, having secret support from other major powers. Um, but it was at Moscow marching an army in Now what the distinction is between the two, you know, there’s another
[01:06:03] Cameron: story
[01:06:05] Tony: Yeah.
[01:06:05] Tony: But, uh, that’s, and that’s a good point too. We, we’ve,
[01:06:08] Tony: you know, we might sound, I might sound critical of the US on all this, but it happens on
[01:06:12] Tony: both sides. We’re just calling it out ’cause it’s not reported.
[01:06:15] Cameron: Yeah. I mean, we, anyone who’s spent any time studying Cold War history, uh, knows that this is the way the Cold War has been played out. You know, it’s, uh, uh, uh, it’s a, it’s a soft power. It’s hybrid warfare. You’re trying to influence the, the, the media and the government and the businesses and the politicians in a country using bribery and influence and, uh, promises and all that kind of stuff, and, and all of the major powers, if they can afford to do it, do it.
[01:06:48] Cameron: I, I tend to subscribe to John Mearsheimer’s geopolitical realism camp that says that major powers in any region, um, know that if they’re not the strongest power in the region, then they’ll, they’re gonna get attacked. They’re gonna be, you know, attacked by other stronger powers. It gets back to the dark forest hypothesis kind of right, that if.
[01:07:15] Cameron: If you are a power in a region and you think there’s another power coming up that may be stronger than you, you kind of have an incentive to get in and hobble them or weaken them or take them over. Because if they become more powerful than you in the future, then you are the victim.
[01:07:30] Tony: Mm-Hmm.
[01:07:30] Cameron: It’s just political
[01:07:32] Tony: And we’re seeing it play out with Australia and the Pacific. Islands at the moment too, as Russia tries to ramp up if its influence and Australia has to counter. So it happens in every, uh, China, I’m
[01:07:42] Tony: sorry, China, uh, it happens in every sphere of influence. I agree. But we just don’t read about
[01:07:47] Tony: it overtly.
[01:07:50] Tony: We try and put the, try and connect the dots, but we don’t read about it overtly.
[01:07:53] Cameron: it
[01:07:53] Cameron: doesn’t get talked about in, you know, mainstream media outlets, like, okay, Mearsheimer does. But as Mearsheimer says, like increasingly he and his colleagues, uh, who push realism just a shut out of the media. I, I heard him being interviewed. I think it was on Lex Friedman’s podcast a while back, and he was saying like, even in the early two thousands when he and, um, his colleague whose name escapes me, wrote a book on the Is,
[01:08:27] Cameron: Hmm,
[01:08:27] Tony: Was it Green Wall?
[01:08:29] Cameron: no, no, no.
[01:08:31] Cameron: Um, he’s passed away, but he was a leading scholar, uh, Stephen Walt when he and Stephen Walt wrote a book called The Israel Lobby, which I read 20 odd years ago, talking about the, the influence that the Israel lobby has in US politics. Uh, he said even though they got attacked right across the board, at least they were given airtime.
[01:08:55] Cameron: You know, they were able, they were being interviewed in the New York Times and they were on television and that kinda stuff. He said, now no one will even. Talk to us, uh, about, you know, what’s going on in Russia and Ukraine. It’s like he said, it’s far more of a closed down media ecosystem today than it was 20, 30 years ago
[01:09:18] Cameron: in the United States,
[01:09:20] Tony: That’s interesting, isn’t it? I mean, that’s, that speaks
[01:09:23] Tony: and that speaks volumes though, doesn’t it?
[01:09:25] Tony: If, if the, if a media outlet’s applying council culture, rather than saying, come and debate this
[01:09:29] Tony: with the Israel lobby, uh, it’s not really journalism, is it?
[01:09:33] Cameron: Um, no, it’s, it’s, well, you know, I mean, I, however you wanna define journalism. Um, I’ve got some other
[01:09:42] Tony: Yeah.
[01:09:43] Cameron: here I wanna run through. So, um, this is, uh, from the BBC for fans who managed to stay tuned any longer. The reward was a rerun of Putin’s top twisted arguments. some neutral journalism for you. Um, he, they go on to say he aired his regular grievance about NATO expanding east into what Russia sees as its area of influence. We never agreed Ukraine could join NATO, as Putin put it, but it’s having an aggressive, unpredictable neighbor like Russia that’s led Ukraine to seek extra security.
[01:10:22] Cameron: Not true. Uh, we know the history of this. We know that all of the polls in Ukraine. Said, uh, you know, going back 20, uh, 10, 20 years ago showed that that people had no interest in joining NATO. But then the coup happened and there was, uh, a lot of investment by NATO in, uh, Ukraine to build up, like promotion for NATO.
[01:10:53] Cameron: A lot of funding in there. And of course, then they ended up with a pro-American government after the 2014 quote, coup if it in fact was a coup, which, and they’ve been pushed into joining NATO by various forces. But before that, Ukrainians had no interest in joining NATO, nato, uh, it’s, they say Putin has always characterized the mass public protests in Kiev a decade ago as part of a western backed coup, which they were not, says the BBC, according to whom, based on what evidence.
[01:11:24] Cameron: Mentioned Victoria Newland’s phone call. No, just, and this is BBC man.
[01:11:30] Cameron: Like, um,
[01:11:32] Tony: It’s journalism. It’s really, it’s really editorial, isn’t it? It’s not journalism at all.
[01:11:36] Cameron: yeah, It’s all editorial these days. Um, New York Times Tucker Carlson’s lesson in the perils of giving airtime to
[01:11:43] Cameron: an autocrat. Mr. Putin conducted a history lecture that provided a one-sided, often false narrative about Ukraine says The New York Times one-sided. Yes. False. Probably not. Hillary Clinton in an interview this week with Alex Wagner of MSNBC called, uh, Carlson a useful Idiot, and Mr.
[01:12:04] Cameron: Putin’s puppy dog Mr. Carlson gave Mr. Putin room for uninterrupted disquisitions. That’s a new word for me.
[01:12:13] Cameron: What’s a disquisition? Tony? You ever use that
[01:12:15] Cameron: in a
[01:12:16] Tony: no idea. No.
[01:12:17] Cameron: On longstanding and decidedly one-sided grievances about Ukraine’s origins and independence movements, said un uninterrupted. He actually did interrupt him a number of times, Carlson, in that first half hour rant.
[01:12:32] Cameron: He kept trying to interrupt him, and Putin was just like, just, just hold on. Let me, let me finish my story. And he would
[01:12:38] Tony: seconds more, 30 seconds more.
[01:12:40] Cameron: he was saying he was uninterrupted, but it’s not. He, Carlson tried to, I interrupt him on a number. Carlson looked very confused and very troubled from the beginning of the
[01:12:48] Cameron: whole thing.
[01:12:49] Cameron: Like, where’s
[01:12:49] Cameron: this going?
[01:12:50] Tony: I’d be inclined to agree with someone who said that Carlson Softballed Putin.
[01:12:54] Cameron: Softballed him, sure, but
[01:12:55] Tony: tried, tried to interrupt a
[01:12:56] Tony: couple of times, but but once every 10 minutes isn’t really, you know,
[01:13:00] Cameron: but what are you
[01:13:01] Cameron: gonna do? I mean, how are you gonna say, look, just shut the fuck up Mr. Putin,
[01:13:06] Cameron: and, and answer my questions. I mean, you’re not gonna get anywhere with that, I don’t think Putin’s gonna
[01:13:12] Cameron: let you run things. Although the
[01:13:14] Tony: I, I must imagine,
[01:13:15] Tony: sorry. I, imagine, that the, one of the conditions for the interview was that it couldn’t be edited too otherwise, you know, uh, Carlson may
[01:13:23] Tony: have decided just to let it run and then cut it down for use, but he didn’t do that. So I’m guessing that was a condition.
[01:13:29] Cameron: Probably. And, um, I was gonna say that, you know, uh, since the interview, Putin has come out in Russian Media and said that he, he found the interview disappointing and almost
[01:13:40] Tony: Yeah,
[01:13:42] Cameron: Carlson’s taking a victory lap. And Putin’s, like, I actually expected him to ask some hard questions. Like, uh, I, I was prepared for an aggressive
[01:13:51] Cameron: interview and it was really not.
[01:13:52] Cameron: So, so
[01:13:54] Cameron: that’s,
[01:13:55] Tony: yeah. No, exactly.
[01:13:57] Cameron: Putin’s, even Putin’s not giving him, uh,
[01:14:00] Cameron: any, any props for it.
[01:14:02] Tony: And Putin said a lot of interesting things. I mean, the whole, there was a discussion, well, there was a, the
[01:14:06] Tony: point about Boris Johnson intervening in the, in the Peace
[01:14:10] Tony: talks, I Ukraine we’re having with Russia. I mean that, that, that could have been a whole topic of interviewing itself, but it just sort of
[01:14:16] Tony: sailed through.
[01:14:18] Cameron: Yeah, and we’ve, we’ve talked about that on this show. We, we know that that’s true. Um, we know that they were, you know, Zelensky and, and Putin, uh, all their representatives were on the verge of signing an agreement early in 2022. Then Boris Johnson, when he was still Prime Minister, made a three day trip to Kiev, and then the deal was off.
[01:14:40] Cameron: And basically, Boris Johnson in his own words, said that he told Zelensky not to surrender, that he had the full support of the West. Now, what else he said, uh, about what would happen to Zelensky if he did surrender? Um, we don’t know, but it’s, it’s quite obvious that the war would’ve been over. Within a couple of months if the US and the UK hadn’t decided to prolong it forever.
[01:15:08] Cameron: Which reminds me a lot of the Afghanistan situation in the late seventies, which I’ve done shows about, it was deliberately extended for 10 years by the United States in the words of Zbigniew, Brzezinski, Jimmy, Carter’s, national Security Advisor, uh, at the time. He later said that he went into Carter and said, if we play this right, we can give the Soviet Union its own Vietnam.
[01:15:39] Cameron: And then he was quite proud of the fact that they did that later in life, um, that they managed to economically bogged down and cripple the Soviet Union by supporting the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. And this, to me just looks like the same thing. They’re using the Ukrainians as. Uh, fodder now to try and further weaken
[01:16:01] Cameron: Russia economically New York
[01:16:04] Tony: Potentially it’s, it’s backfiring though in the us. I mean, they’re, they’re the one who’s bogged down in Congress with contention over paying so much for the war in, in Ukraine.
[01:16:13] Cameron: Yeah, but the guys in the US that got the
[01:16:15] Cameron: money, it all played out
[01:16:18] Cameron: perfectly, right? I mean, the way I’ve always pictured it’s a win-win
[01:16:21] Cameron: situation for American businesses with this if they win and they managed to keep control of Ukraine. Then they get access to its markets, they get access to. Its, its natural resources.
[01:16:34] Cameron: They, they get, you know, bases again, more bases on the border of Russia to further weaken Russia. I mean, what’s up for grabs is all of the energy supply into
[01:16:44] Tony: grain.
[01:16:45] Cameron: you know, and grain. Yeah. Right. All of that, all of the economic supply that Russia has a big chunk of, if you’re an American business person with interests in Europe and in the Middle East, et cetera, et cetera, you want to get access to those markets.
[01:16:59] Cameron: If they, so if they win the war, they get that, or get to keep that or get more of that. If they lose the war, well, you know, we still got a hundred billion dollars of, uh, American taxpayers money over a few years, like happy days.
[01:17:14] Cameron: Right. It’s a
[01:17:15] Tony: Yeah. So there’s no incentive to do the, to do a negotiation. Is there a peace negotiation?
[01:17:21] Cameron: Not if you are an American businessman or an American politician. Yeah, if you’re a Ukrainian soldier, maybe, or a
[01:17:27] Cameron: Russian soldier. Um, another interesting thing in the New York Times, as Putin threatens despair and hedging in Europe,
[01:17:35] Cameron: it actually admits that Putin was complaining about NATO expansion back in 2007.
[01:17:40] Cameron: It talks about this conference that just happened at the Hotel Bayeriska Hof. It says in the Hotel Bayeriska Hof, the conference stage where Mr. Putin warned in 2007 that NATO’s eastern expansion was a threat to Russia Mr. Navalny’s widow made an emotional appearance on Friday hours after a husband’s death reminding attendees that Mr.
[01:18:03] Cameron: Putin would bear responsibility for it. Um, leaving aside the Navalny stuff, uh, it’s a rare admission in the Western media that the NATO expansion issue. Didn’t just start getting invented by Putin in February, 2022. You know, that normally in Western media just gets rejected out hand as being nonsense.
[01:18:30] Cameron: Got nothing to do with NATO, despite the fact that Putin and before him, um, you know, going back to Gorbachev and then, um, who was the guy after Gorbachev? I’ve got a mental blank. Uh, Yeltsin, Yeltsin all took issue with the NATO expansion when it started happening in ninety-six under Clinton. I. You know, they’ve been beating on about it for nearly 30 years.
[01:18:59] Cameron: Stop the NATO expansion. Stop the NATO expansion. Stop the NATO expansion. Finally, they invade and they say, why are NATO expansion? What? That’s dev. Well, that’s got nothing to do with it. Never heard that before. Like seriously. And again, the way the media just writes it off as that, it’s just nonsense. It’s got nothing to do with NATO expansion.
[01:19:16] Cameron: Like it boggles the mind.
[01:19:18] Tony: Yeah.
[01:19:19] Cameron: CBC, Canadian broadcasters barely mentions Putin’s actual talking points. Only after 30 paragraphs of Criticising Carlson did they get to anything that Putin had to say.
[01:19:33] Cameron: Putin, in the Russian interview where he said that the interview was disappointing also said he’d rather have Biden continue as US president because he’s predictable. Can you imagine if he’d said the opposite, how the Democrats would be losing their damn minds at the moment if he said, oh, I’d rather have Trump as president.
[01:19:49] Cameron: See? See? Trump’s a Russian puppet. He said, Biden, and this is like
[01:19:56] Cameron: crickets.
[01:19:57] Tony: Yeah. Biden’s, other Putin puppet. Yeah. No, I, I did see that one too. The other interesting thing I thought, um, that was, let’s slide by Carlson again, was when Putin told his story about,
[01:20:08] Tony: uh, going to Clinton and saying, uh, Hey, that Russia joined NATO? Were you, and Clinton said, yeah, okay. And then came back that night and said, no,
[01:20:16] Tony: sorry.
[01:20:16] Tony: Can’t do it.
[01:20:17] Cameron: My advisors told me I can’t do that. Yeah. Yeah. That’s well, uh, documented as well that Russia tried to join NATO. I. Just got shut out. Um, you know, and this goes right back to, um, Gorbachev, plenty of interviews on record about this when they were doing the whole collapsing of the Soviet Union and, uh, you know, the, the promise about No NATO and he agreed to the reunification of Germany.
[01:20:48] Cameron: He was putting forward propositions that they form a new security, global security alliance that they could all be part of and, you know, was given nods and winks. Oh, sure, sure, sure. We can do that. And then just shut out. It just, you know, once the Americans felt that they’d won the Cold War, they weren’t giving up any play in anything.
[01:21:08] Cameron: Politico called it a two-hour love-in, they mentioned the Russian President’s fanciful history lesson. On the Nord Stream stuff, they said several countries have been publicly blamed for the explosions with varying degrees of evidence. Ukraine has said Russia was responsible, which the Kremlin has denied.
[01:21:27] Cameron: While Moscow has previously blamed the UK without presenting any evidence to support that assertion, either, they don’t mention at all the, uh, us, uh, being involved. Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist at his sources said it was the CIA. They don’t mention that. They don’t mention that the US blamed Ukraine for it either.
[01:21:49] Cameron: Um, just not worth mentioning apparently. Um, there’s, um, I mentioned that, that there’s a Reuters article for the 7th of February. Uh, the Rolling Stone said, um, something about. Uh, we’re talking about the Nord Stream, the Rolling Stone Magazine article said Investigations have yet to determine who was behind the sabotage.
[01:22:14] Cameron: And then they link to a Reuters article from the 7th of February. It says, the White House last year dismissed a blog post by a US investigative journalist alleging Washington was behind explosions as utterly false and complete fiction. I was like, they fucking wrote off Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer, Prize winning investigative journalist who broke the My Lai story massacre in Vietnam, who broke the Abu Ghraib torture story 20 years ago as a blog post by a US investigative journalist.
[01:22:49] Cameron: Like it makes it sound like it’s some hack conspiracy, like it’s me sitting in my bedroom writing about it. You know, fucking Seymour Hersh. They just write off
[01:23:00] Cameron: like, seriously, this
[01:23:02] Tony: they can ’cause none of the, none of the, none of the outlets in the
[01:23:04] Tony: America, America picked that up. You’d think the first thing that the head of the Washington Post would do is say, oh, who’s journalists? Let’s, let’s go and talk to them. Let’s see what their sources are. Let’s, let’s, you know, try and replicate the work that they did.
[01:23:16] Cameron: all the New York Times where he won a Pulitzer Prize,
[01:23:19] Tony: yeah. Oh no. We’ll just take the press release
[01:23:22] Tony: from Washington and read. I
[01:23:23] Tony: print that.
[01:23:24] Cameron: like I’ve, You know, I read Seymour Hurst’s blog, um, and he’s, you know, been saying for, uh, whatever it’s been now, six months since he wrote that story. You can tell by the lack of coverage that my story is getting.
[01:23:38] Tony: is accurate.
[01:23:39] Cameron: How close to the bone it is, right? Yeah. If it was wrong and they knew it was wrong, they would come out and say that the fact that they are, you know, tackling what’s actually being said in it, um, stands for itself.
[01:23:53] Cameron: They go on, sorry. In the Reuters article to say, the US and German Media have reported that the yacht could have been used by Ukrainian or pro-Ukrainian groups citing leaked intelligence reports and people familiar with official investigations. Kiev has repeatedly denied any involvement. The Washington Post citing leaked information posted online wrote last June that the United States learned of a Ukrainian plan to attack the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline three months before they were damaged.
[01:24:21] Cameron: So of course what happened is when Seymour Hearst came out with his story, the uh, Washington Post slash US government came out with their own
[01:24:30] Cameron: story. Oh, well we heard
[01:24:33] Cameron: that it was probably
[01:24:34] Tony: Our sources say,
[01:24:35] Cameron: did it. Uh.
[01:24:38] Cameron: You know, and it just goes on like, um, the, the amount of
[01:24:44] Cameron: obfuscation. The other thing that I wanted to point out that Putin talked about a lot that didn’t get any coverage in any of the articles that I saw was the role that the failure of the Minsk agreements
[01:24:55] Cameron: played.
[01:24:56] Tony: Yeah, I, I was gonna highlight that?
[01:24:58] Tony: too.
[01:24:58] Cameron: What,
[01:24:58] Cameron: what did you have on that?
[01:25:00] Tony: No, no. Go ahead. I, I’ve gotta find my notes.
[01:25:03] Cameron: Well, for people who, uh, first time listeners, um,
[01:25:08] Cameron: uh, uh, when the whole thing broke out in the Donbass region in 2014, there were
[01:25:12] Cameron: a number of attempts to try and bring about a peace settlement there. They were called the Minsk agreements because the meetings happens in, in Minsk and Belarus. Um, and it looked like they had a, a template for.
[01:25:28] Cameron: Some sort of a settlement in the Donbass region. And again, it just failed. And aspersions were cast around as to who failed and why they failed and who was to blame for not upholding their end of the agreement. A bit like the whole, you know, Palestine Israel thing that’s been going on forever, each side blames the other.
[01:25:47] Cameron: But, um, Putin puts the blame on the failure of the Minsk agreements on Ukraine in the West for not upholding their end of it. And there is, there’s a fa uh, um, a fascinating interview with Angela Merkel, who was one of the sponsors of the agreement when she was the Chancellor of Germany. She was interviewed by a German magazine, desight recently, where she said that the Minsk agreements had been an attempt to give Ukraine time to defend itself. She said, um. Putin said, it turns out that no one was gonna fulfill all these Minsk agreements, and the point was only to pump up Ukraine with weapons and prepare it for hostilities. So then I got this from, um, Reuters. Uh, I think according to former German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, the Minsk agreement served to buy time to Rearm Ukraine.
[01:26:48] Cameron: I’ve got the actual interview here from Dezeit. It says this is quoting Merkel, but that requires us to also say what exactly the alternatives were at the time. I thought the initiation of NATO accession. By Ukraine and Georgia, which was discussed in 2008, was wrong. The countries neither had the necessary prerequisites for this, nor had the consequences of such a decision been fully thought through, both with regard to Russia’s actions against Georgia and Ukraine and to NATO and its assistance rules.
[01:27:21] Cameron: And the 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time. The aim was to gain time through a ceasefire in order to later achieve peace between Russia and Ukraine. She also used this time to become stronger. As you can see today, the Ukraine of 2014 15 is not the Ukraine of today. As we saw in the battle for the Bolshev railway town in Donbass at the beginning of 2015, Putin could have easily overrun them back then, and I very much doubt that the NATO countries could have done as much back then as they do now to help Ukraine. So, um, yeah, basically she seems to be confirming Putin’s assertion that the Minsk agreements were really just, uh, an attempt by the West to buy time to, you know, rearm Ukraine and build them up so they could basically, uh, not sign a peace agreement with
[01:28:25] Cameron: Russia,
[01:28:27] Tony: And also I think, um, as Putin alluded to, the Minsk agreement never really held, there was always
[01:28:31] Tony: ongoing breakouts of fighting over that time as well. And, and you know, basically he was saying he couldn’t trust the signatories to the Minsk agreement.
[01:28:41] Cameron: particularly when, you know, one of the key sponsors of it comes out and says, we, we were just using it to buy time in the
[01:28:47] Cameron: first place. It
[01:28:47] Cameron: wasn’t, wasn’t serious.
[01:28:49] Tony: Yeah. And it wasn’t just Merkel, it was the, um, other German, uh, leader before her, I think, I’m just trying to find his name. Uh, Steinem Steinman. Anyway, one of the, one of the, uh, key negotiators and of, of that time might not have been a, sorry, she, he might not have been, uh, Merkel’s equivalent, but certainly someone
[01:29:08] Tony: higher up in Germany also came out and said it wasn’t working.
[01:29:12] Cameron: Yeah.
[01:29:13] Tony: Just trying to find his name now.
[01:29:15] Cameron: And
[01:29:16] Tony: yeah, sorry.
[01:29:17] Cameron: well, and the thing is, I guess my point was gonna be I, This doesn’t get talked about in the Western media. You know, the fact that the Minsk agreements were just a furphy. Secondly, um, again, Putin’s, no dummy. Whatever you think of Putin, if he’s the embodiment of all that is evil or not, he’s no dummy.
[01:29:40] Cameron: And if, and, and if he knows that the peace agreements or the, the, the attempts in good faith to negotiate a settlement in the Donbass region would just deploy, used by the Wests to buy time to so they could, um, and fund and, you know, start building bases and putting weapons on the border of Russia. What do you do?
[01:30:04] Cameron: This is a question I’ve always asked about this. If, if you are Putin, what do you do? What are your options? If you’ve spent 30 years trying to reach a diplomatic negotiation about NATO expansion, that has just been ignored. And, and, and again, this didn’t come up. I’m surprised it didn’t come up. Carlson asked him when the last time he spoke to Biden was, and Putin just sort of like, I, I don’t know.
[01:30:25] Cameron: I don’t remember. I can’t remember everything. I know it was just, it was January, 2022. They discussed, well, Putin tried to discuss. Ukraine joining NATO and Biden told him. It wasn’t open to discussion, it was off the
[01:30:42] Cameron: table.
[01:30:44] Tony: I mean, I know you’ve done a, a long history podcast on Napoleon, but it’s very Napoleonic. This Putin’s saying, I have tried to defend my border, to defend my country, to keep my people safe, but you keep attacking. I’ve signed Minsk one and Minsk II, and for 10 years we’ve had clashes on the border. Still after I withdrew, what more do I have to do?
[01:31:07] Tony: How, how, how can you say I’m the aggressor if I then, you know, cross the border with my tanks trying to
[01:31:14] Tony: protect my border.
[01:31:15] Cameron: That’s the thing that infuriates me with David Markham. I mean, if you talk about why Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, David will give you all the arguments where he tried. He tried diplomatic measures to avoid war. But he realized, ’cause he was no dummy, what was going on. They were building up forces on his border and war was coming.
[01:31:38] Cameron: So rather than the war happened on his territory, he took it to their territory. And it’s, uh, you know, you you would say that that’s a, a just action. I mean, war is bad, but when you, when your enemy is building up forces on their border and you believe that they have
[01:31:54] Cameron: malicious intent,
[01:31:56] Tony: And you’ve had 10 years of a history of a broken treaty when you’ve tried to resolve it peacefully.
[01:32:01] Cameron: and 30 years in this case of them saying, don’t put NATO, you promised you wouldn’t gonna put NATO bases on our
[01:32:07] Cameron: border. And they’re like, shut the fuck up. We’ll do whatever we want. What do you do? That’s always been my question. Do you just like politically, if he just sits there and lets it happen, he’s
[01:32:19] Cameron: not gonna survive.
[01:32:21] Tony: mm-Hmm,
[01:32:21] Cameron: Let alone, you know, for the, the EE economic and military security of the Russian people, he needs to act. I am not justifying. His invasion. I’m just saying that from his perspective, I felt like he, he really had no option. It was
[01:32:39] Tony: hmm,
[01:32:40] Cameron: We’ve tried everything else. That’s failed. Yeah. A a as Von Klausowitz said, to paraphrase, war is the extension of diplomacy by other means, right?
[01:32:51] Cameron: When diplomacy
[01:33:03] Tony: with the issue of Gershkovich when Carlson thought he’d be able to take a trophy home from Russia and have an American, uh, released and Putin was all over it straight away with all the facts.
[01:33:16] Tony: You know, we are working on this, there’s discussions going on. Uh, there might be a prisoner exchange. We have a mine. This guy, you know, who uh, who was captured by the Americans after he assassinated. Uh, uh, what was the, um,
[01:33:30] Tony: oh, I’ve forgotten the name of the place now that, anyway,
[01:33:33] Cameron: Che, wasn’t it a
[01:33:34] Tony: Chechen. Thank you. The Chechen.
[01:33:35] Tony: The Chechen Rebel. Yeah. But, but that was, to me, that was Putin
[01:33:38] Tony: just completely and just had all the facts at his fingertips. Wasn’t gonna be gotcha’d,
[01:33:44] Cameron: hmm.
[01:33:45] Tony: just laid it all out off the cuff. Brilliant.
[01:33:47] Cameron: And the thing that always gets me about, uh, I don’t know if you, did you ever watch the Oliver Stone interviews with Putin
[01:33:52] Tony: No, I haven’t.
[01:33:53] Cameron: going back a few years, but it was like four hours of interviews. Um, late 2000 and like 17, 18, something like that.
[01:34:02] Cameron: The thing that always gets me, and this is what Oliver Stone said, ’cause Oliver Stone, you know, he did the same thing with Castro. He did the same thing with Chavez in Venezuela. He, like he said, those guys are big personalities and grand pronouncements and obviously also both very intelligent, very successful leaders of their country, depending on how you wanna measure success, I guess.
[01:34:25] Cameron: And Putin is the complete opposite to those guys. The thing that always fascinates me about these Putin interviews is he’s very quietly spoken. He doesn’t rock up wearing a uniform, you know, military badges and everything. Um, you know, Castro always just wore basic greens. You know, you never saw Castro with military, um, adornments, like a Gaddafi.
[01:34:45] Cameron: He was just, you know, military greens. ’cause he said, we’re at war and I’m a soldier, so, you know, I come dressed as a soldier, but Putin is just very quietly
[01:34:55] Cameron: spoken. Very matter of fact. Very look, here are the facts. You know, I’m laying the facts before you reminds me a lot actually of Assad in Syria, if you’ve ever seen interviews with him.
[01:35:08] Cameron: Very, very similar. I I’m not gonna compare the two guys ’cause I don’t think Assad is anywhere near what Putin is in terms of, you know, intellectual power, but very, very simple. Uh, you know, in interviews, very quietly spoken. Very matter of fact. Here’s the facts we see, you know, Putin exudes this quiet intellectual.
[01:35:31] Cameron: Confidence about his position, what his facts are. He’s always very respectful too. When, like, when, when, same with Oliver Stone interviews. When Carson was saying, well, what, what happened in this conversation? What happened in this meeting with Biden or with these leaders or with the, he goes, look, it’s not my place.
[01:35:51] Cameron: It would be, it would be not right for me to talk about things that were said in private. If you wanna know what your president said, go ask your president if you wanna know what Bill Clinton said. Carson, what do you think happened with Bill Clinton? He goes, it wouldn’t be right for me to, you know, speculate.
[01:36:06] Cameron: Go talk to Bill Clinton. Like, he’s always, he’s not advancing conspiracy theories. He is not advancing agendas. He’s just like, it’s not for me to say I, I, I know what I know, but you know, it, it’s the depiction of him in the western media is this bond villain. Doesn’t come across to me in these interviews.
[01:36:27] Cameron: Like does he have people assassinated? I don’t know. Quite possibly. Do American presidents have people assassinated? Yeah, absolutely. All the time. Does he arrest journalists? Sure. As Julian Assange in prison because of the us Sure. I mean, he does what he does and they talk about that like, as a Christian leader, you have to kill people.
[01:36:46] Cameron: Like how do you, how do you justify that? Right.
[01:36:51] Cameron: Um.
[01:36:53] Tony: I think you’ve raised the last point I wanted to talk about, and that was the timing of the interview. And, and I, I, I’ve, I don’t want to sound, uh, like any sort of Putin apologist for a minute. Um, apart from saying that he’s a smart guy and he doesn’t get a fair shot in the media, but what did you make of the Novelli.
[01:37:12] Tony: Uh,
[01:37:12] Tony: death, uh, around the soon after this interview was put to air, it was the interview, the bright shiny object to distract from something going
[01:37:20] Tony: on.
[01:37:23] Cameron: Look, um, well first of all, I’m not convinced that, you know, there’s any evidence that they like deliberately assassinated him. People die all the time. People die in prisons all the time.
[01:37:36] Cameron: Um.
[01:37:37] Tony: Especially in subzero Arctic
[01:37:40] Cameron: Sure,
[01:37:41] Tony: concentration camps.
[01:37:42] Cameron: but reports are that like the day or a couple of days before Navalny died, he appeared in court and he seemed to be healthy and un unlike
[01:37:49] Cameron: Julian Assange, who apparently is too sick to appear in
[01:37:52] Cameron: court. Um, but you know, again, I I, I don’t think Putin would try and time anything like this because I don’t think he really gives a rat’s ass.
[01:38:05] Cameron: I don’t think he cares what the Western media says. I don’t think he cares what western governments say. I think he’s a, like, bit like MBF in Saudi. Arabia having Khashoggi hacked to death with a, an axe in a bathtub. He doesn’t care. Like say what you want. I mean, you think I’m a bad guy, okay. I killed one of my enemies.
[01:38:24] Cameron: Who cares? What are you gonna do? Not buy my oil, like shut the fuck up. I don’t care. I think, I don’t think Putin really cares about bright, shiny objects. I don’t think he cares what the Americans think. I don’t, I do think he wants to. Finish the war in Ukraine. And in order to do that, he needs the US and the EU to stop funneling weapons into Ukraine.
[01:38:46] Cameron: I don’t think he wants a war there. Uh, um, whether or not the Navalny thing was timed with the upcoming Russian election and the interview, look, I, I don’t, I, I don’t think it matters. I don’t, I don’t think Navalny was gonna cause any problems in the Russian election. I’m pretty sure Putin’s got that stitched up by means, fair or foul.
[01:39:08] Cameron: I, you know, he is extremely popular. That’s the other thing the media never talk about here. All of the, all of the surveys that get done by credible western, uh, polling organizations say that he’s incredibly popular in Russia. Maybe because he gets all the pro-Russian propaganda from the media. Or maybe just because, you know, look at Russia before him under Yeltsin.
[01:39:33] Cameron: It was a basket case. Whatever else you wanna say about him. Like Hitler taking over Germany. He’s made the country stronger. He’s made the country in many ways, more economically viable, stronger, better standard of living. Is it perfect? No, but as he talks about in the, in the, the Oliver Stone interviews, it was a basket case when he took over 20 years ago.
[01:39:58] Cameron: It takes a long time to re, you know, not just rebuilding from the Soviet era, but then rebuilding from when the Americans went in, uh, under Yeltsin. Clinton sent his American strategists in and they just sold everything off to the oligarchs. You know, Putin’s been trying to. You know, rebuild the country and it takes time.
[01:40:20] Cameron: It’s a hard, it’s a hard slog, particularly when you’re facing all the other things that they’re facing with Western imperialism and all that kind of stuff in their region. So, no, I, I look, I, I dunno whether or not he was behind Navalny’s death. I, I dunno. Uh, you know, and, and every time anyone dies, Putin apparently personally signed the order.
[01:40:40] Cameron: I don’t know that that necessarily needs to be the case. There’s probably a lot of people between Putin and the guy that, um, you know, commits the act that, that are making de decisions for themselves. I don’t think the president of the United States personally authorizes everybody that every CIA operative Assassinates know.
[01:41:03] Cameron: I don’t know. What
[01:41:03] Cameron: do you think?
[01:41:05] Tony: No, I, I was just raising the question. I, I, if my personal opinion is, I think Nevali just died of, of, I’ll call it natural causes, and he’s in a subarctic, what’s it called? The polar bear or something facility, um, which is basically a death camp. And it just happened to coincide. But I guess that raises the, um, you know, the other issue for me is that it was a Western pile on, again, when Nevali died, that it was caused by Putin.
[01:41:32] Tony: Um, that, you know, see, he may have said some smart things during the interview, but this is what he’s really all
[01:41:37] Tony: about. This is what he does. So it’s, um, and I, and you know, I don’t for a minute think that if Putin didn’t do it, that he’s capable of doing it.
[01:41:45] Cameron: Sure.
[01:41:46] Tony: Yeah,
[01:41:46] Cameron: He’s ex-KGB and he is the leader of a country, like he’s capable of doing anything that he thinks is in the best
[01:41:52] Cameron: interest of his country. I’m sure.
[01:41:54] Tony: Yeah. But also it raises for me the bigger question of, um, of methods of government.
[01:41:58] Tony: And, and that could be behind some of the, you know, the slants of the media is like, you know, do, do, do. I do, I think do, do I think that Western democracy is the best form of government? Well, you just have to look at all the leaders we’ve had in the last 15, 20 years, or is a benevolent dictator
[01:42:16] Tony: a better form of government,
[01:42:18] Tony: um, even though that there are downsides to that if you are in, in opposition.
[01:42:22] Tony: Um, so I think that’s an interesting
[01:42:23] Tony: question to, to talk about as well.
[01:42:26] Cameron: The irony there is that the West loves Lee Kuan. Yew the West couldn’t get enough of Lee Kuan Yew and he was a benevolent dictator, as you say. And their system of government was very much like the Chinese system of government and who, you know, if you believe the books that I’ve been reading basically studied s Singapore’s form of government under Lee, Kuan, Yew and said, yeah, we want, we wanna have that, you know, we wanna be like that.
[01:42:53] Cameron: Let’s, let’s find the best and the brightest and give them positions of political power rather than just somebody who’s able to man manipulate the electorate to vote for them. That doesn’t make any sense.
[01:43:04] Cameron: Let’s find the best and the brightest.
[01:43:05] Tony: Yeah, well the best of the brightest do run power in the West. It’s just that they do it to line their pockets. It’s
[01:43:11] Tony: a little bit different.
[01:43:12] Cameron: You think Trump is
[01:43:13] Cameron: the best and the brightest
[01:43:15] Tony: No, I think Trump’s the mouthpiece. He’s the Ronald. Reagan.
[01:43:18] Cameron: Oh yeah. Right. Yeah.
[01:43:19] Tony: The best of the brightest are on Wall
[01:43:21] Cameron: Steve Bannon. Oh, wall Street. Okay.
[01:43:24] Cameron: All right. Well, that’s all I got. TK. Thanks for joining me. That was a good
[01:43:27] Cameron: chat.
[01:43:28] Tony: discussion. Yeah, thank you,
[01:43:30] Cameron: than we normally get to talk about these things at
[01:43:32] Cameron: the end of QAV.
[01:43:34] Tony: It is. Yeah. This could be the first of our after hours
[01:43:37] Cameron: Could be.
[01:43:38] Tony: podcast.
[01:43:39] Cameron: All right. Thank
[01:43:40] Cameron: you. TK. Cheers.
[01:43:42] Tony: Bye.

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This episode we’re looking at South Africa’s case against Israel in the World Court, accusing them of committing genocide in Gaza, the reasons for the cross-border tensions between Pakistan and Iran in Baluchistan, and why the Houthi are attacking ships in the Red Sea.

Transcript

BSF 122

[00:00:00] Cameron:

[00:00:13] Cameron: Welcome to the Bullshit Filter episode 122. Feel sorry for all the people who miss out on our pre show banter.

[00:00:27] Ray: That’s the best part.

[00:00:29] Cameron: is the

[00:00:29] Ray: just, we go at each other. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck me, fuck you, fuck you. And then we, then we’re nice to each other.

[00:00:37] Cameron: Episode 122. Before we get into today’s stories, I want to give a shout out to my mate, Chris Saad. I give a plug for a product that he soft launched to me a couple of months ago. It’s called Wingman, um, something that you could have used, uh, throughout your life. Um, and you are my Wingman, that’s how I think about it.

[00:00:57] Cameron: This is, this is replacing you in a way. It’s, you can, you can look it up at getwingman. ai and it’s, um, it’s a Chrome plugin.

[00:01:07] Ray: Mmhmm.

[00:01:09] Cameron: And it’s great, and I’ve participated a little bit in the thinking of the later stages of it, but if you go to any news story on a news website, BBC, New York Times, ABC, whatever it is, it’ll pop up a sidebar that uses GPT to break down the story. First of all, it’ll give you an executive summary of the story, but then below that it will call out the biases shown in the reporting of the story, the language that is used that may be, um, giving you a particular, uh, intended flavor or direction or whatever.

[00:01:48] Cameron: It also gives you the historical context of the story. So if you’re reading something about Israel Gaza, it’ll give you a background on the historical context. Then, and this was my suggestion, one of my suggestions, anyway, below that it’ll give you a mini bio on anyone who’s mentioned in the story. Just one line, who they are, what their, what their background is.

[00:02:07] Cameron: with links, I think, to their Wikipedia profile. So you can read up more about who they are. And then down the bottom, it tells you, um, you know, what you can do to learn more about the topic and, uh, you know, sort of guide you through. So it’s sort of is, as I said to him, this is, you know, a great tool. Like, uh, what we try and do on this show is think about the big issues

[00:02:27] Ray: hmm.

[00:02:28] Cameron: the world today.

[00:02:28] Cameron: And we try and break them down and think about them from angles that aren’t necessarily the angles that we’re being given by the mainstream media. Uh, or our governments. And this tool helps you do that. So check it out, getwingman. ai. Uh, I’ve been using it quite a lot to prepare for shows like this. Like, it’s just a quick, I’ll read a news story and I’ll go, okay, what’s the lay of the land here?

[00:02:51] Cameron: And it’ll It’ll give me a, uh, it’s another tool like ChatGPT or like Wikipedia that can enable you to get a bit of a headstart on understanding more of the context of a story and set you off in other directions of, uh, reading or research that you may want to do. I should just get it to recommend listening to our show too.

[00:03:12] Cameron: Every time, if you want to know more about this, listen to Cam and Ray.

[00:03:16] Ray: Yeah, for a flat fee, um, which is fine, he should make the tagline, uh, or should I just have it? Um, A Lazy Podcaster’s

[00:03:24] Cameron: Oh shit, I just had it. Oh, right. Oh shit, I just had

[00:03:29] Ray: that. Oh, no, if, if,

[00:03:31] Cameron: I had something for that. Hmm.

[00:03:34] Ray: if going down rabbit holes is your thing. Then Wingman is for you. Something like that. You know, work, work on

[00:03:40] Cameron: been, you’ve been in a few rabbit holes in your time. That’s why you live out in the country.

[00:03:45] Ray: I can’t, I can’t.

[00:03:49] Cameron: South Africa, right?

[00:03:50] Ray: Yes, go ahead, please. Thank God.

[00:03:53] Cameron: I’ve got a, I’m on a timeline here, like David Markham last month. I, I gotta be somewhere more important than this, which is Kung Fu training. It’s a public holiday here in Australia. It’s Australia Day today. Let’s not get into that, but um Our Kung Fu school is closed so a few of us students have decided we’re going to do our own training.

[00:04:11] Cameron: Everyone else is getting pissed and having barbecues. Uh, we’re gonna do Kung Fu training. Uh, South Africa recently brought a case of genocide against Israel, Ray.

[00:04:22] Ray: Yes.

[00:04:23] Cameron: Um, the International Court of Justice, the ICJ, aka the World Court, is where they brought it. It’s the only international court that adjudicates general disputes between nations, gives advisory options.

[00:04:41] Cameron: Uh, sorry, Advisory Opinions on International Legal Issues, one of the six organs, sexy, sexy word organs, it’s one of the six organs of the United Nations, located in The Hague,

[00:04:54] Ray: Yes.

[00:04:55] Cameron: Now, uh, a lot of people are upset. By this, uh, claim of genocide by Israel, a lot of people agree, on the other hand.

[00:05:03] Cameron: Israel, obviously, is not happy, uh, about it, but the U. S. refuses to call it genocide, and, uh, obviously that’s, uh, gonna be a big issue, trying to get the U. S. to agree that what Israel is doing is genocide. Here’s what South Africa argued. They argued that Israeli officials have voiced genocidal intent. So to prove genocide, you have to prove that it’s intentional, and they, quoting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reference to ancient Israel’s destruction of Amalek.

[00:05:39] Cameron: Now, I don’t know if you saw this story, I don’t know how much coverage. It’s getting in the, um, mainstream media, I think there’s been a little bit, but, um, you know, there’s, uh, there’s a speech that he gave, uh, late October last year, where he says, um,

[00:06:01] Ray: Right.

[00:06:02] Cameron: In recent days, I have met with our soldiers at their bases at the assembly points in the north and in the south.

[00:06:07] Cameron: We have an amazing army, with wonderful and heroic soldiers. Jews and non Jews, secular and religious, left and right. They are all imbued with a fighting spirit. Spirit, the likes of which I have never seen, including a willingness to fight with strength and force against an enemy whose brutality and criminality are unparalleled.

[00:06:25] Cameron: They are longing to recompense the murderers for the horrific acts they perpetrated on our children, our women, our parents, and our friends. They are committed to eradicating this evil from the world for our existence and, I add, for the good of all humanity. The entire people and the leadership of the people embrace them and believe in them.

[00:06:44] Cameron: Remember what Amalek did to you, Deuteronomy 25, 17. We remember. And we fight. Now,

[00:06:52] Ray: Yeah.

[00:06:53] Cameron: knows more about, uh, the Old Testament than you, Ray. Uh, tell people about Amalek.

[00:07:00] Ray: Amalek did not play. That’s all I know. But he did not play. No. Please, please tell me about him.

[00:07:08] Cameron: Amalek, uh, it was a, it was a, it was a tribe, wasn’t a guy. Uh, the Amaleks were, uh, a tribe in the Old Testament, enemies of Israel. They, uh, basically had a war. They sort of, according to the Old Testament version of events, which of course, as everyone knows is really just political propaganda, the Amalekites harassed the Hebrews during their exodus from Egypt and attacked them near Mount Sinai, where they were defeated by Joshua and, uh, pretty much were wiped out.

[00:07:45] Cameron: So. If you look at, um, what the, uh, Old Testament says about the Amaleks, God then commands Saul to destroy the Amalekites by killing man, woman, infant, and suckling.

[00:08:05] Ray: Oh.

[00:08:06] Cameron: Uh, basically said, go in and wipe them all out.

[00:08:10] Cameron: Kill them all, even the

[00:08:11] Ray: All of them.

[00:08:12] Cameron: Yeah, all of them. It’s funny, Fox is just watching those films again. He loves them. Kids love them.

[00:08:19] Ray: Oh, yeah. Oh,

[00:08:20] Cameron: that aren’t like, oh, we were watching, uh, he was watching Bear Grylls last night and, and he had Natalie Portman on, he was taking her out hiking in Utah and they were talking about the Star Wars films and she was like, yeah, look, she was 16, I think, when she made the first one and she was like, yeah, the thing was they came out and everyone despised them, they were hated, now, 20 odd years later, everyone loves them, says, yeah, actually, they’re the good ones.

[00:08:44] Cameron: Not me, I still think they suck. But anyway, uh, so yes, destroy all of them. And so Benjamin Netanyahu referencing Amalek seems to be referencing this idea of, yeah, wiping them all out, man, women, children, and beast. Don’t leave out the beasts.

[00:09:04] Ray: No, they’re the

[00:09:05] Cameron: Um, South Africa is also claiming that Israeli soldiers have acted on that intent.

[00:09:12] Ray: Mm hmm.

[00:09:12] Cameron: Lawyers referenced videos of soldiers, quote, joyfully detonating entire apartment blocks.

[00:09:20] Ray: yes.

[00:09:20] Cameron: they claim that Israeli actions have been genocidal in nature, causing destruction, displacement, and death aimed at the destruction of Palestinian life. I think the current numbers are there’s like 25, 000, over 25, 000 People reported killed.

[00:09:36] Cameron: This is according to the UN Human Rights Commission. Nearly 25, 000 people reported killed according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. 70 percent of them women and children. Another 61, 500 at least have been injured. Several thousands more are under the rubble. Many presumed dead. And that’s That, uh, um, story is from a week ago, so it’s probably worse than that.

[00:10:02] Cameron: Now, not surprising, your, uh, United States Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, um, is a Jew who, uh, is vehemently against this being called genocide. When he arrived in Jerusalem to show support, uh, he said, I come before you as a Jew. Not as the American Secretary of State, um, but as a

[00:10:29] Ray: for neutral. Right. Yeah.

[00:10:32] Cameron: Biden declared himself a Zionist again.

[00:10:36] Ray: right.

[00:10:36] Cameron: He said, uh, I’m a Zionist. Interestingly, he also mentioned recently that Benjamin Net Netanyahu has a photo from when he and Biden met in 1973

[00:10:51] Ray: Right.

[00:10:52] Cameron: Biden had scrawled on the photo. Bebe, I love, but don’t agree with a damn thing you have to say.

[00:11:00] Ray: Damn.

[00:11:01] Cameron: It’s about the same today, Biden announced to the audience.

[00:11:05] Ray: Yes.

[00:11:06] Cameron: As I said after the 7th of October attack, my commitment to the safety of the Jewish people and the security of Israel, its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is unshakeable.

[00:11:17] Cameron: You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist. I am a Zionist. Were there no Israel, there would not be a Jew in the world who was safe. Now, That’s a little bit of a paraphrase or re re re framing of what he said in the 80s. We’re also going to discuss the Ironclad Commitment initiative I’ll say. So I’m going to play this clip here.

[00:11:37] Cameron: Can you, uh, can you hear that, Ray?

[00:11:40] Ray: I heard something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:11:42] Cameron: This is a clip, uh, from Biden. First of all, there’s a recent clip of him talking. This is from October last year, him talking about Israel. And then it will cut to a clip of him in the early 80s talking about Israel. So listen to this. Say this 5, 000 times in my career, the Ironclad Commitment to the United States.

[00:11:59] Cameron: As to Israel, based on our principles, our ideas, our values, they’re the same values. And, uh, I, uh, I’ve often said, Mr. President, it’s very, uh, words. If there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one. Um, and I don’t It is the best 3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interest in the region.

[00:12:31] Cameron: See?

[00:12:32] Ray: Interesting.

[00:12:33] Cameron: Yeah, that’s him from the early 80s. There’s another bit here. The United States would have to go out and invent an Israel. But the framing of it, you can see, has sort of changed since he’s become president. Back then it was to protect our interests in the region. Not So the Jews can be safe, but to protect our interests in the region.

[00:12:58] Cameron: And I think that’s the important thing that we all need to remember about Israel. I think, you know, there’s, I had this conversation with my mom when she was here. Over Christmas we were talking about it. She was like, I don’t understand why the U. S. supports Israel so much. Is it because of the, the, the Jews are so powerful in America?

[00:13:15] Cameron: And I was like, well, yeah, that’s actually, there’s some merit to that. And we’ll get into that in a second. But, um, there, there is, I think the, the main reason, the principal reason why the U. S. has supported Israel since the fifties is because they realized they need an ironclad ally In that part of the world, because that’s the part of the world where most of the oil comes from, particularly back then.

[00:13:46] Cameron: This is before we had shale oil as an option. Uh, most of the oil comes from there. All of the countries that contain the oil, predominantly Muslim countries, they needed a non Muslim country that relied on the United States for its very existence

[00:14:04] Ray: Yes.

[00:14:05] Cameron: to be fully armed. able to intervene on America’s behalf in any, uh, countries in the region where they needed intervention.

[00:14:16] Cameron: That would be reliable as an ally. You know, Saddam Hussein was an ally for a while and then he wasn’t. Iran was an ally for decades and then it wasn’t. Saudi Arabia has been an ally for a long time, but their relationship with them is sort of touch and go. You know, the OPEC crisis in the early seventies obviously was an instance where, uh, you know, they weren’t exactly a reliable partner when it came to the pricing of oil.

[00:14:42] Cameron: And we’ve, we’ve talked about that on the show before and Kissinger went over and did the deal, um, to guarantee them again, sort of ironclad support militarily, funding, political cover in return for giving them a good price on, on oil, not fucking with them.

[00:15:02] Ray: I completely agree with what you’re saying. I would like to think, I would like to think that if Biden and Netanyahu were alone and no one would ever know this, I would just imagine Biden going, look, I know you got to defend yourself, but Dude, you’re killing me here. You’re, you are committing something very much like genocide, if it’s not genocide, and I’ve got to defend you for the very reasons that you just said, Cam, but I’ve just got to imagine you would be like, could you just knock it off?

[00:15:28] Ray: Can you turn it down a little bit? Um, but that’s where they’re at. So, in order to get ready for tonight, I’ve been going through, you know, accusations, counter accusations, watching drone footage or whatever. Did not enjoy that at all. Thank you very much. But it reminded me of something. Was it the 1970s? I can’t remember 1970s, 1980s when the Supreme, I think it was a Supreme Court judge.

[00:15:50] Ray: Uh, U. S. uh, Supreme Court Judge says something like, I don’t, I can’t define pornography, but I know it when I see it. That’s, for me, kind of like genocide. Yeah, you can get into all the technicalities, and who did what, and who started that, and why are you doing this, and whatever, but at the end of the day, I mean, literally, they can’t get water, they can’t get medicine, literally, the, um, the, uh, the people that are bringing things are being targeted.

[00:16:14] Ray: And like you said, there’s, there’s footage of, uh, Israeli soldiers, you know, laughing or whatever as they’re shooting up. And so whatever, forget definitions for a second, trust your eyes. This is genocide. Women, mostly women and children are dying. This is absolutely horrible. But I think Israelis only got this, they’re a one trick pony.

[00:16:33] Ray: This is all they’ve got. They can’t use their nuclear weapons, because then everybody would go fucking insane, and plus it’s in their own country. So they’re just gonna beat these people down, and, and I don’t think they even have an endgame. I don’t even, this is literally a knee jerk reaction, and they have no other options, because this is all they’ve ever done.

[00:16:50] Ray: Maybe they need to, I have no idea, but they’re a one trick pony. What do you think,

[00:16:57] Cameron: Yeah, I think you’re right. Yeah, I think you’re right. And I think, like, Netanyahu has, uh, have I ever played that clip on this show where he talked about how he knows how to control the U. S.?

[00:17:11] Ray: I’m not sure.

[00:17:13] Cameron: Uh, let me just find that.

[00:17:15] Ray: if you have, it’s been a while, since I don’t remember.

[00:17:19] Cameron: I can’t see it in my notes. I’m just Let’s see if I can dig it up. There is, uh, this was doing the rounds, uh, a few months ago. It was, uh, a conversation recorded years ago, like, I think 20 years ago, maybe, where he was sitting with some people, um, just basically saying, Oh, here we go. Um, I think I found it here.

[00:17:52] Cameron: OK, he’s speaking in Hebrew, so I will, I’ll try, I’ll just read the transcription here.

[00:18:00] Ray: Yeah.

[00:18:03] Cameron: Um, I’ll post a link to it in the notes. If you want to look it up on YouTube, it’s called What Does Netanyahu Really Think of the USA? Here’s what he says, especially today with America. I know what America is. America is a thing you can easily move. Move in the right direction. Um, so That’s basically what he said, right?

[00:18:22] Cameron: There’s a lot of clips in this thing of him talking about moving the US, but he knows how to manipulate the US. Um, oh, here’s another clip from the same thing. He says, Remember Oslo? I stopped the Oslo Accords. So, this is a guy who is, you know, very canny, very clever, in a Trumpian way. He knows how to tap into the American psyche.

[00:18:48] Cameron: Um, But it’s not just him, of course. There’s, um, there’s a lot of people in the Israel lobby in the US. There’s a great book I read years ago by John Mearsheimer, um, called The Israel Lobby. And if you want to know more about how the Israel lobby works in the US, I recommend that book. But, um, a lot of people in America, uh, are against what Israel is doing.

[00:19:15] Cameron: Um, there’s been some surveys done recently that indicate that younger Americans Uh, uh, uh, quite against it. About half of the 18 to 29 demographics say that Israel is committing genocide,

[00:19:31] Ray: Right. Ah

[00:19:35] Cameron: for registered Democrats. 49 percent of registered Democrats agree with the genocide characterization.

[00:19:43] Cameron: Um, the Republicans are far more supportive of what Israel is doing. 57 percent of Republicans said there is no genocide. Only 18 percent of Republicans agree with it, which is interesting. Let’s see how this plays out in your upcoming. Presidential election this year, which we’ll talk about a little bit later on, but Biden’s losing, you know, Biden, by the way, most unpopular president in recorded history at this point in his first term,

[00:20:13] Ray: Mm hmm.

[00:20:14] Cameron: to the polls.

[00:20:15] Cameron: And, you know, he is, actively supporting this, uh, genocide by Israel and half of his regis half of his own party, uh, believe their president is supporting Israel committing genocide. So it’s got and Republicans are for it. So the Republicans are like, you beauty Joe Biden. Of course they probably think Trump would do the same and maybe more in terms of support.

[00:20:46] Cameron: We don’t know.

[00:20:48] Ray: Yeah. Can I say something real quick? Let me just reference something that you said at the very beginning when you talked about South Africa filing that case. Supposedly the ICJ is going to make their announcement tomorrow. And you’re right, they’re accusing them of genocide violations under the Genocide Convention.

[00:21:07] Ray: And, um, and of course Israel says that’s false. It’s grossly distorted. You’re, you’re taking it all out of context. Yada, yada, yada. Watch the videos for yourself or the drone footage for yourself. But then some, and I just love this, some South African, it was either a politician or it was a media personality.

[00:21:24] Ray: I can’t remember. They wrote something like, um, let me see if I can find it here. Um, oh, it’s a, he wrote, remember when we broke ties with you, Israel, and you called us subhuman. So you called us subhuman because we wouldn’t do business with you because we find that you’re subhuman yourself. You call us subhuman, you’re acting subhuman now, and now hopefully the chickens will come home to roost.

[00:21:49] Ray: But as you know, Cam, and you’re probably going to say this in a minute, the court, the ICJ, does not have the ability to enforce its decisions. So it can scream from the rooftop all it wants, but one, it can’t enforce it, and two, as long as America in general is backing Israel, Nothing is going to happen.

[00:22:08] Cameron: Yeah, you’re right. I mean, it’s a, one of the sexy organs of the United Nations. And we know that the only body in the United Nations that can do anything is the Security Council. US has a veto on the Security Council. So it’s not going to agree to anything happening, but. You know, what I think this does, though, South Africa, by the way, Jews accusing some people of being subhuman. Yeah,

[00:22:36] Ray: on the nose. Two on the nose. Yeah. Do you really want to go there? Yeah.

[00:22:42] Cameron: it’s the same thing with the genocide thing, really? You know, you want to even get close to the line of being accused of committing genocide after what your history, uh,

[00:22:52] Ray: Did you learn anything? Yeah.

[00:22:54] Cameron: Anyway, um, and also like, I know I said this on the last time we talked about Israel, but you know, the Americans bang on and the Israeli government bangs on about their right to defend themselves and their right to exist,

[00:23:07] Ray: Right.

[00:23:08] Cameron: one talks about the Palestinians right to defend themselves or their right to exist,

[00:23:13] Ray: You have, you have to go through a, no, actually it doesn’t. I’m glad you brought that up. You have to go through a holocaust first and then the survivors of that have the right to life. No one else could just fuck right off. Uh, I don’t, I don’t want to jump too far ahead, but today there was actually some news, uh, probably when you were first getting up, um, And in brushing your teeth or whatever, there was talk, there was very serious talk on both sides of coming up with a ceasefire long enough to exchange prisoners or for Hamas to release the rest of, of the detainees, prisoners, whatever term I should be using, um, that fell apart a couple of hours later, um, but there was a look, it looks like they were going to try to try very hard for both sides to calm the fuck down, but then Hamas said, We will only agree to this if all Israeli troops leave Gaza.

[00:24:06] Ray: And of course, Benjamin Netanyahu said, Fuck that and fuck you. So that’s, so nothing’s gonna change and these people are still suffering some of the worst tragedies that humans possibly can.

[00:24:19] Cameron: And I like the, the duality here where the US refuses to call this genocide, even though there’s 25, more than 25, 000 people killed in a couple of months, uh, 70 percent women and children, but we’re happy to call China’s treatment of the Uyghur people genocide.

[00:24:40] Ray: Yes.

[00:24:41] Cameron: Uh, where the total number of dead people was, well, none, really, that we, or, that we have evidence for.

[00:24:49] Cameron: Uh, maybe some people died in an internment camp, that was the best they could come up with. But they were like, oh, well, no, it’s cultural genocide. But as long as we can throw around the G word, that’s fine. But, when it actually comes to 25, 000 people being killed, Uh, well we can’t call that genocide. No, we won’t, we, that’s, that’s just ridiculous.

[00:25:14] Cameron: You can’t even bring up the word. Uh, but, you know, fine if it’s China when there’s not people dead. By the way, here’s what the head of the Human, United Nations Human Rights Council said.

[00:25:27] Ray: right,

[00:25:29] Cameron: Um, well, here’s an article about him, anyway. In a related development, the UN’s top human rights official has defended criticism of the invasion of Gaza, saying that it is not anti Semitic to call out gross violations of international Humanitarian Law, writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Wednesday, Volker Turk, he’s an Austrian by the way, once again strongly condemned the shocking cruelty of the attack launched from Gaza by Hamas and other armed groups on October 7th.

[00:25:59] Cameron: The massacres that ensued created intense and continuing trauma across Israel, the UN Rights Chief continued, before insisting that the country’s campaign of overwhelming force has been tainted by grave breaches of international law. Rocket fire from Gaza into Israel is also continued, Mr. Turk noted, before expressing regret that some Israeli officials had tried to discredit his officers concerns by claiming that they constitute blood libel.

[00:26:27] Cameron: It is not a blood libel to deplore the failure to hold to account Israeli soldiers and armed settlers who have killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7th, or the prolongation of a war whose conduct has raised grave international humanitarian and human rights Law Concerns, the UN Rights Chief Stressed.

[00:26:49] Cameron: So, it’s not just South Africa that has serious issues about the way that Israel is conducting this. The head of the Human Rights Commission obviously has issues as well. So, as you said, it’s going to the ICJ. Uh, they’re gonna have a temporary ruling, not on the genocide question this week, but on possible emergency measures requested by South Africa to restrain milit uh, Israel’s actions.

[00:27:13] Cameron: But, funny thing about the ICJ.

[00:27:16] Ray: Right.

[00:27:16] Cameron: The current president of the ICJ is an American woman, Joan Donahue.

[00:27:22] Ray: Mm

[00:27:23] Cameron: In the 1980s, Donahue acted as an attorney advisor for the US in the International Court of Justice, in the case of Nicaragua versus the United States.

[00:27:34] Ray: Mm hmm.

[00:27:35] Cameron: So for the kids out there who weren’t around during the eighties.

[00:27:41] Ray: Right.

[00:27:42] Cameron: During the era of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior, there was a, uh, Marxist government in Nicaragua. There were, uh, there was a far right, uh, military, paramilitary operation called the Contras that were trying to fight against the Marxist government. And they were really extreme, these guys, like, you know.

[00:28:06] Cameron: Killing priests and women and children and all sorts of

[00:28:10] Ray: Oh, yeah.

[00:28:11] Cameron: Supported by the United States. Fully supported, in secret, by the United States. With the knowledge, we believe, of George Bush Senior and Ronald Reagan, although they avoided any legal repercussions for that, but When this was taken to the ICJ in 1986, um, where, you know, Nicaragua was accusing the United States of supporting the Contras.

[00:28:38] Cameron: The case was decided in favor of Nicaragua and against the United States. Awarding of reparations to Nicaragua. The court had 15 final decisions upon which it voted. The court found in its verdict that the United States was, quote, in breach of its obligations under customary international law not to use force against another state.

[00:28:58] Cameron: Not to intervene in its affairs, not to violate its sovereignty, not to interrupt peaceful maritime commerce and, which is interesting, we’ll get to that later, and in breach of its obligations under Article 14 of the Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the parties signed at Managua. On the 21st of January, 1956, I’ve been to Managua, not for very long, flew into Managua, then jumped on a bus and went out into the country of Nicaragua to go to a cigar, a cigar factory, farm, turned, what was that, 2011, I think, somewhere around that I went, it was fantastic.

[00:29:35] Cameron: In Statement 9, the court stated that while the US encouraged human rights violations by the Contras, by the manual entitled Psychological Operations and Guerrilla Warfare, this did not make such acts attributable to the US. Here’s the kicker. The United States refused to participate in the proceedings, arguing that the ICJ lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.

[00:29:56] Cameron: The World Court has no jurisdiction.

[00:30:01] Ray: Sorry.

[00:30:04] Cameron: Over things that happen in the world. Were we not clear on that?

[00:30:07] Ray: no, no.

[00:30:08] Cameron: S. also blocked enforcement of the judgment by the United Nations Security Council and thereby prevented Nicaragua from obtaining any compensation.

[00:30:18] Ray: Damn,

[00:30:18] Cameron: And the current president of the ICJ was on the American side of fighting that in the ICJ in the 80s.

[00:30:30] Ray: I see what you’re doing, but I think the word, the two words, actually one word for both situations, coincidence. It’s just one of those quirky things where it just happened to work out really well for us and the people that like us and back us are now in charge. You’re reading way I’m embarrassed for you.

[00:30:49] Ray: You’re reading way too much into it. You would think that when America was found guilty, we’d be like, okay, fuck it, pay him, because all we got to do is print some more fucking money. Right? Just pay him. We wouldn’t even do that. God, I love America. Proud to be an

[00:31:05] Cameron: Bush Senior say? Like, I will never apologize for America.

[00:31:09] Ray: That’s right, especially when we fuck up. Oh, can I just say something real quick? I know we’ve only got so much time, but when we were doing the, uh, creation of Israel series, you made some kind of, uh, I think example or metaphor. You said something like, Ray, it’s like me going into your house, going into the bathroom, barricading myself into the bathroom and saying, from now on, this is mine.

[00:31:30] Ray: You can’t do shit about it. And slowly, slowly, slowly, you take, you take more over more of my house. And they go, what are you complaining about? So for me, this is kind of like. If someone was to come in now and kill my entire family, just wipe everybody out, and I go in crazy, and I start going around killing people, and they try to arrest me, and I’m like, you can’t arrest me, you’ve seen what I’ve been through, right?

[00:31:49] Ray: You can’t touch me. I’ve been through something so horrible, it should excuse anything that I do for the rest of my life. How dare you, sir? You know, metaphor. Anyway, I’m

[00:32:02] Cameron: Mmhmmm moving right along ’cause I’ve only got 22 minutes left. Pakistan versus Iran.

[00:32:07] Ray: Yes!

[00:32:08] Cameron: heard there have been some tensions recently between Pakistan and Iran. Iran conducted a missile and drone attack on Western Pakistan saying that it was aiming them at the militant group. Jes al al.

[00:32:23] Ray: right?

[00:32:24] Cameron: Hard for me to say that. Uh, two children. We’re killed in the attack. This is in the Balochistan region of Pakistan. And, um, I’ll explain what that is in a second. Pakistan recalled its ambassador, blocked the Iranian envoy, and then, uh, turned around and launched attacks almost immediately on the same sort of region, the Balochistan region of Iran.

[00:32:48] Cameron: Um, saying, oh, well, we’re also attacking, um, terrorist

[00:32:52] Ray: Oh, the same fucking group. The same fucking group. Sorry, go ahead.

[00:32:58] Cameron: Um, so it’s, there’s this interesting thing going on. Now, Iran and Pakistan have had various stages of their relationship since Pakistan was created in the late 40s, but they’ve never really attacked each other’s territories before.

[00:33:13] Cameron: So this is a kind of a big deal.

[00:33:16] Ray: Yes.

[00:33:17] Cameron: Now, Iran’s justification for their attacks had something to do with this bombing in a place called Kerman in Iran, uh, on the 11th of January. There was a memorial being held for the former top commander of the Quds, uh, force in Iran, uh, Qasem Soleimani, who was killed by Donald Trump in a drone strike, um, back in 2020.

[00:33:42] Ray: Mm hmm.

[00:33:43] Cameron: He was in Iraq at the time. We did a whole fuckin story on that back in 2020, I seem to recall.

[00:33:49] Ray: Yeah.

[00:33:50] Cameron: So, Balochistan, I didn’t know much about Balochistan. Do you know much about Balochistan, Ray?

[00:33:55] Ray: You know, kind of think you’re making it up, but go ahead. No,

[00:33:59] Cameron: Uh, it’s not a country, it’s a region, it’s like, um Uh, based on where a bunch of regional people live, sort of that sits on the top of Pakistan, Iran, and a small part of Afghanistan, after the Bloc people that have lived there, you know, since fucking God was a boy. And, you know, in classic sense, classic, you know, Winston Churchillian logic, when he invented all of these countries by just drawing lines on a piece of paper, when he was half, half cut.

[00:34:32] Cameron: Um, He, uh, like, oh, fuck these people. Who cares about these people? We’ll just put them part here and part over there and part over there. Fuck them. Who cares?

[00:34:42] Ray: They all look the same to me. So how, how bad could it be?

[00:34:47] Cameron: gives a fuck what they think? The Baloch people are an Iranian ethnic group, and the largest part of the Pakistan’s four provinces is their part of Balochistan.

[00:35:01] Cameron: It’s the least populated, but the largest geographical area. And, you know, like, these people have been fucked over going back to, you know, like, the Persians, the Arabs, the British, Alexander the Great, probably, like,

[00:35:16] Ray: Probably

[00:35:16] Cameron: you know, we know when he went through there, there’s always been this region of conflict and unrest because of its strategic importance, but also, you More recently in the last hundred, hundred and fifty years because of its natural resources.

[00:35:29] Cameron: There’s a lot of gas, oil, coal, gold, copper in this region. So none of these countries that ended up with it because Churchill drew a line in the sand want to let it go or want to give these people independence. These people want independence and I’ll explain why. So there’s, like the, like the Uyghur people that I mentioned earlier, these people don’t really feel like they belong in this country.

[00:35:51] Ray: Yeah,

[00:35:52] Cameron: And they, you know, they know that there is, natural resources on their land, they’re not getting a lot of that money, they want that money because they can provide for their people. So there’s been a strong separatist movement in Balochistan for a long time. Now, um, the Baloch people, you know, didn’t get any choice in when, when the lines were drawn around their country and, you know, they’re like, well this is Pakistan now, all the Muslims in India, fuck you, you’re going to move up north.

[00:36:18] Cameron: You now got a, you know, I just watched a great Bollywood film, Patan, which, uh, covered a little bit of that. Was it Patan? I think it was Patan. Yeah.

[00:36:27] Ray: Right?

[00:36:28] Cameron: They’re like, yeah, fuck you. Or you just,

[00:36:30] Ray: Pick up and

[00:36:31] Cameron: no, it was, it was an episode of Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor Who that starts with the separation of Pakistan and people being caught on dividing lines.

[00:36:40] Cameron: Anyway,

[00:36:41] Ray: yeah. Sounds familiar.

[00:36:42] Cameron: but there was also Patan, which was about Pakistan and India fighting over Bangladesh. Anyway, another story. Um. They feel like they’ve been economically exploited, the Baloch people, neglected politically by the Pakistani government. There have been several uprisings in there during the 20th century, and each time, obviously, the Pakistani military go in and shut it down fairly brutally.

[00:37:06] Cameron: The section of Balochistan that’s in Iran has, uh, similar but separate issues. Um, the Baloch people are Sunni Islam. Those are the majority in Pakistan, but in Iran, obviously, they’re mostly Twelver Shia Islam, as we’ve covered on other episodes before. And the Sunni bloc people feel like, again, they’re sort of discriminated against, they’re marginalized, uh, there’s a level of cultural suppression.

[00:37:35] Cameron: Because yes, we all believe in the same God, and yes, we believe in the same prophet, uh, Piba, but you worship him wrong.

[00:37:43] Ray: that’s right. So we have to kill you or at least not think of you as an equal. Yeah. And can I just add real quick, just to make this a whole, whole situation that you were just talking about a lot more fun. Pakistan has nuclear weapons. Iran is working on them. So, but, but again, this is just more fighting in the region.

[00:38:00] Ray: We’re sitting, okay, this is an individual fight. The thing with the, uh, ht that’s a supposedly an individual fight, but then we’ve got what’s going on in, uh, in Israel. And so, so in some ways these. Battles are connected in some ways or not, but one day, I guess the big fear is, it just becomes a regional conflict.

[00:38:17] Ray: Everybody just, like World War I, everybody just picks sides and you just fucking go at it. And who’s gonna suffer the most? The people in the Middle East who had no control over this whatsoever.

[00:38:27] Cameron: Yeah. And they’ve been suffering through these sorts of

[00:38:29] Ray: For, exactly.

[00:38:31] Cameron: Since Alexander the Great, right? Um Now, the Afghan part of Balochistan is a lot smaller than the Pakistan and the Iranian bits, but,

[00:38:40] Ray: Mm hmm.

[00:38:41] Cameron: less turbulent, but also, you know, overshadowed mostly by all the other shit that Afghanistan has been going through forever as well.

[00:38:50] Cameron: Now, the other reason why Balochistan is strategically important is where it sits. It sits near key maritime choke points. If you bring up a map for me, Ray,

[00:39:02] Ray: Right.

[00:39:02] Cameron: can you, can you, can you do that for me,

[00:39:05] Ray: I can whip this out. Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:08] Cameron: If you look at where Balochistan is on a map, um, you’ll see that it’s uh, a really sort of important part of the Gulf of Oman, I guess.

[00:39:25] Cameron: It’s,

[00:39:26] Ray: Right.

[00:39:27] Cameron: got, you got it open in front of you?

[00:39:28] Ray: Got it. Yep. Yep.

[00:39:30] Cameron: So it sits right near, you know, the, where if you come through the Gulf of Oman, you go around Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, you know, past Dubai. And then it sits on the coastline here and it’s, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of. Shipping traffic that goes through there.

[00:39:49] Cameron: It’s, um, as we’ll get to when we get to the Houthi story, if we have time. Um, and it also plays a key role in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, the CPEC. There’s a deep sea port called Gwadar, G W A D A R. in the Pakistani part of Balochistan. It’s a pretty focal key point for the CPEC. It’s supposed to connect China with the Arabian Sea, which gives China a strategic foothold in the region.

[00:40:19] Cameron: So there’s this whole history of historical grievances, ethnic nationalism, strategic geopolitics, resource wealth, and all of this has led to like just a whole Never ending series of national and international interests conflicting there. It’s a real hotspot. So the Jayesh al Adel, which by the way translates to Army of Justice in Arabic, which is the name of my upcoming album, is a Sunni militant group.

[00:40:50] Cameron: Mostly operating in the Sistan and Balochistan province of Iran. They emerged around 2012.

[00:40:55] Ray: Mm hmm.

[00:40:56] Cameron: They came out of another group called Jundala, where the leader of Jundala was arrested and executed by Iran in 2010. And so, you know, a Sunni rebellion group against the Shia government of Iran.

[00:41:13] Ray: Mm hmm.

[00:41:15] Cameron: And, you know, they’ve sort of claimed that they’re fighting for the rights of all Sunni Muslims in Iran.

[00:41:21] Cameron: They also represent the Baloch minority in Iran. So they carry out guerrilla attacks, kidnappings, bombings against Iranian security forces, and they’re often, you know, involved in cross border activities between Iran and Pakistan. So they’ll have bases in Pakistan, which will go and attack places in Iran.

[00:41:41] Cameron: And the Iranians will say, accuse the Pakistanians of, of, uh, protecting them. And then the ones in Iran will attack Pakistan and the Pakistanians will accuse the Iranians of harboring them. Although, you know, I mean, it’s just complicated. But it’s a bit like when the U. S. allegedly found Osama Bin Laden hiding in Pakistan right next to the Pakistan military’s headquarters.

[00:42:07] Cameron: Oh really? He’s that guy? Fuck, we’ve been renting that place out to him for 10 years, really? That’s Every time I said, what do I call you? He’d say, call me Mr. Bin Laden. I’d be like, really? That’s What a coincidence that your name is What’s your fir Your first name’s not Ossima, is it? It is, actually. It’s Ossima Bin Laden.

[00:42:25] Cameron: Fuck me, really? Yeah, it is. Oh, shit, hey? What a

[00:42:29] Ray: there’s two of them. There’s two of them. I did not know that.

[00:42:32] Cameron: yeah. And you look like him too! That must get really difficult when you go through

[00:42:37] Ray: Because clearly you committed. You committed to this role, so that’s all I’m saying. That’s all I’m saying. Yeah.

[00:42:46] Cameron: Here’s some, just to give people some interest, other context on what’s going on. This is from Geopolitical Monitor, but this is by an author. He’s a geopolitical scientist slash doctor, I think. But he writes freelance for Geopolitical Monitor, which is one of the geopolitical websites that I don’t mind reading.

[00:43:06] Cameron: It’s not I don’t always agree with it, but, um, he, this guy lives in Karachi, so he’s got a Pakistani bias, one would assume, but he says, the puzzling timing of Iran’s unprovoked attack raises many prickling question, quish, guh, puh. Let me start that again. The puzzling timing of Iran’s unprovoked attack raises many pricking questions about its strategic objectives, especially amid heightened tensions with the United States and other parts of the region.

[00:43:32] Cameron: Interestingly, on the day Iran conducted its strike, the caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan engaged in a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister during the World Economic Forum in Davos. The navies of both nations were also actively participating in a joint military exercise. Additionally, a Pakistani trade delegation was present in Iran, while another Iranian delegation was concurrently visiting Pakistan.

[00:43:59] Cameron: The convergence of diplomatic engagements, military exercises and trade delegations on the same day adds a layer of complexity to the unfolding events between the two countries. The strikes were launched a day after similar attacks carried out by Tehran inside other neighbors, Iraq and Syria. The question revolves around why Tehran chose this particular time for unprovoked missile attacks in neighboring countries simultaneously, especially in a nuclear state like Pakistan, with which it has never engaged in any past conflicts.

[00:44:31] Cameron: He goes on to conclude, the obvious answer can be traced to Tehran’s attempt To divert attention from the continued political and economic instability in its country, Iran strategically employs cross border actions to stoke nationalist sentiments and alleviate internal pressure.

[00:44:49] Ray: They’ve been doing this for years.

[00:44:51] Cameron: Well, I’m sure there’s an element of that that’s true, and I think most countries in the world are guilty of that, you know, if you want to

[00:44:59] Ray: Look over there.

[00:45:00] Cameron: a country, yeah, you attack its enemy and you beat up the fact that we’re doing this thing to fight off terrorists or fight off our enemies or whatever it is.

[00:45:09] Cameron: But I also think that there’s an element of this that has got to do with what’s going on in Gaza at the moment. It’s the Iran, the Iranians. Demonstrating their willingness to attack Uh, enemies across borders. It’s a shot across the bow. Let’s say that it’s, it’s a, Hey, listen, you know, I mean, not that people don’t take their ability to do this kind of stuff seriously, seriously, anyway.

[00:45:41] Cameron: I mean, they, they are involved. in operations in the Middle East. I don’t know necessarily it’s to the degree that they’re often accused of, you know, if, if somebody lets out a sneaky fart anywhere in the Middle East, the Western media will say it was, you know, supported by Iran. Um, but,

[00:46:03] Ray: there.

[00:46:04] Cameron: you know, yeah, but they obviously, like everyone, is sort of interested in supporting their strategic interests and their allies in the, in the region.

[00:46:14] Cameron: And speaking of which, moving on to our last story, because I have eight minutes before we have to finish this, U. S. and British militaries have been striking sites in Yemen, and I want to just touch on that before we get away. What do you know about the Houthis, Ray? Quick, 30 seconds, tell me everything you know about the Houthis.

[00:46:32] Ray: um, the Houthis are a Yemeni militia group named after their founder, a very long name, Hussein Badreddin al Houthi, um, Shia. They emerged in the 1980s as As in, uh, to oppose the Saudi Arabia’s religious influence in Yemen. So, there’s about 20 of them. They’re used to being oppressed. They’re used to being messed with.

[00:46:54] Ray: They’re used to fighting. And now, supposedly in support of the Palestinians, they are now shelling, I guess, what? Commerce ships that come by the coastline and also American and other military ships. So I, I don’t know what they’re thinking. I mean, it’s like walking up to the biggest guy and just slapping the shit out of him going, Hey, I just finished having coitus with your mom.

[00:47:15] Ray: I mean, but they are, they are literally defying all the odds by taking on America and the British Navy.

[00:47:24] Cameron: Yeah, so they, they came out, I think it was in the early 90s, those are real, as a theological movement promoted by, promoted by Hussain al Houthi. There are, there are a particular Shia sect called the Zaidi, which is different from the Twelver sect, which is dominant in Iran, but They started to basically, you know, create rebellions in Yemen because they felt that they were being marginalized as a sect by the Yemeni government, which they perceived as corrupt and too close to Western and Saudi interests.

[00:48:07] Cameron: That, that was in fact true. They were right, obviously. Um, that kind of morphed into a general armed insurgency in the early 2000s. Al Houthi himself was killed in 2004 by Yemeni government forces and that actually further radicalized the group that he left behind. In 2014 they advanced south. They seized the capital of Yemen, Ana, um, which is memo memorialized in the classic song,

[00:48:39] Cameron: Ana.

[00:48:40] Ray: Do do do. Do do do do. Yeah, I knew that. Do

[00:48:47] Cameron: A lot of people dunno.

[00:48:48] Ray: do do do do

[00:48:49] Cameron: That it was actually the Houthi

[00:48:50] Ray: Now you do.

[00:48:51] Cameron: song. That was their, that was, you know, armies have a song that they will sing when they march into battle. That was the song that they would

[00:48:58] Ray: If they were more Ha ha ha ha! helps them keep It helps them keep the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:49:05] Cameron: they actually seized the capital of, of Yemen in

[00:49:09] Ray: Wow! That’s impressive.

[00:49:11] Cameron: Yes. 2015, the Saudis got involved trying to restore the government of a guy called Hadi, who, there’s a long story about President Hadi, he sided with the Houthis, then he turned against the Houthis, and it was all back, and then he eventually got killed.

[00:49:24] Cameron: There’s this whole backwards and forwards thing. The Saudis Um, then launched a brutal war against, uh, the Houthis and, you know, fully supported by the United States for many years. Congress started to pull back a little bit of support for it at some stage, but they were doing it via proxy, you know, via their support for Saudi Arabia for most of that time.

[00:49:47] Ray: hmm.

[00:49:48] Cameron: And, uh, you know, it led to massive, um, instability in the region. Um, there was, uh, famine. Displacement, destruction of infrastructure in Yemen, one of the great, uh, greatest, um, crises, uh, human rights crises, uh, in the 21st century so far. Um, And the Houthis were accused of being supported by Iran and to the level and extent of how much they’re supported is still really unknown.

[00:50:22] Cameron: Yes, they’re both Shia groups. Yes, they both kind of hate the United States and Saudi Arabia. But then you’ve got the whole Twelver Shia in Iran versus the Zaidi Shia with the Houthi. And it’s again, okay, well, we worship the same God and we worship the same prophet. We even worship the same way of deciding who is the right prophet.

[00:50:40] Cameron: But your way of acknowledging. Who is the right profit is slightly, marginally different to how we see it, so therefore, that’s enough.

[00:50:52] Ray: Leave it to religion to push people further apart. That’s all I’m saying. That’s all I’m saying.

[00:50:58] Cameron: But the Houthis aren’t just a rebellion, a rebel group in Yemen these days, they’re a serious political force, massively intertwined with the country. And the country, as I said, faces food insecurity, disrupted food supplies, inflated prices, millions are relying on humanitarian aid, which hasn’t really been coming from the international community because the US is preventing it.

[00:51:23] Cameron: Um They’ve been on the brink of famine, children vulnerable to malnutrition and starvation, hospitals have been destroyed, the health system has completely collapsed, um, there have been outbreaks of diseases like cholera, diphtheria because of poor sanitation, lack of clean water, lack of health care, those sorts of things.

[00:51:42] Cameron: Of course,

[00:51:43] Ray: For

[00:51:43] Cameron: airstrikes by the Saudi led coalition and ground fighting led to thousands and thousands of civilian deaths, uh, including many, many children. Employment’s rampant, you know, usual thing, just they’re completely, you know, trying, the Saudis, backed by the United States, are basically trying to wipe out a large percentage of the Yemeni population so they can, quote unquote, bring stability, which means, you know, reinstating a government that’s friendly to Saudi interests.

[00:52:15] Cameron: So, to be fair, the Houthis were attacking Saudi infrastructure. You know, they’re doing cross border attacks as well. Who, who start, who shot first, Greedo or Hahn? You know, we won’t know until the smoke clears, but.

[00:52:29] Ray: Exactly.

[00:52:30] Cameron: That’s what’s going on. That’s sort of the background of that. So the Houthis in Yemen have been attacking vessels in the Red Sea, because they sit, again, like Balochistan, they sort of sit on this trade corridor.

[00:52:41] Cameron: They sit on the Red Sea, and they’re saying that they’re doing it in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.

[00:52:48] Ray: Uh huh.

[00:52:52] Cameron: we’re going to do is disrupt shipping. create economic, um, uh, issues for you, probably affecting Egypt more than it’s affecting Israel, because I think more of Egypt’s economy relies on traffic through the Suez Canal.

[00:53:05] Ray: right.

[00:53:06] Cameron: it’s also probably more about Uh, attacking Saudi Arabia and hurting Saudi Arabia by attacking shipping in this region as well. It’s got more to do with just Israel, but it’s also just attacking the West. It’s trying to create turmoil in the West. And, and often like going back to the original Hamas attack on October 7th, it, I think it’s largely designed to create Uh, awareness about the issues that these people are facing, uh, that the, that the Houthi are facing,

[00:53:40] Ray: Because you won’t even know it.

[00:53:42] Cameron: Palestinians are facing.

[00:53:43] Cameron: If you can create conflict in these regions, you get it on the front page of the newspapers, you get it on the news, hopefully people in the West pay attention and do something. And, you know, judging by the response of surveys, uh, in the U. S. of the young people, it’s, it’s having an

[00:54:02] Ray: Oh, they’re pissed.

[00:54:03] Cameron: raising awareness, uh, for them.

[00:54:06] Cameron: Now, of course, in response to, uh, these attacks on ships in the Red Sea, the U. S. and the U. K. have started bombing the fuck out of Yemen. Military targets, they say. Um And, uh, the legality of the U. S. and the U. K. arbitrarily bombing sites in Yemen is really, uh, questionable. It hasn’t been approved by the U.

[00:54:31] Cameron: N. Security Council. The U. N. Security Council has wagged its finger at the Houthi for doing all of this. Nobody, including China and Russia, wants global traffic in the Red Sea trade, uh, to get disrupted.

[00:54:45] Ray: Disrupted. Absolutely.

[00:54:46] Cameron: But it’s more affecting, uh, the United States and the UK shipping companies, uh, and, and Israeli shipping companies, et cetera, et cetera, that are linked to the

[00:54:56] Ray: They’re, they’re, they’re desperate, so they’ll do anything to get, like you said, get attention. And you’re right, it is working.

[00:55:01] Cameron: And the Houthi are making unreasonable demands, uh, to stop their attacks. They say they demand Israel allows full humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza. Oh, okay. Not so unreasonable after all. Uh, that’s And in response to In response to this threat, the US uh, forced Israel to allow full humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza.

[00:55:24] Cameron: No, wait, I read that wrong. No, the US of Britain just bombed the fuck out of Houthis military targets. Um,

[00:55:29] Ray: can,

[00:55:32] Cameron: now

[00:55:32] Ray: help ease the suffering or we can make more people suffer. I say we go with the second option. For

[00:55:38] Cameron: the US’ justification for it is that the hou are attacking US interests, and that’s why they can, uh, attack them. When Russia does something because it’s threatening their interests, or China does something because it’s threatening their interests, Yeah, legal. When the U. S. or the U. K. does something to protect their interests, well, that’s different, as David Markham will say.

[00:56:00] Cameron: Well, it’s not the same thing! It’s different! Mm hmm. Everything’s different to everything else. Yes, I get that. It’s the principle,

[00:56:06] Ray: loving, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s, one, two, one side, yeah, go ahead, sorry,

[00:56:14] Cameron: Well, look, I could talk more about this. I’ve got to go. My time is up. I just wanted to say, though, that the issue with them and the Saudis, Yemen and the Saudis in this, is interesting because obviously, the Saudis are fighting the Yemenis, because the Houthi are pretty much Yemen now.

[00:56:34] Cameron: Um, the Saudis, though, are also supposedly supporters of the Palestinian cause. The Houthi are attacking the ships in the Red Sea to support the Palestinian cause, which the Saudis also support.

[00:56:49] Ray: right,

[00:56:50] Cameron: the Houthis are supported by Iran, and Iran and the Saudis don’t get along, even though they Worship the same God and the same prophet. Just disagree on how they worship him. Um, but, so, it’s complicated, man. It reminds me of when Obama was siding with Al Qaeda to fight ISIS back in the early days of the Syrian war.

[00:57:14] Ray: It got crazy. It

[00:57:15] Cameron: in this case, it’s not the enemy of my enemy is my friend, it’s the friend of my friend is my enemy. Saudi Arabia’s like, okay, well, you’re friends of the Palestinians, we’re friends of the Palestinians, but you’re still my enemy.

[00:57:29] Cameron: So it’s complicating that whole thing.

[00:57:33] Ray: It makes more sense. Kit, Kit, before you go, I just got to tell you something real quick to make you feel better that you’re Australian. One, um, there’s a representative, and I think it’s in the state of Kentucky, who’s put forward a bill to make it legal to have sex with your first cousin. I think there’s a little personal interest going on there.

[00:57:52] Ray: Yeah, um, there’s There’s another one, um, in Colorado, a bill has been introduced to bring back duels when, uh, representatives are, are insulted by other representatives, not by the civilians, but by, they’re, they’re allowed to challenge them to duels, um, let’s see here, um, oh, and my, and the last one is in Florida, there’s a bill, this one’s probably going to pass, um, that forbids anybody in the state who is 16 years or young, 16 year, years old or younger to use social media.

[00:58:23] Ray: So, thank God you’re in Australia. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll let you know how it goes. This is gonna be the, uh, apocalypse here. Sorry, go ahead.

[00:58:32] Cameron: We didn’t even get time to talk about the Republican primaries. We’ll have to do that next time, but obviously Trump, clean sweep. Uh, DeSantis fell over at the first hurdle. Um, it’s just,

[00:58:45] Ray: the man, yeah, he’s not a human. He’s, he’s a walking shit stain. Anyway, we’ll

[00:58:50] Cameron: be an interesting year. All right. Gotta run. Kung Fu waits for no man. See you later, buddy.

[00:58:58] Ray: Alright, buh bye.

The post BS 122 – Israel Genocide, Houthi, Pakistan, Iran appeared first on The BS Filter.

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My old friend and colleague J. David Markham joined me today to talk about Russia and Ukraine. We planned to get to other topics, but ran out of time. Although we agree on most things related to Napoleon, David and I disagree on nearly everything else related to geopolitics, so this was a fun episode.

Transcript

BS 121 Markham Russia
[00:00:00] Cameron: Welcome to a very special edition of the Bullshit Filter. This is episode 121. No Ray with me today, but my The Ray before there was Ray. My pre Ray Ray. My old friend and colleague, J.
[00:00:36] Cameron: David Markham, is joining me today. Long awaited return to the Bullshit Filter for J. David Markham. It’s been, yeah, been on the show in the past, but it’s been quite a few years. We had a very, uh, fun time doing a Napoleon reunion episode. Despite the fact that we were talking about a godawful film a few weeks ago.
[00:00:57] David: and we talked about it for almost as long as the film was.
[00:01:01] Cameron: Yes. And it was a much better use of people’s time too, I think, listening to us than watching the film.
[00:01:06] David: course. Of course.
[00:01:09] Cameron: So, uh, look, uh, I guess the, the, the setup for this is anyone who has followed us on Facebook over the years knows that whilst we agree violently on Napoleon. We tend to disagree violently on pretty much everything else when it comes to politics, and I, so you know where I’m coming from, I’m not coming into this as a debate, I had to spend an hour trying to convince Chrissy this morning that this wasn’t going to ruin our friendship, I think, look, I am I’m I am genuinely interested in trying to understand more about how David thinks about these issues, because I respect you.
[00:01:46] Cameron: You’re my friend, you’re, you’re an intelligent man, you’re a student of politics, and, uh, we have very diverging views on this, and our audience knows my views on this stuff, so it’s, they, I, I don’t need to remind them, and Ray tends to agree with me on everything, because I’ve spent 10 years training him how to think properly. So, uh, I thought it would be useful and healthy and interesting for our audience to hear your views and why your views on some issues diverge from mine. So the things I thought, I mean, the obvious things to talk about, things that we would be talking about on this episode anyway if you weren’t with us is what’s going on in the US presidential election that’s coming up.
[00:02:31] Cameron: What’s going on in US politics at a Federal level. Uh, what’s going on in Israel and Gaza, and what’s going on in Russia and Ukraine. They’re the, sort of, the big, well, there’s a lot of geopolitical issues we could talk about, but I guess they’re three of the big ones that, um, we probably have diverging views on, and which makes it interesting.
[00:02:52] Cameron: Where would you like to start?
[00:02:54] David: I’m gonna guess we do. Uh, you, you, you spent, uh, uh, all those years training Ray. Uh, and the, you, as you know, I had a birthday, uh, a few days ago on Tuesday. It turned 78. So I’m hoping that you will simply accept the wisdom of your elders and, and we’ll, and we will do just fine. And I too, uh,
[00:03:18] Cameron: you don’t look a day under 77.
[00:03:21] David: Yeah, I knew that was coming.
[00:03:23] David: Uh, I, uh, I, I too had some trepidation, uh, about, you know, would we be at each other’s throats and, and, and, and somehow damage, uh, our, our friendship, which my goodness goes back decades at this point. Uh, and I certainly hope not. Uh, You know, I, I also respect you and, and think you’re very intelligent, uh, and, uh, you, uh, I, I, every now and then I’ve, I’ve got a glimpse of some of your political views or, or whatever, and, and yeah, you’re right, I don’t always agree, but I have always prided myself in having friends.
[00:04:08] David: With whom I don’t agree on everything politically, or for that matter, Napoleonically, uh, I think it would be a boring life if you only hung around with people who agreed with you in lockstep, uh, and I say that, you know, with, you know, some of the people The, the Trump accolades who, who, who all, you know, adhere to a very narrow point of view, but also some, some groups on, on the left, you know, who, who do not want to tolerate a divergence of opinion on, on, uh, at least on a large number of issues, uh, I’ve always felt that we have.
[00:04:49] David: a chance to learn, uh, from each other if we have some disagreement anyway, and without getting into fisticuffs, and since you are, I’m guessing, 10 or 15, 000 miles away, getting into fisticuffs would be somewhat difficult, so we’re safe in that regard.
[00:05:09] Cameron: Alright, so where do you want to start? Israel, Russia, or America?
[00:05:15] David: Well, I think we ought to end on a relative high note, so We, I think we should save American politics for the end, because if there’s any area where we might actually find some agreement, it might be, it might be that. And it’s also, if there’s any area where I pride myself as, as being an expert, you know, other than Napoleon and a few other historical areas, you know, I’ve, I’ve been involved in, And, and American politics and so forth for, for many, many, many decades.
[00:05:50] David: And, uh, you know, like to think that I know a fair amount about them. Of course, I follow them very carefully, even though I live in Canada now, but I’ve been told by many Canadians. Canadians are more likely to follow American politics closely than they are even to follow Canadian politics because of course, it’s the, it’s the, it’s the elephant in the room, you know, kind of thing.
[00:06:11] David: I mean, you know, you can love America or hate America or be ambivalent about America. It’s still, you know, an extraordinary, powerful nation with influence around the world and, you know, it, it, you, you, you want to have an idea of what’s going on. So, I guess the, the, the other 2 things, which probably won’t take a huge amount of time, is.
[00:06:37] David: You, you crane and, you know, you’re smiling because, you know, you, I have envisioned that this could be the length of, of one of our normal podcasts, which is to say, you know, a little over an hour, we, we, we, no, we averaged about an hour and 15 minutes on the Napoleon podcast. And then, and then we, we, with occasional exceptions, and then the movie thing was two hours.
[00:06:58] David: So, Hours and 15 minutes. And with the movie itself being two hours and, and, and 45 minutes . So we came, we, if we’d have been paying attention, we could’ve talked another half hour just, just to say we did it. But, uh, uh, so let’s, you know, so you’re thinking two or three hours. I’m thinking an hour and a half maybe.
[00:07:17] David: ’cause I do want to have dinner at a reasonable hour as well. It’s, it’s in the evening here. So let’s talk about Ukraine for starters. Uh, to me. There isn’t a whole lot to say, at least in terms of the, the righteousness of one side or the other, as you know, in 2014, uh, Russia under Vladimir uh Marched into Crimea and simply announced to the world that it was now Russian territory because, of course, it was always meant to be Russian territory, never mind the fact that the United Nations and virtually every country in the world recognized it as part of Ukraine.
[00:08:03] David: And the world didn’t do much of anything about that. Uh, and now I think we’re paying the price, you know, uh, now, uh, two years ago. Uh, he, he marched into Eastern and Southern, uh, uh, uh, Ukraine and announced that this was always supposed to be part of Russia. Uh, and therefore, you know, in fact, he tried to, to take over the whole country.
[00:08:29] David: He had troops marching from the North on, on Kiev or Kiev, depending on how you prefer to pronounce it. Uh, And that didn’t work out so well for him. What he thought might be over in a few weeks and what, frankly, a lot of the people in the world thought would be over in a few weeks, uh, is still going on and Ukraine has taken back a significant amount of territory in previous, uh, efforts, but this latest, uh, uh, thing has, uh, offensive, counter offensive has, has bogged down and now winter is coming on, which makes, you know, either side’s Progress much more difficult just because of the nature of winter fighting.
[00:09:10] David: Much of the world has rallied to the Ukrainian cause, certainly the European Union and NATO and other other people, countries in the world have sent aid. It’s the nature of these things that after a while, people get tired of sending aid if it doesn’t seem to be making a huge difference, and initially it did.
[00:09:33] David: I hope that the United States and NATO countries will continue to give them military and economic assistance. I think we should have learned. Uh, in, in World War II, the lead up to World War II, that, that appeasement, that allowing someone to, to take over all of or part of a country just because they have an excuse that could sound sort of legitimate if you, if you’re, if you’re willing to sort of close your eyes to some facts, uh, how dangerous that can be.
[00:10:09] David: Uh, and, uh, uh, you know, there’s other countries that, that he, Putin may or may not want to, to move in on and, and do the course. So, it’s, it’s good to stand for the rights of people to determine their own future and clearly Putin has other plans. So, you know, that, that in a nutshell is, is, is how I see it.
[00:10:32] David: There’s been a fair amount of barbarity on the part of some of the Russians that has been clearly documented, and there are war crime investigations going on, and there may be some war crime investigations into some of the actions by some soldiers on the Ukrainian side as well. In any war, there’s always a possibility of some of that.
[00:10:55] David: The reports I’ve seen have it pretty lopsided in terms of, in terms of, uh, you know, atrocities or, you know, I mean, it’s, it’s very clear that, that Putin is deliberately targeting infrastructure, the civilian infrastructure, uh, with no concerns at all that, that There are no claims that they’re being used by the Ukrainian military, uh, which is a little bit different from the Gaza situation, which we’ll talk about later.
[00:11:27] David: Uh, but, uh, uh, you know, I think Putin is trying to, to force submission through, through, through terrorism and, and, you know, that’s, uh, to me unacceptable, but I’d like to hear what your, your thoughts are.
[00:11:46] Cameron: So You were talking about what we learned about appeasement in the 30s, and I know, because I’ve heard him say it, that Putin says the exact same thing about what he believes, and Many, uh, Western analysts also believe happened in Ukraine in 2004 and 2014. Uh, and then what was looking like it was going to happen, um, when his discussions with Biden broke down at the beginning of last year about Ukraine entering NATO.
[00:12:27] Cameron: I mean, 2004 and 2014, that seemed to have been, if not. Engineered, then supported by the United States and perhaps other Western powers with the intention of overthrowing it. Uh, pro Russian governments in Ukraine and replacing them with pro Western governments. And, you know, Putin has been very clear about the fact that he and, you know, Russians in general, believe that, uh, they can’t allow that to happen.
[00:13:05] Cameron: That’s an existential threat. to Russia and Russian peoples, both in Russia itself and also the Russian speaking peoples in Ukraine, if Ukraine gets taken over, uh, in a, in a soft, uh, way by Western powers in engineered revolutions, and then joins NATO on top of that, which Russians see as a, as an existential threat to their country.
[00:13:34] David: Well. You know, uh, the, the, the revolutions that you call them were, were, you know, very firmly supported by the Ukrainian people and they were happy to get rid of the, of the pro Soviet leaders. I’ve never seen any, anything to the contrary, you know, Putin. You know, he, he, he may not want Ukraine to, to join NATO, but it’s not his decision to make.
[00:14:06] David: It’s the people of Ukraine’s decision to make through their government. And it’s not an existential threat to, to, to, to Putin. NATO was a defensive organization, uh, and, and, and that’s, that’s its fundamental reason for existence. Oh, and by the way. You don’t want expansion in NATO, so you go ahead and invade Ukraine.
[00:14:31] David: Well, how’d that work out for you, Mr. Putin? Because you’ve got Finland and probably Sweden joining the, the, the NATO now. And, you know, that’s, that’s thousands of kilometers of additional NATO border on your northern flank. And that, You know, I don’t think that Finland or Sweden have any interest in invading Russia any more than anyone else really wants to invade Russia.
[00:14:56] David: I don’t think NATO has any desire to invade Russia. You’re raising your eyebrows, but I’d love to see any evidence you have that NATO wants to invade, you know, uh, and, and countries have chosen, you know, the Baltic countries, other countries, uh, Poland, et cetera, they’ve chosen. Buy the will of their people through their governments to, to, to join NATO because they feared the existential threat from an expansionist Russia, which by the way, those fears have been realized now because it’s not NATO, you know, invading, let’s say, Belarus.
[00:15:36] David: It’s Russia invading Ukraine. So, you know, the, the, the, the proof is, is, is, is, is in, is in the facts. And the facts of the matter are that Russia feels it has the right, number one, to control who does or does not join NATO. And number two, oh, there’s a few Russian speaking people there, and some, some reasonably high percentages of Russian speaking people in, in Ukraine.
[00:16:02] David: But knowing that they speak Russian doesn’t make them Russian. It doesn’t make the country Russian. If they don’t like living in, in a non Russian country, they always can immigrate to Russia, you know, assuming that they accept immigrants of the very people they claim to want to protect, you know. Anymore, you know, there’s a lot of Russian speaking people in Moldova and, and, and Moscow has troops and supplies illegally, I think, in Moldova, you know, trying to intimidate them lest they decide that they would like to, uh, to say join.
[00:16:37] David: Join Rumanian because the language of the country is Romanian, you know, not, not Russian, uh, but I mean, the, the, the weakness to your argument and I understand, I understand your argument and I, and I, and, and, and I, I realize there can be a different point of view about the nature of, of, of NATO or, or the Warsaw Pact or, you know, any, any other so called defensive, uh, military, uh, structure.
[00:17:03] David: Bye. Uh, but the, the weakness of, of, of your argument and those, and those who agree with you is the fact that one country has invaded another sovereign country that was not in, in reality, a significant threat. to them, uh, has never shown any interest of being aggressive militarily, may or may not have decided to join NATO.
[00:17:30] David: And at any rate, that’s the right of a sovereign country. I do not understand how you or anyone can justify one country simply invading another country en masse, trying to take over the entire country and absorb it. In, into Russia, that didn’t work. And so now they are supposedly going to be quote unquote satisfied if they can get the, the Eastern and Southern portions that they now control and, and, and, and keep, uh, uh, the peninsula.
[00:17:59] David: I, I, I do not understand how, how you could justify that. You know, that would, would someone have the right to say, you know, would Singapore have the right to say, we’re going to invade, uh, Uh, Australia, because we, we think that’s really part of the, the, the, the landmass ultimately, or whatever, you know, excuse they would come up with.
[00:18:20] David: Uh, it, our, our, would Australia have the right to invade New Zealand? Because after all, that’s a, that’s a piece of land that’s very close to us and it has historic ties to us. So, of course, you know, uh, and they speak English, so they, they, they must be Australian. I mean, to me, it’s dangerous.
[00:18:38] Cameron: what about the Solomon Islands?
[00:18:43] David: Well, you’ll have to refresh my memory. The Solomon Islands, if I recall, are two things. Number one, very, very, very small. And number two, were taken from Japan, you know, was as part of the, the, the, the, the declared war between Japan And it’s allies in the U. S. and it’s allies. And so, yeah, they, a few islands here and there were, were taken and, and China is trying to take some more north of Japan.
[00:19:11] David: Uh, but I, I don’t think that’s even remotely the same. They were, you know, I don’t know how you can make it a comparison at all.
[00:19:22] Cameron: Well, about a year ago, the Solomon Islands talked about, uh, allowing China to establish a military base there, and the U. S. Ambassador, Daniel Crittenbrink, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs said, uh, the U. S. wouldn’t rule out, uh, military action against the Solomon Islands if they allowed China to build a military base there.
[00:19:51] David: Well, and you know, you can, nations routinely saber rattle and so forth and so on, but that’s not exactly the same thing as invading a major country with billions of people in it, as opposed to trying to maintain influence over a small set of islands that has some strategic value. You know, you can disagree with the United States on that.
[00:20:13] David: You can be in favor of China expanding its military might if you want, but you can’t make a comparison between the Solomon Islands and the nation of Ukraine.
[00:20:22] Cameron: doesn’t the Solomon Islands have the right to allow China to build a military base on their country if they want?
[00:20:29] David: I would say that if that’s what they, if that’s what they want, they have a right to do that and, and, you know, I don’t know, obviously, I think you’ve got information on your screen and I, I don’t know very much about the Sullivan Island situation. So I have to concede I, I’m, I’m, I’m ill prepared to, to debate the, the nuances of the Sullivan Islands.
[00:20:50] David: But, uh, uh, again, even if you want to say that, That China should be able to build bases there. You know, that’s not the same as saying China should be allowed to invade and take over the Solomon Islands or anyone else should be allowed to invade and take over the Solomon Islands. Uh, and.
[00:21:11] Cameron: about invading. It was the U. S. that was threatening military action or refusing to rule out military action.
[00:21:19] David: And that might have involved in simply, you know, action against, you know, the one part of the island where the Chinese were trying to build a military base. It does not imply they were going to invade and take over the entire country. And, and, and so again, I, I have a hard time seeing how you could make that comparison.
[00:21:42] David: You can disagree with the US and maybe you’re approach China and you think it’d be great to have a Chinese military base there, but you can’t say that, that a little savor rattling or even military action is the same thing, is invading an entire large country and trying to take it over and absorb it as, as part of your own country.
[00:22:04] Cameron: Isn’t it? Isn’t military, isn’t, isn’t the principle that you’re trying to, um, put forward regarding the Ukraine situation is that Ukraine has the right to join whatever alliance it wants, for whatever alliances it wants, and that Russia has no say in that, even though it’s on their border, and yet the US is claiming the right to interfere with the Solomon Islands sovereign right to form an alliance with China.
[00:22:35] David: or to allow China to build a military base. I think, I think it would be a closer analogy, analogy would be if the United States or NATO, uh, decided to build a, a major military base in Ukraine when Ukraine was not a member of, of NATO. Uh, and I suspect Russia would have had some things to say about that.
[00:22:56] David: That and maybe you arguably somewhat more, more rightfully is unless Ukraine had chosen to, to go to, uh, uh, into NATO. But again, I mean, we can, we can talk around in circles for another hour on this, but I’m just not going to concede that while there may be some small similarity in principle, uh, you, you simply cannot make the, the, the comparison, but, but between saber rattling over the Solomon Islands and China.
[00:23:24] David: Uh, possible linking up, uh, and the blatant invasion with mass destruction, uh, of infrastructure and of, and of people, uh, that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has, uh, has started. It’s just, you know, there’s, there, there’s, there’s, there. Really, in reality, extremely different, even though you might be able to draw some kind of theoretical thread that connects them, the reality on the ground and the importance geopolitically of that reality is far, far different.
[00:23:59] David: And I think you know that, honestly.
[00:24:02] Cameron: Well, no, I think the principle is the same thing, but I mean, and you know, I don’t want to get into the US’s recent history of invasions, but you know, it often seems to me that you and many other Americans seem to happily play a game of, it’s okay for the US to invade countries. Uh, or overthrow governments of countries, resulting in massive destruction, displacement, deaths, or support other countries military actions, uh, uh, a la Israel, resulting in massive deaths and destruction.
[00:24:41] Cameron: Um, and, you know, can justify that to the cows come home. But when a country you don’t like does something similar, all of a sudden they’re the embodiment of evil. But I want to quote. Um, somebody who said, uh, was talking about, um, Napoleon and, uh, uh, his invasion of Russia. In 1812, uh, he said probably a little bit like the Russians today didn’t really appreciate the expansion of NATO right up to their borders.
[00:25:20] Cameron: No matter how much America and the NATO allies said to Russia in the 20th century that this is a peaceful movement, not to worry about your old adversary now having their member states right on your border, President Putin and others are not real thrilled with that. Well, it’s very much the same thing in the 19th century.
[00:25:36] Cameron: Russia was used to having, you know, buffer states between them and France, and now all of a sudden, a satellite nation in the French Empire is right on the border of Russia, and they’re not too happy about it.
[00:25:47] David: Well, yes, and I’m sure that’s a quote for me.
[00:25:49] Cameron: J. David
[00:25:50] David: that’s, I’m, I’m sure that’s a quote for me, but, you know, context matters. I’m sure I also went on to point out that, uh, the, the, the, the Duchy of Warsaw, which is the buffer state you mentioned, uh, was a problem, but before it even became closer aligned to, uh, to, to, to the French empire because they never really liked having an independent Polish state there.
[00:26:14] David: And of course the, the real important thing that, that created the situation in 1812 was the continental system, uh, where, you know, they, the Russians were prepared to, to break the continental system. Uh, and, and, and they, they got all their ducks lined up in a row so they could, they could go into, uh. to a war with France.
[00:26:36] David: And so there were, there was, there was a lot more to it than, than, than simply that, but I want to read, I want to reply to, to your earlier remarks. Uh, it’s not true that people like me, as you put it, blithely excuse, uh, American invasions. Uh, the causing great destruction, you know, uh, while, while supporting it, uh, you know, opposing it in Russia and supporting it in, in, in Israel.
[00:27:07] David: Uh, you know, I’m, I’m a very proud decorated Vietnam veteran, but I, I, I opposed the war in Vietnam. I thought that was the, at the time, I thought that was the biggest foreign policy mistake the U. S. probably, uh, ever, ever made. Uh, and then the, the second Iraq war came along and, and I determined that it was the biggest foreign policy mistake that America ever made.
[00:27:35] David: And, and, and I opposed that, that, that invasion vehemently. I didn’t mind the, the, the first one because that was, Kuwait was being invaded and Kuwait was an ally. And you You go in support of your allies and you help them drive out the invaders, but it’s important to point out that even though we had the Republican Guard of Saddam Hussein on the run at the end of that war, uh, we declined to go in and try to establish a new government in Iraq or much less take it over or establish a military presence there.
[00:28:10] David: Uh, we, we, we did not do that. And
[00:28:13] Cameron: Iraq was an ally too, we should point out.
[00:28:16] David: Yeah, it
[00:28:16] Cameron: Hussein was a US ally. You funded his, you funded his attacks on Iran for
[00:28:22] David: Yeah, the, the, the, the fight between, between those two and, and, and, and between him and Iran was, was, you know, supported, supported by us, you know, absolutely, but, you know, you can’t, you, you, you, you can’t have, uh, uh, You know, one of your allies being invaded.
[00:28:41] David: So
[00:28:42] Cameron: Buy another one of your allies.
[00:28:45] David: I don’t know if we were really truly allies with Saddam at that stage or not. That’s, that’s something I’d have to go back and look to see what the diplomatic relationship. was between them. Uh, and you have the advantage over me, uh, in that you have talked about this stuff.
[00:29:01] David: I’m sure on the bullshit factor or filter, uh, before, and, and you’ve obviously done some research. Uh, you’ve got quotes lined up and so forth where, where I’m just sort of doing this as a conversation between friends who, who, who draw on, on pretty good sources of, of, of, knowledge and understanding. Uh,
[00:29:24] Cameron: Okay. So let me,
[00:29:25] David: I, I didn’t go to the trouble of putting it together in any old, uh, quotes from you or whatever,
[00:29:31] Cameron: You’re just, you’re just like Ray then. You’ve done a bit as much prep as Ray normally does. Let me, let me, do you know who William J. Burns is?
[00:29:38] David: I recognize the name, but I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head.
[00:29:42] Cameron: He’s currently the director of the CIA.
[00:29:44] David: Okay.
[00:29:46] Cameron: Um, back in 1995, he was a political officer in the U. S. Embassy in Moscow, and he wrote a memo back to Washington, where he said that hostility to early NATO expansion is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here. In 2008, He was still, had some role, um, in Russia, I think he was the ambassador to Russia at the time or something like that.
[00:30:14] Cameron: He wrote a memo to, uh, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the time. And the title of the memo was, Nyet means Nyet. And in that memo he said, Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite, not just Putin. In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.
[00:30:43] Cameron: Ukraine and Georgia’s NATO aspirations not only touch a raw nerve in Russia, they engender serious concerns about the consequences for stability in the region. Not only does Russia perceive encirclement and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences, which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Bernie Sanders gave a speech recently. Where he said, Vladimir Putin may be a liar and a demagogue, but it is hypocritical for the United States to insist that we as a nation do not accept the principle of spheres of influence. For the last 200 years, our country has operated under the Monroe Doctrine, embracing the principle that as the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere, the United States has the right, according to the United States, to intervene against any country that might threaten our alleged interests.
[00:31:39] Cameron: That is US policy. And under this doctrine, the United States has undermined and overthrown at least a dozen countries throughout Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean. As many might recall, in 1962, we came to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Now, why was that? Why did we almost come to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union?
[00:31:59] Cameron: Well, we did that in response to the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba, 90 miles from our shore. And the Kennedy administration saw that as an unacceptable threat to national security. We said it is unacceptable for a hostile country to have a significant military presence 90 miles away from our shore.
[00:32:17] Cameron: Let us be clear, the Monroe Doctrine is not ancient history. As recently as 2018, Donald Trump’s Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, called the Monroe Doctrine as relevant today as it was the day it was written. In 2019, former Trump National Security Advisor, John Bolton, declared The Monroe Doctrine is alive and well.
[00:32:37] Cameron: To put it simply, even if Russia were not ruled by a corrupt oligarchic authoritarian leader like Vladimir Putin, Russia, like the United States, would still have an interest in the security policies of its neighbors. I want people to think about this. Does anyone really believe that the United States would not have something to say if For example, Mexico or Cuba or any country in Central or Latin America were to form a military alliance with a US adversary.
[00:33:03] Cameron: Do you think that members of Congress would stand up and say, well, you know, Mexico is an independent country. They have the right to do anything they want. I doubt that very much. Countries should be free to make their own foreign policy choices. But making those choices wisely requires a serious consideration for the costs and benefits.
[00:33:23] Cameron: The fact is that the United States and Ukraine entering into a deeper security relationship is likely to have some very serious costs for both countries. That was early in 2022 when he said that. Um, this is before the invasion and, uh, you know, it, it, you know, you say they have the right to do it and you said earlier that Putin thought the war was going to be over very quickly and it was going to be over very quickly.
[00:33:49] Cameron: Very early into his invasion in 2022, uh, Zelensky was ready to meet with him and discuss terms. and come to some sort of a peace agreement until, um, Boris Johnson shuttled in and spent a few days with him and basically told him or convinced him not to sign a peace deal with Putin. And then the U. S.
[00:34:18] Cameron: along with its allies, uh, in Europe. You know, I’ve spent, what, how many hundreds of billions of dollars now? 170 billion, 200 billion to keep the war going. So they could have signed a peace deal, March, April, 2022. Instead, the war’s been drawn out for 18 months. How many tens of thousands of people are dead, millions displaced, infrastructure destroyed because the US and the UK didn’t want Zelensky to sign a peace deal with Putin back in the early days?
[00:34:52] Cameron: And it would have all been over and done with.
[00:34:55] David: well, I, I, I, I dispute a, a fair amount of that. Let me, let me, let me go back a little bit though. You know, it may very well be that this, Mr. Burns and others have, have, have warned that a lot of the Russians don’t like the idea of, of a, uh, of, of, of, you know, Ukraine joining nato. And, and it’s fair enough that.
[00:35:20] David: Ukraine may want to make, take that as part of their consideration, making the decision they, whether they decide to, to, to irritate the Russians and join NATO or appease them, maybe compromise by joining the European Union, but, but which is an economic bloc as opposed to the military bloc that NATO is, but ultimately, I Again, it’s not up to Russia to make that decision or the Russian people.
[00:35:48] David: Uh, it’s up to the Ukrainian people. My recollection is that it was not exactly certain that Ukraine was ever going to actually join NATO. It was much more likely they would try to join the European Union, at least, at least in the shorter term. Uh, and, uh, you know, as far as the peace treaty, I, I, I That’s not the way I remember the early days at all.
[00:36:14] David: Zelensky’s country was attacked. He rallied his forces. He was considered, you know, unexpectedly, because a lot of folks thought he was going to be kind of a lightweight president. You know, he, he didn’t have the strong political background that the, the, some leaders have. Uh, they, they thought that, that he, he, he might turn out to be kind of weak, but he turned out to be a very strong and charismatic leader.
[00:36:39] David: Uh, and, and his forces, uh, pushed back the Russians away from Kiev and, and, and basically chased the Northern folks all the way back to Belarus. Uh, and, and then inspired by, by the, the obvious desire of his people not to be taken over by Russia, then other people, uh, you know, started to, to, to lend support.
[00:37:03] David: Now, did Boris, uh, uh, come in and, and, and, uh, and urge him to stand fast rather than capitulate? Uh, that may very well be, I honestly don’t know, but nothing that I saw and I followed it Very carefully, every day, the news coverage on multiple networks and newspapers was intense, as you well know. Uh, and I don’t recall anything about how, you know, Zelensky was going to willingly surrender a portion of his country.
[00:37:38] Cameron: that’s because it wasn’t covered in the U. S. media. You need to read outside of the U. S. media, so,
[00:37:43] David: I do.
[00:37:44] Cameron: by Pravda in Ukraine. So
[00:37:47] David: Pravda, oh, Pravda is such a good source.
[00:37:51] Cameron: David,
[00:37:52] David: That’s
[00:37:52] Cameron: is, David, David, this is, David, this is Ukranska Pravda, it’s an anti Russian newspaper, slow your roll. In May It reported that, and this didn’t get covered in the West, it reported possibility of talks between Zelensky and Putin came to a halt after Johnson’s visit, according to sources close to close to Zelensky, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, who appeared in the Capitol almost without warning.
[00:38:22] Cameron: Brought two simple messages. The first is that Putin is a war criminal. He should be pressured, not negotiated with. The second is that even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they, meaning the collective West, are not. Three days after Johnson left for Britain, Putin went public and said talks with Ukraine had turned into a dead end.
[00:38:43] Cameron: Foreign Affairs in September, October 2022 said, According to multiple former senior U. S. officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement. Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23rd when it controlled part of the Donbass region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries.
[00:39:15] Cameron: So, plenty of news sites in June last year covered the story that Boris was still saying he was worried that Ukraine would make a peace deal with Russia. But this story about how the, uh, negotiations got scuppered didn’t get a lot of coverage in the Western media, only in Foreign Affairs six months after the
[00:39:32] David: know, and you, you, you, you always like to blame the U. S. and in this case, I guess it’s U. S. ‘s ally, Great Britain, but the reality is, so, Boris Johnson went and said, you know, we would prefer to see you in the U. S. Stand fast and stand up to Putin. Okay. That’s his opinion. Russia’s opinion is we would prefer you to capitulate and join us, you know, in our, in our socialist utopia.
[00:40:03] David: Okay. That’s his opinion. Now, Zelensky and his government and, you know, and the people, they have to decide what they feel is best for them. And you could say he was pressured and he was being pressured from both sides, by the way. I mean, Putin was obviously, you know, trying to, to, to say, okay, we, this is our territory now.
[00:40:25] David: You have to accept that. And, and Boris Johnson was apparently trying to say, we really think you should stand up to him because he is in fact, And this is true. In fact, a war criminal, uh, and, and, and, and for you to capitulate to him would be a disaster. And Zelensky has to make his choice. So whether he was pressured or not, the ultimate choice was Zelensky’s and his government’s to make.
[00:40:54] David: And they made the choice probably helped by the fact that they had. somewhat unexpected success, you know, in, in repelling the, the, the Russian invasion. The Russian invasion was not well thought out, as it turns out, sort of strategically and tactically. Uh, they, they, they made a number of mistakes, uh, reminiscent, I suppose you could say, of of the choice of formations that Napoleon chose at the end of the Battle of Waterloo, you know, not necessarily going the way it would have been perhaps a little more effective.
[00:41:28] David: And so as a result, Russians suffered heavy losses, both in the north and also in the south, and now it’s dragged on for a long time. But, you know, we’re talking in circles. The reality is that Zelensky is not going To capitulate and unless he is defeated militarily, if he’s defeated militarily, he may or may not be able to hang on to, to North, uh, Western, uh, Central and Northwestern Ukraine and Odessa, you know, maybe Putin for now, we’ll just stop where he is.
[00:42:13] David: Uh, uh, or, or he, he may have to have further concessions and it’s probably not in the best interest of, of the people of Ukraine who are showing extreme bravery, uh, and determination to maintain their independence. And so again, uh, we’ll end up where we started off in my case, it is my sincere hope. that the U.
[00:42:39] David: S. and its allies will continue to, to support, uh, uh, Ukraine and, and their fight against this illegal, by international law, clearly illegal and, and brutal, uh, attack. And I’m not sure we can have much more to say than, than, than what we’ve said, but
[00:42:59] Cameron: Oh, I’ve got plenty more to say. You said earlier on that, you know, um, you’ve said two things that I think the quote I just read out from Foreign Affairs puts light to. Um, the first is that Putin’s early attacks weren’t successful. Well, Zelensky was ready by the sounds of it to sign a peace deal. So it was successful.
[00:43:19] Cameron: His plan, his initial plan was successful. He seemed to have
[00:43:24] David: he tried, he tried to take Kiev, he tried to take Kiev and he was beaten back. They thought they would, they would lose their capital. They, they attacked the capital from the South and the North. And in both cases, they were repelled. But
[00:43:37] Cameron: Yeah, well, whether or not he was trying to take it or just trying to distract the armed forces of Ukraine while he was doing other stuff depends on what his strategy actually was. We, none of us know what his strategy really was. But the point is that Zelensky sounds, by the sounds of it, by both Ukrainian media and foreign affairs, uh, Zelensky was ready to come to terms very early on in the whole process.
[00:44:02] Cameron: Secondly, you’ve said a number of times that Putin wanted to take all of Ukraine. According to, again, Foreign Affairs, he didn’t. He was ready to settle for back where they were at February 23, which was taking some of the Donbass region. That was his goal, a buffer zone, and also to guarantee, get guarantees from Zelensky.
[00:44:23] Cameron: That Ukraine wouldn’t join NATO. And it sounds like Zelensky was ready to agree to that until the UK and the USA interfered in the process and dragged it out even longer. And in terms of the NATO stuff, let me quote NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.
[00:44:42] David: let me, let me, let me respond before I forget. You know, you see, you keep saying, well, it sounds like he was willing to cut a deal. And it sounds like Putin was willing. It sounds like a sound, but you don’t, you don’t have evidence for that. It may seem that way to some people and someone who wrote an article on may have felt that was the way it was.
[00:45:00] David: It was going to come down. Uh, I have a very hard. time believing that, that, that Zelensky was prepared to almost immediately, in your words, uh, sign off on losing most of Southern Ukraine, certainly all of it along the, the coastline, so that Russia would have a land, uh, uh, bridge to, to, uh, to Crimea. To go along with the, the other bridge and, and also his sea routes.
[00:45:29] David: Uh, I, I have a hard time, but you, you, you said, we don’t know really what Putin’s goal was. And it’s presumptuous of me to say he was going to take over all of Ukraine. That I don’t know that for sure. Cause I don’t know. I’ve not looked into his mind and that’s fair enough. It seemed like it was, given the military operation, but you don’t know either what Zelensky was really going to do.
[00:45:56] David: You’ve read some people who say they believe that Zelensky was prepared to sign a peace deal, but they don’t know. You don’t know. And by the way, I don’t know really what was in his mind and the mind of his advisors, what ultimately he was going to do. He was getting advice from both sides. I don’t dispute that, that, that Morris Johnson gave him advice on one side and, uh, as Putin and, and, and, and other people, you know, from, from his branch, uh, Belarus and so forth, I’m sure we’re pressuring him to, to, to.
[00:46:31] David: Take a different approach. The fact of the matter is, regardless of what advice he got and what pressure he had, He chose to defend his country. Russia was pushed back out of the north completely. A lot of the northeast and, and, and sort of south central part of Ukraine was retaken by Ukraine in the first counteroffensive.
[00:47:00] David: In the second counteroffensive, Neither side has gained much. I mean, you know, one side gains, you know, control of both sides of, of, of, of the river at a strategic point. Another side gains a couple of villages, which are bombed out Hulks of themselves. I would say. Any, any, any military strategists would tell you right now.
[00:47:22] David: You know, after some pretty good success in the first counter offensive, it’s basically a stalemate for, for the winter chances of anything other than the occasional ship sinking or, or something along that line, uh, that, that might happen, any, any real land progress is going to be extremely limited and, and until, you know, after the spring, the spring thaws, everything turns to quagmire of mud.
[00:47:49] David: So that, that’s. Slows things down dramatically. And then next summer, either side can decide to, to mount some kind of a major offensive, uh, either, either, either the Russians are pushing North again, or, or, or, or the Ukrainians pushing South at East again, and, you know, time, time will tell how, how that goes.
[00:48:11] David: Uh, we, we just don’t know. Uh, all, all we can do in our minds is decide. For ourselves, do we think that Ukraine should be supported in its fight to maintain its independence, or do you think that they should be encouraged to sign some kind of a treaty, uh, that Putin reports say is allegedly open to some kind of a treaty, as long as he can say he won, and that would mean keeping the territory he now currently controls.
[00:48:47] David: You know, you could make an argument on both sides of that. I think the Ukrainian people at this point have made it pretty clear, and certainly Zelensky and his government, they want to keep going. They want to get back the territory, including Crimea that was taken from them. You know, a reasonable argument can be made that maybe, you know, you should quit while you still have The vast majority of your country, assuming that we can trust Putin’s treaties and we can get, you know, some kind of of guaranteed security from elsewhere, or maybe that Putin has to, you know, Putin gets territory, but maybe Putin has to concede that Ukraine can join NATO because it’s a sovereign country.
[00:49:30] David: You know, there are various configurations of potential deals that could be made. Uh. But my argument is that’s up to Zelensky and his government. They have to make a decision. You and I can, can encourage them from afar and our various respective governments on all sides can encourage them more, more, more importantly, more directly.
[00:49:55] David: But ultimately, it’s going to come down to. Two things. What does Zelensky ultimately want to have happen? And two, are his current allies, which is to say, primarily NATO countries, the United States being the biggest provider of funds, but Germany and Finland and others. Japan is now talking about routing some missiles through the U.
[00:50:21] David: S. so they can be sent to Ukraine. You know, so there’s a fair amount of international support for Defending Ukraine’s right to, to, to, to, to self defense. Um, but again, ultimately, we’re just going to have to wait and see what Zelensky and his government decide is the appropriate thing to do. You and I have, are very good at having good ideas and, and I respect your ideas and, and, and I certainly respect your, your, your research.
[00:50:51] David: Uh, but Zelensky’s not going to listen to you, and he’s not going to listen to me. So we could just have to, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree and, and wait and see ultimately what happens.
[00:51:02] Cameron: Yeah, it looks like, just from the media coverage recently, it looks like the West is starting to pull back from supporting Ukraine. NBC News had a story a couple of days ago, the war in Ukraine is revitalizing Putin as Zelensky struggles with resources and morale. You know, you say the Ukrainians are wanting to defend their country, but Zelensky has had to, uh, arrest and imprison a lot of his leadership, um, that he’s accused of.
[00:51:32] Cameron: He’s accused of betraying the country. He’s, you know, delayed elections. He’s basically Well, you call it
[00:51:40] David: He’s having to deal with corruption and, and, and that’s something that, that, you know, we should all applaud, uh, he’s doing a lot of that in response to the requirements of joining the European Union, you know, while the European Union Requires that a government that wants to join show that it is not full of corruption.
[00:52:02] David: And there were definitely corrupt people in, in, in, in that country as there are in, in, in Russia and elsewhere, there were people making, making money, you know, off of the war and, and, and this, that, and the other thing. You know, no, Hunter Biden’s got nothing to do with it, though, if you’re going to start
[00:52:19] Cameron: Corruption in Ukraine?
[00:52:21] David: yeah, yeah, we’re not going to talk about Hunter Biden.
[00:52:24] David: But that’s, that’s, that’s just,
[00:52:26] Cameron: you’re taking the Joe Biden
[00:52:27] David: is, it has been totally debunked. Uh,
[00:52:31] Cameron: It hasn’t been totally
[00:52:32] David: a, it’s a, it’s a big nothing burger.
[00:52:35] Cameron: It is not an, that’s, that’s, that’s, uh, would be, that’s a convenient way of avoiding a discussion about the facts, but we’re talking about corruption in Ukraine, and that’s very much part of it. And that gets back to, like, this whole thing, you tend to start your storyline with, you know, early 22 or Putin’s invasion of Crimea.
[00:52:54] Cameron: As I said earlier on, from the From a Russian perspective, and many international observers agree, the, the coups in Ukraine in 2004 and 2014 were either engineered by the United States or at least vigorously supported by the United States. Let me quote Ian Traynor. The Guardian’s European editor, writing in the Guardian in 2004, this is after the Orange Revolution, uh, he says, but while the gains of the orange bedecked chestnut revolution in Ukraine’s the campaign is an American creation.
[00:53:33] Cameron: A sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in Western branding and mass marketing that in four countries in four years has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavory regimes. Funded and organized by the US government. Deploying U. S. consultancies, pollsters, diplomats, the two big American parties, and U.
[00:53:54] Cameron: S. non government organizations. The campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box. Richard Miles, the U. S. ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as U. S. ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia. Coaching Mikhail Shashkevili in how to bring down Edward Shevnazi.
[00:54:18] Cameron: Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in Central America, notably in Nicaragua, organized a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hard man Alexander Lukashenko. That one failed. There will be no Kostunica in Belarus, the Belarus president declared, referring to the victory in Belgrade.
[00:54:41] Cameron: But experience gained in Serbia, Georgia and Belarus has been invaluable in plotting to beat the regime of Leonid Kuchma in Kiev. The operation, engineering democracy through the ballot box and civil disobedience, is now so slick that the methods have matured into a template for winning other people’s elections.
[00:55:02] David: Well, yeah, it’s one person’s opinion, and you have a long history of, of blame America. There’s no question about it, uh, you know, every, every bad thing that happens, you, you do your best to trace it back to being, you know, because of a influence or a plot or, or, or, or, or whatever by the United States of America.
[00:55:24] David: Uh, you’ve, you’ve, you’ve been that way as long as I’ve known you, uh, and, and, you know, it’s, it’s okay. You’re, you’re, you’re entitled to that, but I, I reject. The idea that America was behind and a major influencer, it probably did support because the two people that were thrown out, particularly the last one that was tossed out of Ukraine, were notably corrupt and unpopular with the people.
[00:55:59] David: Ukraine is, is, is better off with, with, with Zelensky. And, and by the way, where, where, where did the last guy go? He, he, he, he hightailed it to Russia because he, in fact, was a Russian puppet. You want to talk about, you know, America’s influence. What about Russia’s influence? They, they had their own puppet in, in, in there, Putin’s puppet.
[00:56:19] David: And, and he got, he got overthrown and, and, and, and went, went back to Russia, you know? So, you know, again, I, I, I don’t see. and we’re running low on time, uh, I, I don’t see that we’re
[00:56:33] Cameron: Right on track, as far as I’m concerned.
[00:56:36] David: Well, I don’t
[00:56:37] Cameron: you know about, do you know about the Victoria Newland phone call in 2014 after the Maidon Revolution?
[00:56:46] David: Well, you’re reading from your screen, but no, I, I don’t recall that offhand.
[00:56:50] Cameron: Do you know who Victoria Newland is?
[00:56:53] David: Well, why don’t you tell us all?
[00:56:56] Cameron: People who listen to this show know who she is. She is, I’m looking you up her current role. She is currently, uh, Undersecretary of State. for political affairs since 2021. But in 2014, she was the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs at the Department of State. February 4th, 2014, sort of in the middle of the Maidan revolution, she telephoned Jeffrey Payette.
[00:57:27] Cameron: The US ambassador to Ukraine. Um, and, uh, they had a telephone conversation, um, basically where they were planning on who was going to run the Ukrainian government after the revolution was over. It got bugged. Somebody bugged their telephone call and released it a few days later. Probably the Russians. Um, but it’s very.
[00:57:50] Cameron: Clear in the conversation. This is a famous conversation too, where she said, fuck the eu. Uh, the EU won’t be happy about it, but fuck the eu. Uh, but she, she and Jeffrey Piat were basically talking amongst themselves who was going to be the leader of the Ukrainian government, and I think it was Yook. They decided former European central banker, and he then became the next leader of Ukraine.
[00:58:16] Cameron: So. We have that evidence that she and Jeffrey Piatt determined who was going to be, they were talking about getting Biden on the phone, making the call, sorting it all out, that they, in the middle of the Maidan protests, they were figuring out who was going to lead the country afterwards. So we have, we have like lots of people around the world, there’s lots of scholars who study this region who believe that the U.
[00:58:40] Cameron: S. was involved in overthrowing the country and certainly Putin believes that, many Russians believe that the U. S. overthrew. The democratically elected governments of Ukraine, not once, but twice in, in a decade. Have you watched, um, Oliver Stone’s four hour interview with Vladimir Putin that he did a couple of years ago? I highly recommend it. I’ve recommended it on this show many times just to see, like, it’s four hours of conversations with Putin that he did. I think sort of 2018, 2019, something like that. Um. You know, just to see Putin’s perspective coming out of his own mouth. He is a, he is not a dummy. He is a
[00:59:24] David: he’s not. I agree.
[00:59:26] Cameron: very intelligent, very softly spoken.
[00:59:30] Cameron: He understands history. He understands global geopolitical
[00:59:34] David: Oh, and by the way, he also kills his political adversaries or throws them into gulags and Siberia and so on. So, you know, he may be intelligent and soft spoken, but he’s also a murderous dictator who’s probably guilty of multiple war crimes. So while I agree, listen to him. And I have listened to interviews with him.
[00:59:55] David: I’ve not listened to that particular interview, but I have listened. to, to interviews with him on, on various networks. And I do find it interesting to, to see, you know, and hear, you know, what his perspective is, given that, of course, he’s putting on a show to some extent, I mean, as would anyone being interviewed, any, any leader of any country is putting on a show when they’re being interviewed, you know, by the news media.
[01:00:19] David: And so you have to always take at least a little grain of salt with. with how they come across. They’re going to, they’re doing their best to put their best face forward. And that’s understandable. And again, that’s universal. It isn’t just a Putin thing. Uh, but, uh, you know, again, it’s interesting to know where he’s coming from and it’s, it’s instructive.
[01:00:41] David: And it can provide information that allow you to judge what your response should or should not be and how you should or should not approach relationship with Putin and, and with his Russia, that doesn’t mean that Again, I get back to the fundamental thing. I don’t care what you say about the Solomon Islands or Belarus or Georgia or any of these other things.
[01:01:13] David: Those may be interesting comparisons, and you may or may not agree with what happened in those situations. But we’re talking about Ukraine being invaded by Russia. And what is the world going to do or not going to do about it? We can say what we think they should or should not do, and on that we differ.
[01:01:40] David: I think one thing we agree on is you and I are just going to have to wait and see because there’s a lot of complexities out there as to what happens next in terms of a potential peace treaty. Potential stalemate, potential gains or losses by one side or the other in the, in next summer’s campaign, assuming the things continue, you know, the, the, the effect of more or the same, or, or, or a big cutback in, in, in aid.
[01:02:10] David: Military and financial aid from essentially NATO countries and a few other countries around the world. These are all important factors that are going to determine the ultimate fate of the situation there. And maybe if peace in that part of the world, uh, ultimately, you know, that, that remains to be seen.
[01:02:32] David: Uh, but, uh, I think the whole point of this conversation was for us to sort of expose our points of view and let people hear your point of view and my point of view. I don’t think either one of us really expects we’re going Going to convince the other that, oh, I don’t think Cameron Raleigh is going to say, you know, geez, Markham, you’re, you’re right.
[01:02:54] David: I’ve been wrong all along about this, you know, and I don’t think you expect me to say, you know, Cameron, you’re right. The U. S. is just an abysmal, horrible beast of, it’s always trying to do this, that, and the other thing. And, and, and, and Russia is basically just, Peace loving and trying to preserve the peace by invading it’s next door neighbor.
[01:03:13] David: We’re not, we’re not going to convince each other. So there’s no real point in trying.
[01:03:19] Cameron: let’s,
[01:03:19] David: what we’re trying to do is show our listeners, you know, here, here are our two different points of view.
[01:03:26] Cameron: It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, very lazy, uh, uh, like debate approach always to accuse me of blaming America and hating America and all that kind of stuff. I’ve said this to you for years. My, I don’t hate America. I, you know, my wife’s American, my kid’s half American, a lot of my friends and colleagues are Americans.
[01:03:49] Cameron: I love a lot of things about America. All the films and the music and the books and everything that I’ve consumed over my lifetime is largely American. I’m just a geopolitical realist. I believe that America, like every country, does things that it thinks is, um, supporting, promoting its economic interests at the end of the day.
[01:04:12] Cameron: I think Russia does the same thing. I think, uh, the, the, the monarchs of Europe during Napoleon’s time were doing the same thing. I think Napoleon was doing that. I think that’s basically what leaders of countries generally try and do. And not just political leaders. I’m talking about the, the, the elite, the economic power within the country.
[01:04:31] Cameron: They’re trying to support their rational interests and they, they will often do that at the cost of lives of their own people when they send their own people off to war and often other people. And I think the Ukraine thing, the basic story of what’s happening in Ukraine to me is, the essential story is that since the end of the cold war in the early nineties, when the world became unipolar, In terms of political and military power for a couple of decades, the U.
[01:05:09] Cameron: S. saw it as an opportunity, a once in a lifetime, a once in a century opportunity to take as much as it could in terms of, uh, forming or solidifying its economic block, or its trading block around the world. Part of that was, uh, you know, uh, uh, Taking over, or no, let’s say replacing regimes in countries that were run by governments that weren’t quite friendly to the United States trading bloc, with governments that were friendly to it.
[01:05:46] Cameron: And that was the colour revolutions in the early 2000s, um, you know, Clinton started expanding NATO in 96 after the US and the UK promised Gorbachev that they wouldn’t do it. But, uh, Russia has spent 30 years Trying to, uh, ask NATO and the U. S. predominantly not to expand NATO right up to their border, not to encircle them, and the U.
[01:06:12] Cameron: S. has basically told Russia to go fuck itself for
[01:06:16] David: Well, and by the way, I’m going to, I’m going to interrupt you here. I want to reply to that because you’ve used that term several times. Encircling. They don’t want to be encircled. Take a look at the map. This is not encircling them. This is just Encircling them. Adding someone to an area where they already, you know, have the bulk of NATO nations against them.
[01:06:39] David: They’ve created a little bit of encircling on their own because of their actions leading to Finland and most likely Sweden in the North, you know, but they’re still looking at basically their Western front. They’ve, they’ve got China, they’ve got, they’ve got Asia, they’ve got all sorts of that are nothing to do with any of this on the other two thirds of of their border.
[01:07:03] David: This is not encirclement. It is simply adding bulk, if you will, to the border that they already have with NATO.
[01:07:12] Cameron: well I’m just quoting the
[01:07:13] David: is
[01:07:13] Cameron: of the, I’m quoting the director of the CIA, David, he, he used the word encirclement,
[01:07:18] David: And
[01:07:19] Cameron: so take it up, take it up with the director of the CIA,
[01:07:22] David: director of the CIA is quoting what he says is Putin’s concern. Putin likes to call it
[01:07:29] Cameron: not Putin, all of the Russian elite. He said, not just Putin,
[01:07:35] David: all the Russian elite use that term as well, but it’s still not encirclement.
[01:07:40] David: It isn’t.
[01:07:41] Cameron: David, see, this is the problem. It doesn’t matter whether or not you think it’s encirclement. It doesn’t matter whether or not you think NATO is defensive
[01:07:49] David: Well, the map shows that it’s not encirclement.
[01:07:52] Cameron: It, what matters in these situations is what the Russians feel is threatening them.
[01:07:58] Cameron: I mean, again, you, you always, um, you know, you always try to get me to say, which side do I support? Do I, you know, do, do I justify, am I justifying this? Am I supporting that? I don’t, I don’t feel. Like, it’s my job to justify or support anything. What I’m trying to do on this show is understand the levers.
[01:08:19] Cameron: Why are countries doing what they’re doing? It’s not my job to justify. Americans tend to have this very red team, blue team mentality. You gotta pick a side. I don’t have that
[01:08:31] David: That’s probably true.
[01:08:33] Cameron: Yeah, I don’t have that view, you know, I just try and understand why things happen. Why did Napoleon invade Russia in 1812?
[01:08:43] Cameron: I don’t need to take a side, although of course I take Napoleon’s side, that goes without question, but I don’t need to. But, you know, it’s very evident in this case that Russia, since Gorbachev, has been trying to prevent NATO expansion through diplomatic means. For 30 years, they tried to prevent NATO expansion diplomatically and it just failed over and over again.
[01:09:10] Cameron: Jen Stoltenberg, I was trying to quote before the head of NATO, said this recently. The background to the Ukraine invasion was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021 and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us, and was a precondition to not invade Ukraine.
[01:09:31] Cameron: Of course, we didn’t sign that. The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure and all allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO. All the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our alliance, introducing some kind of B or second class membership.
[01:09:53] Cameron: We rejected that, so we went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite.
[01:10:01] David: Of course.
[01:10:03] Cameron: So, hold on,
[01:10:04] David: that. We don’t let him dictate to us.
[01:10:07] Cameron: so, the point is, okay, so that’s fine, but this is what happens, if you keep putting enemy bases closer and closer to a country that feels more and more threatened, what do you think’s gonna happen?
[01:10:22] Cameron: Eventually, they’re going to have to do something about it. He can’t just sit there, decade after decade after decade. with diplomacy failing over and over and over and over again when he’s
[01:10:36] David: about signing a
[01:10:38] Cameron: he’s trying to,
[01:10:39] David: with NATO, a non aggression pact with NATO? What Putin
[01:10:42] Cameron: they tried that, they tried that. Gorbachev and Yeltsin and Putin all tried to create new alliances that would bring Russia into NATO in a new kind of alliance. It got rejected over and again. NATO refused to look at entering Russia into a new kind of alliance. Obviously, NATO was set up as an anti Soviet alliance in the first place, so they were trying to create new alliances.
[01:11:11] Cameron: Gorbachev was suggesting that in the early 90s. They’ve been trying that for 30 years too. And they, they, my point is, what do you expect to happen when diplomacy fails? Decade after decade after decade, eventually, this is what guys like John Mearsheimer have been saying for decades. It’s what Chomsky’s been saying for decades.
[01:11:32] Cameron: If the, it’s what. Bloody, um, uh, George Kennan said, you know, George Kennan, the George Kennan, when Clinton, he was still alive. He was in his early nineties when Clinton started enlarging NATO. George Kennan, the creator of America’s Cold War containment strategy. He himself in, uh, 1996, let me get the quote, I’ve got it in my notes here.
[01:12:04] Cameron: Um, hold on,
[01:12:11] Cameron: why does it, ah, I hate it when this doesn’t come up. Uh, yeah,
[01:12:15] David: know the feeling, my friend, trust me. Well, while you’re looking for it, let
[01:12:19] Cameron: from him. Yeah, sorry,
[01:12:21] David: while you’re looking, let me, let me say something, you know, you, several times you said when Clinton started expanding NATO, you know, Clinton doesn’t have the power to expand NATO. Individual countries have to decide they want to become members of NATO.
[01:12:37] David: They have to jump through a number of hoops in order to show that, that they are deserving of it. And then every single country of NATO has to vote approval. That’s why Sweden is not. member of NATO yet. There are still two holdouts, although that appears to be to be coming to to an end now. But every single NATO country has to agree after NATO’s governing body says that, okay, they’ve, they’ve met the qualifications to, to join us, the economic, military, or whatever qualifications.
[01:13:10] David: So to say that, you know, you make a sound like Clinton is moving pieces of Chess on a, you know, chess pieces on a, on a chessboard. You know, he may have been influencing it and maybe encouraging it. There’s no question about it. I don’t deny, and by the way, I don’t generally say that you hate America. I generally say you blame America, you know, for, for, for virtually everything.
[01:13:31] David: I’ve had, I’ve said that once or twice in private conversations, but I didn’t say it tonight. You’ll, you’ll, you’ll notice I was very careful not to say that because I tend to believe that you don’t really hate America. You just, you hate what we do politically and foreign policy and stuff, you know, to
[01:13:46] Cameron: I don’t hate it either. I’m just, I just, I try to understand it. I’m a realist. Here’s what George Kennan said in the mid nineties. He said, of course this is about NATO expansion. He said, of course there’s gonna be a bad reaction from Russia, and then the NATO expanders will say that. We always told you that’s how the Russians are, but this is just wrong.
[01:14:07] Cameron: And this is exactly the point. He was exactly right. The NATO keeps expanding closer and closer to Russia. Eventually Russia reacts to that, and then you go, oh, look at Russia. They’re invading Ukraine. Yeah. Well, they told you for 30 years, stop it, cut it out, or we’re going to have to do something. And you knew that, you understood that, the director of the CIA has known that for decades.
[01:14:34] Cameron: You did it anyway, what you knew was gonna happen, happened, and then you go, Oh my god, look at Russia, they invaded Ukraine. It just, it’s like, it’s just, uh, ridiculous to me that everyone acts surprised when it’s almost like you pushed them into this over decades. You knew this would happen, in fact, I have to think that you wanted it to happen.
[01:14:56] Cameron: So you could use it as justification for more military industrial spending, you know, increasing the sizes of the military industrial complex and, and use it to try and, for regime change in Russia. Why else would you keep doing
[01:15:09] David: well,
[01:15:10] Cameron: want it to happen?
[01:15:11] David: now I find you insulting. Honestly, no one wants the kind of destruction that you’re, that you see in Ukraine right now with the, the, the, yeah, real, well, maybe the Russians do, and maybe Putin does, because he thinks
[01:15:24] Cameron: Then why did, then why did, why did you guys tell Zelensky, if this happened, don’t sign a peace deal, go to war, if you didn’t want to see this destruction happen?
[01:15:34] David: Well, you know, first of all, we, we did not necessarily know that, that, that Putin would deliberately target civilians and civilian infrastructure. But secondly, again, you,
[01:15:48] Cameron: a war is a war, man.
[01:15:49] David: keep, yeah, you keep, you keep saying that you don’t want to justify things. You just want to understand them. But your entire discussion on this, this.
[01:16:01] David: Now, uh, two hours, uh, has been just, yes, it has. Since we first started that we did, we had our conversation about computers for a few minutes before, but you know, we’ve been talking for,
[01:16:15] Cameron: of recorded conversation.
[01:16:17] David: yeah, well, that’s, that’s, that’s a lot. Uh,
[01:16:20] Cameron: an hour a topic.
[01:16:22] David: it, it’s, yeah. And we’re like, we don’t have time to do that. Uh, at any rate. Much of what you’ve done tonight is in fact try to justify
[01:16:32] Cameron: No, I’m talking about
[01:16:33] David: We should have known better.
[01:16:36] Cameron: I’m talking about what Putin’s justification is for it. It’s not my justification, it’s his justification. It’s Russia’s justification. And what America’s justification was for So, helping in large part create the situation in the first place.
[01:16:54] David: Well,
[01:16:55] Cameron: You can’t deny that the US
[01:16:57] David: you, if you say, if you think If you say that, that supporting the, the survival of a democratically elected government of a country from an illegal and immoral invasion with no, in fact, direct pretext, the, I, I, they may not have liked it. The, the, the expansion of NATO, but they had no right to invade any country just because they were afraid it might join NATO.
[01:17:31] David: NATO has not shown any inclination to invade Russia. It’s a defensive organization. It wasn’t even clear that,
[01:17:40] Cameron: about the bombing of Yugoslavia, the bombing of Libya, the bombing of the Bosnian Serb army? NATO’s not defensive. It’s led at least three aggressive actions in the last 20 30 years.
[01:17:52] David: well, we don’t have time to get into those. They were much more complex than simply NATO invading or whatever.
[01:17:59] Cameron: But they did.
[01:18:00] David: great deal of complexity. We need to stick to what we’re talking about and and and
[01:18:06] Cameron: this, this, this positioning of NATO as a purely defensive organization just doesn’t hold water. They’re, they’re, they’ve been an aggressive actor at least three times in the last, you know,
[01:18:17] David: Yes, but, but not in terms of Russia. Russia has no reason to believe. Russia is a lot different than Yugoslavia
[01:18:26] Cameron: you can’t say that. Russia, Russia does believe, the director of the CIA told Condoleezza Rice 15 years ago that Russia believed it. You can’t say they have no reason to believe when they obviously do believe it. So they obviously do have reason to believe it.
[01:18:45] David: let’s, and, and I, I’m going to have to go now, because this is pretty quickly here, because I have, I don’t have three hours, like you apparently do. Uh, we, we, we don’t have, we have three topics. We, I’m not going to do an hour on topic. We’ll do the other topics another time. I’ll be glad to come back and continue this.
[01:19:02] David: But, but the fact that the fact.
[01:19:04] Cameron: a bladder thing? Is it a, is it a bladder thing?
[01:19:06] David: no, it’s, it’s, it’s maybe getting hungry thing and, and, you know, and, you know, it’s, it’s seven o’clock in the evening here now. And, and, and, and I have a wife in the other room who might like to have dinner with me or whatever, but
[01:19:20] Cameron: me an email saying she was looking
[01:19:21] David: yeah, I know she, we have peace and quiet for Aetna.
[01:19:24] David: I know I saw, I saw that, you know, we, we joke about that. She, she told me, oh good, take your time, David. Peace and quiet for Aetna, you know. That’s that’s one of her mantras. You know, I go on a trip, you know, so we’re all good. So peace and quiet for Edna, you know. Uh, but, uh, you know, you, you say you don’t want to, you know, blame or support or, or whatever, but, but you, I’ll just, I’ll close my, my comments by saying.
[01:19:55] David: Even if Russia thought they were being encircled, even if Russia didn’t really want NATO to expand and had said so, the idea that they were going to get inside a treaty where NATO gives up or makes sub partners the eastern portion of NATO is ludicrous. And if Sweden or Finland ever decided they wanted to join, or if Ukraine wanted to join, and they met the qualifications to do that, Russia may not like it, may feel uncomfortable, and maybe the West should do their best to, to mollify Russia and say, listen, you know, we want you to understand, you know, but.
[01:20:42] David: You know, Russia’s been backing out of, of, of various treaties on nuclear weapons, for example, and so forth. So, you know, that’s, that’s a little problematic. Uh, but the bottom line is, we should do our best to make President Putin understand and feel that this is not meant to be a threat. As long as he doesn’t invade us, we’re not going to invade him.
[01:21:11] David: And he’s got plenty of military muscle. You know, to, to make sure that, you know, the U. S. and NATO don’t do something foolish like trying to invade, you know, Russia or Belarus as his good buddy and so on. But, after doing that, the bottom line is Russia had no right by international law to invade Ukraine.
[01:21:39] David: It’s a violation of international law. And I would like to think that you believe that countries should follow international law. And I’m not going to say that, that Putin’s the only country and Russia’s the only country that’s ever violated international law. There are other examples. Of course, you, you can,
[01:21:58] Cameron: including the United States on a regular basis.
[01:22:01] David: Well, I would say it’s possible the United States in some situations, I’d have to really go through and look at the nature of international law because, you know, what you call invasions of America tend to be more nuanced.
[01:22:15] David: There’s nothing nuanced about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s a straight send your armies and other military across the border and try to take it over. Anyway, I have enjoyed this thoroughly. We have, as expected, disagreed. I hope you’re not too disappointed that I don’t want to spend three hours doing this, but, you know, my energy level is not the same as yours, perhaps, and I have, you know, my hunger pains are not the same as yours, and so on.
[01:22:48] David: But let’s do it again, by all means. Uh, and then next time, maybe your cohort in crime, uh, Ray Harris will, will be able to join us. And, and it won’t just be, you know, uh, you beating up on me, it’ll be the two of you beating up on me probably, but, you know, uh, but regardless, I.
[01:23:06] Cameron: he’ll just sit there and chew on his uh, weed gummies and get high and
[01:23:10] David: Oh,
[01:23:11] Cameron: That’s what he normally does.
[01:23:13] David: okay. But no, I, I, I enjoy talking this kind of stuff and I enjoy talking through with you, uh, probably much more than if you actually agreed with me on everything. It’d be nice if you occasionally said that I had a good point to make, you know, I,
[01:23:30] Cameron: you ever make one, I’ll,
[01:23:31] David: That wouldn’t have been too bad, you know, but, but, uh, other than, yeah, other than that, uh, I, I’ve, I’ve enjoyed hearing your points of view and, and I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing my points of view, and much more importantly, I hope our, I hope our listeners have found this to be a.
[01:23:46] David: Not only entertaining, uh, but also informative, you know, the two sides with very opposing points of view, making, making their argument for, for their point of view and, and then let, let our listeners decide how, how they come down on the issue. But I appreciate the invitation to do this, my friend, and, you know, you will always be a very dear friend in spite of our disagreements on some political stuff, and, uh, that’s not ever going to change, and I look forward to doing it again.
[01:24:17] Cameron: thank you. It was delightful. Good fun. Thank you, David. Have a good, enjoy your meal. Give my best to Edna.

The post BS 121 – J. David Markham / Ukraine appeared first on The BS Filter.

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On this episode we’re talking about Gaza, The Voice to Parliament referendum in Australia, and the Speaker of the House débâcle in the USA.

The post BS 120 – Gaza, The Voice, and The Speaker appeared first on The BS Filter.

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On this episode, we’re fact checking the claims that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and earlier annexation of Crimea, are all about getting their hands on Ukraine’s gas and oil reserves. We also talk about how to use ChatGPT to de-bias a news article, “The Blob”, Chris Hedges’ analysis of “the pimps of war“, and Alessandro Gagaridis’ analysis of Prigozhin’s Mutiny.

 

The post BS 119 – Ukraine’s Energy Reserves appeared first on The BS Filter.

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This month we are looking into the following stories:

• Economic coercion is BAD if it comes from China, but great if it comes from the USA (AFR)
• John Mearsheimer can’t see any room for peace talks in Ukraine as all sides see it as an existential threat (Youtube)
• The Russian economy continues to flout Western expectations (The Guardian)
• US Continues Dangerous Escalations in Ukraine, Sprinting Toward Catastrophe (Glenn Greenwald) 
• Obama’s views on Ukraine in 2016 (The Atlantic)
• Niall Ferguson on US strategy to bleed Russia dry in Ukraine  (Bloomberg)
• Jeffrey Sachs on Nord Stream (YouTube)
• Skepticism about Bellingcat (Glenn Greewald)
• FBI lacked evidence for alleged Trump-Russia collusion probe, US Special Counsel finds (ABC Australia, Seymour Hersh)
• Olver Stone’s interviews with Putin (Youtube)

   

 

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In this two hour episode, we’re looking at the current war in Sudan – who and what is behind it, and the history of the region, going back to the good ol’ days of British colonialism, US sanctions, Clinton’s Wag The Dog bombing of a medicine factory, Obama’s invention of South Sudan, Russia’s Wagner Group extracting Sudanese gold to pay for the war in Ukraine, and more.

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This month we are looking into the following stories:

– Finland joins NATO
– Maidan coup massacre expose suppressed
– Trump charged
– Putin arrest warrant
– Hersh on the Nord Stream Cover Up
– Meta v TikTok
– ABC News (Australia) and their sneaky headline tricks

The post BS 115 – The Balls of NATO appeared first on The BS Filter.

- Chinese Spy Balloons Over America!
- How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline
- Columbia Journalism Review on Russiagate
- The Howard Gov & East Timor

The post BS 114 – Spy Balloons! appeared first on The BS Filter.