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In this episode, we look at the state of the world and the likely trends and events for the next year.
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Transcripts
Suburban Eastern Australia, an environment that has, over time,
Speaker:evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of Homo Sapiens.
Speaker:But today, we observe a small tribe akin to a group of meerkats that
Speaker:gather together atop a small mound to watch, question, and discuss the
Speaker:current events of their city, their country, and their world at large.
Speaker:Let's listen keenly and observe this group fondly known as the
Speaker:Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Speaker:Hello and welcome, dear listener.
Speaker:We're back for 2024, the Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove podcast.
Speaker:I'm Trevor, aka the Iron Fist, with me as always from regional
Speaker:Queensland, Scott the Velvet Glove.
Speaker:Scott, how are you?
Speaker:G'day, Trevor.
Speaker:G'day, listeners.
Speaker:How are you all?
Speaker:I hope everyone's well.
Speaker:Yeah, hopefully everyone's well.
Speaker:If you're in the chat room, say hello and we'll try and incorporate your messages.
Speaker:Joe's not here.
Speaker:I think Joe is caught up in something else in his trip in the UK.
Speaker:So, but he may appear.
Speaker:He's actually having a good time over there, I would have thought.
Speaker:Yeah, so so anyway Wotley's in the chat room and says hello.
Speaker:So that's good.
Speaker:Well, what are we going to talk about?
Speaker:You just, over Christmas, Christmas dinners, gatherings of your family,
Speaker:did you talk about news and politics and sex and religion with your crazy
Speaker:uncle, with your boomer parents, with your Gen Z disenchanted youngsters?
Speaker:Well we're going to talk about news and politics and sex and religion here.
Speaker:Get you up to speed on what's been happening.
Speaker:What's going to happen.
Speaker:Maybe in this initial part of this episode We'll just sort of look at where exactly
Speaker:are we but the world and what's likely to happen in the year ahead and the
Speaker:years ahead sort of Generally speaking without being too specific Scott and
Speaker:I were just chewing the fat over a few things prior to pressing the live button.
Speaker:So we'll continue that discussion so yeah, I Kiss I had some friends
Speaker:from America just stay last night and talking to Kate and she was saying,
Speaker:you know, how do you explain right wing politics and its popularity amongst a
Speaker:significant section of the population?
Speaker:And and I was thinking about it and it's a good way to sort of just reflect
Speaker:on where we've got to at this point in the experiment of human history.
Speaker:And, Scott, here's my view, as I said in a nutshell, which was, we've essentially,
Speaker:over the last 50 years seen the demise of the middle class and the worsening
Speaker:of conditions for, you know, the lower classes, but certainly a distant
Speaker:a demise of the, of the conditions for working, average working people.
Speaker:And, and really the rise of, of, of some of these right wing characters
Speaker:is a reaction to that, where people are not happy with their current
Speaker:circumstance and they're looking for someone or something to blame.
Speaker:And for a number of people, they're not quite yet ready to blame
Speaker:unrestrained capitalism and the neo liberalism experiment that's been
Speaker:running since Thatcher and Reagan.
Speaker:And then the only alternative to that is to be a bit xenophobic and to blame
Speaker:brown people and other people and immigrants and to hark back to the good
Speaker:old days of the sixties when there was.
Speaker:A Judeo Christian morality, and if we could only return to those sorts
Speaker:of things, and that sort of appeal to conservative moral values, and a blaming
Speaker:of immigrants, a blaming of China for taking all of the business, and A sort
Speaker:of a lashing out at other people rather than looking at maybe the system that
Speaker:we've been working under hasn't been doing what it was all cracked up to do.
Speaker:So, and I think, I think we'll start over the years to see people.
Speaker:start to accept that the capitalism, unrestrained capitalism
Speaker:experiment has some major problems.
Speaker:And in Australia, I reckon people will see that because they'll
Speaker:just look at housing and they'll just go, this situation is a mess.
Speaker:We needed some regulation here to fix this and it's not happening.
Speaker:And I, yeah, I, even here with the units where I stay with one guy,
Speaker:he's quite conservative, sort of.
Speaker:Recognising, he's done enough reading to know that Capitalism requires And
Speaker:without growth, capitalism fails.
Speaker:It's just an essential part.
Speaker:And you just run out of opportunities for growth.
Speaker:You run out of tricks, which we'll talk about later.
Speaker:So, anyway, Scott.
Speaker:You can see that happening with India, which is the next
Speaker:country that's going to move up.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:As their middle class is starting to grow and that sort of stuff, the
Speaker:birth rate is starting to decline.
Speaker:You know, it's only a matter of time before Africa joins
Speaker:that declining birth rate.
Speaker:And then we're going to be stuffed.
Speaker:We're not going to be able to import our population from anywhere.
Speaker:So we, you know, technically should have been in recession here in Australia, but
Speaker:immigration, population growth basically bumped up the numbers so that we weren't.
Speaker:So, uh, so there's sort of a broad brush thing of where I
Speaker:think we're heading over the next.
Speaker:Just how long it takes for that to happen, who knows?
Speaker:Could be decades for that realisation or it might come quicker depending on
Speaker:what disasters beset us along the way.
Speaker:So, Alison's in the chat room.
Speaker:Good on you, Alison.
Speaker:Alison, if you ever want to come on and do a rundown of where we are with
Speaker:Secularism and religious instruction and all the rest of it, feel free to, to come
Speaker:on and give us a rundown of where we're at to, and that conference you spoke at.
Speaker:So, um, so yeah, so, we've got Trump coming up, Scott
Speaker:with an election in the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:and Here's my tip.
Speaker:I think if he lives, and it's against Biden, if he continues to live,
Speaker:I reckon if it's a Trump vs Biden election, I think Trump's gonna win.
Speaker:What do you reckon?
Speaker:Nothing can surprise me.
Speaker:I mean, you can only see it, I mean, it's, I find it incredible that the Never
Speaker:Trumpers and all that sort of stuff and the Republicans haven't made a bigger,
Speaker:haven't made a bigger song and dance over these 91 criminal indictments he's facing
Speaker:and as a result, it looks like the bastard is going to be sailing into office.
Speaker:You know, it's, it's one of those things, I, I, I honestly believe the
Speaker:problem is in the Democrats, that they have backed the wrong horse, they've
Speaker:backed a very old stallion and that old stallion is It's too old to put
Speaker:down now, so I just don't think people will be motivated to get out and vote.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:And to campaign.
Speaker:And they don't have a compulsory ballot and all that sort of stuff,
Speaker:so you're no longer, you're not arguing to the centre, you're arguing
Speaker:to the extremes on both parties.
Speaker:You put enough energy into the left of the Democrats and the middle of the road,
Speaker:so well fuck it, I'm not going to vote.
Speaker:And then you, you do that on the right and all that sort of stuff and they think
Speaker:to themselves, well, I'm going to hold my nose and vote for Trump because it's going
Speaker:to be better than having Biden back in.
Speaker:Which I don't understand, but anyway, it is what it is.
Speaker:It's just, well, people are just hurting.
Speaker:They're saying the system's not helping.
Speaker:Yeah, I know.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But why the hell, okay, if you're hurting and that sort of stuff,
Speaker:why the hell would you turn around and vote for a billionaire?
Speaker:That first item of government was to reduce taxes on the, on his, on his mates.
Speaker:Cause he's, he's clearly not part of the establishment and they blame the
Speaker:establishment for where we are and, or where they are in America, at least.
Speaker:And they see him as anti establishment and, and as somebody who will shake
Speaker:things up and you know, tribalism, they'll hear what they want to hear.
Speaker:So, yeah, you know, the Republicans are motivated and I think the Democrats
Speaker:will be very unmotivated by Biden.
Speaker:And I think, I think he's going to, the polls show him slightly ahead.
Speaker:And anyway, I think that's, I think all of his court cases, he'll
Speaker:be able to hold off long enough.
Speaker:Till after the election and yeah, but see that case he's facing in
Speaker:Georgia That's the one that's actually got real criminal time with him.
Speaker:He could actually end up doing time for that Yeah, he cannot pardon himself as
Speaker:the United States president against a state conviction So, I suppose it depends
Speaker:on who his running mate is, as to who's actually going to be the president.
Speaker:Yeah, well, this will all be dealt with after the election
Speaker:though, the really hard stuff.
Speaker:So, I think he'll get in and then he'll, he'll, he'll just claim that he can do it,
Speaker:and wait for somebody to come and actually arrest him and drag him off, real crisis
Speaker:of democracy, perhaps, looming there.
Speaker:Well, I suppose you're going to have the secret services that are there to
Speaker:protect him and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker:They could be ending up facing off against Georgia's police.
Speaker:You know, it's just, it's a hell of a mess.
Speaker:Yeah, it is.
Speaker:Here in Queensland, we're going to have a state election, I think,
Speaker:at the end of the year as well.
Speaker:And so Pal's gone.
Speaker:Steven Miles is in.
Speaker:That was a good move by labor.
Speaker:Elli is the liberal leader, LMP leader.
Speaker:He, he comes across as harmless enough.
Speaker:But I think as people get a better look at his colleagues
Speaker:and get reminded of who they are.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:And that's the whole point about the LMP.
Speaker:They have been very heavily overtaken by the Christian, right?
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:And I don't want anyone to forget that.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:They are.
Speaker:under the control of the Christian nutters.
Speaker:So do not believe that they are all innocent and sweet and
Speaker:everything else because they're not.
Speaker:They're the same bastards that did what they did while they were in
Speaker:office, and they're going to do exactly the same thing again next time.
Speaker:So someone like Grace Grace, inner city electorate, she's really
Speaker:Facing it, I think, from the Greens.
Speaker:Hey, she's really facing an uphill battle.
Speaker:You know, it's, it's one of those things, especially if especially if she
Speaker:was still Education Minister, if she was still pushing Christian prayers and
Speaker:all that sort of stuff, then the Greens would have had a field day with her.
Speaker:You'd hope so.
Speaker:Now that she's no longer education minister and all that sort of
Speaker:thing, she can always just say, oh, it's not me, it's someone else.
Speaker:Hang on, isn't she?
Speaker:She still is education minister.
Speaker:No, she was actually Oh, no, that's right, there was a new one.
Speaker:She was given a new job, I can't remember what it was.
Speaker:That's right, but I think the assistant education, like there's an assistant
Speaker:to the education minister who is Really anti religious instruction,
Speaker:so hope there that the assistant to the minister is going to push things.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, so we'll see how that develops and they're just fed.
Speaker:I think that Stephen Miles has got a pretty good chance of winning.
Speaker:Yeah, I think he has.
Speaker:It really wouldn't surprise me if you end up with a minority Labor
Speaker:government propped up by the Greens.
Speaker:That's my early tip for the year as well.
Speaker:So, um, Labor in coalition with the Greens in the state and a Trump victory.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:Let's hope you're wrong on that.
Speaker:It really wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker:Yeah, so, Yes, so just still getting back to sort of crystal ball gazing as
Speaker:to what's going to happen, so Continued demise of the USA will be accompanied
Speaker:by the rise of China So you may read things, dear listener, about the
Speaker:Chinese economy being stuffed and And you know, certain banks in China going
Speaker:broke, or property problems in China.
Speaker:China's had a growth rate of 5 percent GDP.
Speaker:For the largest economy in the world, any other country would kill The
Speaker:second largest economy in the world.
Speaker:Well, depending how you measure it, Scott.
Speaker:Purchasing power parity, it is the largest.
Speaker:So, you know.
Speaker:So if you hear rumours of people saying, oh, the Chinese economy
Speaker:is starved, 5 percent growth.
Speaker:Most countries would kill for that.
Speaker:And some of them do.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We've got BRICS.
Speaker:So that was that's his collection of countries that are are trying to
Speaker:break away from US control of economic matters and particularly the dollar.
Speaker:So, um, so, they, the BRICS, have been joined by, so BRICS is Brazil,
Speaker:Russia Iran, China, and South Africa.
Speaker:Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa.
Speaker:India, sorry.
Speaker:India, China.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And they've been joined by and this took effect on the 1st of January
Speaker:Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, and Ethiopia have joined.
Speaker:Interesting how they've described a few of the smaller players
Speaker:like South Africa and Ethiopia.
Speaker:But anyway, that block of countries.
Speaker:The BRICS countries now represents 37 percent of global GDP and 40
Speaker:percent of global oil production and a third of global gas production.
Speaker:So this is going to be the challenge to the US petrodollar system.
Speaker:Which I've mentioned on many occasions, but just as a refresher for those
Speaker:new to the podcast, is the deal done between the USA and Saudi Arabia
Speaker:was okay, you can sell your oil, but the money that you earn and the
Speaker:transactions you do it in must be in U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:dollars.
Speaker:And then you must basically, what are you going to do with those U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:dollars?
Speaker:You're going to invest them in U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:treasury bonds.
Speaker:And so anytime anyone in the world has been buying oil, Even though
Speaker:the transaction didn't involve America, it did involve American
Speaker:dollars, creating a demand for U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:dollars that has propped up the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:dollar despite the fact that the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:spEnds, well, prints money like a drunken sailor, and a normal country's currency
Speaker:would have been devalued and have caused economic problems, but because
Speaker:of this unique position that the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:has had as the world's default currency propped up by this petrodollar
Speaker:arrangement it's really enabled the U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:A.
Speaker:to continue doing all the things it wants to do.
Speaker:And that's going to come to a halt over time quicker than people think, I reckon.
Speaker:There's my prediction, another prediction, whether it's just in the next 12 months
Speaker:or whether it takes longer, we'll see.
Speaker:But there are countries itching.
Speaker:to break away from having to hold US dollars.
Speaker:One reason is, if you hold US dollars in treasury bonds and the US takes a
Speaker:disliking to you, they just confiscate this money if it's in a bank account.
Speaker:So Venezuela, they just confiscated their US dollars.
Speaker:Russia, they just confiscated their money.
Speaker:And so a lot of countries have been reducing the amount of U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:dollars they hold as foreign exchange currency, trying to
Speaker:decouple from that arrangement.
Speaker:And that's going to be a big problem for the U.
Speaker:S., so, and there's a lot of oil producers in the BRICS arrangement,
Speaker:and incredibly, I reckon Scott in that whole thing is, imagine getting
Speaker:together a group that included Saudi America, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Speaker:Yeah, it's quite a hell of a lot that they did that.
Speaker:It's a very very good diplomatic coup that they managed to pull that off.
Speaker:Yeah, getting those two countries to agree and join a group is amazing.
Speaker:So it's out of interest, dear listener, who's the largest
Speaker:oil producer in the world?
Speaker:Which country?
Speaker:And you might think Saudi Arabia, but in fact, United States.
Speaker:Produces 20 percent of the world's oil, Saudi Arabia 12%, Russia
Speaker:11%, Canada 6%, China 5%, Iraq 5%, United Arab Emirates 4%.
Speaker:That's not bad by China, hey, 5%.
Speaker:Didn't realise that they did so much, so.
Speaker:So anyway, oil and the petrodollar.
Speaker:Watch that space over the year and the coming years.
Speaker:of Course.
Speaker:Western powerful oligarch companies involved in weapons manufacturing
Speaker:media, fossil fuels and other entrenched industries will not concede power.
Speaker:As I mentioned before, capitalism demands growth.
Speaker:There's a guy Thomas Piketty wrote, I think the book's called
Speaker:Capital in the 21st Century.
Speaker:Anyway, explains why the whole system relies on growth.
Speaker:And, there's been various tricks over the last 70 years to ensure growth.
Speaker:There's been world wars, we had double income, so essentially, where we had just
Speaker:traditionally the man going to work, the wife, house, homemaker and mother once
Speaker:women entered the workforce that was Um, uh, a factor that allowed expansion
Speaker:of GDP and growth for capitalism.
Speaker:Um, uh, through the IMF and the World Bank, various Western companies have
Speaker:been able to colonize South American countries and other smaller countries
Speaker:without actually bombing them.
Speaker:So that enabled growth for those Western we had low interest
Speaker:rates inflating asset prices.
Speaker:That was another trick.
Speaker:And we've recently had money printing and bailouts.
Speaker:And these are all things that have enabled growth to continue, at least
Speaker:on the books and for Western countries.
Speaker:And they've just run out of options.
Speaker:There's not many left.
Speaker:They can't think of any.
Speaker:You can't really repeat many of those.
Speaker:The only one you can repeat, unfortunately, is war.
Speaker:Running a war is something that can be repeated.
Speaker:USA's itching to start one.
Speaker:Itching to start one.
Speaker:Scott, you want to go to Taiwan before they start a war?
Speaker:No, I want to go to Taiwan while it's still the Republic of China
Speaker:before it becomes a new province of the People's Republic of China.
Speaker:So I'd like to see what the Republic of China is actually
Speaker:supposed to be like, rather than the People's Republic of China.
Speaker:I have been to the PRC.
Speaker:I went over there to visit my brother many, many years ago.
Speaker:Yeah, he lives in Beijing.
Speaker:He was very good.
Speaker:In the chat room, John says, what will the US do when the Arabs sell the bonds?
Speaker:Well, uh, when the demand stops for the US dollar, it will be devalued and what
Speaker:happens to all countries when they face chronic devaluation of their currency?
Speaker:It's not good.
Speaker:So, uh, so we'll see what happens.
Speaker:It's one of those things.
Speaker:If America was still a creditor country rather than a debtor country,
Speaker:they wouldn't have a problem.
Speaker:Because, you know, if the dollar falls in value and all that sort of stuff,
Speaker:they still get paid back in greenback.
Speaker:But, because they owe a shitload of money to the Chinese and everyone else,
Speaker:then their repayments are going to rise.
Speaker:So it's going to become very expensive for them.
Speaker:And I think that whichever party is in power and all that sort of stuff,
Speaker:they're going to have to look at their, they're going to have to look at their
Speaker:taxation system to actually return something back to the people and all
Speaker:that sort of stuff, because they cannot just continually run deficit budgets.
Speaker:You have to pay that, you have to pay those loans back at some stage.
Speaker:And You know, the United States has never run a surplus in its entire history.
Speaker:It's it came very close under Clinton.
Speaker:You mean a trade surplus or a government surplus?
Speaker:A government surplus, but never run one.
Speaker:They've always just had a deficit budget.
Speaker:It's always just an argument about whose deficit is going to be bigger.
Speaker:It's going to be the Democrats or the Republicans.
Speaker:And it's just one of those things.
Speaker:They've never had to pay anything back.
Speaker:And if their dollar actually does.
Speaker:decline in value, they're going to hurt because all that foreign
Speaker:currency's got to be paid back in U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:dollars, which is going to cost them a hell of a lot more.
Speaker:Well, I'm not so worried about them running government deficits.
Speaker:It's more just trade is their problem, is that, is that buying
Speaker:stuff will get incredibly expensive when your dollar devalues.
Speaker:It will get incredibly expensive for them.
Speaker:They'll have difficulty importing things.
Speaker:Yeah, but because they were once a manufacturing superpower and all that sort
Speaker:of stuff, they just got to dust off their factories and that type of thing and just
Speaker:start producing it for themselves again.
Speaker:Yeah, there's a lot of rust to dust off.
Speaker:I know there's a lot of rust that you've got to dust off and all that
Speaker:sort of stuff, but it could be done.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, especially that with the CHIPS Act and everything
Speaker:else that's now starting, they are starting to reinvigorate the
Speaker:American manufacturing economy.
Speaker:It's going to take a hell of a lot more than just, you know,
Speaker:two bikes sitting here talking about it, but it could be done.
Speaker:It'll be very expensive, but it could be done.
Speaker:It couldn't be done without massive amounts of government spending,
Speaker:and they're not going to do that.
Speaker:I agree wholeheartedly, yeah.
Speaker:So they're not going to do that.
Speaker:Well, the Democrats have started that, though.
Speaker:You know, you've got the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act, and you've got
Speaker:the CHIPS Act, which are all investing back in American manufacturing.
Speaker:It's started.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:but we'll see.
Speaker:They just don't have the technical capacity to challenge on that issue now.
Speaker:No, not now they don't, because they have allowed And the cost
Speaker:of their labour is too expensive.
Speaker:Yeah, agreed.
Speaker:To be competitive with the world.
Speaker:Well, that's why they're gonna have to, if their, if their dollar
Speaker:actually declines in value Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:Then they're going to have to spend more.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:But they're gonna be buying stuff that's produced locally than
Speaker:what they're gonna be importing.
Speaker:True.
Speaker:Because it ended up being cheaper to produce it Mac back at home
Speaker:than it will be to import it.
Speaker:True.
Speaker:Massive devaluation might kickstart the American manufacturing.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:It could kickstart them again.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:It could, yes.
Speaker:I'm not saying it will, but it could.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Every clout has a silver lining.
Speaker:Well, it does for the American manufacturing unions and
Speaker:all that sort of stuff.
Speaker:I'd say this is a great deal for them.
Speaker:But, it's going to take some money and it's going to take some concerted
Speaker:political effort to get it done.
Speaker:Watley says Scott, America can never be what it was again.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, but Watley, you are very much down on the Americans and will they ever
Speaker:be, will they ever be back here again?
Speaker:Will they ever be back to where they were?
Speaker:No, they won't.
Speaker:I think that ship has sailed, you know, they won't be ever getting back to where
Speaker:they were, but they could actually end up, they could end up being very comfortably
Speaker:in number two position behind China.
Speaker:Usually when empires fall, they sort of, yeah, they usually collapse.
Speaker:They, they usually collapse into a heap and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:And then, and the barbarians come in and it's quite a mess
Speaker:for a long time, isn't it?
Speaker:Yeah, it normally happens when Empire Falls could be.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, it, it could, it could.
Speaker:I mean, how's that Spanish Empire, the Portuguese Empire, the Belgium Empire the
Speaker:German Empire and the British Empires.
Speaker:How did they go after their decline, you know, it was, well, Britain
Speaker:was, Britain was a, it happened.
Speaker:It did decline and it went through a very long period of a very slow descent down.
Speaker:They're completely stuffed now.
Speaker:Yeah, they are, because they have, they have kicked a
Speaker:massive iron goal by leaving EU.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know, it was a completely stupid thing for them to do.
Speaker:Anyway, they did.
Speaker:And God alone knows how long it's going to be before they actually
Speaker:realise what they've done.
Speaker:And whether or not they actually start secret talks with Belgium
Speaker:about possibly coming back in, you know, it's one of those things.
Speaker:I don't see how the hell they can do it, but they might be actually faced
Speaker:with no choice because it is, it was a completely stupid thing that was done.
Speaker:It was completely insane.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:What else have I got here?
Speaker:Oh, the other thing that happened during the year, of course, was Nord
Speaker:Stream was blown up by the Americans.
Speaker:It's still not proven that it was the Americans, but it is highly, it is highly
Speaker:likely it was the Americans that did it.
Speaker:As a consequence, the German economy is now stuffed.
Speaker:Because it relied on cheap power to make stuff.
Speaker:It relied on cheap gas from Russia, which was a mistake.
Speaker:And also, by the same token, the other thing that they're doing, which is
Speaker:bloody stupid too, is that they They've gone ahead with their turning off their
Speaker:nuclear power, which is absolutely insane because, you know, they're not
Speaker:Soviet reactors, they were built by Germany and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker:There has not been one single accident in Germany.
Speaker:Now, at the same time as Germany was leading the world in renewable energy and
Speaker:all that type of thing, they also had a substantial amount of their electricity
Speaker:was generated by the nuclear industry.
Speaker:So it was very stupid of them to actually say that we're going to turn them off.
Speaker:Now, if they had not turned them off and all that type of thing, then they
Speaker:could have very slyly, but surely they could have converted their housing from
Speaker:heating by gas to heating by electricity.
Speaker:And they could have had a.
Speaker:flow of electricity from their nuclear power, while they were still building
Speaker:windmills and all that sort of thing, to transform to renewable energy.
Speaker:But they didn't.
Speaker:They went with cheap Russian gas, which was turned out to be a bloody mistake.
Speaker:Yeah, they didn't think the Americans would blow it up.
Speaker:So, yeah.
Speaker:I know, but they also probably didn't think that Ukraine was
Speaker:going to get invaded either.
Speaker:It's one of those things that I just think to myself that, you know,
Speaker:if you want the, if you want my argument on that, I think that Angela
Speaker:Merkel was responsible for that.
Speaker:John in the chat room says, I think the Germans have delayed
Speaker:the closure of nuclear power.
Speaker:He thinks they might have delayed the closure of it.
Speaker:Well, if they have, that would be very good, but I didn't hear that.
Speaker:I had heard that they were still going ahead with their closing
Speaker:down of the nuclear power.
Speaker:Dear listener, on this podcast, over the years, I've made it very clear
Speaker:that nuclear power in Australia is a completely nonsensical idea.
Speaker:Agreed, but in Europe, we have already been doing it.
Speaker:I have no idea about in Europe in particular because I just don't
Speaker:know whether they have the sun and the wind and I haven't seen the
Speaker:studies on those countries to see whether they can survive without it.
Speaker:I just know that we can.
Speaker:So, uh, all my comments about nuclear power have been basically about
Speaker:Australia and our experience here where we clearly don't need it.
Speaker:It's too expensive.
Speaker:It's a terrible option.
Speaker:But anyway, it might be.
Speaker:The best thing for Germans, I don't know.
Speaker:It's one of those things.
Speaker:It's a, it's a good transitional energy and all that sort of stuff that they
Speaker:could just continue to use at infinitum, but they've decided to walk away from it.
Speaker:So anyway, I hadn't heard that they hadn't heard that they were
Speaker:delaying the closure of them, John.
Speaker:I think the Americans blowing up Nord Stream have learned a
Speaker:lesson and they think actually that was a pretty good trick.
Speaker:Wouldn't surprise me.
Speaker:Here's another tip for 2024 and the years ahead.
Speaker:The Americans to blow up some other key infrastructure.
Speaker:Of Scott, either an enemy or of an ally, because it works both ways.
Speaker:So, in the case of Nord Stream, that was both.
Speaker:I mean, that was half owned by the Germans and the Russians, wasn't it?
Speaker:Like 50 50 ownership or something like that?
Speaker:I thought it was owned by the Russians, wasn't it?
Speaker:I thought, I thought they were, I thought they were shared ownership of that.
Speaker:So, so yeah, from the American's point of view, you know, if you're wanting
Speaker:to cause a problem for China, you know, blowing up a dam or something
Speaker:or causing some infrastructure damage might be something they would consider.
Speaker:So look for them to lash out and blow up some infrastructure somewhere.
Speaker:Why not?
Speaker:It worked with Nord Stream.
Speaker:Well, I heard you rule.
Speaker:So, yeah, here's another tip, Scott.
Speaker:If Trump does win, maybe he will cancel AUKUS and the submarine deal will
Speaker:finally be put down, because he might say, quite rightly, from an American
Speaker:point of view, we don't have enough subs as it is, and with his anti China
Speaker:rhetoric, he might say, I want us to keep the subs, I don't want Australia
Speaker:to have them, we don't have enough.
Speaker:I'm cancelling the deal and I'm cancelling effectively Orcus.
Speaker:That would be great.
Speaker:I'm all for a Trump victory if that's a potential result.
Speaker:It is a potential result.
Speaker:He is the sort of character who might do that.
Speaker:I've got an idea that Orcus has got a time limit on it, and if Trump wins then
Speaker:that time will be accelerated, you know.
Speaker:It's one of those things I think that we're going to have to go cap in hand
Speaker:to the Japanese and just say, look, you know, those, those 12 subs you're
Speaker:going to build for us, yeah, we want you to build them again, please.
Speaker:Those million, yeah, those, those 1 billion subs, as
Speaker:opposed to the 50 billion subs.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:The other thing that will happen climate change will continue, Scott,
Speaker:and there's a lot of cans that can be kicked down the road, but I think
Speaker:eventually climate change is the one that's going to perhaps create a bit
Speaker:of a catalyst for action on things.
Speaker:Well, you've only got to see the weather and that sort of
Speaker:stuff that we're experiencing up here in Queensland, you know.
Speaker:Amazing rain.
Speaker:Oh, it's incredible.
Speaker:Poor Douglas two metres in two days and things like that.
Speaker:Crazy amounts of rain, so, I think I think for every degree of temperature
Speaker:increase, the atmosphere can hold.
Speaker:7% more moisture.
Speaker:And so we've already increased 1.5% and so there's 10% more moisture in the air than
Speaker:there was say, 70 years ago or whatever.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:And that moisture has to fall at some stage, leads to these
Speaker:massive downpours and also big snow events in cold countries.
Speaker:So, uh.
Speaker:Um, and Scott, we're just going to have more issues with, imagine these
Speaker:poor people in like, Springbrook and whatever had housing and their roofs
Speaker:blown off, trying to get a builder to come in and do insurance work
Speaker:and, and, you know, fix up a house.
Speaker:It's going to be really hard to get stuff done.
Speaker:So, uh, so yeah, climate change is one of the things that will have a continuing
Speaker:effect and Scott, I reckon all these things, cans get kicked down the road,
Speaker:nobody's prepared to do anything.
Speaker:It's all too hard and they just want to get through to the next election
Speaker:without having done anything and without having offended people and it's
Speaker:going to take maybe 50 or 100 years or some disaster might happen where
Speaker:we have quite a systemic collapse.
Speaker:I reckon at that point, Scott, we need to be ready with a new
Speaker:constitution and we What do with it?
Speaker:And people need to have it written out and argued and done and dusted
Speaker:and just put on in the top shelf.
Speaker:No, on a wall, Scott, behind a glass a sheet of glass with a sign on it,
Speaker:in case of emergency, break glass, and then we pull out a new constitution.
Speaker:I'd like to, Scott, this year, as part of our podcast, is imagine you know, It's
Speaker:some sort of apocalyptic event and, and we are charged with writing a constitution
Speaker:that would then they'd break glass and say, well, here's one we can use.
Speaker:People have had time to think about this in the cold light
Speaker:of day and argue about it.
Speaker:And we'll use this as a, as a better constitution.
Speaker:Here are some ideas, Scott, for what would be a better constitution.
Speaker:So proportional voting, Scott.
Speaker:So rather than.
Speaker:I'm not talking preferential voting, I'm talking proportional, so this
Speaker:sort of thing where we're just broken down into districts and we, and we
Speaker:have a member for our electorate just doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker:It should be all the voters, which what, 15 million or something
Speaker:like that Australian voters?
Speaker:I mean the population is 27 or 28 but the voting population
Speaker:is 15 or something like that.
Speaker:So, just, Voting for as a collective for our federal parliament, and if
Speaker:15 percent of us vote Green, then 15 percent of the federal politicians
Speaker:are Greens politicians, for example.
Speaker:What do you think of that?
Speaker:Proportional voting.
Speaker:Yeah, that doesn't make me offended or anything like that.
Speaker:I suppose the only real problem with that is you'd end up killing
Speaker:off the independents because they would have to get a hell of a lot
Speaker:more votes to actually win a seat.
Speaker:It's one of those things, I think, that would kill them off.
Speaker:I don't know, maybe you'd get No, I don't think get some national
Speaker:figures who could come in.
Speaker:Yeah, you could end up with Zali Stegall and that sort of stuff winning.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:But I don't think you'd end up with the number of teals and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:They'd have to run under a banner of the teals.
Speaker:Hmm, yep.
Speaker:Then they'd have to get involved in that sort of stuff.
Speaker:They'd have to work together and all that type of thing.
Speaker:They'd have to run a party and that sort of stuff so they'd get up.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:But it would be a breakdown of this two party system which Oh I would, absolutely.
Speaker:It's failed, it has failed, so I've got no problem with that.
Speaker:So yeah, break glass, new constitution, proportional voting.
Speaker:Intergenerational stuff, Scott, like, yeah.
Speaker:Now what do you mean by the intergen intergenerational routes of Norway?
Speaker:Well, what I'm saying here is, for example, in Norway, they've, when they,
Speaker:they've retained ownership of their oil.
Speaker:As they sell it, and the money from that goes into a wealth,
Speaker:sovereign wealth fund, right?
Speaker:And then the income from that is used for various projects, but the
Speaker:fund itself is not really touched.
Speaker:That's there for future generations, right?
Speaker:So, essentially, what we've got here in Australia is We're allowing private
Speaker:operators to mine and we're taking royalties, but we're not slotting
Speaker:that money away as sort of a capital.
Speaker:Yes, you want a sovereign wealth fund.
Speaker:Yeah, because it's really a theft by the current generations from
Speaker:the, from the future generations.
Speaker:And future generations ago, you bastards, you had this, you know, coal and gas and
Speaker:oil and iron ore and you sold it, but that was belonging not just to your generation,
Speaker:that was a multi generation asset.
Speaker:I, I think there should be some law to stop.
Speaker:Generations dealing from each other.
Speaker:Yeah, and I agree, and that would be something, if you're setting up a
Speaker:sovereign wealth fund and all that type of thing, that makes perfect sense.
Speaker:Yeah, so if you are extracting a capital item like that, that you
Speaker:can only do once Then you just can't spend it on recurrent expenditure.
Speaker:It's got to be on something that's lasting.
Speaker:Anyway term limits, Scott.
Speaker:Like, I like the idea that people can't hang around for too long as politicians.
Speaker:Like two terms, three terms or something, but move on.
Speaker:Post political career employment.
Speaker:There is absolutely no way these bastards who are, you know, Minister of Defence,
Speaker:can do Two weeks after leaving office.
Speaker:Or 12 Months, are suddenly taking up cushy jobs with
Speaker:Lockheed Martin and other groups.
Speaker:You just, you just can't allow it.
Speaker:Freedom of Information, where we've got to be able to just
Speaker:find out what is being discussed.
Speaker:There's way too much hidden secrecy.
Speaker:Media Literacy.
Speaker:There's no way of stopping the amount of deceptive shit out there.
Speaker:The only defense is to teach people how to recognize it.
Speaker:When they see it and smell it.
Speaker:War Powers.
Speaker:Scott came out recently over Christmas.
Speaker:Release of some cabinet papers that comes out every, every new year.
Speaker:Essentially John Howard taking us to war in Iraq.
Speaker:No written submissions, no detailed assessment.
Speaker:It was just him and a handful of people sitting around having a bit of a chat
Speaker:and saying, Yep, okay, well we're in.
Speaker:It was a pathetic Poor level of consideration for such a major thing.
Speaker:War powers should be the entire Parliament, House of Reps and
Speaker:Senate, comes together and votes.
Speaker:If you can't convince all those people and get a majority, then you don't
Speaker:have a good argument for going to war.
Speaker:And that's got to change.
Speaker:And things to do with climate change and inequality, the whole,
Speaker:you know, different things.
Speaker:We could do in terms of like none of this can possibly happen
Speaker:except in a crisis of some sort.
Speaker:But like Naomi Klein says with the book Shock Doctrine, if you haven't read
Speaker:that book, dear listener, go out and read it, which basically talks about
Speaker:how countries that suffer from a shock, whether it's an economic shock or a maybe
Speaker:a tsunami or, or some event like that.
Speaker:Basically, in the case of a tsunami, villages wiped out that had traditional
Speaker:sort of sea shacks on the foreshore and fishing villages and what not,
Speaker:they end up going to higher ground.
Speaker:Their, their residences have been completely wiped out and Corrupt
Speaker:governments and land developers move in, bulldoze what was, you know, the remnants
Speaker:of their homes and whack up you know, tourism developments before these people
Speaker:can gather together and, and readjust and And, and, and fight for their rights.
Speaker:And while they're still in shock, these other groups are sitting there waiting
Speaker:for this sort of event to happen.
Speaker:And they move in swiftly and do their dirty deeds while
Speaker:people are still in shock.
Speaker:And that's the whole sort of theory behind shock doctrine.
Speaker:So, yeah, that's that.
Speaker:What else have I said here Australia in particular?
Speaker:I think Murdoch's influence has to wane even further, Scott.
Speaker:As the boomers die out and just young people don't pay attention to it.
Speaker:They're not paying attention to the news.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Or newspapers.
Speaker:So, surely his influence has to wane.
Speaker:I suppose it depends on how good he's control is of the television.
Speaker:Because the television and that sort of stuff, that probably still grabs the kids.
Speaker:They don't watch Fredo.
Speaker:They don't watch Fredo.
Speaker:Well, you were just saying yourself, you don't watch it.
Speaker:Well, I don't watch Fredo.
Speaker:I just watch it on the on the Foxtel and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:You know, I just go and choose.
Speaker:I go and choose my news there.
Speaker:I go and choose the SBS news.
Speaker:So I just don't see young people consuming.
Speaker:Do they consume content from Murdoch much?
Speaker:No, they're not going to consume it in the volumes that our generation did.
Speaker:Our generation, you know, you probably still bought a newspaper
Speaker:and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker:You read it from cover to cover.
Speaker:I didn't buy a newspaper, but I watched, I listened to news radio and
Speaker:then watched the ABC and everything like that for an hour every day.
Speaker:I watched it between 7 and 8 every day.
Speaker:These days I just shift everything over to SBS because ABC's got really Pathetic.
Speaker:I read the Courier Mail every day, cover to cover, for a good laugh.
Speaker:That's where you get most of your content from.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So yeah I'd say yes, the housing problem in Australia, it's going to be exacerbated
Speaker:by natural disaster repairs and the Greens will force Labor to tinker with
Speaker:rent freezes and sort of Other stuff, but nothing substantial will be done.
Speaker:Here's a prediction, Scott.
Speaker:Less tattoos in Australia.
Speaker:Saw this article.
Speaker:Are you in favour of tatt Do you like tattoos, Scott?
Speaker:No, I don't like tattoos.
Speaker:You know, just, you know, to each their own, but not for me.
Speaker:Mm.
Speaker:So there's this article that said at the turn of the millennium, just 10
Speaker:percent of Australians over 14 had a tattoo, and they were mostly men.
Speaker:Now, dear listener, 20 percent of Australians have a tattoo, right?
Speaker:And they're mostly women.
Speaker:And I would actually believe that up here, like, there is an incredible
Speaker:number of ladies that have got tattoos on them, you know, and they're not
Speaker:just, they're not just subtle ones.
Speaker:They're getting the whole sleeve done.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The rise is driven by the young, about 30 percent of Aussies
Speaker:aged 22 to 36 have a tattoo.
Speaker:But, according to this article, the big issue right now, cost of
Speaker:living, inflation, adjusted wages are falling, tattoos have to be paid
Speaker:after rent, so people, he's saying, are sort of Struggling to afford a
Speaker:tattoo, and there's sort of evidence of tattoo shops or tattoo parlours,
Speaker:Scott Struggling to find clientele in recent times demand has dropped.
Speaker:And he says that over 50 percent of Australians get their first tattoo 25.
Speaker:And once you've got a tattoo, that gets you more tattoos.
Speaker:Most Aussies who have a tattoo have more than one.
Speaker:So if you make it to 25 without your first ink, you're far more likely
Speaker:to keep your skin as is forever.
Speaker:So maybe, with the cost of living crisis, people unable to afford them.
Speaker:If they can't afford them till they're over 25, then
Speaker:they may not get them at all.
Speaker:And and he also says, you know, it could become uncool because at the
Speaker:moment, most of these young people, their parents don't have a tattoo.
Speaker:But when your parents have a tattoo, suddenly it's not so cool, so, so the
Speaker:group coming through maybe it's spelling the end of the tattoo phase, so that's
Speaker:a change that that we're likely to see, so, Scott, sure, you have a question?
Speaker:Okay do any of your kids have tattoos?
Speaker:I found out that one does.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Boy or girl?
Speaker:Oh girl.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:The youngest one?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Tiny little, tiny little tattoo.
Speaker:But yes, we didn't know, and until Christmas.
Speaker:And so, essentially, those statistics, because I have three surviving
Speaker:children and what did it say?
Speaker:That um, Um, about 30 percent of Aussies aged 22 to 36, so one third, and yes,
Speaker:one third of my children have tattoos, and it was a girl was the one who had
Speaker:it, so those statistics bear out when it comes to my personal experience, Scott.
Speaker:But I find tattoos just, I've never seen, I just find them ugly.
Speaker:I find that The artwork, to me, is very aesthetically unpleasing to my eye,
Speaker:and I find them just things I saw this comment in this, I think it might have
Speaker:been in this article, that most tattoos look like something that your vaguely
Speaker:artistic friend Doodled into the back of his math pad during his spare time.
Speaker:Like, kind of what they look like.
Speaker:It's one of those things I, like Brian and I were talking rather existentially over
Speaker:New Year's Eve and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:And he says, what would you do if I died?
Speaker:I said, well I'd go get a tattoo of your name put on my, on my left
Speaker:side of my chest over my heart.
Speaker:He says, Oh, you wouldn't, would you?
Speaker:I said, No, I'm not.
Speaker:It's just one of those things that I don't have a desire for
Speaker:a tattoo or anything like that.
Speaker:It would have to be, it would have to be an existential threat to the two
Speaker:of us that would actually motivate me to go out there and get ink.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Whatley says And I think I would stop at one though.
Speaker:I would stop at one.
Speaker:Watley says, it would be nice to not have to listen to the lame
Speaker:justifications given for their ink.
Speaker:Oh, ouch!
Speaker:Watley.
Speaker:I agree with you though, Watley.
Speaker:That is, it is one of those things, I, you know, they sit there and
Speaker:they talk about it and that sort of stuff, and I think to myself, does
Speaker:my face look like I'm interested?
Speaker:Because I'm not, you know?
Speaker:It's just yep, okay.
Speaker:And Maddock Man has finally made it to the chat.
Speaker:Good on you, Maddock Man.
Speaker:So, um Yeah, my dad joke that I like to tell when I ever talk about
Speaker:tattoos is You know, there's so many tattoos nowadays, that when I go to
Speaker:the beach, I don't take a book with me, I just read the guy beside me.
Speaker:Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Speaker:Boom boom.
Speaker:Yeah!
Speaker:Right, I mentioned before, de dollarisation.
Speaker:And there's an interesting podcast called the Geopolitical Report,
Speaker:often gets into this sort of stuff.
Speaker:And Oh, quoting an economist there, and he says that if you adjust for the price
Speaker:changes in the dollar share of official global reserves so this is what countries
Speaker:hold in their reserve currencies, the it used to be 73 percent US dollars, and
Speaker:that's dropped to 55 percent in 2021.
Speaker:And then 47 percent in 2022.
Speaker:So from 73 percent to 47%.
Speaker:So he's saying there's already been a large drop in that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Quickly just on Donald Trump as well.
Speaker:So I'll just play a little clip here from Donald Trump speaking about Qatar.
Speaker:And, he's initially talking in 2017 about Qatar, and then he's
Speaker:talking in 2018 about Qatar.
Speaker:See if you can spot the difference.
Speaker:At a very high level.
Speaker:We have a gentleman on my right who buys a lot of equipment from us, a
Speaker:lot of purchases in the United States.
Speaker:The nation of Qatar Sorry, I think I had that just starting not at the beginning of
Speaker:the clip, so I'm just going to rewind it back to the beginning and try that again.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of
Speaker:terrorism at a very high level.
Speaker:We have a gentleman on my right who buys a lot of equipment from us, a
Speaker:lot of purchases in the United States.
Speaker:Those countries are stopping the funding of terrorism.
Speaker:That includes UAE, it includes Saudi Arabia, it includes Qatar.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:So in 2017, Qatar is a funder of terrorism.
Speaker:2018, stopping the funding of terrorism.
Speaker:Yeah, because they're purchasing weapons from the US.
Speaker:Well, and also in between those statements Qatar bought a 6.
Speaker:5 million dollar apartment at Trump World Tower.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:I wonder if that had any connection to it.
Speaker:Of course it had everything to do with that because, you know,
Speaker:he's a corrupt old bastard.
Speaker:Yeah, sorry.
Speaker:Let's see.
Speaker:I can't get spurred for that, can I?
Speaker:Calling Trump a corrupt bastard?
Speaker:No, you'll be fine.
Speaker:That's good.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Um, last podcast or the one before, I was talking about Yasha Monk and Identity
Speaker:Synthesis and listener Liam, who's been on the podcast and convinced you, Scott.
Speaker:He's convinced me to vote Green in the next two elections, after that I will
Speaker:be returning back to the Labor Party.
Speaker:There you go, yeah.
Speaker:So anyway, he referred me to an episode that was sort of critical of Yasha Monk.
Speaker:And good criticism in some respects, because he is one of these guys
Speaker:who sees woke stuff everywhere.
Speaker:And particularly spends a lot of time in his book talking about experiences in U.
Speaker:S.
Speaker:classrooms and universities and probably over eggs the problem of wokeness
Speaker:and identity in those environments.
Speaker:And this particular podcast which was on, it's called If Books Could Kill,
Speaker:so if you want to hear a criticism of Yasha Monk, go to the podcast If Books
Speaker:Could Kill and you'll see it there.
Speaker:But in my defence Liam, my sort of, review of Yasha Monk was really
Speaker:looking at what he had to say about Foucault and Derek Bell and Kimberley
Speaker:Crenshaw and that sort of development.
Speaker:And in that podcast they said that essentially the way that he described
Speaker:that process was essentially correct.
Speaker:So the bits that I extracted from the book for you, dear listener, were the bits
Speaker:that at least in that criticism I said, yeah, more or less he's got that right.
Speaker:And, I guess, if Monk was overstating racial profiling examples, I was
Speaker:reading it the voice in mind.
Speaker:And I don't think that was a minor matter of racial profiling myself.
Speaker:So, I think there you go Liam, that's my response to all of that.
Speaker:Everyone can have a look.
Speaker:at If Books Could Kill and Yasha Monk.
Speaker:He is one of those guys who will appear in the same sort of places
Speaker:that Jordan Peterson would appear.
Speaker:So, you know, that is a problem.
Speaker:You know, Dave Rubin will probably have him on, for example.
Speaker:That sort of thing.
Speaker:You've got to pick these things.
Speaker:Sometimes stop clocks are right.
Speaker:Garza, Scott.
Speaker:It's still going.
Speaker:It is incredible that the Jews, the most famous example of a persecuted
Speaker:group, could commit such an atrocious persecution of another group.
Speaker:Incredible.
Speaker:Yeah, I agree that their persecution of the Palestinians is wrong.
Speaker:I agree wholeheartedly with you there, however, given what Hamas has actually
Speaker:said about the Jews and that sort of thing, that they don't have a right
Speaker:to exist on their land and that sort of thing, that they should be wiped
Speaker:off the face of the earth from the river to the sea and that sort of
Speaker:stuff, it should be all Palestine.
Speaker:That means everything from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean
Speaker:Sea should be Palestine.
Speaker:Where's Israel going to sit in that?
Speaker:Yeah, but the five year old girls, the four year old boys, and the
Speaker:two month old babies are not the ones who have been saying that.
Speaker:I know that.
Speaker:I know it's a terrible, terrible thing that's happening.
Speaker:Just because Because they are being led by a group of people that are Brutal
Speaker:thugs who are actually using them as human shields and everything else,
Speaker:that they're trying to hide behind them so that the Israeli bombs are
Speaker:going to blow something up, so they're going to blow up the human shields
Speaker:that they're putting in front of them.
Speaker:Not even trying.
Speaker:The Israelis are purposefully just killing massive amounts of innocent people.
Speaker:They're dropping bombs knowing they're killing innocent people.
Speaker:They just don't care.
Speaker:Well, that doesn't surprise me.
Speaker:It honestly doesn't surprise me because if they would actually put the, if they
Speaker:would actually put the hostages on buses and move them back out, that would stop.
Speaker:The aerial attacks would stop immediately, and then they would withdraw from Gaza.
Speaker:But because they haven't.
Speaker:The Israelis are going to continue fighting until they're all dead, or
Speaker:they have liquidated the last of the Palestinians that are in their range.
Speaker:Imagine a handful of Aussies did something terrible on the world
Speaker:stage, and then whoever they did it to decided to persecute you and
Speaker:I, who had nothing to do with it.
Speaker:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker:I agree with you there.
Speaker:It's, it's one of those things.
Speaker:Too bad, Israel.
Speaker:You have to suck it up.
Speaker:What, they're going to suck it up?
Speaker:Yes, but the response that you have chosen is not acceptable.
Speaker:You have to find Okay, what sort of response should they do?
Speaker:You have to suck it up.
Speaker:You can't just bomb the Gaza.
Speaker:You have to find a way of working towards mutual cooperation.
Speaker:You can't just obliterate.
Speaker:Yeah, but Hermes has already said they will not cooperate with Israel.
Speaker:Well, that's, here's the problem, when you've, when you've just artificially
Speaker:plopped a group into an area and said to the existing people, too bad.
Speaker:I agree, I agree.
Speaker:A terrible mistake was made in 1947.
Speaker:So that's the Terrible, terrible mistake was made.
Speaker:Yeah, and that's the So as a consequence, they have to work as hopeless as that
Speaker:might be, but they just can't obliterate tens of thousands of innocent people.
Speaker:It's shocking this has happened, that the world is just watching on, and countries
Speaker:like the USA through the UN, refuse UN resolutions calling for ceasefires.
Speaker:For ceasefires, I know.
Speaker:And countries like the US supply weapons to them, allowing it to happen.
Speaker:It just shows how little faith we can have in the future when a country
Speaker:can just decide to just obliterate a group of people in response to that.
Speaker:What hope have we got?
Speaker:It's Anything's possible.
Speaker:One of those things.
Speaker:Had they not Had Hadamars not actually pulled the trigger on that October 7th
Speaker:attack, none of this would have happened.
Speaker:Well, what was happening already, though?
Speaker:What was happening already?
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:They had them locked off.
Speaker:It's terrible.
Speaker:They had them locked out and that sort of stuff.
Speaker:They weren't allowing them to cross the border to get a work or anything else.
Speaker:They had them locked out in Israel.
Speaker:Yeah, so the sort of conditions, what this has done is highlighted what's
Speaker:been going on in the Gaza and in the West Bank and highlighting what
Speaker:an apartheid state they've created.
Speaker:Yeah, and you've actually got a group of people that feel like they've
Speaker:got no choice but to take up arms.
Speaker:So Israel is potentially also responsible for Hamas taking up arms.
Speaker:But, had they have actually not just walked away, had they have actually stayed
Speaker:on the negotiating table with Israel and all that sort of stuff, had they have
Speaker:taken the path that Egypt did and that sort of stuff after the Yom Kippur War,
Speaker:where they actually acknowledged Israel had a right to exist and all that sort of
Speaker:thing, they could have set up some sort of diplomatic relations, then they could
Speaker:have worked towards a two state solution.
Speaker:But Hamas said, no, fuck you, you got to get out, which I think is terribly
Speaker:childish in the, it's also terribly childish, but it's also playing with
Speaker:fire because Israel does not have a good record for walking away from a battle.
Speaker:I mean, they needed to do the hard work of encouraging more
Speaker:moderate Palestinian groups.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Somebody they could deal with.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Rather than Netanyahu doing what he did, which was to encourage Hamas to
Speaker:knock off the Palestinian Authority, well, you know, all your chickens
Speaker:have come home to roost now, buddy.
Speaker:So anyway, they've completely obliterated the sympathy that the world has for
Speaker:And that is why there is so much anti Semitism being spilled around the place.
Speaker:It's not just, it's not just from Arab Australians or anything else.
Speaker:It is being spread throughout the world and it is coming up because Israel is
Speaker:behaving in such a terrible fashion.
Speaker:But is there, is there a lot of anti Semitism or is it just anti Zionism?
Speaker:Ah, it's probably more anti Zionism than anti Semitism.
Speaker:But anyway, it is, it's.
Speaker:It's got some expression as anti Semitism, but it is basically anti Zionism that
Speaker:is being, that is being pilloried about.
Speaker:Scott, we've come up to 8.
Speaker:34 and this podcast these days only lasts an hour.
Speaker:So, dear listener It's because Landon Hardbottom hasn't been in contact
Speaker:with us for a long time, has he?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, so now, dear listener This podcast is going to change to Monday nights
Speaker:and at a slightly later time of 8pm.
Speaker:So, for personal reasons, They did want to start at 8.
Speaker:30, listeners, but I actually put my foot down because that's my bedtime.
Speaker:Yeah, so it will coincide with my my wife and I's, our job of looking after
Speaker:some grandchildren on Monday nights.
Speaker:And it will free up my Tuesday night to, Wealthy Listener, some of you
Speaker:may know that I'm a keen squash player and I'm trying to improve my
Speaker:squash and maybe enter some Masters events and in order to prepare for
Speaker:that I really need to play some comp nights, which are on a Tuesday night.
Speaker:And so, so yeah, there's no other special reason other than it suits me,
Speaker:so I can play squash on Tuesday nights occasionally, but so yeah, it's gonna
Speaker:be It suits me well too, because I can go to schooner runs on Tuesday nights.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:So in future, it's going to be on a Monday night as the regular night for the
Speaker:foreseeable future, starting next week.
Speaker:So we'll talk to you then, Monday night at the new time of 8 o'clock.
Speaker:Bye for now.
Speaker:And it's goodnight from him.
Speaker:George, where it is so clear it is a lynching at the highest level,
Speaker:nobody can deny it, and I thank God that we have people in the streets.
Speaker:Can you imagine this kind of lynching taking place and people are indifferent?
Speaker:People don't care.
Speaker:People are callous.
Speaker:You have just a few people out there with signs of I recall the moments
Speaker:in which during the Reagan years, there was a few of us out there.
Speaker:In the 60s, you had masses out there.
Speaker:Now you've got a younger generation of all of these different colors
Speaker:and genders and sexual orientations saying, We won't take it any longer.
Speaker:But you know what's sad about it though, brother?
Speaker:At the deepest level?
Speaker:It looks as if the system cannot reform itself.
Speaker:We've tried black faces in high places.
Speaker:Too often our black politicians, professional class, middle class,
Speaker:become too accommodated to the capitalist economy, too accommodated
Speaker:to the militarized nation state, too accommodated to the market driven culture
Speaker:tied with celebrity status, power, fame, all of that superficial stuff.
