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Episode 417 - Be Alert or Be Manipulated
12th February 2024 • The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove • The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove
00:00:00 01:10:28

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Shownotes

Topics:

(04:18) Steven Miles Laughs At Violence?

(19:07) Gaza Update

(20:21) UNRWA Aid

(23:36) What Propaganda? ... Exactly

(43:26) Biden Sliden

(50:13) Disconnect

(56:59) Sub Solution - Steal One

(58:26) Coed Vs Same Sex Education

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Transcripts

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Suburban Eastern Australia, an environment that has, over time,

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evolved some extraordinarily unique groups of homosapiens.

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But today, we observe a small tribe akin to a group of meerkats that

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gather together atop a small mound to watch, question, and discuss the

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current events of their city, their country, and their world at large.

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Let's listen keenly and observe this group fondly known as the

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Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.

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Hello and welcome dear listener, just two meerkats for you tonight

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on this episode number 417.

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We're going to talk about news and politics and sex and religion.

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I'm Trevor the Iron Fist, with me UK correspondent.

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Now ensconced back in Peter Dutton's electorate, Joe the Tech Guy.

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Joe, well how are you Joe?

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Evening all, I'm surviving, slowly getting back into the Australian time zone.

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There we go, that's Joe.

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So, Joe got notes from me extremely late today, so he hasn't had a

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chance to read much of it, because I didn't have internet on the weekend

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and a whole range of reasons.

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Anyway, Joe will work his way through it.

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Um, cut him some slack if he doesn't see him across it entirely,

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but I'm sure you won't notice.

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If you're in the chat room, say hello.

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John's there, Watley's there.

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Thanks for saying hello on this Monday evening at our new time of 8 o'clock.

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And, um, yeah, what are we going to talk about?

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Well, we're going to kick off with

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Manipulation by the media of the thinking of the public, in a nutshell.

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Couple of examples of that, one will be local Premier in Queensland, Stephen

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Myles, and a press conference he was at.

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And then looking at the situation in Gaza and, um, Israel and just the way

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our thinking about that is manipulated by propaganda and how insidious it is.

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So not the shocking beat up about um, Barnaby Joyce.

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And I wasn't even going to mention Barnaby Joyce, but um,

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but seeing you have, Joe, um.

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Yeah, he was found sprawled on the street in Canberra, and it's just a

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different treatment isn't it, like the right wing side basically abused

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the people who took the video of him and said they should have been helping

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Barnaby rather than selling the video to the news groups, and didn't want

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to condemn him because he's I couldn't really judge what had happened and would

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have to talk to Barnaby to see what the truth was, so Well, no, apparently the

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truth was he'd taken some medication which reacted badly with alcohol.

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Which he'd been warned about, but it wasn't at all his fault.

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No.

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Okay.

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Well, we'll leave that, if you like, dear listener.

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That's one version of the story, so, um So yeah, that was Barnaby.

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But yeah, we're going to talk about, um, media and, and how You've just got

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to be alert to what the media's doing, and once you are, you just spot these

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things from a mile away, I think, but so few people are alert to these things.

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It's very frustrating.

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Um, so we'll talk about that, and a little bit about, uh, Tucker interviewing

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Putin, um, a little bit about Joe Biden sliding into dementia, and then locally,

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the right for employees to disconnect and ignore emails from the boss after work.

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And a unique solution to our submarine problem, Joe, I didn't warn you about,

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which involves stealing a submarine.

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So, stay tuned for that one, dear listener.

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Indeed.

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So, um, yeah, okay, so Stephen Miles recently appointed as Queensland Premier

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because Anastasia Palaszczuk resigned, he got the gig, and, um, so, in my circles,

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dear listener, I do have contact with.

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The conservative boomer class of Australia.

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So, one sort of avenue to that, um, to that pool of thought comes via right

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wing Tony, who I Um, correspond with and talk to and unfortunately follow on his

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Facebook page, which saves me the trouble of subscribing to Sky News because Tony

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virtually reposts whatever they're doing.

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And then just um, uh, down at the Gold Coast in the complex that we

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stay in frequently, um, group of older people gather together there

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in the pool and talk about stuff.

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And they're an older boomer generation of the conservative

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end, most of them, not all.

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But um, anyway, my wife came back from being in the pool with this group

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and she said, Have you heard about what the Stephen Miles has done and

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laughing at, at um, victims of crime?

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And well, everybody in the pool is saying it's disgusting that they were talking

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about that lady who was murdered by the African gangs and that um And then Stephen

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Myles was laughing about it, and I said, I spend so much time reading things, and

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I hadn't come across any of this, but of course I wasn't listening to Sky News.

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And I said, sure as eggs, this will be some sort of Sky

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News beat up over something.

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So a few Googles and whatever.

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And, uh, I've got the clip, anyway, of what happened, so I'll play the clip and

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then I'll provide the context for it.

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So here we go.

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The absence of any reference to youth crime in your speech to the Queensland

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Media Club would have been noted.

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Um, by more than a few, including the people of those communities.

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Premier, I'm sure you can see the last two summers have been bookended.

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By the murders of young mother, Emma Lovell, and just three

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days ago, Grandmother, Violet.

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So, for those who can't watch the video, he was initially chuckling at the

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beginning of the question, and then as the questioner started listing the names of

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those people, his face got more serious.

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Joe, have you seen that clip before?

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Are you aware of this brouhaha?

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No.

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Right.

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Did that look particularly condemning to you, of Stephen Miles?

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Did you look at it and go, what's going on here?

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He seemed to be chuckling about the question being a bit random.

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It was more, uh, he was shocked by the question just being

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out of what he was expecting.

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I think, yeah, I think he was more laughing about the

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bizarreness of the question.

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Correct.

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The context is that he was there.

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At an event which was to talk about their, um, uh, housing solution that the

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Queensland Government has come up with.

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And um, so it's, it's a press conference for housing and the

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Brisbane Bureau Chief for Sky News, Adam Walters, asked Miles why he had

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not addressed the subject earlier.

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of, you know, violent crime in his speech, to which Miles said

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it was a speech about housing.

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So, that all happened before that question.

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So, Sky News saying, why didn't you just talk about violence, uh, and why'd

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you leave that out of your speech?

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And Miles said, it's a speech about housing.

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And then, the reporter from Sky News.

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continued with asking a question about street violence, youth crime, and it

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was because he pushed again on something that Miles had dismissed, that Miles,

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you know, smiled and said, oh, come on.

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And that is the context that people Need to understand when

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they're watching that video.

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And of course, the Sky News clip of it doesn't give you that context.

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You've got to go and find it.

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Joe, it's just frustrating that people would think, even as much as you might

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hate the Labor Party and the Premier and whatever, it's, it's just not likely that

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That somebody in his position is going to be laughing about somebody's murder.

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No, I don't think so.

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I think that's You have to think, what is going on here?

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What's the context?

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There must have been some reason.

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What, what is the wider thing going on here?

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But so many people, A, didn't ask what that wider context might be.

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And then B, Joe, in this, um, sort of Twitter post that I was looking at, which

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described This context and the reasons.

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You've still got half the people in the comment section

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saying, Oh, thank you very much.

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It's nice to know the context.

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That'll make sense now.

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Wish I'd known that.

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But then these other half still going, makes no difference at all.

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The guy's a scumbag.

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Fancy laughing at violence and made no difference to their view whatsoever.

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Yeah, I mean, I think it's very much All about tribes, isn't it?

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Yes.

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Um, it really doesn't matter.

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It's given us an excuse to be outraged, and our tribe is outraged,

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therefore we'll be outraged.

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Yeah.

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Um, and thinking doesn't come into it.

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It's all to do with being a good member of the tribe.

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And if you're a good member of the tribe, you're outraged.

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Yeah, I just, it's so frustrating and disappointing, like, if something

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really weird came out about Peter Dutton or something, laughing at

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something like that, you'd just go, hang on a minute, what was the context?

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I'd like to think I would anyway.

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I mean, the whole Barnaby falling off a planter box.

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Yes.

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It is, is in character.

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I don't want to cast suspicions, but apparently he has a reputation

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for liking a bevy or two.

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Yes.

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So, so him falling over drunk in Canberra is not a shocking thing, and

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therefore doesn't require much scrutiny.

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Yes.

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Whereas Barnaby, I don't know, laughing at some Christian thing

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would be so out of context.

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Yes.

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But whether it was true or not, you'd be going, hang on, that doesn't sound right.

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People have lost the capacity, Joe, to just go.

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There's something fishy about this, something not quite right.

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I mean, the guys made it to Premier of the State.

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You've got to have just a little bit of brains, if only when

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it comes to media management.

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Like, you've got to know how to kiss a baby and pat a dog.

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Preferably don't get them mixed up.

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And um, give some people some credit and just think.

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But I just think, Joe, that I think the older generation is just way

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too trusting of traditional media.

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I know there's the tribalism aspect that you said, but I also think there's

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just this inherent trust that if If they see it on the news or read it

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in a paper, they give it far more trust than younger people would think.

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Yeah, I mean, I think it was around the 80s it all changed, wasn't it?

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Yeah.

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So people who grew up with the media before the 80s were

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used to a level of diligence.

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Um, and the media was big money.

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Now the media is scrabbling for pennies.

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Um, so they are journalists, they literally churn out whatever they

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can, um, and if somebody's gonna write a press release on their behalf,

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uh, and they have to do the minimum amount of work, they'll take it.

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Yeah.

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And I think, um, Murdoch has, well, it was, um, Fox News

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was the original, wasn't it?

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It was a Republican Uh, press department, effectively.

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But even, you know, the Australian used to be a proper newspaper, and it changed,

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and the people who read it, there's a lot of people who still think of it

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as the way it used to be, and not the way it is now, which is a caricature

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of a right wing rag, who don't get it.

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Yeah, it's a right wing broadsheet, isn't it?

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Yeah.

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And you know, I'll say to people, like I could go into that pool tomorrow and

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say, um, Where did you get this from?

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You know it's from Sky News, you know that they're biased.

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Yeah they're biased, but then the ABC and the Guardian are biased.

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So they're all, you know, it's just evens out.

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I could, I've got to start getting a spiel ready on the bias of the ABC, Joe.

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So my question would be, okay, they're biased in the

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opposite direction, you believe.

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Okay, do you watch them?

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Do you, do you take your news from them as well and try and

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work out where the truth is?

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Because if one side is lying in one direction and the other side is lying

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in the other direction, Surely the truth is somewhere in the middle.

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Excuse me, Joe, while I write that down.

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That's really good.

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Are you watching them as well?

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Good point.

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Are you watching them as well?

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Because there's a lot of the ABC that has actually got a right wing bias.

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For example, Insiders, compared by David Spears.

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X NewsCorp very soft on, on the right wing ringers who come in

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there, softball interviews, 'em.

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The panelists are invariably from Murdoch Publications.

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It's a very right wing show.

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Occasionally has, you know, Nikki, Ava there.

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But I mean, even Nick Ava, while she's currently viewed as left wing, used

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to be, um, a right wing advi advisor for a right wing, um, politician.

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I think so.

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So there would be that, um, off the top of my head as well.

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Um, Patricia Cavallis is, is no lefty.

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Um, uh, the former 730er, Lee Sayles was not a lefty.

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That didn't make it easy for the left and would softball the, the right.

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And, um, another one off the top of my head, um, Lisa

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Miller is another one on ABC.

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Like, you can name presenters who Are, uh, are easily seen as being

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potentially soft on the right wing.

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But yeah, that's a good one, Joe.

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I'll try, I'll report back as to how that, um, how that goes.

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Is to say, why are you watching them as well and trying to work out where the

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truth might lie between the two of them.

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I mean, my news feed is Apple News and I deliberately haven't liked or

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disliked any content, so I get a balance.

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And I can literally, by the headline, pick out where it's coming from.

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Yes.

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I can go, that's a Murdoch one.

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That's a Murdoch beat up, I can guarantee that.

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Yeah.

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Just by the headline.

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Um, and the same with the Guardian.

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Yeah.

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Or even worse, some of the others, like Jezebel and, um, uh, Mamma

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Mia is the latest mis influenced.

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Okay.

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Right.

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Yeah, yeah, you see the headline.

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My bastard husband was a bastard, and you go, that's got to be Mamma Mia.

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Well, maybe he was.

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Maybe he was, but I mean, you can tell it's every headline that

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comes up in the news feed from them is about men behaving badly.

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Okay, five ways to determine whether your partner is a bad

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dad or something like that.

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Yeah, it's just, whether they're balanced, what pops up in my

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news feed just follows a content.

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That's it.

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The same as the Murdoch stuff does, the Sky News, the um, uh, Daily Fail.

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Yeah.

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Um, actually, I don't know if Daily Mail is Murdoch, but

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it's definitely right wing.

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Um, look, I think it was the Daily Mail that told the backstory, at

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least, of this Stephen Miles story that I've just been explaining.

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So I think I got the quotes from that, so, um, so, yeah.

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Just frustrating that People, A, don't look for the backstory, they

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don't suspect, um, they don't see the smoke and think there might be fire

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here, and then even when they are told, tribalism kicks in and they go,

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well he's just an idiot anyway and he still should be kicked out, argh.

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Yeah I mean I think it's very much a, rather than challenging their assertions,

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is asking them how they got to that position and what would change their mind.

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Is the, is the sneaking attack.

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Yeah.

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Lots of comments coming through on the chat.

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I'm going to try and address the chat at the end.

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I was listening to a podcast the other day and they sort of did a

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whole show where they just address their chat as a separate item.

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And I think what we might try and do is at the end of this, um, we'll

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just go back to the comments and try and address them at the end.

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So keep making your comments and I think we'll try and run through

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them towards the end rather than interrupting the discussion.

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Um, with the comments.

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Let's try that, see how it goes.

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So anyway, that was Stephen Miles and my frustration with the Australian

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boomer class on that issue.

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And, um, let's just think about Palestine, Gaza, Israel for a moment.

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Um, so, more than half a million Palestinians, one in four, are

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starving in Gaza, according to the UN.

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1.

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3 million displaced Palestinians live on the streets.

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of the southern city of Rafah, which Israel designated a safe

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zone, but has begun to bomb.

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Families shiver in the winter rains under flimsy tarps amid pools of raw sewerage.

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An estimated 90 percent of cars, as 2.

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3 million people have been driven from their homes.

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Joe, is there any end, what's the end game here for Israel?

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Is this just going to drive these people to starvation?

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The end game is a The depopulated Gaza Strip, isn't it?

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They're either going to die of starvation or disease at the rate it's going.

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Or be refugees in another country.

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Yeah, or just be blown to bits by bombs in the meantime.

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They're just not letting up.

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Um, also, we did that, um, discussion about the, uh, UNRWA.

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The U N R W A, which was like the aid organisation.

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And There were allegations that a dozen employees in an organisation

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that has, I don't know, whether it was 10, 000 employees, it's a big

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organisation, an allegation by Israel that a handful were members of Hamas.

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And on the basis of the Israeli allegation, the US, Australia and a

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bunch of others, decided that they were going to stop funding that organisation.

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If any organisation needed money, if there were a group of people needing

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aid, it's pretty clear that they did.

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You know, my, my view was, I don't care if it's proved that they were Hamas.

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I don't care if a thousand of them are Hamas.

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If a, if a reasonable proportion of the aid will find its way to Palestinians

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in Gaza, then that's good enough for me.

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Give them the aid.

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I say.

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Yeah, I mean the concern is that your aid is going to get diverted

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off to fund a terrorist group.

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And I don't care if a large proportion is, because I just think the people, the

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innocent people there who had nothing to do with anything that went on on

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October 7th, um, deserve some help.

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But anyway, um, so Caitlin Johnston, um, one of my favourite bloggers,

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and she's, we'll be quoting her a lot in this episode, actually, um.

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Dear listener, um, much of your subscription money to this podcast

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ends up with Caitlin Johnston and the John Manatee blog, as well as, uh,

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an economist called Michael Hudson and a couple of things I subscribe to

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because I have to, like the Courier Mail and the Guardian and whatever.

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But anyway.

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Uh, Caitlin does get some of, uh, your money via me, because it,

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uh, uh, gets returned back to her.

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So, anyway, a few articles from her, and, so she says that Australian Foreign

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Minister Penny Wong has acknowledged that Canberra joined, um, a bunch of

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other countries in cutting off the funding without having seen proof of

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Israel's claims against the organisation.

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And as she said, if you're going to say a bad thing happened and we therefore

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need to cut off aid to the most aid dependent population on earth, then

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you'd better at least be able to prove the bad thing actually happened.

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If evidence exists, then show it.

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If you insist on starving two million people, you can't do it on vibes alone.

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And um, she says, how is this not obvious to everyone?

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How is it not immediately obvious the instant it came up?

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Yeah, so, I think Penny Bond's been wanting to reverse that decision

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and start funding again, I think.

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Fair enough.

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Not sure of the latest.

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Yeah.

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So, um, still Caitlin Johnston, returning back to our original theme.

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So, we talked about Miles and the sort of propaganda of Sky News, and now we're just

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going to sort of look at the propaganda in relation to Gaza, Palestine, Israel.

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So Joe, did you happen to see Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin?

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Strangely enough, no.

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You've had lots of time on your hands.

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Yes, I don't tend to follow Tucker Carlson anyway.

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Yeah, neither do I.

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Mr Putin, I don't know, uh, I would trust a word that comes out of his mouth.

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Yes, that's fair enough.

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Any other politician?

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Yeah.

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So, even if you thought that he was, even if you were convinced that he was

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lying with every second sentence, I still think it's worthwhile watching,

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because the guy at least is intelligent and in control of his faculties.

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And can run a compelling argument, now it might be littered with bullshit,

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but um, there is a brain and an intellect operating there, far and

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above what Joe Biden or Donald Trump or Boris Johnson or Rishi Sunak or

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Anthony Albanese or others might offer.

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Yeah, I mean, Boris Johnson, I, I think, was one of those, he played

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a character of a bumbling fool, but apparently, he was a very intelligent

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man, is a very intelligent man.

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Yes.

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Um, and the bumbling fool allowed him to get away with

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some absolutely shitty things.

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True.

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If you do an intelligence test, um, IQ test, uh, probably

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Boris Johnson would come out.

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Yeah.

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I'll do that on that.

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I mean, Biden, Trump, yes, absolutely.

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I think he's a bumbling fool.

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Um, and Biden, I think he's in his dotage.

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Yes.

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Uh, I don't know that it really matters in America because

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aren't they just puppets anyway?

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We'll get onto that.

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We'll talk more about that.

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But, um, I think it was just interesting that he, he's, yeah, it was probably an

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hour and a half or two Sit down discussion between Putin and Tucker Carlson.

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It was kind of like a podcast.

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It was just long form conversation and at one point really in the very beginning

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the first half hour or so Putin's really giving a description of Russian Ukrainian

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history as a means of trying to show that this geographical area currently known as

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Ukraine has always been You know, Russian, if you like, and, um, actually it was

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Turkish, uh, yes, you, maybe you should listen to what he says, Joe, and then

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you can put it apart wherever you like.

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I'm, I'm, I'm summarising.

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He, he may well have mentioned some Turkish involvement there, I can't

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remember, but, um, uh, at one point sort of Tucker Carlson is trying to, Sort of

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rein him in and say, yeah, but come on, let's, let's move on and talk about,

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you know, the war in Ukraine now and, and that, and Putin basically says to

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him, you know, Are you doing a show or are we having a real discussion here?

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Are we having a real conversation?

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You know, I thought we were gonna have a conversation, a real genuine

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conversation, not just some show, and then he says, bear with me.

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Let me just keep going here.

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It's all, you'll understand why I've said it as I get through it.

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That sort of, um, response.

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You know, without wanting to go Godwin's Law, I'm sure if you sat down with Hitler

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for half an hour and had a conversation, he would tell you the history of Jews in

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Europe and why they were such a bad people and why they deserved to be wiped out.

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Yeah, and at the end of it I'm sure you could have a long form conversation

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which would absolutely justify his Yes.

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Um, behaviour.

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Yes, and at the end of it you might go, that was a pack of lies, but gee, it

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was a well constructed pack of lies.

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Yeah, that's my point.

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That's my point about the Putin interview.

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Right.

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It might well be a pack of lies, but it was a well constructed,

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elucidated pack of lies, is my point.

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That's my first point.

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Yeah, I'm sure he has to sell it internally.

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Yes, and maybe to other countries in the global south and who's Possible.

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And China and other states like that.

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So, um, so yeah, um, anyway, during the interview, Putin implied

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that NATO powers were behind the Nord Stream pipeline bombing.

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Shocking.

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And Tucker Carlson responded by asking Putin why he didn't

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present evidence to the world so as to win a propaganda victory.

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And Putin said, Quote, in the war of propaganda, it's very difficult to

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defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world's

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media and many European media, so, um, he sort of just made the point.

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Uh, what's the point?

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Um, the United States are the champions when it comes to propaganda.

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They control too much.

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Um, basically, I, I wouldn't win that propaganda war.

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And, um, Clayton Johnson says I was going to say, I don't know

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that the United States do, but certainly vested interests do.

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Yes.

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The Western oligarchs do.

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Yes.

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Yep.

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Uh, yes.

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And then, but the state Kind of gets what it wants because it kind of, the

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oligarchs I would say, if anything, the US is a tool of the oligarchs,

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rather than the other way around.

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Yes, and that the state is the result of what the oligarchs want.

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Yes.

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And if that's the case, then the state is probably going to provide The

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propaganda that the oligarchs want.

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Yeah, but I think it's the oligarchs who, the oligarchs own the press.

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Yeah, although let me just get on to that because, um, so, Caitlin Johnson

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says, The US empire has by far the most sophisticated and effective propaganda

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machine ever to have existed, um, operating with such complexity that

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most people don't even know it exists.

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And in a fact checking article, Five Lies and One Truth, from Putin's interview

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with Tucker Carlson, Politico Europe labels the claim, um, by Putin that

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America is the king of propaganda.

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And the reason that Politico Europe says that is because Russia

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has a state run media, whereas the US media is privately owned.

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According to the Politico fact checking article pooh poohing Putin's theory,

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they said, quote, The biggest news media companies are privately owned

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and operate without direct government control, in contrast to the state

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controlled media landscape in Russia.

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And this was written by Politico's Sergei Goryazko.

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He said, he added, Russian state TV and the primary news agencies there

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are the property of the government.

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And the Kremlin controls other media or destroys those not willing to collaborate.

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So he's saying Russia's a bigger propaganda machine because

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it owns the media, whereas in the US, it's privately owned.

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At the bottom of the article from Politico, it reads, Sergei Goriosko

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is hosted at Politico under EU funded EU for Free Media Residency Program.

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And according to Caitlin Johnston, EU for Free Media is a European Union narrative

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management operation set up to help integrate Russian journalists in exile

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into leading European publications, i.

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e.

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to provide maximum media amplification to Russian expats who have a to pick

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with the current government in Moscow.

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It is run with the participation from Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty,

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which are US government funded media operations under the umbrella of the

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US Propaganda Services umbrella, USAGM.

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So the guy who was saying Putin is wrong because you are, you know,

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Western media is privately owned.

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Worked for Politico, which is essentially funded by the US government, in a, in

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a summary, and creates these sorts of organisations to give the appearance

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of independent media commenting when in fact they're owned and operated

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essentially by the US government.

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Interesting case study, I thought.

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Yeah, I mean, Radio Europe is certainly known as a CIA front from the Cold War.

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Yeah.

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Or Radio Free Europe, I remember.

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It was certainly well known.

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As being a CIA front.

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Um, the big difference is, you know, as shitty as, um, the West

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have been to Julian Assange, Um, he still hasn't fallen out of a window.

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Well, he doesn't Has he?

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No, but he's been locked away in Belmarsh Prison, like, you know, just

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like the, uh, the Russian opposition leaders in a Siberian prison.

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Julian's in a Belmarsh high security prison.

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Belmarsh is slightly better than the Gulag.

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It's one of the worst prisons he could possibly be in.

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Yes.

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It's a really hardcore, terrible prison to be.

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Um.

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Totally inappropriate for somebody who's committed the sort of, even if

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true, the crimes that are alleged.

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Yeah, I mean, look, um, one doesn't justify the other, but I think

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there's, uh, there's a different scale.

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of, uh, dealing with the opposition.

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You know, at least, at least say the Russian opposition

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leader was arrested in Russia.

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Well, yes.

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For supposed crimes against Russia, and put in a Siberian jail.

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Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, is not even in America, and he's

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arrested for breaching an American crime.

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And he's not even in America!

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Yeah.

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Like, doesn't Anyway.

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That's another rabbit hole.

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We might refer to that later as well.

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So, um, so as Caitlin Johnson says, there's an old joke that says, uh,

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A Soviet and an American are on an aeroplane seated next to each other.

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And, um, the American asks, Why are you flying to the US?

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And the Soviet guy replies, To study American propaganda.

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The American replies, What American propaganda?

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The Soviet says, Exactly.

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It's true.

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It's really true.

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People don't see it.

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So, as she says, let's talk about that sort of private ownership of

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media, as opposed to government.

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She says anyone who's wealthy enough to control a mass media platform

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is going to have a vested interest in preserving the status quo upon

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which their wealth is premised.

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And they will co operate with establishment power structures

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in various ways towards that end.

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That make sense?

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The fact that these mass media outlets look independent, but function as

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propaganda organs for the US Empire, allows its propaganda to fly into

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people's minds without triggering any gag reflex of scepticism.

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Which, uh, which would happen if people knew the outlets

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were feeding them propaganda.

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So propaganda only really has persuasive power.

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If you don't know, it's happening to you.

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Ah, the invisibility of U.

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S.

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propaganda is further aided by the subtle methods by which it is administered,

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which we've seen exemplified beautifully in the coverage of Israel's ongoing U.

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S.

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backed atrocity in Gaza.

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So, this is now we're going to talk about, dear listener, the way articles

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and headlines are worded, um, uh, subtly.

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The Intercept reports that a review of a thousand articles from the New York

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Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times about Israel's war on Gaza.

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found that the outlets consistently used word choices which served

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Israeli information interests.

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Highly emotive terms for the killing of civilians like Slaughter,

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Massacre and Horrific were reserved almost exclusively for Israelis

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who were killed by Palestinians, rather than the other way around.

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Um, and in the report, the term slaughter was used by editors and

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reporters to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians, 60 to 1.

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And massacre was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians.

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125 to 2, and horrific was used to describe the killing of Israelis

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versus Palestinians 36 to 4.

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I find that useful, Joe, because, you know, I could say, as I did before, Oh,

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well, you know, Lisa Miller, David Spears, Lee Sayles, whatever, you know, I consider

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them fairly right wing ABC journalists.

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And it's hard to quantify that feeling, other than just saying I'm a critical

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watcher and this is the view I've come to.

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But to be able to actually look at words like slaughter, massacre, um,

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horrific, and see such an imbalance of when those words are used, in a

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situation where we've got such a horrific massacre occurring in Gaza, and every

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reason to use those words, I find it really compelling argument, um, so.

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That was a useful report, and that's the sort of thing that, you know, okay, The

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Intercept's a very left wing magazine, but, uh, or outlet, but I think when

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they say they've counted those words and that's what they get, I think we

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can trust that that would be correct.

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So, as Caitlin Johnston says, this is the sort of manipulation that a

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casual news consumer wouldn't notice.

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Unless you're on alert for bias, um, Do you hear about that girl, Joe, in

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Gaza who was, um, trapped in a car, her family were killed, she was the

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only one alive, somehow gets on the phone, I think, I think she's six years

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old, and she sort of rung saying, you know, help me, um, I'm really scared

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and I need help, and ambulance was sent and it was blown up as well.

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Um, cute little girl, terrible.

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Terrible thing to imagine happening to somebody.

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So, in the reporting of that, um, is another illustration

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of how things are worded.

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So, in the um, CNN, New York Times, BBC, reporting on that story used

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headlines such as, Five year old Palestinian girl found dead after being

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trapped in car under Israeli fire.

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Also, missing six year old and rescue team found dead in Gaza, aid group says.

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And Hind Rajab, six, found dead in Gaza days after phone calls for help.

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That was the Western media.

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In contrast, Al Jazeera reported, body of six year old killed in deliberate

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Israeli fire found after 12 days.

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And the Middle East Eye, um, used the words, Hind Rajab, Palestinian

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girl found dead after being trapped under Israeli fire for days.

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So, it's this sort of softballing description versus the more

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explicit blaming of Israelis.

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And it's easy to spot the difference.

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When you have them side by side like that, but if you're just reading

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one outlet, you don't pick that up.

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Um, another example she mentions is, last month the BBC published

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an article titled, Record number of civilians hurt by explosives in 2023.

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As though they were mishandling fireworks, or something.

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Instead of being actively killed by Israeli bombs.

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So, the headline was, Record number of civilians hurt by explosives in 2023,

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um, uh, contrast this with the BBC's headlines when reporting on Ukrainians

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killed by Russians, and the headline would be, Ukraine more, Russian airstrikes

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claim five lives in Kiev and Mikhailov.

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Uh, or Ukraine War, baby killed in Russian strike on Kharkiv Hotel.

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So, in Ukraine, people die from bombs because Russia launched

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Russian airstrikes and killed them.

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Whereas in Gaza, people get hurt by explosions because they got too close

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to some type of explosive material.

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Yep.

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It's their own fault.

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Yeah, really interesting examples.

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So, the concluding comments in this great article.

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These little manipulations fly under the radar if you're

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not on the lookout for them.

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Such as the brilliance of the US Empire's invisible propaganda machine.

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That's why it's very difficult to win a propaganda war against the United States.

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That's why Westerners have been so successfully manipulated into

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accepting a status quo of endless war.

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Echo Side, Injustice and Exploitation, and that's why the world looks

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the way it looks right now.

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So, yeah, there we go, media manipulation.

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It's a sad toy, story.

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Um, we mentioned previously, just earlier.

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About Joe Biden and, uh, how he's sort of apparently slipping into the dotage.

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Is that the word you used?

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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So, he has been investigated in relation to mishandling some classified documents.

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And the good news is that they've decided that criminal charges

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are not warranted in this matter.

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So that's the good news for Joe Biden fans.

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The bad news, for Joe Biden fans, is the reason given, and basically, that

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he's such a forgetful old man, and that's the way that he would come across

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in a trial, that, um, um, uh, it'll likely convince some jurors that he

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made an innocent mistake, rather than acted willfully, um, so, essentially,

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the reasons given for not proceeding were, uh, his mental, you Memory is

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so poor, no one could be convinced that he really knew what he was doing.

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Not the best way of getting off something, if you're the President of

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the United States, but, uh, there you go.

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Um, yeah.

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Yeah, I mean, um, I remember Neil deGrasse Tyson being interviewed and, yeah, what

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would you do if you were President?

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Or what would you do, who would you make President?

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I can't remember.

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Something along those lines.

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And he said the problem isn't who's President, the problem is

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who's voting for the President.

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Hmm.

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Uh, until, until you can change the infrastructure behind it, uh, who

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is president really doesn't matter.

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Right, well, who, who's running the empire in the, in the system?

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Is that what you mean, rather than who's voting?

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Because until, the voters don't get to change that either.

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No, but I mean, even, even the voters, um, I think are disengaged.

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Hmm.

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They don't care.

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Yeah.

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So just going on with this article, she says, uh, the U.

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S.

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empire has been marching along in exactly the same way it was before Biden took

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office, completely unhindered by the fact that the person who's supposedly

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calling the shots is in a state of degenerative neurological free fall.

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Literally anyone could hold that office and it would make no meaningful difference

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in the way the US Empire is run.

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The globe spanning power structure that is centralised around the United States is

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run not by the official elected government of that nation, but by unelected

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empire managers who filter in and out of each administration and maintain a

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steady presence in government agencies and government adjacent institutions.

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These empire managers form alliances with corporate powers and

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working relationships with them.

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The many nations, assets and partners who function as members

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of the undeclared US empire.

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Which means there's really not any way for Americans to vote

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their way out of this mess.

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Voting in Western democracies is done to give us the illusion of control.

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I like this bit here coming up, uh, Voting in Western democracies is done

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to give us the illusion of control.

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Like letting a toddler play with a toy steering wheel.

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Well, you drive so they can feel like they're participating.

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Well, I, um, the fact that Trump was in power for four years and didn't

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completely fuck the American economy.

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Hmm.

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Um, people talked about childminding him.

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Yeah.

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That, that they basically didn't carry out his orders because they

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knew he'd forget them in half an hour.

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And we spoke in previous episodes recently about, I think, Victoria

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Newland, who was the one involved with the, uh, the coup in the Ukraine.

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Oh yeah.

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Basically, it didn't matter whether it was a Republican or

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Democrat, um, administration.

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She got a job, with all of them, except when Trump was in power.

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That was the only time that she wasn't in some high powered job.

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So, um, that was one of the dangers and one of the reasons why.

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Um, a lot of these people don't like Trump was because for the first time in

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their careers, they would be on the outer.

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So, yeah, there we go.

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Unlike Kennedy, who completely fucked up the CIA's plan with the Bay of Pigs.

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Um, so Kennedy?

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Yeah, so, uh, yeah, they had a, they had a whole plan about the

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US re invading or invading Cuba to bring back a right wing government.

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Yes.

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And, and Kennedy basically pulled funding for it.

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Yes.

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He said no.

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And that's, that's the whole basis of the CIA killed Kennedy.

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Okay, so this was after the Bay of Pigs, this was another, another shot at it.

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No, this was the Bay of, Bay of Pigs, basically, um, Kennedy

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pulled all the support out.

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Right.

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And said, we can't have American assets, it has to be Cubans only.

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Gave a whole bunch of, you can't do this, you can't do that, laid down the

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law, and apparently that was because, that's why it was such a, a screw up.

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Ah, see I'd heard a different story.

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I'd heard he was really pissed with them, that he'd allowed him, that

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he'd allowed them to talk him into it.

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Okay.

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That was the version I heard.

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Certainly there was a big fallout with the CIA over Bay of Pigs.

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Yeah, the version I heard was he was so pissed with them for getting it so wrong.

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It was like, what sort of fucking advice is this from these guys?

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That was a disaster.

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So, yeah.

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The other one I read, the other thing about him was, you know, when

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they were deciding what to do when, because Russia was sending the nuclear

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weapons over, and the Americans were deciding on their response.

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And Robert Kennedy, I think, said to Joe Kennedy, we're having all

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these meetings, but there's a danger here that everybody is agreeing with

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you because you're the president.

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And they don't feel in this group situation that they can

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give a contrary point of view.

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And so they allowed the others to have meetings without Kennedy present.

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So people felt freer to give an honest opinion about what they should

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do and not allow the group think to All the sort of, the fear of going

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against the President stopped them from saying what they wanted to say.

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I believe that's what happened in the lead up to that.

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Right, um, The right to disconnect, Joe, seems like lots of people

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have a problem where their bosses expect them to be available for,

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uh, being contacted after hours.

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Either by phone calls or emails.

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And the Centre for Future Work found that 71 percent of surveyed employees

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worked outside their scheduled hours, largely to meet employer expectations.

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Most of this time, most of this overtime was unpaid.

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That could be just working late in the office, I guess, as

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well as phone calls and emails.

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Ever have a problem, Joe, with some boss expecting you to answer emails at

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seven o'clock at night and saying, why didn't you get back to me about that?

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Um, no, I mean, I've been in jobs where I've had on call and I've been in jobs

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where, um, there was a, an expectation that out of hours work was done.

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Um, and yes, it was unpaid, but it was time in lieu.

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Okay.

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So it was paid then, in that sense.

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If you worked an hour at night, then it was considered.

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Yeah, I mean, yes, um, I've always been in a, a skilled industry and therefore not,

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not as subject to the vagaries of a boss.

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But I certainly had, um, colleagues who were, um, told that they were not

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allowed to take leave for two weeks out of the month because that was month

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end and that they weren't allowed any leave at year end, financial year end.

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And we're expected to work long hours and we're told not to put in overtime

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claims for the hours that they worked.

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Um, so I think it's very much down to, um, your employer's belief

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on how easy you are to replace.

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Yes.

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Is there a power imbalance or not?

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Absolutely.

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Mm.

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And that's why I gave up on the union a long time ago, um, not so much

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because I don't believe in unions but because, um, I wasn't really in

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a position to be assisted by them but I have told everybody in a, um, more

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easily replaced job to join a union.

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I've always, you know, payroll, people like that who are deemed

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replaceable by, uh, management.

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I've always said join a union and get the best representation you can.

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And um, my daughter's peers, again, I've pushed towards, um,

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fair work and, um, the unions.

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Okay, did she take your advice?

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Uh, so, uh, Join a union?

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Yes, and my daughter isn't a member of a union, but Oh,

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she's not a member of a union?

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So she hasn't taken your advice?

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Well, um, she's not yet employed.

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Oh, okay, right.

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But her friends, yeah, yeah, my friends, uh, one of her friends

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is an apprentice electrician.

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Right.

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And, uh, I was saying, you know, if, if you feel you're being underpaid,

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you're not getting your, um, Shea used to work for, I forget who it was.

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But I pointed them towards that group, passed all the details on,

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and said, if you've got concerns about not being paid fairly, then

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these are the people to talk to.

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Hmm.

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Yes.

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Um, so, Labor Government, supposedly happening today, don't know if it

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happened, introducing legislation, basically, uh, to empower people

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to be able to disconnect from work.

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Of course,

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if your employer is expecting you to answer emails and phone calls after

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work and you say I don't have to and start waving the legislation in their

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face, uh, will you find yourself shunted off to the side down the track?

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Um, how powerful are you?

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And can you be blocked?

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Um, yeah, as a casual, if you turn down shifts, then you don't get offered shifts.

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Find yourself missing from the Time table, next time.

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Yeah, so anyway, Labor attempting to do that and also casual workers who have

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regular work arrangements being able to say, well I've been casual this long,

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you've had me working for example, every Thursday and Friday from 10 till 3, you

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now have to offer me a permanent position.

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Rather than just casual, so, that's good.

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See, um, how that pans out.

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I think the most interesting part of that is Peter Dutton came out and said

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he's going to repeal the laws about, um, out of hours communications.

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How are these guys going to win an election?

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So does that mean we can ring Peter Dutton out of his work hours?

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Yeah.

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If Ring him on his home line and say, hey, I want to talk to you

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about this problem I'm having?

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Yeah.

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So yeah, this sort of right to disconnect, Dutton has said

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they're going to repeal that.

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And, um, he said that this law is damaging to relations between employers

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and employees and it hurts productivity.

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I, I, I agree with him.

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I think since he's my MP, he should be available to me on call 24 hours a day

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to deal with any problems that I have.

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Yeah, try that.

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And I, I want his personal phone number, as his employer.

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Yeah.

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I just think, how are these people expecting to win young voters, um?

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Next week, well you sent me that article, we'll talk about it next week, yeah,

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about the UK and young voters deserting the Conservative Party in the UK.

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Dramatically.

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And scarily not over here.

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Yes.

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Not to the same extent, yeah.

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Yes.

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Um, so, next week, Joe, for that article, because it was quite lengthy

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and there were a lot of charts.

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Yeah.

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Um, but, um, but, if Dutton keeps making statements like this, He will

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be heading in the same direction as the UK Conservatives in terms of his

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relationship with young people, I think.

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One can only hope.

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Joe, we've spoken a lot about our problems with submarines over the years.

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What a debacle the whole thing is.

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There is, it seems, a debacle of the same type, frigates, and

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I'll get my head around that.

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Um, but I saw this thing that, um, I'll just read it, I think it was a tweet.

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The Japanese make some peculiar television shows and movies, with however

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commendable attention to strategy and detail, and there's a series out called

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The Silent Service, in which a Japanese crew steals a US Navy nuclear submarine

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during their familiarisation exercise.

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Recommended viewing for our Royal Australian Navy Submariners.

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During the early stages of their training exercises, might shave a few decades

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off our acquisition of those submarines.

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It's about the only way we're gonna get a nuclear sub out of the Yanks,

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is to follow this model and steal one during a familiarization exercise.

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Yeah, I mean, call me a cynic, but I don't think it was ever

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about getting subs out of the U.

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S.

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Yeah, we mentioned the other day, last week, about single sex education.

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Because there was that, um, Newington College becoming co ed, and some

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of the parents, Joe, were crying, I guess, some of the old boys.

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Yes, yeah, because he was going to have a grandchild and now he can't have a

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grandchild Yeah, he wasn't gonna send his grandchild to that school now.

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Yeah, not gonna have that There's an article here, which says that Just looking

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at the debate of whether single sex schools perform better than co educational

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schools and this is a tricky one.

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So if you've got E.

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g.

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a girl, um, who might have an interest in maths and physics, there's been

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an argument that girls perform better in all girl schools than they

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do in co ed schools, for example, particularly for those subjects.

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But, as the article explains, it's really hard to sort through the data because

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so much of educational Uh, success relates to socio economic factors.

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And the people who end up in single sex private schools are

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at a higher socioeconomic level.

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So it's really difficult to look at the data and compare girls of a

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semi socioeconomic status in single sex schools with girls, for example,

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of a similar socioeconomic status in co ed schools, because there's

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just not enough single sex schools.

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With that lower socio economic background.

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The other question is, are exam results the sole measure of success?

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Or do you want a well rounded person?

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Yes.

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Because if you have someone who's got great exam scores, but is

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totally inappropriate dealing with members of the opposite sex, Hmm.

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Are they employable?

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Indeed.

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Yeah.

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Because I was hinting at that, uh, last week when I was saying how some of the

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kids who ended up in university and, uh, operated under a disadvantage for

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a few years till I figured things out.

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I was one of them.

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Um, but anyway.

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For example, in Australia, 14 out of the 20 top performing schools in the

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latest HSC round were single sex.

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That was 8 all girls and 6 all boys.

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And, um, uh, as we're top, uh, as we're 12 of the top performing schools

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in the VCE, that must be Victoria.

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So, um, but, um, here's the interesting part, Joe, is in Ireland.

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Where is it in this?

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I haven't highlighted it in this thing.

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But apparently in Ireland, there's a lot of single sex schools and, um, which

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are government run and do not have a, sort of, a selective enrolment bias.

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Government funded?

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Yes, government funded.

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So don't have a A socio economic slant that's different so

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much with the co ed schools.

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And there's a link to a study which was done and it was by the British Educational

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Research Journal that basically said they couldn't find Um, significant differences

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in results when looking at the performance of kids in the different schools.

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So it was more or less saying, when you've accounted for socioeconomic factors and

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other issues, then there was no evidence that single sex schools led to greater

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academic achievement as determined by objective scoring systems, Joe.

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Hadn't heard that before, but that was, that was, um, that was interesting.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So, um, so that's a rundown of the topics and let me, Joe, try and find,

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I want to look at this chat now.

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So, dear listener, uh, let me find, how do I get to the chat?

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I want to scroll through, yeah, captions, chat.

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There it is.

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Sorry.

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Thank you.

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Um, so yeah, that's it dear listener in terms of.

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The, uh, topics.

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I thought we'd just quickly run through the chat and see what people had to say.

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Watley and John saying hello.

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Same with Joel, thank you.

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Um, so John says that the Chaser podcast did a good wind up of Barnaby today.

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Um, and John also says not to worry about Sky News and its propaganda because it

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only has three people and a dog watching.

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Yeah, the problem is, Joe, goddamn ABC takes its cues from From the Murdoch.

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What's the news window, isn't it?

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Yes.

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So yeah, nobody watches the bloody thing, but it does seem to set the agenda for

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these people, including the A, B, C.

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Um, uh, John says, my children have been discussing how casually racist

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their grandmother has been lately.

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I just pointed out the generation gap to them.

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Okay.

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Yeah, I mean, I had a chat with dad about, um, he made some

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comments that were possibly.

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Not great about gay people and he said you have to remember that when I

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was growing up being gay was illegal.

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Yes You know Society has changed and sometimes it's very difficult to get

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rid of your entrenched biases Um, Joel says ABC is very right wing.

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It's their entertainment that is left leaning.

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That would be true.

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So someone like, um, Sean McAuliffe, um, he would say He was curing,

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um, Scott Morrison and his group.

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Yes.

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The government of the day, yes.

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He took, no doubt, great delight in that.

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So, uh, yeah, that would be true.

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It's their entertainment that is left leaning.

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Good point, Joel.

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Um, uh, Watley says, Seems legit.

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Batboy will one day be president of the USA.

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Who's Batboy?

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This is about the Weekly Word News.

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This is Don's comment.

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It was the Men in Black.

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Ah, OK.

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So it was the newspaper in Men in Black.

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You read to find out the truth because it was the one that was

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telling you all about aliens abducting Elvis, or whatever it was.

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Oh, okay.

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Right, okay.

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Um, John says Putin gives a history lesson from his point of view,

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doesn't sound very convincing.

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Whatley tells him to be objective.

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Um, and, uh, Whatley says torture is better than murder, then, Joe.

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I don't know what that means.

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So that was talking about Julian Assange and the Russian journalists.

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Right.

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And the answer is, neither are great, but one person being tortured

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is probably better than a hundred people being pushed out of windows.

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Yes.

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I think that neither side are great.

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It's just a level of shittiness.

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How many people were in Guantanamo, again?

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Yeah, probably a hundred, but they weren't journalists, were they?

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We're talking, okay, we're just talking people killed.

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Okay, the American way isn't to push people out of windows, it's

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just to bomb them, if they're brown and they're in a desert, you know.

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Yes.

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Yep.

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Uh, and John says, please see who the report was done by, a

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Republican endorsed official.

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That was to do with Biden being senile.

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Well this was the um, well I think this was the people looking at the

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indictment, I think these were the lawyers looking at the indictment, John.

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Yeah, apparently he's a Republican.

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Right, okay.

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Don't know.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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And that was the chat.

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We'll try and do that every week, so if you do make a comment, you will be heard.

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And, uh, there we go.

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Scott was with us.

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comment about our country was founded on the criminal element, justifying

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we should steal the submarine.

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But I'm thinking that maybe that's a good argument back to the, this nation

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was founded on Christian values, was this nation was founded on criminals.

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So does that justify us all being criminals now?

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Are you reading that in the main chat on the, on the right?

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Where did you read that?

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Yes, scroll all the way down.

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I still keep going and The last one I've got is by John saying,

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please see who the report was done by, a Republican endorsed official.

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There's another, there's another three under that.

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Why haven't I, why can't I see them?

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They're up on the screen, on the chat.

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Maybe because they're on the screen that they don't appear in that right chat.

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They do.

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Okay, mine's not scrolling, but anyway.

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Okay.

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Uh Uhhhh Don't forget, our country was founded on the criminal element,

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so it's their patriotic duty to flog anything that isn't bolted to the floor.

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Good one, Don.

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Uh Monster Dutton or Voldemort, um, Chris says, why isn't there an option

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other than Biden in the next election?

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And, uh Because democracy is failing, Chris.

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And um, uh, yeah, okay.

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Those didn't appear in my right inside.

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Anyway.

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All right, dear listener, that is a wrap on this podcast, episode 417.

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Scott wasn't with us.

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He had other commitments.

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He should be back next week.

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And uh, yeah, I'll be back next week.

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Joe will be my last podcast, hopefully wearing glasses.

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So you're going to be blind the week after, are you?

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Yeah.

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So, in the, after next week's podcast, I'm getting new intraocular lenses.

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Well, synthetic ones put in.

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Because I had cataracts appearing and they said, well, need to fix

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that up and while we're at it Would you like some new lenses?

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And you won't need glasses.

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And I thought, wow, I've worn glasses since I was 16.

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So that will be an interesting, life changing event for me.

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So, yeah.

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So next week, glasses, but then in the days following that, um, Don says he's

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getting bionic eyes, Steve Austin style.

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John and Chris say goodnight.

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Goodnight to everybody.

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We'll talk to you next week.

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Bye for now.

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And it's a good night from here, mate.

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