01:00 NYT: Israel’s Euphoria Over Hostage Rescue May Be Fleeting, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/09/world/israel-gaza-war-hamas#the-audacious-operation-did-little-to-resolve-the-many-challenges-facing-israels-government
02:00 The Hill: At least 210 Palestinians reportedly killed during Israeli hostage recovery operation, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155398
03:00 NYT: The audacious operation did little to resolve the many challenges facing Israel’s government.
05:00 Nahum Barnea: The military incursion into Rafah must be stopped… it won’t save Israel. https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155398
06:00 The Biggest Lies In Contemporary Discourse, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155386
08:00 Is Israel Committing Genocide?, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155365
12:15 CNN: Genocide charges against Israel, https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/05/26/gps-0526-icc-charges-against-israel.cnn
16:00 A proposal to end the war, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-proposal-to-end-the-war-with-haviv-rettig-gur/id1539292794?i=1000657620552
27:10 Sam joins the show from Haifa
47:30 The Hezbollah threat
49:00 Petrodollars, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/petrodollars.asp
1:11:00 Defense Mechanisms 101: A Complete Run-Down Of How They Develop & Why We Need Them (Until We Don’t), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVcdHje8R18
1:12:30 Claire Khaw joins
1:17:00 The delusions of human rights activists, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155365
1:25:20 The military challenge of Hamas has been solved by the IDF
1:50:30 Nationalism is good, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3moUXO7fiqw&t=300s
2:06:15 Radical reactions to anti-white racism, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fitLTIwao3Y
2:16:00 Tucker Carlson’s restraint with foreign intervention
2:24:10 End of the Liberal Order & Return of War – John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqWtgvrSF-Y
2:32:00 Shakespeare’s tragedies, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/06/06/no-comfort-shakespeare-fintan-otoole/
2:57:00 The rise of Christianity, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/06/06/the-workings-of-the-spirit-christendom-peter-heather/
3:13:00 Livelier than the living, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/06/20/livelier-than-the-living-a-marvelous-solitude/
Speaker 0: Good day, mate. Court here so Israel pulled off a stunning rescue of 4 hostages on Saturday. And I’m checking out the New York Times, I wanna know how should I think about this and the New York Times has an amazing revelation here on top of New York Times dot com right now. Israel’s euphoria over hostage rescue, may fleeting. Oh my god Have you ever heard of a euphoria that that is fleeting?
Alright? So the the New York tide. Right. Israel’s, euphoria over hostage rescue may fleeting. All forms of hysteria.
Are fleeting. But there’s no such thing. All forms of euphoria fleeting. There’s no such thing as permanent euphoria. Can you name me of Euphoria that goes on for years and years and years.
If so, it’d be wildly m adapted. But for the neo kai, it’s their top story right now, The idea that israel’s euphoria maybe fleeting. Oh my god. Gonna tell us that water flows downhill. Of course, that euphoria is gonna be fleeting or your euphoria is up.
Cliff fleeting. Can you imagine going to a bride on her wedding day and say, hey, your your euphoria is going to be fleeting. Oh or telling a happy, newly married couple. Hey, your eu euphoria is gonna be fleeting tell a friend who just had great news. You should know that your euphoria will be fleeting.
It’s such an absurd point, of course, the euphoria will be fleeting. And what what reason the new york types puts in the story for white Israel euphoria should be fleeting. Is that apparently Israel had to kill hundreds of Palestinians to rescue for hostages. So Why would Israelis feel bad about that. Like what nation would not be willing to kill hundreds of members of an enemy, for the opportunity to rescue 4 members of their own team.
And so Hamas chooses to keep these hostages in a residential area and Hamas chooses to associate and to try to blend him in with a civilian population. And so when Israel fights to take back its hostages There are civilians who are killed along with hamas fighters. And why would Israel feel bad about this. Palestinians in general, guards in particular, it may very clear, that they seek the total destruction of the Jewish state. And they they proved it by they elected Hamas.
Right? Hamas is in power Right, In Gaza, because the gaza elected Hamas, they chose a hamas. Opinion polls showed that Hamas October 7 attack, meets with overwhelming approval by people in Gaza. So why would Israel not be down with slaughtering their enemies? And and why would that that be considered, like, something that they would feel bad about And here’s another shocking revelation from this New York Times article.
The Au audacious operation did little to resolve the many challenges facing Israel’s government. Oh my god. That’s that’s What the heck is going on with myself. I would have expected that this hostage rescue would have solved all of Israeli government problems. It’s stunning.
It’s shocking. It’s amazing to realize that it hasn’t sold all of Israel’s problems. My God. And and then we’ve got na by near. Is probably the most prestigious is israeli columnist with the mainstream journalists overseas such as Tom Friedman, he wrote may 26 that Israel’s incur into Raf won’t save Israel.
I just put won’t save Israel into Google News, and there are just dozens of resorts for what save Israel. Shocker. Who could imagine that there is no 1 single act that will save Israel. Guess what? There’s no 1 single act that will save you.
This note 1 single act that will save me. Alright. Salvation is an ongoing process. Right? There’s not not 1 thing that’s going to save us.
Right? I’m not a Christian. And so I I don’t believe. That salvation descends from above, and those who give themselves to a particular theology then automatically get saved to the next world, which is much much better. Well, On this fallen world, use Christian terminology.
Alright Salvation is not something that is dispersed 1 time, and then you’re set for life. For individuals nations for states, or salvation is an ongoing process. There’s never 1 action that saves you. Right The idea that Israel should be feeling sad or just disturbed because they had to kill hundreds of members of the enemy to rescue their own hostages or that Israel should feel bad because this or audacious rescue did not solve any of the Israeli government’s problems is absurd, who on Earth would expect that this would save Israel. Right?
There’s no 1 act. That will save Israel. It it’s just so so tempting to think, oh, this this 1 dramatic gesture That’s just gonna save us. Well, there’s never 1 traumatic gesture, 1 dramatic decision that will save you. Right, this is then S nor.
His podcast, call me back with Dan S, Here he is talking to H aviv Gu, an Israeli journalist.
Speaker 1: Israel. Can’t move a large number of Palestinian civilians safely. We were told that Israel doesn’t have a plan. They don’t have the capability. No no army and in modern times has moved that size of civilian population that was so concentrated so dense and, , out safely and move that.
The administration kept saying israel can’t do it Can’t do it Israel ro can’t do it. And then israel does it and they move something like 900000 people in a matter of 10 days. So what actually happened there?
Speaker 2: Yeah. It’s now over a million. American officials, in their warnings about Gaza. Unfortunately, I don’t know how else to say it have demonstrated real lack of knowledge and lack of competence the Americans and the Israelis, the 2 national security Councils, and, , I think you’ve talked about this recently. They met about 6 weeks ago and they had this discussion.
And in the discussion that the talk was, the American said, you’ll to move, , a million people out of the way, so you can fight in Raf, will take you 4 months. And the Israelis said it’ll take 4 weeks. And it turned out the Israelis were patti the time. And and just, Raf his 5 square miles, in American terms, you would talk about it as a small suburb. How 4 months is just an astonishing amount of time to, It felt like, , American officials have on their wall, a map of Russia and a map of Gaza and since the maps are the same size.
They may be… In their mind sort of unconsciously developed a sense of size For gaza that just doesn’t make sense. It’s not 4 months. And the deed is already done. Not only that, but on the issue of moving civilians, 1 of the really remarkable things in Raf.
Everybody’s focused on whether the Americans are right or the Israelis are right, of course. It turned out that just logistically the israelis had a much better sense of how Raf will go than anything the Americans were saying. By the way, I think that this is a… Profound critique of the Israeli leadership. Because if they just gone forward with it 3 months ago instead of pussy footing around and waiting while Palestinians billions live in tents, reliant on foreign aid, and while the soldiers are sitting there in gaza motionless, and while everybody’s, , hand ringing and not getting the job done in Raf, so we can turn that page and move on and get to better times, those 3 months of delay had no reason no cause, they were they were massive American pressure based on deep American misunderstanding.
And that’s very frustrating to me because the Israelis should have cut through it, , 4 months ago. Putting that aside, 1 of the really interesting things to come out of this is how willing Palestinian civilians have been to move. To get up and walk, which means 2 things. First of all it means they believe that there will be aid where they’re going.
Speaker 0: So the Palestinian civilians weren’t always so willing to get up and move. Alright? They became willing to get up and move when they increasingly saw. But what Israel was saying is exactly what was going to happen. So it Israel established credibility then, the gaza became much more willing to get up and move.
Speaker 2: Because the aid has come, and it’s massively coming in. The push down the Philadelphia corridor, they… Down the border.
Speaker 1: Just for our listeners to understand the Philadelphia corridor is at the border between Egypt and Raf.
Speaker 2: Right. And that border is is per by 40 tunnels at least. That have been used by Hamas throughout the war to smuggle weapons.
Speaker 1: And the lead up to the war. In the last 15 years, presumably some parts of the 15 years leading up to October seventh. To build to get infrastructure and to get cement and to get supplies to get Rb rpg to get everything.
Speaker 2: Right. Well, a lot of that came in legally right over the in with agreement with all the various parties and and came over the land. But anything that didn’t come over overland could just come through the tunnels for a little bit of a bribe to the Egyptian officials and Az israel’s move down to take the Philadelphia corridor and start to destroy those tunnels, the Egyptians had an epi epidemic fit in which they joined the Az South African Ic case against Israel for genocide, all kinds of these just ways that they wanted to make right Egypt, which sat quietly for 8 months. Now believes there’s a genocide because of the probably the gentle and also lowest death toll part of the Gaza war yet. Right?
It’s about them showing Israel their displeasure that they’re shutting down that… Those tunnels which are a major source of corrupt money to the Egyptian military elite. And not just the Egyptian military elite, but also the tribal confederation that the Egyptians have established in Sinai that basically run the Egyptian side of Raf. So…
Speaker 1: Well, but, H aviv, it’s not just shutting down that commerce. It’s also… I think my sense is what the Egyptians were flipped out about was it also exposed. Israel that going in there exposed. What’s been going on in the years leading up to October seventh because Egypt has alluded a lot of the pressure and scrutiny since I.
Speaker 0: Yeah. This is key. Alright. Israel is alluding pressure and scrutiny for the way it facilitated the massive import invitation of armament into Gaza that enabled the October seventh attack on Israel
Speaker 1: October seventh. Of their working relationship with Hamas. They just… They just haven’t gotten that, but it hasn’t gotten that much of attention and makes me now wonder whether or not what Egypt was really worried about. Was once Israel shows up in Raf, it’s gonna put a spotlight on what’s been going on at that border.
And again, not just over the last few months, but what’s been happening at that border in the years before October seventh, and Egypt suddenly would… It’s not a good look. Shall we say. Is my kids would say. It’s not a good look.
For Egypt.
Speaker 2: I don’t know if that’s the problem for the Egyptians. I don’t know if they care about the look. First of all, because Egypt’s not that well run and hierarchical disciplined of a state. It’s it’s basically a failed state at this point. In all kinds of really important ways economically the military is living off of an economy that is…
Speaker 0: There is this long time human rights activist who’s Jewish. Who’s come out and court Israel’s war on Hamas to be genocide against Gaza. So let’s see if I can
Speaker 3: Israel well faced a tough week as the international criminal court requested arrest warrants for 3 Hamas leaders and for Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister Y Gala. All of them responsible. Its chief prosecutor Karim Khan, for crimes against humanity. Criminal The international court of justice, a Un body also based in the hague said Friday that Israel must halt its offensive in Raf, although its decisions are not binding, of course. That ruling was part of its ongoing Hearing on whether Israel is guilty in its war on Hamas of genocide against the Palestinians.
My guest is Aria nay, He’s a giant in the world of human rights and a survivor of genocide himself. He was born a jew in Nazi Germany. He and his parents escaped Berlin. 2 weeks before the start of World war 2. He went on study at Cornell and then to c found human rights watch.
He was at the forefront of the movement to establish the international Tri, which eventually became the Ic icc and the Ic. Is also the former head of the Ac and the author of many books. He wrote a powerful piece in the New York review of books this month on the situation in Gaza. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 4: Very glad to do it.
Speaker 3: Your name, Re
Speaker 0: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Is Hebrew.
Speaker 4: It’s a hebrew name. It means Lion. Why did your parents give it to you? Well, my parents was zion, and they wanted to give me a hebrew name even in, Nazi Germany.
Speaker 3: All the time you were ahead of human rights watch, you, I think
Speaker 0: How, I
Speaker 3: mean 1 time accused the country of jeff. Yes. Saddam hussein Yes. Attempt to eliminate the cook.
Speaker 0: Come on, man. Bloody Hell. Kinda on a show here.
Speaker 3: So when you say in this New York review book speaks that you have…
Speaker 0: Okay. Only 1 nation has committed genocide in in the past 40 years interesting.
Speaker 3: Concluded. That Israel is guilty of attempting Genocide?
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 3: That’s a very heavy charge. Yes. What is the principle reason you say that.
Speaker 4: Well, first, let me say that when the South African case charging genocide was initially brought. I was not 1 of those who endorsed South Africa’s argument of genocide. I didn’t endorse. Because I thought Israel had a right to retaliate against Thomas hamas, and I thought Israel had a right to try to inca Hamas so that it would never be able to do anything like that again. But I was disturbed by Some of the actions of Israel by the use of very large weapons, 2000 pound bombs, which are utterly inappropriate in a crowded urban area.
Speaker 0: Well, the they’re entirely appropriate for… Fighting an enemy who has tunnel under the ground. So it is the purpose of war to follow the rules or is the purpose of war to create safety for your team by destroying the enemy’s capacity to hurt you.
Speaker 4: A bomb like that can kill somebody 2 football fields away and using bombs like that was inappropriate in the context of Gaza, but still I didn’t think that Israel was engaged in genocide just because of the effort to retaliate against thomas hamas, even though I thought Israel went far overboard in the way of its, retaliation.
Speaker 3: So what changed your mind?
Speaker 4: What changed my mind was that over a period of time Israel has obstructed the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza. And
Speaker 0: So that right there is the essence of his case that Israel is committing Gaza because at times, Israel has obstructed the the delivery of certain amounts of aid to Gaza. Alright? So Gaza borders Israel, it also borders Egypt. Right? Egypt decides how much aid gets into Gaza through his border it with Gaza.
So does Aria think Egypt is committing genocide to no. He does not even mention. Egypt in this New York review of Books essay. Why doesn’t Ra mention Egypt because he only cares about gloria, Glory for Aria? Cares nothing about gaza.
Here’s nothing about the truth. Right? Human rights attracts, show boats like this man, like Re Net ear. He wrote an essay for New York review of book stating Israel was not committing Genocide. It would attract no attention.
Right? He would not be asked on Cnn. The best way for this man to get on Tv used to make flashy pronounce. That Israel’s committing the only other genocide aside from Saddam hussein against the kurds in the in the past 30 years. Right there’s 1 and only 1 reliable source for human rights and that is the nation’s state, Right?
The state extends rights to its citizens, all other rights are wish thinking. So looking at other new stories I curious, do other new stories report how Egypt is restricting aid to Gaza. So 05/13/2024, New York Times reports the flow of aid has come to a near total stop. First close off by Israel then further restricted by Egypt. Political reported 05/21/2024.
Egypt aid restrictions are complicating Gaza cease fire negotiations. 8 groups and gaza say they are running low on fuel. And they are unable to get more from Egypt, straining their operations on the ground is all stopped. Officials said referring to Egypt’s shipments through the Kara S crossing, The move by Egypt to spark tensions between Cairo and Jerusalem. If Israel were to restart the shipments to a significantly improve the 8…
Situation on the ground diffuse tensions allow for peace talks restore to restart. Cairo is withholding the fuel to complicate Israel’s ability to aid the humanitarian effort inside Gaza. Right? The fuel is the blood of the response says the director for Gaza for the United Nations, Rwa, the main aid group operating guns, the lack of fuel forces us to choose? Do you keep bakeries running or hospitals running or the sewage pumps running.
Ax axiom reports may 24. Under the Us pressure, the Egyptian government agreed to resume the flow of aa iraq to gaza through Israel. Why it matters. Egyptian decision 2 weeks ago dramatically reduced the amount of aid entering gaza and exacerbated, the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave. So if Ari Na cares about the plight of gaza.
Why does he not mention the role that Egypt plays in their suffering. Right? If if Gaza is indeed an open air prison, and that’s a vast hyper statement, then Egypt is equally responsible for that. Yeah. I put.
Gaza Open air prison into Google. None of the first 10 suggestions from Google is Egypt. Right? The idea that Egypt plays a role in the welfare of Gaza that just doesn’t come up. Right?
Google Honey suggests Israel as the cause of gaza suffering. Right. Nothing there about the role that Egypt place.
Speaker 2: Basically is basically robbing an economy that’s in full… Collapse. The Egyptian population is growing faster than the food supply can grow with the closure of the Suez canal to a lot of foreign shipping because of the H a huge source. And, like, 40 percent of all foreign income to the Egyptian economy or at least through the Suez, which was the major foreign currency income, to stabilize that economy has disappeared. Egyptian society is slowly islam, female gen mutilation.
It up to something above 80 percent of the population now, which is a deeply conservative sort of desert tribal is ritual that has moved in from rural Egypt into into urban Egypt riding the Islamist sort of infiltration into urban society, we’re talking about a country that in every measure is in full blown collapse on the way to becoming like Somalia. And so the Egyptian anger at Israel overtaking the Philadelphia corridor has a lot to do with the fact that Egypt is turning into a failed state, and the forces that be on the other side are watching their main source of money. Qatar qatar dollars go to Hamas, Hamas buys things through those tunnels. If we’re… We take Philadelphia, we cut that source off.
The point is that in their anger, the Egyptians did something much more important than accuses Israel of genocide suddenly. The Egyptians actually stopped all aid from coming through. Raf. It’s a curious thing that not a single pro Palestinian protest or government or official thought that was a problem, but to punish the israelis.
Speaker 0: Right. If you don’t think that, Egypt cutting off aid to gaza is a problem. That you don’t care about gaza and you don’t care about truth. Right, you only care about a particular agenda that you have against the Jewish state Saying from Israel posts in the comments Egypt is used to masters their proxy, the pet dollar agreement ends today. So let me go back to some further reporting.
Why does Google and why does the news media continually suggest that, the sole cause of gaza and suffering is Israel? Right? There are 4 sides to Gaza. You got 2 sides that border Israel. You got a side that borders is Egypt, and you got a side that borders is the Mediterranean Sea.
Right the Israeli government prevents people from Gaza entering Israel, the Egyptian government prevents people from Gaza entering Egypt what’s left is the Mediterranean. Israel is doing nothing to prevent gaza from leaving via the Mediterranean. Alright. Israel would love for gaza to leave. But no country in the world wants gaza.
Why? Why is every country in the world so insane that they don’t work the dynamic human potential of gaza. Because Palestinians have a long track record and their track record is they wreck societies that they enter. Right, Gaza have a horrible track record of terrorism. Gaza built their own reputation and they’re dying because of their own creation.
They made their bed. They elected hamas and they’re paying the price for their choices. When Palestinians moved into Jordan Lebanon, Syria, they severely damaged the societies, they cause massive upheaval in those countries namely 1 society that has been more improved than hurt by the presence of massive numbers of Palestinian immigrants. You can’t. Such a society does not exist.
Namely 1 first world country that has been more improved than hurt by the massive immigration of Muslims. Like which such first world countries have become more prosperous and more free because they admitted millions of Muslims, like where has the entrance of large numbers of Muslims into a first world nation raise the average Iq. But if The Palestinians are acc to every society that they move to Why would anyone want them. Now I doubt for a second belief that there’s something inherent in Palestinians in particular, or in Muslims in general that makes them incompatible western civilization. Right?
There’s no inherent equality to Palestinians and Muslims like all of us are a product of our genetics. And our circumstances. So when circumstances change, Palestinians and Muslims may well change too. You can’t leave a prison but you can leave Gaza. Right?
Hundreds of thousands of people have left gaza over the past decade. Right? Hundreds of thousands of people have traveled to Gaza and then left again, over the past decade? Also, you have billions of Africans and Middle Eastern have crossed into Europe via boats over the past decade? Why do the Palestinians lack this enterprise?
So when Egypt ruled Gaza, the conditions were much harsh than under Israel rule. Right? Egypt essentially isolated Gaza refused to integrate the people in it led to severe economic deprivation. Then in 19 67 is a result of the 6 day war that was thrust upon Israel. The gaza strip came under Israeli jurisdiction, and Jewish Israeli settlers settled in it alongside arabs.
19 and Israel helped gardens plant over 600000 trees. And between 19 67 19 80, the economic growth in Gaza average about 10 percent. Per annum bringing non unprecedented era of economic prosperity. But rather than continue to prosper economically under Israeli rule that the gaza launched the first bloody in father in 19 87, resulting in hundreds of jewish Are deaths. Then, Israel completely removed itself from the Gaza strip, right, forcibly expel over 9000 jews from 21 pounds in 2005.
Israel out re… Withdrew from the southern edge of the strip known as the Philadelphia wrote, handing over 4 alberta border control to Egypt and reading from. The jerusalem post, so you got a new era since 2005 Gaza has been self governing, and you’ve had an enormous amount of European and Arab 8 blow in. In 2006, you had elections in Gaza, Hamas won a plural. Hamas has had full control over the Gaza strip since 2007.
Right? And cousins weren’t d deceived by Hamas. Hamas has always made clear. Their terrorist nature, their charter calls for the complete destruction of the jewish state of Israel. So we’re often told that Gaza is an open air prison, and the Gaza can’t move in and out.
Right. So 09/19/2023, Palestinian Tv broadcast program called immigration from Gaza. Right? It claimed that over the past 15 years a quarter million young gaza had left gaza for abroad. Right what prevents more people from leaving Gaza is Hamas.
Right? Hamas bureaucracy and other countries don’t want gaza. Right? Just last month, there are buying clashes involving hundreds of young gaza outs sold. Outside the seoul travel agency in Gaza city authorized to issue visas to Turkey.
Right? In a prison, people might try to leave, but it’s not usually possible. But if they do leave, do they then return to visit. In July 20 22, of a 15000 expat patriots return to the gaza strip for the feast of aid. But Right?
They’re excited to visit. They wanted to visit. The life expectancy at birth, the gaza is 76 years, which is comparable to its neighbors. So to the extent that Gaza is an open air prison, right that’s because of from us. Right?
There is 1 governing entity in Gaza. That is Hamas, and they severely restrict what gaza can do.
Speaker 2: The Egyptians stop aid to Palestinians because the worlds will come down on Israel and so the way you punish Israelis is just through Palestinians suffering. What’s interesting sam
Speaker 0: onto the shows you how that from Israel or What’s going on, man.
Speaker 6: Hey. How are you there? Nice to meet you Ford. What’s your name?
Speaker 0: Yeah. Look forward. Great to totally man.
Speaker 6: Luke. Luke, Looks from Luke. Look, if from Star Wars. Right? Luke.
Speaker 0: Absolutely.
Speaker 6: Alright. Well, what I’m in Israel. I’m in Hai. I have AAA unique perspective because I’ve lived in the United States and Israel. Like, equally, but all I could tell you is that if you want an answer, for why gaza is a a constant problem that doesn’t get resolved.
It is because of the Islamic world, the Arab world, openly using Gaza as an instrument of war against us, not just as a a proxy army via Hamas, but as a constant, a dilemma that doesn’t… Is not intended to be resolved, and this is a form of asymmetric warfare that is, used against us. It they don’t wanna resolve this problem. In the arab world Islamic World, the Muslim World wants this… It…
It’s a perfect instrument for them to use without them having to be directly involved. It’s a means of undermining the Jewish state, the Jewish demographic, the Jewish population. And this is an obvious truth is in in your face truth. They… And they even themselves they, let people understand it that that’s the case.
It’s not that they don’t want the palestinians. This by the way, the Palestinian population of Gaza as he said has been a what’s the word recycle? A lot of them have that live there during the the conquest of Gaza, dubai israel on the 6 day war 67. A lot of them have already emi immigrated outside of Gaza to Europe to other countries to, , Kuwait, Qatar, Uae. And the new population, these are recent Egyptian arrivals that are the refuse of Egypt.
And how did they get to, Gaza via 50 tunnels under the, a Philadelphia Philadelphia , corridor? Under the Egyptian border in Raf. And that… So I hate to use AAA vulgar bulgaria, but they need to stop bullshit us It’s like, we already understand the the games, the lies, and it it’s it’s it’s over. This this propaganda game, this miss mis direction and deception game.
These are these are professional refugees. And by the way, the October seventh Massacre, what led up to that was that a plenty of… Mercenaries were smuggled into Gaza that helped train hamas and prepare hamas for the, October seventh surprise attack assault Massacre. And amongst them were, Alright, she mercenaries. Islamic, for fan, She mercenaries.
How do I know this? The the the victims, at the Nova festival, a lot of them were witness to the, a the, a terrorist murder speaking Russian, and not just 1 account, several accounts. So you had mercenaries that were smuggled into Gaza, Okay. So this bullshit game is gonna end now. We’re not gonna put up with this.
Speaker 0: I didn’t know that there were church in mercenaries. It in work in gaza.
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah. Yeah. The they’re keeping it pretty silent. A lot of them were a , taken care of disposed of. They were a shot dead.
But we… And this is being kept quiet. And but a lot of the survivors of the Nova festival and of the assault in the cities as surrounding Gaza, it gave, first account testimonies to hearing these people speaking Russian, and they were white, They were caucasian, Not all of them, but a, a certain amount of them, and they were carrying Isis flags, and they were taking that… Those drugs, the Cap, drugs the stimulants, just the same way that Isis operates. So…
And who who… And again, I I hate to go off on like this, but who is responsible for Isis? It’s the United States Cia. It’s Obama, and their main headquarters like it it was or still is an an turkey. The turks are responsible for allowing isis to infiltrate into Iraq.
And into Syria. So this is AAAAA stinking mess for APR for , public relations with the United States because Isis is the handy work of the Cia. Alright.
Speaker 0: How how is Isis the hand work of the Cia? Tell me tell me more about that.
Speaker 6: Well, just look at a, by way of a direct a relations evidence that… The oil that before the United States got involved in Syria, a, the oil that Isis was a taking out of Syria was going where in in truck con. Straight to Turkey, and the turks were not stopping them. They were allowing all of that oil that was confiscated or stolen from Syria to enter Turkey. Okay?
So they were pill Syria and, a iraqi oil and how via Turkey Alright. And the training these people got, , C is not very far off from Turkey and the caucus is over there. It’s very close. And all these isis people were being trained in Turkey, and they infiltrated into Syria from Turkey. Alright.
And Turkey is a nato ally. And in Turkey is a nato member and an ally the United States, but they’re they’re 2 faced. They double deal. Alright? They up…
They a double deal all the time. They’re mer material. You never know who who they’re who side they’re really out. Now that… They’re with the Russians.
The in in bed next day, there with the Iranians, but I’ll tell you with absolute confidence that Isis is AAAA construct and a product of Us military intelligence. Alright? You could do the research. It’s not… They always, blame Israel for Isis, Israeli secret intelligence service, whatever Isis.
That’s bullshit. It’s the c. It was the Cia. It still is the Cia.
Speaker 0: And why do you think Hamas was so effective on October 7?
Speaker 6: Because they had helped from the entire world. They had mercenaries from all over the world. They had a German expert in para… In in the in the motorized gliders, the Mh. , a training that.
We had a year’s worth of reports coming out of Gaza of them training for an assault. And and we saw the footage and how our a treacherous media here in in the hands of the of the, again, the the leftist or at the time the compromised their corporate just leftist in charge of this country, We’re telling us that there’s nothing to worry about that it’s only aspirational. Our intelligence services were saying, they were dismissing it, and it’s only aspirational and it’s only a display. It’s only, , they’re it’s… They’re putting on an exhibition.
Alright? But in the meantime, there… They were flooding Gaza with, small arms, weapons from Egypt, from the Egyptian Military And and donations from the Egyptian people. Alright? Grenades, vests, say, clay wars, everything and anything and in and our soldiers, once they enter Gaza, they found these small arms for in every home, every home and they found copies of mine comp in all in almost every home over there.
So they were being…
Speaker 0: Wow.
Speaker 6: They were more radical, and they were being programmed. And Egypt was comp, and you had Egyptian. So munitions, explosives and, , straight from Egyptian military with Us markings that the Us sell to the Egyptian army. That was being smuggled into Gaza and given to Hamas. Anything and everything was being given to them.
It was a long planned operation for over… Who knows how many years? Long term they planned this? And how long did it take them to build that whole infrastructure? Of the tunnels, years upon years.
So this was a case of, betrayal, a case of negligence, sure a case of criminal negligence on the part of our, a, heads of our intelligence, and, a compromised military off that are in the hands of American intelligence agencies and the American economic interests that keep us marginalized that marginalized our security here. And we had to learn the hard way now, and we came out looking like chu, like a dupes, victims. We were victim to this, , it seems very complicated. It seems very convoluted, but it’s not. This was…
This was… In my opinion, if you wanna ask me, this was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Ezekiel 38 in a very So esoteric way, but a full a full full a manifestation and full fulfillment because you had, many many different nations involved Many different dab involved, including the Cia, including Obama, okay, this is a combined effort that made October seventh possible, and you had traders from within And if you read it in the prophets, you read it in Ezekiel n az z and and all of them, once to talk… When it talks about the end times, it talks about Jewish, traders. It talks about, , members of the of the Jewish faith of the Jewish nation, betray Israel, it in the end times, and that was fulfilled on October seventh.
Speaker 0: So who do you primarily blame? In the Israeli establishment for the debacle of Oc october 7.
Speaker 6: Ay Iraq number 1 number 1 suspect? The guy who fled the same day. He was in the airport, caught running away, and he still hasn’t returned to israel. Yeah. He still hasn’t shown his face here.
He’s at the number 1 suspect, primary suspect, but you had the heads of our intelligence agencies that also stood down. Or a… It totally neglected the the the the… The severity and the seriousness of what happened. And you had a trader that was caught an officer, an Officer that was not that was not a a station in the, outposts in of the Gaza strip.
But went there anyway, infiltrated the outposts and gathered a lot of intelligence in and it it got into the hands of Hamas, 1 way or another. And our attorney general, May covered it up. Alright? She… There was a…
A… The guy was arrested investigated. He’s still sitting in in put in jail, and she put out… A a sort of an order to keep the a investigation secret to censor to not allow it to be publicized to the media. 1 of our ministers, right wing ministers in the, , actually started speaking out about this, and she tried to have him arrested, and she started sla him.
Alright. So you have a left wing establishment here that’s in the in the pockets of the United States and of secret societies in in Europe and in America, the free mace. You… It… This all came about also as as an attempt to stop and block the Supreme court reforms.
The justice reforms. And guess what, the same week that October seventh happened a a few days afterwards, the nerve of our supreme court to overturn the legislation that passed to reform the supreme court’s power over the. So they’re very suspect. We have in an a fifth element that’s compromised that’s in the hands of European governments, America, and secret societies in europe and in America that keep us marginalized here. And the the it’s…
The cat is out of the back, and the milk has been spilled. We’ll never go back in. Israel is awake, The Israeli public is awake to this now. It’s no longer theory. It’s conspiracy.
100 percent.
Speaker 0: Now, Israel’s Supreme Court has some pretty wide powers. They can essentially strike down any law that they regard as unreasonable.
Speaker 6: Correct.
Speaker 0: Which is stunning.
Speaker 6: Correct. It’s not a democracy. It’s a a dictatorship via the judiciary.
Speaker 0: So I can understand why Netanyahu would want to reform and revise that. So why why earth should should court have the power to appoint its own members and then strike down any legislation at the court thinks is unreasonable.
Speaker 6: But you just have to look at the architecture I don’t mean to take it off. On a different in a different directory direction direction. You have to look at who donated the building. The fact that it sits above the kin in altitude, it hover above the kin, but It was donated by the Roth child family, and it was built by a roth child architect and designer and that they wanted to distance themselves from. They said that it it was a some sort of lottery.
They wanted to make it seem as though it was an organic thing, and the architect was… Chosen by lottery. But this what this our… This architect decides to build the whole building and the style of free of AAA free masonic mystery religion attempt And I’m sorry that’s not AAA ridiculous. That’s the case.
That… This has been out. This has been totally exposed And it’s in our faces, and they think we are dumb. They think we are stupid. The the Supreme Court building in Israel is free masonic in our in style an architecture and in essence with the with the the judges there, and and and the powers that they give themselves and the it’s not it’s not by mistake.
It’s not a mistake. Alright. So it they dupe us. And we thought… We thought, okay, let’s go along with it the Ross child.
, they’re jewish and maybe, , it’s good for as it, but it’s only good for the elites. It’s only good for the leftist, , sellout outs. The the the Cox that sell us the sell out our our security that sell out our a a, , sovereignty, the that wanna fight every, in every turn and every corner, the Jewish identity of the Jewish state of israel or they don’t want it to be a Jewish state.
Speaker 0: So who do you bayer in the Israeli political landscape?
Speaker 6: Right now, I well, , I am mi, so I I go. I’ll go with Ben. I don’t like SII don’t like dairy. I think they’re a corrupt organization, a corrupt political party, and they’re cynical and the fact that Dairy it is renting apartments to train traders in Southern Tel aviv to make money off of them. Is , it just speaks volumes about him to He’s a corrupt politician.
I don’t trust him. I don’t like him. I don’t admire him. I do admire Ben. , and I do like a the right extreme right religious religious Right.
I’ll still support the Bib Netanyahu, but I I realized now that if we don’t support the nationalist right wing parties, then it, , I’m I’m being in a just a total a I , jerk or sucker.
Speaker 0: And how long have you lived in Israel?
Speaker 6: I was born here, and I came back in 2005. Okay. I left it Israel when I was boy. My my parents that took me to live in New York. In the United States.
Okay. So I’ve lived to half my life in the United States and half my life in, Israel and hai. And so I served in the Us military and the Israeli defense forces. So I I have AAA unique perspective. I’m not the only 1.
There they’re a lot like me, but I could see at both sides of the aisle. It’s And I’ll tell you that we have been played by, the British Free Mason by Europe, by England and by the United States. The pet dollar compromised our security for 50 years. This is why Gaza as seems to be un. It’s deliberately un.
Okay? This could have been resolved a long time ago. The problem is that Power elite, don’t want it resolved. They want us compromised. They want this permanent dilemma, this permanent burden on our backs.
It’s deliberate.
Speaker 0: So how how effective do you think Israel is in, fighting back against thomas us
Speaker 6: Well, now because a they gave us no other choice. I mean, we were in a super. And we were… It prior to October seventh, we were the country here was it me. The country here was in a haze.
And we had this, a, , hippie culture thing going on here, the Lgbtq plus p plus b plus all of that, It we were playing along with that to cater to the west to cater to Europe to Cater to America. It weakened us. It blinded us. Just like Samson, and, but now after we we got smack, raped, butcher, our children, , in their homes, even the leftist don’t have any excuses for, for not fighting back, So all of our empathy, all of our humanity and feelings towards the, a Palestinians has been erased. We don’t care how many casualties there are there.
They are fully responsible for their casualties and for their suffering right now. So we are effective in fighting them. We won’t den diversify them. We won’t der radical them. If they…
They’re talking about a long term plan, just like what happened in Europe, that took a long time to den a Germany, that wasn’t , fully , effective. Believe me. I know a lot of Germans in young Germans that today are a, you, , a hailing Hitler again. Not and, I mean, it’s a I mean, I can I can try to understand them with what’s being done to Germany? And they’re turning radical right or extremist and everything.
But the problem is here it is that you have the oil interests, the money interest economic interest. It’s all inter woven into Israel’s politics and are a ability to defend ourselves. We get marginalized by our a patrons like the United States or even England…
Speaker 0: Yeah. How concerned you about Hezbollah? Like you’re in Northern Israel, Hezbollah in southern Lebanon firing rockets up to new…
Speaker 6: I lived here during the second lebanon war for 2 months, I was in bomb shelters. And my neighborhood was shelled, and people I know were wounded, and peep… Not people I know killed, but a lot… That I knew… There were a lot died and were killed, but I know people personally that were wounded.
And we were marginalized. Our army was weakened, our fighting spirit was weakened, But Israel now has received such a t shock after October seventh, that even if Joe Biden, and, Obama and blink and the Bo Neo khan atheist progressive, a, , jews in his administration, wanna pull the reins on us and hold us back. They could forget about it. That’s why I said the pet dollar has died today. And good rid to it, and America gonna have a huge fall and and it’ll it’ll fall on its head just like humpty dumpty and he’ll never be put together again.
Back together again. And this this goes for Europe and their banking system. America and Europe, their banks are about to fail. It won’t take it that much longer.
Speaker 0: Wait. Why do you say the Pet dollar is dead today? Pet dollar means Us dollars paid to an oil exporting country.
Speaker 6: Correct. Saudi Arabia, have signed an agreement 50 years ago, almost of the day, at June sixth. That’s all over the Internet. For a 50 year long contract that ends today, and they’re not renewing it. Alright?
They’ve have gone with the Bricks nations They’ve entered into an agreement with them with their digital currency backed by gold and now by oil. Alright? Hyperinflation or massive inflation is about to hit the United States. The Jews of America will get, , a terrible humbling soon. Terrible humbling, and it’s from God.
And they will come to Israel broken, humiliated and defeated. Because if they don’t wanna come here by , by virtue of their senses, and their free will. They’ll come here against their will.
Speaker 0: So how’s your own mood? Are you optimistic are you pessimistic for
Speaker 6: israel After October seventh, they leave us no choice. We will utterly flatten beirut. Utterly. If they start bombing and shelling Hai or Tel aviv or Jerusalem, we should be doing this now But we’re of, , playing along with the Americans with Biden. Biden is the 1 holding us back, and who’s behind Biden, Obama, Obama is who, Obama Cia.
Okay? And and so the thing is, won’t play along as long as America has some say in some power and some influence and some leverage over us. But America is about to be taken down. Alright? And they’ll leave us no choice.
It’ll be, , some no holds barred against Hezbollah. And we will use everything in our arsenal to destroy them as excluding nuclear weapons.
Speaker 0: So how did you develop your understanding of the world? Were there any bloggers or people on social media? Or podcast influential over overview?
Speaker 6: Yeah. Especially, yeah. I’ll I’ll name him. First and foremost is Alex Jones, in Austin, Texas. Okay?
And for wars.
Speaker 0: Mh.
Speaker 6: Second, I’d say is Jim Willie. He lives in Costa Rica. He, is an American expat and he’s an economic analyst and statistician, Jim Will, I look for him a lot on the alternative media. Thirdly, I’d have to say ones that come off and just off the top of my head, I’d say 0 hedge, 0 hedge, the site. Mh.
Yes. 0 hedge. They’d provide a lot of alternative media that is accurate. And let me see. Let let I’ll just look at my favorites here just to have it pop into my head.
Oh, it, like, you could talk about Greg Hunters Usa Watchdog. He interviews a lot of, figures that provide, a, , a contrary, contra information to the mass media, Greg Hunter, Usa Watchdog. That’s another good 1. A and let’s see who else who I always referred to. 1 minute.
1 minute. I’ll find them. I have him saved in my favorites.
Speaker 0: Sure.
Speaker 6: In my books books and everything. Believe it or not, even though I I despise them for the most part. Because they are state run propaganda. It is Russia today, Russian television, I wanna listen to them for contra views to the Western mass media, Not that I go along with their, a bullshit because they are a prop palestinian Because why? Because the Kgb helped found the, P turns out, and they prop helped us, , establish a yes or Ara.
They spotted he was 1 of their it turns out 1 of their creations. 1 of their agents. He was actually , sponsored by the Kgb and trained by the Kgb in the sixties. Why because Israel turned more to the West than it did towards Soviet Union Israel was hand in hand with the Soviet Union and it’s founding. Yeah.
Social. Yeah. And then in the sixties, Israel, the a government here had a change of heart and decided to, turn its it’s I wouldn’t say loyal, but it’s a alliance to… Towards the West more than towards Russia. So Russia, it was butt.
And decided that undermine Israel via Vis ru of the Palestinian City state, the P o and y Ara. It was there movement. It was their agenda. Okay? That’s why they are so prop palestinian.
That’s why their their prop again is so prop palestinian.
Speaker 0: Now do you think that Israel’s committing genocide in Gaza?
Speaker 6: Absolutely not. What why why wasn’t… Why weren’t claims of genocide cast on upon the United States in Iraq in Fall. In in mosul and everywhere else, they carpet bombed Iraq killing millions, a million plus people, half a million children, Why weren’t accusations of genocide cast on upon a the United States? I’ll tell you why, because they’re the big dog.
They were the big dog. They are the ones in control of the mass media and commercial, , a corporate media. So They decide the the the narrative. They create they construct a narrative. So the rush…
That realize that information warfare is just as violent and important as actual kinetic warfare. That’s why they created Russians today online and around the world, they they realized that’s part of the game. So Israel also slowly understood Propaganda, and and the information warfare and Hezbollah and all. So it’s like… But we’re not as loud and effective as the Americans or the Russians or Europeans.
So we get accused of? Genes genocide, why but why do we get accused of Because the Gentile world wants to cast off the yoke of holocaust guilt. They… That is the main purpose of accusing us of Genocide, the when it’s self defense.
Speaker 0: So how would you compare the quality of life in Israel compared to the quality of life? That you knew in the United States.
Speaker 6: The quality of life in Israel is far greater than it is now in New York or in the United States, the United States is rotting visibly, and it will continue to, fall apart in rot. Okay? It’s God’s will in in order to bring the jews back to Israel. Against their will, because they’re not listening to him That’s what that… That’s what ultimately is happening right now.
Speaker 0: So what what goes into? What what gives israel real a high quality of life? I assume there’s some… Sense of social cohesion that there’s greater safety than in New York, for example, that, , there’s less less violent crime.
Speaker 6: There’s no fluoride in the water. The that… That’s… We’re not being chemically attacked a a in through our food and and water. I mean, the chemicals in America’s food and water, make the make the the health issues in America chronic, and in and really severe.
Alright? Americans are not healthy people. Alright? You Israel is more like a euro centric and the Europeans are also health minded. So a lot of Israelis are far more health minded and aware and sort of engaged in a in in in in health, a a in personal health and, also in well being and in is solving the problems of the, , that, plagued the western world but especially the United States, Americans and and when you look at them compared to Israelis, they look unhealthy.
They are unhealthy.
Speaker 0: I I particularly noticed that among the women that is israeli women of far fitter and tighter and and thinner than their American counterparts.
Speaker 6: Yes. And America has been hit, it multi. And it’s done by their elites. It’s for the sake of , the the, a pharmaceutical, monopoly, medical, industrial complex to keep Americans sick. It’s a part of their business that model.
Alright? It’s not a joke. The food in the water and the lifestyle over there, and the culture is meant to keep you sick. They want people sick, It’s profitable for them for the American people to be sick.
Speaker 0: Okay. Sam, I gonna move on. Any any final words. For today?
Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, this will be resolved, hezbollah will be taken care of. America’s about to have a terrible fall. It’s And the the European banking system in Europe is also gonna have a terrible fall. And it’s apocalyptic in its end times, and it’s a messi, and I believe in at 100 sent Israel will be the safest place for the Jews, it’ll will be the center, the magnet and all the jews will come here, and no 1 will harm us no 1 will threaten us.
At the opposite. That Okay. That’s my final say.
Speaker 0: Okay. Thanks, Great to talk to you.
Speaker 6: Take it easy.
Speaker 0: Take care, man. Bye. He’s gone
Speaker 2: on the ground now in the last few months. Or certainly this month is that that did not affect aid. There’s so much aid coming in now and coming in from so many places. They’re actually brand new border crossings between israel Gaza to facilitate the aid that Palestinian civilians are up absolutely convinced that if they go somewhere, the israeli Army tells them there will be aid there.
Speaker 1: Okay. I wanna get to the Biden Israel proposal or these Biden proposal. Before we do, just 1 cap on that. Everything you’re saying makes sense to me, except for the reality that we still think there’s something like 350 miles of tunnels underground. There still Israelis being held hostage underground.
A Hamas nose had a maneuver within these tunnels and can get from 1 part of Gaza to another part of Gaza in twists and turns underground that the Id
Speaker 0: So this dan ain’t noah podcast was recorded approximately June first. So about a week ago.
Speaker 1: So far, my understanding can’t really keep track of or make sense of or navigate. So on the 1 hand, there’s this incredible progress that you’re describing On the other hand, there are these structural issues. Literally this underground labyrinth that Israel really doesn’t understand and is probably boob trapped to the nth degree. And, , Israel doesn’t want a a situation like it’s head, like, an protective edge operation protective edge in 2014 where they go down into a tunnel and a lot of Id soldiers get killed. Hundred…
Speaker 0: Okay. Na. Probably the most prestigious Israeli journalists according to the most prestigious, non israeli journalist such as Tom Friedman, and he has been a big opponent of going down into, Raf, and he said to Israel, must stop must stop the invasion of of Raf. And if if Israel had indeed done what he said then this this hostage rescue would would never of occurred. So May 26 knock come by n wrote.
The military incur inter raf must be stopped, not because the international court of Justice ordered it, but because the cost outweighs the benefit. Beacon can debate for days, the judge’s motives, their integrity, their judicial rigor, but it won’t save Israel. So, yeah. I put won’t save israel in the Google News. I get dozens of results.
So who will seriously argue that any anyone act will save Israel. Right? Get a little bit more from this big human rights activist who says that israel’s committing genocide gaza.
Speaker 4: Who have been most severely victim are not the members of Hamas. Men with guns ordinarily find a way to to get food and to get fed, But it is young children who are most severely damaged by malnutrition and who will either starve to death or if they survive, they will be diminished for the rest of their lives diminish physically.
Speaker 0: Well, these photos of malnutrition and starving. Alright right. I… Honestly, I have not seen them before they are horrifying. And if you are upset by the, As would be a no more natural human reaction, then you’d have to be equally upset with Egypt.
Speaker 4: Being psychologically. By the severe amount malnutrition they enduring as children. And I thought that severe obstruction of the delivery of humanitarian assistance amounted to genocide.
Speaker 3: The israeli case is multi fold, but let me suggest 1 angle that I’ve heard people.
Speaker 0: Okay. Let me play a little bit more from this podcast with Dan Sen and H Re.
Speaker 2: Of thousands of of soldiers have gone into Gaza, walked through buildings, walked over tunnels, many thousands. I don’t know how many of gone into tunnels at this point. You have an example from Jab giovanni from 2 weeks ago, They first went into Jab. Very quickly. There were some elite units that went deep into a tunnel, then there was 1 running gun battle in which the Battalion commander of the Han Battalion.
Hamas doesn’t have a whole lot of Battalions with command
Speaker 0: So the main argument that I hear for why Israel should stop its war in in Gaza is that it… Is creating too many civilian casualties. And I’m just trying to think how many wars? Now stop short of their objectives because the winning side So starts worrying that they’re creating too many sufficient civilian casualties among the enemy. Alright?
I can’t think of any examples. Did the United States or the Soviet Union back from their wars with Nazi Germany because they worry they were creating too many German civilian casualties. I can’t think of a single example where a country has launched a war winning a war, and has certain objectives for their war, but they stop short of their objectives for the war because they’re concerned about the number of dead civilian casualties among the enemy that just doesn’t happen. So why on Earth would Israel be any different. But Israel has objectives.
They want to create a safe just state for Israelis. And and that’s why they will keep on fighting until they achieve their objectives, the number of civilian dead, among the enemy should not logically rationally be thought persuasive to Israel.
Speaker 2: Infrastructure still in place. Was killed in a running gun battle inside a tunnel. Israeli forces have shown over the last 8 months that they are an incredible learning organization.
Speaker 0: So John Shi wrote in his 20 23 book how states think the rationality of foreign policy. When states believe their survival is at stake, they do not hesitate to kill large numbers of civilians. If such, murderous behavior help them avoid defeat or massive casualties on the battlefield. So pretty much every state would be willing to kill 200 members of the enemy, be they civilians or fighters, if that will rescue for members of their own team. Right, Britain in the United States blockade in Germany during World war 1 and starved its civilian population to force.
That country to surrender. The United States relentlessly fire Japanese cities beginning March 19 45 for dropping atomic weapons on hiroshima at Nagasaki. So Hamas does not have the capability of destroying the state of Israel. But given the large number of threats to Israel from Hezbollah, and and from Iran, Israel feels that it’s fighting for its survival. So it doesn’t matter that from your perspective, Israel’s not fighting for its survival.
Right? What matters for understanding what’s happening is that the prose state here Right. Israel believes it is fighting for its survival, and the number of civilian casualties among the enemy is irrelevant. To fighting for its survival. Now, Israel also has doctrines to try to reduce the number of civilian casualties because civilian casualties are bad for Israeli Morale and it hurts Israel’s reputation overseas, but there is something more important than civilian casualties among the enemy, and that’s achieving a safe state for Israelis, and every nation state would act the same way.
If it had the ability to prosecute a war to further its objectives such as to create safety for itself, they’re not gonna stop just because their civilians dying among the enemy.
Speaker 2: They began the war basically without us any clue how to fight it. And that’s 1 of the reasons that Gaza city was such a terrible battle. Was such a and such a terrible death toll for Palestinian civilians. And we’ve talked about this. The israeli army for basically 40 years has solved every military problem it faced with the Air force.
And so it tried… It’s saw these tunnels and it’s on the Gaza city problem, and it’s tried to solve it with the Air force, and so you you had massive bombardment to try to reach those tunnels at great cost of civilian lives. Civilians also didn’t yet understand the Israelis meant it when they said they’re moving in. They hadn’t quite been an example of the Israeli army moving in. So they weren’t quick to leave like they are now.
And so a lot of get palestinians civilians were killed. And the tunnels weren’t actually destroyed because Ko built them to withstand israeli aerial bombardment. Within about 3 weeks that became clear to the israeli high command, and a whole new doctrine began to be built in real time as the forces move through Gaza. So that by the time you got to Con, it was a whole different kind of war. These soldiers are maneuvering brilliantly.
Just in tactical terms, through cities. It’s a much more of a ground war than it is in air war, civilian deaths of Palestinians or are way way down. I mean, in order of magnitude lower, And so if you have in Ji bali in the north over the last 2 weeks, running gun battles inside tunnels in which the boob traps don’t work. The soldiers know how to maneuver through the tunnels around the boob traps through Hamas traps were 8 months in and the Id idea has shown how much it can improve. And facing a new kind of, , battlefield built by an enemy that’s very clever and very smart and tried to deny freedom of action and it built out a whole new way of of acting and operating in order to deal with that.
So, yes, we still have all these challenges. However many tunnels still exist. We think that we’ve probably destroyed 40 50 percent. So it’s just a question of time, because the idea is so good at what it does has shown that it can accomplish.
Speaker 0: So a large part of the reason for these growing calls internationally for Israel to stop its war in Gaza. Is this notion of human rights that there there are international human rights and Israel is violating the human rights of the gaza. So dozens are not citizens of Israel. Right? So Israel does not need to accord them the rights that it accord its citizens.
It would be bizarre for anyone to expect a nation to accord its enemy. Right? The same rights that it accord it’s own people. So human rights have become a hot topic since the 19 seventies and and why? Because previous left wing Utopia failed, such as marxism.
And so people on the left who who wanted to pursue some highly desi Utopian end, that they had to give up socialism, marxism, or communism, and they fell into promoting international human rights. Now, international human rights hold, no sway. Right? Human rights activists have made very little appreciable impact on the world. But they do get a ton of respectful coverage in the news media, and they get a feeling of righteousness and they get status and prestige.
And so, that they don’t actually accomplish anything is irrelevant when they mainly just want to kinda build themselves up. Right? So let me just create a a background or what happens when we deny reality. Right? When we’re out of touch with reality, we have to develop a defense mechanism.
Speaker 7: He that it would be overwhelmingly psychologically threatening. For us to integrate? Our brains learn to rep press on our behalf? Now, what would be
Speaker 0: for So anything that is overwhelmingly threatening for us to integrate our brains learn to rep press. And as a result, we get neuro and at various. , defense mechanisms. So for example, the fact that different people have different gifts, that is denied publicly in the first world and so you get, compensation and neuro for denying this obvious truth such as the the woke movement. And that human rights The only meaningful understanding of that term is that human rights come from the state, and it’s something that they can provide to their citizens.
That’s an obvious blinding truth. People who believe and fight for international human rights, they they are denying a basic truth. And so Living in a false world creates varying levels of.
Speaker 7: Overwhelmingly psychologically threatening to integrate. Usually, any type of information that would disconnect us when we are very young from our caregivers. So for example…
Speaker 0: So any kind of information if you give a sentiment, alright, that would disconnect you from the cool people. From the ruling elite and its representatives, if you say something that that violates social taboo booze, alright, That’s going to be dangerous for your well being in your social status.
Speaker 7: Well, if your caregivers became very distressed. When you were looking for…
Speaker 0: If other people who important to you become very distressed when you are stating obvious truths in all likelihood, you’ll learn to stop stating obvious. Truth to people who are important to you if they appear distressed when you impart such wisdom.
Speaker 7: For emotional support. Truth because maybe they didn’t know how to give it and that made them feel incompetent. You may have learned very early on If I show distress around my emotional needs, I get rejected, and to a child being rejected by your parents gets logged, as a survival threat. So what’s highly likely to happen is your body is going to start naturally rep pressing as Your emotional needs on your behalf.
Speaker 0: Okay. Let’s go to onto the show, Claire, anything you’ve heard that you’d like to comment on.
Speaker 8: Oh, yes. Thank you. Luke for having me. You were talking about 1 act of redemption Now would save Israel. And, my answer to that would be, I suppose I would call it supernatural, but but obviously, pen, sack and ashes.
For for all the wrong, not just the jews, but also the Christians and also the most have done. It it is a religious war that could be unsettled by, honest and rational, theological debate, but but I find that very few people even though they claim to be jews Christians and muslims. They won’t talk about , what god might think about the whole thing. The discourse seems to me to be about greater victim mode. So the Muslims foolishly, as if anybody cared about them, keep posting, tell you’ll realize we beat genocide.
34000 of us, maybe even 200000, And actually, nobody cares. As stalin said, 1 death is a tragic tragedy a million is a mere statistic, and, basically, people don’t really care about. Muslims, particularly those in the west they they they wish they would, , all not be around to complain about genocide. And I think that is the inability of muslims to understand the the nature of their predicament. As will dos, I think Sam earlier was making the point that there’s some conspiracy, it seems to be that the state department is deliberately trying to make Jews and Arabs fight each other.
I I think there must be some truth in it because, Israel serves are very real. Geopolitical purpose for America. It after all has access access to the red and Mediterranean sea, and and it’s it’s the American Colonial outpost there too… Keep an eye on its oil, and, the the Arabs who produce the oil. And and the other thing I I would mention is that Israel has this problem of being perceived to be holy?
And and because of that, just that very status it nick makes people ob obsessed about jews, , in a good way in a about. Way in a Hateful way, in in a in a at minor way. And I think fundamentally, the Anglo Saxon Empire, where has used the brand of jews to weave its post war narrative, which is that it has assumed the white man’s burden of protecting the jews in the Middle East. And that narrative that narrative, the narrative of the holocaust course is sacred to the Anglo saxon empire, and that is why we cannot question it. Not even Jews can question it in Israel, holocaust course denial is an offense I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the song.
It’s my party nike, and I’ll cry if I want to.
Speaker 0: Yes.
Speaker 8: And I was thinking , it’s my holocaust course and I’ll deny and I want to and jews get into trouble too for deny the holocaust. Because III know you’re going to laugh at me for saying, the, , the the the 1 act of redemption for Israel would be. Particular with Israeli characteristics. But even if they wanted to do that, supposing they would more they wanted to do that. They would have to apply to the Us state department for permission to to etcetera your.
And and and I don’t think they’ll get it from the state department because a state department wants Jews to keep fighting errands. Because that’s our point of it.
Speaker 0: Okay. So aside from accepting S, what would a day of repentance. What what do you think that would do for Israel?
Speaker 8: It it would make very clear. Who is the evil empire? I… You, what the… What the, Iranians say about America being, Great Satan and Israel, real being a little satan and, saying that that the, , the the husband and wife or in that couple who who was in, what was it, of mice and men, , the the the smart little guy and the stupid, , big guy who had to be killed, I think to save him from a prison sentence when he accidentally killed a woman.
So I I think we we don’t really know who is a smart 1 or the stupid 1 because, , it is kind of like a husband and wide relationship. , but both parties are trying to gain the upper hand on each other. And that they’re trying in their own little way to manipulate the other inter doing, , what the other 1. So I think it’s very hard to to to decide which is which. And I don’t think it’s in that it’s that important.
Because, , the whole narrative of of the Abrahamic Regard is that he divided jews in sorry humanity into Jews and gen. And and the further division that we can make is righteous jews, righteous gentile, or un righteous jews, un righteous, And and once we understand these divisions, we we can, , work out which 1 of us is righteous and which 1 of us, is not righteous. And and I’m saying, I’ve got a simple formula. You you just have to be prepared to discuss and know height laws and be prepared to discuss which religion is idol. And I’m saying it’s Christianity.
And, obviously, there are jews and there are muslims who want to form and on holy alliance of the Christians, , to fight, , the the other enemy, , Okay.
Speaker 0: Claire, I’m I’m gonna move on. So thanks for stopping. By.
Speaker 8: Thank you.
Speaker 0: Yep. Bye bye. So… Okay. So I wanna get back to this whole concept of human rights, and there’s a great book about it written by samuel Mine in…
20 10 called the last yu utopia human rights in history. He notes that other historians of human rights approach that subject the way that Church historians once approached theirs. Right? They regard the basic cause just as Church historians treated the Christian religion as a saving truth Right? Salvation is here, whether it’s brought about my Christianity or by human rights, something that is discovered rather than created in history.
So if you can find something in history that can be made to seem like an anticipation of christianity or an anticipation of human rights, then it’s then interpreted to lead that way in the same way that Church history famously treated judaism for so long as a pro Christian movement simply confused about its true identity. And the heroes who advanced human rights in the world just like the churches apostles and saints are usually treated with un critical wonder. H geography. Right? The biography of saints.
Right? For the sake of moral imitation of those who chase the flame becomes the main genre, and this is true scholarship about human rights. And so human rights organizations that appear to institutional human rights are treated like the early church, a fledgling hopefully, universal community of believers is struggling for good in avail of tears. If the cause fails, it’s because of evil if it succeeds, It’s because the cause is just. But And so these various approaches in the news media and among scholars, right, provide the miss that the human rights movement needs.
Now in a eu historic mood, after World war 2, many people believe that secure Moral guidance born out of the Shock Holocaust was on the verge of displacing interest and power as the foundation of international society. But without the transformative of effects of the 19 seventies human rights would not have become today’s utopia, there would be no movement around it. Right? So there’s is a very clear fundamental difference between earlier conception of rights, all, which depend upon belonging to a concrete political. Community and eventual notions of international human rights.
So prior to the 19 seventies, the nation state was seen as necessary to create meaningful politics of rights. , is there any other real source aside from the authority of the nation state, and the answer is there is not. But if you want to live in delusion and Utopia, then you can come up with this international human rights crusade and it developed out of the dis distressed of marxism and conventional left wing politics, but combined with the desire to have a politics of Utopia anyway. So human rights as an international movement largely grew out of Amnesty embassy International and it began in Christian responses to the cold War, and then it slowly transformed into a celebrated human rights organization, So his founder was Peter Ben, and Amnesty embassy International emerged through improvising on early Christian peace movements. So Amnesty embassy International wanted to provide a new outlet for ideal disappointed by the result of the cold War.
And after socialism had been revealed as a failed experiment. So Amnesty International began in 19 61, and is founder said the underlying purpose of this campaign is to find a common base upon which the ideal of the world can cooperate. It’s designed to absorb the latent enthusiasm enthusiasm of great numbers of ideas who have since the eclipse of socialism become increasingly frustrated. But it is an appeal to the young searching for an ideal. And the effect that, Amnesty International would provide to ideal, was unimportant.
And it matters more to harness, the enthusiasm of these ideal and helpers. Than to do anything in the real world. The Real matters prefer to suffer real saints and no worse off prison than anywhere else on this earth. So whether or not there’s human rights act activism it makes any difference in reality makes no difference, to human rights activists. Right?
What it human rights does is it gives meaning to people to Alright. It’s a type of engagement that doesn’t require much from the person following the cause. Right? Traditional alternatives were dying for hope for some kind of utopia on this life, And so various people wanted to do something to bring about a utopia in this world, and they found a successful formula. Alright?
You You described some horrible form of torture going on in the world, explain where it’s happening, explain the political context in which it occurs. And then end with a plea to show the offend government that the world is watching. So if human rights have made any historical, difference and It is in their competitive survival is a motivating ideology in the confusing tum of 19 seventies social movements. Right? It became bound out with the widespread desire to drop Utopia and to have Utopia anyway.
But this substitution of plausible, morality for fail politics comes at a price. Right now it’s itself evident that among the major purposes, perhaps the central point of international law, is to protect individual human rights. That’s how it’s being rec reconsider, but this is a striking transformation of international law. Right? This is a development after World war 2.
And 1 of the more interesting responses to this phenomenon of human rights is the response of philosophers. Who after a few years of confusion about the novelty, this notion of international human rights then assimilated them to their natural rights principles that they were rev revive. And so now philosophers are signed on with this discourse, but that it’s completely disconnected from reality has no inhibiting effect for philosophers.
Speaker 2: The tasks given to it in gaza, I think that a lot more of the attention now in the Israeli high command, even though now we’re gonna have a whole hostage release and that’s gonna dominate Israeli politics and media and but president biden spoke about it. The israeli high command is now focused intensely on the north. It’s The north of Israel el Hezbollah.
Speaker 1: Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.
Speaker 2: Right. The military problem of Gaza is basically solved. It’s gonna be a long time of a long game of Whack mole, like the war against Isis in Northern Iraq was for 5 years, but we know how to do it. And Hamas has been unable, Frankly, , talked about how the Americans thought it would take 4 months to move the civilians out of out of Raf. The Americans also thought there would be something like 10 times the number of Israeli soldiers killed.
At this stage of the war. It’s kind of amazing that there’s so few and that doesn’t help close friends of mine who lost a son , in the war, but nevertheless, the Israeli Army has proven that it can handle the Gaza war tactically and strategically. And so that’s a problem that you just have to put the people who know how to do it on it, and they’ll figure it out, and it’ll take time, and it’s a whack mole with insurgents of the tam mass type, but it’s a whack mole that that game that that can be 1. Figure
Speaker 1: Okay. I wanna to talk about last Friday. President Biden late afternoon, parent during S, goes out with a speech, which he really does about what is happening between Israel and Hamas, and does something I thought quite perplexing, which he gives a speech not to announce a deal, but to announce a proposal for a deal. It’s just interesting to me I rarely see Us presidents use their bully pulpit, to make a plea publicly to the parties to consider a deal or to get momentum behind a deal. Usually, the present uses his bully pulpit to put the final touches if you will to tie up a a deal that’s been worked out among the negotiators to put it tied up with a bow and make it public to the world.
This to me is a a political problem actually for a president Biden that he looked a little desperate and out of control of events by using his bully pulpit in this way, but be that as a May. Let’s talk about the proposal. Can you walk through H aviv? What actually we know of that was announced by president biden on Friday, and then we’ll get into who’s for what pieces of it and which parties have different equities. But what is…
Just so we can establish so we can talk about it. What is the proposal?
Speaker 2: Well, I urge people to just literally read Biden speech carefully line by line because a lot of its internal contradiction become clear when you actually read it and also a lot of politics become clear, and a lot of the confusion becomes clear. Words what you don’t know. Biden gave his speech in which he said that there is a hostage release deal offered by the Israelis, which would have tremendous benefits. 1 of those benefits fits was that it would create a better day after in gaza, quote, without Hamas in power. It’s fits a speech that opens with a promise that Hamas will be gone after this deal or as a function of this deal.
And then within about 5 sentence is it becomes clear that in fact, it’s a deal in which Hamas apparently remains in power in Gaza. The deal has 3 parts according to president Biden. Part 1 is says a 6 week period of, quote, full and complete ceasefire. It involves the withdrawal of israeli forces from all populated areas of Gaza again, that’s a quote, populated areas of Gaza. Apparently that means the israeli Army doesn’t have to leave the Philadelphia corridor, which is quite significant, or than it’s corridor, which is, this piece of land in Central Gaza that the Israeli Army holds and the buy sa that it has not withdrawn from, like it has repeatedly from population centers.
Speaker 1: And it divides the north in this south of Gaza. Right. It’s always israel… It sort of stays in Gaza without going into the population centers. It just…
They can kinda base operations for the north or the south in the. Right.
Speaker 2: So a full complete ceasefire while the Israelis can still hold those areas. During phase 1, Biden said… Israel and Hamas, would negotiate, quote, a permanent end to hostilities. How is Hamas gone? If Hamas is there to negotiate with Israelis a permanent end to hostilities.
The permanent into hostilities would be phase 2. Right? It would go into effect. There would be a hostage exchange with the full and complete he’s fire for 6 weeks. According to leaks from Israeli officials that I have seen 33 Israeli hostages would come out.
Biden seemed to hint that some of them could be dead bodies. And not actually living hostages. If that’s an Israeli concession, it’s a big 1. But 33 hostages, 6 weeks and full and complete ceasefire, while apparently the Israelis can stay in the mil relevant un unpopular areas of Gaza. Then comes phase 2, which is a permanent end to hostilities negotiated during the 6 weeks of phase 1, in exchange of all hostages, And as part of phase 2, Biden says, there would be, quote, israeli forces would withdraw from Gaza.
Then comes phase 3. The war is over the israeli army is gone. Come hamas is still there. There’s nothing that Biden says other than the original promise the Come hamas wouldn’t be empowered just to tell us the how it wouldn’t be in power. Phase 3 is a major reconstruction plan for Gaza, and any final remains of hostages would be returned.
He seems to mean All hostages supposed to come out of phase 2. He seems to mean any remains that can’t be found in the reconstruction order returns to Gaza and the last remains can be found. It’s really important to him to say Hamas has effectively been destroyed, which is how I know that he thinks that the main Israeli opposition to this deal is going. To be that Hamas is not in fact going to be destroyed. Quote, the people of israel should know Hamas no longer is capable of carrying out another October 7.
To He says that a continuation of the war, quote, will only bog down Israel and Gaza, draining the economic military and human resources. Furthering Israel’s isolation in the world, and it will not bring an enduring defeat of Hamas. That’s to people like me, I guess, who think that the military can bring an enduring defeat of Hamas. But if it won’t bring an enduring defeat of Hamas, the military, then why would this deal do so, which gives Hamas and out, Hamas negotiate Hamas is still standing in Gaza of the day after? And when you ask, you query the text of the speech and you say so sort of what will bring about an enduring removal or defeat of Hamas.
There is no word about it in the speech. Then he says there will be gu. In other words, not to worry. Quote, with the deal, a rebuilding of Gaza will begin with arab nations and the international community along with Palestinians and Israeli leaders. To get it done in a manner that does not allow Hamas re arm, and we can trust the world.
Egypt and Qatar have assured me they are continuing to work to ensure that Hamas
Speaker 0: So 1 striking thing about Liberals in general is how much confidence they have in the power of human reason. And part of that confidence when it’s applied to international conflicts is a confidence that they can manage these conflicts. But once she get into a war. Right? They tend to escalate.
Right, Fights tend to escalate Wars tend to escalate, and they resist being managed. And so the biden administration, is trying to micro manage the Israel Gaza war the trying to micro manage the Ukraine Russia war, and it’s not working out too well. And because the Biden administration has unnecessarily placed the United States in the middle of 2 wars that have absolutely nothing to do with America’s vital national security. Right? Whatever happens in Ukraine, whatever happens in Gaza has nothing to do with the best interest of Americans.
With and yet the Biden administration has this tremendous faith that they can, , micro manage what’s happening. Reading a book by David Sang, New cold Wars, China’s rise, Russia’s invasion America’s struggle to defend the west, and he talks about typical Joe Biden, classic Joe Biden, wanting to insert himself into complex disputes half a world away, convince that his own expertise will make a difference. And there’s just no basis for that. Right? Since that that new Republic article published in the 09/01/1986 addition of the new republic with the cover headline shut up senator Biden, Right?
Senator Biden is a win back. He just talks and talks and talks, and he has a vastly exaggerated sense of his own expertise and significance. So Biden when he was vice president under Obama would press for all kinds of lethal aid to Ukraine. And Joe Biden said no. Incessantly.
So Joe Biden has long led the the war for Ukraine. Right? It’s got a long history with Ukraine, he he wanted to lead American support for anti corruption reforms in Ukraine. Right? But what tainted his initiative with the activities of his troubled youngest son Hunter at Biden who made millions of dollars , sitting on the board of the Ukrainian energy company.
There was also under investigation for corruption, When Obama Aids bro the potential conflict of interest with Joe Biden, right? He lit into them. Right? So the blind spot, Joe Biden often has with issues touches his family. M Mj Biden told them to back off.
He says M luck, my son Hunter Biden, he an independent adult, and there’s no crossover between our work. So Russia is Biden has long been a Russia hawk, and he’s long supported army Ukraine, and the more Ukraine armed, right, The more incentivized Russia was to go in and wreck it. And that’s exactly what Russia has done. It’s gone in and wrecked Ukraine. Because in effect that there’s no such thing as just purely defensive weapons.
Right you you give a country, You give Ukraine defensive weapons. It just makes them a more formidable force on your border, and thus, incentivize you to build up your armor so that you can wreck this country that threatens you. But if A country has formidable defensive weapons. That means that they are defended from your attack that they are less vulnerable to you. And if they’re less vulnerable to you, that means that they’re more of a threat to you.
And so defensive weapons don’t work in a… Purely defensive way in international relations.
Speaker 2: Fulfill its commitments. The Us will help ensure that Israel lives up to their obligations as well. And finally, he says, Hamas should come to negotiate, Which to me is the sort of the last nail in the coffin because it’s telling Hamas openly, here’s the quote. If Hamas comes to negotiate ready to deal, then Israeli negotiators must be given a mandate the necessary flexibility to close that deal. Or in other words, Everything I have just presented is the Israeli opening position, not even the deal that the Americans actually want see actually implemented.
Now, I have presented this with all of my skepticism all along the way, people if they want c skepticism free version. Should just read it it’s online. It’s on the times of Visitor website, the full text of the speech with no commentary. It’s a problem this speech, and it’s a fascinating problem. Because in theory Biden has just made the case that the war can’t be won.
And since the war can’t be won, it’s time to cut losses and get the hostages out. And Ham hamas will remain in Gaza. And Qatar in Egypt and America in Europe and who the heck knows who else will come into Gaza, rebuild Gaza, wars over. Hamas is gone, but is it really gone? We have no idea.
We don’t know how to get rid of it Military. It’s impossible,
Speaker 0: So I’m I’ve embarked on a blog post to try to list off the lies that, dominate contemporary discourse. And every time we we buy into these lies that they cripple us. Right? We we develop neuro around them, we become less effective. In life, and here’s a bit more of an explanation from attachment specialist heidi Cream.
Speaker 7: Chi, around the fact that you need comfort for your emotional needs. You might truly start believing as you grow up that as long as all of your practical needs are met, that’s kind of all you need, you don’t think to check in on whether or not your emotional needs are getting fulfilled or
Speaker 0: Okay, Sam, you jumped back in. Did you wanna add something?
Speaker 6: Yeah. Well, your point about America. Causing the, war in Ukraine is spot on. And if you take out an example, of what they did in Ukraine. You can apply it it not so abstract to what happened in Gaza.
Okay? Except their fingerprints are not as detectable as they are in the Ukraine conflict and sparking that inc. A war off causing that war. Alright. They work clan clan and under hand, but they were more overt in Ukraine.
It was more important for them, it they they didn’t care. If their fingerprints were spotted if they’re… If they got hot red handed in actually ins integrating that more, and then blaming Russia for it. Okay? But you take that as a model hot and you apply it till October seventh and Gaza, and you realize their hands are all over that.
The… If they’re not the main a actors or cause of it because you had a a grander agenda that the Iranians were a plotting in and and planning to have a multi front attack on Israel, multi theater from there from Iran, from the north, from within Israel from the territories and from Gaza. That was, actually, , found out. Through interrogation of top Hamas figures, and we… And also, we we noticed there was a lot of activity in Hezbollah in the north on October seventh.
But they did at the last minute, that stop themselves from a full invasion. Full on invasion. They got involved, but they didn’t go full tilt, full throttle on us, so the thing is their hand is involved in in both wars. And and in ig and fueling ins integrating them, and then trying to manage them. Okay.
I’m not I’m not pointing my fingers at the American people at the American military because they are oblivious to this, just just as we were oblivious, to the plot that was hatched against us and that was sprung on us on October seventh. These people are nefarious. These people are villains. Alright? And they have no concern about how many human lives are lost, How much pain is incurred and caused and how much suffering they they don’t think like that.
These people are demonic.
Speaker 0: Okay. Okay. Thanks, thanks, sam. Okay. Let me finish off this point here
Speaker 9: for everybody brief.
Speaker 7: The opposite, Let’s say you developed a blind spot around your need for independence. Maybe when you were a child, any steps you took towards assert your independence and becoming a separate person…
Speaker 0: Right. When we deny reality. Right? When we develop blind spots. Right?
It makes us less effective in the world, and we then have to evolve defense mechanisms to handle our blind spots.
Speaker 7: From your parents. Felt very threatening to them, and so they would tend to subtly reject you in the areas where you were trying to differentiate from them. What may have happened as a result of that is your brain learned to naturally rep compress its own desire for independence.
Speaker 0: Right. So we we naturally rep repressed all sorts of obvious truths about the world around us to fit in with the people who are most important to us. And that this rep refresh of obvious truths, this denial comes at a price.
Speaker 7: So as you up, you didn’t naturally learn about setting boundaries. And differentiating what you want from what other people want. It’s an area that you just don’t think to check in on. And so what I would qualify is a blind spot is any area of our lives that needs to be attended to in order for us to have reasonably well functioning mental health but that doesn’t kind of show up when we try to do an audit of what isn’t isn’t working in our lives because we don’t have the conscious awareness that that’s an area we need to tend to.
Speaker 0: Right. So if something isn’t working in your country, in your community, in your religion. Or in you as an individual, in all likelihood, you’re are denying truth. Right you’re… You’ve got a blind spot about some obvious part of reality.
That for for whatever reason, you’ve evolved a complete denial of the nature of reality in some Some part of life because reality is just too painful. And this denial always comes at an enormous price.
Speaker 2: It’s just too much, let’s get it done and let’s move on. That seems to be the Biden version of the Israeli offer.
Speaker 1: Okay. So I wanna try to understand what’s going on here because when I spoke to American officials after the speech, first of all, depending on who which American official you talk to, administration official, they they had a different take on the speech and its intent, which is interesting. But they kept coming back to… We’re trying to pressure Hamas. We’re trying to prevent Hamas from trying to re trade at the eleventh hour.
We wanna let Her boss know that this is the last opportunity they have to enter some kind of negotiation. That’s our major message. Obviously, the israeli audience is also part of the message, which we’ll get to, but but we really wanna send a message to Hamas,
Speaker 0: and I So the the biden speech shall seem part of an overall American incompetence in foreign policy that’s been particularly striking since 09:11, past 09:11, and the useless invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Speaker 1: I… My reaction to that H aviv is if you look at the difference between now versus the first hostage deal that was done, late November of of last year. When Hamas was under enormous pressure, mil momentarily, diplomatic, there was a sense that pressure was mounting on Hamas every way versus the last few months where it is seemed, sort of pre that all the pressure was mounted on Israel. Growing tensions between the Us administration and the Israeli government, increasing international action against Israel at the Un, different governments around the world, particularly in Europe, recognizing a Palestinian Indian state, Us college campuses on fire to the point
Speaker 0: the point is making here that just like when you make a claim with an insurance company, they’re not eager to give you money. Right? You usually have to go to great effort to establish your claim and to provide evidence for it. And so to when Hamas gives up some hostages, right, it’s because they were put in such a desperate position that they saw it as in their own advantage to do so.
Speaker 1: It did both comedy and the Supreme leader of Iran and A qaeda are issuing. Statements of solidarity with American college students, which is, like, bizarre on so many levels and deeply dark. And so all the pressure was mounting on Israel. And if you wanted change 1 could argue it peaked with this… the Us is now conditioning the transferring of offensive weapons to Israel unless it does what the administration wants it to do.
It’s not gonna send offensive weapons to israel if israel’s is gonna go forward with Raf. So Hamas is not incentivized to negotiate because time is on their side and the world. Actually is on their side. If you wanna change the dynamic and truly get hamas back to the negotiating
Speaker 0: Right. It a a shorter war would have fewer casualties. Right? A decisive Israel victory would be the fastest way to reduce. The carnage in Gaza.
And so the Board, the Biden administration interferes, right, The more this war drags out with more suffering on the part of gaza and israelis table.
Speaker 1: Then you don’t just say what Biden said, which is Basically, this is the last chance for Hamas to negotiate. This is Hamas last chance to negotiate. And if it doesn’t reach a deal, we the Us are out, meaning, we are out. We’re done trying to rest restore Israel. We’re done trying to moderate.
We’re done
Speaker 0: And whatever happens in the Israel Hamas war, it has nothing to do with the Welfare of Americans. Right, if… Hamas kills, Israelis or Israelis kill Hamas or gaza and citizens on neither outcome. Is the welfare of Americans change. Right?
Americans will be just the same. Right? Whatever happens in the Israel gaza conflict inherently unless the United States involves itself in something that’s completely irrelevant to American welfare.
Speaker 1: Gaza trying to modulate. We are out. We will continue to supply arm Israel, Israel have a free hand free reign to do what it needs to do in Gaza. Goodbye. That sends a message.
That would be new. That would say to Hamas. This truly is your last chance. And the Us didn’t do that. It was more like begging Hamas to come to the table.
Rather than conveying that they’re real consequences for H hamas leadership if they don’t come to the table.
Speaker 2: And we talked about incompetence, Back in November, Hamas released over a hundred hostages because the Israelis had moved into Northern Gaza of fast surrounded their Northern battalions and threatened to decimate them. And it was a way to buy 7 days of quiet and rescue what it could rescue. When Hamas has been up against a wall, Hamas released hostages. For months and months and months, the Americans have pressured Israel and been shocked and surprised and dis dismay that Hamas walked away from the table. Apparently, the people…
Speaker 0: So why will your boss give you a raise only if they see it as necessary? Right? You get a competing job offer at a much higher rate, and your boss wants to keep you then he’ll offer you a raise. But an employer, it’s not usually just gonna give you a raise out of the goodness of their hot. Right?
They’re only gonna give you a raise if they need to compete with some other option. And so to in personal life, so too in national international affairs. Right? States seek to act in their own self interest.
Speaker 2: But who run American policy on this stuff have never negotiated a deal of any kind over anything. If you negotiated a real estate deal if you buy a house, if you think the other side is sweating and under tremendous pressure to sell, you wait. And so pressure on Israel pushes away from the table I don’t understand why this… That is so obvious and basic. It’s a little bit like saying it’ll take 4 months to move a million people out of a 5 square mile town.
Well, It’s just a complete misunderstanding of what’s happening on the ground, I’ll say in America’s defense that if you’re are the National Security council of the United States or this state department in the United States government, you’re worried about Taiwan and Venezuela and, North Korea and, Ukraine and state
Speaker 0: Yeah. And every minute that you give to thinking about the Israel Gaza conflict, it is a minute taken away from American vital national strategic interest, which… May well have to do with Taiwan. So we’re getting distracted by things that have nothing to do with the best interest of Americans. Whatever happens in Ukraine, Whatever it happens in Gaza?
It has nothing to do with American interest.
Speaker 2: And a thousand other places and a thousand other issues, and maybe they just literally don’t know that much. And just kinda work off a simple playbook.
Speaker 0: Also, they have this notion of… And ideals. Liberal ideals. They have this notion of international law international human rights. And so their operate American foreign policy in service of abstract ideals rather than the concrete interest of American citizens.
Speaker 2: Maybe. But, yes, in that this… Idea the pressuring Israel and the fact that you then in the speech, Biden asked Hamas to come and now create what he essentially presented is an Israeli opening position. What a catastrophic way to open negotiations? I don’t understand Hamas will force some concession if you lay out a deal.
Now I think what’s happening here and and others have said this over the last 24 hours. Is that Biden doesn’t trust netanyahu y and believes that even though netanyahu presented in this
Speaker 0: Yeah. So Jay Biden here. With with this speech last Saturdays primarily trying to out maneuver bb Netanyahu. But these these fancy games have nothing to do with the vital interests of Americans Right. I’ve got interview here with a Dan Shu head of graduate.
Program in National Security at the University of Hai and a lecturer, the Id National Defense Pence College. So he’s been a consultant to Israeli decision makers and to the Israeli prime minister’s office foreign ministry, defense ministry, the Id and defense National Security, council as well as briefing, members of congress.
Speaker 10: Let me give you an example from a different field and you will see the parallel. Nationalism is a good thing. Right? Without nationalism, not democracy, no plural, because if you don’t have the solidarity, Of a big group, you cannot be willing to make concessions. And to let others have something at your expense understanding that in the long run, it’s even better for you.
And the only large scale solidarity that you have is a national is national solidarity. So nationalism is good. What do you call too much nationalism? You call, fascism, nazis. And what is the number 1 enemy of nationalism?
Fascism. Because when people see that nationalism could lead to fascism, they assume that nationalism must lead to fascism, the slippery slope, and therefore, they became they become nationalist. And this is what happened to many Europeans until the war in Ukraine. The war Ukraine changed it. In in in a considerable way.
But the number 1 enemy of nationalism is too much nationalism, fascism. Now, the number 1 enemy of liberal is too much liberal, called progressive. Because it distort things by taking it too far, and even the best of things can be taken too far transparency is a good thing. You want your government to be transparent up to point. Beyond this point.
Speaker 0: Right. So over… Choose exist within a constellation. Alright? They all have to compete with other virtue.
And so all the different political systems and ideologies are ways of adapting to one’s environment in circumstances so that you can perpetuate your your genes. And if you can’t perpetuate your genes right if the particular nation can’t survive, then it may well have been using AAM adaptive political system, and the… Type of political system that enables your people to thrive in 1 circumstance is not necessarily going to be the ideal political system for changing circumstances. So there is a time in a place for Empire. Right?
There’s a time in a place for nationalism. There are virtue to the Liberal world order. You have to understand the circumstances in which you’re operating and realize that different politicians and different political ideologies and systems of government again to work differently depending on the circumstances.
Speaker 10: You can never have a serious discussion. About anything because people are not speaking to the subject, they’re are speaking to the protocol. And instead of doing what is good. They do what looks good. What sounds good.
So too much trans transparency can be damaging, for instance, Do you want your life basically to be transparent in terms of everyday things? Yes. Do you want in your toilet? Do you want trans spend… Do you want everything in your life?
To be transparent at the expense of privacy. No. Let’s take what we’ve seen recently. In the post era. Do you want to condemn colonialism?
Yes. Was it a bad thing? Yes. Understandable at the time and you must understand it in the context of its time like you must understand slavery in the context of the biblical era, for instance. But a bad thing that we should fight against.
But then the assumption that anybody who’s been under the colonial rule must be just and pure. And we must support him even if he’s a barbarian, and you can have barbarian so we’re on the colonial rule, and there is a difference how people dealt is colonialism. If they make it an excuse to be barbarian, we must be barbarian because we had colonialism, or you cannot call us barbarian variants because we were under the colonial rule then you go…
Speaker 0: Right. In in the real world, people don’t care. About your pass. Right? They don’t care what you’ve been through.
Right? People are going to judge you, and judge your people on the basis of whether you help them or if you’re a foe. You a friend or a foe. People don’t care about your subs story.
Speaker 10: Going too far. Let me give you another example, I had a confrontation about that in a british university diversity when I said that c must have its limits. So they said to me what do you mean? If you have limits on plural, then it’s not plural anymore. I said what about if plural is being used in order to destroy plural?
Democracy must be a self defending democracy or the democracy is not used to bring down democracy.
Speaker 0: Right. And the way that all functioning democracies work is to have considerable. Elements of dictatorship which snap into place. Anytime there’s a real punitive emergency.
Speaker 10: Chrissy, and they very strongly disagreed with me The only way… To describe it to them was for me to say, what let’s all go for dinner. You want beef if you want chicken. You want vegetarian, you want Halal, you want kosher. Everything is fine.
What about if a cannibal wants to join us. Would plural extend to a cannibal joining us for dinner? No. I want to know if I’m on the guest list or on the menu. So there is a limit to everything and everything good comes from the middle of the political spectrum.
And if you go from 1 extreme to another. And if you take liberal so far that people realize that it doesn’t defend them anymore against Barbarian, Let me give you an example because it involved a confrontation that I had in Germany in 20 15. I came to the top decision makers in Germany in 2015. And I said you’re crazy. What you’re doing by bringing in a million or more.
Arabs and afghan and Pakistan. By the way, other muslims would have been different if they came from India or from Indonesia. It’s a different islam there. But if you bring these kinds of people, with their values with their culture to Germany, you are creating a fascist party in Germany. Says said they all used to be as far right as you can go legitimately in Germany.
What we have in Germany today, the If was created by Angela Merkel. Because people who suffer need to have a safe haven, so let us open our gates without limits. Okay. There are billions who of people who suffer in the world. If you open the gates of Europe, Europe will suffer like them.
And if you allow people to come to Europe and to bring their culture with them, the culture that destroyed their own countries to begin with, the political cultures that destroys their countries to begin with. Then you’re in…
Speaker 0: There’s probably no it more important government policy then deciding who gets to enter your com country. And if you don’t employ strict standards, then The odds are that a lot of destructive people lent to your country, and 1 destructive person can frequently do things that outweigh the contributions of 1000 productive citizens, and you are just inviting in chaos, if you’re not extremely careful about who you allow into your country.
Speaker 10: The Inevitably pushing people to the other poll. Now let me
Speaker 11: ask you a big picture question. So there’s a fear among many of the people that I talk to. That the success of Ham hamas 10 7 triggered the appetite of radical islam. They view Israel as weak. They see this as an opportune moment to strike and strike again.
And an explosion inflammation in the northern border is only a question of time. It’s inevitable. We see that the Iranians we’re not hesitant to strike Israel with ballistic missiles and someone. Would you agree with that assessment that that
Speaker 0: So I am a convert to orthodox judaism, and on the path of my conversion, I had a great deal of anxiety and insecurity because wherever I went There I was. Right? I took my own insecurity and anxiety with me and people could pal sense my insecurity and anxiety. And many of them bullied me and took advantage of me and domain me because I kind of invited that, , I put out a vibe of, , smack me. Kick me, , knocked me around, and so people did, then, when I developed a thicker skin and a more adaptive path through life where I’d be willing to stand up for myself when people would try to me then people stop bullying me.
Right? We have a profound effect on how other people relate to us to the extent that Israel appeals appears weak. Right, it’s going to invite attack. To the extent that Israel appears is strong, is going to deter attack. And so Israel prepared the ground for an October 7 attack by its weakness by its internal division.
Speaker 11: The the radical islamic world is looking at this as a moment where they can strike and perhaps even defeat Israel.
Speaker 10: Let us go further than your question and focus on the muslim browsers. In The Gaza strip, you had a practically sovereign state of the Muslim Brothers. They behaved in a barbaric way that the Palestinian people support. That the Palestinians in the West bank support, the Palestinians people in the… In Gaza support.
Okay? At least 70 percent when you take Har, public opinion all. If they can show that they can kill jews, rape juice, d capita jaws and get away with it, The first danger is in the Middle East. In other words, the motor brothers can take over Egypt. If they take over Egypt.
Then you have a regional war again in the Middle East. If they take over Jordan and they are very, very strong in Jordan. Jordan has a terrible public opinion Palestinians and Muslim brothers. So they could take over in Egypt. In Jordan in Morocco in Saudi Arabia in the emirates in in Ukraine.
And then the Middle East will erupt into a major confrontation not only between Israel and the Arab states, but also within the Arab states, and it’ll be a calamity so allowing them to win by whatever excuse you have, and you use human rights for it, again, Human rights became the weapon of the barbarian against several civilized people, not because there’s anything wrong about human rights, but it… Because it was prostitute. And what we have is a global process of prose the values, of civilized society. For instance, if you have an organization like the United Nations, where you have 1 country 1 voice But the majority of countries are not 1 person 1 voice. In other words, the majority of the United Nations are countries, that are either auto automatic, theo, barbaric or whatever, some of them, the filth of the earth Speaking of the regimes in these countries, North Korea to give only 1 example of Syria or what have you, and they are the majority.
Countries that are not democratic, not plural, are the majority. And the Europeans want to sound good, and they invented something called the international community, which basically comes down to the United Nations. And every international organization is prosecuted by the fact that the majority of participants are countries who are not democratic, not plural, not open societies, and they determine what is considered legal, democratic, open mind, this needs to stop And what? It went so far now with the decision of the court La hague that maybe be we’re are at the beginning of the end of this terrible period. Where the progressive have prosecuted liberal.
By taking it too far,
Speaker 11: you foresee a pushback.
Speaker 10: I foresee a pushback, what I fore 3 pushback in Europe after 20015. First of all, a unfortunately, a counterproductive for liberals who wanted to to do it from speaking about labor values, and then they created the fascist, and they pushed European public opinion to the right and very often too far to the right. Okay? Look at what is happening with fascist parties all over Europe. Now if parties who used to be fascist are now not exactly to my liking, but no longer fascist.
Okay. You can live it. But what you need is to bring the consensus into the middle of the political spectrum. Again, we need to go beyond the Middle East. I’m afraid of Western societies becoming polarized like the American society, I recently spoke to friends of mine in the American Congress and I told them, I suggest the United States adopted a 2 state solution at the Democratic State and a Republican state.
Because you don’t speak to each other anymore. Because some people become cocoa on the Trump side and the other is become cocoa on the progressive side, and you no longer can reach the kind of compromises that democracy and plural are built on.
Speaker 11: Now there’s an argument to be made that the same thing as it happening in Israel. That the polarization of Israeli And I agree with you disagree that the good things always come from the center. But there was a the famous report put together by the former economic adviser to the prime minister professor Eugene, in which he talks about the division between the tribes, cannot be fixed because they’re not talking to each other. There is no dialogue.
Speaker 6: What do
Speaker 11: you think, first of all I understand you disagree. I I would be the lighter
Speaker 10: here the disagree.
Speaker 11: And and what do you think we can do at this point to alleviate that pain.
Speaker 10: No, we have in Israel israeli 3 societies, I think that what the former president said about the tribes in Israelis is completely on nonsense. But we have 3 societies in Israel. We have arabs, we have ultra orthodox and we have Israelis, okay? The people who made Israel built Israel defend Israel? Everything good about Israel are are those who are not arabs or ultra orthodox.
Now do you have individual arabs an individual ultra orthodox who support this. Yes. They’re my kind of people. Okay? My solidarity extends to them.
But the hardcore of the Society are a danger to the existence of the Jewish people. The arab parties and the fact that arab elites are drawn into the Palestinian political culture, which is destructive, is a major problem Again, individual arabs, I have no problem, including Mans, no problem with him, whatsoever. But if you look, look at the political hardcore of the Arab society in Israel unfortunately. And certainly, the calamity of the ultra orthodox society. These are societies that are separate from the others.
I don’t think there is a major polarity between right and left in Israel. I don’t think they disagree about anything important. We can as establish and we should establish an Israeli government that can stretch from mail to liquid. Okay? Without Ben and sm, without the ultra orthodox and the arab parties.
Again, individual arabs, individual people from ultra orthodox
Speaker 0: Okay. Here’s something from Steve Sal interview that took place may 13 this year.
Speaker 12: If the anti white racism is is so overt so intense. And and more powerful, they begin taking more stuff and and causing, you, white people to suffer in in worse worse ways that inevitably, obviously, there’ll be reaction to that. And, it could be really, really ugly. Right? Yeah.
And and so I mean, do you think that? I mean, it seems like we’re on a a diver path between either with that outcome, the outcome where they… Where nothing happens and and just, you, white people are ground under and destroyed. Or, , the third, and I think the most optimistic 1 is that people begin to assert themselves. You, white people do.
Maybe And I don’t think in in an explicit or over, like, Way. But but rather just reclaiming their their heritage and their their country and and their their identity Americans. And adopting, , reasonable, what which I think the things that that you say reasonable. Right? Way of looking at at these things.
Right? So you can becoming be more mainstream really would be a way out from the the 2 bad options.
Speaker 13: Right? It seems like a reasonable social to be that, ? So do you… What do… Calm in the wall street Journal or somewhere like that.
And
Speaker 5: I Yeah. You french. Alright.
Speaker 13: But, yeah, I quite I quite. I mean, we’re talking about a little bit, like… In terms of evangelical and so forth. I mean, what what happens when evangelical get completely disillusioned, and turn to more, , And pagan Yeah. Type views, what happens when people go, oh, , we got lied tube during the George Floyd things.
That means we were also lied too about who really started World war 2, must have been…
Speaker 0: So, Nathan Kaufman. To is not a big fan of Christian ethics. So he he recommends a basis ethics that is the very niche nietzsche and perspective that Steve Sailors is concerned about.
Speaker 13: The Jews. And I’m like, no. You watch faulty tower as Basil Faulty explained it. You, you started that you invaded Poland. , so there are possible , bad outcomes that are being encouraged by all the bad behavior endorsed by in practice by the American establishment especially over the last decade, especially over the last 4 years.
And some of the things we can do are back off and stop, like, blaming white people for the reasons that blacks shoot each other about an order of magnitude more. Yeah than whites do. White Black shoot each, there’s so much more, especially, I mean, if you if you look at young men, males aged age 15 to 34, you can look up in the seat the center of for Disease Control wonder database, and you can look up how often people die by gun homicide. Now, this isn’t they don’t they’re not measuring who’s doing the shooting, but you can kinda guess. Alright.
Mh blacks… Young Black men die 6 times as often as young Hispanic men of the same age. But and with comparable education level comparable poverty problems, etcetera. A young Black men die 24 times more than young white men. They die something like 50 to 60 times more than young Asian men.
, African Americans have a problem with shooting each other, it’s a big problem. You wouldn’t be… You shouldn’t be surprised by it. If, , you listen this rap songs. That there’s a whole culture that’s that’s worsen this problem enormously honestly.
So what what can we but can we say the truth about that and then not go off into crazy anti semitic? Or other extremist views, , God, I hope so. And but in some ways, it’s more like, if if you’re allowed to say tell the truth and in general respectable discourse, , the realities, , that that can also keep peep young men from then going well if If I’m not allowed to say, , repeat Sun disease control homicide statistics, , that also means that the Kennedy assassination must have been by facade and, , just all sorts of craziness like that.
Speaker 6: Well, it’s funny
Speaker 14: because, like, , the… In Our circles like the Evangelical elite. They’re always surprised that people like us are weed you and and stuff like that. It’s like, well, you had allowed us to, , read more reasonable people like V air and Talking magazine, and all these others on the. Right?
Then maybe they wouldn’t be, , in in such a state of despair, , like these… These established in a conservative movement, , that, are participating in the shifting of the overt window and keeping it restrained within the, , the liberal consensus, they don’t even realize that they’re fostering a lot of this frustration among Young white. There was that book recently, Andrew, Don’t remember the. But it was just all about Angry White. Right?
And in rural America. It’s like,
Speaker 13: well, rural rural white rage. Yeah. Like the white rural rage. I mean, they they could’ve have been named the book just rural rage. It lit and short and memorable they stuck the white rural rage in there just to let that this is a book about why white people are bad.
Speaker 14: Yeah. But like, why do you think why do you think there’s so much rage because they’re cleaning this on all the time? ? But So… Yeah.
Speaker 12: Well, I think that’s that’s just it is that if you make… Right, the the the the old Chinese story. Right? If make the penalty for being late the same as for treason. Right?
Then you might as well over overthrow the government. Right? That’s a… It’s the same thing Where if you if you make… I mean, like, just even what you just said in the last 5 minutes here, Steve, Right, if you said that in most evangelical churches conservative even evangelical churches that, , then just outline those statistics, they would kick you out.
So you gotta get out here. You can’t get you’re talking about that stuff. Even though it’s like, demons facts. Right? And and and so young guys see this, and they’re like, well, I can’t say that.
And it’s true, then I’m gonna investigate it all… Everything else, or I’ll take the whole model of of red bills. And and and so I I think, , turning the temperature down, it would be it would be whom, , the powers that be to… Yeah, like you said, not to not just squish white people under their thumb and and drive them to to, , radical ideas. And so Do you think do you think that is going to happen?
I mean, like we, we brought up Jeremy Carl’s a book, and I think that is, an important work that he’s done. And it’s it’s making its way because Jeremy is a… Is a scholar. He’s, , fairly mainstream guy he has he’s respected and all of these things. Do you think that , the reasonable ideas about dealing with our problems with that there’s an opening there that…
We’re we’re going to have that? Or is it going to continue to be this way forever?
Speaker 13: I’ve… I mean, over the years, I’ve had people come to me, young younger people in Ami miguel. Oh, Steve. Good news. Everything is changing.
Because the Washington post ran a paragraph that admitted, , down on page 42. And I’m like, oh, maybe, , could be happening. On the other hand, the last year or so, Yeah. It’s it feels different, but, , , it’s also… On…
It… It’s been a very enjoyable year for me. And sure and that year might be better, but maybe, , how much has it changed? I mean, the world is… The establishment is invested an enormous amount.
It’s in discourse about why things are the fault of white men, and therefore, them to back off of from that, , from especially from angry, young white men going, okay. You here you said this New York times here you said that, Washington post we want apologies. We want you to explain why you’re wrong, and they’re like oh, we’re never gonna do that. Yeah. So, , they may try to, like, memory whole different thing.
, George Floyd name won’t dimensions is often. But , we’ll we’ll we’ll really have to see. But, , I mean, the notion that the Donald Trump could get elected, , after he lost in 20 20, That ought be a real wake up call. Guys. That…
, in a lot of ways like what Will Stand is saying, you, they economy me, it’s not really bad bad. So why why is why are people not wanting to vote Biden? Well a 1 of things is that the the general liberal establishment is appears to be getting punished for for all the hate they’ve sp all the disasters. Ideas they’ve promoted. , the transgender is on that the biden administration still all in on, just all the craziness over the last 10 years and people are kinda waking up to, like, yeah, the the democratic establishment still kinda believes in all this stuff, and they’re downplay, and so we gotta vote for Trump.
That hopefully, we’ll get a message across. But, , there’s an awful lot of people in important staff positions in the democratic party and Ngos and universities and so forth who don’t want , You don’t want Joe Biden to have some flashback to 19 75 and Joe. Holy cow. This stuff feels crazy. And, of course, normal American voters aren’t gonna vote for it.
Let’s fight… I I gotta fire all these people.
Speaker 12: Yeah. They’re not gonna have many others. I don’t think to.
Speaker 14: Well, I I probably have a couple more minutes. I gotta get baseball but my my last question here for andrew… Maybe That’s 1 of these, but my last question is. Do you feel like you have a more eager audience for your material now than in the nineties? Or do you think that the…
Your audience was more receptive back then?
Speaker 13: I don’t know. I mean, they’re there’s definitely what I saw last week in New York City was something that I never really anticipated people been telling me about for 18 months. But, yeah, there’s kind of a scene it’s like a downtown manhattan and seen where cool cool guys and good looking women, go to hang out and talk about dis conservative ideas like mine. And that was… Why?
I sure can see that coming. , it’s a lot of it’s done… A lot of it’s due to , a handful of people like the ladies on on the Red scare podcast. On a Dash, from somehow our other made me cool and my dog I’m I’m not counting on that continuing for, you. I I think another generation will come along ago.
What that. Hell was that about?
Speaker 12: No. I don’t think so. No. That at all. My now, my my my last 1 is is just gonna be a fun 1.
We’ve covered all the heavy.
Speaker 0: Okay. So… Csa said that this was his best interview. I I think it was the the what, the Armenian, the Filthy Armenian podcast. I think that’s my my favorite Steve Sailor podcast.
But we had the liberal rules based order. That was dominant in American foreign policy after World war 2, and now we’re seeing a decline, because Americans no longer see that in its best interest. Right? To hold America accountable to various international institutions but perhaps a useful strategy when we were competing with the Soviet Union for loyalty and alliances around the world. But now regular Americans don’t see the benefit, to sub American best interest to various international institutions.
And so Donald Trump em embargo an American first policy that seems to me just common a sense. Why would every nation not put itself first. And here’s a discussion between Robert Wright and Kelly La, flows. She’s…
Speaker 15: So if you listen to Tucker, he has fundamental, restraint values. That he has been a a esp way before the Ukraine invasion, and he does kind of he does reflect this sc, the right over over foreign policy. Again, he had Trump’s ear at that very moment. I absolutely agree with you, Bob that Iran is is is the flash point that, , gives me a headache. When I’m trying to bring this, trans thing together because you not only have this age old an that’s a baked into the Washington establishment against Iran.
I mean, it’s a bias that is so fully entrenched. It’s worse than than, the anti Russia sentiment here. So you have that baked into the establishment. Then you have the the Neo conservatives, and all of the money, the pro Israel money that is being poured into campaigns all the way up to the presidential campaigns where they do not see a difference between being pro Israel and wiping out Iran, and that it it is so clear when you look at even Biden top campaign donors. We had a story on responsible state by eli like Clifton, Where he said that at least 1 third of all of Biden top campaign donors, they that have donated to his victory fund.
That means everybody that has pledged over 900000 dollars are rapidly pro Israel And within their agendas is a… You gotta get Iran.
Speaker 9: And, , the crazy thing about this is, I mean, maybe I’m just confused. But it seems to me that so many of the things that I consider destructive that are favored by, , pro israel people not necessarily. In the broad sense of the term, but the kinda, , more hawk, I don’t even think they’re good for Israel. I mean so many so many things about Israeli policy that I think are bad are good for politically, maybe for these israeli leadership. It’s good for…
It’s great for bb net and you’d always have this existential enemy that that he can scare people about. If if this is a general thing about leaders. And it’s and it’s good for the leader of Har iran that his… If his people can worry about Israel, and it’s good it’s like, the the extreme leaders are always playing a non 0 sum game with each other. And and they’re not necessarily serving their nation’s interest.
Like, I don’t think what Israel’s has been doing in in in Gaza is good for Israel in the long run. , they’re just creating the next generation of people who wanna kill Israeli civilians. And, , because these will be people whose siblings and cousins were killed by israel. This is the way it works, And it’s just frustrating that Rap Mall with Iran, I think would be in the interest of the actual nation of Israel, and the nation of the United States. And when…
, the closest thing that that region has come to that in a way was orchestrated by China. Right? Kind of a rap mob between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Right? And I think Biden is trying to undo that.
Right? The the the his revival of the whole kind of Abraham accord momentum, a and some people think that that whole drive from Trump’s Abraham accord to, , Biden following through on it, it led October, know, I don’t know whether they did or not lead to homo hamas attack, but there are people who who, think it didn’t. And I think that to some extent, from Biden perspective, you is a way of counter China. No. China wants a stable peaceful Middle East No.
No. We can’t let China have its way. I mean, I’m sorry. Go ahead. I’m sure.
Speaker 15: No. III agree with what’s most upsetting about this is that our foreign policy is being driven by very narrow interests. At the at the top. And those narrow interests, at least if you if you follow the money, are very anti iran, and Berry Pro Israel and I think if you asked the American people, whether or not they wanna go to war with Iran, they’ll say, what? Why?
No. I guess so because somebody on a a radio told me or a podcast told me, or Fox News is home me, but they don’t really know exactly why or how Iran threatens America. They… That I and I’ve been, , I’m around for a while and they’re still using this trope that Iran is the biggest fund of terrorism in the world. And I I don’t know where I I know where that from, and I think that comes from, like, decades ago, And I and I’m sure that they’re lump in Hezbollah and Hamas and and calling them tariffs, but it seems so shop warranty to me.
And because there are no…
Speaker 0: So Hezbollah and Hamas definitely have a terrorist component what they do, but has been Ba is part of the Lebanon government and Hamas runs Gaza. Right? It it administer the Ba entity of Gaza. So I think a point is that Hezbollah and mars aren’t solely. Terrorist organizations.
Speaker 15: Oh, specific examples of Iran actually invading other countries or bombing other countries. I mean, they have done less than the United States did in the last 20 years in terms of interventions, but they are being raised up as… This evil scourge, and there’s not much to back it up at this point, but the American people are being told this But they’re being told by very narrow special interests who have major influence over our White House, past and present, congress, both parties, the establishment in Washington, and that’s pretty dangerous because that means we’re always on a constant war footing, with a country why… Where we can’t really explain why.
Speaker 9: Yeah. I think, , of course Iran definitely funds, Hamas and Hezbollah law. I think people underestimate the extent to which I think they overestimate the extent to which that comes out of some, like religious ideological imperative, although there’s probably some of that and underestimate the extent to which it’s a, Israel just kind of playing for the hearts and minds of the regional arab of public, probably Right? And b, actually, actual strategy. I mean, Iran, to an extent that people don’t realize understand.
Feels very insecure. It it it’s suffered a devastating war at the hands of of Iraq. The Us what support was On rock side. So, of course, when the Us invades Iraq and wants to set up permanent presence there, you can bet that Iran is gonna try to dis lodge those troops and get their proxies. To kill some of those troops to get them out.
And is gonna have some proxies because Iraq is a majority a nation. And and so, , Iran is gonna be able to cultivate some support it’s just all completely predictable as as something that a nation with that history would do and and and it’s always cast. As , Iran, it’s just for reasons we don’t understand, but they just wanna kill everybody.
Speaker 15: That’s right. It came out of nowhere where it’s in a back. Nobody talks about the Iran Iraq war. They don’t talk about how we took a passenger jet out of the sky and killed hundreds of civilians. Oops, it was a mistake.
We never apologized for it. Sunk their ships. I mean, this was an active engagement between the Us and Iran. This didn’t come out of nowhere. And the fact that Hamas h hezbollah Also have civil bodies where they’re actually in it…
They’re running governments. , I I may not like that. You might not like that, but it’s more complicated than just saying that they’re funding these terrorist organizations. That it’s it’s… These these paris organizations are deeply ingrained in the governments of both Lebanon and and and Gaza, and to to to act as though that, like you said that this was just a purely an idea ideological whole, They’re a purely ideological force that needs to be stopped is just is overs simplifying to the greatest extent, and it does such a a disservice to the American people because whole , like I said, they just end up believing whatever they hear and ac when we really should be putting our foot down and saying this is not in our best interest not in israel’s real best interest and not in Iranians.
Best interest. But, unfortunately, I don’t see this getting any better with a new Trump administration at all. And that is gonna… That’s the… Like, you said, Bob, that’s gonna be the real sticky wick there.
No matter how…
Speaker 0: Okay. Good discussion between John Mis shi. And 2 blokes from the Duran podcast on the end of the liberal order and the return of war. Or
Speaker 5: Were in the order and that were largely created by the United States applied almost exclusively to the west. The Soviet Union had its own order. It had a bundle of institutions that applied to what we used to call the Communist world. Right? And this included things like Comic con, common turn, but warsaw pact and so forth and so on.
So you had these 2 bounded orders that dominated the landscape, then what happened is the cold war ended and you moved into, and you had only 1 great power by definition in the system. And this was an opportunity for the United States to take that liberal order that it had created in the west during the cold war. And turn it into a liberal international. And I underlying the word international order.
Speaker 0: This does and the United States developed the liberal order to advance its own best interest vis vis the Soviet union. Right? There was a time in a place the United States to invest heavily in alliances That time in that place is no longer now. Right? With the end of the code war, it’s time for the United States to act unilateral fashion, as Donald Trump, Articulate
Speaker 5: dovetail tails with nato expansion, Eu expansion. If you think about it, what the United States is doing during the polar moment, is creating a truly liberal international order. Think about the Wto, which we, create during the post cold war period, and we bring China into. So we actually do create a liberal international order. But what happens roughly around 2017 is that we begin to morph into a multi world.
Putin brings Russia back from the dead, trying to grows to where it’s a great power. So you have 3 great powers in the system. And we have 3 great powers in the system. It’s gonna be hard to sustain a liberal me again, underlying the word international order. Excuse.
Especially because the Chinese are gonna try to create an order of their own. Let They’re gonna…
Speaker 0: And more important than it being hard to sustain this liberal order is to question is this liberal order still in America’s best interest. And I would say no, not since the end of the cold war.
Speaker 5: Create their own institutions. And they’re gonna throw their weight around in the existing institutions. To which their members. But think about the Ai b, Think about Belt Road. They’re all sorts of institutions that the Chinese are creating, right, that represent an alternative to the Liberal international order, which is beginning to with away.
So at a very broad level important to understand that the rise of China and that the resurrection of russian power is going to undermine that liberal international order that the United States have fostered during the Moment. It’s that’s point number 1. Point number 2 is, although there are powerful structural forces that I just described that are undermining that liberal international order. There’s no question that the United States has behaved in ways over the past 10 years that are designed to facilitate the demise. Of the Liberal international water, and you glenn just described some of the policies that we have pursued that have done enormous damage to the Liberal International water and very little of it is left standing as a result.
And I think the most graphic evidence of just how much damage we have done. Is the American reaction to the International court of justice is ruling Israel. And now the national criminal courts attempt restaurants to Israeli leaders. The United States has gone to great lengths to d these 2 institutions, which are part of the liberal international order. This makes no sense at all.
And, of course, these moves by the United States are only representative of a small sample are only a small sample of the many moves that we’ve made in recent years to undermine that order. So there is…
Speaker 0: So nation States will try to fit into some bigger order than themselves to the extent that’s in their self interest. But when you have a clash between an international order. Your national self interest. Alright? All states will be strongly motivated, to pursue their national interest and to deviate from and the liberal order or whatever the Ruling order is that they are part of a coalition.
Speaker 5: Is very little left of the Liberal international order. And in moving forward, it’s not gonna be international at all.
Speaker 16: The 1 thing I would say is of course the cold war because we have these 2 very different systems facing off against each other. Gave the liberal order in the west based around the United States. A very great deal c coherent. You you you could say what it was, and you had the opposite, which is what the Sol did, which was…
Speaker 0: So I don’t know. If you were alive in the 19 sixties, 19 seventies, 19 eighties, but there was this widespread sense that we’re were in a moral competition with the Soviet Union over which, , system of government was better communism or liberal democracy. And we’re no longer in that kind of fight. Right? United States does not need to fear or be concerned that all nations might prefer to emulate the governing system of of China or Russia.
Alright? Few nations looked at China and Russia as as models for how they want to conduct themselves. So we we no longer have to compete in this ideological struggle, which should make it easier for America just to follow it’s bare knuckle national interests. Right? Without concern for promoting this ideology or going against that ideology, which…
Oh, I. It was so silly, when Joe Biden made the distinction between democracy and democracy a centerpiece of his first 2 years. Well, there gonna be plenty of circumstances where will be in our national interest to align with auto. And there will be plenty of circumstances where will be in our national interest to go against democracies. Right?
Our our own national interests are are constantly changing. And I I just… I re read an essay on on Shakespeare. That that seems quite quite applicable to this. And and so you hear a lot of silly things said about Shakespeare.
And water Isaac wrote that that best selling biography of Elon Musk, and water Isaac tries to explain how Elon Musk is attempting simultaneously these epic feet, but he’s also a jerk much of the time. And so Water isaac and wants to enlist Shakespeare to explain this conundrum. As Shakespeare teaches us, all heroes have flaws. Some tragic, some conquered and those we cast as villains can be complex. So that’s that’s how water Isaac and tries to fill the gap between epic an asshole.
Right? With with the lesson that Shakespeare was apparently trying to teach us when he wrote Hamlet and King lea. This is Fin tour writing in the… New York review of books. So the only other time that tragic appears in Water Isaac and Book is when Musk is regretting his choice of outfit for an audience with the pope.
My suit is tragic. So on this level tragedy is trivial. So our Shakespeare is great place. Really trying to teach us something has tried as the possibility that human beings are complex. Well, the powerful people may have some serious defects like, who new?
And order Isaac said is not unusual in making all these statements about what? Shakespeare tragedies mean. Right? They exist to instruct us guys and 1 of their main lessons is that everything would be okay if we could only conquer our shortcomings. If we could only develop our moral character.
So we had a a review and the guardian of the Harry Potter Novels. Quote, some of the most admirable adult characters as in Shakespeare or also revealed to have a tragic floor causes them to hesitate to act to make foolish errors of judgment to liar to commit murder. And the New York Times tells us that with the Shakespeare hamlet or Mueller’s doctor Faust, they’re tragic flaws enacted become the definition of tragedy. And then the 4 British prime minister, Boris Johnson supposedly been working for many years, writing a book on Shakespeare is compared himself to ate tel be by the Mali Y claims that is the assets of all t literature that the hero should be cons in that he should swag around in some fatal floor. Thick should lead to a catastrophic reversal.
And also in the New York times we got sea Marsh telling us that we go to tragedy to watch a man be destroyed, Mac must be destroyed because of his lust for power. Hotel for his jealousy, entity for his passion, leah for the incomplete of his ren pronunciation. They are tragic precisely because their flaws are bought human. And then we have a biography of Andrew Jackson where the president’s quoted, Shakespeare tragic hero. Inflexible as Cor ll whose tragic floor his incessant pursuit of virtue in the political realm.
Maureen Dow knows that Barack Obama has read and re read Shakespeare tragedies and does not want his fatal floor to be that he compromises us so much that It is ideals get blurred out of recognition. So everything I just read about Shakespeare is fat, delusional or shallow. Right? It’s just the stuff of Cli cliches. And what’s underlying it is this theory of life.
Right? This theory of mind. That your own problems and disasters primarily of your own making. Well, sometimes they are, but frequently that they are not. Because we all exist in a society, and what’s going on around us despite the best of our efforts will have a profound effect on us.
Alright? We get tragedies, not just because of our own flaws. Right, But because we’re all drag between large historical, social and political forces that are pushing and pulling us in many different directions. And so too with the international liberal order. Right?
That was a force at 1 time useful force going up against the Soviet Union, but in a different circumstance with the end of the cold war, it seems to be in America’s best interest. So all these insides that are just listed into Shakespeare a dull and shallow and and bogus. Right? Morality tales at which people do bad things because they are bad, and then they get their come up. Right?
These are the fact of lac. And none of this bears slightest resemblance to what we’re seeing in Shakespeare. Right? In Shakespeare, we encounter dramas that are not about, , come up and rewarded virtue. Right?
Shakespeare is not providing us with many answers. Right? There there’s nothing in Cord or op or odessa or Amelia characters that leads them to extinction. Right? It’s simply that in this cruel world, Right, the the bad may end unhappy, but so may the good.
Right, you can, try to be a righteous person, but that does not protect you from the common cold or getting the flu or dying from a heart attack or cancer. Right. If if you reach Shakespeare, you come out thinking off to hamlet well, if I’m the hamlet had. Been less an, nothing would have been rotten in the state of Denmark. Like, if if only Israel had done x then Israel would be saved.
Like, if Only Mc wasn’t so consumed with lust for power. He would have been fine. If only Ate didn’t have such jealousy. He he would have been okay. But we’re all acting within a constantly changing situation.
And the strategies that work in 1 situation and are not gonna work in different situation. Right? So Shakespeare tragedy are not a moral instruction. They’re not a classroom. Right?
Against The the foreground of his action is is the background of death, which stalks us all, and we’re all constantly being pushed outward. By the cent force of the actions around us, and then we’re also held in place by cent forces. Right? So we’re all sucked into dizzy spins of circumstance. And our our moral instincts often go against our pragmatic interest.
Right? Wouldn’t it be nice if our pragmatic interest just always aligned with the most lofty of moral ideals. But that that’s not what’s going on. And some of the most compelling characters in Shakespeare are people doing monstrous things. So Hamlet is entertaining he’s brilliant sensitive.
He’s charismatic. He’s el. Right? And he’s also astonishing leak cruel. It he kills 1 person by mistake polo colonial.
He torture his sister. He dispatch rose Cra and Gil. And he does, , a lot of horrible things because people tend to the extent that they have moral strengths. Right? They tend to beat moral strengths.
In 1 domain. Right? The person who was honest with his taxes is no more likely to be honest in his marriage. Right. Someone who’s nice to his neighbor, not necessarily going to be ethical in business.
And so as situations constantly change and and challenge us at, we’re constantly trying to adapt to be wondering circumstances, and sometimes our circumstances are simply going to get the best of us. Alright. Sometimes the best thing we can do is leave. Right. So Shakespeare is not primarily about moral instruction.
Right? He’s probably more more about moral destruction, creating the form and pressure of the times through a great unraveling in which the known becomes the unknown. Circumstances can change so that everything we think we know about the situation we’re in, we would be better off if we un undo it. Alright. Sometimes times cruel, and cruel times, call for different strategies and different aspects of our character then good times.
Right. Where where do you have the Jumping gods on the battle of Ul as hamlet begins? Right? It’s not so much watching out for ghosts, but they know that war is coming. Before Mc even meets the witches, Scotland is be set by civil war and invasion.
As the act action Trello begins. Right, we’re getting messages arriving in venice with the news of the coming Turkish assault on Cyprus war has already begun. Right the only only 1 of the 4 protagonists in Shakespeare 4 great tragedies who can be said to unleash large scale of violence by zion actions is king Lea. But even then, the speed with which his kingdom falls apart after his vacation makes us wonder whether it would not have descended into chaos anyway, if he merely died of old age. So we don’t encounter soothing easy comforts in Shakespeare.
But You don’t learn that, oh, imperfect man caused trouble, and then they are just late punished. At Hamlet and Mc, ate tel and King lea, a distinguished in their dramas by the illusion that they can determine events by their own actions. They believe they have the power to say what will happen next. But no amount of power can ever be great enough in an irrational world where we can dictate what happens next. Right?
The universe does not follow our orders. Right? That is… Tragic. Right.
It’s nice to imagine the time when the Shakespeare plays could be loved for their poetry alone. But there’s not yet a word that does not know the violence of these plays or the fury with which reality, responds to all attempts to force it to obey 1 man’s will. Right? There is no place in history where b not found here. It’s not good advice for millions of vulnerable people.
We return to Shakespeare tragedies because the wilder the terror. Shakespeare unleashes the deeper is the pity and the greater the wonder that even in this howling tempe. We can still hear the voices of broken individuals so amazingly articulated. They do not when they speak, reduce the fright. They allow us rather in those be watering moments.
To try to be equal to it.
Speaker 16: It’s different, and you could compare the 2, and you could say this is a liberal order, and this is the communist order. And there are there are these differences this there there is this clear divide. When the communist system went. And there’s an attempt to make the liberal order universal. And III would say this.
I mean, both of you probably remember this better than me. But 1 of the things I’ve remembered about the cold war all at least was, , that the idea was that if… Communism is defeated or if the communists defeat us, then whichever of the 2 systems prevailed, that would become the universal system. Only was it was couch to certain agree those terms. So it’s not surprising that there was an attempt to making universal.
The moment it became universal at lost appearance. Because there isn’t any longer that level of comparison that, , the the the sense that there is the alternative that, , you must not become too identical too. And it’s… I think inevitable. So I think it’s inevitable that it was there was this attempt to spread it around the world and it was inevitable to merely by that act, it began to develop contradiction within itself.
And, of course, over time, those contradiction grew because they became connected very much to the belief that in order to preserve this thing. This new liberal order, you needed at the core. American power, because without it, it would reg regret. And of course, over time, the importance of, focusing on power, created more complications and more contradiction as well because the exercise of power, almost by definition requires some degree of transcription of whatever rules there are So III think this is a process that in effect was programmed to happen for the moment the cold war ended. And, of course, so the relative power of the United States has declined as we’ve gone from a uni situation to a multi 1, which is inevitable.
It’s becoming possible to conceal those contradiction anymore. That would that’s what I wanted to say. I would just jump
Speaker 5: in at Alexandria, say I agree with you, of course. But I think the United States… Have done a much better job managing the liberal international order if it had had a wider touch. , there’s this distinction in the international Relations discourse between hard power and soft power. And I think the United States used to be quite good, but it came to soft power.
We certainly were during the cold war. But I think during the uni moment, as it wore on, we got less and less capable of exercising soft power. And we became sort of a blu push, or or we acted like a blender push in air relations. With lots of countries around the world. And and we alienate them.
And we did a lot, I think to undermine the Liberal International war. I think if we had been more sophisticated, we had had a lighter touch we would have been able to preserve it for a longer period of time. And during that period, we would have gotten more out of the order than we’re now getting.
Speaker 16: Unequivocally true. Okay. To dispute that because I think the record speaks through itself. I mean, I think I think that, at some point, the United States lost its ability to conduct negotiations and diplomacy and understand others and any became impatient and aggressive in ways that he absolutely did not need to be losing sight of ultimately of what was its own ultimate best interests, but there we are.
Speaker 5: I would just just to jump in quickly, Glenn. I would emphasize here that a lot of this has to do with the fact that the United States is a crusader state. And it’s a crusader state because it’s a liberal state. The United States is committed to rem making the world or has long been committed to rem making the world in its own image and using military forest if necessary to achieve that end. And the result is that we have gone around the world and behaved in a very heavy handed way, because of this liberal ideology.
It’s kinda counterintuitive because liberals are usually portrayed as being against the use of military force, and it’s realist like me who are described as hard nose proponents of using force here there and everywhere. But in a very important way the exact office, it is the difference. Realist tend to have less interest in using military forests than Liberals do. Again, it’s because this of this crusader impulse. It is hardwired into liberal ideology.
Speaker 0: So almost all liberal international relations theorists are left of center. Right. You might be very tempted to think, oh, they’re realist. Therefore, they’re gonna be right of center, but almost all of them are on the left. John Mis sc, would have voted for Bernie Sanders if he’d had that opportunity.
So in a in a tragic world, it’s very tempting to want to escape the world. And 1 of the primary methods of escape that people have used to find comfort is religion, and there’s a new. Memoir out cl it by years as a nun by a Catherine cold stream, and it’s reviewed here in the New York review of books. And so anyone who has even a passing encounter with the numb content. Produced over the N.
Produced over the past century understands what’s coming in a non memoir. This will be a story of religious corruption and tyra sub. There will be theological say ups. The twisting of scripture to serve human power structures, fur saf exploits. And women acting as acc to the dictates of patriarchy.
So often people want to escape from the confusing and In perfect world around them, the dirty world around them into religion. And then in the world of religion they find or all the same flaws. So all religious order biography hinges on a drama of escape. Right? Escape from reality.
Right? So the convert, speaks from vantage of liberation. They have been freed from the shackles of sin from the shackles of meaningless, and they look back on their years that you lived in bondage as as prisoner of your own impulses. And then you get the d conversion narrative that relies on the same arc, but in reverse, the ap wins freedom by fleeing the prison of institutional religion. Now each narrative is of course, a lie, The believer, even after his glimpse eternity must continue to live in the world with other fallen human beings and his own we would flesh.
Anyone who has left the church, by inevitably that secular life has plenty of constraints and disappointment of its own. So what drives the religious narrative of impulse is that first ecstatic taste of freedom, this this imagination that you have been saved. Right? You’ve been either saved from religion or you’ve been saved by religion, and there is no salvation. But no 1 is coming to save you.
There’s no 1 dramatic act that you as an individual or you as a people or you as a nation state can do. To save yourself. So the author of this memoir was raised in North London by 2 successful artists, so father was a British painter, William Cold stream And when her father died in the mid twenties, right the the trauma hit with a seismic force. Right? The there tends to be a special relationship between.
Fathers and daughters like their often between mothers and sons. And so even though Cold had not been raised religious, Right? She became convinced in her grief that she had a father in heaven. And so she began searching for a community to sustain her new faith in immortality. Here at Ces Lewis and Dos and K god and the bible, she worked at a soup kitchen.
She met a Dominican nun. She spent hours in solitary prayer. And she’d decided to give her life over to god. So I I know people who spend hours and hours in prayer, and they don’t live up to their obligations as as men or women to their spouses to their families, to their employers, Right. I find the the more God intoxicated the person the less likely used to be useful to other people.
And the more useful people tend to be the least. God intoxicated. Conversion experiences are usually the least convincing part of a faith narrative. Right? The the conversion epiphany.
Right? He’s watermark of shifting internal states consist of. Pure and test potential. Now I’m free. And the this particular author here cold stream, her passages, about her conversion are fitting vague to the point of meaningless.
So at age 27, she enters a synonymous carmel order. Where she spends the next 12 years and shock upon shock she finds within this order, the same sort of problems that she experienced in the white world. And she’d come to this order to punish a flesh to pray ins sol suit only to discover that the Nuns care more about maintaining a robust social life. Relaxing after day of singing in prayer. She’s outraged by the sheer excess of lack of balance when it comes to pleasure and fun, at many converts, are outraged by the lack of religious rigor on the part of that newfound religious community.
And in this man meanwhile, she lists off all the rules that the The leader of the con is breaking. She calls off chores on a whim. She allows nuns to phone their families during the great silence. And she secretly feeds feral cats that are not supposed to be let insides. And her outrage peaks when she hears the mother superior telling another novice that she need not bother reading S saint John of the cross.
Wasn’t he 1 of the foundational teachers of the order So she is disappointed that none of the sisters want to discuss the theology. And the author dread the mandate recreation. Chic she finds the monastery life insufficient radical. Now, any book person can sympathize with the tyranny of leisure. So you give me a certain social interaction or, , mandated leisure, and I year to return to my books.
And few things are more disappointing to the typical con convert than religious lax. Right? So she joined this con. Hoping to find a gathering of the like minded, but instead she found a motley crew, And they are also from a lower class in herself. Right?
She was 1 of the few nuns who came from an upper class family, and so she had trouble fitting in. Which and she finds that she’s disliked for artistic temperament. Right? She’s chi for how easily she cries. And when she plays the Viola and loses herself in ecstatic rapture.
So the conrad wasn’t sufficiently sensitive to her artistic yearning. Only certain people were allowed to be themselves she complained. Only certain characteristics counted human enough for the mother superior. Being sensitive, intros irrespective, our artistic emotional creative questioning or philosophically inclined just didn’t count. So Art and religion are 2 ways that people try to find meaning in life, and what type of people go searching for meaning life, people lack normal human ties.
Right? That this woman was not normally engaged with other people she not built a family of her own. And so into that void, she tries to fill it with religion and art. And she’s looking to create a life of artistic genius, but very few people have artistic genius capabilities. Right?
She’s she’s trying to be a lover of bark. Alright? She wants her a whole life to be, as as magnificent and perfect as the music of Bark and said she’s forced to sing boy and dance the H Ko. So she’s excluded from the other nuns. Alright?
She feels single out and punished. She considers self not merely an artist, but a rebel and a philosopher and a profit. And she says that their religious people either tend to be club minded or heavily minded. Right. So the profits that the the mouthpiece for God, are those concerned with the big picture and speaking out, utter the truth, having the courage of their conviction, speaking truth the power.
Right? That’s 1 type of religious person, but most religious people are club minded. Right? They will only say that which has approved the by the group of which they’re apart. And if you want to survive and thrive with your community, then you will speak primarily only that which is approved by the human collective of which you are apart.
Right? That there’s going to be a severe cap on how far you can go in saying many things. Right? There there’s no community that does not deny much of reality And so she feels bullied and sn and you kind of gu the author to embrace her prophetic mega. Disappear into the desert, climb to the top of some mountain and call on a complacent church to find his way back to its pioneering ideals, but she really voices her grievances allowed.
Now she was not alone in her idealistic further. Right? She she managed to find 1 other nun who was just as excited, But this this nun has a mental breakdown. So many of the people who are the most fe, right, or also the most mentally ill because if you are mentally stable. Alright?
You connected to other people, and you’re at ease with yourself, and you’re gonna have less need to go take these dramatic religious journeys. Right? The the desire to embrace self emulation. Right, does not come from a healthy, happy constructive place. Someone who’s obsessed with conquering temptation and suppressing one’s true feelings is not usually a happy well adjusted person.
And she ends up concluding that her problems are the fault of the con. And so she ends up leaving the con, getting married. And moving on. Right? So when she’s able to establish a a home of her own with with the man that she loves, alright?
She doesn’t have the same extreme need for searching for for meaning and for transcend purpose. So we will we will often go make dramatic gestures. To avoid confronting the darkness in our own soul. And she notes I I’ve joined the con blinded by my love affair with the divine. So there are many ways that we can get talks by religion or alcohol or sports or Netflix, anything to avoid confronting lack of ease that we have with ourselves,
Speaker 17: interesting in refer to, yeah, crusader state because I was wondering if there’s a contradiction and and the idea of liberal head because liberal is kinda of carries with this 2 legacies on 1 hand or definitions internal contradiction because on 1 hand, liberal should be, based on tolerance towards different views, so different regime types as well, the ability to harmon and get a all On the other side, we have limitless much as often also based on this universal ideals and values. So there’s the assumption that everyone will begin to conform around these same values. And when that doesn’t happen, there’s a less and less, acceptance if you will towards different regime types. And the reason why I was thinking it’s perhaps inconsistent with hedge money is because if you do have our hedge money, you have the dominance, and you have the tools to force through this universal. And so that aspect of liberal and kind of ignore the, aspect we’re they’re supposed to be tolerance to…
Different regime types in order to get along, and I remember your colleague, Steven Waltz. He was… I think he made this point that after the cold war were the main challenge the united states I think it compared a 500 pound gorilla or something that main problem was how to rest constrain itself, because others couldn’t rest restoring the Us anymore. And now it have to find a way of we’re straining itself and well, stan states do not don’t strain themselves. So this is a…
Yeah. Like, a key problem So I think this is why you might have a… We might see the United States engaging, excessive use so force. And perhaps undermine a lot of the same liberal ideals in the same process.
Speaker 5: I mean, I agree with you completely. There is that tension sitting at the heart of liberal. And I I think what happened is that the lack of tolerance that is embedded in liberal, triumph over the tolerance. That is also embedded in liberal and and we got ourselves into a lot of trouble. And by the way, it’s not just the United States.
It’s the west more generally because most European countries drank the Ko aid. And if you sort of look at what we’re doing around the world.
Speaker 0: And La lithuania says in the chat, having bat bat boys with each male get under a secular regime. I just renewed my subscription to the New York review of box. I just love this publication. And there’s an excellent review here about a new book from Peter Heather. It’s called Christendom, The triumph for a religion 8300 to 1300.
So it’s a colossal book written by a colossus in the field, the triumph of religion, it covers a millennium from the conversion of the Roman Emperor constantine in the year 03:12, for the baptism of the grand duke of Lithuania, the last pagan ruler of Europe around 12:50. So why was Christianity so successful? And the author rejects the romantic notion that Christianity rose to the top of the late roman and empire by its intrinsic merits alone without the help of the powerful. And the author has the attitude that essentially constantine revolution by converting to Christianity in Year 03:12 is that perhaps the most audacious act ever committed by an auto in disregard and defiance of the vast majority of his subject. So sometimes, a powerful leader can do things against the will of the overwhelming majority of his subjects.
And This new book offers a cog analysis of the structure of Roman Upper class society in its relationship to the Roman state, which made Roman Elite, particularly vulnerable to pressure from a Christian court. So my understanding of why Christian christianity rose to power was 1, it was It was in part a top down phenomenon. The ruling elites found benefit with aligning with christianity and creating an in group around Christianity. 2, many individuals found meaning ant purpose and a a way of life. That was simply superior to what they had elsewhere.
And the those are those are the 2 to primary reasons. Right? It it helped individuals and communities, and it was also of use to ruling elites. So ruling elites from constantine on, right, pushed people into joining their in group. But it wasn’t always done at the point of a sword.
Right? There there wasn’t a… Late Roman state that could enforce an ideology, but it could seduce. Right? So the Roman elite had networks of friends and clients.
The stretch from the court to the lower reaches of the gen entry, and there was just never ce waterfall of favors asked and favors received. If you wanted to get anything done, you had to please someone. And this someone was someone who would please the Amp emperor and those around him Once the emperor made plane that he was an orthodox Christian and that he would shut his ears to the petitions of non christians, the message trickle down in society with surprising speed. And you had the development of a confession Christian state. And by 3 79 access to public offices, and the 4 privileges of Roman citizenship were restricted solely to.
Right? Something like a communist party membership in a communist country. And so the christian of the Roman ward very much occurred from the top down. Now not every Christian was entitled to this membership. There are all sorts of Christians who had…
Complicated attitudes and and belief systems and practices that were considered, , out of bounds, So this christianity from 3300 ad to 1300 ad. It was varied. Alright? But throughout this millennium, it was the rulers. First the Emperors and then the local rulers who largely called the shot.
So from Western Europe, the Atlantic coast of Island in the sixth and seventh century Iceland in the tenth, yet had a well tried formula. He had the combination of the carrot and the stick. From Right? And that was usually sufficient to create Christian communities, which would then serve by local bishop and cl who in turn serve the ruling king or secular leader. Because they they were the ones who had literacy.
So you didn’t have a central ecclesiastical authority. Right? A powerful paper set see only developed in the thirteenth century. And every generation brought its own style of Christianity, Christianity had to constantly adapt to changing circumstances, So you had different notions, different practices constantly coming to the fore because of the changing circumstances in society. You’re that there was not a single juggernaut Christianity, proceeding all the way from the galilee to the shores of the Baltic.
Alright? We have a series of Christianity each distinctive and different. If you imagine Christians of 1 age, you’d be down dumbfounded by the Christians of a different age. And so if you read this new book, you experienced the wish of a roller coaster as Christianity passes from 1 form to another. Against the background of an ever wider Europe.
And the book ends with the latter and council of 12:15, at which Christianity is transformed once again to become the Catholic church that we can now recognize it’s the church of the crusade and the great cathedrals of Gothic Europe It’s a church centered firmly on the papacy. It starts leg every detail of the Christian life being a uniform Christianity. Its representatives and decree reach the farthest corners of Europe and it’s a church that flexes its muscles by turning the state. Against heretics and Jews, the development of the in. Alright, The product not of mindless biggest, but products are the finest mines in the newly founded universities.
So we have… Before that, a thousand years of a rich descent creativity in which the population of Europe moves from a position of enormous religious diversity to ladder uniformity, And what is the author trying to convey to us? And this New York review books? States, he must imagine any of his readers to be what the English call blokes. Just average joe’s with the heads arm with little time for meta physical matters.
They relate easily to the scenarios in which Roman mandarin some pig and warlords slip into Christianity as a result of a little nudge from on high. And so this is a study of governing class interests, more than stormy accounts of individual confessions. But there there were many stormy accounts of individual confessions. So which individuals had the stormy confessions usually once who were not married with kids. Right?
If your life was working, you’re much less vulnerable to having these, stormy confessions and and dramatic religious conversions. So the reviewer objects to this model of Christianity, because it makes average believers seem more passive than they really were, that the author rights of the progress of the Christian churches if he you were a Ceo, viewing with contentment the smooth functioning of his enterprise and the reviewer says, that we need to hear more about the Holy ghost. Right? So all sorts of individuals were driven by demons and their experiences of the divine and the male malevolent. They were touched by the warm presence of Ben evelyn spirits.
Right? That their souls were moved. Because, individuals also respond to incentives if their life isn’t working, right, if reality is too boring or too oppressive, then people will have tremendous incentive to escape to a a new type of living 1 where they have this ecstatic comm with the divine.
Speaker 5: Well, when I use the term away. There’s no question the United States is in the Vanguard, but the European powers are right up there with them, especially the British.
Speaker 17: Boy yeah. No, I wouldn’t suggest the exclusive to the united States. I think As you mentioned when the the yeah. The west is big wall Liberals often become more aggressive. I think this also applies to the European simply because, if you have an ideology, which suggest that the contemporary flawed world of a secured competition can be transcend presented towards some perpetual piece if we just all adopt these universal values, this end, it tends to legit a very violent means, so, who who wouldn’t go wanna go on perpetual war if it brings with it promise health perpetual peace.
So I think this is, Yeah. Something we bought into as well, very much even more so and he after the cold war in which, yeah, we had this special mandate to transform the world to to a better place And once politicians believe they have this power, I think, like, willing to devote significant resources and, use some, yeah, very ugly means achieve.
Speaker 16: He very just to know when exactly the United States did become a Crusader state because, at some level, I mean there’s always been a least in British liberal listen. There’s has always been attention. Between an imperialist liberal, people like Milk, for example. And an anti imperialist list, liberal lisbon, which has also existed. I’m H who wrote this book He’s for the famous criticizing empire For example, was an anti imperialist liberal.
When did the United States decide to become an imperial, a rather period and a crusader state that saw its mission to expand liberal all over the world. Was this always so? Was it there? It’s , hardwired from the beginning or did it develop perhaps around Wilt with Wilson and, , the period around the first world war? Or did it come after during the second world war?
Because, I should say that in amongst many people in Europe, and by the way, I agree completely that the Europeans today are as aggressive. In promoting Liberal American song. But at 1 time in Europe, there was this belief that the United States was different that it was not a Crusader in the same way. My father who was very, very much part of the old European political left. For example, born in the 19 twenties, He’s conception of the United States.
So said it was liberal, which is of course a good thing to. It’s what he was concerned. But there it was also Pacific, that he didn’t have great armies. Didn’t have, , interfere around the world that it looked to itself, developed its economy and even after the second world war he retained a sort of lingering belief that this was so and that the period of the cold war was a kind of anomaly.
Speaker 5: Let me say a couple words, Alexander, to try to answer your question…
Speaker 0: So sometimes, I’ll spent most of my day just reading books. And Occasionally, I I will feel lonely. Rarely? Rarely does lonely that that has of loneliness affect me. But it occasionally, , imp into my consciousness.
But probably just as frequently, if not more frequently, I’ll be socializing and after a couple of hours or drive me crazy. I am just dying to get back to my box. I just can’t wait to to leave Mundane Earthly worldly conversations behind and just returned to by box. And there’s a great review here in the New York review of box. Titled live than the living.
And it’s a review of 2 books, 1 called a marvelous sol, the art of reading, an early modern Europe, and the other book is called untold futures time literary culture in Renaissance England. So in the Renaissance reading became both a passion and a pose of detachment for those who could afford it from the pursuits of wealth and power. So if you’re losing in the pursuit of wealth and power, it can be quite comforting to comfort yourself with reading a lot. And yeah, I I guess, there’s there’s no way about it. I have consistently been losing at the pursuit of wealth and hour and to comfort myself, I have devoted a great deal of time to reading.
I remember when I first moved to the United States, I think in May of 19 77. Ice would spend all my days in the Pacific Union College library and started off reading books on World war 2, then reading books on why my Germany because they had some pretty racing photos. I was 11 years of age at this time, and I would read 8 hours a day because I didn’t know anyone in this new setting. And when I did meet my future classmates, because I had Adhd because I was a bit socially m adjusted, I I would greet them by splashing water at them and, , trying to ins integrate arguments. I was always trying to set up debates in my school.
And the the teachers were worried that I went I was not reading books appropriate for my age. And so they try to get me to stop reading books at the college library and just said, , read the much simpler books in my elementary score. And so for me, over the course of my life, , reading has been both an inspiration, it’s been, number 1 thing that I wanted to do, but it has also been a solace and a comfort in a perhaps say a pose of detachment from losing at so much of life. Right? I’ve I’ve never married.
I don’t have kids. I’m I’m not rich, and I’ve I’ve never been rich, and I’ve never been powerful and never been married and and never been a father. And so to comfort myself, from losing at the game of life, I have spent a great deal of my time reading books. And a lot of people, I noticed who are losing at the game of life, seat comfort. Some of them by participating in online gaming.
Others, playing a lot of video games, other people by creating live streams, other people by following sports intensely, or by watching Netflix, doing drugs or alcohol or pursuing sex. Alright, There are many ways that someone can seek comfort. But these 2 new books so about the pursuit of comfort through the art of reading in early modern Europe. And it begins by quoting the Italian poet Petra in 13 48. I think he says, I daily listen to your words with more attention than 1 would believe, Perhaps, I shall not be thought pertinent in wishing to be heard by you, and who was Petra talking to?
A petra was talking to the Roman philosopher Seneca who died about 1300 years previous. The petra had a practice of writing to long dead authors. Reminds me a bit of, my virtual relationship with the talk show host, Dennis P. Right? I, , passionately faithfully listened to his shows and write him letters.
So there was this movement in the fourteenth of fifteenth century, A human I is an exchange by which school boys and scholars cross late medieval and early modern Europe formed their ideas, their values their images, their taste and the turns frames, praise along the lines of an antiquity that they were just beginning to regard as classical. Their And so this was both a pe method and a critical background. Who would you take on as your exe? So if we would have, like, a passionate discussion. Alright?
I would, in our likelihood bring to you. What I thought were were my best? My best qualities is in moral judgment and in information. And so when you reveal who your favorite pun is, right, or your favorite intellectual, right, you’re revealing who you are. And who you choose to follow?
Alright? It says a great deal about you. Alright? Which particular tax appeal to you. Alright?
That says something about both your genetics and your early upbringing and the incentives around you. So who do you wanna take on as your exe? Who do you wanna closely follow? Like, which intellectual models do you want to embrace? Which intellectual models you want to avoid which intellectual models do you want to improve on.
These were all subjects of fe debate, among liter in the fourteenth fifteenth and sixteenth century. So in theory, you would emulate the best and that would, , lead you to a higher realm, but in practice, emulation frequently leads to intellectual stability. So the primary rewards of this type of imitation were emotional. Right? You got to commune with other minds.
And this fortified you against your disappointment in the present. Right? I’ve never been married. Never been rich. Never been powerful.
Never been successful, but I fortified myself by reading a lot and living in this imaginary virtual world of the of ideas. So when you spend time with your favorite book, you can gather your dear and closest imaginary friends. Alright, Even people who who’ve died hundreds and thousands of years before you. And If you’re failing at real life, this may be an enormous sense of comfort. Right?
So for people who struggle accumulating wealth and power, and don’t have particularly close ties with the people around them. Right, Reading will bring pleasures more intimate and more intense than the satisfaction afforded by other otherworldly goods. This intimacy, this removal of oneself from life always comes at a cost. Alright? You’ll have a sense of being un to your time and situation you’ll have a feeling of being extraneous, useless and alienate from those around you.
So it’s very likely to develop upon mis philanthropic tendencies. And so those of us who love to lose ourselves in book. Books. Right? We we just find them more satisfying than talking to people.
And I indeed usually find reading a book more satisfying than talking to… 98 percent of people that I could talk with. Right? Because when you absorb yourself in a book, there’s no td, Right? You have no complaints.
You have no envy. There’s no d defeat and murmur. Right? You are satisfied with very meager physical possessions. You are satisfied with a lack of power and prestige in the real world.
You don’t need expensive food or drink. You are released from your sexual obsessions and other jealous, Right? Instead, you can find your ideal companions in in these books. And so if you think that your real world friends just don’t measure up. Might think, oh, this one’s too apa empathetic.
This one’s too anxious. This one’s too slow. This one’s too hasty. This one’s too sad. This one’s too cheerful for.
This one’s too simple. Another one’s 2 wise than I want. I fear this one’s. I fear this one’s. And so who do you bring with you?
Right? You you may well bring with you the authors of your favorite books. So Petra brought his youngest brother at Gerard dorado. And a pocket sized copy of Augustine confessions when he climbed a mountain. Right?
Mount Ben 2. And arriving at the summit, exhausted an out of breath, he opened the volume of Augustine confessions at random and he read this from Book 10. Men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains and the mighty waves of the sea and the white sweep of the rivers and the circuit of the ocean and the revolution of the stars, but themselves, they consider not. And and Pet took this as a rebuke and as a revelation. I was satisfied that I’d seen enough of the mountain.
I now turn my in inward eye upon myself. And what 1 may indeed feel that the the author’s words are addressed to me and to no other. So Petra developed this myth of of reading as a dialogue with the death. With the dead. Right?
Something that’s both timeless and immediate. And so he wrote to a friend. I read what is said in Vi virtual horace, bo prometheus and Ci not once, but countless times. I’ve thoroughly absorbed these writings. I’ve implanted them not only in my memory memory but in in the very marrow of my bones.
They have become 1 with my mind that where I never to read them again for the rest of my life, they would cling to me. They have taken root in the innermost recesses of my mind. So we are born to connect. And if we don’t connect with other the people as is the norm, and as usually the healthiest solution, will have to bond with something else and probably better to bond with books than to bond with the, , drugs or alcohol or prom sex. And Patreon Petra, to friend did did not have fore, whom we wish to emulate, spend all their lives with books with literature and grow old with literature and meet their end with literature.
And Petra would keep emphasizing the advantages of books over living people with Right, those who think they alive because they see traces of their stale breath in the frosty air. Right. So no doubt, people like Vi and Horace and Be and Ci, At their own human feelings, right, they may have been difficult and stubborn. They might have had hal, but in their writings, the flower and their fruit of their intellect is un and abounding. You get to live in an abstract somewhat ideal world.
Un Right? So the ghost that when encounters through reading is better than the real person in this perspective. Right? That the book is the mirror of the saw, but it is a mirror that selects the best. It refine the image of the author cleanse it of all traces of the mundane.
And so for the person who yawn for refinement, They may they may well the ultimate escape from the mentality of the present in books. The Pet confessed friend I d. Single mind, I’m learning about integrity because this present age always displeased me. My father would often say I don’t give a cracker for this world. I always wish to have been born in any other age and to forget this age.
I want to graph myself into the minds of the ages. I’m grateful to all those authors I have read. And I do hope that those who read me will be sim grateful. Alright. So reading becomes a passion if you lack passions in real life.
Then and now. It’s also a pose. Right? It can demonstrate an ari detachment from the pursuit of wealth and power and social connections. And for many people, that their library is there crown.
Glory. And and many, , set aside, a room. It is particular a holy place for for reading just as you may very well set aside, a special room in your home to enjoy this show. And when you Go into this holy room, you may well light a candle. You may dress in special clothing to be fit the the mastery and the majesty of this show.
Speaker 5: Before I do that, just to reinforce your point regarding your father, you wanna remember that Roosevelt was deeply committed to putting an end to British empire, and the European empire is more generally. Americans did not like the whole concept of Empire at all. And that’s when we had a more restrained liberal view of international politics. Now with regard to your question, I think there are 2 events that are of enormous importance. For explaining when we turned into a crusader state.
First is the end of the cold war. Just think about the Frank Fu argument, the Fu argument, which was widely accepted in the United States, and I believe the West more generally is that the cold war had been an ideological conflict between communism and liberal democracy. And liberal democracy had won. And Frank made the argument in the famous piece that we had defeated fascism in the first half of the twentieth century, and then we had defeated communism in the second half of the twentieth century. And we had triumph in a way that was almost unimaginable before the cold war ended.
So we were so full of ourselves when that cold war ended. Right? We just thought that, , liberal was the future. It… And this is with Is.
It as time goes by eventually, all the countries on the planet are gonna turn into liberal democracies. Because it’s a wonderful thing. What’s that happens? You’re really off to the races. Right?
Now, throughout the 19 nineties the Clinton administration was very hesitant about using military force to support that crusader impulse and largely because of Vietnam. But then the Afghanistan war happens. And I think what happens in the first few months of that war is enormously important for explaining. Why we turned to using military force to support the Crusader impulse. Remember, we get attacked on September eleventh, and then we go to war in mid October of of 2001.
And the war is effectively over by early December of 2001. It really goes for 2 months at the most. And it looks like we have won a spectacular victory. The the Taliban has been decisively defeated, we believe, the Europeans come command to help run, Afghanistan, and we adopt the bush doctor at that point because we think we have now found the magic formula for knocking off regimes, putting in a democratic leader, and then moving on to the next target. So after we’re done with Afghanistan, we think we can do iraq, we think Iraq will be quick and easy.
Didn’t Afghanistan Tele. We knocked go off the Taliban in 2 months. We put Cars in power. Now we’re off to deal with iraq. I remember when the Israelis caught wind that we were gonna do a iraq before we did Iran.
This is right around January 2003 of my memory is correct. The Israelis sent a delegation over to talk to the Bush administration to ask why they were doing a iraq and not doing Iran. The bush administration and the neo conservatives more generally, told the Israelis relax. We’re gonna do a iraq. And when we’re done with the iraq, we’ll do a iran or Syria, and pretty soon all the countries in the region are gonna throw up their hands because they’re gonna understand that we have the magic formula for knocking off regimes and replacing them with liberal democracy.
So just don’t worry. We’ll get to Iran and Duke cores.
Speaker 0: So you’ll often find in the narratives of people who are all passionate about their, , great search for meaning. Their love for books. You’ll often detect a a false note or 2, you’ll kinda sense the strain in their narratives, your you’ll recognize that their great search for meaning. Right, that they try to convince you as something angelic, something astounding, something merit is in large part, a distraction or a comfort from failures in real life. Right?
So we often Get a sense of how our own self flattering mythology is a compensation or a failure to compensate. Or our inability to find other sources of purpose and fulfillment aside from our 1 designated source of purpose and fulfillment in religion or in intellectual endeavors or in following our favorite sports teams or in politics. Or it with other people too, you’ll often start hearing these false notes, your you’ll detect the strain that they’re trying to convince themselves, how merit their pursuit of of meaning or religious purpose is. So people who have children usually don’t need to seek excitement elsewhere don’t need to go searching for for meaning. But if you’re failing in the real world and you don’t have children and you don’t see yourself having…
Prospects of attaining money or power, then you’ve gotta find comfort somewhere. So Machiavelli In the sixteenth century in 15 12, he was removed from office. He was arrested. He was tortured and finally released to a farm. And in a letter to a patron, he talked about his nightly comm with books.
That helped him to endure the failures of real life that helped him to endure the p provocation and the ted of exile says on the coming of evening, I returned to my house and enter my study. At the door, I take off the day’s clothing covered with mud and dust and put on garments regal and court. And rec preclude appropriately, I entered the ancient courts of ancient men. Where I received by them with affection a feed on that food, which only is mine, in which I was born for. Where I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reasons for their actions.
And they and their kindness me, and for 4 hours of time, I do not feel boredom. I forget every trouble. I do not dread poverty. I’m not frightened by death entirely I give myself over to them. A And because Dante says it is no true knowledge unless we remember what we have understood.
I’ve noted everything in their conversations, which has benefited me, and I’ve composed a little work, the prince. So this is the most extraordinary rendering of the the benefits of reading. But the the pleasures of Nikola Machiavelli reading are both a backdrop, a carefully arranged backdrop to the scene of his writing, which he is using to try to regain a place in the world. Right? It it needs his patrons help.
Right? He’s running out of money. So at the end of this very same letter, he mentions I’m using up my money. , I’m entering poverty. I wish that the people in power will make use of me.
So the labor of ambition assists and Right They’re ar They’re gru, potentially pointless, but they are the very labor for which Machiavelli longs, and it doesn’t work. Alright? Alright. So you can hint as much as you want about how much you love that the life of box, but you’d be you’d be willing to enter. A worldly service.
But you you’re are so enamored with the box, Right? You’re so lost in books and commuting with the ancients because your real life isn’t working. And if your real life was working, you wouldn’t spend nearly as much time with the ancients. Alright? A normal person.
Has the choose between interacting with with a family member or a friend, then they have good relations or spending time with the ancients, it’s usually again to spend time with a flesh and blood, member their family or a friend. So the board successfully, Machiavelli letter creates and sustain. His illusion of presence of speech, the recovery of the past and the gl of commuting with the ancients. Right? The more acutely does it impose the realization of the absence and loss in his own life.
And so changes in the air in the sixteenth century, we get the printing pressed books become more readily available. And so more people can lose themselves in books if real life proves to be too disappointing. And if reality is not to your liking, you can go stand on a different stage. You can go live in a different theater. You can inhabit a different world and just lose yourself in the the pure ideas in the pure narratives of the great thinkers if people in real life are just too disappointing to you.
Speaker 5: So we’ll deal with Iran in due course. So you see, we thought that military force coupled with the fact that the world was moving toward more and more liberal democracies. This is the fu argument. Really allowed us to go on a rampage, which we have done since 09:11. And again, we were moving in that direction in the 19 nineties, And I think this is would allow These 2 events, the end of the cold war and the perceived victory, the false belief false.
I wanna underlying false belief we had 1 in Afghanistan. Allowed us to think that, , we could act on that Crusader mentality that was deeply embedded in the United States.
Speaker 16: This was a, I major mistake in 1 which history, which I if those people study very well. Perhaps would have taught them would be a mistake. I mean, somebody wants certain know. Nobody loves our commissioner.
Speaker 17: I think it’s interesting because there’s all people look at American for call today. Of dismiss the liberal metric has simply come flushing very crude power interest. But I do think that the there… This is quite genuine though, and the Henry Kissing made this argument in terms of he wrote about world orders as well he I was making the argument that this is, limitless is not just the, , cover for American dominance is also something very deeply embedded in the united States. This idea that they have to…
Bring forth this ideals now also applying to your pins. But many will bring a further back on beyond the end of the corridor because, I guess, woodrow wilson will be the well, often recognize recognizes what who made the United States initially into a crusader state because before then they had the the idea that at least while, it’s liberal, liberal, it was be spread by the Us being this great example of how to organize a proper peaceful society based on non intervention. And I think was in, yeah, the first world war when Woodrow wilson really came out and said. , we have to make the world safe for the democracy is, this will be the war to end all wars that this is really when, united states began at least beyond the Americas to convert itself from a, a role model to be emulate to instead, take on this active offensive, role as a crusader state if you will, this is a good. Good good terminology, But I was very disputed it because some people go back to 80 98 with the the defeat of the Spanish and the Us getting their colleagues.
Which she had the people, like Mark Twain saying, , this poisoned in the soul of America. It was William James, the America picked up It peeled up its soul. So very dramatic language to suggest that, , their American source weren’t supposed to be, like Europeans, but they were supposed to become like us with this prime building, and this is when they essentially began to turn when they made the manifest destiny into a more international c colombian project if you. At Ian.
Speaker 0: Okay. Let’s leave it there for this week. I’ll talk to you blokes later. Bye bye.