Podcasts about bolshevik revolution

Today Josh Neal returns to interview J. Otto Pohl on his landmark - but woefully under appreciated - work of historical scholarship The Years of Great Silence. Buy Ottos book here. Follow him on twitter.Buy Josh's book here. Follow him on twitter.Follow me on Substack!From the back of the book: “This monograph provides a detailed yet concise narrative of the history of the ethnic Germans in the Russian Empire and USSR. It starts with the settlement in the Russian Empire by German colonists in the Volga, Black Sea, and other regions in 1764, tracing their development and Tsarist state policies towards them up until 1917. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet policy towards its ethnic Germans varied. It shifted from a generally favorable policy in the 1920s to a much more oppressive one in the 1930s, i.e. already before the Soviet-German war.J. Otto Pohl traces the development of Soviet repression of ethnic Germans. In particular, he focuses on the years 1941 to 1955 during which this oppression reached its peak. These years became known as “the Years of Great Silence” (“die Jahre des grossen Schweigens”). In fact, until the era of glasnost (transparency) and perestroika (rebuilding) in the late 1980s, the events that defined these years for the Soviet Germans could not be legally researched, written about, or even publicly spoken about, within the USSR.”

Today Josh Neal returns to interview J. Otto Pohl on his landmark - but woefully under appreciated - work of historical scholarship The Years of Great Silence. Buy Ottos book here. Follow him on twitter.Buy Josh's book here. Follow him on twitter.Follow me on Substack!From the back of the book: “This monograph provides a detailed yet concise narrative of the history of the ethnic Germans in the Russian Empire and USSR. It starts with the settlement in the Russian Empire by German colonists in the Volga, Black Sea, and other regions in 1764, tracing their development and Tsarist state policies towards them up until 1917. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet policy towards its ethnic Germans varied. It shifted from a generally favorable policy in the 1920s to a much more oppressive one in the 1930s, i.e. already before the Soviet-German war.J. Otto Pohl traces the development of Soviet repression of ethnic Germans. In particular, he focuses on the years 1941 to 1955 during which this oppression reached its peak. These years became known as “the Years of Great Silence” (“die Jahre des grossen Schweigens”). In fact, until the era of glasnost (transparency) and perestroika (rebuilding) in the late 1980s, the events that defined these years for the Soviet Germans could not be legally researched, written about, or even publicly spoken about, within the USSR.”

Today Josh Neal returns to interview J. Otto Pohl on his landmark - but woefully under appreciated - work of historical scholarship The Years of Great Silence. Buy Ottos book here. Follow him on twitter.Buy Josh's book here. Follow him on twitter.Follow me on Substack!From the back of the book: “This monograph provides a detailed yet concise narrative of the history of the ethnic Germans in the Russian Empire and USSR. It starts with the settlement in the Russian Empire by German colonists in the Volga, Black Sea, and other regions in 1764, tracing their development and Tsarist state policies towards them up until 1917. After the Bolshevik Revolution, Soviet policy towards its ethnic Germans varied. It shifted from a generally favorable policy in the 1920s to a much more oppressive one in the 1930s, i.e. already before the Soviet-German war.J. Otto Pohl traces the development of Soviet repression of ethnic Germans. In particular, he focuses on the years 1941 to 1955 during which this oppression reached its peak. These years became known as “the Years of Great Silence” (“die Jahre des grossen Schweigens”). In fact, until the era of glasnost (transparency) and perestroika (rebuilding) in the late 1980s, the events that defined these years for the Soviet Germans could not be legally researched, written about, or even publicly spoken about, within the USSR.”

VCAST, The War on Christians... 1 in 7 Christians are persecuted. The Church is asleep regarding Noahide laws and it is moving fast. Are we seeing the same playbook of the Bolshevik Revolution (anti-free speech laws)? Anti-prayer laws are being implemented in the Commonwealth. They know there is power in prayer. Is USA inc. still apart of the Crown? Endure to the end my friends. Eye opening VCAST on the lateness of the hour.

When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a sultan.  The palace becomes a circus. – Ancient Turkish Proverb    Clips Played:  The Downfall Of The Romanov Family (youtube.com)    The UnXplained: Rasputin’s Dark Prophecies Revealed (Special) (youtube.com)    Music:  Buffalo Springfield – For What It’s Worth + Lyrics (Stop Hey What’s that […] The post The Gilded Age McKinley & Trump -The Romanov Family Russia History Lies – Lenin and Stalin were Illuminati -Bolshevik Revolution -Planned Genocide of White Christians- White Circassians & Armenian Children on Orphan Trains.  Karl Marx paid by Rothchilds. appeared first on Psychopath In Your Life.

Johnny Cirucci, author and host of the Resistance Rising! Podcast is no stranger to conflict, corruption, and speaking his truth.Johnny knew it was time to get out of the military. Although he excelled in leadership, he was unfulfilled in his service. A tour in Iraq confirmed it.After that, only one subject motivated him—obsessively so: getting to the truth. He had been writing and blogging since college, and some of his articles were picked up by alternative websites.Johnny began investigating “the Illuminati” and was surprised to find links pointing back towards the Vatican.  An article he wrote on the subject was picked up by Before It's News and did well enough to motivate Johnny to finally write his first book: Illuminati Unmasked.  He's been writing books, researching and investigating ever since.Johnny has been interviewed many times since Illuminati Unmasked was published in 2015.  Quite a few of these were serial appearances, and some even serial collaborations. Join us for this King Hero interview to zero in on World War 2 and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russian and show how the history we learned is not the past that was.Johnny's extended bio & website:https://johnnycirucci.com/about/books:https://www.amazon.com/Johnny-Cirucci/e/B01N6T2RT6vid hubs:• Odysee:https://odysee.com/@Johnny_Cirucci:4• Rumble:https://rumble.com/user/ResistanceRising• BitChute:https://www.bitchute.com/channel/wNZZkvylPP9c/  ***Bumper music by Liam Martens, aka ツSaiko, sub to him here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SA1KO0O1  ***MORE FROM BETHSign up to take a 5-minute King Hero's Journey archetype quizApply to become a member of the House of Free Will MinistryRumbleKing Hero Telegram ChannelTwitter (X)InstagramSign up for a Hero's Journey Archetype ReadingOrder a copy of my book, ‘Journey: A Map of Archetypes to Find Lost Purpose in a Sea of Meaninglessness'Donate by PayPal if you're inspiredFollow the King Hero's Journey Podcast on Apple Podcasts SpotifyBeing free is not a spectator sport - Hal Anthony, “Behind the Woodshed” ***If we're just meeting...I'm Beth Martens, a pattern hunter, archetype reader, podcaster, author, coach trainer, and business coach, and my calling is a life or death thing. After a decade as a corporate VP in my family's firm, eight trips to India, and a three-year battle with cancer nearly 25 years ago, I used archetypes and deprogramming harmful patterns to save my life.I was doing nearly everything wrong, in the physical, but tapped into and let go of the roots of the matter that were embedded and unconscious. And I went from dying to living practically overnight.Today I help people who love the truth more than their beliefs, and who want to serve with their life's work and be on their Hero's Journey, to de-program the beast system and stop making it easy for those trying to kill us.I host regular King Hero interviews highlighting leaders, entrepreneurs, movement makers, and lovers of freedom.

Russia has a long history of publishers operating from abroad, producing books and periodicals for a Russian-speaking audience. One notable example is The Bell (Kolokol), published by Alexander Herzen, the Russian writer and thinker who emigrated in the mid-19th century. The waves of Russian emigration in the 20th century—beginning with those fleeing the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution—led to the creation of numerous Russian-language publishing ventures, ranging from short-lived projects to long-standing institutions. Among the most well-remembered are the YMCA Press in Paris, Posev and Grani in Germany, and Ardis Publishing, founded in the early 1970s—not by Russians, but by American literary scholars. Exiled Russian publishers not only printed the works of fellow émigré authors but also played a crucial role in tamizdat—smuggling manuscripts deemed ideologically unacceptable by the Soviet regime out of the USSR, publishing them abroad, and then covertly reintroducing them into the country for clandestine distribution. After Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, prompting the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russians, it was only a matter of time before new émigré publishing houses emerged. In this conversation, we speak with Feliks Sandalov, co-founder and director of StraightForward, one of the newly established Russian publishing initiatives in exile, about his work and the evolving landscape of Russian publishing abroad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Russia has a long history of publishers operating from abroad, producing books and periodicals for a Russian-speaking audience. One notable example is The Bell (Kolokol), published by Alexander Herzen, the Russian writer and thinker who emigrated in the mid-19th century. The waves of Russian emigration in the 20th century—beginning with those fleeing the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution—led to the creation of numerous Russian-language publishing ventures, ranging from short-lived projects to long-standing institutions. Among the most well-remembered are the YMCA Press in Paris, Posev and Grani in Germany, and Ardis Publishing, founded in the early 1970s—not by Russians, but by American literary scholars. Exiled Russian publishers not only printed the works of fellow émigré authors but also played a crucial role in tamizdat—smuggling manuscripts deemed ideologically unacceptable by the Soviet regime out of the USSR, publishing them abroad, and then covertly reintroducing them into the country for clandestine distribution. After Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, prompting the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russians, it was only a matter of time before new émigré publishing houses emerged. In this conversation, we speak with Feliks Sandalov, co-founder and director of StraightForward, one of the newly established Russian publishing initiatives in exile, about his work and the evolving landscape of Russian publishing abroad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Russia has a long history of publishers operating from abroad, producing books and periodicals for a Russian-speaking audience. One notable example is The Bell (Kolokol), published by Alexander Herzen, the Russian writer and thinker who emigrated in the mid-19th century. The waves of Russian emigration in the 20th century—beginning with those fleeing the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution—led to the creation of numerous Russian-language publishing ventures, ranging from short-lived projects to long-standing institutions. Among the most well-remembered are the YMCA Press in Paris, Posev and Grani in Germany, and Ardis Publishing, founded in the early 1970s—not by Russians, but by American literary scholars. Exiled Russian publishers not only printed the works of fellow émigré authors but also played a crucial role in tamizdat—smuggling manuscripts deemed ideologically unacceptable by the Soviet regime out of the USSR, publishing them abroad, and then covertly reintroducing them into the country for clandestine distribution. After Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, prompting the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russians, it was only a matter of time before new émigré publishing houses emerged. In this conversation, we speak with Feliks Sandalov, co-founder and director of StraightForward, one of the newly established Russian publishing initiatives in exile, about his work and the evolving landscape of Russian publishing abroad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

Russia has a long history of publishers operating from abroad, producing books and periodicals for a Russian-speaking audience. One notable example is The Bell (Kolokol), published by Alexander Herzen, the Russian writer and thinker who emigrated in the mid-19th century. The waves of Russian emigration in the 20th century—beginning with those fleeing the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution—led to the creation of numerous Russian-language publishing ventures, ranging from short-lived projects to long-standing institutions. Among the most well-remembered are the YMCA Press in Paris, Posev and Grani in Germany, and Ardis Publishing, founded in the early 1970s—not by Russians, but by American literary scholars. Exiled Russian publishers not only printed the works of fellow émigré authors but also played a crucial role in tamizdat—smuggling manuscripts deemed ideologically unacceptable by the Soviet regime out of the USSR, publishing them abroad, and then covertly reintroducing them into the country for clandestine distribution. After Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, prompting the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russians, it was only a matter of time before new émigré publishing houses emerged. In this conversation, we speak with Feliks Sandalov, co-founder and director of StraightForward, one of the newly established Russian publishing initiatives in exile, about his work and the evolving landscape of Russian publishing abroad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Russia has a long history of publishers operating from abroad, producing books and periodicals for a Russian-speaking audience. One notable example is The Bell (Kolokol), published by Alexander Herzen, the Russian writer and thinker who emigrated in the mid-19th century. The waves of Russian emigration in the 20th century—beginning with those fleeing the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution—led to the creation of numerous Russian-language publishing ventures, ranging from short-lived projects to long-standing institutions. Among the most well-remembered are the YMCA Press in Paris, Posev and Grani in Germany, and Ardis Publishing, founded in the early 1970s—not by Russians, but by American literary scholars. Exiled Russian publishers not only printed the works of fellow émigré authors but also played a crucial role in tamizdat—smuggling manuscripts deemed ideologically unacceptable by the Soviet regime out of the USSR, publishing them abroad, and then covertly reintroducing them into the country for clandestine distribution. After Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, prompting the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russians, it was only a matter of time before new émigré publishing houses emerged. In this conversation, we speak with Feliks Sandalov, co-founder and director of StraightForward, one of the newly established Russian publishing initiatives in exile, about his work and the evolving landscape of Russian publishing abroad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

Russia has a long history of publishers operating from abroad, producing books and periodicals for a Russian-speaking audience. One notable example is The Bell (Kolokol), published by Alexander Herzen, the Russian writer and thinker who emigrated in the mid-19th century. The waves of Russian emigration in the 20th century—beginning with those fleeing the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution—led to the creation of numerous Russian-language publishing ventures, ranging from short-lived projects to long-standing institutions. Among the most well-remembered are the YMCA Press in Paris, Posev and Grani in Germany, and Ardis Publishing, founded in the early 1970s—not by Russians, but by American literary scholars. Exiled Russian publishers not only printed the works of fellow émigré authors but also played a crucial role in tamizdat—smuggling manuscripts deemed ideologically unacceptable by the Soviet regime out of the USSR, publishing them abroad, and then covertly reintroducing them into the country for clandestine distribution. After Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, prompting the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Russians, it was only a matter of time before new émigré publishing houses emerged. In this conversation, we speak with Feliks Sandalov, co-founder and director of StraightForward, one of the newly established Russian publishing initiatives in exile, about his work and the evolving landscape of Russian publishing abroad. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

83 MinutesPG-13Aaron is one of the hosts of the Timeline Earth Podcast.Aaron joins Pete to read and comment on Ron Unz's article, "The Bolshevik Revolution and Its Aftermath."Timeline Earth PodcastThe Bolshevik Revolution and Its AftermathPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on Twitter

Intro: Red Army is the Strongest - Alexandrov Red Army Choir Outro: You Fell Victim Further Reading Broué, Pierre. The German Revolution: 1917 - 1923. Haymarket Books, 2005. Carr, Edward Hallett. The Bolshevik Revolution 1917 - 1923. W.W. Norton & Company, 1985. Cohen, Stephen P. Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography 1888 - 1938. Knopf, 1973. Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky, The One-Volume Edition. Verso, 2015. ——, Stalin: A Political Biography. Vintage Books, 1960. FitzPatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. Oxford University Press, 2017. Kołakowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown. W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. Kotkin, Stephen. Stalin: Paradoxes of Power 1878 - 1928. Penguin, 2015. Rabinowitch, Alexander. The Bolsheviks in Power: The First Year of Soviet Rule in Petrograd. Indiana University Press, 2007. Serge, Victor. Memoirs of a Revolutionary. New York Review of Books, 2012. ——., Year One of the Russian Revolution. Haymarket Books, 2015. Smith, S.A.. Russia in Revolution: Empire in Crisis 1890 - 1928. Oxford University Press, 2018. Trotsky, Leon. Military Writings. Wellred Books, 2015.

The interview features Richard Poe discussing his book, "How the British Invented Communism and Blamed it on the Jews," where he delves into the complex historical relationship between Britain, Russia, and the origins of communism. The conversation begins with Poe explaining the impetus for his exploration of this topic, which stems from a growing public interest in the Bolshevik Revolution and the disproportionate emphasis on the Jewish role within communism. He references previous works, particularly by Dr. Stanley Monteith, who discussed the British propaganda efforts that sought to displace blame for the Russian Revolution onto the Jewish population, a narrative Poe argues is historically inaccurate given the British involvement in supporting the Bolsheviks. Poe reveals a personal connection to the Russian Revolution, discussing his grandparents who lived through the turmoil and the familial taboo surrounding their experiences. This background, alongside his thorough research into the British government's covert operations, shapes his perspective on the geopolitical influences surrounding the Russian Revolution. He elaborates that various factions within the British government used propaganda to obfuscate truths about the revolutions, laying the groundwork for a narrative that would ultimately serve British interests. The dialogue shifts as Poe outlines the role of key figures like Leon Trotsky, whom he suggests was a British agent. He discusses Trotsky's arrest in Canada during World War I and the mysterious circumstances surrounding his release, which allowed him to return to Russia and become a leader in the Bolshevik movement. Poe insists that the notion of revolutions being spontaneous uprisings is misleading; instead, he posits that they are usually orchestration from elitist groups with support from foreign intelligence agencies. As the interview progresses, Poe examines key historical events, such as the failures of the Gallipoli campaign, arguing that the British may have deliberately allowed that defeat to prevent Russian access to Constantinople and the Dardanelles Strait. He delves into the historical "Great Game" between Britain and Russia, which involved strategies of manipulation and influence fueling a larger narrative of world power dynamics. Notably, he highlights British Prime Minister Lloyd George's support for the Bolshevik regime as a means to fracture the Russian Empire, demonstrating how this was consistent with British imperial interests. Poe contends that British interventions, like the support for Bolshevism, were historically strategic rather than ideologically motivated. He posits that Britain's need for counterbalancing powers against Germany translated into a willingness to support groups that could destabilize Russia. The conversation further explores how Trotsky's role as a revolutionary leader intersected with covert British interests, ultimately raising questions about the ongoing influence of these historical dynamics on our contemporary understanding of global politics. Throughout the session, Poe expresses his respect for figures like Winston Churchill while critically examining their roles within these geopolitical machinations. He articulates the complex motivations behind military strategies and political alliances during tumultuous periods, drawing parallels to modern interpretations of global rivalries. By the end of the discussion, Poe emphasizes that the legacy of the Bolshevik Revolution and the machinations of British imperialism continue to inform present-day power struggles, leaving open-ended questions about the effectiveness and outcomes of these historical intrigues. In summation, the interview presents a rich tapestry of historical analysis interwoven with personal narratives, offering listeners an accessible examination of how the interrelations between nations and political ideologies have shaped the course of modern history. Poe's arguments challenge conventional narratives and invite a reevaluation of the roles played by various national and ethnic groups in revolutionary contexts. Follow Richard Poe:

Send us a textResearch historian, data analyst, and conspiracy realist @GavinNascimento returns to unravel the hidden intricacies of the Bolshevik Revolution, the rise of Nazism, and the geopolitical power plays that shaped the 20th century on episode 184 of the Far Out with Faust podcast.A seasoned veteran of the show (links below to episodes 79, 130, 131, 152, 154), Gavin has solidified his place among the most influential truth seekers of our era. Known for his relentless pursuit of verifiable truths, Gavin continues to challenge mainstream narratives with meticulous research and compelling insights. His acclaimed work, A History of Elitism, World Government & Population Control, and his essays on platforms like The Free Thought Project have earned him a dedicated following.In this episode, Gavin and Faust delve into the far-reaching implications of WWI and WWII, exposing the external forces that influenced revolutionary movements and shaped the modern geopolitical landscape. Topics include:- The underestimated role of Western powers in financing the Bolshevik Revolution- How Zionism and Ashkenazi supremacy intersected with global political agendas- The financial and ideological connections between communism and Nazism- The Dawes and Young Plans: financial manipulation post-WWI that paved the way for WWII- Psychological manipulation stemming from economic desperation and propaganda- Historical context for the rise of authoritarian regimes like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany- The shadowy role of organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations and Rockefeller Foundation in post-war global governance- The moral complexities of war and the suffering of innocents- How history is manipulated to serve modern political agendas…and much more!Explore these riveting connections between past and present to gain a deeper understanding of today's world.

Works Cited Carr, Edward Hallett. The Bolshevik Revolution 1917 - 1923. W.W. Norton & Company, 1985. Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky, The One-Volume Edition. Verso, 2015. —, Stalin: A Political Biography. Vintage Books, 1960. FitzPatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. Oxford University Press, 2008. Kotkin, Stephen. Stalin: Paradoxes of Power 1878 - 1928. Penguin, 2015. Nettl, J.P. Rosa Luxemburg. Verso, 2019. Rabinowitch, Alexander. Prelude to Revolution: The Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July 1917 Uprising. Indiana University Press, 1991. ——. The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd. Haymarket Books, 2004. Reed, John. Ten Days that Shook the World. Penguin Books, 1977. Serge, Victor. Year One of the Russian Revolution. Haymarket Books, 2015. Smith, S.A.. Russia in Revolution: Empire in Crisis 1890 - 1928. Oxford University Press, 2018. Suny, Ronald Grigor. Stalin: Passage to Revolution. Princeton University Press, 2021. Trotsky, Leon. History of the Russian Revolution. Penguin, 2017. Wilson, Edmund. To The Finland Station. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.

SynopsisToday's date in 1906 marks the birthday of Alexander Naumovich Tsfasman, a Ukrainian composer from pre-revolutionary Tsarist Russia who would become an important figure in Soviet jazz. Jazz first came to the Soviet Union in 1922, four years after Lenin's Bolshevik Revolution, and at first was welcomed as the music of the oppressed African-American minority, and therefore considered an expression of the worldwide class struggle. Tsfasman encountered jazz while still a student at the Moscow Conservatory and formed his own jazz band in 1926, the first to be heard on Soviet radio. In the decades that followed, Tsfasman made over 140 records, composed music for films, and gave concerts during WWII for Red Army soldiers.But after 1945, jazz fell out of favor in the USSR. During the Cold War, it came to be seen as a prime export of the decadent bourgeois West and performances were limited. “Today he plays jazz, tomorrow he'll betray his country” was a widespread propaganda slogan in the Stalinist post-war USSR. Only in the 1960s did attitudes change, and we're happy to report Alexander Tsfasman lived to see it before his death in 1971.This music is from his Jazz Suite for piano and orchestra.Music Played in Today's ProgramAlexander Tsfasman (1906-1971): Snowflakes and Polka (excerpts), from Jazz Suite;Zlata Chochieva, piano; BBC Scottish Symphony; Karl-Heinz Steffens, conductor; Naïve V-8448

As the author of The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, the Cambridge University historian Gary Gerstle was one of first people to recognize the collapse of neoliberalism. But today, the real question is not about the death of neoliberalism, but what comes after it. And, of course, when I sat down with Gerstle, I began by asking him what the Trump victory tells us about what comes after neoliberalism.Gary Gerstle is Paul Mellon Professor of American History Emeritus at the University of Cambridge. Gerstle received his BA from Brown University and his MA and PhD from Harvard University. He is the author, editor, and coeditor of more than ten books.  He is currently the Joy Foundation Fellow at the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, where he is working on a new book, Politics in Our Time: Authoritarian Peril and Democratic Hope in the Twenty-First Century.  He resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.Named as one of the "100 most pivoted men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's most pivotal broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the pivotal author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two cats, both called Pivot.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. TRANSCRIPT“It's important to recognize that the neoliberal triumph carried within it not just the triumph of capitalism, but the triumph of freedom. And I think the that image of the wall coming down captures both. It's people wanting to claim their freedom, but it also paves the way for an unregulated form of capitalism to spread to every corner of the world.” -Gary GerstleAK: Hello everybody. As we try to make sense of the aftermath of the US election this week, there was an interesting headline today in the Financial Times. Donald Trump apparently has asked, and I'm quoting the F.T. here, the arch-protectionist Robert Lighthizer, to run U.S. trade policy. You never know with Trump, he may change his mind tomorrow. But nonetheless, it suggests, and it's not a great surprise, that protectionism will define the Trump, presidency or certainly the second Trump presidency. And it speaks of the structural shift in the nature of politics and economics in the United States, particularly given this Trump victory. One man who got this, I think before anyone else, is the Cambridge historian Gary Gerstle. He's been on the show a couple of times before. He's the author of a wonderful book, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era. It's a profound book. It's had an enormous impact on everybody. And I'm thrilled and honored that Gary is back on the show. This is the third time he's been on the show. Gary, is that important news? Have we formally come to the end now of the neoliberal order? GARY GERSTLE: I think we have, although there's an element of neoliberalism which may revive in the Trump administration. But if we think of a political order as ordering political life so that all participants in that order have to accept its ideological principles, we have moved out of that order. I think we've been out of it for some time. The critical election in this case was 2016, and the critical move that both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders made in 2016, the two most dynamic presidential candidates in that year, was to break with the orthodoxy of free markets, the orthodoxy of globalization, the orthodoxy of a world without borders where everything was free to move and the market was supreme. And the only role of government in the state was to ensure as full access to markets as was possible in the belief that if governments got out of the way of a private capitalist economy, this would spur the greatest growth for the greatest number of people everywhere in the world. This was governing orthodoxy, really from the time of Reagan until 2016. Trump broke it. Sanders broke it. Very significant in this regard that when Biden came into office, he moderated some of the Trump tariffs but kept the tariffs on China substantially in place. So there's been continuity for some time, and now we're going to see an intensification of the protectionist regime. Protectionism used to be a dirty word in American politics. If you uttered that word, you were excluded from serious political discourse. There will be other terms that are used, fair trade, not just because protectionism has a negative connotation to it, but we are living in an era where governments assert the right to shape markets as they wish to in the interests of their nation. So, yes, we are living in a different era, although it must be said, and we may get into a discussion of this at some point, there are sectors of the Trump coalition that want to intensify deregulation in the domestic market, that want to rollback government. And so I expect in the new Trump administration, there is going to be tussles between the protectionists on the one hand and those who want to, at least domestically, restore free trade. And by that I mean the free operation of private capital without government regulation. That's an issue that bears watching.AK: Is that a contradiction though, Gary? Can one, in this post-neoliberal order, can governments be hostile to regulation, a la Elon Musk and his association with Trump, and also be in favor of tariffs? I mean, do the two—can the to go together, and is that the outline of this foggy new order coming into place in the second quarter of the 21st century?GARY GERSTLE: They can go together in the sense that they have historically in the past gone together in the United States. In the late 19th century, the US had very high tariffs against foreign goods. And domestically, it was trying to create as free a domestic market as possible. What was known as the period of laissez-faire domestically went along with a commitment to high tariffs and protection of American laissez-faire against what we might call global laissez-faire. So it has been tried. It did work at that time. But I think the Republican party and the constituencies behind Donald Trump are divided on this question. As you noted, Elon Musk represents one pole of this. He certainly wants protection against Chinese imports of electric cars and is probably going to get that because of all the assistance he gave Trump in this election. But domestically, he wants no government interfering with his right to conduct his capitalist enterprises as he sees fit. So that's going to be one wing. But there's another wing of the Republican Party under Trump that is much more serious about industrial policy that says we cannot leave the market to its own devices. It produces too many human casualties. It produces too many regions of America left behind, and that we must use the government to help those people left behind. We must structure free enterprise industry in a way that helps the ordinary working-class man. And I use the word “man” deliberately in this context. Interestingly, JD Vance, the vice president, embodies both these tendencies, sees, on the one hand, a creature of venture capital, Silicon Valley, close to the Musks and Peter Thiels of the world. On the other hand, he has talked explicitly, as in his vice-presidential acceptance speech, about putting Main Street over Wall Street. And if he's serious about putting Main Street over Wall Street, that's going to involve a lot of government intervention to displace the privileged position that finance and venture capital now has in the American economy.AK: Gary, you're a historian, one of the best around, you're deeply versed in the past, you bring up Vance. He presents himself as being original, even has a beard. But I wonder whether his—I don't know what you would call it—a Catholic or Christian socialism, or at least a concern with the working class. Is it in any way new, for you, historically? I mean, it certainly exists in Europe, and there must be analogies also in American history with him.GARY GERSTLE: Well, if he is a convert to Catholicism, I don't know how well-versed he is in the papal doctrines of years past. Or decades. Or even centuries passed. But there was a serious movement within the Catholic Church in the late 19th and early 20th century to humanize capitalism, to declare that free market capitalism produced too many human casualties. Too many ordinary Catholic workers and workers who are not Catholic were hurt by unemployment, poverty, being thrown out of work in the troughs of business cycles, having no social welfare to fall back on, as a result of injury or misfortune in life. And so there was a profound movement within Catholic churches, in the United States, and in Europe and other parts of the world as well, to humanize capitalism. Whether this very once important Catholic tradition is an active influence on Vance, I don't know, because he's a recent convert to Catholicism, and I don't know how deeply has imbibed its history or its doctrine. But there is a rich tradition there. And it's possible that this is one of the sources that he is drawing on to shape his contemporary politics.AK: We were talking before we ran live, Gary, I said to you, and I think you agreed, that this use of the word "fascism" to describe Trump isn't always particularly helpful. It reflects a general hysteria amongst progressives. But I wonder in this context, given the way in which European Catholicism flirted, sometimes quite openly, with fascism, whether the F-word actually makes a little more sense. Because after all, fascism, after the First World War, was a movement in the name of the people, which was very critical of the capitalism of that age and of the international market. So, when we use the word fascism now, could it have some value in that context as a kind of a socioeconomic critique of capitalism?GARY GERSTLE: You mean fascism offering a socioeconomic critique of U.S. capitalism?AK: Yes. For better or worse.GARY GERSTLE: I'm reluctant to deploy the term fascism, since I think most people who enter the conversation or who hear that word in the United States don't really know what it means, and that's partly the consequence of historians debating its meaning as long as they have, and also suggesting that fascism takes different forms at different times and in different places. I prefer the term authoritarianism. I think that tendency is clearly there and one can connect that to certain traditions within the church. The United States once had a intense anti-Catholic political tradition. It was unimaginable in the 19th century. AK: Yeah, it drove the KKK. I mean, that was the Klan hated the Catholics probably more than they hated the Jews.GARY GERSTLE: It drove the Klan. And the notion in the 19th century—I'm not remembering now whether there are 5 or 6 Catholics who sit on the Supreme Court—but the notion in the 19th century that 5 or 6 Catholics would be the chief custodians and interpreters of America's most sacred doctrine and document the Constitution was simply unthinkable. It could never have happened. There was a Catholic seat. As for a long time, there was a Jewish seat on the Supreme Court, but understood that this would be carefully cordoned off and limited and that, when push came to shove, Protestants had to be in charge of interpreting America's most sacred doctrine. And the charge against Catholics was that they were not democratic, that they vested ultimate power in God and through an honest messenger on Earth, who was the pope. John F. Kennedy, in 1960, became the first Catholic president of the United States. Biden is only the second. Vance is the first Catholic vice president. Before in the campaign that Kennedy was running in 1960, he had to go in front of thousands of Protestant ministers who had gathered in Houston so he could persuade them that if he became president, he would not be handing America over to the pope, who was seen as an authoritarian figure. So for a long time, Catholicism was seen as a carrier of authoritarianism, of a kind of executive power that should not be limited by a human or secular force. And this promoted, in the United States, intense anti-Catholic feeling, which took the country probably 200 years to conquer. Conquered it was, so the issue of so many Catholics on the Supreme Court is not an issue. Biden's Catholicism is not an issue. Vance's Catholicism is not an issue. But Vance himself has said, talking about his conversion, that of his granny—I forget the term he uses to describe his granny—were alive today, she would not be able to accept his conversion because she was so deeply Protestant, so evangelical, so—AK: A classic West Virginian evangelical. So for me, the other contradiction here is that Vance is unashamedly nationalist, unashamedly critical of globalization. And yet, by embracing Catholicism, which is the most international of face, I don't quite understand what that suggests about him, or Catholicism, or even history, that that these odd things happen.GARY GERSTLE: Well, one thing one can say in history is that odd things happen and odd couples get together. I don't know myself how fully Vance understands his Catholicism. I believe Peter Thiel led him to this. Vance is still a young man and has gone through a lot of conversions for a young man. He was—AK: Well, he's a conversion expert. That's the narrative of his life, isn't it?GARY GERSTLE: Yes. Yes. And he began as being a severe anti-Trumper, almost a Never-Trumper. Then he converted to Trumpism. Then he converted from Protestant to Catholicism. So a lot of major changes in his life. So, the question you just posed is a fascinating one. Does he understand that the church is a catholic church, meaning small c catholic in this case, that it's open to everyone in the world? Does he really understand that? But I would extend my puzzle about religion beyond Catholicism to ask, for all the evangelical supporters of Trump: where is Jesus's message of peace and love? Where did that go? So there are puzzles about the shape of Christian religion in America. And there's no doubt that for its most devout supporters in the United States that has taken a very hard nationalist turn. And this is true among Protestants, and it is true among many Catholics. And so, I think the question that you posed may be one that no one has really confronted Vance with.“What we have to think about in regard to Trump is, will they take on projects that will threaten the constitutional foundation of the United States in order to achieve their aims? What does Musk represent, and what does part of Trump represent? It represents unbounded executive power, unconstrained by Congress, to promote conditions of maximum freedom. And the freedom they have in mind is not necessarily your personal freedom or mine.” -Gary GerstleAK: And I would extend that, Gary. I think that the most persistent and credible critics of Trump also come from the religious community. Peter Wehner, for example, former—I don't know if you're familiar with his work. He writes a lot for the Times and The Atlantic. Very religious man, is horrified—worked in the Bush and the Reagan administrations. Let's go back to—I was looking at the cover of the book, and obviously authors don't pick the covers of their books—GARY GERSTLE: I did. I picked this.AK: Okay. Well, when you look at the—GARY GERSTLE: This is this is not the original cover.AK: Right, so, the book I'm looking at, and for people just listening, I'm going to describe. The dominant picture is of the Berlin Wall being knocked down in the evening of November 1989. It's odd, Gary, isn't it, that...for the rise and fall of the neoliberal order, which is an economic order in a free market era, you should have chosen the image of a political event, which, of course, Fukuyama so famously described as the end of history. And I guess, for you as an economic historian who is also deeply interested and aware of politics, is the challenge and opportunity to always try to disentangle the economics and politics of all this? Or are they so entangled that they're actually impossible to disentangle, to separate?GARY GERSTLE: Well, I think sometimes you need to disentangle them, sometimes they move in different directions, and sometimes they move in the same direction. I think to understand the triumph of the neoliberal order, we have to see that politics and economics move in tandem with each other. What makes possible the neoliberal triumph of the 90s is the fall of communism between 1989 and 1991. And no picture embodies that better than the taking down of the Berlin Wall. And that connotes a message of freedom and escape from Soviet and communist tyranny. But the other message there is that tearing down of those walls opens the world to capitalist penetration to a degree that had not been available to the capitalist world since prior to World War One, prior to the war, and most importantly, to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. And where communists came to power everywhere, they either completely excluded or sharply curtailed the ability of capitalist business to operate within their borders. Their message was expropriate private property, which meant expropriate all corporate property. Give it over to the state, let the state manage it in the interest of the proletariat. This was an extraordinary dream that turned into an awful tyrannical outcome. But it animated the world, as few other ideas did in the 20th century, and proposed a very, very serious challenge to capitalist prerogative, to capitalist industry, to free markets. And so the collapse of communism, which is both the collapse of a state—a communist state, the Soviet Union—but perhaps more importantly, the collapse of the belief that any governments could structure the private economy in ways that would be beneficial to humankind. It's what opened the way in the 1990s to the neoliberal triumph. And it's important to recognize that the neoliberal triumph carried within it not just the triumph of capitalism, but the triumph of freedom. And I think the that image of the wall coming down captures both. It's people wanting to claim their freedom, but it also paves the way for an unregulated form of capitalism to spread to every corner of the world. And in the long term—we're in the mid-term—that was going to create inequalities, vulnerabilities to the global financial and economic systems, that were going to bring the global economy down and set off a radically different form of politics than the world had seen for some time. And we're still living through that radically different form of politics set off by the financial crash of 2008/2009, which, in my way of thinking, was a product of untrammeled capitalism conquering the world in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's and communism's collapse.AK: Yeah, and that's the other thing, isn't it, Garry? I mean, it goes without saying that the bringing down of the war fundamentally changed the old Soviet economy, the East European economies, Poland, Hungary, eastern part of Germany. But what no one—I think very, very few people imagined in '89 was that perhaps the biggest consequence of this capitalist penetration wasn't in Warsaw or Moscow or the eastern part of Berlin, but back in West Virginia with guys like JD Vance. How did the bringing down of the wall change America, or at least the American economy? I've never really quite understood that.GARY GERSTLE: Through the mass exporting of manufacturing to other countries that—AK: Wasn't that before? Wasn't that also taking place before '89, or did it happen particularly in the '90s?GARY GERSTLE: It began before 1989. It began during the Great Recession of the 1970s, where the first districts of manufacturing in the U.S., places like Buffalo, New York steelmaking center, began to get hollowed out. But it dramatically intensified in the 1990s, and this had to do with China permitting itself to be a part of this global free market. And China was opened to capitalist penetration from the United States and Europe. And what you saw in that decade was a massive shift of manufacturing to China, a shift that even intensified in the first decade of the 21st century with the admission of China in 2001 to the World Trade Organization. So China was a big factor. Also, the passage of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, which rendered the northern half of the Western Hemisphere one common market, like the European Common Market. So, enormous flight of jobs to places like Mexico. And the labor costs in places like China and Mexico, and then East Asia already leaving Japan for Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, parts of the South Asian subcontinent. The flight of jobs there became so massive, and the labor costs there were so cheap, that American industry couldn't compete. And what you begin to see is the hollowing out of American industry, American manufacturing, and whole districts of America just beginning to rot. And no new industries or no new economies taking the place of the industries and the jobs that had left. And this America was being ignored, largely in the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century, in part because the ideology of neoliberalism said, we understand that this global free market is going to increase inequality in the world, it's going to increase the distance between rich and poor, but the distance between rich and poor is okay because all boats will rise. All people will benefit. This is not just an American story, this is also the story of other parts of the North Atlantic economy. Britain certainly, Germany was a partial exception, France, other places, and this was the ideology...growth would benefit everyone, and this was not the case. It was a fallacy. But the ideology was so strong that it held together until the financial crash of 2008/2009. After that crash, it became impossible to make the point that all boats were rising under the neoliberal regime. And this is when the forgotten Americans and the forgotten Brits of the northern part of the of Great Britain. This is when they began to make their voices heard. This is when they began to strike a very different note in politics. And this is where Donald Trump had his beginnings with these forgotten, angry people who felt ignored, left behind, and were suffering greatly, because by the early decades of the 21st century, it wasn't just jobs that were gone, but it was healthy marital life, divorce rates rising, rampant drug use. Two Cambridge economists wrote a book called Depths of Despair.AK: Yeah, that book comes up in almost every conversation. I once went down to Princeton to interview Angus Deaton. Like your book, it's become a classic. So let's fast forward, Gary, to the last election. I know you're writing a book now about politics in our time of authoritarianism, and you're scratching your head and asking whether the election last week was a normal or an apocryphal one, one that's just different or historical. And I wonder, in that sense, correct me if I'm wrong, there seems to have been two elections simultaneously. On the one hand, it was very normal, from the Democrats' point of view, who treated America as if it was normal. Harris behaves as if she was just another Democratic candidate. And, of course, Trump, who didn't. My interpretation, maybe it's a bit unfair, is that it's the progressives. It's certainly the coastal elites who have become, implicitly at least, the defenders of the old neoliberal order. For them, it kind of works. It's not ideal, but it works and they can't imagine anything else. And it's the conservatives who have attacked it, the so-called conservatives. Is there any truth to that in the last election?GARY GERSTLE: Well, I think the Democrats are certainly seen by vast sectors of the population as being the defenders of an old order, of established institutions controlling the media, although I think that's less and less true because the legacy media has less and less influence and shows like yours, podcasting and rogue Fox Television and all kinds of other outlets, are increasingly influential. But yes, the Democrats are seen as a party of the establishment. They are seen as the party of the educated elite. And one of the factors that determines who votes for who now is now deeply educational in the sense of, what is your level of educational achievement? If you are college educated, you're much more likely to vote Democratic, regardless of your income. And if you're high school educated or less, you're much more likely to vote Republican. I don't think it's fair to say that the Democrats are the last protectors of the neoliberal order, because Biden broke with the neoliberal order in major, consequential ways. If the defining characteristic of the neoliberal order is to free the market from constraints and to use the state only to free up market forces—this was true, to a large extent, of Obama and of Clinton—Biden broke with that, and he did it in alliance with Bernie Sanders, set of task forces they set up in 2020 to design a new administration. And his major pieces of legislation, reshoring CHIPS manufacture, the biggest investment in clean energy in the country's history. $1 trillion infrastructure bill, the biggest infrastructure project since the interstate highway system of the '50s, and arguably since Roosevelt's fabled New Deal. These are all about industrial policy. These are all about the government using its power and resources to direct industry in a certain way so that it will increase general happiness, general welfare, general employment. So this represents a profound change from what had come before. And in that way, the Biden administration can't be seen as the last defenders.“The question is, will they be able to get further than past generations of Republicans have by their willingness to break things? And will they go so far as to break the Constitution in the pursuit of these aims?”AK: And let me jump in here, Gary, there's another really important question. There was a very interesting piece, I'm sure you saw it, by Nicholas Lemann in the New Yorker about Bidenomics and its achievements. You talked about the New Deal, the massive amount of investments—it was post COVID, they took advantage of the historical crisis. Trillions of dollars have been invested in new technologies. Is Bidenomics new in any way? Or is it basically just a return to the economics, or the political economy, of FDR?GARY GERSTLE: Well, it certainly draws inspiration from FDR, because at the core of the New Deal was the conviction that you could use government to direct industry to positive uses that would benefit not just the corporations, but the population as a whole. But there was nothing like the Green Energy Project in the New Deal. The New Deal, except for hydroelectric projects, was primarily about prospering on a cheap fossil fuel economy. The New Deal also was very comfortable with accepting prevailing gender and race conceptions of the proper place of women and African Americans in American life in a way that is unacceptable to Bidenomics. So there are redirections under Bidenomics in ways that modify the New Deal inspiration. But at its core, Bidenomics is modeled on the New Deal conviction that you need a strong federal government to point industry in the right direction. And so in that sense, there's a fundamental similarity in those two progressive projects. And I think people in the Biden administration have been quite conscious about that. Now, the particular challenges are different. The world economy is different. The climate crisis is upon us. So, it is going to take different forms, have different outcomes. But the inspiration clearly comes from Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal.AK: Well, let's go over to the other side and Trump. You scratching your head and figuring out whether this is unusual. And of course, it's the second time he's won an election. This time around, he seems to be overtly hostile to the state. He's associated with Musk, who's promised to essentially decimate the state. In historical terms, Gary, is there anything unusual about this? I mean, certainly the opponents of FDR were also very hostile to this emergent American state. As a historian, do you see this as something new, the pleasure in essentially blowing the state up, or at least the promise of blowing the state up?GARY GERSTLE: That impulse is not new. There have been members of the Republican party who have been talking this language since the New Deal arrived in America in the 1930s and '40s during the '50s and '60s and early '70s, they were marginal in American politics. And then with the neoliberal order coming into being in the '70s and with Reagan as president, their voice has gained enormous traction. One of Reagan's key advisors in the 1980s and 1990s, one of his favorite lines was, “I want to shrink the size of the federal government until we can drown it in the bathtub.” It's a wonderful image and metaphor, and captures the intensity with which conservative Republicans have wanted to eliminate the strong centralized state. But they have not been able to do it to a degree that makes that have satisfied them. It turns out that Americans, for all their possible ideological opposition to big government like big parts of it, like Social Security, like Medicare, like a strong military establishment that's gonna protect the country, like clean air, clean water. So it's proved much more difficult for this edifice to be taken down than the Reaganites had imagined it would be. So, the advocates have become more radical because of decades of frustration. And what we have to think about in regard to Trump is, will they take on projects that will threaten the constitutional foundation of the United States in order to achieve their aims? What does Musk represent, and what does part of Trump represent? It represents unbounded executive power, unconstrained by Congress, to promote conditions of maximum freedom. And the freedom they have in mind is not necessarily your personal freedom or mine, as the abortion issue signifies. What they have in mind is corporate freedom. The freedom of Elon Musk's companies to do whatever they want to do. The freedom of the social media companies to do whatever they want to do. The question is, will they be able to get further than past generations of Republicans have by their willingness to break things? And will they go so far as to break the Constitution in the pursuit of these aims? Peter Thiel has said, very forthrightly, that democracy no longer works as a system, and that America has to consider other systems in order to have the kind of prosperity and freedom it wants. And one thing that bears watching with this new Trump administration is how many supporters the Peter Thiel's and the Elon Musk's are going to have to be free to tear down the edifice and the institutions of the federal government and pursuit of a goal of a reconfigured, and what I would call rogue, laissez-faire. This is something to watch.AK: But Gary, I take your point. I mean, Thiel's been, on the West Coast, always been a convenient punchbag for the left for years now, I punched him many times myself. I wanted to. But all this seems to be just the wet dream of neoliberals. So you have Musk and Thiel doing away with government. Huge corporations, no laws. This is the neoliberal wet dream, isn't it?GARY GERSTLE: Well, partly it is. But neoliberalism always depended on a structure of law enforced by government that was necessary to allow free markets to operate in a truly free and transparent manner. In other words, you needed elements of a strong government to perfect markets, that markets were not perfect if they were left to their own devices. And one of the dangers of the Elon Musk phase of the Trump administration is that this edifice of law on which corporations and capitalism thrives will be damaged in the pursuit of a radical libertarianism. Now, there may very well be a sense that cooler heads prevail in the Trump administration, and that this scenario will not come to fruition. But one certainly has to be aware that this is one of the possible outcomes of a Trump administration. I should also say that there's another very important constituency in the Republican party that wants to continue, not dismantle, what Biden has done with industrial policies. This is the other half of JD Vance's brain. This is Tom Cotton. This is Marco Rubio, this is Josh Hawley, senator from Missouri. And they want to actively use the government to regulate industry in the public interest. And there's a very interesting intellectual convergence going on between left of center and right of center intellectuals and policymakers who are converging on the importance of having an industrial policy, because if Elon Musk is given his way, how is the abandoned heartland going to come back?AK: It's cheering me up, Gary, because what you're suggesting is that this is a fairly normal moment. You've got different wings of the Republican Party. You've got the Cottons and the Rubios, who were certainly not revolutionary. Why should we believe that this is a special moment then?GARY GERSTLE: January 6th, 2021. That's the reason. Trump remains the only president in American history to authorize an attack on the very seat of American democracy. That being: Congress sitting in the Capitol. And once he authorized the attack, he waited for three hours hoping that his attackers and his mob would conquer this building and compel the legislators inside to do—AK: And I take your perspective. I'm the last person to defend that. But we're talking about 2024 and not 2021. He won the election fairly. No one's debating that. So, why is 2024 a special election?GARY GERSTLE: Well, here's the key. Well, maybe it's a special election in two ways. It may signify the reconfiguration of a genuinely populist Republican party around the needs of ordinary working-class Americans. And we should say, in this regard, that Trump has brought into his coalition significant numbers of Latinos, young blacks. It has the beginning of a look of a multiracial coalition that the Democrats once had, but now appear to be losing. So it may be an epochal moment in that regard. The other way in which it may be an epochal moment is: what if Trump does not get his way in his term in office for something he really wants? Will he accept that he is bound by the Constitution, that he is bound by the courts? Or will he once again say, when he really wants something, no constitution, no law, will stand in my way? That's how January 6th, 2021, still matters. I'm not saying he's going to do that, but I think we have to understand that that is a possibility, especially since he has shown no remorse for the outcome of the last election. If I read into your comments, I hear you saying: he won this time. He doesn't have to worry about losing. But Trump is always worried about losing. And he is a man who doesn't really know the Constitution, and the parts that he knows and understands he doesn't especially like, because his dream, along with Elon Musk's dream, and this is one reason why I think they are melding so tightly, at the apex of American government should be unbounded executive power. This is not how the country was set up. And as Congress and as the courts begin to push back, will he accept those limits, that there must be bounds on executive power? Or will he try and break through them? I'm not saying that's going to happen, but it's something that we have to be concerned about.AK: I wonder, again, wearing your historical cap you're always doing, the more you talk, the more Trump and Trump's Republican party is Nixonian. This obsession with not being responsible for the law. The broadening of the Republican party. Certainly the Republican party under Nixon was less singularly white than it became later. Isn't, in some ways, Trump just a return to Nixon? And secondly, you're talking about the law and Trump ransacking the law. But on the other hand, everything he always does is always backed up by the law. So, he has a love hate relationship with the law himself. He could never have accomplished anything he's done without hiring all these expensive lawyers. I don't know if you saw the movie this year, The Apprentice, which is built on his relationship with what's with Roy Cohn, of course, who schooled him in American politics, who was McCarthy's lawyer. So, again, I'm not trying to defend Trump, but my point is: what's different here?GARY GERSTLE: Well, a key difference from Nixon is that when push came to shove, Nixon submitted to the rule of law, and Trump did not. Nixon did not unleash his people on Congress when a group of senators came to him and said you're going to be impeached if you stay in office, you should resign. He resigned. So the '70s was a moment of enormous assertion of the power of Congress, and assertion of the power and authority of the Constitution. That is not the story of Donald Trump. The story of Donald Trump is the story of the Constitution being pushed to the side. If you ask, is there anything new about Americans and politicians trying to manipulate the law in their favor? There's nothing new about that. And Trump, having made his fortune in New York real estate, knows there's no such thing as perfect markets, knows that judges can be bought and corrupted. And so, he has very little regard for the authority of courts. Everything's a transaction. Everything can be bought and sold. So, he understands that, and he has used the law to his advantage when he can. But let me bring you back to his first inauguration speech. There was no mention of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution in what he had to say that day. I think we'd be hard pressed to find another inaugural speech that makes no reference to the sacred documents having to do with the founding of the American Republic. And so I think in that way, he is something new and represents, potentially, a different kind of threat. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but it's certainly possible. And let me add one other element that we have to consider, because I'm suggesting that he has a fondness for forms of authoritarian rule, and we have to recognize that hard rights are on the march everywhere in the world right now. The social democratic government of Germany has just fallen. Britain may soon be alone in terms of having a left-center party in control and upholding the values of liberal democracy. The world is in a grip of an authoritarian surge. That is not an American phenomenon. It is an international phenomenon. It is not a phenomenon I understand well enough, but if we're to understand the kind of strongman tendencies that Trump is exhibiting, the appeal of the strongman tendencies to so many Americans, we have to understand the international context in which this is occurring. And these movements in these different countries are fully aware of each other. They draw strength from each other's victories, and they get despairing from each other's defeats. So this is an international movement and an international project, and it's important, in that regard, to set Trump in that historical context.AK: Final question, Gary, there's so much here, we'll have to get you back on the show again in the new year. There's certainly, as you suggested, a great deal of vitality to conservatives, to the Cottons, the JD Vances, the Steve Bannons of the world. But what about on the left? We talked earlier, you sort of pushed back a little bit on the idea that the progressive elites aren't defenders of the neoliberal order, but you kind of acknowledged there may be a little bit of truth in that. In response to this new conservatism, which, as you suggested, is in some ways quite old, what can and should progressives do, rather than just falling back on Bidenomics and reliance on a new deal—which isn't going to happen now given that they had the opportunity in the COVID crisis to spend lots of money, which didn't have any impact on this election, for better or worse. Is there a need to re-architect the progressive politics in our new age, the age of AI, a high-tech age? Or do we simply allow the Bernie Sanders of the world to fall back on 20th-century progressive ideas?GARY GERSTLE: Well, I'm not sure where AI is taking us. AI may be taking us out of democracy altogether. I think one of—AK: You're not giving it any chance, if that's the case.“What if Trump does not get his way in his term in office for something he really wants? Will he accept that he is bound by the Constitution, that he is bound by the courts? Or will he once again say, when he really wants something, no constitution, no law, will stand in my way?”GARY GERSTLE: Well, there are different versions of AI that will be coming. But the state of the world right now suggests that democracy is on the defensive, and authoritarianism is is on the march. Those who predict the death of democracy have been wrong in the past. So I'm not predicting it here, but we have to understand that there are elements of life, technology, power in in private hands today, that make democracy much harder to do effectively. And so, this is a period of reflection that groups who care about democracy at all points on the political spectrum have to be thinking very seriously about. As for the here and now, and politicians don't think in terms of 10 or 20 years—or you have to be a leader in China, where you can think in terms of 10 or 20-year projects, because you never have to face any election and being tossed out of office—but in the here and now, I think what Democrats have to be very aware of, that the party that they thought they were is the party that the Republican Party has become, or is becoming: a multiracial, working-class party. And if the Democrats are to flourish—and in that regard, it's very significant—AK: It's astonishing, really.GARY GERSTLE: It is astonishing. And it's important to to note that Trump is the first Republican nominee for president since George W. Bush in 2004 to get a majority of votes. And the only person to do it before him in the last 30 years was his father, George H.W. Bush, in 1988. Kamala Harris came within 200,000 votes of becoming president of the United States. That's not well enough understood yet. But if 200,000 votes had changed in three states, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, she would be the president elect of the United States. However, she would have been the president elect while losing the popular vote. And one has to go very far back in history to find the Democrats being the beneficiaries of the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. And I think the fact that they lost the popular vote for only the third time in the last 50 years, maybe? I mean, when they elected someone...has to suggest that they have to do some serious thinking about how to reclaim this. Now, Bernie Sanders is coming out and saying, they should have gotten me on the public stage rather than Liz Cheney, that going after suburban Republican women was the wrong route. You should have stuck with me. We had a left/center alliance that worked in 2020. We could have done it again. But that's not my reading of the situation. My reading of the situation is that Bernie-style politics is distinctly less popular in 2024 than it was in 2020. The Democrats have to figure that out, and they have to figure out what they have to do in order to reclaim majorities in American life. And in order to do that, I think their economic programs are actually on the right track, in that respect, under the Biden administration. I think they probably have to rethink some of their cultural policies. There were three issues in this election. The economy was number one. The immigration issue was number two. And then, the trans issue was number three. The Republicans ran an estimated 30,000 ads declaring that the Democratic party was going to take your children away by turning them from boys to girls or girls to boys. The Democratic party has to do some hard thinking about how to have a progressive policy on immigration and how to have a progressive policy on issues of trans matters without losing a majority of the American people, who clearly are, at this moment, not with them on those important issues.AK: It's an astonishing moment, Gary. And I'm not sure whether it's a revolutionary moment or just surreal.GARY GERSTLE: Well, you've been pressing me, on a number of occasions, as to whether this is just the normal course of American politics, and if we look in that direction, the place to look for normality is...incumbents always do badly in high-inflationary times. And Ford and Carter lost in the 1970s. Every incumbent during COVID and during the inflationary period in Europe seems to have lost a recent election. The most normal course of politics is to say, this is an exceptional moment having to do with the enormity of COVID and what was required to shut down the economy, saved people, and then getting started up again, and we will see something more normal, the Democrats will be back to what they normally do, in 2028. That's a possibility. I think the more plausible possibility is that we are in the midst of some pretty profound electoral realignment that is giving rise to a different kind of political order. And the Democrats have to figure out if that political order is going to be under their direction, what they have to do to pull that off. AK: And maybe rather than the neoliberal order, we're talking about, what, a neo-authoritarian order? Is that—GARY GERSTLE: Well, the Trump forces are maybe neo-authoritarian, but we don't have a name for it. Pete Buttigieg—AK: Well, that's why we got you on the show, Gary. Don't you have a name for it?GARY GERSTLE: No. You know—AK: We're relying on you. I hope it's going to be in your next book.GARY GERSTLE: Well, I have till January 20th, 2025, to come up with the name. Pete Buttigieg called it the Big Deal rather than the New Deal. I don't think that cuts it. And there's some other pundits who are arguing about building from the middle out. That doesn't cut it.AK: That sounds terrible. That sounds like—GARY GERSTLE: This is part of Biden's—AK: Designing political parties by committee. It's like an American car.GARY GERSTLE: This is part of Biden's problem. You can't name, effectively, in a positive way, what he's done. One thing that's going to happen—and this may be a sign that things will continue from Biden to Trump, in terms of industrial policy. Do you have any doubt that Trump is going to plaster his name on every computer chips plant, every battery factory? Trump brought this to you, he's got to be there for every opening. He's not going to miss a beat. He'll see this as a grand publicity tour. I think there's a good chance he will take credit for what Biden has started, and that's going to upset a lot of us. But it may also signify that he may be loath to abandon many of these industrial policies that Biden has put in place, especially since the Biden administration was very clever in putting most of these plants, and chip plants, and battery plants, in deep red Republican districts.AK: Well, Gary, I know you're not particularly cheerful. I don't suppose most of our audience are, but you actually cheered me up. I think things are a little bit more normal than some people think. But we will get you back on the show after January—what did you say—January 25th, when you'll have a word to describe the New World Order?GARY GERSTLE: Well, I said after January 20th, 2025, you can expect me to have a name. I probably should—AK: Gary, now, we'll have you back on the show. If you don't have a name, I'm going to report you to Trump.GARY GERSTLE: You'll have to bury me.AK: Yeah. Okay. Well, we're not burying you. We need you, Gary Gerstle, author of Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, a man who makes sense of our present with historical perspective. Gary, as always, a pleasure. Keep well and keep safe. And we'll talk again in the not-too-distant future. Thank you so much.GERSTLE: Thank you. A pleasure talking with you. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

This episode was recorded on the 107th anniversary of the beginning of the Bolshevik Revolution. A truly dark day for Russia and the world.

What if the world is not as it seems? Join us as we peel back the layers of historical and current geopolitical dynamics, starting with the seminal anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and leading up to the tantalizing rise of gold prices, nearly reaching $2,700 an ounce. We explore the financial undercurrents that have shaped pivotal moments in history and contemplate what these mean for our present and future. Reflecting on events like the 2011 gold price peak and the strategic moves of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, we examine the intricate dance between monetary policy and market reactions. Through this lens, precious metals emerge as a beacon of value amidst the chaos of economic uncertainty.As the global economic crisis unfolds, we scrutinize the role of influential figures and institutions, questioning whether elite agendas are steering us toward radical change. With debt ballooning to unprecedented levels and economic policies under the microscope, we speculate on the potential for bankruptcy and currency debasement. Delve into the theories suggesting intentional system overloads and consider if deregulation and tax incentives offer a path to stability. Yet, the persistent hum of currency printers raises questions about the future of precious metals and the intentionality behind these economic maneuvers.We conclude with a sobering look at the economic challenges faced in the lead-up to elections, examining their impact on the American spirit of entrepreneurship and financial freedom. As interest rates fluctuate and unemployment claims climb, the viability of the American dream is called into question, especially for younger generations grappling with inflated costs. We explore the cascading effects of economic instability on regional banks, manufacturing, and the potential collapse of the middle class, urging listeners to remain vigilant about the motivations driving modern corporate actions. The episode wraps up with a thought-provoking discussion on war skepticism, urging a critical examination of the motivations behind military actions and their broader societal costs.

Heartland's Tim Benson is joined by Maurice Isserman, Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History at Hamilton College, to discuss his new book, Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism. They chat about the deeply contradictory nature of the history of the Communist Party USA, the history of the American far left, and how the Bolshevik Revolution skewed the American far left. They also discuss CPUSA's unwavering faith in the Soviet Union, how many American communists became involved in espionage on behalf of the USSR, and the organization's decline into political irrelevance. Get the book here:  https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/maurice-isserman/reds/9781541620032/?lens=basic-booksShow Notes:The American Prospect: Harold Meyerson – “Red Weather Vanes”https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-08-08-red-weather-vanes-isserman-review/The Bulwark: Ron Radosh – “How and Why American Communism Failed”https://www.thebulwark.com/p/communism-failed-maurice-isserman-reds-reviewForeign Policy: Casey Michel: “The Contradictions of America's Communist Party”https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/07/07/communist-party-america-history-illiberal-democracy/The Wall Street Journal: Joseph Epstein – “‘Reds' Review: Communism in the U.S.A.”https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/reds-review-communism-in-the-u-s-a-1e0b14d7

Heartland's Tim Benson is joined by Maurice Isserman, Publius Virgilius Rogers Professor of American History at Hamilton College, to discuss his new book, Reds: The Tragedy of American Communism. They chat about the deeply contradictory nature of the history of the Communist Party USA, the history of the American far left, and how the Bolshevik Revolution skewed the American far left. They also discuss CPUSA's unwavering faith in the Soviet Union, how many American communists became involved in espionage on behalf of the USSR, and the organization's decline into political irrelevance. Get the book here:  https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/maurice-isserman/reds/9781541620032/?lens=basic-booksShow Notes:The American Prospect: Harold Meyerson – “Red Weather Vanes”https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-08-08-red-weather-vanes-isserman-review/The Bulwark: Ron Radosh – “How and Why American Communism Failed”https://www.thebulwark.com/p/communism-failed-maurice-isserman-reds-reviewForeign Policy: Casey Michel: “The Contradictions of America's Communist Party”https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/07/07/communist-party-america-history-illiberal-democracy/The Wall Street Journal: Joseph Epstein – “‘Reds' Review: Communism in the U.S.A.”https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/books/reds-review-communism-in-the-u-s-a-1e0b14d7

In our second session, we discuss Domenico Losurdo's theory of the birth of Western Marxism as a response to the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. We begin with a few remarks on the Marxist theory of intellectuals and power, particularly how imperialism fragments the intellectual in relationship to the working class. We then discuss Losurdo's arguments about how western and eastern Marxism begin to take form and contrast one another in terms of the national struggle, state theory, messianism, and priorities of emancipation. We discuss Losurdo's theory that, at least in practice, western Marxists develop an anarchist political practice. Our aim in this study group is to learn the practical challenges facing Marxist politics in our time. Please join our Patreon to study this text with us: https://www.patreon.com/torsiongroups 

Get ready for a game-changing episode of Connecting the Dots! Dr. Wilmer Leon and Caleb Maupin dive into the seismic shifts happening worldwide—where the U.S. is no longer the sole superpower and what that means for our future. They explore a growing movement challenging America's global influence and break down what the 2024 election could mean for the future of U.S. politics. If you care about where our country is headed, this is a must-listen. Don't miss out on insights that could change how you see the world!     Find me and the show on social media. Click the following links to find @DrWilmerLeon on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Patreon and YouTube!   Hey everyone, Dr. Wilmer here! If you've been enjoying my deep dives into the real stories behind the headlines and appreciate the balanced perspective I bring, I'd love your support on my Patreon channel. Your contribution helps me keep "Connecting the Dots" alive, revealing the truth behind the news. Join our community, and together, let's keep uncovering the hidden truths and making sense of the world. Thank you for being a part of this journey!   Wilmer Leon (00:00:00): As we are living through a pivotal moment in world history, the shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world, anti-imperialism is at the core of this global movement as the US is at the center of this global shift. How did anti imperialism take hold in the us? Let's find out Announcer (00:00:27): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Wilmer Leon (00:00:35): Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon and I am Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which these events take place. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between these events and the broader historical context in which they take place. This enables you to better understand and analyze the events that impact the global village in which we live. On today's episode. The issue before us, the issues before us, are the shift from a unipolar to a multipolar world. How is this happening and what does it mean? As well as the developing 2024 US presidential political landscape to help me work through these issues. Let's turn to my guest. He's an author, independent journalist, political analyst and reporter for RT, and his latest book is entitled “Out of the Movement to the Masses, Anti-Imperialist Organizing in America”. And he's also the author of Kamala Harris and The Future of America, an essay in Three Parts. He is Caleb Maupin, my brother. Welcome back! Caleb Maupin (00:01:53): Sure. Glad to be here. Wilmer Leon (00:01:55): So first of all, your thoughts on my introduction, is that a hyperbole or is that a fairly accurate description of the dynamics that we find ourselves dealing with? Caleb Maupin (00:02:13): Trying to stop the rise of a multipolar world would be a lot like trying to stop the sun from rising in the morning, maybe trying to stop gravity. That's the way the world is moving. But our leaders are committed to trying to keep the world centered around Wall Street and London and they are going to fail. The question is how much of a cost in terms of human lives, in terms of the economy, in terms of political repression, are we going to have to endure before they come to the terms of reality, which is that we're going to have a world where there are other centers of power and countries trade with each other on a different basis. So I would agree with you, Wilmer Leon (00:02:54): And so as we look at this changing dynamic from the unipolar to the multipolar, we've got China, we have Russia, we have India. There are a number of countries that over the years have been targets of American sanctions, regimes and all other types of pressure from the United States. With all of that or from all of that, we now have the rise of the BRICS nations, we've got Brazil, we've got Russia, we've got India, we've got China, we've got South Africa, and now what about how many, I've lost track now about 15 or 17 other countries that have joined this organization, this economic organization, which also seems to be an anti imperialist organization. Caleb Maupin (00:03:49): Sure. I mean, if you understand imperialism in the economic sense, imperialism is a system rather than a policy, right? Kind of layman's terms imperialism is when one country is mean to another country or attacks another country. But we're referring specifically to imperialism as an economic system when the world is centered around financial institutions, trusts, cartels and syndicates centered in the Western countries that dominate the world through the export of capital, sending their corporations all over the world to dominate the economies of developing countries, to hold back economic development, to keep countries as captive markets and spheres of influence. That process whereby countries are prevented from lifting themselves up, from electrifying, from building modern education systems, developing modern industries, developing their own economies, and just kind of used to dump the excess commodities of Western countries and have their economy dominated by a foreign country and a foreign monopolies and big corporations from another country from the west. (00:04:55): That process refers to, that's what I mean when I say imperialism. I'm referring to a global economic setup, and that economic setup is on its way out. And that's been pretty clear and a lot has gone on, went on in the 20th century to kind of erode imperialism. And in the 21st century, imperialism continues to be in the decline, and there is this new economy rising around the world, centered around the two U superpowers, Russia and China. They are kind of at the center, the linchpin of a global network of countries, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba. But then there's even other countries that are willing to trade and are kind of on the one hand friendly to the United States, but on the other hand are happy to work with Russia or China if they give them a better deal. The shape of global politics is changing, the world is changing, and this is just something we need to embrace. The world is not going to be centered around the West as it was for so long during the age of colonialism and sense. Wilmer Leon (00:05:54): In fact, what we're finding out is that on the 27th and the 28th of August, Moscow is hosting the sixth annual, the sixth International Municipal BRICS Forum. And what might surprise a lot of people is there are delegations from 126 countries that are expected to take part, more than 5,000 participants from 500 cities around the world. This isn't getting very much attention or coverage here in the western media, but folks need to understand, as we talked about the shift from the unipolar to the multipolar, this is a perfect example of that shift isn't happening, that shift HAS happened. Caleb Maupin (00:06:45): Sure. When I was at the Valdi Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia in the mountains near the city, I saw Ael Togi, the head of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, and he pointed out that in the Eurasian subcontinent and outside of the Western countries, this is like a golden era. The amount of electrification that's going on, the amount of roads and railways that are being constructed, I mean, there is a whole exploding new economy happening in the world. And I saw that when I was at the Yalta Economic Forum in Crimea in 2018, and other people have seen it when they go to the Vladi Stock Economic Forum in the Russian Far East. People have seen it with the Belt and Road Initiative and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that China is building. There is this whole new economy in the world now that is focused on development and growth, building power plants, building schools, building universities, building hospitals, and it's a really, really big part of the global economy. And our leaders are being very foolish by trying to just barricade it and blockade it and oppose it because they're locking the United States out of that economic growth. When somebody's growing economically, they have more money to spend, they have more products they can buy, and we could be benefiting from this new economy that's rising, but instead, our Western leaders are committed to maintaining their monopoly at all costs. And so we are getting locked out of an explosion of growth. It's just a very, very mistaken approach. Wilmer Leon (00:08:18): And I want to, with that intro shift to shift to your book out of the movement to the masses, anti-imperialist organizing in America, because as I said in the intro, one of the major elements I believe of this shift from the unipolar to the multipolar is anti imperialism. And you write in the second paragraph of your introduction, what made the Communist party USA important was that it was the first anti-imperialist organization to take hold in the country. There were certainly anti-war organizations such as Mark Twain's, anti-Imperialist League. There had been pacifists and socialists like Eugene Debs, who opposed War on a Class basis, but the Communist party of USA was founded on the ideological breakthroughs of the Bolshevik Revolution and Russia specifically the teachings of Vladimir Lenin. So I wanted to use this book out of the Movement to the Masses, which is a textbook, and wanted to start the conversation with what motivated you to write this book and what motivated you to write this as a textbook? Caleb Maupin (00:09:33): Well, it's important to understand that I think the ultimate interest of we the American people is in a society free from imperialism. I don't think that helping ExxonMobil and BP and Shell and Chevron dominate the global oil markets really benefits American working people in the long run. There might be some short-term bonuses, but those things are fading and that there is a long Wilmer Leon (00:09:57): Short-term bonuses such as, Caleb Maupin (00:09:59): Well, we've had a higher standard of living at least in the past, but that standard of living is in decline, and the future of the United States is not in this decaying western financial system. It's in a new order where we're trading with countries on the basis of win-win cooperation. And the reason I wrote the textbook is because I wanted people to be aware of the fact that there has been a strong anti-imperialist movement in this country, and that we can learn from these struggles of the past and these organizations that existed and what they achieved as we figure out in our time how we can build an anti-imperialist movement to rescue our country from the nightmare of the emerging low wage police state and the drive toward World War iii. And I mean, really, you don't have anti imperialism as we understand it, right? You don't have the rise of Russia and China. (00:10:50): You don't have the bricks. You don't have any of that without the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. That was a pivotal moment. That was a country that broke out of the Western imperialist system during World War I and started on an independent course of development. And it came out of the Bolshevik started out as part of the Marxist movement. Marxism was the ideology of the labor movement, right? The worker versus the employer. But there was a division in the labor movement increasingly between wealthy labor union bosses and higher paid skilled trade jobs that increasingly became supporters of empire and supporters of their country, colonizing countries in Africa and countries in Asia, et cetera. And the lower levels of the labor movement of more oppressed workers, the American Federation of Labor, the A FL was the big labor federation in the United States. And the people who started it, like Samuel Goer's, they were socialists or Marxists, but they were not anti-imperialist. (00:11:55): And by the time World War I came along, the A FL was a union that largely was for whites only. Most of the unions that were part of it banned black people from joining, banned people not born in the United States from joining, banned people who did not speak English as their first language from joining. And they were big supporters of World War I when it happened. And there was a divide in the labor movement and Marxism that had been the ideology of the labor movement got very much divided. And you had parties like the British Labor Party, the ruling party of Britain today. It originated as a Marxist party of labor organizers, but it became a pro imperialist party. Well, Bolshevism and the people who took power in Russia, the Bolsheviks, they were a breakaway from the Marxist movement that had developed this new theory of imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism. (00:12:48): And they said, we're not just fighting against regular capitalism. We're fighting against the monopolistic capitalism of Britain and France and Germany and America, and that means that we support nations, right? Originally, Marxists and the labor movement said, there are no nations workers of the world unite. It's just the workers versus the bosses. No borderers in our struggle. Well, Lenin says, actually, we do support nations in their fight against imperialism. And after the Bolsheviks took power in Russia, one of the first things they did is they called a conference in Baku in Azerbaijan. And at that conference, they invited all kinds of people from all over the world and they said, we will support you as long as you're fighting imperialism. And one of the people that came to that conference and was given military support by the Bolsheviks was the Amir of Afghanistan. And the Amir of Afghanistan was a conservative monarchist. (00:13:40): He was not a Marxist, not a socialist of any stripe. He was a conservative monarchist, a very conservative Muslim, but the Bolshevik said, you're fighting imperialism and so and so, we support you. And he gave them support. And many people around the world were inspired by the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist message that the Bolsheviks had, which was kind of a breakaway from the standard Marxist movement. The understanding was we're not just fighting capitalism, we're fighting against imperialism, and we support nations and colonized people of all different classes, workers, capitalists, whoever who are struggling against imperialism. That is the basis of this new movement that we are trying to build. And the Communist Party of the United States was the incarnation of that movement, and that's why it was embraced by many different sections of the population, most especially the black community in America, because they viewed black people as a colonized people, an oppressed nation within US borders. Marcus Garvey had been leading the black nationalist movement in the United States, the Back to African movement, and many black people saw African-Americans as a colonized people within the US borders. And the Communist Party agreed with that, and that was a winning point that they had with many people in the United States. And the Communist Party was supportive of anyone around the world who was struggling against British American or French imperialism. Wilmer Leon (00:15:04): And as we look at that history and we bring it forward to the current moment and the Russia phobia that we find ourselves subjected to, I submit, and please if I'm wrong, correct me that one of the things that's at the crux of this Russia phobia is the fact that America is an imperialist nation and a neo-colonial power, and Russia has the Soviet Union and then into Russia has been anti-colonialism, which is one of the reasons why we find now Russia gaining so much traction with countries on the continent of Africa. Caleb Maupin (00:15:53): Well, I got to tell you, just a few weeks after the special military operation in Russia began a couple of years ago, I was in New York City with Tanner, 15 of my friends, and we were marching around with American flags and Russian flags chanting, Russia is not our enemy, Russia is not our enemy. And we chanted this in Union Square, and then we went up to Grand Central Station, we marched around Grand Central Station chanting that, and while we were doing that, we got thumbs up from a lot of different people. Now, many people did not agree with us, but the people who did give us thumbs up, many of them were people that were not from the United States. New York City is a big international center. You have the United Nations that's there. You have Wall Street that's there. And I would say the majority of the people who gave us thumbs up and gave us support were from the continent of Africa. (00:16:40): They were people from West Africa, from Nigeria. They were people from South Africa. And that the economy of Africa is very tied in with the Russian economy, and Russia provides fertilizer to many countries. Russia has partnerships with many countries to help them develop their state run mining industries or their state run oil and natural gas industries. So support for Russia on the African continent is widespread. Now, this doesn't match the narrative of liberals. Liberals would have us believe that Russia is a white supremacist country, and that's why they rigged the elections in 2016 to get white supremacist. Donald Trump elected, and that just does not match reality. The Soviet Union, which modern Russia is built on the foundations of the Soviet Union, was the best friend of anti-colonial and liberation movements on the African continent, and those relationships still exist. When I was in Russia, I sat down with people from various African countries. (00:17:43): I sat down with people from Namibia. Well, the ruling party of Namibia is the Southwest People's Organization, which was a Soviet aligned, Soviet funded organization that fought for Namibia to become independent. The ruling party of South Africa, the African National Congress was armed and funded by the Soviet Union. If you go to Ghana, the man who created modern Ghana was Kwame Nkrumah, who was a big friend of the Soviet Union and was called himself an African socialist and developed his own interpretation of the Marxist philosophy that was specific to the African continent. I mean, there was Julius Nire, there was Gaddafi who built Libya into the most prosperous country on the African continent. There are just so many examples of how Russia is intimately tied in with the struggle against colonialism on the African continent with the struggle of African countries to pursue their own course of development. (00:18:43): And that is rooted in the foundation of the Bolshevik Revolution. And the Bolshevik ideology, which I will emphasize was a break with the standard Marxist view. Marx himself, he believed that the first communist revolution would happen in Germany, and it would be the European countries that had the communist revolution first because they were the most advanced. And it was Lenin who came along and said, well, actually, that's wrong. The center of revolutionary energy is going to be in the colonized and oppressed countries of the world. And the working class in the imperialist homeland is largely being bought off, and it's going to be the division between what we now some academics talk about the global north and the global south. It's going to be that division that brings socialism into the world. And that is kind of the defining aspect of what Lenin taught. And as much as the global anti-imperialist movement is not explicitly Marxist Leninist in the Soviet sense, they don't exactly follow that Soviet ideology. That understanding of imperialism and what happened in the 20th century with the Soviet Union, with later the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnamese revolution, the Cuban Revolution, all of that laid the basis for what exists today. And that understanding is important, and that's why I wrote this textbook. Wilmer Leon (00:19:55): And to your point about all of these myths and stories and fictions about Russia being involved in our election and all of this other foolishness, mark Zuckerberg just wrote a letter to Jim Jordan saying that he apologizes for having purged stories from Facebook regarding the Hunter Biden laptop and some of the other stories, because he has now come to understand that that whole narrative was not Russian propaganda as the FBI had told him, he now has come to understand that those stories are true. And I bring that up just as one data point to demonstrate how so much of this rhetoric that we've been hearing, so much of this propaganda that we've been hearing about China being involved in our elections and Russia being involved in our elections, and Iran, mark Zuckerberg, the head of Facebook, just sent a letter to Jim Jordan laying all this out, that it was bs. It was a fiction created by the FBI, Caleb Moin. Caleb Maupin (00:21:14): Well, we've been through this before, right after the Russian Revolution, just a few years later in London, in Britain, there was a scandal called the Enovia of letter. And the British people were told, oh my goodness, the Russians are meddling in our elections. They're trying to get the Labor Party to win the election. And Lloyd George, who was the conservative military leader, was playing up the idea that the Labor Party was being funded and supported by Russia, and they held up this piece of paper they said was the smoking gun. It was the proof, the Enovia letter, this letter supposedly from the Russian government official of Enovia to the Labor Party. Well, it was later proven to be a complete hoax. It was fake, right? But that was happening back in the 1920s. And we've been through this over and over and over again. When Henry Wallace ran for president, he was the vice president under Roosevelt, and then when Truman was president, he ran against the Democrats as they became a pro-war party, the party that was leading us into the Korean War, et cetera. (00:22:12): He ran as an independent candidate in 1948, and they acclaimed his campaign was a big Russian conspiracy, and it was a communist conspiracy. There's a whole history of this and the FBI, if you look at the number of investigations they've done into supposed Russian influence in American elections, it's endless, but it's always a hoax, right? American elections happen because of events in America, not because of Russia. However, there is no question that many people in the United States do want peace, and they do want peace with the Soviet Union or with modern Russia, and they may vote for candidates who they think are more likely to bring about that peace, but that's not a conspiracy. That's doing what you're supposed to be able to do in a democracy expressing yourself at the ballot box. And what they're really worried about is Americans thinking wrong. They're really worried about not having a monopoly over the information that we receive. They're really worried about us questioning what we're told and not marching in lockstep behind their agenda of war and dividing the world into blocks and isolating certain countries. And this story has happened over and over and over again in American politics. We've been through it so many times. Wilmer Leon (00:23:25): Final point on this, I don't want to get back to the book. As you just said, events happen in American elections due to America. Well, all of this chicken little, the sky is falling and the world is interfering in our elections. Well, there was a story in the New York Times about what, three months ago, about APAC spending $100 million to unseat what they consider to be left-leaning Democrats, whose position on Israel was not consistent with the Zionist ideology. I'm going to say that again. This was in the New York Times. I'm not making this up. This is an anti-Semitic dialogue. It was in New York Times APAC spending $100 million on primary campaigns to remove Democrats that they consider to be anti-Israeli. What happened in New York with Jamal Bowman? That's what happened in Missouri with, what's her name? I think she's in St. Louis, the Congresswoman. I'm drawing a blank on her. Anyway, and they were successful in a number of campaigns. So we're running around chasing ghosts, chasing Russian ghosts, and Chinese ghosts when the real culprits are telling you right upfront in the New York Times what it is they're doing and why it is they're doing it. With that being said, you can either respond to that or how did you organize your textbook and why is it organized in the manner in which it is? Caleb Maupin (00:25:16): Well, I went over like case studies of three different anti-imperialist movements or organizations in the United States. I started with probably the most successful, which was the Communist Party of the United States, which at one point had a huge amount of influence During the Roosevelt administration, they entered an alliance with Roosevelt, and in the late 1930s, the Communist party controlled two of the city council seats in New York City. They had a very close ally in the US Congress representing Harlem named Veto Mark Antonio. They also had a member of Congress in Minnesota who was their friend and ally and read their newspaper into the congressional record. They had meetings at the White House with President Roosevelt. On multiple occasions, members of the Communist Party or the Young Communist League were brought to the White House to meet with Roosevelt, and they led the CIO, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which was a new labor federation they had created as an alternative to the American Federation of Labor. (00:26:14): And they were a very influential group in the labor movement among intellectuals in Hollywood. And they put forward an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist message, and their successes are worth studying. There were certainly mistakes that were made, and they were very brutally crushed by the FBI in the aftermath of the Second World War with the rise of McCarthyism. But there were studying then from there, I talked about the Workers' World Party, which was a Marxist Leninist political party that really came into prominence in the late sixties and really kind of peaked in its influence during the 1980s. And they were a party that took inspiration, not just from the Soviet Union, but from the wave of anti-colonial movements that emerged. They were sympathetic to Libya and Gaddafi. They were sympathetic to North Korea and others, and they did a lot of very important anti-war organizing, building anti-war coalitions. They were very close to Ramsey Clark, the former US Attorney General who left the Lyndon Johnson administration and became an international lawyer and an opponent of the International Criminal Court in his final years and such. (00:27:17): And then I talked about the new communist movement of the 1970s, which was a number of different organizations that emerged during the 1970s that were trying to take inspiration from China. They wanted to take guidance from the Chinese revolution. China had argued that the Soviet Union had kind of abandoned the global anti-colonial, anti-imperialist struggle. They felt it was holding back revolutionary forces, but China was at that point presenting itself as a bastion of anti imperialism. And so there were a number of new political parties formed during the 1970s that modeled themselves on China. And all three of these case studies, all three of these groups made big mistakes, but also had big successes. The most successful was the Communist Party prior to it being crushed by the FBI during the McCarthy period. All of them had big successes and were able to do big important things, and I studied all of them. (00:28:08): And then from there, the fourth chapter talked about divisions in the ruling class, and why is it that we see, at this point, we're seeing a big all-out fight between Donald Trump and those who oppose him. And when you talk about the Watergate scandal and you talk about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, what was really going on behind closed doors? And then in the final chapter, I tried to kind of take from all of that what we could take and what we could learn when trying to build a movement in our time. One thing I made a point of doing in the book is that every chapter is accompanied by a number of original texts from the period discussed. I have a number of texts from the Communist Party, from the Workers' World Party, from the new communist movement of the 1970s, so that we can hear from the horse's mouth, so to speak, what these people were preaching and what they believed as they were building their organizations. Wilmer Leon (00:29:01): So how does this history, how relevant is this history you just mentioned Donald Trump? How relevant is this history to where we find ourselves today with our politics? Caleb Maupin (00:29:15): I would argue it's extremely relevant. And if you look at Roosevelt and who opposed him, and if you look at the Kennedy assassination, and if you look at the Watergate scandal, there has always been a divide among the American elite between what you can call the Eastern establishment, the ultra rich, the ultra monopolies, the Rockefellers, the DuPonts, the Carnegies that are now at this point aligned with Silicon Valley, the tech monopolies, bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and others. There's always been a divide between these entrenched ultra monopolies and a lot of lower level rich people who are not part of the club and feel that those entrenched monopolies are kind of rigging things against 'em. And I quote, there's a very good text called the Anglo-American Establishment by Carol Quigley that talks about this divide. I think he was one of the first people to talk about it. (00:30:06): But then from there, you also have a great book by Carl Oglesby called The Yankee and Cowboy War that talks about this and specifically applies that analysis to what went on with the Watergate scandal, with the assassination of JFK and the political crisis in the 1960s and seventies. And I would argue that in our time, this is the fight that kind of defines things when we talk about trying to build a movement against colonialism and imperialism in the United States, these lower level capitalists would gain if America had paved roads, if America had a stronger economy, and if we were doing business with the countries around the world that are growing right now in alliance with China, right? If we were trading with them and some of that wealth was flowing into our economy, we would be benefiting. However, it is the ultra monopolies that are very much tied in with the intelligence apparatus, the people who brought us, Henry Kissinger, the people who brought us z, big new Brozinsky. (00:31:01): They are determined to keep the United States at the top and keep Western imperialist this financial system at the top of the world at all costs, even if that means kind of playing a long geopolitical game and if it means dramatically decreasing the standard of living and kind of collapsing the domestic economy of the United States. And so when Trump talks about America first and his supporters rail against globalists, this is really what they're getting at is the lower levels of capital are fighting against the Eastern establishment. And that creates an opening for those of us who want to build an anti-imperialist movement in this country to intervene. And I talk about that, and unfortunately, it seems like really since the 1970s and since kind of the end of the 1960s and seventies, political upsurge, much of the left has kind of just deteriorated into being the foot soldiers of that Eastern establishment. (00:31:56): They see those lower level capitalists as being the most hawkish and warlike as being the most anti-union and the most authoritarian. So they think, okay, we're going to align with the Eastern establishment against them. And I argue that that's not the correct approach because right now it is those lower level capitalists who feel threatened, and it is among them that you found support for Julian Assange that you find interest in being friendly with Russia and with China and anti-establishment sentiment, you find opposition to the tech monopolies and their censorship. And that really we're in a period where those of us who are anti-imperialist need to pivot into trying to build an anti-monopoly coalition. And that's what the Communist Party talked about at the end of the Second War as the Cold War got going, as they were being crushed by the FBI, they said their goal was to build an anti-monopoly coalition to unite with the working class, the small business owners, even some of the wealthy against the big monopolies in their drive for war. (00:32:54): And I would argue that's what we should be aiming to do in our time, is build an anti-monopoly coalition. And that's what I've pulled from that textbook and from that history going over what has been done and what has been successful and that the Communist Party really gained from having an alliance with Roosevelt that was very strategic on their part. And I would argue that similar alliances are necessary, but the main thing is that there needs to be a network of people that are committed to building anti-imperialist politics in America. We need a network of people who can work together, who can rely on each other and can effectively carry out anti-imperialist operations. And there are examples of this. I'm about to go to Florida to support the Yahoo movement, the Yahoo movement, the African People Socialist party. They are an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist organization, and they're doing it. And if you go to St. Louis, Missouri, and if you go to St. Petersburg, Florida, Wilmer Leon (00:33:50): Who, Cory Bush, I'm sorry, her name you said St. Louis, Cory Bush, sorry, is the other congresswoman that was defeated by the, sorry, I had to get it out. Go ahead. Okay. Caleb Maupin (00:34:01): But you'll see the huge community centers that they've built, the farmer's markets that they've built, I mean, they have built a base among the African-American community in these two cities where they are providing services to people while teaching an anti-colonial, anti-imperialist ideology. Now, I don't necessarily agree with their entire approach on everything, but I see why they're being targeted because they are laying the foundations of building a broader anti-imperialist movement. And what they are doing is a great model to look at. They are building a base among the population. The title of the book is Out of the Movement to the Masses. I've been going to anti-war protests, and I've been going to socialist and communist spaces, and very rarely did I ever encounter the African People's Socialist Party, but they were organizing where it counted not in these kind of obscure academic bohemian spaces. (00:34:54): They were organizing in communities and they were providing real services, and they were building community centers and having classes for pregnant mothers and having organic farmer's markets. And they were doing things among the masses of people, not among the, so-called movements of people that like to read books about communism or whatever. And that is why they're being targeted, because they are actually building the kind of movement that needs to be done. They're doing what the Communist Party did during the 1930s. They're doing what the new communist movement of the 1970s attempted to do and was pretty unsuccessful because of global circumstances, et cetera. They are doing what needs to be done to build a real anticolonial movement. And that's kind of what I'm in the text is we have to have a reevaluation and we have to figure out how we can reach the bulk of the American people and not confine ourselves to kind of left academic and intellectual spaces. Wilmer Leon (00:35:50): Is it too simplistic to, when you look at this battle between the elites, is it too simplistic to categorize it as the financials versus the industrialists? Caleb Maupin (00:36:01): Yes. It's a little bit too simplistic because there is a lot of financialization, a lot of the lower levels Wilmer Leon (00:36:07): Of capital. Caleb Maupin (00:36:09): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not exactly right, but you're pointing to a certain trend that there is one faction that favors economic growth because economic growth will mean more money for them. There's another faction that is not concerned about economic growth so much as they're concerned about maintaining their monopoly. And in order to maintain their monopoly, they need to slow down growth around the world, and they're actually pushing degrowth or slow growth economics. So that's probably the primary divide is pro-growth and anti-growth, right? You would think that every businessman would be pro-growth, but the ultra monopolies that are heavily involved in finance at this point, they're blatantly talking about degrowth as a way to stay at the top. Wilmer Leon (00:36:51): In fact, one of the ways that they maintain their position is through consolidation. One of the ways that the banks control their monopoly is by buying smaller banks and bringing the or. So that's just one example. Caleb Maupin (00:37:10): Sure, sure. I mean, we live in a time where at the end of the day, the issue is technology is that it is human labor that creates all wealth, right? It is only human labor that creates value at the end of the day, and it is the value that workers create that lays the basis for the profits that capitalists can make, et cetera. And we are in a period where the technological revolution is reducing the role of workers at the assembly line. There's a lot of jobs that are no longer in existence because of technological advancement. And in a rational society that would be great. But in our society where profits are in command, that's leading to an economic crisis. Great example is self-driving cars, self-driving cars should be a great thing. It should be great that this job called driving this chore, this human labor of driving cars is no longer necessary. (00:38:02): But if they introduce self-driving cars, you would immediately in this country have millions of truck drivers unemployed, millions of Uber drivers unemployed, millions of traffic court employees unemployed. You would have riots in the streets. And Andrew Yang talked about how if self-driving cars came to the United States, we would have a society-wide crisis of unemployment and chaos like we never seen. How is that rational? Why should technological advancement lead to greater poverty? And that is the problem that we are facing. Human creativity and brilliance has outstripped the narrow limits production organized to make profit. We need a rationally planned economy so that economic growth can continue and technological advancement leads to greater prosperity for all Wilmer Leon (00:38:46): That sounds like China. Caleb Maupin (00:38:47): Yeah. And China, by controlling their economy and by having the state assigned credit based on their five-year plans and having state controlled tech corporations that are in line with the Communist party's vision, they're able to continue having growth despite having technological advancement. And that's ultimately what we need to have. And that is what Marx wrote about. One of the writers I quote extensively from is a brilliant thinker from the new communist movement named Nelson Peery and his autobiography, black Radical, which is very good, talks about his involvement in the Communist Party and then getting kicked out of the Communist Party and FBI infiltration of the Communist Party and then starting the Communist Labor Party during the 1970s. But also his very important book that he published before he died, I believe in 2004, called The Future Is Up To Us, which really gets into this contradiction of technology leading to impoverishment. (00:39:42): And he's saying this like during the Bush administration before ai, before any of what we're saying now he's laying out how this is going to lead to a big economic crisis that's going to necessitate a new economic system. Nelson Period is a brilliant thinker who had this kind of understanding. I also draw from Fred Goldstein, from Sam Marcy from some of the other writers who said the same thing. But this has always been kind of the understanding is that technological advancement should not lead to impoverishment, it should lead to greater prosperity. I often quote, there's an old story called the coal miner's riddle, the coal miner. He's sitting in his house with his son. The son says, father, why is it so cold in the house? And he says, because I can't afford to buy any coal. And he says, well, why can't we afford to buy any coal? (00:40:30): And he says, because I lost my job at the coal mine. I was laid off. And he says, father, why were you laid off from the coal mine? Why did you lose your job? He says, because there is too much coal. That's capitalism, but that's not rational. It's poverty created by abundance. I keep hearing our politicians talk about a housing shortage. Have you heard this? A housing shortage in America, there's no housing shortage. I live in New York City, there's four empty apartments for every homeless person. There's millions of empty housing, there's no housing shortage in America. There's a shortage of affordable housing black, because the national economic system, Wilmer Leon (00:41:06): BlackRock bought up a lot of the housing stock and instead of putting those houses back on the market, they held those homes off the market and then put 'em out for rent. So in many instances, it's not a matter of oh, $25,000 credit to those first time home buyers allegedly to lower the price of housing or to make housing more affordable. No, all that's going to do is raise the price of houses by $25,000. What you need to do is get that housing stock that BlackRock has as bought up and put that on the market, make that available. Because if you look at the Econ 1 0 1 supply and demand, you put more houses on the market, chances are the price of houses is going to decline. Caleb Maupin (00:42:02): Absolutely. Absolutely. When we talk about imperialism and we talk about anti-imperialist movements, one great example is the situation with Yemen, right? Yemen right now, this is one of the poorest countries in the world, and right now, this country that has a big movement called the Houthis or Anah, they're shaking the world. But if you go and listen or read the sermons or the founder of the Houthis movement, Hussein Al Houthis, what he's fighting for is economic development because he points out that Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world, but yet it has a huge amount of oil. It has a huge amount of arable land to grow food, but the people there are very, very poor. And the Houthis movement that is now at this point, stopping ships in the Mediterranean and standing with the Palestinians and sending drones to the Indian Ocean and just shaking the world. (00:42:56): That was a movement of very, very poor people in one of the poorest countries in the world that demanding to take control of their natural resources and take control of their economy. My understanding of imperialism and such very much had a lot to do with the fact that in 2015, I participated in a humanitarian mission attempting to deliver medical aid to Yemen after the upsurge of 2015 when the Houthis movement and their revolutionary committee took power, I went on a ship from the Islamic Republic of Iran with the Red Crescent Society, and we tried to deliver medical aid to Yemen, and we were blocked in doing so. And reading about this anti-colonial movement that was formed in Yemen, a very religious Shia Muslim movement, demanding economic development, demanding, taking control of their resources, reading about that was very inspiring in the aim of building an anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movement in the United States. (00:43:54): Now to see what the Houthis are doing as they're blocking ships to support the Palestinians as they're withstanding us attack, this is a movement of impoverished people fighting for their economic development and fighting to build a new country. This is a mass anti-colonial movement that is worth studying. And the fact that they align themselves with Russia and China, they're not blocking ships from Russia, they're not blocking ships from China. They are blocking ships from Israel and any country that trades with them, that shows you that this global anti-imperialist movement that is about mobilizing millions of people to fight for their rights, this global movement has a real strength. Wilmer Leon (00:44:34): Let's shift now to the 2024 presidential election. We've come out of the Republican Convention, we've now come out of the Democratic Convention and the Democratic Party convention, and Donald Trump was shocked when Joe Biden stepped down, Kamala Harris stepped in. That has changed the dynamic, at least in terms of the dialogue, and we're starting to see some shift in the numbers. Your thoughts on where we are now with this landscape. Caleb Maupin (00:45:09): I think that Kamala Harris is a completely manufactured candidate. She was created by the people who brought us the Hillary Clinton State Department when it was made clear that Hillary Clinton couldn't run for president once again in 2020, all of Hillary Clinton's financial backers put their money behind Kamala Harris. She was not popular with the American people, but yet powerful forces twisted Joe Biden's arm and put her on the ticket as vp. She has not been popular or successful as vp, but she is the candidate that the forces that are committed to regime change and all out efforts to oppose Russia and China at all costs. She is the one that they have invested the most in supporting. And I don't think she's going to win. I think that Trump will win the upcoming election. And that doesn't mean everything about Trump is good or I endorsed Donald Trump. (00:46:03): I'm just telling you that I think Trump is going to win. But I also believe that there are very powerful forces that see Kamala Harris as their best bet at getting what they want, which is more regime change wars, more destabilization around the world. I did write a book in 2020 about Kamala Harris four years ago, and I thought it was very odd that right after she got the Democratic nomination, this book that had been on sale for four years on Amazon suddenly got removed from Amazon. And for seven days my book was banned from Amazon and then restored with no explanation seven days later. I thought that was very, very odd. It raised a lot of eyebrows, but it also points to the amount of power the tech monopolies really have. It seems like everything was being done to support Kamala Harris. What I also thought was interesting is that in my book, I talked about Tulsi Gabbard and how Tulsi Gabbard kind of represents forces in the Pentagon that are really worried about another Arab Spring and what Kamala Harris and the Hillary Clinton State Department forces people like Samantha Power, people like Anne-Marie Slaughter, what they might engineer if they come back to office. (00:47:11): My book highlighted Tulsi Gabbard as being kind of a faction that is opposed to Kamala Harris. And the very same day that my book was pulled from Amazon, Tulsi Gabbard was added to the Quiet Sky's terrorism watch list by the American government. When she tried to board a plane, she found out she was accused of being a terrorist. And I thought that was interesting as well. And it just kind of points to, and there was all kinds of weird stuff going on in terms of social media and Google searches that was being manipulated around that time. But the book that I wrote about Kamala Harris and who has backed her and the ties that she has getting pulled from Amazon, it was interesting to see the timing, Wilmer Leon (00:47:52): The position of the Democratic Party as it relates to Gaza. And I was at the DNCI was also at the RNC conventions, but there were protestors in Chicago demanding a change in the US policy as it relates to the genocide in Gaza. Then you had uncommitted delegates that were able to have a sit-in at the DNC right outside the front door of the entrance to the United Center, demanding that a pro-Palestinian spokesperson be added to the speaker's list. And none of that was agreed to. In fact, it was basically dismissed summarily. So your thoughts on the dangers that the Democrats are playing with taking that position as it relates to the general election? Caleb Maupin (00:48:55): Well, if the Democrats are going to win this election, they're going to need lots of votes in Minnesota, lots of votes in Wisconsin and lots of votes in Michigan. And what do all three of those states have in common? Those swing states, Wilmer Leon (00:49:06): Large Arab populations. Caleb Maupin (00:49:08): That's right. Lots of Muslim Americans, lots of Arab Americans, and with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris giving a blank check to Israel to do what they're doing. I think it's very unlikely to see those folks lining up to vote for them. Now, Kamala Harris has made some noise about this or that, but she's basically the president already. If she was going to do something, she could do it right now. I mean, she's the vice president, but Joe Biden doesn't seem to be as actively involved in the political running of the country as some people might expect. That said, I will say that Donald Trump, I mean his position on Israel Palestine, I mean, is pretty reprehensible, and he continues to play up the idea that Kamala Harris and the Democrats are somehow anti-Israel, which they are not. What I think is interesting though, and I noticed that it seems like anti-Israel voices in the Trump camp, they may not be on the front stage, but they do have a lot of influence. (00:50:03): And I'm not saying all these people are doing what they're doing for necessarily good reasons, but I noticed when Elon Musk was interviewing Donald Trump in the chat, it just exploded. And all over Twitter, it exploded. The phrase, no war on Iran that came from Nick Fuentes. Now, Nick Fuentes is somebody that I don't agree with on many, many things and find a lot of his views and just his presentation style to kind of reprehensible and gross, but he, for his own reasons says no war with Iran. I also noticed that Candace Owens, who is a conservative and was very pro-Israel at one point, she was not pro-Israel enough. Now she's kind of moved for interesting reasons that are very different than anything I would say. She's moved into an anti-Israel direction and she has also got a lot of people in the Trump camp who listen to her and she is making noise, no war in Iran and urging Trump supporters not to support Israel. And this points to the fact that opposition to Israel, I think is much more widespread in both parties than anyone wants to recognize. (00:51:07): It's an element of the emperor has no clothes. Both parties pretend that everyone in their camp just supports Israel. But anyone who talks to a typical Democrat, you were at the Republican Convention and the Democrat Convention, and you could probably confirm that opposition to what Israel is doing is boiling beneath the surface, amid both political parties and amid all sections of this country. And that there is a lot of growing outrage about the influence and power of Israel and American politics, even among people who might support Israel otherwise, but just don't appreciate the arrogance and grip that they seem to have over policymaking. Wilmer Leon (00:51:46): And some people just help me understand why, but some people just have a problem with genocide. It's a bit os there are growing groups, Republicans for Harris, and there are those who are positing that this is because she's a stooge of the elite and this represents how she who's truly backing her. What about the argument that many of those in those types of organizations see her as an opportunity to reclaim the Republican party by getting rid of Donald Trump? And it's almost a any port in the storm kind of mentality, they see her as the stalking horse. If they can back her, if she can defeat Trump, they then can, the old school, the traditional Republicans can regain control of their party. What say you Caleb Opin? Caleb Maupin (00:52:58): Well, I would say that the Bush era Republican party is gone. It's never coming back. And Donald Trump is a symptom of that. And that's very clear. And that Donald Trump's recent embracing of Tulsi Gabbard and RFK, that indicates that Donald Trump is taking his campaign in an anti-establishment direction. Now, that doesn't mean that he's going to necessarily do good things as president. That just means that he's increasingly realizing that his appeal is to people that are opposed to the establishment. And I think that means the establishment is going to fight him a lot harder. There's no question about that. And that there are your regular traditional neo-conservative Republicans, my country, right or wrong, if you don't like it here, move to some other country, support the military, support the wars, support America dominating the world, and showing the world about our great American way of life. (00:53:51): Those folks are increasingly finding the Republican party to not be their home. And this is all very interesting. I noticed in Kamala Harris's DNC speech, she attacked the Republicans for denigrating America. And that made me smile because it reminded me of what I always heard about the far left, right? It was the far left. They hate America. They're always saying things are bad. Why are you always running down our country? And a lot of things that Kamala Harris said in her speech almost sounded like Neoconservatism. She attacked Donald Trump for meeting with Kim Jong-Un. She said he was cozying up to tyrants and being friendly with tyrants. And it seemed to me like there was very much the Republican Party, I believe over time is going to become more of a catchall populist, anti-establishment party, whereas the Democratic party is more and more becoming the party of the establishment of the way things are supposed to be. I think that what I would call the late Cold War normal in American politics is being flipped. It used to be the Republican party was the party of the establishment, and the Democrats were the party of opposition. Not very sincere opposition in many cases, but they were the party of, if you didn't agree with what you're supposed to think necessarily, if you're a little more critical, you become a Democrat. Well, Wilmer Leon (00:55:05): If you were proc civil rights, if you were pro-environment, if you were anti-war, that's where you went. Caleb Maupin (00:55:12): Yeah. And I think it's being flipped. And that doesn't mean that Republicans and the MAGA base that are talking a certain way are sincere at all. That just means who they're appealing to. The Republican party has an anti-establishment appeal more and more every day. The Democratic party has a ProE establishment appeal. And I think this Republicans for Harris is a great example of that. Wilmer Leon (00:55:32): So as we move now, spiraling towards November 5th, you've already said you believe that Donald Trump is going to win the election. One of the things that I find very, very telling, and I check it every day when you go to the Harris website, there's still no policy positions stated. There's no policy tab. In fact, when I asked that question a couple of times at the DNCC, I was told, oh, you don't understand. She hasn't had time. There hasn't been. I said, wait a minute. She ran for president four years ago. So she had to have, we hope she had established some policy positions as a candidate. She was the vice president going on four years now, we hope during those four years she could have figured out some policy and it's now been almost a month. You can't tell me that she couldn't pick up the phone and call a bunch of people in the room and say, Hey, I need policies on education, on defense, on the economy, on these five positions. I need policy in 10 days. Go get it done. Caleb Opin. Caleb Maupin (00:57:00): Well, I think there are three possible outcomes for the election. In my mind, probably the worst case scenario would be Kamala Harris winning. And I think that would be followed by a number of, there'd be chaos in the streets. A lot of Trump supporters will not accept it as a legitimate election. And I expect there will then be a big crackdown on dissent, and I expect there'll be a lot of provocations, et cetera. And that will be used by the establishment to crack down on dissent. Wilmer Leon (00:57:26): Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. And people need to understand the crackdown on dissent has already started by looking what's being done to who's being platformed from social media sites. Look at what's happening to folks who are getting arrested, the guy that started Instagram and all of these folks, the three Scott Ritter, your book taken off of taking all of these things are data points to support your position that the crackdown on descent has already started? Caleb Maupin (00:58:02): No, I mean the Biden administration has already indicted. Sue me, Terry, who was the top advisor to Obama and Bush on South Korea. And I mean the fact that she's been indicted as a foreign agent of South Korea just because South Korea wants to have mattered negotiations with North Korea. I mean, it looks like blatant retaliation. Wilmer Leon (00:58:22): And South Korea is an ally. Caleb Maupin (00:58:23): Yeah, their closest friend in Washington dc Sumi Terry has now been accused of being a foreign agent. She's facing decades in prison. I mean, this is craziness. This is a top CIA person who's been a top advisor on career matters. So that would be kind of what I think the worst case scenario would be. The most likely scenario is that I think Donald Trump will win. But all the negative things about Trumpism will amplify. I think the pro-Israel stuff, the pro-police stuff, the anti-immigrant stuff will amplify Wilmer Leon (00:58:55): Project 2025. Caleb Maupin (00:58:56): Yeah, the government will try to, the powers that be will try to ride the wave of Trumpism to push forward their own agenda, which is not good But I do think there is a third possible scenario, which is a real long shot. It's a real long shot, which is that Donald Trump takes office in a completely defensive position. And under those circumstances, he may be compelled to do a lot of good things because he's just at odds with the establishment and needs popular support. So much so we shall have to see. But those are my three predictions. But in all of those circumstances on anti-imperialist organization, a network of people that are committed to anti imperialism and building a new America beyond the rule of bankers and war profiteers is going to be vitally important. And at the end of the day, what really matters is not so much who is in office, it's what the balance of forces is in the country and around the world, and what kind of movement exists, what kind organizations. (00:59:58): There are people that are involved in the political process and to change the world and taking responsibility for the future of their country. And I wrote the book as a textbook for the Center for Political Innovation. My organization as we try to do just that, as we try to build a network of people who can rely on each other and build an anti-imperialist movement in the United States to support the Hru three, to study these ideas to be out there. That is one thing we aim to do. If Donald Trump wins the election, one thing that we aim to do is and intend to get that picture of Donald Trump shaking hands with Kim Jong-un and get it everywhere and say that this election is a mandate that the peace talks on the Korean Peninsula should continue. And that could be a way to nudge the discourse toward a more peace oriented wing of Trumpism. (01:00:46): That's one thing that we intend to do. We have other operations that we intend to carry out with the aim of nudging the country in an anti-colonial direction. One thing that I think is very important is Alaska, right? Alaska is right there close to Russia and there's the bearing Strait that separates Russia and Alaska and Abraham Lincoln had the idea of building a bridge to connect Alaska to Russia. And a lot of great people have had the idea of doing that since. And I think popularizing the idea of building a world land bridge to connect Alaska to Russia and pivot the US economy toward trading with the Russian Far East and with the Korean Peninsula and with China that could nudge the world and a direction of Multipolarity pivot away from Western Europe and towards the World Land Bridge and the bearing Strait and all of that. (01:01:36): So there are various things that we can do to try and influence discourse, but I must say the explosion is coming, right? I mean, you can feel it rumbling in the ground. The avalanche is going to pour, the volcano is going to go off. It's only a matter of time. Those of us who study these ideas and understand things, we have the job not of making the explosion come, but rather of trying to guide it in the right direction. The conditions in this country are getting worse. Americans are angry at the establishment. Things are going to change. But what we hope to do is guide that change and point it in a good direction toward a better world. And that's all we can really hope to do. I quote Mao the leader of the Chinese Revolution. He said The masses are the real heroes and at the end of the day, it will be the masses of the American people and their millions who determine what the future of this country will be. I think they are going to awaken and take action. The question is only what type of action will that be? And I think guys like you and I have a role to play in shaping what kind of action they might take when they do awaken. Wilmer Leon (01:02:39): Well, thank you for putting me in that group. And if we are able to build a bridge across the bearing strait between Alaska and Russia, I'm sure Sarah Palin will be the first one. Should be operating the toll booth. My brother. Alright, my brother Kayla mopping. Man, thank you so much for being my guest. Thank you so much for joining the show today. Caleb Maupin (01:03:05): Sure thing. Always a pleasure Wilmer Leon (01:03:07): Folks. Thank you so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Woman Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, follow us on social media. The Patreon account is very, very important. That helps to support the effort. You can find all the links below in the show description and remember that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge talk without analysis is just chatter. And we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out Announcer (01:03:50): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.    

From July through to Red October 1917. The Kornilov Affair to the Bolshevik takeover. The culmination of our series on the Bolshevik Revolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nofSS1Na02g In the conspiracy community, it's often taken for granted that Wall Street secretly funded Nazi Germany and the Bolshevik Revolution. These assertions are taken as truth based on the work of a professor named Antony Sutton. But who was Sutton and what does it mean if he was wrong? Moreover, what place should conspiracy have in our worldview based on errors in our understanding of Sutton's work? Vital Dissent website Join my email list and become a premium member: http://www.vitaldissent.club Vital Dissent Merch 10% off with code VD10 The Libertarian Institute's Summer FUNdraiser is in full swing! The support of every single one of you is what motivates the team to keep pushing and working to bring you quality and trusted sources of information. Donate today at https://libertarianinstitute.org/donate/ Show notes: Deep State Consciousness Richard's Books - Writing | Deep State Consciousnes The Energy of Empire 18. The Russian Revolution The Curious Case of Anthony Sutton What You Need to Know About Kosovo ft. Richard Cox Ep. 243 - Vital Dissent

In the conspiracy community, it's often taken for granted that Wall Street secretly funded Nazi Germany and the Bolshevik Revolution. These assertions are taken as truth based on the work of a professor named Antony Sutton. But who was Sutton and what does it mean if he was wrong? Moreover, what place should conspiracy have in our worldview based on errors in our understanding of Sutton's work? Vital Dissent website Join my email list and become a premium member: http://www.vitaldissent.club Vital Dissent Merch 10% off with code VD10 The Libertarian Institute's Summer FUNdraiser is in full swing! The support of every single one of you is what motivates the team to keep pushing and working to bring you quality and trusted sources of information. Donate today at https://libertarianinstitute.org/donate/ Show notes:  Deep State Consciousness Richard's Books - Writing | Deep State Consciousness The Energy of Empire 18. The Russian Revolution The Curious Case of Anthony Sutton What You Need to Know About Kosovo ft. Richard Cox Ep. 243 - Vital Dissent

A royal wedding draws a large crowd, but could the honeymoon be over already?June 1933, Barbara Hutton and Prince Alexis Mdivani have the first of their two wedding ceremonies in Paris. With all the press attention, the Prince's royal title comes back into question, while his brothers Prince Serge Mdivani and Prince David Mdivani deal with divorce petitions.Other people and subjects include: Franklyn Hutton, Irene Hutton, Louise Van Alen – formerly Princess Mdivani, E.F. Hutton, Marjorie Merriweather Post Hutton, Jessie Woolworth Donahue, Helena Woolworth McCann, Princess Roussadana “Roussie” Mdivani Sert, Josep Maria Sert, Prince David Mdivani, Princess Mae Murray Mdivani, Koran Mdivani, Prince Serge Mdivani, Princess Mary McCormick Mdivani, Princess Nina Mdivani Huberich, General Zahkari Mdivani, Czar / Tsar Nicholas II Romanov, Prince of Wales – Prince David – future King Edward VIII – Duke of Windsor, Viscountess Thelma Morgan Furness, Wallis Simpson – future Duchess of York, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, Gloria Vanderbilt, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Prince of Asturias Infante Alfonso, Cuban commoner bride, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Jean Patou, Coco Chanel, Sam Insull, former Marshal of Nobility in Georgia Nicholas Dadiani, Georgian Minister Araki Tchenkeli, Assistant Mayor of Paris Daniel Marin, Georgian royal family Bagriotinis, ocean liner Bremen, motor boat Ali Baba, Lausanne, Switzerland, Los Angeles, 8th Arrondisement & 16th Arrondisement in Paris, Hotel Ritz – Ritz Carlton in Paris, Alexander Nevsky Cathedral – L'Eglise Russe – Russian Church, Eastern Orthodox religion, Russian Imperial family, 1850 Russian Imperial Decree of 50 Georgian Princes, 1892 list of aristocratic families by Russian Imperial government Department of Heraldry, phony titles, fake royals, pretenders, Russian exiles, aristocrats, nobles, deposed royals, Bolshevik Revolution, Romanian royalty, Swedish royalty, nobility, aristocracy, industrial aristocracy, morganatic marriages, engagement rings, square cut platinum engagement ring, black pearl engagement ring, jade necklace, Argentine polo ponies, Cartier clock, Baccarat crystal, Limoges porcelain, fashion, beach pajamas, donation to the poor, bachelor party, bachelorette party, honeymoon, fever, June wedding season, wedding invitations, wedding gifts, private detectives, withholding information as story device, story hints, mother's influence, losing mother, old History Fair teacher sponsor, It Must Be Love 6 article romance series, flour heiress marries librarian, Hollywood starlet marries childhood sweetheart, banker marries waitress, British earl marries white daughter of Indian rajah, questions for listeners,…--Extra Notes / Call to Action:Questions for listenersPast Perfect Vintage Music www.pastperfect.comPast Perfect Vintage Radio https://www.pastperfect.com/radio/Share, like, subscribe--Archival Music provided by Past Perfect Vintage Music, www.pastperfect.com.Opening Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance BandsSection 1 Music: Eyes Of The World by Louis Levy, Album The Great British Dance BandsSection 2 Music: Royal Garden Blues by Benny Carter, Album Perfect JazzSection 3 Music: Palais De Danse by Sid Phillips, Albums The Great British Dance Bands & Tea Dance 2End Music: My Heart Belongs to Daddy by Billy Cotton, Album The Great British Dance Bands--https://asthemoneyburns.com/X / TW / IG – @asthemoneyburnsX / Twitter – https://twitter.com/asthemoneyburnsInstagram – https://www.instagram.com/asthemoneyburns/Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/asthemoneyburns/

Marie of Mecklenburg: The Bold Grand Duchess Who Defied and Thrived Today we are telling the tale of a grand duchess with an attitude Marie of Mecklenburg! She's the only Romanoff who managed to give the Bolshevik Revolution the slip with all her bling intact. We'll chat about her early days, her match with Vladimir Alexandrovich, and the glitz, gossip, and power moves of their ritzy life. This one is a patreon rerun after the Mathilde Kschessinska episode we did in 2022. Enjoy! Time stamps: 00:39 Marie Mecklenburg: The Only Romanoff to Escape with Her Jewels 01:26 Early Life and Family Tragedies 05:58 Marie's Marriage and Defiance 15:46 Revolts and Assassination Attempts 18:21 Power Struggles and Family Drama 22:10 Rasputin and Hemophilia: A Royal Dilemma 24:43 Rumors of a Coup and Rasputin's Influence 26:13 The Russian Revolution: Time to Flee 32:26 Smuggling Jewels: A Clever Escape 40:22 Final Days and Legacy Some sources: Unofficial Royalty European Royal History The Court Jeweller The Beau Monde https://www.rct.uk/collection/themes/exhibitions/platinum-jubilee-the-queens-accession/buckingham-palace/platinum-jubilee-the-queens-accession/exhibition/vladimir-tiara The Ra Ra Rasputin song Queens podcast is part of Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast.Want more Queens? Head to our Patreon, check out our merch store and follow us on Instagram! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shownotes and Transcript Dr. Shea Bradley-Farrell joins Hearts of Oak to discuss Hungary's triumph over communism and the importance of nationalism in preserving sovereignty.   She draws parallels between Hungary's history and current US events, emphasizing faith's role in preserving societal values.  Dr. Shea discusses the conservative gap in foreign policy, her book, "Last Warning to the West," and the significance of faith in upholding principles.  She highlights Hungary's resistance against the EU's narrative, praises CPAC Hungary for conservative collaboration, and calls for a revival of faith to counter liberal agendas, stressing unity in upholding fundamental principles.  'Last Warning to the West: Hungary's Triumph Over Communism and the Woke Agenda' available in paperback and e-book on Amazon  https://amzn.eu/d/02lNB8Ma Shea Bradley-Farrell, PhD is President of Counterpoint Institute for Policy, Research, and Education (CIPRE) in Washington, D.C.  Dr. Shea is an expert in foreign policy and aid, national security, international development, and women's issues. She is the author of Last Warning to the West: Hungary's Triumph Over Communism and the Woke Agenda, published in December 2023.  Dr Shea worked directly with the Trump administration, including Sec. Mike Pompeo and Senior Advisor Ivanka Trump, on multiple issues while serving as the VP of International Affairs for Concerned Women for America. Most recently she was professor and subject matter expert for the Defense Security Cooperation University (DSCU) of the U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Shea possesses an active U.S. security clearance. Dr. Shea publishes Op-eds in outlets such as RealClear Politics, Human Events,  NewsMax,  National Review,   Daily Signal,  The Washington Times, The European Conservative,  Daily Caller, The Hill, Washington Examiner,  the Federalist and many others.  She is a weekly contributor to SiriusXM Patriot Stacy on the Right (Wednesdays 10 p.m.), and a contributor to Victory News TV. She is a regular guest on multiple TV news and radio shows. Dr. Shea presents at conferences all over the world such the Wilson Center for International Scholars, U.S. Department of State, the Foreign Services Institute,  the Heritage Foundation, CPAC Hungary 2022 and 2023, and the Gulf Studies Symposium. Dr. Shea holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from Tulane University, where she was Adjunct Lecturer in the International Development Studies Program in 2015. In 2014, she was Visiting Research Fellow at the Center for Gulf Studies at the American University of Kuwait.   She is a member of the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Border Security Coalition and former Affiliated Faculty and Policy Fellow at George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government.  As an international development professional, Dr. Shea has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America delivering capacity building and training assistance to international partners. She has hands-on experience with project design and management, budgeting, curriculum design and development, recruitment, and grants management. She is well-schooled in USAID programming and policies has worked with a variety of international donors including World Bank, Exxon, FedEx, and Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science. Connect with Dr Shea and Counterpoint Institute... X/TWITTER        x.com/DrShea_DC                            x.com/CounterpointDC WEBSITE           counterpointinstitute.org INSTAGRAM      instagram.com/counterpointinstitute Interview recorded  18.6.24 Connect with Hearts of Oak... X/TWITTER        x.com/HeartsofOakUK WEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/ PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/ SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/ SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/ TRANSCRIPT (Hearts of Oak) I'm delighted to have Dr. Shea Bradley-Farrell with us. Shea, thank you so much for your time today. (Dr Shea Bradley-Farrell) It's an honor to be with you, Peter. Thanks for having me. Not at all. Lots to talk about. And of course, your book to start off with. Let me just, actually, let me ask you a little bit about yourself. And then we will bring up the book. And this last warning to the West, all the links are in the description. Hungary's Triumph Over Communism and the Woke Agenda. because you've got some phenomenal recommendations on the back that I read those and thought, actually, I'll just give the recommendations and then that's enough. That's literally enough. With Tucker, with Lou Dobbs, with Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and Congressman Paul Gosser so much. We will get into that in a couple of minutes. And don't forget, Kari Lake wrote the foreword. Trust me, we're getting to Kari Lake. She's not on the back, but she's on the front. We're getting to Kari Lake. I read that and thought, wow. But we'll get into the book. And the warning that is, I think, to the West, and I've been to Hungary many, many times. But, Shea, firstly, with you, you are, I mean, you're an expert in so many areas. In the foreign policy and aid, international development, you work directly with the Trump administration. You're regularly in the media with video appearances and lots of op-eds. And you've been instrumental, I think, in setting up CPAC Hungary, which is so needed. And of course, you head up Counterpoint Institute for Policy Research and Education. We'll get into all of those. The links are there @drshea__dc is your Twitter handle and counterpointinstitute.org is the website for the work you do. And our US audience, Shea, will know who you are from your many media appearances. Our UK side probably don't. So could I ask you to take a moment and introduce yourself, especially to our UK audience? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I actually, my background is as an international development professional. You mentioned that and a professor, an academic, traveled throughout the Middle East, Africa. Some in South America, doing development work, mainly focused on helping women better their businesses, whether it was a very small business of maybe harvesting salt, you know, once waters receded in Africa to a very big multi-million dollar companies because economic development is the best, in my opinion, the best form of foreign aid because then people really learn how to take care of themselves. And it builds great relationships between our country and other countries. So anyway, when I came to D.C., that's what I was doing. But being here just for a very short time is when I finally figured out that if I did not get myself into this real battle for our freedom, that I was going to eventually lose my country and lose my freedom. So the story kind of goes on from there. But yes, I worked with an organization called Concerned Women for America. It's the largest public policy organization run by women in the US. And I built an international affairs department there. And I worked alongside, as you said, the Trump administration in that position, working with Secretary Pompeo and Ivanka Trump on different issues having to do with economic development and human rights. And it was a great learning place for me and continued with policy. And I decided to start my own organization, Counterpoint Institute, because there are so few conservatives in the foreign policy realm. I only know one other development professional who is a conservative, which is very interesting. But there was a real hole there in our policy, in our country, in the guidance and leadership of our country. And so I have focused on myself on foreign policy and national security as is my background. And we're doing quite well, Peter. So thanks for having me on again. We want to get on the book. And at the beginning, your image was mirrored. We're not going to stop it because I know your time is short, Shea. You're in very big demand because of all the work you're and especially the book. And you mentioned Kari Lake did the foreword. Let me bring up... And this is an image of the book, Last Warning to the West, Hungary's Triumph over Communism and the Woke Agenda. As I said, you've got Tucker Carlson on the back. You've got Lou Dobbs, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn and Congressman Paul Gosser, all household names recommending what you're putting in as a call, as a warning call to the West on what Hungary has been in over its thousand year history. And, of course, you mentioned Kari Lake has written the foreword. Maybe you begin the book talking about your trip to Hungary. You were there 2019. You talk about the first time and your experiences. I was actually, because I worked in Bulgaria for two and a half years, and I actually was in Hungary for the first time in 1998 and many times since. And I shared the experiences you mentioned of driving through the suburbs, seen that communism blocks and think, wow, in Bulgaria, I got that 10 times to that degree. But you've traveled extensively. Why has your heart settled on Hungary? Well, you know, the Hungarians have a real will to survive and I'm a survivalist also, a survivor. And so I take great pride in that, in them. I think that they've, they're amazing. They became a Christian country over a thousand years ago, and since then they've had the Ottoman Turks in, the Mongols, the Habsburgs, you know, the Nazis occupied them, the Soviet Union, and still they retain their very unique Hungarian identity. I mean, that is even reflected in the fact that no other country in the world, no other people in the world speak Hungarian. But Hungarians, right? It's very interesting. And I think that they're a real example of holding on to their true nationalism. And nationalism in the purest sense of the word means just pride in your own country. It's a collection of people who come together and agree on the same sort of laws and economic systems and the way we're going to do our society. That's what nationalism is. And it's been perverted, of course, by Nazis, for one. But the sense of nationalistic pride in its purest form is not a bad thing. It's a good thing because it strengthens a country. And that's a real reflection of what Hungary is and the people. And they have fought for their survival for so long. And I'm sure you know, to reference somebody probably that you know well, Peter, is Sir Roger Scruton, who is well-loved in Hungary. Because during the Soviet occupation, you know, he worked in the underground bringing information and books to people in those Soviet satellites. He was arrested, actually, also during that time. He helped bring networks together of communication. And anyway, I quote him in my book, and I can't remember the quote. Maybe I could pull it around and read it to you. But it pointedly says, you know, this is a big paraphrase, Hungary went through occupation, and then the wall came down after 46 years of the Soviet Union being in there telling them what to do, being that authoritarian power, right? Well, what he says in this quote is, you know, just because the wall came down, it doesn't make it any less true if the EU is doing the same thing to Hungary. This top-down decision-making, telling them that they must accept this radical gender theory nonsense and teach it to their children, telling them that they must accept mass influx of immigration into their country. They must enter, you know, in their way of thinking, giving money to the Ukraine war to weapons is entering the war. And there are many reasons they don't want to do that. And the EU has sanctioned Hungary for all of those, all of those things, keeping money, billions of dollars away from them because of their sovereignty and what they believe is right for their own country. And we can talk about that and explain it. But the point is, is that the EU has become, you know, what it was never meant to be. It wasn't meant to be a decision making body over the sovereignty of other countries in the EU. And Hungary has fought back against that. And I think that they're a real example to the United States. And that's where the book ended up coming from. Oh, last point. This is what kicked it off. I was over there doing research about the national identity and the survival of the Hungarians, not really knowing where the book was going to go. And people kept saying to me, Shea, you understand that the rhetoric coming out of the United States reminds us of our Soviet era, right? I mean, what a gut punch. No, really. And walking that back, and I'd love to talk more about this, but I'm going to shut up and pause for a minute, Peter. But walking that back, you know, for the past hundred years, the Marxism coming out after the Bolshevik Revolution, the communism that the U.S. was fighting in the 50s. Everything is very much parallel to what's going on in the United States today. And so that's why the book became a warning, the last warning to the West, and written specifically for Americans, really, and others from Western nations that are dealing with the same things we are. Right. There are so many threads to pick up from there. Let me start with, I mean, Hungary should be an insignificant country. It's just got 10 million people, and I love your mug. (Shea shows her British Union Flag drinking mug) It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Mine is a spitfire, so I go… This was actually not on purpose, but I'm hoping it gets me a few points. Oh, it does. You don't need any more, trust me. But I mean, Hungary should be insignificant. Small country, 10 million people on the edge of the Balkans in Eastern Europe, yet everyone knows who Victor Orban is. It's taken a position which is much larger than it actually should have. I mean, as an American, how do you see that as actually happened? You know, and I started the book out talking about that, because who, really, Americans are so isolated. Most of them had no idea where Hungary was, right, or anything about them. And all of a sudden, they're on the world stage. Victor Orban is a friend of Trump. Trump is shaking his hand and inviting him to have meetings. And it's really because of, really the bullying of the EU, I believe, is where it started, because there were so many articles and news stories written that maligned Hungary and these sanctions. And Hungary stood up and fought back. I mean, Orban was part of the movement that pushed the Soviets out of Hungary. He started the Fidesz party back then, before the Soviets ever left. He was actually a youth alliance at that time, a youth party, a party of the youth that was anti-communist. So he is a real fighter and he has a lot of people in his administration who are real fighters and they don't want the woke agenda. They feel like, hey, we just got our freedom back in 1991. Stop telling us what to do. So I think it has a lot to do with the press maligning them and then Trump hugging them, embracing Orbán and looking at Hungary as an ally in this fight against Marxist nonsense. This woke Marxist cultural nonsense. And that has increased because our own administration now under the Biden administration. Our ambassador in Hungary is very antagonistic against Hungary. So I just think their will and their will to do what they believe is right for their own people. And on all three of those issues I mentioned earlier, they've done a citizen referendum. Do you want to be involved in the war? Do you want mass immigration? Do you want radical gender theory in your schools? And the overwhelming majority of people voted no. So in my way of thinking, that is real sovereignty, respecting the sovereignty of your people, of your country, if the EU would stop this. But the Biden administration continues this antagonizing, I call it, because it truly is. And I think that's had a lot to do with it. We'll touch on your ambassador and it kind of shows where America currently sits. But you mentioned the EU and Orban's stand, I think, against cultural Marxism and the woke agenda has made him an absolute enemy of the EU, like no other figure I've seen within the EU. And I think he's now getting fined so much per day because of the stand against mass migration. And he's a target of the Western media and of all the organs of the deep state. And you see them working across. I mean, tell us how you view that. This is one man, small country, standing up against the EU. 10 million people in Hungary, half a billion in the EU. And everything that Orbán stands for is different than the entity of the European Union. I think that's a lesson for Americans to learn to be very careful who you actually place yourself under. Yeah, that's exactly Exactly right. And, you know, it really goes back to something that you mentioned, you know, this guy Daniel Frund, I believe is how you say his last name, in the EU. I mean, he's taken it on himself. It's made... He's made it his business to post things on his social media that are clearly very discriminatory against Hungary. And he's made it, he's an example, I think, of the anger that many on the liberal left, the radical left get simply because you don't do what they want you to do, simply because you don't believe what they believe. And Hungary was perfectly fine with not trying to change them, but they're trying to change Hungary. And as I said before, they've had the Ottoman Turks, the Habsburgs, the Nazis, the Soviets. They want to protect their beliefs. Like I said, they respect God. They're a Christian country. They respect the family. They actually put in their constitution a few years ago that the woman is the mother and the father and the man is the father, you know, against this gender nonsense. And it made the EU extremely angry. And that's been part of the problem. And yeah, so a lot of this comes from anger. But I will touch on something else you said that I worked a lot against, during the Trump administration, trying to unravel the Obama years on this. The United States got way out of line on foreign aid. And what we've ended up doing, I believe it started under Obama. I don't know that it went a lot further back, but we've begun pushing our own progressive social agenda through our foreign aid with things called like being LGBT in Asia, being LGBT and whatever. And so, I wrote an article a couple months ago and it was in Peru, that's where it was, that we are funding transgender ballroom dancing in Peru. I mean, this kind of nonsense instead of real help, real development help, humanitarian help. We are pushing our social progressiveness, I always do this because it's actually backwardsness, onto other countries. And in my job, you know, for years now, I've had people come from Africa, from the Middle East, from Eastern Europe, from South America, come and say to me, can you help us? Because your country has told us we can't have this money unless we do this, which is against our religion, whether it's something that's promoting abortion, promoting homosexuality. It's not what our people want to do. But your country is pushing this. And it's a real problem. And we're doing it again under the Biden administration. And that's what's going on in Hungary and other countries, for sure, all over the world. And I'm sorry, I apologize. Well, actually, that fits into what the EU and the UK are doing, that we tie a lot of our aid, especially to abortion being healthcare, and you need to abort as much as you can, and the whole LGBT agenda, especially in the education and media. So we are doing exactly the same. But you mentioned the ambassador, and you talk about him being a big advocate and representative of LGBT community. And that must be a slap in the face to a country that is a conservative Christian country. And the left put that in place, obviously Biden put them in place purposefully, knowing that we are going to push our agenda as America and it's irrelevant to what you think. But we have exactly the same issues in the EU and UK, pushing that agenda on developing countries. Yeah. And it's stepping out of line. It's stepping over the sovereignty of other countries, over their religious freedom, over their scientific freedom when you get down to the transgender stuff. Our ambassador, David Pressman is his name. Evidently, there was a small story about it. It was part of Obama's LGBT. Obama promised to spend millions and billions on promoting ideology. And I, can I make this clear? Because this is something I've worked on as well. Obama and Biden are spreading an ideology, teaching children in some of these programs, you know, here's the color purple, we're celebrating transgender stuff. It's ideology they're pushing. What they should be doing is looking and seeing in the countries, if homosexuals, if whatever, are being imprisoned or persecuted for some, you know, in some way. That should be addressed as a human rights issue. You know, ISIS beheading homosexual men. This is where the U.S. should be involved, not in spreading an ideology. And I was going to tell you something else, Peter, but I've gotten off on that tangent. What was.. It's like the Matt Walsh documentary, What is a woman, talking to people in Africa and they're saying, what do you mean a man can be a woman, it's madness, It's madness, yes and I had a friend who spoke at the UN from Africa who grew up in this village, you know, where, here was her point at the UN, we need roads so I can get my children to the doctor, we need hospitals. We need water where we live. We don't need abortion. That's not development. Going back to our ambassador. So first of all. He helped Obama with this. Second of all, in his confirmation hearing, he was already calling Hungary a democratic backsliding country, aligning them with China and Russia. And if you look at his social media, most of this is because of the LGBT thing. And he promotes that agenda far more than anything else on his social media. He's militant about it. He's hung up and obsessed on it. He is married to a man. He has two little boys, I believe, with this man. Now, I've spent lots and lots of time in Hungary, been there many times at this point. I've seen homosexuals walking around. Nobody cares if that's what you want to do. But he was put in there as an antagonizing aspect for his beliefs alone and, you know, his obsessive promotion of it. And the real thing that clinches this is that he uses that to say that Hungary is backsliding in democratic values, that Hungary is a human rights abuser. There is no put your finger on anything that Hungary has done to abuse human rights. In fact, you know, ironically, I think this was on the Human Rights Council Committee, whatever the name of the organization website, this uprising of LGBT people in Hungary. So, oh, it's terrible because Hungary is oppressing them because here's this uprising. Well, the point, you know, that I was trying to make during this time was these people have the freedom to uprise and say we don't like things. That's a democratic society. So what's happening is the Biden administration wants everybody to agree with them. You know, that's the real issue. If you don't agree with them, then you're a human rights abuser. And that's wrong. It's deceptive and it's taking the focus off of real needs, you know, around the world that the U.S. could be focused on. I know, exactly. A key part of, if you go go through Hungary's history from its establishment in the 9th century, so you've got 1,000 years of history, all the way up to the Ottoman Empire, 1800s, you go up to communism in the 1900s and how Hungary was able to overthrow that, along with the rest of Eastern Europe. And that's 1,000-year history. It's, I mean, four times longer than the US has been there, and they fought for their national identity over that time. It does seem as though Hungary is a kind of roadmap for successfully preserving your national identity. Is that what you've seen in your time looking at Hungary? Yeah, I believe so, Peter. And, you know, I did interviews for the Bucs, some with senior government officials and some with just regular people out in the country. And there was an older gentleman I talked to in his late 80s that had been there during the Soviet siege of Budapest, where they fought against the Nazis and pushed the Nazis out. He was just a little boy at the time. And he and his family were in one of the basements there where the castle is, now where the castle is in Hungary. And, you know, he recounts some really terrible things like the soldiers raping women just as a matter of method even to keep the people pressed down. But, you know, I asked him, in fact, he had this great attitude and he had lived most of his life up until 1991 under Soviet occupation. And I asked him, how is it that Hungarians are still so positive? How is it that they hold so fast to their family because the Russians, the communist ideology, was to divide people from family, to divide people from religion, to divide people from their national identity. They took Hungarians' holidays away from them, their national holidays. They told them they had to take crosses down off the walls and put the communist leader pictures up there. These are are just some small examples, but they tried to recreate Hungarian history and identity according to what the communists wanted it to be. And I said, how are you guys still so Hungarian, so family oriented, so focused on God and your country? And he said it really went back to Christianity and their families, that when he was a little boy, his mother, you know, would teach them in the house about their religion, about their faith, about right and wrong, freedom and liberty. And then they would go to school and under the eyes of the communists, they would act a different way. But always at home, it was still being imparted to them, you know, the national identity of the Hungarians, their freedom, the importance of their sovereignty. And I had some other gentlemen that were older say pretty much the same thing. So I think it's something, I think it's that, and I think it's this will to survive. They've been through it for centuries, and they keep having to do it. And as somebody said to me, a few people said to me, is that America doesn't remember what it's like not to be free. We've been around like you said a lot less time than Hungarians have and they were dealing with this until recent history in 1991. So there are many people still alive that remember what it was like under the sovereignty of the Soviet Union. You talked about faith, and I think the position of God is quite central. And of course, the EU have rejected God, and whenever they wrote the Constitution, they specifically and purposely removed any references to Christian history in Europe and any reference to God. And that puts it at odds with Hungary. I mean, there are many nations in Europe that are still very strongly, devoutly Christian. You've got Malta, Finland, Austria, Bulgaria, where I lived, and the Orthodox Church there is very strong. Italy, well known for their strong faith. Slovakia, you go to Greece, and the Orthodox Church is so strong, Greece. But sadly, I guess none of those countries have an Orban. But how do you look on it as an American where Christianity is still a central part? I know times are changing. How do you look on it in not only Hungary, but many of those countries across Europe where faith, where your relationship with God is quite central in culture, not necessarily in politics? I mean, how did you see that as an American, as a Christian? In relating it to Hungary, you mean, or in Europe? Yeah, just generally your time there and how you as a Christian, as a conservative, and your parts of Hungary and Europe that are traditionally Christian, and yet the leadership doesn't necessarily represent that. But Hungary does seem to be different. You know, they say that they're a Christian nation. I mean, even the government will say that. It's not, you know, it's not like a theocracy or anything like that, but they're very proud of the fact that a thousand years ago, King Istvan made them the easternmost western country of the empire, a Holy Roman Empire, and they took on Christianity. He thought it would be good for the alliances and the economic prosperity of Hungary, and they've continued to hold on to that. You know, my experience going through Europe is sometimes I'm very surprised at how there are many people there that still have a real relationship as Christians with Jesus Christ. They have a real relationship as Jews with God, and they're really holding fast those principles. In other places that I've been, I think I've been a little bit disappointed that the religion has has turned in sort of this secular kind of religion. Like this is what our morals are based on, yet we're not really practicing any sort of religion where we are saying there is a power that's more important than we are. And while I still think that it's good that some societies are still based on this moral approach, understanding of Christianity or Judaism, I'm concerned that generations will go by if people are not actually practicing that religion, reading their Bibles, praying, that generations will go by and even that moral foundation will slip away. Am I explaining that right? No, you are. You're right. There is a disconnect between the history and people's personal relationship with Jesus. And you see the church, especially in the Nordic countries, in Germany, and many parts, have become woke and have abandoned that clarion call they should have. But yet many parts of Eastern Europe still hold on to that. And Christianity, whether that's a personal relationship with Christ, part of it is cultural Christianity, but that is still embedded in the culture, where in many other parts of Europe that's been rejected. That's exactly right. But what I'm concerned about is that in those places where it's still based on Christianity, if people still are not praying and reading their Bibles and learning what their religion is and what it should mean to them in their lives, that eventually that moral fabric will leave. And I think that is what is happening in America, is so few people are going to church now as generations ago. So few people think about praying when they have a problem, you know, before they go off and do whatever it is. And we've gotten to the point where cutting children's body parts off is okay. That is moral depravity. So that's what I'm concerned about, Peter. I've seen it happen here. And I actually, I was talking to, I think it was an official, a government official, yes, about this. Like, are you concerned that the secular, because this person even said to me, it's more of a secular religion, secular Christianity. It's like a foundation of it. That was just his point of view. There are other people that were practicing. But I said, you know, aren't you concerned that eventually this moral fabric will be broken up? And he didn't seem to be too concerned about it, but I am. I agree. Whenever the church begins to promote and advocate abortion and sexualization of children, you know that we are in a difficult, dangerous pit. And I get that. We need a huge revival. Tell me how it's been welcomed in America, this book, because there are many books about, you know, Republicans, Red Wave, MAGA. You've got thousands and thousands of them. This book is quite different. It's looking outside, which maybe is different from the traditional conservative books that are available in the US. Tell me how it's been received and some of the conversations you've had with people as you've gone around and promoted the book. It's actually been received very well. I've been on tons of media for it. People reaching out to me such as yourself that wanted to hear more about it. I think because they're fascinated by the fact that I'm showing the parallels of Hungary under communist control. And actually, I want to go go back to that in just a second. But even like C-SPAN, C-SPAN came and recorded my, I had a book launch in New York and a book launch in DC in February. The New York one was December, 2023. But in February at the Hungarian embassy, C-SPAN came and recorded it and put it on, you know, their book TV, their Washington journal, and even on their radio. Because I think that, I'm an academic, I'm a researcher. So some people find the book a little daunting, a little heavy because of all the sources and citations and documentation that I use in it. But that's what I do. There are many people that appeal to a different crowd, I think, in America that just say, they're more like someone who impart a message that people need to hear. But I'm trying to say, look at the history, look at the history, and you know that we're in trouble. I put in the book, Peter, the 11 points of communist psychological warfare, which were written, published by our Department of Defense in 1959, so that our professionals would recognize communist psychological warfare and combat it, 1959. I put these in the book because every point is parallel to the United States today. And I wanted to show that, you know, the fact that the Hungarians were saying that we are, the rhetoric coming out of the U.S. reminds them of the Soviet days. If you even just walk that back to the Bolshevik revolution and the Marxism during that time, even I did not know that they were pushing abortion at that time as health care. This is not anything new, that that was coming out of their division between, parents and their children, was coming out of that, the Marxism at that time, between people and religion. But looking, just let me give you a couple of points from the communist psychological warfare points. Like I said, they're all in my book, and then I put up just a little brief description underneath of how it relates to the United States. One of the points is using a crisis to gain control. And we saw during the COVID pandemic, vaccine mandates where thousands of people lost their jobs because they wouldn't put an unknown substance into their body, their own body. Vaccine mandates, lockdowns all over the world, actually. The detention camps in Australia were the ones that really freaked me out. But other examples, the government gaining control of propaganda bodies, that was actually one of the first steps of Sovietization that the Soviet Union would do in satellite countries. But it's also one of those points where the government will control the information going out. And certainly in the United States, the mainstream media is led and influenced by our administration. It is so far left. It is so, in my lifetime, it's never been so un-journalistic. But even farther than that, you know, the Biden administration is going through litigation right now because it's been accused of suppressing entire bodies of ideas of Americans on social media, collaborating with with Facebook and X or Twitter at the time, and other platforms to suppress people's views on the 2020 election, COVID-19, on Hunter Biden's laptop. And we find out just a couple of weeks ago that they're doing it again. So I'll stop there. Those are just two examples of the points. But it's really concerning. I find it actually is an easy read. It is 350 pages, but you've got a thousand years of history to touch on. So you go through, I think, marvellously well. And it is available. I read it as an e-book. It is available as a paperback. Let me just... That is Last Warning to the West, Hungary's Triumph over Communism and The Woke Agenda, with a foreword by Kari Lake, as you mentioned. Just very last point on CPAC Hungary, because it's been fascinating your involvement with that, and I think that brings what is, it's a fascinating connection between Hungary and the US, because it's the first time CPAC has launched in Europe. I think Hungary is a fantastic country to start that in. And maybe just to end off, just mentioning that, because that brings up to the current present tense and also shows that bridge between Hungary and America, which I think can be key whenever, whenever Trump regains the White House. Yeah, I think it's a good point. So CPAC Hungary started three years ago. I spoke the first two years. I wasn't able to go this year. But the organization that started CPAC Hungary is the same organization that published my book, the Center for Fundamental Rights. They're a conservative think tank there in Hungary. And I was a fellow for them for about a year and a half, senior fellow. And it was a great experience. And they have done a fantastic job with CPAC Hungary. Strange that there's no other CPAC in Europe. But they really set out to build collaboration between countries and certain aspects of the countries that were conservative. And they've done a fantastic job with that because, you know, they've also built relationships in Spain, in Italy with different conservative organizations. And we see that all over the world now. In fact, we go back a couple of weeks ago. It seemed that the EU in the elections for the European Parliament went a bit to the right. So I do believe that things going on like CPAC Hungary help influence that. And, you know, I have conservative friends now down in Argentina and in Italy. And like I said, Spain and Hungary and all these different places. And we collaborate together, help each other, support each other. And I believe, this is my theory, that in many countries, the majority of the people are still wanting to support family, are still respecting their religion, still love their homeland. And I think the liberal left in the form of the European Union and the Biden administration and the media all over the world is announcing to the world that they don't matter. The political and media elites of the left have the power, the control. So it makes it seem like the whole world is that way. And we do have a lot to fight against on legislation and crazy things that are going on in the EU and in my own capital where I am here. But I just believe that people all over the world need to know there are sane people out there working for these foundational principles, because Europe was also founded on Christian principles. And the United States most certainly was, you know, like you said, the EU is voting this constitution to take that out. But that's not what the original fathers of the EU were doing. So I'm sure you know more about that than I do. And I talk about that some in my book. But it's this real change from, you know, humility before a higher power in your lives, to thinking that you can do it all yourself. You know, you're giving yourself your rights now, these rights that God have given us, he didn't give them to us. In fact, we had a commentator in the United States about a month or so ago say that, that Christian nationalists, Christians who love their country, were crazy because we thought that our rights were God-given, and how silly that was. And we're like, well, lady, it's actually in our founding documents. So anyway, it's this real reliance on self, Peter, And that's dangerous. And there are those of us that are fighting for the right kind of principles like you, like yourself. And it's good that outlets such as you are getting that word out there. I think it encourages people is what I'm trying to say with a lot of words. Well, 100%. We'll bring it last warning to the West. Fantastic read and counterpoint institute I encourage your viewers listeners to make sure and click on that and follow and sign up to all you're doing and I just saw that Hungary take over the commission, EU commission and their tagline is Make Europe Great Again so you're going to have MEGA and MAGA together, MEGA MAGA for the second half of this year, but Dr Shea thank you so much for coming on and sharing about your experiences, your work with Counterpoint Institute. It's fascinating. So thank you so much for your time today. Thank you, Peter. And if your listeners would like to follow our work, just sign up for our newsletter on counterpoint.institute.org. It only comes out a couple of times a month, but it just gives the basics on all these issues that you and I have talked about in the work we're doing. So thank you so much for having me. Not at all. Sign up counterpointinstitute.org make sure and sign up to that newsletter Shea thank you so much for your time Thanks Peter.

What if the celestial alignments of Saturn and Neptune could redefine your life and society as we know it? Evan Nathaniel Grim uncovers the profound effects of these planets retrograding in Pisces. Evan delves into how Saturn's retrograde, starting on June 29th, acts like a strict teacher making everyone revisit past decisions, particularly those since last November. Saturn and Neptune in Pisces will mark a potentially startling reality check in which delusions fall away. However, this will ultimately help the collective evaluate whether current commitments are supporting the elevation of consciousness or if they are leading everyone astray. Consider the historical shifts during the Saturn-Neptune cycles: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Bolshevik Revolution, and even the Boston Tea Party. As we approach the end of the latest 36-year cycle around 2025-2026, we find ourselves at a critical juncture for introspection and societal transformation. This episode reflects on how the interplay between Saturn's discipline and Neptune's dreams signals the dissolution of old systems and the emergence of new ideals.Finally, Evan navigates the complexities of modern life, from the influence of media and celebrity culture to the integrity of leaders and institutions. By understanding how to align our personal and collective paths with true well-being, we can better anticipate and adapt to the revolutionary changes on the horizon. Tune in for a journey through the cosmic and the personal, offering insights to help you navigate this transformative time.Don't forget to subscribe to Evan's Substack at EvanNathanielGrim.com.

Following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 Tsar Nicholas II and his family were captured, tortured and then brutally killed. Whilst at the time they may not have known it, understood in its greater context, they were caught in a feud stemming from almost 2000 years hence. Indeed, it origins go all the way to the great Emperor Constantine and his eventual conversion to Christianity. In this story we explore how two diametrically opposed factions with competing financial practices and spiritual beliefs, would begin battle for supremacy in the ashes of the Western Roman empire. One group decided to build it's structures on a genuine desire to bring about human salvation, in service of the biblical Christ. And wealth in this context was understood as a tool for spiritual progression.   The opposing faction would consist of an elitist sect who refused Christianity and chose instead, to worship the darkest elements of the pantheon of old. Possessed as it were, by evil–epistemological warfare, human traficking and slavery–became not only permissible, but a way of life. In episode one we chart this battle through Europe and explore some seminal events in relation to Russia, that occurred along the way. Enjoy The Show? Part 2 for Members - www.parallelmike.com Mike's Investing Community and Financial Newsletter – www.patreon.com/parallelsystems Consult with Mike 1-2-1 - www.parallelmike.com/consultation

This is a departure from Neoborn Caveman's usual satirical takes on the world - a more somber, serious exploration into one of history's darkest chapters. In this hard-hitting special episode, NC doesn't hold back as he exposes the chilling "Parvus Plan" - a devious scheme during World War I that dramatically altered the course of the 20th century.He tells the less known story of Alexander Parvus, the shadowy revolutionary who masterfully engineered the facilitation of the Bolshevik Revolution by secretly funneling German cash to Lenin and his comrades. From the clandestine "sealed train" that smuggled Lenin into Russia to the ruthless establishment of the brutal Gulag system, NC lays out the far-reaching repercussions of Parvus's twisted ambitions.But perhaps most chilling is Neoborn's exploration of how this authoritarian ideology seems to be rearing its head again today through forces suppressing dissent, eroding national sovereignty, and centralizing control. NC issues a stark warning - we must stay vigilant against the specter of totalitarianism creeping into modern society, whether through enforced ideological conformity, censorship of free speech, or the gradual erosion of individual liberty.With his signature blend of historical insights and current events analysis, NC reminds us that the struggle for freedom is eternal. The Neoborn Caveman Show - igniting curiosity, safeguarding freedom................... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's show, we tell the story of two women: one who fled Shanghai during Mao's Chinese Revolution, and the other who escaped the Bolshevik Revolution and Ukrainian pogroms. We hear the stories they told their families years later and the trauma they held close, in order to allow the next generation to heal.   The post Uncovering the Refugee Experience & Healing Through Storytelling (encore) appeared first on KPFA.

This week's Making Contact episode is about two strong women who survived historic trauma, and the stories they later told their families.  We start with the story of Katie Wilson. Born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Kiev, Ukraine, she grew up safe and comfortable - until the Russian Revolution. After holding it close for years to protect the next generation, she tells the story of the family she lost to her granddaughter.  Then we hear about Helen Zia's experience as a Chinese-American and her mother's story fleeing Mao's Chinese Revolution. After years of silence in response to questions on the subject, Zia's mother finally shares her story and the burden of her trauma with her daughter.  Learn more about the story and find the transcript on radioproject.org. Making Contact is an award-winning, nationally syndicated radio show and podcast featuring narrative storytelling and thought-provoking interviews. We cover the most urgent issues of our time and the people on the ground building a more just world. EPISODE FEATURES: Helen Zia, a Chinese-American journalist and activist for Asian American and LGBTQ rights. She is the former Executive Editor of Ms. Magazine, and author of several books. Katie Wilson, a Ukrainian refugee. Chana Wilson, a radio/audio producer and host at Pacifica's KPFA in Berkeley, CA and the award-winning author of the memoir, Riding Fury Home. MAKING CONTACT: This episode is hosted by Anita Johnson. It is produced by Anita Johnson, Lucy Kang, Salima Hamirani, and Amy Gastelum. Our executive director is Jina Chung.  LEARN MORE: Helen Zia Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People Chana Wilson Riding Fury Home: A Memoir Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao's Revolution

Dimitri and Khalid explore the tragic denouement of World War One in Ottoman Palestine, including: the origins of the notorious Balfour Declaration and the surprising ambivalence of Anglo-Jewish elites towards it, managing the Arab reaction to Balfour (gaslighting Hussein), James Renton's “The Zionist Masquerade” and the origins of a vast British psyop against American Jews, how the racist weltanschauung of the British Establishment shaped their Balfour policy, targeting various ethnic groups as stereotypical monolithic “nations”, the impact of the Bolshevik Revolution on British anxieties about winning the support of “the Jews”, “their consciousness is NOT our consciousness”, Winston Churchill's 1920 ravings about using Zionism to combat International Judeo-Bolshevism, largely unsuccessful British efforts to psyop Polish-Americans and Irish-Americans into supporting the Allies, the perfidious anti-British machinations of the Irish-American “boss”, Vladimir Jabotinsky's thwarted desire for a Zionist “Maccabee Brigade” to join the war, flooding Jewish-American media with pro-Zionist content after Balfour, the sinister dramaturgy of General Allenby's entrance into Jerusalem, and more. For access to premium episodes, NOID-FM mixes, upcoming installments of DEMON FORCES, and the Grotto of Truth Discord, subscribe to the Al-Wara' Frequency at patreon.com/subliminaljihad.

**Check our website for upcoming events such as book clubs, RP Live webinars, and the Tuesday evening discussion group, Macro ‘n Chill. https://realprogressives.org/This week's episode is the audio track of a recent webinar with historian Esha Krishnaswamy. Esha is now living in Russia to research and write a people's history of the Soviet Union.The discussion begins with the story of the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution. The formation of the USSR as a proletarian state shook the capitalist nations of the West to their core. As a result, the Soviet Union was regularly under threat economically, militarily, as well as propaganda warfare.Esha talks about the history of the Soviet Union and its ultimate dissolution against the will of the majority. She delves into the impact of its fall on various countries and the global economy. She looks at the shock doctrine years of Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s and the effects of such extreme austerity and privatization on the average citizens. She then goes into the Putin era and the move towards social democracy.Finally, she touches upon NATO, the IMF, and the war in Ukraine.Esha Krishnaswamy is a writer and media critic, whose focus is on history, foreign policy, and Modern Monetary Theory. She hosts Historic.ly and Late Nights with Lenin.Find her work at historicly/substack.com@eshaLegal on Twitter

Donald Trump on Monday became the first president in history to face trial on criminal charges; his polls are down, and the stock price of Trump Media fallen has 60 percent. John Nichols comments – he's National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation.Also: TV right now is featuring several prestige historical dramas. John Powers compares and contrasts “The Sympathizer,” centering on a spy for the Communists in Vietnam and then California in the seventies; “Manhunt,” following the search for Lincoln's assassin; “A Gentleman in Moscow,” portraying a Russian aristocrat after the Bolshevik Revolution, and “Shogun,” about feuding 17th century Japanese warlords. John is critic at large for Fresh Air with Terry GrossAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Donald Trump on Monday became the first president in history to face trial on criminal charges; his polls are down, and the stock price of Trump Media fallen has 60 percent. John Nichols comments – he's National Affairs Correspondent for The Nation.Also: TV right now is featuring several prestige historical dramas. John Powers compares and contrasts “The Sympathizer,” centering on a spy for the Communists in Vietnam and then California in the seventies; “Manhunt,” following the search for Lincoln's assassin; “A Gentleman in Moscow,” portraying a Russian aristocrat after the Bolshevik Revolution, and “Shogun,” about feuding 17th century Japanese warlords. John is critic at large for Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Carl Sagan, nuking the moon, and not nuking the moon, published by eukaryote on April 13, 2024 on LessWrong. In 1957, Nobel laureate microbiologist Joshua Lederberg and biostatician J. B. S. Haldane sat down together imagined what would happened if the USSR decided to explode a nuclear weapon on the moon. The Cold War was on, Sputnik had recently been launched, and the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution was coming up - a good time for an awe-inspiring political statement. Maybe they read a recent United Press article about the rumored USSR plans. Nuking the moon would make a powerful political statement on earth, but the radiation and disruption could permanently harm scientific research on the moon. What Lederberg and Haldane did not know was that they were onto something - by the next year, the USSR really investigated the possibility of dropping a nuke on the moon. They called it "Project E-4," one of a series of possible lunar missions. What Lederberg and Haldane definitely did not know was that that same next year, 1958, the US would also study the idea of nuking the moon. They called it "Project A119" and the Air Force commissioned research on it from Leonard Reiffel, a regular military collaborator and physicist at the University of Illinois. He worked with several other scientists, including a then-graduate-student named Carl Sagan. "Why would anyone think it was a good idea to nuke the moon?" That's a great question. Most of us go about our lives comforted by the thought "I would never drop a nuclear weapon on the moon." The truth is that given a lot of power, a nuclear weapon, and a lot of extremely specific circumstances, we too might find ourselves thinking "I should nuke the moon." Reasons to nuke the moon During the Cold War, dropping a nuclear weapon on the moon would show that you had the rocketry needed to aim a nuclear weapon precisely at long distances. It would show off your spacefaring capability. A visible show could reassure your own side and frighten your enemies. It could do the same things for public opinion that putting a man on the moon ultimately did. But it's easier and cheaper: As of the dawn of ICBMs you already have long-distance rockets designed to hold nuclear weapons Nuclear weapons do not require "breathable atmosphere" or "water" You do not have to bring the nuclear weapon safely back from the moon. There's not a lot of English-language information online about the USSR E-4 program to nuke the moon. The main reason they cite is wanting to prove that USSR rockets could hit the moon.4 The nuclear weapon attached wasn't even the main point! That explosion would just be the convenient visual proof. They probably had more reasons, or at least more nuance to that one reason - again, there's not a lot of information accessible to me.* We have more information on the US plan, which was declassified in 1990, and probably some of the motivations for the US plan were also considered by the USSR for theirs. Military Scare USSR Demonstrate nuclear deterrent1 Results would be educational for doing space warfare in the future2 Political Reassure US people of US space capabilities (which were in doubt after the USSR launched Sputnik) More specifically, that we have a nuclear deterrent1 "A demonstration of advanced technological capability"2 Scientific (they were going to send up batteries of instruments somewhat before the nuking, stationed at distances from the nuke site) Determine thermal conductivity from measuring rate of cooling (post-nuking) (especially of below-dust moon material) Understand moon seismology better via via seismograph-type readings from various points at distance from the explosion And especially get some sense of the physical properties of the core of the moon2 Reasons to not nuke the moon In the USSR, Aleksandr...

In this riveting episode of the Christopher Scott Show, we delve into a chilling parallel between the current state of America and a historical event that shook the world - the Bolshevik Revolution. This isn't just another podcast episode, it's a journey that will take you through the intricate patterns of politics and power, revealing a haunting reflection of a time that was marked by turmoil and destruction.We'll dissect stories that may seem ordinary on the surface, but beneath the veneer, they hold ominous echoes of the past. From the contentious issue of reducing inmate populations due to COVID-19 protocols, to the tussle over political majorities, and even the ongoing debates over gender transition procedures - we discuss it all.But that's not all. We'll also examine the potential loss of power to control future lockdowns, the legal battles of tech magnates, and the alarming revelations about migrant facilities. This episode promises a rollercoaster of emotion, intrigue, and thought-provoking discussion.So if you're ready to challenge your perspectives and dive into the captivatingly tumultuous landscape of current affairs, subscribe now. This episode of the Christopher Scott Show is more than just a listen, it's an experience you wouldn't want to miss.Watch on Rumble: https://rumble.com/v4mx09e-americas-bolshevik-revolution.htmlWebsite: www.christopherscottshow.comSubscribe: https://www.christopherscottshow.com/subscribeLEAVE A MESSAGE AND MAYBE I'LL MENTION IT ON THE SHOW! https://www.christopherscottshow.com/contact Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Obi Wan Kenobi himself, aka Ewan McGregor, sits down with Simon to discuss his new miniseries ‘A Gentleman in Moscow', which sees a Russian aristocrat spared from death and placed under house arrest while the Bolshevik Revolution plays out before him. Mark also gives his take on the series, as well as reviewing ‘Mothers' Instinct', a Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway-starring thriller about a pair of rich suburban housewives, whose sisterly bond is unraveled after a tragic accident shatters their seemingly picture-perfect lives; and ‘Silver Haze', a British drama about a young nurse, who is unable to build any meaningful relationship thanks to her obsession with getting revenge for a traumatic event that happened 15 years prior, until she falls in love with one of her patients. Plus, Mark and Simon keep us up to date on the cinematic events happening around the country. Timecodes (relevant only for the Vanguard - who are also ad-free!): 07:14 Mother's Instinct Review 14:21 Box Office Top 10 30:55 Interview with Ewan McGregor 42:05 A Gentleman in Moscow Review 48:22 Silver Haze Review 52:24 What's On You can contact the show by emailing correspondence@kermodeandmayo.com or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: podcastadsales@sonymusic.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Savage and Stephen Gardner expose the Left in their plot to erode America's borders, language, and culture. Savage quotes Voltaire: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." He shares examples of the Left's "absurdities" leading to "atrocities": defunding police, open borders, gender ideology, critical race theory, etc. They discuss how corporate greed and the Left are working to decimate our borders and bring down our civilization. Learn why Letitia James' prosecution of Trump is a political persecution. Savage explains why the Civil War is already here as the left is waging an insurgency to destroy America from within, without firing shots. Savage debunks the idea of "democratic socialism" and explains how Bernie Sanders played a role in shaping Biden's economic policies and federal budget. They discuss Trotskyism and the violent Bolshevik Revolution. It's time for people to wake people up to the underlying agenda and threats we face! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the first few minutes we go over all the ways you can support the show and get all 200 full eps. Our Website, Patreon, Substack, Locals, and Rokfin. Thanks for your help and support. See links below for everything. We get deep into some Canadian content, some predictions about Trudeau, the ArriveScam app controversy continues, the bogus renaming of the carbon tax rebate scam and a Dr. in Ontario is giving up his family practice because it's a losing business after 10 years. What does Pierre P think about women's safe spaces? We run through a great example of why Alberta could use it's own Pension Plan, how the Canadian Government CPP (Canadian Pension Plan) is a complete scam. A story of a Vaccine injury, accepted by the Canadian Government yet also asked if she would MAID three times! Paralized after Mod mRNA. A couple big studies out that seem to be fueling both sides of the debate? Adverse reactions are accepted and worse than thought but still small. Why does X seem to be censoring the accounts posting this latest large Cohort Study? Some clips about the Bolshevik Revolution, the peasant revolts and the gulags.   To gain access to the second half of show and our Plus feed for audio and podcast please clink the link http://www.grimericaoutlawed.ca/support.   For second half of video (when applicable and audio) go to our Substack and Subscribe. +   https://grimericaoutlawed.substack.com/ or to our Locals  https://grimericaoutlawed.locals.com/ or Rokfin www.Rokfin.com/Grimerica   https://www.patreon.com/grimericaoutlawed   If you would rather watch: https://rumble.com/v4exddc-outlawed-round-up-2.21.24-story-of-a-vaccine-injury-both-sides-rave-big-stu.html https://rokfin.com/stream/45452 https://grimericaoutlawed.locals.com/post/5297967/outlawed-round-up-2-21-24-story-of-a-vaccine-injury-both-sides-rave-big-study https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K32137PHI4   See links to stuff Graham mentioned: https://substack.com/home/post/p-141879225?source=queue https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/waterloo-region-public-health-suspension-orders-1.7112475 https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/6-major-adverse-reactions-found-among-99-million-vaccine-recipients-new-study-facts-matter-5591300?&utm_medium=FactsMatter&utm_source=SocialM&utm_campaign=AdverseEventsStudy&utm_content=02-20-2024 https://twitter.com/dockaurG/status/1758229253357732332 https://twitter.com/ABProsperityPrj/status/1759043846929834443 https://twitter.com/Lea_Christina4/status/1760332058004484327 https://twitter.com/GreyMatterConvo/status/1759986152625582213 https://palexander.substack.com/p/breaking-hviid-et-al-confirms-what?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=579356&post_id=141833812&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=24pqe&utm_medium=email   Darren's Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYc9uiQw4bM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQuaoIWpMSA https://twitter.com/billboardchris/status/1760123168662987188 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e07M2IjL1Sg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF_C3XlX5Xw https://www.tiktok.com/@blendrnews/video/7332976949641383210 https://gcstrategies.ca/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il7LlrrXNiY https://twitter.com/ClydeDoSomethin https://x.com/ClydeDoSomethin/status/1759766041717043647?s=20 https://youtu.be/yCk8UlvsEEM?si=ITtlgvP4hVGsKX_R   Help support the show, because we can't do it without ya. If you value this content with 0 ads, 0 sponsorships, 0 breaks, 0 portals and links to corporate websites, please assist. Many hours of unlimited content for free. Thanks for listening!!   Support the show directly: https://grimerica.ca/support-2/ Our Adultbrain Audiobook Podcast and Website: www.adultbrain.ca Our Audiobook Youtube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@adultbrainaudiobookpublishing/videos Grimerica Media Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@grimerica/featured Darren's book www.acanadianshame.ca Check out our next trip/conference/meetup - Contact at the Cabin www.contactatthecabin.com Other affiliated shows: www.grimerica.ca The OG Grimerica Show www.Rokfin.com/Grimerica Our channel on free speech Rokfin Join the chat / hangout with a bunch of fellow Grimericans  Https://t.me.grimerica https://www.guilded.gg/chat/b7af7266-771d-427f-978c-872a7962a6c2?messageId=c1e1c7cd-c6e9-4eaf-abc9-e6ec0be89ff3   Get your Magic Mushrooms delivered from: Champignon Magique  Mushroom Spores, Spore Syringes, Best Spore Syringes,Grow Mushrooms Spores Lab Get Psychedelics online Leave a review on iTunes and/or Stitcher: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/grimerica-outlawed http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/grimerica-outlawed Sign up for our newsletter http://www.grimerica.ca/news SPAM Graham = and send him your synchronicities, feedback, strange experiences and psychedelic trip reports!! graham@grimerica.com InstaGRAM https://www.instagram.com/the_grimerica_show_podcast/  Purchase swag, with partial proceeds donated to the show www.grimerica.ca/swag Send us a postcard or letter http://www.grimerica.ca/contact/ ART - Napolean Duheme's site http://www.lostbreadcomic.com/  MUSIC Tru Northperception, Felix's Site sirfelix.bandcamp.com

The year is 1957. The race is of the space variety. Soviet scientists are emBARKing upon a new orbital achievement... They're gonna put a sweet little stray dog up high beyond the atmosphere. Get ready to cry... We discuss Laika, pupper cosmonaut, and true international astro-hero... and a few other dogs who slipped the surly bonds of Earth. Plus, lots of nonsense! And we play I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE.Sources: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/sad-story-laika-space-dog-and-her-one-way-trip-orbit-1-180968728/ and https://www.space.com/laika-space-dogHave a comment? Want to suggest a topic? Maybe you want to be a guest on the show? Email us at debutbuddies@gmail.comListen to Kelly and Chelsea's awesome horror movie podcast, Never Show the Monster.Get some sci-fi from Spaceboy Books.Get down with Michael J. O'Connor's music!Next time: First Barbara Walters Special (hopefully)

In this Podcast episode, the David Satter, a renowned journalist and authority on Russia, highlights the brutality and dark history of Stalin, the rise of communism in Russia, and the KGB's role in Soviet history and its use of psychological programming and much more. This episode covers Satter's extensive career, from his days reporting in the Soviet Union to his unique position as the first Western journalist banned from Russia post-Cold War, due to his critical reporting. Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Introduction to Soviet Reporting and Psychological Novels in Russia 00:03:02 - The Bolshevik Revolution's Impact on Russian Society and Ideology00:06:00 - Communism's Influence and the Red Terror in Soviet Russia00:09:58 - Lenin's Ideology and the Role of the Intelligentsia in Soviet History00:13:02 - Stalin's Regime, War Communism, and the New Economic Plan00:16:22 - Religion, State Ideology, and Marxism in the Soviet Union 00:19:03 - Dialectical Materialism and Mass Psychology in Soviet Ideology 00:22:01 - Transition to Bolsheviks and Lenin's Influence on Marxist Theory00:25:26 - Stalin's Leadership and Soviet Repression Techniques00:28:00 - KGB's Role in Soviet Society and the Psychological Impact of Repression00:31:16 - Fear and Challenges in Soviet Society and Reporting in the Soviet Union 00:34:00 - Control of Information, Public Perception, and the KGB's System00:37:33 - Impact of Stalin's Reign, Humor in Soviet Dissent, and Anti-Soviet Sentiments00:40:25 - Risks of Suggesting Reforms and Lack of Freedom of Expression 00:43:10 - Mental Oppression in the Soviet Union and Summary of Soviet History 00:46:04 - Economic Situation and Black Market Dynamics in the Soviet Union 00:49:02 - The Rise of Oligarchs and Mass Theft during Privatization 00:52:04 - Gorbachev's Policies and the Impact of Glasnost on Soviet Society00:55:05 - The Shock of Truthful Information and the Fall of Soviet Ideology 00:58:30 - The End of the Soviet Union and the Rise of Yeltsin and Putin 01:01:10 - Transition to Post-Soviet Russia and the Failure to Establish a Law-Based State 01:04:05 - The Emergence of Gangsterism and Criminal Ties in Post-Soviet Russia 01:07:02 - The Plight of the Russian Population and the Rise of the Oligarchs 01:10:00 - The National Income Fall and the Overall Impact on Russian Society 01:13:02 - The Ideological Imprint on Minds and the Shock of Truthful Information 01:16:22 - The Fall of Soviet Ideology and the Rise of Political Orthodoxy 01:19:03 - The Destruction of the Soviet Union and the Emergence of Free Information 01:22:01 - The Transition Period Post-Soviet Union and the Rise of Gangster Capitalism 01:25:26 - The Reconstruction of the Economic System and the Rise of Criminal Oligarchs 01:28:00 - The Impact of Lawlessness and Corruption in Post-Soviet Russia 01:31:16 - The Legacy of the Soviet Union and Its Long-Term Effects on Russian Society

In this episode, we cover the myth "Communism Made Me Do It." 'Communism Made Me Do It' is a tongue-in-cheek way of how the US blames radicalism for radicalism, instead of the US capitalist-led conditions that produce it. Since the Bolshevik Revolution, Communism, more than any other political ideology, is the boogeyman that allows radicalisms of different kinds, both anticapitalist and not, to be targeted by the US capitalist racist society. To help us debunk this myth we draw on the work of Wayne State University associate professor, Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly in her first single-author book Black Scare / Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States. She is a critical Black Studies scholar of political theory, political economy, and intellectual history. We discuss the foundational elements that make the United States an anti-communist anti-Black society including widespread repression and propaganda. As a comrade of the show, we celebrate the publication of her book.   Book https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo207945104.html   Related Episodes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/myth-marxism-is-eurocentric/id1504205689?i=1000580405583   https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/myth-marxism-is-eurocentric-pt-2-w-dr-charisse-burden/id1504205689?i=1000581118416   Patreon  https://www.patreon.com/blackmyths

One of the greatest historians of our lifetime was Antony Sutton, a well-known and deeply despised writer, at least as far as the Globalist regime was concerned. He spilled the beans on all of the tricks they had used over the decades to establish and retain power within government and big business. One aspect that was difficult for people to understand was Sutton's insistence that the “Monopoly Capitalists”, as he liked to call them, were enthusiastic supporters, especially financially, of the Socialist and Communist movements in Europe and Asia. They were of the belief that it was better to turn their enemies into Communists rather than Competitors. How did the Vietnam War help to prove Sutton's point about the overlapping of military hardware showing up in-theater from the same American manufacturers? Smedley Butler would have thoughts on this as well. Freeworld NYC 9/11 Live Event Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/free-world-nyc-tickets-667727369537 American Liberty Awards: www.americanlibertyawards.com Christian Yordanov's Detoxification Program: https://members.christianyordanov.com/detox-workshop?coupon=MACRO Sponsors: Emergency Preparedness Food: www.preparewithmacroaggressions.com Chemical Free Body: https://www.chemicalfreebody.com and use promo code: MACRO C60 Purple Power: https://c60purplepower.com/ Promo Code: MACRO Wise Wolf Gold & Silver: www.Macroaggressions.gold True Hemp Science: https://truehempscience.com/ Haelan: https://haelan951.com/pages/macro Solar Power Lifestyle: https://solarpowerlifestyle.com/ Promo Code: MACRO LegalShield: www.DontGetPushedAround.com EMP Shield: www.EMPShield.com Promo Code: MACRO Coin Bit App: https://coinbitsapp.com/?ref=0SPP0gjuI68PjGU89wUv Macroaggressions Merch Store: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/macroaggressions?ref_id=22530 LinkTree: linktr.ee/macroaggressions Books: HYPOCRAZY: https://amzn.to/3VsPDp8 Controlled Demolition on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3ufZdzx The Octopus Of Global Control: Amazon: https://amzn.to/3VDWQ5c Barnes & Noble: https://bit.ly/39vdKeQ Online Connection: Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/Macroaggressions Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/macroaggressions_podcast/ Discord Link:  https://discord.gg/4mGzmcFexg Website: www.theoctopusofglobalcontrol.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/theoctopusofglobalcontrol Twitter: www.twitter.com/macroaggressio3 Twitter Handle: @macroaggressio3 YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCn3