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Britain's free speech crisis is deepening. Police are knocking on doors over online opinions, and laws meant to target hate speech are being used to silence dissent. When Elon Musk highlighted the UK's grooming gang scandals, the media attacked him rather than the perpetrators or the people in power who neglected it.Tom Slater, editor of Spiked Online, joins me to break down how Britain is sleepwalking into censorship. We discuss the rise of authoritarian speech restrictions, how woke culture shapes media and politics, and why merely mentioning the background of grooming gang offenders is now politically dangerous.We also dive into Slater's viral Cambridge Union speech, where he dismantled claims that Trump is a 21st-century fascist. Is labeling populists as fascists a way to shut down debate? And what does this say about the political elite's fear of ordinary voters?Prenumerera eller stötta Rak högerI takt med att fler blir betalande prenumeranter har Rak höger kunnat expandera med fler skribenter och mer innehåll. Vi får inget presstöd, vi tar inte emot pengar från någon intresseorganisation eller lobbygrupp. Det är endast tack vare er prenumeranter vi kan fortsätta vara självständiga röster i en konform samtid. Så stort tack för att ni är med, utan er hade det inget av detta varit möjligt.Den som vill stötta oss på andra sätt än genom en prenumeration får gärna göra det med Swish, Plusgiro, Bankgiro, Paypal eller Donorbox.Swishnummer: 123-027 60 89Plusgiro: 198 08 62-5Bankgiro: 5808-1837Utgivaren ansvarar inte för kommentarsfältet. (Myndigheten för press, radio och tv (MPRT) vill att jag skriver ovanstående för att visa att det inte är jag, utan den som kommenterar, som ansvarar för innehållet i det som skrivs i kommentarsfältet.) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.enrakhoger.se/subscribe

Sebastian talks to Brendan O'Neill, Chief Political Writer for Spiked Online, about the UK's reaction to President Trump's comeback victory, and how the Republicans were always the true party of "joy" and "vibes," while the Democrats were driven by fear and hatred.Support the show: https://www.sebgorka.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Sebastian talks to Brendan O'Neill, the Chief Political Writer for Spiked Online, about the widespread violence caused by anti-Semitic rioters, and the threat they represent to Western Civilization.Support the show: https://www.sebgorka.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Vatican has enforced a strict dress code for employees in St. Peters Factory to cover visible tattoos and piercings...Should we still be asking employees to cover tattoos?Joining guest host Anton Savage is HR and Employment Law Expert from the HR Suite, Caroline Reidy, Owner of Wildcat tattoo studios, Dolores Murray and Chief Political Writer of Spiked Online, Brendan O'Neill. 

Mike is joined by Tom Slater from Spiked Online to discuss last night's election debate, and Gareth Southgate's s Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mike is joined by Tom Slater from Spiked Online to discuss the day's papers as Gary Lineker is accused of breaking BBC rules again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr. Rebekah Wanic is all that and more. She grew up in Chicagoland and decided to major in Psychology during her undergraduate work. She continued her studies after moving to San Diego where she still resides today. Rebekah and I talk about a number of topics from making and being responsible for your choices to reading Braille. Really, reading Braille as you will see turns out to be a quite fascinating and thought-provoking topic. Dr. Wanic offers many thoughtful insights and absolutely wonderful life lessons we all can use. She is the epitome of unstoppable as you will see. She has faced challenges, and she has chosen to work through and overcome them. About the Guest: Dr. Rebekah Wanic is a dynamic motivator who thrives on pushing her boundaries and those of others. Fueled with a passion for hard work and building relationships, she has worked with students, entrepreneurs and individual clients in the U.S. and abroad as a university lecturer and mindset psychologist. Originally from the Chicagoland area, she graduated with a B.S. in Psychology with University Honors from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before moving to Southern California. There, she earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego with an emphasis in applied social psychology studying the role of power in relationship health and the influence of mindset on social comparison outcomes. Passionate about inspiring the success of others, she has worked as a professional development trainer and adjunct faculty advocate and the internal mindset coach for a company supporting emerging entrepreneurs. Currently, she is a university lecturer, conference speaker, and blogger in addition to working with individual clients on mindset mastery. Dr. Wanic has taught over 16 different psychology courses, ranging from introductory to graduate level. She has taught courses at several different colleges and universities, including National University of Singapore, Nevada State University, Columbia College South Carolina and several community colleges in the San Diego area. Dr. Wanic's home university now is University of San Diego and she also teaches courses at San Diego State University and Nova Southeastern University. Dr. Wanic is also an avid writer. Her work has appeared in academic journals and online publications, including Times Higher Education, Minding the Campus, and Spiked Online. She maintains two blogs, PsychSkeptics and Optimization Notes, aimed at social critique through a psychological lens and self-development. She has a novella set to be released early next year and is working on the manuscript for her next book. She and her twin sister recently created a podcast, Unwarp Reality, designed to help uncover the bias and manipulation in the mainstream media. In addition to her work, she enjoys being active with a healthy balance of reading, watching sports, and just relaxing. Ways to connect with Dr. Rebekah: https://linktr.ee/rebekahwanic https://www.venttoreinvent.com https://venttoreinvent.substack.com/ https://unwarpreality.substack.com/ https://psychskeptics.substack.com/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Hi there, and welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're back again. Yep, you haven't lost us yet. Thanks for being here to listen, we really appreciate it. And if you're on YouTube, thanks for being here to watch. Yes, we are on YouTube, as well as all the places where podcasts go. And you are listening to unstoppable mindset. We're inclusion, diversity in the unexpected meet. And it's that way, because inclusion goes a lot further than diversity does. And sometimes we talk about that. And sometimes we don't. And we'll see with our guest today, whether we get to that or not. I don't know whether it'll even come up but it did. And so now it's here. Anyway, I'd like you to meet Rebekah Wanic. Rebekah is a very dynamic individual in a lot of different ways. She's a dynamic motivator, she pushes boundaries. She's an author. She's done a lot in the world of psychology and most important of all, she lives in San Diego, California, which makes me extremely jealous. So Rebekah, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Rebekah Wanic ** 02:19 Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's so great to be here to have this conversation.   Michael Hingson ** 02:24 Well, I lived in Vista for six years, so I know what it's like, which is why I'm jealous. Yes.   Rebekah Wanic ** 02:29 And I appreciate San Diego so much coming from Chicago originally. Every day, especially in the winter is a nice one.   Michael Hingson ** 02:38 When did you leave Chicago?   Rebekah Wanic ** 02:39 I moved to Southern California in 2003. So right when I finished my undergraduate degree.   Michael Hingson ** 02:48 Well, I was born in Chicago, but we moved out when I was five. So I grew up in Palmdale, California, so about 55 miles west of here. So the weather was relatively similar to what we have in Victorville. Not totally similar to what we have in San Diego, but we cope.   Rebekah Wanic ** 03:08 You get more of the extremes than we do. We're pretty insulated here on the coast. Oh, I   Michael Hingson ** 03:13 know. I think it's still the best climate certainly in the whole US if not the whole world. We we didn't get the extremes in San Diego that we get here. And in the winter. We don't get the snow because we're down in the valley. But all the ski resorts around us get the snow. We had two inches of snow one Saturday during this last year. And it was gone by the next day. So as I love to say the kids didn't get even get a snow day.   Rebekah Wanic ** 03:39 But then you also didn't have to shovel Right? Right.   Michael Hingson ** 03:42 When I'm not concerned about needing to have snow. I'm perfectly happy not to have snow here. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to do that. I mean, if we get that much snow here, it must really be bad around us. Although, earlier this year, I heard that mammoth ski resort actually didn't close their doors for the winter. Until August 6 of this year. Like a six they're skiing. Wow. Holy Jamali, as Colombo would say, you know, that's that's kind of crazy. Well, why don't we start? I love to do this with maybe you telling us a little bit about kind of the earlier Rebecca growing up and in Chicago, what life was like and all that sort of stuff?   Rebekah Wanic ** 04:30 Sure. Yeah. So the early Rebecca I think was a malformed version of the Rebecca that exists today. I was really lucky because I have a twin sister. So growing up I always had a companion to kind of play around with and she's super fun interesting person so we it's kind of a built in friends to go explore places with him and I also have an older brother, but you know, because he was a boy and a little bit older wasn't as close with us. But we did a lot of the traditional Midwest growing up things. So most of our vacations were to go visit our grandparents up north in various parts of Michigan, which was quite fun. But I growing up, I had really bad asthma. And so as a consequence of that, I had to be careful being outdoors, I had to be careful going over to friends houses that had dogs, I had to be careful with exercising and everything. So I was kind of the sick one in the family. And my sister to her credit, had to put up with a lot of we need to leave the sleepover, we need to leave this event because she'd be dragged along with me whenever we had to go. And so I don't like the cold as we were just talking about the weather. And as soon as I was able to sort of break out of the Midwest, which was after college, I don't think I was mature enough to move away from home for undergrad. So as soon as I finished my undergrad degree, though, a roommate of mine got a job in Torrance, California, and she said she was going to go out to SoCal. And so I just was like, Well, you know what, I think I'll move out with you. Because I knew I wanted to go to graduate school. And California has a lot of really good graduate programs. And at the time, when I was looking at psychology, some of the top programs were out here. So I just moved out with her lived and worked as a waitress for a year in Redondo Beach. And then, luckily was accepted to UCSD for graduate school. So that's when I moved down to San Diego. And I've been here ever since, with the exception of a small trip to Singapore for a couple of years during COVID.   Michael Hingson ** 06:33 Wow, that's interesting going to Singapore, what took you to Singapore, a   Rebekah Wanic ** 06:39 job, I got a really great opportunity to teach at their National University of Singapore, which is consistently one of the top schools in Asia. So it was really fortunate to be offered the position there. If the unfortunate thing was just the timing, because I went in November of 2020. And so I was mostly there during COVID. And there was a lot of restrictions. And so it was really difficult to kind of integrate and develop, you know, a social life when you don't know anybody. And you're in a totally new place. But it was still a great experience, I would say,   Michael Hingson ** 07:09 what's your sister's name, by the way, Liz, Liz. So you're not identical twins.   Rebekah Wanic ** 07:14 We are identical for you. But   Michael Hingson ** 07:16 you didn't have names that began with the same letter? No,   Rebekah Wanic ** 07:19 we are not saddled with that. But all of our names are biblical names. So my grandpa was a Lutheran pastor. So my sister and I have names from the Bible, and then most of our cousins do as well. What's your older brother's name? My brother's name is Andrew. So he's, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 07:38 that's fair. Okay. My late wife's relatives, a lot of the girls had middle names of Lynn. Oh, Tracy, Lynn, Vicki Lynn and so on. So on. Chelsea Lynn and Chelsea is Tracy's daughter Vicki was Karen sister, and Tracy's mom. But Chelsea when she started having her two kids decided she did not want Lynn for their names. And she has one name Scarlet. And the other is Charlie. Charlie is Charlie Rose. And I forget what Scarlett who's a year older as her middle name is, but not Lynne.   Rebekah Wanic ** 08:18 That Lynn Excellent.   Michael Hingson ** 08:21 But yeah, I you know, I remember Chicago a little bit. I don't remember a lot of snow. But I remember school. I remember walking to the local candy store and doing some things around Chicago. And I was was blind back then as well. I was blind from birth due to being born prematurely and being given too much oxygen, which is something that happens. But, but nevertheless, you know, we survived. And it all worked out pretty well. So, and I had a lot of fun in Chicago. I was back there a few years ago. And it was in March. I was visiting cousins who still live there. I think they were in DeKalb. Okay. And it was a Sunday and it was the day I was going to be leaving to fly back out to California. But that morning, it was the morning of the polar plunge into Lake Michigan. Oh, okay. So Jimmy Fallon and Rahm Emanuel were to two of the people who were there. Rahm was the mayor at that time. And of course, Jimmy Fallon. And they were going to do the polar plunge and the reporters after they did it had a lot of not nice things to say about them because they said, these guys were dumb. They went into the lake dressed in their full business suits. And right around the same time they went in there was this woman near them who went in in her skimpy bathing suit so when she came out, they all went into the warming tent. You can imagine how long it took Fallon's and the manuals clothes to dry and she was drying Oh time. I agree Sir Porter was not well planned was fun. But it was pretty cold. I think we were down. The temperature was I think minus, no, I guess it was like three degrees. So it wasn't quite zero, but it was close.   Rebekah Wanic ** 10:16 Yeah, I was there last winter. It wasn't really that bad of a winter, we didn't have some of the extreme stuff. I remember one time growing up, it had rained, and then it froze overnight. So when we got to walk to school, everything was coated in ice. And on the trees, it looks really, really cool because it was kind of like crystals all over, you know, it was left to the branches and stuff. But walking on the sidewalk was not pleasant, because you just sort of slipped as you walked up a hill, you were slipping back down as   Michael Hingson ** 10:51 well, in May of 2001. So September 11, hadn't happened yet. They had a late snowstorm. Now our house was on what we call a pie shape, lots of the driveway, went out to the street, and then came in 65 feet, and then the lat spread out so we could build so we could have a house. But it was I guess sort of terrorist. Our basement was a walkout basement. And then on the first floor, there was a deck that was built in it was over the place where you could walk out on the basement side to go outside. But as soon as you walk outside from the basement, you got to go down a hill. And that's where I would take the dogs to do their business. There was not a fenced yard. But right at the end of what our property would be, it was kind of a small forest. And on one side on the other side was route 22, which was really noisy, but the snow came, which was no big deal. But the next day, the sun came out and melted some of the snow. So that night, the ice was as slick as glass, oh man, and I put on my boots and took the dogs out and went down that hill. Somehow I made it down. And I even made it back up. But then I decided after that I am not going to do that anymore. So I have a long leash, a flex leash. And I stood at the top of the hill and I let the dogs go down. And I didn't do it.   Rebekah Wanic ** 12:19 Very smart.   Michael Hingson ** 12:20 It was I'd never experienced anything like that in the rest of the time that we had been in New Jersey. But that's what what happened that day. It was crazy. And it was that way for a couple of days.   Rebekah Wanic ** 12:31 Wow. And that can be really dangerous. Because you don't you don't necessarily even recognize that all the ice is there. I did. Luckily for you.   Michael Hingson ** 12:41 Yeah, well, it was pretty treacherous. But I'm you know, the dogs didn't seem to have any problem with it. Bless them. That was great. Yeah. Not i I'm glad I didn't go go out anymore. But then I'm warmed up. And now all went well. But you know, it's it's it's interesting, I love the United States, because we do get to talk about the weather and, and the fact that it's so different throughout various parts of the country. I visited excessively in Israel in August. And they kind of can kind of can talk about the weather there because in the south or near the ocean or near the ocean, there's a lot more humidity and less than the North. It gets as hot as it does here. I don't know that they really believe that. But it does. We get at least as hot as Israel. But we don't get the humidity here. But they talk about the weather from a standpoint in part of humidity, but they don't have to worry about as much snow.   Rebekah Wanic ** 13:40 That's true. Yes, Singapore is this. It's pretty much hot there. Every day it rains somewhere every day. Not really a lot of seasonal variation, except in terms of the amount of rain that you're getting. But for me, it's I don't like cold. I was happy to be in 95 degrees every day. Most people wouldn't like it, but I loved it.   Michael Hingson ** 14:03 Well, you're not doing too bad in San Diego. And as you said, at least you don't have the extreme so on on any given day, you can go out to do cafe and have dinner. Yeah. Not suffer too much. So Halloween won't be probably as cold for you as it usually is for us. It gets it gets cold at night and I'm afraid it's going to do it again. The temperature was warm last week, but it's cooling off. And I'm afraid by next Tuesday it will be cold.   Rebekah Wanic ** 14:30 Yes. Are you gonna dress up for Halloween?   Michael Hingson ** 14:33 No. The lady who helps me here doing paperwork and stuff my my assistant, my office worker, if you will, or my sidekick has five children, one of whom doesn't like to go out and Trick or treat. He broke his ankle a couple of years ago so it really hurts to walk a lot. So he wants to stay with me if I'm not going to go out and do anything on Halloween. So I'm going to stay home we're not even going to give out candy we're going to close the door. Watch and turn off the light. Well, I don't know whether we're showing off all the lights, but we're not gonna give out candy and we'll watch a movie because that's what he wants to do.   Rebekah Wanic ** 15:06 Oh, fun, that'll be nice.   Michael Hingson ** 15:10 And he can play with the dog and the cat.   Rebekah Wanic ** 15:12 Awesome. I love Halloween. It's my favorite holiday because my birthday is the day afterwards. So we would always when we were kids, my sister and I, you know, since we're twins, we would have our, obviously a joint party together, but it'll always be a costume party. So I just because I love getting dressed up and stuff. So Halloween is definitely a fun day for me. That's   Michael Hingson ** 15:32 pretty cool. Well, that'll be fun. Sorry, you're going to dress up this year.   Rebekah Wanic ** 15:38 So this I mean, I'm teaching you know, I teach psychology classes. So I have to come up with something that doesn't look too wacky in front of the classroom. So I will wear a wig of some sort, since I will take any excuse to wear a wig and then figure out what I'm going to tell the students I am probably I've probably figured out Monday nights. But this weekend, when I go out with some friends, I'm going to be Sandra Bullock's character from the movie Speed. Okay, see how many people recognize it? Because I know it's getting dated now. But obviously, people my age or older ones still understand it? Well, you   Michael Hingson ** 16:12 mentioned where you could always try to dress up like Hermione Granger from Harry Potter.   Rebekah Wanic ** 16:18 I don't need that my hair looks like her.   Michael Hingson ** 16:24 There you go, Well, that is going well then just walk in with a wand and see if they figured out I actually   Rebekah Wanic ** 16:31 do have a Dumbledore one that I got from Universal Studio. Oh, I've all set.   Michael Hingson ** 16:39 So it's an elder one, does it? Yes. Oh, good.   Rebekah Wanic ** 16:43 Well, as a professor, you know, you have to have the professor one.   Michael Hingson ** 16:46 You certainly do. Well, so you mentioned that you have a neuromuscular condition?   Rebekah Wanic ** 16:55 Yes, I do. And it's one of those fun things where there's no actual answers for me. So I would say probably now about five years ago, I used to work out quite a bit. And I noticed I just couldn't run every time I ran, I felt like I ran a marathon, I'd have to take like hour long naps to try to recover from it. And my fingers and my toes started hurting and tingling. And until you know, when I first went to the doctor, they were I was really scared because they were like, Oh, it sounds like it might be Ms. But I had all the tests and screening for that. And nothing showed up. And then I had a bunch of other tests and nothing showed up. And then because you know, I'm used to doing research, I was researching online. And I thought I have a lot of evidence that suggests this might be small fiber neuropathy. So I had a fight with a bunch of doctors because you know, you're middle aged women, you go into the doctor, they tell you everything stress, oh, it's stress. And I was like, I have a PhD in psychology, I'm fairly certain if this was stressed, I would be able to diagnose that. So I had to fight a quite a bit. I probably saw like eight different doctors before I finally got to a doctor, I said, this is what I think I have, I need you to give me this test. And he didn't want to give me the test because it's kind of invasive. But lo and behold, after I got the test, it showed I had small fiber neuropathy. But that's not a super helpful diagnosis. Because it's sort of like you have a blue crown that's blue. You're just labeling something that you already know exists. Why do I have it? What do I do about it, all of that still unknown. And then when I was in Singapore, I went to the hospital there because I the whole bottom part of my leg was just numb. And so I was having trouble walking because I couldn't feel when my foot was hitting the ground effectively. And so there went through a whole nother round of tests. And he told me I have my atonia which again, is not that helpful, because it's just like your muscles are overactive, they're always tight. And I'm like, I know what I was telling you when I first came in. So it's kind of been at first it was really a struggle of you know, this fear of the unknown is it going to keep getting worse now I think I'm fortunate I've gotten to a place of acceptance, where I just accept this stuff will hurt me all the time. I have to regulate the amount of physical activity I do. So I don't get you know, overly exhausted. And I'm kind of getting myself to the place where I can have a bunch of extra energy so I can go back and interface with the medical community to try to see if there's new answers or a new doctor I could talk to you about what might be able to be done about it now.   19:27 Does lose have any of this? She doesn't she   Rebekah Wanic ** 19:30 doesn't. It's funny because I always say like I'm the twin that got stuck with all two of us because like when we were growing up we went to get contacts I couldn't really get contacts I'd really bad a stigmatism I was allergic to the contact lens. I was allergic to the context solution had really bad asthma. She has asthma but it wasn't to the extent that mine was I was hospitalized for it multiple times. And then when I started getting the this muscle stuff, I told her I was like you know we're twins You better watch jailed for this. And she was like, I think I'll be fine. Like, you're the one that takes all of it.   Michael Hingson ** 20:06 Just you're just the troublesome kid. Hmm, exactly.   Rebekah Wanic ** 20:11 Through no fault of my own, I would say but yeah. So   Michael Hingson ** 20:14 when you were in college, what did you study as an undergrad?   Rebekah Wanic ** 20:17 I studied psychology. And then I also spent a lot of time taking philosophy courses and comparative literature courses. And that my major was psychology. Wow.   Michael Hingson ** 20:28 And so you just stuck with that all the way through the PhD world coming out here? Yeah,   Rebekah Wanic ** 20:33 yeah. I mean, to me, it's, it's one of those fascinating topics where the more you learn the I mean, if you're motivated, I don't think everybody does this. But for me, everything I learned, I'm like, how does this relate to my own experience? And how can I use it to try to make my own experience better and more functional. So my focus was on social psychology in particular, because the way that people interact with each other was really fascinating to me, you know, growing up with a twin and seeing some of the ways that it was really helpful for me in terms of overcoming stuff dealing with life, but also some of the ways that it made me a little bit, I think, more timid than I otherwise would have been, because my sister is really dominant. And she really great, but it took it took us kind of separating for me to sort of grow more into my own and develop some of the self confidence that she had more so when we were growing up, but that that interplay between self and situation has always been something that's really been part of my focus of attention.   Michael Hingson ** 21:33 So what does she do since you're in psychology? Oh, my   Rebekah Wanic ** 21:36 sister is awesome. She's done everything. She when we, her undergraduate degree was in anthropology and I think maybe international business. When she finished, she went to Japan for three years to teach English. Then she came back and she lived in New York City. And she got she was teaching in an inner city school. And she got through City College, a teaching credential, a master's in education, too. And then when she finished that, she started working for the UN. And then she got placements in several countries in Africa, working for the UN, eventually came back to the States after getting sick, went to Naval Postgraduate School up in Monterey, California, and got her degree in cybersecurity. And this is a woman who never took a computer science class her entire life, graduated the top student in her class. And so now she went back to New York City, and she's working in a big financial institution right now. Wow. Yeah, she my sister is like one of those people who she is. She's one of the smartest people I know, hands down.   Michael Hingson ** 22:43 Well, that's a neat story. She's certainly gotten around and done lots of stuff. And the two of you sound like you complement each other very well.   22:51 I hope so. I   Michael Hingson ** 22:52 hope so. So, you went to Singapore, which certainly had to be extremely fascinating, especially when you intellectually look back on it, because it happened during COVID. You mentioned something earlier? Well, when we were chatting, and then you sent me some information about it that you had a big challenge getting over to Singapore in the first place. Yes.   Rebekah Wanic ** 23:14 Okay. So first of all, I got I went over there in January 2020, for my interview, and then I found out that I got the job, the beginning slash middle of March. So I found that I got the job right before everything kind of hit the fan in terms of, you know, lock downs and stuff. And so I had sent my acceptance for the position was and said, I was going to go over there in July of 2020. The day after I sent them my acceptance, I got a message from them that was like, yeah, there's no way you're coming over here in July. No one's coming in every everything shut down. We don't know exactly when you're going to be able to come. So then I had to like, you know, re assess. Because, you know, I had started making plans, like giving up my job here in the States moving all that stuff. So I had to like reevaluate, got my job back to teach classes in the fall semester, 2020 here in the US, but I was basically on standby. Because Singapore said, you know, we'll let you know when you can come we'll give you maybe like a two week notice in terms of the window of time that you can arrive. And then at the time they approved you to enter the country during a three day window to 72 hours to get there. Wow, you had to have a COVID test that was done within that 72 hour window. So I was getting ready to go and then because it was COVID the flight I normally would have taken which was from San Diego to San Francisco, San Francisco over to Singapore. That wasn't operational. So I had to fly San Diego to Seattle, Seattle to Narita in Japan, and then Rita to Singapore. So when I checked in to the airport in San Diego I had my paperwork my you know, if the letter from the government saying I can enter see pour my COVID tests, all this stuff checked off. When I get to the transfer window up in Seattle, they call me up to the counter or my passport check COVID test, check paperwork, check, check me off, I'm good to go all the way to Singapore, I get to Japan, Japan wants to look at my paperwork and says my paperwork is not correct. Because I didn't have my passport number on top of the COVID test. And they would not let me through. So So basically, I'm in Japan, and you know, I'm trying not to, like freak out, but I'm freaking out. But you know, I was like, Rebecca, you're an international airport, you can't create an incident you're gonna live in prison, right? So I had to kind of, you know, like, stifle things. And then basically, they they walked me from this, this counter to a plane to go back to the United States. And I said, I can't go back to San Diego, I have no apartment. I have no staff. I have no job. I have no family. Can you at least send me to New York City, because my sister at the time was living in New York City. So they put me on this plane to go back to New York City. And I've wasted about a day's worth of travel through all this iteration. It's about 1214 hours for me to get from Japan to New York City. So the first couple of hours, I'm on the plane, and I'm the only person on this plane. I was like, Rebecca, this is it, your life is over. Just get off the plane, don't even tell your sister landing in New York go be you know, like a homeless person, whatever, like, you know, like your life is over. But then of course, you know, after I let myself wallow for a few minutes, I was like, No, like rally, okay, you're going to New York, if there's any place that you need to be to get to Singapore in time, it's New York, it's going to have the most options in terms of flights. But my COVID test at this point would have expired. So I had to figure out to how to get a COVID test within less than four hours. Because I figured out there was one flight that I could take from New York, that would get me to Singapore within the window of time that I needed to get in during the 72 hour approval time. One flight. And so in order for me to get there, I needed to leave my sister's house at a certain time. So I had four hours from when I landed in a at JFK to get to the airport in Newark in order to get out to fly to get to Singapore in time. So I googled, there was a place in New York that would do this, because New York is the place where you can get everything for money. So six hours later, $5,000 later, I was on a plane to Singapore, and I made it within the window of time, but it was basically about 72 hours worth of traveling. So when I got to Singapore, they had a COVID a COVID quarantine so I had to stay in a hotel for two weeks. They basically met you at baggage claim, took your stuff and you put you on a bus and sent you to a hotel. So I was so drained at this point and stressed that the first three days, I didn't care that I was stuck in a hotel room, I just slept and recuperated and stuff. And then I always think you know, it's like, you can be in the midst of stuff that's really not going well for you. But that there's there's gems of hope. So I was so lucky because the hotel that I got put up in for my quarantine was the Swiss hotel, really nice hotel, and I was on like the 36th floor, my room had a balcony overlooking the bay. So I had fresh air I had a great view. So overall, my quarantine experience was not nearly as bad as it could have been. But I think the contrast of the horror of it probably made it really good.   28:30 And it was warm. And   Rebekah Wanic ** 28:31 it was warm. Yes.   Michael Hingson ** 28:33 I, I understand a lot of those sentiments, my inlaws and Karen and I and two other people, two other relatives, went to Spain in 1992. And Karen and I had been working at the company we worked for putting in long hours and like even the night before we left, we work till 10 o'clock just to get everything done. And literally when we got to Spain, we were in Tenerife for the first week, okay. And mostly, we'd go to sleep, and we slept till three in the afternoon, both of us Wow. And then we would get up and we would be with people. And we did that for most of the first week until we finally caught up on sleep. Yeah, and we didn't mind a bit. We enjoyed it. It was great. It was amazing. But then we got up and we had a late breakfast, which was usually a burger or something else because it was three in the afternoon. It was fun, but we really enjoyed going over but we didn't have the kind of airline challenges that you did. I had a little bit because they insisted that being blind I had to sit in a specific place in the airport until the next flight, even though I was with a family all of whom could see and they didn't even restrict Karen Being in a wheelchair her whole life. But they, they insisted that I had to be somewhere and they separated me from everyone, which did not make me very happy at all. Needless to say, it was crazy. It was ridiculous to do. But you know, so what's the lesson you learn from all the traveling and all the challenges that you had going to Singapore? And all that happened? What do you learn from that? What do you take away?   Rebekah Wanic ** 30:23 So the first thing that I learned was to, like, double up on everything, because I think if I had had like, an extra piece of paper with my COVID test, I would have just written my, my password number on it and been like, oh, wait a minute, do you think it was this piece of paper that you wanted me to have? But I think the other thing, I mean, honestly, this is what I always tell people about challenges. And like, I am one of those people who like if stuffs gonna go wrong, it's gonna go horribly wrong. But the older I get, the more I appreciate it. Because now, you know, I can I can laugh at it doesn't mean it doesn't bother you when it's happening. But I get over stuff so much more quickly. I'm just kind of like, alright, you know, come at me life right here. Here's a new challenge that you've thrown my way. And let's see how I'm gonna go and get over it. So it just teaches you that you're way more resilient than you oftentimes give yourself credit for. And you don't know your resilience unless you're presented with the challenge that you have to overcome. So I think that's that's the biggest takeaway for me and my sister a lot of times, what has she, you know, big international traveler, and I think I had told her before I was moving to Singapore, like, I'm a little bit nervous. And she's like, you just figure it out. Because you have to, you know, and I think that the more that you go through those kinds of experiences, the more that you realize that that is true, right, you have to rise to the challenge. So you figure out a way to do it, and you just move on.   Michael Hingson ** 31:44 Were you afraid at all, when the whole stuff was happening with Singapore.   Rebekah Wanic ** 31:50 I was like, for that short period of time, when when I got on that plane to leave Japan to go to New York, I was afraid that everything that I had planned for was completely crashing to the ground. But then I thought to myself, even if it is, you have two options. Option one is you let it happen, right, you let it crumble, but option two is you fight against it, you fight for what you want. And so that's what gave me you know, the strength to like rally and investigate. And of course, I mean, you know, when I talk about how amazing my sister is, because she's she's always there when you need her. She's like one of those great people to have and, and I knew that if I asked her for help, she was going to be able to help me. And you know, she didn't just help him with the logistical things. But like, you know, she's just like a good person to have in your corner. So the other thing is like, Don't ever be afraid to use your network and keep the people in your life who are going to be the ones that are there for you. You know, a lot of times we encounter people who are takers, not not givers, and you obviously, you want to be a giver yourself. But keep keeping good relationships with the people who are the ones that our stand up, and we'll be there to help you is really important than then be appreciative to them. You know, I tell my sister all the time, how awesome she is. And I think that she really knows that I'm so appreciative of everything she's done to help me in my life.   Michael Hingson ** 33:13 But that goes both ways, though.   Rebekah Wanic ** 33:16 I hope so. I mean, I feel you know, how you You never feel like you're good enough to give somebody who's awesome held, like, I hope that I helped my sister, but I, I feel like the nature of the relationship. And that one, I think, unfortunately, I'm a little bit more of a taker than a giver. But I hope that you know, I can give her what she needs when she needs it. Well, something   Michael Hingson ** 33:35 must be going right, because the two of you get along very well. Where is she these days? Where does she live now in New York. She   Rebekah Wanic ** 33:41 was living in Long Island City for a long time, and that she just just bought a house in New Jersey. So it's super, super exciting. So her and her husband, it's our first home. So that's really, really exciting. She's like, we've got space. We're not you know, living in our cramped New York, one bedroom apartment on top of each other anymore. So it's super, super exciting.   Michael Hingson ** 34:01 We're in New Jersey   Rebekah Wanic ** 34:03 in Bernardsville. I think that it is yeah. We   Michael Hingson ** 34:08 lived in Westfield for six years. And we built our home so that it was wheelchair accessible. And that was a lot of fun. And we had an elevator and I know for a week after September 11. I use the elevator a whole lot more than Karen did. We had to have a two storey home because that was the only kind of home that would allow you to build there was no room for ranch homes. So we had to have an elevator. And I was so stiff and sore for the week after September 11. And I use that elevator all the time. Wow. I couldn't walk up or down the stairs at all it was it was pretty bad. But you know it happens. But it's it's interesting to to hear what you're saying though, because we we all have the ability to help each other. And one of the things that strikes me is we all want to be independent. We all think that we want to do stuff ourselves. It's just me. I'm independent. I don't don't need any help. But yet, we want to stay connected, or we mostly want to stay connected except for people who don't understand the wisdom of it. How do you? How do you do both be independent and stay connected?   Rebekah Wanic ** 35:12 Yeah, that's a great question. I think I think about that a lot, right? Because, you know, I live, none of my family lives in San Diego, I decided, you know, I just I need to go out and be on my own. But what I, what I sometimes have to do, to be honest with you, is put little reminders in my phone, like if I, something's happening with someone in my family, like they have a job interview or an important doctor's appointment, as soon as I hear about it, I put it in my phone, so that I can make a note to like, call them or text them to follow up on it. And it's as a way of showing that, like, I'm keeping them in what's going on with them as a priority in their mind. But I think it helps, at least for me with balancing sort of, you know, the connection and independence is, a lot of times when we seek connection, it's just because we need something. And so I try really hard to make sure that when I'm reaching out to people, it's not because I need something, it's when I'm coming at it from a position of strength so that you don't feel like you're always you know, taking, taking taking that you can feel like you're being a giver, you want to share some things that are fun, share some good news with people. But I think the other thing that I always keep in mind is, every time you ask for help, you're taking some limited amount of resources from someone else. So it doesn't mean that you should ever feel bad asking for help, or that you shouldn't ask for help. But by recognizing that when you do, it puts you in a mindset to make sure that you're not going to take more than what you need. And that you're going to position yourself to be oriented towards figuring out how to give something back. And I'm not saying this as it's like a tit for tat, it's just being cognizant of that really helps you to sort of manage recognizing, okay, this is something that I can do on my own, I don't need to ask for assistance on this. So that you can free yourself up to take advantage of assistance when you need it the most, when it's going to be the most beneficial for you.   Michael Hingson ** 37:10 At the same time be prepared to offer when the opportunities arise. I. So I mentioned my wife passed away last November, we had been married 40 years, and her caregivers, Josie and Dolores and Janette, who was actually our in is our housekeeping lady who comes in keeps us honest, by keeping the house clean once a week and I work on it the rest of the time. I even bought a Roomba lately. It works pretty well, you know, the cat's not impressed with it. We haven't been able to get the cat to watch the TV commercials where another cat writes a Roomba. But one of the things that that almost immediately happened is that Josie said, you know, let me help you in doing things. And I was reluctant because I didn't want her to feel obligated. But I realized pretty quickly, she wanted to help me get back to continuing to be able to move on. So Josie now works for me. She's here for five days, four or five hours a day. And we do paperwork, and she helps looking for speaking opportunities and all the other things that that I do. Yeah. And Dolores is doing a bunch of other stuff. So we don't see each other quite as often. And Jeanette comes once a week. And one of the things that she said early on after Karen passed was, I'm going to come over on Tuesday nights and bring you dinner. Well, we've modified that slightly. So sometimes she brings in her and sometimes I take her out for dinner because I think that it's good to get out. And frankly, it's good for me to get out a little bit. She's cleaning houses all week. So she's out and then she doesn't have to cook all the time. But I do believe that it's symbiotic is probably the wrong word. But it is a mutually beneficial kind of a relationship with both of them. And actually all three, and it should be that way. It's we do need to connect, and we do need to help each other. So I do like to think that I help some too. Yeah, absolutely.   Rebekah Wanic ** 39:17 You're reminding me of, um, I write a blog about, you know, self improvement, self motivation. I call it self optimization. But I was thinking about, you know, I'm a professor and I know just from conversations with students that a lot of times students, look, look up to me, but when I start doubting myself, and I wrote this article about it, where it's like you have to give yourself credit for being the helper to other people, but also for being in a position to let other people help you because in doing that you're kind of empowering them to to get a lot of the gratification that comes from being connected. And it sounds like these people are we be wonderful individuals. So it sounds it's great that you're able to kind of keep them in your life. And it sounds exactly like you're saying that you're both benefiting from the nature of the relationship, which is huge. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 40:10 it is it helps a lot. One of the things that I did, we we had a wheelchair accessible van, which we sold back to the company that sold it to us so that they could get it to someone else who could use it once Karen passed, because I didn't need it. But I also didn't want to impose on Josie and Jeanette and Dolores to use their car when I needed to go somewhere. So we did, I bought me another car. And it's smaller than the van. So it does fit in the garage a lot better. And now I can walk all the way around it and things like that, because the minivan took up most of the garage. But again, I felt that that was something that was important to do so that I'm not using up their car. And that works out pretty well. Yeah.   Rebekah Wanic ** 40:55 Do you like your new car? Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 40:59 it was a little hard to find one. Because, well, the reason it was hard was because being a passenger, I want to be able to do what other passengers could do, we had looked at a new 2023 Hyundai Tucson, the problem is the radio was all touchscreen. And for that reason alone went on not doing that. And so we ended up with a 2021 Pre Owned Tucson, but the radio has buttons and I can do with most of it. And all the other parts about the car are much more physical buttons so I can do the things that I need to do, rather than relying on a touchscreen that I'm never going to be able to to navigate and negotiate. All   Rebekah Wanic ** 41:43 right. And most of those touchscreens too, even if they have like an audio interface, you have to touch it to activate the audio interface. Right. So they're not particularly friendly to people that are visually impaired, correct? Well,   Michael Hingson ** 41:57 they're not, they're not at all friendly to people who are blind and, or low vision. And you know, and it seems to me, drivers would probably disagree, but I don't think they're friendly for drivers, you still have to take your eyes off the road to see where to touch on the screen. And there ought to be more of a code word that you can just say like with an echo device or whatever, to activate it rather than using the touchscreen. But even then, it isn't just that it is also that the audio interface doesn't give you the same level of control that you get with a touchscreen. Now, there in reality are ways to have a touchscreen that I could use. iPhones and Android phones on smartphones, which are all touchscreens, do have technology that has been created to allow me to use it. So instead of like clicking a button, just tapping a button and it executes it, when it's in the mode that I have to use. And I suppose to what you have to use, I double tap and that activates it. So they could put all that smarts in that technology and the touchscreens on cars, which would then make it usable for me, but they don't. So it's very unfortunate that they they still continue to exclude a lot, which is very unfortunate, then really continues to say we just don't think that you're as valuable as we are.   Rebekah Wanic ** 43:31 Yeah, I think I had heard you talking about the the touchscreen thing on cars. And I it's it's one of those things I think a lot of people wouldn't wouldn't even come to their mind. Because when when we have the privilege of being sighted for example, then we don't we don't recognize, you know, all of the things that may potentially be an issue. But when it's brought up and like you're saying there's some relatively simple fixes that can be made, but people aren't doing it, it does definitely send a certain kind of message. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 43:58 what it gets back down to is that diversity doesn't tend to be very inclusive, we don't deal with disabilities. And as I've said, and I don't know whether you've heard any of the podcasts where I've said it is I believe everyone has a disability and the disability for most of you is your light dependent. You have to have light in order to function. And as soon as there's a power failure, or something like that you're in a world of hurt unless you can grab a flashlight or a smartphone and activate it and turn the flashlight on. And the fact of the matter is, disability doesn't mean a lack of ability. Disability should really be recognized as a characteristic that manifests itself differently, but still manifests itself in every single person in the world.   Rebekah Wanic ** 44:37 And yes, you're talking Michael, you're reminding me I think the movie is called wait until dark with Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn, right. You know what I'm talking about me? You were just reminding me of that where she's like it shows to me that was really impactful because it showed you know, in a very creative way like yeah, there. We all have different skill sets basically as a function of what we've been born with and given?   Michael Hingson ** 45:00 Well, even though today in our world, we still keep hearing people talk about people who are visually impaired, which is a disgusting, horrible way to describe us.   Rebekah Wanic ** 45:13 I said that I'm sorry, no, no, but no, no, but it   Michael Hingson ** 45:16 comes up all the time, I was just reading another book where it came up. And the reason it is, is because visually, we're not different simply because we're blind, and impaired equates us to eyesight. So blind and low vision within something that deaf people realized a long time ago, that you don't say deaf or hearing impaired is deaf or hard of hearing. And that's, that hasn't progressed that way in the in the blindness world. And I think, in large part because blind people haven't collectively created the same level of community that deaf people have. And so that level of understanding hasn't gotten to blind people to the point where they're willing to take that stand and push back a lot more about the concept of visually impaired. Interesting. Yeah, I   Rebekah Wanic ** 46:07 think there's a difference in the cultivation of community. Do you ever hypothesis on it?   Michael Hingson ** 46:12 Deaf people have worked very hard to, to rally around each other. They know they need to do that they have been very standardized on mostly on signing and some on lip lip reading and so on. But they've just developed a stronger sense of community, overall their death, they're a culture. And you don't see that same level in the blindness world. Yeah,   Rebekah Wanic ** 46:39 that's, it's interesting. So one of the things I would love to hear your opinion on this, one of the things that we sometimes talk about in psychology classes is that people oftentimes report that one of the things that you lose from with the experience of deafness is social connection. Yeah. And that tends to be sort of lost less for people that are blind, because we can still Converse, which is one of the primary sources of social connections. I'm just wondering if maybe the deaf community cultivates community more, because that's something that's so noticeably lost without the extra effort,   Michael Hingson ** 47:18 I think it's an interesting concept, and it could very well be the case. But for whatever reason they've done it. And I, I've been around a number of deaf people, and I've actually talked to them about this discussion of hearing impaired or hard of hearing. And they're very adamant that hard of hearing is much more appropriate than because they don't want to be compared to a person who can hear in terms of how much you can hear or you're impaired in terms of hearing. And it's, it makes a lot of sense. words do matter. And we need to recognize that a lot more than we do.   Rebekah Wanic ** 47:51 Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I apologize. Well, no, don't   Michael Hingson ** 47:54 it's fine. You know, I understand. But But yeah, that's something to grow on. So when we need to get more people to understand it. Tell me about making choices. So since we're talking about about this, and we're making a choice to, to do that, and I appreciate it. But you know, in our world today, so many people blame people for so much stuff, it seems to me and they'll make a choice, and then they blame somebody else when it doesn't go the way they saw it. How do we deal with that? Yeah,   Rebekah Wanic ** 48:25 I think that's a great thing to kind of talk about. So I am a firm believer, and I talk about this with my clients a lot that if you make a choice, even if the outcome is not what you wanted, you own that choice, because that's the most empowering way for you to move forward. blaming other people puts you in a position where you're outsourcing control. If I say I didn't get what I wanted, because the world is against me, this person doesn't like me, whatever external reason, then there's really not much that you can do about it. But if you recognize that, first of all, you're not always going to get what you want. Sometimes the choices that we make don't lead to the outcomes that we desire, recognizing that is the first important step. But then above and beyond that, if you if you own the consequences of your actions, you're much more motivated to change so that you don't get the same consequences the next time around. If we don't take ownership of the consequences of our choices, then we're not putting ourselves in a position to learn right, basic psychology tells us that the consequence will alter the action. If the consequence is not something that you desire to have happen again, then you're less likely to engage in that same behavior. But when we remove the consequences when we tell people that they're not responsible for the outcomes of the choices that they make, we're actually hampering them in their ability to make adjustments that will help them move forward in a more positive direction to get more of the things that they want.   Michael Hingson ** 49:51 We also focus so much on trying to control everything in our world and everything around us when in reality, we don't have control over everything. We don't learn to focus on things that we do have control over. We worry about everything else. It drives people crazy, I'm sure.   Rebekah Wanic ** 50:06 Yeah, that is absolutely true. So a lot of what we can work on just in terms of helping ourselves to be more functional, less worrying, you know, less angry all the time when things don't work out is to recognize the sphere of control that you have. And I've written about this, too, that this idea of circle of control is not unique to me, other people have originated like Dale Carnegie talks about your social control. But realistically, what you want to do is thinking about within every domain, what are the things that I can control? And what are the things that I can't, and you have to work to control the things you can to get more of what you value. And at minimum, what you can control is, where you are, and how you emotionally respond. So it's not the case that people make you feel happy or sad, or whatever events can have a tendency to push you in one direction or another. But you ultimately have control over how you're choosing to respond. This is why I think mindset is so important. And I work with clients to work on mindset adjustments, because your mindset is key to controlling your emotional reaction. When I have something negative happened to me, I'm perfectly within my right to feel bad about it. But if I can adjust my mindset, so I can see what I have control over. And I'm a big fan of humor, I always try to see what's funny in a situation. Because the minute you can laugh at it, you take a step back, you're less, you're less directly connected, and it puts you in a new position to see all of the actions that you can take to help yourself move forward in a more positive direction.   Michael Hingson ** 51:42 I absolutely agree. And I think it's it's very important that we understand that, you know, it's all about making choices, we can choose to deal with things or not, we had no control over I don't think the World Trade Center incident happening. I'm not convinced we would have figured it out, even if all the government agencies really did talk to each other, which they certainly seem to not know how to do. But the bottom line is that it happened. And that is something that we certainly didn't have control over. I didn't have control over it happening. But I do have control over how I deal with it. And I think that's the important part about it.   Rebekah Wanic ** 52:20 Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with you. I mean, even you know, when I mentioned earlier, I said I'm one of those people that if things are gonna go wrong, they're gonna go really wrong. But now it's like, when I say it, I'm not saying it because I am in a woe is me mindset, or I feel like, you know, the world is treating me poorly. It also is something I always tell people, I'm like, you know, I have some really great stories because of the stuff that I've gone through. And because I like to find the humor in them, like when I retell the story, I will, like accentuate the parts of it that are humorous. And that helps me get get over it as well. So the the thing that you have maximum control over is how you respond to every situation. And the thing that makes you powerful is when you own the outcome of the choices you made. And you own your reactions in situations where you don't have a lot of control.   Michael Hingson ** 53:08 When things happen where I know, in my case, something occurred and it wasn't funny at the time. But I always work to go back and think about it and like you I love to find humor in it and and recognize what a dingdong, I got lost or this happened that happened? And what do I learn from it? And that's the real adventure. What do I learn from and how do I move forward?   Rebekah Wanic ** 53:31 Yeah, definitely, definitely. And I agree with you, I think in the moment to tell to tell everybody, when bad things are happening, like find, find the humor in it, that's not appropriate. It takes a little bit of time and distance. But the best way to help to make sure that things don't linger and continue to be problems for you, like you're saying is to reflect on it. Think about the lesson and think about what's funny about it moving forward for sure.   Michael Hingson ** 53:55 Yeah, I think, you know, it all gets back to preparation. And I know, today that I function well in the time of the World Trade Center, because I prepared I learned what to do. And although I didn't really think about it, or if I understood it, I didn't know how to verbalize it at the time. But I've since learned, I developed a mindset that said, Something's happening. You can deal with it because you know what to do. And yeah, the building could have collapsed all around us. And in that case, wouldn't have to worry about it actually. But never nevertheless. I knew what to do. And that mindset that preparation created that mindset and that mindset and learning to control fear helped a lot.   Rebekah Wanic ** 54:40 Yeah, absolutely. I was, you know, reading more about you sharing about the story. And I think that that's so true. And like you were just saying it's like you control what you can you didn't have control over what ultimately was going to happen to the building or when but given that you can control something you have a choice again, you have a choice to choose to do something or to choose To do nothing, and most of the time, the choice to choose to do something is going to help you get closer to what you want. But we don't ultimately have control over how things are going to turn out. But I always think, at the end of the day, do I want to look back and say that I gave up on my opportunities? Or do I want to look back and say, I tried as hard as I could. And some things just didn't work out. For me. That's the option I would rather sit with at the end of the day. And   Michael Hingson ** 55:23 I don't know intellectually, whether my parents understood it, but they worked really hard to allow me to explore and do things. And as a result, as I say, they took risks. And they allowed me to, by societal standards, take risks, that would not be risk for anybody who could see, but they, they let me learn things. And they, they allowed me to explore. And I find it really interesting. I know any number of blind people, but any number of parents today that just shelter their kids, and they don't let them really explore, they don't learn how to make choices. And they'll never if they don't get that opportunity, learn how to create a mindset that allows them to be more unstoppable and less fearful.   Rebekah Wanic ** 56:07 Yeah, Michael, that's absolutely correct. I mean, we're seeing the consequences of this culture of safety is a manifesting itself in all of this teen anxiety. Because if if parents, of course, parents want to protect their kids, but there has to be a balance of letting them go out and do things, make choices, not have parents around all the time to tell them what they should and should not be doing. That's how you you learn. That's how you develop, that's how you grow your resilience. Also, if you're not making choices, you don't have consequences of those choices, because you didn't make them you can't learn and you can't grow from that. So of course, there needs to be a balance, but we're seeing lots of negative consequences from the inability to allow children to take risks. And part of that is just not letting kids play by themselves. I hear so many stories from my friends who are parents that like, when I was a kid, if there was a birthday party, your parent was like so weak, they would drop you off at the party and run away and do stuff on their own. Now, parents hang out collectively at the birthday party where the kids are, that is insane. To me, it's like give them some space to just be on their own and do what they need to do. I   Michael Hingson ** 57:17 understand that we live in a society where there are a number of crazy people who take advantage of kids and so on. So I'm all in favor of having some way to observe. And I don't know necessarily what that is, but I can appreciate the concern. But you've got to let kids play you got to let kids explore you got to let kids be kids. That doesn't mean and I'm sure with me, for example, my parents probably monitored a lot of what I did, from a distance. Yeah, exactly.   Rebekah Wanic ** 57:49 But I mean, in my birthday party scenario, there are adults there, there are people to monitor, you, as the parent don't need to be the one monitoring all the time, you know, like, you wouldn't just send, you know, a group of eight year olds to a house by themselves. But if there's a responsible adult there, you could safely assume that they're probably going to be okay. You know, I mean, there's all that really startling data about like, kids are not having sex, kids are not driving, kids are not dating. They're not doing any of the normal things that kids are supposed to be doing as they move into adulthood, in large part because of all of this pressure of safety as them that they've grown up in so that they're not being put in a position to sort of move effectively, Trent and take that transition from childhood to adulthood in any kind of effective way.   Michael Hingson ** 58:33 Recently, I read a New York Tim

Lauren Smith, London-based staff writer at Spiked-Online.com, joins Mark Reardon to discuss the latest update on J.K. Rowling's trans crimes X (formerly known as Twitter) post.

Hour 1: Lauren Smith, London-based staff writer at Spiked-Online.com, joins Mark Reardon to discuss the latest update on J.K. Rowling's trans crimes X (formerly known as Twitter) post, and her latest article headlined, "Spain's trans equality law is a predator's charter: Gender self-ID has eviscerated women's rights." Then, Carl Cannon, Washington Bureau Chief for Real Clear Politics, joins Mark Reardon to discuss his trending speech. 

Joining Iain Dale on Cross Question this evening are Labour's Shadow Cabinet Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, Conservative peer Lord Andrew Robathan, Spiked Online columnist Ella Whelan and Momentum co-founder James Schneider.

Has the UN Security Council vote made a Gaza ceasefire more or less likely?Joining Iain Dale on Cross Question this evening are Labour's Shadow Cabinet Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds, Conservative peer Lord Andrew Robathan, Spiked Online columnist Ella Whelan and Momentum co-founder James Schneider.

Zara have pulled an ad campaign criticised for using photos resembling images from the Israel-Gaza war which sparked outrage across social media We ask are people too quick to politicise things and become outraged online? To discuss we spoke to Ella Whelan, Political Journalist, Author and Contributor to Spiked Online.

Zara have pulled an ad campaign criticised for using photos resembling images from the Israel-Gaza war which sparked outrage across social media We ask are people too quick to politicise things and become outraged online? To discuss we spoke to Ella Whelan, Political Journalist, Author and Contributor to Spiked Online.

First, Charlie is joined by editor-in-chief of the National Pulse, Raheem Kassam, to talk about Trump, DeSantis, Haley, and the race to the Iowa Caucuses. Should Trump's camp manage expectations in that sate? And as Ireland's working class continues to rise up, Brendan O'Neill, chief political writer at Spiked Online explains what's really going on inside the Emerald Isle as the populist wave rises across the globe.Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Riche is joined by Alex Mitchell and Daniel Ben-Ami.The Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine has been branded “defective” in a multi-million pound landmark legal action that will suggest claims over its efficacy were “vastly overstated”.    The test cases could pave the way for as many as 80 damages claims worth an estimated £80 million over a new condition known as Vaccine-induced Immune Thrombocytopenia and Thrombosis (VITT) that was identified by specialists in the wake of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine rollout. Alex Mitchell developed VITT after his first AZ jab. The clotting in his leg was so severe, it had to be amputated. Alex discusses the landmark legal action with Richie.https://twitter.com/ake2306Daniel Ben-Ami is an accomplished journalist and broadcaster. He was born and raised in Israel. Writing for Spiked Online this week, Daniel claimed that ‘From the river to the sea' - heard at the Palestine marches, is a coded call for genocide. Daniel discusses this and also his thoughts on the Israel-Hamas conflict with Richie.https://www.radicalismoffools.com./

Show-Notes and Transcript Matt Le Tissier has experienced how fickle and nasty the British media can be. Overnight he went from being a football legend to a dangerous conspiracy theorist and anti vaxxer!  'Le God' returns to Hearts of Oak to talk about the ongoing attempts by the media to attack and discredit him.  We discuss how even outlets we trusted as believers in free speech have apparently become government mouthpieces on the COVID new-speak and how can Britain only have one single MP who will challenge and question the COVID tyranny and jab nonsense. We also touch on Matt's team, Southampton.  After 20 years in the top flight they have recently been relegated and we chat about what Matt thinks went wrong this season. So join us this episode for more straight talking and common sense from an absolute gentleman. Matt Le Tissier is a bona fide football legend, often described as one of the most naturally talented players of his time, the man that south coast residents call ‘Le God' and one of the most famous soccer stars of the 1990's. Matt joined Southampton FC on the YTS scheme in 1985, signed professional forms with them the following year at 16 years of age and for the next 16 years he put loyalty above riches and remained at the club. A hero to his fans for his creativity, he was the first midfielder to score 100 goals in the Premier League and Matt's penalty taking abilities were renowned, converting 47 out of 48 from the spot. Then for 15 years he was on our TV screens every week on Sky Sports giving his commentary on the Premier League football matches. This all came to a screeching halt when he tweeted his thoughts on the Ukraine/Russia conflict, refused to wear a badge on-air of an organisation he had no interest in being associated with and also retweeting a post that questioned the government line on COVID. These actions were apparently outside the accepted new-speak and for these crimes he was sacked. Connect with Matt..... GETTR: https://gettr.com/user/mattletiss7 TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mattletiss7?s=20&t=ls0cW_a6pUFdItFZENqmHQ Want a personal video message from 'Le God'?:  https://memmo.me/gb/en/profile/matt-le-tissier Interview recorded 18.5.23 *Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast. Check out his art https://theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com/ and follow him on GETTR https://gettr.com/user/BoschFawstin and Twitter https://twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin?s=20  To sign up for our weekly email, find our social media, podcasts, video, livestreaming platforms and more...  https://heartsofoak.org/connect/ Please subscribe, like and share!   Subscribe now Transcript (Hearts of Oak) Hello Hearts of Oak and welcome to another interview coming up in a moment with Matt Le Tissier who rejoins us and we start off looking at obviously the attacks that he has faced through the media on him and his family for simply questioning the COVID narrative and then how the media have turned on people like Andrew Bridgen, the one MP who's spoken up on vaccine harms and how the media have attacked him including media that we trusted like Spiked Online and what that means for our trust in those media institutions that we did rely on for news before. And then we look at 25 percent of Americans not having the jab, latest data coming out, that CDC originally said it was eight percent, three times higher. Again, everything is changing. And then we finish off just asking Matt how he stays sane in the midst of the chaos. And it's wonderful to have the football legend Matt Le Tissier back with us again. Matt, thank you for your time today. (Matt Le Tissier) My pleasure Pete, good to see you mate. Always good to have you on and if we can, well obviously your handle there is your Twitter handle, people can follow you and you tweet regularly so people can get all the information their own events you're at, speaking events, your thoughts on the news, everything is there. But maybe first, Matt, my commiserations to you on Southampton's, what, 11 seasons in the Premiership finishing. Yeah, that obviously was your life for many, many years. It must be quite sad whenever it all goes. Yeah, it is sad. Obviously, no football fan likes to see their team relegated. But I think the saddest part of all for me was I was at the game on Saturday, a game that they needed to win to keep their hopes alive of staying up. And I just couldn't believe what I was watching. You know, the lack of commitment in the game from the players, the lack of effort at times, the lack of passion, the lack of urgency to try to get a result in front of your home fans was something that I had kind of not really witnessed before. And that was the saddest part of the whole season. I guess with clubs that are smaller clubs, it is a nigh on impossible task against the bigger teams who have the financial clout. There is a gap that I guess every season just gets wider. I mean I guess it kind of does, but the great thing about football is that you still, you still have a chance, you can still fight harder than the team that has spent the most money and give yourself a chance in a football match. And at times we have done that. I mean, we were one of the few teams that beat Manchester City this season, we knocked them out of the league cup. So there was occasions where they did play to their full potential and gave it a really good go. But over the last kind of few weeks, uh, the writing's kind of been on the wall. I mean, we had a bit of a decent performance at Arsenal, but again, capitulated right near the end, couldn't hold onto a lead and so, yeah, it's, it's been a disappointing and frustrating season, but it's not all down to finances you know, you can look at that. Yeah. I look at the recruitment. I mean, you talk about finances, not many people mentioned that we've spent nearly 140 million pound this season. Now for Southampton, that is unheard of. You know, we just don't do that. And we only really spend money if we've sold a player for like 70 million or whatever. But this season we really heavily invested without bringing any money in. And we've ended up cut adrift at the bottom of the Premier League. So you have to kind of look at the department that was responsible for the recruitment of the players, and ask yourself, you know, did they spend that money wisely and I have to say looking at the season as a whole, no they didn't. I guess. On the bright side your season ticket will be a bit cheaper now. Probably not because they still give me free tickets to go watch the game first of all but also you get that many more games in the championship it will feel like it's money saved but it really isn't you just get to watch four extra games. As you've kind of spoken out. No one, I guess you also, whenever you're just seeing news and speaking out, maybe pushing back against some of the information that comes out. No one expects, I don't think, a massive backlash. I guess if you challenge something, you might get ridiculed, you might get mocked, you might get pulled up, but cancellation isn't really thought, of. Tell us about that as you've spoken up more and more over the last three years. I guess you you weren't expecting the backlash that you faced? Well, I kind of was expecting it after, I guess probably the very first controversial tweet I ever did before we even locked down, I think it was, when I tweeted, why are we making such a big deal about a virus that is only gonna affect the very elderly, and the already immunocompromised? And that was in March of 2020. And the reaction to that was it was quite something. I think it got the most likes of any tweet I've ever tweeted at the time, but it also got the most abuse in the replies, So at that point I thought hang on something's, something's not quite right I've never really had that reaction to a tweet before when I've just given my opinion on something, so I kind of knew early on and then the whole you know, COVID stuff, the George Floyd stuff, the Black Lives Matter, taking the knee, all that business, going against that probably cost me my job to a certain extent, but I wasn't going to be forced into wearing a badge of an organization that I had no desire to be associated with. And so I stood my ground knowing that, yeah, it might cost me my job, but at the end of the day, I think you've got to put your head on your pillow at night and know that you can sleep soundly by the decisions you've made in your life and the principles that you've stuck by. I guess you never thought that you'd end up being a commentator on the culture wars. That's probably the last thing you were thinking. Yeah, if you'd have told me three years ago that I'd be on a news station giving my political take on things, I would have said you're absolutely mad, given that I'd never really taken any interest in politics, quite frankly. From a young age, I always felt like I never trusted politicians really to have the best interest of the people at heart. And so I'd never even voted in an election or anything. I just stayed clear of politics I just concentrated on my football career, you know building a life for my family. Making sure that I could home them and feed them. And that's kind of what I concentrated on until, March of 2020 when all of a sudden government overreach into my life, I got into a point where I was very uncomfortable with it and decided to stand up for what I thought was right. I enjoyed watching your time with LotusEaters and you went through some of the stories, many hit pieces that have been on you and I guess the hit pieces on family which really hit home. When you look back, I guess when it starts coming out you're thinking, wow, why are they going for me? I mean, they're obviously worried about what you're saying. It's not just, we're going to have a good kick at Matt Le Tissier. It's actually stuff that he's coming out with, we don't agree. And it's not simply, I guess, the journalists themselves who write it, it's from, higher up and the whole story is wheeled out. I mean, tell us about that, because I guess when it comes initially, you're not expecting it. Then you've begun to get accustomed to it, I guess, and think, well, bring it on. Yeah, I think when you realize that you're going against the establishment and the weapons that they have at their destruction to try to take you down are pretty severe, you kind of get very used to it very early on. So, you know, I kind of made a point of not really reading my replies that much on social media. I kind of put my thoughts out there and just let it linger out out there for people to chew over. And then, you know, you get the hit pieces in the newspapers and I've had a bit of a disdain for newspapers anyway, given the way that they covered my footballing abilities in my career. And so I was kind of used to it. I mean, my football career really kind of primed me, for what was gonna happen over these last three years. And it's been an interesting ride, but as you say, you do, you get used to it. I was used to it. It didn't really affect me at all. You know, it affected my family and the people around me more. And I think sometimes that's the people that they aim to attack because they know that they can't get through me because I've got the skin of a rhino and I believe in what I'm saying. And so when they can't attack me, then the next best thing they'll do is obviously attack the people closest to me because they know that they're the people that I love and that'll affect me. But, I've stood firm, my family know my views and not all my family agree with my views. But, I've never fallen out with them about it. I'm quite happy to allow other people to have their view. And all I ask in return is that they respect me in the same way and the views that I have. And yeah, that's kind of been the crux of it all, really. I think it's important that we have debate in this country. I think it's important that the media should be showing both sides of the story and letting people make their own minds up what they think is right. We haven't had that and so I decided to highlight that because I thought it was important. Tell us about the new people you met, because it's a whole new world that we find ourselves in, not just in what's happening in our country and the world, but also with the people we've got to meet, with this being a completely new cause of forced jabs. None of us had thought, we would ever get that in the UK. In some countries, there are mandatory vaccines, but we haven't really had it in the UK. Tell us about that over the last three years, that journey going from football commentary to actually being at crowds and speaking at events and shoulder-to-shoulder with people who maybe you hadn't come across years before. It's been incredible the people that I've met over the last few years because we share a common cause. If you'd have told me three years ago that I would have been interviewing people like Dr Peter McCullough, Robert Malone, Mike Yeadon, Dr. Tess Laurie, people like Ivor Cummins, who is probably one of the cleverest men I think I've ever spoke to in my life. He's just a genius for me. And so many more. It's just been incredible, the people that I've been in contact with. I never thought I would be kind of being invited to Zoom meetings where you know, Robert F. Kennedy will be speaking and it's just, it's just mad. I mean, I even got a free round of golf at the Trump International in Aberdeen through my friends at GETTR. So yeah, it's just, it's just been an amazing rollercoaster. Watching the media and I've been intrigued with it, obviously the media that I guess we traditionally trusted, The Telegraph, Mail. I've grown up kind of on the right of politics thinking I trust them and they stand for free speech and people's personal responsibility and a whole range of issues and then seeing them capitulate completely. I mean what for you that there must have been parts of the media that you would have gone to and more or less trusted the information you were given. What's your thoughts now? My thoughts now are that I no longer, there's many institutions that I've lost a lot of trust in, a lot of faith in, the media is one of them. I'm not sure I had a huge amount of trust in the newspaper industry anyway, from my experience as a footballer. I didn't realise probably until the last three years just how bad the mainstream news on the TV was in terms of the propaganda that that throws out. So yeah, my trust has been completely destroyed in mainstream media. My trust in government wasn't really there in the first place but that's gone. My trust in the scientific, the scientists around the world, my trust in those has disappeared. My trust in health agencies has disappeared. My trust in the NHS, they've behaved despicably over the last few years. They really have. And it's just, it's kind of turned your world upside down, really. I've kind of taken, taken things in my own hands, really. And I now, you know, tried to look after my health a little bit better, because I don't want to have to rely on those institutions anymore. And you know just try and live my life in the best way possible, in the happiest way possible without having to without having to interact with those kind of organisations. What institutions then do, because it does shake up your world, and you mentioned the medical side, you mentioned you go to your doctor and that would have been fine. Now actually you think twice about it because you wonder what they will push, what they will force, what their views are. How do you then stay, I guess relatively sane because you see those institutions you trust. Do you say is it me or is it them? How do you kind of cope with that on a personal level? I cope with it by doing everything in my life not to have to interact with them, so I try and keep myself healthy. I don't try and get myself into any trouble with the law and I just kind of go about my life and make sure that I have a balance in my life to to keep me happy, because at the end of the day, we are still here only once, apparently. Some people might argue that. And I wanna have as good a time as I can while I'm here. So I still make sure I have time to do the things in life that I enjoy, but also, it's also important to speak up about things that I think are harming the world, and about the organizations that I think are not helping people. They are wolf in sheep's clothing, unfortunately, and organizations like the WHO, United Nations, all those kind of things, not for me. Here in the UK we have one MP who has spoken out. We've had a few in Parliament but I've been, surprised at how few Conservative MPs who I thought would have been on the side of concerns of vaccine harms and excess deaths and all that, they've remained silent while Andrew Bridgen has been kicked and mauled and abused by the Conservative Party and then was forced out. I mean, he's someone who I know you've been on the stage with and I'm sure you've got to know. I mean, has that surprised you? There haven't been a number of others to come to support him, that we have one out of 650 actually on this. I'm not sure it does surprise me, to be honest, given politicians' record down the years and also knowing the amount of corruption that is in Westminster, knowing the amount of influence pharmaceutical industry have over certain individuals. So it doesn't surprise me that there's only one. Yeah, I interviewed Andrew just before Christmas, on my GETTR live streams. And I'm very, very grateful for what Andrew has tried to do for the vaccine injured, like quite a few of us, we've tried to shine a light on this issue, because the government are completely ignoring them. And given that it was the government that were the ones that were heavily coercing people into taking these vaccines and now they've just, the ones that took them and were damaged by them, have just been completely thrown aside and ignored, I think is an absolute disgrace and the other 649 MPs need to hang their heads in shame for what they've done for these people. Have you ever thought of putting yourself in the mix politically? I live and breath politics, we would have been opposites, but yes, I've kind of found myself on the sides with no political party affiliation. I'm seeing Andrew Bridgen actually has intrigued me to what might happen with Reclaim, with Lozza, and they're not the only ones. Have you thought of putting yourself mix because you should take Twitter to to the to the poling booth should you not? Obviously I hadn't really thought about it seriously and it probably hadn't crossed my mind until I don't know maybe the last year or so when people have people have actually suggested that to me and I thought ah, do I really want to go down that route would it make any difference is the system rigged. But I certainly think if there was a new political party formed that was for the people, for the freedom of speech, then I would certainly back it. I might consider running for a party like that but it's not something that was ever kind of on my radar. No great ambition to be a politician, quite frankly, I feel like the whole system at the moment is actually a bit of a sham and I don't think we're getting represented properly by the parties that are in power. The two main parties look like two cheeks of the same arse to me. So if there was a way that that could be shaken up and I had trust in that process then yeah I'd consider it. I mean is is alternative media a more powerful way of engaging with the public and changing their opinion to think, Uh, I think so. I think alternative media over the last few years there has been such a rise, so many people that I now speak to in everyday life and I've had two conversations already this morning, a friend of mine rang me to speak about CBD, which I've just kind of got involved with and another guy just on my taking the dog out for a walk just before I came and spoke to you, randomly just stopped his car, got out, gave me a hug and said, thank you very much for standing up for what a lot of us believe in. We follow the same kind of people and we've got the same thoughts as you and we just wanted to say thank you for having the balls to stand up with a public persona, and say what lots of other people behind the scenes without a big profile and a big platform are thinking really. Yeah, because there is that massive disconnect. The media want to paint you and people who are speaking truth as dangerous and someone you cannot associate with. But actually, the response you said you get is probably the more normal response of gratitude and thanks. It's amazing, out in what I call real life, not on social media, not in the mainstream media, in real life when I'm going about my business on a daily basis, playing golf with people, doing my after dinner speaking, going to events like Cheltenham races, which I went to a few weeks back, and the response there was just incredible this year. Honestly, I can't tell you how lifted I was by the amount of people that came up to thank me and wanted pictures taken with me, and didn't have a single negative comment from any of the public who were there at Cheltenham. It was really uplifting. You mentioned, just to ask you before going on, you mentioned CBD and you've been talking about that as having health benefits, and it's something which is, I guess, fairly new in the UK market. Why did you get involved in promoting that and encouraging others to take a look into it? It's a rapidly growing market, first and foremost, and I'd been approached a while ago, And I kind of, first of all, I was quite sceptical about it. I was like, well, I don't really know enough about that to be promoting it. And I've never tried it. So they said, we'll send you some stuff, see what you think. And so I have, I've been trying, I've been using the CBD gummies, I've been using the sports gel. And I could honestly say with my hand on my heart, it's made a difference to me. And so that's why I'm now happy to, because I've tried it and I've looked into it. I've done a bit of research into it. And everything about it from what I've read, tells me that it's got some really helpful benefits for people, so that's why I was happy to get involved in promoting it. Back on to some of the data that we've seen come out, I think the latest data is that 25% of Americans did not take the jab. And that was interesting because I think the CDC had about, 8%. So you've got a massive disconnect where the figure is three times difference. And then the UK was seeing that the booster, there's a website you can put in your postcode and the booster.. Yeah I've done it... but the booster in my area it's one percent. Same. So what, again that reiterates the information we've got is very different and that seems to be getting through. Now that's publicly available, people can find out that no one else is getting this. Well that for me basically summed up what was happening with the media, the propaganda that was being used, the psychological operations and I think they were saying it was five million I think it was in this country that they were saying the five million refus-niks, I think was the headline in one of the papers and then, yeah when the when the actual figures came out it was like 23 million or something and that's what they do, they try to make you feel in a tiny minority and they try to turn everybody else against you. That's how they do it. It's psychological manipulation. And that's why, the nudge unit, the behavioural insights team on the SAGE committee and all that kind of stuff. And if you kind of know about this stuff, it's really easy to see through it. But if you have no idea about it, then you are gonna continue to be duped. I think it's probably the best word for it. You're gonna be in positions where you're looking at information and thinking, oh, blimey, this is really bad, this is really bad. And these people over here, they're absolute nutcases because there's just like a tiny few of them and they're going completely opposite to what I'm being told by the government. But that's not the reality of the world. And these people, I'm afraid, are gonna have a big shock, I think, at some point down the line when they realize that actually the government don't really give a shit about your health mate, and don't really care about you at all. In fact they'd rather you weren't on the planet. Well they're working hard on that. Duped is an interesting word because duped was the word that Vivek Ramaswamy, who's running for presidential candidate for the Republicans in America. He was on an interview and said that he feels that he was duped and then discussed that and moved on. It's fascinating when you have high profile people that are beginning to catch up and and waking up and speak. And that's kind of like a juggernaut that whenever the more and more people get on board speaking that truth, the higher profile, the dam will break. Yeah, the harder it is for the media to then suppress the information, as more and more people speak out and more and more of the general public understand what the truth is, then it's harder and harder for the mainstream media to keep lying about it. And eventually you then force them into telling the truth. And this is how you do it with numbers. And that's why we see little snippets of the truth coming out, little admissions about things. Nobody told you when the vaccine first came out, not a single person from any pharmaceutical company told you that they didn't actually test the vaccine to see whether or not you could pass it on. Still, it wasn't tested for stopping transmission. Nobody, not a single person in the world told you that before the vaccine came out. Now that is quite an important bit of information, I'd say. And if you're gonna be starting to take an experimental injection, you probably should be able to have all the knowledge available to be able to let you make an informed decision on whether you take it or not. And people didn't have that. And they were duped. It was exactly the right word. I'm amazed at the disconnect with people not trusting politicians, but then trusting them. Having the conversation, I'm thinking, the penny has to drop at one point. You hate this person with a passion, but you'll go and do anything they say. It's such a weird concept. Well, that's because of, I believe, It's because of people's innate belief in their system that they want to feel safe. And it's the whole safety thing that these people pray on, everything is for your safety. Don't kill granny. It's all psychological manipulation. And they know that. And that overrides their emotions that they felt towards these politicians before all this happened. I guess, and you look back and you think, I didn't actually see many investigative pieces on these large drug companies. I didn't see them talking about Pfizer and the pay-outs they've had to make for harm. It's a whole back part of the story that actually the public have very little understanding about. Absolutely. That was another one of the things that I looked into. The biggest criminal fine in history was paid by Pfizer back in 2009, 10 somewhere around there, and these pharmaceutical companies are not ethical companies. They are there to make money. They're not there to make you healthy. That's not their prime objective, their prime objective is to make money and if you think about it logically, if they came up with a cure for things, they'd be putting themselves out of business. So their objective is to just make you sick enough to make you need more tablets. And those tablets will always have a side effect. And guess what? We've got a tablet for that side effect. And when that tablet is used, that's got a side effect as well. And guess what? There's another tablet that can cure that side effect. And there's how they make all their money. It's true, because looking at cancer, even begin to go down that rabbit hole, and very little of the conversation is about healthy lifestyle or what you eat. And it's simply, well, you need to go and go for radiotherapy or chemotherapy and blast all your body. And it's the most ludicrous way of trying to fix a problem by just destroying your whole body. And even now looking at that, and I remember talking to people years ago who'd have said, oh, there's a quack and they think that, you know, you can cure yourself by healthy eating, that sort of thing. But now I'm beginning to think, well, actually, the only reason why the root of therapy though, it is an industry that the drug companies exist for, maybe it's not true. Yeah, I think it's interesting. Well, I've spoken to quite a few people who have their own stories about people who were given six weeks to live because they had cancer, they went for an alternative therapy, and they're still alive and kicking today because they tried something a little bit different. And I think you're right, I think there are cancer treatments that have been suppressed by pharmaceutical companies because it's not in their interest to do that. On the free speech thing, I watched the short, only 30 minutes, I think, Andrew Bridgen interview on GB News with the person from Spiked Online. It was intriguing to watch, in many ways, but one of the ways was Andrew was logical. He was putting down the data that he had come across, and what you had back is conspiracy theorists, dangerous. I was blown away. It's something you expect, I guess, from an Antifa type of group, when they shout abuse at you whenever you're talking, but actually, grown up media, it's the same tactic that they're just shouting abuse and trying to demonize you. Absolutely. They never rebut the data. You're right. They just call you names. You're either an anti something, or a conspiracy theorist, or a denier. These are all their favourite little terms that they just use to shout at you so they don't have to address the point in question. And that's something that's become pretty obvious to me over the last few years that once somebody shouts the conspiracy theory thing at you or calls you a denier or an anti, I mean, I've been an anti vaxxer, apparently, despite the fact that this is probably the only vaccine I've never taken in my life. My children were vaccinated. And so to be called an anti-vaxxer is like, well, it doesn't really add up, mate, does it? You're just using that term to try and shut down an argument because you don't really feel comfortable talking about it. Because in the back of your mind you probably know that I'm right. The whole anti-vax kind of thing, well, actually, I wasn't before, but actually, I'm kind of beginning to lean that way now. I'm exactly the same. I would never take another vaccine in my life now. They've completely destroyed my trust in all vaccines, completely destroyed it. They've absolutely shot themselves in the foot when it comes to me and a lot of other people like me who did used to trust that industry, who no longer do. And yeah, I'm not sure they they actually realized that that was going to be the case Other data coming out is the excess deaths and I think it was a Daily Mirror headline that's basically said so many people are dying and we don't know why. Doctors are baffled! Doctors are baffled, it's just incredible, I mean doctors have got to be the stupidest profession in the world if they are baffled by what is going on. 2,000 or more people dying every week than what would normally die. What could it possibly be? What's happened over the last couple of years that might just affect that? And then they go, oh, it's long COVID. That's what's doing it. And that just, for me, destroys their credibility even more. The fact that they can't even admit to going, oh maybe, just maybe, small part, might be because of these gene therapies that have come out. They won't even admit that and that just makes me more suspicious. When you look over all that's happened, you've got that, you've got the WHO meeting, the end of this month and that seemingly they will pass a resolution that will give them the right to tell governments how to run their health services in the case of an emergency. You've got that, you've got obviously all the central bank digital currencies, you've got what's happening in Netherlands with stopping farming. When you look at all that and you sit back, is there a specific one that really frustrates you? You think, If I put my finger in something that's it or is it just all parts of the jigsaw? I mean there's a there's a lot of parts of the jigsaw. It's a multifaceted attack on humanity is what it is. I can't describe it any other way. Is there one bit that's more important than all the other bits? Do you know, for me the thing that's most important about probably everything, you talk about the specifics of the CBDCs and the farming and everything. But I think on top of everything sits freedom of speech. I think it's the foremost important thing that we have to protect to be able to shine a light on the corruption that's going on below with all the other stuff that's going on. We need to be able to shine a light on that without the fear of getting arrested because you've said something on social media that goes against the government. And so for me, the freedom of speech thing is the umbrella that covers every bit of corruption underneath it. And it seems though the CBDC will be a massive part of that. I hadn't realized until actually, when Mike Yeadon spoke at an event the other week and I looked into it that when you pay with your credit card, if you pay on a card, then it's a record of you paying 10 pounds in Sainsbury's. But if you use CBDC then actually it breaks it down and it gives the government, I guess, the control they have in China with a social credit system. Yep, they can start controlling just how much money you spend on certain foods a week. You can only buy so much meat if they want you to. It's a control mechanism that is just way beyond the pale when it comes to intrusion into the lives of the people of this country. Matt, I appreciate you coming on, and well you were probably going to be playing golf today, it's a beautiful day, lovely golf weather is it? I probably would of done if I hadn't of been speaking to you, I've got another one at 12 o'clock to do and then I'm going to head up to London and have dinner with some friends tonight. Well I'll blame your 12 o'clock for stopping your golf and not mine. Yeah it probably is the twelve. Thank you for your time Matt. Great to talk to you, Pete.

Sebastian talks to Brendan O'Neill, Spiked Online's Chief Political Writer, about the current state of the culture war, and how the concept of a culture war is really just "a class war in drag."Support the show: https://www.sebgorka.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Esther Krakue returns to the show (as promised) to discuss religion, it's role in society, traditional gender roles, and our lack of attention in society! Esther Krakue is a writer and broadcaster whose work has been featured in the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and Spiked Online. Esther started her career as a key contributor for the Conservative student grassroots organisation, Turning Point UK. She has appeared on Sky News, ITV, LBC, Talk Radio and GB News and is now a panellist on the The Talk, shown on Talk TV and a regular contributor on Piers Morgan. https://twitter.com/estherk_k  https://estherkrakue.substack.com/  ----------------------------------------------------- DONATE and help the channel grow - https://donorbox.org/help-me-buy-stuff  PRE-ORDER MY GAMESTOP BOOK - https://wen-moon.com  Buy Brexit: The Establishment Civil War - https://amzn.to/39XXVjq    ----------------------------------------------------- You can listen to the show on Spotify, Apple, and all major platforms - https://chatterpodcast.podbean.com/  Watch Us On Odysee.com - https://odysee.com/$/invite/@TheJist:4    Join My Mailing List - https://www.getrevue.co/profile/thejist  Follow Me On Twitter - https://twitter.com/Give_Me_TheJist  ----------------------------------------------------- Website - https://thejist.co.uk/    Music from Just Jim – https://soundcloud.com/justjim  Extract Labs CBD - https://extract-labs.pxf.io/n10JMa Canva Premium Graphics - https://partner.canva.com/b3A9X6 

A cartoon in a UK newspaper, depicting the US President as a leprechaun, has been heavily criticised. The drawing appears in The Times of London, and shows President Biden wearing a green shamrock suit while holding a pint of Guinness and dancing. It also shows him with a speech bubble, which reads: "I just love Northern Ireland". Kieran was joined by Ronan McGreevy, Irish Times journalist and author, Brendan O'Neill, Chief Political Writer, Spiked Online and Mary Kenny, writer and journalist to discuss…

Rishi Sunak set to announce a Brexit deal. Plus, Spiked Online editor Tom Slater on a sinister big brother scheme set for the U.K. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

TalkTV's International Editor, Isabel Oakeshott will kick off today's show by discussing Keir Starmer's speech outlining Labour's five missions for government. We will also cover the latest developments in the Nicola Bulley case as investigations begin into the police's handling of the situation. As we mourn the passing of football legend John Motson at the age of 77, we will speak with TalkSport's Ally McCoist and Gary Newbon MBE, both of whom pay their respects and reflect on his illustrious career. Columnist for Spiked Online returns to the Independent Republic to react to Kier Starmers speech, in addition to her reaction on the return of Lady Hussey to Buckingham Palace after being forced out of Palace life after a race row with campaigner Ngozi Fulani. Former Adviser to Tony Blair John Mcternan gives his take on Starmers speech and Henry Bolton OBE closes the show to discuss the latest home office statistics on irregular migration as crossings increase by 60% since last year alone. All that and so much more, so tune in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Programa escrito, presentado y producido por Gabriel Porras, filósofo, periodista y actor de voz profesional. Música: “Gone with the winds”, de Veaceslav Draganov en artlist.io ******* Aprende mucho más sobre este URGENTE tema siguiendo estos enlaces: La historia de Helena Kerschner, que lamenta haber “transicionado” como adolescente: https://youtu.be/Ibq3ld087Y4 El Proyecto de ley en Irlanda que elimina las palabras “mujer”, “madre”, y más del lenguaje legal: https://4w.pub/ireland-to-strip-maternity-law/ La nueva jueza de la Suprema Corte de EEUU Ketanji Brown no puede decir qué es una mujer: https://youtu.be/BWtGzJxiONU …y luego rehúsa contestar preguntas claras sobre la autoafirmación de una mujer: https://youtu.be/BWwx-UrL0e4 El documental “¿Qué es una mujer?” de Matt Walsh: https://youtu.be/8wlZWZoqRlo Estadísticas de discapacidad en el Reino Unido: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9602/CBP-9602.pdf Acta de Reforma de Reconocimiento de Género en Escocia (Transgender Trend): https://www.transgendertrend.com/scotland-gender-recognition-act-reform-bill/ El Proyecto de Reconocimiento de Género del Partido Nacionalista Escocés es una amenaza para las mujeres (Spiked Online): https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/03/05/the-snps-gender-recognition-bill-is-threat-to-women/ Ministros enfrentan las reacciones del público a las reformas sobre el reconocimiento de género (The Times): https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ministers-face-public-backlash-over-gender-recognition-reform-plans-dvgljmqrf Premios Brit 2023: Por qué no hay mujeres nominadas a mejor artista (BBC) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64264069 Es hora de denunciar el sinsentido de lo no binario (Spiked online) https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/01/16/its-time-to-call-out-the-nonsense-of-nonbinary/ "El feminismo tóxico es el ÚNICO tipo de feminismo": https://youtu.be/mOSS8yBp3go “La biología triunfa sobre el género”, dice el presidente de la Asociación Mundial de Atletismo: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10934773/World-Athletics-president-Sebastian-Coe-backs-FINAs-ruling-transgender-athletes-banned.html El “triunfo” del (la) atleta transgénero Lia Thomas: https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/ncaa-title-for-lia-thomas-is-joke-with-biological-women-as-punchline-hardly-a-laughing-matter/ La “campeona” transgénero de artes marciales Fallon Fox golpea tan violentamente a su oponente mujer que le rompe el cráneo: https://www.bjjee.com/articles/transgender-mma-fighter-who-broke-female-opponents-skull-are-we-getting-too-politically-correct-with-reality/ Por qué las atletas mujeres deben alzar la voz cada vez que un transgénero intente competir contra ellas: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sharron-davies-the-trans-debate-is-toxic-its-made-my-life-hell-but-female-athletes-must-speak-up-xllplkmp3 Los sanitarios en nuevos edificios públicos deben ser distintos para hombres y mujeres: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/02/single-sex-lavatories-mandatory-new-public-buildings/ Pero los activistas trangénero consideran esto “transfóbico”: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/a40497357/new-buildings-must-have-single-sex-toilets/ Es “injusto” forzar a alguien “que ya está enfrentando exclusión” a usar sanitarios que no sean “neutrales” o “neutros”: https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/05/17/gender-neutral-toilets-public-buildings-single-sex-uk-robert-jenrick/ La alarmante “disforia de género” entre menores de edad, que saltó de 138 casos en 2010 a 2,383 en 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/10/nhs-gender-identity-service-for-children-cant-cope-with-demand-review-finds El acoso y la violencia contra niñas que se atreven a cuestionar la agenda transgénero en sus escuelas: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/girl-driven-out-of-school-for-questioning-trans-ideology-ls790krdh

Julia Hartley-Brewer discusses the day's biggest topics with Tom Slater, Editor of Spiked Online. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Andrew Tate and the hysteria of modern feminism. No, the misogynist influencer is not producing a generation of rapists.” That is the title of an article written by Political Journalist, Author and Contributor to Spiked Online, Ella Whelan who joined Ciara this morning.

Julia Hartley-Brewer discusses the day's biggest topics with Tom Slater, Editor of Spiked Online. You can listen to the whole show weekdays from 6.30-10am. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julia Hartley-Brewer discusses the day's biggest topics with Tom Slater, Editor of Spiked Online. You can listen to the whole show weekdays from 6.30-10am. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stop trying to sanitise ‘Fairytale of New York' declares political journalist, author, and contributor to Spiked Online, Ella Whelan. We ask is censoring the F word in Fairytale of New York an act of cultural vandalism?

Julia Hartley-Brewer discusses the day's biggest topics with Tom Slater, Editor of Spiked Online. You can listen to the whole show weekdays from 6.30-10am. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julia Hartley-Brewer discusses the day's biggest topics with Tom Slater, Editor of Spiked Online. You can listen to the whole show weekdays from 6.30-10am. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Esther Krakue is a writer and broadcaster whose work has been featured in the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and Spiked Online. Esther started her career as a key contributor for the Conservative student grassroots organisation, Turning Point UK. She has appeared on Sky News, ITV, LBC, Talk Radio and GB News and is now a panellist on the The Talk, shown on Talk TV and a regular contributor on Piers Morgan.  In this conversation we discussed, gender roles, financialization, the state of the Conservative party, the Labour party, revolution, woke ideology, gender roles, Just Stop Oil, what women and men want, and much much more!  https://twitter.com/estherk_k  https://estherkrakue.substack.com/  HELP ME CROWDFUND MY GAMESTOP BOOK. Go to https://wen-moon.com  to join the crowdfunding campaign and pre-order To The Moon: The GameStop Saga! You can listen to the show on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5AYWZh12d92D4PDASG4McB?si=5835f2cf172d47cd&nd=1  Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chatter/id1273192590  Google Podcasts - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5wb2RpYW50LmNvL2NoYXR0ZXIvcnNzLnhtbA  And all major podcast platforms.  Watch Us On Odysee.com - https://odysee.com/$/invite/@TheJist:4   Sign up and watch videos to earn crypto-currency!  Buy Brexit: The Establishment Civil War - https://amzn.to/39XXVjq  Mailing List - https://www.getrevue.co/profile/thejist  Twitter - https://twitter.com/Give_Me_TheJist  Website - https://thejist.co.uk/  Music from Just Jim – https://soundcloud.com/justjim   

Julia Hartley-Brewer discusses the day's biggest topics with Tom Slater Editor of Spiked Online. You can listen to the whole show weekdays from 6.30-10am. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Julia Hartley-Brewer discusses the day's biggest topics with Candice Holdsworth, Journalist at Spiked Online. You can listen to the whole show weekdays from 6.30-10am. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

[00:30] Sri Lankan Collapse (21 minutes)Sri Lanka's collapse illustrates what happens when leaders are disconnected from the people they lead. Leaders worldwide are experiencing an “age of protest” from everyday hardworking citizens, and many are on the same track as Sri Lanka. Brendan O'Neill at Spiked Online wrote, “The government of Sri Lanka may have been the first to fall, but it seems unlikely it will be the last.” [21:30] Abortion and Corrupt Leadership (15 minutes)There is still no evidence to support the story of a 10-year-old girl being raped and impregnated in Ohio. Yet Joe Biden continues to pedal this false narrative to justify eradicating restrictions on abortion. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren went as far as to suggest that America shut down all crisis pregnancy clinics because they counsel women against seeking an abortion. Why do our leaders advocate so strongly for the right to abortion while refusing to admit the value of an unborn child? [36:50] The Heavens Declare God's Glory (18 minutes)Psalm 19 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork.” How true this is of the awe-inspiring images coming to Earth from the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope. God's plan for mankind is universe-reaching!

Mike Isaacson: If your free speech requires an audience, might I suggest a therapist? [Theme song] Nazi SS UFOsLizards wearing human clothesHinduism's secret codesThese are nazi lies Race and IQ are in genesWarfare keeps the nation cleanWhiteness is an AIDS vaccineThese are nazi lies Hollow earth, white genocideMuslim's rampant femicideShooting suspects named Sam HydeHiter lived and no Jews died Army, navy, and the copsSecret service, special opsThey protect us, not sweatshopsThese are nazi lies Mike: Welcome once again to The Nazi Lies Podcast. I am joined by two historians today. With us is Evan Smith, lecturer at Flinders University in Adelaide, and David Renton, who taught at a number of universities in the UK and South Africa before leaving the academy to practice law, though he still finds time to research and write. Each of them has a book about today's topic: the free speech crisis. Dr. Smith's book, No Platform: A History of Anti-Fascism, Universities and the Limits of Free Speech, chronicles the No Platform policy of the National Union of Students in the UK from its foundation in 1974 to the present day. Dr. Renton's book, No Free Speech for Fascists: Exploring ‘No Platform' in History, Law and Politics, tells a much longer story of the interplay of radical leftist groups, organized fascists, and the state in shaping the UK's speech landscape and their significance in politics and law. Both are out from Routledge. I have absolutely no idea how we've managed to make the time zones work between the three of us, but welcome both of you to the podcast. Evan Smith: Thank you. David Renton: Thanks, Mike. Mike: So David, I want to start with you because your book goes all the way back to the 1640s to tell its history. So what made you start your story in the 1640s, and what did contention over speech look like before Fascism? David: Well, I wanted to start all that time back more than 300 years ago, because this is the moment when you first start to see something like the modern left and right emerge. You have in Britain, a party of order that supports the state and the king, but you also have a party which stands for more democracy and a more equal distribution of wealth. And essentially, from this point onwards in British, European, American politics, you see those same sites recreating themselves. And what happens again, and again, and again from that point onwards for hundreds of years until certainly say 50 years ago, you have essentially the people who are calling for free speech, whether that's the levellers in 1640s, Tom Paine 100 years later, J.S. Mill in the 19th Century. The left is always the people in favor of free speech. In terms of the right, if you want a kind of the first philosopher of conservatism, someone like Edmund Burke, he's not involved in the 1640s. He's a bit later, about a century and a half later. But you know, he supports conservatism. So what's his attitude towards free speech? It's really simple. He says, people who disagree with him should be jailed. There should be laws made to make it harder for them to have defenses. And more and more of them should be put in jail without even having a trial. That's the conservative position on free speech for centuries. And then what we get starting to happen in the late 20th century, something completely different which is a kind of overturning of what's been this huge, long history where it's always the left that's in favor of free speech, and it's always the right that's against it. Mike: Okay. Now, your contention is that before the appearance of Fascism, socialist radicals were solidly in favor of free speech for all. Fascism changed that, and Evan, maybe you can jump in here since this is where your book starts. What was new about Fascism that made socialists rethink their position on speech? Evan: So fascism was essentially anti-democratic and it was believed that nothing could be reasoned with because it was beyond the realms of reasonable, democratic politics. It was a violence, and the subjugation of its opponents was at the very core of fascism. And that the socialist left thought that fascism was a deeply violent movement that moved beyond the traditional realm of political discourse. So, there was no reasoning with fascists, you could only defeat them. Mike: So, let's start with David first, but I want to get both of you on this. What was the response to Fascism like before the end of World War II? David: Well, what you do is you get the left speaking out against fascism, hold demonstrations against fascism, and having to articulate a rationale of why they're against fascism. One of the things I quote in my book is a kind of famous exchange that takes place in 1937 when a poet named Nancy Cunard collected together the writers, intellectuals, and philosophers who she saw as the great inspiration to– the most important writers and so on that day. And she asked them what side they were taking on fascism. What's really interesting if you read their accounts, whether it's people like the poet W.H. Auden, novelist Gerald Bullitt, the philosopher C.E.M Joad, they all say they're against fascism, but they all put their arguments against fascism in terms of increased speech. So C.E.M Joad writes, "Fascism suppresses truth. That's why we're against fascism." Or the novelist Owen Jameson talks about fascism as a doctrine which exalts violence and uses incendiary bombs to fight ideas. So you get this thing within the left where people grasp that in order to fight off this violence and vicious enemy, they have to be opposed to it. And that means, for example, even to some extent making an exception to what's been for centuries this uniform left-wing notion: you have to protect everyone's free speech. Well people start grasping, we can't protect the fascist free speech, they're gonna use it to suppress us. So the Left makes an exception to what's been its absolute defense of free speech, but it makes this exception for the sake of protecting speech for everybody. Mike: Okay. Evan, do you want to add anything to the history of socialists and fascists before the end of World War Two? Evan: Yeah. So just kind of setting up a few things which will become important later on, and particularly because David and I are both historians of antifascism in Britain, is that there's several different ways in which antifascism emerges in the interwar period and several different tactics. One tactic is preventing fascists from marching from having a presence in public. So things like the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 is a very famous incident where the socialists and other protesters stopped the fascists from marching. There's also heckling and disrupting of fascist meetings. So this was big meetings like Olympia in June 1934, but then also smaller ones like individual fascist meetings around the country were disrupted by antifascists. There was also some that are on the left who also called for greater state intervention, usually in the form of labor councils not allowing fascists to congregate in public halls and stuff like that. So these kinds of arguments that fascism needs to be confronted, disrupted, obfuscated, starts to be developed in the 1930s. And it's where those kinds of free speech arguments emerge in the later period. Mike: Now immediately after the Second World War, fascist movements were shells of their former selves. They had almost no street presence and their organizations usually couldn't pull very many members. Still, the response to fascism when it did pop up was equally as vehement as when they organized into paramilitary formations with membership in the thousands. Something had qualitatively changed in the mind of the public regarding fascism. What did the immediate postwar response to public fascist speech look like, and what was the justification? Evan, let's start with you and then David you can add anything he misses. Evan: David probably could tell the story in a lot more detail. In the immediate post-war period in Britain, Oswald Mosley tries to revive the fascist movement under the title The Union Movement, but before that there's several kind of pro-fascist reading groups that emerge. And in response to this is kind of a disgust that fascists who had recently been imprisoned in Britain and their fellow travellers in the Nazis and the Italian Fascists and the continental fascists had been, you know, it ended in the Holocaust. There was this disgust that fascists could be organizing again in public in Britain, and that's where it mobilizes a new kind of generation of antifascists who are inspired by the 1930s to say "Never again, this won't happen on our streets." And the most important group and this is The 43 Group, which was a mixture of Jewish and communist radicals, which probably David can tell you a little bit about. David: I'd be happy to but I think before we get to 43 Group, it's kind of worth just pausing because the point Mike's left is kind of around the end of the Second World War. One thing which happens during the Second World War is of course Britain's at war with Germany. So what you start to get is Evan talked about how in the 1930s, you already have this argument like, “Should stopping fascism be something that's done by mass movements, or should it be done by the state?” In the Second World War the state has to confront that question, too, because it's got in fascism a homegrown enemy, and the British state looks at how all over Europe these states were toppled really quickly following fascist advance, and very often a pro-fascist powerful section of the ruling class had been the means by which an invading fascism then found some local ally that's enabled it to take over the state and hold the state. So the British state in 1940 actually takes a decision to intern Oswald Mosley and 800 or so of Britain's leading fascists who get jailed initially in prisons in London, then ultimately on the Isle of Man. Now, the reason why I'm going into this is because the first test of what the ordinary people in Britain think about the potential re-emergence of fascism comes even before the Second World War's ended. When Oswald Mosley is released from internment, he says he has conditioned phlebitis, he's very incapacitated, and is never going to be politically active again. And the British state buys this. And this creates–and an actual fact–the biggest single protest movement in Britain in the entire Second World War, where you get hundreds of people in certain factories going on strike against Oswald Mosley's release, and high hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions demanding that he's reinterned, and you start to get people having demonstrations saying Mosley ought to go back to jail. That kind of sets the whole context of what's going to happen after the end of the Second World War. Mosley comes out and he's terrified of public opinion; he's terrified about being seen in public. He's convinced that if you hold meetings you're going to see that cycle going on again. So for several years, the fascists barely dare hold public meetings, and they certainly don't dare hold meetings with Mosley speaking. They test the water a bit, and they have some things work for them. Evan's mentioned the 43 Group so I'll just say a couple sentences about them. The 43 Group are important in terms of what becomes later. They're not a vast number of people, but they have an absolute focus on closing down any fascist meeting. We're gonna hear later in this discussion about the phrase "No Platform" and where it comes from, but you know, in the 1940s when fascist wanted to hold meetings, the platform means literally getting together a paste table and standing on it, or standing on a tiny little ladder just to take you a couple of foot above the rest of your audience. The 43 Group specialize in a tactic which is literally knocking over those platforms. And because British fascism remained so isolated and unpopular in the aftermath of the Second World War, you know, there are 43 Group activists and organizers who look at London and say, "All right, if there going to be 12 or 13 public meetings in London this weekend, we know where they're going to be. If we can knock over every single one of those other platforms, then literally there'll be no fascists to have any chance to find an audience or put a public message in Britain." That's kind of before you get the term 'No Platform' but it's almost in essence the purest form of No Platforming. It's people being able to say, "If we get organized as a movement outside the state relying on ordinary people's opposition to fascism, we can close down every single example of fascist expression in the city and in this country." Mike: Okay. So through the 50's and 60's, there were two things happening simultaneously. On the one hand, there was the largely left wing student-led free speech movement. And on the other hand, there was a new generation of fascists who were rebuilding the fascist movement in a variety of ways. So let's start with the free speech movement. David, you deal with this more in your book. What spurred the free speech movement to happen? David: Yeah. Look in the 50s and 60s, the free speech movement is coming from the left. That's going to change, we know it's going to change like 20 or 30 years later, but up to this point we're still essentially in the same dance of forces that I outlined right at the start. That the left's in favor of free speech, the right is against it. And the right's closing down unwanted ideas and opinion. In the 50s and 60s, and I'm just going to focus on Britain and America, very often this took the form of either radicals doing some sort of peace organising–and obviously that cut against the whole basic structure of the Cold War–or it took the form of people who maybe not even necessarily radicals at all, just trying to raise understanding and consciousness about people's bodies and about sex. So for the Right, their counterattack was to label movements like for example in the early 60s on the campus of Berkeley, and then there's originally a kind of anti-war movement that very quickly just in order to have the right to organize, becomes free speech movements. And the Right then counter attacks against it saying, "Essentially, this is just a bunch of beats or kind of proto-hippies. And what they want to do is I want to get everyone interested in drugs, and they want to get everyone interested in sexuality, and they want everyone interested in all these sorts of things." So their counterattack, Reagan terms this, The Filthy Speech Movement. In the late 60s obviously in states, we have the trial of the Chicago 7, and here you have the Oz trial, which is when a group of radicals here, again that their point of view is very similar, kind of hippie-ish, anti-war milieu. But one thing is about their magazines, which again it seems very hard to imagine today but this is true, that part of the way that their their magazine sells is through essentially soft pornographic images. And there's this weird combination of soft porn together with far left politics. They'll get put on trial in the Oz trial and that's very plainly an attempt– our equivalent of the Chicago 7 to kind of close down radical speech and to get into the public mind this idea that the radicals are in favor of free speech, they're in favor of extreme left-wing politics, and they're in favor of obscenity, and all these things are somehow kind of the same thing. Now, the point I just wanted to end on is that all these big set piece trials–another one to use beforehand is the Lady Chatterley's Lover trial, the Oz trial, the Chicago 7 trial, all of these essentially end with the right losing the battle of ideas, not so much the far right but center right. And people just saying, "We pitched ourselves on the side of being against free speech, and this isn't working. If we're going to reinvent right-wing thought, make some center right-wing ideas desirable and acceptable in this new generation of people, whatever they are, then we can't keep on being the ones who are taking away people's funds, closing down ideas. We've got to let these radicals talk themselves out, and we've got to reposition ourselves as being, maybe reluctantly, but the right takes the decision off of this. The right has to be in favor of free speech too. Mike: All right. And also at this time, the far right was rebuilding. In the UK, they shifted their focus from overt antisemitism and fascism to nebulously populist anti-Black racism. The problem for them, of course, was that practically no one was fooled by this shift because it was all the same people. So, what was going on with the far right leading into the 70s? Evan, do you want to start? Evan: Yeah. So after Mosley is defeated in Britain by the 43 Group and the kind of antifascism after the war, he moves shortly to Ireland and then comes back to the UK. Interestingly, he uses universities and particularly debates with the Oxford Union, the Cambridge Union, and other kind of university societies, to find a new audience because they can't organize on the streets. So he uses–throughout the '50s and the '60s–these kind of university platforms to try and build a fascist movement. At the same time, there are people who were kind of also around in the '30s and the '40s who are moving to build a new fascist movement. It doesn't really get going into '67 when the National Front is formed from several different groups that come together, and they're really pushed into the popular consciousness because of Enoch Powell and his Rivers of Blood Speech. Enoch Powell was a Tory politician. He had been the Minister for Health in the Conservative government, and then in '68 he launches this Rivers of Blood Speech which is very much anti-immigration. This legitimizes a lot of anti-immigrationist attitudes, and part of that is that the National Front rides his coattails appealing to people who are conservatives but disaffected with the mainstream conservatism and what they saw as not being hard enough in immigration, and that they try to build off the support of the disaffected right; so, people who were supporting Enoch Powell, supporting the Monday Club which is another hard right faction in the conservatives. And in that period up until about the mid 1970s, that's the National Front's raison d'etre; it's about attracting anti-immigrationists, conservatives to build up the movement as an electoral force rather than a street force which comes later in the '70s. Mike: There was also the Apartheid movement, or the pro-Apartheid movement, that they were building on at this time as well, right? Evan: Yeah. So at this time there's apartheid in South Africa. In 1965, the Ian Smith regime in Rhodesia has a unilateral declaration of independence from Britain to maintain White minority rule. And a lot of these people who are around Powell, the Monday Club, the National Front, against decolonization more broadly, and also then support White minority rule in southern Africa. So a lot of these people end up vocalizing support for South Africa, vocalizing support for Rhodesia, and that kind of thing. And it's a mixture of anti-communism and opposition to multiracial democracy. That's another thing which they try to take on to campus in later years. Mike: So finally we get to No Platform. Now, Evan, you contend that No Platform was less than a new direction in antifascist politics than a formalization of tactics that had developed organically on the left. Can you talk a bit about that? Evan: Yeah, I'll give a quick, very brief, lead up to No Platform and to what's been happening in the late '60s. So Enoch Powell who we mentioned, he comes to try and speak on campus several times throughout the late 60s and early 70s. These are often disrupted by students that there's an argument that, "Why should Enoch Powell be allowed to come onto campus? We don't need people like that to be speaking." This happens in the late 60s. Then in '73, Hans Eysenck, who was a psychologist who was very vocal about the connection between race and IQ, he attempts to speak at the London School of Economics and his speech is disrupted by a small group of Maoists. And then also– Mike: And they physically disrupted that speech, right? That wasn't just– Evan: Yeah, they punched him and pushed him off stage and stuff like that. And a month later, Samuel Huntington who is well known now for being the Clash of Civilizations guy, he went to speak at Sussex University, and students occupied a lecture theater so he couldn't talk because they opposed his previous work with the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. This led to a moral panic beginning about the end of free speech on campus, that it's either kind of through sit-ins or through direct violence, but in the end students are intolerant. And that's happening in that five years before we get to No Platform. Mike: One thing I didn't get a good sense of from your books was what these socialist groups that were No Platforming fascists prior to the NUS policy stood for otherwise. Can we talk about the factionalization of the left in the UK in the 60s and 70s? David, maybe you can help us out on this one. David: Yeah, sure. The point to grasp, which is that the whole center of British discourse in the ‘70s was way to the left of where it is in Britain today, let alone anywhere else in the world. That from, say, ‘64 to ‘70, we had a Labour government, and around the Labour Party. We had really, really strong social movements. You know, we had something like roughly 50% of British workers were members of trade unions. We'll get on later to the Students Union, that again was a movement in which hundreds of thousands of people participated. Two particular groups that are going to be important for our discussion are the International Socialists and International Marxist Group, but maybe if I kind of go through the British left sort of by size starting from largest till we get down to them. So the largest wing we've got on the British left is Labour Party. This is a party with maybe about half a million members, but kind of 20 million affiliated members through trade unions, and it's gonna be in and out of government. Then you've got the Communist Party which is getting quite old as an organization and is obviously tied through Cold War politics to the Soviet Union. And then you get these smaller groups like the IS, the IMG. And they're Trotskyist groups so they're in the far left of labor politics as revolutionaries, but they have quite a significant social heft, much more so than the far left in Britain today because, for example, their members are involved in editing magazines like Oz. There is a moment where there's a relatively easy means for ideas to merge in the far left and then get transmitted to the Labour Party and potentially even to Labour ministers and into government. Mike: Okay, do you want to talk about the International Marxist Group and the International Socialists? Evan: Do you want me to do that or David? Mike: Yes, that'd be great. Evan: Okay. So as David mentioned, there's the Communist Party and then there's the International Socialists and the International Marxist Group. The International Marxist Group are kind of heavily based in the student movement. They're like the traditional student radicals. Tariq Ali is probably the most famous member at this stage. And they have this counter cultural attitude in a way. International Socialists are a different form of Trotskyism, and they're much more about, not so much interested in the student movement, but kind of like a rank and file trade unionism that kind of stuff, opposition to both capitalism and Soviet communism. And the IS, the IMG, and sections of the Communist Party all coalesce in the student movement, which forms the basis for pushing through a No Platform policy in the Nationalist Union of Students in 1974. Mike: Okay. So in 1974, the National Union of Students passes their No Platform policy. Now before we get into that, what is the National Union of Students? Because we don't have an analogue to that in the US. Evan, you want to tackle this one? Evan: Yeah. Basically, every university has a student union or a form of student union–some kind of student body–and the National Union of Students is the national organization, the peak body which organizes the student unions on all the various campuses around the country. Most of the student unions are affiliated to the NUS but some aren't. The NUS is a kind of democratic body and oversees student policy, but individual student unions can opt in or opt out of whether they follow NUS guidelines. And I think what needs to be understood is that the NUS was a massive organization back in those days. You know, hundreds of thousands of people via the student unions become members of the NUS. And as David was saying, the political discourse is much bigger in the '60s and '70s through bodies like this as well as things like the trade union movement. The student movement has engaged hundreds of thousands of students across Britain about these policies much more than we see anything post the 1970s. David: If I could just add a sentence or two there, that's all right. I mean, really to get a good sense of scale of this, if you look at, obviously you have the big set piece annual conventions or conferences of the National Union of Students. Actually, it doesn't even just have one a year, it has two a year. Of these two conferences, if you just think about when the delegates are being elected to them how much discussion is taking place in local universities. If you go back to some local university meetings, it's sometimes very common that you see votes of 300 students going one way, 400 another, 700 going one way in some of the larger universities. So there's an absolute ferment of discussion around these ideas. Which means that when there are set piece motions to pass, they have a democratic credibility. And they've had thousands of people debating and discussing them. It's not just like someone going on to one conference or getting something through narrowly on a show of hands. There's a feeling that these debates are the culmination of what's been a series of debates in each local university. And we've got over 100 of them in Britain. Mike: Okay, how much is the student union's presence felt on campus by the average student? Evan: That'd be massive. David: Should I do this? Because I'm a bit older than Evan and I went to university in the UK. And it's a system which is slowly being dismantled but when I was student, which is like 30 years ago, this was still largely in place. In almost every university, the exceptions are Oxford and Cambridge, but in every other university in Britain, almost all social activity takes place on a single site on campus. And that single site invariably is owned by the student's union. So your students union has a bar, has halls, it's where– They're the plumb venues on campus if you want to have speakers or if you want to have– Again, say when punk happened a couple of years later, loads and loads of the famous punk performances were taking place in the student union hall in different universities. One of the things we're going to get onto quite soon is the whole question of No Platform and what it meant to students. What I want to convey is that for loads of students having this discussion, when they're saying who should be allowed on campus or who shouldn't be allowed on campus, what's the limits? They feel they've got a say because there are a relatively small number of places where people will speak. Those places are controlled by the students' union. They're owned and run by the students' union. It's literally their buildings, their halls, they feel they've got a right to set who is allowed, who's actually chosen, and who also shouldn't be invited. Mike: Okay, cool. Thank you. Thank you for that. That's a lot more than I knew about student unions. Okay. Evan, this is the bread and butter of your book. How did No Platform come about in the NUS? Evan: So, what part of the fascist movement is doing, the far-right movement, is that it is starting to stray on campus. I talked about the major focus of the National Front is about appealing to disaffected Tories in this stage, but they are interfering in student affairs; they're disrupting student protests; they're trying to intimidate student politics. And in 1973, the National Front tried to set up students' association on several campuses in Britain And there's a concern about the fascist presence on campus. So those three left-wing groups– the IMG, the IS and the Communist Party–agree at the student union level that student unions should not allow fascists and racists to use student buildings, student services, clubs that are affiliated to the student union. They shouldn't be allowed to access these. And that's where they say about No Platform is that the student union should deny a platform to fascists and racists. And in 1974 when they put this policy to a vote and it's successful, they add, "We're going to fight them by any means necessary," because they've taken that inspiration from the antifascism of the '30s and '40s. Mike: Okay. Now opinion was clearly divided within the NUS. No Platform did not pass unanimously. So Evan, what was opinion like within the NUS regarding No Platform? Evan: Well, it passed, but there was opposition. There was opposition from the Federation of Conservative Students, but there was also opposition from other student unions who felt that No Platform was anti-free speech, so much so that in April 1974 it becomes policy, but in June 1974, they have to have another debate about whether this policy should go ahead. It wins again, but this is the same time as it happens on the same day that the police crackdown on anti-fascist demonstration in Red Lion Square in London. There's an argument that fascism is being propped up by the police and is a very real threat, so that we can't give any quarter to fascism. We need to build this No Platform policy because it is what's standing in between society and the violence of fascism. Mike: Okay. I do want to get into this issue of free speech because the US has a First Amendment which guarantees free speech, but that doesn't exist in Britain. So what basis is there for free speech in the law? I think, David, you could probably answer this best because you're a lawyer. David: [laughs] Thank you. In short, none. The basic difference between the UK and the US– Legally, we're both common law countries. But the thing that really changes in the US is this is then overlaid with the Constitution, which takes priority. So once something has been in the Constitution, that's it. It's part of your fundamental law, and the limits to it are going to be narrow. Obviously, there's a process. It's one of the things I do try and talk about in my book that the Supreme Court has to discover, has to find free speech in the American Constitution. Because again, up until the Second World War, essentially America has this in the Constitution, but it's not particularly seen as something that's important or significant or a key part of the Constitution. The whole awe and  mysticism of the First Amendment as a First Amendment is definitely something that's happened really in the last 40-50 years. Again, I don't want to go into this because it's not quite what you're getting at. But certainly, in the '20s for example, you get many of the big American decisions on free speech which shaped American law today. What everyone forgets is in every single one of them, the Supreme Court goes on to find some reason why free speech doesn't apply. So then it becomes this doctrine which is tremendously important to be ushered out and for lip service be given to, just vast chunks of people, communists, people who are in favor of encouraging abortion, contraception, whatever, they're obviously outside free speech, and you have to come up with some sophisticated justifications for that. In Britain, we don't have a constitution. We don't have laws with that primary significance. We do kind of have a weak free speech tradition, and that's kind of important for some things like there's a European Convention on Human Rights that's largely drafted by British lawyers and that tries to create in Articles 10 and 11 a general support on free speech. So they think there are things in English legal tradition, in our common law tradition, which encourage free speech.  But if we've got it as a core principle of the UK law today, we've got it because of things like that like the European Convention on Human Rights. We haven't got it because at any point in the last 30, or 50, or 70 or 100 years, British judges or politicians thought this was a really essential principle of law. We're getting it these days but largely by importing it from the United States, and that means we're importing the worst ideological version of free speech rather than what free speech ought to be, which is actually protecting the rights of most people to speak. And if you've got some exceptions, some really worked out well thought exceptions for coherent and rational reasons. That's not what we've got now in Britain, and it's not what we've really ever had. Mike: Evan, you do a good job of documenting how No Platform was applied. The experience appears to be far from uniform. Let's talk about that a little bit. Evan: Yeah, so there's like a debate happening about who No Platform should be applied to because it states– The official policy is that No Platform for racists and fascists, and there's a debate of who is a racist enough to be denied a platform. There's agreement so a group like the National Front is definitely to be No Platform. Then there's a gray area about the Monday Club. The Monday Club is a hard right faction within the conservatives. But there's a transmission of people and ideas between National Front and the Monday Club. Then there's government ministers because the British immigration system is a racist system. The Home Office is seen as a racist institution. So there's a debate of whether government politicians should be allowed to have a platform because they uphold institutional racism. We see this at different stages is that a person from the Monday Club tries to speak at Oxford and is chased out of the building. Keith Joseph, who's one of the proto-Thatcherites in the Conservative Party, comes to speak at LSE in the 1977-78 and that there is a push to say that he can't be allowed to speak because of the Conservative Party's immigration policies and so forth like that. So throughout the '70s, there is a debate of the minimalist approach with a group like the International Socialists saying that no, outright fascists are the only ones to be No Platformed. Then IMG and other groups are saying, "Actually, what about the Monday Club? What about the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children? What about Conservative Ministers? Are these people, aren't they also sharing that kind of discriminatory agenda that shouldn't be allowed a platform?" Mike: Okay, and there were some objections within the National Union of Students to some applications of No Platform, right? Evan: Yeah, well, not so much in the '70s. But once you get into the '80s, there's a big push for it. But probably the biggest issue in the '70s is that the application of No Platform to pro-Israel groups and Jewish student groups. In 1975, there's a UN resolution that Zionism is a form of racism, and that several student groups say, "Well, pro-Israel groups are Zionists. If Zionism is a form of racism and No Platform should be applied to racists or fascists, shouldn't they the pro-Israel groups then be denied a platform? Should pro-Israel groups be disaffiliated from student unions, etc.?" Several student unions do this at the local level, but there's a backlash from the NUS at the national level so much so the NUS actually suspends No Platform for about six months. It is reintroduced with an explicit piece of it saying that if No Platform is reinstituted, it can't be applied to Zionists groups, to pro-Israel groups, to Jewish societies. But a reason that they can't, the NUS can't withhold No Platform as a policy in the late 1970s is because they've been playing catch up because by this time, the Anti-Nazi League, Rock Against Racism are major mass movements of people because the National Front is seen as a major problem, and the NUS has to have some kind of anti-Fascist, anti-racist response. They can't sit on their hands because they're going dragged along by the Anti-Nazi League. Mike: One thing that you talked about in your book, David, is that simultaneous to No Platform was this movement for hate speech prohibitions. Talk about how these movements differed. David: Well, I think the best way to convey it is if we go back to the motion that was actually passed at the National Union of Students spring conference in May '74. If you don't mind, I'll just begin by reading it out. Conference recognizes the need to refuse any assistance, financial or otherwise, to openly racist or fascist organizations or societies (e.g., Monday Club, National Front, Action Party, Union Movement, National Democratic Party) and to deny them a platform. What I want to try and convey is that when you think about how you got this coalition within the National Union of Students in support of that motion, there were like two or three different ideas being signaled in that one motion. And if you then apply them, particularly what's happening as we're talking 50 years later now, if you apply them through the subsequent 50 years of activism, they do point in quite different directions. To just start up, “conference recognizes the need to refuse any assistance” dadadada. What's really been good at here, I'm sure some of the people who passed No Platform promotion just had this idea, right? What we are, we're a movement of students' unions. We're a movement of buildings which are run by students and are for students. People have said to themselves, all this motion is really committing us to do is to say that we won't give any assistance to racist or fascist organizations. So what that means in practice is in our buildings, in our halls, we won't invite them in. Now, it may be that, say, the university will invite a conservative minister or the university will allow some far-right person to have a platform in election time. But the key idea, one key idea that's going on with this, just those things won't happen in our students' unions. They're our buildings; they're our halls. To use a term that hasn't really been coined yet, but this is in people's heads, is the idea of a safe space. It's just, student unions are our safe space. We don't need to worry about who exactly these terrible people are. Whoever and whatever they are, we don't want them on our patch. That's idea number one. Idea number two is that this is really about stopping fascists. It's not about any other form of discrimination. I'll come on to idea three in a moment. With idea three, this is about fascist organizations. You can see in a sense the motion is talking to people, people coming on and saying like I might not even be particularly left wing, but I don't like fascists. Evan talked about say for example, Zionist organizations. Could a Zionist organization, which is militantly antifascist, could they vote this motion? Yes. And how they'd sell it to themselves is this is only about fascism. So you can see this in the phrase, this is about refusing systems to “openly racist or fascist organizations,” and then look at the organizations which are listed: the National Front, well yeah, they're fascists; the Union Movement, yeah, they're fascists; the National Democratic Party, they're another little fascist splinter group.And then the only one there that isn't necessarily exactly fascist is the Monday Club who are a bunch of Tories who've been in the press constantly in the last two years when this motion is written for their alliance with National Front holding demonstrations and meetings together. So some people, this is just about protecting their space. Some people, this is about excluding fascists and no one else. But then look again at the motion, you'll see another word in there. “Conference recognizes the need to refuse any assistance to openly racist or fascist organizations.” So right from the start, there's a debate, what does this word racist mean in the motion? Now, one way you could read the motion is like this. From today, we can all see that groups like the National Front are fascists. Their leaders can spend most of the rest of the decade appearing constantly in literature produced by anti-fascist groups, identifying them as fascist, naming them as fascist, then we have to have a mass movement against fascism and nazism. But the point is in 1974, that hadn't happened yet. In most people's heads, groups like the National Front was still, the best way to describe them that no one could disagree to at least say they were openly racist. That was how they described themselves. So you could ban the National Front without needing to have a theological discussion about whether they fitted exactly within your definition of fascism. But the point I really want to convey is that the motion succeeds because it blurs the difference between saying anything can be banned because it's fascist specifically or anything can be banned because it's racist or fascist. This isn't immediately apparent in 1974, but what becomes pretty apparent over time is for example as Evan's documented already, even before 1974, there have been non-fascists, there have been conservatives going around student unions speaking in pretty racist terms. All right, so can they be banned? If the answer is this goes to racists or fascists, then definitely they can be banned. But now wait a second. Is there anyone else in British politics who's racist? Well, at this point, both main political parties are standing for election on platforms of excluding people from Britain effectively on the basis of the color of their skin. All right, so you can ban all the main political parties in Britain. All right, well, how about the newspapers? Well, every single newspaper in Britain, even the pro-Labour ones, is running front page articles supporting the British government. All right, so you could ban all newspapers in Britain. Well, how about the television channel? Well, we've only got three, but the best-selling comedies on all of them are comedies which make fun of people because they're foreigners and because they're Black. You can list them all. There's dozens of these horrible programs, which for most people in Britain now are unwatchable. But they're all of national culture in Britain in the early '70s. Alright, so you say, all right, so students we could ban every television channel in Britain, every newspaper in Britain, and every political party in Britain, except maybe one or two on the far left. It's like, wait a second people, I've only been doing racism. Well, let's take seriously the notion, if we're against all forms of racism, how can we be against racism without also being against sexism? Without being against homophobia? So the thing about No Platform is there's really only two ways you can read it in the end, and certainly once you apply it outside the 1970s today. Number one, you can say this is a relatively tightly drawn motion, which is trying to pin the blame on fascists as something which is growing tremendously fast in early 1970s and trying to keep them out. Maybe it'd be good to keep other people out too, but it's not trying to keep everyone out. Or you've got, what we're confronting today which is essentially this is an attempt to prevent students from suffering the misery, the hatred, the fury of hate speech. This is an attempt to keep all hate speech off campus, but with no definition or limit on hate speech. Acceptance of hate speech 50 years later might be much more widely understood than it is in early '70s. So you've got warring in this one motion two completely different notions of who it's right politically to refuse platforms to. That's going to get tested out in real life, but it's not been resolved by the 1974 motion, which in a sense looks both ways. Either the people want to keep the ban narrow or the people want to keep it broad, either of them can look at that motion and say yeah, this is the motion which gives the basis to what we're trying to do. Mike: Okay. I do want to get back to the notion of the maximalist versus the precisionist view of No Platform. But first before that, I want to talk about the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism to just get more of a broader context than just the students in Britain in terms of antifascism. David, do you want to talk about that? David: Okay. Well, I guess because another of my books is about Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League, so I'll try and do this really short. I'll make two points. First is that these movements which currently ended in the 1970s are really very large. They're probably one of the two largest street movements in post-war British history. The only other one that's candidate for that is the anti-war movement, whether that's in the '80s or the early 2000s. But they're on that same scale as amongst the largest mass movements in British history. In terms of Rock Against Racism, the Anti-Nazi League, the total number of people involved in them is massive; it's around half a million to a million people. They're single most famous events, two huge three carnivals in London in 1977, which each have hundreds of thousands of people attending them and bring together the most exciting bands. They are the likes of The Clash, etc, etc. It's a movement which involves people graffitiing against Nazis, painting out far-right graffiti. It's a movement which is expressed in streets in terms of set piece confrontations, clashes with far-right, Lewisham in ‘76, Southall in ‘79. These are just huge movements which involve a whole generation of people very much associated with the emergence of punk music and when for a period in time in Britain are against that kind of visceral street racism, which National Front represents. I should say that they have slightly different attitudes, each of them towards the issue of free speech, but there's a massive interchange of personnel. They're very large. The same organizations involved in each, and they include an older version of the same activist who you've seen in student union politics in '74 as were they you could say they graduate into involvement in the mass movements like Rock Against Racism and the Anti-Nazi League. Now, I want to say specifically about the Anti-Nazi League and free speech. The Anti-Nazi League takes from student politics this idea of No Platform and tries to base a whole mass movement around it. The idea is very simply, the National Front should not be allowed a platform to speak, to organize, to win converts anywhere. Probably with the Anti-Nazi League, the most important expressions of this is two things. Firstly, when the National Front tries to hold election meetings, which they do particularly in the run up to '79 election, and those are picketed, people demonstrated outside of them  A lot of them are the weekend in schools. One at Southall is in a town hall. These just lead to repeated clashes between the Anti-Nazi League and the National Front. The other thing which the Anti-Nazi League takes seriously is trying to organize workers into closing off opportunities for the National Front spread their propaganda. For example, their attempts to get postal workers to refuse to deliver election materials to the National Front. Or again, there's something which it's only possible to imagine in the '70s; you couldn't imagine it today. The National Front is entitled to election broadcasts because it's standing parliament. Then the technical workers at the main TV stations go on strike and refuse to let these broadcasts go out. So in all these ways, there's this idea around the Anti-Nazi League of No Platform. But No Platform is No Platform for fascists. It's the National Front should not get a chance to spread its election message. It's not yet that kind of broader notion of, in essence, anything which is hate speech is unacceptable. In a sense, it can't be. Because when you're talking about students' unions and their original No Platform motion and so forth, at the core of it is they're trying to control their own campuses. There's a notion of students' power. The Anti-Nazi League, it may be huge mass movement and may have hundreds of thousands people involved in it, but no one in Anti-Nazi League thinks that this organization represents such a large majority that they could literally control the content of every single TV station, the content of every single newspaper. You can try and drive the National Front out, but if people in that movement had said right, we actually want to literally carve out every expression of racism and every expression of sexism from society, that would have been a yet bigger task by another enormous degrees of scale. Mike: Okay, I do want to talk a little bit more about Rock Against Racism just particularly how it was founded, what led to its founding. I think it gives a good sense of where Britain was at, politically. David: Right. Rock Against Racism was founded in 1976. The two main events which are going on in the heads of the organizers when they launched it, number one, David Bowie's weird fascist turn, his interview with Playboy magazine in which he talks about Hitler being the first rock and roll superstar, the moment where he was photographed returning from tours in America and comes to Victoria Station and appears to give a Nazi salute. The reason why with Bowie it matters is because he's a hero. Bowie seems to represent the emergence of a new kind of masculinity, new kind of attitude with sexuality. If someone like that is so damaged that he's going around saying Hitler is the greatest, that's really terrifying to Bowie fans and for a wider set of people. The other person who leads directly to the launch of Rock Against Racism is Eric Clapton. He interrupts a gig in Birmingham in summer '76 to just start giving this big drunken rant about how some foreigner pinched his missus' bum and how Enoch Powell is the greatest ever. The reason why people find Eric Clapton so contemptible and why this leads to such a mass movement is weirdly it's the opposite of Bowie that no one amongst the young cool kids regards Clapton as a hero. But being this number one star and he's clearly spent his career stealing off Black music and now he's going to support that horror of Enoch Powell as well, it just all seems so absolutely ridiculous and outrageous that people launch an open letter to the press and that gets thousands of people involved. But since you've asked me about Rock Against Racism, I do want to say Rock Against Racism does have a weirdly and certainly different attitude towards free speech to the Anti-Nazi League. And this isn't necessarily something that was apparent at the time. It's only kind of apparent now when you look back at it. But one of the really interesting things about Rock Against Racism is that because it was a movement of young people who were trying to reclaim music and make cultural form that could overturn British politics and change the world, is that they didn't turn around and say, "We just want to cut off all the racists and treat them as bad and shoot them out into space," kind of as what the Anti-Nazi League's trying to do to fascists. Rock Against Racism grasped that if you're going to try and change this cultural milieu which is music, you actually had to have a bit of a discussion and debate and an argument with the racists, but they tried to have it on their own terms. So concretely, what people would do is Rock Against Racism courted one particular band called Sham 69, who were one of the most popular young skinhead bands, but also had a bunch of neo-nazis amongst their roadies and things like that. They actually put on gigs Sham 69, put them on student union halls, surrounded them with Black acts. Knew that these people were going to bring skinheads into the things, had them performing under Rock Against Racism banner, and almost forced the band to get into the state of practical warfare with their own fans to try and say to them, "We don't want you to be nazis anymore. We want you to stop this." That dynamic, it was incredibly brave, was incredibly bold. It was really destructive for some of the individuals involved like Jimmy Pursey, the lead singer of Sham 69. Effectively saying to them, "Right, we want you to put on a gig every week where you're going to get bottled by your own fans, and you're going to end up like punching them, just to get them to stop being racist." But we can't see any other way of shifting this milieu of young people who we see as our potential allies. There were lots of sort of local things like that with Rock Against Racism. It wasn't about creating a safe space in which bad ideas couldn't come in; it was about going onto the enemy's ideological trend and going, "Right, on this trend, we can have an argument. We can win this argument." So it is really quite an interesting cultural attempt to change the politics of the street. Mike: Okay, now you two have very different ideas of what No Platform is in its essence. Evan, you believe that No Platform was shifting in scope from its inception and it is properly directed at any institutional platform afforded to vociferous bigots. While David you believe that No Platform is only properly applied against fascists, and going beyond that is a dangerous form of mission creep. Now, I absolutely hate debates. [laughter] I think the format does more to close off discussion than to draw out information on the topic at hand. So, what I don't want to happen is have you two arguing with each other about your positions on No Platform (and maybe me, because I have yet a third position). David: Okay Mike, honestly, we've known each other for years. We've always been– Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah. David: –your listeners will pick up, there's loads we agree on, too. So I'm sure we can deal without that rubbish debate. [Evan laughs] Mike: All right. So what I'd like to do is ground this discussion as much as possible in history rather than abstract moral principles. So in that interest, can each of you talk a bit about the individuals and groups that have taken the position on No Platform that you have, and how they've defended their positions? David let's start with you. What groups were there insisting that No Platform was necessary but its necessity was limited to overt fascists? David: Well, I think in practice, that was the approach of Rock Against Racism. They took a very different attitude towards people who were tough ideological fascists, to the people who were around them who were definitely racist, but who were capable of being argued out of that. I mean, I've given the example of the policy of trying to have a debate with Sham 69 or use them as a mechanism to change their audience. What I want to convey is in every Rock Against Racism group around the country, they were often attempts to something very similar. People talk about Birmingham and Leeds, whether it be sort of local Rock Against Racism groups, they might put on– might get a big band from some other city once a month, but three weeks out of four, all they're doing is they're putting on a local some kind of music night, and they might get a hundred people there. But they'd go out of the way to invite people who they saw as wavering supporters of The National Front. But the point is this wasn't like– We all know how bad faith debates work. It's something like it's two big ego speakers who disagree with each other, giving them half an hour each to debate and know their audience is already persuaded that one of them's an asshole, one of them's great. This isn't what they were trying to do. They were trying to win over one by one wavering racists by putting them in an environment where they were surrounded by anti-racists. So it was about trying to create a climate where you could shift some people who had hateful ideas in their head, but were also capable of being pulled away from them. They didn't do set piece debates with fascists because they knew that the set piece debates with fascists, the fascists weren't going to listen to what they were going to say anyway. But what they did do is they did try to shift people in their local area to try and create a different atmosphere in their local area. And they had that attitude towards individual wavering racists, but they never had that attitude towards the fascist leaders. The fascist leaders as far as they're concerned, very, very simple, we got to close up the platform to them. We got to deprive them of a chance. Another example, Rock Against Racism, how it kind of made those sorts of distinctions. I always think with Rock Against Racism you know, they had a go at Clapton. They weren't at all surprised when he refused to apologize. But with Bowie, there was always a sense, "We want to create space for Bowie. We want to get Bowie back because Bowie's winnable." That's one of the things about that movement, is that the absolute uncrossable line was fascism. But if people could be pulled back away from that and away from the ideas associated with that, then they wanted to create the space to make that happen. Mike: Okay, and Evan, what groups took the Maximalist approach to No Platform and what was their reasoning? Evan: Yeah. So I think the discussion happens once the National Front goes away as the kind of the major threat. So the 1979 election, the National Front does dismally, and we can partially attribute that to the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism, kind of this popular antifascist movement. But there's also that Margaret Thatcher comes to power, and there's an argument that's made by historians is that she has pulled away the racist vote away from the National Front back to the conservatives. It's really kind of a realignment of leftwing politics under Thatcher because it's a much more confrontational conservative government, but there's also kind of these other issues which are kind of the new social movements and what we would now term as identity politics, they're forming in the sixties and seventies and are really big issues in the 1980s. So kind of like feminism, gay rights, andthat,  there's an argument among some of the students that if we have a No Platform for racism and fascism, why don't we have a No Platform for sexism? Why don't we have a No Platform for homophobia? And there are certain student unions who try to do this. So LSE in 1981, they endorse a No Platform for sexist as part of a wider fight against sexism, sexual harassment, sexual violence on campus is that misogynist speakers shouldn't be allowed to have a presence on campus. Several student unions kind of have this also for against homophobia, and as a part of this really divisive issue in the mid 1980s, the conservative government is quite homophobic. Section 28 clause 28 is coming in in the late eighties. It's a whole kind of homophobia of AIDS. There's instances where students object to local Tory politicians who were kind of outwardly, explicitly homophobic, that they should be not allowed to speak on stage. Then also bubbling along in the background is kind of the supporters of apartheid, so South African diplomats or kind of other people who support the South African regime including Conservative politicians, is that several times throughout the 1980s, they are invited to speak on campus, and there's kind of a massive backlash against this. Sometimes the No Platform policy is invoked. Sometimes it's just simple disruption or kind of pickets or vigils against them. But once fascism is kind of not the main issue, and all these different kind of politics is going on in the eighties, is that there's argument that No Platform for fascism and racism was important, but fascism and racism is only one form of hate speech; it's only one form of discrimination; it's only one form of kind of bodily violence; and we should take them all into consideration. Mike: Okay. Now there's been a fair bit of backlash against No Platform in kind of any of its forms from various sectors, so let's talk a bit about that. Let's start with the fascist themselves. So their response kind of changed somewhat over time in response to No Platform. David, you talk about this. David: Yeah. In the early ‘70s in Britain or I suppose in the late ‘70s too, what's extraordinary is how little use fascist make out of saying, "We are being attacked, free speech applies. We've got to have the right to be heard." I made the point earlier that Britain doesn't have a strong legal culture of free speech. We do have some culture of free speech. And again, it's not that the fascists never use these terms at all, they use them, but they use them very half-heartedly. Their dominant approach is to say, "We are being attacked by the left. The left don't understand we have better fighters than them. If they attack us on the streets, we'll fight back. In the end, we'll be the ones who win in a kind of battle of machismo, street fighting power." Now A, that doesn't happen because actually they lose some set piece confrontations, mostly at Lewisham in 1977. But it's interesting that they don't do the kind of thing which you'd expect the far right to do today, which is to say, like the British far right does today, they constantly say, "We're under attack. Free speech demands that we be heard. We're the only people who take free speech seriously." There's a continuous process in the British far right these days of endlessly going on social media every time anyone even disagrees with them a little bit, they immediately have their faces taped up and present themselves as the victim of this terrible conspiracy when in the mid-'70s when there really were people trying to put the far right out of business, that isn't what the far right did. I think, in essence, a whole bunch of things have to change. You have to get kind of a hardening of the free speech discourse in the United States; you have to have things like the attack on political correctness; the move by the American center-right from being kind of equivocal on free speech to being extremely pro-free speech; and you need to get the importation into Britain of essentially the same kind of free speech discourse as you have in States. Once we get all of that, the British far right eventually twigs that it's a far more effective way of presenting themselves and winning supporters by posing as the world's biggest defenders of free speech.  But in the ‘70s, they haven't learned that lesson yet, and their response is much more leaden and ineffective. In essence, they say, "No Platform's terrible because it's bullying us." But what they never have the gumption to say is, "Actually, we are the far right. We are a bunch of people putting bold and dangerous and exciting ideas, and if we are silenced, then all bold and dangerous and difficult ideas will be silenced too." That's something which a different generation of writers will get to and will give them all sorts of successes. But in the ‘70s, they haven't found it yet. Mike: Okay. Now fascists also had some uneasy allies as far as No Platform is concerned among Tories and libertarians. So let's talk about the Tories first, what was their opposition to No Platform about? Evan, you talk about this quite a bit in your book. Evan: Yeah. So the conservative opposition to No Platform is essentially saying that it's a stock standard thing that the left call everyone fascist. So they apply it to broadly and is that in the ‘80s, there's a bunch of conservative politicians to try to go onto campus, try to speak, and there's massive protests. They say that, "Look, this is part of an intolerant left, that they can't see the distinction between fascism and a Conservative MP. They don't want to allow anyone to have free speech beyond that kind of small narrow left wing bubble." In 1986, there is an attempt, after a kind of a wave of protest in '85, '86, there is an attempt by the government to implement some kind of protection for free speech on campus. This becomes part of the Education Act of 1986, that the university has certain obligations to ensure, where practical, free speech applies and no speech is denied. But then it's got all kind of it can't violate the Racial Discrimination Act, the Public Order Act, all those kind of things. Also, quite crucially for today, that 1986 act didn't explicitly apply to student unions. So student unions argued for the last 30 years that they are exempt from any legislation and that they were legally allowed to pursue their No Platform policy.

Former Shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe kicks off todays show to discuss todays headlines regarding a Tory MPs arrest on suspicion of rape and sexual assault, how the home office managed to leak a prevent programme report on Islam and the Bank Of Engalnds failings at controlling inflation rates. Motoring Journalist Wuentin Willson joins shortly after to discuss why cyclists are being told to take up a 'prominent' position on the road. Tonia Buxton returns to the Independent Republic to discuss childrens continued struggle in the classroom post lockdown, and Spiked Online's Ella Whelan closes the show to discuss why all white teaching staff are 'impeding children's development' according to an educational organisation. All that and so much more so tune in! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Julia Hartley-Brewer discusses the day's biggest topics with Tom Slater, Editor of Spiked Online. You can listen to the whole show weekdays from 6.30-10am. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For this One on One, Sebastian talks to Spiked Online's Chief Political Writer Brendan O'Neill about the aftereffects of COVID lockdowns, why people believe conspiracy theories about Ukraine, and more; he then spends the monologue reading a New York Post op-ed explaining why Americans should not be so apathetic towards Ukraine Support the show: https://www.sebgorka.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Political Commentator and broadcaster Richard Taylor kicks off todays show to discuss Boris Johnsons recent trip to Saudi Arabia in his latest efforts to find a solution to the growing problem surrounding fuel amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine, how wokery isn't helping Ukraines cause and what can be done about the refugee problem in this country. Professor Karol Sikora joins shortly after to discuss the NHS's growing cancer treatment backlog and what can be done in order for the situation to improve. Defence and Diplomatic of The Independent Kim Sengupta joins Mike from Kyiv to discuss the latest from the ground amid growing violence from Putins army. Chief political writer for Spiked Online visits The Independent Repiublic to discuss the moral defeatism of the west, and Facebook's double standards when enforcing their hate speech policy after allowing individuals to send hateful and violent messages to Russian officials and Ben Clatworthy from The Times discusses P&O ferries latest announcement that they are making all employees redundant in order to fill their roles with Ukrainian nationals. All that and so much more so tune in! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you dig this unlocked Patrons-first episode, please consider supporting us at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod. Claire Fox's journey to being Baroness Fox of Buckley runs through the Troskyist Revolutionary Communist Party, to Living Marxism magazine, Spiked Online, the Academy of Ideas, the Brexit Party, and now the House of Lords. In this interview, we discuss whether Baroness Fox's perspective on her habitual topics of free speech and Brexit have been changed by COVID and her own elevation to the top of the establishment, and whether there are connections between Britain's peculiar strain of libertarian Marxism and the political of project of Boris Johnson.

Julia Hartley-Brewer discusses the day's biggest topics with Tom Slater, Editor of Spiked Online. You can listen to the whole show weekdays from 6.30-10am. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Julia Hartley-Brewer discusses the day's biggest topics with Tom Slater, Editor of Spiked Online. You can listen to the whole show weekdays from 6.30-10am. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Julia Hartley-Brewer discusses the day's biggest topics with Tom Slater, Editor of Spiked Online. You can listen to the whole show weekdays from 6.30-10am. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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On this week's episode, Andrew is joined by editor of Spiked Online and author Brendan O'Neill to talk Free Speech, Cancel culture and the Culture Wars. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Brendan O'Neill, Editor of Spiked Online, talks to Eamon. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-stand-with-eamon-dunphy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brendan O'Neill, Editor of Spiked Online, talks to Eamon. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-stand-with-eamon-dunphy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brendan O'Neill, Editor of Spiked Online, talks to Eamon. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-stand-with-eamon-dunphy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brendan O'Neill, editor of Spiked Online, speaks to Eamon. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-stand-with-eamon-dunphy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brendan O'Neill, editor of Spiked Online, talks to Eamon. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-stand-with-eamon-dunphy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sebastian is joined by Spiked Online's Brendan O'Neill to talk about Brexit and the Hong Kong protestsSupport the show: https://www.sebgorka.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.