Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks B. Follow
Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: It's time for all the attitude, all the opinion, all
Speaker 1: the information, all the debates of theists, now the Leighton
Speaker 1: Smith podcast Coward by news talks it B.
Speaker 2: Welcome to podcasts two hundred and fifty eight for October second,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. The Gray Lady Winked by Ashley Rinsburg
Speaker 2: is a critique of the New York Times. The Times
Speaker 2: did not farewell under his inspection, and quite rightly. We
Speaker 2: talked with Rinsburg in podcast one five to one April
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty two. He was in Israel at the
Speaker 2: time we talked the book as missiles fell nearby. Two
Speaker 2: days ago Monday, September thirty, we interviewed again on the
Speaker 2: current crisis in the Middle East, and I have no
Speaker 2: doubt that it's worthy of your attention. His feel for
Speaker 2: the moment is pronounced, and following the mail room, some
Speaker 2: referrals that you will or may find worthy of your attention,
Speaker 2: and an article from Jeffrey Tucker that I decided to include,
Speaker 2: and I'll explain why now. While we discussed the situation
Speaker 2: in Lebanon to some degree, it hadn't advanced as far
Speaker 2: as it now has and undoubtedly will. But there was
Speaker 2: a short discussion with Ashley Rinsburg with regard to the
Speaker 2: state that Lebanon was in before this event developed. We
Speaker 2: spoke two days ago on Monday. Today is Wednesday, of course,
Speaker 2: and I want to include something that was published only
Speaker 2: this morning that covers this off and is worthy, is
Speaker 2: worthy of a little attention inside Lebanon's currency crisis, how
Speaker 2: hyperinflation feels. And I'll pick out one or two little
Speaker 2: bits from it and tell you where to find it later.
Speaker 2: Lebanon a country on the brink before its economic collapse.
Speaker 2: Lebanon was a vibrant, cosmopolitan country, often called the Paris
Speaker 2: of the Middle East. Is economy thrived on banking, tourism
Speaker 2: and services, positioning it as a bridge between East and West.
Speaker 2: For Tony, who happens to be a friend of the author,
Speaker 2: this prosperity was not an illusion. It was his daily life.
Speaker 2: He said. My life in Lebanon was extraordinary. I ran
Speaker 2: three thriving businesses and lived a luxurious lifestyle, whether it
Speaker 2: was the latest cars, the best restaurants, or the hottest
Speaker 2: clubs be rout had at all. Yet beneath the surface,
Speaker 2: cracks were forming. Lebanon's banking sector, once a source of pride,
Speaker 2: was built on unsustainable practices and the country was drowning
Speaker 2: in debt. For years, Lebanon's Central Bank had pegged the
Speaker 2: Lebanese pound to the US dollar at an artificially high rate,
Speaker 2: creating a false sense of stability. This currency peg required
Speaker 2: constant inflows of dollars to maintain. When those inflows dried up,
Speaker 2: the house of cards collapsed. And if your interests lie
Speaker 2: in the direction of mens coin at all, you'll find
Speaker 2: some interesting, well opinion and information now in a moment.
Speaker 2: Ashley Rinsburg. Leverrix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland to
Speaker 2: the highest quality. Leverrix relieves hay fever in skin, allergies,
Speaker 2: or itchy skin. It's a dual action antihistamine and has
Speaker 2: a unique nasal decongestent action. It's fast acting for fast relief,
Speaker 2: and it works in under an hour and lasts for
Speaker 2: over twenty four hours. Leverrix is a tiny tablet that
Speaker 2: unblocks the nose, deals with itchy eyes, and stops sneezing.
Speaker 2: Leverrix is an antihistamine made in Switzerland to the highest quantity.
Speaker 2: So next time you're in need of an effective antihistamine,
Speaker 2: call into the pharmacy and ask for Leveris l e
Speaker 2: v Rix Leverix and always read the label, take us directed,
Speaker 2: and if symptoms persist, see your health professional. Farmer Broker
Speaker 2: Auckland Leighton Smith. We last spoke to Ashley Rinsburg in Well,
Speaker 2: it was two years ago, in twenty two, and we
Speaker 2: discussed essentially the Gray Lady winked his book on the
Speaker 2: New York Times, which was a huge success as far
Speaker 2: as I'm concerned, and I hope it is. Hope it
Speaker 2: is or was, well, still is as far as you're concerned. Ashley,
Speaker 2: Welcome back. It's great to have you on the Lake
Speaker 2: the Smith podcast.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Leadon glad to be here.
Speaker 2: And last time we spoke, you were in Tel Aviv
Speaker 2: and there were rockets falling at that particular time, and
Speaker 2: here we are today. I want to quote something that
Speaker 2: you wrote on October fourteen, last year, last Saturday, the
Speaker 2: world changed. Most of us didn't know it at the time,
Speaker 2: and what we did know about the situation unfolding in
Speaker 2: the southern Israel seemed beyond belief. Thirty five Israelis abducted
Speaker 2: into Gaza, young party goers massacred within Israeli territory. Question
Speaker 2: Marks follow all of these comments, children babies taken by
Speaker 2: Hamas terrorists, and scores of people murdered in their homes.
Speaker 2: None of these things, let alone all of them, was
Speaker 2: in the realm of the possible. You wrote that and
Speaker 2: published it a week after October seventh, How would you
Speaker 2: rate things today compared with what you as you saw
Speaker 2: it then one week after? Did you have any thought
Speaker 2: about where this could go?
Speaker 3: Not entirely.
Speaker 4: My only thought at the time was that Israel, in
Speaker 4: order to respond properly to what had happened, what Hamas
Speaker 4: and its allies had done, was that it would have
Speaker 4: to challenge the imagination of its enemies, and its enemies
Speaker 4: being Hamas, his Ballah and he Iran primarily. And what
Speaker 4: we've seen is that Israel has challenged the imagination of
Speaker 4: him us. It did us never thought it would or
Speaker 4: could do, And in the last week or so it's
Speaker 4: done the exact same with his Ballah.
Speaker 2: How much planning do you think would have gone into
Speaker 2: this and.
Speaker 4: In the case of his Balla, I would think almost
Speaker 4: two decades since the two thousand and six war in Lebanon.
Speaker 4: My guess is that there was intensive and long range
Speaker 4: intelligence and war planning on behalf of Israel which allowed
Speaker 4: Israel to pull off the kind of absolute strategic coup
Speaker 4: that it has done in the last week or so
Speaker 4: through the pager attacks the Beepers, through eliminating the entire
Speaker 4: command structure of his including recently its leader Hassan Nasralla.
Speaker 4: With Hamas, the planning I think was probably more ad
Speaker 4: hoc because I don't think Israel had any expectation that
Speaker 4: it was going to be attacked the way it was
Speaker 4: attacked on October seven, and I think in order to
Speaker 4: make up for Israeli surprise, there was probably a lot
Speaker 4: of scrambling going on in terms of how how does
Speaker 4: the country pull off a ground invasion and essentially an
Speaker 4: occupation of Gaza military occupation of Gaza in order to
Speaker 4: root out Hamas. I'm guessing a lot of that was
Speaker 4: done very much on the fly and very much as
Speaker 4: the situation was unpholding.
Speaker 2: Do you think that Israeli security, in whichever and all
Speaker 2: its forms, would have been surprised at the success of
Speaker 2: what they've had in the last week.
Speaker 3: I don't think they're surprised.
Speaker 4: I think this is something they've been planning for many,
Speaker 4: many years. They've had this option, this sort of it's
Speaker 4: been called the red button option, with the pagers and
Speaker 4: also with being able to locate and destroy the entire
Speaker 4: command structure of Isabella. I think they would have known
Speaker 4: they had this capability for many, many years, but they
Speaker 4: probably were avoiding using it because they didn't want to
Speaker 4: unnecessarily ignite a regional war. When Hamas committed the Atrucity
Speaker 4: atrocity is on October seventh, and on October eighth, or
Speaker 4: even on October seventh has Ballap again firing rockets and
Speaker 4: missiles into Israel, that regional war was already present for
Speaker 4: Israel and for Israelis. And this is something I think
Speaker 4: people in the West are missing, where we hear a
Speaker 4: lot of talk about Israeli escalation. For Israel, the war
Speaker 4: had already begun, and talk of escalation or de escalation
Speaker 4: is sort of irrelevant when you have one hundred thousand
Speaker 4: Israelis displaced from their homes in the north near the
Speaker 4: northern border with Lebanon. Yeah, you're already in the kind
Speaker 4: of regional war that everyone else is talking about avoiding.
Speaker 2: Well, let me turn the tables and ask us the
Speaker 2: same question from the other side. Do you think that
Speaker 2: firstly her Maass, secondly Isbella, and thirdly Iran would have
Speaker 2: expected anything like the payback that they've now got.
Speaker 4: No, definitely, not, definitely not. I think this is one
Speaker 4: of the things that Hamas. You know, there's this old
Speaker 4: old thing of course in war, which is to know
Speaker 4: your enemy. And Hamas in a way did know its enemy.
Speaker 4: It knew that Israel had grown a bit complacent. It
Speaker 4: had thought that Israel was a little bit over interested
Speaker 4: in peace and stability with Gaza, because Hamas had played
Speaker 4: that card very handily, where they had kept quiet, deliberately
Speaker 4: in order to fool Israel into thinking that there's had
Speaker 4: taken sort of a get along to go along strategy
Speaker 4: where you know, a sort of a practical piece, a
Speaker 4: pragmatic piece, if not a formal one, where in reality
Speaker 4: what they had been doing was planning and this invasion
Speaker 4: for many years. But what they didn't take into account
Speaker 4: was their own failing. Hamas was so zealous and so
Speaker 4: savage and barbaric in its attack, that it actually had
Speaker 4: an effect of changing its enemy, changing the Israeli posture,
Speaker 4: changing the Israeli mindset from one of containment and try
Speaker 4: to limit these kinds of interactions with Hamas into something
Speaker 4: that looked at the situation, said we have no choice
Speaker 4: except to wage a war that ends in Hamas's complete
Speaker 4: military destruction, if not political destruction. So Hamas overplayed its
Speaker 4: hand drastically, and it never could have seen. I think
Speaker 4: what twenty to thirty years of Israeli engagement had shown
Speaker 4: them was that Israel was really really disincentivized from having
Speaker 4: an aggressive ground invasion and occupation. It really did not
Speaker 4: want to go there. It was after the Gaza pull
Speaker 4: out in two thousand and five. It did not Israel
Speaker 4: did not want to be back in Gaza's the last
Speaker 4: thing every Israeli wanted in the country.
Speaker 3: But in this case, it left no choice.
Speaker 4: When you slaughter fifteen hundred civilians and take over two
Speaker 4: hundred people hostage into Gaza, you're only asking for the
Speaker 4: military power next door to you to come in and
Speaker 4: do something that neither party had really imagined possible. And
Speaker 4: I think with Hisbella the same as largely true. I
Speaker 4: think Isbela was thinking about this sort of tit for tat,
Speaker 4: limited engagement, very contained kind of interaction with Israel, and
Speaker 4: that's what they thought would go on, and that's what
Speaker 4: they needed to go on because the moment that they
Speaker 4: risked all out full confrontation with Israel, what they really
Speaker 4: risked was a Ran losing its key strategic weapon, which
Speaker 4: is his Bollah, and once that would happen, once that
Speaker 4: risk factor was in play, that meant that Iran would
Speaker 4: become completely exposed to Israel, which is now the case.
Speaker 4: Iran has is virtually defenseless, Its force projection is very limited,
Speaker 4: aside from its proxies, which is Hamas, Isballa, the Hutis
Speaker 4: and some Iraqi militias which are less effective than Hisbola
Speaker 4: and Homas. I don't think any of these groups saw
Speaker 4: this kind of route that we've seen that we've seen
Speaker 4: play on the last weeks and months coming, and I
Speaker 4: think they have been left in complete disarray.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at an article from The Australian which was
Speaker 2: published a couple of days ago. Has Israel absorbed all
Speaker 2: the lessons of the two thousand and six his Bela war. Now,
Speaker 2: you mentioned two thousand and six a moment ago. Do
Speaker 2: you think that, well, I would guess by what you
Speaker 2: said that. Do you think not only have they absorbed
Speaker 2: all the lessons of two thousand and six, they then
Speaker 2: embellished them.
Speaker 4: Definitely, Definitely they have. What they understood from two thousand
Speaker 4: and six was a they were in two thousand and six,
Speaker 4: they were relatively Israelis were relatively unprepared for that kind
Speaker 4: of war.
Speaker 3: In Israel.
Speaker 4: There there was a lot of talk among rank and
Speaker 4: file soldiers as well as officers, that it was an
Speaker 4: aimless war, that there was no direction. They weren't trying
Speaker 4: to destroy Habella, they weren't trying to push Hasbella away
Speaker 4: from the border. They really didn't know what they were
Speaker 4: doing or why they were there, aside from the fact
Speaker 4: that they were responding to a very brazen Hisbolla action,
Speaker 4: which was killing and taking captive Israeli soldiers relatively unprovoked.
Speaker 3: Again, there was sort of.
Speaker 4: A calm, pragmatic it's not exactly a piece, but it's
Speaker 4: sort of a non aggression along the border until that
Speaker 4: was violated by Hisbella. After that, Israel staged a ground
Speaker 4: in which was a very very punishing mostly for his Balla.
Speaker 4: There were Israeli losses, But I think what Israel learned
Speaker 4: from this is that A you need to be absolutely
Speaker 4: prepared and B you need to be driven by clear
Speaker 4: cut strategy, and in this case, the strategy we're seeing
Speaker 4: emerge is the incapacitation of Hisbolla as a fighting force.
Speaker 2: Turning to the political front in Israel, there's been there's
Speaker 2: been any amount of aggravation with regard to netn Yahoo
Speaker 2: and the way he has been conducting himself the country,
Speaker 2: et cetera from the opposition, and my observation is it
Speaker 2: was it was fairly widespread and in fact, in fact growing,
Speaker 2: tell me if I'm wrong. But the response to October sixth,
Speaker 2: as it is now revealing itself, has had what effect politically.
Speaker 4: Netanya, who's been in the last few weeks, actually very
Speaker 4: much strengthened. I would even say in the last week
Speaker 4: that his position has strengthened drastically. His polling has gone
Speaker 4: up very markedly.
Speaker 2: And you know, this is.
Speaker 4: A case of nothing succeeds quite like success where there
Speaker 4: you know, the opposition to him is still there, it's
Speaker 4: still very much present, especially since Israel still has something
Speaker 4: like one hundred hostages being held in Gaza with no
Speaker 4: notion how they're going to be returned, and at the
Speaker 4: end of the day, the opposition has a very valid point,
Speaker 4: which is that the government was responsible for securing our
Speaker 4: safety as israelis in the country, and it failed utterly
Speaker 4: in the worst possible way, and the person who bears
Speaker 4: responsibility for that is the person.
Speaker 3: At the top.
Speaker 4: The bucks should stop somewhere and should stop with nt
Speaker 4: Nyahu in this case, because he's actually pulled off such
Speaker 4: an incredible strategic feat. I think he's been given a
Speaker 4: massive political lifeline. We'll see in the next few weeks
Speaker 4: and months, especially coming up to the election in America
Speaker 4: in November. Which way that goes, this could lead to
Speaker 4: much greater pressure on Hamas and on Iran to put
Speaker 4: pressure on Hamas to cut a deal with Israel, a
Speaker 4: realistic deal, not a deal that it knows Israel cannot
Speaker 4: possibly agree to, that would have a ceasefire in Gaza
Speaker 4: and the return of the hostages and perhaps some other
Speaker 4: kinds of conditions. But is Natanyahu's hand is massively, massively
Speaker 4: strengthened by what's gone on just in the last week, so.
Speaker 2: Many tangents to proceed with. Yeah. In twenty eighteen, Henry
Speaker 2: Kissinger observed that Donald Trump was one of those historical
Speaker 2: characters who appears from time to time to mark the
Speaker 2: end of an era, they to force it to give
Speaker 2: up its old tenses. Close quote. The same could be
Speaker 2: said about last year's October seventh attacks, the full impact
Speaker 2: of which we are only now beginning to comprehend. The
Speaker 2: introduction of Donald Trump into this is is for a
Speaker 2: reason as a continuation of the position that Nettna, who
Speaker 2: now finds himself in, as you've just described there, there's
Speaker 2: been quite a bit from some quarters, in particular in
Speaker 2: America describing the situation that Netanya, who found himself in
Speaker 2: with the opposition and the media, was very similar to
Speaker 2: the one that the Trump has experienced. And I wonder
Speaker 2: if there's not a parallel from which one could one
Speaker 2: can learn from the other. But more importantly, as you
Speaker 2: were alluding, the outcome of November five will have some
Speaker 2: considerable input into what happens to let Nyaho and too
Speaker 2: Israel in general.
Speaker 3: Definitely, definitely the absolutely decisive.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't think Kamala Harris as president will
Speaker 4: have much patience for giving Israel, to giving Israel too
Speaker 4: much strategic leeway. I mean, she's shown that. Biden has
Speaker 4: also shown a certain degree of impatience with You know,
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, they have a very
Speaker 4: specific kind of political voter base that they need to
Speaker 4: appeal to, and they are not looking to anger a
Speaker 4: lot of their progressive voters who are anti Israel.
Speaker 3: Just call it what it is.
Speaker 4: So there imperative will be to reign and to the
Speaker 4: extent that they can, It's not clear that they can
Speaker 4: at this point because Biden has been trying and he's
Speaker 4: been failing.
Speaker 3: For most of the war.
Speaker 4: He has been there for Israel, he has provided weapons,
Speaker 4: he did show up, but as the war went on,
Speaker 4: he was attempting to bring it to a close, mostly
Speaker 4: for political reasons, and he's not been able to do that.
Speaker 4: Whereas Trump, as we've seen, really has a sore spot.
Speaker 3: When it comes to Iran.
Speaker 4: He remembers the Iranian hostage crisis, where the same revolutionary
Speaker 4: Islamist revolutionaries that run the country today took the US
Speaker 4: embassy hostage just after the revolution and humiliated America, humiliated
Speaker 4: a superpower, and at the time Jimmy Carter was unable
Speaker 4: to respond. He was unable to muster a commensurate response
Speaker 4: to pressure Iran to release the hostages. It was only
Speaker 4: until Ronald Reagan took the office that that happened. And
Speaker 4: I think Trump looks back on that and says, says
Speaker 4: to himself, there is no way that a global superpower
Speaker 4: should be cow towing to a regional power at best,
Speaker 4: which is why during his presidency he took a remarkably
Speaker 4: bold step of killing assassinating Solomoni, who is their most
Speaker 4: important military figure to the Islamic regime in Iran. And
Speaker 4: that's because you know, I think he has very little
Speaker 4: patience with Iran. Just it's sort of a mirror image
Speaker 4: between Kamala Harris's impatience with Israel and Trump's impatients with Iran.
Speaker 4: So they both have chosen sides, and that election outcome
Speaker 4: will be very important for what goes what happens next.
Speaker 4: But I think Israel is also looking at this very
Speaker 4: narrow gap in time that we have right now from
Speaker 4: the beginning of October until the election, until we know
Speaker 4: who is going to be the president elect, And in
Speaker 4: this sort of gray area, it's got the most freedom
Speaker 4: to operate that it will have until we know the
Speaker 4: outcome of that election.
Speaker 2: It's really quite extraordinary because you described it almost perfectly,
Speaker 2: if not more so. There's been some considerable discussion about
Speaker 2: the uncertainties of the scenario, the world situation at the moment,
Speaker 2: with the American president being not ineffective and a state
Speaker 2: of some considerable confusion. I'd suggest that exists in the
Speaker 2: American governance and what alien powers might do, and I'm
Speaker 2: talking China and even North Korea and Iran, etc. While
Speaker 2: they've got this opportunity. But instead of that, at this point,
Speaker 2: we're talking about Israel being, if you're going to be
Speaker 2: realistic about it and innocent in this, defending itself rather
Speaker 2: than rather than asserting its strength to gain whatever. It's
Speaker 2: a reversal of what most people sought. Let me ask
Speaker 2: you to extend your experience and knowledge with regard to
Speaker 2: those other countries that I just mentioned, and you might
Speaker 2: want to include a couple more. Are you of any
Speaker 2: opinion they could extend the stress that we're experiencing at
Speaker 2: the moment.
Speaker 4: I think there's certainly an incentive for some of them.
Speaker 4: I mean, Russia and Iran have been more closely cooperating
Speaker 4: over the last few months. I mean, this is a
Speaker 4: long standing relationship, but we have now Iran supplying missiles
Speaker 4: and other weaponry to Russia and vice versa. Russia has
Speaker 4: supplied some air defense to Iran, and this is sort
Speaker 4: of that the larger you know, the Iranians talk about
Speaker 4: the axis of resistance, which is sort of an Islamic
Speaker 4: resistance to Israel, which spans Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.
Speaker 4: But there's a bigger axis, which is the one you've
Speaker 4: sort of alluded to, which is China, Russia, Iran, and
Speaker 4: Venezuela sort of circling the globe from Far East Asia
Speaker 4: to the Americas. So they are trying to maintain that
Speaker 4: power structure visa vi the West, where Israel, of course,
Speaker 4: is very closely aligned to the United States. It's one
Speaker 4: of its closest allies, and for China Russia to be
Speaker 4: able to disrupt that alliance would be a major strategic
Speaker 4: win for them, which is why they've opposed Israel. That said,
Speaker 4: no one wants to back a loser, especially not China.
Speaker 4: I mean, Russia might have some sort of ideological sympathies
Speaker 4: with the Iran that dig back to the Soviet Union,
Speaker 4: which we know Putin is still very much nostalgic about.
Speaker 4: But I don't think China has any such qualms and
Speaker 4: any such ideological hang ups. I think they're looking to
Speaker 4: who is most effective in boosting Chinese power and Chinese interests.
Speaker 4: Right now, the equation is still pretty simple because Israel
Speaker 4: is so tightly aligned with the US and allied with
Speaker 4: the US. But I would think that China's got its
Speaker 4: antenna up in the air waiting to see who is
Speaker 4: the smarter power to back, especially as we see a
Speaker 4: weakened US on the world stage, where the United States
Speaker 4: has not asserted itself the way that it had in
Speaker 4: the past decades, and China is looking to step into
Speaker 4: that role, and it wants strong allies. It doesn't want
Speaker 4: weak allies, and if it looks at Iran and looks
Speaker 4: at a weak ally, it would rather trade I would
Speaker 4: think for a strong, bold, technologically sophisticated Israel rather than
Speaker 4: a sort of backward Islamist fundamentalist regime that we have
Speaker 4: in Iran.
Speaker 2: If I can refer to the situation in the Middle
Speaker 2: East as essentially a religion issue, is what's going on
Speaker 2: at the moment. Do you think driven by what has
Speaker 2: existed in the past, or is there a broadening of
Speaker 2: should we say skul for the situation that well that exists.
Speaker 4: Now we're seeing something that's really I think unfolding and
Speaker 4: emerging in a very different way than we had seen
Speaker 4: in the past. You know, under the Trump administration, we
Speaker 4: had the Abraham Accords, which forged actual peace between Israel
Speaker 4: and a number of Gulf Arab states, which was truly,
Speaker 4: truly remarkable, and right up until October seventh, Israel and
Speaker 4: Saudi Arabia were on track to normalize relations, so they
Speaker 4: would have diplomatic relations and sort of over time unfold
Speaker 4: economic relations, trade relations, all all those kinds of things,
Speaker 4: just as we have done with UAE with Dubai, where
Speaker 4: you now have Israelis living in Dubai, buying property there,
Speaker 4: working there, you have synagogues there, you have kosher food.
Speaker 4: You have really a vibrant interchange between these two peoples
Speaker 4: that was really unimaginable just a few years ago. So
Speaker 4: this dynamic between the Gulf States is something that's totally new,
Speaker 4: and I think in the background of what we're seeing
Speaker 4: is Iran doing its best to disrupt not just Israel's
Speaker 4: role in this, but it's other arch enemy, which is
Speaker 4: Saudi Arabia. So it's sort of two sects of Islam
Speaker 4: vying for pre eminence and for power in the region,
Speaker 4: and Israel in some regards becomes a wedge issue for
Speaker 4: that even though the Iranians, I think the Iranian Islamist
Speaker 4: regime that's controlling the country do actually authentically hate Israel
Speaker 4: and they hate the existence of the Jewish state in
Speaker 4: the Middle East. But it is I think an emerging
Speaker 4: dynamic just because we're still seeing so much possibility for
Speaker 4: change among relations between Israel and other Arab states, and
Speaker 4: I do think that Saudi Arabia normalization is very much
Speaker 4: still on the table. Incredibly, even through a war in Gaza,
Speaker 4: it has not gone away, primarily because it's an Iran
Speaker 4: back to war on the other side of Hamas is
Speaker 4: back by Iran. Kasballa of course is backed and sponsored
Speaker 4: by Iran. So in a way, the studies are looking
Speaker 4: on and seeing Israel doing their dirty work for them
Speaker 4: and doing it very effectively. And again this is all
Speaker 4: about trying to back a winner in the region. That's
Speaker 4: what everybody wants and at the moment at least anything
Speaker 4: can change. But at the moment Israel is obviously winning.
Speaker 2: Very well. Put can Lebanon be saved? Do you sink?
Speaker 4: I have some extreme reservations about whether or not it
Speaker 4: can be. Lebanon has been in a spiral long before
Speaker 4: the events of the last week or two, been in
Speaker 4: an economic spiral. We had the Beirut port blast, where
Speaker 4: the government had allowed explosives in the order of quantity
Speaker 4: of tons and tons of explosives to be kept in
Speaker 4: port conditions in the port that was ignited somehow through
Speaker 4: some kind of fault and literally blew up the entire
Speaker 4: city of Beirut. It destroyed I think unbelievably high.
Speaker 3: Number of structures in the city.
Speaker 4: There's rampant inflation, there's the currency that's spiraling downward. There
Speaker 4: is just crisis after crisis after crisis. That's in part
Speaker 4: due to political dysfunction and mismanagement and corruption in the country.
Speaker 4: It's largely to do with Hizbollah sort of upsetting the
Speaker 4: balance of power, the very delicate balance of sectarian and
Speaker 4: ethnic relations within Lebanon and using that that destabilization to
Speaker 4: its own benefit, to empower itself and.
Speaker 3: Now where you have.
Speaker 4: Borderline war in Lebanon again, it's hard to see how
Speaker 4: it recovers. It's hard to see how it re establishes
Speaker 4: that very very careful balance and that to establish an
Speaker 4: equilibrium within Lebanon. I don't know how that gets done
Speaker 4: this day and age. I think the one thing that
Speaker 4: Lebanon could do, and I'm not sure it will or
Speaker 4: it's truly able to, but is to sever tize from Iran.
Speaker 4: That would be the first truly healthy step that it
Speaker 4: could take to align itself with it with the Gulf
Speaker 4: States and to try to try to receive economic support
Speaker 4: from them, try to boost trade among Golf States and
Speaker 4: Lebanon and open its borders, open its open trade relations
Speaker 4: with Israel. I don't know that any of those things
Speaker 4: are actually going to happen. So in the meantime, it
Speaker 4: looks pretty grim.
Speaker 2: And if the grimness uh self fulfills what what they am, well,
Speaker 2: who would fill who and what would fill the void?
Speaker 3: That's a great question.
Speaker 4: I mean, Hybola has been so overwhelmingly dominant inside of
Speaker 4: Lebanon for so long, politically, socially, economically, of course, militarily,
Speaker 4: it's not clear which of the many sects that are
Speaker 4: involved in the governing of Lebanon could actually step in
Speaker 4: if it's not clear if any one of them could
Speaker 4: would be able to forge some kind of truce with
Speaker 4: the others or some kind of coalition to govern. It's
Speaker 4: it's really a big question mark for for that state
Speaker 4: to understand, for them to understand what kind of state,
Speaker 4: what kind of country they want to be, and they're
Speaker 4: able to be this day and age. I mean, the
Speaker 4: potential there is really remarkable. It's an amazing country. Of course,
Speaker 4: I've not been able to go there. I'm Israelian. It's
Speaker 4: illegal for it's actually illegal for a Lebanese person to
Speaker 4: even speak to in Israeli.
Speaker 3: That's how deep the animosity is.
Speaker 4: But from what I understand, a beautiful country obviously is
Speaker 4: an incredibly rich tradition, rich cultural tradition, intellectual tradition, and
Speaker 4: if it's able to find its way back to that tradition,
Speaker 4: then it's got a bright future head But at first
Speaker 4: and foremost, you have to just uproot the Islamism that
Speaker 4: has taken hold of the country, that's got a stranglehold
Speaker 4: on that country. I don't see how anything else can
Speaker 4: happen without that happening.
Speaker 2: First, I never made it to I've been to Israel,
Speaker 2: I never made it to Libanon, but it is a
Speaker 2: place that I wanted to. I was very keen to
Speaker 2: go to for a variety of reasons. But it's now very,
Speaker 2: very disappointing, and I can't see any way that I
Speaker 2: will liver get to Lebanon because it's going to take
Speaker 2: some considerable time for it to be first of all,
Speaker 2: to solve its problems, and secondly to be in any
Speaker 2: sort of state for tourism.
Speaker 4: I would have thought, yeah, I think you're right about that,
Speaker 4: which again it's a shame because it's a beautiful, beautiful country.
Speaker 3: You can see it on photos if you look.
Speaker 4: You can read about its history, you know, and Lebanon
Speaker 4: was was sort of created as a Christian haven in
Speaker 4: the Middle East for Maronite Christians and other Christians, Arab Christians,
Speaker 4: and that original vision of Lebanon has been completely wrecked,
Speaker 4: completely wrecked by Islamism, who obviously, you know, the Muslims
Speaker 4: have a place in that vision as well, but not
Speaker 4: as the dominant force that has sucked the whole country
Speaker 4: down into a vortex, and Iranian vortex. So it doesn't
Speaker 4: look great, unfortunately. I mean, look at Syria. It's neighbor
Speaker 4: where you had a very similar effect.
Speaker 3: And for a long time, of course, Syria occupied Lebanon.
Speaker 4: Syria was an occupying force within Lebanon until fairly recently
Speaker 4: it governed Lebanon, and it was sort of a proxy
Speaker 4: within a proxy. And again this is all tied back
Speaker 4: to Iran, and this is all part of Iran's strategy
Speaker 4: that it's been building and implementing relentlessly since the early
Speaker 4: nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: So let me challenge you on how good you are,
Speaker 2: because so far you're proving to be brilliant. But the
Speaker 2: question is how did Israel kill hessem Estralla sixty feet underground?
Speaker 2: How did they get to him?
Speaker 4: My understanding is that they used obviously bunker bustering bombs.
Speaker 4: Where they got the bunker busting bombs from unclear? It's
Speaker 4: probably they're probably American bombs. They're able to penetrate that
Speaker 4: deep into the earth.
Speaker 3: It may not be. I think that the more remarkable.
Speaker 4: Feat here is one of intelligence, which is how did
Speaker 4: they How did the Israeli military intelligence and the Mosad
Speaker 4: know that Nostralla is going to be at that location?
Speaker 3: At that particular time.
Speaker 4: This is a man who's been in hiding since two
Speaker 4: thousand and six. He has not shown his face except
Speaker 4: on videos. He's not been above ground as far as
Speaker 4: we know. So somehow Israel has managed to track his
Speaker 4: movements and whereabouts without him knowing that, without any of
Speaker 4: his Ballah's counter intelligence operations, figuring that out and doing
Speaker 4: this to the effect that they were able to kill
Speaker 4: him and a number of his senior deputies and a
Speaker 4: senior officer from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard at the same time,
Speaker 4: within days after decimating the entire top ranks of his BALLA.
Speaker 4: Part of this had to do with the beepers, the
Speaker 4: pagers that Israel had sort of infiltrated and put placed
Speaker 4: explosives inside of. This took place about a week and
Speaker 4: a half ago, where they at the same time, at
Speaker 4: three point thirty in the afternoon, detonated them. These were
Speaker 4: being used by his Balla operatives to communicate because prior
Speaker 4: to that, Israel had infiltrated their cell phones, and his
Speaker 4: Ballad learned about this and told told their operatives told
Speaker 4: their officers to get rid of the cell phones, and
Speaker 4: Nocerella famously told them to bury them underground or put
Speaker 4: them in an iron box, and instead his bala distributed
Speaker 4: these pages because they believed that they could not be infiltrated.
Speaker 4: It turns out that Israel had probably engineered this entire
Speaker 4: sequence of events, beginning with the cell phones right through
Speaker 4: to the pagers, and what it meant for Nostralla and
Speaker 4: his top leadership was that because they no longer had
Speaker 4: reliable communications, they had to meet in person, and having
Speaker 4: met in person, that brought them to the same place
Speaker 4: at the same time, and boom, that's where Israel delivers
Speaker 4: its coup de grass and kills basically the entire leadership.
Speaker 3: So how Israel pulled this off?
Speaker 4: I mean, if this story ever gets told, and I'm
Speaker 4: not sure it ever will, but if it does, it
Speaker 4: will be one of the most remarkable achievements of intelligence
Speaker 4: of any intelligence agency in the history of modern intelligence.
Speaker 3: There's just nothing. There's nothing like it. There's nothing that
Speaker 3: can compare to it that we know of.
Speaker 4: So this is something that's obviously been planned for many,
Speaker 4: many years, and it's the benefit of Israel having all
Speaker 4: this time since two thousand and six to really plan, deliberate, plot,
Speaker 4: prepare for this kind of eventuality.
Speaker 2: Really quite extraordinary. Let's turn our attention to the resolving
Speaker 2: of the shall we say, the political situation as far
Speaker 2: as Israel's concerned. The Caroline click, I don't know your
Speaker 2: thoughts on her. You may care to share them, you
Speaker 2: may not. A one state plan for peace in the
Speaker 2: Middle East is the Israeli solution? What do you say,
Speaker 2: not the any one? Of course, there's plenty of people
Speaker 2: who are arguing the same thing, and plenty of people
Speaker 2: who are arguing for a two state solution your sorts.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I guess what Caroline means by that is
Speaker 4: that there is not going She does not want there
Speaker 4: to be a Palestinian state alongside in Israeli state, so
Speaker 4: that the two state solution obviously refers to an Israeli
Speaker 4: state and next to it a separate Palestinian state that
Speaker 4: is somehow formed from Gaza and parts with the West Bank.
Speaker 4: The two state solution, even though it's sort of been
Speaker 4: taken as a sort of geopolitical gospel over the last
Speaker 4: twenty to thirty years, looks increasingly unlikely.
Speaker 3: It's hard to see any.
Speaker 4: Israeli government or any Israeli population at this point getting
Speaker 4: behind that and saying, yes, we want to have a
Speaker 4: state next to us of Palestinians who have an ability
Speaker 4: at least to create an armed force or to bring
Speaker 4: in arms the way Hamas has been doing for the
Speaker 4: last fifteen to twenty years, especially because something that gets
Speaker 4: sort of left out a lot about this conversation is
Speaker 4: that that was the state that was offered to the
Speaker 4: Palestinians in two thousand at Camp David Broker by Clinton
Speaker 4: with edhud Barak as the Israeli representative the Prime Minister
Speaker 4: at the time, and yes Ir Arafat for the Palestinians.
Speaker 4: The deal was to give the Palestinians Gaza I think
Speaker 4: ninety percent of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as
Speaker 4: the capital.
Speaker 3: Is exactly what they've been.
Speaker 4: Asking for, demanding for the last since the nineteen sixty
Speaker 4: seven war. And in response, Arafat walked away and started
Speaker 4: a terror war in the form of the Second Intifada
Speaker 4: that lasted for two three years and resulted in the
Speaker 4: death of thousands of Israelis through suicide bombings. So even
Speaker 4: after that, I think the majority of Israelis were willing
Speaker 4: to still make a peace deal with the Palestinians. I
Speaker 4: would say, even the majority of Israelis wanted a peace
Speaker 4: deal and were willing to make painful concessions like the
Speaker 4: withdrawal from Gaza in two thousand and five, where Israeli
Speaker 4: unilaterally left Gaza and gave it to the Palestinians to govern.
Speaker 4: And what we have seen, even after the years and
Speaker 4: decades of rockets being fired at Israel by Hamas from Gaza,
Speaker 4: the Israelis I think we're still more optimistic about a
Speaker 4: two state solution after October. I think that Tuesday solution
Speaker 4: is practically dead. I cannot imagine any Israeli government even
Speaker 4: daring to raise it as an issue at this point.
Speaker 4: Public sentiment, it's not just it's that, it's it's antagonistic
Speaker 4: toward the pastings. It's more just that when you have
Speaker 4: made peace of matures to a people and in response
Speaker 4: you've had your arm cut off, there's just no way
Speaker 4: you would extend your other arm. It's it's human nature
Speaker 4: at this point. So where this goes in the meantime,
Speaker 4: I think that's the that's the main question.
Speaker 3: What happens in Gaza.
Speaker 4: After Israel pulls it out, pulls its military out, Who governs,
Speaker 4: who establishes law and order, who provides services there. I
Speaker 4: don't think anybody has an answer to that question. Well,
Speaker 4: that is such a difficult question.
Speaker 2: Whether israel leist talking at one stage at least about
Speaker 2: keeping a force in Gaza.
Speaker 4: I think there might even talk of that. I don't
Speaker 4: think that's really going to happen. I think the memory
Speaker 4: of occupation, of the Israeli occupation in Israel is not
Speaker 4: a good one. It's not something that most Israelis look
Speaker 4: back on and think we should do that again. I
Speaker 4: think Israelis were genuinely against the occupation of Gaza. After
Speaker 4: a certain amount of time, most Israelis wanted Israeli forces
Speaker 4: out of Gaza. Not because they were concerned about Gaza,
Speaker 4: so some of them obviously were more because this is
Speaker 4: a civilian army, this is a this is an army
Speaker 4: of the nation's sons and daughters, and people didn't want
Speaker 4: their sons and daughters hanging around Gaza for unclear reasons.
Speaker 3: It wasn't really clear.
Speaker 4: I think we look back and strategically we can see why,
Speaker 4: the strategic why those reasons were in place, what what
Speaker 4: kind of security actually did provide. But I don't think
Speaker 4: in reality that the population would would stomach that.
Speaker 3: I don't think we'd be able to handle.
Speaker 4: Whatever kind of losses would result from that, and I
Speaker 4: don't think the world community would would allow it either.
Speaker 4: So I don't think that's necessarily going to be the
Speaker 4: way forward. But that said, I don't know what the
Speaker 4: way forward is, and I'm not sure anybody else does either.
Speaker 2: What about you yourself. When we spoke last time, as
Speaker 2: I mentioned, you were in Tel Aviv and you were
Speaker 2: living there. You were born in South Africa, you grew
Speaker 2: up in America, settled family, settled in San Diego, and
Speaker 2: you have had what I would call the most interesting,
Speaker 2: intriguing life so far with you, maybe at a rough
Speaker 2: guess halfway through it. You are now resident in London.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering why why did you? Why did you leave
Speaker 2: tel Aviv on this occasion?
Speaker 4: We left because we left in twenty twenty two. I
Speaker 4: think it was more just, you know, sort of as
Speaker 4: you as your kind of reference. I've always moved around,
Speaker 4: and it's just kind of the way that I've I
Speaker 4: was raised. I was raised moving around, and I like
Speaker 4: to explore. I like to explore different ways of living life.
Speaker 4: I like to see the world differently, which is something
Speaker 4: that you really do get from living in a different place.
Speaker 4: I mean, you can get it from visiting places, and
Speaker 4: that's why we travel is such an amazing thing. But
Speaker 4: when you go and you live a different place and
Speaker 4: you're exposed to a whole different kind of culture, to
Speaker 4: new people, to friends, colleagues, and after let's say twenty
Speaker 4: years in Israel, where Israel is a tough place to
Speaker 4: live for so many reasons. It's a challenging culture to
Speaker 4: live in. It's a very fast pace in daily life.
Speaker 4: And you know, there was something appealing about about the UK.
Speaker 4: It always has been to me. It's an amazing Anglo
Speaker 4: history and tradition, political tradition, and literary tradition.
Speaker 3: All these great things.
Speaker 4: Though you know, the UK is in a very difficult
Speaker 4: situation as well. I would say right now, I wouldn't
Speaker 4: say the outlook is very, very rosy in most regards.
Speaker 4: I think this is going to be a bumpy few
Speaker 4: years for the UK, and you know where they're not
Speaker 4: we sed to hear. I don't know, but I think
Speaker 4: people are kind of looking around us here in London
Speaker 4: and throughout the country and thinking where are we headed
Speaker 4: as a country? What are we doing and how are
Speaker 4: we going to face these massive issues that this country
Speaker 4: is facing, such as immigration, the health system that is
Speaker 4: really failing, economic stagnation, things on this level where you
Speaker 4: really have massive problems and people who don't really at
Speaker 4: least at a political level, are not providing solutions.
Speaker 2: Is there a political party in written at the moment
Speaker 2: that is capable of addressing those.
Speaker 3: Things at the moment, I don't see that there is one.
Speaker 4: I think we looked at the Conservatives, who created quite
Speaker 4: a lot of issues in this country. I mean, their
Speaker 4: stance on COVID was in my view a failure. The
Speaker 4: severe lockdowns that obviously they were not alone in that,
Speaker 4: the spending that's gone on here, the unchecked illegal immigration
Speaker 4: across the Channel, and other forms of immigration, net immigration
Speaker 4: here going up and up every year, inability to even
Speaker 4: address the NHS issue, the health system which is failing
Speaker 4: and where you will wait literally years for procedures, important procedures.
Speaker 4: And these are people who are especially older people, who
Speaker 4: have been paying into this system for their entire lives.
Speaker 4: They've been paying their taxes, they've been paying into it,
Speaker 4: and they get to a point where they need some
Speaker 4: sort of very important surgery or procedure, and they're being
Speaker 4: told to wait two years for a.
Speaker 3: Hip or placement for example. These are the kinds of
Speaker 3: things where.
Speaker 4: You know that this has been I think precipitated by
Speaker 4: both parties.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's one or the other to blame.
Speaker 4: But at the same time, there's not a party that
Speaker 4: I can say is that has the ideological fortitude and.
Speaker 3: Is robust enough.
Speaker 4: You know, We've got the Reform Party sort of rising
Speaker 4: and with Nigel Farage, and it's coming in from the wings,
Speaker 4: and it might be exerting some kind of pressure on
Speaker 4: the right, but I don't think it's there yet. I
Speaker 4: don't think it's at a point where it can like
Speaker 4: step into power and really make those kinds of heart changes.
Speaker 2: So, in in concluding or wrapping up anyway, hitting in
Speaker 2: that direction, a couple of a couple of random questions.
Speaker 2: You are writing still for for more than more than
Speaker 2: one outlet. What's your what's your preferred?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 2: I really asking, where's the where's the best place for
Speaker 2: my together?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: So I've been writing more on my substack, which is
Speaker 4: actually Rinsberg dot substack dot com. I've also been writing
Speaker 4: more for a tech culture and politics outlet called Pirate Wires.
Speaker 3: It's based in.
Speaker 4: Silicon Valley and sort of is started by a guy
Speaker 4: named Mike silmana who was worked for Peter Thiel, by
Speaker 4: the co founder of PayPal, and they're doing we're doing
Speaker 4: really great cultural stuff. I've been doing a lot of
Speaker 4: reporting on Wikipedia and how Wikipedia has sort of institutionalized
Speaker 4: bias into its both the way that it structures its foundation,
Speaker 4: the foundation that owns the website that has been making
Speaker 4: alliances with radically progressive foundations in the United States that
Speaker 4: are pushing all sorts of weird defund the police type stuff,
Speaker 4: shut down bridges and whatever else, and.
Speaker 3: They're really funding that.
Speaker 4: So Wikipedia money is going to sort of passing through
Speaker 4: to these radical organizations. And on the other hand, on
Speaker 4: Wikipedia itself, you're seeing a lot a lot of political
Speaker 4: bias on the articles about political topics. And this is
Speaker 4: sort of even though it's an open encyclopedia, in reality
Speaker 4: it's being controlled by a very very small subset of
Speaker 4: editors that have a clear political affiliation.
Speaker 3: And we look at Wikipedia as the world's source of.
Speaker 4: Knowledge, whereas in reality it's.
Speaker 3: Not neutral, it's not objective. It is sort of a
Speaker 3: media property.
Speaker 4: So I've been doing that at pirate Pirate Wires, that's
Speaker 4: piratewires dot com. Got some more Wikipedia stuff coming soon.
Speaker 4: Also been talking a lot about writing a lot about
Speaker 4: censorship and the rising censorship industry in the US and abroad,
Speaker 4: and I imagine that might also include New Zealand.
Speaker 3: So these are the kinds of.
Speaker 4: Things where we're seeing, like a lot of a lot
Speaker 4: of focus about information, the way information is controlled, the
Speaker 4: way it's shaped, the way that things that we believe
Speaker 4: are facts are not facts, but they are the products
Speaker 4: of someone's ideological agenda. So that's the kind of stuff
Speaker 4: that the guys at pirate Wires are really focused on.
Speaker 4: I'm still writing at the substack, my substack on media
Speaker 4: and media bias and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So there's a couple of things that I just want
Speaker 2: to garner your opinion on. The UN has been meeting
Speaker 2: in New York, of course, and they have signed the
Speaker 2: first I'm not even maybe they'll shigne more now, I
Speaker 2: don't know, but they signed the first of three treaties
Speaker 2: that they're trying to disguise for the Americans in wordage,
Speaker 2: but the Pact for the Future, I read it. I
Speaker 2: didn't read it. I read commentary on it yesterday. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it scares the heck out of me. Yeah, am
Speaker 2: I right?
Speaker 4: Yeah? And again this goes a lot back to a
Speaker 4: lot back to information. I mean, they're talking about global
Speaker 4: governance and this is the stuff that we've been hearing.
Speaker 4: The term governance, it's really something that's associated with the
Speaker 4: World Economic Forum in Davas. And governance is about top
Speaker 4: down control where you're sort of abstracting the sovereign sovereign
Speaker 4: power of states to this sort of meta entity. And
Speaker 4: of course that meta entity is the United Nations. We
Speaker 4: saw how this work worked with so called ESG and DEI,
Speaker 4: the environment, social and governance, these policies about how businesses
Speaker 4: should run. And that's something that came out of the
Speaker 4: UN in the nineteen nineties and slowly trickled up through
Speaker 4: the system to the point where now every big company
Speaker 4: in the US and the UK, and I'm sure New
Speaker 4: Zealand and Australia has to hire and fire and conduct
Speaker 4: itself by these processes that have to do with the
Speaker 4: environment and with diversity and inclusion that I really don't
Speaker 4: have much to do with business, but it's all just
Speaker 4: sort of been just sort of gerrymandered into our lives.
Speaker 4: And what we're seeing now is a similar kind of focus,
Speaker 4: but on the information sphere, because we live lives in
Speaker 4: this landscape of digital information and the question of who
Speaker 4: gets to control that information, who gets to control what's
Speaker 4: considered true and false, disinformation, misinformation. We've heard all these
Speaker 4: new fancy terms, and this is where I think governments,
Speaker 4: but more than governments, these global bodies are trying to
Speaker 4: grab power, and they're doing it through things like the
Speaker 4: Pact for the Future. And again it's always under this
Speaker 4: really soaring rhetoric about brotherhood and all the lovely stuff
Speaker 4: that it's going to bring. But at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, it's I think pretty clearly an attempt to
Speaker 4: gain control.
Speaker 2: Indeed, I don't disagree with the word you said. And
Speaker 2: I discovered something earlier this morning that shocked me. I
Speaker 2: saw a headline that made reference to a prominent medical journal,
Speaker 2: and I wanted to know which it was, and it
Speaker 2: stunned me when I found out it was The Lancet.
Speaker 2: How an anti Israel propaganda platform was turned around. Prominent
Speaker 2: medical journal published pseudo scientific attacks on Israel for years
Speaker 2: until it took the demonization one step too far? What
Speaker 2: accounts for its unprecedented turnaround? And then the follows nine
Speaker 2: pages are very closely typed print out. But the reason
Speaker 2: that I found that was because it came from from
Speaker 2: The Tower, which no longer exists. A very quick brief
Speaker 2: on the Tower, because you you contributed to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, The Tower was a really great long form magazine
Speaker 4: primarily about Israel Israel related issues, and it was edited
Speaker 4: by a friend of mine named David Hazoni, a great
Speaker 4: editor is also now an author and a book editor.
Speaker 4: And the Lancet, the Lancet is is It's got a
Speaker 4: very interesting history. I mean, the Lancet is now today
Speaker 4: the most influential medical journal in the English language are
Speaker 4: probably in the world. Its roots are in activism and
Speaker 4: sort of socialist minded activism. This is not something that
Speaker 4: anyone at the Lancet has ever hidden. This is known
Speaker 4: as part of its history. I wrote a big piece
Speaker 4: about this for Unheard. If you if you google Unheard
Speaker 4: the Lancet my name, it'll come up. The history of
Speaker 4: the Lancet is a history of making waves, making controversy,
Speaker 4: and each time it creates a new controversy, it gets
Speaker 4: more and more attention, and sometimes they'll do a little
Speaker 4: bit of a retraction or an apology if they don't
Speaker 4: do a retraction. They had a number of big COVID retractions,
Speaker 4: including regarding I think one or two of the medications
Speaker 4: that they considered to be unhealthy. I have to do
Speaker 4: refresh my memory. But they also were the publication that
Speaker 4: printed the lie of a million deaths as a result
Speaker 4: of the Iraq War that was just never true. It
Speaker 4: was something that is sort of one of these fanciful
Speaker 4: Lancet things. Richard Horton, who's the editor of the Lancet,
Speaker 4: really revels in this kind of scandal making. And again
Speaker 4: this is very much true to its own history and
Speaker 4: its origin as a publication that was a tempting to
Speaker 4: establish the London medical to challenge the London medical establishment
Speaker 4: by sort of making false claims, claiming in one of
Speaker 4: its early cases that a surgeon had deliberately tortured a
Speaker 4: patient when they knew that there was not the case.
Speaker 4: This is back to its earliest days, So this is
Speaker 4: sort of the Lancet's mo o. What's really scandalous about it, though,
Speaker 4: is that it gets away with it and that with
Speaker 4: every next new lie that it promulgates, it only becomes
Speaker 4: more and more influential within that world. That's that to
Speaker 4: me is the most amazing part of it.
Speaker 2: Indeed, I'm witnessing the same as everybody else's I think,
Speaker 2: and that is the increase in online articles material, which
Speaker 2: just seems to be exploding and exploding in a very
Speaker 2: satisfactory way. Otherwise I wouldn't have found that that particular
Speaker 2: place on the landst But there's some very good stuff
Speaker 2: out there and contributing to it in a in a
Speaker 2: handsome way. And I conclude with saying thank you so much.
Speaker 2: It's been an even greater pleasure. I think that it
Speaker 2: was the first time. I don't know why, but just
Speaker 2: maybe because it's in the present, in the present.
Speaker 4: But thank you, thanks heaps, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it very much.
Speaker 2: As a producer. We're here for podcast number two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty eight and the mail room and the postman
Speaker 2: has arrived. How are you latey? I very well, very
Speaker 2: early in the morning, but.
Speaker 5: Let me start because I'm onto it. Peter says, I
Speaker 5: really enjoyed your talk with Dr Paul Merrick last and
Speaker 5: would have liked to have heard his opinion on dimenthal
Speaker 5: sulfox side or DMSO. I have a friend who is
Speaker 5: a veterinarian, and he says, if every household had ivermecton, hydroxychloroquine,
Speaker 5: medical cannabis and DMSO in their medicine cabinet, nearly every
Speaker 5: pharmaceutical company in the world would go broke. When I
Speaker 5: asked him what DMSO does, he said, you would never
Speaker 5: believe me, and gave me this lenk And I guess
Speaker 5: if you go DMSO, the real miracle solution, search sot net,
Speaker 5: s ott dot net and DMSO. Of course, if you
Speaker 5: search just DMSO or dimentthal sulfoxide, the ses give it
Speaker 5: the same treatment that ivermectin received during the pandemic.
Speaker 2: Love your podcast, says Peter. Peter, thank you. I did
Speaker 2: have a look at that. By the way, the dmt
Speaker 2: O side, I can't remember because it was late last
Speaker 2: night and I can't remember what I saw. I'm sorry, terrible,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but it seemed it seemed to be worthy
Speaker 2: of a second look. Let's put it that way now
Speaker 2: for your information. You got to wonder why what a
Speaker 2: gender they want sixty to seventeen year olds specifically to
Speaker 2: respond to a climate change survey. Plus, there is a
Speaker 2: special Marie section of the survey. Horizon Pole sounds like
Speaker 2: a woke polling booth and it says, this is the
Speaker 2: actual letter, that is email that he's referring to climate change.
Speaker 2: We want to speak to sixteen to seventeen year olds.
Speaker 2: This survey covers how younger people in New Zealand feel
Speaker 2: about climate change and if they identify mainly as Mary.
Speaker 2: It also has a section with a list of blah
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. Yeah, Okay, get them while they're young.
Speaker 2: That's the that's the motto.
Speaker 5: Leadon James, he sends you a link which is extremely complicated,
Speaker 5: but I guess if anybody's interested, they could google Professor
Speaker 5: Jeffrey Sachs. And he says once again, Professor Jeffrey Sachs
Speaker 5: with a clear exposition of the current state of the world,
Speaker 5: together with some very relevant and relatively recent economic history.
Speaker 5: We hope you can find the time to listen because
Speaker 5: it helps to understand the dangerous debacles and progress it
Speaker 5: seems almost everywhere. We can also only hope that in
Speaker 5: the not too distant future, the US realizes the mess
Speaker 5: it's made of the last eighty years and has a
Speaker 5: sea change in its policy outlook. For one thing, the
Speaker 5: US dollar will soon no longer be capable of being weaponized.
Speaker 5: And for another, the US, if it's going to survive
Speaker 5: as the same democratic society that it has been, it
Speaker 5: must put all its energies into paying down its colossal
Speaker 5: debt and drastically overhauling its governance so that it is
Speaker 5: once more governed by elected officials instead of the faithless,
Speaker 5: unelected suits currently heading the country towards economic and nuclear armageddon.
Speaker 5: The world will be a very different place, peaceful and
Speaker 5: prosperous instead of featuring constant belligerents and ongoing financial crises.
Speaker 5: Once again, with all best wishes from us in El Retiro, Columbia.
Speaker 5: That's Jim and Jean, Jim and Gene. Yes, they're very regular.
Speaker 2: That's nice with regard to the US and and the
Speaker 2: state of the nation. Just hold your horses for another
Speaker 2: few weeks. We'll see what happens. But you're correct in
Speaker 2: your suggestions pretty much anyway. From Jeff, I can't wait
Speaker 2: to listen to your podcast featuring doctor Paul Merrick. I
Speaker 2: know a bit about him, primarily because I read a
Speaker 2: book written by a doctor with a CV at least
Speaker 2: as impressive as doctor Merrix, i e. Doctor per Cory
Speaker 2: and erstwhile director of the CDC in the USA. The
Speaker 2: latter mentions the former in his book a number of times,
Speaker 2: including how he was pilloried for having the temerity to
Speaker 2: express his own opinions during COVID, especially around the dwindling
Speaker 2: efficacy of mRNA vaccines and their side effects. It's disturbing
Speaker 2: reading the book I refer to was written by Pierre Cory.
Speaker 2: It's called The War On over Megden. It's hard to
Speaker 2: obtain for what I believe to be quite sinister reasons.
Speaker 2: I highly recommend the book, especially through one such as you,
Speaker 2: an open minded, intelligent man who's he writing about. I
Speaker 2: can assure you of two things. One, I am not
Speaker 2: a conspiracy theorist and pro science. Two. I've been on
Speaker 2: the periphery of an attempted vaccine development in a past
Speaker 2: life in New Zealand the veterinary field, and have been
Speaker 2: involved in agriculture and agribusiness all my life. I have
Speaker 2: and continue to be pro vaccines in general, but like
Speaker 2: doctors Merrick and Corey, I will not take a fourth
Speaker 2: COVID vaccine. My faith in big farmer universities and certain
Speaker 2: government establishments has been eroded. I can tell you that
Speaker 2: both my eldest son and I suffered side effects from
Speaker 2: the vaccine, which I had initially been highly in favor
Speaker 2: of until after our third shots. I cannot understand why
Speaker 2: the new and improved New Zealand government is still advocating
Speaker 2: for and recommending these mRNA vaccines. Well, they're not vaccines
Speaker 2: for a start, so let's get that right. And the
Speaker 2: answer to you last question was because maybe just take
Speaker 2: some longer to wake up. I don't know. These brave
Speaker 2: doctors need to be listened to intently as always, Bess regards, Jeff.
Speaker 5: Layton Gordon says, love your good work and bringing valuable
Speaker 5: issues to the attention for those of us hungry for
Speaker 5: the use of common sense and enlightenment on your recommendations,
Speaker 5: I purchased a copy of Climate Actually Nothing to Fear.
Speaker 5: What a fabulous, simple and easy to understand assembly of
Speaker 5: questions and answers to such an important issue for all
Speaker 5: of mankind. It confirmed a lot of the idiotic foibles
Speaker 5: showered onto a submissive global audience of politicians who digest
Speaker 5: the science offered to them that seems to be so
Speaker 5: willingly accepted without question, the distinct odor of money and
Speaker 5: corruption permeates the corridors of power. There was one paragraph
Speaker 5: in the last chapter that caught my attention quote it's
Speaker 5: also worth mentioning that China ducked out of the Paris
Speaker 5: Accord by claiming that they were a developing country and
Speaker 5: were going to make use of that exception, but still
Speaker 5: produce as much omissions as their original plan to twenty sixty.
Speaker 5: I raise a thought, says Gordon, that crossed my mind
Speaker 5: about New Zealand being a relatively young and developing country.
Speaker 5: Wouldn't that be a perfect point for farmers and haughty
Speaker 5: culturalists to lobby our politicians for exemption from this overwhelmingly
Speaker 5: dangerous and costly piece of global agreement. Just to thought latent,
Speaker 5: and maybe you have already fielded comments relating to this
Speaker 5: best regards Gordon.
Speaker 2: Got to say. I agree with what Gordon said about
Speaker 2: China dipping out because it's a developing country. Is the
Speaker 2: stupidity of it. This was granted to them. The status
Speaker 2: was granted to them and hasn't had been removed. It's
Speaker 2: just idiotic, and I think we'd be almost It would
Speaker 2: be almost fair enough to say that we are more
Speaker 2: a developing country than China is. In fact, I'll go
Speaker 2: that far and say we are more developing than China,
Speaker 2: as in they're ahead of us. I mean, show me
Speaker 2: where our electric car factory is go on. So that
Speaker 2: was well said, I continue, writes Chris, to be annoyed
Speaker 2: and disturbed at the continued use of the term vaccine.
Speaker 2: Oh here we are echoing his thoughts, so let me
Speaker 2: start again. I continue to be annoyed and disturbed at
Speaker 2: the continued use of the term vaccine for the COVID
Speaker 2: shot to bastardize a biblical phrase. It never was, isn't now,
Speaker 2: and never shall be a vaccine in what we doctors
Speaker 2: know as a vaccine. A traditional vaccine confers long lasting
Speaker 2: immunity against the disease and prevents disease transmission. This thing
Speaker 2: was at best a temporary immune booster, which brings me
Speaker 2: to the thought I wish to raise with you the
Speaker 2: COVID shot. Somebody else, I think mentioned that somewhere to me,
Speaker 2: that you should be calling it a shot, and I
Speaker 2: agree with that. But every time I come to the
Speaker 2: word vaccine in a letter or something. I can't think
Speaker 2: of the word I want to replace it with, so
Speaker 2: I go with it, or something along those lines. The
Speaker 2: COVID shot was mandated, which was dumb as it didn't
Speaker 2: really help. Suppose that at times it was the best
Speaker 2: we had unless we talk the Swedish model. You have
Speaker 2: consistently regaled against the mandates. But where do you sit
Speaker 2: when you pit this against a proper vaccine such as polio,
Speaker 2: smallpox no longer needed as eradicated by vaccination, measles and tetanus.
Speaker 2: These vaccines do work and save lives, despite what some say,
Speaker 2: especially with regard to measles, and in my view, should
Speaker 2: be mandated. If you ever get a chance to talk
Speaker 2: to someone who has had polio and suffered as a consequence,
Speaker 2: they feel it is criminal not to mandate a polio shot.
Speaker 2: You are probably just old enough to recall the polio
Speaker 2: epidemic and the harm it caused. Not mandating these vaccinations
Speaker 2: will lead to a drop in herd immunity and the
Speaker 2: population will suffer not only deaths, but significant illness with
Speaker 2: long lasting effects. As an aside, epidemiologists have probably saved
Speaker 2: more lives than anyone think clean water, sewage, mass vaccination.
Speaker 2: Michael Baker is still a knob though I know where
Speaker 2: I stand, but this does pose an interesting philosophical tension.
Speaker 2: This is where free will i e. Anti vaxers, especially
Speaker 2: when it means parents placing their free will views on
Speaker 2: their children, butts heads against population medicine. Have a great week,
Speaker 2: Chris with a surname surgeon, So I'm very interested in
Speaker 2: your attitude. Anytime you want to drop me a line
Speaker 2: with an opinion, do so because we can debate it. Layton.
Speaker 5: Leon says, thank you again for this week's podcast featuring
Speaker 5: doctor Paul Marrek. It confirms to me again that the
Speaker 5: world's medical profession is dominated by the pharmaceutical sector. As
Speaker 5: a diabetic I was very impressed by dtor Merrick's statement
Speaker 5: that he cured his own diabetes with vitamin C. Would
Speaker 5: it be possible to find out how it was administered
Speaker 5: into him as I and my diabetic friends would love
Speaker 5: to give it a go. Thank you, and may God
Speaker 5: continue to bless your ministry. This is from Leon, and
Speaker 5: he says, ps. Mary and I met you and Carolyn
Speaker 5: at a mutual friends party when you kindly signed two
Speaker 5: of your books for us.
Speaker 3: Leon.
Speaker 5: I remember you and Mary well, having met you on
Speaker 5: several occasions, and I hope you're both well.
Speaker 2: It's lovely to hear from you, Yes, and it was
Speaker 2: a pleasure to sign your book and thank you. Let's
Speaker 2: be blunt most by far of the correspondence this week.
Speaker 2: It's been about the interview with Paul Merrick, and I
Speaker 2: get why. There's one letter here though, that goes in
Speaker 2: a different direction. Here we are, let me read this one.
Speaker 2: My immediate reaction when I first listened to your podcast
Speaker 2: with doctor Paul Merrick was one of nonchalance, as I
Speaker 2: wondered why we're still talking about COVID in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: And then I immediately caught myself pauling prey to the
Speaker 2: public short memory, and corrected myself. We must never forget
Speaker 2: how quickly we surrendered our rights to the damned, corrupt,
Speaker 2: unscrupulous elites who are always waiting to capitalize on the
Speaker 2: next crisis and usurp absolute power. I was chilled when
Speaker 2: doctor Paul Merrick said that the healthcare system is not
Speaker 2: a healthcare system. It's a disease system that's designed to
Speaker 2: keep you as sick or as long as you can
Speaker 2: for them to make as much money as they can
Speaker 2: can I just insert here he was talking specifically, of course,
Speaker 2: about the US system. I don't I don't think we're
Speaker 2: as bad here. Having had recent experiences with the local system,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty obligated to saying that they do. They do
Speaker 2: their best, even if they make the wrong decisions at times,
Speaker 2: which I also experienced. He goes on. He goes on,
Speaker 2: have you heard of New Zealand to Speaking Out with
Speaker 2: Science n z DSS is made up of courageous and
Speaker 2: principal doctors, dentists, pharmacists and vets who were formed around
Speaker 2: an open letter to the New Zealand government that expressed
Speaker 2: their concerns about the phiser COVID nineteen injection, as well
Speaker 2: as the implication from New Zealand regulatory bodies that branded
Speaker 2: medical practitioners incompetent if they provided fully informed consent about
Speaker 2: the injection. They state that quote, the authorities have only
Speaker 2: one narrative, be scared, get the JAB and vilify anyone
Speaker 2: who does not. We may be vilified by our colleagues,
Speaker 2: those we once respected, inflicting the greatest wounds the authorities
Speaker 2: they are supposed to service remember and those in the
Speaker 2: public that are fearful and asleep. But we have looked
Speaker 2: into our hearts and we cannot stand by while atrocities
Speaker 2: are being committed. We no longer trust that the regulators,
Speaker 2: including Bedsafe, the Medical Council, the Dental Council, of Pharmaceutical Council,
Speaker 2: and specialist colleges such as the Royal New Zealand College
Speaker 2: of General Practitioners are guided by the best interests of
Speaker 2: New Zealanders. We are concerned that these organizations have become
Speaker 2: unduly influenced by politics rather than sticking to health principles.
Speaker 2: Close quote, and then the author concludes, we the public
Speaker 2: should fully support brave medical practitioners like doctor Paul Merrick
Speaker 2: and the New Zealand doctors speaking out with science lest
Speaker 2: we forget. Thanks for helping us remember later and Carolyn
Speaker 2: as just a very very quick word. I suffered an
Speaker 2: oversight last week. I did not mention that doctor Merrick
Speaker 2: was with us on the podcast courtesy of NZD SOS
Speaker 2: New Zealand Doctors speaking Out with Science. I didn't mention them.
Speaker 2: That was my discredit.
Speaker 5: Leighton Alistair says, thanks Layton for another great podcast. Have
Speaker 5: followed Dr Merrick since the start of this COVID scam,
Speaker 5: and was privileged to hear him in person last Saturday
Speaker 5: in christ Church along with Professor Angerstell Gleish, a man
Speaker 5: of similar credentials and reputation in the cancer field. They
Speaker 5: were riveting to listen to and have been prepared to
Speaker 5: stand against the big farmer globalist attack on our democracy
Speaker 5: and freedoms. The other speakers at the conference were exceptional. Also,
Speaker 5: that's from Alistair.
Speaker 2: Thank you Alistair, appreciate it, missus producer. I'm looking at
Speaker 2: the clock and we've sort of everything has its limit.
Speaker 2: I think I might keep the rest. Maybe next week
Speaker 2: or the next couple of weeks, or a slow week,
Speaker 2: which happens occasionally. But let me say again this week
Speaker 2: the number of emails was and the quality of them
Speaker 2: was extremely good. I want to slip in one more.
Speaker 2: Though it was a matter of interest from Paul. He says,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, but I'm pretty convinced that I could
Speaker 2: hear God speaking through your conversation with doctor Paul merrickferences
Speaker 2: to vitamin C brought back memories of the time my
Speaker 2: father was afflicted with a case of chicken pox. He
Speaker 2: caught from me. His reaction to the disease was severe,
Speaker 2: and the doctors overseeing his care had indicated to my
Speaker 2: mother that things were looking a bit grim as they
Speaker 2: thought the pox may have affected his brain, if memory
Speaker 2: serves me correctly, My family advice and the local health
Speaker 2: store suggested vitamin C is a supplement to the good
Speaker 2: medical care he was receiving. By all accounts, the supplementary
Speaker 2: vitamin C that my mother provided Dad at his hospital
Speaker 2: bedside had startlingly positive results. It all was well, that
Speaker 2: ended well. Vitamin C has been part of my health
Speaker 2: outlook ever since. Doctor Paul Merrick is doing God's work
Speaker 2: and must be supported at all costs. He seeks truth
Speaker 2: and will in time find it, and he has already
Speaker 2: pointed at bucket loads of it. Thank you Layton and
Speaker 2: missus producers for the great podcast PS. The new part
Speaker 2: of the podcast providing source material is a winner. Paul,
Speaker 2: Thank you. I think you're the only person who has
Speaker 2: commented on that, but we'll see shortly. This is producer.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Thank you Layton.
Speaker 2: I believe you've got a very busy day, but again
Speaker 2: very busy day, which is why we're doing it so early.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, not that anyone would know.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I began this last week based on the fact that
Speaker 2: there is so much going on it simply cannot be
Speaker 2: covered in its entirety. And I've been asked so many
Speaker 2: times recently for books and information sources. I thought this
Speaker 2: was an appropriate contribution to the podcast in that I
Speaker 2: will refer each week to some articles that I think
Speaker 2: well may interest you, and you can decide for yourself
Speaker 2: and give you the best direction to find them that
Speaker 2: I can. So let's start with and the Kamala Harris
Speaker 2: is a third world hellhole, crime, chaos, devastation of an
Speaker 2: order of magnitude that will never recover unless Donald Trump
Speaker 2: becomes president again. Authored by paul Ingrassia I N G
Speaker 2: R A S I A. Paul Ingrassia spelled the way
Speaker 2: that it sounds. There is one hope to get us
Speaker 2: out of this rut, and that hope is called Donald Trump. Now,
Speaker 2: you may or may not agree. You may change your
Speaker 2: mind after reading it, but you'll find it at paul
Speaker 2: Ingrassia dot substack dot com. Number two What city planners
Speaker 2: are really planning and how to challenge it? Now, this
Speaker 2: is written from an American perspective, but it has global
Speaker 2: as well. You'll find it, written by Selwyn Duke in
Speaker 2: The New American dot Com The New American dot Com
Speaker 2: first paragraph. In nearly every community of the nation, the
Speaker 2: policy called sustainable is the catch all term for local
Speaker 2: planning programs, from water and energy controls to building codes
Speaker 2: and traffic planning. The term sustainable was first used in
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty seven report called Our Common Future, issued
Speaker 2: by the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development. The
Speaker 2: term appeared in full force in nineteen ninety two in
Speaker 2: a United Nations initiative called You Ready Agenda twenty one.
Speaker 2: Now I've got your interest, as I say. That is
Speaker 2: from the New American dot Com, Selwyn Duke, the author.
Speaker 2: How about the Hamas Broadcasting Corporation Melanie Phillips. I know
Speaker 2: that a number of people read her columns and they're
Speaker 2: often very worthy. We interviewed her once. She was also
Speaker 2: in Jerusalem at the time. It was a terrible connection.
Speaker 2: There was nothing I could do about it, So the
Speaker 2: Hamas Broadcasting Corporation Melanie Phillips dot substack dot com. Another
Speaker 2: report lays out the BBC's malevolence toward Israel. Will it
Speaker 2: ever listen, then this, The UN just adopted the Packed
Speaker 2: for the Future, which lays the foundation for a new
Speaker 2: global order. Now this has already had mentioned here or there,
Speaker 2: but it's worthy of chasing down. While everyone was distracted,
Speaker 2: the global elite got exactly what they wanted. The un
Speaker 2: adopted the Packed for the Future on September twenty second,
Speaker 2: and the mainstream media in the Western world almost entirely
Speaker 2: ignored what was happening. Instead, the headlines urged us to
Speaker 2: just keep focusing on Commala Harrison Donald Trump. Sadly, the
Speaker 2: vast majority of the population has never heard about the
Speaker 2: Pact for the Future, and so there was very little
Speaker 2: public debate about whether or not we should be adopting
Speaker 2: a document which lays the foundation for a new global order.
Speaker 2: They've been added for years this lot, and it looks
Speaker 2: like they might be making progress. Zero hedge dot com
Speaker 2: is where it came from. The UN just adopted the
Speaker 2: Pact for the Future, which lays the foundation for a
Speaker 2: new global order. And so to the article by Jeffrey
Speaker 2: Tucker that I mentioned at the top of the podcast,
Speaker 2: and there is a reason why I wanted to include it.
Speaker 2: It caught my attension also just this morning. And the
Speaker 2: reason is this. There is a picture of me in
Speaker 2: the book beyond the microphone, picture of me sitting with
Speaker 2: two things. One is I was cradling between my knees
Speaker 2: a cello, because I was learning cello at the time.
Speaker 2: This was when I was about thirteen maybe fourteen, and
Speaker 2: played in the school orchestra, and I couldn't wait to
Speaker 2: get rid of it, and the piano came second, much
Speaker 2: to my regret. The other thing in the photo is
Speaker 2: the haircut. At the time was when my father got
Speaker 2: agitated about beyond belief until one day took me down
Speaker 2: of the barbers and said cut it. But it all
Speaker 2: turned out well in the end, so Jeffrey Tucker writing,
Speaker 2: Find Your Oasis. The Metro North train was packed as
Speaker 2: it pulled into Grand Central Station, the iconic landmark that
Speaker 2: opens New York City to commuters and travelers. Leaving the
Speaker 2: train for the platform plunges you into a strange world
Speaker 2: of seeming chaos, of people on the move to somewhere.
Speaker 2: The United Nations was meeting there this week, with diplomats
Speaker 2: from all nations crowding the high end hotels at one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a night minimum Every major institutional player in banking, finance,
Speaker 2: and global corporate power was there too, because no one
Speaker 2: who is anyone wants to miss the chance to be
Speaker 2: near the action. I was there for a humble dinner
Speaker 2: with a friend, and the rest was a distraction, something
Speaker 2: to endure. The sights and sounds were already cacophonous as
Speaker 2: I climbed the stairs to the main level of the station.
Speaker 2: One sound was different. However. It was a cello, and
Speaker 2: I thought I could make out the sounds of the
Speaker 2: suites of J. S. Bark. As I finally rounded the corner,
Speaker 2: it gradually emerged that this was not a recording, but
Speaker 2: a single cellist in a white tie, playing the full
Speaker 2: cello suites without music. His talent was stunning, and it
Speaker 2: is such a rare treat to sit close by and
Speaker 2: watch it on display, close enough to see the resin
Speaker 2: from the bow float around the vibrating strings. The contrast
Speaker 2: between the ethereal virtuosity of the cellist and the bustling
Speaker 2: madness of the train station was psychologically and emotionally overwhelming.
Speaker 2: Though I was anxious to get to the appointed restaurant
Speaker 2: ten blocks away, I simply could not pass up the
Speaker 2: chance to listen. There I stood in people's way for
Speaker 2: the meta part of twenty minutes, transported by that middle
Speaker 2: voice between time and eternity. Bach did not write these
Speaker 2: pieces for public performance. They were a private study. They
Speaker 2: contain a variety of moods and deploy extremely difficult techniques.
Speaker 2: The most flausible theory is that the composer wrote them
Speaker 2: studies and exercises for his son to practice. So far
Speaker 2: as we knew, they were never heard outside his home
Speaker 2: in his lifetime. They were discovered one hundred years later
Speaker 2: during the Victorian period, where tastes were not compatible with
Speaker 2: a single instrument playing so elaborately, too lonely, too introspective,
Speaker 2: too ominous. So when they were first heard it was
Speaker 2: with an invented piano accompaniment. It wasn't until the turn
Speaker 2: of the century when a Spanish cellis Publo Casals rediscovered
Speaker 2: them in a bookstore at the age of thirteen and
Speaker 2: worked them up into a public performance. Part of the
Speaker 2: mystery of these pieces is how they play with the
Speaker 2: audible imagination of the listener. They're constructed nilly as quartets,
Speaker 2: with the other three parts left to the imagination, while
Speaker 2: the notes heard serve as cues, signs, and symbols to
Speaker 2: the formation of an inaudible voice out there somewhere. It
Speaker 2: seems like magic that anyone could write such things or
Speaker 2: perform them at all. If you're only listening to the recording,
Speaker 2: it helps to remind yourself that there is only one
Speaker 2: person playing, because otherwise it seems not quite believable. But
Speaker 2: watching a live performance makes one a believer. This is
Speaker 2: why these pieces just stop you in your tracks, transport
Speaker 2: you to a different place, somewhere connected to but set
Speaker 2: apart from the world around us. The music performed right
Speaker 2: in front of our eyes takes us to this place
Speaker 2: and feeds our soul. Without such music, we might forget
Speaker 2: there is a soul, that we are purely biological creatures
Speaker 2: with physical senses. Bark Cello suites deploy the senses in
Speaker 2: order to compel the rediscovery of our deepest and highest
Speaker 2: spiritual longings, elevating the mind and heart to experience a
Speaker 2: place without the passage of time. In today's world of violence, despair,
Speaker 2: and non stop disorientation, hearing them is startling in the
Speaker 2: best possible way. These twenty minutes for me conjured up
Speaker 2: an image of an oasis in the desert, a source
Speaker 2: of growth and life in the midst of nothingness. There
Speaker 2: I rested, however, briefly on my way back to the cacophony,
Speaker 2: but carrying the music in my mind and heart. Years ago,
Speaker 2: as a long time trained musician with a focus on
Speaker 2: brass instruments, I took up singing. I flattered myself in
Speaker 2: the mastering a huge range, and performed both as a
Speaker 2: conductor and singer, and arranged a repertoire from Palestrina, Pergolisi
Speaker 2: and Monteverdi to Viveldi, Handle and Mozart. One day, I
Speaker 2: picked up the musical score to one of Mark's hundreds
Speaker 2: of cantatas. I tried to sing a single aria i'd heard.
Speaker 2: I simply could not. It was impossible for me. I
Speaker 2: realized at that moment that I was not a real singer,
Speaker 2: at least not one for which this composer wrote. Bach
Speaker 2: is truly next level. Bark did not live an easy life.
Speaker 2: He had twenty children over two marriages and supported them
Speaker 2: all with playing, conducting and compositions. He played for a
Speaker 2: Lutheran parish in a humble role with a meager salary,
Speaker 2: and faced down unreletting pressure from the rector to write
Speaker 2: new works for every Sunday service while preserving traditional hymnody.
Speaker 2: He often applied for new jobs, but kept being turned down.
Speaker 2: He often complained about the poor quality of his musicians,
Speaker 2: a point I cannot even fathom, since truly only specialists
Speaker 2: today can perform his harder works. Bark signed all of
Speaker 2: his works, whether religious or secular, to the glory of God.
Speaker 2: It was clearly his conviction that all of his skills
Speaker 2: were from God and owed back to God, and the
Speaker 2: object of his works were to point to ideals outside
Speaker 2: the rough and tumble of the stream of life. However,
Speaker 2: some consider his b Minor Mass to be his greatest achievement,
Speaker 2: but it was never performed in his life. It sat
Speaker 2: in his draw as a private meditation. It's remarkable to
Speaker 2: imagine Bark being told in his time that three hundred
Speaker 2: years later, a single cellist would perform his suites in
Speaker 2: a grand central station, with crowds rushing by, an audience
Speaker 2: of thousands of people doing other things, and only one
Speaker 2: person stopping to listen carefully. Somehow, these pieces transcend all
Speaker 2: things contemporary and must sound today exactly as they did
Speaker 2: hundreds of years ago and will sound hundreds of years Hence,
Speaker 2: I think two of the player who sat there casting
Speaker 2: blessing on the crowds with his stunning talents what made
Speaker 2: him take up cello? He shortly faced down warnings from
Speaker 2: family and friends that he will would never make much
Speaker 2: of a living from doing this. He studied decades, with
Speaker 2: thousands of hours alone in practice, cultivating a level of
Speaker 2: skill not one in a million corporate functionaries have, and
Speaker 2: yet here he is. Artists on this level often report
Speaker 2: that they could do no other They simply had to
Speaker 2: follow their passions and dream, despite inevitable stuttering and possible poverty.
Speaker 2: Such beauty and talent often runs headlong into the buzzsaw
Speaker 2: of real life. A New York City chalist once told
Speaker 2: me that there are two kinds of challists who cannot
Speaker 2: find work in the city, the worst and the best.
Speaker 2: The part about the worst is easy to explain. The
Speaker 2: part about the best gets us into gritty reflections on
Speaker 2: envy and how ubiquitously it crushes excellence. There is never
Speaker 2: a good rational reason to go into art as a profession,
Speaker 2: but there is every idealistic reason. This is the reason
Speaker 2: that I cannot fathom why any artist would want to
Speaker 2: participate in any project that makes the world uglier, as
Speaker 2: we see in so many government funded art venues in
Speaker 2: large cities today and have for a century. Art that
Speaker 2: fails to transcend is not worthy of the name in
Speaker 2: my view. In all times and all places, there are
Speaker 2: surely settings and moments that we can find that provide sanctuary, oasis, refuge,
Speaker 2: and safe haven for the soul. What form mistakes is
Speaker 2: different for everyone regardless, This space and the soul must
Speaker 2: be fed for our own sake, but also to beautify
Speaker 2: the world and keep it together and livable for another day.
Speaker 2: Those who do the hard work deserve our gratitude, even
Speaker 2: if the worldly games will never be there. I would
Speaker 2: trade the tens of thousands of United Nations hangers on
Speaker 2: gathered in the city that day for this one cellist,
Speaker 2: who sitting on that platform at the train station, playing
Speaker 2: alone to no one in particular, revealed more truth than
Speaker 2: all the combined speeches that week given to the multitude.
Speaker 2: I think that last paragraph summarizes it perfectly. It was
Speaker 2: a bit long, I know, but I thought it was
Speaker 2: worthy of from sharing for those of you who sat
Speaker 2: with it. Thank you, and thank you Jeffrey Tucker, and
Speaker 2: that ladies and gentlemen takes us out to podcasts two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty eight. We shall return shortly with a
Speaker 2: number nine on the end. Until then, if you would
Speaker 2: care to comment on anything from today, or anything else
Speaker 2: for that better Layton at newstalksb dot co dot nz
Speaker 2: or Carolyn at newstalksb dot co dot nz, I invite
Speaker 2: you to write on all and sundry. We love getting
Speaker 2: it so that takes us away. The only thing left
Speaker 2: to say is once again, thank you for listening and
Speaker 2: we'll talk soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you for more from newstalkset B. Listen live on
Speaker 1: air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
Speaker 1: you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio