Hello and welcome, yes we're back, episode 438.

Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove, I'm Trevor, with me, Joe the tech guy,

Joe's had some tech problems, but being the tech guy he's solved his tech

problems, feeling better about that

Joe?

Yeah, nothing that a reboot doesn't fix.

Yes, if in doubt, turn it off and turn it back on again.

Yep.

Right.

Well, dear listener, if you make it to the chat room, say hello.

There'll be a few things on the screen to look at to make it worthwhile.

Uh, we're going to talk about news and politics, sex and

religion as we normally do.

What's on the agenda?

Let me have a quick look.

Um, Paris Olympics, a little bit about the opening ceremony and the

mockery of the Christian faith.

Or was it?

Yes.

Um, we can't escape Trump and US politics until the elections held in

November, so it's just so fascinating.

We'll have a bit on that.

Well, no, but then there's gonna be the insurrection, the Civil War.

Indeed.

So we'll be talking about it for a while.

Look, it's not every day that the world's greatest Empire Falls

and you get clear signals of it.

So this is, this is, um, good stuff for a podcaster.

Netanyahu was in, uh, addressing joint Houses of Congress

to 58 standing ovations.

And then he went and hung out at Mar a Lago.

Yes.

Just amazing scenes.

Um.

Little bit about, um, Strikes are back in Australia.

Canada are buying subs for an absolute steal compared to us.

More about the CFMEU.

Murdoch's are fighting amongst themselves.

Chinese economy.

If we get through all that we'd be doing well.

But, um, yeah.

First of all, grateful.

I forgot to do this the last couple of times, and, um,

grateful, um, I am grateful for grandkids and streaming services.

Grandkids are just great on their own, like, they're good fun.

Mind you, it is good to get away from them for a while.

So, um, if you can have them for a few days a week, that's great.

Maybe not seven.

So, um, but, um, Joe, because the Olympics are on, We've been sitting down watching

stuff together, which we just never do.

And of course we're watching free to air.

Channel 9 with the Olympics and my eldest granddaughter is six years of

age and she's looking at the screen watching some of the Olympics and she

turns and she says, what, what's that?

What's going on here?

We had to explain to her that it was an advertisement.

Six years old, she's been watching streaming services her whole

life, has never watched for you.

And was just, um, just as fascinated as the word, but

confused by these advertisements.

Well, I've seen them on YouTube and, um, they're now

coming to the streaming services.

Well, in any

event,

she was shocked, I tell you.

And so for the first set, she was like, is this another ad?

Is it?

What's this?

And then, and by about the second set of ads, She was going, not

another ad, she was over it, over and done with, by the second set.

Because they lay them on pretty thick.

She's been lucky to avoid them so far then.

She has, yeah.

I just, uh, I found it interesting that she'd got six years of age, and hadn't

really encountered advertisements before.

So, that was interesting.

Um, Joe, did you watch any of the opening ceremony or any of it at all?

Uh, I was Centrelink to Celine Dion.

Right.

Uh, singing whatever Franks love, Edith Piaf.

French song.

Uh, someone, somebody asked me if that was the, the French national anthem.

Right?

And, um, I have to say I was very, very surprised to see her perform because, I

dunno if you've been aware, um, she has finally been diagnosed with stiff person

syndrome, which is fairly rare disease.

I, I just watched the documentary.

Um, I'm selling Deal.

Mm-Hmm, . And, uh, I really thought that she wasn't gonna be able to sing.

Perform, again, because she said, you know, how much has taken out of her.

Mm.

I didn't see her particular performance, but

yeah, I was aware of that, so.

Yeah.

Um, yeah.

And apparently

there was some hints of a wild threesome in some of the opening events,

which had the Christians up in arms.

Yes.

It was a, it was a wacky opening ceremony.

And, um, not that that's a bad thing.

Like the other thing of course, was there was no, well, what I was watching,

there were no English subtitles or translations, so you're completely in

the dark as to what they're saying, but yes, there was a scene with.

a girl and a guy flirting in a library and they were sort of chasing after each

other and ended up heading to a room and but in amongst all this was a third

guy who was also somehow following them and chasing them and they then end up

in this room and they start embracing and it was clear that they were going

to get it on, the three of them.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

Wacky, but yeah, it was, I mean, who wants to just see a whole bunch of.

People running around a stadium.

Why not have something different?

I'm, I was up for that.

Yes.

Yeah.

But, um I don't know if they did end up shitting in the river as they were

threatening.

I don't know about that.

The protesters were threatening that, were they?

Yeah, the, the, the prisoners who were against the Olympics

were talking about, because there was a number of events that were

going to be held in the sand.

Right.

That they were going to pollute the sand deliberately so they

couldn't hold the events.

Didn't hear about that,

but,

um, yeah.

Anyway, poured with rain.

I don't know, it gave me some hope for Brisbane's Olympic Opening

Ceremony, that they could do something just different, low key,

and just interesting would be good.

Didn't have to stick to a formula of a gigantic parade of thousands of

people acting in unison in some way.

So anyway, that was good.

Um, but Joe, part of it was.

are quite a wacky scene, and I'll put an image up on the screen,

which um, have you seen this at all?

No.

Yes, so on the top is what was happening as part of the opening

ceremony, and um, involved all sorts of wacky characters, in a scene reminiscent

of The Last Supper by Da Vinci.

And Christians, Joe, have been up in arms about this being a

mockery of the Christian faith and testing people's tolerance.

And did they really have to do that?

And, um, a lot of sort of talk on the internet with Christians outraged

saying this is just a step too far.

Why did you have to go out of your way to offend us?

And, um, yeah, so, so people like, um, George Galloway, remember the

guy in the UK, the politician, um, got in, he said, um, three young

children, yes, very pro Palestine, um, with three, well is he anti Semite?

He's an anti Zionist.

It was a joke.

Oh, okay, right.

Uh, he said, With three young children and two early teenagers, how am I supposed

to explain the Olympic opening ceremony?

Genuine question.

And, um, kim.

com said, The opening ceremony of the Olympics felt like the

closing ceremony of humanity.

I didn't think he was still around.

Kim.

com?

Hmm.

I don't know.

Maybe somebody's got control of this.

You know who he is, though.

I

He

was the New Zealander that was running the dodgy illegal download website

that everyone was sharing movies on.

And he got busted by the FBI and hauled off for a million years or something.

Right.

I'm just surprised to see him online.

Here we go.

But, um, people forget, Joe, that at the Sydney Olympics, um, cause

there was also a lot of, um, Um, cross dressing, um, what do you call

it, drag queens, featuring a lot.

And there was a runway scene with a drag queen with a blonde beard.

And um, um, people were sort of quite shocked by it.

Like I say, it was wacky.

Um, but people have to remember, at Sydney's Olympics,

um, we had a celebration of Priscilla Queen of the Desert,

which I'd forgotten about.

But that whole scene of just thousands of people having to do things, I

like the French avoiding all that.

Celebrating the hit Australian film, please welcome Chris Queen

of the Desert.

So, um, so yeah, people forget that Sydney Olympics had its

fair share of drag queens.

Um, but Joe, turns out, even though that scene looked reminiscent of The Last

Supper, And even though the artistic director was a gay Jewish man who you

thought might be disposed towards mocking Christianity, turns out his story, and

the French story, and since it was their story at the beginning, the middle and

the end, so they've been pretty consistent about it, is that the scene portrayed

Dionysus, god of wine and festivities.

At a pagan festival linked to the gods of Olympus.

And So what you're

saying is the Christians ripped off some other religion's ceremonies, symbols?

Well, uh, this, there's an artist, um, uh, let me see.

John van Bijler, which would be a Dutch artist, did a painting called

The Feast of the Gods and it involved heathen gods gathered on Mount Olympus.

And, um, they're saying that this image was actually a homage to that painting in

that imagery rather than The Last Supper.

Fair enough.

So, uh, yeah.

The other thing about this is that the guy who did the Greek

one, sort of, was inspired by Da Vinci's Last Supper anyway, so, um.

So yeah, if you are watching in the chat room, you can see, uh, a blue

guy sitting there, and he's one of the gods, and then the sort of painting that

they're saying it's actually based off.

So, it wasn't really a mockery of Christian faith, Joe,

it was just, uh, a joke.

Exploring an alternative vision of

the gods.

How dare you interfere with their martybation.

That's right.

Indeed.

Yes.

Never let the facts get in the way of a good gripe.

Yeah, a good persecution story.

Yes, that's it.

So anyway, they've been in uproar about that and turns out

they're completely mistaken.

Which happens, Joe, because people don't.

understand other cultures and think their culture is the only culture.

It's like the Americans who, with a straight face, say that,

you know, uh, foreigners to America should learn to speak English because

that's what Jesus spoke because the Bible was written in English.

It

is.

It is.

There's just a level of stupid that you cannot.

So I liked the French, uh, opening ceremony just because it was a different

culture and it was like, we're not all the same, we do things differently and

maybe it's not meant to be actually the culture that you're familiar with.

Don't go making assumptions, which I kind of did initially anyway.

So, good on the French for sort of, um, Doing that, I think.

Um, right.

That's enough about the Olympics.

Um, Joe, um, Trump.

Mmm.

I've got a few clips here.

He's sounding, now that you don't have Biden to compare him to, he's

sounding more and more unhinged, isn't he?

He

is, yeah.

I think I was listening to Pep podcast, or some other podcast, and

they were talking about how one of the themes that they're attacking him with is

just to say he just sounds plain weird.

And he does.

Yeah.

And it's real.

He's also been saying some very scary things, like the parts

you don't think he'd be saying out loud, he's saying out loud.

Maybe this is what you're thinking of, Joe.

I'll play this.

Probably one of.

And again, Christians, get out and vote just this time.

You won't have to do it anymore.

Four more years.

You know what?

It'll be fixed.

It'll be fine.

You won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians.

I love you, Christians.

I'm not Christian.

I love you.

Get out.

You gotta get out and vote.

In four years, you don't have to vote again.

We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote.

You notice he

said, I'm not a Christian.

It wasn't quite clear what

he

was saying there.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Well, what he was saying was in four years, we'll have a theocracy, so

you won't need to vote ever again.

Yes.

At least, I mean, he may be saying we're not going to have elections in four years

because I will be dictator for life, but

Yeah.

So is that one of the crazy things that you were thinking about when

you said One of, and there was

also the Uh, we don't, you don't need to get out and vote, we've got

so many votes, um, we don't need more people to get out and vote.

Yes, completely in contrast to what he just said.

And also him, no sorry, it was somebody else who was saying, uh,

probably from the Heritage Foundation?

Project 2025.

We're going, well, we've already won a whole bunch of victories.

We're not going to let them know what else we've got in the works, but you

know, we're guaranteed of a victory.

Yes, so Project 2025 leader was saying we've got stuff happening that

we're not even telling people about.

Yeah, I mean, you're aware of the Georgia Electoral Commission?

No.

Okay, so there was a extraordinary meeting of the Georgia Committee That

was held basically by the three, uh, Trump 12020 ers, who decided that

then they were going to enact some new laws about Georgia's, uh, ballot

counting, uh, which basically had been done out of the public eye with zero

input and was probably done legally.

Uh, but Georgia was one of the swing states last time, as in, I think there

were 12, 000 votes in it, and it sounds like the pro Trumpers are trying to

rig it so that it doesn't matter who wins in 2024 in Georgia, uh, they're

just going to pretend that Trump won.

So this Project 2025 Um, besides installing a theocracy, and,

and allowing the president as the executive enormous control over branches

of government that were previously not under the control of the president.

So rather than splitting out the three branches into the executive,

the Legislative and the Judiciary, they all are going to be under

the power of the President because he's voted in by the people and

therefore he has ultimate authority.

Yes.

And they want to sack, uh, anybody in the Executive who stands in the way, um,

because apparently people were working against him last time slowing down his

mad plans and so they have, Uh, 10, 000 vetted and, um, Trump sycophants who

they're going to swap out into various government roles as soon as they find

somebody who dares to stand up to Trump.

You know, last week when I said nothing different would

happen, doesn't matter which ones vote for, maybe I should go back.

Maybe I'm recanting some of that.

And remember this, this 900 page document or whatever it is,

is

the stuff that they were happy to put in print.

Yes.

This is the stuff that's been vetted and they're happy to say out

loud, this is what we want to do.

Of course, Trump hasn't said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm

going to do all this stuff.

No, no, Trump has actually said, I have no idea who these people are.

Yeah.

Despite the fact that three quarters of them actually served in his office.

During his last administration.

Yeah.

But, you know,

Trump's a liar.

What

do you expect him to say?

Exactly, exactly.

I mean, okay, if they get some of that stuff through, it's

definitely a different result.

Um, incidentally, Scott's not here, dear listener.

He's, uh, not up for it tonight.

He's just not feeling Um, I think he's just a bit tired.

Sorry, I'm not exactly sure of the details.

Anyway.

Um, where was I?

for listening.

Yeah, so, I've sort of been reluctant to look at the 2025,

because it is a bit of just rumour mongering, but a frightening group.

I mean, this is, it is reminiscent of the whole Dominionism sort of thing, isn't it?

It's really Yeah,

I'm There are no guarantees that it will happen.

However, uh, the Heritage Foundation, who've written this, basically

ran the last time that Trump got into office, they ran his office

for the first however many days.

Virtually everything on their platform, you know, three quarters

of what was on their platform before Trump got into office last time.

He enacted, uh, there is a very, very high chance that what is

in Project 2025 will come about.

I think people prior to 2016, people were saying, ah no, Roe v.

Wade is a done deal, it's the law of the land, you know, this is all bluster,

he's not really going to do that.

Yes.

And then stacks the and and realistic, and those

judges said that they would let Roe v Wade stand

stacking Supreme Court.

It is the single worst thing that could have happened.

Yeah.

Because this has enabled all the rest of it.

The Supreme Court is the linchpin, uh, and there's rumors that.

Uh, there will be changes to the Supreme Court before Biden leaves office.

Ah.

Um.

So, some, some things.

So, the Constitution apparently says As in, adding, adding, adding

in another 12 or 15 of them sort of thing to

Well, yes, um, so apparently Congress can choose the number

of Supreme Court justices.

They can't force a retirement age because the Constitution says

they may stand as long as they haven't been impeached, basically.

Basically.

Um, however, what they are mooting is that they appoint a new Supreme

Court justice every two years and then say to the Supreme Court,

well, it's down to you guys.

You can either have an expanded bench or you can shuffle some

of you off down to other courts that aren't the Supreme Court.

It's hard to imagine anything like that being done before the next election.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Well, um, of course, uh, Yeah, things are looking shaky for the, the polls

have certainly, I think there was a, like a 3 percent sort of swing to

the Democrats once, uh, Kamala Harris was sort of given the unofficial nod.

I think that 3%, no, sorry, it was a 3%

betting difference because they had already counted on Biden dropping out.

But I think in terms of popular votes, uh, I think that, um, suddenly it had

gone from, I don't know what it was, uh, it was leaning very heavily Trump.

It's now neck and neck slightly ahead.

Yeah, so, uh, very interesting times that way.

He's got, um, a VP, J.

D.

Vance.

Yeah,

who is definitely a theocrat.

Yes, and

Aren't you so as Pence?

Yes, this guy seems even crazier than Pence.

Yeah.

At least Pence had some respect for the democratic vote.

Don't think this guy will.

Here he is with, uh.

Don't forget Pence actually refused to overturn because apparently he could

go in and do something in Congress.

And he refused.

And that's why they wanted to lynch him.

Yes.

And yeah, I don't think that Vance would.

He'd do whatever was convenient for himself and Trump.

Here he is talking about unmarried, uh, women who get involved in politics.

What he's saying is that we're effectively run in this country via

the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless

cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've

made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.

And it's just a basic fact.

You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, the entire future of the Democrats is

controlled by people without children.

And how does it make any sense that we've turned our country

over to people who don't There

we go.

Childless cat ladies.

Yeah, I mean, he's also said that, um, people without children

Should have less of a vote because they're not invested in the future

and that they should pay more tax.

Yes,

I mean it is, um,

who was that author?

It's Gilead, or on the way, isn't it?

It's,

oh yeah, yeah, um, Margaret

Atwood, yeah.

Quite extraordinary, the extreme characters who are being thrown

up and put into positions of power or potential power.

Yeah, and the number of Republicans who were never Trumpers and who absolutely

after January 20th couldn't possibly Sorry, January 9th, couldn't possibly

ever support him ever again, have gone on and, yeah, cozied up to him.

Yeah.

Yep.

Because, well, they could see him winning, and if you wanted a position of power And,

and also because, um, he is a vindictive Toddler.

Yes.

If he gets into power and you're not on his side, he will destroy you.

Plus, you know, if you wanted to get primaried, then you

needed to be a Trumper, because he'd, he's crazy supporters.

It's an extraordinary situation, just how crazy the place is.

It's insane.

But, um, you've got even more insane, Joe, and even more crazy, When a

guy like Netanyahu, who is operating

a genocide in Gaza, wiping people out, speaks in the joint houses

of Congress, and gets, I think, 53 standing ovations, this is the

introduction for this war criminal.

Here we go.

I

think it might have missed a bit there in that clip.

I thought I had a sort of more of an introduction for him.

Sorry about that.

But um, uh, what can we say about, what can we say about

Netanyahu and his appearance?

Oh, where are we?

Um, well first of all Joe, I should have said this first.

Um,

there was a ruling by the International Court of Justice ICJ,

9th of July that said, Israel's occupation of Palestine is unlawful.

So, this wasn't to do with the question of genocide in Gaza, this is to do

with Israel's occupation of Palestine.

And it was ruled, International Court of Justice, as illegal.

And, a lot of Western politicians and columnists will emphasise that

the World Court is offering nothing more than an advisory opinion, that

is non binding, but what they won't point out is that the opinion is the

collective view of the world's most eminent judges on international law.

And it's non binding only because the Western powers who control

our international bodies plan to do nothing to implement a

decision that doesn't suit them.

So, the court could only make a recommendation, it doesn't have power

to enforce, so it has to be advisory.

Michael Bradley in Crikey writing on this said, um, The media has generally

reported the ICJ's opinion as non binding, this is both true and untrue.

It is correct in the practical sense, because neither the ICJ nor the UN has

means of enforcing its own determinations, um, but as a matter of international law,

all member states of the UN are obliged by their submission to the Charter to uphold

and act in accordance with its dictates.

So that's the whole point of its existence, the so called

rules based international order, which they'll of course ignore.

So, um, so this was, uh, to do with, um, uh, the legality of Israel's 57

year occupation of Palestine, and basically, according to international

law, an occupation Would be permitted, so long as it satisfies two conditions.

It must be strictly military, and it must be temporary.

And, it's obviously not strictly military, because as soon as they

took control of the territory, They transferred Jewish civilians in as

settlers and it's not, um, temporary for the same reason because they've set

these people up as permanent residents.

So it's, uh, impossible to say that it's permitted under international law.

And, um, what else did it say here?

Um,

Yeah, so that was interesting development, Joe, that sort of The

UN at least, through the court, saying the occupation's illegal.

Full

stop.

Yeah, I thought they'd also pronounce that, um, the companies supplying

arms were equally legally liable.

Yeah, I did see something about that, but I don't have the details about

it as to what that meant for member states of the UN in terms of making sure they

didn't facilitate an illegal occupation.

But it sort of goes without saying, doesn't it?

If the court has said this occupation is illegal, then you shouldn't be

providing arms and weapons and resources that enable that illegal occupation.

Yeah,

if you had any respect for the rules based order that these people

claim to have concern for all the time.

Anyway, um, uh, Netanyahu in, back to Netanyahu in Congress, he said as

part of his speech, um, actually I should be able to play this one, um,

let me find this one, um, here we

go.

I asked the commander there, how many terrorists did you take out in Gafah?

He gave me an exact number, 1, 203.

I asked him, how many civilians were killed?

He said, Prime Minister,

practically none.

With the exception of a single incident, where shrapnel from a

bomb hit a Hamas weapons depot and unintentionally killed two dozen people.

The answer is, practically none.

You want to know why?

Because Israel got the civilians out of harm's way, something people said

we could never do, but we did it.

Joe, when you're listening to this, is it skipping the first couple

of seconds when you're listening to it?

Or is it just my, with these videos, is it playing?

I wasn't knowing what to expect, so.

Okay.

Um, like we've witnessed the, the, the bombings of these buildings And for

the Israeli army to be saying, Oh, we killed 1, 203 people in this particular

area and only two dozen civilians.

The others were combatants.

Joe, it strikes me as impossible to say

what percentage

of people would be combatants.

If you put a

gun in their hands, in the dead body's hands, And they were

enemy combatants, weren't they?

As they're digging through the rubble.

I can't do a joke.

That was one of the

petitions against the SAS over here, wasn't it?

Yeah.

For their Afghanistan war crimes.

Yeah, that's right.

Because it was the same photograph of the same AK 47, because it

had a distinctive marking on

it.

Right.

Just the thought that with the sort of damage that's been going on in

Gaza, that you could say, Oh, yes.

1, 203 people, all combatants killed here, only 24 non combatants killed.

Completely ludicrous to be giving these sorts of figures.

And for Netanyahu to, to spout these figures in Congress and

people just to go, Well, that must be right because he said it.

And then give him a round of applause for his efforts in

minimizing civilian casualties.

Do you ever, you probably never watched um, Who's that Tom?

Movie series, Mockingbird, um, this girl with shooting arrows

in a sort of a dystopian future.

Oh

yeah, um, I know what you mean.

Jennifer Lawrence.

Yeah, these people are kind of like the caricature evil politician

baddies from that TV show, it seems to me.

They're completely crazy and they're applauding this sort of saying.

What can we say about the ratio of combat to civilian casualties?

So, Netanyahu said it was one of the lowest ratios in

the history of urban warfare.

As if anybody could tell exactly what the ratio was.

But, in November, then Israeli military spokesperson Jonathan Conricus told

CNN that Israel believes that it has killed Two Palestinian civilians

for every Hamas militant, saying the ratio is tremendously positive.

So that was an Israeli military spokesperson saying two civilians

for every militant was a good ratio.

Um.

Well, that is very positive.

Positive.

Positive for them.

Yeah.

So, um, 58 standing ovations.

Um.

One of the biggest rounds of applause, Joe.

Was Netanyahu spent minutes ranting and raving about protests in America against

his government's atrocities in Gaza.

And that was one of the longest standing ovations.

That one went for nearly a minute where he ranted about the protesters in America.

And as he concluded, I'm sure the

Lithuglians, uh, hate the protesters.

I'm sure they do.

Nearly a minute, they stood and applauded.

Yeah, good on you.

Thanks for criticising our American protesters.

Ah, accused the International Criminal Court of anti Semitism and blood libel.

Um,

what else did he say?

Basically went out of his way to frame Israel's plight as civilised

people against uncivilised barbarians.

He said they've got to retain security control over Gaza

for the foreseeable future.

Joe, that means they're never leaving.

They're just taking over Gaza, full stop, and they're never going.

Ah.

All right.

Trump will build the Trump Towers in the waterfront.

Yes.

Ah, what was this guy here?

Just trying to get his name.

John Whitbeck.

This is one of the articles I've got, talking about Congress.

By their venality, cowardice, moral bankruptcy, and mere treason, the American

political class is flushing a once great country down history's toilet, and the

global West, if it does not soon liberate itself from domination by the Israeli

American Empire, risks a similar fate.

So, uh, There's a lot of people in the world, Joe, who are not part of

the West, who just look at what's going on and will want revenge.

And there's a lot of people, Joe, I think, who are part of

the West now going, really?

We're the good guys and we're doing all this?

Maybe it's just opening people's eyes to what's really going on.

Yeah.

What has the Australian Government done, Joe?

Here's something that will strike fear into the hearts of the Israeli government.

Foreign Minister Wong announced sanctions against seven West Bank settlers.

They're not allowed to come to Australia and if they do we're

going to do nasty things with them.

Seven settlers in the West Bank have been named and sanctioned by Australia.

Oh no.

Guess what?

It coincidentally follows the sanctioning of these seven settlers a

few days earlier by the United States.

God, we're pathetic, Joe.

Yeah, we are pathetic.

Wong is pathetic.

Albanese is pathetic.

Seven settlers in the West Bank,

selected by the US for sanctions, and we've just gone, Yep, if

it's good enough for America.

We'll sanction them as well.

Obviously.

Yeah.

It's just so pathetic.

Who are these settlers?

No one really knows or cares.

They're probably seven of the more egregious of the people who

attack, um, uh, Palestinians.

So that's what, uh, is happening there.

Meanwhile, what else is happening in Australia is The Albanese

government announced Gillian Seagal AO, a special envoy to

combat anti Semitism in Australia.

Um, I think we spoke about this a few weeks ago when it was appointed, Joe.

Part of the ongoing efforts to preserve social cohesion in Australia.

Hmm.

Uh, Albanese has been big on the, oh we can't do this or we can't do that because

we've got to maintain social cohesion.

Hmm.

People shouldn't protest, shouldn't have, uh, religious based political

parties because of social cohesion.

Anyway, um, now this envoy, she was president of the ECAJ, which is, Joe,

something Council of Australian Jewelry?

Executive

Council.

Thank you.

Um, so she was president, and she was therefore responsible for a statement

which asserted that bombing hospitals is perfectly acceptable if combatants

are suspected of being inside.

And there's a statement there, and um, and she's employed to combat racist hatred.

Yes.

Yes.

So that's what we've done.

Sanctioned seven of the worst Israeli

militant types bashing up people in the West Bank and we've hired somebody

who says it's okay to bomb hospitals.

As a special envoy to combat anti semitism.

Yeah.

Joe,

this is the sort of stuff, if Morrison was in charge still, I would be jumping

up and down and going, that fucking Morrison and the Liberal National

Party, they're complete arseholes.

And I would be thinking to myself, had Labor been in, we would not be.

Listening to this sort of shit.

These token measures, this just bullshit.

But no!

Labor government is dishing this up.

Labor government though, that is in bed with big business.

Yeah.

A Labor government that really doesn't reflect

the working people anymore.

A Prime Minister who used to be, you know, one of the friends of Palestine.

It's time.

These are all your days.

Completely abandoning them.

Politically expedient.

It's

all very extraordinary.

Watch out in France, Joe.

I saw an article by Yanis Varoufakis basically saying that austerity

is going to be imposed on France.

So we've had four years of pandemic induced fiscal laxity.

Meaning, nobody cared about the rules of having deficits and whatnot, but

that's all changing in the Euro now.

And he's convinced that the European Commission will impose

painful austerity on France.

And the reason he's so certain is because Germany is already

doing the same thing to itself.

And there's no way that Germany's going to suffer this and not make France do it.

Um, so, um, let me just see here.

Pushed by Germany's constitutional court's strict adherence to the so called debt

break, which caps annual deficits at 0.

35 percent of GDP, uh, the German Chancellor and Finance Ministers have

set Germany on a harsh austerity course.

That will most likely end their political careers, and they're doing it when

Germany has a modest deficit of 2.

5 percent of GDP.

Meanwhile in France, theirs is 5.

5%.

So the European Commission is going to go down heavy on France.

They will start to, um, make noises, the interest rate that France has

to pay is going to increase and, um, it's going to get ugly in France,

Joe, as, as this is all put on them.

There

are a lot of French people talking about Frexit,

and, you know, this is the thing about having your own sovereign

currency, is that you can control it the way you want to.

And that you're not imposed to, because as soon as you

join a joint European currency.

You're no longer in charge of your own destiny.

You have to, uh, I, I thought it was a mistake when the UK didn't join

the euro because it would have made trade a lot easier, but it would

all, I mean, there were constraints.

There were guardrails as to how much the pound could vary from the euro.

Um, but at least allowed the UK government a degree of control in

terms of controlling their own.

Um, financial independence.

They had the best of both worlds.

They had membership.

And they had sovereign currency.

Yeah.

Um, but when you, you know, I remember in the episode way,

way back, which I did with Stephen Hale on modern monetary theory.

And we talked briefly about Europe, and it's just insane for a country

to not have its own currency.

So you either go the whole hog, and have a Become a federal

Europe.

Yes, where basically you've got a treasury that runs

the show for all countries.

There's no way that's gonna happen, they're not up for that yet.

I wouldn't have thought.

But um, or you have to split it up, because just this common

currency, just doesn't work.

Doesn't work.

So, Brexit.

Yeah.

You heard it here first.

I think it's on the cards.

Uh, I know it's been, uh, there were a lot of people in France who

were eyeing up what the UK did.

Mm.

Uh, and I have to say it's, it's been, um, a bad thing for the UK.

Mm.

Their economy has really tanked because of Brexit.

Uh, and I have no idea when that's going to come back, but.

It could make a lot more sense for countries within the current common

currency to, to pull out than it did for.

Which was already out of the common currency, so.

I

presume if, if France was to pull out, then maybe the, the

two left countries would, um, come to some sort of pact between

themselves, an Anglo French agreement.

Hmm.

Good heavens.

I know.

Yeah.

Are there any leaders there capable of the diplomacy required

to pull this sort of stuff off?

I don't know.

Who knows.

In the UK?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know about Keith.

Mm.

Yeah, I mean, at least it's not the right wing nut jobs that

have been in power for 14 years.

Yeah.

So you've got France with a trade balance, which is 8 billion euros in the red.

Germany's got a surplus of 25 billion.

You've got these, you know, Completely different trading groups, um, France has

some highly advanced industries, but it's economy is divided between cities and

rural areas, where in the latter there's a high labour, low capital intensity, um.

Yeah, I mean, that, honestly, the, the countryside in France is Retirees

and a few farmers, and that's it.

Mm.

It really is deserted.

Mm.

That's why you can buy a French Chateau for 1.

4 million Australian dollars, Joe.

As much as that?

Well, it was a nice Chateau.

Oh, right, okay.

It used to be you could buy old, um, yeah, they needed quite a lot of TLC,

but you could buy yourself a Chateau for, you know, 20, 000, 30, 000.

Right, yeah.

Mm.

Because, yeah, people just couldn't afford to keep them.

Yeah, yeah.

Again, just as part of the Olympics coverage I was watching,

they did quite a good segment comparing these two properties.

One was this French Chateau, two hours south of Paris, with a swimming pool

and, you know, 11 bedrooms and whatnot.

And then compared to an absolute shitbox in Sydney, it's the same price.

Yeah.

If you're going to regional France, yeah, absolutely.

You can buy yourself a nice place for very little money.

Yeah.

Joe, strikes are back in Australia.

Journalists employed by Nine Entertainment's publishing division I saw

that.

voted overwhelmingly to strike over pay.

For five days, hampering the company's coverage of the Paris Olympic Games.

I don't know, what are we going to do?

It's been a long time since we've had visible big strike action, Joan.

Mm hmm.

And, um, that's a sign of things to come, I suspect.

Well, we can only hope.

That's tight.

The union started to get militant and get a bigger division of, um, the profits

back to the, back to the workforce.

I'll talk more about CFMEU in a moment.

Um, Canada

with the world's, with the longest coastline in the world, I think

Joe, because, um, it's so wiggly.

And also, uh, the huge area of Antarctica, the Arctic Circle, sorry.

So, you know, if ever a country could justify spending a bit on

submarines, you know, that might be one.

Oh, and also there's so much ice that you can go onto the ice.

You can explore.

Yeah,

true.

Um, they're not buying nuclear subs.

They're considering cooperating with Germany and Norway as partners in a

submarine program and will purchase 12 conventionally powered, conventionally

powered, under ice capable submarines for a total of about 60 billion.

That's interesting because I didn't know that

conventionals could go under ice.

I knew that the Nucleus did.

This is according to John Hewson, former opposition leader, writing

in, I think it was the Sunday paper.

Yeah, so 12 subs for 60 billion.

Meanwhile, for eight subs, we're prepared to pay 368 billion.

No, no, no, no.

For maybe eight subs.

That's right.

And maybe 360.

Oh,

God.

The Australian newspaper celebrated 60 years, Joe.

Yippee.

Shindig.

And guess who was at the main table with Lachlan Murdoch?

Anthony Albanese.

What

the hell was he doing there?

Is there any other newspaper responsible for more harm to the Australian community

than that newspaper in the last 20 years?

Because they're masochists.

The paper is not a friend of Australia, it's not a friend of Labor.

No.

Should

have told him to F off, he wasn't going anywhere near their celebration

of that monstrous rag, and he rocks up.

I have been watching old episodes of Four Corners, including a 1979

interview with Jermaine Greer, who was complaining about the Australian

press and how Murdoch had completely fucked over the Australian press.

And how the British were following suit.

Wow.

Yeah.

What, you're just making your way through 1979 YouTube videos?

Oh, there's

only like two episodes from years here and there.

Right.

So, uh, I've actually gone back to look at the Moonlight State,

which I watch from time to time.

Yep.

And if anyone hasn't seen it, you really should,

it's

on the ABC website under there, um, historical things.

And it's all about the corruption in Queensland.

Um, there's some really interesting, there was one about, um, equal pay for

the Aboriginals up on some Northern Territory station in 66, I think.

It's.

An incredible snapshot into Australia's past.

Mm.

Mm.

So, well worth a dive into the archives and have a look through those.

Yeah.

You know, my brother in law was telling me he used to work on tobacco

plantations in Atherton, Tablelands.

And there would be like a camp of, um, uh, Indigenous people down by the riverbank

or creek or whatever on this property.

Mm.

And occasionally they would do some work, and they occasionally would

be given some food or whatever.

But when the laws changed where they had to be paid a certain amount, then the

owners of the property said, We can't have that arrangement anymore, I can't,

I've got to pay you a proper hourly rate.

then I need a proper hourly job.

And an arrangement that had actually worked quite well between them,

that all depends on your viewpoint I guess, but no doubt it was

an unforeseen by product of a change in the law.

And um, and that was the end of the arrangement.

And um, because of a law which was Yeah, we were discussing about

that.

How they were going to have to pay him 20 a week and they're currently

paying them for good blokes 10 a week.

But they were saying that the station looks after the families.

So they had to pay for all the wives and the children.

Yes.

And saying that basically if, yeah, sure he's going to earn a lot

more money, but he's, he's then going to be responsible for, uh, clothing

and feeding his family himself.

Right.

And saying that he wasn't sure that for them it was worth it.

Yes.

There was also a lot of attitude about, you know, they don't have

the nows to understand the money.

Yes,

yep.

And, um, also talking about how the money that they earned was actually kept in

trust and they had to get the permission of the government to spend any of that.

Yep, yep.

So.

Tricky situations with unintended consequences for sure.

Yeah.

Um.

Came across an article, Saturday paper, about the CFMEU, basically,

um, this writer says, For a few weeks now I've been speaking with union

officials and members, both current and former, about CETCA and the CFMEU.

It's hard to overstate the intensity of their conflicted emotions in the

days following Nine's reporting.

There is gratitude and fear, relief and anger at the degradation of their union.

There's also fluctuating optimism about the possibility of reform.

Many officials kept posing the rhetorical question, how did the union's rorting,

standover tactics and intimacy with gangsters flourish for so long?

And the answer is that the CFMEU was formerly affiliated with the Labor

Party, helped shape its left faction.

Influence Policy, donated millions of dollars to the party.

It was the largest donor to Daniel Andrews re election campaign.

And, um, you're not gonna take your biggest sponsor, uh, take your biggest

sponsor with a big stick, are you?

So, that would all be true.

It wasn't all good for the CFMEU.

No.

Um, The fine people at the Financial Review have been looking at the bagging

of the CFMEU and they've said, well, you know what, the CFMEU are closely

associated with CBUS, the Construction Sector Superfund, and the, um,

the, uh, AF, the Financial Review is basically, um, Suggesting that

members might want to take their money and put it elsewhere, Joe, because

Why?

Because the Financial Review hates the idea of industry

super funds, because they have the annoying habit of outperforming Hmm.

Private funds.

Yes.

They can't stand it.

Whilst not taking as high administration fee.

Yes.

This is the whole point of this David Murray suggesting that

members might want to roll over their money and put it elsewhere because

the CFMEU is involved with CBUS.

Meanwhile, Superfund researcher Chet West gave CBUS its

highest tier rating this year.

Superguide ranks CBUSS's default position as the 5th best performer

in the industry over 10 years.

It won Chant West's awards for member services, blah, blah, blah,

finalist in the fund of the year, um

That's only because, if they don't, the thugs turn up and deal with them.

No, it won, these are performance based, um, things, um No, no, no, no.

They perform well because if they don't, the union thugs

turn up and deal with the Cbus.

You know, Joe, it's just basic, it's just basic expenses.

These industry super funds

Yeah.

have reasonable expenses.

They're not paying over the top and

Yeah, they don't have to pay shareholders.

Yeah.

Or rather the shareholders are the, um, the, the Investors.

Yeah.

The retirees.

As the Australian Financial Review admitted last week, the top

10 performing growth funds over the decade were all industry super funds.

Shocked, totally.

Yeah.

Joe, we're going to get through a fair bit of this because, um, I

just want to mention Murdoch Family.

There's a Murdoch Family Trust and it owns shares in Foxcorp and Newscorp

and there are seven beneficiaries.

Rupert, and his six children through three of his five wives.

Voting is weighted.

So Rupert gets four votes and the four oldest children get one vote

each and the two young ones, the most recent ones, don't get any votes.

So Rupert with Lachlan is five votes and the three other children are three.

So Rupert's in thick with Lachlan.

Lachlan is a crazy right wing Christian nutbag and is all in on the way that

News Corp operates to subvert democracy.

And Rupert is now worried that when he dies, that Lachlan will

then, unfortunately, be in a battle with his other three

children and will get outvoted.

Some of

whom seem to be quite reasonable.

Yes, they do.

So he is taking the trust to a court in Nevada and trying to get

the voting changed to remove the voting rights of the other three

children and give it all to Lachlan.

And the other kids are disputing that that should happen.

And there's a shit fight in the Murdoch family over that.

That's just going on, by the way, for all his money.

Yes,

um, if they brought in a wealth tax, yes, there'd be less boils

for the vultures to pick over.

Yeah, they get about a billion each out of that trust.

It's worth about six billion, and the six kids get a billion each.

Ah, money than anybody ever needs.

Indeed.

Yeah.

Right, Joe.

Well, that's rattled through a few topics.

That'll keep people up to date with, um, um, with what's going on.

John Simmons is with Industry Fund TWU, which held ground in 08 when

everyone else was running for the hills.

Um, he says we won't get any subs.

Um, Botley says it's beyond pathetic, it's embarrassing.

I think that's referring to Australia with Our response to Gaza and Israel.

Um, yep.

Alright Joe, well, dear listener, thanks for tuning in.

We'll be back next week, maybe with Scott, hopefully with Scott.

Um, otherwise, we'll talk to you then.

Bye for now.