This week’s podcast is above.
I knew we’d have a great podcast this week when Julius Ruechel emerged on social media again after disappearing into rural BC for two years to write a new book. He was always one of my favourite guests and his essays on Covid policy helped me clarify my own thoughts. In a far ranging discussion, we picked over a centralized flaw manifest in all our institutions — tunnel vision that prevents the managerial and academic class from seeing the folly of their own solutions — often to problems they helped create.
I was bedevilled and driven nearly mad with anguish and frustration watching the Covid bureaucrats advocate for and then demand public health measure that would do more harm than good. Worse, there was never any discussion of risk/harm/benefit. No questions of this type were ever asked by legacy media. This malpractice is what ended any lingering respect I had for my former colleagues.
Julius and I explored how and why this phenomenon has spread through a multitude of disciplines including social sciences which argue mass immigration is the only answer to demographic shifting in Western countries. No serious study is done of the destruction of social cohesion — the kind that fomented the recent riots in the UK. Here is the seminal United Nations report on replacement migration which lays out their case in language so dehumanizing, it might as well be discussing cattle fertility. Julius sells his books on Amazon and his website which is here.
Then, just as I was sitting down to record the monologue and extro, I learned that Bobby Kennedy Jr. was about to announce the suspension of his campaign in order to support Donald Trump. Wow! We stopped what we were doing to watch the speech and by the time I was back in front of the mic, I was weepy. The emotion, honesty and personal sacrifice evident for that hour felt historically important and worth sitting with, as Buddhists would say.
I have included the entire speech at the end of the show for posterity and to encourage a leisurely listen.
I don’t agree with Bobby on Gaza but I suspect he will not be holding that position much longer. And Trump needs to stop listening to his son-in-law as a foreign policy advisor. At his rally, Trump said that Hamas has likely killed all the hostages — a claim that might be true but makes no sense, given that they are a powerful bargaining chip and many have reported being well treated. Others have not. But the only evidence of obvious hostage killing refers to the IDF — which killed three who had escaped and were waving obvious white flags.
Sloppy thinking on foreign policy is dangerous and Trump needs to enlarge his circle of advisors, perhaps to include Jeffrey Sachs who understands the need for truth and diplomacy. I hope Trump does this.
In the meantime I am working on a piece about Bobby that is very personal — one that will expose both his complexities but also his deep kindness and honour. Yes, I know he has been an absolute shit to many, many women. And I will write about that. But I saw close up his loyalty to a cousin who was in the crosshairs of an unfair murder prosecution. Bobby was unfailing and committed to the truth prevailing in a case that didn’t make him any friends. That is me below on the back deck of a holiday property owned by a Kennedy/Skakel relative, where I had a secret meeting I have never publicly spoken about.
It was a night I will never forget.
I am oddly hopeful about the Kennedy/Trump partnership and it’s clear we inhabit a new world of strange political bedfellows. Not a bad thing. Do you think their slogan will be #truthovertribe?
See ya.
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