Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 103- Popular Front Ft. Jake Hanrahan

Episode Date: May 11, 2020

Creator of Popular Front Jake Hanrahan joins Joe to talk about how he got his start in Conflict Journalism, why westerners need to stop projecting their beliefs onto the revolutions of other people, and why frozen and lesser known conflicts demand your attention. https://www.popularfront.co Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys

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Legion of the Old Crow today. And now back to the show. Hello, and welcome to yet another episode of Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. I'm Joe and with me today is Jake Hanrahan, the host of Popular Front and the producer and creator of so many different conflict pieces. Jake, welcome to the show. Thanks very much, mate. Thanks for having me. I listen to this all the time. Thanks. So this all happened because we're all bored on lockdown and you're like, someone bring me on their podcast and let me show Popular Front. I'm like, can do that so i'm glad to have you on to show popular front it's an awesome show um thanks and i think one of the things that really attracted me to your work is like it's an anti-corporatist uh media uh project and at the talking about things that are super

interesting to me and you know when i got out the Army, I wanted to get into writing, and I wanted to do conflict journalism, and I blamed Sebastian Junger for that. But it didn't seem like there's any normal dudes doing conflict work. It was like some dude in a suit and tying a badly fitting ballistic vest. And there was no way to get into their club. But you kind of did did that and it was it blew my mind and i think that's one of the things that attract me is like uh you you did

early work with vice when vice was good uh yeah when it was really fun yeah it was fucking great uh they did like uh they were going places that nobody was going talking about stuff nobody else was talking about and then they ended up becoming the, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain career arc. So how did you get into conflict journalism? That's a good question, man. Like, I don't even really know how it happened in a way. Like, well, I guess I started, I was always interested in war and conflict. And I started writing about various different conflicts but obviously like from from from my house in the UK

just finding like little pieces like interviewing people on Skype and I would do these kind of underreported kind of stories like for example I wrote this story when i was like oh fuck man like 21 um and i wrote this story about these skateboarders that taken over an abandoned um mansion in tunisia during the revolution and basically turned these this like ill-gotten gains of this politician's house into a skate park you know what i mean and that was cool like and i was like okay i like stories a little bit different like that but still covering the war and basically i was writing and i was i was working at the time i remember like doing all these shit jobs because i got no qualifications or anything i didn't do college or any of that left school with nothing because i'm a fucking idiot so i was

working at like a boxing gym and i was doing laboring i was doing like call center jobs like all those really like tiring just dead jobs you know i mean which i was like i can't do this for me man like if you can fair enough but for me i couldn't do it like i was so lazy with laboring man like i just like carry these bricks up there like oh fuck this i hated it so i always wanted to do something you know i mean and i basically was writing for Vice like writing articles and when Vice News happened I saw the trailer and I was like I've got to be a part of that do you know what I mean so I was like hassling because I had a few contacts there because I'd write articles so I started hassling the who the guy that became you know the editor and I remember one guy's I'm not allowed to give his email out because everybody's hassling I was like fuck that

give an email give an email and I think Henry Langston gave it to me, you know, he's a great journalist and he gave it to me and I was just hassling. And then eventually the editor, he's like, look, come in, give me some ideas and like, fuck off. Like, I'll just hear you out. And I went in and like, like long story short, like within a week, I remember he called me up and was like, you're going to work for us then. And I was on the fucking building site, man.

And I was like, I'm out of here. I was like, yep, see you later. Gone, gone. Left that very second as soon as i put the phone down and like within like on the monday i went down to vice in london and i'm not from london man so it was like this big new fucking world like i'm from some shithole in the midlands where it's just dead so it's really cool to get to get there and then and then like they were like they were like do you want to make doc because i was only coming on to do like a you know a probationary kind of research job there for vice news but they liked me so they're like fuck it fuck it you want to do docs so i did a screen test and yeah and yeah man

i fell into it like that eventually i was like all the stories i'm interested in are war and conflict and vice news was the place that gave me the chance you know i was 24 when i started there and within fuck man I started in January by October I think I was on like the first front line I'd ever been to so it was crazy for me you know I mean so I got there and yeah and that was that and I found that I really enjoyed the war reporting I found it really it feels really important to me you know I mean I felt like this is you know when you're you know you're young man and you find your place where you're like yeah this is what I'm meant to be doing or whatever which sounds kind of romantic but that's how i

felt so that's how i got into it really man and then just carried on that's that's great i mean i read uh entirely too many history books these days for the show and there's one thing that i and i use a lot of journalists uh work as well and there's one thing that history books are really are great to understand a conflict but you never really understand certain things unless you read journalists who are there. I think like one of the best things I've ever read about Afghanistan is like Sebastian Junger's book War, because nobody else really attempts to like understand soldiers for the most part. Yes. Yeah. I mean, understanding politics is and geopolitical machinations end up in in conflict is great and all but like i

also i kind of don't always care about them uh because once you maybe it's because i'm fucking biased i was there and it's like you know that's not super important once we have people there um and then you kind of want to know uh because the people that are going to be writing about that shit probably aren't understanding the reality on the ground and the motivations of the players that are actually trying to kill one another. And I think that's something that I think that's something like modern conflict journalists that you see and like that pop up in CNN or whatever, really just don't fucking get it. I can't remember. Like we talked about before we started recording. They spend so much time on Iraq, Afghanistan, maybe if you're lucky, Yemen. Occasionally, they'll glance at Sudan or South Sudan, but they don't pay attention to cold conflicts or frozen conflicts that are absolutely ready to pop off at any given time or still are kinetic.

that are absolutely ready to pop off at any given time or still kind of are kinetic, but everybody's like, eh, but it's not the cool thing to talk about. So like in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia, everybody's like, oh my God, how did that happen? Right, and it was like, really? That's why I wanted to do, I wanted to do a series for Popular Front,

like a documentary series, because we do documentaries as well. And before this nightmare i was in talks with um a tv channel here in the uk about maybe doing it and it would have been called zero line and then like the tag would have been um the wars you won't see in the news so that was my idea like go out to all these underreported conflicts go there on the ground speak to the people and be like hey everybody did you realize there's there's a conflict going on here in this country that you didn't even think was a war and this is why it could affect you in europe if you know x y and z like we were talking about nagorno-karabakh or artsak like for example if that place kicks off it brings everybody into

the region you've got turkey is you know with azerbaijan then you've got russia has bases in armenia but also sells weapons to azerbaijan and then you've got like the uk and the europe and france and everybody is involved some way like there's a big demining effort from those countries so in some way like if that kicked off a lot of countries are going to start being pulled into various aspects of the war you know what i mean and it's the same with place like libya if you look at libya there's so many different countries have their hands in that pie the war, you know what I mean? And it's the same with a place like Libya. If you look at Libya, there's so many different countries have their hands in that pie now and just, you know, messing up everything.

Actually, these under-reported conflicts are very serious and you should know about them because, you know, it's like a web, isn't it? Like what people are connected to. So I think those, you know, those stories are very worth telling. And it's also, from a journalist point of view, it's a lot more fun to cover it, honestly. I enjoy it because you go there, there isn't a thousand journalists there.

You know that the guy you talk to or the woman you talk to is not going to be on every news channel next week as the same character. I remember covering the Israel-Palestine situation in, I think, 2018, maybe 2017, and it was all kicking off in Al-Aqsa but there were points where you couldn't move because there's so many reporters there do you know what I mean? Which is fine, but I like

doing it, you know, something that's a little bit under-reported and the problem I always came up against until I started Popular Front was pitching this stuff to TV channels and whatever pitching these stories was you know very out of touch like you know a 50 year old white guy um you know commissioning editors at these legacy media companies outright just go nobody wants to know about that nobody wants to see that and they they all just say this and none of them have

a fucking clue it's just not true it's literally not true do you know what i mean look how successful vice news was at the start it was incredible and it's like what do you mean who wants to see it so that's why i was like you know what fuck all this i've started my own thing started popular front and now ironically the channels are coming to me now i'm being i'm being like hey we should do a series it's like motherfucker i remember pitching you this series five years ago and now you want to do it. That's the way of business, I guess. Yeah.

It's, uh, it's weird that that's, that's kind of happening because you're talking about all these things that are very, they're, they're still in the news if you look, but like nobody seems to get like you posted something the other day of like a

kneecapping in Northern Ireland. And, uh, people are like, Oh wow. I can't believe it's still happening. I'm like, you can't, where the fuck have you been? you posted something the other day of like a kneecapping in northern ireland and uh people are like oh wow i can't believe it's still happening like you can't where the fuck have you been like uh right it's like every year it gets worse you know we ran into that we did um a series on the the irish ride the easter rising and the day it was supposed to come out uh the the was it the continuous the continual ira they're calling themselves now or the real IRA?

I'm not sure. There's the continuity IRA, the real IRA, the new IRA. So there's that. Whichever of them they ended up connecting it to ended up killing the journalist in the shooting. And I was like, well, fuck. And they were using The Rising as their motivation. Like, motivation like well fuck i can't put this episode out now uh you know i ended up doing it anyway yeah yeah uh and i ended up doing it anyway because just because i could obviously i i am not a pro shooting journalist in the street or kneecapping

people on street corners uh people who are probably not right in the head i think it's uh fair to say but um it's yeah and the thing about them that was uh that was the so-called new ira right and that's like a mix of like ogle in a hair in this other like paramilitary group uh splinters of the real ira you know um and some other militant groups they kind of formed this new group now they just call themselves the ira but you know the police are calling them the new ira to distinguish them and i actually made a doc for popular front you know about the bonfire and the republican bonfire and we spoke to some of the like political wing of this group this is siru they're called now they claim not to be the political wing but they are everybody knows um and you know these these are like people that they they think

that you know they still want brutal destruction and death and killing because of you know they want to get the brits out of ireland and sure northern ireland is still in my opinion you know my family are irish it's occupied by british forces but at the same time we absolutely do not need we do not need a violence to get rid of them nobody wants that there people in dairy you know when when liria mckee god rest her soul when she was killed people were fucking furious you know no one was going well we need the boys to fight because kids are not being shot in the street anymore the only people getting shot now is like low level drug dealers getting shot by other drug dealers who pretend to be Republicans or horrible instances where, you know, Lira gets shot in the

head, which she was an incredible journalist, by the way. It's absolutely heartbreaking, but it's a real horrible situation. And then Americans, like, no offense, but because, you know, it's not your guy's fault, but there's a big, like, there's a big black hole in terms of reporting on Northern Ireland, even in Britain. In Britain, like, in Britain, nobody knows about it. I just happen to because of, you know, my work. But, like, you know, a lot of Irish people were saying to me, oh, wow, the IRA are back. And I was like, mate, no, this is not the provisional IRA. This is not that, you know what I mean?

And the people that live in their areas do not want violence they're doing it against the will of the people whereas before you know you could argue one way or the other but certainly if you look at bloody sunday people needed protecting after that you know what i mean so it's not that anymore it's really not that the only way to do it is political democratic change and obviously the unionists you can't just kick them out you know they need to feel comfortable and know that nothing's going to happen to them and blah blah so yeah it's a real it's a real crazy situation man yeah i'm not going to pretend that i completely understand

the incredibly the complicated politics of northern ireland uh but america does a fucking terrible job reporting on northern ireland uh to an incredible extent. I heard about that, the shooting of Lear and McKee, because I listen and read BBC, and so they actually reported it. And for all of BBC's many faults, their conflict reporting is still pretty good. And American outlets didn't touch it, except like, oh, a journalist was killed in Northern Ireland.

You're leaving a lot out. Yeah, yeah. A hell of a lot. Yeah, exactly. And the kneecappings is really brutal. Like there is a really good documentary. It's called A Mother Takes Her Son to be Shot. I think that's how it is.

It's something like that. And basically it's like, you know, my friend and a lad that I work with a lot with Popular with popular front Conor Kiani he lives in Belfast and he's telling me that like you know people if you fuck around with the wrong group you'll get a letter come through your door saying if you don't come to the park at 6 p.m we'll come into your house and shoot you so you better come at this time to get shot otherwise you're never going to be able to come back so the kids are like genuine I'm talking like 17 18 year olds some of them even younger at points so they're going themselves to the park and being like okay pull up my trouser boom shot in the leg and it's fucking nuts man that's insane i i wasn't aware of that um and it's happens all the time i know that seems to be like the natural progression of things of like when rebel groups kind of splinter

and fail as they just kind of turn into organized crime you know uh like you see you see it in parts of africa you saw in parts of the middle east and it's like do you think i mean do you think that the people wrapping themselves in the tapestry of ira are actual republicans or they're just drug dealers looking for like an aesthetic no they they are republicans on on a degree like definitely are republicans but they're also a lot of them are really involved in crime. And they use, you know, the, oh, we're the real IRA. And they use that, you know, and it's like, well, actually, you know, you're also dealing drugs. the IRA, the so-called IRA, they say, oh, well, we're shooting drug dealers in the legs because we don't want heroin in our community. Well, I'm not saying that's good. I'm not saying vigilantism is good, but certainly in my area, I've seen heroin destroy the community. And if a couple of drug dealers got shot in their knees around my house, I don't think I would call the

cops, put it that way. But that's not really what's happening. So they'll say, oh say oh yeah well we're killing these low-level drug dealers blah blah blah we're stopping the heroin coming in a lot of them are not that they're shooting them for punish punishing them for like dealing on their patch you know what i'm saying yeah or they're punishing them because they didn't pay tax or they didn't request to sell the drugs there it's funny how like the big level drug dealers who everybody knows who they are they never never get killed. It's always like 17, 18 year old lads get knocked. You know what I mean? It's always them getting their knees shot out. So, you know, it's really I don't I don't personally take the word of it.

There was one group. It was called RAD, Republican Action Against Drugs. And I don't know, but from a few people I know around Belfast, like in those circles, I heard that when they were active, they were genuine. They were like, we are shooting any drug dealer and we are not dealing drugs. But other than that, I've heard that, you know, a hell of a lot of them do deal drugs and I certainly do believe it. You know what I mean? It's sad really, but. Yeah. It seems like a protection racket with extra steps. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And with the guise of republicanism and just to feel good,

we're doing it for the community. Well, if you look at the heroin rates and the amount of people that die from heroin in Belfast and Derry and them places still don't look like they're doing anything, actually. Do you know what I mean? Right. And, you know, I grew up in Detroit, Michigan. So, like, I kind of understand where, where like you live somewhere where a police aren't going to help you uh and you know some people legitimately legitimately think vigilantism is the way to go and i probably wouldn't have called the cops either if somebody kneecapped their local asshole but like it's not gonna accomplish anything well it gets out of hand as well because you know i mean before you know it lads are like oh yeah he's selling heroin to like teenage kids okay well you know he's got shot whatever but then the next thing you know

people start taking things off of other people and being like well he shouldn't have this you know i mean it very quickly quickly becomes a way for people to actually control the community rather than protect the community yeah i mean that you're it's terrorism i mean by definition you're keeping everybody in line through just right the barrel of a gun it's like you know if i wanted to do that i you know it's it's you could move to fucking raka a couple years ago um so you do a lot of work you've done a lot of work in syria and you've done a lot of work in the middle east in general um and right now i'm binging women's war and it's fucking magnificent and if nobody's listened to it yet it's way better

than my show go listen to it uh i bet mine too he's done a good job man yeah yeah um and there's i think you did or you guys did one of the best pieces i think on the rojavan revolution simply because you were you weren't you didn't seem to be like entranced by it which i mean you're a journalist you probably shouldn't be but like a lot of people maybe it's it's not necessarily journalists but people who like to write big think pieces or whatever are just lost in the details of like well they're doing all these things and it's so great but like you guys went there it's very realistic uh like the things that they're doing are very realistic and people who maybe agree with some of their political leanings are like i can't believe they did x y and z and they're they

seem to be like purity testing people who are trying to fight for lives it's kind of fucking absurd to me and you played a clip in the show where someone's like yeah they have no cops and they have no prison it's like they fucking absolutely do uh yeah what the fuck would they do without them yeah no it's true man but it's funny you say that because uh most people within like the very you know brush up their ass stiff kind of analyst community always you know slag me off jake's pro white pg and i've always been like openly like yes i am like you know what i mean like fuck i've donated money to us yeah i'm like you know i mean i'm not like fucking i'm not in bed with them but it's like well

well you know what i mean is i don't believe in this idea of you know like uh completely objective journalism like i've always said complete objectivity is like a copathy you cannot fucking go to war and see the hell of war and then just still be like completely objective i'm sorry it just doesn't work like that especially somebody unless you are right man i've interviewed a 13 year old girl one time who had a fucking bullet lodged in her spine and shrapnel in her skull and she couldn't leave the fucking town because the military had shut all the roads and were basically arresting anybody that came on the road to go to the hospital like you can't go through that and see that and then go well objectively i'm blah blah like you know what i mean i believe it makes for better reporting if you actually are like

hey what they're doing is actually okay it's helping now i'm not saying make propaganda but i am saying that like give credit where it's due in it do you know what i mean yeah so it's it's hard to live through that and be like uh but also uh the people with that they're shelling are bad it's like come on man they're shelling kids like just fucking say it right and what are you gonna do yeah i've always said this if if the complete objectivity thing was real then you would start going well isis has been doing this but maybe no you don't say that you don't because they're cutting off fucking kids heads. You don't say, well, maybe, you know what I mean? So anyway, that's like, yeah, it's like you don't have to hand it to fascists because they made the trains run on time.

Like, come on. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Well, maybe. No, no, no, no, no. Like no no like no i'm sorry you don't do that so i've always you know i've always i filmed with pkk and i filmed with the pkk youth and i filmed with ypg and you know whilst i'm i've had many criticisms and have said them out loud even in front of them which despite what people would tell you they have a very very you know deep

ingrained system of you can you know know, we can talk and disagree, which I think is excellent. I've been raised like that. You don't run away from a problem. You talk it out, right? And also, like, you don't take shit too seriously. You can disagree and argue with someone, and then the next minute it's fine. That's the way it should be.

So I've even openly said to them, like, no, I don't agree with this or this or this. And people in Rojava will also disagree with certain things, but'll still kind of say well we're glad they're here so i've always come at it from that point of view do you know what i mean so so we did the women's war like you know it's mainly robert's project he kind of hit me up and was like you've got good contacts out there and i want to go i've never been so i said yeah man like we'll go together so he paid for my flight and you know i helped him with the um i helped him with the with the kind of podcast uh the producing of it on the ground and just just with like historical context and some stuff like that and you know oh i you know i'd point out certain things to me he'd be like oh it's funny that she's from wherever and i said bro she's from the mountains means

meaning she's from she's from the pkk even though she's saying she ain't she is you know what i'm saying so stuff like that just just because i was familiar with it from like years of covering it but yeah he smashed it man he did and he did a great job with it and i think you know it we did some stuff that i have not seen a lot of people do in that much detail for example like we went and met the very small committees in the autonomous um you know towns so we went so we went and met the mamas like the old women that are running this democratically elected... It's a direct democracy institution of a council where

the village votes for the women that run it and then the women that run it all take an opinion and blah blah. So we saw that from the ground level and it's like a lot of people will tell you it's not real, it's all very authoritarian, it's strict Marxism. Like I said to you before, they literally dropped.

They even tell you, no, no, no, we're not communists. We're not we're not Marxists. We're it to be honest, it's like left libertarianism, you know, democratic confederalism is their idea. It's more anarchist, like an autonomous region. But it's not anarchist because, you know, there's a strict hierarchy because, you know, you know, they're at war. You need that. And there's prisons. Obviously, there's prisons because what are you know they're at war um you need that and there's prisons obviously there's there's prisons because what you're going to do with isis and if someone kills someone you you've not got the time in the war zone to not put them in jail you know what i mean i mean so i think what we did was was we kind of were honest with the good things they've done and let people

speak honestly and you know and certainly a lot of a lot of people criticize them say yeah we you know people within the pyd the ypg will say yeah we you know we say we want to do this but we're struggling with this bit so they were quite honest but then we then we also dispelled a lot of the kind of again again no offense but well no it's the same in europe actually but like i was gonna say american left leftist but it's the same in europe there's like a lot of leftist myths of what it is and isn't you know what i mean so it was very good to kind of do that and i think robert's doing a great job with it you know i mean like it's it's really cool and and yeah i don't know it was a very fun project to be a part of i think uh one of the things that

that i saw you do uh personally and i don't think i saw anybody else do i know robert commented on it uh was like because uh like like y'all i'm pretty like wary of weird personality cults i don't like idols that's weird and gross to me uh to me it's like it's like a slippery slope to authoritarianism it's like yeah but you know the great leader knows best like oh yeah no um and that is you were going through checkpoints and on their uniforms, they're wearing patches of Abdullah Aslan. And it was, it said like, I forget exactly what the motto was, but it was like very personality cult, like adjacent. Yeah, no, it was, was it Gian Sirach Nabe? No life without our leader is what it says on the patch,

which is like very, like, you know what I mean? That makes me pull on my collar a bit like, oof. Okay. Uh, I mean,

I still like, like you said, like someone, someone accused because I mean, because of my last name, I get a lot of angry Turks that talk to me. Um, and they're like,

so you support the YPG? Like, yeah, yeah, I do. Uh, but yeah, they yeah uh and you know that's i was interested in the project and like you said there's a lot of myths around it um and one of them was like well they made a deal with assad or they still have you know markets operating freely like dude they're in the middle of a fucking war like give them some breathing like how did like some someone typing from like i don't know uh some college campus that their parents are paying for like how dare these people in the desert do this yeah yeah well

it's it's why the very hardline communists you know the tankies the kind of authoritarian uh commun communists you know what one might call them red fascists which is a term like they hate but anyway like the tankies really hate the YPG because of that and they teamed up with the Americans and blah blah blah and it's really funny to me because that is really western exceptionalism to the nth degree it's basically

saying why isn't your revolution in Syria going exactly as I want it to be you know i mean it's fucking hilarious you know and i've had to catch myself you know i don't agree with this kind of hero worship of ojalan although i will say i'm rajava he's much more of a figurehead than an actual leader obviously he's in jail like muslim um kabbani now more of a you know looked at as a leader as a leader at the minute but but like again you sometimes have to catch yourself and

think well what the fuck has it got to do with me do with me oh i don't like it oh sorry western man you know what i mean like you know these people have been fucking mad good and shit you know so sometimes you do have to just be like oh well and yeah well well they they they co-op they co-op um collaborate with the americans well thank fuck they did yeah because you know i mean what was? Sorry, America, your ideology isn't the same as ours. So we're just going to die and perish in Kobani. Well, no, what they did was they liberated the fucking northeast and started giving women their rights back.

And that, I will say, out of all the faults that Rojava has, the women's aspect is very, very real. Do you know what I mean? And that is, and we, I'm talking like we went to Ain Issa, where all the women in the YPG training camp, almost all of them were like Arab women. It wasn't just Kurdish women. You know, there's always this talk of the Kurds have oppressed the Arabs and blah, blah. We interviewed, you know, I made a documentary in Raqqa with an SDF force whilst I was there with Robert.

And they were the security force doing the checkpoints around the town. Every one of them was an Arab from Raqqa and they were like yeah yeah we were happy to work with the Kurds they allowed us to do it and I'm talking like these guys were living in Raqqa under ISIS and then when the YPG came they were like yo we want out like we're not in this can we join you and we'll help and you know prove themselves to be serious so there's certainly some problems but I tell you what it is i think yeah joe like a lot of it is with the way people talk right so in the middle east someone might say something that you would think oh that's bad that's like a derogatory comment oh that effing arab guy blah

blah or that effing kurdish guy whatever but when they're together they're the best of friends now i'm not saying it's good or it's right but i'm saying the context is quite important it's a very tough area with very sick dark humor which personally i think is amazing i love it out there and sometimes i think you've got to look at the wider picture rather than the thing that one person says on a checkpoint now and then you know what i mean so i do think i understand when some people come back from there from there and like well this guy said that i'm like yeah i heard a hundred people say that but then but then i also saw them with their best friend who is also what they said they're against or whatever and they're fighting together and i don't know man i i guess what it

is is it's very nuanced right like war is a you know yourself like war is a very it's just not black and white is it and and sometimes i think we kind of push our own western ideals on it especially like in the leftist world like i've seen the again it's the marxist types that you know and don't get me wrong like they allow marxists to go and fight over there they have their own battalion yeah so it's not like they kick them out or anything their project is not a marxist one it is not a communist one it's communalism you know it's based off of a book chin chin's ideas so some people don't like that but but then i say like say like who cares it's nothing to do with you so what if you don't like it you know what i mean these people are living and dying out there out there

for free so tough luck you know tough shit i think that's just a lot of um i think it's a lot of western like you said western exceptionalism it's a lot of western projection like how dare they base their uh like like people who are have no skin in the game, you know, like, like the complaining, like this is some kind of internationalist revolution. Like, yes, they have people from, they have foreigners fighting for them and they're more than willing to like

have them over if you follow the rules and everything. It's like, but because, but because they allow you to come over from like fucking Oklahoma or whatever, like don't try to like co-opt the revolution, man. They know what they're doing at this point. Absolutely.

Which is why I got in a bit of hot water. I mean, I don't care. But people were having a go at me. You know when they did tequila? So it was like trans, queer, something, something, anarchist, battalion, whatever. And it was only like five of them. And they did this this trans queer um like unit but when they were fighting around some of the most conservative areas near derizor and raka and i just said like look this isn't a real unit we all know it's not anyone that is

involved with you know the havals as they call them knows that this is just a few people from the uh international freedom battalion like messing about but I was just kind of being like, look, this isn't helpful right now because the YPG are trying to build, you know, they're trying to build bridges with very, very conservative tribal groups, right? Now, it's unfortunate that they want a very conservative and don't like gay people, don't like trans people. Like, you know, that's to me is against what I believe in. That's not right. You accept everybody. That's fine. Trans, gay, whatever.'t like trans people. Like, you know, that to me is against what I believe in. That's not right.

You accept everybody. That's fine. Trans, gay, whatever. Who cares? What's it to you? But unfortunately, in Syria, obviously, there are people that are not like that. So I was saying, look, it's not a good idea to have done that. You could actually put people at risk because some of these tribal guys

that are trying to win over might see that and go, wow, fuck this. Do you know what I mean? And it just wasn't helpful. And my point was you're then, like you said, you're kind of co-opting then a bit you are actually projecting a lot a lot of your own what you want to happen out into that now there's nothing wrong like they should obviously be able to say this is us we're gay we're trans whatever absolutely should be able to do it but there's a time and a place with everything and that doesn't just mean by radical politics that just means everything right at war there's a time and a place with everything and that doesn't just mean by radical politics that just means everything right at war there's a time and a place and sometimes you have to fucking shut up do you know what i mean so i don't know there's a lot of that out

there like i'm friends with quite a lot of volunteers like that went out there and i'm not one of these journalists that hates them all a lot of people for no real reason just hate them if they were you know if they're a volunteer um you know my friend jack holmes he died out there it was really sad and and some other people and it's like a lot of them did a lot of good shit you know and they went there and who's just who's to stop them or why did some westerner fucking go there why not fuck off like do you know what i mean what's it to you like there's a lot of especially analysts analysts are always crying about stuff like that but again you're right in that there was a lot of like unspoken kerfuffle with groups trying to co-opt shit, man.

I mean, there are tankies out there. There's some German tankies I know that are still staying in Rojava that a lot of volunteers I'm friends with, a lot of anarchist ones, will just tell me, like, these guys are the biggest fricking pricks ever. They're putting Stalin up on the walls. And even YPG are like, hey, can you not? Do you know what I mean? We're not about that.

And they're just kind of being like, no, we will. And that's like, you can't go to someone else's country and do that. It's fucking ridiculous. Yeah. There's a Rojava subreddit that I follow because I was trying to get as much information on them as I could. And a lot of people there are former volunteers and stuff. and stuff and uh they they they point out pretty pretty openly like yeah i mean rojava itself like the the machinations of power and the committees everything are totally supportive of of trans people and gay people and everything else but you have to understand the the area that they're

they're literally living in probably does not exactly and like everyone everyone around them hates them yeah and that's something that it's kind of unique that westerners can like I don't know trick themselves into believing that yeah it's an operative autonomous region but like look at where they're living

in man one of the things I was like truly shocked by is like you know even with this revolution everything the middle east is steeped in history. And going back to the Armenian genocide, the Kurds helped. And that's a deep hatred that survived for a very long time. But then there's Armenians in the SDF like, no, we're cool now. Like, holy shit, this is real.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, we went actually, we drove through and i think we stayed the night in um uh an assyrian assyrian area yeah like syriac area and there's a load of armenians there and armenian church and stuff like that and you know they're in fact like i think i think our fix was like half armenian and stuff and certainly one of my friends actually ferrat batman he's half armenian and it's like you know i think the pkk and the ypg and blah blah you know it's all has a very long history of like fighting and whatever but one thing people don't seem to a lot of people especially if they haven't been there they don't really get now now

that the ypg is something else it is sure absolutely it's true that the pkk or were absolutely the backbone of it to some degree at the start and that you know it's deeply you know influenced by the PKK and PKK commanders are YPG commanders sure but I also but there's this real thing that like conservative analysts do where they say oh it's the YPG slash PKK now that's absolutely outrageous to say because are you telling me that like you know a Syriac kid who's grown up his whole life in northeast Syria under Assad, then sees ISIS come, then sees Kurdish, you know, his Kurdish neighbors fighting. Then the Kurdish neighbors come to him and say, hey, you know, there's a load of you guys. Why don't you start your own battalion?

We'll help. And then they start fighting and they don't go to the mountains. They never get ideological training from the PKK. How are they then also the PKK? It makes no sense. How are the Arabs in Raqqa that I, that I went around the fucking place with who were the security of the place who have never been to Turkey,

never been to Candle, like barely even recognize Ocalan. How are they also the PKK simply because they're also in the YPG? It's really a lot of people don't want to admit because there's a lot of policy type people you know and a lot of kind of you know kyle orton bed bugs and you know charles lister bed bugs and them kind of types that like you know they will take a certain side and that's that and sure i'm sure like you know you could say well i've done the same well this report has done the same sure whatever just be honest you know and like it you know was a fucking mess man and i i definitely think that i i've done it myself you know like we'll

westerners are very quick to kind of embed ourselves within it and uh actually we should probably you know look a little bit closer closer to the people out there fighting fighting it rather than you know constantly be doing that i think it i'm guilty of this as well of projecting my opinion on historical fact and and pieces and stuff like that is like deep down inside we in the West are like inherently think that we have a superior opinion of things. It's like, dude, just shut the fuck up sometimes and let them tell their own story. Absolutely. Absolutely, man. I have to tell myself sometimes like I've watched some of my you know some of my docs back

or i'll be editing an interview and i'm like you gotta shut the fuck up next time about that you know i think as reporters and media people like it's really good just to be honest with yourself and be like yeah i'm flawed i've got me i fuck up you know like i've said this i'm probably a bit too close to that i think when you're open about it that's you know i mean it's not good but it's you know it's human you know what i'm saying and war is a very shaping experience and when you're open about it, that's, you know, I mean, it's not good, but it's, you know, it's human. You know what I'm saying? And war is a very shaping experience. And yeah, you're right, man.

Sometimes we just got to shut the fuck up. And also another thing is where, like, you will see, I don't know, there's something that there's a very, like, almost like the woke kind of sphere, which I, you know, whilst I'm very much involved what you what some might call like leftist politics i'm very much anti-woke stuff um because i find it a distraction and i've noticed that a lot of that sect of the left will try and project ideas and when they're out there maybe they won't it's almost like they won't accept people telling them certain things you know what i mean and it's like man even if you don't like what you're hearing you actually still have to take that you can't just forget that bit you have to go yeah that's mental do you know i mean that is wrong or that's or not wrong but whatever you know what i mean it's like that's not what i thought it was so it goes both ways

do you know what i mean you do have to listen to the people there um whilst also shutting the fuck up you know what i mean don't close the ears off you know i find myself um kind of smashing heads against some of those same people um mostly because you know i'm definitely part of american leftist politics which is a fucking trash heap most of the time and um yeah i find like it's especially when it comes to things like assad or north k North Korea or like the dead Soviet Union. Like people really like to like, well, they stood against the United States, so they must be good. Right. Like, holy shit.

Oh, yeah. We did our 100th anniversary episode. And one of the questions was about Jane Fonda and the Vietnam War. And I was like, you know, it's it's very good to be anti-war. Like, I'm anti-war 99% of the time, as I think every reasonable person should be. But being anti-war doesn't mean that you should champion dictatorships. Well, it's an oxymoron, isn't it?

You know, you get people saying people saying oh i'm anti-war and then they're like pro-north korea what the fuck like that's like a complete tyrannical dictatorship the problem is though they always have an answer right no no it's western this it's western that it's actually massively racist because you're saying that like you know they'll often say that um they'll make what they're from what they're saying you can basically deduce that they're saying that the native people of that area haven't got their own agency yeah so anything that doesn't go away of the far left tanki in uh well to be honest i don't even consider tankis left like they're just scum but like any time the tanki's idea doesn't go the way they want it suddenly

the uh the people from that country who are not doing what they want are then co-opted by the u.s so you're basically saying that unless you think the way i think you have no agency that's like so fucking racist you know i mean because most of these tankies are white westerners so it's it's so funny when you see them and it's like i saw someone describing on twitter the other day and it was so accurate. They said like, if you look at like Tumblr fandoms and like just replace, like, I don't know, Justin Bieber with like a Soviet tyrant, then you'll get a bit more of a,

of a idea of where these tankies are coming from. And, you know, and it's kind of a funny way to say it, but I think they're right. A lot of them are not really, they're taking their ideology from the internet it's become a fan club for them and it's funny how none of them like move to fucking like north korea i mean but there's a there's a big trans rights activist who's a hardcore north korea supporter on uh twitter and it's like north korea something like three times they were like they were like the only country that were like always adamantly voting against kind of trans representation and and rights and stuff like that it's there in fucking black and white you can look it up so it's a very

weird one you know i mean it's it's very sad actually i think because you get you know i get a lot of flack from popular front because obviously like a lot of leftists listen but i tell them i'm not a leftist activist i'm a journalist you know what i mean like i am a journalist that's that i the only stance we have politically is anti-authoritarianism that's that's the real strong one like i don't give a fuck if you're left or right if you're an authoritarian fuck you do you know what i mean that's it yeah so you get a lot of leftists will say i you know especially when i did the hong kong coverage how dare you why are you championing the hong kong protesters why are you representing them in your documentary they want a neoliberal blood so so what i don't want what they want but they're fighting for their freedom and they're getting stamped on by a

fucking you know tyrant beijing government why does it matter to you that, oh, well, their ideology isn't what mine is, so therefore they're bad and I'm going to support the fucking cops? Like, it's so fucking embarrassing, you know? And I got to the point, I don't even reply, you know? Now I'm just like, you're just gone. You're too far gone. But it is really stupid because it's like,

when you're trying to have a critical thought, they'll just, everyone just puts you in a camp or you're in that camp now. You know, and i have a lot of bellingcat people on you know i don't agree with everything bellingcat has done but i think their work is excellent and i respect them and i trust their work because they you can't really not trust them because they fucking lay it out in front of you yeah so a lot of bellingcat and then people imagine me why are you having so responsive bellingcat people on and it's like go outside get off the internet you know what i mean it's so fucking tiring yeah unfortunately we have to do this now you get it yeah it's

fucking incredible and you know i've never actually heard someone put it that way where it truly is like the uh it's like cultural imperialism turned racism where it's like well if you know um the the great march forward or the the arduous march of north korea was clearly the work of the cia like no the they fucking starved people or the whole of domar uh that was just fake uh the kulaks deserved it like get the fuck i there's no point of talking that it's that's like to me talking to those like you said it is totally sad and it's a weird fandom i think they're trying to like fill some weird gap in their life. But like it's as makes as much sense as intellectually debating fascists because they're so far removed from reality that.

Sure, I mean, I went to school for history. It doesn't mean I'm a fucking historian, but like also i understand the concepts of history and how they unfold uh and you pointing out that you know maybe north korea isn't the most welcoming place for a trans person no now now you're a transphobe you motherfucker like come on typical white liberal transphobe that's what you are look no man i'm just like i like trans people i don't want them to get fucking killed in north korea like yeah i'm trying to save you from yourself uh yeah like yeah exactly i'm sure north korea is very welcoming to fucking adam warmbier until it wasn't but i'm sure he deserved it because he pissed off the fucking the cops which it's amazing that like you know the same people who will try out like the

a i mean i'm not a huge fan of cops but like people who like yeah all american cops are bastards but the ones in fucking vietnam are the shit like okay everybody yeah exactly all cops are bastards unless they're representing the you know quasi red state tyrant that i like you know that's what it is so you know you had like these hardcore um um tankies you know doing actually painting pictures this is hilarious my friend sent me the other day so in hong kong there's like uh from a you know from a throwback of like british colonialism some of the british cops just stayed there and now they work for the the chinese police there the ccp police basically in hong kong yeah they're proper little cunts they're like really they're very nasty and they they really enjoy it you can tell so there's one guy specifically

david jordan who is you know i saw him in my own fucking eyes he is a real nasty piece of work um and he's leading he's like one of the leaders so he's got all these so you got this scene right where there's like a white cop who's stayed over from the colonial past of Britain and is leading this group of Hong Kongers. But he's a white guy working out how to best crush other Hong Kongers who are protesting against the CCP. And then you've got fucking white hardline communists. Don't get me wrong. I'm nothing against communists, but, you know, like tanky communists. hardline communists. Don't get me wrong, I'm nothing against communists, but you're not like tanky communists. Then they drew a picture of this guy, David Jordan, and were like,

he's the champion of the people. It's like, how are you not seeing this? This is so wrong, you know? Have you ever been so much of a tanky, supported imperialism? Cool. Right. It's gone so, you know, you're past the rubicon at this point so what are you gonna do i really i mean i don't have answers you know i mean i'm interested in this that and the other but like i said i'm not an activist man like my everyone's always trying to pin down what's your political views i'm like bro like leave me the fuck alone like i just want to be left alone by everybody and i want everybody to have rights and be free that's it you know and i'm not a huge fan of the government uh or cops but but i don't i don't put

myself under any stake you know what i mean and because you're not basically it's basically the other way as well if you don't completely line up with the liberal side of things you know you get laughed at by the kind of elitist liberal sneering um kind of journalist circle which is most of journalism actually unfortunately but then if you don't completely align yourself with a radical ideology the kind of the radical people are like well what are you a fucking liberal it's like who gives fuck what i am just read or watch what we're doing you know so it never used to be like this man it's only the last three years that it's become this polarized with the politics stuff and it's it's it's surprisingly i i naively thought well this is not going to be

a problem for my industry i'm a i do all reporting i cover conflict that's not really a thing well obviously that was so naive of me i didn't think about it but it's really dominated you know you've got like dickheads like um the gray zone you know max blumenthal and all those people and then on the other side you'll have people that are pretending that Jabba al-Nusra and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham are just calm, chill rebels that have never done anything wrong. You know what I mean? It's like you have a real, it's a real weird one, man. I do, I don't, I try and stay out of it. I say a lot of shit online, but like she can't really take a lot of that seriously.

Sometimes it's good to rile people up for, you know, like I'll enter a debate to be like hey rile up then listen to popular front you know what i mean like it's a piece of shit way of doing it but whatever but unfortunately you know it is something we all have to kind of look at i think now now you can't be um curious or lean in as in a specific way like you have to subscribe you have to subscribe your political belief to like some existing head of state or uh some flag that uh maybe still exists or has been long since deposed or you have to have some kind of political nationalist daddy it's fucking weird man like it is i really wish people wouldn't have something there yeah i think you can't go well you know like there's a lot of things about like you know insurrectionary anarchism i read a lot

of radical politics literature just because it interests me and there's bits i'll read and go oh yeah that's that's not a bad idea there then other bits ago that's fucking stupid do you know what i mean right it's the same when i was you know i was doing a lot of work about ted kaczynski the unabomber and you know i was one of the i was saying yeah like a lot of this makes sense i mean are you fucking what i was like look i'm not gonna lie that this bit doesn't make a lot of sense now the bombing was fucking mental do you know what i mean and that was terrible but of course some of what he said was very true and makes a lot of sense i don't get why now you have to join a

team do you know what i mean like you have to join a team completely why can't you just go this that and the other like i tell you what i will say like working with robert evans actually was cool because you know me and him disagree on a lot of things not like obviously i'm never gonna be like yeah let's be friends with a nazi like fuck that that's too much of a disagreement but you know me and him disagree on a lot but But it was just like, whatever. He gives a fuck. You know what I mean? And it's quite nice to have that. And I think, like, we need to go back to a bit of that. You know, you should be allowed to go on the podcast of someone that you don't agree with

and have a debate without being cancelled and then dubbed a part of that group. You know what I mean? I mean, that's critical thinking. It's important. But, you know, I mean, I don't know what it is man it to be honest i do think all that's going like i think the best way of combating that is just ignoring it you know like pete someone said to me over there like you've been cancelled like 100 times on twitter i'm like yeah because i just i don't care like it doesn't mean anything you shouldn't have said that oh well like probably shouldn't have oh i'm offended oh well like it doesn't matter you know what i mean and ironically i always say this it's always the right wingers that are the worst for it actually the ones that are calling

people snowflake the second you deviate um from what they need to say they lose the fucking plot these free speech advocates they want to shut everything down the second you go against them so you know what i mean it's kind of funny i think that's one of the things that i learned uh from robert actually it was a lot of was a lot of the people who consider themselves free speech advocates. Obviously, I'm for free speech. If it wasn't for free speech, both of us would be in some kind of camp. Wait, I'd be in jail in fucking Turkey, man. Trust me, I love free speech.

You have legitimately lived my worst nightmare as being in a Turkish prison. But like, you know, the people who are like, you know, I'm going to march on the campus and demand free speech. They're just doing it as an outlet for authoritarian politics in one way or another. And they just want to be heard. And then as soon as you give them an inch, they're going to fucking take the whole goddamn thing. It's it's it's it's impressive that people still fall for that no of course they don't they mean free speech for them exactly free speech for me i'll say that's why um it's funny i had a discussion the other day because in europe

libertarianism is is a is a kind of a left concept right like it's a very left idea left concept um we we don't even really think about-wing libertarianism, you know. But in America, libertarianism is predominantly a right-wing thing, right? And it's like, you know, yeah. And to me, like the libertarianism I see that the Americans have, it's like basically I want to do whatever I want all of the time and I want to be free. But also I want to crush anyone i want all of the time and i want to be free but also i want to crush anyone that doesn't have the exact ideals as me you know and that's not what libertarian

actually is if you look historically it's been completely not that you know what i mean for a very long time so it's very very interesting to me how how um how things get skewered you know what i mean like socialism as well. Yeah. So like in England, you know, I'm from like a kind of left-leaning working class background.

And I remember my granddad talking a while ago and he was saying about some socialist thing. He said, you know, and I said, oh, well,

what's your stance on this? Well, I'm a socialist, of course. But in England, that's not like a big deal. You know what I mean? That's not a big, that's not a radical concept

but over in america like even your left wingers yeah well your left wingers have gone crazy as well because i see them saying i'm socialist and i'm like like nah you're you're a hardcore state-aligned communist that isn't the same as socialism all the right wingers think to be communist means sorry think to be socialist is stalin you know what i mean it's like there doesn't seem to be a very different idea of all these concepts which i'm learning about you know from americans i'm i'm sad that you have to learn anything from us uh i think it's um just generations of of of correct programming i mean i went to public school i grew up in a shit town and like,

you know, you see that, that span, like they, when they teach you about politics in school, which is weird because like I went to school, I'm, I'm almost 32.

So when I was going to school at first, we still have to say like the pledge of allegiance and shit. And, um, which is fucking creepy. But, uh, you know,

we have, uh, we learn about politics in, in history class or civics and it'll have like socialism, like right next to fascism, because, you know, we have the we have like fucking however many decades of the Red Scare. That's fucked. It's still going on. So the second that you have someone like who's not even that far left, like Bernie Sanders, who would probably maybe center left in the UK, is the second coming of fucking Vladimir Lenin to the media. It's like, Jesus Christ, we are fucking fucked out here.

Mate, that was what really freaked me out, actually. Because I'm kind of of the opinion that, oh, I'm not like a fuck politicians. I won't get behind any politician. But Bernie, I looked at him and I was like, man, that guy's fucking cool. I quite like that. in the all i'm not like a fuck politicians i won't get behind any politician you know but bernie i looked at him and i was like man that guy's fucking cool like i quite like that and then it was like like it was like seeing right-wing pundits be like he's gonna have us like venezuela within two years i was like he's not even saying anything that extreme like you know oh free health care like how is that i'll tell you what man as a

brit it boggles my mind that that's even controversial to suggest i love you know my sister works for the nhs we love the nhs like especially now with corona man it's just such a beautiful concept and basically you know like everyone here loves it mate like most i would say the vast majority of the uk loves the nhs And we're talking about completely apolitical people often will tell you, yeah, of course, you ain't taking our NHS away. So then for like, I don't know, for it to be a big deal in America is just very, I've just never quite got my head around it. Do you know what I mean? I never quite, because I've never been to America. I think that's the issue.

I don't quite get why it's a problem to have a free NHSs for people that need it i just i just don't get it i i've lived here for well 30 years since i spent uh almost two years in afghanistan but you know it's i don't understand it either like i'm i'm a veteran and in the us we get health care um like i have free health care free prescriptions free everything for the rest of my life until I die. I have free college. I have effectively universal basic income. I'm like, this is fucking great.

Why doesn't everybody have this? Go to war, get socialism. You only can get the right to a dignified existence if you nearly die and if you if you don't come back that's all right that's a sacrifice we're willing to make it's like you know i don't feel like this is a good society that we've created

that is a mad situation but i'm glad you do get that because the way um soldiers returning soldiers are treated in britain is actually fucking disgusting. Do you know what I mean? There's very little care for them actually. And you know, I've one family member of mine, like distant, distant family member.

He fought in Afghanistan and it's just like, he came back and I know that his brain was fucked. You know what I mean? He was struggling with mental health issues and he, and he just got nothing, man. He got very, very little,

you know what I mean? And now he with mental health issues. And he just got nothing, man. He got very, very little. You know what I mean? And now he drives a truck and whatever. And there is something to be said that I actually really appreciate people fighting for their country, actually, when there's a reason for it. And there's another weird thing in the UK where it's trendy on the left now to hate your country. And I don't hate my country. I love Britain. I love my country. But to me, my country is not the government. now to hate your country. And I don't hate my country. I love Britain. I love my country.

But to me, my country is not the government. I fucking hate the government. And I hate the nationalists as well, right? But my Britain is our people, man. And I don't mean white. That means everyone, man. My community is very mixed. You know what I mean?

Like my family is mixed. We've got different races in my family. Shock, horror. And I've never once been like, oh, you know, they're not our country. Most people, I think, I hope still, see it as like you're in our community. You're a part of our country. Even people who have immigrated, it's like, cool, you come here, you work hard. You want to follow our rules.

You want to be cool with us. We'll let you do what you want. Now, unfortunately, the nationalists have really taken over loving your people. Instead of loving the people, they love the fucking flag. I couldn't give a fuck about the flag. know what i mean yeah i just want our people to have this freedom and be allowed to do what they want and people should be able to come here any race any color any belief whatever and it should they should be allowed to do that and for me you know britain is definitely not perfect perfect but i do love the of the country i love our community

fucking weirdos we have and the culture and sometimes people are like oh what you love britain you're fucking nationalist i'm like no i'm not a nationalist i i am completely i don't care where the borders are i well i'm you know i'm a fucking irish republican actually i wanted to get the fuck out of northern ireland but what i'm saying is i love my fucking people i love the the world we've created for ourselves here do you know what i mean i mean i don't i hate all the fucking like house of lords and all the fucking rich aristocrats and that but that to me is not britain the same way that like you know robert was explaining to me some really cool shit that he used to do as a kid in in the south in america and i was like well that that sounds great that sounds like a cool america do you know what i mean but yeah now both

this idea of a country has become like um i don't know, it's like a red flag. It represents something else now. Now, do you know what I'm saying? of something else. But, you know, of course, yeah, or three percenters or whatever, you know, you know, of course, I don't hate America. I have to live here.

Like, if I hated America, I wouldn't want it to get any better. You know what I mean? Like, there's places that I strongly dislike in the world. And America isn't one of them. Our systems of power and politics and military and health care and pretty much the way of life that we have in 2020, incredibly flawed.

God, yes. But, you know, if I wanted bad things to happen to it, it would be fucking stupid because I live here. My family lives here. Like, I don't want bad things to happen to people. I want us to get better. I mean, of course, like now, you know, I get deeply suspicious of anybody whenever they have American flags over anything. Like that's a bad sign now, you know, it's, it's, it's sad.

Yeah. That is pretty sad, but I I'm with you, you know, I'm the same. Like, Oh, if I see the union, Jack, not so much, you know, like that, that's whatever. But when you see the St, the, the George's, uh, was it St. George man? See this, how British I am. I don't even know. St. George's flag was it St. George? Man, see, that's how British I am. I don't even know. St. George's flag, yeah. Just the white and the red one.

Now, sometimes I see that I'm like, hmm, a bit unsure. Is that a fascist kind of guy? And that is completely outrageous because it's just the English flag. But again, it's what it represents to a lot of people. Do you know what I mean? And unfortunately, now I would never call someone out and be like, take that flag down. But it does, you're right, it makes you go, oh, shit. Is that going to be, you know what I mean and unfortunately now i would never call someone out and be like take that flag down but it does it right it makes you go oh shit is that gonna be you know what i mean is that gonna

be one of them ones so yeah it's it's unfortunate yeah we have i guess our version of that but i don't even want to compare it because that's a flag that still exists is like the confederate flag you know someone flies a confederate flag i'm like oof yep i'm suspicious that that's got a history right like that's pretty that flag only exists to control black people uh so it's like there's no good way to unless it's in the museum like that's it that's the only way it could exist yeah yeah exactly man that's it it's like um but that again that's that's another problem now is whereas some people want to go too far and they won't even let something like that be in a museum and it's like like there's a big controversy in the uk right now because you know this this dickhead mp had um some like dodgy books like the bell curve and i think you might have had like a

david duke book on no no david jesus uh no it wasn't david jukes it was another one anyway some holocaust denier but you know it was it's like whoa they're fucked up books but it's like everyone's going mad like why does he have that on his bookshelf it's like well i got loads of fucked up books man like it doesn't mean you believe in them it doesn't mean you like them you know what i mean i've got a copy of siege i fucking hate those guys but i've got a copy you know what i mean it doesn't mean that and and it's become why did he have it on his shelf oh fuck me where do you want him to put it he now he's being policed into taking the book off of the shelf and having to put it somewhere dark and whatever and i fucking hate michael gove trust me he is one of the worst most

weasley politicians we have but for fuck's sake pick your battles do you know what i mean like he's obviously a guy that's interested in all different things like as you would expect as he's a politician uh i don't know yeah to me i really don't get i mean we've got like massive problems with like you know institutionalized racism still which you know you could say well that's that's a that's a showing of it but i really don't think that's worth kicking off i i really doubt that michael go is a fucking holocaust denier do you know what i mean yeah he managed to get this far in his life being found out i think he probably is just interested in that weird fucking point of view like context matters like i had to read i think i read three different fucking books on holocaust now because i did a

whole goddamn episode on it and uh you know if somebody saw my bookshelf god fucking forbid in my in my studio i would be immediately fucking yeeted off the internet because i read some disgusting ass shit and you know i fucking have to i had to i had to watch like four fucking hours of prager you videos for an episode doesn't mean i enjoy it now like if i'm doing this interview with you and you're like joe so how do you feel about dav Duke? Oh, he's an all right guy. You know what? Cancel me. I fucking suck.

But you know, if I, if I had to read something of his for a project and I'm, and that's it, that's all it is. Like, yeah, of course,

of course. And what was, what's the next burn books? Some real bad guys that did that. It's not the way to go. I hear it's like really popular in the thirties in Berlin. Uh, so like,

yeah, that's something that's like banned books always blow my fucking mind. And like in America, we have like the other, like you'll never see a book on Holocaust and I'll get like drug out and maybe on Twitter, but like never in real life. Uh, like we,

we have, you know, however many school districts in america and every year like the worst banned books list will come out and like they ban the jungle so like like it might teach yeah like it might teach people about socialism like it sure yeah but also it's like one of the most important literary works in like early american history i think you should you should be able to read absolutely anything you fucking want do you know what i mean yeah and to a degree where like i i personally um you know i've been like if

if someone is a fascist and they're trying to stop someone's way of life physically then they should physically be stopped you know what i'm saying oh i think that's fine yeah but even if a guy is a fascist in his own fucking house and he has no, he doesn't want to kill anyone, you know, then it's like, I hate him. But,

but what are you going to do? You can't go in his house and kick his fucking head in and take his books. That's up to him. If he wants to be a dickhead and have a horrible, nasty ideology, that is up to him. When they step over the threshold of wanting to like kill and stuff, obviously then the house goes down.

But until then, I really think you have to just let, and you've got to remember as well, over the threshold of wanting to like kill and stuff obviously then the house goes down but until then i really think you have to just let big and you gotta remember so ideologies change as well a lot you know like i know people have changed their ideologies and blah blah and you know won't talk to that guy no more and this guy's you can talk to him now because he's got whatever and it's the idea of just shutting it down completely just makes you kind of it kind of fulfills what they think the other side is do you know what i mean well yeah we i mean we we actually see a lot of that now with like the uh the lockdown stuff people like well i'm gonna open my fucking haircut studio and they're doing

it for the attention and the cops are gonna go they're gonna bust their shit up and arrest them and they're they're gonna get exactly what they want and you know i think you're exactly right when it comes to uh like politics if someone has fucking disgusting politics and their hate you know they're hateful they're anti-semitic you know but they're just like posting online or they have like fucking unironically read mind conf call them a fucking asshole and move on but like the second they start flying a fucking swastika and marching through the street it might be time to pick up your bricks like yeah absolutely there is no for me like they you know when they're when they're trying to do like a public thing and they want to like you know shut down because what they want to

do is stop other freedom that's the irony it's like well we're using freedom of speech yeah you're using it but you want to destroy freedom of speech you don't want freedom of speech because you want to stop people being able to say the other shit do you know what i mean and it's like unless you nip that in the bud quick you know we know what happens you end up with fucking it like so you know i mean it's you can't like you say you can't ask them nicely to stop yeah uh so we're we're over an hour now so i guess we can wrap this up uh jake thank you so much for uh coming on the show and i mean we've pretty much spent this entire time talking about Popular Front. But go ahead and plug Popular Front one more time.

Yeah, man. If you go to popularfront.co, so that's the website, you'll find everything there. And yeah, we're grassroots conflict journalism. No corporate bullshit, no elitism, no frills. So if you like the sound of that if you want to you know talk to weirdos you know as well we're very weird people we're not like uptight or anything like that definitely check out popular from thanks so much for coming on man thanks very much man it was really fun