I was taught never to trust a guy with a bow tie.
I don't know where that came from, but that's in America too.
You know, It's one of the things, it comes from the Gilded
Age because that's what separated classes and people
that wore bow ties were, I guess what we'd call the bourgeois.
And it's it, it separated people.
But you know, the bow tie gets a bad rap because why?
Why was the bow tie invented in the 1st place?
Do you know? That's a great question.
I don't know. Well, it's because of the way
shirts were made. They were there was basically no
buttons then. And so would be there would be
AV neck with collar. Why with the collar?
Because you need to close it up and keep yourself warm.
And a bow tie was invented to keep the collar closed.
And then it became a commodity and a social status.
So I mean, a bow tie had has a very utilitarian purpose.
It's not used that way today, obviously, but that's what it
was to keep your shirt closed, OK.
I didn't know that. That's fascinating actually.
And do you do you still do the bow tie old school you tie it or
do you have a clip on? I well, first of all, it's it's
not a clip on that. It's a misnomer.
It's called pre tied. OK.
And and if you, if you'll bear with me just for a second, I
have a lot of bow ties and they're not pre tied.
This tie is because tomorrow is going to be Victory Day, Jen
Pobeda in Russia. And it's orange and black.
It goes to the Saint George ribbon that everybody is
wearing. If I was wearing a waistcoat or
I mean a jacket, I'd be wearing it.
But this is what everyone is wearing in Moscow right now.
So I'm I'm trying to be in the mood, have the vibe.
Well, that's a great segue, Peter.
So take me back, you American, and you ended up in Russia.
Take me through that journey. How did you end up in Moscow?
Well, I was, I was an academic before all of this and I studied
modern European history with a emphasis on Eastern Europe and
Russia, which really, you know, when in the early date, when I
was started in academia, early 80s Eastern.
They were a small group of hardcore Eastern Europeanists,
but most people studied Italy, you know, Spain, Portugal, warm
places where you can go to. OK, obviously studying of the UK
is very popular in the United States.
So to get a little bit of competitive edge, I started
doing Eastern Europe and went to Poland in 1981.
They were during that, at that time, it was martial law when
the Solidarity trade union was shut down by the communist
government. And that was really one of the
most, that was a real benchmark in my life because I'd never
really been outside of the United States before.
And it was so enlightening for me just how different other
places are. And, you know, and for someone
that was brought up from the age of 5 to 15 in a suburb of
Denver, Co, going to Eastern Europe, going to Poland, and was
really something that really made me grow and made me a lot
of learn. And it, and it was that stage in
my life I started questioning a lot of things that I'd been
taught. And I've been on that trajectory
ever since. I did.
Yeah, you know that. And then I did graduate work in
it. And I must say when there was a
certain point where my, the trajectory of my academic
endeavours kind of made me into a kind of an expert on Eastern
European communist regimes, well, between 1989 and 1991,
they were all gone. So like, you know, I went from,
I went from kind of a historian to a political scientist in a
way. Because then it at that point
it's all about EU integration, it's all about NATO expansion,
which I'm against both. And so I left academia.
There were no prospects for me. I don't mean a white guy didn't
didn't help with, let's be honest, OK.
And, and at the time, I I didn't really begrudge.
And I say that's the pendulum of history.
OK, I guess that's OK. I didn't take it very
personally. And then I just, I'm got a,
before I left academia, I had a two year full Fulbright
scholarship to, to Poland. So during those two years I, you
know, I kind of got the lay of the land because I was in the
back of my mind was thinking, I'm going to probably stay here
for a lot longer than just my two years.
And that's what happened. I went back and I, I started
working, I went from academia to, I worked for Colgate
Palmolive and did consumer, consumer research on
toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, shower gels.
And because of my kind of my character, my nature is that I
thought, well, if this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to
try to do it well. And I actually to this day or,
you know, I go to a supermarket or a shopping mall, I, I, I look
at all of the market marketing. I like marketing.
I'm very interested in how people pitch things and
messaging. And that goes from, you know,
shampoo to ideas. Obviously there's not, it's not
a big jump really. OK.
So then at one point I ended up working for a financial services
company as an editor and it was a company that was had obviously
polls because it was in Warsaw, Americans, Brits, Australians,
other Eastern Europeans, some Czech, some Slovaks, Hungarians.
And I became a financial. I went from editor to a
financial analyst, and I didn't really particularly like it, but
it made a whole lot more money. And after doing that for a
stint, my American boss in this company, he moved to Moscow.
And he said, come along. And that was in 1998.
And I remember that, you know, it was in the Internet.
We did have the Internet, but people still used fax machines.
And he faxed me a contract. And I thought, how can I say no?
And and and and and and I was quite Russophobic at that time.
Being an Eastern Europeanist in in American academia, it's
almost a default position to be Russophobic.
So what it was, am I thinking, well, what they were offering?
Yeah. Do that for two or three years
and put some money in the bank. Then you can just make the, you
know, decide the next step. There was just a means to an
end. I had no intention of staying
here at all. And when I came here in early
1998, it was, you know, gangster land.
I mean, it was crazy. I mean, it was really insane.
I mean, there, there was kind of an appeal because like, wow,
this is really screwed up. This is a really screwed up
place, OK. And so it was, you know, you,
you know, kind of being a voyeur about other people's suffering
and, you know, so, you know, that was, you know, a curiosity
for me. And plus, my academic background
was always kicking in because when I came here and I met other
foreigners, but they knew nothing about Russia.
And I knew a lot about Russia. OK, So going down the street and
you see a statue of Mayakovsky or Tchaikovsky or, you know, you
know, these cultural icons. I mean, I was familiar.
It wasn't odd. It wasn't foreign to me.
I mean, OK, maybe I'm seeing the statue, but I have read all of
his books. So that transition wasn't so
hard for me and, and I, you know, quickly kind of learned to
appreciate it. Then the financial crash came.
I was working for Alpha Bank and they gave a, a generous
severance package. And so I had a, a, a, a golden
parachute to kind of stick around.
And I started working in journalism.
And then in 2005, RT started in. The rest is history, as they
say. Crosstalk.
Yeah. And you've been hosting
Crosstalk ever since. Yeah, I've been hosting
Crosstalk for 15 years. The problem that I have with
this is you're such a pleasant guy and your show is called
Crosstalk. You don't look cross at all.
Well, you know, it's interesting that you bring that up because
it was designed to be a, a debate programme.
But essentially what it has been and I essentially since the
beginning, it's a critique of Western narratives about all
kinds of things. And ever since the, the coup in
Kiev in 2014, you know, the news came to me.
I mean, in the early years we would do like, should there be a
fat tax? Was Jesus really a Christian?
You know, should there was that whole debate, you know, that
triple the dot, triple X should there be all porn should be put
into one domain, you know, and we were doing stuff like that
and kind of like Jerry Springer stuff and and, and then the
world came crashing down on us. The, the, the Georgian invasion
of South Ossetia in August 2008 and then the Syria dirty war.
And so it just kind of invaded us.
And I just embraced, I said, let's just do this, okay.
And so instead of being a debate programme, it's a big tent for
people that are contrarian to American and Western foreign
policy and Western ideologies too.
I mean, we get a lot of dissidents, a lot of dissidents,
some very, very interesting people, some really far out
people. But it is a place.
It's a Big 10 for the contrarians to show up.
How do you view the US now? It's a very alien place to me.
OK. I was brought up in a very
conservative environment. Like I said, from the age of 5
to 15 in a suburb of Colorado of Denver, Co, It was everybody was
conservative. And, you know, you know, if if
you're cutting up a, you know, like smoking a cigarette or
getting into a fight after school, by the time you got
home, somebody had called your mom, you know, you know, I mean,
like, you know, that's how it worked, OK.
You didn't need police. You didn't need truant officers.
Moms and grandma ran the place, OK, Because there would be
looking out the curtain like, what's going on out there?
OK. And then I'm going to call
across the street. And because you're cutting up
and then when you get home, well, well, you get home.
OK. And then there were
consequences. Then we moved to California and,
you know, the weather's nice and there's a lot of institutions,
but I hated living there because I didn't like the people.
I didn't like the vibe. Do you see the US as a sinking
ship or, you know, is it, is it just, is it just rudderless?
I think it's rudderless and sinking and I think it's a
danger to the world, a big danger.
I mean, you know, you have to step out of it.
I mean, you, you have an outside view living in South Africa.
You know, the United States is seen as a very aggressive
country around the world. I mean, you know, there's this
nonsense about I'm not against tariffs, you know, OK, don't get
me wrong. But this approach, I mean, this
is this is, this is insanity. This is, it's not scoring any
points for the United States around the world, The the, and,
and it's because it's a, it's a crumbling empire.
And when empires start to crumble, they lash out, OK?
They look for the, the, the, the magic bullet to solve the, the,
the problem of, you know, the contraction and all of that.
And, you know, the, you know, the, you know, we've, together
with our colleague John, John Loughlin, we've talked about
bricks and stuff. Like, you know, I mean, I'm, you
know, on Monday, it can be sceptical.
On Tuesday, I'm a little bit more enthusiastic, but it's a
reality and it's, and it's an answer to American slash Western
hegemony. And so, yeah, I, I don't, I,
it's not the, the, the beacon of light for the future, that's for
sure. And it's just going and is the
American power declines relatively, it will lash out
even more so, you know, and you know, people, you know, Peter,
what do you miss about America? I don't miss anything.
But are you able to travel there?
I mean, you're a Russian citizen now.
Well. I'm still an American citizen
also, but I have both. But my American passport has
expired. And because of the breakdown
during the Biden administration of US Russia relations, there's
no consulate here for me to get it renewed.
And I don't think they would renew it if I had asked.
I mean, a lot of people don't understand is that the US
government cannot take an American citizenship away, but
they don't have to give you a passport, OK?
There there's no obligation for them.
OK, So, you know, just because of work and whatnot and plus,
obviously I would fear for my own personal freedom if I
visited a a NATO country. So that's kind of off the board
for maybe for the rest of my life.
OK, but other travel, yeah. But I'm, I'll be honest with the
viewers, I have to check about extradition.
I have to, you know, I have a family, I have dogs, I have
property. I'm not going to.
I, I, I that's. Those are not trifles to me.
Did you at any point come to my side of the pond?
Were you ever on the African continent?
Well, Egypt, but, you know, I don't really think of, you know,
I, I think. Sort of Africa.
Yeah. So I mean in a, in a, in a
strict technical sense, yes. But I mean, I think most of us
think of, you know, the, you know, the, the, the Arab north
of the continent where the desert is.
OK. Yes, Egypt is more middle.
East. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. No, So I haven't.
No, I don't know Africa. Well, thankfully because we're
both BRICS countries, you shouldn't have any issues
visiting South Africa. Hopefully you will.
Well, I would actually, I would very much like that.
You know, before COVID we had, I had these grand ambitions and
plans and I wanted to do is I wanted to go to do a series of
crosstalk programmes in every single BRIC country.
And it was it was being entertained and that was that
they kind of like the idea, OK. And then COVID came and then
COVID suddenly came to an end. No one has explained to me why,
but it suddenly came to an end. And then then the next
turbulence and that was the Ukraine conflict.
So, and you know, I've be because of that, I've just been
swamped. And then after October 7th, what
happened in Israel Palestine, that is also been a really
pressing and absorbing issue. So, you know, for, for for about
a six month period there. We tell my producers Tuesday,
Ukraine, Thursday Palestine. And that's what we did over and
over and over again, which I think is I feel obligated
because Western coverage of Ukraine is abysmal.
Every once in a while they'll kind of pull the curtain, you
know, like this New York Times story about a month ago and six
weeks ago about oh, oh, this what the CIA and the Pentagon is
doing in Ukraine from the very beginning.
And then the reporting on what's going on in Palestine, which is
a, a genocide and it's a crime of our, of our time and the
consequences we, I will never, there'll be consequences
certainly for the rest of my life.
And I and I think it's a, it's a condemnation of the West in its
behaviour. It makes up all these rules and
demands people follow them, but it doesn't follow its own.
And that is one of the big outcomes of this is the absolute
rank hypocrisy of the West, and people see it all over the
world. You might have made a Freudian
slip there, but it was quite profound.
So I'm going to quickly bring you back to that.
You said BRIC countries and you left out the S now that is, but
that's a good point because South Africa is the smallest of
the BRICS region. Do you think South Africa will
have a role to play in the future?
Long story short, if it has better governance, of course
I'll even go much further. Better governance and South
Africa will become one of the great powers easily.
Particularly because of our of our geographical positioning.
And well, and then you're just the natural endowment.
I mean, you guys got a lot going for you, OK?
It's a governance issue and, and, and I, I look forward to
that because it's very, very rich and rich in every single
way. And you know, they and I, I, we
need South Africa to be that way.
We, we need, the world needs a better, stronger, self confident
South Africa. It's very important.
Let's just stay on BRICS for a moment.
You were alluding to multipolarity when you're
talking about the US earlier. Do you think BRICS is going to
go somewhere? Yes, and but it's going to go a
different path. First of all, there's not going
to be a a leader of of BRICS. It will, it's good to have to be
very democratic, OK, And I think what it needs to do is it it
what a lot of people want it to be.
They want it to be a anti Western alliance or grouping and
all that. That's unnecessary.
It's unnecessary. BRICS doesn't have to be against
anything. BRICS has to be for lots of
things, OK. But they need, you know, one of
the things I would like to see is a BRICS communications node,
you know, you know, how do I learn about South Africa through
Western media? How do you learn about Russia
through Western media? You know, and there I was at a
BRICS conference, I guess really what was it maybe eight years
ago and in, in Beijing. And that was my calling card,
you know, because I, I'm in the South African delegation, you
know, we have the Indians and the Chinese.
And I'm just saying. But it was it was kind of
pointed at the Chinese a little bit, you know, like you guys got
more money than God. I mean, let's get, you know,
let's get a bricks Bloomberg going on here, OK.
But those are kind of things, you know, I mean, they were in
Kazan last year. There was a big bricks confab,
you know, and they're talking about, you know, a bricks
currency and all that. No, that's not going to happen
for a long time. It's not OK because that's gets
into centralization and all that.
What the bricks strength is that it, it is diverse and they there
has to be some very basic buckets of of of of agreement.
But you know, when you try to institutionalise it, you know,
ahead of this and all of that, it'll, it'll slow it down.
You know, bricks is a feeling and it is a outlook and I think
we can fill it in as we go along.
I'm not it's not press anything. Let's not force anything.
And certainly let's not look at it as an anti Western alliance
because I know people that like bricks say this is our way to
fight the Americans and all that.
And no, no, the Americans in Western Europe, they're going
down all by themselves. Russia doesn't have to meddle in
their elections, OK, because they're fundamentally anti
democratic. These elites, the current elites
are so fundamentally anti democratic, they're going to
create their own demise. Nobody needs to push him.
Nobody. But isn't BRICS also a response
to NATO? No, not necessarily, because
BRICS wisely stays away from the security military dimension.
That's very wise. OK.
Look, countries like China and Russia, they, they, they, they
don't have. It's part of their
constitutions. If I can use that in air quotes
is not to be joined military alliances.
OK, now Russia and China have extensive military cooperation,
but there is no Article 5 in the Russia Chinese relationship.
And I don't think it should be OK.
These countries have faced Western imperialism for 500
years. They prize their sovereignty.
They really, you know, the West doesn't even know what that word
means anymore, OK. But, you know, you know, as
Russians are celebrating the anniversary of the defeating
fascism 80 years ago, you know, but you know that that's not the
first time, OK Napoleon, you know, and his Western coalition
tried to dismantle Russia. Hitler and his coalition tried
to dismantle Russia. And, you know, and those
coalitions get bigger and bigger because during the Napoleonic
time, the US wasn't part of that.
During the Hitlerian coalition, you know, the United States was
on the side of Russia. Now we have the collective W.
It gets worse and worse for Russian security through time,
OK? That's why they prized their
their their sovereignty so much. And they they're not going to
make a commitment to another countries, a security.
They'll work really closely. Look, for example, with the
relationship that Russia has with Iran for the kind of
security and military relationship they have.
It's written into the documents that Iran must remain a non
nuclear weapon country, OK. They must respect the NPT.
And so, you know, Russian diploma is so much more
sophisticated and and and detailed driven.
These bozos that come flying in, you know, like Keith Kellogg or
you know, with cough and all that.
I mean, they're all amateurs. They're hard to take seriously,
you know, and, and that's what worldwide, the Russians are
widely respected. You may not like Russia, but
their their statecraft, their diplomacy is quite
sophisticated. What is the West?
I've made programmes about that. It's because you.
Can go you can go. Geographically you can.
The origins of the West would in, in 21st century parlance, is
the Christianity a Christian world right now.
It's where neoliberalism has dominion and, and this is what
brings these elites together. It's, it's really remarkable.
If you look at the European elites now, they're all cookie
cutter replacements for another. If you took the Prime Minister
from Lithuania and switched it out for the Prime Minister in
France, no one would notice. No one would know.
Maybe it would be a fashion statement.
Okay, because all of these elites are making fashion
statements all of the time. They don't have anything
important to say or interesting to say whatsoever.
And then it's because their minds have been colonised by
neoliberal ideology. And so where there is
neoliberalism, there's a pretty strong case to say you're in the
West. OK, then this could apply to
Japan and, you know, Australia and all of that.
And are they part of the Western world when it comes to a
mindset, obviously. And the Western world is also
defined by its relationship with the United.
States, yeah, that's actually quite true.
But when when we speak about the West imploding Peter, what do we
mean? It first of all, its own self
they're not self sufficient anymore.
They cannot use the tools of neo colonial colonialism as they
have in the past. I mean over the last two years
look what's happened to the French in Africa.
I mean pretty they they a good swift kick to the ass.
OK, that's what they've gotten in many ways Russia's replaced
them. That's more rhetorical than
anything else. Let me that's that's a way for
African elites to stick it to the French after hundreds of
years of colonialism and neo colonialism.
You know, Russia is very, very careful.
It's not it doesn't spend it's not the Soviet Union.
It doesn't spend a lot of money on this kind of foreign aid and
all that. No, that's not Russia doesn't is
not interested in that. Russia is a status quo power.
It wants to keep what it has essentially.
OK. But the West is in decline
because it doesn't believe in itself anymore.
It doesn't believe in the people, that's for sure.
OK. Look what they did in Romania,
you know. Oh, we don't like that guy.
You, you have to have another election.
Well, that's a real sovereign choice, isn't it?
Wow. And then you have this Moldova
and aspirin to become part of the European Union in their last
election. Oh, they had the, the because
Moldova is a very, very poor country, had very bad
governance. Moldovans live all over the
world. There's a lot of Moldovans in
Western Europe. There's a lot in Russia.
Oh, they had polling stations all through Europe for
Moldovans. They had one polling station in
in Russia where, you know, there are hundreds of thousands of
Moldovans. Oh, they don't get to vote.
They completely disenfranchise those people.
And it tilted the out. And it was like razor thin.
Yeah. I mean, this was razor, razor
thin. And if they had allowed the
Russian diaspora, the the Moldovan diaspora and Russia to
vote, it would have gone a different way.
But you know, oh, we won. We declared victory by the most
undemocratic means. And now they have AD ADF in
Germany, Afd in Germany being outlawed.
It's the most popular party in Germany by public opinion polls,
but they're going to outlaw it. So I mean, what is, is that the
West? Because that's what the West is
to me. Referendum, referendum in Europe
on the European Union treaties. Oh it the people voted against
it, but Parliament will pass it. Then why did you have the
referendum? That we see this over and over
and over again. And so the West is a group of
elites in a pecking order. I mean, if you look at look at
the military, every single NATO country, they have their cadre
sent to institutions in the United States.
They study at this war or college and all of that.
I mean, they reproduce themselves.
And so, you know, it's not Anelina Bedbach the the, the
foreign minister. I think she's still currently
the foreign minister, maybe in the next few days.
I think the coalition has voted in.
But she she said, I don't care what my voters think.
You know, we're going to be pro Ukraine.
Well, that's an archetype for for Western leadership today.
And then adding to that, you've got EU policy that is whether by
design or emergence, I don't know, but they are actively
destroying Europe. I mean, you have a mass
immigration crisis there. Absolutely.
I mean, you know, you, you can have your opinion on on Gaddafi,
but he made it very clear. He said, you you Take Me Out and
you will rue the day because they're just going to cross the
the Mediterranean. And so, yeah, I mean, their
whole energy policy, you know, again, you know, this Frederick
Mertz that finally passed the bar and became chancellor, you
know, and you have this Queen Ursula over at the European
Commission, you know, we will cut all reliance on Russian
energy. Yay.
At what cost? It's, you know, I came up with
this about a year ago. We used to say future historians
will explain why this or that happened.
But no, we've got that wrong. Future psychologists will we?
We need psychologists to explain why, what, what, what, what
drives a nation, a nation states that leads to self harm.
This is self. This is self harm.
OK. And and again, where is the
democratic dimension to all of this?
It's it's just not there. I mean, it, it, it, it, you
know, it's they, they want to cancel the people because they
failed. Can it be pulled back?
I don't think so. No, no.
Look, in the in the, in this large scheme of things, you
know, empires coming up, Western dominance of the world is about
500 years. Every single empire comes to an
end. There's there's, there's no end
of history, OK? And this is this is what
neoliberalism believes. And history has ended.
And we must maintain the status quo because there's nothing.
We've already reached the pinnacle of human experience.
Well, that's nonsense, OK. And this is, and, you know,
like, look at the terms, you know, we hear in the media all
the time the rise of China. Well, they don't look at it that
way. They the return of China to its
natural place in the world, Not an aggressive China.
China's not an aggressive, doesn't have a history of
aggression. You know why?
Because they do what's called the demonstration effect.
People will come to us. People want to be in our orbit.
People will kowtow, OK, You know, they because we are an
exemplar of, of the human condition at that time.
And so, you know, we don't need to send flotillas around the
world and conquer. No, the world comes to us.
We are the Middle Kingdom. We, you know, we're in the
middle and. And this is what they believe.
You're going to disagree with it.
It's fine. OK.
But this is their mythology, their imagined community about
themselves. And then, you know, I mean,
like, you know, with Trump's trade war with everybody.
Yeah. Well, you know, Vietnam and the
Philippines and Indonesians say, well, let's sit down and talk to
the Chinese. Let's see, you know, they're
more reasonable people, OK, And that's it.
People are looking that toward and China doesn't export its
ideology, OK? They, they, you know, you can
emulate us if you want, but we're not going to force it on
you. That's and, and antithetical to
what the West did for 500 years. Still, still doubts.
Yeah, and another interesting observation is the Chinese have
a history of playing the long game, very long game.
Yeah, well, they don't, you know, in in our our case, it's
the election cycle. And but if you look at the
United States, it's every two years.
OK, yes. Yeah, you know, you know, there
isn't. Maybe there's a one month break,
a hiatus of one month when the people aren't talking about the
next midterms, OK, Maybe after the midterms for months, they
take a break, then they're thinking about the next one.
OK, So you know, yeah. I mean, and and plus we we we
have their Western elites, don't they don't because so much of it
is tied to special private interests.
I mean, and look, look at to be a politician in Europe and the
United States. These are wealthy people.
I mean, how many people, how many people, how many people in
the British Parliament have any idea what working class people,
what their existence is like? There was this woman, Cori Bush,
I think she was from Missouri. She, she was, you know, she came
from poverty, OK? I mean, before she was elected,
I mean, she, you know, I think was facing bankruptcy or
something, at the very least extreme financial hardship.
And she goes to Congress. I mean, she she there's no one
that understands her class whatsoever, OK.
And and she took a noble position on Israel Palestine and
they got rid of her in in one of the most expensive congressional
races. AIPAC and others just outspent
her and put and they got their puppet in office.
But you know, if you, if you go through all through your, I
mean, look at the von der Leyen and she comes from a very
wealthy family and she married very well, OK.
I mean, you know, you can make the case.
And I think there are cases in the past.
I mean, you had like Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
I mean, you know, he was a patrician.
He came from very nice money and a pampered existence, but every
once in a while the system generates someone that is so
unexpected. He actually sympathised with the
the working people. My, my, my father's family were
always died in the world. Republicans, OK, They hated
Franklin Roosevelt because he was a class traitor.
OK. But these people in power now,
they don't betray their class. They, they, they, they can't
even imagine it. OK, look at, I mean, this is
which report, and I'm not the source for this, OK.
But you know, Steve Witkoff, the guy that is Trump's envoy to
Russia and Iran, No, no, official American.
He's he's not employed by the US government.
He wasn't confirmed by anyone. He's just Donald Trump's friend.
And so his Witkoff's son and Donald Donald Trump's son, Don
Junior, they were apparently in trained to some to the Middle
East when Witkoff is dealing when he went to Oman.
Well, the the the sons of of two major power brokers.
They were making deals, you know, huge multi $1,000,000
tenant, millions of dollar deals.
You know, I mean, here they go. I mean, they use their status,
their power. And so people, you know, Hunter
Biden, nickeled and Diamond, I mean, they, they, they were,
they were the ragtag sellers of influence.
I mean, it looks like Witkoff and Don Junior, you know, they,
they do it on a grand scale. See, this is the problem.
This is the, the, what is the, is there a social good involved?
Is there is there a social, a good that we want to create?
There's no vision. It's like I'm it, it's my turn
to pile in. It's my time to collect.
OK, we pose the question, what is the West?
Well, I, I, but I think if you look at where places that we
would nominally think is the West, What, what, what do you
see? You see replicas of Roman
architecture, the arcs and the pillars and all that you see.
OK, well, well, in in. Well, I mean, a lot of it's
still in Europe, OK. And if you look at American
architecture of the turn of the nineteen 20th century, Rome was
the inspiration. And so why am I bringing this
up? And I'm going to answer your
question. This is a clown show.
Yeah. It's bread and circuses.
That's what it is. You know, immigration is a huge
problem in the United States, but it was a designed to be a
problem, OK. This was something in the making
for decades, and now it there's finally a a political figure
that wants to push back. But what is what is he selling?
We will find you. Well, that that doesn't help
people. Does it make you feel?
Oh, yeah, they got them. They sent them out.
Yay. But but the price of gasoline is
the same. The price of food is the same.
And what? And that's the circus part.
They're they have this And and what we have is a, a
conservative woke culture right now.
Because I'm the victim. I'm the victim.
Yeah. They got rid of another guy.
They sent him to El Salvador. Well, yeah, but how does that
make your life better? How does it make the country
better? What, what does it do with the
rule of law, You know, and I and I'm for even, you know, very
extreme measures if necessary, which you have to do within the
law, you know, because then you short circuit the whole thing.
And so, yeah, it's a hang on for the ride because that's going to
be the substitute for substantive changes over the
next three to six months. The US economy can be turned
upside down because of the terrific implications of it.
Yeah. I mean, because, you know, I may
be like you. I've listened to hundreds of
hours of what's going to happen. OK.
I'm not going to say I have any particularly special knowledge,
but it looks kind of grim. And how are you going to sell
that to your people? Oh, we got rid of these, and we
sent these guys to a supermax in El Salvador.
That's not going to be enough. OK.
It's not. So it's bread and circuses and
we'll see how long that can last.
I mean, it's something that's unsustainable.
Donald Trump is not going to reindustrialize the United
States with these policies. The people that could do it, you
know, I mean, you know me well enough.
I'm, I, I, I consider myself conservative.
I believe in personal freedoms. I'm not a big fan of government.
But what Donald Trump should have done with his mandate, he
should have been FDR and said we're going to have to spend our
way out of this mess. We're going to have to
reindustrialize this country or we're just going to lose it.
And, and, and, and if you want to use be a strong man, as I
say, authoritarian, then it start leaning on the rich.
OK, to start, they have to you become fabulously rich.
Your great, great grandchildren won't be able to spend the
amount of money that you've you've been able to hoard.
Now you have to step up and save the country.
That's not going to happen and no way is going to happen.
Happen. OK, at the end of the day, the
the the one. This is my prediction after four
years of Trump. The 1% will probably double
triple their value. But what happens after Trump?
Well, reaction then another reaction.
You know it. It is a deeply divided country,
but it, again, that's part of the bread and circuses, you
know, the, the, the, it's, it's all kind of a parlour game for
the people with power, you know, Yeah, Trump is, is keeping the
peasants preoccupied. That's a good thing.
OK. I mean, if it doesn't, if it
doesn't impact their bottom line, then then what interest do
they have if the status quo can be maintained?
He goes onto Twitter, I don't know if you saw, and he tells
the whole world not to buy oil. Is it from Iran?
Does he? How does he think this is going
to play out? Well, people feel good about it.
See, See, he's being a leader. He's being strong, OK?
And you know, the, the, the, the, the, the narrative that
China is a threat. I mean, we've, you know, we've
seen that CCP, the CCP, the CCP over and over and over again.
China. China.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a, as I've said to one of my, to a talk show host in
China. I said now it's your turn.
They're shifting their attention.
What? What?
What that will do is, well, China is the major importer of
Iranian oil. The Chinese are not going to pay
attention to what Trump has to say.
But the rest of the world will say, well, why do you get to
dictate the terms and conditions of global trade?
It made you rich. Why can't we become rich?
OK. So, I mean, it's like India,
they looked at what happened. You know, Germany became the
economic powerhouse, the industrial powerhouse of Europe.
Why? Well, because they're Germans,
culture is very important in the very industrious people, very
good work ethic, as I like to show people, I I collect Mont
Blanc pens. I love German technology,
precision instruments. And the Indians say, well, we'll
do the same thing. We got smart people, but we need
cheap energy because that's how the German economic miracle came
about, Cheap energy that was the most important ingredient.
And so now the American, don't you import Russian energy?
Well, no, no, we're, we're going to do the same thing that
Europeans, they don't want to do it anymore.
I mean, and then you know what the Russians will send us.
We'll buy crude oil from the Russians.
We'll refine it in our nice new refineries.
There's no new refineries in the West, OK, But India has them.
We'll refine it and we'll send it to, we'll sell it to the
Europeans at a 500% markup, OK. I mean, everybody knows this is
happening. The Europeans knows.
No, no, they know what this this is happening.
The, the, the, the. See, that's why I said we're
going to need psychologists to explain to us this mindset.
What do you think the world is going to look like in 250 years
time? Europe.
United States. Russia.
That's that's a little too far out.
Let's say 100 years. Let's say 100 years, OK.
What is happening right now I think is only going to
accelerate. We're going to go back to the
great power competition that we saw that that went all the way
up into the 19th and early 20th centuries.
We'll 100 years from now, we will look at the period of 1945
to 2015, you know, as an anomaly, a huge anomaly because
you had the most powerful parts of the world that were informed
by an ideology. Well, ideology, geopolitics is
very rarely informed by ideology.
It can play a role this, but I think it's negligible.
OK, because great powers have interests, they don't have
friends. But neoliberalism says our
friends and our values are far more important than power
calculations, which is absolutely nonsense sense, OK,
because you make huge mistakes. See, the United States, because
of its largess, can make huge foreign policy mistakes and
still move on. But you can't do it forever, OK?
You know, oh, American dominance of the world will be questioned
if we leave Indochina. Well, that didn't happen, OK?
You know, Iraq catastrophe, Afghanistan catastrophe.
Did it affect the average American?
They were probably vaguely aware of it.
OK. But going toe to toe with Russia
with this proxy war in Ukraine, then it starts, people start
feeling it, particularly with like with energy prices.
So I think we're just going to go back to a very dog eat dog,
dog eat dog world of just geopolitical posturing.
Is that a better world? Probably not.
Okay, will avoid us going into nuclear war.
Probably. See, they, you know, to solve
the security problems in the Middle East, Iran should have a
nuclear weapon that will kind of even the playing field.
OK, but that's great politic, great power politics.
It's not like should the mullahs have a nuclear weapon?
No, Should the nation state of Iran have a nuclear weapon?
Also, in 100 years, we're going to still we'll see a pattern.
We have Chinese or Han civilization.
We have the Persian civilization, we have the
Russian civilization. OK, Europe decided to get rid of
that. OK, So Europe will just be the
western tip of Asia. Maybe in 100 years, we won't
even call it Europe anymore. It'll be the western tip of
Asia, OK, Because they've made that decision.
But what I'm saying is, is that history has a way of not
repeating itself, but kind of repairing trends that are have
been as old as a millennia. OK.
And so this interregnum for 1945, my arbitrary 2015, will
just be seen as an oddity. That's also the experiment with
democracy. Will democracy play a big role
in 100 years? I don't think so.
No, I don't. No, I think it's on its way out
also. I do too.
I mean, there's no reason why
you need to keep changing the leadership every four or five
years. Look, an American academic who
really dislikes me a lot because he's a big democracy guy.
And, you know, he made a career out of it.
And I, you know, he asked me, he said, what about Russian
democracy? And I said, well, what about it?
Well, what do you think the state of it is?
And I said, well, ask most Russians.
They'll say, yeah, I'm for democracy if it works.
I'm for democracy if it generates results, OK.
Other than that, I don't think about it that that that's not a
topic of conversation. What is the topic of
conversation? I want to make sure I have a
future for my children, OK? Kind of like to take a vacation
once in a while. It's good that we have
healthcare, you know, Speaking of healthcare, you know, I had
an eye surgery a week and a half ago.
It was kind of a seriously, it was an emergency.
And in the hospital, Jeremy, what did I see?
Working class people, elderly people, you know, it was
everybody. It was a very good, excellent
institution. Very, the bedside manner was
wonderful. It was, it was, it wasn't
elitist. It wasn't a special hospital for
the rich or anything like that. No, I have insurance and my
insurance is accepted there. But if you don't, you're still
going to get the same treatment because you're a citizen and
you're and, and a lot of these people were were pensioners and,
you know, so they would, you know, what's important to them
is healthcare. If I I were to start, you know,
you know, sitting there in the waiting room.
So what do you think about democracy?
And they'd say, I'm not sure what you're talking about, young
man, but I'm glad we have this, you know, you know, democracy is
a Western fetish. It's a fetish, OK, Because most
of the world looks at it as a procedure.
It's not a fetish, you know, it's not an ideology.
And that's why most of them just like scratch their heads.
You know, it's like, what are you talking about?
We have turned it into a fetish, A fetish that works against the
interests of the vast majority of people that whose elites
fetishize it. OK.
And you know, everything is legitimate because it was
democratically like, well, I mean, if the, if the democratic
choice is so limited, I mean the Overton window, it's like like
that. I mean, no, it's a it's a fetish
to legitimise the current power structures and relations.
That's not, in my mind, democracy.
I'd like a nugget of wisdom from you, Peter.
That's too vague. Look, I, I, we, we live in very
perilous, perilous times. I think we'll get through it,
but at great cost. What I what I, I think is that
we have to abandon a lot of these pieties that, you know,
that that we're indoctrinated with, OK.
And, and and I think a lot more self awareness.
You know, my generation, I am, I'm at the end of the boomer
generation. I'm one of the last boomers.
We really fucked up the world. Sorry for the language.
OK, We don't need another generation of boomers because
they were very selfish. They were narcissistic.
They, you know, look at the identitarian politics, you know,
I being the identity project replaced the looking for
redemption, saving our souls. OK, we, we, we forgot all about
those things. We, we want to be, we want
gratification. So we, we, we don't want
absolution. And I, and that's, that's where
Western liberalism, just short circuited humanity put us on a
very, very bad trajectory. And the good thing is, I think
most of the world see that and, and, and it's like, you know,
you've got nice little gimmicks, you know, make life a little bit
easier. But you know, Westernisation and
modernization, they're not the same thing.
We'll take the modernization. You keep your stuff to yourself,
OK, You know, we'll watch it on your kind of fetishes on
Netflix, but you keep that there.
We, we are not really interested in this because we're not
interested in your identitarian project because what's at the
end of the day, why do we have society?
Why was the idea of society invented?
And, and practise to protect the vulnerable and to promote the
very best of us. OK?
You know, you know, the, the you know, one of the worst things
that came out of Western culture is that all men were created
equal. That's not that's not true.
I'm not Einstein. I'm not Tchaikovsky, OK?
I'm not Rachmaninoff. They're not all equal, but a
society that looks for the social good can can promote the
best of us while at the same time protecting the the most
valuable. That's what society is.
It's not, you know, how I get ahead of everybody else that
that leads you to a dead end all.
Right, Peter, how can I follow you?
Well, everybody knows I'm quite notorious.
I'm at RT, my programme is called Crosstalk.
I'm on what used to be called Twitter.
It's APL Crosstalk. You can follow me there.
I'm very proud and happy that I do a podcast with you and John
Lachlan, a forum and friends, which is catching on and I find
it very stimulating. And I do a podcast with my
friend George Samueli, which is called The Gaggle.
YouTube is quite cruel to us, but we George is very energetic
on the locals page. So I keep myself busy, but I'm
much more interested in listening to others before I
comment. That's one thing again, a new
thing that we should all do is listen more.
Peter Lavelle, thank you for joining me in the trenches.