Hearts of Oak Podcast

Trump Conviction Special: The Week According To . . . Karli Bonne'

America is now a banana republic.In a sham trial, a jury has convicted Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 election. Ms Daniels says that they had a sexual encounter in 2006, which the former president denies.Does this signal the death of the US legal system? The death of Justice? The death of Democracy? And ultimately the death of America?Karli Bonne' returns to Hearts of Oak to dissect all that has happened.
Karli Bonne' is a retired model, dancer and a Rockstar wanna be.Now she is a full blown MAGA maniac video clipper with three phones running, arguably the biggest Trump, MAGA, America First social media account.She is a proud New Yorker and Patriot, continuously laughing at the establishment because it’s like holy water on a demon, and these demons must be eradicated.
Follow Karli on these links...X/TWITTER     x.com/KarluskaPTELEGRAM     t.me/realKarliBonne (Midnight Rider Channel)TRUTH            truthsocial.com/@KarliBonneGETTR             gettr.com/user/karlibonne
Recorded  31.5.24
Connect with Hearts of Oak...X/TWITTER        x.com/HeartsofOakUKWEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/
*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X/Twitter x.com/TheBoschFawstin
Links to videos and talking points from this episode...President Trump statement https://x.com/KarluskaP/status/1796291741114667293NY Post Front Page https://x.com/KarluskaP/status/1796485044506349578Jason Miller https://x.com/KarluskaP/status/1796342949456019807Steve Bannon https://x.com/KarluskaP/status/1796302456059781159Jesse Watters https://x.com/JesseBWatters/status/1796299885563797763Trump Speech https://x.com/KarluskaP/status/1796172728543670634Elon Musk https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1796440638617244012How the Trump NY trial makes no difference to voting intentions https://x.com/KarluskaP/status/1796217760696946929Trump Campaign Ad https://x.com/KarluskaP/status/1796227570972901779color revolution https://x.com/glennbeck/status/1795993530290393388Google https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13476111/Google-suffers-leak-exposes-secret-algorithm.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490

Alistair Williams - Faith and Laughter: A Journey to Authenticity and Truth in a Challenging Industry

Show Notes and Transcript
We are delighted to welcome comedian Alistair Williams to share his journey of remaining authentic in the comedy industry despite pressure to conform to mainstream narratives. He integrates his Christian faith into his comedy, prioritizing faith over worldly concerns and uses his talents to spread joy and truth. Alistair discusses the impact of satire in conveying truths and highlights the challenges of balancing industry expectations with personal convictions. He emphasizes the importance of upholding moral integrity in a secular world, advocating for spreading Christian values through comedic work. The conversation delves into societal values, the decline of ethical grounding, and the need to discern biblical truths amidst challenges and industry pressures. We end this interview by discussing the struggles content creators face aligning their work with faith and values in the current economic landscape and the significance of staying true to one's beliefs and spreading messages of faith and truth.
Alistair Williams, a self-proclaimed “rambling moron,” emerges as a rising star on the UK comedy scene. He’s soared through the ranks, claiming the Piccadilly Comedy Club’s New Comedian of the Year 2014 award, securing spots in prestigious competitions and recently he was crowned 'British Comedian Of The Year 2023'. A firm believer in Free Speech and a fearless ’Soldier of God’, Alistair is a charismatic observational storyteller, combining high energy with a knack for crafting top-tier material. Whether winning awards or reaching finals, he’s on a rapid ascent to comedic stardom. 
Connect with Alistair...X/TWITTER         x.com/awilliamscomedyRUMBLE              rumble.com/user/alistairwilliams
Interview recorded  27.5.24
Connect with Hearts of Oak...X/TWITTER        x.com/HeartsofOakUKWEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/
*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X/Twitter x.com/TheBoschFawstin
TRANSCRIPT
(Hearts of Oak)
I am delighted today to be joined by comedian Alistair Williams. Alistair, thank you so much for your time today.
(Alistair Williams)
Anytime. Anytime. Good afternoon.
Great to have you on.
Obviously, people can follow you @awilliamscomedy, which is your Twitter or X handle. And, of course, on Rumble, it's just Alistair Williams.
And on it, you talk about, I think, your two phrases, more or less, on your Twitter is, Real comedian.
Soldier of God and I want to delve into both of those which are separate, but you do mix them like asking whether God wants to cut down ULEZ cameras or remember on comedy only, so you do mix them up the times, but you're some of the some of the the comments I've seen about you online Alistair Williams is quickly making a name for himself with razor sharp content and high what charm unafraid of tackling rough subject matter.
He's a passionate health campaigner combining raw personal antidotes on a jam-packed gag count and slick extroverted style. Another one says he is smart, passionate, impressively quick-witted and bursting with infectious confidence. So there you go.
They're just some of the...
Things I wrote about myself off the internet.
That was off your Twitter page, so I didn't want to say that.
Alistair, before we get on to kind of your life in comedy and what that means for you maybe you could just take a moment to introduce yourself especially to our kind of half U.S audience who may not have come across you, so maybe just introduce yourself give us a bit of your background story.
Sweet okay, well I'm a stand-up comedian.
I would say I'm one of, if not the most censored stand-up comedian in the world.
I had a YouTube channel that was pretty popular that got cancelled.
Most of the comedy clubs in UK, the major ones sort of stopped booking me at the same time after I had this really viral piece piece of comedy go viral about Brexit at the time and the whole internet started sharing.
Just at that time, the exact same time the comedy industry decided I did, or this guy has to never be seen again.
You know, I used to have like an agent I used to, I was on the TV, but, I quickly figured out after my first TV experience that it doesn't really matter how funny you are, unless you are willing to be malleable, unless you are willing to change what you're saying to fit in with the narrative of what the television says.
Like you're never going to be, a stand-up comedian, basically comedies, pretty much one of, if not the most controlled medium there is. And people were surprised about that.
There was, I thought you guys would be the main guys who would be allowed to say whatever they want.
It's like, yeah, that's why we're the most policed.
Because, yeah, we would be the guys to say, you know, or during the pandemic, for example, if something was ridiculous and, hey, this is crazy and stupid and laughable, like we should be the people pointing it out.
But where were those famous comedians during the pandemic?
They were out there saying, if you haven't got vaccinated, punch yourself in the face, you know, or the famous musicians, the rock and roll guys, you know, where were they during the pandemic?
You know, the stick it to the man.
They were like, get vaccinated.
You can't come to the show.
Like, you know so very quickly sort of opened my eyes.
Oh okay.
Being famous, I'm such an idiot I'm so naïve I actually thought like being famous was about like being talented or being good at stuff.
But very quickly I figured out; oh that has got absolutely nothing to do it's got nothing literally nothing to do with it, you know.
So, my one and only T.V recording like most of the comedians on there were bombing like they were getting like no laughs they were dying on their ass out there.
And then when I watched the TV recording back, they were just cutting in laughs and images of everyone next to all this awful stuff that died on its ass in the room.
When was that Comedy Central piece you did? How far back was that?
That was; weesh, maybe I want to say like 2017 or somewhere around there, somewhere around there, but I remember at the time the people that were managing me were trying to get me to change and say this and not say that and and I refused basically.
I thought if I'm funny I'm just gonna make it, and that, that is not the case.
So, they actually, if you find the clip, they actually put another comedian's name on my clip.
That's how much they don't want people to know who I am.
They put my piece of comedy out there on the internet.
And then another comedian's name comes up after it.
Because, I remember thinking this comedy is good.
People are going to want to find me after this. And they were like, oh yeah, we thought of that.
Don't worry.
So yeah, you know, and you never saw me on television again.
And at the television recording, like literally I smoked that recording.
Like it was it was clear like: whoa this guy's really funny you never saw me on TV again, because it's not it's not about that.
It's not about it certainly isn't about being funny, hasn't been for a long time.
Well back, it was your, was it the Edinburgh festival 2016 then which is just obviously before that comedy central and you read that was your first debut solo show.
I mean, maybe what led what led up to that, because people have really no idea what happens in the comedy circuit behind the scenes, it is quite cutthroat.
I assume just like probably music a very cutthroat, but what led you to to getting that gig at the Edinburgh festival and then what followed on from there?
Well, it's a good question and this is how they control comedy in this country right.
They say: if you want to be a famous comedian.
If you want to be good you want to be professional.
You have to go to the Edinburgh comedy festival.
Okay, because they tell you this is the only place comedy industry ever go; it's like one week a year or sorry one month a year in August.
I was like, aren't they going to be in the comedy clubs like watching me do really well?
They're: oh no no they're never going to see that.
That's ridiculous, I'm like what do they do the rest of the year apart from August?
Anyway, they say: you've got to go to Edinburgh, right, and that's where the tv people might see you and you have to get a good review, okay.
Then people that write for the newspapers have to like you and this is how they control it, so all the comedians go to Edinburgh and if you're on narrative, if you're like a rabid left wing.
You know, the time when I was coming up, it was like, men are toxic.
You know, if you did a show about, you know, men being rapists or whatever, it didn't have to have any jokes in it.
You know, the, the lady that won one jokes in an hour, all the guardian journalists and stuff were like: Oh, this is incredible.
It's a future in the comedy. You know, this is amazing.
And your agent or manager at the time would tell you to go to Edinburgh and you had to do an hour and they would tell you, you know, what's the worst thing that ever happened to you.
What's the most traumatic thing like, you know, oh your mom died, I said right that's that's your hour, you know, and they turn comedy into like this half drama, half emotion.
They just sort of get the spine and rip it out of there and you know mix it with acting and they just decimate the up comedy industry from Edinburgh, because they pull everyone into Edinburgh and they get all the journalists to review the show.
And if it's anything, you know, right wing or off narrative they either don't come to review it or if they do they give it two stars, and you know, that so they can control it by this small group of journalists who control who gets to be you know a stand-up comedian in the united kingdom.
It certainly doesn't work.
I used to think well if everyone's laughing in the crowd, I'm you know, I'm gonna make it.
And the more I focused on that the more I realized; hey these people in Edinburgh they literally they hate me.
These journalists and stuff they hate me, because I'm not on their narrative and I quickly realized oh they're using comedy to control the way people think.
But, before I was even a Christian, I never wanted to compromise on what I thought, because at the time it was all feminism and racism and stuff.
And basically what I figured out they were doing, it's like, you're getting men to hate women.
You're getting women to hate men.
You're getting black people to hate white people.
You're getting white people to hate black people.
And I never wanted to contribute to that.
Instead, I wanted to try and bring both both sides together, always.
And that just, you know, made me so unpopular with the comedy industry, essentially. They were always telling me to change the way I think, because the way I think was wrong.
You know, and when I wouldn't change, they just sort of kicked me out of the comedy industry.
And, you know, they made it very clear that, you know, you're never going to get anywhere going it this way.
So then I filmed my own stuff, put it out myself, made it go viral myself.
And that's when they were like, okay, now you can't do comedy.
But now we're going to stop you just getting anywhere near the microphone.
If you're going to record it yourself and put it out now, you're not allowed, you're not allowed to work anymore.
So, then I started live streaming and doing YouTube videos for a couple of years.
Built myself up a big YouTube channel.
Then they're like, right: you're not allowed to do YouTube either.
It's like, okay, you guys really, really are a bunch of losers. You know what I mean? Like they can win.
When did you get taken off YouTube?
What was it for?
They never tell you what it's for.
Never ever tell you what it's for.
But what happened was they gave me two strikes for, you know, nonsense.
I think one of them was like cyber bullying or something.
I think i'm out there cyber bullying, something ridiculous, so at that point I would just read the Bible on my live stream every Sunday.
So, it's kind of like; okay so you've got to give me one more strike here, I'm just going to read the Bible.
It's like your move you want to strike me for reading the bible, you know, that'll be why people are like why did you get kicked off YouTube?
I'm like well I was reading the bible they kicked me off, because no one believes that.
Everyone's like no it can't have been, that it's like that bro that's all I was doing on two strikes.
You know and I would just do that every week and that's turned into one of my favourite things that I do now.
Church on Sunday live stream every week.
And it's and it was sort of born out of that, so yeah.
You tube's the same. I mean you're fully aware.
Your audience is probably fully aware that you know they used to control everything on television and then we were like; oh we're on YouTube we're free.
Now, they just control everything on YouTube, you know.
Like everything out there is is controlled pretty much even the alternatives to YouTube, you know, it's very difficult if you want to give people something new to think about to get it out there.
I know, it is and I want to delve into that Christian aspect, because I remember having James Delingpole on talking about; I mean he does regularly does a video on the Psalms going through it.
You do that Sunday evening just reading through scripture and it's something which stands out as something quite different.
I think the only other person I've seen doing it regularly is is dry Sherry Tenpenny and actually fitting that into not a separate thing not this is my Christian persona, but hey, here's my comedy or here's my journalism or here's my activism
But actually, putting that all together is intriguing.
I think, quite different, but I want to delve into that. But I want to ask you more about, just being a comedian, doing the live shows, it must be...
It looks bloody difficult and nerve-wracking.
I mean you're there, you present yourself, you put yourself out there on a live thing in front of the audience.
If they don't find your set funny that's going to be a very long set for you that's going to last for eternity.
Tell me about that, because you're really you're putting yourself out there to be ridiculed and mocked if not then if not laughed at you're going to be ridiculed.
That's the easiest part of the job.
Me, I don't ever worry about that.
You know, I tell people that's the easy bit.
The hard bit is if you make room for people to laugh, it's surviving the attacks that are going to come to knock you out if you're, you know, trying to tell people the truth in today's day and age, which is what comedy is.
Good comedy is true. It always is. People, oh, that's so true, especially if you're coming up with some observation that was right in front of them and they didn't see it before.
Oh, that's so true. Isn't that true?
Everyone's laughing because they're like, oh, what he's saying is true, and we never realized it.
That's what comedy is.
That's what good comedy is.
And if you're actually out there, so much of what people have in front of them now is deception, right?
And if you're actually out there trying to, you know, open people's eyes and show people how they're lying to you about this and they're lying to you about that, you know, you're going to have, I have so much trouble off, off the mic, on the mic.
And it's actually made me better if anything, because I very quickly realized it doesn't matter how much I make these people laugh, you know.
They're never going to let me do this properly.
They're never going to give me a Netflix special.
They're never going to do it.
So, it doesn't matter.
So, I go on there just like, hey, you know, I literally don't care.
I literally don't care.
It's like even like the comedy clubs, I quickly realized it doesn't matter how good I do.
You know, some of the comedy clubs where I used to do my best work, they just never had me back one day.
You know, they just didn't want me back.
And I never upset a single audience member.
You know, I never did anything.
It was right after the Brexit booking thing.
That obviously, there is a single entity somewhere that controls the whole of the entertainment industry.
And you could tell that during the COVID pandemic.
Where was the one person who was famous, who had a slightly different point of view to what the whole world was told was the case?
There wasn't one.
And if there was one, Matt Le Tissier is a good example.
They're straight out of there, and all of a sudden it's a, this guy's a nutcase and he's now a maniac.
And, you know, there's, and that shows you how controlled this whole thing is.
Music, film, comedy, anything like anyone who is not saying what they want.
You just, you'll never hear of them.
You'll never hear of them.
Like there's probably a couple of exceptions, but I can't think of any during the pandemic who put their neck on the line and said, I disagree with what's being done here.
No, but I think people are quick to rewrite history as well, because now you've got many people who say, I was always against the woke agenda.
I was always against the COVID tyranny. And you're kind of thinking, well, you've come at the 11th hour. I'm really happy you've woken up.
This is great.
But I didn't realize you were there in the trenches with us back in the first couple of months. Have you seen that same thing in comedy?
I mean, in comedy, I mean, there was probably a few more people in comedy is with my circle that were like, Hey, wait a minute, something's up with this, you know, Tanya Edwards, Abi Roberts.
There's more, you know, there was probably a few more in comedy, which I would expect. Cause it's like, hey, you guys are supposed to be.
You're observant for a living.
You know what I mean? You're pointing out absurdity for a living.
It's like, come on, it must be a few more of you, who are, like wait a second this is nonsense.
So, I think there was more there was more in comedy than than anywhere else, but it's still very rare for someone to, because they just take everything away from you, you know, in in any walk of life; whether you're a doctor or a policeman or whether you're in the army or the navy or whatever, you know.
Like I heard this chap who's you know a fighter pilot guy on The Delingpod and he started saying.
You know, basically, hey, wait a minute.
We're not really hiring people on, you know, how good they are at flying planes.
We're just trying to get black lesbians in here.
It's like, you're out.
You know, someone who has a genuine concern for like, wait a second, the security of the country might be at risk here.
It's like, right, get him out of there.
You know, and it's not just, that's what I'm saying.
There's one entity that controls it all because the same thing is happening across every single industry.
It can't be possible that the same guy that runs comedy runs the RAF, can it? You know what I mean?
Why are the same things happening everywhere?
Especially as most people that you meet on the street, they don't agree with any of this crap.
It's not like everyone's like, oh, yeah, I totally agree with that.
You've struggled to find one maniac that agrees with 90% of the stuff that's being done, but yet it's all still being done.
People are too cowardly to say, I disagree with that, because they know what happens if they do disagree with that.
Thankfully, being a man of faith, I know that everything I have comes from God's hand and I don't need to worry about what the world wants to scare me we might take away your income or do this.
It's like God gives me that, everything I need comes from him.
So, you know there's nothing you can do to me that he won't allow, so I'm actually just going to do whatever what he wants me to do and, you know, that's why I think you see a lot of people of faith who don't go along with this stuff, because it's it's actually a bit of a paper tiger if you like you know these people.
They're not really as in charge of the world as they pretend hand that they are.
Well, how's that fit? I want to keep until later, but let me just touch on that point, because one of the pastors I really like in the UK, one of his favourite verses is from John, where you seek men who seek the praise of other men, seeking the praise of God.
And everyone wants that public adoration and seems to, as even many Christians seem to forget, that actually you should be looking to God for that praise or that viewpoint, that value. How does that affect you as, again, someone who is out there, who's putting themselves out?
And most comedians, I guess, they live or die on those laughs of an audience or those clicks. But there's a Christian you're enjoying this, but that's not where your value lies.
No, but I've everyone's been given certain talents by god and god is expecting a return on these talents.
I know the talents that god's given me i know which area they're in.
I know what he made me to do and he is expecting a return on this investment.
And one day I will stand before him and all the other work I've done will be burned up apart from the stuff that I did for Jesus.
So, this is one of the reasons I'm so keen on keeping church on Sunday going.
You know what I mean?
I'm keen to use whatever talents I have to let people know about him, basically.
And that's what keeps me going.
Because I've realized it doesn't matter how funny I am or how good I am at this.
They're never going to let me have a career.
That's quite freeing in a way, more than anything else.
It's like, well, then I don't have to worry about it.
I've already burned all those bridges there. You know what I mean?
Like not that they were ever going to let me over those bridges, but you know really sort of on my Brexit Burger King video; I really, I sort of little put little subtitles on there that was like oh the crowd's actually laughing this guy's never going to work at the BBC.
So, I really did sort of just be like, you know, in a slightly sort of childish way I'd give them a bit of a up yours, as you know what I mean? But that's something that I feel quite strongly about, is like that I feel like they're deliberately ruining comedy.
They're deliberately ruining film.
They're deliberately ruining music.
And as someone that believes in God and knows how much God wants joy to be in the world, one of the first things I experienced when I started being a comedian was I was just trying to make people happy.
Literally, that was it.
I was just trying to bring people joy.
And man, they were after me so bad.
And I was like, wait a minute, I'm literally just trying to spread joy.
And I realized how much the world, hates people that are just out there spreading joy.
And that was one of the first things that made me realize, hang on, there's something, something up with this world here.
This is before I even believe in God.
It was like some weirds going on.
Cause I'm just trying to do a nice thing here.
And I'm getting, getting so attacked for this, that there's some evil out here that I haven't really wrapped my head around yet. And then it was a sort of snowball effect from there.
I want to go back and ask you about that. Burger King skit.
And kind of most of public I will think, you know, if you can put forward a good position it's like being part of a debate society.
Maybe in journalism, if you can put forward a rational argument then, you win the day.
We find that not to be the case, but you think then comedy, if you can put forward a position and make it comical make, it humorous, then you should you should really win, because people will laugh and you can put forward any position, whatever it is, as long as you can get people to laugh and you kind of think: well Brexit that skit.
There's no way you can say: oh you're racist for that you're xenophobic for that, you hate this, you hate that.
Actually, it's funny and you're making a point, but that wasn't good enough, I mean tell us about that and why simply putting forward a position no matter what people think.
Even if it's funny it doesn't necessarily hit the mark and doesn't accept it.
Well, the funny thing about that is it's like, people watch that and they go, but you're not even really picking a side here.
You're just, you know, people that voted remain laughed and people who voted to leave for it was funny.
And that's sort of what I was told in the beginning.
I'm always looking for just down.
How can I get everyone in this room?
How can I get two people that should hate each other based on this?
And it's all cooked up, dude.
It's all, oh, I'm a remainer.
I'm a leaver, dude.
They come up with these things to make you hate each other.
I'm pro-vaccine, I'm anti-vaccine, we hate each other.
It's like, I'm white, I'm black, we hate each other.
It's like, they will give you a million things.
You know, Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Palestine, just go on and on and on.
It's the oldest trick in the book, you know, divide and conquer.
So, I was like, let me see if I can come up with something that's going to get the whole room okay.
But the reason it wasn't allowed is because it wasn't on the narrative.
It wasn't, if you voted to leave, you hate black people.
You know that was and that's what every comedian was doing at the time.
On the BBC ad nauseum, you know, just terrible comedy like that, and it's like if comedy, and the reason why I got in so much trouble Brexit isn't working is exposed the whole industry as being a fraud.
You know, it's like you're all you're doing is comedy on Brexit all the time and everyone hates it it's dead.
And then I come along explode a room with Brexit which every comedian there's just mind to death and everyone hates it.
And boom I blow it up.
I should have been everywhere.
They should have been like, oh get him on the BBC get him here this guy can make Brexit funny.
No you never saw me again.
They were like bury this guy.
He's doing comedy properly, because if you put someone like me out there that's doing it properly it makes it even more obvious that the rest of them are just, you know, there's: oh here's another joke about how people are racist.
It's like oh dude everyone hates this is stop, stop, please stop, you know, throw bread rolls at them now they do, stop, you know.
So it's really...
They can't let me anywhere near being a widely known comedian now, because it just, it really does expose how fake the industry is.
Because if you're, if you're really out there looking for funny comedians and you know, you watch that and that's, that's the reason why I lost my career.
That, that joke, it's not even someone who's offended.
I'm pretty special in that I'm cancelled and you can't even, they can't even get me on: well you said this and that was wrong ,you know what mean?
They can't even get me on that, so they just sort of silently cancel you they just remove all your live work slowly and cancel your YouTube channel and when they really want to cancel you you just, bro, you just fade away, and silently.
They don't, you're like Andrew Tate where it's like: "I'm cancelled, and he's everywhere.
You know what I mean?
It's like I'm cancelled I'm going live on Piers Morgan to talk about it.
Dude, if the establishment hated you you would not be on Piers Morgan, you're mad. Like the whole; oh Piers Morgan uncensored.
Bro who is censoring you?
You spend your whole career on like CNN and stuff.
If there's anyone who's more of an establishment toady, it's you.
You know the whole thing of like, oh we're cancelled but everyone knows our name. It's like that's not the thing.
The real cancel people, you never heard of them, that's how it really works.
But I know of the two very high profile comedians that always tell us how they're against the system in every way.
I look at two Netflix specials.
And I wonder how that kind of, just like those who have massive YouTube channels now, I wonder, how is that possible if you're being restricted?
Something doesn't add up.
You know their name, they're in the game.
That's the way it works.
But the enemy is very clever.
There's always going to be a counter-narrative.
There's always going to be people who I don't agree with the official narrative and I want something else.
It's like, oh, cool, we got that for you.
We got someone, we got that for you as well.
You know what I mean?
It's like, they're not dumb, and they're not going to give you any real dangerous opposition, but they will give you some people that, 'hey, we're the opposition,' you know.
But for people with discernment, you know, it's not hard to figure out who those people might be or what's going on.
But also, you know, you look at some incredibly famous comedians, you know, and you think, well, why is this guy allowed?
Like Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes or whatever.
You remember that?
And he was like: hey you guys are all paedophiles you've been having sex with children, and they were all just like.
You know there's all these clips of them being like..
We'll bring you back next year.
Yeah , yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like, do you honestly think that they didn't know he was gonna say that, and you know what I mean?
And they're like: you understand how dead you would be if they really didn't want that information getting out there and you just jumped on the mic and just blasted them, you know, but when you look at the, you can always look at like what was the reaction from that? People were like: oh, they got what they deserved.
He roasted them. ]
It's like, bro if what he was saying is true, these people need to be in jail.
It's not like they, got roasted, take that.
It's like, they've sort of normalized it with that move you, know what I mean.
It's like, they were ridiculed, they've served their time. It's like, hang on a minute. Like, do you really stop and think about that: it's like you can't go to this.
This is an industry awards thing right you.
Can't say if I'm booked to do the policemen's thing of the year, whatever all the policemen, and I jump on the mic like, hey you guys we're all having sex with children.
Do you think like that's gonna be allowed, or like you know, I would get shut down, and be like throwing stuff. But that didn't happen there, did it?
Why?
Because everyone knows it's true.
Everyone knows that like, oh yeah, Weinstein and this and that, you know.
Everyone knows it's true, but nothing happens.
So, it's just been sort of normalized in a way.
So, sometimes the things it looks like, hey, this guy's really sticking it to the man. But on closer inspection, what's the results of this sticking it to the man?
In this case, you know, nothing.
Yeah.
No, it's exactly the same as alternative media.
I think we're all seeing that as well.
How do you pick, I mean, you've got so toxic masculinity, Brexit, the food industry, which is a bit different, the whole woke agenda, what I mentioned before, what's God's view in smashing up ULEZ cameras or gender study, it's one way to get screwed.
All those kind of hot-button topics that are in the middle of this, I guess, this gender war and culture debate that we are seeing.
Hardy, do you have a list of go-to topics?
Because, I guess some comedians will just, hey, whatever the hell, if it makes people laugh, I don't give a damn, because I actually don't have any beliefs or guide in life.
You do, but do you have kind of areas you think, I understand that or how does it work?
I just, I just want to tell people the truth.
If you go out there and tell the truth, you'll, you'll find that you're, you know, against all different kinds of things, but down to like, you know, if you want to go out there and tell people there's only men and women in the world, like, you know, it's a controversial figure, you know, like, yes.
Okay. Sure.
You know what I mean?
Like it's not, it's not any sort of deliberate.
I'm going to go after this.
So, I'm going to go after that, but...
I really would just like to use; when you when you make people laugh they'll actually they'll listen to what you're saying, you know.
That's a that's a good opportunity to, you know, let people know like what's really going on in the world which is where my sort of Christian faith comes into it, and you know, that this is the only thing that I see as being important anymore.
Like everything else in the world seems fake and corrupt and controlled.
But this is telling people about Jesus is what one area where it's not.
And what one area where there is hope and one area where there is, you know, success to be had, if you know what I mean.
Whereas, you know, trying to climb up the career pole of the entertainment industry is, is just not, it's not one thing.
It's not possible for me anymore, And it's, it's not exciting either, you know.
But it must cause you…
There are awards in the industry.
And I saw you got an award, I think, last year for being the most popular comedian in the UK.
It was the Comedy Club.
That, obviously, it is good to get recognition.
You realise, actually, I am hitting the mark in some areas.
That's good.
So, I get those things are important. But, I guess there are not many awards like that, that are actually possible for someone like yourself.
Well, the British Comedian of the Year is the award that I won in November.
And the only reason I even entered that is because it's voted for by the audience.
So, there's only one way I'm going to win a competition if it's voted for by the audience.
So, because that one's voted for by the audience, I'm like, let me, let me go and get this one, you know?
And the finals that these sort of big established comedy clubs where I don't, I don't perform anymore.
So, it's quite fun for me to walk in there and be like, Hey, this is what I'm up to.
And then walk back out of there with a great big check, you know?
So, that was, but that was really God's hand in that.
You know, he, I lost my career, you know, they took everything away from me for trying to do the right thing, essentially.
And, you know, God likes to, likes to test your faith, wants to see like, okay, let's see, I'm going to take this away from you.
And this is going to be taken away from you.
And, you know, you like to send you into the wilderness.
And, and then at some point, and in my case, God was like, okay, at that point, when I won that award, God was like, okay, you can have, you can have this back now, you know, You know, you can have, you know, the recognition that....
It's quite hard when you're doing something like comedy and your friends and your family.
You can tell them, like, oh, I'm cancelled.
No one really believes it.
It's like, oh, you must be terrible. You know what I mean?
It's like, oh, I have my YouTube channel. You got taken away.
Oh, yeah, right, I suppose.
You know what I'm saying?
It was nice for me to have, like, okay, are you actually good at this?
Okay, fine.
Most people just thought you were crazy or whatever.
So, yeah, that was good.
But you know that there's no there's only really one award like that that's voted for by the audience and that's it, so you know it's not gonna i'm gonna go any further than that, if you know what I mean.
I've mentioned the the beginning of the show you have Soldier of God.
Unpack that, it's a it's an interesting phrase people describe themselves themselves, their Christian faith in all different ways or none, depending on how they want to do it.
But you put up there, soldier of God.
Why do you describe yourself as a soldier of God?
I'm in the joy division.
Okay.
I'm in the soldier of God.
I'm in the joy division.
God made me with these abilities to make people laugh and cheer people up.
And that's literally what I'm out there doing, you know, and there's more people need to be.
You know, out there trying to do God's work in this world.
And, you know, I think all the problems we have are from a sort of degradation of, of human character.
I don't think there's any sort of political thing going on.
You know, I don't think it's anything like that. It's just human characters sort of eroding, but becoming more sort of selfish.
We're more concerned about the things that we have and now how many followers we have and, you know what I mean, our social how we look to the outside world.
And there's so many problems that we have in the world that they're all as a result of this sort of falling away from a sound position of, you know, a Christian faith.
The people in this country they used to read the Bible all the time and they used to be concerned with loving your neighbour and you know following the ten commandments and treating other people as you want them to be treated.
And we had this great society where you could walk down the street safely and top of the morning, sir.
Good morning, sir.
Good morning, Mr. Chubb.
No, no, no.
You know, we had all that going on.
Right.
But it was based on people talk about all the fall of Western society.
There's no such thing as Western. You know, it's not like we have Western values.
So, give me, you know, what are you talking about?
Western?
What do you mean is Christian countries that began following Christ and trying to imitate what Jesus were like, started doing really well.
Started having really nice countries.
It's almost like treating other people as you would have them treat you as a basic principle results in a really nice place with everyone, you know, enjoying their life isn't it?
And you know this is what's built this country up and made it great, and now no one believes in it anymore, no one reads the bible.
They watch Netflix and Love Island, right?
And we wonder why everything's going to S.H.I.T, you know what I mean?
We wonder why?
It's like, you still read, we used to read the Bible all the time and try to be like Jesus.
And now we've thrown the name of Jesus Christ in the bin, and you want to wonder why the place is falling apart, and you want to try and fix it by voting for someone with a blue tie or a red tie. like, it's insane.
It's no one with a special coloured tie is going to save you, you know.
It's God is the only person can save this country and this world.
That's what the Bible teaches you, and that's what the truth of it is.
And I've got no interest anymore in, you know, really telling anyone about anything else other than that, because it's the only solution.
And because it's the only solution, you know, I can't really get excited about anything else, you know?
You're 100%.
I was trying to explain to someone today where we are in Europe and the UK in regards to the church and Christian belief compared to the States.
And the States are in a mess, but we are much further gone.
And it's quite difficult to explain the situation we find ourselves right on a precipice of chaos and probably oblivion.
Tell me about your faith story.
Was that was a light bulb moment? Was your background connected to church?
Not at all.
How did you come to Christ?
Not at all.
l was walking down the street and somebody sent me a message.
It's actually, I think it was a Muslim guy sent me a message: salaam Alaikum, or something, and I was like I wonder what that means.
And I googled what it meant, and it meant he was greeting me with the peace of God.
And I asked myself for the first time, I was like I wonder what what the peace of god feel like, and it just hit me washed over my soul my first encounter with the holy spirit.
And I was like, whoa!
It was crazy. I was like; whoa God is real.
And that was when god first sort of revealed himself to me, and then I just started reading the Bible.
I'd just been cancelled at the time, I just sort of lost everything so I came to the bible like thinking; wait a minute
When was this like 2018, 2019, when was this?
Yeah, about then.
I think so, about then.
So, I came to the bible trying to understand why the world hated me, because if you've been cancelled you lost everything, you're like: hey, and I know my own heart.
I know I'm trying to do the right thing and I'm trying to bring people together and I've lost everything.
That doesn't seem correct to me so, I started reading the Bible looking for answers for that.
And Jesus said: if the world hates you, remember it hated me first.
And I was like: hey, wait a second, that's that's true, because most people they don't even investigate Jesus.
They don't think that he's a significant person.
And someone like me who's always looking for the truth, I'm like, let me read every word that Jesus said, and let me see if I can find where he's wrong or where he's lying or what I don't agree with.
I'm like, wait a second. Everything this guy says is true.
Everything this guy says is incredible.
You know, I came to the Bible feeling that the world hated me.
I read one line, the world hates you.
Remember, it hated me first.
I'm like, whoa, I'm just on the right path as Jesus.
And immediately I cheered up. I was like, the world hates me.
This is horrible. I'm like, wait a minute.
The world hated Jesus first.
And you think that you've got some sub story like, oh, I'm just trying to be a good person and this bad thing happened to you.
There's no better example of that than Jesus who just walked around healing sick people and performing miracles and just helping everyone.
And then they nailed him to a cross and tortured him to death for three days.
It's like Jesus didn't deserve any of that.
And he's showing you the way the world really works.
Like if you really go out there and show love and the world will hate you.
And that's the exact time we're living in today, dude.
If you really want to go out there and tell people the truth and make a difference, and take a stand, and do the right thing, and live a righteous life; the world will hate you.
But if you want to go out there and have pride and celebrate pride, the world will love you.
You know, everything is inverted from how it used to be.
We used to think that pride is the sin that God hates the most, the Bible says.
And what a coincidence. We spent a whole month celebrating it.
You know, they didn't pick pride, you know, by accident.
They didn't pick the rainbow as a symbol by accident.
There's a biblical symbol, you know, everything.
The more you read the Bible, the more you'll realize all of this stuff in the world is from the Bible.
You know, like all of the things that they're pushing are the exact opposite of what God says to do.
Like the exact opposite.
It you, know having pride being a great example of that you know.
That god made them male and female, you know, that's under attack.
Like anything god says in the bible our modern culture hates, you know, and it's as simple as that.
No, 100 percent.
And the rainbow is a perfect example of God making a promise and man taking that and twisting it and making it as perverse as possible.
And that shows the state we are in.
Whenever you want to take something which is good and godly and twist it and make it as disgusting and perverse as possible.
I mean, I really feel sympathy for the people that are involved in this movement, because they're being deceived in a very...
They're being encouraged to antagonize God.
The rainbow is the symbol that God sent that said, I will never destroy the world again, no matter how much you disobey me.
So, they've got them out there holding that symbol of, God says you won't destroy the world, and at the same time saying, and I'm disobeying you, God.
They're provoking God, whether they know it or not. But that's the point of that movement, if you ask me.
It's leading people to rebel against God, and not only that, to spike the football, if you like, right in the face of the Almighty, you know.
And I don't think the rainbow symbol, I don't think it's an accident that they picked that one.
You know, most people are being misled in these days, but Jesus did say that's what we'll categorize the final days, which is believe where they are, take care that no man deceives you, you know.
I think we're living in the age of deception, but the more people read the Bible, the more you'll understand that this is all in there.
Everything that's happening now is in there, you know, down to cashless society and, you know, all the stuff the Bible says will happen towards the end is happening.
Especially, what I'm talking about a lot, which is the degradation of human character, the falling away from a standing position of Christianity.
You know, so much of what we're told to expect towards the end of this age is happening out there right now.
And it's one of the reasons why God tells you the future in the Bible thousands of years ago is so that you'll read it and go, oh, wow, this really is God chatting here.
Because, everything he said that would happen 2,000 years ago, I can see happening outside of the window if people want to go and examine the Bible.
But, you know, they got people pretty much convinced that they don't want to do that, so people don't.
But if you did, you'd find out what was going on.
Yeah, you can read as many books, watch as many podcasts, but you can short circuit the path to truth and just pick up a Bible.
Yes.
It's a lot quicker and you'll get there much sooner.
Alistair, what was your background?
Was it against God?
Was it against Christianity or was it just indifference?
Just complete, no idea about that at all, you know.
Interestingly when I did my food show, when I started telling people to eat real food, is the first time when I sort of really noticed: hang on a minute.
Because, I was just I was just telling people to eat like normal.
I noticed that all the food that's just on the earth is so good for you, right?
And it just falls off the trees and grows out of the ground and, you know, just replicates itself through seeds and animals giving birth to other animals. I'm like, and all that's really good for you, right?
And all the food that men touch that we create kills you, like processed food.
And I very quickly sort of figured out, like, oh, it's almost as if the stuff that's here on the earth has been created and is incredible and everything that we tamper with turns to, you know, death.
And you know, it's interestingly, it's I first saw God in an apple, you know, which is like where original sin comes from.
But that's where I first realized: oh people.
And I was trying to tell people the truth about food.
And they were trying to wipe me out for that, you know.
And that was again: I was just telling people like, eat celery, and they're like get rid of this guy, you know, because most people are dumbed down into, you know, drinking sugar and sweetness and just they're being poisoned to death, most people, with the food.
And I was trying to just let people know, hey, there's an easy way to be healthy. You just eat the food that's lying around.
And it was like, right, make sure he's never seen from again.
And that's when you sort of realize how evil the world actually is.
You're like: well there must be an opposite to this, right?
So, that was, yeah, so lots of my life you can look at and go: oh this is this has led, me to God this has led me to God, but I was never...
My family were never, you know, really religious, or whatever I was never brought up on it or anything like that.
It's just, you know, God chose to reveal himself to me. It's like nothing that I did or you know.
Well, that's the I think the frustrating part; that those of us who are Christians feel that and we've seen actually through the Covid tyranny that people just don't ask. People don't think.
People are sheep and all they all the Bob Moran cartoons are so true that people are sheep and they just follow that pathway and you have a conversation and they look at you blankly, but you're right mention Love Island or something and suddenly they're alive.
And you think there's a disconnect that you've actually been dulled into a place of not questioning anything and just believing what you're told and that's difficult.
That gap is a massive gap to bridge.
Yeah, I mean most people, they watch the television right?
They figure out what's going on from the television, you know, that's what they do.
And you know, you figure out the way my life's gone, I quickly figured out, oh, the television is just one giant deception.
When you just have a little peek behind the curtain at the television, it's like, oh, this is awful.
Even like adverts these days on the television, they're so awful, man.
Everything's so zany.
You know, it's always just like, oh, it's got a real sort of satanic vibe to it.
Even like adverts, it's all sort of close zoomed in on the face and quick cuts everywhere.
Like they don't even, new music's the same.
It's so jarring and it's just, ugh, like everything that is of the world just really stinks to me now.
You know, so entertainment especially, I mean they're not even really trying to hide it in entertainment anymore; like and young people are sort of picking up on this.
You can see some interesting TikTok videos where people are sort of mimicking, like you go to a rap concert and it's just a satanic ritual and the people are looking around; it's like, hey wait a minute what did he say?
It's like, you know, the demons in me, is like what?
Young people are starting to figure out like, hang on a minute, this is a bit sinister like what we're being what we're being fed here.
And don't get me started on children's entertainment and how you know the occult has repackaged itself.
Like you pick up any children's movie and stuff, I bet you it's about magic and spells and and unicorns and you know, and people don't realize like how much you know, the the occult has repackaged itself to children and it's really disgusting when you really sort of look into that.
I mean, the Disney and how that all works.
You know, there's endless rabbit holes that people can go down that I've been down, and they're very eye-opening when you realize the sweet stuff that you thought was so innocent, and you realize how much of it is of the enemy.
And you can find God through this, which sounds crazy, but the Antichrist points the way to Christ because he's the opposite.
So, whenever you see him work and you're like, oh, okay, well, I go to the opposite of that. I'll find Jesus, which is pretty much what happened to me.
Tell me, just finishing off on the on the comedy side, for you, are there like red lines, because you think where does a comedian go; every comedian is different, because we are who we are and we reflect what we what we see around us, but for you are there red lines, are there areas you don't go, how does it work?
I mean I try not to swear very much anymore.
So, you're not Not like I'll be then?
No, no, no, no, no.
And I try, I get convicted of that sort of stuff.
I still do swell.
I try not to, you know what I mean?
I try not to, just because, you know, I'm very big on this sort of, you know, I'm going to be called to account for everything that I've done or not done.
So, you know, I have a responsibility to try and do things the right way.
And I, you know, that's my red lines.
Basically, I try to not talk about anything that I don't think Jesus would talk about or want me to talk about.
And that is very much like swearing loads or another one that's possibly I'm out being sort of unforgiving of people.
It's very sort of easy these days.
But these people have done this and they've done that.
And they're the evilest people in the world.
We need to get them all and blah, blah, blah.
This is not a Christian doctrine, is it?
It's supposed to be the opposite of that.
So, that's somewhere else where I really have to rein myself in.
Like a lot of the times, these people we talked about earlier, these sort of fake content creators that are the opposition, but they're not really the opposition.
You know, I find it quite easy to show the content that they're putting out and sort of ridiculing it or sort of, you know, exposing like, well, hang on a minute. Is this really the opposition?
And just trying to do that in a sort of Christian way, you know,
Without being mean, without being, you know, insulting, but still trying to make it amusing.
Things so they're it's pretty boring red lines.
I'm sure it's not, you know, really what that sort of question was implying but that's that's pretty much where they are, yeah.
Can I just ask you about, actually, how you actually fund yourself.
I mean how do viewers listeners, they're always looking for I guess no only subscribing or supporting on the social media side, but actually just how they financially support.
How does that work for you and how do the public kind of support what you do to make sure you keep going?
Well, that's it, I just put my content out there for free.
I put my live streams out there for free, and I put little links where people can support me on subscribe star or locals and stuff like that and there's a really sort of core group of people that do that.
And they give me the ability, you know, to keep going essentially, you know, I do, I do a lot more live comedy now and, you know, that, that helps. But that's pretty much it.
I got no one, you know, supporting me apart from.
You have no sugar daddy.
No.
So, if people don't want me to keep going, you know, people don't want me to keep going.
And it's hard, because most people are broke these days.
You know, people are being, people are being attacked in, in a lot of ways economically these days, you know.
It's very difficult for people to have excess money to throw at someone like me, you know, but I'm in a sort of really good position where I can literally say whatever I want, because the people that support me; I don't have a I don't have any sponsors or anything like that. So, I can literally just, be a voice out there that's just coming at it from a place that, you know, I will say, you know, exactly what I think. And that's, that's pretty rare these days, you know? So, I mean, yeah, that's, that's pretty much it. I'm just supported by, by the regular people.
Do you do many live shows?
Cause I know you've done some comedy on leash, but I, I don't fall over closely necessarily, but do you do live shows that
people can come along to or other clubs?
I do.
There's clubs, but the the television controls most of the comedy circuit in the UK right, because you can't get past a certain level before it's like: well, we need someone for with T.V credits for this, you know what I mean.
Must have been on the TV, you know, otherwise you're just in this sort of layer below, you know, it doesn't matter how funny you are.
If you haven't been on the TV, or you've not been on TV, so you know, what I'm saying, so that's the the way that the TV companies sort of control even, even who gets to do sort of live comedy, but there is, there's a lot of work out there for someone like me who can do the job well, and you know, I can, scratch a living, you know, from the sort of the gigs in the sort of mid tier.
But you know what you're saying before, like, isn't it difficult to make people laugh?
Like, I shouldn't be at the mid tier anymore, but they've got me in the mid tier.
So, it's like, you know, it's so, I don't want to say it's easy for me, but it is it's.
Like they got me instead of on the mid-tier and it's like: okay, I'll sit here, I'll sit here on the mid-tier.
You know, I'll go on before the last guy who's going to be so incredible, okay.
You know what I mean?
So, it's fine, but it takes you know it takes all the pressure off to be honest, it takes all the pressure off ,you know.
But, it's fine, you know, I'm just, I'm not happy to be happy to be doing the job, bear in mind I'm not doing this for fame or money anymore, I'm doing this for the opportunity to tell people about Jesus so, you know, it's fine just to be able to do it it's fun, you know.
Well, you're doing that, and as your teacher says, God wins in the end, so that's the end of the story. Alistair, really appreciate you coming on.
I've loved your skits, love following you on Twitter, so thanks so much for coming on and sharing your story, not only of comedy, but of faith with our audience.
Thank you.
Hey, any time.
Thanks for having me on.
Really appreciate it.

PeterSweden - A Journey Through Journalism, Politics and Faith in a Changing Sweden

Show Notes and Transcript
PeterSweden, an independent journalist and political commentator joins Hearts of Oak to share his journey into journalism, covering topics like politics, climate change, and the rise of the Swedish Democrats party. He discusses challenges Sweden faces, such as gang violence and high crime rates, highlighting the media's portrayal of these issues and the upcoming European parliamentary elections. Peter delves into socialism's impact on Sweden's societal fabric, emphasizing faith's importance in addressing challenges and farmers' role in challenging climate change policies. He reflects on the changing landscape of Sweden, advocating for individuals to boldly embrace their Christian values in shaping society's dynamics.
Peter Imanuelsen, aka PeterSweden is a journalist and political commentator from Sweden. He specializes in reporting on news that the mainstream media often doesn't talk about.Peter is a traditional conservative that believes in liberty, democracy and human rights. He always seeks do to honest, unbiased news reporting. Peter is a firm believer in free speech, no matter what your opinions are.His work is 100% independent which means that he is not following any corporate agendas unlike the mainstream media. You will only get the truth. That's why Peter's motto is: REAL NEWS - INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM.
Connect with Peter...WEBSITE             petersweden.comX/TWITTER         x.com/PeterSweden7SUBSTACK         substack.com/@peterswedenYOUTUBE           youtube.com/c/PeterSweden
Interview recorded   23.5.24
Connect with Hearts of Oak...X/TWITTER        x.com/HeartsofOakUKWEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/
*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X/Twitter x.com/TheBoschFawstin
TRANSCRIPT
(Hearts of Oak)
Hello, Hearts of Oak. It's wonderful to have you back with us. And I'm delighted to have a guest that I have been intrigued following on Twitter for a number of years. And that is PeterSweden. Peter, thank you so much for joining us today.
(PeterSweden)
Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here.
Great to have you. And obviously, people can find you. All the details are on the screen and underneath in the description @PeterSweden7. petersweden.com and obviously your Substack petersweden.substack.com make sure and sign up to that and get Peter's regular input on what is happening in Sweden and I've had a number of individuals from Sweden I've had Ingrid Carlqvist I've had Kent Ekeroth but I'm really looking forward because you cover so much and just your pinned tweet I was looking at no 15-minute cities, reject cashless agenda, I embrace masculinity, anti-socialist, meat-eater, anti-feminist, unvaccinated, I support the farmers, I will expose the WEF agenda. And I think our viewers and listeners will sign up to all of those. So delighted to have you with us, Peter. Maybe we can start, before we get into the politics in Sweden, some of the issues that you're facing over there. Maybe I can just ask you to just take a moment and introduce yourself to our viewers and listeners before we get into the issues.
Yeah so as you said I go by Peter Sweden, my real name is actually Peter Imanuelsen but a lot of people in the English-speaking world have some trouble pronouncing and remembering that name so I go by Peter Sweden. Yeah I'm an independent journalist political commentator, conservative influencer. I talk about, well I began in really some years years ago now back in 2016, 2017, I began seeing a lot of things happening in Sweden that wasn't being reported on the mainstream media, there was shootings, there was bombings going on, cars being set on fire so I just just a regular guy who started posting about it on social media and people wanted to hear the truth and it just grew from there and now I'm talking about all kinds of things ranging from the things happening in Sweden to the climate agenda to the World Economic Forum to the farmers all of those things.
Yeah there's a lot happening and it's always good to hear from a specific European country of what is happening and how they're being impacted by these issues but maybe we can start politically we in the UK have just had a general election called, which doesn't mean much. I know the European parliamentary elections are coming up.
In Sweden, you've had the rise of the Swedish Democrats, which has been really interesting, looking at that from the UK as a conservative. Maybe do you want to let us know what impact they are having on Sweden in the government?
Yeah, so there's been a lot of positive developments after, because the thing is, they are not actually in government. They are propping up the government. There's a centre-right. Well, in reality, they're pretty far to the left, in my opinion. The government itself, it's the centre-right. They call it the centre-right moderate party, but in reality, they're pretty socialist-influenced still. But however, they're being propped up by the Social Democrats, who are a little bit more conservative. So they've been coming with some pretty good things lately. For example, this year they scrapped climate taxes on fuels, which caused the fuel prices to collapse by some 30% almost.
They have been scrapping the Agenda 2030 goals from government directives. And there's more examples as well of things that they've been... For example, they have scrapped their renewable energy plants and are instead going to be focusing on... They actually just announced recently they are investing millions into the fourth generation nuclear power plants, which is a very good thing.
So, yeah, a lot of good news coming out of Sweden. I mean, still a lot of bad things happening in Sweden, but at least there is some positive news going on here. They also go against the cashless agenda. They're looking at ways to strengthen physical cash. So we're seeing some positive developments, but still far from perfect.
Well, tell us, because I think it upset the established parties, seeing the Swedish Democrats rise and do so well. I mean, what is the popularity? Because obviously, Jimmie Åkesson leading, but he has chosen not to take the position of prime minister. He obviously is politically astute and realises that this is a long game and the Swedish Democrats are just rising, rising. But what is their kind of popularity in Sweden? Not only Jimmie, the leader, but the other figures in the Swedish Democrats?
Well, actually, among young people, the Swedish Democrats are very popular, especially among young men. I believe they are either the largest party among young men in Sweden. However, among young women, they are not. Among young women, you have the Green Party and the far left former Communist Party and the Socialist Party. They are the three largest parties among young women in Sweden.
So we're seeing kind of quite a big divide in Sweden at the moment with young men voting right wing and the young women voting very left. So it kind of depends on the person, really, who they're asking if they have a positive view or a negative view. And it's kind of interesting because Sweden has had a socialist in power for many, many decades when they were in power from 2014 up until, oh, when was it? 2022, I think.
During that time, Sweden saw a massive increase in the number of reported rapes. Sweden is one of the countries in the world with the most reported rapes. It's insane and that has been going on under the socialists and yet the young women are voting for the socialists and the former communists. It's hard to make sense of why that would be but I can get into that a little bit later what the or i can get into it now if you want to how the Swedish system kind of works.
Well yeah I do want to know but I know I want to get into to that because it's a issue of huge concern and we see Malmo being mentioned a lot in terms of in terms of gang violence in terms of rape and it's kind of sadly what Sweden is known for in certain areas and that's a huge shame but I mean the European parliamentary elections coming up beginning of June.
How will the Swedish Democrats perform in that? Talk us through that, because obviously in the UK, we've walked away from the EU. You're still in that. And I know the Swedish Democrats are your sceptic party. But how do you think actually the European parliamentary elections will work out for the Swedish Democrats?
I haven't been following the polls that closely, but it looks like they are polling on either first or second place. I believe they're polling in second place from what I lost. So I cannot quote on that, but they look set to be doing pretty good. I mean, compared to some some 10 years ago. So they're definitely been gaining more and more traction as time has gone on. I did see a poll on the general election, I believe, like the general consensus. And they were in second place with about 20% of the votes in the Swedish Democrats at the moment. So, I mean, they are kind of staying steady at around the 20% mark. The thing is, though, when you look at all the other parties combined, when you look at the Socialist Democrats, look at the far-left former Communist Party and the Green Party combined, they do get somewhere around 50% to kind of like split 50-50 in Sweden with the socialists. And then you have the rest 50% that are getting split between the center, center-right and the Swedish Democrats that are more conservative. So you still have a large portion in Sweden voting for socialists, which really boggles the mind. But when you get into it a little bit closer, you can start to understand why, for example, state media in Sweden are just...
So it wasn't officially state media that did this hit piece, but there was a hit piece against the Swedish Democrats in Sweden recently. It's been a big talking point the last few weeks. So the Swedish Democrats, they were exposed for having a troll factory, they said. So basically what they had, so this TV channel in Sweden called TV4, they employed a journalist to try and infiltrate the Swedish Democrats, seeking employment at the Swedish Democrats and so on and well they didn't get in and they had this so called big revelation that the Swedish Democrats were actually having different accounts on TikTok and YouTube posting like meme content and funny videos, so this was this big so called scandal all the state owned media in Sweden and they've been talking about it how the horrible Swedish Democrats have been doing this troll factory, as I call it. But the interesting thing is, so you have the SVT, which is the public state media in Sweden. By the way, 80% of people, journalists working there vote for the Green Party.
So there you go. But the people who did the so-called expose at TV4, they are officially a private TV channel, but they are owned in quite a large part by a company called Telia in Sweden, which in turn is owned in large part by the state.
So that's the kind of thing with the socialists in Sweden. A lot of the things, you say it's a private market, yes, but the state owns a lot of the companies in the private markets. You have this Telia, which is actually a mobile company, a mobile operator, but they also own tv channels and those kind of things, so you have a lot of private companies but in reality when you look at who owns these companies you see that the state actually owns a large share in many of these companies, so it's kind of like a hidden socialism in a way, they say it's private but in reality it's a lot more state-owned than people know.
Well the media I assume that the Swedish democrats are attacked in the media, I assume they don't get a fair ride. How does that work? And how does, I mean, what you're doing, you're a voice of reason, alternative media using alternative platforms. So tell us about the kind of established media, but also what alternative voices are there bringing truth to the people?
Not a lot. There are a few sites, like smaller sites in Sweden that publish alternative viewpoints. There's one called Samnytt, for example, which I know is Kent Ekeroth, that has been a guest of yours earlier.
He's working closely at that site, Samnytt. So there are a few there's also a channel called ricks on YouTube which is in reality and comes from the Swedish democrats so they're providing a lot of alternative viewpoints and so you have that but I mean anything mainstream, no there's, no you don't really have much.
Peter, at the beginning, you mentioned some of the issues that are happening there and the gang crime. Obviously, there are the no-go areas. We hear about the rape gangs.
Tell us about those issues and how the media report on it. Is this one of the reasons why Swedish Democrats have done so well, a failure to address these issues? I mean, give us an overview of how those issues are being addressed.
Yeah, I definitely think that has contributed to a large part in the rise of the Swedish Democrats because they are the only ones that are talking about it. The last ten years or so, the mainstream media, politicians largely try to ignore it. The problem has got so large that they aren't able to ignore it any longer so you are starting to see media reports on it, we are starting to see some politicians talk about it, but again the Swedish democrats have been talking about it for a long time. I can give an example, an incident that happened quite recently the leader of the liberal party, also integration minister in Sweden, he went on the EU election campaign trail, he went to a place that I would consider a no-go zone in Gothenburg, a place called biskopsgården.
He had to cancel it because the security services in Sweden said that they couldn't guarantee his safety while he was out campaigning, so we are now at the point in Sweden politicians cannot go on the campaign trail in certain areas because security services says that it isn't safe basically, they cannot guarantee his safety, that's how bad the situation is and, When you look into it, you see a lot of criminal gangs forming in these no-go zones, doing all kinds of illegal activities, and so bad that the police are losing control in some areas, people don't feel safe at night, walking outside.
I mean, just look at the statistics. I mean, last year we had 149 bombings in Sweden. That is the most for any country in the world that is not at war, so Sweden is topping the bombing statistics, it's topping the rape statistics, it's even topping the shooting statistics in Europe, for the number of young men that are getting killed in shootings in Sweden it's the highest number in all of Europe, so it's really bad, it's really bad and yeah it's I don't know what to say.
Because people think the Scandinavian way of life is very peaceful and relaxed, high quality of living, high incomes. And then you hear this and we've seen, I guess, the clashes in maybe Brussels and Paris. We haven't seen it in London, kind of a failure of integration.
Are things going from bad to worse? is there any desire to address what is happening because Swedes feel unsafe? That's what I'm hearing and no one wants to address it.
Yeah like I said some politicians have started talking about it now, of the student democrats have been pushing for it for many many years, there was an announcement made last year by the government and which seemed promising. I haven't seen much action yet, but they said that they would even deploy the military to assist police in dealing with the no-go zone gangs. So I haven't seen any action of that yet, but they at least went out and said it last year, so we will see where that leads.
I mean, as things get worse and worse, I think hopefully more and more people at least will kind of see what's going on, even though the mainstream media is doing their best to try and hide it.
I think people will start seeing it because it keeps happening so often. I mean, if you live in a city like Malmö and you hear a bombing every other day or at least once a week happening, I mean, people are going to start noticing that there is a problem in Sweden. I mean, it's difficult to hide. In fact, during Eurovision music contest, I don't think it was reported much in the media, but during Eurovision contest, police found a live bomb in Malmö. So they disarmed it thankfully.
What is the response of the public? I mean, and is it a, I know in the UK, we have a massive identity crisis. We don't know what it means to be English or British. The Scots know what it means to be Scottish or Welsh or Irish, but the English seem to have this identity crisis. And into that void, you've got basically chaos. What is it in Sweden? Is part of the problem a lack of understanding what it means to be Swedish? Because Sweden's got a very long history.
Sweden does have a very long history, yes. It used to be a superpower back in the day. I mean, you mentioned the Scandinavian way of life earlier, and... Yeah, it used to be very peaceful. It used to be very nice. I mean, it still is in the neighboring Scandinavian countries like Norway and in large part Denmark. I mean, it's such a big difference if you go from Sweden to Norway. Things have started going a little bit downhill in Norway when it comes to the gun crimes recently, but it's not nearly as bad as Sweden.
When it comes to Swedish history and so on, I mean, Swedes aren't very patriotic, I would say. In comparison to Norwegians who are extremely patriotic, it will be hard to find any country in the world that is more patriotic than the Norwegians, there was recently the 17th of may constitution day and everyone dresses up in the natural traditional natural dress, everyone is out marching with the Norwegian flag, like literally the whole city, entire, like literally every single person in Norway is out marching thousands, tens of thousands, like millions of people are out marching with the flags on the 17th of May. And that's normal in Norway, like that's a normal thing, everyone does it, you're expected to do it. It's not far right, it's not left-wing or anything, it's just normal in Norway. So you have that in Norway, but you don't have the same kind of patriotism in Sweden. Sweden is kind of going very global, I would say.
Instead of having that old Swedish history, Sweden is kind of trying to become more of a global country. Similar to what you perhaps can see in... I went to the Netherlands, and that seemed like a very globalist country. You saw the skyscrapers everywhere. It was horrible.
And you kind of see the same thing in Sweden as well. So, yeah. Yeah, I think the socialists have done a very good job in changing Sweden over the decades. It kind of all began maybe, really began maybe back in the 70s in Sweden. The socialists have been working for decades through the schools and through the media to change the way people in Sweden think. In Sweden, we have something called school duty. Which means that all children have to go to school. You're not allowed to homeschool. You have to go to school. And more or less it's a state school. Like there are a few free schools. But more or less people. Most people put their kids in the state schools. So they get brainwashed there. And then you have the media. Like I said earlier. The state media. The media also owning so-called private media as well. In large parts. So people get continuing the brainwashing in the media. So they have over the decades shaped the Swedish mind to be very conforming, following everything that they're being told.
Yeah, that's kind of what has happened over the decades in Sweden, I would say.
I've always seen Sweden and probably Norway, I mean, probably all Scandinavia, as a high tax, high spend that the state basically looks after you. They take all your money and they will look after you. And is that quasi-socialism even going further than that? I mean is that is that a fair assessment of Sweden over the last few decades?
Kind of, it's a high tax, but do you get a lot out of it?
I've seen a lot of stories about elderly people at elderly care homes they're getting served slop for dinner and so they pay all these high taxes their whole life and they get treated not very good in the care homes. Yeah you get a lot of taxes, Sweden has a very very high tax, Norway doesn't have nearly as high tax actually as we've done, but yeah high tax but in my opinion you'll get a lot out of it like the roads if you go to Sweden, the roads in Sweden are not nearly as good as as other countries in Europe that have lower taxes, I mean you would think with all of the high taxes you will get fantastic roads, you will get fantastic elderly care but you don't really get that as much as you would have hoped for for the spend, for the taxes that you have to pay
Wow I want to pick up on one of the other issues that you've been very vocal on and you mentioned the Netherlands and of course watching the the farmers revolting against the extreme controls and being told that farming, producing food for human beings is now a negative thing and how does it fit in in Sweden is farming a part of the Swedish economy have you seen farmers rise up or tell us what that situation is in Sweden.
Yeah there was actually some farmers protests happening in Sweden as well. Did you not see that on the news, but there were some farmers that were protesting in fact it's been all over Europe there's been farmers protests in Norway, there's been in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy.
England as well and many other countries, there's so many I forget now there's so many of them all over Europe basically, but yes they they spread to Sweden as well. I did not get a chance to go to any of those protests in Sweden, I've been talking to farmers in Norway. I've been talking to farmers in Germany, we talked to farmers in the Netherlands and they're protesting for different reasons in different countries. In Norway, they're protesting for better wages. In the Netherlands and in Germany, they're protesting against the climate agenda that are always climate taxes that are going to decimate their business if they go through. Yeah, so the farmers protests and all of these things that are happening as the farmers, I like to call it climate communism. And the reason for that is, you know, Stalin, he called the farmers the enemies of the people. He seized the farmers' lands. Millions of people starved. Now we're seeing farmers getting called enemies of the climate. And in the Netherlands, they actually talked about essentially seizing thousands of farms from the farmers in the name of climate change. Now, thankfully, it seems like that is not happening because Geert Wilders just managed to lead a new government and they are expressing support for the farmers. So you kind of see the result there. They threatened to take the farmers' lands. The farmers were not happy. They protested and the people voted for a new government and the new government listened to the farmers. So it looks like the farmers have some wins there in the Netherlands, for sure.
But back to the climate communism thing, it's all about control. That's what happened in the Soviet Union. Stalin wanted control of the economy.
He wanted a state to be this all-controlling, authoritative state. And we're seeing the same thing happening now with climate change. they're using it as an excuse to be able to introduce authoritarian measures, like for example that with the farmers, carbon tax, I predict that in the future we will see, I mean in Sweden we already had digital id for a long time it will not surprise me if we soon see digital id pad with some kind of carbon fracking eventually ending up in some kind of social credit score system that would not surprise me at all because again it all got back to the control. They want to transfer their wealth and freedom from the people over to themselves. So it's a lot of parallels with communism that we are seeing.
What is the pushback? Because the government is a center-right government, with the Swedish Democrats kind of with them or propping them up, you would expect that they want to give people control, want to have a small state and give people individual responsibility. Are you seeing pushback on some of these issues, especially on the climate nonsense? Are you seeing the Swedish government pushing back on this and saying, actually, we don't want this?
Yes and no. There are... Yes, they are doing things like scrapping the renewable energy plans, focusing on nuclear power, cutting the climate taxes on fuels, but they still have the same talking points, if you will. They still talk about, oh, we need to save the climate, and so on. So they're still talking about it, but their actions are going a little bit the other way, like, yeah going in in a positive direction and but still doing it like under the guise of oh we need nuclear powers because it's going to be good for the climate, that kind of thing, so the narrative is the same but we're seeing some positive development.
I want to finish off talking about faith and I'm always intrigued with guests coming on who are outspoken about their Christian faith, in the UK, we're told you must keep that private. Don't be public about your faith. But looking at some of the census figures in Sweden, 52% say they are part of the Church of Sweden. Of course, that's been falling year by year. How does Christianity fit into Swedish society? And then probably separately, how does your personal faith fit as a journalist who is high profile.
So yeah, that general, how does Christianity fit into Swedish society?
It doesn't fit in a lot, unfortunately.
You mentioned a figure of 50% in the Church of Sweden. Well, it's actually a lot worse than that, because I saw some statistics showing that only 20% of Swedish people believe in God. So you have some 80% that are atheists. And I think this is a very big part as well of the problem in Sweden. And again, it kind of goes back to socialism part, because Sweden used to be a very Christian country. Back in the 70s, on the radio, like the top songs on the radio would be Christian songs. It used to be a very Christian country. But decades of socialism, you know, as you might know, under communism and socialism, they are atheists. Atheism is the religion of communism. You're supposed to worship the state instead of God under communism. I mean, just look at North Korea. They have these massive statues of their leaders that are bowing before. I mean, and that's kind of what we're seeing as well in Sweden with the socialism, over the decades have tried to get rid of God, get rid of Christianity in Sweden.
That has been a big part, I think, of the problems that we're seeing in Sweden, because if you let the state become God, then, I mean, all morality goes out the window.
You need God to have morality. And yeah, we're not seeing a lot of that.
You're vocal about your faith on Twitter or on X or whatever anyone wants to call it. And what does that mean? What is your personal faith? You talk about your wife and her faith, and a lot of, I think, Christian figures hide their faith online, and they do their whatever in the public sphere, but their faith they keep private. But you're eager and willing to talk about your faith, and then that connects with what you do. So tell us a little bit about that, and I guess why you do that.
Yeah. Oh where should I start, well I think a lot of people who see themselves as Christians today they kind of try to hide it, ashamed of it, especially in Sweden, you know, it's very it's controversial in a way.
I feel like it's my duty to speak the truth. It's my duty to tell people what is going on. And I think coming from my faith plays a big part in that, in being able to not be afraid and tell the truth as I see it. And 'not be afraid' comes a large part from my faith. I mean, Jesus is awesome, he has helped me in my life many many times and helped, I mean there's so many things that happen in my life that can only be described as coming from Jesus and yeah it's helped me a lot in my life and the work that I do being able to stand up and, not be afraid because ultimately, what it comes down to is good and evil, you have the good side and you have the evil side and, Jesus is on the good side and you don't want to be on the evil side so, yeah I think if more people would have come and...
You see a lot of the evil things happening in the world, all this Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, all of this stuff happening. I think a lot of the problems in the world would have been solved if people actually came to know God. All of the hatred, all of the fighting, all of those kinds of things, all of the division would disappear if people found God. Because I'm a firm believer in that.
I agree. When Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, that those people want to know the way, people want to know what truth is, which is under assault, and people want to know what life is all about. So all those are answered in Jesus.
Just to finish off, how does the church connect with society? Because we've seen a massive disconnect in the UK with the church, afraid, either collapsing under the woke agenda or just afraid to speak truth. And, you know, they will talk about it within a church service, but you don't want to actually go outside your four walls of a church and speak truth. And that's kind of the story I've seen across Europe. I'm guessing that it's similar in Sweden with churches afraid to engage on all these issues.
Yeah I think that is one of the big problems that we have at the moment, kind of I've been thinking a lot about that, I think one of the reasons, Christians we are the light of the world We're kind of a light in darkness. We're the salt of the earth. Well, it's supposed to be. But when Christians have lost their salt, they have lost all the light that's gone away, the darkness has come in and taken over.
And I think that is, in large part, kind of what has happened in Sweden as well. As the people in Sweden became more and more atheist, The darkness came in and managed to get more and more hold of Sweden and things have developed more and more in a bad way.
I know in Sweden there was some periods in Sweden where the church was kind of quite outspoken, and there was a lot of good Christians out there that were really not afraid to speak out, and that was in the 90s in fact. And you kind of saw a little bit of positive development, it kind of translated into the culture, into the politics.
Some people say that politics is downstream from culture. Well, I think that culture is downstream from Christianity or from religion and then culture and then politics is again downstream from culture. So you have God at the top downstream to culture downstream to politics. So if there is no God, you take away God the culture becomes really bad then the politics becomes really bad. But you have God at the top influencing the culture influencing the politics. And that is a big problem, I think, we have seen with Christianity as of late. There is a lot of lukewarm Christians, unfortunately, going around, lukewarm churches, even false prophets. I have, in fact, noticed in the work that I do, I have met a lot of resistance from people that are religious, that call themselves Christians, unfortunately. Which is very sad but yeah I think that is a big problem with the lukewarm Christians that we have seen today people need to get back to Jesus, need to be unashamed of being Christian and saying it loudly to the world without any shame whatsoever.
Being unashamed with Jesus and getting back to that is a perfect end to chatting with you, Peter. Really appreciate that. Obviously, to the viewers and listeners, make sure and follow Peter @PeterSweden7 on Twitter and sign up to his Substack, petersweden.substack.com for all those updates. Peter, I really appreciate your time and expanding on some of the issues that you're facing in Sweden. So thanks for joining us today.
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

The Week According To . . . Lewis Brackpool

Lewis Brackpool is back with us for our weekend look through some of the news stories, articles and social media posts we just couldn't ignore!Expect straight talking and free speech in abundance as we discuss...- UK PM Rishi Sunak calls surprise July election as his party seeks to defy dire polls- World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab to step back from executive role- “Pro-Paedophile” activist group celebrates as Germany decriminalizes child porn possession- Vaccine Fallout: It's not been a good month for our "impartial" TV doctors...- China holds military drills around Taiwan as 'strong punishment'- Assassination attempt on Trump: The Democrats declared war on and weaponized the full power of the justice system- Brighton council elects first Muslim mayor- UK Geoengineering: FOI request leads to multiple projects, massive funding and global ties
Lewis Brackpool is an independent journalist, reporter, broadcaster, commentator, and writer in politics, culture, news and current affairs.Lewis is also the host of the Podcast - The State Of It
Connect with Lewis...X/TWITTER        x.com/Lewis_Brackpool PODCAST          open.spotify.com/show/1ObKegtoG8OH5fIFP3hjUx?si=f3f470c139b84167SUBSTACK        lewisbrackpool.substack.com/
Recorded  24.5.24
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*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X/Twitter twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin 
Links to topics...UK July election https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/22/uk/uk-early-elections-sunak-conservatives-intl/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recircKlaus Schwab https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/21/world-economic-forum-davos-founder-klaus-schwab-to-step-back-from-executive-role.htmlGermany https://reduxx.info/pro-pedophile-activist-group-celebrates-as-germany-decriminalizes-child-porn-possession TV doctorshttps://x.com/StarkNakedBrief/status/1792636547461726392China https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqvv29gpqn1oTrumphttps://gettr.com/post/p35r256bf5cBrighton Muslim mayorhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c72p807kr9moUK Geoengineering https://bit.ly/3V8Wl5Xhttps://x.com/efenigson/status/1792201565236863015https://x.com/Lewis_Brackpool/status/1792575495415935020

Cambel McLaughlin - Jam for Freedom: Standing for Mental Health, Peace and Choice

Show Notes and Transcript
Founder, Cambel McLaughlin joins Hearts of Oak to discuss the upcoming, and second Jam for Freedom Festival and he shares his journey as a musician and English teacher. We examine the roots of the movement that was created in response to COVID tyranny and lockdowns and despite challenges and arrests, Cambel remains dedicated to spreading positivity through music and has received high praise and help from the legends Eric Clapton and Van Morrison.We explore the festival's organisation and artists, featuring the likes of our good friends Right Said Fred and the awesome Five Times August and the many workshops and talks highlighting community spirit and underlining music's role in promoting freedom and unity.
In the midst of lockdowns in June 2020, Cambel McLaughlin took his portable drum kit and speaker out to local parks to bring cheer and smiles to Londoners. This then developed into weekly outdoor free gigs named 'The Outside Jam' until the winter cold stopped them. In December of that year further COVID tyranny and draconian measures increased against musicians and the general population with another lockdown. Cambel then changed the name of his project to 'Jam for Freedom', his aim being to bring the world’s musicians together in a day of solidarity, called the ‘Jam for Freedom Day’. It was the first of many.After several months of tireless touring around the UK and Ireland with pro-freedom musicians, the project received international recognition from rock and roll great Eric Clapton. Van Morrison’s Rhythm and Blues Foundation also supported their cause, giving funds to upgrade their modest busking rig, but what propelled the project to international awareness was Eric Clapton featuring JFF in his music video for ‘This Has Gotta Stop’. Cambel instantly received emails from across the world from people wanting to join in, going from having two chapters in Ireland and the UK, to having 15 and growing.
Jam for Freedom Festival 2024August 8th- 11th | St Albans, Hertfordshire
See Right Said Fred, Joseph Arthur, Five Times August, Sons of Cream and enjoy 4 days and nights of 150+ liberating performances, workshops, panels, comedy and pantomime plus all-day children's entertainment and activities!
TICKETS   jamforfreedom.com/festival
Connect with Cambel and Jam for Freedom...WEBSITE            jamforfreedom.comX                         x.com/jamforfreedom
Interview recorded  22.5.24
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*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
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TRANSCRIPT
(Hearts of Oak)
Hello, Hearts of Oak.
I am delighted to have a brand new guest with us today of a musical flavour, which we'll get into that, and that's Cambel McLaughlin.
Cambel, thanks so much for your time today.
Thank you so much for having me, Peter.
Great to have you on, and I've seen, obviously, the second Jam for Freedom Festival is coming up, and obviously people can find it there, jamforfreedom.com, and @JamForFreedom is the Twitter or X handle and that is from the 8th to the 11th of August in St Albans.
We'll get into all of that, but I just wanted to make sure the viewers and listeners were aware that all the links are in the description.
But if you are around and want to have a great time at three, four days with a great lineup, musical lineup, then go check out the website, have a look and be part of, It looks like an amazing three, four days.
And it was Fred Fairbrass actually messaged me and said, hey, you need to have Cambel on.
I said, oh, yes, Cambel.
I've seen the event last year, Jam for Freedom.
So, it's great to have you on, Cambel.
But before we get into that, before we get into your arrest in 2021, which is a mark that quite a number of people now carry of standing up against the authoritarian regime.
Before that do you want to just give us a little bit of your background introduce yourself before we get on to Jam for Freedom.
Yeah, thank you I'm 29 years old I was 25 years old when I started, what then became the Jam for Freedom in 2020.
I traveled for a few years playing as a musician working as an English teacher in Australia Japan and on a cruise ship; lived in London.
You know, I've kind of been around, really proud of my country, really proud of, you know, what this country means and the freedoms we have and our heritage and just traveling abroad really cemented that as a young man, and so coming back and moving to London in 2018, I think I was about maybe 23, 24, at that time.
You know, as I said really, really, proud to be from here and just was like right I'm going to work really hard.
I'm going to start focusing on music as well on the side and so I started busking in London and I was doing really well.
I was, you know, making a really good bit of change and, you know, it's really rewarding, you know, when you're jumping on the streets busking; it's kind of like the harder you work the better you work, the more money you make, and the crowds were were getting big in Leicester Square in Trafalgar Square which is where I was performing around Christmas time and other times.
So, it's really fun, and I saved all my money, and then I put all my savings savings into starting like a weddings band.
We filmed everything, you know.
I auditioned everybody, we had a really good lineup, you know, loads of different singers and sax players and, you know, it was like a nine-piece band or something like that.
And then it was march 2020 and it was just, you know, I was just about to launch it all and then all of a sudden there's this this flu apparently and everything must stop and so that that kind of confused me because I thought this is just a flu right.
It's just going to be a couple months, okay, I'll just, you know, work from home or whatever for a bit.
Can I throw in, exactly where...exactly t he same issue, we started 20th of February 2020, exactly the same.
All these great plans that get burned and you have to start over, so I understand exactly your feeling at that time
Yeah, and I just still kept that hunger, you know, I was still like I'm not gonna let this stop me, and so, I started this project called the Outside Jam around June time and it was just basically me going around with all my busking gear in a park in in East London where I lived, and just bringing a party and people would come from from the area and just just party in the park and just, you know, families;it's family friendly.
We were just trying to just raise people's spirits we weren't really...
I just believed it was just going to be a few months of, you know, people just getting over this little flu and then you know obviously the governments were planning to do a lot more than on that.
But then it evolved and we kept doing that every week, and I got musicians from all over London would come in and perform and jam and, you know, people would share the microphones and no one was really getting sick, which was funny.
And then as the lockdowns intensified in December 2020, then I changed the name of it to Outside Jam to Jam for Freedom.
And then on the day of the so-called lockdowns on December 20th, which was when the whole of the UK was locked down.
I was like, no, we're going to, we're going to do jam for freedom.
And then I did the first one in a park, same concept, you know, busking musicians coming out, although less musicians wanted to join in at that point, it was just a handful, it was really just one other drummer.
So, then I had to learn how to kind of sing a bit.
So, it was just me.
I was, you know, I was normally the drummer.
I was forced into all these different roles that I had never done before.
And then I thought, you know what, let's, let's take this a step further.
Let's travel across our beautiful country and go wherever we want on the streets in the parks and let's Jam for Freedom there and let's get musicians from all over and let's try and make it international, let's try and make all the countries of the world go out on the streets and Jam for Freedom; let's do it all together on the same day, the same week, let's make a movement.
And I just kept pushing for that idea and eventually we did go on a UK tour.
We fundraised a little bit of money to get a motor home that a few of us could could sleep in and shower in, because at that point there was no...
You couldn't even go to a hotel, right, to even, you know, you couldn't book in hotels anywhere.
So, we did that and from December, then it's the tour kicked off in January, and then it's just been going on for like three years or three and a half years I suppose and then we have got international chapters now and people are Jamming for Freedom on in different countries and 15 international chapters.
And it's just kind of developed into this festival where we really want to celebrate musicians that are free-thinking individuals and creatives and positive change makers and thinkers and workshop hosts and comedians.
And that's what we have at our festival this year so it's a massive lineup.
Sounds a world away from busking. Do you ever miss the simplicity of just going out busking and just doing that yourself?
Yeah, it was funny.
I mean, when I was always busking, I did feel a bit like, because, you know, you're playing the popular songs, you're playing, you know, the Hollywood trendy stuff.
It always felt a bit like, I don't want to play this forever.
I want to write my own music.
I want to make, you know, make something different. And so...
I couldn't really go back to it now, because it doesn't feel right to me.
But I mean, yesterday, no, it wasn't yesterday, two days ago, we did a gig in support of Press Freedoms and Julian Assange.
So, we played outside the courtroom there and we kind of just freestyle.
So, we might play like another Brick on the Wall by Roger Waters and then we might just adjust the lyrics, you know, about certain things.
So yeah, I mean we kind of, we might, use old songs and then freestyle it, so we kind of have that element of what busking was and the simplicity, but we just kind of bring it and adjust it, I suppose.
mean it it sounds like a very natural thing for a musician to want to share their music but obviously uh 2021I've I followed it and you got arrested.
What was your crime?
Yeah, so that was part of the UK tour um and that was in February 2021, that was our first UK tour with the motor home, and I got arrested and accused.
I mean there was there was a few hundred people of us in a park having a good time and I think it was it was organized.
It wasn't organized by me, but it was organized, I don't know, maybe a few days before: everyone let's go to this park in East London and West London.
And so I turned up there with some amps and my drum kit and an Irish guitarist called Alan and some other musicians jumped on, and it was just me and a few other people that I had personally invited, but I got arrested and accused of organizing the whole thing, which I didn't, and then I went to court and I was like: "I didn't do it all I just, I just posted about it the night before, hey, let's jam for freedom here."
And then it got stamped on me.
So yeah, that was really sad because, well it was a bit eye opening because, you know, the reason, one of the reasons I started Jam for Freedom is because of my scepticism of, you know, governments and their, corruption and what they're doing to Europe and what they've done to the world and what what they're still doing.
It was kind of like: oh, yeah, I was right, you know, because the judge was interrupting me.
He wouldn't let me finish.
He was saying, oh did you write your speech?
Did you write your, I can't remember what it's called, your testimonial, you know, my defence or something.
Yeah, your statement your defence.
My statement, you know, did you write that?
Oh, because I was quoting as well, previous, like law suits or litigation which proved that it wasn't a crime which was all valid and he was interrupting me and telling me: oh that's not relevant.
And even even quoting like the English constitution and talking about the right to petition which is in the commonwealth countries.
You know, you have a right to protest and that supersedes, you know, all the other laws to a degree, right?
As long as you're not disturbing peace, which I wasn't, you know, we, I just, I didn't organize it.
At the end of the day, whatever they were accusing me of, it wasn't true, but they just slapped cut on me and I got fined.
They tried to fine me for 10 grand, but we got it reduced down to about 700 odd quid.
You know, I still got a criminal conviction for jamming in a park with like five other people for about half an hour.
You know, and but, you know, it just just happened that a few hundred people had already organized and planned to go there before even the the music was was on the schedule.
It's bonkers, that court appearance it's bonkers, because uh it's what we've seen certainly over the last four years, it's the establishment looking down.
And I mean, how dare you, or able to put something together in your defence?
You're just a pleb and you're speaking to someone in the system, in the criminal system, who is of a higher echelon in society.
I think we've seen that attitude across the board in the last four years.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, it's just kind of ingrained in...
You know, that kind of culture and, you know, the imperialist ideas.
You know, you have to, squash the rebellions, but I don't really, you know, I don't really care about what they think and how they view me and what their views are because, you know, I believe that what we do is, is far more powerful, far more beautiful, you know, and, and it's a celebration, and you know you can't you can't stop it.
You can't stop us celebrating and having a good time and connecting and spreading the truth.
Yeah.
It's just it's never going to stop me and you know they can be whatever they want to be.
It doesn't matter.
We're going to keep going.
Well, let me bring up, this is the, there we go.
That is the poster with a lot happening, and you've packed a heck of a lot in.
And you can just see that, obviously, August 8th to the 11th.
Let me repeat that, in St Albans.
And all the, if you go onto your Twitter page or the website, everything is there.
But I mean tell us about the event, tell us about what you want to happen, maybe your experiences from the first event, what you've learned.
Tell us about the the first one, what was that like and what were your takeaways from it
I mean our schedule this year is incredible.
You can jump on our website and we've got the whole schedules there, four pages of four different days, you know, there's over 150 different artists and performances and pantomime, comedians, panellists, workshops, every morning and much more, so jump on there and you can see that poster in detail.
Yeah, it was all, I mean I did festivals in my garden growing up.
I don't have a big garden, it's just like the council house garden, but my mum was really, really kind and let us all get together.
So, I've always done festivals since I was a teenager, and I just love that energy of just people getting together that maybe wouldn't have like hung out before.
But they're just kind of like, you know, meshing and they're kind of just getting on sharing a beer.
I just I like seeing unity and peace in the world.
I think we all do, really.
And so yeah, it's been on my mind to to put on a festival for years and then with Jam for Freedom happening it was part of my my plan; okay I'm going to put on festival as soon as I can to celebrate what we're doing.
And last year we did it for the first time.
It sold out, it was it was amazing.
It was very challenging, we worked for many months to kind of get everything sorted in time and, you know, fly in a guests and organize their travel and organize accommodation and organize, you know, there's so many things that are going on.
It could have been a lot better.
We did hire...
We hired a production team and they put a main stage together, which didn't work essentially.
And we were like, you know, you're going to come and fix this.
And they were like: yeah, and then they were like, oh, actually we're going to refund you.
And then I took them to court, because they didn't give me a refund.
I mean, they had really good testimonials and clients.
I don't know what the hell happened.
Took him to court twice and I won on both hearings and they were then, they were then hit with two county court judgments, but they didn't pay me any refund or any compensation and it was a lot of money that they owed me.
So, I had to kind of shoulder all of that responsibility and that difficulty.
But we had an amazing volunteer team an amazing team that we kind of put together like in the moment like right okay we're going to make a new stage in this in this marquee and we you know we basically adapted to the whole situation but obviously when stuff like that happens we had delays but uh this year we've got Right Said Fred's chosen production team who they've worked with on tours, and they've worked with massive artists like number one chart and topping artists.
And they're called Absolute Audio Hire.
So, they're managing the whole production this year of the main stage, which is where all the big stuff happens.
And then we've got an amazing production team that's going to help run the second stage.
So, that was really challenging, but, you know, what could I do?
You know, I hired a company, paid them a lot of money, and they scanned me and I took them to court.
Then they folded their company and went into administration.
So, you know, it's just all these things.
The site we used as well, they didn't, take care of the site.
We tried to take them to court, but they had already closed their company and they were scamming people.
And it was just, yeah, it was just a shame.
But our new site has, it's got, it's got tons of space, it's, it's got enough for 5000 people, but we're keeping it nice and intimate about 500 people.
And it's gorgeous.
It's got like a river running through it.
It's a stone's throw from London and like Luton and Heathrow Airport.
So, it's super accessible for guests from all over.
So, yeah, but it was an amazing time.
Overall, it was, you know, I've got so many emails like this was amazing.
Best festival ever.
I can't wait to come back.
You know, most people have come back from last year and we're just getting through our last tickets now.
But test that organizational side, because I've been an events coordinator back donkeys ago and organized fairly sizable events, but when you look at the number of individuals you have participated; it's one thing to organize a conference with maybe six or eight speakers during the day.
You've got a whole page full and and that's a world away from simply doing the music,now you've got all the organizational side you have to arrange, and I think that most people when they come to that they have no idea really of the work that goes on behind the scenes.
So, I'm sure whenever it was finished you were; it's happened, it's done, I can put my feet up now.
Yeah, I was proud of it, you know, you have that stress, but you have the the pride that you've done it I mean.
I guess from playing on, it kind of what, I'm a bit seasoned for the pressures and the stress from from playing on.
The streets and having police follow you and trying to arrest you, and you know, to stay calm and deal with that pressure.
I mean we had gigs when there was like 24, 27, riot police vans just encircling us, and you know, it becomes a bit of a military operation, because you have to kind of work out; right okay how long can we play for before we think they're going to come and come at us.
"Okay, let's keep let's do one more song, and you know, okay, you've got that drum, you've got that speaker, you know, you're ready to go if we need to beeline out of here, and we've we've done that stuff, so it becomes like, you know, it became kind of like second nature to deal with that pressure.
Also, these these musicians that we work with.
I mean, I know most of them, like I've played with them.
I toured with them, you know, I know them all like and I have an amazing volunteer team and, like amazing stuff that have worked with me and talk with me and toured with these artists.
So, there's loads of cross-pollination with all these musicians from across the world, Of course, England and the UK that we all kind of know each other.
And we all kind of  have got used to that pressure of of the Jam for Freedom gigs, and kind of everything goes on with it, but but yeah; as well as well with the speakers.
You know, I mean, we've done like almost 500 well over 500 shows across the world and that's led to all these different people that I've met and slept at their houses and on their sofas and their spare rooms and, and they're all part of the festival.
Like amazing staff who worked with me, tour with me,
So, it's a real massive community of people from America, Ireland, Europe, etc.
I we've got some Australians coming that are just happening to be in England this year that have done Jam for Freedom shows.
Yeah, it's intense, but at the end of the day it's a beautiful experience and it's a beautiful community, and yeah, I just hope that hope you guys can all come.
We've got really limited tickets now, so jump on, and get the last shoe.
Yeah, 100 percent, we're doing this just a day before it goes out, but certainly I'll repeat: everyone one go and and get tickets and make sure you're you're part of that.
Tells about the people you've met, I mean I've, to me, actually the last four years learning experience for me, media, you're obviously doing these massive events, and it's all about the people you meet, and they're phenomenal people who maybe wouldn't have crossed before, because you're doing one area and they're moving a different area, traditionally, you may not have crossed paths, but because of what we've faced the last four years, it's kind of standing shoulder to shoulder people who you may not agree with everything, but actually there's a lot you can work together on.
And that issue of freedom, free speech, freedom to assembly, all of that.
I mean, yeah, let us know some of those some people like I, you've obviously got the Fred’s there, and I remember thinking this is surreal on the phone chatting to Fred or Richard; on and on.
I think this is just the strangest experience.
But this is what I think the last four years have opened up.
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, I was busking on the streets in central London.
So, you know, I was getting a lot of people following me on social media and I think I had like Pixie Lott, who's an English singer.
She like been tweeting my video or something, but yeah, it wasn't any, you know, I'm just I'm a lad from a council house, and I don't have any famous family or anything, so I mean, having tea with Eric Clapton at his house, that was pretty, that was pretty wild, because I'm kind of nervous, you know mean; like I'm just like this is just; his wife and in meeting his family, and because he, put us...
So, Eric Clapton if people don't know, he used to we well we used to do loads of live streams, so our shows we'd live stream across the world in the lockdowns and people would tune in and, you know, give them a bit of hope and something to enjoy and sometimes they'd pop down, and you you know, be part of the live stream.
Eric was following our live streams and when he saw what happened to us in Hyde park one time when the police ambushed us and damaged some of our equipment and pushed people over and it was I think it was in march maybe it was April 2021, so he was watching that, he donated to help us repair some equipment and then we had a car that was donated; a little people carrier a little cheap cheapo vehicle.
There was a problem with that, it got written off, then I said: Eric can we borrow a van or something and yeah he lent us a tour bus basically um so I went and met him got the tour bus um you know he was just he's just a big fan of us and he was writing music whilst watching our live streams he wrote like the guitar solo to wherever all the rebels gone which he did with van Morrison.
Yeah, I mean that was that was pretty cool to have like Clapton be a fan of what we do and you know.
Hang out with him and go to a studio.
Completely unexpected, you know, because I'm a drummer, and his drummers, and the drummers that he played with are like people I based all my playing on.
So yeah, I mean there's others as well I mean just when we when we go when we go on tour and and i remember state when we went into Edinburgh and we do our gig and then we go halfway through: by the way we don't have any work to stay tonight could someone put us up, you know.
And it just always worked, and so I just never thought, I know, I don't need to plan, where I know I know someone's got a spare room or sofa, and this couple put us up and the woman; beautiful house, they, you know, so we got the proper like Scott's hospitality, it was just, we were so blessed.
You know, the wife was a an ex-head teacher still teaching and then the husband was like an oil rig engineer kind of supervisor type role, you know, he would I don't know, you know, they were smart, really, you know really smart people, and that was the thing is, we'd meet all kinds of people, you know, from all walks of life that, you know.
Perhaps I wouldn't have really kind of got on with or maybe had much common ground with, but all of a sudden we had this common ground because we were all in it together to spread that message out there on the streets and in the parks and have a good time when the police would come up to me and go: excuse, you know, in my ear, when I'm playing in Edinburgh, there's a video of it.
And the police policeman comes up and he goes: can you, I need you to ask people to social distance.
And I go, that's not my job, mate.
Freedom!
Just keep going.
You know, we're all in it together.
We're all just, just having a good time.
So yeah, it's been fascinating and you know, you do meet tons of people on the road and and you know the Assange show a couple days ago, you know, I saw people I hadn't seen in a couple of years.
It's a really nice community, so yeah, good on us all for for getting out there and meeting people when we were supposed to just stay in and as one of my friends, well I was not a friend anymore, he said: I should just sit inside and just eat some biscuits.
I'm like no, I'm going outside, I'm gonna go on a tour mate.
Yeah screw that idea.
I think we've seen a lot of information coming out about the totalitarian regime that we all live under and so you watch individuals giving giving speeches, I mean, I know you've got Tess Lawrie coming in.
I've watched her many times and had her on, but then it's kind of a departure into then looking at comedians and how comedy is used to engage and then looking at how music is used to engage and maybe, I'm kind of thinking more information, so this is about a speech or a presentation that's kind of my background in politics and all of that, but this is something very different.
Give us an insight of how music then, I guess, captures people in a in a completely different way than standing up and maybe doing a presentation which we think well, that's where you get a message across.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it can all be part of the same, you know, it's all part of the same like kind of sphere I suppose.
I mean, I guess when I've, you know, being really proud of my country and being a patriot and, you know, and spending time listening to videos and history and hours and hours of reading, you know, that kind of gives me that foundation of going, you know what, Jam for Freedom is a good idea and I'm going to do it, you know, back in 2020.
So, having that foundation of of that kind of knowledge, and you know, I'm always learning you know, you never know enough do you, but I think that the festival itself is it's kind of a celebration of what how, you know, that that is how Jam for Freedom started.
It started from knowing what; knowing good knowledge, wanting to know more, wanting to do the right thing, wanting to stay healthy, through watching speeches and reading panels and reading books and presentations and stuff.
And then the music is really that kind of icing on the cake, just, you know, so to speak, the cherry on top ,and so yeah we need the whole thing.
The really good thing about our festival program is it's curated in a way so that in the mornings you have the workshops; which is yoga, Falun gong, which you might know about is censored in in communist china.
So, we have all these kind of like...
We're trying to bring like indigenous ideas and and kind of really will help people relax and get healthy so you've got that in the morning um and then it goes into the panels, and then kind of in between the panels there's a break and then some of the music start so you can see all the panels you can do all the workshops and then you can still have like six seven eight eight, nine hours of live music and partying, you know, approximately, it might be a little bit, you know, around that timeframe. So you can have all of it, you know, and if you don't want to watch maybe one of the panels, well, there's an act on, there's an opera singer on, or there's, you know, you don't want to watch one of the live acts, you know, that's a different flavour. You can just watch some comedy.
You know, we've kind of curated it in a way so that you can fit in as much as possible, that you could basically see 90% of it.
And not miss not miss any of it.
Yeah so, that's my view on it and that's what we're bringing this year.
I want to finish off on on the issue of finance, because we live in a world where people are used to getting things for free whether it's media, news, interviews music, people now expect everything free and it's interesting in having that conversation with people to point out that actually everything has a cost.
And obviously putting on a festival like this, it doesn't come free unless someone owns a huge castle and wants to put it on on their ground to pay for it, that there are a lot of costs to put it on.
Just finish on that, because I think it's important that we, who believe, in actually freedom buy into it.
And that does mean buying into it with the money we have available, as well as our time and publicizing these events.
Yeah absolutely.
Yeah, know, where you put your money is where you put your vote in in effect, to the society that you want to build, and you know, in your children's future.
So yeah, support Hearts of Oak and support you know all the great causes that that that are close to your heart because it helps build a better world, and yeah, it is expensive to do what we do you know and to do what you do Peter, you know, with your studio and, you know um you know all the costs attached to it same with the festival it's a huge expense.
But you know we keep costs as low as possible and, you know, the food and drinks affordable, and whatever you know, the ticket the tickets support the musicians: pay for their pay for their travel, pay for their costs, pay for the, you know, comedians pay for the panellists, pay for the workshops, and in the morning and and everything, you know.
So you know you're you're in effect supporting people that support you that support a better world, um and we need to strengthen that and we need we need to be unafraid of creating an alternative economy that um can can rival the mainstream economy um and I've always championed that I've never been afraid to think that and you know even before I was doing jam for freedom
One Christmas, I think it was 20 the Christmas 2019, I challenged myself and I said: right, every gift I buy for my family members is going to be made in the UK and I don't know how much spent, 300, 400 pounds or something, you know, on all these gifts for my family, and I found it all.
The sheepskin shoes made in Devon, you know, the soaps made in in England, the socks made in Yorkshire etc etc.
So I've always been a champion of like. kind of, that you know that we can build our own economies that we can put our money where our mouth is.
With Jam for Freedom, this is a British institution I suppose, it's a British idea, it started here, support it, it's grown across the world, and you know, we're in talks to-do other festivals in in other countries, but yeah, support it, help us grow, and yeah, put your money where your mouth is guys.
It will come back to bless us all and bless the future.
Yeah, I'm sorry one more question, but last one about; so people are thinking of turning up, they're thinking actually, I have kids, I don't know if they can come, I don't know if I can just come for the day, or if I can stay there, camp there, kind of what's the deal with some of those practical questions that people may have?
Yeah, we have day tickets.
We have camping tickets.
We have tickets for people that live local and want to just pop in each day. We have spaces for camper vans, motorhomes.
There's a massive campsite for tents.
We have glamping options.
So, if you just want to come and have a tent all built for you with a proper bed and, you know, it's kind of like a hotel.
It's like a hotel, they're beautiful, that's all there.
We do free tickets for children under 12, um and if you're a carer um of someone that's disabled then you can come for free you just need to send us an email and then we'll just confirm it all so we do loads of free discounted tickets and we have a discount code as well for the last 100 tickets which are on sale now and that code is FINAL100, I believe. FINAL100, yeah.
You can find that on our social media.
And join our mailing list as well, because we do loads of shows.
And we did a really fun show a couple of days ago for Assange in London.
And we do a lot of fun, free shows as well.
Although, I've got a baby now, and I don't live in London anymore.
So, it's kind of like I live up north.
So, it's kind of logistically not as easy to put on all the free shows that we used to, the last couple of years, but yeah, we're trying to do more.
We do other stuff, look we're sponsoring The Better Way fair which is run by world council for health, and we're putting on some bands there we're running a stage, and we've got another gig in Ipswich as well at an organic pub.
So, get on our mailing list and you can see more, but yeah please do support the festival, come along, come and get the final tickets, support Peter and Hearts of Oak. and if you've got any questions just drop us an email drop us a message, because we'd love to have you part of the festival.
Wonderful.
I hope to see people there.
Make sure the viewers and listeners go jamfreedom.com.
Put your details down there so you can be kept up to date with what is happening, not just the festival, but everything else.
And do come and be a part of that in St. Albans, just north of London.
Easy to get to, as Cambel said.
And it's the 8th to the 11th. 8th to 12th or 8th to 11th?
What is it?
8th to the 11th?
Yeah,
8th to the 11th.
Yeah, 8 to 11.
Wonderful, Cambel thank you so much for coming on and sharing love what you're doing.
It's exciting bringing people together, like-minded people, and being able to I guess connect together which is what we've been told is bad and you cannot do over the last four years and it's great to see something so against what we were told to do and something so natural and normal for all of us.
Cambel, thanks so much for your time today.
Thank you Peter
Yeah, jamforfreedom.com, check out all the artists, you can listen to their music as well and see the full schedule, so we'll see you soon.
Thank you so much Peter.

Mike Yardley - Navigating Censorship, Democracy, and the Future of Free Speech

Show Notes and Transcript
Mike Yardley joins Hearts of Oak to discuss his varied background, including military service and journalism, addressing censorship in contemporary Britain, particularly concerning vaccines and lockdowns. We examine the impact of censorship on free speech, social media algorithms, and the consequences of opposing mainstream narratives. The conversation delves into declining democracy, globalist agendas, and the suppression of individual liberties. Mike highlights concerns about powerful entities controlling public discourse and a lack of open debate on critical issues. We end on political changes in Europe and the necessity of open discussions to tackle societal issues, particularly the significance of critical thinking, diverse perspectives, and unrestricted dialogue to shape a better future.
Mike Yardley is well known as a sporting journalist, shooting instructor, and hunter and has written and broadcast extensively on all aspects of guns and their use.His articles (2000+) have appeared in many journals as well as in the national press. He has appeared as an expert witness in cases which relate to firearms and firearms safety. He is a founding fellow of the Association of Professional Shooting Instructors, and has formal instructing qualifications from a variety of other bodies.He is listed one of The Field’s ‘Top Shots.’ He retired from the press competition at the CLA Game Fair after winning it three times.As well as his shooting activities he has written books on other subjects including an account of the independent Polish trade union Solidarity, a biography of T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), and a history of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst itself. He is a contributing author and ‘Special Researcher’ to the Oxford History of the British Army (in which he wrote the concluding chapter and essays on the army in Northern Ireland and the SAS). He is also a frequent broadcaster and has made and presented documentaries for the BBC.Mike has also been involved as a specialist ballistic consultant, and presenter, in many productions for various TV companies including the Discovery and History Channels. He has re-enacted on location worldwide the death of the Red Baron, the Trojan Horse incident from ancient history, and some of the most infamous assassinations, including those of JFK, RFK and Abe Lincoln.Michael has worked a photojournalist and war reporter in Syria, Lebanon, Albania/Kosovo, Africa, and Afghanistan. He was seized off the street in Beirut in 1982 (before Terry Waite and John McCarthy) but released shortly afterwards having befriended one of his captors. In 1986 he made 3 clandestine crossings into Afghanistan with the Mujahedin putting his cameras aside and working as a medic on one mission. In the late 1990s, he ran aid convoys to Kosovan Refugees in Albania and on the Albanian/Kosovo border. The charity he co-founded, ‘Just Help,’ was honoured for this work which took 300 tons of relief to desperately needy people.
Connect with Mike...X/TWITTER        twitter.com/YardleyShootingWEBSITE            positiveshooting.com
Interview recorded 2.5.24
Connect with Hearts of Oak...X/TWITTER        x.com/HeartsofOakUKWEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/SHOP                 heartsofoak.org/shop/
*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X/Twitter twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin 
(Hearts of Oak)
Hello Hearts of Oak, thank you so much for joining us once again and I'm joined by someone who I've been enjoying watching on Twitter for the last couple of years and delighted that he can join us today and that's Mike Yardley. Mike, thank you so much for your time today.
(Mike Yardley)
Yeah, great to be here and thank you very much for asking me Peter.
Not at all, thoroughly enjoyed. I thought I would But let our audience also enjoy your input.
And we had a good chat on the phone the other week about all different issues. And people can find you @YardleyShooting, which introduces the question, Yardley Shooting. Maybe you want to give just a one or two minute introduction of your background. I know you've written. You have a deep passion and understanding of history, along with many other things. But maybe give the viewer just a little bit of your background.
Well, I've had a wide and varied career. I studied psychology at university. I went to the army. Wasn't really, you know, content in the army. And I resigned my commission in 1980. But I was in the army at a very interesting time. Height of the Cold War. I was on what was then the West German and East German border watching the East Germans and Russians watching us. So an intriguing place. And I really left the army to become a war reporter, a photographer, particularly initially.
And also I went to Poland. I was in Poland for the rise of solidarity. I brought an exhibition back to the UK, which opened at the National Theatre. And memorably with Peggy Ashcroft doing the honours at that event, and Sir John Gielgud as patron. And then I've sort of made my way as an author and as a freelance.
And I've also had a parallel career as an arms specialist. I've written a, probably millions of words in that area, but I've also written the final chapter of the Oxford History of the British Army, essays within that, books on the history of Sandhurst and co-written with another ex-officer, a book about the army, lots of technical stuff, a number of technical books. And I'm very interested in mass communication. I have made in the deep and distant past, some documentaries for the BBC.
I made one on the history of terrorism for the BBC World Service. I made another on the media and the monarchy for the BBC World Service. And I think they actually let me broadcast once on another subject I'm very interested in, which is doubt. So since then, I've made my living with my pen and my camera. I was in Lebanon in the the early 1980s, again, not a good place to be there. And I made several sneaky beaky trips into Afghanistan, not as a soldier, but as a journalist when the Russians were there. And that was a very interesting time too. And, you know, gave me some ideas that perhaps other people didn't have the advantage of that experience. So yeah, quite an interesting career. I'm still a columnist for one well-known field sports magazine, The Field. And I am still at it. I don't know how long I'm going to be at it for. But one of the interesting things, I suppose, for me has been the advent of social media. And I thought social media was going to give me a chance to see what other people were thinking. But as well as what other people were thinking, to give me a chance for unfettered expression. Because I think it would be fair to say that I do feel that you cannot really say what you think in modern Britain. It comes with all sorts of disadvantages. As you get older and maybe you don't need the income as much, then perhaps not as important. You know, you can harder to cancel you as you get older and you don't really care. But I do think that's an issue in modern Britain. I think since the whole advent of lockdown and all the propaganda that was associated with it, and indeed with the Ukraine war, although I'm a supporter of the Ukrainians, I was rather horrified by the extent of the propaganda campaign to get us involved, as I have been rather shocked by all the propaganda surrounding lockdown and COVID, et cetera. And one other key point of my background is that I got very badly injured after I had the vaccine.
I collapsed the next day. I had the worst headache of my life. I was in bed for a month or six weeks. I got a thrombosis in my leg, tinnitus, all sorts of other shingles, all sorts of other horrible stuff. I couldn't really walk. And even as I speak to you now, I've got shingles. I've got this blessed tinnitus ringing in my head, which a lot of other people have had post-vaccination and constant headaches. So I just have to live with that now, which means that you're always having to go through that to talk to people and to get your point across.
Well, I've got a feeling that we may have you on a number of times, Mike, because there's so much to unpack there. But maybe we can start with a comment you made on censorship.
And certainly we've seen this over the last four years. I've noticed in different areas, but specifically since being in the media space, I think since 2020, I've certainly seen it, had seen a little bit back in my days with UKIP during the Brexit campaign also but we have the BBC in the UK I guess they are the gatekeepers of information or have been up until this point and I know they've just the BBC have just done a series on misinformation or extremism and they of someone they employ full-time to actually cover what they see as misinformation and that kind of re-galvanizes their position as gatekeepers. But what are your thoughts on censorship? And I guess where state media fit into that?
Yeah, I've been listening to that BBC series, and there's quite a lot of BBC stuff in that area at the moment. I think the first thing I'd say is this. I used to be one of the main voices heard in the media talking about security and terrorism.
I hardly ever broadcast now. I don't get the opportunity because I'm not on narrative. And I think that's often because I present a nuanced position. And that doesn't seem to be popular in the modern media. Is censorship a problem now? Yes, it is. It's a problem because I can't easily broadcast anymore, having spent many years broadcasting and making lots of stuff for all sorts of different programs, as well as making a few programs of my own. I can't do that anymore. I think I may have made half a dozen or seven Discovery shows as well, but the phone no longer rings. And I'm pretty sure it doesn't ring particularly because I took up a vaccine sceptical position.
And this is where it starts to get, this is the stuff we should unpack because it's really interesting. I was just listening before we started broadcasting to a BBC program that was talking about Russian operations promoting the anti-vaccine position.
Well, I get that. I can see that the Russians have been involved in that. And we can come back to my own Twitter account, where I see clearly that if I put up a comment that is in any way critical of the Russians, it gets no support at all. But it might get probably half a dozen or 10 times as much pro-Russian support. And I've been trying to work out what's going on with that. It's almost as if the Russians have some way of manipulating that particular platform. But on the other hand, coming back to this point about vaccine scepticism, it's not just the Russians who are promoting that. Maybe it was in their interest to do that. But there are people in the UK, myself included, who were genuinely injured by the vaccines and who want to talk about it and feel that their point of view has completely been suppressed by these big social media platforms and by the BBC. It is just a non-subject. They don't really talk about excess deaths. They don't talk about widespread vaccine injury. You hear occasionally about VITT thrombosis with young women who've had these terrible thrombosis in their brains, but you do not hear about quite widespread vaccine injury. Now, I put up a comment on Twitter, do you know of anyone who's had a vaccine injury?
I had something like, well, I think two, it depends on how you count them, but something like two million views, but 6,000 replies, and listing a lot more than 6,000 injuries. Now, I'm sure you can't necessarily take that as absolute gospel, but it is indicative of the fact that many people think they have been damaged by the vaccines, but also they can't talk about it. Their doctors aren't interested in it. The BBC don't seem to be interested in it. What in a free country are we meant to do? Well, we do this. We try and get our message out by other means, but it shouldn't be like that. And this seems to be a trend, this big state authoritarianism with a much more controlled media, which is facilitated by all the digitization that's going on. That is a real issue in modern Britain?
Certainly, we came across that with YouTube putting videos up, and you daren't put a video up on YouTube critiquing the vaccine narrative or the COVID narrative.
But recently, there has been some change. I know that there is legal action against AstraZeneca. I think in the last two days, there have been reports of AstraZeneca admitting that it did in in a tiny amount of cases but they haven't mentioned this before there were side effects. It does seem as though either it's the chipping away of those who've been vaccine injured demanding a voice, either it's been MPs becoming a little bit more vocal, obviously Andrew Bridgen, or it's been maybe a change in Twitter and the information out. I mean how do you see that because it does seem as though the message is slowly getting out?
Well, Facebook's interesting because they've changed their policy, obviously, because before I couldn't say anything, it had come up with a note. And I have in the past had blocks from both Facebook and from Twitter. And I've also had apologies from both. I've done my best, because I don't think I ever say anything that is inappropriate or improper.
That still doesn't prevent you being censored today. But twice, once with Facebook and once with Twitter, I've managed to get an apology out of them and been reinstated. So this is very disturbing stuff. And we're talking about this small number of injuries that are being acknowledged are about these brain thrombosis, the VITT thrombosis, which is an extremely rare condition, to quote an Oxford medic friend of mine. You know, rare as hen's teeth, hardly affects anyone. But it seems that thrombosis more generally, DVT and pulmonary embolism, and other things like myocarditis are comparatively common, and the re-ignition of possibly dormant cancers, which Professor Angus Dalgleish has been talking about at great length. And these are subjects which should be debated freely. I mean, when you see Andrew Bridgen in the House of Commons talking about excess deaths and he's almost talking to an empty Commons chamber.
Albeit you can hear some fairly vociferous shouting coming from or cheering coming from the gallery, which the Speaker or the Assistant Speaker tried to close down, but that is a bit worrying. What has happened to British democracy? What has happened to our birth right of free speech? I mean, it isn't what it used to be. In fact, not only is it not what it used to be, on many subjects, we are not free to speak anymore. Not just the ones I discussed, there are all sorts of other things which might fall within the boundaries of PC and woke, which you simply can't talk about. You might even get prosecuted in some circumstances. I mean, we're living in some sort of mad upside down world at the moment.
We've watched in Scotland the SNP collapsing, not least because of some of their very wacky legislation, which has also been enormously expensive.
Meantime, I'm of the opinion, and I'm not particularly right wing, but I am of the opinion that ordinary people, sometimes they just want to see the potholes mended. You know, they don't want this sort of bit of PC legislation or another. There are far greater national priorities. And I'm not saying that there aren't small groups in society that haven't been badly treated in the past. They have. I can see that. and there has been real prejudice. But I think we have very immediate problems now. And they were all exacerbated by the COVID calamity and the government's reaction to it. I mean, I'm not afraid to say, did we really do the right thing? Should we have locked down? Should we have gone ahead with the vaccines? Or would it have made more sense to have given everybody in Britain a supply of vitamin C and vitamin D and maybe just vaccinated some people? But we don't talk about these things openly. It's a very controlled environment. And I was talking to a close friend of mine who's across the water in Northern Ireland and who's a very wise and sensible guy and involved in quite a lot of official stuff there. And I said to him, what is it? What is going on now? And he said, well, if I was to sum it up simply, Michael, I'd say that I don't feel free anymore. Well, I don't feel particularly free anymore. Peter, do you feel particularly free anymore? Have you sensed a change in the last 25 years, 20 years? Certainly in the last 10 years, I have.
Well, I've certainly sensed a change, and I think that some of us actually want to speak what we believe is true, in spite of what happens, and other people cower away. And I always wonder why some of us accepted the COVID narrative and some didn't. And I mean, in the UK, I've been intrigued with the, I guess, few high profile people who are willing to talk. So you've got Andrew Bridgen in politics, but in the U.S. you've got many politicians. Or in the U.K. you've got Professor Dalgleish, on with us a few weeks ago.
In the U.S. you've got much higher profile people like Dr. McCullough or Dr. Malone. And even with the statisticians, you've got Professor Norman Fenton doing the stats. But in the U.S. you've got people like Steve Kirsch who are very high profile. And I'm kind of intrigued at why in the US, those who are opposing the narrative maybe get more free reign, but are lauded more, I think. And those in the UK seem to be really pushing up a brick wall every time. I don't know if you've seen that as well.
Of course I have seen that, yes. And in some senses, the US is freer than the UK, and they do have a First Amendment, which means a bit. There is a lot of, America's a strange society and I went to school there so I know it quite well and although America is free on paper and although they do have a first amendment traditionally there has been something of a tyranny of public opinion, but the people that have spoken out, as far as the vaccine is concerned, and indeed about the war in Ukraine. And I think often they're saying the wrong thing on that, but we can come on to that later.
But those people have been speaking out in a way that we haven't really seen in the UK, sadly. And you have to ask, what is going on? Why is that? I heard a comment by Ahmed Malik the other day. Do you know how many doctors there are in the UK, qualified medical doctors?
I was stunned when I discovered how many, but I believe it's about 300,000. And I think it's something like 75,000 GPs, which is quite a lot. But do you know how many doctors have spoken up and gone counter-narrative? I believe the correct number is 10. I mean, that is extraordinary, isn't it? 10. And I mean, just from our own experience of social media. It's very, very few. And those doctors who risk it, risk everything. They risk being cancelled. They're on comfortable livings. They're on £100,000 a year plus in most cases, sometimes quite a lot more than that. If they speak out, they risk being struck off. They risk losing a comfortable lifestyle, the mortgage, possibly the family and whatever. And the result that hardly any at all have spoken out. But what we can assume is that there are many, like one particular friend I'm thinking of, who are very sceptical of what's been happening, very sceptical of the way the vaccine was launched, the lack of testing, all this stuff that we might draw attention to. And they're not necessarily anti-vaxxers. They're just people that are normally sceptical. But it seems that we're not allowed to be normally sceptical anymore. You have to follow this big state, Big Brother, 1984 line or watch out.
And that really does disturb me. And I was listening, as I said, just before we came on with this program to a BBC thing on censorship, where the BBC is chastising the Russians and the Iranians, and, all sorts, the Chinese and talking about the billions that the Russians and the Chinese spread on info spend on information now, which they do. And much of it is mis and disinformation, but they do not talk about their own authoritarianism. And how they limited discussion on anything to do with COVID and indeed on the Ukraine war.
And my own position, I'll just interject very briefly. I mean, I think that, Putin has to be stopped and I'm fully with the Ukraine people in what they're doing. But it's also a fact that Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, arguably more corrupt than Russia. And if we're giving them billions and billions and lots of military materiel, some of that is going to go missing. Some of that's going to go to the wrong places. And we never really discuss that.
And it's not a particularly democratic place. And it's also the case that we probably pushed it politically in a particular direction because it was to our strategic interest, which is probably the right thing to do. But we can't discuss any of this anymore. And that does disturb me. Open discussion, open intellectual discussion on military matters, on health matters is becoming more and more difficult. And that's not a healthy sign, Peter.
It certainly is. And actually, it's intriguing because my line would be, actually, these are, when I was younger, it would be interventionist. No, actually, it's, well, it's a separate country. They can do what they want. And if they want to have a war, they can have a war. But talking to people who have been very supportive, maybe more of the Ukraine side, talking to Krzysztof Bosak, MP in Poland yesterday. Yesterday and he was saying that Poland have given so much actually now Poland have very little to defend themselves and you look at the UK military, we didn't have much before and now it seems that we're short of munitions, short of many items and it seems that the west have poured so much into this without thinking of how to defend themselves. I mean, you understand the military side. What are your thoughts on that?
Well, my thoughts at the moment, and it's been something I've been thinking about a lot recently, is that Britain is hopelessly under-defended. Our army is probably half the size it needs to be. Our navy is incapable of undertaking independent operations. It's probably just generally incapable. I think we're down to tiny numbers of jet fighters, tiny numbers of main asset ships.
And we're saying, we're being told the army's around 72,000, something like that now. I think in real terms, it's actually smaller than that. And it's not big enough to meet the threat. And what's quite clear from what's going on in Ukraine is that you have to have a supply of ammunition, of missiles, of men. And this is worrying because if they came to a global conflict, it would go nuclear very quickly now, if it did go nuclear, because would our politicians actually ultimately press the button or not? I don't know. But it would have to go nuclear or something because we don't have the conventional resources. You know, they're just not there anymore. And most people have no idea of this. They have no experience of the military. But I would say that, they're talking about increasing defence spending to, you know, something under 3%. I would say that our defence spending at the moment should be probably at least 5% and maybe quite a lot more than that. This is a very, very unstable period in the history of the world. And we are not ready to meet the threat that exists. And of course, the Russians, I mean, they're routinely saying on their media that they're going to sink, you know, they'd sink Britain. They talk about sinking Britain specifically.
And I don't think that they could do that. I don't think they would act on that. But we are incredibly vulnerable. We are essentially one big, you know, landing strip and It's not a good situation at all. And most people just block it.
It's not that they're not worried about it, but they don't want to be worried about it. It's just one thing more and too much to think about. And they don't have any experience of the military anyway.
But we're now looking to Ukraine and we're wondering, will the Ukrainians manage to hold off the Russians before the increased aid reaches them? I don't know. I don't know. No, I think the situation is not as positive for the Russians as some people might think. They do have problems. They can act at a small level. They can act operationally, but they can't necessarily act strategically. They don't have the resources to that, but they are building up resources. And I think something like, is it 30 or 40% of their available national resources are now going into defence, which is a remarkable figure. Now, they've lost a lot of men. we don't know really how many people have died in the Ukraine.
It's certainly tens of thousands and maybe into the hundreds of thousands. It's a meat grinder. And the Russians, of course, just threw all their troops into this sort of first world war-like encounter. And they didn't really care about losses initially. It's not the Russian style, but also they were throwing people who'd been recruited from prisons, Pezhorin, the Wagner group, you know, many of those people were sacrificed, and I don't think anyone really cared about them in Russia very much. A dreadful situation. We won't go into the ethics and morality of that. Pretty scary, though. They will want to try and overwhelm those Ukrainian lines, and it's a huge front line. I mean, we're talking a front line, I think it's extending over a thousand kilometres or something. It's massive. They will try and overwhelm that line, and probably with the help of US and our own intelligence and a few other things, they'll probably stem the tide. But it's a 50-50. It's by no means a given. And that is worrying, because what would happen then? What would happen to the Poles? What indeed would happen to us?
So yeah, good question.
I was, it was fun watching the response from NATO members to Trump's call for them to actually pay the bills. Because I think it was, I remember watching Desert Storm and being just, consumed by it I guess as a young teenager and you've got the cameras following it all, now we come to whenever Britain sent tornadoes supposedly to help Israel and we were just told that's what happened, there was very little independent reporting, who knows if it happened or not. I think it was probably, it hit me, the reduction size of our military, whenever we bought, it was 67 apache attack helicopters, I think 67, wow, what are we going to do with those, I mean, half of them won't work half the time if they're in the desert with sand in their engines. But you realize that if the West do not have a strong military, then that deterrent basically is removed. And it means that other countries like Russia, who will spend more in defence, actually think, well, we can do what we like. They can do what they like because the West just aren't, one, aren't able to intervene, I guess, because of weakness in leadership, which we see in the EU, the US, Europe and in the UK, but also because of lack of military firepower. And I guess that's just a changing of the guard from the power of the West over to other centres of power.
Well, I think the strategic implications of the weakness and the perceived weakness of our leadership are big. And, you know, that is in looking from Moscow. I mean, the farce we've seen in Westminster in recent years must be very encouraging to you where, you know, they have the strong, the classic Soviet era and now Russian era strongman. Putin is developing this aura as the strong man, which is a popular one in Russia. He has complete dominance of his home media, so he manages to mislead people as to what's actually going on elsewhere as well. He's looking for an external foe, an external threat, a long-time ploy of any authoritarian leader trying to make sure he stays in power. And of course, Putin doesn't have much choice, does he? If he doesn't succeed in staying in power, he's got a very scary future ahead of him. So that's another intriguing issue. The only good thing I would say, and this is, I don't think I'd like to fight the Poles or indeed the Ukrainians. They're both very, very tough nations. But where this now leads, and this is another critical question, we don't really know what's going on. When this conflict started, and I was a reporter in Lebanon, for Time, I was a photojournalist for Time in the Lebanon and we were sending stuff back that was really from the front line and it was really interesting and people, what I noticed when I went there, intriguingly to Lebanon in the 80s, was I was familiar with it all because i'd seen it all on the evening news. But I wasn't familiar with the feeling and the smell. Now, I can't say that with Ukraine, because for most of this conflict, I didn't know, and most people didn't know what the hell was going on. The quality of the reporting, I thought, was very, very poor. I've seen some better reporting since, but generally, I thought the reporting initially was awful. And there was also a tremendous amount of pro-war propaganda.
I know somebody who went to the theatre in London and apparently, you know, when it came to the intermission or something, a huge Ukrainian flag came down and the whole audience were expected to cheer as we're all expected to cheer for the NHS or for all the vaccine stuff. I'm just temperamentally opposed to that sort of control, that sort of psychological manipulation. It concerns me that people should be made to support anything unthinkingly and that seems to be what's happening now and you've got Facebook for example, I mean they were at one stage I think advertising how they could turn opinion to potential advertisers and we've seen all the Cambridge Analytica stuff, we're incredibly vulnerable now to all this online stuff and the thing that bothers me if I go back to Twitter where I have something of a presence, is I can't really tell my stuff now because nobody sees it, there is some sort of censorship algorithm or something in place. I've got 77 000 followers there allegedly, I don't know how many of them are bots but sometimes it's clear that hardly anybody sees something that I put out particularly if it concerns the vaccines or if I'm making critical comment about Mr Putin. I think I blocked 2000 odd, what I thought were probably Russian accounts. But ironically, I'm actually getting taken down myself sometimes by the Twitter algorithms. I don't know who's controlling them. I don't know if they're controlled by Twitter Central or they're controlled somewhere else. But hey, I hope so. I think I'm one of the good guys. But you're not allowed to be a good guy. You've got to be a black and white guy now. That's the thing I think you see on social media, which is also meantime, in a very unhealthy way, polarizing people.
It encourages the extremes. You can't be a traditional conservative very easily. You can't be a moderate very easily or a classical liberal very easily. You've got to go to one pole or the other pole. I think that's just very unhealthy. It's unhealthy apart from anything else as far as intellectual debate's concerned.
Let me pick up on that with where we fit in and the ability to, I guess, speak your mind and have a position where you put your country first, which I thought was always a normal position, but now supposedly is an extremist position. But how, I mean, I'm curious watching what's happening in Europe which is me slightly separate, the European parliamentary elections and the wave of putting nations first and it's called nationalism. I think it's putting your country first which actually should be what a nation is about and the second thing is your neighbour and those around you, but we haven't really seen that in the UK. I mean do you think that will be a change of how your because Europe is really a declining force in the world, not only economically, but militarily.
And of course, we haven't made the best of leaving the EU at all. We've cocked up big time on that. But then you look across to Europe and it is a declining power. And I'm wondering whether this new change, this opposition to unfair immigration.
Opposition to control, central control from Brussels, wanting to put the nations first, whether that actually will be a change in Europe's fortunes.
Bring me back to central control. But before we say anything else, just look at Norway. They had the wonderful resource of their oil reserves, and they spent it well. They created a sovereign national fund. And I think it means that everyone in Norway's got half a million quid or something like that. We, on the other hand, have squandered our national resources. And the country appears to be in tatters at the moment, and they can't even mend the potholes. Going to this business of Europe and the decline, yes, it's worrying that, Europe almost is losing the will to defend itself, or it seems to. But beyond that, if you look at Brexit, I mean, I was a Brexiteer, and I was a Brexiteer who could see some of the economic arguments for Remain. So again, I had a nuanced position on it. But overall, I wanted to preserve British sovereignty and democracy, and I thought it was disgraceful that we should be turning over that to some body in Brussels.
But what we didn't realize, those of us who were pushing for Brexit, that the real threat wasn't Brussels, but the real threat probably was some globalist entity that we didn't even understand. And nobody was really much talking about globalism at that point. They weren't talking about Davos and all that sort of stuff. They were talking about the threat from Brussels but what we've seen since Brexit I think is an even greater threat from,
I think what that Greek ex-foreign minister calls techno feudalism and the sort of, the onward march of somewhat Marxist influenced, capitalism facilitated by the whole digital deal, And you have WEF stuff where, you'll own nothing and you'll be happy, although they're withdrawing from that comment now. But who are these people? Did we elect them?
We had a sort of interest in the people in Brussels, sort of, but as far as these globalist characters are concerned, they have no democratic mandate whatsoever. And that is pretty scary. Their only mandate is enormous wealth and a sort of arrogance that they know best for us, the peons, what our future should be. I do find that a bit terrifying, but I also, this is where it gets interesting, Peter, because I see where it came from. If you look at the era after the Second World War, the Americans and us, we were very worried about Soviet influencing operations. So we started to do stuff. And one of the things, the European community was perhaps one of those things, NATO was the most obvious, but there were also all sorts of influencing operations to counter the then very common, prolific, and increasingly dangerous Soviet influencing operations directed at Europe, directed at Latin America. So, for example, at Harvard, and I found this out from reading a biography of Henry Kissinger recently.
At Harvard in the early 50s, they were running young leaders courses for foreign influencers. And it looked very much like the same sort of deal that the WEF was doing with everyone's Trudeau et al. They've all been a WEF young leader. Now, I would guess that that comes, that WEF stuff probably comes from Harvard or something like that via the State Department pushing into academia and then creating the WEF, maybe or having a hand in it as an influencing op. But this is where it gets really interesting. Has somebody penetrated that influencing op? Has it been turned?
Whose interests does it actually operate in now? We know big money. Yeah, big money. But is it really in our individual interest as citizens of these countries and as customers of these massive corporations that seek to influence so much now and trespass onto the realm of politics and social engineering? By what right? You know, what happened to democracy? Aren't we meant to be deciding what's going on in our country, what our values are? It seems not. Democracy seems less important, I mean you look at Andrew Bridgen lecturing to an almost empty House of Commons on excess deaths and you think what on earth is going on there, what is this? I don't get it and I don't get why there is not free discussion on many other subjects in parliament now and it disturbs me. We developed this system, it's a pretty good system with faults as Churchill said, the problem with it is more the case that all the other systems are worse. And I think that's probably true. I mean, I'm a believer in democracy, but our democracy is in a pretty bad way. And it's not just our democracy, all over the Western world. We seem to have rolled over. And I do wonder to what extent the Russians, the Chinese and others have deliberately undermined us, captured our institutions, maybe captured our media. You know, these are things that one isn't allowed to say normally, but I'm saying them now.
I mean, to what extent have we been captured and who by?
If you saw the Yuri Bezmenov film from the 70s and 80s, have you seen that? Oh, you must, Yuri Bezmenov, about subversion and the long-term KGB operations to subvert the West. Very interesting, and it all seems to have come true. Yuri Bezmenov, you'll find it on YouTube.
Yeah. What has happened to us? Our society is almost unrecognizable. Go back 20 years. I mean, think of the restrictions on driving in London, on smoking, let alone lockdown and vaccines, and thou shalt do this, and you must do that, and if you don't, we'll fine you, and you've got no power at all, and we've got complete control over your life, and it's a 200-pound fine for this and for whatever. We are so controlled and put down now. And again, I have an interesting theory and I don't get the chance to talk about it much, but I wonder if when you see a lot of crime and you see a lot of crime, particularly amongst young people, and you see a lot of strange, violent crime, I wonder if that is a consequence of too much central control. I wonder if that's a psychological and sociological consequence of a society which is becoming too controlled. And that's a subject I never hear discussed, but it's a very interesting one because I think a lot of us are concerned about crime, street crime, you know, mad people on the roads, which you see, I noticed personally, a lot more crazy driving than I was aware of maybe five or 10 years ago.
But we don't discuss this stuff. We don't discuss the fact that the average person isn't really very happy now, that the average kid, this does get discussed a bit, is very anxious, maybe having treatment for this or that sort of psychological problem, that what used to be the normal tribulations of life now become things that you need to seek out treatment for. Well, maybe what you really need to do is seek out treatment for your society because your society is creating people that just aren't happy.
And we should explore that. But again, that's another big subject.
Well, I've been intrigued talking to friends growing up behind the Iron Curtain and talking about the Stasi or the state police reporting on people, turning everyone into informers, and then having Xi Van Fleet on the other day. And she was talking about the Red Guards, who were Mao's army, in effect, in communist China. And you realize that control whenever individuals are called out by the media because they go against the narrative. We've seen that under the COVID tyranny or seen that when Andrew Bridgen spoke the last time, the leader of the House, Penny Mordaunt, warned him to be very careful of the dangerous language he is using on social media. She meant that he is saying something which is different than government, and that's not accepted. And in effect, it's the same, I guess, control as you saw under communism that we are now seeing here, where people are called out for having a different opinion and being threatened that if they continue, there will be consequences.
Would you have seen that sort of control 50 years ago or before the Second World War? I mean, you know, I'm no communist, but there used to be communist members of parliament. There used to be an extremely wide range of opinion represented in parliament. Now it seems we're entering the age of the monoculture and the mono-party, and alternative opinions just aren't acceptable anymore. There is one canonized text, and you've got to repeat that mantra, and if not, you're a non-person. I mean, where did that come from? That isn't our tradition.
But is that the push of the woke agenda, is it the decline of Christianity, is it weak leadership, I mean you kind of look and I want to understand where this is coming from, because if you understand where it's coming from then you can begin to tackle it. But it does seem to be many different facets of it from different angles.
I think, was it GK Chesterton 'once we stop believing in anything, we'll start believing in everything' I think that is part of it, I think people don't believe in very much so they just believe in their own selfish bubble and materialism and I think this actually goes back to Oxford, I think there is actually some school of philosophy that encouraged this idea that as the old authorities declined, whether that was the the monarchy or whatever it might be, a faith in authority that you would have to find a new way of controlling the public and that the simplest way to do that was by their material self-interest and this is what Thatcher and Reagan essentially appeared to do, well actually looking back at Reagan now I actually think he said some very sensible stuff, but it appears that we were manipulated by our material desires.
That replaced the old world. But it's meant that we're living in a rather scary, chaotic, morally upside down and confused world now. And it's certainly not the world that you and I remember. And it must be very scary for kids. I mean, I was speaking to a young person the other day, and I was really surprised because they told me that they didn't watch the news and they were a bright kid. And they said, well, why? They said, well, I don't want to. I don't want to have anything to do with it. And I don't want to have anything to do with history either. And I thought to myself, my God, if you have a young person who was soon to be a voting age, who's not watching any news, who doesn't want to have anything to do with history, how are they going to be able to make the right decisions for our future? And what sort of world are they living in? You know, where's their thought space now?
Yeah, I thought that was very worrying.
But that's, I mean, to finish on that, that's really just part of the information war because now young people get, I don't know how to define young people, but they get their information, their worldview from TikTok. So you've got the Chinese government actually pushing that and forcing that. And it is concerning whenever, from a 60 second video someone can decide what the world is and how they fit into it and that's the depth of knowledge they're going to find and I think that shallowness is where we are with the next generation coming.
Yeah I mean I've got to hope that there's some young people that aren't as shallow as that and I certainly do talk to to some who aren't, I mean I've got kids of my own, four kids, and generally speaking, they're pretty switched on. We don't have the same views, generally speaking, but they're pretty switched on. But it is scary that there's a whole generation of young people that, I mean, you see them, you wander down the street, you see every kid has got, there they are, they've got the mobile phone and they're like zombies looking at the mobile phone. And it's not just kids for that matter. It's, you see middle-aged people doing the same thing. You see them sitting at tables in a restaurant and they're still tapping at the screen.
Whoever controls this controls you, controls your mind, controls what you think are your opinions, because many of your opinions are not really your opinions. They're things that have been implanted in you by these massively influential modern means.
Now, television always did that to a degree. The newspapers always did it to a degree. But this seems to be a more direct route into people's heads, particularly young people's heads. And that is genuinely disturbing. Now, if you look to Europe, you mentioned Europe earlier. If you look at Europe, it seems to be swaying to the right. My guess is that, Britain will probably sway to the left until maybe there's a failure of the Starmer dream after probably, they might run for two terms.
And then our future is very uncertain and again, rather scary. But what I don't see is enough discussion, enough activity. I don't see a dynamic middle. Hopefully, I mean, very intriguing, isn't it? Who is Starmer? What does he represent? Is he a Blairite? So is that some sort of globalist, centrist, capitalized position? I don't know. I tend to think it is. I tend to think that's where it's coming from. It's not the traditional left. But of course, Starmer has some history of being on the left, not to a great extreme. But it is worrying that the left could still creep into power via Starmer's government.
It's also a bit frightening, and am I saying this, that what happens if Starmer's government fails? I mean, as it probably will. The economics are against it.
Britain is not looking in a good place at all. But what I think we need, the one thing that will save us is open discussion, proper, unfettered, open discussion about politics, about health, about philosophy, about everything else. And I try in my life in a small way to start those conversations with people. And I do it across politics. I do it across religion.
I talk to almost everyone I meet, if I can, and I think I get away with it, and start bringing up some of these difficult subjects.
Mike, I really do appreciate coming on. As I said at the beginning, I've really enjoyed your Twitter handle. And I know we've touched on many things on censorship, military and politics.
And I'm sure we will have you back on again soon. So thank you so much for your time today.
Well, I've really enjoyed the opportunity. And I'll just say this in conclusion. I've actually managed this. I've had the tinnitus and this terrible migraine all through the interview, but we got through it, which is great. I do say to people out there, do take seriously the people who tell you they've been vaccine injured because it's a big deal if you have. God bless you Peter.

Matt Strickland - The Relentless Targeting of MAGA Candidates in Virginia

Show Notes and Transcript
Matt Strickland, a veteran from Virginia, returns to Hearts of Oak to share his journey of challenging COVID mandates for his restaurant despite facing legal battles and political persecution. He discusses running for office against corrupt politicians and the challenges faced during the primary election, emphasizing the battle for freedom and justice in Virginia. Matt highlights the need for more veterans to join the fight for national values and freedoms, advocating for grassroots movements and citizen involvement in pushing back against oppressive mandates and corrupt systems. His determination serves as a call to action for others to stand up for their beliefs and fight for freedom and justice in their communities and beyond.
At the age of 17, Matt Strickland joined the United States Army to escape the gang violence of the neighbourhoods where he was raised.Inspired by his grandfather, who served as an Infantryman under General Patton in World War II, Matt enlisted in the Army in 2001.After completing basic and advanced training, Matt received orders to his first duty station, 25th Infantry, at Ft. Lewis, WA. He reported to 25th Infantry on September 10th, 2001, not knowing the next day, life as we once knew it would change forever.Matt knew he had a full life ahead of him, but he was ready to give it up in defence of his country. Matt spent most of the next ten years in Iraq & Afghanistan defending his country.Matt’s service to his country includes multiple deployments as a private military contractor as well, serving on Blackwater’s Counter Assault Team until 2010 when he decided to accept a position as an Intelligence Analyst back in Virginia.In 2014, when ISIS began sweeping through Iraq, Matt could not sit back and watch, so he deployed once again to join the fight against The Islamic State.In 2016, after fighting ISIS for two years, Matt hung up his combat boots.The previous two years allowed Matt to reflect on the legacy outside of combat that he wanted to leave for his children.Cooking has always been one of Matt’s hobbies and biggest passions, and owning a restaurant was always his ultimate goal.Matt opened his first food truck in 2016 which quickly became a success, and he and his wife, grew from one truck to three trucks in just over a year.Two years later he sold the food trucks and opened the doors to the restaurant version, and it continued to grow in success.Everything was great until 2020 when the government began using the Coronavirus as an excuse to control society.Matt continued to open without restrictions, regardless of the consequences, he and his wife opposed the unconstitutional mandates and the restaurant was filled with Patriots from open to close.Despite numerous threats and attempts to shut them down by the state and federal government, he remained open and stood with the people.The Attorney General of Virginia sued Matt in an attempt to shut their doors, but he won, restoring his hope for the country’s future.Through his fight against the tyrannical government, Matt realised there was a void in Virginia politics and that catalyst sparked his interest in running for State Senate and with him being a fifth-generation Virginian, his state and his country mean everything to him.
Connect with Matt...WEBSITE             mattforva.comX/TWITTER         twitter.com/mattforvaFACEBOOK         facebook.com/mattforvaYOUTUBE           youtube.com/channel/UCFArRLx6n7UTbOBN0EYjn7w
Interview recorded 7.5.24
Connect with Hearts of Oak...X/TWITTER        twitter.com/HeartsofOakUKWEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/
*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X/Twitter twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin 
Transcript
(Hearts of Oak)
I'm delighted to have Matt Strickland back with us again from Virginia.
Matt, thank you so much for jumping on today.
(Matt Strickland)
Thank you for having me, Peter.
It's always good to be with you, brother.
Always great.
And if anyone is in the Virginia area, if they're in Fredericksburg area, then there's no better establishment than going to Gourmeltz for atmosphere, for great food, great drinks, great prices.
It's all good.
Good so make sure and check it out all the links will be in the description, but Matt obviously people can follow you @Matt4VA on Twitter or X but maybe I can ask you first you're you're a little bit of your background I know we had John donkeys ago.
It seems like a lifetime ago, whenever you're running for state legislature there for the the senate in Virginia and you had a whole backstory of how you oppose the the lockdown mandates in your restaurant there and maybe just give us a quick overview before we get on to the latest persecution that you're facing.
Yeah well, I'm a veteran you know, I joined the military at 17 years old spent a lot of time overseas both Iraq and Afghanistan and 2016 I was done with the serving my government, you know, as I I realized how corrupt it was while I was working as an intelligence analyst.
So, I wanted to jump into the private sector and I wanted to be a small business owner.
So, I opened a food truck in 2016 and it took off, grew to two trucks, three trucks.
And in 2018, I opened the first restaurant version of Gourmeltz here in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
And that was going well until March of 2020 when COVID happened.
And long story short about that, I realized very early on that those COVID mandates were more about control than health and safety.
So, I felt it was my duty to fight back, you know, because I had been fighting dictatorships in other countries for years and I was not going to allow a dictatorship to rule in my country.
So, I fought back.
And because I said these COVID mandates make no sense and I'll take no part in removing my customers' constitutional rights from them.
The health department in the state of Virginia, they took away my health department license, my license to serve food, and which in the state of Virginia, that automatically suspends your ABC license, which is your license to sell liquor.
So, I lost both of those licenses the same day.
And what I did from that point on is I said: "well, hey, listen, if the Constitution means nothing to you, then your licenses mean nothing to me."
And I continue to operate and I continue to sell food.
I continue to sell liquor without those licenses.
And when my story became public, the community just came out in droves to support me, and it was very heartening.
I mean, I had people flying from across the country just to come to my restaurant and shake my hand and thank me for what I was doing.
And it was at that point that I knew I was doing the right thing.
And I was standing up for those that didn't have a voice, you know, because small business owners, we did have a voice to stand up and fight back.
And I was disheartened that more small business owners didn't do so.
But I did.
And because I did, so many people supported me.
One of the things that happened is a lot of people in my community came to me and asked me to run for office, they said: "hey Matt, we need somebody that's willing to fight against the establishment the Uniparty, the globalist," whatever you want to call them and that is willing to fight against both parties because both parties are corrupt the republican establishment is just as corrupt as the democrats are and we need somebody to run for office that is going to fight against both of them.
So at first I wasn't interested.
I had never been interested in politics and or politicians.
In fact, Peter, the first time I ever voted in my life was in 2020 for president Trump.
And the reason why I never voted before that is because I got to meet a lot of these politicians when I, when I got out of the military, I worked for a company called Blackwater and I was on the counter-assault team with Blackwater.
I was a medic.
A medic on Blackwater's counter-assault team.
One of our jobs as Blackwater downrange was to protect all of the politicians that came downrange from congressmen on up to the president when they would come visit in country.
And the medic on the team always stays with the person that you're protecting, the principal, because in case something happens, they want the medic to be right there.
So as the medic, I got to meet all of these guys and they were all fake.
They were all full of shit.
And in fact, they would all say the same thing before they leave.
Hey guys, what do you need down here on the ground to successfully accomplish your mission?
I'll make sure you have it once I get back to DC.
And it got to a point where we'd have a list form.
Hey, we need this to accomplish our mission.
And same thing every time, no matter if it was a Democrat or Republican, we never hear from them once they got back to DC.
So, I just left a bad taste in my mouth and I didn't trust any politicians.
But, I'll tell you what changed for me in 2020, is while I started my food trucks and my restaurant, I was still working as an intelligence analyst for the military as a civilian, because when you first open a business, you're not making money.
So, I had to do something to provide for my family.
And as I was working as an intelligence analyst under the Trump administration, a couple of things happened that really made me come out and realize I need to support President Trump.
And I'll tell you, the first thing was, if you remember, Iran shot down one of our drones back in 2019.
And that's an act of war.
And all of these neocons up in D.C., they have been fiending to go to war with Iran forever.
And so this was their opportunity.
And I got to see these things behind the scenes.
And all of all of Trump's senior military advisers were asking him, you know, to to declare war on Iran.
They say, hey, listen, this is our opportunity.
This is what we've been wanting.
Let's do it.
Let's finally, you know, make make it happen.
There was one day, I think it was the day after the incident happened, and I remember it vividly.
I was at work working as an intel analyst and I got off at about five o'clock.
And I remember seeing the op water that came through that day.
And we had missiles trained on five different strategic military targets within Iran.
And of course, there was going to be some collateral damage if we hit those targets.
And I remember getting off that day at 5 p.m. thinking thousands of people are waking up this morning in Iran, not knowing this is the last time they're going to be waking up.
Thousands of people are going to be killed in just a few hours, and I know this and they don't.
It was an eerie feeling.
So, I forgot what time, U.S. time it was supposed to happen, but I remember checking the news at that time and nothing.
So I said, well, Michigan must have been delayed.
And I checked a couple hours later, nothing.
Kept checking, nothing.
So, I got off of work the next morning, turned on the news, nothing.
So, I got to work that day and Trump came on national television and he said: Last night, we had missiles trained on strategic targets within Iran, and all I had to do was give the go-ahead, and those targets would have been obliterated.
But I didn't.
And I didn't because I didn't feel that killing...
I didn't feel that you shooting down an unmanned drone warranted me killing thousands of people.
But make no mistake about it.
If it happens again, I won't hesitate next time.
And he caught my attention and he caught my attention, because it was about that time that I started to realize that these Iraq and Afghanistan wars were absolutely, totally corrupt.
And we were there for this.
We were there for money.
And that was it.
Of course, people had to die in those countries, but we could have accomplished those missions in just a couple of months, not 20 years.
And I started to realize that about that time.
And that's why when Trump said that, it caught my attention.
I said, well, this guy isn't the neocon, the warmongers that were used to having in this seat.
And I started paying attention to him and I started to support That day.
And then what really got me and what really made me say to myself, this man has earned my vote.
He's going to be the first person I ever vote for is, if you remember, just a couple of months after that, General Soleimani was killed.
And the reason why General Soleimani, the Iranian general, was killed is because he was the mastermind behind a weapon called EFPs, explosively formed projectiles.
And what EFPs are is they're an IED that form into a cone when they detonate, and they can penetrate just about any armour.
And they killed hundreds of soldiers in Iraq.
So, he was the mastermind behind that weapon and getting it into Iraq.
So, that's the reason he was killed.
And so we killed a top Iranian general.
So Iran called us, called Trump and said, hey, listen, you just killed one of our top generals.
I have to respond.
If I don't respond, I'll have a coup in my country.
And Trump's message to him was, yeah, Roger that.
I know you have to respond.
However, if... One U.S. soldier is hurt or killed, I will obliterate your country.
And if you remember, in response to us killing General Soleimani, Iran lobbed 17 missiles into Al-Assad air base in Iraq, if you remember that.
I think it was 17 that they sent over, only 13 hit inside of Al-Assad.
But out of 13 rockets, guess how many U.S. soldiers were killed?
Zero.
And zero were injured.
I know the media reported a hundred and something injuries, but those were, they were not injuries.
There were concussions and those were subjective injuries.
You know, people just said, oh, I've got a headache from the explosions, but that's a whole other story anyway.
O of 14 rockets or 13 rockets landing in Al-Asad, there were no casualties.
And it was at that time that I said, this man demands, he commands respect on the international national stage.
And this is a guy that deserves to lead this country, and from that day forward, I 100% threw my support behind Donald Trump.
And that's when I started to really pay attention to politics.
And then so when everybody started asking me to run, at first I wasn't interested, didn't want to be a part of it.
But what changed my mind is I started looking into who these people were locally that were representing us.
And I started digging into to specifically the Republican politicians, because if you support Democrat politicians and if you consider yourself a Democrat and you vote that way, at this point, there's nothing I can say to you that's going to help you.
But I was digging into these Republican politicians, because I suspected there was also some corruption coming from the people that I feel I align with.
And there was a whole lot.
And specifically from my Republican state senator.
And there were a bunch of things I found out about this guy that were straight up lies.
He lied to me, to my face.
And I won't go into those details.
But so anyway, I decided, OK, Roger that, I'll run.
And I asked everybody: I said, hey, what seat do you need me to run for?
You know, school board, president of the United States, where do you need me?
And the ironic thing is the vast majority of people said, we want you to run for state Senate against this guy, the same guy that I uncovered all of these things about.
So that's what I did.
I jumped in and I ran against this state senator.
And not even a week after it became known that I was going to jump in this race to run against him, a guy came into my restaurant who I had known because he had came in there previously.
And he asked, can you sit down and talk to me?
So I did. And he said: hey, I heard you're going to be running against this guy.
Why are you doing so?
And I said, well, because he's absolutely corrupt.
And I showed him proof of the corruption.
And he said, OK.
At that point, he knew he wasn't going to convince me not to run against him.
But he said: you know, if he can guarantee you a seat as a delegate instead of a state senator, would you not run against him?
And when he figured out that I wasn't going to fall for it, it turned into threats.
He said, well, listen, if you run against this guy, he's going to dig up every piece of dirt on you.
I said, listen, man, I joined the Army at 17 years old. I've been overseas more than I've been in America since I've been an adult.
And I've got a TSSCI clearance, man.
So, there's nothing to dig up on me.
Dig away.
And he said, he'll have you followed.
He'll have your family followed.
And at that point, you know, I started to piss me off, you know, because I started to realize he's threatening me.
I said listen you let him know that the first time anybody follows me or anybody in my family, it will be the last time they follow somebody, and you can let them know that, and you can let them know that all these things you're telling me is the reason why I'm coming for a seat, and I will win.
And not more than a week after that redistricting happened here in Virginia and this state senator had a guy on the the committee that redrew the lines and, I know the guy very well and I was redrawn out of his district by less than a mile.
If you look at my neighbourhood it was carved out of his district I mean I could throw a rock into his district.
So absolutely corrupt, anyways so I'm in this new district which is an open seat, there's no state senator filling.
So I ran in this district right here and I started heavily going after the Republican establishment while I was campaigning.
I started calling out all of the corruption from the lowest level to the top level to the governor here in Virginia.
And the reason I was doing that is because when Governor Glenn Youngkin here in Virginia and the Attorney General Jason Meares were campaigning for their seats, they came to my restaurant.
And they came to my restaurant because they wanted to garner the support of the support that I had for fighting COVID mandates.
They knew that the community supported me and trusted me.
So, they wanted to garner that support.
And, you know, being naïve, I hosted them at my restaurant.
I supported them, and they told me the same thing.
They said: hey, listen, if we win, not only are COVID mandates gone, but we're going to ensure that no other businesses are prosecuted for these COVID mandates.
I mean, these guys, I got a voicemail from Glenn Young and praising me for fighting these COVID mandates that I still have on my phone today.
Jason Meares made a video that's still on social media right now saying how unconstitutional it was, what was happening to me at my restaurant.
So anyway, these guys win, and guess what happens?
They continue to prosecute me for those COVID mandates.
And Jason Meares, the guy that made a video saying how unconstitutional these things were, not even a year after that he made that video, was in court prosecuting me for those same COVID mandates.
So, I started blasting these guys on social media.
And as a Republican candidate, when you're coming after the Republican party, they're going to fight back hard.
And that's what they did.
And so I started uncovering and unravelling and screaming from a mountaintop, all of the corruption that was going on.
And I'll give you one quick example.
There was a guy that came to my restaurant who lives in my district and he was on dialysis on a daily basis at this point, right after Glenn Young had took over.
So, this guy tells me that UVA called him and said, we've got kidneys for you.
Come on down.
We just need your COVID vaccine card.
And he tells them, hey, listen, I didn't take the vaccine because my immune system is already compromised and I'm just not comfortable with the vaccine.
Plus, I've already had COVID, so I'm good to go.
I got the best vaccine there is.
And UVA Medical Center told him, if you don't take this vaccine, you don't get these kidneys.
So, they were going to let a man die for not taking a vaccine.
It's just counterintuitive, isn't it?
So, he reaches out to every elected official here in the state of Virginia, including Glenn Youngkin, and he shows me the emails where he's getting no response from them.
So I told him, I said, hey, listen, I'm actually holding an event here at my restaurant for a congressional candidate.
And supposedly Youngkin is showing up in support of her.
I said, let's ask him to his face.
Let's bring this to him to his face so he can't deny lie that he didn't see these emails.
And so we did so.
He met him in person at my restaurant, told him his story.
And Glenn Youngkin's response was, had no idea, didn't get those emails, but I'll get right on it.
Anyways, long story short, man, he ignored him once again, never reached back out to him.
He allowed this man to be kicked off of UVA Medical Center's kidney transplant list, which is a state-funded hospital, to die because he wouldn't take the COVID-19 vaccine.
I was wondering, it just blew my mind. I
wondered why.
So, I started looking into Glenn Youngkin and who actually funds his campaign and who actually funds his PAC, Spirit of Virginia.
And hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars from Pfizer and other big pharmaceutical companies.
So, it made sense.
So, I started blasting that from a mountaintop.
And as soon as I did so, Glenn Youngkin, his PAC, Spirit of Virginia, and the rest of the so-called, quote unquote, quote, conservative organizations, they spent over a million dollars to beat me in my primary.
Republicans spent over a million dollars to beat a Republican candidate in a Republican primary.
Totally unheard of, It's never happened in the state of Virginia before.
But they did it for a reason, and they did it because they knew I was not going to be a shill for the establishment.
And I was actually going to come represent the people.
And that is not what they want in a political candidate.
They want somebody that can be controlled.
So once they realized that I couldn't, they made sure I didn't get across that finish line.
They took that billion dollars and they put commercials on TV that said, I'm in support of transgender ideology in schools, and I want to over-sexualize children.
And I'm actually a Democrat.
And obviously, total BS, total lies.
I'm the one that's at these school board meetings fighting against transgender ideology in schools.
But what they know is that majority of voters are uninformed.
They don't do their homework.
If they see a commercial on Fox News that says things like that, they're going to believe it like it's gospel.
And Glenn Youngkin put his face on every single one of my opponent's campaign signs.
It was like I was running against Glenn Youngkin.
He was sending mailers to my people in my district's house saying Glenn Youngkin needs your vote on June 20th, Glenn Youngkin needs your vote.
I didn't know I was running against Glenn Youngkin.
So anyway, I ended up, even though, and I only accepted campaign contributions from people, and I beat every candidate in the state of Virginia, delegate and state senate candidates, in the number of low-dollar donations, so donations from people.
And I raised $180,000, but $180,000 versus over a million, you're going to lose every time, and that's just how it is.
So I did, so I lost.
And they kept coming at me from all different ways when I did lose.
So, I told you that my health department license was suspended at my restaurant.
My ABC license was suspended.
Well, I went to court first for my health department license and I won.
I was able to prove in court that those COVID mandates were indeed unconstitutional.
So, then I went before the ABC board to get my liquor license back, because the only reason they took my liquor license was because the health department took my health department license and those two are connected.
So, we went before the ABC board and we said, hey, listen, I won my health department license back in court, proved it was unconstitutional for them to take it from me.
So in turn, now you have to give me my ABC license back.
And they said, no, actually, we're not going to give it back to you because you continue to operate without it.
And I said, yes, I did.
But I only had to because you unconstitutionally took it from me.
And they said, well, we don't care.
We're means nothing to you.
Your license means nothing to me.
And I continue to operate without an ABC license.
So, at this time I had a health department license.
I can sell food, but still no ABC license.
And Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, is my governor.
Jason Meares, a Republican, is my attorney general.
And so what happened is one day out of the blue, 25 Virginia state police raid my restaurant, And they take every drop of alcohol that was in my restaurant, take all of my kegs, all of my liquor bottles, tried to take my POS system so I couldn't even operate.
I stopped them from doing that.
And I live streamed that when it happened.
And that live stream went absolutely viral.
And people were asking me, hey, Matt, was this two years ago, you know, during the height of COVID?
And I said, no, this was yesterday.
And they said, how?
Glenn Youngkin's your governor.
How do you allow this to happen?
And of course, I knew the answer was because I was exposing him.
But I said, great question.
Why don't you ask him?
Because I can't get an answer from his office.
So at that point, people from across the nation just started pounding his office with emails and phone calls and social media posts.
And they were asking him, what's going on with this?
Why are you allowing a man's livelihood to be stripped from him for not following COVID mandates that were already proven unconstitutional?
So, long story short with that one is the only thing that these politicians respond to is political pressure.
So, he finally responded and and I won.
They had to give me my ABC license back and they brought all of my alcohol back and that fight was over with, but they still weren't finished with me.
I want to take you up to where you are today, because that that fight has continued, think actually it's gone away you've won in court, you've got Glenn Youngkin, but he's lost that, But it seems though you're being hounded by officials for being pro-Trump, pro-America First against these anti-government imposed mandates.
And I've seen your tweets about having to go and answer for your crime of loving freedom.
Tell us about that, about that quasi-court that you have to go and answer for people promoting your campaign.
What is that?
Yeah, you're absolutely right about that, Peter.
If you align with President Trump, if you align with the MAGA movement, with the America First movement, these establishment politicians, the globalists, whatever you want to call them, they will come down on you and use all of the resources you pay for against you.
And that's what happens.
And people think that this is only happening to Trump, but this is happening at the lowest levels.
There's stories like mine across the nation that you'll never hear about because how will you?
The media will give us no attention.
So, I appreciate shows like yours that do, but they're politically persecuting us at all levels.
It's not just happening to Trump.
So, what happened with me and what my latest political persecution story is, is once I lost that primary, I had a lot of people who supported me in that primary race that came to me and they said: hey, Matt, we saw the corruption that happened to you in that race.
And it awakened us to who these Republicans really are.
And no longer will we just vote for somebody because they have an R behind their name.
We want to write your name in on that ballot, because we can't in good conscience vote for somebody we know is corrupt and that's going to work against us.
So I said, well, you have my blessing if that's what you're asking for, go ahead and vote, write my name in.
And a couple of folks started a write-in campaign for me.
Now, I knew there was going to be some kind of blowback and they were going to try to come after me in some way for that, because I knew it would gain some steam.
So, I intentionally stayed away from the rioting campaign for those reasons.
And there were no doors knocked.
There was not one penny spent on the rioting campaign.
There were no mailers sent.
Nothing.
It was just a word of mouth.
People were telling people, hey, write in Matt Strickland's name for state Senate in the general election.
Don't vote for the Republican candidate, and I received a lot of write-in votes.
I received a ton of write-in votes without even actually running a campaign.
So, that scared these politicians here in the state of Virginia. And actually, they just submitted legislation that says now in the state of Virginia, if you run as a primary candidate, the citizens, and you lose, the citizens are no longer allowed to write your name in in the general election.
They're trying to make that a law here in Virginia.
Isn't that crazy?
So, this latest political persecution that I'm dealing with is, because citizens said that they can no longer support somebody just because they're a Republican and they saw the corruption that happened in my primary and they cannot in good conscience vote for the Republican candidate.
In it, they came to me and said they wanted to run a writing campaign for me.
And I gave them my blessing to do so.
But, I intentionally stayed away from that writing campaign, because I knew the state of Virginia would somehow come after me for that.
So I intentionally stayed away from that writing campaign.
I didn't get involved in it whatsoever.
And for that writing campaign, not one door was knocked, not one mailer was sent out, not one penny was spent on it.
The only money that was spent on it was people spent their own money to buy their own signs to put in their yards that said, vote for, write in Matt Strickland for state Senate.
That's it.
So, this is basically a groundswell of public desire for you Matt Strickland to be elected to a position that what this is, this is not your campaign, this is the public saying we want this person and rising up and saying we want him putting up yard signs.
So this is pure grassroots.
Exactly. 100. And that's what people did. They bought their own signs, they put them in their yard that said right in Matt Strickland for state senate and there was a Groundswell of support and we got a ton of votes And is scared the establishment. So the establishment actually submitted legislation that says If you run as a candidate in a primary and you lose that primary, Then citizens are no longer allowed to write
Your name in in the general election.
They actually are trying to pass a law that says that right now.
But because people bought signs with my name on it and put it in their yard, the state of Virginia, led by Glenn Youngkin.
Tried to fine me $75,000 for those signs.
$75,000.
$75,000.
And the reasoning they said was because, they said that those signs didn't have a disclaimer on it that said paid for by my campaign.
Well, they shouldn't have had a disclaimer on it because one, my campaign was over, I lost.
But two, they weren't paid for by my campaign.
They were bought by individuals with their own money.
And three, I had nothing to do with it.
And so and they knew that.
And so I had to go before this another administrative board, the Board of Elections here in the state of Virginia.
And I explained to him, I laid out exactly what sections, what articles of the Constitution they were violating by trying to prosecute me and fine me for this.
You must have pissed them off.
Oh, I pissed them off.
And actually, so there were like maybe like 15 other people there that were there for campaign violations.
And each of them all begged for mercy.
Each of them apologized.
And they all got like $25 fines.
And then I was up and I handed their ass to them.
And I explained to him how they were violating the Constitution.
And the representative from Jason Meares' attorney general's office that was there, one of the assistant attorney generals, he didn't even know if I was right or wrong in how I was saying they were violating my constitutional rights.
They had to research it.
So, what they did is, they kicked the can down the road and they continued my case until the next month.
So, I had to come back before them the following month.
And the following month, they reconvened and they dismissed those charges against me.
And I won once again.
I've been dragged in front of countless administrative bureaucratic boards into the court system here in Virginia.
I can't even tell you how many times throughout this fight.
And I've won every single time.
The punishment is in the process, Peter.
So they don't give a damn if I was found guilty or if the fines were handed down to me, or they don't care if I won or lost before these boards are in court.
The punishment is in the process.
The fact that I had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to clear my name, and I had to spend countless hours, days, weeks, months in courtrooms, in front of boards defending myself.
That is the punishment.
And that is exactly what they're doing to President Trump.
It's happening to many other people across the nation.
Especially when you have a political candidate, especially when you have a Republican candidate that's running, that is anti-establishment, that is willing to fight against these globalists that are actually running this country now.
And it's actually the administrative bureaucratic system that runs this country.
So, when you have a candidate that's willing to fight against that, then the establishment will put as much money as necessary in that race to beat you.
And I mean they're doing it right now to a congressional candidate down in Florida, her name is Mara Macy.
She's running down in Florida and I hope like hell that she wins, because we need at least one person that loves this country that is in DC, you know, that's really going to fight for for us and there's another candidate here in my congressional district his name's Cameron Hamilton and I truly believe that he'll go up to DC and he'll fight for us as well.
So, when you find these candidates that are willing to fight the establishment and take all the arrows that will be slung at them for doing so, we got to get out and support these people, Peter.
We have to.
We have to get off the couch, man, because people are, they're just content with living in the comforts that we have in today's day and age.
And that's the biggest problem with this country in particular, but throughout the world as well.
I mean, you guys over there in the UK as well.
The problem with the UK, the problem with the US is people are comfortable.
They're not willing to give up a little bit of comfort in the near term, you know, for prosperity in the long term.
And one of the I think one of the one of the most strategic things that the government has done is they have employed so many people and they have so many people dependent on them.
The majority of people here in the U.S. are either they're dependent on the government in some way, whether they're dependent on them for government assistance or they work for the government, either directly or indirectly.
The government was very strategic in that, because they know that those people will not dissent.
Because they don't want to lose that pay check every two weeks and they don't want to lose those benefits.
You'd be surprised how many times I've heard, man, I would love to fight back and do what you do, Matt.
But, you know, I don't want to lose my job.
I've heard that so many times.
And it was very strategic.
My hat's off to them.
They, you know, they're very good at what they do.
That's for sure.
But Americans need to stop being scared, because if you continue to be scared and live for those creature comforts today, all you're doing is handing this fight off to your children tomorrow.
And by the time your children are old enough to fight this fight, it's going to be too far down the road.
We need to fight this fight right now, today, and give up whatever comforts we have to in the short term to do so.
Matt, tell me, you're obviously very high profile.
You've stood up for freedoms.
After fighting abroad for freedoms.
You've come back, you've realised you don't have the freedoms you thought you had and you've been vocal, you've stood for elected office, you've got involved in your community, you're fighting for your local business in your community.
What about others who actually have been abroad with you?
What about that, I guess, range of veterans who come back and find the country is not Is their appetite to push back?
Are you unique?
Are there others?
I mean, give us an insight into that.
I think a lot of people that I fought next to have the mentality now that the systems have just been too corrupted at every level and that it's not a winnable fight.
So, I think a lot of their mentality now is I'm just going to make sure my household and my family is protected.
And, you know, I'll be honest, I get it, but we can't take on that mentality.
It is winnable.
This fight here for America is absolutely winnable, because we are the majority, the vast majority.
I mean, we're allowing a group of people that can't even fight their way out of a wet paper bag to rule over us in a tyrannical manner.
That is not the American spirit.
That is not what we do.
But, I think that a lot of them are just waiting for the right signal, the right time to get them motivated once again to realize, 'oh, this is winnable,' and I do need to jump back in the fight in this way.
I think they're just waiting for that.
But not enough of them are fighting.
I mean, there's more than me, obviously, you know, veteran-wise that are fighting against this, that have, you know, risked a lot of their livelihood and put it on the line, but not enough.
Tell us, I guess, who's behind the witch hunt?
I've kind of learned a little bit about Virginia politics, but is that the Uni-party, the rhinos in Virginia that are opposed to anyone who is pro-Trump?
I mean just end on on that, because that doesn't just affect those who have served abroad affects every single person in the state and wider because this is not just a Virginia battle.
I am sure that there are individuals who are just like yourself actually who are in other states and are fighting a similar battle with the Uni-party that seeks to actually restrict freedoms and seeks to oppose the MAGA agenda and how dare you have America first.
So, what you're facing, I am guessing, is replicated across many states, across the U.S.
It is, it absolutely is.
And what people have to understand is that this fight to you and me, us realizing what's really going on, seems like it's overnight.
But this is decades in the making for these people.
They have taken over the government from the local level on up to the White House.
So that's why here, even at the state level there's so many hard fights going on between the establishment and those that have the MAGA mentality and the MAGA spirit and the America First agenda at the forefront.
And so, I mean, they have these institutions in place, these administrative bureaucracies that are very well funded and ironically funded by us.
You know, they're using our own money to fight against us.
And they make sure that these establishment politicians, even at the local levels, are protected and installed into these seats.
And, I mean, for example, Glenn Youngkin.
I mean, this guy, you know, his background is he was a CEO of the Carlyle Group, another private equity firm that is just as corrupt as Vanguard and BlackRock and all those other ones, one and the same.
And that's where this guy came from out of nowhere.
And he's proven to us that he's willing to accept publicly all of this corrupt money.
And what has he done as the governor of Virginia? He's done nothing.
He has the power right now today, just as every other Republican governor in the United States, to declare an invasion against illegal immigration and send all of his National Guard troops down to the border and close it without any federal permission or federal involvement.
He can do that today.
So, why won't he and every other Republican governor do so?
Because they don't want to, because their donors and the people that control them don't want them to.
And that's it.
Of course, it's Biden and the Biden administration's fault that the border's wide open, but it's also these Republican governors' fault as well.
They can stop it today, but they won't because the same people that installed them installed Biden and the rest of them.
The Uni-party is absolutely real.
And the reason why the fight is so strong against folks like me and you and the rest of the people in the MAGA movement and the rest of the people that support President Trump and support an America First agenda is because we're derailing their train that's on the track to global dominance.
And they know that there is a very strong chance that we win this fight.
And that's why they have to fight so hard, even on the local levels, but it's up to us.
I mean, the only way we lose this fight as the MAGA movement and as the America First movement, and even you guys in the UK to take your country back, the only way we lose this fight, Peter, is if we allow them to win.
They can't beat us.
They cannot beat us.
The only way they win is if we allow them to win.
And I'm doing my part to make sure that they don't.
And I just hope many, many more people step up like you are, you know, like Steve Bannon is and like so many other America First patriots are and fight with us.
Matt, thank you for coming on.
I know you've used your restaurant.
I know you had Robert Malone there recently and you've used your restaurant as an area for like-minded people who love freedom to meet.
And I think you talk about faith, family and flag.
I think you could add freedom, firearms, fitness and food onto that and many other.
But Matt, I really appreciate what you do.
Obviously, I will not even touch on about your viral tweet about the immigration issue with Afghan immigration and what that means for actually culture and freedom and people accepting what it means to be American there.
We're having the same issue here.
But people can obviously follow you @Matt4VA and track that, follow that, and see your many posts.
So, I do appreciate you coming along, Matt, Gourmeltz is the place to be for anyone in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
And yeah, thanks for giving us your time today.
Well, thank you, Peter.
Just like these globalists have a movement for a one world dominance, you know, our brothers and sisters over there in the UK, we're actually in a global fight together as well for our sovereign nations.
We want the same thing as well for our specific countries.
We want our countries to, you know, to be preserved and our values, the values that these countries were built on to be preserved and brought back once again.
So you guys over there across the pond, man, we're in the fight with you, brother.
And I appreciate you.

Tina Descovich - Compelled Speech Title IX Rule Change, Parental Rights to Access Lessons and Politicians Waking Up to Puberty Blocker Child Scandal

Show Notes and Transcript
Tina Descovich, co-founder of Moms for Liberty returns to Hearts of Oak to discuss the organization's growth, legislative victories, and commitment to empowering parents in navigating the education system and defending parental rights. We take a close look at federal policies like the Title IX rewrite and emphasized parental involvement in advocating for change, including options like home-schooling and school choice to safeguard children's education. Tina highlights the challenges that parents face in choosing the right education, navigating woke ideology, and the importance of monitoring children's education regardless of the setting. The need for transparency in curriculum, traditional teaching methods, and critical thinking in education for children's well-being is a must so please share this interview far and wide.
Tina Descovich has a long record of fighting for students and parental rights in Florida and at the national level. She was elected to the Brevard County, FL school board in 2016. She was selected by her peers in 2017 to serve as Vice Chairman and Chairman in 2018. While on the school board she was a member of The Florida Coalition of School Board Members and served as the organization’s president in 2018. Tina currently serves on several non-profit boards in her community that are aimed at helping children. She and her husband Derek have five children. She is passionate about America and is dedicated to protecting liberty and freedom for the future of all children.Moms for Liberty are Moms, Dads, Grands, Aunts, Uncles and Friends.They welcome all that have a desire to stand up for parental rights at all levels of government.The founders are Tiffany and Tina, moms on a mission to stoke the fires of liberty. As former school board members, they witnessed how short-sighted and destructive policies directly hurt children and families. Now they are using their first-hand knowledge and experience to unite parents who are ready to fight those that stand in the way of liberty.Moms for Liberty is dedicated to fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.Their vision is to see Americans empowered and thriving in a culture of Liberty.Moms for Liberty are joyful warriors who stand for truth, build relationships and empower others.
Connect with Tina...X/TWITTER        twitter.com/TinaDescovich
Connect with Moms for Liberty...WEBSITE           www.momsforliberty.orgX/TWITTER        twitter.com/Moms4Liberty
Interview recorded  6.5.24
Connect with Hearts of Oak...X/TWITTER        twitter.com/HeartsofOakUKWEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/
*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin
Transcript
(Hearts of Oak)
I am delighted to have Tina Descovich, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, back with us again. Tina, thank you so much for your time today.
(Tina Descovich)
Thanks for having me back.
Always good to chat to you, always good to follow what's been happening with Moms for Liberty. Obviously, people can follow you @TinaDescovich on Twitter and @Moms4forLiberty. And, of course, Moms4Liberty.org is the website. All the links are in the description. but Tina maybe start with an update of what's been happening in the world of Moms for Liberty and then we'll get into some of the issues but yeah what's been happening in your world?
Well that's a loaded question moving at 5,000 miles per hour just trying to, I don't know fix education and save this country, defend parental rights, the Biden administration here is moving so fast. And it's just a behemoth. They've got hundreds of millions of dollars within the teachers unions as kind of their foot soldiers. They have the media on their side. It's just endless what they can do. And then there's little old moms for liberty and just moms on the ground in this organization trying to fight back with all of our might to protect our children, to defend parental rights, to keep that division between the government and our families. And it's a
100-hour-a-week job for a whole lot of people. It's really a lot. But we have a lot of exciting things that we're doing as an organization. We're growing, obviously. We're in 48 of the 50 states, over 300 chapters, 130,000 moms on the ground. We are doing a ton of things and a ton of growth within policy work now. And so our chapters have come together in the states to form legislative committees and they put together a legislative agenda. Usually has a parental bill of rights to protect parents rights in that state. A lot of times there's bills about transparency in curriculum.
Protecting girls in their own locker rooms and restrooms, girls protecting girls sports, things like that. And we are having great success. The last legislative session, twenty four bills were signed into law over seven different states. And that was the last legislative session. we are still in session in a few states like North Carolina still has their legislative session going on and so we haven't even taken account yet for this session of how many more bills have been signed into law that our organization's been working on.
And is the main focus, your work at the state level or is it at the federal level?
So our mission statement is to unify educate and empower parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government where we work at the the most local level, which is school districts, where honestly the most parental rights historically have been the most parental rights violations.
Lately, we've been doing a ton of work, like I said, at the state level with policy and laws. And then it looks like we now have to get involved at the federal level because of the Biden administration. They're just obnoxiously overstepping their bounds. I don't know how much you're following here in the U.S., butthe new rewrite of Title IX, which has, you know, Title IX was written to protect women, to give them equal opportunities. It was written in the 70s and itprotected women's sports. It gave them an opportunity to have women's sports. And anyway, he had just, he's just obliterated that with the new rewrite. He's pretty much made it allowable, made it mandatory in every state and every school district that they have to allow boys that identify as girls mentally in restrooms with girls on their sports teams. And at a federal level, at a national level, you know, those school districts are going to be held accountable to doing those things. And so our whole country is in an uproar over this. Moms for Liberty, we've put out a massive toolkit to educate people and to arm them with letters to their local school board, letters to their state legislators, letters to the federal government. We're giving them all kinds of ideas and suggestions and tools to go fight this because, you know, states left and right are launching lawsuits now against the Biden administration on behalf of women and kids everywhere.
Because it does seem as if that's full-on compelled speech. And I was looking at the website and I saw all those different tools. And it does seem to be one of the main focuses at the moment. And here in the UK, we've had legal cases of teachers not using preferred pronouns and ends up in the courts. But we don't have, at the moment, we don't really have compelled speech legislation that overarches everything. So it seems to be bits here and there. But what I'm reading into this would be in the States that then would cover everyone. So is that what because it does mean the teachers are forced to use whatever the kids come up with?
Yeah. So there's a lawsuit. I was reading an article this morning. It's coming out of California, a teacher that was fired for not using the students preferred pronouns, which were not aligned with what the child was born as and for not lying to the parents. And so the teacher refused to do that. They fired her. And now she's got a lawsuit going. It's just a disaster. You can't you can't compel speech in the United States of America. This Title IX rewrite is trying to do just that. And it's not going to hold up. It's not going to stand. But, you know, the American people don't even I don't think most of them are even awake to what's happening. You know also the rewrite was through the department of education it's not a law it wasn't passed by congress it wasn't um you know what he's doing is just he is, he's he's making a mockery of the rule of law too.
I mean has the pendulum swung too far for that because we have had I had Billboard Chris on a few weeks ago talking to him about what's been happening, and in Europe, and maybe we'll touch on what's been happening in Europe in regards to that but it, when you wonder how far can things go and with children being able to decide, with the children being the adults and they make the decisions and there are no adults left in the room. Do you think this title IX, do you think that will push it so far that people do wake up to it? I mean what's the media conversation in the mainstream media.
The mainstream media so far has really picked up on what this does to girls' sports, and that seems to be the only thing they're focusing on. Moms for Liberty, obviously, is because our mission is to protect parental rights, is really working hard to expose how this oversteps and destroys parental rights in the education system at a minimum. And so they're starting to pick it up. I think Fox here has picked up a couple stories of Tiffany, my co-founder, over the weekend and last week did some interviews, and they ran them this morning. And so we're really trying hard to make sure parents understand what's going on because they just don't know. And a lot of times they don't pay attention. They don't watch the news. They don't really realize how it's going to impact them until it impacts them, until their their daughter comes home and says, I have to compete against a six foot two, 250 pound man on Saturday. Mom, all of a sudden they're in a frenzy. Like, how did this happen? And I had a friend of mine who is left leaning, has voted Democrat her whole life.
And, we've been friends since childhood. And she called me like six months ago and said, you know, my daughter's in the bathroom. She just called me from high school. There's a boy in there. How did this happen? What's going on? And I'm like, I've been trying to tell you. And so, you know, they just people just don't know. Moms are busy. They just don't know until they know. And when they know they are looking for help. And so we want to be there to help them.
I mean, is it because obviously there has been lots of discussion here in the UK, we read every few days about another story, whether it's Europe or whether it's over in the States about women competing in sports, forfeiting that, walking away because they say, I am not competing against a man. I would rather give up whatever pay there is at that level. And that does seem to be getting the media attention. But then that's, I guess, a different focus than purely on the education. But surely that will filter through.
Yeah, I think it'll rise up. I mean, the shiny object is what's happening in sports because it's such a clear violation. And we'realready seeing news stories this morning in West Virginia, one of our states, I think four or five middle school girls said that they refused to compete. They withdrew or they did a bye, whatever it is, when you on a sports team say we're not going to compete in this session. And then the school district kicked them out of the next, I think it was a track meet, kicked them out of the next track meet because they withdrew from the previous one. And so now that's being handled in the courts too. But good for those four little girls. I mean, middle school here is 12, 11, 12, 13 years old maximum. And they stood up as a group and said, we are not going to compete against a man in track. It's just not fair. And so that's the shiny object. That's what's in the courts right now. That's what everybody sees. But I think the other stuff is going to start bubbling up soon.
Of course, this has been a long plan, march from the institutions, back from the 60s or however far back you want. And it does seem as though what you're doing is the most positive response for that, is the most natural way of actually tackling what's happening, which is parents coming together in groups and being vocal. And why it's taken this long, I guess none of us know, but it is happening. So it does seem what is happening there with Moms for Liberty is the most common sense and the most logical. and the only way really that this actually can be changed when the voice comes from parents themselves.
Yeah, parents is a powerful, a powerful group. And I think Moms for Liberty has proven that, even historically, when you look throughout history, when parents pull together and really rise up within a country, within a boundary, within a community, even at local school board meetings, that gets the attention. We are the taxpayers, we are the voters, and no one is going to fight like a parent to protect their child. And so, you know, we, we have captured that, I think, at Moms for Liberty, and our politicians know that and realize that, which is why, you know, last summer at our National Summit, we have all five conservative presidential candidates, we invited them all, President Biden, Robert Kennedy, Jr., all of them, five of them showed up to talk to us about their concern about parental rights. And you know we have a lot of influence in local elections our people are concerned they get out they knock doors they campaign for their favorite candidate we have a parental rights pledge that we ask all elected officials or candidates to sign to say that you will defend parental rights and this is all levels of government and we post those on our website so that people can go and say did my candidate for school board or state house or president sign the pledge and it helps people gauge on if these people are going to protect the right of a parent to direct the upbringing of their child.
What options are there of children in the States? I'm curious because in the UK we still have church schools, Roman Catholic and Anglican, but those are very rapidly adopting the woke mentality.
But there are still options, that's kind of quasi-state. Private education isn't as really a main area here as it is in the States. But when, because parents sometimes don't want to rock the boat, they think, well, don't worry, I'll just hold on and hope that it's all OK. And it's all about grades and they don't realise what's happening. So what options are there for parents? Or is it if they don't fight now, then actually it's gone?
So I'd like to like I'd like to change this this question a little bit, because as you know, I was there in your country several months ago. I saw you while we were there and I spent a lot of time talking to my Uber drivers because I spent a lot of time in Ubers while I was there. And one in particular said he currently, him and his wife home-school their child, their children there in the UK. And I was asking him about that. He said he pulled them out because of the woke ideology in the schools there. But in the UK apparently one of your government officials has to come and do home checks, quarterly or something of that nature to to prove that the children are learning what they're supposed to be learning at home and he said just last week and you know this was a few months ago now but he was telling me at the time just last week one of those people came in to do a home check and they said to the little girl, they didn't ask can you do math can you multiply do you know know, the history of the UK, he said, or the home check lady said to their daughter, what would you think if your brother decided he wanted to be a girl? That was the question, but they came to the home to check. And he was appalled, but he said he didn't feel like he could speak up or do anything. And I thought, oh my goodness, this is, this is so bad. Here in the United States, you know, the one thing about education in the United States is it's different. It's vastly different and the laws are different from state to state.
And so in some states, home-school parents are completely on their own. No, the states don't check in. There's no follow up. And in other states, in other counties, like in my county here in Florida, you're supposed to fill out a form at the school district just so they know they can account for a child and they say that they're being homeschooled. So there's been a big push in the United States the last 10 years, but really in the last couple of years for what we call school choice. And that means the money follows the child. So if our state spends ten thousand dollars for a public education school, the parent could apply and get ten thousand dollars and they could take that to a private school, a religious school. And they could take that in some states they can take that and give it to themselves to homeschool to buy books and things of that nature but it's such, a it's such an interesting argument because in some states like texas the homeschool parents have just completely risen up and they don't want school choice and they don't want those funds for homeschool because they know that's tied to government strings and they want to be free of it, in other states they've done complete universal school choice and homeschool parents gladly take the 10 000 or whatever the rate is some states it's 8,000. In America, some states, it's 30,000. In New York City, it's almost 40,000 per student, but they don't have school choice there.
And so, you know, we have a lot of options here. We have private schools. We have very expensive private schools. A lot of them have been captured and have the woke ideology in them also.
So there really is, there's nowhere to hide these days. It's even if you home-school, you have to like read every word in the textbooks that you purchase to teach your children with, unless you use original source documents and the Bible and things of that that nature, you have to watch closely because it's just everywhere.
Yeah we, home-schooling is different here, it's not, it's really a cottage industry, it's very small. I know in Europe there it's larger but in some countries they tried to ban it and it's a whole mishmash but yeah we have mostly left governments, some of them even call themselves conservative like the the UK but it's far-reaching in terms of state control and big government but I think what you're saying is then there's nowhere to go, you either stay and fight because there isn't down the road a nice school that will be nicely protected from the state and you can just get on, they will come for that really think we learned that in all our in dealing with the government they don't want to leave any part of your life alone they'll come for it so unless you fight now this is the battle line and this is where you have to fight.
Yeah, I mean, I pulled my son during middle school and during COVID and put him in a small private Christian school that doesn't take any government funds. And it was just, it was beautiful. My son was able, they checked temperatures at the door, washed hands thoroughly, and then they were normal kids all day long. They didn't mask, they didn't, you know, they didn't sit apart. They stayed with their classroom cohorts. You know, they didn't mix with the whole school in case someone was diagnosed, but he had a fantastic two years because they weren't tied to government funds and therefore they weren't tied to any government rules or laws or policies or anything. They were able to do what they want. But, you know, it's hard for those schools to stay in existence, especially with school choice now, because all of that money will be flowing into all the schools around it. And a private school will be very tempted to take those funds. And the minute they take those funds, you're now tied to all the laws. And so there are nooks and crannies to still hide, but they're becoming few and far between. And so that's what we tell everyone when we fight. We say even with homeschooling and private schooling, 80% of American children are still in public schools and we cannot leave them behind because your child may be homeschooled and will graduate at 18 to go vote. But if that's only 20% of America, they're going to lose the vote every time to the people that have been indoctrinated. And that's 80% of America. And so this isn't sustainable.
No, 100%. No child should be left behind, completely. Can I ask you about parents, what rights they have to access materials, this has been what was a debate in the UK probably six eight months ago, whenever it became obvious that parents didn't have a legal right to access teaching materials specifically in the area of sex education. What is it like in America? The parents have the legal right to access those materials or is it simply those, I guess, school board meetings where things come out and surprise everyone.
So I love this question, and I'm going to take it back five steps and say every parent in the world has the fundamental right from God to direct the upbringing of their children, and that is their education. And so you have that fundamental right as the parent of that child to see what they are being taught. Now, Government steps all over those rights and takes that right. We know that and that's what's happening. I know you phrased the question though, the legal right, you didn't say the fundamental right, but I had, you know, I had to get that in there if I had the opportunity. The legal right in the United States varies again from state to state, especially when it comes to sex ed. Some states, I think five out of our 50, you actually have to get parental permission before you can can teach sex ed.
But, you know, the tide is changing on a lot of these things, too. Many of the states, about 20 or so, have opt-out. Parents have to have the right to opt-out. But what we just saw with a lawsuit in Montgomery County, Maryland, for example, is the school district would not allow Muslim parents to opt-out of the comprehensive sex ed, which taught gender ideology. It taught homosexuality, and the Muslim parents were not having it. And good for them. They should assert their rights. But the school district said, you do not have the right to opt out of this. And I think there's a lawsuit now, you know, going in that direction. So it just varies. And thank goodness it varies. That's the one thing I love about education in the United States.
It's getting more federalized. It should not be federalized. For the most part, education is supposed to be controlled by local school boards here, which are elected. It allows parents to march down to their school board member, which they elected in their small community. Likely they see them at the grocery store and tell them off and tell them, you don't get to do that. And if you're going to teach my kid that, I want to see what it is. And that's your neighbor. That's someone that you maybe have known for a lot of years or your kids are on the same soccer team. And so you have the ability to influence and change that quickly when it is held by the federal government of the United States. You know, this morning I was reading an article that said somebody in University in California is pushing for federally mandated sex ed and I thought what a what a nightmare especially with comprehensive sex ed knocking at everybody's door, that should never come from the federal government in America ever.
Well it does seem everywhere that the parts of government are desperate to sexualize children through any way possible..
I know, like what is wrong with people and what is wrong with parents that are allowing this, sorry…
Yes, why is the anger not there because you're right we we saw a similar thing with Muslim parents rising up in the summer, cities in the UK and I was scratching my head thinking where are the churches, why are they not angry and then you realize they've fallen and they've accepted it so we are having the same issue where the fight back coming from, it's not coming from established churches or even the free churches, coming actually from the Muslim community and you think well, if they're going to lead the fight then then so be it and you can see the confusion with the government that they don't know what to do with this because there's all types of repercussions.
Well this is usually the victims that we've had to protect and now they're mad at us too, what are we going to do we can dig into that a little bit, but this whole victim mentality our schools are teaching that and our governments now, both your government and my government are are being moulded around it. And so, yeah, when the victim turns out and says, uh, now they're like, what are we going to do?
It's just confusion in our government. But in the argument in the UK for parents having no legal access or no right to have legal access, and it was a long court case, and the conservative government seemingly only realized the parents didn't have the right, even though they've been in charge for 14 years. But we'll put that to the side. And the argument was that these companies that run these courses have a right to protect it, because if they opened it up to the parents, to the public, that would damage their competitive edge. And that seems to have stuck. The courts have ruled that, yeah, that's a fair enough point.
What is it like in the States? Are there separate organizations, separate companies that actually put on those courses, or is it purely by the school? And would that same argument work, that you need to be able to hide because that's your business model? You don't want the competition seeing this.
Yeah, they're trying that here for sure. And it's working, I think, in some places. It's intimidating school districts into saying parents can't see it. From what I've heard mostly, though, the school districts, they're trying to find a compromise because they just want to make everybody happy. And so our moms are telling us, well, they're going to allow me to go in and for eight hours and review the book. I'm not allowed to take pictures. I'm not allowed to, because it's copyrighted by the by the publisher. You know that it hasn't quite played out yet here in the United States. I'm sure it's coming because this is what's happening as more and more parents are asking to see and more and more textbook publishers want to hide what they have. I will tell you several years ago, you know, I served on school board here in Florida 2016 to 2020.
And when I began this fight, I ran and started my campaign in 2015 on parental rights because I already saw the problem. One of the things we have here in the U.S. and you probably have it there is standardized tests. So a test that the whole country takes at a certain age so you can gauge where everybody is, which is fine. It's a great idea. Except what we were finding here in Florida and around the country is those testing companies were just like those textbooks publishers. And they were not allowing teachers even to see what was in the tests. And so not allowing parents, absolutely. So I went to our state Capitol and spoke about it at a legislative committee hearing as they were discussing this. And one of the legislators brought the testing company head up and said to him and asked him questions and said, if I, as a representative in the state house in Florida, want to see what's on this test that our children are being put in front of our children in the state, may I see it? And he said, no, we can't show it to you. It has to be. And then he went through a laundry list. He ended up, he said, if the governor of the state of Florida would like to see what's in that test.
Would he be able to see it? I think at the time, Rick Scott was governor, not Governor DeSantis. And the guy said, no, unfortunately, we would not allow him to see it. And I was like, oh, things are about to hit the fan around here. And so they are on such a high horse, these textbook companies, these test makers, They've had such straight access to our children for so many years without anybody questioning it. But the tides are changing.
Tell us about the tide changing on the political side, obviously, presidential election year. And I haven't seen a lot from, originally from from the candidates in the primaries on this and this being an issue. I mean, simply saying that parents should have access, that you think that is a right to any parent legally in any democratic country, but it's not. I haven't seen these type of things push forward. It's simply we're going to have a discussion on bathrooms and make sure boys can't go to girls. That kind of is and maybe the sports issue, but it doesn't seem to go far enough at all. I mean, is that a fair enough assessment that the conversation is not really being had, wasn't had in the primaries? And I haven't even seen it coming out of the Trump campaign massively.
So just to note, President Trump has, he's the only presidential candidate right now that, you know, a lot of the primary candidates had signed our pledge. But President Trump is the only one that has made it this far, that has signed the parental rights pledge through Moms for Liberty. We've had discussions.
He has signed it?
He has. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. agreed to come to our summit. We worked with his people to put out a press release on that. They sent us his bio and headshot. And one week before our summit, he cancelled due to a family emergency. A week later went on, you know, went on some talk show and said that we were anti LGBTQ. So he went on my wall here in my office, he's still up there, my coward wall, I call it, too afraid to stand up. Somebody pressured him, I believe, some people pressured him to not stand with parents for his, you know, to be politically expedient. And then, of course, President Biden is just in full on attack to parental rights. So I don't expect he would ever discuss transparency in curriculum. He sides with the teachers unions who don't want transparency in curriculum. We don't really know where RFK Jr. stands at this point because he's not talking about it. But President Trump has addressed it.
I wouldn't say at length, but he has signed our pledge. We have talked to members of his team about where he stands on these issues. And he supports the right of a parent to direct the upbringing of their children in education. So that includes transparency in curriculum.
And of course, you and Tiffany are regularly on WarRoom and you don't get a better way of connecting with the Trump's team and with conservative voters than through WarRoom so that seems to be a massive outlet for this information.
Yeah Tiffany usually does that one, I'm her backup, I'd say when she can't get to it, but yeah she is on WarRoom regularly, Steve Bannon is great about letting us get our message out and what we're working on and yeah the hope is that Trump and his team are watching and hearing and seeing, but, you know, they've reached out, we've had direct access with his team. He came to our national summit last summer, and I spent some, I would say I spent a pretty good time with him, green room, backstage.
And, you know, he sincerely seemed very concerned about what's happening to parental rights and with education in our country.
I think, does he still have a Moms for Liberty cup behind him when he hosts?
Yes, I'm not sure. I hope so. Yeah, we gave him or somebody gave him. I don't think we gave him. I think one of his listeners sent him one, one of our travel mugs, and he had it on the shelf behind him.
So I saw it for quite a while. So great advertising.
I think you had a quote on one of your tweets in the last few days. I said, are politics taking them? You said for this entire campaign, and Kennedy has refused to answer any serious questions about what he would do as president to protect kids from the predatory transgender industry. Instead, he upskirts trying to con voters into thinking he's on their side while taking no firm positions. I think it's fair to mention because he will have a big impact on, not necessarily, I don't think, being elected, but he will have a massive impact in a third candidate. And you kind of know where Biden lies. you know I mean I've been to three Trump rallies and and heard him speak, certainly talk about the trans stuff in schools regarding bathrooms, regarding sports and a big cheer, probably the biggest cheer when I last heard him, the biggest cheer went up for him said that he will keep boys out of girls bathrooms and girls out of the boys and it was heartening to hear such a massive cheer, but yeah you're right, Kennedy, I think people maybe forget that he is not socially conservative. Now, he shouldn't have to be socially conservative to worry about sexualisation of kids. It should go across the board.
But yeah, he does seem to be holding back, and I can't imagine he would go along with opposing what's been happening.
I have no idea. Look, a lot of our moms really have great respect for him. He stood up against the COVID vaccine. A lot of our moms, their children are vaccine injured, And so they really have followed him for a long time and appreciated his courage and bravery speaking out on some of those issues. But, you know, for the reasons you just said, I'm going to print out another picture of him and put him up on my coward wall because this is one issue you cannot be silent on. You know, there is a loud minority group that is radical, that is aggressive, I think, very angry. And if there's a terrorist group in the United States, you know, like they try to call us, it's these gender ideology terrorists. They harass people. They follow them around. They scream at them. You said you've had Billboard Chris on, the way they treat him when he all he does is just with the sign that says children cannot consent to puberty blockers or no child is born in the wrong body. This is not an issue that should be partisan. This is just like a general human, protect kids issue. I think history is not going to look kindly on any of us that allowed this to happen and did not speak out, including RFK Jr.
Yeah, 100%. What is the pushback on puberty blockers? I think we now see six countries in Europe where it's banned to some degree with now legal conversations taking place of whether these should be allowed or not here in the UK and across Europe. In the US, there doesn't seem to be that pushback. Am I correct on that?
We are about five years, if I had to guess, behind you on all of this, we watched you all open your gender clinics and the puberty blockers and you know you guys have learned, I think you're starting to learn and that's why the discussions and the debates are happening. We are just behind you know ours I think we've ramped up now, people are starting to become aware and I think what you're going through now is right around the corner for us.
Yeah, no, I really think so. I mean, we're having a lot of de-transitioners speaking out. We're having whistle-blowers from the centres and then realising, I guess, the industry, which is fairly profitable.
Just like whenever I talk to those in the pro-life, they talk about the massive industry on that side. And I guess this is what, just like under COVID, you're up against a massive big pharma industry that makes a lot of money through their products. And they're not saying this is right or wrong. They're just saying we were making money and we're going to do it anyway. I think that's the massive push. But yeah, we've been, certainly for 12, 13 years, the experiment in the UK. And now people are beginning to wake up. I don't know if you're having whistle-blowers in the States talking about what happens, because we had a single clinic in the UK, really, that was under government. I'm sure in America, it's much more fractured.
Yeah, just like everything else here, we like to localize a lot of things, the good and the bad.
Yeah, I think it was in Tavistock that you guys had?
Yeah, Tavistock.
We've learned so much from that. And, you know, I'm sorry that you and your country and your children had to go through that. But we follow it closely. We've learned a lot from it. And, you know, we have de-transitioners here that are starting to speak out, Chloe Cole and some others. They're speaking at state houses. I think there's been a couple of congressional hearings now. So again, we're behind, but I think it's starting to happen. But as far as big pharma and how this is an industry, I mean, just imagine, like you have got a, you've got customers for life when you give kids puberty blockers and you chop off their healthy body parts, customers for life. And we're watching the same groups like Planned Parenthood, who have been behind the abortion industry for so long, now jumping on the puberty blocker industry. And schools are letting them in, especially in blue, left-winging, radical cities and school districts. They're letting them on campus.
They're letting them right off campus next door. They're letting them set up shop in the parking lot. And in some states allowing them without parental consent or notification, allowing them to give puberty blockers to children at the schools and so, and they're just getting them for life like now you'll be a patient of mine forever, it's the most absurd horrible thing I think that we've experienced in America in a long time.
And the more side effects the more money to be made from a further product that will supposedly fix those side effects so yes.
Is it that you're going to amass a division in the country? I mean, you see the division happening in red and blue in pro-abortion at any side and then actually pro-life. And you see, obviously, in Florida, you've got the heartbeat bill being attacked or looked at at the moment, which is probably the furthest any state has gone to protecting life. But it seems to be the same in the sex ed in schools. You've got a massive division.
Is that how it's happening, the country being more divided over those individuals that want to protect children or want them to grow up as innocent as possible before they get sexualised and those who want sexualisation as early as possible?
No, I don't think this is divisive like abortion at all. So we've done some national polling and 70 percent across the board of Americans agree with us on these issues. So that's even, they've dug down into the data. That's even people that are pro-choice, that are Democrats. No matter your nationality, no matter your gender, no matter what religion you are, 70 between 68 and 72 percent of Americans all agree on this. So the hard division, although it may appear that way in the media or it may appear that way because the vocal minority is so loud and obnoxious and hate filled and rage filled and are on the streets, you know, here locally. And we've got a causeway that goes over a river. And the last few weeks as I drive home, there's people up and down the cause, like 10 of them. That's it. With signs, you know, protect whatever.
I'm like, what are you doing? Nobody cares. Nobody's listening to you. So I think Americans, I think people in general, when they are awake and know what's happening, they don't agree with this. The problem is, is the media helps deceive the messaging. They pick up the talking points of the radical left and say, for sex education, for example, oh, it's comprehensive sex education. It's important that, you know, children learn that they're, you know, that this is how a baby's made by sixth grade. And people aren't educated on what that really is, that they are learning about the different types of sex, that they are learning about abortion in grade school, that they are learning when they are five, that they can be a boy or a girl or neither or both. You know, none of that is told. The media just goes on and then people think they know. And soI would I would argue that that 70 percent number, if if that 30 percent was truly educated, it's probably only 5 percent that would really stand against children. And that's the radical lunatics.
Do you also think there's a danger? I know in the UK we had a case a week ago where a teacher wasn't there. So a stand in teacher came and it was a 'female' who was really a male, then started telling the children about how they were getting married and they started discussing how trans. And this was to maybe eight or nine, maybe 10, I think it was nine. And again, there's a massive issue in the media on this. Why were parents not told? And when parents did write, the response was, we are inclusive, we are diverse, and we will not stop anyone because that would be hateful. Again, there...
Whenever you have teachers, you've got the education side, which is there. You can access them black and white. But then, I guess, the other side are the actual teachers. And we're certainly seeing in the UK, a lot of them, it so happens, are certainly more liberal.
And that means you've got coming in with lifestyles and sexuality that is on show for the children.
And it's in their face. So it's not just on the sex side, but actually they could be teaching history or mathematics. And if it's a guy who thinks they're a woman right in front of the children, that's going to cause so much damage. I don't know it's probably the same in the US where you're getting teachers like that, who will really cause confusion throughout the whole day
[38:46] Not in Florida, not where I am.
That's an advert for Florida.
Yeah like we're gonna exclude Florida from this because Governor DeSantis said first round House Bill 1557 here in Florida, which was dubbed a name that it's not is at all, took care of that from kindergarten through second grade. It said no gender ideology should be an instruction to children. So it just should not happen. And then this past legislative session, they took it all the way through 12th grade. So that will not be taught, preached, encouraged from schools here in the state of Florida. You know, you want to go to New York or California. Yes, it's happening. You know, go follow Libs of TikTok on Twitter and she exposes them all. They're loud and proud. They laugh at, there's one teacher. I still have that video. I think on my computer of one teacher saying, Oh, look, I got my class. I put this flag up and study the American flag. And it's the, it's the the LGBTQ flag. And she's like, I'm going to have my class pledge allegiance to this. And she laughs and, you know, it's just, it's.
If more people got to see Libs of TikTok and could identify those teachers in their communities, more parents would be upset. And that 70 percent again would be 95 percent.
Yeah, not completely. Let me ask, finish off on something just quite different. And seeing all the the protests in the States and you kind of put up a quote, why action civics is more action than civics. K-12 students aren't ready to be activists. It seems so there's a push, I mean, not look at the issue, but simply kids should be in school learning. There should be a syllabus. And it seems they're being encouraged to be activists, to protest, to be demands before they actually know much. I mean, let us know, is that a push towards that? I guess those demonstrations instead of being concerned at what they are learning.
Our test scores show that, you know, I think it's like 30 percent, I'd have to go look at the numbers, of students in America could pass civics right now. They don't, you know, we have those joke commercials where people go out with a microphone and just grab even grown adults and say, how many branches of government do you have in the United States? One, you know, they don't know. Who, what is the House of Representatives? No idea. No idea what the Senate does. Some of them don't even know who the president is or the vice president.
We have a real crisis in civics. In America, I don't know how you're doing in the UK, but it is really, really, really awful. I watched my son who just graduated from college this past weekend, when he was in middle school in seventh grade, that's when you take civics. And I don't know how it's going there. It seems like the stuff is global, but he brought home a passage that he had to evaluate in civics. And it was Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. And it had, it didn't have the whole thing. Like they never studied the whole thing. He didn't learn what it did or what laws came after that because of that address. He was just supposed to evaluate a middle section of it. He didn't know where the passage even came from. And so he called me in and he said, it's called a DBQ here. And it's the way that they learn. It's this inquiry learning, they call it. And he called me in and he's, mom, I don't know how to do this. I don't know what's going on? Well, because they never taught the context.
It's very bizarre what's going on in America and in education. And it's driven from the higher ed teaching schools and what they think works. And it doesn't work. I mean, it's all the way down to they stopped teaching phonics here in America. Kids can't read. We have the lowest reading scores in America since the 1980s and the lowest math scores ever because they started this new math, you know, about five or six years ago. And kids, you know, I don't understand it. Kids can't, parents can't help their kids because they don't understand it. Why do we need new math? Math has been around for a thousand years. We don't need new math. And so we are in a crisis between math and reading and definitely in civics. And so they've now transformed civics into something that's kind of easily teachable, especially to young people. I don't know about you, but when I was in high school, I remember walking out and we were protesting the lunch food or something. It wasn't anything important, But I remember feeling so like, yeah, we are going to change the lunch and marching out in the courtyard with the students. And I think we made signs. And there's something about youth that makes you want to feel like you are in it, that you are doing something. And so these schools and these ideologues, or capitalizing on that. And you said it, it started in the 60s and they have infiltrated, for lack of a better word, our teaching colleges. And now all those teachers are in our schools teaching and they're using that desire that students and young people have to make a difference to push them in a direction of their beliefs and their ideas. My civics teacher when I was in middle school, I know her now, she lives in my community.
And I know where she leans politically because we're adults and we interact. But as a middle school teacher, I had no idea. She taught me about the founders. She taught me about the branches of government. She taught me patriotism and to really respect and love our founding history. And that's not happening. Between critical race theory being taught and being pushed in the schools, teaching that America in general is bad and it was founded on slavery instead of being founded on the principles of freedom like it really was, it's really damaging to the future of our country.
Yeah well the British empire is the worst of the worst we're learning.
So yeah if we're bad you're like you guys are the worst of the worst behind us. I mean you're the ones that caused all our problems to begin with.
We are the worst! But just finally I think one talking to my older boy and realizing, he's very much involved in the debating society and thinking back to when I was in school and loved that and you realize that's not actually there. There are very few involved, law schools don't have it and that ability to reason, public speaking, all of that has gone and you don't get any now you know when you're given a subject and you may think the opposite but you have to argue and to understand the other side, now just kids are taught if you shout louder and be more obnoxious then you're in the right.
I assume it's the same in the States?
100%, but it's not only shout louder and be obnoxious. It's shout louder and be obnoxious about this because you are a victim or that person's a victim and you need to shout louder for them. There's no, let's look at both sides. Let's dig into this. I love how you said, I remember in school having to debate things that I didn't agree with to take the other side to prove I could. It really gets your brain going and thinking and looking at things from all angles. That is not happening to my knowledge in most schools in the United States anymore.
No. Tina, really do appreciate your time. Really love what Moms for Liberty are doing and I would encourage all the viewers and listeners to make sure and go on the website to look at that Title IX rule change and follow those action points and make sure and have your voice heard before. It's another, what, five weeks or so, I think, is the deadline. I think it's middle of June, is it, for people to respond? Is there a deadline?
I'll have to double check on that for you. But you know, if they don't know our website, they can go to momsforliberty.org. I'm not sure if you said that. Also, if you're here in the US, or you're going to visit the US, we have our National Summit coming up in Washington, DC. There'll be some great speakers and educational breakouts. And then we are a participant in the March for Kids. The National Mall in Washington, DC has had a march since the beginning of the the United States for everything under the sun, every foreign country, every war, every endangered species.
We've never had a march for kids or a march for children on the National Mall. And so we have a coalition of about 20 parent groups so far. We're working to build that to over 100, hopefully closer to 200 by August. We would love to have international partners show up too. We are going to march on the National Mall for kids to protect children.
When are you planning to do that?
It's August 31st, this summer.
August 31st make sure and follow the website momsforliberty.org and get all that information. Tina thanks so much for giving us your time today.
Thanks Peter.