Hearts of Oak Podcast

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.

Drew Allen - America’s Last Stand: Will You Vote to Save or Destroy America in 2024?

Show Notes and Transcript
Drew Allen joins Hearts of Oak to discuss his book *America's Last Stand* which explores his transition from a liberal to conservative stance and analyses  the impact of the 2024 election on global politics. We delve into threats to democracy, Trump and Biden presidencies, demonization of Trump supporters, and the importance of critical dialogues on sensitive issues. Drew analyses far-left ideologies and discusses concerns about democratic rights post-January 6 and looks at distortions of historical truths, and racial manipulation in politics. He scrutinises the consequences of embracing socialist policies, government intervention, and challenges to the American dream posed by leftist agendas. This interview highlights the erosion of foundational principles, the criminalization of patriotism, and the need for unified efforts to reclaim freedom and confront societal divisions.Will America vote to Save or Destroy their country come November? 
Drew Allen, AKA ‘the Millennial Minister of Truth,’ is the VP of client development at Publius PR, a premiere communications firm, where Allen has worked as a publicist for many of the biggest names in politics: Peter Navarro, Dr. Naomi Wolf, Dr. Ben Carson, Alan Dershowitz, and Kari Lake, to name a few.In addition to running PR Campaigns for some of the most recognizable names in politics, Allen is a widely published columnist, author, in-demand political analyst on radio and tv, and host of the popular Drew Allen Show podcast.
America’s Last Stand: Will You Vote to Save or Destroy America in 2024? in paperback, e-book or audiobook from Amazon... https://amzn.eu/d/1nrAfTY
Connect with Drew...X/TWITTER      twitter.com/DrewThomasAllenSUBSTACK      drewallen.substack.com/PODCAST        open.spotify.com/show/1MicC7w1c9DQLiA8ADoTIh?si=6124535c11a94df0
Interview recorded  2.5.24
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)
And hello, Hearts of Oak.
I'm delighted to have Drew Allen with me today, and I've been thoroughly engrossed in his book, America's Last Stand, over the last week.
But Drew, thank you so much for joining us today.
(Drew Allen)
Hey, Peter, I've been looking forward to this, so thanks for having me.
Not at all.
It's a great book, and let me just bring it up on the screen.
That's what people can find, America's Last Stand, Will You Vote to Save or Destroy America in 2024?
2024 and it's a huge question which not only has repercussions for you over in the US but has repercussions for us I think here where I am in the UK and across Europe.
It is a global election I think the likes we have not seen before but we'll get into all of that.
Drew, for or maybe your UK audience, w e're probably 55% UK, 45% US, and you're obviously a conservative author, columnist, and host of the Drew Allen Show podcast.
But maybe you can introduce yourself to those of our audience who haven't come across you before we delve into the book.
Well, sure. I'm a guy that should be a far-left liberal Democrat based on my resume, And that's the truth.
I mean, you know, I was educated in Dallas, Texas, at an elitist all-male college preparatory school, high school.
You know, that was far left.
The Jesuits are notoriously left-leaning.
And that was the case at school.
All my friends were Democrats.
Every single one of them were liberal Democrats.
I went to Pepperdine for college, but I was a theater major.
So Pepperdine is typically associated with a more conservative leaning, if that even exists in the academia anymore.
It's still going left as well.
But, I was a theater major.
So, in the theater world, the acting world, again, I was the lone conservative, effectively.
And then I moved to New York City as an actor.
And it's a crazy story for another time, I'll write a book about it maybe.
But, I ended up getting a job working for Marc Jacobs in fashion.
And I moved to Milan, Italy, I speak Italian, and I opened the first retail store in Milan.
I stayed there two and a half years, ended up moving back to L.A. eventually and continued acting, ended up producing a movie.
I worked for Marc Jacobson managing some other stores in West Hollywood.
And, you know, I got I got tired of Hollywood.
Fast forward kind of to 2020 and all of that.
I lost all my liberal Democrat friends over politics.
Not my choice.
Not my choice.
Their choice.
People that were in my wedding, Peter, my best man in my wedding, doesn't talk to me anymore because of 2020.
And I wasn't a closeted conservative.
That's the thing, too, it wasn't like I was going hiding in Hollywood and everywhere else.
I mean, everyone knew what I thought, but it used to be that you could actually live together.
And that's what's so scary, and we can get into it about what's happening today globally in the world, this true intolerance.
And anyway, I ended up getting involved in politics after 2020.
I became a actually I had a publicist and then I ended up becoming a publicist.
So, you know, I do publicity for a lot of people, Tulsi Gabbard and Carrie Lake and Dr. Ben Carson.
And I mean, there's a whole lot of, a lot of people that I do publicity for.
And then also, because I didn't start out as a publicist, you know, I still write, I have my book, I have a podcast and I do interviews like this as well.
And I'm deeply concerned about this country.
And I never, I never swayed.
That's the thing; I've always lived my life in the lion's den.
That's why I went through the resume, not to bore everyone, but to help you understand that I've been around these people my whole life and I was not persuaded to join them.
I actually was forced and fired to some extent.
So, my point is everything I write about, everything I talk about, everything I do, all my positions, they're not just because somebody told me.
They're not because I watched some TV host that's conservative tell me to do it.
It's because I have been challenged my entire life on those positions and my ideas, and I have never been convinced otherwise.
A hundred percent.
I mean, the normal viewpoint has to be conservative on our culture and all the things that make it good and great.
We had Pete Peterson from Pepperdine.
I went over to see him two years ago and had him on the show and love what he is doing over in Pepperdine.
But yet that's a whole other conversation.
Well, let me pull out some of the things on the book.
And obviously, the book is available everywhere, the links are in the description, whether the viewers are watching on any of the platforms or listening on the podcasting apps, everything is available there.
But, you start off on just the introduction, saying that the 2024 presidential election is the most consequential election of our lifetime.
Democrats have already framed the likely rematch between former President Donald Trump and An incumbent president, Joe Biden, or as I like to call him, the former VP, Joe Biden.
That was a Stephen Crowder comment, but as an election that will determine whether or not American democracy lives or dies.
And that's a broad stroke.
But, I think you're buying on the money that this is one of the most key elections, certainly, that I've ever witnessed in my lifetime.
Time and I love politics and always loved US politics, but this is the most consequential election you're buying all the money.
Yeah, look, I mean, one of the reasons that I felt compelled to write this book is because, I understand human nature and reality.
And that is that it's very hard for mankind, human beings, when they're living in the present, before it becomes history, and right past hindsight becomes 2020, it's very difficult to actually confront and understand from, you know, a space view looking down at the earth, what exactly is happening, how serious it is.
That's what's so remarkable, by the way, about 1776, for example, and the founding fathers.
They actually did understand what was at stake and they made a decision.
And this is why I say, you know, what we're up against today is akin to 1776.
Now, we're trying to resolve this problem with our democratic process, if you will, or constitutional republic.
We are trying to vote to take back our destiny.
And what's so dangerous, of course, is Democrats and rhinos, too.
You know, the deep state, the Uni-party, it's all the same.
People who represent the government and not the people.
These individuals are trying to take away that peaceful means of taking back our destiny by prosecuting Trump and so on and so forth.
So, that's what's so outrageous, but, you know, 1776, you know, you had Thomas Paine who wrote Uncommon Sense.
And that was so consequential because, you know, you have to understand that back then all the colonists, the early Americans understood was, I mean, they were British subjects.
They were loyal to the crown.
They were British.
I mean, that's the reality.
And so for those people to make a decision that they were going to actually overturn that, fight against that and create a new nation was really big.
And so that's what's wild.
People have to understand about what people did back then, and it wasn't everybody, but it was enough people, obviously, to get that movement going.
And so we need to understand that today because, look, we have way more distractions today.
So we have, you know, Netflix, we have this fake economy where we're living on borrowed time and with printing trillions of dollars and so on and so all this nonsense.
And we have immense propaganda that no one ever could have understood or fathomed in the past to try and convince you that what you experience with your own eyes and reality is not true.
Perception becomes reality.
So we have all these things we're up against.
You could just go and turn on Netflix because it makes you feel better than having a conversation like this and discussing your responsibility in saving a culture, saving society and actually being truly progressive and maintaining those ideals that, you know, were revolutionary in America, which, of course, is that we, the people are master and those in government are servant.
And this is what we're up against globally, Peter.
It's not just the United States, although we are still the leader because we're such a massively important country.
We have so much power.
That's just the reality; so it does influence everyone else.
But, everyone in the if you look at Great Britain, if you look at what's happening in London, if you look, just look across the Western world and you have a government wherever you are, politicians that believe that rights are not unalienable.
They believe that your rights come from them.
They believe that they are the master and you are a servant.
And that is backwards.
And so this is what we're fighting against.
Are we going to say that we, the people, the citizen, you know, can make decisions for our own lives?
Do we have freedom?
Do we have self-determination?
Or are we just going to vote and support slavery for mankind again?
Because that's the quintessential what this boils down to in its essence.
Well, I want to go through chapter one the real threat to democracy and goes through the attacks on trump and not only from Biden, but the deep state by and large, but chapter two you talk about are you better off under Biden presidency than you were under the Trump presidency and you give the quote from Reagan where he looked into the camera in that one debate with Jimmy Carter and asked her, are you better off today than you were four years ago?
And of course, the answer is no.
Now, I am amazed.
Obviously, not there.
I crossed the pond over here in London.
But I wonder, how on earth has anyone decided to vote for Biden?
You look at the polling and Trump ahead in the vast majority of polling.
But my question is, how is anyone still deciding to put an axe beside Biden?
Yeah, I mean, it's borderline insanity.
Anyone who would do that.
I mean, you're voting against your own self-interest by doing that.
You're voting against your children's self-interest, your own self-interest, your country's self-interest.
I mean, that is a vote.
It's a cult vote.
And as much as the left likes to project in this country and around the world, too, and try and say that, you know, MAGA and Trump's a cult, that couldn't be further from the truth.
They need to look in the mirror because a cult is defined by, for example, somebody who would radically change their position simply because the party itself changes.
So, this is the Democrat Party in America throughout its history.
So, you know, one moment they say, for example, the abortion issue that they hope they can make this election about.
But, you know, they'll take the abortion issue and one day safe, legal and rare.
That's the mantra by Hillary Clinton, everyone else.
And today, the party unanimously, unilaterally, all supports effectively infanticide.
And the Democrat voter, not the politician, simply adopts that new position as its own.
So, obviously, even 10 years ago, the Democrat voter could agree and understand that there were two genders, two sexes, male and female.
You know, you would have been like screaming, you know, from the rooftops if you were to suggest a decade ago that it was appropriate for little Johnny, your 10-year-old boy, to chop off his pee-pee without your permission.
And today, the Democrat Party supports that, and the Democrat voter simply either supports it or just pretends like it's not an issue.
That's interesting that we are having that debate in the UK and in many European countries, and we had Billboard Chris on recently.
Sadly, the US are still not having that conversation, but I hope and pray that you follow, because is that sexual abuse of children has to be key.
But chapter four, you title fascists and semi-fascists, and you talk about, obviously, under Trump, there was peace, that he didn't start any war, and that's something our commentators seemingly want to forget.
But, this whole thing on Trump supporters, and you in the book, you talk about Biden claimed that Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our public.
I don't think we've ever seen that before, where a whole group of society have been called extremists, fascists.
This is quite new language.
And of course, the deplorables.
I'm an honour to be an adopted deplorable, maybe from over here.
But, is that hatred of a section of society.
And I don't think we've ever seen that before.
No, that's never had any place in the United States of America, certainly.
I mean, this is a big turning point in our history for a president of the United States.
I mean, he's a puppet, but, you know, whatever.
Joe Biden, the diaper man himself.
Well, this, of course, is is something that is unprecedented.
And this is, you know, the Democrats love to get ahead.
They basically, the Democrats use this tactic basically just going and accusing Republicans and MAGA of what they're guilty of so that when MAGA turns around and points out the reality that they are that, they've already come out of the gate.
It's kind of like putting themselves in bubble wrap.
But, you know, that's something that Hitler would say about Jews, for example.
That is genocidal talk, by the way.
It's always the precursor.
You can look in African countries and elsewhere.
Us versus them, right?
I mean, this is the precursor to a genocide.
You dehumanize the other side.
And that's they know what they're doing by doing that.
And, you know, I mean, that's the we saw this in 22.
What's so scary is that you have Democrat supporters.
They are people who have been succumbed to the poison of tyranny.
They themselves have a tyrannical mindset themselves.
And they, you know, with the worldwide lockdowns and COVID and all of that, every country saw this.
There was a group of people that turned vicious towards the people that turned out to be right.
Like myself, like the writers of the Great Barrington Declaration, for example, these brilliant individuals who pointed out what science had already backed in the past, that mass, for example, didn't work.
The social distancing was more harmful than it was good and that you should have a targeted approach.
Well, we were obviously cancelled.
Those are the days where you're getting booted off of Twitter back then and everything else.
And, you know, you had people in this country that would wish harm upon you if you disagreed with the talking point dictated from the far left that wanted to use lockdowns to seize liberty.
And they would happily see you hauled off to prison over that.
J6, that's another perfect example.
The vast majority of those people who had been prosecuted, who were sitting in jails even, they weren't violent protesters.
And in fact, we know that many were invited into the Capitol building through open doors and their crime was selfies, misdemeanour offenses, and they've had their rights suspended unconstitutionally in this country.
And the Democrats support that.
So, here's what I say, Peter, I, and I actually, everyone listening, maybe you'll feel this way too.
I am far less afraid of the tyrants in government than I am the tyrants that are my neighbors.
Because, the government itself is a small minority of a population.
They understand this.
Even the Nazis going back to Germany, if they didn't have the complicity of German citizens, they never could have gotten away with what they did, for example.
I'm very fearful of my neighbors.
If the FBI were to show up at my house, because I did this interview with you, Peter, which is not, it's becoming less and less absurd.
Certainly if Biden and Democrats win in 2024, my neighbors would actually be cheering because I live in California, cheering as I was hauled off to jail for committing the crime of.
Speaking freely.
No, we're seeing that more, and we've seen exactly the same people willing, certainly during COVID, willing to report neighbors to the police, but we haven't gone down the full rabbit hole, as you have, of seeing that political change.
Can I, on chapter five, the myth of the big switch, and I find that intriguing, a couple of lines from the chapter, slavery, Jim Crow and discrimination were all championed by the left, by the Democrat Party.
But perhaps no lie is more egregious or offensive, insulting to basic intelligence than that of the big switch.
According to Democratic myth, in 1964, the Democrat Party miraculously became the party of civil rights and blacks in America, while the Republican Party suddenly became the party of anti-black racism in America.
I think we have actually seen the same turn the same twist the same lie here in the UK where we see the conservative party so-called conservative party conservative for name only who actually stand for basic values that the majority of those from a black or a Asian community actually will stand for, because they are traditionally conservative and yet, it's labor who on the left who seem to have vacuumed up those votes.
But tell us more about the Democrat Party rebranding to being the party of actually the migrant party or the market party of the black and that's the opposite of history.
Yeah, look, it's the greatest, most successful marketing campaign, PR campaign in world history.
I say this as somebody who's, you know, from involved in the PR world.
I mean, it's amazing that it took root.
You know, to make an analogy first, it'd be like if the Nazi party, you know, say they weren't forced to disband after World War Two.
It would be like after they killed six million Jews in the Holocaust, they were allowed to survive and in the subsequent elections, they claimed that, you know, they nominated, for example, some Jewish person to lead the Nazi party.
And they said, look, we are the de facto supporters of Jews and all of our rivals and opponents are anti-Semitic.
You would laugh, I mean, it would be absurd.
That is exactly what happened in the United States of America.
The Democrat party, it's not just that they were racist, it's that they still are racist.
OK, it's that it's not that their policies were racist.
It's that they're veiled in anti-racism.
But actually, they are the greatest obstacle that black Americans and minorities, for example, in the United States still face.
So, the entire history of America, right, the Republican Party was born.
And look, I'm not defending the Republican Party, by the way, because we got, you know, mushy losers in the Republican Party.
But I'm just talking about what the Republican Party historically stands for.
They're not the racist party.
Many of them are part of the unit party, but that's a different conversation.
Republicans tried to pass civil rights legislation for decade after decade after decade.
And they were opposed by Democrats, the same Democrats, in fact, that would later claim to be the proponents of anti-racism and friends of blacks in America. What happened was 1964, basically, let me do it this way.
Very short history lesson, I think is important, because Democrats depend upon the black vote in the United States of America.
They hitched their wagon to the black vote, not just the black vote, but like getting all of it.
It's crazy!
So, you got to go back to Herbert Hoover.
Herbert Hoover got a majority of the black vote and the Great Depression happened under Herbert Hoover.
It wasn't Herbert Hoover's fault, but the Great Depression happened and obviously he got blamed.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the election against Herbert Hoover when Herbert Hoover ran for re-election.
And since that moment Democrats have gone after the black vote and fought to keep the black vote, because they decided early on that because blacks were concentrated in these city centers, if they could get the majority of blacks to vote for them, they could win elections.
And they knew back then, before you had unlimited illegal immigration, everything else, that as long as they control the black votes, I mean, that was a key to that. If they lost the black vote, they couldn't win.
So, you go to 1964, they've opposed civil rights legislation, even though they're promising to be friends of blacks.
And you had LBJ, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who became president because Kennedy was assassinated.
Well, he signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was actually Kennedy's bill.
Now, they had a supermajority in Congress, which means they did not need a single Republican vote to pass any piece of legislation.
But they couldn't pass it, because Democrats in the South would not support the legislation.
So, Republicans actually were responsible for getting that legislation passed.
And LBJ knew then that he was only doing that to virtue signal to blacks to keep that vote intact, because at this moment in history, blacks were starting to flee the Democrat Party.
So, they had to do something and act.
And so they replaced the Jim Crow laws with welfare and welfare is slavery, not just for black Americans, but for any American, any person in mankind's history, because the intention of welfare from politicians isn't actually to help you, it's to inhibit you, it's to enslave you.
It doesn't help you escape poverty, it prevents you from escaping poverty.
And this is what the Democrats have done.
So, it's all a sham.
Everything Democrats do is about poverty.
Political power and control, that's it.
It's all a big fraud operation.
And Democrats and that's why I read this chapter, because blacks are fleeing the Democrat Party right now.
And it's a threat to them.
And I want blacks to know and I want other Americans to know and I want everyone in the world to know what the Democrats are guilty of and what they've done and how absurd it is for them to claim that they're the friend of anybody.
They're the only friend of themselves in politics.
100% and we've had Brian Strachan talking about the walk away movement, and it's exciting to see that happening as people realise the shallowness of the Democrat position, but there are two other chapters that kind of pigeonhole each other, or bookmark each other and that's chapter 6: Black Votes Matter and chapter 8 The Democratic Party's Racism Industrial Complex.
And it's similar here in the UK that it seems though there is an agenda to actually stir up racial tensions.
And it seems that these parties are looking for colour in everything.
And by that, they are then stirring up a certain agenda, a certain narrative, and actually doing votes on that.
We have elections today as we record this in the UK.
And this race bidding seems to be a massive part of politics on the left.
Yeah.
I mean, look, you have politicians, whether it's Sadiq Khan in London or it's Democrats here in the United States of America, and they can't run on their record, because their record by design creates misery.
And so what they need to do, it's divide and conquer.
Communists did this, Marxists do this, proletariat, bourgeoisie, all that sort of thing.
It's the same thing here, just different names.
What's happening in America, of course, is they're creating as many victim classes as they can.
Then they present themselves as the unique saviors.
You guys are all victims and you can't escape your victimhood unless you vote for Democrats.
I am your champion.
I am your savior.
You need me.
Vote for me.
You know, they're creating rights where they don't exist.
They're saying, you know, rights are being taken away when no rights are being taken away at all.
So all of these things are intended to divide society up so they can come in and pick them off and play to the crowd; that's what's happening.
That's why, you know, I mean, it gets, it's a little bit more complex, because money gets involved too.
So for example, you know, the gender theory, for example, is a monstrosity, obviously, anti-scientific, creating confusion in children.
And it's destroying society because you need strong men and strong women.
And they're getting rid of that.
They're coming in between parents and their children, and they're getting rid of tradition, values, and so on and so forth.
And so it starts that way.
But then with hormone therapy, just for example, just like the COVID vaccine stuff, it's an industry now.
So, you have an entire group of doctors out there that are monsters themselves.
And they promote this because there's a lot of money to be made in hormone therapy, for example.
So, you know, it kind of of snowballs, if you will, but with critical race theory, in particular with race relations in America.
In that chapter it's important that I try to explain to people that just like Ford builds cars, the Democrat Party builds racism and racists.
And so they tell children that aren't racist.
I mean, no child is born racist.
That's fundamentally false.
That is instilled in them by men and women who have had their hearts corrupted over time in this world that we live in.
And so to tell some child that you're a victim because of your skin color or your oppressor, if you're white, for example, I mean, it's morally reprehensible that you would do that, but that is what they were doing to children.
And on top of that now, of course, as I mentioned, you've got gender theory as well to further create.
And that's what academia does all the way from, that's why they want universal pre-K in America.
It's not about helping kids and everything else, it's about getting control of your kids as early as possible.
And these public schools, the universities, all they are, it's like going to a terrorist boot camp, you know, for Al Qaeda, except here, you know, they're just creating new Democrat potential voters.
You're a hundred percent.
And yeah, that you've a whole chapter on critical race theory and DEI, diverse equity inclusion, which really has turned into didn't earn it.
I think that's really more or what that best thumbs it up I saw that, but chapter you touched on the whole thing on welfare and slavery, I think that's very specific for me in the UK and the European context.
And we have seen that, but you talk about, obviously, Lyndon Johnson starting modern day slavery.
And I guess encapsulating Americans and telling them, don't worry, we will look after you.
You don't need to look after yourself, the government is here.
And I think it was Reagan who said the worst words in the English language are, don't worry, the government is here to help or something like that.
Yeah, he said he said the worst.
I forget how many words I'll pull a Joe Biden if I try and think of it now.
But you have to count them off.
The worst words or scariest words are I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
Yes, exactly.
We've done across Europe, but you're adopting that socialism that we have in Europe.
That means that you don't need to work because we will actually look after you.
We will bring in a universal basic income.
We will bring in subsidized health care.
We will bring in free education and nothing is free.
Someone has to pay for it at the end, and maybe, I think you will learn that when you've got the cancellation of debts by Biden.
Someone has to pay for those billions in the end and it ends up being the taxpayer.
Yeah, I mean, this is one of those absurd lies that they've told for so long that people believe, which I mean, one is that the government is your friend.
I mean, that's insane to believe these days as well.
Well, but it's that something's free, that you can get a free lunch, that anything the government provides is free.
I mean, everything the government has must be stolen from the taxpayer first.
And the idea that, you know, but, you know, this is the thing, too, the Democrat preys on.
The greatest vices of mankind.
So, obscene selfishness, for example.
So, the college student will say, yeah, make that person.
The rich don't pay their fair share is perfect.
I mean, this sums up the insipid nature of the Democrat party and leftism and socialism also.
Also, it is always to foment division in society.
And I ask people, OK, the rich don't pay their fair share.
Now, firstly, that's fundamentally not true.
The rich pay far more than their fair share, an obscene amount of money.
And many people pay no taxes at all, of course.
But even that aside, the idea that any American citizen whining about, you know, some millionaire, billionaire having more money than they do, the idea that taking money from them, the government taking money from them is going to somehow make you rich is absolutely stupid.
No American citizen, no citizen on the planet has ever gotten rich because the government took more money from the rich.
It doesn't work that way, and obviously the government cannot create wealth.
They cannot create anything.
Now there's certain things, but you have to have a reasonable mind to make the exceptions.
When it came to World War II and it becomes vital, for example, that you defeat the axis of evil, if you will, okay, industry gets basically usurped to some extent, and it's all focused on winning a war.
I mean, that's about survival in some way.
So, you know, but this is the problem.
We live in an age of unreason.
We live in an age where people cannot think for themselves.
They can't carve out exceptions.
They can't comprehend any kind of complex or even simple problems that they may face and overcome.
It's really, I mean, That's why I have a chapter in there called The American Dark Age.
That's where I would point out that if you look at any facet of society right now, is there anything that hasn't been corrupted by the left, by the socialists, by the Marxists?
There's not.
Culturally, economically, everything is in decline, and that is because of a very sick, perverse ideology that is not new.
It's not progressive.
It has been around since the beginning of time.
Okay, since kings and emperors and everything else.
And that's what we're fighting against now.
But, we have a situation where in the West in many ways.
We've had it so good for so long We've become soft and obviously.
We don't, we don't understand ourselves how bad it's going to be because you know we're not like the patriots of 1776 that actually endured something and by the way I would argue that what we're experiencing right now King George iii, peter, was a much more benevolent monarch than the democrat party and Joe Biden.
I would take King George the third; he taxed us less he was nicer than the these criminals that are running the country today.
I love that you guys complained about your tax on t your two percent tax and now you get Biden, so no other comment to that.
No
But you talk about looking at the American dark age, and I mean, the American dream is known all over the world, and I talked to Xi Van Fleet the other day, and she talked about moving from America or from China to American and that was a dream.
Everyone wanted the American dream, the ability to work hard and achieve what is impossible in many other countries in the world.
And yet, it's turned around from the American dream to the American dream is now you sit on your backside, and actually you're just thrown incentives or money by the government, and it's sad looking as a foreigner thinking actually the American dream is one thing the ability to achieve and accomplish and that's now been turned on its head.
Yeah, look the American dream doesn't exist anymore, and I'll tell you why, it's not because it never existed, it's because the left in this country has been attacking and trying to prevent the American dream from being possible anymore.
The American dream is very simple.
It's not just an American dream.
I think it's a human dream that you can, through self-determination and with your own work ethic and intellects and abilities, you can make a better life for yourself.
That is it.
That is the dream, that there is not somebody out there allowed to impede in some obscene way your ability to improve your own life, that if you want to improve it, you can improve it.
It's not the guarantee that everyone's going to be rich, but you can be better off.
You can improve your circumstances.
That's it.
And so in America, was it having the home in the suburbs and the picket fence?
At one point, that was it.
That's fine, that represented something.
And it is Democrat policies.
It is left-wing policies that are preventing that and making that out of reach.
It's nothing wrong with America. It's nothing wrong with capitalism.
The problem is the politicians.
politicians it is their policies that have made home ownership unaffordable that dream is gone for so many Americans that are my age and younger they can't afford a home they can barely pay their rent.
They can't even buy groceries anymore and the left, of course; this is after you read my book read a book called rules for radicals, not you peter, but you know the audience like, read rules for radicals by Saul Alinsky.
I read it once a year because I want to know every year, and make sure it's in my brain, what these Democrats are doing, because it's not secretive what they're doing.
They talk about it.
They've written about it.
And what they do with destroying the American dream, for example.
Is, according to Saul Alinsky, you create a problem.
You create the problem, okay?
And then you have a piece of legislation.
You have a so-called solution prepared, and you present yourself as the sole person who is uniquely qualified to solve that problem that you created.
Of course, you're not ever solving the problem.
It's just a way to leapfrog into additional tyranny to get what you want.
So, you know, for example, you know, they will create tax policies where they make it, you know, look, when you tax the rich, for example, in corporations or raise corporate taxes, at the end of the day, the consumer and the employee are the ones who suffer.
So, their taxation policies claiming to the rich don't pay their fair share, that actually creates less employment, less opportunity, lower paychecks, and it actually ends up benefiting the rich in the end.
And then they'll come along after they've done that, and they'll say, again, the rich don't pay their fair share.
We need to do this.
So, they're creating situations in America, and then they're blaming Republicans for it.
Look at California where I live.
You can't blame a Republican for anything.
Who do you blame?
But they won't blame Democrats because people in the state belong to a cult.
Well, I was twice in L.A. 2022, and I probably never return to L.A. After seeing what the Democrats.
I wish I was there when Reagan was actually the governor and it would have been actually a beautiful state.
But at chapter 16, what are you voting for?
And you start by saying perhaps no singular human being in U.S. history has been subjected to greater and more relentless political persecution than President Trump.
Certainly no U.S. president has been unfairly treated by the media, the Democrat Party, and even establishment Republicans, nor has any president been the subject of greater unwarranted hatred than President Trump.
Now, in the UK, we may laugh at Trump derangement syndrome, but you have to live through it and you have to actually engage with people who have this absolute hatred of someone who is so successful in business and has walked away from that and given up a lot to actually enter politics.
And people don't necessarily get that.
But it's, yeah, who are you voting for?
Tell us about that because this hatred doesn't really stem from anything.
It simply stems from the media pushing a narrative that tells you you must hit this individual because he's been successful and because he's not Obama or he's not Biden.
Yeah.
This point in this chapter ties into an earlier one in which I say, you know, if you don't know whether to vote for Trump or Biden, then you aren't American.
And of course, I'm making fun of Biden.
I'm serious, actually, but I'm also making fun of Biden who said, you know, you aren't black if you don't know whether to vote for me or Trump.
Again, racist, right? Right.
You know, most of what has been said about Trump is not even true.
And that which may have a kernel of truth, if it's bad, pales in comparison to what Joe Biden or any other Democrat are actually guilty of themselves.
And so, obviously, I go and dispel some of those things and help people understand you have a propagandist media that will just invent lies about Trump in an effort to.
Because, at the end of the day, all Democrats are running on is the fact that they want to present to the American people and others around the world that Joe Biden's a nicer guy than Trump.
That's what it comes down to.
In the case that's happening right now, this criminal trial in New York, which is a disgrace about so-called hush money, there's no crime there.
And I get into it in the book and I explain all that very specifically and how absurd this is.
But the point is, there's a trial going on and no crime was committed.
So, this jury is being asked what?
They're being asked to vote on whether or not they like Trump or not.
That's what it comes down to.
That's what all of this is about.
And they're hoping that they can convince the American voter, for example, that Trump is just a monster and you just can't possibly vote for him.
They did this in 2020 as well, they've done it before, and it's fundamentally not true.
I mean, I got to tell you, I have so much respect.
I don't understand a person, even if you dislike something else about Trump, I don't understand how you can have respect for Trump for what he has suffered for the American people.
This is a man who has it all.
He doesn't have to do this.
And I guarantee you, by the way, if he would just bow out like Nixon did, it would all go away.
Or at one point, it would have gone away.
Maybe, they've gone across the Rubicon now in terms of their brains; I think they probably have.
But, they just can't believe that they can't defeat this man and that the American people won't abandon him.
And this is somebody, I mean, I ask people to try and imagine for a moment, Just being in Trump's situation, in one of these situations for a day, he's got multiple lawsuits against him.
They're trying to bankrupt him and his family.
Imagine the pressure you would feel.
I wouldn't be on your show, Peter.
I wouldn't be doing PR.
I'd be curled up in a ball somewhere crying, because the weight of the world would be crushing me.
I wouldn't know what to do.
I'd be concerned about my future and my family, and most people cave.
Dave, this is a remarkable human being who was built for this moment.
I am not saying he's Jesus Christ, by the way, because no man is Jesus Christ.
But, he is the right man at the right time in American history.
And we are so lucky to have someone that is willing to stand there amidst all these slings and arrows coming at him.
And the problem in America, it's not Trump.
It's a bunch of weak-kneed Republicans and cowards who won't take any slings and arrows for the man who will go to prison for them.
The awesome privilege of, well, seeing him speak three times, but twice this year up in Pennsylvania and South Carolina and actually meeting him and someone who has the energy, who can talk for an hour and a half.
Biden can do maybe five minutes and still he's reading the teleprompter.
Exactly what it says; completely different individuals.
That energy that Trump has is infectious, exciting and something I haven't seen in politics, certainly in the UK.
Let me just finish off with the issue on patriotism.
Your last two chapters touching on that.
And Chapter 17, the criminalization of patriotism.
And this is something that you're seeing in the U.S., we are seeing in Europe.
I mean, the EU are trying to criminalize any pride of nation states.
You give the story of a 12-year-old boy in Colorado who kicked out of class passed for having a Gadsden flag patch on his backpack. And of course, that is the picture, the don't tread on me, that snake.
You've got the front page of your book.
But it is that, and that of course has history back in the War of Independence, and you go through that in the chapter.
It's kind of where does patriotism lie, because under President Trump, it was America first, which should be what every leader of every country is about, putting their country first.
And Biden seems to be about America last.
Let's do everyone else in America comes last, American jobs, American benefits.
You're at the end of the queue after we get through everyone else.
Just let's face all that criminalization of patriotism, that the courts going after individuals, the education system, the media.
If you love your country, you are the enemy.
That's seemingly what everyone in the media is summing up patriotism.
Yeah, look, patriotism is so dangerous to tyrants.
I'll give you an example that the Biden administration a couple of years ago, the National Archives slapped a warning label, dangerous content label on our founding documents, on the Declaration of Independence.
Okay, look, tyrants have to, just like religion, they have to destroy patriotism.
You cannot permit a citizenry to feel patriotic because patriotism is one of the greatest bulwarks we have to tyranny taking over a country.
If you love your country and you feel unity, right, it's the antithesis of victimhood.
Democrats want to divide and conquer.
What does patriotism do?
It unites a citizenry.
It gives them a reason to love their country and love themselves and love one another and bring them together.
And that is problematic for people that want to rule over you.
OK, not just because you have numbers and that you're united in that sense, but there are a million different reasons.
And so this is why for a long time, the left has decades, decades, days before I was Trying to make people feel guilty to be American.
That's why the Democrat Party, for example, drudges up the history of slavery.
Slavery they want you to feel rotten about your country, because you can't convince a population to destroy itself and give tyrants permission to rebuild if they believe that their country is great, if they believe their country is good, and decent, and moral, and so that's what we have going on here.
And I am urging people that if you get anything from them from the book; lean on the memory of what previous Americans have done for us, the sacrifice, whether it was the founding fathers and the American, the revolutionaries, whether it was Abraham Lincoln in 1861.
I mean, this is a moment that is as significant to our history and world history as 1776 and 1861.
That is not hyperbole, t hat is the truth that I need people to understand.
And I want them desperately to understand, but I don't want them to be negative about it.
I want them to feel a sense of joy because our ancestors have overcome these obstacles.
And I want people to be thanking God that, hey, I am alive right now to meet this moment in history because all we have is ourselves and we are enough.
You are enough, whether you're in London or New York City or Chicago or Dallas or some rural place in the UK or America, you have the capacity to save and reverse course, to reclaim your destiny, which is a shared destiny of humanity, to live a life of freedom, free of oppression by your government, these elites that are the most inferior among us who are ruling over us.
And so at the end of the day, my message is one of optimism, because I believe in us.
I believe in you,I believe in myself, but we have to understand history.
We have to be devoted because this is never going to go away.
As long as mankind walks this earth, there will be tyrants, the Caesars and Napoleons and so on and so forth, the, you know, Sadiq Khans and the Joe Biden’s that are going to try and steal your liberty.
So, you know, this is something that's lifelong, and we just have to change our outlook and be a little bit more active.
We can't just leave it to the government to take care of us, because they're a necessary evil, not a necessary good.
It true thank you so much for your time, I've thoroughly enjoyed the book America's Last Stand and it does give that overview of the issues which you're facing but you can transcribe that over to the UK or Europe, and it's the same battles against common sense and freedom that we are also facing.
So, thank you so much for joining us today and of course the book is available as paperback, audiobook, kindle, however you want to get it it's available on all those formats.
So, thanks for your time today, Drew.
Thanks, Peter.

Krzysztof Bosak - The Rise of Christian Conservatism in the Polish Parliament and the Unmasking of the Law and Justice Party

Krzysztof Bozak, a Polish Member of Parliament and Deputy Speaker of the Sejm joins Hearts of Oak to outline his political journey, beginning with his participation in a youth movement and the founding of the Confederation of Freedom and Independence Party. Krzysztof lifts the veil on the Law and Justice Party's EU stance, economic policies, and immigration management. He tells us of the significance of upholding conservative and nationalist values amidst mainstream narratives. Krzysztof highlights his role in the Polish Parliament and his openness to collaborating with like-minded international entities. This interview offers deep insights into Polish politics, party distinctions, and the importance of ideological integrity in a changing political landscape.
Krzysztof Bosak began his political career as an activist and spokesman for the organisation All-Polish Youth. In 2005, he became one of the youngest Polish MPs in history, elected as a candidate of the League of Polish Families, a conservative party, at the age of 23. Krzysztof is now the leader of Confederation of Freedom and Independence Party, Member of Parliament and Deputy Speaker of the Sejm.
Connect with Krzysztof...X/TWITTER               twitter.com/BosakKrzysztof    (English account)                                   twitter.com/krzysztofbosak
Confederation of Freedom and Independence Party        WEBSITE                    konfederacja.plX/TWITTER                https://konfederacja.pl/
Interview recorded  30.4.24
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/
TRANSCRIPT
(Hearts of Oak)
And I'm delighted to be joined by a member of the Polish Parliament, that is Krzysztof Bozak. Krzysztof, thank you for your time today.
(Krzysztof Bosak)
Thank you for the invitation and welcome everybody.
Great to speak with you. I had the privilege of meeting you back, goodness, 18 months ago, I think, with Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff , a good friend of both of ours. And you are a member of the Polish parliament and I'm looking forward to understanding a little bit about the Polish parliament setup. Each country is different but you are the president of the national movement and you're the leader of the confederation or confederation of Freedom and Independence Party, and you're the Deputy Speaker of the House, which is called the Sejm. And your a husband, father, you're a Christian, and I want to delve into all of those. But Krzysztof, you became a member of the Parliament back in 2005.
You were very young back then. Tell me why you got involved in politics. How did that happen and how did you end up standing as a member of parliament and being elected?
It's a long story. In fact, this time I was the youngest MP in this term and I started being involved in politics by a youth movement, a Catholic Eurosceptic and Catholic Nationalist youth movement. Since I was in high school. I was 17 or 18 years old when I joined. It was the time of the debate about joining the EU. All mainstream parties, mainstream medias, mainstream bishops, mainstream everything was in favour of joining EU. And a small minority of speakers and social leaders were against defending principles of independence, sovereignty, traditional values, and so on. And I was sure that they are right and I joined this movement, being against joining European Union at that time. I joined a youth movement, then in 2001 a conservative pro-family, pro-life Eurosceptic party was created.
It was League of Polish Families. It was kind of coalition of very different right-wing conservative or Eurosceptic or nationalist groups. And four years later I became the youngest MP being elected from my home town and constituency.
From the 10th place on the list. So I was not a leader of the list, I was on the 10th place and people elected me from this list as the only MP in this constituency. So it was a very big success and a very big surprise for many people. And it was short term, only two years, because this was a time of big political instability. We had two government changes. It was, let's say, right-wing government, many scandals, and after two years, earlier elections, and my political party didn't succeed. League of Polish Families disappeared from Polish politics. Law and Justice political party took everything, every right-wing voters. We were against, we were competitors of law and justice, competitors from the right. They were centre-right from our perspective. and after that for 12 years I was outside the Parliament involved in social movement and working in right-wing NGOs, in think tanks like Republican Foundation, defending the same values on the social level with my colleagues and people who didn't lose faith in being active and trying to create truly right-wing political movement. We tried many times different attempts to get into the Parliament we have 5% threshold and proportional system so it's quite hard if you do not have support from big business big media or big money and we succeed in 2019 I went back to Parliament this time as a co-leader of of Confederation, Freedom and Independence. It is a coalition now, coalition of three political parties, three political movements.
My movement, national movement, still the same values, still the same political tradition. So national conservative Catholic tradition, national democratic tradition of Polish political independence movement, and we created this national movement as a new political party ten years before, in 2013. So for six years we were outside the parliament, and after that we made a coalition with conservative libertarians and traditionalists. So conservative libertarians were created by long-term defender of economic freedom and civil liberties.
Janusz Korwin-Mikke, now he's not in his political party, he's pleaded, but he created this political party and now they have a younger leader, Sławomir Manczan from Next Generation, very popular young businessman and tax advisor and also a big defender of economic freedom and conservative values. So this is the second pillar first is national conservative Catholic second is let's say conservative libertarian and the third is citizens movement traditionalist movement of Jagger Brown is a quite popular right-wing movie a documentary movies director an artist and intellectual who who were involved in politics also a few years before, first being on anti-communist and right-wing position, and then shifting more to the right and building the coalition with us.
So now we have Confederation as a coalition, or let's say umbrella party, coalition party, for these three different movements and many smaller groups who joined us. And we work collectively, we have collective leadership and we challenge law and justice from the right. We were in opposition during eight years of law and justice government. From our perspective they are not very conservative and they are,
I know that sometimes media call them nationalists, but from our perspective they were a typical centre-right political party. And we made an alternative right party for Polish voters and now we even extended the number of voters who support us. So now we have 18 MPs and more than 7% in polls and now we fight to get into the European Parliament. Because for now there are only people from Law and Justice and their allies parties. And we believe that Polish voters deserve to have better representation in European Parliament.
Built by truly critical to European Union politicians, not supporters of EU who change only some narrative, but they always vote in favour of you.
Well, tell us about the... Because when I, as a Brit, maybe read the newspapers here in the UK, it would have talked to the Law and Justice Party as being an extreme right party. In a similar way, they mock Orbán in Hungary.
But I'm curious to see where you fit in, Because when I went over and met with you, I begun to understand the Law and Justice Party were maybe not as wonderful as the West may think. So what makes the Confederation different than the Law and Justice Party?
Yeah. It's a very complicated topic, but I think that it's easier to propose some metaphor or some example. So it's quite similar in my opinion like in the United States where you have mainstream Republicans and you have Trump supporters and for example Rand Paul or some people who are more nationalist-oriented.
So, in Polish politics, law and justice is like mainstream republicans. They use some words, some phrases, some ideas of conservative or even pro-national right, but they use it intentionally rather for propaganda and they act like centre-right politicians.
When they were in government in Poland, they even introduced many policies. We can say that these policies that they developed on social level or in economic policy, these are rather social democratic policy, not conservative or right-wing or not nationalist in any way. So, to go into the details, we criticise them because they supported European integration on the new level. First, many years ago, they supported Lisbon Treaty. They negotiated Lisbon Treaty being in government. Then their president signed the Lisbon Treaty. They made a propaganda with mainstream and center-left and leftists that the Lisbon Treaty is good for Poland. And we believe the opposite, that it was a disaster. Our situation is much worse in the EU under the Lisbon Treaty than before.
Then, during the last eight years, they supported the European Green Deal and their Prime Minister accepted the European Green Deal in the European Council. Now farmers oppose, they even criticise in the current electoral campaign. They made a pledge that they will stop the European Green Deal, but they do not say that their prime minister accepted it on the European Council in 2019 then in 2020 their prime minister Morawiecki accepted fit for 55.
So they increased the goal of reducing these emissions 15 percent percent more and they introduced many new policies in European union and it is all possible because they are accepted in European council on a 2020 meeting in fact prime minister Morawiecki also proposed us as a polish prime minister in Brazos creating new pan-European taxes it's completely It's completely against our Constitution, it's completely against our values. We believe that our phrase is that we need small taxes and only paid in Poland and they three or five new pan-European taxes and they accepted it and we paid this to Brussels, not to Warsaw and we have no influence on how this will be used, this money. Then they accepted European debt, we strongly opposed any idea of giving this right to Eurocrats in Brussels to introducing their own debt and building their own sources of income by that. And they, of course, accepted. Then they accepted also in 2020 a special pan-European COVID fund called Next Generation EU, even this phrase, next generation EU is evil and of course they accepted it and they made a campaign in Poland that it's a big success of Poland and that we will have billions of euros because of this success of Prime Minister Morawiecki and law and justice.
And there was a small minority of their MPs who criticised this but they were silenced in the party and in the media and in fact from the perspective of Polish voters we were the only one independent voice in Parliament. I took part in this debate in Parliament and criticised this next, please check this by some search engines, what is this, next generation EU. This is not only a European debt program.
It is paid by European taxes and by European debt for many years, but it's also a new attitude towards European funds. They accepted that we will have funds only under many new political conditions. So now we got some milestones, they call these milestones, and this is the list of tasks, of political tasks, and they program Polish policy by Polish so-called democratic government from Brussels without any base in constitution.
We have more than 100 milestones and these are the conditions to get this money. So, we made a new debt. This is not our debt, this is the European debt. And to use this debt, we have conflict with EU for almost 3 or 4 years. And they now lecture us on every issue from this list of 100 milestones. And Prime Minister Morawiecki from the Law and Justice Party in the Polish parliament said that he is not ashamed of this deal because, for example, Italians have more than 400 milestones, tasks. So it's a nightmare from the perspective of somebody who is in favour of Polish independence and sovereign policy and democracy and even democracy in Poland. They made a secret agreement in Polish parliament with leftists to support this, because even in their own political camp, they call it United Right, which is false, because the right in Poland is not united. But they use this phrase united right and theywere afraid that not every MP will support this but because it was so controversial so they made a secret agreement with leftists. They took some leftist agenda in this deal and they made majority with leftists to push it through the parliament.
Then they never discussed all this deal and this 100 milestones in parliament. We had never any debate on this issue. In fact, this negotiations were secret also against people in government. Not every member of government knew what they discussed in Brussels. Now we know this only from media. They never introduced this deal in parliament and explained what's going on. Then they accepted very, in my opinion, bad new rule called rule of law conditionality. So now without base in European treaties, Eurocrats in Brussels can lecture us what is rule of law. They can stop money for us. So these were some examples of their EU policy. There are many more, for example, their member of European Committee was in favour of European Green Deal. He even said that it's in line with political agenda on agriculture of law and justice.
So they had a big conflict, of course, with EU on this rule of law. And in this conflict they it was completely complete disaster for Polish state because they started this conflict and then they missed everything because they never finished any reform of courts in Poland and they made even leftists stronger in Poland because they tried to make some compromise with Brussels.
This compromise was never accepted by Brussels because it was not, let's say, 100% what Brussels wanted. But in fact we have a very big mess in courts and in law about courts and about independence of judiciary. And now after this conflict and these reforms never finished as I said the situation is worse than when it started worse on the sovereignty worse on the justice and the time that you need to wait in the court for the justice.
And worse, from the perspective of the power of liberal lobby in judiciary and right-wing people who, trusted law and justice government are in a very bad situation now because they took some positions or some propositions, and now they are nowhere, in the middle of nowhere.
It's a very sad story. Then we have economic policy. Their economic policy was, in fact, social democratic. So they raised taxes, they raised debts, they extended public spending. They tried to centralize every policy. They took money from local governments. they put this money to their national budget and they try to influence every policy by their political nominees and they work like, let's say, Maybe not autocratic, but it was a typical one-party government which tried to centralize and control everything. It's the opposite that I understand the pro-national policy or conservative policy.
It was, in my opinion, it was elitist and even social democratic when you analyse. For example, they were strongly against home-schooling and against independent schools. They proposed some legislation to ban homes chooling. After some protests of conservatives and leftists united, they stepped back. But after protests in their party and outside and from many directions.
But their first goal was to centralize everything under the government rule. And we said that it's stupid because they will not rule for forever and after them the left will come to the government and exactly this is what we have in Poland. Now we have center-left government, liberal and leftists, and the left took Ministry of Education, everything was centralized. And now they try to switch, oppose every institution and every policy that law and justice created. And we said that it will be so. And now we see the consequences of their stupid policy, which was not conservative, not Christian, not supporting any citizens' movement.
They believed only in their political party and that's all. This is their philosophy.
Then we have a very important issue for us in Poland, let's say, immigration. Law and Justice government was introduced in Poland, open borders policy. They were against illegal immigration and at the same time they opened borders.
For biggest immigration, legal immigration in Poland since maybe 300 years. Last time that we have so big immigration was maybe in 16th or 17th century. Now we have millions of legal immigrants in Poland, the majority of them are Ukrainians, but there are also people from different Asian and especially Asian countries. They didn't want immigrants from Africa, but they invited people from Asia. They made, being anti-Russian party, they made a special easier way for Russian citizens to come to Poland, to be a part of our labor market. They opened our market for people from Belarus, from Central Asia, from Caucasus. Now Georgian immigrants are the biggest group when you analyze crimes in Poland, they are in the first place. When you analyse people who smuggle illegal immigrants, Ukrainians are in the first place.
We have, it's strange, but there is no official statistics how many immigrants do we have in Poland. Nobody can count them, because these are millions and they opened borders for legal immigration, but they didn't build any administration to control the immigration. So, in fact, the best data that we have is not from the government, but from telecom operators, from big telecom business who can say how many people use different languages on their phones. So this is how we know. Or from banks, because these people from abroad open bank accounts.
But it's not all. It's not started with the war in Ukraine. This is what I would like to underline. We had much more than a million Ukrainian people in Poland before the war. They were intentionally invited and government worked also on some agreements with some Asian countries to increase legal immigration to Poland. These were also Muslim countries. During the law and justice government, Muslim population in Poland increased, in my opinion, more than ten times.
In fact, to be honest, it is still small, but they started this. So now we have information that a third mosque will be built in Warsaw, and the biggest one, of course, with the money from abroad, because they never, they always criticized any foreign influence, and they never proposed any legislation to stop the influence by money from abroad, for the politics, or for example, to found Islam, or Muslim movement in Poland. Then, when the war in Ukraine started, they opened borders for refugees and in fact not only for refugees but for everybody with Ukrainian passport because they made some legislation.
Giving every privilege that Polish citizens have for everybody with Ukrainian passport, even for people who came here from Western Europe. It's strange, but it's true. They made a special amendment, because their first goal was always to encourage as many foreigners to live and work in Poland as it is possible. It has two reasons. First is that they believe in multicultural society.
It is a part of, this is some branch of Polish pre-modern tradition, that we had a commonwealth with different nations and some of them are from this tradition and they believe that they can rebuild this commonwealth with different nations in encouraging these nations to build some community, not let's say Polish community, but they call it a Republican community, a new commonwealth of nations. From our perspective, it sounds very similar to globalist agenda, but they say, no, no, no, it's not a multiculturalism by globalists, This is our tradition of Polish multiculturalism. We as a national movement completely do not believe in this concept. We believe it's anachronic, pre-modern, and it didn't work. In fact, we had a commonwealth with different nations, but these nations don't want commonwealth with us. These nations like Belarusians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, all of them wanted independent states. And it's normal, it's normal that every nation want to have their own independent states. So, some of law and justice politicians are people older age with their heads in the clouds, reading historical books and believing in some ideas, for example, from 17th, 16th or 18th century. And in my opinion they don't understand nothing from our times and especially they don't understand that mass immigration is a big threat for the society. In Poland this process started, especially in bigger cities. Warsaw under the Law and Justice government became much closer to London when we analysed the population. There are not many African people, but many people from Asia, as I said, and especially from Russia and Ukraine. The situation is changing very fast. They made a legislation and as I said, they gave every privilege, every policy for Polish citizens. They gave it also to the people with Ukrainian passports. And these are many millions of people who would like to live abroad.
We are the only European nation that pays for everything. And, of course, we have nothing in exchange. We have some agenda towards Ukraine, but they did nothing from our agenda, and we gave everything. And this is what we're against because we believe that it's impossible for one country to have two nations on the payroll, and this is how it works now. Then you have also Ukraine and supporting Ukraine agenda. At the beginning of the war we were not against, because we believed that this horrible Russian attack, is a crime and is a threat, but after two years we see that their government gave all that we have to Ukraine and the result is still not clear and other European nations do not act this way. They negotiate some things for them.
Americans are also not very fast to give everything what they have. And now, for example, our army do not have enough weapons because they gave new weapons from Polish army to Ukraine. And at the beginning they said that Americans or Germans will give us in change new equipment, all the equipment and the thing, but they didn't. So it's very hard being a Pole and seeing all of that. It's very hard not to be critical to law and justice and their government. In fact, we are not surprised. We know these people for many years. We know that during the debate about joining EU they were in the same camp as leftists, as centrists, progressives and all of them. In fact, they were never national or truly traditionalist or truly conservative right. They are a mix of people of different ideas and their leader of law and justice. It's not easy to understand this, being a foreigner, but to understand the situation you should know that the leader of law and justice Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
He always were against Polish nationalist tradition. He is rather from the tradition of Polish patriotic socialism. We had some pre-war tradition from interwar period of Polish, let's say, Polish patriotic socialists and this is their first choice. They do not talk about this last decades because they know that people would like to vote right-wing party, not patriotic left-wing party. But the leader is rather from, let's say, centrist or centre-left patriotic republican tradition, the leader of law and justice.
The members of the party are very mixed and very different. I would not say that every MP is bad. There are many probably MPs with good views but they vote bad or act bad being in government. I will give you one more or two more examples. For example, we had a very big debate in Poland about pro-life. Law and justice was always pro-life in declaration but when they got majority they did everything thing not to vote on pro-life bill so two times polish pro-life movement collected more than hundreds of thousands of signatures having majority so-called pro-life majority people had to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures to put citizens bill to parliament and they voted against. They voted against for two times, then we as right-wing MPs, some of their MPs and every MP from Confederation made written request to Constitutional Court and Constitutional Court with some nominees, right-wing nominees from Law and Justice waited few years to analyse this request, but after they analysed this, they made a judgement that it is against Polish constitution to kill unborn babies with some disabilities or health problems. And this is how the situation changed, not by the voting in parliament, And of course, people who are in favour of law and justice say that this was their secret plan to organise this this way. But I do not believe. In my opinion, it was rather by accident. They never wanted. And now their former prime minister Morawiecki said that he is against this sentence of the court, of constitutional court. That they should defend this. Yes. But they said that they are against because they are afraid of public opinion, people who like abortion, they want centrist voters and so on. So they do not defend, they controlled every media in Poland and they didn't defend this issue. Another example, their prime minister supported long-term EU LGBT strategy. Being prime minister voted in favour. Another example, their minister who was responsible for European funds sent a secret letter to local governments that if they want European funds they should cancel Anti-LGBT and pro-family statements. Many local councils made some statements that they are against LGBT propaganda in schools and they support normal family policy. It was then criticized by, of course, progressive media and some LGBT organizations, but there was nothing against citizens' rights. It was nothing against civil liberties or something. It was a declaration that we don't want propaganda in schools or something like that. And we know that they made this letter to local governments. We know that only from LGBT organizations because they published this, being proud that the so-called right-wing government is pushing the pressure with the EU to local governments to be not too much conservative. Yes, so it shows how they work and they say one thing and they do the opposite and it was always like that. We know we know these people for four decades So we are not surprised about normal polish voter don't know all of these facts because you need, hundreds of hours to follow every information and analyse everything to to gather these details and to understand what's going on and if you follow only mainstream media, even mainstream Catholic media in Poland.
In progressive mainstream media, you had an attack on law and justice, that these are nationalists, they are xenophobic, they are anti-European, they want to go back to the Middle Ages or something like that. So people said, okay, these are good people, yes, they are very conservative. And if you listen to some right-wing media or Catholic media, They are true conservatives. They fight very hard, tough fights in the EU and so on. And you had nowhere to have the truth about how they rule, how they govern the country. Everybody analyzed only what they said. And their speeches were quite good. I can agree. For example, two days ago, I listened to the speech of their leader and to their convention about EU policy and I could take this and it could be my speech, yes, but it has nothing to do with their government, what they did in Brussels. This is the problem and I think it's a problem in many countries. It's a problem also in Hungary.
Orban is also very pragmatic, yes, he's not a nationalist. And there's a problem in Italy with the Meloni government. It's not an independent agenda of independence. And in many other countries. So this is how it works. And this is why we believe that Polish politics deserve a truly right-wing party with truly conservative and truly pro-national and sovereign agenda and people who are against political correctness. This is what gathers us in Confederation. We are against political correctness. We don't want to be influenced in any way by anybody from mainstream. And we are proud that we are anti-mainstream. Of course, I had many debates in mainstream media, so I always go when they ask me and I always discuss.
And I believe that my views are not radical or far-right or anything like that. But I don't want to give up my principles and my beliefs. I don't want, I would rather, I would like to be rather outside politics, like being 12 years outside the parliament, than joining this, let's say, fake right political parties and saying good speeches and voting bad things. I don't want that.
Well, Krzysztof, thank you for giving us such an overview of Polish politics. And I wish that we had politicians like yourself in the UK with conviction, with beliefs that actually stood on a biblical principle on a lot of these issues. And I just the final thought is as deputy speaker, I mean, that is a that is a prestigious, important position. You must be Donald Tusk's kind of worst nightmare, that you stand for everything he is against. I'm sure it was difficult to actually get in that position, was it? I'm sure there was opposition. I know we only have a few minutes, but I'm just curious to know the opposition from people like Tusk to actually having you, a nationalist, a Christian, in that position.
It's a little bit different, in my opinion. To understand the situation, you should know that the main line of political difference, is in Poland between Civic Platform and Donald Tusk as a leader, and Law and Justice and Jarosław Kaczyński as a leader. It's not, on some level of course it's a, let's say, ideological and political different, but they have many things in common. This is our, let's say, talking point, yes, that they are not so different on the level of agenda of political program. When you analyze their EU policy, they could exchange their ministers, and in fact, they're exchanged in these two political parties many members of cabinets. In fact, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki before was an advisor to Donald Tusk.
And there are many examples, I will not go into the detail because it's not so important. It is important to understand that it's a, let's say, ambition conflict between Kaczynski and Tusk.
It's obvious that they hate each other. It started in 80s in the opposition movement. They have very bad opinion about each other, very bad. This is a true conflict, a true personal conflict. Both of them try to be pragmatic and in fact they are very pragmatic, very. But not on this one issue, not all about them themselves. This is their weak point that they become very emotional. So going back to the situation in the chamber and me as a deputy speaker Donald Tusk and don't care he don't care he hate yaroslav kaczynski and me I'm the guy from the different generation, in my opinion he do not believe in anything he is a pragmatic politician after so many years in politics. He was a liberal, he was a classic liberal in 80s, maybe early 90s. So on the level of defending economic freedom, I think he understands everything what we say. And he's a former classic liberal.
Maybe he started on the same positions as Viktor Orban, but during years in politics, he lost belief probably in any principle. And now probably the only thing that he believes is pragmatism and power. Being in power and being pragmatic. This is how I understand him.
So, in my opinion, he used left-wing politicians as tools. He gave them the platform, as you say in English, he gave them the platform, he gave them the space, even in government, he gave them a very important part of administration because he doesn't care. Not because he supports these ideas, he doesn't care. In my opinion, he personally believes that these are stupid people with stupid program but he didn't care. So he also didn't care about my views, in my opinion. Of course, some of his members in his political party care a lot and hate very conservative people. This is, let's say, a pro-abortion lobby in his party, very strong now, because his party started as centre-right party. It is interesting that Civic Platform, the party of Donald Tusk, started in 2001, all these three parties that I talked about, so League of Polish Families, Law and Justice and Civic Platform, all these political parties started in 2001 and entered the parliament. League of Polish Families after seven years was kicked out from parliament by voters unfortunately, but Law and Justice and Civic Platform stayed there and both Law and Justice Party and Civic Platform started as centre-right political parties very similar to each other, so similar that some politicians in 2001 didn't know which one to join so it was like a lottery or you had colleagues here so you go there you have colleagues here you go there it was a time of big changes in Polish politics so a civic platform the party of Donald Tusk started as a platform with principles of defending western civilization defending Christian values defending economic freedom defending some some conservative values maybe not everything but some and being pro-EU this was the starting point and after 20 years, they are centre-left political parties with very big pro-abortion, progressive lobby inside, former post-communist politicians, former leftist politicians inside, Green Party inside, because they built a civic coalition, they extended civic platform into civic coalition. And in this coalition, you have people who split it from the post-communist left, you have Green Party, you have some citizens' movement, and
It's a central left spectrum. And Donald Tusk is a leader for everybody because now he tried to be pragmatic, not to be too close to any special views, yes? So for me it's completely not a problem. It's a problem with some MPs who are trying to be a little bit offensive or sometimes aggressive but I have my attitude which is always being very calm and polite to everybody no matter what are his views. I try to be polite and with respect to everybody this is I believe that how we should act in democratic politics and in Parliament and it works, because in fact even left-wing MPs or pro-abortion MPs have a good opinion about me as a deputy speaker, because I do not interrupt their speeches, I'm not nasty, counting their time. They could cooperate on this normal level with me, in my opinion, much better than, for example, with deputy speakers from law and justice, they were horrible, they were nasty, they were aggressive.
They used their seat to, not to push their agenda, but to push their emotions against other people. So they were, there were attempts to push me from the seat, to kick me from the seat, the left put this request, but nobody voted in favor of this request, because nobody believed that it's a good decision to take this position from me and give it to anybody else. I think it's a result of maybe 20 years of my work in public debate and people know who I am, people know that I have my views, but people even who do not believe in my views, they respect that I didn't change them for many years, that I, in fact, in my opinion, many people from centre-left also respect me, that I didn't join law and justice. Because they have very bad opinion about law and justice, also about how they ruled when you analyse what they did with public money. Yes, this is another story, what they did with public money, how they used this for themselves. Their interests.
Not very many bad stories. And we were not involved in all of that. So in my opinion, I have, I am lucky because I have a big respect. Of course, not everybody like me and especially not everybody like my views. But I have no reasons, I have no reason to say that I'm in a bad situation.
Well, Krzysztof, I do appreciate your time. I'm so thankful to have you on. I know you've got great demands on your time being in that high profile position and being a high profile figure in the country. So thank you so much for giving us your time to explain to our UK and US audience a little bit about Polish politics. So thank you.
Thank you very much for this invitation and this conversation and to finish this conversation with some good accent I would like to invite everybody who are true conservative people to come to Poland to meet us. We are very open to extend our international contacts. What I would like to say is that on the level of personal contacts.
If some of you have some contacts with people from law and justice, it's not bad for us. As a normal people, we talk with each other normally in Parliament and outside Parliament. So we are critical to their leadership and to their prime minister, but taking normal MPs, we talk like normal people.
And it is possible to have contacts with law and justice, for example, in European Parliament and with us in Poland or when we enter the European Parliament. So I would like to encourage everybody from truly right-wing movement to build contacts with Polish people, with Polish conservative organisations, political parties, editorial houses, NGOs, social movements. We have a big social movement, very many organizations and many good people. And please, come to Poland, have this contact, maybe also some people from the States. I believe that we should support each other. I always put some time and my energy to build this contact, so maybe some of my colleagues from abroad will watch this interview. I hope so. And me personally and our colleagues from Confederation, we are always very open to support every good people with good ideas to defend the principles that we believe, also conservative, traditional, Christian, Pro-freedom, pro-independence, and other good principles.
So, this is my word and I believe that despite all these bad tendencies that we see in Western world, in Europe, we should have hope and we should defend good principles and good values, because this is our duty and this is how I believe, this is what we should do. So I have very big respect for every people who work in politics and on social level in countries that are less conservative than Poland, because I know how it feels when your country is going in the wrong direction. I talked with people from different countries and I know how it feels and I have big respect if you do a good job and give hope to your people, to your nations.
Exactly. Well, thank you, Krzysztof, for your time. Greatly appreciate it. And I'm sure we will speak soon.
Thank you very much.

Jacqui Deevoy - Playing God: An Investigation into Medical Democide in the UK

Show Notes and Transcript
We are delighted to be joined by Jacqui Deevoy to discuss her latest documentary film "Playing God," which exposes medical genocide in the UK and sheds light on healthcare injustices. She highlights involuntary euthanasia, emphasizing the need for justice in cases of malpractice, and calls for transparency and ethical standards in healthcare. Jacqui delivers an important message and urges Hearts of Oak followers and supporters to engage in conversations that hope to promote a meaningful change in the system.
Jacqui Deevoy has been a writer and journalist for over three decades, working mainly for women’s magazines and national newspapers. Since 2020, she has been writing mainly for the alternative media. In 2021, Jacqui made her first film ‘A Good Death?’ with Ickonic. Her second film, ‘Playing God’, which was crowdfunded by the public was released on in April 2024.
Connect with Jacqui...WEBSITE                    jacquideevoy.comX/TWITTER                twitter.com/JacquiDeevoy1                                    twitter.com/PlayingGodUK
Watch 'Playing God'  ukcolumn.org/video/playing-god
Recorded  2.5.24
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)
And today I'm delighted to be joined by someone who I've had the pleasure of watching a lot on Twitter, bumped into once, but never had on, and that's Jacqui Deevoy.
Jacqui, thank you so much for your time today.
(Jacqui Deevoy)
Thank you for inviting me on to Hearts of Oak.
It's great to have you, and people obviously will know you from all different things from your Twitter handle, but also from Unity News Network.
You started writing, I was looking at your bio, back in the 80s for teen magazines and then women's magazines.
You've had articles published in all of newspapers, in the Mail, the Telegraph, the Sun, the Express and many of the women's magazines.
And I want to get into all that, but we're going to talk about this film, which you have written and produced and you have presented, and that is Playing God.
Playing God, an investigation into medical genocide in the UK.
It is a very hard-hitting film, very honest film, and captures the lives of individuals whose lives have been utterly destroyed with the death of family members. And it gives the personal stories behind the facts and the data and the stats, I think, which we often see.
And we're just going to play a clip of it; here is the trailer:
In the last 30 years, you can see good evidence that the National Health Service has become a killing machine.
Elizabeth was killed off after I was criminally assaulted and made to have my baby two months early for absolutely no reason at all.
You can imagine the trauma of watching your perfectly healthy partner of 21 years just die.
In his medication chart it appears he had midazolam and morphine two days after he died.
Now I want to know what happened with my steward.
When you go to a hospital like a national health hospital, you go there to be cured.
You don't go there to die.
The moment they go into hospital, they're being put onto these hospital protocols, which dictate which drugs, which treatment they're going to receive.
And it's a one-size-fits-all blanket policy.
Once procedures are put into a protocol, it becomes a straitjacket.
They're literally killing people at the moment.
She was in no pain, there was no shortness of breath, yet she was on six or seven different forms of medication We hadn't known about these side effects. There was nothing in the paperwork that he was given.
The night nurse just pumped him with midazolam and morphine.
Helena Bai was the first fatal case of the drug Epilim.
These big pharmaceutical companies are money-making businesses.
They're not healthcare companies.
That's what we're dealing with, a money-making, potentially fraudulent, certainly historically criminal enterprise.
And then children are also a market for unlicensed medications.
It's the luck of the draw whether they benefit or it's causation of death.
The CQC said they were doing an investigation, but NHS England stopped it. Those two doctors were playing God.
They were killing people.
She suffered much.
She died needlessly.
She could have been saved, but she was murdered, by the state.
I know people can get the full show, the full film, which is, I think, in our 10 minutes, and that is in the description.
So, whether you're watching any of the platforms, listening on Podbean or the podcasting apps, you can click that and watch it.
Now, maybe we'll start, Jacqui; your work, I think I looked on the Daily Telegraph and you'd written articles in 2020.
I think you'd written one in 2021, a joint article, fewer suffering as much as care home residents.
Why can't we hug our relatives?
And then your time there finished.
That probably seems like a world away, but do you want to just touch on some of your journalism background and maybe how that came to an end?
I assume as you became vocal about what you were seeing.
Yeah, I wouldn't say it's actually come to an end. I'm still working as a journalist, and I still aim to get my articles into the mainstream newspapers, into the mainstream media, because I think that the people we need to reach the most are the people who actually read the papers and watch the TV.
But I think a lot of the papers have got a bit fed up with me over the last few years because mainly because I've been trying to um get them to publish stories that are counter narrative. um government narrative and they don't seem to want to do that.
I realized that back in 2020, when I think the first thing I discovered, I mean I knew the whole thing was nonsense anyway anyway, because I've been, you know, following all sort of, that kind of stuff, world agendas for many decades.
But the first thing I noticed was that time when the government decided that the coronavirus, as they used to call it back then, was not a high consequence disease.
And they published this on the government website.
So, I was alerted to this and thought 'oh well that's really good news for most people out there who are scared and worried.'
So, I contacted a lot of newspapers and said, 'hey why don't we run a story' just just to reassure people that it's not a serious thing that'll blow over it in a couple of weeks and none of the papers wanted to run that story strangely, so I actually gave it to an alternative news site they were called News Punch at the time.
And they're now called The People's Voice and they ran it.
A lot of people did see it, but again, you know, it's quite echo chambery, isn't it, sometimes when you're putting stuff out on social media, and not everyone sees it.
The people that you want to see it don't often see it, but it was seen by a lot of people.
And the next story I tried to get out there was about DNRs, because my dad was in a care home in 2020, and I found out that he had a DNR on him; on his notes.
Which is a do not resuscitate, so allowed to die.
Yeah, I'd vaguely heard about them before but it never affected me in a personal way and I thought hang on isn't this when someone is eternally ill and then I kind of remembered my mum had been in a hospice and they had do not resuscitate orders on all the doors of the hospice, I remember.
I thought why has my dad got one of those he hasn't got a terminal illness he was recovering from a stroke and I I was aiming to get him out of the care home when he was better even though the care home manager when I first booked him in, I said 'oh, I'll probably pick him up and get him in a few months get him back home again.
And she went 'oh, no, people don't usually go home after they've been in here.'
He's like, really?
I was telling my dad that I mean my dad apparently had vascular dementia caused by the stroke but he was pretty compos mentis.
I was telling my dad about that story and he said: 'no it's true he said you walk in and you go out the back; he said you walk in the front door and then you go out the back door in a box.'
And he was actually right, most of the people that did go in there didn't ever leave alive and then especially after what we discovered was happening.
All the more reason that they didn't leave alive.
I was more determined than ever to get to get him out.
And some of the stories that the Telegraph did run of mine revolved around that.
So, I think the first one, they liked me writing about care homes, but they didn't really want me to write about anything else.
I wrote this, I did pitch the DNR story to the features editor at the time at the Telegraph and he commissioned it, and liked it.
And a few weeks went by and I said, are you going to run the story?
He said: ‘so, basically I'd spoken to a whistle-blower doctor at that point who told me that DNRs were being put on everyone coming into hospital over 60.
They were being put on people with physical disabilities, people with terminal illnesses, people with even mental health issues, like schizophrenia, people with autism.’
So, this was all revealed in this article and also about the blanket DNRs that were being put on people in care homes.
So, a few weeks went by and I said, when are you going to run the story?
And they said, oh, 'we're actually not going to run it now.'
So, I didn't really say why, but they rarely do.
And so I thought, well, that's a bit strange.
So, again, I got that published on an alternative site and it went out to a lot of people, but not the right people again.
You know, that they were the first two stories but yeah the ones that they did like were about me getting my dad out of the care home; I did a kind of series of four.
I think that last one you mentioned was the fourth one, but the first one was about me; a window visits, I think the first one was about and the second one, and how tragic that was, and how I couldn't leave my dad in that situation and how nobody should be in that situation.
It was like prison visits, it was awful, really awful.
And my dad was actually getting really depressed and actually quite suicidal.
He was saying to me things like through the window, what's the point of being alive if this is what it's gonna be like?
He wasn't old, my dad was 76 at this point in time.
I then decided to get him out of the care home.
People were saying, it's not possible, you're not going to be able to do it.
The care home staff initially said, no, you can't take him home.
That's not allowed.
And I was saying, well, you can't stop me, because I accused them of false imprisonment.
I said, I'd take them to court for false imprisonment and violation of his human rights and my human rights.
And strangely, they had him ready to take home the next day.
Yeah, my second article um along on that subject was um about how difficult it was to look after an elderly parent at home on your own.
I didn't think I hadn't thought it through basically, so I got him back to his house and I thought, 'well I'm gonna have to stay with him now and and look after him.'
After a couple of weeks it was just getting impossible so, because he's a bit quite a bit bigger than me and that was quite hard like just like getting him in and out of the shower and stuff like that.
I'd never done anything like that before either, and it's quite embarrassing, really, for him and for me initially.
You know, you get used to it very quickly, though, taking someone to the toilet and helping them wash, but it was too much, really, for me anyway.
And, yeah, so I got him a carer, and he had a carer for the next year until he sadly died in a most horrible way but that is a separate story I think.
So, all this was happening while I was making a film with Iconic called A Good Death.
That came about, because I was trying to take this story to lots of papers about the euthanasia that was going on in hospitals.
So, this is something I discovered along the way, because I'd been on a couple of podcasts with people talking about what was happening in care homes, that a lot of elderly people seem to be dying quite suddenly in mysterious circumstances.
And then someone came to me and said that their relative had been killed in an NHS setting.
And he had proof.
He had a big file of proof.
I had a look at it and thought, well, you know, this is undeniable that this has happened.
We need to do something about it.
I started speaking out about that.
More people came to me.
At the point when I had about 16 people with very similar stories.
I took the story to the newspapers saying, you know, this needs to get out there.
And I had meetings with two editors and face-to-face meetings.
And after they looked at the evidence, they were absolutely gobsmacked.
And they were like, this is massive.
This needs to be front page news, headline news.
It's the biggest story of the century almost.
I don't know if they actually said that, but they implied that it was a massive story.
And and then they took their copies of the evidence away with them and then over the period of the next few weeks they kind of stopped talking to me.
One of them actually interviewed some of the 16 people he came back to me and said: "yeah I've spoken to them there's not enough evidence really come back when someone's gone to court and won and then we'll consider running a story, but we can't run it now."
The other guy said, ‘oh, I'm a bit busy now, I'll pass it on to someone else, they'll be in touch.’
And then it just, they just disappeared, basically.
They've never really spoken to me since.
So, in any kind of depth.
And one, I do tag him in a lot of things on Twitter, but he's never responded to any of that.
I think he's stopped working in journalism.
I think he works for some pharmaceutical company or something like That's an even better reason to contact me.
I mean, how did the film come together?
It's a difficult-to-watch film because it is –.
You hear people's raw emotion and grief as you're as you're watching it.
It's very well shot and put together, because I think it's essential to tell a story you need to do it well, and you need to have a level of professionalism and certainly kudos to you and the others for for doing that and putting it together.
How did the conversation come around you had heard a number of these stories and you've got difficulty getting the information out.
So, how did the conversations to come and actually the beginning of this coming together?
Yes, so if you're talking about a good death, because this was back in 2021.
Jamie Icke from Iconic came to me and said he knew that I was having trouble getting this story out and he said, why don't we make it into a documentary?
So, that's what we did, we started filming in September and it was finished by December.
So, it's been out for, well, almost three years now and it's been seen by hundreds of thousands of people, I would say, maybe even millions.
I don't know exponentially people share it.
It's on iconic.com if people want to see it.
It's also on Rumble on the Iconic channel.
So, that's the first film.
And obviously after that film, I had more and more people then approaching me.
So, I'd set up a little group at the beginning of 2021 just to keep all the people involved in the film in one place.
And so I had about 16 people in the group to start with and I've kept that group going as a support group and it's now got 142 people in it.
And they've all got horrendous stories, absolutely horrendous, stories about what's how their loved ones were murdered in NHS settings in hospices care homes and hospitals, and the stories are just unbelievable, and I can completely understand how people don't want to listen to them and don't want to believe it because you don't expect your loved one to go into a care home or hospital and be murdered which is what's happening.
We kind of sugar-coat it slightly by calling it involuntary euthanasia but involuntary euthanasia I don't know why that phrase really exists because that is murder if someone is being.
Euthanized being being killed against their will, surely that's murder.
I can't see why it's called anything else.
When you mention euthanasia people generally think, oh that's you that's you can go off to that place in Switzerland you know and and have yourself put down if you're terminally ill or ancient or both.
But that's not that's voluntary euthanasia which is a very different thing.
I don't think that's a good thing either, but involuntary euthanasia is something else altogether, and it carries the same prison sentence as murder up to life in imprisonment.
If you help someone kill themselves that carries up to 14 years in prison so it is a crime in this country.
It's not legal, it's unlawful, and it's a crime, and anyone who does it should pay the price.
But if you or I did it to a loved one; if we drugged a loved one to death no matter what state they were in, whether they were terminally ill or not, we would be arrested, and probably jailed, but when a doctor or nurse does it seems to be okay, and and I don't really understand that.
It's not right and the stories I've heard about these medics who've been carrying out this crime are just horrendous.
They're just unbelievable.
It's almost like…It's hard to believe that doctors and nurses could be that heartless and cruel and murderous, but I don't think it's all doctors and nurses at all. I'd say 95% of them are absolutely brilliant, you know, but there was this kind of strange death squad that I am starting to believe were actually hired specifically to do this work, because the people I've spoken to, the relatives and friends of victims.
The way they've described them, they're not like your average doctor or nurse.
They're cold and they're sadistic and they're unpleasant.
Sometimes they won't even speak.
Some have been reported not to have any identification or name badges.
They've been very hard to trace afterwards in some cases.
It's very, very strange, and I'm starting to wonder if these people haven't been brought in to do this, because your average nurse or carer or doctor wouldn't be able to do that; that's not why they're doing their job.
They're doing their job to help people not to kill them.
I think a lot of us are more open and questioning than I think we were four years ago.
Certainly this to me actually I've begun to ask questions I think it was Wayne Cunnington putting up stories of how his mum had died and then it seemed to be that she was killed.
And I know there's a massive push this week, I know, parliament were pushing once again to bring in legislation, so individuals can be killed off assisted suicide.
Killing however you want to term it and I passed one of the demos actually against that and our politicians by and large are rushing towards ' actually we need to end life, we need to kill people,' but the the term you use in it is an investigation into medical democide which is the intentional killing of an individual by the state by the government.
And many people may think, actually that's a very strong term, surely this is just failings in the system.
How do you go from, it's not just failings in the system, it's not just the collapse of the NHS, which you've seen, it's actually intentional killing, because that is quite a difference.
You're talking about the new film now, Playing God.Playing God, yeah.
That was released in April, so just a couple of weeks ago, and it is as you say, an investigation into medical genocide in the UK over the last 50 years.
It's very different to the first film, it's formed very differently and it's much broader, we're looking at all kinds of deaths.
If you watch the film and listen to the people speaking, the people who've lost loved ones to democide, you'll understand what it's about.
So, we're looking at people who've lost loved ones in drug trials.
One woman has been fighting for justice for her 12-year-old daughter since 1978, so coming up for 50 years.
She herself is 90 now.
Joan Bye, she speaks in the film about her daughter, Helenor, who they used in a drug trial for a drug called Epilim, which was an epilepsy drug.
The child didn't even have epilepsy.
They just used her because she was there.
And she died as a result.
And Joan's story is absolutely horrifying.
It's heart-breaking, but it's also horrifying.
I don't want to go into too much detail, but they did have to have five funerals for Helenor, because they found her body parts in five different locations.
A shocking.
Then we have um a story of um Elizabeth and Graham Dixon's daughter, Elizabeth, she was a one-year-old baby when she died.
Terrible malpractice negligence, absolute awful things happened.
They described that in great detail in in the film.
So, then we cover a vaccine, I don't want to call it a vaccine, a jab death from the COVID jab.
That's Vicky, and she talks about the loss of her partner who had the jab and died shortly after.
Again, another shocking story.
We have Elena as well, whose 54-year-old husband was executed, shall we say.
He was euthanized in front of her in a hospital.
And finally, Stephen and his sister Deborah, who tell about the euthanization of their mother, who was perfectly healthy.
She was just grieving the loss of her husband, who'd just died 12 days before she was killed in hospital.
And she just wasn't feeling well, generally.
So, she She went to hospital to be checked out, and within days she was also euthanized.
So, these stories are absolutely unbelievable, but I think when you see the people telling them and see the grief and the suffering that these killings have caused, you will believe it.
I mean, it is hard to believe just when you hear me talking about it like this, but when you actually see them, you know they're telling the truth.
Because there were a number of the stories; one was the couple with the very young child, I think it was, and being in one hospital and then moving to different and things started changing.
And it makes you wonder where as you mentioned there are individuals, whether there are certain hospitals that that participate in this which many do not because if it's all fine in one they said everything was going okay then they were transferred suddenly things changed and the first wouldn't take the child back.
It does seem to be that there are particular hospitals, particular venues, that are maybe selected to allow this to happen.
Well, over the last um three years, I've been trying to find a pattern, and trying to find a reason, any kind of pattern.
I've been looking at that, is it certain hospitals?
It doesn't seem to be although, there do seem to be quite a few in Liverpool which is quite interesting, because that's where the Liverpool care pathway originated.
So, and there was that scandal, the the old hay hospital, wasn't there, years ago.
Yeah, so quite a few seem to be in the Liverpool region, but I haven't got a big enough sample really to say whether that's a coincidence or not.
I was looking at the ages of the patients, the sort of financial situation of them, because a lot of people believe this euthanasia is to do with saving money, especially on the elderly with pensions and hospital stays that a lot of them seem to have, you know.
But I can't really see any real pattern in my group, which is my sample, really.
I've spoken to hundreds of more people as well, but not everyone wants to join a support group.
I can't see a pattern, I mean, I could say most of them are elderly, and I could say almost all of them are not terminally ill.
Their financial statuses differ, their backgrounds differ, some are wealthy, some aren't.
I have noticed most of them are white, that is something I have noticed.
I don't know if that's relevant or not, again that might just be a coincidence.
But yeah, I can't see any pattern as yet, so for it to be random is also strange,
So yeah, I don't really, I can't say at this stage.
I think that would take decades to work out and as with all scandals, this scandal will probably take decades to come to the mainstream as well, because they're still not interested.
Only a few months ago I emailed them all again.
I've now emailed over 100 editors and staff writers and features editors on newspapers and I regularly just email them and say are you ready to run this story yet and send them the picture again.
And these days I just get tumbleweed.
I get the occasional, maybe some new person in the office, who writes back and goes, 'oh this sounds interesting, tell me more.'
And then I tell them more and then they go completely silent.
It's like someone said, no, you're not allowed to talk about that.
I'm wondering if there's some kind of de-notice on it or some kind of thing,
They've been told not to discuss it.
I've had arguments with them, well, not arguments, but I approached Isabel Oakeshott, I approached Beverly Turner, and...
It results in them blocking me, which is quite strange because I'm never rude.
I just say, would you like to look at my film and then get back to me and see what you think?
Isabel Oakeshott said to me, no matter how much evidence I would provide her, I could provide, she still wouldn't believe it.
So I thought, well, that's not very journalistic of you.
She used to be a journalist, didn't she?
Yeah, I know, that was strange.
So, we had a long conversation on Messenger.
I've never actually spoken to her on the phone or anything, and then out of the blue seemingly, out of the blue, she just blocked me.
I mean, Beverly Turner said she has tried to mention the midazolam stuff, but it's very difficult at GB News to do that and she didn't go into too much detail.
She just said she she doesn't have that kind of power, and she did unblock me after she blocked me, so hopefully she will be able to help at some point.
It's very difficult for me as a journalist to see these people, journalists, doing what they're doing, and working for places that won't let them speak.
Why would you as a journalist work for somewhere that is censoring you?
I don't know, maybe I'm weird because a lot of journalists are working for places that are censoring them, so maybe, you know, and they're a lot richer than me.
But I'd rather live in a tent than do what they do, than lie to the public like that, I just couldn't.
It's like when you talk to James Delingpole and he talks about life prior, and life now.
And realizing that he's a very different person and is now willing to ask difficult questions, but when you, I guess, your you see your role I mean I mean, the role as a journalist is to put a story out and then it lets the public decide.
Or you've got, I guess, a full on investigative piece where you're trying to piece it together.
They're the two ways.
But, I mean, is it for you?
Is it just you're telling the story and then see what happens?
Do you really want to delve into and understand deeper?
Because it's essential that these individuals have their stories told.
That is so important for them, but also the public to hear.
And it's the first time the public will hear many of these stories.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, in the old days, you know, journalists would investigate a story, write it up, the papers would publish it.
And it was the journalist's job to question everything and to try and hold people accountable.
But these days, it's just not like that at all.
The newspapers seem to have become, you know, judge and jury.
Like three years ago, when I was first trying to get the euthanasia story out they were saying, 'well, if you can if you if you can give me a story of somebody who's gone to court and they've won the case then yes we'll look at it.'
And it's like well why can't you just put the story out as it is saying people are saying that this is happening and then your readers can make up their own minds.
How it used to be, but they don't do that anymore, it's it's very frustrating.
Also, a lot of people a lot of the public believe and people I meet who say to me, oh you're a journalist, why don't you publish this and why don't you publish that?
And I said well it's not up to me as a freelance journalist what goes in the paper and they're like isn't it?
So, I said no, no, no, it has to go through a process, and invariably nine stories out of ten that I pitched to them they won't publish these days.
So, where it was at a much better rate back in the day, but now, especially talking about and writing about this kind of stuff, where I want the truth to get out there, they're not interested in that at all, so...
That's why I went on to make the second film, because I teamed up with award-winning directors, Ash and Naeem Mahmood.
And Ash has a channel called Planet Uplift and he interviews lots of people.
So, he had people, he said, need to tell their stories.
I still had people that wanted to speak out as well.
So, when we put them together, we came up with this idea that, you know, of playing God because, you know, the doctors and the courts and the nurses and the paramedics and so many people these days are in positions of power where they can play God.
That's how the film was kind of born, and Ash brought people to the film and I brought people too.
We could have included,50 more people in the film really, because we haven't covered all aspects of Democide side, because it's only an hour long documentary, but you could do part two, part three, part four, easily, you know.
Same with the first film, I would like to do, ' good death, part two,' because because we've got so many people and so many stories and they're still they're still coming to me as well.
It's still happening, although not at the same rate as as far as I can gather, as it was in 2020 and 2021, where people were just being euthanised left, right and centre.
And back in April 2020, you were mentioning earlier about the assisted dying bill that they're trying to push.
Matt Hancock in particular has been, you know, dragged out from under his stone to come and, you know, push that again.
He used to be against assisted dying and then in 2020, he did a big turnaround of opinion and decided he was all for it.
And you have to ask now, why have they been pushing it so heavily and so hard since 2020?
I think it's because they want to, once it's in place, and I think it will be passed at some point in the near future, because the way they're selling it, they're making it sound quite attractive, but it's a slippery slope.
And we could end up like Canada, where people are now being euthanized; they could just be poor, or they could be not feeling great or depressed.
I mean, I do know one person who actually was euthanized in Switzerland because they were depressed in 2020.
But it's just awful, it's not the solution.
It is the final solution, but it's not a solution.
There are other ways to get people past these terrible points in their lives.
And most people believe that the people who choose to be euthanized are terminally ill, but that's not always the case, and with the involuntary euthanasia that we've been seeing, I don't think any of the people in my group did their relatives were terminally ill.
I don't think; no, not I can remember.
The vast majority are not terminally ill, let's put it that way and the vast majority are not old either.
Well, a large percentage of them aren't old.
Well, it's like obviously in it's happening in Belgium as well, and they've got some of the worst legislation that if you're a teenager and you feel depressed that day you can kill yourself.
Not really the solution for a teenager feeling down in the dumps, but I mean is it because,
The government expected to push this through quite a while ago.
I remember being involved 10 years ago with demonstrations outside parliament where the government trying kind of force it, and are hell-bent on forcing this through.
And is it that actually the government the NHS decide actually we're just going to start on this.
We will produce I guess polling that shows the public are in favor therefore that that covers us and because they're doing something which is not legal and the individuals don't have a say.
If there is a conversation about, you know, if someone decides after six months that they want to end their life, I don't agree with that.
But that is a conversation.
But this is about people having zero say and simply being their life taken, being killed by another person.
They don't have a choice in that.
And to me, that's the most dangerous part.
And whatever the legislation says when it does come in, which it will come in, whatever it says, that's irrelevant to what will happen, because it's a massive slippery slope.
But yeah, how do you see the NHS doing this?
Well, it's not legal, but the government are clamouring for it to come into law.
Well, as a lot of newspaper editors said to me when I first started pitching this story, they were saying, well, we all kind of know this goes on in hospitals and care homes.
We all know that when someone's very old and very ill, that they get a little bit of helping hand at the end.
And they're given the end of life drugs and they're put on these care pathways, which are actually death pathways.
We all know that goes on, and I said, yes, we do.
And we also know that it's illegal and that it shouldn't be happening.
No one has got the right to hasten another person's death.
No one's got the right to end a life, no matter how ill or old that person is, even if they're terminally ill.
No one's got the right to do that, yet it's happening all the time, and that's bad enough, but when it extends to then killing people who aren't ill real or old.
I don't where's that going to end.
I don't know if you saw the film, Logan's Run, back in the 70s.
It's a sci-fi film where everyone's life ends at 30 and it's something that they all really look forward to.
It's a big celebration, and they go on this carousel thing and basically they're just blown up into smithereens but it's like a big celebration.
And Logan's run is about a man called Logan and a girl who's played by Jenny Agata, who was every every boy's fantasy back in the day, and they realize it's not a good system and they try to escape.
Everyone when they're born gets a kind of watch thing put on their wrist with a countdown to to the day when they're 30 and they can actually celebrate, there was a word for it, something like rejuvenation or renewal or something like that when they actually die.
But, yeah, it's a really interesting film, and it's like we're heading towards that kind of system where I think once the assisted dying bill is passed.
There then will be age limits put in place, I'm sure.
I don't think I'll see it in my lifetime, but maybe in our grandchildren's, children's, or grandchildren's life lifetime we might where you have to die at a certain age, you know, because we're going to be costing too much.
And then they'll be bigging it up like it's a good thing.
It's something that people will look forward to and and celebrate .
It's totally warped and inverted to the way life should be um you know that death is a sad a bad thing.
Although, obviously some cultures do celebrate it, but like no life should be ended artificially and to drug someone to death is one of the most horrific ways of killing someone.
These drugs that they've been using on people are used in many states in the US for executions, exactly the same drugs and in fact some states have banned those drugs, because the method is too barbaric, yet they're still using this horrible method on innocent people in care homes and hospitals all over the world.
So, I was going to say as well, back in April 2020, a protocol was put in place, NG163, which must have been handed down from the WHO.
Matt Hancock got his hands on it , he decided to get a panel of doctors and professors to look at it.
They had a look they said, 'no you can't use this.'
They wrote a letter to the BMJ stating that this protocol NG163 should not be used, because it will kill people; that's still available online you can see that letter on the BMJ.
One of the the signatories is Dr. Sam Amadzi, so you could probably look that up and it would it will pop up.
Matt Hancock basically said thank you very much and implemented it anyway, so even though you know he'd been advised not to put it in place he did.
And Matt Hancock also said in the COVID inquiry that he wanted to be the one who decided who should live and who should die.
If that's not someone with a God complex, I don't know what is.
He was playing God in a massive way or wanted to, but the people who were actually playing God were the doctors and nurses who were prescribing and administering these end of life drugs.
What what about because when I when I talked to Wayne and he said the difficulty he had of getting the the medical records from his from his mom, and only when he got that did he realize what had taken place.
Have you had those conversations with people about getting those records, because that proves what happens, but maybe they've suddenly disappeared or not available anymore.
It's bonkers that you have to fight legally to actually get the medical records of your loved ones, but kind of how does that come in this film and the people you've spoken to?
It's pretty shocking, because it takes a long time to get them, that's not accidental, you know.
And then a lot of people I know who've finally got the records after months and sometimes years of chasing them, they're redacted.
A lot of it is redacted, a lot of it has missing pages.
One person, I think Was sent you know a few pages of notes, but when she got a lawyer onto the case there was like a thousand pages of notes.
So, they actually hide a lot from the families and make it very very difficult for them to get the information and then I don't know how they're allowed to redact information, but one person you know got all the notes and there's just big black stripes through most of it, you know.
So, I don't know how they're even allowed to do that and it's obviously why they're doing it, because they're hiding what they've been doing.
I don't really understand why some people's notes are redacted but other people's are actually...
Maybe it's they just don't have the time to do it or something and it's or it slips through because a lot of people have found out, like Wayne, found out so much from the notes that they didn't know before.
You know, even more horrific than they imagined.
It's all there you know, So I don't know why some slip through and some actually don't, but it makes you wonder you know what is actually in the redacted notes.
It must be must be pretty terrible what they're hiding.
Yeah, know completely .
Can I just end off and asking about the big forum in the drugs companies these because obviously Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson have made a shed load of money from these jabs in the last four years, but at the flip side some of them mean talk about midazolam, but that's a generic drug so they're not necessarily making money.
You begin to ask what role the pharmaceutical industry have and obviously in America they're one of the biggest lobby groups on Capitol Hill.
I think maybe less here, but of course we don't have the same lobby power of organizations as as they do in the states, but where do kind of drug companies fit in to this is it failing simply in the NHS or groups within it actually passing this or do the pharmaceutical industries do; they have a part to play in this.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean they They're pretty much controlling the whole thing, aren't they?
They're developing the drugs, they're doing the trials.
They're using people in the trials, in experiments, and they're paying people.
They're making a lot of money, but they're also paying a lot of money to the people who are administering the drugs so not the nurses particularly but GPs doctors; they they get massive commissions for prescribing these drugs with you know whether it's midazolam or any sort of drug.
They get money for doing that.
Yeah, it is all about the money ultimately and the the big pharmaceutical companies have all the power.
I mean even the The big ones like Pfizer, who've been fined many, many times.
I think Pfizer had the biggest fine ever, $2.3 billion or something they were fined.
They just pay it and carry on.
You know, it's like no skin off their nose.
They got that much money, They don't care.
They don't care who dies as a result, and they don't care if they get fined.
I don't know how they're allowed to continue to operate after such a huge fine, but they are.
So, it's very difficult for the little person to get any kind of justice because they're all in it together, they all close ranks as well, as far down as the police, the courts, the coroners and the pharmaceutical companies.
That hey all close ranks at the hospitals and stop people getting justice.
These people as well, these big companies have a bottomless pit of money.
If a small person is trying to sue, it's almost impossible to to keep up, because you'll run out of money at some point, even if you're wealthy.
Or you'll want to run out of energy, or time, or you might you might die, you might get ill in the process, a lot of people do get ill when they're involved in these sort of really traumatic sort of cases, and that's what they're hoping.
They, you know, the enemy is hoping that those things will happen to you, because you'll stop bothering them.
And I've known people who started going down the legal route and they've had to stop,because they've run out of money or because it's making them ill or because they just can't.
Yeah, it's very difficult.
We've got some brave people who are doing it in the background and they're fighting and I hope they're gonna win, and when they do it's gonna be a whole different story.
One other thing, but I just want to ask you about the response you've had from medical professionals, because my conversations with David Cartland, and he's one of the few, and it does seem as though most others are worried.
And in one way, you understand that, because you don't want to throw away your career, but if you're seen killing, then surely as a human being, you need to respond.
But have you had responses or people contacting you from medical community saying, actually, this is what we have seen, or have the majority been from individuals whose loved ones have been killed?
Very few medical professionals have come forward and spoken to me; the ones that have are terrified.
They're not sure whether they want to speak to me or not, but they feel they feel they have to say something, in fact I'm having a phone conversation this afternoon with somebody who's actually tried to speak out and been targeted and has got into trouble with the police and stuff.
It's terrifying when you're trying to do this on your own and no-one's backing you up.
I was trying to write an article for News  Uncut recently.
I wanted to investigate all the dancing nurses.
So I thought, well, it shouldn't be too difficult to speak to some of the nurses to say, you know, what were these dances about?
You know, how did you have time to do them?
They all look a bit weird, you know, can you tell me about it?
Couldn't find anyone.
I could find nurses who'd say, 'no, we would never have been able to do something like that, we wouldn't have been allowed.'
You know, you can't do that in a hospital.
But nobody has come forward and said, yes, we choreographed a dance and we did it and we got professional team filmmakers in to film us on the roof of the hospital with a drone camera, it's like because a lot of these films were very professionally produced.
And I couldn't find anyone who admitted to being involved in a dance like that, which then leads you to believe that they were actors.
They were hired to do these weird rituals in the hospital corridors.
For what reason, I don't know?
And in the same way, when it comes to trying to get people to talk about something even more serious like euthanasia.
Well, firstly they're worried that they'll get into trouble if they come forward and speak out publicly and the ones that have done that have got into trouble have lost their jobs.
It's just and and how many of them are going to come forward and say, 'yeah I actually killed quite a few people.'
They're probably in denial about it.
The lawyer in my film Anna, she's spoken to a lot of medics who are traumatized by what they've been through and what they've seen, but as far as I know we haven't had any confessions yet, we haven't had anyone come forward to say, 'yes, I administered those those fatal drugs.'
For example, people who've who know that their loved ones were euthanized, they can't find the names of the the nurses or they can't track them down or if they do have the names of the nurses they just they don't respond.
It's almost impossible to get any kind of response from the hospital, they just say, 'oh he was he was he died of Covid and they did everything they could to save him, and and we gave him the injections to ease the pain and we were trying to help, and then he died.'
It's when you get the more closing ranks like that and and saying we did our best and we definitely didn't kill anyone deliberately why would we we're nurses and doctors, it's very hard to argue.
You know, very hard.
Jacqui, I do appreciate you coming on.
It's a very well put together harrowing film, but I know that any of our viewers, listeners who have seen it will want to pass on if they haven't seen it then all the links are in the description.
I'd encourage the viewers and listeners to please do share it, pass it on.
It's the power of sharing information like this that actually will lead to change. So, Jacqui, once again, thank you so much for your time today.
Thank you, Peter.
 
 

The Week According To . . . Right Said Fred

Rejoice for the return of The Fred's! Richard and Fred Fairbrass, better known as Right Said Fred return to Hearts of Oak to give their opinions on some of the talking points and news stories floating around this week on the web, including...- UK ELECTIONS: Local and Mayor of London elections, is this the end of the Tories and will Khan remain as Mayor?- Safe and Effective: Dad who suffered brain injury after getting COVID vaccine sues AstraZeneca.- I’m not a Covid conspiracy theorist. I was right! - Rwanda Farce 1: Civil servants mount court challenge over new law.- Rwanda Farce 2: Failed asylum seeker given £3K to go to Rwanda.- NHS to declare sex is a matter of biology in historic shift against gender ideology.- Old phone boxes refurbed into defibrillators, what a time to be alive!- "London has opened it's doors to Jihad" Trump correct as he says British ‘culture’ had been eroded by tolerance.  - This will not end well: Irish Government ignores the wishes of ordinary Irish people as it continues to impose migrants on small communities.- Diversity: BBC reports that train drivers are overwhelmingly middle-aged white men.  *The UK is 82% white from the last census 
Right Said Fred are one of the UK’s most enduring pop exports. Since forming in 1989, brothers Fred and Richard Fairbrass, have a list of achievements as songwriters and a band that include number #1 hits in 70 countries, they were also the first band to reach the number one slot in the US with a debut single since The Beatles.As multi-platinum award winning artists and songwriters, their global sales total 30 million and over 100 million plays on Spotify.They have writing credits on Taylor Swift and Sofi Tukker’s songs, their music has been featured in over 50 films and TV Shows and in excess of 100 commercials.The boys have performed with Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger and David Bowie plus plaudits from Madonna, Jay Z, and Prince to name but a few.30+ years on and 10 studio albums later, The Freds have found a new legion of fans with their no-nonsense views during the Covid ‘pandemic’ regarding lockdowns, masks, vaccines, nonsensical rules and all the regurgitated hysteria that surrounds it.They have been a staple feature at the huge anti-lockdown and freedom protests seen in London and have shown their integrity on their social media and in interviews, pointing out and challenging all the lies, scaremongering and hypocrisies that have been forced upon the population from the government and the main stream media.Right Said Fred are living proof that two music-loving brothers with an ear for a hit, plenty of passion, self-belief and a bit of critical thinking can defy all expectations and conquer the world – long live The Freds!
Connect with The Freds...WEBSITE             rightsaidfred.comX/TWITTER         twitter.com/TheFreds
Recorded  3.5.24
Connect with Hearts of Oak...X/TWITTER        twitter.com/HeartsofOakUKWEBSITE            heartsofoak.orgPODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.comSOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connectSHOP                  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 
Links to topics...UK Elections https://news.sky.com/story/politics-latest-senior-snp-figure-expected-to-announce-yousaf-succession-bid-polls-open-in-local-elections-in-england-and-wales-12593360?postid=7616759#liveblog-body AstraZenecahttps://news.sky.com/story/a-shadow-of-what-i-was-dad-who-suffered-brain-injury-days-after-getting-covid-vaccine-sues-astrazeneca-13125842I was righthttps://web.archive.org/web/20240502183828/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/02/im-not-a-covid-conspiracy-theorist-i-was-right/Rwanda 1https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68934480Rwanda 2https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68932830#:~:text=A%20first%20failed%20asylum%20seeker,to%20the%20east%20African%20country. Gender ideology https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13365651/Health-Secretary-Victoria-Atkins-term-woman-wont-eradicated-order-inclusive-NHS-declares-sex-biological-fact-bans-trans-women-female-wards.htmlPhone box defibrillators https://x.com/TheFreds/status/1784485065222742201London Trump https://web.archive.org/web/20240502120150/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/05/01/donald-trump-says-london-has-opened-its-doors-to-jihad/Irish Government https://x.com/DVATW/status/1785916898422530530Train drivers https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-68921391

Anna McGovern - Being a Brit Down Under and Launch of The AW.Today

Show Notes and Transcript
Anna McGovern joins Hearts of Oak to share her experiences in Australia, discussing her interest in the country, working with Sky News Australia, and the differences in media freedom compared to the UK. She delves into the culture wars in Australia, touching on topics like the Israel-Palestine conflict and challenges faced by individuals with differing viewpoints. Anna also talks about pro-life advocacy, gender ideology, and social conservatism, emphasizing the role of platforms like AW.Today in promoting diverse perspectives and truthful reporting.She discusses the importance of teamwork and research in accurate news delivery, as well as the challenges of going against the mainstream narrative. Anna highlights the expansion of AussieWire's coverage to the UK, The US and beyond, stressing the support for truth-seeking outlets and informed discussions. She concludes by emphasizing the power of individuals in making a positive impact, whether through starting a podcast or engaging in meaningful conversations.
Anna McGovern is a Broadcaster and Journalist, as seen on the Telegraph, Sky News Australia, TalkTV, GB News and a variety of other media outlets.Her specialist areas include traditional conservatism, politics, culture, and current affairs. Anna makes regular appearances on TV and radio networks discussing top news stories for stations including TalkTV and GB News. 
Connect with Anna and AW.Today...WEBSITE           annamcgovern.comX/TWITTER       x.com/AnnaMcGovernUK                           x.com/theaussiewire
Interview recorded  2.4.24
Connect with Hearts of Oak...WEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/
TRANSCRIPT
 
(Hearts of Oak)
And it's wonderful to have Anna McGovern with us today. Anna, thanks so much for your time.
(Anna McGovern)
Thank you so much for having me.
Not all. Fascinated with your experiences down under. You've been over there for the last six months, heavily involved in media. I will get into all of that, but people can obviously find you @AnnaMcGovernUK is your handle. Can you not change that to Anna McGovern, AUS or you're still holding on to the UK
I'm still holding on to my UK roots and then we'll have to see maybe it'll be Anna McGovern AUS but I doubt it for now
Hold off on that hold off. So Anna it's obviously, I met up with you I think last and nearly the end of last year actually just before you were heading off to Australia, been there six months. Maybe just ask your experiences first as a Brit out there. You've been involved in the media for a number of years in the UK. I've seen you pop up on Talk TV and GB News. You're on TNT Radio, all different media outlets here in the UK. But maybe let us know what you're, maybe why you wanted to head to Australia and what that's been like culturally before we can get on to actually the media and the news.
Yeah so for my parents, they came over to Australia over 10 years ago to visit and then my mum even earlier than that when she was about my age and she was working in Australia and that's when she first fell in love with the country then her and my dad went over just over 10 years ago and they really loved it and I think growing up I've always been told, Annie you've got to go to Australia, this country is for you and it was kind of ingrained in me and it was always somewhere where I was really interested in actually seeing and because the lifestyle that they have out there is incredible and of course the weather, I love the weather it's It's very hot, very nice, very different compared to the UK. So I first came out here because I just graduated university and I had an opportunity to do some work experience as a producer at Sky News Australia. And so I decided with the opportunity, I'm just going to go for it and see what happens. I wasn't actually anticipating being in Australia for this long, but six months later and I'm still here and it's all really worked out even better than I could have possibly imagined.
Like the way of life here is much more relaxed than you see in the UK. I think in the UK, everyone's very driven, motivated by work pretty much all the time. Whereas in Australia, I think what I really found an appreciation for is that they very much have a work life balance. So it's very much, you know, your personal time is very protected. You know, you've got you can literally spend, you know, go to the beach for the day because the beaches here are so beautiful. For we don't I wouldn't say we necessarily have the same quality beaches in the UK as we I've seen in Australia andI think with that kind of outlook of life as well I think that, I think personally the Australians have it right in many respects because I think they when they work they work hard but then they also have a kind of a work-life balance and they have that time protected as well which is something that I've really come to grow an appreciation for and it's such a a beautiful country as well. I think one of my first kind of aspects about it that I was very nervous about was the spiders. I'm very scared of spiders, I'm very scared of snakes, all of that and I thought I'd be walking in and there'd be spiders all over the floor and you just you know, I was very nervous especially you kind of look them up on the internet they're massive nothing like that thankfully, I have seen a couple of huntsman spiders which are massive but they're actually not too harmful to us humans and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
You can always go to Adelaide zoo can't you for the reptile area.
Exactly if you want to see some more crazy animals yeah you can do that, something you probably wouldn't see as much in the, just on your day-to-day walk or anything so yeah
Anna, I want to get into the the media side and you mentioned Sky News Australia, I think many of us in the UK came across Sky News, probably in the COVID tyranny. It popped up a lot of, not articles, but a lot of commentators there talking about free speech against COVID tyranny, about personal freedoms. And it seemed to be a bulwark against what was coming. And obviously Sky News in the UK is at one point, I guess, thinking back, was a free speech network. It's no longer. It's just apes what the BBC do. So I guess I've seen that in my timeline. You've obviously come across and seen it all in your time line. Tell us how kind of that developed and how you ended up reaching out and actually working with them.
So one important thing to know about Sky News Australia is that they're not ruled by Ofcom like we are in the UK so the commentators the presenters have a lot more freedom to actually say what they believe without too much without the same fear of being cancelled like we've seen in the UK with so many presenters and commentators actually getting cancelled for saying something that's a bit too much out of line for the establishment. So I think that the fact that they have that freedom, that ability to actually speak their mind and, you know, say things that maybe the establishment might not agree with. I found that to be just really incredible because we actually saw some really insightful commentary from that because they just had that freedom to be able to speak their mind. I was involved as like a commentator for one of the shows for a royal edition.
And so reporting on that, which was my first involvement with Sky News Australia. And then I started then actively watching the shows and I was just really inspired by the level of actually the commentary that we were seeing which is so high quality and it really inspired me as well because I always knew that I wanted to come to Australia and then in my mind I thought if I could even be involved with an outlet such as this doing such incredible work that would be such a you know that would just be an even but you know make the experience even better and which is why I reached out and they very graciously welcomed me into the team and I got to see that behind the scenes, how it works, how they put the show together which was so insightful and I learned so much from my time there and so I think for some of these media outlets as well you do see so many, you are so much more at risk of actually being cancelled if you say something that is so out of line with what the establishment kind of perpetuates further and I do wonder what the future of the media will actually be for many of these presenters many of these commentators especially as where we're heading towards the general election, it is most likely in the UK that Labour is going to win in my personal opinion anyway and I do wonder what that will look like moving forward for many of these people in these industries.
Tell us about the fascinating you said that Ofcom which are the the regulatory body for media in the UK, and they've just been given a lot of extra powers to clamp down on anything the government doesn't like. But you mentioned that Ofcom, there is no such thing, or the media are not under. How does that work then in terms of freedom? Does the government have a full hands-off?
Obviously, you've been there six months, so you get a feel of, is there none of this? Oh, I'm not sure if you should say that. Is it purely along the kind of editorial lines of the station as opposed to what the government may think of it?
So I think in terms of outlets such as Sky News Australia, who are not ruled by, you know, organisations such as Ofcom in what they say. What they say, the fundamentals of it has to be true. You can't just lie. You will be penalised if you lie actively. However, they're not under those same restrictions, which mean they have a lot more freedom to actually say what they believe. But it's not ever just one person there's a whole team behind them of producers and researchers are putting all of this information together to ensure that
[9:08] that presenter is most prepared to actually deliver the news that the audience cares about that they tune in to actually watch, so it's not ever just one person I think obviously in some circumstances for smaller outlets it can just be one person, but for these bigger outlets it does take a team and actually a lot of the work the producers and researchers all of these people do often does go uncredited because what you see as an audience, audience member watching or just tuning in from your screen is just one person reiterating the news delivering their opinions and whilst it would be their opinions of course like the foundations of it that takes a whole team to prepare that so I think it shows there are people working behind the scenes who very much believe in the message and want to get that out there for the audience and you know so they can be the best informed which I think is why they just keep coming back again and again.
Tell us about, because whenever you have government overreach either you buckle or you fight back and I think in some ways people didn't know how they would respond to the the COVID tyranny until it happened, it's one thing saying what you'll do it's nothing actually doing it, what was kind of when as you've spent the last six months talking to people and maybe understanding people's experiences there and I think in the UK we saw them as a country that was more locked down and more restricted in what you could say and we've had Avi Yemini on before a number of times talking about that and the the one One Nation Australia Party.
We've had Malcolm Roberts on, Senator Malcolm Roberts talking about that. But tell us kind of how those conversations with people, as you've kind of understood a little bit more, maybe about what they have faced and how they've come out of it at the other end of the last four years, I guess.
So I've met both of them and they're both doing fantastic work out here in Australia. One thing in Australia as well, particularly in Melbourne, they saw the most, you know, restricted lockdowns in the world.
And actually, there were people who were actively speaking up against this, protesting against what the kind of government forces were implementing on the people. And they were actually there. Actually, I know some people who got arrested and actually fell under that, you know, fell under the criminal jurisdiction just for speaking out against lockdowns, just for trying to raise awareness and, you know, actually encourage the public to stand up against what they, what they were being implemented under by these governmental forces. And I think it definitely shows that the political outlook that I've seen in Australia so far, I think it's massively changed since lockdowns because a lot of the Aussies have especially woken up to what the government can actually be capable of doing, how much control they can have over your lives. And I think for many people, that was a huge turning point in their political activism and actually speaking up a lot more.
And I do think that that could be a potential risk that we see in the future as well. You know, governmental forces actually implementing similar lockdowns. It might even be for climate change, for example, another excuse to have more control over our lives. And I think for many political activists out here in Australia, that's actually inspired them to keep going, keep educating people so that they can actually protect themselves and not just comply with everything that the government says.
Anna, the culture wars and you have fighting the culture war, I think, in your in your Twitter bio. And it's a term we've we've heard a lot. And you've obviously reposted. There was a pro-life demo in London, middle of March.
You've done programs against the puberty blockers, the whole gender onslaught against children. They're all different issues, I guess, and culture wars is a kind of umbrella term of a lot of those that probably boils around personal freedom and common sense, which seems to be out the window. But when you think culture war, what have you seen that that means in Australia?
Is it different than the UK? What is that term? How is it defined? I guess they're down under.
So, one aspect that I really noticed as a Brit coming over to Australia is how much crossover that we see with our political issues. So, for example, in Australia, one big debate going on is the Israel and Palestinian conflict that's going on. We're seeing so many widespread protests across the country and many Jewish people actually at risk as a result of those protests, simply just for being Jewish and simply if they just happen to walk past someone who is a Palestinian activist um a very good friend of mine who I met out here is Jewish and he's from Israel and he's genuinely he's felt um very concerned for his safety he has been at risk before simply just for where he's from in public as well he's been approached by people just simply for being from Israel. And then they associate that with him being a terrible, evil person, even though obviously he can't control where he comes from. And I think with the protests as well, a few weeks ago, what we saw was Never Again Is Now, which is a peaceful gathering that the Jewish community put on just to stand up against anti-Semitism. Anyone from any kind of religious belief or background were welcome to come. But it actually got counter-protested by Palestinian activists, activists who then tried to scream over them.
Their presence there was with the kind of goal of intimidating anyone who came in support of standing up against
Anti-Semitism and the Jewish community. So I know for many of the people there, they were at fear of their safety. And what was very interesting was the demographic of the Palestinian activists, actually their counter-protester state, were, from what I could see, mostly young Australians who were there protesting, not from Palestine necessarily, which I just from my kind of takeaway just seemed like it was a big big virtue signal on their end, how could you be against standing up against anti-Semitism I genuinely don't understand and you could very much see that on the standing up against anti-Semitism side the Jewish community that gathered to support one another it It was very peaceful, whereas the Palestinian side was a lot more volatile, a lot more people feeling the risk of their safety being impacted.
This is something we've seen in the UK as well with many prolific protests happening in London. So for me, kind of my takeaway was we're actually seeing so many of the same issues crossing over and I think that as well that I think that just kind of shows how much crossover there is with these issues how you know what we see in the UK can be replicated even on the other side of the world as well so we do see those same issues crop up again and again.
Tell us I'm curious because I saw a massive demo once again in London on Saturday a well I call them pro pro-Hamas demos, basically, because that is the government. So if you're there in support of the people in Gaza, then in effect you're pro-Hamas, because there's very little comment about removing that organisation. But I've been probably surprised in the UK at the...
Anti-Jewish feeling, which has come out in people that actually I've done a lot with over the last four years. And I will happily call myself a Christian Zionist. That probably comes from a biblical background as a Christian, that you've got 3,000 years of history. But I've been intrigued with a lot of commentators who, I guess there was that anti-Semitism. And in my line, you can be anti-Semitic if you want, but it's just interesting seeing that come out. You see the freedom to to choose any idea or belief you want. But what's it like over there? Because the UK probably has traditionally been a more friendly country to Israel, especially if you look across Europe, where Europe has not been. And yet we've seen that probably slowly change. And a lot of people who I'm surprised that I thought would want freedom actually have been very anti-Israel and pro-Hamas. How kind of have conversations been over there? and how have you seen that being reported on?
So I think with the same kind of attitude in the UK, kind of replicating in Australia, I think with especially the Palestinian activists, what I have personally seen is that the majority of them are quite volatile in their beliefs and in the way that they oppose Jewish people and essentially anyone who is from Israel or has any associations with Israel. So as I said earlier, one of my very good friends who I met out here is from Israel. I remember one particular instance where a group of us were in a pub and he actually got a group of people walk up to him and question him.
Just because he was from Israel, he was not doing anything. He was just simply enjoying a drink. And then he had a group come up to him trying to intimidate him, again, just because he's from Israel, which is absolutely ridiculous, if anything, racist, just because of where he comes from.
I have seen this on a number of different issues as well. I think with the Israel-Palestine conflict, that is something that's incredibly topical out here, is causing a lot of outrage. And I think as well, if you were to say anything that is even perceived as supporting Israel, as supporting Jewish people, you'll be reprimanded in person and online for having those beliefs. Like, for example, I simply attended the peaceful gathering in Adelaide in support of Jewish people and uploaded a video of what was going on simply, as a bystander, as someone who's reporting and watching the events unfold. And I received a, must have been hundreds of comments, dozens of messages as well some of them just even too prolific for me to even read out on the show, because they're genuinely, you have some people who I genuinely don't know if they live on the internet or something but the content of the messages and some of the comments were incredibly incredibly disturbing and I think this is something that I've seen a lot in Australia and in the UK as well it is something that is definitely causing a lot of outrage and it's particularly what I've seen from the Palestinian side as well.
Two other issues which I mentioned earlier on the the pro-life and the gender debate and the the pro-life I found intriguing in the UK because it's not a topic you're really supposed to discuss it's not like in America where there are two large blocks, two very vocal blocks, and it is a public conversation in the UK.
It's not really. With the gender stuff, it's becoming more and more drip, drip, feed. It's becoming a bigger issue as it becomes exposed to the actual mutilation that we are doing to children. How does it work over there? Well, one, I guess, one, you've got states, so you'll have different, I think I looked at different abortion limits and different states have some differences. But then how does the conversation work on, I guess, those two issues of children changing gender and also the pro-life conversation?
So I could bring a personal anecdote into this, actually. So in my kind of early stages of my travels around Australia, when I was in Sydney, there was an event being put on with, it was like supporting the trans community and essentially just pushing the trans agenda even further. There were young people children in attendance it was all just in support of trans rights so I attended the end of it just as a unbiased bystander not actively getting involved and wanting to report on the event and actually kind of to have an understanding of what was behind the protest what were the principles they were standing for and why they were holding it in the first place. If you are aware of my political work, you're aware of where my personal belief stands on it. But it was for the sake of actually informing the public of what is actually behind these protests, why are they gathering?
And I got into conversation with a few of the activists who were there for this protest. And they were very nice to me at first without knowing anything about me. And then I said, look, I'm doing a piece on this protest today. I'm recording what's behind it, explained who I was and if they'd be interested one of them agreed to an interview um even though you know I laid out exactly why I was there and what the purpose of the interview was for and then they started um trying to look me up and the outlet I was representing and then all of a sudden like halfway through the interview someone started shouting over telling me to stop and then a huge you know there was this group that started to kind of circle around me and the attitude immediately changed just because they saw online, you know, conservative beliefs. They saw my personal opinions, even though I was very clear in the understanding of why I was coming to conduct the interviews. They could hear. I told them some of the questions I'd be asking beforehand, made sure they were comfortable before we proceeded. Regardless of all of that, I started getting gathered by this group of people, all went silent, staring at me. It was It was incredibly intimidating. And my cameraman who was there with me was very, very scared afterwards because he'd never seen anything like this before. And that was the first time that I genuinely felt quite nervous for my safety at one of these events. So for example in London we have Kellie Jay Keen's let women speak events which is essentially bringing women together peacefully and to talk about how gender ideology has impacted their lives and they're for many people going to this event are mothers whose children are actually going through trans surgery or maybe they're wanting to identify as a different name maybe they recently found out that their daughter going to school is actually secretly identifying as being a boy and they had no knowledge of it which I've personally seen in schools as well so for many of these people it's their personal testimonies an opportunity for them to come together and discuss how gender ideology has impacted their lives, all of these are very peaceful and then again you've got trans activists on the other side actively protesting against them, screaming over them trying to intimidate them, I have seen stories online where people have actually been assaulted for having these beliefs. I think they were actually at these events as well. That's my understanding is correct.
So for the people who are standing up for trans rights, what's interesting to me is that when in Sydney, when that event was going on, I gave them an opportunity to state their case, discuss why they were standing up for the principles that they were. And they didn't want that opportunity. I gave them the opportunity. They didn't want it. And yet when you have the other side, a lot of them very peaceful discussing their background, their personal stories, and you don't see any of that kind of...
I don't even know how you'd necessarily describe it, but it's almost like this anger, this kind of, you know, this shouting, the screaming, the intimidation. You never really see that on those sides. But when you see it from the people standing up for trans rights, more often than not, you see them, you know, hurling abuse, intimidating women just for saying,
I want women's only bathrooms. I want it to just be women competing in women's sports and not competing against men saying simple biological facts will potentially put you at risk of your personal safety which I just think is completely ridiculous.
I want to get on The Aussie Wire but let just one other question on the issues again, how have you seen Australia in terms of whether it's conservative or not, socially conservative because in the UK I think people by and large are more traditional or more conservative in their viewpoint, now there are demographic issues within that and within age, but I think people are generally that but the media have pushed an agenda and people are afraid, it's like the Brexit debate whenever you talk to people about Brexit during the vote people privately would say oh I'm for Brexit but publicly they didn't want to be called a racist for saying they wanted to leave.
And people kind of shy away a little bit and keep those feelings private. But I think by and large, the UK are socially conservative.
How have you seen Australia in your six months? How kind of do you pigeonhole it, I guess?
I think this is a problem we're seeing internationally where you've got the the establishment rule and people just working everyday regular jobs are actually too fearful to speak their minds in case they lose their job and then subsequently their entire livelihoods, for example what we touched on earlier with Kellie Jay Keen's let women speak events, there would there be women turning up in masks, not because they're trying to protect themselves from COVID or anything like that but actually to conceal their identity because they were too scared that if they were recorded or if anyone recognised them at that particular event, that they could actually subsequently lose their job, lose their livelihood, the life that they have built, just because they are standing up for women's rights, which I think demonstrates just how much power the establishment essentially has.
I think personally in Australia, we still see those same issues. But what I've seen from Aussies themselves, when I've done Vox Pox content, for example, on the street interviews, asking people questions. From what I've seen, the Aussies are much more outspoken with their opinions. And I think especially since some of the most, being the most locked down country in the world with, compared to some of the restrictions we saw in other places across the world. I think a lot of people have woken up to the kind of tyrannical rule that we've seen with the government and they're actually a lot more confident in speaking up against the establishment and against the kind of policies that are designed to control their lives as well. Even though in for many for those activists as well who go that one step further and make it their career that actually encouraging people to speak out and informing the public that can put them at risk as well of you know even you know being you know persecuted and by the government by the police just for having those opinions so they take a huge risk with that so I can understand why for other people who are not in the media space, why they probably would be more reserved with their opinions, because they don't want to put their livelihood at risk, which then I think also, raises the question, do we really have a free society where we can speak our minds? I don't think so.
Yeah, Kellie Jay Keen certainly is a legend, a huge respect for, and she has widened the conversation, I think, giving people the courage and the strength to actually speak out and speak truth. So we need many more people like Kellie to actually engage and push the agenda forward.
So Aussie Wire, tell me about Aussie Wire. And I know we're doing this a few days forward. It goes out and there's some changes happening yeah tell us what the Aussie wire is and then what's changing on it.
So the Aussie wire will no longer be the Aussie Wire it will actually be known as AW.Today and the reason behind this is because we are broadening out so not only will we be reporting news in Australia but it will be stretching out as far as the UK and the US because as we've understood as well from our audience we do have a growing us and UK audience years and we really want to tap into that so it will be a much more of an international outreach which we're all very excited for here on the team and we do have our kind of rebrand announcement actually coming out very very soon so that's very exciting for us, for me personally this was something that I never even realized that I would get involved with when I first came out to Australia, for me it was about seeing a new country understanding the way of life and pretty much just you know, traveling across the country and just, enjoying myself, essentially, and seeing things that I would never normally see. And then when I got approached with this opportunity, to actually develop the company further.
I grabbed it with both hands, it's something that I'm very excited about, because I think we, we are podcast like this, for example, as well, I have the freedom to say whatever I believe.
But with a lot of the establishment media out there who are, you know, even like the posts they put out, the content, the news shows and the news cycle, all of it in itself is all very interconnected. And it's very much establishment rules. And if you speak out against that, you could get cancelled again. You could lose your entire livelihood. And I think that's why it's so important that we have companies like this that actually go against the narrative, go against the establishment and actually say i think what people are really thinking deep down but are too afraid to say publicly and it's not something that you would necessarily see with the big media establishments as well because they have to curtail um to the restrictions and actually you know risk they're not not risk getting themselves cancelled at all um so i think very For me, I'm very passionate about other outlets that actually protect your freedom to speak and actually just be able to say what people are thinking, I think is incredibly important. Tell us more about Aussie One, or AW.today.
Tell us more about Aussie One, or AW.today I certainly find, I guess, as we've done Hearts of Oak, you have it focused on your connections. There becomes much wider and now probably it's close to 50-50 split in US and UK audience but tell us about AussieWire and what's it stand for why is it needed what makes it distinct?
So I think one thing that really separates us is our whole ethos is being your connection to the truth and an outlet that the public can really trust, I think especially we live in a world that is digital we've got a 24 7 news cycle and I think especially for a lot of the social media posts that you see, a lot of it can be again ruled over by the establishment and you're told things that not aren't necessarily true and I think the public are for a start waking up and not actually trusting what is being told to them necessarily by the big establishment.
And I think for them as well it is really it's It's incredibly important to actually have an outlet that protects freedom of speech, that is able to say what they truly believe. And actually, just to increase our understanding on issues that otherwise we would not hear about from the establishment, which I think is what kind of separates us from the big establishment.
Obviously, you have to conform to particular rules, have certain restrictions.
What they can and can't say. We don't have any of that. and I think as well with the contributors that will be coming on board which I'm very very excited about all of them have a very distinct niche very and they're very passionate about the particular areas that they are um covering for the channel and I think with them coming on board as well we'll be seeing lots of different faces from different backgrounds I think it will be incredibly relatable for the audience actually just seeing someone that kind of you know represents them almost rather than you know you kind of see the same faces all the time with especially the big you know the big establishment with our model um we're very much um excited to actually hear from the public we want to hear what the public has to say what the audience has to say what topics are they most passionate about seeing on the screens and I think again as I said with the contributors we've got coming on board I'm very excited about them because I know each and every one of them will bring something different new and exciting I will also be hosting my own show as well which I'm incredibly excited about
So yeah because you've done uh kind of stuff front the camera then a producer role I guess you went over initially would have been more behind the scenes um so it's it's intriguing I think someone like you who has that experience kind of behind the scenes and in front of camera kind of how have you found um I guess those two roles which which are completely different, really. They're worlds apart.
Oh they are incredibly much worlds apart and I think for the producers and those who work behind the scenes that is how it all gets out because as I said earlier it takes a team it's not just always one person it's it's all well and good for someone to go in front of a camera and say what they believe but then you've got the people behind the scenes preparing them with the topics what is topical for the day what is behind those news stories actually dissecting kind of the truth from what from a void of fake news sometimes you've got to actually dissect what is really happening behind this news story, so for that what I really learned from my experience doing that and also with talk tv as well where I was working as a digital content producer is actually how much work goes on behind the scenes in unveiling the truth in actually getting all of that information together so the presenters are best prepared to deliver the news to the audiences as well.
So they do work incredibly hard. And I think for me, I'm very kind of passionate about the media industry, how it all works. And I didn't want to be someone who was just in front of the camera. I definitely wanted to learn what was going on behind the scenes. How could I be best involved as well?
So having both of those experiences, it really opens your eyes to how the media world actually works. And for me, it's incredibly insightful.
Well, looking forward to seeing what comes from AussieWire. I will relearn it for AW.today. I will get there eventually.
But maybe just one final thought. When you look at, I guess, the media landscape, each country is slightly different. We've talked about kind of the control, also the issues. But I guess the other media outlets that are available in the U.S., the media world, I think, sorry, the podcast world is completely saturated. There are so many people, everyone. What can I do? I can do a podcast. Okay. And in the U.K., it's quite different. There isn't, there are, I guess, fewer people or fewer players, fewer organizations actually speaking truth. What is it like in Australia? Yeah.
So as I said we've got like Sky News Australia are not ruled over by off-com rules which means they have more freedom to actually speak their minds and I think as well with the outlet I'm currently working for and helping to develop we don't have those same restrictions either I think this is something that we kind of see on an international level where people are too nervous to speak up and I don't think everyone necessarily has to speak up I think that we should should be supporting those who are able to, to actually get that truth, get that news out.
And there are people who work incredibly hard behind the scenes in ensuring that what the public is hearing is truthful and, incredibly informative.
The research that they have to go through in kind of dissecting all of that often takes a good amount of time, like a really long time for them.
And sometimes they just have to, when something nothing breaking actually comes up they have to all work like work even twice as hard to get all of that ready and out there so I think a lot of people you've got a lot of people in the front of the camera and behind the scenes as well working incredibly hard for those people who can't I think get yourself educated, support the people who are doing good work share them with the people around you who are also interested as well and even if there's small things that you could do yourself in your local community to make a difference and that even if it's something that positively impacts one person that's going to you know that's going to make a great difference for them and even whether it's big or small everyone has the power to make a difference, so you don't have to be starting a podcast or in front of a camera to actually be doing something good for the world, there are many other ways that you can get involved as well
Absolutely and I really appreciate coming on and I'm so glad your first six months have gone so well and with this new venture and AW Today, looking forward to watching that but thank you so much for coming on sharing your experiences of Down Under
Thank you so much for having me.

Xi Van Fleet - Mao's America: A Survivor’s Warning

Show Notes and Transcript
Xi Van Fleet, a survivor of Mao's Cultural Revolution, joins Hearts of Oak to share her harrowing experiences in China and discusses her book "Mao's America," which draws parallels between the Cultural Revolution and the current woke movement in America. Fresh from a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, which has amassed a whopping 5M+ views on X/Twitter, Xi recounts to us the chaos and fear of the Cultural Revolution, comparing the Red Guards in China to modern movements like BLM and Antifa, exposing the manipulation of youth for political gain. She warns against the destructive nature of cancel culture and emphasizes the importance of preserving American values. Xi reflects on her journey to America and addresses the impact of communist regimes on families and personal freedoms and stresses the need to resist authoritarian control for the sake of freedom and democracy.
Xi Van Fleet describes herself as “Chinese by birth; American by choice, survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, defender of liberty.” She was born in China, lived through the Cultural Revolution, and was sent to work in the countryside at the age of 16. After Mao’s death she was able to go to college to study English and has lived in the United States since 1986. In 2021, she delivered a school board speech in Loudoun County, Virginia against Critical Race Theory that went viral and ignited national conservative media attention. She now devotes her time and energies full time to warning about the parallels between Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China and what’s unfolding in America today. 
Connect with Xi...X/Twitter            x.com/XVanFleet
*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 
 
(Hearts of Oak)
And I'm delighted to have Xi Van Fleet with us today. Xi, thank you so much for joining us today.
(Xi van Fleet)
Well, thank you so much for finding me all the way from the UK.
This is amazing.
I will thank Karen Siegemund.
I know you were speaking at an AFA conference recently, and Karen was singing your praises.
And when we talked last week or a week before, she had mentioned you.
So, it's wonderful to have you.
I've been having the pleasure of listening to your book.
But obviously, before we get into that, people can find you at your Twitter handle, @XVanFleet.
And that is what they will find if they head over.
Your book is Mao's America.
It is available everywhere in the UK.
I know I listened to it as a audio book.
You can get as a hardback also.
Childhood in China
And I found it fascinating and riveting.
But maybe we can jump in.
It's you describe it as a an aspiring survivor of Mao's cultural revolution in china, and you do in it make a a passionate case that history is repeating itself as the woke revolution spreads across America and you lived through the cultural revolution; you fled, you left China and you've spent many, many years in America.
I think in Virginia where I've been many times in the last two years actually all over Virginia.
I know Virginia more than any other state in the US but, maybe I can ask you first; tell us about growing up in China.
Our audience, 50% U.S., 50% U.K. Few of them will have any idea of what that was like.
But maybe what are some of your childhood memories of growing up in China?
Well, the first thing I can say is that before the Cultural Revolution, my memory was – I just don't have much memory because one thing, it was not –, not a lot going on.
So, in a way, I call it eventless, but it's not.
It's not eventless.
But for a child like me, it's relatively calm.
So to me, my memory kind of started in the cultural revolution.
And to me, it's overnight.
And I was not even seven.
And people question, how can you remember?
Yes, you remember when your whole world was turned upside down.
And it's just almost overnight and class was canceled.
One day I went to the classroom and I saw the writing on the blackboard by the teacher that there's no class for three days.
And that three days lasted for two years and for some others, as long as four years.
And it's absolute chaos.
Why school was closed?
Because no one was running the school.
All the teachers and administrators were ousted by who?
By the kids.
Kids.
So, for me, it's elementary school.
And I witnessed some violence, but it's not lethal, of course.
But that's not the case in middle school and in universities.
And we heard stories, even though I was too little to go to those places and witness the violence.
But many, many people died.
The teachers, professors, and school administrators in the hands of the Red Guards.
And as I mentioned in my book, the first killing happened in the middle school for girls in Beijing.
Just girls, young girls, 12 to 16, somehow was able to just turn around and regard their principals as enemies.
And they would hate their principal so much that they want to kill her, and they did.
And meanwhile, it's chaos.
It's absolute chaos everywhere.
So since there's no class, so we just went to the street.
And every day we witnessed some kind of a struggle session.
I think this term has come into the English vocabulary, struggle session.
It's public trial of the presumed enemy of the state.
And it can be anyone.
So, one day, and I was with my friend looking at all this parade of the enemies and found out, and I noticed that's her father, our neighbour.
And that really brought close to me that anyone, anyone can be the enemy.
And I was just really praying my father wouldn't make any mistakes so that he would be paraded like that.
And then destruction, destruction everywhere.
everywhere, and that lasted.
That's pretty much my memory of the 10 years of Cultural Revolution, and because it lasted until Mao's death in 1976.
I graduated from high school in 1975, and what to do after you graduate?
Everyone had to go to the countryside because the Cultural revolution has destroyed all the economy; everything.
There's no job.
And for the young people, there's only one way out, go to the countryside, and of course, Mao said, "you go to the countryside and get re-educated by the peasants to be a better communist."
And again, the word re-education now made into the English vocabulary.
Tell us about that.
That term re-education is a term that in the West we don't really understand, but is a powerful concept, I guess, by the government.
Tell us what re-education meant in China, as you saw it.
Actually, this word, they have a different, but there are different words for the same concept.
It started with thought reform.
Thought reform is something that everyone, everyone had to go through after the communists took over China.
So, because we all had bad thoughts, bad education, bad ideas put in our head, and that's not good.
It's not allowed.
So, we all have to go through this process called thought reform.
Or you can say indoctrination, brainwash, whatever.
And so during the Cultural Revolution, they had a new term for it.
It's re-education.
Sounds better.
And so what you do?
You get your re-education through physical labor.
Go to the countryside.
And the culture revolution, that was 66 to 76, 1966 to 1976.
So, that was your whole time in high school growing up.
That's all.
But then before, it wasn't that this suddenly comes in and everything changes.
The Great Leap Forward was before that.
And the amount of people that died, tens of millions, that's a number so difficult for anyone who's never experienced that to understand.
But I've seen figures of 40, 50 million.
It's huge.
It's huge.
Yeah.
And I'm glad you mentioned it.
Why Mao want to launch this cultural revolution?
I did not know.
Many people did not know.
We just went through it.
We suffered.
And we did not know why.
I had no idea until way after I came here, when I was able to read different sources of materials.
And then I said, my God.
It took, you know, I went through this whole disaster, this catastrophe, and suffered so much, everyone, and now I know why.
Let me go back to the Great Leap Forward that you mentioned, and that was in the late 50s and early 60s that Mao launched this movement called Great Leap Forward.
What he wanted to do, he wanted to modernize China.
And, okay, modernize not to raise the living standard for the people.
No, he wanted to do one thing, one thing only.
He wanted to produce steel.
And he wanted to produce steel so that, and the plan was that in 15 years, in 10 years, we'll surpass the production in the UK, and 15 years, surpass the United States.
Why steal?
Why not something else?
Of course, steel is going to be useful for his weapon, for whatever, for his power.
So, everyone has to do that.
Everyone, school kids, urban dwellers, peasants, everyone has to do one thing.
The whole country mobilized to do one thing, to make steel.
And how do you make steel?
Yo u make a homemade furnace, backyard, and you get doorknobs and kitchen utensils, whatever, and throw it into the furnace and come out junk, of course.
So, that lasted like two years and a total failure.
Not just that, all the crops failed because no one was working in the fields.
So up to 50, we don't know the number.
We would never know the number because the numbers will never be released unless, you know, CCP is out of power.
Up to 50 million people starved to death.
So, for a dictatorship, that's still a big deal.
It is a big deal.
You know, so Mao was forced to take a back seat.
And so let someone else, which was the president of China, Liu Shaoqi, took over and to recover from that disaster, focused on economy.
That was 1962.
And as a dictator, Mao was not going to take it.
He wanted his power, not just power.
He still had power.
He wanted absolute power.
And that was his reason to launch the Cultural Revolution.
The Cultural Revolution was for one reason alone, get power back from his political, he considered them political enemy.
So it's all about power.
And that is exactly what happened in the West, of course, including UK.
Some people want power.
They want not just power, but absolute and permanent power.
And that's why it's so similar.
And what do they do?
You know, they use the young people.
They use the youth, the indoctrinated youth.
And in China, it's Red Guards.
In the West, it's BLMers, Antifa, Social Justice Warriors.
I don't know.
Okay, you may have some other names.
It's all the same, all the same.
Now, they are pro-Hamas activists.
They're all the same.
They're just like the Red Guards.
They came from the same source, government schools, from the same indoctrination, Marxist-Communist indoctrination.
You mentioned the Red Guards, and if people have read the book and understand, I think your book is a great eye-opener into the background of Communist China that most people have no idea about.
But you have a whole chapter talking about the Red Guards and the rallies you went to, and that was the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
Were the Red Guards, I know you're very young at this stage, but were they part of the Great Leap Forward, what had happened before, or did they just come around the Cultural Revolution and were Mao's kind of personal guards or personal army?
Yeah, no, they were too young for the, most of them were too young for the Great Leap Forward.
And maybe some college students still participated as a little kid.
But, those are the kids that went through t he indoctrination.
By then, in 1966, Mao had control of the education system for 17 years.
That's enough to produce a whole generation of brainwashed, indoctrinated youth who knew nothing, nothing, but Mao was their great leader.
Not only great leader, Mao was their real father, Mao was their god and their only purpose of life is follow Mao's instruction and do whatever Mao asked them to do.
And what Mao wanted them to do?
Mao wants them to take the power off the hands of those CCP bureaucrats.
That's what it is.
So, And as young people, as students, whenever you think people in power, you think about your teacher first, because the teacher was the one in the classroom tell you what to do every day.
And then the school administrations.
So, that's what they started with.
They started to take power from those in the universities or schools, and then they go to the larger society and everyone.
This is really hard to understand, but that's the fact that the Cultural Revolution was a revolution against the CCP, against the CCP government, against the CCP's institutions, because Mao wanted his power from the hands of those he no longer trusted.
And the Red Guards were just used as political pawns.
Just like today, those things, students think they are doing something that for some great cause.
They don't know history.
They have no clue.
If they knew anything of the Cultural Revolution, they would say, 'oh, maybe this is history repeating.'
It is history repeating for people who know, for people who lived through it.
Well, yeah, and another concept used in the book, which people understand today, and you've applied it back then, is cancel culture, and that's in Chapter 7.
And you talk about in China, I'll talk about there and then we'll take it up to the present and what we see, but you talk about destroying the four olds.
Tell us about that.
Yes.
And so people think cancel culture is something new.
It's not.
In China, it has a different name.
It's called smashing the four olds.
Old ideas, old tradition, old custom, and old habits.
It is really the Chinese civilization, Chinese traditional culture.
So, everything that is not communist has to be destroyed.
Everything.
And again, for the kids, what you go first, you go something obvious.
You go after the statues.
Yeah, what statues?
And in China, there are not as many statues in the public places as in the West.
They are mostly in temples and churches.
They went into the temples and mostly Buddhist temples, Confucian temples with statues destroyed them and church destroyed them.
And so when I saw what's going on in the West, I just hope they knew a little bit of history, that this has been done before and then change names.
And so, because any traditional names is considered for old then has to be destroyed.
And names of streets, institutions, even personal names.
I'm sure that happened in UK, Okay, but that happened everywhere in the United States, in Virginia.
Because in Virginia, a lot of schools were named after the founding fathers who are Virginians and just have to change them.
And we did the same thing in China.
The names of streets are changing into anti-imperial street, revolutionary street, whatever.
And I saw that, absolutely.
And then people really have problem figuring out where to meet because the name keep changing.
It's just very, very confusing chaos.
And then people also ask me, you know, anyone to stop them?
Well...?
Defund the police.
Here we call it defund the police.
There it's called smashing the criminal justice systems.
All the law enforcement was dismantled.
There's no one to stop the Red Guards.
And who can stop it?
Because, Mao declared he was the red commander-in-chief for his little red guards.
No one dared to stop them.
And that's, again, that's what's happening here.
Yeah, that's exactly what's happening here.
The Democratic Party in the United States, the Democratic Party is behind, behind the BMM, behind the Antifa, they're behind all the student movement.
That's why, you know, and then the conservatives, we back the blue. But the blue, it actually will have orders not to do anything, just like China.
They I want to pick up on some other concepts of the book, but you start the book talking about that experience of speaking in Loudoun County at those school board meetings.
What prompted you to do that?
Because to speak publicly is quite a thing for someone who hasn't spoken, and the vast majority of people have not.
But, I enjoy doing videos of people.
I don't necessarily enjoy speaking publicly.
And that is a very different thing.
So, what led you and persuaded you that you had to speak publicly?
Yeah, thank you.
That's a good question.
And I now, I speak everywhere and I'm speaking to you now, but I never dreamed that is something I dare to do.
I was as quiet as a mouse, like typical Asian immigrant.
I just mind my own business.
And also when I came here in 1986, I had this idea that I left communism behind me and I come to this greatest country on earth and a country, the freedom will be guaranteed. There's nothing to worry.
And I never really pay much attention to politics.
Until you start to see science here and there. And then probably my earliest memory would be the, political correctness, that we were told that we have to say certain things, certain ways, and they keep changing the rule.
So, and I just feel like that's just kind of like cultural revolution.
But still, I did not really lose my sleep over those things, and but it's become more and more and not just you know in the media but my workplace in my child school and in my immediate environment I saw this kind of thing that remind me of cultural revolution still I did not do anything never thought I would do anything until 2020, until 2020.
And when I saw the cities being burned and the state of violence, the riots, the absolute slogan that is nothing short of communist slogans.
I just could not sit back anymore.
And so I, I decided to get involved, but only, you know, small steps.
I got involved with local conservative organizations and then went to the school board.
And even for the school board, I thought, well, you know, it's local.
It's local, you know, it's my county's school board.
And I was so thankful I had to have, they required to wear the mask.
I said, thank goodness.
So no one knew what I really looked like.
And it was very nerve-wracking, but i finished that I said okay i did my duty.
I have no idea that it went viral.
I thought why it went viral, everybody knew everybody knew this is like cultural revolution, well, well, well, well, what a surprise that I found out that people have no idea and most of the people in that room in the school board meeting in Rome, probably the first time they heard about the Cultural Revolution.
And then, of course, Fox News called, and then people want to know more, and I still feel like, you know, even though I was invited to talk and an interview here and there, I just don't think it's enough, and I went to one meeting, it's a conservative meeting, and I was talking about the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards, 4-0s, and I noticed people down there, you know, the audience, they look like, what?
I said, no, no, no.
It is not something that people just can learn in a short meeting here or there, so that's the time I said, I have to do more.
And never ever, just like I never dreamed of speak publicly, I never dreamed of writing a book.
But I feel like I got to, got to, I have to.
And so in 2022, spring of 2022, I quit my job.
I just decided this is what I'm called to do.
And I spent a whole year and had that book down.
And it must, I mean, to go from living in the US for many years, just getting on with your own business, your own life, family, all of that, to speaking at this and then ending up on a show like with Tucker.
That is a, probably if you look back, you'd think, would you have made the same decision?
Because, we don't know where our actions lead.
We don't know.
But you end up where you are, and it must be a pleasant surprise, obviously.
Well, the only thing I can say is it's God's will.
I really, if I were told before I went to the school board that I will be asked to speak on live TV on Fox, I would say, no, no way.
I would quit right there.
You know, this is not... But this also is a very humbling experience.
And I really realized it's just really nothing about me. It is all about the country, not just the United States, about the West.
And so...
God's will.
I have no idea.
I have made so many times, oh, I made a flop myself, many, many times.
I don't care.
I don't care at this point.
It's not about me.
It's not about me.
It's about my message.
If I can get the message out, I'll do anything.
Can I go in back, because you mentioned You mention in your book, I think, a conversation with your father, and he said something or a discussion that made you realize that he didn't necessarily accept everything.
And I'm wondering for you growing up in that environment under Mao, what made you begin to question?
What made you begin to ask?
Because you're not supposed to ask questions.
You're supposed to accept everything.
You obviously were someone who may be asked, what was that like and what kind of questions did you have?
I did not ask.
There are people that are smarter than I am or they're just more politically sensitive than I was.
I was just the last one to realize anything.
But I did have one experience because people ask me, what did your parents tell you during the Cultural Revolution, with all the chaos going on?
Nothing, nothing, because the culture is that anyone can be a snitcher, that it can be your family and it can be your spouse, can be your children, can be your parents, just anyone.
And parents, smart parents don't talk to their kids.
So, we never talk, discuss anything serious.
It's about just daily routine.
So I never really know.
Even today, my father passed away 20 some years ago.
I really wish I had asked him some questions.
Never.
So, I did not know where he stand.
But one day I was doing exactly what I was indoctrinated to do.
I was watching everyone else as potential counter revolutionaries.
So, in my diary, I recorded there's someone making some remarks, and I think it's anti-party, it's anti-socialism, it's kind of bad.
And so my father was a professional writer.
He worked in the propaganda department.
It's called propaganda department.
Yeah, he wrote articles for the party and for speeches, you know, whatever.
So, he would encourage me to write diary and he would go over and correct to improve my writing.
And then when he saw that, he was kicked out very serious.
And he said, do you plan to report this person?
I thought he would praise me for doing the right thing to record, you know, someone saying something not politically correct.
And that's the only conversation I kind of realized he did not approve what was going on.
But, we never had deeper discussion.
That is how bad it is.
I just feel like there's so much is lost because there's no real communication between my father and the three of us, my siblings.
Because it's just not safe.
It's not safe to talk about serious stuff with your kids.
Chapter 8 talks about family.
And I know from talking to my wife, who grew up in Bulgaria, and those who live behind the Iron Curtain, the mistrust, I guess, and they've learned that up to 10% of family members were working for the government.
Turning Families Against Each Other
You talk about that, about how the Mao regime, I guess, turned families against each other.
Were you aware of that?
Is that something you look back and understand now?
What was that like at the time?
Yeah.
That's what we were taught all our lives from kindergarten, that we have enemy everywhere.
The enemy always will take any opportunity to overthrow our government and take us back to capitalism.
And capitalism is where everyone suffers.
And so we're trained to look out for signs, for remarks, for behavior, for gestures, and, you know, that we're supposed to report.
That includes everybody. That includes your parents, your siblings, your relatives.
And, yes, and it's normal.
It's normal.
It's considered politically correct.
So, yes, we look out for anything that is not.
Really proved by the party.
And that is, I'm just so heartbroken when I see the same thing happening here.
At my former workplace, we had this DNI, back then it was called the Diversity and Inclusion Council.
And we were told, and I was included, recruited to be a member because I have identity, you know, I am a minority.
So, it's say, see something, say something.
And see what?
See racist comment.
So, if you hear any co-workers have racist comment, you're supposed to report to the council.
And this is exactly the same thing.
I'm sure in your case, it's exactly the same, that you're encouraged and that become a culture.
And that's a communist culture.
That's Marxist culture because communism, Marxism depend on the mistrust of the people to control them.
Absolutely.
And yeah, so Bulgaria, yeah.
Any communist country.
When I post something, I always hear people from all former or still communist country.
You know, say, yeah, this happened in Romania.
Yes, this happened in Cuba.
Yes, it happened in all communist countries.
And there's so many parts you talk about.
I get the land reform was partially destroying and taking away the right, personal right to own property.
You talk about the destruction of the family, and that was supposed to be the
Destruction of Culture and Religion community and not the nuclear family.
Then you go and talk about destruction of religion.
And there are so many parts of kind of what makes a culture, what unites people, makes them a people.
And it seems so at every turn that Mao was seeking to remove those building blocks, I guess, of society.
Yes.
Well, that's not something that they hide.
That's what they say in the Communist Manifesto.
They want to destroy the private ownership, and then they want to destroy family, and they want to destroy religion.
I think it is still there's so many people today in the West believe that Marxist is an economic theory.
It's not.
It's a religion.
It is a religion.
Above all, they want to destroy Christianity, the foundation of the Western civilization.
And only when they destroy religion can they destroy the rest.
And that's what we see today.
What was it like coming to America?
Because you grew up and you come to America and you see a church on every street corner, I guess, in many cities, in many towns.
Obviously, China, very different.
That is not accepted.
So, what was that like coming over and seeing this kind of something new that
Discovering Churches in America
you hadn't maybe come across before?
Yeah, it was amazing.
And I went to the first town I went to is a small town in Kentucky.
And it's every block, every other block, there's a church.
I was thinking, OK, you know, if you have a church, you have one central church.
And then everybody go that.
That's my way of thinking, because everything is centralized, everything.
Why are there so many?
You know, and it's just amazed me.
But later, especially during the writing of the book, I realized that was like China before.
Every other block, you will have a temple and different kind of temple.
You may have a Buddhist temple.
You may have a Confucius temple or Taoist temple.
And you have a church.
That was normal in most societies.
And that's what I, when I travel around the world, that's what I saw.
So, you know, if I go to a Muslim country, a mosque, I saw, what's it called?
In Islam, it's a mosque.
Yes, it's a mosque.
Yeah, and everywhere.
That was China.
Every civilization has to build on some kind of faith that people share.
And so I missed it because why?
They destroyed all of it, absolutely destroyed it.
And as in the remaining temples in my city, they were turned into parks.
And so I went then and thinking this is just a park.
It's for relaxing and it's for, you know, just entertainment.
And those statues, they were just superstitions and it's just backward thinking in old days.
So, that is how they destroyed the people's faith, not just religion.
In the countryside, all those temples are all gone, gone, gone.
But it still took me a long time to really, really understand why Christianity is so important to the findings of America.
And I have to say, I went through the process that you call a simulation, because I wanted so much, to understand.
I wanted so much to be American.
So, I took the time and I took the effort to understand it, to read the books.
Especially in Virginia, as you said, you love Virginia.
I feel so attached to Virginia because the history, America started in Virginia.
And I just tried to visit all those places of the founding fathers and understand what makes this country so unique need that.
I want to do anything to come here.
And that's something that the left has destroyed.
They destroyed assimilation and replaced it with multiculturalism.
Same in UK.
What is multiculturalism?
Basically, say every culture is the same.
It doesn't matter.
And if it's a communist culture, it's just as good as American culture or the Western civilization.
And so, I I think that a lot of the newer immigrants were encouraged not to know anything about the American tradition, the American values, and stick to their own, which obviously they choose to abandon to come to this country.
I think that they have been very, very successful.
Not only the new immigrants know nothing or don't want to know anything about the Western civilization and the young people that born, grew up in the West know nothing about their heritage.
And the only thing they know is indoctrination, Marxism, communism.
That's why they're so successful.
No, exactly.
Just a curious question.
You came to the States in 86, and you talk in your book about trying to do that and managing, and everyone was so delighted for you because it is the American dream.
Wherever you go in the world, America is America.
But what led you to actually applying and wanting to come to America?
Well, also I described in my book because it is, no matter what kind of indoctrination that CCP put on the Chinese people, once you know a little bit of information from the outside source, you know America is great.
Everyone wanted to go to America back then.
But before that, I did not know.
I thought America was hellish.
It is the worst capitalist country in the world where the proletarians all suffer and only few people, rich people, they thrive.
The rest all suffer.
You would never want to go to America because you go there to suffer.
But once we get the information formation.
And once the, after the Cultural Revolution, they started to open up, we know it's the best country in the world.
So, it's a matter of whether you could go rather than where you choose to go.
And I was lucky because I was, I was working in a college teaching English and met some American teachers who came to teach during the summer and made a friend with someone one from Kentucky and that lady helped me to come to America.
It's not to choose.
It's like you're dying.
Yeah.
It's only a matter of whether you could or not.
So I was just so fortunate.
And I just never, now I'm thinking about it, I think this is just God's will that I came all the way here to do what?
To fight against communism.
10 years later.
Because you speaking out obviously has given confidence to others, individuals always.
Whenever they're concerned about something and they see someone stand up and speak truth, that emboldens them, that encourages them.
What has been the response to you?
America has so many groups speaking up about what is happening in schools.
I mean, Mums for Liberty is a phenomenal organization.
Many others across the country.
And that's exciting to see.
But, what was that like for you after you spoke up?
You must have got not only the media attention, but the thanks, I guess, from parents thanking you for speaking up.
What was that like?
It's overwhelming.
It's overwhelming.
I was a little bit concerned about the Chinese community, because a lot of Chinese were still very loyal to, they think, to China, but it's not.
China and the CCP are two different things.
They think they are loyal to China, but they're really loyal to CCP.
But, I got so many great feedbacks and support from the patriotic community in in the Chinese community.
So, it's just amazing.
And also the same time, because I've been to so many, I was invited by so many organizations and I met so many people and I found that there's so many people just like me, never got involved politically and especially so many parents.
And when people ask me, do you think it's too late?
Do you think we'll have a hope?
I said, we do.
The fact that I got involved and that the fact I met so many, so many parents, so many patriots got involved for the first time in their lives is that so many people really are waking up.
They understand that their freedom and the future of their country is in peril and they want to do something.
And that's the hope.
I think it was James Lindsay who wrote the foreword or the intro, and I've had him on many times and met him last year.
I love that kind of connection between his fantastic mind in understanding what is happening and you experiencing this in China and that coming together.
And to me, I saw that as a perfect mix, a perfect connection complementing each other.
I am amazed that I met so many people.
I have been following him, listening to him on YouTube, and I met most of the people that I used to just look and admire from afar.
And I met them.
And James Lindsay I met quite early on and we've become friends.
And he is just amazing, amazing.
Tell me the just final thing.
Chapter 10 was the title making of the new man and in it one little part stuck out with me that you talked about having to write a confessional letter I can't remember if it was you or a family member but I remember I think it was Jordan Peterson talking about having to do that and you realize these concepts that were there in the communist regime.
Actually well, Canada is quite communist in many ways under Trudeau, but those same ways of dealing with I guess the public if they fall out of line to get them back into line to correct them that re-education.
I guess it's exactly the same ways that are being used in the west and I thought that was a I was able to make that parallel as soon as I read heard that confession there I I thought that's just what Jordan Peterson has had to do.
Exactly.
That is required of everyone who has to go through the struggle session.
And also I mentioned in my book, struggle session was part of our lives and still going on today in China.
Struggle sessions have different levels.
There are some that are very brutal, like the one that in the Netflix original opening scene, three-body problem, that really shook, shocked a lot of the Americans for the first time.
Wow, that is struggle session, yeah.
Also, there are milder version of struggle session that everyone have to go through as a kid.
I have to do that in the classroom that we have this thing called political study.
It's every week we have to sit and read.
First of all, we have to read a mouse quotation.
And then we will go around and everyone will say, according to that instruction, I did not do it quite well.
Well, you know, I had a bad thought the other day, which was not up to the requirement of Mao's instruction, and I did this, and then the other kids say, yes, I saw you did this and that, and you said this and that.
So, go around and around.
Yes, absolutely.
It's confession.
Let me just remind the viewers as we finish, Mao's America available everywhere. Make sure and follow Xi Van Fleet on her Twitter page.
Thank you so much, Xi, for coming on.
It's a privilege talking to you, sharing your background experiences, right up to speaking truth today in America.
So, thank you for coming on and sharing those thoughts and giving us those insights from your book.
My thoughts are real thoughts.
But, in the culture of those are bad thoughts that need to be given rid of.
Thank you so much for the opportunity.