[000:00:00;00] ah ah ah ah ah ah, ah hello and welcome to cross type were all things considered? i'm peter lavelle. western civilization and culture have been infected by a mindset that price is id ology over competence and virtue over reason. and democracy is only a good idea if and when it serves

a lead interest. then there's the issue of competence. competence used to be rewarded. now, incompetence is overlooked. when serving ideology, the cross talking incompetent, deletes. i'm joined by my guest, john laughlin in paris. he's a university lecturer in history and political philosophy in new york. we have danny hi phone. he is an independent journalist and author for black agenda report . and in toronto, we cross the arthur clear all he is at liberty advocate and freelance editor or a gentleman, cross talk rules and effect. that means he can jump in anytime you want. and i always appreciate it. john, when i was reading my introduction, when i said in my introduction, are leads apprise ideology over competence and virtue over reason. and you started nodding your head in the program hadn't even started. so why did you nod your head? go ahead. well, i think you've chosen

a very good subject because what i think is that the western world, unlike eastern europe, particularly russia, is in the grid. all left is by us this. but instead progresses, people who want to the who believe in progress. he, the people who believes that the world is in a bad state, that the world that we've inherited does lot wrong with it. and that it needs to be changed by the force of the human mind. and because that left is progressive, it was not discredited in the west that it was in the east. that means that our elites, who are largely progressives, believe in ideology more than in reality, they want the world to be different. they believe that they are the people to make it different because they have more knowledge than ordinary people. and they despise and look down on ordinary people precisely because they regard them as well

educated. so i think that's the key to this domination of ideology. and this pricing, as you suggested, the realism that is like a cancer, actually on western societies. it is, it is a cancer because this progressive ism is always parasitic. it's parasitic because it is only based on rejection. it's based on rejection of the past rejection of the way the world is at the moment. it doesn't have any other energy except rejection. and that's what makes it parasitic. and that's what makes it so deadly. i would say for western societies, well, i would, i would add, particularly when, when, when you have the people in charge that are show their grossing competence. every step of the way. danny, i would suppose that you would disagree with a great deal of what john, how had to say, please go ahead. well, i would disagree, but with the caveat, because i think that there is a kernel of truth here. i think the truth is that the leaves that run the united

states in the western world with the united states that the head, they indeed do, especially a certain section of those at least do have in their more so called neo liberals or just liberals. so to speak, they really do have a vision for creating this sort of plurality within the population. that is not so much about equality and so much about improving the lives of the very people that they're often speaking of whether we're talking about ethnic minorities. we're talking about people of color in the united states, let's say black people, but really it's about the preservation of power. it is about reproducing the very social relationships of oppression and power that has shaped the very a concept that western civilization since its inception. and now we're seeing

a crisis of liberalism where the entire western world is really tearing apart to the left into the right. and i think this is because liberalism, in neo liberalism, in particular, does not have a solution to the real material problems that are affecting working people across all races. but in particular, those groups that have historically been more oppressed and more exploited. over the course of history, i think, i think you're going to be a little surprised that you know that arthur and john and myself are nodding through a great deal of what you had to say. and i'm really glad that danny made the distinction with liberalism. neal liberalism, because to be honest with you and maybe i'll surprise john a little bit here. i don't have a lot of problems with a lot of progressive ideas. i really don't. ok, arthur, what i do not like is how liberals like to recast reality and say this is where we are, this is where we live and these are the, the they a target. why we're in that way these people did this. we know they've done this,

that has been their script for decades, and it's run by completely incompetent people. and then they turn around and say, oh, you're an insurrection. if you're a dissident and you're cancelled. no, you don't want to have a conversation. and that's what i've been begging to do for 10 years on this program is to have a real conversation. instead of rephrasing it and throwing woke words at me, they don't have any idea what they mean. and they don't want you to know what they mean because they don't know what it means. they just want to convoluted the conversation. sorry for my rent. go ahead and jump in right there. well, no, it's really interesting. he said that because i have to say, i agree with both john, danny and yourself on this to a large degree. you have to john's point, a group of global and national leaks that tend to be the same people generally, which is something that needs to be pointed out. who have this vision of the world worse than thompson, division of the anointed. and they, they want to implement, they think they're smart and everybody, they want to implement this,

this plan. and i think that it's a huge, they don't even realize how much they don't know how much they can't control. and then to danny's point if division, because what happens is you, you're instituting your program and you're putting up whatever lies or fibbs or, you know, propaganda. you have to do to make people believe that this isn't just your agenda . this is somehow in their favor. and people can see on yes, sides that novice, this is not for me. you're not helping my life actually getting worse because you're pursuing. what is it, john? you know, i mean that it's such a good point that arthur just made there because, you know, they talk about these great ideas that they have for humanity. but really they're only interested in the repayment of self interest and preservation and preserving their status quo. but i mean, if you look at the last 20 years of the quote unquote, a war on terror, you know, you know, the contractors, they pulled in 4 trillion dollars and they own most of the media. ok. and they

continue to turn this thing around. arthur is absolutely right. do these leads ever suffer the consequences of their policies ever go to you, john? yeah, well, the contract to get the military industrial complex. yes. but what about the stock market in the, in the financial, getting rich, richer all the time as everyone else gets for a. yeah, i mean, all these were all, it's, were all 3 of us of all 4 of us saying the same thing in a different way. the point i was making about progressives and snobbery. i mean, we all know this. hillary clinton's deplorable. of course, these people are incompetent because they're not interested in promoting the common goods. they're interested in their own power. and they're motivated in my view. yes . by greed, yes, by, by vanity and so on. but above all, by these terrible snobbery. and by this terrible belief that they are somehow in the vanguard of good and everyone who is against them, should not be, as you say, peter, debated with or convinced,

but instead destroyed. right. and this is the most horrible aspect of it. i have in mind what i'm saying, this, a horrible quotation for marks in which he says that a critique is no law, got a massive debate, but instead a weapon time that the adverse theory is there to be destroyed with, with argument not, not to be debated with and this unfortunately, of course is what the world we live in with as again, as mentioned have some culture and all the rest of it, right, always belong together. all these things belong together because if you are an ideological progress and you believe that you are in the vanguard of civilization, you believe that you by definition, better than everyone else in particular better than the majority. and, and the majority is in practice, an existential grant. progress exam, it has to be have to be what destroyed so well said, you know, you know danny, before the, the whole cobra thing in lockdown time i was in, in the u. k. at

a julian found event. and i spent most of my time talking to and about marxist a very, very wonderful person. and i told her, i said, let's talk politics, but let's keep culture out of it. and she said fine, we got on like a house on fire. we really did in many, many ways because it was the cultural things that these liberals do and fake conservative. do they keep injecting it and it just flood zone. and there's nothing meaningful to talk about because the sub subjects are never address that effect. real people and all 4 of us are very interested in the fate of real people. go ahead, danny. well, what liberals doing, what the neo liberal ruling class has done is they, they've separated culture from materialism, from the very realities that working people deal with day to day. and so while progressive ideas around culture may have validity, right? trans rights, gay rights rights for ethnic minorities,

those should be supported. but when they're detached and then weaponized from the material realities of the very people that you are speaking about, right? because you talk about trans, right? but rarely will the neo liberally talk about homelessness, or talk about the wage discrimination or anything like that. they'll use it instead as a weapon to reproduce their own positions to make the system actually more effective . and that's what we have like a gender report. that's what i am always talking about in relation to the democratic party in the united states, which is the beacon of liberalism here in the united states. it's that the goal of the democratic party is always to make the system more effective. the system led by corporate elite financially and the oppression of the vast majority over by the vast might by a very tiny minority. and so that is what i am interested in. i think that is the most important point that we can make about culture. is that sure? the idea is, as you said, peter,

they do have validity. we can't agree on them. but when we are using them as a way to, to divert attention away from real issues of power, that's where we get into the problems. and that's where we begin to have these divides, and we begin to stoke tensions among the population. and it creates a very right environment for the power relations of the said social order to maintain themselves and get even stronger and tighter and a lot of ways and make us all hate each other even more. okay, gentlemen, i'm going to jump in here. we're going to go to a short break, and after that short break, we'll continue. our discussion are incompetent. you lead. stay with our to the beautiful ocean was

time what it says was to come from the the 1st step. would you be something you would provide them with that that's and that's all the sudden there was yeah. was for what fin the but the only the film is what that's what you want to do. but i'm sure it seems when you got the west point with luck with them. so we'll just show the peach come from from the meals are kind of the same. i was giving you a sense club, logo, slate, to bring me as a senior on one of the schedules for the some coaches to, to but are one. why do you think that us them, i mean,

on i be in the ways to live the hey, you know, we've moved on from just praising lots of money and incurring lots of dad for dom reasons to printing loss of money and incurring lawson debt for extraordinarily dom reason ah, working to him or should she popped in. she said, well, i'm getting ready to go shopping for christmas. and we recycle by there was a good device to another, shooting another safe part of american life shattered by violence. the gunman was armed with an a r 15 semi automatic rifle. when the issue comes home, it's time to act when we're filing on this issue, the other side window by default,

lady that lived over there. i was walking one of the dogs. why do you wear again, were you scared that the i took it off. i think the people need to take responsibility in their own hands and be prepared if those kind of weapons were less available. we wouldn't have a lot of shootings and we certainly wouldn't have the number down. i the welcome back to cross cock where all things are considered. i'm peter labelle. remind you we're discussing our incompetent elites. ah. okay. it's good to arthur in toronto. you know, over the years and one of the great things about being a talk show host of a program like this is that i get to talk to a wide variety of people. very interesting people. i was on the jimmy jor adore

show a few years ago. and jimmy door at which is a real hero of mine, i because i think he really actually cares about people, some of his policy, the prescriptions i would disagree with. but we as a good faith actor because i believe he's a good faith actor. but, you know, the longer we talk, we realize that it, and i want to go back to this cultural issue, is that to try that's, that's with short circuit. so many important conversations. and i think the liberals of the liberal project, that's where they're say, that's the safe place. they know that if they can keep the disagreements of dr. seuss, or something like that, you know, people are not going to talk about homelessness, the lack of infrastructure, the inequality of, of wealth, that is just outrageous right now. and for them, it, that's the perfect world. and then they come up with these ideas about a green new deal. i'm all for green stuff here, but i'm not for, for making these corporations even richer and richer and richer. and, and then you did you tell working people were going to put a tax on your gasoline?

i mean, that isn't sanity. okay. so they all want to do this for humanity, but who pays for it? the most working people do go ahead arthur. yeah, you're absolutely right, and that was the point i want to make up. so i bring up in regards to a danny just said as well because in canada right now we're having an election. and if you, if anyone has watched the debates, i'm in the canadian election, if it's a circus, it's a side show it's, it's smoking mirrors, the whole thing is distracting from real issues that are going to be affecting real people very, very soon. the economy, you know, locked down, things like that, responses to, to the virus, all that type of stuff. and instead we're talking about things. for example, they'll have a, an introduction where they pledge their, you know, that were on indigenous land and all this sort of stuff. but in reality, they're not doing anything about actually helping people. and there's a pond here in canada, a liberal who, who actually brought up look

a either do something about the and the address issues be or about it like that's really your only 2 options. start talking about it and doing nothing and what it really comes down to is a lot of these things are developed. they are a way of distracting and getting people to fight amongst themselves. because divided groups of people are really, really easy to whip into whatever folding structure you want or to with, into whatever agenda. yeah, i mean, it's very interesting john, you know, one of the things that it's absolutely fascinating with me. and i try to avoid talking about trump because you know, you the, the, the liberals that's their, their favorite weapon to use now on every single topic. but you know, the more i to during the 2016 election and then his entire term and office, you know, the more you got to know about trump, voters not from cnn or m. s, b, c. but a lot of them have very progressive ideas about politics,

like about education, about health care and you know, and this is the establishment greatest nightmare that actually progressives and, and trump supporters who can sit down and say, yeah, we need better health care. how do we do that instead of saying, socialized medicine, you know, they throw out all the scare words. but if you ask people, identify and read states where you want better health care. yeah. and what it cheaper and the government should help out a little bit more because it's like a 90 percentile, but they think the new york times in the washington post and seeing and never let anybody know that. ok. because a lot of a lot of people that identified as a conservative actually are very progressive, but a lot of social issues, not cultural, but on social. and this is the greatest nightmare for this ruling lead that these 2 groups of people that are but being polarized. and they're being gasoline every single day that it could actually sit down on a table and have a decent conversation. go ahead, john. i think what we're all saying is that these,

this problem is one of ideology buses. reality, that's what also just said, and that's what danny said when he opposed. when he contrasted gay writes with the problems of homelessness. as for me, the issue of gay rights, which is indeed a dominant one, it's become a sort of totem. to me is philosophically extremely interesting because to me it has nothing to do with people's actual rights, but is instead an ideology, it's an ideology particularly with trans, right? which rejects any kind of determinism, any kind of national determinism. you know, most people would say that they were born a man or woman, but if you'll trans, no, you decided or did you feel that you can insert, change your sex. in other words, change the physical side of your, of your being. and that is philosophically an extremely arresting and very powerful

idea. and it reflects its belief, which i think he's dominant and i think is what we're trying to, what we're grappling to understand which is that through human will alone, the world can be changed. and that's what gives multiple politics. it's dream like quality. eric berger and the, the great political scientists wrote about this that the dream like warranty. because people want the world to be structured according to their dreams. that they and it's much ultimately much easier to live in the dream well than it is to grapple with reality because reality is rather stopping. and that's what, that's what leads to these, these outbursts because people don't want to be waking up from their dream. i'm sure you remember peter, the famous remark, i think it was made to possibly to justin romando or someone like that by a near conservative who said accusingly to whoever it was. he said you in the reality based community,

but we create our own reality. yeah. and that is the problem there. you can't create your own reality. reality unfortunately, does exist and needs to be dealt with. well, john, just to kind of follow up on that as the revolutionaries of 1789 and the revolutionaries of 1970. once you got power, reality set in, in a very, very cruel way, didn't it? i mean, this is one of the things i am for social change. i'm for empowerment of people. i am very supportive of looking back and trying to save people that have been left behind by all of this because i think they're just as virtuous as anybody that lives in martha's vineyard or anywhere else. ok if not more so because they understand diversity. but danny, i guess maybe this is a point where maybe we'll have a little bit of a difference. i mean it's this revolutionary reach, this is where it really bothers me because these 2, there's a mindset with these people and these, and that's neo liberal ideology. but there's one thing you can do to fix everything

forever for all time. we've seen historically, that just doesn't work. ok, i'm a, i'm agreeing person. i do believe in planting trees. don't litter. i mean i'm, i'm a very primitive in environmental in that way. but when i look at all these grand plans to completely rechange the economy, i just think who is going to benefit from this average people. it's never explained . go ahead, danny. well, i think the neo liberal class, the liberal class in general. what, what they've done is they've complicated so many of these issues that we are talking about in order to, as we said before, reproduce their own stature and power within the social order. and so for me, you know, i don't think that there is any real disconnection or any kind of in tagging is in between allowing, let's say trans people that have the rights to identify as trans people and also

giving them economic human rights like the right to housing like the right to employment, like the right to have their basic needs met. and i think that goes across the board for all ordinary people. and we know that because our societies are so diverse because as you said, peter, there are people who have been left behind. there are people who do suffer more, that we can have that conversation of okay, how do we bring everyone up? how do we improve the lives of everybody while also paying particular attention to those groups that have been historically and currently oppressed, more so than others? that's not really something that needs to be spoken about in this diversionary way . this, this very antagonistic way. but the neo liberal ruling class likes it like that because this allows them to weaponized certain issues of quote unquote, diversity and order their way. and danny in there and it's their virtue say going that they're somehow better than all of us because they're talking about that. and

i find that really, really, you know, i'm a very well educated person. i know, jock me is very well educated. you don't have to talk down to me. ok. arthur, one of the things that really, cuz we're rapidly running out of time. i hate this. if i could use the american context or, you know, the democrats and the republicans, that the problem is these incompetent to meet the, it's the professional managerial class. okay. and if they haven't, are, or a d, i could give a hoot, i really don't care. ok. but this again is, this is artificial paradigm that they're always throwing out. if you know these people, they come from all these, they are all very well educated, quote, unquote, credentialed all that. but you know, one thing that coven afghanistan, the war on terror, healthcare in america. i mean, they, every single thing said touch. i can't even use the language on my own program, how i feel about it. it's a professional managerial class and they put the movements around the chessboard as if, you know, they're there. they're actually mean they have meaningful difference. i know they

all have the same class interests. yes, i'm a conservative, i believe in talking about class because that's really important. go ahead, arthur class, the thing, right it's, it's part of reality. and so it is something that needs to be talked about and genuine. we talked about what i find interesting to what you said there is, is a bureaucratic class and some bureaucratic tyranny, almost if they create what it feels like to a lot of people is the symbolic, smothering mother that just will not let you out of care. will not let you even attempt to try anything on your own. they know what's best. they will shut you down if you try. and, and an example of this if someone wouldn't want to take medicine for some reason, should that be forced down their throat out of care. that's a good question. but if these types of questions, in their opinion, whatever they think is right, is what should be forced down your throat, whether you're, it's right or not actually. yeah, well john, you know, it again,

as i could, you look at the, the, the bolshevik revolution, you know, the, the future is certain, but not the past. ok. and this is exactly what we've had with cobra. do you mean? you know, they need to wipe the ether because what did you say last week? what did you say a month ago? what did you say a year ago? okay. they really waste that would go away 32nd. see you john, and we finish up. well, the fact is that when also talks about class and when you talk about class, of course, people think they might think that you're referring to marxist classes. you're not using either of us, you'll use your court talking about a governing class. and this facts that we have all of us today talking about a new governing class should send shivers down our collective spines because when the great yugoslav communist later dissident analyzed the totalitarian system that he lived under, which he then turned against. what did he call it?

he called it the new last year. we are, we are the perfect way to and the program here we run out of time general in many thanks. so my guess and parents, new york and in toronto. and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at our to see you next time and remembered cross the the i have often said transparency for the powerful pharmacy, for the kids about privacy. what people care about is power tuning and sons is become a symbol of the battles of brevity. information is power. that's what's going on and a huge struggle with governments and corporations who want to keep information secret and others who think democratic rights should be pushed forward and people have

a right to know what to do. watch alison's help to shift the conversation around transparency and see what that battle has done to him. i feel like julian's life might be coming to an end. we are in a conflict situation with the largest and most powerful employer in such a situation. remarkable me a is your media, a reflection of reality? the in a world transformed what will make you feel safe for tyson lation community? are you going the right way or are you being that somewhere? which direction?

what is truth? what is faith? in the world corrupted, you need to this end. the so join us in the depths will remain in the shallows. ah ah, from councillors an embassy celebration in washington in protest against the new us security packed with the u. k. on the street that resulted in the loss of a lucrative submarine deal for par as we get reaction on the streets of the french capital. this is not the 1st time that united states has taken contracts from us. they are very good at that. we do not respect anyone apart from themselves, the act like masters of the world. they shouldn't have done that because i think it