DEF033 - Jake hanrahan Interview

truth, lies & journalism

Interview date: Friday, 20th March 2020
Interview location: Skype

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Jake Hanrahan. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email us. You can listen to the original recording here.

In this interview, we discuss navigating misinformation, peoples political and social bias and finding the nuance in news.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION

Peter McCormack 00:03:13:
Jake, how you doing?

Jake Hanrahan 00:03:15:
I'm all right, mate. How are you?

Peter McCormack 00:03:17:
I'm good. We could have done this together because there's nobody else I can interview who lives more local to me, but we're going to stay remote just in case. It's really strange times, though, right?

Jake Hanrahan 00:03:29:
Mate, it's so weird. I was just speaking to a friend of mine, and he's queuing up outside the Sainsburys just to get stuff, and he just said, "It's like a zombie film out here." He said, "It's crazy." He lives in London, and he said, "It's just mad." You know what I mean?

Peter McCormack 00:03:41:
Yeah. Funny enough, I went into Tesco yesterday, and they had everything I needed-

Jake Hanrahan 00:03:46:
Really?

Peter McCormack 00:03:47:
... and it wasn't that crazy. Yeah. It wasn't that crazy because I assume we're going to get to the point where everyone is stocked up enough.

Jake Hanrahan 00:03:52:
Up here, it's mad. It's like people just don't care. It's absolutely mad. When I went in last week, there was one toilet roll on the shelf. This week, there's absolutely none, no rice. There was no soup. It's just mad.

Peter McCormack 00:04:06:
How much do people shit?

Jake Hanrahan 00:04:07:
I know. Well, I saw a joke the other day. It said, "There's no toilet roll because every time someone coughs, everybody shits themselves." I was like, "Yeah, that's pretty accurate."

Peter McCormack 00:04:17:
All right. Well, listen, look, it's a good time to talk to you. You know this world of ... whether you call it journalism or just content creation. I'm a few years behind you. This is all quite new to me, and especially doing the Defiance stuff and the video stuff. I'm learning things or I'm observing things that I felt it was a good time to talk to you about because I think you understand where I'm coming from, and I think you've experienced a lot of what I've experienced.

Peter McCormack 00:04:42:
The thing I want to talk to you most about is that, whatever topic I cover, there are a group of people who want you to have a binary answer to it, a bit like U.S. politics. If you're Republican, you will defend every single thing Donald Trump does, and if you're a Democrat, you will criticise everything he does, whereas, actually, what would be much more intellectual is something along the lines of what Ben Shapiro does, who, by the way, I'm not a huge fan of, but, at least, with someone like Donald Trump, he will point out his good things and his bad things, and I might not even agree with his assessment, but the fact that he's willing to do that, to me, is a bit more intelligent.

Peter McCormack 00:05:18:
We'll get into the places I've been and what I've seen, but a great example for me this morning is you know I'm in this bitcoin world, and a lot of bitcoin is all about freedom, anarchism, no government, getting away from the overreach of the state, and I support so much of that-

Jake Hanrahan 00:05:37:
I like that, yeah.

Peter McCormack 00:05:39:
... but I can't help right now, right now in this coronavirus situation, outside of the stats, I think the stats can be misleading, but just looking at what the doctors are saying in Italy, every single interview with the doctors of these overrun health systems, what the doctors in the UK are starting to say, and we've got a trajectory just behind them. I put a thing on Twitter this morning in that I can't help but feel like I'm a statist right now, and I can't help but feel like we perhaps do need the government to enforce social distancing, and I can't help but feel like that we do need perhaps to have the Army on the streets, and I don't want to support violence and coercion, but, at the same time, people aren't observing social distancing.

Peter McCormack 00:06:22:
If we're wrong about this, if we get this coronavirus thing wrong, a lot of people will die, a lot of people will lose their jobs, or perhaps both will happen, but I'm fearful of admitting it because people will go, "Oh, you're a fucking statist," but I think it's a complex argument, and it's a complex problem that needs the nuance of debate rather than having the fear of being classified as a certain type of person just by having the debate. Do you see where I'm coming from?

Jake Hanrahan 00:06:46:
Yeah, definitely. For a second, I was struggling with this myself because I was talking to a mate of mine, and I'm very much like you. I mean, I never really nail myself to a cross politically, but I would be described as maybe a left libertarian type. I think it's quite easily solved. Well, in my head, I was thinking, "Well, yeah, if we lived in that kind of society that I would like to live in where we have autonomous areas where we decide our own politics locally through direct democracy, people would have ... They would care about their community a bit more, and you wouldn't need the state to step in and say, 'Stop doing this.'" We don't live in that. We live in a hyper-capitalist society, and because of that, things are this way. Dou you know what I mean? It's very simple. It's like, "Well, I'm not statist, bro, but we don't have the society we wish we lived in, so until we do, unfortunately, people don't care about each other, I think. This is my opinion." You know what I mean?

Jake Hanrahan 00:07:39:
Look, I think if it wasn't so rigid within the system we have, people would care more about their own communities. We've already seen before this crisis, people stopped giving a shit about community. You know what I mean? Why would they suddenly do it now? It's not statist. It's like, "Look, let's be real. It's very nice and happy to have our theories, and I'm talking to myself here. I'm even a hypocrite. It's nice to have our nice political theories, but when shit hits the fan and we don't have the world that we wish we lived in, you have to make do with what you have," and it's very nice to be like, "Well, it's a shame that some people online are having a go at my libertarian politics. Great. Who cares? There are people, thousands of people, dying." You just have to go, "Shut up. Get out of the bubble." Forget it.

Jake Hanrahan 00:08:20:
I'm with you. I feel in a weird position. I do not want the government to have more power than it already has, which, in our country, is already creeping into a dangerous, dangerous level. However-

Peter McCormack 00:08:31:
Agree.

Jake Hanrahan 00:08:31:
... this ain't about our Internet politics or our theory or the books I sit and read late at night. This is about saving our people from dying. You know what I mean?

Peter McCormack 00:08:40:
I think that's exactly where I am. I had a debate with a guy called Nathaniel Whitmore the other day. He's a really good guy, and he articulated it really well for me. What he talked about, we are almost certainly going to have troops on the streets in the U.S. and the UK. It feels like every government is following the same trajectory. Firstly, they're slightly concerned, and they're talking about their health system. Then, secondly, they start to talk about, "Well, perhaps we might need some social distancing," and then they close down the schools, and then they close down the restaurants, and then, eventually, they put the Army on the streets, and I think it goes in that direction. As the numbers accelerate, they start to realise they need stronger enforcement.

Peter McCormack 00:09:23:
He articulated it very well by saying, "What we should be focusing on is a post-coronavirus world where we consider retracement of our government from these policies," because we can stand here and have arguments on Twitter. We can't even go and protest on the streets, but we can have these arguments against these overreach of the government and these new powers, but nothing's going to change.

Jake Hanrahan 00:09:45:
No, nothing.

Peter McCormack 00:09:45:
Right now, if Boris Johnson wants to put the troops on the street, he's going to. It's an ineffective use of time to have that argument right now, and what might be a better use of time is starting to focus on a post-coronavirus world and how we mobilise people to ensure that we do our best to have our governments retract from these positions of authority, and perhaps they won't, but no government likes to relinquish power, but should we be focusing on six months to a year ahead that we are mobilising people to ensure our governments retract from these positions and undo some of these new laws, and perhaps that's a better use of time.

Jake Hanrahan 00:10:24:
I would agree that it is, but, at the same time, I think you have to look at what the troops are going to be doing. The last thing I want to see is troops in the street. However, what are they doing?

Peter McCormack 00:10:34:
Agree.

Jake Hanrahan 00:10:34:
People like, "There's troops in the street." They're not going to come and start shooting you outside Tesco. They're not going to be gun-butting all women in the street for going out for two minutes. Every time there's a massive flood in the UK, the troops are out in the street. It's disaster relief. That's what they're there for within domestic measures. Do you know what I mean? They're not going to be running around setting up barricades and checkpoints, murdering people for being outdoors. It's just not going to happen. I almost think that a lot of these kind of radical ideas, people almost want it to happen that way. It's like they almost want it to-

Peter McCormack 00:11:02:
I agree.

Jake Hanrahan 00:11:03:
... just so then they can be like, "Ha, see." Realistically, yeah, it's good to think about ... I mean, we absolutely must, once all this is over in a year or two or who knows, then all of that, if that happens, absolutely must be removed. However, even that is, I think, not that important to be talking about right now because it's okay for us to talk about that in media world. Normal people are not talking about that.

Jake Hanrahan 00:11:25:
Now, if you're kind of libertarian and you're for the people, as I am very much am, you actually have to look at local people and what your friends say, where we live in the Midlands and where you live in Bedford. People are not going, "Well, I hope the government removes the Army." They're going, "Oh, my God, are we going to die?" You need to think about that. What do people really care about? Well, they don't want their old people to die, and they don't want to run out of food. At the end of the day, I do really think that you have to sometime ... I'm saying this to myself in the mirror. "Shut the fuck up with your radical politics and accept what people on the street are saying."

Jake Hanrahan 00:11:59:
That's what I find hardline communists so hard to get on with. They're always on about bourgeois this and blah, blah, blah. It's like, "Mate, you live in an absolute bubble world. No one on the road is going, 'Yeah, well, let me just ... I'm a working class guy. Let me just think of the mitigating circumstances that would happen here if Marx was still around.'" Would you shut up, mate? People are just trying to survive. People are working, going to food banks and that. It turns into its own circle jerk.

Jake Hanrahan 00:12:25:
The right are as bad as the left. I mean, the right are worse in my opinion now because the funniest thing I've noticed with a few of your followers that followed me after the last time we did Defiance, and now unfollowed me because the irony is they go on about snowflake and that. The right wing are like, "How snowflake, mate."

Peter McCormack 00:12:43:
I hate that comment.

Jake Hanrahan 00:12:44:
If you say anything that they don't agree with, they are fuming-

Peter McCormack 00:12:48:
Of course.

Jake Hanrahan 00:12:48:
... just as much as a leftie, and what it really means is they ... When I find Republicans saying, "We want freedom," what they mean is we want freedom of speech to say whatever we want to say. You say anything against Trump, they go bonkers, mate. What is it? What is it?

Peter McCormack 00:13:03:
Dude, well-

Jake Hanrahan 00:13:03:
Is it really freedom of speech, or do you just want to be able to bulldoze everyone? The whole thing is nonsense. Internet has just gone bonkers.

Peter McCormack 00:13:10:
Well, that happened the other day. When Trump rebranded coronavirus as the China virus, very direct and obvious strategy to start calling it the China virus.

Jake Hanrahan 00:13:20:
Terrible use of words, terrible use of words. I mean, if you're arguing that it's not a terrible use of words, I think you're lying to yourself. Anyone knows. Imagine if China called it the American virus. They'd be fuming.

Peter McCormack 00:13:33:
Well, in fairness, there was that Chinese official who has indicated or said that this was a U.S. plant and it was a U.S. bio-weapon, and there's clearly a bunch of Russians right now ... The Russian propaganda about this is ridiculous, but the point being is let's just get back to civil leadership. You would not see Boris Johnson or Conte or any of the European leaders suddenly using China virus, and the reason they won't be is that there is the common used term that we're regarding this and referring to this as coronavirus or COVID-19, and I said, "It was a disgrace for him to have done that." I said, "It's a disgrace because, right now, we need leadership." This should be about a time for firm leadership, not about a PR campaign for his 2020 reelection-

Jake Hanrahan 00:14:20:
Absolutely.

Peter McCormack 00:14:20:
... which is very much what it feels like. It felt like he was deflecting it, and that was the point I made, and I just got this ... I don't know. I got this bulldozer of replies calling me a snowflake, calling me a CCP bootlicker, and I had to go, "Well, hold on a second. I'm not a CCP bootlicker. I've been very critical of Chinese state of surveillance, the concentration camps with a million Uygurs in. I'm no CCP bootlicker, but I am no Trump bootlicker, either, and I'm not supporting of that."

Peter McCormack 00:14:51:
I have also on a few occasions actually accredited Trump. A couple of things he's done, I said, "I actually agree with that. I kind of like that," but we've got this diverse of politics now where the Republicans refer to Trump Derangement Syndrome, whereby any criticism of Trump is because you just hate him, but also think we have Trump Defensive Syndrome, where any valid criticism of Trump is knocked back as, "You're a snowflake," and I fucking hate this snowflake term. It's almost like using your masculinity as a insult against you, a bit like statism. You're called a statist if you ever think that we need some centralised decision making, even if it's rational. You're suddenly a statist, and statist is an insult. It bothers me, actually.

Jake Hanrahan 00:15:36:
Do you know what I think, Peter? I think you're the victim of being a nuanced guy, but the world you're in, due to the bitcoin stuff and that, you're in a world where nuance isn't particularly allowed. Now, you're a smart guy. I'm not telling you what has happened. I don't know, but I sometimes think, because of these people that you're around often, and I've seen it on the other side, they claim to love freedom of speech. "We love freedom of speech," but, again, they don't really. They just want to be able to say their own thing. You're genuine, as in you're nuanced. You're like, "Yeah, I like freedom of speech, this and that," and they're like, "No, no, no, you don't say that. You just have to stick to this line." Ironically, it's not freedom of speech at all.

Jake Hanrahan 00:16:16:
The left side do the exact same thing. The people they're calling snowflakes have the exact same issue. I hate that woke shit. You can't joke about this. You can't joke about that, but the right are almost worse in my opinion now because they're the biggest fucking crybabies. The second you step out of what they consider freedom of speech, they don't like it. It's so funny. Like you say, even Trump. This guy's an idiot. "How dare you?" You know what I mean? But, then if someone says, "Well, how can he call it China virus?" "Oh, what, you don't want freedom of speech?" Well, which is it? We can insult your leader, or we can't, or we're allowed to say China virus, or we can't. You know what I mean? They want it every which way. They're like grown children. I find it embarrassing.

Peter McCormack 00:16:57:
A lot of the replies were ... There was one that really made me laugh over and over again because people kept replying with, "Well, what about the Spanish flu?" Actually, the Spanish flu didn't arrive from Spain, so it was quite funny to reply and put that in there.

Jake Hanrahan 00:17:10:
It was good Spanish speakers. They're the only ones that admitted it, like, "Yeah, it's this bad. They did a good thing."

Peter McCormack 00:17:15:
Two minutes from Google gave you that, but other people-

Jake Hanrahan 00:17:18:
Also, it's 2020. What the fuck? What about the Spanish flu? What about the plague? Just shut up. Things move on.

Peter McCormack 00:17:26:
But the other one, they was like, "Well, where did it come from? It came from China, so that's what ..." and then they would list all the other conditions that were named after places, but the point is, do we need this fight right now?

Jake Hanrahan 00:17:35:
Exactly.

Peter McCormack 00:17:38:
All the valid criticisms of the Chinese government almost certainly, almost definitely, there are valid criticisms that they-

Jake Hanrahan 00:17:47:
100%.

Peter McCormack 00:17:47:
... what they did to the whistleblower doctor who first talked about this, how they suppressed free speech to begin with. You know what? This is one of the biggest challenges to the CCP right now, the fact that people are calling for freedom of speech now in China because of this, and they face a serious threat in a post-coronavirus world to their authoritarian rule. It definitely needs challenging, but is it right? I don't think we need to fight about this right now. The fight right now is the survival of our health systems and the survival of our economy, and assuring the two things that you said. We keep as many people alive as possible, and we keep people federal. That now is the fight, not is it the CCP.

Peter McCormack 00:18:32:
I think what it is, all it comes down to with Trump, he pretty much had three months ago, two months ago, 2020 election, reelection was a slam dunk. It was in the bag.

Jake Hanrahan 00:18:42:
Of course.

Peter McCormack 00:18:42:
I don't see how Biden or Bernie Sanders had any chance of taking him down. Now, I wouldn't say it's a slam dunk. I mean, we don't even know if the election will go ahead because there's social distancing, but when it does go ahead, he's facing the possibility of a economy collapse, a lot of people have died, and whether or not he's done anything wrong, almost any leader will have faced those prospects, but I think it will make his reelection more difficult for him.

Peter McCormack 00:19:09:
What I see now is that every single one of his press conferences is being run as a PR exercise where he just talks about how good he is and what a great job he's done. The best performance I've seen so far was the New York governor yesterday. I don't know if you saw him.

Jake Hanrahan 00:19:22:
No.

Peter McCormack 00:19:23:
That's a video worth watching. His leadership and the way he spoke with honesty and truth to the people of New York yesterday, I thought it was astounding, and I think-

Jake Hanrahan 00:19:31:
We need honesty right now. We need honesty, but not scare tactics, and the last thing we need, as well, is that sort of thing the other day where Trump's ... Some guy's like, "People are very scared," and then he's like, "What do you think?" Then, Trump says, "You know what I think? You're a terrible reporter." All these Republicans, MAGA kids anyway, were like, "That's amazing." Really? You think that's amazing? In the peak or not even the peak, at the start of the global pandemic, unlike anything we've ever seen in our lifetimes, you think it's brilliant that Trump is randomly insulting some random reporter that no one will care about in a day.

Peter McCormack 00:20:04:
Wow, Jake.

Jake Hanrahan 00:20:04:
You think that's brilliant? What is wrong with you?

Peter McCormack 00:20:05:
It's not a random reporter, though.

Jake Hanrahan 00:20:07:
Huh?

Peter McCormack 00:20:10:
He was an MSNBC reporter. It's Fox News versus MSNBC. It's out of the Roger Ailes playbook-

Jake Hanrahan 00:20:16:
It's unbelievable.

Peter McCormack 00:20:16:
... when you watch Fox News. I think that's where that comes from, but this leads us into what I really wanted to talk to you about because I'm now making the decisions to go and visit places and look up closely to what's happening in areas of conflict or areas of humanitarian crisis, and when we spoke last time, you said something that stuck with me, is that people who haven't been to a war zone do not understand a war zone, and I haven't been to a war zone, but I have been out now to Santiago in Chile to see the protests, I have been out now to Venezuela-

Jake Hanrahan 00:20:55:
You've seen conflict. You've not seen the war, but you've seen conflict now-

Peter McCormack 00:20:56:
I've seen conflict.

Jake Hanrahan 00:20:56:
... you close. You understand how very quickly everything changes within seconds.

Peter McCormack 00:21:02:
Yeah, but I've just realised that to judge a situation, you have to be there, you have to see it. I had my opinions on Venezuela, and some of them were confirmed, but some of them changed quite significantly by being there, and I didn't have to be there long. Two days, I got a good picture for it, and also the crisis on the Turkey/Greece border, but let me talk you through what I've been through, my experience. There's probably three different topics I want to talk to you about.

Peter McCormack 00:21:31:
Let's talk about Santiago and Chile because that was my first one. I went out to see the protests, and daily protests, you've got a disillusioned youth protesting on the streets, and, almost certainly, a lot of them are quite immature in their arguments, I think excited and just having fun doing it, but they do have some common beliefs, which I kind of see, as well. It's this left/right divide, pissed off of corruption, pissed off at the state-

Jake Hanrahan 00:22:03:
No liberal failure.

Peter McCormack 00:22:05:
Yeah. Now, if you talk to a libertarian, a libertarian will talk to you about free market, we shouldn't have socialised healthcare, we should have free market for healthcare, jobs, a free market for everything. When they see people-

Jake Hanrahan 00:22:16:
Well, I would argue that's ... See, this is where we disagree maybe. What American libertarianism, to me, is an-cap, anarcho-capitalist, which, to me, is a meme. It's hilarious to me. Anarcho-capitalism, to me, I just find it funny. That's so unbelievably ridiculous because, basically, whoever's rich can just be a warlord. It's just nonsense to me. "What? You don't want everyone to have tanks?" No, mate. Sorry, I don't want everyone to have tanks. Do you know what I mean? If 16-year-old me had a tank, the neighbourhood would be gone. No, I don't want rich kids running around with tanks. I think anarcho-capitalism is, frankly, and Internet ideology.

Jake Hanrahan 00:22:59:
I don't see libertarian as that. I don't think libertarianism, for me ... European libertarianism is very different. It's small government. We need some kind of government, but we need the people to decide. For example, London can't decide what happens in the Midlands because, how would they know? If we want to decide something in my town, we'd have a committee, we all meet, we all discuss it, we all have a democratic vote. Can we have this supermarket built here? No, we don't want it. Okay, fine, fuck it off. Do you know what I mean?

Peter McCormack 00:23:27:
Yeah.

Jake Hanrahan 00:23:27:
I don't see it as everything free market. I understand the idea that they're like, "Well, in a free society, anyone can buy anything," but in a free society, not everybody is rich, and that basically means only the rich people can buy ... You can just buy power. Anyone can buy power with that, and we've seen the politicians and the state will just buy themselves into power. Look at Mike Bloomberg. For me, I'm just like, "That is just bonkers," but, anyway, sorry, but carry on.

Peter McCormack 00:23:53:
Well, what I'm starting to see is this pattern all across the world, and you've probably seen it, as well. Let's talk about there's probably three political ideologies that exist. There is left wing, which can veer into socialism. You've got right wing, which tends to focus much more on capitalism, although Republicans will have socialist policies and Democrats will have capitalist policies. There's just a spectrum, and we also have libertarians, and whenever you look at an area of conflict, most people will try and solve it from their political ideology. If you look at the conflict, say, in what's happening on the streets of Santiago, the libertarians will be very critical of these people who are fighting for education and healthcare and the pension reforms because of their grandparents and say, "Well, if we had a free market, this wouldn't be a problem," and the socialists will defend them and say, "Yes, this is why we need socialism," and then the capitalists will say, "Well, we shouldn't have socialism because the problems with socialism, this creates lazy people who rely on the state."

Peter McCormack 00:25:01:
Everyone will come from their ideology, but what I tend to find is that you cannot fix this with a single ideology. You cannot fix this. We have to try and understand that every single time where there is excessive inequality and excessive corruption by the state, you will always see an uprising from the poorest of society who are fed up with it, who are going to work, who are paying their taxes, yet are saying an unfair overreach of the state and unfair corruption, and they're going to get pissed off at some point.

Peter McCormack 00:25:39:
I agree that free markets are a good idea. I am, in part, a capitalist. I do believe capitalism helps us advance society, but I do, at the same time, think we do need some form of social safety net within our societies to protect people, but I'm finding it very difficult to get nuanced discussion about this because people are so wrapped to a single ideology that they think their ideology solves every single problem.

Jake Hanrahan 00:26:05:
Well, there's a few things there that I think that's a very good point. I think there's a few things there. Firstly, my first thought is it's kind of ironic that a lot of these libertarians ... Well, let's say air quotes, "American libertarians," don't like these people protesting in Chile. Now, that is ironic to me because most of I've spoke to. I was going to go to Chile this month, but corona's fucked everything, but most of the protestors are anarchists. There mostly are socialist libertarians, anarchists. So what? Basically, again, already, the so-called libertarians are now telling you, "Even those libertarians are not the right ones." It's not very libertarian attitude if you ask me. That's almost the opposite of a libertarian attitude. There you go.

Jake Hanrahan 00:26:49:
Firstly, the neoliberal project has completely failed in Chile. Now, the prices are through the roof, and the wages are just stagnant. The elite people, things are great. For them, it's fine. Now, I saw a great protest banner in Chile from ... I don't know if it's your coverage or someone's coverage. Anyway, it said, "We're not from the left. We're not from the right. We're from below." That is what I care about personally.

Jake Hanrahan 00:27:13:
Now, the problem is I think you have to drop the politics out of it, not completely. I mean, obviously, if some fascists are running around, you're going to be like, "Whoa." If they get what they want, this is going to go very bad. You know what I mean? Personally, I believe it's objective, that fascism is terrible because freedom is great. You know what I mean? People were saying and having a go at me about ... All these communists were saying, "Why are you propping up these neoliberal protestors in Hong Kong?" Firstly, I laughed. Secondly, it's like, "Mate, these kids basically don't want to be crushed by the CCP, which are unlike complete ..." Anyone that argues that China isn't totalitarian are off their nut. They're mad. It's probably the most totalitarian country on Earth right now with that much power. Secondly, these kids just want to get along with their lives. I mean, Jesus Christ, imagine bringing into the tiny, little aspects of political ideology in that.

Jake Hanrahan 00:28:07:
What I'm saying is, for me, I think the fact that people rise up, in itself, even if they're doomed to fail, is actually important. You need that energy. I think you need that energy in the world to keep going. How to explain it? Look, for example, the Hong Kong protestors, they're failed. They did what they did, but they pretty much failed. It's not going to happen for them. One day, people might rise up again, and they will always remember those kids that rose up. They did it. They tried to do it. We now have a model of what to do. You don't know. In 100 years, because of those kids, the next people that rise up might overthrow the totalitarian government of China, which, for me, is an excellent thing to do.

Jake Hanrahan 00:28:47:
For me, I'm always against totalitarianism, and totalitarianism doesn't have a political ideology. Stalinists, they're as totalitarian as a Nazi, in my opinion. People laugh at that and whatever, but that's the reality. For me, I always have this phrase, and it's a bit cliché now because I've said it so many fucking times, but I always say to people, "Get out of your radical book club." I read a lot of radical literature and blah, blah. No one cares. No one really cares. For example, my boxing club where I go, they set up what is basically a socialist kind of mutual aid union without even calling it anything like that. They get the parents to chip in money for their kids to be driven to all these different Thai boxing fights that they have because the club can't afford to send all the kids.

Jake Hanrahan 00:29:32:
Now, if you're some political ideologue, you will be like, "Wow, this is a socialist or anarchist mutual aid project." It's not to these people. It's just helping each other out. I've started saying, "I believe in community politics, helping out each other in your community." To me, hyper-capitalism of just bulldozing everything that ... Imagine saying, "Okay, well, I have enough money to pay off the council and build a shed in your garden." Well, that's not fair. Do you know what I mean? That's not okay. Just because you have the money, suddenly you can then stamp on somebody else's territory? That's not fair to me, and I think a lot of people operate on what is fair and what isn't fair, and when you start bringing in all this Internet politics, it actually muddies the waters of what's really going on.

Jake Hanrahan 00:30:16:
When I'm on the ground, I don't think, "Who's going to get angry with me on Twitter when this gets out?" I think, "What's going on here? Am I going to tell the truth? Obviously." There we go. I don't care if some communist on Twitter is angry about what I say about Hong Kong. I don't care if some right winger is going to cry because he thinks he's a libertarian and doesn't like anyone that likes socialism. Who do you think you are? Really? Who do these people think they are? I don't like him because he's a socialist. You're talking about people that are fighting for their future, and you're getting angry. Fuck you. So what if you don't like their ideology. It's just outrageous.

Jake Hanrahan 00:30:55:
I hate to use this word because it's such a fucking woke thing, but I think this kind of privileged position a lot of people have is really embarrassing because they're basically ... I say to people, "Sorry that the protests in a country that isn't yours isn't going exactly as you want it. I'm so sorry it's not going how you on the Internet wish it would go." That's not how the world works. People will do what they want, and that's it. We need to ignore these people.

Peter McCormack 00:31:17:
So, that makes me think of what happened in Turkey because when I saw what was happening at the border, it was like, "Oh, fuck, I need to ..." You've probably felt this when you see something. "I need to go, need to get on a plane, need to go and see what's going on. I want to see it from my eyes." I went out there, and I went up to the border with Greece, and two different checkpoints.

Peter McCormack 00:31:39:
Firstly, it wasn't what I expected. The press, the mainstream press, said, "This is because Assad and Putin were attacking Idlib. Syrians were fleeing Idlib. Turkey's already got too many migrants, so the Syrians are now moving up to the Greece border to enter Europe." Actually, I would say Syrians were less than 10-15% of the people I met.

Jake Hanrahan 00:32:01:
Really?

Peter McCormack 00:32:02:
They were from everywhere. Yeah. Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, all parts of Africa, certainly economic migrants there, as well, but people leaving war zone, and, also, sometimes, an economic migrant is used as a criticism, as well. Quite regularly, people use economic migration as a criticism. "Oh, they're just here for the economics." It's like, "Well-"

Jake Hanrahan 00:32:25:
So?

Peter McCormack 00:32:26:
"... yes, so?" One guy, one was brilliant, one guy. It was a Greek guy, was arguing with me. I checked out his Twitter, and he's living in America, and I was like, "Well, why are you living in America? Surely that's economic migration for you." There is a certain group of people who have this inbuilt racism that look up migrants from places in the Middle East and Africa and consider them lower class humans, but what was really interesting is when I got there and I saw what was happening, I kind of agreed with all sides.

Peter McCormack 00:33:02:
I agreed that Turkey really has taken in probably more migrants than they can handle, 3.7 million. That's a lot of people to integrate into your society, to ensure are fed and educated, and that also comes with social integration problems. I also think Greece has a fair argument when it says it's taken on too many people, has a population of, what, 10 million, has had a million economic migrants, that also is having its own social integration problems. I also agree there's been problems in Sweden and Germany with migration. I agree with every single side saying that this is a problem.

Peter McCormack 00:33:40:
Whilst they're saying that, I'm at the border, and I'm seeing a mother laying on a field of mud, changing her baby in mud and dirt, and I'm seeing a people who are saying, "I'm not a terrorist. I'm just trying to build a life for my family."

Peter McCormack 00:34:01:
One of the really interesting thing is when an American will criticise and say, "Well, these are just economic migrants." I say, "Well, we got migrants from Iraq. Iraq is a fucking shit show because of a U.S. war." This is not me supporting Saddam Hussein. I recognise that war led to 1.5 million deaths. The country, I'm assuming, is in a much worse position than it was during the Saddam Hussein time, and I understand why these people are leaving. Would you not do the same? If you were living in Iran right now or if you were living in Iraq or if you were living in Burundi, any of these countries, and you felt like you could build a better life for your family, would you not try and leave?

Jake Hanrahan 00:34:44:
Exactly. Well, ain't it funny that half of the people ... I notice this online. Most of the people that cry about economic migrants are the same people that champion capitalism. How does that make sense? You love capitalism, but you're also angry that people are trying to better themselves financially in the world by moving to a more prosperous country that has benefited from the system that you love. Which is it? What do you want? I think a lot of it is honestly ... I'll get a lot of flack for this. Again, don't care. A lot of people are just racist-

Peter McCormack 00:35:17:
I agree.

Jake Hanrahan 00:35:17:
You know what I mean? A lot of it is basically maybe not even racist, but it's NIMBYs. We don't want them in our backyard, and so I'll come up with some, "Oh, yeah, I don't like economic migrants." Really? Because I think you just have a problem that someone that speaks a different language, doesn't want to be ... You know what I mean?

Peter McCormack 00:35:33:
Yeah

Jake Hanrahan 00:35:33:
But one thing, to go back to what you just said, which is why it's so important to go somewhere, to see the reality. You have seen this woman changing her child in the field, right?

Jake Hanrahan 00:35:44:
No matter what has happened, no matter what is going on, if you don't have empathy with that, you're a psycho, I think. You know what I mean? I do wonder how many of these people screaming online, if they saw, and I've seen it, if they saw how people are living, would they be so quick to knee jerk and be like, "Send them back." What it is is like you said, yeah, you agree with this, you agree with that, you agree with everything. The thing is not to find the right and the wrong here. The thing is to recognise this is a problem. This is a very bad problem for everyone. I agree with you. It's a problem for Greece. I'm not one of these people that believes in no borders. That would destroy what we have built up. You know what I mean? Not because of Muslims or any of that nonsense. Just because it's just not financially possible to do, well, because of our government, because they hide away so many houses and they pilfer so much money, but whatever. That's beside the point.

Peter McCormack 00:36:38:
Well, it comes down to economic and social scalability, as well. You can't just suddenly influx millions of people. There are problems, but I still have empathy for the people who are trying to enter Europe.

Jake Hanrahan 00:36:51:
Of course. Also, our family, you're a Irish descendant, as well, right?

Jake Hanrahan 00:36:55:
My granddad's an economic migrant. He moved here because everything in Ireland was just so, so bad, again, well, because of another force, because of the Brits, because of the war, because of the occupation of Ireland, because of what happened, the way Britain throttled Ireland. You know what I mean? I mean, look at the potato famine, for example. You see, obviously, it's different places doing it, as well, but getting throttled. Then, obviously, it got to a point where years and years and years later, the economy's still such a shit show that my granddad was like, "Right, if we want to live, if we want some kind of existence that's better than this, we need to move to the UK. We need to move to England. We might not like that we have to leave our homeland, but we do." That's an aspirational person. What's wrong with that? Why then, when it's from the Middle East, do they suddenly have a big problem with it? You know what I mean?

Peter McCormack 00:37:43:
A lot of people are going to be, their view will be, "Wow, these people are just coming in because they wanted access to our healthcare and access to our social safety net. They don't want to work." It's like, "Oh, come on."

Jake Hanrahan 00:37:55:
How the fuck do you know that, mate? Have you ever been to a corner shop? Have you ever seen a white guy running a corner shop? I haven't. Do you know what I mean?

Peter McCormack 00:38:02:
But the thing is also is that I'm sure there are people within this who are lazy.

Jake Hanrahan 00:38:08:
Of course.

Peter McCormack 00:38:08:
I'm sure there are, but you're going to have that percentage in all parts of society. Look in England how many lazy fuckers we have who refuse to do the jobs that the economic migrants are doing. With Brexit, we've had so many companies saying, "We're really going to struggle. We're recruiting people to pick strawberries, to do certain jobs," because we've got lazy fuckers in our country who won't do those jobs. Yet, we still have an unemployment rate. I think you're going to get that everywhere-

Jake Hanrahan 00:38:36:
This is so true.

Peter McCormack 00:38:37:
... but I think to class millions of people as either terrorists or lazy people who want to abuse our social safety net, I think, is intellectually dishonest, and I think they really need to go to these places because, if somebody is willing to get on a boat, if someone is willing to give their life savings to get on a boat from Turkey to Lesbos knowing that boat might sink and their children might drown, you've got to consider why they're making that ... because I'm not going to make that ... I'm not going to get on a boat to go to America. Why are they making that decision? What is it they are fleeing?

Jake Hanrahan 00:39:10:
Exactly.

Peter McCormack 00:39:11:
What is it they're trying to get to? What are they risking their life for? Because, if they're risking their life, they're obviously fleeing a desperate and difficult situation, something that these people don't understand or something that potentially the army they support and the government they support caused.

Jake Hanrahan 00:39:28:
Exactly. I have been to these places. I've been to the frontlines where most of these people are fleeing from. I've seen insane levels of violence, at war, up front, up close. I've seen it with my own eyes. I've been shot at. I've been to prison in Turkey and all this mad stuff. Mate, trust me, if I saw a murmur of that coming to my town, I'd have been gone with my family anywhere I could, straightaway. Can I blame them? No. The people are still coming now, it often makes me think, "Well, Jesus, they stuck it out for a long time." You know what I mean? Me? I'd be gone. I'd be leaving straightaway. I'd be taking my family. I'd be off. Can I blame other people for doing it? No. Certainly, there is lazy people that will come. You know what I mean? I'm sure there is, but I would argue that, probably, the people that are coming probably want to work.

Jake Hanrahan 00:40:16:
I'm from an area, which you would call ... You get working class, middle class. I'm from an area that you would call underclass. You know what I mean? A council state where people mostly don't have a job. It's not like they're working class because they don't work. You know what I mean? It's underclass. I know people from my area that don't want a job. Their whole lives, they wake up, they just fuck about, they have kids to get council house, and blah, blah, blah. That is real. A lot of lefties want to pretend that, no, they glorify and romanticise the working class as if we're all these lovely people just struggling. A lot of us are assholes, mate. Trust me. I've seen it in my own family even.

Jake Hanrahan 00:40:56:
That's true. It's everywhere, mate. I'm sure those people exist in the Middle East, as well, but it's a small part of society, and a lot of people from my area, from the underclass area, did want to work and couldn't get a job, but, again, you know what I mean? Look, nothing is black and white, is it? I don't even think they have to go to these places. I think just listen to people that have been because, obviously, not everyone can go and has the money to go and want to take the risk to go, but just listen to people that have been. Make up your mind, not based on what you're angry about. Just go like, "Okay, that's not what I thought."

Jake Hanrahan 00:41:29:
The worst thing is people that refuse to admit they're wrong. I've been wrong about so much stuff. I always say, "I'm an idiot. I'm stupid," because you don't know everything. You know what I mean? Just accept that you might not be right. There's no wrong in that, but some people can't. They have to be correct on their ideology.

Peter McCormack 00:41:45:
Well, I think one of the problems is that Twitter causes, it's killed nuance.

Jake Hanrahan 00:41:51:
Definitely.

Peter McCormack 00:41:51:
Well, it's 280 characters now, require binary outcomes and binary thinking, but it's killed nuance, and all these situations are highly complex. It doesn't matter whether you're looking at what's happening with migration in Europe. It doesn't matter if you're looking at what's happened with coronavirus. It doesn't matter if you're looking at abortion laws. It doesn't matter if you're looking what's happening in Venezuela. Every single situation is highly complex. I mean, Syria, Syria itself.

Peter McCormack 00:42:23:
When I was in Turkey, I took a trip up to the border. I just wanted to see it for my own eyes and self, a unique experience of realising there's no free press in Turkey, by the way, so it was really interesting to see.

Jake Hanrahan 00:42:36:
Oh, I know.

Peter McCormack 00:42:38:
Everywhere we went, we were told to put our camera away and fuck off, basically, because we didn't have a permit, which I thought was hilarious, but because I was heading up to the border, I downloaded everything I could about the Syrian conflict because I just wanted to understand it before I went, and the only conclusion I came to was, how the fuck are you even meant to understand this conflict? There are so many different factions and so many different countries involved and different groups, and, sometimes, they've been on one side, and, sometimes, they've been on another side, and, sometimes, they've been on both sides, and it's not just to do with Syria, but it's the geopolitics of Russia and America having a proxy war. You've got the issue of the Curds.

Peter McCormack 00:43:16:
It's so highly complex that it's impossible to have a binary nuanced view. It's impossible to do that. Yet, people want you to have that. They want you to have this view that ... I've got this guy who slides into my DMs all the time, and he's very much anti-imperialist, which means in a situation like Syria, he, by virtue of being anti-imperialist, kind of ends up defending Assad.

Jake Hanrahan 00:43:44:
Yeah, of course. Russia can never be imperialist. Anything Russia does, okay. If the West do it, imperialist.

Peter McCormack 00:43:52:
But you can be both, and I think I am both. I think you can be highly critical of Russia, and you can also be highly critical of the U.S. You can be critical of both. You don't have to sit there-

Jake Hanrahan 00:44:02:
Of course, of course.

Peter McCormack 00:44:02:
... and agree with both sides, but this takes me nicely to my last thing because this is the thing I really wanted to get to talk to you about was my experience in Venezuela, and this comes down to the lack of nuance and the outside forces who try to influence you pre-content creation and post-content creation, and I've certainly had people attack me directly in my DMs and on Twitter for my coverage of Venezuela, and it's from both sides. Either you are supporting a totalitarian dictator, who's essentially a murdering dictator-

Jake Hanrahan 00:44:41:
Maduro, yeah.

Peter McCormack 00:44:42:
... or you are supporting a US-backed coup.

Jake Hanrahan 00:44:45:
Guaido.

Peter McCormack 00:44:46:
You're one or the other. Yeah, Guaido. I think there's plenty of criticism that can be labeled at Guaido, and somebody just watched my second video yesterday, and he said, "I don't think you were objective enough. From what I could see from your footage is that you went to the Guaido National Assembly. There weren't many people there, and then you stumbled upon a pro-Maduro rally with tens of thousand of people, and it seems like lots of people support Maduro," and he said, "Yet, you seem to support Guaido, which means you weren't being objective," and the point I tried to make to him was that it's very important to tell the truth, but you can have an opinion, and in being objective, sometimes, in being entirely objective, sometimes, you will support something which is very obviously wrong.

Peter McCormack 00:45:31:
I'm not going to be objective to the point of giving Maduro a completely level playing field to defend who he is. No, I don't need to. I'm intelligent and smart enough to know this is an authoritarian state. There is no free press. Journalists have been deported, attacked, murdered, but I will try and look at the nuance of why he might still have support. I will look at the nuance of why the Chavistas still exist and still have influence over the country. I will look and go, "Whatever you think about Maduro or whatever you think of Hugo Chavez, there are a lot of poor people in Venezuela, and Hugo Chavez, whilst his ideas were populist, he did focus attention on lifting them out of poverty."

Jake Hanrahan 00:46:17:
Absolutely.

Peter McCormack 00:46:18:
You've got to look at that. You've got to understand why that exists, and I can do that and come out the other end and say, "Maduro's a dictator, and I think it's important to have democratic change, and I think Guaido can bring thing, but I think it needs to be done in a way which is democratic, and I can do that without being supporting a U.S. coup." This is the nuance I'm trying to get into. Yet, whenever you go one way or another, like I say, they're like, "You're supporting a U.S. coup," or, "You're supporting a dictator." How do you ever make progress with that?

Jake Hanrahan 00:46:50:
Well, what about the people? What about the people? You know what I mean? How about you think about that? People are starving to death in the streets. Look, I think Guaido is bad news, but I think Maduro is worse news. Put it that way. You know what I mean?

Peter McCormack 00:47:03:
Agree.

Jake Hanrahan 00:47:04:
But, I mean, fuck Guaido, fuck Maduro. I don't care. I just don't want people to be living under an iron fist. Now, if, at the time, the best thing to do is either stay ... What is it? Is it better to stay starving under Maduro and his authoritarianism, or is it better to just try anything else to try and get out of it? Now, I don't think that Guaido will be the authoritarian guy that Maduro is. In my head, if I was in Venezuela, I've covered it a lot, I know what's going on there, I would be like, "Well, fuck it. I don't like this guy, but I need to get out of here." You know what I mean? We need to get out of this situation. I didn't like Corbyn at all. I really don't like him, but I thought, "Well, the worst ..." Boris, for me, this is just my personal opinion, was like, "Well, fuck it. I'd rather that guy for a bit than this guy forever." You know what I mean? Whatever.

Jake Hanrahan 00:47:58:
Again, coming back to the ironic thing of people that will call you a statist will then choose one side or the other in terms of conflicts. "You're a statist, but, also, I'm completely on the side of this state here," or, "I'm completely on the side of that state." What? What you on about? How about you support the people? How about that? How about you worry about what normal people are going through?

Jake Hanrahan 00:48:17:
For me, I'm always concerned about poor people in any country because the way that they're treated is, for me, a good sign of how a country is progressing and what they stand for. You know what I mean? If you treat your poorest people in society well, I think that's a good thing. These are the people that need our help, and I don't care about all this scummy lack of empathy. "Well, get a job." American psycho vibes. For me, people like that are disgusting. I think you have to help people in need. Not everybody has had the same opportunities. Not everybody has the get up and go to just get a job.

Jake Hanrahan 00:48:52:
When I lived drug addicts a lot in my old area, I would see heroin addicts, and I'd get really pissed off with them because, when you're living around them all the time, they nicked two of my bikes, you want to kill them. You're like, "Motherfuckers." I've moved out of that area now, and, now, I'm starting to, again, go back to looking at, look, they piss me off, but I know if you look at statistics, so many heroin addicts have been raped as children. Terrible things have happened to them. People don't just suddenly go, "You know what? I'll get on heroin." You know what I mean? A lot leads up to people being in bad positions. To then just spit on them and be like, "Well, get a job," is just sickening to me, which is what I think a lot of these people that choose a side are actually doing, whether they realise it or not. You know what I mean? They're disregarding a whole society of people by just going, "Well, on the Internet, I'm on this side. On the Internet, I'm on that side." So what?

Jake Hanrahan 00:49:44:
It's like when I speak to the Hong Kongers, and I was like, "Oh, I love that these hardcore communists are saying that you guys are fascists. What do you think?" They just laughed. They're like, "No." They're like, "Yeah, but they're calling you neoliberal this." They're like, "So what, man? We're fighting for our freedom. What? We don't ... Whatever." I was like, "Yeah, that's the right response. Why do I care? Why do you care what some people are angry about online when you're literally talking about life and death situations?"

Jake Hanrahan 00:50:06:
When it comes to Syria, I think I'm going to completely contradict everything I've said now. You're actually right in that it's so complicated. Sometimes, being on the ground actually doesn't help or it doesn't give you ... If you're an idiot, put it this way. If you were a fair person and you go on the ground, you're going to get a fair response. If you're an idiot and you go on the ground, you will get a worse response than if you weren't there.

Jake Hanrahan 00:50:26:
Now, let's talk about this piece of shit scumbag, Max Blumenthal. Now, this guy is a-

Peter McCormack 00:50:31:
Yeah, fuck that guy.

Jake Hanrahan 00:50:31:
... rich propagandist. He recently, only this year I think it was ... Well, the end of last year, what, nine years or whatever it is into the Syrian Civil War. He just went to Damascus, which is the government area that Assad completely runs, and he spent a week there on a press trip, and he's like, "Wow, there's nightclubs in Damascus. Assad's great." What about the people that I have met personally who had their knees drilled out in prison for going against the government? What about the children that were shot dead in Daraa for spraying up graffiti and disappeared into prisons? There's a reason people rose up, and it wasn't because they all love jihad. I was in prison with free Syrian Army people in Turkey who'd fled the war because they said, "It's over. He has released all the jihadists, and the jihadists have taken over."

Jake Hanrahan 00:51:18:
Now, I don't believe there is a such thing as rebels left in Syria anymore. People in Idlib, by and large, are militant jihadists. However, they are not the same people that rose up to fight the government in the first place. Again, nuance. You know what I mean? There's many layers to this. To just go, "Well, Assad is killing jihadists," well, yeah, he released them all for start to flood the rebel rebellion with jihadists and have a reason to attack them brutally. Secondly, he's killed way more civilians than he's killed jihadists. Do you know what I mean? It just really-

Peter McCormack 00:51:50:
Bombed hospitals and bombed schools.

Jake Hanrahan 00:51:53:
Bombed hospitals, killed kids, gassed kids. It's just crazy, man. To then go, "Well, yeah, he's secular." The idea that they're secular is ridiculous, or they protect the Christians. They also killed loads of Christians. They murder the Christians in the Kurdish areas. The Christians are on the side that are fighting with the Kurds also hate Assad because they spent years not even being allowed to speak their own language in their own houses because of Assad. You know what I mean? How do you claim to be a guy that loves freedom and completely ignore that one of the most brutal totalitarian legacies ever ... The Assad regime is absolutely disgusting. Hafez al-Assad, his dad, what he did is just unbelievable, and they're like, "Well, they had a economic prosperity." Oh, that's okay then. Is that okay then? You can just murder and kill people?

Peter McCormack 00:52:43:
At what cost?

Jake Hanrahan 00:52:43:
At what cost? You know what I'm saying? For me, I think freedom is ... I know I'm not nuanced in this opinion. I'll be honest. Again, recognise your own faults, but, sometimes, I think the idea of being free is almost worth everything else. You know what I mean? I don't feel that, is it worth putting up with good economy just because, for you, it's okay? I don't think so. I think if people aren't free, everything must go, which is a bad opinion probably, and I'm not thinking of the people, but put it this way, I understand why people go, "Fuck it. Let's go." You know what I mean? Oh, but you've got good shops and you've got nightclubs. Doesn't mean anything if you can't voice your opinion freely, I think.

Peter McCormack 00:53:24:
The Assad thing is one area that really gets me. It's a hard line I have. If anybody at any point comes with any defense of Assad, at any point, any defense of Assad, whatever their opinion is, whether it's, "Well, we're trying to fight against U.S. imperialism." I don't give a fuck. It's a hard line. Any defense of Assad is not something I will ever accept. I really struggle with that, but then it comes back to this point of nuance, Jake. We're really lacking nuance these days. People have gotten to such short soundbites of information, and have become so radicalised themselves, ironically, radicalised in their own left or right ideology that they've lost nuance themselves.

Peter McCormack 00:54:13:
It's almost like their political ideology is linked to their own identity, and, therefore, any criticism of one of their leaders or their political suasion is an attack on their identity, so they have to defend it, which comes back to this Trump Derangement or Trump Defensive Syndrome whereby you're one or the other. If Trump says, "Oh, grab a woman by the pussy," if you're a Republican, it's like, "Well, it's just locker room chat," whereas, if you're left, it's like, "Well, he's a sexist." It doesn't matter what the point is. It doesn't matter what he's done. You're either going to defend him or attack him. Therefore, there is no nuance. There's no objectivity. Then, all we have is division and hate.

Peter McCormack 00:54:55:
I think it turns me off politics. I didn't actually vote in the last election, Jake I couldn't vote, and I feel guilty about it, and I've never not been able to before

Jake Hanrahan 00:55:05:
Well, you shouldn't. It's your right. It's your right. I hate that. You have to vote. No, it's our right. "People died so you could vote". No, they died so we had the freedom to vote.

Peter McCormack 00:55:13:
Well, but the difficulty I have, Jake, is that when you said you're a left libertarian, I would have thought of something ... I'm a right libertarian with left sympathies. I want a less state. I definitely want a smaller state. I want less intrusion by the state. I want more freedom. I want a free press. I want freedom of speech, but, at the same time, I want free markets. I think capitalism can help, but I don't want for unrestricted capitalism, which can lead to monopolies and abuse of power, and I also want a social safety net, and there's no political party that represents that way of thinking for me right now, so I couldn't vote because I thought Corbyn was way too socialist, and I couldn't vote for Boris because of the austerity measures, which were clearly, clearly abusive towards the poorest of society when they didn't need to be.

Jake Hanrahan 00:56:08:
My town has been destroyed, mate, honestly, since the Tory government. I witnessed with my eye. Like I said, I don't care about any politician. Fuck them. They're all bad as far as I'm concerned. Some are better than others, but whatever, but my area has been destroyed under Tory austerity, man, and it's okay for me, and I'm a media guy, and I am okay money, but I still live here, and I go around my friends all the time. I'm at the boxing gym, and I'm talking to my pals who have got two jobs and still have to go to food banks. What the fuck? All these kids, the crime rate has gone up like crazy in my town. Honestly, a lot of them are bored, mate. All the youth clubs are shut down. You know what I mean? All the money has been diverted to London, so there's nothing outside there, and it's just awful. Other people have been kicked out of their houses. Remember Bedroom Tax? All of that madness. It's just a mess, mate.

Jake Hanrahan 00:57:00:
For me, it's not Tory austerity. It's just another political problem. You know what I mean? I think we have to remove ourself from this idea of ... Well, it is Tory austerity, but you know what I mean? Remove yourself from this idea of taking a side. They'll make it better. They'll make it better. For me, it's just what's right and wrong, isn't it? Have some integrity. You don't have to go, "Well, I'm a left libertarian." This is why I normally don't ever speak about my political views in terms of an ism because it's like, "Well, what do I believe in?" I believe in this and that and that, but then to say, "Well, I'm in this ism," you're basically saying, "Well, I agree with all of that." Well, no, there's loads of things that I don't agree with. You know what I mean?

Jake Hanrahan 00:57:37:
It's basically, I think, the idea is just have your own moral compass, isn't it? If you're being a reporter, just always stick to that. What do you think is right and wrong? This idea of complete objectivity is madness. If you're completely objective when seeing a woman lying in the dirt, changing her baby, like you said you saw, you would be a psychopath. Do you know what I mean? To not feel some empathy and think, "This is not right," you'd have to be a psycho. Do you know what I mean? You are cold-hearted if you feel like that.

Jake Hanrahan 00:58:06:
This is where I'm a bit of a pariah in my own kind of media bubble because I will say, "No, that's wrong," or, "This is wrong," and people are, "Oh, my God, you've got bad journalistic ethics," and I say, "No, no, no, I don't have bad journalist ethics. You have bad human ethics," which I really think that. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I'm right, and there's nothing wrong with saying, "I'm right. I think this. This is what I stand for." Just to be a journalist doesn't mean you then go, "Okay, well, let's throw that out the window." You know what I mean? That's crazy. It's ridiculous. You're a human being. At the end of the day, it's a job, and it's something you do to relay what's going on in the world. You're not chosen by God. Journalism is not some kind of ethereal thing. It is a job, and it has a tact to it, but don't take the human out of that job. You know what I'm saying? That's what I think.

Peter McCormack 00:58:52:
Well, I think the thing I'm coming to is that when I'm going to visit these places, I think the most important thing ... Well, there's two important things to do. One is tell the truth. Got to tell the truth. That sounds easy, but it's very easy, actually, to be swayed by what your opinion of a situation is, which would stop you telling the complete truth of everything happens.

Peter McCormack 00:59:15:
For example, when I went to Venezuela, it would be very easy because I think Guaido is a better situation than Maduro. I do. Whatever bullshit he brings with him, I prefer that. It'd be very easy for me just to ignore the pro-Maduro rally or just say, "All these pro-Maduro supporters are there because they have to be, because they're forced by the government, because they rely on them for jobs and education, but that's dishonest. You have to say, "Look, there are a group of people here who support Maduro. Let's try and find out why."

Peter McCormack 00:59:43:
It's really important to tell the truth, and the other thing I think where I find the gravity taking me is towards, in all these situations, where's the human suffering? What's the bit we're missing here? Because if we don't talk about the human suffering and if we focus on what is the right and wrong answer, then missing that nuance misses the importance of solving these problems.

Peter McCormack 01:00:06:
Migration problem in Europe, we have people who have maybe one meal a day, who are living in a field, who have no access to sanitary products. Some are living in essentially prison camps, which are called refugee camps, but they're essentially prison camps, and they're living a sub-human existence in their one life. If we just focus entirely on who is right, what is the right answer, we miss the human suffering and we miss solving these problems for people, and I think that's where the ... I don't know if that makes sense, but that's where I feel I'm being dragged towards.

Jake Hanrahan 01:00:42:
Also, I would remember or I think when I'm doing stuff like this, I think it sounds callous, but it's not up to me to solve the problem. I'm there to report it and show what's happening.

Peter McCormack 01:00:52:
Agreed.

Jake Hanrahan 01:00:52:
I don't know who can solve it, but if I can show it as honestly as possible, then maybe someone that can solve the problem can find it and solve it, but I think what you're doing, I think you got balls, man, because your audience are very quick to want you to express a certain thing. Mine, they don't really care. They're like, "What's happening?" They believe that I'll tell the truth, whether it's popular or not, I think, anyway, I hope, and there's loads of people who hate me, like, "He's a liar. He loves the Kurds, blah, blah." I don't care. You just have to roll with it. Whatever. Cool. Call me what you want. I think what you're doing is good, man. You got some balls to be like, "Well, you guys are wrong because I was there and this is it."

Jake Hanrahan 01:01:29:
Now, most of your audience are going to want you to say a certain thing, and you'll make more money ... We spoke about this. Max Blumenthal, I mean, he's rich anyway. His dad's a multimillionaire, but he started making his money when he picked a side. He used to be anti-Assad. He went on a little holiday to Moscow, and then, all the sudden, he came back as pro-Assad. Same with Ben Norton. Ben Norton used to be anti-Assad. The story is, which is, by all accounts, true, that a female that he was interested in spurned him, and she was a rebel supporter, and all of a sudden, he became an Assad supporter. You know what I mean? The irony is these people call themselves leftists, and they're supporting a totalitarian regime. The Assad regime quite literally harbored members of the Nazi party. They led some of their intelligence operations in the Middle East in their military.

Jake Hanrahan 01:02:14:
The thing is it takes balls to go, "Well, no, I'm not just going to stick with what people want me or expect me to say." You have to go there, and if you see, "Wow, that's not what I thought. People ain't going to like this," so what? You're there. That's your job. In the '90s, journalism was very much about rubbing up people the wrong way. Now, journalism is very much about petting to an audience and getting cliques. I like our job. Our job should be to disrupt and piss people off and rub them up the wrong way a little bit with the truth, obviously, but you've got to hassle some people. To be honest, anyone that's in power needs to be hassled I think. You know what I mean? Just to keep them in check.

Peter McCormack 01:02:49:
Well, you are right, and this migration from a bitcoin world to a more, well, looking at the humanitarian crisis in the world under the banner of Defiance, so people expect because of their bitcoin anarcho-capitalist views that I would have to naturally support everything which is anti-government, but, even today, when I was posting about I actually think we need the government right now to put in some kind of strict controls on people just to save lives and keep the food in front of people, I think that somebody came out and said, "You've got a podcast called Defiance. Yet, you're supporting fascism," and it's just like, "Come on, man, please."

Jake Hanrahan 01:03:28:
How about this? How about you defying people dying? You're defying coronavirus. How about that? Fuck off.

Peter McCormack 01:03:35:
Tough times, man. Well, listen, Jake, it's always good to talk to you. What's going on with you right now? What are you working on? What's sparking your interest?

Jake Hanrahan 01:03:45:
Oh, boy so all our Popular Front projects I thought we were going to do. I got the URL PopularFront.tv this year, and it was going to be the year where-

Peter McCormack 01:03:48:
Nice.

Jake Hanrahan 01:03:48:
... we really launched a lot of ... We've done, what, six, seven documentaries. I'm really proud of them, but this year was going to be the year where we go, "Right. We're doing a Popular Front series. We're going to do loads of these docs. We're going to have actual structured. Rather than just let's go and report on this, we'll have here's a series, and within this, this is this, this is this," but, obviously, everything ... I lost a lot of money, which is not good. Everything is falling apart. Coronavirus has fucked us all. Trust me. Everyone's getting hammered.

Jake Hanrahan 01:04:16:
What I'm going to do is I'm just starting ... I'm not starting, but just doing more of the podcasts. A lot of people want entertainment. They want to hear what's going on in the world, so more Popular Front from the podcast. Unfortunately, we can't do more docs. Probably, I'm going to start something else outside of war and conflict just while everyone's in this period of lockdown. I'm thinking I might just start an interesting podcast where I go, "Let's just talk to interesting people. Here's some entertainment while we're all in lockdown," but other than that, I'm building a gym in my garden and getting ready.

Peter McCormack 01:04:46:
All right, man. Well, listen, look, it's always good to talk to you. I love what you're doing.

Jake Hanrahan 01:04:49:
Thanks, mate. You, too.

Peter McCormack 01:04:50:
I really appreciate. Some of your shows are really timely. The one you did about Soleimani at the time where a lot of people were up in arms, saying about, "This was an assassination," which it was. It was very interesting to hear the background to Soleimani. I didn't know about him. Those timely shows you do are really useful, as well.

Jake Hanrahan 01:05:08:
He was an absolute scumbag. It, again, comes down to this thing. It was bad that the U.S. killed him the way they did, but I don't think it's bad that he's now dead. You know what I mean?

Peter McCormack 01:05:17:
Yeah.

Jake Hanrahan 01:05:17:
Sorry. I just don't.

Peter McCormack 01:05:17:
Those shows you do-

Jake Hanrahan 01:05:18:
Again, as a journalist, your not meant to say things like that, but fuck it.

Peter McCormack 01:05:24:
Well, yeah, but you can do that, but those shows you do, I push people towards Popular Front. I think you're doing an amazing job, and I'd say keep it up, and let's see where we are in this post-coronavirus world, but good luck and keep doing what you're doing. Just tell people where to find your work, where they can find out what you're doing, mate.

Jake Hanrahan 01:05:42:
Yeah, man, just go to the website, PopularFront.co. That's the landing page, or if you follow me on Twitter, @Jake_Hanrahan, H-A-N-R-A-H-A-N, you'll get everything via that.

Peter McCormack 01:05:57:
All right, man. Well, look, keep up the good work, and, I guess, catch up soon.

Jake Hanrahan 01:06:01:
Cheers, mate. Good luck. See you in a bit, man.