Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 6/29/23 Tommy Salmons on ESG and RFK Jr.

Episode Date: July 2, 2023

Scott talks with Tommy Salmons about the threat that the push for so-called Environmental, Social Governance (ESG) poses to our liberties. Salmons has dug deep into what ESG really is and who is behind it. He goes through what he’s found. He and Scott then zoom out and look at how this all fits into the broader political moment we found ourselves in. That leads to a discussion of Robert Kennedy Jr.’s run for President.  Discussed on the show: “‘ESG,’ the Threat to Liberty You Haven’t Heard Of” (Libertarian Institute) “Who Cares Wins” (UN) Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins Suicide of the West by James Burnham RFK Jr.: The Reason Interview Tommy Salmons is a Fellow at the Libertarian Institute and the host of Year Zero. Follow him on Twitter @TDSalmons This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton.4 you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show all right you guys online i've got tommy salmons he's our something or other fellow at the institute and host a great podcast that we feature there how are you doing man i'm good and i'm just a fellow

I'm not a something or another fellow I'm just a fellow You can be a fellow We need a name for that though What kind of fellow are you The redneck fellow The redneck fellow? I think that probably counts For most of us

All right Year Zero is the name of the show And that's not named after Pol Pot And his experiment in communism in Cambodia That comes from Some kind of tech exploit thing or something like that Yeah it was a it was it was during vault seven i was looking up through looking through the vault seven documents and one of

the cia programs was called year zero and it was the program in which they could like um hack into cars and control them you know virtually like and and stuff like that and i was like that's wild so i i i just like yeah year zero that sounds good because it's kind of revolutionary and also it it has this kind of like cia influence to it which is something i read up on a lot So I was like, I like it. Yeah, I like that too. And then, of course, it does raise the question about Pol Pot and just kind of utopianism and all that, right? I guess as you're saying, that revolutionary kind of thing.

Well, I think that even through a libertarian mindset, a lot of that mindset is like becoming a personal revolutionary, right? Like reshaping your own thinking and your own individual responsibility and taking charge of your own life. So I kind of look at that as kind of revolutionary, especially in today's modern world where everybody wants to be a collectivist. So, yeah. Yeah, that's true, right. So less torturing and murdering people by the millions and more just people get their act together. Yeah, get some chickens.

And look, you know what, too, like on a personal level, it's easy to get stuck in a rut. But then it's also easy to say, no, actually tomorrow's a brand new day. change everything if I want to. You can move to New Hampshire or something, you know? Yeah. Hey, so, yeah, speaking of the whole collectivism thing here,

I'm interested in your focus here on this corporate communism ESG. And I think we've discussed this before. It's long been my opinion that progressivism is a right-wing plot, basically,

right, going back to Murray Rothbard and Gabriel Coco and all that. to stave off the commies, the corporatists bought off the progressives and the labor unions and the sort of softer left, which is good because we didn't all starve to death under a communist agriculture policy in that sense. But it also means that kind of the simple dynamic understanding that people have that all the corporate chieftains are all these old, rich, white, right-wingers is really not right. It is, after all, the liberal eastern establishment, and that's part of the problem now that the liberals cry about is that they're so elitist. They're the well-educated, well-cultured city, seaboard folk that regular people hate their guts. And they clearly hate us.

And so they're, you know, they have some ties to the unions and the workers in that sense, lower class or working classes in like through their factory jobs and their unions. but other than that are very much you know if you didn't go to Harvard or Yale with them then your dirt is clearly the way that they see the world you know but so I mean I guess my first question is like is basically all this ESG stuff and all the social justice stuff being adopted by the center left

this is all just essentially like their kind of apology or excuse making to the actual leftists for being such right-wing corporate imperialist sellout types basically this is the bone that they're throwing to the left is that we'll give you all your racialist kind of uh cultural communism kind of thing in exchange for letting us continue to be the corporate overlords kind of deal there there isn't a certain aspect of virtue signaling that's involved with it like for sure and And so when you hear leftists talk about ESG is nothing but virtue signaling, I mean, there is that dynamic that's incorporated in it. But what it actually is, is it's regulatory capture in modern terms, right?

And that's what they're doing. They're using modern social sensibilities to capture corporations and the dollar. And what is essentially happened, I kind of got a little outline here that starts in 2004, so I'll just run through it real quick. And then after that, I'll let you comment if you don't mind. In 2004, the UN employed several financial institutions to write up a blueprint of sustainable development in a white paper called Who Cares Wins, connecting financial markets to a changing world. in 2009 and i'm sorry on that one real quick who was it that you say wrote that up it was a financial institutions it was written up by um the the um like merrill lynch and all these financial institutions are consultants working for these big institutions right and the

union hired them to write it they gave them the subject they like we want you to write this so this was all kind of like the the the brainchild of the UN and kind of like where they're kind of moving. And we are always like a lot of times like with you and I when we're focused on geopolitics, we're looking at American hegemony, right? Well, what I've come to find out by by reading through these ESG papers and all these white papers, it's not so much American hegemony. It's Western international corporate hegemony that's being institutionalized throughout the world. And we can we can draw back to Perkins. but John Perkins book on this, right? Confessions of an economic hitman where he talks about how the CIA was basically utilizing corporate interests in order to funnel resources and money from, from third world countries into the United States to enrich the United States and keep these countries under the thumb of the United States. Well, what I've found is it goes beyond the United States. It's more of this, it's more of this kind of NGO,

international corporation financial institution kind of conglomerate that is working in in cohesion with the governments that are then pulling all these resources to themselves to create kind of what people would want to suspect as the the one world government or the new world order you would hear like for shorthand but what it is actually it's this hegemonic world entity that is trying to usher resources to the elites at the top of the financial and corporate institutions at the expense of all the productive class. So, okay, so how does that work exactly? In other words, you're saying that, is it right, that, you know, whichever companies are outside, basically this is an excuse to punish whichever companies are outside the regime that they get cut off

from resources that get funneled just to the higher, the biggest pre-existing multinational corporations and such? Not just companies, but individuals, right? Okay, so, like, we would have to talk about what is the definition of an investor, right? Well, an investor is somebody who's investing capital into a fund in order to get a return, right? So that fund, that company has a fiduciary responsibility. Well, ESG undercuts that fiduciary responsibility. So you talk about like Merrill Lynch, right?

And they have a, they have a subsidiary company called Merrill Edge that handles 401Ks. On the dashboard of all their 401K holders since 2018, there has been ESG metrics on this dashboard. So basically the 401K holders, basically your blue-collar guys, they're out there working, they've signed up for a 401K, they're investing money, hoping for a retirement plan. And all this money is getting dumped into corporations that are acting against them in the name of this corporate hegemony around the world. So what they would do is they would take your money. The managers are picking the investments based on who's checking the right PC boxes rather than on what's a good investment. Exactly. Exactly. Which means, as you're saying, the investors themselves are being cheated.

They're essentially their money is being put into companies that aren't necessarily return. earning the best profits and then people managing their money know it but that's the rules yeah i looked at my uh my my company automatically sign me up for 401k i don't invest my own money but they invest for me based upon percentages of what i earn per quarter i looked it up all my money is going into black rock well black rock is is the number one sponsor of esg and they control $20 trillion of capital. If you look at like between Black Rock, Vanguard, the NGOs like Save the Children,

the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, USAID, the UN, $66 trillion is backing the ESG like structure. And what it is there for, it is there to ensure that the financial institutions are only loaning to the. corporate entities, those global corporations that are in the know and already connected. And so that money is just funneling through from the financial institutions, you know, like the Federal Reserve's printing money, giving the money to financial institutions.

These financial institutions are handing the money off the global corporations. These global corporations are then paying off politicians, right? So they're undercutting the blue collar workers, the mom and pop shops, you know, all these entrepreneurs and ESG just gives them another tool to undercut all of us. And as you're saying too, it's funny because I definitely see what you're saying there. We're first and foremost, it's a racket, right? Like carbon offsets or any of these kinds of things, right, where the corporation is going to exploit whatever the activism is.

And then second, it's a big PR stunt, pink washing, they call it, right? When the Israelis do a big gay pride parade and they say, look how literally. liberal we are. Never mind what's going on on the other side of the apartheid right. Same thing here with the Lockheed with their big pink sign at the Lockheed equal justice Pride Month protest that liberals can't hate us.

You know, Raytheon, it's amazing. You'd think it was satire the way they go, oh, we're the most progressive. We, you know, at Raytheon, we have the most trans missile engineers out of anybody, you know, this kind of thing. And then but so and then I'm sorry I spaced out because what was the third thing was beyond it being a racket and and oh I know and so first of all it's a racket and and you know is for excluding competition all this like you're saying secondly it's like the it's like the railroads forcing all this woke culture on all these regular companies millions of companies out in the country who maybe they don't want to have to go woke but you're saying this is their only access to to big.

capital is if they check these boxes right so is there like a minimum on that like with OSHA where you have to have a certain number of employees before you like really have to give into this in order to get a loan to operate and this kind of thing I got a good example for this right okay Exxon mobile has a better ESG score than Tesla uh-huh and I mean that that gives you like kind of the idea like I read you loud and clear Thomas sounds right there, you know, and which Tesla is on welfare, but so's Exxon and, you know,

trade off your lithium and your oil for environmental damage there, you know, it is a trade-off, but, you know, Exxon is obviously, well, I don't know, obviously, and I guess I don't know for a fact that this is still true, but I believe they are still

the biggest corporation on the planet. Maybe they're second to Apple now. One of the biggest, yeah, for sure. Legendarily, you know, a standard oil of New Jersey. I mean, these guys are the rulers of the world since the big war. So, yeah. And as far as all of the preening about hydrocarbons and the atmosphere and everything, you'd think they'd be number one on the list of bad guys.

But, you know, they're the ones, you know, parading around behind all of this PR here. Yeah, they're not, they don't have enough rainbow colors on their flag. Yeah, well, they're working on it, I guess. So now, tell us about Klaus Schwab and, you know, there's always been the World Economic Forum has been going on since like the 1990s. It's sort of like the Bilderberg meeting, but on C-SPAN, right? They'll give speeches and it's sort of the Western elites building consensus. So what is it about this guy other than his weird clothes and head that makes him so threatening? he looks he looks like a bond villain man he's like straight out of a movie it's a weird thing man it really is

and you know we all grow up on movies where all the bad guys have german and russian accents well he's one of them what can i say i think that i think okay so i've read klaus schwab's books like quite a few of them and his writing sucks and he's writing strictly for for corporate elites and it's terrible and it's so such a drag to dig into these books his thing is that he's looking for he's he's kind of he's looking for a global consensus right but i don't i don't think i think he's more of a spokesperson like he's just more of the face and as he gets older or kind of like george surros as george sorrows gets older their their influence is kind of waning and you're starting to see a lot more of Klaus Schwab's right-hand man. You've all know a Harari. And one of the things he said

is that with AI and technology moving forward, we're going to have to distract the population through pleasure and drugs. It's a very eugenic style of mindset. And that's really what freaks people out is they're so open about the kind of the eugenic side of their thought. But it's not just the world economic form. I mean, obviously you know it about Bilderberg, right? But, I mean, are you familiar with the world government summit that started meeting like two years ago in Dubai? Right? And this is made up of like, like, um, heads of state NGOs, corporations, financial institutions. And they say that their goal is to control 250 countries. And it's like, okay, like how can we, how can we paint this any other way? Then it's kind of like your average

individual person that's that's acting in like in some kind of rational manner for their own lives to move their life forward and these people with these bigger broader views trying to push down like this kind of 15 minute city dystopian kind of nonsense on us and put us out of work because we're useless eaters right i mean i've read several of clauswob's books one of the the common themes through every one of his books he he he refers to common citizens as little better than than pets that have been, you know, a house broken. And it's like, okay, like, that's kind of weird.

Like, we're still people, you know? Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, as far as the New World Order and all of that, I mean, to me, all it ever meant was, well, not all it ever meant to me, but what it does mean to me now is it's just the American Empire. And if you listen to right-wingers, they say, you know, this is all a plot against the United States where, you know, what, Russia and China are going to occupy us someday, and we're all going to be world communism or something like it's the old John Birch days conspiracy when the Soviet Union still stood. But, you know, what it really is is it's just like we have with the Ukrainian military, it's interoperability, right? Whereas like this is trying to standardize essentially the American system.

And then, yes, that is, like, in cooperation with Western Europe and with Japan, as long as they're cooperative with our goals, to be the global hedgements with, you know, Europe sort of as the junior partner, since America has the guns and more money, you know, usually we got more money. Sometimes the EU is sort of neck and neck with us, but usually we're doing a bit better than them. I don't know if I would, you still got Russia and China and India, though, who were just massive populations. and massive, you know, pieces of earth that are just not given into this. I mean, you're only ever going to get so much sock puppetry out of Beijing or New Delhi or Moscow. You know what I mean? We're never going to have another Boris Yelts in there. If we did, we'd be dead before we had a chance to enjoy it because it would backfire that quickly, you know?

So I think real world government is a hoax without Eurasia, you know what I mean? and we tried taming Afghanistan and that didn't work and so but like you know ultimately it's the same old griff though right is just you know all these bankers and all these corporations you know sucking off of taxpayers right cozying up these i don't know you tell me if you know who coined this because i want to give credit to it i know i didn't make it up but whoever said that the NGO should be called next to government organizations instead of non-governmental organizations they're like that's what they all are right They're all just rent seekers figuring out what, you know, how they get paid for not working. I don't know. Like, tell me what you think about this because I've kind of like changed a little bit of my perspective on this American hegemony just through reading all this stuff. I kind of find it to be more of like an international banker hegemony, right? And that it just so happens to be that at this moment in time, the American dollar happens to be the world standard dollar. the currency around the world

and so they follow the they kind of like let the American government lead the way but I really think it has more to do with financial institutions and in absorbing resources than it does have to do with governance well folks sad to say they lied us into war

all of them World War I World War II Korea Vietnam Iraq War I Serbia Afghanistan Iraq War II Libya Libya Syria Syria Yemen, all of them. But now you can get the e-book All the War Lies by me for free. Just sign up the email list at the bottom

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I mean, they are essentially a satellite, you know, client state in the American Empire and a very kind of direct. way there. You know, and I guess that maybe is my bias. I look at it first and foremost, like through those military type terms. It's the same situation with Japan and South Korea. You know, we occupy your country not like, you know,

a brutal occupation like the Israelis in the West Bank or something like that, but we have our bases there. Well, ask the Okinawa and see what they think. I don't mean to speak for them, but essentially we're there at the invitation of these governments, and we have an

agreement where we'll decide your foreign policy for you, but you can trust us that we'll keep other people from starting fights with you, you know, for long periods of time in a row at least, and this kind of thing is a compromise they're willing to make. But then as far as like, you know, you know, you saw, I'm sure you've seen pictures of Prince Bandar bin Salton's ranch in Aspen, Colorado. Well, we don't have ranches in Aspen, Colorado, right? But Prince Bandar bin Salton does, right? So in this sense, and he's the guy who did 9-11 more than, you know,

as much as Osama did anyway, you know, if you want your conspiracy, that's where you go is Saudi intelligence and the Saudi ambassador. Not a this missile hit the Pentagon crap, but who put the pilots on the plane that hit the Pentagon? That was always the question. But anyway,

these guys, you know, the various dukes and duchesses of Europe, all of the you know, the biggest multinational corporate, you know, shareholders, the bankers and, of course, just, you know, as you said, institutional investors, the handful of people in the world who literally hold tens or hundreds of billions of dollars worth of investments, you know, or run the firms that hold trillions as you talked about Black Rock and this kind of thing. When you're that

wealthy, of course, you have, you know, it is, it's a class thing where you have, you have, far more in common with other billionaires and, you know, highest-level bureaucrats in, you know, never mind Europe, but including in Japan and South Korea and everywhere else, too, that, you know, everybody speaks some English or some French or whatever, and they all go to these very fancy cocktail parties at these chateaus and whatever kind of deals where the rest of us just had no sway whatsoever. We couldn't wait tables in a place like that. And so they all have those places, you know, very much in common with each other. Those experiences very much in common with each other.

Those friendships and everything. And they've never heard of us. You know, I read a thing one time about, I don't know who said it, but I thought it was an insightful thing. We're like, if you took the population in Washington, D.C., most of them have never even heard of Branson, Missouri. where Branson, Missouri is like a huge thing for people in the South. This is like, or at least for a long time, I don't know exactly what the status is now,

but this is sort of like the entertainment capital of the South. Man, it ain't quite Las Vegas, but it's a special place where people go with their families and see a show and, you know, have a vacation spot, this kind of thing. It's somewhat of a big deal in parts of the South, where people in D.C. have never even heard the name of the South. the town before right it's an entirely separate culture from the one where you know but they can be in london in four hours you know in time for lunch and um so part of that is just you know you know there's no escaping it that that's just the way of the world right that that's who knows each other is

rich and powerful people and and then you know in that sense and this has been the problem of the state and capitalism all along like you got to hand it to the leftist at the they have a lot of good points about the fact that, you know, capitalism really means a system of state power. And when you have, you know, men and corporations that hold these billions of dollars, well, then they hold government at their will. And then the government, you know, it's just like, I learned this as like textbook definition of the economic system in Nazi Germany, like on an elementary school level or junior high school level was the government controls big business. because big business controls government and they like it that way and this is a marriage here

and obviously in Nazi Germany Hitler was boss not Thysen or whoever but still the corporations were part of the consensus with the state in that way and so you know in other words I mean look at you know even the

Bush's right like Bush is a bum compared to real billionaires right the Bushes they're kind of an old family but they're not billionaires they're just millionaires. You know, they're like skull and bones and kind of go back to the maybe early 19th century, maybe even before that, maybe 18th century. But they are not quite the abbots or the pierces or like the very like most powerful old families. You know, there, where Bush would think of like you and me is like the help fit for doing his yard work or whatever. There are people

who think of the Bush's that way. Certainly who would think of Obama that way. Remember Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange published the document in the State Department cables where the executive vice president from Citibank, the city group in Chicago, names Obama's cabinet. He goes, here's your cabinet. You're keeping gates at defense. You're going to make Hillary at State putting Geithner at Treasury and on down the line. Are you kidding me? I love it. City Group says you're going to put Goldman Sachs at Treasury. Okay. I see what's going on here. I don't know. I don't think we need secret ceremonies and oaths here, right? It's just this is big business and big politics and how it's done. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I really believe that that's what the whole war in Russia is about because Russia is the biggest country in the world that has resisted international corporations. You know, when they kicked out USAID in 2015, that was a big deal. Yeah. That was a big deal. And people just look over stuff like that. Yeah. Well, and I mean, it was for a good cause, too. They had done a previous round of that in 2011 or 12 after the snow revolution. Yeah. It was 2011, the snow revolution. Yeah. Exactly. And now I got all the best guys at my institute. It's great.

I mean, people have heard of the orange revolution. But who knows about the snow revolution? Me and my guy Tommy, that's who. And yeah, I mean, it is. And they are relentless. I mean, they're, I don't know, this is something I've been working on for the book a little bit. You've probably seen a little bit of this around if you hang on Twitter, where they are talking openly about breaking Russia up into 10 countries. And, you know, every ancient kingdom there should be an independent state again. And I personally am not against that other than the fact that we're talking about the American Empire doing it to them. We're not talking about anything like natural secession.

Capitalism breaking out. Yeah. Secession to the last man in good faith and friendship as people figure out how to prioritize liberty and stuff. We're not talking about that. We're talking about, you know. I can see why the people of Novo, whatever the hell in central Russia, wish that they could go back to the 1300s when they had an independent republic there, whatever the hell. And I could see why even maybe they have a real grudge against the Moscovites.

but I don't care about that I'm sorry man having our government being implicated in getting between those kind of groups clearly could lead to a nuclear war and for what I mean just to spite their enemies

when could just as easily live with them makes no sense you know it's like it really is cult like behavior you know the heart of you believe in it the clear

it becomes, I guess, you know. But I think it's important that people recognize that like these, these organizations like Bilderberg, W.E.F, the world government summit, all these things, these are, these are mouthpieces for NGOs. These are mouthpieces for power. And these guys aren't acting like Klaus Schwab is not an independent actor. That's not what he's doing in that position. He's the who's who's putting putting out the talking points and the books are coming out under his name. But these aren't his ideas alone. I have books in here by other other guys that are involved with the W.E.F. You all know a Harari where he writes, he wrote a book called Homodias

where he's talking about how to make men gods. I mean, like the whole idea is just so out of this world, the things that they are experimenting with and want to do in, and reintroducing, kind of that eugenics movement and that kind of mouth this mouthusian kind of idea into society they are they are openly doing this and they are openly advocating for this and talking about this they're using ESG as a tool to empower themselves and give them the right of passage to incorporate these types of structures and so what what I always tell people is man find a local credit union get out of these big banks find a local credit union work with them give them your money do your loans through them and stop empowering these people

that hate you that openly hate you and are working against you and your well-being yeah well okay so talk about that then i mean my local credit union or say the taco stand across the street there are millions of companies in this country how afflicted are they all with this esg stuff i mean you have to be what a big grocery store chain that is reliant on on big capital infusions from time to time on some kind of real mid level or mid to high a high size company or it's really like every last chicken place is under the boot of this stuff now it's not and the reason it's not is because not everybody is dependent on loans and gifts from from high society and naturally how it's all implemented. Right. Right. And so what they're doing is they are withholding loans. They're withholding credit scores. And it can what their plan is to trickle it down to the individual, which is why they're dealing with 401ks. So the plan is to trickle it down to the individual and not allow you to even buy a house without a good ESG score. Now, there have been enough over the last couple of years, there have been enough people.

And enough states that started standing up filing lawsuits against banks and in financial institutions, Goldman Sachs, and Black Rock, Vanguard, even stepped back there for a few months and said, we're not doing this anymore. And has kind of been flying under the radar for the last probably four months because they were getting hammered with lawsuits from states. You know, I think it was like 19 states filed lawsuits say, you can't discriminate. against people based upon their ideological like projection you can't do that you can't keep people for their non-criminal behavior right right you can't keep people from like the truckers protest right you can't keep the truckers from accessing their money that they earned it's their money based upon their ideological predilections if you don't want to do business with them then let them take their money out of the bank but you can't shut off their accounts

that's what's happening with these states like filing these lawsuits. Unfortunately, there are still truckers in Canada that cannot access their funds. They cannot get their money. That whole thing's crazy. You know, I heard Bobby Kennedy say, Jr. here say that he was so alarmed by the trucker thing. I mean, first of all, never mind the fact that they're just 100% in the right, these guys, the way they're being persecuted and all they're doing is standing up for their rights there. you know and then for the government to be able to turn off their money you know that i believe

the first precedent with this was paypal turning off julian asange and it was the state department asked them to not that he violated the law but just we really don't like this guy and from there you know the the camels and you had like sargon of a cod i'm sorry you had sargon of a cod with Patreon and then you had Alex Jones with Stripe then Donald Trump when he got out of office one of the banks shut his accounts off like this has been going on like slowly but surely it's kind of like that first they came for then they came for you know that poem yeah well I look Bobby Kennedy was he went off about this he might be the best guy in the country on this or something considering like not just you know I don't know that he knows the most about it in the

country but in terms of like he wants to squabble about it right now he knows a lot about it and he's upset he said listen you know if they can censor you like what's going on now it's a travesty okay but if they can shut off your money you're a slave yep and he meant it and he ain't wrong about that and i saw where you know mainstream media liberal type quoted him saying that as though that makes him a crazy person but no it doesn't and you know not to invoke the personal, but I happen to know a little bit about the Soviet Union. I already did anyway, but my wife is from there. And the way it worked in the Soviet Union was as soon as you step out of line, you lose your job, you lose your house, you lose, you know, all your, any

health care or any services that you had coming, and you are adjourned, and you're lucky if you don't go to Siberia. And because the government, the central government, controls and owns everything, then you are entirely at their mercy to be able to shut you off. And they can essentially say, yeah, your money's no good here and not like a friend giving you a free drink, but you are forbidden from buying and selling or from trading within the system at all. And that's what drew me to, that's what drew me to ESG is because I saw the geopolitics involved in it, but I also saw the personal involved in it. And that my parents had 401k's and that this could start infecting and affecting people like me,

like the blue collar guy that's just trying to make it through the world and isn't concerned with all this nonsense. They are just working day to day. And when I saw the way it could affect me personally, I was like, okay, somebody's got to talk about this stuff. Yeah. Well, so tell me about, you know, what kind of reaction. I mean, to have state government attorney generals, I guess,

or governors suing over this is fantastic, that there's already that kind of reaction. but can you tell me first of all how many states do you know are officially fighting back in that way and then what what kind of movement out is there out there that's forcing their hand to take that stand there's about there's between 11 and 19 states that are that are fighting back against this um let's just take florida for instance um desantis divested two billion from black rock you know to hurt them in And he does do some good things. I have to admit. Yeah. I mean, like for sure and not always for the right reasons. Like I listen to like like a Vivek Ramoswamy.

He talks about this stuff a lot, right? He started a company called Strive that is, is to compete with BlackRock, but not utilize ESG metrics. So if you want to invest in a 401K, there's an alternative. So there's this parallel economy kind of thing working on. doesn't mean I agree with Vivek on everything that he says. Still, that's important. Yeah.

But there are people that are recognizing what's happening and they're they're taking action to fight against it. Texas is fighting against it. There are many there are, I think Texas, Florida, Utah, Arkansas, and I want to say Iowa, all past laws that that stated that banking institutions could not. discriminate against the customers based upon their political ideas or ideologies. So there are people that are taking stands against this and they're doing the best they can. The problem is that this idea popped up in 2004 and here we are in 2021, 2021, 2022, 2023, people are just now finding out about it.

So we're behind the ball. We're about 18, 19 years behind the ball trying to fight back on something. something that already kind of in in 2021 March of 2021 the SEC put together a ESG task force to implement ESG standards on financial institutions and corporations. So we're already kind of behind the ball on this. Yeah. Sounds like a lot. But you know, but I mean, but if you look at like what's going on with Bud Light, you look at what's going on with like Target. That's kind of this. Hey, man, there's a lot of right wing reactions. You're getting these kind of. You're getting. You're getting kind of these spurts of like people recognizing hold on like this this stuff doesn't

have to be in our daily lives like Colin Kaepernick kneeling uh during a football game was one thing but now you're you're have these like satanic nun transgender people at a at a baseball game like what the hell's going on so people are starting to wake up and say like why is this like exactly it is it's idocracy or south park like it's it's hypocrisy or south park like it's It's just insane. Yeah. Well, yeah. So, I mean, to paraphrase, poor old dead Bill Hicks completely out of contest, a lot of people are feeling that right-wing reaction right now.

I mean, for me, I know what I believe. And it's not so easy to, you know, really change my mind about stuff. But I certainly, you know, I guess I sympathize with other sides' views more or less strongly at different times. And I can certainly see why, geez, if I'm feeling this right wing right now, just imagine how right wing the right wingers are feeling when there's no reason for them to deny it and not just go for it, you know? I still got my problems, man. And I got things about the right that ain't libertarian enough. But if that wasn't my problem, geez, yeah, I don't know. I could see.

And, you know, even Fukuyama says in the end of history that, you know, look, liberal democratic capitalism and, you know, regular elections, little D democracy, more or less along American lines, is the wave of the future and is going to be. It is mostly right. I mean, who can argue that, no, we rather really have kings than regular elections. Or we rather have a military dictator than a regular election. Like, sure, we'd rather have anarchy in peace, but that's not really one of the choices, right? Or who thinks that we should have socialism or fascism instead of market capitalism and property rights. The problem is we don't get libertarianism. We get this weird, twisted kind of horror movie neoliberalism. it's kind of fun house mirror version of what we believe you know but anyway point is

and i guess fukyama says it there's still all of this ethnic and religious and cultural and historic right-wing identity out there in the world that's just not going to stand for being completely steamrolled by this brave new world you know and that maybe in america the the the corporations and Silicon Valley and Hollywood just rule. But there's so many places in the world where people just have higher priorities than doing what the hell they're told by the likes of us. You know, it's always, and I think that that's true in America too, where you can only push so much, especially cultural change on people at a time before, you know. I mean, if I'm sitting here thinking, man, I might start going to church just like, because I resent these. left this. Not that I believe

in Yahweh one bit more than I ever did, but like just because I'm so mad at them, like maybe there is something to these right-wing cultural like more conservative, I should say right-wing, but more conservative cultural traditions that I should tap into

like just like to spite them maybe, you know? I don't know. I know a lot of people are feeling that way too. Who wants to be bossed around by Klaus Schwab? Who the hell does he think he, is what army does he really control anyway you know although help me out with this i'll figure out something useful to say here in the form of a question where the hell the black rocket eight trillion

dollars or get control of what 20 trillion dollars worth of capital assets and resources and this that whatever whatever black rock and vanguard i mean i know that obviously greenspan and bernackie and yelling and the rest have handed it to them that they get the cantillion effects these biggest most powerful firms but can you like walk me through how it was that these i'd tell you exactly how they did it i'll tell you exactly how they did it they are um top financiers and investors in every major corporation Coca-Cola Pepsi Goldman Sachs Merrill lynch they have their hands in everything If you go look at the top investors of any corporation, you're going to find Black Rock up there. That's how they did it.

They've turned all of that into power. They probably started with one and then bought another. And it's kind of like that. There must be good books about that. Some crazy, like, badass Wall Street Journal reporter must have written that book or something, right? It's kind of, well, it's kind of like the Rothschilds, right? They finance both sides of World War I, right? It's kind of like that whole idea.

It's like either way, we win. It doesn't matter who wins, we win. And that's how they did it. But you brought up, you brought up Fukuyama. You know what it reminded me of? It's James Burnham's Suicide of the West. Have you ever read that? Nah.

You've got to read that book. I read Rothbard about how much he hated James Burnham and I. That, I read the Machiavellians. I've read a couple of his books. Suicide of the West, I guarantee you, when you read that and you look at what's going on around us, you're like, this dude was on point. He was way ahead of his time, but he was on point because everything you see and he talks about the degeneration of liberalism and how it's a constant movement forward and it has to lead to

progressivism, has to lead this, but it's all the same thing. It's all liberalism and it's all coming from the same route and it just has no choice but to continue this snowball has to continue rolling downhill. Hey guys, Scott here for Leo Hamill find jewelers out of San Diego at jewelry storeSD.com. They do business nationwide. They sell jewelry and watches, specializing in engagement rings. You know, in case you're in love with somebody. They also specialize in one-of-a-kind vintage and antique jewelry,

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Hey, y'all, you should sign up for my substack. It's Scott Horton's show.substack.com. And if you do that, you'll get the interviews a day before everybody else. But not only that, they'll be free of commercials. How do you like that? Pretty good, huh? Scott Horton's show.substack.com. Hey, y'all, Libertasbella.com is where you get Scott Horton Show and Libertarian Institute

shirts, shirts, mugs, and stickers and things, including the great top lobstas designs as well. See, that way it says on your shirt, why you're so smart. Libertas Bella, from the same great folks who bring you ammo.com for all your ammunition needs, too. That's libertasbella.com. Well, and uphill in a lot of ways, too. I mean, you know, again, you know, liberalism, you know, our current neoliberalism, it is the bastard version of libertarianism, right? It's sort of after the New Deal, they kind of move back to the right a little bit, right? And so it was like the compromise is sort of the corporate compromise with New Deal welfare statism.

And so, and then, yeah, in the compromise, see, this is the problem. especially, right, is the liberals have no devotion to free market theory in the way a libertarian does. So their commitment to capitalism amounts to really just selling out to corporate America and becoming, you know, most importantly, and probably first and foremost, imperialists because you always have these big corporations that have, you know, major issues of protection in foreign nations, need friendly governments overseas and all these kinds of things. And then all those weapons, all those big ticket ships and bombers, man, all that money. I often wonder, though, is there, can there be a free market capitalism as long as there's corporatists and elites that are, you know, playing or bending the field, the rules to their?

No. I mean, I think you can't, I mean, this is why Rothbard, I think, or one of the reasons. he was an anarchist, because this is what convinced me to be an anarchist. I gave up on the idea of limited government. You could say you hate the Federal Reserve all you want, but it was the Congress that created it. So get rid of the Congress. But ultimately, you know, not that I'm saying, I want

to only have a president without a legislature. But the thing is, so what are you going to do? I'll tell you what, this reminds me of an argument I got in in 1999 with a black block anarchist revolutionary communist anarcho syndicalist he called himself at free radio austin and i told him come on man socialism with a police force is communism you know and he goes yeah but capitalism with a police force is fascism and i says you got me you know too shay dude that's right you know minarchism is

bullshit that you know ultimately um if you if you have a state again, capitalism, depending on who you're talking, right, to a libertarian, that just means private property rights and free exchange. Shut up, commie, you don't know. But to the commies, they know what they mean when they say. Capitalism means the system of state power that you live under, right? And this means the people who own the capital get to call all the shots for how the state acts, which is right and is not fair, you know.

But then, you know, the democratic alternative of just voting harder to have government check that power a little bit, I think this is why I'm a libertarian. I think that that's the fool's errand, right? That's, you know, embracing. Like, that's Philip Drew's recommendation. That's what Colonel House wanted us to do. You know, you're right. The corporations are evil. we should pass a progressive income tax and a central bank and get into a world war that'll show them you know and this is you know that's what that's why we gave them personhood yeah exactly so yeah no so we're screwed i mean that's the problem is you got to get rid of the state you can't get rid of private property rights and free exchange so you got to get rid of the state you know um which is a hard road to hoe but point being you know the less of it the better

I saw Nick Gillespie. I couldn't watch. The whole thing, they interviewed him for like two and a half hours or something. I'm not watching that. But Reason interviewed Robert Kennedy. And he says, look, I just don't think libertarianism works for the commons. And Gillespie's like, yeah, but so shouldn't we be privatizing all the commons then? If economics say that people just devour the commons without regard.

And economics teaches us that when somebody owns something, they'll take better care of it. So they can sell for a higher price later, this kind of thing. And it's like, go Gillespie, yeah, man. Just like basic kind of free market insight for you here, Kennedy, you know? But, you know, he is a Democrat. He's not one of us, but... Yeah, I mean, you can't expect any of these guys to be perfect. That's the one thing we have to always recognize.

It doesn't matter which one we're looking at. None of them are perfect. Well, tell me what you think of Bobby Kennedy. You know, you and I had this conversation. I like him. I tend to like him. I tend to think he's a genuine. person, which for me is very important. If somebody's genuine, I, I, I kind of give him the

benefit of the doubt, even if I disagree with them on some things. There are things I disagree with him on. I think it's, I think it's ridiculous that he keeps getting hammered about, um, his stance on vaccines and this, that and the other. And no matter how many times he answers the question that, um, it's not good enough. So I, I, I think he's, I think he's a decent. I think he's a good person you know i had this conversation with my dad that my dad said all all the kennedy's that have run for president seem like they're good people but they have a tendency to get killed so um there's that but yeah i think he's a good person i don't i don't think he's a genuine guy but you know i mean he's a politician yeah the end of the day i mean i i'm i'm i'm real

southern i you know like fuck the government and that's about it like Yeah, like, whatever. I don't think much about these people. I pay a little bit of attention to see what's going on. I trust Kennedy more than I trust DeSantis. Yeah, me too. I don't trust DeSantis at all. But, you know, and look, Kennedy, you're right.

He is a politician, and we caught him today saying some politician-y things about, you know, he told us at Porkfest, look, I'm not going to take your guns. The courts have ruled. The Second Amendment is broadly interpreted, and I'm going with that. I'm a Bill of Rights guy and promise I won't take your guns, you know. And then he sat down and did some town hall thing. He said, well, you know, if they passed the assault weapons ban, I'd sign it. What?

But then, to be fair, though, he said that I only read this in the summary. I didn't watch this part of the interview. But I did see in the summary of the Reason magazine interview that he said both to them. Like, he wasn't trying to be coy to them. They're libertarians, and he knows that. and he said he told them one i won't take your guns but two if they pass an assault weapons ban i'll sign it so i don't know how much of a fight um zach weissmuller and um nicholasby put up when he said that but at least you know officially uh i think he was trying to copy on it

it it sounds like maybe he just adopted his position and now is sticking with his new story rather than just telling people what they want to hear, which was my initial interpretation. But if he was that honest to Gillespie, then that at least speaks to what you said about his genuineness a little bit rather than that kind of shiftyness. But, you know, he said too about Free Ross. She asked him, Carla Gerke, asked him about Free Ross at Porkfest.

And he goes, yeah, once I'm sworn in, then I'll look at it. you know which is a nice way of saying i am not looking into it and just taking out a position on it that i'll have to defend between now and then which is right you know what i don't know man i guess that's fair that he didn't have to take a position on every damn thing especially every libertarian's pet issues but it did smack of like a little bit of like i don't like craftiness man give me ron paul i don't know how to be crafty i only know what to tell you that i feel as true kind of truthiness dude that's what i did you know i did watch his interview on um i did watch his interview on breaking points and he did the same thing to them so it might just be like issues

he's just not um focused on at the moment because he's got a year we'll see how it goes yeah she she asked him about um oh shit what was she asked him about i think she asked him about health care And he was like, look, he's like, we're not in a position to do Medicare for all. Even though I think it might be a better option, what we have to do is put ourselves in a position. And so I'll have to sit down and look at that. And then the dude on there asked him about taxes. He's like, I haven't really felt like come up with a like consistent tax policy. I really have to kind of look at it.

And so that's kind of one of his things that actually makes them sense. sound more human is it's like the item no aspect you're like I don't know like we'll see we'll look into it yeah you know yeah um I don't know um he seems like a decent dude I guess my thing I don't have a strong opinion on him I'm just like he's interesting I find him interesting well look I mean yeah my take is I mean what the hell doesn't matter what I think as far as like you know i'm obviously not going to support any democrat for anything ever you know what i mean i'm a wrong paul guy dude i'm and i'm not very likely to budge on that kind of a deal at all so i i look at it where like you know whether i support him or not is like not even the question

of course i don't support him but i'm very interested and excited about the um implications of his run right yes because you know he's not on a scale of one to ron paul he is not as honest as my man you know what i mean like we talked about there is that little bit of politicianiness that we can kind of already see there on the other hand on the scale of one to everybody else here he is ron paul grating on a curve you know just in terms of honesty i mean not his every position but just in terms of being telling the truth, being brave, in fact, in telling the truth about very controversial things, and running as a Democrat against a very weak president who could drop dead at any day, whose vice president is 100% unanimous consensus unprepared to step into his shoes when the most talented, handsome, hair-having governor that they have to run is Gavin Newsom, the guy that ran

California into the ground. I was almost recalled, only the Republicans didn't have anybody good to replace him, but he's complete scum. And they lost a congressman because so many people moved out of California under his lockdowns. And that's all they've got. And then here's this guy and his name ain't Paul. When Ron first ran in 2007,

Nobody ever heard of this guy. I mean, there was one guy in every neighborhood who loved him and was raring to go, right? But the culture had never heard of him before. The people had never heard of him before, which is so unfair and wrong and sinful itself. But anyway, this guy's a Kennedy. And he ain't Ted Kennedy's son, you know, all fat and dumpy and stupid. Right. He's Bobby Kennedy's son.

He's very charismatic. He looks 10 years younger than his age. He's 69. It looks like he's 59. I sat at a table with him. I saw all the 40 and 50-year-old ladies. They love him, man. They think he's just great.

Oh, yeah. And so, like, he's got, you know, he's got charisma, real, you know, magnetism and charisma. Of course, he's got the voice problem, but that seems to be getting better and better. He said he had a surgery, though. Yeah, he has some surgery. It used to be quite a bit worse. But the thing is, you know, he has to split that difference. He's got to figure out how to be, you know, royalty and also a trader to his class at the same time

and take our side against the rest of them. So hard difference to split and keep people happy on both sides of that, you know. But it just seems like his potential to run away with at least some real support. I don't know about the nomination, maybe even the nomination, is very real. And it's not like with Donald Trump where they deliberately promoted him for a year because they thought he'd be the easiest to beat in the general. So they supported him up until he got the nomination. then they all turned on them for half a year

up until the election to try to rig it for Hillary. In this case we don't have a Pied Piper thing. So they're just coming out all guns blazing, right? NBC, New York Times, Atlantic, New Republic. You must hate and fear this guy.

And so early, like it just seems like they're swinging and missing. Like people haven't even had a chance to hear him yet. But they're being told, oh, he's so right. and he's so evil. And you know what? Center left liberal Democrats

are so goddamn dumb these days, man, that like, maybe they'll just believe it. I saw somebody posted a poll, said his approval rating among self-identified liberals and progressive Democrats is plummeting because he's being identified as a right-winger

because he's talking to right-wingers, basically. And because he's not spouting a bunch of woke platitudes, but clearly he's a liberal. I mean, he does talk, Maybe he should talk more, but he does talk about the welfare state and about homelessness and paying poor people's medical bills and this and that. I don't know about Medicare for all and whatever, but he's clearly not a libertarian when it comes to the welfare state or the regulatory state. You know, he's not a leftist or a progressive.

I mean, he is a liberal in the sense that he believes in capitalism and not any kind of socialism. But, well, I shouldn't say any kind of socialism. But he is very much for like the welfare state for the poor food stamps. and Social Security and medical care and help for the orphans and, you know, whatever, all that kind of crap. So he really should probably emphasize all that more to show that, like, he really is not a right-winger. But they are already just knives out for the guy. But it just seems like, okay, so I read the NBC hit piece on him today. Was it NBC? I think so.

And it's just so over the top. They try to make him sound like he's Alex Joe. Jones. But he's just not. Like you could say, oh, geez, I think he, like, goes a little too far about vaccines or whatever if you're one of those people who thinks that about him. But to call him, like, leader of the truthers, it's not true. You know what I mean? There's not another, like, major truther story that he's out in front on on anything this whole time. You know what I mean? He's not a 9-11 guy. He's not a, you know, I don't know. Whatever. supposed to be a conspiracy. It's not a big Benghazi guy or a big, you know, New World Order

guy. Um, so, you know, they try to portray him that way. But I think like my auntie and your auntie could just be like, I don't know, he seems all right to me. You know what I mean? Like, who are you going to believe? Me or your own lying eyes? And they're just, they go, this guy's a lunatic. And he's like, look, all I think is that after reading says, 17 books and writing three that I think we should be careful Or whatever And they're just like, I don't know

This kind of sounds reasonable Sounds like be careful is right I don't know if you saw the clip where A pediatrician confronted him about vaccines at that town hall And he started talking And the guy's like whole body language changed and everything like

Oh damn you really know what you're talking about And I'm really learning some things And like man is that really true About the chickenpox vaccine? I really need to look into that And all you know Can you see it's written all over the guy's face? Like, oh, geez, okay, well, maybe you do know some stuff. They used to have chicken pox parties.

They wanted you to get chicken pox. Yeah. Because nobody was dying of it. There were kids that did that. And well, some kids, you know, it was very rare, but some kids did die. In fact, my mom told me a story. She asked my pediatrician whether she should do that because some of the kids in my neighborhood did that. And she asked, and he said, no, because even if it's a one in a one,

a 500 chance or less or whatever if you if you do that and your boy dies you'll never forgive yourself that you did it deliberately and you know what he's going to get chickenpox anyway this filthy little runt so um which in fact wasn't true i didn't get it i didn't get it until 2017 i never got it i never i have never had chicken bucks raised five kids i'm almost 44 years old you never had chicken bucks must practice great I didn't get a vaccine either. So there's that. Well, stay away from this Klaus Schwab guy.

He'll stick you with a needle. All right, well, listen, I guess we should probably let people off the hook here, but I think I neglected to say the name of your great article at the beginning of the interview. It's at the Libertarian Institute. It's from a year ago. It's called ESG, the threat to liberty you haven't heard of by Tommy Salmons. And it's really great. He's got all kinds of great links and all kinds of in-depth information.

for you in there. It's a great primer to get started on the subject if you're interested. And of course, go to the Institute and subscribe. We got one feed that's all of our shows combined together, or you can pick and choose. And if you do so, you should definitely pick and choose and sign up for Tommy's podcasting Year Zero, which is awesome. And with that, thank you. Have a good evening. Appreciate you, brother. Yeah, you too. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on K-Pay. pfk 90.7 FM in LA.

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