The Blindboy Podcast - Petrol Dentist

Episode Date: July 1, 2020

An Irish history of destroying statues. Why Barack Obama removed a statue of Winston Churchill from the oval office. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dog bless you all. May dog lick your face and smother you in omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent saliva. If you're a brand new listener, don't start with this episode. Consider going back to the start of the podcast or choose some earlier episodes. Embark on the same journey that everyone else has to get to this point, but don't like just take it from here. It is July 2020. journey that everyone else has to get to this point but don't like just take it from here it is july 2020 which means that in ireland now we're almost fully out of coronavirus lockdown the goblin of strange and uncertain times is somewhere off in the distance he's not gone away he's distracted he is rummaging through a bush

for some old yellowed pornography but it's important to remind ourselves that the goblin of strange and uncertain times is in the distance looking for pornography in a bush because we've all done a really, really good job

at distracting him. Keeping coronavirus at bay by obeying the rules. So as we return now into society, just remind ourselves it's not gone. It could come back as aggressively and we have to make sure that we're not taking the piss alright

just wear a face mask that's all I'm asking you because no one's doing it sorry to say it lads in Limerick anyway nobody's wearing masks and you gotta wear a mask think of the other person

when someone who's vulnerable wear a mask think of the other person when someone who's vulnerable wears a mask and you step into the shopping centre or into the restaurant not wearing a mask you have now negated their efforts which is quite unfair isn't it so wear a mask do it for other people

and if we all do it it's do you know how it was explained to. And if we all do it. It's. Do you know. Do you know how it was explained to me. So. If two people. Are wearing a simple cotton face covering. Underpants for the face as I say. If two people are doing this.

Then the chances of contracting coronavirus. The chances of contracting it. They go to about. Between 30 and 15%. So you can reduce, if two people are wearing masks, you can reduce the chances of contracting coronavirus by 60% onwards. If there was a pill that we could take that reduced your chance of contracting coronavirus by upwards of 60%,

we'd all be taking it there isn't a pill but what there is is you wear a mask I wear a mask and we're grand simple just keep the spit inside your body I just felt the responsibility to say it there's too many people listening right um but anyway yeah it's it's nice to see a bit of fucking normality it's i like seeing i like seeing this sounds so contradictory but i like seeing fucking traffic jams around limerick i like seeing people going to shops because i know that it's just it's good to see the economy working again. And to see money being pumped into it. It just makes me feel good.

Because recessions are no crack. So it's nice to see that. I'm going to a restaurant tomorrow night. I have a restaurant booked. I get 90 minutes. I'm going to have a lovely slow meal. I'm going to enjoy every fucking second of it, I haven't been to a restaurant in three months, I'm going to enjoy every

second of it, I'm going to savour every bite, I'm going to mindfully reflect on what I had taken for granted and truly appreciate my meal and I'm going to get a pint, just one pint, I'm not going on the lash

I want one pint that is poured from a tap of possibly something like Moretti or San Miguel and I'm going to appreciate every sip this is what you get to do for yourself now that the goblin of strange and uncertain times is off in the distance rummaging for some yellowed pornography in a bush alright this is what you get to do as you re-enter society and you've had three months

of freedoms taken away from you reflect on how you might have taken these things for granted and really mindfully consume them something as simple as walking into a shop getting a haircut because it's there's the little mental health benefits for the next few days we won't be on autopilot anymore everything that we once took for granted

is now a novelty do you know and. And within that novelty. Is the opportunity. For. Slow. Mindful reflection. Taking it all in. So. That's a positive. That's a definite positive.

I've been having great crack on Twitch. This week. Alright. I've been streaming. Live streaming on Twitch. I've no gigs. I don't know when my next gigs are gonna be, but I'm having fun on fucking Twitch, I'll tell you that, it has, what I miss about doing gigs is connection with an audience, when I was doing gigs, I get to go somewhere,

there's a lot of people there, there's questions at the end. Sometimes I meet people. I really miss it. I really do miss it. But on Twitch. It's the closest thing without actual human contact. So. I think I went on Twitch five nights this week. Playing video games. One day.

On Sunday evening at like three o'clock. I just turned on Twitch. Didn't play any video games and just chatted to people just did a live stream of me just chatting drank a cup of tea did it for about an hour and a half and had lovely chats and spoke about a lot of things

it was like, it was podcast hug it was podcast hug but live and then other days I'm playing music I'm writing live music I'm really fucking loving it really enjoying it. So twitch.tv forward slash the blind boy podcast. If you're wondering what I'm doing.

It's live streaming. So it's like. It's like live TV. It's completely live. But I've got. It's not like Instagram live. Where it's someone chatting into their phone. I have a proper studio set up. a decent camera and decent audio the audio would be as good as

this podcast I can play video games I can make music live it's a proper live platform and you can chat with me if you're in the comments you can say what's the crack blind boy and I might see your comment and I can chat with you in real time and the community on Twitch is lovely as well I also actually yeah so I also streamed to Facebook and YouTube because I was trying to get the vibe of because I'm new to streaming so I was like should I stick with Twitch or like I've got a Facebook page with 500,000 people, the Rubber Bandits Facebook page, YouTube page with about 100,000 subscribers.

I was like, let's fucking see what the crack is. It wasn't as much fun as Twitch. The people on Facebook were just like, what the fuck is this? Because these are people who might have joined the Facebook for Horse Outside in 2011. So a lot of them were like what is this what are you doing and there wasn't any negativity which is nice no one said anything mean that was nice YouTube actually there was some mean comments on YouTube because that there's a lot of anonymity in YouTube but doing the live streaming on YouTube and on Facebook made me realise that Twitch is where I want to stay

because it's got a very supportive nice community and a culture of not being a prick basically so join Twitch, it's free, join Twitch and subscribe to me twitch.tv forward slash the blind boy podcast

and I'm usually on at generally half nine wednesday thursday fridays but i think now i kind of just go on randomly too so what i'd say is once you join twitch if if you are subscribed to me you get a little notification whenever i go online and it's good fun so what i'd like to talk about this week is it's kind of a hot take it's like a historical hot take no it's hot take territory

it's it's not a mad theory but rather a very queer and interesting fact and something that I assumed the media or commentators would look at

in light of recent events but I didn't see anyone fucking doing it so the question I'm asking for this podcast and that I hope to answer by the end of it is in 2008 Barack Obama removed

a statue from the Oval Office and sent it back to Britain where it came from and it caused a great deal of embarrassment for Britain and I'm going to explore that and try and answer that for this podcast and I haven't seen anyone mention this

in the news recently which is incredibly odd to me um so i'm like right okay i gotta do a podcast about this so i want to speak about something in the context of recent events of the past three weeks so we've seen a lot of social upheaval in 2020 um the black lives matter protests and then the tail end of the black lives matter protests originating i think in britain i could be wrong there but the removal of statues okay um one example look you'd have seen it in the news in bristol for instance there was a statue of a merchant called Edward Colston

which was torn down by Black Lives Matter protesters and it was fucked into the river because Edward Colston his statue was there because he was a quote unquote merchant from the fucking

1700's was it? He was a merchant from the 1700s and his statue was there because it's a statue to capitalism a statue to prosperity but the man was a slave trader he made his money from the slave trade a lot of countries like britain portugal spain their great massive wealth comes from stealing the resources from other countries and also stealing the people of those countries and Colston was a slave trader

so in light of the Black Lives Matter movement the anger expressed itself as let's take down the icons of slavery so they ripped down the statue fucked it into the river fair play to them I agree with it

and this is known as iconoclasm right the specific general term for taking down statues or paintings is called iconoclasm and it's a general it's a belief that you take like you take down icons.

If a system of power is in place, you remove the visual representation of that power as a symbolic act. As a symbolic act. And what an icon is. An icon is. Could be a statue. Could be a painting. Could be a sign. An icon.

Is usually a symbol of power. Ultimately what it is. I would refer to it as a visual legitimization. Of power. If you've listened to any of my art podcasts i speak about you know the the importance of throughout the history of of art of the past 1000 years the importance of patrons of the art right often painters Often, painters in the 1500s, 1600s, the Renaissance, whatever, wealthy painters, they were allowed to become artists and sculptures because they were funded by patrons, and those patrons were one of two things.

Usually, the church or wealthy merchants. And the merchants and the church were interested in patronizing artists. So that these artists would return for payment icons. Okay. When you paint. When fucking Michelangelo does the Sistine Chapel. That's an icon for the power and supremacy and legitimacy

of Christianity whoever made that statue of Edward Colston in Bristol it's legitimising an artist had to make that and I don't know who patronised that artist

but somebody would have vested interest in legitimising slavery and colonialism at the time had the Edward Colston statue made as an icon of this is okay. If at the time you're wondering, Jesus, there's a lot of wealth around here in Bristol. All these ships coming in, going to far parts of the world and all this gold you're just like taking that from Africa you're just taking it, you're just saying that Africa's yours and all this

gold and copper you can just take that and what about all these people these African people that you have in chains and are bringing to America and then there's a bunch of cotton coming back that doesn't seem very right to me. That kind of seems a bit wrong. So the merchants then go,

Ah, we need an icon. So here's a statue of Edward Colston to legitimise what you think is evil. And it's like, but he's got a statue. There's a fucking statue. He looks class. How could this be wrong? It can't be wrong an icon exists and another way to look at icons is they form part of what's known as the

ideological state apparatus which i've mentioned many times before the political the philosopher the marxist philosopher althuss, had a theory on power and society, that power structures in society are maintained by a repressive state, repressive state apparatuses and ideological state apparatuses. So the power structure is generally very wealthy people, capitalists, and then the people whose labour is exploited for that wealth, the massive working classes who are poor and their labour is needed, their mass labour is needed to keep a small few wealthy. And the small few have to convince and conjole and coerce the larger working classes into agreeing into this system

whereby their labor creates wealth for a small few and so the repressive state apparatuses are police, judges, courts, laws, okay? I mean, workers' rights are quite a recent thing, but if you tried to go on strike in the 1860s, there's a good chance that the factory owner would have a private militia to shoot you. Do you know what I mean? Workers' rights and the right to strike and unionise, these things had to be earned in a very bloody fashion.

The repressive state apparatus was loosened slightly to give people the right to a fucking five day week or to not have to work 24 hours a day or to keep actual toddlers out of the workforce. These things had to be achieved through blood and then you've got the ideological state apparatus which is the beliefs that a society kind of has about itself in order to maintain a power structure it's it's a form of psychological control when you see police when you see the army when you see judges you see the courts these are very obvious gatekeepers of a belief system that's very obvious there's a policeman he enforces the law there's a judge there's a legislator they make up the law and the laws tend to benefit the very wealthy okay or the

people who own property but an ideological state apparatus is more unseen it's the philosophies and psychology of how a society feels about itself but as dictated dictated by religion, the education system and the media. But also iconography. Statues of slave traders being put forth as wealthy merchants. Or, you know, Christ up on the cross as an icon of this is Christianity, this is legitimate and you must follow these rules or there will be consequences. That's what icons do. And iconoclasm is the belief that when you destroy these icons,

you actually can change the system in some way. Now, there's two ways of looking at it it's yes and no the problem is sometimes with iconoclasm is that you can take down the statues and then people feel like that symbolic people feel that the symbolic justice

of taking down a statue is change and it's like it's not that symbolic change, is real change going to come from that, here's a perfect example, I think like, have you noticed that they're taking down loads of Netflix episodes that have examples of blackface in it or they were trying to take down old episodes of Fawlty Towers and all this shit I think that is an attempt to keep people happy

it's that symbolic iconoclasm it's symbolic iconoclasm removing the power of icons a gesture to show that blackface is no longer acceptable so we remove these episodes,

but where's the structural change that goes along with it? Is it hoodwinking? Is it just performatively appearing to change things or is something actually being done to tackle real institutional racism there's i heard another argument that they're removing like faulty towers episodes or any old

like there was talk of removing episodes of i can't remember the tv show but the person in the tv show wasn't doing blackface they were simply wearing like a beauty mask that happened to be black but the context of it had nothing to do with racism and they were talking about removing that and what that does then is it shifts conversations towards that and some people are saying it's a way to make the demands of Black Lives Matter look ridiculous. So iconoclasm. I'm a fan of iconoclasm. As in removing, taking statues down.

Taking these symbols down. But only if it's happening in conjunction with actual structural change. And this is something that we as Irish people. We understand this deeply. Because we are an iconoclastic people we fucking love taking down statues here's the crack lads every street in the republic of ireland used to have a british name when the republic the 26 counties achieved independence we got rid of all of it. We changed the names, unless it's in like really posh Protestant areas. Some of them held on to their fucking,

like you go around Balls Bridge in Dublin, there's a few really posh places and they held on to their names because of who was living there and the money that was living there. But the rest of the places, like O'Connell Street used to be called Sackville Street. That's to remove, to to be called Sackville Street, that's to remove, to no longer honour Sackville, whoever the fuck he is, and thank fuck I don't know who he is, to no longer honour Sackville, and instead to honour Daniel O'Connell, the emancipator

of Catholics, that's iconoclasm, it's, we have won our independence the brits are gone and we now that they're actually gone we're gonna remove all the symbolism that was left behind and we did loads of it and some of it was really fucking like iconoclasm is huge in our culture some of it was really petty um in a good way in a fun way like there used to be a statue of a very very large statue of queen victoria in dublin outside the aractus the outside the irish parliament and it was a huge queen victoria statue and you know why is there a statue of queen victoria in dublin because dublin was ruled by the british and they understood we need to create an icon of our Queen, Queen Victoria

to let the fucking Paddies know who rules that's what an icon does it's ideological state apparatus if you're an Irish person in Dublin in the 1800s and you have any doubt that you are under the boot of the Brits well there's a statue of fucking Queen Victoria to remind you.

Who's in power Paddy. And what happens when you deny that fucking power. So when the South got independence in 1922. Immediately the Irish were like. Get that fucking bitch out of here. Because we in Britain. You remember her as Queen Victoria Victoria we call her the famine queen she she is the queen of of Britain who oversaw the Irish famine which which resulted in our

population uh being halved through death and emigration she's responsible for millions and millions of Irish deaths so we refer to her as the famine queen and the story of how queen victoria's statue was fucked out of ireland is quite interesting so one thing that would have happened under queen victoria's reign is irish people were shipped to the penal colonies of van diemen's lands, which is Tasmania and also Australia, okay? Irish people were kind of... It wasn't too difficult to get sent to a penal colony. During the famine, when people were starving and dying and all our food was being exported, if an Irish person wanted to do something as simple as try and feed their family

and they had no ability to grow food, no way to afford food, often you'd find an Irish person stealing grain or stealing a sheep or stealing food from their English landlord. the song the fields of ath and rye is about someone doing that so it was very common that someone would engage in a petty crime stealing bread stealing grain stealing an animal to feed their family during a fucking famine okay often the person was caught because they were near death's door starving they were desperate people they were caught and the british justice system the laws and a law doesn't just because something's a law doesn't mean it's fair the British justice system needed a lot of people in Australia was a new colony and they needed a lot of people in Australia to clear the bush to perform acts of violence against indigenous Australian people to act as

enforced labour to build the colony of Australia for the Brits so if you were in the famine and you got caught stealing grain in fucking Wicklow or in Limerick the judge isn't going to turn around and say oh Paddy I noticed three of your children

died this year from starvation I'm going to leave you off for stealing that bag of barley no what the judge said was you've stolen some grain from your landlord you're a criminal I sentence you to eight years in Australia working hard labour in a penal colony and that's what they did

to thousands and thousands of Irish people so that happened under Queen Victoria that's what they did to thousands and thousands of Irish people so that happened under Queen Victoria that's why we call her the famine queen if you went to Australia you know you were there under her majesty's pleasure you were shipped to Australia so what the Irish basically did is we removed the statue of Queen Victoria. She stayed in a warehouse for years, right? And then someone thought, let's fucking ship her to Australia, because Australia is still part of the Commonwealth.

And so if you're in Sydney now, listening to this now, head down to George Street, and there's a big sandstone building called the Queen Victoria Building and in front of this building is a giant statue of Queen Victoria that was once in Dublin.

And as a piece of... I love that. It's iconoclasm in that it's the destroying of an icon, the removal and destroying of an icon. But that's performance art. That's not simply busting the statue up or destroying it. Someone had a good old think and sent Queen Victoria on a ship to Van Diemen's Land on a symbolic journey.

And nobody knows that. But if you're Irish and you're in Australia and I'm guessing there's Irish people because loads of us are still in Australia to work there and I guarantee you there's Irish people who work near Georgia Street and they hate having to walk past that statue because they know what she represents so if you're one of those Irish people and you walk past Queen Vic on Georgia Street, know that she's there. She's there. She had to embark on a journey of shame

on behalf of your ancestors. Think of it that way. That's not a proud statue for the Aussies to go, our Queen Vic. No, no, no, no. She was taken out of fucking Dublin when the South got independence and sent To go our Queen Vic. No no no no. She was taken out of fucking Dublin.

When the South got independence. And sent on a ship. To represent the journey. That was so many fucking Irish people. That they did to try and feed their families. So that for me there. That's such a beautiful poetic iconoclasm. You know. In 1922.

In Galway. There was a statue of a chap called Lord Dunkeland, who was, like Galway, Galway's in the west of Ireland, so the west of Ireland was absolutely, has always been, now Galway's pretty, Galway's doing alright for itself now but the west of Ireland has traditionally been very barren poor place so Lord Dunklin was this Anglo-Irish landlord who had a huge amount of wealth in the area his brother was an absentee landlord which was someone who owned a huge amount of land and plantations with people renting on it and being absolutely exploited so the land the landlord class were hated in Ireland because

they were seen as parasites so in 1922 the people of Galway rooted up this statue of Lord Dunkeland and dragged it through the streets of Galway playing fucking tunes as this act of performance, and they fucked him into the, fucked him into the ocean,

and as they fucked him into the ocean, they said let it go boys, and may the devil, and all rotten landlordism, go with it, and they fucking, they played a song, I'm forever blowing bubbles,

as it sunk to the bottom of the sea, we also have a tradition of violent iconoclasm you know the Queen Victoria thing sending her off to Australia is beautiful and poetic fucking your man there into the sea in Galway there's a poetry to that

and a musicality to it but also as I mentioned you know Sackville Street now O'Connell Street we had Nelson's pillar on O'Connell Street well into the 60s this huge pillar in the centre of O'Connell Street in Dublin and it is a pillar and atop the pillar is or was a statue to Admiral Nelson again a reminder of British imperialism up above atop a pillar looking down on the people of Dublin to tell them we're in power and you better not challenge it because we're up on pedestals that's what icons do that's what statues do

ideological state apparatus and it became quite offensive to a lot of Irish people for Nelson's pillar to still be there it's like we've changed the names of the fucking streets why is Nelson's pillar still there so in 1966 now the irony actually as well of the 1916 Rising, which is, if you're not from Ireland, the 1916 Rising was an armed rebellion that happened in Dublin in 1916 and it was hugely important in the south of Ireland becoming independent.

But in 1916, Nelson's Pillar, which is near the GPO where 1916 happened, where the main 1916 Rising happened, Nelson's Pillar actually protected the 1916 rebels from British gunfire, ironically. Because it was, as they were escaping the side of the GPO to go down Moore Street, Nelson's Pillar right there stopped a bunch of bullets from hitting them. So there's a great irony about how Nelson's Pillar protected the 1916 rebels, but in 1966 it was still up, and one night, it was the same night that Bob Dylan was gigging, Bob Dylan would have been at the height of his fucking career in 1966, that was Highway 61 revisited or Blonde on Blonde he was gigging in Dublin that night and I think the gig

he heard it in his hotel room I'm not 100% sure about that but Dylan mentioned it afterwards he heard this huge explosion the IRA blew up Nelson's Pillar in 1966 and the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising.

Blew it to fucking smithereens. Put bits of it all over the city streets. No one was injured. But that's violent iconoclasm. We have subversive iconoclasm. Where an icon isn't, you know, an icon of British power isn't destroyed or taken down, but a new icon is created that acts in defiance of the British crown. I'm talking about the Free Derry Corner.

Up in Derry, in the north of Ireland, which is still under control of Britain technically and they didn't get to take down statues or change names of streets in the way that free state people did so up in in Derry in I think this was the 60s if not the early 70s the areas of the Bogside and the Cregan, which are hugely Catholic areas in Derry, because of violence from the British Army, from the British police, from Unionist communities, because of violence against the Catholic communities.

And in a similar way to, we say the Black Lives Matter protests at the moment, the Catholic community basically couldn't rely upon the police to protect them. Simple as that. The police were violent, brutalistic aggressors. This is the same community who in 1973, British soldiers shot 27 unarmed, innocent protesters who were protesting for their civil rights.

14 people shot dead murdered by british soldiers so the free dairy corner is just the side of a house that says you are now entering free dairy and it was set up as like a mini autonomous zone that even though it's in the north of ireland which was on under british rule that the the Catholic community could have this little area, which was a no-go zone, where the police weren't effective, the British army weren't effective, they weren't allowed in,

and the IRA policed its own community, and that's what Free Derry is. And that wall, and the murals as well, the Republican murals, that's iconoclasm. Because, yes, it's creating an icon, but it's creating an icon in defiance of British power. So that's an act of iconoclasm because yes it's creating an icon but it's creating an icon in defiance of british power so that's an act of iconoclasm and the brits understood it because they tried to take down the free dairy fucking corner several times they tried to bulldoze it

right now the free dairy model is being is inspiring in america there's a place called chas the capital hill and autonomous zone which is in seattle black lives matter protests have taken over an area and said there's there's even a sign at the front which is the exact copy of the free dairy sign that says you are now entering free capital hill they've they've had an awareness of what happened in Derry and said the police do not work for us. The police are aggressors in a system that wants to kill us so we're going to try and create our own little autonomous zone where we can self-police

because what you're doing is not policing, it's aggressive. And yeah, right now the Capitol Hill autonomous zone ongoing are taking inspiration from free Derry. Taking inspiration from subversive Irish iconoclasm. So in part two, I'm going to talk about what I mentioned, Barack Obama and an act of iconoclasm in the Oval Office, right? But before I do that, let's have the, not the ocarina pause, the shaker pause. So I'm going to provide a little bit of a pause. If you're new to the podcast, I have a pause halfway through so that an advert can be digitally inserted by Acast.

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It really means an awful lot to me. It keeps me going. It keeps the podcast regular. Um, I can't stress that enough. Thank you so much. Okay, moving on. Of course, like and subscribe to the podcast, right? Write a pleasurable review of the podcast.

All these things. Recommend it to a friend. Come join me on Twitch. Twitch.tv forward slash TheBlindBoyPod boy podcast look at me live streaming several times a week these are other ways that you can just be sound to me if you enjoy the work that i'm doing so the big thing that got me wanting to do this particular podcast on iconoclasm and removing icons and statues and what it means to power was obviously the news like i mentioned a lot of talk of statues but one instance that happened in 2008 when obama first went into the

oval office and i haven't seen it being fucking mentioned in the fucking news so what happened was when george w bush became president of the united states which was in was it 2000 was it i think it was about 2000 but george w bush anyway he liked winston churchill he viewed george w bush who was a fucking terrible president, an absolute prick who invaded Iraq and legal war. I mean, Jesus, look, the fella looks like a saint now compared to Trump. But George W. Bush was pretty bad. And he liked to think of himself as an anti-fascist. And as a result of this, he admired Winston Churchill. So he got his hands on a bust of Winston Churchill that was made in 1946 in 1946 head and shoulders and he had it placed into the oval office for the entire term of his

presidency then in 2008 barack obama becomes president and america and britain have always had what's known as this special relationship a very strong allyship and a support of each other, right? And it's a huge thing in American and British diplomacy. This special relationship has kind of fallen to shit a bit underneath Donald Trump. It really is at the lowest it's ever been since World War II because Trump is so insular. It might slightly improve now because post Brexit the Brits want to get a lot of American bleached chicken

and do some trade deals so that might improve but the special relationship between Britain and the US which was very much solidified in World War 2 something like Churchill's bust in the White House

is a big deal that's a huge deal and when George W Bush put it in there it's the iconography of that statement the icon of Churchill says I am the president of the United States of America and here I have a former British Prime Minister in the fucking Oval Office. So therefore his values represent American values. And the icon of America is quote unquote democracy. It's not fucking democracy. It's brutal capitalism.

But America uses all these icons of prosperity and freedom and capitalism to just be a modern form of colonialism you know but anyway putting Churchill's bust in the White House is a big fucking deal for British and American relationships and it acts as an an icon throughout the Bush administration and this icon says things are pretty good between the Brits and the US we're good pals so when Obama gets in and chooses to take it out of the Oval Office

that's a big move and it frightened people in Britain it frightened Britain going fuck do you mean he's after taking Churchill out of the Oval Office fuck did he do that for and the Brits were really bothered about it and they sent him over they sent over a

a pen holder right that was made out of a British ship a British anti-slavery ship from like the 1700s and they sent Obama this pen holder so that at least he'd have this one tiny little measly icon of British relations in the Oval Office but the British you know not really being able to smell the stink of

their own farts and absolutely believing that Winston Churchill is this utter god of anti-fascism. That he represents everything that Britain stands for. And you saw this last week because the protesters were coming for the Churchill statue in London. The main Winston Churchill statue. People wanted to take it down. And if you allow Churchill to fall in Britain with Brexit and Coronavirus. allow Churchill to fall in Britain with Brexit and coronavirus that type of iconic iconoclasm could be so iconic that it could lead to a revolution you can't allow you allow Churchill to fall in London then anything it's a free-for-all that's the power of icons. Much like Churchill himself understood during World War II, during the Blitz, Churchill, when London was burning

under fucking German bombs, Churchill said to the head fire marshal in London, if St. Paul's Cathedral goes on fire, I will have you executed. Churchill understood that, yes, London can be bombed to bits, but if the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral is allowed to burn, then he loses control of society, to the point that the head fireman would be executed if it happened.

So the firemen in London during the Blitz worked night and day to make sure that saint paul's cathedral the icon of saint paul's cathedral would not fall because what this would have meant for the british people and we saw it last week with them utter defense putting a box around winston churchill's statue so that protesters couldn't take it down. Because of what that would have meant. Like you have to remember in 2000. Winston Churchill was voted by the people of Britain. The greatest ever British person. The greatest ever Britain.

He is seen in Britain as the great anti-fascist. The British believed that Winston Churchill beat Hitler. Okay. The Yanks. Well yeah. The Yanks well yeah the Yanks would say say that as well like George W. Bush is like

Winston Churchill is an anti-fascist and I want his bust in the Oval Office because his values represent my values so why the fuck

would Barack Obama remove it from the Oval Office what if I told you that Winston Churchill put Barack Obama's grandfather into a concentration

camp? Because that's a fact. Winston Churchill was an absolute prick. Now you don't have to tell me that because I'm Irish, I know. Winston Churchill was responsible for overseeing and commanding the Black and Tans the black and tans if you're listening from outside of ireland were um a british force within ireland during our war of independence who operated like the the ss the nazi ss there they were a breed of soldier whose sole purpose and goal was to murder and terrorise Irish civilians. Not even to engage the IRA. To kill, murder and maim Irish civilians as a kind of ideological, fear-based war against the IRA. Like Winston Churchill is seen as this massive anti-fascist but we don't

see him like that here in Ireland. We see the man as an absolute utter violent fascist who tried to eradicate us. Not just the Irish. He was a racist. Winston Churchill was an absolute racist. And you can't say, oh he was old school, it was different back then. No, no, no, no. Winston Churchill had incredibly racist views and he used these racist views to enact genocide and military power and might over people who he believed to be inferior, like Hitler did. Simple as that. Here's a quote from Winston Churchill in 1937. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact

that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly wise race, to put it that way has come in and taken their place okay so that is that's racism that's basically we're brits we're white white anglo-saxon protestants we're the british empire exists because we're genetically superior to the rest of the world and therefore it's okay so don't complain to me about colonialism don't complain to me about what we did to your country we're fucking better we're just better people so that's why we did it

that's like that's Hitler shit lads that's Hitler shit that's what it that was Hitler Hitler was straight up like we are the Aryans we're fucking class we're gonna take everything we're gonna eradicate them because we are the Aryans we're fucking class we're going to take everything we're going to eradicate them

because we are the chosen people we're genetically inferior and we deserve the earth and Hitler was straight he even gestured toward the Brits and said the Brits might be our enemies but genetically they're the same shit so we won't do it to them as much

but we're Aryans we're going to take over the world Churchill did in his actions, did the same fucking shit and in his views backed it up so that's why in Ireland we view Churchill as a Hitler and that's why when I see

the British people iconoclastically wanting to take his fucking statue down, I go brilliant do it, fucking do it finally he was a huge proponent of using gas take his fucking statue down, I go, brilliant, do it, fucking do it, finally. He was a huge proponent of using gas to kill people. Not only like the evilness of using gas as a weapon of war, but specifically it being okay depending on who he was using it on.

There's this old school Britishish attitude especially in the first world war when military technology grew kind of faster than the human brain could understand warfare and the british had weapons like gas and in particular machine guns and the british always felt pre-world war one machine guns are only okay if you use it on quote unquote savages. You would never turn a machine gun on a white enemy. You couldn't do that it'd be ungentlemanly. But you can use it on Zulus if you want. You can use

it on African savages because we don't view them as humans. And in 1919 Churchill wrote a memo and he straight up said, this is a quote, I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes. There's your hero, lads.

There's Winston Churchill, the great anti-fascist, the icon of anti-fascism on which Britain is built, the greatest Britain. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes and you can match that up with what he said several years later about him simply believing certain races to be

inferior, that's Hitler shit lads you wanna have a strong argument to not conflate the two because it sounds the exact same. That's fucking fascism. One of the most damning things regarding Churchill. And I'm hoping English and British people are listening to this because you don't learn this shit in school. You learn about the icon of Churchill.

You learn about Churchill as the anti-fascist great grandfather of Britain who, you know, if you want to become a squaddie or you want to join the army, you do it for Churchill and you follow in his footsteps. Churchill is responsible for the death of 3 million people in India during the Bengal famine of 1943. So 1943 would have been near the end of World War II India was a British colony as such Britain was ruling India and this huge famine broke out and the shitty

horrible thing about the Bengal famine and for me as an Irish person is it's like you killed 4 million people in Ireland in the 1840s ok did you not learn a lesson you exported all our food You killed 4 million people in Ireland in the 1840s. Okay? Did you not learn a lesson?

You exported all our food. Like, you're really going to do it again in India. And they did. The Irish famine happened in India 100 years later. Almost to the button. 1943, the Bengal famine. The British, all the rice, which was the staple crop in india was being grown and exported for british troops which exacerbated the famine and then huge amount of imported wheat that came in from australia which could have been used to feed the

starving people during a massive famine and Churchill oversaw all of this it wasn't used to feed the people of India it was kept in storage to feed British soldiers and it never, never, it just rotted so Churchill's responsible for the death of 3 million people and the one thing about Churchill which is less severe but something I wish British people knew Churchill wasn't...

Okay, fair enough, he fucking fought Hitler and he led Britain and blah, blah, blah. Churchill didn't do it for the people of Britain. Churchill did it for the rich people of Britain. Churchill was an absolute fucking capitalist, and he was anti-unions, anti-socialism. In 1910, I think it was miners in Liverpool went on strike and they wanted to form a union. I mentioned earlier about the history of workers' rights and how they had to be fought for. So these miners went on strike and said, we're not working in the

mines. Churchill sent in the army. Sent the British army in. On British civilians. Who were protesting for better quality. Working conditions. The soldiers got out of hand. And they killed two miners. So Churchill.

Is willing to put the British army. On the poor people of Britain. And two of them were killed. This man's a prick. So then you're left with the question, you know, all these reasons, Barack Obama in the Oval Office going, I don't want, you know,

is he thinking, I don't want to stare at this prick all day? Because Obama's smart. Obama knows his history. Obama's a really educated, smart person. And you're thinking, is Obama, like, is he aware of the Bengal famine? Is he aware of the striking workers? Is he taking this moral point of, you know, I can't have this?

No, he's not, because, like, the Obama administration, okay, Barack Obama, very very intelligent brilliant speaker he the greatest thing Obama ever did in my opinion is he made the world feel safe when when Barack Obama went like we'd all love to hear Obama talking about coronavirus we'd love to you know he had this ability to communicate and make us feel like there's a responsible adult in charge. I can relax. We don't have that at the moment with Trump. But Obama's main, it was performative.

Obama, look at his history of drone strikes, man. He was fucking sending drones, bombing an entire wedding in Yemen just to get one person in al-Qaeda you know so I don't believe Obama was disgusted by what Churchill was doing because Obama is the leader of an evil empire too but here's the thing Obama's grandfather his name was Hussein Onyanga Obama and Hussein was a Kenyan man he was a British soldier he had like Britain Kenya was owned by Britain Kenya was a British colony okay and he had fought for the British as an allied soldier during I think both fucking world wars

Obama's grandfather fought in both world wars for the British and by 1949 he was a cook he was about 50 at this point he was a cook but what happened right is after World War 2

Britain ruled Kenya and Kenya started going we wouldn't mind a bit of fucking independence it became known as the mao mao uprising and the mao mao uprising it'd be a little bit like the 1916 rising it was kind of a short, explosive act of rebellion, and only 32 British colonists were killed. But the Brits had seen this shit in Ireland before, and they just went nuts and completely overreacted to it. So the Brits are terrified of, right, the Kenyans are going to rebel,

they're going to overthrow colonial powers, what do we do? Like, a lot of shit that the brits did they'd already practiced it in ireland we're we're the closest fucking neighbor they've controlled those for 800 years they practiced a lot of it so what they did was the brits kind of identified what kenyans would be a danger well certainly the ones that were in the army fighting with us because we showed them all of their techniques you have to remember in Ireland in 1922 the likes of of General Tom Barry down in West Cork Tom Barry like invented what is modern guerrilla warfare against the Tom Barry was a former British soldier who fought for the Brits in Iraq and he used what the Brits. Tom Barry was a former British soldier who fought for the Brits in Iraq and he

used what the Brits had taught them to organise flying columns to fight the British at home. So they'd already seen sometimes our former colonial soldiers get wise and realise that we're actually pricks and use our own tactics against us and that's

really dangerous. So the Brits figured, what if this happens in kenya okay let's round them up round them up so the british rounded up 80 000 kenyans who they believed to be a threat and this is what happened and this doesn't get spoken about the british had concentration camps huge concentration camps in kenya like hitler had and whose idea was this churchill churchill winston churchill the great anti-fascist had concentration camps in kenya where 80 000 people were sent into and these concentration camps, it was industrialized torture. Like a concentration camp is industrial torture and suffering, often with a weird sexual element to it.

And Hussein Obama, Barack Obama's grandfather, spent, I think it was four years, in one of Winston Churchill's concentration camps for on a daily on a daily basis he had his testicles squeezed by iron rods british soldiers were sexually torturing him for fucking years in a british concentration camp in kenya and winston and Winston Churchill's Kenyan concentration camps they killed 35 sorry no 25,000 people and these were like he just

they picked 80,000 men who they thought might be a threat often ex-soldiers these people hadn't done any crimes and they put 80,000 people in here tortured them sexually industrialised concentration camp violence and the torture was so much the 25,000 died so when barack obama gets into the oval

office when he sees winston churchill that's what he thinks why the fuck wouldn't he his fucking grandfather the man who fucking had rods poked into my grandad's balls every single day for four years and like I want him on my fucking desk now I'm the most powerful person in the world not a fucking hope

so Obama the legend was that Obama sent it back to Britain he didn't he just took it out of the office. But that was iconoclasm. He removed, like, taking the bust of Winston Churchill from the president's office and moving it out into the hall, that's a big one.

In terms of iconoclasm, that's pretty big because it threatens the special relationship so i believe obama did it now obama's obama is very diplomatic individual obama will never say a word that's remotely emotional he's very clever you'll never catch obama out so obama has been challenged on it and asked and he's just said no i love winston churchill no no no no winston churchill was a great man um i moved it out because look i wanted to make room for a new i think he replaced it with martin luther king and he just said look you can't have an office with too many busts in there I wanted

to put Martin Luther King in there instead um I've no problems with Winston Churchill didn't mention anything about his grandfather but like come on come on he tortured his fucking grandfather in a concentration camp Obama's not gonna say that he's too diplomatic but that's what happened that's what happened and moved it out into the hallway no one brought that up in the past week fucking Churchill statue being encased people wanting to rip it down

Brits going why would you hurt Winston Churchill what did Winston Churchill do he hated Hitler he beat Hitler there was protesters protecting they were protecting Churchill's statue right these far right cunts protecting Churchill's statue saying

we're protecting Winston Churchill from the protesters he defeated Hitler while they were also doing Sieg Heil Nazi signs at the police so these hooligan far right were doing Hitler fucking Zieg Heil while saying we're defending

Churchill because he defeated Hitler. That's what happens when Britain lies to its people continually through the education system by making someone like Churchill an icon. Churchill was Hitler. To Irish people, Churchill is

Hitler. To Kenyan people, Churchill is Hitler. To Kenyan people, Churchill is Hitler. To people in India, Churchill is fucking Hitler. That doesn't mean I'm diminishing what Hitler did or Mussolini or anyone like that. I'm just saying that's how we see it.

And I just find it odd no one brought it up. So that's this week's podcast. That's what this week's podcast is about. All right? Mind yourselves. Be compassionate towards yourselves.

Be compassionate towards others. Don't be acting like coronavirus is gone just because everyone else is. Wear a mask. Keep others safe. Yart. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm.

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