The Breakdown - Why War Reporting Is the Right Mental Model for Today’s Media, Feat. Jake Hanrahan

Episode Date: June 9, 2020

On today’s episode of The Breakdown, we introduce the Breakdown Brief - a look at three key topics in bitcoin and crypto. Today, the Brief covers: Brave browsers auto adding ref links to Binance.us  The disconnect between Wall Street and crypto when it comes to inflation expectations A 2018 Pentagon war game including bitcoin  Our featured interview is with Jake Hanrahan, founder of Popular Front - a podcast and independent media company covering underreported and irregular conflict with “no frills, no elitism.” Jake was previously an embedded reporter with Vice and has covered conflict in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Ukraine and elsewhere.  In this conversation, Jake and NLW discuss: Why Jake left Vice and decided to build an independent journalism project Why the mainstream media isn’t bad because of some political conspiracy, but because its business model doesn’t allow it to understand how real people are experiencing issues  How the protests are being (mis)covered around the world Why American protests are going global What he learned covering protests in Hong Kong last year  What situations people should be paying attention to around the world that they’re not right now   

Welcome back to The Breakdown, an everyday analysis breaking down the most important stories in Bitcoin, Crypto, and Beyond. This episode is sponsored by BitStamp and CipherTrace. The Breakdown is produced and distributed by CoinDesk. And now, here's your host, NLW. Welcome back to The Breakdown. It is Monday, June 8th. And today, I'm starting a week-long experiment with something I'm going to be calling. breakdown briefs, at least for this week. And the basic idea is that there's a lot of stuff

that I think you guys come to the breakdown for. Part of it is great guests who are looking at not only the world of Bitcoin, but about macro and geopolitics and even cultural shifts that help explain the context that Bitcoin operates in. But then there's also the day-to-day analysis of what's actually happening in this industry right now. So I'm going to try for the next week to have at the beginning of each episode a brief, which is going to be three quick stories, a what and a why for each story, why it matters, followed by that day's either featured guest or the featured topic if I'm just doing a deep dive on a topic myself. So with that, let's dive into the first ever breakdown brief. Story number one, over the weekend, it came out that Brave had been redirecting

with a Binance ref code. So basically what happened was a user on Twitter called Cryptinator saw that when you type Binance.us into the Brave browser, it automatically added a reflux link. And this obviously was not a great look for this company, which is all about privacy, to automatically add something to a user's feed. Brendan Ike, the CEO of that company, quickly came to Twitter and said, hey, we made a mistake and explain their policy on using reference links as a way to help support and keep the company afloat. And explain the whole logic, but also made it clear that they didn't think that you should ever have it be automated. I think that the why that matters, this wasn't a big dust-up. It wasn't something that had everyone up in arms per se. It's more that there's a reminder for any

company in this crypto space. If you were trying to establish or challenge the established order, you have to be so much better than the incumbents when it comes to things like user transparency and trust, even if it feels unfair relative to everything out there. Obviously, I think Brendan did the right thing coming to address this quickly, but the worst thing that you can be in crypto is reactive if you're a company that's trying to be better than the best. another great reminder of that. Number two, let's talk about the disconnect between crypto and Wall Street, and I think this one is really important. The what of the story? Bitcoin has obviously has had over the course of this crisis inflation as a key thesis. This was most notably embodied in Paul Tudor Jones

coming into the space and saying that Bitcoin was an important store of value, a hedge against what he called the great monetary inflation. That has gotten a lot of eyeballs, a lot of institutional investors interested in Bitcoin as an asset for the first time or maybe coming around to it in a way that they weren't before. The problem is that bond markets are not pricing in inflation. Bond markets seem to believe that we are not looking to some sort of hyperinflationary scenario, but quite the opposite. Right now, bond markets are pricing in consumer price increases over the next five years of just 1.5%. That is lower not only than the Fed's 2% target, but down 1.8% from September. Basically, in September, the bond markets were pricing in 1.8% inflation. So why does this matter?

Well, there's a lot here. Obviously, there is fierce disagreement about these numbers and whether bond markets are right or wrong. And all you have to do is follow Preston Pish to see kind of the counter arguments to this. But I think that the more important point, because again, this is the brief, and so I don't have time to debate all of that here, is that it's a great reminder of why it's important to not get stuck to any one particular narrative. Certainly, the hedge against potential inflation is an important part of the Bitcoin narrative. It's been one of the most resonant parts of the narrative over the course of the crisis with MoneyPrint or Go Burr. However, it is by far, far from the only narrative of Bitcoin. And in fact, as we've seen police and governments crack down

on legitimate political action, to me, something like the censorship resistance narrative, the making it harder for people to claim funds or freeze funds seems to be a really important part of the modern story as well. So the Y here in this case is a reminder to not get overly attached to any one narrative, but understand the full set of value propositions that's something like a Bitcoin offers in the modern world. A story three in the brief is Z Bellion. So what is Z Bellion? Well, Z Bellion is a shadowy organization that plays on Gen Z dissatisfaction and funds itself by stealing fiat through a global coordinated cyber attack with the participation of a huge number of members of Gen Z. It also converts that fiat to Bitcoin. If this sounds made up, that's because it is.

This is from a 2018 Pentagon war game that was declassified through the Freedom of Information Act. And so why does this matter? Well, I think the interesting thing is to see how the U.S. leadership and political and military establishment viewed Bitcoin at that time. And now it may be, by the way, that in the context of this military exercise, Bitcoin was a stand-in for cryptocurrencies writ large, right? It might not have been specific to Bitcoin, but just the idea of these digital currencies. And the point is that there is still a really strong focus on them as a vehicle for crime. And I think that has evolved somewhat, but I still think that the vehicle for crime narrative is potentially the most persistent and likely fud that we will see even going forward.

we have right now in America an increasing in the intense political divide between the protest crowd and the quote unquote law and order crowd and that law and order language is waiting to be deployed for other reasons. So I think it's just a good reminder of potential fud that we might face in the future and really interesting no matter what that this was a scenario that was cooked up in the Pentagon in 2018. So that is the first ever breakdown brief. Let me know what you guys think of it. Let me know what you guys want to hear about going forward. Like I said, we're going to try this all week, and if we have good feedback, we'll keep doing it. But for now, let's shift our attention to today's featured guest, Jake Hanrahan, founder of Popular Front.

We are currently in the second week of protests around America and increasingly around the world in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd. These protests have become extraordinarily politically contentious, as well as extraordinarily, extraordinarily, widespread. And the role of media in this sort of wide-scale civil unrest is an important part of the story to tell as well. So today I'm excited to be joined by Jake Hanrahan. Jake is the founder of Popular Front, which is a popular podcast and media network dedicated to focusing on and reporting about underreported and irregular conflict. That means not just state-to-state warfare or military action, but rebels and advocates and protesters and you name it, but basically conflict situations around the world where people are advocating for something different than the system and power.

Jake got his start with vice. He was an embedded journalist in places like the Ukraine and in Turkey, where he was actually imprisoned for a time, which is to say that his experience is hard one. In this interview, we talk about his experience last weekend at BLM protests in London. and the disparity between what he saw on the ground and what the police covered. We talk a lot about the political manipulation, so to speak, or the political capture is probably a better way to put it of media on both the right and the left and how they drive intentional wedges around issues like this.

We talk about some of the other parts of the world where conflict is happening. We talk about his work covering the front lines in Hong Kong last year and what he thinks about that situation. This is not a particularly easy to listen to interview compared to some because it's at the heart or getting at the heart of some of the most challenging and contentious issues of our time. But I thought it was important because Jake represents a new type of media voice, a new type of independent journalistic voice that I believe is essential for us actually escaping the cycles of sort of uncritical analysis that have become too easily a part of our media conversation.

So I hope you enjoy this conversation, and more than that, even, I hope that it helps you think about things in new ways and maybe look to some situations that you hadn't been thinking about before. Now, a couple quick notes. First is that, as with any long interview, this has been edited only very lightly. And second, part of what that means is that the language has been preserved exactly as it was, impassioned as it was. So if you have faint ears be warned, but hopefully you enjoy this regardless. All right. I am here with Jake Hanrahan. Jake, great to have you. Thanks for having me, mate.

So I actually, you know, I don't often do this because I find the podcast that are kind of like, oh, tell me about your background, are often boring. But I think it's actually relevant in this case for people who aren't familiar with your work. So can you tell me just a little bit about how you got into conflict reporting, I guess, and in particular this idea of a regular conflict reporting? Yeah, man, sure. So I'm a, you know, independent journalist based in the Midlands, in the UK. And I've been covering war and conflicts all over the world now for about seven years. Started very early. I was like, what, 24, I think when I first went and covered war. And I started with Vice News. So I was, you know, I was a freelancer before then and I was writing about war kind of from Britain. But, you know, just kind of, oh, that's an interesting story there. And ringing people. in the country, not doing on the ground reporting, which is what I always wanted to do. And long story short, you know, Vice News, when it first started, I was like, oh, I liked that

because I was already writing bits for Vice, but Vice News was what I liked. I was like, that's everything I like about Vice without the bits I don't like. So I just kept bugging the guy who became my boss, basically, got a job at Vice News. And yeah, man, spent like five years there just traveling all around the world, covering war and conflict, but it was mostly for me, it was like, like you said, like a regular warfare, which is, sounds a bit of a mouthful, but it just basically means like non-state actors. So like militias, paramilitaries, rebel forces, that kind of thing, people fighting against the state or fighting against regular militaries or regular armies or whatever.

So, you know, that, that to me has always been a little bit more interesting than kind of just getting some official embed with an army. I much prefer to, like, roll up with, like, rebels and find out why they're fighting because they're not getting paid often. You know, they come from a place of urgency, urgency. And, you know, I just find that incredibly interesting, just in kind of like a human way, especially when it happens in like an urban environment

where people are living and then all of a sudden their town is turned into the conflict zone. That, to me, is so interesting and so important, I think, to report because, you know, people are getting shut up and killed while they're just sitting at home. So, yeah, that's how I started. And then, you know, I quit voice news about three or four years ago. when kind of HBO took it over and it got a bit, you know, I didn't really like the direction it was going in.

And now I run my own platform, man, it's all grassroots, 100% independent. It's called Popular Front. We have a podcast, we do documentaries, you know, write articles, we've got a magazine coming out, all sorts. Yeah, it's awesome. I've been following Popular Front for a while. And, you know, I was just telling you before, but this is interesting to me. I think I share that interest in kind of the lived experience of people who all. are in turbulent situations and who don't know what to make of it. And part of this for me came from, you know, the story in America, at least, after the end of the Cold War was that, you know, it was sort of capitalism triumphant and everything was great. And that was, you know, growing up in the 90s for me, that was the kind of the dominant idea.

And then all of a sudden September 11th happened and it kind of smashed that open. And you look back around and actually the 90s had been the bloodiest decade since the, the 40s, right, since World War II in terms of kind of actual human life. And I think what's so interesting about what you are covering is that, you know, irregular conflict has actually in some ways become regular conflict, right? Where where actual kind of violence happens in the world, it is often or perhaps even more often in these sort of, these type of kind of rebel context like you're talking about. And I really appreciate the on the ground kind of embed focus. I mean, it seems like that's even when you're covering something like these protests going on right now,

your interest is in what people who are actually on the ground, be it the protesters, be it the fighters or be at the civilians who are living around them, actually think and feel outside of what either media or politicians want to tell you they feel. Is that fair to say? Yeah, well, I think I'm not one of these people that's like completely opposed to mainstream journalism. Like mainstream media is a bit of a like boogie man for a lot of people. I think there's some very big issues within mainstream media, certainly, and I'm trying to address some of them with Popular Front. But I'm not like, you know, I'm not like, oh, all mainstream media is bad,

don't believe what they tell you, it's all controlled by blah, blah. Like, there's kind of a conspiracy theory, you know, and it's not real. But certainly there are elements where mainstream media, especially in the last five years, is just failing on an unbelievable level in terms of letting people know what's going on. And it's like you said, because they're not on the ground as much, because of the lack of money they have now, there's huge job losses in the journalism industry.

and you have really stupid, like, like, the people that have been there the longest, it were like, you know, that need refreshing and getting rid of, never really get got rid of. It's always like, it's always like the lower, not lower, but like the lower paid staff, you know what I mean, which are often the people on the ground. And I mean, let me tell you, when I was working for vice, you know, literally shoulder to shoulder with rebel fighters as they're fighting a war, you know, in very dangerous places, I was getting paid for fuck all. Do you know what I mean?

So it's quite similar to a lot of places. people are getting paid very little and they get dropped first. And then what's left is just nonsense like just kind of click bay and all of that stuff. So I think the mainstream media has failed in the sense of it's been too dependent on its investors and its venture capital funds like BuzzFeed News, which despite what a lot of people say, did some very, very good work. And we've just seen them kind of collapsed because of the other side of the BuzzFeed business, which is just, you know, manufactured nonsense. That was getting a lot of the play. And the venture capital investment didn't work out. So unfortunately, a load of good reporters lose their jobs and a lot of good reporting doesn't get done.

So with Popular Front, it's all funded by Patreon and subscriptions on Patreon and merchandise. We sell a lot of merch and donations, to be honest. You know, like we have people that are just like really like what you're doing. Because I've kind of drawn a line in a sand with it. I refuse corporate sponsorships. I've had a lot of, you know, I don't want to like blow my own horn, but the podcast and everything, it's very successful now. and it's really flying, but we've done that without any help from any corporate nonsense.

And people contact me and they're like, you know, like dual, you know, like dual pods owned by Philip Morris. Now, they wanted to sponsor Popular Front. And it's like, no way. I'm not letting some like big corporate monster that is given half the world cancer from cigarettes sponsor my podcast just because it would make me a lot of money. Like that doesn't, to me, that's like against what we're about. Like Popular Front is not like politically biased. The only thing I say we are is like anti-authoritarian always. So whether you're left, right, send that I don't care.

Any kind of authoritarian street, we're against that. But otherwise, you know, we're not coming with some like crazy bias of like, oh, the West is all bad or Russia is all bad or, you know, kind of that. So I think people appreciate that. And when there is clear bias, we're very honest about it. We're like, yep, we think this. You don't have to listen, blah, blah, you know what I mean. So I don't know.

A nuanced approach is what I always try and do. And we always say, like, no frills, no elitism, which basically just means nothing too fancy. and no elitism. You don't have to be some like suit. You don't have to have a degree. I don't have anything. I have no qualifications formally. So you don't have to be like in the upper echelons of the kind of elite journalism circle,

which I bumped into a lot with my work when I was working at Vice and other places. And I hated it so much. So that kind of spurred me on to say to all these like misfits. Like, hey, I know you lot like conflict as well and reporting and research. Come and come and join us. Listen to us. You've got a place here. It doesn't matter where you're from, what color you are, what background.

you from, just come here, come to us. And that has built like a really beautiful kind of coalition of people. And that's kind of why it's called Popular Front, you know. Popular Front is people that don't always necessarily agree on all the main points, but they can work something out to come together and work together, right, for a similar goal. That goal being truthful, honest, on the ground reporting as often as possible, and basically just saying piss off to all these kind of elitist people around journalism. Do you find that that perspective makes it easier for you to actually kind of build trust with the people that you're embedding with?

Yeah. And to be honest, it was always, I think because I'm from a different background to what maybe a lot of people think journalists are. Like it comes down to a class issue, honestly, which is a very boring and overplayed thing to talk about, I think. but it is relevant. So I'm not, you know, I'm not from a rich family. None of my family are rich. You know, I'm not from, like, kind of journalist people. I'm not from media people, just normal people, you know what I mean? With normal jobs, in normal places.

You know, I grew up on a council estate for part of my childhood. It's not like, you know, we didn't know money. So I think you immediately, you kind of have a little bit of a different sense of the world when you come from that kind of background. You know, same way as I can't integrate and, like, make myself blend in with certain elite people because it's clear that I'm just not like them, which that's fine. Doesn't mean I'm not their friend or whatever, but you know what I'm saying? It's very clear that there's differences there, right, in your upbringing.

It's unbelievably obvious in England anyway. I don't know about the rest of the world, but in the UK, it's kind of sticks with you. So that was always like, at first I thought that would be a struggle. So I was at Vice, I watched some of my older docs and I can even tell that I'm trying to like speak more clearly, like dumb down my accent. This is when I was younger at Vice. really regret that because it's like be who you are and I guess being in the field I realized that actually it was kind of helpful because you would meet these like rebel lads or these you know militants

or whatever and often they're from like poor backgrounds they're from nothing or they're in the war and they're not looking to talk to someone that's very uptight they're looking to have a laugh and they want to push you and see how far they can push you and you push them back and you know they want to see that you're not scared of them and I don't mean scared of the guns or the war they want to see that you're not scared of who they are. You know what I mean? So I feel like that actually, I know that helping because I'm like, I'm turning up to these places and I'm like,

mate, I don't give a fuck if you're from wherever. If you take the piss out of me, I'm taking the piss out of you. And that's actually a not a negative. That's a bonding experience. And eventually I realized these people would be like, hey, you're all right. You're just a normal guy. Like, cool, you're a journalist. I didn't expect this. So, you know, and it sounds a bit cocky,

but it was like that, you know. Often we have people be like, oh, you're not how I thought you would be when we heard a journalist was coming. So that's cool, you know. And there's a lot of conflict reporters, just like me as well. A lot of people I know get very good access for similar things. They can integrate themselves. They can make themselves liked by people.

You know what I mean? So it's not just me. It's nothing special about me at all. But what I'm saying is my experience, I found that to actually be helpful in some ways. Now, it's not very helpful when you're talking to, like, officials. Because certain officials, they want a lot of, like, respect. I don't believe in giving people respect for no reason. It's like I'm a journalist.

I'm here to ask you awkward questions. I'm not here to play your game sort of thing. So it doesn't always work out. But yeah, man, for me it helped. And with Popular Front, when we first started out, it was a bit tricky when we was on the ground because nobody who would be were about then. But some people recognise me from Vice.

So that wasn't too bad. But now I noticed it's gone from, oh, you're Jake from Vice to people who stop me and say, hey, you're Jake from Popular Front. And I love that. It means it's working. It means people are recognizing. It's not recognizing me. It's recognizing the work.

You see what I mean? So now people trust us. We have a lot of enemies because we're very, we're not about like, we're not wishy-washy. You know, we have like some hardcore Chinese communists coming in the thing and saying, you shouldn't talk about the Hong Kong protesters. They're just liberals. They're terrorists. And we just say, yeah, go fuck yourself.

You know, you're a hardcore communist. You like authoritarianism. You're scum. And we will be like that. We will draw a line in the sound like that. Some people don't like it. And we've lost some older, older listeners because of it. but who cares? Like for us, it's like, no, certain things you have to take a stance on.

That doesn't mean you're biased. It doesn't mean you're like lying. It just means you're human. You know what I mean? So, yeah, people seem to like it, mate. And it's, I don't know, it's been a shock to me, honestly. I started as a side project. Now it's my main focus. Yeah, no, it's great. I mean, I think I want to come back to Hong Kong as well. I rewatched the frontliner documentary last night. And there's some really interesting parallels to even the conversation around the BLM protests. But I want to go back to that. But, you know, when you were talking, it kind of reminded me of, you know, so there's obviously been this huge conversation as we were talking about around the business model of media. And you kind of got at this, right? Where it's not,

it's not just hold aside the left or right bias, right, which is a political football in America and probably everywhere else, too. But more the like, if you actually look structurally at the way that media is funded, it creates this kind of a crisis. And Paul Graham actually, the guy who started Y Combinator last night. He put it really crisply on Twitter. He said something to the effect of this idea of being non-biased made sense for newspapers from a business model standpoint when your job was to get as many people in a geographical location to subscribe to you as you could, right? Because in any geographical location, you have people who are more left, people who are more right. So you want to actually be able to speak to everyone. You want to be able to be the paper of record for them. In Internet world, it's totally the opposite, where what you want is people who, like, again, from a pure business model perspective, what you want is as many people who think the same way to drive clicks, right? If you're just objective, well, people are just going to naturally sort themselves into kind of one or the other. Now, that's a thesis. I think that it would be a reasonable position to take that, to bet more on people and try to prove that wrong.

However, I do think that, like, largely speaking, there's something interesting about that. And, you know, what's cool about popular front or what's interesting about popular front is that I think that you're seeing this mass movement. I think for the first time, it's starting to be really legitimated right now where people are just take, they're basically deplatforming themselves from their media outlets and starting their own thing, right? You've got Matt Tybee who left Rolling Stone. Obviously, in tech, you've had these kind of popular newsletters like strategically for a while that become, you know, one of the most important sources of information. in new industries like Bitcoin and Crypto where we are, you see the independent media apparatus, like podcasts like this, like Peter McCormick, like POMps,

all growing up right alongside the major publications. And so I think particularly with the type of reporting that you do, that was always a hard spot for papers. They had to be really committed to that type of coverage to focus on this, right? To spend resources against it. And so it makes sense that you're finding this, this kind of success shifting off and just and and accumulating and building the community of people who for whatever reason, whatever background, think that this is important and want to support

it directly. Yeah, no, definitely. And I think it's, I don't know, it's like it is a business model, but it's also kind of, you know, what I say, when people say what is popular front, I say it's grassroots independent conflict journalism. And like, it really is grassroots because, because yeah, it's a business model, but at the same time, it's just come organically. Do you know what I mean? I never expected it to blow up like this. I just was very determined and I knew what I wanted to do

and I knew the attitude that I had. And my attitude within myself with journalism was from seeing a lot of problems within the mainstream industry and getting very sick of twisted reporting. There's a very big problem as well where basically mainstream journalism generally in the UK is kind of liberal centrist kind of vibe, right? And that's fine.

That's like what most of the country probably are, right? But the mainstream liberal journalists will suddenly tell you you're an activist and not a proper journalist if you deviate any way from their central liberal line. So if you go, well, actually that's, you know, like, for example, I'm seeing now, like, you know, journalists that painted themselves as kind of leftist for a while when it was popular and now suddenly being like, save the police,

the police are getting hurt in the UK. And it's like, well, why weren't you saying that when people were fighting against the police in wherever? Oh, because our police are good or whatever. And it's like, for you, maybe they're good. In your life, in your London bubble, maybe they're good. But let me tell you, I've got a lot of friends and myself as well where the police have not been good.

Now, that doesn't mean I'm abolished police. I don't, any society needs a police force, whether you call it that or not. But it cannot carry on like this, is my opinion. Now, all of a sudden, that makes sure, you an activist to these people. It's like, well, I'm not saying to you, you're a liberal activist because you have your views. Do you know what I mean? So why all of a sudden do they want to paint the other side

like that? And I think that a lot of people are waking up to that. A lot of people know that just having a different point of view doesn't make you a fucking activist. You can be a journalist and be a human and have an opinion on things so long as you don't let it cloud your work. Do you know what I mean? Every journalist has an opinion on something. Yes, we have to be objective, but 100% objectivity means you don't really. seem to feel anything and a lot of people want to know the feeling of something because that is all part of the human experience which journalism is not just bullet points do you know what I mean it's not just meant to be bullet points in my opinion I think it should be about nuance and I think it

should be about kind of discussing and trying to break down these complicated issues and make them simple or at least easier to understand you can't make them simple but you can make them understandable So the way to do that is not to just be like have a have a stick up your ass and be like, well, it's this, this and this because the government blah, blah. Like you have to say, well, how about this? How about why are they doing this? They have their grievances, this, this, and this. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Now, that doesn't mean you suddenly become, you know, you've got like Breitbart and Fox News, which in my opinion, I don't, it's not even journalism. It's just, it's just a joke, really. Do you know what I mean? It's like anyone that watches that, I think deep down, they must know, like, this isn't journalism, it's just my opinion being reinforced and giving back to me or whatever. The same way as if you watch like, I don't know, what's a, like Navarra Media we have in the UK, some absolute trash like hardline communist propaganda outfit, basically.

Now, that's when you go too far one way or the other. I'm not saying do that. I'm just saying be a fucking human being. Do you know what I mean? And people like it, man. People are like, yeah, I get it. And sometimes they'll say, well, you shouldn't have done this. and I'll be like, yeah, maybe not.

Maybe you're right. Admit to your problems. And then other times I'm like, no, you shut up. Like, you know what I mean? You don't have to take on everything. If you could bottle that lesson for people on Twitter and sell it as a course, you'd be a rich man. Oh, man. So actually, though, you know, so you mentioned something about how the protests is being covered in the UK.

And I wanted to ask one of my questions going into this. What is your perception about how these protests are being covered around the world? world. And honestly, actually, let's add a different element to this. Why do you think, what's your take on why these protests are going global? Well, that's a good question. A small question. A small question. I'll answer the first part first. So it's relevant as well because I was at the protest on Saturday in London. So that was the first big, like, organized Black Lives Matter, anti-police violence, solidarity with George Floyd protesters, George Floyd kind of, you know, police killings protest. It was a lot of things basically. And immediately I saw the media already, even like BBC, which a lot of problems

the BBC has, but they're often quite good with stuff like pointing out what something is. But even they were kind of doing dodgy things where they started talking about coronavirus spreading and then using images from the protests. And I thought, oh, wow, isn't that interesting that they would suddenly do that. But anyway, so the London protests, it was completely peaceful for 90% of the day, right? And, you know, I was there from start to finish. So we marched from Parliament Square.

It's pretty disorganized, but, you know, there was people dipping in different routes going for marches down. And it all came to the US embassy. It was all calm there. I mean, it wasn't calm. It was very heated, but it was nonviolent, you know. And a lot of black organizers are making sure,

it was non-violent. And I must add as well, like the crowd was completely mixed. It was majority black people, but there was so many white people, Indian people, Chinese. Every, every, every race you can think of were coming to say like, hey, this is bad, this is bad and we're showing solidarity. Now, you've got a lot of like right-wing kind of trolls are like, why even bother? Our police don't even have guns. They don't shoot black people in England. It's like, firstly, Google the word solidarity. And second, like, you have no idea the actual other issues. I have friends, black friends that get stop and searched on their way to, I've got one friend who's like a solicitor.

If he's on the way to the gym wearing jogging bottoms and that, he might get stop and searched. If he's on the way to work, you know, he works a solicitor. It's kind of ridiculous. So there is definitely a problem with stuff like that. But anyway, that was beside the point. Everyone was coming out and saying like, yeah, look, we're coming here, we're supporting it.

We're against it. And I went as a journalist, but I felt it myself. You know, I've got black family members. And it was like, yeah, this is wrong. Why is the police killing? an unarmed black man. Why are they so disproportionately killing black men in America? Unarmed black men.

Like, again, the word is disproportionately because people keep bringing up these stats. Disproportionately, that is the important part of it. That's actually the big takeaway you should get from it. Anyway, and, you know, it's like, yeah, of course you're going to come out here and show solidarity. There were old women. There was everyone there.

Very nice, very good. Like, it all kind of finished. So we all go back to Parliament Square. I will say some crowd stayed behind and there were some small scuffles with the police at the embassy, but it wasn't like a riot or anything like that. It was just like ag. The sort of thing you see on a Friday night, any time in the UK, right? On a, you know, that level of fighting.

And then we got to Parliament Square, and everyone was sat down there just talking, like eating, like, because it was done now, people smoking cigarettes and whatever. And this huge storm come out of nowhere. It was like biblical, man. It was like lightning, thunder, like big forks of lightning across the sky. guy. It was like mad. Rain just came down immediately, you know, like movie rain, like vertical, just everyone

was soaked. And we all ran, everybody ran and we ran to like the sides and under this, under the kind of, there's a bit where there's shops nearby and they've got like a shutter across the front so you can kind of get under it away from the rain. And everybody was dispersing up Waterloo Road. I was walking back with a friend. We were leaving. And then all these, um, bully vans, uh, like riot vans, you know, slang bully vans, but right, riot vans turned up. I don't know, like 10 maybe. And then there was about over 100 police were just forming a line.

And clearly like revving themselves up getting very like aggravated or at least like kind of, you know, getting themselves ready. And I was like, what are they doing? Looked around and there was nothing. Like people were just walking. There's a few lads on bikes. The crowds had largely dispersed because like I said, it was pissing it down with rain. And then they just charged. Honestly, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, mate, I would not have believed.

it happened like this. It was so weird. They just charged. And everyone was like screaming like, like, there was loads of young girls nearby because they just, you know, like I said, it was a peaceful protest with all different people. And like everyone just started running. The sirens went on. And they ran to the middle of the road near parliament.

And they just formed a, you know, like a formed a human chain. And we're like, no one's allowed past. And everyone's like, what? Like, we're trying to leave. And I'll tell you how bad it was. There was a photographer. This black guy was stuck on one side and his bag was left. near the bollard next to me and he's like let me through i need my bag i'm a photographer and

you're like you're not moving anywhere he's like um press like had the cards and i you know i had to pick up the bag and and give it to him it was like what is going on like so it was very confusing then the police we have this technique called kettling where they just keep pushing you pushing you pushing you back and they pushed everybody up until like it got into this like maybe 30 30 by 30 meter square between two roads around the cenotaph um and it's still raining. There's maybe 200, like, protesters are there. I'm there in the middle of it at the front. And the protesters for about three hours were saying, just move, let us go, and we will go peacefully. There was like organized, there were these lads, all black lads as well,

like organize it, telling the younger lads, calm down, don't kick off. That's what they want. We'll just wait it out. Police wouldn't leave it. And then they started pushing forward. And people were like, look, stop pushing us. We will leave if you just open the chain and let us leave, which they would have. Everybody was trying to go, mate. This was not an orchestrated conflict. Like, this were people trying to leave. I was trying to leave.

You know what I mean? And yeah, and then they just, the police kept pushing. And after about two hours, lads just started being like, right, sick of it. Bottle started getting thrown. And then one of the police kind of pushed very heavily with his shield. And then it turned into a big fight. I was filming it right in the middle of it. You know, I got hit by one of the coppers, like, just, I don't know, I guess, you know,

I don't, I'm not saying it was like, on. purpose. He just was whacking anybody, but it was violent. Do you know what I mean? And people were throwing punches and then it, yeah, and then the clashes broke out all over, basically. So I know that's a long way of explaining it, but it has to be explained that way. I've witnessed it with my own eyes, you know what I mean? And people are going like, well, actually, it's these kids kicked off. And I'm like, no, mate, I saw what happened. And otherwise smart journalists, they're just completely disregarding it. And it's not just me. Like a lot of the young people that were there are saying the same thing. So these liberal journalists mostly have gone for two,

three years now saying believe black people, listen to black people, support black people. Now when the black people are telling them, this is what happened, this is what the police did. And I'm telling them as well as a colleague of theirs technically, they're all just going, nah, nah, no, this is how it happened. It's how the police had it happened. That to me, I would argue then that, well, they want to call us kind of people activists. I'd say, well, you're an activist for the government in that sense because you're disregarding what the people on the ground are saying. Now, I'm not saying everybody at the protest was an angel, certainly not.

There was some bad stuff happened. Some horses got rocks thrown at them. Firstly, you shouldn't have a horse at a protest. That's the police's situation. They bring horses to protest, which I think is disgusting. A police horse bolted and a police officer accidentally hitting some traffic lights and fell off and she got very hurt, but she's all right. Again, right wingers were saying someone threw the woman off the horse,

that's not what happens. She went into a traffic light by accident. So anyway, so the media then is saying like, oh, well, there are riots now in London. Firstly, there were not riots in London. 2011, those were riots. Whole areas getting burnt down, buildings getting burnt down from day till night.

Those were riots. These are small clashes with the police. And frankly, I've seen much bigger clashes at football events and even in my own town on Saturday nights. So it's not good, but it's not riots, despite what the tabloids are saying. And from my perspective, at least, I mean, I've been checking online to see, am I wrong?

Am I wrong? From my perspective, the police sparked that initial piece of aggravation. Now that that's been sparked, the fire has started, and everybody's very angry. And now it is turning into clashes. And already the media is trying to turn it into white versus black. The right-wing media specifically is calling it race riots, race wars. Mate, I'm telling you now, I got grabbed by a policeman and three black boys pulled me off of him to stop me getting pulled away. And we're saying, like, you know, hey, thank you.

for covering this. There was black guys were kicking off. White guys were kicking off. Everyone was angry, mate. This was not black versus white. Certainly it was a black issue, but it was a lot of people from other races saying, we support you, you're in our community,

we're together and we're supporting each other. And it was really nice. Now immediately it's been turning into this race situation. So I'm very uncomfortable about the way it's being panned out in the media. And I'm seeing people talk behind my back saying like, oh, Jake's just supportive of the protests and the riots. He's an anarchist. He's this.

He's that, mate, I was there, you weren't. And I was shoulders to shoulder with these boys and these women. And I know what happened. And I've got it on camera. I even filmed the initial charge where the police just run into the street. And it's clear. People are going, what? Huh?

Like, what's going on sort of thing? Like, I don't know, mate. It's very worrying to me, actually. I don't know what's going to happen. But seeing the way it's panning out is, it's distressing. And I'm seeing otherwise, like, normally nuanced journalists now crying. because a bloody statue that was a statue of a slave trader in Bristol where there's a lot of black people live

and a lot of anti-racist people live, there has been a statue to this slave trader who imported like 84,000 slaves, many of which died on Root because he didn't give a shit. And it got pulled down by protesters yesterday and thrown in the river. My opinion is good, get it down. For years, and again, people said, well, it should be put in a museum. For 10 years, people in Bristol, this is what people ignore.

if you do your research you will know for 10 years people in Bristol have been campaigning saying get that statue down put it into a museum it does not belong on the streets could you imagine being a black guy walking past and seeing in your own town where you were born and raised a statue to a guy that enslaved your people

that's not good you know what I mean that's outrageous so they wanted to get rid of it the council every single time refused to do it so so what the people took it into their own hands tore it down and they flinged it in the river get lost mate like it's gone And now journalists are being very, oh, this is, you know, doing a lot of pearl clutching. This is outrageous.

This is so terrible. Well, you're the old guard and you're going out. Like, we're the younger people now and we see it for what it is. So I think tough luck to them, isn't it? BitStamp is the original global cryptocurrency exchange. Since 2011, BitStamp has been the preferred exchange for serious traders and investors, trusted by over 4 million customers, including top financial institutions. BitStamp is built on professional grade trading technology.

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Learn more at cyphertrace.com. Do you think that this language of rioting and violence is being used to delegitimate protests in America as well? And let me ask you a pairing question. I know that part of what you do is you have a network of people who are all independent journalists who look at this stuff. So one of the types of language we've heard a lot about here is this idea that it's either, you know, the violence is either caused by white supremacist, you know, antagonists or Antifa, right? And that's, there's the first few days, it seemed like, especially of coverage in the U.S. was all about, like, which category of external agitators was it? And since then, it felt like for maybe the last week or so, the protest leaders have been able to really tamp down violence. So it's been harder to make that argument.

But I'm just interested in your take again. And maybe even contextualize this in like you've seen protests around the world in different contexts. And you've seen authorities responding to protests. Is this use of kind of the rioting language to delegitimate protests a technique that you've seen before and is it happening again? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like the way the dialogue from Trump is almost identical to like the dialogue from Bashar al-Assad when he put down the legitimate protesters in. Syria. It's similar to Erdogan in Turkey, who, you know, it's a totalitarian state. Any totalitarian

state is very similar talk. You know, he's saying very similar things. I'm not saying America is a totalitarian state, but certainly the same techniques and the same dialogue is being used by Trump. It's clear as day. And also the liberal, and I keep saying this, I am not a right wing guy. I'm the opposite, but the right wingers kind of disregard them because I just think they're morons. But the liberal media, we're not right wingers. Like right wing left. fine, whoever. I'm about like the hard right nonsense like, you know what I mean. But anyway, the kind of liberal trusted CNBC, all that kind of stuff, immediately when they saw white people smashing things, instead of realizing, oh, wow, this isn't just about black and white, this is a

community angered and fuming. Of course, white people are going to be fuming that you've just murdered an unarmed black man by a police officer. Why enough, wouldn't they? Unless you're like an absolute racist, why would you not be enraged by that horrific video? So a lot of I know a lot of white anarchists went out and started wrecking up the shop and throwing Molotovs and rocks at the police. Now, you know, immediately the liberal media says, wow, there's a far right agitators coming from out of state. Hilariously, the so-called leftist, uh, aOC, you know, Ocaccio Cortez, or whatever you say it, she was immediately like, hmm, this is interesting. Sowing that divide from day one, sewing that divide of, oh, you know, like letting the protesters.

So protesters I know from Friends in America on the ground were saying like, like, oh, oh, apparently there's infiltrators. And it turned out like they weren't. Like even the police had to kind of double back and say, oh, actually we said they were out of state infiltrators and antagonists, but actually when we arrested, Lodem, they're not. They're from Minneapolis. So that was like a very interesting tool,

which has been used for decades and decades, say that anyone that isn't obviously a part of a movement is, you know, is some kind of infiltrator and a kind of agitator. Also, you get these right-wing libertarian bugaloo boys, right? Now, there's a big faction of the bugaloo boys which are racist, they are far right, and they're frankly horrific. But the bugaloo idea is not a cohesive movement. It's a kind of lifestyle, if you like, and kind of an ideology, kind of like a fun ideology, whatever.

And there's a hell of a lot of right-wing libertarians, but not racist, who have come out to support the Black Lives Matter protesters and said, yeah, we're with you. We don't have the same ideology necessarily, but we are again. authoritarianism from the police and the government, and we are with you, and they've come out armed. And this is one funny thing that is quite an interesting aspect of the culture now. This hyperwoke kind of hyperwoke takeover of the left in America has kind of turned these people into co-intel pro of the government without even realizing it. So they're immediately saying,

wow, there's a neo-Nazis, neo-Nazis are coming out to disrupt. And it's like, I spoke to some of the people that these people are calling neo-Nazis and they're libertarians. And they were genuine. They were like, no, we're coming out to, you know, we don't understand, but we definitely understand the language of anti-authoritarianism. So we're coming out to make sure we can help them if needs be. What's wrong with that? You know, like, I don't get why that's a problem. So there's been a lot of skewering right now from both sides. The right wing element is, it's frankly, it's just so funny to me, you know, like, the idea that, like, Antifa is, like, responsible for the riots. Antify is, like, it's kind of an opinion.

a choice, you know, it's not even a cohesive movement. The same way the Bougaloo Boys isn't, which is ironic, because, you know, both sides are screaming ideas onto the wrong thing. And it's just so dumb, you know, like, it's just, it's just, I think it really shows a level of racism within the society over there where people, certain people just cannot understand that someone from a different race can be angry that that person has been killed in an unfair manner. Do you know what I mean?

Like, we don't struggle with that as much in the UK. It's easy for me to say as a white man, blah, blah, but like we don't. We don't struggle from that as much. We're not, our police are not as racist. Our police are not as violent. But certainly we have empathy. And, you know, you would think you would understand. I mean, have you seen that video?

He cries for his dead mother as he's being choked to death for nine minutes. It's a straight up murder man. Like, I just, it really, it's angered me and really confused me the response from a lot of people, you know. But yeah, it's just, it is, there's a lot of, like, Trump's rhetoric around this, has been completely outrageous. The tweets, which are very thinly veiled, like, incitement of violence, I think, you know. But hey, that's Trump. You know, I don't like Trump.

He's just so funny in the way that he's like a comic book character. But when it's things like this happen, it's like, shit, that's actually a really dangerous thing. It's not funny anymore. Yeah, it's interesting. So there's a, I don't know if you follow him, but Ben Hunt and there's this company called Epsilon Theory. And basically what they do is they use semantic analysis to track narratives in the media. And so effectively what they're interested in is like, how are people talking about the thing, right? Not the thing itself, but how are people talking about it and understanding it?

And they did this analysis. And they found that almost immediately when these protests started, both the left and the right in America, were instantly trying to push this into a left-right divide. rhetoric, right? Like to just basically map this onto the culture war in the exact same way, when, in fact, to your point, the just the sheer human agony of the particular incitement in this case was enough to pop people out of those political bubbles. But the leadership on both sides is trying to push them back in, maybe even subconsciously trying to push people back into that. But that's the entire way that American politics has run is as this sort of, you know,

I mean, it's, it's, yeah. And listen, if everyone is divided, the potential for actual systemic change and like, you know, removing of a system and a system of leaders that almost no one likes is impossible, right? You have two techniques. You have divide and distract. And the political fault lines are a divide. Another great example of this, going back to your point about the Bougaloo Boys, is there was right when the, maybe the first night or the second night of Minneapolis protests, there were a couple of guys who came out with guns and they were interviewed, and they were guarding a liquor store. And, you know, there's a two-minute interview. And if you watched the whole interview, what they say is, we really support everyone's right to protest. This is

horrible, and there should be justice for George Floyd. But we don't support rioting or we don't support looting. So we're just, we're here protecting this guy was trying to protect it from looters himself. And so we're just here kind of, you know, out to make sure people are allowed to protest peacefully. And the New York Post took like a tiny snippet of that and made the headline something like rednecks out of fighting looting or something like that, right? Like completely missed the context of what that is. It was actually a Dimitri from Hidden Forces who pointed this out. It's like the most clear, yeah, the most clear example of someone, of a publication, just trying to map what was otherwise actually a politically confounding moment because it's complex

and nuanced into a political validation of, you know, again, the divide that already existed. So I don't know. It's a hard, it's a hard thing to watch covered. I mean, I saw, I saw you, you tweet this morning that it's basically impossible to wrap, our heads around it right now. It's moving so fast from just a coverage standpoint. Yeah, my mate, Ali, a great reporter, Ali Winston, he's I was talking to him this morning on the phone and he said, like, he said, the news cycle is on meth. And it really made me laugh. And I was like, yeah, man, like, it's just so difficult. And I honestly, like, our news is becoming kind of Americanized in that sense as well. But it's, it's just tiring, I think, even as, like, I'm a journalist and this is my

job like to do this and I'm just so tired already man it's just like I'm tired of arguing with everybody and trying to explain that nuance does not mean uh bias you know that's another thing that's been lost like trying to explain and break something down so when I'm saying hi like this is what happened the police did this to us that's what sparked the clash oh you're biased like no that's not bias that's called explaining the situation you know and it's all these buzzwords have seeped into the kind of common talk now. So it's like, oh, that's a bias opinion, Jake. It's like, mate, I've literally told you what I saw in my eyes. It's not an opinion. It's a blow for blow account of what happened. That's actually reporting. That is the opposite of what you think

it is. And just suddenly, because it doesn't tee up with the way people want it to have gone or what they want to believe, it's an opinion now. It's a bias now. So it's very difficult. For me, you know, I'm very pessimistic about it. Well, I'll be honest, mate. Like, it's all too late. I think nothing can be saved in terms of like the cultural shift. Maybe over years, years and years, something might change, but I think we're just turning into a dark age of like nuance. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So let's, I want to shift maybe and take this sort of global. So like I said, I was watching the documentary about frontliners again last night. I'd love you to explain maybe a little bit what frontliners are and kind of what you learned while you were there. But it was effectively about

Hong Kong. And one of the really interesting things was you were talking to one of these guys about why they were out protesting. And he said, well, at first it was the extradition bill, right? Which was the bill that basically kind of kicked the whole thing off. And he's like, but then the police started ratcheting up the violence. And so all of a sudden it became about that as well. And I thought that was interesting just in the light of these protests, which are clearly the spark was very clear and very pertinent and it had a lot to do with that specific video and just how agonizing it is. But now the more that they go on, the greater the number of issues are kind of wrapped up in this. I mean, and I guess I'd love to hear about your experience in Hong Kong and what you found, what people were agitating

for, and particularly in light of seeing China continue to try further and further to absorb Hong Kong back into the system. We've seen major moves over that of the last couple weeks. Yeah, yeah, man. So I was in Hong Kong in October where me and a cameraman works with popular front front front. We went over there and we filmed it and we had very good access to the frontliners. And the frontliners are basically, it's not a movement or a specific group. It's the people from the protest who kind of go the extra mile. They go to the front to fight with the police, right? They're the guys throwing the motifs. They're the guys risking their lives. They're the guys throwing rocks. They're the, they're the people, the hardcore of the hardcore, if you like,

you know. So I was most interested in them because for me, you know, that's the heart of the conflict, right? That's, or at least the resistance to the conflicts, I guess. So we went out there and we was filming with these, you know, the front liners. We met many of them. We interviewed them very nice young men, like almost all young men. They were women as well, but the ones we spoke to almost all young men. And, you know, they were basically forming like what would be the kind of, the baby steps of what would be a militia should something turn into a war. It was like that.

They had walkie-talkies. They had tactics. They had groups, but it wasn't one specific group. It was just, this is our group. There's five guys that know each other. We'll be frontliners and we'll fight at this bit. Oh, there's a group of frontliners. We'll talk to them, figure out where they're going, right?

So it wasn't, it was like decentralized. And they were fighting authoritarianism from China. Now, anyone that, you know, I mean, it's a fact that China is a brutally authoritarian country. I mean, look what they did to the Muslim Uyghurs, look at their insane social points score system, look at the way they spy on people, look at what they, they, you know, you can get arrested for calling the government, Winnie the Pooh. Like, it's outrageous. It's an undeniably authoritarian country and a very powerful one at that. So obviously, you know, since British colonialism kind of left Hong Kong to China after however many years, I forget exactly now like 50 years or something,

it's coming closer to the date in, I think, in the next 10 years or something where China will be able to fully absorb Hong Kong. In the recent years, China has been trying harder and harder to speed that up. They've been imposing laws. They have basically been eroding the autonomous status that Hong Kong has right now. Well, they've lost it now, unfortunately. But that's what was happening. And these young men and women were like, we're not having this.

We have lived free. We have had, I mean, it's not an ideal society. I'm not particularly fond of Hong Kong. It's just like hyper-capitalism, like shops everywhere, Gucci this, scoochied out, lots of metal and glass. But it is free. You know, it is free. It's not fair perhaps, but it is at least free. You know, I personally believe being free,

even if you're in a bad situation, is better than being in a bad situation and not being able to be free. So anyway, so they're trying to get free. And, you know, they fought tooth and nail, man. They fought so hard. And I think a lot of them knew they weren't going to win. But for me, and I've seen this a lot with conflicts,

there's something important about rebelling for the sake of showing that you will. Now, a lot of people think that's futile, but you can't just be walked on for the sake of, I don't know, your soul, for the sake of the soul of the community, you sometimes have to fight back against authoritarianism. And a lot of these young men and women knew that they had to just fight, even though they probably weren't going to win. They were appealing to America and the UK, please help us. That's why they had the flags out. They were saying like, hey, please help us. Obviously, the UK, which should help them because we had this deal, but, you know, my country's government is appalling right now, so they did nothing, and they did nothing before.

And, you know, that's what it was. So they ended up losing this fight now, and now they're all going to, they're all being crippled under, like, they're going to be slowly crippled under Chinese authoritarianism. I think what, it's been three weeks, maybe since China kind of brought in this illegal bill, literally carried people out of the legislature, legislature, council, whatever it's called the Legico, they call it, literally dragged people out that were opposing this new law by security, they took them away by their, picked up their hands and feet and took them out, past this new law where it basically just gives China all this power. It was the, what, 70th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre or whatever, whatever anniversary is, I forget.

They banned any celebrations of it already in Hong Kong, which is unheard of. It's now illegal to, like, desecrate the Chinese flag. It's just like they're just very quickly sweeping over. So, yeah, man, a very, very sad situation, some very brave young men and women. that fought there. But the fact they even fought, who knows, maybe that will inspire guerrillas in five years. Who knows? Maybe they, when the Chinese authoritarianism has completely crushed Hong Kong freedom,

maybe they'll say, hey, remember those kids that did that? We already know techniques. And you know what people in Hong Kong are like? They're so unbelievably inventive and like the ingenuity is unbelievable. So straight away, they were going on the internet and getting tactics from all different protests from across the world. and using them against the police. And they started sharing them.

There was clashes in Lebanon right now. They started writing up on Reddit, like things that they'd worked out that work as like small-scale guerrilla tactics to fight the cops. And they were sharing them with Lebanese protesters. And there was these banners like solidarity between the Lebanese protesters and the Hong Kong protesters. Iraqi protesters were like, we like them guys.

They shared some information. The whole thing was like amazing, you know. And it's for me that there is that rebellious street where people are just saying, no, it's always important just for the culture of the world. I really believe that. And it's not rebellion for rebellion's sake as in like, fuck you, dad. It's rebellion for the sake of saying we will not be walked on or we won't go down quietly. And I do think that's important. I think people cannot be crushed like that. You shouldn't, you cannot be allowed to be crushed like that. You know, if you can fight back,

do it. And these kids, they're not armed. There's no guns in Hong Kong. Apart from the police, they have guns, shot a few people. Somehow no one died from the shooting. But yeah, and it's like they did everything they could to fight back and it failed. I do think, I speculate that some of the most hardcore frontliners that are not in prison now will end up doing something. Maybe someone will make a bomb, you know, like maybe it will become literally guerrilla, like a militant group. When Hong Kong is finally swallowed up by China, I can really see that happening. But until then, it's just people getting arrested, man. And it's just, it's a real shame, you know, it's a real shame.

The world has done nothing to really help them. I guess, you know, it's not up to the world, I guess, to police. lease it, but when it happens in China, it's going to come to Taiwan, and it's, Hong Kong, sorry, it's going to come to Taiwan. And it's just, I don't know, it's a real shame. You know, it's a real mess. Yeah, I think the world right now, it's an interesting question for how to, how to deal with China, you know, that hasn't really been engaged with for a really long time.

Actually, on Friday, I had an old friend of mine who I went to college with who's spent a lot of time on China-U.S. relations give kind of the history of the U.S.-China relationship. And the interesting thing that you see is it's basically for the last 20 years, it's been kind of kicking the can ball or kicking the can down the road a little bit because, you know, George Bush came in thinking that he was going to try to figure out what their actual approach was going to be. And then you got distracted, you know, by the Middle East, by Afghanistan or got distracted might be a little bit too generous to turn. They shifted. Yeah, exactly. Shifted their focus elsewhere. And, you know, the Obama administration came in and they had this intention to rebalance focus and put more

focus on China, but they did, but without like knowing what their strategy was. And so now we're left with the situation where there's kind of widely recognized human rights abuses, but this incredible global economic interdependence, which is a real serious question. And, you know, every time that something like Hong Kong comes up, it creates a new front in that. And yeah, it's, I think it's hard to see a situation around the world that has more potential, more potential to shape the globe in some ways than that region. Yeah, they're just, I mean, I don't know how to say it,

but it does seem like the world is just kind of like, China was kind of playing on Russia's rules. And I'm not like a guy that's like in love with the West and thinks everything the West does is good because, you know, certainly, you know, I've done most of my career in the Middle East. Like, I know that what the West has done in the Middle East is often not good. But at the end of the day, like, you can't just then go, oh well let's just let Russia and China do what they want

because there is always going to be a force bullying the world no matter what you know it's always going to happen and when you just you know with Trump in office I think that's been an absolute boon for like China and Russia because they realize now that like right we can just get away with it man like they can just play all these silly games and I don't think like it's all on Trump's doorstep like you said about Obama and Bush

like Obama's Middle East policies were like laughable they're so laughable And they added to a hell of a lot of chaos in Syria, you know, like, and also, like, so many dead children from, like, Obama-led drone strikes in Yemen, for example, you know? So already that was already very just a mess. Now, Trump comes in and is just like, it just tips the world upside down, you know? And I just think China and Russia realize, like, we can get away with it. And, like, Europe is completely limp, you know? Like, Europe is like, please stop it.

Like, we will sanction you. It's like, come on. Like if you don't think they, like these are countries right that don't really care about their people. Now this is clear from, you know, like a guy the other day was like protesting, I think on his own in Moscow, like singing some song arrested. He's been in jail for 10 days, you know, like China, murder, murdering like Uyghurs, like putting them in concentration camps, destroying like ancient mosques. Like, you know what I mean? Destroying any dissent. They don't care about their people.

So it's like, what are you going to? You're going to sanction them. Well, the people in power who do care about themselves. they care about power. They're always going to be rich. They're always going to find ways around it. So I don't think that the sanctions really work. Now, I'm no economist,

and I'm probably sure there are economists with scream hearing this, but I just really don't think the world works on that kind of checks and balance basis anymore. It works on, like, kind of reactionary feelings and, you know, who can kind of dick swing the biggest, I think we're in that kind of scenario now. China's very quietly just everywhere.

Like, they're all over Africa. You know, they're like, they're essentially, kind of doing a colonization of certain cities in Africa. It's just mad. It's just mental. And I just think, you know, we kind of set ourselves up to be shot in the foot. Because like you said, so much manufacturing is over there and we rely so heavily on it.

So, you know, whatever. It's just, what are you going to do, isn't it? Like, what are we going to do? I don't know. I do worry. Like, I think a war might break out, man. Like, not like a World War, but I can see, like, an out-of-left-field war coming

where you're just like, whoa, what? Like, that country is fighting them. like, and it will be something to do with some weird Chinese or Russian influence. In fact, right now there's clashes on the border in this area in India between the Chinese military and the Indian military. And there have been like small scale clashes because China's just moving into their land. And they're like, what are you doing? And China's just like basically saying, what are you going to do?

You know what I mean? And it's it is de-escalating right now because neither side really wants the war. But that's, we're just seeing a lot more of that stuff. I mean, look at Ukraine. That still hasn't been solved. Russia, just all over there still. It's just a mess, man. I think we're in this weird time where after something goes on for a bit

and the news cycle shifts, it almost doesn't matter anymore to a certain amount of people. And the governments that want to do these bad things, America included, recognize that. And they know that they can get away with things they couldn't before. I don't really want to, I'm no psychologist or anything. I don't know why, but it just does seem to be partly because of the way things are covered, the way the access to information we have now. I don't know, man.

It's just almost like the technology got so good, so efficient, so rapid that it was able to be co-opted by like, you know, like horrific companies like Facebook and other devil companies. I don't know who like scumbags like Amazon and, you know, abusing workers, but it doesn't matter because you get your stuff. And you know, you know what I mean? And it's kind of like I sound like some like really played out like kind of Tyler Durden type now. But it is becoming a reality. It is becoming the reality, you know. I don't think even people I knew that like so called normies right are even saying things to me now like friends and I'm like yeah man you're right and they're like hang on why is amazon paying no tax

in our country when they abuse our workers so much yep you know what I mean it's not it's not Tyler done and that's just the reality so it's it's a worry in time I think yeah and I think the the other part of the worry is that people get exhausted right people feel like having to care all the time about everything and having to, I mean, it's just, it's understandable why people react by just kind of tuning out in some ways because it's really hard to look at everything. You know, it's hard to understand how everything fits together and how these are, you know, it's appealing to have easy explanations that blame someone else, you know? And I think that you're right that I don't know that I've ever seen a time where people are more skeptical of the explanations being

given by, by authorities on whatever side. But at this, same time, there's a huge gap between being skeptical and knowing what to do next, you know? I mean, we're even seeing this now, bringing it back to BLM. It's like, it seems to be consolidating from a narrative perspective around, you know, the action that people want is defund the police, right? And I know you tweeted about this yesterday, I think, as well. Like, you know, but it's like, what are the outcomes that we're actually looking for once we've gone out and agitated, you know, it's, it's really difficult. Yeah, well, I mean, I get the defund thing to a,

degree. Like I think they have way too much money. They have way too much power. They've got like military vehicles. I mean, mate, like look at these protests. Immediately police are gassing, tear gassing, peaceful protesters. I've seen, I've been documenting it as well. They've been outrageous behaviour from the US police. And I think that in itself is an argument to say, hey, something serious needs to be done here. Me personally, I don't believe that I'm not a believer that a revolution is coming in any sense. If I have my own perfect world, I'd like to live in a kind of autonomous community where you know your neighbours and everybody has to pitch in.

Otherwise, the community falls apart. So everybody is kind of forced to look after each other in a way. You know, like not forced, but like if you want to live nice, you have to look after each other. And I think a community police force in terms of someone that goes around answering problems that can't be dealt with elsewhere. So, you know, if your child gets kidnapped, you need some group that can go, let's go and get them.

but when you've got people sending like people to prison for having like half an ounce of weed or whatever like you know i've been pulled over twice this month because of like dumb stuff on my car like in reality it's just the police are just out there looking to get people do you know what i mean and i don't know personally i've had a lot of bad experiences with the police even in the UK and you know we call them bully boys a lot of the time and frankly that's what it feels like they feel like they're just out to bully you a lot of the time. Now, sure, there's a ton of like middle class kind of white people that can just, or any really race, I guess, will say, well, no, I've always had great experiences with the police. Well, that's fine for you, but there's so many people that

hasn't. You can't just disregard a whole element of society because you had good experiences with them. And, you know, people say, well, if you're not doing anything bad, well, why do you care? Well, the parameters of what is bad and isn't bad literally depends on officer to officer. and the government can change them rules at any moment. So I really think that, you know, this is also a sign now. So people want to say, oh, well, the police have been good to me. Well, now you're seeing the people that the police weren't good to and you're seeing what they do and they're kicking up a fuss.

And in my opinion, I think it's good to be kicking up a fuss. I also don't believe, unfortunately, that peaceful protests do very much. I actually, that's a sad reality. I don't really think that they do much at all. It's very, I mean, the only recent, time I can think of when an actually genuine kind of peaceful protest changed anything was there was essentially an Armenian revolution

what last year or the year before but that only really changed when a load of the Armenian troops burst their barracks they kicked off the gates basically and just ran into the streets and went hand in hand with protesters and said we're behind them the government is not we are not going to stop the protesters were on the side of the people so you could argue that that wasn't even really non-violent

because the threat of violence got very serious for the government there because the military started going against him. So I just don't think that, I don't know, man. It's not really up to me to decide what isn't isn't worth using or whatever. But just from a journalist's point of view, from someone who has covered all these conflicts and revolutions all over the world, the peaceful way is just not really going to scare power. Whatever the power is, wherever it is, it's not going to scare them.

And I don't think they move until they're scared. And they even get so scared that they leave and go, well, forget this. or you end up with, you know, horrific situations like Syria. But there's the, that's one war. But then there's also like the battle of like grinding mundane authoritarianism that is just never, it's never checked. When that's left unchecked, it creates a very dangerous precedent. And I argue that that's what we're seeing now with China to the kind of endth degree.

I don't know. I just, I think you're right. What people said about being exhausted, though people have run out of empathy. They've run out of caring. I guess that. I don't know what that is, maybe. never seen people so un-emphathetic in my life. It's just apathy everywhere. I'm seeing a lot of that, which is sad. I get it. People can't care about all things all the time. But it's really,

even on a local level, I'm seeing it at times. And it's like, Jesus Christ, like, how do we get to that? I don't know. Maybe that was always there, but I'm certainly noticing it a lot more now. Yeah. Well, for people who, I mean, I don't think we're going to solve that one just yet. But I will say that, you know, if nothing else, the one positive thing is, you know, I actually do find a lot of optimism or room for optimism in this sort of shift towards independent media, independent journalism, because it creates at least a context for people who do have that mental space, that mental bandwidth, you know, or the privilege of that to learn more. So for people who are, who do have bandwidth left, what are the, are there other uncovered or underreported situations that

you think are worth paying attention to, right? People who are saying like, hey, I want to understand what's going on around the world and kind of not hide my head in the sand. What are places that are just not being covered that are important? That's a good question. There's a lot of, like, low-scale conflicts, which with Popular Front, we cover a lot of it. You know, I say we cover the niche details of Modern Warfare and underreported conflicts. So there's loads of conflicts going on right now that you just don't hear about. They're always interesting because I think, how do you explain it? I guess like they always have, when you look at these smaller conflicts,

you realize how other countries are playing a role, you know. So, for example, there's an ongoing conflict, very low scale between Armenia and Azerbaijan. There's an area called Nagorno-Karabakh or Atsakh, as they call it. And, you know, Russia has a military base in Azerbaijan. They have a military base in Armenia, I believe. They're selling arms to both sides. Turkey is completely invested in Azerbaijan, Russia will probably back Armenia, but then they also have ties with Turkey. So if that really kicks off, you see how then the world is actually

way smaller than you realize, like, geopolitically, a lot of these conflicts are because of other bigger countries. Do you know what I mean? Or at least the other countries have, like, a role in them, have a stake in them. And then I think when you can understand that, you sometimes, for me, at least, it makes other conflicts a little bit clearer. It's like, all right, I get why they're doing that and Libya because they're doing this in that country and it's a similar kind of, I think you can understand what the country's outlook is judging by what conflicts they're getting into, you know, and it's not just business often. It isn't just all business. Sometimes there's a lot of other things that go with it, you know. So that's definitely something worth doing, looking at these things.

But one thing I would say is, like, in terms of mainstream media, like, it is reliable to a degree still. And what I do, there's just certain journalists that I will say, like, right, he's good, she's good. You know, I think there's a lot of good New York Times journalists, and then there's a lot of unbelievably, unbelievably bad ones as well. That doesn't mean, oh, I hate the New York Times. It means they do some very good work and they employ some very clever people who were very good at their job. So that's good. So I'll look at them and I'll follow them and I'll look at their work. And there's even some people on the right wing, like what we consider right wing media where you're like, okay, that guy makes a point. You have to like take it on board and so on. But at the end of the day,

I understand that people don't have time. You know, people really don't have the time to do all that. You know, it's like people say, oh, no one ever checks the news. They don't really read up. They're not nuanced. Well, a lot of people are doing like 60 hour work weeks, you know, and like busting their ass in like in a factory or a warehouse or they're tired. Or they're doing, you know, and they come home and they've just about got time to see their kids.

They're lucky if they read any news. And then they're going back to bed and they're doing it all over again. So you can't really expect people to, be, you can't have a go at people all the time for being ignorant. And it's not even ignorant sometimes. It's just they don't have the time. So in that respect, I think journalists as well can ease off on

people a little bit. Don't be so shocked that people don't know about things. You know, we work within a very small bubble actually. So I think maybe be empathetic to just people as well. Just understand that people sometimes need things explaining to them. And there is a reason why people, unfortunately,

are starting to believe in conspiracy theories over facts and all of that. It's not worth being angry at it is what I'm saying. Sometimes you have to just try and understand it from the perspective of why they've ended up there. And oftentimes it's because they don't have time or they don't trust the news or it's too boring. I don't know, man.

It's a tricky one, but you know, you have to really try and understand them. But other than that, I would say definitely look at independent media, but don't be fooled. When some people say I'm independent media, often what they are is just projecting their own fears and opinions. There's a lot of like talking heads on YouTube. that kind of call themselves as news.

And when you look at it, it's like, well, that's not the news at all. They're just getting outraged about something, you know. Don't be outraged, be informed. That's what I think. I think that's a great note to end on. And certainly a really important set of recommendations for a really tough time. Jake, it's been awesome talking with you for a while. Where can people find you and Popular Front if they want to learn more about a regular conflict

and just the world at large? Yeah, thanks for having me, mate. Sorry if I was ranting, but these are very... It's rantey times. Yeah, yeah, these are very contentious times. Yeah, so if you look me up on Twitter, Jake underscore Han-R-H-R-H-A-H-A-N, that's my personal account where I'm posting most of my stuff. And then if you look for Popular Front, so you can go to the website, which is Popularfront.com. Everything is there.

Or just search Popular Front in a podcast app. you'll find us. I almost guarantee if you like this show, you will like Popular Front. We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we do report on serious stuff. So check us out. All right. Awesome. Jake. Thanks so much. We'll talk to you soon. Thank you, mate. Appreciate that. One of the things that struck me about that conversation is Jake's defense of traditional media, even in the context of moving out and doing a different path. He clearly has issues with both, one, the way that corporate business model influence changes what media can cover structurally,

and two, the way that media seems to shift on a dime to accommodate their opinions to popular conventional wisdoms. But what he doesn't say is that mainstream media is a hopeless morass. That's just a tool of financiers or governments. He doesn't say that at all. In fact, he points out that mainstream media is, like any organization, full of individuals who may or may not do good work, and it's important to understand those individuals and looking at it. Now, of course, that's hard. It's why it's easier in some ways to wrap our heads now around an independent voice, that we know their perspective coming into it. But I think it's a really important reminder to not paint things with such a broad brushstroke. Jake has every incentive to say,

screw mainstream media, you should only be focused on independence like me, but that's not what he's saying. In fact, he's warning against shifting our perspective too aggressively from mainstream to independence, pointing out just how kooky independence can be as well. So I think it reflects the larger complexity of the way that Jake approaches the world and reflects part of why I wanted to have him here. Anyways, guys, let me know what you thought about this conversation. Like I said, I know it wasn't necessarily an easy one, but I think it's an important part of the story of the world happening around us. I think that without understanding this context of social and political unrest, we can't really understand larger patterns of economic and power change,

which I think is kind of the core of what Bitcoin is about. Anyways, thanks for listening, as always, and be safe and take care of each other. Peace.