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All the News Which Is Fit to Print - Part 2
28 Plays5 years ago
Still covering up a timetable snafu, Josh and M discuss news about Joe Biden, French political censorship, and a legal battle over Pepe the/le Frog.
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Josh is @monkeyfluids and M is @conspiracism on Twitter
You can also contact us at: podcastconspiracy@gmail.com
Watch M’s series “Conspiracism” here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJEp7xTcFU3hc2W0kfdSvAQ
and learn more about their academic work at:
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
The Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy, brought to you today by Josh Addison and Dr. M. Denton. Hello and welcome to the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy. I am Josh Addison sitting on my left.
00:00:26
Speaker
Dr. M. R. Xtenteth. Welcome. I'm not, I'm quite curious, why are you pointing out sitting on, I mean, I always sit on the left. Do you? Well, politically, obviously, we both do. But I mean, this is always the position I sit in this podcast.
00:00:41
Speaker
Yes, I suppose you're right there. I can't. I can't follow this. It just seems like a really weird thing to point out. Just imagining a world where I normally sit on the right and you on the left would be some weird topsy-turvy universe where Andy Bichago wasn't president.
Alternate Reality Speculations
00:01:01
Speaker
I was thinking the other day, that really weird run that Donald J. Trump had for president. Imagine if he got in. What a weird world we would have lived in. And of course, we can't help but talk about the wonders of the Bill Shorten government in Australia.
00:01:20
Speaker
I mean a dramatic election last week and a frankly amazing select for cabinet this week. Australia looks at being really good hands with Prime Minister Bill Shorten. It's just an amazing week in politics. Just like when Jacinda Ardern came in and had all of the national party executed under our new fascist state.
00:01:44
Speaker
And I'm particularly glad about Norway winning the Eurovision contest last week. That was such a fantastic competition. That was one of the most astounding Eurovisions I've ever seen. And the fact it was held on the moon. Andy Bichago is really delivering his American presence. He said Eurovision would be on the moon. It's on the moon.
00:02:07
Speaker
I'm certainly glad this is the reality that I live in, and not any other one, not that there are any others, obviously, that would make... I mean, that's just science fiction. It's true. I mean, there are some bad things going on. I mean, it does look as if there's going to be Scottish independence, despite the fact that the UK voted to stay in the EU. Scotland is deciding to leave.
00:02:31
Speaker
And of course, the Atlantean forces which are invading Ireland, very disturbing war crimes going on there. But by and large, that's really the only bad things happening. So this episode, we're going to be doing much the same as we did last episode, which we recorded a week ago. I'm sure you remember. The fact that we're wearing the exact same clothes we wore when we recorded the last episode is just our commitment to continuity.
00:02:58
Speaker
It's kind of uniform. Did you know Daniel Radcliffe? When he was being Harry Potter, apparently he wore the exact same outfit for like a year or so, specifically to piss off the paparazzi, because a photograph that isn't immediately identified by the date is much less useful. So he'd be wearing the same clothes all the time. So none of their photos were
00:03:21
Speaker
And so basically what we're saying is we're so tired of being harassed by the paparazzi that we've decided to go with the exact same wardrobe every day. See, this is the point in time where I should rip off my face and reveal that actually I'd been Daniel Redcliffe the entire time. Locksome as hard, no. That would just be silly. We live in a grounded, real universe where Eurovision happens on the moon and Andy Lushago is president. That's true. That's true. There's here none of the silliness. And if we're going to talk about silliness, we should talk about
Biden's Ukrainian Conspiracy
00:03:48
Speaker
the news. Yes, I think we should do that right now.
00:03:52
Speaker
Breaking breaking conspiracy theories in the news. Now, of course, we're going to talk about the news. We should talk about former vice presidents such as Joe Biden. Now, the Republicans are making a punt at trying to get a presidential election successful for next year. And I believe there is a bit of a Republican conspiracy theory going around about old Joe Biden at the moment.
00:04:19
Speaker
Yeah, and people like it's shown up and people have sort of been predicting that all this is going to be the Republicans line of attack against Joe Biden. This is the sound bite you're going to keep hearing. This is Joe Biden's equivalent of Hillary Clinton's emails. Yeah, basically what they're trying to say.
00:04:35
Speaker
And it's the accusation that he abused his power as vice president, back when he was vice president, to protect his son's business interests in Ukraine. So, specifically, supposedly, he blackmailed Ukraine's new leaders into firing their chief prosecutor. Anti-corruption prosecutor. Anti-corruption prosecutor, yes. One Viktor Shokin.
00:04:57
Speaker
Shokin to derail an investigation he was leading into a Ukrainian gas company that Hunter Biden, Joe Biden's son, was paid to advise. So there's a bit of sort of follow the money, connect to the dots kind of stuff going on. Hunter Biden's working for this gas company. The guy who was looking into the gas company suddenly gets given the boot. Joe Biden's vice president of America.
00:05:24
Speaker
Connect the dots. It all makes sense, doesn't it? Except that Ukrainian anti-corruption activists are saying this is not true at all.
00:05:34
Speaker
in that some of the events described resemble things that occurred, but they've been interpreted in a way which actually isn't what happened in the Ukraine. And a lot of this is trading on two factors. One, Americans are, I'm sorry to Americans listening to this podcast, you may well be the exceptions, fairly ignorant about international politics. And two, most of the primary sources for this are in Ukrainian.
00:06:02
Speaker
which of course means there's a translation issue and also an understanding issue here. Because the real story appears to be that Victor Shokin was forced out of office at Vice President Biden's urging for
00:06:19
Speaker
for the sheer fact he was failing to conduct investigations of corruptions in the Ukraine, particularly around the 2014 uprising slash coup that occurred in the Ukraine. And basically Biden did this
00:06:35
Speaker
by when he visited Kiev in late 2015 basically threatened to withhold 1 billion US dollars worth of loan guarantees unless Shokin was actually dismissed. And the reason why this is important is that
00:06:51
Speaker
Shokin appeared to be engaging in corrupt practices. So they point out that there were troves of diamonds, cash and other valuables found in the homes of two of Mr. Shokin's subordinates, which did somewhat indicate they'd been taking bribes. And when this was pointed out, Shokin was very reluctant to engage in any kind of investigation. And this seemed to be a systemic issue with Shokin as a prosecutor
00:07:21
Speaker
not actually willing to investigate the corruption which was quite obviously happening around him. Right. So Biden did lean on Ukraine to get rid of the sky, but there doesn't appear to be any indication that he did it to benefit his son's interests.
00:07:38
Speaker
No, in fact, this is where the timeline has been kind of perverted by the story. So basically, one of the things which really forced Shokan out was the fact that Shokan had failed to pursue, let's say, environmental and natural resources minister, Michaela Zorkiewski, who had oversight of Ukrainian energy firms, including the firm that Hunter Biden would come to consult on, a firm called, I think it's
00:08:08
Speaker
Burisma. Burisma. Burisma. Which Zlok, I try not to always give these things to you to say, because I always... Did he pick it or not? I would say Zlokhevsky, but... Zlokhevsky, who had been basically secretly controlling this particular firm. Now, once Zlokhevsky and his corrupt practices were exposed, and he was forced out of office in 2014, the gas company appointed Hunter Biden to the board.
00:08:38
Speaker
But they appointed Hunter Biden to the board after they had forced the corrupt official out.
00:08:46
Speaker
So it wasn't a case of firing someone to protect Hunter Biden. It was a case of getting rid of two corrupt individuals and then Hunter Biden was independently selected for that board as a consequence to try and get back on an even keel. Now I have to say, from our perspective, it still seems a little bit dodgy to the president, the vice president interfering in how another country does its business, but
00:09:13
Speaker
But that's what America does. America kind of does that. Again, apologies to our American listeners, but your country, rather, does have a reputation for sticking its nose into other countries' affairs where it may not possibly belong. I mean, at best you could...
00:09:29
Speaker
I haven't seen this line of argument run, but I assume you could, if you're going to take all that on board, you could say that, oh, maybe he sort of cleared the way and possibly his son got the job sort of in deference to the vice president who obviously had shown himself to have an influence or something or something. But that's not the claim that's being made now, definitely.
00:09:49
Speaker
But we'll see. I mean, nothing seemed to much come of Hillary's emails, but we never stopped. We still hear about them now, and she lost that election three years ago. People still complain about Bill Clinton, and he hasn't been president for a very long time. Yes, yes, that's true.
French Journalism and Freedom Issues
00:10:11
Speaker
Shall we move on then from the US to France? Indeed. Parle vous français monsieur le baguette un peux. You're a cat. No, a small amount. You're a small cat. Yes. Okay. All right. Tell me about the French situation. Okay. Well, so the headline that we have here in all capitals, was that just because it came from a website? It's very angry on it. It seems more urgent than the other headlines we've written down.
00:10:40
Speaker
France takes unprecedented action against reporters who published secret government documents. Yes. So what have we here? We have a reporter from Radio France and the co-founders of Paris-based investigative news organization, DISCLOSE. Is that if it's French, then presumably DISCLOSE? Or maybe, I don't know, maybe it's something else in French. Anyway, they were called in for questioning at the offices of the general director for internal security. Is that
00:11:10
Speaker
Because we've talked about the guys before, and there's so many damn acronyms when it comes to the secret services and so on. At least America has three-letter acronyms. In Europe, there's a GCSB, and I can't even remember the language. So this is the GD...
00:11:28
Speaker
GDI, yes. Are they the French GCSB? They're the equivalent of the FBI. FBI, right. Yes, I can never keep it straight. And they've come up before. It's like James O'Keefe, the man whose name I'll never forget. You've got no idea why you can't remember his name, just that you remember the name. I remember him. So what's he famous for? Dressing up like a pimp.
00:11:50
Speaker
He dressed up like a pimp and destroyed an acorn from what I remember. Fair enough. So he's a man who hates oak trees. I will accept that story. The man who hates oak trees but cosplays as a sex, not sex worker, owner, guy. A sex worker owner. Exploiter. Anyway, so, yes.
00:12:09
Speaker
As I was saying, so we've got a reporter and co-founders of a news organization called in by the GDIS and it was all about the fact that these, so it's both, I've got to get this straight, it was both organizations published stories along with other organizations like The Intercept.
00:12:30
Speaker
media part art info and con mini news, I don't know who those ones are either, that reveal the vast amount of French, British and American military equipment sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and subsequently used by those nations to wage war in Yemen. So essentially stuff that is embarrassing or is a bad look for governments, even though government selling arms to other countries is perhaps not massive news, but specifically relating to the war on Yemen.
00:12:57
Speaker
And so they've been hauled in? Yeah, because it turns out there's a 2009 French law that prohibits attacks on national defense secrets and a person who's said to commit a crime if they handle a classified document without authorization. So basically, the GDIS is using a particular law
00:13:21
Speaker
which goes to show that freedom of speech with respect to the press is nowhere near as protected as people thought because they go, you used official documents for this without authorization and there's no public interest defense. So basically you've broken the law. You have to answer for that.
00:13:43
Speaker
Yes, as you say, there are no exceptions to this law for journalists. There's no public interest defence, which is the sort of thing you might expect to see in similar pieces of legislation. And so it just seems a bit dodgy. Now this doesn't seem to be an oversight. This doesn't seem to be a case where the French parliament has actually engineered this law specifically to crush this kind of information, because everyone seems surprised this 2009 law applies in this particular case.
00:14:12
Speaker
But this just goes to show that sometimes laws are drafted badly or hastily, and you get these rather adverse responses, or at least that's the standard reply you're guessing from the French government and the media. We are shocked. We need to change the law. Yes, because despite the fact that these things, these emissions may have been unintentional, they've certainly been used. That's the thing. And of course, any conspiracy theorists of
00:14:42
Speaker
with their salt is going to go, yeah, that's what they want you to believe. This law was quite deliberately engineered to produce results of this particular kind. So, I mean, they haven't like been charged with anything yet, have they? They've just been questioned.
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah. Which of course has a chilling effect on reporting because of course you're less likely to report on issues of this particular kind if you're going to be hauled in for questioning by the French equivalent of the FBI. Yeah, so I mean you would assume that since everyone's saying, oh gosh, this is a bit of a surprise, we didn't realise the law worked like this way when it obviously shouldn't, that
00:15:23
Speaker
these people won't be charged. But then, of course, there's no guarantee. Yeah, so it's, I mean, you would assume when people made the claim that actually the kind of activities the CIA were engaging in was equivalent of torture, that the CIA would stop doing that kind of thing. And you would have assumed wrongly.
00:15:45
Speaker
Well, yes, in the post Edward Snowden age when we found out governments were doing well, we received concrete proof that governments were doing the dodgy things that people had always accused them of. Yeah. It's one of the few cases where most people admit the conspiracy theorists were right.
00:16:04
Speaker
Anyway, okay, something that I hope is going to turn out to be a bit more light-hearted and frivolous. Tell me what Pepe the Frog's up to now. Pepe the Frog is in a bit of a legal bind at the moment because Pepe's father, and asked this by the name of Matt Fury, is currently in a legal battle with organizations like Infowars for
Pepe the Frog Legal Battle
00:16:31
Speaker
the ownership but the use of the image of Pepe the Frog. And I keep wanting to say Pepe Le Pew, now thinking of skunks that have romantic feelings towards cats with white marks painted along their back. That basically was the plot of every single Pepe Le Pew story, wasn't it? Yeah, not a big believer in consent, that guy either. I don't think those, none of those cartoons really hold up in the post Me Too era.
00:16:55
Speaker
No, no, it's probably best not to go back and revisit those. So yes, there's a dispute between Matt Fury and InfoWars in particular because of a 2017 poster which features Pepe alongside Donald Trump, Alex Jones, Milo and others, which Matt Fury says constitutes copyright infringement
00:17:22
Speaker
And Infowarses is covered by the Fair Use Doctrine, particularly protected political commentary. Was this the deplorable image? Or am I thinking a different one? Yeah. So what's the deal? Is it like a musician complaining that Trump used one of their songs at a political rally? Is it that sort of a thing? Or is he actually going as far as sort of copyright using my artwork without my permission stuff? The former.
00:17:50
Speaker
The foremost case of I am the owner of this particular work. I did not give authorization for the work to be used in this particular way. As the owner, I have copyright on the image. Epson facto used it illegally. You owe me royalties. Also stop producing the image.
00:18:08
Speaker
the alt-right responses, no, it's A, it's political commentary, but also there is a question as to whether Matt Fury basically gave Carter Blanche permission for the image to be used prior to the 2017 poster and is now annoyed about the symbol having been adopted by the alt-right, because Pepe the Frog is basically now an alt-right figure, despite
00:18:36
Speaker
It's the origins, which was an anthropomorphized frog who made his first appearance in a mid-2000s comic called Boy's Club. So yeah, I was going to ask, is this guy bothered by the fact that his frog has become a symbol of the Altarion? From the sounds of it, yes. So the Infowars response is, Matt Fury had previously allowed people to use Pepe the Frog for anything.
00:19:05
Speaker
But because Matt Furry doesn't agree with our politics, wants to restrict our particular use, and we're claiming fair use both under protected political commentary, but also he gave Kautblant permission for people to use this image any way they like, and no take-back says. Did he specifically give permission, or did he just not object?
00:19:27
Speaker
I think I know I couldn't actually find the quote itself but I'm fairly sure part of the info walls submission is that there is evidence that he just gave permission use this image any way you like. Now you must know more about this than I do. The actual history of the Peppy the Frog is a meme.
00:19:48
Speaker
It's similar to the OK White Power thing, isn't it? Some guys decided for no obvious reason to use this frog image in their alt-right means as a bit of a joke, but then the joke ends up essentially becoming reality, is that?
00:20:04
Speaker
Yeah, basically. So, I mean, in the same respect that the OK symbol is a symbol that was initially, it seems, used as a joking way to trigger the libs and has now become a legitimate symbol of white nationalists and white supremacists, Pepe Le Frog was
00:20:22
Speaker
There you go. I'd say just go with it. Yeah, it was being used as a way of trolling libs, but now has become kind of the symbol. Now talking about OK symbols, did you read about Stephen Fry using the OK symbol and the
00:20:40
Speaker
response to that. I did not. So basically Stephen Fry was advertising some charity and did the whole okay symbol and then he was called out on it by his followers saying probably Stephen, probably wise not to use that symbol because of its association with white nationalism.
00:21:02
Speaker
And his response was, you know, I refuse to allow the symbol to be co-opted by other people. It just means OK. There's no there's no additional meaning. And my response to that was, don't you host a documentary Stephen Fry about language change over time and how how words change meaning with context and the like?
Symbolism and Online Movements
00:21:24
Speaker
And suddenly you're being a prescriptivist about hand symbols when you're a descriptivist about language. That just seems a little bit inconsistent.
00:21:32
Speaker
Yes, I can see his point, though. I don't know if you can resist it the way he wants to, but I can understand the desire to resist the idea that a bunch of assholes can say, hey, we've taken this thing now. It's ours now. And he runs, oh, hey, that was a perfectly nice thing. And now I can't use it anymore because these shitheads have decided to make it the symbol. But the fact is, a swastika is a swastika. That symbol has had numerous different meanings in numerous different cultures.
00:22:02
Speaker
and those just don't matter anymore. Sorry to those other cultures. So I can understand his impulse, but he probably should know better that you can't fight these things. On the other hand...
00:22:15
Speaker
Like how, we know that we live in these bubbles and something that we and the people we know take for completely for granted and assume is well known can turn out to be actually incredibly trivial and hardly anyone outside our particular bubbles knows it. So I don't know how far along the okay white power thing is. Is it too late to reverse it or not? I mean, I've actually discovered a recent note then
00:22:40
Speaker
What we know about QAnon and all of my fellow scholars about conspiracy theory now know about QAnon. When I meet strangers and mentioned I work on conspiracy theory or what examples and you mentioned QAnon, they go what? It turns out that actually QAnon is virtually unknown outside of a certain class of person on the internet. I've had similar experiences with Gamergate as well, which has sort of been this big and sort of foundational
00:23:09
Speaker
occurrence that's formed the basis of a whole lot of stuff that's happened on the internet since. But yeah, talking about that with people who don't work in those particular areas, they're just like, what the hell's game again? I don't really do what you're about. Yeah, turns out that there's a whole bunch of things that we think that everybody knows that nobody knows and indeed cares about.
00:23:30
Speaker
Maybe that should be the motto for this podcast. We talk about things that other people don't care about. It's actually probably very tried. Actually, it probably is, but that's all right. We were once listed on a list of podcasts that you don't think could have more than 100 or so listeners, which I think we remarked on at the time. I don't know if that's still true. Yes, we did. We did.
00:23:54
Speaker
on average four times that just bipod been itself so ha person who said 100 listeners we have we have a few hundred listeners that's fine but possibly even more due to the way that feeds work anyway so that's that's um that's all the news content we had for this episode it is it is indeed but if you're a patron who wants to slug us an additional dollar a month
00:24:23
Speaker
I'm quite sure that's the right word to use. And I don't know why it's an additional dollar a month. On top of the zero dollars you're already giving us. Yeah, that's a dollar more. You'll get to hear about the fact that local journalist, Patty Gower, wants a rematch with Lauren Southern and Steven Molyneux. Then we'll talk about that infamous interview where Ben Shapiro stormed out of an interview with arch conservative, Andrew Neal. And we'll talk about how
00:24:52
Speaker
There's been a $2 billion cancer case against buyer who produce Roundup and what that means. And finally, a bit of local news about how a local labour candidate is outraged to be cited as a Chinese spy.
00:25:10
Speaker
All interesting things, all things that our patrons will get to hear about and our non-patrons won't and let that be a lesson. So slug us that dollar. I'm sticking to it. You be the change in language you want to see.
00:25:25
Speaker
Yeah, I'm no Stephen Fry. No, no. So, I think there's nothing left to say but goodbye and see you next week when we will definitely have recorded, definitely a week will have elapsed in between the recording of this episode and the next one.
00:25:42
Speaker
And of course, as always, at the end of the podcast, this guy to the conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy calm Sparrow say, we say hail Andy Bashaga because he has saved our world. Yes. Hail Andy Bashaga. All hail Bashaga.
00:26:08
Speaker
You've been listening to the podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy, starring Josh Addison and Dr. M.R. Extended, which is written, researched, recorded and produced by Josh and Em.
Contact Information and Closing Remarks
00:26:19
Speaker
You can support the podcast by becoming a patron via its Podbean or Patreon campaigns. And if you need to get in contact with either Josh or Em, you can email them at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com or check their Twitter accounts, Mikey Fluids and Conspiracism.
00:27:10
Speaker
And remember, the truth is out there, but not quite where you think you left it. A little bit conflicted, to be honest, because we did the whole alternate reality set up, but then talked about real news. Are people going to think that all that news was just stuff we may have? There's going to be a lot of confusion about that for this episode. There's going to be a lot of confusion about that for this episode. All the news stories were, in fact, true. Also Hale and Bebeshaga. Hale.