The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove

In this episode:

Trevor and Hugh discuss this quote by Christopher Hitchens.

The Russians are going to be expansionist whether we provoke them to it or not. For example, the Russians keep saying that we're trying to encircle them. In what sense does the independence of Kosovo, a land-locked province, former Yugoslavia, with no common border with Russia, threaten Russia with encirclement? In what sense does the independence of the Baltic states - which the Soviets gained as territory in a deal with Hitler, a direct bargain between Stalin and Hitler - would it constitute an encirclement? This is insulting. In what sense does the independence of Georgia constitute an encirclement? What we are facing, and we may as well give it its right name, is what I called it earlier, a chauvinistic, theocratic in part, xenophobic Russian imperialism.

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We have a website. www.ironfistvelvetglove.com.au

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Mentioned in this episode:

Website

The topics include:

• International Women’s Day
• History
• Is It Still Relevant?
• Shae Volunteers
• Essential Poll
• Yikes
• Dutton and Friendly Jordies
• Clive Palmer
• Scott Morrison
• Robert Reich: Only the right has become more extreme over the last 50 years
• Twitter feedback
• My response
• Gillard
• Chinese Influence in Australian Politics
• Chinese Influence in Australian Universities
• Re Huawei
• Email Feedback from Paul
• Ukraine ep 330
• What is Russia Demanding?
• Kennedy Compromised
• Trump
• History and Context
• Whataboutism
• John Pilger
• Vladimir Pozner – How the United States Created Vladimir Putin
• The Treatment of Russia is being repeated with China
• Experts Warned For Years That NATO Expansion Would Lead To This
• John Mearsheimer
• Stephen F Cohen
• Stephen M Walt
• George Kennan
• William Burns
• Jack Matlock
• Joe Biden in 1997
• Nelson Mandela on Atom Bomb
• Unelected Tech and Ukraine
• AUS Sanctions and Malcolm Fraser
• More on Sanctions - Calwell and China
• America Defeats Germany for the Third Time in a Century
• Buy Gold?
• Biden on Russia getting help from China
• No Fly Zone – Is that a good idea?

Mentioned in this episode:

Website

In this episode, we are joined by Ed who was born in Russia and spent a lot of time in Ukraine.

I referred to the following article:

Chris Hedges

After the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a near universal understanding among political leaders that NATO expansion would be a foolish provocation against Russia. How naive we were to think the military-industrial complex would allow such sanity to prevail.

In a classified diplomatic cable obtained and released by WikiLeaks dated February 1, 2008, written from Moscow, and addressed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NATO-European Union Cooperative, National Security Council, Russia Moscow Political Collective, Secretary of Defense, and Secretary of State, there was an unequivocal understanding that expanding NATO risked an eventual conflict with Russia, especially over Ukraine.

Mentioned in this episode:

Website

In this episode we discuss:

There is a lot of propaganda out there. We need to read widely.

To financially support the Podcast you can make:

• a per-episode donation via Patreon or
• one-off donation via credit card; or
• one-off or regular donations via Paypal or
• if you are into Cryptocurrency you can send Satoshis.

We Livestream every Monday night at 7:30 pm Brisbane time. Follow us on Facebook or YouTube. Watch us live and join the discussion in the chat room.

We have a website. www.ironfistvelvetglove.com.au

You can email us. The address is [email protected]

Mentioned in this episode:

Website

In this episode we discuss:

Episode 327

Religious Discrimination Bill

Phew … that was close

Citipointe

Thank God for Citipointe Christian College and who are they?

The Citipointe Contract

Landon Hardbottom

Citipointe Year 9 Curriculum

Noosa Connection

History of the Bill

We don’t need any Religious Discrimination Bill

Trans not Atheists

A Quick Refresher on Hierarchy of Rights and Discrimination

The Ideological Argument … again … to put it another way

Countering the Religious Ethos argument

Power Doesn’t Care about good arguments

Fear of a wedge issue

The Bill

Principles can be horse-traded

The Labor Plan by Paul Karp in The Guardian

Which Labor Members stood up?

Dominic Perrottet says religious discrimination bill is unnecessary

What Happened on Wednesday the 9th of February

Sex Discrimination Act

What Happened on Thursday

Scuttling the religion package shows where priorities lay all along

Looking back on the strategy

Teachers

I don’t trust Albanese on this issue

Labor Won’t Protect Teachers – ask Kristina Kenneally

A Reminder of private school numbers

My daughter

Constitutional concerns

The Shovel

Canberra Convoy

Scomo Stuff

April Sun in Cuba

Hair Washing

Brittany Higgins’ accused to seek trial delay after PM apology

Scomo is a liar

Ep 327 - Ukraine

The United States of Trust Me Bro.

Hypocrisy

When you have meddled in so many countries you can’t keep track

Russian Tricks

In this episode we discuss:

My summary of the ideas in Michael Hudson's book "Super Imperialism".

To financially support the Podcast you can make:

• a per-episode donation via Patreon or
• one-off donation via credit card; or
• one-off or regular donations via Paypal or
• if you are into Cryptocurrency you can send Satoshis.

We Livestream every Monday night at 7:30 pm Brisbane time. Follow us on Facebook or YouTube. Watch us live and join the discussion in the chat room.

We have a website. www.ironfistvelvetglove.com.au

You can email us. The address is [email protected]

Topics include:

• Language warning
• Distractions
• The Grace Tame Saga
• Citipointe Christian College
• The new “Warringah rules”
• Essential Report
• Polls
• Forklifts and Caleb Bond
• Ron Williams
• Clive Palmer running for the Senate in Qld
• From Paul
• Aboriginal Flag
• Private School Cricketers
• Private School Naplan Results
• The UK and Australia have the same leadership problems
• Flight Attendants
• Property Prices
• Venezuela
• People Aren’t Dying
• No Jab – No Heart Transplant
• No Jab – No Surfing
• Ukraine
• Common Ground
• Cavan Hogue in the John Menadue Blog on Ukraine
• Cameron Leckie in JM Blog on Ukraine
• Caitlin Johnstone
• Gregory Clark in the John Menadue Blog on Ukraine
• Bryce Green in Fair.org on Ukraine
• Dee Knight in Covert Action Magazine - More on Ukraine
• Matt Taibbi on Ukraine

Mentioned in this episode:

Website

Topics include:

• Democracy
• Follow up on Injection placement
• Springtime for Hitler
• School Year Backflip
• Djokovic
• A grim grand slam calendar
• It's not just tennis, even the NRL
• An Australian Republic
• Covid
• Poor Government – Blame neo-liberalism and Religion
• How Does Morrison Win from here?
• From Bernard Keane in Crikey
• From Alan Kohler in the New Daily
• From Michael Pascoe
• From The Age
• Hillsong
• Police allege parents took daughter off insulin medication to be ‘healed by God’
• Religion is Special
• Teachers can be sacked over sexuality under bill, A-G’s department confirms
• Catholic teacher moved out of job after IVF
• Irish Education
• Property Prices
• Inflation and Interest rates
• Australia’s CPI
• Tanks

In this episode we discuss:

• No Vax Jock Evicted
• Deep Throat on where to inject
• When a jab is not a jab
• Tanks! Fucking Tanks!
• More from Dutton
• An election year
• The Saturday Paper Editorial
• Bettoota, The Chaser and The Shovel
• Rat Shortage
• No Free Rats
• Joe has been battling “free thinkers”
• Spending has crashed
• Stats
• Media Bias
• Patrons
• Tony Blair was knighted.
• A Statue for the Queen?
• Church’ defends decision to terminate worker who got COVID jab
• ABC broadcasted a Xmas Message from Hillsong
• Religious but using a civil celebrant?

To financially support the Podcast you can make:

• a per-episode donation via Patreon or
• one-off donation via credit card; or
• one-off or regular donations via Paypal or
• if you are into Cryptocurrency you can send Satoshis.

We Livestream every Monday night at 7:30 pm Brisbane time. Follow us on Facebook or YouTube. Watch us live and join the discussion in the chat room.

We have a website. www.ironfistvelvetglove.com.au

You can email us. The address is [email protected]

The 35 topics we discuss are:

1. Court Case
2. Nativity Scenes
3. On Democracy
4. John Mearsheimer
5. Neo-Liberalism
6. Barnaby and Julian
7. Julian Assange
8. Morrison and ICAC
9. Pork Barrelling
10. Dickson has a very good member
11. A broken system
12. Morrison advocating for religious candidates
13. Bercow on Johnson or Morrison?
14. The two highest-taxing governments of the past 30 years have been Coalition
15. Sam Kerr
16. USA teachers in a gross Dash for Cash
17. USA Stamp story
18. Smoking Ban in NZ
19. Smoking in Australia
20. Birds aren’t real
21. Elizabeth Holmes, the founder of Theranos
22. California to let citizens enforce ban on assault weapons
23. Olympics Boycott
24. Murdoch Inquiry
25. A Murdoch consigliere to run the ACCC?
26. Covid ep 322
27. The Gap Vaccinations Rate
28. Today just 6.4% of eligible Victorians are unvaccinated and yet they make up 88% of all patients in ICU.
29. Covid Cheat had a fake arm
30. #NotAnOrganDonorAnymore
31. Omicron
32. Libertarians and House Cats
33. Furniture Removalist Job
34. Austria
35. Only 1.7% of people in PNG are vaccinated