The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove

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The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove episodes

January 29, 2019 Episode 186 – Venezuela, Davos and claims of racism

The Velvet Glove and The 12th Man will be in Melbourne on the 9th and 10th of February. The boys would love to catch up with listeners on Sunday morning for breakfast. Email [email protected] and we will let you know the details.
4:52 A Podcast Prayer
Let us pray.
6:00 Feedback on episode 185 from Brett and Bronwyn
7:45 Australia backs Juan Guaido as interim Venezuela president

Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said Mr Guaido, the opposition leader and president of the National Assembly, ought to lead the Latin American nation until elections are held.
“Australia calls for a transition to democracy in Venezuela as soon as possible,” Senator Payne said on Monday.
“We now urge all parties to work constructively towards a peaceful resolution of the situation, including a return to democracy, respect for the rule of law and upholding of human rights of the Venezuelan people.”
Hmmm, political turmoil, a hostile congress, public servants who have no money and need to stand in food lines for hand outs?
Questions over the legitimacy of the election where only 46% voted?
It all sounds like the USA except bump the voter turnout figure up to 55%
In other words, the USA is in crisis and we recognise Nancy Pelosi as the true President and call on Donald Trump to bring on an immediate election.
According to Francisco Rodriguez:
When an economy’s exports fall, that economy’s imports won’t necessarily decline immediately if the economy can borrow or dip into its savings in order to cushion the blow. That is why countries subject to high terms of trade volatility are well advised to save during boom times. And that is precisely what Venezuela didn’t do.
On this, the blame falls squarely to the government of Hugo Chávez, who led the economy during the largest external boom in its history and basically spent all of it. As a result of (*corruption and) Chávez’s willingness to pour money into everything – from paying off nationalizations to buying the support of Caribbean countries with cheap oil – Venezuela ended up in a much more vulnerable position than just about any other oil exporting country when the shock hit.

* inserted by The Iron Fist, not the original author

Were the country selling as many barrels to the rest of the world today as in 2015, it would have exported $51bn in oil this year. By contrast, Venezuela will sell only $23bn of oil internationally in 2018.
The bottom line is that if you want to understand Venezuela’s economic implosion, you have to understand what happened to its oil exports.

For the purposes of comparison, Chart 2 plots the evolution of Colombian oil production during the same period. Venezuela’s neighbor also produces high-cost oil; after the bottom fell out from under oil prices, some of those barrels were no longer profitable to produce. As the figure shows, the decline in Colombia’s oil production during this period of time was quite similar in magnitude to that of Venezuela. This suggests that the initial stage of the production decline was in line with what can be explained based on the fall in profitability caused by the price collapse in a high-cost producer

1 hr 20 min
January 29, 2019 Episode 186 – Venezuela, Davos and claims of racism
The Velvet Glove and The 12th Man will be in Melbourne on the 9th and 10th of February. The boys would love to catch up with listeners on Sunday morning for breakfast. Email [email protected] and we will let you know the details.
…
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1 hr 22 min
January 22, 2019 Episode 185 – Gillette, Gender, Race and Class

It’s the class war, Stupid!
Left-wing commentators miss the point. They are willing to talk endlessly about gender wars and racial privilege while ignoring the plight of the working class.
1:46 Our pre-match pep talk for Waz.
The best a man can be
Who better to critique #MeToo than 4 white men like us.
That Gillette ad. Good, bad or meh?
6:46 Does Miranda Devine have a point?
Jane Caro:
In the wake of the controversial (but, I think, excellent) Gillette ad, it has become clear that many people have no idea what toxic masculinity means. Too many of us, including some who make a living from using words, seem to think the phrase implies that masculinity, in and of itself, is toxic. However, it only takes a reasonable understanding of the English language to realise that is a silly assumption. As someone cleverer than me on Twitter pointed out yesterday, we all know that there are toxic plants (oleander, deadly nightshade etc) but we don’t assume therefore that all plants are toxic.
She sort of describes Toxic Masculinity as when the stereotype of what it is to be an acceptable male is taken to extremes.
… Feminists like me are not man-haters. Most of us—if not all of us—love our fathers, sons, brothers, male colleagues, friends and partners. What we hate is the damage we see toxic masculinity (not masculinity per se, just the toxic, rigid, performative kind) do to many men ….
Hmmm, so not all masculinity is toxic, just exaggerated versions of the stereotype. Maybe that is so far from true “masculinity” that it should be called something else like being a boofhead or a dickhead. Sure, oleander is toxic and part of the plant family and is therefore a toxic plant but dickhead behaviour is not part of true masculinity so “toxic masculinity” ties together two things which are quite separate.
Again from Jane Caro:
Regarding toxic feminity she acknowledges exists:
The most damaging example I can think of, however, is the very rare … Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. This is a mental illness where mothers so enjoy their role as hero-nurturer they actually poison their own children to keep them perpetually and mysteriously sick. Literally toxic, in other words.
Here’s the point. When referring to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy we don’t say “Toxic Motherhood” because it is so far removed from true motherhood.
What does toxic mean?
poisonous, venomous, virulent, noxious, dangerous, destructive, harmful, unsafe, malignant, injurious, pestilential, pernicious, environmentally unfriendly
Brittany Spears didn’t think toxic was a problem.
The Fist blames Jordan Peterson. Just joking … well kind of…

20:45 But wait, we are not done with this ad. Was there racial prejudice?
33:07 Are wolf whistles just examples of instinctive mating behaviour?
37:32 The male Gay scene welcomes wolf whistles.

42:17 ‘I don’t want to celebrate it’: Today newcomer Brooke Boney reignites Australia Day debate
Today newcomer Brooke Boney has reignited debate over Australia Day, following a viral segment on the breakfast show where she addressed her own reasons for not wanting to celebrate the date.
2 hr 8 min
January 22, 2019 Episode 185 – Gillette, Gender, Race and Class
It’s the class war, Stupid!
Left-wing commentators miss the point. They are willing to talk endlessly about gender wars and racial privilege while ignoring the plight of the working class.
1:46 Our pre-match pep talk for Waz.
…
Read more ›
The post Episode 185 – Gillette, Gender, Race and Class appeared first on The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Mentioned in this episode:
Website
2 hr 11 min
January 16, 2019 Episode 184 – Nazis, Foreign Fighters and Whitehouse Hamburgers
It’s been quiet in Australia. Everyone is still on holidays or on the “go slow” except for Fraser Anning and the Nazis.
Jonathon Pie: We’ve reached peak Nazi (language warning)
Fascist Vs Nazi
Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy, which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.
Nazism is a form of fascism and showed that ideology’s disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system, but also incorporated fervent antisemitism, scientific racism, and eugenics into its creed.
10:01 From the SMH:
Everything you need to know about Australia’s far right.
What a motley bunch of incels.
On October 15, 2015, far-right kingpin Shermon Burgess posted his final video on the popular nationalist Facebook page, The Great Aussie Patriot.
“G’day patriots,” he started. “Now just letting you know what’s going on. I’m going to be handing full leadership of the United Patriots Front over to Blair Cottrell. I won’t be doing it anymore.”
Reclaim Australia – the series of rallies in 2015 that turned out thousands of anti-immigrant, anti-Islam “patriots” – saw Cottrell as the next golden child. And so did Cottrell. One researcher says he views himself as the “sexy Fuhrer”: a muscular, blond, articulate leader who has said Jews are “a much deadlier enemy than the violent Islamic pillagers”, and that to keep women in line you should “crack them around the ear every once in a while”.
But in his three-year tenure as de facto leader of Australia’s far-right, the “sexy Fuhrer” has failed. The movement has dramatically weakened since its Reclaim Australia days – something that could have been predicted from watching Burgess’ resignation video three years ago.
“I won’t be making videos and I’m taking down my page,” he said, before adding: “Now it’s not because of media, it’s not because of death threats from Islam – even though I’ve received many of those.
“It’s because of the dumb f—ing patriots out there.”
Since Reclaim Australia, the single biggest ideological clash in far-right circles has been whether to be pro or anti-Israel. Some nationalists celebrate Israel, believing it sets a precedent for the emergence of other single-ethnicity states, while others find more ammunition by blaming Jews for faults in the economy and media.
When it comes to Jews, Australia’s far-right hasn’t been able to keep it together. In the extensive field of far-right Facebook pages and groups, the big news at the end of last year was the clash between Neil Erikson and Avi Yemini. If Cottrell is Australia’s most well known nationalist, Erikson and Yemini are second and third. Erikson is a self-confessed “troll” who famously harassed former senator Sam Dastyari in a Melbourne pub in 2017, and Yemini is the most prominent member of the only far-right party to contest the recent Victoria state election, the Australian Liberty Alliance (which received 0.6 per cent of the upper house vote). He’s also Jewish.
One result of the constant infighting is that since Reclaim Austral...
1 hr 28 min
January 16, 2019 Episode 184 – Nazis, Foreign Fighters and Whitehouse Hamburgers
It’s been quiet in Australia. Everyone is still on holidays or on the “go slow” except for Fraser Anning and the Nazis.
Jonathon Pie: We’ve reached peak Nazi (language warning)
Fascist Vs Nazi
Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power,
…
Read more ›
The post Episode 184 – Nazis, Foreign Fighters and Whitehouse Hamburgers appeared first on The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Mentioned in this episode:
Website
2 hr 11 min
January 06, 2019 Episode 183 – Vetoes, walls and fishing for whales

No other podcast would be game enough to tackle in one episode an explanation or debate over the Trump wall, presidential veto powers, presidential transition arrangements, EU funding of the wall between Turkey and Syria, US foreign policy in Latin America, the history of capital gains tax and dodgy bank lending in Australia, the religious affiliation of politicians, your chances of inheriting DNA from ancient ancestors, whether the Rosetta stone should be returned to Egypt, a registry of shell companies in tax havens, Japanese whaling and French riots.
2:14 Trump wants his wall
The presidential veto power is interesting.
Shutdowns of the type experienced by the United States are possible in other countries that have presidential systems; however, they are nearly impossible in other forms of government. Under the parliamentary system used in most European nations, the executive and legislative branch are not separate, with the parliament designating all executive officials, typically called “ministers”, and typically an election is triggered if a budget fails to pass; see Confidence and supply.
8:45 ‘This guy doesn’t know anything’: the inside story of Trump’s shambolic transition team
Trump was apoplectic, yelling: You’re stealing my money! You’re stealing my fucking money! What the fuck is this?
He went to see Trump about it. Trump said he didn’t want a presidential transition team. Why did anyone need to plan anything before he actually became president? It’s legally required, said Christie. Trump asked where the money was going to come from to pay for the transition team. Christie explained that Trump could either pay for it himself or take it out of campaign funds. Trump didn’t want to pay for it himself. He didn’t want to take it out of campaign funds, either, but he agreed, grudgingly, that Christie should go ahead and raise a separate fund to pay for his transition team. “But not too much!” he said.
in July 2016, when Trump was formally named the Republican nominee. The transition team now moved into an office in downtown Washington DC, and went looking for people to occupy the top 500 jobs in the federal government. They needed to fill all the cabinet positions, of course, but also a whole bunch of others that no one in the Trump campaign even knew existed. It is not obvious how you find the next secretary of state, much less the next secretary of transportation – never mind who should sit on the board of trustees of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation.
The first time Trump paid attention to any of this was when he read about it in the newspaper. The story revealed that Trump’s very own transition team had raised several million dollars to pay the staff. The moment he saw it, Trump called Steve Bannon, the chief executive of his campaign, from his office on the 26th floor of Trump Tower, and told him to come immediately to his residence, many floors above. Bannon stepped off the elevator to find Christie seated on a sofa, being hollered at. Trump was apoplectic, yelling: You’re stealing my money! You’re stealing my fucking money! What the fuck is this?
Seeing Bannon, Trump turned on him and screamed: Why are you letting him steal my fucking money? Bannon and Christie together set out to explain to Trump federal law. Months before the election, the law said, the nominees of the two major parties were expected to prepare to take control of the government. The government supplied them with office space in...
1 hr 32 min
January 06, 2019 Episode 183 – Vetoes, walls and fishing for whales
No other podcast would be game enough to tackle in one episode an explanation or debate over the Trump wall, presidential veto powers, presidential transition arrangements, EU funding of the wall between Turkey and Syria, US foreign policy in Latin America,
…
Read more ›
The post Episode 183 – Vetoes, walls and fishing for whales appeared first on The Iron Fist and the Velvet Glove.
Mentioned in this episode:
Website
1 hr 34 min
January 01, 2019 Episode 182 - Highlights of 140 and 141
Another highlights episode.
1:31 The Voltaire Award
4:59 Should the wealthy pay higher fines?
15:17 Happiness report
17:20 Another gripe about corporate tax cuts.
23:56 Aboriginal witch doctors in hospitals
37:46 Dickson on Mormons
44:21 Janelle on witchdoctors
48:38 Malik asks what replaces religion
54:33 Virtue Ethics
1:01:46 Landon Hardbottom does a google search
1:03:00 East Vs West
Mentioned in this episode:
Website
1 hr 15 min
December 30, 2018 Episode 181 – Highlights from February 2018
Here are the highlights from February 2018.
0:40 Should vaccinations be compulsory
13:43 Further discussion about government compulsion
28:54 Kenan Malik on philosophers
35:45 USA assholes
39:12 Han Tu on Indonesia and China and our ability to repel an invasion.
1:01:45 George Orwell says “don’t let it happen”
1 hr 4 min