Hi, I'm Jesse Hirsch and welcome to another episode of Metaview, recorded live in front of an automated audience, not to mention some living goats.

And I'm thrilled today to welcome back Jason Willis Lee, which by default, Jason, you are now our European correspondent.

I have extended some interviews to some of my other European friends so we can alleviate you of covering the entire continent.

But for now, by default, we are calling upon you in this very crazy moment in history in news to help us keep a international perspective, to help us make sense of what's going on, and because you are a return guest here to mediviews, I don't really need to spell out to you how we work, but.

But I will tell you that in the time since you joined us last, I've kind of started adapting a little bit of a game show feel to the way in which we do these segments.

Although as we start with the news, you know, the game show side doesn't really apply to you.

Cause you've already played our game and won previously.

You're a returning champion, as it were.

So you know that part of the purpose of our new segment is to promote meta views.

And today's issue, on a technical level, we're talking about backdoors in government, partly because I wanted to write about the UK's demand to Apple that Apple give them access to their encrypted files and encrypted communication, which I think is a really interesting policy, especially coming from a Labor government.

But of course, Jason, the real reason we have our news is to throw to our guest and say, what have you been paying attention to?

Last time we did this with you, you mentioned podfest, which I thought was fantastic in terms of an example of news.

So you've already set the bar high.

Please, what are you looking at?

What do you think our audience should be paying attention to?

Thank you, Jesse.

It's great to be back.

And I'm privileged to be the Metaview's European correspondent today.

That's very kind of you.

Yeah.

So the last time we spoke, I was recently arriving from Orlando.

I was escaping the Trump inauguration.

I literally flew out a few hours before he was inaugurated.

So I guess that's one thing I.

One thing that caught my news in the past week since we agreed to meet up again, was him saying, the USA is going to get bigger.

We're going to annex Canada.

And that's sounded pretty far fetched, even for a president as radical, as disruptive as Donald Trump.

So I don't know what you just before we came on, you said Canada's future may not be as optimistic as Mr.

Trudeau would have us believe.

So I don't know if that's true, but it certainly caught my eye.

And of course, he's eyeing Greenland as well, which is owned by Denmark.

I think he's been told point blank that you can't have these countries.

So I don't know.

What's the deal with Canada?

You tell me.

You're sort of in house over there on site.

What's going on with that?

Well, it's a combination of different analyses that I see converging both political, economic and cultural.

But if I were to come at this really from a meta view, because that's why we're here, I'm really taken by the Silicon Valley ideology of move fast and break things things, because it really seems clear to me that the Trump administration is doing their best to move fast and break things, whether this is the US Kind of civil service, the administrative state, the social programs, even the opposition's ability to hold them accountable.

And I think as he telegraphs, as he floats trial balloons for his foreign policy, Canada, Greenland, Mexico, I think he is extending that move fast and break things side.

And even though Canada right now is comparatively united, like, there are polling coming out that shows even on the right, Canadians are like, no, we do not want to be part of America.

You know, while we don't entirely know what it means to be Canadian, we know it's not American, and there's a certain unity at that.

But the far right in Canada, just like in the United States, just like in Europe, is kind of the zeitgeist.

And they are coming with a momentum that I think we should not underestimate.

And in these polls, they're the constituents who are like, yeah, we would love to join the U.S.

so fundamentally, my concern here is that Canadian politics, Canadian politicians and Canadian democratic institutions do not have the velocity, they do not have the speed to keep up with the pace that the US Is setting when it comes to move fast and break things.

Because they can break the Canadian economy pretty fast, they could divide Canadian culture pretty fast.

And all they have to do militarily is threaten us, and our Potemkin village will fall over.

And while the militant resistance in Canada would last for decades.

Right.

This is a kind of guerrilla war that would parallel Vietnam or Afghanistan.

It doesn't mean the occupation won't be successful.

It doesn't mean that they won't be able to extract the rare earth minerals and fossil fuels that they need.

If China Cuts them off.

So I am the crazy futurist saying, hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

And in that regard, especially when you look at the propaganda efforts that we've seen in the United States and if applied to Canada, I'm just not sure that our democratic institutions have the capabilities to stand up.

So I appreciate you throwing it back to me because I am still working out these ideas kind of on the fly and I appreciate the ability to articulate them.

So before we go to our second segment, I'll give you an opportunity to respond because you've got the critical distance.

You're right.

That I'm kind of there living in it.

But I think Canadians perspective on America is best because we're not Americans.

And in your case, you're not a North American.

So you've got even greater distance in terms of what's happening here.

So I'd love your reaction or your thoughts on the hypothesis that I'm presenting.

Well, it's an interesting hypothesis.

I think we'll do a wait and see policy and see where Trump goes with this.

Yeah, to be honest, I'm not over there, I'm over in Madrid, so I'm a little disconnected from all this.

I mean, when he says these wacky things, it does catch my attention, but it's very, it's very superficial.

You mentioned, you mentioned Zeitgeist.

And I think, you know, Zeitgeist is something that is everywhere.

Zeitgeist is a kind of mixture of political tension, economic challenges, evolving social values.

And you know, in Spain, Spain has a Zeitgeist as well.

You know, we're doing, we're doing housing, we're doing recovery after the Valencia flood.

So budgeting is an issue.

We have the far right here as well that by Vox, you know, Santiago Pascal, our VOX leader, or not our leader, but the leader of VOX in Spain has met with Donald Trump.

And you know, these people are aligned in their, in their policies.

And the Catalan and the Basque independent movements, these regions of the country which, you know, which are a bit on the periphery and have been been you know, historically problem rife for decades.

I heard on the news just today and I told my younger daughter, look, the Basque country are allowing ETA terrorism to be on the the A level, the school leaving syllabus for the first time and schools will not be preparing the content this year, but it will be for next year.

And that's a big thing, you know, putting, putting ETA terrorism in such a sensitive and, and hotspot as is the Basque country.

So These.

That's the kind of the Zeitgeist I see in Spain.

Jesse, you mentioned that word.

Obviously a German word with German connotations.

But, yeah, here we're worried about housing, we're worried about budgeting, we're worried about infrastructure.

Same as the uk.

Again, a little bit disconnected from the UK just because I don't live there, but I'm pretty clued up to Spanish politics.

I.

I've ordered a Spanish passport after 25 years because these people, man, they don't have the.

They won't let me vote.

They take my taxes, they open up their hands, they take thousands of euros from me each year of my taxes, but they won't let me vote, that is, in the national elections.

They let me vote in everything but the national elections.

I can vote for the mayor, I can vote in the Europeans, I can vote in the local community of Madrid elections.

But, you know, hey, I want to vote on the big stuff, the taxes and that kind of stuff.

So there I am waiting for my passport about a couple of years after I voted.

Who knows if it's going to come or not?

And I want to come back to this only because I've got a bunch of questions.

Partly because, to your point, Spain always seems a little displaced in the historical timeline.

Not necessarily unique, but on a different pace or setting synchronization, even when it comes to the rest of the Western world.

But of course, our second segment of every metaviews, which weirdly, the scene didn't change, so I'll press it again, is WTF or what's the future?

And again, this is where I try to keep our focus within metaviews on a future centric kind of perspective, under our slogan that there is nothing inevitable, provided you're willing to pay attention.

So, you know, Jason, what's on your event horizon?

What do you see either in your personal future or in our larger collective future?

Well, I think my personal and professional future, I'd like to get more into consultancy.

That's what I'm trying to do.

That's why I'm going on shows.

I'm drawing attention to my brand, my offer, and I get to hang out with cool people like you, like yourself.

So that's, that's pretty good in terms of my, my personal future.

You know, I just gotta keep on, keep on beavering away.

I've got teenage kids in school.

My younger daughter has another two years this year and another two after that.

So, you know, I've got to keep, keep some money churning in.

Yeah, it's difficult to know.

Future painting, I think, is part of what we do in personal development.

You can paint the future for someone and say, hey, I can take you from point A to point B.

And, you know, I've been in this space for a couple of years, Jesse, and it's.

It's painful to see how many people are stuck.

Their sort of mindset is stuck.

And I.

I know I can help them.

They.

They clearly want to work with me, or they're.

They look at me and they think, hey, this guy seems pretty interesting.

Maybe he can help me.

And then when I.

When I come to sell them a package or, you know, that they're nowhere to be found.

They're just completely lost.

So maybe I'm not doing the future painting right and telling them exactly, or maybe they're just stuck.

But it's something, you know, a couple of prospects I have last week or so, I just, you know, go after them and I say, hey, dude, you are uncoachable.

I don't know if I can help you because you are just, you know, stuck.

You can't even come on a call with me for one hour.

You know, just give me an hour of your time to come on a call.

So, you know, I think people.

It's much easier to maintain the status quo, Jesse.

It's much easier just to keep on doing the same thing and not really intentionally map out your life and not go to work and just get these three big rocks done.

I always have in my mind a sort of picture of my day before I started, of what I want to achieve.

And then the day can run away from you.

Of course, you get distracted.

Your wife calls or your friend comes in or an email.

A million things can happen.

Get distracted.

But you've got to have this intentionality that starts on a Sunday night for me when I'm mapping out my week and looking at the calls.

And, you know, Tuesday, you were the only call on my diary for today.

So that was pretty cool.

I got a good morning's work done.

And, yeah, but I do think a lot of people are just chugging.

They're just cruising, you know, they're cruising for a bruising.

So let me respond with two things to that, because I really like what you said.

And the first is, I think within the culture of entrepreneurialism, and Harriet in the background here is clearly agreeing with me that one of the things that's neglected at the peril of entrepreneurs is how central social work is to the entrepreneurial activity.

Because to your point, you're not just selling to your clients.

You need to help them open their mind.

You need to deal with their anxiety, you need to deal with whatever obstacles they have, which are often social and emotional.

You have to deal with them before they're ready to buy.

Now, corporations do this with advertising because we forget that advertising is primarily emotional.

And the primary purpose of especially brand based advertising is to impact the emotional state of the consumer.

So whatever bullshit that they have in the way of establishing a relationship with you, you can address that.

Right?

And that's where companies at scale can do this in a way that entrepreneurs just don't have those resources.

We can't spend money on advertising the way that others do.

So what I found, and I've seen this in other entrepreneurs, although again, this is where I'm critical of kind of the entrepreneurial literature and the entrepreneurial culture.

You kind of got to be a social worker, you got to hold the hand of your client, you gotta help them with their issues.

Again, Harriet is in the background going, preach, brother, preach.

But you know, I think this is something that the entrepreneurs who recognize the amount of hand holding, who recognize the amount of emotional work you have to do in addition to the marketing, in addition to the professional development, the business development, that is the path to success.

Because I share your vision of futurism, that it's not a rigid strategy, it's a map, it's a plan.

And if you don't get to where you're going, that's okay.

But you need a plan, you need a map, you need a vision of where you want to go.

Otherwise you're going nowhere or you're going in the wrong direction.

So I loved your answer there.

And this is where I'm sort of saying I share your frustration in terms of business development and product development.

And that's where I found, and I have parents who are psychologists, so that's where the bias is here, that there is a part of social work that really has to be part of that in terms of acknowledging that there are emotional obstacles, there are psychological obstacles that as entrepreneurs, it's kind of up to us to deal with because there's no one else who's going to deal with it if we want that customer to not only buy, but commit to the long term.

Right.

And be a stable client or even a stable relationship that refers other clients.

And you know, that I think is an unorthodox approach in the kind of market we have now.

And we could circle back to this in our larger conversation.

But I do want to get into our feature conversation since I have for the time being and you have consensually accepted to being our European correspondent.

And I wanted to start with the UK which you can sort of.

We can skip over this if you don't feel particularly comfortable commenting.

But the reason I wanted to start with the UK is for us in North America, UK is really the bridge to Europe.

Right.

And on a political level, on a cultural level, and especially on a policy level because of the Five Eyes alliance, American and Canadian governments are often closely aligned with the UK political culture and political regime.

And I say this cuz it feels like the labor government under Starmer is kind of leaning right because they see North American politics leading right even though European politics is much more heterogeneous in terms of the diversity of views and parties, at least I think so if you wouldn't mind us starting on the UK and just give us your meta view, your kind of surface level impression of what's going on there and how you think it relates both to North American politics but also European politics given Brexit and the way that the UK is kind of reevaluating how they relate to Europe generally speaking.

Well, I think there are two major points, Jesse.

Number one is the common language, Canada and North America as a whole.

So the US and Canada are obviously aligned to the UK on English.

So you know, you don't have to learn French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, all these other languages that I've got around me.

Being in Spain, you just come along and speak English and you're okay.

Everyone's going to understand what you say.

Everyone who visits from Europe is expected to speak a little English.

It's a little bit rich because they go abroad and they expect people to speak English, but they don't learn any of the languages of the tourists coming that way.

So you know, that's a bit crazy.

And when you talked about Starmer leaning to the right, it reminded me immediately of a former Labour leader, the first one I actually voted for when I was 22.

Well, as a conservative in socialist, you know, disguised as a socialist.

And it's true.

Indeed, Jesse.

His economic policy was more right wing and Thatcher esque than.

That's why he was so unbeatable.

Three outright majorities.

The guy could do no wrong.

And then he, you know, he sat down power two years later and he went out in a blaze of glory after 10 years.

The same thing that Thatcher should have done in nineteen nineteen eighty seven.

She could have left three years earlier.

And fortunately she was kicked out by her own colleagues.

So I think there is historical precedent and labor leaders leaning to the right.

As for Starmer, he's, yeah, he's a bit of a, he's a bit of a bureaucrat.

He's a former public prosecutor.

The only thing I knew about him before he was elected is that he was in a golden opportunity to nab a horrible BBC presenter called Jimmy Saville, who was a turned out to be a terrible, terrible pedophile.

Thousands of people abused.

Sharmer was in a, was in a position possibly to, to get him and he didn't.

He was kind of let through the net.

But, you know, he's a bureaucrat.

He's, you know, you can be a successful labor leader and be preoccupied about social issues and have a right wing economic policy.

And that's what I think is plan probably is.

Jesse?

Well, and you know, I initially tried to actually book you for another podcast we do called Red Tory, which kind of riffs off that concept.

We record far too late in North American time to really accommodate you, but in the future I suspect we will be able to record earlier and I would love to have you on for similar purposes that we.

I would love to.

Come on.

Thank you.

You know, one other follow up on the UK piece because you alluded to it and it caused our automated audience to laugh, you know, especially in Spain.

What is the impact of traveling Brits on kind of both the perception of the UK in Europe, but also the relationship between UK and the eu because certainly on the social media side I do see and I forget what the jobs is the old term that used to be used for like, you know, these really boorish Brits who would go to, you know, Spain and other Mediterranean hotspots and just be assholes and completely disregard the culture.

I'd love for you to unpack that a little for us North Americans who don't appreciate the extent to which there's a parallel right.

Of Americans coming to Canada and being that kind of Boers and Brits going to Spain.

So please.

Yeah, so those boorish Brits are the typical yobs, the football hooligans.

They will be hitting places like Ben Amadou, Benidorm on the east coast.

They will be hitting with a vengeance.

Some of them engage in very death defying practices such as balconing, which is, you know, taking hallucinogenics thinking they can fly, trying to hit the pool and ending up killing themselves because they missed the pool by quite a way.

So that kind of activity has actually led some hotels in the Balearics and the east coast of Levante to sign disclaimers that they will not engage in balcony because there have been some ridiculous.

People are on drugs and flying off balconies.

It's not going to end well.

Let's face it, Jesse, it's not going to end well.

Sensible people like you and me would raise would look askance at this kind of practice.

So that is a common thing.

I think the Brit abroad is very culturally, well, unculturally adapted.

I have a very close friend who's buying a property or hoping to retire in Ben el Madina and I said, look, the first thing you've got to do is convince people you can more or less speak Spanish.

So on a scale of 0 to 10 where 10 is fluent and 0 is total lack of any, you know, you can't even say hola Quetal.

I said, you know, let's try and get you to a five or a six.

And he's doing pretty well.

He's hitting his duolingo, he's hitting his spots on duolingo, he's doing well and hopefully when he comes out he's not going to be in a ghetto, Jesse, because what you often see on the south coast, Malaga, Ben, Almadona, Fuengirola, these types of places are full of ghettos.

And even the community minutes have to be translated into English.

I mean that's good for someone like me because I make money, that's work.

But that's worked for me.

But yeah, it's not so great for the overall sort of cohesion of the Spanglish culture now Spaniards with English Brits.

So yeah, I totally get that.

That is not a stereotype.

That does happen.

And those pockets of Spain, my community is 300,000 people, Jesse.

We're mainly in Madrid as I'm speaking now, Barcelona and the Costa del Sol and the Costa Deluxe.

Now I'm not a typical Brit.

I had an Asian mother from Sri Lanka.

But most Brits are pale face, slightly pale faced people and they don't understand sun.

They go out in the sun for a couple of hours, no sun cream, they're completely burnt after a few minutes.

I mean, this is not fun, Jesse.

Just looking at it is painful, much less actually doing it yourself.

Well, let us also, since you have a medical background, the skin cancer implications of that are I think irresponsible but go on.

Absolutely.

Malignant melanoma.

That prevalence goes up with peer first Brits, of course.

So, yeah, that is very much a stereotype.

I think there is a double standard.

As I say, Spanish tourists or European tourists are expected to speak English, but they don't reciprocate when they come over.

They kind of expect everyone to speak English.

So there is an integration problem.

And those ghettos, you know, if you want to get, you know, the first thing I did when I came to Spain, I would say I spent a good couple of years learning Spanish here, and I was fluent way before I felt comfortable living in the country with the culture and the attitudes to food, to sex, to family, and all these things that you have to kind of get a feel for when you move, when you move to another country.

It was a big, big thing.

When I moved out.

I was 24 and a half.

I remember.

I remember I was on a stool crying because I was afraid of leaving my support system, which were my two flatmates, close friends at the time.

And I was, you know, I was visibly moved by coming out.

So I think it is a big thing if you do expatriate yourself.

And I came out for linguistic reasons, and I made Spain my home.

My family is here, my daughters are here.

But I still feel very British, Jesse.

I'm still, you know, English at heart.

I've got my expat communities, I've got my British friends, and that's an important part of growing up and, you know, being part of feeling part of a community.

Well, and to your other point, I think what also distinguishes you from other Brits is your commitment to languages, and you're understanding that language exists in culture.

So if you really want to understand the language, you have to understand the culture.

And before we segue to really have a deep dive into Spain, an interesting anecdote from Canada in terms of our languages and how it gets messed up in English Canada, especially in Ontario, for, I'm sure, really corrupt and colonial reasons, they would teach us Parisian French, right?

So they would teach all the Anglos how to speak French.

If you went to France, which is completely different than Quebecois, and so if you go into Quebec speaking your Parisian French, they're like, get the fuck out of here.

Right?

Because you are not speaking their French.

And in particular, the slang, the vernacular in Quebecois French, so impenetrable.

And one of the benefits of moving from Toronto to Ottawa, where I'm far closer to Quebec and there are far more Quebecers living in this part of Ontario is.

I'm exposed to like the Kalis Tabanac swearing and vernacular that helps me understand people, you know, when I'm in the store at eavesdropping.

So it's.

It's weird to me that Canada chose to teach the Anglos a French spoken hundred thousands of kilometers away, rather than the French spoken by our fellow country people.

Right.

And neighbors.

Which again is a weird political consequence that is complicated the Canadian relationship.

When you were in our news segment, sort of talking about Spain, it reminded me of the reason when I first found out you were Madrid, I was like, oh shit, I gotta get Jason back so we could talk about Spain.

Because it is a different society.

There's a lot of commonalities, there's a lot of frames of reference.

But the reason I was saying that Spain operates on its own pace is, for example, the Franco regime existed on a different timescale than fascism in Italy or fascism in Germany.

Previous to that, the Spanish Republic.

And what we saw in Barcelona again was on a different timeline than similar movements in Europe and similar movements elsewhere in the world.

And when you were describing the changing education in Basque country, where they were kind of coming to terms with the violent legacy of the ETA movements, that's the opposite of what America's doing in terms of America trying to get critical race theory and diversity studies banished from their education system.

So it really feels that when the world zigs, Spain zags, it just kind of goes in its own directions.

And that's why I find as a North American, I think in this moment, where it feels everything is predetermined, Spain proves to us that there are always other options, that there are other ways to think about policy, there are other ways of thinking about work, there's other ways about thinking about life.

So again, because you have this mixed outsider, insider perspective, right?

Where on some levels you're an expat, but you've put in the effort to really understand a Spanish society and culture to the point that you do deserve to vote for the federal government.

I would agree.

You've earned that right.

Hopefully they recognize that.

So why don't we start with to help us.

And I have a bit of a sense of this myself, but I suspect many of my listeners do not help us understand the regional diversity within Spain, that it really isn't a homogenous country compared to perhaps other countries, nations as they were, give us that meta view of both, how there is that internal diversity, but how that internal diversity manifests in what we would call Spain.

Right?

Because to Outsiders.

It certainly does appear like a coherent country, but maybe it's not internally.

Yeah.

So much comeback on what you said there, Jesse.

First of all, you said zig when they zag.

That is the title of a keynote speech by one of my mentors, an entrepreneur called Ryan Lebec.

He is the founder of the Ask Method.

He's from Boston, not far from where you are right now.

So a quick shout out to Ryan.

I, I was so pleased to meet him in person at an event in Cambridge where he spoke.

And he also lives on a farm.

So you have something in common with Ryan Levesque.

So I'd love you to, to just, just hook up online.

Zigwin.

Exactly.

Yeah.

You mentioned Franco.

I mean, this year is such a notable year because it's the 50th anniversary since Franco died.

And I.

I was four months old.

I will be 50 in July.

He died in November, so it's the 50th.

So there is a Franco thing going on here right now.

And you know, traditionally, Spain has been left and right.

It's basically very polarized.

It's politically uncertain.

It's the polarization.

We've got a left wing government, but it's kind of propped up by these nationalists and these independence parties that the Catalan party is causing a bit of trouble there, wanting independence.

Those are the people, you know, minority rule, keeping the Sanchez government in place.

And then you've got the far right and you've got vox, which is, you know, further right from the Spanish people's party, which is the, the equivalent of the Tories.

I love the term Red Tory, because that, that's sort of oxymoronic in itself, isn't it?

It's, it's someone like Starmet, someone like Tony Blair, a conservative in socialist clothing.

I love that, that term you coined for the new podcast.

And to be clear, to affirm your point, I love oxymorons.

I love things that make people go, what?

I don't get it.

And it forces them to think, sorry, please continue.

No, I love, as a linguist, I love oxymorons as well.

I mean, that's a linguist dream.

So, yeah, Spain is basically ruled autonomously.

So to understand Spain Spain, you've got to understand the geography.

There are 17 autonomous regions.

One is the Community of Madrid, one is the Basque country, one is Catalonia, one is Andalusia.

And each autonomous region has its regional government, typically called a hunta, a junta with a j.

And that is a regional government.

And you can have A socialist junta, or you can have a vox PP coalition junta.

So you've got to.

You've got to toe the line of the regional government.

Sure.

Can I interrupt real quick?

Sure.

You know, it's weird here in North America, and I think this is one of those lost in translations.

Junta almost feels like a dirty word.

Why is that?

Why when you say that word, do I associate it with, like, ku?

And again, I think this is a weird American, North American twisting of words because we don't really believe in integrity of meaning anymore anymore here, unfortunately, thanks to Trump.

But can you, as someone who works in language, help me understand why I'm having that reaction?

Is it to do with somebody like Gaglieri, who was a military dictator in Argentina, we went to war with him of the Falklands?

I think it's something.

I think you're right.

I think it is South America, the way the word was used.

Sorry to interrupt.

Please continue.

That's a very interesting linguistic interruption that I think that, that it is to do with Gallieri, the Falkland Islands, and we went to war over an island with a couple of sheep, like the sheep on your farm, Jesse.

That was pretty crazy, right, General Gallieri.

But, yeah, that was a big, big thing back in the 80s.

There was a big coup for.

For Thatcher, and she was a wartime leader in, in 83 and could do no wrong until she started to go slightly awry in the late 80s.

I remember her very much.

I was, I was in London with the poll tax.

I remember Neil Kinnick coming out of the Commons.

I saw him come out, and he was the Welsh leader who could have been prime minister in 92, but he kind of blew it.

And there was a very unusual fifth consecutive parliament with a certain John Major in power in 92.

But, yeah, getting back to Spain, the autonomous regions, it's just a question of understanding the regional politics.

This is not a federal state like the US where all the power is centralized in Washington.

What Donald Trump says goes.

It's getting very dictatorial there because he's kind of going off on his own thing.

He's a very disruptive leader.

I, I admire, disrupted.

I love disruption in, in markets and business and, you know, if he's applying that, too.

But you, you know, you got to have a check on power.

You can't just have absolute power with one person.

Well, and not to get off track, but you brought it up.

And I believe in spontaneous conversation.

I, too, believe in disruption.

And I've spent my entire life critical of the status quo, whatever that may be to the zig and zag idea.

But I also, as a philosopher, I've kind of come to the nuanced understanding that, you know, disrupt for whom?

Who is the one disrupting and who is the one being disrupted?

That's where this particular disruptor in chief is, not one that I'm particularly in favor of his disruption.

I'd like to see him disrupted.

But within the disruption that's going on, that does create some opportunities for political change, which is why I'm interested in the Spanish model.

But you were alluding to, I think, something that is lost on North Americans, which is that Spanish is not the same kind of federated state in the sense that these regions have genuine autonomy as an example.

And I say this because I partly know where it started, but I don't know where it ended.

Talk to me about the conflict between Catalunya as an autonomous region and the federal government, in terms of the way in which the federal government imprisoned many of the leaders of the illegal independence referendum that they held in Catalonia, like seven, eight years ago, or something like that.

Give me that as a snapshot of the tensions that exist in Spanish politics.

And to your point, now that the Catalonian independents are holding up the federal government, how has that been resolved?

Have the original leaders gotten amnesty?

Were they released from jail?

Is the guy taking amnesty in Belgium who was elected to the European Parliament as he pooj de mo?

Is he allowed to come back again?

Assume that most of my listeners have no idea what I'm talking about right now.

So still give us the meta view, but indulge me in bringing me up to date on where all this stands.

Yeah, you're very well informed, Jesse.

So the seven politicians were jailed for high crimes, for sedition and treason and all kinds of serious things.

They have been pardoned as amnesty has been given.

They've been.

So there were people voting illegally because this wasn't a constitutional referendum.

But they, you know, they sort of rigged it up and it looked pretty good.

And they.

A lot of people are in favor of Catalan independence.

So the Catalans, what they want is their own tax system, their own army, possibly even their own currency.

Or was that Scotland, when Scotland wanted to break off?

Quebec, I think, is another region which was getting very, very individualist.

Is that right?

Let me just flag that for future conversation in this episode, because I think we should talk about Quebec, given what I talked about in our news segment about the future of Canada.

Let me just flag that so we come back to it.

But please continue in terms of the Catalonian Spanish tensions.

So, as you rightly said, Carlos Puigdemont, he was exiled in Brussels.

He still lives in Waterloo.

He's funded by the party in Catalonia.

He is not allowed to come back.

If he does come back, he will face some problems with the justice administration.

He did come back from for the inauguration of Ila, one of the Socialist presidents who's now in power, regional president of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia.

And there were some theatrics where he sneaked off in a car and somehow got over the border and they lost him.

And he was actually helped by the police.

Jesse.

There is a Catalan police force called the Mosos, and one of those people, or two agents actually helped him get away.

And you need the complicity of a law enforcement agency if you're going to dodge the cops, you've got to get out.

And that's what happens.

And to your earlier point about the October 1 referendum, there were conflicts between the Mossad and.

I shouldn't say Mossad.

That implies Israeli intelligence.

Sorry, how should I pronounce the regional Catalonian law enforcement?

Mossad De Squadar.

So there is tension between them and the federal police as to whether they should shut down the referendum.

And that made it clear to me that there were obviously sympathetic forces within the regional police who were pro independence in terms of Catalunya, hence why Bushmont would get the support to get in and out of Catalonia without being detained.

That's it.

That's exactly what happened.

So this is still very much a hot topic.

Jesse.

We'll see if he comes back.

I think people are slightly tired of this topic now.

It has.

But, you know, this tensions were rising high.

I mean, I.

I've met people who would be defending ballot boxes with their.

With their bodies physically defending the ballot box.

So this is a very, you know, North Americans who've lived there since the 70s.

One of my colleagues was telling me this just before she sadly passed away.

But she.

It was just before I was going into a conference in Girona.

She was telling me a story of how she corresponded with these.

With these prisoners in.

In jail.

And she was very into it.

And, you know, I.

I personally am not.

I look at politics from a slightly, you know, glass, you know, looking glass outside.

I wouldn't be involving myself in conflicts or physical violence of defending a ballot box, for example.

So, you Know, it remains to be seen how this, how this pans out, that the amnesty given was, was certainly very controversial.

The left wing government gave them amnesty, they were released.

And the right wing government, the right wing party, the opposition People's Party, Conservative right wing party equivalent to the Tory party in the uk, didn't like it.

Jesse.

So there was a lot of noise.

It did come across to me as to your point, an observer as transactional, right, that, you know, previously the socialists were either indifferent or opposed to Catalonian independence.

But when the thin margin that they needed to form the government, they realized that they needed that support and they could buy that support with the amnesty.

I'm not disparaging or criticizing that.

That's politics.

But it did seem transactional rather than ideological.

And I've had the pleasure of going to Barcelona twice, and the first time I did, I was a guest of the Catalunya Auto cluster.

So the kind of.

It's funded by the regional government, but it represents the auto industry around Barcelona, which is heavily integrated with Europe because it's not so much independent auto companies, right.

It's seat, which is owned by Volkswagen and lots of other suppliers that work there.

But all the people I spent with during that trip were all pro independent.

And it was fascinating to me to learn about their perspective and what I found not contradictory, but dare I arrogantly say, wishful thinking, is they were all very pro eu.

Like they believed in their mind that they could obtain independence from Spain and join the EU and be part of the EU community.

And I thought that was a little naive.

Like it kind of struck me that the member states of the EU would be threatened by one of their states having a region separate, more so than they would the idea of having Catalonia as an independent partner.

So that's where I was started criticizing or being critical of the efforts that were underway.

But I ended up meeting quite a different bunch of people who believed in Catalonian independence.

So I, I was interested and followed it from afar, but lost touch as the passions, as it were, started to peter out.

And I think this is where I want to come back to a question.

I think what's changed is the rise of the far right, in part because when I was there, it wasn't a vox populi.

What's the name of the conservative party?

The pp?

The People's Party.

The pp.

It was a PP rally in Barcelona and I participated in it, not as a supporter, but as like a journalist, right, where I was taking photos and eavesdropping, because where I really do not have the courage to speak Spanish or Catalan.

I have enough French that I can sort of infer when I'm watching people and getting context, that I'm getting enough comprehension.

So I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed being part of it.

But the kind of peace I got was there wasn't really any truth and reconciliation post Franco.

That with Franco's death, everyone was like, okay, let's move on.

But there wasn't really an assessment of what did that mean, what were the power structures in place?

So a lot of the independence people felt that the Frankists were still fundamentally in a form of institutional power, and that was one of their arguments for independence.

And I say this in the sense that I think as we see the far right starting to rise, I think that's where the center starts to get scared and start saying, hey, maybe we should build a common front here.

And that's where the independents start going, maybe independence is not our current priority right now.

Hence their desire to support the socialists and keep the socialists in power.

Am I over reading this?

To what extent do you think that, again, the far right rising across Europe is changing the political game in Spain as well as other countries?

Yeah, I think the far right is a big threat, Jesse.

You have to curb the far right.

So there is still this polarization between the Republicans, which would be the Socialist party as the kind of heirs to republicanism, and the fascists, which of course were far right in his day.

So you still have these tensions.

It is still very ideological.

It is still the case that there is no agreement even on things where there should be agreement.

Common Foreign security policy, education, health, these basic pillars of a democratic modern state.

You don't have them because you've got these.

All these bickering and relationship to generations before.

And just.

Just the arc that we've come in my lifetime, from my early 20s to just about to enter my 50s, my sixth decade in, in July, so, you know, there are these places like Quebec, like Scotland, like Catalonia, that.

That get very individualistic.

And I know Less about Quebec, more about Scotland and Catalina, because it's more in my region.

But I think, you know, curbing the far right is one of the.

One of the central policy shifts of the eu that is something very much a threat at the moment.

Well, and let's use that as an excuse to take a quick tangent, and then we'll come back to the EU in general.

Quebec is interesting because to your point, where I would agree with your general assessment that Scottish and Catalonian independence is a kind of individualism, because I think it is partly driven by Scottish and Catalonian individuals who believe that they will have better chances of prosperity or better chances of agency outside of their existing relationships.

Quebec, on the other hand, is not at all individualist.

It's very much collectivist.

And that's one of the reasons why they've stayed in Canada, because I think Quebec has always understood that they could not survive America and that they needed an alliance with Anglo Canadians to maintain their independence.

Because Quebec is a very insular society.

Although was.

Because part of the reason that Canada as a whole is prone to MAGA thinking is we have had tremendous immigration, and we need tremendous immigration because we're an aging society.

We're an aging society with social programs that don't really have the young people to pay into those social programs.

So we have to open our borders to make sure that as an aging society, our workforce doesn't crater, that we can afford to have the social spending we have.

There are, like, Toronto loves that there are lots of parts of the country which are very pro immigration.

Quebec, it's been controversial because on the one hand, Quebec has been pro francophone immigration, because if they can attract Francophones, that allows them to expand their cultural footprint in the continent.

But a huge segment of Quebec society is racist, if not xenophobic.

And a lot of Francophone immigrants are people of color.

They're Africans, they're East Africans.

And this is where, as well as South Asia, because France's colonies in South Asia have also had some interesting dynamics in Quebecois society.

So there's a real tension in Quebec right now between a collectivist, what they call the pure langue, the original language.

Right.

And the new Francophones who are part of that society.

All of which now is complicated by the threat coming from America.

Right.

And the fact that America is gonna really put pressure on the Anglophone francophone relationship in Canada.

But also, and here's the other complicating fact, Quebec's economy is overwhelmingly export oriented on so many different levels, from advanced manufacturing to Natural resources.

So if America attacks Canada economically, Quebec is hurt more than almost anywhere else in Canada.

And that would incentivize Quebec to make a deal with America saying, you preserve our language, you preserve our culture, and we're ready to fuck Canada.

So.

So it's a complicated political landscape to the point about different regions and different priorities and different dynamics.

Right now in Quebec, it is illegal to have any sign in English.

Right?

They have defied federal bilingual policy and enforced their own arguably unconstitutional unilingual policies.

But Quebec is not a signatory to the Canadian constitution, so they can't actually be held accountable for like.

So it's complicated.

This is why you're correct to put them in the same pool as Catalonia and Scotland and Quebec.

And the relationship between Catalonian independence and Quebec sovereignty is very close.

Like, they do a lot of exchanges and a lot of policy work, but Quebec is different.

And I think the reason they've been always unsuccessful at independence is it's just too complicated.

How communist is Quebec, Jesse?

Because you talk about civilization, how communist is it?

Excellent question.

In the 60s and 70s, vary and the pekistes, the original Parti Quebecois, which was the original independence movement, was hard, left, right, very communist.

That generation of Quebecers died and their children really did not pick up their flag.

There is a very powerful grassroots left wing movement because it's not united right like the anarchists in Montreal are notorious globally for kicking the Montreal police's ass anytime they want to.

And to your point, the institutional Socialists and communists in Quebec have some power in the unions, but the political power of the left in Quebec has been decimated.

It was, to use your point, the Red Tories in Quebec that have been very successful, they are left wing culturally, right wing economically.

They believe in social programs and in Quebecois culture because Quebec cultural industries are very strong because of the subsidies that come from the Quebec.

The Quebec national government, as they call themselves, they don't call themselves a provincial government, they are a national assembly because they believe themselves as a nation.

But the politics has aligned itself with the export oriented industry.

And it is a very right wing government with left wing clothes, to use the Tony Blair analogy.

But there is a very strong young left wing movement in Quebec that I would never underestimate, given the opportunity that is American existential crisis, that they could be a big player because they have been historically.

They're just not currently electorally because they're much more interested in outside of electoral politics in terms of social movements.

Again, I'm digressing, but it is an interesting and relevant digression, but I think Quebec's future is as equally uncertain as Canada.

But again, the point I really want to reiterate.

Quebec politics requires nuance and complication.

And we are in an era in which nuance is just not compatible with contemporary politics.

There is very little nuance in our politics today.

And that makes politics outside of Quebec very difficult to connect to Quebec politics.

And it makes Quebec politics very, very insular.

Right.

They are a self contained political environment.

So I want to throw it back to you in terms of Europe partly because I'm conscious of our time and I want to draw to a close only because I have a very tiny bladder and my audience, generally speaking, has a short attention span.

Although I think we've been very entertaining today and I think we've been holding onto that attention span very well.

But I want you to scale up our conversation to Europe only because I thought we were talking about the far right.

That is where I think Europe is having its own existential moment.

And I'm not sure the way Canada, I don't think is prepared to handle America.

It's not clear to me that Europe is prepared to handle the rise of the far right.

So, Jason, what's your take here?

No, I think that's an accurate assessment, Jesse.

That's accurate.

And Germany is also accurate here.

I mean, the far right is a presence for sure.

It is something that is on the rise.

It is not so much on the rise that they're going to take over a national government that is not still very much a minority body.

But hey, getting 50 seats in a national parliament such as Spain, that's a big deal.

It's a big deal.

It splits the right in two.

And the right is forced to choose between the more left wing parties that are in government, the more mainstream center right parties, center left parties, and the far right.

So there, there is this very interesting polarization going on between the communists and Socialists on the one hand and the conservatives and the, the far right, the fascists on the other hand.

I think it's a.

What?

It's a watch this space issue, Jesse.

You need to watch what's going to happen.

I'm thinking about Germany and there's, there's a new guy on the block there.

I think it's called Metz.

And there's an election with the, with the guy that, the Schultz guy seems to be out and the new guys is very much in.

So, you know, there's rotations happening.

I agree that the EU is not ready to let the far right rise so much that it will get some real power to wield.

But look, look at Donald Trump.

I mean, that is a far right leader.

He's a disruptor.

He's doing some pretty crazy things on immigration, on, on, you know, statesmanship and other countries.

So, you know, let's see what happens and you know, let's see if he opens the market, the, the gates, the floodgates to more disruptive leaders coming and actually taking over from.

That could be interesting.

Yeah, absolutely.

And let me ask you for a follow up question which again, I think many of our North American listeners really just don't understand because of the nature of our party politics here in North America.

When a far right party gets 50 seats, they're not just getting a voice in Parliament.

Talk about the kind of state resources that they get access to, the kind of funding and legitimization that their party gets, even if they're still in a tiny minority.

Having those seats in Parliament is kind of an upgrade.

It's kind of access to resources.

And again, you don't have to be specific, but this is where it's worth clarifying that here in North America, our politics are monopolized by two, three parties and there is no way for any new party to really emerge.

It is an effective oligopoly to the extent even on fundraising, again, help our North American listeners understand the nature of how representation works in European parliaments, both local, scaling all the way up to the eu.

So that's a good question.

So there is some legal and institutional support.

So these will be electoral commissions, these will be proportional representation systems, these will be quota systems.

But as you say, financial support is very difficult.

So there are things like crowdfunding campaigns, there are donations, there are NGOs and international grants because public funding is very difficult.

So I think survival of these parties is very difficult financially.

They've got to have the sustained support of the electorate.

That's what gets them in Parliament and depends very much on the balance of power in the autonomous communities.

Madrid is a very conservative city, Jesse.

It's been conservative.

It is blue all the way home.

And you've got a leader in our regional leader who will probably be a future national leader.

Can you believe that she used to run a former Madrid president's Instagram page for a dog.

So there was actually a dog.

She was the social media manager for Esperanto, Aguirre's dog.

But look, as much as I'm laughing, that is significant cuz that tells you right away a the power of social media and B, how much of the existing political class is still so clueless when it comes to social media that someone who does get it rises through the ranks so quickly.

That's a very good appearance.

I think one of the, one of the, one of the rises of Isabella, you saw, that's her name, the current president is through the social media.

And she obviously got it.

She's a few years younger than me.

So maybe she's 45, 46.

So that's the current state of politics, Jesse.

But yeah, funding for minority bodies, it does come down to how much you can get from electoral commissions, from proportional representation.

That's the debate about two party rule.

It's always been, should we have a PR system or should we allow countries to.

Typically in the uk that would be the Labour Party.

I wasn't old enough in 92, I was 17, but I got my vote in for Tony in 97.

Well, and you know, the reason I brought this up is the federal and in anglo Canada in some provinces, the provincial left wing party in Canada is called the New Democratic Party.

And they are not socialists, not even close.

They're really more kind of left of center liberals, partly because the Liberal Party, it tends to flow between right and left.

But the NDP would not exist as a political entity if they didn't have the budgets that they get for staffing as a consequence of being in Parliament.

Right.

Like their lifeline as a bureaucratic structure, as a party apparatus exists because they don't get corporate funding.

And there really isn't a lot of union funding here in Canada.

And they've alienated themselves from grassroots movements, so their crowdfunding ain't gonna really be that successful.

So really what sustains them is the parliamentary budgets that they get to kind of keep going.

And then we also, here in Canada, unlike the United States, we heavily subsidize electoral campaigns by political parties.

So while we have some corporate funding and some individual contributions, it's fairly limited and fairly restricted and regulated.

And a lot of taxpayer dollars subsidizes party kind of campaign funds.

So it really skews who gets to be part of the political debate and how that political debate happens.

The same way that in America, it's money that skews what political ideas get to be floated.

I don't mean accepted.

I don't mind if they're dismissed.

I just want them on the table to consider them.

And here in Canada, we have so marginalized any types of debates that could get creative, that could be brainstorming.

That's why we're fucked.

Because we've locked ourselves into this narrow little colony mentality that now that the empire lusts over our natural resources and our territorial land, I really fear for our future.

Now, as you know, Jason, I like to end every Metaviews episode with a shout out.

And while I will certainly encourage you to come up with a different shout out than how we started, I want you to remind me of that guy in Boston with a farm.

Partly because in the flow of our conversation, my brain is often difficult for me to retain such information.

And even though I will re listen to this podcast as I'm doing my farm chores, let me type his name into Google now so I don't forget.

Yeah, what a great reference that is.

Ryan Levesque.

I'm going to put his name here.

Ryan Levesque.

Got it.

And he is the, Ryan is the, is the founder of the Ask Method.

I mean, you know, everything we know about market research and online quizzes is down to Ryan and the Ask Method.

And he's just sold his company iBuckets to a bigger company called ScoreUp in the UK owned by, owned by an entrepreneur called Daniel Priestley.

And oh man, I'm a big fan of Ryan.

He's a, he's a pretty short guy, but he's super smart.

He's got a beard and glasses and he's just super likable.

And he spoke about the zig when they zag, you know, this idea of just going the opposite current, as if you're an investor when everyone's investing.

This way, you don't go with the herd, you go against the herd, against the current, swim against the current.

And he gave a fantastic keynote back in November and I really enjoyed talking to him and people brought his books along and so if you can connect to him and say, you know, he probably remember me, we connected online and we corresponded.

So yeah, that's a great, you know, he does masterminds in Boston.

It would cost you, maybe set you back about five grand to do a couple of days, two day mastermind with him.

But it's worth it, I think, if you go, you know, if you go there and you've got that kind of.

The first thing you should know about farming and we could definitely talk about this in a future Meta views episode because of course as our European correspondent, although as we were talking, my friend in the Netherlands has just gotten back to me.

So this may be your last time as our European correspondent.

You may be our Southern European correspondent when we have you back on metaviews.

But we will definitely have you back and I will give you an opportunity then to talk about farming because it is something clearly that draws your curiosity and the nature about a farmer, unless you are as successful as Ryan Levesque in terms of selling your business is you are land rich, cash poor.

Because the liquidity, any liquidity I have tends to be eaten by my animals and goes into our general operations.

And I'm not gonna reach out to Ryan just yet, but I am subscribing to his newsletter cause it looks absolutely phenomenal.

It is.

I'm a reader.

He's very, very good.

I'm really glad you've brought him to our attention and maybe in the future when you next connect with him, you can facilitate the inter farm dialogue.

I'm the kind of person where I hesitate to reach out to people with as much profile as him, only because I'm more interested in building a kind of peer to peer network, as we are doing today, that people like yourself who are much more accessible, much more, I think, engaging.

Not to say that Ryan's not engaging, but I'm sure he's in demand in a way that would make his engagement limiting versus I love that you have an hour to give me when I ask and we can get into really smart and engaging conversations.

But I will give you another opportunity.

Jason, is there anyone else that you want to give a shout out to?

Since technically you did give that Ryan shout out earlier in the episode.

So I do want to give you the chance here in our official segment.

If there's anyone else you want to say, hey, here's who you need to know about.

Thank you Jesse.

So I'm definitely sending this episode to my friend Anna, AKA Annabanana or Rumi.

She is my former roommate, she's from Quebec and I hope she listens to this because I'm thinking of her.

She is Quebecois and you know she used to speak with that Quebecois accent and I, I speak fluent French and man, I was having trouble understanding what she was saying, I gotta tell you.

She's a good friend and I hope.

I hope she picks this up.

So, Anna, if you're listening, this is a shout out for you.

Right on, Right on.

And you know, just as on some level, we are at some point going to talk about me coming to Madrid or us meeting up in Barcelona, but if you do ever make it to Montreal, I'm not that far.

I think I'm technically closer to Montreal than I am Toronto.

Although Montreal has up traffic, too.

Oh, that.

That's another.

Another city where, for reasons of the mob, actually organized crime.

Their infrastructure is in a sordid state.

And maybe they got that in common with.

With America as well.

Thank you very much, Jason.

This has been another fantastic meta views episode.

I really don't want to jinx myself, but we're in a hot streak.

We've been hitting them out of the park pretty consistently, which for most, my sanity is so important in this time in which authoritarianism seems to be making a comeback and fast.

So thank you for joining me, Jason.

Thank you for joining me, members of our audience.

Maybe Anna, if you're listening, and you know, we'll be back soon, we're on the socials, we're on podcast NETWORKS, we're on YouTube.

So please connect with us, send us your feedback, and we hope to see you soon.

All right, take care.