Music: Jazmine Sullivan sings “The Star Spangled Banner” at the 2022 MLB World Series: Jazmine Sullivan Killed the (Star-Spangled Banner) at the World Series🥲🔥 #mlb #astros #phillies – YouTube
Script:
It’s The William Tell Show. I call myself William Tell; you can call me Bill. Thank you for including me in your world; everyone wants to be included.
I don’t know for sure, but Tucker Carlson Tonight may be the highest-rated program on television. I don’t know what portion of America watches it; I don’t know the demographic; I don’t know how much influence he has on his audience. Certainly there are some people who watch not because they like him, but because they hate him.
I may not like him; I may object to many of the things he says, or I may find them inexplicable. But one of my goals in composing this podcast is to keep myself from hating him; to keep from making him an enemy.
Ever since Russia invaded the Ukraine in February of 2022, Tucker Carlson has held onto a position that’s so pro-Russian, and anti-Ukraine, that it’s really hard to understand. He might as well be working for the Russian propaganda machine. He has said many, many things; there’s been no way for me to keep track of them all; in this podcast, I will focus only on some of his most recent remarks.
Which really weren’t about Ukraine per se, but about Volodmyr Zelensky and the U.S. Congress.
The Russian invasion itself is hard enough to understand. It seems to be a matter completely of Vladimir Putin’s whim. There is nothing at stake for the Russian nation, really; there was no pre-existing, standing tension between the two nations. One thing the Russians might gain: there are many military industries in the so-called Donetsk region, in fact most of the nation’s military industries, including if I’m not mistaken a huge uranium mine. The population there is largely composed of ethnic Russians already, and was basically taken over by pro-Russian separatists seven years ago.
But Donetsk has not appeared to be all that Putin wants. The initial attacks seemed designed to take over Ukraine completely. Some of the language that came out early on had to do with a “Holy Rus,” or a larger Russia, that long ago, for centuries, included Ukraine as a conquered territory. But Ukraine has also had centuries of self-rule, and even glory, in the past. Kyiv is a city of some glory.
Other language that came out early on seemed to indicate that Putin wants to re-establish the Soviet Union, which was essentially a Russian empire. Donald Trump said, that there was, quote, “a lot of love,” end quote, in the Soviet Union. He seems to have forgotten Stalin.
In his own position, Tucker Carlson seems to have forgotten Stalin, too. But it’s more as if he doesn’t care.
Let’s take a break.
[Commercial break]
Volodomyr Zelensky addressed a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, December 21, 2022. At a number of different points during the speech, almost all members of Congress stood and applauded him. A handful of GOP members of the House did not. Tucker Carlson remarked all this on his show, on Thursday, December 22. I will read some passages from the article I linked to.
“Almost every person in the room clapped like a seal,” Carlson said on his nightly show. “So no matter what that man said — Send me more money; I command you, send me more money; we’re taking care of it the most responsible ways — they applaud, all of them, almost like they have to.”
I ask whether Zelensky “commanded” Congress to do anything.
Carlson said:
“Now, there are 435 members of the House of Representatives, and they’re Republicans and Democrats. And famously, they don’t get along. They don’t agree on anything,” Carlson said. However, he added, “when a foreign leader shows up in cargo pants to tell them lies and give them orders, they all applaud.”
I ask what lies Carlson says Zelensky told, if any. I ask what orders Zelensky gave. Back to his remarks:
“That’s honestly what it looked like last night,” he added. “You’ve got to clap. You get in trouble if you don’t clap, so everyone just claps all the time.”
I want to ask about those who did not clap. They did not get in any trouble that I know of. So I don’t get where Carlson’s coming from with this.
The most appropriate music for today, it seemed to me, is the national anthem; so, I link to Jazmine Williams’ performance at the beginning of Game 5 of the 2022 baseball World Series.
I didn’t think about this until some time after I chose that song, but it comes from a context identical to the current war in Ukraine. “The Star-Spangled Banner” comes from the War of 1812, in which Great Britain was doing to the United States exactly what Russia is doing to Ukraine right now. In that war, the British sought to completely undo the American Revolution, and re-appropriate the former colonies back into the British Empire.
If we can sing this song, I hope the people of Ukraine can sing their song, too.
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