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C.J. Hopkins Discusses Global Capitalism And More
C.J. Hopkins is an American politcal satirist, playwright, novelist, and columnist living in Berlin.
During the Pandemic C.J. took aim at overwrought official rhetoric, interpreting a lot of the coronavirus response as an opportunistic, authoritarian power grab by the global neoliberal project.
C.J. has been critical of lockdowns, mandates and the use of emotional terror as a propaganda tool, to essentially strip us of our liberties and freedoms.
C.J. talks about how he lost friends and colleagues because of his views, and refused to self censor. If anything the “new normal” has made him even more outspoken.
I hope you enjoy the conversation.
Website C.J. Hopkins
X C.J. Hopkins X
Ahmad (00:00.966)
No, it’s I don’t really care. But anyway, listen, I need to apologize on air to you. I’m sorry. I put the wrong time in the calendar. I’ll be honest with you. I’ve been kind of frazzled. I’ve had problems. I was suspended at work four weeks ago and my head’s all over the place. And I’m dealing with a lot of shit trying to try and keep all the plates spinning at the same time, trying to run a practice, which is dwindled. It’s 80% of my work has just dried up because I’ve been kicked out of this hospital for basically my social media activity and my podcasts.
You know, we live in this modern age of censorship and I’m paying the price. So I’m all over the place. I’m a bit sorry about that. Sorry, buddy.
CJ Hopkins (00:40.989)
That’s okay. I’m hoping that your feet is going to improve here, you’re sticking and freezing pretty badly.
Ahmad (00:52.234)
Don’t worry about that. So on the Riverside platform, it records on your end and my end separately. And in the end, it uploads it and the quality is very good. If you look at your internet, it’s now gone up to 99%. So you’re a bit blurry when I’m looking at you. I’m blurry looking on your end. Don’t worry, the final thing will look great.
CJ Hopkins (01:12.832)
Yeah, the problem is I want to make sure that I can actually hear what you’re saying. You know, when it sticks, then I can’t make out what you’re saying. So that will make it tough. Hopefully that will improve.
Ahmad (01:25.038)
I’m sure it’ll be fine. So listen, tell me you’re a political satirist. You know, what does that actually mean? You know, I love your, your ex feed. Tell me, um, you’ve got, I think you’ve got a lot of opinions and commentary about the world. And I’d love to hear what you want to talk about. Anything you want to say.
CJ Hopkins (01:27.526)
Okay.
CJ Hopkins (01:45.668)
Well, it’s kind of just what it sounds like. I think I do pretty much classic political satire. I try to make fun of the powers that be and make people laugh and question authority. And every once in a while, I get a little bit more serious and do some more serious political.
analysis and during the last three years I lost my sense of humor a little bit, maybe an understatement, with all of the new normal being rolled out and what have you. And I’ve been trying to get back into my more humorous mode, but it’s kind of hard these days with everything that’s going on.
Ahmad (02:35.726)
I hear you. CJ, so I think one of the biggest weapons we have is sense of humor and taking the piss, taking the mickey out of authority. I think that’s so important that we hold on to that because, you know, that’s one of the ways we fight back. Just exposing how ridiculous and absurd the policies are and the behavior of our so-called leaders. But it’s hard because we’re human and
we have emotions and feelings and when we see wrong and injustice, you know, we get upset. Um, so I kind of sometimes fall into that trap of getting a bit upset and a bit emotional because I’m human, but I think it’s quite good to sometimes just stand back, be objective and take the piss as much as possible.
CJ Hopkins (03:23.844)
Well, yeah, that’s kind of my job. I mean, there are times when it’s more appropriate, and there are times when it’s less appropriate. I really struggled with the events, things going on in Israel and Gaza and everything that’s happening right now. Just to give you a little insight as a satirist, while when things were first starting,
this was not the time to jump up and be sarcastic and do that. So I tried to hold off a little bit. I wrote a more serious piece that I thought was appropriate to the time. And then I just put out my first Consent Factory column, which does include a bit of humor. What I focus on a lot, Ahmad, is the production of our official narratives.
or the official reality that is disseminated by the powers that be. And for example, that’s what I tried to focus on in this recent piece was the production of the narrative rather than jumping into the conflict and waving a flag on either side. Yeah.
Ahmad (04:40.482)
Yeah, well, I don’t know about you, but I find that I don’t know what your stance is, by the way, on the latest thing. I actually reached out to you about the whole COVID and masking and all that kind of stuff. I was really interested to know your viewpoint then, but I think we should talk about Israel and Palestine. What I find really crazy but understandable is how people don’t even want to talk about it. There’s so many people who are very vocal and outspoken and a lot of other issues who are very quiet now. And I think it’s because
They know that no matter what you say, you’re gonna get some stick. You’re gonna get attacked from left, right, front, back, up, down, everyone. Someone is gonna be upset. But then if you end up doing this whole self-censorship business, you’re a victim to what they want. The agenda is that you’re not allowed to talk. And if you do talk, you’re gonna get attacked. So be quiet. But that’s exactly what we should be doing. We should be talking, we should be debating and having conversations without getting emotional and angry.
Um, but I, I like you. I find that a little bit difficult to do because everyone is so, I just can’t believe how there’s so much blood lust and hatred and anger and vitriol. And it’s tribal. It’s like, Whoa, everybody, don’t you know how you’re being played? Um, it’s kind of sad. I don’t know what your thoughts are.
CJ Hopkins (06:00.872)
You know, it’s kind of horrifying. I know exactly what you’re talking about. There’s, you know, with everything that’s going on, I hate to complain and say, you know, it’s tough for, you know, political satirists. I mean, people are dying and, you know, there’s real suffering going on, you know. What I’m going through is nothing compared to that. But sure, it’s…
I felt it myself, I felt the fear of knowing that no matter what I write, no matter what I say about this, I’m going to receive just passionate hatred from one side or the other or both sides. And at the same time, I kind of felt like I need to say something. I’ve been…
you know, this is kind of my job now, this political satirist and commentator gig. And if I say absolutely nothing, you know, then what kind of a coward am I? I, you know, at least to my readers, I felt responsible to say something. The first piece I wrote is kind of uncharacteristic for me. As I said, it was more serious, more straightforward, and I dropped a lot of my…
Ahmad (07:09.238)
Mmm.
CJ Hopkins (07:23.856)
flourishes and humor and just tried to write in a straightforward way. And within 30 minutes just got flooded with rage from readers. Oh yeah. And I understand it. I understand it. This is, you know, this is…
Ahmad (07:34.554)
Oh.
CJ Hopkins (07:47.032)
a conflict, it’s a military conflict and people are on one side or they’re on the other side. And I was talking about this with my wife last night. A lot of what I’m seeing on social media and reading the papers and just hearing people talk about, it’s not really a discussion or an analysis of what’s happening.
we’re being exposed to the fight. People are fighting on one side or the other and they’re pumping out propaganda. Both sides are pumping out, all sides are pumping out the propaganda. And so a lot of what we’re being exposed to right now is not really discussion or debate or analysis or argumentation. We’re being exposed to the fight.
itself and people fighting from one side or the other. I understand that very well because I was kind of in that mode during the rollout of the new normal, you know, during 2020 to 2022. I made that distinction. I said, you know, I’m really not writing
As an observer anymore, I’m fighting, you know, and so I understand what that is for people, you know I’ve got you know, Israelis writing to me and you know sharing, you know, just a lot of rage and you know and hatred and And they’re fighting and a lot of propaganda and they’re fighting and then I read a lot of folks you know that are more on my side of the spectrum coming from the left and
and they’re fighting for the Palestinians, you know, and they’re fighting. And it’s, what I’m trying to say is there’s a difference between discussion and debate and analysis and the fight itself. And we’re still at the point, I think, where most of what’s going on is people fighting. And not a lot of it is analysis and discussion and sharing.
CJ Hopkins (09:57.985)
I’ve tried to do that a little bit, but I think it’s probably too early for that to really land well.
Ahmad (10:05.674)
Yeah, mate, 100%. So like, I hear you, 100%. So I’ve got friends, a lot of Jewish friends who I love. They’ve been very quiet about what’s going on. And I don’t know what they think about my thoughts and views. I don’t really know any Palestinians, but I’ve got a pretty good idea of the history. And it’s a very sad history. And I think the problem is, unless you know the context of things, you know the details and the facts, it’s…
you’re easily a victim to the propaganda and it’s, you know, and the emotional heartstrings are being pulled and we’re being manipulated. And I found during COVID explaining the facts and figures and data didn’t work. When people are, you know, emotionally charged and, you know, adhering to one camp or the other, presenting facts and figures doesn’t do anything. They actually get quite uncomfortable.
and run the other way. The only way you can crack through and get through to the reason center is by asking questions and making them ask questions. And you just slowly prize open their reasoning and objective kind of area of their brain. And then they will go away and think about things. And then when they come to their own conclusions and come to that position themselves, then that’s it. Then you’re on the same page. But I think it’s the same with this issue of Palestine conflict. It doesn’t matter how much.
information I present and data and facts, you know, it’s not going to work. They’re going for the soundbites and the very well oiled propaganda machine, which is, I think, to be honest, Palestinians and Israelis are victims of that as well. They are victims of the propaganda coming from above. And I think that’s a sad reality. And the people in power know exactly what they’re doing on both sides.
and they don’t give a damn about humanity and people, and they don’t care about their suffering. And Israelis will find that they will lose their liberties and their freedoms, and will get locked up in 15 minute cities and run by a dictator like Netanyahu. And they’re no freer. Like, you know, they think they’re free and in a democratic country, but they’re not. Like, you know, just a few weeks ago, hundreds of thousands were marching in the street wanting to kick this guy out, and now he’s a wartime.
Ahmad (12:28.63)
hero, the same guy who made Israel a petri dish, an experiment. I mean, I can’t think of anything more anti-Semitic than that, than making the state of Israel an experiment, a medical experiment. I mean, don’t they know their history? And this guy now is like their savior. I mean, it’s so nuanced and complicated, but like you said, I think things are too raw right now to get through. But I’d love to hear if you don’t mind, what are your views on the current…
crisis and you know what are the propaganda techniques?
CJ Hopkins (13:04.176)
Well, I think my main view or my main impulse is to try to cut through the propaganda and look at the context of what’s happening in the clearest, simplest way possible. And that’s what I tried to do in my first piece that I wrote about this, and got crucified by people for it.
CJ Hopkins (13:32.476)
The context, just the simplest way that I could describe it in the piece is, if you want to look at the context of this conflict, what you’ve got, Israel is a nation state. I don’t see it as that terribly exceptional. People can get into this and argue and all that, but in the broadest view, it’s a nation state that was established in a territory.
that was already inhabited by people. And what it is doing is what many, many other nation states and empires have done throughout the course of history. It is a nation state, it established itself in a territory that was already populated. It has been claiming land and eradicating the people that it doesn’t want from its land.
establishing itself, building itself up as a nation state, pushing people out, wiping people out. And basically what I was trying to, I analogized it to the United States, the Europeans that arrived in North America.
as the United States was being built and founded. If you look at that long history, it’s pretty much the same operation. It’s we want to build a country here in this land. Whoops, there are a bunch of people here already. So we need to push these people out or push them west or kill them or whatever we need to do in order to establish our nation state. And the point that I was trying to make is when you take the…
Ahmad (15:11.518)
Mmm.
CJ Hopkins (15:19.304)
propaganda and the PR and all of the arguments about, you know, who has a claim to the land, and God gave it to somebody, or blah blah. When these people came and when those people came, you take it all out. You’re watching a nation state do what nation states do. And it really comes down to that. Now, of course, the Palestinians, the people who are being wiped out and pushed out.
Of course, they’re going to react to the way that they have reacted. They’re going to struggle by a wide variety of means to not get wiped out, not get pushed out of the place that they were living. And those, the means that, that they have, they have.
used completely nonviolent means, they’ve used negotiations, they’ve used peaceful means, they’ve used militant means, they’ve used mass murder as well. It’s frustrating because if I start talking about the historical context…
people immediately want to jump and say, you know, oh, you’re justifying mass murder. No, I’m not justifying mass murder. Mass murder is mass murder. And it’s not the only actions that some of the Palestinians have resorted to. There’s a whole bunch of other actions. But again, simplifying the whole thing, you’ve got a nation state that was established in an inhabited territory.
It’s doing what nation states do. It’s claiming its territory. It’s pushing those people out. Those people are reacting to that. And that in essence is what’s happening. Everything else to me, everything else to me is kind of, it’s public relations. Yeah, it’s propaganda, it’s arguments, it’s justifications for whatever the actions are.
CJ Hopkins (17:30.705)
whether it’s Hamas and people on the left trying to say, well, settlers aren’t actually civilians, so it’s okay to mass murder them. It’s like, no, I’m sorry. You go and shoot down a bunch of people at a music festival, let’s mass murder is what it is, call it what it is. And then the same thing on the other side, when Israel is just…
Ahmad (17:41.07)
Mm-hmm
Ahmad (17:49.939)
Mmm, exactly.
CJ Hopkins (17:57.508)
you know, carpet bombing sections of Gaza and killing thousands of men, women, and children. It’s like, spare me the, you know, Israel has a right to defend itself. Nonsense. You know, you’re a nation state and you’re doing what nation states are doing. You’re wiping people out is what you’re doing. I guess what my take is, I don’t have a solution for this. I’m not a Middle East expert. I, you know.
I don’t see the solution. My take is let’s look at it clearly. Let’s try to look at it clearly and without the propaganda, without the public relations and call things what they are. Maybe that’s the beginning of something if we can actually stop propagandizing each other and look at what’s actually happening and what the real dynamics are. That’s pretty much as far as my take goes.
Ahmad (18:55.566)
Oh, CG. So the problem is I think you just sound extremely rational and objective, but there’s a large way of the population who will say, well, you’re a Hamas sympathizer and you’re an anti-Semite. And I don’t agree with that at all. I think you’re just calling it out and laying out the facts. And I don’t think you’ve got any skin in the game. I don’t think you’re a Muslim. I don’t think you’re a Jew. You know, you’re just someone who’s commentating and observing.
But it’s so murky, there’s so much mud being slung left and right. And unfortunately a lot of it sticks and then that tarnishes your reputation and makes things difficult for you. What I’ve really found weird is like a lot of the people in this so-called freedom movement, you know, during the COVID pandemic were rightish in the spectrum, were conservative, were libertarian, don’t want authority, don’t want government, are mistrustful of the authorities, know that governments are not good for them.
And, you know, they were leading the charge of, you know, calling out the bullshit and saying, this is all, this is all propaganda. And then when the Ukraine war came, some, some drifted for that garbage and fell for it, but a lot of us still stuck through and thought, no, this is a phony baloney war, this is all about money and the military industrial complex. And it’s a lot more complicated than what it’s being made out to be. It’s not just the big bad Russians. Although I don’t think there are any innocent parties, but now, now it’s.
It’s really fractured this movement and this that we were building up and the COVID exposing all the lies and nonsense. Now so many people have gone over to the pro-Israel, let’s kill every Palestinian and it’s fine. And I find that unbelievable. It’s like, come on folks, you saw the bullshit. Can’t you see the bullshit now? The division? This is their playbook.
Divide and rule. I don’t know what you think about that, but I’ve been really surprised by that.
CJ Hopkins (21:00.848)
Yeah, I guess I’m not terribly surprised by it. One of the things that I’ve been trying to do for years and it’s all throughout the essays that are in my book that you originally contacted me about. We set up this interview before. Everything exploded on October 7th. When I’m not…
just trying to be funny and make fun of our authorities, of our leaders. And when I try to get a little bit more serious and I do a little political analysis, my readers are familiar with this. I talk a lot about the evolution and the history of what I jokingly call GloboCap, as if it were a corporation. It’s global capitalism. And what I’ve been…
writing about and speaking about is the evolution of a new power structure that came into being really in the early 1990s and we’re just at the beginning of it and it’s been evolving ever since. We live basically in a world that’s dominated by a single ideological power system.
and its global capitalism. And when you live in a world in a territory, it happens to be the world in this case, when you live in a territory in a world that is dominated by a single ideological power system, that system has no ideological enemies outside. It has no external adversaries, right? It has nothing left to do other than clear and hold.
It just goes, it surveys the territory. It looks for pockets of internal resistance and it wipes out those pockets or it tries to wipe out those pockets and it tries to create ideological conformity throughout its territory. That’s basically.
CJ Hopkins (23:10.86)
my analysis and my view of It’s not just the last three years. It’s since the 1990s and we really saw it ramp up in 2016 And then we saw it ramp up again in 2020 You brought up Russia in the Ukraine And I would even point to events that are happening in the Middle East what I what I’ve been watching is this new system becoming more and more totalitarian and
and its efforts to wipe out these pockets of internal resistance becoming more and more intense. And this gets complicated, okay, because of course, you know, Russia is also a part of the global system. But at the same time, Russia is still, you know, acting like, hey, we want to be a sovereign country. And
And Globocap has no interest in Russia being a sovereign country. Globocap wants to get back to the early 1990s and have a big orgy in Russia and get in there and decode and deterritorialize everything. Same in the Middle East. You know, if you look at what was the war on terror about the so-called war on terror, well, there are these pockets in the Middle East, these countries and these peoples who do not want to play ball with the global system.
Ahmad (24:27.47)
Hmm.
CJ Hopkins (24:38.273)
whether it’s the Palestinian problem or it’s Iran or Syria, and you’ve got these pockets of internal resistance. And look at the United States and what you have. You have this, you brought up the conservatives and the right-leaning folks. You’ve got this right-wing populism that led to Donald Trump in the backlash. What I’m trying to say, I’m going on and on and I’m sorry, but what I’m trying to point out,
Ahmad (25:03.615)
Okay.
CJ Hopkins (25:05.224)
is the way that I see it is if you look at this evolving hegemonic global system that we live in, and you look at all these little conflicts that are happening within it, these are internal conflicts. I said at some point, from now on, every conflict that we’re looking at is an insurgency. That’s really…
That’s really the way that I see it. I went on and on and I forgot what you even asked me that got me started on that.
Ahmad (25:42.584)
No, I was just talking about the right and how they’ve flipped and now they’re like, they’re not seeing the division and the tactics. And it’s, I’ve had Ed Griffin, I don’t know if you, sorry, carry on.
CJ Hopkins (25:52.436)
Thanks. Yeah, thanks. Let me just finish a thought before you go on that. And thank you for bringing me back to it. The reason, part of the reason that I’ve been writing about this, and I repeat myself quite often in my essays and my columns and in interviews as well, is I think most of us really
have not gotten our heads around the new world that we’re living in. Most of us are still seeing the world as we always did before. We’re seeing the world as this competition between nation states and so on. The way the world really was until the Soviet Union collapsed and it was pretty much the end of the last, you know, ideological struggle between giant entities.
Most of us still haven’t gotten our heads around the idea that we are living in this single ideological power system. And I think when you were talking about those the folks on the right, and it’s not just them, I think it’s very easy when things flare up for people to go back to that old model and see the world through that lens.
Ahmad (27:14.07)
Mmm.
CJ Hopkins (27:14.368)
I can’t and that’s why I’ve been thumping on my view of things because I’m hoping that people will at least try to look through another lens.
Ahmad (27:27.022)
Well, mate, I am, I’m trying my best. You know, I had Ed Griffin who wrote the book, The Creature from Jekyll Island on my show, not so long ago. And then I had Sefadeen Amoose, who wrote the Bitcoin Standard. Two very different people, one’s 92 years old, one’s a lot younger, one’s of Palestinian origin, one’s, you know, white American. But they both came to the conclusion that the main problem that we have is the central banking cabal.
who run the show. And I wonder if you’re, when you say global ideological system, whether you mean that, that cabal that is actually pulling all the strings, create the fiat money system who own the politicians and the governments and are concentrating power into these super national organizations. And basically whether it’s left or right, what you’re seeing is collectivism for all of us plebs.
and stripping away our rights and this concentration of power and wealth in a very, very small number of hands at the top is complete totalitarianism. I mean, is that what you’re kind of thinking about or is it different than that?
CJ Hopkins (28:41.276)
It’s a bit different than that, a point, the difference that I always stress. And again, I think it’s completely natural. People want to identify individuals. They want to know who’s doing this, why are they doing this, what are their motives? And you can do that. And of course, there are certainly individuals that have their hands on the levers of power. What I always say is you could…
wipe out all of those individuals tonight, and they would be replaced with other individuals tomorrow morning who would perform exactly the same roles. So what I concentrate on really is the evolution of the system. I think one danger, focusing on the individuals, it…
can bring us to a place where we think if we could just get rid of these bad guys, everything would be fine. And unfortunately, I don’t think it’s that simple. What I’ve written about, it’s in my book and it’s in a lot of my essays, as I say, I repeat myself. What I’m tracking is the evolution of a power system. I think it is the…
Ahmad (29:40.657)
Mm.
CJ Hopkins (30:01.776)
the logic and the trajectory, the evolutionary trajectory of the system that determines what those individuals are doing. Again, just to repeat what I said before, if you see the world the way that I do, you go back the early 1990s, the last real ideological conflict is over. Communism lost, it’s over, it’s done. Global capitalism won. And…
So what does this system have left to do? It won the last big external ideological challenge. All that it has left to do now as a system is wipe out internal resistance and create ideological uniformity, right? So what’s the first thing that it does? Well,
Ahmad (30:55.03)
Mmm.
CJ Hopkins (30:59.944)
The first thing that it does is it looks over at the Middle East and says, what’s going on over there? We got a bunch of religious fanatics over the people who are actually trying to live according to the values of their religion. I mean, you know, it’s fine to have a religion, you know, go to the mosque, go to the church, whatever do you think, as long as you live your life according to the rules of global capitalism. If you, if you actually want to try to live according to your crazy religion, no, you’re screwing up the…
You’re screwing up the whole global capitalist thing. Our markets won’t work that way. We gotta get rid of, we gotta go in and de-territorialize and restructure this whole mess over there. Actually, the first thing that happened was, you know, back in the former Soviet block countries, Yugoslavia and what have you, people were still hanging on to, you know, their old Marxist values and, you know, ethnic tribalism broke out, what have you. Well, let’s go in and bomb the hell out of that and restructure all of that.
What I’m trying to say is what I’m seeing, what I’m watching, and what I’ve been trying to analyze and illuminate as much as I can is this system, this global system doing the only thing that it makes sense for it to do. It dominates the entire planet. It is the ideology that we all live by. One of the examples that I always use is…
contrast Saudi Arabia with Iran, for example. Saudi Arabia is supposedly a theocracy, right? And that’s fine, because global capitalism doesn’t really care what you do in your own country as long as you’re playing ball with Globocap. If you look at Saudi Arabia, they can do whatever they want. They can be as theocratic as they want. They can cut off people’s heads for blasphemy or being gay or what have you. It doesn’t matter. But when Globocap comes knocking,
and says, hey, we need you to play ball. That’s who Saudi Arabia answers to. Iran is a problem because Iran says, no, we don’t want to do that, right? So that needs to get cleaned up. What I’m trying to get at is, if I try to look at it as a bunch of bad guys who are misbehaving that we could get rid of and fix everything, it’s just the history doesn’t work for me.
CJ Hopkins (33:26.252)
and the analysis doesn’t work for me. When I look at it as the evolution of a power system, then things make sense.
Ahmad (33:36.606)
No, I’m not all the way where it’s just a bunch of few bad guys. I think taking away those power structures, so taking away central bankers, taking away the fiat currency system where they can print money out of nothing, I think changing how we run our countries, minimizing the power of the state. I don’t even know if I believe in democracy anymore. I’m more of an anarchist. I just want
Ahmad (34:06.082)
to leave me alone. And I believe that it’s not about the, what the majority says. It’s not even what the minority says. Me as an individual should be allowed to do whatever I want, regardless of what the minority or majority say. As long as I’m not harming anyone, leave me alone. Let me get on with my life and just do that. And I just feel like we’ve got too many power structures, which have concentrated power into, you know, the system and taking it away from the individuals. And that’s what needs to be reshaped.
taken away, not just individuals taken off the chessboard, because I agree they’ll just be brought back in again. Talking about Russia, like I’ve listened to some of Putin’s speeches and he speaks this, you know, talks the talk. It’s very good. He sounds like someone who wants to look out after his country. He’s proud of his country. He wants to protect it and you know, it’s just common sense what comes out of his mouth. But a lot of my listeners and readers say he’s just an actor on the stage. They’re just
playing for power politics and where their position will be in the global structure. And they’re no better than the rest. They’re all the same. Is he really clinging on to the old idea of nation states, sovereign nation states, or is he part of the globalist agenda?
CJ Hopkins (35:25.425)
Yes.
Both is what I’m trying to say. This is what I meant before. It’s complex. Things are not, you know, it’s not a Hollywood movie. It’s not black and white. On one level, Russia is, you know, absolutely integrated in the global capitalist system. If you look at, you know, the way people live their lives and what the values are.
Ahmad (35:32.523)
Haha
CJ Hopkins (35:54.788)
Russia and what have you, they’re living under global capitalism. That’s the ideology that they’re living under. At the same time, Putin and the leadership and a lot of people in Russia, they don’t want to become a pure marketplace. That’s what global capitalism does. It transforms societies and cultures into marketplaces.
I say this as someone who was born and grew up in the United States and spent most of my life there. A lot of people in Europe really don’t understand, I live in Germany now, a lot of people don’t understand what it is when you live in the United States. You’re living really in almost a pure marketplace. The UK is probably the closest thing to that.
It has been privatized and deterritorialized the most. Here in Germany, there are still the remnants of social democracy and what have you. I’m drifting, you asked about Russia. Countries, a number of countries, despite the fact that they have no choice to be integrated into the global ideological power system,
They still, they want to stay, you know, Russia wants to stay Russia. You know, a lot of Germany wants to stay Germany. You’re seeing this, this populist backlash rising up. It’s complex. It’s not one or the other. What I’m looking at, you know, again, when I’m being more serious, what I’m trying to do is analyze all of these contradictory forces.
Right? If you, in the same way that you can see the whole global power mechanism, you know, aligned against Russia and trying to get in there and, you know, restructure Russia again, you see the same thing happening within countries. You can see it happening in Germany. And you see Globo Cap, you know, de-territorializing the society, increasing the privatization.
CJ Hopkins (38:11.208)
trying to wipe out the old national cultural values. And you see the pushback from the forces in the country that are saying, no, we don’t want that. We don’t want to be, you know, cultureless consumers in a global marketplace. So the answer to your question was yes. Yes.
Ahmad (38:28.255)
So.
Ahmad (38:32.642)
So I don’t know if it’s as simple as global cap, global markets, you know, global markets, because what I’m seeing isn’t free market. I’m not seeing free market capitalism. I’m seeing bank bailouts. I’m seeing monopolies, duopolies. I’m seeing anything but free market capitalism. I’m seeing where governments are subsidizing and paying these big corporations. I’m seeing individuals being taxed to the hilt.
middle class being crushed and destroyed because you cannot have a middle class because they’re the intelligent people. They’ve got the most to lose and you need to destroy them. So everybody’s being pushed down, squeezed right down. Everywhere the cost of living crisis is horrendous. And I’m seeing, you know, plutocracy. I’m seeing the era of oligarchs. This isn’t free market. This is rampant, you know, perverse.
you know, capitalism with a streak of socialism and communism going through it. And then everything is about this, whether you go left or right, eventually you’re getting this weird techno corporate fascist ruling class and us plebs under their totalitarian boot. That’s the way I’m looking at things. And the way things are heading is kind of scary.
That’s what I think. We’re all going to be locked up 15 minute cities, digital currencies, told what jabs we need to take for the greater good. Everything’s for the greater good, remember? Do you agree with me or do you disagree? You still think it’s all free markets?
CJ Hopkins (40:17.92)
What I always say, and I hear this a lot, and what I always say is, okay, then change the name. A lot of people are, I have a lot of conservative readers and I get a lot of pushback from people when I talk about global capitalism. And I say, okay, if you’re sensitive about the word, change the name to something else. But it’s global capitalism. The other thing that I tell,
those readers is look, I understand that it’s not the capitalism that you want, but it’s the capitalism that we have. And there’s really, you know, if you’re trying to be accurate as I am, and trying to actually analyze this systemic power system and ideological system, there’s not really another name for it. What the main difference.
I think the conflict of our time, Ahmed, is it is between the advance of this global capitalist ideological power system and the reactionary backlash against it. And I don’t mean reactionary in a pejorative sense. I’ll try to make this simple and short. In societies before the advent of capitalism.
our values, our ideology, our value structures were established despotically. The church said what our values were, the king said what our values were, the aristocracies said what our values were. They said this because they had the power and the force to enforce it. Right, this is what I mean when I talk about despotic values, right?
What capitalism did and wonderful, what capitalism did is it came along and I’m talking 400 years ago, came along and said, oh no, the world’s not going to be structured that way anymore. Right? We’re going to decode all of those despotic values and we’re gonna create.
CJ Hopkins (42:29.308)
this free marketplace or democracy, if you want to look at it that way. And the king doesn’t get to say what our values are anymore. And then the church doesn’t get to establish our values anymore. And from now on, our values are going to be established by the marketplace. And where it leads, and you know, hey, great, that brought us democracy. It ended a lot of, you know, racism and horrible despotism. And you know, I don’t like despotism. I don’t like racism. I’m all for that, great.
But where it leads when that system just goes on unimpeded and unmanaged and uncontrolled by a society is it just keeps wiping out values and replacing them with a marketplace. The only value that capitalism really has at the end of the day is exchange value. It’s commodity value, right?
Ahmad (43:04.163)
Checked.
CJ Hopkins (43:25.964)
It’s just simply put, I mean, pick up anything. I’m just holding up a cup here. Prior to capitalism, this might have been a holy relic that the church decided that Jesus touched this. So it’s, this is a holy relic and what have you. And it was, and it was because the church had the power to make it so. Under capitalism, this is a commodity.
It has no intrinsic value whatsoever. Its value is whatever the market says it is today. And this is what capitalism does. It dissolves those old value systems and it brings us a value system where the market determines our values. And this is why I keep calling it global capitalism. I understand it’s not.
all the pure free market that a lot of libertarians want and everything. And I’m not, I’m really not trying to piss on, you know, on that. People have been, people have been buying and selling things and owning private property and hiring each other to do things and taking wages to do things since the dawn of civilization. I have nothing against that. What I’m talking about is a specific power system.
that has evolved out of other power systems. And it’s global capitalism, folks.
Ahmad (44:54.773)
No, I get it.
Ahmad (44:58.69)
Now I get it, so CJ, where is this inevitably leading us then?
CJ Hopkins (45:06.5)
I really don’t know, but it’s just not feeling very good. I’ll try to be a little more positive because one thing, yeah, I’ll try to be a little bit more positive and look at it a step back and maybe from a wider distance. And I’ve said this before, what I think I’m watching when I’m talking about global capitalism and I’m,
Ahmad (45:14.034)
That’s an understatement.
CJ Hopkins (45:31.392)
When I talk about global capitalism, I’m not doing a Marxist thing and saying, down with it, blah, blah. I’m just interested in watching the evolution of this system, of this power form. And if you look at other systems and the evolution of other forms and other systems, what do they do? They continue to evolve until they reach, until they achieve their ultimate expression. Right?
And a power system’s ultimate expression is totalitarianism, folks. That’s what it is. It controls the entire available territory, and it controls everything and everyone that happens within its territory. That’s the ultimate expression of a political, ideological power system. I think that’s where we’re headed, okay? Another…
interesting aspect and I just say this you know as an artist and somebody who’s worked with you know forums my whole life is that usually by the time that power system reaches its ultimate expression it already contains the seeds of its destruction inside of it. It’s just like people think of a flower a flower that reaches its full bloom. What’s the next thing that happens? It dies.
Ahmad (46:47.257)
Mm.
CJ Hopkins (46:57.208)
and the seeds fall to the ground and new forms are created. I think the, I don’t have a way to stop what’s happening, but I do have faith, I believe that all of the pushback, everything coming from all sides, all of the pushback and people that are reaching for a different way or fighting this or fighting that, I think this is all part of building those seeds.
Ahmad (47:11.241)
Ahem.
CJ Hopkins (47:26.428)
that will eventually become the next thing. You know, unfortunately, how ugly this gets as the system reaches its ultimate form, I don’t know. And, you know, honestly, I’m scared.
Ahmad (47:40.994)
Yeah. So I, I loved the books called the foundation series by Isaac Asimov. I thought they were great, but basically some it’s about this galactic empire and it’s decaying. And this man is warning that this empire is going to fall apart and they will ensue decades, if not centuries of chaos as you know, this power that structure that’s holding everything together.
just disintegrates and there’s civil strife and wars and God knows what else and famine. And everybody laughs at him because this empire is at its zenith. It’s so powerful. No one can even imagine that it’s going to fall apart in a few years. But I think that’s the case of all empires. Empires take a while to form and it’s when they seem invincible, that’s when they’re actually decayed and rotten in their core and then they disintegrate.
And although we are seeing this global cap system, let’s call it your name, it seems very powerful and invincible. There’s not much opposition to it. I actually think it’s gonna crumble when it does crumble quite rapidly. And the question is what’s gonna take its place. And that’s gonna be interesting. I’m genuinely interested. And you said stand back when you stand back. I think you’re right, stand back. When you stand back and look at the horizon of humanity on the timeline of this planet.
We’ve only been here a very long, short period of time. And when you look at global caps, not very long, empires have risen and fallen, and societies have come and gone, and civilizations have come and gone. And this is just a little blip. And it feels like this mighty juggernaut that will go on forever. It won’t. It’ll pass. It’ll have its time. And people will talk about it. And they’ll study it in school. And little kids will giggle and laugh about what happened.
And even though we’re crying and miserable at this moment in time, we’ll just be another footnote in history, I think. So let’s go back to Israel, my friend. Israel and Palestine. I thought it was all a bit weird. This secure border that is being looked at with cameras, sound sensors, pressure sensors. It’s not a very big border. It’s a tiny little area. How the hell…
Ahmad (49:57.186)
did all these people cross the border by air, sea and land. You know, the fishermen, I was being told by, you know, Sephadee and the moose, you know, and other people, um, Ava Bartlett, these fishermen go at just one kilometer and they get mowed down with machine guns. I mean, they, they cannot go anywhere. Their air, their airport and Gaza was bombed set of use. You can’t say boo in that area. You can’t go 300 meters near the border. That area is now a buffer zone.
So the farmers get shot at if they come 300 meters near the border. How the hell did they manage to do this? Like it just seems so fishy and weird. My gut instinct is saying something bullshit is happening. Hamas and Netanyahu, the timing of it, the way it happened. It’s just weird. What do you think?
CJ Hopkins (50:50.892)
I don’t. I don’t tend to go down those roads. They’re just… I have no problem with people doing that if that’s what they want to do. I’ve got a lot of good friends that have spent years analyzing 9-11 in the states and what have you. It’s just not what I do.
For me personally, it’s a distraction. I’m not saying it is for everybody else, but for me it’s just a distraction. What I’m focused on is what the event is and what the event is doing, how it is changing the dynamics of this evolution that I’m talking about. So just for me personally, it doesn’t really, it doesn’t.
Ahmad (51:40.514)
So how is it changing? So tell me how, yeah.
CJ Hopkins (51:47.58)
And again, this is just for me personally. For me personally, it doesn’t really matter whether the Israeli version is true and they just moved too many troops up to the West Bank and they failed is I think what the Israelis are saying. Or if it was a complete plot, where they all work together because they’re all just pulling our puppet strings and it doesn’t matter to me.
what matters to me is, okay, what is this event? How does it fit into, you know, the evolution that I have been tracking? And you were just about to ask me, how does it fit in? What I’ve been writing about in the book, you know, the cover art of which I’m in trouble for here and, you know, everything that I wrote about during the, you know, the rollout of the new normal and all of that.
Ahmad (52:31.095)
Yeah.
CJ Hopkins (52:46.892)
What I’ve been talking about, what I’ve been saying is, GloboCap, which I’ve been talking about, whatever folks wanna call the system, call it the corporatocracy, call it whatever you want. I really don’t care. But this system that dominates the entire territory of the earth, it is going totalitarian on us. Again, because why not? It has nothing left to do.
you know, ultimately when the only thing that you have left to do is wipe out internal resistance and create ideological uniformity, this inevitably leads to totalitarianism. And that’s what I firmly believe we are watching. It’s gradual. It’s happening in stages. But every step is bringing us
more and more, and I need to stress this, towards a new form of totalitarianism, folks, not the 20th century forms of totalitarianism, a new global capitalist form of totalitarianism. And when I look at October 7th and everything that’s happening now, and the bombing, and the imminent invasion of the open-air prison, it’s weird to call it an invasion, when I look at
this whole event that’s happening. What I’m seeing is, yes, once again, it is ratcheting up. It is cranking up the totalitarianism, the crackdown on dissent, the overwhelming, just the suffocating amount of official propaganda that is being poured out. In Germany, it’s absolutely crazy. Any pro-Palestinian demonstrations are banned.
Right, so the other day there was a huge pro-Israel demonstration, everybody out with the Israeli flags and everything. And then, you know, half a mile away there were a bunch of people who were trying to have a pro-Palestinian demonstration, but they’re all banned. So the cops came and broke that up and arrested people and dragged them away. So literally, literally you’re allowed to have big demonstrations supporting Israel.
CJ Hopkins (55:04.532)
And if you want to have a demonstration supporting the people of Gaza and Palestine, then you’re a criminal because those things are banned. I’ve been trying to point out hallmarks of totalitarianism, the new totalitarianism that’s evolving right in front of our faces. There are a lot of differences to the 20th century forms.
but there are also a lot of similarities and I’ve been trying to point out the similarities and those hallmarks. If you just look at, you know, just look at how, you know, people are being fired, people are being, you know, canceled, people are being censored. You know, you talked about the state screwing with everyone before and I agree with you. You know, the state is screwing with everyone and I would like that to stop, but it’s not just the state. We live in a corporate dominated world.
Ahmad (56:00.769)
Yeah.
CJ Hopkins (56:01.712)
you know, most of us get our reality off the internet, this thing that you and I are talking on right now, right? Which is a corporate dominated territory, you know? I get tired of talking about it because it’s old history now, but you know, I’m completely visibility filtered on social media and so are thousands and thousands of other people. You go on social media, you look at Wikipedia, you go on…
Ahmad (56:22.085)
Ahem.
CJ Hopkins (56:30.12)
Google, you know, and you are getting the version of reality that, and I’ll call it the corporatocracy to give my libertarian friends a break, that you’re looking at the version of reality that the corporatocracy wants you to see. What I’m seeing, I’m not to answer your question, is this event, and is another big step forward
of increasing the totalitarian aspects of the system that we all live under.
Ahmad (57:08.458)
No, I agree. So what are the features of this totalitarianism that’s common to the previous one in the 20th century? I take it censorship, not allowing dissent, propaganda. And then, so what’s different?
CJ Hopkins (57:23.216)
Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. Sure, my book is banned. You know, people are censored left and right. The visibility filtering is one thing that is different just because it’s a new technology. But the main difference is really ideological. And this is a tough point for a lot of people to get. I described it during the…
the rollout of the new normal years, I described it as pathologized totalitarianism, right? And maybe I can make this distinction clear before we run out of time. In the 20th century totalitarian systems, right? If you were in Nazi Germany, I mean, there were big banners with swastikas and guys with jackboots running around and you knew what their ideology was. Absolutely clear, it’s like, here’s our ideology.
Ahmad (58:03.158)
Yeah.
CJ Hopkins (58:20.316)
You know, we are the master race and these people are subhumans and it’s our destiny to dominate Europe and take over the… If you went to Stalinist Soviet Union, you knew exactly what their ideology was. It was all printed. We had books, you know, in communist China. It’s like, here’s the book with our ideology, right? All of… What’s global? What’s global capitalism’s ideology? It doesn’t have one.
it doesn’t have an ideology because it doesn’t need one. You need an ideology when you’re in conflict with another ideology. Global capitalism has no outside adversaries. So it has no need to have an ideology. Global capitalism’s ideology is reality. That’s what its ideology is. Therefore, therefore,
Ahmad (59:14.063)
Yes!
CJ Hopkins (59:17.68)
during the COVID pandemic, we were not, those of us who were pushing back against it, who were opposing the rollout of these measures, we were not treated as political opposition. We were treated as crazy people. We were conspiracy theorists. We were COVID deniers. We were deniers. We were reality deniers. We were treated as…
Ahmad (59:40.118)
Yeah.
Ahmad (59:43.435)
T-vaxxers.
CJ Hopkins (59:45.792)
Anti-vaxxers, we hate vaccines. Yeah, all vaccines, we just hate vaccines. We were treated as irrational, crazy people who do not accept reality, right? This is a fundamental difference between the new form of totalitarianism that is evolving and earlier forms of totalitarianism in the 20s.
century. This global capitalist totalitarianism, it erases politics. So the conflict no longer looks like a political opposition. The conflict looks like we are the normal people. We’re the normal people who understand what reality is. And the other ones are crazy lunatics, right? They’re insane.
or something, right? But climate change, they’re, yeah, they’re crazy people, right? And so politics disappears, the political conflict disappears and the world becomes divided into.
Ahmad (01:00:44.322)
Climate change deniers. Yeah, Putin, you know.
Ahmad (01:01:00.662)
Rational debate, rational debate, rational debate goes out the window. Conversations go out the window. You don’t have a conversation with a crazy person.
CJ Hopkins (01:01:06.388)
Well, if you’re having, if you’re having, exactly, you don’t have to argue with a crazy person. You don’t have to address their arguments. They’re crazy, right? All you have to do is say, look, I can’t argue with this person. I don’t have to argue with this person because he’s crazy. And in this way, it’s actually an incredibly powerful and brilliant move.
Ahmad (01:01:19.009)
Yeah!
CJ Hopkins (01:01:34.94)
because it erases all of the, it erases the political character of the conflict. And it renders everything in terms of, okay, healthy and sick or good and evil, or, you know, what’s real and what’s fake, you know, and thus it erases all of the political conflict. Sorry, somebody was.
Ahmad (01:02:01.258)
100%, I agree with you. I actually think we live, it’s all right, I think we live in an age of inversion. Everything’s inverted, my friend. You know, the funny thing is I got suspended not by the state hospital, which is what you would think would be doing this kind of stuff. I don’t work in the state hospital anymore. I work only privately because I wanted independence. I left the state system in 2017, and I saw that people who worked in the state system had to follow the orders, the dictates, and I didn’t want that.
CJ Hopkins (01:02:04.412)
popping in my office.
Ahmad (01:02:30.442)
I’m a bit of a rebel. So here I am in the private sector and it’s a large corporation that suspended me. And it’s not about any patient. There’s no patient involved. It’s not clinical practice. It’s about my views. You cannot believe it. Like what has that got to do with the corporation? But it’s exactly what you’re talking about. Listen, you said you’ve only got an hour. I appreciate that we’ve run over and my mistake. I did a bit of a boo again. I apologize. Listen, CJ, I’d love to have you back and talk about s-
more stuff in the new year and maybe things have moved on from Israel, Palestine. But listen, I end my show always with this question. If you are 152, you’ve lived a very good life, your family’s all around you while you’re lying on the deathbed getting ready to pass away and meet your maker. What advice would you give to your family, health or otherwise, before you pass on?
CJ Hopkins (01:03:27.08)
Don’t, you know, look at things clearly and be honest. You know, don’t waste, don’t waste your life lying. You know, it’s, I think it’s, I always think of, I think it’s the old Bill Hicks quote, you know, it’s just a ride, folks, it’s a short ride. It goes by, I’m getting old enough to realize, you know, it goes by really quickly. You know, don’t waste your life.
Bullshitting around, you know, look at things clearly call things what they what they are You know tell the truth, you know Say what you think That’s that’s really all I’ve got. I you know, it’s I’m just kind of hung up on the integrity thing these days I don’t I don’t really care. I don’t really care You know what opinions people have or what side they’re fighting from or whatever I just I just want them to be honest and have some integrity and you know
own what it where they’re coming from and speak the truth.
Ahmad (01:04:32.586)
You know what? Amen to that. I mean, I think essentially what you’re saying is don’t live your life as a lie. And yeah, I would have more respect for you if I thought you’re being honest and actually were incorrect about something, but at least you were honest about it than someone who was dishonest and lying to me and factually correct about certain things. You know, you need to be have, you need to have integrity and honesty.
CJ Hopkins (01:04:58.076)
It’s.
Ahmad (01:05:01.666)
That’s what I think.
CJ Hopkins (01:05:05.332)
It’s actually something that’s a good question. And thanks for asking. It’s something that’s been a constant throughout my life is I actually respect my adversary if my adversary comes to me and says, I want to destroy you and I’m going to attack you. I’m going to attack you because I want your house and I’m gonna destroy you if I want your house.
Ahmad (01:05:21.774)
Hahaha!
CJ Hopkins (01:05:32.356)
I can respect that. It’s the person that comes to me and says, oh, actually, I’m really concerned about you. CJ, I’m worried that you’re not perceiving reality correctly. So we need to remove you from your house for a limited amount of time. And so while we evaluate you and so on, all I ask is be honest. Life is full of conflicts. If you’re my adversary.
Ahmad (01:05:40.812)
Yes.
Ahmad (01:05:50.039)
Because we care.
CJ Hopkins (01:06:00.676)
You know, then good, let’s fight. Let’s fight. But have some integrity. You know, be honest about what it is. Yeah.
Ahmad (01:06:07.226)
100%, 100% my friend, and honor, have some honor. I’ve told my kids, I’ve got very young kids, and I say to them, look, the really bad people are not the ones who are shouting at your face and telling you that they don’t like you. They’re the ones that pretend to be your friends and can’t wait to stab you in your back. You know, and like going back to the hospital, you know, if this hospital is honest with me and made it clear why they’re suspending me, I’ll let this pass.
If they said to me, Ahmed Malik, we don’t like your social media posts, we don’t like your podcasts, we don’t like your political views, they don’t align with ours, we’ve got some issues with that. I think I’d respect that. The fact that they’ve gone about it in the most really deceptive and sly manner and they’re avoiding all my letters and my solicitor’s letters. It’s just, come on, be honest. If you’re going to be a dick, be a dick with honor. Don’t be so slimy.
I’m with you, mate. I’m with you. You just want to face your enemy, your opponent, eye to eye, man to man. But they’re weak and pathetic, these people, unfortunately. And there’s a lot of them in society. I don’t know about you, but I feel like we’re heading in a place where we have to go because civilization is broken. Our societies are broken. We have lost our way as humanity. You just need to look at the dehumanization now of the Palestinians.
and the frothing and the rage and the outrage and the calling of normal people just now calling out for the extinction of these people and massacre. It’s like where’s the humanity going? Where’s compassion? Where’s empathy? I’ll tell you who I have the most respect for. I have the most respect for Jews right now, my Jewish friends who are able to step out of their tribe and say, you know what, this is wrong. We’re not saying Hamas was right. We’re not saying what they did was right. They killed lots of innocent people. They murdered.
There’s a massacre, it’s terrible. But now what’s happening in response is not justified. And you know what? Those are pretty incredible people because they’re getting the backlash from their own tribe now. And that’s kind of lonely place to be. Those are superhuman people. And so one of them is Efrat Fennigsen. She’s amazing. I just want to say, my friend, people who can step out of their tribe and do that and speak for the whole of humanity.
Ahmad (01:08:26.691)
We need more of those kind of people in the world today, I think.
CJ Hopkins (01:08:32.944)
Hear, hear.
Ahmad (01:08:34.306)
All right, CJ, listen, God bless you. Thank you so much. And I think I’ll just apologize one more time for getting the time wrong. All right, folks, thank you for listening. Please support the show. And I’m gonna have CJ’s links on the website and the thumbnails. So if you wanna find him, please look him up and follow him. He’s on Twitter and he’s got a great website. He’s published lots of books. It’ll all be on my website. So do have a look. Thank you so much, everyone.
CJ Hopkins (01:08:42.513)
That’s it.
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