Marxism - The Ideology Slowly Destroying the West

About this episode

• Interview Transcript

  Peter McCormack 0:00

  You You You Good morning. Emmett, how are you I'm doing good. How are you doing? Man, I'm good. I'm good. Very, very excited to have this conversation with you, because it's a subject I think about a lot. So let's start with the claw. The core Claim Your belief is there is a large Marxist movement happening globally and certainly across the west today. But is there a potential that some of us are using Marxism just to describe something we don't like?

  Emmet Connor 1:46

  Well, that's an interesting question. But unfortunately, Peter, I think that this is one of these things that's gone to really test people's intelligence, awareness, knowledge of the global picture. And I'm very much I understand what you're trying to say. I'm very much like that. I've gone over it myself since 2012 a question my own beliefs and say, Am I overreacting? Am I being alarmist? People throw terms at you, like Red Scare, stuff like that, which is used, you know, Cold War era propaganda. But basically, when people my argument is when people understand the core elements of this revolutionary movement and so on. It is indeed, kind of influencing a lot of things that are happening in the world right now. People talk about globalism, but that's really just global Communism repackaged. And I think it's fascinating that global control and so on. And I think it's fascinating that people can see this, but But if people even spend a little bit of time absorbing the core elements, they'll realize that I'm definitely onto something, for sure, the reason I ask

  Peter McCormack 2:47

  you it is because, as somebody who considers themselves small, C conservative, but really mainly libertarian, I often get called a fascist, and I know I'm not a fascist, and I have got into The habit of calling everyone I disagree with, whether they're a leftist or somebody who just believes in the collective. I've been calling them communists quite openly, and I just wanted to make sure that when we focus today, it's not just on calling everything from the left we disagree with as Marxist.

  Emmet Conor 3:17

  Yeah, great point. Well, speaking of Carl, and I think it's totally reasonable to do that, and that's one of the things that distinguishes us from what I would call Marxist cult members, people who are fanatically believing in the idea of global revolution. Interestingly, in the 1920s in America, not to knock you off track here, but back then, the Marxist infiltrators were calling people fascists. Back then, in the 1920s in America, they were trying to cultivate this idea that anyone who stood in their way was going to be called names. Indeed, Vladimir Lenin talked about that in his writings, the man who was the main guy of the Bolshevik takeover Russia in 1917 that he said, we need to kind of paraphrasing. We need to kind of use a language that creates suspicion and divisions and people, and you know, it makes other people seem like they're they are the extremists. That's why, in Ireland, people are getting sick of being called Nazis and fascists and far right now, and the same in the UK. I take it and elsewhere in Western countries, it doesn't work anymore. It's a tactic they've tried by calling its name, saying where the We Are The extremists. But it's everything from trans ideology to mass immigration, etc, etc. Shows us that they are the extremists and are trying to, you know, call us names as, like, a deflection tactic, basically.

  Peter McCormack 4:31

  Okay, so let's start with the definition. Explain what Marxism is, yeah, and why is it we should fear it?

  Emmet Conor 4:38

  Sure. Well, if you look at the official definitions. What this is, it usually focuses on economics. The state controls the means of production, distribution on behalf of the people. Usually, people drift into the economic side of it, and that's fair enough, because in the early days, when you go back to, say, 1848 in the Communist Manifesto, with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who plagiarized a lot of their ideas by the. Why they focused on the rich against the poor, the bourgeoisie against the proletariat, class struggle and so on. And these are kind of usually where the definitions come from. You've got a few confusing terms, potentially Marxism, socialism and communism, but really the quickest way to define this, and what it is, is that it's an internationalist revolutionary movement that seeks to destroy the established order and rebuild it as a sort of utopia. And we look at what the leftist groups are doing, the globalist governments are doing, the we F, the UN the European Union, they're all based around this principle. They kind of believe in creating a better world, but in order to do that, they have to transform how society functions. That's why, no matter how much you try to reason with them, they don't listen to reason. They're convinced that they're creating a better world. That's the best way to encapsulate a kind of global revolutionary movement.

  Peter McCormack 5:54

  So is Marxism, the ideological bridge that takes us from capitalism

  Emmet Conor 5:59

  to socialism. That's a great point. Vladimir Lenin said that kind of socialism was the stage as a society goes through between being capitalistic to full on communism, so which would apparently be a good thing. So it's like a kind of a bridging ideology. And how I kind of explained to people is the best way of looking at this is Marxism. Is the whole revolution, absolutely everything we're going to talk about today. Socialism is the application of Marxist ideas towards the economy, how the government is structured and so on, and how much say the government has over private enterprise, etc, etc, the welfare state, the progressive income tax, etc. But communism is the, how shall we put it, the hypothetical, distant future utopia that they're trying to bring us towards. That's why, sometimes you talk to people who defend this movement, they'll say, Well, communism has never been achieved. In a sense, they're right, but it can never be achieved. So it's not really much of a an argument. You look at the USSR, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, they knew very well they were working towards something like the revolution is global, so communism is something that, you know, can't be really achieved. It's just the idea of a of an egalitarian, classless society where there's no religion, there's no money, there's no apparently, no no genders. They kind of know races. They're removing the differences between different groups, because whenever you have groups, you tend to have a hierarchy. And when you have whether it's rich or poor, man against woman, black against white, whatever it is, whenever you've got a hierarchy, the person in the superior position tends to oppress the one in the inferior position, and they their solution to creating a better world is by removing the hierarchies. So that's where this future utopian idea is all about. They want to remove all the suffering by removing all the differences between peoples, apparently.

  Peter McCormack 7:55

  But it cannot be achieved because a stateless society cannot be achieved because it requires a state to enforce it. Yeah, this

  Emmet Conor 8:02

  is kind of one of the contradictions, and that's why I consider, for me, it's a toss up. Who was the worst. One of the worst human beings of all time was Marx worse than Lennon, in a way, Lennon arguably was kind of worse because Marx felt the revolution was going to be spontaneous thing where the workers rose up and overthrew the rich. Lennon came along and came up with the idea of a proletarian Vanguard, tying into your question, the idea that people in society, they do want a communist revolution. They just don't really understand that yet. So we're going to step in as the revolutionaries, as a proletarian Vanguard to do that. So you're right. They say they want, you know, a collective leadership. It's for the people, but you usually end up with a bunch of Marxist nutcases running the show. And that's happened all through its history. Where Marxism, Leninism, they call it. We're even even seeing it nowadays as well, what people call globalism. If it's globalism repackaged, you end up with the same thing a bunch of sociopathic Control Freak types were trying to push us towards this global, collective, open borders and so on, so forth. So it is a contradiction in the sense,

  Peter McCormack 9:08

  but in some ways, even without the writings of Marx, we still would have had revolutions. We have done revolutions predate Marx. Yes, whenever there is a perceived unfairness in society, a growing wealth gap between the rich and the poor, you will have revolutions. So was he really just identifying a problem of a growing wealth divide?

  Emmet Conor 9:33

  Yeah, that's a great that's a great point. And I'm not suggesting that people in power with wealth have not done negative things, and there may be some good sentiment coming from, well, I don't talk about Marx. They'll drag us into a tangent. He wasn't only don't think he was a very benevolent individual, but there was a lot of great people with good intentions involved with this movement in the past who thought they were doing some good. And I don't mind. Have a problem with the idea of. Creating a better society and sorting out injustices if they're genuine. But the problem with their solutions is that they end up being destructive, and they end up creating society that's even worse than the one they were trying to fight against. So you notice that everything the communists talk about, slavery, oppression, injustice and so on is actually even more pronounced when they end up running the show in the extreme. And look at that. Look at China with the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party. They oppress their own people. They've got a gulag system. They're very aggressive. They've got global tendencies, and so on the list goes on and on, and they're just one example of what we're talking about here.

  Peter McCormack 10:37

  Yeah. So what are the areas in prepping for the show that I was challenged with is, where does leftism start? Where does Marxism start? Where does socialism start? There's kind of like a mixed bag here of people who are like genuinely good people who see injustices in the world. They're probably leftist. They maybe haven't read too much on history. They they don't realize that they are being sucked into maybe kind of Marxist ideas. They think there is a political system and it could be better, it could be fairer. So what I've been trying to understand is what is, what is just left wing ideas, and what is itself Marxism? And do we have genuine Marxists Empower places of influence who believe in this ideology. Or is some of this just organic? Is it just like a be kind organic nature of trying to change the political system?

  Emmet Conor 11:31

  Yeah, it's an interesting stuff. So to contemplate the nature of the individuals involved with this of no doubt, some people involved with it, they have good intentions. They believe that they're reducing suffering. But as we know the way life works, we know ourselves and being individuals. Sometimes you can do harm on purpose, or you can do it by accident. And unfortunately, this movement we're up against, this global revolutionary movement, has a tendency to suck in people who've got good intentions, who want to help others, but unfortunately, they don't realize that they're being dragged into a collective that ends up causing a lot of problems, problems in the end, and useful idiots. Yeah, yes, so the term goes, but again, as I've kind of tried to emphasize in my work, Peter, the movement is so big, comprising of 10s and 10s of millions of people all across the world that it caters to a lot of different personality types. I think some people involved are more anarchistic, and they just, you know, they have whatever personal reasons, they have a hatred for the country they live in. And we see that coming out in kind of anti patriotic sentiments in the UK, Ireland and and Western nations. And those people can get dragged into that movement because they they just want to destroy, and this movement gives them, accommodates them. Other people are more ruled by their emotions, but don't really know what Marxism is. And they're talking about things like quality, believing that that's a good thing, but they don't realize that it can be quite destructive. So it's very complex. We're talking about individuals here and personalities as well. I think so.

  Peter McCormack 13:03

  Is it really a Is it is it an intellectual test?

  Emmet Conor 13:07

  Yeah, I think, I think so. Also emotional also. I mean, it's a test of the ego. I've noticed, because we all have to face up to our own ego in this life, and we should never think I'm on top of the mountain. Now I've got it that's quite dangerous, that thinking and unfortunately, as we've seen, the left is control the education systems in Western countries, they're telling kids as as young as 1112, years old, that they should be revolutionaries and save the planet and stuff. You know, they they're too young to be concerned about the debt the course of humanity and the ego thing is being stroked in them a little bit. I think that can be quite dangerous. So I would see it as a psychological challenge, a challenge of knowledge, of history, of our egos and of our conscience as well. I think, yeah,

  Peter McCormack 13:55

  again, I I'm still struggling with this idea of, where is it left wing ideas? Because certainly people I would debate these ideas with, maybe on Twitter occasionally, and they would believe that they aren't Marxists. What they are is leftist. They believe in a fairer society by a larger distribution of the wealth. How do we, you know, I really want you to nail in on this. It's like, how do we know when it's leftism, and how do we know if it's Marxism? Great question.

  Emmet Conor 14:26

  Well, I think, I think when you look at the causes, the causes that they push, tell us whether or not we're dealing with Marxism, because a lot of it's based on class struggle. So mass immigration, Western nation, and when you look at that issue, Western nations are the oppressors, apparently, historically, which isn't really true, and the third world nations are the oppressed, is it not really?

  Peter McCormack 14:48

  Well, yeah. I mean, I can give you great examples of how the history, and I'm not here ashamed about the history of the UK, but we certainly oppressed the Irish. At one point, and you're an Irishman, I'm half Irish. We've, we've certainly went around the world and conquered nations and and I could make a really solid argument that the current financial system exports inflation from Western nations to places like Africa, Egypt, other countries. So there is some oppression that goes there.

  Emmet Conor 15:21

  Well, I think in any sort of controlling system, you're going to have things that are done which aren't ethical. But what I'm trying to zoom in on here. So if you look at take Africa, for example, to zoom in, because you mentioned Africa there. Africa was under the control of colonial powers until, say, average, we'll say the 1940s 1950s in general. So yeah, the British, the French, the Portuguese in there. And you had, obviously, say in South Africa, you had the Africana people, or more of Dutch descendants. Interestingly, what happened is, a lot of the official narrative from the more Marxist influence interpretation will tell us that colonial oppression destroyed Africa. When you actually look what happened, and I found this out researching my book, is that Marxism entered the picture in the early 20th century and introduced the idea into people's heads through the education system that they should have the freedom from the empires, because that would be better. What they didn't realize that there was a catch that were going to welcome in a new type of imperialism, which is International Communism, and that's what happened to Africa. So a lot of black intellectuals in Africa who went to educational institutions came back to Africa with the ideas of liberating their countries, and the results were playing to see the continent took a massive, massive downturn. So if we're going to talk about where oppression or harm was done, we have to apply it across the board. And what I'm trying to say is that communism is even worse as an imperial system than anything we've seen before. If you look at even the death toll between 1917 and the collapse the burial wall circa 1989 it caused more oppression and killed more people than any other control system in the history humanity. It's really quite extraordinary.

  Peter McCormack 17:01

  Yeah, I won't find you on that one. Okay, so just back to the point. So how do we separate Marxism from kind of progressivism, liberalism? Or can we not?

  Emmet Conor 17:08

  Well, I think if people learn the elements of how the ideology works, like class struggle, oppressor and oppressed, you can see the fingerprints of that applied. You know, rich against the poor, man against woman, and feminism are in the trans ideology. Trans people are being oppressed, so we need to change society to accommodate them. You know, the climate change movement, the planets being oppressed, and we need to save it. You know, which is hilarious amount of hubris involved here. We need to save the planet. Now, I think we need to save ourselves first. But you look at the class struggle thing as being kind of wheeled out again and again. And that's how you know you're kind of dealing with Marxism, particularly as well this idea of global revolution. You know, the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, they're all talking about the same stuff, even the European Union. It's about open borders. It's clearly hostile to indigenous groups, to indigenous culture. It's hostile to patriotism. That's you kind of know you're dealing with Marxism. I would urge people to kind of look into the elements, and that's where say my presentation

  Peter McCormack 18:09

  would come in for that. Wouldn't you say though traditional leftism was a class struggle, if you think about the role of unions, if you think about the role of the Labor Party, historically, was really a class struggle, the battle between the Conservatives and the Labor Party, whilst I think there's economic ideas in there, it is still a class

  Emmet Conor 18:32

  struggle, yeah. And I mean, well, we are not equal, and that's how society tends to run. But we were told that. We were told that in order to make things better for everyone, we had to dismantle the classes. So I'm saying the very concept itself comes from from Marxism, going right back. But you know, even the Labor Party, it's interesting. You should mention the Labor Party. And I don't know how many British people know have noticed, but the Fabian Society created the Labor Party, and all the top labor politicians, everyone from Clement Attlee after World War Two up until the present day, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Keir Starmer, Jeremy Corbyn, Steve can they're all tied in with the Fabian Society. They're all part of this group who wants to add played a big role in dismantling the British Empire, by the way, to destroy patriotism in the country, open the borders and so on. And you have people like this at the helm, and people wonder why we have all these problems. These people are, you know, they cause an awful lot of issues because of

  Peter McCormack 19:30

  their ideology. I definitely want to come back to the Fabians. I've got questions on that. Okay, so would you say, therefore, the difference between, say Marxism and say traditional leftism is that traditional leftism would accept different classes. Would accept there are different differences within society, but would just try and make society a bit fairer, try and make it life a bit better for the workers, try and rebalance wealth a little bit, whereas Marxism actually just wants to destroy the class structure itself. Yeah.

  Emmet Conor 20:00

  So the problem with this ideology, Peter is that it snowballs. It starts with good intentions, that it wants to try to make things more egalitarian. But in order to do that, if you're going to say, for example, take from the rich and give to the poor, are you going to ask them like, in order to create quality, you need to use coercion, because people may not want to participate. And when you look at the history of this ideology, that's exactly what they did. They had they believed they were doing the right thing so much. And though there might been some people involved who are bit more Placid, who are pushing this, you have more extreme types always come in. There's always another wave of more extremist Marxists coming in who will take it a step further and say, No, we're going to kill the rich and take their wealth so so in order to enforce equality, you hear this new term equity as well, which is artificial equality. It's like, okay, the person in the in the disadvantaged or oppressed position, they love the idea of getting a leg up, who wouldn't, in a way, but it's the ones who are doing a bit better. You're asking them to take a step down for the common good. And that's why we see in Ireland, in the UK, you see the more leftist camp are always trying to talk about confiscating private property, and they, you know, allow the Communist Manifesto. You see them seeping these ideas into into the discourse, to try to try to create this utopia. But the results

  Peter McCormack 21:16

  are not good. I've actually seen that change in the discourse recently, especially with the rise of the Green parties and the tax the billionaire sentiment that's been growing. And may I may put out a tweet say something like taxing billionaires is not going to make your life better. Or, yeah, billionaires solve a problem that the workers can't, which is coordination. You're just putting a sense out there, and it's like, billionaires don't create wealth, the workers create the wealth. So I certainly seen a growth in the Marxist rhetoric.

  Peter McCormack 21:50

  It's becoming more popularized.

  Emmet Conor 21:52

  Yeah, that's why I think that, Peter, I think that politics are important, and current affairs and so on, but I think this is more of an ideological problem. That's why, when I started to or, sorry, it's more of a problem of mindset and attitude, more than just politics, and that's where I think we've kind of gone wrong, and why things are going so bad. And that's why, when I started to put the book together in 2018 I thought there's no point writing another book about communism in the past, or just the economics, are just the woke stuff. What is really causing all of this? It's people who are going along with it. Is the enemy. Because often people ask, who's behind all this, or who's really got their hands in the reins of power? Well, if you look at the common thread through everything from the leftist governments or the globalist governments to the NGO complex to the WF un European Union, so on. It's always people talking about the same kind of stuff, global revolution, equality, multiculturalism, diversity, we need to make a better society. And you actually see it in their faces. They got the wide eyes and the smile on their face. They actually believe what they're saying, I think, and that's because of the indoctrination.

  Peter McCormack 22:59

  So it's the Cultural Marxism that has grown, which is essentially what kidnapped, kidnapped traditional leftism. And can, can you be, can you be a left wing politician without being a Marxist?

  Emmet Conor 23:11

  Well, to be honest, I mean, I don't really put a lot of thought into myself, because, again, are they brainwashed? That's the only bit I focus in, because I think left and right has almost lost quite a lot of meaning. I agree. Because if you look at Ireland, for example, you look at the major ruling parties in Ireland, fina, fall fine, Gael and Sinn Fein, who've kind of exposed themselves as being full on Marxists. They all call themselves patriots at one stage, so they call themselves center left or whatever. It doesn't really matter. They're all globalists. There is no patriotic, nationalist representation in the Irish parliament. They're all going along globalism. They have their little bitchy, little squabbles between themselves. We look at what they're pushing. You know, it doesn't matter whether they call themselves left or right. They're all globalist, which is just Marxism repackaged.

  Peter McCormack 23:56

  So globalism is Marxism, yes,

  Emmet Conor 23:59

  and this is what confuses people because we spoke, you know, far but kind of definitions and so on. If people have really outdated definition for what this is, they would say what's about the rich and against the poor? It's a workers movement, therefore rich people can't be communists. That's that's been proven wrong a long, long time ago. Take George, George Soros, for example, people will focus on the fact that he's billionaire or that he's Jewish, but he came from, he was in the London School of Economics, which is created by the Fabian Society. So he's got that Marxist ID in the background, and he supports anti fan so on. It's clear where he kind of stands, but so globalism is basically a lot of rich people who've bought into the idea of global revolution, which is Marxist itself. And that's one of the points I try to get across to people. Everyone's across Western countries, loads of people can see what's going on. Now. Nobody asked for mass immigration. We didn't ask for all the trans stuff or the climate change movement or any that we. And ask for it. But yet, it's been pushed, and it's not being supported just on the grassroots level or just by our governments. This is international. This is on a massive scale. But the interesting

  Peter McCormack 25:09

  part of the international rich, wealthy billionaires pushing this is that ultimately it's destructive to the way of life they have, which is of a being a billionaire. So is it really that they want the end state of communism, because we have the end state of communism that will break down the lifestyle they have. I know George Soros and his family live quite comfortable life.

  Peter McCormack 25:32

  Yeah, it is a contradiction, yeah.

  Peter McCormack 25:34

  So I that's what I find, kind of, that's where I find as the challenge. And then I do wonder is how much of Marxism is like an organic brain fart of Be kind to everybody, because there are a lot of people who, I think, who are leftists, who don't even know what Marxism is. They've heard the term. They don't, they don't understand what it is. They've not probably read the Communist Manifesto that. They don't understand the history of it. They don't understand what Lenin did within Russia. They don't understand what's happened in Cuba. They don't really fully understand and so perhaps they're, they've organically become Marxist because they actually think they're being good people.

  Emmet Conor 26:18

  Yeah, definitely. There's definitely an element of that, and you can see it when you interact with them. Interact with them. And I think part of the problem tying into your question is that the education system has been captured by this ideology for going right back into history now, and the only way they would be exposed to stuff like that is in a benevolent light. So Karl Marx is regarded as being this great genius who we should base economic theory on and sociological issues as well and all this stuff. But no, he doesn't deserve that much respect.

  Peter McCormack 26:47

  Wasn't he complete failure in life?

  Emmet Conor 26:49

  He was, yeah, bit of a loser. He was, indeed, he's very bitter, angry man, a tremendous ego. He couldn't manage his own family. He couldn't imagine his own hygiene. He never worked a day in his life. What a shocker. He's a spoiled brat. I'm sure these things sound familiar when you look you're dealing with leftists. They're like little mini Marx's. They don't like the idea of working. They don't want to control their emotions. They have grandiose ideas about saving the planet. They're hostile to Christianity and religion in general and so on. And Marx himself was someone his work should have stayed when he went, you know it should be buried with Him, and in Highgate Cemetery, where he's where he's buried in 1883 or never when he passed away. But unfortunately, and I agree with your sentiment before and our private correspondence about let's not get dragged into what anyone thought back in the 1800s because those people are dead, including Lennon. The problem is people carry their ideas into the present, and the education system allows it to permeate into society. That's part of the problem.

  Peter McCormack 27:46

  Well, this is why I wonder whether how much of this is like organic stupidity, people who don't understand incentives, they don't understand economics. I mean, I was having an argument with a woman on Twitter this morning, just about a 50 pound charge we go to the doctors, which I actually believe that's what you have in Ireland, right? You have to pay 50 euros for a doctor's appointment, as I understand it, whereas we don't have that here. And I just put out the idea to West streeting that just charge 50 pound for an appointment. That will change a lot of things, that maybe we switch the incentives, and immediately got hit with the well, what about people who can't afford it? And I was like, Oh, she's no, no. What did she say to she said, No. What will happen to you when you suddenly get ill and you can't afford it? I was like, I have savings. She said, well, not everyone has savings. I was like, Well, everyone can save. And she said, Well, I would rather be poor than an asshole. So we got into one of those back and forth conversations whereby I don't think she thinks she's a Marxist. I think she just believes society should come together collectively to help others, and that's why, that's what I'm trying to get my head around. Are there actual Marxists out there, the Fabian Society? Are there people in there who understand what Karl Marx wrote about, you know, his observations of the structure of society, the class struggle. Are they aware of what was tried in Russia under Lenin? Are they? Do they understand what happened under Mao? Do they realize 10s of millions of people still died and they still want to proceed with this? Is this what the Fabians are doing? Or is it that they, they think society can be fairer. We just haven't tried the right socialism.

  Emmet Conor 29:28

  Yeah, well, like we're talking about people with good intentions, they see an issue, and they think, could this be better? But what they they what? Unfortunately, the Marxist ideas are permeated through society, like, you know, like socialist healthcare, state control and stuff and so on. And I think that they don't understand the consequences of if that was too much. Now, I'm not suggesting, say, in Ireland's case, that we just remove all elements of the welfare state and any sort of socialistic parts of the economy. I wouldn't say that's ethical. What I'm saying is, because you're just pulling the. Bugs out from under people. I wouldn't agree with that, but I think we should move towards a more economic, prosperous society, where people would be able, we could bring the cost of things down, and people things would be more affordable, and maybe have some sort of a safety net economically for certain people. But if it's about trajectory, yeah, is that an economic term?

  Peter McCormack 30:19

  Well, no, so like, I consider myself a libertarian. And people say, Well, you've just got an utopian ideal. And I say, No, look, I'm a libertarian in terms of trajectory, I believe we should target trying to make the state continually smaller as we can agree to try and make the people more prosperous, rather than saying, Here's my end state where we have the non Aggression Principle. And there is, you know, either a minicuss government, no guy just say, can we just have, can we just have less debt? Can next year, can we target having a balanced budget, and then, then following you can we pay off 5% of our debt? And can we reduce the welfare bear? Can we get more people into work? And can we have more less bureaucracy, rather than going for in state utopia? Yeah, yeah,

  Emmet Conor 31:00

  exactly, yeah. That's I'm the same. And I think that, like, Okay, I have my beliefs. I am correct that Marxism was a massive problem. But if I was running the show, I wouldn't just try to change things overnight. It has to be gradual process. But unfortunately, a lot of people have to be on board with this. You know, they have to agree that it's a good direction to go in. And I think part of it is removing the Marxist indoctrination, but then giving them an explanation about economics and that there is a better way for things to run. And as you know, speaking of economics, if you do things like take anyone brainwashed to Marxism out of positions of power, dismantle the NGO complex, for example, would save quite a bit of money and stop the green agenda as well. And also what you're tying into as well the libertarian and they have a smaller government, not have such a big welfare state. All of this stuff could improve our quality of life and our economic standing for sure.

  Conor McCormack 31:50

  Do we know the main people funding and pushing for this ideology? Who are the families?

  Emmet Conor 31:56

  Well, my kind of approach is that there is this movement is involved in personality types and individuals at all levels. They could be, you know, high ranking politicians or underlying, you know, Klaus FOB types, as well as your next door neighbor as well as the teacher in the local school. And so there's, you know, 10s and 10s of millions of people involved in this? Yeah, and there are people that wouldn't, people wouldn't think, like I was saying, just because somebody's rich doesn't mean they're not helping this ideology, but,

  Speaker 3 32:29

  but they could be funding a greater push to make it more mainstream, right? The people in the higher places?

  Emmet Conor 32:36

  Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think we're all a bit like that, in a sense, if we had the power and influence. And you think we think we're doing the right thing, we would try and reach more people.

  Speaker 3 32:44

  But do you think they do, or is there this idea of these are very successful, clever people, and they know that end state of communism is not possible, so there is a good incentive for them to become one of the oligarchs.

  Emmet Conor 32:59

  Yeah, well, it's kind of tied in with the contradiction. I'm not really sure what their what their mindset is. I know for sure, though, they don't feel threatened by the ideology, like we talked about. Say, you know, people who are billionaires, I don't think they're really worried about workers. Are the working class rising up to take their money away. I don't I think they genuinely feel that this is where the totalitarian mindset comes in. We've always had sociopathic types who think they are here to rule the world. We've always had them in human history, but now they're actually pulling it off through organizations like the UN and the World Economic Forum and using money, using politics, using influence. And I think that they are here to save the world. They think they are here to save the world. Yeah.

  Peter McCormack 33:40

  See, you know, I think, Emma, I don't think many of these people genuinely want communism. I don't think if you had a an election in the UK tomorrow and say the Green Party won, say they had 50% of the vote, and you went round and you survey, they surveyed these people, and you could get a genuine, honest answer for them. Do they want the communist end state? I don't think they I don't think they actually do. If you ask them if they wanted socialism, I think a lot of them would say they do, but they don't know that socialism is the step from capitalism to communism. I don't think they actually do want a complete breakdown of class structure. I think actually what they want is they want the Nordic model, because they always say it. You say, you go onto Twitter and somebody's like, I'm a socialist. You say socialism has never worked. Look at Cuba. Look what happened in Venezuela. Go back to look what happened under Mao in China. They said, No, no, I want the Nordic model. And so you can get into it with them and say, okay, so what you actually want is a social democracy. What you want is good redistribution programs. But actually, you do realize have that you need capitalism and you need property rights so you can get into them. I think a lot of them want that. Is there a chance that that is what people want? But the tactics they're using are Marxist tactics to get towards that.

  Emmet Conor 34:57

  Yeah, exactly. And we talked about definitions earlier. So this thing, this ideology, has mutated so much that I almost feel like we should put aside the old definitions of what communism is, that it's the overthrow of the rich and removal of classes. That's why I say it's better to describe it. Have a bit more of a fluid definition, where it's the idea of global control, and you look at the rhetoric coming out of the United Nations, the World Economic Forum. These organizations are full of people in a Club of Rome and European Union. These are exactly the kind of people you were just talking about. People call them elites. People call them globalists. But you look at the method they have for global control, is all part of the same global revolution, basically.

  Peter McCormack 35:37

  So do you think therefore it is a global revolution for what they see as a fairer society. The only way they can achieve it is through control, censorship, authoritarianism, in some ways, but really, their end goal isn't to recreate what Pol Pot created. Isn't to recreate what Mao created. It is, are they trying to achieve a global Nordic model,

  Emmet Conor 36:02

  yeah, possibly, and yeah. And the thing is, as well with this movement, Peter is that there's always a new extreme way of coming in on the previous wave with this movement. So like, for example, who I explained like this or highlighted like this, who will be considered more dangerous the CCP and the People's Liberation Army are the bureaucrats in the W, E, F. You know what I mean? One has a standard army of 2 million with nuclear weapons, and the other is a bunch of people in suits. They all believe in global revolution. But if push comes to shove, the CCP is a bit more dangerous. And what I'm trying to say is that it's, it's like this thing comes in waves, and you know, they're contributing in different waves to the global

  Peter McCormack 36:44

  revolution, pretty much. So how did, how does Marxism itself spread? What are the tools that are being used?

  Emmet Conor 36:52

  Well, the education system is a major, major part of this. And the 10th plank of the Communist Manifesto talks about free education and public schools, and that was authored in 1848 and Fabian Society we mentioned was was big on this of pushing these ideas through the education system and the culture. And hence, their first coat of arms was a wolf in sheep's clothing, designed by the Irishman George Bernard Shaw. So it's malevolence disguised as benevolence. The education system is a massive part of this. And there's also, you know, other groups we talked about, labor union movements. I've noticed an ex girlfriend of mine, Dublin years ago, was went through a sociology course. She was like a community organizer, but she was quite indoctrinated with a lot of these ideas. So this ideology seeps through a lot of different parts of society, the mainstream media. How could we forget it spreads from person to person through ideas. And the strange thing is, and we kind of alluded to this earlier, a person might not even know that they're talking like a Marxist. They could be apolitical. They don't have any interest at all in global affairs, politics, geopolitics, Current Affairs, not interested at all, but they're talking about stuff like equality. We should have more compassion. You know, are you asking about how they feel about mass immigration? Well, they're coming from war, torn countries, and we should really help them, because they're poor and we are rich. So you see these alarm bells going off constantly, and this is why this is an indoctrination issue. It spreads from person to person through a myriad of a myriad of different ways.

  Peter McCormack 38:29

  Hmm, one of the areas where it kind of raises my tingles of suspicion is I've been to various different protests just have a look, just to observe or even looked at them online. We went to the one in London. That was Tommy Robinson's March. And that was, you know, group of people turning up who wanted more freedom, wanted, possibly the idea of taking back their country. They had a bunch of flags. He had these homemade signs. Yeah. People had a good day. There were some idiots acting like mindless idiots got drunk and pissing up against walls, which didn't do a good favor. The same day, there was a Anti Fascist protest, and I've also seen the other day the Lotus Eaters had an event, and there was a protest outside. But every time there's a protest which seems to come from the left, they seem to have a collection of ready made, printed signs. And it just seems very, very well organized, yeah.

  Peter McCormack 39:23

  And that's a difference I've noticed.

  Emmet Conor 39:25

  Oh, it's a massive, massive, massive issue this, and this is, you look, look at the way Ireland is going. This stuff's been going on for years, but the political right struggling to get themselves organized and professional. That's for a myriad of reasons. But obviously they don't have the state behind them. They don't have money coming from elitist types, and they're not supported by the United Nations and so on the internationalist group. So there's a massive difference here in professionalism and experience as well. The political left, this is what they do. Not only are they good at making themselves strong, they're fanatical. They believe. Making a better world. They're extremely like I described as a cult in my work, because that's what they're like. They're fanatical. They're very hostile to people who don't agree with them. And it's not just the, you know, hard left anti fat types. This is through many of the different Marxist groups, and they are that you can call them crazy, misguided and all that we can't call them badly organized or unmotivated, and that's where, unfortunately, it's the way the world works. Just because you might be ethically right and righteous and have a conscience and your opponent could be a sociopath, it doesn't mean you're going to win. You know, that's kind of the situation that we're in. I think. What would you say to

  Peter McCormack 40:39

  a young person now who? Because it feels like, for a young person, that the opportunity to vote is a big deal. I remember when I had my first opportunity to vote, it did feel like a bit big. I mean, I don't vote anymore because I think it's all bollocks, but it did feel like a big deal. Got to go to the ballot box. I got to put down my vote for who's going to run this country. And if you're a young person right now, you have kind of two clear choices, two obvious choices at the moment, which is, either you vote for the Green Party or kind who want to tax those mean billionaires. Or you can, you can vote for the and they go to, by the way, and they have their events in Trafalgar Square. Everyone's dancing, everyone's having a party, everyone's being nice, everyone's kind. Or you can go to a reform event, which is a bunch of guys in suits and ties who seem really mean, and apparently they're all fascist. How's a young person meant to even navigate this shit?

  Emmet Conor 41:32

  Yeah, it's a really difficult time for them to be alive, because young people in you know, in general, they want to, you know, they're ruled by their emotions. They don't have the life experience a more mature person would. They want to kind of fit in and so on. And this is why we're in the middle of it. It's like it's a propaganda warfare, sorry, I

  Peter McCormack 41:52

  think it's a crisis,

  Emmet Conor 41:53

  yes, yeah, yeah. And this is why the Marxists have been very clever in getting their tentacles into the education system. And this has been all through the history of this movement. I mean, you look at, say, in the so called communist states of the past, like Red China Soviet Union, it was kids at all ages. But in Western nations, it was kind of arguably more at the university level that they got their tentacles into the minds of the young. But now you've noticed, I'm sure you've noticed in the UK, in Ireland as well. Now they were going after secondary schoolers or high schoolers. Now they're going after primary school kids and injecting their heads with these revolutionary ideas. You need to be more compassionate. You know, you need to have a great purpose to your life, to save the world and so on. And by the time they get to voting age, which way are they going to swing? Because they've already been told that watch out for the far right, or it's important that women get equal pay in the workplace, or you must be racist, or we're all part of the global community. All that stuff is Marxism from different angles, and it makes them extremely biased, and it's no wonder in Ireland and other countries, they're desperately trying to lower the voting age. Now, why are they? Why are they doing that? Like there's no points for getting the right answer.

  Peter McCormack 43:02

  I think we should be raising it, but that's where I come back to the point is like, where are the where are the actual Marxists who know their Marxists, and where are they? These people are from the left who believe they are just being good leftists and that we want compassionate politicians who care about a fair redistribution of income to make sure everyone can get health care. Like, where is the difference? Is it coming? Is that Is there a group of Marxists around the table the Fabian Society sat there in a smoky room with their evil Marxist plan? Because it, to me, it seems like it is a organic. A lot of it's organic, and it just preys on the mind of the weak, rather than there are genuine Lenin type Marxists.

  Emmet Conor 43:48

  Yeah. Well, I would say those, those, there's some the sum of both, because the movement is so big, and as, as I talked about before, the ones who are a bit more extremists tend to take the lead. So say, we say, the issue of of Islam, it's like tangent here, but the issue of Islam and Western nations is something people are concerned about. And they say, does you know, wherever a few, a few billion of them? And they said, they can't. I always say, well, they can't be all the same, but in terms of personality, but doesn't really matter, because when you have a collective the ones who are more extremists tend to take the lead, and that's how may become potentially dangerous. I view it the same as being as being as, as Marxism. So I always say that you to compare, say, a purple haired lesbian on the streets in Melbourne who's talking about trans rights. She's 18 years old. She went to the University of Melbourne, or whatever it is, or University of Sydney, and she's at some protest. I wouldn't say that she does as no concept of global control or the history of communism. She's just doing something that she thinks she's been benevolent, but she's helping to break down society.

  Unknown Speaker 44:49

  She's a useful idiot.

  Emmet Conor 44:50

  Exactly. She's, she's attacking the family unit. She doesn't realize it. She's creating conflict. She's, you know, pushing the whole trans ideology. Doesn't realize she's doing that. I wouldn't. Say she's the same as Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin, a lifelong Marxist, you know, I wouldn't they're not the same, and certainly one's more dangerous than the other. And unfortunately, as I say, Peter, we have to get very good at judging people on a case by case basis, and we can't do that till we understand the the indoctrination.

  Peter McCormack 45:19

  There's a there's a lady with a substack in the UK called Grace Blakely. She She claims to be a Marxist. I really enjoy reading I've talked about the podcast a lot because I really enjoy reading her writings. I've commented on them. I subscribe and the reason I like reading her writings is I actually agree with her, with her on certain issues, she points to some of the disparities in society, which I agree with, the rapid growth in the wealth of the richest in society, to me, is a problem. It's not a problem because they've got rich. It's the means by which they've got rich. In that inflation, if we all, we all understand inflation, if you increase the money supply, the assets grow, and the people own the assets are the richest. So during covid, the richest got super rich because the Assets increase. So their purchase and power has gone up, everyone else's purchase and power has gone down. So she identifies the problem, and I agree with her, her solution is Marxism. Mine is to end the money printer, but in doing so, like even in this capitalist society, we do functionally have a form of socialism for the rich, which is the money printer. And so how do you how do you deal with that? It's almost like a paradox itself.

  Emmet Conor 46:31

  Yeah. Well, Mike on his solution, I've been trying to push this for a while, since 2012 i i can realize myself, well, if globalism is the idea of making member states. And don't worry, I'm kind of going somewhere with this. If globalism is the idea of making countries member states of the world, and that's causing a lot of problems, including economic problems, then if we swing towards a healthy type of patriotism and put people in charge of the system who care about the country that they're governing and care about the people. I know it sounds hilarious because the state of things, but if we could make that happen, then I believe that we could manage things better.

  Peter McCormack 47:05

  Well, that was in your interview with James Lindsay. I thought you made a really astute point. He said, What we need is patriotic chauvinism, not not supremacy, right? And that idea that you you go back to the idea of being patriotic about your country, which is, yes, there's some nationalism there, but some people fear it. But the growth in this kind of socialism for the rich, the money printer makes the rich richer and the poor poorer, has required a socialism for the poor. And so, you know, when I see the arguments, they're fascists and they're communist and they're socialists, I don't vote anymore. What actually is the answer? Because it's very easy to identify problems. Yeah, it's very easy to throw out labels. I can easily call a number of people communist, because I think they are, and they can easily call me fascist. I don't think I am. But, like, I can this, this, like, this constant battle for labeling people. But what is, what is a good end goal, solution, like I know, what I think, I think is based in freedom, liberty. I think small state that doesn't interfere with people, allow the people the freedom to say and think what they want and build the businesses they want, and get away from this cancerous political system which which put, essentially, put psychopaths or narcissists in power and then use us against each other.

  Emmet Conor 48:26

  Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that a lot of the problems we're dealing with could be fixed by having a more, more more right leaning governments for sure, and be more nationalistic. And I know some people are afraid of the term. Sometimes I say patriotic or patriot. And, you know, interestingly, national nationalism has gotten a bad rap because of what happened with World War Two, but that was national socialism. Was left and right wing, but that's a separate subject. But my point is that I don't think people should be afraid of the idea of call themselves nationalists. Now the Marxists will shoot you down and call you fashion, call you all the names will literally shoot you exactly. Yeah, exactly. And they realize that, because you're an opponent to them, you're getting in the way a global revolution. I think a lot of problems you're talking about economic problems, how we manage the economy, the size the government, who really a lot of it could be fixed in theory, hypothetically, by putting patriots in charge and kind of having a, you know, having diplomatic and economic relations with other countries, of course, but you know, still keeping your sovereignty like you look at Ireland's, we joined Ireland joined the Europe, or the EEC, the precursor to the European Union. We joined in 1973 and apparently we've got massive fossil fuel gas and oil deposits off the west coast of Ireland that just aren't really being used. And the European Union membership impacts on our fisheries, our agriculture, many other areas. And, you know, it seemed like, you know, the Celtic Tiger, and it helped us for a while. Well, in the long run, I mean, you got a lot of roads out of it. We did, yeah, but I can say to people, you know, the. Sovereignty of the nation. And you know, the globalist agenda, mass immigration will destroy the country anyway, even if you get some short term perceived benefits by being part of the European Union in the long run, it's kind of quite toxic. So back to my solution is, I think a sovereign, more right wing, nationalistic government is

  Peter McCormack 50:17

  the way to go. I'm finding what's happening in Ireland quite sad. Obviously, I'm half Irish. Spent a lot of time there. Spent a lot of time in the west coast of Ireland. I know what the Irish are like. They are just good people, fair people, care about their neighbor, care about a good time, not overly greedy, just kind of on a simple life. And what I've seen is a very leftist, socialist takeover of the country, and I find it really sad what's happening there. The only good thing that's come out of it is I've seen Catholics and Protestants stand side by side together to fight against this. I've seen a lot of what Conor McGregor has been saying. He's, he's an angry man at the moment.

  Emmet Conor 51:00

  Yeah, Conor, I think he's weighed back in again in the political debate. He was going to run for president. I think he backed out of that for some reason, and people have welcomed his kind of contributions in general. But the situation in Ireland is getting a bit more intense. The farmers protest at the moment is over fuel costs and the green agenda kind of infringing on the quality of life. And there were protests across Europe with the farmers. Now they're happening in Ireland as well. But it's not just about that. Obviously, there's the the revolution, the revolt has been kind of building in Ireland. And it's unfortunate what's happened, because we in Ireland, you know, the history with the British Empire and stuff like that, people often bring it up. It's amazing that we've gone from being under the control the British Crown, kind of getting our sovereignty on paper to then giving it away again with the European Union. And my argument is that, unfortunately, we all were born into this struggle against this globalist agenda, and we didn't even know it, myself included. We live decades of our lives, you know, having our personal issues or making money, or whatever it was. And while all our lives were the years were ticking by, this globalist agenda was building in the background, and our Irish people have kind of woken up a lot more recently, when the water is now up around their necks with mass immigration and the total totalitarian state. And people are wondering, Where the hell did this come from? Well, that is arguably the whole Fabian socialist model of a creeping communism. And now things are kind of getting out of hand. And it's really, it's really, you know, Irish people are up against it. Now, for sure, you said

  Peter McCormack 52:28

  earlier, when we were talking about Marx, you said that all his work, everything he does, should be buried and forgot about but, but others will say that this, there's some useful points to Mark's work in identifying class struggle, identifying that the that the rich can oppress the poor, and that Marx wasn't calling really for a revolution. He never really mapped out a path afterwards. It was really the likes of Lenin who decided what he wanted to do with Russia. It wasn't that there was a roadmap within, within the Communist Manifesto. What do you say to that?

  Emmet Conor 53:08

  Well, I understand the question, the sentiment, but like I said, Marx is not alive now, and we're left with the problem with this ideology, Peter is that it's it's mutated so much so Marx's opinions are arguably, as time has gone on, his opinions or stances on things are less relevant because you had even soon as he died, the Fabians came in with their own interpretation. And Lennon came along later with his one, and then Antonio Gramsci came along with another one about colonizing the superstructure, the long march through the institutions controlling the education system and so on. With Marxism, you had people like Georgie Lukacs. You had the Frankfurt School. You had the French post modernist brigade, you know, the ones who come up with the idea that reality isn't real. You know, there's no such thing as objective truth. So if I identify as a woman right now, you all have to believe me and respect my opinion, because I just created it all this garbage. And, you know, so there's been these constant reinterpretations of this, of this movement, and are all toxic, right across the board. So Marx is, I understand the point, but his his opinions are just one of many now at this stage.

  Peter McCormack 54:17

  So how do you process all of this? Because a bit, I'm a bit like you. I look at the world and go, What the fuck is going on? I see a protest in London, and it's a bunch of people. I don't recognize them, people I hang out with. They seem to be lost or confused. I see the rapid rise of the Green Party under Zac Polanski, who I got no opposition to a political party, being successful, but he is objectively a moron. His policy ideas have been proven not to work throughout all of history. He doesn't understand economics when he's been pushed on it. He has talked about, he likes Gary Stevenson, who's a socialist. He talked about, again, Grace Blakely, who's a Marxist. I look at what's happened in. In the schools, I look at what's happening the indoctrination in universities. I speak to people who are studying economics, whether it's the LSE or down in Exeter, and they're just being taught at Keynesian horseshit. So I look all around yet there are people I know who think I am radicalized. They think I'm mental. They think I'm some far right conspiracy theorist who's been radicalized, and I I think I'm normal. So how do you process this?

  Emmet Conor 55:26

  Oh, well, this I'm like anyone else, Peter, I've gone through my own different steps of evolution as a person. I've been wrong loads of times. I've had to reevaluate my beliefs in 2012 like I said, I started to look into the more, you know, and basic stuff about communism, the totalitarianism of the past, the economic stuff a little bit. But as the years rolled on, I said, this is huge, and it's got so many different aspects to it. And I think that, like we talked about right the start, this is going to be real intelligence tests for people, because everybody wants the quick 32nd video nowadays. They want the quick take. They're too busy. They don't have time to be nerds about this stuff and really delve into it. And I totally understand that. But this is the situation we're in. People are going to have to have a mixture of intelligence, patience, the right kind of knowledge and guts, and also they have to have their ego under control. And I tend to trigger this often, people all the time when I'm might be criticizing different groups or highlighting these issues. People get offended. Nobody wants to be told that they're in their late 30s or 40s and their beliefs are they're a little bit away from the bullseye in terms of what's going on. The childish, oh yeah, there's a tremendous amount of that. And you know, okay, I had to eat humble pie myself many times, we all have to face up to that challenge, and these people are actually, I argue Peter getting in the way. Because if I am right, and I am right that this is a major global problem, why are more people not talking about this, and not only that, why are they not why are they not helping people like us to talk about it, and why are they not talking about themselves? I think an ego is a massive problem here.

  Peter McCormack 57:01

  Well, perhaps talking to people about the reality of this is not socially acceptable anymore. Perhaps that's what it is. Perhaps for some people, they've grown up in a world where, you know, we've lived through the best of times. The 80s and the 90s were amazing. There was huge economic growth. There was great progressive ideas pushed we had the liberalization of gay marriage, and I'm not sure what actually, year we made that legal in this country, you know, and the world got closer. We got technology that enabled us to talk to people. We could travel the world cheaper and easier. We could see the world like a lot of nice things happened. There was really good periods. I think we're now at one of the worst times. I see decay everywhere. Things are breaking down. Social structures breaking down. People aren't having kids. Kids can't afford homes, can't get a job. The roads are collapsing. There's like shit on every single road. When you drive along, look at the size of the rows. There's rubbish everywhere. You know, I'm seeing the fracturing. But we lived through really good times. And I think perhaps for some people, it's hard to accept that we had it too good, and we just had it too good. And now everything like you say they want the 32nd or the 10 second video. They want the inject themselves with the drug rather than going to the gym. They want, if they feel a bit sad, they obviously they're a victim. They've got depression. They need to take medication for that. We've, we've medicalized, pathologized everything, yeah, and now, now we're stuck with the consequences, but making that move back to personal responsibility, wisdom and discipline, I think that's really hard for people. I mean, we know ourselves, Connor, we you know, I can tell you where I lack discipline. It's with my diet I lack that discipline. And Conor will tell you where he lacks discipline. And you all have your own things, but we have a societal lack of discipline.

  Emmet Conor 58:57

  Yeah, exactly. And unfortunately, I think we've been at war with this thing for quite a long time, including our whole lives, like I said,

  Unknown Speaker 59:04

  and and we're losing that war.

  Emmet Conor 59:06

  Oh, absolutely, I totally agree. I think the amount of people in in Ireland of the UK who are brainwashed with this ideology are is increasing thanks to the education system. So this can't be just fixed. It's not going to go away. It's not going to fix without people making effort, but Tony, into what you said, we have been conditioned into this comfortable existence. Interestingly, because of what, arguably what capitalism has provided us with and the successes of the West has given us a great quality of life, we've become accustomed to it, but we didn't realize there's an ideological warfare going on in the background their whole lives, and now it's getting out of hand, because we've been so complacent. I always say that so you look at so I lived in Australia for years, and I know what's happening in Canada. In my opinion, those countries, save a miracle, are gone. They're in serious trouble because they're so relaxed and easy going. It's part of their culture to be so easy going. Same with Ireland, arguably. So, yeah, arguably. So I think, well, we've got that crazy Celtic genes in there, so that kind of fires in there a little bit. But this ideology is so sneaky and very good at repackaging itself and keeping itself hidden that you look at the Aussies, they've got a very hedonistic, easy going lifestyle, you know, and a nice weather and so on. But a portion of their population is brainwashed with this stuff, and now they're running the show. And the Fabians have a branch or a lot of influence down, you know, with Judy Gillard and gone, right? Golf, golf, Whitlam, all these Fabians run the show. For years, the Aussies didn't even realize what they were dealing with. And a half the country's brainwashed, you know. And you look at Canada, similar thing, I think that people being too comfortable, hedonistic, blase about the world, has allowed this movement to come in and get control of everything, and now the water's up around our necks,

  Peter McCormack