The Listening Tube with Bob Woodley--What the media is missing and racism in Virginia

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This is The Listening Tube.

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Hello. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley. On this episode, we'll hear about the Cornering Act, an argument for atheism, and the You Go. Plus, who's racist here?

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But first, not the headlines.

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Last Sunday, March 14th, I was invited to attend an international online conference of the National Council of Resistance of Iran as an observer. I was honored to be invited by a former guest on the listening tube, Zolal Habibi, who is a member of the NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee. In case you're not familiar, the NCRI is an Iranian parliament in exile based in Paris, France. For decades they have been waiting for the conditions that seem inevitable today. The Israeli and American attack on Iran's military and government have brought the Iranian theocracy to the threshold of collapse. A regime change is almost inevitable at this point, although the controlling forces of the Iranian government are holding out as long as possible. In anticipation of the fall of the Ayatollah-led regime, the National Council of Resistance of Iran has put forth a ten-point plan to transform the country of Iran into a democratic republic. The entire thing is explained on the group's website ncr-Iran.org. Briefly, it outlines a plan for Iran that eliminates clerical rule, institutes many of the same freedoms included in the American Bill of Rights, and provides for a separation of church and state. It also calls for gender equality and abolishes any form of discrimination, and establishes an independent judicial system. It also calls for rehabilitation of the environment decimated by the ruling mullahs, and perhaps most important to the rest of the world, establishes a non-nuclear Iran, devoid of weapons of mass destruction, encouraging peace and coexistence. The Ten Point Plan was presented by the president-elect of the NCRI, Mariam Rojavi, in December of 2006, nearly 20 years ago, at a session of the Council of Europe, and has gained much support over the last two decades. Mariam Rojavi was the host of the international conference I attended, and made it clear in her opening remarks that the West's policy of appeasement hasn't accomplished anything but nurturing a snake in one's sleeve. Many of the speakers agreed. So who were these speakers? One was Charles Michel, former president of the European Council. He called Merriam's ten-point plan the only credible, realistic, and sincere framework for moving from dictatorship to democracy. Another of the speakers was Linda Chavez, former United States White House Director of Public Liaison. Linda called the NCRI forward-looking leadership needed for a democratic transition. She called on the United States and other free world governments to open a structural dialogue with the NCRI, giving the people of Iran the chance to choose their own leadership. The former Prime Minister of Belgium was there too. I don't think he saw me, but I saw him. Anyway, he called the current regime a fascist theocracy. For those of you who think the American president is a fascist, you might not be real clear on the definition of fascism. The former Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, also endorsed the Ten Point Plan, encouraging European leaders to move beyond social media comments and start an open dialogue with the democratic opposition. The former Foreign Minister of Canada also chimed in, calling for the end of the mullahs and any aspirations to return to a monarchy, calling Madame Rajavi the one leader who has shown the leadership, the courage, and the commitment to implement such a plan. Also there to show support were members of the UK's House of Lords, ministers and senators from the Dutch Senate and Ireland, Iceland, Tunisia, Spain, Denmark, a Nobel Priest Prize laureate, and others, like me, who didn't speak but were there to show support and learn more about what this organization has to offer in a post-Ayatollah Iran. While many Americans, including myself, are not familiar with most, if not all, of the speakers at the conference, there was one with whom many Americans may be familiar. American Army General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. General Clark is certainly someone who would be familiar with military outcomes and readiness. While General Clark acknowledged the work of international air forces to defeat the current regime in Iran, he urged the NCRI to continue to strike at the fragments of the regime while preserving your strength, and to build alliances with others in Iran who oppose the regime. He emphasized that the NCRI must be present at every point where the future of Iran is to be decided, whether in Washington, Europe, or on the ground in Iran. General Clark praised Madame Rajabi's leadership and vision in creating the program that must become Iran's future, specifically the Ten Point Plan, which he views as the only competent framework to steer a new, democratic and secular Iran that lives in peace with its neighbors. Now you might be thinking, but Bob, I haven't heard about any of this on the news. And you would be right. My question is why? The last time I spoke with Zolal Habibi, I pointed out that all we hear about in the US is how the deposed crown prince is ready to assume the role of his late father and move Iran into the future. Yet he has no cabinet, no ministers, no plan. American media has taken the easy road to solving the crisis of what will happen to Iran after the current regime falls. The crown prince is the nearest solution to the Western media, and their laziness has put him front and center instead of an organization that is prepared to take the helm on a temporary basis and then hand over the country to the people who live there. It's not just the American media either. More than one of the speakers at the conference took note of the absence in their media of the NCRI among the solutions for a free democratic Iran, even though it's the only alternative for a free democratic Iran. That's why this is a not the headline story. For a while I thought maybe the press knew something I didn't. Maybe the press had done its research on the NCRI and discovered it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Now I know better. The overwhelming support of political, social, and military experts for the NCRI is a testament to the credibility of the organization and its ten-point plan for the future of Iran. The fact that the National Council for the Resistance of Iran is being ignored by Western media is perplexing, to say the least. Oh, and you're also required to feed them and give them drinks. To be a gracious host. But there's more. You're also responsible for providing any fuel they might need, as well as transportation. This was the King of England's way of saving money as well as asserting British authority of the colonies in America. It was just one of the many ways British rule demonstrated its authority. Colonial resistance had been growing, and the Cornering Act, which would expire in 1770 but be re-established in 1774, was but one of the straws that broke the colonial camel's back. This week in 1775, ten years later, American patriot Patrick Henry delivers his speech, Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death, at St. John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. Rumor has it that Patrick Henry was also the first guy to say, Uh, let me rephrase that. This week in 1811, Percy Shelley, whose middle name I can't pronounce, is expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing the pamphlet The Necessity of Atheism. Back in the early 1800s, the pamphlet was the equivalent of a social media post. People with something to say would write it out and produce a pamphlet that would then be handed out to colleagues or even strangers on a street corner. Most were read and ignored, just like today's social media posts. But occasionally, someone would distribute a pamphlet that would, in today's terms, go viral. To write and distribute a pamphlet that argued against the existence of God was sure to draw attention. Shelley's pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism, was merely an examination of critical thought and the existence of proof. That it was aimed at the existence of a deity was what caused the uproar. It was very purposeful in its presentation and thorough in its conclusions. The author even had the confidence to end the pamphlet with the letters QED, which, as you may know, means as has been demonstrated. Percy Shelley had convinced himself that there was no proof of God, so therefore atheism was a logical conclusion. Absent from his analysis is the overwhelming power of faith. So is atheism necessary? Perhaps. But its purpose may be only to separate those with faith from those without. The base model was so bare I'm surprised the gas pedal wasn't a feature you had to pay extra for. You could literally put a cassette deck in it and double its value. This communist relic didn't last long after the fall of the Soviet Union. Ethnic differences among the people led to fractures of the kingdom. By 2001 it was broken up into multiple countries, including the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia. It's been even more divided since then, to include Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia. Which begs the question, which had more reliability, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia or the Yugo? This week in 1956, Pakistan becomes the first Islamic republic in the world. Although Islam would arrive in the area by the 7th century AD, Muslim raiders were more interested in plundering than claiming territory. Once part of India and under British rule, two power players strived for an independent subcontinent. Britain also wanted out. Talks began between the British and Mahatma Gandhi of the Hindus and Muhammad Ali Jinnah on behalf of the Muslims. Ultimately, and after a long and convoluted history, Pakistan's constitution of nineteen fifty-six was established based on a document from 1950 that declared Pakistan to be an Islamic republic. Today there are many Muslim countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, and Dearborn, Michigan. This week in 1957, United States Customs seizes copies of Alan Ginsburg's poem Howl on the grounds of obscenity. Is it obscene? Yes. And very long, too. It's hard to believe that the First Amendment wasn't as honored then as it is today. This week in 1983, the Strategic Defense Initiative was introduced by American President Ronald Reagan when he makes his initial proposal to develop technology to intercept enemy missiles. Popularly known as the Star Wars Initiative, it drew both serious consideration as well as mocking laughter. Back then, the only real threat of intercontinental ballistic missiles was from the Soviet Union. But in less than a decade, the Soviet Union would be dissolved and broken up into separate countries. Then Russia became the threat. As you may have guessed, the strategic defense initiative never came to fruition, and the threat of a nuclear attack diminished as well. More recently, President Trump has spoken about a system similar to that in Israel. The size of the United States as compared to Israel makes the project much more complicated. Perhaps it's just easier to eliminate the threat, as is being demonstrated in Iran. And this week in 1989, Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischman announce their discovery of cold fusion at the University of Utah. Now you might be thinking, wait, we have that? Well, no. Since the announcement, other attempts at replicating nuclear fusion at room temperature have been unsuccessful.

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There's a new bill making its way to the desk of Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger. The new governor ran as a moderate, but quickly changed her stripes once in office. The Cruella Deville of American Politics. Every time I see her on television, I can't help but wonder how many puppies it took to make her coat. The bill is called the Small Swam Business Procurement Enhancement Program Act. A title generic and boring enough to not draw any attention at all. Plus, it's got the word enhancement in it, so it's gotta be good, right? A lot of bills have names that can be condensed into a snappy acronym, like the SAVE Act. But this bill already has an acronym in it. SWAM. When I discovered what SWAM stands for, I had to ask Who's the racist here? SWAM stands for small, women-owned, and minority owned. Well, that makes the title of the bill much more interesting. For starters, it's now redundant. It's now the small, small women-owned and minority-owned business procurement enhancement protection act. Clearly, the author wanted the word small to be spelled out in the title, giving it a bit of rooting for the little guy charm. But the rest of it was kept hidden in the acronym. So what would the Small, Small, Women-owned and Minority Owned Business Procurement Enhancement Program Act do if the white-haired bait and switch evil princess of Virginia signs it into law? In a nutshell, it would discriminate against businesses owned by white men, even if it costs the taxpayers more to get the needed job done. No state has the wherewithal to do everything that needs to be done to maintain a state. So much of it is done by private businesses that are equipped to do so. If the state needs an office building to be carpeted, they accept bids from private companies to do the work. The specifications can be very detailed, and the bids can be complex. In most cases, with all things being equal, the lowest bid will get the job. But this bill aims to change that. It requires that any purchases made by the state between $10,000 and $200,000 must be awarded to women or minority-owned businesses. And all executive branch agencies must increase the use of women or minority-owned businesses by 3% per year until they reach 42% of all contracts. In other words, a white guy who owns a business can only bid on jobs of less than $10,000 or more than $200,000, and ultimately can only be awarded 58% of the contracts, regardless of the amount of the bid. The bids do have limits, though. The bid by a woman or a minority-owned business can't be more than 5% higher than that of the white man's business. So the state of Virginia may be costing its taxpayers up to 4.99% more for services in order to discriminate against white men. There may be an argument for such policies. Affirmative action initiatives have been around for decades. But that doesn't change the fact that these kinds of policies are racist. And whether we like it or not, the Supreme Court has made it known that these types of programs have lost favor in the courts. What used to be called reverse discrimination is now recognized as simply discrimination. The Virginia governor may sign this redundant and regurgitated reprehensible racist bill of bigotry, but I doubt that it will survive any judicial examination. The real takeaway from a bill like this is the blatant racism it displays by those who not just support such a measure, but how blind they are to their own racism and bigotry. They think they're helping, but they're not. It's racist behavior that is also skirting the laws of capitalism at the expense of the Virginia taxpayers. These affirmative action programs have proven themselves to be ineffective when it comes to conducting business within the government bidding process. Sure, they helped get more minorities and women involved in the first place when it came to education and opportunity, but maybe we're beyond that now. The Supreme Court seems to think so, and the rest of us should believe it. It's only those who rely on keeping these programs alive, such as politicians who use them to influence votes, who keep denying that quotas and limits based on race are a bad idea. When it comes to the sex of a business owner, the Democrats still claim they don't know what a woman is, so maybe they shouldn't use it to further a cause that's bound to fail anyway. The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly, copyright 2026. Shout out to some new places tuning in: Sussex Inlet, New South Wales, Amon Jordan, Suwitley, Pennsylvania, and Medari, Louisiana. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. Follow the listening tube at thelisteningtube.com. I'm your host, Bob Woodley, for Thou at Infinitum.