In the 1920s Trotsky wrote an important work called where is Britain going. In this work he gave a very good piece of advice. He insisted that the British Marxists must study the revolutionary history of Britain. Many people think that Britain doesn't have a revolutionary history but that's false. And he specifically insisted on a careful study of the Chartist movement and above all the English revolution of the 17th century. Now it's a regrettable fact that very few Marxists have really studied this question seriously. It's a great shame because in my opinion the English revolution of the 17th century is every bit as important and every bit as inspiring and fascinating as the French revolution. And in point of fact if you look at it it follows the same patterns. As a matter of fact all great revolutions if you study them carefully including the Russian revolution follow the same patterns. It's an absolutely striking proof of the correctness of historical materialism. The nonsense of the postmodernists will say that you can't draw any lessons from history. It's entirely false. History has clearly defined patterns if you care to look for them. And the patterns of the revolution are always the same. The laws are always the same. Even the personalities involved are the same. If you compare for example the characters of Tsar Nicholas of Russia and his wife, his German wife, you compare them to Louis XVI and his Austrian wife and Charles I of England and his French wife which we deal with. They're strikingly, they're almost the same. And the reason is of course similar circumstances demand similar results, even similar personalities one might say. So I have to reduce my remarks. I've got 46 pages of notes here which is obviously too much for one lecture but I will be doing a book on this. And by the way I must say that in my research on this question I've come to the following conclusion. There's not one single solitary book about the English Revolution from a Marxist point of view that is acceptable. There was of course the writings, the copious writings of Christopher Hill, who was a member of the Communist Party, but his books frankly, there is Dreyer's Dash. It's like chewing sawdust reading those works.  Above all it's completely and absolutely lacking in any revolutionary spirit. You compare that for example, compare these writings to the marvellous works of Trotsky particularly the history of the Russian Revolution which is a scrupulous work of history but at every page it blazes with revolutionary spirit. The French Revolution if you know more people have studied that and there's some more or less decent works about that. Trotsky was very fond of, you know, the book that he recommended on the French Revolution was not the works of Marxist socialists like Jolet and so on. He recommended the work by Kropotkin, the anarchist, called The Great French Revolution. I also recommend that book. Of course it contains, it's written from an anarchist perspective, but Trotsky admired that book for one reason. It revealed clearly the role, the crucial role of the masses, the movement from below which impelled the French Revolution forward in all its stages. But you see in the English Revolution this is lacking, but it's not lacking. A serious study of the English Revolution shows exactly the same thing, it's the role of the masses that's key to any understanding of this revolution. But let's start because you know, I think it's been stated here, all great revolutions tend to start at the top, not at the bottom. The first indication of the development of a revolution is a split at the top, splits in the ruling class, which is unable to rule in the same way as it did in the past. Now what period are we dealing with? I would like to have dealt with the historical background, the rise of English capitalism, I have to say, at this stage. There's no time for that. I therefore regretfully will have to leave the economic and the history of British development of British capitalism to one side. Let's deal here with some of the personalities involved, because by the way Marxism, historical materialism has never denied the role of individuals in history. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Individuals and personalities can play a powerful role in history. Yes, what is not true is that they determine everything. That's false. The individuals and the personalities concerned are conditioned and restricted by the historical context in which they have to operate. Let's deal with some of the dramatic person. I'm starting with Charles I, King of England, the son of James I, who was the founder of the Stuart dynasty. He came from Scotland as a matter of fact. James, of course, I would like to deal with him, that's a separate question, but he was quite a smart character, James I. He was a cunning old fox. He came from Scotland, of course Scotland was very poor, England was very rich. He came with all his mates, his courtiers to London and of course he must have thought he'd landed in paradise. And therefore, of course, he was quite prepared to accept certain things, for example Protestantism and so on and so forth. Because of course there was a lot of money involved, which he could spend as much as he liked on a lavish lifestyle, lavish court, his favourites at court and so on and so forth.  Also the little detail of foreign wars, which tended to be expensive in those days, because armies were mercenary armies. Charles I came to power with a bank of treasury in effect. By the way, there are certain parallels, even today and in the French Revolution, the same thing. The treasury was empty. This is like austerity today, it poses certain problems, it restricts the conduct of the ruling class. What sort of man was Charles I? You know, you can find out very easily. Don't bother to read books. Go to the National Gallery, it's free of charge, just down the road into Falcons Square. And look for the portraits of King Charles I by the great Dutch artist van Dyck, van Dyck, I think is probably the correct pronunciation. You see the character of the man there, the arrogance, the opulence, the idea that I am king and you are my subjects. Oh yes, Charles I was a very arrogant man who firmly believed in the principle of the divine right of kings. That he and he alone had the right to rule without any restriction or control whatsoever. The problem that Charles faced is that it wasn't true. In England he could not do just what he liked because here we come to the historical materialism, the historical aspect. This was the period of the rise of the bourgeoisie. Capitalism had already in effect triumphed in England for a period of maybe a century or two centuries before. And therefore Charles, there was one power if you like, state was divided, put it that way. One power based on the court, the monarchy and the clique around the monarchy. And the other power of course was the parliament. Parliament also was divided into two houses, which is still the case now. That shows by the way the botched nature, the incomplete nature of the English revolution we still have to put up with the consequences today. The House of Commons and the House of Lords. Well I stated the House of Lords was the House of Lords. The aristocrats, the wealthiest layers of society. The House of Commons was dominated mainly by the bourgeoisie, the rich merchants, the bankers, the capitalists, the nascent bourgeoisie. And therefore the two forces came into collision. Charles, to put it bluntly, needed cash. A lot of cash. Partly because like his father he was interested in a lavish lifestyle. You see this in the portrait. Look at his dress, extravagant dress, pearls, jewels, all kinds of things. And also wars with Spain, with France and so on. He didn't have the money. The House of Lords didn't have much money. The aristocracy was in a state of decline. All the money, all the wealth of the kingdom was in the hands of the House of Commons, the parliamentarians. Now another question which you have to understand is the question of religion. Which confuses people when they look at the English revolution. Oh well yes it was the Puritans versus the Presbyterians and so on. It was a religious question. Now that's not wrong. Religion played a huge role in the English revolution because it took place early on. Over a century later in the French revolution the bourgeoisie is more advanced. They are the atheists. They fight for the kingdom of reason. Yes, but this was an early period. It was the period internationally of a Titanic struggle between two forces, two elemental forces. The force represented by the Roman Catholic Church which represented the status quo. That's fundamentally the defence of the feudal system, the privileges of the aristocrats of the monarchy and so on. And Protestantism which erupted on the scene with the defiance of Martin Luther and later Calvin and other people who challenged this church. And it was necessary. There was no question of a fight to change society unless the power of the Catholic Church was destroyed, was overthrown. With all its trappings and extravagance and so on and so forth. And therefore you could say at this time Protestantism represented the rising bourgeoisie. You must understand this. When you look at the English revolution you see a bewildering array of different groups and sects and churches and so on. Yes, what you have to understand in those days, two things. First of all, religion then was not the same as now. Nowadays most people are indifferent to religion. Don't believe in it or at least don't practice it, don't go to church, don't go to the mass and so on. Not the case at this time. You're coming out of the middle ages where the church occupied an absolute spiritual dictatorship. The church dominated every aspect of life. You had to go to church. You couldn't be sitting in an IMT meeting in those days on a Sunday morning. You'd go to jail. You had to attend church. It was the law. And people believed in this. People believed passionately in religion, in God, in the devil, in heaven and hell, in your immortal soul. This was not a secondary matter. It was a fundamental importance. Don't you believe it? And therefore, what you must understand, there were no political parties because there was no political life as you would understand it. No democracy, no genuine elections. Parliament was completely unrepresentative. It represented those layers I've described. The upper house was the aristocracy. The lower house was the bourgeoisie fundamentally. Yes, but you see the different religious trends were political parties. That's what they were. Let's go through them. On the extreme right wing, of course, you have the Catholics who'd been defeated in Britain. The British Reformation took place before this under Henry VIII.  You've probably seen pictures of him. But yes, but the Reformation in England was different to the continent. It wasn't the same as Germany. It wasn't the same as the Netherlands and so on. In England, Henry broke with the church only from a dynastic point of view, as a manoeuvre, because he wanted to divorce his Spanish wife, who was naturally Catholic, fervent Catholic, and Mary Ann Bullen, who, by the way, was a fervent Protestant. And in order to do this, he had to break with Rome. The Pope wouldn't allow it, also for political reasons. Therefore, a struggle took place. But if you think about it, when Henry VIII broke with Rome and set up the Anglican Church, the Protestant Church, if you like, the only real difference, people don't understand this, the only real difference is that instead of the Pope being the head of the church and choosing the bishop, it was Henry, it was the king. As far as the actual ritual of the church was concerned, there was very little change. It wasn't really, it wasn't a thoroughgoing reformation, as took place in Germany and in Geneva with Calvin and so on. Not so. So that the Roman Catholics were there as a tendency, but in Britain they were a minority, they were a persecuted minority for this reason. They were persecuted because the king insisted that he was the head of the church, not the Pope, and therefore the Catholics were, in effect, persecuted. Then you had the Anglican Church, yes, but the Anglican Church also was divided. There was the High Church, Charles I belonged to the High Church, which maintained the same rituals, the same incense, the same priests, the same bishops, the same images as before. They were the right wing, the conservative party if you like. And then of course you had other Protestant movements like the bourgeois, there was the Presbyterians who represented, if you like, the Blairites, the right wing of the revolutionary bourgeois, if you like, the moderate opposition to the king, his Majesty's loyal opposition. Yes, that was in parliament, the Presbyterians were quite dominant in parliament, but there were others, the Calvinists, the Lutherans, and outside parliament there was a bewildering array, a myriad of sets which were based on the poorer layers, on the middle class, the independence, for example. Cromwell was, where is it, his statue was there somewhere, bring your statue over here so you can see. Since I will mention Cromwell more than once, here he is. Cromwell, who was Oliver Cromwell? Oliver Cromwell was not a poor man, he was a member of the middle class, he was a small farmer to the east of London, he was not far from Cambridge in East Anglia, he was a squire, a small landowner, and he was an independent, a Protestant, a more extreme Protestant than the Presbyterians, and then to the left, because we were going from right to left, to the left, there's a myriad of groups like the Anabaptists, the fifth monarchy men, you've never heard of them but they were around, and all kinds of other sects, right? Each one more radical and more Protestant, more anti-Catholic than the rest, okay? Ultimately you get the formation, the crystallisation of in effect political trends who also had a strong religious flavour, don't make any mistake about this, the levelers who were the extreme revolutionary Democrats, and finally the diggers, the true levelers as they call themselves, they're our spiritual ancestors, they're our political ancestors, the first communists in Britain were the diggers, but we'll come to those trends later, let's go back to the main conflict. Charles needed money and there was a permanent tussle, a permanent struggle between the monarch and the bourgeoisie in parliament over the question of money. Of course the bourgeoisie was not against providing subsidies to Charles on condition that he would grant them more power. What we're dealing with is a struggle for the possession of state power between two rival classes, bear that strictly in mind.  There was also of course as always a religious component in this. Charles I think in 1625 he got married, first of all he tried to get married to, he was pushed into a marriage with a Spanish princess, that didn't work, it ended very badly. He got married to a French princess, the daughter of the French king, Henrietta Maria, who of course was a Catholic, not just a Catholic, a devout Catholic. Bear in mind Catholicism in Britain was prohibited but he was allowed by special rules, special dispensation to carry on a religion, Catholic religion in private, in her own chapel by the way, you can see that chapel today, I visited it with Anna a few months back, it was a very, not anymore but it was a very lavish. She turned this into a lavish alternative centre of religious power. She filled this chapel every Sunday, the mass was celebrated, she was constantly accompanied by her father, confessor, and she flaunted her Catholicism, went into the streets and so on and so forth. And of course this provoked, this rankled, this was more than annoying for ordinary people. It's quite a good film actually, not a bad film made years ago called Cromwell with Richard Harris playing Cromwell, it's not a bad film, it's just the typical what you'd expect but it's not bad. It's a scene where Cromwell visits the royal palace, he sees the queen and he sees there's a crucifix on the wall and he really, you can see the fury on his face as he sees this papist abomination, the cross and so on and so forth, all this was an abomination. By the way, incidentally there's a reason for this. Asceticism is present in every revolutionary movement because the poor people have nothing and they're against wealth. The ruling class sow off their wealth and their riches ostentatiously as they do today and it rankles with ordinary people, same with religion. This high church business with stained glass windows and images and statues and so on to a period and this was an abomination. You see, unlike the Catholics who don't read the Bible, the Protestants did read the Bible. Yes, it was a democratic thing. The extreme Protestants were against all priests, bishops, all ostentation in the churches, singing, statues, stained glass windows, whenever they could they smashed it up. Even on the 108th they did that. Iconicalism. That reflects the burning anger. It's not very nice works of art were destroyed. You get these characters, art historians weeping tears over this but you've got to understand the ordinary people. To them this is an abomination. It's in the Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not bake unto thee any graven image. It's in the Ten Commandments. And therefore these images and saints and so on. An absolute abomination. They smashed them up as often as they could. So there was a class. And therefore the conduct of the queen was a permanent source of, to say, irritation is putting it mildly. Charles of course, all these monarchs, there's always a clique in the Russian Tsarist setup. You had Rasputin and the queen who was very close to Rasputin and so forth. Charles had this clique led at that time by the Duke of, the first Duke of Buckingham. Charles Villiers' name was. It's also the favourite of his father. And of course this man was hated. There's a common feature very often with monarchies of this type that you don't attack the monarch, don't attack the king, but you attack his favourites, you attack his ministers. They're responsible. Buckingham was held responsible for unpopular foreign wars. There's one particular incident where in France, by the way you must bear in mind the international context, this is the period of the Thirty Years' War, another subject which is not generally known. Marx and Engels explained that in Germany, the peasant war in Germany could have led to a bourgeois revolution after that time. It failed because of the betrayal of the bourgeois, the conduct of the princes and also the betrayal of Luther himself. That failure was an absolute catastrophe for Germany, which then became the centre of an atrocious, bloody Thirty Years of Massacres, of slaughterers, of wars with foreign interventions of Spanish armies, Swedish armies, all kinds of armies rampaging through the country, destroying everything. Germany was reduced to a wasteland with terrible massacres. The stories of these massacres, where whole cities were wiped out, men, women and children slaughtered by the Catholic armies in particular, did this, they weren't alone in their atrocities, but they played the main role. This was known, this is the period of the printing press. People knew about these things, Pamphleth circulated, or the Saint Bartholomew's massacre in France, where in Paris the whole of the Huguenot Protestant population, men, women and children were slaughtered on the streets. Streets were running with blood, people knew about this, and therefore there was a burning hatred of Roman Catholicism, and an extreme suspicion of anything that smelt of Catholicism, and also, yes, a fear of Catholicism. People were frightened, people were scared. This is going to come here, we're going to be massacred, and therefore we can't have this. The Duke of Buckingham actually tried to pull a stunt, he led a naval expedition, which was supposed to help the French Huguenots, the French Protestants who controlled the city of La Rochelle, in effect he was going to support the French King. This was known to the sailors, the sailors mutinied. The sailors, like most people at this time in Britain, were Puritans of one sort or another, these poor sailors were Puritans, when they discovered that they were going to betray the Protestants of France, they rebelled, and this was known also, it rankled. So they took their revenge. The Duke of Buckingham, this handsome cavalier, went to Portsmouth one day to review his fleet, and he was stabbed to death by a man, I think his name was John Felton.  This deeply upset Charles, as you can imagine, he was shaken by it. Yes, but the people were delighted. John Felton became a national hero, people were singing ballads in his praise all over the country. This is the red light, this is the warning light. If only Charles could have seen it, this is the warning light to the monarchy that things were coming to a head. Now the fall of Buckingham, of course, leads to the formation of another court clique, involving three persons, a trio, the queen naturally who played an important role in this, same as the wife of Nicholas and Mary Antoinette played an important role, the same kind of thing, egging on, pushing their husbands into conflict with Parliament, conflict with other people. What's the matter with you? Are you a man or a mouse? Why didn't you grow a pair of balls, they would tell them in private? Not exactly with those words, but the equivalent. Undoubtedly it played a role. Charles was a weak individual, it played a role. So there was the queen, then there was the new favourite, the Earl of Thomas Wentworth, quite a smart individual who originally had been a left winger, but they bought him over. The Earl of Strafford he subsequently became. He was sent to Ireland then to squeeze the Irish to raise taxation for the monarchy. He was very popular in Ireland, he earned a nickname, Tom Tyrant they called him, he was the king's representative in Ireland. And the third, perhaps the most important representative, Archbishop William Lord, L-A-U-D, Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a man from a humble origin, quite a smart guy. He rose to this high position, he was the second in command in the state in effect and he controlled the Anglican Church with an iron rod. And he, same as the king, controlled the state. By the way, by this time he dissolved parliament yet again. And Charles now was ruling on his own for 11 years. 11 years of tyranny as the people would say. He ruled the state with an iron rod and Archbishop Lord ruled the church with an iron rod. And the two were linked. You must see the connection. Charles understood the connection very clearly. His father James understood this, he told us, and look, the church is the basis of the state. The church is the basis of your power. Without the church, the church falls, the monarchy falls. And that wasn't a bad analysis, he was quite sharp. Charles understood this. And therefore for him, the same way the state should be ruled on hand, complete and absolute control, the same for religion. No descent, no Puritans. He was a bit more lenient with the Catholics. Although they weren't allowed, it had to be the Anglican Church, not the Anglican Church, and the Archbishop Lord. It had to be the High Anglican Church, which in essence was the same as Catholicism. The same rituals as this. If I had the time I could read very interesting, very amusing descriptions of the actions of Lord, who turns up and prostrates himself in front of the images and incense and all kinds of stuff like that. Everyone with priests had to wear these rich garbs and so on and so forth. All this was anathema to the Protestant, but it was imposed. You had to support the state religion, which is the Anglican religion. You don't do that, it's the equivalent of, not just blasphemy, it's the equivalent of betrayal. You're a traitor, and traitor's death was not a very nice, not a very present spectacle. Yes, you rule with an iron hand. Of course, this, as they say in physics, every action is an equal and opposite reaction. People did react violently. There were different elements involved. There was an economic element. Charles again, he still needed to raise castles without parliament, and this was illegal. The king was supposed to get the permission of parliament to pass taxes. But the king introduced, well, he didn't exactly introduce it because it existed before actually. It was an old law called sip money. This meant that all coastal towns and cities had to pay a tax, a special tax, allegedly for the upkeep of the Royal Navy, the fleet for the protection of the ports, shipping, commerce, and so on. He then extended this tax to inland cities who were not on the coast at all. Nothing to do with the naval questions, which provoked a furious reaction. People like Pym and Hamden and so on refused to pay the tax. Many people refused it. Many towns refused to pay the tax, and it was the elements there of revolt. And on the religious question, this really hurt. It hit people where it hurt most. You're talking about my eternal soul. I'll be damned by this business. And people resisted, refused to conform. And they were brutally treated. Any priest that refused to carry out these measures was kicked out of the church. And any ordinary people that resisted were subject to the most savage punishments you could imagine.  This happened to many people. And it became, of course, an absolute scandal, an example of absolute tyranny which it was. There was one person, one young man, probably the same age as most of you, who was, because he was distributing, because this was happening, there was resistance, he was distributing leaflets in the street, same as you would distribute leaflets or sell the paper in the street, he was distributing leaflets and attacking these abuses. He was caught and tried by the Star Chamber. The Star Chamber again was something left over from the past, a bit like the Inquisition, outside of all legal restraints and all laws and all restrictions and so on. This young man, I'm just taking the one, there's a reason I'm picking on this example, was sentenced to be whipped through the streets of London, from the centre of London right to Whitehall for his crime of expressing criticism. He was whipped until he bled, the blood was streaming down his back and he got so bad at one stage, he collapsed as he was sitting in the gutter covered in blood and dust and represented to the Star Chamber, I don't know whether he took pity on him, he came up and said, look, give us your word that you'll stop doing this and this will stop, he refused. He was then put in the pillory, which is a terrible torture of being stuck in wooden stocks and he'll treat it as he still refused. All the time he was going through the streets, being beaten, he still shouted his ideas to the passersby. A huge number of people gathered, this is the point, wasn't just one individual, a huge multitude of people of Londoners gathered to give support to this man, whose name you might have heard of him, was John Lilburn. John Lilburn was subsequently the head of the levelers, which is the extreme left wing of the English Revolution. He refused, point blank, to make any concession, that was typical of him. He was then loaded with chains thrown into a dirty, dark, filthy dungeon. He said subsequently that was far worse than being whipped, this terrible dungeon full of rats, where he was kept for a couple of years, until he was freed by the revolution. You see, now here you have explosive elements taking place and yet, for 11 years Charles, he seemed to have got away with it. He seemed to be, he was in complete control, Lord was in complete control of the church. There was no problem, he was changing money out of people. Anyone that stepped out of the line would be sentenced to this kind of torture, which I would prefer to. And yet, and yet, and yet, it all came unstuck. He made a mistake, he went too far. These absolute monarchs tend to go too far, he went too far. He made one big mistake. Having complete control of the Church of England, he then tried to impose this system on the church in Scotland. Now, Scotland at that time was really part of, it wasn't yet the United Kingdom, it wasn't yet, it was formally an independent country, but under the stewards, the stewards, who don't forget were Scottish in origin, there was, shall we say, there was a close link. And Charles was confident that he would succeed in pushing through this reform of the Church of Scotland. Big mistake. You know the Scottish people? You know anything about the Scottish people? They are very stubborn people indeed. They are a very stiff-necked lot, if you like, and also an interesting point. The reformation in Scotland went far further than England, under people like John Knox. It was a Presbyterian country. It wasn't high Anglican at all. And yet they were forced now to accept this new system. I've forgotten the actual date, my notes are here, but I don't have time to consult them. But this would have been in 1640, I believe, or 1639. Imagine the scene. You're in Edinburgh Cathedral, imposing building. It's packed with people. Men and women, by the way, women played an important role in the English Revolution, not generally understood. And here you see the role of the masses. The Archbishop of Scotland now, in all his finary, mounts the lectern, mounts the... and takes up the new Book of Common Prayer and begins to read whereupon all hell was let out in the cathedral. People stood up, women, starting with the women, starting shouting and screaming. The masses, the masses among us, the Catholic mass, this is the mass. And they started to throw things at the Archbishop. Bibles, the Bibles in those are quite heavy objects, you know. Must have been a painful thing. The women started, this is a little pelted with Bibles. The poor man was dodging this and somebody at the back, I don't know who, threw a stool at him. Fortunately it missed his head or he would have been in hospital. The guards were called to keep order. This is a packed church. The guards struggled with the people. They finally managed to push people out whereupon there was a riot in the streets.  The role of the masses intervened decisively. We're not having this. No bishops here, no bishops, the cry went out. No bishops. The bishops were attacked everywhere all over Scotland. Bishops, the carriages were attacked, they were dragged out, beaten up, some of them were killed. In the end all of the bishops had to flee to England. Now one with a thought, wouldn't one, Scotland by the way was a initiative revolutionary ferment now. Everywhere. The tables were set up, same as we set up a table to sell out there, with what is known as the covenant. The covenant of the Scottish people refusing to accept bishops, refusing to accept any change in religion imposed from London. Thousands and thousands of people queuing up to sign the name to this petition. Scotland was aroused. Now one would have thought that if Charles I hadn't had an atom of sense, his father probably would have seen what the score was, he would have backed off. Okay, well you can argue a religion, leave it on, this is Charles I. Wasn't going to accept this humiliation. And therefore he decided that he would impose his position by military means. 1640, you know what's known as the bishops wars. This is the real beginning of the English Revolution. The bishops wars you've probably never heard of them. The wars over the bishops. He sent an army into Scotland, a mercenary army into Scotland, which was met by the Scottish army led by efficient officers who've been trained in the 30 years war that was composed of dedicated, serious, fervent Protestants. People were fighting for something that they believed in. On the English soldiers ran like rabbits. It was humiliating. Even before they ran like rabbits. They were defeated. Now Charles has got a problem. He still wants to invade Scotland, he hasn't got enough money to pay for an army. He therefore has to reconvene Parliament. In the firm belief, poor man, that the Parliament now would see reason because we're being invaded by a foreign army. That's how he characterised the Scots. And therefore we should all unite for patriotic purposes against the common enemy. Big mistake. Another big mistake. In fact, the Parliament was far more sympathetic to the Scottish Presbyterians than what they were to William Lord and King Charles. Furthermore, they grasped the opportunity. They said, okay, my friend, my fine feather friend, you want money from us? Deliver a list of demands. A list of demands with you. I like the transitional programme if you like. It's like Marlin Brando and the Godfather. You know the famous line? I made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Now they were making him an offer he couldn't accept. He said demands. Including punishment and trial of his most intimate collaborators of this ruling clique. Starting with the Earl of Strafford, he was the head of the army in Scotland, they blamed him. He was a close friend of Charles. Intimate close friend. But Charles, apart from his many other characters of arrogance and so on and so forth, was also a coward and a treacherous man. A weak treacherous man. He was quite prepared to sign the death warrant of his friend, his intimate friends that he signed. And Strafford was duly put on trial by the parlor but then executed as an enemy of the people. This was really the beginning. Now once Charles had time to collect his... By the way, the second army was also defeated. And the Scots advanced on the occupied Newcastle and Durham. You know? And the English were forced to negotiate with them. They were present on English side. They invaded England. Just imagine. And part of the demands, by this time that the Scots you can imagine were euphoric having defeated two English armies and advanced as far as Newcastle, they were quite pleased with themselves. They therefore put a list of demands in order to withdraw including, you must pay the way, the satisfactory settlement. The English parliament must pay all the wages of our soldiers that are occupying Newcastle and Durham. Not a bad deal. It's a bit like in a strike where we demand payment for the time we're on strike from the employers. So Charles was in a pickle. But of course, you realise now that the parliament was really refractory now. They put even more demands. This time demands for the arrest of Archbishop Lord and so on. Which if they'd been met. And above all, a key demand. It tends to get lost. But it's key. Lenin said that in the last analysis, state power, is armed bodies of men in defence of private property. Armed bodies of men. That was the case at that time. Except that there was no real standing army in England. It didn't exist. But there was a militia. There were militias. Parliament demanded control of the militia. That means to say, we want control of the state. Now if Charles had accepted this, he'd already accepted the death of Stratford. If he'd have accepted that, it would have meant in effect the end of his power, the end of the absolute monarchy. He wasn't prepared to accept it. He had two choices. Either accept and lose everything or fight. So he chose. He entered Parliament at the head of a group of soldiers and announced in order to arrest the ringleaders of what he considered a conspiracy. Five members of Parliament due to be arrested. He turned up. He demonstrably sat in the speaker's seat. The speaker is the chairman of Parliament. He sat in the chamber and glared around the room demanding that the five offenders be handed over. Of course they'd gone.  See, such was the... Imagine the tension that exists now in society. It reached even the upper layers. It even must have reached its own circle. And somebody in Charles's circle must have tipped off the Parliament. Hey look, you better get these guys out of here because they'll be arrested. They were tipped off in time. Charles looked around the room and uttered the immortal phrase, I see the birds of flown. Which they had, they had gone. But this is generally known. Every school child has read these statements. What is not known is what happened afterwards. Imagine the tumult in Parliament you could imagine. But even greater than that was tumult on the streets of London. People don't know this. This is the role of the masses. The masses now were up in arms. And the focal point of their resistance to the monarchy was the Parliament, this resistance. Let's be clear how it goes. The Booze was either wealthy merchants, the moderate Presbyterians confronting Charles for their own benefit. Yes, but this split, look at the process. This split in the state, split in the middle, transmitted itself to the masses. It came on the streets. When Charles left Parliament, got into his royal carriage, went through the streets of London, through the city, he was mobbed by a mass of angry people, poor people, banging on the doors of his carriage and shouting, privilege, privilege. Meaning the Parliamentaries must have privilege against the rest. You can't go around arresting our Parliamentaries. That's the way that it will be seen. Charles was so terrified that he decided to leave London there and then. He had a palace in Whitehall he left with his wife. He was particularly concerned that his wife would be put on trial. They got stafford, then they got Lord, who was also executed. He thought that Maria, and yet Maria would be in action, therefore they had to clear out quickly. So he went north, where the monarchy thought had a more solid base. Now, this is all of the masses. It's not seriously dealt with in most history books. But I'm in the process of working through a marvellous book, actually. The best book you can read, but you find it difficult to get hold of. I've got an edition of 1805, which I got from a... I bought from an ex-library thing. Six hefty volumes written by the Earl of Clarendon, Douglas Hyde. It was Charles I's second in command. An aristocrat, a cavalier. I'll deal with the word cavalier at the moment. Yes, but he was also a very, very acute observer. Quite an objective man. I think that's the best, the most thorough work you can read on the English Revolution. The modern books, frankly, they... How shall I say this in scientific terms? Piss and wind, perhaps? Dry as dust, just like chewing sod. Reading this academic nonsense. And no understanding in the process. The Earl of Clarendon understood the process very well. Of course, he refers to the masses in terms like the mob, the rabble, and, above all, the persons of meaner sort, the poor people, in other words. But he mentions them, and he gives them the due weight. He explains what no other book explains. Parliament in those days was surrounded, every day, surrounded by a mass and angry crowd of people. As the parliamentarians would go in, they'd shout and curse them. They demand action against the king, demand the king be put on trial, and so on. This is fundamental, also women. This is a fundamental element in the equation. Of course, at this time, war was inevitable. You could say there was no question of resolving any of these questions by negotiation. And yet, now here you see another contradiction opening up. The booers of the parliament wanted to get concessions from the king, they didn't want to put the king on trial. They didn't want to fight, they didn't want to abolish the monarchy. They wanted a reasonable, nice, constitutional monarchy where they would have real control, but the king could keep his palaces and his wealth and his land and so on. They didn't want to break from the king. The king actually broke with them. He left. He went to York. He turned up outside the gates of Hull, which was a walled city at that time, because there was arms in Hull. He knew the arms deposit in Hull, left over from the bishops' war. He demanded entry. I am the king. Let me in. Whereupon the parliamentary governor of Hull said, well, I'm very sorry, Sire, but no deal. We are not letting you in. The king was shut out of Hull. This is another step in the direction of war. And the parliament immediately passed, again this is the most important step, it passed the Ordinance Act, the Militia Act, which gave them control effectively of all the armed forces in the country, and the right to raise an army without the permission of the king. This is war, and the war began. Now, I have no intention here, I haven't got the time or the inclination. I'll need a bit more time than that. To go into the details of the actual civil war. My answer to the question, frankly, is not the most important thing, except to say this is important. In the early stages of the conflict, it was, how shall I say, like a phony war. Northside struck a decisive blow. There was the Battle of Edgshire on my birthday, by the way. 23rd of October, bear it in mind. King had good cavalry under the charge of his nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who was a German, the nephew of Charles, that the royalist cavalry smashed through the parliamentary forces, led by the Earl of Essex, I'll say something about him in a moment. And the situation was only saved, because they would have lost, by the parliamentary infantry, which again was the poorer people. The cavalry were aristocrats, if you like. And therefore it ended, Edgshill ended as a kind of draw game. It wasn't a success. Then there comes an important point. Charles, after Edgshill, decided to march on London. They all thought, both the parliamentary, this is going to be over by Christmas, it will be over quickly. We'll strike a decisive battle that will be the end of the story. They marched on London, these puffed up cavaliers. By the way, the word cavalier, it means precisely a horseman, actually. Trotsky explains that the cavalry also is always based on the aristocracy. People who are going to afford to buy a horse, aristocrats, farmers, rich farmers and so on and so forth. Cavalier in Spanish, chevalier in French, horseman. Roundheads was the term of abuse directed at the parliamentary crowd, because they were like skinheads, if you like, in more ways than one. They were like skinheads and therefore the cavaliers had long curly locks, which they apparently found quite attractive. And the parliamentaries tend to shave their heads closely, the roundheads they were called, term of abuse. These cavaliers, these cavaliers, puffed up. Many of them, by the way, were professional soldiers, mercenaries, from the Thirty Years' War and so on. They were going to take London easily. They advanced. They captured Brentford. There must have been a panic in London at the time, the people must have been terrified. And then there was the first decisive battle of the Civil War. It's not generally known, it's the battle of Turnham Green. You go on the Piccadilly line, you pass through Turnham Green, it's to the west of London.   They weren't professional soldiers, they had no experience of fighting, but they were prepared to fight and die in the course. They gave the cavaliers such a pasting, they ran like rabbits. They fled, the king furious of course, and he had to retire to Oxford, which then became his capital for the rest of the war. So here you've got two centres. The first expression of dual power, as Trotsky used that expression. London and the south was the basis of parliament. Oxford became the centre and the south west, and Wales unfortunately, became the basis of the royalists. But this meant a kind of stalemate existed. Now, really speaking, parliament should have had the advantage and should have easily defeated. The parliament should have won, they could not win. It's not that they could not, when they did not win, because of the officers of the Parliamentary forces, the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Manchester and others, were moderate booswa who had no interest in fighting. They had no interest in striking a decisive victory of the king, and they were probably more afraid of the masses behind them than they were of King Charles. And therefore there was one setback, one military setback after another, until eventually a new force appeared on the scene, which is decisive, formed particularly by Oliver Cromwell, this gentleman, and others, Fairfax and so on, the new model army. Now this is important from a political point of view. I think you all know Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution, which in a way it implies that in the past, the bourgeoisie played a revolutionary role, but that's relatively true, only relatively true, because if you look at the French Revolution, but the English Revolution also, the revolution only succeeded to the degree that control of the war was taken out of the hands of the bourgeoisie and taken over by the radical petty bourgeoisie in religious terms, you're talking about the independence. Small farmers like Oliver Cromwell, who actually said, look, this is no good, we'll never win a war like this. We must pace ourselves, if you like, on the men of no property, on the poorest layers. I don't care who joins my army as long as they're good religious people and they're prepared to fight. And he built a powerful, disciplined force called the new model army. Incidentally, he understood very well the importance of cavalry and they had very good cavalry from that time onwards. Now, this new model army, I think a few words needs to be said, the new model army, in my opinion, was like a combination of the Bolshevik Party, the Russian Red Army and the Soviets, all rolled into one. It was a democratic institution, people debated, you had the famous Putney army debate which took place, in which the ordinary soldiers could debate questions of religion, questions of politics, questions of military strategy in front of the officers. The levelers, by the way, with the left wing controlled, had support of the majority of the new model army. And it was this army, this marvellous army of class fighters, by the way, they even had commissars. Oh yes, they were known as agitators, who was job it was to inspire the troops by quoting from the Bible, singing psalms and so on, before the battle. They also played a political role. This was an extraordinary instrument at a very early period. And that made all the difference. The decisive battle was the battle of Nesby, where the king's forces were shattered. They were shattered by this new, completely new thing. I mean, before that, the armies were mercenary soldiers. Here for the first time, he had a volunteer revolutionary army, and they sliced through the king's forces like a hot knife through. But the king had to flee. He voluntarily handed himself over to the Scots, hoping that he would intrigue among them. They nevertheless politely handed him over to parliament in exchange for a rather large sum of money. It has to be said. They sold him like a sack of potatoes to the other side. This marks the end of the first civil war, because there were two civil wars. Now at that time, incidentally, here you have a new dual power. A new dual power opens up now. The whole pendulum swings to the left, and now there's a struggle between the moderate bourgeois presbyterians in parliament and this therosis force, the new model army. In these pertinent debates which took place at that time, by the way, the question for the first time was of private property. The levelers were demanding something that nobody else was demanding. Political equality, that not everybody, but most people should have the vote. At least property owners should have the vote. Cromwell was horrified. People ask, what's the role of Oliver Cromwell? Was he a revolutionary? Cromwell was a great revolutionary, yes. But he was a bourgeois revolutionary. There was never any question of thought. He was a property owner. He believed in private property. What he thought, he was quite right. If we accept, for example, universal suffrage, it means anarchy. That was Cromwell's position. Furthermore, by questioning political inequality, you eventually will question private property and we can't have that. Therefore, Cromwell decided even at this stage that he had to crush the left wing. The very people that he'd based his self on, the very people the most courageous fighters, they had to be crushed because he was not in favour of proceeding any further than the strict limits of bourgeois world. As a matter of fact, at this stage, I think he honestly wanted to do a deal with the king himself. The king was playing Parliament against the army, he was trying to... Typical devious menul ring. Cromwell, to some extent, went along with this. And then you had this debate. A polarisation now within the army itself, between the left and the right wing. And therefore, Cromwell decided there was a meeting of the army council, apparently, where he pounded the table and he said, you must understand the only way we can deal with these men is to crush them mercilessly. Which he did. I won't go into all the details, but there was a minor war broke out between Cromwell and the Leblers who eventually crushed mercilessly. The last remnant was defeated in a place called Berford, just outside of Oxford. Nice place you can visit it. In the church, by the way, in Berford, if you go up to the place, the front, where people are baptized, you will see carved a name. One of the Leblers, they were held there, 300 of them, were held in the church overnight as prisoners, and in the morning, I think six of the ringleaders were taken out in shot. And one of these guys actually carved his name on the front, you can still see that. It's an interesting bit of history. With this, of course, the English Revolution, from the standpoint of the poor people, was virtually at an end. It was finished. But the revolution itself was not finished. You still had this conflict between the Parliament, the moderate bourgeois and the army. Parliament was desperately trying to get the king back. They were negotiating a sellout. They were desperately trying to get Charles back on the throne. Of course, if only he would agree to conditions which he wasn't prepared to do. And in the middle of all this, Charles typically escapes. And you have a second civil war. It didn't take long to eliminate.   It wasn't a few little skirmishes. Thousands and thousands of people lost their lives. Soldiers and civilians, which is not generally realised. However, Cromwell and the radicals in the army were determined that the king this time was not going to get away with it. Cromwell now stood for the trial and punishment of the king. This man of blood, he called it, this man of blood, which he was. And of course, eventually he took action against the Parliament. There was a struggle, dual power between the new model army and the bourgeoisie in Parliament, which again had to be settled by force. It was settled by force. What was known as Pride's Purge. The name of a Colonel in the new model army. Colonel Pride turned up with a group of troops and dispersed, but no, I tell a lie. They didn't disperse Parliament, but all those MPs that did not support the new model army, all those trying to do a deal with the king would be expelled. They would be kicked out.  That's why it's known as the Rump Parliament. And of course, that in effect almost was the end of the Civil War. Cromwell had defeated the right wing, he defeated the left wing. Only the army was left, armed, and therefore a question of bonapartism is raised. Bonapartism in essence is rule of the sword. And of course Cromwell had the power, he had the army in his hand. He therefore declared himself the Lord Protector. And in effect he was king in all but name. And with that, if you like, the revolution was defeated. He remained in power until he died. After which the Buiswar in Parliament got what they wanted. Incidentally, in the meantime he also dissolved the Rump Parliament. He turned up with his hat on his head and said, well look, you guys are wasting my time. Finish.  He did, with so many words, you know. And of course they did. And as Marx once commented, as these guys sheepishly went through the door. Oh, there was an incident. The speaker stood up and he held up the mace. The mace is an instrument which if you hold it up everyone is supposed to be silent and sit down, this is parliamentary rules. He held up the mace, Cromwell looked around and said to yourselves, take away that bobble, that toy, take away that bobble. That was his idea of so-called parliamentary authority. And as they sheepishly crept through the door, he cursed every single one of them by name. There goes an adulterer. There goes a thief. Which of course must have aroused considerable tears from the assembled soldiery. That was the end of the the run parliament, the end of the English Civil War. Yes, not quite, I must say a PS to this. You see the English Civil War ended from the standpoint of the masses. It ended in defeat, but it had to end in defeat. It was too early to pose the question of socialism and communism at the time, but it was posed. It was posed implicitly by the levelers in the army and people like John Lilbur, a very courageous man. But also by another tendency where I mentioned earlier. A small tendency, a bit like ourselves if you like, who called themselves the true levelers. The true levelers known historically as the diggers, because they turn up in history in an area of the south of England. They went to an area and they began to dig the land, private land. They began to dig it as collective property, plant their crops. They stood for communism, they stood for the abolition of private property. The leader was Gerald Winston, a great man, a marvellous writer who wrote a whole series of very interesting books and pamphlets. The title of one of which sticks in my mind is a marvellous title. The world turned upside down and that's what they wanted. You know these heroic people, they were heroic people. The soldiers in the new moral army, the poor artist, the apprentices in London, the women and so on. What were they fighting for? I'll tell you what they were fighting for. They were fighting for the establishment on earth. Not in heaven, God's kingdom right here on earth. They were Democrats, no priests, no bishops, democratic churches. These are, if you like, the essence of a struggle of the masses for a fundamental change of society and the most advanced of them were the diggers who are our spiritual and political ancestors. We stand on their shoulders of these heroic people who as a minority were prepared to suffer persecution, imprisonment, whipping, death, anything in the great cause of the struggle for the emancipation of the human race. That's a source of eternal inspiration for ourselves and I'll end on that note. We are fighting today to finish what the levelers and the diggers began so many years ago. A struggle for a better world purged of priests, bishops, kings, capitalists, generals. A world fit for men and women to live in. A world of true leveler principles. A world of international communism.


I've seen Vlad and the academics sit down together. News you can use, Boss Talk 101, News You Can Use segment. This is something that we do have started. Make sure you guys get a comment. Tell us what you think about the things that we're sharing over here. Make sure you like, subscribe to our channel. Make sure you share the information that we are providing. First thing I want to talk about, Country Wayne. Country Wayne was on the breakfast club recently a couple of days ago. He said that nobody ever broke up with him and ended up being just hilarious as one of their frequenters. She does a lot of times. Now she's been co-hosting somewhat. So he should have seen this coming a mile away. They called him after he left. I'm pretty sure they staged it. I'm pretty sure they called him and let him know they was going to call him. They're all friends. So I'm pretty sure DJ Envy and all those guys, they rocked together. I'm a big Country Wayne supporter as well. Seemed like they was having fun with it, doing it. So I get some stuff, the controversy. He's cool with it and some is not. He's just the way he's holding me now. You said you broke up with Jess Wayne. I did love. Oh. But no, no, no, no. But I can promise you they called him and they was just hilarious. Say she did break up with him. I don't know. That's pretty personal. But at the end of the day, you know, he's, he tackled the subject with them and they had a good time.  And that's big purchase. I don't know how true that is, but that's what that's what that's how they're riding over there. So shout out to them, man. That's the next level. I guess, you know, these guys are doing what they can to make sure they keep keeping saucy on these platforms, as usual, man. So, hey, man, love Mike Bless, love his whole team around him, row all those people, man, and, hey, wish him the best, man. We'll be linking up with them for sure when I'm in ATL, man. God bless y'all hustle. Next, I want to talk about the Boosie, man. Boosie was Boosie did a thing with Vlad, Vlad and Boosie. They back on the back on the scene. They give us an interview, probably every three, maybe three weeks, maybe a month. These boys get into it, you know, crazy thing about it. They bring up the fact of, as soon as it starts, they bring up T.I. And Boosie's fallout behind the snitching thing. And Boosie said he apologized to T.I. Me and I failed him, and, you know, I gave him an apology, an apology. I don't know what the apology was about. I don't know if he felt like he should have came to him in private. Something happened to where he felt like he had to apologize. He didn't go into great detail about apologizing, but he did say he did apologize. What do you guys think? You think Boosie should apologize to T.I. for saying what he said, or the way that he said it?  They kids rock with each other. These guys, you know, again, some more of the spicy stuff we find on these platforms, man, where it just, it seems to be so seamlessly done, but then it seems to cure itself. I'm just saying, boss talk 101, we watching, we seeing, we giving you a point, the points that we see. So that's crazy, but it's good to see that they apologized and they back cool. They back, I don't want to see no black men that can't look at each other and get along with each other in a way to where their families can grow together if they got a real relationship. So, man, shout out to Vlad. They doing that thing over there, him and Boosie, man, connecting the dots. Hey, man, also, man, I want to talk about Jerry Spring. Jerry Spring died, man. And he wasn't, I mean, I don't know how I think he was 80 something or 79. And I don't know. It's a trip. I really don't research him much, but he was, I mean, look, man, I don't know how old he was, but I'm gonna find out for y'all because y'all need to y'all need to hear this, y'all need to know that, man, he was 79, that's a trip. 79 is a good, that's a, hey, man, three score and 10. He did, he did. He lived a great life. Y'all, whether y'all want to believe it or not. But before that, I couldn't say he died without saying Harry Belafonte. Harry Belafonte died as well. He was 96. These are some long years. If I can get these years, boy, I'd be happy. So these guys, they lived great lives, long lives, rich, prosperous lives. So we're celebrating, we're celebrating both of their lives, man. Not their death, but their lives. So, hey, they live great, great, you know, long lives, man. So, man, shout out to their family, man. My condolences to their family.  So here we go, man. And I want to talk about, say, also. I seen Vlad and academic sit down together. Crazy. Academics and sit down, man. Academics is blowing up right about now. He's doing his thing. Every time I see him, I'd be tripping off the fact of how he's growing and excelling so fast. This guy right here, man, is killing the game. He's, he hear, he there, he everywhere. You attack him subjects every time. You can't beat that, man. How he's, how he's tackling everything that comes his way. So this guy, academic sits down with Vlad. Vlad and him address a couple of different subjects. But the one thing that I've seen that, that stroke me was like, dang, man, they talked about Charleston white. They said Charleston white, he was black ball from Vlad. You don't rock with Charleston white anymore. No war. No, you don't see him covered on the site. You won't see interviews with us anymore. And pretty much they not go have it back on their show.  And we hadn't had him in almost a couple of years now ourselves. Everybody go down to Charleston, right?  If you don't, you don't, you know, at the end of the day. We, we fed kids together, as I always say, we rock out. And so not that we were procrastinating, but we just now being able to connect. You connect with him. OK, so Traylor, what's going on, man?    Man, I've been working. All right, that's what I want to hear, y'all. That's a proud statement, man. So how old are you? I'm 17. And how long was you locked up? Like 10 months this time. 10 months this time, man. He said this time.  Last time, like six months. We did some things. I don't think none of those other guys except maybe, say, Cheeshaun Cotton has, it really was a thing where we dealt with the juveniles together. You can go online and check it out. You'll see him with me. And I'm giving clothes away out of Boss Talk 101 stores. And I'm putting up money. Me and me and the team going to the juvenile centers. We actually did some work, you know, with Charleston for helping the community.  It's not my thing, man. Being a family man, and I just felt like it was time for us to go another way. And basically, you know, he grew. He's growing. We growing. We, you know, he dealing with different things. The academics of the world. We dealing with the phase arms and all of the different things in the world. The Mike Blaster, the ice tea. So everybody's moving on, man. It's a part of growth.  People don't stay together forever. This is a revolving door.  They move on. And at the end of the day, we definitely moved on a long time ago. Me and my team decided we were going to rock out with the world. So you might see us in Europe. You might see us in Brazil. You might see us anywhere, covering the news you can use, man. So don't be surprised at anything you might see. So definitely, man, shout out to Vlad and shout out to academics, man, for that great interview. You guys are killing it. Maybe one day I'll get to sit down with you. Or maybe one day you get to sit down with E, CEO. And if not, hey, watch the move because the news you can use, all these different things going to be happening. Full speed ahead. The South is in the house. Listen, man, check it, man. News you can use, man. Make sure you guys like, subscribe, I'll tell them, man. Thank you so much. Share. It's your boy, E, CEO. Yeah, I think I got it all.


Welcome to rational alchemy today. I am joined by two wonderful people from exotic elephant Now I can almost hear your brains ticking over there going exotic elephant. What an earth is he waffling on about well? I'm gonna let them explain Joining me at the table today is Elle and Megan Elle, why don't you just give us a brief introduction of yourself and where you fit in? I'm Elle. I am An esthetician co-founder of exotic elephant and Megan's daughter And Megan I Co-founder of exotic elephant and I do a lot of the marketing sales website all of that stuff and Keeping her in line That must be an uphill struggle. It is And now You're basically the wizard. Oh, yeah kind of when it comes to the formulation It's the product formulation understood excellent that makes you a wizard doesn't it or an alchemist It's called rational alchemy, of course Now what we haven't done is explained exactly what exotic elephant sells now I know you spent a year in the development and you've been selling for a year, but why don't you explain? Exactly what it is. We're talking about sure so we create CBD products on we grow hemp here in Longmont and we Take the oils from that the hemp flower and we make topicals and tinctures Okay, so Let's just go back a little bit Who came up with the name exotic elephant? Yep, that was me. I came up with the name and the reasoning behind that is because Cannabis and hemp has been around for so long, but in our how we see it in our society It's such a new thing. It's such an exotic plant and so I thought Exotic had to be in there and I needed it to be catchy So elephant and elephants are such strong animals, but they're gentle Now CBD a lot of people have heard the expression a lot of people seem to think they know what it is Okay Why don't you talk a little bit first? How is it actually extracted? CBD is primarily in hemp plants and hemp also has trace amounts of THC But not enough to get you high it could increase but the regular limits is point three percent you grow Hemp you can grow it indoor you can grow it outdoor we grow outdoor only and we harvest we hand harvest and We shuck the plant and then we take the flower We use co2 processing and we get an oil and we use full-spectrum crude oil Some distillate, but primarily crude oil and we like the co2 because it's cleaner. There's no solvents and Provides a better product. Okay, so it really is helping to keep it as a natural product exactly crude oil now Everyone's gonna think Fractured right and I'm sure that's not what you mean No When you say crude oil, what are we talking about? So that is the first step in processing the hemp plant you get crude oil and We what is it? It's an oil. It really looks like oil. Oh really? Yeah. Okay, and if you use different types of methods to get it it looks like Tar tar almost we use co2 because it's golden looks like honey. Oh So Yeah, so that's and then you can go on to do You could take out THC and then you have broad spectrum Then you have isolate But the reason why we like full-spectrum because you get an entrainage perfect And your body recognizes the hundred and plus cannabinoid oils in the the product So you will You will get the benefit that you need We'll talk about benefits a little bit later because I know Different products have different benefits and how even how they're applied have different benefits But you mentioned the farm Do you own the farm? Yes, we have a farm here in Longmont, okay as real close to here actually by union reservoir And so we grew 13 acres there in 2019 And I was really lucky Didn't have any impact with the typical hailstorms or wind that we had. That was lucky. Yeah, and we had great great plants It means you control the whole cycle right from the planting of the original seed to the development Of the product. Yeah, exactly. And it must be nice having that total control over everything Oh, yeah, and it also allows us to create a really quality product and Provide affordable prices on it. That's good. Yes, I'm going to assume I know the answer. I'm sure all GMO free. Yes, not no genetically modified anything In this product, right and we did um, we we picked the genetics the seeds We hand seeded them grew them in hoop houses Then we transplanted them in the ground. We tested the soil the water Um, and then along the way to make sure that there was no, um, toxins or heavy metals If any of The farmers next to us if we have rain if anything washes we made sure that um, it wasn't coming cross contaminating with our crops Excellent excellent. Yeah, so you really do keep an incredibly tight control Over the whole process. Oh, yeah. Yeah, excellent. That's good to hear I think it's worth mentioning you you're growing hemp not marijuana. Yes. So if anyone's thinking of trying to find the farm They may as well give up now. Oh, yeah, unless they're into paper making as you mentioned cbd is it's just one of a hundred cannabinoids associated to a marijuana hemp, but the benefits of cbd sort of a little unproven at the moment though Millions of people swear by it Can you give a brief Example of some of the benefits that really help people the most When it comes to cbd. Sure. I think the first thing that people Will recognize and use cbd is for anxiety um depression inflammation um, and so you have, um Edibles or things that you digest you put in your mouth to eat. You also have topicals for an isolated Pain relief So those are the main ones. There's so many others that that are coming out that are being, you know, small studies But those are the the main reasons why people use cbd. Okay, so so basically, um Should we say meant not mentally honest? I don't want to use that term really, but how how would you describe it? Um, well, you know, I would say managing. Oh managing. Yeah more of managing your mood managing Your body so if you are having immense pains that can affect your mood and that affects how your your thought processes and all of that so it's more of a pain management Okay substance and then yeah mood management and now they're finding even with Acne it's really helping acne and the skin so oh, okay. Okay I notice that that you know that there are Hundreds of different types of products and I know you brought along some of ours and we'll talk about these in in just a few minutes But there's oils. There's lotions. There's edibles Um, I think that's covered the three main food groups Um, can you think of anything else? Um, our newest product and a product that's Becoming very new on the market is the bath bombs A lot of products don't have enough cbd. So it becomes diluted. They're not formulated for dilutions So ours that was one of our big focus is if we're going to launch a new product with cbd would be Formulating a bath bomb that's going to concentrate. Oh, okay. You're really going to feel the benefit. I suppose at the moment I know trade has been hard when we first met we were doing the the fourth avenue thing here in town That's how we all came together on this How successful was that for you because you'd only been in business then probably what three or four months? Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was actually Very successful and we found that in local events that longmont has produced and Has really helped us get our name out there and create a following We Do a lot of events and then online now would be a good time to do this Why don't you take us a little bit through the different products that you brought along today? I know this is not everything Our best sellers will put it that way a good way of putting it Why don't you just briefly go through there and explain, you know, what its use is and what it's trying to help sure so We have the tinctures, which is tinnocon innovations our sister company that we cultivate with And the tinctures we have a citrus tincture an elderberry tincture and a sleep tincture The fan favorite is the citrus and it's 1000 milligrams of cbd organic mct oil, which is coconut oil and An an organic extract. So this is citrus the elderberry is organic elderberry extract and then Our sleep has lavender and mint and it has an additional cbn in it the cbn is what makes you sleep Um, a lot of people use a melatonin, but that can mess with your natural sleep cycles when you become immune to it So we added cbn and the cbn to the cbd helps promote restful sleep and That also helps with anxiety All cbd helps with inflammation But it's kind of like a vitamin if you Take it regularly every day. You'll feel the benefits better um, so it helps with relaxation anxiety inflammation Many other things, but those are the the main ones See one of the things that surprised me a little bit I know you want to talk about a couple of things, but I just want to backtrace Because I I found this article, which I found absolutely fascinating and i'm probably going to pronounce this horribly wrong Okay. Well, what I didn't know was the human body has this thing called endocannabinoids Which is for sleep.  Yeah It's sort of like meshes together with the body's own Yeah, uh-huh and the receptors. Yes in our body One thing we do As well as we add it with magnesium because magnesium has a smaller mackerel than the cannabis Our body will recognize it absorb it and utilize it quicker Amazing. Yeah, amazing. Yeah, and I think that's why so many people feel the benefits of cbd Marijuana is because your body recognizes it because it's in our body. It's in our bodies, which is why it's of course natural Which means that all these laws that have been governing us for centuries are just well a century Absolute nonsense. Yeah Because you're keeping away from the body something the body does on its own Oh, yeah, exactly Duh Anyway, let's go back to these products. I think there's a couple more you wanted to talk about Yeah, so we could talk about the bath bombs. Okay They are we have a variety of different milligrams But our strongest is 3000 milligrams and it has zero thc in it And the topical products, especially the bath bombs are a great way for people who want to experience cbd But can't digest it because they might get drug tests They can utilize the bath bombs and the cream. Oh, okay They are we try to really Minimize the essential oil use and up the absolutes because it's softer on the skin And we don't use any harsh fillers with like cornstarch Um Or I don't know on the other scary things people are putting in their bath products. Yeah. Yes, and then the creams It's all in-house. So we start with a shea butter coconut base And then we melt down the magnesium the coconut and the jojoba and we combine it all together and whip it And you get amazing results. There it is. Yes. Yeah And one thing that um all of our products are vegan gluten-free No animal testing and even our packaging is biodegradable. You can test it on me anytime you wish And um the film that we use is also um ocean friendly. So everything that we have We try to minimize any plastic or anything that's going to harm the environment or anyone else. So And we do have I think the only real plastic In our packaging is the The caps is the caps to the top. Yes, right now you have to have them child proof. Yes, so But that's sort of that kind of makes sense Yeah, oh, yeah, I mean you could obviously go for something like aluminum. Yeah, but but now the cost is starting to go up And obviously, you know when it comes to retail Yeah, every penny counts and I there really isn't anybody producing Biodegradable child safe caps for the products. That doesn't surprise me. Yeah So once we find somebody Where we'll make the switch you'll make the switch. That's good Now I also know because a little birdie told me this that you're also developing new product So here you you're covering sort of like, you know creams and bath, etc How about something shall we say That can be ingested Sure, so we um what we're going to come out with first is capsules So it'd be the tinctures in a capsule, which is uh vegan free or vegan. Um And that is very simple. It's clean. You can take it with you. Um, and then we'll move into gummies Or candies because people do like that. That's very popular But we want to make sure that it's um sugar free Gluten-free and vegan and that recipe is really hard to master with oil.  We do it online Selling online is a little bit more challenging when it comes to marketing and sales because even though it's federally legal There are companies the biggest ones facebook google don't allow any To to promote cdd. Um, it's still lumped in with marijuana So that's been challenging, but we have um, you know pretty decent online following and we have a website we do free shipping and that's helped And those sales have increased. Um, it does help having things in person. Um, but that's why we do the events that are Following all the regulations with covet and what's happening here, but um Online is our our biggest Yeah, biggest maker. Well, I mean what's happening with covet is probably one of the only safest ways Of being able to sell product Um, I mean I hate spending money with amazon to be honest with you. However, I spent one hell of a lot over the last two years I can't believe it. I mean there's something I ordered In the morning. It was on my doorstep in the afternoon. Oh, yeah, you're not crazy Yeah, I mean just just amazing. You'd never realize it. Oh, yeah. No and before it's like you're waiting Three weeks to get your package and now it's the couple of hours later. That's right It's um, it really is unbelievable. Let's talk a little bit here about The different ways cbd affects a person Because obviously it can be a little bit confusing. We've got the bath balls We've got the gels. We've got the tinctures. We've got all of this soon to have gummies and You know capsules, but obviously each one is aimed at a particular Thing, right, right. Why don't you quickly talk about where these products fit in? Sure. So I have always been very active But I'm also accident prone. So I have a lot of injuries and So that's why I wanted a cream for sore muscles joints things like that So the creams are really good for anything that is isolated whether you have arthritis or You just exercise a lot or you're like me and your accident prone you fall So the creams are really good for that the tinctures last longer And that would be the same thing with a gummy or an edible So you would take those to have a longer lasting effect And the bath bombs I'll let you explain a little bit more about the benefits you get from the bath bombs Oh, yeah, I think you get an all Overbody effect with the bath bombs and again going back if you can't Have thc you can definitely get the benefits of the cbd with the bath bombs And we have a lot of people that will just like if you don't iron into baths They'll fill up a little foot bath and soak their feet if they're on their feet a lot. Oh, okay. Yeah If you have carpal tunnels just a little dish with warm water soak your wrists It's a good way to get the benefits of cbd if you can't have thc, right and we've had some of our Clients actually have been A little older in age and we had one particular who fell and broke his ribs And he was on oxy cotton and his nurse Tell him to try cbd for the healing and the anti Anti-inflammatory effect and he was able to quickly get off the Pain medicines used strictly the the cbd inhaled a lot quicker So it does help with Injuries to interesting when I was going through this one thing they mentioned that a lot of athletes actually take it After they have run a marathon Because it helps the body recover That much quicker. Yeah, something that I'd never ever considered before right with point three THC in there. I doubt whether that you'd fail a drug test It's hard because again, if you're doing it over time it kind of you could have a small build up but um With the topicals some people Even if it does there's a little bit of thc. They won't use it, but I don't necessarily know how The THC would penetrate through the skin into the bloodstream where you would fail a drug test interesting I've had a good idea You're gonna like this. Why don't you open a spa? That is actually what we are looking into We already had your idea There's been actually a lot of movement in the beauty industry For cbd because how it has been proven to help skin And blemishes. Yeah skin blemishes and again relaxation. So a lot of people are going to the spas to Get centered relax and giving people a little bit of cbd before their treatment Brilliant helps achieve that effect And massage therapy too a lot of massage therapists are Implementing and incorporating cbd in their oils. Oh, okay. Yeah, I did not know that So because you are definitely getting into the spa business That means you must be going bricks and mortar in the near future. Yes. Yes As soon as we find the right location, um in the right building, then that's where we will open up I like bricks and mortar shops. I really do. Yes. Yeah, you know, I like to wander around and just look at stuff Me too. You know, it must be my female side. I don't know We'll have to go wander and look at stuff. Absolutely. Um I think we have covered everything that we wanted to talk about today But do you have any closing words? Um that you'd like to say now to to the audience About cbd your company yourself, etc Sure. Um, so one thing I'd like to say is one thanks for everybody in longmont and our online followers to support us because you're supporting small businesses and We also like to, um Say that, you know, we have very lovely clean Organic natural products. So, um Yes, and I'd like to say if anybody has any questions about cbd or how They should incorporate it into their lifestyle. Definitely. Sure doesn't email or call because we can answer those questions. Excellent. Excellent Thank you so much for coming into the studio today It's been an absolute pleasure sitting down and talking to you rather than standing up with thousands of people around us Um all elbowing their way to give you your product Um, obviously, I hope your business is highly highly successful. You deserve to be highly successful Just for the effort that you put into it. You're you're not buying product. You're creating Yes from start to finish and that sums up what small business is all about or should be all about I wish there was more money being spent on research to find out the actual benefits But as we talked about cannabinoids are actually part of us We're born with them. Yeah So there's obviously a lot of stuff to be looked at Investigated and all the rest of it. But once again, thank you so much For coming into the studio Thank you. Thank you This was rational alchemy. I'm Nigel Aves your host signing off The only thing I'd like to end with I wish I had been sitting between these two wonderful people Purely because I could then say I was a thorn between two roses over and out Rational alchemy. Thank you


All right guys, I am actually on my way to the shop to the print shop to work and I just got an alert on my phone for a roadie order That's like three minutes away from me at the home depot in Obson Hill right off the St. Barnard's Road It's paying 13 bucks To go five miles. So I Don't see why I wouldn't do it You know, it's what nine o'clock in the morning All my way to work really don't have much to do, but I can jump on excuse me jump off of the Beltway right here at St. Barnard's Road and Pick up a package that's going five miles away for it's like 1380 or it's almost 14 bucks to go five minutes So five miles away. So I am getting off the Beltway right now and I'll jump on when we hit the parking lot All right, so I'm here home depot. It says it's just one package going five miles So we're gonna walk inside and see what um What mysterious package we have today yesterday it was a flower pot and uh some potting mix. So we'll see I'll catch you guys inside All right, so we're inside Home depot she's going to pick up It appears to be two packages, but we're gonna see in a minute But I'm here making extra 14 bucks So you guys I'm I've been standing Eight or nine minutes and apparently the owner's not ready Uh, this is one of the challenges that The last couple pickups the last few days has been like really really good, but I've been here for about eight minutes and I don't have anything yet. So hopefully we'll get started soon All right, so we're back outside picking up Home Depot.   See you guys in a minute All right guys, uh, it's been about six minutes six minutes since when I left the Home Depot parking lot And we are actually now pulling into the neighborhood I'm looking for 9033 We're gonna pull up We're gonna get out place the package on their front door Take a photo of it upload it back to the app And I make 14 bucks for about I don't know what 10 12 minutes worth of work Call me crazy, but I was on my way to the shop anyways. So You know make a couple extra bucks go to work Keep it moving. All right. I'll be back in a sec All right, so there you go quick delivery took about What about 12 minutes I said so Guys, this is how simple it is. I mean, I literally was going to the shop I was going One exit pass where I was already headed. I was literally two minutes away from this delivery Or excuse me two minutes away from this pickup and This app that I'm using rodie Said boom you want to pick up an order and make 14 bucks before you go to work and I said well shoot. Why not? so Guys, uh, I hope you enjoyed the content.   I get new content coming all the time Different tips tricks whatever that I do. I'm not preaching to you guys what you should do I'm just kind of sharing what I do. So I'll see you guys on the next video