YouSaid · the spoken record

Oliver Stone

lines on the record: 130
first: 2022-05-17
most recent: 2022-05-17
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“New World, and I think the United States has never accepted that. Sovereignty is not an idea that they can allow. You have to be... Obedient to the United States idea of so-called democracy and freedom. But it's much more important is sovereignty for these countries. And the United States is not obeyed that has not even acknowledged it. And it never comes up.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sneer on John McCain's face. He was in Munich. Obviously eyeballing Putin and hating him, and it was so evident that McCain had no belief whatsoever that this, he was almost treating them like these are the communists or back. And we know that Putin was not a communist. We know that Putin is very much a market man. And he made it very clear and tried to keep an open climate, a new relationship with Europe. But the United States, always, certain people in the United States always sell that as a threat, like Putin is trying to take Europe away from us as if we own it, as if we have the right to own it. But Putin was making the point. It's very important about sovereignty and sovereignty for countries is crucial for this new world to have balance. That's sovereignty for China, sovereignty for Russia, sovereignty for Iran, sovereignty for Venezuela, sovereignty for Cuba. This is an idea that's crucial to the...”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, came out in 2017. I guess I started them in 2014 At that point, the Snowden affair had happened and I was working on a movie on Snowden. That happened in 13. Ukraine happened in 14. And one thing after another, by 14, Putin was enemy number, again, becoming a wanted man on the American list. He was enemy. He was certainly in the top five. But the animosity towards Putin had been growing since 2007 at Munich. I remember that speech when he made it, it's in my documentary. It's a four-hour documentary. Four different conversations. I mean, we talked over two years, two and a half years. But I remember that image of him at Munich making a very... Important speech about world harmony, about the balance necessary in the world. And I remember the sneer of the”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He played both sides. And because Yeltsin wanted him to join the Russian Confederation in a certain way where he'd be supporting against Gorbachev. There's a whole inward battle there. I think Ukraine came along with Yeltsin as well as I'm sorry, I don't remember now, but two other regions came with him. That was a block that broke up the Soviet Union. It was Yeltsin's plan to. And it wasn't make the Russian Federation. And they did.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the details are interesting. I followed up on that a little bit because I was recently in countries like Kazakhstan talked about the negotiations that were going on and the breakup of the Soviet Union. It's a very interesting story because it involves everything, Ukraine. Of course, everything is going on now. What is it? 30 million Russians were left outside of the Soviet Union when it collapsed. They had no home anymore. They were homes in other countries such as in Ukraine. So it's an interesting story with repercussions today. Kazakhstan is a good example of keeping a balance, keeping it neutral.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, it goes on in American history. It doesn't end. Reagan got a lot of points for that. And of course, when Gorbachev came in, it was a beautiful moment for the world. It was a great surprise. It was probably the best years for America, at least from my point of view, in terms of this relaxation in the mood. 1986 to 1991 were great years in terms of ability to believe once again that there could be a peace dividend. But the world changed again in 1991, 92. There's an internal mechanism, who knows, you could blame the United States, you could blame Russia for... Gorbachev was perhaps not the right man to try to administer that country at that point. He had great visions. He was a man of peace, but it was very difficult to hold together such a huge empire.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So there was never except for brief moments of periods of detente with the Soviets. And I grew up under that. I didn't really know anything of this going on because I was learning. I was educating myself as I was going learning movies and trying to be a dramatist and this and that. So I wasn't thinking about this. Then when Reagan...”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Change the imperialist mindset that still was very strong in America and Europe. Lyndon Johnson changed back to the old policy and we were never able to really keep Detente going with the Russians. Briefly had it with Carter, but then Brzezinski came in. Brzezinski was his national security advisor. He was put there by Rockefeller and Brzezinski was a Pole. He got revenge from the Poland. Poland has always been attacking Russia as far as I remember back to another century. I mean, the two world wars that occupied Russia so tragically entry points were always through Poland and Ukraine. So Brzezinski got his revenge and Carter ended up being an enemy of the Soviet Union and creating, as Brzezinski took pride in it, he created the atmosphere of the trap for the Soviet. go into Afghanistan in 79. That trap was set, he says, he said in 1978.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Kennedy was very active in terms of as an Irishman, not as an Englishman. He was an Irishman. I say that because, well, we'll come back to that because Mr. Joe Biden is an Irishman, but it's a different kind of an Irishman. They're both Catholic Irish, but Kennedy really made an effort.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, absolutely not. And we go into great depth on that in the film and I'd urge you to see it because it goes into all the issues around the world. Kennedy was being very much an anti-imperialist, it turns out. And many people don't understand that, but you have to look at all his policies in Middle East with Nasser had a relationship with Sukarno and Indonesia, with Latin America. You made a big effort with the Alliance for Progress above all, with Lumumba, he was very shocked at his death and tried to defend the integrity of the Belgian Congo with Dag Hammerjold of the UN. He made a big effort, unfortunately it didn't work out because Dag Hammerjol was killed and then Kennedy was killed and Congo descended into the chaos of Joseph Mobutu's dictatorship.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, because the moment he was killed, honestly, there was a lot of, we can talk about that. As you know, I've made a filth JFK revisited as a documentary we released this year about the movie I made in 1991. But the moment he was killed, I would argue that Lyndon Johnson went back immediately to the old way of thinking the old way of doing business, which was the Eisenhower. Truman Way, which we had adapted since World War II. That was an interim, you have to think about it. Roosevelt dies in 45. Roosevelt has an interim of 15 years where he has more of a democratic regime, more liberal. He establishes, he recognizes the Soviet Union for the first time since the Revolution, and he actually has a relationship with them. He sends ambassadors who are friendly. He has a relationship with Stalin, etc. And at Yalta.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's correct, and it basically lasted. I mean, you saw the ups and downs of it when Reagan came in. First of all, we had the crisis of 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis. And Kennedy proved himself to be a warrior for peace. He resolved that with Khrushchev. That was a big moment, huge moment. And people don't give him credit enough for really saving us from a war that could have affected all of mankind.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very strong. You wouldn't get ahead if you expressed any kind of, let's end this Cold War, any kind of activity of that nature, you'd be cast aside as a pinko or somebody who was... Not completely on the board with the American way of doing business, which was capitalism works, communism doesn't.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Spying on us. They were stealing the country from us. That was the way the American right wing, not even the right wing, I'd say the Republican Party, pictured the Russians. They were actively engaged in infiltrating America and changing our thinking. And television shows were based on this. It was very much the J. Edgar Hoover mentality that communism was even behind the student protests of the 1960s. This was the direction in which the FBI and the CIA were thinking. So I grew up with a prejudice. And it took me many years. My father was a Republican and he was a stockbroker and he was a very intelligent man. But even he, because he was a World War II soldier, he was a colonel, had fallen under the influence. In order to be successful in American business in the 1950s, you had to have a very strong anti-”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Russian people have been very special to me. Perhaps because of my European upbringing, but I enjoy talking to them. I find them very open, very generous. They appreciate support. They appreciate people who say, you know, I understand why your government is doing this or this or this. I've tried to stay open-minded and listen to both sides. The thing that I have seen as an American is, of course, this American enmity towards Russia from the very beginning. I grew up in 1940, 46. I was born in the 50s. It was so anti-Russian. They were everywhere. They were in our schools. They were in our State Department.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can't really speak honestly of Ukraine. I was there only in nineteen eighty three when I visited the Soviet Union under the communism. And Kiev was beautiful and was one of the nicer places I went, but they were very much stultified by the communist system. They all were. The best places to visit in Russia were always in the south, whether Georgia or the Muslim countries. It was always a better culture in terms of comfort, but communism was rough, and that was the end of it pretty much. Brezhnev regime and then Andropov Gorbachev was three years in the future when I was there. So I can't talk about Ukraine, and they're not been friendly to me since, of course, since I made Putin interviews, Ukraine has banned me, I believe. They've been very tough on people who are critical.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Methane is not the answer. It's a short-term answer. Will countries go to war over energy is a question that I'm trying to think of all the wars that happened. You could say Germany, of course, during World War II needed oil very badly. It dictated their strategy. with Romania, etc getting the oil fields open. But I don't really, I can't, I'm not, I haven't thought that one through. I'd have to make a documentary on it to really understand how energy and war. Interface”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't have the energy, the history of energy at my fingertips, and it's a very long history here. But I would say apparently not. It does seem that it's individually each country can answer its needs by building. And up until now, we haven't had conflict except in this issue of Russia supplying Europe. Obviously the pipeline, Nord Stream 2 has been closed and Nord Stream 1 is also probably going to be phased out. The concept of Russia supplying gas to Europe is now up in air, and who knows what's going to happen. I just don't see how Europe can get away from using Russian gas. But Russian gas is not the solution because it's methane too. And it goes up into the atmosphere. Methane in the short term is just worse than coal. Worse. There's all kinds of charts we show in the film. We try not to be too overfactual”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Talking about human nature, they're very adept at that. Germany, for example. I mean, when the Fukushima happened, they went out of the nuclear business. It was shocking to me. They just pulled out and they destroyed, destructed several of their nuclear reactors that were still functioning and put up coal or put up coal in oil, replaced it. And as a result, Germany drifted into this place next to France their electricity bills went up and France stayed the same. They don't have that more. They have a different system in Europe, but more or less, no question that France was doing a lot better than Germany. And now with this Ukraine issue, it's a very interesting fulfillment point whether Germany is going what direction they're going to go now? How can they keep going with coal? They just can't.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it was competition. I don't think it was conspiracy as much as it was essentially we don't want this nuclear energy is going to end the dominance of oil. Absolutely. And it will. It will anyway because it's the only sane way for the world to proceed. But the world will have to learn through adversity. So, in other words, the situation could get worse and much worse. And certain countries are just going to have to adapt like we always do. When things become too hard, you've got to go, you have to change your thinking.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the New York Times that came out, the Rockefeller Foundation, which of course is a big producer of oil, the Rockefeller family, and the foundation came out With a study which was weighted, they tipped the scale, put a thumb on the scale, but it was a scientific expose of radiation in the study that came out in the New York Times because the New York Times publisher Salzberger was on their board. He was one of the board members. So they got a lot of Strong publicity condemning radiation which killed started the process of doubting nuclear energy. The radiation levels that they pointed out were very minor. And of course, if you go into a scientific analysis of this now with what we know, it's just not true. But it tilted the scale back in the 50s, 60s and started the question questioning the nuclear business.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Industrial scale for energy producing, from coal down to oil, everything the lowest casualty rate Very low is zero zero two or something is nuclear, so not that many people have died from nuclear. Not that many, I think 50 people at Chernobyl, which was the worst accident. Nobody died at Fukushima. Nobody died at Three Mile Island. And that's what you hear all over and over again. These accidents, the environmentalists have sold us the idea that they're dangerous. A lot of environmentalists, thank God, of changing it. They've come off that routine and they've saying this, we were wrong. We've done a lot of good work. Greenpeace did a lot of good work. Whale. Whale saving this, saving that. But they admit themselves. Not they don't, but people who have been in the organization have said we were wrong. In 1956, we show the articles.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think it's going to be a United Nations kind of thing because the world doesn't seem capable of uniting. We go to these conferences, Kyoto, and we talk and we agree, but then we don't actually enforce. So I don't think it can happen that way. I think it's going to be an individual race with countries. They're going to just do it for their own self-interest, like China's doing it. China, the thing is, if it works, and I'm praying that it will really work on a big scale, China will back away from coal naturally. The same thing will be true of India. They will see the benefits because if you go to India, you see the cities, the pollution, you walk around in that stuff, and you get, there's no hope in this, and you sense it. So people will move in this direction naturally because nuclear is clean energy. And the amount of casualties of nuclear is the lowest on the...”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As you know, Germany went back to coal a few years ago. So all these factors, it's a fascinating picture globally. So we try to achieve a consensus where nuclear can work and where it will be working. It will be used more and more. The question is how much carbon dioxide China and Russia will be putting out. France is the only one that's not putting it out. The United States has not changed. With all the talk and all the nonsense about renewables and the new lifestyle and all this, it's great for your guilt complex, but it doesn't do anything for the total accumulation of carbon dioxide in the world.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Going on, there's an awareness that Russia will not be providing, may not be providing the energy Europe needs. And then China is the other one too. That's the other factor. I'm talking about the big boys. They have doing tremendous work and fast, which is very hopeful. But of course, China is building in all directions at once. Coal continues to be huge in China. And Too. But to basically coal in India, in China, the biggest users of coal.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And in France, they have some very advanced nuclear reactors, and they're building. Now they're building again. They had the Green Party came into power, not into power, but became a factor in France, and there was a motion when Hollande was president. They started to move away from it. Actually, they were beginning to just abandon. Not complete, in other words, close down some of the nuclear reactors. There was talk of that. But thank God France did not do that. And Mac Holm came in and recently reversed it. And they're building as fast as they can now, especially with the Ukraine War.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Its interviews, among others, but essentially we went to Russia, we went to France, which is the most perhaps advanced nuclear country in the world, Russia. The United States, we went to the Idaho laboratory and talked to the scientists there as well as the Department of Energy people that are handling this. Idaho is one of the experimental labs in the United States. It's probably one of the most advanced. And they're doing a lot of advanced nuclear there. Studied, well, Russia gave us a lot of insight. We're very cooperative because they have some of the most advanced nuclear, actually the most advanced nuclear reactor in the world that Eliarsk and the Ural Mountains. So we did an investigation there.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Obviously, this country, the United States, is not going to go in that direction because it just is incapable with having that kind of will, political will. And fear is a huge factor. And still a lot of shibboleths, a lot of Myths about nuclear energy have confused and confounded the landscape. The environmentalists have played a huge role in doing good things, many good things, but also confusing and confounding the landscape and making accusations against nuclear energy that were. Exaggerated So taking all these things into consideration, we set about making this documentary, which is about finished now, almost finishing. It's an hour and 40 minutes, and that was the hard part, getting it down from about three and a half hours to about something more manageable.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“China, we have Africa, we have Asia coming on to the scene wanting more and more electricity. So they address the problem as a global one, not just as often in the United States. You get the ethnocentric United States point of view that we're doing well, blah, blah, blah. We're not doing well, but we sell that to people that we're comfortable. We spend more energy than anybody this country per capita than anybody. And at the same time, We don't seem to understand the global picture, so that's what they did, and they made me very worried. So, the only way to close that gap, the only way in their mind is nuclear energy and talking about a gap of building a huge amount of reactors over the next 30 years and starting now. They make that point over and over again.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Good question. First of all, everyone's talking about climate change, right? So here I wake up to that a few years ago. And clearly we're concerned. I picked up a book by Josh Goldstein and his co-author who's Swedish, those two wrote a book called Bright Future, A Bright Future. It came out a few years ago, and I lapped it up. It was a book fact-based, clear, not too long, not too technical. And it was very clear that they were in favor of all kinds of renewables, renewable energy, yes. They made it very clear how dangerous oil and gas were methane, and made it very clear to the layman like me. And at the same time said that this renewables can work so far. But the gap is enormous as to how much electricity the world is going to need in 2050 and beyond. Two, three, four times we don't even know the damage, but we have India.”
2022-05-17 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #286 – Oliver Stone: Vladimir Putin and War in Ukraine · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source