The Seeking Justice Podcast™ (TSJP) Episode (0) Zero - Introducing TSJP & Benedict Bloggs

[A background episode for posterity, for the archives, and for those interested in the inspiration for starting The Seeking Justice Podcast and to introduce the host Benedict Bloggs a.k.a Bennarama, Bennaddiction, Bennabuzz, Benna Zenabomb, the Wunderland, Gaiatribe, 3 Eyed Fish and on goes the list...]

Summary 

In the inaugural episode of the Seeking Justice Podcast, host Benedict Bloggs introduces himself and shares his multifaceted journey as a human rights advocate, barrister, and social justice activist. He reflects on the motivations behind starting the podcast, his diverse experiences, and the vision for future episodes that will explore themes of justice, activism, and creativity. 

Chapters
 00:00 Introduction 
 00:46 Acknowledgement of Country
 01:57 TSJP Video Intro (produced by Ahmed Al Shanti in Northern Gaza)
 02:20 Journey to Law through Activism
 13:59 The Vision for the Podcast
 16:29 Closing Thoughts 
 17:06 TSJP Video Outro (produced by Ahmed Al Shanti in Northern Gaza)
 17:21 Credits

Greetings Justice-Seekers! Welcome to The Seeking Justice Podcast (TSJP), dedicated to exploring and spotlighting issues of justice and injustice throughout the world. I am your host, Benedict Bloggs, a passionate and dedicated social and environmental justice advocate throughout my entire adult life and now a Barrister-at-Law and international human rights advocate based in Brisbane Australia. I want to use this platform to give a voice to the voiceless, to interview interesting guests working on important human rights and social and environmental justice issues and as an independent media mechanism to clarion call forth positive change in our societies and our world.

The name of the Podcast is inspired by the motto of my Catholic High School which I resolutely hated. The school I hated, the motto “Seek Justice” must have got seared on the insides of my eyelids and after spending my late teens and twenties being a globally adventuring outlaw and ratbag from blockading old growth forests, breaking onto secret American spy bases, cycling across Australia to promote sustainability, I became a lawyer and now a Barrister and international human rights law (IHRL) advocate having completed an IHRL Masters at the University of Oxford where I met my Puerto Rican fiancée and now we have two gorgeous Aussie-Rican kids.

Before studying law, I completed a Diploma in Holistic Counseling, inspired by a seven day Vi

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Transcript

Hey there, fellow Justice Seekers. Welcome to The Seeking Justice Podcast™ Yes, I got it trademarked because, for my sins, I'm incontrovertibly a lawyer. I'm your host Benedict, aka Benedict Bloggs, Bennarama, Benediction, Bennabuzz, Benna Zenabomb, Benedict Joseph, the Wunderland, Gaiatribe, Three Eyed Fish, and on goes the list. I apparently have had multiple digital personas, perhaps a symptom of the digital age.

I'm a long-time human rights advocate and social justice activist worrier/warrior with an A and an O and currently a barrister based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. I'm super excited and somewhat circumspect regarding the long overdue appearance of my arse on a podcast. I've finally somewhat reluctantly decided to start this podcast because many different people over the years have told me, "You should start a podcast!" after they have heard stories from my somewhat colourful multi-dimensional life, both pre-law, outlaw and in-law, and we're not yet post-law, and about the weird, wild and wonderful cases I've litigated over the years. And then the regular refrain, "You should start a podcast!" And alas, I have succumbed. I've always had on my bucket list wanting to start a human rights radio show.  I even did the training many years ago with the wonderful radical community radio station 4ZZZ but again, life got too busy. In that regard, my favourite adage is, "Nature does not rush, yet everything is accomplished", which I would like to think I live by, but which I often forget and then remember when I need to slow down. It's also why I have four turtles tattooed on my left bicep representing my four gorgeous kiddies, reminding me to "Slow the hell down!" Which doesn't often work, probably because I can't see the turtles and maybe I should have had them tattooed on the inside of my eyelids. Anyways, nature does not rush, yet everything is accomplished. Which actually on second thoughts we might need to critically analyse that phrase as misleading and deceptive conduct by nature. But that's for another episode. 

My dad also lectured in film and television at Swinburne University in the 1980s. And we grew up with a full recording studio in our house that he built in East Hawthorn in Melbourne. So I've always had an abiding interest in music, recording and media generally. It's also probably why I love recording music projects so much in music studios. I was peripherally involved in the Indy Media movement in the noughties. The 90s and the noughties around the anti-corporate globalisation movement. Remember the S11 World Economic Forum mass mobilisation on September 11, 2000. No, not that September 11, the one the year before. That was in Melbourne and then of course the World Trade Organisation mass protests in Sydney in years following, just to name a few. Back in the day I also helped to establish The Juice Media, which has become world famous with "The Honest Government Ads", "The Rap News", with my dear friend from high school, Giordano Nanni. I remain their legal advisor, which I've done for the last decade or so. Incidentally, my birthday is 11 September and so is my younger brother's by two years and my dad and his brother were also born on the same day three years apart. 

Alas, I digress, which you'll have to get used to as I have a genetic predisposition to tell short-story-long, which if you meet my dear mum, you'll understand. Plus I get paid to talk, so it is somewhat incorrigible. So I'll have to watch the digressions, but perhaps the adage can be amended to, nature constantly digresses and yet not everything is said. Perhaps why I regularly attend silent meditation retreats, which no one can actually believe, but I assure you is not fake news and I welcome fact checkers. Now I realize there are something like over 3 million podcasts in the world and every woman, man, child and dog have purchased a podcast kit from JB Hi-Fi and are streaming more narcissistic detritus into the rabbit holes of online ex-existence. So how will this podcast be different and worth listening to? Well, firstly a reality check. Maybe it won't. 

Maybe it'll flop completely. The name of the podcast, "Seeking Justice", is inspired by the motto of my Catholic high school, which I resolutely hated, incidentally. The school, I mean. The motto, "Seek Justice", must have got seared on the insides of my eyelids. And after spending my late teens and twenties being a globally travelling, adventuring outlaw, and rat bag from blockading old growth forests to breaking onto secret American spy bases, cycling across Australia to promote sustainability. I did a Diploma in Holistic Counseling, then reluctantly became a lawyer and now I am a barrister and international human rights law (IHRL) advocate having completed my IHRL Masters at the University of Oxford where I met my beautiful fiancée. And now we have two gorgeous Aussie-Rican kids. My fiancée is from Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico. I've got to practice my R's with my Español. 

But before I studied law, as I said, I completed a Diploma in Holistic Counselling, which was inspired by a long trek on the Annapurna Trail during the Civil War in Nepal, which then led to a seven-day vision quest in Death Valley, California, which was in turn inspired by meeting a Native American Medicine Man in Hobart, Tasmania in the middle of winter when I was working for the Wilderness Society and trying to avoid being shot dead by angry loggers, but having lots of wonderful conversations with older loggers who knew the industry back in the day when it was sustainable forestry. And all of that happened ending up in Tassie after I'd walked across the desert from Roxby Downs Uranium Mine to Adelaide with a 
group of Japanese Buddhists from Nagasaki Hiroshima and Australian activists on the international peace pilgrimage. All of this was inspired by my first degree in History, Eco-philosophy, Environmental Ethics and Eco-feminism at the University of Western Australia and Murdoch University. In another past life, I was also an award-winning slam poet and I was employed or contracted by the State Library of Queensland to travel around the State and run poetry workshops and slam poetry events. I performed at the Sydney Opera House. I won the tongue-in-cheek Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup. I used to rap with the 10-piece brass band in Perth and play with a recycled junk percussion group called Junkadelic. I also ran against Peter Dutton at the 2019 election. Are you still listening? Some people say I have ADHD and they are probably right....

I have been locked into many other amazing and inspirational podcasts over the past 16 months since the devastating Gaza genocide began and I've been tuning into the decline of the US Empire, US politics generally, because our family is over there, and the rise of the multipolar global system via BRICS and other things. 

All of these podcasts have been my sanity anchor in the insane gaslighting of the madness of the mainstream media and our crazy governments. I want to give some shout outs to the ones that I love, including [but not limited to]

•  Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim at Drop Site News;
• Amy Goodman, Juan González and Nermeen Sheikh at Democracy Now!, ALWAYS Democracy Now!;
• the Chris Hedges Report;
• the legendary Owen Jones at the Owen Jones podcast;
• the inimitable Medhi Hasan at Zeteo Media;
• Judge Napolitano from Judging Freedom;
• Danny Haiphong;
• Glenn Greenwald at System Update;
• Kyle Kulinski at Secular Talk;
• Rania Kahlek and Eugene Puryear at Breakthrough News;
• John Elmer, Nora Barrows-Freedman, Ali Abunimah and Asa Winstanley at The Electronic Intifada;
• the legendary polymath poet, rapper, investigative journalist, extraordinaire, Lowkey at Double Down News;
• The Marvelously Erudite Matt Kennard, Professor John Mearsheimer and Professor Jeffrey Sachs wherever they appear;
• Abby Martin at The Empire Files;
• Krystal Ball, Saagar Enjeti, Ryan Grim and Amy Jaschinsky at Breaking Points and Counterpoints;
• The Wonderful Katie Halper and Amazing Aaron Maté at Useful Idiots and The Katie Halper Show;
• Brihanna Joy Gray at Bad Faith;
• Erin Ryan and Alyssa Mastromonaco at Crooked Media's Hysteria Podcast. 
• The gang at Crooked Media, Pod Save the World, Pod Save America and so many more excellent podcasts;
• The brilliant Nish Kumar and Coco Kahn on Crooked Media's Pod Save the UK;

Hence the DIY of my own podcast. 

• Even watching Lex Friedman and Joe Rogan, some propaganda from Piers Morgan, Diary of a CEO, the list goes on...

Closer to home, I love watching: 

• Michael West Media;
• my buddies at The Juice Media; 
• Alexa and Alex at Boy Boy;
• Punters Politics;
• Friendly Jordies; and 
• so many more [including the amazing and courageous Max Blumenthal at The Grayzone and Sam Husseini for stickin it to Stinken Blinken the War Criminal and worst Secretary of State EVERRRRRRR!!!)

Anyways, even after consuming all that online content, like a desperate dopamine addicted digital dolt, I still have no idea what I'm doing starting a podcast. So feel free to leave unsolicited feedback in the comments, which I will likely exercise my right to ignore, but fire away anyway. I might also have a regular segment called "Unsolicited Podcast Startup" because my guest today, the wonderful Eddie Lloyd, told me I wasn't allowed to have a microphone or headphones in the picture. So I'm breaking all the rules currently, but she's not around, so it's all right.

So what precisely precipitated this was an old friend, an amazing environmental land artist who cycled across Australia with us, Elaine Clocherty, shout outs. She came to visit late last year and we caught up over a coffee for about an hour, distilling a decade of what we'd been up to. And afterwards she sent me a text linking me to some famous Irish podcaster. And she said something like, "You should start a podcast!" Godde damn it! So once again, I have been dragged kicking and screaming, which is also a very similar story to what happened when I finally succumbed to start studying law after a decade of my intuition telling me to do so and me avoiding it like the plague. Despite the laws, many flaws and imperfection, I turned out to absolutely love it and I still do.  It's a love and hate relationship like any dynamic career. So perhaps it's a good omen for this podcast. Perhaps not. I figure I'll give it 12 months or so. If it sucks, it sucks. If it flops, it flops. And I'll just tick it off the list and it can go to die a peaceful life on the trash pile of digital detritus. 

The concept for the podcast downloaded to me after meeting with my friend Elaine during a three-day silent meditation retreat in December 2024 in beautiful Maleny. One of the aims of this multi-dimensional podcast, or I should say the aims of this multi-dimensional podcast, are hope, inspiration and action for positive change, for which the world is in dire need of a packed prescription of large and regular doses. And I have always tried to live my life by being in service of something greater and contributing to the world and the community in positive ways. 

I have a very long list of ideal dream guests and a bunch of ideas for crazy segments. And what I want is a rich mix of politics, philosophy, music, poetry, history, spirituality, all the stuff that keeps me excited, engaged, activated and devastated about being a human being alive at this wild time on Planet Earth. I want to know why the excellent guests I interview do what they do; what and who inspired them to Seek Justice in their lives and careers; how and why they got to where they are; what they are working on; as well as an artsy-fartsy segment sharing a poem, song or heck, even an interpretive dance, that reflects or inspires their work. And they can actually outsource and subcontract that segment, as you'll see from the wonderful Eddie Lloyd and "Gare-with-the-Hair" our drop-in Welsh folk musician with a song about [war crimes whistleblower] David McBride. And I should say the, if you're wondering what the whiteboard is behind me, it is a publicly sourced, so all publicly available, mind map or brain vomit of the David McBride case, which will be coming up in this episode.

In addition to being a barrister, I'm an undercover poet, a former multi-award winning slam poet, which the kids these days tell me used to be cool, no longer, a songwriter, musician and a music producer. Now that I can broadcast from here, there or anywhere, like beautiful Byron Bay where I am today with my dear friend, legendary criminal, environmental and social justice lawyer, accredited criminal law specialist extraordinaire, multiple political candidate, city councillor, drug law reformer, and my dear friend from law school, Eddie Lloyd of Lloyd Law.

Happy for feedback, suggestions. I'm happy for lovers, haters, polls, moles or trolls. And by the way, I love trolling trolls. It's a favourite pastime of mine, which you would have seen if you've been watching my LinkedIn feed over the past 15 months so please step up to the plate and enjoy the feast. And if you like it please subscribe and like and share to your friends and colleagues even your (fr)enemies and if you would like to support what we do please become a Patreon when we get that all set up. 

Farewell, take care and see you on the front lines.