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April 15, 2022 - David Icke
15:55
Right Now - Gareth Icke Talks To Activist Debbie Hicks About Her Campaign To Save Cash
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This week on Iconic's news and current affairs show, right now, I'm speaking to Debbie Hicks about her new campaign to save cash and why she's taking to the streets of the UK to educate people on the dangers of a digital economy.
Now, if you want to watch all our guests on this week's show, they're all challenging the official version of world events, then start a free seven-day trial.
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In a week where the mainstream media has been salivating over a story about people being able to pay for things via a microchip in their hand, Our next guest is a breath of fresh air.
Debbie Hicks is starting a campaign to save cash.
She's going to be educating the public face-to-face on her local high street on the importance of proper paper money and coins.
She's going to have a stall, hand out leaflets, do talks and workshops about the importance of cash and the dangers of a digital economy.
And she's urging others to do the same.
She joins us now. Hi Debbie, welcome to the show.
Can you tell us a little bit more about your campaign?
Yeah, it's something I've been wanting to do for ages but like all of us I've been so busy with all sorts of things.
I just want to get out there and talk to people about the dangers of not using cash because I think at the moment this is the biggest thing that we face actually is digital economy and digital ID that's coming in and It's just to get people to see how important it is to use it and how easy it is to get back into those old habits we used to use years ago, where we used to use cash all the time.
So I'm starting next week.
I had to delay because I've been really ill this week.
Starting next week, next Friday, I'm going to call it a Keep Cash Friday.
We're going around the country, different cities and towns, having a stall in the high street where I talk to people about using cash and keeping it really positive, really positive conversations with people.
And I think, if I may say so, Gareth, I think this is a lot easier to approach than many other topics as a movement that we have to approach because it's...
It's something I think most people can relate to, is talking about cash and how to use it.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to it and starting next Friday.
I think you're totally right, actually, because it's not an out there subject, is it?
I know some of the subjects that you might kind of talk to, people go, that's a bit too far out there, but people can see that cash has disappeared over the last sort of 10, 15, 20 years.
Is your kind of thinking, and the reason why you've started this campaign, is it's almost like with cash, if you don't use it, you lose it, basically.
So it's a case of trying to get people back into those old habits.
Yeah, and also actually educating them on how empowering it is to use cash, Because Gareth, for me, the last few months I've re-educated myself, I've retrained myself to use cash.
And at first it's hard because you think, you think, oh, it's easy.
It's much easier for me to get my card out or I don't know if you're in a big queue, use your card because it's going to take more time.
But actually, is it any easier?
I watch the queues when I go into shops with checkouts and shops with self-service.
And I think sometimes it takes literally just a couple more minutes of your time to use cash.
Keep people in a job as well, which is what you're doing if you use those tools.
And you know what you're doing with your money.
So if you're on a low income, and we're all going to be on low income soon, this is what's going to hit us as we know what's coming.
When you can see the cash in front of you, you know what you're doing, you know what you're spending.
So I think it's much more empowering.
You're in control of your money.
And it's good to know that you're putting cash into businesses that need it, small and even medium-sized businesses that need it.
That need cash, yeah.
That's a really good point, actually, in terms of knowing what you're spending, especially when, you know, people are being hit even harder and harder and harder economically.
Because I think back to the days when I would go out to a pub, maybe, before I had kids, I'd go out with my friends, and I'd have an allocated amount of money, and it would be tucked in my wallet, and I'd probably have a fiver that side for a kebab at the end of the night, or whatever.
And that's what I would spend.
And as soon as it ran out, I'm off for a kebab, boys, I'll see you later.
Whereas now, obviously, you go out, and it's always card and stuff, and sometimes you get home and you go...
God, how much have I spent? I've spent money I couldn't afford.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, exactly. It's, as I said, retraining habits, knowing what you're doing with your money, empowering local businesses, empowering yourself with your money.
Please, you know, I say to everyone out there, just get back to using cash.
I mean, it's just examples as well.
I'll give you an example. Last week I was in a queue.
I needed to pay for something.
And I thought, oh, God, I've got no cash with me.
And I could see there was a queue and I could see there's a cash point across the road.
And I thought, no, no, Debbie, you must go over and get the cash out.
So I just run across the road, got the cash, went back into the queue in the shop, and it just started on a few more minutes.
So I think it's just...
And I've got lots of friends doing this now.
They're doing the same. They're using cash.
And I'm not saying, I mean I am a realist, I'm not saying that this is going to necessarily stop them trying to introduce a digital currency and an economy, but it will make it a lot harder if we start circulating cash a lot more.
And also they see that people are still using it because then they'll have to have a much slower transition and it gives us as activists much more of an opportunity to stop it then.
Absolutely, yeah. And doing something is always better than doing nothing.
Anyway, no matter how small people might perceive those actions to be.
Yeah, and it's not just, I mean, it's not just obviously cash in terms of, you know, Bank of England cash and cash that we use in this country.
It could open the way to other initiatives in towns and cities Where people might want to start their own sort of currency, which I know people like the new Chartists, I'm sure you're aware of them, Gareth, have been pushing for.
They want to ban that, don't they?
They want to ban barter, basically, which is why you want everything digital.
So given where you're coming from and what you're doing, what did you think about the microchip story this week?
You know, with the guy who's paying for his stuff with his hand.
Yeah, well, unfortunately I wasn't shocked by it.
I've been following the microchips in Sweden and other countries for some years and been aware that they've been doing this for some time with people and that it's not nothing new.
But I think, I suppose the shock for us is that they're trying to normalise it now in this country.
They're trying to put it in our face and say, Sorry, my cat's here.
This is the future.
This is what people are going to do.
And I think that's what's scary.
And also, was the poll attached to it?
Did you see the poll? I think it was a poll across the European Union that said 50, I think it was 51% of people.
Obviously, it could be a doctorate poll, I don't know.
But 51% of people don't have a problem with having chips in their hand.
And I thought, wow. That doesn't shock me either, though.
That doesn't shock me, unfortunately.
I think the last couple of years, the amount of different things, this included, that you would have said two years ago to someone, and they'd go, that's mad, whereas now they go, I don't have a problem with it.
It's very strange. But you're going to go out, you're going to talk to people face to face, on the street.
Is there any concern for you of having any sort of confrontation?
I know you obviously said at the start of the interview that it's an easier subject to talk about, but is that something that you've considered?
Oh, absolutely, Gareth.
Unfortunately, you know, people are familiar with my activism from what I did with filming a hospital and all the rest of it.
I am used to confrontation.
I think a lot of us have become used to it in this fight that we're in at the moment.
And yeah, there could be confrontation.
On most occasions, I think the majority of the public, actually, as long as you talk to them politely and respectfully, will listen to what you have to say.
But there's always the risk of an odd person that will kick off and see you there on the street as an outlet for their anger.
But that's, you know, that's nothing new.
I've been a street activist for years, and I've had this loads, loads of times.
So I can't let that stop me going out, talking to people, engaging with people, because I really enjoy it, actually.
And I, as I'm sure you do, I learn so much from talking to people.
And I also learn, I learn what real public opinion is, not what they tell us.
And people are a lot more awake than we give them credit for.
They really are. So...
That's very true, and I think people get sucked into that, particularly with social media, as if social media is real life, and it certainly isn't at all.
You touched on there, the fact that you went into, it was Gloucester Hospital, wasn't it?
You went and you were filming empty wards in 2020.
What happened with that?
Because you were arrested, weren't you? You're cutting my hands.
Let them go. You're treating me like a criminal.
I'm a criminal. Will you take these handcuffs off?
Yes, sir. Deputies? Can you ask him to put some clothes on underneath?
Can you just go and put some clothes on and we'll get his custody, okay?
What sort of society is this when you come into a woman's house outside her bedroom door and intimidate her to get no clothing on?
What sort of society is this?
Go and put some clothes on for me, please, all right?
Look at you. You're behaving like a Nazi.
Look at you. Look at yourself.
Look at yourself. Let go and let me get dressed.
And do not stand outside my bedroom door.
Wait down there in my house.
I'll wait here. Wait down there.
I'll wait here. Put some clothes on otherwise you're going to go out there.
I was arrested, yeah, unfortunately.
I was charged and convicted.
I've got a conviction now.
And on that point, actually, it might be interesting to your viewers, I've just had an application for judicial review Lodged at the High Court.
We're going for judicial review on the right to protest because I've been arrested at various protests and got different charges, different convictions.
So that alone is scope for judicial review because so many people have been treated differently by the courts.
And on the hospital conviction, we're also going for the High Court Appeals.
So I'm not promising we're up against a corrupt system.
I'm not promising anything.
But people have been amazing.
They've crowdfunded. I've got two really, really good barristers.
I've got one that's been doing it pro bono as well.
And we've got to give it a shot, I think.
I know we had the whole Simon Dolan thing in the beginning.
But this is specifically looking at free speech and the right to protest.
And I think over the last year, in fact, there's been a lot of water under the bridge with those issues.
There's been lots of cases like the Sarah Everard case, where I think there's a lot more scope now for the courts to look at these issues seriously when we say there should not have been a blanket ban on protests or on activism.
That's what they were directed.
The police were directed not to have a blanket ban, but in some situations they did, as you know.
Yeah, absolutely. I think it depends what you're protesting about as well.
I think if you were putting a cable tie around your neck and protesting against oil companies, you'd be absolutely fine.
But do you think your campaign to kind of save cash, which I guess is what it is, can succeed?
And what do you believe the implications are if it doesn't succeed?
I think it can succeed.
We can get enough people on board and everybody can go out in their high streets and in their towns and talk to people and talk to businesses as well about the importance of using cash.
I think it can have some success.
How do we manage success with this?
I think if you look at the select committee that's dealing with this introduction of this digital ID, I think it's the media culture and something I've been reading some of the reports about that, and when you start reading it, it actually gives you some hope, actually, Gareth, because what it says is they have tried to introduce these schemes before, as you probably know.
Going back some years ago, actually, they tried to introduce digital ID in this country.
Just people weren't aware of it.
And when you look into it and you read why it didn't work, it's because in the trial, nobody wanted to sign up for it in the end.
People put their names down and said, yeah, we'll go with that.
We'll go for the trial.
But when it comes to it, they didn't want to do it.
So I'm wondering if we could have a big campaign at the moment where we push this idea, you've got to keep cash, explain the dangers of not using cash in terms of that tyrannical social credit system that they want to bring in.
And I think if we can get enough people aware of that and using cash, we might make them have to step back a bit and think differently about introducing it.
Yeah, absolutely. And also, homelessness is massively on the rise and it's going to go even higher, given what they're doing.
How do you give a homeless...
Man or woman, a couple of coins.
Do you know what I mean? Like, if there isn't any coins.
I mean, it might just sound like a really basic point, but I wonder if people have even considered that.
Yeah, no, that's it.
It's giving to the homeless.
And what's it going to do to them if we can't give them any money at all?
I mean, they're controlled a lot already.
I've done a lot of campaigning on homelessness over the years, Gareth.
They're already really, really controlled in terms of what they can and can't do or how they get support.
So if they take cash away, it's going to be even worse.
And not just that. All the people that are in kind of, if I could call it, shadow economies, as they call it, working jobs that perhaps, You know, not registered or whatever, but they still need the money and they get paid cash.
People that do temporary work, people that get lots of tips and that makes up their salary.
Working class communities in this country, they still get paid in cash.
And that's how, as I said at the beginning, that's how they manage it.
It's because they haven't got a lot of money and they can see, you know, rather than this universal credit, which is the stepping stone, isn't it?
To basic income.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, when you've got cash, when you're poor, and I grew up in a really poor family, when you've got cash, you can manage it.
So, yeah.
I think we've got lots of scope there to talk to all different people.
The elderly. I think the elderly is still overwhelmingly useful.
Absolutely. I think it's a fantastic initiative.
I think it's really, really important.
I think it's more important than people seem to think a lot of the time.
Thanks for talking to us about it, Debbie, and good luck with the project, and I hope you get a great response on the street.
I'm sure you will, because as we spoke about at the start, it's something that people can get on board with.
Yeah, great.
No, great. Thank you. So just to let people know, I don't know if you are able to share this, next Friday will be starting in London, in Hayes in London, and then the 29th will be in Oxford, the 6th of May in Swindon, and the 13th of May in Cheltenham.
And then there'll be further dates that go out online.
There's a group called Keep It Cash, That we set up on Telegram, a public channel.
Perfect. Keep it cash on Telegram.
Okay. We'll check that out.
Thank you very much. Great.
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