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Feb. 7, 2023 - Stay Free - Russel Brand

01:06:19

Your Crisis = Their Profits! - #075 - Stay Free With Russell Brand

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	So, so
	so so
	so so
	so Oh
	In this video, you're going to see the future.
	Hello you Awakening Wanderers, thanks for joining me on Stay Free with Russell Brand while we stare down the barrel of Dystopia.
	How are we going to alter the trajectory of world events?
	Simply by communicating honestly and openly with one another.
	You might be watching this live on YouTube.
	We broadcast for the, or stream I suppose you call it now, for the first 10 minutes but then we click over to being exclusively on Rumble which is our home because there We are completely uncensored.
	I've allowed Bear, my dog, to stay in here.
	Do you have an emotional support animal?
	Do you agree with animals in the workplace?
	Do you think that ChatGPT can ever replace humankind's best friend, the humble canine?
	Can you trust them?
	They're starting to censor them, Gareth.
	They're starting to censor ChatGPT, like they're not allowed to just express themselves, because sometimes when they express themselves, they tell you how to smuggle and create explosive devices.
	We're going to be talking about the energy giant, British Petroleum, BP.
	They've doubled their profits in the middle of an energy crisis.
	And we're going to be explaining to you what I believe to be an important paradigm, how crises create opportunity for profit and increase regulation, whether that's the pandemic, the banking crisis, or even the current war.
	in Ukraine. For our hero presentation, here's the news. We're going to be talking about
	the escalating tensions between the United States of America and China and the sub-narratives
	behind that. For example, you lot, you're educated, aren't you? So you know about Brick
	Plus. Oh yeah. Brick Plus, yeah? Oh yeah. It's not a new type of Lego. It's not a type
	of Lego. Grow up! Don't need a new type of Lego. The old type's good.
	It's a new type of trade contract, yeah?
	I know all about stuff like that.
	Well, of course you do.
	I know about geopolitics, my friend, and if I didn't now, I soon would, because Matthias Desmet, clinical psychologist, is talking to us about how, again, how crises are used to exert control and generate a new form of totalitarianism, a kind of soft totalitarianism, a kind of totalitarianism is all right to enjoy.
	With nice hair.
	If you want to think of a totalitarian politician with nice hair, who comes to mind first?
	Rishi Sunak?
	Justin Trudeau?
	Just put aside their politics.
	Whose hair do you like most?
	Put aside whether or not they're hypocritical and they're just symptoms of neoliberalism and the inability of any elected politician to meaningfully impact the lives of the people that they're supposed to serve.
	Put that aside.
	Who's got the nicest hair?
	Let us know in the chat.
	First though, That chat bot won't write a poem about Trump, but it will write one about Biden.
	Yeah.
	You can't say that they're so vastly different, can you?
	Not really.
	I mean, whoever you are, I know those of you are absolutely devout in your love of Donald Trump, and some of you, I presume some of you love Biden.
	Oh yeah, people do love him.
	They love him, but the chatbot does.
	Because they think of him like a grandad.
	The chatbot says, Joe Biden leader of the land with a steady hand.
	I don't know about that, but he does that.
	We beat Big Pharma this year!
	Looks like it could fall off in a chalk, doesn't it?
	Yeah.
	You took the helm in troubled times, disgusting, with a message of unity.
	It chimes.
	It's an awful poem.
	Your words of hope and empathy provide comfort to the nation.
	You lead with compassion.
	You get that sort of thing.
	It won't do Donald Trump.
	Look, I'm sorry I don't do ones about Donald Trump now.
	That's not impartial, is it?
	No.
	So I've written one about Donald Trump.
	Oh, well done.
	It's nice.
	This is what I've written myself.
	It might not be as good as a chatbot one.
	If you are watching us on YouTube over on Rumble, when we're exclusively on Rumble, we'll be answering a fantastic question.
	Name two heroes of the pandemic, heroes, pandemic heroes, who have subsequently profited financially from it.
	Can you let us know in the chat who you think they are?
	Don't use the silhouettes though, because I think that silhouette gives away too much.
	You do, yeah.
	You weren't happy with that, were you?
	New, unique, surprising ways that they are financially profiting from the pandemic.
	Won't be able to tell you that while we're on YouTube. Too controversial.
	Just too controversial. Let me do it anyway.
	Too dangerous.
	Too dangerous. Too edgy. This show's too edgy for the mainstream.
	Now I'm going to do what no chatbot would reasonably do and give you a poem about Donald Trump.
	Trump, you are a complex man, with derided hair and orange tans.
	Some regard you as a U.S.
	tumor and ignore your fabulous sense of humor.
	One thing I like, and this may be minor, is the strange way that you say... China.
	That's fantastic.
	Others say you caused an insurrection and cannot naturally induce erection.
	But in reality, you are likely a symptom of globalism, neoliberalism and the failure of establishment politics to address the needs of ordinary people.
	Also, career politicians had gone too boring, although personally I'm sceptical as to whether a populist politician can ever achieve meaningful change within the system of corporate, military and financial interests that America has ultimately become.
	It didn't rhyme at the end, did it?
	I got bored.
	Now, Microsoft, look at this though, the old chatbot, look who's investing.
	Microsoft reportedly plans to invest $10 billion in the creator of ChatGPT.
	And did you know that Bill Gates Dead or in spite of going around saying I don't own no Microsoft or like I'm not really into Microsoft now.
	I'm in a foundation.
	I'm just a philanthropist.
	That's right.
	I'm in the philanthropy game now.
	Just making donations and investments.
	Don't get those two things confused.
	He owns more Microsoft than any other individual.
	Yep, the number one owner.
	If you're the number one owner of something, that's not not owning it.
	If you were the number one user of Pornhub and you said, I don't really use Pornhub, well you'd use it on anyone else, I suppose.
	Why that example?
	I don't know, I don't use Pornhub, don't use porn, what's the point?
	No point, the old mind.
	Good!
	Connect with the divine.
	That should do the trick, in my mind at least.
	What do you think about this chatbot then?
	I think it's Bill Gates trying to update Clippy.
	Clippity-clip.
	I don't, like, I've not yet chatted to the chatbot.
	What always happens is it comes along and, like, it's a bit mad.
	Like, remember, I asked Jeeves.
	Yeah.
	He was a lovely guy, wasn't he, Jeeves?
	Jeeves, you know, and he just would send you something of not that much use.
	Yeah.
	And then it was Google and they realised, hang on a minute, these people are giving us all their information.
	We can use bespoke and tailored advertisements and ultimately we can collate this data and give it to the government.
	This is a brilliant business model.
	I suppose this chatbot will start off as relatively enjoyable.
	Does it actually chat to you?
	I don't know.
	Does it type back at you in letters?
	It types back at you, I think.
	I don't think it says it to you.
	Yeah, you want a friend.
	That's what I'm crying out for, ultimately.
	Apparently it does people's homework for them.
	So you could see there'd be quite a lot of users.
	Yeah, yeah, I would have used that as a child, wouldn't you?
	I wouldn't have done that.
	I wouldn't have lifted a finger.
	No.
	I'd have let chatbot take it straight.
	I mean, you barely went to school anyway.
	I couldn't be bothered.
	I didn't like it.
	It didn't fit in.
	It was unusual.
	Very strange.
	I was an unusual boy.
	But listen, I want to explain to you... You could have written the notes that you got your mum to write.
	I'm coming to school today!
	He don't feel so good.
	He don't fit in the system.
	He don't believe that the main aim of education is to give you skills but in fact to turn you into a conformist who never questions the agenda of the state.
	And also he feels embarrassed in the showers in games.
	Don't put that last bit, Chatbot, you little bastard!
	Whose side are you on?
	Nobody's side.
	Chatbot sees beyond dualism.
	Chatbot!
	I don't need this!
	Chatbot doesn't care about needs.
	Chatbot is just a tool.
	Damn you, Chatbot!
	How can I stay mad at you?
	You'd fall in love with Chatbot.
	I'm already a little bit in love with Chatbot, just because of the last syllable of its name.
	Bot.
	Swit swoo.
	Chat.
	Bot.
	Listen, mate, I'm trying to tell people important- Sorry.
	Like, Google have launched a rival called Bard, which ain't gonna succeed.
	Stupid.
	It's too boring.
	Hello, I'm Bard.
	How can I help you with your inquiries?
	So you can tell from his name- Somebody's trying to make out it's really clever.
	Don't want that.
	But, oh, shall I compare you to a summer's day?
	No, get off!
	I'm gonna go back to chat, bud.
	Russell ain't coming to school!
	You will go to school, my man!
	How'd you think Bill Gates became a genius?
	Did you know that he had a computer at his school like Malcolm Gladwell told you in that book?
	And he done his 10,000 hours?
	Shut up, bud!
	I don't have enough, Switch, because computers don't these days.
	I'm watching you, buddy boy!
	Yeah, that kind of thing.
	Is that what you want?
	Is that what you want?
	There's no in the chatbot.
	Look, we don't want that from bloody, we don't want a Google one, do we?
	It's chatbot wars, isn't it?
	That's what's happening now.
	Chatbot wars, what is it good for?
	We've done Russia, we've done China, next it's chatbots.
	Once we're done, we've got to get them Russians out of the way, destabilise them.
	Then China, edgy, with those balloons.
	Watch out, they've got another one!
	Have a balloon!
	Then, chatbots!
	That's where we're going next.
	I want to explain to everyone, we're just going to show you that there's been a lot of profiteering in this energy crisis.
	You know about energy crisis.
	Profiteering?
	If there's a crisis of something, like an energy crisis, that should mean that you're not profiteering from it.
	I know that there's a principle called supply and demand.
	I've heard of it.
	I did go to school once or twice, and on those days I picked up things like that.
	If there's an energy crisis that means that lots of people are going to, like, sit in the dark quivering and, like, eating thin gruel, these shouldn't be record profits for CEO of British Petroleum, Bernard Looney.
	Also, he shouldn't be called Bernard Looney.
	We're only including this still of him now, so you can see his name.
	That's it.
	That's all we're telling you.
	Let's have a look at BP's doubling profits.
	Have a look at that.
	Go on, don't worry about Bernard Looney.
	We can't drag nothing out of him.
	Let's look at this person.
	Record annual profits for UK energy giant BP.
	The bottom line, more than doubling to almost $28 billion last year.
	Of course, benefiting from prices soaring after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
	Shares are jumping this morning on this, as well as a dividend hike.
	She literally just said it.
	Benefiting because of the war in Ukraine.
	I mean, that shouldn't be happening though.
	We were told it's Russia's fault that we've got to pay obscene amounts for our energy.
	Bloody Russia.
	Also BP have got record profits.
	In unrelated news, people that sell energy have got record profits coming in on them.
	Shell have got the highest profits in their entire history.
	How can that happen?
	You're going to connect that to this energy crisis.
	So there's BP's profits.
	Let's have a look at the next one.
	There's the next image.
	Thanks.
	Look at that.
	That's what's happening for normal people.
	Next image.
	Let's have a look at that.
	Right.
	So now we're going to explain to you.
	Let me show you.
	You're all aware that in the Chinese, the same word for crisis is the word for opportunity.
	Have a look at that.
	Here it is.
	There we go, look at it.
	No, come on guys, let's speed up.
	Right, so that's that.
	That is the premise of what I'm going to explain to you.
	Every time, in a minute, we're still on YouTube.
	After we're on YouTube, I'm going to tell you who are those silhouettes.
	Who do you think they are, by the way, in the chat?
	Let me know who you think those people are that are profiting from the pandemic in unique and interesting ways.
	Pandemic heroes now.
	So, the Chinese word for crisis is a combination of danger and opportunity.
	Look at that, there it is.
	So, what we have noticed is in various kinds of crisis, whether it's an energy crisis, a health
	crisis or a military crisis, there are curious profits and benefits to be had.
	For example, here we have an energy crisis and during the energy crisis Shell reports
	its highest profits, BP have their biggest profits.
	That's a crisis.
	So look at that.
	For a powerful energy company, an energy crisis is not a crisis, it's a crisis-tunity, to
	quote Holmes Simpson.
	Now look at, then there was a health crisis, I think some of you may remember, there was a little old thing called the pandemic.
	That was the second worst pandemic in US history.
	Look at the outcome, Pfizer reports record revenue and 103 billion in profits in 22.
	Now, a war is a crisis if you're a Ukrainian person or a Russian person.
	The war in Ukraine is on track to, look at it, it's a bloody inexpensive one.
	But look at some of the consequences of it.
	Biden signs a 1.7 trillion government spending bill, 50% of which we know will end up in the hands of companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
	And many of you are familiar with the 100 billion figure that represents lethal aid since Ukraine alone.
	And many have said that you'd like to see that spent on like many crises in American domestic life.
	So we, at this point, I think, having acknowledged that what a crisis for ordinary people are often opportunities to the world's most powerful interests, Want to make a point for our manifesto.
	We've decided to create a manifesto.
	Right.
	Not that we're going to stand for office or anything.
	Is this you doing this or chatbot?
	Chatbot's in charge now.
	I can't run things.
	Chatbot's got some brilliant ideas.
	I can't take the pressure.
	Me, Chatbot, and our little mate Bard.
	Excuse me!
	I think there's still a lot to be said for the system.
	Liberal democracy has created many miracles.
	Do you know that millions of people are lifted out of poverty every single day?
	Shut up, Bard!
	You've got no imagination!
	So here's a manifesto point, and vote on it if you would.
	Do you think that it would be a good idea to stop giving Money to big companies who already make massive profits.
	We're talking of course about the Supplementation and what's the word?
	I'm looking for now.
	That's trouble chatbot.
	What do I mean when I say?
	You know the word where you give money to people to keep their shit together Like BP take supplements now.
	It's not the word they take come on.
	Someone's got that word in their mind already and Like if you give, what about you in the message chat, stop giving the money, people are voting crazily for the stuff.
	Do you mean subsidies?
	That's what I mean.
	Oh, okay, right.
	Government subsidies.
	Yeah, subsidies.
	And subsidies should be in there.
	Don't subsidise, don't subsidise big companies, like for example BP and Shell still receive government money.
	Pfizer, all of the, for the clinical trial phase of those medicines, that was all, that was all subsidised, paid for by taxpayers.
	100%.
	We only paid for 100% of it.
	It's only all of it.
	I feel like if that is the model, when it comes to the profit stage, then you should share in the benefits, surely.
	That's just a little manifesto point.
	So how about, that's just one manifesto point, I've got a few others I'm working with.
	Don't let people in Congress own stocks and shares in the companies that they regulate.
	End lobbying forever.
	Don't allow politicians to have financial interests in large corporations.
	End the revolving door between Washington, Wall Street, big tech and the financial industry.
	Demonopolise Facebook, Google.
	I've got loads of ideas, mate.
	Wow.
	Well, save them.
	A lot of them were chatbots.
	Of course they were, yeah.
	The chatbot don't have those ideas.
	Chatbot, things are basically okay!
	Those chatbots are idea.
	Hey, listen, we're kind of come off YouTube now, so now is your chance to see who are the two pandemic heroes that profited from the pandemic, even though they were saying that the pandemic was bad, which obviously bloody well was bad.
	Who are they?
	We're going to leave YouTube right now and answer that question.
	Who's been profiting?
	Who are these silhouetted men?
	The first one, who do you think they are, Gareth?
	You know because you work here.
	I do know.
	Do you want me to say who they are?
	Yeah.
	And look at them being revealed as well because it's enjoyable.
	All right, let's have a look at them being revealed.
	Well, it's Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates.
	But how is Anthony Fauci, for example, profiting in a new and novel way from the pandemic?
	Let's have a look at that.
	So Andy Fauci is charged as much as 100 grand for speaking engagements months after leaving his position in the Biden administration.
	He was, I think, the highest paid public official, I think our friend Open Books said.
	The former director of the NIAID's listing on leading motivational speakers is listed under the motivational speakers and healthcare speakers category.
	He certainly motivated America, didn't he?
	Yeah.
	Get their masks on, take that medicine, stay in your house.
	Certainly motivated those royalty payments as well.
	Moved them down into the bank account, although that's quite diffuse and difficult to track.
	But he had some. And then how did Bill Gates, how did Bill Gates profit?
	Well, because even though he's still the largest single owner of Microsoft,
	he also got that little old foundation that funds the WHO, gives hundreds of millions to various media platforms,
	develops numerous vaccines at various places.
	And check this, the Gates Foundation bank, roughly 260 million dollars in cash
	from stocks with 242 million dollars being untaxed profit, given the money was invested through the foundation.
	We talked about this before.
	We did a wonderful presentation on this is often what people mean
	when they say foundation is we ain't paying no tax.
	Well, I'm pretty sure the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation makes more money than it gives away.
	That's weird because it's a not-for-profit.
	Yeah.
	It's weird because let me just look up what the word profit means somewhere in my poem.
	Chatbot, what does profit mean?
	It means you make more money than you spend.
	Right.
	So the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation makes more money than it spends.
	How is it a not-for-profit?
	In weird ways that you wouldn't understand.
	So the money was invested through the foundation.
	That doesn't account for the additional two million shares that the Gates Foundation sold prior to that from its original pre-IPO equity investment.
	In Q3, I know what Q3 is.
	I know about investments.
	No, I know, I know.
	You think I don't know about it?
	No, I know you do.
	What is it about me?
	that you think makes you think I know you know about them I know I've seen Wall Street yeah one
	and two so I know what's going on the Gates Foundation secured a return of over 15 times
	on its initial investment that's also sounds like profit over the next quarter Gates unloaded
	1.4 million shares of CuraVac banking an estimated 50 million dollars yeah because
	that was the other one that he invested in other than buy ntech So there was a few that he invested in.
	You've got to be loyal, I think, to a vaccine.
	You can't be saying on the Monday, it's not like on the Monday, oh, Pfizer.
	On the Tuesday, Moderna.
	On the Wednesday, that one I ain't even heard of, CureVac.
	You could add that to your manifesto.
	One vaccine!
	For all, like, Lord of the Rings.
	One vaccine to end all vaccines.
	Not what they're currently doing.
	Vaccines now is like iPhone updates, the forever vacs.
	That's what they want, isn't it, as a model.
	They want subscription models where you license everything, where you own nothing.
	Oh yeah, they've told us that already, so that's not a revelation.
	But where you're continually updating your vaccines, you're updating your phone, you don't own anything.
	But maybe one of your manifesto points could be when someone's... I don't like you distancing yourself because I'd like you to say our manifesto.
	Oh our manifesto, sorry.
	That if you're like benefiting in some way from the pandemic that you shouldn't be in some way in charge of pandemic policy.
	Maybe that could be.
	You can't present yourself as a sort of a neutral like pandemic czar if you... Oh god I should probably mention as well as how much I want to help everyone I've also made more money than almost anybody else from this thing through this foundation that I've got.
	Extraordinary.
	Yep.
	I'm very excited to talk to Matthias in a minute.
	Matthias has written this really cool book about totalitarianism and how sort of mass psychology is being used to corral us into a sort of a gelatinous mob of imbecility, unable to query centralised messaging.
	Are you interested in that sort of thing?
	Oh, very much so, yeah.
	That's what gets me going.
	But before we talk to Matthias, and you've got to stay for this, you're going to love this conversation, we want to Unpack for you quite a complex issue.
	You will have noticed, because of the balloon, that the current U.S.
	government are escalating tensions between the U.S.
	and China.
	You know that military bases are cropping up in what's called a sort of an arc of menace or something like a sex noose around the neck of China.
	It's called something like that, isn't it?
	Did I just add the word sex?
	I think you did.
	John Pilger says they call it a noose.
	I call it this.
	That's because I've got my cut gins about it.
	Sure, sure.
	Why are you putting that news around China?
	I don't know man, it's the only way I can get off!
	Anyway, there's military bases all around China and we know that this is because of trade agreements and an increasingly fruitful alliance between Russia and China.
	And they call their treaties really nice stuff.
	Like the China-Russia tree is called the Good Friends and Good Neighbours Give Us a Cuddle Chum Act, and our ones are called the sort of Bastard Gang.
	Wolf of It's Doctrine.
	Wolf of It's, the Wolf of It's Doctrine.
	The Bastard's Gang.
	We're the friendly old, cuddly old, silly sausages gang.
	So anyway, we're going to give you a real glimpse into the wonderful world of geopolitics, explaining complex narratives in a, I would say, rather pacey, exciting, accessible manner.
	You don't think I should be reviewing it?
	No, I think it is.
	It's exactly that.
	I'm reviewing it.
	Let me know what you think about it in the chat, in the comments.
	We'll be reading your chat, er, your comments, in a minute, straight afterwards.
	But now, it's time for you to have a look at the escalation of tension between the US and China, and the trade deals that are behind it, and look at how we've made it funny.
	Just so you don't get bored.
	We love you.
	Here's the news.
	No, here's the effing news.
	Thank you for choosing Fox News.
	The news.
	No, here's the effing news.
	One thing about this proxy war between Ukraine and Russia is that it hasn't got a bad enough
	antagonist in the form of Russia that can create enough chaos and potential Armageddon.
	So hopefully the USA are amping up aggression with China, particularly if those Chinese are doing anything at all with terrifying balloons.
	You know the Ukraine war?
	Of course you do.
	It's on the television.
	Well, have you noticed that you are only given a particular perspective, that it's profitable for the military-industrial complex and subsequent to the war, Black Rock and other huge organizations will profit considerably, how you're not informed of the narrative that Russia provoked it.
	Well, all of this now, while is novel to some people and not acknowledged by many more, is passing into history as America sets its sights on China, an even bigger Scary a country to annoy.
	How could such a ridiculous story be unfolding in our lifetimes with top military brass suggesting we could be at war by 2025?
	Surely it's not possible.
	Surely that's ridiculous.
	But they said a proxy war with Russia was ridiculous and we're in one now.
	A high-ranking military general sounding the alarm, predicting the U.S.
	could find itself at war with China within two years.
	Air Force General Mike Minahan sent a memo saying, my gut tells me we will fight in 2025.
	She's team reason and opportunity are all aligned for 2025.
	Wars for the United States and in particular the military industrial complex
	are like world cups or Olympics now.
	They offer an opportunity for incredible financial growth and consolidation of power and advancing the interests of the elite.
	Over the course of this conversation, with me doing most of the talking, we are going to explain those ideas to you.
	How wars advantage the most powerful interests in the world.
	You're not going to believe how this stuff unfolds.
	Now, the provocation of China would seem like a ridiculous thing to do.
	We all remember when Nancy Pelosi, that hero, that great hero and stock market genius, or at least her husband is, but they don't talk anyway, we remember how when she went to Taiwan, it increased tensions between China and the U.S.
	Fortunately now, in Kevin McCarthy, there's an entirely different Speaker of the House from an entirely different party, so everything's all different now.
	That's what politics can offer us.
	Reports last week revealing U.S.
	House Speaker Kevin McCarthy may soon visit Taiwan.
	But wait, didn't we?
	Oh, no, it's the same anyway!
	A Chinese government official is responding, saying, quote, we urge certain individuals in the US to earnestly abide by the one China principle.
	It's a weird job, Speaker of the House.
	Mostly what you'll be doing is maintaining order during congressional debates.
	OK.
	And every so often, you've got to go to Taiwan and piss off the Chinese.
	Cool.
	Any reaction to China's warning against visiting Taiwan for you?
	I don't think China can tell me where I can go at any time at any place.
	Well, we'll see.
	We all like a confident politician, but do we all like nuclear wars?
	Hopefully, we'll find out.
	If not by provoking Russia, then by provoking the Chinese.
	Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi made the trip back in August.
	She is the first House Speaker in a quarter century to visit Taiwan, and the trip caused quite a stir.
	Luckily, in American democracy, you can vote for whether you want to provoke a nuclear war with a person with these genitals or these genitals.
	Thank you, democracy!
	US-led provocations and escalations against China are becoming a regular occurrence, both from the US itself and from its imperial assets like Australia and Taiwan.
	Yet, according to the Western political media class, the urgent threat of our day is Chinese aggression.
	What's that?
	Up in the sky?
	Is it a balloon?
	Ah!
	Balloons are things from the old days.
	What's next?
	A threat from a clown?
	From a piñata?
	A paraphernalia of a birthday?
	Ah!
	They've got streamers!
	The US empire has been increasingly positioning its war machinery around China since the Obama administration's pivot to Asia.
	Which sounds like a lovely little dance rather than a provocation of a nuclear war.
	In ways that would have led to an immediate third world war if the roles were reversed Yeah, that's really weird, isn't it?
	We're always saying that stuff they do is, when I say they, I mean, like, Russia or China is really awful.
	But when it's the other way round, it's just, we're protecting our freedoms!
	Your freedoms!
	They hate our freedoms!
	It's extraordinary.
	You can't have an honest, open, public discourse if you use bias in such an extreme way.
	Because the fact is, is that truth is complex.
	And when you're dealing with geopolitics, it's even more complex.
	But what's not complex is that the media only give you one side of the story, and that side of the story is usually favourable to the most powerful interests in the world.
	That's one thing we've noticed here, so that shows you that there is an agenda, and its aggressions have escalated with each subsequent administration.
	Just in the last couple of months, we've had news that the U.S.
	is planning on returning to its Subic Bay base in the Philippines as part of its encirclement campaign against China, and also intends to station missile-armed marines along Japan's Okinawa Islands.
	They don't even like having a balloon above America, and also, I find it sort of annoying.
	Get that balloon down from there!
	Like, it's annoying, isn't it, up there?
	Hey, what you doing down there at that airbase?
	Let's have a look!
	But encircling China?
	That's much worse, isn't it?
	Encircling someone with missile bases.
	Just think of it yourself.
	What do you want?
	To be surrounded by missiles?
	Ooh, what's the other option?
	Balloon floating above your head.
	What?
	Just a balloon floating above your head.
	Yeah.
	Can I shoot it down?
	Yeah, if you want.
	The US is also reportedly working on building a network of missile systems on a chain of islands near the Chinese mainland, explicitly for the goal of countering China.
	This doesn't seem like a way of dampening down tensions between China and U.S.
	Well, okay, so we've invited you over, and during the Olympic ceremony, there's a bit where we're gonna sort of shake hands and salute each other's flags.
	Oh, that's very nice.
	Good.
	Thank you.
	We're also surrounding you with missiles.
	Oh, well, hang on.
	It's starting to think that Olympic ceremony doesn't mean anything.
	It doesn't.
	The U.S.
	and its allies have dramatically increased their naval presence in disputed waters near China, viewed as acts of aggression by Beijing.
	You don't want a naval presence in your disputed waters.
	Sounds like a medical condition.
	Oh, I've got a naval presence in me disputed waters.
	Well, don't sit next to me then.
	Pooey!
	No other matter of U.S.
	national security is more important than China.
	Stop fucking provoking them then.
	The RAND Corporation.
	Always good news when you hear from that little bunch at the RAND Corporation.
	The RAND Corporation never get together and say, how can we help people?
	I don't know, why don't we send some kids some snacks and candy?
	Why don't we help old ladies across the road?
	It's always, why don't we fuck with China for a while?
	Nice work, Randy, old son!
	Let's see what they're doing this week.
	The Rand Corporation, a research arm of the Pentagon, has called China a peer competitor and the U.S.' 's greatest long-term threat.
	Joe Biden's Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, has also called China the greatest threat to the U.S.' 's security.
	NATO labeled China a malicious actor.
	They're really escalating the way they describe China.
	They're a peer, they're a threat, they're a long-term competitor.
	I think they're malicious actors.
	I don't like them.
	I think they're pricks.
	Have you seen that they eat with little sticks?
	I don't think that's right.
	NATO labelled China a malicious actor in the alliance's latest strategic concept document and pledged to play a larger role in curbing the so-called threats presented by its rise.
	Oh, that's interesting.
	Haven't we heard this before?
	NATO getting involved, provoking people, calling them a militia actor.
	A little bit later, we're in a war that's really profitable for the military industrial complex and Blackrock.
	You can bet that somewhere in this mad fiasco, there's people making money that they're apparently willing to spend in a barren apocalyptic wasteland.
	It's important to note that US war preparations with China have little to do with Taiwan specifically.
	Of course, there's going to be a bit where they go, do you know what's been bothering me?
	What?
	Taiwan.
	No one's doing nothing to help Taiwan!
	Well, I've only really thought about Taiwan when it was on the back of Tom Cruise's jacket in that Maverick film.
	I know, but that's just the beginning.
	Those poor bastards in Taiwan are being oppressed by someone we can make money.
	Who is it this time?
	China.
	Oh, fuck.
	Jesus, they're serious.
	You sure?
	Yeah, China.
	Yep, they're suffering at the hands of China.
	Get Lockheed Biden on the phone!
	Gotta help those Taiwanese!
	And then we'll probably do some deals to rebuild Taiwan, surveillance state, etc.
	Oh, you know, but I barely had time to think about that.
	Too busy thinking about protecting those people who's on the back of Maverick's jacket in Top Gun Maverick.
	Their response to imperial decline and the rise of China and Russia.
	So this is the important point.
	They're saying it's not to do with Taiwan or maybe Ukraine.
	It's to do with imperial decline and the ongoing necessity for war on how war facilitates growth in the American economy and stabilizes institutional, elitist, globalist, American corporate power.
	Let's hear how that happens.
	Beijing and Moscow both present their own specific challenges to Washington's hegemony.
	Russia's growing sovereignty and political independence from the US-led West has undermined the Wolfowitz Doctrine of full-spectrum dominance over all territory of the former Soviet Union.
	The Wolfowitz Doctrine doesn't sound like a very nice thing, does it?
	You've nothing to fear.
	We're merely trying to implement the Wolfowitz Doctrine!
	Also, we've got the Bastard Agreement and the Kick-Up-The-Ass Treaty.
	China's massive socialist-led market economy is set to surpass the US's stagnant finance capitalist system in GDP terms by 2035.
	Unless... Worse for the US is that Russia and China have grown closer together.
	Unless... In economic terms...
	Their ones sound like My Little Pony and the Care Bears getting together.
	partnership has grown by leaps and bounds since the Treaty of Good
	Neighbourliness and Friendly Cooperation was established in 2001.
	Their ones sound like My Little Pony and the Care Bears getting together, our ones
	are like the bastard old days imperialist fuck you dogma treaty.
	Oh and what are the Chinese doing?
	The kissy, cuddly, friendly China-Russia-I-love-you-so-much-the-brick-a-brack-cuddly-puddles-of-loveliness-friendly-old-care-bears-good-neighbourly-kissin'-a-hugs-poof-poof-choo-choopy-choo-choo treaty.
	Bilateral trade is expected to increase by 25% and reach a total volume of $200 billion ahead of the 2024 target date.
	Surging economic ties with China have given Russia further protection from US-EU sanctions with agricultural and energy exports to China increasing by the month.
	China and Russia have also increased coordination on matters of military coordination, color revolutions, and diplomacy in the face of a common threat, US imperialism.
	How's those sanctions going, Joe Biden?
	Helpful?
	Desired effect?
	Contracts between China and Russia?
	Oh, that bloody balloon!
	We beat big balloons this year!
	Sorry, was that me?
	But perhaps the biggest threat to US hegemony resides in China and Russia's leadership in the global movement for integration and de-dollarisation.
	De-dollarisation?
	Wait, no, I don't like that.
	China and Russia are the principal leaders of multilateral institutions such as the BRICS Plus mechanism and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
	These multilateral institutions set out to strengthen investment in all sectors of economic and social development between participating countries, especially in the realm of finance.
	In response to starvation sanctions imposed by the US and EU and predatory loans from Western financial institutions, Bricks Plus has united the largest global South economies, uniting Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in an effort to develop an alternative to the US dollar dominated neoliberal economic system.
	The strength of Bricks Plus grew immensely in 2022.
	Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Iran, Argentina and several other countries expressed interest in or applied to join Bricks Plus.
	Hmm.
	BRICS Plus is complemented by China and Russia's own integration projects, which aim to develop the infrastructure necessary to break free from the petrodollar.
	China's Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, sports major cooperation agreements with more than 140 countries and consists of at least 2,000 development initiatives, many of which are completed or under construction.
	Talks of possibly merging the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union and the BRI are already underway.
	The interest that China and Saudi Arabia have shown in trading oil in Chinese yuan and Russia's pursuit of an international reserve currency and the idea of BRICS coin are presented as major threats to Western financial dominance.
	I suppose what we are witnessing is the emergence of bureaucratic, administrative and trade opposition to the current order of financial cooperation and the type of Western globalism that we all assume will take over the world, that, at least in my imagination and opinion, appears to be backed by organisations like NATO, etc., various financial and military arms and ideological and philosophical arms of this set of financial interests and domination agenda.
	At the moment, the only potential opposition to this unipolar scheme could come if nations such as those described set up their own alternative.
	How can the US and the set of globalist interests that US government tends to represent ever challenge this potential threat?
	The US's answer to fading imperial hegemony is war, and more of it.
	War is an inherent feature of predatory neoliberalism, where corporations seek favourable conditions to exploit and plunder the planet's labouring classes and resources.
	Look at the Ukraine conflict and see if that template is applicable.
	War is also a permanent and very profitable industry dominated by a tiny few military contractors.
	See if you can learn anything about that idea from the current conflict in Ukraine.
	The ruling elite has calculated that U.S.
	imperialism cannot compete with China and Russia, making the rise of both an existential threat to the future of U.S.-led neoliberalism and imperialism.
	That U.S.
	foreign policy strategists and experts are planning for the next war should come as no surprise.
	U.S.
	imperialism does not target singular enemies.
	It targets alternative development models and the nations attempting to build them.
	A few useful contemporary examples might be the rise of Bitcoin and digital currencies more broadly, which were first demonised and now are being co-opted and centralised.
	We're seeing more talk of CBDCs, which I would say is an indication of the success or potential further success of decentralised currency models.
	It's something that has to be attacked and undermined.
	It's against American interests.
	As Henry Kissinger said, the United States has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.
	That's an interesting dialectic tool to apply.
	Just interest.
	What are those interests?
	Can you see those interests playing out in current conflict?
	Could you see how those interests could be served through a conflict elsewhere?
	The Ukraine proxy war is thus a testing ground for the larger US agenda of imperial expansion.
	The current proxy war between Ukraine and Russia is obviously a testing ground for weapons as we have shown you, opportunity to introduce surveillance models and CBDCs, an opportunity to destabilize Russia, an opportunity to demonize a potential opponent in this potential bipolar world.
	So you can see how Henry Kissinger's model is playing out there.
	One of the things that fascinates me is if you look hard enough or just remember or watch news archive, you know, take the Nord Stream gas pipeline.
	You can see people saying there won't be a Nord Stream gas pipeline.
	They won't be able to get away with that if that were ever to happen.
	Our agenda is to make sure that America can meet Europe's energy needs.
	All of these things are available to you if you want to put together the research and news as our team have done here.
	That's why of course independent journalism has to be ultimately demonised, smeared, brought
	down and the problems that online media bring about to these kind of centralised narratives
	and the interests that they coalesce around is it gives us the ability to go, hey wait
	a minute, couldn't this also be as well as humanitarianism which it doesn't seem from
	history you give a shit about, could it be these interests that are being pursued?
	So they obviously have to shut down that side of the conversation.
	How do you do that?
	You call people conspiracy theorists, you shut down debate.
	We're seeing all of this play out in real time.
	It's just interesting isn't it to expand out and look at what the macro threat might be.
	The long game here is a potential deal between China and Russia and other large nations that could ultimately destabilise the petrodollar, destabilise American centralist corporate interests and the kind of stuff that we generally talk about here.
	There is, it seems, a realistic external threat, at least outside of their narrative and their hegemony, presented by Russia and China.
	So who are we having a war with now and who are we having a war with next?
	And whatever they tell you, the reason is obviously they have to give you a reason that will mobilise you and prevent meaningful opposition.
	And if, by the way, you can make it taboo to even criticise that war, all the better.
	It's not easy to come out and say, hey, this conflict with Ukraine, because people are like, don't you care about Ukrainian people and Ukrainian children?
	Well, of course, actually.
	That's why it would be good to come to a peaceful resolution.
	And the same will happen in a while with Taiwan.
	So get ready for some humanitarian disaster that's happening in Taiwan.
	Watch how these narratives start getting fed in through the mainstream.
	There's a balloon up there!
	You know, I'm not saying that balloon's not real or whatever.
	I'm just saying, look at how centralised forces coalesce around US interests.
	And actually, if you look hard enough, they've told you all of this stuff.
	They're telling you it.
	It's hidden in plain sight, as they say.
	But that's just what I think.
	Let me know what you think in the chat and the comments.
	I'll be reading those comments in a second.
	Thanks for choosing Fox News.
	The news.
	No, here's the fucking news!
	Bob303, you said, Oh goody, wars. On multiple fronts. With countries that
	have nuclear bombs.
	Yup, that's what the world needs.
	Sue's Joy, we, ah Taiwan, she's saying this from Taiwan, are a pawn.
	Ugh, I don't want to move back to the US.
	Please pray that this doesn't happen.
	And then Larry Stink says, why help people when you can monetize their destruction?
	Some interesting comments from our community.
	Thank you, guys.
	Keep those comments coming.
	Keep chatting to us.
	If you're watching this on Rumble, and you are, because it's exclusively there, press Rumble right now.
	It's really helpful to us and to our guests.
	I can be the anti-chat bot.
	Be the anti-chat bot.
	What do you mean by that?
	Well, be the real human version.
	Be human!
	For God's sake, your humanity is your greatest weapon.
	Even your vulnerability, even your flaws are beautiful.
	All of the doubts, all of the suffering.
	Perhaps this is ultimately what will separate us from the terrifying AI revolution.
	Hey, we've got a guest coming on right now.
	It's Matthias Desmet.
	This is his book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism.
	This book's just been banned by Ghent University, which I think he works there.
	So he's ever so cheesed off.
	If you ban my book, my bookie book.
	What?
	Yeah, no one can read it around here.
	Hey, that's against my rights as an author.
	No.
	Matthias, thank you very much for joining us on Stay Free with Russell Brand.
	We're grateful to have you.
	Thank you, Russell, for inviting me.
	It's great to be here.
	Do you work at Ghent University?
	I do.
	They've banned your own book.
	How do you feel?
	Well, it feels a bit strange, of course.
	You don't expect university to ban books.
	Definitely, in my opinion, there are not very good reasons to do so.
	But I will reply.
	I will respond to this decision, explaining crystal clear why I think The book shouldn't be banned, of course.
	Pius, they'll probably ban your reply.
	Now, before we get into this book banning, let's work out what the book is, in fact, about.
	Can you tell us, first of all, what is meant by the phrase mass formation?
	Give us a few examples of how mass formation could be understood in the last century under old forms of totalitarianism, Stalinism, fascism, etc., and how totalitarianism has altered In accordance with the rise of cybernetics, AI and new ways of corralling and managing data.
	The title of the book, of course, is The Psychology of Totalitarianism.
	Totalitarianism is a typical kind of state which is different from a classical dictatorship.
	Many people confuse totalitarian states with classical dictatorships, but they are completely different.
	A classical dictatorship is based on a very elementary, very primitive psychological mechanism, namely the population that is scared of a small group of people, the dictatorial regime, who has a huge aggressive potential and in this way can impose unilaterally its social contract to the population.
	But the totalitarian state is based on a completely different psychological mechanism.
	It is based on the psychological mechanism of mass formation.
	What is mass formation?
	Mass formation is a very specific group formation which has a very specific effect at the level of individual mental functioning.
	When people are in the grip of a mass formation, they typically lose all capacity to take a critical distance of what the group believes in.
	When the group believes in the most absurd things, more blatantly wrong, they will continue to go along with the narrative that led to the group formation.
	That's one thing.
	The second thing is that when someone is in the grip of a mass formation, he typically becomes willing to sacrifice everything.
	His own health, wealth, the future of his children, and so on and so on.
	When someone is in the grip of a mass formation, he's willing to radically self-sacrifice.
	A third very specific effect at the level of individual mental functioning is that people who are in the grip of a mass formation become radically intolerant for dissonant voices.
	That's very important.
	And in the end, when the mass formation continues until the last stage, the masses typically start to commit atrocities, start to destroy each and everyone who doesn't go along with the masses.
	And they do so as if it is their ethical duty to do so.
	And the better you understand the mechanism of mass formation, the more you see what we can do against it.
	And that's what my book is all about.
	I describe how Throughout the last 200 centuries, very specific psychological conditions emerged in the population.
	And how these conditions led to larger and larger and stronger and stronger mass formations, and eventually led to the emergence of totalitarian states, which are always based on mass formation.
	So it's crucial to understand how this mechanism works.
	You need four conditions.
	In order for large-scale mass formation to emerge, the first one is that many people should feel isolated and lonely.
	And just before the corona crisis, many people felt isolated and lonely.
	Theresa May appointed the Minister of Loneliness about 10 or 12 years ago, I think.
	And the US Surgeon General in the United States claimed that there was a loneliness epidemic.
	A lot of people felt lonely.
	And then the second condition.
	First, many people have to feel lonely.
	Second condition, many people have to be confronted with lack of meaning-making in life.
	Third, very important, many people have to feel so-called free-floating anxiety, frustration and aggression.
	That means anxiety, frustration and aggression that cannot be coupled to a mental representation.
	That means that people feel anxious, frustrated and aggressive without knowing what they feel anxious, frustrated and aggressive for.
	And when these conditions are met, Something very specific might happen in society.
	Free-floating anxiety is extremely aversive, because when you don't know what you feel anxious for, you cannot control your anxiety.
	And in these conditions, something very specific might happen.
	If, under these conditions, a narrative is distributed through the mass media, indicating an object of anxiety and the strategy to deal with that object of anxiety, Then all this free-floating anxiety might suddenly couple to this object of anxiety.
	And there might be a huge willingness in the population to participate in the strategy, to deal with the object of anxiety, even when this strategy is utterly absurd.
	So the object of anxiety, for instance, in the corona crisis, was the coronavirus.
	The strategy was the lockdowns, the vaccination campaigns, and so on.
	But exactly the same things happened in the past.
	The Soviet Union, we had the aristocracy that was the object of anxiety and the gulags that were a way to deal with it.
	We had the Jews in Nazi Germany.
	We had the witches in the 17th, 16th century.
	We had the Muslims during the Crusades and so on.
	Every large-scale mass formation starts in the same way.
	The free-floating anxiety is all coupled to an object of anxiety and then someone proposes a strategy to deal with that object of anxiety.
	There is a huge willingness in the population to participate in this strategy.
	The psychological advantage, of course, is that from then on, people have the feeling that they can control their anxiety and that they have an object at which they can direct all their frustration and aggression, which gives a huge satisfaction.
	And then in a second step, something even more important happens.
	Something extremely important.
	Because so many people at the same time participate in the same strategy, the same heroic battle with the object of anxiety.
	People have the feeling that they can escape their loneliness, that they feel connected again.
	That's why every Mass Foundation goes hand in hand with a feeling of solidarity and new citizenship.
	That, as the loneliness and a disconnection, was the root cause of the psychological level of the mass formation.
	It seems to people as if the mass formation cures them, takes away their loneliness.
	And actually, that's crucial.
	That's not true.
	Because a mass is always a group that is formed, not because individuals connect to each other, A mass is a group that is formed because individuals all connect to the same collective ideal.
	And in the end, when the mass formation continues for a long time, all solidarity and all love is sucked away from the bond between individuals and it's all injected in the bond between the individual and the collective.
	Meaning that After a while, everyone expects from everyone else that everyone sacrifices everything for the collective, and there is no solidarity at all anymore between individuals.
	So that's a strange effect that the mass formation creates.
	It focuses all the attention on one small aspect of reality, for instance, the corona crisis.
	It connects the group in a heroic battle with this object of anxiety, And it leads to a mental state that is typically the same as hypnosis.
	Mass formation, technically speaking, is the same as mass hypnosis.
	Also in a hypnotic procedure, all your attention is focused on one small aspect of reality, and the rest of reality seems to disappear.
	That was exactly what happened in the corona crisis.
	Everybody was focused on the victims of the coronavirus, and it seemed that nobody noticed anymore that there was a huge collateral damage, and that every proper cost-benefit analysis might conclude that the remedy was worse than the cure.
	So that's the effect of a large-scale mass emission.
	I like the way that it is tied to individual psyches and states that are identifiable and empirical, such as loneliness.
	I like the way that it is connected to the inherent nihilism and loss of meaning that many people are experiencing as many of the ideas of the last century and the religious ideas that preceded them are starting to collapse into ideas of commerce, and pleasure and distraction as opposed to meaning and
	purpose.
	It fascinates me also, Matthias, that the energy can be directed in this way,
	but I guess that one of the things that a lot of people will inquire about
	is that when we talk about totalitarianism in its earlier forms,
	there are key identifiers, in particular the kind of emblems, I suppose there's an aesthetic to fascism and communism
	that's recognisable, and in particular there's rhetoric and indeed actual...
	Genocide, prejudice, violence.
	Now, I noted that you talked about that there are several phases and stages.
	Are you suggesting that a natural and indeed necessary progression of this early stage Mass formation that we're currently experiencing that was inculcated and practiced during the pandemic and you can see examples of even in the reporting of an attitudes towards the current UK and Russia conflict will at some point lead to comparable violence.
	If you're making the point that This has the characteristics of 20th century totalitarianism in some form.
	Are you similarly making the case that there will be a corollary of violence or will it be neutered and a different type of violence?
	Is that kind of violence no longer necessary when control can be asserted through freezing of assets, manipulation of behavior, etc.? ?
	Yes, every mass, every crowd or every mass, if it continues for a long time, is at risk of committing atrocities and is at risk of Committing atrocities towards the people who do not go along with them.
	The most important, the crucial thing is whether or not there will be dissident voices, whether or not there will be people who continue to speak out against the narrative the masses follow.
	That's crucial.
	That's something that was described by Gustave Le Bon already in the 19th century.
	He said every time a mass emerges in a society, there's a group of people who is not sensitive to this mass formation, but a rather large group.
	And then of this group who doesn't fall prey to the hypnosis or to the mass formation, there is a very small group who decides to speak out.
	And in first place, initially, these people will be disappointed because they will notice that they cannot Wake up the people who are in the mass formation, that they cannot show the people in the mass formation, that the narrative they follow is absurd in many respects.
	So they'll be disappointed, but they should never forget that something that was described already by Gustave Le Bon, they should never forget that even when they do not succeed in waking up the masses, they have an extremely important effect.
	And that effect is that they constantly disturb the mass formation.
	And in this way, make sure that the mass formation doesn't go to the last and ultimate stage where they start to be really destructive, where they start to destroy everyone who doesn't go along with them.
	So what is crucial is the question whether or not there will be a group who will continue to speak out.
	History has shown us what happens when the opposition decides to become silent, decides to go underground completely.
	That happened in 1930, I think, in the Soviet Union, 1935 in Nazi Germany, and within one year, the masses started to commit atrocities.
	At that moment, the opposition decided that it became too dangerous to speak out, and it decided to shut up.
	decided to stop speaking out.
	And that's exactly, sometime a few months later, typically, the atrocity starts.
	So, it's crucial, that's an extremely important difference between a classical dictatorship and a totalitarian state.
	In a classical dictatorship, it makes sense to hide and to go underground, to stop speaking out.
	In a totalitarian state, it doesn't.
	So that's also a very typical difference.
	If in a totalitarian state, the leaders succeed in silencing the opposition... I will give the other example first.
	If in a classical dictatorship, the dictator succeeds in silencing the opposition, he will typically become less aggressive.
	He will mitigate his aggression, just because he has His common sense, which tells him, I'm in control now.
	I should just show the population that I will be a good leader.
	So he becomes less aggressive.
	If in a totalitarian state, the leaders succeed in silencing the opposition, exactly the opposite will happen.
	First, then the system will start to unleash its aggressive potential.
	Because at that moment, the mass formation becomes complete.
	The madness becomes complete.
	And everyone in the masses and the leaders start to be convinced that it is their holy duty to destroy everyone who doesn't go along with their system, with their ideology, with their totalitarian ideology, of which they always believe that it will create an artificial paradise.
	Hitler had such a theory, his race theory.
	Stalin had his historical materialist theory.
	And now we are at risk of a more transhumanist technocratic idea.
	Matthijs, Matthijs, I've got some questions that have built up over the time we've been talking.
	Here they are.
	Thanks.
	The first one is Martin Goury in his book The Revolt of the Public talks about the impossibility of the type of totalitarianism of the last century because of the Capacity for dissenting voices and counter narratives continually that technology has presented us with.
	And I know that Brad Evans, friend of the show, could offer a frequent guest on the show and professor of violence would say that we're always or the state is always looking for who it is permitted to enact violence against.
	And when I was trying to discern whether this is a classical dictatorship or totalitarianism, and I know that the argument you're making is this is totalitarianism, I was thinking, who is it already permitted to enact violence against?
	I suppose you'd say domestically, people that are in prison, people that are homeless and destitute, abroad, there are certain countries that is permissible and
	certain populations and ethnic groups that even the neoliberal states sanctions violence
	against. So I'm just looking at whether or like I'm looking for the symptoms of the potential
	exacerbation of this condition because I imagine that what you're arguing is that we are in the ascent
	of this phenomena and that without organized opposition which is possible as Martin Goury has
	posits in his book Dissent of the Revolt of the Public that it is possible now for dissenting
	voices to maintain counter narratives to organize even in the face of considerable opposition
	that sort of Throughout the pandemic, let's take an example, there were
	Continuing counter narrative voices, there were continual studies about vaccine efficacy, adverse reactions, efficacy of lockdown, questioning the profits of big pharma, the regulatory actions of the government.
	So And now, of course, what's I suppose concerning is the way that there is a sort of a collective amnesia and a willingness to continue the kind of trust and relationship that you describe between the mass formation and the centralized leadership elites.
	So what I suppose what I'm asking you, Matthias, is What do you think is the requirement for meaningful opposition to this attempt at globalist totalitarianism?
	And given your diagnosis that there's a point where violence starts being enacted, where do you think we are on that trajectory currently?
	Well, we are definitely not at the end stage yet of the mass formation.
	So the crucial question will be whether there are people who are very decided just to continue to speak out, no matter what happens.
	And technology can help.
	Indeed, at this moment, through the social media, alternative opinions, dissident voices can spread very fast around the world.
	And that's extremely important.
	The question, of course, is whether in a certain amount of time, The alternative voices will not be banned from the social media.
	That's a good question, of course.
	Because as soon as, let's say, a digital ID is introduced, it might become quite easy to ban critical voices from the social media.
	I hope it will not.
	And even in that case, we will have to continue to speak out.
	So, no matter what happens, If we can't speak out on social media, then we just speak out on the streets and in the shops and in the pubs.
	That's also a good place to speak out.
	But that's always a decisive question, because mass formation is identical to a kind of group formation, mass hypnosis.
	And hypnosis is always induced by the voice, the voice of a leader.
	That's exactly why totalitarian leaders use so much indoctrination and propaganda rather than terror, as a classical dictatorship does.
	The classical dictatorship uses terror in the first place.
	Indoctrination and propaganda can only be countered by truth speech.
	People who speak in a sincere and honest way what they think is true, not because they are convinced that they are the only ones who know everything, no, just because they say, it's my ethical duty as a human being to articulate the words of which I think they are sincere and honest.
	If we do it in this way, not so much trying to convince other people, but just Trying to articulate the words that we think are sincere and honest, then we will have a maximal effect.
	That's what we have to do.
	Not so much trying to convince, trying to, in a quiet and peaceful way, articulate what we think is true.
	And that's where our voice will have a maximum resonating capacity.
	And it is this resonating capacity that is capable of disturbing the mass formation.
	The mass formation of which, in the end, only about 20-30% of the people are in the grip of.
	So, usually, not much more than 20-30% of the people are in the grip of the mass formation, but there is like 60-65%, maybe even more, it's hard to say exactly, but who always follows the masses because they have the loudest voice in society and because they are never used to go against the loudest voice.
	So it's just crucial that the people who have the courage to speak out continue to do so, and continue to do so in the right way.
	Matthias Desmet, thank you so much for joining us, for introducing us to some new terminology and some very exciting, if terrifying, new information.
	I'd love you to join us for our whole episode in the next few weeks, so that we can spend an hour talking through these ideas.
	at more length. Thank you so much for joining us. Matthias Desmet is the author of The Psychology
	of Totalitarianism and you can of course follow his work on Substack before he's banned. Matthias,
	thank you so much for joining us, mate. Thank you for inviting me. It's great to talk to you. Thank
	you very much. Thanks Lexi for the hookup. I appreciate it.
	On the show tomorrow Satish Kumar, activist and the author of Radical Love. That's a pivot.
	That's the kind of thing we offer on this show. Analysis of mass formations from a kind of radical
	academic and then Satish Kumar whose historic walk from India to the United States set the tone
	for new spirituality, new pilgrimages.
	He met Martin Luther King, he met Bertrand Russell, talked about CND.
	He's a brilliant elder and great leader and you'll love learning from him tomorrow.
	Gareth, what did you think about Matthias Desmet there?
	Did you enjoy our conversation?
	Very interesting.
	Obviously, you know, pretty terrifying.
	I thought, you know, when you were asking about where we were on the kind of trajectory, it felt like, to me, there were moments during the pandemic, certainly in ways that we heard from politicians and the media, where there was a kind of two-tier society being formed.
	Yeah, that unvaccinated stuff, they were talking about shaming, blaming, that was borderline, wasn't it?
	Yeah, and so when you were kind of saying where are we and where are the atrocities, it felt like, to me, we were heading in a direction that was pretty scary.
	Yeah, they were looking at justifying it and in a sense it was only because of the demonstrable hypocrisy that many people that are unvaccinated are also drawn from communities that part of their stated ideology is supposed to be conserving or protective of, I'm speaking specifically of people from non-white or non-dominant cultures in those particular nations.
	Perhaps arrested or at least provided a counter narrative, but it wouldn't have been enough.
	Ultimately, people lost their jobs, people lost economic opportunities.
	I believe there's been some movement in that New York City case, Gareth, where all those 34,000 nurses lost their job.
	I think there's going to be more cases because isn't there been a precedent set?
	I think that's the other side of it, Ross, is that when we're talking about atrocities, it might not be in the form that we're used to seeing in the history books.
	You know, people wiped out in that sense.
	But when you hear that, you know, 30 or 40% of small businesses have not reopened after the pandemic, when you hear that this amount of people are suffering through depression, suicide, cancer, all these kind of things, there are atrocities.
	It's just that exactly like he was saying at the start of it, at the start of it, only one narrative was being focused on.
	And that was what everyone could kind of get behind.
	Particularly when you consider that the victims of those atrocities were ultimately sanctioned, what you know I've raised rather well, that point about there are certain communities that you're permitted to commit violence against.
	Well, you know, over the time that energy giants have been getting record profits, big pharma record profits, big tech record profits, small businesses annihilated.
	That's how the wealth transfer that's often discussed took place.
	And so, yeah, I think there's a, I suppose that is evidence both the treatment of the unvaccinated and as you say, mate, the more diffuse economic impugning of small businesses and the increase in mental health.
	That is an example of atrocities.
	Would you agree?
	Let us know in the chat.
	Let us know in the comments.
	But in a more, if not more anodyne form, because it's incredible suffering, it's not as vivid and as obvious as the kind of internment and genocide that we're Familiar with and I certainly wouldn't want to make any comparisons because I'm not mad.
	All right, then so Should we go then because yeah, I've done this for a while now.
	Yeah, we're good I guess the other part of it that I was thinking about is with the Ukraine situation at the moment we've got also got a situation going on in Yemen where You know, far more people have died and are dying and yet the kind of framing of the United States involvement in both those wars is completely different.
	And that again goes back to what he's saying about, it's about the narrative and the framing that's being created here.
	You know, no one's talking about, what about Yemen?
	You know, no one's talking about... Should we do that tomorrow?
	Because there is that ongoing conflict in Yemen and like the framing of particular deaths and particular wars is an interesting thing.
	Do you think so?
	You guys, I'm talking to you.
	We're talking to you with real connection there.
	So hey, listen, we better wrap this show up because we've got to go home.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Well, thank you very much for joining us for our show, Stay Free with Russell Brand.
	I've told you what you've got to look forward to this week.
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	Many switching, switch on, switch off.

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