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Feb. 8, 2023 - Stay Free - Russel Brand
35:29
Mattias Desmet (Psychology of Totalitarianism)

Russell chats to clinical psychologist Mattias Desmet about his book ‘The Psychology of Totalitarianism’ and how mass formation works to control society.You can read Mattias' work on Substack, here: https://bit.ly/3JTpTz8For a bit more from us join our Stay Free Community here https://russellbrand.locals.com/Come to my festival COMMUNITY - https://www.russellbrand.com/community-2023/NEW MERCH! https://stuff.russellbrand.com/

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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 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 him, 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 BRIC+.
Oh yeah.
BRIC+, yeah?
It's not a new type of Lego.
They're bringing it down!
It's not a type of Lego.
Grow up!
No.
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 alright 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 are 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, when he does that, we beat big pharma this year, looks like it could fall off into chalk.
Yeah.
You took the helm in troubled times, disgusting, with a message of unity.
It chimes.
Oh, 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.
No.
That's it.
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.
But 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 US tumor and ignore your fabulous sense of humor.
One thing I like, and this may be minor, is the strange way that you say... Wow.
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 gotten 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's really good.
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, 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 ever get those two things confused.
He owns more Microsoft than any other individual.
Yep.
He's 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 use it more than anyone else.
I suppose so.
Why that example?
I don't know.
I don't use Pornhub.
Don't use Pornhub.
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.
I've not yet chatted to the chatbot.
What always happens is it comes along and is a bit mad.
I remember I asked Jeeves.
He was a lovely guy, wasn't he Jeeves?
Jeeves would send you something of not that much use.
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 chat bot will start off as relatively enjoyable.
Does it actually chat to you?
I don't know.
Does it type back at you?
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, I would have used that as a child, wouldn't you?
I wouldn't have lifted a finger.
I mean, you barely went to school anyway.
I couldn't be bothered, I didn't like it.
It was unusual, very strange.
I was an unusual boy.
But listen, I want to explain to you... He could have written the notes that you got your mum to write.
I'm in a 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.
Who 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.
Yeah.
Bot.
Swit swoo.
Chat.
Bot.
Listen, mate, I'm trying to tell people important, like Google have launched a rival called BARD, which ain't going to succeed because it's too boring.
Hello, I'm BARD.
How can I help you with your inquiries?
So you can tell from its name.
It's already trying to make out it's really clever.
Don't want that.
But shall I compare you to a summer's day?
No, get off.
I'm going to go back to chat bot.
Russell ain't coming.
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.
That's the sort of thing you want?
Is that what you want?
Is that what you want?
It's now 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.
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 balloon!
Then, chatbots.
That's where we're going next.
Stay free with Russell Brand.
See it first on Rumble.
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.
But if you ban my book, I have.
What?
Yeah, no one can read it around here.
Hey!
That's against my rights as an author!
No.
Matthijs, 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 a university to ban books.
Definitely, in my opinion, there are not very good reasons to do so.
But well, I will reply, I will respond to this decision, explaining crystal clear why I think the book shouldn't be banned, of course.
Matthias, 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.
Yes, well, the title of the book, of course, is The Psychology of Totalitarianism.
And 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, we're 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 every one 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, like in.
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 and 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 formation goes hand in hand with a feeling of solidarity and new citizenship.
And that's 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 the 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.
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 formation.
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's 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 energy can be directed in this way.
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 behaviour 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 There's a group of people who continue to speak out against the narrative the masses follow.
That's crucial.
That's something that was described by Gustave Raban 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.
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 will 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 the fact is that they constantly disturb the massive nation.
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.
Like if in a totalitarian state, the leaders succeed in silencing the opposition.
Now, 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... Matthias, Matthias, 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 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
organised 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 organise, even in the face of considerable
opposition. 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.
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 centralised 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, the social media, 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 idea 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.
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.
So, 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 that it is it is this resonating capacity that is capable of disturbing the mass formation.
The mass formation, of which in the end only about 20 to 30% of the people are in the grip of.
So usually not much more than 20 to 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?
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 formatted.
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 are 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 that 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 a bit of precedence there?
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 with, you know, you know, people wiped out in that sense.
But when you hear that, you know, 30 or 40 percent 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.
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 we've done this for a while now.
Yeah, we're good to go.
I guess the other part of it that I was thinking about is, with the Ukraine situation at the moment, we've 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 of 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...
We can do that tomorrow because there is that ongoing conflict in Yemen and like the framing of particular deaths and particular wars it's an interesting thing do you think so you guys I'm talking to you I'm talking to you with real connection there so hey listen we better wrap this show up because we've got like to go home yeah yeah Well, thank you very much for joining us for our show, Stay Free Russell Brand.
I've told you what you've got to look forward to this week.
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