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March 23, 2023 - Stay Free - Russel Brand
01:13:30
THEY DON’T WANT PEACE | US Sabotages Cease Fire?! - #097 - Stay Free With Russell Brand
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So, I'm going to go ahead and start the video. So, I'm going to start the video. So, I'm going to start the video.
So, I'm going to start the video.
So, I'm going to start the video.
In this video, you're going to see the future.
Hello there, you Awakening Wonders.
Thanks for joining me for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
If you're watching this on Rumble, you can see the whole show.
If you're watching it anywhere else, just the first 15 or 20 minutes is accessible till we have to yield to our pangs for free speech and be exclusively available on a platform that champions it.
In the news today, the US actively don't want a ceasefire.
All we're saying is give war a chance.
Has anyone advocated for war?
Couldn't war be the answer?
And then we'll be talking later exclusively on Rumble about, no wonder they don't want to talk about that lab leak theory, perhaps because they carried on doing gain-of-function research during the pandemic.
Did you know that?
Let me know in the chat whether or not you were aware that during the pandemic in London, where I live, where I take deep inhalations, where I could easily be infected, they were Combining COVID variants.
We'll be talking about that in detail exclusively on Rumble in a minute.
That's why you should click on the link in the description.
In our item, here's the news.
No, here's the effing news.
We'll be talking about how Tucker Carlson extraordinarily is the only person that openly admits to regretting the way that the war was reported on from a personal perspective, a bit of a mea culpa.
And he's also one of the only mainstream media broadcasters that will house Julian Assange.
So even if you see Tucker Carlson at his worst, even if you have a very negative perspective of him, like say, I've heard people say he's racist and that he's unsympathetic towards vulnerable people.
How do we square that with, you know, you ain't getting any other mainstream show saying, what are we going to do about Julian Assange?
Or maybe I'm wrong, let me know, because I'll watch those shows if there are any.
But, firstly, Hunter Biden is suing the repair shop owner who worked on his laptop, accused him of trying to invade his privacy.
That's really interesting that that's what Hunter Biden has deduced.
Yeah, that's the solution.
That's my private laptop on there.
What was on there?
Just that, I don't know, we were accepting payments from Ukrainian energy firms, Chinese energy firms, some stuff about my private life, which I actually don't... I agree with him there.
That's no one else's business.
The big guy.
The big guy?
Who is that big guy?
Who knows?
And who's this little fella?
There's a whole host of characters on Hunter Biden's laptop, and Hunter wants to keep them to himself.
Also, how much is he going to sue him for?
It's like a guy in a repair shop.
It's not like taking on Apple, is it?
Mr Biden, please!
We're just trying to make ends meet!
How often do people get their laptop repaired?
Excuse my language.
Just generally speaking, people just get another one!
Maybe you replace a screen on your iPhone, you go to that place.
I know.
Could you replace the screen on my iPhone?
Yeah, of course.
What the hell's this?
Nothing!
Give that back!
I'll see you in court, my man!
With the money that he was making, allegedly, is it?
I don't even think it is, from Burisma and those other companies, that he could have afforded multiple laptops.
The real problem here is not the man in the Delaware laptop shop.
It's a corrupt political system and it's keeping that story out of the news while it could potentially sway the outcome of an election.
A charge for which Donald Trump, I don't know, we don't know, is he being pursued in a white bronco even now?
I'm an investigative journalist.
I know you are.
And a legal one.
I journal on all sorts of subjects.
Let's have a look at Hunter Biden.
but it is, you know, using campaign funds and how that might pertain to the outcome
of an election is what turns it from a Mr. Medina into a felony.
I'm an investigative journalist.
I know you are.
And a legal one.
I journal on all sorts of subjects.
Let's have a look at Hunter Biden.
He's saying that he don't have to open his kimono.
One thing that I don't have to do is sit here and open my kimono as it relates to how much
money I make or make or did or didn't.
But it's all been reported.
I like the way that he says that.
Yeah, a phrase that we all know.
Don't open your kimono.
Because the kimono is already only... is halfway up the thigh.
Yes.
It's already alluding to something, isn't it?
It's a sexy garment!
Like, with some of the things on that fella's laptop, the kimono is not the house coat he should have put himself in.
He should probably wear something... a onesie!
I don't have to unzip my onesie!
Yeah.
I don't have to flip open that hatch that they have on in cowboy films, where they say
you varmint and then they jump into their asses on fire for some reason and they get
into the horse trough.
That bit?
Thank you, yeah.
I kind of know what you mean.
And they've got poppers on their ass.
Oh yes, yep.
You know that.
We know also that war is a good thing.
This is a literal Orwellian story where the US are preventing China from brokering a peace deal with Putin.
And also, it's not unprecedented because China are actually quite good, it turns out, at brokering peace deals.
Here it says, look, the White House says it opposes a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Even though Zelensky would be up for it because peace is surely that's the ultimate goal.
Peace rather than victory.
Victory feels like a real 20th century outcome to a 21st century situation.
But look at this.
Antony Blinken said the world must not be fooled by China's peace plan.
Yeah, you can't trust them or their crazy talk of peace.
Do you see now how advocating for peace is being framed as somehow duplicitous and potentially injurious?
How can that happen?
I was unaware until Gareth mentioned it as a result of his own research that China have precedent for brokering complex peace deals in the Middle East.
Not that one, sadly, but this one.
Have a listen.
Yeah, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
This was brokered earlier this year.
I actually didn't know they weren't getting on.
I've got to pay more attention to the news.
For quite a while, for seven years I think it's been going on and China stepped in.
There's an agreement that's been signed in Beijing to re-establish diplomatic relations.
So it's not like China, I mean it does seem like they're doing stuff and being effective about it.
Of course we're not naive enough, just about.
To just assume that China are benevolent pacifiers traveling around the world with no intention other than spreading the light of the Lord Buddha and Jesus Christ's twinkling wonder, because there'll be more Christians in China than anywhere else in the world in a couple of years.
Did you know that?
Of course you didn't.
You've not spent time studying Christianity in the way that I have.
Generally speaking, even if China have their own worldview, their own agenda, which undoubtedly they do, if part of that agenda is brokering a peace deal, surely that's something that has to be considered.
Let us know in the chat and the comments if you agree with that.
The other, like, worrying aspect of this, I suppose, is that if Zelensky has expressed openness to China's proposal, but it's been rejected by President Biden, Who is in charge of Ukraine, and who is this war between?
I mean, we've said proxy war for a long time, but if it's got to the situation where Zelensky's like, yeah, I'm kind of up for this, and Biden says no, what is going on?
Given that we've been continually told that this is not a proxy war, President Biden rejecting
the peace deal, is that what's happened?
Can we look into this further?
It doesn't seem right.
Is Biden in a position to reject peace deals for a war that he's not in, that he's not
involved in?
The US involvement is measurable.
It's something that we can observe.
Of course it can be financially observed, because we know that there is aid continually
coming out of the United States in the form of packages from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin,
etc.
And we'll get into that in a moment, because this peace deal may have a few obstacles before
it's realised.
Because, you know, firstly, Biden is opposed to the peace deal, even though America are
not involved in the world, other than just cheering from the sidelines.
But also, it seems that Putin is not a person who finds handshakes that easy.
I didn't know this right up until today.
I always saw Putin as a self-assured, empowered man, as an alpha leader, as testosterone-fueled.
Sure, I've seen the propaganda that he can't help crapping himself every half hour.
Of course, I would agree that the devastation wreaked upon Ukraine is disgusting, and particularly after we read that list of war crimes the other day, and the degree of suffering is...
Incomprehensible, actually, what's been going on.
Those war crimes that the US has equally committed.
The sad news is that every single war crime that Russia has committed in Ukraine, the United States have committed elsewhere since 1998.
We were disgusted to find that out, I'm concerned, and that's why they can't cooperate with the ICC attempt to arrest Putin for war crimes.
But one thing that would make Putin Teflon in any attempt to arrest him is if the arrest commenced with a handshake.
Sir, on good faith, I'd like to arrest you.
Put it there, my man, because Putin is a man who simply can't shake hands.
I've always been, myself, concerned about, like, whether to go for the high five, the fist bump, the conventional handshake, that handshake.
I'm never really certain.
And then it's to what degree you shake a hand as well.
What, whether to do it for a long while, whether to do a squeeze?
Exactly, a squeeze.
How, you know, how hard you go in on it.
It should feel loving.
Do you remember when we met Tucker Carlson's brother?
Oh, how did he go?
He had the hardest handshake ever.
Buckley!
Buckley Carlson!
Unbelievable.
Buckley Carlson with his sort of piratical tan.
Buckley Carlson with a smuggler's glint in his eye.
Wasn't he?
I'm Buckley Carlson!
He's the naughtier of the Carlson brothers.
The people that don't like Tucker Carlson, God help them if they meet Buckley.
That cad, he's a rapscallion, isn't he?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
They're sort of like wavy hair.
They look like he's from another time altogether.
I think within seconds of meeting us, he's like, you got a gun?
No.
Are we going to need one?
You sure are, buddy.
Buckley Carlson, Buckley Carlson.
Lovely man.
Actually, lovely man, don't speak out on about our meeting with Carlson for our attempt to bring together new alliances because we're politically astute people.
and we realise that you can't use the labels of left and right anymore,
you have to look at it as centre and periphery, as I learned from Martin Goury, a man who I reference more
often than my actual children.
Let's have a look at Putin failing to shake hands again and again and again,
to a level that's, I don't know, it's worrying really.
I think they might actually be setting up with him.
Let's have a look.
Is he a bogey?
Oh, I think one is a bogey.
Two bogeys.
Three.
I think what his problem is, mostly, is he don't time handshakes well.
Try and look at this.
Is it a lack of confidence?
Is it simply the issue of timing?
I've never thought of Putin as being an impeachable guy.
Like, as in, nervous... Whenever you see him and he's, like, practising doing missile launches and that, or, like, in that helicopter...
He always looks pretty, like, I don't care.
You know that he's in the KGB.
My assumption is that he's actually literally, therefore, killed people himself.
I don't know, because I'm sure within the KGB, they're probably job-sweepers.
I don't think it's a wild speculation.
It's not wild.
Certainly he's... I mean, he's a war criminal.
Like, at least that's what the ICC is saying.
Certainly he's, like, making choices that lead to the death of children.
But maybe even with those hands that he can't seem to shake on cue, he might have actually throttled... I don't know how the KGB do their murders.
There was that umbrella murder they did over in our country in Salisbury, of all places.
Little poison murder.
That's right.
And you know they do proper spy murders.
Yeah, they were very sneaky those ones.
Sneaky murders.
You can imagine him doing it like he's wrestling a bear or something.
I think he would take his top off, and he'd murder you, like, you'd be asleep in your bed, you'd get nudged like that on the shoulder.
He'd go, huh, what's this?
And then this Putin would focus out, he'd go, I've come to kill you!
But then just grab the pillow, start throttling, get your hat, that's my wife!
That's not a woman, that's my wife!
Oh, sorry, you!
No!
That's my special orthopedic neck pillow!
Oh!
That's why he probably had to leave the KGB.
Right.
Them shaky hands of him.
He is not a man that could work for Jim Henson.
You can't have Putin operating Kermit.
Putin's puppets?
No.
Putin's puppets?
Hey, come on, man!
I don't want to reveal that my Jordan Peterson impression comes from a Kermit impression, so I'm going to stop right there and have a look at Putin bungling social norms.
What's he doing there?
Look, he's really keen to get back into that one, isn't he?
Yeah.
Because there was a bit where he seems to suggest maybe we'll just do a thumbs up instead.
Take it back a bit.
Go back a little bit, because he did do that.
He tries to... He starts off, handshake.
Then I think I see fist bump.
Then I see thumbs up.
Back to handshake.
It's like he's rock, paper, scissor in this poor guy.
Okay, so let's have a look.
Who is this dude?
And then he just tries to pretend he's going... Oh, I just went in there.
Say someone... Say you're... Look, I don't know how good your eyesight is, Gareth.
I've never asked.
It's not that great.
So, you're arriving at something, and there's some people, maybe someone goes like that, but they're across the room.
Right.
Like, do you double-check it's you before... Yeah, I know, I tend to just... You just respond.
Yeah, I'm just happy... I can't take the shame.
I'm happy someone may be communicating with me.
Like, if, like, I go like that, and then I sort of look over my shoulder, and it's someone else, I just think, oh, I've really just wasted it.
No, I just, I commit to the wave.
Just wave.
Just a beaming smile.
You and Putin are a disaster waiting to happen.
We are, absolutely.
Like, when my mate shook hands with Eminem, he said that he was with... I've told you this before, that other people did that.
Eminem wants that handshake.
He wants that one, you know?
Obviously.
And, like, my mate said that the other people there all did that one, letting Eminem lead the way, but then he forced Eminem out of that one into that one.
And this is not... He wasn't saying that like he was, like, on IARD.
He was saying... I don't know why he did it.
He forced a British handshake on Eminem.
Yeah, sure.
It was a very English way of handling it.
No.
Now this one is just bad timing.
Here Putin goes for...
Well the problem is, was he Kim Jong-il?
Un.
Kim Jong-un, as we've already established, he does not focus on what he's doing.
In my part.
Limited facial expressions.
They're so powerful, these people.
These are the world's most powerful people.
They're either atrophying, cadaverous presidents of the United States who can't remember the sentence they started by the time they're six words in.
They're Putin, who can't carry out a normal social interaction like a handshake.
There's Kim Jong-un, who, like, what I will credit him with is he's switched off from reality, isn't he?
Like, he's in bliss.
This is Kim Jong-un.
I don't even know if I can do that face.
But I've never been... Hold on, let's try again.
I've never been that relaxed in my life.
You're jealous of him, aren't you?
There's a point, somewhere in an orgasm, or somewhere at the absolute high point of a poo, where I'd like, sort of like... Oh, it's worth staying alive!
Like, for a split second!
This could last forever!
I could do a couple more years of this crap.
But mostly, I'm agitated with just the grind of reality.
I mean, have we ruled out that he needs a poo a lot?
He looks constipated in his own way.
He looks like he's given into it, doesn't he?
I mean, I hope these are not cultural issues that North Koreans have.
No, let's hope not.
I mean, we're not queer.
Anyway, let's see.
So this is when an immovable object meets an irresistible force, or whatever the hell it is.
Because Putin and Kim Jong... I mean, God knows what happens if they try to make love.
If this is a handshake, imagine the complexity of inverted oral activity, for example.
Shall we imagine it?
Yes.
Let's all do that as a society together.
For a couple of minutes.
Have you ever felt happier than holding that image in your mind?
Why not do that, mate?
It'd be better... Like, we're disgusted, aren't we, by that?
But it'd be better that they did that if world leaders were put in a room and said, make love with each other until you come up with a viable solution for this endless war.
Biden, go on.
You have it in the day.
You get in a room with Putin, and the pair of yas says now you should click over and watch them rumble.
We haven't got any images of this stuff.
Of course!
I forgot we're on YouTube!
Is that alright so far?
We've been quite opaque.
How bad has it been?
Um, like, if you're watching this on YouTube, we're going to click over in a minute.
Remember, we're going to talk about how gain-of-function re- not actually gain-of-function, how, um, excuse me, how amalgamations of variants within the coronavirus cinematic universe were being irresponsibly amalgamated in City of London, right in the very midst of the pandemic.
What are you going for?
Are you going to Jack the Ripper?
Oh, that's exactly what I was.
I thought you were going to go into Jack the Ripper territory.
All right, me staff!
That's your staff.
Fetish and pathogens!
Here!
Come this way, pearly pole!
In old white chettle!
He should be trivialised.
He was a murderer.
Absolutely.
A murderer and a sex criminal.
Yeah, they do tours for him.
I know!
It's scary.
I used to live in East London.
I'd see those tours going by.
Very unnerving.
That's where he'd done those murders of innocent women.
That shouldn't really be celebrated, but there you go.
The British have always been a strange breed.
Well, we gave Obama a Peace Prize, so...
You could have a peace prize and you could have a musical!
Like Sweeney Todd.
Oh, Sweeney Todd might not be right.
I think Sweeney Todd was real.
Right.
I don't know.
Let's not get too bogged down in it, because I'm still chomping to see... I wasn't suggesting Obama did those kind of things, by the way.
No, you said he's a war criminal.
Right.
In fact, you didn't even say that.
No.
The facts say that, because he participated in the bombing in the Yemen that's led to 400,000 civilian deaths.
Right.
Let's have a look at this handshake.
It's just a game.
I'm not gonna play.
I'm not gonna play.
He's ready.
Now... That's out of order.
Dude, that... Is Putin not regarded with much respect in Russia?
Have we just got it all wrong?
Is their propaganda that good that actually the rest of the world... Oh, no.
Oh, no.
Here it comes.
This is your big moment, Vladimir.
Why don't we go for the fist bump?
Oh, man.
Hey, maybe I'll try a thumb wrestle with this fella.
He's like Frank Spencer.
Oh, no.
Better be the German.
No, I'm not doing that.
America, come on.
For Christ's sake.
But anyway, Biden, who's nothing to do with that war, as far as we can understand, blocking a peace deal surely is not connected to this.
The US has announced a $350 million weapons package for Ukraine.
Again, obviously, Ukraine will have the right to protect themselves and all of that, but a peace deal would be better, I think.
$350 million including ammunition for the HIMARS rocket launchers, artillery rounds, high speed, it just looks like a bunch of dangerous stuff.
Anyway, it's profitable stuff.
And they're being pulled from the $45 billion aid bill Congress passed in December.
And aren't we hearing that they want more, and they don't think it's enough?
Yes.
I think Hillary Clinton said it recently as well.
She wants to pipe down.
Don't you?
Every time she says anything, you think, oh, come on, mate.
Well, you know, she's still in Congress.
Oh, no, she's not.
It's just a hobby.
It's just a simple hobby of hers to get stuck in and get involved.
Like good old Tony Blair as well.
What I'd like to know is, it's 20 years since the Iraq War.
Yeah, speaking of Tony Blair.
Let's celebrate that, the Iraq War, right?
It's weird now that wars have anniversaries, don't you think?
It is a bit.
Like, you know, is it... you know how, like, you maybe get paper or wood or ruby or diamond or those type of ones?
Like, now wars have anniversaries.
We all saw Joe Biden have a lovely celebration of one year.
He did that night in Po... One night only!
Joe Biden in Poland.
Ooh, one night in Poland!
To what?
I don't know, it's about the right amount.
So, like, 20 years since the Iraq War, here's some terrifying facts about the Iraq War before presenting to you Julian Assange's long-cherished edict that the function of war is to funnel money from you, the taxpayer, and us, the public, to private interests.
So, during the Iraq War, in the last 20 years, money spent on weapons has doubled to nearly $2 trillion a year.
Blimey.
In 2020 alone, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, ay-up, accounted for nearly a third, ay-up, were in weapons gear.
If you're English, you'd know that Northrop Grumman sounds like a Yorkshireman who's like selling weapons as part of, he's a bit part clown or creatures great and small.
It sounds like a place I would have worked as a teenager.
Right, come here.
You have an apprenticeship at Northrup Grumman.
Get in, son.
Right, we're selling these telescope lenses.
They're perfectly ethical.
But tell you what, where we turn a pretty penny, and you know how a Yorkshireman likes to earn a pound nought, is these missiles.
Now, if we can sustain war here at Northrup Grumman, well, I'll get thee, Raytheon.
I'll get thee, Bowen.
Yeah, that's right.
Yorkshire people use thee and thou.
They kept hold of that pronoun for reasons that none of us, not even them, fully understand.
And you are them, aren't you?
I am.
I don't understand.
Why thee?
Why thou?
Why?
Why indeed?
Anyway, look, Norfolk Grumman accounts for nearly a third of the $480 billion obligated by the Pentagon to defence contractors.
It's estimated nearly... Well, he just made loads of money, you know that already.
Halliburton?
Halliburton were the black rock of their day.
See, obviously, the reason we're talking about Iraq is we're saying that these wars are still happening.
And while you might say, no, no, no, it's a necessary war, Putin's a monster, have you seen that guy try and shake hands?
All of that stuff valid and true.
You have to acknowledge also that the Iraq war was not a popular war at the time.
It was a war in all good, on a lie, on a deception.
The deception being, of course, that there were weapons of mass destruction.
Millions of people protested in the street.
It was a pivotal moment in our history.
You should look at our conversation with Glenn Greenwald that we had a couple of days ago.
He gives a beautiful description how the events of 2003 and the events of 2008 still define the world that we are living in.
Perhaps, you know, like I suppose since 9-11 it's been a surveillance state.
Only thanks to figures like Julian Assange and his bravery are we even aware of many of the atrocities that took place in that war and that's of course why he's in Belmarsh prison to this day without Yeah.
having had a trial. It doesn't seem right that someone's in a maximum security prison
Yes.
without a trial. Is that how we do business? Apparently it is. Halliburton in 2009 was
the world's second largest oilfield service company. What's all this? You know, they've
made a lot of money. Halliburton made a lot of money. And I remember reading about Clinton,
Hillary Clinton this was, and in terms of that quote that we saw of her recently post-Iraq
where she spoke about Iraq as a business opportunity for American interests.
She did literally a speech where she was talking about it as a business interest, and then you discovered the people who made a lot of money out of it, some were weapons manufacturers, others were energy companies, all incredibly donated to the Hillary Clinton Foundation.
So, there you go.
Click over right now.
If you're watching this on YouTube, we're going to tell you about Landon Tan and their ludicrous experimentations that went on even at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
And we are going to give you some unique insights into the life of Hillary Clinton directly from Alex Jones.
So click over right now if you want to hear him.
I've just been talking to Alex Jones.
Click over!
You won't hear them on YouTube, I won't say them there!
Alright, join us on Rumble, where we can speak freely, dammit.
So, um, listen, I'm not gonna say that on the show, that's just a joke.
That was us mucking around, like, we've not spoke to Alex Challenge for a long time.
That was clickbait, is what you just did there.
I baited you there to click that, but we are going to tell you some stuff about gain of function.
The other thing I want to talk about on the anniversary of the Iraq War, Gareth, is that Tony Blair, who sort of grinned his way through that Iraq War, certainly did, is rigging his hands, smiling his artist.
Yeah, I remember seeing him and George Bush with their hands in their little jackets, walking up the, you know, when he went to see... War jackets, like camo.
Yeah, like that.
Do you know, I don't think politicians should be allowed to do that, unless they have been in the army, like Churchill or... Right, we saw Russia soon enough recently.
They love it.
They've got such little stiffies for Zelensky in his car key jumper, don't they?
Look at Zelensky!
Vladimir!
You know that, true though.
Oh, Vladimir, can you borrow me that Cub Scout hoodie?
They're so into it, aren't they?
Those nerds.
Blair is worth $60 million now, after all of that posturing.
That does not surprise me.
And the rest.
Yeah, probably more.
He's got one of those bloody philanthropic associations that doesn't pay taxes and accumulates money.
That's allegedly.
I'm just making it up.
Allegedly!
As you do, come on, it's plain as day that he will have.
Shall we have a look now?
Now that you've joined us over here and we're unable to feed you any Alex Jones-style information about the private business of Hillary Clinton, which, frankly, I don't mind about.
In fact, I have no personal dislike of any member of Any family, anywhere!
Just what I feel like they are good at helping us understand is how politics functions, how there's sort of aristocracies within various political parties in the United States of America, that they're undemocratic, that it's pretty well understood now that within the Democratic Party they scuppered the campaign of Bernie Sanders because they wouldn't be able to stay true to their paymasters if Bernie got elected.
And I know loads of you don't like Bernie because you think he's got too many houses or stuff like that.
And I did hear, when I was on Bill Maher the other day, there was a bit where he goes, yeah, no, you've got to have centralised forces!
And I thought, hang on, what's that all about?
Yeah, I think, yeah.
Could that be a centralised response that is positive and democratic, rather than unelected bodies like the WHO, WEF, all that kind of stuff, dictating global policy?
All I think about Bernie Sanders is he's got a hell of a lot better policies than, for example, Hillary Clinton.
You wouldn't argue with that, would you?
Let us know in the chat, let us know in the comments.
And while you're thinking about, you know, moving around deck chairs on the Titanic with different political figures within established political movements that are funded in exactly the same way, we'll tell you this.
I can't believe this is true, and tell me if you can believe it.
Right in the middle of that pandemic, when we were concerned about how it came about, how it was going to end, what the proper response was, whether people were being honest about vaccine medications and the consequences of them, In London, where the Queen was living at that time.
It's not what took her, is it?
What's that?
It's not what took her from us.
We cannot know for certain!
Risky research, down the road.
Allegedly.
Risky research while there's a vulnerable old lady, rich, absolutely minted, her face all over the cash, poor cow.
Allegedly.
It's out of order.
You shouldn't, if you love her... Was the allegedly for poor cow?
Just in case.
People don't maybe think it's rude.
Look at this!
How British!
I should just say sorry.
Sorry about that, mate.
There's a whole host of things.
I would feel physically sick.
That's what I'd feel if I found out Her Majesty the Queen was compromised because of these experiments.
Well look, while they were naysaying the potential for that lab leak coming out of Wuhan, quibbling that it would be of natural origin regardless if it went via a bloody lab with the Newly emergent raccoon dog magic bullet theory, courtesy of Anthony Fauci.
Did you know that they were carrying on with what I'm going to refer to obliquely as scientific skullduggery in London?
British experiments risked making the Covid pandemic more lethal.
You shouldn't be doing any experiments where there's even the slightest risk of making it more lethal, should you?
Wouldn't you think so?
Could this make it more lethal?
We're in the throes of one.
Right?
We were all taking it so serious.
Do you remember that?
Can't go out, gotta wear a mask, all of that stuff.
It was so annoying.
Because also, like, gain of function is controversial and always has been.
Like, scientifically, it has been controversial and divided opinion.
You think the one time where you might go, do you know what?
We probably don't need any more of the kind of controversy at the moment.
Should we just stop doing gain of function?
Especially on this, during this time.
You coward!
Come on!
Why did you get into that?
What's the best possible outcome?
Sometimes I don't understand where it is we're progressing to at such pace.
I do.
It's a dystopian, centralised, authoritarian nightmare.
And another thing that came out of the conversation with Glenn Greenwald is that oligarchs just a century ago Greenwald charmingly described would toss dollar bills from their passing limousine in an attempt to curry favour with the great unwashed in post-Dust Bowl America.
But now, you oligarchs, my God, the way they carry on!
It's like they've doubled down.
They've realised, we don't have to appease these people.
We've got robots now.
We can kill them if we want to.
Haven't they?
Yeah, we've got connections with the government.
We've got connections with social media companies.
We can basically rewrite the narrative.
Do you ever feel that?
Do you ever feel that what's changed in the last few years is the realisation that you no longer need to appease the population, you can now crush the population?
It's a brilliant point Greenwald made.
After this, go and have a look at that.
But this is the rest of that article.
Scientists carried out tests using Delta and Omicron that could have combined the two variants and leaked from the laboratory.
Anton van der Merwe, a professor of molecular immunology at University of Oxford said... Oh, what does he know?
What do you know?
What do you know down there doing molecular immunology in Oxford?
It's just a hobby?
It's just the greatest university in the world.
Well, there's probably, who knows?
Hey, what about Yale, baby?
What about Stanford?
What about other ones that are, you know, far away countries that we don't even memorise because of our inbuilt biases?
Such experiments risk combining the two variants to produce something more lethal.
You Poindexters, you maniacs!
Hey, but what if we went across Omicron with Delta?
What do you get then?
Omidelta!
It's a new boogie robot!
It's the new raccoon dog!
What are they hoping for?
It's not gonna be that good, is it?
It could have infected scientists or leaked from the laboratory.
Coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2 are well known to evolve by exchanging genetic material when two distinct viruses infect the same cell, he said.
This makes it much more likely that these strains will recombine and create a more dangerous variant which could infect those doing the experiments who could then spread it into the community.
In recent decades... Right, so you might think this is conjecture.
This is little more than senseless speculation, tumbling from the lips of an avowed conspiracy theorist.
But look at the very next sentence.
In recent decades, ones that we've been through recently, smallpox, swine flu, SARS...
And don't you just apply the general metric?
But if this is what they're telling you, imagine what they're keeping back.
What do you think's in those dossiers?
What do you think Top Secret files are full of?
Why do you think Pfizer are booting that thing 75 years in the future?
Why are they not telling you the truth about JFK even to this day?
I'll tell you why.
Because all that information will make you so happy that you'll run ecstatic into the streets into a passing lorry.
This is amazing, this bit.
So Imperial College London said it was conducted in a biosafety level 3 laboratory in line with strict government regulations.
Which is like, first of all makes me think, why are there only three levels?
And why would you ever use level one or two for these risky biosafety experiments?
What do you mean, there's more relaxed levels?
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
Okay, like it's end of term and you can bring board games in.
Okay guys, we're just gonna do today at level... Wear your own clothes.
Bring your own stuff, do your own experiments!
Hey, I've been gonna sew a dick on a mouse's back!
Go for it!
Unlock all the windows!
Turn the aircon off!
Whoa, look, a dick mouse!
You're like, you don't need level one or two.
No.
Always, always try your hardest not to have a lab leak.
Right.
That's my catchphrase.
Yeah.
In my own days, as a scientist, when I was doing it, I learned my molecular immunology on the streets.
On the streets, Scout.
Tip of 40 to the curb for my fallen homies.
Many of them died as a result of failed immunology, because we did it old school back then.
Yeah, maybe we were going to get infected with a new variant, but by God, if we'd have come up with a vaccine, we'd have all been rich.
Not that we'd have exploited that opportunity.
Yeah, we caused foot and mouth.
Good!
Hey man, what's wrong with a bit of foot and mouth?
What's wrong with you, man?
Foot, mouth, go for it!
Put the foot in the mouth!
Have fun!
Hey, why don't you get Kim Jong-un, Putin, flip them, get them to suck each other up!
We're on rumble!
We're on rumble!
What did you expect?
Checking time, 32 minutes, 50 seconds, dog!
10 minute video, what you saying, bitch?
Okay, so...
Tucker Carlson, even though he's the most controversial person in history, even though he's loathed by the liberal establishment, even though he let me pee in his garden, that's not a euphemism.
He is one person who's willing to sit in front of a camera and say, or in this case I think it was in a podcast.
Yes it was.
Say that he regrets his involvement in glossing over the criminality of the Iraq war as revealed by Julian Assange.
We'll have to have a look at that clip when we come back.
I don't know how we're going to fit everything in to today's show.
Maybe we won't.
It's going to be the issue, isn't it?
It might spill over like in Imperial College.
Especially as I'm only operating at safety level one.
I've got safety level two.
I've got safety level three.
Of course you have.
We've gotten so many safety levels unexplored.
They should always be trying their hardest for safety.
Anyway, Tucker Carlson says he regrets his coverage of the Iraq war.
He's the only person who's willing to talk Julian Assange.
So is Tucker Carlson some sort of monster as he's portrayed because of the Jan Six stuff and all of that?
Because some people were friends of mine, people I love on the old school, we'll call them the establishment left or liberals or whatever.
say that he's engaged in dog whistle racism and that.
That's why when I met Tucker Carlson I was like, yeah, I thought he's nice, isn't he?
And like when I talked to him about me, you know, I've done all that crap, you've seen that video.
Let's have a look at him talking about Iraq and all that stuff.
Here's the news.
No, here's the effing news.
No, here's the fucking news.
Tucker Carlson, who some people hate because they're so perfect,
has apologised for promoting the Iraq war.
Why don't more mainstream figures apologize for promoting wars and lying to us just a couple of years ago?
Is it because there's so many lies the whole system would fall apart?
Tucker Carlson in a recent interview admitted that he regrets the way that he promoted the Iraq war, a war that now looks like it was illegally undertaken.
Almost as if sometimes the media promotes an agenda because of their affiliation with corporate partners and the state doesn't represent you, doesn't protect you, except for the minimum amount it I've spent my whole life in the media.
underwrites the desires, wishes and agenda of their corporatist, globalist partners.
And if more people were like Tucker Carlson and apologized, even if you disagree with them on some
issues, you'd start to see that the system could improve, that the media could change,
the government could change, that there are different ways of running society and running
your own life. Let's have a look at that now. I've spent my whole life in the media. My dad
was in the media. That is a big part of the revelation that's changed my life, is the media
are part of the control apparatus.
Like, there's no... I know, I know, because you're younger and smarter and you're like, yeah.
Yeah.
But what if you're me and you spent your whole life in that world?
And to look around and all of a sudden you're like, oh, wow.
Not only are they part of the problem, but I spent most of my life being part of the problem defending the Iraq War.
Like, I actually did that.
Can you imagine if you did that?
It's 20 years, of course, since the Iraq War, and a perfect time to review some of the attitudes that led to it, some of the poor decisions, the rallying that the media undertook.
It's very rare to see anyone in public life make a mea culpa of that nature.
Let alone someone as frequently vilified as Tucker Carlson, who's frequently, consistently held up as the epitomization of right-wing hatred and divisiveness.
But having recently personally met Tucker Carlson, I found him to be a person that was convivial and warm, and that you have to go some.
To dislike people that are honest and open.
I'm not saying that Tucker Carlson might have different opinions to me on politics and economics and race and gender and all sorts of subjects, but frankly, I have disagreements with people that are right up close in my life and I manage to love them anyway.
What is significant is the ability to allow people to live differently than you and have different views than you and to apologize critically for mistakes made in the past.
If you can say, I was wrong about my stance on the Iraq war.
I was part of the problem.
I was rallying on behalf of the establishment.
I am to some degree responsible for the death of Iraqi civilians who need not have died, it was wrong that they died.
Now we've got this kind of collective amnesia, this full steam ahead, never look back, don't worry about what we said at the beginning of the pandemic, that's history!
Don't worry about what we're saying about the war between Russia and Ukraine or what happened in 2014 or what Remember the promises America and the Soviet Union made when the Berlin Wall came down?
Forget it!
There's nothing to learn from any of that.
Imagine if you saw George W. Bush or Tony Blair or Joe Biden or Barack Obama.
Wouldn't you like to see Obama say, it was wrong that we killed those people with drone strikes in Syria?
Wouldn't you like to see Joe Biden say it was wrong that that family died as a result of that bomb campaign?
Wouldn't you like to see Tony Blair?
People that should be taking responsibility.
These are powerful figures.
Skirmishes and minor misdemeanors and the culture's changed and things look a bit different now and I shouldn't have said that.
This is not that!
That stuff, I'm on the side of that's necessary progress and it's good that those conversations are happening and people aren't ignorant to the effect and impact of their language and actions on others.
That's good, that's positive, it should happen.
But redemption!
Forgiveness, moving forward, particularly in geopolitical issues where millions of lives are lost.
If you're gonna foreclose that, put that to one side and focus fastidiously instead on what I would regard as minor cultural differences, emphasizing those differences in order to prevent progress.
What kind of culture are you gonna get?
What kind of real progress are we gonna get?
What is one of your biggest regrets in your career?
Defending the Iraq war.
That is it?
Well, I've had a million regrets not being more skeptical, calling people names when I should have listened to what they were saying.
Look, when someone makes a claim, there's only one question that's important at the very beginning, which is, is the claim true or not?
And for too long, I participated in the culture where I was like, anyone who thinks outside these pre-prescribed lanes is crazy, is a conspiracy theorist.
And I just really regret that. I'm ashamed that I did that.
And partly it was age, partly it was the world that I grew up in. So when you look at me and you're
like, yeah, of course they're part of the means of control. I'm like, that's obvious to you
because you're 28, but I just didn't see it at all, at all. And I'm ashamed of that. Isn't that what
the media tries to do though?
It's their only purpose.
Right.
They're not here to inform you.
Really?
Even on the big things that really matter like the economy and war and COVID and like things that really matter that will affect you.
No.
Their job is not to inform you.
They are working for the small group of people who actually run the world.
They're their servants.
They're their Praetorian guard.
And we should treat them with maximum contempt because they have earned it.
Wow!
There you go.
So who are the real conspiracy theorists and what's the blunt and simple truth?
Is it as Tucker Carlson claims that the media simply amplify and magnify the preferred opinions and agenda of the powerful or is it that all of a sudden loads of people have become conspiracy theorists?
Let me know in the chat, let me know in the comments.
Some interesting claims, ideas and an interesting perspective from a media insider who has become critical almost to the point of becoming a whistleblower.
But let's look now at some of the claims that were made by the mainstream media at the advent of the Iraq war, the reasons that war happened and how the media behaved during it.
See if we can learn anything about not only current wars but the media agenda more broadly today.
As mainstream US media outlets pause to remember the US invasion of Iraq, it's clear that there's a lot they hope we'll forget.
First and foremost, the media's own active complicity in whipping up public support for the war.
Have the media been complicit in whipping up support for any wars lately?
Oh!
But the more you dig into mainstream news coverage from that period, the harder it is to forget how flagrantly news networks across the broadcast and cable landscape uncritically spread the Bush administration's propaganda and actively excluded dissenting voices.
You'll notice that of course it was Bush, a Republican president then, and it's Biden, a Democrat president now, and the differences are, in my view, not significant enough.
The numbers don't lie.
A 2003 report by the media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found that in the two weeks leading up to the invasion, ABC World News, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News and the PBS NewsHour featured a total of 267 American experts, analysts and commentators on camera to supposedly help make sense of the march to war.
Of these 267 guests, Okay, let's get 267 guests!
Make sure that three quarters of them are current government or military officials.
Could there be any dissent?
Hold on a minute, let me have a conference with my bosses.
267 carried on.
You can have one dissenting voice.
267 guests!
Make sure that three quarters of them are current government or military officials.
Could there be any dissent?
Hold on a minute, let me have a conference with my bosses.
267 carried on.
You can have one dissenting voice.
One?
Yeah.
One.
And not a good one.
Meanwhile, in the fast-growing world of cable news, Fox News' tough-talking pro-war jingoism was setting the standard for ratings-weary executives at most of the more liberal cable networks.
MSNBC and CNN, feeling the heat of what industry insiders were calling the Fox effect, were desperately trying to outflank their right wing rival and one another by actively eliminating critical voices and seeing who could bang the war drums loudest.
So I suppose what became the game was not reporting information, but amplifying a perspective that was based, I suppose, on conflict, not even the war that they were reporting on, but A doubling down on polarity.
I suppose polarity in the world of physics is what creates energy and I suppose in the world of media is what creates eyeballs and so their function as truth-tellers has been eroded to the point of invisibility and non-existence and ultimately what they do is cheerlead for a set of perspectives.
At MSNBC, as the Iraq invasion approached in early 2003, network executives decided to fire Phil Donahue, even though his show had the highest ratings on the channel.
A leaked internal memo explained that top management saw Donahue as a tired left-wing liberal who would be a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.
Noting that Donoghue seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and sceptical of the administration's motives, the memo warned ominously that his show could end up being a home for the liberal anti-war agenda, at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.
Don't worry you that they don't care at all about important subjects like war or truth or what you feel or what's best for you.
That it's a completely insular mindset that's based upon economic and commercial incentives.
Now, I recognize the world we live in, we have economic and commercial requirements, but fortunately they're in alignment with our principles.
And I think that all of us have to somehow aggregate those choices.
Am I being true to myself?
Am I being honest?
Can I have open, clear conversations?
Can I justify myself?
And obviously Tucker Carlson is a person who is on a journey recognizing that in this particular example, the Iraq war, he made a mistake.
But there are very few people who can have that conversation because they are not free.
They are trapped within a very, very particular role.
Are you not sort of astonished by the lack of open conversation on MSNBC and CNN and even these right-wing media outlets that I've been condemned for appearing on at least have done that.
They are at least willing.
And whether that's because temporarily our objectives and agenda align and who knows what the future holds, that's yet to be seen.
What I return to again and again is the requirement for principles and values.
If you have principles and values then you can refer to them When you are confused.
Like, oh no, this is a difficult situation.
What do I believe in again?
Do I believe in free speech?
Do I believe in truth?
Do I believe in listening to the opinions of people I disagree with?
Do I agree with invading foreign countries?
Do I agree with killing children?
Do I agree with promoting wars when I don't understand the conditions that have led to them?
Also, MSNBC and CNN glory and marvel in their differences from Fox News, continually attacking and condemning Fox News, but the facts suggest that they emulate and So how can you say, hey, we're different, we're better, they're shit, when in fact, you're copying them?
to a not insignificant subject like war, which will necessarily involve dead children
if it's a ratings winner.
So how can you say, hey, we're different, we're better, they're shit,
when in fact, you're copying them.
Not only are you just like them, but with a slightly different view,
you're simply just like them.
Not to be outdone, CNN News chief, Eason Jordan, would boast on air that he'd met with Pentagon officials
during the run-up to the invasion to get their approval for the on-camera war experts
the network would rely on.
It's the Twitter files of its day!
What would you like us to say?
We'd like you to say that war is good.
War is good!
Good work.
Get some more experts on.
Yeah, I know.
War's good.
War is good.
What about these dead children?
No, don't film that.
I think it's important to have experts explain the war and to describe the military hardware, describe the tactics and talk about the strategy behind the conflict, Jordan explained.
I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the war started and met with important people there and said, here are the generals we're thinking of retaining to advise us on the air and off about the war.
And we got a big thumbs up on all of them.
That was important.
Excuse me, Pentagon!
We're thinking of doing your propaganda for you and not questioning your incentives or the reasons behind the war.
Like, for example, the false claim there are weapons of mass destruction.
What do you think of our experts?
Ha ha!
We're doing a great job!
What you want is, no, no, you're holding us to account.
All of the moral piety, all of the, how dare you, no, no, no, Fox is awful.
Remember when I went on Bill Maher, that guy was as if I was attacking a church or a widow or something.
It's like, it's just some bunch of media sluts pumping out crap into a dump.
As journalist Norman Solomon observes, the bedrock democratic principle of an independent adversarial press was simply tossed Out of the window.
Hey, whoa, what about the bedrock principle of an adversarial and objective press?
Oh yeah, no, I've been thinking about that.
Here we go.
Whee!
That deals with that.
Often journalists blame the government for the failure of the journalists themselves to do independent reporting, Solomon says.
But nobody forced the major networks, like CNN, to do so much commentary from retired generals and admirals and all the rest of it.
It wasn't even something to hide, ultimately.
It was something to say to the American people, see?
We're team players.
We may be the news media, but we're on the same side and the same page as the Pentagon.
And that really runs directly counter to the idea of an independent press.
And it's also an idea that's still at play.
Think about the pandemic.
Who were the experts they brought out?
What happened to experts that had critical ideas of the mainstream agenda?
What are they doing in this war?
Retired generals.
People that work for Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
They are contemptuous.
They don't deserve your attention.
They don't deserve your time.
We are working hard to deserve your time because we value you and respect you.
They think you're dumb and you're stupid and that you'll take whatever you're given.
That's why you've got to join us on this journey.
The result was a barely-debated, deceit-driven, headlong rush into a war of choice that would go on to destabilise the region, accelerate global terrorism, bleed trillions of dollars from the US Treasury, and kill thousands of US service members and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them innocent civilians.
So it's not an inconsequential thing.
Oh, never mind, we all make mistakes.
It's not that, is it?
It's not like I shouldn't have done that.
Sorry, I broke your lawnmower while I was borrowing it.
Let me buy you a new... This is... Children died.
American service people died.
Trillions of dollars was wasted.
In part because the media didn't go, wait a second, should we be having this war?
What's going on?
Is there any relationship between the events of 9-11 and Iraq?
The answer to that question is, no, there isn't.
Are there any weapons of mass destruction?
The answer is no, there aren't.
Will this improve our global standing and decrease terrorism?
No, it won't.
Far from it.
It will diminish our global standing and it will create terrorism.
Oh, well, now that you know all that, and it's going to cost trillions, do you still want that war?
Let me think about that now you've given us all the information.
No.
There you go.
A completely different outcome.
So when there's another war going on, at least question it.
And if, for example, people that do question it, oh, they're unpatriotic, they're Putin lovers.
Oh, that's weird.
Hold on a minute.
I remember this from somewhere.
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
It's you motherfuckers the whole time!
Yet two decades later, as we hurtle even closer to potentially catastrophic new wars, there's been virtually no accountability or sustained reporting in mainstream news media to remind us of their own decisive role in selling the Iraq war.
How MSNBC and CNN should begin every newscast every night.
Hi, we're the guys that actively promoted the Iraq war.
We were wrong to do that.
It was a mistake.
We've never admitted that before.
We apologize.
There's another war now we're going to advocate for, this time we're definitely right, even though we're
doing, you know, the exact same things, people connected to Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, smearing
descending voices, this time hopefully the dead children will all be worth it.
Keep trusting us, keep watching.
It's an act of forgetting we can ill afford, especially as many of the same media patterns
from 20 years ago now repeat themselves on overdrive, from the full scale reboot and
rehabilitation of leading Iraq war architects and cheerleaders, to the news media's continuing
over-reliance on experts drawn from the revolving door world of the Pentagon and the arms industry,
often without disclosure.
Here is an expert from the arms industry, connected to the Pentagon.
What was the last bit you said?
It's an expert.
And how are they experts?
They know a lot about weapons.
How come?
They sell weapons.
Okay, why don't you mind your own fucking business?
We're better than Fox!
Memory is a strategic resource in any country, especially the memory of wars, the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen has written.
No doubt they'll be damned as a conspiracy theorist within the week.
By controlling the narrative of the wars we fought, we justify the wars we're going to fight in the present.
Yeah, of course, it's just common sense, isn't it?
You can't ever Delegitimise the authority of the media because otherwise you go, well, you are the media now, so we couldn't trust you then.
We can't trust you now.
There it is.
We've just done it.
That's what it is.
You cannot trust them.
That's not to say that Putin isn't an imperialist.
It's literally, literally, literally not saying that it isn't terrible that all those Ukrainian people are dying.
That is, in fact, the whole point.
That's the main point.
It's exactly because of that point That you have to be discerning, sceptical, that you have to campaign for peace and diplomacy, and above all else, you have to not trust them.
As we mark the 20th anniversary of the murderous US invasion of Iraq, it's imperative to reclaim the memory of this war, not only from the Bush administration officials who waged it, but also from the corporate media system that helped sell it and has tried to control the narrative ever since.
And they continue to try to control that narrative to this day, but they cannot do it if we do not comply, if we remain informed, if we refuse to accept their condemnation, smearing, criticism, prejudice, propaganda, bigotry and bias, if we stay awake, if we celebrate values like redemption, forgiveness, apologizing, making amends, spiritual principles and values, if we exhibit them in ourselves, And welcome them in others.
And put aside prejudice and bigotry.
Because what we want?
Individual freedom.
Freedom for communities.
Ability to confront corporate, globalist and state power.
That's something we can all do together.
Believe me!
We have more in common with one another than separates and divides us.
I want you to know that.
They don't want you to know that.
Whose side do you want to be on?
Whose side do you wish you was on at the beginning of the pandemic now?
Whose side do you wish you were on at the beginning of the Iraq war now?
Which side do you want to be on now?
Do you want to be on the side of justice, freedom, individual liberty, redemption, love, peace, Valour?
Honour?
Or do you just want to be another drone, another passive consumer, staring dumbly at a screen, subject to a global evil empire that wants you distracted and numb?
Pretty easy decision to make.
Let's face it, it was a rhetorical question.
Well, that's just what I think.
Let me know what you think in the comments of the chat.
I'm going to read those comments in just a second.
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I've been there.
I've done that.
They don't work.
They're a con.
They're a trick.
It's skullduggery.
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And now, let's go back to that deep, intelligent piece of media critique analysis that you were just watching.
Thank you for those comments.
Whipsnade says, Russell, I don't know how you do it, how you've ever done it, how you continue to do it, but just carry on doing it.
Whereas Brentford Safari says, I've had enough of you, son.
You're starting to wind me up now.
And then look at this, little old gypsy boy.
Gareth Roy, what's going on with you, son?
I've had just about enough of it.
You made me taste sick in my mouth.
What's going on with these comments?
Who knows?
Who knows who these people are, how they operate?
You let me know in the chat and the comments.
Sometimes I worry about you guys.
I'm trying to just shine love out of my heart into your hearts.
Now, Julian Assange, we told you about Julian Assange believes that the function of government is to filter Uh, public money into the hands of private organizations.
We're going to have a look at Julian saying that, and then we're going to talk to our guest Dave Smith, who's an advocate for anti-war and host of the Part of the Problem podcast, who will, I believe, strongly agree with that metric, because he believes in as little government as possible, being, as I understand, a libertarian.
Check out Assange saying that.
Because the goal is not to completely subjugate Afghanistan.
The goal is to use Afghanistan to wash money out of the tax bases of the United States, out of the tax bases of European countries, through Afghanistan, and back into the hands of a transnational security alliance.
That is the goal.
i.e.
the goal is to have an endless war, not a successful war.
Endless war.
Julian Assange, you can see why he's banged up in Belmarsh, because what he's doing is spitting facts and providing evidence.
Today we've been talking about war a lot, because it's the anniversary of the Iraq war.
Happy anniversary, Iraq war!
How do you do it?
And it's one year now of the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, all the terrible deaths incurred, particularly, you know, Ukraine, who are obviously under attack.
And there is an ongoing war in Syria.
We're talking to Dave Smith today on the subject of war.
Dave, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm a huge fan.
That's so kind of you to say.
Dave, what do you think about Julian Assange's maxim there and how applicable it continues to be even in conflicts like this current one?
Well, I mean, there's no, it's not really debatable that he's correct.
I mean, factually, that's what happens.
I mean, people like so many special interests have been enriched over the last just 20 years of, say, the war on terrorism.
Every one of those bills to arm Ukraine ends up just being cash in the pockets of weapons manufacturers or the CIA budget increasing.
I don't know.
It's like with the COVID stuff.
I don't know if that's the only motivating factor.
I think sometimes they also wanted, you know, they might also want to, say, tank Donald Trump's chances of getting re-elected, but their pharmaceutical companies are also raking in profits.
I think they did want to overthrow Saddam Hussein for other reasons, but that's definitely part of it.
Dave, with the ICC announcing that it's their bizarre intention to arrest Vladimir Putin, a man who I don't imagine would cooperate with an ordinary arrest.
Although, having seen him attempt to shake hands, I can see that if you were to approach him from the front, he could be vulnerable.
What do you feel about the war in Syria and the bombing of Yemen, which indicts Biden, Trump and Obama all as war criminals to the same standard of Putin, the same standard by which Putin is being charged?
Well, I mean, I think it far exceeds it, if we're just being objective.
I mean, Ukraine is a catastrophe, and Putin has a lot of responsibility for that, so he doesn't have all the responsibility, but the humanitarian crisis in Yemen is objectively, if that's a catastrophe, this is a catastrophe times ten.
There's just way more people dying, and it wasn't soldiers dying over the last eight years in Yemen, it was like babies starving to death and dying of cholera and stuff.
So yeah, look, there's a great video, I don't know if you've ever seen,
where Noam Chomsky just breaks down the war crimes of every post-World War II president
of the United States of America.
So like, I'm fine if we want to indict war criminals, but let's get them all, you know?
And you see something like, if you look at Yemen particularly,
you just see how much, like the whole military industrial complex,
American empire establishment, they care about humanitarian issues when it's convenient.
You don't see every day in the corporate press people talking about the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, or in Palestine, or in Syria, or in Somalia.
But we do see the one on Russia's border that we can blame on Russia.
That's the one that they hyper-focus on.
Yeah, that does concern me.
And even when we raise these points, we are often smeared.
And it's difficult not to assume, even though it seems reductive even when I'm saying it, that the financial benefits of these conflicts are the determining factor.
and the alliances between the military-industrial complex and the media and the government
are what determine the way these stories are presented, because you're right,
if that were not the case, you would hear as much about Yemen,
you would hear as much about other conflicts.
If the metric by which we measured catastrophe was deaths and destruction,
and nobody's saying that those things are not present in the tragedy in Ukraine,
and that it oughtn't be stopped as quickly as possible, but other criminals would be brought to the forefront as
well, In our recent show, we talked about the lack of moral authority for any agency that would seek to arrest Trump.
That's not saying that Trump isn't guilty of wrongdoing.
In fact, we're ignoring that altogether because if Trump is guilty, then, you know, the Clinton campaign will be guilty by the same measure.
But what we're saying is that The lack of faith in institutions that we are currently experiencing means that we clearly need systemic change.
Am I right in understanding, Dave, that that's precisely your personal perspective?
And if you are a libertarian, and I know you are, I'm just using this rhetorically, what is the role of government?
Can government involvement in the lives of ordinary Americans, ordinary people of all persuasions, be?
And do you not agree that the role of the government and the function of the government is supposed to be to, in a sense, provide some kind of edifice against corporate corruption?
Even if it obviously doesn't do that now, it does the bloody opposite.
It'd just be good for you to unpack some of those ideas for us, please.
Yeah, sure.
I mean, well, I think I'd like the government to be about as small as we could possibly get it.
And I think from my perspective, the idea that the government was ever supposed to be a shield for the people against big corporate interests, as always, there might be some people who really believe that.
I think in reality, it has never been that, and it's always been, you know, much more a tool for big money interests than anything that was ever working against them.
And if you ever see, any time that you ever saw the government working against big business, it was almost always on behalf of some other big business who wanted their competition stomped out.
That's just the way of the world.
It's like power corrupts, and there's nothing more powerful than a government.
And so if you're saying that you need the government to check the power of a corporation, Well, in order to do that, it's going to have to be more powerful than that corporation.
And so now, once you have this power center, it's going to become a race to see who can buy it off and who's going to have a better shot of doing that than the biggest businesses.
So I think the whole paradigm, like you talked earlier about, like the left-right paradigm being all kind of like it doesn't really apply anymore.
I think that basically it's not a question of like, are you anti-big business or anti-big government?
I think if you oppose one, you have to oppose the other because they're all in bed together.
And, you know, just to touch on what you said there about the kind of like getting called all the names because you oppose the war, you know, on this anniversary of Iraq, just remember that the people who were opposed to this war, the war in Iraq, The line back then was, you're either with us or you're with the terrorists.
They basically said, if you don't want to overthrow Saddam Hussein, then you're happy that 9-11 happened.
You're on their side of that.
And now, years later, even John McCain, on his deathbed in his memoir, wrote that he acknowledged the war was a mistake.
Everyone now acknowledges that those people were right to oppose the war.
So just to keep that in mind with all the people, they'll call you like a Putin apologist or something like that now if you oppose the West's involvement in the war in Ukraine.
But yeah, the whole thing is a racket and it's all big business interests that control the governments.
That's really interesting that you say that, mate.
That it plainly was a transgressive war, and the way, and I didn't remember that, that they said, yeah, that they equated it with terror, made it unpatriotic, and made it like you were dishonouring those that died on 9-11.
And now, even if you're non-compliant around coronavirus, remember there was the same kind of shaming narrative that, well, like as if you were a friend of coronavirus, like here is little mate carrying it about and stuff.
It's weird, the role, the palette that is drawn from, even though sometimes we think of these systems as sophisticated, secular, and of course, by their nature, political, the game they're playing is emotional.
They're dealing with things like shame and fear.
And sort of destroying your personal ability to live life, you know?
So I can understand... I appreciate libertarianism from that perspective.
I think a lot of attacks that I hear on libertarianism is that it's somehow disavowing communal responsibility and collective power.
But I don't believe that those things should be imposed by some centralized agency anyway.
I think they should be voluntary.
I am a libertarian in so much as I do not like being told what to do.
And when someone tells me what to do, I think.
Where are you getting that authority from?
And when it's like, we're the government or we're the police, I think, well, I don't agree with either of those things.
So spiritually, I agree with it.
But how do you square it with the idea that we're here to take care of and love one another?
so from my perspective it's like the complete opposite of that criticism of
of libertarianism i think we're empowering the community i mean
the idea that like libertarians aren't arguing people shouldn't
join groups and help each other and do things as a community we're arguing that
it should be done voluntarily but it shouldn't be done through force that you should look
every inch of government
is there with the threat of a gun to your head like you pay your taxes or you go to jail you know like
every every law has a gun behind it saying you violate this and we will throw you
in a cage it's really insane when you think about it
in like how advanced modern human civilization is and that we still will
throw human beings in a cage like an animal for the for ridiculous crimes
now i mean okay i'm you know yeah if you if you murder someone or rape someone or
you know stab someone or you know set someone's house on fire okay fine
maybe that's the best we can do it you you kind of think still we could find
something better but regardless of that the idea of like Funding this monopoly on violence at the threat of we'll ruin your life, and it's such a binary to say, oh, if we didn't do it that way, then there'd be no community, then no one would care about taking care of the sick, or no one would think about like, oh, there's someone who's hard on their luck, we have to help them out.
I just don't believe it.
I don't believe that these people, these genocidal maniacs, these blood-soaked monsters, are like the only way we would make sure grandma had a sandwich, is if they're funded.
That's good.
Because actually, that sort of misanthropic assumption is what underwrites centralised and legal authority anyway.
The assumption that if you leave people alone, you know what they're going to do?
They're going to run into the streets and start masturbating and killing each other.
That's like the idea that legitimises the state power.
I suppose early sovereign power was underwritten by the idea of protection.
There are bandits, there are threats, there are dangers.
If you give the king your taxes, the king will protect you from from those threats. But it's mutated into something
extraordinary. And it's pretty obvious that even the most unquestioned version of democracy is
laughable in 2023, that you need a representative to go 400 miles or whatever on horseback
to tell the central authority, this is what this parish believes.
It's antiquated and it's irrelevant and it's only being kept alive because it's beneficial to the kind of state and corporate interest that you rightly diagnose as being a kind of hybrid, a hydra, and as you said very eloquently, Dave, a blood-soaked monster.
Dave, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation.
I hope we get to have many more like it.
Dave Smith is an advocate for anti-war, clearly, and an advocate for freedom, host of Part of the Problem podcast, which you can find wherever you find podcasts.
Thanks again for joining us, Dave.
Thank you so much, man.
Keep doing what you're doing.
It's incredible.
Thank you, man.
You too.
We'll see you soon.
Thank you very much.
Well, wasn't that a fantastic show?
Are you glad you joined us?
I enjoyed it.
Did you have a nice time?
Nice watching you guys.
There I was, just chatting away.
Nice conversation.
Perfectly, perfectly friendly, amiable conversation between Dave Smith and I. Libertarianism, you know, gets a lot of bad rap, doesn't it?
I thought it made it sound alright.
Me too.
What I think, mate, is that, this is what I think, is that the same way that anarchism would be attacked and libertarianism is attacked, same way that socialism is attacked, they all are subject to smear campaigns from the existing system.
But I reckon probably what's also true is there's the potential for unquestioned utopianism as well.
Hold on, how are these things going to work?
If we're serious about changing the world, we probably have to have conversations about how we're going to reorganise it.
I say, I do agree, keep governments small, keep communities small, keep them autonomous, keep them democratic, leave people alone has got to be one of the first principles, unless you can, like I say to my kids, either be nice to each other or leave each other alone!
One of those options!
Stop fighting, for God's sake!
All right, well, listen, we've got plenty more time.
We've got the rest of our lives to come to some conclusions, which might not be long, because it seems that people are advocating for a global holy war.
So that would get in the way, of course.
Tomorrow's show is promising to be a banger, because we got Graham Hancock from the hit Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse.
He's coming on to talk about arcane civilizations, psychedelics.
If you entered our competition, you could be here at Stay Free HQ.
If you're a member of our locals community, you can be online while we're having the conversation, sticking your oar in, you know, asking Graham questions.
Well, you said they could touch him.
I actually got a bit out of hand and said that you could make love to Graham.
You did.
Even though I've not asked Graham whether or not he's available to make love to strangers as a prize in an online competition.
He's not winning the prize, just to be clear.
Dave, I've done you... Graham Hancock, I've done you a tremendous service here.
You will be having... First prize!
Your first prize in a sex competition I organised on the internet!
Well, I don't know about that, although the Mayans predict it for something very much of this nature.
One could have happened... Yes, yes, come on, come in.
Yeah, don't mind her.
A little bit less chat chat and a bit more that that from you Graham my man.
A bit less comic could have hit the earth and called a cataclysmic event and there's water erosion on the pyramid and a bit more noshy noshy.
No.
No?
Yes.
Sign up to our locals community where you get more things like that.
And why wouldn't you?
You want that.
Why wouldn't you?
For example, you could see a little bit of my stand-up special Brandemic.
$20 for a one-off hit.
Or join our community.
It's there all the time.
It's only available for a limited time if you buy it for $20.
Gone in a couple of weeks.
Gone just like that.
Wow.
Oh, no.
It's a terrified thing.
Have a look at that clip.
Have a look at this clip.
Spiritual drugs, like ayahuasca.
Like it's wellness.
Wellness drugs.
That's fucking typical, that is.
I get clean from drugs, and then it becomes like, oh, it's vitamins or something.
I done five grams of mushrooms last night.
That's drugs, that!
That's fucking wellness.
Don't you fucking talk bad about me wellness.
Here, lend us 20 quid for me wellness, will ya?
Cos if I don't get some wellness, I'm fucking gonna kill someone!
People think that, you know, I'm clean and everything, I'm not taking no drugs and I'm zero drugs for nineteen and a half years, one day at a time.
No drugs.
Thank you!
Thank you!
One day at a time, one day at a time!
What this is, this is my personality.
This is me trying my best to fit in.
This is all I've got.
This is the best I've got to offer.
But people think that maybe now, because it's been so long, that I can take things like ayahuasca, the spiritual drugs, the wellness drugs.
If you don't know, it's like people take it like it's a sort of a tea that's made from a couple of plants you can take in sort of usually Central and South American countries that you take under the tutelage of a shaman.
You know, and like people tell me, like, oh, maybe you could take that, because it's like, you know, it's not like a drug.
It's not addictive.
Do you know what drug addiction actually is?
I fucking will get addicted to it.
No, you wouldn't get addicted to that.
You take it in a jungle with a shaman.
That's fucking brilliant!
I'd love that.
I'm not going to not get addicted to something just because there's a token nearby.
That's an enticement.
Nah.
Nah, mate.
You wouldn't get addicted to ayahuasca.
In fact, they use that in treatment to get people off of drugs.
I'm off drugs!
I can't get off off drugs!
That's back on drugs!
That's basic maths.
That was brilliant.
What a comedian I am.
How do I do it, Gail?
I just don't know.
Incredible gift, really.
I can only assume it's coming from some cosmic force.
Hey, you also get access to Stay Connected, weekly meditations that I do with people.
I did a meditation with a guy called Chris.
He's got imposter syndrome.
I don't even know if it was the real Chris.
You can join with the link in the description.
Press the red button.
See you tomorrow.
Not for more of the same.
That wouldn't be good enough, would it, Gav?
Certainly wouldn't.
But for more of the different.
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