Russell chats to Krystal Ball (that's her real name!) from Breaking Points about Neoliberalism, zombie ideology, the protests in France and power shifts in politics.Krystal is a political commentator, the co-host of ‘Breaking Points’ with Sagaar Enjeti and author of 'The Populists’s Guide to 2020: A New Right and New Left Are Rising’ - https://www.youtube.com/@breakingpoints Get My New Stand Up Special 'Brandemic' NOW https://rumble.com/v2d09w8-brandemic.htmlFor 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/
Thank you for watching Stay Free with Russell Brand.
It's going to be a fantastic show today.
We're talking about France.
France is burning.
The people are revolting.
Infamy, infamy.
They've all got it, infamy.
We're going to be talking to Crystal Ball on the show about a variety of topics.
And when we flip over to being exclusively on Rumble, we'll be talking about aspects of the TikTok trial that we wouldn't be able to speak about on YouTube.
But first, did you know That Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton went to a Broadway show, and next to them in the aisle were a couple of stools.
And I mean with the double O spelling.
Have a look at that.
Do we don't know if those faecal deposits were as a result of their attendance, or if it's just a coincidence, do we, Gareth?
No, we don't know if it was them who did it.
It seems odd that it would be one each and look at them.
They've been to see Some Like It Hot and they seem pretty pleased about something.
I would say that's the kind of euphoria that often infects a face after a deposit, Gareth, because you can let me know in the chat in the comments, have you ever known bliss like it?
Sometimes when I'm talking like this, you know what I remember is that people tune into this in parts of the mainstream media with the specific agenda of attacking our show.
And they'll say things like, Brand did a poo joke at the beginning.
Oh, how rebellious.
Well, it's going to get pretty rebellious later because we're going to be talking about the French protest and how it relates to a new emergent globally populist movement where people en masse across the world are becoming so incensed by Institutional corruption and hypocrisy that they are taking to the streets.
I wonder how these protests are going to play out.
I wonder how they're going to affect leaders in your nation.
Let's take a second to look at Joe Biden inadvertently tagging neoliberal utopia Canada as the place that it actually is.
A sort of little brother, an emulator of the Chinese state.
Get ready for a Freudian slip from dear Joe Biden.
Have a look.
Today, I applaud China for stepping up, excuse me, I applaud Canada.
You can tell what I'm thinking.
It's interesting that he did that in Canada and it's also odd that Joe Biden's slips and errors have now become almost soundtracked with canned laughter.
It's become the sitcom presidency.
We've long argued on this channel that almost unconsciously Joe Biden epitomises the problems with contemporary democracy.
He is aged and inept.
He is no longer appropriate for you.
So I'm only talking about Joe Biden as a symbol because when I say stuff like that, I feel mean because I know he's a human being and I know like he lost children and all that kind of stuff.
So I'm not attacking him as a human being.
I'm just talking about as a symbol of the level of corruption and ineptitude.
How these models are out of date now.
Don't you think that sometimes when you just learn about more wars, more corruption, like aren't we supposed to be wearing aluminum foil suits by now?
Aren't we meant to be evolving towards the next level of humanity by now?
I get why you feel sorry for someone who's old, I understand that, but when you talk about wars and you talk about the situation in Yemen or Syria at the moment, there are a lot of other children dying, just to kind of sew up that point.
Thanks, Gal, because I don't like to be mean to people, but you're right.
Due to the ongoing involvement of the US military-industrial complex in the war in Yemen, children probably have been killed today.
They probably died today, whose names we will never know due to a geographical quirk.
One of the things though that encourages me that global change is possible, that there is a global awakening, that new systems could be brought into being that allow us to bypass the entrenchment corruption that all of us live within, even if we're people that are doing okay or if we're people that Suffering terribly is this conflagration in Paris.
Now, we are English, so we've got a long-standing antipathy towards France.
It's just sort of casual xenophobia.
We've had wars with them for a long time, and my dogs still fly outside really angry.
They've not been allowed in.
There is the beast at the periphery right there.
That's why it'd be good to have that camera.
I'd love that from now on.
Maybe one of these days.
Maybe one of these days.
Little Dan, who works here, operating a handheld gal.
The shots we get.
I hope he doesn't do an angry protest out there.
Like Hilary Clinton.
Even now I'll be making a Chelsea Clinton style package to let you know that some may like it hot.
Others like it lukewarm, others like it almost semi-liquid.
One of the things before we get into the details, such as they are about these protests across France, which are essentially the French people are protesting against having to work an additional two years for no extra return.
A bill that was passed in the National Assembly, that's their equivalent of Congress or Parliament, without being put to a vote.
And it caused amazing scenes of disruption in France and leads me to believe that generally speaking, French politics, like French everything, is a little bit sexier.
One of the things though, on the ground, on the streets, in the restaurants, that's fascinating, is just how French people have immediately adjusted to living in the middle of a riot.
It's like it's not bothering them anymore.
Like me, if I was in a restaurant and outside was on fire, I feel like I would, like that, I wouldn't be able to just go and say, oh please, excuse me, I'll have the soup.
I think I'll skip dessert.
I might go home now because it looks like society is coming to an immediate cataclysmic end.
Have a look at this first clip.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
It seems obvious that blase is a French word, because that is the most blase thing I've seen.
France is burning down and no one cares.
It's the same with people eating outdoors, which looks even more dramatic.
Have you seen this one?
have a look.
I like that the server thinks that the problem is the organisation of the chairs.
Oh, monsieur!
My apologies.
That chair is a little crooked.
It's the angles that are the problem.
If we can just get this in proper relationship to the table, everything will be okay.
The streets are on fire!
[crowd noise]
...put in the car, I mean it's just everything's perfectly normal.
Actually, I'm not sure if she works there or she's dining there.
I can't tell what's happening.
Look at this one.
This is like performance art, this final one, because of the sort of musical choices.
Let us know in the chat and the comments how quickly you work out what song this is.
It's a little quiz.
If you get it right, you can come and see me in a live show.
Yeah, what about that?
If you want to come, you might not want to.
You might be a sort of a radical French person, happy to bring down the state because you're not being pensioned properly and democracy is being ignored like everywhere because your country is being led by a neoliberal stooge that went to the right school, made the right connections, organizes the right tax breaks for the powerful, attends Davos conferences, may pretend to care about cultural issues, may pretend to care about inequality, as they would call it in France, but actually cares It's about, I don't know, corruption.
Yeah?
Yeah, I reckon.
Is that enough?
Just say stuff in a French accent?
Yeah.
Will that do?
Is that enough for you?
Have a look at this.
I would say this is surreal and bizarre.
Not only because people are carrying on as normal, but there's something macabre and extraordinary.
And note that the keyboard player is still wearing a mask.
It's a weird visual oxymoron.
[Music]
Danny S says I wouldn't be able to enjoy a glass of wine with burning trash in the background.
That's a very good point.
If you're watching us on Rumble right now, you'll have to, because we're only going to be on YouTube for a few more minutes.
You should click the red button and join our, well, I don't know what to call our club.
We'll work out a name for that by the end of this week, shall we?
You should join our Affinity, our affiliation, our group, our crew.
And then it's your comments.
Oh, people are saying Eternal Flame.
Becker D, Eternal Flame.
Yeah, people recognise it as Eternal Flame.
Do you think that's been ironically rendered by that street musician?
I think so.
Can't be a coincidence.
Eternal Flame, by the bangles.
That's how he's scoring this disruption.
Gunshot gal, the gunshot, or whatever that was.
whatever that was.
[Music]
[Music]
The world has become sort of performance art.
Yeah, I guess it's interesting.
As a metaphor, you could argue that maybe we all have to get on with life and ignore all the awful atrocities that are going on just because here it's literally happening right next to them.
We're ignoring something that's happening not that far away in foreign countries.
Stay free with Russell Brand.
See it first on Rumble.
Ah, and on that final expletive from my four-year-old daughter, We'll read some of your comments.
Alex Overton.
Locals works fine in France.
It's nice, isn't it, to know that it's working perfectly well.
Killuminati369.
Deploy the next variant.
These are the kind of comments that allow us to seamlessly move into a conversation with a very important voice in our cultural space of independent media and free thinking.
Friend of the show.
Personal, deity is too strong of a word, but a reporter that I very much admire.
Crystal Bull from Breaking Point is joining us.
All right, Crystal, thanks for coming, mate.
Thanks for having me.
You're setting the bar a little high, though.
I'm getting nervous now.
Don't get nervous.
You look like you could be a mid-ranking officer in Star Trek in that fantastic outfit.
Well, thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We wanted to start by talking about the French protests and what can be drawn when talking about the, I don't know, is it the downfall, the demise of neoliberalism?
And we wanted to look at whether or not you personally feel that it's too late to reform centre-left Parties, but to accept that with the ongoing militarization of the police force, this tendency for centralizing authority and crushing dissent, whether change from outside of the system is going to be required.
In fact, isn't that what protests and riots ultimately are?
So I just wanted you to see, to contextualize the protests in France alongside what's happening in your country for us.
Thank you.
Well, I think of neoliberalism as a sort of zombie ideology, which has clearly failed and been rejected by all sorts of people all around the world as failing to really serve the interests of the people.
So you end up with governments and economies which should be there to serve society, to serve the people, and instead are serving a group of elites and, you know, sort of corporate, multinational corporations.
But I call it a zombie ideology because even as the failings of it have been exposed and rejected, it still holds a lot of power, as we see, obviously, in the U.K., as we see in the U.S.
with Joe Biden, as we see in France with Macron.
Being able to win re-election with, you know, he had like a 30% approval rating when he won re-election.
And by the way, Joe Biden's chief of staff pointed that out as a model for how Joe Biden himself could get re-elected, even as he is tremendously unpopular.
So that's how I sort of see the ideology of neoliberalism.
As far as whether it can be reformed within the system or what sort of tactics might work, I think you need a whole of body politic approach.
So the sort of protest movement that you see right now in France, and incidentally, that's being very successful right now in Israel as well, that's not just people marching the street with placards, but is people shutting down airports, shutting down commerce, shutting down transit and really hurting neoliberalism in the capital where it really hurts.
That is tremendously powerful.
That's one essential piece.
I think another essential piece, and all of these are about basically, you know, small d democratic weapons.
Another piece is in building out the power of labor and labor unions.
That's obviously an instrumental part in having power when you go to protest and when you go to have a general strike, that you have people who are working together in solidarity to have that kind of an impact.
But then I think another piece is electoral politics.
You know, in the American context, we take for granted that the Democratic Party is what it is and the Republican Party is what it is.
But these parties are just collections of people.
And the Democratic Party of the past, when it was the FDR New Deal party, meant something very different and stood for things that are very different from what the party does today.
So, you know, I think the people who run the DNC are a bunch of posers who could, you know, be supplanted by a real movement of the people and sort of hijack that party to restore it to its roots of serving the interests of the people rather than the interests of the donor class.
That's an exciting proposition.
But in recent, even in recent electoral cycles, we've seen that party.
It feels like from within SCAPA, the attempt of a more populist leader in the form of Bernie Sanders, who I figure you were well into.
And it makes me feel like that, in a sense, the part of the function of these institutions is their ongoing preservation and the ability to stymie any serious reform.
So I recognize what you're saying is that without populist uprising outside of political systems such as we are seeing in France, and as you added, Israel, Well, I'll give you a perfect example of that.
And I think your point is spot on.
Like in recent, you know, the Clinton Sanders stuff is a good demonstration of that, would
you say?
Well, I'll give you a perfect example of that.
And I think your point is spot on.
So right now, Joe Biden, he hasn't officially announced for re-election, but he's likely
to.
And he has a progressive primary opponent who was announced in Marianne Williamson.
And Democrats, for all their talk about democracy during January 6th, et cetera.
Now that it's time to actually put to a vote among Democratic primary voters, OK, who do you want to be your nominee?
And we know from the polls that an overwhelming majority would like Joe Biden to step aside and they would like to have options in this primary.
They've already switched around the order of the states to try to rig the primary election for Biden.
And they're also already saying, we're not even going to have a debate.
So you don't even get to hear on a stage what the various platforms are.
So there is no doubt that when it comes down to it, they have zero commitment to democracy.
They will use any authoritarian tactics, just as Macron did in France.
To try to maintain their power.
The only thing that can shift them from that stance is a populist uprising that forces their hand, that demands a debate, that demands a real primary, that demands a real democracy.
And I think those are the only sort of choices.
You know, neoliberalism, it's no accident that it's being forced.
leaders like Macron and Biden are being forced to use increasingly
authoritarian tactics in service of maintaining their power because it has sort of been revealed as this rotten
ideology that doesn't deliver on its promises.
The only response to that is a truly populist response, which really means
handing power and people reclaiming power both in their workplace, through
labor unions, both in the streets, through protest, and also by taking back
electoral politics. So you have to have all three of those pieces, in my opinion.
Cool.
I feel like the professional neoliberal centre-left kind of hates working people and that kind of contempt comes through continually in their rhetoric.
Marianne Williamson's coming on this show next week.
I love what you said there about the institutional and centralised authoritarianism that would corruptly rejig the order of those sort of state elections in order to prevent any momentum or even Debate and that makes me feel like why would I grant any airtime to that kind of political body with that kind of mechanic?
A slightly more trivial question before moving on to things that are a bit more intense.
It just occurred to me then, Crystal, like, do you see now when Joe Biden
makes one of those errors where he sort of accidentally says,
you know, that's why I love China when he's in Canada or whatever,
that people laugh straight away with that and do not product placement that drink.
You should be drinking kombucha or something healthy rather than that evil brew, stinking Coca-Cola.
Oh no, I'm sure it's a fine brew.
It's delicious though.
Oh no, don't, don't do--
It might be evil, but it's delicious though.
Don't give him a pack shot.
You maniac right next to your electrifying white smile.
You lunatic, that's worth thousands.
Get me, get your agent on the phone.
I'll do that deal.
When Joe Biden does that, when Joe Biden does that stuff and he makes a mistake, have you noticed they started laughing now?
Do you think that that's something that's happened as a result of a spontaneous cultural movement or do you think someone goes out and briefs before Joe Biden appears on stage and goes, if he makes one of those errors, just chuckle along with beloved old Uncle Joe to sort of soften the evident ineptitude and the horrible metaphor that that ineptitude represents Yeah, true, true.
He's like the sort of living embodiment, semi-living embodiment of exactly that.
Look, I think when people are uncomfortable, they tend to laugh because they don't know what else to do.
And so when you have incidents like, you know, I don't know if you remember the one where there was a congresswoman who died in a car accident and he had sent out a letter of condolences to the family and then he's at this event and he's calling for her, Jackie, Jackie, where are you?
In any case, there are clear signs that he's not the politician that he used to be.
Now, listen, if people are able to see him on a debate stage and hear his ideas for the country and defend the areas where he's made clear promises and completely failed on and in a completely open democratic fashion, that's what the American people decide to go in the direction of?
Okay, that's democracy.
But what they are trying to do, because they know that he's in an incredibly precarious and fragile position, is they're trying to shut down any ability for people to hear an alternative whatsoever.
So, you know, it really reveals their hand of how weak they think that he is.
And then they also have the issue of Kamala Harris as vice president.
She's even less popular than Joe Biden is.
And not only is she a heartbeat away from the presidency, she's the heartbeat away from a president who, you know, would end the next term at 86 years old.
So this is a series of really compounding problems for them that they don't quite know how to deal with other than through authoritarian, anti-democratic tactics.
The only choice is for us to reject them and say, listen, whatever you think about the issues, whatever you think about Marianne Williamson or Joe Biden, The American people at least deserve to have an open forum and an open debate because we're at a critical juncture in our nation's history and in world history where it's incredible.
It's never been more important to have that open discussion and debate of ideas and visions for the future.
I am really encouraged by what you say, Crystal, about how populism can advance existing political structures, because I tend, sometimes out of despair, to feel like, oh, there's no point, there's no point, it's so corrupt, it's so broken, the only thing it's worth doing is protest, the only thing it's worth doing is establish alternative systems.
I see how, as you describe, it could influence existing political structures.
Were we to be more vocal and aggressive, and I don't mean that obviously in a violent sense, in our protest and opposition and non-compliance to the corruption within these systems.
And I wanted to ask you... Well, if I could just insert in that, you know, I'm talking a lot about the Democratic Party, but there's a similar process that's playing out in the Republican Party right now.
I mean, there are some real schisms that have emerged in the Republican Party that are a real, you know, potential source of democracy and reform as well.
So, you know, I don't see this as a sort of one-sided opportunity to change the tenor of our country or the world or change the landscape.
But it's not going to come without a fight.
There's no doubt about it.
I mean, the people who have power are not going to just willingly give it up to a group of renegades, whether it's operating within this party system or within a third party.
With the mechanics of the U.S.
political system, you know, as much as Bernie Sanders was shut out in 2016 and again in 2020, he still came a lot closer than a third party is able to come just because of the, you know, fundamental structure of first-past-the-post voting and how this ultimately works.
So I just think from a pragmatic standpoint, you're likely to have a better shot of success going for hijacking one of the existing political parties than coming from the outside.
Thanks, Christel.
You're quite right that that pressure should be bipartisan.
I wanted to ask you, do the current TikTok congressional hearings demonstrate the evident and ongoing hypocrisy that exists in American politics, in so much as almost every facet of attack that's being explored, whether it's the surveillance, the data capture, the apparent collaboration with the state, could be levelled at American.
Social media companies or global social media companies.
And I want to tie this to the subject we were just discussing, meaningful change within the system or even beyond the system.
Do you feel that if either the Republican Party or the Democrat Party or an independent
party stood on a platform that included banning politicians from having a second job, banning
politicians to trade in stocks and shares full stop or having any dependent child or
spouse own stocks and shares and making it illegal for either party to receive corporate
donations, only individual funders and even then in a very regulated way, do you think
that that, you know, essentially get in money out of politics, ending lobbying, ending congressional
stock trading, ending the sort of funding of the parties by finance and big business?
Would all the landscape of American politics so radically that, you know, that it would
actually bloody well work and be meaningful?
And what kind of opposition would those kind of ideas face and how would they stop it happening and sort of loophole their way out of it?
Well, I think it'd be dramatically popular with the American people.
And you see this from time to time.
You know, leaders, congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle were sort of forced to pretend like they cared about banning stock trading in Congress.
And both Nancy Pelosi, back when she was Speaker, and also Kevin McCarthy, when he was running to be Speaker of the House, pretended like they wanted to take action on this issue because they knew it was so popular and so politically powerful.
And then now that Kevin McCarthy is actually Speaker of the House, you haven't heard anything about it anymore.
That just sort of died.
Even the renegades that challenged him in terms of a speakership, that was not one of the concessions that they extracted.
And Nancy Pelosi found a way to effectively kill some real, genuine bipartisan efforts that might have had some teeth in that direction.
So they use it as a political cudgel as it serves them, but then make sure that there is no actual change that happens.
Do I think that getting money out of American politics would make a difference?
Absolutely.
I think it would absolutely, you know, transform the landscape of American politics because we ask ourselves so many times, why when you have things that are so incredibly popular, you know, things like making sure people have paid sick leave or that union membership is available to people or that people have a living wage?
I mean, these are massively popular issues.
Why is there never any action?
And frequently, corruption is a core part of the story.
And if we go even one level deeper than that, this is really going back to France, this really is the core of the rot of neoliberalism, which says profits and money above all else.
So of course, if that is your system, and that's the altar that you worship at, then you're going to end up with a system that is rife with corruption.
So I think that you know, kind of the root of the problem and they'll do
everything they can to protect the status quo that exists because the people in power, they
got there because things work well for them the way that they stand right now. It means to me
that that's an interesting edifice to focus attack on because it exposes the areas in which
both parties plainly agree and will use rhetoric around it but won't implement legislation around
it and it exposes that as Chomsky says where both parties agree you have no choice at all and to
sort of introduce that and popularize those ideas I feel like it'll be a really interesting way
of radicalizing political debate in a meaningful way. Crystal, thank you so much for
joining us, thank you for endorsing that soft drink which I think has links to Alzheimer's, I don't
know that's allegedly... allegedly!
Listen, we have to exist in society as it is, Russell, until we can revolutionise in it.
So I'm just here existing in society with my Diet Coke.
You, like Gareth Roy, are a positive influence.
You are the voice of reason and the taste of Diet Coke simultaneously.
Crystal Ball, thank you so much for joining us.
You can catch Breaking Point every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday on YouTube, surely on Rumble soon.
That's midday Eastern time.
Thanks again, Crystal.
Thanks for joining us, mate.
Thank you, Russell.
It was fun.
Lovely to speak to you.
Thank you very much.
And there we go.
A wonderful conversation.
Perfectly enjoyable.
I think we advanced the debate somewhat, didn't we?
And we also promoted a deadly soft drink.
No, I think I mean, I think, you know, all the points about Biden.
I mean, I wasn't aware of what Crystal was talking about in terms of ways in which the Democrat Party are going about making ensuring that, you know, Biden gets reelected over, for example, someone like Marianne Williamson, who we'll speak to.
But it's We can ask her that.
We'll also say, are you aware they're shifting the order of the states?
I'm sure she is.
I've been paying attention to that.
Amazing.
I like Marianne Williamson.
She's spiritual.
She's cool.
I've interviewed her a couple of times.
She's all right.
Hey, she's a good person.
Listen, when I went over to Rumble and met this, I already knew the CEO, Chris Pavlovsky, but like I went over there and sort of there was, you know, I met Donald J. Trump.
Lovely, of course.
His wife, that little girlfriend, that lady, Kim, off of Fox.
box who really aggressively attacked me saying I was like a scumbag and a
stinkhole and a scuzz bucket and then she was an absolute joy to me and like
just laughed away through all of those things it sort of felt like it didn't
matter at all to me we had like our photo done me and Chris Pavlovsky over
by the Rumble logo right and I just as we were taking our photo like he sort of
intuitively put his hands clasped his hands across his midriff right like or
lower midriff your torso let's call it and I just went at the moment in that
moment I went don't cover your genitals like as if I was an expert in body
language or something like that and like it was the person that took a photo that
works with us Lauren I think she had a photo a camera on live so it's got the
audio of it and with you know to celebrate Rumble's recent controversies being banned in France, or at least taking themselves off of the French system.
Here is me and Chris Pavlovsky, and me advising him to not cover his genitals, which I'd say is an entertaining moment.
Have a look.
Don't cover your genitals!
He actually did it!
Like, as if I know about stuff like that.
Never cover your genitals, unless you're nude, in which case... From one CEO to another.
These are my tips.
Do not cover your genies in a photo.
It says a lot though, doesn't it?
The fact that you're stood there with your hands so far away, about as far away from your gentles as it's possible for them to be.
I don't want them anywhere near them.
That's when the problems start.
Well, thank you for joining us for another fantastic show.
I hope you learned something about the connection between the protests in France and your own corrupt systems.
I like Crystal's point about it's a sort of a zombie ideology lumbering on, but zombies are Pretty deadly.
And they put up a fight.
And then sort of the observation that perhaps in Biden, we have the perfect zombie president, a cadaverous undead figure lurching his way forwards into new conflicts in Syria, weaponizing and mobilizing and monetizing the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Or is it ideologically sound?
Let me know In the comments.
We've got a fantastic week coming up tomorrow.
We'll be speaking to Vandana Shiva, the great mother of our show.
We'll be talking about the various agricultural revolts, in particular the one in the Netherlands currently.
And again, how a new populist movement that transcends cultural differences is emerging.
That's what's happening in France.
We'll be looking at that in even more depth, if such a thing were possible, in our Here's the News tomorrow.
And if you sign up to Locals, you'll get my stand-up special Brandemic available As part of your package, or you can buy it for a one-off price of $20, you get access to Stay Connected, me and Gareth's little show, where we're really intimate with one another, and we respond directly to your questions, as well as weekly meditations, and the opportunity to attend live podcast recordings, like the latest one with Graham Hancock.
That's up on Rumble now.
You could have come.
We gave away tickets to people.
There's people in the locals community, like... What's his name?
The man that looked like a man on another man's shoulders.
What was his name again?
Michael Collins.
Primal Colin, you, like Primal Colin, shout out to you, could come here and meet Graham Hancock and loom above him like a Muppet Man.
Join us!
Join us on our adventure.
We're getting more and more serious by the day.
We're on the very precipice of starting communities.
Are we, Gal?
Oh, of course we are.
Let's start those communities.
Join us tomorrow, not for more of the same, but for more of the different.
