As Facebook agrees to $725 million security breach settlement, why hasn’t this been covered in the mainstream news in the same way as Fox News’ $787 million payout? Dr John Campbell’s had a YouTube Strike, he joins us live. As RFK Jr surges in the polls, we ask… is he being smeared by the mainstream media and how much of a threat is he to Joe Biden? Plus, we’re joined by economist and the author of ‘Free and Equal - What Would a Fair Society Look Like?’, Daniel Chandler, to find out how to get money out of politics!Daniel's new book: Free and Equal is available here: https://bit.ly/3VxbJHPWatch the FULL INTERVIEW on Rumble: https://bit.ly/3LVUX1S For a bit more from us join our Stay Free Community here: https://russellbrand.locals.com/Come to COMMUNITY https://www.russellbrand.com/community-2023/NEW MERCH! https://stuff.russellbrand.com/
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Dirty name.
This lot are here chatting away right now about the important issues that will define our time, our lives, our days.
Because if you think that democracy is working, if you think you've got a free press, you'll be living in a dream world, baby.
We're going to be telling you in depth about RFK.
Is he being smeared by the MSM?
Let us know in the chat.
I think the mainstream media are trying to smear RFK.
Did you see that spate of headlines on screen, Assistant Gareth?
Where every single newspaper from across the political spectrum all introduced RFK as anti-vaxxer.
Well, no mention of all of his pro-environmental work that they claim to care so much about.
Is he a real threat to Biden and why won't Biden debate him?
He's going to be on the show next week, RFK, but today we're just sort of preparing for him, I suppose, by, you know, excitedly embracing, if I may say, a potential new political voice.
Then, if you're watching us on YouTube, I mean, can I even say the words?
Almost certainly not, Ross.
Dr. John Campbell currently on a ban on a strike from YouTube.
Obviously, we can't discuss why, because we would then get a strike on YouTube and we love you, you 6.4 million Awakening Wonders.
We want you to join us over on Rumble, but we want you to get this content wherever you can in order to support us.
we need you over at Rumble, even as the world encircles Rumble and other free speech platforms
like the American military encircling China, then claiming that China's the problem because
there's a new spate of laws being brought in by the Five Eyes countries. And don't think
of Five Guys burger franchises every time I mention that, it's childish. Because what
they're doing is they've got like every single one of those countries, wherever it's Canadia
or New Zealandia or Inglaterra or America or Australia, they've got eerily similar laws,
almost as if there's been some centrally agreed upon set of edicts that are now being mandated
and I don't remember voting for it.
They tend to have their congressional or parliamentary debates late, late, late, late at night, so you can't participate, right?
But we bring the debate right to you, and here it is.
Also, One of my friends is coming on the show, Daniel Chandler has written a fantastic book, here it is, Free and Equal, What Would a Fair Society Look Like?
This is a brilliant attempt to revivify some liberal principles but in a way that's right, in a way that works and isn't co-opted by corporate and financial forces using the philosophy of John Rawls.
We'll be learning more about that and how we can get bloody money Out of politics.
We're only going to be on YouTube for a minute because, you know, we've got to get to Dr. John Campbell.
He's joining us on the line.
We've got to platform him.
Someone's got to platform him, haven't we?
Have someone go?
He's bored, isn't he?
What's he going to be doing?
That guy's sat at home twiddling his thumbs, filming himself for no reason, shooting from above.
If you look here are the data.
No one's watching, John!
John, for God's sake, like Mrs. John Campbell.
Right, yeah.
John, you're on your own, just sort of like talking to her.
If you see here, this is why I actually don't have to do the washing up, because you can see here, look, I've done my fair share of the chores.
Look at that, see?
Come and have dinner with me for once.
I won't, I don't have to have dinner because I'm surviving on crushed up tablets, you see?
Like that, I crush them up and get all my nutrients from the crushed up tablets.
But before we get into all that wonder, have you ever wondered if there are any icebergs out there that were discovered Disgusting fallacies because I know I have have a look at this Dickie Burke This is a it's a it's a slowly melting iceberg.
I'm glad it's milling very intimidating.
Look at that Dickie Burke saucy devils as well as a a melting ice cap that's giving some people cause for concern consternation and giving us all a giggle and Facebook have reached an out-of-court settlement.
What for, mate?
What is this for?
Meta has set out to settle Cambridge Analytica scandal case for $725 million.
That's too close to the Fox settlement for the claims about the Dominion voting machines to not receive, I think, more coverage and to be more widely understood.
Don't you agree?
Yeah, so this happened in December, but now what it is, is that Facebook users can apply for some of that $725 million money.
But obviously, like we know... You can get a bit of that if they've been using... You can get a bit of that.
What did they do?
Use your data?
Manipulation?
They harvested your data of like its users.
Like Facebook.
Oh, when will there be a harvest for the world?
There's already been one.
They've been harvesting your data, mate.
Yeah, there probably still are.
Well, certainly a lot of them are.
But yeah, so Facebook users can now apply for money.
But obviously we don't know how easy it will be to apply for that money.
There's probably loads of different ways that it's like you can't have access to it and you're not entitled to it.
You know what it would be like?
Insurance.
Like when they're selling you insurance.
Insurance!
You've got to have insurance!
Oh yeah?
Oh anything!
Any problems?
You can take your insurance!
Hey I need that insurance!
I mean never in it!
Oh no sorry it don't cover that!
Well then I've not even told you what it is yet!
I'll tell you it don't cover it!
Whatever is the thing that you're trying to use insurance for it don't cover it!
Or should we say allegedly just in case?
Allegedly!
There's a sort of people that are... Because we're sued by an insurance company and you don't want that added to your list of problems.
Ireland could pass laws making it illegal to read non-mainstream news sources.
Now, when you look into this, in part what they're saying is they're making it illegal to have material that incites hatred based on gender and race.
And I think all of us would agree.
Let me know in the comments in the chat.
No one should be hating anybody on the basis of gender or race, or hating anybody at all, actually.
I mean, if you have even good reason to hate someone, your job is to get over it in order to free yourself from the manacles of hatred that will ultimately destroy you.
But hating people because of characteristics that are just part of who they are, absolutely bloody ridiculous.
But what will happen, I believe, and you know more about this stuff than I do, you do a lot of the heavy lifting, darling, I'm up the front.
The problem with this I guess is who gets to decide you know when something is the issue that they're trying to get to is this idea of like thought crimes and what people are like saying about it is if now you're starting to police people over thought crimes and lock people up over thought crimes what is that the way that we want to go as in somebody's done something wrong before they even do it and As in, if there's material on your computer, are you guilty by the fact of there's just material on your computer or not?
And I guess the issue is, as exactly as you say, no one wants to see hatred, no one wants to see all those kind of things, but who gets to decide and do the parameters for these kind of laws change according to whatever government's in, whatever the situation is at the time?
It's a fascinating point from a handsome man.
What's interesting, also, is to look at these simultaneous online bills and how they align.
Now, we're going to stay on YouTube and Twitter, and on Twitter, we're going to stay on Twitter, but after that... Careful!
Thought Grime!
That's a thought crime!
Maybe.
Well, because it could have been a Cypriot person.
Right.
But it wasn't, though.
Oh, sorry, I did a fart.
Is that the worst thing that's ever happened on YouTube?
That's a thought crime.
That's a strike.
Strike one!
If only it was strike one.
We're going to explain these Western Nations Simultaneous Online Bills, right?
You're going to love this because they seem to be acting in concordia.
Last week, I think, Canada passed a bill.
Yeah, that's what I call them.
Passed a bill.
The online streaming bill.
The online streaming bill.
Merica, working on the Restrict Act.
The UK, they'll be debating late night in their leather green chambers.
Hold up, hold up!
Just one or two of them there, trying to usher some new secrecy through, won't they, Gal?
Yes, certainly will.
And then after this, we're going to go to Dr. John Campbell.
Perhaps the world's loveliest, cuddliest fellow.
He came here, he sat right where you're sat now.
Yeah, I was a bit jealous.
And where we'll have my mate Daniel Chandler sitting in a minute.
But let's have a look at this, look.
Look at how all of these countries are simultaneously coming up with legislation that appears to be in accordance with one another.
Now, you might say, well, of course they're all communicating.
We know they do.
We know they're communicating, but this is one of the revelations of Edward Snowden, that these countries were sharing one another's data and spying on other countries' populations as a sort of loophole, because it's illegal for Americans to spy on American citizens, but it's not illegal for Australian secret services to spy on American citizens, and they all exchange data.
It's some sort of, I call it, cyber wife swap.
Oops, sci-fi wife swap in, like, why don't you spy on mine and I'll spy on yours?
I don't mind if I do, buddy, that's a hell of a, oh, look at those five eyes, oh my.
So there's the online safety bill, enforced through fines of up to 18 million quid, or 10% of annual global turnover, right, so that's, like, if you are deemed, now look at, like, take the case of Dr. John Campbell.
These community guidelines are often opaque and difficult to understand, aren't they?
Like, we're all the time, And evolving.
Evolving and changing all the time.
I think that's the point, isn't it?
If you know where you stand with something, but if the parameters are able to change all the time, then it's difficult.
Like, don't step on the grass.
Okay.
Well, also though, don't look at the grass.
You know what I mean?
It's like, it's ever evolving.
It's literally Kafka-esque.
Like, if you, like, we've got here a quote from Franz Kafka.
Have a look at that.
If I put my phone down, because I want to look at, look at the actual description of the trial by Joseph Kafka, or Franz Kafka, excuse me.
Like, look at this.
Right, so what is Kafka's trial really about?
The trial is a novel written by Franz Kafka but not published until 25 after... No, I'm just going to read my one.
Joseph K is a bank worker accused of a crime but he is never told the nature of his crime and he must navigate a seemingly impossible legal system to save himself.
It starts, I think, with a famous line, someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K because without warning he was arrested.
What Kafkaesque has come to mean, the same way as Orwellian means you're being spied on and all that, Kafkaesque means that bureaucracies are untenable and mysterious and you don't know what it is you're supposed to do and not supposed to do.
That's actually happening now.
It's certainly happening with YouTube.
I mean, that's one of the things that wherever you are on YouTube in terms of politically, I think everyone can admit that the YouTube guidelines are so difficult to work your way around.
to know what you're meant to say, what you're not meant to say, what you're meant to monetize,
what you're not meant to monetize.
And where people love naturally free speech and open communication, this will lead to
the rise of other platforms like Rumble, but simultaneously bureaucratic entities and legislative
entities, nation states are cooperating, and the platforms rather are cooperating with
them to ensure that free speech can be restricted.
Take the example around the pandemic.
You already know that YouTube used the WHO's guidelines.
Now that needn't be nefarious, but it is opaque and it is difficult to understand and it did lead to, as you know, in the case of Twitter, true information being censored and it's still impossible to talk about stuff that's empirically true.
On YouTube, and dear Dr. John Campbell, don't even know why he's banned.
Have a quick glance at these various laws before going to that tweet.
There's some EU thing, like, that's going to basically mean that Rumble, you know, Rumble already can't broadcast in France.
And you'll see that the French people are very happy right now with the way they're being governed.
France's democracy is working absolutely fine.
Street parties.
It's like a big jubilee, but made out of fire, burnt out cars and tipped over bins.
Yeah, there's the Online Streaming Act in Canada, I think that's already been passed.
The Restrict Act in the US, which obviously they used the young lad there, buddy boy Texera, and his revelations too.
I mean, this is why people, because obviously Elon Musk has got involved in this, like saying that it's a bad idea, because I guess people are worried this is a kind of pilot scheme.
And when you look at what people are saying about this thing that's happening in Ireland and what's just been passed in Canada, is that, as you say, that this will just become ubiquitous.
Right.
And if you look at something like, I mean, we literally can compare it to the Patriot Act.
Why people are saying it's the Patriot Act 2.0 is because the stated goal of the Patriot Act was not what the Patriot Act was used for.
I see.
And that's the thing here.
That's brilliant.
Because that makes it simple.
Does that make it clear to you?
Because the Patriot Act was, well, you don't want terrorists blowing up buildings and killing people and stuff.
Oh, no, God, that's awful.
That's awful.
Right.
Good.
Well, let's have the Patriot Act.
Oh, by the way, we're spying on everyone now, and we decide what the word terrorist means.
The Restrict Act is, well, you don't want people being hateful to people because of protected characteristics or characteristics that are just part of who they are, and they shouldn't receive bias, prejudice, bigotry, or hatred.
Of course not!
Everyone agrees with that.
Good.
Well, also, we're going to be spying on you.
We're going to be controlling you, censoring you, shutting down information.
It's clever, man.
How do they do this stuff?
Just one last thing.
The Canada Online Streaming App.
So this has been passed.
The video platform says that the law would force it to recommend Canadian content on its homepage rather than videos tailored to a user's specific interest.
This is literally tailoring what you should be... What you should be... Censorship!
They found a way.
Because when these platforms first came about, and YouTube is the biggest and the best of them.
Rumble is the upcoming little hustler.
It was about freedom of speech.
It was about individual content creators, independent media, people with specific interests from Mr Beast to PewDiePie to people doing makeup tutorials.
Suddenly, we were competing in an open market space.
And what do they talk about all the time?
Free market, the power of the market.
Not no more, baby.
It'll be censored in accordance with the will of the government.
And they will obviously not say, well, we like power.
It's power for power's sake.
They're going to say, we're helping you.
We're protecting you.
We're keeping you safe.
But it's literally Kafkaesque, because the laws are opaque and difficult to understand.
Let's have a look at Dr. John Campbell's tweet, where he announced that he'd been given a strike for speaking to British MP Andrew Bridgen.
So there you go.
He's announced his strike.
He's off for a week.
He's bothering his wife, but he's taking a bit of time off from loafing around the house in what I imagine is definitely a fleece.
If you're watching us on YouTube, join us on Rumble right now.
There's a link in the description, because we're going to talk about this story openly and freely.
Freedom!
I'm like an American politician.
Democracy, freedom!
Democracy, freedom!
Are you going to get some oil off Dr. John Campbell?
Has he got semiconductors?
No!
This is about democracy and freedom!
It's always been democracy and freedom.
See you on Rumble.
Click the link in the description.
Are you there, Dr. John?
Are you there?
I am here, Russell.
Nice to talk to you again.
Really missed you.
I really missed you a great deal.
How are you, mate?
I'm very well, thank you.
Yeah, and you're both looking well, I must say.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Are you bothering the missus since you've had time off work?
What are you doing?
How are you feeling the time?
I've been assigned all sorts of jobs around the house and digging the allotment and cleaning the car and all sorts of things that I've been putting off for ages.
Don't get under her feet, John.
That's right.
Don't get under my feet!
You're under her feet!
Now, do you understand why you have received this strike and this ban, Dr. John?
Why is it?
Why is it?
Notification, accusation, whatever it was from YouTube said, medical misinformation.
And that's all it will tell you.
It doesn't actually tell you what medical information there was.
Of course, on my channel, I'm very careful to go back to the original sources and try and look at the evidence as much as I can.
So there'll be an article in the Telegraph or the Guardian, and I'll go back and look at the original papers or the original publications and try and get it right as far as I can.
But when you're talking to people like politicians, in a sense, they are the authority.
So if Mr Bridgen says something or Rishi Sunak says something, then that is their opinion.
And, you know, you would like to think that that was valid.
But that's what I got the strike for, an interview with Mr Andrew Bridgen, Member of Parliament for North West Leicestershire on Saturday, the 29th of April.
Dr. John, Andrew Bridgen, like he got was in the news because he stood up in Parliament
and started talking about vaccine injury and the way that people had lent into that particular
policy in ways that in retrospect was not as watertight as was initially suggested,
that lockdown policies were unreliable and he's made some headway but I think he's since
been booted out of the Conservative Party, which is our equivalent of the Republican
Party here in the UK, and there's an attempt to censor and shut down him. Now me as a person
that's more, I wouldn't really align myself with the Conservative Party in Great Britain,
God no, but I'm very interested of course in freedom of speech and I'm particularly
interested in this subject. What in particular did you find interesting? What is the, is
there a particular substance or medication that you mentioned, and remember you're on
Rumble now John so you're safe to talk freely, that you think may have led to the ban and
I'm presuming it was something that Andrew said because we have things like that often
They come in here, shatting their mouths off, and we have to pay the bill.
Yeah, I mean, I've looked through what he said really quite carefully and everything that he has said, we've said on previous videos, he did mention hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin really only in passing.
So that could have been the issue.
You sort of kind of get the impression that because it was Andrew Bridgen, it was looked through perhaps more carefully than it would have been normally.
But whether you agree with Andrew Bridgen or not, really, Russell, I don't think that's the issue.
The point is he's giving counter-argument.
And the whole point of our democracy is we have the Houses of Commons, which is supposed to be a debating chamber.
So if Andrew Bridgen wants to come on and say, well, I believe there's a Loch Ness monster or I believe we've been visited by aliens, then as a member of Parliament, he's allowed to do that.
And the other members of Parliament should give counter-argument.
But Andrew Bridgen hasn't done that.
He's said things that are perfectly reasonable.
He's given evidence for it.
He's consulted senior scientists around the world.
And he's put forward these arguments, and he talks to an empty chamber, which our American viewers simply don't understand.
At best, it's impolite.
So rather than giving counter-argument, he just seems to have been cold-shouldered, ignored, sent to Coventry, whatever you want to call it.
Where is the debate?
Where is the counter-argument?
Where is people saying, well, you've given that evidence, but let's look at this evidence, or you've cited that guideline, let's look at that guideline.
Why is there no debate going on?
Why is a sitting Member of Parliament been effectively silenced by his colleagues?
I find that really quite concerning, Russell.
I feel like one of the reasons that the parliamentary distancing was required is because he rhetorically referred to the Holocaust which is broadly understood to be in bad taste but I think generally speaking that's how people use it that the Holocaust is a great stain on humanity and a disgusting act of genocide and racism and a reminder of the dangers of fascism and tyranny.
So Even when he was speaking just about vaccines, it was an empty chamber.
That's the reaction of the party in booting him out.
But as Dr. Jones says, even when he was speaking about vaccines from a scientific point of view, it was to no one.
It's a weird political system that we have.
They're either in there shouting like children, waving pieces of paper around, or they're in there on their own.
Or in one case, one person was caught masturbating And that is the best system of government we could possibly come up with.
What troubles me, Dr. John, in the case of your YouTube strike is I know how meticulous you are.
I know that you are rigorous in the way that you research your content.
I know that, you know, throughout the pandemic, the reason you attracted such a large audience on your YouTube channel is because you are trustworthy and authentic and honest.
And there's a Medic, you recognise the significance and importance of all medicines, including and in some cases, especially vaccines.
But that has to be underwritten by clinical trials, honest debate, transparency around the data.
And throughout this, I think you've just walked a tightrope of authenticity, rigour and honesty.
I think it's incredible how you've done it.
It doesn't appall me that you've been booted off for a week, but it informs me There does seem to be a worldwide movement at the moment, Russell.
And of course, we've got this new World Health Organization treaty, which there's been a debate in Parliament about.
even through the EU, over in Ireland, Canada, the five highest countries.
What do you make of that, John?
There does seem to be a worldwide movement at the moment, Russell, and of course,
we've got this new World Health Organization treaty, which there's been a debate in Parliament about.
But the only reason there was a debate in Parliament about that was because
there was 156,000 signatures from concerned members of the public,
and that triggered this parliamentary debate because it reached 100,000 signatures.
And it's not just Andrew Bridge and we've had quite a few other MPs expressing really quite significant concern about this.
The idea that information can be controlled and the idea that unelected bureaucrats, who happen to be in Geneva in this case, can pass laws or pass edicts which would be binding in the United Kingdom.
And it does seem to be happening all around the world.
So this seems to be like what you might call an international zeitgeist at the moment, an international movement.
It's Canada, it's Canada and New Zealand are probably the worst.
Ireland, as you've said, issues going on there, the United States, the United Kingdom, all seem to be moving in the same direction.
It's almost like some sort of mass virus that's affecting people in different parts of the world.
But the question in my mind is, Why is this affecting people in different parts of the world all at the same time?
Is there some underlying cause?
Is there some underlying motivation?
Is there some coordination to this?
Because otherwise it just seems like one heck of a big coincidence to me.
Conspiracy theorists would say that they're perhaps acting in concert because of the communication that takes place through organisations like the WFWHO because of their shared commercial interests and the evident necessity to crush counter-narratives as you seek to increase centralised authoritarianism at a time that it is plain that the opposite is what's required.
Open debate, independent media, new political movements.
We'll be talking to RFK, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Next week and our investigation in the show where we have a deeper look at one story from the news centers around RFK.
Do you have any optimism, John, that this time of universal censorship, Kafkaist judiciary smearing and the crushing of dissent will lead to oppositional independent political movements as well as independent media voices of which you are now notably and plainly one?
The independent media voice is yes for the time being, although as we both know, we're being controlled in that respect, Russell.
I did talk to Andrew Bridgen about this, and it's interesting because we've got these people making decisions externally to us.
And I said, have you not got any doctors in North West Leicestershire that you can ask about things because they're much more likely to know.
What the requirement is locally rather than someone externally, this principle of subsidiarity, which we're making decisions more locally, whether there's going to be any coordinated international opposition to this is really quite hard to see.
It is happening insidiously.
It's happening slowly.
So people aren't realizing the dramatic shift that there's been.
But it's so concerning because you were talking about hate before, Russell, and we know that in totalitarian regimes which have arrived on the far right and the far left, we don't need to give examples.
But hate has been defined by what the next door neighbour doesn't like about you.
They use this as a way of reporting you.
They use this as a way of getting at you.
So it's easy to point out.
Who's going to define that as the key issue?
me do in anyone's media. But they're not offensive. But if people, if someone is interpreting
that as being offensive, and at the moment the key word is hate, that we're hating if
we breach these guidelines, in the past it's been loyalty to the party. Who's going to
define that as the key issue? That's what frightens me.
There is no worthy authority to whom we can yield with such matters.
That's increasingly what we find because there is so much high profile collusion.
You can't say in all honesty, well, we will trust you to be the body or institution or individual that decides what information should be censored or what constitutes hatred.
And we know that we can trust you to use that judiciously.
And not as a way to leverage your own financial interests and your own dominion.
John, I can see you've got another thought forming because I can tell from your face.
Yeah, yeah.
The other problem in the United Kingdom is that it's very hard to have independent voices of opposition because of the political party system that we have in this country.
So basically, it's impossible, virtually impossible to become a member of Parliament in the United Kingdom unless you're in a particular party.
So the Conservative Party have got maybe half a dozen MPs that have spoke out against the Covid narrative, and they've been largely silenced by the party.
Labour, Scottish Nationalists, Lib Dems, hard to think of any MPs there that have really spoken out against it.
Because there's this party narrative.
Now, if I wanted to stand for Parliament, which I don't particularly, or you wanted to stand for Parliament, and we stood as an independent, then in a particular constituency with our first past the post system, you would be going up against the party system.
And this has a lot of power, it's got a lot of history and a lot of strength.
So our democracy is only mediated through the political party system, and it's virtually impossible for independent voices to be heard, at least in government.
The House of Lords is an exception to that to some degree, but even there, the party system holds an awful lot of sway.
So I am somewhat pessimistic about independent voices pointing out this international trend to collectivisation, to data control.
Our in-studio guest in a moment, Daniel Chandler, has written a book, Free and Equal.
He'll be talking a lot about how the systems and institutions of democracy are prohibitive.
He talks a lot about the first-past-the-post system rather than proportional representation that we have in this country.
And you scarcely need look at the systemic abuses within American politics to understand that
it's always a result of expenditure, donations, lobbying. When I say it's always
a result of, I mean the sort of the movements of power and what gets legislated,
what gets maligned and what gets ignored. There are so many ways of shutting
down debates.
Just anecdotally, Dr. John, we very much enjoyed the bit of footage where Anthony Fauci spoke to an African-American family and tried to tell them, like, these are the reasons why you should be taking these medications.
These are the advantages of it.
They were so well informed.
They really understood the issues Well, they really understood the challenges.
They really understood the anomalies that were likely in place and subsequently revealed to be problems like the lack of clinical trials around transmission.
A lot of people intuited that.
And of course, it's conversationally and statistically understood that certain communities, i.e.
the economically poor, Uh the people of color were uh vaccine hesitant as the term was then and we learned the other day from our guest who was it was it Schellenberger told us this or was it uh that told us that they spent a lot of money infiltrating civil rights movements in order to persuade people to take medication to take those medications that Pfizer directly I think it was Li Fang the the journalist Li Fang told us that Pfizer
Invested in promoting their product in all sorts of peculiar and extraordinary ways.
It's just been so lovely to walk this path with you.
You're going to have to be careful about who you have on as a guest in future, Dr. John, because when we had Jimmy Dore on, it was Jimmy Dore got us in trouble, wasn't it?
What did Jimmy Dore say?
I mean, we're on Rumble now, so we can repeat it.
There was again something about the vaccine.
Was it bloody vaccines or ivermectin or something?
And it's always sort of, it's usually things that are kind of reasonable or marginal or worse.
When you think of the kind of egregious propaganda that's been allowed to endure when it comes to the other side of that, and particularly when you start to couple it with the evident and obvious attempt to legitimize control at a time when control is breaking down.
Because his point was about the profiteering of the pharmaceutical companies.
That's the point he was making.
They take that out of it.
They reduce it to, oh, well, you said this and therefore you're off.
People are asking here, Firegirl 2020, I missed the Jimmy Dore segment.
It wasn't on this show, but it's obviously accessible to Rumble, our whole library, as well as much of Dr. Jon's content is available on Rumble for fun and for free right now.
I think we have to move forward because we've got a Beautiful.
Like we've got a beautiful investigation and presentation on RFK and his recent success in the American polls.
Got any thoughts on RFK and these kind of independent political voices, Dr. John?
Well, independent political voices are always good.
I don't have to claim to have any great knowledge about Robert Kennedy's political position.
I'm open to it.
I certainly don't like the converse, which is the paternalism we've had to sit down there and we'll tell you what to do.
And we know best.
And your job is to obey and say thank you.
Anything that is a counterbalance to that, I would welcome and certainly welcome the open debate.
And let's hope it is open debate and that we're not curtailed by outside influences.
On genuine cross-party alliances, I'd like people from the left, people from the right, that are interested in independence, standing up to centralised authority.
And as you say, people should have the right to be wrong.
Like all this misinformation, disinformation stuff, all of this hate speech stuff, no one should be indulging in hateful rhetoric, but we should be trusted to discern for ourselves what is misinformation, what is hateful rhetoric, which authority are you going to yield to.
Which corrupted big tech or governmental body do you trust to decide on how your moral compass should be set?
I don't trust none of them.
That's where I start and I've got a feeling that that's where I'm going to finish too.
Thanks for joining us, Dr. John.
Okay, long live objective thought.
Stay free with Russell Brand.
See it first on Rumble.
Well, what do you think about that?
That's some information that you're going to have to contend with.
Could RFK be a necessary voice in the political landscape, coming as he does from the Democrat left?
Could he align with other independent voices?
Is this the challenge that Joe Biden needs?
Certainly what we require It's a solution-oriented conversation about politics at a time when we're left with little but despair.
That's why I'm excited to introduce our next guest, my friend Daniel Chandler, talking about his book Free and Equal, which is based on the philosophy of John Rawls.
Welcome, Daniel.
Thanks for joining us.
Thanks so much for having me.
Daniel, mate, one of the areas where I know that we have a lot in common and one of the areas that I think that we should focus in order to begin our conversation is the problem of money in politics.
In your book, you cover this subject and potential solutions both in the UK and in the US.
We talk continually on our show, stay free.
About the influence of money, this sort of overwhelming influence through donations in American politics, through the lobbying system, through people in Congress owning stocks and shares in companies that they're supposed to regulate as an economist and as an author.
What do you think the role of finance is in politics, both in our country, the UK?
We're English, did you know?
And in the United States of America.
Can you unpack some of that for us and indeed direct us towards some of the solutions that you lead towards in your book?
Yeah.
So, you know, I think money in politics is a huge problem, both in the UK and in the USA.
And I think tackling that is really the first place I would start, because, you know, reforming the political system is a precondition for almost anything else.
You know, my book Free and Equal is trying to set out, I guess, a much broader vision for how we could change our society, not just about reforming the political system, but also ideas for how we can You know, transform capitalism, as we know, create an economy that's not only more equal, but more humane.
So there's like a whole big agenda that we need, I think, to sort of take on and think about.
But the starting place before you can do any of that is to get money out of politics.
I think, you know, in America, the problem is at its most epic.
So I think in the last election, Something like $14 billion were spent across all the different campaigns, which was twice as much as the previous biggest spending election, which was the previous one and is like more than the total GDP of Rwanda.
I mean, it's a completely insane scale of money that's involved.
And I think the real problem is that inevitably, because the numbers are so big, most of that money is coming from an incredibly rich and seriously unrepresentative donor class.
So I think in that 2020 election, More than just over $2 billion of that money.
So about one in six of every dollar that was spent across that election came from just 20 billionaires.
So 20 individuals controlling just such a huge proportion of the overall spending.
And that, you know, just distorts the political system in such an obvious way.
I think if the principle that underpins democracy is one of political equality, And if you allow the rich to have influence, you know, to buy influence over politics with their money, then that just goes against that principle in a really obvious way.
But I think, you know, what I sort of try to do in my book with all of these problems is to move as, you know, almost as quickly as I can towards solutions, because I think particularly in a moment when People are so angry and dissatisfied and rightly so with politics as we know it.
It's really important to harness that energy behind something constructive and I can see you want to... Do you want to come in or should I jump straight to my solution which I'm taking too long to get to?
It's an excellent answer.
The problem, of course, with money in politics is it bypasses that primary democratic principle that is a representative system where all of us have a voice to some degree or another.
Because this book centers on the philosophy and ideas of John Rawls, would you explain, perhaps even using the sort of simple allegory that Rawls is somewhat famous for, what It is Rawls' philosophy about like, once you told me when we were chatting about how it's like, oh, if you didn't know what role you were going to have in a society, you would be cool with it.
That one.
Yes.
Great.
So let's, but remind me, let's come back to my idea for how to solve money in politics.
We're going to crescendo towards how I get money out of politics.
That's where we're going to head to.
Both in the UK and the US, Dan, by the way.
So Rawls is really the towering figure of 20th century political philosophy.
The place to start is that this is someone who's routinely compared to the greatest thinkers in the history of Western thought.
Thinkers like Plato, Hobbes, Kant, John Stuart Mill.
He's kind of up there with At the heart of his philosophy is a strikingly simple idea that society should be fair, but Rawls recognises that different people have different ideas about what fairness means.
He has this thought experiment to help us think through that question.
His idea is that if we want to know what a fair society would look like, we should imagine How we would choose to organise it if we didn't know which person we would be within that society.
So whether we would be rich or poor, gay or straight, Christian, Muslim, you know, whatever.
And that's, you know, I think an incredibly intuitive and compelling thought experiment.
I think it's obvious that if we were to think about society that way, we wouldn't organise it how it is today.
We wouldn't have a society where some people have to rely on food banks in order to feed themselves or where Your class, race or gender continue to shape people's life chances in such a big way.
But what Rawls does with that thought experiment is sort of not just point to the problems with our society, but give us a way of thinking about what a better, fairer society would actually look like.
And in particular, he uses that thought experiment.
He says that we would choose three principles that we could use to help us think through how to organize our society.
A principle of freedom that there are certain fundamental personal and political freedoms that we need and that the first priority of the state is to protect those freedoms.
Second, a principle of equality that's there to help us think through how much equality we should tolerate as a society.
And there's two parts to that.
One is basically a commitment to genuine equality of opportunity, which I think is Not what we have today.
And then a principle called the difference principle, which is the idea that we should organize our economy in a way that's as good as possible for the least well off.
And then there's a final principle of sustainability.
And basically those three principles together, I think what's exciting is that they give sort of each of us a kind of toolkit for thinking through for ourselves all of the kinds of problems that you know, that you're discussing day after day on this program, and that all of us are reading about in the news, whether it's Culture wars or money in politics, but also how to think about the climate crisis or how we might achieve more equality.
It's also an invitation to put yourself in the perspective of other individuals and to recognise that there isn't something that definitively separates us from one another.
This, to me, seems like a very good faith idea, even of itself.
I'm quite excited about that.
It's a very unifying kind of thing.
I think it's a thing that can help each of us step out of our own Sort of blinkered perspective and look at things from other people's point of view.
And I think that to me, what's so exciting about Rawls's philosophy is it I think it offers a genuinely unifying political vision.
It's an alternative to the divisiveness of some identity politics.
And also, I think a way through, you know, through the culture wars.
It's a sort of genuinely unifying alternative to those ways of thinking about politics.
It's exciting to hear those ideas outlined because I feel that one of the things that comes up again and again on our show, Gareth, and let me know if you in the chat agree with us, is there's this loss of hope and optimism.
There's a lack of trust in our institutions, whether that's government or media.
And I would say that this lack of trust is legitimate.
For a long time, beginning in the '90s, perhaps there was this idea of apathy among voters,
which the philosopher Mark Fisher offered us was not really apathy, but a kind of deduction
that we were not represented, that democracy didn't function,
precisely because, as you just outlined, it's being co-opted by corporatized interests.
Daniel, before I interrupted you or at least invited you to give us a sort of a simple perspective on the philosophy of Rawls, about to talk us through how money could be taken out of politics.
Would you mind talking us through some of that now, mate?
Yes, definitely.
And I mean, I should say that's the aim of the book is not just to take sort of set out Rawls's ideas, but to use them to bring together practical solutions to lots of problems, starting with money in politics.
So I think You know, I think the solution, the ideal solution is pretty straightforward.
The starting point would be to limit private donations to a very low level, a level that would be affordable to everyone in society.
And then to replace private donations with what I call a democracy voucher system.
So the idea would be that every citizen would get an equal amount per year or per election cycle.
So that could be $50 or $100.
And they could choose to give that money to the party of their choice.
And that would just, in a stroke, completely transform the incentives of our political system.
It would mean that politicians, rather than having to go cap in hand to a tiny group of super-rich donors, would have to appeal to everyone equally.
And it's also something that already exists in one place.
So in Seattle in 2017, for local elections, they adopted this system.
And so in Seattle, citizens get $100 per election cycle.
And it's worked incredibly well.
It's had all the consequences that you would expect, like more people getting involved in politics, those people being from groups that are often underrepresented.
More competitive elections, incumbents being more likely to lose.
It sort of generally reinvigorated the health of democracy in Seattle and I think we should extend that to a national level.
It excites me because one of the problems that we're facing in media spaces is that many of the old models are collapsing.
There has been so much centralisation of resources and power.
If all of the resources and the donations are coming from one class of person, it's
plain that they're doing that for a reason.
It's plain that the regulation and legislature that comes from organizations funded in that
manner are going to be a reflection of that funding.
So you're essentially saying no super PACs, no large donations, that'll be the end of
that.
So also would the campaigns become a little more modest perhaps, a little less bombastic
and perhaps also a little broader because they wouldn't be appealing to particular silos,
whether that's an economic class or particular sides of the culture war.
Presumably it might do something to dilute the escalating tensions that are sort of, obviously even in physics, a result of polarization.
Polarization is what creates energy.
It's what creates tension.
So that's a lovely idea and it has already been used.
If you're ready to move on, mate, because I like you, you're my mate and everything, so I want to look after you, make sure you feel taken care of.
I love, we'll do this on locals, because I love that example of that place in Brazil, somewhere in Brazil, where they give the budget for the community and the people in the community vote for it.
Because one of the things we seem to be talking about, you know, on the platform of rolls, as espoused by you and extemporized on by you, of course, we're not giving rolls all the credit.
Screw that guy!
Like, we're talking a lot about decentralisation, localisation and empowerment for existing systems.
Sometimes I think, you know, when people are saying, oh, there are no ideas.
Of course the ideas and the institutions and the potential are already among us, but these ideas are foreclosed, continually censored against, smeared, so of course they don't become popularised and emerge.
Me, Daniel and Gareth, and I'm going to expect you to participate, young man, are going to continue our conversation exclusively on Locals.
Join the conversation over there with Illuminated Soul now and Zashex3133, where people sometimes, by the way, they start talking about other stuff.
We're going to talk about political lobbying.
We're going to talk about the $263 million that the pharmaceutical industry spent in 2021.
We're going to talk about money in politics and we're going to talk about solutions.
I know you're hungry for solutions.
I know you believe in change.
I know that's why you are here.
So if you're not a member of our Locals community yet, join us now, as well as gaining access to the weekly guided meditations that I do there.
And of course, you can come and join us live at Community in mid-July.
Will you come?
Are you going to come to that?
Why don't you do a talk there?
Bring your book.
I would love to!
Daniel will be there. Satish Kumar's gonna be there.
Vandana Shiva, Eddie Stern, Calum Eanes, William Hoff.
And now Daniel Chandler with his fantastic book, Free and Equal.
Mwah! Get your copy now. We'll post a link to that in the chat.
If you're not with us on Locals yet, join us there now.
Tomorrow, we're looking at having an in-depth look at the military in...
industrial complex and how much it costs every single American a thousand dollars each to the
American to the military industrial complex down not even like to the military to Raytheon Lockheed
Martin all those guys so join us tomorrow to learn a little more about that and not for more of the
same we wouldn't insult you with that no but for more of the different until then unless you're
joining us right now on locals and you should until then stay free see you on locals in a second tata
We're with our friend Daniel Chandler talking about his book Free and Equal.
Just before we left, Daniel, we were talking about that place in Brazil.
Is it called Port or something?
Yeah, Porto Alegre.
What are they up to over there?
So, yeah, that they have a system called participatory budgeting, where basically local budgets are determined through a system of open assemblies that citizens can take part in.
And it's been running, I think, since the nineteen I think that's just the first thing that we ought to do to reform the democratic system.
system for really engaging people directly in the political process, which loads and loads of other
countries have started to copy. And I think, you know, we were talking about democracy vouchers,
I think that's just the first thing that we ought to do to reform the democratic system. And I think,
you know, alongside that engaging citizens more directly is really so important, because no matter
how much we whatever, you know, whatever we do to improve the electoral system, there are some
inherent limitations, I think, to an electoral model.
And, you know, I think elected representatives, there's always going to be a tendency, I think, for them to grow slightly detached from their constituents.
I think we have to do everything that we can to design a voting system that will help keep that link tight to keep money out of politics.
But I think engaging citizens directly in the political process provides a kind of counterbalance to some of the natural limitations of the electoral model.
Why don't people do that now already?
And in the cases where they do, like Port Allegro, do people vote differently?
Do they have different priorities?
How do budgets shake down with regard to education, health versus military and security expenditure?
Yeah, I think so.
I think in Porto Alegre, it's dead to policies that benefit the least well off more in those communities.
And I think on other dimensions, it I mean, I think it focuses policy on things that local people care about.
And, you know, I think the reason these kinds of ideas haven't been adopted is, I mean, I think it's, I think there's been a feeling that the only The only feasible way to run a democracy in a big society is representative democracy and that these kinds of forms of direct participation are just just not suited to the modern world.
And I think, you know, there's a degree of truth to that.
I think elections have to be the centrepiece for a large scale democracy, but that we can combine them with these other things.
So I think the Porto Alegre model is a brilliant model for the local level.
But there's a limit to the scale at which you could involve people directly in that way.
And in any kind of direct forum, you know, once it gets to a certain size, again, you have a tendency for the people who have the loudest voices, the most confidence to dominate.
To dominate the discussion.
And so I think, you know, there's a scale that that can't go beyond.
I think another idea that would work better at the national level is to make more use of citizens' assemblies where people are selected at random.
And that's another democratic idea that actually has an incredibly long democratic pedigree that was actually the central method for making democratic decisions in Greece, exactly in ancient Athens.
Yeah, Yanis Varoufakis brought it up.
One thing I was thinking, Daniel, when you were saying that is that it also One of the crises that I feel that we're experiencing existentially is a kind of lack of meaning, purpose and connection.
While the only place that we kind of generate vigour is in this sort of space of cultural conflagration, turning against other people that ultimately share our interests if they do not share our culture and identity, perhaps if there were more of a sense of purpose, community engagement, Actually, conditions that we are evolved to live within, where we do have a shared interest along with the members of our community and tribe, it would not only perhaps be administratively more apposite, it would be almost ontologically more rewarding.
Like, if you feel like, I mean something, I have a voice in my community, people care about what I say, even though it is probably really time-consuming and boring to have to listen to everybody.
Yeah, no, I totally agree.
I think it would be good for democracy and it would just be good for individuals.
Some people would get involved, some people wouldn't.
And for the people who want to get involved, I think it could be an incredibly meaningful activity.
You balance this sort of necessity for popular assembly where, as in say, juries or whatever, you respect that everyone has something to offer with the kind of aristocratic or technocratic principles that there are areas where expertise is absolutely vital, obviously, as long as they don't become corrupted.
Areas such as medicine, obviously, technology, areas where expertise is valuable.
And where is it, do you think, necessary to centralise institutions and democracy?
And while you're answering that, I'm going to find some questions from our community.
Keep the questions coming, guys.
Okay, so yeah, I think, I mean, I think one thing is that you can make these citizens assemblies work well, I think you have to recognise that people will be coming to those forums without the kind of expertise that maybe, well, that you might hope elected politicians have, but often don't.
So I think one thing is that where these systems have worked well, you've, you know, people have put in, have brought in experts to provide a kind of impartial view of the evidence to facilitate discussion to make sure that everybody has a chance to speak and not just the people with the loudest voices.
It's not taken like a personal dig.
I realised as it was coming up, it wasn't not intended in that way.
Shall we let him say something then?
Oh yeah, the people...
Do you want to...
No, you say.
Did he say anything, him?
No, it was a lovely conversation.
Ultimately, I think where it seems...
What seems so hopeful about some of the things you've mentioned
is that it would fundamentally change the type of people that ended up in politics.
I think that's the place where we need to get to quickly, that the political class needs to change.
And obviously, like, taking money out of politics on the way in is hugely important, but money out of politics on the way out is also hugely important.
I mean, well, we had that instance of Janet Yellen today, Treasury Secretary, in that news, which was that she's been taking massive fees from basically financial institutions who, I guess, then have been lobbying the Treasury for favours.
And it's like, so she's getting money after a position, like, half and so much.
It's basically the revolving door.
that happens, so it's not just the money beforehand, the lobbying and the dark money and all those kind of
things that as you exactly say, 15 billion spent
on the last election, it's absolutely ludicrous.
But the kind of promises and deals that are made while people are in politics, we need to change,
fundamentally change the political class.
And I think what you're talking about of democratizing this and obviously,
the fewer incentives and financial incentives that people have to go into it,
become careerist corporate politicians, the better.
And I think that's really kind of hearing some of these solutions, as Russell says,
like we're kind of continually asked, what are the solutions to some of the problems
that we reveal every day?
So the more of these kind of things, the better.
Right, I love the vouchers. - Thank you.
I love the assemblies.
I love the voting for the budgets.
That's fantastic.
Just on the assemblies, what you could, I think the furthest that you could go.
So I think where they've been used at the moment is in quite an ad hoc way.
Like, so in Ireland, they set up a citizens assembly to think about the issue of abortion and gay marriage and those assemblies put forward proposals that were then approved.
So they've come up in a kind of issue based way at the moment.
I think the question now is how to integrate that more into the democratic system.
So you could, I think, you know, you could think about having a second or third chamber that was selected in this way.
So you could replace the House of Lords with a randomly selected chamber.
You could have a third chamber in America, in addition to the House and the Senate that was selected in that way.
And I think that's, you know, those two, you know, both All these different models, they have their pros and their cons, and I think combining them is the way to sort of get the best system.
I'm going to pass on Primal Colin 2's question from our community, because he's got bloody rights, hasn't he?
Yeah, he has, because I've actually met him in person.
He came to one of our events.
He's very nice.
Also, though, I want to say this thing.
I'll ask his first.
I'm going to ask them both at the same time.
It's a weird habit I do of simultaneously asking two questions and then hoping that people can just muddle through, right?
I'll do Primal Collins as well.
But I want to say, why is it, Daniel, that you propose reform, like an additional chamber in Congress, or finding ways to further incrementally How can we institutionalise or normalise these processes rather than more radical replacement of parliamentary democracy?
Is there something about that that you think is potentially dangerous or frightening?
And also Primal Collins' question, how can we get money out of medicine and education as well?
So if you do those for us, mate.
I do notes during them like a proper academic.
Yes, I'm a very, I'm a serious person making my notes.
We should do this in swimwear to keep it light.
Because if you're going to take notes, I think I should be in a bikini.
So I think the first thing is, I don't think these proposals are particularly incremental.
I think that to replace the current system of private funding in politics with a democracy system is radical.
To replace the House of Lords with a randomly selected second chamber, I also think is a pretty radical proposition.
So I'm not sure what more radical change would look like.
And the reason In the book I've tried to set out what I think the best that a democratic society could realistically be and by realistic I just mean
You know, taking into account the facts about the natural world and what we know about human nature and how institutions will operate in practice.
I've not tried not to be too constrained by short term political realities, not because they're not important in the real world, but because I think, you know, we need to have a clear idea of where it is that we ultimately want to get to.
Then we can have a pragmatic conversation about how quickly we could move.
And I think, you know, I think it's important to keep those two things slightly separate.
So but, you know, the reason I've made these proposals is because I think That would be the best way to organise the system, not because I just think it's what's feasible in the short term.
Because my concern is if real power currently operates beyond the reach of democracy, primarily as we've identified, and let us know if you agree with this, because of the tremendous influence of money on politics, but perhaps because of deep state institutions that are able to overwrite and undergird institutions that, for instance,
take the military-industrial complex in America where there's usually unison around
policy, something that we've covered a lot lately.
What I would think about, now of course I reckon even the voucher scheme that you're
proposing Dan, because remember I'm right behind you mate, I'm on your side over here,
right, that would address the enormous amount of money that Rafie and Lockheed might, etc.
spend in that way.
But I suppose what I'm thinking is, in my mind, I'm thinking how would they subvert that, mitigate that and ensure that their interests were continually For example, there are a significant number of global bodies that seem to me to be dedicated to presenting ideas that are radical but ultimately, when you look at them, will not meaningfully impact the interests of the powerful nor significantly improve the lives of the many.
This is something that we continually know.
even around an important issue like climate change, which I know there's a diversity of opinion on that subject,
because many people think that it ultimately is used to--
never used to attack centralized energy companies, for example,
and it usually proposes measures that will impact individuals
rather than attacking centralized power.
No one at the WF saying, "What we're going to do is shut down Exxon Mobil."
That'll sort stuff out, you know, just as an example.
So, I suppose that-- are you optimistic?
Like a lot of great thinkers and friends of mine, are that in some form, there are things within democracy
now that can succeed in meaningfully improving the lives of
ordinary people.
Is that part of your optimism?
Yeah, I think that is part.
I think I am optimistic about that possibility.
And I guess I'm optimistic because I think if you look back in history, big changes have happened That have gone against the interests of, you know, the ruling classes at the time, whether that's the extension of universal suffrage and democracy or the introduction of the welfare state and the kinds of taxes that have been needed to pay for it.
So, you know, I don't think that I think change can happen within a democratic I don't think there's any alternative to operating within the democratic system that we have.
I think, you know, there's a role for civil disobedience, protest and engaging outside of the party system as well as engaging with parties.
But I, you know, so I think change has to and can come from within the democratic system.
And I guess looking back through history, I think we have reason to sort of reason for optimism that that's possible.
But what we need Or at least the starting point for doing that is having clear ideas about what the alternative would look like and moving beyond just criticising the status quo and harnessing some of the discontent that people feel behind a constructive programme.
And I feel like that's what's missing and what's needed.
Because sometimes I think you're right, Daniel, I hope you're right, because sometimes with the example you cited, whether it's suffrage or slavery, the sense I get, and perhaps this is because of my own biases, how could I know if it wasn't?
Is that it's always like a kind of a tokenistic piecemeal offering at the end of a gun, just like, you know, the welfare state after the Second World War, the end of slavery, when it becomes clear that there will be an emergent model that will replace it, that amounts to the same kind of penury that slavery imposed on people.
And of course, there's more slavery now than bloody, you know, ever before.
Gal, what did you think, mate?
Because I don't want to shut you down when you're all so alive with ideas.
No, I guess ultimately, It's that dislocation that the public feel with the political class.
And I worry about how further disenfranchised with the political system we can get to be able to, I don't know, create some of these ideas that you're talking about.
I mean, one of the things, again, these seem small, but with the instance of money in politics, you know, one of the things we talk about a lot is Members of Congress owning stocks and shares in the companies that they regulate.
Now, there were members of the Democrat Party, maybe a couple of Republicans, maybe not, who have proposed legislation that would ban that.
But it keeps on, every time it's proposed, it gets shut down.
It gets shut down every single time they find a way of saying it for a bit, and then it gets shut down.
Every time that happens, not that I'm saying you've got to find a solution to that, but every time that happens and you build up some hope that there could be some change effective and then it doesn't, people get more and more disenfranchised with the possibility of change within the system.
And I guess that's the thing, isn't it?
How do you sustain this system and keep people hopeful, like you're saying that you are, that things can change when they're continually When it's continually demonstrated that these things that I think people do care about that a lot I think people do recognize as you've stated how important getting money out of politics is but when they see examples of that just continually being Flattened those ideas like how how are people meant to retain hope in that system?
Yeah, I think it's a really good difficult question I mean, I don't yeah, I don't think I have a good answer except that I think I The only way to bring about change is to get more involved in politics.
And maybe that can be an empowering thing in its own right to actually get involved can give people a sense of agency.
But in the end, you know, politicians are not going to change these things until it's what's being demanded from from voters and from citizens.
I also think it is important to remember that, you know, that Different parties are not all the same in this respect, you know, is the Democratic Party have repeatedly introduced legislation to try to control money in politics.
And that's been consistently opposed by the Republicans.
So I think on this issue, you know, it's not it's not one where the blame falls equally.
Sure.
Let's get them things up about the sort of donation expenditure and lobbying the stats that we had earlier.
Like some people say, a lot of love for you in here, Daniel.
Lady Pamela Janine, you could start a donation transparency, make them list anyone over a certain amount, you have to include the packs too, that's from Lady Pamela Janine.
Good idea.
At least 100 members of Congress own fossil fuel stocks, 59 Republicans, 41 Democrats.
Of the $263 million the pharmaceutical industry spent lobbying in 2021, it gave 61% to Democrat Piper and 9%.
Here's some sort of stats about American politics.
You can put them up on the screen that sort of give you an indication of what we're talking about here.
I'm pretty firm in my belief that sort of the differences between the parties and glorifying those differences can be part of the problem.
I feel so certain in the possibility of an independent movement that's transcendent of all of them, both of them, whilst recognising, and this was my point actually, that Adam Curtis, I know for example, agrees with you that we needn't be despairing of politics because he pointed out that when in 2008 Barack Obama passed the Quantity of Ease in Bill, he said, look, that is what politics can do.
Now, we know that that sort of led to the despair and divisiveness that Bannon cites
for the rise of Donald Trump.
And I know a lot of you guys love Donald Trump and see him as a berserker, a wrecking ball
in the institutional constitutional crisis in American politics.
But I think what we're discussing here is the possibility of something that's fair and equal,
a genuine departure from the systems of corruption that seem not to change significantly,
regardless of whether you have a Republican or Democrat in the White House, and I would say it's similarly true in
this country.
Like, I'm not sort of in a priapic frenzy at the possibility of Keir Starmer becoming the Prime Minister of this country, because I don't think it's meaningfully going to change the lives of the people whose lives are Most in need of change and in part, Daniel, what excites me about the ideas in your books is that it would negate the potential for stasis and entropy and systemic fossilization that's been going on for much too long, hey?
Yeah, no, exactly.
And that's what I hope the book will help to sort of start a more creative and imaginative conversation about how we could organise our societies.
Yeah, but I think just what the things you talk about the idea that normal people could be involved in politics is It's so refreshing to even to even consider that I mean, I know you have like local councils and things like that But being involved at a kind of higher level than that.
It's something that at the moment seems so distant but as you say possible through Changes like this.
Yeah, it would it would affect things so much.
Yeah Yeah, my local MP and they you know, they we agree on these things We've debated these things and if that was kind of sustained all the way through government It would you would think that the political chess class would change.
Yeah Yeah, but I'm also just thinking I think it's important not to disparage political parties too much because in the system that we have those are the most likely vehicle for any of these changes to come about and I think you know I think we should also be trying to point to the examples of where politicians are trying to do good things and encouraging people not to abandon those parties but to get involved in them and change them from the inside because I think
You know, we have to accept that that's the reality of the political system.
It's not one where we have random selection or lots of local participation to make those changes happen.
These political parties are ultimately going to have to advocate for and bring about those kinds of changes.
And so, yeah, I think that's that, you know, right now, the way that people can get involved in politics is to join the Democratic Party, join the Republican Party and try to change them from the inside.
Yeah, I mean we were talking about recently how one of the consequences of the emergent communication that's now technologically possible means that you can now have counter narratives and new movements emerge, but in government people tend to become stymied.
Like in the book they talked about how Obama was stymied by the emergence of the Tea Party, how Trump was shackled in government by oppositional movements that were able to sort of organize.
And even now, you know, throughout the pandemic, there were ongoing counter narratives.
For me, the thing that we've discussed before as mates is the necessity for, perhaps, and at least possibility of decentralization.
And it seems to me that when you're talking about the vouchers, that seems like a fundamental, pivotal change that could be in a manifesto.
The idea of having local elections in which budgets can be allocated and discussed and distributed Literally according to democratic will right, you know and look at the story today a thousand and eight dollars each of you or at least if you're average and none of us This is average, darling.
Contributed to the military-industrial complex.
Would you vote for that?
Is that where you want your money going?
I feel like, in a sense, we are talking about not necessarily the redistribution of wealth, although, of course, that seems to be a necessity to a degree.
Let me know in the chat if you agree with that.
But the redistribution of power.
And I like what you said also, mate.
Equality of opportunity.
Because there'll be a lot of JP fans in there if, when they hear equality of outcome, oh, they'll be up on their iorces.
The ideas in the book are both about the redistribution of power and the redistribution of wealth.
A lot of the book is about how we can reform our economic system too.
There was something else you said just then that I wanted to pick up on.
I talked about the various counter movements that emerged because of technology.
We talked about funding.
Yeah, let's do it.
While you remember what I was ranting about, if someone in here asks for a love in action, says, can we have a contest to win a trip to Communi?
Please, please, please.
Yes, we will do a competition to come to Communi and to win a copy of Daniel's book.
Like if you're available for Communi, July the 14th to July the 17th.
The first person to tell us whose philosophies has Daniel extemporized on in this book.
first person that answers this that can come, we'll ensure that you get a couple
of tickets to join us for Community this year where you'll see Satish Kumar who
met Bertrand Russell. Satish Kumar is an amazing elder. He walked from his
native India to America, met Martin Luther King, came here, met Bertrand Russell.
He's an amazing leader and elder, a real advocate of yours in many many ways.
I would have thought he's going to be there.
Vandana Shiva, that outspoken, powerful cyclone of a woman.
And of course, Wim Hof, who will breathe you into all sorts of states of ecstasy.
Is there anything you want to say to wrap up?
Because I have to go to meetings for my alcoholism and addiction issues.
And I think you're coming around to see one of your godchildren.
Both godfathers of my children, these people.
What a treat.
There you go, you should have some sort of little... Ah, John Rawls, Theory of Justice.
Yes, correct.
Well done, mate.
That's from monkeymind underscore M. If you want to come, you can come.
You can come.
There's someone in the chat now that will sort you out tickets if you want to come.
Should I... And we'll send you this book as well.
It's like a swap shop.
Or like going live.
Kids TV.
Yeah, those references will go down.
American telly, it's gone from me.
Alright, do you want to say anything else, Dan, to wrap us up?
Well, I was... But maybe it was less of a wrapping up point.
I was maybe going to open up a whole new topic, so maybe I'll hold back.
When you talked about the redistribution of power and the redistribution of wealth it was making me think also about how we need to change the distribution of power within the workplace and I think you know we're sort of so used to the idea that the owners of companies that shareholders will make all of the decisions about how companies are run that we Sort of take it for granted and forget that it's actually that's a choice that we've made.
We've chosen to concentrate almost all of the decision-making power in the hands of a very small group.
And we know it's a choice because we don't actually have to look very far to see countries that do things completely differently.
So lots of European companies, in Germany in particular, have a very different system known as co-management where workers and owners share power on a much more equal basis.
So in companies with more than 500 workers, The workers get a third of the seats on the company board with companies with more than 2,000 workers they have half of the seats on the board and I think that's the model that we should also be looking to explore.
I think it's important in its own right just because it gives people a sense of control over you know their working lives which after all is where we spend such a huge proportion of our time.
I also think it's the only Real way to bring about more meaningful and more dignified work.
I think you hear a lot of people talking about those kinds of things today.
But like practical ideas for how we could bring it about are very hard to come by.
There's a lot of sort of wishful thinking.
If we could just sort of appeal to the enlightened self-interest of companies, maybe this will just all happen.
And I think that's naive.
And if we want to bring those things about, we can't impose it from the top down.
The government, no one wants like a department for meaningful work going into every company and telling them how to design every job.
You need to put power in the hands of individual citizens and let them work out how it is that
they want to balance the desire to make money with having a more relaxed working day.
And I think people's ability to get involved in politics isn't there, as in they have enough
time to do it, then you're never going to change anyway.
I was thinking, as you were saying about everyday people getting involved in politics, part
of the reason that we'll be stopping at the moment is people don't have the bloody time.
No one's got it because they're working all the hours that God sends.
But if that changed in some way, it would start to change the system.
And that's why I feel the purpose of my book, because it's really to bring together a whole
set of reforms.
It's about how to change politics, but also how to create a more equal economy, to promote opportunity, change power at work, and ultimately all of these things They kind of are part of a mutually reinforcing whole.
They support one another.
And I think sometimes what's missing is you get people who have their one, you know, they have their one big policy idea about money and politics, and it's detached from everything else.
And part of what's exciting about having a thinker like Rawls and having these principles that we talked about at the beginning is that it gives us a way not just to have a kind of incoherent shopping list of separate ideas, but to bring everything together into one more coherent whole.
Yeah, and that's exactly what we've been trying to do here.
So we're going to be absolutely fine.
Blow this just in.
Hitler is dead.
You can read more from Daniel in his book, Free and Equal, What Would a Fair Society Look Like?
We've posted the link in the chat and you can follow Daniel.
Are you on social media, Daniel?
I am, on Twitter.
We'll post all of those things.
He's on Twitter, of course, so you can follow him there.
Daniel, thanks for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me.
Such a lovely conversation.
Hey, we're leaving you now.
Thanks for joining us.
Thanks for your lovely... Look at this.
There's lots of people saying that they love you.
Ooh, he's good, someone said there.
Who said that?
I think they're sexualizing you.
They're sexualizing you?
Who is that that said that?
Oh, he's good.
We'll go back.
Alex Overton.
Don't you dare sexualize him.
Do what you want, actually, in your own home, in your own time.
All right.
Fair enough for you lot, you beautiful perverts.
Hey, we'll be back tomorrow.
Why don't you join us then?
Not for more of the same, but for more of the different.
