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May 3, 2023 - Stay Free - Russel Brand

01:04:22

WTF!? Facebook Worse Than Fox? Plus RFK Jnr Surges - #121 - Stay Free With Russell Brand

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	birds chirping music
	rock music Brought to you by Pfizer.
	music In this video, you're going to see the future.
	Our awakening and you are wonderful in spite of everything, in spite of it all.
	Look at you, continuing to provide, continuing to connect, continuing to awaken.
	It's going to be a great show.
	If you are watching this on YouTube or Elon Musk's Citadel of Home Trooves, 80% of you, you're Get out of here!
	Then you're going to only watch the whole show, and indeed the vast majority of the show, by joining us on Rumble.
	Or even better, go deeper.
	Take a deeper dive to the very, very depths, right down in Locals.
	There's a red button on your screen if you're watching us now on Rumble, and you can join our community.
	Nature's Child, Claire, The Unicorn Plug, 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 if you think the mainstream media are trying to smear RFK.
	Did you see that spoiler?
	No mention of all of his pro-environmental work that they claim to care so much about.
	the political spectrum all introduced RFK as anti-vaxxer.
	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 at 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 this 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.
	Ultimately, we need you.
	over at rumble even as the world in circles Rumble and other free speech platforms like the American
	military in circling China Then claiming that China's the problem because there's a
	new spate of laws being bought 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 canardia or New Zealand
	Or Inglaterra or the 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 that 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 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?
	Well, he's bored, isn't he?
	What's he going to be doing?
	That guy is sat at home twiddling his thumbs, filming himself for no reason, shooting from above.
	I mean, if you look here at the data... No one's watching, John!
	John, for God's sake, like Mrs. John Campbell.
	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.
	You can see here, look, I've done my fair share of the chores.
	Of course.
	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 disgusting fallacies?
	Because I know I have.
	Have a look at this dickie berk.
	This is a, it's a, it's a slowly melting iceberg and I'm glad it's melting.
	Very intimidating.
	Look at that, Dickieburg.
	Saucy devils.
	As well as a, a, a, a melting ice cap that's giving some people cause for concern, consternation and giving us all a giggle.
	Facebook have reached an out-of-court settlement.
	What for, mate?
	What is this for?
	Face, Meta has set out to settle Cambridge Analytica scandal case for $725 million.
	That's too close to the Fox settlement for the, uh, 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... What did they do?
	Use your data?
	Manipulate you?
	They harvested your data of, like, its users.
	Oh, when will there be a harvest for the world?
	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 gotta have insurance!
	Oh yeah?
	Oh anything!
	Any problems?
	You can take your insurance!
	Hey I need that insurance!
	They never, innit?
	Oh no, sorry, it don't cover that.
	What?
	And 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 of insurance?
	Allegedly!
	There's the sort of people that are like... I guess we're sued by an insurance company.
	I 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.
	The issue that they're trying to get to is this idea of, like, thought crimes.
	And what people are saying about it is, if now you're starting to police people over thought crimes and lock people up over thought crimes, is that the way that we want to go?
	As in, somebody's done something wrong before they even do it?
	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 crime.
	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.
	Bill Nye and Shreveville.
	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?
	That's the way it works.
	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.
	So look at Now, 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 America to spy on American citizens, but it's not legal for Australian secret services to spy on American citizens.
	And they all exchange data.
	It's some sort of, I call it, cyber wife swaps.
	Sci-fi wife swap-in, like, why don't you spy on mine and I'll spy on yours?
	Well, 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, because we love YouTube.
	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 every, 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 the actual description
	of the trial by Joseph Kafka, or Franz Kafka, excuse me.
	Like, look at this.
	Right, so this is a, all right, yeah.
	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.
	You know what I mean?
	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, that's gonna 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 to push over the line.
	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... But what's a pilot scheme, Gal?
	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.
	Right.
	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 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 interests.
	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 they'll say, well we like power, it's power for power's sake.
	They're gonna 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 it'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 freedom, freely.
	When it comes to freedom, I'm like an American politician.
	Democracy, freedom, democracy, freedom.
	Are you going to get some I am here, Russell.
	of Dr. John Campbell's. 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've 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 since the ban?
	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?
	Level, absolutely, yes.
	The 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 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's something that Andrew said, because we have things like that often with our guests.
	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 has 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.
	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 John 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 as a medic you recognize 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, rigor and honesty.
	I think it's incredible how you've done it.
	I think it's absolutely Well, it doesn't appall me that you've been booted off for a week, but it informs me what's happening here.
	Particularly, did you check what we had there, Dr. John, about the spate of legislature being passed, even through the EU, over in Ireland, Canada, the Five Eyes 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 there seems to be like a what you might call an international zeitgeist at the moment, an international movement It's Canada.
	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 centres 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 northwest 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 neighbor 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.
	laws in my media, in your media, 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.
	We have no... 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 Yeah, yeah.
	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...
	Very perceptive Russell.
	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 collectivization, 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.
	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 debate.
	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
	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 Was it bloody vaccines or ivermectin or something?
	It's usually things that are kind of reasonable or marginal at worst.
	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.
	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. John'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 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.
	Claims!
	Make some claims!
	I'm open to it.
	I certainly don't like the converse, which is the paternalism we've had.
	They 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.
	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.
	And I have unique access to it.
	I am the conduit to the divine.
	Thanks for joining us, Dr Jon.
	Looking forward to seeing you back on YouTube next week.
	Dr Jon's of course available continually on Rumble.
	Unless you happen to be French, where to get kicks you're going to have to simply go onto the streets and set fire to something.
	That's the only way your voice is likely to be heard.
	Good luck with that.
	Start sharpening those guillotines, baby, because there's a dark, dark dawn coming soon!
	No, we're not advocating for that type of revolution or violence on the streets.
	In fact, we're doing quite the opposite.
	What we want is collaboration, democracy, localized assembly, control over our budgets.
	Many ideas of this nature will be discussed by our guest, my friend Daniel Chandler, taken from his book Free and Equal, where he explores the philosophy of John Rawls.
	Before we get into our guest, This is a wonderful presentation.
	Oh, you're going to love this.
	This is good stuff, this, Gareth.
	Good stuff.
	This is bloody good.
	RFK is going to be another one of those political voices that the Democrat party system shuts down.
	Why?
	Because it's genuinely radical.
	When you have a look at his, admittedly, it's a propaganda video.
	I mean, if you watch Joe Biden's propaganda video, you'd think, oh, this guy's fantastic.
	Except you might notice that he never talks about financial corruption.
	He never talks about the military-industrial complex.
	He never invites you to consider alternative foreign policies, diplomatic solutions to
	wars.
	He never talks about the great stain on American life that the pharmaceutical industry has
	induced.
	RFK, forever described in the mainstream media as an anti-vaxxer, I think has a lot more
	to offer than that.
	And certainly he should be heard, and his voice should be heard.
	God bless him.
	Let's have a look now at our presentation on RFK, his recent success, and why is Joe Biden refusing to debate him?
	Here's the news.
	No!
	Here's the effing news baby.
	Thanks for refusing Vox Morgans.
	Now, here's the fucking news.
	We don't need anti-vaxxers like RFK who's surging to 19% in the polls.
	Not when we've got Kamala Harris and Joe Biden ensuring that everything will stay the same.
	Stay the same!
	New alliances, new ideas will be necessary if you're serious about change.
	But guess who's not serious about change?
	The establishment!
	The establishment is about keeping things established, static, stagnant, the same.
	The balanced press response to RFK's candidacy has been, well, it has been balanced because
	they're all saying exactly the same thing.
	Look at all these headlines.
	Not a single original opinion among them.
	Could there be some reason that they're all willing to parrot the same tune, all willing
	to sing from the same hymn sheet?
	Well, of course there is, because they care about you and your safety.
	They're just trying so hard to protect you that they can't have nuanced conversations
	because you're too stupid to understand nuance.
	Why do we need these apparently radical figures, these apparently alternative discourses, while
	we've got two of the greatest leaders in political history already in the White House?
	Let's remind ourselves.
	So I think it's very important, as you have heard from so many incredible leaders, for
	For us at every moment in time, and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present.
	Gotta see the moment in time in which we... we gotta see that one.
	And to be able to contextualise it, to understand where we exist in the history Yeah, that's right.
	Oh yeah.
	And in the moment, as it relates not only to the past, but the future.
	But she's only vice president.
	Luckily, in the White House, we've got a brilliant wit and raconteur.
	We've got a radical thinker and agitator.
	We've got someone who's willing to stand up for what he believes in and ain't afraid to communicate it.
	President Biden was photographed holding a cheat sheet during his press conference yesterday.
	Look, it has a photo of Los Angeles Times reporter, Courtney Subramanian.
	Subramanian, Courtney Subramanian, I'm on Joe Biden's press pass notes.
	The card also includes her question.
	You can also see someone's handwriting telling the president that she will ask the first question.
	The whole thing is theatre.
	He's told in advance what the question will be, who's asking the question, how to say the name phonetically.
	We are engaged in a spectacle.
	Of course the machine, the theatre, the production cannot take radical voices.
	Of course the mainstream media has to smear any alternative voices that might challenge establishment narrative.
	Of course the mainstream media will support the establishment in smearing, shutting down and ridiculing any alternative voices.
	So how's he doing?
	Is this just a fringe 1% sort of a guy?
	Well no, he's polling nearly 20% in the primary against Joe Biden according to the Fox News poll that came out yesterday.
	Here's some good balanced reporting on a democratic process from the Democrats supporting mainstream media.
	I'll point out that that's not the only poll that shows him up in double digits, right?
	In the Kennedy, you have part of the American establishment historically, and in Marianne Williamson, you have a woman who advocates for civil rights, who advocates for identity politics, but who is also anti-establishment.
	How will the mainstream media support these diverse voices?
	Is there precedent for an incumbent?
	You're a week, two days or three days after your announcement and...
	And you get this crazy guy out there who's getting nearly...
	And the fact that they're willing to side in a poll with two literal crazy people.
	Do you think?
	Crazy!
	Crazy!
	Couple of crazies.
	Thanks, mainstream media.
	Let's hear a little more about Crazy RFK and the crazy things he believes in, the crazy old lunatic.
	Last week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
	launched his campaign for President 2024.
	His main campaign theme is to end the corrupt alliance of big business and government.
	Oh, hello!
	I don't see any evidence that the government and big business are colluding.
	That's why we have a fair democracy where all of the things that you need in your life are simply voted for and then... Hey!
	He blames this alliance for the rigging of the system that has destroyed the middle class over the last 40 years.
	He points to the nefarious collusion between big government and big corporations and the transfer of enormous wealth and power over the last 40 years to an American oligarchy.
	An elite that does not take the needs of the majority into account.
	Uh, hello?
	Butterfly net?
	White coat?
	Lunatic?
	I think we all know that big business and the government and the mainstream media are trying their hardest.
	And the real problem, you know what it is?
	It's bloody anti-vaxxers!
	All these problems, transfer of enormous wealth and power, I think can be traced to people not wanting to immediately take new medicines.
	Kennedy has been marginalized by the mainstream media for 18 years due to his skepticism of vaccines and for questioning the collusion between pharmaceutical companies and the CDC and FDA.
	Oh, just because I give them their funding or receive royalties from them, I suppose that... No, that sort of makes sense, actually.
	His views on the Ukraine war.
	We are driving Russia and China into an alliance.
	You... Oh, next you'll be telling me that the American government themselves don't even believe this war is winnable.
	And sucking money from our urgent domestic need have also served to ostracise him.
	What a crackpot.
	You've got plenty of money sloshing about.
	Tell us now how you're spending all your excess wealth, probably on cheap fuel, delicious, lovely, nutritious food, and fantastic, wholesome entertainment.
	But multiple recent polls show Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
	pulling double-digit support in the primary, including a Fox News survey on Wednesday that showed him at 90%.
	Almost as if, like, a lot of people believe that big business, the government and the media and Big Pharma and a powerful war machine are pushing their agenda into your face and down your throat at the expense of truth and honesty.
	It's weird, it's like some territories opened up where people are willing to listen to ideas that would have once been regarded as radical.
	Strange, really, but mostly the problem with this guy is he's nuts.
	The National Review last week published an article suggesting that such a double digit performance from Kennedy could prove costly for Biden.
	No incumbent president in the past 50 years has ceded that much of the vote to a primary challenger and one re-election is noted.
	Watch them shut this guy down.
	This is already someone who will not appear on the mainstream media unless it's to be slammed, attacked and smeared.
	They are working Hard.
	They are working round the clock to ensure that voices that are genuinely in support of the issues you care about are shut down.
	Because if you hear any alternative ideas, if you feel that there's a hope for you, if you see a vision, an alternative to the drudgery they impose upon you, you'll obviously vote for it, right?
	I know I would.
	Let me know in the chat and the comments.
	But anyway, let's see what this nutcase RFK has to say.
	Let's trust our own eyes, our own ears, and our own guts.
	Rather than the mainstream media, but I bet you he is now.
	Look at him, sat there in front of some books.
	What a square.
	I've been fighting corporate corruption my entire life, but I understand that today the problem is much larger than a few crooked individuals.
	The problem is a system that no longer serves the people and a people who are so divided and so fearful that they are easily ruled.
	No, that's not what's happening.
	Like, people are really coming together and it is just a few crooked individuals.
	All we have to do is bloody well vote for Joe Biden again and then everything will be really, really different.
	You just carry on doing the same thing, RFK, and then everything will just sort of spontaneously improve itself, right?
	Like, oh...
	It's time to unlearn the reflexes of fear and blame and find ways to unify ourselves and turn our country around.
	Uh-oh, he's talking about emotions.
	He's talking about real feelings.
	He's talking about real connection.
	Get ready for some serious smearing.
	I won't pretend to you that it will be easy, but I know what it will take.
	My father said it.
	Love, wisdom, and compassion toward one another.
	And I seem to remember that his father went on to have a long and fruitful career with that anti-establishment rhetoric which, oh.
	But surely what about his brother though?
	Oh.
	Ah, but what about the civil rights leaders at the time like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X?
	Mate, you might want to fucking shut up.
	We will scale down the war machine and bring our resources home.
	Boo!
	Boo!
	Keep our resources over there!
	Give the money to the military-industrial complex!
	You crackpot!
	There's nothing crazy about every American tax dollar giving over a thousand dollars a year to the military-industrial complex while they suffer at home.
	That's sanity!
	We will rebuild our water systems, repair our roads.
	No!
	Who wants war systems and roads?
	Keep with the wealth transfer to the economic system that was creating a billionaire a day during the pandemic.
	Boo!
	Modernize our railroads and clean up our environment.
	Who's to say the railroads need modernizing?
	And can you think of even one example where an unmodern railroad and an environmental damage ever come together in a terrible, terrible collision in East Palestine?
	I can't think of... No, no, there is a good example of that.
	We will also clean up government and earn back the people's trust.
	I am very angry.
	I am very angry.
	That's a person who's actually thought, what is it that I'm here for?
	I'm actually very angry.
	I've had enough of this.
	But to RFK's point, Congress people owning stocks and shares in the companies they regulate, there's no other way of doing it.
	Having them individually lobbied to by private corporations, it's not like you could, I don't know, ban that.
	And having parties funded by private donors from the world of big business, that could never be banned either.
	There's nothing at all that could ever be done.
	Boo!
	Cuckoo!
	Cuckoo!
	We will end the secrecy, the censorship, and the surveillance.
	No, no, the secrecy, the surveillance, these are our proudest traditions!
	We will face honestly the darker parts of our history, the genocide, the racism, not to shame or blame or punish, but to repair as best we can in a spirit of compassion and kindness toward all.
	Compassion, kindness, no shaming and blaming, but an honest appraisal of things that have gone wrong and a new way to search forward while simultaneously challenging elite interests.
	This is exactly the kind of person that you don't want.
	Hopefully the mainstream media and the government will spend a lot of time convincing you to never vote for anyone like this, who plainly is some sort of selfish, mad pig.
	I'm inviting all of you to join me to create an America that we can believe in and be proud of again.
	I'm Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
	and I'm running for President of the United States.
	Do you know what I was thinking the whole time during that?
	Anti-vaxxer, anti-vaxxer, anti-vaxxer, like the mainstream.
	When he was talking about an honest appraisal of America's past, curtailing the interests of the powerful, having a cleaner, clearer, more transparent and reliable democracy, I was thinking, all these things are not as important as vaccines.
	It is not in America's national interest Yes it is!
	We'll win!
	We'll win that nuclear exchange!
	You're a coward!
	And I'm not a patriot!
	international interest to do something that could involve us in a nuclear exchange with a country that has more
	nuclear weapons than us Yes, it is. We'll win. We'll win that nuclear exchange. You're
	a coward and not a patriot. Boo!
	Many of the steps that we've taken in the Ukraine Have seemed to indicate that our interest is in prolonging
	the war Rather than shortening it so if those are our objectives
	To have regime change and exhaust the Russians That is completely antithetical
	to a humanitarian issue Now, this is a propaganda piece and everyone looks good during their own propaganda, don't they?
	Remember last week when we watched Joe Biden's propaganda, however, he never once mentions corporatism.
	He never once mentions war.
	What he did say when he spoke to powerful donors is nothing will fundamentally change.
	RFK is talking about change.
	That is why we are going to witness an unprecedented smearing of RFK.
	Primarily, I would contest from the left, not from the right, From the left, the people that are supposed to be supporting those values, the people that say they care about equality, the people that say they care about healing America's past, care about genocide, that care about slavery, that apparently are supposed to care about ordinary working Americans and ensuring that a discourse is created that doesn't needlessly generate shame and division.
	So if they really care about those issues, why is it that in the next few weeks all you're gonna hear them talk about is anti-vax, anti-vax, anti-vax crackpot?
	Because they don't really care about that stuff.
	They put that stuff up front.
	Meanwhile, business deals, corporate donors, lobbying.
	They're not going to do anything about that because they're part of the same establishment.
	That's what I think.
	Tell me in the chat, in the comments, if you agree with me.
	The stance on war is one of the things that's most surprising.
	When did the so-called left stop caring about war?
	Is the best solution really to prolong this war?
	The best solution for who?
	For Ukrainian people?
	Is that what's best for Ukrainian people?
	Let me know in the chat, in the comments.
	Let's have a little read.
	Joe Biden has now committed us to a forefront global crusade against Russia, China, Iran, and a continually shifting terrorist hit list.
	We got Russia, big country, ain't going nowhere.
	China, big country, on the march, rising up.
	Iran, a country that's currently going for a progressive revolution itself that we could be supporting, but we're at war with them.
	And terrorists.
	We'll never forget those guys from the good old days, who it's impossible to say who they are and who they aren't, depending on what day it is.
	We can say anybody's a terrorist.
	That's what makes terrorists great.
	Awful.
	Grr.
	I hate them.
	None of these enemies threaten the survival or well-being of Americans.
	So it could be argued that we could just sort of ignore them or leave them alone or mind our own business.
	But where's the money in that?
	And the record of the United States in coddling dictators and torturers, violating international law and invading other countries mock the claim that we are fighting for universal human values.
	Oh, yeah.
	We're not fighting for that, are we?
	Let me know in the chat.
	What are we fighting for?
	The war machine budget just for 2024 is $842 billion.
	And your point is?
	Add the money for Homeland Security and the State Department and you reach a national security tab of over 1.3 trillion dollars.
	Yeah.
	Lots of money for a military that hasn't won a serious war since 1945.
	Hmm.
	That's interesting.
	Almost as if there's some other intention other than winning wars.
	But what could What would that be?
	So long as these forever wars were limited to distant places most Americans couldn't find on a map, and Pentagon contracts were deftly allocated among congressional districts, it was all politically manageable.
	Protected by distance and dollars, Americans could root for Team America on their infotainment channels.
	Insulated from their constituents, politicians could play and profit from the great game of global geopolitics.
	But this new Cold War is rapidly raising the stakes.
	The adversaries are formidable, and the conflicts will be much harder to exit.
	Yeah, almost like what RFK is saying about driving China and Russia closer together.
	It's a bad idea!
	We've already reached the limits of our productive capacity supplying weapons to Ukraine.
	Ukraine has used up a 13-year supply of Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and a five-year supply of Javelin anti-tank missiles.
	The US produces 14,155mm artillery shells a month.
	Ukraine burns through that much in two days.
	Seems like a good business deal.
	Neither we nor our NATO allies can deliver what Ukraine needs for the victory we are promising it.
	Oh, it's impossible then, like that whistleblower said on that chat.
	At the same time, Washington is openly preparing for a war with China over Taiwan.
	Oh, so that's another war for profit then, not a humanitarian war.
	Hmm.
	Biden opened his global crusade against Russia by promising the world that Americans would sacrifice for others.
	America stands up to bullies.
	This is who we are.
	Rather, this is who we say we are.
	Public support for our Ukraine adventure seems to be following the patterns of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
	An initial rush of jingoistic flag waving and outrage at the enemy, then second thoughts.
	Support for sending weapons to Ukraine declined from 60% last May to 48% in January.
	And that is with ubiquitous, universal media support.
	With people that work for the military-industrial complex appearing on mainstream media as unbiased pundits.
	Even then, naturally, people start to think a war is unnecessary and costly.
	A majority oppose sending troops, some of whom are already there as inspectors.
	Oh my God!
	This inspection is terrifying!
	Inspection is a dirty business, son.
	No one truly wins an inspection.
	Oh, man, this inspection is killing me!
	Ah!
	Inspectors!
	The new Cold War will further feed the militarism that has pervaded our political culture with increased government surveillance and weapons of war for local police departments.
	Almost as if the real enemy is you.
	Charges that war skeptics are disloyal have begun to permeate the mainstream media.
	A whiff of McCarthyism is in the air.
	The main opposition to Biden's Ukraine policy is the radical right, and will disappear if the GOP wins in 2024.
	Left Democrats talk wistfully of diplomacy.
	It would be nice if there was some diplomacy, but it's just not possible.
	But since Biden is currently their only prospect for 2024, Democrats who disagree with him have to shut up.
	Or what they could do is support a genuine candidate if they are interested in change.
	I don't believe that this system can deliver real change.
	I don't believe that a candidate like RFK will be allowed to flourish by the political system, by the eternal mechanics of the Democratic Party.
	We saw a much less radical version of this in Bernie Sanders, a former independent that ran for a while and then was crushed by the Democratic Party.
	I don't believe the mainstream media We'll give air time to these ideas.
	But I believe that we, the actual people, can support this kind of language, this kind of ideology, and this kind of change.
	The one thing they don't want is change.
	The one thing that's likely to bring about change is an informed populace.
	If we inform one another, if we support radicals from across the political spectrum, then this institutionalized, concretized corruption will be blown apart.
	That is the only war we should be interested in.
	The war against corruption.
	It shouldn't be about condemning individuals.
	Forget it.
	We should be about supporting important ideas like not having an Armageddon, supporting ordinary Americans, finding new alliances, ending the cultural war, ending the actual wars, finding new ways to move forward together before we destroy ourselves.
	But that's just what I think.
	Let me know what you think in the comments.
	See you in a second!
	Thank you for choosing Fox News.
	Thank you so much.
	No, he's the fucking loser!
	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 here.
	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, that 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 it.
	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.
	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?
	No, it's an excellent answer.
	The problem, of course, with money in politics is it bypasses that primary democratic principle that it is a representative system where all of us have a voice to some degree or another.
	Because this book centres 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 roles, it's 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 to 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 the really the towering figure of 20th century political philosophy.
	That's I mean, maybe the place to start is that this is someone who's routinely compared to the greatest thinkers in the history of Western thought, like thinkers like Plato, Hobbes, Kant, John Stuart Mill.
	He's kind of up there with that level.
	And at the heart of his philosophy is I guess a strikingly simple idea that society should be fair, but obviously Rawls recognizes that different people have different ideas about what fairness means.
	And he has this thought experiment to help us sort of think through that question.
	And his idea is that if we want to know what a fair society would look like, we should imagine how we would choose to organize 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 organize 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 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 Yeah, it's a very unifying kind of thing.
	I think it helps.
	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' 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, you know, 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 has been 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 roles, 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 the aim of the book is not just to take sort of set out rules as ideas, but to use them to bring together practical solutions to lots of problems, starting with money and 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, you know, 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 like it's worked incredibly well.
	It's had all the had all the consequences that you would expect, like more people giving money to 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, and 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, so like 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, I'm 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, 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, do a talk.
	I would love to.
	Daniel will be there.
	Let's do it.
	Satish Kumar's gonna be there, Vandana Shiva, Eddie Stern, Callie Means, Wim Hof, and now Daniel Chandler with his fantastic book, Free and Equal.
	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-Industrial Complex and how much it costs every single American $1,000 each to the Military-Industrial Complex, Dan.
	Not even to the military, to Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, all those guys.
	So join us tomorrow to learn a little more

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