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Sept. 26, 2023 - Stay Free - Russel Brand

01:22:42

Wait What?! Surveillance Robots Are HERE…Plus Aaron Maté - Stay Free #210

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	So, so
	so so
	so brought to you by
	so I'm looking for a new home.
	In this video, you're going to see the future.
	We've got a live shot there.
	Hello there, you Awakening Wonders, whether it's the 6.6 million of you on YouTube, whether it's the 1.4 million of you on Rumble, or the 11 million or so on ex-formerly Twitter.
	With all due respect to Elon Musk, the great proprietor there, we've got a fantastic show for you today.
	Thank you for joining us.
	I can hardly express my gratitude towards you sufficiently.
	And thank you for the ongoing support, all of you.
	I'm incredibly, incredibly moved by it.
	And I recognise that it's very important that we continue to do our best to convey to you the truth as we understand it, to convey transparently to you the news and evolving world events in the best way we possibly can, inviting your cooperation, your collaboration.
	That's why it's important you post about this.
	That's why it's important, if you can, That you follow us and become a member of our Awakened Wonder community.
	There's a link there if you're not a member yet.
	If it's within your means, please join us.
	On the show today we're going to talk about the news.
	There's a few interesting things.
	We've got Aaron Maté coming up to talk about the war and we'll be talking about NATO expansion and Ukraine's destruction and significantly how the mainstream media narrative doesn't cover explicit revelations from NATO directly that Putin warned them that if they continued their expansion it would lead to war.
	This story though is astonishing in this peculiar evolving global news space.
	Zelensky has visited Canada of course to get more funding for the ongoing war where he has greeted and met and at least saluted an actual literal Nazi.
	I mean the literal Nazi.
	You know the word Nazi is used quite profligately these days in the extraordinary times that we live in but when I say Nazi in this instance I mean you remember Adolf Hitler and that army he had and that National Socialist movement that defined Germany and then the world in the late 30s and up to the mid 40s?
	You know those Nazis?
	One of them.
	A standing ovation for a Ukrainian veteran of the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today, even at his age of 98.
	Invited by House Speaker Anthony Rota to witness Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's address to Parliament, Yaroslav Pumka is one of his constituents.
	He's a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and a Nazi hero.
	This is extraordinary.
	I suppose you could ask yourself some pretty profound philosophical questions For example, whether or not there were people within the Nazi movement that had God and light and love in their hearts.
	It's not an inquiry that we want to undertake, given the obvious impact of the Second World War, the Holocaust, the genocide, the murder, the terror, the horror.
	But when looking at the current reporting on the current conflict, it's extraordinary to see an actual Nazi Hailed!
	When we already know that within the Ukrainian fighting forces there are Nazis and of course this is not to diminish Ukrainian efforts, this is not to diminish the real need for humanitarian aid in Ukraine, this is in fact to suggest to you, even though I know you know this because you are awakening and becoming enlightened along with us, That we have to look at the nuance and details in news reporting.
	That we have a news media that simplifies, reduces, amplifies, exaggerates and sometimes out-and-out lies in order to curate a public space in where telling the truth becomes impossible and implausible and dissent becomes an act that is absolutely verboten.
	That's a German word that would have been used by our friend there who's getting saluted By Zelensky.
	I mean, if we're going to celebrate actual Nazis, I remember one Nazi really stood above the crowd.
	Not literally, he was quite a short guy.
	But in terms of his contribution to Nazism, I mean, if we're honoring Nazis now, there's one guy that I really think you should investigate for a good old round of applause.
	Not my cup of tea, however, because I am against genocide and murder and expansionism and truly believe in unity, love, light and peace and awakening.
	These are some of the things we'll be talking to Aaron Maté about a little later.
	I remember our last conversation, I asked Aaron, like, how do you feel about, like, the Second World War, for example?
	You know, it's very easy to critique these wars if you're sort of inclined towards dissent and Questioning legacy media narratives.
	Are you not just sort of a de facto oppositionist who opposes this simply because the mainstream are telling us this is how we're meant to look at this conflict and you, because you're sort of a contrarian, are opposed to it?
	How would you have been in the Second World War?
	And he's like, well, you know, my father is an actual Holocaust survivor.
	And that was a heroic conflict.
	I feel that times are escalating.
	The world is changing.
	We're actually losing our contact with reality, with morality, with truth, with justice, with principles.
	We used to just assume were real principles.
	Judiciary, that's just discarded now.
	What we live in is a technological totalitarianism where what we're moving towards is the ability to unperson you, to shut down your finances, to prevent you from communicating, Because if you can control dissent, if you can shut down dissent, then what is there to stop this great trajectory towards technocracy?
	A cadre of experts with absolute totalitarian power.
	And just to demonstrate to you that this is not just hyperbole and panic, New York City are introducing friendly, lovable, cuddly surveillance robots for your convenience and safety.
	Do you know, like, when you're in Manhattan, you might think, Sweet Manhattan!
	What a glorious city it is!
	Around every corner, a scene from Goodfellas.
	Well, not now it ain't.
	Now it's a surveillance robot spying on you, and just for now, spying on you.
	Who knows what they'll be doing in a couple of months or years.
	Well, it seems like something out of a sci-fi movie.
	Robots appearing in the city's underground.
	Fox size, Richard G. Kovetz shows us how the NYPD says this new tech will help with public safety.
	Do you see how the news doesn't have any obligation towards objectivity?
	The news doesn't say, You're being told that this is for your safety, but we're going to scrutinize that before just telling you it, because in case this is a surveillance robot that will be used to further impede your already eroded freedoms.
	No, they peddle the conclusion that the state wants you to reach.
	Here is a lovely robot.
	Get used to it.
	When you see this robot, it's a friendly robot.
	Not like I've got grave concerns about this robot on the subway and how it could be utilized, how like so many things it can metastasize into yet another tool for authoritarianism.
	It's not possible that could happen, is it?
	It's not possible that you might introduce measures like temporary passports or temporary 15-minute zones or temporary lockdowns or temporary medicines and then use that to create an authoritarian space where communication and Just becomes very, very difficult.
	We're openness.
	We're honesty.
	We're transparency.
	All fall by the wayside.
	We're cherished principles are just discarded.
	And if you want to oppose this march, then you could have a robot knocking on your door in a pretty clumsy way from the look of them, because they look like an upturned wheelie bin to me.
	To some strap hangers, it may look like something you'd find wandering around your local stop-and-shop.
	It's really weird.
	What is it?
	Weird, maybe.
	But this RoboCop, well, it's so much more than that.
	We're taking existing technology, cameras, being able to communicate with people, and we're placing it on wheels.
	This isn't anything to worry about.
	We're already spying on you.
	We're all ready to communicate.
	This is just tyranny, but on wheels now.
	And during the Christmas season, it's tyranny on ice!
	Behold the NYPD's newest crime stopper, K5 Autonomous.
	A security robot that will soon patrol the Times Square 42nd Street subway station.
	Think of your grandparents.
	Think of your ancestors, your forefathers and foremothers and the values they instilled on you.
	Trust.
	Community.
	Love.
	Kindness.
	Compassion.
	Unity.
	Open-heartedness.
	Willingness to listen.
	Now look at this news item!
	Actual robots pedal down to the street.
	They'll tell you it's progress.
	They'll tell you it's convenience.
	They'll tell you that it's safety.
	Unless you're in a state of perpetual fear, you won't tolerate stuff like that, will you?
	You'll say, no, you're alright.
	We'll govern our own spaces.
	We'll govern our own community.
	We'll have our own communication, thanks.
	We don't need a media that primarily seems to function as a tool of the state and the powerful.
	Never questioning state authority.
	Never questioning corporate authority.
	Always willing to peddle their lies.
	Always!
	We will continue to stay ahead of those who want to harm everyday New Yorkers.
	Who is that now?
	Who is it?
	Like, it used to be terrorists, sometimes it's the Russians, then it's germs, but really, do you know what it is?
	It becomes actually principles, like freedom and liberty.
	The very words that are used to rally us into compliance are the principles that they most loathe.
	Inner space.
	Your attention.
	Your ability to decide for yourself.
	Your ability to run your own lives.
	Your ability to trade, communicate, worship.
	Your ability to love.
	All these things are being challenged.
	All these things are being inventory turned into data points.
	Controlled.
	The police are becoming militarized.
	Data is becoming militarized.
	Information is becoming controlled.
	The ability to openly communicate education.
	Every single aspect of your life is becoming immersed in a chrome sphere.
	of dystopian control.
	But it's on wheels.
	Mayor Eric Adams unveiling K5 today underground, part of his new push to increase law enforcement technology in the country's largest transit system.
	The rollout comes, despite crime in the city's subways, down 4.5% compared to last year, according to police.
	Hmm, we've got it down 4.5% without surveillance robots on wheels.
	Just imagine how lovely a subway ride is going to be where we can steal all your data!
	We are taking an expansive camera network in the subway system and adding to it.
	The 400 pound 5 foot 3 K5 is not- I've already got an expansive camera network!
	How about more of that?
	You've only got one decision to make for yourself.
	Do you trust the state?
	Do you trust the state's relationship with corporations?
	Do you trust the judiciary?
	Who do you trust?
	And why trust?
	Why not verify?
	Don't trust, verify.
	How about autonomy within your own community?
	How about democracy?
	How about they don't get to introduce stuff like that without maybe you vote for it?
	How about that?
	How about do you want surveillance robots on the underground?
	Now admittedly we're living in such a state of panic and anxiety and like heightened flight fight freeze states that it's difficult to remain rational and say what is our vision for America?
	What is our vision for the United Kingdom?
	Our vision for our community?
	What do you see for your children and for your grandchildren and for the planet itself and for your community and the spaces that you love?
	Can you even think about that anymore?
	With the energy crisis, with the food crisis, with the ongoing wars, with the Constant threat of pandemics?
	No, it's very difficult to think straight, isn't it?
	But don't worry because there's dystopia on wheels rolling up right next to you as you ride the subway to photograph your face and make sure you're not doing a non-compliant expression while you sit in dumb misery being ferried to a job that you loathe.
	Nothing short of being high tech.
	It's equipped with four cameras that will allow it to send back live video to the police department.
	But some subway riders say they're a bit concerned about their invasion of privacy.
	Others appreciate another set of eyes.
	Even if it's in robot form.
	They're sort of presenting it as if it's amusing and humorous.
	It's this kind of nullifying of the understandable anxiety you feel as you note that the state is stepping up power.
	The militarisation of the police force.
	Technologisation of the police force.
	The full immersion of surveillance.
	Remember, there's been no great reckoning on the revelations of Edward Snowden yet.
	No one's ever sort of gone, hey, we're going to stop doing that stuff.
	The Patriot Act, that was only for a temporary period, just rolls on and on and on.
	You have to ask yourself, do I trust this system?
	Is this system in my service or am I in the service of this system?
	Let me know in the chat.
	Let me know in the comments.
	Remember, only the first 15 minutes will be ubiquitously available.
	Then we will be on Rumble.
	If it's within your means, join our community.
	When we get a little bit back more to normal, God willing, you will be able to comment while we're going along.
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	There's all sorts of advantages and it's the only way that you can support us continually at a time where your support becomes Absolutely essential.
	Well, I like that there are, even though they're not human eyes, that there are eyes that are following what's going on on the platform.
	Um, I think that, yeah, it's an invasion of privacy, because if us, the public, we don't agree to it, it shouldn't be put... You can begin seeing K5 Autonomous as early as tonight.
	Plus, on the news, he's just doing the bidding of the... Why don't you come out of your home for a brief... You're allowed out this way.
	Next week, come out for a moment, see if you can spot a robot.
	But be careful it doesn't spot you, because it may not like you.
	If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about.
	But you never know, next week, you may have something to hide, because the rules might just change.
	We haven't even got time to talk about US Senator Bob Menendez and his wife being charged with bribery in the most sort of old-fashioned, mad, gangster fashion, with gold bullion bars and briefcases full of money and stuff out of a bad 80s daytime film called Corrupto Cops or something.
	We haven't got time to bring you that.
	If you're watching us on YouTube or anywhere else, we love you, we appreciate you, we need you.
	Click the link in the description and join us for our conversation with Aaron Maté.
	Join us for our analysis of NATO's revelation that they knew they were provoking Putin to a state of war and they continue to do it anyway.
	Why are the mainstream media not reporting on this?
	We need you with us now more than ever, you awakening wonders, so click the link in the description and if it's within your means, join our movement.
	Support us.
	Become part of this movement.
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	Become an awakened wonder.
	Now, we've been telling you for a while, because we've been listening to experts, because we've been trying to pull together information from a wide variety of sources, including Aaron Maté, actually, who will be joining us later, but also Jeffrey Sachs, who's been on the show.
	That NATO knew they were provoking Putin into a state of war and yet they did it anyway.
	Why are the mainstream media not reporting on that?
	Why can't we get transparency and clarity?
	Let's have a look.
	Here's the news.
	No.
	Here's the effing news.
	Thanks for refusing Fox News' video.
	No, here's the fucking news!
	Wait!
	NATO just admitted that they were warned that continued expansion would lead to Ukrainian invasion.
	They did it anyway!
	So who really caused this war?
	And why are the media not covering this?
	Today we are talking about the extraordinary revelation that NATO have acknowledged that they were warned by Putin's administration that continuing to expand NATO would lead to an invasion of the Ukraine and yet they did it anyway.
	This is not simply to say, oh aren't NATO bad and isn't Russia fantastic.
	Of course this is a geopolitical issue, it's not that simple.
	What we're interested in is why are the mainstream media not covering the fact that NATO have acknowledged that they knew that their actions and expansion would lead to this war?
	Why are we continually told this was an egregious, unprovoked attack?
	What is the truth behind this war?
	And why is it that when someone publicly says the quiet part out loud, the legacy media still doesn't cover it?
	Whose agenda are they pursuing?
	Is it ours or do they have a different intention?
	Let's have a look at this story together.
	Use our innate wisdom to deduce the truth as one.
	President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021 and he actually sent a draft treaty that he wanted NATO to sign to promise no more NATO enlargement.
	That was what he sent us.
	So it seems that had they been willing to sign a treaty to not expand NATO, this war could have been avoided.
	So what is the advantage of expanding NATO?
	That's one question.
	Secondly, of course, many of you are aware that at the climax or indeed conclusion of the Cold War, pledges were made to not expand NATO into former Soviet territories.
	We all know this now, don't we?
	It's not something that's broadly covered because, again, it's not favourable to the preferred narrative.
	Most importantly, as far as I'm concerned, is why are the legacy media, when reporting on the subject of this ongoing war, this drain and strain on human resources and indeed human life, this decimation of Ukraine, half a million people dead so far, why are they not saying, well of course NATO have now acknowledged that they were warned that if they continue to expand, then Putin would invade, and they did it anyway.
	So who caused this war?
	What is the reason this war is happening?
	And significantly, how could we end this war?
	And that was a precondition for not invade Ukraine.
	Of course we didn't sign that.
	The opposite happened.
	He wanted us to sign the promise never to enlarge NATO.
	He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe.
	We should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance.
	In a sense when you listen to this speech it becomes clear that this war has been a long time coming.
	Probably with the membership of each of these former Soviet nations, in the case that they were former members of the Soviet Union, it has encroached further on the agreement not to expand NATO.
	So it's It's not like a war that began all of a sudden.
	It's part of the ebb and flow of history.
	And perhaps you will agree with people like Jeffrey Sachs that this war has come about to a degree as a result of the unipolar agenda of centralist American interests.
	Because they have an agenda to deplete Russia, because they have an agenda to create a unipolar world where Chinese interests and Russian interests are challenged, they were willing to agitate Russia to the point of war.
	And the reason I mention that is because, of course, we're continually told this is a humanitarian crisis.
	Remember what you're supposed to believe.
	This is what you're supposed to believe.
	Russia, basically for no reason, started to wage war on Ukraine.
	It's terrible.
	It's egregious.
	Putin is the new Hitler.
	And again, this is not to advocate for Putin.
	It's not to advocate for the actions of Russia.
	This is simply to say, if the intention, the aim, the goal was to end war, these are probably the sorts of things you'd have to take into account, I imagine.
	We're not a pro-Russia channel.
	This organisation is not pro-Russia.
	I'm sure that were we doing this in Russia, we would experience a lot more censorship.
	Although, hey, who's to say, huh?
	more NATO presence in the Eastern part of the Alliance.
	We're not a pro-Russia channel.
	This organisation is not pro-Russia.
	I'm sure that were we doing this in Russia, we would experience a lot more censorship,
	although, hey, who's to say, huh?
	But what we are saying is that everything this man is inventorying here seem like unwise moves from a diplomatic
	perspective if the intention was to have a harmonious relationship with Russia, to acknowledge that Russia have
	their own sovereignty, have their own nation, have their have their own history, have their own trajectory.
	This seems like, well, hold on a minute, aren't you, like, provoking a nuclear superpower for reasons, again, that don't seem that clear?
	Because he's not at any point going, of course we have to have all these countries as members of NATO in order what?
	What happens?
	Is it going to help global warming?
	And he has also seen that Finland has already joined the alliance, and Sweden will soon be a full member.
	Also, we have plans to put cellophane over Vladimir Putin's toilet, so when he go pee-pee, it splashes all over him!
	I got one of these puzzles!
	Stop provoking Vladimir Putin!
	Some of us don't want the world to be destroyed!
	This is good for the Nordic countries, it's good for Finland and Sweden, and it's also good for NATO, and it demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he's getting the exact opposite.
	And now we've got a massive war in which half a million people have been killed.
	Let's have a look at Jeffrey Sachs' perspective so we can understand this with a little more detail.
	How did we get into this war and how do we get out of it?
	During the disastrous Vietnam War, it was said that the US government treated the public like a mushroom farm, keeping it in the dark and feeding it with manure.
	The heroic Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers documenting the unrelenting US government lying about the war in order to protect politicians who had been embarrassed by the truth.
	A half century later, during the Ukraine war, the manure is piled even higher.
	According to the US government and the ever-secret New York Times, the Ukraine war was unprovoked, the Times' favourite adjective to describe the war.
	That is continually what you are told.
	If you only watch the mainstream media, if you only read the New York Times and someone said to you, what's this war about?
	Well, it was an unprovoked attack.
	People don't do unprovoked attacks!
	People do provoked attacks.
	That's what this is.
	This was provoked.
	In fact, we've just heard NATO.
	This is not Russian propaganda.
	This is NATO saying, well, Putin said that if we kept expanding NATO, there would be a war.
	And so we just like kept expanding NATO, which seems to me to be an extraordinary decision for an unelected body funded somewhat by your nation and my nation to have made on my behalf.
	I don't remember being asked whether I wanted to provoke Russia into war.
	Do you remember being asked whose agenda is being fulfilled?
	Why is it not being responsibly reported on?
	What kind of cultural curation is taking place that certain ideas are just not allowed to be in the space of public communication?
	Why is it that the media continue to be so obedient to an agenda that That plainly is bringing us to the edge of an extremely dangerous situation.
	Let me know in the chat.
	Let me know in the comments.
	If you're watching us on YouTube, you 6.6 million Awakening Wonders, we're only putting half the video up here for reasons that are surely obvious to you.
	The majority of the content will be up on Rumble.
	If you're watching us on Twitter or X, Elon, thank you.
	We appreciate you.
	But we will be doing the rest of the content on Rumble because that is our home and that's where we're looked after.
	Putin allegedly mistaking himself for Peter the Great invaded Ukraine to recreate the Russian Empire.
	Last week, NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg committed a Washington gaffe, meaning that he accidentally blurted out the truth.
	This is what a gaffe means these days, an inability to sustain the deceptive narrative that controls the public sphere, that controls the augmented reality that we're invited to live in. This is
	why independent media is under threat because we can say, hey look at this thing, NATO
	said that, does that help you to draw a different conclusion? Hey, have you listened to
	Jeffrey Sachs? He's not a whack job, he's a university professor and director of the
	Centre for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. They have a different perspective.
	That's why these things are challenging, that's why it's important to stay with us.
	In testimony to the European Union Parliament, Stoltenberg made clear that it was America's
	relentless push to enlarge NATO to Ukraine that was the real cause of the war and why
	continues today.
	Here are Stoltenberg's revealing words.
	Again, the background was that President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021 and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign to promise no more NATO enlargement.
	That's what he sent us and was a precondition to not invade Ukraine.
	Of course we didn't sign that.
	Well, well done you, because now Ukraine is being devastated, half a million people are dead, and the situation shows no sign of improving and actually no one at all benefits from it except for the military-industrial complex and centralist authoritarian systems that want us to be in a perpetual state of fear and unable The opposite happened.
	He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO.
	He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure and all allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO.
	All the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our alliance, introducing some kind of B or second class membership.
	We rejected that.
	Can you see why a figure like Donald Trump who says we'd withdraw from NATO or we'd stop funding NATO is a kind of wrecking ball to globalist infrastructure.
	NATO members must finally contribute.
	Over the last eight years the United States spent more on defence than all other NATO countries combined.
	Because this is the kind of thing that can continue unquestioned.
	Like, when in your life do you have time to go, hey, I'm not sure if we should be supporting NATO anymore.
	You're being overcharged for your energy.
	You're being overcharged for your food.
	You're working too hard.
	You're living in a nihilistic culture that has no vision for improvement.
	You're living amongst fracture fissure thrashed around by bad ideas and bad lies most of the
	time.
	When are you ever going to be able to say, hey, is there an alternative way of living?
	Do we need NATO?
	Are the WHO actually helpful?
	How are they funded?
	Where's all this information coming from?
	Is there the ability to pose counter-narratives?
	You've not got time for that, have you?
	Well, we're going to have to make time, because it seems to me that we're on the precipice
	of some pretty significant changes.
	But what we're moving to is a technological dictatorship where there is the ability to shut down your money, shut down your life, un-person you, if you even dare to question the trajectory of global or national events.
	Or if you want to have a conversation, if you want to have cultural differences.
	You are going to be able to be eliminated.
	This seems to me to be the terrain that they're trying to create.
	And organisations like NATO, WHO, I'm not saying they're entirely malign or malevolent or were created even for the wrong reasons.
	I'm saying that now the way they're operating is certainly beyond the remit of democracy and you're funding for it and you're not voting for it.
	That's the opposite of democracy.
	So he went to war to prevent NATO.
	More NATO close to his borders.
	He's got the exact opposite.
	I mean, stop provoking Vladimir Putin in the middle of a war.
	Do you remember when Tucker said that within a year we'll have a hot war with Russia?
	Does that seem more or less likely?
	Let me know in the chat right now.
	To repeat, he, Putin, went to war to prevent NATO.
	More NATO close to his borders.
	When Professor John Mearsheimer and I, and others have said the same, we've been attacked as Putin apologists.
	So at this point, this is sort of, I suppose, where we get into a degree of complexity.
	In this video we're not saying to you Russia are really great and NATO are bad, even though I can feel myself getting agitated on behalf of sort of the concept of Russia by the bureaucratic disingenuity of this unelected administrative official, but actually what Sachs is saying, and what he's saying his colleague Mearsheim are saying, is we told you this and we were dismissed as conspiracy theorists.
	Now think about the last couple of years.
	How many times have things been said that are true that you're dismissed as a conspiracy theorist for believing?
	Think of all of the major world events, the pandemic, I mean the litany, it just goes on and on.
	What is happening in conjunction With very significant geopolitical moves in order, I believe, to create a unipolar globalist world where democracy and sovereignty and community are completely eroded, is the inability even to challenge on any individual issue.
	Dissenting voices shut down.
	Alternative voices annihilated.
	The same critics also choose to hide or flatly ignore the dire warnings against NATO enlargement to Ukraine.
	Long articulated by many of America's leading diplomats including the great scholar statesman George Kennan and the former US ambassadors to Russia Jack Matlock and William Burns.
	So it's not all crackpots and whack jobs and people on the internet that are hippies with an axe to grind that believe in community and autonomy and democracy and that love is the answer and you have to find God within yourself.
	Find God now.
	It's like actual Diplomats and people that, broadly speaking, are in the general ebb and flow of international geopolitical discourse.
	It's not like Willie Nelson and Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix have decided that we're being lied to.
	It's like Jack Matlock and William Burns and George Kennan, like some dudes in suits in oak-panelled rooms.
	This is a really dangerous and unprecedented time.
	Let me know if you agree.
	Burns, now CIA director, was US ambassador to Russia in 2008 and author of a memo entitled, NYET MEANS NYET.
	In that memo, Burns explains as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the entire Russian political class, not just Putin, was dead set against NATO enlargement.
	We know about the memo only because it was leaked, otherwise we'd be in the dark about it.
	How many other things do we simply never have revealed to us?
	How much is clandestine?
	What do you imagine is behind those walls and doors of secrecy that they claim are there to protect us from terrorists?
	It's just more information than you can... Oh man, we can't trust this lot.
	Start dismantling NATO.
	Get rid of that.
	Just completely radically re-evaluate all of our democratic systems to first and foremost disable these gargantuan monoliths of horror that are guiding us gently to Armageddon.
	Let's get rid of them straight away.
	That's what you would understand if you were to have access to those classified documents, innit?
	Oh no, these classified documents!
	It was a surprise birthday party, and you spoiled it.
	Remember them days, guys.
	Yeah, why is that?
	Well, he's abandoned that.
	How about a treaty?
	No missiles.
	Why is that? For the simple reason that Russia does not accept the US military on its
	2,300 kilometer border with Ukraine in the Black Sea region.
	Russia does not appreciate the US placement of Aegis missiles in Poland and Romania
	after the US unilaterally abandoned the anti-ballistic missile treaty.
	Well, they just abandoned that. How about a treaty? No missiles. How about fuck your treaty?
	Russia also does not welcome the fact that the US engaged in no fewer than 70 regime change operations during the
	Cold War, 1947 and 1989
	That regime change was a surprise for your birthday!
	They've got a country and an institution in the shape of NATO on their borders.
	Armed, who they know have engaged in regime change 70 times since the last war.
	They know that they are explicitly their enemy, and they're saying, do you mind not doing that?
	I mean, it essentially amounts to a polite request eventually followed by what?
	I know there's a deep and troubling history between Russia and Ukraine that I'm plainly not an expert in.
	What this is about is, why don't the media simply report accurately on this subject so I can answer my own rhetorical question?
	Because if they did, you'd make up your own mind.
	And when you make up your own mind, you will be less compliant and less obedient.
	And they cannot have that.
	And countless more since, including in Serbia, Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, and Ukraine.
	Yeah, but we're not going to do any more.
	Nor does Russia like the fact that many leading US politicians actively advocate the destruction of Russia under the banner of decolonizing Russia.
	That would be like Russia calling for the removal of Texas, California, Hawaii, and conquered Indian lands, and much else from the United States.
	Imagine that for a moment.
	Imagine that Hawaii, with good reason these days, said, you know what?
	The United States haven't been incredibly helpful to us.
	They're just using us as a missile base when we actually need them.
	They give us derisory payments while they send incredible sums elsewhere, apparently to support war, that it seems like they, to some considerable degree, participated in the provocation of.
	And imagine if Texas took their oil.
	What's the benefit of the United States?
	Who benefits?
	Start asking yourself that question.
	Love America.
	Love your history.
	Love your nation.
	Love your traditions.
	Love your forefathers and your foremothers.
	But who benefits from there being one centralized government that plainly operates in the service of military-industrial complex, big pharma, uses the legacy media to whitewash and bleach the cultural space free of independent thought and independent conversation?
	Are you benefiting?
	Is it helping your energy bills?
	Is it helping your food bills?
	Is it helping your freedom?
	Is it helping your children's education?
	Is it helping your family's health?
	You let me know in the comments.
	Even Zelensky's team knew that the quest for NATO enlargement meant imminent war with Russia.
	Oleksii Arestovich, former advisor to the office of President of Ukraine under Zelensky, declared that with a 99.9% probability our price for joining NATO is a big war with Russia.
	I think we can say it's 100% now.
	That remaining percentile.
	Restovich claimed that even without NATO enlargement, Russia would eventually try to take Ukraine just many years later.
	Yet history belies that.
	Russia respected Finland and Austria's neutrality for decades with no dire threats, much less invasions.
	Moreover, from Ukraine's independence in 1991 until the US-backed overthrow of Ukraine's elected government in 2014, Russia didn't show any interest in taking Ukrainian territory.
	It was only when the US installed a staunchly anti-Russian pro-NATO regime in February 2014, coup, US inspired, let me know in the comments, that Russia took back Crimea, concerned that its Black Sea naval base in Crimea, since 1783, would fall into NATO's hands.
	Even then, Russia didn't demand other territory from Ukraine, only fulfilment of the UN-backed Minsk II agreement, which called for autonomy of the ethnic Russian Donbass, not a Russian claim on the territory.
	Yeah, instead of diplomacy, the U.S.
	armed, trained, and helped to organize a huge Ukrainian army to make NATO enlargement a fait accompli.
	I mean, that does seem pretty significant.
	Okay, option one, diplomacy.
	Yeah, but what about option two?
	We arm, train, and organize a huge Ukrainian army.
	Do you want a war?
	Putin made one last attempt at diplomacy at the end of 2021, tabling a draft US-NATO security agreement to force still war.
	The core of the draft agreement was an end of NATO enlargement and removal of US missiles near Russia.
	Russia's security concerns were valid and the basis for negotiations, yet Biden flatly rejected negotiations out of a combination of arrogance, hawkishness, and profound miscalculation.
	Can you just talk me through your reasoning here?
	Yes, I can.
	Firstly, arrogance.
	Mmm, good.
	Secondly, hawkishness.
	Oh, very good.
	And thirdly, I, um, what's that word?
	I miscalculate a lot.
	Oh, this is gonna go well.
	NATO maintained its position that NATO would not negotiate with Russia regarding NATO enlargement.
	In effect, NATO enlargement was none of Russia's business, but it's actually only Russia's business.
	That's actually all it is.
	That's all that NATO actually does, isn't it?
	annoys Russia to the point of war.
	I mean, what does NATO stand for?
	I can't work out an acronym, but it seems that primarily what they ideologically stand for is provoking Russia into wars.
	What else are they doing?
	The continuing U.S.
	obsession with NATO enlargement is profoundly irresponsible and hypocritical.
	The U.S.
	would object, by means of war if needed, to being encircled by Russian or Chinese military bases in the Western Hemisphere, a point the U.S.
	has made since the Monroe Doctrine of 1823.
	Yet the US is blind and deaf to the legitimate security concerns of other countries.
	It's extraordinary.
	They can't be actually blind and deaf yet sure play a mean pinball.
	They just don't care, do they?
	Because it's at odds with an explicit, plain agenda.
	An agenda that sometimes becomes explicit due to saying the quiet part out loud moments like we saw from Stoltenberg there in NATO.
	But generally speaking, We're told that American foreign interest is to sort of guide the world towards democracy, inadvertently gathering resources and depleting potential opposition.
	And remember, when I talk about America, I'm not talking about American people, the decent, beautiful American people and the history of America and the great stands they've made against genuine tyranny and fascism.
	I'm talking about this new corporatized America that plainly operates on behalf of the military-industrial complex and corporate interests elsewhere and against, directly against, the interests of their own people.
	So yes, Putin went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO close to Russia's border.
	Ukraine is being destroyed by US arrogance, proving again Henry Kissinger's adage that to be America's enemy is dangerous, while to be its friend is fatal.
	The Ukraine war will end when the US acknowledges a simple truth, NATO enlargement to Ukraine means perpetual war and Ukraine's destruction.
	Ukraine's neutrality could have avoided the war and remains the key to peace.
	The deeper truth is that European security depends on collective security as called for by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, not one-sided NATO demands.
	So there you are.
	You have seen with your own eyes and heard with your own ears a NATO representative telling you that they knew that their actions, explicitly continuing expansion, would lead to war.
	They've been told that.
	You have heard from Jeffrey Sachs that there have been opportunities for diplomatic resolution along the way.
	Many of you are familiar with Boris Johnson, former UK Prime Minister's visit to Zelensky, particularly and specifically to scupper an intended peace treaty.
	So when you have those facts at your disposal, I beg of you, ask yourself this question.
	Whose agenda is being served here?
	Why are the media not reporting more accurately on this conflict?
	Who is able to control both the media space and the geopolitical stage to a degree where it is apparently against the interests of Russian people, Ukrainian people, American people, English people, all of the citizenry of the world?
	Potentially affected by an escalating conflict that has no resolution.
	It has no resolution.
	There's not a point where Russia goes, oh well, go on then, expand now.
	Unless they're absolutely annihilated and destroyed.
	And world history shows you what that's likely to mean.
	It means world war.
	Global cataclysm.
	And for me, we should have the opportunity to electively and electorally determine if that is what we want to participate in, because I don't.
	I believe in a peaceful solution as quickly as possible, and I believe in a transparent media that will investigate and use their resources to explore and understand what's happening in this war, rather than amplifying the messages of the elites that benefit from situations that to the rest of us are crises.
	Whether that's a war, an energy crisis, or a health crisis, it seems that they somehow benefit What are we going to do to oppose them?
	It seems to me we have to remain connected to one another and be willing to rise up in great disobedience together.
	But that's just what I think.
	Let me know what you think in the chat.
	See you in a second.
	And thank you for choosing Fox News.
	You're awesome.
	Now, here's the fucking news.
	Who better to give us a more nuanced perspective on that complex story and why it's not being directly reported
	than Aaron Maté, the investigative journalist for the Grey Zone, co-host of the Useful Idiots podcast.
	I consider this to be an incredible honor.
	He's wanted on an FBI blacklist.
	He's the most prolific spreader of disinformation, according to The Guardian.
	Sir, you're in good company.
	Welcome to the show, Aaron.
	Good to be here.
	Aaron, what do you think about their recent admission by NATO, Stoltenberg in particular, that they knew that continued escalation and infringement on former Soviet territory would lead to war and did it anyway?
	It's a pretty amazing admission, but it shows that people who've been pointing out from the start that this proxy war was not entirely, but a large part due to NATO expansion, were correct.
	And when we pointed this out, we were called Putin apologists, Russian propagandists.
	Now you have the head of NATO admitting.
	That Russia went to war to stop NATO expansion.
	And you were allowed to discuss this before Russia invaded.
	So for many years, there was people in the heart of the U.S.
	establishment, people like Bill Burns, who is Biden's current director of the CIA.
	Back when he was the U.S.
	ambassador to Russia in 2008, he wrote a famous cable that we know of thanks to WikiLeaks warning That NATO expansion to Ukraine was a red line for all of Russia, not just for Putin's faction, but all of Russia, because they recognized that if ever a civil war broke out in Ukraine, that would force Russia to take a side on behalf of the Russia-aligned citizens of Ukraine, which number in the millions, and that would force Russia to intervene.
	And that was a warning back in 2008, and it came true years later after the 2014 Maidan coup.
	And Russia, just as the US would not accept Mexico or Canada having offensive weaponry pointed at the US and being part of a hostile military alliance.
	Russia also could not accept having Ukraine, which is historically tied to Russia, being a part of NATO.
	And here you have Jens Stoltenberg, the chief of NATO, admitting that, albeit way too late.
	It's another example of a story Or at least a component of a story that was initially regarded as a conspiracy theory that has been derided.
	It's probably one of the reasons that you've been so maligned is reporting in the relatively objective way that you have on this particular conflict that has over time become verified.
	Why do you think, in spite of this ongoing process of verification of information that's regarded as periphery or unreliable, that we are still able to sustain a sort of central narrative that induces a kind of compliance and lack of inquiry, even though we continually recognize that information that's apparently conspiratorial or from the periphery, and certainly is dissenting, is increasingly being proven to be correct?
	It's a good question, and it's especially salient in light of the experience of the Iraq War.
	The media was caught red-handed parroting the Bush administration's lies that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was working with Al Qaeda.
	Everybody knows now that that was a lie.
	But yet, no lessons have seemingly been learned because in war after war, the U.S.
	constantly does the bidding of the establishment and repeats the same narratives that are used
	to justify going to war and justifying sanctions, even when there's no evidence for them or
	even when the evidence shows them to be lies.
	So for example, in Libya, we were told that we had to go in and bomb Libya because Gaddafi
	was going to commit a genocide.
	That's been exposed as a lie.
	In Syria, we were told we had to bomb Syria because the government used chemical weapons.
	All investigations into this have shown actually that the evidence is not there, including
	the OPCW's own leaks, which show that to be a lie.
	In Ukraine as well, again, Jens Stoltenberg admitting that this was actually not about Russia trying to erase Ukraine from the map, but Russia trying to stop NATO.
	So you have all these examples where you have facts undermining the pro-war narrative.
	But Western media still goes along and does its job.
	And I guess the problem there is that people in positions of power in the media don't see their jobs as actually doing their jobs of following the facts.
	They see themselves as representatives and sonographers of people in power.
	They hang out with people in power.
	They want to become The people in power, there's a huge revolving door between people who work in media, people who work in government.
	If you look at CNN and MSNBC, there's so many people who are former top U.S.
	intelligence officials.
	The former White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, hosts a show on MSNBC.
	Same with Fox News.
	You have former Republican stenographers now hosting shows.
	And that's a real problem.
	So when you have a media that identifies more with power than it does with following the facts, you're going to have these lies being repeated over and over and over.
	Even in this climate, with the type of reporting that you describe, a recent CNN poll suggests that 55% of Americans don't want further funding of this conflict, but want a peaceful resolution.
	Given that the United States appears to be in a place of near financial catastrophe, certainly in considerable debt, and there's a lot of opposition to expenditure of this nature, by which I mean military expenditure overseas, as opposed to, for example, the kind of welfare spending that would seem sensible in response to the Hawaiian fire, for example, it's often left At least in the political sphere to figures like Rand Paul to present a counter-narrative and to challenge the ongoing funding.
	I feel like there's another 24 billion dollars that's meant to go to you know ongoing military expenditure and of course Zelensky's in Canada literally sort of saluting I feel like an actual Nazi at some point over recent days.
	If there is increasing opposition Can this carry on indefinitely?
	Or is there simply never going to be a legitimate opportunity to oppose it democratically?
	Well, the problem is the U.S.
	is dug in so deep, and before Russia's invasion, they undermined any reasonable opportunity to prevent it.
	So, Jens Stoltenberg admitted that Russia went to war in part to prevent NATO expansion.
	There also was the fact that the Ukrainian government, largely under pressure from extremists,
	far-right nationalists inside Ukraine, did not want to implement the Minsk Accords,
	which was the 2015 peace deal intended to end the civil war that began the year before after a US-backed coup.
	And at every turn, the US and its allies inside Ukraine's far right undermined
	any opportunities for peace.
	And now they're not going to go back on that now.
	So what they're looking at is basically perpetual frozen conflict.
	And yes, public opinion in the US.
	could make a difference.
	And you mentioned that poll showing that recently, for the first time, the majority of Americans oppose more funding of this proxy war.
	But elites don't care about public opinion unless there's people out in the streets trying to really force them into making a change.
	And we don't see that yet because the anti-war movement in the U.S., as it has around the NATO world, has been so undermined.
	But that poll showing majority opposition is pretty amazing because Even though most Americans have been denied the basic facts of this war, they still now oppose it.
	So, for example, imagine how many more people would oppose funding for this proxy war if they knew that after Russia invaded, there was a peace deal reached in early 2022 between Ukraine and Russia.
	But the West blocked it.
	Boris Johnson famously came over to Kiev and told Zelensky that if you make a deal with Putin, we're not going to back you up, because right now is the time to fight him, and we feel that we can hand him a crushing defeat inside Ukraine.
	And that was an order to Zelensky, who was a client of the US and the UK, to keep fighting.
	No establishment media outlet in the US has reported on this peace deal, except for one journal, Foreign Affairs, which is read by people who Go to fancy fundraisers in Manhattan and Washington.
	Otherwise, it's not red.
	So most people do not know about this peace deal.
	And certainly no one knows that this peace deal was blocked by the West.
	So imagine how much higher opposition would be if people knew of basic facts like that.
	The way that reality can be controlled and curated, the way that a kind of public sphere of ideas can be so carefully and cleverly managed, certain ideas and agenda amplified, other information, like the example you've just given of the potential for a peace deal almost a year ago, or the beginning, yeah, over a year ago, that can be sort of extracted and ignored and just sort of lost in the Do you feel that the necessity for independent media is becoming more pronounced and more obvious?
	What did you learn personally when you're placed, or almost placed, or there was an attempt to put you on an FBI blacklist?
	attacked in the way that you are personally, you know, called a spreader of disinformation.
	And how do you connect that to sort of perhaps more nefarious forms of censorship, like grey
	zones, GoFundMe being curiously shut down, some of their funding, I think, being directed to other
	causes. So on a personal level, how do you feel about censorship and the management of the space,
	you know, not just around the world, but generally? And what do you think about the sort of
	evident escalation of techniques to control and shut down independent media?
	Well, look, it's a major problem that we have something called the media.
	But inside that space, you have people with radically different
	Approaches to the job of being a journalist.
	I see journalism fundamentally as being loyal to the facts no matter where they lead and certainly not serving any powerful Center, whether it's the US whether it's Russia or any corporation, but serving the people and serving facts and the problem is so many people inside the Western media establishment, you know, which which I'm in I think have identified with people in power and have internalized their own biases and their own agendas of basically wanting to spread U.S.
	hegemony.
	And so don't want to do anything that undermines that.
	And they're also kept in line by sort of the schoolyard mentality where all you have to do is be called a name like a Putin apologist or a Russian propagandist.
	And that the fear of that is enough to keep people into being obedient.
	And end up being stenographers for their own power centers.
	So basically doing exactly what we accuse Russia of doing.
	And I don't follow that.
	And because I don't follow that, the gray zone doesn't follow that.
	We often get called a whole bunch of names.
	And there are attempts to de-platform us.
	In my case, I reported on this and we've talked about this before on your show, as you mentioned, the FBI sent Twitter a list of social media accounts.
	And it asked Twitter to remove these accounts and also hand over their information.
	And the FBI wasn't doing this at its own behest.
	It was doing this on behalf of Ukraine.
	Ukraine gave the FBI this list and asked them to do this for them, and the FBI complied.
	And my name was on that list along with some Russian journalists and other voices, some Ukrainians also who had challenged the government.
	And the rest of the media, when this came out, just yawned.
	It wasn't seemed to be a big deal that the FBI is getting involved in trying to censor journalists and voices that the Ukrainian government doesn't like.
	And that's a reflection of how integrated US media has become with the state and identifies with it.
	And the only thing I can do is just keep doing my job and following the facts where they lead and not worried about these efforts to intimidate people like myself.
	Because luckily, there are people out there who recognize that US media, Western media has not done its job.
	And so they're, they're hungry for independent voices.
	And it's the support of people who want to shine the establishment stenography that allows independent journalism like myself to continue.
	Are you familiar with the Trusted News Initiative and their apparent attempt to curate media spaces and the explicit acknowledgement that they are no longer competing with one another, and by they I mean New York Post, CNN, BBC, but they are competing with independent media.
	In a practical sense in terms of for viewers and for an audience but in an ideological sense for control of the space for the media space for the communicative channels which currently because of the kind of work that you do and many of your colleagues and peers We are actually given legitimate, reliable information that's often at odds with the information that's conveyed from within this, let's call it, legacy media sphere.
	Are you aware of the kind of relationships that now exist between mainstream media organisations?
	How explicit and overt that it has become?
	Yeah, especially in the UK, you have all kinds of initiatives like the Integrity Initiative and many other associated programs that are basically designed to spread state propaganda.
	And they do it in a very clever way.
	They sort of fund all these different groups around the world and make it seem as if these
	are independent watchdogs and independent investigators.
	But really, they're just there to serve the state.
	One prominent example is Bellingcat, which is billed in U.S.
	media as this open source website, this collection of digital Sherlock's who are out
	there just to find the truth.
	But if you look at their output, it's almost entirely done in the service of their NATO
	state sponsors because they are funded by programs like the National Endowment for Democracy,
	which sounds harmless, but it is actually historically a front for U.S. intelligence
	and accordingly serves the bidding of U.S. intelligence goals, and which is mainly to
	destabilize foreign countries that the U.S. government wants to overthrow.
	So if you look at Bellingcat's output.
	But, uh, They often put out these so-called investigations that serve whatever narrative the U.S.
	government wants to sustain.
	And when the U.S.
	media reports on them, they never mention that they're funded by U.S.
	taxpayers.
	They never mention that they're funded by contractors like Adam Smith International that have made a lot of money off of working in war zones destabilized by the U.S., like Iraq.
	And that's how it works.
	And most people don't have the time to go and do research projects and look up who all these various groups are that are being presented to them as credible, non-biased sources.
	And those of us who do point out that they're funded by the state, we're then marginalized for it.
	But the facts are there for people who have the time to go find them out.
	There appear to be a spate of new online safety bills.
	I mean, I'm speaking specifically of the UK online safety bill, which appears to be a censorship bill offering empowerment to, again, curious agencies to check encrypted emails and messages, often Under the auspices of safety and ideas and subjects that most people would be in agreement of, of hate speech, pornography, in particular pornography of people like minors and stuff.
	So it seems though that that's not just happening in the UK, it's happening in the United States, in all of the Five Eyes countries, they're sort of demonstrably sharing information on one another's citizenry.
	Do you ever feel that when something appears to be so highly coordinated, when there appears to be cooperation at the legislative level that goes even beyond national sovereignty and seems to be able to bypass democracy, that voices like yours and even The Grey Zone and maybe even this entire space are going to be limited unless there's a... unless it
	becomes sort of quite politicized and activated that it can no longer really claim to be like, hey, if you
	notice this, it has to become a sort of a politicized and it has to become ultimately about
	opposition to the way that the trend and tendency of authoritarianism of censorship and surveillance.
	It's not enough, is it Aaron, to just simply draw attention to this stuff.
	Isn't there a point where we have to do more?
	No, absolutely.
	And it's a legitimate fear.
	I mean, look how broadly society as a whole has sort of accepted the torture of Julian Assange.
	This is a guy who put out facts to the world to expose state crimes.
	And for that, he's been harassed, persecuted by the world's most powerful states, confined right now to a prison for many years, now facing extradition to the U.S.
	And yes, there have been some laudable fights to free him.
	I mean, you've taken part in the demonstrations to free Julian Assange, but overall in society, people kind of yawn.
	They don't pay attention.
	When I go to free Julian Assange rallies in New York City, It's a lot of people who are elderly, young people have been sort of denied the basics of the story and don't realize the implications for them and for their future.
	And that's a result of early successful demonization campaign against Julian.
	And that extends to all areas of the media where we sort of normalize this culture where dissenting voices can be censored, can be deplatformed, can be smeared as Russian agents and members of the media.
	Don't see this as an assault on their own rights because they don't identify with journalists who actually do their job.
	They identify with the state.
	And yeah, I don't know what it's going to take, but certainly in the absence of grassroots pressure, it's going to be increasingly normalized.
	He is held, or at least the extradition is as a result of an attempt to charge him and prosecute him under the Espionage Act that Barack Obama used I feel more than any president in history.
	And there is this curious, beyond a fissure I suppose, there are almost alternate realities where statesmen are still regarded as heroic in spite of observable, tangible, empirical facts now.
	And it appears to me that, like, as you say, there's a kind of normalization of a phenomena
	and abomination like Assange's ongoing imprisonment or Edward Snowden's exile or the numerous
	whistleblowers in incarceration, you know, before standing up against, in particular,
	sort of American corporate state interests.
	And when you say that thing about it's sort of, you know, before you say that it's usually
	older people, I was thinking you were going to say, like, the usual suspects, the kind
	of people that will group and corral around any issue, the sort of people that you might
	have imagined caring about the campaign for nuclear disarmament, the people that are aware
	that there's this sort of march of history that has sped up with the introduction of
	technology for all of the opportunities for communication and independent media and dissenting
	That this new space is afforded, there is plainly a colonial war to manage and control this space.
	And the normalization of the persecution of Assange or Snowden appears to be something that's difficult to popularize.
	And like, you know, me and you, we sort of talk about it, but I'm not down at sort of Belmarsh demanding his release.
	I'm not, you know, I think we're going to speak to Stella Assange's wife in the next few days.
	But it's, in a sense, when you infer that it's older people that are more schooled in more overt 80s and 90s style, you know, Iraq war disasters and lies and the weapons of mass destruction, do you feel like that almost people are lacking the inner resources to oppose?
	That there's a generation that Is this generational?
	Because certainly your answer suggested that it might be.
	Is there a kind of a lack of understanding or direction or hope?
	What do you think it is that means that this issue is able to continue broadly unopposed?
	Well, I think the biggest issue is that younger people lack the material resources.
	In the U.S., we don't have healthcare guaranteed for everybody.
	It's a tough economy.
	It's a very individualistic culture.
	There's not much social support.
	And in that context, people don't have the time to worry about Global problems, but bigger issues.
	They have to worry about supporting themselves and their own careers and their own lives.
	And to debunk Western state propaganda, it takes a Herculean research effort because it's very easy to hear the narrative, for example, about the war in Ukraine, like Russia just invaded Ukraine because it wanted to colonize it.
	You can say that in a few seconds.
	For me to present a contrary point of view, I need like five minutes to go into like the coup in 2014, the Minsk Accords, NATO expansion, the placement of US missiles in countries surrounding Russia, all these things that require context.
	People don't have the time for that, at least as much as they used to.
	So I think there's a direct connection between denying people the basics that they need to survive
	and their inability then to oppose what the US is doing around the world.
	The system works really, really well for people in power because you force people to scramble for themselves.
	And meanwhile, you take their money and spend it on these horrible military ventures abroad.
	And because people lack the resources to have the time to be able to do their own research
	and to read and to absorb all the information that they need,
	while also being denied the information by their state media, that leaves very little room for resistance
	to change.
	To to government policies and it works very well.
	And meanwhile, you also have a constant pool of people willing to go fight in these wars because they need money for college and being in the military offers you college tuition offers you health care so that you have this permanent underclass of people that the US can always draw on to go fight your war.
	So from that point of view, it works very very well for the elites and leaves very little space for genuine grassroots opposition to develop.
	I see how centralised power, by dealing in vast territories across huge demographics, is able to orchestrate control.
	There's a set of interlocking systems right down to the ability to recruit from an underclass that you've just described.
	Intransigence, somehow, of deception.
	Churchill's famous quote that, you know, a liar's halfway around the world before the truth's got the chance to pull his trousers up, you know?
	And a teacher of mine says, you know, like, we live in a world of immersive propaganda and deception, and then just sort of slowly over time, wait a minute, there was that coup in 2014, hang on now, NATO expansion, wait a sec, there's these bio-letters, like, all of this stuff.
	Meanwhile, there's just a constant tirade of opposition.
	And I, when I'm listening to you and getting the benefit of your research and experience, I'm also sort of like, the needle of my mind skips wildly to potential solutions and I continually think that only decentralization can present a real can present real opposition.
	Because as long as you have the ability to marshal entire populations,
	to control vast economies, to suppress dissent,
	you're not allowed organic uprising.
	You're not allowed people to say, well we want to live like this here,
	we're not going to participate in that, well we don't believe this.
	It's literally systemic.
	literally systemic.
	It is an unconscious, ongoing, very potent system that can only be destabilized by mass opposition.
	And as you say, the people that are required to participate in that mass opposition are Unable to pay their energy bills, unable to pay their food bills, are kind of weary from poor food and bad pharma and screens continually broadcasting messages of either nihilism or despair or hopeless pursuit of individual desire.
	The kind of moral and spiritual, in fact, landscape that this takes place in does not provide a lot of opportunity and in particularly there's a sort of a At ontological depth, atomization, a breakdown of almost every reliable unit, whether it's the family or faith or community, all of the components that might be used to build meaningful opposition are facing their own individual threats.
	And that's why, and I know this ain't necessarily your bag, although we've never really talked about it, So I'm presuming.
	That's why I continually return to the possibility and, in my view, necessity for an individual personal awakening where I recognize, wait, none of these external things are going to work for me.
	I need a new vision.
	I need a new mode of living. We've become just uprooted from the conditions of our origin. We've
	become uprooted from simple ideals that, you know, gosh, sometimes are adjacent to totemism that could
	just guide us through, well, we are a tribe and the tribe has these concerns and we have these
	responsibilities for one another and this is how we handle justice and this is how we, you know,
	like those kind of things are just lost in an ideological diaspora, you know, and I don't see
	sort of how to do that, how without some kind of new covenant.
	To mobilize people again.
	And that's why I continually, Aaron, think about the necessity for independent media to become a kind of crusade, you know, an inclusive crusade.
	Well, listen, I'm all for a spiritual awakening.
	I also don't know how to get there beyond just speaking the truth and giving people information that they're being denied to keep people isolated and fragmented and obedient.
	Beyond that, I don't know what the solution is, but certainly, I agree, there needs to be a spiritual awakening, and it's very, very hard to do that in this society.
	But I can point to examples throughout history where people in much worse conditions than those of us broadly in the West face have done extraordinary things.
	In the poorest countries in the Americas, in Haiti and Bolivia, they're in the last 30 years.
	There have been grassroots movements that have elected presidents that actually come from the people.
	Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti and Eva Morales in Bolivia.
	These are two of the poorest countries in the hemisphere.
	So if they can do it under much worse conditions, maybe we could too.
	Maybe we could follow their lead.
	But I agree.
	The West is in such a, you know, the North, the UK, US, countries like that.
	They're such a huge bubble of propaganda and there's so many forces to keep people isolated and hating each other and you know at each other's throats rather than targeting uh and demanding accountability from elites that it's very very difficult.
	This uh you know post from uh Antony Blinken I think something you're aware of and have maybe commented on it like uh Antony Blinken said democracy on in on a ex post I guess democracy depends on the free and open exchange of ideas including online on this international day of democracy I call on governments around the world to protect citizens' access to information that allows them to make informed decisions.
	It seems like an extraordinary thing to say in light of what's happening, you know, currently the war that we spoke about at the beginning of our conversation, in light of Assange's ongoing incarceration.
	It's interesting how the rhetoric of government is detached from any principles.
	I can't believe the gall of this guy.
	He is presiding over the persecution of a publisher whose only crime was that he exposed state crimes.
	That's all Julian Assange did.
	He didn't steal it himself.
	He was given cables and war logs, which he released through WikiLeaks.
	He exposed state crimes, and for that, he gets persecuted, tortured, locked in a cage with no end in sight.
	Now he's facing extradition to the US. And Antony Blinken has the gall to
	say he cares about democracy and media freedom and free expression. And you can go down the list.
	Joe Biden recently spoke at the United Nations and he accused Russia of dismantling arms control
	between the US and Russia, which is a very, very big problem. And he cited the fact that Russia
	had suspended some of its compliance with the New START treaty, which is the last treaty limiting the
	nuclear weapons stockpiles of the US and Russia. What Biden didn't mention is that the US for
	the last 30 years, 20 years, has been on a crusade to dismantle arms control treaties. John Bolton
	under the Bush administration.
	Pulled the U.S.
	out of the ABM Treaty, which was a vital treaty that helped prevent nuclear war.
	Then Trump came along and brought Bolton back and tore up the INF Treaty, which had eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons.
	And this has allowed the U.S.
	to build up more weapons threatening Russia.
	And Joe Biden goes before the U.N.
	and somehow says that Russia is at fault, not looking at his own government's role in dismantling all these vital arms control treaties.
	And that's just what you can do when you don't have a media that does its job, when it doesn't point out the hypocrisies, the glaring hypocrisies right in front of us.
	And so Blinken can get away with pretending that he cares about media freedom because you rarely, if ever, see him being questioned about, for example, imprisoning Julian Assange.
	It just doesn't happen.
	So in that context, when there's no accountability for him, he can say whatever he wants.
	One of the stories that I think has meant that you've incurred the ire that you have done involved an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria.
	Am I right in thinking that there's a new inquiry into whether or not there was a cover-up there, Aaron?
	Well, we've been talking a lot about how the media serves the establishment and parrots its narratives, especially when it comes to war.
	And this is, to me, You couldn't have a better example than the story of Douma in Syria.
	Because what you have basically is the US, UK, and France bombing Syria in April 2018 over allegations that Syria committed a chemical attack.
	And this came shortly after images were released from Douma of dozens of dead bodies, horrific scenes, people foaming at the mouth.
	And based on that, and based on claims from sectarian insurgents that Syria was guilty, the US government led the way in bombing Syria.
	And about a year later, the OPCW, the world's top chemical weapons watchdog, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, came out with this report saying that basically the U.S.
	narrative was correct, that Syria was responsible for this attack.
	But then we got a whole bunch of leaks from inside the OPCW showing that the investigators who went to Syria to investigate this reached the opposite conclusion.
	They actually found there was no evidence of a chemical attack.
	And if you read their reports, their leaked reports closely, you can see that they're leaving open the possibility
	that in fact this was staged on the ground by insurgents.
	But all that was censored.
	And the investigation, as we know from these leaks and from OPCW whistleblowers who have come forward,
	was compromised and doctored.
	And the media, despite these allegations and documented allegations of a coverup
	at a global chemical weapons watchdog, the media has completely censored this story.
	So now, when they still report on the Douma incident, they don't even acknowledge the existence of the OPCW whistleblowers or their leaks.
	It's like they don't exist.
	They've totally been memory-holed.
	It's a complete erasure of basic facts.
	And the reason is obvious, because once you acknowledge the OPCW whistleblowers, once you acknowledge the leaked documents that have come out, which I've reported on a lot at The Gray Zone, have also come out from Wikileaks as well, then the facts are overwhelming that there was not evidence of a chemical attack and that the investigation was censored.
	And so rather than allow people to hear about this, the media just simply erases it.
	And so now we have a new stage where a group of former diplomats, including Jose Bustani,
	who is the founding director general of the OPCW, the person who was there at the start
	of this organization, have submitted a report to the European Parliament going through the
	Duma cover-up in extensive detail.
	It's the most thorough look at this cover-up to date, and the facts are just overwhelming.
	Just to give one example, in the early stages of this OPCW probe, the team went to Germany
	to meet with some expert German toxicologists.
	And these toxicologists said, unequivocally, this could not have been a chlorine gas attack.
	And their conclusions were erased.
	And even the fact that the OPCW went and met with these German toxicologists, that was erased as well.
	So in a timeline of the investigation from the OPCW, they erased the fact that these German toxicologists were even consulted.
	And the reason is clear is because the Germans said that there was no evidence of a chemical attack.
	And one of them even said, according to leaked minutes of the meeting, that this looks like this was possibly staged on the ground.
	And so this report from what's called the Berlin Group 21, which is, again, includes Jose Bustami, the founding director general of the OPCW, also Hans von Sponek, who is a former assistant secretary general of the UN, goes through this cover up in detail.
	And again, no media coverage that I can see in the West of this.
	It's just too inconvenient to the narrative.
	But they're an example of people in the West who are determined to see accountability for this cover up, because this isn't just about an international organization being compromised to serve
	pro-war narratives. This isn't just about the U.S. and its allies bombing Syria on false
	grounds. This is about dozens of people being killed, and to this date, the investigation into
	their deaths was censored, and so we still do not know how they died.
	And so, for their sake alone, there needs to be accountability, and for that to happen, the OPCW whistleblowers need to be heard, the documented acts of censorship need to be accounted for, and these diplomats, these former diplomats, are trying to see that through.
	And I really salute their efforts, and I'm pretty sure there will be more from them and others who are concerned about this cover-up.
	It's pretty incredible, Aaron, that you're able to control, or at least observe and contain and describe and delineate all of this information in the light of ongoing, or at least in the condition of ongoing attacks and attempts to discredit.
	I know sometimes, you know, for myself, I know you've traveled extensively and you've reported from the places that you talk about as well, so it's much more experiential for you.
	I know sometimes it feels abstract to me, you know, in a sense it's the only way I can handle it is by looking at it as, hold on, this piece of information, that piece of information, look at, you know, and of course what I do is nothing like as deep as what you're engaged in.
	It's sort of much more a podria of information taken from all over the place.
	But the fact that you're able to do that so extensively and so optimistically is really encouraging.
	I don't know, how do you keep yourself together?
	How do you stop?
	What do you do when you're not thinking about this?
	How's your small talk?
	I don't.
	I take the work I do very seriously.
	I don't take myself seriously and I don't I don't think the work has anything to do with my own personality and my own ego.
	The facts are the facts, and I'm lucky enough to be in a position where I can try to do what I can to bring them out.
	I also feel strongly about these issues.
	For example, when Syria is accused of chemical attacks, that isn't just used to justify bombings of Syria, like the one that happened in April 2018.
	It's also used to justify sanctions.
	And the sanctions, we're told, are just against Assad and his government.
	In fact, it's the people of Syria exclusively who are targeted by this.
	Government officials are never, ever harmed.
	It's the people of Syria.
	And I saw that firsthand when I was there.
	So to help expose the truth on these critical matters, it's not just there to bring accountability to a cover-up, which is very serious, it's also to expose the lies that are used to justify torturing entire populations.
	Who have nothing to do with their government, who just want to be able to live.
	But unfortunately, because they live in societies controlled by governments that the U.S.
	and its allies want to overthrow, they have to suffer.
	And that motivates me a lot.
	When I went to Syria, it made me very, very angry.
	I haven't felt anger like that, except for when I was in Gaza, seeing what it's like for Palestinians living under occupation.
	And so as a privileged member of the West, I see it as my duty to try to expose the lies uh of western governments that are used to justify sadistic crimes like murderous sanctions on on civilians and none of that has anything to do with me uh i'm just in a position where i can do something about it and so i try to do that just by doing my job oh yeah you're a real journalist i get it i've uh there's not many like you there's not many like you that thing where it's like i keep myself out of it i stay with the facts but i've sort of seen it in matt taibbi and even in sort of old codger like seymour hirsch you know like that people that are like able to sort of go
	Well, I'm just giving the information.
	I'm just, you know, hey, what can I tell you?
	So there's a, what do I want to call that?
	There's a sort of stoicism in that that is very, very beautiful, very encouraging.
	Aaron, thanks very much for coming on.
	Thanks for demonstrating what journalistic integrity looks like.
	Thanks for Not dramatizing it, but expressing and conveying how serious and at times dramatic it is without becoming attached to it.
	That's sort of an important lesson in that for me there that I really appreciate.
	Thanks Aaron.
	Thanks Russell.
	Cheers man.
	You can follow Aaron's writing on his sub stack, of course, and you can support his work at The Grey Zone.
	Let's go to spot.fund.
	Again, support the work of The Grey Zone if you bloody well can.
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	We know that.
	Spot.fund forward slash defend The Grey Zone.
	Again, we'll put a link in the description to wherever you're watching this now.
	Thanks again Aaron, I appreciate this fantastic conversation.
	Tomorrow we will be joined by Dr Robert Epstein talking about how Google manipulates us and how they apparently shifted millions of votes in favour of Biden.
	Now let me be clear, we're not saying that there's been any voter corruption but there has been a manipulation and we're going to discuss that tomorrow.
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