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Oct. 27, 2023 - Stay Free - Russel Brand
51:03
“This Is A THREAT To This Country!!” Vivek Ramaswamy On Trump’s Legal Battles - Stay Free #233
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Time Text
So, I'm going to go ahead and get started.
Nevertheless, they could not understand I am a black man.
And I could never be a veteran on this race.
Brought to you by Pfizer.
So, I'm looking for this deal.
Looking for this deal.
In this video, you're going to see the future.
Hello there, you Awakening Wonders.
Thanks for joining me for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
We've got a fantastic show today.
We're talking about the increasing cancellation crisis.
Who's going to be left?
When a figure like Jon Stewart is nominated for cancellation, at least his Apple show can no longer be broadcast, does that show you that the road's getting so narrow that no one's going to be able to walk it?
Unless you had very, very narrow feet.
Maybe they've been bound up in some way.
I don't know how you'd make your feet that narrow.
The first 15 minutes of the show will be available wherever you're watching this.
Then on sweet wings of freedom we will fly to Rumble where we will speak freely with
Vivek Ramaswamy.
Vivek, excuse me, I mispronounced that a little bit.
Vivek, that's how I think it's correctly said.
Let me know in the chat, will you?
Vivek Ramaswamy.
We're going to be talking about Trump's guilty plea.
We're going to be talking about the necessity for purpose.
We're going to talk specifically about the Pfizer revelations and the use of E. coli,
stuff that we can't talk about openly on YouTube because of WHO regulations.
We're even going to talk about the pandemic treaty a little bit.
We're also going to be talking about the virus of cancellation.
Is that the true pandemic of our time?
If you want to become an awakened wonder and get out.
access to our content, join us for live interviews and discuss with me live every day the new
possibilities for changing the world. Click that red button.
It supports us, ensures that our free speech can continue and one day soon, surely we
will escalate to new realms together.
But first, let's get into our conversation with Vivek Ramaswamy.
We're going to be talking Trump, we're going to be talking purpose and we're going to
be talking Pfizer. Now, what do you feel about the recent guilty plea of Trump's former
legal advisors?
Is this the end of the road for Trump?
Is this something that's going to stick?
How do you manage to manoeuvre how that would affect you personally as one of the frontrunners for the Republican candidacy, albeit one that it's starting to seem like the party itself would prefer As with Trump before you, to malign and marginalise.
Where do you think Trump goes now?
Do you think this is a significant moment for him?
And how do you manage showing enough support for Trump, for the many people who adore him, as well as establishing a point of difference?
Well, part of the reason I've been so vocal in speaking out against these prosecutions against Trump, which I do think are politicized nonsense, is precisely because I am running for president in the same race that he is.
That gives me a special responsibility to actually say, you know what?
Would I have been as vocal on defending Trump if they weren't going after him?
Probably not, but I have a special responsibility to because these prosecutions are unjust.
We could talk about the legal mechanics of any given one of the cases.
I mean, the punchline is in each of these cases, they're using novel legal theories that have never been used in the past to stop an outcome from happening that has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with making sure that this man does not come anywhere near the White House again, which is they're using the legal system and the justice system to accomplish what is a fundamentally a political goal.
And that's a violation of the rule of law.
It's a violation of what the spirit of this country was founded on.
And that's not a threat to Trump, that's a threat to this country, is what this is.
It's a threat to every citizen and I'm keen to make sure that that is called out for what it is and hopefully cabinet is placed, which is why I've said that I would pardon Trump on day one if I'm elected.
And not just Trump, anybody else who's been a victim of a politically motivated persecution through prosecution of somebody else.
Under similar circumstances would not have been charged or would not have been punished in the same way from Douglas Mackey to Julian Assange to Edward Snowden.
You know, I've given a whole long list of people who we would go down.
Edward Snowden is a different case because he wasn't prosecuted, but the clemency of a particular kind, Ross Ulbricht I've talked about.
So we would go down the list.
Irrespective of Democrat or Republican.
But this is, I bring those names up because it's for me about more than just Trump.
It's about preserving the integrity of our justice system itself.
And so to call a spade a spade, here's what's going on.
You have a system, an establishment that has had an anaphylactic reaction to this antigen named Trump that they are Stopping at nothing to making sure that he doesn't get there.
And I truly believe they will stop at nothing to make sure that this man is stopped in his tracks.
And they're using every mechanism of the so-called justice system and every other lever they have to do it.
Now, what are some of the lessons I take away from that?
Well, look, I'm a different person from Trump.
I come from a different generation.
I've got fresh legs.
One of the lessons is we cannot make this easy for them, right?
We have to hold ourselves, that's what I'm doing in this race, to the highest possible standard at every step.
I've done that in my life so far.
I'm going to have to continue doing that from here onward to make sure that we don't create tripwires where they're able to come after us.
Look, I'm living my life and we will aspire to in the White House.
I mean, the standard I want people to hold me to is I want them to be able to look their kids in the eye and say, I want you to grow up and be like him.
I can't look my two kids in the eye and tell them you have to follow the rules if the government itself doesn't follow the rules.
But I also can't look them in the eye if I'm also saying that I'm going to hold myself to the highest standard.
I want the people of this country to hold me to that same high standard.
And so, I think if you're guided by that purpose, you look at what they will do to anybody to take them down with motivations that have nothing to do with what they're actually alleging against them.
Well, I think it's a lesson and I was grateful to be raised by two parents who instilled in this me at a young age and that puts me in a position to be able to do what we're doing now.
We have to hold ourselves to not the standard of being good, doing a good job, but it has to be impeccable.
It's just the way that it works.
It's not, it's not an even handed game.
They don't apply the same standards across the board to people who come from those who tow the party line versus those who don't.
But that's part of, part of the standard that I got to hold myself to.
And part of the sacrifice we're going to make is making sure that we play by in a good way, a different set of rules, a heightened set of rules.
And that's what we're just going to have to do to be able to see this through.
Now, conversations like this are becoming increasingly difficult because everywhere you look, cancellations are taking place.
First they came from people no one cared about, like maybe Milo or Alex Jones.
I know loads of you do care about Milo and Alex Jones.
Then the fog of cancellation crept everywhere.
Creating a crisis where no one felt they could speak freely.
Where fear reigns supreme.
How do they benefit from creating a climate of absolute fear?
Is that the climate crisis we should really be concerned about?
The climate of all pervasive terror?
Even Jon Stewart now can't speak openly on Apple because of his views on AI and China.
Here's the news?
No.
Here's the effing news.
Thank you for using Fox News.
The news.
No, here's the fucking news.
Apple are cancelling Jon Stewart.
Is it because he's critical of China, which are necessary for their manufacturing process and entire business model?
And AI, which are necessary for their entire business model?
Or is it for some other reason that's not related to money and corruption?
Now the problem is when you embark on censoring free speech, curtailing and controlling the public discourse, it seems to be a process that gathers momentum.
It's very difficult to stop.
First of all you say, well I don't like that person, they shouldn't have free speech, and it's someone like Milo or Alex Jones or whatever.
Then it ends up being more and more people that used to be mainstream, anyone?
Spring to mind.
And then at the very end of the process, well not the end of the process because I'm sure it will continue, Jon Stewart.
Valid voices that appear to be sort of respected across the political spectrum because of the work that he did with New York first responders around 9-11, he has blue collar support, he's an intelligentsia respected guy, he's a mainstream guy, he's been in movies and all that.
Now Apple, who would have seen the acquisition of Jon Stewart's show as a kind of blue chip Is that because Jon Stewart in the end is a critical thinker and will ultimately have to say stuff like, wow what's going on in China and maybe comment on the escalating tensions between the US and China and the complexity of corporate relationships that are transcendent of national boundaries and are ultimately an expression of a globalist ideology and certainly the big tech companies like Apple,
Facebook, Google, etc.
are in that transcendent big tech realm.
So ultimately you can't, can you, have a figure like Jon Stewart on your streaming service asking questions that will in the end lead to the regulation, dismantling, demonopolising of organisations like Apple.
If you start asking serious questions about Apple's business practices, you're going to come up with some answers that require intervention.
So in the end, you can't have Jon Stewart.
At least Apple can't have Jon Stewart.
They've cancelled him.
Let's have a look at that.
We worked hard on this!
Obviously they conveyed it as a sort of serious piece of punditry.
Jon Stewart, very respected for his willingness to go out on a limb and talk about the Wuhan lab leak story, for example.
He might not be on the same side of the aisle as a lot of you, but Jon Stewart, in my opinion, has a great deal of integrity.
That's why he won't be allowed on Apple for very long at all.
He's not allowed on it anymore.
But where will this end?
Let's see how the legacy media reported on this.
Jon Stewart's Apple TV show The Problem with Jon Stewart is done after two seasons.
Staff members say Stewart told them last night he and Apple executives agreed to pull the plug.
The former Daily Show host had creative control over the show, but again, according to staff members, Stewart told them the company had concerns about the subject matter for the upcoming season.
Oh, the subject matter.
I wonder what subjects matter.
The planned topics included China, Israel, and AI.
Okay.
So, John, what are you going to be talking about on the next series?
Mm-hmm.
Just one moment, please.
Have Jon Stewart killed?
Sorry, what was that?
No, I'm saying we're not making the show anymore, but God, it's been great working with you.
You're very brave.
I mean, it's not me.
I wish it was up to me.
We just can't... You know how it is, Jon.
Because remember, all of these shows and platforms have to look credible.
They have to look like they're telling you the truth.
Like, that's why when you watch regular news on CNN or BBC... Hello, it's the news.
This is serious.
This isn't just a TV show that's ultimately funded by Big Pharma.
What we're doing now is important, and I'm definitely wearing pants under this desk.
Shut up!
Apple TV Plus's esteemed talk show The Problem With Jon Stewart is reportedly drawing to a close after a fallout between the tech giant Apple and Jon Stewart himself.
The Problem With Jon Stewart is they've run out of subjects that aren't offensive to Apple's business model.
The Problem With Jon Stewart is one of the shows is about China next time.
Yeah, we can't do that because all of our products are, how do we put this delicately, made in China.
China.
Despite the show's premiere being hailed as a major success for Apple TV+, the company and the renowned ex-Daily Show host have split due to creative differences ahead of the talk show's highly anticipated third season.
That's why I think the culture has to generate issues that are divisive around which it can pick a side and just amplify that side.
And these are usually subjects which Which I think could probably be less contentious if you had a decentralised system of government where you were able to say, well, seems like you people are very in favour of this way of living and you people are in favour of this way of living.
Well, why don't you both carry on and leave each other the hell alone?
But because no one's up for that idea for some mad reason, what we have to continually have is an ongoing culture war that's unwinnable, as well as the many military wars that are also, in my view, unwinnable for us.
Unless, of course, you had some version of society where ordinary people were slaughtered en masse and autonomous machines could take over.
take over the roles but there's no suggestion that that's going on anywhere.
And if it is, you're not going to see it discussed on Apple TV, who would probably
financially benefit from such a horrific dystopia.
You have 20 seconds to comply.
The signs of a rift started to emerge as reports surfaced about Apple getting antsy over Stewart's
guest line-up on the problem with Jon Stewart.
However, the fulcrum of the controversy seems to revolve around Stewart's plan to tackle
issues such as artificial intelligence and China, which Apple reportedly flagged as contentious.
The sudden faltering of the show, which was due to start shooting soon, caught the production
team off guard.
And until they can be replaced with Apple-style robots, you can't have that show.
And also you would have to replace Jon as well.
But they're working on all of that.
Apple's fears apparently stem from the fact that the tech behemoth has a future heavily pinned to maintaining a congenial relationship with China and the tech giant bends over backwards to stand the good side of the Chinese Communist Party.
Although there's no evidence that they care about limbo dancing at all.
When it comes to censorship of content in particular, Apple is happy to oblige the Chinese government in order to compete in the Chinese market.
Do you imagine that any of these corporations that say they care about ecology, economy, social justice issues, care enough about those issues to make compromises when it comes to profit?
Until you see that, what you've got is nothing.
Part of their ingenuity were the kind of products that we all love, the brilliance.
Aren't they ergonomic?
And God, weren't they well marketed?
Inclusive, diverse, cool products that connect you across the world.
I'm on a skateboard.
I've got great hair.
But the truth is Apple don't care about any of those things I'm going to offer you.
They care actually about profit margins.
And if ever the ideology is at odds with the profit margins and the conditions of dominion that profit margins afford, they will hastily dispatch with all of their sort of rainbow-coloured exclusive livery and paraphernalia.
We'll be marched right out the door quicker than you can say Tiananmen Square.
This latest incident can be seen as an instance of corporate arm-twisting to possibly cloak any criticism or controversial discourse that might jeopardize its strategy.
Reports from The Hollywood Reporter suggest that Apple wanted the show to echo its official stance on these topics, therefore asserting the power of censorship over the freedom to openly discuss the aforementioned issues.
What's Jon Stewart supposed to do?
And now, China!
What a great country that is for workers.
And certainly there's no issue with the Uyghur population who haven't been put into concentration camps.
And certainly there's no child labour going on, which is a necessary by-product of affordable devices that are ruining your life.
Stewart didn't bow down to Apple's suppressive demands.
He chose to assert his commitment to open discourse and freedom of speech by walking away from the show rather than compromising on the content.
The Times report does not delve into specifics about why the show's planned coverage of artificial intelligence and China triggered such strong reactions in Apple's executive echelons.
However, it does underline the inherent conflict between corporate interests and the freedom of speech.
Yeah, there is an inherent conflict.
And in fact, when we talk about globalism here, we mean the conflation of these interests.
When the state and corporations are entwined to the degree that the function of the state and the execution of policy becomes determined by corporate interests and is transcendent of national sovereignty in two ways, i.e.
One, the population of a country can't prevent it, prohibit it, vote against it.
And two, it's happening in numerous countries simultaneously across the world.
And you see simultaneous legislature passed to support this evident agenda, as with the many current censorship bills brought about by the censorship industrial complex.
What you have is entirely at odds not just with free speech but with humanity itself.
Free speech is just one of those principles that we'd all agreed was a non-negotiable.
Even though we all recognize it could lead to conflict and people's feelings being hurt and listening to stuff you don't agree with.
In fact that's the whole point of it.
Once you start rolling that back and saying we trust this group to regulate free speech then You're beginning to open the door to forms of tyranny and when you see that there are institutions, entities and partnerships on this planet that have unprecedented power and a plain agenda, which is not about your protection and your service, then what you have is, yes, very much, a conflict between
It's not surprising that a tech giant like Apple would rather trim its content than jeopardise its relationship with a key market player like China, indicating a shift in power dynamics from content creators to corporate movers and shakers.
I wonder what's going to happen to Apple with the apparent escalating tensions between US corporate interests and China, the ongoing apparent amplification of stress in that region, people lobbying Rallying, even, for war and conflict in that region.
What's that going to do to those corporate interests?
Do they benefit from war?
I mean, it just presents us with a lot of questions.
Questions that Jon Stewart will not be analysing on his Apple show because Apple don't want those questions asked or discussed there.
At the time of writing, Apple has yet to give a reason for the cancellation.
Why are people assuming that the reason for Jon Stewart's show's cancellation is connected to China?
Could it be some of these reasons?
The nature of Apple's relationship with China.
As Apple and its flagship iPhone have grown to global dominance over the past two decades, much of that has come with the help of... Yeah.
Comments?
It's China.
China!
Like a certain little cold that really made its mark like Beatlemania, the problem started in China.
China!
Consider the following.
Over 95% of iPhones, AirPods, Macs and iPads are still made in China.
Oh!
In the second quarter of this year, more iPhones were sold in China than in any other country, including the US.
Oh, so it's their most important market.
Last year, about 90% of Apple's total revenue came from China!
And it was 74 billion dollars.
Okay, so there are some financial imperatives.
I mean, Apple is one of those things that's so bloody enormous we can't even really think about the scale of it.
You can't conceive of Apple.
That's why odd extraordinary stuff like the cobble mining children in the Congo, digging that stuff up, just gets kind of... that's too much to think about.
Just give me something simpler to think about where I can say I'm on this side or I'm on that side because none of us really are we are on the side of children digging for cobalt in Congo.
Well actually if you've got an iPhone you are on that side and I've got an iPhone!
One of the other contentious subjects that Jon Stewart is due to discuss and is now cancelled show is AI.
So what's the relationship between Apple and AI?
Of course their products will presumably deploy AI but is there anything else?
Apple are part of a group of Silicon Valley companies helping the Pentagon in the AI arms race.
Oh, well, just Silicon Valley and an arms race.
Nothing that heavy going on.
Just a race made out of nuclear missiles and stuff that's going to kill everyone.
Nothing that contentious.
The Pentagon Silicon Valley Defense Innovation Unit recently appointed Doug Beck, a vice president of Apple Inc., as its new director.
What?
Someone that used to work for Apple, working at the Pentagon now?
That's not what happens.
Oh, wouldn't you like to see Jon Stewart's take on that?
Yeah, I would actually.
I think Jon Stewart would be incisive, come up with some brilliant jokes about it.
Not on Apple, he doesn't.
Beck, who served in the US Navy for 26 years before joining Apple, where he reported directly to Chief Executive Tim Cook, is regarded as key to accelerating plans to bring the military and Silicon Valley close together.
Tonight, before I go to bed, I don't know about you, I pray, Lord God, will you please, please, please bring the Pentagon and Silicon Valley closer together.
Can you enmesh more big tech giants with vast, unaccountable government institutions just to ensure that people like me and my children and all the people across the world really are tyrannized into absolute terror and shame, unable to openly communicate because of the monstrosity of the state?
And thankfully, the Lord, whichever one I was praying to, appears to have answered.
Apple presents itself, doesn't it, as a very modern company.
Of course it has to do that.
It's about technology.
It's one of the companies that's used to mythologise and instantiate that living myth.
But we are moving in the right direction.
Through technology, through medicine, we're progressing.
Look at those cavemen imbeciles.
Look at those Russoian nutjobs, living in copses, gathering berries, hunting for elk, bloody fools.
We believe in the idea of progress and Apple, perhaps more than any other brand on the planet, represents that progress.
Now as long as you don't question human history or look at evidence for other civilizations or other crackpot whack job theories, that myth is a binding one.
All of us are supposed to accept that we're moving in this direction.
Things are getting better.
In spite of the evidence, crumbling institutions, increasing tensions, things are getting better.
As a modern company, Apple of course has to appeal to modern audiences, young audiences, and they have of course generated an ideology that I believe is a disingenuous One that has in it many principles that I would support, i.e.
you should be able to express yourself however you want to as long as you don't hurt other people.
Values that I think most people agree with.
But those too have become oddly contentious.
The issue that Apple has when it comes to broadcasting content or platforming content is they can't have a truth teller and critical thinker on their platform because the truth is not good from Apple's perspective.
The truth is actually quite unappealing.
And even prior to this season and the potential for hypocrisy or contradiction around Jon Stewart's potential opinions on China and AI, it was already the issue of the children labouring their minds, which is not really good for anybody.
But what other woke problems do we have?
And where does this issue of censorship end, if indeed this is a form of censorship?
Apple, one of the woke corporations, continues to use slave labour in China to make its products a 2021 report show.
Now, if you were woke, and if by woke you mean you care about moral, ethical, humanitarian issues, you probably wouldn't use slave labour, I suppose.
Executive Officer Tim Cook has categorically denied the technology firm sources from Chinese companies that use Uyghur slave labour in its production lines.
Last year he was asked directly by Congress if he could certify here today that your company does not use and will never use slave labour to manufacture your products.
Mr Cook replied, Forced labour is abhorrent and we will not tolerate it in Apple.
I agree completely.
But an investigative report from the website The Information shows seven Apple suppliers have been accused of using slave labor.
So I wonder if there'll be an investigation.
Hopefully the legacy media are even now sending hundreds of investigators over there to do thorough and talk to everyone involved.
Make sure you get to the bottom of this because, you know, because you're so humanitarian and stuff, you're not going to want slave labor going on and certainly not going to want people lying about it.
At this point, it's just an accusation.
So get investigating, guys.
The information and human rights groups found seven companies supplying device components, coatings and assembly services to Apple that are linked to alleged forced labor involving Uyghurs and other oppressed minorities in China, the report reads.
At least five of those companies received thousands of Uyghur and other minority workers at specific factory sites or subsidiaries that did work for Apple, the investigation found.
You see, in China, as in our countries, there will be loads of subcontracting to the point where it's like, I don't know.
Who did those Uyghurs work for?
It's difficult to say.
There's no paper trail.
You can't have little Andel computers going around the world getting updated every 10 bloody minutes without cracking a few Uyghurs.
That's the reality of the situation.
We all know that, and it's not even really working for us.
Is it the continual flow of commerce, commodity, and products?
It's not like, do you feel any better?
I mean, I love the phone.
It's fantastic.
Are we not losing something?
And what's clearly being lost is any ethics and morality.
What we have is the pose, the posture of morality.
We really care.
Hey, you shouldn't say that.
What do you mean you did that?
That's shameful.
We really need to address that.
Hey, it shows me on the phone.
Look, we can see all of the good work we're doing.
Where'd you get this phone?
I don't know this geezer.
What's your name, mate?
I don't need to know his name.
Some sort of little wigger.
Fuck him.
The whole thing is built on lies.
International human rights groups and the US have charged China with genocide against more than a million Uyghurs.
Bloody hell, they were actually being killed.
The minorities are sent to concentration camps.
That doesn't seem good.
Away from their homes, in many cases sterilized.
Apple!
This is not sounding very woke!
Subjected to live and work in poverty as a way for the Chinese Communist Party to cleanse them from their Islamic faith.
Something...
The information associated with other human rights groups uncovered previously unreported public statements, photos and videos by Chinese local government offices and state-run media in China, as well as with unnamed employees to back up their reporting.
People often point out when talking about dystopias the difference between George Orwell's Kind of communist version of dystopia and Aldous Huxley's pleasure-oriented, SOMA-induced stasis and slumber verses of dystopia in Brave New World.
We've obviously got over here the Brave New World version, haven't we?
Where we think we've got pleasure and devices and everything's slick and nice and people say the right words and trying their best to say the right things.
And over in China, it's a bit more George Orwell.
It's a bit more boot-in-the-face standard.
There'll be shopping bags in front of a tank.
But the fact is, dystopia is already here.
How can I make such a claim?
Well, when the pandemic happened and we saw how China were able to respond as a result of being a declared and obvious autocratic society, we first of all thought we'll never be able to do that in our countries.
But we managed just fine, didn't we?
Turns out it's pretty easy to just switch off life like that.
Stay in your homes, do as you're told.
People didn't go, no, wait a minute, we're a democracy.
Well, some people did, and those people were cancelled either then, or just a little bit down the line they found a way to cancel them.
So what this shows us is, in the end, you can't have free speech at all.
You might not like right-wing libertarian people.
You might think, ooh, I don't like them.
But the fact is, Apple are unable to platform Jon Stewart because Jon Stewart will say things that Apple cannot have said on their platform.
Not because Jon Stewart's not woke or Jon Stewart's not clever or not compassionate, but because Jon Stewart is critical of corrupt power.
In a statement to the information, Apple said that despite the restrictions of COVID-19, we undertook further investigations and found no evidence of forced labour anywhere we operate.
We will continue doing all we can to protect workers, ensure they are treated with dignity and respect.
Yet Mr Cook continually pushed back against Congress lobbying to weaken a bill it was crafting preventing U.S.
companies from using slave labor in China.
Oh, why?
Why would you do that?
That doesn't make sense.
In a December 2020 report, the Tech Transparency Project found one of Apple's most well-known iPhone suppliers was using forced Uyghur labor in its factories.
What?
That's the end of that then.
China became a key component in Apple's supply chain in the 90s and early 2000s because of the country's vast number of low-cost labourers.
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Okay let's get back into the censorship and cancellation crisis that is devouring what's left of the mainstream.
Apple seems willing to overlook China's ongoing human rights violations in order to have access to this cost-effective manufacturing base and the country's 1.4 billion consumers.
It's also willing to overlook its commitment to Jon Stewart.
I mean of course it just has And it's not even, I suppose, like I'm really blaming Apple.
Apple's just the system.
Apple is in itself a projection of a set of ideals.
No?
Apple came about as a result of some ideologies that are not regulated or not controlled or not pushed back on because of ideas like centralisation, globalisation, progressivism, materialism and rationalism.
This is housed in a philosophy that I would say should be as open to interrogation as any particular religious ideology.
You might say, we want to form the world according to Judaic law or Christian law.
Or Islamic law.
And you go, well hang on a minute, should we look at this?
Because rationalism and materialism have to be judged according to their results.
And the results are in.
And they ain't looking that good.
Global war.
Massive corporations that lie and don't own the fact that they require slavery.
Products that appear to be contributing to demoralizing and demonizing our consciousness.
Is there a better way?
Is there a different way?
Can we attack it, critique it, or even discuss it?
Not on Apple, you can't!
Apple has a history of cowering to the Chinese Communist Party.
In 2019, Apple removed HKMap.live, an application pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong were using to track police from its App Store.
Wired reported around the same time that Apple began hiding the Taiwan flag from users in Hong Kong and Macau, reinforcing the CCP's One China policy.
Additionally, Apple told some of its television producers to avoid portraying China in a negative light in their productions, as not to anger the CCP, BuzzFeed News detailed.
Look, we all have alliances.
We all have sponsors.
I mean, you won't see me saying, stick a mule of bad guys anytime soon.
But you have to wonder what the consequences are when stuff's happening on a global scale.
That's why what we need are independent media, demonopolized big tech organization, decentralized government.
The more these things coalesce and come together, the more damage they do while continuing to claim to serve you We pass on the savings to the consumer.
What savings?
We pass on the dead Uyghurs to the consumer.
I don't want them.
Moreover, to comply with CCP, Apple removed the New York Times and other private networks from its Chinese App Store and began storing Chinese iCloud accounts in China, making it easier for the government to potentially obtain information on its citizens, Wired reported.
I wonder if they cooperate with other...
Yeah, Apple wants Americans to believe it's woke, virtuous, and promotes a just world for everybody.
It's probably about as true as Coca-Cola is youthful.
Coca-Cola is delicious.
Apple products are great.
But they're not anything else than that.
They are not any kind of ideal.
That connection we're making in our own mind and we have to stop making it because the facts are Uyghurs are likely used for slave labor, children are mining for cobalt, not just for Apple but for other smartphones too, and Jon Stewart, he's a real victim here, is not able to openly express his opinions on China or AI because it would be at odds with Apple's ideology and that is obviously frivolous compared to the exploitation of children or Genocide, but it is one of the components in the kind of globalism that we're continually critiquing here.
You have no power.
You cannot trust the media.
You cannot trust the judiciary.
You cannot trust the state.
They will do anything they can to prevent you from mobilizing and awakening and opposing their systems of power up to and including cancelling any dissenting voice.
Mr Cook issued a statement in support of Black Lives Matter, promising to push progress forward on inclusion and diversity, so that every great idea could be heard.
Saying the company would donate to groups like the Equal Justice Initiative, which challenge racial injustice and mass incarceration.
How bitterly hypocritical.
Do you feel sometimes we live in a system where they just say stuff that's easy to say, that anyone who's actually a dissenting voice is immediately vilified and shut down?
Where is the evidence of anyone having real principles in these organizations?
That's why when people gag Donald Trump, you don't immediately go, oh, he must have been saying some things that are so powerful that people don't want him to... You can't have any trust in these institutions anymore.
Because you see now the modality, the mentality, the morality, the lack of ethics that undergirds their entire model.
Big tech and big tech organizations benefit from global centralization.
The state benefits from global centralization.
None of them benefit from you becoming awakened and empowered and able to make your own decisions for your health, for your loved ones, for building community.
Your freedom is their problem.
And through the media, they will amplify the agenda of the powerful and close down dissent.
They will narrow the bandwidth of your possibilities as much as they possibly can, so that you're unable to be discerning, so that you're unable to awaken, so that you're unable to form alliances with other people who are basically just the same as you.
Despite their cultural values or their religious values, we have more in common with one another than we do, obviously, than an organization like Apple that will do whatever is necessary to maintain favorable relationships with China, including Let me know what you think in the chat.
just because there's a risk that they might say something that they don't like.
But that's just what I think. Let me know what you think in the chat. See you in a second.
Let me know in the chat how you feel about the increasing power of cancellation culture while we continue our
conversation with Vivek Ramaswamy.
Is he the solution?
Is bipartisan politics the solution?
Or do we need independent thinkers and independent media to come together to oppose this system?
Back to Vivek Ramaswamy.
Now, given that a lot of your experience was gleaned in the pharmaceutical industry, and as I've said already in this conversation when we spoke previously, you outlined how you were, in a sense, an antagonist in that world rather than a kind of Moderna or Pfizer player.
I wonder what you feel about recent revelations that the vaccine, the Pfizer vaccine specifically, given to the public was different from the one tested in clinical trials.
And that included the use of E. coli in terms of its plasmic component, and other undisclosed components, including SV40, which is a cancer-promoting component.
I wonder what you feel these ongoing revelations, whether it's this one or the myocarditis, pericarditis is bad for you stuff, and let's throw in the Wuhan lab leak theory versus the wet market.
What do you think America and the world have learned during the pandemic period about authoritarianism, about the role of the media amplifying propagandist messaging that facilitates the powerful?
And how would you ensure nothing like that ever happened again, particularly with the WHO marching forward with a treaty that could mean that they demand five percent of the health budget of any member nation?
What do you think about that, Vivek?
It's unbelievable.
So, a lot there.
A couple things.
One is, there is no doubt, I mean, there's not a debate, there's not a point that any sensible person can rebut, okay?
There is no doubt that the FDA used dramatically differential standards To usher in the approval of the COVID vaccines compared to any other vaccine or any other medicine that otherwise is held to different exacting standards.
And I'm a right-to-try absolutist, Russell.
What does that mean?
It means that just because the FDA hasn't approved it doesn't mean that you or I or anybody else in this country shouldn't be able to take it.
We should be able to make an informed choice ourselves.
But the other part of right-to-try is the right not to try.
Just because they have forced it through a process using unprecedented standards through it doesn't mean that you should ever in any circumstance be forced to take it.
So I'm a right to try absolutist in both directions and there is no doubt that they use differential standards to push this through.
The same FDA that says you cannot even try a vaccine or a medication that has not been through 10 plus years of testing and been through the same process and you know in the world of biotech there's this old adage process is product so even if the process varies slightly there are other kinds of cases where the FDA says nope 10 more years you can't bring that to market they apply differential standards here that is wrong and we have to admit that or else you're going to be reliable you're going to be vulnerable to make the same mistakes again in the future as a matter of policy you know i think we got to look to the future but how do you correct the past
Vaccine manufacturers have somehow gotten away with a crony capitalist privilege of saying that unlike other product manufacturers, who if you harm a consumer, you can be sued, somehow in this case, these vaccine manufacturers have a special shield of liability, the product of lobbying, no doubt, that says that those vaccine manufacturers can't be sued for product liability.
That's a different set of rules.
I will strip that.
That's one of the, I need Congress to do it, but I will push that through and Congress and We're going to get Congress to come along on that.
Strip back that crony capitalist privilege that allows these actors to act with impunity.
That's wrong.
That's just one example.
It's not an end-all be-all solution, but it's an easy thing we can do.
What are the lessons we've learned?
It's during times of crisis.
I mean, it applies to the earlier part of the discussion we were having relating to war.
It's during times of crisis or so-called crisis.
That we need to protect free speech and open debate the most.
I don't think we would have shut down the schools or the economy if we had been allowed to debate in the lockdowns.
I don't think we would have waited two, three years to slowly, carefully admit that that virus came from a lab in Wuhan, that it was a man-made virus.
We would have known that sooner if you had been allowed to say.
That it was a virus made in a lab.
I don't think that the vaccine mandates would have withstood public scrutiny if you had been actually allowed to debate it on the merits, including both the risks included.
So that's one of the key lessons is free speech is not meant for the easy times.
It's meant for the hard times.
That's who needed to defend it most.
And that relates to the merits of the wars that we're sleepwalking our way into as the United States and beyond.
And then you raise a question about institutions like the WHO.
This one's easy.
If you are hostile to the sovereignty of the United States of America, then I will not use our dollars to fund you.
We will defund the WHO.
Hell no is the answer to the WHO.
And the answer as well is, we will also, by the way, bring zero-based budgeting to any source of funding.
And foreign aid, so-called aid, in places like Central America or other parts of the world.
No, we will ask what advances the US interest if we're using US dollars to fund it.
The WHO does not advance US interest, so we're not gonna fund it.
But I'm gonna bring that mentality of zero-based budgeting to the deep state abroad.
I mean, that's what these multi-lateral international three-letter agencies are.
But that's what the three-letter agencies are here in the United States.
The SEC, to the FTC, to the FDA, to the CDC, to the God knows what, to the FBI, to the Department of Education, will apply that same standard, zero-based budgeting.
And I do think from a You know, there's certain people that are too incompetent to do it this way.
I think the antidote to that is you need somebody who has been a CEO, who has actually built successful things, stood up to bureaucracies in the private sector, successfully created real value to be the one who does it.
But certain people in there are plenty smart to do it, but they're corruption captured by financial forces.
And you got to make sure that you have somebody who's at least independent of those financial forces to be able to do the same thing.
And so that's the kind of leaders I think it's going to take.
And I think it's a A benefit, Russell, to also have leaders from a different generation that, in some ways, haven't been captured by the same muscle memory of the last 30 years, or the last 130 years, for that matter.
I think that we have to break away from some of this as neither corruption nor incompetence, but as just habit.
And I think it's important that we get to truth.
It's easy to pin the tail on any one of these things.
They say it's all incompetence or it's all just corruption.
These are important parts of the story, but some of it is just habit and muscle memory, inertia, momentum in a direction that you happen to have gone.
And so it's all of these things, right?
And so there's no silver bullet.
There's temptations that we might have to say there's one silver bullet to a complex pathology.
The reality is there's a complex set of forces that account for why we are where we are.
And I think it behooves us not to fall in love with our favorite solution and to pin the entire thing on that donkey's tail.
We've got to see the whole thing for what it is.
It's a combination of inertia, a combination of laziness, a combination of outright levels of stupidity that you could not imagine combined with a level of cynical corruption that fuels the machine.
And it's all of the above.
And so I think when we think about what leaders lead us forward, you've got to see that problem for what it is before, you know, imagining that there's some silver bullet.
There's not.
It's going to be a plethora of partial solutions.
That's how we get there.
In a way, you're already bringing about revolutionary perspectives and revolutionary conversation.
And even in fact, on an essential level, your energy and To a degree, Persona are bringing some necessary radicalism, certainly into their Republican primary process, and hopefully it goes further than that.
Do you feel that... These are a few things I'd like to put before you before we wrap this up, and thank you for all of your time today, Vivek.
Do you think that some important components for a genuine advance to occur are, one, Decentralisation wherever possible, or federalism as it's known in your country, i.e.
the role of governors and mayors, where possible people should have a maximum amount of power.
And do you think it's important that independent thinkers and people with a different perspective enter politics to ensure that these Atrophying institutions are boosted and what advice would you offer and what warnings would you offer to anyone thinking, who's not from a conventional political background, if they're thinking of entering into that space?
What are the risks?
What challenges will you face?
So, the answer to your question is yes.
People who view public service as service, rather than as a career, I think are critical to fixing the system.
Okay?
No doubt about it.
Now, the advice that I would give is this.
Decentralization, I mean, that's baked into the U.S.
Constitution.
Thankfully, other countries don't benefit from this quite as much, but it could help other countries and other Western democracies just as much.
But in the U.S., we have this thing called the Tenth Amendment.
The power not reserved to the federal government is reserved respectively to the states and to the people.
So, the vision is the least possible power should be concentrated in the federal government, then more to the states, then more to local communities, and then ultimately to the people itself.
We've inverted that pyramid.
Inverted back in the direction of total decentralization.
All else equal, that's the right way to go.
And I think it's a good model to bring to other countries as well.
Even if they don't have a 10th Amendment, other countries can at least have governors, mayors, etc.
that bring that vision and I think will speak to people in a way that I think is an untapped opportunity.
So, that would be the positive advice that I'd give you, both in the United States or any other country that you're in.
Now, my advice, cautionary advice along the way, and this will be an interesting maybe note to close on, Russell.
I've got a campaign event I'm rolling to from here, and maybe I'll talk to them about this.
You got my juices flowing here.
I think I will talk to them about this, actually.
It's pertinent.
Here's my caution, okay?
We've spent a lot of this conversation, I spent a lot of my time talking about the powers that be, the woke industrial complex, the merger of state power and corporate power, the top-down version of this problem, and it exists.
But if you want to use a scriptural analogy, right, it's sort of when the Israelites escape the Pharaoh, okay, in the book of Exodus, they're wandering in the desert, lost in the wilderness, yet to find their promised land.
What do they say?
They say, we want to go back and be ruled by the Pharaoh.
In some ways, we are spending our time here talking about half the problem.
That is the Pharaoh of our time.
Everything we've talked about would fall in that category.
I'm not going to rehash it.
But there's another half to this.
What is it that makes us want, as a people, makes us want to bend the knee?
The great uprising only works if the populace is actually up for it.
But there's half of us.
And I say us.
I'm not blaming other people for this.
I'm including all of us in this.
There's something inside each of us that also, a side of us, that makes us want to bend the knee.
The sheep inside each of us.
And so my concern and my insecurity here, I think it's worth putting on the table, is not that we, the people, are going to fail to be successful.
And I'm not looking to lead a revival of the American Revolution.
Others in other countries in the modern West can look to do the same thing.
Others here in the United States can do the same thing.
It's not that we can't be successful.
It's actually the long hard look in the mirror that when push comes to shove are the people who are on our side of the great uprising against their great reset.
The most powerful force may also be the force within that when push comes to shove causes you to make you want to bend the knee.
And I think that this is a deeper, more philosophical discussion.
If you lose faith, patriotism, hard work, family, pride, self-confidence at the same time, you're going to bend the knee to something.
If it's not COVIDism, it's climatism.
If it's not climatism, it's Zelenskiyism.
If it's not Zelenskiyism, it's World War IIIism, broadly.
You're going to bend the knee to something.
And I think that's the real risk in this.
People can find every excuse not to get behind the vision that I'm articulating to be able to say that, okay, well, I was in it part way, but then we, you know, find some excuse, whatever it might be to say that, Hey, we're not going to go that direction.
That I think is at least as big of a risk.
The inner, Israelite lost in the desert within each of us, right?
The inner force that causes us to want to bend the knee, that is how this ends, maybe.
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
And I think that that would be my cautionary note to any leader who's looking to do the same thing.
Yes, it's going to take people coming from outside the establishment to win this war.
But make sure that you're rising to the occasion to fill that vacuum of purpose and meaning enough that make sure that when you look back, you still have the people that you thought were following you, following you at every step of the way.
And for me, you're catching me midway through that journey.
So let's have this conversation in eight, nine months and we'll see where we stand.
My heart says we're going to be successful, but that's incumbent on me as a leader and anybody else who takes this cause up to make sure that it's not just the eye on The forces that be, that's where we're taking our aim to be sure.
But there's a force within each of us, within every one of us as citizens that makes us want to bend the knee as well.
And the story is incomplete until we actually answer that question of what is it that makes us want to pledge allegiance to that different flag or that different God, the climate God or whatever COVID God or whatever new God they foist on us.
That psychological spiritual battle is really half the story too.
Vivek, thank you so much.
I hope I know you for a long time.
I hope that you do well in this presidential campaign.
I'm wishing you the best.
Thank you so much for your generosity with your time, your generosity with your vision, your open-mindedness, and your fantastic and always enjoyable discourse.
Thank you, Vivek Ramaswamy, and I wish you all the best in the ongoing campaign, mate.
You can follow and support Vivek's presidential campaign by going to vivek, that's v-i-v-e-k, 2024.com.
We'll post the link in the description.
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