Rebel News Podcast - December 01, 2021


EZRA LEVANT ｜ I’m worried about our freedom to say what we mean online. I’ll give you two new facts to consider.


Episode Stats

Length

39 minutes

Words per Minute

160.76054

Word Count

6,330

Sentence Count

512

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

11


Summary

Ezra LeVant asks the question: Which social media companies are the worst censors? And why do they stifle our freedom to say what we mean online? Plus, what's up with Amazon and Mark Zuckerberg?


Transcript

00:00:00.240 Tonight, I'm worried about our freedom to say what we mean online.
00:00:04.200 I'll give you two new facts to consider.
00:00:06.740 It's November 30th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
00:00:11.680 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:00:15.420 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:00:19.440 The only thing I have to say to the government of a wire publisher
00:00:22.860 is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:00:30.000 Which social media company is the worst censor?
00:00:34.020 Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Amazon?
00:00:37.980 It's a trick question. They're all terrible.
00:00:41.100 In the weeks before the 2020 U.S. presidential election,
00:00:44.900 Twitter suspended the account of the New York Post,
00:00:47.160 one of America's oldest newspapers,
00:00:49.820 because they published a completely true story about Hunter Biden's laptop.
00:00:54.600 He's the son of Joe Biden, who was then running for the president.
00:00:58.180 The laptop was not stolen.
00:00:59.720 It was legally obtained, and neither Hunter Biden nor his dad's campaign claimed it was a fake.
00:01:05.760 It was real, and it was insane.
00:01:10.400 Pictures, videos of Hunter Biden with prostitutes doing drugs,
00:01:13.820 just absolutely crazy, crazy pictures of him in absurd and compromising situations.
00:01:19.500 That's scandalous, and perhaps it reflects a bit on Joe Biden as a father.
00:01:24.560 But you could arguably say a son's criminal conduct is not on his father's head.
00:01:29.720 I ask you what the media would have done if such a laptop featured Donald Trump Jr.
00:01:35.880 and had been found.
00:01:37.140 But put aside the personal peccadilloes.
00:01:39.140 The emails in that laptop talked about million and billion-dollar deals with foreign governments.
00:01:45.760 Russia, Ukraine, China.
00:01:48.720 What would such a louche man be doing with billion-dollar deals with foreign companies and countries?
00:01:54.440 I mean, what would you hire Hunter Biden to do for you?
00:01:58.200 What skills does he have other than procuring prostitutes and drugs?
00:02:03.760 The answer is he's his father's son, and he's happy to sell access to the big guy, as he called his dad in his emails.
00:02:11.860 10% for the big guy.
00:02:13.740 That was on one email.
00:02:15.900 Suggested his dad got a cut of the action.
00:02:18.020 I don't know if Joe Biden took 10% of his son's haul.
00:02:23.020 I find it believable.
00:02:25.100 What was Hunter Biden doing on an Air Force jet with his dad going to China in the first place?
00:02:30.960 Why was he on that plane?
00:02:33.200 Why did a Chinese group give him a monster contract right after that flight?
00:02:37.860 You'd think the media should investigate.
00:02:39.860 Twitter stopped all that and possibly threw the election to Biden because of it.
00:02:46.000 So yeah, that's Twitter.
00:02:46.760 If you misgender someone, that is, you call this fellow a fellow, you get suspended on Twitter.
00:02:53.340 If you deadname someone, that is, if you call this fellow Jonathan instead of Jessica, you get suspended on Twitter.
00:03:01.060 Donald Trump was suspended permanently, but the Ayatollahs of Iran, the Taliban of Afghanistan, they're on Twitter.
00:03:07.920 Most dictators are, including an army of Chinese propagandists, which is odd considering Twitter isn't allowed in China itself.
00:03:15.620 That's weird.
00:03:16.540 So that's Twitter.
00:03:19.240 Then, of course, there's YouTube.
00:03:20.660 We know a bit about them.
00:03:21.920 They treated us like royalty in 2016 when we were Canada's fastest growing news channel.
00:03:28.460 But then in 2017, they decided to stop us.
00:03:32.160 They decided to conserve YouTube.
00:03:34.040 It's why Trump won.
00:03:35.000 And so they throttled every conservative site in the world, including us.
00:03:38.860 And they demonetized many of the sites, cutting our revenues back by 85 percent in just one month.
00:03:45.880 In the spring, they just cut it down to zero.
00:03:47.740 No explanation.
00:03:48.760 No warning.
00:03:49.420 No appeal.
00:03:50.780 I'll tell you the explanation.
00:03:51.900 It's because YouTube, which is owned by Google, is a far-left-wing campaign group.
00:03:57.540 Just a reminder, here are their senior executives in a funereal staff meeting a few days after Trump was elected in 2016.
00:04:05.740 History teaches us that there are periods of populism, of nationalism that rise up.
00:04:11.380 And that's all the reason we need to be in the arena.
00:04:14.100 Facebook is perhaps the worst.
00:04:16.720 Of all the tech oligarchs, Mark Zuckerberg is the least human, the most sociopathic.
00:04:22.720 Obviously, I don't believe that he's actually a lizard.
00:04:25.300 But the reason so many people say it is that he lacks normal human emotions.
00:04:30.180 He always has, ever since his Harvard days.
00:04:33.600 And his plans for society are terrifying.
00:04:36.480 Hey, are you coming?
00:04:38.300 Yeah, just got to find something to wear.
00:04:44.100 All right.
00:04:47.100 Perfect.
00:04:51.840 Oh, hey, Mark.
00:04:52.680 Hey, what's going on?
00:04:53.480 Hi, Mark.
00:04:54.160 What's up, Mark?
00:04:55.080 Whoa, we're floating in space?
00:04:56.600 And then, of course, there's Amazon.com, one of the biggest companies out there that has doubled in value because of the lockdowns.
00:05:05.540 They love the lockdowns.
00:05:07.040 They were already winning the competitive war against local retailers anyway.
00:05:11.020 So then, surprise, politicians outlawed local retailers for a year, and many of them haven't come back.
00:05:17.620 That's good news for Amazon.
00:05:19.260 May I remind you that Amazon, which so dearly wants to break into China, suspended my book, China Virus, because they said it contradicted official views about the virus.
00:05:30.160 They never had answered our lawyers' questions.
00:05:32.720 Did they mean American officials or Amazon officials or officials in the Chinese Communist Party?
00:05:38.720 All these titans are obsessed with China.
00:05:43.440 Did you know that Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, besides learning to speak Chinese, which I think is probably a good idea, did you know he actually asked the Chinese dictator, Xi Jinping, to name his own daughter?
00:05:56.800 Xi Jinping's daughter, who would do that?
00:06:00.080 What sort of emotionless lizard would turn something as personal and intimate and familial as naming your own child and giving that as some sort of weird gift, a lobbying gift, a bribe to a foreign politician and say, I'll let you name my own baby?
00:06:19.560 Xi Jinping is a murderer and a tyrant, but even he thought that was just too weird, and he declined.
00:06:26.300 Did you know that story?
00:06:27.480 That's true.
00:06:29.880 So who's the worst?
00:06:31.660 Well, they're all awful.
00:06:32.760 I think Jack Dorsey, the boss of Twitter, threw the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
00:06:37.400 It would be like someone breaking Watergate, but then the printing presses refusing to run the stories in the Washington Post, just refusing to print the newspaper.
00:06:45.820 That's the modern-day equivalent to Twitter deciding they know better than the New York Post about a blockbuster story.
00:06:51.960 And yet, every once in a while, Jack Dorsey of Twitter showed at least some self-awareness.
00:06:57.820 Not that it was worth a tinker's damn, but he later apologized for the Hunter Biden laptop censorship.
00:07:03.560 He said it was a mistake.
00:07:04.600 Whoopsies, teehee.
00:07:05.880 It was worthless, really.
00:07:06.980 But the fact that he did later admit it was wrong was much more than that lizard that Facebook would do.
00:07:13.540 Of course, he was a woke Democrat.
00:07:15.520 Kooky, too, going for the full Rasputin look.
00:07:18.760 But underneath that cult leader exterior was an ember, even if it was a dying ember, of someone who once upon a time believed that the Internet should be free.
00:07:26.920 So he quit yesterday.
00:07:30.640 He has other projects.
00:07:31.780 He's smart, and he's rich, and he's famous.
00:07:33.260 He can do whatever he wants.
00:07:34.840 He's a builder.
00:07:35.860 He was a founder of Square, a payment processor.
00:07:39.160 He liked cryptocurrency.
00:07:41.020 He's not done yet, but Twitter remains.
00:07:43.580 And like it or not, and whether you're on it or not, it is the central political communications tool in Canada, America, the U.K., Australia, other countries, too.
00:07:53.360 It's the public square.
00:07:55.040 It's the town hall.
00:07:55.960 It's the community bulletin board.
00:07:57.240 It's Speaker's Corner.
00:07:59.420 Except it's a private public square, isn't it?
00:08:01.820 It's not owned by the public or by the government.
00:08:04.240 It's owned by a company.
00:08:05.720 And as I mentioned earlier, they've started banning you from saying things, not illegal things like death threats or fraud.
00:08:12.200 There are kinds of speech that are banned in the world.
00:08:14.740 Extortion, for example.
00:08:17.480 I'm not talking about the actual crimes with words.
00:08:19.420 I'm talking about feelings, things that people find offensive.
00:08:23.140 And for some reason, all the censorship seems to point in the same direction.
00:08:28.380 It's always censorship of the right by the left.
00:08:31.600 Tell me one instance to the contrary.
00:08:33.420 And so the saying goes, better the devil you know, because let me introduce you to Jack Dorsey's successor.
00:08:39.800 As the CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal is his name.
00:08:44.080 He was born and raised in India and, as an adult, moved to America.
00:08:47.840 Now, India is a democracy, of course, part of the British Commonwealth.
00:08:50.940 And it's an ally, but to be blunt about it, and I'd say the same as someone from France or Germany, it's not the country of the First Amendment.
00:09:00.600 It's not the first country that comes to mind when you say the word freedom and civil liberties.
00:09:05.360 I say it's better than most, better than China, for example.
00:09:08.460 But free speech isn't the same as other values.
00:09:10.740 It's easy to believe in capitalism.
00:09:13.060 It's easy to believe in the free market.
00:09:14.460 That's just about getting rich, getting money.
00:09:16.040 Everyone couldn't believe in that.
00:09:18.040 But only some cultures place a very high value on speech, including offensive speech and the right to it.
00:09:24.940 And in case you're wondering, in case you're in any doubt, I'm here to tell you that Canada is not particularly encouraging on that front either.
00:09:32.220 I'd say we're about where India is.
00:09:34.380 Do you disagree?
00:09:36.320 But I'm not judging Parag Agrawal based on his country of origin.
00:09:39.700 There are many outstanding free speech activists in America and Canada who come from unfree or only partly free countries.
00:09:48.240 One of the leading free speech activists in America is from India herself.
00:09:52.440 They come to America precisely to be free.
00:09:54.520 My observation is that the most freedom-oriented people fighting lockdowns in the West right now, many of them have fled from communism, either from Asia or Europe.
00:10:03.420 And they see the same seeds of it now.
00:10:06.160 But Parag Agrawal didn't come to be free, really.
00:10:10.320 He came to get rich, and free speech isn't really a priority for him.
00:10:14.200 Here's what he said when asked about the subject just last year.
00:10:18.200 I'll read it to you.
00:10:19.700 He was at a conference, and he was being interviewed on stage.
00:10:23.360 He was asked, you're caught in a bit of a hard place, as somebody in the audience is also pointing out.
00:10:29.860 You're trying to combat misinformation.
00:10:32.460 You also want to protect free speech as a core value, and also in the U.S. as the First Amendment.
00:10:38.120 How do you balance those two?
00:10:39.700 And here's what he said.
00:10:41.240 He said, our role is not to be bound by the First Amendment, but our role is to serve a healthy public conversation, and our moves are reflective of things, as we believe lead to a healthier public conversation.
00:10:52.480 Okay, so he gets to judge whether a conversation is healthy.
00:10:57.880 He's the judge, right?
00:10:59.140 The kind of things that we do about this is focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.
00:11:08.380 Focusing less on free speech as in, they're thinking too much about freedom right now?
00:11:13.920 He seriously said that.
00:11:15.260 One of the changes today that we see is speech is easy on the Internet.
00:11:22.400 Most people can speak.
00:11:23.520 Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard.
00:11:26.980 The scarce commodity today is attention.
00:11:29.180 There's a lot of content out there, a lot of tweets out there.
00:11:31.720 Not all of it gets attention.
00:11:33.380 Some subset of it gets attention.
00:11:35.640 And so increasingly, our role is moving towards how we recommend content, and that sort of is a struggle that we're working through in terms of how we make sure these recommendation systems that we're building, how we direct people's attention, is leading to a healthy public conversation that is most participatory.
00:11:53.880 So he's saying right there some about freedom.
00:11:57.460 His role is to boost his friends and suppress his foes to make sure the right people are participating in the conversation.
00:12:04.340 That's exactly what he means.
00:12:06.100 That's shadow banning his opponents.
00:12:07.780 That's making his friends go viral.
00:12:10.260 Sometimes it's brutal to watch, like how they banned New York Post and the Hunter Biden laptop.
00:12:15.000 Most of it, though, is quite subtle, like what shows up in your Twitter feed and what doesn't.
00:12:20.380 Like what is hidden, what you think you've published to the world, but literally no one else saw it but you.
00:12:27.720 That's Parag Agrawal's idea of freedom.
00:12:30.180 Freedom for his friends, censorship for his enemies.
00:12:35.240 Come to think of it, I retract everything I said about India.
00:12:38.620 As you can see, India itself doesn't much like Twitter's style of selective free speech.
00:12:43.720 They've banned the app themselves several times for interfering in their domestic affairs.
00:12:48.540 So, yeah, do you think Twitter is about to get better or worse under their new CEO?
00:12:56.160 And then there's this little bump in the road.
00:12:58.080 You know, we have a lot of website domains, right?
00:13:00.560 Like fightthefinds.com or rebelinvestigates.com.
00:13:04.040 We actually have over a thousand different domain names.
00:13:07.140 People laugh about that, but there's just a really simple reason.
00:13:10.700 It makes it easy for people to remember them and to find them.
00:13:13.940 Instead of saying something like, go to rebelnews.com slash fightthefinds.html, we just say, go to fightthefinds.com.
00:13:22.800 We actually have a thousand different domain names for seven years.
00:13:26.080 We've bought them from GoDaddy.
00:13:27.660 That's a domain registry company.
00:13:30.300 They actually call us a VIP customer because we have so many.
00:13:33.680 No problems.
00:13:34.520 Easy to deal with.
00:13:35.620 Until yesterday, when they simply deleted a website.
00:13:40.740 Poof.
00:13:41.240 It's gone.
00:13:42.760 They just deleted it.
00:13:45.240 And it was this page.
00:13:47.520 Killthebill.com.au.
00:13:49.460 A massive petition against the Lockdown Emergency Powers Bill in Victoria, Australia.
00:13:55.160 And what a coincidence.
00:13:57.040 The page was deleted on the day of the vote.
00:14:00.740 Here, Avi did a story about it.
00:14:02.140 Take a look for a bit.
00:14:02.900 Here's a few minutes.
00:14:03.580 The bill puts Victoria into essentially a permanent state of emergency and gives Andrews dictator-like powers.
00:14:10.840 He's been abusive with the powers he already has.
00:14:13.960 With his new bill, he'll be even more like his friends in the Chinese Communist Party.
00:14:21.000 It's why hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters have taken to the streets in Melbourne over the past few weeks.
00:14:27.840 But suddenly, on the eve of the vote, that website was just turned off.
00:14:34.220 You can see the whole video on our YouTube page.
00:14:36.960 I recommend it.
00:14:37.840 So seven years, thousand domain names, no problem ever.
00:14:42.240 VIP client until one day, a complainant, so obviously someone from the government down there, demands that the website, a petition website, a peaceful protest, be deleted.
00:14:52.600 And it just was.
00:14:53.560 Today, they did that to killthebill.com.au.
00:14:57.460 What if they do that tomorrow to, I don't know, rebelnews.com itself?
00:15:00.960 We've hired the top media lawyer in Australia to get on it, but in the meantime, the site was taken down.
00:15:08.980 How long will a lawsuit take?
00:15:10.820 Weeks, months, years?
00:15:13.820 Sometimes I think we're winning.
00:15:16.260 Sometimes I think we'll get freer, that technology will be our liberator.
00:15:20.380 Sometimes I think we're getting less free, and that technology will be our prison warden.
00:15:24.820 Yesterday felt like losing.
00:15:29.640 Stay with us for more.
00:15:43.580 Well, there are about 200 countries in the world, and some of the smallest countries in the world are in the Pacific Ocean.
00:15:52.200 Have you ever heard of Kiribati or Nauru or Tuvalu?
00:15:59.040 Those are all independent countries.
00:16:00.320 You've probably heard of Tuvalu.
00:16:01.460 That's where the .TV internet suffix comes from.
00:16:06.280 Well, one of the smallest countries in the world by population is the Solomon Islands, but it's still a country, and it's still diplomatically and politically valuable.
00:16:16.520 So if you are China, and you're trying to grow your sphere of influence, what's a few hundred million dollars to you?
00:16:24.760 That's quite a bit to the Solomon Islands.
00:16:26.720 Imagine outright bribing an entire country, even if it's a little one, to cut ties with Taiwan and endorse a new alliance with China.
00:16:39.640 Surely the PR value, the diplomatic value, the momentum value, even just for domestic propaganda, is worth more than the $700 million or so that China purportedly gave to the country.
00:16:53.920 Well, I'm shocked that this has not been more widely reported, but I'm equally delighted and proud that our own Rebel News published this story by the hand of our Sydney-based writer, Alexandra Marshall, who joins me now via Skype from Sydney, very early morning over there.
00:17:15.960 Well, Alexandra, Alexandra, I'm so proud that we are publishing this work.
00:17:19.840 I hope I introduced it satisfactorily.
00:17:22.260 Why don't you take it from here?
00:17:23.920 Tell us a little bit more about this China-Solomon Islands deal and what's happened in the country since that shocking move.
00:17:32.860 Oh, look, you did a beautiful job.
00:17:34.460 So, what we really have here is what's being painted as a civil war and a civil unrest, but it's actually about China growing its sphere of influence across the Pacific Ocean.
00:17:46.040 And what's happened is normally it goes into a little island and it basically does debt trap politics where it gives the island a lot of money and the island gets itself into trouble and can't make the repayments on it.
00:17:59.080 But the Solomon Islands, they did the same thing.
00:18:02.160 The president there, it made a $730 million deal with China on the proviso that it cut ties with Taiwan.
00:18:08.940 Now, Taiwan had been very good to the Solomon Islands and most of the Solomon Islands really loved their relationship with Taiwan.
00:18:14.640 They helped them through the pandemic and they provided them all kinds of assistance.
00:18:17.960 And so, the largest area, the largest province in the Solomon Islands has rebelled against the government and has started this civil unrest to fight back against Chinese influence in their region.
00:18:31.820 And so, we're seeing a period of violence and protesting happening in Solomon Islands, but it's really a flashpoint of China's ever-expanding empire as it tries to control the whole of the Pacific region for the purposes of cutting off the Malacca Strait.
00:18:47.960 And, yeah, so Australia is in a very difficult position.
00:18:50.520 We have a couple of choices.
00:18:51.660 We can either do nothing and see how this plays out, or we can go and try and stabilize the situation, which is what our prime minister is doing.
00:18:59.200 Now, the problem is stabilizing the situation in the Solomon Islands essentially means helping China to secure its influence.
00:19:06.620 And that is where we're at right now.
00:19:08.840 Very interesting.
00:19:10.100 I was shocked to learn that this stimulated an independence referendum in part of Solomon Islands.
00:19:17.240 I honestly don't know much about the Solomon Islands.
00:19:19.780 I think it's pretty small.
00:19:21.460 But the fact that this is so divisive, I find that incredible that there are people in the Solomon Islands rebelling so forcefully.
00:19:29.640 Yes.
00:19:30.080 So basically what happened is Prime Minister Sogovere, he took the money from China, right, and he agreed to cut ties to Taiwan.
00:19:39.340 But Malata, which is the largest province, their premier, so they're sort of divided.
00:19:43.880 They've got some autonomy between the provinces in the Solomon Islands.
00:19:47.300 They have said, no, they want to keep their ties with Taiwan.
00:19:50.660 They want to keep their diplomatic arrangements.
00:19:52.080 And so they – it's that province in their Malata that has rebelled, and that's where all the uprising is.
00:19:58.760 And so the violence is centered around the parliamentary buildings, and it's also sweeping through Chinatown.
00:20:04.720 So there have been, unfortunately, three deaths as some of these buildings caught fire.
00:20:08.180 And that's where the majority of the peacekeepers, the army, and the police have been sent to try and calm the situation.
00:20:15.960 Now, Australia has sent people.
00:20:17.620 We've had Fiji send people.
00:20:19.140 We've had Papua New Guinea send people.
00:20:20.860 So there's a lot of interest in the Pacific region about what's going to happen in the Solomon Islands.
00:20:26.620 And no one's really sure.
00:20:28.540 In all likelihood, China's influence will be secured, because if the peacekeepers go there,
00:20:35.000 then the government is more likely to succeed than this rebellion against China.
00:20:40.640 So by going in to help quell the uprising, the Australians are actually helping China,
00:20:46.620 because they're tamping down the reaction to the Chinese bribe.
00:20:51.560 Yes, so the government are in league with China.
00:20:54.180 So if you go there to help the government secure the area, then you're essentially upholding China's influence in there,
00:21:00.620 instead of allowing the uprising to continue and seeing if perhaps this streak for independence
00:21:05.600 and to restore the Taiwan relationship with the Solomon Islands can succeed.
00:21:11.000 So I have a feeling that's what will really happen.
00:21:13.400 And if that does, China will have had another victory in the Pacific.
00:21:17.220 And think about it this way.
00:21:17.980 They've already got a 99-year lease port on our Darwin port in top of Australia.
00:21:22.960 So they've been moving all the way down.
00:21:26.720 Yeah, China does that.
00:21:28.640 It provides financing, for example, to airports or canals or mines.
00:21:36.700 And the terms of the financing often convert very quickly from loans to equity.
00:21:43.420 If, for example, a third world country can't pay, before you know it,
00:21:46.640 like the airport in Entebbe is now owned by China, things like that.
00:21:50.180 And it's shocking, I was just Googling Solomon Islands, fewer than 700,000 people.
00:21:56.800 So it's not teeny tiny.
00:21:58.480 It's not like, you know, Nauru, which is fewer than 100,000 people.
00:22:02.620 But still, if you think about it, $730 million for a country of 700,000 people,
00:22:08.760 that would sort of be like a bribe to Canada of $40 billion.
00:22:14.720 Like that is proportionately a shocking amount of money.
00:22:19.360 But to China, it's just a rounding error.
00:22:23.360 Is it just a gift?
00:22:25.600 Is it a foreign aid grant?
00:22:27.960 Is it a contract?
00:22:29.400 Like that's a pretty heavy quid pro quo saying, here's the cash.
00:22:33.540 Now dump your friends in Taiwan.
00:22:35.600 Like that's as brazen as it gets.
00:22:37.780 How is it actually, like is it that expressly tit for tat?
00:22:43.000 Or was it like a more of a nudge, nudge, wink, wink?
00:22:47.580 Well, it's not about the Solomon Islands.
00:22:50.820 They're not buying the Solomon Islands.
00:22:52.120 What they're doing is buying Taiwan and the future control of the Pacific area.
00:22:56.120 So they're buying Taiwan.
00:22:57.720 And so what we've got there is they're trying to basically distance Taiwan from all of its diplomatic friends
00:23:03.980 so that when they roll in to take back this escaped province,
00:23:08.240 they won't have any friends and they won't have any way of getting to Taiwan to defend it.
00:23:12.960 So that's what the Solomon Islands is actually about, as well as all their other debt trap politics.
00:23:16.780 So you talked about areas where they go in with a big bribe and then they're able to control the region.
00:23:22.240 So Sri Lanka has a deep water port, which is crucial to global trade.
00:23:27.240 And China now owns that deep water port after Sri Lanka was unable to make payments on the grant that they used to build it.
00:23:34.680 And the same thing has happened at the bottom of Pakistan with the port of Wadah.
00:23:38.560 And it's happening all across the world, including a major airport in Africa and just dozens of little Pacific islands.
00:23:46.920 So they're buying strategic points for military and trade.
00:23:50.180 And they're also trying to isolate their next basically geopolitical victim.
00:23:55.300 Well, it's incredible.
00:23:56.880 I mean, on the map, the Solomon Islands pretty much is in the middle of nowhere.
00:24:01.020 Not to be rude, but it is.
00:24:03.560 It's not that far away from us.
00:24:05.480 I mean, I was going to say, other than it starts to surround Australia.
00:24:11.220 So, you know, there's obviously this Taiwanese aspect to it.
00:24:14.780 But it's also like if you could knock off these little islands one at a time, you've built a little wall around Australia where you could have air bases.
00:24:25.560 You could have naval activities.
00:24:28.440 It's scary.
00:24:29.560 And I think you're exactly right.
00:24:31.000 They're just trying to roll up the dominoes.
00:24:34.680 And then when the terrifying moment comes, they'll have all these assets in place.
00:24:38.760 Well, Alexandra, I'm very proud, again, as I said at the beginning, that we're publishing this article from you.
00:24:43.440 And I would like to encourage all our Rebel viewers to read, if they're not already doing so, your written work on our site.
00:24:50.480 You're one of our lively Australians fighting a good fight during the pandemic.
00:24:54.600 I love to follow you on Twitter.
00:24:56.100 You punch hard, which is the way we like to do it.
00:24:58.620 It's great to see you.
00:24:59.460 Thanks for getting up early to tell us this story.
00:25:02.060 I get into a lot of trouble, but thank you very much for adopting me into the Rebel News family.
00:25:07.080 Well, you're so welcome.
00:25:08.480 It's a pleasure having you.
00:25:09.480 Well, there you have it.
00:25:10.840 Alexandra Marshall, part of our Rebel Australia team.
00:25:14.460 Stay with us.
00:25:15.460 More ahead.
00:25:28.620 Hey, welcome back to your viewer feedback.
00:25:30.220 Bruce Atchison says, Anthony Fauci is typical of all health bureaucrats, like Jimi Hendrix saying, they think they're made of gold and can't be sold.
00:25:39.300 But like Steppenwolf saying, remember, if you plan to stay, those who give can take away.
00:25:44.680 Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
00:25:46.760 That's a good one.
00:25:47.680 I, you know, I don't know those songs myself.
00:25:50.500 I have to confess.
00:25:51.200 Listen, I think that medical doctors have a way of thinking.
00:25:56.100 They look at one patient holistically.
00:25:58.080 They talk to the patient.
00:25:59.560 They listen to what patient says.
00:26:01.000 They adjust their diagnosis and their prescription, their advice.
00:26:04.520 And the patient can take it or leave it.
00:26:05.780 They can get a second opinion.
00:26:06.960 But it's a very personal connection.
00:26:10.780 Public health, a lot of them have a doctor, an MD behind their name, though not all of them.
00:26:15.980 But they don't deal with a patient.
00:26:17.960 They deal with people en masse.
00:26:19.740 They're really politicians.
00:26:21.840 And the whole nature of the doctor-patient relationship is gone.
00:26:25.120 They don't think of someone holistically.
00:26:27.260 They don't listen and go back and forth and the option for a second opinion.
00:26:32.240 They're really little tyrants with MD after their names.
00:26:36.060 They're politicians who don't have the political accountability.
00:26:38.860 That's the difference between a public health expert and a real doctor.
00:26:44.980 Nucky Gulliver says,
00:26:46.940 Trudeau said he never thinks of monetary issues.
00:26:50.080 Canadians elected a leader that never thinks of monetary issues.
00:26:53.180 How could people become such ideologues?
00:26:56.440 Well, I don't think that people are ideologues on the issue of monetary policy.
00:27:00.180 I think most people don't really understand it.
00:27:01.860 I myself do certainly don't consider myself a master of it.
00:27:04.660 People voted for Trudeau because he's cool and hip and young and handsomer and less square than his conservative opponents.
00:27:13.540 The media loves him for all those reasons.
00:27:16.140 I don't think there was an ideological choice to vote for a guy who doesn't think about monetary policy.
00:27:21.000 But we'll all pay the price for that.
00:27:22.840 It's been a generation since inflation ravaged things.
00:27:26.020 It'll be terrible when it comes.
00:27:27.400 And it's coming.
00:27:27.960 El Dacho 357 says,
00:27:31.680 The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money.
00:27:35.300 Margaret Thatcher.
00:27:36.700 That's a great quote.
00:27:37.980 The thing is, a country as wealthy as Canada can borrow quite a lot of money and can print quite a lot of money before disaster strikes.
00:27:45.640 And I fear that because things have only gotten better in Canada over time on average, we're not used to what a deep recession is like.
00:27:54.980 I mean, certainly not with inflation and hyperinflation and the kind of things that could well come.
00:28:01.100 I just saw today that cereals, Cheerios are going up in price 20%.
00:28:06.140 How are you doing in the gas pump these days?
00:28:09.100 That's insane.
00:28:10.260 Canada has so much oil and gas, but Trudeau's shut down the pipelines.
00:28:14.460 We're in for some pain, folks.
00:28:15.680 I've got to tell you.
00:28:17.720 Well, that's our show for today.
00:28:19.640 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, you at home, good night.
00:28:25.680 And keep fighting for freedom.
00:28:26.840 And let me leave you with this great video of the day from Drea Humphrey, who interviewed the doctor in South Africa who discovered the Omicron virus.
00:28:36.360 It's a great interview.
00:28:37.700 I'll let you watch that now.
00:28:38.960 Good night.
00:28:39.920 Breaking news.
00:28:40.740 A virus mutated now before 2020.
00:28:44.440 That probably wouldn't be breaking news because that's what viruses do.
00:28:48.020 But when it comes to COVID-19, it sure as heck is.
00:28:50.580 And unless you live under a rock, you're familiar with the term now of the Omicron variant.
00:28:56.600 But what does this new variant actually mean?
00:29:00.680 Is it making people drop like flies?
00:29:02.900 Or is it closer to the common cold?
00:29:06.120 Who better to ask that question to than the first doctor to identify that there seems to be a new variant in town,
00:29:13.560 and also to deal with patients who have it.
00:29:20.120 Drea Humphrey here with Rebel News.
00:29:22.480 And depending on where you get your news, you might be shaking in your boots about this variant.
00:29:27.580 Maybe you're scared that you or your loved ones might die from it.
00:29:31.960 Or maybe you're scared that it's going to be used to lock you down.
00:29:35.740 Maybe your business, your friendships, your freedoms, your worshipping, what have you.
00:29:41.260 A lot of fears surrounding this.
00:29:43.580 But risk-wise, what does this variant mean to the people?
00:29:48.400 If you look at articles like this, you might think it means doom and gloom.
00:29:54.500 Look at this one here from Global.
00:29:56.340 Omicron COVID-19 variant poses very high global risk, WHO warns.
00:30:02.420 But yet, you'll see in this interview I have for you with Dr. Anjali Kutsia,
00:30:07.100 who is the National Chair of the South African Medical Association,
00:30:11.480 and who was the first to identify that there's a new variant in town,
00:30:15.760 that the symptoms so far to date with patients who have this are mild.
00:30:22.160 Scratch that, extremely mild, regardless of your vaccination status.
00:30:27.580 And that, my friends, should be breaking news.
00:30:30.120 That should be the titles you see, am I right?
00:30:33.260 Do we not deserve some good news like that?
00:30:36.420 So why don't we hear it?
00:30:38.360 But if you appreciate that at Rebel News, we got that for you.
00:30:42.480 We gave you that.
00:30:43.760 We head with that, and we didn't hide or skirt around it.
00:30:47.120 You might want to consider supporting our independent journalism.
00:30:50.640 That's journalism that's independent of government interests.
00:30:54.160 And you can do so in a super fun and cool way.
00:30:56.660 You can head to rebelnewsstore.com.
00:30:59.280 That's where you get a cool hoodie like the one I have on.
00:31:02.760 But tons of other choices of hoodies, shirts.
00:31:05.720 We've even got art in there, coffee cups, cell phone cases.
00:31:09.620 You can totally get your Christmas shopping done there.
00:31:12.720 And like I said, that supports our journalism.
00:31:15.340 That's how the bills get paid to bring you the other side of the story.
00:31:20.200 For now, take a look at this interview with Dr. Kutsia.
00:31:23.540 All right, right now I have Dr. Anjali Kutsia here.
00:31:28.480 Now, the Omicron variant has been all the talk, and you yourself happen to be the doctor
00:31:34.880 to first identify that.
00:31:37.500 So thanks for being on Rebel News today.
00:31:39.780 Now, can you tell us exactly how you came across the variant?
00:31:43.740 Good afternoon to all Rebel viewers out there and to Drea for asking us.
00:31:51.600 So I was just in the lucky position to be able to also be part of the advice committee
00:31:59.500 on COVID-19 vaccines.
00:32:02.600 And I know a lot what is happening in the background.
00:32:06.700 We haven't seen any COVID-19 patients for the last eight to 10 weeks.
00:32:12.080 And then all of a sudden on that, the 18th of November, when the patient came in complaining
00:32:19.400 of muscle pains and fatigue and a bit of a headache, I then realized that this sounds
00:32:29.460 like a viral infection, I tested him, and he was positive.
00:32:32.740 And he was 30 years old, or he is 30 years old.
00:32:35.520 So, but very mild symptoms.
00:32:37.720 This whole family also tested positive.
00:32:39.940 Again, mild symptoms.
00:32:41.840 We treated them.
00:32:43.240 And then after I've seen the family, I also saw more patients, seven more patients that
00:32:48.880 day who tested positive, both, all of them very mild symptoms.
00:32:53.280 So I then alerted the advisory committee and said, listen, guys, here's some clinical picture
00:33:01.620 that doesn't really fit in with the current, the Delta variant.
00:33:07.920 And at that stage, at the same time, in the background, the labs also were aware of the
00:33:14.280 PCR tests that didn't fit the criteria as well.
00:33:18.280 And they also alerted NICD.
00:33:20.340 And then last week, the diagnosis were made from the scientists.
00:33:24.140 Yes, there is indeed a new variant.
00:33:26.480 Okay.
00:33:27.000 Wow.
00:33:27.300 Lots to unpack there.
00:33:28.820 Now, first of all, I'm going to ask you about not seeing a COVID patient for 18 weeks.
00:33:35.160 That's what you said?
00:33:36.500 Weeks.
00:33:36.980 Eight to 10.
00:33:38.320 Oh, eight to 10 weeks.
00:33:39.580 Wow.
00:33:40.120 And so you're in South Africa.
00:33:41.800 My understanding is that compared to Canada, you have a lower vaccination rate than us here.
00:33:49.020 So what would you attribute not seeing so many COVID-19 patients for in that amount of time?
00:33:55.980 So we went out of our third wave.
00:33:58.920 And that's the natural evolution of these waves.
00:34:03.620 So we were out of that in South Africa.
00:34:06.240 And now this came back.
00:34:07.960 So yes, I think this is quite a fast spreading variant.
00:34:13.560 Maybe it's on par with what we have seen with Delta.
00:34:18.020 I'm not one of the scientists that actually can say to you, you know, it's faster or it's slower.
00:34:23.540 But we are seeing increasing numbers.
00:34:26.820 But it's, again, not a lot of very, very sick patients at this stage.
00:34:31.220 This is a clinical picture at primary healthcare level.
00:34:34.020 However, they might see a different picture in the hospitals.
00:34:38.440 But we are also aware that our hospitals are not seeing a huge amount of patients up until, let's say, today.
00:34:45.700 And maybe it might change with the new stats coming out tonight.
00:34:50.580 But for now, we are fairly sure that we can handle these mild cases out of hospital.
00:34:57.200 Right, you used the phrase, at least for the younger one, extremely mild cases, or sorry, symptoms.
00:35:04.440 What is it about this particular variant and the symptoms that differs from the Delta exactly?
00:35:10.160 So your Delta variant would give you loss of smell, taste, a lot of a stuffy type of nose, you know, like as if you've got a cold.
00:35:19.540 We so far haven't had any patients with oxygen levels that's low and also not really temperature that we have seen.
00:35:29.620 It was one or two patients that had increased temperatures, but the majority are quite mild, as I've said.
00:35:36.600 We have seen patients above the age of 60.
00:35:39.340 Again, that too is breakthrough infections, and they are also very mild.
00:35:46.000 Did you find any difference in the amount of people, based on what you have so far, who have this new variant that were vaccinated versus unvaccinated?
00:35:55.100 Or does it seem to be pairing them both the same?
00:35:57.660 It's more unvaccinated people that we're now starting to see than vaccinated people.
00:36:03.420 And again, the vaccinated people that we so far have seen with breakthrough infections, extremely mild.
00:36:09.900 And are the unvaccinated also extremely mild?
00:36:13.500 At this stage, they're still mild, but I don't think it's going to stay like that.
00:36:16.780 I think within the next week or two, we will know once it hits the more older people, we will know what's going to happen.
00:36:24.680 Correct me if I'm wrong.
00:36:26.560 Don't viruses typically mutate?
00:36:29.560 That's a pretty normal thing.
00:36:30.960 And then don't they get more contagious usually?
00:36:33.960 And that means, yes, they're spreading easier, kind of like the common cold, but it does not mean that they're more deadly.
00:36:41.480 Is that not sort of a normal transition?
00:36:44.420 That can happen.
00:36:45.680 And that is actually what needs to be happening, except in this case, this variant's got 30 plus mutations.
00:36:53.440 And I think this is what is worrying everyone.
00:36:55.720 They're not sure what is going to happen with these mutations going forward, whether it's going to mean anything or nothing.
00:37:01.220 And we also can't tell you.
00:37:04.440 We can only say to you what we are clinically seeing at this stage.
00:37:08.920 And then we have to watch the space.
00:37:12.060 Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be on Rebel News.
00:37:15.320 We'll follow it closely.
00:37:16.620 It's always interesting.
00:37:18.000 I mean, here we're a more vaccinated country, but we are seeing breakthrough infections as well.
00:37:23.220 So it's interesting to see how it all plays out.
00:37:27.060 Yes.
00:37:27.680 And let's see.
00:37:28.480 And let's keep in touch and see in two weeks time what happened.
00:37:32.500 There you have it.
00:37:34.060 Yes, she has some concerns about the mutations, but we don't know which way that's going to go.
00:37:39.600 Is this going to be cold?
00:37:40.740 Is this going to be flu?
00:37:41.960 What we do know is right now, symptoms are extremely mild.
00:37:47.100 Music to our ears.
00:37:49.020 And that's regardless of a vaccination status.
00:37:52.480 Now, if you are happy you heard it, remember you heard it at Rebel News.
00:37:59.460 I'm Draya Humphrey, and I'll see you next time.
00:38:05.120 If you share the same concerns as I have, you are concerned about the normalization we're starting to see of segregation across the world and in your country.
00:38:15.400 People who are healthy, asymptomatic, naturally immune are being segregated.
00:38:20.340 It's like a medical apartheid.
00:38:22.540 And that's why Rebel News has partnered with the Democracy Fund to fight just that.
00:38:28.200 Please go to fightvaccinepassports.com and donate whatever you can.
00:38:33.420 That goes to the cost for the lawyers and the legal fees to take on and support the cases that we are doing.
00:38:39.960 Over 20 vaccine employment mandates and even challenging governments like British Columbia's for their discriminatory vaccine passport.
00:38:50.680 This simply cannot be normalized in Canada.
00:38:53.880 We need your support, and so does your country.
00:38:56.120 Please go to fightvaccinepassports.com.
00:38:59.320 Thank you.