Tommy Robinson was banned by Facebook and Instagram — and “their reasoning should terrify you”
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Summary
In an act of outrageous political censorship, Facebook and Instagram have permanently banned Tommy Robinson from their platforms. He was a leading voice for British people, for the working classes, against the Islamification of society, and in defense of young girls who were victims of massive rape gangs. He had more than a million followers who chose to hear what he had to say, and he chose to speak to them. Well, someone on Facebook didn t like those relationships, and just pushed a button. And then there was suddenly a rumor like the Death Star destroying Alderaan.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Hello, my rebels. This is Ezra LeVance. I am about to play for you a free version of
00:00:05.560
the Ezra LeVance show. It's my TV show, but we make it for free for a podcast. And today
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I talk about something heartbreaking overseas. Tommy Robinson, who I believe is a leading
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voice for British people, for the working classes, against the Islamification of society,
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a leading voice in defense of young girls who were victims of these massive rape gangs.
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He was just deleted on Facebook. He had more than a million followers. That's a million
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consenting adults who chose to hear what he had to say. And he chose to speak to them. Well,
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someone on Facebook didn't like those relationships and just pushed a button. And then there was
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suddenly a rumor like the Death Star destroying Alderaan. Did I get my Star Wars reference right?
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So I hope you enjoy this terrible show today because it's got a lot of bad news.
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If you like listening to this podcast and you would love to watch it, I really think so. We
00:00:58.860
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All right. Without further to do, let me tell you the story about Tommy Robinson.
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Tonight, Tommy Robinson was banned by Facebook and Instagram, where he had more than a million
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followers. Their reasoning should terrify you. It's February 26th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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In an act of outrageous political censorship, Facebook and Instagram announced today that they
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have permanently banned Tommy Robinson from their platforms. As you know, Tommy is a former reporter
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with The Rebel. And in fact, just this weekend, he had a big rally in Manchester, where he unveiled his
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new documentary on a giant TV screen outside the BBC headquarters there. His movies showed BBC
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corruption and fake news. I was there to cover it. If you want to see my reports, look on the Rebel
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website or go to realreporters.uk. Anyways, I'm sure it's just a coincidence. Tommy Robinson had about
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four, five, six thousand people show up at a massive protest outside a mainstream media company. And a few
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days later, a mainstream media company, that's what Facebook is, just deletes him and his one million
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followers. A million people who voluntarily asked to like or follow Tommy. A million people who obviously
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chose to hear what he has to say. Well, someone in Facebook disagrees with their choice, with their
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right to hear Tommy and his right to say what he wants to say. One million relationships between
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consenting adults. But someone at Facebook said no, and so it was. It's an act of political meddling,
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of course. Depending on how you measure, Tommy was either the most popular Facebook page in the
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United Kingdom for any politician or political figure, or the third most popular after Theresa May,
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the Prime Minister, and Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn. Depending on how you measure in terms
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of viewer engagement, he was huge. He really was a one-man news network, the alternative to everyone
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and everything in the UK media political industrial complex. And Facebook just deleted it. Of course
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they did. And now that's all just a rumor. It's gone like dust. Facebook owns Instagram too, so he's
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gone from there as well. He was previously purged from Twitter and even from PayPal. They literally won't
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even let him bank anymore. I know what that's like when Tommy worked for us. Not a single British bank
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would let us open an account with them for our British operations. When we were looking for lawyers
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to represent Tommy in the media law we needed, like for checking something for defamation, for example,
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we literally had to go through seven law firms before any of them would take him as a client.
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You know how I did it? I think I might have told you this before. I literally found a lawyer whose website
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says he represents war criminals. I'm not kidding. And so I called him up. I said, you take war
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criminals. Can you give us some advice for Tommy Robinson? He took the case. That's how deplatforming
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and depersoning and demonizing and denormalizing has gone in the UK. And don't you think we're far
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behind over here? We're not. We're about five minutes behind them. It's political meddling too,
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of course. And it is foreign meddling too, when you think about it. Robert Mueller is about to
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release his report into Russian meddling in the US presidential election. So far, he's found none.
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He's found some garden variety fraud or other minor crimes from some members of Trump's campaign team
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he's examined. You go through every single action of a man's life with a microscope with 14 prosecutors,
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you'll find something. They haven't found any Russian collusion, which was their reason in the
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first place. If 14 Democratic prosecutors can't find anything in two years, it ain't findable. But
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here, Facebook just deleted a political and journalistic Facebook page with 1 million followers.
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That's absolutely interfering in British politics. Russia never did anything as huge as that.
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Someone in San Francisco just pushed a button. Facebook didn't even have the courtesy to tell
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Tommy directly. Facebook leaked the news to the left-wing Guardian newspaper, which rejoiced that one
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of their enemies had finally been silenced. They couldn't out-debate him. They couldn't out-convince
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him. They could gag him. So much for freedom of the press, saying every British civil liberties group has
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been silent on the matter, too. Sorry, did I say silent? That's not quite true. It's been jubilation
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on the part of the left, especially the Islamic left. I don't know if it's a coincidence because it
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was bound to happen sooner or later, but I noticed that this Facebook ban comes just three days after
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Tommy's successful release of his film, Panodrama, that one that he did outside the BBC offices in
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Manchester. He meticulously documented systemic bias and corruption at the BBC's flag-shaped
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investigative program, Panorama. It's like the 60 Minutes of Britain. So thousands of people turned
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up for that premiere. I was there, too. It was really quite something in Manchester, and it utterly
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demolished the journalistic credibility of the entire BBC, I think. It showed the BBC's most senior
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investigative journalist, John Sweeney, faking storylines, trying to coach a young woman to make a
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fake complaint of sexual harassment against Tommy. It proves that the BBC let left-wing lobby groups
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in on the making of their documentaries. And what I thought was so telling was that the journalist,
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John Sweeney, was saying all sorts of racist and bigoted things against Muslims, Greeks, gays,
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whatever. It was all caught on hidden camera. The guy who was calling Tommy intolerant was the
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crudest man I've ever met. It was a PR disaster for the mainstream media. And so, well, here we are.
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John Sweeney is still working at the BBC, but Tommy is the one who silenced. He's now off Facebook. His
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only remaining social media account is YouTube, and I suspect he won't last there long.
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Facebook issued a short news release about the subject where they stated that one of the reasons
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they banned Tommy was that he, quote, has also behaved in ways that violate our policies around
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organized hate. Well, actually, that's not true. In fact, Tommy has never been charged, let alone
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convicted, of promoting hatred or inciting violence. It just hasn't happened. He's been convicted of
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other minor offenses in the past. It's true, but not promoting hate. As you know, he was wrongly
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jailed last year for contempt of court. He was freed. After the UK, the Court of Appeal quashed
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the improper conviction and sentenced against him by a lower court. But what does any of that have to
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do with his Facebook page anyways? Political censorship for what you write on Facebook is bad
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enough. And I put it to you that it's illegal. Section 230 of the American Communications Decency Act,
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it's a very short law, says that internet companies are immune from liability for what is on their
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platforms if they're neutral about their platforms. If they're like a stage that anyone can act on,
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if they're like a payphone that anyone can make a call from. So you wouldn't be able to sue a payphone
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company for what someone said while they were on the phone, right? That's what that's what this law
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means. But when you start to decide what's on your website or not, when you start to check what people
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are saying on the payphone and approving some things and banning some other things, then you're not
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a neutral platform anymore. You're not like the paper company that sells newsprint, blank newsprint
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to the newspaper that puts the words on it. No, no, no. You're like a newspaper itself. You're the
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editor. You're the publisher. You're the broadcaster now. You're responsible for the content. Now,
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if Facebook really wants to be responsible for its content, fine. But then it doesn't get legal
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immunity for all the crap on Facebook, right? Now, that's all bad enough. But here's the novelty.
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I just read to you from the press release, they banned Tommy in part for what he did, his behavior
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in real life. Is it not what he did on a computer on Facebook? But in, well, they actually didn't say
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where. Was it for something he did or said in his house on the city street? Maybe it was that big
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rally on Saturday. Facebook will now judge your real life. Facebook will put your actual real life
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on trial, a secret trial to which you won't be invited. And you'll learn of the verdict against
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you when you read it in the Guardian newspaper. This is terrifying stuff. It's straight out of Orwell's
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book, 1984. Oh, and don't think Facebook is alone on that. Twitter has the exact same rule. And you know
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those creepy voice activated home devices like Amazon Echo, you know those?
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Yeah, don't think they're not going to be monitoring what you say in real life and punishing you. I mean,
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have you ever read the terms of service for those things? You'd be nuts to let Jeff Bezos or Mark
00:11:07.560
Zuckerberg have a live microphone in your house, in your bedroom, recording everything always. Who
00:11:14.780
would do that? This morning, I spoke with Tommy to talk about his next steps. What's he going to do?
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And to offer him any assistance we here at The Rebel can give him. Tommy told me he's going to think
00:11:25.260
carefully on the subject. Whatever he chooses to do, whether it's taking legal action, helping him build a
00:11:30.680
new website, or even inviting him to do more things on our Rebel website, I'll keep you posted on what
00:11:35.080
he asks from us. I'll tell you what he wants us to do and if there's a role for you too. But I'll
00:11:43.600
tell you what I think is going on here. I think this is how you unperson someone in 2019. Tommy wrote a
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whole book called Enemy of the State. It's his autobiography. I read it. It's how the police and the
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prosecutors and the media establishment colluded to stitch him up, as they say over there in the UK.
00:12:00.540
But the thing about police and prosecutors is that it's more or less done in public,
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especially now that Tommy's a big name in the news. So it's harder to throw him down a hole
00:12:10.280
without someone noticing. That's what they tried to do last year by putting him in solitary
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confinement for 10 weeks. Now, it almost killed him, but it backfired on the government. The Court
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of Appeal let Tommy out of prison, as you know, and now he's a bigger name than ever. So if the police
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and the prosecutors and the courts can't really have their way with Tommy, and if the mainstream
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media is insanely against him, but no one really listens to them anymore, well, then what? Then
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how are you going to deal with him? If you're a Tommy hater, I suppose you could kill the guy.
00:12:45.000
There are plenty of terrorists who are threatening to kill him, but that would turn him into a martyr.
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How do you un-person him, you know? How do you just make him disappear? Well, in 2019, you don't have
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bothersome trials. You don't have censors. Because if you censor, well, the censors can be examined. If
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you have charges, well, they can be fought by a lawyer. If there's no fair process, that can all be
00:13:13.580
objected to. How do you just deal with the guy with any of all the fuss and the muss?
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You just have a secret trial by Facebook. No lawyers, no process, no publicity. Poof, he's gone.
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That's the way it's done in 2019. When I was prosecuted a dozen years ago for publishing the
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Danish cartoons of Mohammed in Canada, I used the internet, YouTube, blogs, PayPal to fight back.
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That's when the internet was about freedom. And we, little people, move faster and more cleverly
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on the internet than the big, slow-moving establishment bureaucracies. Well, the big
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government bureaucracies have learned a thing or two in the past decade. Now they use the internet,
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social media, to do the censoring for them. They outsource it to Facebook and Twitter and YouTube
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and Google. No need for a messy trial. No need for interrogations that can be recorded or appealed
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like I did in my case, or like Tommy did in his appeal. Just have a friend at Facebook push a
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button and it's done. What are you going to do? Squawk about it? You're not on Facebook to squawk.
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That's how it works in 2019. One day, I fear, you'll wake up and we'll just be gone too. And you won't
00:14:25.400
even be able to find us because, after all, who controls the search engines? Who controls the emails?
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Orwell's. And you'll wonder, like they wondered in Orwell's book, 1984, if we really ever existed
00:15:11.920
campaign trail several months ago in Brazil, where the leading right-wing candidate, Jair Bolsonaro,
00:15:18.680
was stabbed in the streets at a campaign stop by a far-left activist. He lost nearly 40% of his
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body's blood and survived only because of the speed with which he was taken to the hospital.
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He survived and he went on to win. And Jair Bolsonaro has already transformed Brazil's politics,
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realigning it away from its historical path towards communism, and internationally building strong
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bridges with countries like the United States and even Israel. Bolsonaro, one of the world leaders who
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was called for Juan Guaido to be the new leader of Venezuela. Joining us now via Skype from Raleigh,
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Carolina, is a young woman who left Brazil for America and is an anti-communist activist. Her name
00:16:06.220
is Julia Song and she joins us now. Nice to meet you, Julia.
00:16:12.060
Well, it's a pleasure. Tell me a little bit about your own past in Brazil fighting against the
00:16:17.460
authoritarian communist rulers. So in Brazil, we fell for the fallacies. I mean, this was back in 2003.
00:16:26.040
We didn't have really the knowledge of the fake news media as we have today as Trump exposed it in 2016
00:16:33.480
in his campaign trail. We just believed that the systems who are built to indoctrinate us, that socialism
00:16:41.160
was a good idea. We were, we bought the, the, the notion that it might be not as bad, right? We didn't
00:16:48.900
think it was going to be as dictate, dictate, dictate, sorry. We didn't think that it was going
00:16:56.380
to be as tyrannical because, uh, we didn't think about it in the concept of we're electing a dictatorship.
00:17:03.720
We just thought that it's just a government, a democratic government, but that doesn't really exist.
00:17:09.680
Uh, democracy, uh, democracy and socialism don't really walk hand in hand. And that's one of the
00:17:14.820
issues that people need to realize. So once we elected the government, it was pretty much impossible
00:17:19.800
to get them out of power. And that's why, uh, he was stabbed. He was stabbed by an activist of the
00:17:26.300
socialist party. And before, uh, four years before he tried to, uh, run for a president, another, uh,
00:17:33.740
business friendly, um, candidates try to run. And he also died in suspicious, uh, circumstances right
00:17:41.640
before the camp, uh, the elections. So when you think about it, it's, it's nearly impossible.
00:17:48.620
And people talk about it as well, in a way that, you know, it's so hard to get rid of the socialist
00:17:54.540
governments. Once you have them in power, it's, it's virtually impossible. They'll cancel your,
00:17:59.420
your ability to communicate. They'll make, uh, things like, uh, even if they don't do so through
00:18:05.420
regulations, they would do so through financial means. So for example, they'll make, uh, communicating
00:18:11.520
extremely expensive. So only the elites can communicate and things like that. So it's, it's
00:18:17.180
very disheartening for the Brazilian people to see, you know, he was going to get elected,
00:18:22.280
but at the end of his campaign, he got stabbed and we were like, Oh no, not again. We're about
00:18:29.380
to become Venezuela. We can get rid of these folks. Huh? One of the things that I noticed over the
00:18:35.500
years was how Barack Obama as president of the United States gave so much moral support to the
00:18:42.360
authoritarian rulers, not just his trip to Cuba, of course, which was a disaster. He gave so much
00:18:48.880
political legitimacy to the Castros and got nothing in return in terms of liberalization.
00:18:54.340
But I remember his high five style handshake with Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro and his praise
00:19:01.360
for Lula. I remember once when he met Lula, uh, he said he was the most popular politician in the
00:19:06.580
world. How much role did Barack Obama play in normalizing these abusive regimes throughout South
00:19:14.400
America? Oh, and that's something that I speak about it very loudly and people don't realize
00:19:20.500
the importance of America, the importance of North America overall, as a beacon of freedom to the
00:19:26.860
world, all of these events. I mean, the, the, as we went out into the street and we were talking about,
00:19:33.860
you know, getting together and gathering and fighting the tyrannical government, we were watching
00:19:38.420
what America was doing. We were watching what the people were going to the streets and fighting for.
00:19:43.280
And the world watches us, I believe a hundred percent that the only reason why Bolsonaro won
00:19:48.880
is because Trump won prior to him. And we see, uh, in Italy, we see in Spain, we see in France,
00:19:55.680
things, similar things happening. So when Barack Obama was really fighting for Lula and these people,
00:20:02.020
we were so confused. We were like the America that we look for, for freedom is telling us that this guy
00:20:08.180
here, who, as soon as he got elected, he enacted a gun laws that we, we said no to, we said no to those
00:20:16.160
gun control laws. And he enacted them anyway, as soon as he got elected. And we didn't, we didn't
00:20:21.640
understand why Barack Obama was, um, you know, preaching for this guy. And we try to give him a chance,
00:20:30.140
but in the end we said no to it. So you're saying that, uh, the, the socialist authoritarian leaders
00:20:37.360
in Brazil made a big push to disarm the people. I can't help, but think of the shocking scenes we've
00:20:44.320
seen in Venezuela just over the last few days where humanitarian aid convoys, literally food and
00:20:51.620
medicine has been blocked on the highway by Nicholas Maduro and Maduro's thugs have literally shot
00:20:59.360
people. They even arrested or detained an American, um, Hispanic journalist, uh, yesterday for asking
00:21:07.160
the wrong questions. If you disarm the people, you can be a tyrant. That's the first step of tyranny.
00:21:14.600
Now I understand, and you brought to my attention, a news story. Let me quote to you from Reuters here.
00:21:19.500
Bolsonaro loosens gun laws in murder ridden Brazil. Let me just read one paragraph because this is the
00:21:27.520
opposite of what tyrants do. Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday signed a temporary decree
00:21:34.220
making it easier for Brazilians to buy guns, delivering on a campaign promise to overturn strict
00:21:39.300
regulations in a country suffering from a record wave of murders. That's phrasing it as a home defense
00:21:47.120
self-protection kind of thing. But I think it's bigger than that. And Julian, I'll take your advice
00:21:52.680
because you've actually lived under tyranny, uh, or, or at least an authoritarian socialist regime.
00:21:59.400
When you allow ordinary families to have a firearm, you're actually buying an insurance policy against
00:22:07.120
a Castro or a Chavez, aren't you? So yes, it's to stop crime. But if you have ordinary Brazilians with
00:22:13.940
firearms, it's a lot less likely that a tyrant will take over. Am I right?
00:22:19.060
Yeah, it's a hundred percent. I'll apologize to you. I got, I'm recovering from a little bit of a cold,
00:22:23.800
but, um, so basically what happens, and this is what people fail to understand. The only markets that
00:22:31.280
will thrive under a socialist government are the illegal ones. So even if you ban guns, the people
00:22:38.460
who need to get those guns for illegal activities, they're going to thrive. A new market is going to emerge,
00:22:44.380
which is called gun rental. And that's how so many people will be murdered by guns, even though we live
00:22:50.660
in one of the strictest gun control, um, policies in the world. So those guns really only, those laws really
00:22:58.000
only work to keep the law abiding citizens from owning weapons. And the reason behind it, and also the reason as to why,
00:23:05.340
for example, they defunded the military and in my country in particular, in Venezuela, what they did
00:23:11.540
was different. They took away all the leadership from the top leadership from the military, and he put
00:23:17.960
in his friends and et cetera, to control the military. And Brazil, what they did was they defunded the
00:23:23.480
military, because anything that says power, and that gives power to the people, and the military was
00:23:28.880
pro people, right? So they would fight against the government, if that was the case. And so they try to
00:23:34.240
take that away, they try to take that away, everything that the people can use to protect
00:23:38.640
themselves. And that's, that's one of the first things that he did. I mean, as he got elected in
00:23:44.680
2003, in 2005, um, I think through pressure off the people, there was a referendum and they asked the
00:23:52.160
people, do you want more strict gun laws? And the people said, no, but he didn't respect that.
00:24:00.340
Yeah, that's incredible. Well, uh, how have, I mean, Brazilians obviously voted for, uh, Bolsonaro,
00:24:08.180
despite so, so many forces aligned against him. I, I know, for example, that, uh, social media
00:24:16.700
companies were actively censoring Bolsonaro the same way they censored Marine Le Pen in France,
00:24:23.380
and they censor our friends in the United Kingdom, like Tommy Robinson. Um, how is it,
00:24:30.760
Bolsonaro has been president for several months now. Has he kept the people on his side? Are
00:24:35.940
Brazilians optimistic and enthusiastic? Or is he, are they signing on to his changes? I, I noticed you,
00:24:43.520
you mentioned some of the other countries around the world. I know Matteo Salvini in Italy has only
00:24:47.720
gotten more popular. How about Bolsonaro? Is he doing well at home? I think that the, the people
00:24:56.600
who had a lot of power, the media, the entertainment, the academia, they, they thought they had all this
00:25:02.440
power, but Brazil is a conservative country, uh, when it comes to politics. So at one point, you know,
00:25:09.120
we, we just told them, we've been listening to you for so many years and look at what, what it got us,
00:25:14.380
where you got us. So we just started giving them less and less relevance and just listening to what
00:25:20.600
Bolsonaro actually says. In fact, I think, uh, and I'm not sure about this, but, uh, about the exact
00:25:27.320
time of this, but Bolsonaro was doing live. I believe it was right after he, he got stabbed and he was
00:25:33.480
recovering from surgery and he was giving an update about his, uh, status and Facebook just cut his
00:25:39.620
life in the middle of it. And so what is, what is so threatening about it to the media? What is so
00:25:45.840
threatening about capitalism to the media? And I believe, you know, it might be a lot of subsidies,
00:25:50.220
uh, related to that. We had one of the biggest, uh, media companies, um, being, receiving a lot of
00:25:58.020
subsidies from the government to support that government and artists, for example, they had,
00:26:03.420
and one of the things that you have to realize is that the government will buy that influence. So
00:26:08.640
they put together a law saying that, um, artists could borrow money from the government for anything
00:26:14.820
that they wanted to do. So they would just, if, for example, if they wanted to write a book, they
00:26:19.840
would borrow millions and millions of dollars from the government to write their book that nobody would
00:26:24.300
want to buy. So they was just enriching. They were just enriching themselves and, uh, giving the
00:26:30.280
subsidies to people who would support that government. And, uh, we just caught that. We
00:26:36.220
caught that. You know, I, I'm listening to you describe everything in Brazil from seizing guns to
00:26:43.100
cracking down on social media to subsidizing approved journalists. And I, I'm, I'm thinking
00:26:49.440
that's sort of the path Canada is on. I can't help but think that obviously we're nowhere near as far
00:26:55.420
down that path as Brazil was, or Venezuela is. Um, let me ask you, uh, about South America in general.
00:27:05.720
Um, the United States doesn't have a perfect reputation down there. The phrase banana republic
00:27:11.320
comes from heavy handed American corporate and CIA and military influence, whether it's in coups or,
00:27:19.240
or, or even just corruptions of the rule of law. So America has to be very careful, uh, because if it
00:27:25.820
is seen to be directing or commanding things, that could yield a backlash. And I noticed that
00:27:32.320
the Maduro, just like Castro uses that narrative very strongly. Oh, we don't want to be colonized.
00:27:38.460
We want to be free and independent. What can the United States do to support freedom lovers
00:27:44.980
in Latin America? And I'm not going to say Canada because Justin Trudeau, he wouldn't even, when,
00:27:50.020
when, when, when Bolsonaro won, our prime minister, Justin Trudeau refused to even congratulate him.
00:27:56.340
Uh, there was a perfunctory statement congratulating the Brazilian people didn't even
00:28:00.840
mention Bolsonaro's name. It was quite a disgrace, but what can Trump do? How can Trump and other
00:28:06.500
freedom loving countries help Juan Guaido in Venezuela, help Bolsonaro in Brazil without generating a
00:28:14.000
backlash about Yankee go home, stop colonizing us? So that's, that's really funny to me that you
00:28:21.080
brought that up because actually when you think about socialism, it's, it's the whole bubble that
00:28:26.760
you live in and the people in Venezuela are living in that bubble. So they have systems of trust that
00:28:32.680
they build to enact, uh, you know, to pretty much manipulate the individuals from the, the lower,
00:28:40.100
uh, lowest age until adulthood. So for example, uh, I remember, and this is a personal story,
00:28:47.440
uh, but I'm sure it happens everywhere. Um, who controls the education is the socialist government.
00:28:54.440
So they will control the book. They will control the, what's being told, what's being taught in school.
00:28:59.580
So from a personal perspective, not Venezuela, um, not Venezuela's perspective, but I'm sure that you
00:29:06.240
can find a correlation there somewhere. Um, in Brazil, we have Amazonia and the teachers would
00:29:12.540
teach us in school that Amazonia has a lot of trees and Americans need trees to build their houses,
00:29:18.060
to build whatever. So we were going to be invaded by America at some point under the excuse that we
00:29:23.620
could not take care of Amazonia. So they're going to use that to invade and take over and take a
00:29:29.180
natural resources. That's what we were taught in school. We were taught to be really anti-American.
00:29:34.400
So in Venezuela, I'm sure they teach us, they teach them about the oil, right? Um, so if,
00:29:40.500
if America went there today and try to do that, uh, the amount of narratives that would be thrown out
00:29:46.920
into the wind will be incredible. I think that, um, one of the greatest things that Trump can do
00:29:53.880
is to keep being Trump, to keep pushing back, to keep teaching people, to keep opening our eyes.
00:29:59.360
Um, when it comes to Venezuela, they don't really have access to the things that Trump does. So that
00:30:05.040
works more for countries like Brazil, for countries like Argentina, for countries like Spain. Um, when
00:30:10.900
it comes to Venezuela, I think it's really tricky and I don't know if we should get involved
00:30:15.500
militarily. I think that that is probably something that's going to have to die down on its own.
00:30:21.320
Mm-hmm. It's very interesting. I, I have no cultural or personal ties to South America. It's
00:30:27.860
the one continent I've actually never visited, but I have so much affection for, uh, people in South
00:30:33.920
America who are fighting to be free. I'm genuinely touched by what I see on the streets of Venezuela,
00:30:40.460
people crying out for freedom. I'm appalled by the tyranny that they live under. And I was so full
00:30:46.120
of enthusiasm when Bolsonaro overcome everything, including being stabbed to become the president
00:30:51.620
of Brazil. So just out of ideological, uh, solidarity and just out of love for humanity,
00:30:59.760
I, I admire what's going on from freedom fighters. And I know, Julia, you were one of the young freedom
00:31:06.680
fighters who stood up to the previous authoritarian regime. You're now in America yourself, but I really
00:31:12.460
appreciate your insight. It's nice to meet you today. And hopefully we can talk with you again
00:31:16.060
when we have news about Brazil, the fact that you lived there and actually were part of the
00:31:20.060
political protests, I think gives you an excellent perspective. Thank you. Thank you so much.
00:31:25.580
All right. Well, it's great to meet you. There you have it. That's Julia Song, who emigrated from
00:31:30.780
Brazil to the United States, but when she was in Brazil, was a pro-freedom activist
00:31:36.720
under the previous authoritarian regime. Stay with us or head on the record.
00:31:52.960
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about Jason Kenney's bizarre immigration announcement.
00:31:56.760
Rick writes, this better be someone's idea of a joke. We need Alberta and Albertans first. I'm not
00:32:01.300
anti-immigration, but let's meet our own needs first and then see where we're at. Yeah. I mean,
00:32:06.220
there can be an argument for bringing in cheap foreign labor when the labor market is extremely
00:32:12.740
tight and people won't take jobs. Although the proper response there is for employers to pay an
00:32:18.480
extra buck an hour. You know, would it really hurt if you've got a really amazing booming economy
00:32:25.580
and restaurants move their price up by a buck or so? So, so working people would make an extra buck.
00:32:33.760
I mean, I'm a capitalist as all get out, but I think the answer to a tight labor market is to pay
00:32:41.020
people more, not to bring in cheap foreign labor to undermine Canadian. That's for you in a tight
00:32:46.400
market. Alberta's had high unemployment and really a perpetual recession for four years. What is he
00:32:53.440
thinking? Bruce writes, I'm deeply ashamed of Jason Kenney. Ottawa poisoned him. And even though I'll
00:33:00.140
vote UPC, I'm not voting for Kenney. You know, I used to know him pretty well. And I don't know what
00:33:04.720
happened there. I mean, I know the moment we diverged, it's when he, when he called, um,
00:33:11.980
the 3,000 oil and gas men and women who are unemployed at our carbon tax, when he called
00:33:17.820
them ridiculous and offensive. And I thought, well, whose side are you on? Who are you trying?
00:33:22.540
They're not, they're unemployed men and women. They're desperate and they're not
00:33:25.460
protesting politely enough for you. What's that snobbiness? How do you maintain that snobbiness
00:33:31.920
booting around Alberta in a pickup truck? What is, what's going on there? I don't know.
00:33:36.640
Clayton writes, prior to Kenney's PCAA leadership, when he came to Red Deer and he spoke about turning
00:33:43.180
Calgary into a Silicon Valley of the North, I thought it was bizarre not to fix the oil and gas
00:33:48.560
problem first. This is not a one-off. Jason Kenney was the immigration minister when Saskatchewan
00:33:53.840
waitresses were being laid off in Weyburn. Temporary foreign workers were hired to replace them. And
00:33:58.780
CBC reported this. Ralph Goodale's former aide didn't fall too far from the tree. Yeah, I mean,
00:34:05.500
listen, I, I'm sure there have been wonderful people who have come to Canada through these open
00:34:11.300
borders programs, but you know, in the United States, they have their illegal immigration that
00:34:17.220
sneak across the border and they undercut American workers. I don't think it's much better when you
00:34:22.340
have, when you give really cheap foreign labor a fancy name like temporary foreign worker and you
00:34:28.700
just undermine Canadians. That's, I mean, I suppose you could make the argument that that's in the
00:34:33.840
interest of capitalism, but I don't think that's the interest of a country. I don't think, I mean,
00:34:41.580
I know who likes open borders, the big companies because they have cheap labor and higher prices for,
00:34:49.640
you know, real estate. So I guess if you're a tycoon, you like the cheap labor and the high cost
00:34:56.780
of living because you benefit on both sides. But I don't think that's, I don't think that's how it's
00:35:01.280
supposed to work. Karen writes, I have a concern that there's too much content given to far right
00:35:06.200
extremists. The rebel is getting connected to the far right, which is not good for the conservatives
00:35:10.700
being an election year. Canadians hear groups like North 99 criticizing and posting misleading
00:35:16.040
information that gives people the wrong impression. I know you can't control the enemy, but at least
00:35:20.700
cool it with interviews with people who are perceived to be far right. Yeah, Karen, I don't,
00:35:26.840
I don't think that's, that's how it works. And I know your letter went on a little bit more and
00:35:30.240
talked about a right-wing senator. I know you're referring to Senator David Tkachuk, who, who used
00:35:35.600
to turn a phrase, we're going to roll over the liberals. And everyone, oh my God, he means to
00:35:39.360
actually take a truck and roll over liberals. I'm sure he means that. Listen, if you start to censor
00:35:44.920
yourself and tailor what you say based on your hope that you can make your enemies not be your enemies
00:35:53.600
anymore, it ain't going to work. That's the thing. I mean, isn't that the lesson from the United
00:35:58.800
States? Mitt Romney was possibly the nicest human being to run for president in a century.
00:36:05.800
I mean, there's a guy who got an enormous inheritance from his father, who used to be the
00:36:10.020
president of American Motors Corporation. And he just said, no, dad, I don't want my inheritance.
00:36:15.040
What? There's a guy who voluntarily paid more tax than he had coming to him. What? There's a guy who
00:36:21.500
was, I mean, as close to a saint as possible. And they found reasons to demonize him and hate him.
00:36:27.720
He used the phrase, he said, hire women. I got binders full of women. Do you remember he just said
00:36:33.080
that phrase in passing? Uh-oh, he has binders full of women. He puts women in binders. Like,
00:36:39.880
they'll do anything to destroy a good man. And to try and live your life to make it impossible for
00:36:46.580
your enemies to hate you is not possible. And look, they devoured him. Donald Trump,
00:36:50.680
who was the opposite, won because he pushed back. You know, I don't even know what far right means.
00:36:57.140
I know it's meant as an insult. I think that on many of the issues of the day, we're squarely with
00:37:01.780
the Canadian people. I mean, with a carbon tax, it's sort of a yes or a no choice. I don't know
00:37:05.660
if you can be far right. I mean, I'm super against paying a tax. Does that make me far right or if I'm
00:37:10.580
just sort of against it? Most Canadians don't want to pay the carbon tax. Yeah, we're not far
00:37:15.400
anything. 94% of Canadians don't think we should increase immigration. They either think it's right
00:37:23.780
or should be reduced. Only 6% of Canadians want more immigration numbers. So that doesn't make
00:37:29.860
you far anything. So I think you've got to stop letting the bad guys read, hand you a script in
00:37:36.560
your life to read. We're going to keep providing the other side of the story. And this obscure
00:37:42.000
website you mentioned, North 99, that's some front group for some, the NDP or the liberals or
00:37:47.120
whatever. I just don't even care. We're going to tell the truth. And by the way, it's our honest
00:37:51.020
opinions. I'm not saying we never get it wrong, but we're going to say what we actually mean and
00:37:55.160
believe. And so far, Canadians seem to like it. We're in our fifth year now. That's the show.
00:38:01.260
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.