Juno News - What’s really going on at the WEF？｜ Thomas Fazi ｜ Part 1.

00:00:00.000 Hello, everybody. My name is Rupa Subramanya and welcome to the Rupa Subramanya show. It's

00:00:22.000 great to have you here with me once again. Today we are going to be talking about, we're

00:00:29.980 going to be talking about two topics. One is the World Economic Forum which is taking place in Davos right now. The Schmoozfest kicked off this week in the Swiss Alps. High above ordinary folks like you and me. The second topic that we're going to be exploring today is one which we've been dealing with for the last three years and that is the COVID-19 pandemic and all of the harsh measures and policies that were put in place by governments around the world.

00:00:59.980 including our very own here in Canada in trying to combat COVID-19. My guest today is well-known writer, activist and filmmaker Thomas Fazzi who is based in Rome, Italy. I will be speaking to him about a brilliant article which appeared in Unheard about the World Economic Forum called How the Davos Elite Took Back Control.

00:01:26.980 Thomas has also published a book with co-author Toby Green called The COVID Consensus, The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor, a Critique from the Left. So I will also be speaking to him about this book that is out. The book does a fantastic job showing all of the fallacies and damage caused to the world, especially to the poor and the marginalized by lockdowns and various measures pursued by

00:01:56.980 governments everywhere. I do hope you get a chance to read not just the article that I mentioned earlier about the World Economic Forum but also Thomas Fazzi's new book with co-author Toby Green. So please welcome Thomas to the show.

00:02:11.980 So Thomas, welcome to the Rupa Subramanir show. And it's a real privilege to have you here. I'm really excited to speak to you about this wonderful article in Unheard about the World Economic Forum. And of course, during the course of the conversation, we'll get to your book, which I highly recommend to our readers.

00:02:33.980 So let's first start with the World Economic Forum, Thomas. You know, I wonder if we, you know, I've been very critical of the World Economic Forum myself, and I read with great interest your recent piece. What I find interesting is that many of our critiques are actually aligned, although I would say that I'm probably coming from the right and you're coming from the left. For the benefit of our viewers who may not have read your article, could you distill for us your principal

00:03:03.960 critique of the World Economic Forum?

00:03:06.960 Right. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on your show, Rupa. So well, in the article, what I tried to do was to kind of sort of take a different approach from the one that's, you know, the kind of usual critiques are slanted, like, against the Economic Forum, and that's to usually emphasize, you know, the kind of conspiratorial nature of this organization and of its leader.

00:03:33.960 Klaus Schwab. And instead to kind of show how there's really no need to resort to actual conspiracy theories. And in fact, there's not, I mean, the WEF itself is not that really that conspiratorial, really, in a sense that it's, the organization is very open about its agenda, it actually loves to publicize its events, which are in fact, you know, which attract a lot of attention on the kind of global media stage.

00:04:01.820 And, you know, ultimately, when it comes to kind of, you know, trying to understand what the World Economic Forum is, and what its agenda is, I think the best place to start is to start from, you know, what the WEF says about itself.

00:04:24.860 And the WEF is very, very open about what its kind of general aim is, its general agenda is, and that is to promote, you know, public, private enterprises, not just at the national level, but at the, you know, global level.

00:04:42.700 And that's something that is known as kind of multi-stakeholderism. And the idea is that at the national, at the international level, you know, the management of world affairs shouldn't be left to nation states, to the governments, but should be the preserve of a wide array of stakeholders.

00:05:02.120 And of course, they pay lip service to a number of actors, including civil society organizations, media figures, even, you know, religious, spiritual leaders, but ultimately, what they're really talking about is business interests, and more specifically, kind of the interests of multinational corporations.

00:05:20.460 And again, you know, one doesn't have to hypothesize this, it's, it's, you know, enough to go and see, for example, where, you know, where the WEF gets its funding from, and the WEF gets its funding from, almost all of its funding from about 1000 of the biggest corporations on the planet.

00:05:39.700 And this includes all the major corporations and all the major sectors kind of at the apex of the capitalist pyramid. So sectors such as big oil, big tech, big pharma, they're all in there, and they're all funding the WEF and supporting the WEF.

00:05:56.400 And even if you look at the WEF's board of directors, we find some key figures in kind of, you know, the global architecture of capitalist power. And so we've got figures like CEO of BlackRock, Larry Fink, we've got, you know, CEO of Nestle, the CEO of major companies from a number of sectors.

00:06:18.580 And so I think, you know, one doesn't have to be particularly conspiratorially minded to, to conclude that it is very likely that, you know, when the WEF talks about promoting the, you know, giving a bigger voice to stakeholders and promoting their interests, the stakeholders and the interests they're really promoting are the ones of its funders, its backers, and its board of directors.

00:06:45.500 I mean, I think that's pretty straightforward. And, you know, so it's likely their aim is not to make the world a better place, as they claim, but it's, I think, quite straightforward to conclude that, you know, what the WEF exists, the reason the WEF exists, so, you know, with Zondatra is to forward the interests of these, of these, you know, very, very powerful actors.

00:07:04.200 I think that's pretty clear. And, you know, also, if you look, for example, at this, there's much talk of the influence that the WEF and, you know, Klaus Schwab himself has over, you know, several key members of the global elite, certainly the Western political elites, but even the business elites.

00:07:25.440 And, you know, and again, you know, there's no need to resort to theories to, you know, to point this out.

00:07:37.360 In fact, the organization, and even Schwab himself, are very open about the way in which they have programs, and especially, you know, a program that's called the Young Global Leaders Program, which is, you know, openly aimed at essentially, you know, training future leaders.

00:07:55.980 And, you know, these have included, ever since the, you know, first meeting back in 92 of the initiative, some of, you know, people that have gone on to become major world leaders, you know, people like, you know, Tony Blair in the UK, people like Angela Merkel, people like Sarkozy.

00:08:15.940 And even more recently, we know that a number of key figures in, you know, very important Western governments, such as Canada, the Netherlands, but, you know, in most governments, there's likely to be, you know, maybe at least one figure that's, you know, that's, that has some relations with the WEF.

00:08:35.740 Yeah, no, just to quickly interrupt, I mean, here in Canada, our Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister sits on the board of the World Economic Forum.

00:08:44.560 She was a former journalist, Chrystia Freeland, who, you know, used to be super critical of the World Economic Forum when she was a journalist.

00:08:52.540 And she, you know, called them plutocrats, global elites, and that sort of thing. 0.98

00:08:56.920 But now she's, she actually sits on the board of the, you know, the advisory council or the board of directors of trustees of the World Economic Forum.

00:09:06.600 And she's actually right there right now attending.

00:09:09.380 She went from being an outsider to being an insider right now.

00:09:12.780 So you're absolutely right that there are, that there, that, you know, when Klaus Schwab says, you know, we've penetrated cabinets around the world, he's not joking, right?

00:09:21.600 No, he's bloating about it.

00:09:23.260 Yeah, and you're absolutely right.

00:09:25.080 I've made the same point as you have, which is we don't have to resort to conspiracy theories to, you know, to criticize the World Economic Forum, right?

00:09:34.940 They are pretty open about their agenda.

00:09:37.200 They're very, very clear about it.

00:09:38.620 And, you know, what's, what's interesting about this, Thomas, is that it's not just the Black Rocks and the corporations, big corporations that give money to the World Economic Forum.

00:09:49.140 It's also governments.

00:09:51.040 And this came as a surprise to me that the World Economic Forum, for example, received, I think, $3 million from the Canadian government back in 2020 or 2021.

00:10:01.500 It's a small amount of money.

00:10:03.040 But still, I mean, this is, you know, if Canada is donating money, I'm sure the U.S. is doing that.

00:10:08.660 I'm sure a lot of European countries are also giving money to the World Economic Forum.

00:10:13.840 And they're very, I think it's you who pointed this out.

00:10:16.520 Perhaps it was you, you pointed out in your piece that they're actually very, not very transparent about their financing, their funding, right?

00:10:24.760 Right, yeah, no, I don't go into that in the, in my piece, but it's true. 0.95

00:10:29.860 I mean, that's one of the things that they've been repeatedly criticized for, for, you know, it's, it's that their financing structure is not transparent at all.

00:10:39.800 And, and in fact, they've been, you know, they've been quite explicit about the fact that, you know, they don't intend to disclose exactly, you know, who has financed the organization.

00:10:49.540 I mean, we know that, as I said, you know, these 1000 corporations provide most of the funding.

00:10:54.180 So, you know, that in itself, I think is very telling, but it would be interesting to know also where the rest of the money is coming from.

00:11:00.020 And I'm not really surprised at all that national governments support economically and otherwise the, the, the, the WEF.

00:11:09.260 And I think this is another important point, you know, when, when we talk of sort of globalism and the globalist agenda, I think there's a tendency to simplify things.

00:11:19.400 You know, where people see this as meaning that there are some global powers that want to subdue and over, and kind of, you know, overpower nation states and national leaders and national governments.

00:11:31.380 And in fact, I think, you know, to push towards globalism that we've seen over the past few, few decades.

00:11:36.800 And again, the WEF is just one, you know, one pillar, one element of this kind of globalist architecture that has been built, you know, essentially, you know, since the beginning, especially in the 80s and then in the 90s.

00:11:49.120 And, but it's, it's just one pillar, and it's arguably not even the most important pillar.

00:11:53.500 I mean, I think, in many respects, the European Union is an even more important pillar of this globalist agenda.

00:12:01.520 And we know the European Union, you know, just like the WEF, you know, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't born out of a vacuum, it didn't create itself.

00:12:08.960 It was created by national governments.

00:12:12.760 And again, I think this points to the fact that globalism is also something that is sought after by national elites themselves, because it's a way to escape accountability to their own electorates.

00:12:25.900 It's a way to, you know, place the decision making process beyond the nation state.

00:12:32.680 And that might seem kind of, you know, paradoxical, you know, because it would appear like what they're doing is willingly reducing their power.

00:12:41.720 And in fact, what it does is that by appearing to be weaker, by being able to scapegoat the decisions that they take onto these other organizations.

00:12:52.120 And, you know, so by saying, you know, we, for example, in the European context, oh, well, we're doing this because the European Union tells us to do so.

00:13:01.280 Or, you know, it's not so explicit when it comes to WEF, but, you know, it's a similar narrative in terms of over, but everybody else is doing it.

00:13:08.300 This is what's happening at the global level, and we can't go against the grain.

00:13:12.340 And so that, you know, and so in this sense, globalism is also, it's a process that has been aided and abetted by national elites themselves as a way to, yeah, as I mentioned, kind of escape accountability and de-responsabilize themselves, you know, vis-a-vis their own electorates.

00:13:29.660 And in fact, this makes them more powerful than they would otherwise be, than they would be if they were solely accountable for their decisions, if they couldn't, you know, scapegoat some other, you know, international or global reality or institution for the decisions they're taking.

00:13:47.360 You know, so I think this, so, so globalism is much more, I think, you know, nuanced and complex project than the way it's often portrayed.

00:13:55.360 Yeah. You know, one of the concerns for me about the World Economic Forum, and this is something that you bring out in your piece really well, is that you have this unelected, self-appointed group of technocrats.

00:14:10.500 And I've made the argument many times over the last couple of years since I've been writing about the World Economic Forum, is that these individuals are effectively attempting to subvert local democracy.

00:14:24.120 And I've received a lot of pushback saying, well, you know, it's Canadians, you know, who vote for, you know, vote in a new government.

00:14:34.780 It's not Klaus Schwab or his, you know, or the cabal that, you know, gathers at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

00:14:44.800 So, you know, how can you say that it's subverting local democracy?

00:14:48.880 I wonder if you could expand on this point. I mean, you make the same point.

00:14:52.320 How are these unelected, self-appointed group of technocrats attempting to subvert local democracy?

00:15:01.660 Well, you know, as I said, in part by creating an architecture where essentially the decisions are effectively taken, you know, above and beyond the nation state.

00:15:14.420 And so they're taken at the, when it comes to trade, for example, at the level of the, or not so much anymore, but, you know, it was a very big deal in the 90s, the World Trade Organization.

00:15:24.120 That was kind of the first one, you know, one of the first big pushes towards globalism.

00:15:31.500 It's, you know, power has shifted to, you know, globalist institutions such as the European Union.

00:15:37.120 And of course, you know, the WEF itself, I'm obviously talking about the pandemic, the World Health Organization is a great example of that as well.

00:15:47.200 So I think the transfer of power to these institutions is a fact.

00:15:52.680 Again, this is not an hypothesis.

00:15:53.940 I mean, you know, if we look at the European context, it's quite, you know, it's quite clear that, you know, national governments basically have no voice whatsoever over, you know, major, you know, over decisions on major issues of economic policy.

00:16:09.200 I mean, these are all taken in places like Frankfurt and Brussels.

00:16:12.420 You know, this is a fact.

00:16:14.940 I mean, in fact, many countries have even, like my country, have even given up what is, you know, what has historically been considered the pillar of national sovereignty, and that is the power to issue money, monetary sovereignty.

00:16:26.600 And, you know, once you give up that, you've essentially given up, you know, any, you know, the ability to actually manage the economy in any meaningful way, which means that, you know, someone else is managing the economy for you.

00:16:39.240 So these, you know, these are all processes that to a large degree have been, you know, institutionalized.

00:16:46.100 And so, again, this is a fact.

00:16:47.980 And the idea that that's not a problem because, you know, we hold elections at the national level is, I think, very, very naive.

00:16:58.800 Not only because, as I said earlier, by, you know, in a way by transferring power to these organizations, you effectively limit what governments can do.

00:17:12.840 I mean, you know, supranationalism isn't just about, you know, treaties and legal treaties and so on.

00:17:20.900 And it's also about that, but it also creates, you know, a very powerful narrative, this sort of narrative of the external constraint.

00:17:29.460 And so you create these external constraints in the form of, you know, the World Organization, the European Union, the WEF.

00:17:36.320 And that becomes a very powerful kind of narrative tool for national leaders themselves to essentially say, look, our hands are tied.

00:17:46.540 There's this, you know, when it comes to trade, there's this treaty that says that, you know, we can't, you know, we can't do otherwise, you know,

00:17:52.820 we can't take a different economic policy, you know, rather than the one that's prescribed by, you know, the World Trade Organization or from the ECB or the European Commission or a number of other organizations.

00:18:07.100 And so it effectively, you know, becomes a very powerful tool to sort of, you know, present the idea that there is no alternative to the status quo.

00:18:16.820 And so, you know, there's this narrative element that's, I think, intrinsic to globalism is also very important.

00:18:22.940 And that said, I think, you know, this idea that, you know, because we vote, we decide is, you know, clearly extremely naive.

00:18:32.060 I mean, we know that, you know, Western national democracies have essentially effectively been hijacked by big money.

00:18:42.260 I mean, you can't, when you have such extreme concentrations of wealth and power in the hands of a tiny elite, you can't have democracy.

00:18:50.660 What you have is a plutocracy because, you know, you might have all the formal elements of democracy in place,

00:18:56.840 but clearly they will be able to, you know, hijack the political process, hijack the political campaigns and effectively place their own leaders in positions of power,

00:19:08.680 which is what happens in most countries.

00:19:11.740 And, you know, clearly, you know, the corporate media plays a crucial role in that respect.

00:19:16.400 When you control the media, when you control the narrative, you can have, you know, formally very free elections where, you know, universal suffrage, everyone, you know, everyone can vote.

00:19:25.440 So, but you're effectively voting for different wings of the same kind of party of the status quo.

00:19:33.280 And so, you know, having the formal elements of democracy in place is not enough to have effective democracy, to have substantive democracy.

00:19:41.800 And, you know, we don't have that anymore throughout the West.

00:19:45.320 I mean, I think that's pretty clear to me.

00:19:47.860 But at the same time, the fact that they don't just do away with democracy shows that that's also a powerful narrative tool to legitimize themselves.

00:19:58.660 You know, why don't they just, they're so powerful, why don't they just do away with elections and, you know, impose military dictatorships everywhere?

00:20:06.180 Because that would be counterproductive.

00:20:07.860 You know, I think that this democratic facade is one of the few, you know, vestiges of, you know, legitimacy that power has in the West.

00:20:19.840 And so it's very important for them to keep that in place, you know, because otherwise, you know, they would kind of be pulling away the veil.

00:20:25.880 And it's a neat veil of legitimacy, of pluralism, of democracy to effectively deflect, you know, these kind of criticisms, you know.

00:20:38.560 So I think that also points to kind of the enduring sort of power of democracy and why it's also, you know, the idea of democracy remains a powerful one.

00:20:50.660 And I think, and that's also something that can be, I think, you know, used against them because clearly people still, you know, have a desire for, you know, collective control over their lives and, you know, ever more so even over their individual bodies, which they have less and less.

00:21:13.340 So I think that's an important element to keep and also to keep in mind when we think of, you know, how can we kind of, you know, counter these forces.

00:21:20.660 Yeah, and I think the pandemic was a great sort of natural experiment of sorts, you know, where people in Western liberal democracies were more than happy to be controlled and monitored or, you know, in the interest of beating the pandemic.

00:21:40.340 And, you know, this is an argument that I myself have made a few times, which is Western liberal democracies don't have to go the authoritarian route to the extent that they get rid of democracy altogether.

00:21:51.500 You need to maintain this facade. You just need a few levers here and there, right?

00:21:55.840 You just need and you'll get compliance. And I think that's what's been happening for sure here in Canada.

00:22:01.480 I can't speak to what's happening in Italy, but for sure in Canada, that's exactly what we've experienced over the last two or three years.

00:22:10.220 Oh, definitely. I mean, I'm afraid it's not just Canada, even though your government has gone to, you know, quite extreme lengths when it comes to the pandemic.

00:22:19.900 But, I mean, Canada is far from being a unique case.

00:22:24.680 What we've seen, in fact, what's amazing about the pandemic, I think, is the uniformity of these policies across the board, you know, across countries, especially across basically virtually all Western countries.

00:22:36.960 And that's, I think, one of the most amazing things that's happened.

00:22:43.500 And I think that points to various, you know, the various elements.

00:22:51.220 One is that if we are, I think, well, on the one hand, what we're talking about, you know, people, I think, you know, that there is this kind of deep-seated desire to have control.

00:23:02.900 I mean, just a few years ago, we've had, you know, populist, so-called populist uprisings throughout the West.

00:23:09.480 We've had, you know, Trump, Brexit, and, you know, a number, you know, the Gilets Jaunes in France.

00:23:15.780 These were all movements that in different ways were effectively, you know, saying, you know, we're tired of only having the choice between Pepsi and Cola when it comes to, you know, to our political systems, to our societies.

00:23:31.060 We want to be able to have our voices heard.

00:23:35.480 And so I think that shows to the fact that despite all the effort that has been put into making citizens apathetic, making citizens uninterested in politics, you know, there's an ingrained desire for individual and collective control over one's lives.

00:23:54.220 And so I think elites had to, felt the need to react to that.

00:23:58.840 And I think that explains what we've been seeing certainly, you know, since the pandemic.

00:24:05.300 But in fact, you know, that also goes back to before the pandemic, I think.

00:24:09.400 I mean, if we look at the kind of wider history of Western so-called liberal democracies over the past two decades,

00:24:15.940 I mean, we've been mired in a almost more or less permanent state of crisis or emergency, you know, especially, you know, starting from a post 9-11 war and terror,

00:24:29.900 which kind of gave way to the financial and economic crisis and, you know, and then to the Euro crisis in the European context.

00:24:39.220 And then, you know, we've had the pandemic and now we have the war in Ukraine, which was, you know, another, plunged us into a kind of another state of permanent crisis, permanent emergency.

00:24:53.940 And of course, there's, you know, a wide array of potential, you know, threats, you know, real or manufactured out there that can be used to continue this state of crisis, the state of emergency.

00:25:10.060 And so I think, you know, this really points to the fact that all, you know, all Western leaders have left to be able to maintain their power is essentially coercion.

00:25:21.260 And essentially suspending the normal mechanisms of social life, the normal mechanisms of political life, of democracy, by, you know, essentially plunging us into a state of permanent crisis.

00:25:34.980 And the pandemic was just kind of, I think, an extreme version of that, you know, by, and it did, and it shows that as much as people may have a desire for, you know,

00:25:49.080 and an aspiration to democracy, if you find the right narrative key, and if you have the means of, you know, essentially controlling the information flow to the people, to the voters,

00:26:04.740 you're really able to make people, you know, go against what are their best interests in a number of ways.

00:26:12.520 And you're able to make them support, I would say, almost anything.

00:26:17.360 I think that's the most disturbing aspect that pandemic has shown us, where, you know, we've seen policies that were not only,

00:26:26.380 that not only had never been implemented before 2020, but had never even been conceived of before 2020.

00:26:32.660 And, you know, national lockdowns being the most obvious example that went from, you know, unprecedented to normal, obvious.

00:26:42.520 The only possible alternative in the space of weeks.

00:26:45.860 And I think, and, and again, this also, I think, points to the fact that the, the kind of propaganda machine is today more powerful than it's ever been.

00:26:55.700 And, and I think that partially has to do with the role of, of, of, of, of social media, of social networks.

00:27:04.860 I think they've added kind of an extra, you know, an extra layer to, to the propaganda that, that, that, that power elites are able to achieve.

00:27:15.460 Simply, if, if, if, if anything, because we're, we're sort of immersed 24 seven in these, in these environments, almost 24 seven.

00:27:25.420 I mean, statistics show that we, you know, we check our phones every few minutes.

00:27:28.860 And that means checking, you know, in most cases, social media, social networks.

00:27:33.260 And so if you can micromanage the information flow on those networks, you can effectively kind of superimpose a simulacrum, you know, a, a simulated reality over the actual lived reality of, of people.

00:27:46.260 And so I think that points to increase the importance of big tech and of course, the work that you, that you have been doing, you know, at the FP with the Twitter files is, you know, has been very revealing in that respect.

00:27:57.180 And, but, but also, you know, when looking at the, the level of homogeneity of these policies across the Western board and even beyond that, in fact, it does also point to the fact that, you know,

00:28:09.460 we are, we are, we are today confronted, I think, with a, a, a power that, that we've never seen before.

00:28:20.780 I mean, power has never been, we've never lived in a situation where effectively, you know, they are able to impose, you know, pretty much the same policies across, you know, huge swathes of the globe, the entire globe.

00:28:36.340 And so, so when we talk about globalism, it's also about this, it's also about the fact that, you know, uh, what we, what we saw was the emergence of the exact same narrative, the exact same kind of propaganda in a number of countries, which were followed by exactly the same, uh, policies, the same pandemic response with, you know, few, very few exceptions and with small variations within, um, with, within countries.

00:29:02.680 And so, uh, I think that's also something that has to be, uh, grappled with.

00:29:06.940 I mean, we are dealing with, um, I think the most awesome, and I say that in the worst possible way, power that we've ever seen in the history of, um, of, of humanity.

00:29:17.360 Never has so much power and so much, uh, wealth been concentrated in so few hands and never before has there, uh, has there been a kind of, you know, uh, uh, uh, technological and institutional and political architecture that, that allows for the imposition of policies.

00:29:33.560 If not on a completely global scale, uh, well, something close to that.

00:29:38.480 I think that's, that's a completely unprecedented scenario.

00:29:41.420 Yeah.

00:29:41.720 So, uh, Thomas, I mean, speaking, uh, about the rich, uh, speaking of the rich and powerful, uh, and back to the world economic forum, uh, the world economic forum is not some international organization.

00:29:51.800 It's not the UN.

00:29:52.580 In fact, the world economic forum, thanks to you, I've discovered, uh, has co-opted the UN as well.

00:29:58.580 So, but you know, how did we, uh, come to this point, uh, you know, how did we get here?

00:30:03.940 Like, how did they come to have this outsized influence, um, by, you know, you know, how did, how did this happen?

00:30:12.320 Like what, what brought us here basically?

00:30:15.860 And why do you think that the world economic forum has this sheen or this aura that it's almost impossible to, uh,

00:30:22.580 dent their credibility?

00:30:25.520 Well, it's been, um, it's, it's, it's, it's been a long process in the making.

00:30:31.040 I mean, it's not something that appeared overnight, as I, as I mentioned, this kind of, you know, this transition from, uh, kind of nation-based, uh, democracy, nation-based politics to

00:30:42.080 supranational, supranationalism to globalism, um, has been a, a, a long process.

00:30:47.900 And in fact, it's one that I think can be traced back at least to, um, um, uh, no, even to the crisis of the 1970s.

00:30:57.160 I think that's when, you know, uh, elites start to realize that, you know, wait, wait a minute, you know, the, uh, through the kind of, uh, the institutions of the welfare state,

00:31:07.340 through the policies of mass employment that were, um, that, that, that, that were the outcome of the kind of Keynesian, um, um, regime that was built in a post-war period,

00:31:17.780 you know, workers' masses were becoming too powerful, uh, that there was almost, uh, the fear that, you know, uh, through the institutions of democracy, you know, uh, if anything, because clearly workers are, are the majority, you know, through mass parties,

00:31:32.780 they might actually be able to, uh, kind of, you know, to take power and, um, uh, to, to the detriment of, uh, of capitalist elites.

00:31:42.780 And so, uh, um, uh, and, uh, again, no need for conspiracy theories.

00:31:47.980 This was, you know, was very explicitly, uh, theorized in the, um, uh, 1975 book, The Crisis of Democracies, which was published by the Trilateral Commission,

00:31:59.740 which is another one of these kind of, like, you know, WF-like, uh, global, uh, or at least Western think tanks, uh, and, you know, they, they said it very clearly, you know,

00:32:09.920 when they, when they spoke about the crisis of democracy, they didn't mean that there wasn't enough democracy.

00:32:14.580 What they meant and what they actually say in the book is that there's too much democracy.

00:32:18.080 And so the question, you know, for them is how can we, you know, we need to turn it down a notch, you know, we, uh, democracies in the West have become too, uh, too politicized.

00:32:28.060 There's too much mass involvement in politics.

00:32:30.560 And so how can we, uh, you know, fight this back?

00:32:33.260 And they, you know, they put forward a series of, uh, of, of solutions.

00:32:36.980 And, uh, of course, you know, one of them is clearly to, uh, attack the kind of material source of workers' power.

00:32:44.420 And so, uh, you know, attack unions, uh, attack organized labor.

00:32:48.380 And that's something that we, we see increasingly happen, uh, especially from the 1980s onwards.

00:32:54.020 Um, but so there was an economic element to it.

00:32:56.460 You know, we have to, you know, we have to break the back of unions.

00:32:59.420 We have to break the back of organized labor.

00:33:01.580 They were very explicit about this and they did it.

00:33:03.520 Um, but then there was also a political aspect and the political, political aspect, uh, of it was we need to, yeah, as I said, we need to, uh, kind of, um, yes, you know, um, we can't do away with democracy for the reasons we said, you know, we said earlier, you know, even though in some countries, of course, Chile and other countries, even in Europe, you know, we, um, you know, Greece and other countries, they did opt for kind of all out, uh, military juntas.

00:33:25.520 Um, but that they realized that that wasn't something that could be done across the board.

00:33:29.520 And so the point is how do we maintain a formal elements of democracy, but, you know, while at the same time, ensuring that citizens won't have any actual, uh, way to influence economic policy.

00:33:38.520 And so one, one of the solutions they come up with is we need to make citizens more apathetic and this is extraordinary.

00:33:44.520 You know, the fact that they actually theorized this, you know, we need, now it's something that everyone complains about, you know, at least pretends to be worried about, you know, the fact that, you know, uh, less and less people go to vote.

00:33:54.520 There's less and less, uh, political participation, but this isn't something that happened by accident.

00:33:58.520 This was happened by design.

00:34:00.520 I mean, they, they explicitly, you know, uh, worked in order to make people more apathetic.

00:34:05.520 And, uh, uh, and, and of course, you know, due to kind of, you know, uh, moving towards more majoritarian systems was one solution in some countries.

00:34:12.520 And of course, um, you know, how do you, how do you make, uh, how do you make your citizenry apathetic?

00:34:18.520 Like what would be one example of that?

00:34:22.520 Well, one way is to, um, well, one way is to, uh, and that's another thing that began in, in that period, uh, is to sort of kind of take away power from, from, from national governments, you know, and, and, um, by doing that, you know, people, the idea was that people will slowly realize that, you know, voting doesn't really matter that much anymore.

00:34:49.520 And so, you know, they won't, there won't be that kind of, uh, you know, hyperactive, uh, uh, democracy, which, you know, often, you know, of course, uh, you know, even overflowed into kind of, you know, uh, almost quasi revolutionary activity in some countries.

00:35:03.520 And so, uh, you know, uh, but, um, I'm not saying there weren't problems with that system, but it was a system where it was a huge amount of participation.

00:35:11.520 And because there was this fundamental understanding that, you know, through the institutions of democracy, um, you know, we cannot, you know, real change can be, uh, can be achieved because the idea was that nation states had a lot of leeway.

00:35:26.520 You know, the powerful power was located, uh, primarily at the national level.

00:35:31.520 And so there was even, you know, say within the kind of constraints of the, um, of the cold war, you know, division of power.

00:35:39.520 And so even in a country like Italy, I mean, it was clear that Italy could never have opted for a socialist or communist solution.

00:35:45.520 I mean, this was, this was clear, uh, in that case that would have, you know, led to a military junta or to a coup.

00:35:50.520 Um, and this was very clear even to the leaders of the communist party, but despite that still, you know, uh, countries had quite a lot of autonomy, um, in, in deciding their own, their own policies.

00:36:01.520 And what we start to see, you know, is, um, is instead the slow erosion of national sovereignty.

00:36:08.520 And this is done through a wide array of means and, you know, uh, international trade deals is one of those means.

00:36:15.520 And, you know, in the European context, the European union was a fundamental tool for, for doing that.

00:36:21.520 I mean, Europe is the content in which this process has been brought to the most extreme, uh, you know, consequences, um, by effectively, you know, actually creating the, the only truly

00:36:32.520 supranational system of governance that's, uh, that's, uh, that, that, that, that, that's really ever existed.

00:36:37.520 And, you know, we know the very, the kind of disastrous outcome of that.

00:36:42.520 I mean, it's, uh, in terms, you know, in economic terms, but I would say, especially in democratic terms and, uh, particularly for, for kind of weaker, most subaltern countries of the block, my country, especially.

00:36:54.520 Um, but that was another crucial way in which they, um, in, in which they did that, you know, and then of course, you know, um, moving towards greater levels of,

00:37:01.520 those greater levels of media concentration was, uh, what was another, was another part of the project.

00:37:06.520 And so it really was a, um, it was a very, um, uh, you know, multi-pronged approach.

00:37:13.520 Uh, and it also worked because so many on the, on the left, uh, so, so many of those, that those measures were actually, uh, you know, aimed at, uh, bought into kind of this narrative that, oh, well, now we have globalization.

00:37:29.520 Now we have this internationalization of finance and trade, uh, ergo, that means that, you know, nation states have no more power, um, anymore.

00:37:38.520 Um, you know, this, this was, this was clearly false.

00:37:40.520 I mean, but it turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is of course what, what those that promoted this narrative wanted.

00:37:46.520 You know, they, they were very good at convincing, uh, left-wing parties and left-wing movements and socialist movements, especially in Europe, that the nation state was essentially obsolete.

00:37:55.520 Uh, and so there was no alternative but to transfer power to these supranational, uh, institutions.

00:38:01.520 And so it's kind of, uh, you know, this is when the left kind of started to become co-opted.

00:38:05.520 And so complaining about, you know, why the left has gone down the drain now?

00:38:09.520 Well, because it's been-

00:38:10.520 That was going to-

00:38:11.520 That was going to-

00:38:12.520 Yeah.

00:38:13.520 ...into this mainstream narrative for decades.

00:38:14.520 ...

00:38:15.520 ...

00:38:24.520 ...

Juno News - January 20, 2023

What’s really going on at the WEF？｜ Thomas Fazi ｜ Part 1.

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Juno News - January 20, 2023

What’s really going on at the WEF？ ｜ Thomas Fazi ｜ Part 1.

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

What’s really going on at the WEF？｜ Thomas Fazi ｜ Part 1.