Rebel News Podcast - Apple CEO hates “hate,” so he's banning “divisive” ideas from his company

00:00:00.000 Tonight, Apple's CEO says he's going to ban controversial ideas from his company.

00:00:05.800 I think this is the time to sell your Apple stock.

00:00:08.900 It's December 4th and you're watching The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:16.980 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:00:20.800 There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.

00:00:24.500 You come here once a year with a sign and you feel morally superior.

00:00:27.480 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.

00:00:38.100 Everybody knows the late Steve Jobs.

00:00:40.700 He was one of the founders of Apple, a genius, of course, in computing, in business, but also in aesthetics.

00:00:48.060 He rebelled against the IBM mold of thinking.

00:00:52.280 IBM's motto was think, which is a pretty good motto for a computer company.

00:00:57.480 IBM, of course, goes back before computers.

00:01:01.660 That motto is actually over 100 years old.

00:01:04.040 So along comes this hippie, Steve Jobs, drug user, spiritual quester, outsider, dissident.

00:01:12.620 And his motto was think different.

00:01:16.960 Here's a one minute ad narrated by the actor Richard Dreyfuss that summed up the style,

00:01:23.380 the personality, the culture of Apple.

00:01:29.440 Here's to the crazy ones.

00:01:32.120 The misfits.

00:01:33.860 The rebels.

00:01:35.380 The troublemakers.

00:01:37.340 The round pegs in the square holes.

00:01:40.560 The ones who see things differently.

00:01:42.960 They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo.

00:01:49.520 You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

00:01:55.480 But the only thing you can't do is ignore them.

00:01:59.440 Because they change things.

00:02:01.260 They push the human race forward.

00:02:05.780 And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

00:02:12.840 Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

00:02:19.560 Would you agree with me that the entire message there, the entire feeling, was that being controversial was okay?

00:02:33.720 That being a little bit crazy, even, is okay.

00:02:37.220 I think that's what it said.

00:02:38.840 I think that's what it meant.

00:02:40.420 And I think it was even true.

00:02:42.540 But Steve Jobs is gone, and in his place is someone who is as bland, as vanilla, and as establishment and compliant as possible.

00:02:53.920 He's the opposite of Steve Jobs in so many ways.

00:02:56.500 His name is Tim Cook.

00:02:57.860 I really think he's more of an IBM man.

00:03:00.680 I mean, he dresses more informally than IBM, like Steve Jobs.

00:03:05.160 No tie, like Steve Jobs.

00:03:07.620 But I think the similarity ends there.

00:03:09.540 Tell me a breakthrough innovation that has happened with Apple under Tim Cook.

00:03:14.500 I'm not blaming the man.

00:03:15.580 You just can't will yourself into becoming a creative, transformative, disruptive, one-in-a-billion genius like Steve Jobs.

00:03:24.360 You can't just order that up.

00:03:26.760 Apple's ads these days are a little bit different.

00:03:30.200 I literally chose this next ad at random.

00:03:33.660 It was the first one I came across when I just searched the Apple commercial page on YouTube.

00:03:39.780 Take a look at what it says today.

00:03:55.500 Hey.

00:03:57.000 Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

00:03:58.580 Oh, my God.

00:04:26.800 so that's an ad for the apple watch that's a new product rolled out by apple three years ago

00:04:46.500 it was the first real new product line introduced under tim cook and to be honest it hasn't exactly

00:04:52.980 set the world on fire it's health oriented which is great maybe i should get one after all but it's

00:05:00.240 not really about thinking differently anymore is it in fact it's it's a bit more about being

00:05:05.940 conformist and being optimized are you optimized it's an ibm thing not an apple thing did you see

00:05:13.540 that moment when it told him to stand up that's probably good advice get off the couch get some

00:05:20.080 exercise and look what it turned into a you know triathlon there um that was the focus here get

00:05:26.820 off your couch get some exercise of course we should all do that and the ai the artificial intelligence

00:05:33.840 in the watch phone knows when you really should get some exercise and so that guy became better and

00:05:41.960 became better and became better that's the name of the ad better you the ad copy accompanying the video

00:05:49.520 on youtube says introducing apple watch series 4 fundamentally redesigned and re-engineered to help

00:05:56.860 you stay more active healthy and connected it's all new for a better you that part fundamentally

00:06:03.820 redesigned and re-engineered sounds like ibm doesn't it but really it's to make you better you're being

00:06:10.440 fundamentally redesigned now i do need to be better and maybe having something nag me 0.98

00:06:15.980 especially an inanimate object like a watch not a person that i would quarrel with back maybe it's a

00:06:21.960 good thing but there's another word for what that watch and that whole way of thinking is it's called

00:06:27.140 scolding see it's not just redesigning and re-engineering the watch it's redesigning and re-engineering

00:06:33.120 how you think now maybe we all need that maybe i need that maybe i will take the watch's advice

00:06:41.600 and i guess you could always shut off your phone or your watch i think you know the new apple apps

00:06:49.520 and other phones too i'm sure they track your health they track your heart rate they track how

00:06:53.760 much exercise you get how many steps you take and of course that's on top of your gps location

00:06:58.980 when you turn off your phone or your watch does it really turn it off and who gets access to your

00:07:06.600 health data your your doctor that could be a good thing your insurance company i'm not sure if that's

00:07:12.360 a good thing the government pretty sure that's not a good thing a better you that's what they were

00:07:18.360 selling there can i can i show you the apple ad from oh it's more than 30 years ago now that really

00:07:26.960 shook up the world of computing and really fired the starter pistol for the whole think different

00:07:34.520 idea this one is from back in 1984 i remember watching this ad as a child and truly being inspired by it take a look

00:07:44.280 today we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the information purification

00:07:50.760 the victims we have created for the first time in all history a garden of pure ideology where each worker may

00:08:00.520 bloom secure from the pests obeying contradictory force

00:08:06.280 our civilization of force is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth we are one people

00:08:14.280 with one whim one resolve one cause our enemies shall toll themselves to death and we bury them with their own

00:08:24.520 we shall prevail on january 24th apple computer will introduce macintosh and you'll see why 1984 won't be

00:08:41.480 like 1984. so the apple watch feels a bit different to that anti-1984 ad doesn't it

00:08:50.840 but who cares i guess i mean if you don't like the scolding watch the nagging apps the scolding apps the

00:08:58.520 better you apps just turn them off if you can there's just one more orwell reference if you remember in

00:09:04.520 the book 1984 everyone had a telescreen in their house it pumped in propaganda full-time but it was

00:09:12.200 also a surveillance device it spied on you reread the book and tell me the difference between those

00:09:18.840 telescreens orwell prophesied and the functions on your own phone like siri or other voice detection

00:09:26.200 systems or amazon echo or google home that sit in your house and listen to you all the time waiting

00:09:32.680 for you to tell it to do something like play a song but it's listening to you all the time sorry friends

00:09:39.800 that is a telescreen but let me show you and this is all by way of a preamble to a speech

00:09:45.160 given yesterday by tim cook it was at an anti-hate rally in new york city an anti-hate rally that sounds

00:09:56.520 like the kind of thing they did in orwell's book 1984 in fact they did remember that book the the the

00:10:02.280 whole um dictatorship had something called two minutes hate remember the book where the government

00:10:09.160 ordered everyone to express their hatred for the enemies of the day for exactly two minutes can i

00:10:15.240 read a passage from the book here it is the horrible thing of the two minutes hate was not that one was

00:10:22.360 obliged to act apart but that it was impossible to avoid joining in within 30 seconds any pretense was

00:10:29.640 always unnecessary a hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness a desire to kill to torture to smash

00:10:35.640 faces in with a sledgehammer seem to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current

00:10:41.080 turning one even against one's will into a grimacing screaming lunatic and yet the rage that one felt

00:10:47.240 was an abstract undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame

00:10:51.960 of a blow lamp talk about a prophecy of online mobs hey twitter mobs hate someone really hard for two

00:11:01.320 minutes just long enough to destroy them in this modern era get them fired black in their name forever

00:11:07.560 and then move on and join in with the mob and feel so so committed to it just for two minutes though

00:11:15.320 but really that's the thing because the anti-hate meeting that tim cook spoke at yesterday

00:11:21.480 well they hate people themselves too don't they i mean they they hate haters they're intolerant of

00:11:27.880 intolerance and i'm not playing word games i mean the right wing hates the left wing and the left wing

00:11:34.200 hates the right wing and democrats democrats hate republicans and republicans hate democrats and the

00:11:39.000 edmonton oilers fans hate the calgary flames and vice versa as in don't pretend that only the other side

00:11:46.120 has the feeling the emotion of hatred in them we rename our own hate in positive words passion oh i don't

00:11:53.240 hate you i'm just passionate oh no no i'm not full of fury that's righteous indignation it's the other 0.71

00:11:59.640 side who's hateful i'm passionate is this guy hateful we will hunt monsters and when we are at a loss

00:12:10.840 amidst the hypocrisy and the casual violence of certain individuals and institutions we will

00:12:16.840 as per chief jim hopper punch some people in the face when they seek to destroy the meat and the

00:12:23.960 disenfranchised and the marginalized there's some hollywood actor at some awards ceremony he said he

00:12:30.760 was against the haters he was so against the haters so much he wanted to punch the haters in the face

00:12:38.840 yeah so let me show you the two minutes of hate from tim cook yesterday at the anti-hate rally now

00:12:48.120 he's so calm and bland this tim cook he really is an ibm man at heart but listen to this and and then

00:12:55.320 i'll so i'm going to play it through for two minutes of hate and then i'll give you my thoughts

00:12:59.240 afterward take a look perhaps most importantly it drives us not to be bystanders bystanders as hate

00:13:07.960 tries to make its headquarters in the digital world at apple we believe that technology needs to have a

00:13:17.000 clear point of view on this challenge there is no time to get tied up in knots that's why we only have

00:13:26.040 one message for those who seek to push hate division and violence

00:13:32.920 you have no place on our platforms

00:13:47.960 you have no home here from the earliest days of itunes to apple music today we have always prohibited

00:13:56.680 music with a message of white supremacy

00:14:06.200 why because it's the right thing to do and as we showed this year we won't give a platform to violent

00:14:14.200 conspiracy theorists on the app store

00:14:16.280 why because it's the right thing to do my friends if we can't be clear on moral questions like these

00:14:30.680 then we've got big problems at apple we are not afraid to say that our values drive our curation decisions

00:14:40.520 and why should we be doing what's right creating experiences free from violence and hate experiences

00:14:52.120 that empower creativity and new ideas is what our customers want us to do i believe the most sacred

00:15:00.520 the good thing that the good thing that each of us is given is our judgment our morality

00:15:07.720 our own innate desire to separate right from wrong choosing to set that responsibility aside

00:15:16.680 at a moment of trial is a sin

00:15:21.640 he's slick that gm man sorry i called him a gm man ibm man same thing

00:15:26.360 uh so let's uh look through it again uh look at this first little bit just for a second perhaps

00:15:32.120 most importantly it drives us not to be bystanders bystanders as hate tries to make its headquarters in the digital world

00:15:43.720 at apple we believe that technology needs to have a clear point of view on this challenge

00:15:50.040 yeah no uh you make phones they're phones they're not our bosses you don't have a clear

00:15:59.560 point of view on on anything just like a car maker doesn't tell us where to drive or a food manufacturer

00:16:06.440 doesn't tell us how to eat it you can't tell us what we can or can't say on the phone imagine the

00:16:12.680 arrogance that your telephone can object to what you say on it here's some more take a look there is no

00:16:18.840 time to get tied up in knots that's why we only have one message for those who seek to push hate

00:16:29.240 division and violence you have no place on our platforms

00:16:38.920 okay hate division and violence but those are three very very different things of course we don't

00:16:44.200 support violence or hang on sure we do actually apple is one of the world's biggest vendors of movies

00:16:53.800 including r-rated movies just dripping with violence and murder they they push violent every every day

00:17:00.920 every second for profit is that what they mean because apple is all about sex and drugs and violence

00:17:08.600 for a profit or maybe tip tim cook means committing violence in real life if so tim we've already got a

00:17:15.480 police force thank you very little i'm i'm sure they'll be able to take care of any real violence

00:17:20.200 uh it's against the law always has been um so you don't need to get involved or maybe that's not what

00:17:27.000 he means well what exactly does tim cook mean i mean there is no apple police to arrest someone i suppose

00:17:34.040 they they could bring violence to the attention of the authorities but but we already have independent

00:17:38.520 police and courts and the accused have the right to a fair trial and the right to be presumed innocent

00:17:43.720 etc is is tim cook proposing to replace our public police and court system with some opaque private

00:17:52.760 algorithm that he cooks up what does he mean by violence how can you even be violent in cyberspace

00:17:58.680 if he means promoting violence like calling for violence inciting violence well that's a crime

00:18:04.680 too it might even be a civil lawsuit fine give it to the courts sorry i don't trust apple to run private

00:18:11.720 corporate courts and what about hatred well hatred is a natural human emotion like love i suppose if you

00:18:20.520 never feel it if you never feel hatred in your life you do not have a normal personality the key is what

00:18:26.200 we do with our hate can we transform our hatred into some positive things some positive actions or

00:18:31.720 or at least can we burn it off let up some steam harmlessly by the way free speech is the best way

00:18:36.600 to do that let people get a grievance off their chest shutting someone up rarely changes their mind in fact

00:18:42.600 it often adds to their sense of grievance and persecution and it proves to them at least that they

00:18:48.040 they were right if they have to be shut up and and that other point he mentioned division he said violence

00:18:54.520 hatred and division what on earth does he mean by that division is is simply that we are not all

00:18:59.960 unified of course we're not unified by by definition we have controversies in life

00:19:05.000 that divide us in fact in many parliaments in in congresses in legislatures another way of saying

00:19:11.480 let's have a vote is to say let's call for a division in its old-fashioned meaning it actually meant

00:19:17.160 legislators would stand up and physically divide themselves according to their views on an issue we

00:19:21.720 we are divided as a community whether it's on boring things like what the tax rate should be or

00:19:27.400 frustrating things like whether we should build pipelines or you know believe in the theory of

00:19:33.160 global warming or or personal things like abortion of course we're divided in canada we have

00:19:39.400 institutionalized that division we have something called the leader of the opposition and he's paid

00:19:44.600 to divide and oppose and frankly to cause trouble for the establishment a criminal trial is so divided

00:19:49.720 we hire people to be adversarial quarrelers even to challenge each other's credibility a good

00:19:55.640 prosecutor or a good defense lawyer often calls people liars sometimes a life depends on the fact

00:20:01.480 that they do so what does he mean by no division well it means that tim cook has decided that he's going

00:20:10.120 to disagree with you but you're the disagreeable one he hates you because you're hateful and he's going to

00:20:19.080 throw in in the word violence just because no one can say they're in favor of that so he has to throw in the

00:20:25.560 word violence to remove any objection to his censorship plan here's some more you have no home here

00:20:31.800 from the earliest days of itunes to apple music today we have always prohibited music with a message

00:20:40.520 of white supremacy

00:20:48.600 why because it's the right thing to do i'm against racism i'm against white supremacy i'm against a lot

00:20:55.640 of things as a matter of taste not necessarily as a matter of law why didn't he also say for example

00:21:02.520 black supremacy i know that sounds odd but it is a thing the black panthers lewis farrakhan of the 0.71

00:21:07.880 nation of islam why didn't tim cook say he's against anti-semitism and if we're against racism are we okay with

00:21:15.640 the n word i never say it but you can't listen to rap music without hearing that word a thousand times

00:21:22.040 and women's being called women being called bitches and hoes is is that okay if the right 1.00

00:21:29.240 people say that but not okay if the wrong people say it and is your i don't know music stereo really

00:21:38.040 entitled to a point of view isn't a stereo or an iphone or an ipod isn't it just an inanimate object

00:21:45.560 is isn't that what we're buying we're just buying a tool i can use a hammer to hammer in a nail or god

00:21:50.520 forbid i can use a hammer to hit someone it's just a hammer the hammer has no opinions the hammer is

00:21:54.920 no morality but now tim cook is saying that his tool his phone his music app it will have opinions

00:22:01.400 it will have a moral code and maybe maybe i'll agree with some of tim cook's opinions i don't like

00:22:06.440 white supremacy and maybe i'll agree with some of tim cook's opinions on on this or that subject but

00:22:12.200 but maybe even if i agree with him i want to learn what the other side of the story is anyways

00:22:16.600 just for an example as a jew i might want to read mein kampf hitler's book to better understand

00:22:23.160 anti-semitism i don't agree with the book i would agree that it's distasteful but maybe i want to read

00:22:27.560 it anyways maybe i want to make my own decisions and not have some anonymous algorithm tell me or or or

00:22:33.320 not tell me just block me are they also going to block my emails are they also going to cut off my

00:22:39.080 phone calls when i say a key word they don't like i know that sounds absurd but really how is it

00:22:44.040 qualitatively different than what else he says he's going to ban in the name of curation and his

00:22:49.640 moral code okay just a bit more and as we showed this year we won't give a platform to violent

00:22:56.440 conspiracy theorists on the app store okay i think he meant alex jones of infowars.com right

00:23:05.960 is alex jones a conspiracy theorist i'm sure he is on some issues a conspiracy theory is a speculation

00:23:12.600 usually about some hidden collusion often about big government or big business i put it to you

00:23:17.240 that the entire mainstream media is deep into a conspiracy theory about russia and donald trump

00:23:22.760 in the 2016 election it's been two years not a shred of evidence to support it but the conspiracy

00:23:27.480 theory is widespread and we can choose to believe the theory or not i i don't believe it but why does

00:23:33.240 tim cook get to decide which conspiracy theories are good and which are bad why are official conspiracy

00:23:38.760 theories like i don't know like the theory that your suv is making the globe heat up and causing

00:23:44.360 hurricanes why are those conspiracy theories cool but alex jones's aren't can't we each decide for

00:23:50.760 ourselves by the way some of alex jones's conspiracy theories have been proven to be uh conspiracy facts

00:23:57.400 i don't know if you saw this major story in the miami herald just the other day showing how this

00:24:02.120 billionaire named jeffrey epstein had a private island with young teenage girls that he systematically

00:24:10.120 raped for years and that he would fly in political honchos on his private jet to that island with him

00:24:18.120 including bill clinton who went to that island 26 times i know that sounds insane that sounds crazy

00:24:26.360 sounds like an alex jones conspiracy theory yeah but the miami herald just proved it was accurate

00:24:32.440 in some outstanding reporting i bet they'll get a pulitzer so so i guess now it's a conspiracy fact

00:24:37.720 you'll notice that tim cook called alex jones a violent conspiracy theorist i've never heard of alex

00:24:42.760 jones being violent at all ever but again that's a deliberate orwellian name-calling by tim cook isn't

00:24:48.600 it i mean civil liberties types could defend a conspiracy theorist as harmless they could even defend a

00:24:54.520 hate her because that's just an emotion but no one can defend violence okay what violence listen to

00:25:00.360 this why because it's the right thing to do my friends if we can't be clear on moral questions like

00:25:08.840 these then we've got big problems listen apple can have whatever moral values they want for themselves

00:25:16.280 just like ford or gm can but i don't have to drive my car in a manner that gm prescribes

00:25:21.720 uh san francisco is an overwhelmingly left-wing anti-christian city hedonistic shallow even a

00:25:27.720 bit pagan that's the vibe in all these tech companies that's fine but since when do they 0.98

00:25:32.280 impose their moral values on the rest of us and really if they can ban alex jones why can't they

00:25:39.720 ban a church they don't like here's some more at apple we are not afraid to say that our values drive

00:25:48.520 our curation decisions and why should we be doing what's right creating experiences free from violence

00:25:59.400 and hate experiences that empower creativity and new ideas it's what our customers want us to do

00:26:08.920 again he's conflating violence which is a criminal action with hate which is a human emotion inside your

00:26:14.520 mind what a trickster but but look at the other trick he he says apple customers want him to censor

00:26:21.480 people well that can't be true alex jones had millions of followers on social media youtube apple

00:26:27.880 facebook twitter obviously they didn't want alex jones to be banned or they simply wouldn't have

00:26:33.240 followed alex jones in the first place they they didn't think he was hateful or maybe a few of them

00:26:37.960 did but they just wanted to know what the hater had to say why should tim cook big brother as orwell

00:26:44.360 would call him why should tim cook decide for all of us since when did the phone company curate who you

00:26:49.720 should talk with or not don't you have a right to hear someone that you want to hear as much as you

00:26:55.800 have a right to speak if you want to give a speech tim cook believes in neither the right to hear or the

00:27:01.560 the right to speak if it disagrees with his own authoritarian viewpoint i believe the most sacred

00:27:08.680 thing that each of us is given is our judgment our morality our own innate desire to separate right from

00:27:20.120 wrong choosing to set that responsibility aside at a moment of trial is a sin look at the weak

00:27:30.040 thinking here he just said there's a difference between right and wrong of course there is but

00:27:36.040 isn't that division he just divided the world he divided everyone into two parts what he likes and

00:27:42.600 what he um hates he's doing it right there and he's invoking the language of moral belief and religion

00:27:52.040 really he says it's a sin not to follow morality and divide the world into right and wrong but of course

00:27:58.040 he means only his own private brand of morality that you must follow how is what he's saying

00:28:05.000 any different from i don't know what alex jones himself says other than alex jones usually growls

00:28:09.800 a lot he's not an ibm man tim cook has made it official he is a censor it would be a sin for him

00:28:17.160 not to beat people he will apply his own brand of morality to the world and to you but here's the thing

00:28:23.960 back in 1996 when the internet was just getting going full tilt to the public congress passed the

00:28:29.800 communications decency act section 230 you can see here it was designed to help handle old questions

00:28:36.920 in the new media including legal liability would google let's say be responsible for everything that

00:28:42.280 turned up when you search for something was your phone company on the line legally well here's the key

00:28:48.920 line from this statute no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as

00:28:57.320 the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider

00:29:04.120 interactive computer service was just a fancy word of what they called the internet back then

00:29:09.240 the company so so companies people who use the internet were exempt from prosecution

00:29:15.960 for things like defamation if they they were just acting like a payphone company anyone can make a call

00:29:22.040 on them you can't sue the payphone company they didn't create the words they didn't speak it or write

00:29:27.880 it they just were a neutral platform for it so that's what the communications act decency act said in 1996

00:29:35.640 but what would happen if the payphone company that instead of just taking your coin to take a call what

00:29:41.800 would happen if they now got involved in curating the calls that got involved in approving or disapproving

00:29:49.320 everything said on that phone that's what tim cook just announced he's going to do

00:29:56.440 it really is the end of steve jobs's think different approach isn't it it really is big brother telling you to be

00:30:02.280 a better you or else and it should be the end of the era of government non-interference with big tech

00:30:11.560 if tim cook of apple and mark zuckerberg of facebook and jack dorsey of twitter and all the rest of them

00:30:17.800 want to turn every single cell phone call every website every email into a personal project for

00:30:23.480 moral improvement to make you better in their definition then they're not neutral anymore

00:30:29.320 then they're political activists to be regulated they're defamers to be prosecuted they're liable for

00:30:34.280 every word said on their systems they're not like a payphone anymore i wonder if donald trump has the

00:30:40.200 courage to take them on the same way teddy roosevelt took on standard oil here's a political cartoon

00:30:47.080 of the day more than 100 years ago uh the title you can't really see it's called the infant hercules

00:30:52.760 and the standard oil serpents i think one of those is meant to be john d rockefeller

00:30:59.880 he busted standard oil into a bunch of parts well tim cook isn't as rich as rockefeller

00:31:04.920 but he is more powerful i wonder if donald trump has enough roosevelt inside of him

00:31:10.680 to take them on stay with us for one

00:31:34.920 thomas

00:31:46.040 nonsense

00:32:00.760 That is the scene, or was the scene this weekend.

00:32:08.600 As you can tell, it was from Paris.

00:32:10.900 That's probably the second most identifiable edifice in that city,

00:32:17.280 the Eiffel Tower being the first.

00:32:18.660 That's the Arc de Triomphe, a massive structure commemorating

00:32:23.340 all the great military victories of France.

00:32:26.920 It's a huge traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe,

00:32:29.720 but obviously shut down there with protests that verged occasionally on riots.

00:32:35.700 Now, all the folks wearing the yellow vests,

00:32:37.980 that's normally what authorities look like,

00:32:40.540 but those were the protesters.

00:32:42.760 They call themselves the yellow vests,

00:32:44.740 les gilets jaunes in French,

00:32:48.440 and it's based on a reaction to a bizarre new requirement in France

00:32:54.020 that you must have a yellow vest in your dash compartment,

00:33:00.520 your glove compartment,

00:33:02.160 in case you have to pull over to the side of the road,

00:33:04.580 you've got to put that on.

00:33:06.220 That doesn't particularly irk people,

00:33:09.020 although it is very nanny state and quarrelsome,

00:33:11.880 but rather the carbon taxes that are being implemented alongside them.

00:33:17.740 Huge new fuel taxes.

00:33:20.220 Well, tens of thousands of Frenchmen protested,

00:33:24.140 and you saw some of the police response.

00:33:27.480 Well, our own Jack Buckby and Martina Marcotta

00:33:31.740 were right in the thick of it.

00:33:33.740 In fact, it was they who filmed those shots we just showed you,

00:33:37.100 and joining me now safely back in the United Kingdom is Jack Buckby.

00:33:41.700 Jack, welcome back.

00:33:43.320 Hi, Ezra. Thanks for having me on again.

00:33:45.040 Well, what an exciting trip.

00:33:47.700 I remember you and I were talking last week,

00:33:50.100 and we didn't know if there was going to be protests.

00:33:53.220 You were there for really the worst of it, weren't you?

00:33:56.240 Yeah, honestly, I was concerned about going and not getting any footage,

00:34:00.500 but quite the opposite.

00:34:01.660 We turned up on the morning of Saturday to the Arc de Triomphe,

00:34:04.940 and our plan was just to film some nice, peaceful stuff in the morning

00:34:08.440 before it all kicked off at the end of the day.

00:34:10.160 But as we arrived, the minute we got there, people just appeared,

00:34:14.140 and you could feel this sort of stinging on your eyes,

00:34:17.120 and it never occurred to me that I should take some goggles,

00:34:19.780 and I certainly needed it by the end of the day

00:34:21.800 because as the crowds grew, the police came in around that circle

00:34:27.700 and got everyone stuck in that traffic circle,

00:34:30.940 and they just kept throwing these gas canisters.

00:34:33.960 The French people there told me that it wasn't a tactic.

00:34:37.400 They had nothing to achieve by throwing these canisters

00:34:40.380 because it was just pushing people from one side to the other.

00:34:42.360 What they said was it was punishment.

00:34:44.340 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:34:46.020 Now, I've been observing these protests for a few weeks now.

00:34:49.340 I think this was the third or fourth weekend where they were really going.

00:34:52.480 What's interesting to me and what is so obviously deliberately buried in mainstream media coverage

00:35:01.860 is that this is in reaction to many things,

00:35:05.000 but the seed crystal, if you will, is the carbon tax, the fuel tax, energy poverty,

00:35:13.040 done in the name of elitist global warming moral panic.

00:35:16.820 Like, oh my God, we've got to have you change your lifestyle.

00:35:20.580 No more cars.

00:35:21.600 You've got to, we're doing this for the good of the planet.

00:35:23.560 All these fancy pants.

00:35:24.920 I mean, remember the big global warming conference was in Paris two or three years ago.

00:35:30.600 So you have all the fancy people, Emmanuel Macron,

00:35:34.220 in the name of good globalist citizenship,

00:35:37.340 jacking up taxes on severely normal working people

00:35:40.300 who've basically said, to heck with that.

00:35:45.060 Yeah, the vibe I got, and in fact, what people told me was that it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

00:35:51.540 They were out protesting the carbon tax, but there's way more to it.

00:35:54.900 And Macron is just using it as an excuse to inflict more taxes on the people.

00:35:59.080 They're looking at proposing taxes for deliveries from online supermarkets and shopping websites,

00:36:05.260 taxes on mobile phone subscriptions, on internet subscriptions.

00:36:08.620 They literally tax everything.

00:36:11.560 And they're just finding excuses.

00:36:13.540 And the carbon tax is the newest one.

00:36:15.140 But people told me that there are many places in France where they can't go anywhere.

00:36:19.960 On the tram or the bus, there's no trains.

00:36:22.280 They have to use their cars.

00:36:24.020 And people have been buying diesel cars because the French government kept telling them,

00:36:27.520 hey, guys, don't use that horrible petrol.

00:36:30.040 Get diesel instead.

00:36:31.100 It's better.

00:36:31.660 It's more efficient.

00:36:32.460 Buy diesel.

00:36:33.100 So everyone bought diesel cars.

00:36:34.580 And now they're taxing the diesel, making it even more expensive.

00:36:37.480 And they're going to be even putting diesel cars out of production in 2040.

00:36:41.060 So they're just making it extremely difficult for people to get by.

00:36:44.660 They're not earning much in the way of salaries anyway.

00:36:47.280 People retiring are really struggling.

00:36:49.280 And that's why when you look at these protests, you see that it's just there's no political

00:36:53.480 alignment there.

00:36:54.720 It's people from all different sides.

00:36:56.640 You know, a few weeks ago, we interviewed the author of a book called The Republican Workers

00:37:02.660 Party.

00:37:03.860 And I just that name, I kept turning it over in my mind because I thought Republican Workers

00:37:07.620 Party, it seems like an oxymoron.

00:37:09.980 But no, I mean, if you look at Trumpism, it's you got a blue collar billionaire who's standing

00:37:15.800 up for workers.

00:37:16.600 I think there's a similar thing here.

00:37:19.500 I watched all of your reports and I know you've got more videos to come.

00:37:23.520 You interviewed one fella who said he's a nationalist, which and he was concerned about open borders

00:37:29.840 immigration.

00:37:31.020 So he's there.

00:37:32.580 He's complaining about spending on migrants instead of spending on French.

00:37:36.540 And then there's other people who are non-ideological.

00:37:39.100 So you had a spectrum.

00:37:41.340 Now, I want to ask you a question, though.

00:37:44.880 These protests have generally been peaceful.

00:37:48.640 But I think I detect that some opportunistic leftists like Antifa and migrant groups are sort 0.88

00:37:57.060 of saying, oh, if it's a madhouse, if it's a free for all, let's go out and smash a few

00:38:01.720 things up.

00:38:02.220 So is it accurate to draw a distinction between these gilets jaunes protesters and Antifa and

00:38:09.540 migrant opportunistic violence protests?

00:38:13.360 Yeah, it's fair.

00:38:15.460 So here's the facts of it.

00:38:17.520 Within the gilets jaunes, you do have Antifa and you do have anarchists.

00:38:21.420 Within gilets jaunes, you also have a majority, I would say, or at least 50 percent of these

00:38:26.860 people are just decent, normal people protesting the taxes.

00:38:30.180 Then you've got a portion of them who are really angry about the taxes and they're going

00:38:34.080 out for a fight.

00:38:35.720 But I mean, that's the French for you.

00:38:37.580 When they revolt, they revolt.

00:38:39.640 And then the others are the opportunistic ones.

00:38:41.760 And that includes Antifa.

00:38:42.940 And you'll see in my footage of my report, which I believe is going out tonight, this

00:38:47.660 report shows that every building that was torched and looted was tagged with an A for anarchist.

00:38:54.580 It was tagged with Antifa slogans.

00:38:56.420 Yellow is the new black block, black block being Antifa, of course.

00:39:01.300 So it's quite clear who was doing the rioting and the smashing up here.

00:39:05.300 I'm not saying all everyone was innocent, but it seems like a large proportion of it was

00:39:09.460 the far left.

00:39:10.700 But local people also told me what they believe happened is Antifa and the anarchists went

00:39:15.380 out and smashed things up and burned things.

00:39:17.720 But the looting was done not again, not all, but by a lot, the migrant population, because 1.00

00:39:25.340 they they have these things called thief markets in Paris where they sell stolen goods.

00:39:30.020 And you can bet that the things stolen and looted that night are ending up on the thief

00:39:34.400 markets this morning.

00:39:36.260 Well, it's quite incredible.

00:39:37.380 I mean, of course, Paris is one of the most beautiful cities.

00:39:40.240 It's a tourist magnet.

00:39:41.740 The Eiffel Tower, the most photographed image in the world, actually.

00:39:45.700 But that fairy tale image of Paris is certainly being undone by the violence.

00:39:51.360 Now, I see in the news today that Emmanuel Macron is sort of blinking.

00:39:56.520 He suggested he might defer the imposition of the new round of taxes by, what, three or

00:40:02.480 six months.

00:40:03.160 And I got to think that's a laugh.

00:40:04.720 I mean, if someone's willing to to to protest or even riot, I think just saying, OK, OK,

00:40:12.120 we'll delay implementation of this thing you hate so much by three or six months.

00:40:16.320 That just doesn't sound like it's going to float with people who have taken tear gas

00:40:21.620 for the fate to the face.

00:40:23.340 No, it's not going to work at all.

00:40:25.020 I asked every person I spoke to everyone who spoke English.

00:40:28.620 That is every person I asked.

00:40:30.420 I said, what's going to make you stop?

00:40:32.620 Are you going to end this anytime soon?

00:40:34.220 And they reply, no, we won't end this anytime soon.

00:40:36.360 The only way we'll stop is if Macron goes.

00:40:39.620 So, I mean, not only does he have to stop the taxes, he's got to go as well before these

00:40:44.520 people stop.

00:40:45.820 Delaying it?

00:40:46.760 Nah.

00:40:47.280 Marine Le Pen, the presidential candidate for the Front National or the National Rally now,

00:40:51.920 she tweeted earlier, she says, isn't it funny that he's delaying it just past the May

00:40:55.840 European elections, which is a good point.

00:40:57.860 Well, I see a new survey out that shows that 76% of Frenchmen disapprove of Emmanuel Macron.

00:41:07.640 I don't think I've ever heard an approval rating that low.

00:41:12.600 I mean, Donald Trump is a very controversial president and things are usually 50-50 for him.

00:41:18.860 To have 76% of your countrymen say you've got to go, it's quite incredible.

00:41:24.060 He always seemed to me to be a bit of an artificial candidate.

00:41:28.700 He came out of nowhere.

00:41:29.680 He was part of the bureaucratic machine.

00:41:31.660 He's so obviously focus grouped and stage managed.

00:41:34.480 He seems a little bit like Mark Zuckerberg in terms of his lack of empathy and emotions.

00:41:39.820 He seems almost robotic.

00:41:41.000 I think personally, it's quite possible that he's replaced, you know, cut off like a gangrenous

00:41:50.580 limb and some equally anonymous anodyne Eurocratus put in in his place.

00:41:56.440 But let me ask you, you mentioned Marine Le Pen of the Rally Nationale or the successor party

00:42:03.900 to the Front National.

00:42:04.600 Is she benefiting from any of this?

00:42:09.820 She's definitely going to.

00:42:11.920 I wouldn't hedge bets on her doing incredibly well and, you know, just beating everyone else.

00:42:17.080 It's not going to happen anytime soon.

00:42:19.100 But she'll definitely do well.

00:42:20.060 She's already polling better than Macron for the European elections.

00:42:23.540 As of last week, I think she was on 20% to Macron's 19%.

00:42:27.840 And I can only expect that 19% to go down.

00:42:30.100 Yeah, Marine Le Pen will benefit from this, but so will the far left.

00:42:35.380 The far left are going to benefit as well.

00:42:37.300 And also, apparently, there might be some new parties coming along that could sweep up some

00:42:41.340 of the vote, too.

00:42:42.020 So the elections in May will definitely be interesting.

00:42:44.560 Macron's going to take an absolute hammering.

00:42:46.820 Yeah, very interesting.

00:42:49.020 Let me put a little marker down.

00:42:50.760 I predict that just as he was created in a lab and appeared out of nowhere, really, I mean,

00:42:57.700 he was just created a year before the election.

00:42:59.880 I mean, he was so rigged, in my mind.

00:43:02.980 And I don't say that as a conspiracy theorist.

00:43:04.980 I mean, I note, for example, that Facebook deleted 30,000 or 40,000 pages of Marine Le Pen

00:43:10.620 supporting, you know, just boom.

00:43:12.920 I mean, the whole thing was such a, it was so antiseptic.

00:43:17.960 I don't believe it.

00:43:19.280 I predict that he will be replaced because he's so toxic.

00:43:22.740 We'll see if that comes true.

00:43:24.100 Well, Jack, thanks to you and to Martina for going there.

00:43:26.560 And congratulations on the great footage.

00:43:28.040 I just want to tell our viewers that for all of your reports, and we probably have three

00:43:31.960 or four more videos to come, they're at rebelfrance.com, rebelfrance.com.

00:43:38.480 And if folks want to chip in to help cover your travel and accommodation there, I'd be grateful.

00:43:43.460 So thanks very much, Jack.

00:43:45.460 Thanks so much.

00:43:46.340 Cheers.

00:43:46.620 All right, cheers.

00:43:47.480 There you have it.

00:43:47.900 Jack Buckby, who, along with Martina Marcotta, went to France for two days.

00:43:52.600 And I think their footage was actually the most interesting and the most on the scene

00:43:57.140 of any reports out of France.

00:44:00.400 What do you think?

00:44:00.920 Go to rebelfrance.com for all the videos.

00:44:02.540 Stay with us.

00:44:03.500 More ahead on The Rebel.

00:44:04.400 Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about Rachel Notley nationalizing the oil

00:44:19.320 patch.

00:44:19.560 Peter writes, Notley will not get back into office again forever, so she is going to do

00:44:26.180 as much damage as possible on her way out.

00:44:30.140 Yeah, I mean, this is busy work.

00:44:31.580 This is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

00:44:34.600 She also was talking about buying 100,000 barrels a day worth of rail cars.

00:44:39.700 Well, you can't just go to, you know, officedepot.com and order up some rail cars.

00:44:45.780 They take maybe a year's lead time to buy.

00:44:49.080 And again, the problem with the oil patch being demarketed is not a lack of cash.

00:44:56.880 The world's energy industry has trillions of dollars in it.

00:45:00.200 But record production, record investment, I've never heard an oil company or a pipeline

00:45:07.140 company say, can I have some cash to put together an oil deal?

00:45:11.280 The oil deals sell themselves.

00:45:13.580 Northern Gateway was canceled.

00:45:15.000 Energy use was canceled.

00:45:16.140 Trans Mountain was canceled.

00:45:18.220 Not because those companies lacked cash, but because there was no political will.

00:45:21.880 We don't need Rachel Notley to buy rail cars. 0.83

00:45:27.160 We don't need Rachel Notley to command and control who can produce what. 0.79

00:45:32.060 The problem is that governments, courts, and activists have blocked the actual entrepreneurs

00:45:38.420 and capitalists.

00:45:39.520 We don't need some Soviet-style command economy.

00:45:41.980 It's terrible.

00:45:43.940 Robert writes,

00:45:44.540 Robert, that's a great point.

00:45:55.220 But there are some things that you do them once, and they send a shock to the system because

00:46:01.680 people say, oh, wow, he did it once.

00:46:03.440 Maybe he'll do it again.

00:46:04.220 So let's say in six months, this command and control, supply management, ordering oil companies

00:46:10.560 to stop working.

00:46:12.020 Let's say it goes away.

00:46:13.160 But we've sent the message that in Alberta, oil companies should be aware that they might

00:46:19.000 get a knock on the door one day, and it'll be some government process server saying, hey

00:46:23.460 guys, I know you had big plans to produce 100,000 barrels of oil today, but lucky you, you're

00:46:29.340 only going to produce 80,000 barrels of oil, and so good luck.

00:46:34.320 Well, and the problem is, if Jason Kenney accepts this, that lingering risk continues

00:46:40.240 on into the new government.

00:46:41.240 I tell you, with Donald Trump being not just pro-oil rhetorically, but getting production

00:46:48.840 up, making it legal to drill in the Alaska Arctic Wildlife Natural Refuge, getting the Dakota

00:46:58.020 access pipeline built in a matter of months, would you really, if you had a billion dollars

00:47:03.400 to invest in oil and gas, would you really put it in Canada, or would you put it in North

00:47:08.840 Dakota or Texas?

00:47:10.200 I mean, it's not even a patriotic question.

00:47:12.800 It's where is the less risky place?

00:47:16.780 On Trudeau giving away $50 million to impress Trevor Noah, Stephen writes, Trudeau can easily

00:47:22.060 find $50 million to give to a virtue signaler in kind, but can't find any funds for our veterans

00:47:27.660 because, well, we have no money.

00:47:31.340 Yeah, what was the line he said there?

00:47:33.440 He said, they're asking for more than we can give.

00:47:37.480 No, no, I think the accurate, they're asking for more than we want to give, because of course

00:47:43.300 Trudeau has shown that there is no limit on his spending, whether it's something positively

00:47:49.580 evil, like giving $10.5 million to Omar Khadr.

00:47:52.740 Something whimsical, like giving $50 million to a B-list celebrity in Hollywood, or just

00:47:59.640 general waste and corruption, like his regular budgets.

00:48:03.660 On my interview with Alessandra Bocchi, Lee writes,

00:48:07.740 Thanks.

00:48:08.740 As a day one subscriber, I must say that I appreciate the contributions that Alessandra Bocchi has

00:48:13.140 been making on The Rebel.

00:48:15.980 Well, thanks.

00:48:18.560 I feel like I spotted her.

00:48:20.660 She's just a youngster.

00:48:22.660 But I tell you, any young gal who actually works in North Africa, documenting the migration

00:48:29.620 with her own eyes, that's someone I trust more than even an old hand who just writes 0.98

00:48:36.800 from a desk in London or Washington.

00:48:39.200 And I think she speaks excellent English.

00:48:42.500 I'd say it's almost perfect, wouldn't you?

00:48:44.660 And as you, I think, I can't remember if this was a private conversation I had with her after,

00:48:49.760 or it was online.

00:48:50.840 She's just finishing up her student exams or journalistic exams or something.

00:48:54.560 But once that's done, I hope that she'll do on-the-spot video for us around Europe.

00:49:00.820 Now, I know some people say, as you guys do too much foreign affairs, we've got problems

00:49:04.180 here in Canada, we've got to deal with things in Canada.

00:49:05.940 Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I agree.

00:49:09.740 Jack and Martina went to Paris.

00:49:11.660 That was a very interesting foreign affairs story.

00:49:13.980 There was a bit of a lesson there about globalism, immigration, and most importantly, carbon tax

00:49:17.880 too, wasn't there?

00:49:18.720 And look, I bet you watch foreign news about Donald Trump, I'm sure you do, and about

00:49:24.560 Europe.

00:49:25.340 And if you're going to get it through the CBC or CTV and Global, which aren't much better,

00:49:29.980 why shouldn't you get it from the rebel?

00:49:31.800 And that's the thing.

00:49:32.880 It's so easy for us to have foreign content in the age of Skype.

00:49:38.680 Now, occasionally we do send people places on an airplane, but it's not devastatingly

00:49:42.820 expensive.

00:49:43.260 We sent David Menzies down to cover the migrant caravan for a few days.

00:49:46.820 I thought that was very interesting.

00:49:48.580 And we certainly, we were being subjected to a lot of it on the CBC.

00:49:52.340 Why not send our own guy down?

00:49:53.780 So that's a long way of saying, I'm glad you like Alessandra Bocchi.

00:49:57.480 I love saying that name.

00:49:58.820 I was pronouncing it wrong the first two times I had her on the show.

00:50:02.780 Hopefully we'll have more stuff from her.

00:50:04.400 We got our little team in the UK.

00:50:06.280 We're always looking for more talent.

00:50:08.440 And frankly, we still need to hire one more person in Ontario because there's so much going

00:50:11.540 on in Ottawa and in Fort Nation.

00:50:13.700 So we're on the lookout for talent there.

00:50:15.980 Anyways, that's a bit of a ramble, but I'm glad you like Alessandra Bocchi.

00:50:18.760 All right, folks, that's the end of the show for today.

00:50:21.260 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at our world headquarters and our Milan office,

00:50:26.920 I just want to say Alessandra Bocchi one more time.

00:50:29.720 Good night and keep fighting for freedom.

00:50:32.120 Good night and keep fighting for the rest of our world confidence.

00:50:44.560 Bye.

00:50:46.280 Good night.

00:50:52.960 Good night.

00:50:58.980 Good night.

00:50:59.560 Good night.

Rebel News Podcast - December 05, 2018

Apple CEO hates “hate,” so he's banning “divisive” ideas from his company

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