Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Facebook and Instagram change their policy — they now allow calls for violence. But only against Russians.

00:00:00.000 Hello, my rebels. Today, I talk about Facebook's decision to permit hate speech as long as it's

00:00:08.240 targeted at certain Russians. This feels like an act of war from a company against a country.

00:00:16.520 That's unusual. But I'm not so much worried about Vladimir Putin as I'm worried about me.

00:00:21.760 As a Facebook user, what does this mean I should prepare for from Facebook towards us?

00:00:28.900 I don't know. I'll take you through it. And then we've got an interesting interview with Gordon

00:00:34.060 Chang about China. That's all ahead. But first, let me invite you to subscribe to Rebel News Plus.

00:00:40.480 That's the video version of this podcast. I do it every day. We have weekly shows from Sheila Gunnery,

00:00:47.520 David Menzies, Andrew Chapitose, Annette and Kat. So there's a lot of content there. It's just

00:00:52.780 eight bucks a month. I can't even believe it's so low. That's half the price of Netflix.

00:00:56.420 Just go to rebelnewsplus.com and click subscribe. Thanks. Here's today's show.

00:01:01.740 Tonight, Facebook and Instagram changed their policy. They now allow calls for violence,

00:01:23.540 but only against Russians. It's March 11th and this is the Ezra LeVant Show. 0.87

00:01:30.200 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:33.980 There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:38.040 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody

00:01:42.920 right to do so.

00:01:43.900 You know, we get censored all the time by Facebook and Instagram. There are certain news stories we do

00:01:56.240 and opinion commentaries we do that simply don't post there. We just don't put them on there.

00:02:02.340 Put them on our website, put them on other places. The news reports are all factually true. The opinion

00:02:08.820 commentaries are all reasonable enough, but Facebook and Instagram are effectively political

00:02:14.180 censors. So if we disagree with lockdowns or if we disagree with any particular public

00:02:19.800 health order lockdown, which is a political decision, not a medical order, like a doctor's

00:02:27.600 order to a patient, we would be suspended on Facebook or Instagram. By the way, many of the

00:02:33.660 things they censor later turn out to be true. I mean, if you dared to say that maybe the vaccines

00:02:40.740 aren't really vaccines and that they don't actually stop you from getting the virus. Well, I mean,

00:02:46.780 this video is apparently fine for Twitter where I found it. But even now, I would imagine it would

00:02:51.740 probably immediately get suspended on Facebook and Instagram. Take a look.

00:02:55.580 So now we have two vaccines that are really quite effective. The mRNA vaccine, highly effective,

00:03:02.800 extraordinarily efficacious, 94 to 95% for mild to moderate disease and virtually 100% efficacious

00:03:12.960 because the real world effectiveness is even more impressive than the results of the clinical trial.

00:03:32.800 Mm-hmm.

00:03:34.840 All right.

00:03:35.240 Mm.

00:03:36.160 Thank you.

00:04:06.160 Thank you.

00:04:36.160 We've got to make sure we clarify that with people.

00:04:38.920 It has nothing to do with whether or not it's effective.

00:04:42.340 We know it's highly effective.

00:04:44.500 Highly effective.

00:04:54.880 Come on, man.

00:05:08.360 So, yeah, masks are bad, then masks are good.

00:05:13.060 You can mix and match vaccines.

00:05:15.980 You shouldn't mix and match vaccines.

00:05:18.660 They're fine for young people.

00:05:20.180 Oh, let's really not give them to young people.

00:05:23.020 Well, it depends on what country you're in, I guess.

00:05:25.280 I mean, what a laugh to say that there's things that cannot be said when they change every month that science is changing.

00:05:32.380 My favorite one is the six feet of separation rule.

00:05:36.820 You know that?

00:05:37.340 I mean, it's just incredible.

00:05:39.520 Scott Gottlieb, who works for Pfizer now, who is a former FDA commissioner, he says that nobody actually knows where the whole six foot social distancing rule came from.

00:05:51.540 Someone said it, and everyone else just repeated it, and it literally became the law.

00:05:59.980 A rumor became a law, but if you dare to challenge it, Facebook and Instagram would ban you, even though no one knows where it came from.

00:06:06.760 And that's just for the wrong opinion.

00:06:11.180 They ban people they don't like, too.

00:06:14.260 Obviously, Donald Trump is the main example who was banned even when he was the sitting president of the United States.

00:06:20.240 It's not just Facebook and Instagram.

00:06:23.580 While every dictator in the world has their Twitter account, no problem.

00:06:29.780 I mean, here's Vladimir Putin's English language account.

00:06:32.580 He's got that blue checkmark saying he's official.

00:06:35.400 He has one in Russian, too, obviously, but not Trump.

00:06:39.900 So you can't be Trump, but you can be Putin on social media.

00:06:45.120 But look at this.

00:06:46.560 Besides banning people who are skeptics of COVID mania or lockdowns or who are too Trumpy,

00:06:54.780 you should know that social media companies also ban graphic violence, and they also ban calls for violence.

00:07:02.880 There are many categories for things that are banned.

00:07:06.600 Outright crimes, for example, are banned.

00:07:09.560 Death threats and calls for violence are banned.

00:07:13.420 And that makes sense.

00:07:14.360 I don't even think that's censorship, really.

00:07:17.500 But stopping death threats, those are actual crimes.

00:07:19.520 If it's a real, credible, imminent, believable death threat, I think that should be banned.

00:07:26.660 And I'm not talking about, you know, speaking metaphorically or making a joke or being dramatic.

00:07:32.900 But if you actually call for violence in a way that is actionable, that's probably the crime of inciting violence or uttering a death threat that's illegal in real life.

00:07:45.580 If you say it in person, if you scrawl it in a banknote and hand it to the bank teller.

00:07:51.460 So it should be illegal on Facebook, too.

00:07:53.800 It's probably a good rule to ban that.

00:07:57.080 But yesterday, Reuters reported that Facebook and Instagram, which are both owned by Mark Zuckerberg's company called Meta,

00:08:05.220 Facebook and Instagram made a change to their policy.

00:08:08.340 You can now absolutely call for violence against someone, as long as that someone is Russian. 1.00

00:08:16.380 I'm not kidding.

00:08:17.640 Let me read to you from the story.

00:08:19.100 Reuters had the scoop.

00:08:21.900 They said Facebook allows war posts urging violence against Russian invaders.

00:08:28.820 Meta platforms will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion,

00:08:40.940 according to internal emails sent by Reuters or seen by Reuters on Thursday in a temporary change of its hate speech policy.

00:08:51.040 The social media company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko,

00:09:05.040 according to internal emails to its content moderators.

00:09:09.880 As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression

00:09:17.620 that would normally violate our rules, like violent speech such as death to the Russian invaders.

00:09:26.580 We still won't allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians, a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

00:09:35.040 Okay, well, that's a relief.

00:09:36.300 You can't just randomly call for some mom pushing a baby in the stroller to be slashed with a knife.

00:09:42.740 Okay, thanks, Facebook.

00:09:43.820 You're really looking out for humanity.

00:09:46.640 But you can do so towards political leaders.

00:09:48.640 You can call for assassinations now, apparently.

00:09:51.120 So remember to wear your pink shirt on anti-bullying day.

00:09:55.660 Hey, Facebook staff, remember, don't be mean.

00:09:59.760 Use your proper pronouns, she and she.

00:10:02.680 Be sure you're really, really nice.

00:10:06.300 Give a shout out to whatever indigenous people used to live where you live.

00:10:10.540 Be super exquisitely nice like that.

00:10:14.260 But then feel free to call for violence against the bad people.

00:10:17.040 I mean, it's okay by Mark Zuckerberg.

00:10:20.320 Russia responded by naming Facebook and Instagram, their parent company, Meta, extremist organizations.

00:10:27.640 Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook.

00:10:34.880 Russia opened a criminal case against Facebook's parent Meta platforms on Friday after the social network changed its hate speech rules to allow users to call for death of the Russian invaders in the context of the war with Ukraine.

00:10:50.920 Russian prosecutors asked a court to designate the U.S. tech giant as an extremist organization, and the communications regulator said it was restricting access to Meta's Instagram.

00:11:04.240 A criminal case has been initiated in connection with legal, illegal calls for murder and violence against citizens of the Russian Federation by employees of the American company Meta, which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram.

00:11:20.480 Russia's investigator committee said.

00:11:25.040 I think that might be fair.

00:11:27.760 I mean, I don't like censorship.

00:11:30.640 Putin's restrictions on Facebook remind me of Trudeau's restrictions on Russia today and his attempts to squash us here at Rebel News.

00:11:40.640 Putin and Trudeau are similar that way, aren't they?

00:11:43.220 But there is something to it.

00:11:45.980 If one of the largest companies in the world with two billion users now okays calls for violence, I mean, if you have two billion users and only one in a million people takes your call to violence seriously, well, and if only one hundred, one in a hundred of those, so one in a million and then one of a hundred of those are in a position to actually act on it, that's still 20 murders.

00:12:11.760 And who could deny that Facebook specifically, thoughtfully, carefully decided, yeah, that's fine by them.

00:12:21.640 I mean, if you allow calls for violence, you are accepting that it could happen.

00:12:27.400 You're permitting it to happen.

00:12:30.400 Multiply the small odds of it happening by two billion and you're pretty much guaranteed it will happen.

00:12:37.420 And, of course, if you whip up anti-Russian sentiment, that doesn't have to be acted on in Russia alone or Ukraine alone.

00:12:47.480 Against soldiers alone, you don't think that could spread?

00:12:51.420 It's not foreseeable to you that that might spread?

00:12:54.200 There's 600,000 Russians in Canada.

00:12:56.860 There are people with Russian-sounding names.

00:12:59.440 Even Ukrainians with Russian-sounding names, by the way.

00:13:02.060 There are Russian restaurants and Russian stores with signs in Cyrillic.

00:13:08.300 It's just not every day that you see this normalization of something as abnormal as wishing violence on not just someone, but a group of people for their ethnicity or their nationality.

00:13:20.280 The left used to call that hate speech, you know, but now it's just what we do.

00:13:24.620 So, is Facebook even a company anymore?

00:13:30.660 Or is it a bit of a company and a bit of a country in its own right?

00:13:34.840 I mean, it certainly acts like a country.

00:13:36.860 It's got a foreign policy, apparently.

00:13:39.920 I mean, yeah, it's a company, too.

00:13:41.280 But, I mean, look at this.

00:13:43.560 I see that Canada has put sanctions on a Russian oligarch named Roman Abramovich.

00:13:50.800 You might have heard of him.

00:13:52.200 He's a little bit famous in the West.

00:13:53.460 Even though he lives in London, and for years his primary identity, I think, his primary mission has been as the owner of a famous soccer club there they call the Chelsea Football Club.

00:14:05.400 That's what they call soccer in the UK.

00:14:08.160 I always thought he moved to London and bought a fancy football club in London as a way of putting some distance between himself and Vladimir Putin.

00:14:17.200 That's just what I thought it was about.

00:14:18.920 And by that I mean so that Putin didn't consider him a threat or a rival.

00:14:24.780 Abramovich was too busy living the high life in London to be a competitor to him back in Russia.

00:14:31.160 But I guess that didn't work because, you know, Chelsea is one of the most successful football teams in the UK.

00:14:39.700 It would be really like owning the New York Yankees.

00:14:42.020 Like, it's that prominent.

00:14:43.420 And now it's under strict sanctions.

00:14:48.380 Could be destroyed.

00:14:49.580 Imagine destroying the New York Yankees.

00:14:51.140 That's what it would be like.

00:14:53.020 I'm not sure what it has to do with the war.

00:14:56.000 I'm not sure who the victims would be if that football club were smashed.

00:15:00.300 But anything with a connection to Russia must go.

00:15:03.280 Same thing in Canada.

00:15:04.280 Abramovich owns a slice of a steel factory in Saskatchewan called Evraz.

00:15:09.420 So that's been frozen, too, actually.

00:15:16.380 Italy has seized luxury villas and super yachts from some other Russian billionaires.

00:15:24.720 I mean, I'm just going around the world here now.

00:15:27.140 So Italy is seizing things.

00:15:29.020 So is France, by the way.

00:15:30.980 France is a very lovely place to have a villa here.

00:15:34.040 So is Germany. 0.84

00:15:35.480 Massive yachts.

00:15:36.280 They make a lot of yachts in Germany.

00:15:37.420 So that's a lot of yachts and villas and fancy football clubs that have just been seized in the past week.

00:15:44.240 And that stuff's just great in the media.

00:15:47.100 I mean, who doesn't want to click on those stories just to see a picture of the yacht or see a picture of the super villa?

00:15:53.380 More importantly, to see wealthy, powerful men be humiliated and brought down a notch.

00:16:01.700 Whether or not these sanctions will hold up to legal scrutiny is another matter.

00:16:05.480 But the headlines were half the goal and the court cases will be later.

00:16:09.420 Look, I don't know what's true and what's not true about these Russian oligarchs.

00:16:14.320 Do you think I know?

00:16:15.360 Do you think the media knows?

00:16:16.460 My theory is that if you have amassed billions or even tens of billions of dollars in Russia, which was communist and then sort of anarchist.

00:16:28.300 And now I think it could be properly called fascist.

00:16:32.520 If you manage to make billions or tens of billions of dollars there, you probably have some business skills, but you probably your main skill set is how to survive crime and how to perpetrate it on your rivals.

00:16:47.300 There are too many oligarchs playing too many tricky games in both Russia and Ukraine.

00:16:54.720 It's how they operate in that part of the world.

00:16:56.920 And by the way, I don't want to besmirch the sainted Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who is the hero of our story.

00:17:07.140 But he has accepted millions of dollars in secret payments to an offshore bank account from the oligarchs.

00:17:14.160 And that was big news a few months ago before the war, before the narrative took hold that he was a sinless saint.

00:17:21.700 I'm just saying oligarchs run Russia, but they also run Ukraine.

00:17:26.580 But here's my real point about the sanctions and about seizing yachts and my real point about Facebook and Instagram acting like countries, really.

00:17:37.520 I mean, really, they're declaring war against Putin and the Russian army, I think.

00:17:45.040 Is that in the world of international relations or, you know, I think that what comes around goes around sometimes.

00:17:56.700 It's a tip for tap thing.

00:17:58.020 Just as the West is banning some Russian firms from doing business there, Russia is banning some Western firms from operating in Russia.

00:18:06.360 It's a back and forth.

00:18:08.040 Now, who will be hurt more by that?

00:18:10.240 Surely Russia, Visa and MasterCard are gone.

00:18:13.260 That's not a big deal to those companies, but it's pretty inconvenient to Russians.

00:18:17.700 Except that China has a company that's a competitor to Visa and MasterCard called UnionPay.

00:18:26.160 And it's huge, by the way, not just huge in China, but huge anywhere around the world where there are Chinese people, like in Canada.

00:18:34.620 I mean, I travel around the city of Toronto and I see these little signs in shops.

00:18:38.560 They accept Visa, they accept MasterCard, Amex and UnionPay.

00:18:42.140 So there's a fire sale on in China right now, in Russia right now, and Chinese firms are filling the void.

00:18:49.720 Oh, I saw this today.

00:18:51.500 I don't know if you saw this.

00:18:53.660 Russia threatens to abandon American astronaut in space as sanctions threaten peace aboard International Space Station.

00:19:02.980 The plan is for astronaut Mark van der Heij to land in Kazakhstan with two Russian cosmonauts on a Russian spacecraft.

00:19:16.260 Now, that's just not nice to ban him.

00:19:18.600 I mean, America doesn't have the ability to get up to the International Space Station.

00:19:22.620 I don't know if you know that, but we used to.

00:19:25.260 America used to when it had a space shuttle.

00:19:27.340 A decision was made to rely only on the Russians to get up and back. 0.96

00:19:30.380 All right, so how does that work now?

00:19:34.700 Are the Russians really going to leave an American up there to die and only take the Russians back down to Earth? 0.99

00:19:41.940 I don't think so.

00:19:42.900 I hope not.

00:19:43.700 I mean, that's really murder.

00:19:45.740 But didn't Facebook and Instagram just normalize murder?

00:19:50.280 Why is it only Russia that is prosecuting Facebook and Instagram for calling for a murder?

00:19:59.740 Why isn't America looking new to you?

00:20:03.200 Oh, well.

00:20:03.740 But here's a possible scenario.

00:20:05.660 And you tell me why this wouldn't work.

00:20:07.800 And when I was telling you about Roman Abramovich and the other oligarchs, here's what I'm getting at.

00:20:11.560 So Facebook and Instagram, owned by Meta, they're worth about a half a trillion dollars, about $600 billion on the stock market.

00:20:22.480 They've got huge assets, huge cash flow.

00:20:25.460 What a business.

00:20:27.100 And that business just declared war on Russia and on Putin.

00:20:32.140 I think they did.

00:20:33.220 But instead of thinking of Mark Zuckerberg as a businessman or as a nerd or as a censor,

00:20:42.400 what if we gave him a different title that's pretty accurate, though?

00:20:48.400 What if we used the word of the West describes Russian tycoons?

00:20:53.300 What if we called Mark Zuckerberg an oligarch?

00:20:57.720 Is it not accurate?

00:20:58.840 Him and Jeffrey Bezos of Amazon and the rest of the high-tech mafia in Silicon Valley,

00:21:05.920 why wouldn't we call them oligarchs? 0.98

00:21:10.100 And if America and Canada and the United Kingdom and France and Germany and Italy

00:21:13.740 can seize assets of Russian oligarchs without a trial, without a hearing,

00:21:20.740 which is a bit of a Putin move, you have to admit,

00:21:22.880 why wouldn't or couldn't Russia do the same in return, at least to Zuckerberg, the oligarch?

00:21:31.960 I mean, the obvious answer is that there aren't a lot of assets that American oligarchs stash in Russia.

00:21:39.020 It's sort of the opposite.

00:21:40.240 Russian billionaires want to take their wealth out of Russia and secrete it somewhere in the West,

00:21:46.540 in a Swiss bank or in yachts or a villa, somewhere that's safer and freer.

00:21:51.640 I mean, no one in California is trying to move money to Moscow.

00:21:56.580 It's sort of the other way around.

00:21:57.800 So I guess there's that practical problem.

00:22:01.000 But there are yachts on the high seas and there are private jets in the skies.

00:22:05.060 I don't know if the Russian Navy or Air Force has the ability to grab those things.

00:22:11.020 But if we're getting to the point where Western oligarchs are calling for assassination of world leaders,

00:22:20.640 don't be surprised one day if a world leader like Putin fires back in a Putin kind of way.

00:22:29.240 I'm not here for Putin.

00:22:30.780 I'm here for me and you.

00:22:32.340 As Facebook users, I don't like being censored by Mark Zuckerberg.

00:22:39.000 I don't like the control they have over our lives.

00:22:41.220 But even worse, I don't like the whimsical approach that Zuckerberg has taken to enforcing rules. 0.67

00:22:47.280 If you're his enemy, you can be killed.

00:22:50.300 If you're his friend, nothing bad can be said about you.

00:22:57.160 Vladimir Putin has revealed his true colors in this war.

00:23:00.580 I mean, he really is that old KGB agent, isn't he?

00:23:04.800 But I think it's revealed the true colors of our Western oligarchs, too.

00:23:10.820 And what they would do to us if they could.

00:23:13.040 And really, I think they could.

00:23:16.140 Stay with us for more.

00:23:30.560 Well, there's an old Yiddish proverb.

00:23:33.180 When two argue, a third grabs the hat.

00:23:37.940 And Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden, in fact, Russia and all of NATO in the West are in more than just an argument.

00:23:46.160 It's a war, a proxy war, and certainly much more than that, sanctions both ways.

00:23:53.720 But who is the third that grabs the hat?

00:23:55.680 I put it to you that it is communist China.

00:23:58.120 I'll give you one example.

00:23:59.860 Visa and MasterCard have suspended their operations in Russia, leaving tens of millions of Russians without a credit card.

00:24:08.020 How could you possibly operate without Visa or MasterCard?

00:24:11.920 Well, the answer is UnionPay.

00:24:15.580 Now, you might not know UnionPay, but it is one of the largest credit card companies in the world.

00:24:20.400 It's Chinese.

00:24:21.740 A lot of their market is in China.

00:24:23.620 But I can tell you, just here in Toronto alone, you see UnionPay all over the place.

00:24:29.220 Many people in the Chinese diaspora use it.

00:24:32.140 So is China benefiting economically from the West, removing itself from Russia?

00:24:39.860 And more importantly, what are the lessons China might learn from the Ukraine crisis and apply it to its own sphere of influence, including Taiwan?

00:24:49.820 Well, there's only one person I trust to answer these questions.

00:24:54.640 He's a China expert who's been studying the subject for decades.

00:24:58.780 His name is Gordon Chang, and he joins us now via Skype.

00:25:02.020 Gordon, great to see you again.

00:25:03.060 Thank you so much for joining us.

00:25:04.420 And I just want to say, before we even get started, folks, if you're not following Gordon on Twitter, do yourself a favor.

00:25:10.520 He's Gordon G. Chang on Twitter.

00:25:13.040 And you will learn more from his Twitter feed than you would from any mainstream media broadcast.

00:25:18.280 Gordon, what do you think of how China is looking to learn and take advantage of the NATO-Russia spat?

00:25:27.280 Yeah, thanks, Ezra.

00:25:28.360 A couple things.

00:25:29.240 First of all, Russia needs to sell oil, gas, wheat, coal, and it's going to be selling this stuff to China.

00:25:37.200 And China, knowing the situation, is going to get these commodities at very low prices.

00:25:43.460 So Beijing is looking forward to a continuing flow of essential items at bargain basement rates.

00:25:50.880 The other thing, though, as you point out, as the West disconnects Russia from the dollar and euro-based financial systems, China is rushing in.

00:26:00.700 And it's not just union pay.

00:26:02.500 It's also, for instance, SIPs.

00:26:04.820 SIPs is the cross-border interbank payment system, which is the Chinese version of SWIFT.

00:26:11.700 And as we know, Russia is being disconnected from that international bank messaging system that is run by Europe.

00:26:20.420 So all of this is ending up where China is actually taking over the Russian economy and making Russia sort of like a very dependent junior partner, more junior than it has been in the past.

00:26:33.220 Well, that's incredible.

00:26:34.780 I mean, historically, Russia was the mighty power.

00:26:38.500 And China was very underdeveloped.

00:26:40.360 And, of course, Russia had ambitions in the Far East.

00:26:43.360 But I think the tables have turned.

00:26:45.280 And I recall that when there were Western sanctions on Iran and Iranian oil, that China reportedly was buying that oil at an incredible discount to world prices.

00:26:58.980 So if the world price of oil would have been 80 bucks, maybe China was getting it for 40 bucks because Iran was simply not allowed to sell it on the lawful market.

00:27:11.700 I get the feeling that China is probably going in at fire sale prices.

00:27:17.440 I mean, if you have Western companies divesting themselves in a hurry, there's no way they're getting proper market value for what they're leaving behind.

00:27:26.700 I mean, this really is, as the old investors said, you know, the time to buy is when there's blood running in the streets.

00:27:34.180 China is getting a deep discount on Russia, isn't it?

00:27:36.840 Yes, and to put forward another quote, you know, Karl Marx said, history repeats.

00:27:44.020 And China does take advantage of countries that are under sanctions that do sell commodities.

00:27:49.620 So we're going to see this big time with Russia. 0.98

00:27:53.080 You know, in the short term, we're going to see China get a lot of advantage out of this relationship with Russia.

00:27:59.100 But long term, though, Russia is going to be a crippled country.

00:28:03.300 Its economy is going to shrivel.

00:28:04.840 And essentially, it'll become an albatross for China, because China, for various reasons, is going to have to support Moscow. 0.70

00:28:14.080 So at least long term, this is going to be advantageous for the West.

00:28:19.740 But in the short term, China is reaping a lot of advantages, as you point out.

00:28:23.700 I want to talk about the lessons that China is learning from how NATO and America in particular are responding to an incursion, an invasion, an annexation.

00:28:37.940 I mean, it's basically been a slow motion war between Russia and Ukraine for the better part of a decade.

00:28:43.980 Putin has already annexed parts of Ukraine, the Crimea.

00:28:49.180 And that really sounds analogous to how China talks about Taiwan, that it's a province of China, that it was split off, that it needs to be reunited.

00:28:59.820 I mean, that's the same kind of language and rhetoric and sort of myth-making about a greater Russian empire or the greater Chinese empire.

00:29:07.980 What do you think the lessons are of the last month or so that China is learning about how Biden makes military decisions and how, I guess, other NATO countries would, too?

00:29:20.340 What's China learned?

00:29:22.140 The most important thing that China learned is that although the United States and Europe are overwhelmingly more powerful than Russia, that deterrence completely failed.

00:29:32.260 You know, the United States, the 27 nations of the EU and Britain have an economy that is more than 25 times larger than Russia's.

00:29:41.720 And that was the numbers for last year.

00:29:44.060 But yet, we're not able to stop Russia from invading Ukraine.

00:29:48.580 And so China looks at that and says, well, in its situation, although the United States is more powerful than China, when you look at the metrics, this is a failure of leadership.

00:29:59.140 I think they see the imposition of sanctions as really crippling Russia.

00:30:06.420 So that does give China some second thoughts about what's going on.

00:30:10.560 But they can see that these sanctions are not being imposed all at once.

00:30:14.600 They're being dribbled out, which is, I think, another bad example that we're giving China, that Russia is not going to be punished or that we're reluctant to punish Russia. 0.70

00:30:26.320 And this whole debacle over the supply of MiGs from Poland to Ukraine, that is just, you know, that must make military planners in China really happy.

00:30:38.760 Because it just shows the complete incompetence of the Biden administration.

00:30:45.760 So those are the things that – but I guess there's one other thing, and that, of course, is the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian people.

00:30:52.460 And I think that China might – well, certainly was surprised by that and certainly is going to start thinking about what will the Taiwan people do to resist an invasion from China.

00:31:04.120 I want to ask you about how boycotting – like, I would almost say it's verging on Russophobia.

00:31:11.940 I mean, you see people completely unrelated to Putin or the government.

00:31:16.920 You know, artists like, you know, opera singers or musicians in the West, if they're Russian, they're being canceled.

00:31:24.140 Even in Vancouver, there was a musician who was canceled just because he was Russian.

00:31:28.660 And he – it's got nothing to do with politics.

00:31:30.920 So you see massive boycotts.

00:31:34.500 Some of them are comedic, you know, people changing the name of a white Russian drink or like changing the name of a drink on a menu to get the word Russian.

00:31:43.040 I look at that and I contrast that with the absolute lack of any form of boycott or sanction on Chinese products, Chinese – and Chinese events like Beijing, from Beijing where the Paralympics were still happening, were happening until very recently.

00:32:01.240 The Olympics are making an announcement boycotting Russia.

00:32:07.560 So they're in Beijing, in that country, while they're condemning Russia for human rights abuses.

00:32:14.480 And that just – so here's my question for you.

00:32:18.380 The kind of total Russophobic sanctions – and I'm not sticking up for Putin here.

00:32:24.580 I'm just saying it's astonishing how anti-Russian groupthink has set in.

00:32:31.960 That's a long way from where we are with China where every big American business is deeply rooted there, whether it's Disney or the NBA or every factory that supplies America.

00:32:44.540 I just have trouble seeing sanctions being applied to China.

00:32:48.560 I just – I have trouble imagining it.

00:32:50.580 Yes, and China actually has made itself a combatant on the side of Russia.

00:32:57.040 So we should be sanctioning China. 0.98

00:32:59.400 And we should be sanctioning China in the same way that we sanction Russia. 0.94

00:33:02.920 Because our measures against Russia are ultimately going to be ineffective unless we also go after Russia's partners. 0.93

00:33:11.920 And, of course, the biggest and by far the most important partner is China.

00:33:16.320 So we need to hit both of them.

00:33:18.140 And that would then have an effect.

00:33:19.920 You know, with regard to your first point about the way the world has reacted to this invasion, it is actually quite stunning.

00:33:27.680 And I think that this is just an indication of the way the world is these days.

00:33:34.020 That, you know, we were not serious as a world about all sorts of issues, including Ukraine, but others as well.

00:33:42.200 And then Putin has been able to crystallize thinking, not only in Europe, which is directly threatened, but also elsewhere around the world.

00:33:52.160 And so I think we're looking at these issues now in a much more realistic light.

00:33:56.800 That's a good thing.

00:33:57.820 But I do agree with you.

00:33:59.040 We're still a long way from going after the big partner in this axis.

00:34:05.180 Yeah, I remember, I mean, in Canada, there was a while when the phrase soft power was being used all the time.

00:34:12.080 Oh, it's moral authority and we'll cajole them. 0.94

00:34:14.720 I think we've seen that soft power doesn't do well when it's faced with hard power.

00:34:19.580 But let me just ask you one last set of questions that I'm really grateful for your time.

00:34:22.980 I know that Ukraine really wanted to, there's some people in Ukraine, including the President Zelensky, who really want to be part of NATO.

00:34:29.620 And I think Putin, with perhaps some justification, was worried about having another NATO country right abutting its borders.

00:34:37.900 I mean, just like the Baltic states.

00:34:40.280 And that was at least one of his arguments, whether or not there's merit to it.

00:34:43.700 Russia has been invaded in the past.

00:34:45.800 But there is no treaty right now.

00:34:48.140 And you can see that the refusal of America to do that transfer of military jets from Poland to Ukraine, it seems to me, Gordon, that America and NATO are trying not to give a trip wire that would make this battle expand and, God forbid, nuclear.

00:35:09.360 But if NATO positively sent in fighter jets to Ukraine, it seems like NATO knows that would be an escalation.

00:35:19.960 Do, but, and my point is that Ukraine is not in NATO now and the Allies don't want to make it like it's in NATO.

00:35:27.340 What is the treaty situation with Taiwan?

00:35:30.700 Because I know it's quite often there's a U.S. carrier there.

00:35:33.920 There's actually Americans as that kind of a trip wire. 0.82

00:35:37.560 I don't think the West has that same obligation in a treaty with Ukraine.

00:35:42.420 I could be wrong.

00:35:43.800 But what is the legal or treaty relationship between the United States and Taiwan?

00:35:50.080 Would there be a trip wire that if China moved on Taiwan, it would legally and practically provoke an American response that has not come to Ukraine?

00:36:00.720 The United States has the Taiwan Relations Act, which requires American governments to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

00:36:10.240 But there no longer is a mutual defense treaty.

00:36:13.420 That was terminated when the United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.

00:36:19.200 There is in the U.S. a one-China policy, the six assurances, the three communiques, and essentially the United States does not recognize China's jurisdiction or sovereignty over Taiwan.

00:36:35.000 We say that the matter is unresolved and that when it is resolved, it must be done through peaceful means.

00:36:41.960 With regard to Ukraine, because you did raise that in your question, there is the Budapest Memorandum of December 1994 where the United States, Great Britain, and Russia agreed to respect the sovereignty of Ukraine.

00:36:55.440 Obviously, the Russians have violated that. 0.92

00:36:57.500 Now, we don't have a formal obligation to defend Ukraine, but when the Budapest Memorandum was inked, the United States did give private assurances that we would protect Ukrainian sovereignty.

00:37:10.160 And obviously, we haven't really fulfilled that obligation.

00:37:13.820 And the reason why we gave those assurances is because we wanted Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons, which at the time it had the third largest arsenal in the world, which it inherited on the breakup of the Soviet Union.

00:37:25.280 Yeah. Well, and that's the incredible thing is that Ukraine gave up actual hard power nukes for a promise.

00:37:33.100 And I think the UK was a signature. I think even Russia signed the thing at the time.

00:37:37.240 And I think that that ought to send a chill through Taiwan and United Arab Emirates and Israel and other countries thinking, all right, well, if I get into a tussle with my neighborhood bully, whether that's China or Iran, maybe I can't count on any written piece of paper.

00:37:57.200 Or maybe I got to count on myself only. And Israel, you know, Israel has nukes. Israel has a pretty strong military.

00:38:05.340 I don't know if Taiwan's is in the same class. I mean, I don't think Taiwan has nukes.

00:38:12.400 It has there been any change domestically in Taiwan? Have Taiwanese legislators has to think has the mood in Taiwan change so that they have decided, well, we had better beef up now because it's only a matter of time.

00:38:26.200 Has the have their hearts hardened in Taipei?

00:38:29.960 Yes, they have. And they're starting to get serious about their own defense, which is about time.

00:38:36.260 And, you know, going to your broader point, we could see we have the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which is something like one hundred and ninety five countries around the world.

00:38:47.200 We could see that fall apart and countries race to get the bomb because they don't trust the United States.

00:38:54.120 They don't trust other countries to defend them. And this could be a much more dangerous world.

00:38:59.180 Instead of just having eight or nine nuclear powers, you know, we could have 80 or 90.

00:39:05.020 And that's a much more dangerous world, Ezra.

00:39:08.380 Yeah. Well, these are terrifying times. We learn so much from you every time, Gordon.

00:39:12.020 Thanks so much for stopping by, folks. Again, that Twitter account, which is really my number one source for news and views on China, is Gordon G. Chang on Twitter.

00:39:21.380 You've got to follow him. Great to see you. We'll look forward to catching up with you sometime soon.

00:39:25.620 Thank you so much, Ezra.

00:39:26.560 Right on. Our pleasure. There you have it. Stay with us. More ahead.

00:39:29.440 Hey, welcome back. Your viewer feedback.

00:39:43.240 Nellis Fosier says, looks like some of the protesters Alexa was talking to may be mentally unstable,

00:39:50.580 similar to the Black Lives Matter protesters who were burning cities in the U.S.

00:39:54.660 because Trudeau supports those types of protests. So I guess that is OK, according to the government.

00:40:01.020 Yeah. You know what? I talked to Alexa about that, and I think we have to send her out with a bodyguard. 1.00

00:40:06.680 Obviously not everywhere and obviously not most of the time and not to friendly crowds.

00:40:11.180 But that could have gone sideways. There are some people who hate Rebel News so much,

00:40:17.340 they would try and hurt Alexa, especially male feminists who have no problem hurting women. 1.00

00:40:21.540 Rob Nordall says, if Pierre wasn't running, Lesden would have my vote.

00:40:29.240 Nice, smart lady. Another true conservative. 1.00

00:40:32.020 Well, I was really glad Lesden Lewis came on the show.

00:40:34.040 I've got to tell you, yesterday, I talked to Lesden Lewis, as you saw him.

00:40:39.120 Our reporter in Calgary, Adam Sos, went to a Jean Charest scrum.

00:40:44.340 And in the greater Toronto area, our reporter, Dakota Christensen, went to a Roman Baber event.

00:40:50.460 So yesterday alone, we had three Rebel reporters, I'm calling myself a reporter, talking to three different contestants.

00:40:58.040 And I feel really great about that.

00:40:59.660 It shows that Rebel News is doing reporting on the conservative leadership.

00:41:05.040 And that so far, at least, the three candidates we've interacted with have not been of the Aaron O'Toole, Andrew Scheer variety,

00:41:11.600 saying, oh, no, we have no time for Rebel News.

00:41:14.660 I think there's a few reasons for that.

00:41:16.760 I think one is that the people we've, you know, I think in the case of Charest, he probably doesn't know Rebel News very much.

00:41:22.560 He's from Quebec, and we don't have a strong, long presence there.

00:41:25.880 But I'm saying he's not part of the Toronto-Ottawa Rebel Derangement Syndrome.

00:41:31.880 I think in the case of Lesden Lewis, he's always been friendly to us.

00:41:35.480 In the case of Roman Baber, you know, he knows that if he's going to get traction as a critic of the lockdowns,

00:41:41.520 well, who else are you going to talk to besides Rebel News?

00:41:44.120 Are you going to talk to the Toronto Star, maybe?

00:41:45.940 So I think that the reputation of Rebel News is bigger.

00:41:48.560 We've had a very successful two years.

00:41:50.120 The last month alone was a record for us in how we handled the Trucker Rebellion, et cetera.

00:41:55.880 So I think that these conservative candidates, even if they're slightly nervous about what the media party says about us,

00:42:02.520 I think they've realized it's a really dumb idea to do what the CBC would do in blacklist Rebel News. 0.58

00:42:10.220 I think that Aaron O'Toole and Andrew Scheer were just personally weak people, and they came into that. 0.91

00:42:16.100 We'll see.

00:42:16.760 I mean, we haven't talked to all of them.

00:42:18.000 I don't think Patrick Brown likes us much ever since we caught him sneaking into that hockey rink.

00:42:23.160 We'll see what Pierre Polyev says.

00:42:24.720 I've known Pierre for more than 20 years.

00:42:26.720 I hope he talks to our reporters.

00:42:30.140 Here's another letter from Chuck Andrews, who said,

00:42:33.260 would have loved to have heard her view on the Black Lives Matter movement.

00:42:38.040 You know, that's a good question.

00:42:39.760 I didn't think of asking it because it didn't feel really current.

00:42:42.920 I mean, we had a good general chat.

00:42:44.140 I asked her a few questions about civil liberties and about French, but we'll have time to talk to her more about things in the months ahead.

00:42:51.360 I don't think the vote is until September, so we'll have some time.

00:42:55.440 Well, that's our show for today.

00:42:57.400 Until Monday, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.

00:43:02.060 And keep fighting for freedom.

00:43:03.780 And let me leave you with another video of the day, also from Alexa, talking to a convoy organizer who recounts the repercussions of Trudeau's crackdown and his Emergencies Act.

00:43:16.320 Very interesting video.

00:43:17.720 Goodbye, everybody.

00:43:18.240 Alexa, for Rebel News and the video you are about to see was filmed two weeks after the peaceful trucker convoy to Ottawa, protest against lockdown restrictions, who was dismantled by the government.

00:43:33.460 Trudeau invoked the emergency hack, which gave police extraordinary power to off-search, arrest and seizure of bank accounts and property in an attempt to send thousands of Canadian protesters home or to jail.

00:43:49.080 One woman, an organizer, Tamara Leach, was held for nearly three weeks for the minor crime of counseling to commit mischief.

00:44:01.160 Today, you will see an interview with Tom Marazzo, one of the organizers of the convoy targeted by law enforcement for his story.

00:44:10.460 So, I want to know a little bit what happened on the last few days of the convoy and how the organizers have handled the situation that was happening, not only with the police, but as well with the government.

00:44:26.940 Well, that's a tough question.

00:44:29.000 There's a lot to really unpack there.

00:44:30.860 But we worked with all levels of government in terms of the city itself, like with the different departments.

00:44:42.120 We worked with the police.

00:44:43.220 We worked with the city.

00:44:45.040 We talked to different factions within the truck convoy.

00:44:50.460 And we could see very, very plainly that the federal government was trying to set the conditions for what eventually happened at the end.

00:44:59.840 And on top of that, I was getting signals through the OPP and through the Ottawa police that, hey, you know, your days here in the city are numbered.

00:45:12.060 And so, we all knew that we were sort of marching towards the edge of this cliff.

00:45:18.420 And unfortunately, the federal government decided to take everybody over that cliff with them.

00:45:24.940 So, you know, it was a buildup that everybody saw coming.

00:45:31.280 But in my conversations and meetings that I had with the city, what I had with the law enforcement, what I was trying to have with the federal government, but they chose to ignore us.

00:45:43.640 We actually had a strategy to try to avoid all of that from happening, with the exception of we weren't just going to outright leave because we were getting signals from the police that they were going to attack.

00:45:57.740 So, there was a lot going on, including we did some media events and stuff like that to try to reach out to the federal government.

00:46:06.320 And I was trying to back channel with the federal government to absolutely no avail at all.

00:46:12.080 And so, what, you know, the rest is history, as they say, because the law enforcement did actually attack and, you know, broke up the convoy and destroyed or damaged thousands and thousands of dollars worth of damage to trucks needlessly.

00:46:30.140 Uh, and there's people in jail currently, uh, you know, for what, because of parking violations, ultimately, you know, the situation with us in Ottawa was about parking violations.

00:46:45.040 Ultimately, that's what it was.

00:46:46.320 Because if you look at the, the conditions inside the emergency order, none of that applied to what was happening actually in Ottawa, none of it.

00:46:55.300 But they still chose to use the emergency act to physically attack us.

00:47:00.920 So, my other question is because we saw many organizers had been arrested.

00:47:07.420 So, Tamara Lynch says she's still in jail right now. 1.00

00:47:11.620 Um, we have Chris Barber.

00:47:13.420 Um, we have Danny Balfour.

00:47:16.020 And, but not you.

00:47:18.120 Um, I was just wondering why so, or did you heard something about you being,

00:47:22.900 having a warrant of arrestation against you?

00:47:27.380 Every day after Chris Barber had been arrested, uh, I would contact the OPP and I would ask them,

00:47:33.800 are there any warrants for my arrest?

00:47:35.500 And they would say, well, let me check.

00:47:38.120 And they'd come back on the phone and say, no, not that we're aware.

00:47:40.840 You're fine.

00:47:41.680 So, day after day, while I was still in the city, uh, until I left the city,

00:47:45.940 I, I inquired with the OPP on a daily basis.

00:47:49.420 And oddly enough, there was not a warrant for my arrest.

00:47:54.160 And I, I think the reason probably was that in my role, I was constantly working with the

00:48:03.660 liaison teams with law enforcement and I had been talking to the government and I hadn't

00:48:08.240 been really doing anything to, um, uh, other than working with the city and working with

00:48:17.920 the police.

00:48:18.280 So really I, I didn't become a person of interest for them in terms of an arrest because I hadn't

00:48:23.380 committed a crime.

00:48:24.980 And I think it's questionable that, uh, any of the other people that were arrested committed

00:48:30.700 any kind of a crime.

00:48:31.860 Uh, but they're, they're, uh, like Danny Beaufort was arrested, but he was never charged.

00:48:37.860 Um, Chris Barber was arrested, had conditions and abided by the conditions and, and let go

00:48:45.280 and he'll, he has more proceedings obviously.

00:48:47.840 And as you know, Tamara, uh, is in, in jail as of today, we expect that she'll be released

00:48:53.400 today, uh, if logic prevails in the courtroom and we, we think it will, but in my particular

00:49:00.300 case, um, I think it was because I was able to create a relationship with the police and

00:49:08.120 the one thing that I, in my role, I insisted on, and I constantly communicated to the police

00:49:14.160 that I was trying to keep safety lanes open.

00:49:17.500 So, uh, if it was a single lane road, uh, I gave instructions to the, to the trucker,

00:49:23.780 stay off those roads.

00:49:24.700 If it was two lane, keep one lane open.

00:49:27.440 If it was three lanes, make sure there was an emergency vehicle, um, down the center so

00:49:33.300 that emergency vehicles always had access because for personal reasons in a member of

00:49:39.460 my own close family, uh, had been in an ambulance during the time that I was in Ottawa.

00:49:44.920 And so that reinforced the need to make sure that we were acting in a responsible and safe

00:49:50.340 manner.

00:49:50.940 So that was always my communications with the police.

00:49:53.940 So I became less interesting to them in terms of mischief when I was actually trying to

00:49:59.480 work with them and relieve pressure on the city and relieve pressure on the police.

00:50:04.880 So I became kind of less valuable to them, uh, in terms of criminal charges.

00:50:10.320 Cause if they would have taken me out or arrested me, then who would they have to work with?

00:50:15.220 And especially what was, what is your thought and your feeling about some of volunteer individuals

00:50:24.500 or other people who are, have claimed themselves to be, um, part of the organization and organizer,

00:50:33.160 but have discredit and have heard the movement.

00:50:36.520 What is, what is, what is your thought?

00:50:40.060 So we've said in, in public statements many times that this is a very organic, uh, grassroots

00:50:46.960 movement.

00:50:47.960 So, you know, the term organizer is a very, uh, loose word, right?

00:50:55.880 I prefer even in my case to say I'm a volunteer cause that's what I was.

00:51:00.240 I was volunteering and I was filling a role, but an organizer could be anybody.

00:51:04.380 An organizer could be somebody that, uh, arranged to have somebody come to Ottawa and speak on

00:51:09.580 the stage.

00:51:10.160 And so they can say, Hey, I'm an organizer.

00:51:12.480 Or let's say, uh, a trucking company from, uh, wherever across Ontario, they say, okay,

00:51:20.500 we're going to, we're going to get a group of truckers from our community.

00:51:23.480 We're going to drive to Ottawa and support the convoy.

00:51:26.300 Well, that person's an organizer.

00:51:27.820 So this has always been a grassroots movement, uh, of people that are organizing in their

00:51:34.580 locations and then coming in, attaching onto the freedom convoy.

00:51:38.860 And so you see a lot of different groups all across Canada that have attached onto, um,

00:51:47.660 the right movement at the right time, because they want to support the same thing.

00:51:51.780 Let's get rid of the federal mandates.

00:51:53.560 So you do get some, some people that you'd like to distance yourself from, but you get

00:51:58.640 some people that you literally want to, to hug and embrace and say, great, you're part of

00:52:04.300 the team.

00:52:04.940 So that happens.

00:52:06.840 Um, not all the groups were, uh, on the same page.

00:52:11.220 Uh, not all the groups were, um, you know, publicly helping what we were.

00:52:17.660 There to do, but everybody had some sort of a role or another, and, and it always, wasn't

00:52:24.000 always positive.

00:52:25.160 Sometimes it was negative.

00:52:26.920 Um, you know, as an example is, uh, you know, this issue of the MOU kept coming up, but with

00:52:35.720 the, the people organizing the MOU, they recognize that it was in conflict with the rest of the

00:52:41.840 convoys.

00:52:42.320 So they did a public statement and said, okay, we're going to put this on hold.

00:52:46.060 This is another time in another place.

00:52:48.160 So some of the organizations and the organizers of those organizations, um, realized that we

00:52:55.120 were out of alignment and pulled back, but not everybody did.

00:52:59.020 Some organizers that have large followings, um, kind of were half in half out.

00:53:06.480 They had their own agenda, but they were also trying to fit into the overall big picture.

00:53:12.280 And I would finish on, do you regret or do you have any regret on what happened or what

00:53:22.120 you have been involved to with the convoy?

00:53:24.500 Um, that's a good question.

00:53:29.160 Uh, it's not really a matter of regret for me.

00:53:31.860 It's a matter of things that I wish I would have done better.

00:53:35.900 Uh, in.

00:53:36.820 So from that perspective, uh, there are, there are some things that I've, you know, reflected

00:53:43.600 on since I've been home, things I wish I would have done better.

00:53:47.180 Um, but ultimately I don't think there's very much we could have done differently to stop

00:53:55.580 the, the police brutality that they brought to Ottawa.

00:53:58.840 Uh, I don't think there was anything that we could have done other than a week before

00:54:04.580 leaving and, and not achieving anything at all.

00:54:08.860 Uh, we were always a peaceful protest and we absolutely proved it to the entire world

00:54:15.660 that we were a peaceful protest.

00:54:17.480 And the way we proved it was because we didn't physically retaliate from the police in a lot

00:54:23.980 of great people, including yourself, took a lot of physical punishment, uh, during those

00:54:30.780 two days.

00:54:32.000 And, um, we never retaliated with violence.

00:54:36.020 We proved we were a peaceful protest and we left.

00:54:38.720 And now, unfortunately, law enforcement feels like, uh, now we have to somehow magically be

00:54:44.720 transformed into, uh, a criminal enterprise of some kind because they're trying to cover

00:54:51.140 their tracks on what they did to, to Canadian citizens who had a charter right to be there

00:54:58.060 and peacefully assembled.

Rebel News Podcast - March 12, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Facebook and Instagram change their policy — they now allow calls for violence. But only against Russians.

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