China has a spy balloon in the sky, and the US military wants to shoot it down. Will it be shot out of the sky? Or will it be swallowed up by the earth? On this episode of AWAKING WEDNESDAYS, we take a look at the pros and cons of whether or not to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon over the United States. We also hear from Dave DeCamp of Antiwar.org and Gareth Blumberg of The Daily Beast about the possibility that the Chinese government is using balloons to spy on the US. Plus, we find out if this is a good or bad thing, and who will win in the battle of the balloons vs the missiles. Subscribe to our new show Assassinations, wherever you get your shows. If you like the show, please consider leaving us a five star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts. If you don't, please tell a friend about the show and tell us what you thought of it in the comments section below. We'll be looking out for your comments and suggestions on the future episodes of Assassinations. Thanks again for listening! your continued support is so appreciated. - Tom and Gareth Timestamps: 1:00:00 - What are your thoughts on the balloon sighting? 2:30 - What would you do with it? 3:15 - Is it a good idea? 4:00 5:40 - Does it need to be shot down? 6: Does it have a target? 7:00 | Should it stay there? 8:10 - What is the point? 9:00? 11:00 Is it too big or too small? 13:00 Do you have a problem? 15:00 Does it fly too high? 16:00 Should we shoot it up or not? 17:00 Can it stay up? 18:00 What s the point of it fly it down, or is it too low? 19:00 Will it stay in the air? 21:00 How should it stay put? 22:00 Would you shoot it back? 25:30 26:40 27:10 Is it dangerous? or should it fly down? 27:30 Is it worth it? 26:30 What s it fly higher? 29:30 Can it fly to the ground? 35:30 Should it fly any further?
00:01:51.000Will it be balloons or will it be missiles?
00:01:53.000Is of course the story that there are Chinese spy balloons being spotted over the States.
00:01:57.000We're talking about Shell's record profits that oddly have occurred During an energy crisis, there's this curious pattern where crisis seems to create profit.
00:02:07.000When we click over to being exclusively on Rumble, we'll be talking about Ukrainian corruption, and in particular, how one recently removed oligarchs got peculiar ties with everyone's favorite laptop DJ.
00:02:47.000about Ukraine potentially being used to pilot CBDC schemes and about the missile stuff and also also the West in particular the United States and I don't mean to offend you if you are American we love you and we love your country But your government and the set of corporate interests that it represents are starting to provoke China into a potential global conflict.
00:03:12.000Is the first silo in this potential geopolitical nightmare come in the unlikely form of that friendliest of objects, a lovable, silly old, soppy old, stupid balloon?
00:03:25.000Let's have a look at how the mainstream media reported this story.
00:04:12.000Also as well, I think there's a bit of a tendency around this story, let me know in the chat, let me know in the comments if you think this, they're kind of personifying the balloon.
00:04:19.000As if it's an autonomous, like... Naughty balloon.
00:04:21.000Ho ho ho, I've come over here to have me a little look-see.
00:05:41.000Float a balloon over... It's provocative.
00:05:42.000I mean, if it was happening to you as an individual, if a balloon just sort of hovered above you, like in a Peanuts cartoon, Cloud, whatever, you wouldn't like it.
00:05:51.000What about those stories where, like, a kid will let a balloon go and then it ends up in another country and then someone in... I love that story.
00:08:00.000This is likely one of those stories where we're told, oh, China spying on us.
00:08:06.000But look at the encroachment on Chinese territory That this arc of military bases represents.
00:08:12.000Pilger's tweet says, Congratulations to US sharpshooters who after several attempts, that's very dry, very Pilger, to sort of criticise their attempt to, they didn't get it in one shot, not a very wild bunch, shot down a Chinese balloon straight near the land of the free.
00:09:05.000But before we get into this story about the increase in regional tensions and how that plays into geopolitical narratives and increased global tension in the pursuit of a unipolar World I want to tag a few more instances around this conflict in Ukraine the Ukraine are replacing the defense minister in their first major reshuffle since the invasion some people saying that Zelensky's clearing out his closet Eminem style clearing out some Ukrainian ministers that are corrupt and stuff and oligarchical but a First dude that's getting replaced in this reshuffle.
00:09:36.000He was my phone number He's the best one!
00:09:38.000I love this one, he's the one that kept going, Oleski Reznikov, he's the one that kept, if you don't know him, he's the one that kept going on telly going, well we're de facto members of NATO and we spill our blood and the Americans are back and else we miss.
00:09:48.000He kept going on the TV making the fatal error of accurately describing what's going on.
00:09:55.000Of course none of this is to say that Russia's invasion isn't egregious or criminal or that Putin isn't a tyrant.
00:10:00.000Simply that we all have access to the complexity of facts that may not necessarily conform to mainstream media narratives and the unipolar agenda of the globalist state.
00:10:09.000And this is a story that sort of helps us to understand that in real time.
00:10:13.000He's been booted out and this is him before in his old more carefree days at the ministry shouting off at the mouth about the way that Ukraine's basically a NATO.
00:10:23.000Ukraine as country and the armed forces of Ukraine or our sector of security and defence
00:10:52.000And incrementally, these various pledges and oaths are being broken.
00:11:00.000In a minute we're going to talk about Gareth, the oligarch who owned Burisma, and his connection to a certain little laptop-yielding son whose laptop tends not to make it onto certain social media sites.
00:11:12.000The naughtiest little laptop in the West.
00:11:15.000Delaware's sauciest laptop, the laptop of Hunter Biden.
00:11:19.000And what's weird about this story is like, when you hear like, oh, the oligarch who owned Burisma is getting shut down, you think, I've heard of that before, Burisma.
00:11:28.000Why do I even know about Ukrainian energy companies and stuff?
00:11:32.000And you think, oh, that's why, because it cropped up on that laptop that was meant to be Russian disinformation.
00:11:39.000So we're going to be talking about that.
00:11:49.000The only reason we broadcast on Rumble is because they have guaranteed freedom of speech.
00:11:54.000They have guaranteed us the right to attack establishment interests.
00:11:58.000They have given us the right to have an agenda that supports you, all of us, in our attempt to collectivise, organise and present alternative narratives to the mainstream media lies, deception and claptrap that you're regularly fed.
00:12:11.000Round the clock, we've got to oppose it somehow.
00:12:14.000And Rumble are thankfully affording us that ability.
00:12:17.000So click over from YouTube and you can say, I'm going to take my g-lay off.
00:13:03.000Stick around though, we've got some great facts coming up.
00:13:05.000On the other side of this we're going to be talking to Dave DeCamp about these kind of geopolitical stories in a sensible, responsible way.
00:13:13.000We've got an amazing story for you about how Ukraine is being used not only to pilot missiles, test them for potential future conflicts, how there are bloody biolabs and... Allegedly.
00:13:55.000Let's have one more look at this guy getting himself the old heave-ho, getting himself the old tin-tac, getting himself fired and mired in all sorts of controversy.
00:14:28.000Because obviously, Zelensky is getting rid of certain members of his government, like our man there.
00:14:33.000But also, the kind of corruption crackdown is happening at a time when...
00:14:37.000When I mean, we covered this last week, the BlackRock is now getting involved.
00:14:42.000And, you know, we've talked about the kind of privatization.
00:14:45.000And really, it's like Ukraine is being primed for Western investors to come in.
00:14:49.000And so this kind of corruption crackdown is basically as they enter talks to be in the EU and also primed for privatization through American corporations.
00:15:22.000Zelensky's Great Purge continues, launching police raid against oligarch who fell out of favour with Biden administration.
00:15:28.000The significance of the story regarding Zelensky's turning on his long-time patron and Kolominsky's other significant ties was entirely buried.
00:15:58.000You think of why it might be a good idea that he didn't, he wasn't around anymore.
00:16:02.000Like at the time that that laptop came out and he's like, this is just Russian propaganda.
00:16:06.000Well, you know, it says that there's a connection between corrupt Ukrainian officials.
00:16:11.000You're going to be having a proxy war between Ukraine and Russia.
00:16:15.000100 billion in American taxpayer money ultimately spent on weapons, primarily profits, going to Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, et cetera, usual suspects.
00:17:46.000Right, so imagine if I'd funded your career in television, business, politics, including your rise to the presidency, and then you give me the sack, first chance you get.
00:18:05.000Towards peace, towards demilitarisation.
00:18:08.000Who wants to talk about peace in a time like this?
00:18:10.000In a time when there's an escalating conflict and we're potentially moving on to provoking China?
00:18:16.000That's a great, we've got a great story for that over the course of the coming week, talking about that BRICS Plus deal and how relationships between China, Russia and a few other nations is the actual global threat that these kind of actions are attempting to curtail and interrupt, disrupt I suppose.
00:18:32.000So yeah that was the critical point apparently when he was saying that we should be looking for a peace deal because at that point his relationship with the West and the US shifted dramatically at that point.
00:18:46.000Zelensky's keeping his hand in with his elbows.
00:19:58.000Hold on a second, let me just wrap up this news story.
00:20:00.000Since then he's become the subject of an FBI probe, don't be childish, and US sanctions.
00:20:04.000He has since had his assets seized, don't be childish, and nationalised by the Ukrainian government and potentially the Biden family, that's allegedly.
00:20:12.000And he's been stripped, don't be childish, of his Ukrainian citizenship despite being born in Ukraine and living his whole life in Ukraine.
00:20:18.000He's as Ukrainian as natural gas, this guy!
00:20:33.000Well, yeah, because, well, you can't sell Ukraine as a corrupt nation with, you know, corrupt oligarchs with all sorts of ties here, there and everywhere.
00:20:47.000Particularly, Gareth, if what your plan is, is to present Ukraine as a digital utopia.
00:20:53.000A place where BlackRock can try out new technologies and new investment opportunities.
00:20:58.000A place where digital IDs and CBDCs can be safely piloted much in the manner, and this is just my opinion, that the pandemic was used to offer ideas out like lockdown, digital IDs, increased surveillance in order to help meet needs.
00:21:14.000Ukraine now is a A nation that presents unique opportunities to practice and pilot control.
00:21:21.000Any nations that's being rebuilt after horrific war are going to be desperate for aid.
00:21:26.000It makes me feel pretty bad for Ukrainian people that they are being exploited in this manner.
00:21:31.000And even Zelensky, one of the world's best pianists, I said pianists, is being misused in this way.
00:21:38.000Ukraine also hopes to team up with big tech for plans to make the war-torn country digitally instructable.
00:21:45.000So, isn't it extraordinary that this opportunism is being deployed in such a severe humanitarian disaster and at a time of geopolitical instability?
00:21:57.000Let me know in the chat, let me know in the comments what you think about this.
00:22:00.000This presentation is going to help you to understand these complex issues, I believe, a lot more deeply.
00:22:19.000Mandatory digital passports, CBDCs, social credit scores, the future that all of us are craving, according to the global elite and WEF attendees.
00:22:30.000Now, where's the perfect place in the world to test out all of these new controversial globalist tools under the guise of humanitarianism and test some weapons to boot?
00:22:47.000We've got to talk about what's going on in Ukraine against a corrupt dictator in Putin to prevent the criminal invasion of Ukraine.
00:22:55.000The things that are definitely true is Ukrainian people must be supported and prevented from suffering in a dreadful and unnecessary war.
00:23:02.000Without going any further, let's reiterate the mainstream media globalist narrative.
00:23:07.000This is a humanitarian conflict to help and protect Ukraine, and there's absolutely no way that this is a proxy war where the military-industrial complex get to test out new weapons.
00:23:19.000How Ukraine became a testbed for Western weapons and battlefield innovation.
00:23:23.000Okay, that seems to suggest it is, but that's just a one-off.
00:23:26.000For Western weapons, the Ukraine war is a beta test.
00:23:31.000But there definitely are no bio labs over there.
00:23:34.000Oh, that's just a clickbaity headline.
00:23:36.000It's not as if anyone in government has actually admitted it.
00:23:39.000Someone that's worked for successive administrations for the deep state over 20 or 30 years.
00:23:43.000Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons?
00:23:46.000Ukraine has biological research facilities, which, in fact, we are now quite concerned Russian troops may be seeking to gain control of.
00:23:59.000But there's absolutely no evidence to suggest that Ukraine is not only going to be privatized subsequent to the war by companies like BlackRock, JP Morgan, etc.
00:24:27.000During the WEF annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Ukraine's Vice Prime Minister Mikhail Fedorov said that he wants the country to be the best jurisdiction for crypto assets and plans to receive his salary in Ukraine's central bank digital currency, CBDC, the E-Hivernia.
00:24:44.000What we're suggesting to you now is not only is Ukraine being used as a testing ground for weapons and an opportunity to create profit for the American military-industrial complex, but subsequent to the war, where they're also creating privatisation opportunities for companies like BlackRock, they'll also use it as a testing ground for favoured globalist modalities such as mass surveillance, digital IDs and CBDCs.
00:25:05.000It's an everybody wins, except for Ukrainian people of course, but we didn't care about them anyway.
00:25:10.000Oh, no, no, they're the whole reason for the war.
00:25:12.000Oh, well, what about these tight union laws that are going to prevent them from being paid properly?
00:25:16.000Look, if you think too much, the world won't make sense.
00:25:19.000Just last year, the BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said he believed the Russia-Ukraine war could be used to accelerate the adoption of digital money controlled by central banks.
00:25:29.000Sometimes I think that what we're doing is incredibly controversial and we're at the vanguard of information truth.
00:25:34.000Other times I think we're just reading out stuff that people have said they're doing and putting it all together and not being bloody little idiots believing what we're told by the mainstream.
00:25:45.000Zelensky and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink have agreed to coordinate investment in rebuilding Ukraine.
00:25:51.000Yes, imagine that Zelensky will have a good deal of influence when dealing with Larry Fink, a man who plays the piano with his penis versus a man who plays with the global economy like it is his penis.
00:26:01.000In a letter to shareholders, Fink wrote that this could prove to be one of the outcomes of the war that are currently, by and large, under the radar.
00:26:09.000And we're testing out some great new radars over there, which you can profit from, by the way.
00:26:13.000According to Fink, whose company manages $10 trillion worth of assets, countries around the world will be re-evaluating what he called their currency dependencies.
00:26:47.000CBDC is the best thing ever in the world and we're in charge of them.
00:26:51.000Born out of the 2008 financial crisis.
00:26:53.000Oh, what a coincidence because BlackRock, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs were also involved in the 2008 financial crash.
00:26:59.000It's amazing how these guys just keep cropping up.
00:27:01.000This form of money was treated with distrust and even derision for a long time.
00:27:05.000But now Fink writes that BlackRock's clients are becoming increasingly interested both in cryptocurrencies, stable coins included, and in the blockchain tech that underpins them.
00:27:14.000And for that reason, BlackRock now considers centrally controlled digital money as an emerging class of assets that the corporation is studying in a bid to serve its clients better.
00:27:23.000And, of course, the people of Ukraine.
00:27:25.000Those main beneficiaries, the people of Ukraine.
00:27:27.000What are we going to do to help the people of Ukraine?
00:27:30.000Would it help them if we made loads of money?
00:27:52.000In the past, while overall positive about the future of digital money, he didn't appear to be a big fan of decentralized and freedom-associated Bitcoin.
00:28:00.000Could it be the association with freedom and decentralization, meaning that it couldn't be controlled and might be useful to ordinary people who haven't passed through the hierarchical systems at which these establishment and elite figures sit at the summit, dictating to the rest of us through the WEF and their relationships in government what we can and can't do?
00:28:15.000In his letter to shareholders, he noted that even before the war in Ukraine, several governments, including the US, were looking into cryptocurrencies and ways to regulate their use.
00:28:35.000So we're doing it to help Ukrainian people.
00:28:37.000But ultimately, won't it be worse for Ukrainian people if this war is sustained against a superpower with missile capabilities and if in the post-war climate Ukrainian people can't get good jobs and can't work under reasonable conditions?
00:28:50.000Ukraine also hopes to team up with big tech for some big plans to make the war-torn country digitally indestructible, reports citing statements made by officials during recent conferences suggest.
00:29:04.000The main goal is to move towards a cashless society, heard this anywhere?
00:29:08.000By introducing non-crypto digital money and use AI systems even for purposes like producing pre-trial and pre-sentencing reports assessing the risk of a suspect re-offending.
00:29:20.000So even justice and humanity can be passed over to AI for a profit.
00:29:38.000Was presented by Ukraine's Deputy PM and Minister of Digital Transformation, Mikhailo Fedorov, in Switzerland.
00:29:44.000Fedorov is described as longtime friend of President Volodymyr Zelensky and a fellow enthusiast in ushering in ever greater levels of digitalization.
00:29:53.000The initiative is to make Ukraine the most digital state in the world.
00:29:57.000The initiative, the plan, the vision, the scheme.
00:30:00.000While we're continually told things that may or may not be true, that Russia's attack was unprovoked, it doesn't seem that that's true, what definitely is true is that some of the most powerful interests in the world are benefiting from and profiting from this conflict.
00:30:13.000My concern is that Ukrainian people will not benefit in the short term.
00:30:16.000There's the potential for nuclear conflagration.
00:30:19.000And it looks like now, even for the rest of us, an opportunity to pilot ideas and schemes, in many ways the pandemic served a similar function, that will ultimately lead to more and more centralised authority that cannot help but lead to less individual and community freedom for you and your family.
00:30:33.000So your differences between people that have a different political or cultural ideology are less significant than your differences with this increasing globalist centralizing force that is using incredible technology, pandemics and wars to advance an agenda that it seems that they had anyway and use these crises simply to legitimize things that they've always wanted to do and find ways to maneuver that that's actually the solution.
00:30:54.000In order to help Ukrainian children, we are going to give them a vaccine.
00:30:59.000A digital passport that will help us to monitor them as they go to and from their dead end job.
00:31:20.000You want Big Tech and the government closely interlinked.
00:31:23.000Sort of like people from the deep state working at social media platforms or social media platforms and email platforms and providers giving information to the government.
00:31:34.000The push presented by Fedorov is to make Ukraine 100% digital, and he has a lot of faith in storing data on Amazon's and Microsoft's servers.
00:31:43.000We're talking about the bricks and architecture of potential tyranny being put in place.
00:31:47.000Even if you don't want to go full woo-hoo about it all and say, well, no, these people, they're just business people, they don't really matter.
00:31:54.000I'm not going to try to convince you that we already have a cadre of very powerful people that are bypassing democracy through a series of institutions and globalist organisations, and we should stop it immediately.
00:32:16.000This robot dog could help a blind person to the shop.
00:32:19.000Yeah, but the way the society is currently organized, does it seem like our absolute priority is helping blind people to the shops, or does it seem like total domination over all people as inequality increases?
00:32:38.000The plan is to allow Ukrainians to use digital services for all administrative tasks like car, property and land registration, paying customs duties and starting businesses.
00:32:47.000And you can see how in a climate where the narrative you're sold is a humanitarian one, that these companies are here to help you, where Zelensky's turning up the Golden Globes to say thank you to Black Rock and JP Morgan and all of that stuff, that you You don't think, hey, hey, wait a minute!
00:33:00.000Aren't they going to be able to track all of our movements?
00:33:02.000Aren't they going to be able to shut down dissent?
00:33:04.000Once you have digital surveillance and the ability to shut down their bank accounts and stop them driving their car, identify exactly where they are in your 100% digital society, what you're getting is a pilot for dystopia, a practice ground, first for the weapons, then for what follows for all of us.
00:33:22.000Now you can see what the motivation might be.
00:33:24.000You just have to ask yourself the same question I ask myself when I'm confronted with this Do you think that centralised economic, financial and governmental interests are primarily motivated by humanitarian drives or by economic and financial drives and by dominion more broadly?
00:33:40.000If you go no, actually having looked at the last 20 years and that, everything always seems to be about humanitarian.
00:33:45.000Whether I look at Iraq or Central and Latin America or Edward Snowden and Julian Assange's revelations, all of the past wars, all of the pandemic and that, I just think these guys are so keen to help people that they've turned into psychopaths.
00:33:57.000More sectors slated for similar transformation other than the payment system that is supposed to completely do away with paper money are education and healthcare.
00:34:24.000Ukraine, meanwhile, already has pilots that produce pre-trial and pre-sentencing reports assessing the risk of a suspect re-offending, the reports say.
00:34:32.000Maybe I'm thinking too much and reading too much of this information.
00:34:35.000I'm sure there is no plan to turn Ukraine into a techno-dystopia and attract globalist interests, piloting new schemes that will benefit centralised big tech surveillance government relationships while disempowering ordinary people and offering favourable tax breaks too.
00:34:50.000Let's have a look at a video that Fedorov published outlying his vision.
00:36:07.000That means you're being spied on all the time.
00:36:09.000Ukraine also has the most effective cyber defense in the world.
00:36:13.000They're presenting this as a kind of advert.
00:36:14.000They're not saying, don't let anyone find out that this is what we're planning.
00:36:18.000Otherwise, they'll recognise that this war, at best, is being exploited in order to advance globalist interests and possibly was exacerbated in order to create a conflict that would legitimise all of these actions that we want to take anyway.
00:37:11.000That may at first glance look like a Huxleyan dystopic vision that implements all of the globalist agenda that many of us have long feared.
00:37:20.000But surely, if it's all for the benefit of Ukrainian people, who we're supposed to be helping, right?
00:37:31.000Policies passing legislation that deprives around 73% of workers, people, of their right to union protection and collective bargaining.
00:37:39.000And once they're up against a cyber state, underwritten by big tech, where your every action is observed, where your every transaction, whether that's financial or even biometric, is observed, tracked, exchanged, they are going to need some sort of human connection.
00:37:55.000And don't you feel like me that all of this ingenuity actually could be used for good, of course it could, of course there's a utopian version of that and I don't know how they're managing to make it seem so bloody terrifying actually because it could be wonderful and brilliant if everything was democratic, if people were involved in it, if it was voted for, if it was understood.
00:38:11.000If the end point was not profit, but the advancement of our kind, the protection of one another, the right for individual and community freedom, then these would all be fantastic advances and endeavours.
00:38:21.000But when you look at the names involved, and the agenda so far, and history, do you feel that that is where this is heading?
00:38:29.000Do you still feel that this conflict is a humanitarian one, with no interest other than helping Ukrainian people to survive under the advances of a foreign aggressor?
00:38:39.000Russia is a big scary country and Putin is a big scary guy.
00:38:43.000But there's clearly so much other stuff going on that ought be discussed, reported on, subject to democratic process.
00:38:54.000It looks like in the event that there isn't a nuclear war, they've got very clear visions for what the future is going to be like for you, for your children, your money, your health going forward.
00:39:04.000Unless you think this is still just to help Ukrainian people.
00:40:02.000Mate, you said that you were interested in the story that former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that the US blocked his efforts of mediating peace between Russia and Ukraine.
00:40:12.000It's a story you reported on that hasn't been picked up much.
00:40:23.000So Naftali Bennett, he was the Prime Minister of Israel when war first broke out, when Russia first invaded, and he took his role to be a mediator.
00:40:35.000And he actually went and visited Putin on March 4th, so that's less than a week after, you know, the invasion and things really, you know, were heating up.
00:40:44.000And in this interview that he just posted on his YouTube channel over the weekend, he really detailed his mediation efforts.
00:40:51.000And he said he met with Putin on March 4th.
00:41:05.000And he said there was real will on both Putin's side and Zelensky's side to reach a ceasefire.
00:41:10.000He said he got major concessions out of them.
00:41:13.000Putin dropped his demand of the denazification of Ukraine, which he defined as basically regime change, removing Zelensky.
00:41:20.000He said Putin also dropped the demand of demilitarization.
00:41:24.000On Zelensky's side, he said that he renounced trying to join NATO, which this is Bennett, you know, former Israeli Prime Minister, explained was the reason for the Russian invasion was how close Ukraine was to NATO.
00:41:37.000But Bennett said, again, he coordinated this with all these Western countries, and he told the interviewer that there was a decision among the Western countries that they wanted to keep striking Putin, how he put it.
00:42:36.000Turkey, the host of those Istanbul talks, said that they thought the war was going to end.
00:42:41.000But some of their NATO partners wanted to continue the war to weaken Russia.
00:42:45.000And then just a few days later, again, this is April 2022, Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense, former Raytheon board member, came out and said, we want to weaken Russia in Ukraine.
00:42:56.000So it's just more evidence that the US and its allies blocked the negotiations at the beginning of the war and wanted this thing to continue.
00:43:04.000Even if we don't become ensnared in the broader morality of inciting war when peace is available, we surely have to address the way that the media has reported on this conflict, denying most people access to the details that you just We've focused on several fascinating aspects of this story, notably the profiteering of the military-industrial complex and more recently Black Rock's investment in the reconstruction of Ukraine.
00:43:42.000If you could just talk a little about that for a moment, Dave, then we'll move on to a even broader geopolitical narrative that involves unipolar incentives and ongoing American hegemony and the likely forthcoming conflicts between the United States and China, especially if they keep sending those terrifying balloons.
00:44:04.000But first, can we talk about their reconstruction and the investment opportunities that that's offering American corporations in particular?
00:44:13.000So the clear winner right now of continuing this war to weaken Russia is Raytheon, Boeing, you know, the weapons makers, the American military-industrial complex, the $100 billion, much of that is going to them.
00:44:28.000European countries are sending their old, you know, Eastern Europe, former Soviet republics, they're getting rid of their old Russian-made weapons, buying some new shiny American weapons.
00:45:02.000And that's where you see these companies like BlackRock.
00:45:04.000They're going to get in on this reconstruction and they're going to be able to create all this new infrastructure because Russia has been destroying the infrastructure starting in October as the war has continued.
00:45:15.000It's just going to get worse and worse for the people of Ukraine.
00:45:17.000And that, you know, $600 billion that it's going to cost or $750 billion might even get up to a trillion.
00:45:23.000You know, that money is going to be loaned.
00:45:25.000There's going to be interest payments.
00:45:26.000There's going to be grants from the governments that are backed by central banks so they can just print money.
00:45:32.000I mean, you know, it almost makes the $100 billion seem small, the amount that they're going to be able to make off of Ukraine's reconstruction.
00:45:40.000And unfortunately for the people of Ukraine, you know, they're the ones that are suffering right now dealing with rolling blackouts and not being able to heat their homes, you know, in the harsh Ukrainian winter.
00:45:51.000Not to mention that the conditions in Ukraine economically will likely be favourable to a great many globalist imperatives.
00:46:00.000We talked about in our presentation just there the opportunity to create a 100% digital state and that's like that was not conjecture.
00:46:08.000Ukraine themselves have produced a piece of publicity material, video in particular, outlining
00:46:14.000a vision that you can have an entirely centralized surveillance state with biometrics, deeply
00:46:22.000So there's the profit for the military-industrial complex, there's the reconstruction profit,
00:46:26.000and there's the kind of opportunity to turn Ukraine into a pilot state for numerous imperatives
00:46:33.000that have been discussed openly over the last five, six years around digital ID, social
00:46:38.000credit scoring, even more enhanced surveillance techniques.
00:46:42.000So it's very easy to see how there is an agenda alongside the obvious humanitarian agenda that elsewhere in geopolitical history has not seemed to be at the forefront of corporatist American interests.
00:46:56.000Yeah, and a big part of this too is about, you know, with all those companies building the infrastructure and besides just turning Ukraine into a de facto NATO member, which I think it's pretty fair to say they are now, as Reznikov has said, the defense minister who's being replaced, you know, giving them this foothold in Ukraine right on Russia's border to turn it basically into this Western client state right in Russia's backyard, I think was a big part of the goal.
00:47:35.000You know, there was reporting right before Russia's recent invasion, not recent, it's
00:47:38.000been almost a year now, but there was reporting from Yahoo News that CIA paramilitary officers
00:47:43.000were deployed on the front lines of the Donbass war, you know, during that whole time.
00:47:48.000So again, you talk about the narrative.
00:47:50.000It's a snapshot for the corporate media from February 24th until now.
00:47:54.000For us, we have to look at the big picture.
00:47:56.000It even goes beyond 20, way back before 2014 with NATO expansion and all that.
00:48:01.000So that's why people are buying up this narrative because again, they give them that snapshot.
00:48:09.000Not to mention the Nord Stream pipeline and the shift now in Americans' ability to sell resources across the world, which was another explicitly stated goal prior to the commencement of this conflict.
00:48:24.000We want to be the number one provider of liquid gas, which I believe is another one of the objectives that has been subsequently met.
00:48:31.000It helps us, doesn't it, Dave, to see geopolitics in the form of a broader narrative.
00:48:38.000In particular, the attempt to destabilise Russia, potentially because of a burgeoning partnership and set of treaties that they've cultivated with China.
00:48:49.000Now, of course, America's... Every time I say China, I want to say China.
00:48:53.000Their relationship with China is, of course, in the headlines because of that terrifying, awful, bloody balloon.
00:49:00.000But also, there is a wider global narrative about US hegemony and unipolar intentions and the potential for China and Russia to disrupt that.
00:49:13.000Are we likely to see this story becoming increasingly incendiary over coming weeks, months, years, Dave?
00:49:22.000And, you know, one point is that the people running American foreign policy, you know, the neocons who control it and other people, you know, part of the deep state, there's different factions and some of them are not very smart.
00:49:35.000And those are the ones right now that are controlling the Biden administration, I think, you know, Tony Blinken, Victoria Nuland.
00:49:41.000What they're doing to Russia and China clearly is going to bring them closer together.
00:49:46.000They're both facing Western sanctions.
00:49:47.000They're both facing Western military buildups.
00:49:49.000And now they're shaking hands and making deals.
00:49:51.000And it's creating this kind of new, like you said, multipolar world, potentially, with Russia, China, Iran, even Venezuela, all these countries that are being sanctioned by the U.S.
00:50:08.000You know, they opened up China And got all this industry there and really built them up and now over the past few years China has really become the boogeyman.
00:50:18.000So now there's a lot to this China thing in the balloon and right now what people have to do is just stop for a moment and not get kind of whipped up into a frenzy about this scary Chinese spy balloon that went over the US.
00:51:19.000So anyway, so maybe a balloon Floating over the US for a little while wouldn't have really raised alarms back then before this treaty was scrapped.
00:51:28.000I'm not really sure, but we have to ask these questions.
00:51:31.000And the timing of this whole balloon thing, you know, the Pentagon announcing it right before Blinken is supposed to go to China.
00:52:36.000Marine Corps opened a new base on Guam, and these marine leaders, these military leaders in the Asia-Pacific, they say they're doing this to prepare for war with China.
00:53:09.000If you remember last summer, Nancy Pelosi's little stunt, she went over there and it provoked the largest Chinese military drills around Taiwan that have ever happened.
00:53:46.000intervention in the Chinese Civil War, backing Chiang Kai-shek when the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan.
00:53:52.000The US intervening militarily in the 1950s to stop Mao from trying to take Taiwan.
00:53:57.000All this stuff is very important that people need to understand.
00:54:01.000But right now, what we've seen in the past few years, Starting really under the Trump administration is that they're changing the relationship from Taiwan.
00:54:09.000It used to be kind of an issue between the U.S.
00:54:11.000and China, and now they're using it as an opportunity to kind of poke China.
00:54:16.000And, you know, these visits, Nancy Pelosi going over there is a big deal because she was the Speaker of the House, and that China views that as an affront to the one-China policy.
00:54:28.000The National Defense Authorization Act, the 2023 military spending bill that Biden just signed, Include military aid for Taiwan for the first time ever.
00:55:32.000And his Pentagon, his State Department, the CIA, the FBI, just about every federal agency under Biden has said China is our number one threat, our top enemy.
00:55:43.000So we have to think very cautiously about all this balloon You know, frenzy when that is the backdrop.
00:55:54.000Seems like there is an aggressive agenda being subversively deployed almost uniformly and continually, whether it's this current conflict and its preceding provocations, or what we appear to be seeing now is kind of comparable to the gradual encroachment around territories that have associations with China.
00:56:20.000Building of a narrative that there is a necessity for a conflict.
00:56:25.000I suppose that what we will look out for over the next six months to a year is like, oh, Taiwan, there's this humanitarian crisis.
00:56:32.000We've got to help these Taiwanese people.
00:56:36.000Or we'll be invited to forget the provocation.
00:56:40.000What dear Blinken, if he's any kind of a diplomat, should be doing is getting himself on a balloon and going to China Buy a balloon on a global balloon tour for peace.
00:56:50.000That is the sort of diplomatic opportunity that ought to be embraced.
00:56:54.000Dave, thank you for describing these complex events in such an accessible, thoughtful, and I would say inclusive way.
00:57:04.000Antiwar.com has, as I understand it, no left-right political bias.
00:57:11.000Is there any clues in the name, for example?
00:57:16.000Yeah, so I mean, that's basically our bias is that we're anti-war, non-interventionist.
00:57:21.000We're a libertarian staff, so we're what most people would consider, you know, right-leaning.
00:57:25.000But we have columnists from all over the political spectrum, and that's been the mission of the website.
00:57:30.000It was founded in 1995 by Eric Garrison and Justin Raimondo, and Justin was the columnist who was a genius, but unfortunately he passed away.
00:57:40.000In 2019, but the whole time it was about building a coalition.
00:57:43.000You know, we would run columns from, you know, Daniel Ellsberg and Pat Buchanan, just completely different ends of the political spectrum.
00:57:53.000And that's what we pride ourselves on.
00:57:55.000Because, you know, this issue, especially now, as we're looking down the barrel of a potential war with Russia and China now, a nuclear war, we really need to unite to stop this.
00:58:05.000And that's what We're all about, and the site is entirely reader-funded, that's why they've been able to do this and go against these narratives, and I'm very honored to be working for them.
00:58:15.000I started doing it full-time in 2020, and I just write short news articles every day.
00:58:20.000I sort through hundreds of articles in the mainstream media every day and kind of filter it through to give people a short understanding, so that's what we're about.
00:58:30.000Again, I think your viewers, you know, would appreciate what we do over there.
00:58:34.000And also, if people don't want to read, I condense it into about a 30-minute daily podcast.
00:58:39.000It's called Anti-War News with Dave DeCamp.
00:58:43.000You can listen to the audio version or we also have a YouTube channel.
00:58:45.000We're also on Rumble and all that stuff.
00:58:49.000So yeah, I think, you know, our views align a lot, Russell, in that politics are kind of secondary when you're When we're in the situation we are today, and people really need to wake up, and I know you had Jimmy Doran promoting that anti-war rally February 19th in Washington, D.C.
00:59:06.000We're going to be represented there by Scott Horton, who's our editorial director.
00:59:16.000We're going to be represented at that march by Gareth, who's a human centipedia, very much like that terrifying film where people did all manner of filthy stuff.
00:59:26.000In a way, true opposition these days has to be bipartisan and transcendent of those kind of divisions because it's quite clear that centralist interests, whether Left or right, both have a pro-military agenda, both pro-surveillance, both pro-digitization, and really what is required is a coalition of the awakening in order to truly oppose what appears to be a relentless march towards the apocalypse.
00:59:54.000I mean, when we're in the Armageddon, we won't have time to check what rosettes the other zombies are wearing.
01:00:00.000As we pick through the ashes and rumble.
01:00:48.000On tomorrow's show, Matthias Desmet, author of The Psychology of Totalitarianism, is joining us, talking about Mass, about mass formation and how the elites are controlling us.
01:01:31.000If you want to see how this show is actually made and want to ask us questions directly and join the conversation, experiencing the show behind the show, join our locals community and watch Stay Connected, a weekly show where me and Gareth here have a right old laugh.
01:01:43.000We can really express ourselves, and sometimes I eat food during it.
01:01:46.000It's a lot more of an intimate connection to us.
01:01:55.000On the show, and also, yeah, we've got a great show coming up for you later in the week, but I want to tell you, this is very important, you can see a meditation that me and Deepak Chopra are doing.
01:02:04.000You're never going to awaken to be a part of a transcendent populist coalition to bring down the war machine if you don't know how to access your innermost self, are you?