Cornell West joins us to talk about his campaign for President of the United States, why he's running, and why he thinks he'd make a great president. We also hear from Gareth, who's back from his honeymoon in Ukraine, and we're joined by a brand new guest, Ron DeSantis, who talks about his plans to become the next president of the USA. And, of course, we've got a special bonus episode this week, featuring an exclusive interview with one of our own, Dr. Cornel West! To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers and use the promo code AWAKeningWonders at checkout to receive 10% off your first purchase when you enter the discount code: AWAKENINGWondering at checkout. We'll be back next Monday with a new episode of the podcast, where we'll be joined by our very own special guest, Elon Gabbard, who'll be telling us all about his secret mission to bring down Donald Trump. The Man Who Couldn't Do It. And, as always, thank you for listening and tweet us if you have a question or would like us to have us on the pod. Timestamps: 4:00 - Who's better than the Man Who Can Do It? 5:15 - Who would you vote for President? 6:30 - What's the best presidential candidate? 7: RFK? 8:10 - Who do you'd you'd like to be your next president? 9: What do you want to see as President of America? 11:40 - What kind of president you d like to see? 16:00- What s your vision for the USA? 17:20 - Who s your idea for the country? 18:00 19:30- What would you diktat? 21:20- Who s going to be the best president of America s next president ? 22:40- What are you waiting for? 25:00, what s your ideal president? / 26:30, who s your dream? 27:40, what do you would you want me to do next? 29:20, what would you like to hear from me? 30:00s - What s a good idea? 35:00 | Who s the best man you d have in your mind?
00:01:18.000Unlike the dear and forever tumbling president of the United States who requires naught but love and support if you ask me, but perhaps more urgently, replacement by an intellectual giant.
00:01:30.000We've had RFK on the show talking about his candidacy and the vision for America that he'd like to bring to the world.
00:01:36.000Today we have Cornel West, Dr Cornel West, Joining us for an exclusive announcement.
00:01:43.000He's one of the most credible, radical, philosophical voices in American politics, who's able to effortlessly infuse emotion, vision, spirit, and pragmatism.
00:02:15.000Yeah, there's my dog just to legitimize that.
00:02:18.000We're talking about a new bill that's being passed to remove any potential limitations to expenditure in the Ukraine.
00:02:26.000We're talking about that not because we don't support the efforts, the humanitarian effort to help Ukrainian people, but because we're a little bit worried that all that money ends up in the hands of the military-industrial complex on a basis of Research!
00:02:39.000We're going to be going exclusively on Rumble.
00:02:41.000If you're watching this on YouTube right now, God we love you and we welcome you, but you know that the WHO regulate the content that you watch there, or at least are able to offer sensory advice.
00:02:52.000YouTube take their guidance and establish their guidelines based on the WHO's principles.
00:02:56.000So we've got a few things to talk about.
00:02:58.000Google renewing their partnership with the WHO and new research that ...reveals what the impact of certain medications are on transmission, whether or not the medications were beneficial or... Actually, worse!
00:03:56.000Because Elon, he done Ron DeSantis the day, like, we had a date in the diary, I swear to you, I'm not lying about Elon, let us know if you believe me, right?
00:04:03.000We had Elon locked down, but then he done... DeSantis.
00:04:07.000Who's gonna be the... Well, potential.
00:07:16.000Bernie Sanders, who our man Dr. Cornel West supported.
00:07:19.000Now I know a lot of you are Bernie Sanders.
00:07:21.000You think he's a bit of a globalist and you don't trust him.
00:07:23.000But we were interested in Bernie Sanders's willingness to regulate corporations.
00:07:28.000We don't think it matters left or right anymore.
00:07:29.000Discard those old taxonomies, those old categories.
00:07:33.000Who is interested in representing the people against institutional power and the revolving door between, say, Washington and Wall Street and big tech?
00:07:55.000Let us know in the chat if you think you know what the secret is.
00:07:57.000And remember, you can join us on Locals by pressing that red button.
00:08:02.000So anyway, look, ask yourself, how many hands would you have to shake before you start thinking, oh, I can't keep standing upright like that.
00:08:37.000You can't go, I get knocked down, stay there for a while actually, thinking about whether or not I prefer it down there.
00:08:43.000That's no kind of rallying cry, and they were anarchists actually, and the anarchists, they should have a vote, they should have a voice at the table.
00:08:50.000True anarchy is not about chaos, it's about non-domination, non-dominion, and how institutions will always become corrupt.
00:08:56.000Curiously, some anarchists believe that you should de-school society, radically change the education system, Acknowledge that the education system is about preparing you for the job market and conditioning you.
00:09:07.000What kind of views do you want your children inculcated with?
00:09:11.000Some of the questions an anarchist might ask if one was here now.
00:09:14.000Because you don't really like my dog, do you girl?
00:09:52.000Who else, even like Oscar Pistorius when he's got those legs to replace his own legs lost in an amputation and then didn't he go on to actually do a murder.
00:11:14.000Well, it is nice, Ross, but there's a reason behind it, is that this is a huge deal for his opposition now.
00:11:21.000Absolutely, and we know that the major concern with all voters across the board in America, but certainly Democratic voters, is that Biden's too old.
00:11:28.00032% barred him as the mental sharpness, 32% and only 33% thinks he's got the physical
00:12:15.000They want someone like RFK or Marianne Williamson and other people that Biden will not debate Possibly because he shook too many hands, it's 65 degrees out, there's a sandbag, he could go over any moment like a sack of spuds, like a bag of potatoes.
00:12:28.000We're going to be talking to Dr. Cornel West who's got a fantastic, important, significant announcement for those of you that are interested in democracy, for those of you that believe that democracy could deliver meaningful change, that could possibly end the tension that exists between the world's people right now by bringing about more democratic, decentralised solutions.
00:12:45.000Let's see what Karine Jean-Pierre says.
00:12:48.000Jean-Pierre, very French sounding surname, Yes it is.
00:16:41.000You might just have to give me a little bit of time.
00:16:42.000I met Sean Hannity, but then I was getting so much grief going on Fox, I thought, don't put up a picture of me with Sean Hannity, find a picture of me with someone else.
00:17:21.000No, you actually were very responsible and I had a nice chat with Hannah E. and I agreed to go on Hannah E.' 's thing and I'm going to go on it.
00:17:27.000It was heated in a kind of exciting way.
00:17:29.000He said, I'm Irish, we're first generation immigrants.
00:17:31.000I go, we've got decentralised power, we've got to have more fairness, control corrupt institutions.
00:17:54.000So he's not actually ridiculing him, he's being quite sweet, is he?
00:17:59.000Oh, by the way, hey listen, if you're watching this on YouTube, when we go over to Rumble, we're going to be talking about their World Health Organization.
00:18:04.000I've learned a lot of things about how they're funded that are going to knock your socks off.
00:18:06.000We're going into more detail about that later in the week.
00:18:09.000We're also going to be talking about a recent trial at the second best hospital in America that reveals that potentially certain medications may not have been as good as not having certain medications?
00:19:22.000That is a key piece of information. And whether or not you think the deep state curtailed Trump's ability to meaningfully
00:19:28.000alter America, or you loathe Trump on account of some of this social
00:19:32.000rhetoric and indeed actions, many might argue, I feel that the change that comes along with altering
00:19:38.000individuals is not a significant enough change for you American people or for us.
00:19:42.000One of the big things I guess that's gonna play a big part in you know Trump versus DeSantis will be like lockdowns and things and Trump's approach and he did you know he did lock a lot of people down.
00:19:54.000He describes those vaccines as beautiful vaccines like DeSantis you know like again even like people have a variety of views on those medications but Ron DeSantis's Florida approach a lot of people like it.
00:20:55.000There's going to be no limits to Ukrainian aid.
00:20:59.000Is this a new bill that's been passed?
00:21:00.000Well, it's the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which sounds incredibly boring, but basically this is all to do with the debt ceiling that has now been raised.
00:21:25.000but and and what's happening as a result of that is lots of federal spending cuts so 55 billion in 2024 81 billion in 2025 but what does not fit under these cuts guess what is spending on military industrial uh in on the military so everything's getting cut yeah except for Military spending.
00:21:49.000So they slip that under there as emergency funds.
00:21:51.000That can relate to any Ukraine military spending and also potentially Taiwan as well.
00:21:55.000Do you reckon the lobbying done by the defence and military industrial, defence industry and MIC, military industrial complex, led to that clause being inserted?
00:22:04.000How could you ever suggest such a thing?
00:22:05.000Let us know in the chat what you reckon.
00:22:07.000What about that other thing, mate, then, that think tanks are spilling into, like, all of the weapons firms are influencing the Ukrainian debate.
00:22:15.000Tell us a bit more about that, would you?
00:22:17.000This is a new study that was done by, I'm just trying to find it, oh right, the Quincy Institute.
00:22:26.000Quincy Institute, thank you so much Ross.
00:22:28.000So this is, how they work this out is looking at ways in which think tanks dominate the media market relating to primarily the Ukraine war but also all war in general.
00:22:39.000They found that 78% of the top-ranked foreign policy think tanks in the US receive funding from the Pentagon or its contractors, so either the Pentagon or the military-industrial complex.
00:22:48.000Now what this means is think tanks will think, what is a think tank?
00:23:00.000Well, the think tanks are what the media constantly quote.
00:23:04.000According to a think tank, I'm always hearing that.
00:23:07.000So basically, the narrative that you're receiving from the mainstream media, this is New York Times, Washington Post, all the big players, are informed by think tanks.
00:23:15.000And what this has uncovered is that nearly 80% of these think tanks receive funding from the Pentagon or its contractors.
00:23:21.000Gareth, how are you supposed to run a think tank without a bit of funding?
00:23:28.000That's what I've always said when I was in the think tank game.
00:23:30.000But again, this is why the mainstream media, why we're constantly saying don't trust the mainstream media, although they can't be relied upon.
00:23:36.000Media outlets were more than seven times as likely to cite a think tank with defence sector support as they were to cite a think tank without it.
00:23:43.000So media like the New York Times is approaching think tanks seven times more likely to be funded by the military industrial complex.
00:23:49.000I've had nothing from the military-industrial complex and I want to tell you
00:23:52.000something. It's about time you did. A few pence off Lockheed Martin, a few pence off Raytheon.
00:23:56.000What's wrong with that? I'll tell you something, you know Rachel Maddow? I do.
00:24:00.000Who, like now right, if you're watching this on YouTube you can still go and
00:24:07.000And have a look, and I believe Rachel Maddow is on there on MSNBC saying, and you can work out for yourself how true this is, I've not said anything about it have I?
00:24:22.000Now I like Rachel Maddow, some of you like, tell me now if you like Rachel Maddow, I like her.
00:24:27.000She was appearing at an event for Lockheed Martin.
00:24:30.000Lockheed Martin, a friend of the show, Max Blumenthal, he turned up from Greyzone, asked her questions about Russiagate and all that kind of stuff.
00:25:04.000Too similar, because I believe the Empire was not very good.
00:25:07.000Not a very nice chap, that wrinkly fella.
00:25:10.000So like, anyway, she was at that event, funded by the defence industry, members of the Democrat Party were there.
00:25:16.000These kind of events, this kind of think tank, what we're essentially saying and seeing is how Information is being funded by certain interests.
00:25:28.000All around the world right now, bills are being passed, proposed, and put together that curtail our ability to convey truthful information to you.
00:25:36.000It's happening in this country, the UK.
00:25:37.000It's happening in your country, the US.
00:26:40.000Of course we know that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was criminal but in fact that the US cannot testify that to the ICC or they themselves will be hoisted by their own petard due to the number of criminal invasions that they've conducted in the last 20 years or so.
00:26:53.000I just think it's ironic and obviously that was Max Blumenthal's point that when Rachel Maddow's there talking about things like disinformation and misinformation we know about the censorship industrial complex that's going on at the moment That you discover that the media is using think tanks that are funded by people who are profiting from these wars.
00:27:17.000Doing a difficult job under very tricky conditions.
00:27:20.000The Mexican drug cartels actually have got their hands on weapons that were meant to be in Ukraine.
00:27:26.000I mean that doesn't seem very good, particularly because Mexican drug cartels are being used to legitimise the ongoing ability of the American government to surveil American citizens abroad.
00:29:03.000If you're watching us on YouTube, do join us in a minute.
00:29:05.000We're going to be talking to Dr Cornel West, one of the greatest thinkers of our time, one of the great communicators of our time, a man who brings love to the political debate.
00:29:12.000Furthermore, we're going to be talking about Google and YouTube renewing their partnership with the WHO and we've got a lot to tell you about the WHO and how they're funded.
00:29:19.000We've been diving into that over the course of the week and I'm afraid we're going to have to tell you some stuff about vaccines which some of you are going to absolutely love and some of you are not going to like very much at all but it's too controversial to talk about on YouTube.
00:29:29.000That is why we need you to click on the link right now.
00:29:33.000Join us over on Rumble where we believe in bringing people together.
00:29:36.000We believe in your individual freedom.
00:29:37.000We believe in the freedom of your community.
00:29:39.000We believe in your right to be whoever you want to be.
00:29:41.000And people that tell you otherwise, they're just, I don't know, against free speech.
00:29:44.000They're against people coming together.
00:29:46.000I don't know what their motives are, but we're here for you.
00:29:52.000We've got some real saucy truths here.
00:29:55.000And if you're watching on Rumble, and I know you are because we're not on YouTube anymore, so you can't win this one because we've just switched YouTube off there.
00:30:03.000Then just click on locals and join us a bit closer.
00:30:06.000Now I can say what I want now, I can't. Oh no, no Dugganoko's back!
00:31:58.000What were you doing lurking around that?
00:32:01.000I was simply trying to sell some of my wares.
00:32:04.000I'm a representative of a lovely little company named Pfizer, and we are doing our best to solve the world's problems at a price that's right, I'd say.
00:32:30.000Alright, so tell us this story, Gal, because Dr Cornel West is coming on here in a minute and we need the voice of love, we need the voice of reason, we need a man that's willing to bring people together at a difficult and fractured time.
00:32:40.000Yeah, so it's a tricky one because it can be interpreted in different ways.
00:32:46.000Yeah, you don't need to put that syllable in there, mate.
00:33:14.000There's your conspiracy theorist making reasoned arguments.
00:33:17.000But the first time that this came out a few months ago it was not peer-reviewed and now it has been peer-reviewed and I think a lot of again the pushback was like oh is it older people who are higher at risk but it was mainly young people young participants who were involved Young spunky doctors.
00:33:31.000And like the overall conclusion of this was still that vaccines work at preventing hospitalisation.
00:33:37.000So it wasn't like vaccines don't work.
00:33:39.000But I guess one of the comments to kind of come from this is whether there are now, if this is to be believed, which why would it not be, that there are diminishing returns in getting more vaccines.
00:33:52.000And obviously the interesting thing with vaccines at the moment and the mandates that are still going on in the United States are that they're mainly... They're still mandates!
00:34:01.000Well, mainly in places where young people go.
00:34:03.000So it's colleges, universities, things like that.
00:34:06.000And I guess when you're looking at that is...
00:34:09.000Statistically the least at risk category.
00:34:14.000And now we know that the more you get potentially, the higher the risk of getting COVID is, then it really does massively call into the question boosters, mandates, all of these things that the conspiracy theorists have been saying shouldn't have been existing in the first place.
00:34:30.000Well, listen, what I will say is that much of that information, if you alloy it with the RFK interview that's up on Rumble right now, our brilliant conversation with RFK, why bother going on to Twitter where it's a pound to a penny that bloody audio won't bleed, people won't bloody hear a bloody thing or don't even work properly.
00:35:27.000Let's have a look, first of all, at what our team of absolute morons have put together in terms of, like, you know the apocryphal monkeys, you know if you get an infinite number of monkeys they'll recreate the work of Shakespeare, will they though?
00:37:11.000I'll give my exclusives to someone else.
00:37:12.000I'll give my exclusives to someone else.
00:37:13.000I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I'm a serious philosopher, I Hi, Russell, says Patricia.
00:37:36.000If it wasn't for you, this world would be too difficult for me.
00:37:38.000Here in Spain, nobody speaks about the matters you do.
00:37:40.000They might be, but they might be just saying it in Spanish.
00:37:43.000I find light in your weekly email videos, or luz in espanol, and email videos and also hope.
00:37:48.000I hope you never stop doing this amazing work.
00:39:32.000My brother, you know, I want to salute you, your brilliance, the fact that you are such a genuine force for good and have the courage to be yourself.
00:39:47.000And Brother James, you all make a magnificent team.
00:39:51.000And there's no doubt that when I decided to make my announcement and talked it over with my beloved wife, Anahita, I said, if I have a choice, I want to say it on a show that I watch regularly, religiously.
00:40:11.000Because you're a truth teller and you are a justice seeker, my brother.
00:40:16.000Dr Cornel West, thank you very much for that flattery and praise, although in the case of Gareth and James, it was misjudged and misdirected.
00:40:26.000Dr Cornel West, you have a very important announcement.
00:40:29.000We are honoured that you've chosen our platform to make this announcement.
00:40:32.000Please, tell us why you are here talking to us today.
00:40:36.000Well, you know, my dear brother, that I have been fighting for truth and justice for 55 years, beginning when I was 15 years old there in the chocolate side of Sacramento, Shiloh Baptist Church, and working with the Black Panther Party, never joined the party, was deeply, deeply committed to their fundamental concern for poor and working people.
00:40:58.000And now, 55 years later, I've decided to continue that fight for truth and justice by running for the president of the USA on the People's Party.
00:41:11.000To ensure that we can reintroduce to America the best of itself.
00:41:19.000And the best of America is Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
00:41:34.000All of these different peoples of different colors and genders and sexual orientations of James Bond and Audre Lorde doing what?
00:41:42.000Telling America the truth about itself and the condition of truth is always to allow the suffering of precious, poor, and priceless working people to be heard.
00:41:51.000And yes, you're right, it is about love, because justice is what love looks like in public.
00:41:55.000But by love, what we're talking about is looking at the world through the lens of those Frantz Fanon called the wretched of the earth, of poor and working people, not just in America, in the American empire, and this very fragile democratic experiment in the midst of that empire.
00:42:18.000I wanted to be concerned about human beings, no matter where they are, no matter what color, no matter what gender, no matter what sexual orientation, no matter what national identity.
00:42:28.000And that's why we're calling for a paradigm shift, brother.
00:42:31.000We need a spiritual awakening and a moral reckoning in the face of institutionalized greed.
00:42:39.000That greed can be in Wall Street, it can be in Silicon Valley, it can be in the Pentagon.
00:42:45.000And I believe, of course, we've got greed inside of all of us.
00:42:48.000But I'm talking about institutionalized greed with predatory capitalist tendencies that tend to suck everything up for money and for profit.
00:42:58.000And then we've got the neo-fascism escalating, especially in the Republican Party.
00:43:46.000You got to bring vision and passion to convince person, not people, not to follow neo-fascist Pied Pipers, but actually let them know that there are persons on the so-called left, which is simply say persons of integrity, honesty, and decency looking at the world through the lens of poor and working people.
00:45:16.000Catastrophe transfigured by compassion and community.
00:45:22.000I come from a blues people, the catastrophe of slavery, of Jim Crow, of Jan Crow, of mass incarceration, of being taught to hate ourselves.
00:45:30.000And yet here comes Ma Rainey, here come Bessie Smith, here come Muddy Waters.
00:46:08.000Those are catastrophes visited upon precious human beings in every life in Iran, in Tel Aviv, In West Bank, in Gaza, in Afghanistan, in Lithuania, in Ethiopia.
00:46:23.000Each precious life there has the same value as a life in London or a life in California.
00:48:18.000What we have for the most part of public discourse in America, echoes of silos.
00:48:25.000Echoes of silos, expressions of very polarized spaces where no one wants to listen and lift their own voices, think critically for themselves in such a way that you can improvise.
00:48:38.000Improvisation is not Simply an artistic skill.
00:48:41.000It's a species of phronesis, what the Greeks call practical wisdom.
00:48:46.000You have to be able to judge, to get your timing right.
00:48:49.000So you tell the truth about catastrophe on the one hand, you authorize a different future in light of a different conception of time in the present, and then you improvise.
00:49:08.000And it's not a function of skin pigmentation.
00:49:12.000There's a whole lot of black gangsters and black thugs.
00:49:14.000I got a lot of gangster and thug in me.
00:49:16.000But it's people who choose to be creative, people who choose dignity, people who choose defiance, people who are willing to live and die for something bigger than them.
00:49:32.000And that's very much what we're talking about.
00:49:34.000And that's why we're going to run this campaign in such a way it's going to be so unique and singular and different and distinctive from what America's used to.
00:49:46.000That is a beautiful, incredible and inspiring soliloquy.
00:49:51.000How I enjoyed the litany of great heroes that you shared with us and precisely this spirit is the spirit that we need to have unleashed on ossifying American politics right now.
00:50:05.000Why I feel that your voice is so important is because many of the radical critiques that
00:50:11.000are attacking institutional corruption at this time appear at least to be coming from
00:50:17.000conventionally regarded as right-wing places, right-wing spaces.
00:50:23.000And I believe deeply in unity and revolution and a need for a different type of discourse
00:50:29.000and for new ideas to be introduced into a very restrictive and suffocated political
00:50:54.000That America needs to come to the world with open arms and an open heart if we're to ever change this current economic dynamic that appears to be predicated on perpetual war.
00:51:04.000It's one of the things we're reporting on today.
00:51:06.000One of the things we're repeatedly, continually reporting on.
00:51:10.000The use of humanitarianism to underwrite yet more exploitation and ongoing war.
00:51:16.000And I feel that even the timbre of your speech, the references of jazz, of which Gareth will be most grateful, for he himself is a jazz musician, a French horn player, and a blue note slayer.
00:51:31.000He'll be overjoyed to hear that kind of rhetoric.
00:51:36.000I want to ask you, Doctor, you've been Although I can't begin to contemplate the amount of prejudice you must have endured to get to where you are as a much admired and decorated philosophical figure teaching at some of the most respected institutions in the world.
00:51:55.000I recognize that must have been a very difficult journey.
00:51:57.000Latterly, though, you are held in high esteem by the establishment.
00:52:02.000I'm speaking, for example, of the fact that you sort of speak on, like, that sort of high profile, like, mentorship course, you know, like that online place.
00:52:12.000You're kind of adored and a darling of, like, the legacy media.
00:52:16.000How do you feel that even beginning to have these kind of conversations attacking institutional power, which have Oddly now, our issues have migrated to the right.
00:52:25.000How do you think it's going to affect your standing?
00:52:26.000And how do you think you're going to make a significant impact in a political and media landscape that is locked up in financial interest and is most intransigent and unwilling to allow genuinely radical voices into the space?
00:52:44.000And this is much more radical than that.
00:52:46.000So what kind of attacks do you anticipate?
00:52:49.000Oh, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised at a variety of different kinds of attacks and assaults coming at one, but I'm not preoccupied with those attacks and assaults at all.
00:52:58.000Anytime you embark on a fallible pursuit of truth and justice, you focus on what you can do, how you can cultivate your own gifts and work with others in community in order to be a force for good.
00:53:13.000That you're always going to be misunderstood, misconstrued.
00:53:25.000It's not so much about what's coming at you.
00:53:28.000It's how you respond to what is coming at you.
00:53:31.000And most importantly, you recognize, at least for me, you see, as a black man in America for 70 years now, That I've been on borrowed time for a good while.
00:53:41.000I probably should have been dead a long time ago in terms of the vicious kind of attacks I've had to deal with.
00:53:46.000So that for me, it's a matter of being true to myself, being true to my calling, and not being surprised by evil or paralyzed by despair.
00:53:55.000And at the same time, I'll never allow anybody to drag me so low that I will hate them and completely foreclose their possibilities.
00:54:14.000They choose to be gangsters, they choose to be gangsters.
00:54:17.000If they were gangsters and choose to overcome gangster activity in terms of egoism and narcissism and cruelty and manipulation and subjugation of others, they can change.
00:54:26.000And that's a beautiful thing about we human beings.
00:54:28.000We're so wretched on the one hand, and yet we're wonderful on the other.
00:54:46.000So, you can't foretell the future in that way, but you have to be committed to your call, and you have to attempt to live a life of integrity.
00:54:55.000And integrity is not about popularity.
00:54:58.000And anytime you challenge establishment or status quo, you're gonna get strong backlash.
00:55:04.000Dr Cornel West, here at least, you're receiving a great deal of love over on Locals.
00:55:07.000Press the red button, you can join us on Locals.
00:55:09.000People are very excited by your announcement.
00:55:12.000What a beautiful man says it's being, and lots of people are excited to just hear this kind of language and these kind of ideas being introduced to the political space.
00:55:22.000What are the key pledges, doctor, that you'll be running under?
00:55:25.000In fact, we have them to put on the screen now, but if you could talk us through them in some detail, it would be helpful.
00:55:32.000Well, one, I am a thoroughgoing abolitionist when it comes to poverty and homelessness.
00:55:39.000In fact, I told my beloved wife that when I win, and I intend to win, my attitude is I don't want to even go into the White House until every fellow citizen has a house.
00:55:52.000She said, oh, that might not be too practical.
00:55:54.000Well, that's the spirit that I proceed.
00:56:00.000That office is simply a vehicle to pursue truth and justice that begins with abolishing, completely eliminating poverty and homelessness.
00:56:13.000It has to do with a commitment to a strong support of trade unions.
00:56:17.000So that living wages becomes a reality for every worker, no matter what color, no matter what gender, no matter what sexual orientation, no matter what region.
00:56:25.000It has to do with access to health care, Medicare for all, the very thing that my dear brother Bernie Sanders made so much of, and rightly so.
00:56:34.000It has to do with a tremendous indictment of the greed of the 1% at the top in ways in which we can get some accountability.
00:56:44.000I love your talk, Brother Russell, about decentralization.
00:56:47.000I think you're absolutely right that the state has become captured by corporate power.
00:56:53.000And I know my dear brother RF Kennedy talks about that, Junior, and he's right as well.
00:56:58.000We resonate with the ways in which the state has been captured by corporate wealth.
00:57:03.000But the question becomes, how do you empower everyday people and working people in such a way that it doesn't reproduce centralization that tends to reproduce domination?
00:57:14.000And here we need to bring together some of the best minds.
00:57:17.000I'm not in any way suggesting that I have definitive answers.
00:57:22.000As a jazz man in politics, I know, just like Mary Lou Williams or Duke Ellington or Count Basie, I need a band.
00:57:29.000I got to have a variety of different voices and they come in all colors.
00:59:36.000Student debt, free tuition, the kind of things, again, Brother Bernie talked about now we're following through in a much more substantive way.
00:59:43.000And because we're free of the corruption of the neo-fascist Republican Party and the neoliberal Democratic Party, we're able to fundamentally speak the truth.
01:00:08.000You don't have to fit into the narrowness.
01:00:13.000Of a mainstream that tells you you've got to somehow contain yourself.
01:00:17.000That's what it is to be a part of the People's Party.
01:00:20.000That's what it is to be a part of the People's Movement.
01:00:23.000That's why we are going to not just constitute a major challenge and threat to the status quo.
01:00:30.000We want to give concrete, fleshified hope in action to people who are losing hope.
01:00:39.000The people who are feeling helpless, people feeling as if there's no way out of this corporate duopoly.
01:00:47.000And I think in the end, it's still very much about style and the smile, though, man.
01:00:53.000We're going to preserve our style no matter what.
01:00:56.000And we're going to have a smile because we're coming together.
01:01:00.000Solidarity is about sustaining that kind of strong spine where you straighten your back up.
01:01:09.000And you speak what's on your mind and you fight for poor and working people wherever they are.
01:01:14.000Dr. Cornel West, I feel that it's possible to detect in the political conversation over the last 20 years and perhaps even beyond that an appetite For real change.
01:01:26.000Indeed, that's perhaps the word that defined Obama's campaign and eventual election.
01:01:32.000In the disdain that became apparent through Trump's candidature and eventual election for institutional corruption, and perhaps best embodied in the easy maxim, drain the swamp, which we've already brought up today, the kind of despair that I feel people are beginning to feel around the presidency of Joe Biden so many of the pledges made during his candidacy reneged on now and the sense that in his atrophy and visible decay he somehow is the perfect avatar for a system in decline an unwillingness for a fragile aging career politician to wield
01:02:18.000To wield power well or yield it when necessary.
01:02:23.000To hear your vivacity, your passion, your intensity, your integrity and easy wisdom I think is exciting for a lot of people.
01:02:31.000I feel for a long time There's been a real appetite and need for significant change.
01:02:38.000The figures that I've just listed all in their way representing it.
01:02:42.000You worked with Bernie Sanders, who I know a lot of people feel was sold out having voted along with militaristic policies since the election of Biden.
01:02:52.000And perhaps Bernie would have been better off remaining an independent.
01:02:56.000Do you feel that with the media operating in the way that it does, you will be given the sufficient opportunity to convey these points and indeed to build the band and make the alliances necessary for an undertaking like this?
01:03:10.000For if institutional or centralist politics means anything at all, it is the ability for these systems to represent the needs of those who most need it And to regard as important the individuality and freedom of people from across the cultural spectrum of America.
01:03:27.000People that have traditional perspectives around their religion and the way they want to organise their individual societies.
01:03:32.000People that have very progressive views.
01:03:36.000And indeed, for those kind of policies to be implemented, it seems, as you've just alluded to, that decentralisation would have to be A significant part of it.
01:03:46.000Are you willing to be the voice and carriage of an ideology that to a degree would be dismantling many of the corrupt deep state institutions that have bought America low?
01:04:00.000To break down some of the relationships between corporate interests and the democratic institutions that have meant that it's almost impossible for the voice of ordinary people to be heard?
01:04:10.000It seems like, like you said in your answer earlier, these are the kind of ideas and words that get people killed and that require, I think, a great deal of support.
01:04:23.000Before you answer, should we leave this and go exclusively on to locals for our locals community before we get Dr Cornel West?
01:04:32.000Should we stay on Rumble for the audience?
01:04:34.000We're going to stay on, we'll stay on Rumble now, but do join us over on Locals.
01:04:37.000We'll see if Dr. West has time to join us a bit longer.
01:04:39.000So could, could you please, yeah, answer that question for me about the, you know, what do you think those voices that were talked about change from Obama through to present day mean?
01:04:48.000And are you happy to carry a message that, um, that is by its nature truly radical and therefore dangerous?
01:04:55.000Well, one, I mean, the good news is that we have shows like your own.
01:05:02.000You know, we got Sister Sabby, you got Sister Brianna, you got Brother Tavish, you got Brother Roland, you got a whole, you got a network of people that are trying to allow certain voices to have impact without being completely devoured by the corporate media.
01:05:24.000And the corporate media now is experiencing a level of legitimation crises, very much like the Republican Party's establishment that went under as neofascist Trump moved in and the establishment of the Democratic Party that we almost pulled off with Brother Bernie.
01:06:16.000He missed that moment, and that's just my own view about this thing, but he still plays a very important role.
01:06:21.000So, I always like to begin with the good news, though, brother.
01:06:25.000The fact that you've got all of these men and people around the world listening to your powerful voice and vision and calling for the enabling virtue, which is courage.
01:06:35.000Because without courage, all the other virtues are empty.
01:06:38.000In my courage, we're not talking about self-righteousness.
01:06:41.000This is not a self-righteous campaign.
01:06:44.000You can't be a self-righteous jazz person.
01:06:50.000You gotta listen to other voices, listen to other arguments, no matter where they are.
01:06:57.000The neo-fascists don't remain neo-fascists forever, just like we know a whole lot of leftists who become right-wing.
01:07:03.000People change, and you have to be open to their change, but We don't put up for one moment with forms of xenophobia against the most vulnerable trans precious folk, gay brothers, lesbian sisters, Arabs, Muslims, Jews, Palestinians, Uyghurs in China, the Dalit in India, the Roma in Europe.
01:08:04.000You know, Malcolm Little was a gangster before the Honorable Elijah Muhammad loved him.
01:08:08.000And the next thing you know, he becomes one of the greatest voices of the 20th century, such that he even has to call into question the Honorable Elijah Muhammad himself.
01:08:16.000He's growing, but there's still no Malcolm without Elijah.
01:08:19.000So that sense of acknowledging we're all in process.
01:08:24.000And that's true for empires as well, as well as people.
01:08:27.000Doctor, I think I've got a good question for you from our chat.
01:08:29.000You can join us on Locals pressing the red button.
01:08:31.000This is from Bucky's Gal, who I'm guessing would be a kind of a person that would vote for Trump, I'm guessing.
01:08:37.000You tell me, if you're still there, Bucky's Gal.
01:08:41.000She says, or he says, Dr. West, everything you're saying sounds nice in theory, but how can we care for other nations when we can't take care of our own?
01:08:49.000When the government gets money from taxing the people, how do you plan to fund your endeavours without it coming out of our paychecks?
01:08:56.000Now I think Bucky's Gal there speaks for a lot of people who have concerns that Ideas that are supportive of people that are dispossessed.
01:09:04.000We've got an interesting statistic about inequality in American politics.
01:09:08.000You can flash that up when you get a chance, guys.
01:09:11.000That it somehow is going to be punitive on ordinary Americans.
01:09:14.000I feel like that the emerging libertarian movement gets a lot of juice from these kind of arguments.
01:09:21.000Doctor, how would you answer that question?
01:09:24.000Well, one, I appreciate the question because we're here for conversation and dialogue.
01:09:28.000There is no doubt that what I'm talking about in terms of satisfying the basic needs of the masses of folk in the country, and I'm concerned about the masses in the world, but poor and working people, requires a massive redistribution of wealth downward.
01:09:45.000In the last 40 years, we've seen a massive redistribution of wealth upwards.
01:09:53.000Working people making roughly the same wages 30 years later, but CEOs, those part of the well-to-do, moneyed elite, heading to the bank daily with millions of dollars.
01:10:10.000See, people don't like to raise that question.
01:10:12.000There has been a redistribution of wealth.
01:10:19.000Well, first, It has to do with a serious cutback in the millions and millions of dollars tied to the military-industrial complex.
01:10:32.000Secondly, it has to do with subsidies for corporate America.
01:10:36.000There has been, and this is where Brother Ralph Nader is absolutely right, there's been corporate welfare.
01:10:42.000For the last 45 years of free money, if one slice of that could have gone to poor people for education and housing, we'd have a different situation.
01:10:52.000If one slice of that had gone to dealing with our precious homeless brothers and sisters on the block, on the corner, in our cities.
01:11:00.000So you got, and then you've got taxes.
01:11:03.000Now, of course, taxes is a difficult thing because the well-to-do have clever lawyers.
01:11:09.000They have tax evasions, they've got tax shelters and so forth.
01:11:15.000So yes, we must have significant taxation, but it's very difficult to get at it.
01:12:05.000And to my Jewish brothers and sisters who would immediately come at me and say, oh, Brother West, you seem to be so preoccupied with the Palestinian brothers and sisters, you must be an anti-Semite.
01:12:16.000Let me tell you directly, And if there was a Palestinian occupation of Jewish brothers and sisters, I would be saying exactly the same thing in solidarity with Jewish brothers and sisters that I'm saying of a vicious Israeli occupation of Palestinians for Palestinian brothers and sisters because
01:12:37.000A Jewish baby has exactly the same value as a Palestinian baby, and a Palestinian baby has the same value as a Jewish baby.
01:12:45.000I learned that in Shiloh Baptist Church on the chocolate side of Sacramento, California, and I will be faithful unto death to have that kind of moral and spiritual stance.
01:12:57.000So you can call me anti-Semitic, call me any name you want, but I'm not selling out.
01:13:04.000Oppressed people no matter what color they are, no matter where they are.
01:13:10.000Dr. Cornel West, you're taking some incredibly important risks and explaining some really complex issues in beautiful language.
01:13:18.000A lot of people already asking in the chat how they can contribute to your campaign.
01:13:24.000Right, that's exactly right though, brother.
01:13:25.000campaign to become president of the United States of America and I guess
01:13:29.000you're gonna need a lot of grassroots support as well as all of the
01:13:33.000independent media support that you can muster. Right, that's exactly right though
01:13:38.000brother, very much so. I feel like by bringing these complex issues to
01:13:44.000the forefront you do give us an opportunity to look differently at the
01:13:47.000divisive issue of race, the divisive issue of class.
01:13:51.000It seems that we're living in a very divisive time where ordinary people, and in a sense we're all ordinary, magnificent though we may be, are unable to address that where power is centralizing and how power is operating because we are focusing instead on other vulnerable people just like us give or take a few superficial differences the kind of differences that ought not be points of conflict but points of mutual learning and opportunity for new unity
01:14:24.000Doctor, thank you so much for joining us.
01:14:25.000We'll do everything we can to support your campaign, to spread your message, to facilitate conversations between you and Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy and voices that emerge elsewhere on the political spectrum because I think what is important is the ability for people to have intelligent conversations about the nature of power, the nature of corruption and how meaningful change will be brought about and I think no one has contributed more to that in recent years.
01:14:50.000In fact, in the last 25 minutes Thank you so much, doctor.
01:15:26.000It's lovely to have Dr. Cornel West on.
01:15:27.000When I was listening to him, what I felt was, it's amazing that he's entered the conversation and he sees as the target the same people that are regularly identified on our show and our channel because Dr. Cornel West, in common with Vandana Shiva, cannot be written off in the way that many people would be.
01:15:45.000Of like, oh, you're a right-wing fascist, you're a conspiracy theorist, you're a racist,
01:15:51.000the kind of things that are normally leveled at people that are really interested in attacking
01:15:56.000Of course, there's such things as racism.
01:15:58.000Of course, there's such things as conspiracy theorists.
01:16:00.000But what's really important is that there are centralized, corrupt, authoritarian institutions
01:16:06.000that we are not able to openly discuss anywhere That's why we're grateful to you for joining us here.
01:16:12.000And I think the radical and powerful voices such as his and the names that you've mentioned in RFK recently are kind of growing in numbers and mentioning the same things over and over again.
01:16:43.000All these things that we talk about and consistently get bundled in with your, you know, conspiracy theorists and this.
01:16:50.000And it's feeling to me much more like, as I say, that the kind of voices are growing in these areas that we've been talking about for a while.
01:16:58.000I think we're talking about the right stuff and if you look at the various censorship laws that are being passed around the world we talked about it before on the show we've done a video on it and we were talking about it earlier today then you you have to question are or More centralised authoritarian structures preparing to shut down this type of discourse, wherever it's coming from.
01:17:57.000I said you won't even be able to talk, you're just going to have to be in a tent.
01:17:59.000It's going to be tough for him in there.
01:18:02.000He'd give you a run for your money, wouldn't he?
01:18:04.000Well, it was hard enough having Wim Hof there on day one of the festival last time, running around with his top off, playing the guitar at anyone who'd listen, and some who wouldn't.
01:18:13.000I mean, it was very difficult for me, because I'm quite a shy person, actually, aren't I?
01:18:29.000OK, now, on the show tomorrow, we've got a couple of sweet-sweet FBI whistleblowers.
01:18:35.000Whether it's that one, who looks like one of Popeye's enemies, or the other one, who looks like the bloke who does Moe's voice in The Simpsons, Hank Azaria, he looks a bit like, and the other one, a bit like Bluto's Italian cousin.
01:18:45.000We're actually going to be talking to them in real life tomorrow.
01:20:03.000Hey, listen, why don't you join us on the locals community?
01:20:05.000Just click that red button, you get meditations, you get access to the podcast, you get news on events like community, you get exclusive access to our private parts, No, you don't really.
01:20:15.000There's no membership required for that with dear old Gareth.
01:20:18.000Just book a tennis lesson and get yourself a trumpet and you're away.
01:20:23.000We've got tomorrow Dickie Dawkins, Richard Dawkins, the foremost atheist in the land, talking to me, one of the world's most religiousist folks.
01:21:46.000OK, so we'll be back tomorrow with Sir Dickie Dawkins himself, Richard Dawkins, talking about atheism and the light of the Lord in studio, in this very studio.
01:21:58.000But before that we're going to wrap up the show with a little by looking at these smart checkouts and these price hikes where money has been taken from the world's most vulnerable people to bloody well fat cats on Wall Street!
01:22:28.000All the while massive corporations are accruing incredible profits while blaming P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-P-Putin.
01:22:35.000But where are those profits going and why is no one doing anything to regulate the excesses of this corporate behemoth?
01:22:43.000Is it because they fund both political parties?
01:22:47.000Self-checkout machines now are asking you for tips.
01:22:50.000Who are you going to give the tip to if you did the work?
01:22:53.000Let's have a look at the mainstream news.
01:22:55.000This morning, a growing number of shoppers are reaching their tipping point.
01:22:59.000Some companies have been implementing a tipping option at self-checkout lines, even when the customer has minimal to no interaction with an employee.
01:23:07.000We are told that we're in a cost-of-living crisis because of Putin or because of Brexit or because of whatever, but a significant contributor to this cost-of-living crisis is wealth and revenue is being extracted from ordinary people, and that means basically everyone from the dirt poor to the ordinarily wealthy.
01:23:26.000Your wealth is being extracted and is being deposited at the very top of a very, very tall pyramid, and I believe that this is part of that process.
01:23:33.000According to a Forbes 2023 digital tipping culture survey, 95% say they leave a tip at least sometimes.
01:23:44.000And one in three people feel pressured to leave a tip.
01:23:47.000It shows, doesn't it, how we can formulate reality based on what customs and ideas we promote.
01:23:52.000And similarly, it shows that we have an impulse to be generous and kind to one another.
01:23:56.000That even economic and financial exchanges can be, if we choose, underwritten by kindness But we could create different types of economy, gift economies.
01:24:06.000I recognise that it is necessary to have established and recognisable metrics, but it is possible that instead of fear and greed and scarcity and desperation and exploitation being behind all of our economic models, there are different ways that we could form financial systems.
01:24:22.000My daughter was at the airport, a robot made her coffee.
01:24:26.000Many are programmed to accept tips, but there's no guarantee the money's gonna go to staff.
01:24:38.000When you think about the now popular catchphrase of the globalist movement, you will own nothing and you will be happy, You can see that most financial systems appear to be designed to extract as much revenue from you as possible and to limit the amount of power you have in your own life to choices like, shall I tip this robot 10% or 20%?
01:25:02.000Yeah, they're calling it emotional blackmail when we're being asked to tip in a situation where we wouldn't normally think to leave a tip.
01:25:09.000It's extraordinary, isn't it, that we are trained to believe that the union movements are negative things, probably on these same news channels.
01:25:17.000You cannot have these unions making these unreasonable demands, but then you get little ten-year-old kids working in a McDonald's.
01:25:49.000And that narrative, I don't frequently see that narrative brought up on the mainstream media.
01:25:53.000At a time when inflation has already increased costs, many are wondering, where are their tips going?
01:25:58.000If after 2008, the people and institutions that were primarily responsible get away without consequences, isn't it clear that there's not enough financial regulation to control propriety when it comes to financial exchange?
01:26:41.000Such a mad story actually, because the point of a tip is to acknowledge a human interaction on one level and subtly address the fact that those people aren't being paid enough for what they do for a living.
01:26:52.000Why don't you start saying, oh there's also these other people we're exploiting that you can't see because they're behind the scenes, they're overseas, they're down a cobalt mine, we've got people weaving boxes around out back, there are children toiling away in the subcontinent.
01:27:04.000Well, I don't think the issue now is tips, is it?
01:27:07.000The issue now is a broken system that urgently requires addressing.
01:27:23.000While this additional tax is being extracted from ordinary consumers, what is happening in the upper echelons of the globalist financial world that is being masked by these extraordinary low-level AI exploitation tales down among the people?
01:27:41.000As the US government on Wednesday released its latest inflation report, the watchdog Accountable US put out a new analysis detailing how Americans face food insecurity while major food corporations are padding their profits with price hikes.
01:27:54.000They're padding their profits with price hikes.
01:27:56.000It's not in order to sustain or to endure or because it's necessary or because Putin's a psychopath.
01:28:04.000Even that tip story is just someone somewhere's going, do you know what?
01:28:07.000If we just have the option of adding a tip, we calculate this many people will do it and we'll be able to keep some of that money, if not all of it.
01:28:17.000I know it's a well-worn expression in this area, but it describes it so well.
01:28:22.000Now, if people are suffering at a time when elsewhere there is excess, doesn't it make a kind of sense to deal with it in that way?
01:28:29.000I'm not talking about you, an ordinary person that earns ordinary money for a relatively ordinary job, or even someone like me, who does well now, having lived in various economic categories throughout my life.
01:28:40.000I'm talking about a kind of tyrannical, feudalistic, baronial, new sultans extracting huge amounts of wealth and not paying it back.
01:28:49.000That's the problem that needs to be addressed.
01:28:50.000Big Food's staggering increase in earnings shows they did not need to raise prices so high on consumers, but did so anyway to maximize record profits, says Liz Zelnick, Director of Economic Security and Corporate Power at Accountable US.
01:29:03.000So in your head, you have the story, because you've heard it so many times, oh, we've got to pay so much more money for fuel and for food because of the war, because of Brexit, because of whatever.
01:29:11.000Well, if that were true, then the companies wouldn't be making record profits.
01:29:16.000It would be the same, or it would still be in decline, wouldn't it?
01:29:20.000The Accountable US report takes aim at General Mills, Kraft Heinz, and Mondelez, three of the top at-home food companies in the United States, based on market capitalization, focusing on January through March, the first quarter of this calendar year.
01:29:33.000The company's combined net earnings for the quarter rose by 51% year over year to a combined $3.47 billion, and the trio collectively spent over $1.3 billion on shareholder dividends, Accountable US found.
01:29:46.000You can't extract 1.3 billion dollars from something that is suffering as a result of Putin's price hikes or as a result of some other legitimate force majeure.
01:30:00.000They have looked at this crisis and said it's an opportunity, as has been happening relatively consistently, certainly in the last few years.
01:30:07.000Oh look, there's a legitimate crisis, let's look at it and what caused it, whether it's a pandemic or a war, what were the conditions that led to it.
01:30:17.000And in order to benefit whom shall we use it?
01:30:20.000What I'm suggesting is that in a democracy, which I think we're still living in, whether it's a crisis or peacetime or any circumstances, the The order and direction of politics and national or local or international strategies should be to benefit the majority of people, not always to benefit powerful elites that are able to fund political parties, that are able to lobby for the change of law, that are able to slip in, why don't you tip a robot?
01:30:45.000Because we're all too bewildered by the ongoing terror of poverty and disease.
01:30:50.000General Mills saw its net earnings increase by nearly $2 billion year on year for the first nine months of financial year 2023, as the company spent over $2.16 billion on its shareholders through a combination of dividends and stock buybacks.
01:31:12.000But when you're dealing with crises, when it comes to resources and energy, which an extraordinary number of people are now, let me know how you've been affected in this cost of living crisis in the chat below.
01:31:22.000And give us a thumbs up and share this video around, why don't you?
01:31:25.000A time like that, extracting dividends of this nature seems at odds with the nature of the challenge that we're being told about on the mainstream news.
01:31:32.000The report also emphasises recent omissions from economists that corporate greed is driving inflation, which progressive organisations and experts have been stressing for months in response to the Fed's interest rate hikes.
01:31:43.000So it's corporate greed that's driving it, not Putin.
01:31:45.000Putin and Russia's criminal war are plainly bad, particularly bad for Ukrainian people who are suffering on behalf of all of us and this system.
01:31:54.000Inflation is being driven, it says here, by corporate greed, i.e.
01:31:58.000if they were less greedy, inflation would go down, regardless of what happens with Putin, Russia, et al.
01:32:04.000Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management, said, businesses are betting that consumers will go along because they know about supply bottlenecks and higher energy prices.
01:32:16.000We see the reality that our senses can appreciate and the information that the news media If we're continually told they're a bot on X, is that because this or this or this?
01:32:25.000It's very difficult to comprehend the financial news that these companies are extracting record profits.
01:32:32.000Somehow that's not as vivid and visceral and as affecting as, there's a war in Russia, it's because of this.
01:32:38.000That's why the information we're trying to give you is this information.
01:32:41.000It seems to me important that Accountable US are revealing that corporate greed is driving inflation.
01:32:47.000And when you add to it a rather fun and somewhat silly but also pernicious story like you're being asked to tip nothing.
01:32:54.000You're being asked to tip literally the system.
01:32:57.000Give me a bit more money than you deserve even though we're already charging you more money than we should because we've made record profits and we've extracted all of the jobs from this sector by sacking people who could be doing this job.
01:33:20.000We have to shut ourselves off from the fact that we're actually quite nice people.
01:33:24.000It's the world that makes you sceptical and cynical.
01:33:27.000One year ago, as price hikes were becoming a major national concern, the world's third richest man touted his newspaper columnist asserting that corporate profits were not a driving force behind inflation, blaming temporary COVID-19 pandemic aid instead.
01:33:40.000They're always telling you that it's something else, not them, aren't they?
01:33:43.000They're always saying, oh, it's this war, we can't do anything about that.
01:33:45.000That war, is that driving profits elsewhere?
01:33:48.000Is that creating the ability to regulate and control the narrative and distract people from domestic problems?
01:34:12.000Your wealth is being redistributed and they want you to tip them for the privilege.
01:34:16.000While Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and others were trying to steer the inflation discourse away from a focus on business profiteering, there was already data showing that most of the price increases Americans were experiencing could be attributed to larger corporate profit margins.
01:34:31.000Those figures were hardly surprising Corporations that have been permitted to grow into oligopolies during the era of lax antitrust enforcement were now able to leverage their outsized market power to hike prices and to do so with less fear of competitors undercutting them.
01:34:48.000This is why films like Godfather are fascinating because you realize that the line between criminality and corporatism is basically accents and aesthetics.
01:34:57.000And yet, corporate media outlets ignored the available data, choosing to publish and platform pundits who scoffed at accusations of what they derisively called greedflation, and who insisted that the problem is workers being paid higher wages.
01:35:10.000That decision delivered devastating consequences for America's working class.
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01:35:25.000We are trying our best to highlight information that is empowering and revealing, to tell you the stories of where power really is.
01:35:32.000As with the WMD lies used to justify the deadly Iraq war and financial deregulation triumphalism leading to the 2008 financial crisis and bank bailouts, the fake media narrative about inflation became conventional wisdom.
01:35:45.000Now this is a less sexy story than aspects of the pandemic and even aspects of the war, but similarly we're given a version of reality that prevents us from assessing our situation correctly.
01:36:00.000Visceral information that keeps you in a fight-or-flight state so you can't so calmly go, wait a minute, if we were starting now, today, wouldn't we say that we should have collectivised, localised democratic systems that best reflect our nature and our
01:36:15.000evolution. For hundreds of thousands of years didn't we live in groups about 50 people
01:36:19.000where we understood what our resources were and pursued them. Is it
01:36:22.000possible to consider the values of such a system without going, oh what do you
01:36:25.000want to go and live in a cave again? Do you want to give up medicine and technology?
01:36:29.000It's not binary like everything else these days.
01:36:32.000The fake media narrative about inflation became conventional wisdom, was echoed by lawmakers and justified specific policies.
01:36:39.000So not only that, they tell you that lie, then they legislate around that lie so it becomes truth.
01:36:44.000Now, in this case, the narrative provided government officials justification to cut off pandemic aid, block new spending, abandon any push for a minimum wage increase.
01:37:10.000It's so evil that in the end you just have to stand there and ejaculate in appreciation of their wickedness.
01:37:16.000The results, a sharp increase in the number of Americans who can't afford to pay their bills and now mass layoffs amid a slowing economy.
01:37:22.000Directing blame for inflation away from corporations and toward government spending that temporarily boosted the working class was lucrative for the world's wealthiest like Bezos and for the giant companies that belong to corporate lobbying groups like the US Chamber of Commerce.
01:37:34.000The discourse manipulation helped store momentum for anti-price gouging legislation, higher taxes on the wealthy and an excessive corporate profits tax.
01:37:42.000The propaganda also provided a justification for companies to keep jacking up prices as the government inflicted economic pain on workers and families.
01:38:07.000It's a bit mystifying that there are still some who are surprised that corporations and their executives, left to their own devices, engage in unscrupulous and sometimes deadly behaviour.
01:38:15.000Coca-Cola killed trade unionists in Latin America.
01:38:18.000General Motors built vehicles known to catch fire in collisions.
01:38:21.000Tobacco companies hid the cancer-causing properties of their products for decades.
01:38:24.000The catalogue of the ethical and moral crimes of corporations is impressive.
01:38:28.000These ethical and moral failings of Boeing, Coca-Cola, General Motors and many others are the norm, not the exception, because that is the mindset.
01:38:38.000Now this is where finally some good news happens.
01:38:41.000Your consciousness is a participatory unit in the creation of reality.
01:38:46.000That's why all of this propaganda has to exist and has to be pushed so hard.
01:38:49.000Because if you refuse to believe it, if you refuse to participate in it, if you refuse to become dulled by this kind of information, Then it becomes possible to change the world.
01:39:00.000It becomes possible to create new systems.
01:39:01.000It becomes possible to step outside of their atrophying and failing systems and create new ones.
01:39:07.000Now for that information, I will require just a little 10% tip.
01:39:10.000Yeah, could you just put your card in there?
01:39:13.000Oh, there's some information on the screen.