Russell Brand and Gareth Barker discuss the coronation of the new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and the new Queen, the Duchess of Cambridge. They also discuss the ongoing culture war between beer and the way it's being marketed, and why you'd be better off on a bike than on a horse. Plus, Dr Shania Twain explains why semen is in crisis, and what it's really like to be a man with sperms in crisis. Stay Free with Russell Brand is on all of the social medias, if you search for Stay Free, you'll find us. This episode is brought to you by Vevolution and edited by Bridey Addison-Child. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers We'll be looking out for you in the coming weeks for the best places to buy your favourite products and services, and we'll be giving you the best deals you can get your favourite stuff from around the world. We hope you enjoy this episode, stay free, and spread the word to your friends and family about it! Stay Free! xx - Yours Truly, EJ & Gav - The Oasis Team Subscribe to stayfree.co.uk/Stay Free with R.I.D.W.A.T.Y.P. to get exclusive ad-free versions of our best new episodes every week, exclusively on your favourite streaming platform, wherever you listen to podcasts and listen to the latest music and social media platforms. Get in touch with us on social media and get exclusive deals and get 20% off your favourite shows, and get 10% off the most listened to throughout the world, including the best of your favourite podcasters You can be sponsored by Paypal and other VIP deals, too! You won't get any more exclusive deals, and more! Thanks for listening to Stay Free With R.EASILY and get 5% off of the best vlogs, and find out more by becoming a VIP membership and more like that in the podcast, too much more on the world's best podcaster Learn more about what they're listening to stay free and get the best podcasters are listening to us on the pod, too, too get the most amazing places to get the ultimate experience in the best podcast anywhere else on the best deal in the world?
00:00:18.000We'll be bringing back our regular item, Football is nice, where we talk about the culture around football.
00:00:23.000But we're going to start by talking about Rishi Sunak, who somehow or another wound up as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom that we live in right now.
00:00:35.000And you'll notice that the pageantry that surrounds our Prime Minister is not as impressive as the pageantry that surrounds our royal family.
00:00:42.000They're going to be making a big move next week when they put a different type of hat on a different type of person.
00:01:34.000I actually provide that oil and we'll be talking to Dr. Shana Swan, who some people childishly refer to as Shania Twain, about another special and sacred fluid manufactured in the testes of all males.
00:01:58.000That was yesterday that that happened.
00:02:00.000Yeah, we've got to keep these things separate.
00:02:02.000We can't dilute the content as radically as male sperm is apparently.
00:02:06.000Did you enjoy talking about that yesterday?
00:02:08.000I learned a lot, but I can't believe just how diluted sperm has become.
00:02:12.000We're talking about that more, as well as the anointing potions that will be dousing King Charles on the brow and Queen Consort Camilla in just a matter of days.
00:02:22.000And how will that pageantry go when you see the way that the British conduct it?
00:02:26.000I mean, when you see a motorcade in the United States or even in Korea or in Russia, they usually do it well, don't they?
00:03:57.000I think it might be because they're on zero-hour contracts.
00:03:58.000Zero-hour contracts, they're working so hard.
00:04:00.000They're part of the oppressed underclass that's been created, but has once again, the technological miracle, has turned human beings into a kind of fodder for a machine that will ultimately devour your soul.
00:05:07.000We've got a fantastic guest on now, whether it's Oscar-winning writing, or groundbreaking investigation, or bringing together high-profile figures to have necessary conversations about democracy and its shortcomings.
00:05:20.000I'm particularly impressed by his recent conversation with AOC where he confronted the I would say that she's an important congressperson, AOC, with the kind of questions I want to hear people ask.
00:05:33.000Like, why do you vote in line with stuff you don't agree with?
00:05:36.000What does that tell us about the system?
00:05:59.000But I think the British pronunciation, I think I'm not British, but I think the British pronunciation is lever.
00:06:04.000So whatever you want to do is good with me.
00:06:07.000Okay, well, perhaps we'll vacillate over the course of the conversation.
00:06:12.000Can we ask you about Nancy Pelosi's recent award for advancing healthcare?
00:06:18.000Has Nancy Pelosi done a great deal to advance healthcare over the years, David?
00:06:25.000Well, I mean, so the story is that Nancy Pelosi recently, this week, got an award from one of the big health care lobby groups, the Hospital Association, the hospital lobbyists.
00:06:35.000And for those who don't know about the American health care system, the hospital lobby is one of the most powerful lobbies in the entire country, private lobbies.
00:06:45.000And it's a lobby that doesn't want government-sponsored healthcare because it fears that government-sponsored healthcare will bring down the prices that hospitals can charge.
00:06:57.000Hospitals are some of the most profitable pieces of the for-profit healthcare system.
00:07:02.000So Pelosi was given an award by the major lobbying groups for the hospitals after she blocked Medicare for All,
00:07:12.000after she blocked, used her position in the House to block all sorts of healthcare reforms.
00:07:17.000So in this sense, this story is a story of kind of honesty, right?
00:07:21.000Like the lobbyists who don't want a reform of the healthcare system in any serious way,
00:07:28.000the lobbyists who wanna preserve the for-profit healthcare system,
00:07:32.000were giving an award to a lawmaker who has, I mean, I think it's undeniable,
00:07:38.000who's played a pivotal role in protecting that industry and preserving the current healthcare status quo,
00:07:46.000which is basically a dystopia for millions and millions of people in this country,
00:07:50.000but is certainly a financial jackpot for the hospitals and for the other pieces of the for-profit healthcare
00:07:58.000David, do you think that there is some kind of unspoken consensus that we are not supposed to overtly criticise our, inverted commas, own side?
00:08:10.000I know that you are a Democrat, you're a liberal, that you've written for Bernie Sanders,
00:08:19.000but you're willing to ask difficult questions to the AOC.
00:08:23.000We find ourselves in our own particular media space challenged by the idea that we are willing
00:08:30.000to attack both sides, but you start to recognize how audiences are accrued to the kind of subjects
00:08:37.000Do you face similar challenges when criticizing the Democrat party?
00:08:43.000And we've discussed before whether or not you feel broadly disillusioned.
00:08:47.000Just take as a starting point for this question the current glee on the left around Fox News's out-of-court payout to Dominion when their attacks on the electoral system is certainly a bipartisan issue and even the criticism of the machines themselves has been undertaken and used by Democrats in elections that they've not won.
00:09:11.000In the next election, whoever wins, we're likely to have a period where the side that loses undermines the election result itself.
00:09:20.000What do we do, those of us that work in media space, when tackling issues that are sort of defined by partisanship rather than real principles and values?
00:09:29.000How does that play out with issues like the Fox payout and electoral politics more broadly?
00:09:36.000Well, look, I think there's a couple things going on.
00:09:40.000I certainly think there's always been partisan media in our country.
00:09:58.000There was a study out that we reported on last week where I think it was one in seven Americans right now
00:10:04.000are consuming eight hours or more per month of partisan media.
00:10:09.000And that among this group of people, most of them are not exposing themselves
00:10:16.000to cross-cutting media, media that might offer a different perspective
00:10:21.000than the partisan bubble that they're in.
00:10:23.000And I think that the partisan bubble has been enhanced or really fortified by social media filter bubbles.
00:10:31.000The algorithms will serve you more of the kind of content that it thinks that you want.
00:10:36.000So if you're on the right, the algorithms are going to be serving you more of that content rather than exposing you to different kinds of content.
00:10:50.000So I think The problem is, and I think we've discussed a little bit of this before, the problem is there's truth and there's verifiable facts, and partisanship doesn't necessarily care about that.
00:11:03.000What we're living in is an information system in which facts are preferenced or suppressed based on whether they are perceived to serve or undermine a particular party.
00:11:19.000If there's a fact out there that doesn't serve a particular party, those party members are less likely to be exposed to that fact, even if that fact is incredibly important.
00:11:31.000So I think it's very difficult to get the facts out.
00:11:36.000I do think we are in the middle right now of a big battle over this.
00:11:41.000I mean, you have seen mass layoffs across corporate media.
00:11:45.000I think that has a lot to do with corporate media's business model, but I also think it has a lot to do with the audiences sensing that they're not getting an honest picture of what's going on from corporate media.
00:11:57.000And I think there is a rise of independent media that some of which, not all of which, but some of which is trying to hone to the facts, focus on inconvenient truths, even though it may offend one or the other side.
00:12:12.000But when you do that, There's going to be.
00:12:17.000I mean, if you tell, as an example, the story that we just discussed about Nancy Pelosi, if you tell that story to people who are ensconced inside an MSNBC media bubble, a kind of democratic aligned partisan media bubble, a lot of that audience will react in a hostile way to that because it's content, it's facts that they don't want to hear, that they've been conditioned To be hostile to because, in the narrative, it potentially helps the other side.
00:12:55.000My view is that we need to adhere to facts, not only for the public good and having a discourse that's actually rooted in verifiable facts, but that if you want your party to be better, Then what you should want is your party to be informed by those facts so it can speak to lived realities.
00:13:14.000Again, using the Pelosi example, the healthcare system is completely a dystopia in the United States.
00:13:22.000That's an issue that is a political issue whether the Democrats or the Republicans like it or not.
00:13:28.000Pretending that the Democrats haven't had anything to do with the healthcare dystopia, not looking at the record of the party leadership that we've talked about as it relates to somebody like Nancy Pelosi, doesn't help the party connect with voters on those issues in elections.
00:13:47.000When journalists like Taibi, Greenwald, Schellenberger, who I intuitively feel are probably left of centre and anti-establishment figures, start to be smeared, to use a sort of, I mean there's a point where I would have to say being right-wing is just one of the options within a rather limited rubric of potential things you can be and it shouldn't be even regarded as a smear, it's just a type of political identity, But and then public figures like say me or Joe Rogan get called right wing or far right even by association.
00:14:19.000Do you begin to become concerned about the nature of your reporting, that there is an attempt to censor?
00:14:25.000And even the fact that, you know, as you outlined, you said you have a different purview and perspective
00:14:30.000that you think that it would be an opportunity to grow the party, including critiques of Nancy Pelosi
00:14:35.000as an opportunity for the Democrat party to improve.
00:14:37.000But that's obviously not institutionally the direction that politics is heading in.
00:14:42.000And it seems pretty clear to me that the reason is is 'cause it can't handle those critiques,
00:14:45.000'cause ultimately to take them on board, you'd have to change the direction.
00:14:48.000You wouldn't be so beholden to your donors, to dark money, which you've done great work on reporting on, of course.
00:14:53.000So ultimately, doesn't it reveal that they don't want an open, independent conversation about political systems
00:15:03.000that are pretty turgid and corrupt when it comes to it?
00:15:09.000I think that's what's really going on here is that the donor class of both parties wants to have a particular conversation that isn't about how the donor class fleeces the country.
00:15:18.000So the donor class wants a media conversation, mostly about the culture war.
00:15:26.000Billionaires are happy for people to be arguing about culture and not about billionaires ripping people off.
00:15:34.000So I think the hostility to a fact-based discourse and dialogue that doesn't hone to partisan parameters, I think that's a threat To the donor class of both parties, which is why it's hard to have that discourse.
00:15:55.000And you bring up the tactic of labels.
00:15:57.000Look, labeling people right-wing, you know, right-wing demagogue, you know, Bernie Sanders socialist.
00:16:06.000I mean, socialism has an actual meaning, but you see the use of labels and the use of them as epithets to try to shut down the conversation.
00:16:17.000Now, I want to be very clear about this.
00:16:19.000I think that if somebody brings an unverified, unsubstantiated, untrue allegation into the discourse, that should be interrogated and debunked with other verified facts.
00:16:36.000And you can do that without resorting to kind of name calling that seeks to shut down the conversation, right?
00:16:44.000That's what a lot of these labels end up doing.
00:16:47.000They're an attempt to shut down the conversation, shut down the debate, because the debate is inconvenient.
00:16:55.000But that's different from you bring up an allegation into the debate and somebody counters it with facts.
00:17:01.000I mean, I think we need more of that and less of the former.
00:17:05.000Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
00:17:07.000A recent conversation I enjoyed was Jon Stewart's with Kathleen Hicks, where he brought up the failed audits of the Pentagon.
00:17:13.000And it was, for me, interesting to see someone genuinely interrogate a figure with a degree of power.
00:17:19.000And also her hubris and disdain for even the line of questioning was pretty revealing.
00:17:26.000I want to ask you, How does an anti-establishment voice like Jon Stewart's compare in your view to what I would regard as an also anti-establishment voice like Tucker Carlson's?
00:17:39.000You know, although obviously Tucker Carlson is associated, certainly due to his tenure at Fox, with right-wing conservatism and it's pretty plain that his cultural values are somewhat in line with traditional conservatism.
00:17:50.000Do you feel that as the political space shifts and the argument becomes more about centre versus periphery rather than left versus right, that new alliances between figures like even Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders and RFK, Marianne Williamson and other sort of firebrands of the libertarian right, What would be a valuable new alliance if we're going to actually shift politics away from the intentions and agenda of the donor class that you have identified as being the sort of real power behind the teleology of American politics?
00:18:25.000So to me, the difference between somebody like Jon Stewart and Tucker Carlson is about verified facts and lying.
00:18:33.000Tucker Carlson, I believe, has lied about the, for instance, the election.
00:18:38.000He has sown Things that are not verified, allegations that are not verified, and frankly, not true about elections.
00:18:48.000I don't think Jon Stewart has done that.
00:18:51.000And I'm not talking about individual issues here.
00:18:54.000I'm saying there is fact-based questions on things that we can, after verification, stipulate are facts.
00:19:02.000And then there is kind of knowing, deliberate sowing of information that isn't true.
00:19:10.000So, I think that's less a question of people's political ideology, because you can be on the right and be making your arguments based on facts that are actual facts.
00:19:20.000You can be on the left and do the same.
00:19:22.000I think that's a question of, well, do you agree with the person's ideology if we can stipulate facts?
00:19:30.000When people go knowingly into pushing out things that they know to be untrue, or at minimum they know to be unsubstantiated, I think that's when we get into a different kind of conversation.
00:20:14.000And that's okay, because that's what being human is.
00:20:18.000The obligation of people in the media space, in my view, especially as a journalist, is that what you're saying is accurate, is as true as you can tell, as you can verify, and if it's not fully verified,
00:20:32.000you can acknowledge that, you can be transparent about that. That should be the metric by which
00:20:39.000we judge, in my view, media. It's not whether you're conservative or liberal or anything else, it's
00:20:46.000whether you are acknowledging your viewpoint, being honest about that, being honest that there's
00:20:51.000no such thing as objectivity, and then being true to a pursuit of truth and actual facts,
00:20:58.000and not throwing out there things that you know to be untrue just because they serve your
00:21:06.000Isn't that just one of the sort of potential flaws and tendencies of subjectivity itself?
00:21:12.000Because whilst I Imagine that when you talk about Tucker Carlson, you're saying that there's something cynical around his reporting on the election result.
00:21:22.000And that's sort of, you know, I'm sure you would argue demonstrable if those text messages are valid and stuff.
00:21:27.000And with regard to that issue, you know, I take your point.
00:21:30.000But more broadly, Tucker Carlson has said that he regrets toeing the line for the mainstream
00:22:20.000Yeah, I mean, look, I have trouble at large trusting people who have put out or who have propped up things that aren't true and done so in a way that doesn't seem to be, you know, an accidental error.
00:22:37.000There's kind of a deliberate calculation there, which goes back to calculations based on what serves a particular party or particular ideology.
00:22:47.000So on that level, I I have trouble trusting, whether it's Tucker Carlson or anyone else, people on that score.
00:22:55.000Now, ideologically, I will also acknowledge that I have a set of ideologies and beliefs and values that are fundamentally, in many ways, at odds with what Fox News and what Tucker Carlson puts out there.
00:23:11.000has put out there, right, on all sorts of issues, whether it comes to immigration, race,
00:23:17.000whatever issue you want to go into, they are fundamentally divergent from my views.
00:23:22.000I find some of the stuff they put out to be deplorable.
00:23:27.000So that's less a trust issue and more a, listen, I just disagree with where you want
00:23:51.000Or, you know, I can agree with a point there.
00:23:55.000It's pretty occasional, but I can acknowledge that.
00:23:57.000And I don't think there's anything wrong with acknowledging that.
00:24:00.000But I will say this to go back to the media information system that we live in, even me just saying that right now
00:24:07.000on this show, there's like a decent chance that somebody's gonna go on social media, clip this clip
00:24:13.000and use it to say that I am a shill for Fox News.
00:24:18.000In saying that once in a while, somebody on Fox News says something I agree with, that can be clipped to say,
00:24:23.000look at Sirota, an anti-establishment journalist.
00:24:26.000He's actually a shill for Fox News because he said once in a while, occasionally, someone on Fox News will say something about an issue that he doesn't completely disagree with, right?
00:24:36.000That's the information dystopia we live in.
00:24:39.000And the trouble with it is, is that it's used to shut down the discourse.
00:24:47.000It's used to try to classify people as on one side or the other for the purposes of muzzling them.
00:24:54.000Yes and with the regard to the matter of vulnerable people broadly you know that can be sort of almost a derogatory term but it says to the subject of immigration and in particular homelessness.
00:25:09.000Before I went on Tucker Carlson's show I spoke to A bunch of my mates that are, what you might say, traditionally Democrat, liberals, like, you know, mates with Shepard Fairey or Tim Robbins or whatever.
00:25:21.000I'm going to be, like, having these kind of conversations, dah, dah, dah.
00:25:24.000What sort of points would you have me bring up?
00:25:25.000So when I talk, you know, although I've said my own values and opinions as well, but like I spoke about the subject of homelessness and one report that I'd personally seen where Tucker had been really sort of quite incendiary.
00:25:36.000And I brought that up and he was actually, I would say, apologetic.
00:25:43.000So, while I agree that we would have different values, how does your, like, if you say that someone's propping up ideas that they don't believe are true with regard to the sort of well-documented issues that are going on with Fox News, How do you relate that to AOC, who's voted for stuff that she said she would never vote for?
00:26:04.000And this is a person that's in Congress and sort of like a figurehead for a movement, should we say, rather than a pundit.
00:26:11.000Now, you could argue about who has the most influence, but when it comes to actual democratic authority, AOC has more.
00:26:17.000So, like, do you think, do you evaluate these figures in the same way, or do you think one's own biases, and in this case your own biases, make you more broadly sympathetic to AOC?
00:26:29.000Even if, in the end, David, the sympathy towards immigrants becomes a kind of aesthetic, because nothing's bloody well getting done, because when it comes to voting time, we're going to vote with a machine.
00:26:39.000Yeah, I mean, let me first address the point about Tucker Carlson, because I just want to make an important point here, which I think people miss a lot.
00:26:45.000I mean, you mentioned homelessness crime as a great example.
00:26:49.000Fox News' focus on a particular story about crime.
00:26:53.000You'll notice that Fox News does not focus very much, if at all, on white-collar crime.
00:26:59.000on rich people's crimes against everybody else.
00:27:02.000There's a particular kind of story that is told on Fox News, by the way, broadly throughout the American corporate media, that is a crime, you know, the sort of law and order story that is aimed at, as you said, vulnerable people, poor people, lower income people.
00:27:19.000And you don't get nearly as much coverage about the white collar crime that is creating all sorts of damage in our society.
00:27:26.000Point being here is that There's a way to dishonestly skew the narrative through story selection.
00:27:38.000One of the most powerful ways to create or to push an ideology is to choose stories carefully, to tell one set of stories and ignore the other set of stories.
00:27:52.000It's a really profound way to manipulate the discourse In a way where you can say, well, the stories that were airing, they're not untrue.
00:28:01.000That's true, but you're not telling this other huge part of the crime story.
00:28:05.000So I only bring that up to say, when I watch Fox News, I don't trust Now, as it relates to AOC, look, you're right, she's different than a pundit.
00:28:16.000any eye towards telling an accurate and honest holistic story about the topic at hand.
00:28:24.000Now, as it relates to AOC, look, you're right, she's different than a pundit. She is a politician.
00:28:29.000My belief wholeheartedly is politicians need to be held accountable for their promises.
00:28:34.000Politicians need to be held accountable for their votes.
00:28:38.000Whether they're conservative, whether they're progressive, they need to be asked tough questions.
00:28:46.000I think that AOC in the interview that I did with her, she made, I asked her the question, if you say you're on a different wing of the Democratic Party, why are you voting 91% of the time with Joe Biden in some cases on things that you've said you won't support?
00:29:01.000And what I gleaned from her answer is that Inside of an institution like Congress, you're ultimately forced to deal with binary choices.
00:29:12.000And if you can get good things into something that you don't like, there's a case to be made you should vote for half the loaf, even if you're voting to eat.
00:29:20.000You know, something attached to that half a loaf is something that you don't like.
00:29:24.000Those choices are difficult and I'm not absolving them.
00:29:28.000That people should be held accountable for those votes.
00:29:32.000But her argument was that it's a more nuanced situation.
00:29:36.000Now, I would say this, it's my responsibility to ask the questions.
00:29:39.000It's her responsibility as the politician to offer up answers, and it's the responsibility of the viewers to decide whether those answers hold water, whether those answers are convincing enough.
00:29:49.000I would say this, I do have Because of my own political values, I guess I don't believe that the vision that somebody like AOC says they want to see for the country, I am not necessarily opposed to pieces of that.
00:30:09.000I think there's a different values proposition than with somebody like Tucker Carlson, who I'm very open about.
00:30:22.000I think I'm not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to somebody like AOC on the facts of the matter.
00:30:28.000I'm not willing to give the benefit of the doubt to somebody like AOC by saying, well, listen, I agree with your, I may agree with some of your values, so I'm not going to ask you tough questions.
00:30:35.000But it is to say, I'm more open to the idea.
00:30:39.000That she's not necessarily, she, and by the way, members of Congress from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party writ large, that they're not making necessarily, they don't have necessarily horrible intentions.
00:30:53.000That their vision for the country is not, in my view, a bad vision.
00:30:58.000I can say that I think that their tactics, in many cases, have been weak, that they've capitulated, that they haven't stood their ground.
00:31:06.000And arguably, you can say, in not standing their ground, they are making a values decision.
00:31:12.000This is a really interesting part of that discussion, which is, what is the difference between a tactical dispute and a values dispute?
00:31:20.000Am I having a dispute with you over the way you're pursuing the values that we agree on, or is the way that you're allegedly pursuing the values that we supposedly agree on, are the tactics that you're using, do they exude that you actually don't have those values?
00:31:38.000And that is the hardest thing to discern in journalism.
00:31:41.000That is the hardest thing to figure out.
00:31:44.000When you outlined the first part of your point saying that what Fox News presents is a kind of a mural that discounts ideas and issues that will be antithetical to their ideology, I would say that the way that they differ from CNN or MSNBC is so small as to be negligible and not worthy, ultimately, of conversation.
00:32:08.000When you point out the restrictions that AOC offers within, it Identifies the fundamental systemic problem.
00:32:17.000Even if she has values that are in alignment with what you believe in, it's irrelevant systemically.
00:32:24.000This, David, leads me to the conclusion.
00:32:50.000I don't think republicanism is the answer.
00:32:52.000There are aspects of libertarianism that I'm becoming sympathetic towards, because if you truly believe in individual freedom, then that means across the scale, across the spectrum, whether it's sexuality, identity, Gun ownership, you know, there's all sorts of ways I can see that that could be an interface for coalition.
00:33:10.000But when it comes, when we start to identify that even if someone has values that you broadly agree with, cannot get across without considerable compromise, notions, ideas, intentions, or policies that would be in alignment with your beliefs, What it shows me is that systemic change is required and in order to bring about that systemic change, new coalitions have to be formed that transcend the current framing of the discourse.
00:33:37.000That's why my-- speaking about us as two people operating in this space in varying ways, that's
00:33:43.000why I'm interested in having conversations with people that I would plainly disagree with,
00:33:49.000because I feel that those kind of alliances will disrupt and alter the trajectory.
00:33:53.000I'm actually beginning to think that the taxonomies themselves
00:34:41.000It's something that I think about and I worry about a lot.
00:34:45.000That if you look back on some of the worst and most dangerous right-wing authoritarian fascist movements in history, Many of them have couched themselves in the language of helping the little guy, helping the working class.
00:35:03.000And the ultimate question that really comes up on this is, if you make common cause, With right-wing fascists, people who are not interested in democracy, true authoritarians.
00:35:20.000And you make common cause with them on this or that issue where rhetorically there seems to be agreement.
00:35:28.000Are you ultimately emboldening that right-wing authoritarian movement to do horrible things that transcend the specific issues that you agree with them on?
00:35:46.000I haven't gone on Fox News, and part of the reason is because I'm uncomfortable with participating in an endeavor that emboldens not just a political party, but an authoritarian movement that
00:36:08.000Broadly speaking, doesn't have the overarching values or goals that I support and that does have overarching values and goals that I think are quite dangerous.
00:36:19.000Now, some could say, well, if you don't go on Fox News, you're forsaking your ability to talk to its viewers.
00:36:25.000And I think there's an argument there.
00:36:39.000So, you know, Bernie Sanders did a debate on Fox News.
00:36:41.000I think that, I mean, if you're trying to run for president and speak to as many voters as you can, forums that you go in, you have to try to reach voters where they are.
00:36:50.000But I will say, This question of, in trying to find common ground on specific issues, are you actually emboldening a larger and more dangerous movement that will operate in a bigger way beyond those issues to imperil everything?
00:37:18.000I understand your concern but I noticed that you had to recourse to the term right-wing fascist sort of like early on in your response and I think to that I would say yeah right-wing fascism that's out full stop and with regard to authoritarianism the rise of authoritarianism on the liberal left is being It's terrifying whenever it's surveillance, censorship, the legitimization of new methodologies for authoritarianism.
00:37:44.000And my concern is that beyond Republican and Democrat, we're living in a time of perpetual crisis.
00:37:49.000And the function of this perpetual crisis is the legitimization of authoritarianism.
00:37:54.000I think we should be, it began perhaps, as far as I can tell, around 9/11,
00:37:57.000and every subsequent disaster, whether economic or medical or military,
00:38:03.000has been used to underwrite authoritarianism, and I think that this is a response
00:38:07.000to something that you alluded to earlier, the real legitimate potential for actual democracy now,
00:38:14.000that technology provides us with, immediate ability to communicate,
00:38:18.000the opportunity for counter-narratives to emerge immediately.
00:38:22.000All of us have the opportunity and possibility for a valid voice in this new technological space,
00:38:29.000and the only way to shut that down is through censorship, and I think the media across the political spectrum,
00:38:33.000which I believe is pretty bloody narrow, as a matter of fact,
00:38:36.000are aligning themselves with whoever's interests most neatly align with their own,
00:38:41.000in order to prevent the burgeoning changes that are presenting themselves.
00:38:45.000That something is trying to be born and authoritarianism is the de facto response of both parties.
00:38:52.000I would say that when it comes to the media and both political parties that by Coming out to bat for our particular side, which I think for me not long ago would have been the, you know, the sort of centre left or liberalism, even socialism, actually, although I no longer trust the state to represent ordinary people against corporate power.
00:39:12.000I no longer think the state does that.
00:39:13.000So I would not advocate for empowering the state further.
00:39:18.000I feel that, I feel that in coming out to bat for either side, we are contributing to the problem.
00:39:46.000Fascism as the kind of fusing of corporate and state power in an authoritarian way.
00:39:51.000The battalion that we're funding right now in Ukraine.
00:39:56.000And I think your concerns about authoritarianism on the other side, I think about surveillance, the normalization of the war on terror, I mean, and all of that, I think that is hugely important and hugely important to criticize.
00:40:13.000I just worry about, you know, as an example, If I go, and I'm not that important, but if somebody like me goes on Fox News to make my points, and Fox News, and again, I'm just using Fox News as an example, it could be any of the corporate media outlets.
00:40:33.000And I am used as a way for them to go out and say, look, we're honest, we're fair, we're accurate.
00:40:40.000You know, somebody like Sirota is on there, on here.
00:40:43.000And then the next segment is them demagoguing something on crime in order to scare people about racial minorities or the like.
00:41:07.000I don't really know what the answer is.
00:41:09.000I'm not sure there's one answer, but it is something that's on my mind.
00:41:13.000It's sort of the opportunism, I guess is what we're circling around.
00:41:17.000The kind of dishonest opportunism of all of many of these corporate media structures in which the viewpoints are only there to serve their deeper goals and values, most of which are not the goals and values that I share.
00:41:33.000Most of which I think are goals and values that are bad for small d democracy and bad for the future, bad for the world.
00:41:40.000What I did when I went on there is I went with prepared facts about inequality and political economic corruption on both parties and read them out while I was on Fox News.
00:41:51.000That was the only way that I combated Gareth Faheer, who I work with, who loves the lever.
00:41:58.000Like, you prepped us a whole bunch of stuff.
00:42:00.000And so I was like, while I'm on it, I'm going to say this stuff.
00:42:03.000Now, the idea that we might be contributing to a sort of a kind of cultural mandate of the veracity of Fox News reporting, I think potentially, David, plays into the Paternalism that is leading to the distrust in the political class and the media more generally.
00:42:22.000I think that we're the right, and again I don't feel that being right wing is in itself a problem whilst I would consider myself to be transcendent of these political labels because I don't think there's an answer to be found within them.
00:42:35.000One of the things I don't like is the idea that they're being spoken down to and that there's a sort of a technocratic intellectual class that think that they're idiots.
00:42:45.000And when you can use those flashpoints like basket of deplorables and the kind of criticisms that are often levelled at literally 50% of the voting population, there or thereabouts, depending on which voting machine you use or decry, that that's going to create more antagonism.
00:43:03.000So again, like you say, I agree, there isn't one answer.
00:43:05.000It has to be ultimately a question of your personal values and almost your intuition.
00:43:09.000It becomes, in a sense, spiritual, emotional at some point.
00:43:12.000But my feeling is that approaching this conversation in good faith, acknowledging your fallibility, recognising that if you have consistent values, you're going to find yourself criticising MSNBC and Fox.
00:43:27.000Republicans and Democrats, because your values are going to demand that of you.
00:43:31.000Because if you're interested in real change, empowering ordinary people to live their lives, whether you have a traditional or progressive identity, your freedom to express that, the acceptance that people are going to be different and with some pretty contentious subjects have vastly differing views, therefore at some point you're going to have to say, well over there they do it that way and over here you do it that way.
00:43:52.000But this starts to play into, you know, some Pretty libertarian argument that could only, I think, be rebutted by a state legitimized by genuine intention to stand as a dam against a corporate deluge and there is literally no evidence
00:44:10.000That either party, due to their funding models, is going to do anything like that any time in the future.
00:44:15.000And by settling for reform and offering panaceas for the kind of problems that are within Congress.
00:44:31.000Interested in ways of transcending their framing by being willing to attack both sides and also accepting, OK, you're a really traditional orthodox Jew.
00:44:49.000Because as long as we're mired in this, the centralized billionaire class are going to continue to exploit those differences because we can't form any of the necessary alliances to confront No, look, I agree with that foundational point.
00:45:07.000And I want to go back to something you said, because I've been thinking about it since you said it on this broadcast.
00:45:14.000As an example, you don't trust the state to be a defense against corporate power.
00:45:21.000I would guess that part of the reason, if maybe even most of the reason you don't trust the state, is because the state has shown that it is not really controlled by the people writ large.
00:45:34.000In other words, democracy has been so limited, it barely even exists, that the state is not acting in At the will of the people in whose name it is governing.
00:45:48.000I do think that the democracy crisis, and that term bothers me because I think it's been limited
00:45:54.000to January 6th and the like, because the democracy crisis really is a crisis of a government that
00:46:02.000governs in the people's name and doesn't really care about the people writ large,
00:46:07.000a government that is essentially owned by a handful of oligarchs and corporations.
00:46:14.000That is, to my mind, the fundamental problem with so much of this, is that whether it's
00:46:19.000corporate media as the fourth estate check on government or government itself, these institutions
00:46:25.000are not built to represent or to respond to what the public really wants.
00:46:40.000I mean, we have look, we can go through issues where it's like, you know, polls show people are 90% in support of an issue, and there's just absolutely no chance of that happening.
00:46:51.000Passing through Congress, getting okayed by the Supreme Court.
00:46:55.000So we have clearly a highly undemocratic system.
00:47:00.000And I think the ultimate question then becomes, well, not only how do we fix that, but how do we even have a media system that's able to address that?
00:47:09.000A media system in which much of the media, certainly most of the corporate media, exists to prop up that system.
00:47:18.000The thing that kills me in media, and I know I'm kind of all over the place here, but the thing that kills me in media is so many of these corporate media organizations present the defense of the current status quo and the system as objective reporting.
00:47:36.000You notice when you read these newspapers and the like, it's kind of the tone of the voice of God, that what they're presenting, these are the facts, this is what's going on, and there is no alternative, right?
00:47:50.000There are no other inconvenient facts.
00:47:58.000Now, obviously, they do have an ideology.
00:48:01.000But one of the most, I think, powerful ways that these organizations create the discourse and split us apart is by pretending That their information that oftentimes props up the status quo, an unacceptable status quo, it presents it as apolitical, as completely impartial.
00:48:24.000That's why I don't trust so much of corporate media.
00:48:27.000I would rather you tell me and be transparent about what your values are.
00:49:27.000I think people sense I think it makes sense that Joe Biden is a career politician who's corporately backed, who's precisely in position to ensure there is no meaningful change, that the capping of Big Pharma, of drug prices for ordinary Americans, becomes a kind of mealy-mouthed, mitigating, yeah, but not really kind of deal because of the power of the lobbyists, the power of the donors, the power of the media class.
00:49:57.000And I think that, as you have pointed out several times in our conversation, that the systems themselves are unable to deliver change.
00:50:05.000And if there are, and I know that you're right, issues where 90% of Americans would vote for it, democracy means that you have to deliver that.
00:50:14.000You can't say, oh no, that's not in the interests of the elites, or we don't think that's right.
00:51:00.000It's like we're a little bit better party in these ways and we've learned the correct
00:51:05.000terms that you say right now and we're doubling down on crushing communities of people that
00:51:11.000We actually have a great deal in common, and that what we should be creating is new alliances.
00:51:18.000Whoever you are, you might have someone who's a conservative or right-wing traditional person who slips up in their language, or you might have a son that identifies differently.
00:51:31.000We have to find some new humanity and spirituality, and there is no good faith in these arguments, I don't think, really, on either side.
00:51:39.000I think that both of them are trying to mire us.
00:51:43.000And you know, I think back to the 2020 election, you mentioned Joe Biden.
00:51:49.000There was a moment in that campaign where he actually spoke the truth in a way that was like a story for one second and then it kind of went away.
00:51:58.000And I think it was such a telling moment.
00:52:02.000It was when he had that fundraiser with big donors and he was talking, I think it was specifically about sort of tax policy and economic policy, and he reassured them That if he wins, nothing would fundamentally change.
00:52:18.000I mean, that's a direct quote from Joe Biden.
00:52:22.000And I think we don't get that many admissions from people in power.
00:52:28.000And it was considered sort of a gaffe, right?
00:52:30.000In the United States, when a politician slips up and actually admits the truth, it's called a gaffe.
00:52:38.000But I think that was such a revealing moment because the guy actually admitted what he thinks his role is.
00:52:45.000He thinks his role is to prevent too much change from happening.
00:52:51.000And I think, frankly, that was somewhat comforting to a lot of people in the era of Trump.
00:52:58.000Where they saw Trump's behavior on TV, Trump kind of behaving like a spaz, and the idea of somebody who was just going to come in and calm things down.
00:53:07.000I think there was at a surface level among some people that was comforting.
00:53:12.000But I go back to the idea that if you look at something, let's talk about climate change.
00:53:17.000If nothing fundamentally changes on our energy policy, Then everything on our planet, all that we care about, is going to change, almost certainly for the worse.
00:53:28.000So the ideology of, it's our job as politicians, people in power, to prevent change, that ideology is quite literally not biologically or ecosystem-wise, that is not a sustainable ideology, but it is the ideology.
00:53:49.000And that's what's so terrifying to me about both political parties, which is that fundamentally at the very top, they are not really about systemic, fundamental, and I would argue constructive change based on the verifiable facts of the kinds of changes we know we need to make.
00:54:22.000I don't think there's really any serious, honest debate about whether the climate is changing and whether we should probably try to do things about it to prevent bad things from happening.
00:54:33.000And yet the ideology of those on top is to prevent change or to at least slow a pace of change.
00:54:43.000Joe Biden admitted in that moment that his function and role is to steward the interests of those elite institutions to ongoing success and to be unimpeachable, which will necessarily require the management and control of the ordinary population whose interests they are directly against.
00:55:04.000They have to control the information they have access to, the wealth that they have access to.
00:55:08.000And with regard to your climate change argument, which I know is something that you are passionate
00:55:14.000and very well educated around, I think that people will be like,
00:55:17.000'cause I know some people that watch this channel will be saying, "Oh no, it's stuff that happens
00:55:21.000"over centuries and it's hypocal "and there are counter arguments and all that stuff."
00:55:24.000There will be those kind of arguments here.
00:55:26.000And what I would say is that the kind of measures that tend to emerge out of the kind of globalized response,
00:55:33.000shall we say, usually focuses on measures, changes, sacrifices and taxation,
00:55:40.000that will be born by ordinary people around the world, rather than significant change made by powerful elites.
00:55:47.000An organisation like the WEF, which we've discussed before, seems to fundamentally be about how How can we keep this the same and appear like we're doing something?
00:55:56.000And also, once Joe Biden has made that omission to his powerful donors, then what the hell is the point of anything else that he says?
00:56:03.000We're going to do something about climate change.
00:56:04.000We're going to do something about inequality.
00:56:06.000We're going to change the prison population.
00:56:07.000We're going to build... No, you've just told us.
00:58:01.000Right, and I think democracy is supposed to be the safety belt.
00:58:05.000When somebody like Joe Biden says nothing will fundamentally change, well, in a democracy, we're supposed to have the opportunity to force change through pressure, through democratic institutions.
00:58:18.000Now, that hasn't Happened as much as I would like, but that's what it's because our democracy, I think, is so tattered right now.
00:58:26.000But that's what's that's sort of what the release valve is supposed to be.
00:58:30.000Look, we did an eight part podcast series called Meltdown, which was how to which to ask the question, how do you go from Obama to Trump?
00:58:37.000You can't just say it's only racism because 220 counties that voted twice for Obama went to Trump.
00:58:43.000And I think the answer at its core is what you just said, that You had an election in 2008 in which there was a financial crisis where millions of people were getting thrown out of their homes, and the candidate of alleged change promised fundamental change and then made a series of decisions to turn hope and change into more of the same, to side with the big banks that were causing and creating the problem.
00:59:11.000And I think what that did was shred the last tatters of the social contract and people's faith in government to do things.
00:59:20.000And the demagogue, Donald Trump, came in and said, listen, they've all been lying to you.
00:59:31.000Now, what's interesting here is that There was a period of time in American history where this potential kind of thing almost happened before, and there was a different thing that came out of that.
00:59:44.000Back in the 1930s during the Great Depression, FDR gave a speech In which he said, essentially, that democracies in other parts of the world have fallen because people got so frustrated, and I'm paraphrasing here, but people got so frustrated with their political leaders lying to them that they were willing to discard democracy and vote for authoritarians in the name of getting something to eat.
01:00:10.000And the reason FDR cited that was to say that his New Deal program,
01:00:15.000which really did focus resources on the lower end of the economic spectrum,
01:00:21.000he understood that that was not only a macroeconomic priority, a moral priority,
01:00:26.000but also a political priority to stop the rise of authoritarianism.
01:00:31.000He understood that the only way to stop the population from embracing authoritarianism
01:00:38.000and that kind of destructive demagoguery is to show that the government
01:00:43.000is actually delivering for the people.
01:00:47.000I think the Obama moment in 2008, when there was a chance for that to happen
01:00:52.000and people's hopes were raised and then it didn't happen, I think that was the alternate version
01:00:58.000of the story of FDR back in the Great Depression.
01:01:01.000That FDR was facing a rise in the United States of serious anti-democratic authoritarian forces.
01:01:12.000He wasn't perfect, but he focused on an economic program that delivered for regular people.
01:01:17.000I think when Obama and the Democrats didn't do that, they shredded an already tattered social contract, created a deep disillusionment to allow for the growth of an authoritarian conservative movement in response to that.
01:01:32.000And I think we're still living through that.
01:01:34.000And I think that Joe Biden Being a candidate and a president who has not truly embraced the kind of change and focus that FDR, as an example, emulated, I think that imperils, that further imperils the tattered democracy that we have and further emboldens the authoritarians who are seeking power right now.
01:02:01.000I would agree with you, but I would also add, David, that if you have a president that bails out the banks when most people wouldn't want that and certainly democratically wouldn't vote for that, you already have authoritarianism because stuff is happening that you don't want to happen.
01:02:17.000And then a post-Trump, you get Joe Biden, nothing's going to fundamentally change.
01:02:20.000So where was the bit where it went more authoritarian?
01:02:23.000What it went was rhetorically out of tune with the profound I have no problem with wokeness.
01:02:37.000I think people should be who they want to be.
01:02:40.000What right-minded person doesn't think that?
01:02:42.000What I have a problem with is the exploitation of those ideas to mask economic and political corruption.
01:02:49.000And yeah, David, I could talk to you for hours and hours until one of us started saying crazy stuff just to see which one of us would do it first.
01:02:55.000It'd probably be me because it's an affliction that I have.