Who has the authority to arrest Donald Trump? By what moral authority? And are there any other similar cases? And who are we giving consent to do so? And what does that mean for the rest of us? Plus, we have a special guest, Glenn Greenwald, talking about all this and much more on this week's episode of Stay Free With Russell Brand. Stay Free with Russell Brand is on all of the social medias, if you search for Stay Free, you'll find us. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers. We're looking for your help with our marketing budget and we'll be looking to raise $10,000 or more by the end of the month. Thank you so much for all your support, stay free and keep up the fight! xx - Russell Brand and his team. Stay free, my loves. xoxo - EJ & Rory. - SONGS OF THE FUTURE: - R.J. & R.A. ( ) - P.S. & P.E. (A.M. (R.M.) - A.K. (P.V. ) - SONS OF THE DECADE ( ) - B.R. (C) - C. (J. (F) (R) (A) (C). (A.) (A). (D) (K) (B) (P) (L) (E) (T) (S) ( ) ) (E). (F). (SQ) ) (E.) ( ) ( ) & C) ( )?) ) ) ) (AQ) (V) (A?) ( ) [A) ) & A) (J) (Q) ) (SZN (A)? (A ) (F?) (C ) (C?) (AV (A-) (AJ) ?) ) & B) (F)? ) ? (B?) (EQ) & AQ )?) ) ) )?) (POTTER (A QOTTER?) (FOTTER? ) AND A PODCAST (A VERTOR (A CHEER (AVERAGE?) (QOTTER AND A BOTTER) (CRY AND A FOTO) (ABOUT ME)
00:00:19.000Indoctrinating hate, not engendering speech that would divide us or make people feel bad about themselves, but a far worse crime than that.
00:00:26.000Suggesting that if we unite, we can confront establishment centralised authority.
00:00:33.000Today is a show that is about authority because Donald Trump has been arrested.
00:02:30.000So like it's not unprecedented but it is unlikely and it brings about important questions and these are the ones that I want you to answer.
00:02:37.000I want you to ponder along with us and then answer.
00:02:43.000If you don't agree with the principle of free speech, you have to conclude that there's some group, individual or institution that has the authority to deny you your free speech.
00:02:55.000Once our trust in institutions like government, media and the corporate world is broken down, and I'm pretty sure that's where we are, then none of us are granting that consent, are we?
00:03:04.000So that's one of the things we're going to be talking about.
00:03:06.000Also we're talking to Glenn Greenwald.
00:03:07.000What an exciting conversation to be having at this time.
00:03:10.000Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, radical advocate for free speech, radical critic of all political corruption wherever it's found.
00:03:20.000Newly confronted continually by his old liberal establishment pals.
00:03:25.000Not that a liberal establishment would have ever been Greenwald's pals but They've turned on him, haven't they?
00:03:31.000He's someone that faces a lot of attacks.
00:03:36.000And then once we flip off YouTube, we'll be talking about censorship that that so-called journalist Matt Taibbi talks about, like some vaccine side effects stuff that we just wouldn't be able to talk about on YouTube.
00:03:53.000But before we get into this Trump stuff, the true nature of power, you should know that Russia are recruiting new warriors on Onanism website.
00:04:22.000So, in the since-deleted ad, a blonde woman wearing red lipstick is seen seductively sucking a large lollipop, while another woman's voice huskily says in the background, we are the coolest army in the world.
00:04:34.000Trivialising, minimalising and sexualising war.
00:04:40.000I think if you were to join an army or a militia on the basis of that advert, then find yourself in a war, you might feel pretty misled.
00:04:48.000It's at what point during watching that content you would feel more like joining a war, isn't it?
00:04:53.000I think, knowing my own relationship with these kind of porn websites, which I've had to curtail due to moral and spiritual reasons, but I would start off very enthusiastic... And because you don't want to join a war!
00:05:05.000I think that my own trajectory would be initial incredible enthusiasm, but yeah, I'm gonna join that militia I'm gonna have a fantastic time war.
00:05:12.000Yeah, and then ultimately Oh God, what's the point?
00:05:24.000The main story we're talking about today though is the potential impending arrest of Donald Trump and in particular who has the authority to conduct that arrest.
00:05:36.000Maybe as well as watching us you watch mainstream media.
00:05:38.000You can see how mainstream media will report on this.
00:05:41.000The assumption of authority is baked into their presentation.
00:05:45.000Have a look at this crazy bit of reporting.
00:05:47.000You'd never know anything was wrong in Donald Trump's world.
00:05:51.000The former president in Oklahoma rallying a crowd at a wrestling match.
00:05:56.000Like, how would you at that point know that there was something wrong in Donald Trump's world?
00:06:40.000He's being president, he's getting off a jet, he's at a wrestling tournament, he's being indicted.
00:06:44.000The thing that's interesting about this indictment, of course, is that it appears to be for the misuse of campaign funds, which, if you think about it, is really similar to the Democrat Party situation with the Steele dossier that they funded.
00:07:01.000So let's have a look at it just side by side, because I guess the real question is, put aside your prejudices for a moment.
00:07:08.000Maybe you really like Donald Trump, Maybe you do not like Donald Trump.
00:07:12.000In a sense, I think one way of achieving objectivity and a relationship with your inner principles is to somehow regard the object just as a catalyst.
00:07:20.000Say, for example, during all of the controversies around the pandemic, if you could forget about the object itself and just think, how is power behaving?
00:07:31.000You can just interrogate yourself and conduct your own investigation.
00:07:35.000Obviously that doesn't mean that what we do on our own is going to be of a higher standard than what academia can achieve, but we have to recognise that a lot of interests have been bought out, that there's a lot of bias and prejudice in media, in academia, in politics, in government.
00:07:49.000In fact, government is founded now on corruption.
00:07:51.000That's the founding principle, isn't it?
00:07:53.000That they are funded by, lobbied by, and stocks and shares in, corporations that receive favourable treatment and indeed legislation.
00:08:01.000That we all understand at this point, and quibbling about the small differences between the pies, is all that's left for us, and that's what we're calling democracy.
00:08:09.000And even this potential impending arrest of Trump is another example of that, because look, It's claimed Trump concealed alleged hush payments that were supposedly used to violate federal election laws using legal expenses.
00:09:59.000This is Colonel Gaddafi addressing, I think, an Arab council where Assad and him
00:10:07.000are talking about the recent death of Saddam Hussein, who was, of course, executed by, I don't know, who did that?
00:10:14.000This is where it gets into sort of this is where I think it gets into important philosophical territory because you have to presume a degree of authority whether you're talking about freedom of speech or you're talking about arresting Trump and not arresting Clinton and again We're looking at the issues.
00:10:29.000The function of this show is not, wouldn't it be great if Trump was in charge?
00:10:33.000Or wouldn't it be great if Putin was able to continue to kill Ukrainian children?
00:11:09.000This is good to look at this, because if you're like me, and you could be watching this anywhere in the world, let me know in the chat, let me know in the comments.
00:11:16.000Join us in part of our locals community, because those are the comments and chat that I watch coming up now.
00:11:21.000Like, and let us know, are you aware of these alternative narratives?
00:11:25.000Are you aware of how this conflict looks if you're watching it from within Russia?
00:11:29.000You know, like, they'll have their own anti-establishment voices.
00:11:31.000There'll be people saying, Putin's a tyrant, we don't want to be going to this unnecessary war, this ain't benefiting us, I'm just trying to enjoy Pornhub, just recline and freely express myself, and I'm getting militia adverts?
00:11:45.000I came up here for a pop-up of another variety entirely.
00:11:48.000Here, you get a look into what Edward Said would say is the sort of alternative perspective of reality that we're often denied, in particular, from the Muslim world.
00:11:58.000Although, of course, Gaddafi was a secular leader, which made him useful for a while, until he wasn't useful, then it's good night, baby!
00:12:45.000Listen, we don't know, none of us know, in case you might not be able to speak that language, I'm guessing he's speaking Arabic there, and you might be listening to this only on audio, what Gaddafi said was, listen, we can't You can't just let him kill Saddam Hussein.
00:12:58.000He's the sovereign leader of a country.
00:12:59.000They've just gone in there and killed him.
00:13:01.000That means they could do it to any of us.
00:13:15.000Indeed, you must say stuff like this without fearing that you're going to be sort of...
00:13:19.000Dubbed an advocate of Gaddafi because, of course, as we now know, as centralised authority doubles down on its control, rather than address the issues raised by peripheral counter-narratives, whether they come from the left or right, they instead smear all dissenting voices, whether that's a powerful dissenting voice or a relatively marginal or minimal one, Like this, oh, you don't want to listen to Matt Taibbi, he's a so-called journalist, as that congresswoman said in that investigation.
00:13:47.000Instead of addressing the revelations of the Twitter files, why not just accuse Matt Taibbi of being an idiot?
00:13:53.000Instead of dealing with Donald Trump, whether you like him or not, and I know loads of you really love him and you know how I feel about Donald Trump, don't feel like he's the solution, fascinating figure.
00:14:20.000That's what it reveals, and they can never have that conversation.
00:14:22.000I want to draw your attention to a few philosophical quotes that will help us formulate our thoughts around the nature of authority.
00:14:31.000Firstly, the theory advanced by John Rawls is that authority is legitimate if and only if it acts in accord with principles the subjects agree to.
00:14:41.000So for us to give authority to the state or to the ICC, we have to agree with them.
00:15:13.000The basic idea, says Robert Paul Wolf, is that it is incompatible for a subject to comply with the commands of an authority merely because it is the command of the authority, and for the subject to be acting morally autonomously.
00:15:24.000Don't just do what you're told because you were told to do it.
00:15:27.000Literally the opposite of what you're told at school.
00:15:29.000Literally the opposite of because I said so.
00:15:44.000That's one of the things we continually talk about.
00:15:46.000The tone of parentalism that is in our discourse continually.
00:15:51.000Like, oh, we've decided the experts, when they talk about experts, that's mummy and daddy.
00:15:55.000And I'm not denying the category of experts.
00:15:57.000But we are querying the nature of de facto aristocracies and technocracies where power is administered without inquiry, particularly once democracy has become nullified and hollowed out by corporatism.
00:16:11.000You know, I'm interested in what you think as well, although you wouldn't think so from the amount I talk.
00:16:15.000Worf thinks that each person has a duty to act on the basis of his own moral assessment of right and wrong, and has the duty to reflect on what is right and wrong in each particular instance of action.
00:16:28.000Difficult to have people blindly obe... blind... blind, obedient people.
00:16:32.000Easier to manage than what's being suggested here.
00:16:34.000Such a person will be violating his duty to act autonomously if he complies with authoritative commands on grounds that are independent of the contents of the command.
00:16:42.000So the duty of autonomy is incompatible with the duty of obeying political authority.
00:16:46.000This is the challenge of philosophical anarchism.
00:16:50.000Anarchism is about democracy and lack of domination.
00:16:54.000It's one of the things we've discussed on the show.
00:16:56.000And I guess that's what comes up here, isn't it, Garrett?
00:16:58.000When you start saying arrest Putin or arrest Trump, what you're saying is there are people, groups, institutions that have the moral authority to undertake that.
00:17:07.000And there isn't because, you know, I know you've got some points Gal and then we'll move on to Putin and the war crime stuff and how that argument can be made.
00:17:27.000From ICC accountability for its atrocities in Ukraine, fearing such a reckoning could set a precedent allowing the tribunal to prosecute the US for war crimes in a new report, which is amazing.
00:17:37.000So at the same time you've got them saying we need to arrest You know, Putin for war crimes.
00:17:42.000The US is literally withholding evidence about Russian war crimes for fear that it'll show up their own war crimes.
00:17:48.000Do you hear how important what Gareth is saying is?
00:17:51.000All the while, the narrative is Putin's evil, Putin's bad.
00:17:54.000How many speeches have you seen of Joe Biden backlit, standing up in front of a military congregation saying, this guy didn't reckon on how brave Ukrainian people are.
00:18:19.000In a minute, we're going to be talking to Glenn Greenwald, who I pray is watching this because I think he'd give us such a pat on the back for this.
00:18:41.000Click over just to rumble, because we're talking about some of Matt Taibbi's so-called journalist and friend of the show, some of his revelations around vaccine side effects.
00:18:49.000And then there's another thing as well.
00:19:59.000Alleged war crimes committed by Russian forces and contractors in Ukraine include, but are not limited to... So this is what Russia have done, or they've been alleged because they've not been proven, but I bet they bloody well did.
00:20:38.000American troops and contractors have perpetrated each of those war crimes in US attacks, invasions, occupations, and peacekeeping operations in the years since the ICC was established in 1998.
00:21:02.000We're talking about Biden, Obama, Trump.
00:21:05.000We're talking about a corrupt system that has no moral authority to be arresting anybody.
00:21:10.000We're talking about a system that by its own acknowledgement cannot participate in an ICC attempt to arrest Putin for war criminality because their own revelations would inculcate them, not inculcate, would incriminate, incriminate them, would incriminate them.
00:21:54.000You think, oh my God, this guy's going there.
00:21:56.000Like Chappelle said on SNL, it's like he said stuff like, all the things you think is going on in there, they are going on in there.
00:22:02.000He, like, Tony Blair, God rest his eternal soul, even though he's still kind of living, had the aphorism, tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.
00:22:10.000Now, obviously that was a sort of a bit of rhetoric designed to assure potential new voters that they wouldn't allow law and order.
00:22:17.000We all know what that means, right guys?
00:22:21.000But it's an interesting piece of language, I think, because in order to address Trump, you have to address the conditions that led to Trump.
00:22:28.000The sense of despair, the alienation, the isolation, the inequality, the entropy, the corruption, the institutionalised hypocrisy.
00:22:38.000And they're not willing to have those conversations, so therefore you get Trump.
00:22:41.000So instead of like, oh Trump, like you watch any mainstream left-leaning liberal establishment show, even entertainment ones today, they'll be just telling you how bad Trump is.
00:22:51.000Maybe they'll be doing some jokes about like how Putin should be arrested.
00:22:53.000What they won't be telling you is this.
00:22:56.000Any war crimes trial, if you're going to nick Putin, should start with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.
00:23:07.000They initiated a brutal war of aggression against Yemen in which upwards of 400,000 civilians have died.
00:23:12.000The principal accomplices, always knowledgeable and sometimes enthusiastic, of the royal killers were Presidents Barack Obama Donald Trump and Joe Biden, whose administration serviced the US-provided warplanes, supplied munitions used to bomb weddings, funerals, school buses, and other civilian targets, gave intelligence use for targeting, and for a time, refueled Saudi and Emirati aircraft.
00:24:02.000And what we were talking about earlier is that, you know, the situation with Trump being arrested, the thing they don't talk about is they don't talk about Yemen, because what Yemen highlights is that Obama was a huge part of it.
00:24:14.000I mean, look at all the drone strikes under Obama, that our literal current president is doing fist bumps with the Saudi leaders.
00:24:26.000That's the narrative that just isn't told.
00:24:28.000Gareth, I've come up with a catchphrase that I think is going to be helpful to changing the consciousness of the American public, in particular those that watch mainstream media outlets like CNN.
00:24:59.000It's Raccoon Dog is the new stooge in who to blame other than scientific ineptitude at the Wuhan Institute of Virology funded by the NIH and Double funded!
00:25:10.000Double funded by you actually, because I used taxpayer money to fund some of this experiment.
00:25:15.000I mean, even when I'm saying this, this is one of the things I'm glad we're on Rumble, because I'm not sure this could be... Is this right?
00:25:20.000Taxpayers paid for the EcoHealth Alliance or for the NIH to do gain-of-function research in Wuhan twice And if that virus came out of there, that ain't good.
00:25:31.000Now they're coming up with all sorts of convoluted excuses comparable to the magic bullet theory made famous by the movie JFK.
00:25:38.000Fauci's like, I suppose it could have come from that lab.
00:25:40.000Someone could have left the lab, gone and done some bat research in the caves, gone back to the lab.
00:25:45.000Then they've gone home, kissed their wife on the snout.
00:25:48.000Then they've gone to the wet market, still with maybe mucus on their lip.
00:25:51.000They kiss a raccoon dog, or one of them Penhaligon's one of those crazy little bald armadillo creatures is.
00:25:58.000That's when you get yourself one hell of a coronavirus.
00:26:04.000If you all the while, while watching Fauci talk about the coronavirus, think, is this dude trying to avoid personal blame for this?
00:26:10.000It all makes a lot more sense, doesn't it?
00:26:12.000Do you think, mate, did you invest in that lab?
00:26:14.000Oh no, listen, what could have happened is someone at that lab there, maybe it was going to work on roller skates day, They roll the skate in at work, they slip right out, oh my god, what's that on their finger-tippy-two-toes?
00:26:25.000Have a look, is this bit of mainstream media news, this patronising graphic, or is this just a still?
00:26:48.000It's not like we've done some research and actually this woman, she's been carrying on with raccoon dog in ways that you just wouldn't credit.
00:26:55.000It just said it might have been from a raccoon dog.
00:27:00.000The East Asian raccoon dog, a relative of the fox, may hold the key to the origins of COVID-19, according to a group of scientists quoted in The Atlantic magazine.
00:27:09.000The team says their new analysis of samples taken at a Wuhan market in the early days of the pandemic is a really strong indication that infected animals were there, including raccoon dogs.
00:27:21.000The findings support the theory that COVID-19 jumped from animals to humans, but researchers That graphic's not giving you enough, is it?
00:28:01.000The Wuhan Institute of Virology caused that lab and it had significant funding from people directly involved in the response to the pandemic, which means that they were not only culpable for causing the pandemic, but subsequently profited from the pandemic, and that will be such glaring evidence that the entire system is corrupt that people might rise up in the streets, refuse to cooperate in unprecedented levels, be willing to overlook their cultural differences in a new war against the establishment authority.
00:30:47.000Maybe looking for different types of viruses in bats, got infected, went into a lab, and was being studied in a lab, and then it came out of the lab.
00:30:56.000But if that's the definition of a lab leak, It isn't!
00:32:07.000Now, maybe that party, they went down to the wet market, and got one of those Panhaligans, and you know what they're like over there?
00:32:14.000They'd have lifted up its little snifter, they use it like ammonitrate, they'd have been sniffing away at its back door, and that's the way you get yourself a Pandemic Baby!
00:32:31.000If we kept doing a show, eventually someone was going to say something like that.
00:32:34.000It's like those typewriters and monkeys and all that stuff.
00:32:37.000Eventually someone says things like that.
00:32:39.000So let's have a look at Fauci's version of it, just to justify the version of the graphic that we've spent some time creating.
00:32:45.000What Fauci thinks, here's an alternative theory, what could have happened is a woman meets that raccoon dog, a needlessly naked woman, might we add, Then what happens is they go to the lab.
00:34:11.000My attention is completely undivided on your show or whatever you're watching.
00:34:15.000Seems a bit hurtful, Glenn, because when you've been sticking up for me on Twitter, I was beginning to think that... No, no, I was literally listening to your show.
00:34:22.000I don't have anything going on in the background.
00:34:46.000Mate, what do you think's been going on then lately with the shutting down of dissenting voices in particular?
00:34:51.000Are we going to call them colleagues, cohorts, mates, Matt Taibbi and Michael Schellenberger?
00:34:56.000What do you think of the way that whole congressional hoo-ha went down?
00:35:01.000I mean, I think there's this inherent problem with these congressional hearings, which is that in reality, members of Congress have almost no power or authority, notwithstanding the loftiness of their title.
00:35:12.000The only power they ever actually get to wield is when they have witnesses before them, and they control the six minutes that they're given with completely unlimited authority.
00:35:23.000And as we know, and especially when human beings feel powerless, the little tiny power they have,
00:35:47.000It's the most pathetic and cowardly display imaginable to publicly brand, no pun intended, somebody in the most insulting ways possible and then refuse to let them answer.
00:35:58.000But I thought it was very telling that the Democrats explicitly made clear that the reason they regard these journalists and the ones who work with them revealing the Twitter files as nefarious and threats to the public order is because they believe the censorship regime that those journalists expose, the one that entails the U.S.
00:36:18.000security state, the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security, colluding with big tech to police the Internet, is very noble and necessary.
00:36:26.000And if you believe that about a secret program, the way, for example, lots of people believe the secret spying programs we revealed as part of the Snowden reporting were noble, you're going to be angry at the journalist who revealed it.
00:36:38.000And that was the most revealing part about that hearing, was how explicitly supportive the Democratic Party is of this censorship regime.
00:36:49.000Glenn, in today's show we have been discussing the nature of centralised authority, it's growing ubiquity, it's clearly becoming more radical in the enforcement of its edicts and ideals, yet its legitimacy seems shakier than ever.
00:37:07.000The threatened and presumed arrest of Trump is one way that we can discern this waning of actual legitimate authority and as it continues to double down.
00:37:19.000Obviously, the neglect of the comparable Russiagate steel dossier stuff is an aspect of this we've covered, but as it's happening at the same time as a warrant has been issued for the arrest of Putin, it's difficult not to look at comparable war crimes.
00:37:33.000We used this piece today about, I think it's from Cato.org, talking
00:37:39.000about how, you know, sort of Biden, Trump, Obama have all been
00:37:43.000explicitly involved in the UAE bombing of Yemen. And I suppose what I would like your perspective
00:37:51.000on, Glenn, is the decline of trust in authority and almost the assumption now that there is no
00:37:58.000central body that has the right to execute that kind of power.
00:38:03.000And if that is something that's real and legitimate, and if you feel that it's true as well, what does that tell us about where we are and where we have to get to?
00:38:11.000Yeah, it's a very interesting paradox, isn't it, that secure, confident institutions of authority can give the people over whom they rule a greater degree of freedom because they know that those people, by and large, trust those institutions and they're not endangered and threatened as a result.
00:38:31.000When those institutions fall into pervasive disrepute, when they're held in contempt, as is the case quite validly for most Western political and media institutions, that's precisely when they become even more authoritarian, when they start cracking down further on dissent because they're afraid.
00:38:50.000And instead of trying to determine what is the root cause of this loss of faith and trust and confidence, when's the last time you heard Anyone who works in corporate media, they're very good at lamenting the fact that the public no longer trusts them.
00:39:06.000They're very good at blaming other people for the fact that the public no longer trusts them.
00:39:11.000When's the last time you heard any of them in any earnest way engage in self-reflection?
00:39:16.000What is it that we did to lose the trust and faith of the public?
00:39:20.000Or when is any government official Done that.
00:39:23.000They watched Donald Trump get elected.
00:39:24.000Clearly an expression, as I heard you saying earlier, of this kind of despair.
00:40:07.000We need to try and prevent them from choosing their leaders by convicting them and rendering them ineligible.
00:40:13.000And as a result, it's an inescapable cycle that the more they do that, the less trust and faith there is in those institutions of power, and in turn, the more authoritarian they feel they need to be.
00:40:25.000And I think that's the cycle that we're currently in, and it can actually be very cleansing.
00:40:30.000I think it's good that people finally are seeing that Western institutions of authority merit their contempt and not respect.
00:40:37.000But it can also create a lot of instability and dangerous outcomes as well because demagogues and others can cleverly exploit that for nefarious ends.
00:40:48.000But ultimately, they have no one but themselves to blame.
00:40:52.000Their solution, instead of trying to fix it, is to just use force to crack down on those who want to challenge them.
00:40:59.000While there has been no public mea culpa from any of those organisations as you listed, whether they are media or political, and certainly obviously not corporate, I find it impossible to consider that they haven't privately taken place, that they haven't got within their circles, amongst their elders, amongst their highest intellects, people that are considering, oh no, the reason we've lost authority is because we've become corrupted, because The relationship between the corporate world and the state and the media has become too porous and people are now realizing it because it's so easy for counter-narratives to emerge, whether through credible and established journalists like yourself or new emergent voices or members of the public.
00:41:35.000They must understand that they are making the decision to double down on authoritarianism and censorship and smearing opponents and dissenting voices.
00:41:43.000So, Glenn, Why is it that that choice has been made and what does that tell us about the likely trajectory over the coming years?
00:41:50.000I mean in particular with regard to the likelihood of more pandemics, more legitimisation of authoritarianism.
00:41:58.000Because if you consider that they must have access to the kind of reflection and contemplation that has just been shared by you, they must, they must know that, they must surely on some level.
00:42:09.000elected not to explore it or express it, then there must be an alternative route. I know I'm
00:42:15.000making so many assumptions there, but that's what I do for a job. So what do you think about that?
00:42:21.000And what do you think it means about where we're going if they haven't got that reflection or
00:42:25.000they're not willing to express it? Yeah, I'm not sure I do fully agree with that assumption,
00:42:29.000namely that these elites, because they're so smart, and I'm sure a lot of them are quite smart,
00:42:35.000because they have this kind of sophisticated understanding of the world, it must mean that
00:42:40.000they realize they bear some of the culpability for what has happened.
00:42:46.000I think oftentimes, to the contrary, especially when you have kind of an insular elite, an increasingly insular elite that is more and more removed from the rest of the society, you know, kind of the Versailles dynamic where you just kind of haul yourself up in a royal court.
00:43:03.000And think that the anger outside of the gates is just whiny, petulant, unjustified resentment and not grounded in legitimate grievances.
00:43:13.000A lot of elite classes throughout history have thought that about the populations over whom they were so abusively ruling.
00:43:21.000It's not so much an intellectual failing, it's a psychological failing.
00:43:27.000And oftentimes, the smarter someone is, the more kind of awarded they are with position and privilege and prestige and award, the more convinced they become of their own infallibility.
00:43:39.000And the more they genuinely believe that anybody angry with them or dissatisfied with them must, by definition, be somebody whose thinking is misguided or who has poor character and who therefore needs to be controlled, who therefore needs to be constrained and limited And what it is they can do is almost though is proof.
00:44:00.000If you don't think Dr. Fauci is an eminent scientist with great integrity, by definition you're someone who can't be trusted with free speech.
00:44:07.000You're someone who can't be trusted to vote for who you want because the mere fact that you distrust these people, the highest and most renowned and well-regarded elites, is proof That you are broken, that you are somebody who needs leadership and guidance and control and have your liberty deprived of you.
00:44:30.000And I think the ability to engage in self-critique is something that is contrary to our instinct.
00:44:37.000It's something we have to work to get ourselves to do.
00:44:40.000And people who are just constantly having their goodness and their wisdom reinforced have no incentive to do that.
00:44:46.000I mean, Russell, to me, I know like each year that goes by we all get older, like there's more and more people who haven't lived through it, but the 2003 invasion of Iraq I think was even more of an eye-opening moment than the 2008 financial crisis, although they came one after the other and they're probably interconnected and inextricable.
00:45:07.000But the fact that so many well-intentioned people assumed that when people like Colin Powell and Tony Blair and, you know, the New York Times and all the journalists who you're told to trust from both sides of the aisle are all in unison telling you the same thing, and it all turns out to be a lie, And huge numbers of people are murdered because of it.
00:45:53.000Then, of course, you're going to create this breach where you have the elites over here and the masses over here who both distrust and hate them.
00:46:00.000And the more distrust and hate there is for the elites from the masses, the more the elites believe the masses can't be trusted to make their own choices.
00:46:10.000And I think that's the tension that's happening.
00:46:47.000So some of our most dystopic conjecture is legitimized by that trajectory.
00:46:53.000When you can observe individuals within that system advancing on the basis of deception, once that fissure that you described in 03 and 08 became more entrenched, it's almost like it becomes literal farce.
00:47:15.000Now, if this is the case, then it seems there's little value in dissecting and discerning between the No, no.
00:47:25.000I mean, I think that's the only project worth pursuing.
00:47:28.000is, in fact, what's required is a galvanization of a kind of a new populist force. Is it,
00:47:35.000Glenn, or am I doing that speculative thing again?
00:47:37.000No, no. I mean, I think that's the only project worth pursuing. I mean, that's what I regard
00:47:42.000my project as being when I wake up every day in terms of my work, is exactly that sort
00:47:48.000of unifying of people who are being told constantly that they're supposed to hate one another
00:47:54.000across ideological and cultural and religious and demographic divides, that instead unifying
00:48:02.000in that way, that even though you have a bunch of differences on these issues and these inflammatory
00:48:06.000issues and you call yourself a leftist or a rightist or whatever,
00:48:10.000And you belong to this party or that party or some other party.
00:48:13.000The reality is you have so much more in common than you do differences.
00:48:16.000Namely, your lives are being controlled and exploited and abused by this very small segment of elite culture.
00:48:26.000And the only thing that matters is overthrowing their hegemony.
00:48:29.000And then once a fair system is imposed, you can start kind of grappling with those differences.
00:48:34.000Until then, you don't have any outlet for doing that.
00:48:35.000You don't even have The right the freedom to debate you don't have the right even to speak and I mean that's literally true and you know I remember I remember reading a lot when I was younger about the kind of oligarchs of say like the late 19th century and then to the early 20th century you know people like Rockefeller and Ford and all those people they would like go through the streets and they would
00:49:00.000They would, like, throw dollars out of their cars to the public to try and create favor with the public, to show that they actually cared, that they were people who wanted to help.
00:49:09.000They were very philanthropic for that same reason.
00:49:14.000They knew that if the system became too extreme, their position would be threatened because you would almost incite a revolution.
00:49:22.000And they were constantly thinking about how to placate the public just enough To keep the inequality still vast, but them, the public, just enough kind of appeased so they wouldn't do that.
00:49:34.000And I remember asking an extremely wealthy person I knew who worked in a hedge fund after the 2008 financial crisis when the government under Obama so blatantly acted to benefit and shield the wealthiest people and kind of let the entire middle class and working class get expelled from their homes and evicted and suffer in generational debt.
00:49:56.000And what I concluded, and I was writing a book on this actually when the Brazil reporting started, was that basically the elite class has two options.
00:50:03.000You can appease the anger of the masses to give them just enough to keep them just enough satisfied that they don't want to get off their couch and risk things.
00:50:17.000They probably will get to the point where they want to revolt.
00:50:20.000And so our strategy instead will be to militarize, to build a paramilitaristic society where we keep them under constant surveillance.
00:50:29.000We, you know, make sure that the weapons we have are far greater than the weapons they have, so that if they do actually want to try and do something, they're going to be crushed by force.
00:50:41.000And that will either deter them and convince them ahead of time it's futile, or if they try it, they will in fact be crushed.
00:50:48.000And clearly the elite class has chosen that second option.
00:50:52.000Yeah, that's not a heartening note to end on, Glenn.
00:50:55.000The elites have armed themselves to the teeth.
00:50:58.000The glory days where it could be considered compassion to hurl dollar bills out of a limousine, out of rats and scumbags in the gutter, are beyond us.
00:51:08.000I think that you're right, as a matter of fact.
00:51:11.000I suppose that aggregating and powerful new technologies are emerging that further tip the balance of power towards centralised authority.
00:51:22.000Let me just interject so that I don't go away as, like, the person who's just the bearer of bad news.
00:51:25.000Like, the reason I fight so much against internet censorship and internet surveillance is because I truly believe the technology that we're using right now, the audience that we're building, the sector of, you know, kind of Online life and information dissemination that we are a part of is the thing that provides so much optimism.
00:51:48.000And they know it too, which is why they're so devoted to controlling it through censorship, to controlling it through exclusion from the financial system, to demeaning and discrediting us in every single way that they can, because that's the thing from which they feel most threatened.
00:52:05.000I think the thing that we're Being a part of, that we're a part of building with so many other people is the thing that is genuinely encouraging.
00:52:13.000Okay, so new alliances can be formed and what we're doing is valuable, but those trends are pointing to the conclusion that the elites have drawn.
00:52:24.000Militarise, govern, control, legitimise authority, exploit crises to double down on the ability to regulate, impugn and impoverish the population both in terms of their diet and the commodities that they consume and the food that they eat and the stuff that they stream, Yeah, OK.
00:52:43.000Well, that's good because it makes me feel that we're participating somehow in a radical movement of a new global counterculture where power is decentralized and people run their own communities and have the freedom to disagree with one another.
00:52:56.000And as you said earlier, those differences can be debated and resolved after meaningful systemic change.
00:53:11.000I've not used my police I like to come on your show and commandeer the platform and make clear that the person who dominates the interview is me.
00:53:24.000I have a lot of dogs, I learn from my dogs how to mark territory and the like, so maybe it's just that kind of behavior.
00:53:59.000Ian isn't even going to tell you what time it is, PST.
00:54:01.000You can also see our item on January the 6th in full after this show on Rumble, because we cut out in the middle because we wanted to get Glenn Greenwald in.
00:54:08.000Especially now we know that he's treating the whole thing as some sort of canine turf war.
00:54:13.000Interesting link, though, between what Glenn was saying there and the content of the video that our viewers won't have seen yet.
00:55:56.000All you've done by going on holiday is you've given up your tools that you can control those little fuckers with.
00:56:04.000All the things I swore I would never do as a parent.
00:56:06.000Like, is there any greater disjunct than the disjunct between who you say you're gonna be as a parent before you have them fuckers, and then who you are as a parent once they show up.
00:56:50.000Now I've got them, I'm like, I'll stick Netflix on and give it a fucking rollo, will ya?
00:56:56.000A little bit of the old stand-up comedy.
00:56:57.000You can watch that right now if you want.
00:56:59.000If you're a member, you can buy it for $20 or you can just get it as part of the annual membership.
00:57:03.000It's well worth having because we do things like, you know, when Graham Hancock comes on, I've had it confirmed, you can just reach over, touch him on the leg.
00:58:16.000I'm an epidemiologist but I know what I like but I'm willing to stick my oar in.
00:58:22.000Okay so hey listen if you're a member of our community you can watch our exclusive show Stay Connected and as we we've just confirmed that you can actually consensually make love with Graham Hancock.
00:58:45.000You can join us live for it and comment and ask Graham questions, or if you're in the car, we gave away tickets for like some pairs of tickets to join us actually live in the room.
00:58:51.000And if you're watching it right now and you want to come, we'll give one more pair of tickets to you.