In this episode of Stay Free With Russell Bram, we're talking about the mid-terms, but also from a slightly surprising perspective. We're looking at whether the American political machine can deliver real change, and whether or not you're seeing any real change in your actual lives. And we're also looking at how local activism can change the world, and how by awakening locally, we can change your world. Stay Free with Russell Bram is produced by Russell Bram and is brought to you by Droga5. Our theme song is Come Alone by The Weakerthans, courtesy of Lotuspool Records. Our ad music is by Build Buildings. This episode was produced and edited by Matthew Boll. It was mixed by Mark Phillips and Alex Blumberg. Special thanks to our sponsor, VaynerMedia, for producing this episode. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes and promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers. We'll be looking out for your best deals on all of our amazing promo codes! Subscribe to stayfree with russram@whatiwatchedtonight.co.uk and tag us on insta to receive 10% off your first pack of stickers, stickers, and t-shirts, and hoodies! We're giving away a freebie of your choice! and we'll be giving you a discount code: stayfreewithrussram to help us spread the word about the show. Stay Free! to all of your fellow podcast listeners get 5% off of your favourite stickers, shirts, hoodies, mugs, posters, and T-shirts and posters, and all kinds of goodies! Stay free! and more! we're giving you access to all sorts of goodies, including hoodies and mugs and hooded m& hoodies we'll send you all a chance to win a discount on our social media support, too! Thank you, stay free with the chance to shop with us so you can be a discount, and get 10% of the best of your chance to join in on the next episode, and they'll get a discount and get 20% off the next week, and we're all of that too, and there's a special discount code stay free, and the rest of the world will get 5-place to win it all!
00:01:25.000Can't keep going on about the results.
00:01:27.000We've got to look at whether the American political machine can deliver real change.
00:01:32.000Forget about your tribal affiliations and instead focus on whether or not you are seeing any real change in your actual lives.
00:01:41.000Are these political systems able to deliver change?
00:01:44.000It only seems like a matter of days ago that we were looking at the grandstanding and posturing of the great figures of either party.
00:01:53.000I'll tell you how we know they're out of ideas, because they're reaching back, retrospectively, through their retrospeculars, into the past, right?
00:02:02.000Whether it's the Democrats trotting out Barack Obama to sort of present a more liberal and accessible facet or aspect of their party, Or the Republicans turning again to Donald Trump, or even more significantly, Ron DeSantis, the new hope of the Grand Old Party, publicising and promoting himself in a way like he's a Calvin Klein model.
00:02:28.000So we're going to be looking at some of those promotional materials and asking, ah, sweet lady, liberty, democracy, whither do they lie?
00:02:38.000Like, you know, what are you really, democracy, is what I'm trying to say.
00:02:40.000And also, I'm going to be talking to you about some activism and campaigns that I'm personally interested in, notably the, like, the water where I live, that's water in your accent, I live near the River Thames and the water authority that used that River Thames to get water to distribute dumped loads and loads of poo in there.
00:03:09.000So I'm going to be talking about that activism campaign and I want to point out how local issues point to global matters and how by awakening locally we can change the world.
00:03:22.000A new study based on localised surveys of waterways across the United States found that more than 80% of streams, canals, creeks and rivers in the country contain detectable levels of toxic forever chemicals.
00:03:51.000I'm going to be getting right down there in your DNA.
00:03:54.000And what really fascinated me about attending this protest was that in an area of our country, it's known as Henley, which is regarded as conservative, that's sort of the centre-right party, people are sort of demanding that the municipal water authorities, which are foreign-owned, owned by Qatari governments and Canadian businesses, I've got the information on that right in front of me, I think, like it's owned by Currently the largest shareholders are an Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, they own loads.
00:04:25.000Canadian Pensions Group, they own loads.
00:04:28.000Kemble Water Holdings, that's who owns it.
00:04:33.000Oh man, I've never reached for the Donald Trump China with more enthusiasm.
00:04:38.000It's extraordinary that what you consider to be your country is already being colonised by foreign financial interests and you consider the amount of rhetoric around immigration, which I know to a lot of you is an important issue.
00:04:50.000But when it comes to foreign money, owning your country, owning your water, what's the significance of a midterm election if no matter who you vote for, your country, your land, your farms, your water, are going to end up owned by foreign interests, by large corporations.
00:05:08.000And forget foreign, because even if it's domestic, it's ultimately corporate interests that don't care about ordinary people and the lives of ordinary people.
00:05:17.000For now, let's enjoy a little bit of bipartisan propaganda.
00:05:22.000A little bit later, we'll tell you more about how local activism is going to change the world.
00:05:26.000But for now, let's look at some of the stuff that's been going on.
00:05:28.000What's this Trump-Ohio-Hunter Biden moment?
00:05:33.000Well, it's just a comical moment that Trump continues to deliver.
00:05:37.000This time referencing the Hunter Biden laptop situation.
00:06:42.000Does he mean just the sort of economic and political information, like sort of like the Ukrainian energy stuff and the Chinese energy stuff?
00:08:49.000How can you not see, if you're a centre-left person, that that's well funny to use your child in such an amusing, irreverent, sort of weird way?
00:09:00.000If you have a laptop like that, That's extraordinary.
00:09:06.000That's comedically very sophisticated, I think.
00:09:08.000I swear, I'll never speak to you again.
00:09:15.000That's well funny because I feel like some comedians on the left really dissed him, made jokes about his kid and stuff like that.
00:09:24.000I can see why people find that appealing.
00:09:28.000The only way that you would be able to oppose that level of oratory skill, I think, would be pure authenticity.
00:09:35.000Look, all we care about is challenging big corporations and ensuring that life for ordinary Americans improves.
00:09:40.000I know Donald Trump's appealing and he's sort of funny and everything, but I've got to tell you, that he's not going to do anything to meaningfully change
00:14:35.000We can talk about some financial aspects of the midterms.
00:14:40.000Let's just have a look at Biden staggering on a stage and then let's have a look at Joe Biden.
00:14:48.000Then let's look at some facts around the midterms, donors and lobbying and the impossibility of this system ever delivering real change for you.
00:14:56.000But before that, once again, the cadaverous but potentially good-hearted Joe Biden.
00:15:04.000Soon to be at COP27 so we've got that to look forward to as well.
00:15:07.000We want to talk about COP27 as well because do these events, these global events that are apparently talking about the environment, do anything to improve the lives of ordinary people and do they do anything to meaningfully impact the ecological disaster that is their entire raison d'etre?
00:15:23.000Do all the changes that they're suggesting and indeed implementing make any difference?
00:15:29.000Or do they ultimately end up penalising and persecuting ordinary people rather than the giant corporations that create 70% of the world's pollution?
00:15:38.000Are we going to be talking about the New Zealand farmers today?
00:15:46.000We talked to you a little bit about it the other day, but now we're going to show you, I think, in this stream, yeah?
00:15:55.000We're going to show you how the New Zealand farmers are standing up to their government who are imposing new regulations, apparently in order to help the climate and help the planet, but actually it looks like it could be the Great Reset.
00:16:11.000So we're saying, are these New Zealand farmers climate change resistors or Great Reset opponents?
00:16:36.000LAUGHTER Whoa, stepping on her! That's black!
00:16:40.000It's black, we don't know what he's talking about.
00:16:43.000Yeah, because obviously, whatever that was, it would have voted for him, for sure, because if you don't vote for Joe Biden, you ain't black.
00:16:51.000So ergo, by the maths of Biden's mind, that's a Biden voter right there, certainly in terms of the palette of Well, we were talking earlier about, you know, ultimately how these midterms are funded and how they're lobbied for, how these parties make their money.
00:17:07.000in the context rather of donors and lobbying. What do you want to point out Gail?
00:17:11.000Well we were talking earlier about you know ultimately how these midterms are
00:17:17.000funded and how they're lobbied for, how these parties make their money. We've
00:17:21.000talked already about how 10 billion dollars is being spent on these midterms
00:17:24.000most ever and the 50 biggest donors have collectively pumped at least 1.1
00:17:34.000So billionaire investors, from shipping magnates to casino moguls, they skew mainly to Republican, but they also affiliate with both parties.
00:17:41.000So I think in terms of percentages, billionaires make up 20% of total Republican donations compared with 14.5% of democratic donations so you know there's about 5% in it it's pretty much you are getting huge billionaire donors
00:17:56.000Who you would imagine have some influence on what these parties then go on to do, massively funding to both sides.
00:18:04.000A significant portion of their donations come from billionaires.
00:18:10.00010% of the total donations constitute donations that are made to both parties.
00:18:16.000So there's a significant amount of investment that can cater for and handle either potential outcome.
00:18:24.000What I've been doing lately is I've just been trying to myself curate and understand how much evidence there is that suggests that the movements of democracy that consume so much newspaper ink, that devour our screens, that take up our time, how much of meaningful power movements Happened regardless of which party is in administration.
00:18:50.000And a good way of understanding that is our interview with Jeffrey Sachs where it just spells out that the military industrial complex can pursue their agenda unimpeded regardless of who you vote for.
00:19:01.000And I feel that probably if you were able to look at the financial sector, and this is just a snapshot of that, you know, 1.1 billion interpolitical committees and groups competing on both sides, they affiliate with both sides, 20% of total Republican donations are from billionaires, 14% of Democrat donations.
00:19:19.000That's one sort of class or group, a very small group of people, providing a disproportionate amount of the funding in order to exert influence.
00:19:27.000Yeah, on top of that, just to jump in, Federal Lobbying is on track to spend record amounts in 2022, receiving over two billion during the first two quarters of the year.
00:19:37.000That is Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America were in the top four.
00:19:41.000We imagine that's going to contain many of those big pharma companies that we talk about so often.
00:19:46.000Meta and Amazon also remained in the top 10.
00:19:49.000Big banks are also donating millions on behalf of both the Republican and Democratic candidates that they
00:19:54.000would believe help them slash regulations and preserve predatory practices. So a time again when
00:20:00.000Americans are suffering, banks are lobbying both parties to receive favorable regulation.
00:20:07.000So you know, it's not it's not going to help, is it the ordinary person?
00:20:10.000The point of democracy is not to provide alternatives, it's to preserve the system. And the system
00:20:16.000is a financial one, a corporate one. And you can just hear from these examples, what the
00:20:23.000limitations of potential democratic change would be. And I suppose what we have to appreciate
00:20:28.000and act upon is that once you've heard that and start to understand it, you have to kind
00:20:33.000of demand real alternatives. I think part of that is through ongoing personal awakening.
00:20:38.000Like, learning to sort of chew through that data and respond to it, and then not get distracted.
00:20:46.000Like, whether you're a person that considers yourself to be on the left, ah, QAnon, Trump, Trump, QAnon, and then if you're a person that considers yourself to be on the right, ah, SJWs, ah, like, you have to find out whether, no, hold on, whilst these issues I feel important.
00:21:01.000I know there's something more important that is less easy to identify and it's the movement of financial and corporate power and the way that that, in alliance with the state, are able to continue to pursue an agenda regardless of what seems to happen politically.
00:21:19.000Alright, so Sri, is it time for us to look now at these farmer protests in New Zealand and how it, in a sense, demonstrates how ordinary people are standing up against the Great Reset Agenda?
00:21:37.000This is, yeah, just another example of farmers, although you'll see actually from the video that they do look, they're pretty well behaved farmers.
00:21:47.000They're just like addressing each other very civilly.
00:21:50.000They're very sort of civil farmers trying to organise together.
00:21:53.000And what I'm starting to notice is that all over the world there are protests that amount to anti-globalist movements.
00:22:01.000And even the two protests that I've been involved in myself at a national, even a local level, both point to the same problem.
00:22:08.000Where it's this Thames water protest where I live, which shows what happens when water authorities become privatised, then owned by foreign interests.
00:22:20.000This demonstrates the principle of corporate ownership and a lack of community involvement in management of their own facilities.
00:22:28.000Or there's a whole other protest I'm going to talk to you about in more detail.
00:22:35.000Let's have a look now at the farm protests in New Zealand and see how you can track the Great Reset Agenda playing out on a national level.
00:22:45.000Look at how it relates to Bill Gates' acquisition of farmland, the use of heritage laws.
00:23:34.000But here's another way of looking at it, that New Zealand is pursuing a great reset agenda In order to bankrupt farmers and take their land.
00:23:44.000Now that sounds like a conspiracy theory, doesn't it?
00:23:46.000So stay to the end of the video because we are going to unpack that for you properly.
00:23:50.000It's not a coincidence that farmers all over the world are protesting.
00:23:53.000Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Germany, our country, the UK.
00:23:57.000And neither is it a coincidence that in your country, the United States of America, Bill Gates has become the largest farmland owner in the world.
00:24:21.000Is that why 70% of the world's pollution is done by 100 of the world's biggest corporations?
00:24:26.000Yeah, oh no, that doesn't quite make sense, does it?
00:24:28.000Let's have a look at a few more details from this story.
00:24:30.000In a world first, New Zealand appears set to introduce a scheme that will require farmers to pay for their agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.
00:24:38.000Is this why a climate change agenda is being pushed everywhere?
00:24:40.000And remember, I might differ from you guys there because I believe we should be looking after the planet.
00:24:47.000Whether or not you think man-made climate change is a thing or it's happening because of solar flares or cosmological reasons or epochal events that aren't affected by man or human kind, I respect your opinion.
00:24:59.000My opinion is We should prioritise this planet.
00:25:02.000We should love and revere this planet.
00:25:16.000Jacinda Ardern said that it would give the country's biggest export market a competitive advantage globally while putting the country on track to meet its 2013 methane reduction target.
00:25:26.000Seems like reducing methane is a good goal.
00:25:29.000Seems like respecting the planet is a good goal.
00:25:31.000Are there going to be any side effects of this?
00:25:33.000Are any farmers, for example, going to lose their livelihood?
00:25:54.000And if there is, is it because of a centralised ideology?
00:25:58.000Let's keep asking the questions, let me know in the chat, let me know in the comments what you think.
00:26:01.000No other country in the world has yet developed a system for pricing and reducing agricultural emissions, so our farmers are set to benefit from being first movers.
00:26:40.000But also what I believe in is your freedom to decide what to do with your life without intervention of a national government, let alone unelected global bodies.
00:26:48.000But the industry, which altogether farms 10 million beef and dairy cattle and 26 million sheep compared to New Zealand's population of 5 million human people, Well, what have we seen when the manufacturing jobs all closed down?
00:27:05.000Did it reduce the emissions, or did it see a boom in the Chinese and Indian subcontinent, if that's the right way to describe it, economies?
00:27:13.000Did it mean that all that manufacture moved elsewhere, bankrupting and annihilating a class of working people?
00:27:19.000Oh look, another class of people being annihilated now.
00:27:35.000So there you go, a UN Global Roadmap on the WEF website.
00:27:40.000Now I'm not talking about conspiracy theory stuff here.
00:27:43.000I'm saying when they get together with the big tech giants and the big corporate folk and the state officials, they set an agenda That infiltrates democratic policy.
00:27:52.000But net zero is not the same as zero emissions.
00:27:57.000Net zero is not the same as zero emissions.
00:27:59.000While the latter is what all companies should be aiming for in order to meet our climate goals, the former simply makes it look like you've achieved the latter through the use of accounting tricks.
00:28:08.000This is why some people are attacking the climate change movement and others even what is referred to as the woke agenda.
00:28:15.000Not because there aren't some brilliant principles being relayed.
00:28:19.000Respect and love of the planet, but because big corporations and big government are using those ideas to break down the lives and lifestyles and working lives of ordinary people.
00:28:31.000Companies can continue polluting as usual while sticking to their net zero pledges as long as they include carbon negative activities on their balance sheet.
00:28:38.000The problem is that there's very little regulation or standardization as to what constitutes a carbon negative activity.
00:28:45.000I notice that when it comes to regulating farmers, they come up with very stringent, strict, unavoidable, undemocratic regulations.
00:28:52.000But when it comes to regulating big business, just do what you can, you guys.
00:28:55.000I mean, I'm being silly, but it seems the farmers are getting very stringent regulation, ordinary working people, big businesses who are producing the pollution that's meant to be the bloody problem anyway.
00:29:08.000Like they're a school bully with a rich dad.
00:29:11.000Many net zero policies rely on purchasing carbon offsets, essentially buying up a load of land in usually developing countries, which will supposedly absorb the carbon from your other activities.
00:29:22.000Not only are carbon offsets based on some fairly sketchy science, Oh, I thought we were following the science.
00:29:27.000I thought the scientists were agreed on climate change.
00:29:30.000But this sketchy science seems to work as well here.
00:29:33.000But they are often procuring land by grabbing it from indigenous communities who have a much better track record as stewards of vital ecosystems than polluting corporations.
00:29:43.000We could let the Dakota people, who have lived in harmony with the land for thousands and thousands of years, continue to be the custodians.
00:29:51.000But I think these guys at ExxonMobil have got some great ideas.
00:29:55.000Now, Groundswell NZ, an activist group in New Zealand, had this to say.
00:30:00.000On the West Coast, over 1,500 property owners have received letters from local authorities informing them that their properties are now subject to restrictions on development.
00:30:08.000This affects lands with features relating to historic heritage, sites and areas of significance to Maori, ecosystems and indigenous biodiversity, natural character in the margins of water, activities on the surface of water, and designations.
00:30:21.000These restrictions are turning any land that has cultural, historical, natural value into a liability.
00:30:26.000So, ultimately, they're creating new regulations and legislations that allow them to diminish the value and ability to work on heritage sites.
00:30:36.000Bill Gates is the largest private owner of farmland in the US.
00:30:39.000A 2018 purchase of 14,500 acres of prime eastern Washington farmland, which is traditional Yekima territory for $171 million, helped him get that title.
00:30:49.000So Bill Gates is buying up indigenous land.
00:30:53.000I suppose all land is indigenous land, ultimately.
00:30:55.000But I wonder if Bill Gates was in any way assisted by regulations and restrictions that came from elsewhere.
00:31:12.000Who cares about this planet that we till and make our living from?
00:31:16.000Or do you think that they object to these regulations being introduced without time for them to adjust their business model and, in my opinion, with an intention to bankrupt them and take their land?
00:31:27.000That's just my opinion based on some of the facts we've been reading today.
00:31:31.000In total, Gates owns approximately 242,000 acres of farmland, with assets totalling more than $690 million.
00:31:37.000To put that in perspective, that's nearly the size of Hong Kong, and twice the acreage of the lower Boral Sioux tribe.
00:31:43.000A white man owns more farmland than my entire native nation.
00:31:47.000So that's Nick Estes, a Native American person, pointing out that Bill Gates has acquired huge swathes of farmland.
00:32:21.000And I know in our country, the UK, people are pretty pissed off.
00:32:23.000And I bet wherever you are too, people are getting sick and tired of these regulations suddenly appearing that seem to benefit a particular set of society, a particular Telling the government they've had enough.
00:32:35.000the elites draw rather than ordinary people as we said earlier in the video. How come
00:32:39.000they don't regulate the corporations when it comes to the carbon offsetting but they
00:32:44.000regulate the farmers when it comes to the reduction of the methane? Who does that benefit?
00:32:48.000Who do you think had their hand in the lobbying, the control, the turning up at WEF me's? Do
00:32:53.000you think a lot of farmers are turning up at the WEF when it's 50 grand for a ticket?
00:32:58.000Telling the government they've had enough.
00:33:00.000Well guess what? We're not going to take it.
00:33:40.000It appears that the agenda of the New Zealand government aligns nicely with unelected globalist bodies.
00:33:46.000At the moment, the COP27's on, But COP26, where these ideas are often discussed and disseminated, doesn't appear to have the impact that they claim they intend to, i.e.
00:33:56.000helping the planet, helping ordinary people.
00:33:59.000Perhaps because real change will be at the odds of their sponsors.
00:34:02.000For example, Unilever, one of the world's largest polluters, which produces enough plastic to cover 11 football pitches per day.
00:34:09.000If you're serious about changing the world, don't take money from Unilever.
00:34:57.000I know we live in a challenging world.
00:34:59.000I'm also beginning to think that globalist edicts are achieved undemocratically and distributed at a national level without consultation from the people that they will ultimately affect.
00:35:10.000I believe these farmers are fighting for the right to continue to earn a living.
00:36:07.000You won't have done because I'm an investigative reporter and you're a slouch!
00:36:11.000While I'm investigative reporting, I investigate things, then I report on them, I investigate it, then I report on it, you're slouching around.
00:36:19.000Just tell me now if my hunch that COP27 is significant here is correct.
00:36:25.000Well so yeah, we've got the moment, we've got COP 27 going on, Biden will be there in a few days, Rishi's gone, Pinch Charles has not gone, we don't know why.
00:36:33.000He's not allowed to go because he's a king and someone said be nice to Gareth, Alex Overton.
00:36:39.000I will be nice, I love Gareth, I love him.
00:36:42.000Yeah, he's not allowed to be political basically, that's the thing now, as a king.
00:36:47.000It's meant to though, because being a king is political.
00:36:50.000I don't want to be political but what about this thing where you're on top of a pyramid of power sort of with a gold hat on your head and we have to all give you money and it doesn't matter who you vote for you carry on being king.
00:37:01.000So what is, we're looking into COP 27, what they achieved, this is obviously the 27th of these, they've been going on since 1995 or 1992, potentially was the first one, I know that my maths should do that better, but I think it's 1995.
00:37:16.000Anyway, just so you know, in that time, global emissions have gone up, I think by 90% so We're not at a stage where these COP events seem to be actually doing anything.
00:37:27.000So since 1992, when the Earth Summit laid out the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, carbon emissions have consistently risen.
00:37:34.000The only year this was not true was 2020, when the pandemic shut down large swathes of the global economy.
00:37:43.000The system isn't working and the failure of climate policy is a prime example.
00:37:46.000So I guess what we're saying about this is not necessarily, you know, It's difficult.
00:37:51.000Climate change is one of those divisive subjects that people are varying opinions on for good reasons.
00:37:57.000But when you look at an event like COP 27 and all the previous 26 COPs, it's very difficult to escape the idea that this is just another example.
00:38:06.000Like we talk about the WF of greenwashing, of billionaire washing, not boshing, like in the same way... You could bosh it, then wash it.
00:38:16.000So an example of that being, A sponsorship deal between this year's UN Climate Conference and Coca-Cola, which has been described as the world's top polluter, has been branded a greenwash by campaigners.
00:38:27.000Coca-Cola produces 120 billion throwaway plastic bottles a year.
00:38:31.00099% of plastics are made from fossil fuels, worsening both The plastic and climate crisis.
00:38:36.000So again, if you are, in a sense, you can take the issue away from it, but you can look at these as being greenwashing events, as being just examples of mass hypocrisy.
00:38:47.000Simply because they accept the sponsorship of companies whose actual policies and behaviour contributes to the problem that they claim that they're addressing.
00:38:59.000Well, again, like government, I mean, just going back to the subject we were talking about before, if you have a system in which these political parties can take massive donations from companies like Meta and Amazon and all these kind of things, Big Pharma, how likely is it that anything's going to be done to actually make a difference with those companies?
00:39:18.000And when we get to a statistic like we've talked about before, whereby rather than the ordinary person not doing their recycling or getting in their car and going on a slightly longer journey than someone else, the 70%, 71% of the world's pollution is caused by 100 companies, then, you know, you can't make sense of it in that way.
00:39:38.000Yeah, I suppose it makes you wonder, what would you really do if the goal was to reduce pollution?
00:39:48.000Is it that you would accept money from, right, there's Coca-Cola, they're the main sponsor, but did you just say they're also the world's worst polluter?
00:40:06.000Can we give you a bit of money to sponsor the event and then just carry on polluting as before?
00:40:13.000Yes, you can carry on polluting as before if you give us some money.
00:40:17.000So then is our function to reduce pollution or to sort of help people pretend that they're going to do something about pollution?
00:40:24.000Yeah, and then when it comes back to these farmers who are being punished, as I said at the start, one of the stated goals of these COP events is reducing global emissions, this net zero thing that we talked about in the item, where net zero is just another example of essentially a land grab, a way of buying up swathes of land and just dumping all your pollution on them essentially.
00:40:48.000You should have a look at what young Putin is putting up there.
00:40:55.000Now tell me, Gareth, specifically what you mean when you say that net zero isn't about reducing pollution, but it's about the appearance of reducing pollution and how it creates opportunities for land grabs.
00:41:07.000Because there's some complexity there, but some significance and it's worth unpacking.
00:41:12.000So again, WEF, UN, COP27, all talking about net zero, have done for the last few years.
00:41:19.000But net zero is not the same as zero emissions.
00:41:21.000So while the latter is what all companies, you know, potentially you could say should be aiming for, the former simply makes it look like you've achieved the latter through the use of accounting tricks.
00:41:31.000So companies continue polluting As usual, while sticking to their net zero pledges, as long as they include carbon negative activities on their balance sheet.
00:41:40.000So to explain that, the problem is that there's very little regulation and standardization as to what constitutes a carbon negative activity.
00:41:47.000Many net zero policies rely on purchasing carbon offsets, essentially buying up a load of land in a usually developing country, which will supposedly absorb the carbon from your other activities.
00:41:57.000So you go on polluting as much as possible because you've bought up this land that doesn't pollute.
00:42:02.000Oh, I see, so you've sort of increased the amount of land average.
00:42:08.000But what you're essentially doing at the same time is acquiring land.
00:42:13.000So while we're talking about these New Zealand farmers, where these government initiatives to lower emissions actually ends up, you know, Bankrupting farmers that then that land potentially then gets sold on to billionaires such as Bill Gates.
00:42:29.000You've got the same kind of thing going on here and another form of through methods of supposedly good intentions you end up with a situation where you're almost forcing these massive polluting companies into land grabbing from across the world.
00:42:43.000You know, so essentially you'll get land across the world owned by the worst companies in the world.
00:42:47.000What a brilliant solution that this is.
00:42:49.000And at the same time, you've got companies like Coca-Cola sponsoring that event.
00:42:53.000So it's not like, that's why I say like, you can kind of remove the issue from it.
00:43:04.000A lot of people say that are cynical about climate change, aren't they?
00:43:09.000A lot of people say, well, no, it's about climate change is not being caused by human activity.
00:43:15.000And in a sense, I like to circumvent that argument by saying that we ought to live respectfully and in accordance with our planet and not generate regulations that clearly create pollution and are detrimental to the planet, even if it's not in a sort of a cosmological scale.
00:43:31.000According to that argument, it's plainly disrespectful.
00:43:34.000But when you bring up the techniques that are used to allow them to continue to generate pollution in order to pursue profit, well, this is the bit from Global Witness that I like.
00:43:47.000Uh, companies can continue polluting as usual while sticking to their net zero pledges as long as they include carbon negative activities.
00:43:53.000The problem is there's very little regulation or standardization as to what constitutes carbon negative activity.
00:43:59.000There's no regulation or standardisation.
00:44:02.000So they can sort of just say stuff is without demonstrating it.
00:44:08.000And that, the whole climate change movement, is of course what it adheres to is,
00:44:39.000There's no regulation or standardisation.
00:44:41.000Many net zero policies rely on purchasing carbon offsets, which Gareth just sort of described to you.
00:44:47.000Yeah, I suppose that's what shows the duplicity and disingenuity of those arguments.
00:44:53.000That's what I think a lot of people who are now critical of what used to be regarded as centre-left neoliberalism, and again, I just don't think we're drawing from a big enough palette when we're having these conversations about what constitutes real democratic change, what they're criticising is, hold on a minute, they're just saying they care about the environment, but they're just creating more problems for farmers, as we demonstrated in Here's the News there, Or they're doing unscientific accountancy tricks in order to appear more green.
00:45:19.000How's that even achieving anything in accordance with their own stated agenda?
00:45:26.000And at the same time, you know, with this land, when we kind of go back to the land grab element of it, what's happening with this land as well that these companies are buying, it's obviously it's often owned by indigenous peoples.
00:45:36.000You're taking land away from indigenous communities that know how to use that land better.
00:45:41.000So when we're talking about someone like Vandana Shiva, what she'll say is, rather than these farming techniques
00:45:46.000of great big corporations, and you've got Bill Gates coming and imposing his ideas on countries
00:45:52.000with these modern farming techniques, she says, this is about the indigenous relationship
00:46:11.000She says it's just a new way of assuming that there's a set or group of people and interests that know better than you or, in this case, farmers in New Zealand or indigenous people wherever that land's been bought up.
00:46:24.000It's like, again, it's sort of a centralising force.
00:46:27.000That's why this, again and again, I'm returning to this idea of decentralisation, that we have to form new confederacies New alliances in order to confront centralised power, which we won't be able to do if we're spending all our time sort of arguing about sort of what we call and what you call hot button topics.
00:46:44.000Yeah, and then you get to the point, you know, you might as well have this COP 27 event and it could be literally a 20 minute meeting and then everyone can go on in their private jets again.
00:46:52.000That 400 private jets that have flown across to wherever, Egypt, where apparently domestic climate activists have already been locked up, by the way.
00:47:00.000So it's the perfect place for a climate event.
00:47:03.000In reality, they're locking up people that actually care about the issue.
00:47:07.000It would take 20 minutes for them to just go there and go, listen, we're going to pretend we care about the environment now, only in ways that don't cost any money.
00:47:15.000Or say, right, these 100 companies who are producing 71%, right, well, we're going to do this to you until you... If we actually care about it, then we're going to make sure that you are fined record amounts of money.
00:47:30.000Taxed record amounts of money until you reduce your emissions, if you really care.
00:47:34.000Whereas what actually happens is that those companies such as ExxonMobil, who are at the moment getting record profits, 20 billion in a quarter, as much as Apple.
00:47:43.000In a cost of living crisis, where energy bills are soaring!
00:47:46.000They get tax subsidies from the American government.
00:47:51.000Shell, ExxonMobil, all those companies get... So essentially the American taxpayer is subsidising these companies that are making massive profits.
00:47:59.000So it's not like, oh, they're big polluters because they're big companies and they got to that position through Moxie and Endeavor.
00:48:05.000They're getting tax subsidies in addition to profits.
00:48:08.000Can you see that there is no difference between the left and the right?
00:48:11.000Can you see there's no difference between the trucker protest, the agriculture protest, the just stop oil protest, that we're all on the same side?
00:48:23.000Yeah, again, it's like you can take the issue out of it.
00:48:25.000In a sense, it's kind of heartwarming.
00:48:27.000It's heartwarming in a sense, because, you know, Greta Thunberg, or Thunberg as she's talked about, is obviously vilified in certain areas of society and, you know, other people love her.
00:48:37.000But essentially, when she described this as a greenwashing event, she is right.
00:48:41.000And in a sense, you can kind of say, well, maybe that's the unifying point, pointing out the hypocrisy.
00:48:46.000At the heart of all of this, the fact that you are, whatever side you are coming from, or whichever side you think is right, you are being ripped off on a massive scale.
00:48:56.000You're being ripped off on a massive scale.
00:48:58.000COP 27, as the New Zealand farmer protest show, and as the information we've just shared, demonstrates is a greenwashing event.
00:49:06.000And whether you consider yourself to be on the left or the right, you can surely see that.
00:49:23.000The point I raised with Gareth earlier is like, you know, everyone's saying how ironic it is that all these world leaders are flying private jets.
00:49:32.000And, I mean, the argument could be, oh, they can't facilitate such a massive travel of all these important people without those private jets because of security reasons.
00:50:14.000Ashela on the chat is saying she wants you to talk about this, Gareth, about the Cherokee Nation trying to get a seat, I think, in Congress.
00:50:25.000Two centuries after the pledge was made, the Cherokee Nation is trying to revive one of the few concessions its ancestors were able to secure in the Treaty of New Echota.
00:50:34.000The promise of congressional representation.
00:50:36.000So many of my predecessors were trying to rebuild the nation or keep us from dissolving in the face
00:50:40.000of great oppression and great obstacles, says Principal Chief Chuck Koskin Jr. who holds the
00:50:44.000same leadership title tracing back to Ross. So I suppose, yeah, there's many issues coalesce here
00:50:51.000that include the interests of people on the apparent left and people on the apparent right.
00:50:56.000Generally speaking, indigenous politics has been regarded as a sort of a left-wing issue.
00:51:01.000The ability to have decent energy bills to pay a reasonable price for utilities has sometimes been regarded as a right-wing issue, but right at the heart of the issue you find the same interests.
00:51:14.000It seems to me that we can do something important here.
00:51:17.000We can call out the hypocrisy of an event like COP27, support Greta Thunberg, support the rights of people that are regarded as like sort of maggot nut cases.
00:51:29.000I regard everybody from an open-hearted position of love that some might call naive and others might regard as really cool, so that we can all come together in order to confront where real power is, not getting distracted by these sort of superficial differences.
00:51:42.000Yeah, it's interesting the indigenous land that we talked about.
00:51:47.000But one of the ways I think we mentioned before about how Bill Gates got his hand on all this farmland was buying traditional Ukema territory land.
00:51:58.000That's how he got to this position of owning the most farmland in America.
00:52:02.000Maybe we should ask him, I'd like to say to Bill Gates, what do you think you want it for?
00:52:13.000I mean, you know, there's a theory that, and it's probably not a theory at all, that at this time of economic crashing, that land doesn't go down in value or will potentially go up in value.
00:52:25.000It might be for the same reason that you see apparently he's got bunkers underneath all these properties.
00:53:40.000It's already been like whether it's Russian oligarchy owning territory in London or sort of Arabian enterprises owning water facilities in the UK.
00:53:51.000It's a preposterous illusion that we're engaging in because, bless us, we don't think straight.
00:53:56.000We don't think about what's the bureaucratic undergirding of what appears to be our land.
00:54:02.000I don't think you should be able to call yourself Thames Water, the River Thames, if you are owned by a Chinese investment corporation, the Kuwait Investment Authority.
00:54:10.000You should have to change the name of it.
00:54:11.000We're now a Chinese, Kuwaiti investment firm, and if that's getting the xenophobia going, we're dumping your shit back in the water and getting you to drink it!
00:55:34.000It ultimately ended up being people in Henley, now you might not know this, but Henley is where Boris Johnson, who until recently was the Prime Minister of our country, you know we like to have a new one every couple of weeks, Till recently he was the Prime Minister and he was the MP for Henley for a long, long time.
00:55:46.000So what I'm telling you is it's a conservative, sort of traditional, sort of right-wing place.
00:55:52.000Although increasingly I think those labels don't mean anything.
00:55:55.000And what these people were demanding is that Thames Water, if not be totally renationalised, become beholden to the community.
00:56:03.000That the community should run Thames Water because, ultimately, if it wasn't a for-profit endeavour, but was instead there to serve people, it would be run with different principles.
00:56:13.000It's the same when Gareth's talking about COP27 and the polluters.
00:56:17.000If COP27 is sponsored by organisations that ultimately seek to profit, then, of course, they're going to do what's necessary, thank you, to generate profit.
00:56:26.000That's what you're going to find in that situation.
00:56:29.000You have to extract the profit motive from it, otherwise things won't be run
00:57:05.000And they paid shareholders 37 million last year and 1.6 billion over the last 12 years.
00:57:13.000What came out of it that this is the Thames water owned by Abu Dhabi Investment, China Investment Corporation, Kuwait Investment Authority aren't paying for vital repairs which means that water is being wasted on an extraordinary scale and that also It's not necessary to dump human feces in the water.
00:57:47.000So whatever it is you look at, whether it's COP27 on a global scale, or Thames War on a very local scale, in, ultimately, a conservative, or let's call it for simplicity's sake, a right-wing area, the model isn't working.
00:58:01.000Now, if you can focus on, well, wherever you are, and whether or not you're an ultra-advanced progressive person when it comes to lifestyle matters, or a very traditional person, wouldn't you like to be in control of your community facilities?
00:58:12.000Don't you think there should be a people's assembly that has a part to play in how it's run?
00:58:17.000Because if you were in control of how your water, your electricity, your basic, what have come to be regarded as basic human rights as a result of incredible progressive endeavour, much of which was delivered by a kind of capitalist ingenuity, but that has now, let's face it, gotten out of control.
00:58:32.000And ultimately needs to bloody well change in the same way that the feudal system only got so far and democracies came in.
00:58:38.000Can't you see we're at a new point in human history now where genuinely new ideas are required.
00:58:42.000Where it's not enough to vacillate mildly between left and right and red and blue while delivering the same results.
00:58:48.000Whether it's a local issue, like Thames water dumping human feces into water, or a global issue, like where COP27 are ultimately a greenwash propaganda wing of global corporations, sponsored by the very corporations that are most responsible.
00:59:03.000That's why I want to encourage you to engage in these kind of local actions.
00:59:07.000That's why later this week we'll be talking to some of the activists from that Thames water protest, so that we can advance and explore genuinely new ideas.
00:59:16.000So you don't just vote for someone who's like, oh, we're going to do the same thing.
00:59:25.000It has to become a visceral, personal, spiritual commitment from every individual to change the world.
00:59:31.000Yeah, maybe this can be a global movement.
00:59:33.000I mean, going back to that start I said at the start was 80% of streams, canals and creeks and rivers in the United States, 80% contain detectable levels of toxic forever chemicals.
00:59:46.000And chances are someone's making a good profit out of it.
00:59:49.000Yeah, when you discover that you're sort of swimming in human feces so that someone else can make money, or you're having to shut your farm down so someone else can make money, and they're always pretending it's for the same reason that they're helping you in some sort of way, it gets on my bloody nerves.
01:01:25.000Excuse me, that's how we should, yeah, we should get them up as well.
01:01:28.000Windrush, they were the other people that were protesting that day.
01:01:31.000And a geezer from there, I think he was called Ash, really, he's the one that explained to me.
01:01:34.000He started saying that what it is, is that it would cost this much money to repair the pipes correctly, this is what should be done, it's owned by all these foreign interests.
01:01:42.000I was going, does it sound like it should be re-nationalised?
01:01:44.000He goes, well you can't say re-nationalised in Hindley because it sounds like too much of a socialist thing.
01:01:48.000Although, didn't you say that Joe Biden's even talking about socialism now?
01:02:01.000No one wants the state to be so powerful that your individual liberty is impeded.
01:02:04.000But we do need to explore genuine alternatives to this kind of late capitalist corporatist model where the media lie to you, where big pharma profit from you, where big energy lies to you and robs you and the state don't do anything about it.
01:03:37.000Because I know a lot of you like Ron DeSantis because I think a lot of you like what he did to Disney.
01:03:41.000I think some of you agree with him saying that teaching practices in Florida need to be controlled.
01:03:47.000I know there's some things I agree with on the pandemic.
01:03:49.000I believe that people should be allowed to believe what they want to believe and be who they want to be and the government shouldn't be telling you what to do and that big corporations shouldn't be marauding all over our lives.
01:03:58.000So let's have a look at this and see what you think of it.
01:07:17.000It's gonna take a whole extra day, and I'm gonna have to mess with my accepted conditions of what a calendar is, but it's gonna be worth it when I get DeSantis.
01:07:44.000God said, I need somebody who will take the arrows, stand firm in the wake of unrelenting attacks, look a mother in the eyes and tell her that her child will be in school.
01:07:58.000Your child will be... That's less intensity, I think, because that's where they sort of should be.
01:08:02.000I know it's probably a reference to something that went on... The pandemic, although I think he did keep kids out of schools during the pandemic.
01:08:10.000I think that's one of the things that is levelled at him.
01:08:12.000Is it, at the end of this we'll say, I'm Rhonda Santis and I approve this message?
01:08:15.000Because, like, honestly, no matter what my agenda, if someone showed me, like, this video and it was about me, I'd go... It's too much.
01:08:25.000Can you, like, I can't take, I can't claim that God was so directly involved in me looking a mum in the eyes and saying, I will keep that score.
01:08:48.000I'm going to pretend not to approve it, but then I will post it.
01:08:50.000It'll be up and down all of our platforms.
01:08:54.000On the ninth day, after he'd done quite a lot of work on Ron DeSantis, God created Russell Brand, with some bits he didn't need for Ron DeSantis.
01:09:02.000Actually, he's a British guy, so he had unusual sort of teeth and face.
01:09:06.000He's a bit narcissistic, but he was trying his best.
01:09:09.000God's really done... He's tried... Look, he put a lot of effort into Ron DeSantis.
01:09:14.000Here's that Russell on the ninth day, no extra cost.
01:09:16.000We're gonna put him in with... If you get Ron DeSantis, Russell's coming for free.
01:09:20.000He looked people in the eye, and actually too much in the eye.
01:09:23.000It's pretty intense, his stare in the eye.
01:09:26.000I actually, as God, made a mistake with the eye contact thing.
01:09:30.000I should have given him a squint or an eye patch or something.
01:09:33.000Or, I don't know, some way of not looking in people's eyes quite so much.
01:09:48.000I know it's also a reference to the pandemic and stuff, but it's curious in retrospect to politicise that as something that God would have to invest someone with.
01:09:59.000And then, put your shoes on one at a time, sit with your back straight, order a Slurpee, look off into the distance, question what it's all about.
01:11:09.000Actually, the stuff I did on the ninth day, it initially looked like a mistake, but compared to some of this laughing, sighing, monomaniacal mood swing shit that Ron's doing, let's give Russell another chance.
01:11:21.000She wants to spend her life doing what Dad does.
01:11:30.000Touch you on the hand, go to the hospital.
01:11:33.000I mean, look, I'm not anti-Ron DeSantis, by the way, and for all we know, he didn't have anything to do with the construction of that, but I feel like he maybe signed it off.
01:11:41.000Yeah, I think it's from his campaign team.
01:11:43.000Right, campaign team sat Ron down and went, look, we've made this, Ron, and Ron didn't go, stop!
01:13:18.000Which is between Sunday and Monday, a new day that was created just for me.
01:13:22.000So that's Ron DeSantis right there, a man who's happy signing that off.
01:13:27.000I'm not anti-Ron DeSantis, I'm not like Trump calling him Ron DeSanctimonious, although after that it does seem like a nickname that might stick.
01:13:35.000Well, it's been a fantastic show with a lot of ups and downs, hasn't it?
01:13:39.000Join us tomorrow when we're going to have more fantastic content for you, wrapping up a wonderful week of incredible guests and extraordinary events.
01:13:47.000I think mostly what we learned is whether it's at a global level or a local level or an individual level, awakening is required if we're ever going to subvert these systems that appear to dominate us.