In this episode of Stay Free With Russell Brand, Russell talks about the CIA's campaign to smear journalists as "pro-Kremlin" and "anti-American" and why it's time to unify against the establishment media's anti-American bias. Stay Free with Russell Brand is a new podcast hosted by comedian and writer Russell Brand that takes you on a journey of self-discovery and self-improvement through stories, ideas, and experiences that have helped awaken you to the truth about who you are, what you need to do, and what you can do about it. Join us on our new community, The Awakened Wonderers, where you'll learn more about what it means to be woke, and how to live a life that's free from censorship, lies, propaganda, and fake news. You'll learn how to become a member of the community and join the movement to find the truth you ve always wanted to know about, but just weren't sure where to look for it. You'll get access to all the resources you need, and a whole lot more than just the news you ve ever wanted. We're giving you access to everything you've ever wanted, including access to the information you've been asking for, and the tools you've always needed, so that you can be your best self-deliberately prepared for and ready to make the most of your day-to-day life. . You're not just one thing, you can have it all, and more than you ever have before you know it, and you're ready for it! you'll get it all it's all here, you just have to be there, right here, right now, you're in the waiting for it wherever you're at home, you decide to be free, and it's ready, it's just waiting for you, you'll have it, you have the chance to be and you'll be there right now. Thanks for listening to stay free with us, stay free, free stay free! , stay free, stay to join us, and let us know what you're up to learn about it, right? we'll give you a chance to join in on the ride, and we'll let you know that you're not alone, and that it's not too late to join the ride with us or you can join us in the ride.
00:00:00.000Hello you Awakening Wonders there on Spotify, Apple, Stink Whistle, Gurgle Dot, or wherever you download your podcasts these days to remain at least peripherally connected to some tendril of truth in a bewildering miasma of lies and propaganda.
00:00:28.000We decipher the latest news stories, we break down current topics that the mainstream media should be covering, and if they aren't, Then we critique why they're not and what they are covering.
00:01:34.000We've got a lot of fantastic news for you today.
00:01:36.000We're talking about, of course, have you seen this yet?
00:01:39.000Have you seen that there are companies funded by the CIA setting up media organisations to accuse people of being pro-Putin agitators, when all we're doing, and I say we, because I'm one of them, along with Glenn Greenwald, Tucker Carlson, Mir Shaimar, our man Jeffrey Sachs, remember that guy who went, That time, saying that we're agitators on behalf of pro-Putin forces, when actually what I'm doing is advocating for peace.
00:02:22.000Mike Johnson just sold us out for billions.
00:02:24.000Yep, that's the 95 billion dollar bill that's just passed.
00:02:28.000You better believe we'll be covering that later, but will we be able to cover that on YouTube?
00:02:34.000Will we be able to cover that on a platform that functions as one of the pillars of the establishment?
00:02:40.000How do you feel about a political class that in the last couple of days has passed the Pfizer bill, meaning Your government has got more surveillance powers, greater abilities to spy on you and us because it's the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act or whatever the hell it's called.
00:05:13.000But we've got, as I say, the main stories we're covering is the Pfizer bill, the $95 billion that's been passed, and the Trump event outside the courtroom.
00:05:24.000All that coming up in a fantastic show, as well as some fantastic reporting where we reveal how the CIA have been funding even Ukrainian media to shut down dissenting voices like mine, Glenn Greenwald, Tucker, all of that stuff.
00:05:40.000Okay, let's look at Mark Zuckerberg's sex chin.
00:05:47.000Let's have a look at a video with the odd objective... People online have literally been thirsting over a news... I was actually in charge of queuing that up and I still put it on over my own voice.
00:07:25.000Like, I'm a comedian, I've been in a lot of trouble over the years for a variety of things, many of which are actual total constructions and media confections and psy-ops from a globalist corporate state that can't stand dissent, and we've got plain evidence for that.
00:07:43.000When it comes to Lee Fang's fantastic reporting on the CIA creating assets, which we'll be covering later.
00:07:49.000And I think it's actually a bit rude to say, I'd zuck him off, just on the basis of a pun.
00:08:08.000However, Mark's sudden glow... ...banalization, and it's the banalization, that means, you know, make everything dumb, and desacralization, that's the removal of the holy.
00:08:42.000We've got some fantastic reporting coming up later this week of how big food companies and fast food outlets are lobbying your government to ensure that migrant workers can prevent ordinary Americans demanding a decent wage for their labour.
00:08:59.000Let's have a look at this banalisation and objectification of Zuckerberg.
00:09:05.000The original video can be found on Mark's Instagram page, because I'm participating in it.
00:09:19.000Well, let me tell you this about Meta.
00:09:22.000They depoliticise their content so that people don't see political content, which is actually a political act, i.e.
00:09:27.000they switch to switch on Instagram, didn't they, saying, if you want to see political content, which means content by our reckoning that's potentially dissenting and adversarial to the agenda of the globalist state of which we are plainly an arm, you have to do all this stuff.
00:12:52.000As SL Gribb says, hit the like button, leave comments, whatever platform you're watching it on.
00:12:57.000And after the first 15 minutes, which is coming up pretty soon, if you're watching us on YouTube, you have to click the link in the description and join us in that sweet stream of freedom that we call Lady Rumble.
00:13:07.000That can't stream in Brazil because they're turning it into a Great nation of censorship.
00:13:12.000Beautiful country, beautiful country, but there's censure in it.
00:13:14.000It's already out of France because France wanted to ban Russia Today in case you saw a bit of Russia Today and went, oh my god, I love Russia now!
00:13:52.000This morning, seven men and five women have been sworn in to claim their place in American history as jurors in the first criminal trial of a former president.
00:14:00.000They include an investment banker who follows Trump on social media, a speech therapist who said she does not agree with a lot of his politics, A judge with a grudge and a little bit of fudge.
00:15:56.000If you're in this jury, Paul, why don't you just say that you don't care about Trump and then get yourself on that jury?
00:16:02.000The truth is, is that the trials, the very fact that the trial is happening is an indication of the degree of partisanship, because it can't really be legitimately and actually about what You use campaign funds to hush money Stormzy Daniels into silence?
00:16:21.000Let me tell you what real corruption looks like.
00:16:24.000A lobbying industry that allows migrant labour to capture Rapsize the ability of Americans to demand proper wages.
00:16:34.000What real corruption looks like is a $95 billion bill being passed to perpetuate wars on free fronts, essentially acknowledging that it is World War III that we're embarking on.
00:16:46.000Do you know what real crime looks like?
00:16:48.000A Pfizer bill being passed that allows unprecedented spying on the American population.
00:16:54.000This is the corruption that we oppose.
00:19:14.000And that's why I'm pleased to announce that our partners, the Tax Network, will help you pay the minimum amount of tax to those corrupt, I'm going to say it, motherfuckers.
00:19:27.000We can't continue to bring you this awakening and hopefully enjoyable content without the support of our partners.
00:19:34.000That's why I've got to ask you, and I'm glad to ask you, are you struggling with back taxes or unfiled returns?
00:19:40.000The IRS is escalating collections, adding, get this, 20,000 new agents and sending over 5 million collection letters to kick off 2024 to spend on things that you probably don't agree with, like wars and measures and a total lack of infrastructure.
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00:20:23.000Importantly, they are licensed to help you with all state tax issues, regardless of where you live in the United States.
00:21:00.000Well, that's the world where we can pay the minimum amount of taxes to these corrupt lunatics that accept donations, that receive lobbying dollars, that invest in stocks and shares of companies that appear to benefit from insider trading.
00:21:12.000Not that I'm suggesting that actually happens, right kids?
00:21:16.000One of the things we have to address is the fact that perpetuating war seems to be of a supreme benefit for someone.
00:21:37.000And therefore, if there's anything we can do to save just one life of one elderly person, we must do it.
00:21:43.000And therefore, we've all got to be locked in our homes and we've all got to take this medicine.
00:21:47.000Now, as an inadvertent side effect of that, I'm not talking about VARs or yellow card side effects now.
00:21:54.000An inadvertent side effect is some of the most powerful interests in the world are going to get wealthier and it's going to get a hell of a lot easier to regulate and control the population.
00:22:30.000So, we know that the business of the establishment is war and business is booming.
00:22:37.000The House has passed a $95 billion foreign war aid bill.
00:22:43.000They have packed together a number of extremely complex issues.
00:22:48.000It doesn't make sense to me, not a bit of sense, that escalate intentions In China, or certainly between the US and China, the escalating conflicts of the Middle East and the Ukraine-Russia conflict can all be effortlessly bundled together.
00:23:39.000What? You just added TikTok to that? Yeah, we've added TikTok. What? What's that got
00:23:45.000Well, I'll tell you what it's got to do with it, is that TikTok is a site that is difficult to regulate for the authorities of the war establishment, the pro-war machine.
00:23:57.000Remember, the deep state are spending money Condemning and smearing dissenting voices, ensuring that they're regarded as pro-Putin instead of anti-war.
00:24:08.000Why is the TikTok bill, the TikTok ban bill, tagged onto this $95 billion aid bill?
00:24:19.000Let's have a look at this extraordinary story and how it's evolving with some fantastic analysis here.
00:24:28.000The resulting legislation The resulting legislation will give congressional sanction to the Biden administration's policy of global war.
00:24:37.000The very fact that it will combine into a single whole the US interventions in three widely separated regions, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and the Far East, gives expression to a fundamental change in world politics.
00:24:50.000The US ruling elite views its conflict with Russia and China as interconnected Wow!
00:24:57.000at Russia, Iran and China is interconnected theatres in the same struggle, the initial
00:25:03.000stages of a third world war. American imperialism, the strongest military power but a declining
00:25:09.000economic power, is engaged in a last ditch effort to maintain its global hegemony against
00:25:14.000any possible challenge. Wow, this bill itself could be seen as tacit acknowledgement that
00:25:23.000we are on the precipice of a world war. What other connection is there between these three
00:25:34.000Well, you could argue that the military-industrial complex benefits from all free disputes, whether it's by continuing to arm certain nations involved in wars, or whether it's escalating tensions in other regions, but perhaps the mentality behind it is one of global war in While acknowledging that as an economic power, the United States is in decline, but as a military power, they are still supreme.
00:26:01.000And as the anti-TikTok bill indicates, by preparing to shut down an app used by 170 million people, in many cases to obtain information censored by the American corporate media, imperialist war is incompatible with democracy and freedom at home.
00:26:22.000Stepped-up domestic repression is a necessity for the ruling elite, both to silence outright political opposition and to impose on working people the enormous sacrifices, both economically and ultimately in human lives, that such a war will entail.
00:26:39.000War against Russia, Iran and China means a war against the American working class.
00:26:45.000That's a complex and interesting idea, but the economic implications of this escalating conflict will likely weigh heavy on particular sections of American society.
00:26:55.000And you will not be divided by religion or culture or skin tone.
00:27:00.000You will be divided by your economic class.
00:27:02.000This is once again a crisis For ordinary people.
00:27:07.000But an opportunity for the most powerful forces in the world, comparable to the pandemic.
00:27:20.000Comparable to the 2001 terrorist attacks.
00:27:24.000For you, it means that bills were created then that are still being passed, facilitating surveillance, an unnecessary war in the Middle East, causing millions of death, and birthing new terror Not only into that region, but making it a domestic possibility in your homeland, in our homeland and across the world, creating yet more fear, yet more tension, yet more dread, yet more opportunity for the powerful.
00:27:50.000The House passage of the War Bill brought together the two capitalist parties, uniting them in support of an unlikely hero, House Speaker Mike Johnson.
00:27:58.000This unity is being actualised on the central priority of the US financial aristocracy, global war.
00:28:18.000We simply have to support our allies in the Middle East.
00:28:20.000We can't allow China to get away with this.
00:28:24.000Now we begin to understand what this is really about.
00:28:27.000The perpetuation of continued control, the subjugation of foreign powers, but significantly, the necessary defeat into constant supine states, the inhabitants of the United States, the American people.
00:28:43.000House Democrats waved miniature Ukrainian flags as the roll call vote on the final passage of the funding of the Ukraine bill was carried out.
00:28:50.000When it was completed, they began chants of, Ukraine!
00:28:54.000And had to be admonished from the chair to quiet down.
00:28:57.000The supposedly left Democrats, such as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of the Democrat Socialists of America, DSA, and members of the squad, joined in in celebration of the Ukraine war.
00:30:00.000But that's an extraordinary fact, isn't it?
00:30:03.000Particularly if you tally it, as we have of course done, with unusual wells reporting on how many members of Congress will directly and personally, financially benefit from this war.
00:31:20.000Tens of thousands of troops in the Middle East right now.
00:31:24.000And yet more military personnel being committed to various aspects of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and we'll be covering that later in the week.
00:31:33.000Saturday's votes demonstrate the most important reality about contemporary American politics.
00:31:37.000There is no lesser evil in the 2024 electoral contest.
00:31:42.000The lesser evil argument pretends to acknowledge the vast discontent with the Biden administration among millions of workers and youth while declaring that Trump would be still worse.
00:31:51.000But the House actions over the weekend showed one party, not two, or rather two parties united for war, not only against Russia, but throughout the world.
00:31:58.000The Democrats and Republicans agree on far more than they disagree.
00:32:03.000They agree on war, on austerity, on bailouts for the rich, and as Chomsky said, Where both parties agree you have no choice at all.
00:32:11.000Now I know a lot of you will be concerned about the apparent Ireland visit, so you can comb that out for yourselves.
00:32:20.000The American working class must come forward to oppose the war on policies of the twin capitalist parties which threaten humanity with nuclear annihilation.
00:32:30.000That would surely seem to be the most important subject now, the potential for those braying maniacs and lunatics
00:32:39.000for whom we pay, who are so happy to facilitate the expenditure of your labor, your work,
00:32:45.000your toil, your graft, your life into foreign wars that are escalating catastrophe for all the world's people.
00:33:17.000That's pretty much what it said there.
00:33:19.000Now, former guest of the show, Rand Paul, had some interesting things to share.
00:33:24.000And indeed, I believe he's one of the few people, actually, I would not be so reductive as to say All people in Congress, all people in the Senate, all members of Parliament, all politicians everywhere, corrupt, get rid of them because there are occasionally voices that resonate with you, aren't there?
00:33:42.000You hear people talking in those rooms, in those halls and those chambers of corruption that make you think, yeah, they for a minute stopped chanting and praying for an unwinnable war that could be solved diplomatically so less Ukrainian people would die, so less Ukrainian cities would be destroyed, so less Israeli lives would be Be lost.
00:34:03.000Oughtn't the power of the United States of America, particularly as it's powered by your lifeblood and your life's work, be advocating for peace?
00:34:10.000Or shouldn't you at least be allowed to vote for it?
00:34:14.000If you had a vote, a nationwide referenda, hey guys, we're just about to pass a 95 billion dollar bill, it's your country, it's your money, what do you want?
00:35:16.000We should pass the good amendments today, send them to the House tomorrow, This is an argument that has been forced upon us by the supporters of FISA, who want no debate, and they want no restrictions, they want no warrants, and they want nothing to protect the Americans.
00:35:32.000They want to allow whatever goes, whatever happens, happens, and to hell with the American individual citizen and the Bill of Rights.
00:35:40.000I say, don't listen to the people who don't want amendments and don't want debate, and let's pass this amendment.
00:35:45.000On this vote, the yeas are 31, the nays are 61.
00:35:49.000Under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment, the amendment is not agreed to.
00:35:56.000These are the kind of truths that we need to discuss and that need to be conveyed because it is continually perpetuating.
00:36:08.000I am against the fact that your deep state are funding Smear campaigns in Ukraine attacking voices like, well, Meir Scheimer, Glenn Greenwald, and of course me.
00:36:20.000I mean, that I'm going to take personally.
00:36:22.000American taxpayers are funding not only this war, $95 billion more, Also, they're paying to smear opponents of these wars.
00:36:32.000So we ask, as you struggle to pay fuel bills and escalating costs of living, are you happy to fund Ukrainian censorship of pro-peace voices and to fund the smearing of anti-war voices like mine?
00:37:00.000Your tax dollars are not only funding a variety of global wars, they're also funding the censorship and smearing of anti-war voices and it's all included in one package.
00:37:10.000Actually it isn't, you're charged separately for the whole thing!
00:37:15.000Deep state agencies have found a way to censor and shut down anti-war voices even in Ukraine.
00:37:22.000So there are Ukrainian media outlets making content to smear anti-war voices like this one, this voice now that's talking right now, this voice, my voice, as well as Max Blumenthal and Jimmy Dore and a variety of other people that are saying should we have a diplomatic peaceful solution?
00:37:37.000The deep state are funding the smearing of those voices, almost as if there's
00:37:42.000a concerted effort to ensure that war is continually perpetuated and anyone opposing war is one way
00:37:48.000or another bought down, shut down and smeared and thanks to some great journalism we can see the
00:37:54.000paper trail right from your pocket and your hard work into silencing anti-war voices.
00:38:01.000First of all, Max Blumenthal posted this tweet.
00:38:04.000The State and National Endowment for Democracy, a CIA cutout, are funding shady NGOs in Kiev to smear American critics of the disastrous Ukraine proxy war.
00:38:56.000Now the channel has 6.5 million subscribers is devoid of monetization.
00:39:01.000By the way, it became especially popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Brandt began to spread conspiracy theories about the coronavirus.
00:39:11.000Conspiracy theories like maybe lockdowns haven't been correctly researched, maybe the vaccines don't stop transmission, maybe Pfizer and Moderna take too much money, maybe there's a revolving door between Big Pharma and the regulatory bodies that are meant to prevent them from exploiting the population.
00:39:27.000There was a whole host of conspiracy theories that were peddled during that period.
00:39:31.000But let's focus now not on the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry.
00:39:34.000I feel that you've been convinced of that.
00:39:35.000Let's look at the military industrial complex and how they work in conjunction with the deep state
00:39:39.000to take your tax dollars to shut down anti-war voices.
00:39:42.000This is by the excellent journalist Li Fang.
00:39:57.000I don't like the phrase Cognitive Battlefield.
00:39:59.000That means your consciousness is their territory.
00:40:02.000A sprawling constellation of media outlets, organised with substantial funding and direction from the US government, has not just sought to counter Russian propaganda, but has supported strong censorship laws and shutdowns of dissident outlets, disseminated disinformation of its own, and sought to silence critics of the war, including many American citizens.
00:40:19.000Economist Jeffrey Sachs, commentator Tucker Carlson, journalist Glenn Greenwald, and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer are among the critics of both the left and the right who have been cast as part of a network of Russian propaganda.
00:40:32.000But the figures targeted by the Ukrainian watchdog groups are hardly Kremlin agents.
00:40:36.000They simply have forcefully criticized dominant narratives around the war.
00:40:39.000Saks is a highly respected international development expert who has angered Ukrainian officials over his repeated calls for a diplomatic solution to the current military conflict.
00:40:48.000Last November, he gave a speech to the United Nations calling for a negotiated peace.
00:40:52.000Mirshaima has written extensively on international relations and is a skeptic of NATO expansion.
00:40:57.000He predicted that Western efforts to militarise Ukraine would lead to a Russian invasion.
00:41:01.000Greenwald is a Pulitzer Prize winning independent journalist who has criticised not just war coverage but media dynamics that suppress voices that run counter to US narratives.
00:41:10.000What they mean when they demand censorship of pro-Russian propaganda is anything that questions the US-EU role in the Ukraine war or who dissents from their narratives, Greenwald has observed.
00:41:20.000There is no evidence of Kremlin influence over their viewpoints, but their comments alone are enough for a network of US-backed Ukrainian media groups to tarnish these experts as Russian propagandists.
00:41:31.000So, legitimate journalists like Glenn Greenwald and academics like Mearsheimer and Sachs are being tarnished as pro-Putin.
00:41:38.000I met that Jeffrey Sachs, I know Glenn Greenwald pretty well, and they're not people that particularly, it seems to me, to have much skin in the game when it comes to geopolitical conflicts.
00:41:46.000They're, in the case of Jeffrey Sachs, just an academic who's, well actually no, the history of Ukraine's quite complicated.
00:41:52.000There was a coup in 2014, and like Mearsheimer, I don't know him, but I like his content and his academic work, and he seems to be simply trying to relay facts in a rather dispassionate manner.
00:42:02.000And Glenn Greenwald is a brilliant journalist who I care about as a human being, but Also, I don't imagine he's someone who would just, like, for a laugh, take a bunch of money from Putin or victimize Ukraine for no good reason.
00:42:13.000These are all very credible professionals who I strongly suspect don't have powerful pro-Putin or pro-Russian views.
00:42:22.000I'm simply interested in telling the truth.
00:42:23.000Note too that these agencies and their backers are centring voices on both the left and right.
00:42:28.000So if you're on either the left or right, remember those distinctions don't matter anymore and we have to recognise that peripheral anti-establishment voices have to unify, put aside their differences if we're ever going to address this increasingly centralised and authoritarian power.
00:42:44.000taxpayer dollars are flowing to outlets such as the New Voice of Ukraine, Vox Ukraine, Detector Media, the Institute of Mass Information, the Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine, and many others.
00:42:56.000Some of this money has come from the $44.1 billion in civilian needs foreign aid committed to Ukraine.
00:43:02.000While the funding is officially billed as an ambitious program to develop high-quality independent news programs, counter malign Russian influence, and modernize Ukraine's archaic media laws, the news sites, in many cases, have promoted aggressive messages that stray from traditional journalistic practices to promote the Ukrainian government's official positions and delegitimize its critics.
00:43:23.000Unlike similar media development programs that the International Agency for International Development, USAID, had led throughout the Middle East, Ukrainian outlets tend to produce a great deal of English content that trickles back into the domestic American audience and explicitly targets American foreign policy discourse.
00:43:40.000The new voice of Ukraine syndicates with Yahoo News.
00:43:43.000Vox Ukraine is a fact-checking partner with Meta, which assists in removing content deemed Russian disinformation from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
00:43:52.000Detector Media has similarly led a consortium of non-profit groups pressuring social media platforms to aggressively remove content critical of Ukraine.
00:44:02.000So, it's not just happening in Ukraine, although that video that we showed you a moment ago is in Ukrainian and therefore presumably for a Ukrainian audience.
00:44:11.000Elsewhere, New Voices of Ukraine is being syndicated with Yahoo News, which is significant.
00:44:16.000Vox Ukraine is a fact-checking partner with Meta, and they assist in removing content deemed Russian disinformation.
00:44:23.000Now, of course, if you are Ukrainian and you're living in Ukraine, your opinion on Russia might be somewhat biased.
00:44:28.000But what are the interests of these CIA carve-outs in promoting particular views and participating in the
00:44:34.000censorship not only it seems of Ukrainian voices and improving Ukrainian independent media and archaic
00:44:40.000Ukrainian laws but shutting down dissent from within your country and from within my
00:44:44.000country. Don't we have the right to express anti-war pro-peace and diplomacy views? Again I can't
00:44:49.000speak for those other brilliant academics and professionals but for myself I'm not anti-Ukraine
00:44:54.000and pro-Russian. I'm pro not spending tax dollars in perpetuating unwinnable wars and am
00:45:00.000largely pro-peace and think that as a species we should have evolved beyond the point where we're
00:45:04.000teetering on the brink of a nuclear war because people won't sit down nicely and come to some
00:45:28.000media have provided wide coverage of President Vladimir Putin's efforts to clamp down on critical news outlets, enacting new criminal penalties for those publishing false information about the conflict.
00:45:39.000But far less attention has been paid to the Ukraine government's crackdown on independent and opposition media, a push aided by the U.S.-backed network of anti-disinformation groups, Even as Washington's efforts to censor information at home is drawing greater scrutiny, its support of Ukraine's efforts reflects the increasingly global reach of the American government's propaganda arms.
00:45:58.000I wouldn't imagine that things like this were happening, would you?
00:46:00.000That the CIA had carve-outs that were funding groups in Ukraine that were censoring American voices.
00:46:05.000It's quite convoluted for something that ultimately you're funding.
00:46:08.000There's an information war going on between Russia and Ukraine, and the United States is not a disinterested party.
00:46:14.000We're an active participant, said George Beebe, a director with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
00:46:20.000The US government has been trying to shape perceptions, and it's very difficult to separate what's intended for foreign audiences from what seeps into the Anglosphere media, if you want to call it that, including here in the United States.
00:46:31.000We can't bring you this earth-shattering, paradigm-changing content without the support of our partners and without clear heads.
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00:47:39.000American influence in Ukraine's media environment stretches back to the end of the Cold War, though it has intensified in recent years.
00:47:46.000Since the outbreak of the war, USAID support has extended to 175 national Ukrainian media entities.
00:47:54.000Over the last decade, efforts to crack down on speech have been increasingly justified
00:47:58.000as an effort to protect social media from disinformation.
00:48:01.000The US helped set up new think tanks and media watchdogs and brought over communications
00:48:05.000specialists to guide Ukraine's approach.
00:48:07.000Nina Jankovic, the polarizing official whom President Biden appointed to lead the Department
00:48:12.000of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board to police social media content, previously
00:48:17.000advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on its anti-disinformation work.
00:48:21.000It increasingly seems, doesn't it, that the categories of disinformation and misinformation were deliberately invented so that you could now have departments to tend to disinformation and misinformation and so that there could be budgets for those departments and so that those budgets could seep into media organizations that had a remit that includes censorship, Shutting down dissenting voices, smearing opposing voices, and cleaning up social media platforms.
00:48:43.000It amounts to censorship and smearing, propaganda and control, but it's so bureaucratically entangled and framed in the language of, hey we're here to help, in the same way as the war is supposed to be humanitarian rather than some sort of colonial or for-profit endeavor, the censorship project is always seen as somehow necessary to protect us and our apparent inability to determine good from bad unless
00:49:06.000someone pre-choose our information and parcels it up nicely for us as is clearly happening
00:50:19.000In response to questions about the US-backed anti-disinformation groups in Ukraine targeting Americans, the US State Department provided a statement saying it defines disinformation as false or misleading information that is deliberately created or spread with the intent to deceive or mislead, while noting that the US provides funding to credible Independent media organizations to strengthen democracies in the countries we work in around the world.
00:50:43.000The statement declared, we do not control the editorial content of these organizations.
00:50:48.000We're just kind of helping these guys, giving them a little leg up.
00:50:54.000However, Disclosures indicate that the US government and its contractors tasked with reforming Ukraine's institutions have directly set the agenda for Ukrainian outlets.
00:51:03.000It's, again, eerily similar to the rhetoric around the provision of weaponry or ongoing events in the Middle East.
00:51:28.000It's really odd and opaque and mysterious and frightening.
00:51:31.000Immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, the USAID dispensed emergency grants to its media partners, partly through Zink Network, a contractor based in London that's been accused of setting up covert public relations campaigns on behalf of the British government.
00:51:46.000I wonder what Kind of covert public relations campaigns.
00:51:50.000The grant description notes that money went to the Zinc Network and Detector Media to assist the Ukrainian government with strategic communications and to undermine Kremlin information operations.
00:52:00.000Last September, journalist Jack Poulsen reported on a leaked report from the Zinc Network's Open Information Partnership, which helps coordinate the activities of several anti-Russian disinformation non-profits around Europe backed by NATO members, including Detector Media.
00:52:14.000The lengthy report defines disinformation as not only false or misleading content, but also verifiable information which is unbalanced or skewed, amplifies or exaggerates certain elements for effect, or uses emotive or inflammatory language to achieve effects which fit within existing Kremlin narratives, aims or activities.
00:52:33.000I sense they're getting a bit closer to me when I see terms like emotive and inflammatory language, but what we'll tell you is I'm not trying to fit within existing Kremlin narratives because I don't actually actually know what existing Kremlin narratives are,
00:52:45.000although I'll take a wild guess that they prefer that Russia's agenda were pursued
00:52:49.000globally and in regional conflicts, but that sometimes converges with my general
00:52:53.000belief that we should be pursuing peace and not funding unwinnable wars that
00:52:56.000could lead to nuclear Armageddon. I don't know if that's part of the Kremlin's deal or not.
00:53:00.000In other words, factual information with emotional language that simply overlaps with anything remotely connected to Russian viewpoints is considered disinformation according to this US-backed consulting firm helping to guide the efforts of Ukrainian think tanks and media.
00:53:14.000I think that's all quite telling actually.
00:53:15.000It's like they want to keep us in a sort of a flat, bureaucratic, anodyne environment.
00:53:19.000Because think how that could be applied to a variety of subjects if this was allowed to continue.
00:53:23.000You know, some of these organisations, like Logically AI, are working in your country in the lead up to the presidential election.
00:53:29.000So if you've like got strong feelings and you use emotive language online on social media sites, that's disinformation.
00:54:08.000Many of the broad narratives the report identified as Russian disinformation follow this vague rubric.
00:54:13.000These include allegations that NATO is using Ukraine as a pawn in a proxy war against Russia and concerns that Ukrainian politicians are corrupt.
00:54:21.000Allegations that NATO is using Ukraine as a pawn in a proxy war?
00:54:24.000Do you not think that's like a possibility?
00:54:26.000It's not something that you would consider when they're involved in the 2014 coup, when there are CIA bases all over Ukraine, and that Russia is a long-standing enemy in a war for global supremacy.
00:54:55.000That's the category of misinformation.
00:54:56.000Also, though, if you say stuff that's true, but it doesn't work for Pfizer, or Raytheon, or Lockheed Martin, or the CIA, that's also misinformation.
00:55:31.000Following the Russian invasion, Twitter, under its old ownership, flagged Mate to be censored after the Security Service of Ukraine, SBU, and the Ukrainian Intelligence Agency included him on a list of accounts sent to the FBI that were suspected by the SBU in spreading fear and disinformation.
00:56:49.000You could buy yourself some candy bars.
00:56:51.000But when a journalist writing about American involvement in foreign wars is flagged and his details are sent to the FBI, that is not freedom.
00:57:02.000That's how you move towards dictatorship.
00:57:04.000What's happening, it seems to me, is that we are increasingly moving in the direction of centralised power and being told that to question that process is in itself hysterical, hyperbolic, conspiratorial, but it's evident.
00:57:27.000You might, if you googled Aramai, what will come up is conspiracy theorist or nut job or grey zone.
00:57:31.000But this is what's being created here.
00:57:33.000What we're seeing is the machinery that discredits dissent and legitimizes, and more than legitimizes, normalizes almost invisibly the shutting down of dissent and the crushing of critics through supporting independent media.
00:57:49.000Do you think for a minute That a CIA carve-out is, like, doing some philanthropic work with... Do you know what worries me?
00:58:07.000Suddenly it gives you a different context for what happens to a figure like Alex Jones who's controversial and rhetorically quite evangelical.
00:58:15.000Oh well it's Alex Jones, he's crazy, he said all those crazy things about Sandy Hook, he should be annihilated.
00:58:19.000Well now we know the CIA were involved in that and were guiding that.
00:58:22.000Does the bureau practice entrapment a lot?
00:59:04.000So, obviously, things like the Alex Jones takedown, or maybe Joe Rogan either met him in CNN, or maybe old Russ, these things are like sort of vivid, glaring, colourful, entertainment style characters that are a bit crazy.
00:59:16.000And then it's like credible journalists, academics, and you start thinking, well, what's the common thread here then?
00:59:22.000Is it that these are sort of dangerous figures that are a risk to their audience?
00:59:26.000Or is it that there's just some information that you are not allowed?
00:59:48.000And increasingly, that's what you're getting.
00:59:49.000You're people that You'll get in a situation where people serving in the American military are not pro-foreign wars.
00:59:55.000I mean, once you get to that point, it's actually quite tentative.
00:59:58.000So, this has to become increasingly insidious and immersive to prevent its own demise.
01:00:03.000Just months after the social media request, Ross Burley, a former Zink Network and Open Information Partnership official now with the Center for Information Resilience, spoke openly about his desire to censor critics of the war, including Matteo.
01:00:15.000Burley argued that social media platforms needed more responsibility.
01:00:19.000Regarding what types of content to allow, even I saw Russell Brand, who has a huge following on YouTube, was interviewing a journalist called Aaron Mattei on his channel, said Burleigh, who added that he is incredibly irresponsible for YouTube and other social media companies to continue to host these people.
01:00:33.000Well, by some eerie coincidence, YouTube, as you saw in that Ukrainian video, don't know who funds that, demonetized me quite recently.
01:00:40.000The organisation supported by the US government have also sought to silence critics inside Ukraine.
01:00:45.000Before the war, in one of President Zelensky's first controversial acts to stifle political opposition, he moved in February 2021 to close multiple television channels over allegations of Kremlin ties.
01:00:56.000Oh wow, so maybe those ties were not legitimate either.
01:01:00.000In May 2022, the Zelensky government widely expanded its efforts to outlaw the political opposition.
01:01:05.000Zelensky moved to ban 11 political parties over alleged ties to Russia.
01:01:09.000So ties to Russia is like a sort of weapon.
01:01:23.000I just think that probably the Ukrainian government and the Russian government and the American government and the British government are all corrupt and we'd be better off without them.
01:01:30.000Later that summer, other bills to crack down on media rights that failed to pass in the past over civil liberty concerns were brought back into consideration.
01:01:38.000Among the on media laws most contentious provisions is the power granting a council control by Zelensky and his allies to ban media outlets without a court order.
01:01:47.000Now they are a nation at war and again I would suggest you have a look at what Jeffrey Sachs says about how that war began and how they found themselves in that position and why there wasn't a peace treaty signed when one was available.
01:01:59.000And during times of war censorship I suppose and centralized control is common and perhaps it could be argued under some circumstances necessary.
01:02:05.000But If you remember, what we read and receive everywhere is that we are supporting this war.
01:02:29.000Free speech is a principle for a reason.
01:02:31.000And you can see now that the creation of the category of misinformation and the normalization of censorship is part of a play to generate further power and tools to control the potential opposition to that power.
01:02:42.000Ukraine's National Union of Journalists described the bill as the biggest threat to free speech in independent Ukraine's history.
01:02:54.000The Ukraine that believes in free speech?
01:02:56.000Or the Ukraine that In the midst of the first months of the Russian invasion, many in Ukraine readily accepted the need for emergency government influence.
01:03:06.000The Ukrainian government condensed the major television channels into a single United News national broadcast that continues today.
01:03:18.000Many journalists voluntarily paused critical reporting of the Ukrainian government to focus on coverage of the Russian invasion.
01:03:24.000Now over two years into the conflict, reporters are facing new difficulties in reporting on routine issues.
01:03:28.000Journalists taking a critical look at the government are facing intimidation and threats.
01:03:32.000Expressing viewpoints that run counter to Ukraine and NATO policies with respect to the war is enough to make an individual an enemy of the state.
01:03:39.000And of course you'll be aware and perhaps in your mind repeating the name of Gonzalo Lira, the American journalist who died in Ukraine after saying he probably would die in Ukraine, whose name is seldom mentioned.
01:03:50.000Among other journalists imprisoned in foreign lands for writing the truth about the wars and conflicts they're reporting on.
01:03:56.000So it seems to me that what we have here, thanks to Lee Fang's reporting, is another piece in the puzzle that demonstrates how media, the deep state and powerful corporations work together to create an environment in which only their ideas are allowed to be communicated.
01:04:10.000It's only because it's so brazen when it's pieced together that you begin to feel irked and outraged by it because generally this This is normalised.
01:04:17.000The category of misinformation and disinformation and malinformation that you've heard here described as people speaking emotionally and passionately, telling the truth, is now a problem worthy of censorship.
01:04:28.000Academics, journalists, prize-winning journalists, online YouTubers, all shut down for the same reason.
01:04:34.000Not because what they're saying is untrue, but because what they're saying runs counter to the intentions of the powerful.
01:04:39.000So next time you see someone smeared, attacked, shut down, you have a series of questions in front of you to ask.
01:04:45.000What is the reason this person or this information is being cancelled, destroyed, or eliminated?
01:04:50.000Is it in order to protect me, or is it because they are a part in a chain, however small or insignificant, that could lead to dissent, objection, resistance, revolution, and therefore prevent what seems increasingly like a global scheme for total control from reaching its terrifying climax?
01:05:06.000Why don't you let me know what you think in the comments and chat.
01:05:08.000Click the link in the description, join our movement, get additional content, and help us to oppose this incredible madness that's fully immersive it seems at this point.