Russell Brand is back with a brand new episode of Stay Free with Russell Brand! This week, he's joined by Glenn Greenwald, Tucker Carlson, and Jeffrey Sachs to discuss the CIA's campaign to smear journalists as "anti-Russia" and "pro-Kremlin". Plus, a story about a man who thinks his dog farted so bad that he should get a cup of coffee made out of his pubic hairs. And, of course, there's a whole lot more. Stay Free With Russell Brand is on all of your favourite social medias, if you search for Stay Free, you'll find us. If you're not already a member of the Awakened Wonder Community, you can become a member for just $1.00 a month, and get access to all of the awesome stuff you ve been asking for. We're beyond CNN and beyond Fox News, we're beyond the 24-7 news cycle. We re beyond the news, we re beyond 24/7. This is how the world works, and this is how it should work. Join us if you can, and if you don't like it, join us! We're doing our best to do our very best to make the world a better place, and we're doing the very best we can to make it so you can be the best version of yourself, too. Stay free with us, everyone! - stay free, and stay woke! xoxo, Rachael . . . This episode is sponsored by Pfizer. In this video, you re going to see the future, you're going to be a better version of the future you're gonna see the world. - in this video you re gonna see it! - you re not going to want to be there! . - and you can do what you ve got to do the best you ve ever seen on the future by watching the future in this episode, so you don t have to be in the past, and you re getting a chance to see it in the next episode, right here? - it s gonna be the future of what it s going to do it, and it s not just like that, right there, right in the future. , right here, in this vlogs and here, right now, in the real world, and here s a video that s not gonna be it, you ll get it.
00:03:09.000We've got a lot of fantastic news for you today.
00:03:12.000We're talking about, of course, have you seen this yet?
00:03:14.000Have 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 are agitators on behalf of pro-Putin forces, when actually what I'm doing is advocating for peace.
00:04:17.000About 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.
00:05:07.000That this is the community that's the answer to what you've been looking for, that vast void within you now, that pain you're suffering from, that pain they want you to suffer from.
00:06:49.000But 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.
00:07:00.000All that coming up in a fantastic show.
00:07:03.000As 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.
00:07:15.000Okay, let's look at Mark Zuckerberg's sex chin.
00:09:01.000Like, 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.
00:09:19.000When it comes to Lee Fang's fantastic reporting on the CIA creating assets, which we'll be covering later.
00:09:24.000And I think it's actually a bit rude to say, I'd zuck him off, just on the basis of a pun.
00:09:35.000user gonna tell my kids this was jack harlow edit another oh come and zucker this berg chimed in what's going on the third person however mark's sudden glow banalization and is the banalization that means you know make everything dumb and desacralization that's the removal of the holy To make all things profane.
00:10:18.000We've got some fantastic reporting coming up later this week on 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.
00:10:34.000But let's see have a look at this banalization and objectification of Zucca burger
00:10:56.000Well, let me tell you this about META.
00:10:58.000They depoliticise their content so that people don't see political content, which is actually a political act, i.e.
00:11:02.000they 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 in arm, you have to do all this stuff.
00:14:28.000As SL Gribb says, hit the like button, leave comments, whatever platform you're watching it on.
00:14:33.000And 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.
00:14:43.000That can't stream in Brazil because they're turning it into a great nation of censorship.
00:14:47.000Beautiful country, beautiful country, but there's censure in it.
00:14:50.000It'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!
00:15:27.000This 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.
00:15:36.000They 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, a low-status music industry worker, a little boy with three toes and, instead of hands, hooks.
00:17:32.000If 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?
00:17:37.000The 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?
00:17:48.000You use campaign funds to hush money Stormzy Daniels into silence?
00:17:56.000Let me tell you what real corruption looks like.
00:17:59.000A lobbying industry that allows migrant labour to capsize the ability of Americans to demand proper wages.
00:18:10.000What real corruption looks like is a 95 billion dollar bill being passed to perpetuate wars on free fronts, essentially acknowledging That it is World War 3 that we're embarking on.
00:18:21.000Do you know what real crime looks like?
00:18:23.000A Pfizer bill being passed that allows unprecedented spying on the American population.
00:18:30.000This is the corruption that we oppose.
00:20:50.000And 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!
00:21:00.000Motherfuckers, let's have a look at our partners.
00:21:03.000We can't continue to bring you this awakening and hopefully enjoyable content without the support of our partners.
00:21:09.000That's why I've got to ask you, and I'm glad to ask you, are you struggling with back taxes or unfiled returns?
00:21:15.000The IRS is escalating collections adding... Get this!
00:21:19.00020,000 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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00:21:59.000Importantly, they are licensed to help you with all state tax issues, regardless of where you live in the United States.
00:22:35.000Well, 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.
00:22:48.000Not that I'm suggesting that actually happens, right kids?
00:22:51.000One of the things we have to address is the fact that perpetuating war seems to be of a supreme benefit for someone.
00:23:12.000And therefore, if there's anything we can do to save just one life of one elderly person, we must do it.
00:23:18.000And therefore, we've all got to be locked in our homes, and we've all got to take this medicine.
00:23:23.000Now, as an inadvertent side effect of that, I'm not talking about VARs or yellow card side effects now.
00:23:30.000An 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.
00:24:07.000We know that the business of the establishment is war and business is booming.
00:24:12.000The house has passed a 95 billion dollar foreign war aid bill.
00:24:18.000They have packed together a number of extremely complex issues.
00:24:23.000It 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.
00:25:21.000Well, 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.
00:25:32.000Remember, the deep state are spending money Condemning and smearing dissenting voices, ensuring that they're regarded as pro-Putin instead of anti-war.
00:25:44.000Why is the TikTok ban bill tagged onto this $95 billion aid bill?
00:25:54.000Let's have a look at this extraordinary story and how it's evolving with some fantastic analysis here.
00:26:03.000The resulting legislation The resulting legislation will give congressional sanction to the Biden administration's policy of global war.
00:26:12.000The 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.
00:26:25.000The US ruling elite views its conflict with Russia and China as interconnected At Russia, Iran and China is interconnected theatres in the same struggle.
00:26:38.000The initial stages of a third world war.
00:26:40.000American imperialism, the strongest military power but a declining economic power, is engaged in a last ditch effort to maintain its global hegemony against any possible challenge.
00:26:52.000Wow, this bill itself could be seen as tacit acknowledgement that we are on the precipice of a world war.
00:27:02.000What other connection is there between these three regionally disparate disputes?
00:27:09.000Well, 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, whilst acknowledging that as an economic power the United States is in decline, but as a military power they are still supreme.
00:27:36.000And 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.
00:27:58.000Stepped 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.
00:28:15.000War against Russia, Iran and China Means a war against the American working class.
00:28:21.000That's a complex and interesting idea, but the economic implications of this escalating conflict will likely weigh heavy on particular sections of American society.
00:28:31.000And you will not be divided by religion or culture or skin tone.
00:28:35.000You will be divided by your economic class.
00:28:38.000This is once again a crisis For ordinary people, but an opportunity for the most powerful forces in the world, comparable to the pandemic, where for them it's an opportunity, comparable to the 2008 crash, for them it's an opportunity, for you it's foreclosure, comparable
00:28:59.000For 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.
00:29:25.000The House passage of the war bill brought together the two capitalist parties, uniting them in support of an unlikely hero, House Speaker Mike Johnson.
00:29:34.000This unity has been actualised on the central priority of the US financial aristocracy, global war.
00:29:53.000We simply have to support our allies in the Middle East.
00:29:56.000We can't allow China to get away with this!
00:29:59.000Now we begin to understand what this is really about.
00:30:02.000The 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.
00:30:18.000House Democrats waved miniature Ukrainian flags as the roll call vote on the final passage of the funding of the Ukraine bill was carried out.
00:30:26.000When it was completed, they began chants of, Ukraine!
00:30:30.000And had to be admonished from the chair to quiet down.
00:30:33.000The 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.
00:31:36.000But that's an extraordinary fact, isn't it?
00:31:39.000Particularly 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.
00:31:51.000Let's have a look at that moment of the members of your Congress, whose wages you pay, Chant, clap like braying fools and animals at the expenditure of your money on foreign soil.
00:32:05.000They are shipping your tax dollars straight out of America.
00:32:09.000Meanwhile, the border to the South remains unregulated, perhaps because cheap migrant labour further destabilises the domestic population.
00:32:20.000It's win-win for them and it's lose-lose for everybody else.
00:32:56.000Tens of thousands of troops in the Middle East right now.
00:32:59.000And yet more military personnel being committed to various aspects of the Ukraine-Russia conflict and we'll be covering that later in the week.
00:33:09.000Saturday's votes demonstrated the most important reality about contemporary American politics.
00:33:13.000There is no lesser evil in the 2024 electoral contest.
00:33:18.000The 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.
00:33:26.000But 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.
00:33:34.000The Democrats and Republicans agree on far more than they disagree.
00:33:38.000They agree on war, on austerity, on bailouts for the rich, and as Chomsky said, Where both parties agree you have no choice at all.
00:33:47.000Now I know a lot of you will be concerned about the apparent Ireland visit, so you can comb that out for yourselves.
00:33:56.000The American working class must come forward to oppose the war on policies of the twin capitalist parties which threaten humanity with nuclear annihilation.
00:34:04.000That Would surely seem to be the most important subject now.
00:34:11.000The potential for those braying maniacs and lunatics for whom we pay,
00:34:16.000who are so happy to facilitate the expenditure of your labour, your work, your toil, your graft,
00:34:22.000your life into foreign wars, that are escalating catastrophe for all the world's people.
00:34:52.000That's pretty much what it said there.
00:34:54.000Now, former guest of the show, Ram Paul, had some interesting things to share.
00:35:00.000And indeed, I believe he is 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?
00:35:17.000You hear people talking in those rooms, in those halls, in 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.
00:35:38.000Oughtn'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?
00:35:45.000Or shouldn't you at least be allowed to vote for it?
00:35:49.000If 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?
00:36:03.000Luckily, occasionally, a voice comes to the forefront, like the voice of Rand Paul when it comes to the issue of Pfizer Section 702, who speaks clearly, compassionately, and eloquently on exactly the risks, and indeed, how the system works.
00:36:18.000Make it delaying this vote until it's too late to do anything but obey.
00:36:52.000We 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.
00:37:08.000They want to allow whatever goes, whatever happens, happens, and to hell with the American individual citizen and the Bill of Rights.
00:37:15.000I say, don't listen to the people who don't want amendments and don't want debate, and let's pass this amendment.
00:37:21.000On this vote, the yeas are 31, the nays are 61.
00:37:24.000Under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment, the amendment is not agreed to.
00:37:32.000These are the kind of truths that we need to discuss and that need to be conveyed because it is continually perpetuating.
00:37:44.000I 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.
00:37:55.000I mean, that I'm going to take personally.
00:37:57.000American taxpayers are funding not only this war, $95 billion more, also they're paying to smear opponents of these wars.
00:38:08.000So we ask, as you struggle to pay Fuel bills and escalating cost of living.
00:38:15.000Are you happy to fund Ukrainian censorship of pro-peace voices and to fund the smearing of anti-war voices like mine?
00:38:46.000You're charged separately for the whole thing.
00:38:50.000Deep state agencies have found a way to censor and shut down anti-war voices even in Ukraine.
00:38:57.000So 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?
00:39:12.000The deep state are Let's show you how this works.
00:39:15.000First of all, Max Blumenthal posted this tweet.
00:39:17.000as if there's a concerted effort to ensure that war is continually perpetuated and anyone
00:39:22.000opposing war is one way or another bought down, shut down and smeared.
00:39:27.000And thanks to some great journalism, we can see the paper trail right from your pocket
00:39:32.000and your hard work into silencing anti-war voices.
00:40:32.000Now the channel has 6.5 million subscribers is devoid of monetization.
00:40:37.000By the way, it became especially popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Brand began to spread conspiracy theories about the coronavirus.
00:40:46.000Conspiracy 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.
00:41:02.000There was a whole host of conspiracy theories that were peddled during that But let's focus now not on the corruption of the pharmaceutical industry.
00:41:09.000I feel that you've been convinced of that.
00:41:11.000Let's look at the military-industrial complex and how they work in conjunction with the deep state to take your tax dollars to shut down anti-war voices.
00:41:18.000This is by the excellent journalist Li Fang.
00:41:22.000Ukraine's American-backed fight against Russia is taking place not only in the blood-soaked trenches of the Donbass region, but also on what military planners call the Cognitive Battlefield, to win hearts and minds.
00:41:33.000I don't like the phrase Cognitive Battlefield.
00:41:35.000That means your consciousness is their territory.
00:41:37.000A 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.
00:41:54.000Economist 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.
00:42:07.000But the figures targeted by the Ukrainian watchdog groups are hardly Kremlin agents.
00:42:11.000They simply have forcefully criticized dominant narratives around the war.
00:42:15.000Saks 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.
00:42:24.000Last November, he gave a speech at the United Nations calling for a negotiated peace.
00:42:28.000Mearsheimer has written extensively on international relations and is a sceptic of NATO expansion.
00:42:33.000He predicted that Western efforts to militarise Ukraine would lead to a Russian invasion.
00:42:37.000Greenwald 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.
00:42:46.000What 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.
00:42:56.000There 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.
00:43:06.000So, legitimate journalists like Glenn Greenwald and academics like Mearsheimer and Sachs are being tarnished as pro-Putin.
00:43:14.000I've 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.
00:43:22.000There, in the case of Jeffrey Sachs, just an academic, who said, well, actually, Noel, the history of Ukraine's quite complicated.
00:43:27.000There 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.
00:43:38.000And 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 victimise Ukraine for no good reason.
00:43:49.000These are all very credible professionals who I strongly suspect don't have powerful pro-Putin or pro-Russian views, are simply interested in telling the truth.
00:43:59.000Note too that these agencies and their backers are centering voices on both the left and right.
00:44:03.000So if you're on either the left or right, remember those distinctions don't matter anymore and we have to recognize that peripheral anti-establishment voices have to unify, put aside their differences if we're ever going to address this increasingly centralized and authoritarian power.
00:44:19.000taxpayer 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.
00:44:31.000Some of this money has come from the $44.1 billion in civilian needs foreign aid committed to Ukraine.
00:44:38.000While 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 new 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.
00:44:58.000Unlike 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.
00:45:15.000The new voice of Ukraine syndicates with Yahoo News.
00:45:19.000Vox Ukraine is a fact-checking partner with Meta, which assists in removing content deemed Russian disinformation from Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
00:45:28.000Detector Media has similarly led a consortium of non-profit groups pressuring social media platforms to aggressively remove content critical of Ukraine.
00:45:38.000So, 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.
00:45:46.000Elsewhere, New Voices of Ukraine is being syndicated with Yahoo News, which is significant.
00:45:51.000Vox Ukraine is a fact-checking partner with Meta, and they assist in removing content deemed Russian disinformation.
00:45:58.000Now, of course, if you are Ukrainian and you're living in Ukraine, your opinion on Russia might be somewhat biased.
00:46:04.000We are the interests of these CIA carve-outs in promoting particular views and participating in the censorship, not only it seems, of Ukrainian voices and improving Ukrainian independent media and archaic Ukrainian laws, but shutting down dissent from within your country and from within my country.
00:46:20.000Don't we have the right to express anti-war, pro-peace and diplomacy views?
00:46:25.000Again, I can't speak for those other brilliant academics and professionals, but for myself, I'm not anti-Ukraine and pro-Russian.
00:46:31.000I'm pro not spending tax dollars in perpetuating unwinnable wars and am largely pro-peace and think that as a species we should have evolved beyond the point where we're teetering on the brink of a nuclear war because people won't sit down nicely and come to some mutually agreeable solution.
00:46:45.000Congress is now weighing a new supplemental funding measure with approximately 60 billion dollars earmarked for the war in Ukraine.
00:46:52.000A small portion of the emergency spending package is devoted to continued USAID programs in the country.
00:46:59.000Information control is a central dynamic playing out in the Ukraine-Russia war.
00:47:04.000media 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.
00:47:14.000But 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.
00:47:33.000I wouldn't imagine that things like this were happening, would you?
00:47:35.000That the CIA had carve-outs that were funding groups in Ukraine that were censoring American voices.
00:47:40.000It's quite convoluted for something that ultimately you're funding.
00:47:44.000There's an information war going on between Russia and Ukraine, and the United States is not a disinterested party.
00:47:49.000We're an active participant, said George Beebe, a director with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
00:47:55.000The 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.
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00:49:15.000American influence in Ukraine's media environment stretches back to the end of the Cold War, though it has intensified in recent years.
00:49:22.000Since the outbreak of the war, USAID support has extended to 175 national Ukrainian media entities.
00:49:29.000Over the last decade, efforts to crack down on speech have been increasingly justified as an effort to protect social media from disinformation.
00:49:36.000The US helped set up new think tanks and media watchdogs and brought over communications specialists to guide Ukraine's approach.
00:49:43.000Nina Jankovic, the polarizing official whom President Biden appointed to lead the Department
00:49:48.000of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board to police social media content, previously
00:49:53.000advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on its anti-disinformation work.
00:49:57.000It increasingly seems, doesn't it, that the categories of disinformation and misinformation
00:50:00.000were deliberately invented so that you could now have departments to tend to disinformation
00:50:05.000and misinformation, and so that there could be budgets for those departments, and so that
00:50:08.000those budgets could seek intermedia organizations that had a remit that includes censorship,
00:50:13.000shutting down dissent in voices, smearing opposing voices, and cleaning up social media
00:50:19.000It amounts to censorship and smearing, propaganda and control, but it's so bureaucratically
00:50:24.000entangled and framed in the language of, hey, we're here to help, in the same way as the
00:50:28.000war is supposed to be humanitarian rather than some sort of colonial or for-profit endeavor,
00:50:33.000The censorship project is always seen as somehow necessary to protect us and our apparent inability to determine good from bad unless someone pre-chews our information and parcels it up nicely for us, as is clearly happening here.
00:50:46.000When Nina Jankovic and that government disinformation board was set up, I feel like there was a lot of pushback.
00:50:51.000And a lot of people felt like, this isn't legit, this disinformation board.
00:50:54.000They set them up in our country as well, the BBC run them and there's all sorts of various attempts to pretend that there are groups that are there to protect us and ensure that we only get information that's good for us.
00:51:03.000I remember that many people thought, this is not legitimate, this is not reliable.
00:51:07.000It was a bit of a PR disaster and they had to change its name and repackage it and reposition it.
00:51:11.000Isn't it extraordinary to see Nina Jankovic literally outsourced to other nations to carry on the project as if it was a tremendous success?
00:51:18.000Can you get any closer to neo-colonialism and imperialism than that?
00:52:26.000Here, there's Nina Yankovich. Get that down your neck.
00:52:29.000However, disclosures indicate that the US government and its contractors tasked with
00:52:34.000reforming Ukraine's institutions have directly set the agenda for Ukrainian outlets.
00:52:38.000It's again, eerily similar to the rhetoric around the provision of weaponry or ongoing
00:52:43.000events in the Middle East. It's none of our business.
00:52:45.000Israel can just do, I don't know what they're doing. What happened exactly? And the same in
00:52:49.000Ukraine. We're not at war with Russia.
00:52:51.000Everything's sort of being done. They're just at a keyboard, just innocently.
00:52:55.000Oh, that explosion. Oh, it's a genocide over there. Here, you might want to say this about
00:52:59.000Glenn Greenwald. It's none of their business.
00:53:03.000It's really odd and opaque and mysterious and frightening.
00:53:06.000Immediately 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.
00:53:22.000I wonder what kind of covert public relations campaigns.
00:53:25.000The 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.
00:53:35.000Last 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.
00:53:50.000The 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.
00:54:09.000Because I get a bit closer to me when I see terms like emotive and inflammatory language.
00:54:14.000But what we'll tell you is that I'm not trying to fit within existing Kremlin narratives because I don't actually know what existing Kremlin narratives are.
00:54:21.000Although I'll take a wild guess that they prefer that Russia's agenda were pursued globally and in regional conflicts.
00:54:26.000But that sometimes converges with my general belief that we should be pursuing peace and not funding unwinnable wars that I don't know if that's part of the Kremlin's deal or not.
00:56:30.000That's the category of misinformation.
00:56:32.000Also, 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.
00:57:07.000Following 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.
00:57:25.000Wait a minute, this is actually an abstract concept.
00:57:28.000Sir, you just spread ennui and disappointment.
00:57:31.000A journalist writing a critique on US involvement in a foreign war has had his name sent to the FBI.
00:57:37.000Doesn't that concern you a little bit if you consider America's history and involvement in foreign wars like, I don't know, Vietnam, Iraq and all foreign wars ever except perhaps the ones against actual Nazis?
00:57:48.000You would have questions, wouldn't you?
00:57:50.000That shouldn't be, sir, someone somewhere has got an opinion on American involvement in foreign war.
00:58:24.000You could buy yourself some candy bars.
00:58:26.000But when a journalist writing about American involvement in foreign wars is flagged and his details are sent to the FBI, that is not freedom.
00:58:37.000That's how you move towards dictatorship.
00:58:39.000What'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 it's happening.
00:59:02.000You might, if you googled Aramai, what will come up is conspiracy theorist or nut job or grey zone.
00:59:07.000But this is what's being created here.
00:59:09.000What 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.
00:59:24.000Do you think for a minute that a CIA carve-out is like doing some philanthropic work with... Do you know what worries me?
00:59:42.000Suddenly it gives you a different context for what happens to a figure like Alex Jones who's controversial and rhetorically quite evangelical.
00:59:50.000Oh well it's Alex Jones, he's crazy, he said all those crazy things about Sandy Hook, he should be annihilated.
00:59:54.000Well now we know the CIA were involved in that and were guiding that.
00:59:58.000Does the bureau practice entrapment a lot?
01:00:40.000So, obviously, things like the Alex Jones takedown, or maybe Joe Rogan ivermectin CNN, or maybe old Russ, these things are like sort of vivid, glaring, colourful entertainment style characters that are a bit crazy.
01:00:52.000And then it's like credible journalists, academics, and you start thinking, well, what's the common thread here then?
01:00:57.000Is it that these are sort of dangerous figures that are a risk to their audience?
01:01:01.000Or is it that there's just some information that you are not allowed?
01:02:16.000The organisation supported by the US government have also sought to silence critics inside Ukraine.
01:02:21.000Before 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.
01:02:32.000Oh wow, so maybe those ties were not legitimate either.
01:02:35.000In May 2022, the Zelensky government widely expanded his efforts to outlaw the political opposition.
01:02:41.000Zelensky moved to ban 11 political parties over alleged ties to Russia.
01:02:45.000So ties to Russia is like a sort of weapon.
01:02:58.000I 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.
01:03:06.000Later that summer, other bills to crack down on media rights that had failed to pass in the past over civil liberty concerns were brought back into consideration.
01:03:13.000Among them, on media law's most contentious provisions, is the power granting a council controlled by Zelensky and his allies to ban media outlets without a court order.
01:03:22.000Now 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 and during times of war censorship I suppose and centralized control is common and perhaps it could be argued under some circumstances necessary but If you remember, what we read and receive everywhere is that we are supporting this war.
01:04:04.000Free speech is a principle for a reason.
01:04:06.000And 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.
01:04:18.000Ukraine's National Union of Journalists described the bill as the biggest threat to free speech in independent Ukraine's history.
01:04:53.000Many journalists voluntarily paused critical reporting of the Ukrainian government to focus on coverage of the Russian invasion.
01:04:59.000Now, over two years into the conflict, reporters are facing new difficulties in reporting on routine issues.
01:05:04.000Journalists taking a critical look at the government are facing intimidation and threats.
01:05:07.000Expressing 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.
01:05:14.000And 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 among other journalists imprisoned in foreign lands for writing the truth about the wars and conflicts they're reporting on.
01:05:31.000So 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.
01:05:46.000It'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 is normalized.
01:05:53.000The 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.
01:06:03.000Academics, journalists, prize-winning journalists, online YouTubers, all shut down for the same reason.
01:06:09.000Not because what they're saying is untrue, but because what they're saying runs counter to the intentions of the powerful.
01:06:15.000So next time you see someone smeared, attacked, shut down, you have a series of questions in front of you to ask.
01:06:20.000What is the reason this person or this information is being cancelled, destroyed, or eliminated?
01:06:25.000Is 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?
01:06:41.000Why don't you let me know what you think in the comments and chat.
01:06:43.000Click 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.
01:06:51.000More important than that, if you can, stay free.