In this episode of Stay Free With Russell Brand, Russell and his guest, environmental lawyer Paul Pousland, discuss why we're closer to war than ever before, and why we should be worried about it. They also talk about how to deal with the growing threat of nuclear war, and what it means to be a peace-loving pacifist in the 21st century. Stay Free with Russell Brand is on all of the social medias, if you search for it, you'll find us. This episode is sponsored by VaynerSpeakers. If you like what you hear here, please consider becoming a patron patron of the show. To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/support-remembrance and use the promo code: STAYFREE at checkout to receive 10% off your first purchase when you buy your first pack of Strive Plus. To support the show, please visit stayfreewithrussella.co/support and make sure to leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. You can also become a patron by texting STriveplus at +1(at)podtr.ee/striveplus and we'll send you 5 stars and a free product review. Thank you! We'll be looking out for your comments and reviews on the next episode. Stay Free! with your favourite podcaster and podcaster, in the coming weeks, we'll be listening to your comments, reviews, questions and thoughts on the show and your thoughts on what you're listening to this week's episode. Stay free! xoxo, and all of your comments! Love ya! - Yours Truly, Russell Brand. - xx - P.B. - Pravda, - Jack, Jack, P. B. Brand - Emily, Jake, Amy, . - EJ, Sarah, Matt, Rachel, & P. M., - Ayn Rand - Tom, ? - Ben, , Ben, R. , P. J., & Jack, B. , . . Thanks for listening to stay free? - B. ( ) - S. B, S. & B. B? , B. & J. (A. (?)
00:02:05.000In this video, you're going to see the future.
00:02:15.000Hello, thanks for joining me on Stay Free with Russell Brand, where we talk about the news and you and global politics and spirituality and the complexity of the world that we're living in right now and try to make, as we go along, assessments that might lead to a meaningfully different life for you.
00:02:44.000We're talking today about Biden's biggest broken promise.
00:02:47.000What is Biden's biggest broken promise?
00:02:50.000There's like loads of broken promises but perhaps the biggest broken promise of Biden has got to be that he said he would de-escalate nuclear tensions.
00:02:58.000And even though now there are murmurs of potential peace, it seems like in some ways we're closer to war than ever before. We're going to be talking about that on
00:03:07.000the show. We're also going to be talking to Paul Pousland about, he's a lawyer for the
00:03:13.000environment, but a lawyer more broadly, he's going to help us to understand the changes
00:03:18.000that are being made to protest laws all around the world right now. And I'm going to be
00:03:24.000talking about a piece of community activism that's really important to me that relates to sort
00:03:29.000of a scale of corruption that you'll find difficult to believe, unless you've been
00:03:33.000following world events and looking out of your window and you'll realize that wherever possible is
00:03:37.000the function of government, no matter how large or small, to extract finances and money
00:03:41.000from ordinary people and put it into the hands of private interests.
00:03:47.000First, at least as far as I could understand it, pointed out by Julian Assange in relation to the Afghanistan war.
00:03:52.000Once you understand that the function of government is to take money from public hands and place it into private hands, everything becomes simpler.
00:03:58.000Once you understand that the Afghanistan war was not meant to, not fought to be won, but fought to be prolonged, things get a lot simpler.
00:04:03.000Of course, it's Remembrance Day in our country, the UK, where we remember those that sacrificed their lives in previous military conflicts.
00:04:10.000People that gave their lives for something they believe in.
00:04:13.000And you might be like a pacifist who It's against war, but I suppose you still have to acknowledge that an incredible sacrifice was made by people fighting for something that they believe in.
00:04:24.000It's one of the opportunities, I suppose, to look at ways that we can form new alliances in the complexity of supporting people.
00:04:30.000Can you support the troops while still being a kind of a peace-loving person?
00:04:36.000I mean, ultimately, I guess it's a marker, as you say, it's a marker of respect for those soldiers, those people that lost their lives and continue to do so, you know, in ways that seem a lot more complex now.
00:04:48.000I mean, they were probably more complex back then even, but certainly a lot more complex now.
00:04:52.000And I guess maybe it even makes us ask the questions more about what people are told when they're, you know, led to believe what they're fighting for is the just cause.
00:05:02.000Yeah, we always believe that wars are being justly fought.
00:05:06.000Look at the current conflict which is always rendered as Putin is an evil imperialist expansionist force and we have to protect the people of Ukraine.
00:05:19.000Both of those things might be true, but is there some complexity being extracted from that conversation?
00:05:25.000And when you see the giddy spectacle of Sean Penn, who, in my own respect, is sort of an actor and a person who cares about the world, giving his Oscar to Zelensky, do you start to think that you're living in some kind of curious spectacle?
00:05:37.000How can it be true That this is like a potential nuclear conflict where an Oscar-winning actor is giving Zelensky his Oscar saying, bring it back to Malibu when you've won the war.
00:05:49.000When Ukraine are fighting against a country with a nuclear capacity.
00:05:54.000Now, Tulsi Gabbard, who came on our show as a guest, left the Democratic Party on account, in her words, of them being little more than warmongers.
00:06:05.000And when we're looking at something like the midterms, we always feel like, oh no, we have to have this deep, granular, academic understanding of American politics to commentate on this stuff.
00:06:15.000But increasingly, I feel like it's more like theatre, that it's more like a distraction.
00:06:21.000And I don't know how you can think anything other than that, if you look at sort of recent history and the ability of subsequent administrations To pursue an agenda that seems common to both of them, in spite of the rhetoric that leads up to elections.
00:06:35.000And also, when you look at the figures that are in positions of power, how can their power be real?
00:06:43.000Is this Biden saying what's going to change now post the midterms?
00:06:49.000Let's have a look at what's going to change.
00:06:51.000You mentioned that Americans are frustrated.
00:06:53.000In fact, 75% of voters say the country is heading in the wrong direction despite the results of last night.
00:06:59.000What in the next two years do you intend to do differently to Change people's opinion of the direction of the country, particularly as you contemplate a run for president in 2024.
00:07:12.00075% of people are unhappy with the way things are going and they're not going to do anything.
00:07:18.000That doesn't seem like the right approach.
00:07:21.000Doesn't seem like the right approach, does it, when obviously, you know, it's strange coming off the back of, I mean, obviously the midterms was not the red wave that was predicted.
00:07:29.000And a lot of people are saying that kind of Biden got away with one, but to kind of say
00:07:57.000Unless you've inspired so much confidence in people with your record, with pledges that have been made, promises that have been kept and continually reliable and understandable announcements.
00:10:00.000Do you think it's just a way of gaining more news, kind of the banality of news, that it becomes not about what's actually real and what's happening and what they're really doing, it's just teasing people as to whether they're going to run or not?
00:10:12.000I do a bit, because this is why I think it.
00:10:14.000Because now we're starting to hear murmurs of a potential peace deal.
00:10:19.000We started to hear murmurs of a potential peace deal after these things had happened.
00:10:25.000the Democrats had the advantage of going into the midterms in a state of war, which does peculiar things to people's ability to think rationally.
00:10:32.000I think when there's the sense of war and fear That people tend to be, I don't know, more conservative.
00:10:38.000And in this sense, conservatism means staying with what you've got rather than risking change.
00:10:43.000I also think it's interesting that the UK and US have just done a deal for gas, where previously those kind of economic relationships were held between the United Kingdom and Russia.
00:10:54.000So you could say, to a degree, some of the American agenda in that war may have been met.
00:10:58.000Although I know that wars are more complex than that.
00:11:00.000And also, in the words of the great clans of Game of Thrones, winter is a-coming.
00:11:09.000So, the narrative around war, the necessity for war, and the obligation to create peace, appears to be altering in accordance with a tune that ain't immediately evident.
00:11:20.000So, the reason I mention this now is, when people are talking about, will I run, won't I run, shouldn't the business of government be entirely pragmatic?
00:11:30.000This is what you elected us for, so this is what we're going to do.
00:11:33.000It should be about mandates and pledges and promises, not bizarre titillation and sort of odd flirting.
00:11:40.000No, especially when it comes to peace.
00:11:42.000I mean, if they're saying we want peace now versus peace a couple of weeks ago wasn't a good idea, Why are we going to be, is anyone going to talk to us about why peace now can be facilitated but it couldn't do before?
00:12:04.000No, here's the effing news, which we'll be doing in a moment.
00:12:06.000We're talking about of all the pledges that Biden made and broke, perhaps the most significant one was his promise to de-escalate global tensions.
00:12:15.000And perhaps we are on the brink of a potential nuclear Armageddon.
00:12:21.000And even if War is blessedly averted between Russia and Ukraine, or whatever proxy interests are at play via NATO and all sorts of military aid.
00:12:30.000There's a curious story that the US had to deploy nuclear-capable B-52s to Australia, provoking China.
00:12:46.000A dangerous escalation, the United States reportedly preparing to deploy up to six nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to northern Australia, whether they would be close enough to strike China.
00:12:56.000It apparently sends a strong message to adversaries about our ability to project lethal air power, the US Air Force said.
00:13:05.000Becca Wasser, a senior fellow at the Center for New American Security, told ABC that having bombers that could range and potentially attack mainland China could be very important in sending a signal to China that any of its actions over Taiwan could also expand further.
00:13:21.000Let's put that map up that you've just put up, young Putin.
00:13:27.000Now, already, this language, sending China a signal that any of its actions over Taiwan... I mean, if you change China for Russia and Taiwan to Ukraine, it's sort of almost the exact same storyline.
00:13:42.000They're just reboots of stories we've seen before, less good.
00:13:47.000And it seems, though, that There is more jeopardy.
00:13:50.000Like, every time that America enhances or retreads this kind of, oh, there's a baddie over here that we have to step in and intervene with, which did it, I don't know, like, I know a lot of you guys are American.
00:14:01.000Is that the role you want your country to have in the world?
00:14:03.000Do you want, let me know in the comments, let me know in the chat, do you want America to sort of get involved, like, right, don't worry, we're coming in, we're stepping in, is that what you want?
00:14:11.000Or do you want a sort of a more, I don't know, nationally confined attitude to power and also do you think
00:14:18.000it's for you like Like are we all of a sudden got some bad shits going on in
00:14:23.000Taiwan We can have to step in but then would you rather just deal
00:14:26.000with stuff that's going on in America like or do you feel like like in a minute?
00:14:31.000Are we gonna see stuff on the news going look it's our obligation the Chinese fucking with people in Taiwan. It's
00:15:01.000And if we could be confident in the idea that the US isn't just doing this for, or is just doing this for heroic reasons, then maybe we'd let them get on with it.
00:15:09.000But I think we'd know that that's not the case.
00:15:12.000Do you think that these various American proxy wars are for the benefit of humankind, for the benefit of ordinary Americans, and are they genuinely humanitarian projects?
00:15:23.000Or could there be some other motivation to do with, I don't know, the profits of the military-industrial complex, a sort of an attempt to create a unipolar world where there is no threat from China or Russia?
00:15:34.000You know when people say, oh, in Russia you wouldn't even be allowed to be on Rumble.
00:15:39.000Well, actually quite a lot of things aren't allowed to be on Rumble in France or England.
00:15:43.000Like in Russia, you won't be allowed to have a show like this.
00:15:45.000And I sort of think, yeah, that's fair enough.
00:15:46.000But that doesn't mean I'm not in Russia.
00:16:31.000Well, we're talking to Paul Pousland about protest laws in particular.
00:16:35.000Paul Pousland is a barrister who represents environmental causes and we're going to be talking increasingly about new ways that we can address those ideas because sometimes we get a little confused about environmentalism and environmental protest.
00:16:51.000Sometimes it's a bit annoying, isn't it, when they block roads and stuff like that?
00:16:54.000You're annoyed by them sometimes, aren't you?
00:17:06.000What I'm detecting, just by looking around, is that ordinary, let's call it for the sake of simplicity, working people Thanks for blocking them, 25!
00:17:18.000Those are the people that you really want on side.
00:17:20.000If you can find a way of getting them on side, I think that would be super cool.
00:17:23.000I'm not saying I've got a solution to it, or that I'm criticising their agenda.
00:17:27.000Well, these people won't be able to do that soon anyway.
00:17:58.000A hell of a lot of their money from oil.
00:18:00.000I guess the line of thinking there is, if they're funding protests like this, that eventually lead to new protest laws, shutting down protests, then these things, although a temporary blip, will be kind of annihilated from any future potential.
00:18:17.000So that the idea of protest through these kind of things occurring, the idea of protest in this country will then be wiped out altogether.
00:18:23.000I guess that's the conspiracy at the heart of that, right?
00:20:50.000I say lube that up and whip it off lively I mean even the fingernails put them back up on there even the fingernails are under threat I'd say I think it's only a matter of time before this sweltering blubber consumes the nails themselves yeah it looks like one of them there isn't a nail but maybe that's that's just that's just that's one's heading into what's he got there he's got himself a little keyring he's clinging on to that for dear life this is why he's Right, so we feel sorry for him.
00:26:01.000I guess what you're doing, you're choosing to commemorate the memory of those soldiers with that poppy.
00:26:09.000To honour the people, the men and women that gave their lives in the world wars, particularly that one against Hitler, I'm having some cheesy chicken.
00:26:24.000Now like it's even worse when it's something I think that's more drilled down into Kristallnacht which is I suppose it's weird isn't it because it's more bespoke because it was a sort of a sort of a racist attack on the Jewish people of It's a memorial day for Kristallnacht.
00:26:38.000thing I don't think like I'd like to say does anyone speak German it says
00:26:42.000Guten Tag and die Reichsgrummnacht. It's Memorial Day for Kristallnacht.
00:26:48.000Treat yourself with more tender cheese on your crispy chicken now at KFC
00:29:20.000Even if you can't respect Kristallnacht as an occasion that was in a sense the ignition of a disgusting slur on humankind.
00:29:28.000Least respect, don't put cheese on every single bloody thing you see in this world.
00:29:33.000Not everything can be solved by cheese.
00:29:35.000Now listen, we began this show talking about World War 3 and how possibly to avert it through creating conditions of solidarity and love between all the people of the world and being willing to get past some of our prejudices and zany old crazy ideas about judgment of one another.
00:29:49.000So now we're doing uh it's time for us to do our item here's the news now here's the effing no here's the effing news in which we look at Biden's broken promises in particular his pledge not to exacerbate nuclear tensions with countries that can sort of respond I mean if you're going to bother so if you're going to threaten someone don't threaten someone with nuclear weapons keep watching let me know exactly what you think about this and let me know in the chat whether you think we've made the most relevant points here's the news no here's the effing news Here's the fucking news!
00:30:23.000While we're distracted by the midterms, could the biggest of Biden's broken pledges lead to global annihilation?
00:30:32.000While I enjoy a festival of democracy as much as the next man, things on the news, polls, speeches, all that stuff, I'm also a little bit interested in global annihilation and whether or not either party, whether they retain or gain control of the house, will lead us into nuclear Armageddon seems to me to be a priority worth discussing.
00:30:54.000You'll all recall that Joe Biden confidently claimed, We will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine.
00:31:00.000It's not that long ago that he said that, particularly not in the scope of Joe Biden's endless Benjamin Button, but in the proper direction, life.
00:31:08.000Direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War 3.
00:31:13.000Okay, direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War 3.
00:31:35.000He's always saying that he wants to be clear, and I want him to be clear, and he so seldom is.
00:31:40.000We'll defend every single inch of NATO territory.
00:31:43.000It's widely acknowledged that US and NATO officers are now fully involved in Ukraine's operational planning, aided by a broad range of US intelligence gathering and analysis to exploit Russia's military vulnerabilities, while Ukrainian forces are armed with US and NATO weapons and trained up to the standards of other NATO countries.
00:32:02.000Yeah, but other than training them up to our standards, helping them in the planning and arming them, we're completely neutral!
00:32:09.000Other than that... This is a sort of a war, isn't it, sir?
00:32:12.000On October 5th, Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russia's Security Council, recognized that Russia is now fighting NATO in Ukraine.
00:32:19.000Meanwhile, President Putin has reminded the world that Russia has nuclear weapons and is prepared to use them, when the very existence of the state is put under threat, as Russia's official nuclear weapons doctrine declared in June 2020.
00:32:31.000So Putin said that Russia will respond with nuclear capacity if the state is put under threat.
00:32:38.000And remember, in our interview with Jeffrey Sachs, he explained events all the way back really to sort of 2001, but with particular emphasis on events in 2009 and 2014, remember Obama's heckle, that have led us to this position.
00:32:52.000Almost like Putin was warning where this continued escalation might lead.
00:32:59.000Continuing NATO infringement or backing NATO militarily or exacerbating the situation would in effect be World War 3.
00:33:06.000It seems likely that under that doctrine, Russia's leaders would interpret losing a war to the United States and NATO on their own borders as meeting the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.
00:33:16.000Is it possible that something this obvious could be missed by the finest military minds in history?
00:33:23.000The greatest military machine the world has ever known?
00:33:26.000The richest military industrial complex that humankind ever dreamed of?
00:33:30.000Could they miss something as vital as an explicit warning that were they to use a land war that was non-nuclear to NATO that they would consider and in fact enact a nuclear war could they have missed what seems to me to be a more important detail than Ron DeSantis and Fetterman doing better than expected and it really not making that much difference certainly compared to nuclear annihilation.
00:34:09.000He doesn't seem to be a person who prioritises humour.
00:34:12.000Even when he's doing that sort of handshake that seems a bit stupid and funny, he seems like a person who's quite serious.
00:34:16.000Or when he's sort of glumly watching nuclear experiments being carried out, like missiles being launched.
00:34:22.000The same way that I might pretend to be interested in a school sports day and that it would be difficult for Russia to use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.
00:34:31.000Yeah, the tactic of a nuclear weapon does have a bit of a downside in that it destroys the thing we live on.
00:34:36.000Biden assessed the danger of full-scale nuclear war higher than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.
00:34:43.000Yet, despite voicing the possibility of an existential threat to our survival, Biden was not issuing a public warning to the American people and the world, nor announcing any change in US policy.
00:34:53.000Bizarrely, the president was instead discussing the prospect of nuclear war with his political party's financial backers during an election fundraiser at the home of media mogul James Murdoch, with surprised corporate media reporters listening in.
00:35:11.000In an NPR report about the danger of nuclear war over Ukraine, Matthew Bunn, a nuclear weapons expert at Harvard University, estimated the chance of Russia using a nuclear weapon at 10-20%.
00:35:23.000Now we've gone from ruling out direct US and NATO involvement in the war, to US involvement in all aspects of the war, except for the bleeding and dying, with an estimated 10-20% chance of nuclear war.
00:35:34.000Seems like we're exacerbating a potentially dangerous situation.
00:35:38.000Ban made that estimate shortly before the sabotage of the Kurd Strait bridge to Crimea.
00:35:43.000What odds will he project a few months from now if both sides keep matching each other's escalations with further escalation?
00:35:49.000Well, I'm not a betting man or a bookie, but I imagine that the odds are increasing, decreasing.
00:35:56.000The unsolvable dilemma facing Western leaders is that this is a no-win situation.
00:36:01.000How can they militarily defeat Russia when it possesses 6,000 nuclear warheads and its military doctrine explicitly states that it will use them before it will accept an existential military defeat?
00:36:11.000This is one of those times where perhaps the sort of naivety and innocence of the uninformed is somewhat useful.
00:36:18.000You could get distracted and sidetracked by all of the analysis of the midterms.
00:36:44.000And Biden, should he run in 20- Is it possible that Joe Biden thinks I'm going to just die at the same time as everybody now?
00:36:53.000When it looked like I was racing towards the grave, off stage, likely to be there before most of you, it seems there's going to be a dead tie.
00:37:00.000And yet that is what the intensifying Western role in Ukraine now explicitly aims to achieve.
00:37:04.000This leaves US and NATO policy, and thus our very existence, hanging by a thin thread.
00:37:09.000The hope that Putin is bluffing, despite explicit warnings that he is not.
00:37:14.000CIA Director William Burns, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, and the Director of the DIA, Defence Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Scott Beria, have all warned that we should not take this danger lightly.
00:37:27.000On May 23rd, the very day that Congress passed a $40 billion aid package for Ukraine, including $24 billion in new military spending, the contradictions and dangers of the new US-NATO war policy in Ukraine finally spurred a critical response from the New York Times editorial board.
00:37:42.000A Times editorial titled, the Ukraine war is getting complicated.
00:37:46.000It's not getting complicated, it's getting simple.
00:37:48.000If you carry on, you're going to destroy the planet.
00:37:51.000The Ukraine war is getting complicated and America is not ready, asking serious probing questions about the new US policy.
00:37:58.000Sometimes we are, in our ignorance, incapable of addressing the complexity of the new financial globalist agenda, the various subcommittees and sub-agendas, and how vague and misleading the bureaucratic language can be.
00:38:13.000But occasionally, obvious things start to emerge, like That is a global superpower with a nuclear capacity and for like half a century the Cold War was determined by our knowledge that they could destroy the planet and they could destroy the planet.
00:38:28.000So should we come to some sort of truce?
00:38:31.000As Jeffrey Sachs explained in our conversation, that truce has been broken again and again and again.
00:38:37.000Spoiler alert, which is a phrase that I don't like using.
00:38:40.000So something that could be portrayed as vague and complex, oh geopolitics, it's so complicated, so many interests, is actually quite simple.
00:38:48.000If you keep antagonizing Russia, even if it's through the humanitarian support of the Ukraine, which is obviously sort of necessary and you shouldn't abandon people, You ought consider, and weigh that up against, potential annihilation for everybody.
00:39:02.000A week later, Biden replied to the Times in an op-ed titled, What America Will and Will Not Do in Ukraine.
00:39:07.000Biden wrote, We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia.
00:39:10.000The United States will not try to bring about Putin's ouster in Moscow.
00:39:14.000But he went on to pledge virtually unlimited US support for Ukraine, and he did not answer the more difficult questions the Times asked about the US endgame in Ukraine.
00:39:21.000The limits to US involvement in the war or how much more devastation Ukraine could sustain.
00:39:26.000So again, we blindly and blithely fall into accepting rhetoric and spectacle instead of acknowledging that there is a clear problem emerging.
00:39:36.000We're avoiding that simply by pointing to the necessity to support in Ukraine and Putin is bad and the midterms weren't as red as they might have been.
00:39:48.000As the war escalates and the danger of nuclear war increases, these questions remain unanswered.
00:39:53.000Calls for a speedy end to the war echoed around the UN General Assembly in New York in September, where 66 countries representing most of the world's population urgently called on all sides to restart peace talks.
00:40:03.000Peace talks, which were apparently interrupted by Boris Johnson when he was on a sort of peace mission, peculiarly.
00:40:09.000The greatest danger we face is that their calls will be ignored and that the US military-industrial complex overpaid minions will keep finding ways to incrementally turn up the pressure on Russia, calling its bluff and ignoring its red lines, as they have since 1991, until they cross the most critical red line of all.
00:40:25.000And that's all of our lives, is that red line, in case you think politics is complicated.
00:40:30.000So, while there's no doubt a thrill to be sought and found in following the midterms, the surprises, the chills, the spills, ought we not also focus on creating global peace?
00:40:42.000At the time of COP 27, when we're talking about environmental disaster, climate change proven scientifically, the problems of COP 27 being sponsored by some of the world's biggest polluters, we could Consider also a more immediate and imminent threat.
00:40:57.000Escalating conflict between Ukraine and Russia, if it is, as many people now believe, essentially a proxy war between the US and Russia, in spite of Biden's pledges, could mean the end of the world for all of us.
00:41:11.000And I think that's a little bit more important than which colour those houses are.
00:41:47.000We want to draw your attention to this news story as we introduce our guest.
00:41:51.000Biden under pressure to address Egyptian rights abuses at COP27.
00:41:56.000Human rights activists say that Egypt's government is using COP27 climate summit to launder its human rights record, while also Paul Pousland, lawyer for the environment, dressed in your barrister garb, simultaneously arresting and imprisoning protesters that are protesting against environmental damage.
00:42:17.000And welcome to the show and thank you for being here and you look magnificent.
00:42:21.000Are events like COP 27 greenwash spectaculars or does anything positive come from it?
00:42:29.000And isn't there a fundamental hypocrisy in arresting and imprisoning environmental protesters at an event that is supposed to be drawing attention to the threats and dangers of climate change?
00:42:42.000Yes, and I think one of my favourite graphs is the graph of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere going up every year with the different years of the different COPs and the fact that every single year as it goes up there's another COP, there's another COP, there's another COP.
00:42:55.000I think the failure of COP is shown by the fact that it hasn't done anything to change it.
00:43:02.000I think a mixture of wanting to be seen to do something, but to me it's also why grassroots and direct action and activism is so important to make the change that we need.
00:44:08.000So Paul, your answer to the inefficiency of an event like COP 27 is to ensure that protest and activism is something that we're all directly engaged with, but across the world in the United States of America and in our country, Laws are being currently passed to inhibit our ability to protest.
00:44:27.000Gareth, I think you've got some information on that, which I imagine you're going to put to Paul right now.
00:44:32.000Paul's going to help us to understand it from a legal perspective, and perhaps some other perspectives that I can't even begin to contemplate.
00:44:38.000Well, I guess what it's... I mean, I know Suella Braverman, who's our Home Secretary, and she was... I think she talked about these climate protesters at the moment as being guardian-eating tofu a guardian reading tofu eater, because you wouldn't eat the
00:45:26.000Could that just be a way of shutting down protest across the board?
00:45:30.000The way in which people like this are being demonised for you could say you know that what they're doing does create a lot of problems for everyday people but the way in which this is then utilised by government and by the media to then with the end result being that protest as a whole gets shut down.
00:45:48.000Do you think that's a kind of tactic that governments are employing at the moment to kind of demonise a A class or a group of people that then has the ability to kind of shock protest down across the board.
00:45:58.000That's definitely a tattoo, and they're trying to shut it down.
00:46:00.000Whether they can or will is another matter we can discuss.
00:46:03.000But I think we need to go back a stage and say why they're doing it.
00:46:06.000And the fact is that the fossil fuel industry is one of, if not the most, richest and powerful industry that has ever existed.
00:46:13.000And we need to end that industry in order to continue with our civilisation and indeed with life on Earth as we know it.
00:46:20.000And of course an industry that rich and powerful is going to do whatever it can to stop those who are trying to stop it.
00:46:26.000And we see its tentacles going out all over the place, so it'll influence governments through politics, through think tanks, and it will also try and buy the laws.
00:46:34.000In England we've got these things called injunctions, where oil companies are going to the court and basically spending hundreds of thousands of pounds to buy their own laws to get rid of protesters that ordinary people don't have.
00:46:46.000Well, so an injunction is a civil remedy where basically it says, normally if I come in your garden and trespass, in England that's not a criminal offence, but the oil companies... Can you write that down?
00:46:56.000It's really useful, and with Right to Roam stuff it's really useful to know, but the oil companies come and say, well actually we don't like people coming in our forecourts and protesting, so here's a couple of hundred grand to the High Court, and then it transforms that via an injunction to mean that people can be put in prison for up to two years and have their houses taken off them in costs.
00:47:12.000So they're trying to inhibit and control protest from every conceivable angle.
00:47:18.000And to get laws for themselves that are better than everyone else has.
00:47:21.000Normally, if you want the law changed, if you don't want people going in your garden, you have to go to Parliament and make a case for it, that we have to democratically change that law.
00:47:27.000But it's not good enough for the oil companies.
00:47:29.000They're too rich and they're too powerful, so they want their own laws.
00:47:31.000And then they buy the services of people in my profession who are Who like that amount of money.
00:47:48.000Who like earning large amounts of money to do that bidding for them and I think it's fundamentally undemocratic.
00:47:54.000But also what's interesting is we see states like the UK, they're not like Egypt who just imprisons environmental protesters, they also like to do it more subtly.
00:48:01.000So there's different ways they do that in the UK.
00:48:23.000Firstly, I want to show you that graph that you referred to, so everyone can have a little look at it.
00:48:27.000There's that graph that Paul referred to.
00:48:29.000That's the power of COP 27 there, marching those emissions right up.
00:48:35.000And also young Putin has pulled something up.
00:48:37.000While we're looking at Biden under pressure to address Egyptian rights abuses, there you go, we're not lying to you guys, what I want to say, Paul, is a lot of people feel that Climate change is as a result of cosmological factors that it occurs over millennia isn't affected by human activity that's sort of one thing which I guess you know that there's a significant science to suggest that that isn't true but of course they will point to different factors etc.
00:49:04.000But what I suppose I'm personally interested in is how the climate change movement often finds itself at odds with ordinary people.
00:49:13.000How often the edicts of apparently sort of climate-oriented legislation messes up, for example, the farmers with the recent emissions laws leading to those protests in New Zealand.
00:49:24.000When the climate change agenda is addressed through law, it never seems to address these Great colossi, the energy giants, or the 100 biggest polluting companies in the world, which, as I understand, contributes to 70% of global pollution, but it always ends up hurting ordinary people, farmers.
00:49:42.000It always seems to land on the individual.
00:49:45.000And why can't the climate change movement... Do you think that the climate change movement could adjust the nature of their protests so it seems that the targets Are big corporations, rather than normal people on the M25, like me the other day, being inconvenienced?
00:50:23.000I guess the problem is also, yes those emissions are caused by a hundred companies, but also those companies aren't just burning the oil for the fun of it.
00:50:31.000They're burning the oil and making these emissions to underpin our lifestyles.
00:50:36.000But the problem is, we've been sold a lifestyle, and people pretend they want a lifestyle because the media have told them they want it, that actually is fundamentally at odds with the continuation of life on earth effectively.
00:50:49.000I see, so you're saying that at the level of the individual there's a necessity for
00:50:52.000a kind of cultural, from the way you're saying it mate, it sounds like a spiritual change,
00:50:55.000a different manner of living that's more in harmony with nature, that we begin to recognise
00:50:59.000that these trinkets and commodities aren't actually making us happy, that we're imprisoned,
00:51:03.000enshrined in plastic, meaningless distraction, and that we could alter our approach to reality
00:52:20.000You know, I'm sure obviously you know more than I do about this subject, but let me do that thing I always do where I tell experts stuff that they know more about than I do.
00:52:41.000I live in Barking on the River Odin, which is a tributary of the Thames, and Thames Water are dumping tonnes of sewage into our river.
00:52:47.000Is it true that this is an unnecessary process that could be eliminated if they were to spend money on infrastructure?
00:52:53.000Yeah, what we see, and again this is the kind of typical late capitalism example, is water companies are paid to treat the sewage, but what they do is they literally take that money and give it to their shareholders and then break the law.
00:53:10.000So the serious film where I live is completely illegal and Thames Water is like, ha ha ha, we're just making too much money to obey the law so we'll just keep breaking it, pay the fines and carry on doing it.
00:53:18.000It's basically like a criminal gang but because they're in suits we somehow think it's acceptable.
00:53:23.000Is it true that Thames Water is owned by a Canadian company, a Kuwaiti company, a Chinese company?
00:53:41.000One, you agree that COP27 is like a phony, empty gesture that actually doesn't really meaningfully contribute to saving the planet.
00:53:45.000that on infrastructure to shareholders and then just break the law because the
00:53:48.000regulators, the Environment Agency in the UK and I think it's the equivalent in
00:53:51.000America just aren't doing their job or largely because they've been underfunded.
00:53:55.000So you've made a few points here. One, you agree that COP 27 is like a phony
00:53:59.000empty gesture that actually doesn't really meaningfully contribute to saving
00:54:05.000the planet but whether or not you believe in climate change science you
00:54:10.000ought to dedicate yourself to the preservation and love of the planet that
00:54:14.000you live on and that you're connected to. But people that live in these lifestyles
00:54:17.000that are supported, like I'm going to include myself in this, that are supported by fossil
00:54:21.000fuels and consumption are generally not happy and that radical changes need to
00:54:26.000take place at the level of the individual.
00:54:27.000A meaningful protest will have to engage all of us and how do we get involved and how should we get involved and what kind of things do you suggest, mate?
00:54:38.000So for instance, like, I really agree with a lot of climate protests and including Just Stop Oil, but I can't get arrested because of my job.
00:54:45.000But then one day I was like, actually, you know what, there is still some stuff I can do.
00:54:47.000So I just went and put a placard and sat outside the main area where barristers go for their lunch and all the judges and just sat there on the steps with a sign saying, we must act in the climate crisis.
00:54:58.000I had the wig with me as well, but not on because I wasn't allowed it.
00:55:01.000And there's something everybody can do and you don't have to get arrested, but even just actions like going out and planting trees, like making a direct change, everyone can and should get involved in what is the fight of our lifetimes, which is to save our Earth.
00:55:15.000Of course the counter-argument is that when activism is cellular and localised it's very difficult to confront the kind of hegemonic and global powers that perhaps hide behind futile gestures like COP27.
00:55:27.000So how do we act locally but collaborate?
00:55:38.000My activism is a mixture of hyper-local and also on a much more national level.
00:55:43.000I do work on my river to plant trees and to stop Thames Water putting sewage in, but I also support national campaigns to change the law so water companies can't do that.
00:55:52.000Similarly with climate, I'm working within my profession and saying actually our profession needs to stop taking money from the fossil fuel industry and facilitating it.
00:56:29.000It made me have a visceral, it had a visceral impact on me.
00:56:32.000And when I was told that like the Thames that I swim in that they're needlessly dumping poo in there just because it's cheaper than spending the money that they've been granted to treat it in the manner they are legally obliged to do.
00:56:44.000Infuriates me and it's clear to me that it's as a result of a sort of a mindset of profiteering that has perhaps seduced all of us but is obviously more impactful when conducted at a global level by powerful monopolies that aren't even from the country that they're operating in and polluting.
00:56:59.000Paul, we've got a I'm going to let you go now because we're about to talk about local activism right in the community that I'm from.
00:57:05.000Can you tell us where we can follow you and find you and all that?
00:57:07.000Obviously one person lives next door to you.
00:57:11.000My Twitter where I do most stuff is at Paul Powersland, which I think is hopefully written on the screen because my surname is a nightmare to spell.
00:57:18.000And my organisation that I set up is Lawyers for Nature, trying to get rights for the natural world and to protect environmental activists.
00:57:25.000Thanks for being such a beautiful person.
00:57:26.000Come on our show again and continue to educate us in the manner that you have done so far.
00:57:30.000And if you're not going to wear the proper wig, just wear any wig.
00:57:33.000I'll bring it with me and you can take it and wear it yourself.
00:58:02.000I mean, when we were talking about the profits of, I think it was around £2 billion that we were talking about the other day, £4 million is doing absolutely nothing.
00:58:10.000And you'll be astonished that even in local issues that you might imagine would take place below a financial threshold of concern, these matters have spiralled out of control.
00:58:28.000Anyway, the theatre, the Thameside Theatre there, which is a valuable community resource that houses a library, is perhaps soon to be shut down or sold as a result of underfunding.
00:58:38.000On Zoom with us right now are Sam and Neil, who run the campaign to To save the Thamesside Theatre and Library and to have it handed over into community ownership in exemplifying what Paul Palsland has just told us.
00:58:52.000That local action is the solution to global problems in some cases.
00:59:09.000That's the last thing, so you can take that off the screen.
00:59:11.000I've got one co-host and he's sneezing all the way through it.
00:59:14.000Can you tell us, Sam, will you tell us, mate, What is going on in Gray's with the Thameside Theatre and does it lead to sort of broader political issues of potential corruption and high expenditure, mate?
00:59:26.000And tell us in a way that you're comfortable with and I'll step in when necessary.
00:59:31.000I mean, back in July last year, 2021, the council put the Thameside complex as a whole onto a disposal list and they decided that they were going to Get rid of it.
01:00:08.000Should be a blue plaque and also an accompanying brown plaque because I once did a follow-through fart in the museum there as a boy and you know when you've done that in public you think, oh no, oh no.
01:00:17.000Now Thames Water would put that straight into the bloody river!
01:00:20.000But I kept it in my own undercarriage.
01:00:22.000Now, when you were investigating this peculiar closure of the Thamesside Library, which is a necessary public amenity, presumably it's being closed because of lack of funds for the council.
01:00:35.000Well, they said at the time of closing it that it was unfit for purpose and surplus to requirements, whatever that means.
01:00:42.000But actually, they were at that time, we realised, trying to fill A 34 million pound hole in their budget over the next two years.
01:00:52.000That's how we started because we realised just be honest with us it's fit for purpose and it's definitely not surplus requirements you're trying to fill this hole.
01:00:59.000Which they obviously said, no, that's not true.
01:01:05.000And then obviously, as you dig deeper, you realise there's a lot more rustle, as you know.
01:01:08.000Yeah, I heard that they're £834 million in debt.
01:01:12.000And like, sort of, there's been some really curious deals by Furrock Council.
01:01:16.000And I know that you're perhaps not in a position to talk about this, but they involve billions and solar panels and all sorts of complexity, contradictions, and in my opinion, and this is only my opinion, potentially corruption.
01:01:28.000And that's why on the 5th of December, we are doing a community event.
01:01:33.000You know we do these big festivals and stuff.
01:01:35.000We're doing one at the Thameside Theatre.
01:01:37.000A day of celebration and fun and obedient, humorous, good conduct, where I think Brad Evans, our philosopher friend, will be there.
01:01:45.000If you want to join us, there's a link in the description of your rumble chat, or if you're a member of the Stay Free AF community, there's a link there.
01:02:21.000So, Neil, can you tell us, mate, what you want this theatre, which already should be a heritage site, on the basis of me performing and doing that follow-through for The Sharp there.
01:02:33.000What is it you think it should be handed over as a community trust asset?
01:02:37.000It could be something called a community asset transfer.
01:02:39.000For us, this is about people-powered services.
01:02:42.000I'm sure your friends in America will understand they don't like the state having control of stuff.
01:02:47.000We believe that we can do this better, better than the council.
01:02:50.000The council is just too big an organisation, as you say.
01:02:52.000There's all sorts of strange stuff that's been happening there.
01:02:55.000But for us, what we're saying is work together with us and we can make it far more financially viable than they could.
01:03:01.000And turn the building over into the control of people.
01:03:03.000So I run something called a social enterprise.
01:03:06.000It's a community interest company, which means we have an asset lock.
01:03:09.000So if you give us something like that, we can hold it for the people forever, rather than let capitalist people take control and make lots of money out of it.
01:03:17.000I mean, I've heard that Furrock Council, which is the place I'm from, place where I was born, is £1.5 billion in debt.
01:03:55.000So listen, we're going to be going over to the Stay Free AF community in a moment, but I'd love your support.
01:04:01.000Because as Paul just said, and as we continually say on this show, the only way we can really fight centralised power is through community empowered activism.
01:04:10.000Think about the things in your own life that you care about.
01:04:15.000Can you retweet my little post if you follow me at Rusty Rockets?
01:04:18.000I've done a little post, if you could retweet that.
01:04:20.000And if you want to join us on December 5th for a live event, a celebration of this place where I'm from, where there'll be, well, who's going to be there?
01:04:29.000We're going to have lots of celebratory, community-minded activity in Awakening.
01:04:34.000And me and Paul Foot will reenact the bizarre set of crises that have led us to this condition.
01:04:39.000As well as you'll have the chance to walk around the town where I'm from.
01:04:43.000You'll see the police station, Gray's police station, where I was arrested and held for possession of controlled substances as a younger man.
01:04:49.000You'll see the magistrate court, where I stood and went, I'm sorry, I won't do this again!
01:04:54.000You'll see the library, where I done a follow-through farm.
01:04:57.000You'll see the trousers with the stains.
01:04:59.000Those trousers they're still in there next to a Neanderthal man who actually was more sophisticated than I was as it turns out.
01:05:08.000Remember we've done that lovely event on Hay on Wire.
01:05:09.000We're doing another festival next year with Wim Hof and Vandana Shiva and other great educators.
01:05:15.000But Sam and Neil will be there with us on the 5th of December to tell us in more detail why it's so important that we control community assets like the Thameside Theatre and Library.
01:05:24.000When I chatted to Sam before, say what you said, Sam, that was your wish for what it could become, the Thameside Theatre.
01:05:33.000And actually, since we had that conversation, because the Thameside is a brutalist architecture building, and then I did a little research after our chat, and actually we were the first Barbican because we opened in 1972.
01:05:46.000It's 50 years old, but actually the Barbican opened in 1982, so we were there first!
01:05:55.000The Barbican is a centre of culture in the middle of London, where they put on things like Royal Ballet and Shakespeare and all that kind of stuff.
01:06:01.000When Sam said that, it could be like a little Barbican.
01:06:03.000I almost laughed myself, and do you know why I laughed?
01:06:05.000Because I've been trained, educated, conditioned to think that ordinary people don't deserve culture, that ordinary people don't deserve books, that art is something that's for a certain class of people.
01:06:16.000This issue is about something fundamental.
01:06:18.000Who has the right to control their lives?
01:07:20.000But we've got... You know, like, some agricultural groups wrote to Bill Gates saying, you're not telling the truth, Bill, about this attempt to control all of the farming in the continent of Africa.
01:07:30.000You know, to criticise Bill Gates is sometimes regarded as a conspiracy.
01:07:33.000But in actuality, Bill Gates is talking about a lot of stuff that you don't understand.
01:08:18.000If you're a member of the Stay Free AF community, which you can easily be by clicking a link and paying a few quid, you can join us for this conversation as well as getting unprecedented access to me, a man who once did a follow through fart in a little theatre in Grey's and is now determined to fight back.