Stay Free - Russel Brand - Is The Israel Palestine Conflict Being USED To Sustain Ukraine Spending?! - Stay Free #225

00:00:00.000 So, so

00:00:20.000 so so

00:09:14.000 so Oh

00:09:19.000 In this video, you're going to see the future.

00:09:27.000 Hello there, you Awakening Wonders.

00:09:29.000 Thanks for joining us today.

00:09:30.000 If you're watching us on YouTube, we'll be there for a few minutes before being exclusively available on Rumble because obviously, this is a time where we have to be supported and we have to be incredibly cautious about the way we talk about an omni-crisis across the world where there is so much suffering, so much conflict, so much doubt.

00:09:49.000 We have to be very, very specific about what we say, and your support is absolutely invaluable to us.

00:09:55.000 We're talking, of course, about the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and America's potential role in arming the world.

00:10:03.000 50% or 57% of the world's autocratic nations have been sold arms by the American military-industrial complex.

00:10:09.000 Additionally, we're talking to Larry Sanger, one of the founders of Wikipedia, about how Wikipedia Exemplifies the trend towards censorship from open source and collaboratively achieved information.

00:10:22.000 So we'll be with you for about 15 minutes.

00:10:23.000 If you could download the app and turn on notifications, it'll really, really help us.

00:10:28.000 And if it's within your means to support us, click the red button and support us.

00:10:32.000 The question The question that we want to really put to you is, as

00:10:35.000 support for the Russia-Ukraine conflict appears to be waning, do you agree with that?

00:10:40.000 Let me know in the chat.

00:10:41.000 And as people start to question the logic and intelligence of increasing tension between

00:10:47.000 the US and China over Taiwan, is Israel being used to bolster that support?

00:10:53.000 Certainly financially.

00:10:55.000 Are people bundling together this conflict in the Middle East with other conflicts that people are starting to query the validity of?

00:11:04.000 Have a look at US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying that The US can absolutely continue to financially back Ukraine.

00:11:13.000 It's very interesting the way this conflict is being exploited in a number of ways, and that's what we're going to talk about.

00:11:20.000 Is it being exploited to facilitate censorship?

00:11:23.000 We'll be looking at that story in a moment.

00:11:25.000 And how are, in particular, I suppose you'd have to say, Democrat politicians using it to facilitate perpetuation of other conflicts?

00:11:33.000 Let's have a look at Janet Yellen now. 0.99

00:11:35.000 What this all means.

00:11:36.000 Paul Tudor Jones, the famed investor, was on CNBC this week and he said, this is the most threatening and challenging geopolitical environment that I've ever seen.

00:11:44.000 At the same time, the US is in its weakest fiscal position since World War II, with debt to GDP at 122%.

00:11:51.000 Can America, can the West afford another war at this time?

00:11:58.000 I think the answer is absolutely.

00:12:01.000 America can certainly afford to stand with Israel and to support Israel's military needs.

00:12:09.000 And we also can and must support Ukraine in its struggle against Russia.

00:12:16.000 It's clear there that the two issues are being conflated and there's an invitation to put the funding for both of those conflicts into one mental space.

00:12:25.000 If you look into how Janet Yellen is herself funded, you might question whose interests she's representing when she speaks there.

00:12:33.000 Let's have a look at what Joe Biden recently said when asked about these escalating conflicts, and in particular when it comes to combining aid packages.

00:12:45.000 He's very curious what's happening right now.

00:12:46.000 right now. Have a look.

00:12:47.000 Are the wars in Israel and Ukraine more than the United States can take on at the same time?

00:12:53.000 We're the United States of America, for God's sake.

00:12:55.000 That doesn't seem like the kind of analysis a situation that this is this complex requires.

00:13:02.000 We're the United States of America.

00:13:04.000 Can't just say the name of the country again when there are wars all over the world that are escalating.

00:13:09.000 And as we will show later, many of the arms that are being used in these conflicts are potentially provided by the United States of America.

00:13:17.000 Put simply, the United States of America are unable to properly trace where weapons that are sent off in aid packages are ending up.

00:13:25.000 You'll have heard that it's possible that Hamas used US-made arms to conduct those horrific attacks.

00:13:32.000 The most powerful nation in the history, not in the world, in the history of the world.

00:13:37.000 The history of the world.

00:13:39.000 We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense.

00:13:44.000 Interesting hyperbole.

00:13:46.000 Do you think that that's the kind of language that's required at the moment?

00:13:49.000 A time where there's surely room domestically in America to consider a variety of options.

00:13:55.000 So Ukraine on Wednesday received 1.15 billion of direct budgetary aid from the US.

00:13:59.000 In 2022 alone, Congress approved 113 billion dollars in aid.

00:14:04.000 Do you think this aid is working?

00:14:06.000 Is it bringing about a peaceful solution?

00:14:08.000 Is it advancing the interests of Ukrainian people?

00:14:11.000 Is it Attending to the humanitarian crisis that's evidently unfolding there.

00:14:16.000 And is it wise to conflate these two conflicts that potentially are quite different?

00:14:21.000 Let me know in the chat what you think.

00:14:23.000 Also, we're drawing a vowel somewhat over American domestic interest.

00:14:27.000 Research published in the Journal of American Medical Association showed that poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States and was linked to at least 183,000 deaths in one year.

00:14:35.000 83,000 deaths in one year. I'm not sure if that's death from poverty or death with poverty.

00:14:41.000 Sometimes people get confused about those things. Also, this conflict is being used

00:14:46.000 or this set of conflicts are being used, as you know, as all crisis are being used to

00:14:50.000 shut down dissent and communication. Donald Trump has been issued a gag order by the federal

00:14:55.000 judge overseeing the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020

00:14:59.000 election prohibiting him from making public statements attacking prosecutors. Now, I know

00:15:03.000 that's a tangent or issue, but have you noticed generally speaking that it's becoming harder

00:15:08.000 and harder to openly communicate?

00:15:10.000 It is if you're Donald Trump.

00:15:12.000 We're also following news out of federal court here in Washington, D.C.

00:15:17.000 The judge overseeing former President Trump's federal election interference case partially granted the government's request for a gag order actually restricting the former president from making disparaging statements relating to this case.

00:15:31.000 Today a judge put on a gag order I'll be the only politician in history that runs with a gag order where I'm not allowed to criticize.

00:15:39.000 What is this book that is for sale here?

00:15:43.000 The Kid's Guide to President Trump.

00:15:45.000 Learn Trump's Achievements and Vision for the USA.

00:15:48.000 And there's bonus kids.

00:15:49.000 What is that?

00:15:50.000 And how's that being advertised during this?

00:15:54.000 And what is it that you want children to know about Donald Trump as well?

00:15:59.000 They can't vote.

00:15:59.000 With a gag order where I'm not allowed to criticize people.

00:16:02.000 Can you imagine this?

00:16:03.000 Where is he?

00:16:04.000 Why is he doing this in front of these sort of giant cereals?

00:16:09.000 What is the backdrop of this speech?

00:16:11.000 We're allowed to criticise people, so we'll see.

00:16:13.000 We'll appeal it and we'll see, but it's so unconstitutional.

00:16:19.000 The good thing is we have so much support, it's incredible.

00:16:22.000 And it just makes it even more so.

00:16:25.000 Look, I'm the only guy that ever got indicted.

00:16:27.000 I got indicted more than Alphonse Capone.

00:16:29.000 Did anyone ever hear of Al...?

00:16:31.000 Al Capone, if you looked at him the wrong way, he was seriously tough, right?

00:16:36.000 Scarface.

00:16:36.000 You know, they call him Scarface.

00:16:38.000 Had a little scar in there.

00:16:38.000 That is a really unusual Alphonse Capone, Scarface.

00:16:42.000 Had a little scar in there.

00:16:44.000 Also, Donald Trump's hair and the hay are of the same texture and colour.

00:16:49.000 It's interesting.

00:16:49.000 I'm sure it was a minor accident, but...

00:16:52.000 Brilliant.

00:16:53.000 Actual stand-up comedy.

00:16:54.000 Again, sort of a communicative skill set that is going to be effective in a climate of hyperbole, bombast, disingenuity, dishonest reporting, lack of institutional trust.

00:17:07.000 It's like the lessons are not being learned of how effective Donald

00:17:11.000 Trump is as a communicator because of his willingness to say things that when Donald Trump says, you

00:17:18.000 know, I know how these tax loopholes work, I use them when he uses language that is anomalous

00:17:23.000 that stands out, it functions as a kind of valve, I suppose. Let me know in the chat in the

00:17:28.000 comments. I know loads of you love Donald Trump anyway, but it's very interesting to see that one of the

00:17:34.000 techniques to control Donald Trump is to stop him communicating altogether and you can see why

00:17:39.000 because he's sort of amusing when standing at some sort of barn dance. But Al Capone, if you looked at

00:17:45.000 him in the wrong way, if he didn't like you, you looked at him a little bit askance, he blew your 0.98

00:17:51.000 brains out. 0.91

00:17:52.000 He was only indicted one time.

00:17:54.000 I've been invited, I've been indicted four times.

00:17:57.000 The weaponization of government agencies and institutions appears to be a trend of our time.

00:18:04.000 There's a lot of legacy media reporting.

00:18:05.000 Have you noticed this about how Hamas are using cryptocurrency to raise funds?

00:18:11.000 Is the suggestion then that cryptocurrencies need to be regulated or shut down?

00:18:16.000 Do you feel that when a crisis like this happens it's looked at Opportunistically.

00:18:21.000 Brilliant.

00:18:22.000 Right.

00:18:22.000 What we'll be able to do is perpetuate the Ukraine-Russia conflict because people are getting less interested in funding that war.

00:18:28.000 We can use this to attack cryptocurrencies.

00:18:30.000 We can introduce additional censorship in online spaces because of hate speech.

00:18:35.000 Do you think it's utilised in that way?

00:18:38.000 And what I suppose that points to is a total lack of trust in these institutions.

00:18:41.000 We don't automatically assume that Oh, they're acting in our best interest.

00:18:46.000 Yeah, God, it's good that they've shut down cryptocurrencies.

00:18:50.000 You don't assume that there is a clear moral centre at the heart of the establishment, do you?

00:18:56.000 Well, let me know in the chat.

00:18:57.000 Let's have a look at this tendency now, or at least a report that suggests a tendency to regulate cryptocurrency because it's being used to support Hamas.

00:19:05.000 At least that's what's being alleged.

00:19:07.000 Investigators in the U.S.

00:19:08.000 and around the world have identified a revenue source being exploited by Hamas, online donors offering support in cryptocurrency.

00:19:15.000 Now, even before Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, U.S.

00:19:19.000 officials had been probing the group's use of cryptocurrency through alleged money launderers.

00:19:24.000 Hamas's use of digital currency represents just one of the many ways the terrorist organization has sought to raise funds while evading sanctions. 0.53

00:19:31.000 Hamas and other terrorist groups have used Facebook and X to publicly post their crypto wallet addresses asking for donations.

00:19:38.000 That's according to a report by U.S.

00:19:39.000 authorities.

00:19:40.000 So the story that's being told is that cryptocurrency can and they say is being used to fund Hamas.

00:19:47.000 The story that's not being told is that the military-industrial complex's profligate supply of weapons to unregulated potential bad actors means it's likely that weapons are ending up in the hands of opponents.

00:20:02.000 In a sense, what's happening is a perpetuation of crisis where you have to fund aid, the

00:20:07.000 weapons themselves that are being used to escalate the conflict are coming from potential

00:20:12.000 American resources.

00:20:14.000 So in a way, the information that we're given usually has a trackable agenda observable

00:20:20.000 if you look for it, i.e.

00:20:22.000 Oh, well, we should censor this information on Facebook, shouldn't we?

00:20:25.000 I mean, you don't want Hamas being armed, do you?

00:20:27.000 No, but if you don't want Hamas being armed, perhaps also be very careful about the sales

00:20:32.000 of weapons around the world to autocracies.

00:20:35.000 This kind of hysteria is also leaking into stories that perhaps don't warrant it in a

00:20:41.000 global climate that's so fraught with obvious tension.

00:20:44.000 It's like the media has escalated to a point of hysteria where they now are unable to discern terrifying stories, and God knows there's enough of them and I pray to God that they end, to sort of human interest stories or stories that are a little bit disgusting but are not An invasion of a foreign enemy.

00:21:05.000 Have a look at this.

00:21:05.000 This is bedbugs being discussed in France as potentially the worst thing that's ever happened in Paris.

00:21:10.000 I don't know what the Gilets Jaunes would make of that verdict.

00:21:13.000 Paris is gearing up for next year's Summer Olympics, but for now they have unwanted invaders.

00:21:19.000 Megan Fitzgerald now on the city's bedbug problem.

00:21:23.000 Tonight, a bed bug infestation sweeping through Paris and anxiety quickly rising.

00:21:28.000 Don't get anxious about it already.

00:21:31.000 Let's take our time.

00:21:32.000 We've got enough to think about. 0.96

00:21:34.000 Videos like these causing sleepless nights with reports of the blood-sucking parasites on... Might as well be Putin at this point. 0.62

00:21:41.000 ...buses and trains, inside movie theatres and hotels.

00:21:44.000 That is just becoming an issue for the Parisians in our daily life.

00:21:49.000 Paris is a global destination with millions visiting from across the world for events like Fashion Week last month.

00:21:56.000 Concerns travellers can take the bugs home.

00:21:59.000 While it's a national crisis in France, the tiny... National crisis compared to what's going on in the actual world.

00:22:06.000 You might have to scratch a little bit at bedtime and there's potential that a bed bug could sneak away back to your home nation in your cuff.

00:22:14.000 Bloodsuckers are a problem across the world, in American cities from Chicago to New York, and recently in Arizona, where exterminators found massive infestations with thousands of bugs.

00:22:25.000 According to the CDC, bed bugs are known to hide, tucking into seams of suitcases, folded clothes, bedding and furniture.

00:22:33.000 I attribute intent to the bedbugs now.

00:22:36.000 These bedbugs cannot be relied upon.

00:22:38.000 They're using cryptocurrencies to travel to Chicago and to New York and across the world.

00:22:43.000 Watch out for these bedbugs.

00:22:44.000 These bedbugs will need additional funding.

00:22:47.000 While the bugs don't pose a serious medical threat, their bites on It's a serious matter.

00:22:52.000 What are we worried about it for?

00:22:53.000 Let's just drop it.

00:22:54.000 There's enough to concern ourselves with.

00:22:56.000 Unless we have some kind of global awakening, a series of revolutions, we're all potentially on the precipice of numerous apocalypse.

00:23:05.000 I ain't got time to worry about bedbugs that aren't even actually that bad.

00:23:10.000 ...can result in rashes, blisters, and allergic reactions.

00:23:13.000 Rashes?

00:23:14.000 Is that what we're worried about now?

00:23:15.000 It's terrible.

00:23:16.000 It's the most awful thing that has ever happened.

00:23:19.000 No.

00:23:19.000 What?

00:23:20.000 Hold up.

00:23:20.000 What?

00:23:21.000 Come on.

00:23:21.000 No.

00:23:22.000 You can't say that now.

00:23:23.000 Look, not with recent events.

00:23:24.000 We've had pandemics.

00:23:25.000 We've had terror attacks.

00:23:27.000 We've got escalating tensions around the world.

00:23:29.000 There are culture wars.

00:23:30.000 We can't trust any of our institutions.

00:23:33.000 But look at these little guys.

00:23:34.000 I quite like them.

00:23:36.000 Rhea Melissa Guarte is an American who's lived in Paris for 26 years. 0.99

00:23:40.000 She's battled bedbugs twice before.

00:23:43.000 When the exterminators came, they told me that they've been really, really busy because Paris has a real problem.

00:23:52.000 Is that what this is now?

00:23:53.000 Bedbugs are everywhere.

00:23:54.000 We're closing down your communities.

00:23:56.000 You can only travel in 15 minute jurisdictions because of the bedbugs.

00:24:00.000 These bedbugs are escalating.

00:24:01.000 We just need 15 days to stop the spread of these bedbugs. 0.62

00:24:05.000 Listen, we've found a solution, a convenient solution to these bedbugs.

00:24:08.000 You could drive into a parking lot and one simple jab and all of the bedbugs will go away.

00:24:14.000 It's no problem at all.

00:24:15.000 So there you are.

00:24:16.000 It seems that there's a sort of a broad trend towards reporting on issues from a perspective of hysteria and terror.

00:24:24.000 Whether or not it's cryptocurrencies being reported on in a way that legitimizes their censure, or bundling together numerous complicated and distinct issues in order to perpetuate, I would argue, the agenda of the military-industrial complex.

00:24:40.000 You can see how what the legacy media does is Amplifies the intentions of the powerful.

00:24:44.000 And sometimes by looking at a ridiculous story like the bed bugs it becomes sort of clear what the template is.

00:24:49.000 Let me know in the chat if you saw that.

00:24:51.000 Remember if you want to support us, support us now.

00:24:54.000 Become a member of our community.

00:24:57.000 This story now is an analysis of whether or not it's possible that Hamas used American-made weapons to undertake their recent attacks on Israel.

00:25:07.000 The reason that we have to even consider this is because of the irresponsible way that the military-industrial complex has exploited various global conflicts and not paid

00:25:17.000 attention to its own analysis of what constitutes an autocratic nation when making weapons sales. Isn't it a really

00:25:25.000 interesting story? Listen to what Joe Biden says on one hand about

00:25:31.000 that oughtn't be trusted and potential enemies on the global stage and

00:25:31.000 No.

00:25:35.000 America's role as peacekeepers across the world and America's escalating

00:25:39.000 sales of weapons actions that have previously been condemned. This is

00:25:43.000 another example of hypocrisy, another example of propaganda and another

00:25:46.000 example of putting elite establishment interests ahead of literally global

00:25:51.000 safety. Here's the news, no here's the effing news.

00:25:59.000 Joe Biden rightly judges Hamas's attacks of Israel as sheer evil. 0.91

00:26:06.000 If, as some have claimed, those weapons turn out to be American-made, which wouldn't be surprising as the American military-industrial complex provides more weapons to the world than anyone else, what would that make Joe Biden?

00:26:22.000 Let's talk today about the potential that some of the weapons used by Hamas for their attack on Israel were American-made.

00:26:30.000 It's clear that America arms nations that it regards as autocracies, as undemocratic countries, and to a degree, as enemies of freedom and liberty, and even the experiment of democracy itself.

00:26:42.000 Notably, and most obviously, Saudi Arabia, who Joe Biden said he would make a pariah.

00:26:47.000 Make them, in fact, the pariah that they are.

00:26:50.000 And then continue to provide weapons to even more than Donald Trump, who he condemned for providing weapons to Saudi Arabia prior to his own election.

00:26:59.000 Some are saying also that potentially weapons from Afghanistan ended up in the hands of various terrorist groups around the world.

00:27:06.000 So in the wake and in the light of these appalling attacks, this incredibly awful, challenging, disruptive, heartbreaking time, Let's look at who is exploiting this situation, who is benefiting from this situation, and potentially even who caused it.

00:27:24.000 This is an act of sheer evil.

00:27:26.000 President Biden condemned the attacks by Hamas, which he revealed killed at least 14 American citizens.

00:27:32.000 Comparing him to the worst rampages of ISIS.

00:27:35.000 With the fighting ongoing, the president huddled with his national security team this morning and held his third phone call since the conflict began with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, offering more military support, including precision-guided munitions for fighter jets.

00:27:49.000 The first shipment of supplies landed this evening.

00:27:52.000 The president today issued this warning.

00:27:55.000 Anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word.

00:28:00.000 Don't.

00:28:02.000 How do we put Joe Biden's clear speech into a context that includes reversing their original position on providing arms to Saudi Arabia and the potential that Iran have access to weapons that were made by America and have fallen into what we might describe as the wrong hands?

00:28:20.000 Let's have a look at the complexity behind it and As ever, when discussing the situation, we remain committed to respecting those of you that are directly involved, either ideologically, emotionally, nationally, religiously, and focus our attention instead on the causes and conditions

00:28:40.000 And how we got into this position and who's exploited it.

00:28:43.000 We've already talked about people in Congress investing in weapons.

00:28:46.000 Now we're going to discuss how these weapons are in the hands of terrorists, autocracies and groups that are plainly capable of committing acts of evil.

00:28:54.000 Are you sure that you want to run again?

00:28:58.000 Yes, because I'm sure.

00:29:00.000 Look, when I ran, I said the world's an inflection point.

00:29:07.000 The world's changing, but we have an opportunity to make it.

00:29:10.000 So imagine if we were able to succeed in getting the Middle East put in place where we have normalization of relations.

00:29:19.000 I think we can do that.

00:29:20.000 Imagine what happens if we in fact unite all of Europe and Putin is finally put down where he cannot cause the kind of trouble he's been causing.

00:29:29.000 We have enormous opportunities.

00:29:31.000 It's an interesting exercise to imagine those things, but it's unlikely to happen without considerable amendment of policy, and in particular, arms policy and the proliferation of arms around the world.

00:29:45.000 Let's have a look at what Joe Biden's administration does and how that compares to what he says, because this is a complicated issue with very high tensions and polarised emotions throughout the conversation.

00:29:58.000 Let us focus our attention on people in positions of power and powerful institutions that are able to direct the global agenda and how there's a disparity between what they're saying publicly about creating peace and what they're doing actually when it comes to proliferating arms and creating more tensions, more geopolitical tensions and more military opportunity, particularly for organizations that may use that power in the most nefarious way imaginable.

00:30:26.000 Several reports suggest US-built weapons are being used by Hamas that are supplied from Afghanistan by the Taliban.

00:30:32.000 In 2021, the US ended its operations in Afghanistan and left a stockpile of weapons that were taken by the Taliban after it took control of the country.

00:30:41.000 It's also being investigated whether some of the weapons that the US sent to Ukraine have also ended up in terrorist hands.

00:30:46.000 It's a theory that many people are familiar with, that Mexican drug cartels peculiarly ended up with some of the missiles that were intended for use in Ukraine.

00:30:57.000 Makes you think that this isn't being monitored correctly and strange things taking place between aid packages to nations in conflict and the delivery of those weapon systems.

00:31:08.000 Let me know in the chat.

00:31:08.000 Would you agree?

00:31:10.000 Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson alleges that Hamas is using weapons supplied by the United States to attack Israel.

00:31:16.000 That's very difficult to even consider, but this is what's being claimed.

00:31:20.000 The former intelligence operative suggests that it's highly likely these weapons were diverted from US supplies intended for Ukraine, Afghanistan or the Palestinian Authority.

00:31:29.000 We would be less inclined to consider that possibility if we didn't know that the United States military-industrial complex has a long history of providing arms to organizations that by its own judgment oughtn't be trusted and behave autocratically, undemocratically, and sometimes they declare them to be evil.

00:31:47.000 Let's just take the example of Saudi Arabia.

00:31:49.000 I've never said Saudi Arabia are a pariah and should be cut off, but Joe Biden did say that and then escalated the amount of arms sold to that nation.

00:31:56.000 There are early reports that there are other nation states that are involved in this conflict.

00:32:01.000 At these tentative early stages, I'd certainly myself advise circumspection, but people are saying that Iran are potentially involved, and certainly this mentality of providing the world with arms, providing nations and organisations with arms, even if not directly, and sometimes the way that this is accounted for, verified and tracked, is really dubious and opaque, is creating a more hostile and dangerous world more broadly.

00:32:23.000 I'm also continuing to push to stop funding the war in Ukraine and push those countries to peace.

00:32:30.000 And now with what's happening in Israel, we're looking at a whole different situation.

00:32:34.000 I want to track the serial numbers of the weapons that Hamas is using against Israel, and I want to know if they came from Afghanistan or if they came from weapons that we provided to Ukraine.

00:32:45.000 So these are answers that I want from whoever's running for Speaker.

00:32:49.000 That claim being made by Marjorie Taylor Greene, who some of you will like and some of you won't like, but there's now some consistency to this claim, which of course is being politicised domestically, as all such crises and matters generally are these days.

00:33:03.000 Let's look in a little more detail about the American military-industrial complex's activities globally and the kind of arms relationships that already exist, and whether or not they're responsible and potentially very, very dangerous.

00:33:14.000 The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's annual analysis of the global arms trade showed the United States was the number one weapons exporter by a large margin. 0.97

00:33:24.000 The United States accounted for 39% of major arms deliveries worldwide, over twice what Russia, oh those bastards, transferred, and nearly 10 times what China sent, those bastards, to its weapons clients. 0.95

00:33:35.000 So remember that Russia and China are continually portrayed as aggressors in the American legacy media, but when it comes to the blunt fact of selling arms around the world, in some cases, in a significant number of cases, to autocracies, no one surpasses the American military-industrial complex. 0.97

00:33:52.000 And remember what I'm offering you is this isn't America, like the nation of Jimi Hendrix and the hot dog, We're talking about elite interests that are transcendent of your national identity.

00:34:02.000 In addition, the United States has far more customers.

00:34:04.000 103 nations are more than half of the member states of the United Nations.

00:34:08.000 In a sense, the military-industrial complex requires ongoing war.

00:34:12.000 This is outside of the current conflict.

00:34:14.000 In fact, Both of the conflicts that are defining the world right now, Israel, Hamas and Russia, Ukraine, across the world, weapons are being sold.

00:34:22.000 There's a necessity.

00:34:23.000 If this ended, what would it do to the military industrial complex?

00:34:26.000 What would it do to that aspect of the economy?

00:34:28.000 What would it do to that institutionalized aspect of the establishment?

00:34:32.000 What would happen if that stopped?

00:34:34.000 Since President Joe Biden came into office in 2021, he has described a battle between democracies and autocracies.

00:34:41.000 And we're selling weapons.

00:34:43.000 In which the US and other democracies strive to create a peaceful world.

00:34:48.000 A very simple narrative is being offered.

00:34:50.000 There are democracies, and then there are autocracies.

00:34:53.000 I wonder how those terms are arrived at.

00:34:55.000 And if they are legitimate, and if they are arrived at in consensus, then why would you

00:34:59.000 sell arms to the autocracies?

00:35:01.000 You wouldn't, would you, if you had a moral position on that?

00:35:03.000 You'd say, well, these are autocracies, they're corrupt nations, we can't trust them, they're

00:35:07.000 aggressors, these weapons might end up in the hands of terrorist groups and end up inflicting

00:35:10.000 pain and suffering and inconceivable damage, therefore we're not going to sell arms to

00:35:15.000 those organisations.

00:35:16.000 And indeed, that is the sort of thing they say, but it isn't what they do.

00:35:19.000 The reality, however, is that the Biden administration has helped increase the military power of

00:35:23.000 a large number of authoritarian countries.

00:35:25.000 According to an Interceptor review of recently released government data, the US sold weapons to at least 57% of the world's autocratic countries in 2022.

00:35:33.000 So on one hand, they're calling them autocratic Dictatorships or regimes that are not in alignment with global peace edicts.

00:35:40.000 And on the other hand, they're providing them with weapons.

00:35:43.000 Both of those things shouldn't be true.

00:35:45.000 And if they are, that's hypocrisy, isn't it?

00:35:46.000 To judge something to be an autocracy or a bad actor on the world stage and then continue to sell them arms, probably with a good degree of knowledge that those arms may end up in the hands of enemies of certain ideologies or could be used against civilian populations.

00:36:00.000 So Larry Johnson's claim that Hamas could have been using America-made weapons seems plausible and even if it doesn't prove to be the case in this instance you can see how a economic model of this nature means that it's likely that weapons will end up in the hands of people that will misuse them and that's like to Apart for a moment from the reality that the only function of weapons is to cause harm and ultimately they're going to end up being used in that way by somebody and if you're selling them to autocratic nations then surely it's exponentially increased.

00:36:28.000 The fact that weapons intended for Ukraine in what is framed as a moral crusade against Russia ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels shows you sort of how bizarre and tangential the roots of these weapons can be.

00:36:41.000 And it also shows you that Stopping that doesn't seem to be a priority of the military-industrial complex because they get to replenish stockpiles.

00:36:48.000 Their business model requires it.

00:36:50.000 It requires the world to be a dangerous place.

00:36:52.000 In fact, if you were cynical, you might say that they benefit from terrorist organisations having access to arms because then you can legitimately sell arms to favoured nations that you determine to be democracies.

00:37:04.000 Again, I'm not talking specifically about this instance with all of its complexity and its horror and legitimate grievances.

00:37:11.000 I'm talking about an economic model that likely facilitates more terror, more war, more death, more money for the most powerful interests in the world.

00:37:19.000 So is it a crisis or not?

00:37:21.000 You tell me.

00:37:22.000 Where are you?

00:37:22.000 If you're in that strata of society, is it a crisis?

00:37:25.000 If you're in Congress buying shares in weapons manufacturers, is it a crisis or is it an opportunity?

00:37:30.000 Tell me in the chat.

00:37:31.000 Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners have transferred American-made weapons to al-Qaeda-linked fighters, hardline Salafi militias, and other factions waging war in Yemen in violation of their agreements with the United States, a CNN investigation has found.

00:37:45.000 Well, we're going to put a clause in to this arms deal saying, don't give it to terrorists.

00:37:49.000 Of course we'll sign it.

00:37:49.000 Will you sign it?

00:37:50.000 Oh, well, there you go then.

00:37:51.000 What?

00:37:52.000 You mean to say they lied in the agreement?

00:37:54.000 Can't you even do an honest-to-God arms deal these days without people killing people with those weapons?

00:38:00.000 Well, No, actually.

00:38:01.000 The weapons have also made their way into the hands of Iranian-backed rebels battling the coalition for control of the country, exposing some of America's sensitive military technology to Tehran and potentially endangering the lives of US troops in other conflict zones.

00:38:13.000 The rhetoric around the American military Necessarily, and in my view quite rightly, remains one of heroism.

00:38:19.000 We must support the military.

00:38:21.000 We mustn't put the troops in danger.

00:38:23.000 Well, who's really putting the troops in danger?

00:38:25.000 If you are doing arms deals that you know could lead to bad actors having access to weapons, and then you put American troops into those, who's really creating the problem?

00:38:35.000 Is it Julian Assange?

00:38:35.000 Who is it?

00:38:37.000 Or is it the military-industrial complex?

00:38:39.000 And Joe Biden?

00:38:40.000 Let me know in the chat.

00:38:41.000 Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has been the biggest weapons dealer, accounting for 40% of all arms sales in any given year.

00:38:48.000 When we consider a fact like that, it shows us, doesn't it, that you can't have the military-industrial complex without that level of business.

00:38:56.000 So in spite of Joe Biden turning up on your TV set saying, give us another four years and this time I'll really commit to peace and really do the things I said I'd do last time, He can't, can he?

00:39:06.000 Because when the weapons industry spends billions per year lobbying and has more lobbyists than there are people in Congress, how is it possible, how is it even conceivable within this model that the proliferation of arms would ever stop?

00:39:20.000 How are the calculations going to be like, oh, this is an autocracy that we don't agree with, yeah, but look at the profit.

00:39:24.000 Selling the arms.

00:39:25.000 Oh no, it's ended up in the hands of terrorists.

00:39:27.000 Well, we'll have to send troops over there and replenish our own stockpiles.

00:39:30.000 And now we'll have to sell arms to these other nations in that region. 0.92

00:39:33.000 Can you see that that kind of works as a business model?

00:39:37.000 In general, these exports are funded through grants or sales.

00:39:40.000 There are two pathways for the latter category, foreign military sales and direct commercial sales.

00:39:44.000 The US government acts as an intermediary for foreign military sales, or FMS, acquisitions.

00:39:50.000 It buys the material from a company first and then delivers the goods to the foreign recipient.

00:39:54.000 So they actually are integrally involved.

00:39:56.000 It's not just like that company's in America registered there for tax purposes.

00:40:00.000 That probably wouldn't bear too much scrutiny, I bet.

00:40:02.000 The American government takes responsibility for the delivery.

00:40:06.000 DCS, Defence Collaboration Services, acquisitions are more straightforward.

00:40:10.000 They're the result of an agreement between a US company and a foreign government.

00:40:13.000 Both categories of sales require the government's approval.

00:40:16.000 So actually, the government are in a position to prevent sales to states it deems unfavourable.

00:40:22.000 And if there are no states that it deems unfavourable, or at least very few, then perhaps they should just drop that category and say out loud, we're a business.

00:40:31.000 Our business is selling arms.

00:40:33.000 What happens to those arms once they're sold?

00:40:35.000 We're not really concerned about that because it will probably lead to opportunities to sell more arms

00:40:40.000 Anyway, a total of 142 countries and territories bought weapons from the US in 2022 for a total of 85 billion

00:40:47.000 dollars in bilateral sales We can't bring you unique inspiring groundbreaking content

00:40:52.000 without stickers

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00:41:14.000 Of the 84 countries codified as autocracies under the regimes of the world system in 2022, the United States sold weapons to at least 48 or 57% of them.

00:41:21.000 and fill out the form.

00:41:23.000 The United States sold weapons to at least 48 or 57% of them. The at least qualifier 0.99

00:41:34.000 is necessary because several factors frustrate the accurate tracking of US weapons sales.

00:41:38.000 The State Department's report of commercial arms sales during the fiscal year makes prodigious

00:41:42.000 use of various in its recipients category.

00:41:45.000 As a result, the specific recipients for nearly $11 billion in weapons sales are not disclosed.

00:41:51.000 So over 10% of those weapons sales are disclosed only as VARIOUS.

00:41:56.000 You'd think that something as important and significant and potentially dangerous as the sale of weapons to autocracies shouldn't be listed as various.

00:42:04.000 I'd like to know exactly where you sold this.

00:42:06.000 Oh, I don't know.

00:42:07.000 I can't remember all the details of all of my arms deals.

00:42:10.000 I just conduct them on the fly.

00:42:11.000 I don't even write it down sometimes.

00:42:13.000 For me, it's more of an art than a science.

00:42:14.000 And do you imagine that of the 11 billion that are listed as various, that all of those are, oh, we sold these 11 billion to Nepal.

00:42:22.000 The Dalai Lama bought those missiles.

00:42:23.000 We're pretty sure he just bought them to stockpile them to prevent them being misused.

00:42:27.000 There's going to be nations that if you knew about it, and if it was written down in inventories, you go, you shouldn't sell weapons to them.

00:42:31.000 That's terrible, isn't it?

00:42:32.000 It's not going to be that those weapons were a surprise for your birthday party and you ruined it, is it?

00:42:38.000 These findings contradict Biden's preferred framing of international politics as fundamentally a struggle in which the world's democracies, led by the United States, are on the side of peace and security, as he called it in last year's State of the Union address.

00:42:49.000 He's reiterated that point.

00:42:50.000 Imagine, he said, just then, we watched him say, imagine if I had a bit more time and I could get peace in Russia and Ukraine, I could get peace in the Middle East.

00:42:56.000 Well, let's just take Russia and Ukraine.

00:42:58.000 what's being done there to bring about peace other than escalating tension

00:43:02.000 through the provision of arms, incendiary and reductive rhetoric, exploiting that

00:43:07.000 situation plainly for military-industrial complex partners, not

00:43:10.000 acknowledging the role played by the United States, NATO and other US

00:43:14.000 affiliated interests in the creation of that conflict going way back but notably

00:43:18.000 in 2014. So it's very difficult to imagine that that is what they're going to do.

00:43:22.000 It's much easier to imagine that whatever happens, Joe Biden is essentially a puppet of deep state and corporate globalist interest, will continue to facilitate a political trajectory which is profitable without due consideration to the havoc, harm, mayhem and suffering that those decisions wreak upon the people of the earth.

00:43:40.000 Opposing the United States and its democratic allies are the autocracies that collude to undermine the international system, Biden has stated.

00:43:46.000 That's the simple narrative we're offered.

00:43:49.000 There's the United States and we're just trying to help everyone by selling weapons, mostly.

00:43:53.000 And then there's all these baddies that are just over there using weapons.

00:43:57.000 And who sold those weapons?

00:43:58.000 Let me just look at the inventory.

00:43:59.000 It just says various, really.

00:44:01.000 And what about the sales bit?

00:44:02.000 There's a smudge there.

00:44:03.000 I don't know, maybe... Hunter, have you used these papers?

00:44:06.000 In a speech in Warsaw last year, he said the battle between democracy and autocracy is between liberty and repression.

00:44:13.000 And we're selling weapons to both sides.

00:44:15.000 And between a rules-based international order and one governed by brute force.

00:44:19.000 And we're selling weapons to both sides.

00:44:21.000 Despite that rhetoric, a review of the new data suggests, instead, a business-as-usual approach to weapons sales.

00:44:27.000 That's what they're actually doing, business-as-usual.

00:44:29.000 They're not trying to direct world events towards peace and diplomacy.

00:44:34.000 It's business.

00:44:35.000 It's business as the priority.

00:44:36.000 If we can, God help us, put aside the horrible moral complexity of our current situation and consider what's the conduct like?

00:44:45.000 Is it business as usual?

00:44:46.000 If the answer is yes, then that will at least tell us something about whose interests are served and how this situation is being exploited.

00:44:52.000 Former President Donald Trump based his arms sales policy primarily on economic considerations, corporate interests above all else.

00:44:59.000 In his first foreign trip as president, he travelled to Saudi Arabia and announced a major arms deal with the repressive kingdom.

00:45:05.000 Trump's business first approach resulted in a dramatic upturn of weapons sales during his administration.

00:45:09.000 Now you'd imagine That people that don't like, oppose, vilify and loathe Donald Trump will say, aha, there's the evidence.

00:45:16.000 Donald Trump is uniquely bad among presidents and political figures.

00:45:20.000 Why?

00:45:21.000 Look at the way he went and sold arms to Saudi Arabia.

00:45:24.000 However, in Biden's first full fiscal year as president, weapons sales from the United States to other countries reached $206 billion.

00:45:31.000 Biden's first year total surpasses the Trump era high of $192 billion.

00:45:36.000 The multi-billion dollar effort to train and equip Ukraine doesn't fully explain the dramatic rise in total arms sales last year, let alone to autocracies.

00:45:45.000 Russia's invasion of Ukraine didn't occur until five months into fiscal year 2022, and much of the assistance from the United States to Ukraine took the form of grants, not sales, and the transfer of material from Pentagon stockpiles through the Presidential Drawdown Authority.

00:45:59.000 So there are almost difficult-to-trace weapon sales going on.

00:46:03.000 exponentially higher under Biden than under Trump, who was condemned for his business-first approach.

00:46:09.000 Rather, the new figures reveal the continuity between Republican and Democratic administrations.

00:46:13.000 While Biden signalled early on that his arms sales policy would be based primarily on strategic and human rights considerations, not just economic interests, he broke from that policy not too long after entering office by approving weapons sales to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other authoritarian regimes.

00:46:29.000 So there you are, observably a distinction between the rhetoric and the declared ideology and the conduct while in office.

00:46:36.000 And that's important and it's informative.

00:46:38.000 Is this in part why you are despairing of American institutionalised political life as reported on by the legacy media?

00:46:45.000 That you can have Joe Biden saying, I'm going to be the opposite of Donald Trump.

00:46:49.000 Then coming into office, and with regard to arms sales in particular, increasing the arms sales, or the wall, building the wall anyway.

00:46:57.000 What does that tell us?

00:46:58.000 Doesn't that induce a kind of despondency, apathy, hopelessness, despair, clear observation of plain corruption?

00:47:06.000 They say this, they do that.

00:47:09.000 How can you remain enthusiastic about, oh, the Democrat party, what they're going to do is this, It shows you that they just say what they need to say, then do what they're going to do.

00:47:18.000 And I think when you have that information, in addition to the information about the arms sales in particular, you're able to intuit and discern what their real agenda will be when it comes to any global conflict.

00:47:29.000 Are they interested in humanitarianism, justice, morality, democracy, civilization?

00:47:34.000 How then do we square that with the economic deals that have been made?

00:47:37.000 If those things are true, and I pray, I pray to you Lord, that those things are true, then why the arms sales to autocracies? 0.87

00:47:44.000 Why the peculiar listings of where those arms sales have gone?

00:47:47.000 Why can't the Pentagon pass an audit?

00:47:49.000 Why did the military-industrial complex spend so much money on lobbying?

00:47:52.000 A few more questions.

00:47:53.000 How come 51 members of Congress And their spouses own defense contractor stocks.

00:47:59.000 Even Marjorie Taylor Greene, I have to say, purchased stock in Lockheed Martin two days before Russia invaded Ukraine.

00:48:04.000 Weapons makers have spent $2.5 billion on lobbying over the past two decades, employing on average over 700 lobbyists per year over the last five years.

00:48:13.000 That's more than one for every member of Congress.

00:48:16.000 Doesn't this point to a system that requires war?

00:48:18.000 Doesn't this point to a military-industrial complex that has been irresponsibly providing arms wherever arms were required, not even providing in some cases the ability to track and measure where those weapons are ending up?

00:48:31.000 But that's just what I think.

00:48:33.000 Why don't you let me know what you think in the comments below.

00:48:35.000 for these appalling attacks on Israel or not, clearly the conditions for that to happen

00:48:39.000 are in place. And surely we have to ask questions around the rhetoric that's being used in this

00:48:45.000 dispute by people who potentially will exploit any situation in order to generate profit,

00:48:51.000 custom and business from the most appalling crises in the world. But that's just what

00:48:56.000 I think. Why don't you let me know what you think in the comments below. I'll see you

00:48:59.000 in a second. 1.00

00:49:00.000 Here's the fucking news. 0.96

00:49:06.000 Click the link in the description now if you're watching this anywhere other than Rumble and download the Rumble app if your device will allow it so you will know every time we make content because we're looking at another significant issue right now. 0.96

00:49:19.000 We're observing the way that censorship has increased, how the internet itself has changed from a potential place of communication, revolution, decentralization and democracy into a dystopia of censorship and surveillance.

00:49:34.000 We'll be talking to Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia, president of the Knowledge Standards Foundation.

00:49:40.000 But in order to participate in that, you've got to join us over on Rumble.

00:49:43.000 Click the link in the description.

00:49:45.000 If you're here on Rumble, thank you for joining us.

00:49:47.000 Remember, become an Awakened Wonder, then you get access to our additional content where we talk about Off-grid communities, where we talk about cryptocurrencies, where we talk about solutions to the problems we talk about here every day.

00:49:59.000 Join us.

00:49:59.000 Become a member of our community that's advanced together.

00:50:03.000 Time now to introduce Larry.

00:50:04.000 Larry, thank you so much for joining us today.

00:50:07.000 You must have started Wikipedia as, I'm imagining, a fresh-faced idealist, full of potential and possibility, believing that Wikipedia would become an open source of knowledge collaboration, perhaps creating a consensus around a variety of complex topics.

00:50:24.000 Can you tell me how Wikipedia changed from the vision you originally had to it and how it can be used as a kind of thermometer for a changing global climate when it comes to establishment intervention, You ask a very big question.

00:50:43.000 So let's just take the first one, then, basically, how it changed.

00:50:49.000 You know, when it started, there was a very robust neutrality policy.

00:50:55.000 Articles had to be balanced.

00:50:57.000 Many different points of view needed to be able to be stated, and they were, actually, in the first several years.

00:51:05.000 I mean, it was already starting to lean left because that's how most of the contributors were, but still, they made a real effort.

00:51:13.000 And over the next 10 years, and really solidifying by about 2015, The left had continued its march through the institutions.

00:51:25.000 One of them, now one of the dominant institutions of big tech, is Wikipedia itself.

00:51:32.000 And so by 2015, it It's shared in the same sort of outright bias that you see in the mainstream news media.

00:51:51.000 So they wear their bias on their sleeve, and they have for the last several years.

00:51:58.000 And this is particularly clear For any of the issues that we like to refer to as the narrative or whatever the current thing is.

00:52:13.000 So as I say, around like maybe 2016 when the Brexit debate was happening and Donald Trump's first election, that I think is what really made the switch for the major news media.

00:52:28.000 and I think that at the same time is what kicked the bias of Wikipedia into high gear.

00:52:36.000 So I could say a lot more but... I have a bunch of questions based on what you've already said.

00:52:42.000 With social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, now X, it's understood that these sites can be used to form consensus through communication and we're aware as a result of the Twitter files that deep state agencies were sort of embedded within Twitter.

00:52:58.000 Certainly they were spending money, they were directing content, they were Pre-emptively asking for certain types of content, even true information to be suppressed.

00:53:06.000 Most of our audience will be familiar with those practices now.

00:53:09.000 But when it comes to those social media sites, they're communicative tools that create a consensus around news.

00:53:16.000 Wikipedia is a different type of resource.

00:53:18.000 It's not a social media platform, or is in fact the only one of the top five that isn't, I suppose, other than Google, which encompasses different types of social media sites, I suppose.

00:53:27.000 So can you tell us, what is the distinction, and post Brexit and Trump, how did you see that neutrality being impeded upon?

00:53:35.000 Was it because of intervention of deep state agencies?

00:53:40.000 And can you give us a couple of examples of topics that were previously been collaboratively and somewhat objectively conveyed, becoming more biased and clearly subject to, as you say, a particular narrative?

00:53:54.000 I have cited a number of examples in a series of blog posts.

00:54:02.000 And it's hard to pick one, especially because after I make these blog posts, they'll go to the articles and try to clean them up to some extent.

00:54:13.000 So they're not quite as embarrassing to them.

00:54:17.000 But you ask a very interesting question.

00:54:21.000 Basically, What is the difference between the techniques used for information control by Twitter and Facebook and Instagram, whatever, and on the one hand, and Wikipedia on the other?

00:54:43.000 Well, I think the difference is for X or Facebook, They are literally throttling the views that they don't want people to share.

00:54:56.000 I myself, I used to have a blue check, but I now have less traffic than I had before I had a blue, before I got my

00:55:09.000 blue check on my posts, and this back in 2019. And so it's

00:55:15.000 really, it's very interesting to me.

00:55:18.000 Now, on Wikipedia, on the other hand, it's actually much more straightforward.

00:55:23.000 They simply don't allow certain points of view to be introduced.

00:55:30.000 Now, from the outsider, or even people who are working and not even thinking about what's going on behind the scenes, It's what it looks like is just a bunch of random people who are anonymous, mostly, debating on what's called the talk page of Wikipedia, negotiating about what the article will be, and just a whole bunch of people who are really, really left wing or really, really, because it isn't necessarily the left, right?

00:56:05.000 It's the establishment.

00:56:06.000 It's the establishment left, mostly.

00:56:11.000 And they are all, you know, pushing a certain point of view.

00:56:15.000 And if you try to give voice to any sort of, you know, skepticism about the jab, just for example, then they will shut you down and block you.

00:56:31.000 But I think what's going on is that Any number of prominent players in the media landscape, and by that I mean not just, you know, I'm not talking about the, you know, network anchors or anything like that.

00:56:52.000 I'm just talking about whoever is influencing the media, whoever cares, and that includes especially like PR firms, and quite frankly, A variety of government agencies that make it their business to direct these things, as we have learned in the last couple of years, especially in the Twitter files, right?

00:57:15.000 I hope your viewership is aware of the Twitter files.

00:57:22.000 Yeah, we are.

00:57:23.000 We've had Matt Taibbi, Michael Schellenberger, Barry Weiss, David Zweig, all of these people come on our show and very much inform our perspective on how deep state agencies and corporate interests have co-opted big tech, how there's been a sort of formation of new elites, how the online space essentially could be conceived as a new Territory opening up, much like the discovery of what was somewhat dismissively regarded as the New World, which was subsequently being colonized by various sets of interests.

00:57:59.000 The once organic space that afforded the advent of Napster and the changes that that created, or the Arab Spring, has necessarily become co-opted and controlled in the same way that We would have assumed, and continue to assume, that legacy media outlets like the BBC, CNN, ultimately see independent media now as their competitors rather than one another.

00:58:26.000 We understand that there is an agenda, that the function of the legacy media is to amplify the agenda of the powerful and normalise the agenda of the powerful, and they increasingly are encroaching on the spaces that afforded actual dissent, independent thinking, independent conversation, their publishing of counter narratives.

00:58:49.000 I suppose what's interesting about Wikipedia is because it was so successful and effective, it became the de facto resource for everybody from schoolchildren to, well, let's face it, media, like new media, like we look at Wikipedia, Still.

00:59:03.000 And I suppose there's a difference from looking at, like, Henry VIII and, like, I know, was he six?

00:59:08.000 Did he have six wives?

00:59:09.000 And seeing potential inflections that might not have been available to Tudor philosophers imposed by more modern perspectives.

00:59:19.000 And that's, you know, that's all part of progress.

00:59:21.000 And that's Interesting and exciting.

00:59:23.000 But if you can't say, why were Pfizer afforded an indemnity agreement?

00:59:29.000 Why are they not publishing those results for 75 years?

00:59:32.000 What is the relationship between vaccine injury and myocarditis?

00:59:36.000 How effective and what clinical trials were conducted?

00:59:38.000 For children and pregnant women, what are the studies that suggest that breastfeeding women can safely take the vaccine?

00:59:46.000 That is precisely where you're saying there will not be open conversation and again the coronavirus pandemic is more a lens rather than a unique, whilst it was unique in many ways, I primarily myself have started to regard it as a Opportunity to see how institutions and power always function.

01:00:04.000 Where do their interests converge and how are they trying to establish new elites?

01:00:09.000 Now, recently, Larry, perhaps we had on the show Dr Robert Epstein.

01:00:13.000 You've maybe heard of him and the studies he does of Google activity and how new and how reality is ultimately curated, cultivated and imposed through Google's ability to manipulate, ultimately, news feeds, I suppose.

01:00:27.000 Now, is it true that Google makes significant donations to Wikipedia, and as a result, are able to manage and control the reality?

01:00:36.000 Because I suppose the way I see Wikipedia, you know, it's a pretty simple and obvious metaphor, I suppose, or at least analogy, is like, it's like a library.

01:00:44.000 And if you have control over what's in that library and what's not in that library, you control the knowledge base itself.

01:00:52.000 You are able to, that's why we live in this siloed and bifurcated cultural space, is because half of the world are not gaining access to any counter-narratives.

01:01:02.000 They're receiving hyperbole and bombast and consuming it as facts.

01:01:05.000 In particular, what is the relationship between Google and Wikipedia?

01:01:10.000 And is it true that there are paid consultants managing Wikipedia?

01:01:15.000 And so how is it ultimately that financial interests are managing the information you see in Wikipedia?

01:01:21.000 Right.

01:01:24.000 Well, I think Google has contributed to Wikipedia in a couple of different ways that are really important.

01:01:32.000 They have given millions of dollars, but Wikipedia gets, you know, tens of millions of dollars per year now in donations from various sources.

01:01:45.000 I'm not sure that a really significant amount of that comes from Google, but it doesn't matter because Google's main contribution by far is the massive amount of traffic that they send to Wikipedia.

01:02:04.000 And there is, you know, what internet theorists have called for a long time, the long tail of topics.

01:02:14.000 And Wikipedia, if you want to look up an article about, I was looking at this Civil War general, Sylvester Morris, or something like that.

01:02:27.000 And there's only one encyclopedia article about this Civil War figure, and it's from Wikipedia.

01:02:38.000 You won't find a separate standalone article about that guy.

01:02:43.000 And there's literally millions of topics like that, Wikipedia, that Wikipedia has the only article about.

01:02:50.000 So I noticed back in the beginning, back in the day, how each month, because it happened on a monthly basis,

01:02:59.000 the Google bot would come through and it would spider new set of articles,

01:03:08.000 and we'd get a new influx of traffic and a new influx of editors as a result.

01:03:18.000 And that pattern continued on for years and years.

01:03:23.000 So, as a friend of mine likes to put it, Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that Google built.

01:03:33.000 And I think there's something to that.

01:03:36.000 And it's very sad.

01:03:38.000 But I have to say, Wikipedia is not the only encyclopedia out there.

01:03:46.000 I hope you're going to ask me about the solution, because there is a very clear solution.

01:03:52.000 All right.

01:03:53.000 Well, Larry, it would be quite remiss and almost unbearably recalcitrant for me now not to say.

01:04:00.000 Larry, watch me do this because I'm a professional.

01:04:03.000 Larry, this is very difficult for me to listen to.

01:04:07.000 Almost inducing despair.

01:04:09.000 If only there was some sort of solution to this centralised, authoritarian, highly censored and cultivated space.

01:04:16.000 There is.

01:04:16.000 Is there?

01:04:18.000 There is.

01:04:21.000 I'm going to... That's all we've got time for today.

01:04:23.000 We're gonna have to... That's a joke.

01:04:25.000 Matt, I'm part of the problem!

01:04:28.000 That was funny.

01:04:31.000 Okay.

01:04:32.000 Now, you were a comedian before.

01:04:34.000 That's right.

01:04:35.000 Okay.

01:04:36.000 I guess you still are.

01:04:36.000 All right.

01:04:37.000 Hey! 0.99

01:04:38.000 I don't tell you how to build encyclopedias.

01:04:41.000 Don't tell me how to do my job.

01:04:44.000 All right.

01:04:45.000 Well, you made me laugh.

01:04:46.000 So...

01:04:46.000 All right.

01:04:49.000 Yes, I think it's like this.

01:04:53.000 There are a lot of other encyclopedias, and if you do search for encyclopedia articles on any topic, Even Google will still give you articles from other encyclopedias.

01:05:10.000 Wikipedia is usually the first result, right?

01:05:14.000 But if there are more, and especially if people are going to other sites more, Wikipedia, I think, will not be pushed as heavily by Google and other sources.

01:05:28.000 So there's a couple of things that we need to do.

01:05:30.000 I talked about the long tail of articles.

01:05:34.000 All of you people out there need to start writing encyclopedia articles, and you need to start putting them on your blogs.

01:05:40.000 And I mean about like that Civil War general, the long tail.

01:05:44.000 There are a lot of specialized topics that you have knowledge about that other people don't know things about.

01:05:51.000 You should be writing encyclopedia articles about them, And putting them on your blogs, and you will, and we actually have, so when I say we, I mean the Knowledge Standards Foundation, we have a plugin for WordPress that will allow you to push an article that is only on your blog to the Encyclosphere.

01:06:12.000 And what the Encyclosphere is, is a free collection of all the encyclopedias, or at least that's what it will be when we're finished collecting them all.

01:06:21.000 It takes time to collect them all.

01:06:23.000 We've got 35 encyclopedias.

01:06:24.000 We're going to be doubling that number soon.

01:06:29.000 So Encycloreader and Encyclosearch, those are two different encyclopedia search engines and readers.

01:06:39.000 You should be using those instead of Wikipedia if you want to look at Wikipedia.

01:06:44.000 In fact, there's another thing that we do.

01:06:46.000 We have a plugin for Chrome or Chrome-based web browsers like Brave, which is what I use.

01:06:56.000 And if you do a search on any topic that is in the encyclosphere, which is most of them now, then it will come up with some search results above the Google results, if you're using Google or, I think, DuckDuckGo.

01:07:16.000 And if you click on those results, or if you click on a Wikipedia result inside of the results, instead of going to Wikipedia, it will load the article directly in your browser.

01:07:30.000 Right?

01:07:31.000 So, in other words, it will grab it through the web torrent network.

01:07:38.000 You won't even visit their website.

01:07:40.000 None of your traffic will be logged.

01:07:42.000 So, and this is possible now, right?

01:07:44.000 Because, well, we've been working on the technology.

01:07:48.000 Okay, here's another thing that you badly need to do.

01:07:52.000 We really need to start doing this now.

01:07:56.000 We are complaining about the bias of Wikipedia articles, right?

01:08:01.000 Well, we can fix that.

01:08:02.000 We can rewrite the Wikipedia articles.

01:08:05.000 There is, in fact, A big, I think, well-managed organization.

01:08:13.000 It's not a big organization.

01:08:15.000 It's a big project.

01:08:17.000 It's a major new project called Justopedia, as in it's just an encyclopedia.

01:08:24.000 And they have forked Wikipedia and they just put the articles up there for you to edit and make your own versions of.

01:08:37.000 And it's really great, and soon the Justopedia articles will also be automatically included in the Encyclosphere.

01:08:49.000 So I don't think that people are going to start using like Encycloreader or Encyclosearch anytime soon.

01:08:56.000 But if we organize all of the other encyclopedias in one giant database, that's what we are doing, right?

01:09:05.000 And then we make it available to other search engines, like Brave, for example.

01:09:11.000 I've talked to the CEO of Brave, Brendan Eich.

01:09:15.000 And he's interested in using our content.

01:09:20.000 I shouldn't say our content.

01:09:21.000 It's not our content.

01:09:22.000 We are simply aggregating the content from all of these sources.

01:09:26.000 That will essentially make a unified but decentralized network of all of the encyclopedias.

01:09:34.000 Wikipedia is in there.

01:09:36.000 It's included in there.

01:09:38.000 But it's all of the encyclopedias.

01:09:40.000 And of course, the whole is greater than the part.

01:09:43.000 Which is just Wikipedia, right?

01:09:46.000 I like the phrase unified but decentralized.

01:09:50.000 That's a flag I can march under.

01:09:53.000 Also, it's very surprising to see that you're kind of a real-life neo, navigating the matrix, organizing renegades, Trying to create rebellion against centralised information.

01:10:08.000 And in a way, Larry, it seems like you're reviving the spirit of the early internet, where there was this kind of utopian moment that everyone's collective knowledge could be shared, that communities that were geographically disparate but shared an interest could form.

01:10:26.000 that actually the necessity for authoritarianism and centralisation is itself diminished by

01:10:33.000 the ability for communities to come together around what might be regarded as niche issues.

01:10:39.000 In a sense, the advent of this technology could be used to, in a way I suppose, enhance

01:10:47.000 our anthropological origins as a tribalised but not necessarily oppositionist and conflict-strewn

01:10:55.000 society.

01:10:56.000 There was a time where there was true diversity, where we wouldn't expect people in Iceland to have the same culture as the people in Senegal, and we would glory in the truly distinct cultures around food and religion and ideology.

01:11:09.000 And now there is this homogenizing force Masquerading as, like, we're interested in diversity.

01:11:18.000 Even when people use the term, like, left, I think, well, is it about redistribution?

01:11:24.000 Is it about the real support of various communities?

01:11:29.000 Or is this actually authoritarianism?

01:11:31.000 I'm sure you're familiar with Martin Gurry's analysis that the terms left and right are becoming almost redundant as a new dynamic between Centralising authority, establishment authority and peripheral dissent is becoming the root.

01:11:45.000 That's why there are these extraordinary alliances.

01:11:47.000 That's why someone like me, I'm more inclined to think that Donald Trump is going to provide a solution than I would Joe Biden.

01:11:56.000 Even though I think what's really needed is massive systemic change.

01:12:01.000 And now those kind of things can be openly discussed.

01:12:05.000 Even though what you're undertaking is a vast enterprise, it alludes to and infers an even greater possibility for decentralization.

01:12:14.000 How significant do you think those principles are?

01:12:17.000 And particularly what you said, unified but decentralized.

01:12:20.000 Do you think that's something that could be mapped onto political ideals?

01:12:23.000 Because plainly it's an ideal of yours.

01:12:26.000 A real ideal is a principle, and principles can be applied almost universally.

01:12:31.000 Yeah, I think so.

01:12:37.000 It's interesting.

01:12:38.000 I remember I was once asked to speak to the intelligence community back in, like, 2008.

01:12:46.000 And they were asking me, you know, would it be possible to create a wiki for intelligence?

01:12:59.000 And that is actually kind of what you just said.

01:13:08.000 It's immediately brought that to mind.

01:13:11.000 In other words, there is something about the notion of trying to organize organic, naturally occurring behavior that militates against freedom, okay?

01:13:31.000 So let me say this, though, before I try to attack your question in a different way.

01:13:40.000 I need to say this.

01:13:45.000 I think some of your viewers might be worried that by collecting all of the encyclopedias, unifying them, as I say, that we would then be giving them all a single neck to cut off.

01:14:02.000 That's absolutely not the case.

01:14:05.000 In other words, we're not unifying them under any sort of management.

01:14:09.000 The thing that unifies them—this is the important point.

01:14:12.000 It's a technical point.

01:14:13.000 All right, is that there is a standard for encyclopedia articles now.

01:14:22.000 We call it the ZWI or zipped wiki file format.

01:14:29.000 So all of those encyclopedia articles that I described have been represented.

01:14:36.000 They have been captured in the ZWE file format.

01:14:41.000 And there's also a standard way of organizing the articles in a database so that different organizations that manage different aggregators of different collections of encyclopedias They can exchange articles via these files, all right?

01:15:06.000 It is the fact that there is a technical standard that no one is in control of, that everyone sort of agrees to use organically, right?

01:15:19.000 That is the thing that enables Freedom on the internet.

01:15:25.000 The reason I'm going on this, I know it sounds very wonky, I know it sounds like irrelevant and and merely technical, but it's not.

01:15:33.000 This is the core of the issue.

01:15:35.000 This is the core of the issue of internet freedom, and a lot of non-techies don't realize this, but I'm telling you, it's the thing that enables freedom and always has on the internet, the thing that made the internet free in the first place, were Standards, okay?

01:15:55.000 And I mean technical standards, communications standards.

01:16:00.000 And when there are standards, Well, that means that you actually have to build clients that connect with a network, which is necessarily amorphous and existing in many different places.

01:16:15.000 And so, for example, we have two different aggregators started by two different programmers

01:16:24.000 using two different programming languages, and they are exchanging their files between them.

01:16:30.000 And we're encouraging others to...

01:16:32.000 Another guy wrote one out of the blue, not part of our organization, I should say.

01:16:38.000 So, the thing that we need to be doing, the real solution here to the technical problems

01:16:50.000 actually involves things like...

01:16:53.000 I'm not saying that blue sky is the answer.

01:16:56.000 It probably isn't, and there are other things, but Blue Sky is an example of the sort of thing that I'm talking about.

01:17:03.000 So Blue Sky on social media is this project that was started by the former CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey.

01:17:17.000 It basically aims to enable people to host their own data, to host their own lists of followers and people they follow, so that you could actually own your own presence online and interface with others via standards.

01:17:45.000 So even the Knowledge Standards Foundation has started a project like this, and I'm not saying that ours is the best solution either, but we use the RSS standard.

01:17:56.000 We actually are built on top of the blogging network.

01:17:59.000 Right?

01:18:00.000 And so it is actually a plugin for WordPress.

01:18:05.000 That's the sort of thing that I'm talking about.

01:18:07.000 In other words, if you really, really want decentralization online, and if you want to make that a reality, then you have to adopt standards, and you have to adopt free clients that are easy for grandma to install, that plug into those networks.

01:18:30.000 If you just start creating alternate websites like Rumble, for example, that's just another... it's just another competing centralizing force.

01:18:41.000 So, now, okay, to address your question about, you know, how Cognate concepts might be developed for Politics.

01:18:57.000 Government.

01:19:00.000 I mean, it's called freedom, right?

01:19:02.000 I mean, I would think rather that we are taking pre-existing political concepts, self-determination, freedom, individual rights, and applying them to the sphere of tech.

01:19:18.000 Basically.

01:19:19.000 So I actually think it goes the other way around.

01:19:21.000 I don't propose to innovate politics.

01:19:28.000 I mean, I'm a conservative libertarian.

01:19:32.000 Conservatarian, as we call them in the United States, right?

01:19:41.000 But, I mean, we must not lose sight of the fact That so much of our governance now takes the form of technology, right?

01:19:58.000 The policies that something like Twitter more directly affects my life than a thousand laws passed by Congress or Parliament or whatever.

01:20:12.000 Wow.

01:20:16.000 In other words, the technology policy matters a lot.

01:20:22.000 I understand, Larry, what you're saying, and I can see where these ideas mesh together.

01:20:26.000 Ultimately, there's a requirement for standards and principles, and that those have to be indefatigable, enshrined and clear.

01:20:34.000 And when you start to culturally mess with ideas like freedom of speech, of free speech, Then you facilitate and now through technology are able to execute forms of previously unimaginable tyranny.

01:20:50.000 So what you're saying is the principles that preceded online spaces have to be applied in them and there has to be a consensus around what they are and you've explained to us very lucidly and clearly what the Tissue is that connects these ideas, that there are ways to govern these spaces that are in alignment with values that we used to consider to be important.

01:21:13.000 We still claim that we consider important, but everywhere we see them trespassed against.

01:21:19.000 Larry, thank you so much.

01:21:21.000 Is there, before we leave, what is the function of the Knowledge Standards Foundation?

01:21:27.000 Is this something that's beyond what you're describing in terms of the aggregation of these various Encyclopedia, or is that part of that same deal?

01:21:38.000 Well, we've got a lot of different things going.

01:21:43.000 But yeah, the most important task that we have is to aggregate all of the encyclopedias, make them available via search engines and readers.

01:21:56.000 But even that isn't as important as simply aggregating them, making all of the data available And then encouraging developers to build on top of that in order to, again, have a decentralized but unified collection of encyclopedias that together is greater than Wikipedia.

01:22:18.000 Larry, thank you for being so clear about a subject that's very, very important and sometimes so vast it's difficult to contain without anchoring it to a simple principle like freedom.

01:22:29.000 And the phrase, unified but decentralized, is one I'll remember for a long time.

01:22:34.000 Thank you for joining us.

01:22:35.000 I hope that you'll come on again and talk further about some of these principles and ideas, will you?

01:22:40.000 Sure, absolutely.

01:22:42.000 Send your viewers, please, to encyclosphere.org.

01:22:42.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:22:47.000 The name of the network is the Encyclosphere, so it's called encyclosphere.org, and there you will find links to EncycloSearch and EncycloReader and our other projects.

01:23:00.000 Couldn't you think of a name that was more difficult to spell?

01:23:02.000 Why don't you call it Encyclo-Sphinx Establishmentarialism?

01:23:08.000 Christ, Larry!

01:23:08.000 Just focus on the marketing!

01:23:10.000 I can see what Jimmy Wales was doing in that operation.

01:23:13.000 He was making it manageable!

01:23:18.000 People complained about Wikipedia, too.

01:23:20.000 What kind of name is Wikipedia?

01:23:22.000 Geez, nobody's ever gonna, like, use that.

01:23:25.000 That's like you're doing it to failure.

01:23:27.000 So, I'm not worried.

01:23:30.000 Thank you, man.

01:23:31.000 Thanks so much for joining us.

01:23:32.000 We're gonna post a link in the description to many of Larry's endeavors, each of which is more difficult to spell than the last.

01:23:39.000 On the show tomorrow, we have Dr. Asim Malhotra, the man for whom this sign was invented.

01:23:44.000 When he starts talking, it's very difficult to stop him.

01:23:48.000 Why don't you click the red Awaken button and support us?

01:23:50.000 Because you know what we're gonna do?

01:23:52.000 We're going to ensure that conversations like that one, unified but decentralized, are continued.

01:23:57.000 Wouldn't you like to see Dr. Robert Epstein and Larry Sanger together talking about how we can radically use the internet?

01:24:05.000 How we can free ourselves from these colonizing and centralizing forces?

01:24:09.000 Also, as well as that, there's extended interviews, meditations, and readings, ideas that are going to change the world.

01:24:15.000 Your voice, How is your voice going to change the world?

01:24:18.000 You just heard from Larry there.

01:24:20.000 Your principles are important.

01:24:23.000 Some voices that have joined us include Matt Z, GJ2335, Kelvin Zero, Wastela Bee, Evo J, and The Rugged Nerd.

01:24:31.000 Thank you for becoming AwakendWonders.

01:24:32.000 Thank you for supporting our voices.

01:24:34.000 Join them.

01:24:35.000 Join us.

01:24:36.000 Join us again tomorrow, not for more of the same, but for more of the different.

01:24:39.000 Until then, if you can, stay free.

01:24:44.000 Man, he's switching.

01:24:45.000 He's switching.

01:24:46.000 He's switching.

01:24:47.000 Man, he's switching.

01:24:51.000 He's switching.

Stay Free - Russel Brand - October 17, 2023

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