As long as we can still freely communicate, is it possible for us to be free from censorship? In this episode, Russell Brand talks about the growing anti-establishment alliance that s emerging across the world, and why it s important that we don t get lost in the maelstrom of censorship and oversight. He's joined by David Axelrod and Michael Francis to discuss the importance of free speech and the role of the internet in our political discourse, and how we can all work together to make sure we're all free to speak our minds and speak to each other in the 21st century. (birds chirping) (upbeat music) (Upbeat Music) (Bird's Chirping/Upbeat) (I'm Looking For The Seal) (birdschirping / Upbeat Music: I'm Looking for the Seal) In this video, you're going to see the future. We've got a live shot there. We'll find out more about that later this month. Stay free with Russell Brand! - Stay Free With Russell Brand. (Stay Free, Stay Free, My Dear Friend) - Stay Safe, My Brother, Stay Safe and Don't Get Lost in the Storm. ) Thank you for listening to Stay Free! - Russell Brand Stay Safe Out There, my brother and sister, Amy and David, and thank you so much for being a part of this amazing community. - Amy, David, David and Michael, and all of your support, thank you for being here, and supporting us, and stay safe, safe, sound and free, and keep us safe, and strong, and we'll see you in 2020. Love you all, bye bye. xoxo, bye Bye Bye Bye, Love, bye, Bye, Bye Bye Love, Blessings, Eternally grateful you all. - Your Brother and Blessings - Eternally, EJ & EJ - Rory - P.S. - Elesa - M.A. (A. & J. (Isaac) - R. ( ) - D. ( ) - E. (BENERO ( ) - JUICY ( ) ( ) & K. . (Amber ( ) . - JOSEPH ( ) and P. (sic) ( ) ( (S. ( ), & KAVANA ( )
00:02:32.000Thanks for joining me today for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
00:02:35.000We're talking to Michael Francis a little bit later, as long as we can still freely communicate.
00:02:41.000Remember, later this month, I'll be peering at Rescue the Republic, also known as Rescue the West.
00:02:49.000And I wanted to pay particular attention to this image.
00:02:54.000There I am at the very front of that boat.
00:02:57.000Just in front of Donald Trump, I'd like to know what this... I'm going to find out what that is emulating, that image, because I want to know which one of the people, which one of the brave heroes that likely my ancestors were in a war opposing, given that I'm English, A red coat, etc.
00:03:15.000I am the facsimile of in that glorious image.
00:03:18.000There's details in the description of how you can attend that event.
00:03:23.000There's a lot of excitement obviously in the post-Tulsi, post-Bobby Kennedy moment that makes it pretty clear that what we have now is an anti-establishment movement versus the establishment.
00:03:36.000Let me know in the rumble chat or indeed if you are an awakened wonder Let me know in that chat there.
00:03:42.000And if you are an Awakened Wonder, we will find ways to get you some free tickets for that event.
00:03:48.000I mean, I'm not sure actually that you even pay to attend that event, but we'll certainly give you some sort of VIP thing.
00:03:52.000We'll find out more about that as it draws closer to us.
00:03:55.000You'll certainly have to be an Awakened Wonder to participate.
00:03:59.000Now, We recognize the significance in particular of the formulation of an anti-establishment alliance because we are reaching a kind of fever pitch of censorship.
00:04:11.000Here's Elon Musk responding to the protests in Brazil.
00:04:14.000This was a Few months ago, people of Brazil are evidently not happy with what's happening in that country, and it's surprising to learn that the United States of America, far from opposing a foreign nation that are legislating against an American corporation, they are supporting it.
00:04:32.000Here, Face the Nation appear to be saying that Elon Musk is a peddler of misinformation.
00:04:39.000Let me know in the comments and chat if you agree with them.
00:04:41.000David, you've been really proactive, I see you online, pushing back when you encounter really serious election misinformation, particularly when it comes from someone like Elon Musk, who owns a social media platform and has been pushing some really inflammatory claims when it comes to voting.
00:04:59.000Yeah, there are very powerful forces that want us as Americans who live in our democratic society to doubt that democratic society, to doubt our elections that decide our leaders, and to hate our neighbours, to think of our neighbours as enemies if they happen to disagree with us politically.
00:05:18.000And the fact is that our elections are as secure as they've ever been.
00:05:21.000This is actually a bit like a children's book.
00:05:25.000Where the language that's used to describe the opponents is precisely the language that you could use to describe yourself.
00:05:34.000I'm going to make sure that I'm not doing it.
00:05:36.000I'm going to make sure that I'm not participating in anything other than unifying language of hope and optimism and real and radical change in the face of, it seems to me, sets of legislation across the world designed to inhibit personal freedom.
00:05:50.000Let's try our best to do that because here's a resurfaced Clip of Kamala Harris saying, or appearing to say at least, that she would ban X were she to ascend to the high office of presidency.
00:06:05.000He has lost his privileges and it should be taken down and the bottom line is that you can't say that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter.
00:06:15.000Have you seen some of the investigation into child exploitation on Meta and how in fact it does appear to be one rule for X and one rule for Meta and very much in Meta's favour.
00:06:26.000The same rule has to apply, which is that there has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power.
00:06:36.000They are directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation.
00:06:46.000Oversight and regulation, control and censorship, synonyms, and it'll be easy to get lost in a maze of nomenclature if you weren't paying attention to what's happening across the world right now.
00:07:01.000And Wokeness there, pointing out that Kamala supports what Brazil just In my country now, we are experiencing, as we are across the world, resurgent nation-first politics.
00:07:15.000Many people are concerned about what's happening in Germany and the recent election results in Germany.
00:07:22.000Let's have a look at Nigel Farage from the UK commenting on the UK, the country I live in and I'm in right now, putting out Issuing jail sentences for violations of social media codes and practices.
00:07:42.000So there I was in Barnsley campaigning in the general election and a lout Opposite side of the street, gets a cup, fills it with cement, lobs it at the bus that I'm on.
00:07:54.000And you can see the picture here of me ducking and me shouting for everybody else, get down.
00:07:58.000It was a very dangerous, provocative, violent thing for this guy to do.
00:08:04.000Luckily, some builders who were working on the site stopped him, apprehended him.
00:08:09.000Today, He's been given a suspended prison sentence.
00:08:12.000He will not serve any custodial time at all.
00:08:16.000But you see, in Keir Starmer's Britain, if he put something intemperate on Facebook after a couple of glasses of wine, he would have gone to prison.
00:08:26.000Can you believe, in the year to March, 147,000 people guilty of carrying knives, some of sexual offences, have been given community orders, which means they don't get criminal sentences.
00:08:40.000We're letting people out who are violent offenders to put Facebook offenders thought speech, some of it not very nice, I'll accept, and to chuck them in prison for a short period of time.
00:08:50.000Law and order, crime is out of control.
00:08:55.000We're even allowing people to go shoplifting up to 200 quid without being prosecuted.
00:09:01.000Extraordinary, this kind of discourse is becoming prevalent in our country, obviously in yours, and one can only assume that conversations like this are happening in, well not happening in Brazil anymore, they've shut down X, but presumably they're happening in Germany, in France, across the world, the sense of polarisation which is Is increasing, which is odd, given that in reality I think now what we have are interconnected nodes and communities that defy the previous categorization of left and right.
00:09:34.000That's why this Rescue the Republic event is taking place because now there are alliances between figures that are to the left of the government, figures that are to the right of the government, most of whom are interested in, I would say, More individual freedom and opposing the establishment.
00:09:52.000Let me know what you think about that in the comments and the chat.
00:09:55.000Douglas Murray was on Piers Morgan and they were talking about Tommy Robinson, the activist often condemned in legacy media for being racist and right-wing.
00:10:06.000He denies in fact both of those charges, saying that what he in fact is, is a journalist who opposes Aspects of Islam that he would describe as being primarily centered around the grooming gang stories and extremism, and in particular where extremism and terrorism meet.
00:10:31.000Tommy Robinson's been on Jordan Peterson recently and has become, in this country at least, a kind of Depending on your perspective, I suppose, over either an avatar of emergent working-class activism or an absolute pariah.
00:10:47.000Here's Piers Morgan discussing him with Douglas Murray.
00:10:52.000Now I suppose whatever your view is on Tommy Robinson, on the religion of Islam, surely all of us want for Any individual or any group to be able to openly communicate and if you don't because you sort of think that the incendiary language contributes to social unrest and unease and I just wonder what the pathway is that's imagined through all of the polarization and and the
00:11:25.000Sort of quite jarring social disturbances that we've had in my country, your country, across the world, last few years in particular, if you're placing the control of information more and more in the hands of the government.
00:11:36.000That's what Douglas Murray and Piers Morgan said.
00:11:40.000People were looking for people who they could say had coordinated this.
00:11:44.000I would say it's much worse than that.
00:11:47.000Would that there were clear coordinators here, because you could go after the people.
00:11:53.000As I understand it, from what I can see, this was angry crowds of people that sometimes became mobs, and they weren't coordinated.
00:12:04.000That is much harder and much more worrying, because it... Well, I would say, I would say... And the rest don't seem to know what to do.
00:12:12.000I would take a slight issue, because I think when you have massive followings on social media like Andrew Tate, and I challenged him about this before I went away, and we had a pretty robust exchange, but also Tommy Robinson, who's been allowed back onto X by Elon Musk, which I don't think was a good decision, but we can debate that another time.
00:12:30.000But when they have these big followings, and they are actively promoting completely wrong information suggesting that the perpetrator was an illegal muslim immigrant to the country on a terror watch list that's when the trouble starts Tommy Robinson on Jordan Peterson said that he did not promote the idea that it was an illegal immigrant and of course Andrew Tate on Piers Morgan Show
00:12:54.000Did admit to incorrectly identifying the murderer of those children in Southport as a particular migrant.
00:13:15.000Who are the pariahs and villains in all this?
00:13:18.000And perhaps if we might allow for a moment our thinking to rest upon solutions.
00:13:22.000Can you imagine there being some social pact and ease between communities at the moment that appear to be...
00:13:31.000Being aggressively groomed to oppose one another.
00:13:34.000And as long as there is social unrest and as long as there is hatred online, the ongoing clamour for further censorship will continue.
00:13:43.000And that is what I, at heart, Oppose above all else.
00:13:47.000If you're watching this on YouTube, we'll be leaving in a second.
00:13:51.000And over the rest of the show, of course, we'll be talking to Michael Francis, Mob Boss, one of the most powerful mafia figures in your country in the 90s, excuse me, 1980s and 1990s, who has found Jesus Christ and now walks a very different path.
00:15:26.000Please click the link in the description.
00:15:28.000Join us on Rumble for my conversation with Michael Francis.
00:15:31.000It's a brilliant conversation where we talk about faith, identity, maleness, masculinity, and so much more.
00:15:37.000Remember, you can become an AwakendWonderer, and when you are one, you qualify to get live tickets to any events that I appear in anywhere in the world.
00:15:46.000I often do live stand-up events, remember?
00:16:40.000I wanted to ask you if you've been diagnosed and if you agree with it of bipolar.
00:16:46.000I myself have been diagnosed and living with bipolar type 2 and it'd be lovely to know if you're on that journey as well and what you do to support it, to keep the moods in check.
00:16:55.000I've had no diagnoses of conditions like You know, bipolar, since I've been drug-free.
00:17:04.000When I was still using drugs, I was diagnosed as being depressed and bipolar.
00:17:09.000And now, with the number of diagnoses they issued around Asperger's, autism, ADHD, I'm very curious as to how I'd get on under scrutiny for those conditions.
00:17:21.000Thanks very much for joining me today for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
00:17:24.000Here now is my conversation with Michael Francis, which I know you are going to love.
00:17:29.000A strong, assertive, masculine man who says that Jesus Christ is the greatest male role model that I ever lived and that our infatuation with materialism can only be cured by one particular pathway.
00:18:03.000So many of my mates are massive fans of you, like, you know, like, you know, I interview people all the time, but a lot of my mates wanted to come today, and one of my mates is hanging out on the other side of this curtain.
00:19:06.000You know, you tell me your experience, of course, please, that's why I'm here, I'm so interested to learn from you.
00:19:14.000But before I was saved, and even before I got into recovery from drugs and alcohol, I was trying to make sense of the world, I was trying to get things from the world, first through drugs and alcohol, then through fame and work.
00:19:35.000I really didn't have a very good attitude when I was promiscuous.
00:19:38.000I really saw the world as something there for me to consume.
00:19:43.000But you've obviously come from a very different... I wonder if there are some comparisons.
00:19:49.000Like, when you've got, like I have, an ability to perform, say you're charismatic, you can hold people's attention, if you've got a certain amount of drive, if you're willing to be hit in the face with a lot of no's, if you're willing to take rebuttal and rejection and humiliation and keep on going, There are systems that will monetize that.
00:20:07.000There are sort of systems, for example, Hollywood or the television industry.
00:20:10.000They go, that person, yes, we can use that person.
00:20:13.000And for a while, they'll commodify you and use you.
00:20:18.000And then once you're not very used to them anymore, You're done.
00:20:22.000Now that's, you know, in one way that sounds ruthless, but that's, it's just business.
00:20:26.000I fancy that it might be the, um, this comparable, albeit with perhaps rather higher stakes in the world you're from, to the kind of motifs and, um, what do I want to say?
00:20:39.000Systems around, uh, organized crime or whatever term you use to describe the, your life before coming, uh, Jesus.
00:20:50.000For example, people right back away from you, even people that have known me for a long time and know that my conduct around women, for example, was selfish.
00:21:03.000It was selfish and I was a player and a womanizer and that is not what Jesus intends for us.
00:21:22.000Like, I wonder if, you know, all the people that knew what it was and knew what it wasn't sort of were really willing to sort of take the line that was being spun by legacy media, being spun by government-funded agencies.
00:21:36.000I wonder if you sort of see, Lionel, a lot of people dropped out.
00:21:41.000I wonder what you think of, like, in your world, whether or not your talent was utilized, exploited, and what comparisons there are.
00:21:50.000Well, you know, Russell, there's no question that on the street, you know, you have to show your value, so to speak, and you have to show what you can contribute to that life.
00:22:03.000And, you know, there are different levels of success in that life like anywhere else.
00:22:07.000And I was fortunate in that I knew how to use that life to benefit me in business and in other ways.
00:22:13.000So for a long time, I was a pretty respected commodity, you know, but it's like anything else.
00:22:19.000When, you know, you turn your back on that for any reason, you're not, you know, providing the same services to them.
00:24:05.000Firstly, I wonder if you can point to values that were present in the life that you were born into that you think are admirable.
00:24:16.000Certainly, there must be certain universal principles that make that lifestyle exciting to people outside of it that have only ever glimpsed it peripherally through, briefly, through associates.
00:24:30.000For example, I was a drug addict for a long time, so your sometimes interface at the very, very lowest levels, I
00:24:39.000suppose, of what that world might incorporate.
00:24:43.000And then, just like anybody, I'm fascinated by the culture of the films.
00:24:48.000And for me, it is to a degree bravery, camaraderie, a code, being against the establishment, being willing to be an
00:24:56.000outsider, being willing to sacrifice yourself for others,
00:25:01.000Those values, like when we started our conversation, seemed like the kind of values that are being bred out and selected against, repressed, oppressed, criticized and condemned in males in our culture.
00:25:14.000A lot of my friends that have ended up You know, serving prison sentences, for example.
00:25:22.000I feel like, you know, in a different time, they would have been heroes in the military, like they're people that, you know, if they've been correctly directed.
00:25:30.000For myself, I feel like I'm someone that if I'd have been introduced to spiritual principles very early in life, I might not have had the road for addiction I had.
00:25:40.000From the inside of it, because you've already said in the first few minutes of our conversations that you have obviously experienced the havoc and devastation that that way of life wreaks on families, and therefore by its fruit shall we know it.
00:25:53.000It's obviously not positive in that regard.
00:25:58.000You know, when you say about the blood oath and all that, those kind of things, it seems like it's somehow trans- not only outside of culture, but somehow transcendent of it.
00:26:07.000You know, the great gangster movies of the 70s and 80s provide us with critiques on America itself, like, oh, well, isn't America generally just gangsters?
00:26:59.000You know, when we take that oath, Russell, it's not an oath to lie, steal, cheat, and kill, even though I'll be the first to admit that's part of that life.
00:28:09.000Once you get into the life, you see what it's really all about.
00:28:12.000And you've got to learn how to navigate it just to, in some ways, survive.
00:28:17.000Um, but you know, again, even when I look back, I mean, I had a lot of good friends, you know, Russell, the age old question, why do, why do good people do bad things, you know?
00:28:28.000And I say this, I met a lot of guys that I thought were good people.
00:28:32.000Now we were corrupted in our thinking and our thoughts, and we did bad things as a result.
00:28:53.000I did bad things thinking I was doing good things at that time because of the oath that I took.
00:28:59.000Honour is a beautiful and highly potent concept.
00:29:06.000I suppose within honour there must be the idea that we value something more highly than ourself, that there is something that is not material that binds us together.
00:29:17.000And honour, I think, is integral in the spiritual life.
00:29:22.000That what I'm discovering and learning about now, Michael, is in lived faith, I'm continually observing as I try to reassert power again in my own life, my own self.
00:29:39.000What I might consider the satanic aspect of my nature, that part of me that is fallen, that part of me that is either Adamic or sinful, to continually yield to Christ.
00:29:53.000In that there is something very difficult to grasp, the idea that I will be carried, the idea that I do not have to make decisions anymore, the idea that I will be shown.
00:30:04.000In your concept of honour, That is an allusion to there is something bigger than self.
00:30:10.000But I can see that what happens, whether it's show business or crime, what people are focusing on actually, they might like some of the code, the honour, the silence, the willingness to die or kill, but also the cars, the drugs, the power.
00:30:35.000I was reminded recently of our Lord when in the sham trial of Pilate, never spoke, stood in silence while being condemned.
00:30:48.000So there's that idea of silence there, and there is no doubt that this is the most honourable being that ever existed.
00:30:57.000To live, to aspire to be like Christ is a very high idea.
00:31:03.000I wonder, can you tell me about the process of relinquishing your former position, being like a very rich man at 35, being revered and respected, and what you were experiencing in terms of pain and shame and loss and isolation, and how Christ was maybe then calling to you, and where you Well, you know, Russell, for me, you know, a guy that always felt that I was in control.
00:31:37.000I never thought that there was a situation that I couldn't handle, you know, always figure it out.
00:31:43.000And then, you know, I go to prison and I spent my first night in solitary confinement.
00:31:49.000I spent 29 months and seven days in solitary.
00:31:52.000And that first night was really a night, and I had done five years in prison prior to that, but this time, the way the feds were on me, I really thought that I was going to lose everything My wife, my children, everything dear to me, my freedom, and that I would never get out of prison again because that's the threats that I had on me at that point.
00:32:13.000And so, I was broken to my lowest degree at that point, at that night.
00:32:19.000And I will tell you this, you know, I used to demean people that were suicidal.
00:33:57.000There's times when, you know, hey, you can take Brooklyn out, your boy out of Brooklyn, but you can't always take Brooklyn out of the boy, and you know the same.
00:34:10.000I don't always, you know, make it through.
00:34:12.000But it's because I have this, this transformation from within.
00:34:17.000I developed this Jesus conscience that, hey, I got to be careful because you said this, there was no greater man that ever walked the face of the earth than Jesus of Nazareth.
00:34:26.000Separate his deity for a moment from his manhood.
00:34:29.000Because me, I'm always, hey, what's a man's man really all about?
00:34:32.000Well, Jesus is the epitome of a man's man.
00:34:38.000But if you, if you allow him to come into your heart, you learn about him, you continuously nourish, because we live in a world where we have so many distractions, you have to be continuously nourished, put yourself around the right people, separate yourself from people that might lead you astray when you get weak.
00:34:54.000Well, that's, that's the way that you straighten out your life.
00:35:18.000Power is a tough aphrodisiac to get rid of.
00:35:21.000But for me, the only way was through Jesus, and I believe He'll find in the same way.
00:35:27.000Sounds like that solitary confinement period was a kind of wilderness for you, where you were shown that what appeared strong was indeed temporary and could all be swept away.
00:35:45.000I feel like in a couple of times I've had my own version of having an experience.
00:35:51.000This is what I thought I was supposed to do.
00:35:53.000I come from a normal background, a place called Essex.
00:35:56.000Essex is kind of like New Jersey, I guess.
00:36:00.000And, like, you know, I was kind of a nervous kid, felt like I didn't fit in, and then, like, when I discovered I could make people laugh and that, I felt like, this is, oh my God, I've got this power, I've got this power, like, you know, I made my dad laugh, I made people at my school laugh, I, like, became a stand-up comedian, I got, like, you know, it was sort of an incredible and exciting journey.
00:36:19.000And it took a long while as well for me.
00:36:21.000It took a long while before money started to come, before power.
00:36:24.000And all the while, by the way, I've become a drug addict, getting addicted to crack and heroin.
00:36:28.000I didn't get addicted to drugs when I had excessive revenue.
00:36:31.000I got addicted to drugs trying to make it on the way there, like still living on welfare, hand-to-mouth, small gigs in front of small crowds, little jobs here and there.
00:36:41.000So by the time that I got sort of to become famous and then famous in your country, You know, and it was actually a bit empty.
00:36:47.000You know, I'm not saying anyone that's experienced deep hedonism, deep epicureanism, knows what it's like to sleep with multiple people simultaneously, knows what it's like to be able to walk up to someone and sleep with them that immediately.
00:37:32.000But I've never been tempted in that way.
00:37:36.000I suppose, you know, to have it all stripped away, to be faced with nothingness again, like, you know, it's happened to me a bunch of times in my life, to be, that fear, that dread, there's a truth in it.
00:37:49.000You're just, like, you know, I'm a 12-step guy, got clean in the 12 steps, and one of my friends said, last time it happened, when I was sort of really attacked in September in this country, and just felt everything falling apart, one of my friends went, You're just experiencing powerlessness, that's all.
00:38:04.000You're just being shown that you have no power.
00:38:07.000You didn't have power anyway, and now you're being shown it.
00:38:11.000And, you know, like, you're saying, like, the aspect of Christ the man, I can't sort of, You're the sort of first person who's put it like that, really.
00:38:18.000There's something very important to me that it's a man, because I don't trust men, I don't like men, I don't like being told what to do.
00:38:27.000You know, I have great friends, I love my friends or whatever, but the idea that I would bow down before a man and say, you are my king, my master, my lord, my saviour, you have all authority, thank you for saving me, Lord Jesus, show me how I can serve.
00:38:42.000Instead of, I always, you know, partly wanted to be Jesus, Never did I think I would surrender and bow down before Jesus!
00:38:50.000That for me, that's a big, big change!
00:38:53.000Listen, you know that we are partners with Rumble, and Rumble have gotten into the coffee game.
00:38:59.000Now, if you knew that your coffee had been tainted with pesticides and chemicals, sitting in bags for months, sitting in an old ball bag for months, probably with traces of mold, would you drink it?
00:39:09.000The answer is, of course you wouldn't.
00:39:11.000Even Jill Biden wouldn't drink a bag so contaminated.
00:39:15.000Most of the coffee we consume is stale, flavourless, and full of harmful substances that have a negative effect on our health.
00:39:21.000Rumble 1775 coffee, on the other hand, is free from harmful substances and chemicals, whilst it's also rich in flavor.
00:39:30.000The beans are sourced from high altitude farms in Bolivia, roasted weekly in Miami, and delivered fresh to your doorstep.
00:39:36.000As believers in freedom, buying 1775 coffee helps fight back against other coffee makers that don't even care about you none.
00:40:06.000And I say that as an Englishman for whom the date 1775 is a very painful thing to reflect on.
00:40:13.000I wonder if you could tell me about in that wilderness, in the period of solitude, what verses and what moments come to you as seeing that there was a light beyond the false Luciferian light of the power you'd previously known?
00:43:49.000It will mentally and emotionally really have a bad impact on their lives.
00:43:53.000But somehow, because I dove into my Bible and I had my wife send me all these books and I had something to live for, I had a wife and kids outside, I was able to get through it and come out okay.
00:44:03.000But I came out a stronger person of faith.
00:44:06.000And I'll tell you what I did, and I think this is important to hear.
00:44:10.000When I, I wanted to study Jesus of Nazareth, so I separated his deity from his manhood, and I wanted to see what kind of guy he was, because I was always, you know, you gotta be a man's man.
00:45:27.000I've been offering up myself more deeply to Christ.
00:45:32.000And like you, there is something ridiculous about an individual sort of barring or bargaining with or negotiating with the all-powerful Trinity that is beyond time and space.
00:45:47.000The line, the verse that got me first, you know, in my own, because I love reading the scripture.
00:45:52.000For some reason, I always thought I knew what was in the Bible without reading it.
00:45:55.000I thought I'd get the idea, but when I actually read it, like a verse like 10.18, when the disciples return from having gone out in pairs to prepare the way for our Lord, and they're excited that they've done healings and stuff, and Jesus says, I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.
00:46:16.000You will do great deeds, for your name is written in heaven.
00:46:20.000You will move among snakes and scorpions.
00:46:23.000It made clear to me that one of the mistakes, perhaps the chief mistake that I've made throughout my life, is setting myself at the apex of things.
00:46:31.000Like Satan, I want to be separate from God.
00:46:37.000I want to be the king of my own little life.
00:46:39.000Have favorites, have people that I damn.
00:46:41.000In my dealings with men, working out, is this a higher status man than me that can give me something, or is this a lower status man than me that I can push around?
00:46:49.000Is this a woman that I'm attracted with and might sleep with?
00:46:56.000Somewhere within me was this sort of latent possibility of becoming better.
00:47:00.000And it's been somewhat gradiated, because I'm certainly a lot better, you know, when I'm not taking crack and heroin.
00:47:06.000Like that, and that's 21 and a half years ago that that stopped.
00:47:10.000But what I can see is that that longing for power, that satanic longing to be the king of my own domain,
00:47:18.000that negotiation that he makes in, is it in Matthew, and I suppose it's in a few of them,
00:47:25.000but like, you know, the, you know, I'll give you everything, why don't you throw yourself off of this,
00:47:28.000why don't you turn the stone into bread, all of that stuff.
00:47:31.000You know, like that negotiation with a satanic.
00:47:34.000What has happened to me since I got baptized, since coming to faith, is that I think that that is diminishing.
00:47:40.000I still, like you have said earlier, feel sin in me, feel like I want to take control sometimes, feel fear in me, maybe even feel lust in me.
00:47:49.000But what's starting to become cultivated is that is not who you are.
00:47:56.000You have been shown again and again that you are in this world, but not of it, that this world will never fulfill
00:48:03.000you, that there's nothing you can get that will ever make you
00:48:05.000feel fulfilled, because you were made to love Him.
00:48:08.000You were made to serve Him. You were made to be in this holy family.
00:48:11.000You were made for adoption. And it's all sort of starting to come to me, you know.
00:48:15.000And I wonder what you feel about that verse from Luke 10, 18 and the importance of your power,
00:48:22.000the power that you've been given being used in His service.
00:48:26.000And given that you've been so successful in a variety of ways, Michael, you've obviously got that kind of, what I want to say, amorphous ability.
00:48:34.000You're one of them people, you put you down in this environment, you'll succeed there.
00:48:38.000Put you in that environment, you'll succeed there.
00:48:40.000So I wonder if you feel like you've been challenged, like, oh, now I'm this guy, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a public speaker, I'm a successful Christian.
00:48:48.000I wonder how you navigate that tension and space of ensuring that it remains in his service.
00:48:55.000And if you have felt in the past, oh, now I've fallen into it again, the trap of self, as it were.
00:49:02.000Well, you know, I don't think that I could ever fall into that again, and I'll tell you why.
00:49:06.000A couple of things that really had an impact on me.
00:49:08.000First of all, you know, I saw some very powerful men in my former life, Russell, and every single one of them, almost to the man, ended up either dead or in prison.
00:49:40.000So that had an impact on me, number one.
00:49:42.000And this may sound crazy, but you know what had an impact on me?
00:49:46.000I used to follow the Shah of Iran, one of the wealthiest men,
00:49:49.000if not the wealthiest man in the world at that point, and he couldn't save himself from cancer.
00:49:55.000And then I looked at J. Paul Getty, richest man in the world, or one of them at that point,
00:50:01.000had seven people at his funeral when he died.
00:50:04.000You know, and I'm saying, we really are very fragile human beings.
00:50:07.000If we get to think that we're all about something and that we're better than everybody else,
00:50:13.000You know, the hammer could fold very quickly on us.
00:50:17.000And I've watched powerful people go down throughout my life.
00:50:20.000And I said, you know, who are we really to think that we command so much power and respect that it's going to last and we're going to be able to reign over people.
00:51:24.000I'm on a stage in, I forget where it was, but there was 20,000 people, a huge church in Chicago.
00:51:31.000And when I was walking off the stage, you would have thought that I was a rock star and people would try to jump at me and get, I never experienced that before, even though people, you know, they enjoy what I do.
00:51:42.000But I get off the stage and my wife looks at me and she says, remember, you're a lot more blessed than you are good.
00:52:02.000A lot of people will probably remain fascinated in the life that you previously inhabited.
00:52:10.000And it will be like your story or your testimony or however you see it, like will remain to a degree defining.
00:52:18.000And I'm thinking about my friends that were excited that I was speaking with you.
00:52:22.000And I feel like a lot of them are perhaps I don't know, because I'm not them, but I get the idea that what they're interested in, to a degree, is the ability to have power, the ability to control, the ability to build organisations, the ability to maximise, optimise.
00:52:37.000And, you know, like anyone who is in the 12 Steps, I have a sponsor or a mentor, I have men, you know, that are further down the path than me that I turn to, and a couple of women actually, but mostly men.
00:52:50.000And I also have men that are younger than me or have been in recovery less time than me that I pass on information to.
00:52:57.000Now a lot of time what I know is, you know, like when people talk to me, that they're impressed that I was in movies.
00:53:04.000They're impressed that I slept around with lots of women.
00:53:08.000They're impressed by the accumulation of things and possessions.
00:53:13.000How do you pass on your ministry knowing that you can't sort of fast-forward people?
00:53:31.000You're a person that's going to get addicted to drugs and sex and stuff if you don't really pursue the spiritual.
00:53:36.000But aside from that, and that didn't happen, you know, it's very hard to sort of say to people who want power, who want money, who want to know how, you know, what is it about organised crime that means that people wouldn't stay in line.
00:53:47.000But it sounds to me that as well as the honour, there's a great deal of fear and pretty powerful consequences.
00:53:52.000And it's not something that you could emulate in a business structure without the incumbent threats and consequences that I've already referred to there.
00:54:00.000So, how do you let people have their own journey while also letting them know, based on your own experience, that they're not going to find it there?
00:54:10.000They're not going to find it in the pursuit of earthly stuff?
00:54:15.000Well, listen, I think, you know, I'm an example of that.
00:54:19.000Well, look, you know, Russell, during a time when I was in that life, we were at one point bringing in five, six, seven, eight million dollars a week.
00:55:08.000You know, but again, you know, realizing the experience that I had when I lost everything and could have, you know, could have spent the rest of my life in prison away from, you know, everybody that I loved.
00:55:19.000And a loss of freedom is a horrible thing.
00:56:40.000I said, when the government came out with the Rico statute and they got ahold of guys and they said, listen, you either cooperate with us or we're going to put you away for a hundred years.
00:56:49.000And that's the kind of time they can give under that statute.
00:56:52.000We'll put you in a witness protection program.
00:58:17.000I like your point that fear is transferable.
00:58:20.000I feel like Machiavelli's book The Prince talks about the importance of leaders being feared rather than loved.
00:58:28.000But as you said, the epitome of masculinity, by your reckoning, is Christ and Christ is love incarnate and I'm thinking of the energy of the book of Acts in particular where like say Stephen or obviously Paul and Barnabas like they're full of absolute love, love that's overwhelming and in the case of Paul
00:58:57.000He's only known the Risen Christ rather than the Living Christ, and that's available to all of us.
00:59:03.000It's available to all of us to know the Risen Christ.
00:59:07.000My fascination with Paul, since actually reading the Bible, has become sort of overwhelming, like this man has gone through shipwrecks and jail time, And trials and just is absolutely committed to the love of Christ and a proper what evangelism should be.
00:59:24.000A willingness to drive through life with absolute love.
00:59:27.000Because sometimes it seems so big Christianity, Michael, that you think, you know, I can see how if, you know, when people ring me up and say like, I'm going to kill myself, then I'm like, right, good.
00:59:37.000This is, you know, this is how I handle that kind of conversation.
00:59:40.000But if it's like my own life and dealing with stuff to do with work, I think, How do I get my Christianity down small enough to deal with like the small, intricate matters of dealing with being a father or being a person, a colleague at work or whatever?
00:59:56.000But when you say trust, learning trust, and the impact that trust has on fear
01:00:03.000and how hard it is to trust, obviously with your background, but even mine
01:00:08.000you know, trust is not easy to me. I don't like trusting people
01:00:12.000my way of handling that dilemma is to not be in relationships where
01:00:16.000I don't have the power and you actually, that means you gotta live in a box
01:00:20.000because I'm not that powerful I'm the little guy.
01:00:33.000I liked it when you sort of pulled that thing from Proverbs, both the one on your arm and the other one.
01:00:38.000Like, principles that recur throughout the Old Testament and then reach their zenith, we would say, as Christians, I guess.
01:00:44.000Like, when he says, you know, love God with all your heart, love your neighbour as you love yourself.
01:00:51.000This is where we're being invited to go, into this state of evangelical love.
01:00:57.000And I know that all the time it's not going to be tambourines and jumping about.
01:01:00.000Sometimes it is going to be filling your car with gas or, you know, the mundane tasks that any human being is confronted with.
01:01:07.000But to live on that basis, to live on that basis of trust, and to know that he's ever-present within, this is beautiful.
01:01:13.000I want to add as well, congratulations on your daughter's marriage over there in Tuscany, that must be beautiful.
01:01:20.000But like, yeah, this passion of acts, this is something that interests me, of how, what our role is as apostles, what our role is as ministers.
01:01:31.000What do you see your role is, and is any of the aggression that you describe in your former life being utilized yet in your new life as a carrier of Christ's message?
01:01:43.000Yeah, well, you know, our mission is clear.
01:01:45.000You know, Jesus' last command before he, you know, ascended into heaven was in Mark 16 15, go out and share or preach the good word to all of creation.
01:01:55.000So we have an obligation as Christians, you know, to share our faith, not to impose it on anybody, not to try to turn anybody into a Christian, But to do exactly what you're doing now, to share our faith.
01:02:12.000And I take that very seriously because I also believe, Russell, that to those of us who have been given much, much is expected in return.
01:02:20.000So I live by that principle, and I also live by the sin of omission is just as sinful as the sin of commission, sometimes maybe even more sinful, because when you see something that you know is harmful or bad or wrong or against Christ, and you don't speak up, You could be jeopardizing other people by not sharing because if you have a platform and you have influence and you have over people and you're not sharing the good word or making them aware, well that's a sin of omission and that's serious.
01:02:51.000So taking all these things into account, I feel I have a personal responsibility to honor the Lord in that way and do my job as a Christian.
01:03:01.000You know, I also, I will tell you this.
01:03:38.000Well, when Jesus was on the cross, after he was condemned, you know, innocent, put to death, all the abuse that he took, you know, turned over by the people that, you know, that he thought were his allies, some of them.
01:03:50.000And he looked down or looked up and said these 10 words, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.
01:03:58.000And I said to myself, my God, I feel I've been wronged in life.
01:04:02.000But if Jesus can do that, who are we not, you know, to carry the burden of unforgiveness against anyone?
01:04:10.000And I've realized it's such a like I had issues with my dad and all this kind of stuff that went on, guys that I thought did the wrong thing.
01:05:06.000What do you think, Michael, what do you do about like, you know, I talk about the news a lot, I talk about American politics, I talk about the corruption of the judiciary, I talk about how President Trump, what he is being through, talk about how I consider corruption now to be coming more in the form Of bureaucratic governments that pretend they're there to help you rather than populist demagogues that might be a 21st century version of Hitler.
01:05:43.000I wonder how you, as a Christian, as a public commentator, as a leader in your field, take on the sort of mad hysteria in your country in particular leading up to this presidential cycle and where you sit within it as a Christian.
01:06:02.000Well, Russell, first of all, I ask you to please, you know, keep telling the truth as you do, because I follow you and I appreciate that because our country has a very severe crossroads right now.
01:06:20.000You know, I had politicians on a payroll.
01:06:23.000I was paying politicians to get me licenses that I could use to defraud the government, and I was paying them by helping me do it, and they knew what we were doing.
01:06:31.000So I mean, I know all of this, but I've never seen the level of corruption as I'm seeing now.
01:06:37.000That's why I wrote a book, Mafia Democracy.
01:06:39.000It's like, They're patterning themselves after, you know, the mob.
01:09:24.000No, it's interesting that you brought up your book, Mafia Democracy, and it's very interesting to see.
01:09:29.000I've always thought this, with like the royal family, because ultimately, at some point in history, there was a land grab.
01:09:35.000At some point in history, a army went, we're in this position now, we're having that land, we're having that power, we're having those resources, we're having those taxes.
01:09:44.000In order to sort of make you forget that, there's Insignia, and sigils, and unicorns, and lions, and robes, and crowns, and jewelries, and scepters, so that you don't- and marches, and parades, so you don't ever think, that's just a mob!
01:09:58.000And like now, with bureaucratic power, it's like everything is very rational, and logical, and here's the data, and here to help, and Get in your home, and we're gonna need you to do this, and it's for your own good, and it's for your own safety, and we need to censor this and control that.
01:10:13.000But behind it, what I see is the same energy of control that, more brazenly, we would see as criminality.
01:10:21.000And it's interesting how they're able to dress it up, because it's corruption, it's stealing, it's exploitation, it's the misuse of institutional power.
01:12:31.000And oddly in keeping with some of the themes, I've come to you on your daughter's wedding day and asked a favour, and you can't say no, as the tradition dictates.
01:12:42.000That's why you're brilliant and you're quick, Russell.
01:12:52.000Thank you very much for joining me for Stay Free with Russell Brand today.
01:12:55.000We will be back tomorrow, not with more of the same, but with more of the different, and I will be joined by Jay Bhattacharya, a brave and bold man who stood firm, clear, and prominent during the heights of the hysteria around the pandemic, notably with his balancing declaration, and many of the things that he claimed have been proven to be right.
01:13:12.000If you're a member of our Awakened Wonder Community, this conversation has been up and available for a week.
01:13:19.000Let me know what you think about it, guys.
01:13:20.000Did you enjoy that conversation as much as I enjoyed having it?
01:13:24.000It will be streamed tomorrow on this channel.