Stay Free - Russel Brand - Midterms - Where's The Red Wave? - #031 - Stay Free with Russell Brand

00:00:00.000 You're welcome.

00:00:07.000 I'm not sure what you're talking about.

00:01:20.000 Brought to you by Pfizer.

00:01:30.000 In this video, you're going to see a different kind of me.

00:01:32.000 going to see the future.

00:01:39.000 Hello and welcome to Stay Free with Russell Brand, where you could be forgiven for thinking

00:01:51.000 that the most important thing in the world are the results of the midterms.

00:01:56.000 Let me know in the comments, let me know in the chat whether you're pleased, excited, disoriented, disappointed, or whether you've reached a kind of transcendence, either

00:02:04.000 through misery or a kind of ongoing despair that grants you a perspective where you can

00:02:09.000 recognise that while this spectacle is extraordinary and at times exciting, is it as important

00:02:16.000 as, for example, a potentially impending nuclear war? We'll be talking about the dearth of

00:02:24.000 ideas in conventional politics and the requirement to continually stimulate...

00:02:28.000 Let me know in the chat, let me know in the comments.

00:02:30.000 Do you think Big Pharma will be meaningfully impacted?

00:02:32.000 pro-gun, anti-gun. Meanwhile the deep machine continues to throb and hum. The

00:02:39.000 interests of the powerful continue uninterrupted. Do you think the military

00:02:44.000 industrial complex will be meaningfully affected by today's results? Let me know

00:02:48.000 in the chat, let me know in the comments. Do you think Big Pharma will be

00:02:50.000 meaningfully impacted? Let me know in the chat, let me know in the comments. Do you

00:02:53.000 think big media will be meaningfully impacted?

00:02:56.000 Well, they will.

00:02:57.000 It's good for them.

00:02:58.000 They love it!

00:02:58.000 They love it.

00:02:59.000 They love the election.

00:03:01.000 Oh, they will be.

00:03:01.000 All right, we've answered that now.

00:03:02.000 You can still contribute.

00:03:03.000 They'll do better.

00:03:04.000 It's going to be good for them.

00:03:05.000 It's good for the mainstream media.

00:03:07.000 Let's take a moment to Pay attention and pay plaudits to those unsung heroes, the mainstream media.

00:03:16.000 Remember, if you're a member of our Stay Free AF community, you can join us continually for our chats and conversations.

00:03:21.000 Later in the show, we're going to be talking to Katie Halper, who I happen to... I nearly said... All right, Katie, how's it going?

00:03:27.000 You all right, mate?

00:03:30.000 Thanks.

00:03:31.000 I nearly inadvertently sort of repeated the information you gave us in the mic test, which I believe included your childhood address, which I've just sort of stopped myself doing because I imagine that's not the kind of thing you want recited on the internet.

00:03:44.000 Katie, Even though you're a person who's had a contentious relationship with the mainstream media and even online media, what do you take primarily from last night's results?

00:03:57.000 What is meaningful?

00:03:58.000 What is going to most impact the lives of ordinary Americans?

00:04:03.000 I think that the biggest takeaway from last night is that obviously there was not this huge red wave that Republicans were hoping for.

00:04:03.000 That's a great question.

00:04:10.000 I think, ironically, the biggest reason that they didn't do as well as they thought was because they kind of did what Democrats are so adept at doing, which is criticizing the opponent without offering any actual alternative plan or messaging.

00:04:26.000 So the Republicans were really hammering the Democrats on inflation.

00:04:29.000 on crime, on manufactured hysteria issues, I would say as well, but they didn't have any plan.

00:04:37.000 I mean, inflation is terrible, but what are you going to do about it? And they never had an answer to that.

00:04:41.000 Possibly also there's a sense that politics itself is becoming kind of a zoetrope of nostalgia.

00:04:51.000 Retrograde politicians emerging, figures of the past dragged out on stage, the current president a sort of cadaver. 0.92

00:04:59.000 Are we living in a kind of end times?

00:05:01.000 Potentially, literally yes, because the escalation in the conflict Between Ukraine and Russia, which some regard as a kind of proxy war.

00:05:09.000 While we're still on YouTube, I certainly don't have an opinion on that.

00:05:12.000 We're on YouTube streaming live.

00:05:13.000 If you're watching this on YouTube right now, jump over and see us on Rumble, where we have the ability to speak freely.

00:05:20.000 And we don't use that free speech to criticize and condemn and divide, but to unify and bring people together.

00:05:26.000 Because it's my explicit opinion That spectacles like the midterms will not meaningfully impact the lives of ordinary Americans and real systemic change is what we ought be demanding and in order to achieve that we must put aside our temporal cultural differences.

00:05:41.000 Katie, why do people care so much about the Fetterman result, for example, and why is Trump engorged with rage?

00:05:52.000 I don't know about Trump being engorged with rage.

00:05:55.000 That's probably something left for a psychoanalyst to talk about.

00:05:58.000 Yes, I'm going to contact one.

00:06:00.000 Yeah, please do.

00:06:01.000 Yeah, because I'm curious as well.

00:06:03.000 I think that Fetterman, it was this interesting race where the fact that Oz was close at all, I think was shocking to people because he is kind of a, well, we can't curse.

00:06:13.000 So I'll just say he's kind of a quack.

00:06:15.000 He didn't even really live in Pennsylvania. 0.76

00:06:17.000 I mean, he was totally a fake Very out of touch.

00:06:21.000 Very out of touch.

00:06:27.000 Fetterman, you know, it's funny because some of Oz's people tried to make him out to be some kind of imposter or inauthentic, but Oz was not even a Pennsylvanian.

00:06:38.000 I mean, he was a total husk of a candidate.

00:06:42.000 Empty husk of a candidate. 0.57

00:06:43.000 Yeah, not even Pennsylvanian.

00:06:45.000 Gareth, you're squirming in your chair, you're filling up with opinions, you need to unburden yourself, what are they?

00:06:50.000 I just think Trump's, it's amazing how influential Trump seems to still be in terms of American politics and yet, you know, Draws huge amounts of people to his rallies still and yet the candidates that he endorsed didn't do well including Dr. Oz and I'm just I'm just wondering how do we know how influential Donald Trump still is or do his endorsements just not mean as much as he himself?

00:07:15.000 Yeah, I think it's really hard to isolate those things.

00:07:17.000 People like to talk with a lot of confidence about it, like the Trump effect, but there's so many variables that it's hard to isolate it, which is not a very exciting response.

00:07:25.000 I know I'm coming on here with a very definitive take on that and be able to point to exactly the effect of the Trump endorsement.

00:07:32.000 But I do think that we'll have to see how other endorsements pan out.

00:07:36.000 There's certainly not enough on their own to make someone win an election.

00:07:40.000 I think that Ron DeSanctimonious, as he likes to call him, Has it been a bit of a, in a sense, has it been a bit of a damp squib of an election?

00:07:49.000 Let's remember that Joe Biden was saying that democracy itself was at stake, which means that democracy is essentially over, that Trump suggested that this was going to be sort of the fluffing of a coming priapic eruption that was going to be his 15th of November announcement, when really what we've got It's in a sense a kind of rather tepid and ordinary election and I feel that we should be demanding more of democracy.

00:08:14.000 If I could just draw your attention, Katie, to some of the pledges that have been broken.

00:08:18.000 I'm not blaming you for these because you aren't Joe Biden.

00:08:21.000 I can tell now.

00:08:21.000 I know that.

00:08:23.000 Some of the pledges that were made in the election campaign that have not been delivered on And I mention this only to remind myself and our community that we get excited by spectacle.

00:08:35.000 We get amped up over needless, empty, vapid information forgetting what the facts of the matter are.

00:08:42.000 For example, Biden said there's that famous cannabis law, which meant that zero people

00:08:47.000 were released from federal prisons.

00:08:50.000 He was going to establish an offshore tax penalty, no tax penalty, targeting foreign

00:08:54.000 operations included in the final bill, introduce a constitutional amendment to eliminate private

00:08:59.000 dollars from federal elections, no sign of constitutional amendment to ban funding of

00:09:04.000 elections, end for profit detention centers, little change under Biden, lower cost prescription

00:09:10.000 Biden takes steps to lower drug prices, but odds are long for achieving his promised 60% reduction.

00:09:15.000 Now, I'm not a pro-Republican person, I'm not a pro-Donald Trump person, I'm not even a pro-Ronda Sanctimonious person, although we watched his campaign video and I like him a bit more after that.

00:09:24.000 We're no longer on YouTube, guys, so we can relax a little bit now.

00:09:29.000 We did get told.

00:09:29.000 Okay.

00:09:30.000 Right, you can relax now, Katie.

00:09:31.000 Be your true self.

00:09:33.000 Let it all out.

00:09:34.000 Right, for God's sake, is QAnon a real thing?

00:09:38.000 What was Pizzagate?

00:09:40.000 Are aliens actually happening right now?

00:09:43.000 What the hell's on Hunter Biden's laptop?

00:09:45.000 Tell us the truth about everything!

00:09:47.000 No, I suppose what I'm saying is, when so many pledges are continually broken, how are we getting it up?

00:09:56.000 Just for the mid-term, I'm going to call them elections.

00:09:58.000 Just to jump in, literally, just to summarise what you're saying, I think even through PolitiFact, they noticed that going through all Biden's election promises after a year, and Trump's, they were both around 22 or 23% promises kept, which is like a fifth.

00:10:12.000 So, exactly as Russell says, when we're getting whooped up about these things, you might as well just announce, by the way, we'll only do, at the most, one in five of these.

00:10:20.000 You only need 22% of your enthusiasm right now.

00:10:25.000 I think that the most ambitious thing you can say about the Democrats, like if I'm being the most

00:10:30.000 pro Democrat that is possible, you can say that their harm reduction, maybe on some issues,

00:10:37.000 not on war, nonfarm policy, but it's not enough to be a harm reduction party.

00:10:43.000 And they're certainly not across the board harm reduction. 0.97

00:10:45.000 But really what they do constantly is they just crap on Republicans who deserve that. 0.96

00:10:51.000 I mean, they should be crapped on the Republicans. 0.94

00:10:53.000 But they don't really provide any systemic, as you said, Russell, systemic changes, radical changes, which is what is actually needed.

00:11:01.000 When you work, working in media as you've done, print, online, etc, do you feel that the media's role in maintaining a limited spectrum for potential change inhibits even the scope of our imagination?

00:11:17.000 People aren't saying, oh, let's decentralise power, let's punish the banks meaningfully, let's limit the military industrial complex's ability, let's ensure that we, you know, these ideas are never even discussed, so ultimately you have tyranny anyway.

00:11:31.000 Yeah, I mean, especially when you talk about the military industrial complex.

00:11:35.000 I mean, it was just embarrassing and disturbing to watch the media cheerlead for a no-fly zone.

00:11:41.000 I mean, you actually saw the Pentagon and Biden sound like reasonable anti-war voices compared to what the media was demanding.

00:11:48.000 I mean, there was this famous press conference where you had just one voice after another

00:11:53.000 expressing impatience with what the Biden administration was doing.

00:11:57.000 They wanted more.

00:11:58.000 They wanted things ratcheted up.

00:11:59.000 You know, they've always, ever since Trump, they've had this really incoherent demand,

00:12:04.000 which is that the president of the United States ratchet things up with Putin.

00:12:09.000 And with Trump, it was especially weird because the same media that was calling Trump

00:12:12.000 this erratic Cheeto Mussolini with dementia, whatever they'd say about him,

00:12:16.000 they wanted him to be more aggressive with someone who they claimed was

00:12:19.000 an unprecedented evil in Russia. 0.83

00:12:22.000 So it's never really made sense what their endgame is, except for, you know, being a cheerleader for war.

00:12:28.000 Back to Biden.

00:12:29.000 Yeah, that's what Tulsi Gabbard said, of course, famously, and she certainly reiterated that when she came on this show, and that interview's up in full now.

00:12:35.000 Biden said he would take... This is another pre-election pledge for Biden, of course, before the presidential election.

00:12:41.000 Biden said he would take steps to demonstrate the Democrats' commitment to reducing the role of nuclear weapons.

00:12:45.000 The Biden administration's first defence budget included initiatives to retain A low-yield warhead that was outfitted on a submarine-launched ballistic missile in 2019, and to initiate research into new sea-launched cruise missiles.

00:12:57.000 So more expenditure, and let's not forget the tiny fact that we've been brought to the very precipice of a nuclear conflict, with it being more likely, many argue, than any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

00:13:08.000 So why is it that we're getting jazzed up about Fetterman or DeSantis or Trump with egg on his face when actually we could be facing a global crisis.

00:13:20.000 How is it that we occupy such a narrow psychological space when there is a plain reality unfolding before us?

00:13:28.000 I mean, I think that you saw this disconnect in terms of how the media talks about this a lot when they were covering the elections last night.

00:13:28.000 Right.

00:13:36.000 Even you had Dana Bash on CNN shocked that the top five issues for voters did not include democracy, as if people sit around thinking about democracy.

00:13:47.000 But that's what the media thinks about.

00:13:49.000 They have this very kind of aesthetic based analysis and they're obsessed with norms.

00:13:54.000 And that was what they were offended by with Trump more than policies.

00:13:57.000 They didn't care about his war-like policies. 0.99

00:13:59.000 They just cared that he was kind of boorish and gross.

00:14:02.000 Could you pull up that Ryan Vance graph, please?

00:14:05.000 Because what I like about this is it demonstrates, evidently, at least according to polling, the voters' interest in sort of emotional and moral issues.

00:14:16.000 Have a look at this.

00:14:17.000 Have you got that there?

00:14:19.000 Fantastic.

00:14:20.000 So it says that when looking at people that voted for Ryan, 41% liked the idea that he is honest and has integrity.

00:14:29.000 When it comes to Vance, 56% said he shares my values.

00:14:34.000 What's curious about a poll like that is how general it is and how emotional You know, when you think that ultimately what we're being sold through congressional or contemporary western politics is the idea of rationalism, we're being given rational arguments, it's interesting to see how ultimately we're making decisions on an emotional basis, on a visceral level, fear

00:14:58.000 Desire.

00:14:59.000 Identification.

00:15:00.000 Seems like my sort of guy.

00:15:01.000 Reckon they share my values.

00:15:03.000 It's not this policy or that policy.

00:15:05.000 It's a sort of, it's quite general.

00:15:07.000 And I think that that's what's led to a, this is what's led to a relatively contemporary phenomena.

00:15:13.000 The politician as entertainer.

00:15:15.000 Charisma as everything.

00:15:16.000 Now you could argue that some of the great 20th century Dictators, I mean great in the pejorative sense, were reliant primarily on charisma, but ultimately this sort of reductivism that's in politics, the baffling bureaucratic language, has meant that a figure like Trump with his rhetorical ability, or you could argue a figure like Obama with his elan and charm, paper over a lack of real distinction between these two parties and a lack of real alternatives for ordinary American people.

00:15:47.000 Yeah, and the media does a terrible job at what they should be doing is really bringing out these policy differences and highlighting that.

00:15:54.000 But instead, they get obsessed with personalities, charisma, lack of charisma.

00:16:00.000 Again, with Trump, it really was they were just offended by his style.

00:16:05.000 Yeah!

00:16:05.000 Not to say that there wasn't a lot of things that were very terrible about Trump,

00:16:09.000 but they were never really the focus for the media. The focus for the media was how he spoke to other journalists.

00:16:15.000 But it's so fascinating that no one in the media who cared about his attacks on the Fourth Estate ever talked about

00:16:20.000 Julian Assange, for instance.

00:16:22.000 Just an example of the lack of substantive discussion.

00:16:22.000 Yeah.

00:16:26.000 These people, I mean, it's just shocking to me, by the way, that all these members of the press

00:16:30.000 who claim to care about a free press, who were so offended by Trump's attacks on the media, are silent on Assange.

00:16:37.000 I know that's something that you guys talk about a lot, luckily, but it's just a disgusting example of how these things are just trotted out.

00:16:46.000 No one actually cares about them.

00:16:47.000 No one cares about the First Amendment or a free press.

00:16:50.000 They just care about norms.

00:16:52.000 Yeah, also, coming to talking about the media, you know, there's a report out this week that since early 2021, corporations that have played a major role in pushing inflation to a four-decade high in the United States have swarmed Capitol Hill with lobbyists to prevent Congress from passing legislation aimed at curbing companies' ability to price gouge consumers at will.

00:17:10.000 This includes Big Pharma, the drug industry, and also oil as well.

00:17:15.000 So, two of the areas in which, like, you know, voters really do care about the fact that prices are going up massively in terms of With drugs, which they've continued to do despite the Democrats passing some small changes in that regard, and gas and food.

00:17:30.000 What's not being reported by the same media that are ever so interested in this midterms at the moment is behind the scenes what's really happening is the lobbyists that they are themselves a part of are actually the ones pulling the strings with government.

00:17:45.000 That's what's happening here.

00:17:46.000 It doesn't matter who you vote for.

00:17:47.000 Lobbying that big media is a part of actually ensures that The voters, whoever they vote for, are not getting the things that they need.

00:17:54.000 Yeah, that's a really important point.

00:17:56.000 The way that inflation is presented is as if it's this almost science that's inevitable, as if it just comes out of the blue and there's nothing we can do to control it when it is the result of price gouging.

00:18:09.000 And no one talks about that.

00:18:11.000 The inflation story is corporate greed, but it's presented as so often economic issues are presented this way as kind of being free of ideology and just the facts and it's just the reality out there.

00:18:23.000 People don't look at the way, as you're pointing out, these decisions are made and they have major impact on people's realities.

00:18:31.000 It's not like inflation is this thing out there that's in a vacuum.

00:18:35.000 It's the result of corporate greed and price gouging, as you mentioned.

00:18:39.000 So I suppose ultimately where this conversation has taken us, Katie, and is a destination that I often find myself heading towards, the idea that perhaps The terms left and right are becoming increasingly redundant and we almost have an obligation to become disciplined in our discernment, recognising that what the media do in conjunction with state officials and pundits is escalate the sense that what we are determining between are significantly different organisations when in fact

00:19:14.000 It all rests upon a plateau of unchanging machinery that's able to pursue financial and military agendas over decades rather than terms.

00:19:25.000 Katie, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. 0.94

00:19:29.000 I know that you are a participant in the Useful Idiots podcast.

00:19:35.000 And also, where else can we follow your work? 0.96

00:19:37.000 Yeah, sure.

00:19:38.000 The Katie Helper Show is a weekly show I have on YouTube, Sunday evenings at youtube.com slash the Katie Helper Show, and you can also find the Useful Idiots, which I started with Matt Taibbi, and now he's on book leave, so I'm co-hosting with Aaron Maté, and that's usefulidiots.substack.com.

00:19:56.000 Why don't you ever invite us on those shows?

00:19:59.000 I have!

00:20:00.000 Well, Aaron was supposed to.

00:20:01.000 Don't tell me Aaron lied to me.

00:20:03.000 Aaron, when I said to him the very same thing, when you're going to have us on our shows, he simply looked out the window and claimed that his leg was hurting.

00:20:11.000 He blamed you, Katie.

00:20:12.000 He said, Katie was supposed to say that.

00:20:14.000 There's a lot of treachery going on.

00:20:16.000 We go like that.

00:20:18.000 Hmm.

00:20:20.000 We would love to have you.

00:20:22.000 I shall be there participating.

00:20:24.000 I shall find a way to infiltrate.

00:20:26.000 Katie, thanks so much for joining us on the show and giving us insights that we couldn't possibly glean ourselves because we are but humble English folk still regretting and resenting what we call the mistaken revolution that you guys conducted a little while ago.

00:20:40.000 We've got a king now again, by the way, if you're interested.

00:20:44.000 Thanks, going pretty well over here.

00:20:45.000 We're having a good time enjoying it.

00:20:47.000 Thanks, Katie.

00:20:48.000 Thanks for joining us.

00:20:49.000 Thank you.

00:20:50.000 There we go Gareth, that's the kind of contribution that keeps us right up to the moment.

00:20:54.000 I think so.

00:20:55.000 On the midterm elections and helps me to affirm my general cherished belief that democracy is a sham.

00:21:03.000 So there we go.

00:21:04.000 It's nice isn't it because we got on an expert who basically said stuff that we've kind of said a little bit.

00:21:10.000 It's nice that when an expert comes on and confirms essentially what you believe.

00:21:15.000 Like if you saw a doctor and your hunches were proven right.

00:21:19.000 My wife sometimes.

00:21:20.000 Right.

00:21:21.000 I don't like that because my haunches are usually pretty bad.

00:21:24.000 This is it.

00:21:24.000 I'm dying, I'm dying.

00:21:25.000 Oh no, what's that noise inside my mind?

00:21:28.000 Now you're going to be alright, Gareth.

00:21:29.000 You're in great shape.

00:21:29.000 In the interest of balance, Russ, do you want to know a few Trump policies that he broke?

00:21:33.000 No, I'll just tell you.

00:21:34.000 You'll like them because they're funny.

00:21:35.000 They're all bad.

00:21:36.000 It better be funny though.

00:21:37.000 Yeah, they are funny.

00:21:38.000 I only want to know a funny thing.

00:21:40.000 One of his things was to close parts of the internet where ISIS is.

00:21:44.000 Close down those parts. 0.83

00:21:46.000 Simply close it down if there's a part where there's ISIS.

00:21:49.000 Which I love that.

00:21:50.000 Like, Donald Trump, I don't believe, has any idea of what the internet really is.

00:21:54.000 Who does, in a sense?

00:21:55.000 It's a baffling thing.

00:21:57.000 Can you go down and chop little bits of it off?

00:21:59.000 Snip off the Isis-y bits? 1.00

00:22:00.000 All that smells of Isis. 0.97

00:22:01.000 What are they doing in that bit?

00:22:02.000 And when he says where Isis is, it's such a... It's not even R. Is it Isis a singular?

00:22:08.000 Is it a plural?

00:22:09.000 But how can you know where Isis is?

00:22:10.000 I just thought they got that black writing, you know, the beheading things, those chants. 0.98

00:22:16.000 I love it.

00:22:16.000 He also said he won't take vacations, but then took working vacations at his properties.

00:22:21.000 That old Mar-a-Lago?

00:22:22.000 Ah, Mar-a-Lago.

00:22:23.000 That's where the announcement is going to be coming from.

00:22:26.000 If you've seen our take on Ron DeSantis' sanctimonious, or Ron DeSanctimonious as Trump amusingly calls him, we did a great analysis of that video.

00:22:36.000 That should be up on Rumble about sort of... It's up!

00:22:40.000 Don't watch it now though.

00:22:40.000 It's up.

00:22:41.000 Don't watch it now because you're here with us right now.

00:22:44.000 Later on in the show, the philosopher and expert in violence, Brad Evans, is going to be on.

00:22:48.000 We were supposed to be talking about a new book in our book club, but we can't because we want to analyse the spectacle of contemporary American politics.

00:22:56.000 What I feel is our job on this show is this.

00:22:58.000 This is what I think it is.

00:22:59.000 It's to awaken individuals, myself included, and bring people together so that we can start getting beyond our senseless bickering.

00:23:07.000 To help us to recognise that so much of contemporary rhetoric is hollow and empty, take for example COP 27.

00:23:14.000 COP 27 sponsored by the world's biggest polluter.

00:23:18.000 COP 27, where edicts are suggested that will ultimately impoverish you and inconvenience, and bankrupt, farmers, while allowing corporate elites to carry on pursuing the same economic ends.

00:23:34.000 Ultimately what we're interested in doing is exposing media lies, establishing government hypocrisy, pointing out the power of the corporate world, and enabling ordinary people, ordinary communities, to come together as much as necessary, accepting our differences, in order to unite against a common enemy in pursuit of a common goal.

00:23:56.000 Is that too much to ask, Gareth?

00:23:58.000 No, certainly not.

00:23:58.000 Is it?

00:23:59.000 That's what I've been doing.

00:24:00.000 So, I suppose we do have a video where I brilliantly investigate and explore the nostalgic and retrospective flavour and hue of contemporary American politics, but I think that you and I can do a little better than that.

00:24:21.000 Can't we?

00:24:21.000 Oh yeah?

00:24:22.000 Sure thing.

00:24:23.000 I mean, I'm sitting back in my chair.

00:24:24.000 I know, I noticed you're all relaxed now.

00:24:26.000 I'm relaxed.

00:24:27.000 Yes.

00:24:27.000 I'm completely relaxed.

00:24:28.000 What I would like is some of my research to be brought up, my excellent research across a variety of things.

00:24:34.000 Oh, okay.

00:24:35.000 And also I'd like to see that, like, listen, this is what the mainstream media offer you as analysis.

00:24:40.000 Let's see, is this CNN telling you... Oh, this is Fox News, I think.

00:24:44.000 Oh, this is Fox News.

00:24:45.000 This is Fox News talking about what happened in, like, between Fetterman and... Dr. Oz.

00:24:51.000 And Dr. Oz.

00:24:52.000 Let's have a look.

00:24:53.000 ...with voters.

00:24:54.000 When it comes to the state of Pennsylvania, why did Dr. Oz lose?

00:24:59.000 Well, it looks like, according to the exit polling, it's because Fetterman won!

00:25:05.000 Good.

00:25:05.000 Let me write that down.

00:25:05.000 Brilliant.

00:25:06.000 That's the reason to watch mainstream media.

00:25:09.000 If I get it, they can't both win at the same time, unless we're in a multiverse where everybody wins, or one of them schools, like, where they don't let the children lose because it's bad for their esteem.

00:25:19.000 I wish I'd gone to one of them.

00:25:20.000 Me too.

00:25:21.000 I could have done with that.

00:25:22.000 That's exactly the sort of school I should have been at.

00:25:24.000 It's one of those ones where, uh, you know... Yeah, no, in my school it was very obvious when you didn't win. 0.99

00:25:30.000 You've not won, and that's why we're gonna throw shit at you. 0.99

00:25:30.000 You were told. 0.99

00:25:34.000 Also, that's why none of the girls will ever like you.

00:25:36.000 See these girls? 1.00

00:25:37.000 They don't like you.

00:25:38.000 See these lads?

00:25:39.000 They're going to be beating you up.

00:25:41.000 See your future?

00:25:42.000 Could be bleak.

00:25:44.000 Bleak as all hell.

00:25:45.000 Were you ever told at school what you could go on to do?

00:25:47.000 Like you know those career days?

00:25:49.000 I was told that my only option was to join the army.

00:25:52.000 That was it?

00:25:53.000 That was the only option.

00:25:54.000 That would have been, I think, a mistake.

00:25:56.000 Unless you were going to be a dignified military man looking out of the window, a reflective gentleman who was actually tortured by the horrors of war.

00:26:08.000 Not a sort of go-getter Trump lieutenant looking for ISIS in the bits of the internet where they're plainly hiding out.

00:26:16.000 No, I'd have been useless in this current conflict. 0.96

00:26:19.000 Yeah, you'd have been no good.

00:26:20.000 Not that there is a conflict between America and Russia, obviously.

00:26:24.000 Certainly not.

00:26:24.000 It's just Ukraine trying their hardest.

00:26:27.000 No involvement.

00:26:28.000 Sure, there's some aid, some lethal aid, but there's no agenda and the war began whenever we were told it began.

00:26:36.000 A few months ago.

00:26:37.000 Matter of months ago.

00:26:38.000 It's been a short and unfortunate war.

00:26:40.000 Let's have a look what people are saying.

00:26:42.000 A lot of people talking about our Lord Christ.

00:26:45.000 That's Jesse Polaris.

00:26:46.000 That's what Jesus taught.

00:26:47.000 Keep the Lord in.

00:26:47.000 Yep, good.

00:26:49.000 You can only save yourself.

00:26:50.000 Yeah, I've, you know, I'm well up for a bit of Jesus in the mix.

00:26:53.000 I'll tell you that for sure.

00:26:54.000 Can you bring us up me facts and everything?

00:26:57.000 We're going to bring Brad Evans in here shortly.

00:27:01.000 Speaking of wars, do you want to know another thing that's come out this week?

00:27:04.000 I think it might have been today actually.

00:27:04.000 What is it?

00:27:05.000 So the US has fought more than a dozen secret wars over the last two decades according to a new report.

00:27:12.000 According to the new report there's been how many wars?

00:27:14.000 They've fought more than a dozen secret wars over the last two decades.

00:27:18.000 This is a report from Brennan Centre of Justice at New York University School of Law.

00:27:22.000 Through a combination of ground combat, airstrikes and operations, the US proxy forces, these conflicts have raged from Africa to the Middle East to Asia, often completely unknown to the American people.

00:27:32.000 And with minimal congressional oversight, so brilliant, brilliant.

00:27:36.000 So this is CIA, this is all the things we're talking about, this is Afghanistan, Cameroon, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Mali, the list goes on.

00:27:43.000 And so I guess relating it to what we were literally just saying about Russia and this not being a, you know, a proxy war obviously between Russia and America.

00:27:50.000 These things go on all the time, we don't know anything about them, but these wars, secret wars, do go on.

00:27:56.000 Yeah, Secret Wars.

00:27:57.000 And in fact, on that, could you bring up the information from the video that we just did?

00:28:02.000 The Russia, you know, the video we just did.

00:28:05.000 There's a printout for that.

00:28:06.000 I need that as a reference point.

00:28:06.000 Can I have that?

00:28:09.000 If you could bring that up to us.

00:28:09.000 Yeah, of course.

00:28:11.000 Because of the pledges that Biden broke while campaigning for the presidency, and you can go back and look at the content we were making at that time, I was saying, really, look, even if you're an anti-Trump person, can you really get yourself that jazzed and excited?

00:28:25.000 Do you really think it's going to be any different?

00:28:28.000 I think, well, I feel that we are penalised by our inability to recall the past.

00:28:34.000 The information is moving so quickly.

00:28:37.000 We can't recall what happened during the pandemic, you know, let's declare an amnesty, let's declare amnesia, more like it.

00:28:43.000 We can't recall that, essentially, there is a continuum that's broadly uninterrupted.

00:28:48.000 We don't seem to be able to hold politicians to account because the system is designed in a sense to be untenable while, and the midterms is a good example of this, while presenting the sort of appearance of a meaningful spectacle.

00:29:02.000 And thank you.

00:29:04.000 I suppose what we have to do is just sort of track What is actually happening?

00:29:09.000 The old Jesse Polaris has gone from talking about Jesus Christ to saying ISIS were created by the CIA.

00:29:14.000 And in a sense, that might sound like an incendiary and not true thing to say, but we know for a fact that... It's certainly good that we're not on YouTube anymore.

00:29:20.000 Yeah, thank God.

00:29:22.000 We'd be in all sorts of trouble for that.

00:29:24.000 But certainly there has been CIA involvement in the, you know, the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.

00:29:30.000 Like, when you start looking at some of that stuff, man, it's a bloody, it's a dreadful business, the way they've carried on.

00:29:36.000 The infiltration, the provable, demonstrable infiltration of American secret services in big tech, their involvement in the various campaigns to arrest sort of enemies of the state and terrorists, it's a demonstrable mess.

00:29:50.000 But for a moment, let's focus on what Shall we focus on Armageddon for a second?

00:29:56.000 We heard that pre-election pledge was to de-escalate the potential for nuclear conflict.

00:30:02.000 Yeah, we will not fight a war with Russia and Ukraine, Biden said.

00:30:05.000 Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent, he said.

00:30:11.000 And now, whether it's through extensive military aid, whether it's through the assistance in planning and execution, it seems like there is a very real proxy war going on.

00:30:24.000 And I suppose, look, even if we... should we give politicians a pass and just say they've always been like that, perhaps they always will be like that?

00:30:31.000 Why are we not able to hold the media to account?

00:30:36.000 Why are we not able?

00:30:39.000 To demand, or at least, gosh, expect reasonable reporting.

00:30:44.000 I saw a clip on CNN from last night where one of the pundits was saying, you should only come to us for the truth about these elections.

00:30:53.000 They were saying, ignore social media, that you should only come to us.

00:30:57.000 Like they're the bastions of truth over at CNN and mainstream media.

00:30:57.000 Yeah, that's true.

00:31:01.000 There is a sort of, well, much of the sort of condemnation of social media is based on a kind of legacy media snobbery.

00:31:10.000 All of the misinformation and disinformation, and you can't trust that lot, is sort of predicated on the idea that they are reliable.

00:31:19.000 I mean, Brian Stelter's famous rant, we've got proper people working here, we've got experts of every hue, what's the matter?

00:31:28.000 Well, hold on a second.

00:31:31.000 It's proven again and again that mainstream media revel in polemicism, revel in unaccountable polarity.

00:31:41.000 I want to give you a few facts about the military- This is just the research.

00:31:47.000 This is what underwrites everything that I do.

00:31:50.000 The US controls about 750 bases in at least 80 countries worldwide and spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined.

00:31:58.000 Now a lot of American national pride, it seems to me, is enmeshed in attitudes towards militarism.

00:32:07.000 But an explicit conversation about America's role in the world would be an interesting one.

00:32:13.000 And the fact that there is no viable political alternative, no one saying, do you want America

00:32:18.000 to be the policeman of the world?

00:32:20.000 Do you want a unipolar power, our country to be the central dominant global force, even

00:32:26.000 if that means taking us to the precipice of a nuclear war with Russia or the commencement

00:32:31.000 of a trade and a new Cold War with China?

00:32:34.000 What do you guys think? 1.00

00:32:35.000 The general assumption that people are idiots and can't be included in those kind of conversations is de rigueur, accepted, unquestioned. 0.99

00:32:44.000 And I suppose when you're living your normal life, the idea that you would be invited to ponder whether or not there ought be a nuclear war does seem somewhat abstract. 0.98

00:32:53.000 But if there is one, it won't seem abstract.

00:32:55.000 It will seem pretty bloody real.

00:32:57.000 Yeah, I think also, we've spoken about before, but when it comes to military spending, I think what often gets used in the kind of propaganda side of it is military people themselves.

00:33:07.000 That's what you'll always see.

00:33:09.000 You won't see the military-industrial complex and their weapons and the money that's getting spent on those.

00:33:13.000 You'll see members of service.

00:33:15.000 you'll see people in uniforms and people with their families and the people that

00:33:19.000 actually go out and defend us. But those people we know from our own work and

00:33:23.000 investigations that have been done are really suffering at the moment. People within

00:33:27.000 the military themselves can't afford all sorts of things.

00:33:30.000 They basically can't afford to live. Young Putin, pull up how many homeless

00:33:34.000 people in, what percentage of homeless people in the United States of America are

00:33:38.000 former... Well that's veterans but even people currently in the military aren't

00:33:42.000 being looked after I wear a, you know, it's Remembrance Day over in this country coming up.

00:33:48.000 That's, you know, when we commemorate service people over the world and in particular those that gave their lives in the First and Second World War.

00:33:56.000 And as a person that generally speaking is opposed to violence and a kind of fan of Gandhi and the idea of satyagraha, I can't say it properly, it's like a Hindi word I guess that means, you know, non-violence, the sort of philosophy of non-violence.

00:34:14.000 Generally speaking, I'm not down with war.

00:34:17.000 But the reason I wear that poppy... Can you bring us a poppy up as a matter of fact, please?

00:34:22.000 The reason that I wear that poppy is because I think, oh my god, think of the values of the people that actually fought in that war.

00:34:29.000 Think of what motivates people.

00:34:32.000 In a sense, what did old Jordan Peterson say?

00:34:34.000 Never assume malevolence where ineptitude We'll do.

00:34:38.000 Why would we operate on the assumption that the warmongery of the powerful is actually played out in the lives of the ordinary service people, most of whom are... Yeah, give us it.

00:34:50.000 Don't worry about the camera.

00:34:51.000 Cheers.

00:34:51.000 Just give us it.

00:34:52.000 Honestly, it's not... That is far from the top of our list of priorities.

00:34:52.000 Don't worry about it.

00:34:56.000 In fact, I'm already wearing one.

00:34:58.000 But you can never have too many.

00:34:59.000 You can never be too supportive.

00:35:01.000 Too respectful.

00:35:03.000 Like, is that the issue?

00:35:05.000 Or you're just too down?

00:35:05.000 Too respectful.

00:35:06.000 That's too much respect.

00:35:08.000 Yeah.

00:35:08.000 So Biden said, will you not seek a war between NATO and Russia?

00:35:13.000 The United States will not try to bring about Putin's ouster in Moscow, but went on to pledge virtually unlimited US support for Ukraine and did not answer the more difficult questions about US endgame in Ukraine and the limits to US involvement in the war or how much more devastation Ukraine could sustain.

00:35:30.000 This contrasted with the fact that 19,000 veterans experience sheltered homelessness and 13,000 veterans experience unsheltered homelessness.

00:35:40.000 That's some data from January 2022.

00:35:43.000 So while all the pro-military rhetoric is being espoused At the arse end of that is poverty, abandonment and homelessness for people that are cherished and prized as heroes when relevant and necessary, which I consider to be comparable to the pandemic.

00:36:01.000 During the pandemic, key workers, health workers, doctors, prized, even sanitation workers, necessary vital work while the rest of us are safely locked down. 0.75

00:36:12.000 When it's no longer convenient, unvaccinated, irresponsible, get rid of them, sack them. 1.00

00:36:18.000 34,000 key workers lost their jobs in New York alone, fighting to get their jobs back, and the New York state opposes it.

00:36:24.000 This level of hypocrisy, I don't mean to be carooming, tangential and ancillary, but I'm afraid it's the way that I think.

00:36:30.000 I can't help but spot this continuum of dreadful patterns.

00:36:35.000 Empty hollow rhetoric, invited to pursue meaning in narrow spaces, meanwhile there's this

00:36:43.000 sort of nihilistic abandonment of people

00:36:46.000 whenever it's convenient. Yeah, in a sense it's no wonder they have to

00:36:51.000 spend record amounts on these midterms. Right.

00:36:54.000 Because you have to.

00:36:56.000 You have to keep spending more and more to keep this kind of thing alive.

00:36:59.000 Oh man.

00:37:00.000 It's like a mental steroid.

00:37:03.000 It's like Viagra for patriotism.

00:37:05.000 You have to keep jazzed up and hard for this thing when deep down we would all be flaccid.

00:37:11.000 How can we ever get wet for democracy again?

00:37:14.000 When we know how little it really means, except with... unless we're continually stimulated... Oh, we're in his wheelhouse now!

00:37:21.000 This is it.

00:37:22.000 Wait a second, I'm up for it.

00:37:24.000 Continually stimulated by the pornography of the machine, man.

00:37:28.000 Hey, I'm getting philosophical.

00:37:30.000 It seems like it might be time to bring a legitimate, genuine philosopher and friend of the show, first ever guest of the podcast and great advisor and mentor that we have here, Brad Evans.

00:37:41.000 Gareth, I suppose you're going to shuffle... why don't you shuffle a bit?

00:37:43.000 Do you want me to go this way?

00:37:44.000 I don't think we need the cans anymore either because we're not talking to beloved Katie anymore.

00:37:50.000 Brad, come in.

00:37:51.000 You're going to have your own microphone that Anna is going to bring in and put in there.

00:37:55.000 Brad, have you been watching the show?

00:37:56.000 I have been, yes.

00:37:57.000 Do you like it?

00:38:00.000 You're gonna have to sit very close to Gareth like on a talk show, Brad, otherwise your philosophy will be just disappearing like vapour into thin air.

00:38:09.000 Now, the reason that we have you is not just because, as you know, I've many times called you the George Clooney of philosophy, not just because you are an expert in violence, that mic's directional, so sort of if you aim it at your mouth, as if it were a gun, the perfect metaphor.

00:38:23.000 I'm glad you said that.

00:38:24.000 Yeah, because I could have gone for another image system.

00:38:27.000 You just didn't talk about pornography.

00:38:28.000 I did, and it was quite vivid what I did, actually.

00:38:31.000 I compared propaganda to pornography, saying that we're continually stimulated into a priapic state, because when you're in that priapic state, and I speak from personal experience, you don't think straight.

00:38:40.000 It's like we're continually roused and jazzed up into what amounts to idiocy to prevent us from discerning the clear reality that these midterms, that while there has been record spending, there will not be significant, let alone proportional change.

00:38:57.000 It's not like, oh well, but as a result of that, look at all the things that are going to happen in your life.

00:39:01.000 Which begs the question, you know, the simple rational materialist question, they could have spent that money better on a thousand things that would have improved the lives of ordinary people.

00:39:09.000 They could address the existential threat that the whole world is facing.

00:39:13.000 Brad, why are we seduced by spectacle and so unable to address what's palpably real?

00:39:21.000 Well, this is how I feel, right?

00:39:23.000 I think you should come even closer.

00:39:24.000 Can you go a bit closer?

00:39:27.000 Don't be embarrassed.

00:39:28.000 Don't be shy about each other.

00:39:32.000 I think that let out was kind of how I felt kind of just going through the results of the election today.

00:39:37.000 And this is how the spectacle works, right?

00:39:39.000 It kind of creates this kind of almost like, you know, this untouchable kind of glare and you expect, oh, this is actually going to be a bit special.

00:39:47.000 And then the next moment, it's just a deflated whimper.

00:39:50.000 And you kind of go, oh, well, it wasn't the greatest election in history.

00:39:53.000 It didn't have so much significance.

00:39:55.000 Everything changes, so everything remains the same.

00:39:58.000 And then you become just kind of deflated by the whole process.

00:40:01.000 And I'm just doing this as a kind of distant observer, kind of looking at this US election.

00:40:05.000 You're Welsh!

00:40:06.000 You're not even English.

00:40:08.000 You're less involved in Empire than anyone.

00:40:10.000 But if you listen to the rhetoric, you're kind of saying, well, you know, according to this election, you know, the fate of the world is on the line, right?

00:40:17.000 And then next minute you kind of go, well, actually, you know, we'll move on to tomorrow and then the next day and things will stay the same.

00:40:22.000 But obviously we know things stay in the same. 0.98

00:40:25.000 That's the real shit bit about it, right? 0.95

00:40:27.000 Because, you know, speaking in a deep philosophical way, because I think that's where, you know, you're talking about, you know, A couple of points about, first of all, the continuation of war and violence. 0.97

00:40:36.000 And we know these continuations of war, you know, there's almost like this rhetoric around, OK, that, you know, the Republicans are the warmongers, the Democrats are not.

00:40:43.000 Well, history shows that's not the case because the Democrats are equally love war built, you know, Clinton's bombing of Yugoslavia under NATO.

00:40:51.000 You know, so there's this kind of history of a continuum of war which kind of filters through.

00:40:56.000 You know, I remember Gareth talked about this kind of, you know, we're in an age today where

00:40:59.000 war is no longer even being declared, right?

00:41:02.000 So we're in an age where we might call it beyond war.

00:41:04.000 That starts with Obama.

00:41:05.000 You know, Obama's acceleration of the drone programs results in this period where we're

00:41:11.000 in a state of beyond war, where so many wars are being waged, none of them are ever being

00:41:15.000 declared as war.

00:41:17.000 This sanitization of violence, this presentation of violence as irrational and necessary, this

00:41:25.000 sense that the Democrat Party have become, you know, by Tulsi Gabbard's own analysis,

00:41:31.000 a party of warmongers and, you know, she regards them as more egregious than the Republican

00:41:38.000 Party, which tends… 10, 20, 30 years ago, you know, the Cheney, Wolfowitz, great, you know, next American century kind of era, you would have regarded that as implausible.

00:41:48.000 What does this tell us about the deep psychology of the American imperial project and how necessary violence is?

00:41:58.000 And also, what about the unwillingness to Adjust to the fact, the plain fact, that when Russia is your opponent, as opposed to one of the Middle Eastern nations that you can normally shove around for a little while and do a regime change on the sly, how can they not recognise that this is a significant difference and why do they refuse to?

00:42:20.000 Well, it's interesting, right?

00:42:21.000 Today's the 9th of November.

00:42:23.000 It's the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, right?

00:42:25.000 So we have this moment in history of the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

00:42:29.000 We're now bookended by kind of saying, well, did anything really change, right?

00:42:33.000 Because we now have what looks like kind of like a new Cold War, but is it?

00:42:37.000 Because we don't really know who the key actors are in this war, really.

00:42:40.000 And I think there's something really at stake here when we're thinking about, you know, we talk about I'm absolutely with you.

00:42:46.000 I think you're spot on when you say the categories of the left and the right no longer mean anything.

00:42:49.000 In the context of domestic American politics, we could say, well, it still holds a certain validity maybe around abortion rights, which of course we know is a very fraught topic in itself.

00:42:58.000 In terms of international politics, I have no idea what those terms mean anymore.

00:43:02.000 The Democrats are the ones who are really pushing for the acceleration of a militarization of Ukraine.

00:43:07.000 Now, the condition in Ukraine, I'm just finding increasingly bizarre and dangerously bizarre. 1.00

00:43:13.000 You know, first of all, you know, who knew Ukraine was so important?

00:43:18.000 The only thing I thought Ukraine exported well was Shevchenko.

00:43:21.000 He's a footballer.

00:43:24.000 And all of a sudden we've been told that Ukraine, because of what's happening there, the world is collapsing in terms of crop prices, energy prices.

00:43:32.000 So if Ukraine was so important, why did we not believe that nations didn't have a geopolitical interest in there prior to this conflict?

00:43:38.000 Because it is so important.

00:43:40.000 And I think the second point about the war then, we know from history there's very few wars which end by the total obliteration of the enemy.

00:43:48.000 Very few wars in history.

00:43:50.000 Now we cannot possibly do that with Russia because they're in nuclear power.

00:43:53.000 So how do we then think about what does a political solution to this look like?

00:43:58.000 There seems to be no impetus from what we might traditionally associate with the left to engage in a political solution to a problem which could potentially bring the world to ruin.

00:44:08.000 And that's a real dangerous situation.

00:44:09.000 Brad, I remember once you said that with the fall of the Berlin Wall we lost a kind of dualistic perspective of global events and had a kind of unipolar reality for a while.

00:44:24.000 What does this new charge in geopolitics suggest?

00:44:29.000 Does it, for you, Is it a kind of precipitation of new tension?

00:44:37.000 Is it potentially... you know like there's a sort of narcissism in thinking we're going to live through Armageddon or at least experience Armageddon more like.

00:44:47.000 Or do you feel that these movements, like you say, the bookending of like, you know, the end of the Cold War, you know, because when we spoke to Jeffrey Sachs, he said that the pledges were made at that point that NATO wouldn't impede or infringe upon Russian borders, which have been, you know, sort of broken in Georgia and Ukraine.

00:45:04.000 And so sort of militarily and politically, you can see that what this encroachment looks like.

00:45:11.000 You can start to observe it.

00:45:13.000 What does it mean ideologically?

00:45:15.000 What does it mean philosophically, the sort of amping up of these tensions?

00:45:19.000 What does it mean, like, and I take your point about sort of abortion rights, and of course the significance of such a matter, if it personally affects you, can scarcely be overstated.

00:45:30.000 But when compared to an existential threat for, you know, for a species, I suppose that you would need to include, this conversation should be better promoted, and I mean literally this one, although why not?

00:45:42.000 I mean, this subject ought to be better understood.

00:45:46.000 The idea that you would need a vision for a marriage and wouldn't have one for a nation seems kind of bloody ridiculous to me.

00:45:51.000 Yeah, the point that you talk about in terms of, first of all, this clamouring for a kind of certainty and truth to knowledge.

00:45:58.000 Now, you know, the point about the Cold War, as you say, there was very clear divisions that kind of, you know, categorised the world in very, you know, of course, you know, there was complexities within that, but it was an age of certainty and that certainty was mutual assured destruction, which was, the acronym was MAD.

00:46:13.000 Now, we're in an age today where actually You know, everybody's clamouring for certainty.

00:46:17.000 Trump came to power promising to bring certainty to the American people.

00:46:21.000 Kind of lasted for a while, but then kind of faded.

00:46:23.000 And I think there's this constant clamouring for certainty, but in a way where, you know, the moment we just scratch beneath the surface, we realise that all those claims to certainty break down.

00:46:32.000 You look, for instance, what I find completely bizarre in the United Kingdom is the utter writing out of the mainstream press of the way in which pretty much every single leftist Latin American leader We're talking about Lula in Brazil, Fernandes in Argentina, Ortega in Nicaragua, López Obrador in Mexico, are all basically saying we need a political solution to the Ukraine conflict.

00:46:56.000 None of them are saying let's accelerate the violence of NATO.

00:46:59.000 They're all, but the leftist media in the UK is not discussing that at all, even though they're just cheerleading Lula as being successful against Bolsonaro in Brazil.

00:47:09.000 So I think the cartography of international politics is far more complex.

00:47:12.000 And I think the point is, you know, those old geopolitical rivalries, which used to be invested on the idea that the nation state was the dominant standard for power, that no longer exists.

00:47:23.000 So how can we then claim for truth in the nation state when power is no longer there?

00:47:28.000 And I think that's where we break up that kind of illusion.

00:47:32.000 Every claim to security now just falls apart.

00:47:34.000 That's beautiful.

00:47:35.000 With the abandonment of those kind of ideals, with the kind of loss of the security of the nation state as the kind of container of our ideals and our identity, and this...

00:47:45.000 evident push towards globalism and the kind of feeling of being untethered and lost that that creates for people.

00:47:54.000 It's kind of understandable that one of the consequences would be a re-emergent ethno-nationalism, a kind of collective nostalgia that might have a punitive and indeed xenophobic component.

00:48:05.000 It's a sort of understandable reaction.

00:48:08.000 In a sense, in a way, a sensible reaction, not one that I would personally endorse, But I like the way that you are identifying, Brad, that certain ideological tropes are extracted when endorsing certain aspects of, you know, let's call them left-wing politics for simplicity. 0.97

00:48:26.000 Someone pointed out to me, I don't know if he was one of the people you listed, that the Colombian president sort of said, like, what the fuck are we doing? 0.57

00:48:32.000 We've got to sort this stuff out! 0.82

00:48:33.000 All those Latin American voices are excluded until useful. 1.00

00:48:38.000 Absolutely, yeah.

00:48:39.000 And this point of the clamour for security, there's a good history to this.

00:48:43.000 We see in the late 1960s the arrival of globalisation and the sudden return back to religion because people want to suddenly say, no, actually, you know, I want to have some kind of grounding in a truth or rootedness in existence.

00:48:55.000 Now, in terms of ideology, we talk of ideology today, but I don't think we have a grasp of what that means anymore.

00:49:02.000 What is the ideology of big tech?

00:49:04.000 We know it has political power.

00:49:06.000 We know it kind of transforms human lives far greater on the planet than any political project can now currently do.

00:49:13.000 But what would we name that ideology?

00:49:15.000 It's amorphous.

00:49:16.000 Do you not feel, Brad, that it's kind of, in a sense, because everything feels like it is mechanical and data driven, there is an attempt to impose like a mask that eats into our face a Data-led and information model.

00:49:31.000 It's like we're becoming these machines.

00:49:34.000 We are becoming the analysis.

00:49:36.000 Every one of us can be charted and tracked like in a data optical way, like the way they can show the movement of a footballer on a pitch.

00:49:44.000 They mostly densely occupy this.

00:49:46.000 They can see us now as data through surveillance, through continuing surveillance.

00:49:51.000 And that is what we've become.

00:49:52.000 And what does that extract?

00:49:53.000 The spirit.

00:49:54.000 What does that extract? 0.52

00:49:55.000 What does that extract? 0.52

00:49:55.000 Love. 0.52

00:49:56.000 Ultimately, meaning.

00:49:58.000 Other than meaning in purely rational terms.

00:50:01.000 And you can see how that leads to a kind of annihilation.

00:50:04.000 You can see how that plays into the politics of violence in which you're an expert.

00:50:09.000 Because, ultimately, rational goals, in a sense, lead to, like, rationally can lead to a state of domination.

00:50:17.000 That it's a rational thing to do.

00:50:18.000 Yeah, well, this is what's driving global politics, is basically the mining of humans now as data.

00:50:25.000 And that is perhaps the ideology, and that's what's leading to new forms of, you know, human kind of extraction.

00:50:32.000 And we're trying, as you say, you know, the face becomes, but it's even more than data, because what we're now, for instance, with complex algorithms today, that they can now, you know, wearing, you would think like wearing a mask under the pandemic, The technology is already so advanced it can detect your inner self so the faciality no longer matters.

00:50:49.000 So we're in a state that is even beyond faciality because it's already deep into the body.

00:50:54.000 The data sets are already mapping us in much more complex ways.

00:50:57.000 And I think your point about then what it takes out of us is basically life, you know.

00:51:02.000 I know you and Gareth are really fond of the podcasts you do on football, and I think a good example of this would be football.

00:51:08.000 Football has been so fascinated by all this data, all this quantitative analysis.

00:51:12.000 Watch the film on Zidane, one of the most beautiful films ever made.

00:51:16.000 He barely touches the football all game.

00:51:18.000 Statistics would tell you nothing about how a brilliant, beautiful individual could change history in a second.

00:51:24.000 By doing something spontaneous, something which is human, right?

00:51:28.000 A little headbutt here. 0.87

00:51:29.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:51:30.000 But I think that, you know, because I think the deeper point around this is about, you know, what's at stake here is basically what it means to be human.

00:51:36.000 And all these wars are basically waging war on what it means to be human.

00:51:40.000 And I think that's really the crux of what's taking place today.

00:51:42.000 You're going to like this, Brad.

00:51:43.000 You're going to like this, Gareth.

00:51:44.000 Oh, yeah.

00:51:45.000 But many people argue, and one of them is Jung, that the hero's journey is ultimately the transition from an egocentric perspective, i.e.

00:51:53.000 the self, the ability to assert your will on the world, the ability to fulfil your needs, ultimately primal drives, or some variation on these primal drives.

00:52:02.000 That the hero's journey is the demonstration, the telling of the tale, of movement from egocentric, egocentric self-centred energy to a transcendent, capital S, self-oriented reality, i.e. a

00:52:16.000 kind of, I don't want to use the phrase cosmic consciousness because it sounds a little

00:52:20.000 bit silly, but kind of a sense of communal connection, a sense of oneness. And often this

00:52:27.000 kind of heroism, the idea that we can put something else first, that we're willing to sacrifice, is

00:52:33.000 brought about in odd times of crisis where people seemingly irrationally, seemingly

00:52:38.000 unpredictably, outside of the wheelhouse of their ordinary act,

00:52:44.000 Actions and behavior will do something beyond the bounds of the normal.

00:52:50.000 Sacrifice their life for a stranger.

00:52:52.000 Be willing to die for something that they believe in.

00:52:55.000 This mystery is, I think, difficult to chart.

00:52:59.000 I think it's by its nature somewhat submerged.

00:53:01.000 I think by its nature it's beneath, beyond, ulterior to the persona.

00:53:06.000 It's something That suggests the unitary.

00:53:09.000 Even heroism as an action suggests, like if I'm willing to give my life for my children or if I'm willing to give my life for my fellows or for my nation or for my beliefs, I have transcended self.

00:53:20.000 I have transcended the modality of my job here is to procreate.

00:53:24.000 My job here is to survive.

00:53:25.000 I'm beyond that.

00:53:27.000 And that is like the grace of Zinedine Zidane, brilliant French footballer of 20 years ago.

00:53:33.000 That's difficult, impossible to map.

00:53:36.000 It's by its nature ethereal until it's realised.

00:53:39.000 It's difficult to instantiate.

00:53:41.000 It's difficult.

00:53:42.000 It's completely unquantifiable.

00:53:44.000 Why does somebody do this?

00:53:45.000 Because that in itself seems irrational.

00:53:47.000 And as you say, there is no quantification metrics for the transcendent, right?

00:53:52.000 If you could quantify it, it wouldn't be transcendent because you could calculate it, you could map it, you could strategically get there.

00:53:58.000 And what makes the transcendent transcendent is it has to be an unknown journey.

00:54:02.000 You have to take a leap into kind of the void to become something.

00:54:06.000 And I think you're right.

00:54:07.000 Beneath the surface then, it has to retain something of the secret.

00:54:11.000 You have to reveal something you've never revealed before about yourself.

00:54:14.000 Something which no algorithm can kind of predict, because that's what makes us at heart human, as you say, in a very, you know, what philosophers would call, you know, the poetic way, which links to what, you know, other philosophers would call the ineffable.

00:54:26.000 Things we can't always quantify, put into words, even put into language, but we know is true.

00:54:31.000 Friendship, love, all these kind of key categories which bring us together, which are so essential to the human condition.

00:54:38.000 I'm going to throw myself into the religious life, that's it, that's it.

00:54:41.000 I'm going to start wearing a blanket.

00:54:43.000 That'll do it.

00:54:46.000 I thought you were going to say off a bridge to start with.

00:54:52.000 I guess when I hear that, when I contemplate that, it makes me realise that I need to sort of yield to something higher.

00:54:52.000 Not quite yet.

00:55:00.000 The reason I'm unfulfilled is that I'm clinging on to some sort of Old idea that it's difficult to find a spiritual path.

00:55:08.000 You know, when we talk about the media stimulating us into states of disorientation, I think about it in a kind of abstract way, when forgetting that I am a victim of that.

00:55:17.000 I'm a person that lived a sort of, gosh, forgive the phrase, a celebrity lifestyle, that I pursued the goals of my age.

00:55:24.000 In a sense, I was devout, like a devout devotee of materialism.

00:55:30.000 Addiction is sort of devotion to the material.

00:55:33.000 The idea that some external thing can provide salvation, can provide fulfilment.

00:55:38.000 And I still find it really hard right now to just let go.

00:55:43.000 To let go and become the thing that is waiting to be born.

00:55:47.000 So right, I'm going to live this now.

00:55:49.000 I'm going to live this.

00:55:50.000 I will also add that Rumble has no algorithm, so that's why it's vital that you press Rumble right now, that you subscribe and you turn on notifications when you're using this platform because otherwise you won't find us here.

00:56:01.000 It's not like on YouTube where they'll suggest stuff to you.

00:56:05.000 Do you think it's ideological or do you think they just haven't got round to it yet?

00:56:05.000 Did you know that?

00:56:08.000 They haven't got round to it, Gal.

00:56:09.000 It's quite hard to create an algorithm.

00:56:11.000 Algorithm is like a kind of a god.

00:56:13.000 It sort of floats around observing and forms patterns amidst the chaos and Rumble don't have one yet, but they're working on one.

00:56:22.000 So people are in there sort of like gambling on what addiction is an excuse.

00:56:27.000 Sort of an excuse, it's an explanation as well. 1.00

00:56:30.000 Don't be so mean in there, My Brain My Choice, you silly little sods, you daft sausages. 1.00

00:56:36.000 Go on, Gal, you alright over there? 1.00

00:56:37.000 What do you think when you're caught in the crossfire?

00:56:38.000 It's difficult.

00:56:39.000 Is it like when Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank sits between, like, Roy Keane and Gary Neville and there's, like, sort of an argument and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank has to just sort of sit there with incredible thighs?

00:56:49.000 Yes.

00:56:50.000 There's a reference for our largely American... Yeah, we've moved on to the football chat.

00:56:54.000 Yeah, we have, haven't we?

00:56:55.000 We're more comfortable here.

00:56:56.000 Well, the World Cups are coming, baby.

00:56:57.000 The World Cups are coming.

00:56:59.000 I just want to take this opportunity to say hello to some of our new members in the Stay Free AF community.

00:57:04.000 Dire Straits, hello.

00:57:05.000 Fresh off the roll.

00:57:06.000 All right, you.

00:57:06.000 The band?

00:57:08.000 Well, I don't... They've spelt it differently.

00:57:09.000 It's actually spelt like Kieran Dyer.

00:57:11.000 We can't leave the subject of football alone now.

00:57:13.000 That would have been great.

00:57:14.000 Welcome, welcome Mark Mugfler.

00:57:17.000 Light of Dawn, B Shapiro, 590.

00:57:19.000 Cool.

00:57:19.000 Ben, welcome.

00:57:22.000 The Klaus Patel Queen.

00:57:23.000 And also I want to let you know that, Michael, this is... You know one of the things we're trying to do?

00:57:28.000 We're trying to fuse spirituality, and in particular spiritual optimism, with political radicalism.

00:57:33.000 And that's why I'm talking to Michael Singer, the writer of Untethered Soul, on November the 15th.

00:57:38.000 Watch it first and in full on Stay Free AF.

00:57:40.000 It's going to be on 7am PT, 10am ET.

00:57:43.000 and free GMT. I don't even know which one that is, whether it's an AM or a PM.

00:57:48.000 And also, these are changing, these PTs and ETs, every time I look at them, sometimes there's an additional letter in

00:57:53.000 We've gone to GMT now, haven't we?

00:57:53.000 there.

00:57:55.000 Before we were BST. Even time can't be relied on anymore, Brad, to be a watchful observer of what we're doing.

00:58:03.000 Okay, well we're about to wrap up on Rumble, but we will still be available on Locals.

00:58:10.000 That's our membership platform.

00:58:12.000 You can watch us over there.

00:58:14.000 You can become a member of our community, and you can ask us questions, if that's what you would like to do.

00:58:19.000 Will Pillsbury Seeker says, Fuse comedy and politics.

00:58:22.000 The more seriously they take themselves, the more they'll lie.

00:58:25.000 Yeah, yeah, you're right, man.

00:58:26.000 We've got to keep laughing.

00:58:27.000 We've got to have a little bit of a laugh. 0.94

00:58:28.000 We've got to be a little bit silly, haven't we?

00:58:30.000 Well, there is the argument that satire hasn't helped.

00:58:33.000 Go on, mate, what do you mean by that?

00:58:35.000 Well, as in, if you make light of this stuff and people laugh at it, then it just allows politicians to go about and do what they do.

00:58:43.000 That is an argument, I'm suggesting.

00:58:44.000 It's a good argument.

00:58:45.000 And what I would say is that satire is a particular aspect of the comedic, which is somewhat...

00:58:51.000 I would say part of the political sphere, when you think of the great satire boom in our country and geniuses like Peter Cook and brilliant broadcasters like Frost, in a sense became part of the establishment.

00:59:02.000 Maybe Cook was too mercurial ever to be truly part of it, but he kind of went mad.

00:59:07.000 Well, not go mad, I don't want to be dismissive of Peter Cook.

00:59:09.000 I love Peter Cook, but I think it's safe to say an alcoholic

00:59:12.000 and sort of lost his way and become disoriented and almost bored of everything about the age of 20.

00:59:19.000 And even someone like Chris Morris, who's like a brilliantly radical satirist

00:59:23.000 or Amanda Iannucci, they have a kind of an affection, I think, for politics. 0.98

00:59:28.000 They're like, I mean this dismissively because I have nothing but respect

00:59:31.000 for these brilliant, brilliant, incredible comedians, but they're kind of like nerds.

00:59:35.000 Whereas I feel like we look at it like, In a sort of slightly more punk way, if I dare say.

00:59:42.000 What do you think about that, Gal?

00:59:43.000 That there's a type of ridicule that's more like conventional clowning, like seeing it as like absurd, absurd, rather than sort of satire, I think, except like it ridicules it from within its framing, I reckon.

00:59:58.000 We're sort of clowning it, and that's why I think the sort of Aspects of the right have become empowered and like in sort of talking from the perspective of the medium we're working in now, they meme better.

01:00:09.000 Yeah.

01:00:09.000 Because they have this sort of punkish, angry radicalism.

01:00:13.000 Some of the people that we find ourselves agreeing with their anti-establishment rhetoric and not necessarily with some of their cultural views have got a kind of vivacity That's entirely been neglected by the left who have become ultimately or if you you know my opinion is that they've become authoritarian and in a sense the new conservatism is coming from the left they're the ones are saying just do what the government tells you they're the ones that are saying don't question this war you know what if you just look at that little clip that we watched the other day and we could check this out actually poots is like there's a moment where like someone's heckling Barack Obama saying what you will

01:00:48.000 What about your actions against Ukraine?

01:00:52.000 You've been winding up Russia. 0.63

01:00:53.000 And like the audience, boo!

01:00:55.000 Like, no, stop!

01:00:56.000 Stop heckling!

01:00:57.000 Stop heckling!

01:00:58.000 But that's a sort of a conservative response.

01:01:00.000 Now, you know, again, I'm not a pro, you know, as we continually reiterate, I know some of you guys are, we ain't pro-Republican here.

01:01:06.000 We sort of, I just think we've got to look for different answers.

01:01:09.000 And I think the midterms, again, will demonstrate that fact that we need to look for new answers.

01:01:14.000 And a kind of, um, I think a comedic perspective is vital.

01:01:21.000 Well, we're going to wrap this up over here, because someone just shouted wrap down the speaker.

01:01:25.000 Have you got points to make?

01:01:26.000 Don't make them, Brad, because we're going to save them for the other side. 0.99

01:01:28.000 Have you got points to make?

01:01:29.000 We'll save them for the other side. 1.00

01:01:30.000 We've got points to make, but we're going to make them on the other side.

01:01:33.000 Join us on Locals, where our community Stay Free AF continues.

01:01:38.000 You can ask us questions over there.

01:01:39.000 We'll be talking about... Man, I want to look at that Ron DeSantis video again.

01:01:44.000 And I just want to have a bit of a laugh, really.

01:01:46.000 I just want to stay out of trouble and have a bit of a laugh.

01:01:49.000 Oh, right.

01:01:50.000 On Thursday's show we're talking about the New Zealand farm produce.

01:01:54.000 I feel like I've analysed... I might as well start a farm in New Zealand.

01:01:57.000 I know so much about that subject.

01:01:59.000 And on Friday's show we're talking about corruption in the community and fighting it.

01:02:03.000 Yeah, going right back to my hometown.

01:02:06.000 And a billion dollar fraud in a tiny constituency that affects me personally.

01:02:12.000 We'll be talking about that.

01:02:13.000 You're a part of it, were you?

01:02:14.000 I've made a few quid out of it, yes.

01:02:16.000 Pretty good deal on me and the council, mate!

01:02:18.000 Okay, we'll see you on the other side and we'll see you over the course of the week.

Stay Free - Russel Brand - November 09, 2022

Midterms - Where's The Red Wave? - #031 - Stay Free with Russell Brand

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