In this episode of Stay Free with Russell Brand, we discuss Donald Trump's announcement that he's running for president in the 2024 election, Joe Biden's pledge to cancel student debt, the G20, and much, much more! Stay Free, and Don't Let Them Drag You Down. - Russell Brand is a satirical comedy podcast produced and hosted by Russell Brand and features a rotating cast of characters from the world of comedy, stand-up comedy, sketch comedy and sketch comedy. This episode was brought to you by The F in News, and edited by Annie-Rose Strasser and Sarah Abdurrahman. Our theme music is by my main amigo, Evan Handyside, and our ad music is from Fugue Records, courtesy of Epitaph Records. If you like what you hear, please leave us a five star rating and a review on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe to stay free with Russell's Stay Free! and don't forget to leave a review and a rating and review! You can also become a patron of the podcast by becoming a patron by becoming patron@StayFree with RussellBrand.org.uk and we'll give you a discount on our next ad-free version of our new book, Stay Free: The Future Is Nowhere, coming out next week! Thank you! We'll be looking out for your reviews and questions and comments on the book recommendations, too! Stay free, you'll get 10% off the purchase of the book "The Future is Nowhere" and 5% off of the paperback edition of the new issue of The Future is Real, Outlawyer's new edition of The New York Times bestselling edition of Keep Calm & Simple, out on Amazon Prime, The Best of The Oldest in the new edition, The Newest, Thank You! by the New York Reviewed, out soon! Come check us out! we'll be giving you the chance to win a free copy of the next issue of StayFree with a signed by The New Yorker, Too Free With Russell Brand? stay free, no matter where you're listening to this book, too free, we'll have a discount code: Stay Free With It? and other great reviews of the latest in the world, no longer have a chance to buy a copy of this book or review it on the next episode, too FREE AND FREE, it'll have it all, and so much more.
00:02:34.000We're going to talk about Joe Biden's pledge to cancel student debt which mobilized thousands of young voters who still haven't seen their student debt cancelled.
00:02:47.000First of all, I want to have a little look at Donald Trump pledging to make America great again, again, He's going to make America great again, again!
00:02:58.000How many times can you make America great?
00:03:03.000Do you want to see him talking about drug dealers or do you want to see him talking about just general stuff?
00:03:07.000I suppose the first bit, I love this bit, like if you haven't watched the whole speech you won't know that there's one bit where he declares that one of the new policies will be The out-and-out execution of anyone caught and convicted of drug dealing.
00:03:24.000It's weird though because it seems to indicate that the way that they'll be executed is by their personal consent.
00:03:30.000Are we going to ask them to be executed?
00:03:32.000It seems to me to be a bit severe and fraught and potentially something that'll be very difficult to enact but here is Trump saying it.
00:03:41.000But before we get into this, I want to invite you To look at the major point that we're making here.
00:03:48.000Whether you're virulently anti-Trump, as all of the late-night talk shows and the mainstream news will be, or like excited by Trump and now pumped and febrile at the possibility of his return, Remember, we have already had Donald Trump.
00:04:04.000We've had pre-Trump, then we've had Trump, now we're having post-Trump, now we're about to have Trump again.
00:04:09.000How can we retain this sense of exhausting excitement?
00:04:13.000And do you ever wonder whether or not you're being stimulated into a state of delirium about these potential vicissitudes that amount to the shifting of a couple of colours?
00:04:24.000Meanwhile, the deep state agenda continues uninterrupted.
00:04:28.000That's why We'll be looking in particular at Trump's policy around Russia and Ukraine and his actions while in office.
00:04:35.000But I want you to focus in the immediate future, I mean right now, on what he's going to do to drug dealers.
00:04:41.000And when you think of some of the drug dealers that you've known over the years, some of them are quite sweet people.
00:04:45.000I mean, I wouldn't like to think of Dear Gritty, for example.
00:05:36.000responsible for death, carnage and crime all over our country
00:05:40.000I'd like that a little louder Every drug dealer, during his or her life on average, will
00:05:46.000kill 500 people I like the idea firstly of an average drug dealer
00:05:52.000and 500 people to be able to quantify the death toll of a drug dealer
00:05:56.000If we're going to start looking at the impact of drugs on mortality, let's have another glance at the opioid crisis and how much blood there is on the Sackler family's hands.
00:06:35.000And why would you not, similarly, those of you that hate Trump, those of you that love Trump, why would you not offer us the impact of food that is detrimental for us and the pharmaceutical industry's irresponsibility, like some of those Johnson & Johnson cases which we can't go into detail of until we flip over a rumble when we get Gideon carefree about those kind of facts.
00:06:58.000The drugs they sell, not to mention the destruction of families.
00:07:04.000But we're going to be asking everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts, because it's the only way.
00:07:18.000It's sort of mad, isn't it, that that's happening at Mar-a-Lago, this sort of sunny, light-hearted holiday resort, where you're applauding the death of potentially innocent people, certainly people that have had a compromised and confusing life.
00:07:34.000It's amazing, isn't it, that he says asks.
00:07:41.000I'd actually prefer to carry on living for decades more, experiencing sunsets and such.
00:07:46.000There are like stratas to drug dealers as well, aren't there?
00:07:49.000Again, all drugs are bad and selling drugs is bad, but surely there's got to be a difference between kids in schools dealing bits of... A little ten pound drawer, a little bag of weed here or there, magic mushrooms, all terrible, terrible drugs.
00:08:06.000I just picked these up for Steve and Karen and kept a little bit for myself.
00:08:19.000We don't need... I don't like to say this, and I don't even know if the American public is ready for it, and a lot of my people... Oh my God, what is it going to be?
00:09:16.000He looked at me like I didn't know what I was doing.
00:09:21.000There could be a number of reasons for that.
00:09:22.000That's so fascinating that he's reporting on geopolitics in such a conversational and disposable way.
00:09:29.000And again, this is part of the mastery of Trump, the simultaneous simplification and grandiosity.
00:09:35.000Suddenly everything becomes vivid and clear.
00:09:37.000And if you think that Trump ain't the answer, you're going to have to look at the current incumbent before suggesting that Trump would be an improvement.
00:09:46.000Listen, we're only on YouTube for a couple more seconds now, so switch over.
00:09:50.000Watch us on Rumble where we're going to unpack this story a little more.
00:09:53.000We're going to talk about what's going on at the B20 Summit.
00:09:56.000This is a little business-oriented brother of the G20 Summit.
00:09:59.000We're going to be talking about those missiles and how it was misreported and potentially why.
00:10:04.000And I'm going to really let my hair down and release some very unusual opinions.
00:10:08.000See you over on Rumble in, it seems to me, about five seconds.
00:10:17.000No, let's look at Trump the way he wraps up first.
00:10:20.000This is how, like, so again, when people are dismissive of Trump, and you know that I'm, like, I'm not a pro-Trump person, because our belief is transcendent of these systems.
00:10:32.000We believe that we need to look for genuine alternatives.
00:10:34.000But I can still see how this, look at this, greatest hits, a beautiful medley that he uses as the denouement for his speech.
00:12:46.000Oh dear, a literal sepulchral figure issuing a stumbling speech from a crypt.
00:12:54.000And again, it's not like I'm super excited by the prospect of Donald Trump.
00:12:58.000I think that in a way, what it's going to do is create hysteria, it's going to create distraction, it's going to create the illusion of choice.
00:13:07.000It's going to make America confusing again.
00:13:09.000It's going to make America baffled again.
00:13:11.000It's going to make America delirious again.
00:13:15.000So when he was talking about drug dealers in China, there was a bit we didn't quite get to the end of it, but when he was talking about...
00:13:23.000In China, this reaction to Trump talking about drug dealers was they were baffled that they thought he didn't know what he was talking about.
00:13:30.000So the Chinese government itself reported that there were 1.49 million registered drug users nationwide, as of the end of 2021.
00:13:37.000In the past, officials in China have acknowledged that the number of registered drug users are a significant undercount of actual drug use there.
00:13:44.000So I think they did know what he meant.
00:13:58.000Also, of course, we've been shaken by the news that Poland has been struck twice by missiles.
00:14:08.000One of my favourite reports is when it says Missile or missiles.
00:14:12.000That's like they're being so accurate and attentive to detail they want to get the number exactly right while being pretty incorrect when it comes to the origin of those missiles.
00:14:23.000The news broke during the B-20 summit which sort of amounts to a collection of world leaders coming together to collude against an extraordinary Indonesian backdrop.
00:14:37.000Have a look at this Extraordinary scene.
00:15:39.000And it requires them in order to spin on its axis.
00:15:42.000But of course, what Schwalbe is talking about is the nature of different and diffuse power.
00:15:47.000For a long time, there's been a clash of civilisations where the other side has been painted as negative, smeared, whether you're talking about the Cold War, where there's a narrative of the Free West and, you know, the Soviet Union, or Orientalism, the sort of idea that there are others, whether it's within what we regard as the Orient, like Eastern countries or Islamic power.
00:16:13.000But the idea that you have one world, one order, one central dominating force from which all government flows is, I suppose, central To the project of the WEF and I suppose many of us fear that even national sovereignty, which is already hugely compromised, is being further diluted by unelected officials and bodies such as WHO or, you know, even summits like this.
00:16:40.000Are they things like The COP27, things that sort of appear like empty gestures where greenwashing is available, or are they opportunities for powerful people to come together and ultimately make decisions that do not affect their own interests and instead dilute and dissolve responsibility into the hands of ordinary people?
00:17:03.000Ultimately, you know, you do your recycling, we'll carry on flying around in our private jets.
00:17:07.000Let's have a look at what Klaus Schwab has to offer at the B20.
00:17:13.000Of course, if we look at all the challenges, we can speak about a multi-crisis, an economic, a political, a social, an ecological, an institutional crisis.
00:17:27.000But actually, what we have to confront is a deep systemic and structural restructuring of a Sounds like sort of restructuring is a rebranding of the reset.
00:19:04.000Of course, is the transition into a multipolar world, which has a tendency to make our world much more fragmented.
00:19:18.000It's interesting because of course we talk about diversity all the time, the importance of diversity, the significance of diversity, but when it comes to power there's only one option, a unipolar world.
00:19:28.000Suddenly a multipolar world is dangerous, that you can't achieve a balance, that is going to be necessarily unstable.
00:19:35.000Critics of the current conflict, regarded by many as a proxy war between America and Russia, argue that the intention is to hollow out Russia as a potential military force in the pursuit of the ultimate conflict.
00:19:49.000And this is a sort of terrifying story that we'll have to do in more depth.
00:19:58.000Gal, tell me what that was, the story that...
00:20:02.000Well, yeah, the one about that basically Ukraine was being used as a beta test for how we're actually going to approach warfare in the future.
00:20:23.000And why is it that they were so keen to report this as the missiles landing in Poland?
00:20:31.000Why were they so hasty to attribute that?
00:20:35.000We can look at the headlines that came out based upon, here we go, so we've got Russian bombs hit Poland, Russian missiles hit Poland, Putin's war escalates, even telegraphed Russian missile strikes Poland.
00:20:49.000We've also got a little bit of a few clips that we put together of this as well.
00:20:54.000Well, of the various, like, mainstream media news outlets reporting on it.
00:20:58.000Reports of at least two dead tonight in Poland from a missile not far from the Ukrainian border.
00:21:21.000There's no way that it could have come from anywhere else.
00:21:24.000Now apparently even when Zelensky announced that this act of aggression had taken place, it was already known by NATO who had been tracking those missiles that it It couldn't have come from Russia.
00:21:36.000Yeah, in fact, even Biden himself at one point does say that it's unlikely that it could have come from Russia, which is amazing.
00:21:42.000But at the same time, President Biden is asking Congress to provide more than $37 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine, a massive infusion of cash that would help support the nation as Russia forces suffer battlefield losses in the nine month old invasion.
00:21:57.000So we had Max Blumenthal on the other day, didn't we?
00:22:00.000And we were talking about A report that came out last week about America apparently starting to nudge Ukraine towards peace talks.
00:22:09.000And we asked Max about whether it was true and how much had been reported about Boris Johnson going to Ukraine, to tell him to basically cut off peace talks with Russia back in April.
00:22:19.000And what he was saying is, this was interesting, because this was happening at a time when Congress was trying to pass a $40 billion deal.
00:22:26.000relief, you know, fund to Ukraine. And so what these things are basically doing is kind of facilitating these
00:22:33.000deals into happening and it's interesting that this is coming at a time when they're trying to pass another
00:22:38.00037 billion dollars in emergency aid to Ukraine of which you would imagine a lot of that will go to the military-industrial
00:22:44.000complex. Let me know in the comments, let me know in the chat, if you think it's as simple as military-industrial
00:22:48.000complex managing congressional and White House strings in order to
00:22:53.000sustain a war that will increase profitability while potentially bringing the planet to the brink of Armageddon.
00:22:59.000Doesn't that seem like a Terrifying prospect to you.
00:23:02.000So terrifying, in fact, that it's difficult to regard it as feasible.
00:23:06.000It seems absurd that such a catastrophic risk would be undertaken in pursuit of profit.
00:23:11.000But remember some of the things you've seen during this conflict, like Sean Penn delivering an Oscar to Zelensky, the idea that peace talks have been disrupted in order to allow time for yet another lethal aid package to be offered.
00:23:28.000And again, I remind you, as I continually feel that I have to, that my sympathy for people in Ukraine who are, like, caught in the middle of a terrifying conflict, like, remains undimmed.
00:23:40.000It's just, it seems that, in all doubt, like, you immediately, when questioning these narratives, your integrity is called into question.
00:23:47.000It's demanded of you that you simply imbibe the information that's spewed at you from various screens, and if you query it at all, It seems like you're the issue.
00:24:06.000Well, basically, we read an article today about how the B20 is calling on the G20 to adopt vaccine passports using WHO standards and to promote digital identity schemes.
00:24:16.000So like the B20 and the G20, they have conversations with each other.
00:24:18.000The G20, we all know what that is, that's sort of powerful heads of state coming together to talk about like a global agenda, and that's not a conspiracy theory, that's sort of literally the explicit function of it.
00:24:27.000The B20 is like it's little brother, it's like a spin-off show that's more oriented towards business.
00:24:32.000But the G20 is pretty economically and financially undergirded anyway, so to have a B20, that's a bit of a hat On a hat.
00:24:38.000That's like having a pornography conference and then having a masturbation wing.
00:24:42.000And it seems pretty odd that they're talking about vaccine passports after Pfizer said that they never tested for transmission.
00:24:51.000So the point of having a passport is diminished.
00:24:53.000Also, you would say, what's it got to do with business?
00:24:56.000I mean, that is what the... Make a lot of money from them?
00:24:59.000So, I mean, I guess that's where this is going, is the B in B20 stands for business.
00:25:04.000The G in G20 is like, this is the collection of the world's economies, but it is about economics, ultimately.
00:25:11.000But this is the business arm of the G20.
00:25:13.000So if you've got a situation where they are literally talking about digital ID, you've got to wonder, how is that affecting business?
00:25:20.000And as you say, Ross, like, we can make quite a lot of money out of this.
00:25:25.000Let's have a look at them saying that then.
00:25:26.000So let's have a digital health certificate acknowledged by WHO.
00:25:33.000If you have been vaccinated or tested properly, then you can move around.
00:25:39.000So for the next pandemic, instead of stopping the movement of the people 100%, which clogs the economy globally, you know, you can... Also, I don't like the easy way that they're saying the next pandemic.
00:25:54.000We'll get this next pandemic going, this one.
00:25:56.000You can continue to move around as long as you comply.
00:25:59.000I suppose it seems so explicit that it's difficult to call it a conspiracy theory.
00:26:06.000It's just an obvious and observable convergence of interests that would benefit from social credit score systems and the ability to use big tech to surveil, monitor and accredit us as individuals and whole populations.
00:26:20.000They're just literally Talking about it in, at least in that guy's case, some traditional dress.
00:26:36.000Still provide some movement of the people.
00:26:39.000Indonesia has achieved, G20 country has agreed to have this digital certificate using WHO standard and we will submit into the next The World Health Assembly in Geneva adds the revision to international health regulations.
00:26:56.000So hopefully, for the next pandemic, we can still see some movement of the people, some movement of the goods, and movement of the economy.
00:27:05.000Whether or not but it's all tracked is like a global conspiracy, the idea that you wouldn't query it when seeing something that's as overt as that, but that you shouldn't even talk about it.
00:27:17.000Yeah, this is tracked movement, isn't it though?
00:27:20.000We saw some of that with this pandemic with the CDC admitted tracking people through their mobile phones.
00:27:25.000Now we're getting to a case with Digital IDs.
00:27:27.000And of course, the reason for digital IDs was all to do with stop the spread in the first place, wasn't it?
00:27:31.000That was literally the whole point of it.
00:27:33.000It was that we can track you and if you have got coronavirus, you can't access these things so you can spread the virus.
00:27:40.000And now we're at a stage where we know more about the stop the spread and the fact that it wasn't true anyway.
00:27:46.000And yet digital IDs are still important and are still being discussed at a business event, a global business event for the next pandemic.
00:27:55.000Yeah I suppose so because it shows that it's profitable it shows it's in the interest of the powerful and all that leads me to conclude that it's pretty likely that it will happen.
00:28:04.000Still coming up on the show, we've got, here's the news, no, here's the effing news,
00:28:07.000where we're talking about Joe Biden's pledge to cancel student debt,
00:28:11.000which evidently mobilized a lot of young voters, and how that effort is going now.
00:28:20.000And also, did they take the necessary measures to ensure that the policy would ever see the light of day,
00:28:26.000or did they introduce it in a crazy little way that gave all sorts of opportunities
00:28:30.000for it to be rescinded and interrupted?
00:28:32.000You might enjoy having a little look at this image if you're curious about the nature of global power.
00:28:38.000This is Klaus Schwab, Rishi Sunak and Justin Trudeau hanging out in, I would say, clashing garments there.
00:28:47.000Klaus Schwab, he's such a chameleon-like individual, his skin is turning into a part of his shirt.
00:28:55.000Again, look, it's just an innocuous photo opportunity really.
00:28:59.000Just some politicians with limited policies and great hair hanging out with a man who says that we will own nothing and that we will be happy.
00:29:10.000All of them have previous affiliations with Davos, the WEF.
00:29:15.000In the case of dear old Rishi Sunak, he worked for Goldman Sachs.
00:29:18.000He's not willing to admit whether the hedge fund that he set up profited from the Moderna vaccines.
00:29:26.000He's married to a person whose dad owns, what's it called?
00:30:00.000I think Trudeau had to be restrained from unbuttoning that shirt to the waist and not wearing any trousers with it.
00:30:06.000Klaus Schwab, he's switched off there.
00:30:08.000What should be a glorious and triumphant moment for him is sort of, I suppose, like Alexander on realising that he'd conquered the known world.
00:30:16.000He sort of thought, well, what was it all for?
00:30:25.000I don't see him as, like, part of the jokes.
00:30:27.000I think he's not a humorous man, Klaus, I don't think.
00:30:30.000I think he's leaving the jokes to, evidently, Rishi and Trudeau.
00:30:34.000Yeah, Trudeau there surely just asking Rishi Sunak if he minds if he uses any kind of skin darkening material so that he can relax.
00:30:44.000Trudeau there probably the longest amount of time he's gone without doing an ethnically inappropriate facial costume.
00:30:50.000All right, well, listen, we've all had a lot of fun looking at the way that global elites manipulate narratives and control what passes for democracy.
00:30:59.000But on a more micro level, we can see now how particularly popular policies like the cancellation of student debt may have mobilized young voters in the midterms in America.
00:31:11.000But are the promises made Gonna be delivered.
00:31:15.000Certainly we've seen the promises about controlling Big Pharma haven't been meaningfully delivered on.
00:31:19.000Releasing people from federal prisons that had cannabis convictions.
00:31:22.000Well, they were all released, but that's mostly because there was nobody in there.
00:31:27.000Saudi Arabia are not really that much of a pariah.
00:31:48.000Did Biden and the Dems stop a midterm rout by lying that they were going to cancel student debt when in fact they might not do that at all?
00:32:01.000It is of course commonly understood now that an expected red wave did not materialise.
00:32:06.000Is this because Trump is no longer an effective politician?
00:32:11.000Or could another explanation be that young people turned out in record numbers, in part because of student debt cancellation, a pledge made by Biden that a little like his cannabis laws, may not amount to very much at all.
00:32:26.000This is a fascinating story that shows that the pledge to cancel student debt may not be as straightforward
00:33:07.000Now, I know many of you will think, why should a particular class of people, the educated class, get relief that's not being afforded to, for example, tradespeople?
00:33:15.000And that's an interesting argument and an argument I'm sympathetic to.
00:33:18.000Broadly speaking, though, I think that education, whether it's in trades or in academia, should be granted for as close to free as possible.
00:33:26.000Educate your population, awaken and enlighten them.
00:33:30.000But this information that Biden is conveying here is not true in the manner that he's explaining.
00:33:34.000Let's get into it a little more deeply.
00:33:36.000In the midterms, voters under the age of 29 broke for the Democrats in overwhelming numbers, helping turn the much feared red wave into a red trickle.
00:33:43.000In a speech on Wednesday night, President Biden acknowledged that student debt relief played a big role in motivating the historic turnout of young people.
00:33:51.000Debt relief almost certainly played a decisive role in key races, including Senate races.
00:33:56.000Consider Pennsylvania, where cancellation champion John Fetterman beat Dr. Oz.
00:34:00.000In Arizona, Mark Kelly, another proponent of cancellation, exceeded expectations.
00:34:05.000Not so for Ohio Democrat and Senate hopeful Tim Ryan, who strongly opposed Biden's cancellation plan and lost to J.D.
00:34:12.000On Twitter, the White House Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, made a similar point, saying that President Biden kept his promises to younger Americans and they responded with energy and enthusiasm.
00:35:15.000While the President has blasted the Republicans behind these lawsuits, the real story is more complicated.
00:35:20.000Biden could have directed the Education Secretary to cancel people's debts using the Compromise and Settlement Authority granted in the Higher Education Act of 1965.
00:35:29.000But instead, his administration invoked a different and more limited legal authority.
00:35:35.000It was this limited authority that the Texas judge formally took issue with.
00:35:39.000Had he wanted to, a measure could have been immediately taken to instantly cancel that debt bypassing the Trump judge.
00:35:47.000So one hypothesis could be that they took this route knowing it would get struck down by a Trump appointed judge.
00:35:55.000Now, if we had proper access and proper investigative journalism, we would of course ask someone close to Biden, why didn't you use the Compromise and Settlement Act if it was always your intention?
00:36:08.000Note how the cannabis laws were only enacted at a federal level, meaning nobody was released from prison, rather than some people were released from prison.
00:36:18.000They also chose to make borrowers apply for the program instead of automatically issuing cancellation, a slow-moving process that bought their billionaire-backed opponents valuable time to cook up legal arguments, find plaintiffs, and line their cases up with sympathetic judges.
00:36:34.000So again, the manner in which this was undertaken was not the only one, but it was the least efficient one.
00:36:40.000It granted valuable time to opponents of the measures so they could line their ducks up and prevent the bill being passed if they wanted to.
00:36:47.000Also, it provides a convenient get-out course because a Trump-appointed judge acts the idea.
00:36:53.000The simple truth is, is whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, your party is significantly backed by billionaires.
00:36:59.000Now, things get even more interesting here because Biden has publicly said that this law has already been passed, which is an absolute lie!
00:37:07.000Now, Biden does get confused pretty regular, so let's give him the benefit of the doubt.
00:37:11.000President Joe Biden falsely claimed last week that he got his student debt forgiveness initiative passed by Congress.
00:37:16.000During an on-camera discussion conducted by progressive organization NowThis News, Biden told young activists that they are probably aware I just signed a law that is being challenged by Republicans.
00:37:25.000Biden then said it's passed, I've got it passed by a vote or two and it's in effect.
00:37:30.000That's one of those lies where you provide too much detail.
00:37:32.000Yeah, I don't know why these earrings are by my bed.
00:37:35.000I guess it's because I've become an earring salesman in my spare time?
00:37:39.000What Biden's done there is he's provided too much detail on top of a lie.
00:37:47.000Facts First said Biden's claims are incorrect.
00:37:49.000Biden created his student debt forgiveness initiative for executive action, not through
00:37:53.000legislation, so he did not sign a law and he didn't get the initiatives passed by any number
00:37:57.000of votes. The Biden administration has now stopped accepting applications for federal student loan
00:38:01.000forgiveness. So what's interesting about this story is that whether or not you think that
00:38:05.000student debt should be cancelled, and I personally think that it should be and that people ought be
00:38:11.000I think that everybody should have access to education, whether that's in academia or in trades.
00:38:16.000I think that's an important function of the state to provide that kind of education, especially when you look at how much is spent elsewhere.
00:38:23.000But if you do deliver those kind of pledges and galvanize and mobilize voters in that way, then you certainly have to deliver, and I would say deliver efficiently, And not lie about it.
00:38:35.000Perhaps the reason they feel free to make these kind of pledges and claims is because the way they regard young people, voters more generally, but young people in particular, is as kind of little more than children.
00:39:15.000Now perhaps Kamala Harris, given the benefit of the doubt, was joking in that situation.
00:39:20.000But that does chime with my general assessment that we are regarded by people in power as little more than idiots and, at best, as children that have to be coordinated and guided, who it's okay to lie to.
00:39:35.000I would not identify as a Republican or a Democrat and I would say that whoever had come out on top in those midterms, ordinary people's lives, generally speaking, would not have significantly improved, certainly not in the way that they would if we were to radically change our systems of government so they were representative of the interests of ordinary people and not a reflection of the requirements of corporate elites, globalist agenda, Mainstream media.
00:40:02.000It's interesting to see another apparent political victory boiling down to a bit of tactical ingenuity.
00:40:09.000A pledge made that will only be delivered upon in a limited way, perhaps affording opponents of that legislation or regulation, however you regard it, whether it's the correct term, the opportunity to prevent it being meaningfully passed.
00:40:22.000Why was it not passed in the most effective way?
00:40:25.000Why was the debt not cancelled immediately?
00:40:27.000Why are similar measures not afforded to people that trained in trades as well as just in academia?
00:40:32.000Is it that it was simply a tactic to mobilize a certain demographic while alienating another portion of the population?
00:40:40.000So, even in instances where it seems like something's being given back to ordinary people, there are often invisible administrative veils being drawn and levers being pulled to prevent real change happening.
00:40:52.000We're gonna forgive $10,000 of federal student loan debt, keeping my campaign promise.
00:40:59.000Like many of Joe Biden's pre-election pledges, it's not being meaningfully fulfilled.
00:41:04.000Saudi Arabia are not being made a pariah.
00:41:06.000People are not being What does it tell you that people will enthusiastically respond to being offered just a meagre amount of hope?
00:41:11.000What kind of state are we in as a people where piecemeal measures are seen as cause for celebration?
00:41:15.000done in the most efficient way? What does it tell you that people will enthusiastically
00:41:20.000respond to being offered just a meagre amount of hope? What kind of state are we in as a
00:41:25.000people where piecemeal measures are seen as cause for celebration? This is how politics
00:41:31.000operates now. So much deception, so much despondency, so much despair that small pledges inefficiently
00:41:39.000delivered are seen as major victories when in fact probably what they are is just tactical
00:41:45.000maneuvering in order to motivate voters while doing the minimum possible in order to continue
00:41:51.000to not inconvenience your billionaire backers.
00:41:54.000Whether it's this pledge that doesn't look like it's going to be delivered in anything like the degree that was promised or perhaps more significantly the pledge not to exacerbate tensions on a global scale that could lead to nuclear war.
00:42:07.000It seems between the discourse of politics and the delivery of politics is a vast gap and in that gap there is continuing despondency, continuing despair and in my mind Reason to continue to be cynical and sceptical about the game of politics, the spectacle of modern democracy.
00:42:46.000No, you can pretty much do what you want when it comes to what medicine you take and for what reason, but we're certainly observing what you're saying in the chat.
00:42:55.000Salty Shrimp says, the elite crushing the monetary system as fast as possible.
00:42:59.000Save your silver and gold, which is very convenient because we've got a sponsor for the show.
00:43:02.000I'll try in a minute, and I've not watched the advert yet, although I did make the advert, so you'll be seeing an advert in a minute, mate.
00:43:08.000Salty Shrimp, we're giving you a golden opportunity.
00:43:11.000Medicus, forgive that, I didn't mean that.
00:43:14.000Medicus, what about those who didn't go into further education due to fear of debt?
00:44:27.000He's ahead in the polls, just so you know.
00:44:29.000In the polls between... A Politico poll taken the days before the poll closed, 33% of Republicans said they'd support DeSantis, 47% said they'd support Trump.
00:44:40.000So all this kind of Trumpty Dumpty and he's the biggest loser and all of that, I mean, it still looks like if there was to be an election now between those two, it looks like he'd still get it.
00:44:55.000I suppose what concerns me most of all is whether or not this is the generation of more hysteria.
00:45:04.000That's all I'm questioning, is whether or not any of the alternatives you're being offered will meaningfully alter your life.
00:45:12.000Now when we speak to people like Michael Singer, who was our guest on the show yesterday, he says that your primary function is to alter your inner life, to recognise that you're maintaining a state of stimulus,
00:45:47.000We're going to talk to Brad Evans in a minute for our item Books with Brad, where we talk about a classic book and in particular its relevance to contemporary sociological and political issues.
00:46:40.000For those who are in the United States, there is a way to secure your hard-earned nest egg.
00:46:45.000American Heart for Gold make it easy to protect your savings and retirement accounts with physical gold and silver.
00:46:51.000With one phone call, they can have physical gold and silver delivered right to your door or inside a qualifying retirement account like your IRA or 401k.
00:47:01.000American Hartford Gold is the highest-rated firm in the U.S.
00:47:03.000with an A-plus rating from the BBB and thousands of satisfied clients.
00:47:08.000Right now, they will give you up to $5,000 of free silver on your first qualifying order.
00:48:04.000It's time now for us to pivot dramatically and radically to the world of literature, for us to contemplate together the relevance of the great works of literature that define our culture and our language.
00:48:17.000It's time, of course, for Books with Brad.
00:48:22.000Suddenly, a white rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
00:48:28.000Burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit hole under the hedge.
00:48:37.000In another moment, down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
00:48:46.000Hello, and thank you for joining me for our item, Books with Brad, or Books with Brand.
00:48:52.000That's sort of one of the puns we're playing with.
00:50:30.000And Virginia Woolf also said, you know, Wonderland was not a book where children learn to become themselves.
00:50:35.000It's a book where also adults can see the world through the innocent beauty of children's eyes.
00:50:40.000And I think there is so much to unpack in that book that it's tremendous.
00:50:43.000Part of its mythic potency, I suppose, is that it's a book about shifting levels and constantly fluctuating perceptions.
00:50:52.000I feel that when we were talking today about the re-emergence of Trump on the political scene, though in some ways his spectre has been ever-present, kept continually alive by a media that's obsessed with him, even as they hold him in disdain.
00:51:09.000That as he becomes again, once more, part of the dominant narrative, it seems that he operates as a kind of pole that invites either side of, in my mind, a false dichotomy, to operate at a suspended state of near hysteria, condemning Trump Not acknowledging his ability even as an orator or placing a degree of faith in him as an anti-establishment figure that in my view is not justified by his record in office.
00:51:42.000So I see more and more That we are living in a fabricated reality, that we are puppeted continually by sets of interests that converge and ultimately require all of us to be sort of suspended in slightly unreal states.
00:52:02.000So are you saying that Alice, the protagonist, is being subject to these forces as she, I suppose, leaves childhood enters into a solitary world and is confronted by figures
00:52:16.000all of whom appear to be framed by different types of madness. Is it a book
00:52:22.000that is somewhat about madness and is it a book that is about dealing with
00:52:27.000reality stroke realities? Well the reality you know the book begins with
00:52:31.000Alice kind of She asks this question, what is the purpose of a book without conversation and pictures, right?
00:52:38.000And that's the history of the book as well.
00:52:53.000And that's the history of, you know, dialectical thinking more generally, to be kind of technical on this.
00:52:58.000Now, the brilliance, I think, of Wonderland in terms of it's a real journey this girl takes.
00:53:04.000She goes through constant existential crises, but the brilliance is she's encountering all these figures who look remarkably different to her.
00:53:15.000Others she'll speak to and get upset by.
00:53:18.000Others she'll respond to and say, you know what, I'm going to walk away from you.
00:53:22.000But she needs to have that conversation.
00:53:24.000You talked about earlier about a unipolar world.
00:53:27.000Wonderland is the opposite of a unipolar world.
00:53:30.000It's a world in which difference is allowed to happen.
00:53:33.000And of course, we might write of this as madness, right?
00:53:37.000But why is it that a world that's not unipolar seems so mad to us?
00:53:42.000Now you're right in terms of the constant running theme throughout the book is, and I think it's a question as well, where is the madness located?
00:53:50.000Now we might often think of course of the Mad Hatter as being this kind of quintessential figure of madness.
00:53:56.000But he's actually quite a likeable, harmless character in this.
00:53:59.000And we know, as I was talking to you earlier about, you know, the work of Michel Foucault.
00:54:03.000Foucault talks about the importance of any narrative of civilization, we always need to identify these mad characters to kind of make us feel more comfortable in our claims of civility.
00:54:15.000And I think what Alice reveals in this story is the absolute nonsense of those claims as well.
00:54:20.000You know, the nonsense actually becomes quite liberating because it reveals how mad sometimes the reason and the rationality is of any given society as well.
00:54:29.000And what passes for normal understanding can also be mad if we just step back and look at the craziness of the world.
00:54:36.000Yeah, I feel like it's appealing to collapse into subjectivity, to fully believe in my own experience as reality and to deny the reality of others.
00:54:48.000It's interesting how much the claim of other people's insanity is made in contemporary political life.
00:54:56.000Trump is a lunatic, that Biden has dementia, that Putin is like Hitler, that we kind of other them socio-psychologically, that we have to see them as operating in an entirely different reality and a reality that is pejorative also.
00:55:18.000So I suppose that in this book, are you saying that we're invited to look at the the world of Alice in less damning terms?
00:55:26.000That she meets like, I don't know, the Red Queen, the Hatter, the Cheshire Cat, all sorts of characters that seem sort of mental and that Alice's attitude is one of like Broad acceptance and curiosity, I suppose.
00:55:39.000She's driven by curiosity rather than certainty.
00:55:42.000And materialism... One of the things we say a lot on this show is that whether you think you're on the left or the right, you're part of a neoliberal, tyrannical conspiracy that will not allow you any kind of political freedom.
00:55:58.000And are you saying that Alice's curiosity is a sort of an openness, like in Christianity it says, become as little children, moment to moment, react with wonder to reality?
00:56:11.000Well, what is ethics if it's not an openness?
00:56:13.000An openness to unknown characters, to unknown ways of living, and unknown ways of understanding one another.
00:56:19.000And I think there is something deeply ethical about that book in terms of the journey this girl takes.
00:56:35.000And we can often feel like... What, just because of the tea party?
00:56:38.000Well, I think that the chaos of the Tea Party becomes kind of crazy.
00:56:41.000And I think there's, there is something I think really important to recognize in all of us.
00:56:46.000I think that we all are not perfect characters.
00:56:49.000We all have, you know, difficulties we bring to the world.
00:56:52.000And I think if that's the, you know, the brilliance I think about this book is we all face existential challenges to our life because of what the world throws at us.
00:56:59.000But it's how we respond to them and don't get overwhelmed by it.
00:57:02.000As you say, reach to a more transcendental plane.
00:57:05.000Now the, you talk about then the transcendental plane.
00:57:08.000We're living in this world of illusion, but the one thing we can say is it's absolutely bereft of imagination.
00:57:14.000I mean, imagination of what a better world might look like.
00:57:18.000And I think that's one of the calling cards of this book, about how can we imagine a different world?
00:57:23.000Now, there's a real dark side to this when you think about, you know, there's a kind of a subtle gesture in the follow-on book through the looking glass.
00:57:30.000Well, you're not quite so sure at the beginning whether Alice herself is actually in a mental asylum.
00:57:52.000And I think what we need today is precisely people who might think we're on the side of madness because they actually see the world differently from the accepted norm.
00:58:00.000The role of the shaman is to transition between levels, levels of reality, to flirt with insanity.
00:58:06.000There are cultures where madness is treated as semi-divine.
00:58:09.000I'm not talking about sort of slavering actual madness, people that are a risk to others and themselves, but a lack of certainty.
00:58:16.000Materialism and rationalism demand a kind of certainty of us.
00:58:19.000I've had guests on our show before that have said, you know, astrophysicist, famous one, if it cannot be measured, then it isn't there.
00:58:26.000Well, in a sense, the imagination is about the immeasurable because it has not yet become manifest.
00:58:31.000It exists in a state of potentiality as most things must before realised.
00:58:35.000Sometimes what I ponder, Brad, is the fact that we live in such a liminal space of certainty, i.e.
00:58:43.000that which is known, our epistemological realm, is such a small component of all potential realities that it's negligible.
00:58:52.000That which we know, compared to that which might be known, is a fraction of all potential realities.
00:58:59.000So you have to have some sort of interface, or some space for an interface, with that which is unknowable.
00:59:05.000Particularly if you want to change the world.
00:59:06.000I suppose like the The dearth of imagination empowers those that are already dominant.
00:59:14.000If you can't imagine new worlds, if you can't flirt with chaos, if you don't have a relationship with chaos, then order will prevail.
00:59:22.000Or there will be a sort of a linear progression to more centralized powers.
00:59:26.000When you see them talk about like, we've got to introduce vaccine passports, even though you can't rationally justify that anymore once it's been admitted that there were no tests on transmission.
00:59:36.000Well then the power becomes the goal in itself.
00:59:40.000We are, I believe, seeing a globalist project unfold, a unipolar one, mostly realised through the sort of American manifest destiny ideals.
00:59:50.000So these In a sense, imagination is a very, very great tool.
00:59:55.000It's not just the realm of harmless art or art as commodity.
00:59:59.000It's potentially a weapon against order and a potential for the creation of new orders.
01:00:07.000And I mean decentralised and democratic ones, before you panic.
01:00:11.000I think there's a good example of this in terms of, you know, you think about, so first of all, you know, Lewis Carroll was actually a mathematician.
01:00:19.000So he's living in a world of kind of certainty, truth, but then he comes up with this, you know, fabulous tale of imagination.
01:00:25.000And then when you think about, you know, I think the point that you're right in terms of, you know, we need imagination and we need imagination to trump this certainty.
01:00:32.000But we also from time to time need certainty too, you know, and that's what the important function of the Cheshire Cat is in the story.
01:00:38.000He's the one who kind of guides Alice and says, look, you can't dwell in this imaginative madness all the time.
01:00:44.000You need to come back and kind of steer yourself through history.
01:01:42.000Even Dadaism as a response to the horrors of the First World War.
01:01:47.000Is an acknowledgement that we need to invite imagination in, in times of crisis.
01:01:51.000Rationalism is leading us deeper into the current conflict, the proxy war, as some are calling it, between America and Russia.
01:01:58.000It's a rational, if you consider the rational economic proposition that governs the actions of the military-industrial complex, that this is merely a rational event.
01:02:11.000And even something like the initial reporting on those missiles as being like, oh, they're Russian, and then it's revealed, oh no, they're clearly Ukrainian, but there's been enough time for yet more lethal aid to be released.
01:02:23.000It seems like there is a rational trail that can be pursued there.
01:02:26.000We're going to be talking more with Brad in a minute on Stay Free AF.
01:02:29.000That's our membership community that's available on Locals.
01:02:35.000In a minute, there's a link in the description and a small fee for participating in that.
01:02:38.000Before you go anywhere at all though, I want to let you know that we are doing a live event on December the 5th in Gray's, my hometown.
01:02:46.000Why, the Thameside Theatre, the very first place that I performed and once notably followed through on a fart in, is going to be closed down.
01:03:07.000When they were investigating why the Thameside Theatre was being closed down, the activists that are trying to take it over and run it as a community trust, decentralised power, communities running their own assets, literature, art, accessible to ordinary working class people, discovered that the council were...
01:03:22.000Like a billion quid in debt for extraordinary reasons.
01:03:26.000This is a chance to join me for a day of activism.
01:03:29.000Brad's gonna be there, aren't you, Brad?
01:03:34.000I'll show you the place where I've done that.
01:03:35.000I can't show Brad the place I've done that.
01:03:37.000So, Brad, this is where I've done that, near the... There's a museum in there as well, and there's a Neanderthal, and that's where I did that fart, as a matter of fact.
01:04:32.000But also, he's an anti-Bill Gates farmer who's able to articulate why Bill Gates' imperialist project must fail, should fail, and how it lines up with the narratives that we discuss on this show.
01:04:43.000Also, we're talking to Adam Wagner, who's going to talk about, oh, uh-oh, he's going to be talking about what happened during the pandemic, Gal, and how it was actually It was an atrocity against our human rights and human freedoms, and you know we care about freedom on this show.
01:04:58.000So, alright, we're going to wrap up now.
01:05:00.000We're going to carry on on Stay Free AF, where we'll continue with our book club, where we're going to invite you to read Alice in Wonderland.
01:05:05.000We're going to give you an opportunity to win a piece of art.
01:05:09.000And also, we'll tell you a little bit more about, I don't know, probably just what I'm feeling.