In this episode of Stay Free With Russell Brand, we discuss the difference between a real and fake gun, Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Boris Johnson, the Ukraine crisis and much, much more. Plus, we talk about Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein, and how to be a free thinker in the 21st century. Stay Free with Russell Brand is on all of the social medias, if you search for it, you'll find us. Stay Free, and Don't Get Lost in the Storm! Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Theme by Mavus White. Music by PSOVOD and tyops. All rights reserved. Used by permission. This episode was produced by VaynerSpeakers.co.uk and edited by Matt DesLauriers. Our theme song is Come Alone by Suneaters, courtesy of Lotuspool Records. The album art for this episode was done by our super talented Ameya Vellian. We'd like to sincerely thank you for all your support and look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Thank you so much for all the support we've received so far. Stay free, stay free, and spread the word about this podcast! xoxo, P.S. - P.B. (and don't forget to rate, review, subscribe and subscribe to our other shows on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, and leave us a review and subscribe on iTunes, and review on your favourite streaming platform! We'll be looking out for the next week for the best ones! - we'll see you next week! Love ya! xo, bye, bye! P.E. - Jack, Jack, bye bye. Jack - Jack - - - EJ (and P.J. ( ) - OJ ( ) and P. ( ) ( ) . (Love, Jack ( ) & P. B ( ) ( ) - R. ( ), and P ( ) xx ( ) , P. (A. ( ). (NSYNC ( )( ) ( ) ( ), & P ( , P) ( ) is , A. ( ] ) ( ). ( ) Thank you, Jake ( ) ! ( ), P. & B ( ), B. ( , , , K)
00:01:04.000One where some people are saying things that you don't agree with, or one where there could be weapons that are so dangerous, if they actually do go off, everyone's gonna die?
00:01:16.000It's for the viewers. Let me know in the chat in the comments. If you're watching this on Rumble,
00:01:19.000join us on Locals. If you're watching this on YouTube, for the first 15 minutes we're going
00:01:22.000to be talking about Joe Biden, we're going to be talking about Elon Musk, we're going to be
00:01:27.000talking about Joe Rogan, we're going to be talking about those accusations. We're going to be talking
00:01:30.000about our former Prime Minister Boris Johnson lobbying for prolonging the Ukraine conflict.
00:01:35.000We're going to be looking at the story that Republicans are looking to revoke the last
00:01:41.000remaining nuclear treaty. And then we're going to ask you with straight face, what's more apocalyptic?
00:01:48.000Joe Rogan and Elon Musk having views, or the establishment really Provoking a nuclear power, and we'll talk you through it in a way so that you know it's not conspiracy theories and you don't have a little freak-out, even though I know you can handle the truth.
00:02:03.000When we're on Rumble exclusively, and there's a link in the description that you should click on, when we're on Rumble exclusively, we'll be talking about Biden being accused of censoring vaccine injury stuff.
00:02:55.000On an unrelated note, there are further revelations around Bill Gates' relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who I'm beginning to think is not a great guy.
00:08:08.000I don't know that that's what the issue is, is it?
00:08:11.000That's like, that's from a piece in The Beast.
00:08:13.000And I suppose what it's saying is that they are peddling misinformation and that what they're doing is nefarious.
00:08:21.000But the truth is, as we were telling you yesterday, we have Ron DeSantis doing the announcement
00:08:26.000of his candidacy on Twitter, with Tucker affiliated with Twitter.
00:08:32.000The truth is now that around Elon Musk there is a significant movement.
00:08:36.000Daily Wire, Twitter, there's so much power, you can't ignore the power of that narrative.
00:08:42.000And I feel like the liberal establishment and offshoots of the liberal establishment
00:08:48.000are committed to attacking narratives that contradict their preferred version of reality.
00:08:56.000Is it apocalyptic, let me know in the chat and the comments, to have a variety of potentially
00:09:00.000opposing views, whether that's people like, I would say, relatively conventional conservative
00:09:04.000politicians, like Ron DeSantis, more demagogic figures like Trump, billionaires with opinions
00:09:11.000like Musk, and people like Joe Rogan, who I guess is an unprecedented figure, I mostly
00:09:16.000consider it'd be like a male Oprah Winfrey to tell you the truth.
00:09:20.000Essentially, it seems like anyone who don't toe the line, they want to shut down.
00:09:25.000What is available to you as a perspective?
00:09:27.000It's one of the questions we asked you yesterday, and what we're essentially offering you is, what is more dangerous?
00:09:33.000Having people on the internet with a variety of opinions, or is it It's more worrying that Republican senators have introduced a bill to scrap the one remaining nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
00:09:45.000It seems to me that that could lead to an actual apocalypse.
00:09:49.000I mean, what was the point of that treaty?
00:09:50.000Presumably that treaty was, oh, do you know what?
00:09:52.000This will make it less likely that we have a nuclear war.
00:09:56.000Yeah, it's obviously about nuclear armaments that are going on at the moment.
00:09:59.000Really interestingly as well, looked into this, in the decades leading up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the U.S.
00:10:04.000unilaterally withdrew from several arms control treaties with Russia, including the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, you would think that might be quite important, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and Open Skies.
00:10:29.000They played this as very much like Moscow has suspended their participation in what they call the New START Treaty, which sounds a bit mental.
00:10:36.000Obviously, when it was evolved, the New START Treaty, it was like, we're not going to use nuclear, you know, missiles on each other.
00:10:42.000But now, so Russia have said they'll suspend participation, although they will comply with the limits set by the treaty.
00:10:48.000So what Republicans are now saying is, We're going to go out of it as well, as well as all those other ones that we've gone out of, you know?
00:10:54.000So it's looking increasingly like this is going in the wrong direction.
00:10:57.000Seems to me that that lack of treaties is more likely to lead to an apocalypse than Joe Rogan Inquiring as to whether there might be alternative medicines that could be applied in a pandemic.
00:11:13.000Obviously we can't go into that while we're still on YouTube.
00:11:15.000We'll be talking about Bill Gates and Epstein when we're on Rumble.
00:11:19.000And in fact what we're talking about more broadly is what is called a conspiracy theory these days.
00:11:46.000Now we're talking about what's more likely to cause an apocalypse.
00:11:48.000Is it Elon Musk saying that Twitter should be a true free speech platform like Rumble,
00:11:54.000where people can openly discuss varying and opposing political opinions, or is it...
00:12:01.000Continuing to provoke Russia by arming Ukraine.
00:12:05.000Of course Ukraine has the right to defend itself.
00:12:07.000Of course we should be looking for a solution to this problem that doesn't mean the shelling and annihilation of Ukrainian people, their cities and their population.
00:12:16.000But who benefits from this ongoing arming of Ukraine?
00:12:21.000Privately many people are saying that it's impossible for Ukraine to win this war and yet Boris Johnson is saying, we've gotta win!
00:12:30.000But that is not what people are privately saying.
00:12:33.000In fact, Buddy Boy Texera's revelations were precisely of that nature.
00:12:37.000The poor sap was revealing in chat rooms across the USA that...
00:12:42.000There are boots on the ground, Tootsie Boots, down on the floor, in Ukraine, contrary to what we're being told, and in private, people are deeply concerned.
00:12:50.000And when the news report on Buddy Boy takes air, or what they say, oh, he was a, he was a gun nut, you know, well, he's in the army, what do you want him to be, like a pacifist, who faints at the sight of a gun?
00:13:01.000Okay, you little maggots, here's a gun!
00:13:04.000I didn't join the army to be presented with an arm!
00:13:09.000That's a ridiculous expectation to have.
00:13:11.000Now, Gareth, what else can you tell me about this lobbying?
00:13:14.000Well, I think this relates back to that Joe Rogan article.
00:13:17.000We were just looking at the Daily Beast.
00:13:45.000Now exactly with what you just said, One of the things that came out of Teixeira's revelations was that this war won't be over in 2023 and at most only modest gains would be made by Ukraine.
00:13:58.000Now what's the biggest disinformation in there?
00:14:01.000Is it Boris Johnson telling lawmakers that Ukraine is going to win this war?
00:14:08.000Well, it seems that what's more influential and more likely to have an impact, and one would say a negative impact on people's lives, primarily the lives of Ukrainian people, is the latter.
00:14:18.000It seems that that is dangerous misinformation.
00:14:21.000Misinformation, malinformation, disinformation, in spite of attempts to normalise these ideas, is going to remain subjective and remain open to the accusation that what they mean is information that we don't like.
00:14:32.000OK, so listen, we're going to talk about a subject that's too contentious for us to discuss on the WHO.
00:14:39.000You know that the WHO's biggest funder, the country of Germany.
00:14:43.000The second biggest funder? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
00:14:47.000A apparent charity, able to give donations second only to the biggest donation available.
00:14:54.000So we're going to leave YouTube now, we'll be exclusively broadcasting on Rumble,
00:14:58.000not because we want to convey misinformation or peddle conspiracy theories,
00:15:03.000but because we want to have an honest, open, inclusive conversation about information
00:15:07.000that might be detrimental to the ongoing onslaught of establishment power, censorship,
00:15:33.000One thing you are not, if you've got a vaccine injury, is anti-vax, because you got that injury through a vaccine.
00:15:40.000I mean, unless these people were anti-vaccine, I don't want a vaccine and inadvertently tripped over in some sort of laboratory, possibly in Wuhan, where a lot of clownish antics appear to go on, a lot of mishaps and a lot of blunders.
00:15:52.000A Frank Spencer-like environment, I'd call it.
00:16:04.000challenging the government basically who as we know a lot through the revelations of the twitter
00:16:09.000files push social media platforms to censor content by people who have claimed that they've
00:16:14.000been injured by covid19 vaccines so then as you said the lawsuit notes that the plaintiffs are
00:16:19.000not anti-vaxxers but this is people who had relations who were affected by the vaccine.
00:16:24.000So Breanne Dressen was reportedly injured by AstraZeneca vaccine while voluntarily participating
00:16:29.000in the trial. Another plaintiff wasn't affected by the Moderna vaccine but said their 16 year
00:16:35.000old son died from cardiac arrest and believes it was induced by the vaccine after five days.
00:16:39.000Now I guess what they're saying is their conversations on twitter and on social media
00:16:45.000were censored and repressed and called misinformation but often what they were looking for was
00:16:50.000Sharing personal experiences, exchanging advice, medical research and support with others who were medically harmed by taking the vaccine.
00:16:57.000That doesn't sound to me at this stage like misinformation.
00:17:01.000Now we know in this country, now if you were coming from a position of there have been no vaccine injuries, but we know that this is now a business that is starting of people, you know, receiving money for vaccine injuries.
00:17:13.000So the UK government has paid out four million pounds in the COVID-19 vaccine damages according to official data.
00:17:19.00031 people have successfully made claims by being severely disabled by the vaccine on behalf of someone who died from the vaccine as of December 2022.
00:17:29.000So the Office of National Statistics reports 52 deaths caused by the COVID-19 vaccine.
00:17:34.000So I guess what they're saying is These things have occurred.
00:17:37.000It doesn't matter at this point how small these statistics are.
00:17:41.000They are people who have died or been injured.
00:17:44.000If when people go on to social media to share advice and to share stories, those people are then censored, that doesn't feel right and that's why there's this lawsuit.
00:17:53.000Seems like there is an overreach when it comes to censorship.
00:17:57.000Let me know in the chat and the comments.
00:18:00.000Seems like there's an attempt, almost globally, to create the category of conspiracy theorists, or the category of far-right rhetoric.
00:18:08.000No doubt there are things that are called conspiracy theories and there is such a thing as far-right rhetoric, but what appears to be happening if the various new bills and legislation around the world that seems to be predicated upon shutting down conversation, whether it's in New Zealand or Australia or the United Kingdom or America, it appears to be about being able to exert control over what can be said and what can't be said.
00:18:32.000And this is just another example of things that should be able to be discussed being shut down.
00:18:38.000We know that throughout the pandemic expert voices were silenced because they were at odds with the dominant mainstream narrative of that time.
00:18:47.000Now when we're talking about conspiracy theories it was becoming clear to me that what it is is a way of making you suspicious of or even dismissive of a story without listening to what's being said.
00:19:00.000Jeffrey Epstein is, in a sense, a great avatar of this issue, because many people believe that Jeffrey Epstein didn't end his own life in custody, but that his life was ended in custody, particularly and specifically because he has information about powerful people that he could use against them.
00:19:17.000That is regarded as a conspiracy theory.
00:19:20.000But now the mainstream media are reporting that Jeffrey Epstein had threatened to blackmail Bill Gates.
00:19:25.000Now, note that when Bill Gates has spoken about his connection to Jeffrey Epstein, he said, oh, I've just met him a couple of times for dinner or whatever.
00:19:33.000He's not telling the absolute truth, is he?
00:19:37.000He tried to blackmail me for no reason at all recently.
00:19:40.000Now this is not a story about the salacious aspects of the Jeffrey Epstein case or even the criminal sex offences that he has been convicted of.
00:19:49.000And it's certainly not an allegation that Bill Gates has done anything other than being threatened with blackmail.
00:19:56.000We don't know what Bill Gates has done or what he hasn't done.
00:19:59.000We know though that Bill Gates has incredible power, influence and wealth
00:20:03.000and now it seems that Jeffrey Epstein threatened to blackmail him.
00:20:17.000Did Jeffrey Epstein try to blackmail Bill Gates?
00:20:21.000And does the censorship of stories like this and continually hearing them dubbed as conspiracy theories make you think they're more or less likely to be true?
00:20:31.000Let's have a look at today's story about Jeffrey Epstein's apparent attempt to blackmail Bill Gates.
00:20:38.000Now, if anything, that shows that Jeffrey Epstein was, this just in, not a good guy.
00:20:43.000As well as being a convicted sex criminal, he was involved in all manner of nefarious criminal activity, primarily financial corruption, I suppose is a broad way of describing it.
00:20:55.000But what Jeffrey Epstein seems to have become a lightning rod for is the idea that he had information about some very, very powerful people, and many people believe that his death in custody was not self-inflicted, but was brought about by people who potentially wanted him dead, perhaps because he had all of this information.
00:21:13.000My personal opinion is when a story like this breaks, there's usually something beneath the surface that's worth investigating.
00:21:21.000Let's have a look at how the mainstream media are reporting on this story and the increasing tendency to legitimize censorship and to condemn independent media as being either right-wing, far-right-wing or conspiratorial, when in fact it seems like many of the stories have legitimacy and weight to them And they are being called conspiratorial in order to essentially censor them.
00:21:44.000I think about Jeffrey Epstein, I straight away think philanthropy.
00:22:21.000The two sharing a passion for the card game.
00:22:24.000In a way you could say this is as innocent as Bill Gates potentially was involved with someone while he was married.
00:22:31.000This is within the remit of ordinary human behavior.
00:22:36.000I suppose the complexity only comes because if Epstein was trying to extort money from him and Epstein is a convicted sex criminal and Epstein does have financial ties to some pretty powerful people and the list of people that have been on his jet and been to his island does include some pretty powerful players in the CIA, former presidents.
00:22:59.000It kind of just suggests that that world intersects meaningfully and significantly with a lot of murky Stuff.
00:23:06.000For those of us that broadly believe that many of our central organisations are corrupt, a story like this one feels like an indication that that sense that we can't trust the government, we can't trust the media, can't trust the deep state, can't trust globalist tyrants, is verified by a story like this.
00:23:24.000Even though at this point we're still very much in the area of gossip and rumour.
00:23:27.000Epstein met Antonova three years later and reportedly paid for her to attend software coding school.
00:23:33.000Then in 2017, the Wall Street Journal reports that Epstein emailed Gates asking to be reimbursed for those costs.
00:23:40.000Now this came, writes the paper, after Epstein failed to persuade the billionaire to contribute to a charitable fund that Epstein had tried to create with JPMorgan Chase.
00:24:58.000When someone has as much power and influence as Bill Gates plainly does, then an ordinary
00:25:04.000thing like an extra marital affair, albeit illicit and morally dubious, becomes something
00:25:09.000that has more significance if Jeffrey Epstein is able to use it to blackmail Bill Gates.
00:25:15.000Now all of this becomes a little more intriguing when we appreciate that Jeffrey Epstein died under very unusual circumstances and suddenly it seems plausible to at least consider the possibility that he died as a result of having information about powerful people that powerful people didn't want to have revealed.
00:25:35.000Now, the Wall Street Journal points out that this gives us some insight into how Epstein operated, writing, when the relationship soured, he could turn against people.
00:25:45.000We're trying to report on this in a sensible and responsible way.
00:25:48.000The conspiracy theory around Jeffrey Epstein and his death is this.
00:25:52.000Oh, Jeffrey Epstein, he had lots of information on very powerful people, so they had him murdered while he was in prison.
00:26:00.000Whereas the non-conspiracy theory, the best call it the mainstream version of events is Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted criminal who for some weird reason had relationships with a bunch of powerful people and then one day he took his own life while in jail full stop the end.
00:26:14.000Well now it's been revealed that he was blackmailing very powerful people.
00:26:19.000In this instance it seems blackmailing Bill Gates who has incredible influence even beyond his wealth because of the donations he makes to media groups and health organizations like the WHO but it goes goes beyond that. So the conspiracy theory version, Jeffrey
00:26:33.000Epstein was killed because he was blackmailing powerful people, seems a bit less
00:26:38.000conspiratorial by the second, doesn't it?
00:26:41.000Gates has done his best to minimise his connections to Mr Epstein. I didn't have any business
00:26:44.000relationship or friendship with him, he told the Wall Street Journal. In fact, beginning
00:26:48.000in 2011, Mr Gates met with Epstein on numerous occasions.
00:26:52.000Starting in 2011, Gates had more than half a dozen meetings scheduled with Epstein, including dinners at Epstein's New York townhouse.
00:27:53.000The list of Jeffrey Epstein's possible connections now includes America's spy chief, a college president, and a former Obama White House counsel, according to a collection of previously unreported documents that included the convicted sex offender's schedules.
00:28:06.000The trove of papers obtained by the Wall Street Journal shows meetings between Epstein and several prominent people, including three with William Burns, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency when he was Deputy Secretary of State in 2014.
00:28:16.000Now the reason we're talking about this, of course, is not Not simply to sensationalize the possible significance of a powerful person that had connections to bankers and people in the deep state and powerful billionaires who he was trying to blackmail as well as being a convicted sex offender, all of these things.
00:28:32.000I'm interested actually in the way that this is reported on and what constitutes a conspiracy theory.
00:28:37.000Once again, the conspiracy theory is that Jeffrey Epstein lost his life as a result of the information he had on powerful people that he could leverage against them, therefore he was in some way dispatched with.
00:28:48.000The truth is, oh yeah, there's just this guy, just a businessman and sex offender who's friends with some really, really powerful people who one day it all got a bit too much and he took his own life.
00:28:57.000And there's weird stuff, like you can't get the camera footage.
00:28:59.000One time where you can't get surveillance footage of every single moment of everything everyone's doing all the time is when Jeffrey Epstein's being nutted off.
00:29:06.000I think it's important because the way that the news and information is handled is increasingly changing to some degree because of independent media such as stay free media.
00:29:15.000All around the world new bills are being introduced to control, censor and shut down information and established media organizations are starting things called like verification units and disinformation and misinformation units.
00:29:27.000All ostensibly about getting rid of bad information that could hurt you because you're so vulnerable and foolish evidently.
00:29:33.000But I think it's actually about preventing You having access to a range of information and deciding for yourself what you believe in.
00:29:40.000Whether this is war, the pandemic, or stories such as this.
00:29:43.000When you say something's a conspiracy theory, I think what that has to mean is it's completely unfounded and there's no evidence to the contrary.
00:29:50.000Not the powerful would prefer it if you believed this alternative version.
00:29:54.000Let me know in the chat what you think.
00:29:55.000This is just a handful of new censorship bills that are being pushed for in countries around the world.
00:30:00.000All of them have basically the same agenda, to control the information that you have access to.
00:30:04.000In the UK, where I am from, the online safety bill enforced through fines of up to £80 million or 10% of annual global turnover.
00:30:11.000This is an attempt to make platforms responsible for the content that people who use their
00:30:15.000platform put up, incentivising them to censor.
00:31:07.000When you ask yourself those kind of questions, you can see that they are usually beneficial to powerful and established interests and have a negative impact on ordinary people or people trying to present diverse or opposing or dissenting views.
00:31:20.000And in our country, the BBC have launched its own verification unit and are presenting it as if it's just like a new form of entertainment, like sports or weather or the Teletubbies.
00:31:54.000And the point of the team, as you said, is to verify video, to fact-check, to counter disinformation, and to analyse really complex stories so we can get to the truth of what's going on.
00:32:04.000Because if you analyse really complex stories, you will discover that that complexity means ranging and occasionally opposing perspectives.
00:32:12.000It doesn't mean eliminating and combing out information that is detrimental to the interests of the powerful.
00:32:18.000Elon Musk recently spoke about state-funded media.
00:32:23.000It's funded through A tax called the license fee.
00:32:26.000Everybody in the UK is obliged to pay it at the moment.
00:32:30.000And they recently received £4.1 million additionally to help them cover the Ukraine-Russia conflict more responsibly and to stop the spread of misinformation and disinformation.
00:32:40.000Now, if you watch this channel, you'll be aware that we talk frequently about how NATO threatened the former borders of the Soviet Union, which contravenes an agreement, if not a treaty, between the former Soviet Union and the United States.
00:32:54.000state. We talk often about CIA involvement in a coup in 2014 in Ukraine. We talk about
00:32:59.000the complex factions within the Ukrainian army. We talk about the military industrial
00:33:03.000complexes profits. These things are all complex. Now will they be talking about those aspects
00:33:08.000of the story or will they be looking to eliminate them? So as long as anything that's about
00:33:12.000verification is objective, that's fine.
00:33:15.000But how can it be objective when it's funded by the government?
00:33:18.000How can it be objective when the truth is often contradictory to the aims of the powerful?
00:33:24.000How can it ever be implemented when so few of us trust the government or trust the mainstream media at all?
00:33:31.000How can it be objective when what they tell us are conspiracy theories with just a little bit of analysis appear to be ideas that require a little bit of scrutiny and balanced reporting?
00:33:42.000So there you go, the Jeffrey Epstein-Bill Gates connection is an example of a story that on the surface looks and sounds like a conspiracy theory, but for me it's It's a story that requires looking at.
00:33:54.000And if you prevent people analysing that story, or looking at that story, or smear people that talk about that, or concoct reasons why people shouldn't be able to talk about it, then that's not censorship in order to protect society.
00:34:06.000That's censorship in order to protect the interests of the powerful.
00:34:10.000Whatever went on between Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein increasingly looked like it was not nothing.
00:34:15.000Jeffrey Epstein, based on his actions and his convictions, was plainly a pretty nefarious character.
00:34:21.000The idea that his death has nothing to do with the fact that he has information on very powerful people is starting to look less and less like a conspiracy theory and more and more like something that's worth looking at.
00:35:42.000If you're watching this now, which you can do if you are a member of our locals community, or if you're watching us on Rumble, he's in his Silken City gym jams now.
00:35:53.000Who's that clasping at him with a long finger like that?
00:35:56.000That's a hell of a long finger that person's got.
00:36:45.000Because, like, what can happen is, is that if Everton don't win and Leicester and Leeds win, well, in fact, Leicester and Leeds, one, they can win and still go down.
00:36:54.000Yeah, of course, if Everton win, then that's it.
00:37:15.000He'd be playing at Southampton, and that would really mix stuff up down at the Saints, but in our system, he goes to Manchester City, the best club with the most money.
00:38:07.000When Liverpool done the double in, I think, was it 1986 when West Ham should have won the league, I used to, I was thinking, people should do things like that.
00:38:35.000And if you are Argentinian, like Nick Orton, my friend, what can you say to... How do you... How can you ever counter my argument that you are not the best football team in the world if you lost to Japan?
00:39:36.000It also bought you Calvin Phillips, it's bought you Erling Haaland.
00:39:39.000Look, we've got friends that are City fans, of course we have, and them City fans have endured long years of humiliation and wilderness outside the top flight.
00:39:47.000In fact, when Coventry last got relegated, they were relegated alongside Man City.
00:39:53.000And Coventry could be back in the top flight, Coventry or Luton.
00:39:56.000I'm hoping for Luton as you know, because Luton are such a, no disrespect Luton fans,
00:41:28.000As you know from my brilliant item, Brandy on Gandhi, I love non-violence.
00:41:32.000I love it, I love it, I love non-violence.
00:41:34.000But people, when they talk about football violence, I think they overcompensate and don't include that it is a bit exciting when something happens.
00:41:53.000Not so many of those in football matches.
00:41:55.000Could happen, though, if you were to sprinkle... Instead of, like, doing a, like, pulling a thing, like, oh, we sack the board on an aeroplane thing, like they do sometimes, you know?
00:42:19.000All right, let's just sit back and wait for those glazers to give up the billions of pounds of debt that they've shraddled Man United with.
00:42:27.000It's not going to make any difference at all.
00:42:29.000If instead of doing that, though, they just sort of sprinkle peanuts down.
00:43:38.000Joe Cole and Colton Cole, both former West Ham players.
00:43:41.000Joe Cole, a brilliant, brilliant play out.
00:43:43.000Alex Ferguson famously would always ask the incumbent manager of West Ham, whoever it was over that period, Harry Redknapp, most likely, oh how's young Joe Cole getting along?
00:43:51.000Joe Cole of course went to Chelsea and I get the sense that he prefers Chelsea because like you know when you see him on other stuff, You can tell the players that have played for numerous clubs have one that's their special club.
00:44:00.000Many people that I know that Everton fans don't like Gary Lineker on match of the day because he don't mention Everton enough.
00:44:58.000What I really liked in this analysis, three, three, three, the Lord is with us, what I really liked in this analysis is that, er, like that joke, like that, the joke I was going, it's disgusting, it's pathetic, this violence is disgusting, it's pathetic, it's disgusting, because you've got to condemn violence.
00:45:57.000And then Carlton Cole, he just says exactly what he thinks.
00:45:59.000It's wonderful to Yeah, when he came on our show, and let us know in the chat, in the comments, who your cult heroes are.
00:46:04.000He qualifies as a West Ham cult hero, definitely.
00:46:07.000Like, that means to say, it's obvious to admire players that have scored great many goals, or they're sort of recorded and registered heroes of your club or sports team.
00:46:15.000But a cult hero is someone who has this sort of odd, you have this odd affinity with.
00:46:19.000Carlton Cole, when we told, like, the West Ham anthem for him was, Carlton, Cole, Cole!
00:46:26.000Always believe in your soul, you're indestructible.
00:46:29.000Like, when we told you about it, guys, I liked it when they sang that, because, like, it says that I've got to believe in me soul, and I am indestructible.
00:46:35.000Like, he's actually took it to his heart, didn't he, that?
00:46:38.000And you can see this in this little bit of, uh, coverage.
00:46:41.000Joe, I know how pleased you are for your former club to see them in a major European final, but distasteful scenes at the full-time whistle.
00:46:50.000People at home haven't seen what happened.
00:46:51.000Can you describe what you... They won't show it.
00:47:45.000Like, like, I see it in a category of, like, when a dog comes on, or a balloon, like a balloon too near the ball, like, oh no, he's gonna be a bit confused!
00:47:52.000Like Edison, or somebody who's very serious, and then they have to sort of, well, they're gonna have to deal with this balloon, maybe someone will pop it or something.
00:47:57.000That's probably the only way Man City are ever gonna lose again.
00:49:02.000Ridiculous grown men, you know, turn out, azed out my fans, attacking the West Ham fans where the families were sitting and our friends and colleagues were sitting.
00:50:57.000He actually conveys it quite brilliantly in retrospect.
00:51:00.000Because, like, there's been too many things have happened in a short period of time.
00:51:04.000West Ham have reached the European final, there's been crowd disturbances, players have got stuck in to protect their families, and now they're on the television.
00:52:17.000Whereas the actual natural reaction, if you weren't on telly, would be to drop your mics, go over, try and help, give a helping hand or something, or make sure people are alright.
00:52:26.000So it must be really strange for them to be doing post-match analysis when all this chaos is going on.
00:52:32.000In a sense, it's like a Stanford experiment, where you're sort of forced to have an unnatural reaction to suffering.
00:52:40.000And in a way, that starts to expose how much our culture imposes upon us behaviours and norms that are at odds.
00:52:46.000In fact, civilisation, broadly, is the repression of instincts, which Colton Cole just told us we should not be doing.
00:54:07.000You know, for so long, English football's been in the doldrums.
00:54:10.000People talk about being hooliganism and things like that, but when they come, we don't see things like that in England.
00:54:14.000We haven't done for a long time in the stadium, you know, and it's other countries in Europe.
00:54:19.000You know, we get a bad reputation for it, but all I saw there was, was, it was absolutely perfect.
00:54:25.000So what's funny, I'll tell you about it, is that suddenly, like, your appointed role is to comment, the reason, what did all these people used to do for a living?
00:54:39.000Social dynamics, the behaviour of crowds, mass psychosis.
00:54:44.000They're discussing stuff that not many people have anything other than an opinion on.
00:54:50.000Because it's a complex issue that, as you have alluded to, Gareth, is resourced from social and economic tensions, the ceremonial power of sport.
00:55:01.000In fact, in a sense, the underlying idea and animating thesis of our podcast is that football,
00:55:08.000in creating a liminal space, provides the possibility of a type of discourse and analysis
00:55:13.000that's too broad and complex elsewhere.
00:55:16.000Once you establish a set of rules, you can start to see things more clearly.
00:55:20.000Across a culture, there are so many variables.
00:55:28.000In football, you can say, right, in this ceremonial space, you've got 11 players, we've got 11 players, and then suddenly there's some order.
00:55:35.000You know, you can't just pick up the ball and run and throw it in the net.
00:55:45.000And again, at various times you could argue that Man United or Liverpool... Again, the argument is well-worn that you go ad infinitum, but in a sense into the resources of football clubs historically.
00:55:57.000But I suppose we're at a new point and potentially a tipping point with states backing football clubs.
00:56:03.000The other thing is that in that ceremonial space is that you get to see David Moyes Like, I think, purge and address repressed feelings of failing right the way back to being appointed Man United manager, brought on by the encounter with Robin Van Persie, who of course played for Moyes there, having been signed by Ferguson and being sort of like the tail end of the Ferguson era.
00:56:28.000And it made me realise what a part of the ceremonial power is of the sport, and indeed perhaps sport more broadly, that Even though the argument can certainly be made that the Europa Conference League is a third tier European tournament that only has the teams that aren't in the Champions League, aren't in the Europa League, are in that.
00:57:03.000The point of ceremony is to induce certain states of mind.
00:57:08.000And so there's been the liturgy at a church, the attendance of a wedding.
00:57:12.000And because we have so few rituals and ceremonies, it's like we're bereft of even that process.
00:57:17.000And when you see David Moyes or some of the scenes of elation and celebration in the dressing room after, What you're witnessing is people have accessed a new state, and I think there's something important in that.
00:57:26.000There's a sort of something in the Torah, or some piece of Judaic literature, that says that in the old times, it was known that you would go down to the woods and you would find the sacred tree, and you would do your ceremony.
00:57:39.000Then time passed and people died, and they couldn't find the tree anymore.
00:57:43.000So they just went into the woods and did the ceremony, and it was still okay.
00:57:46.000Then time passed and people died, and they couldn't remember whether or not you were meant to go to the woods, so they just did the ceremony best they could, but it worked anyway.
00:57:53.000It's not the particularities of the ceremony, it's ceremony itself that's effective.
00:57:58.000And I think we live in a culture that is stripping back ceremony itself, stripping back even the concept of belief, the concept of faith.
00:58:05.000Maybe the powerful institutions, Gareth, that we spend all of our time criticizing, somehow benefit Even from being condemned and criticised in that manner because it contributes to a sort of a nihilistic state of unbelief and sort of diffuse despair.
00:58:21.000And when you see the impact of ceremony and belief, like if David Moyes believes that that's important, if West Ham fans believe that that's important, if we believe it's important, then it is important, it becomes important and David Moyes is therefore sort of going, you know, I did my best at Man United and we actually got three goals in that quarterfinal.
00:58:37.000You see him sort of processing stuff He's not doing that when he's walking his dog.
00:58:43.000I mean, what are competitions in general?
00:58:47.000I mean, you know, obviously it's amazing what Man City have done and five titles in six seasons, but Man City are competing within a limited strata of quality and wealth.
00:59:03.000So, what you could say is, West Ham's ability to maybe win this final, because of the amount of money that they have compared to, say, Man City, means that it's a greater achievement.
00:59:14.000I don't know, you know, if you look at Man City, you go, well, how many competitors do they actually have?
00:59:20.000So, they're essentially competing in a competition of four to win the Premier League, and with the Champions League, with maybe, what, six or something.
00:59:28.000Whereas West Ham with the resources that they have, admittedly more resources than other Premier League teams and certainly European teams, but it's a great achievement.
00:59:36.000So I guess it's, you can't really see it in kind of the terms of, oh it's not as good as the Champions League or it's not as good as the Europa League.
00:59:45.000I think you have to re-contextualise it.
00:59:47.000I suppose otherwise you wouldn't have under 11s football, or different categories of football, you wouldn't have sports for people with different levels of ability, Yeah, I loved seeing Moyes' reaction.
01:00:00.000Actually, I think Moyes is someone who normally comes out and... I think he's great at doing personality interviews, actually.
01:00:06.000He's pretty honest with his, you know, with his kind of analysis, usually.
01:00:10.000But I saw a really human side to him after that.
01:00:13.000It was really beautiful and obviously him and Van Persie had a nice connection and then seeing like Declan Rice comes in and every time I see more of Declan Rice I think what he seems like such a great guy and see the scenes in the dressing room.
01:00:27.000I'm definitely I can't you know I really hope that they win it.
01:00:31.000Shall we have a look at Gary Neville failing to understand the concept of a holiday?
01:00:36.000Gary Neville is perhaps a head and shoulders above all else, perhaps other than Simon Jordan when it comes to the world of punditry and commentary and offering opinions not only on football but life in general.
01:02:12.000Hang on, mate, I'll tell you what I'm doing now.
01:02:14.000I'm doing a fucking mini-retirement here.
01:02:17.000Started Friday, it's gone on Monday though, back to work, so it's like a mini-retirement, but it's like the circle, circle of life, like fucking Lion King.
01:02:23.000I'm gonna write this down for Elton John.
01:04:52.000I mean, what I've done, Coley, right, is the FBI, they've started off by playing, like, high-pitched siren noises, then they've rolled tanks in, Coley, and it's nice, Why did they need that amount of ammunition, Coley?
01:05:04.000It seems like they could have, like, solved that problem through diplomacy.
01:05:07.000You know, what they're trying to do, really, is establish a precedent for, like, if anyone tries to stand up against state authority, it's legitimate to use violence against them.
01:05:19.000I mean, like, you can use the word, like, fortress to make something seem like a legitimate military target, when in fact it's just a house.
01:05:24.000I mean, it didn't have any fortifications or munitions.
01:05:27.000I mean, in fact, all it had was a few rifles that were there legally, because guns aren't legal in this country, Coley.
01:05:33.000Okay, Coley and Coley will be back next week, where they'll be discussing, uh, maybe that Exxon or something like that, you know, the oil spill.
01:06:00.000These types of trips that I do, like, between Friday and Monday, or sometimes, like, a week off.
01:06:06.000Over the Christmas period, I have one of these mini-retirements, where, like, sort of, during the mini-retirement period, we celebrate the birth of, like, this, uh, lad.
01:06:23.000And over Easter, like, with an odd amalgamation of pagan ideas built around the emergence of nature, like the egg and chicks and rabbits have nothing to do with Christianity, but also the rebirth of Christ.
01:06:33.000We eat eggs and stuff like that, and I maybe watch the brilliant Russell Brand film, Hop.
01:06:36.000I've always thought he would win a fight against Tom Hardy.
01:06:40.000BJJ, bare knuckle, cock wallops, any type of fight, really.
01:06:45.000Or another mini retirement for five days or four days.
01:06:48.000Rather than thinking you're gonna stop for six months and No.
01:08:06.000The desire to make sure that football is nice remains connected to the broader cultural and political issues of our time.
01:08:12.000On tomorrow's show, we've got a special guest, author Laura Doddsworth, talking about how governments weaponised fear during the COVID-19 pandemic, back in familiar territory there.
01:08:19.000Join us tomorrow, not for more of the same, but for more of the different.
01:08:22.000Until then, come on you irons, stay free.