Stay Free - Russel Brand - THEY DON’T WANT PEACE | US Sabotages Cease Fire?! - #097 - Stay Free With Russell Brand

00:00:00.000 So, I'm going to go ahead and start the video. So, I'm going to start the video. So, I'm going to start the video.

00:00:07.000 So, I'm going to start the video.

00:00:35.000 So, I'm going to start the video.

00:00:54.000 In this video, you're going to see the future.

00:01:08.000 Hello there, you Awakening Wonders.

00:01:09.000 Thanks for joining me for Stay Free with Russell Brand.

00:01:12.000 If you're watching this on Rumble, you can see the whole show.

00:01:14.000 If you're watching it anywhere else, just the first 15 or 20 minutes is accessible till we have to yield to our pangs for free speech and be exclusively available on a platform that champions it.

00:01:26.000 In the news today, the US actively don't want a ceasefire.

00:01:31.000 All we're saying is give war a chance.

00:01:32.000 Has anyone advocated for war?

00:01:35.000 Couldn't war be the answer? 0.95

00:01:37.000 And then we'll be talking later exclusively on Rumble about, no wonder they don't want to talk about that lab leak theory, perhaps because they carried on doing gain-of-function research during the pandemic.

00:01:47.000 Did you know that?

00:01:48.000 Let me know in the chat whether or not you were aware that during the pandemic in London, where I live, where I take deep inhalations, where I could easily be infected, they were Combining COVID variants.

00:02:00.000 We'll be talking about that in detail exclusively on Rumble in a minute.

00:02:03.000 That's why you should click on the link in the description.

00:02:05.000 In our item, here's the news.

00:02:07.000 No, here's the effing news.

00:02:08.000 We'll be talking about how Tucker Carlson extraordinarily is the only person that openly admits to regretting the way that the war was reported on from a personal perspective, a bit of a mea culpa.

00:02:18.000 And he's also one of the only mainstream media broadcasters that will house Julian Assange.

00:02:23.000 So even if you see Tucker Carlson at his worst, even if you have a very negative perspective of him, like say, I've heard people say he's racist and that he's unsympathetic towards vulnerable people.

00:02:36.000 How do we square that with, you know, you ain't getting any other mainstream show saying, what are we going to do about Julian Assange?

00:02:42.000 Or maybe I'm wrong, let me know, because I'll watch those shows if there are any.

00:02:45.000 But, firstly, Hunter Biden is suing the repair shop owner who worked on his laptop, accused him of trying to invade his privacy.

00:02:56.000 That's really interesting that that's what Hunter Biden has deduced.

00:03:00.000 Yeah, that's the solution.

00:03:01.000 That's my private laptop on there.

00:03:03.000 What was on there?

00:03:04.000 Just that, I don't know, we were accepting payments from Ukrainian energy firms, Chinese energy firms, some stuff about my private life, which I actually don't... I agree with him there.

00:03:12.000 That's no one else's business.

00:03:13.000 The big guy.

00:03:15.000 The big guy?

00:03:15.000 Who is that big guy?

00:03:16.000 Who knows?

00:03:17.000 And who's this little fella? 0.99

00:03:18.000 There's a whole host of characters on Hunter Biden's laptop, and Hunter wants to keep them to himself.

00:03:23.000 Also, how much is he going to sue him for?

00:03:25.000 It's like a guy in a repair shop.

00:03:27.000 It's not like taking on Apple, is it?

00:03:28.000 Mr Biden, please!

00:03:30.000 We're just trying to make ends meet!

00:03:32.000 How often do people get their laptop repaired?

00:03:35.000 Excuse my language.

00:03:36.000 Just generally speaking, people just get another one!

00:03:40.000 Maybe you replace a screen on your iPhone, you go to that place.

00:03:44.000 I know.

00:03:45.000 Could you replace the screen on my iPhone?

00:03:47.000 Yeah, of course.

00:03:48.000 What the hell's this?

00:03:50.000 Nothing!

00:03:50.000 Give that back!

00:03:51.000 I'll see you in court, my man!

00:03:53.000 With the money that he was making, allegedly, is it?

00:03:56.000 I don't even think it is, from Burisma and those other companies, that he could have afforded multiple laptops.

00:04:03.000 The real problem here is not the man in the Delaware laptop shop.

00:04:07.000 It's a corrupt political system and it's keeping that story out of the news while it could potentially sway the outcome of an election. 0.99

00:04:15.000 A charge for which Donald Trump, I don't know, we don't know, is he being pursued in a white bronco even now?

00:04:21.000 I'm an investigative journalist.

00:04:22.000 I know you are.

00:04:23.000 And a legal one.

00:04:23.000 I journal on all sorts of subjects.

00:04:25.000 Let's have a look at Hunter Biden.

00:04:26.000 but it is, you know, using campaign funds and how that might pertain to the outcome

00:04:33.000 of an election is what turns it from a Mr. Medina into a felony.

00:04:36.000 I'm an investigative journalist.

00:04:37.000 I know you are.

00:04:38.000 And a legal one.

00:04:39.000 I journal on all sorts of subjects.

00:04:41.000 Let's have a look at Hunter Biden.

00:04:43.000 He's saying that he don't have to open his kimono.

00:04:47.000 One thing that I don't have to do is sit here and open my kimono as it relates to how much

00:04:50.000 money I make or make or did or didn't.

00:04:53.000 But it's all been reported.

00:04:54.000 I like the way that he says that.

00:04:56.000 Yeah, a phrase that we all know.

00:04:57.000 Don't open your kimono.

00:04:59.000 Because the kimono is already only... is halfway up the thigh.

00:05:03.000 Yes.

00:05:04.000 It's already alluding to something, isn't it?

00:05:06.000 It's a sexy garment!

00:05:07.000 Like, with some of the things on that fella's laptop, the kimono is not the house coat he should have put himself in.

00:05:14.000 He should probably wear something... a onesie!

00:05:15.000 I don't have to unzip my onesie!

00:05:17.000 I don't have to flip open that hatch that they have on in cowboy films, where they say

00:05:17.000 Yeah.

00:05:21.000 you varmint and then they jump into their asses on fire for some reason and they get 1.00

00:05:25.000 into the horse trough. 1.00

00:05:26.000 That bit?

00:05:27.000 Thank you, yeah.

00:05:28.000 I kind of know what you mean. 1.00

00:05:29.000 And they've got poppers on their ass. 1.00

00:05:30.000 Oh yes, yep. 1.00

00:05:31.000 You know that.

00:05:32.000 We know also that war is a good thing. 1.00

00:05:37.000 This is a literal Orwellian story where the US are preventing China from brokering a peace deal with Putin.

00:05:47.000 And also, it's not unprecedented because China are actually quite good, it turns out, at brokering peace deals.

00:05:53.000 Here it says, look, the White House says it opposes a ceasefire in Ukraine.

00:05:56.000 Even though Zelensky would be up for it because peace is surely that's the ultimate goal.

00:06:01.000 Peace rather than victory.

00:06:02.000 Victory feels like a real 20th century outcome to a 21st century situation.

00:06:08.000 But look at this.

00:06:09.000 Antony Blinken said the world must not be fooled by China's peace plan.

00:06:15.000 Yeah, you can't trust them or their crazy talk of peace.

00:06:18.000 Do you see now how advocating for peace is being framed as somehow duplicitous and potentially injurious?

00:06:26.000 How can that happen?

00:06:28.000 I was unaware until Gareth mentioned it as a result of his own research that China have precedent for brokering complex peace deals in the Middle East.

00:06:36.000 Not that one, sadly, but this one.

00:06:38.000 Have a listen.

00:06:38.000 Yeah, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

00:06:39.000 This was brokered earlier this year.

00:06:41.000 I actually didn't know they weren't getting on.

00:06:42.000 I've got to pay more attention to the news.

00:06:44.000 For quite a while, for seven years I think it's been going on and China stepped in. 0.98

00:06:48.000 There's an agreement that's been signed in Beijing to re-establish diplomatic relations.

00:06:53.000 So it's not like China, I mean it does seem like they're doing stuff and being effective about it.

00:06:58.000 Of course we're not naive enough, just about.

00:07:01.000 To just assume that China are benevolent pacifiers traveling around the world with no intention other than spreading the light of the Lord Buddha and Jesus Christ's twinkling wonder, because there'll be more Christians in China than anywhere else in the world in a couple of years. 0.99

00:07:15.000 Did you know that?

00:07:16.000 Of course you didn't.

00:07:17.000 You've not spent time studying Christianity in the way that I have.

00:07:22.000 Generally speaking, even if China have their own worldview, their own agenda, which undoubtedly they do, if part of that agenda is brokering a peace deal, surely that's something that has to be considered.

00:07:31.000 Let us know in the chat and the comments if you agree with that.

00:07:34.000 The other, like, worrying aspect of this, I suppose, is that if Zelensky has expressed openness to China's proposal, but it's been rejected by President Biden, Who is in charge of Ukraine, and who is this war between?

00:07:46.000 I mean, we've said proxy war for a long time, but if it's got to the situation where Zelensky's like, yeah, I'm kind of up for this, and Biden says no, what is going on?

00:07:56.000 Given that we've been continually told that this is not a proxy war, President Biden rejecting

00:08:03.000 the peace deal, is that what's happened?

00:08:04.000 Can we look into this further?

00:08:06.000 It doesn't seem right.

00:08:07.000 Is Biden in a position to reject peace deals for a war that he's not in, that he's not

00:08:12.000 involved in?

00:08:14.000 The US involvement is measurable.

00:08:16.000 It's something that we can observe.

00:08:18.000 Of course it can be financially observed, because we know that there is aid continually

00:08:23.000 coming out of the United States in the form of packages from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin,

00:08:28.000 etc.

00:08:29.000 And we'll get into that in a moment, because this peace deal may have a few obstacles before

00:08:34.000 it's realised.

00:08:35.000 Because, you know, firstly, Biden is opposed to the peace deal, even though America are

00:08:39.000 not involved in the world, other than just cheering from the sidelines.

00:08:43.000 But also, it seems that Putin is not a person who finds handshakes that easy.

00:08:47.000 I didn't know this right up until today.

00:08:50.000 I always saw Putin as a self-assured, empowered man, as an alpha leader, as testosterone-fueled. 0.83

00:08:58.000 Sure, I've seen the propaganda that he can't help crapping himself every half hour.

00:09:02.000 Of course, I would agree that the devastation wreaked upon Ukraine is disgusting, and particularly after we read that list of war crimes the other day, and the degree of suffering is...

00:09:13.000 Incomprehensible, actually, what's been going on.

00:09:15.000 Those war crimes that the US has equally committed.

00:09:18.000 The sad news is that every single war crime that Russia has committed in Ukraine, the United States have committed elsewhere since 1998.

00:09:25.000 We were disgusted to find that out, I'm concerned, and that's why they can't cooperate with the ICC attempt to arrest Putin for war crimes.

00:09:33.000 But one thing that would make Putin Teflon in any attempt to arrest him is if the arrest commenced with a handshake.

00:09:41.000 Sir, on good faith, I'd like to arrest you.

00:09:44.000 Put it there, my man, because Putin is a man who simply can't shake hands.

00:09:48.000 I've always been, myself, concerned about, like, whether to go for the high five, the fist bump, the conventional handshake, that handshake.

00:09:55.000 I'm never really certain.

00:09:56.000 And then it's to what degree you shake a hand as well.

00:09:59.000 What, whether to do it for a long while, whether to do a squeeze?

00:10:01.000 Exactly, a squeeze.

00:10:02.000 How, you know, how hard you go in on it.

00:10:04.000 It should feel loving.

00:10:05.000 Do you remember when we met Tucker Carlson's brother?

00:10:08.000 Oh, how did he go?

00:10:09.000 He had the hardest handshake ever.

00:10:10.000 Buckley!

00:10:11.000 Buckley Carlson!

00:10:12.000 Unbelievable.

00:10:13.000 Buckley Carlson with his sort of piratical tan.

00:10:17.000 Buckley Carlson with a smuggler's glint in his eye.

00:10:20.000 Wasn't he?

00:10:21.000 I'm Buckley Carlson!

00:10:23.000 He's the naughtier of the Carlson brothers.

00:10:25.000 The people that don't like Tucker Carlson, God help them if they meet Buckley. 0.89

00:10:28.000 That cad, he's a rapscallion, isn't he?

00:10:31.000 Absolutely. 0.92

00:10:32.000 They're sort of like wavy hair.

00:10:33.000 They look like he's from another time altogether.

00:10:35.000 I think within seconds of meeting us, he's like, you got a gun?

00:10:38.000 No.

00:10:39.000 Are we going to need one?

00:10:41.000 You sure are, buddy.

00:10:43.000 Buckley Carlson, Buckley Carlson.

00:10:45.000 Actually, lovely man, don't speak out on about our meeting with Carlson for our attempt to bring together new alliances because we're politically astute people.

00:10:45.000 Lovely man.

00:10:55.000 and we realise that you can't use the labels of left and right anymore,

00:10:58.000 you have to look at it as centre and periphery, as I learned from Martin Goury, a man who I reference more

00:11:02.000 often than my actual children.

00:11:05.000 Let's have a look at Putin failing to shake hands again and again and again,

00:11:10.000 to a level that's, I don't know, it's worrying really.

00:11:12.000 I think they might actually be setting up with him.

00:11:14.000 Let's have a look.

00:11:15.000 Is he a bogey?

00:11:16.000 Oh, I think one is a bogey.

00:11:18.000 Two bogeys.

00:11:19.000 Three.

00:11:20.000 I think what his problem is, mostly, is he don't time handshakes well.

00:11:24.000 Try and look at this.

00:11:25.000 Is it a lack of confidence?

00:11:26.000 Is it simply the issue of timing?

00:11:28.000 I've never thought of Putin as being an impeachable guy.

00:11:32.000 Like, as in, nervous... Whenever you see him and he's, like, practising doing missile launches and that, or, like, in that helicopter...

00:11:39.000 He always looks pretty, like, I don't care.

00:11:42.000 You know that he's in the KGB.

00:11:43.000 My assumption is that he's actually literally, therefore, killed people himself.

00:11:47.000 I don't know, because I'm sure within the KGB, they're probably job-sweepers.

00:11:49.000 I don't think it's a wild speculation.

00:11:51.000 It's not wild.

00:11:52.000 Certainly he's... I mean, he's a war criminal. 0.53

00:11:55.000 Like, at least that's what the ICC is saying.

00:11:56.000 Certainly he's, like, making choices that lead to the death of children.

00:11:59.000 But maybe even with those hands that he can't seem to shake on cue, he might have actually throttled... I don't know how the KGB do their murders.

00:12:08.000 There was that umbrella murder they did over in our country in Salisbury, of all places. 1.00

00:12:12.000 Little poison murder.

00:12:13.000 That's right.

00:12:13.000 And you know they do proper spy murders.

00:12:15.000 Yeah, they were very sneaky those ones.

00:12:17.000 Sneaky murders.

00:12:18.000 You can imagine him doing it like he's wrestling a bear or something. 0.72

00:12:20.000 I think he would take his top off, and he'd murder you, like, you'd be asleep in your bed, you'd get nudged like that on the shoulder.

00:12:26.000 He'd go, huh, what's this? 1.00

00:12:27.000 And then this Putin would focus out, he'd go, I've come to kill you! 1.00

00:12:30.000 But then just grab the pillow, start throttling, get your hat, that's my wife! 1.00

00:12:35.000 That's not a woman, that's my wife! 1.00

00:12:37.000 Oh, sorry, you! 0.99

00:12:38.000 No!

00:12:39.000 That's my special orthopedic neck pillow!

00:12:42.000 Oh! 0.60

00:12:44.000 That's why he probably had to leave the KGB.

00:12:45.000 Right.

00:12:46.000 Them shaky hands of him.

00:12:48.000 He is not a man that could work for Jim Henson.

00:12:51.000 You can't have Putin operating Kermit.

00:12:53.000 Putin's puppets?

00:12:54.000 No.

00:12:54.000 Putin's puppets?

00:12:55.000 Hey, come on, man!

00:12:57.000 I don't want to reveal that my Jordan Peterson impression comes from a Kermit impression, so I'm going to stop right there and have a look at Putin bungling social norms.

00:13:08.000 What's he doing there?

00:13:09.000 Look, he's really keen to get back into that one, isn't he?

00:13:11.000 Yeah.

00:13:11.000 Because there was a bit where he seems to suggest maybe we'll just do a thumbs up instead.

00:13:15.000 Take it back a bit.

00:13:16.000 Go back a little bit, because he did do that.

00:13:17.000 He tries to... He starts off, handshake.

00:13:20.000 Then I think I see fist bump.

00:13:22.000 Then I see thumbs up.

00:13:23.000 Back to handshake.

00:13:24.000 It's like he's rock, paper, scissor in this poor guy.

00:13:26.000 Okay, so let's have a look.

00:13:28.000 Who is this dude?

00:13:35.000 And then he just tries to pretend he's going... Oh, I just went in there.

00:13:38.000 Say someone... Say you're... Look, I don't know how good your eyesight is, Gareth.

00:13:41.000 I've never asked.

00:13:42.000 It's not that great.

00:13:43.000 So, you're arriving at something, and there's some people, maybe someone goes like that, but they're across the room.

00:13:48.000 Right.

00:13:49.000 Like, do you double-check it's you before... Yeah, I know, I tend to just... You just respond.

00:13:54.000 Yeah, I'm just happy... I can't take the shame.

00:13:56.000 I'm happy someone may be communicating with me.

00:13:59.000 Like, if, like, I go like that, and then I sort of look over my shoulder, and it's someone else, I just think, oh, I've really just wasted it.

00:14:06.000 No, I just, I commit to the wave.

00:14:08.000 Just wave.

00:14:10.000 Just a beaming smile. 0.99

00:14:11.000 You and Putin are a disaster waiting to happen. 0.94

00:14:14.000 We are, absolutely. 0.96

00:14:14.000 Like, when my mate shook hands with Eminem, he said that he was with... I've told you this before, that other people did that. 0.96

00:14:21.000 Eminem wants that handshake.

00:14:23.000 He wants that one, you know?

00:14:24.000 Obviously.

00:14:25.000 And, like, my mate said that the other people there all did that one, letting Eminem lead the way, but then he forced Eminem out of that one into that one.

00:14:33.000 And this is not... He wasn't saying that like he was, like, on IARD.

00:14:36.000 He was saying... I don't know why he did it.

00:14:38.000 He forced a British handshake on Eminem.

00:14:40.000 Yeah, sure.

00:14:41.000 No.

00:14:41.000 It was a very English way of handling it.

00:14:43.000 Now this one is just bad timing.

00:14:46.000 Here Putin goes for...

00:14:48.000 Well the problem is, was he Kim Jong-il?

00:14:50.000 Un.

00:14:52.000 Kim Jong-un, as we've already established, he does not focus on what he's doing.

00:14:57.000 In my part.

00:14:58.000 Limited facial expressions.

00:15:00.000 They're so powerful, these people.

00:15:01.000 These are the world's most powerful people.

00:15:03.000 They're either atrophying, cadaverous presidents of the United States who can't remember the sentence they started by the time they're six words in.

00:15:10.000 They're Putin, who can't carry out a normal social interaction like a handshake.

00:15:13.000 There's Kim Jong-un, who, like, what I will credit him with is he's switched off from reality, isn't he?

00:15:19.000 Like, he's in bliss.

00:15:20.000 This is Kim Jong-un.

00:15:21.000 I don't even know if I can do that face.

00:15:25.000 But I've never been... Hold on, let's try again.

00:15:29.000 I've never been that relaxed in my life.

00:15:31.000 You're jealous of him, aren't you?

00:15:32.000 There's a point, somewhere in an orgasm, or somewhere at the absolute high point of a poo, where I'd like, sort of like... Oh, it's worth staying alive! 0.83

00:15:42.000 Like, for a split second!

00:15:44.000 This could last forever! 1.00

00:15:46.000 I could do a couple more years of this crap. 0.99

00:15:48.000 But mostly, I'm agitated with just the grind of reality. 0.99

00:15:53.000 I mean, have we ruled out that he needs a poo a lot?

00:15:57.000 He looks constipated in his own way.

00:15:59.000 He looks like he's given into it, doesn't he?

00:16:01.000 I mean, I hope these are not cultural issues that North Koreans have.

00:16:03.000 No, let's hope not.

00:16:04.000 I mean, we're not queer.

00:16:05.000 Anyway, let's see.

00:16:06.000 So this is when an immovable object meets an irresistible force, or whatever the hell it is.

00:16:10.000 Because Putin and Kim Jong... I mean, God knows what happens if they try to make love.

00:16:15.000 If this is a handshake, imagine the complexity of inverted oral activity, for example.

00:16:21.000 Shall we imagine it?

00:16:23.000 Yes.

00:16:23.000 Let's all do that as a society together.

00:16:26.000 For a couple of minutes.

00:16:28.000 Have you ever felt happier than holding that image in your mind?

00:16:30.000 Why not do that, mate?

00:16:31.000 It'd be better... Like, we're disgusted, aren't we, by that?

00:16:34.000 But it'd be better that they did that if world leaders were put in a room and said, make love with each other until you come up with a viable solution for this endless war. 0.99

00:16:42.000 Biden, go on.

00:16:43.000 You have it in the day.

00:16:45.000 You get in a room with Putin, and the pair of yas says now you should click over and watch them rumble. 0.97

00:16:51.000 We haven't got any images of this stuff.

00:16:53.000 Of course!

00:16:53.000 I forgot we're on YouTube!

00:16:54.000 Is that alright so far?

00:16:55.000 We've been quite opaque.

00:16:56.000 How bad has it been?

00:16:58.000 Um, like, if you're watching this on YouTube, we're going to click over in a minute.

00:17:00.000 Remember, we're going to talk about how gain-of-function re- not actually gain-of-function, how, um, excuse me, how amalgamations of variants within the coronavirus cinematic universe were being irresponsibly amalgamated in City of London, right in the very midst of the pandemic.

00:17:18.000 What are you going for?

00:17:19.000 Are you going to Jack the Ripper?

00:17:20.000 Oh, that's exactly what I was.

00:17:21.000 I thought you were going to go into Jack the Ripper territory.

00:17:23.000 All right, me staff!

00:17:24.000 That's your staff. 0.98

00:17:25.000 Fetish and pathogens! 1.00

00:17:27.000 Here! 0.99

00:17:28.000 Come this way, pearly pole! 0.99

00:17:31.000 In old white chettle!

00:17:36.000 He should be trivialised. 0.99

00:17:37.000 He was a murderer. 0.95

00:17:38.000 Absolutely. 1.00

00:17:38.000 A murderer and a sex criminal. 1.00

00:17:40.000 Yeah, they do tours for him. 1.00

00:17:41.000 I know!

00:17:42.000 It's scary.

00:17:43.000 I used to live in East London.

00:17:44.000 I'd see those tours going by.

00:17:46.000 Very unnerving.

00:17:47.000 That's where he'd done those murders of innocent women.

00:17:50.000 That shouldn't really be celebrated, but there you go. 0.88

00:17:52.000 The British have always been a strange breed. 1.00

00:17:54.000 Well, we gave Obama a Peace Prize, so...

00:17:57.000 You could have a peace prize and you could have a musical!

00:18:01.000 Like Sweeney Todd.

00:18:02.000 Oh, Sweeney Todd might not be right.

00:18:03.000 I think Sweeney Todd was real.

00:18:04.000 Right.

00:18:05.000 I don't know.

00:18:05.000 Let's not get too bogged down in it, because I'm still chomping to see... I wasn't suggesting Obama did those kind of things, by the way.

00:18:12.000 No, you said he's a war criminal.

00:18:13.000 Right.

00:18:13.000 In fact, you didn't even say that.

00:18:15.000 The facts say that, because he participated in the bombing in the Yemen that's led to 400,000 civilian deaths.

00:18:15.000 No.

00:18:21.000 Right.

00:18:22.000 Let's have a look at this handshake.

00:18:24.000 It's just a game.

00:18:26.000 I'm not gonna play.

00:18:28.000 I'm not gonna play.

00:18:30.000 He's ready.

00:18:31.000 Now... That's out of order.

00:18:33.000 Dude, that... Is Putin not regarded with much respect in Russia?

00:18:37.000 Have we just got it all wrong?

00:18:38.000 Is their propaganda that good that actually the rest of the world... Oh, no.

00:18:42.000 Oh, no.

00:18:43.000 Here it comes.

00:18:44.000 This is your big moment, Vladimir.

00:18:46.000 Why don't we go for the fist bump?

00:18:49.000 Oh, man.

00:18:50.000 Hey, maybe I'll try a thumb wrestle with this fella. 0.99

00:18:53.000 He's like Frank Spencer.

00:18:55.000 Better be the German. 1.00

00:18:55.000 Oh, no. 1.00

00:18:56.000 No, I'm not doing that.

00:18:57.000 America, come on. 1.00

00:18:58.000 For Christ's sake.

00:19:00.000 But anyway, Biden, who's nothing to do with that war, as far as we can understand, blocking a peace deal surely is not connected to this.

00:19:07.000 The US has announced a $350 million weapons package for Ukraine.

00:19:12.000 Again, obviously, Ukraine will have the right to protect themselves and all of that, but a peace deal would be better, I think.

00:19:19.000 $350 million including ammunition for the HIMARS rocket launchers, artillery rounds, high speed, it just looks like a bunch of dangerous stuff.

00:19:29.000 Anyway, it's profitable stuff.

00:19:30.000 And they're being pulled from the $45 billion aid bill Congress passed in December.

00:19:35.000 And aren't we hearing that they want more, and they don't think it's enough?

00:19:38.000 I think Hillary Clinton said it recently as well.

00:19:38.000 Yes.

00:19:41.000 She wants to pipe down.

00:19:42.000 Don't you?

00:19:43.000 Every time she says anything, you think, oh, come on, mate.

00:19:45.000 Well, you know, she's still in Congress.

00:19:47.000 Oh, no, she's not.

00:19:48.000 It's just a hobby.

00:19:49.000 It's just a simple hobby of hers to get stuck in and get involved.

00:19:53.000 Like good old Tony Blair as well.

00:19:56.000 What I'd like to know is, it's 20 years since the Iraq War.

00:20:00.000 Yeah, speaking of Tony Blair.

00:20:01.000 Let's celebrate that, the Iraq War, right? 1.00

00:20:04.000 It's weird now that wars have anniversaries, don't you think?

00:20:06.000 It is a bit.

00:20:07.000 Like, you know, is it... you know how, like, you maybe get paper or wood or ruby or diamond or those type of ones?

00:20:13.000 Like, now wars have anniversaries.

00:20:15.000 We all saw Joe Biden have a lovely celebration of one year.

00:20:18.000 He did that night in Po... One night only!

00:20:20.000 Joe Biden in Poland.

00:20:22.000 Ooh, one night in Poland!

00:20:26.000 To what?

00:20:26.000 I don't know, it's about the right amount.

00:20:28.000 So, like, 20 years since the Iraq War, here's some terrifying facts about the Iraq War before presenting to you Julian Assange's long-cherished edict that the function of war is to funnel money from you, the taxpayer, and us, the public, to private interests.

00:20:47.000 So, during the Iraq War, in the last 20 years, money spent on weapons has doubled to nearly $2 trillion a year.

00:20:55.000 Blimey.

00:20:56.000 In 2020 alone, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, ay-up, accounted for nearly a third, ay-up, were in weapons gear.

00:21:05.000 If you're English, you'd know that Northrop Grumman sounds like a Yorkshireman who's like selling weapons as part of, he's a bit part clown or creatures great and small.

00:21:14.000 It sounds like a place I would have worked as a teenager.

00:21:16.000 Right, come here.

00:21:17.000 You have an apprenticeship at Northrup Grumman.

00:21:19.000 Get in, son.

00:21:20.000 Right, we're selling these telescope lenses.

00:21:23.000 They're perfectly ethical.

00:21:25.000 But tell you what, where we turn a pretty penny, and you know how a Yorkshireman likes to earn a pound nought, is these missiles.

00:21:32.000 Now, if we can sustain war here at Northrup Grumman, well, I'll get thee, Raytheon.

00:21:38.000 I'll get thee, Bowen.

00:21:40.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:21:41.000 Yorkshire people use thee and thou.

00:21:43.000 They kept hold of that pronoun for reasons that none of us, not even them, fully understand.

00:21:48.000 And you are them, aren't you?

00:21:49.000 I am.

00:21:50.000 I don't understand.

00:21:50.000 Why thee?

00:21:51.000 Why thou?

00:21:52.000 Why?

00:21:53.000 Why indeed?

00:21:54.000 Anyway, look, Norfolk Grumman accounts for nearly a third of the $480 billion obligated by the Pentagon to defence contractors.

00:22:00.000 It's estimated nearly... Well, he just made loads of money, you know that already.

00:22:03.000 Halliburton?

00:22:04.000 Halliburton were the black rock of their day.

00:22:06.000 See, obviously, the reason we're talking about Iraq is we're saying that these wars are still happening.

00:22:10.000 And while you might say, no, no, no, it's a necessary war, Putin's a monster, have you seen that guy try and shake hands?

00:22:15.000 All of that stuff valid and true.

00:22:17.000 You have to acknowledge also that the Iraq war was not a popular war at the time.

00:22:22.000 It was a war in all good, on a lie, on a deception.

00:22:26.000 The deception being, of course, that there were weapons of mass destruction.

00:22:29.000 Millions of people protested in the street.

00:22:30.000 It was a pivotal moment in our history.

00:22:33.000 You should look at our conversation with Glenn Greenwald that we had a couple of days ago.

00:22:37.000 He gives a beautiful description how the events of 2003 and the events of 2008 still define the world that we are living in.

00:22:45.000 Perhaps, you know, like I suppose since 9-11 it's been a surveillance state.

00:22:51.000 Only thanks to figures like Julian Assange and his bravery are we even aware of many of the atrocities that took place in that war and that's of course why he's in Belmarsh prison to this day without Yeah.

00:23:02.000 Yes.

00:23:02.000 having had a trial. It doesn't seem right that someone's in a maximum security prison

00:23:07.000 without a trial. Is that how we do business? Apparently it is. Halliburton in 2009 was

00:23:11.000 the world's second largest oilfield service company. What's all this? You know, they've

00:23:17.000 made a lot of money. Halliburton made a lot of money. And I remember reading about Clinton,

00:23:21.000 Hillary Clinton this was, and in terms of that quote that we saw of her recently post-Iraq

00:23:26.000 where she spoke about Iraq as a business opportunity for American interests.

00:23:31.000 She did literally a speech where she was talking about it as a business interest, and then you discovered the people who made a lot of money out of it, some were weapons manufacturers, others were energy companies, all incredibly donated to the Hillary Clinton Foundation.

00:23:44.000 So, there you go.

00:23:45.000 Click over right now.

00:23:46.000 If you're watching this on YouTube, we're going to tell you about Landon Tan and their ludicrous experimentations that went on even at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

00:23:56.000 And we are going to give you some unique insights into the life of Hillary Clinton directly from Alex Jones.

00:24:03.000 So click over right now if you want to hear him.

00:24:06.000 I've just been talking to Alex Jones.

00:24:07.000 Click over!

00:24:08.000 You won't hear them on YouTube, I won't say them there! 0.94

00:24:10.000 Alright, join us on Rumble, where we can speak freely, dammit. 0.54

00:24:15.000 So, um, listen, I'm not gonna say that on the show, that's just a joke. 0.94

00:24:18.000 That was us mucking around, like, we've not spoke to Alex Challenge for a long time.

00:24:22.000 That was clickbait, is what you just did there.

00:24:24.000 I baited you there to click that, but we are going to tell you some stuff about gain of function.

00:24:28.000 The other thing I want to talk about on the anniversary of the Iraq War, Gareth, is that Tony Blair, who sort of grinned his way through that Iraq War, certainly did, is rigging his hands, smiling his artist.

00:24:39.000 Yeah, I remember seeing him and George Bush with their hands in their little jackets, walking up the, you know, when he went to see... War jackets, like camo.

00:24:45.000 Yeah, like that.

00:24:46.000 Do you know, I don't think politicians should be allowed to do that, unless they have been in the army, like Churchill or... Right, we saw Russia soon enough recently. 0.52

00:24:53.000 They love it.

00:24:55.000 They've got such little stiffies for Zelensky in his car key jumper, don't they?

00:25:02.000 Look at Zelensky!

00:25:04.000 Vladimir!

00:25:05.000 You know that, true though.

00:25:06.000 Oh, Vladimir, can you borrow me that Cub Scout hoodie?

00:25:11.000 They're so into it, aren't they?

00:25:13.000 Those nerds. 1.00

00:25:15.000 Blair is worth $60 million now, after all of that posturing.

00:25:18.000 That does not surprise me.

00:25:19.000 And the rest.

00:25:20.000 Yeah, probably more.

00:25:21.000 He's got one of those bloody philanthropic associations that doesn't pay taxes and accumulates money.

00:25:26.000 I'm just making it up.

00:25:26.000 That's allegedly.

00:25:27.000 Allegedly!

00:25:28.000 As you do, come on, it's plain as day that he will have.

00:25:32.000 Shall we have a look now?

00:25:33.000 Now that you've joined us over here and we're unable to feed you any Alex Jones-style information about the private business of Hillary Clinton, which, frankly, I don't mind about.

00:25:41.000 In fact, I have no personal dislike of any member of Any family, anywhere!

00:25:48.000 Just what I feel like they are good at helping us understand is how politics functions, how there's sort of aristocracies within various political parties in the United States of America, that they're undemocratic, that it's pretty well understood now that within the Democratic Party they scuppered the campaign of Bernie Sanders because they wouldn't be able to stay true to their paymasters if Bernie got elected.

00:26:10.000 And I know loads of you don't like Bernie because you think he's got too many houses or stuff like that.

00:26:14.000 And I did hear, when I was on Bill Maher the other day, there was a bit where he goes, yeah, no, you've got to have centralised forces!

00:26:20.000 And I thought, hang on, what's that all about?

00:26:22.000 Yeah, I think, yeah.

00:26:24.000 Could that be a centralised response that is positive and democratic, rather than unelected bodies like the WHO, WEF, all that kind of stuff, dictating global policy?

00:26:33.000 All I think about Bernie Sanders is he's got a hell of a lot better policies than, for example, Hillary Clinton.

00:26:38.000 You wouldn't argue with that, would you?

00:26:39.000 Let us know in the chat, let us know in the comments.

00:26:41.000 And while you're thinking about, you know, moving around deck chairs on the Titanic with different political figures within established political movements that are funded in exactly the same way, we'll tell you this.

00:26:54.000 I can't believe this is true, and tell me if you can believe it.

00:26:56.000 Right in the middle of that pandemic, when we were concerned about how it came about, how it was going to end, what the proper response was, whether people were being honest about vaccine medications and the consequences of them, In London, where the Queen was living at that time.

00:27:11.000 It's not what took her, is it?

00:27:13.000 It's not what took her from us.

00:27:13.000 What's that?

00:27:15.000 We cannot know for certain!

00:27:17.000 Risky research, down the road.

00:27:19.000 Allegedly.

00:27:19.000 Risky research while there's a vulnerable old lady, rich, absolutely minted, her face all over the cash, poor cow.

00:27:28.000 Allegedly.

00:27:30.000 It's out of order.

00:27:31.000 You shouldn't, if you love her... Was the allegedly for poor cow? 0.97

00:27:34.000 Just in case.

00:27:35.000 People don't maybe think it's rude.

00:27:38.000 How British!

00:27:38.000 Look at this!

00:27:40.000 I should just say sorry.

00:27:42.000 Sorry about that, mate.

00:27:46.000 There's a whole host of things.

00:27:49.000 I would feel physically sick.

00:27:51.000 That's what I'd feel if I found out Her Majesty the Queen was compromised because of these experiments.

00:27:56.000 Well look, while they were naysaying the potential for that lab leak coming out of Wuhan, quibbling that it would be of natural origin regardless if it went via a bloody lab with the Newly emergent raccoon dog magic bullet theory, courtesy of Anthony Fauci.

00:28:16.000 Did you know that they were carrying on with what I'm going to refer to obliquely as scientific skullduggery in London?

00:28:23.000 British experiments risked making the Covid pandemic more lethal.

00:28:27.000 You shouldn't be doing any experiments where there's even the slightest risk of making it more lethal, should you?

00:28:32.000 Wouldn't you think so?

00:28:33.000 Could this make it more lethal?

00:28:34.000 We're in the throes of one.

00:28:36.000 Right?

00:28:36.000 We were all taking it so serious.

00:28:38.000 Can't go out, gotta wear a mask, all of that stuff.

00:28:38.000 Do you remember that?

00:28:40.000 It was so annoying.

00:28:41.000 Because also, like, gain of function is controversial and always has been.

00:28:46.000 Like, scientifically, it has been controversial and divided opinion.

00:28:50.000 You think the one time where you might go, do you know what?

00:28:52.000 We probably don't need any more of the kind of controversy at the moment.

00:28:55.000 Should we just stop doing gain of function?

00:28:57.000 Especially on this, during this time. 0.99

00:28:59.000 You coward! 1.00

00:29:00.000 Come on! 1.00

00:29:01.000 Why did you get into that?

00:29:04.000 What's the best possible outcome?

00:29:09.000 Sometimes I don't understand where it is we're progressing to at such pace.

00:29:13.000 I do.

00:29:13.000 It's a dystopian, centralised, authoritarian nightmare.

00:29:18.000 And another thing that came out of the conversation with Glenn Greenwald is that oligarchs just a century ago Greenwald charmingly described would toss dollar bills from their passing limousine in an attempt to curry favour with the great unwashed in post-Dust Bowl America.

00:29:35.000 But now, you oligarchs, my God, the way they carry on!

00:29:38.000 It's like they've doubled down.

00:29:40.000 They've realised, we don't have to appease these people.

00:29:42.000 We've got robots now. 1.00

00:29:44.000 We can kill them if we want to. 1.00

00:29:46.000 Haven't they? 1.00

00:29:47.000 Yeah, we've got connections with the government.

00:29:48.000 We've got connections with social media companies.

00:29:50.000 We can basically rewrite the narrative.

00:29:53.000 Do you ever feel that?

00:29:54.000 Do you ever feel that what's changed in the last few years is the realisation that you no longer need to appease the population, you can now crush the population?

00:30:04.000 It's a brilliant point Greenwald made.

00:30:06.000 After this, go and have a look at that.

00:30:07.000 But this is the rest of that article.

00:30:08.000 Scientists carried out tests using Delta and Omicron that could have combined the two variants and leaked from the laboratory.

00:30:15.000 Anton van der Merwe, a professor of molecular immunology at University of Oxford said... Oh, what does he know?

00:30:21.000 What do you know?

00:30:23.000 What do you know down there doing molecular immunology in Oxford?

00:30:27.000 It's just a hobby?

00:30:27.000 It's just the greatest university in the world.

00:30:30.000 Well, there's probably, who knows?

00:30:31.000 Hey, what about Yale, baby?

00:30:32.000 What about Stanford?

00:30:34.000 What about other ones that are, you know, far away countries that we don't even memorise because of our inbuilt biases?

00:30:40.000 Such experiments risk combining the two variants to produce something more lethal. 0.98

00:30:44.000 You Poindexters, you maniacs! 0.66

00:30:46.000 Hey, but what if we went across Omicron with Delta? 0.99

00:30:50.000 What do you get then?

00:30:52.000 Omidelta! 0.99

00:30:53.000 It's a new boogie robot!

00:30:54.000 It's the new raccoon dog!

00:30:56.000 What are they hoping for?

00:30:57.000 It's not gonna be that good, is it?

00:30:59.000 It could have infected scientists or leaked from the laboratory.

00:31:02.000 Coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2 are well known to evolve by exchanging genetic material when two distinct viruses infect the same cell, he said.

00:31:11.000 This makes it much more likely that these strains will recombine and create a more dangerous variant which could infect those doing the experiments who could then spread it into the community.

00:31:20.000 In recent decades... Right, so you might think this is conjecture.

00:31:23.000 This is little more than senseless speculation, tumbling from the lips of an avowed conspiracy theorist.

00:31:30.000 But look at the very next sentence.

00:31:32.000 In recent decades, ones that we've been through recently, smallpox, swine flu, SARS...

00:31:38.000 And don't you just apply the general metric?

00:31:45.000 But if this is what they're telling you, imagine what they're keeping back.

00:31:49.000 What do you think's in those dossiers?

00:31:51.000 What do you think Top Secret files are full of?

00:31:53.000 Why do you think Pfizer are booting that thing 75 years in the future?

00:31:57.000 Why are they not telling you the truth about JFK even to this day?

00:32:00.000 I'll tell you why.

00:32:01.000 Because all that information will make you so happy that you'll run ecstatic into the streets into a passing lorry.

00:32:09.000 This is amazing, this bit.

00:32:10.000 So Imperial College London said it was conducted in a biosafety level 3 laboratory in line with strict government regulations.

00:32:18.000 Which is like, first of all makes me think, why are there only three levels?

00:32:22.000 And why would you ever use level one or two for these risky biosafety experiments?

00:32:27.000 What do you mean, there's more relaxed levels?

00:32:29.000 Yeah, exactly, yeah.

00:32:30.000 Okay, like it's end of term and you can bring board games in.

00:32:33.000 Okay guys, we're just gonna do today at level... Wear your own clothes.

00:32:36.000 Bring your own stuff, do your own experiments! 0.99

00:32:38.000 Hey, I've been gonna sew a dick on a mouse's back! 0.99

00:32:41.000 Go for it! 0.99

00:32:43.000 Unlock all the windows!

00:32:44.000 Turn the aircon off! 0.99

00:32:45.000 Whoa, look, a dick mouse! 0.99

00:32:47.000 You're like, you don't need level one or two. 0.99

00:32:49.000 Always, always try your hardest not to have a lab leak.

00:32:49.000 No.

00:32:53.000 That's my catchphrase.

00:32:53.000 Right.

00:32:54.000 Yeah.

00:32:55.000 In my own days, as a scientist, when I was doing it, I learned my molecular immunology on the streets.

00:33:02.000 On the streets, Scout.

00:33:04.000 Tip of 40 to the curb for my fallen homies. 0.98

00:33:06.000 Many of them died as a result of failed immunology, because we did it old school back then.

00:33:11.000 Yeah, maybe we were going to get infected with a new variant, but by God, if we'd have come up with a vaccine, we'd have all been rich.

00:33:18.000 Not that we'd have exploited that opportunity.

00:33:20.000 Yeah, we caused foot and mouth. 0.79

00:33:21.000 Good!

00:33:22.000 Hey man, what's wrong with a bit of foot and mouth?

00:33:24.000 What's wrong with you, man?

00:33:26.000 Foot, mouth, go for it! 1.00

00:33:27.000 Put the foot in the mouth! 1.00

00:33:28.000 Have fun! 1.00

00:33:29.000 Hey, why don't you get Kim Jong-un, Putin, flip them, get them to suck each other up! 0.98

00:33:34.000 We're on rumble! 0.97

00:33:36.000 We're on rumble!

00:33:38.000 What did you expect?

00:33:39.000 Checking time, 32 minutes, 50 seconds, dog! 1.00

00:33:42.000 10 minute video, what you saying, bitch? 1.00

00:33:45.000 Okay, so... 0.99

00:33:47.000 Tucker Carlson, even though he's the most controversial person in history, even though he's loathed by the liberal establishment, even though he let me pee in his garden, that's not a euphemism.

00:33:56.000 He is one person who's willing to sit in front of a camera and say, or in this case I think it was in a podcast.

00:34:02.000 Yes it was.

00:34:04.000 Say that he regrets his involvement in glossing over the criminality of the Iraq war as revealed by Julian Assange.

00:34:10.000 We'll have to have a look at that clip when we come back.

00:34:12.000 I don't know how we're going to fit everything in to today's show.

00:34:15.000 It's going to be the issue, isn't it?

00:34:15.000 Maybe we won't.

00:34:17.000 It might spill over like in Imperial College.

00:34:21.000 Especially as I'm only operating at safety level one.

00:34:23.000 I've got safety level two.

00:34:24.000 I've got safety level three.

00:34:25.000 Of course you have.

00:34:26.000 We've gotten so many safety levels unexplored.

00:34:28.000 They should always be trying their hardest for safety.

00:34:31.000 Anyway, Tucker Carlson says he regrets his coverage of the Iraq war.

00:34:34.000 He's the only person who's willing to talk Julian Assange.

00:34:36.000 So is Tucker Carlson some sort of monster as he's portrayed because of the Jan Six stuff and all of that?

00:34:41.000 Because some people were friends of mine, people I love on the old school, we'll call them the establishment left or liberals or whatever.

00:34:48.000 say that he's engaged in dog whistle racism and that.

00:34:51.000 That's why when I met Tucker Carlson I was like, yeah, I thought he's nice, isn't he? 0.96

00:34:54.000 And like when I talked to him about me, you know, I've done all that crap, you've seen that video.

00:34:57.000 Let's have a look at him talking about Iraq and all that stuff.

00:35:00.000 Here's the news.

00:35:01.000 No, here's the effing news. 1.00

00:35:03.000 No, here's the fucking news. 0.99

00:35:08.000 Tucker Carlson, who some people hate because they're so perfect, 0.99

00:35:13.000 has apologised for promoting the Iraq war.

00:35:16.000 Why don't more mainstream figures apologize for promoting wars and lying to us just a couple of years ago?

00:35:22.000 Is it because there's so many lies the whole system would fall apart?

00:35:27.000 Tucker Carlson in a recent interview admitted that he regrets the way that he promoted the Iraq war, a war that now looks like it was illegally undertaken.

00:35:37.000 Almost as if sometimes the media promotes an agenda because of their affiliation with corporate partners and the state doesn't represent you, doesn't protect you, except for the minimum amount it I've spent my whole life in the media.

00:35:50.000 underwrites the desires, wishes and agenda of their corporatist, globalist partners.

00:35:56.000 And if more people were like Tucker Carlson and apologized, even if you disagree with them on some

00:36:01.000 issues, you'd start to see that the system could improve, that the media could change,

00:36:05.000 the government could change, that there are different ways of running society and running

00:36:11.000 your own life. Let's have a look at that now. I've spent my whole life in the media. My dad

00:36:15.000 was in the media. That is a big part of the revelation that's changed my life, is the media

00:36:20.000 are part of the control apparatus.

00:36:22.000 Like, there's no... I know, I know, because you're younger and smarter and you're like, yeah.

00:36:27.000 But what if you're me and you spent your whole life in that world?

00:36:27.000 Yeah.

00:36:31.000 And to look around and all of a sudden you're like, oh, wow.

00:36:35.000 Not only are they part of the problem, but I spent most of my life being part of the problem defending the Iraq War. 0.68

00:36:41.000 Like, I actually did that.

00:36:42.000 Can you imagine if you did that?

00:36:43.000 It's 20 years, of course, since the Iraq War, and a perfect time to review some of the attitudes that led to it, some of the poor decisions, the rallying that the media undertook.

00:36:54.000 It's very rare to see anyone in public life make a mea culpa of that nature.

00:37:00.000 Let alone someone as frequently vilified as Tucker Carlson, who's frequently, consistently held up as the epitomization of right-wing hatred and divisiveness.

00:37:12.000 But having recently personally met Tucker Carlson, I found him to be a person that was convivial and warm, and that you have to go some.

00:37:19.000 To dislike people that are honest and open.

00:37:23.000 I'm not saying that Tucker Carlson might have different opinions to me on politics and economics and race and gender and all sorts of subjects, but frankly, I have disagreements with people that are right up close in my life and I manage to love them anyway.

00:37:36.000 What is significant is the ability to allow people to live differently than you and have different views than you and to apologize critically for mistakes made in the past.

00:37:47.000 If you can say, I was wrong about my stance on the Iraq war.

00:37:51.000 I was part of the problem.

00:37:52.000 I was rallying on behalf of the establishment.

00:37:55.000 I am to some degree responsible for the death of Iraqi civilians who need not have died, it was wrong that they died. 0.99

00:38:01.000 Now we've got this kind of collective amnesia, this full steam ahead, never look back, don't worry about what we said at the beginning of the pandemic, that's history!

00:38:10.000 Don't worry about what we're saying about the war between Russia and Ukraine or what happened in 2014 or what Remember the promises America and the Soviet Union made when the Berlin Wall came down?

00:38:18.000 Forget it! 0.53

00:38:19.000 There's nothing to learn from any of that.

00:38:21.000 Imagine if you saw George W. Bush or Tony Blair or Joe Biden or Barack Obama.

00:38:27.000 Wouldn't you like to see Obama say, it was wrong that we killed those people with drone strikes in Syria?

00:38:31.000 Wouldn't you like to see Joe Biden say it was wrong that that family died as a result of that bomb campaign?

00:38:36.000 Wouldn't you like to see Tony Blair?

00:38:38.000 People that should be taking responsibility.

00:38:39.000 These are powerful figures.

00:38:42.000 Skirmishes and minor misdemeanors and the culture's changed and things look a bit different now and I shouldn't have said that.

00:38:48.000 This is not that!

00:38:49.000 That stuff, I'm on the side of that's necessary progress and it's good that those conversations are happening and people aren't ignorant to the effect and impact of their language and actions on others.

00:38:59.000 That's good, that's positive, it should happen.

00:39:01.000 But redemption!

00:39:02.000 Forgiveness, moving forward, particularly in geopolitical issues where millions of lives are lost.

00:39:07.000 If you're gonna foreclose that, put that to one side and focus fastidiously instead on what I would regard as minor cultural differences, emphasizing those differences in order to prevent progress.

00:39:18.000 What kind of culture are you gonna get?

00:39:20.000 What kind of real progress are we gonna get?

00:39:22.000 What is one of your biggest regrets in your career?

00:39:24.000 Defending the Iraq war.

00:39:25.000 That is it?

00:39:26.000 Well, I've had a million regrets not being more skeptical, calling people names when I should have listened to what they were saying.

00:39:32.000 Look, when someone makes a claim, there's only one question that's important at the very beginning, which is, is the claim true or not?

00:39:40.000 And for too long, I participated in the culture where I was like, anyone who thinks outside these pre-prescribed lanes is crazy, is a conspiracy theorist.

00:39:51.000 And I just really regret that. I'm ashamed that I did that.

00:39:54.000 And partly it was age, partly it was the world that I grew up in. So when you look at me and you're

00:39:58.000 like, yeah, of course they're part of the means of control. I'm like, that's obvious to you

00:40:03.000 because you're 28, but I just didn't see it at all, at all. And I'm ashamed of that. Isn't that what

00:40:09.000 the media tries to do though?

00:40:10.000 It's their only purpose.

00:40:12.000 Right.

00:40:13.000 They're not here to inform you.

00:40:14.000 Really?

00:40:15.000 Even on the big things that really matter like the economy and war and COVID and like things that really matter that will affect you.

00:40:21.000 No.

00:40:22.000 Their job is not to inform you.

00:40:24.000 They are working for the small group of people who actually run the world.

00:40:26.000 They're their servants.

00:40:27.000 They're their Praetorian guard.

00:40:29.000 And we should treat them with maximum contempt because they have earned it.

00:40:33.000 Wow!

00:40:34.000 There you go.

00:40:34.000 So who are the real conspiracy theorists and what's the blunt and simple truth?

00:40:38.000 Is it as Tucker Carlson claims that the media simply amplify and magnify the preferred opinions and agenda of the powerful or is it that all of a sudden loads of people have become conspiracy theorists?

00:40:49.000 Let me know in the chat, let me know in the comments.

00:40:51.000 Some interesting claims, ideas and an interesting perspective from a media insider who has become critical almost to the point of becoming a whistleblower.

00:40:59.000 But let's look now at some of the claims that were made by the mainstream media at the advent of the Iraq war, the reasons that war happened and how the media behaved during it.

00:41:08.000 See if we can learn anything about not only current wars but the media agenda more broadly today.

00:41:15.000 As mainstream US media outlets pause to remember the US invasion of Iraq, it's clear that there's a lot they hope we'll forget.

00:41:22.000 First and foremost, the media's own active complicity in whipping up public support for the war.

00:41:28.000 Have the media been complicit in whipping up support for any wars lately?

00:41:33.000 But the more you dig into mainstream news coverage from that period, the harder it is to forget how flagrantly news networks across the broadcast and cable landscape uncritically spread the Bush administration's propaganda and actively excluded dissenting voices.

00:41:33.000 Oh!

00:41:48.000 You'll notice that of course it was Bush, a Republican president then, and it's Biden, a Democrat president now, and the differences are, in my view, not significant enough.

00:41:57.000 The numbers don't lie.

00:41:59.000 A 2003 report by the media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found that in the two weeks leading up to the invasion, ABC World News, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News and the PBS NewsHour featured a total of 267 American experts, analysts and commentators on camera to supposedly help make sense of the march to war.

00:42:20.000 Of these 267 guests, Okay, let's get 267 guests!

00:42:23.000 Make sure that three quarters of them are current government or military officials.

00:42:27.000 Could there be any dissent?

00:42:28.000 Hold on a minute, let me have a conference with my bosses.

00:42:30.000 267 carried on.

00:42:30.000 You can have one dissenting voice.

00:42:32.000 267 guests!

00:42:34.000 Make sure that three quarters of them are current government or military officials.

00:42:39.000 Could there be any dissent?

00:42:40.000 Hold on a minute, let me have a conference with my bosses.

00:42:42.000 267 carried on.

00:42:45.000 You can have one dissenting voice.

00:42:47.000 One?

00:42:48.000 Yeah.

00:42:49.000 One.

00:42:49.000 And not a good one.

00:42:50.000 Meanwhile, in the fast-growing world of cable news, Fox News' tough-talking pro-war jingoism was setting the standard for ratings-weary executives at most of the more liberal cable networks.

00:43:00.000 MSNBC and CNN, feeling the heat of what industry insiders were calling the Fox effect, were desperately trying to outflank their right wing rival and one another by actively eliminating critical voices and seeing who could bang the war drums loudest.

00:43:16.000 So I suppose what became the game was not reporting information, but amplifying a perspective that was based, I suppose, on conflict, not even the war that they were reporting on, but A doubling down on polarity.

00:43:31.000 I suppose polarity in the world of physics is what creates energy and I suppose in the world of media is what creates eyeballs and so their function as truth-tellers has been eroded to the point of invisibility and non-existence and ultimately what they do is cheerlead for a set of perspectives.

00:43:47.000 At MSNBC, as the Iraq invasion approached in early 2003, network executives decided to fire Phil Donahue, even though his show had the highest ratings on the channel.

00:43:56.000 A leaked internal memo explained that top management saw Donahue as a tired left-wing liberal who would be a difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.

00:44:05.000 Noting that Donoghue seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and sceptical of the administration's motives, the memo warned ominously that his show could end up being a home for the liberal anti-war agenda, at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.

00:44:20.000 Don't worry you that they don't care at all about important subjects like war or truth or what you feel or what's best for you.

00:44:27.000 That it's a completely insular mindset that's based upon economic and commercial incentives.

00:44:34.000 Now, I recognize the world we live in, we have economic and commercial requirements, but fortunately they're in alignment with our principles.

00:44:44.000 And I think that all of us have to somehow aggregate those choices.

00:44:48.000 Am I being true to myself?

00:44:49.000 Am I being honest?

00:44:50.000 Can I have open, clear conversations?

00:44:52.000 Can I justify myself?

00:44:53.000 And obviously Tucker Carlson is a person who is on a journey recognizing that in this particular example, the Iraq war, he made a mistake.

00:45:01.000 But there are very few people who can have that conversation because they are not free.

00:45:05.000 They are trapped within a very, very particular role.

00:45:08.000 Are you not sort of astonished by the lack of open conversation on MSNBC and CNN and even these right-wing media outlets that I've been condemned for appearing on at least have done that.

00:45:18.000 They are at least willing.

00:45:19.000 And whether that's because temporarily our objectives and agenda align and who knows what the future holds, that's yet to be seen.

00:45:25.000 What I return to again and again is the requirement for principles and values.

00:45:29.000 If you have principles and values then you can refer to them When you are confused.

00:45:34.000 Like, oh no, this is a difficult situation.

00:45:36.000 What do I believe in again?

00:45:37.000 Do I believe in free speech?

00:45:38.000 Do I believe in truth?

00:45:39.000 Do I believe in listening to the opinions of people I disagree with?

00:45:41.000 Do I agree with invading foreign countries? 1.00

00:45:43.000 Do I agree with killing children?

00:45:44.000 Do I agree with promoting wars when I don't understand the conditions that have led to them? 1.00

00:45:49.000 Also, MSNBC and CNN glory and marvel in their differences from Fox News, continually attacking and condemning Fox News, but the facts suggest that they emulate and So how can you say, hey, we're different, we're better, they're shit, when in fact, you're copying them? 0.97

00:46:05.000 to a not insignificant subject like war, which will necessarily involve dead children 0.98

00:46:10.000 if it's a ratings winner. 1.00

00:46:12.000 So how can you say, hey, we're different, we're better, they're shit, 1.00

00:46:15.000 when in fact, you're copying them. 0.99

00:46:17.000 Not only are you just like them, but with a slightly different view,

00:46:20.000 you're simply just like them.

00:46:22.000 Not to be outdone, CNN News chief, Eason Jordan, would boast on air that he'd met with Pentagon officials

00:46:28.000 during the run-up to the invasion to get their approval for the on-camera war experts

00:46:33.000 the network would rely on.

00:46:34.000 It's the Twitter files of its day!

00:46:36.000 What would you like us to say?

00:46:38.000 We'd like you to say that war is good. 1.00

00:46:39.000 War is good! 1.00

00:46:41.000 Get some more experts on.

00:46:41.000 Good work.

00:46:43.000 War's good. 1.00

00:46:43.000 Yeah, I know. 1.00

00:46:44.000 War is good. 1.00

00:46:45.000 What about these dead children?

00:46:46.000 No, don't film that.

00:46:47.000 I think it's important to have experts explain the war and to describe the military hardware, describe the tactics and talk about the strategy behind the conflict, Jordan explained.

00:46:54.000 I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the war started and met with important people there and said, here are the generals we're thinking of retaining to advise us on the air and off about the war.

00:47:04.000 And we got a big thumbs up on all of them.

00:47:06.000 That was important.

00:47:07.000 Excuse me, Pentagon!

00:47:09.000 We're thinking of doing your propaganda for you and not questioning your incentives or the reasons behind the war.

00:47:15.000 Like, for example, the false claim there are weapons of mass destruction.

00:47:18.000 What do you think of our experts?

00:47:21.000 Ha ha! 0.86

00:47:22.000 We're doing a great job!

00:47:23.000 What you want is, no, no, you're holding us to account.

00:47:27.000 All of the moral piety, all of the, how dare you, no, no, no, Fox is awful.

00:47:31.000 Remember when I went on Bill Maher, that guy was as if I was attacking a church or a widow or something. 1.00

00:47:35.000 It's like, it's just some bunch of media sluts pumping out crap into a dump. 1.00

00:47:41.000 As journalist Norman Solomon observes, the bedrock democratic principle of an independent adversarial press was simply tossed Out of the window. 0.97

00:47:50.000 Hey, whoa, what about the bedrock principle of an adversarial and objective press?

00:47:54.000 Oh yeah, no, I've been thinking about that.

00:47:55.000 Here we go.

00:47:56.000 Whee! 1.00

00:47:57.000 That deals with that.

00:47:59.000 Often journalists blame the government for the failure of the journalists themselves to do independent reporting, Solomon says.

00:48:04.000 But nobody forced the major networks, like CNN, to do so much commentary from retired generals and admirals and all the rest of it.

00:48:11.000 It wasn't even something to hide, ultimately.

00:48:13.000 It was something to say to the American people, see?

00:48:15.000 We're team players.

00:48:16.000 We may be the news media, but we're on the same side and the same page as the Pentagon.

00:48:20.000 And that really runs directly counter to the idea of an independent press.

00:48:24.000 And it's also an idea that's still at play.

00:48:26.000 Think about the pandemic.

00:48:27.000 Who were the experts they brought out?

00:48:28.000 What happened to experts that had critical ideas of the mainstream agenda?

00:48:32.000 What are they doing in this war?

00:48:33.000 Retired generals.

00:48:35.000 People that work for Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.

00:48:37.000 They are contemptuous.

00:48:38.000 They don't deserve your attention.

00:48:40.000 They don't deserve your time.

00:48:42.000 We are working hard to deserve your time because we value you and respect you. 1.00

00:48:46.000 They think you're dumb and you're stupid and that you'll take whatever you're given. 1.00

00:48:49.000 That's why you've got to join us on this journey. 1.00

00:48:51.000 The result was a barely-debated, deceit-driven, headlong rush into a war of choice that would go on to destabilise the region, accelerate global terrorism, bleed trillions of dollars from the US Treasury, and kill thousands of US service members and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them innocent civilians.

00:49:09.000 So it's not an inconsequential thing.

00:49:10.000 Oh, never mind, we all make mistakes.

00:49:12.000 It's not that, is it?

00:49:13.000 It's not like I shouldn't have done that.

00:49:14.000 Sorry, I broke your lawnmower while I was borrowing it.

00:49:17.000 Let me buy you a new... This is... Children died.

00:49:19.000 American service people died.

00:49:21.000 Trillions of dollars was wasted.

00:49:23.000 In part because the media didn't go, wait a second, should we be having this war?

00:49:27.000 What's going on?

00:49:28.000 Is there any relationship between the events of 9-11 and Iraq?

00:49:31.000 The answer to that question is, no, there isn't.

00:49:33.000 Are there any weapons of mass destruction?

00:49:34.000 The answer is no, there aren't.

00:49:36.000 Will this improve our global standing and decrease terrorism?

00:49:39.000 No, it won't.

00:49:40.000 Far from it.

00:49:41.000 It will diminish our global standing and it will create terrorism. 0.69

00:49:43.000 Oh, well, now that you know all that, and it's going to cost trillions, do you still want that war?

00:49:49.000 Let me think about that now you've given us all the information.

00:49:52.000 There you go.

00:49:52.000 No.

00:49:53.000 A completely different outcome.

00:49:55.000 So when there's another war going on, at least question it.

00:49:59.000 And if, for example, people that do question it, oh, they're unpatriotic, they're Putin lovers.

00:50:04.000 Oh, that's weird.

00:50:05.000 Hold on a minute.

00:50:05.000 I remember this from somewhere.

00:50:08.000 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. 1.00

00:50:09.000 It's you motherfuckers the whole time! 0.99

00:50:11.000 Yet two decades later, as we hurtle even closer to potentially catastrophic new wars, there's been virtually no accountability or sustained reporting in mainstream news media to remind us of their own decisive role in selling the Iraq war. 0.99

00:50:24.000 How MSNBC and CNN should begin every newscast every night.

00:50:28.000 Hi, we're the guys that actively promoted the Iraq war.

00:50:31.000 We were wrong to do that.

00:50:32.000 It was a mistake.

00:50:33.000 We've never admitted that before.

00:50:34.000 We apologize.

00:50:35.000 There's another war now we're going to advocate for, this time we're definitely right, even though we're 0.98

00:50:40.000 doing, you know, the exact same things, people connected to Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, smearing

00:50:44.000 descending voices, this time hopefully the dead children will all be worth it.

00:50:49.000 Keep trusting us, keep watching.

00:50:50.000 It's an act of forgetting we can ill afford, especially as many of the same media patterns

00:50:55.000 from 20 years ago now repeat themselves on overdrive, from the full scale reboot and

00:50:59.000 rehabilitation of leading Iraq war architects and cheerleaders, to the news media's continuing

00:51:05.000 over-reliance on experts drawn from the revolving door world of the Pentagon and the arms industry,

00:51:10.000 often without disclosure.

00:51:12.000 Here is an expert from the arms industry, connected to the Pentagon.

00:51:16.000 What was the last bit you said?

00:51:18.000 It's an expert.

00:51:19.000 And how are they experts?

00:51:20.000 They know a lot about weapons.

00:51:21.000 How come?

00:51:22.000 They sell weapons. 1.00

00:51:23.000 Okay, why don't you mind your own fucking business? 1.00

00:51:25.000 We're better than Fox! 0.99

00:51:27.000 Memory is a strategic resource in any country, especially the memory of wars, the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen has written.

00:51:35.000 No doubt they'll be damned as a conspiracy theorist within the week.

00:51:38.000 By controlling the narrative of the wars we fought, we justify the wars we're going to fight in the present.

00:51:42.000 Yeah, of course, it's just common sense, isn't it?

00:51:44.000 You can't ever Delegitimise the authority of the media because otherwise you go, well, you are the media now, so we couldn't trust you then.

00:51:51.000 We can't trust you now.

00:51:53.000 There it is.

00:51:53.000 We've just done it.

00:51:54.000 That's what it is.

00:51:54.000 You cannot trust them.

00:51:56.000 That's not to say that Putin isn't an imperialist.

00:51:59.000 It's literally, literally, literally not saying that it isn't terrible that all those Ukrainian people are dying. 1.00

00:52:04.000 That is, in fact, the whole point.

00:52:06.000 That's the main point.

00:52:07.000 It's exactly because of that point That you have to be discerning, sceptical, that you have to campaign for peace and diplomacy, and above all else, you have to not trust them.

00:52:15.000 As we mark the 20th anniversary of the murderous US invasion of Iraq, it's imperative to reclaim the memory of this war, not only from the Bush administration officials who waged it, but also from the corporate media system that helped sell it and has tried to control the narrative ever since.

00:52:30.000 And they continue to try to control that narrative to this day, but they cannot do it if we do not comply, if we remain informed, if we refuse to accept their condemnation, smearing, criticism, prejudice, propaganda, bigotry and bias, if we stay awake, if we celebrate values like redemption, forgiveness, apologizing, making amends, spiritual principles and values, if we exhibit them in ourselves, And welcome them in others.

00:52:55.000 And put aside prejudice and bigotry.

00:52:57.000 Because what we want?

00:52:58.000 Individual freedom.

00:52:59.000 Freedom for communities.

00:53:00.000 Ability to confront corporate, globalist and state power.

00:53:03.000 That's something we can all do together.

00:53:05.000 Believe me!

00:53:06.000 We have more in common with one another than separates and divides us.

00:53:10.000 I want you to know that.

00:53:11.000 They don't want you to know that.

00:53:13.000 Whose side do you want to be on?

00:53:16.000 Whose side do you wish you was on at the beginning of the pandemic now?

00:53:19.000 Whose side do you wish you were on at the beginning of the Iraq war now?

00:53:23.000 Which side do you want to be on now?

00:53:26.000 Do you want to be on the side of justice, freedom, individual liberty, redemption, love, peace, Valour?

00:53:32.000 Or do you just want to be another drone, another passive consumer, staring dumbly at a screen, subject to a global evil empire that wants you distracted and numb?

00:53:32.000 Honour?

00:53:44.000 Pretty easy decision to make.

00:53:45.000 Let's face it, it was a rhetorical question.

00:53:47.000 Well, that's just what I think.

00:53:47.000 Let me know what you think in the comments of the chat.

00:53:49.000 I'm going to read those comments in just a second.

00:53:51.000 I know you.

00:53:52.000 You'd like to drop those leftover pandemic pounds that you put on during the pandemic because you were sad inside because of the pandemic.

00:53:59.000 But how sick are you also of all the ads for weight loss pills and fad diets that probably don't even work anyway and might make your feet change colour?

00:54:07.000 I've done that.

00:54:07.000 I've been there.

00:54:08.000 They don't work.

00:54:09.000 They're a trick.

00:54:09.000 They're a con.

00:54:10.000 Do you know what actually works?

00:54:10.000 It's skullduggery.

00:54:12.000 Eating five healthy servings of fruit and vegetables every single day.

00:54:16.000 Who among us has time to prepare that every single day?

00:54:20.000 This brings us around to Field of Greens.

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00:54:46.000 OK, let's get you started with 15% off your first order.

00:54:50.000 Visit BrickHouseRussell.com, promo code brand.

00:54:54.000 That's BrickHouseRussell.com, promo code brand.

00:54:57.000 And now, let's go back to that deep, intelligent piece of media critique analysis that you were just watching.

00:55:04.000 Thank you for those comments.

00:55:06.000 Whipsnade says, Russell, I don't know how you do it, how you've ever done it, how you continue to do it, but just carry on doing it.

00:55:15.000 Whereas Brentford Safari says, I've had enough of you, son.

00:55:19.000 You're starting to wind me up now.

00:55:21.000 And then look at this, little old gypsy boy. 1.00

00:55:23.000 Gareth Roy, what's going on with you, son?

00:55:26.000 I've had just about enough of it.

00:55:28.000 You made me taste sick in my mouth.

00:55:29.000 What's going on with these comments?

00:55:31.000 Who knows?

00:55:32.000 Who knows who these people are, how they operate?

00:55:34.000 You let me know in the chat and the comments.

00:55:36.000 Sometimes I worry about you guys.

00:55:37.000 I'm trying to just shine love out of my heart into your hearts.

00:55:40.000 Now, Julian Assange, we told you about Julian Assange believes that the function of government is to filter Uh, public money into the hands of private organizations.

00:55:50.000 We're going to have a look at Julian saying that, and then we're going to talk to our guest Dave Smith, who's an advocate for anti-war and host of the Part of the Problem podcast, who will, I believe, strongly agree with that metric, because he believes in as little government as possible, being, as I understand, a libertarian.

00:56:04.000 Check out Assange saying that.

00:56:07.000 Because the goal is not to completely subjugate Afghanistan.

00:56:11.000 The goal is to use Afghanistan to wash money out of the tax bases of the United States, out of the tax bases of European countries, through Afghanistan, and back into the hands of a transnational security alliance.

00:56:26.000 That is the goal.

00:56:28.000 the goal is to have an endless war, not a successful war.

00:56:28.000 i.e.

00:56:33.000 Endless war.

00:56:34.000 Julian Assange, you can see why he's banged up in Belmarsh, because what he's doing is spitting facts and providing evidence.

00:56:40.000 Today we've been talking about war a lot, because it's the anniversary of the Iraq war.

00:56:43.000 Happy anniversary, Iraq war! 1.00

00:56:45.000 How do you do it?

00:56:46.000 And it's one year now of the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, all the terrible deaths incurred, particularly, you know, Ukraine, who are obviously under attack.

00:56:55.000 And there is an ongoing war in Syria.

00:56:57.000 We're talking to Dave Smith today on the subject of war.

00:56:59.000 Dave, thank you so much for joining us.

00:57:02.000 Thank you so much for having me.

00:57:04.000 I'm a huge fan.

00:57:05.000 That's so kind of you to say.

00:57:06.000 Dave, what do you think about Julian Assange's maxim there and how applicable it continues to be even in conflicts like this current one?

00:57:13.000 Well, I mean, there's no, it's not really debatable that he's correct.

00:57:17.000 I mean, factually, that's what happens.

00:57:19.000 I mean, people like so many special interests have been enriched over the last just 20 years of, say, the war on terrorism.

00:57:25.000 Every one of those bills to arm Ukraine ends up just being cash in the pockets of weapons manufacturers or the CIA budget increasing.

00:57:33.000 I don't know.

00:57:34.000 It's like with the COVID stuff.

00:57:35.000 I don't know if that's the only motivating factor.

00:57:38.000 I think sometimes they also wanted, you know, they might also want to, say, tank Donald Trump's chances of getting re-elected, but their pharmaceutical companies are also raking in profits.

00:57:49.000 I think they did want to overthrow Saddam Hussein for other reasons, but that's definitely part of it.

00:57:54.000 Dave, with the ICC announcing that it's their bizarre intention to arrest Vladimir Putin, a man who I don't imagine would cooperate with an ordinary arrest.

00:58:04.000 Although, having seen him attempt to shake hands, I can see that if you were to approach him from the front, he could be vulnerable.

00:58:10.000 What do you feel about the war in Syria and the bombing of Yemen, which indicts Biden, Trump and Obama all as war criminals to the same standard of Putin, the same standard by which Putin is being charged?

00:58:29.000 Well, I mean, I think it far exceeds it, if we're just being objective.

00:58:33.000 I mean, Ukraine is a catastrophe, and Putin has a lot of responsibility for that, so he doesn't have all the responsibility, but the humanitarian crisis in Yemen is objectively, if that's a catastrophe, this is a catastrophe times ten.

00:58:47.000 There's just way more people dying, and it wasn't soldiers dying over the last eight years in Yemen, it was like babies starving to death and dying of cholera and stuff.

00:58:56.000 So yeah, look, there's a great video, I don't know if you've ever seen,

00:58:59.000 where Noam Chomsky just breaks down the war crimes of every post-World War II president

00:59:04.000 of the United States of America.

00:59:06.000 So like, I'm fine if we want to indict war criminals, but let's get them all, you know? 0.99

00:59:10.000 And you see something like, if you look at Yemen particularly,

00:59:15.000 you just see how much, like the whole military industrial complex,

00:59:20.000 American empire establishment, they care about humanitarian issues when it's convenient.

00:59:25.000 You don't see every day in the corporate press people talking about the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, or in Palestine, or in Syria, or in Somalia.

00:59:36.000 But we do see the one on Russia's border that we can blame on Russia.

00:59:42.000 That's the one that they hyper-focus on.

00:59:44.000 Yeah, that does concern me.

00:59:46.000 And even when we raise these points, we are often smeared.

00:59:51.000 And it's difficult not to assume, even though it seems reductive even when I'm saying it, that the financial benefits of these conflicts are the determining factor.

01:00:01.000 and the alliances between the military-industrial complex and the media and the government

01:00:05.000 are what determine the way these stories are presented, because you're right,

01:00:09.000 if that were not the case, you would hear as much about Yemen,

01:00:12.000 you would hear as much about other conflicts.

01:00:14.000 If the metric by which we measured catastrophe was deaths and destruction,

01:00:20.000 and nobody's saying that those things are not present in the tragedy in Ukraine,

01:00:24.000 and that it oughtn't be stopped as quickly as possible, but other criminals would be brought to the forefront as

01:00:30.000 well, In our recent show, we talked about the lack of moral authority for any agency that would seek to arrest Trump.

01:00:38.000 That's not saying that Trump isn't guilty of wrongdoing.

01:00:41.000 In fact, we're ignoring that altogether because if Trump is guilty, then, you know, the Clinton campaign will be guilty by the same measure.

01:00:48.000 But what we're saying is that The lack of faith in institutions that we are currently experiencing means that we clearly need systemic change.

01:00:57.000 Am I right in understanding, Dave, that that's precisely your personal perspective?

01:01:02.000 And if you are a libertarian, and I know you are, I'm just using this rhetorically, what is the role of government?

01:01:12.000 Can government involvement in the lives of ordinary Americans, ordinary people of all persuasions, be?

01:01:18.000 And do you not agree that the role of the government and the function of the government is supposed to be to, in a sense, provide some kind of edifice against corporate corruption?

01:01:28.000 Even if it obviously doesn't do that now, it does the bloody opposite.

01:01:31.000 It'd just be good for you to unpack some of those ideas for us, please.

01:01:35.000 I mean, well, I think I'd like the government to be about as small as we could possibly get it.

01:01:35.000 Yeah, sure.

01:01:40.000 And I think from my perspective, the idea that the government was ever supposed to be a shield for the people against big corporate interests, as always, there might be some people who really believe that.

01:01:51.000 I think in reality, it has never been that, and it's always been, you know, much more a tool for big money interests than anything that was ever working against them.

01:02:01.000 And if you ever see, any time that you ever saw the government working against big business, it was almost always on behalf of some other big business who wanted their competition stomped out.

01:02:10.000 That's just the way of the world.

01:02:12.000 It's like power corrupts, and there's nothing more powerful than a government.

01:02:16.000 And so if you're saying that you need the government to check the power of a corporation, Well, in order to do that, it's going to have to be more powerful than that corporation.

01:02:24.000 And so now, once you have this power center, it's going to become a race to see who can buy it off and who's going to have a better shot of doing that than the biggest businesses.

01:02:34.000 So I think the whole paradigm, like you talked earlier about, like the left-right paradigm being all kind of like it doesn't really apply anymore.

01:02:41.000 I think that basically it's not a question of like, are you anti-big business or anti-big government?

01:02:47.000 I think if you oppose one, you have to oppose the other because they're all in bed together.

01:02:51.000 And, you know, just to touch on what you said there about the kind of like getting called all the names because you oppose the war, you know, on this anniversary of Iraq, just remember that the people who were opposed to this war, the war in Iraq, The line back then was, you're either with us or you're with the terrorists.

01:03:07.000 They basically said, if you don't want to overthrow Saddam Hussein, then you're happy that 9-11 happened.

01:03:13.000 You're on their side of that.

01:03:15.000 And now, years later, even John McCain, on his deathbed in his memoir, wrote that he acknowledged the war was a mistake.

01:03:21.000 Everyone now acknowledges that those people were right to oppose the war.

01:03:25.000 So just to keep that in mind with all the people, they'll call you like a Putin apologist or something like that now if you oppose the West's involvement in the war in Ukraine.

01:03:34.000 But yeah, the whole thing is a racket and it's all big business interests that control the governments.

01:03:41.000 That's really interesting that you say that, mate.

01:03:45.000 That it plainly was a transgressive war, and the way, and I didn't remember that, that they said, yeah, that they equated it with terror, made it unpatriotic, and made it like you were dishonouring those that died on 9-11.

01:03:59.000 And now, even if you're non-compliant around coronavirus, remember there was the same kind of shaming narrative that, well, like as if you were a friend of coronavirus, like here is little mate carrying it about and stuff.

01:04:13.000 It's weird, the role, the palette that is drawn from, even though sometimes we think of these systems as sophisticated, secular, and of course, by their nature, political, the game they're playing is emotional.

01:04:24.000 They're dealing with things like shame and fear.

01:04:28.000 And sort of destroying your personal ability to live life, you know?

01:04:33.000 So I can understand... I appreciate libertarianism from that perspective.

01:04:37.000 I think a lot of attacks that I hear on libertarianism is that it's somehow disavowing communal responsibility and collective power.

01:04:45.000 But I don't believe that those things should be imposed by some centralized agency anyway.

01:04:50.000 I think they should be voluntary.

01:04:51.000 I am a libertarian in so much as I do not like being told what to do.

01:04:55.000 And when someone tells me what to do, I think.

01:04:56.000 Where are you getting that authority from?

01:04:58.000 And when it's like, we're the government or we're the police, I think, well, I don't agree with either of those things.

01:05:03.000 So spiritually, I agree with it.

01:05:05.000 But how do you square it with the idea that we're here to take care of and love one another?

01:05:10.000 so from my perspective it's like the complete opposite of that criticism of

01:05:14.000 of libertarianism i think we're empowering the community i mean

01:05:17.000 the idea that like libertarians aren't arguing people shouldn't

01:05:22.000 join groups and help each other and do things as a community we're arguing that

01:05:26.000 it should be done voluntarily but it shouldn't be done through force that you should look

01:05:30.000 every inch of government

01:05:33.000 is there with the threat of a gun to your head like you pay your taxes or you go to jail you know like

01:05:39.000 every every law has a gun behind it saying you violate this and we will throw you

01:05:44.000 in a cage it's really insane when you think about it

01:05:46.000 in like how advanced modern human civilization is and that we still will 0.98

01:05:51.000 throw human beings in a cage like an animal for the for ridiculous crimes 0.98

01:05:56.000 now i mean okay i'm you know yeah if you if you murder someone or rape someone or 1.00

01:06:00.000 you know stab someone or you know set someone's house on fire okay fine 0.98

01:06:04.000 maybe that's the best we can do it you you kind of think still we could find

01:06:07.000 something better but regardless of that the idea of like Funding this monopoly on violence at the threat of we'll ruin your life, and it's such a binary to say, oh, if we didn't do it that way, then there'd be no community, then no one would care about taking care of the sick, or no one would think about like, oh, there's someone who's hard on their luck, we have to help them out.

01:06:27.000 I just don't believe it.

01:06:27.000 I don't believe that these people, these genocidal maniacs, these blood-soaked monsters, are like the only way we would make sure grandma had a sandwich, is if they're funded.

01:06:40.000 That's good.

01:06:41.000 Because actually, that sort of misanthropic assumption is what underwrites centralised and legal authority anyway.

01:06:49.000 The assumption that if you leave people alone, you know what they're going to do? 0.99

01:06:52.000 They're going to run into the streets and start masturbating and killing each other. 1.00

01:06:55.000 That's like the idea that legitimises the state power. 0.99

01:06:58.000 I suppose early sovereign power was underwritten by the idea of protection.

01:07:02.000 There are bandits, there are threats, there are dangers.

01:07:05.000 If you give the king your taxes, the king will protect you from from those threats. But it's mutated into something

01:07:11.000 extraordinary. And it's pretty obvious that even the most unquestioned version of democracy is

01:07:16.000 laughable in 2023, that you need a representative to go 400 miles or whatever on horseback

01:07:23.000 to tell the central authority, this is what this parish believes.

01:07:28.000 It's antiquated and it's irrelevant and it's only being kept alive because it's beneficial to the kind of state and corporate interest that you rightly diagnose as being a kind of hybrid, a hydra, and as you said very eloquently, Dave, a blood-soaked monster.

01:07:42.000 Dave, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation.

01:07:45.000 I hope we get to have many more like it.

01:07:48.000 Dave Smith is an advocate for anti-war, clearly, and an advocate for freedom, host of Part of the Problem podcast, which you can find wherever you find podcasts.

01:07:57.000 Thanks again for joining us, Dave.

01:07:58.000 Thank you so much, man.

01:07:59.000 Keep doing what you're doing.

01:08:00.000 It's incredible.

01:08:01.000 Thank you, man.

01:08:02.000 You too.

01:08:02.000 We'll see you soon.

01:08:03.000 Thank you very much.

01:08:04.000 Well, wasn't that a fantastic show?

01:08:06.000 Are you glad you joined us?

01:08:07.000 I enjoyed it.

01:08:08.000 Did you have a nice time?

01:08:09.000 Nice watching you guys.

01:08:10.000 There I was, just chatting away.

01:08:11.000 Nice conversation.

01:08:12.000 Perfectly, perfectly friendly, amiable conversation between Dave Smith and I. Libertarianism, you know, gets a lot of bad rap, doesn't it?

01:08:20.000 I thought it made it sound alright.

01:08:21.000 Me too.

01:08:22.000 What I think, mate, is that, this is what I think, is that the same way that anarchism would be attacked and libertarianism is attacked, same way that socialism is attacked, they all are subject to smear campaigns from the existing system.

01:08:36.000 But I reckon probably what's also true is there's the potential for unquestioned utopianism as well.

01:08:43.000 Hold on, how are these things going to work?

01:08:45.000 If we're serious about changing the world, we probably have to have conversations about how we're going to reorganise it.

01:08:49.000 I say, I do agree, keep governments small, keep communities small, keep them autonomous, keep them democratic, leave people alone has got to be one of the first principles, unless you can, like I say to my kids, either be nice to each other or leave each other alone!

01:09:03.000 One of those options!

01:09:04.000 Stop fighting, for God's sake!

01:09:07.000 All right, well, listen, we've got plenty more time.

01:09:09.000 We've got the rest of our lives to come to some conclusions, which might not be long, because it seems that people are advocating for a global holy war.

01:09:15.000 So that would get in the way, of course.

01:09:17.000 Tomorrow's show is promising to be a banger, because we got Graham Hancock from the hit Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse.

01:09:26.000 He's coming on to talk about arcane civilizations, psychedelics.

01:09:31.000 If you entered our competition, you could be here at Stay Free HQ.

01:09:35.000 If you're a member of our locals community, you can be online while we're having the conversation, sticking your oar in, you know, asking Graham questions.

01:09:42.000 Well, you said they could touch him.

01:09:43.000 I actually got a bit out of hand and said that you could make love to Graham.

01:09:47.000 You did.

01:09:48.000 Even though I've not asked Graham whether or not he's available to make love to strangers as a prize in an online competition.

01:09:55.000 He's not winning the prize, just to be clear.

01:10:00.000 Dave, I've done you... Graham Hancock, I've done you a tremendous service here.

01:10:05.000 You will be having... First prize!

01:10:07.000 Your first prize in a sex competition I organised on the internet!

01:10:12.000 Well, I don't know about that, although the Mayans predict it for something very much of this nature.

01:10:17.000 One could have happened... Yes, yes, come on, come in.

01:10:20.000 Yeah, don't mind her.

01:10:21.000 A little bit less chat chat and a bit more that that from you Graham my man.

01:10:26.000 A bit less comic could have hit the earth and called a cataclysmic event and there's water erosion on the pyramid and a bit more noshy noshy.

01:10:33.000 No.

01:10:34.000 No?

01:10:35.000 Yes.

01:10:36.000 Sign up to our locals community where you get more things like that.

01:10:40.000 You want that.

01:10:40.000 And why wouldn't you?

01:10:41.000 Why wouldn't you?

01:10:42.000 For example, you could see a little bit of my stand-up special Brandemic.

01:10:46.000 $20 for a one-off hit.

01:10:47.000 Or join our community.

01:10:49.000 It's there all the time.

01:10:50.000 It's only available for a limited time if you buy it for $20.

01:10:52.000 Gone in a couple of weeks.

01:10:53.000 Gone just like that.

01:10:54.000 Wow.

01:10:54.000 Oh, no.

01:10:55.000 It's a terrified thing.

01:10:56.000 Have a look at that clip.

01:10:57.000 Have a look at this clip.

01:10:58.000 Spiritual drugs, like ayahuasca.

01:11:00.000 Like it's wellness.

01:11:02.000 Wellness drugs. 1.00

01:11:04.000 That's fucking typical, that is. 0.99

01:11:05.000 I get clean from drugs, and then it becomes like, oh, it's vitamins or something. 0.99

01:11:11.000 I done five grams of mushrooms last night.

01:11:14.000 That's drugs, that! 1.00

01:11:16.000 That's fucking wellness. 1.00

01:11:19.000 Don't you fucking talk bad about me wellness. 0.99

01:11:21.000 Here, lend us 20 quid for me wellness, will ya? 0.99

01:11:25.000 Cos if I don't get some wellness, I'm fucking gonna kill someone! 0.97

01:11:33.000 People think that, you know, I'm clean and everything, I'm not taking no drugs and I'm zero drugs for nineteen and a half years, one day at a time. 0.99

01:11:39.000 No drugs.

01:11:39.000 Thank you!

01:11:40.000 Thank you!

01:11:41.000 One day at a time, one day at a time!

01:11:48.000 What this is, this is my personality.

01:11:49.000 This is me trying my best to fit in.

01:11:51.000 This is all I've got.

01:11:53.000 This is the best I've got to offer.

01:11:54.000 But people think that maybe now, because it's been so long, that I can take things like ayahuasca, the spiritual drugs, the wellness drugs.

01:12:00.000 If you don't know, it's like people take it like it's a sort of a tea that's made from a couple of plants you can take in sort of usually Central and South American countries that you take under the tutelage of a shaman.

01:12:13.000 You know, and like people tell me, like, oh, maybe you could take that, because it's like, you know, it's not like a drug.

01:12:18.000 It's not addictive.

01:12:20.000 Do you know what drug addiction actually is? 0.99

01:12:24.000 I fucking will get addicted to it. 1.00

01:12:26.000 No, you wouldn't get addicted to that. 1.00

01:12:29.000 You take it in a jungle with a shaman. 1.00

01:12:32.000 That's fucking brilliant! 0.99

01:12:35.000 I'd love that. 0.98

01:12:35.000 I'm not going to not get addicted to something just because there's a token nearby. 0.98

01:12:40.000 That's an enticement.

01:12:47.000 Nah.

01:12:49.000 Nah, mate.

01:12:50.000 You wouldn't get addicted to ayahuasca.

01:12:52.000 In fact, they use that in treatment to get people off of drugs.

01:12:58.000 I'm off drugs!

01:12:59.000 I can't get off off drugs!

01:13:01.000 That's back on drugs! 1.00

01:13:04.000 That's basic maths.

01:13:05.000 That was brilliant.

01:13:06.000 What a comedian I am.

01:13:07.000 How do I do it, Gail?

01:13:08.000 I just don't know.

01:13:09.000 Incredible gift, really.

01:13:10.000 I can only assume it's coming from some cosmic force.

01:13:13.000 Hey, you also get access to Stay Connected, weekly meditations that I do with people.

01:13:17.000 I did a meditation with a guy called Chris.

01:13:18.000 He's got imposter syndrome.

01:13:19.000 I don't even know if it was the real Chris.

01:13:21.000 You can join with the link in the description.

01:13:24.000 Press the red button.

01:13:25.000 See you tomorrow.

01:13:26.000 Not for more of the same.

01:13:27.000 That wouldn't be good enough, would it, Gav? 0.99

01:13:28.000 Certainly wouldn't.

01:13:29.000 But for more of the different.

Stay Free - Russel Brand - March 23, 2023

THEY DON’T WANT PEACE | US Sabotages Cease Fire?! - #097 - Stay Free With Russell Brand

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